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The Slave Meadow Project is
Dedicated to the Memory of...
Charles [no last name given], died as a slave in February 1858, at the age
of 2 years.
John
[no last name given], died as a slave on November 29, 1858, at the age of 19
years.
Ellen
[no last name given], died as a slave on December 16, 1862, at the age of 1
year, 2 days.
Guss
Langhorne, died free on February 20, 1871 at the age of 1 year, 2
months.
Susan
Langhorne, died free on May 30, 1871, at 28 years old.
We have thus far been able to
locate the names of five Africa-Americans who, by all accounts, are buried in The
Slave Meadow. The Meadows of Dan Baptist Church was founded in 1855.
The burials began in 1858.
These are at least some of the people that this project is all about.
Two are babies and one is a teenager, they died as African-American
slaves. Two were free African-Americans, one baby and one adult.
They all deserve to be
remembered and they deserve the simply human dignity of a marker for
their graves.
The National Park Service owned the land where they are buried
when the simple rock markers were removed from their graves. The
National Park Service has a congressionally mandated responsibility
to preserve such sites on NPS lands. Why are they not erecting a
monument to these people to replace the gravestones that they
removed?
The Slave Meadow Story
by: Bob Heafner
In the mid-nineteenth century they accompanied the
James Steptoe Langhorne
family to "Langdale," a "plantation" encompassing the area where the tiny mountain community
of Meadows of Dan, Virginia,
is located today. The Langhorne family owned thousands
of acres in the area prior to the Civil War.
According to the
will
of Henry Scarsbrook Langhorne, his son
James Steptoe Langhorne had already been given five slaves prior to
his father's death. They
were: Robinson and his wife Vestey, George (a man),
John
(a boy) and Page (a girl). After the Civil War, the
1870 Census reveals
that Ira Langhorne and his wife Page and their two children, Mary
and Ellis, were living
next door to the James Steptoe Langhorne family.
Read more...
Historic Resource Study
African Americans and the Blue Ridge Parkway
Read the study commissioned by the
Blue Ridge Parkway and conducted by Appalachian State University.
According to Rebecca Jones, who conducted the ASU study, "One of the
purposes for the study was to determine a place to have a marker
acknowledging African Americans' contributions to the parkway."
Those interested in the history of the Blue Ridge Parkway will find
the study to be compelling reading. |
