The Slave Meadow Project is Dedicated to the Memory of...

By Bob Heafner © 2001

Online: January, 2001

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?