by Joseph McGill | Oct 11, 2015 | Blog Posts
It is always great when I get invited back to a site for a sleepover. Last year we attempted to sleep under the stars among the ruins of the tabby slave cabins on Daufuskie Island, South Carolina. Mother Nature had other ideas, a violent thunderstorm and rain that...
by Joseph McGill | Oct 3, 2015 | Blog Posts
As I lay in the cabin I couldn’t help but think of the people who had lived within the wooden walls of our tiny room. Oh if the walls could talk; the stories they could tell. The joys of new birth, the sorrow at loss; the immense pain and burden of working so hard...
by Joseph McGill | Sep 24, 2015 | Blog Posts
At the invitation of a Bratton descendant, I returned for my second overnight in the one extant slave dwelling at Historic Brattonsville. Although it was a return visit, this stay broke new ground in several ways. First of all, I was the Slave Dwelling Project...
by Joseph McGill | Sep 22, 2015 | Blog Posts
“I thought of children who might have been afraid of benign things like the sounds of animals scuffling through the night when there were much larger, darker things that stirred fear in their parents. I thought of mothers, tired from the day’s work, still tending to...
by Joseph McGill | Sep 7, 2015 | Blog Posts
Preserve: (1) to keep alive or in existence; make lasting (2) to keep up maintain My love of preservation was really tested in a recent stay in an extant slave cabin. I was very enthusiastic about my opportunity to work on a HistoriCorps restoration project especially...
by Joseph McGill | Aug 30, 2015 | Blog Posts
If in 1703, more than 42 percent of New York City households held slaves, often as domestic servants and laborers and the last slaves were freed in 1827, why is it that when I interpret slavery in northern states, I often get push back? I can now add the state of New...
