Millie Tunnell was born into slavery on the Tunnell plantation near Drummond town in Accomack County, Virginia between 1780 and 1783 on March 10 and died January 1896, at 111 years of age. Tunnell achieved notoriety after she had reached her 100th birthday when reporters began annual interviews that were dispatched in the local papers- which continued until her death in 1896. She was noted to have a sharp memory, smoked a corncob pipe and at 110 years credited with the ability to thread a sewing needle without eyeglasses. [1] At the time she was also credited the oldest living woman in Jamaica, Queens. [2]
Due to paucity of slave records, Her actual birth date is disputed, and she is thought to be as old as 114. Charles Ewell owned a neighboring plantation and his slave, Merrick Ewell, married Millie, whom he was able to see daily and together they had six children. Merrick Ewell became emancipated when Charles Ewell died, having liberated all his slaves. Merrick, fearing re-enslavement, quickly left Virginia for Greenport in Suffolk County on the north fork of Long Island where he engaged in fishing and farming. In 1855 Henry Tunnell died and liberated his slaves including Millie and her progeny.
After Henry Tunnell's death his will emancipating his slaves was contested by his family, so that in Millie had to continue working on the plantation, eventually earning the US$1,269 necessary to buy her family's freedom. They arrived in the north around 1860. [3]
The family settled in Flushing. Millie later went to live with a daughter, Martha on Grand Street in Jamaica, Queens. The children did not know of Merrick, he had remarried in Greenport and had three daughters by a much younger wife, all of whom married. Aging, he had become feeble, whereupon she had him placed in the asylum at Yaphank. The family member of another asylee mentioned the name Merrick to a friend who recognized the inmate as her father, and she had him taken to Jamaica. [4] Thirty years before the Civil War Merrick and Millie lived as husband and wife separated by slavery, and in 1886 were reunited as a family.
Reporters began visiting after the centenarian showed that her memory was sharp and she possessed a quick wit. Her age and story was compelling enough to garner attention in the local papers and she was a local celebrity until her death at 111 years in 1896. Later nine members of her family were interred at the family plot at Maple Grove Cemetery.
Tunnell was buried in Maple Grove Cemetery, and was in an unmarked grave. Millie had bought three burial plots, enough for nine people on the Southern edge of Maple Grove. She could not afford a tombstone, hence her grave for the next 125 years lay unmarked. Then the Friends of Maple Grove (FMG), a historical society, came calling. The search for a picture of a slave who was between 111 and 114 years old led to a unique Juneteenth community project between historians and students from the Kew Forest School, a college prep school in Forest Hills. Carl Ballenas, the president of FMG and Helen Day, a genealogist, partnering with The Daughters of the American Revolution- Increase Carpenter Chapter; and an art teacher at the school, Narges Anvar then came up with a school art project to honor the life of Millie Tunnell. Student Annie Vaca's ('23) artwork [5] was selected and written words by the students have been preserved on a bronze plaque on Millie's memorial stone, which fit the pieces of her life together. [6] The names of her children were also inscribed on the memorial. It was delivered on June 8, 2021, and a live-stream of the unveiling was done on June 19.
Accomac is a town in and the county seat of Accomack County, Virginia, United States. The population was 526 at the 2020 census.
Susan Agnes Macdonald, 1st Baroness Macdonald of Earnscliffe, was the second wife of Sir John A. Macdonald, the first Prime Minister of Canada.
Abel Parker Upshur was an American lawyer, planter, judge, and politician from the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Active in Virginia state politics for decades, with a brother and a nephew who became distinguished U.S. Navy officers, Judge Upshur left the Virginia bench to become the Secretary of the Navy and Secretary of State during the administration of President John Tyler, a fellow Virginian. He negotiated the treaty that led to the 1845 Texas annexation to the United States and helped ensure that it was admitted as a slave state. Upshur died on February 28, 1844, when a gun on the warship USS Princeton exploded during a demonstration.
Charles Frederick Crisp was a British-American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, Crisp was elected as a congressman from Georgia in 1882, and served until his death in 1896. From 1890 to 1895, he led the Democratic Party in the House, as either the speaker of the House or House minority leader. He was the father of Charles R. Crisp who also served in Congress.
James Madison's Montpelier, located in Orange County, Virginia, was the plantation house of the Madison family, including Founding Father and fourth president of the United States James Madison and his wife, Dolley. The 2,650-acre (1,070 ha) property is open seven days a week.
Grove is an unincorporated community in the southeastern portion of James City County in the Virginia Peninsula subregion of Virginia in the United States. It is located in the center of the Historic Triangle of Colonial Virginia, communities linked by the Colonial Parkway. This area is one of the busiest tourist destinations in the world.
Francis Wayles Eppes was a planter and slave owner from Virginia who became a cotton planter in Florida Territory and later civic leader in Tallahassee and surrounding Leon County, Florida. After reaching legal age and marrying, Eppes operated the Poplar Forest plantation which his grandfather President Thomas Jefferson had established in Bedford County, Virginia, which he inherited. However, in 1829 he moved with his family to near Tallahassee, Florida. Long interested in education, in 1856 Eppes donated land and money to designate a school in Tallahassee as one of the first two state-supported seminaries, now known as Florida State University. He served as president of its board of trustees for eight years.
Shepherd Hall, also known as Monument Place and formerly as Stone Mansion, is a historic house listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the city of Wheeling in the U.S. state of West Virginia. It is located in the Elm Grove area of Wheeling, Ohio County, West Virginia.
Thomas Henry Bayly was a United States nineteenth-century politician, slave owner, lawyer and judge from Virginia, and the son of Congressman Thomas M. Bayly.
Frances Jones Dandridge was the mother of Martha Washington, the first First Lady of the United States. She was born in New Kent County, Virginia. Her father Orlando Jones and maternal grandfather Colonel Gideon Macon served on the House of Burgesses in Colonial Virginia. Her parents were prosperous Virginian landowners.
Faunsdale Plantation is a historic slave plantation near the town of Faunsdale, Alabama, United States. This plantation is in the Black Belt, a section of the state developed for cotton plantations. Until the U.S. Civil War, planters held as many as 186 enslaved African Americans as laborers to raise cotton as a commodity crop.
Howe Peter Browne, 2nd Marquess of Sligo, was an Anglo-Irish peer and colonial governor, styled Viscount Westport until 1800 and Earl of Altamont from 1800 to 1809.
Nathaniel Burwell was an American politician and plantation owner. Perhaps the most distinguished of five men of that name to serve in the Virginia General Assembly before the American Civil War, this Nathaniel Burwell won election to the Virginia House of Delegates as well as the Virginia Ratifying Convention, and also served as the county lieutenant for the James City County militia.
Bel Air Manor is a colonial-era plantation manor located in Minnieville, Prince William County, Virginia. Built in 1740 as the Ewell family seat, the home was regularly visited by Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, who was a cousin. It later served as the home of Mason Locke Weems (1759–1825), the first biographer of George Washington and the creator of the cherry tree story. Extraordinarily well preserved for its age, Bel Air was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970. Today, Bel Air remains a private residence and an events venue. Bel Air is not to be confused with "Bel Aire", a similarly named house five miles to the east.
Edith Hern Fossett (1787–1854) was an African American chef who for much of her life was enslaved by Thomas Jefferson before being freed. Three generations of her family, the Herns, worked in Jefferson's fields, performed domestic and leadership duties, and made tools. Like Hern, they also took care of children. She cared for Harriet Hemings, the daughter of Sally Hemings, at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello plantation when she was a girl.
Ann Randolph Meade Page was an American Episcopal slavery reformer. She was raised in her birth family with slaves and her husband was among the largest slaveholders in Frederick County, Virginia. She did not believe in slavery, and while she was unable to free slaves, she focused on improving their conditions by teaching them to read and write, Christianity, a wide range of domestic skills and trades. After the founding of the American Colonization Society and, after the death of her husband, she emancipated enslaved people and prepared them to leave the United States for the colony of Liberia in West Africa, where they and their family members would live free.
Sarah Johnson was an African American woman who was born into slavery at Mount Vernon, George Washington's estate in Fairfax, Virginia. She worked as a domestic, cleaning and caring for the residence. During the process, she became an informal historian of all of the mansion's furnishings. After the end of the Civil War, she was hired by the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, ultimately becoming a council member of the organization. She bought four acres of Mount Vernon land to establish a small farm. The book Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon (2008) tells the story of her life within the complex community of people who inhabited Mount Vernon.
Indian Run is a populated place in Wilmington Township of Mercer County, Pennsylvania, named for the stream Indian Run. Indian Run had a reputation as a "safe haven" for African Americans, whether they were free or escaping slavery. Abolitionists who broke away from a New Wilmington church established the White Chapel Church. In the 1840s, a settlement was created for freedmen called Pandenarium. John Young and others were prominent Underground Railroad conductors.
The history of slavery in Colorado began centuries before Colorado achieved statehood when Spanish colonists of Santa Fe de Nuevo México (1598–1848) enslaved Native Americans, called Genízaros. Southern Colorado was part of the Spanish territory until 1848. Comanche and Utes raided villages of other indigenous people and enslaved them.