John Brown, Plantations and Confederate Monuments

Kennedy Farm, 2406 Chestnut Grove Road, Chestnut Grove Road, Sharpsburg, MD 21782

Sometimes fate takes over and you have too just let things happen. If I recall correctly, while attending kindergarten through twelfth grades, classes, in general, were not things I cherished. While I was an above average student, I felt I did just enough to get by. I also recall going on very few field trips during school.

My humble beginnings in the small town of Kingstree, South Carolina presented little opportunities for travel. Despite that, from an early age, I sought adventure. Moving in with my grandparents at a very early age was one way of satisfying that sense of adventure. Two weeks out of high school and I was in the United States Air Force. In those six years of military service, I was stationed in England, Germany and Washington state. Of my five siblings, I am the only one who has lived out of the state of South Carolina on a continual basis. I don’t mind going into unknown places and functioning as necessary. I’m not intimidated by people, I love meeting and communicating with them, even if that dialogue is a debate.

In 2012, I met Chris Lese when we both presented at a conference at Gettysburg College about the Civil War. Chris is a man of adventure like me. The Slave Dwelling Project was in its second year of existence when we met. Chris was fresh out of an architecture career and new into teaching history at Marquette University High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Chris had this program he was doing of teaching history during the school year and then embarking on a two weeks field trip with students when the year was done. The purpose of the trips was to visit some of the places that were taught in class during the year, no hotels, just sleeping at historic sites, pitching tents if necessary. Merging aspects of the Slave Dwelling Project with elements of Chris’ field trip program seemed like a perfect fit. Chris and I made it happen in a big way.

Who would have thought that in past years, I would have participated in field trips with Chris and his class in South Carolina, Northern Virginia, Wisconsin, Mississippi, Missouri, Kansas and most recently, Maryland, West Virginia, and the Shenandoah Valley. We have spent nights in extant slave dwellings and other historic buildings in all those places. We have stayed at many plantations, a courthouse in Lecompton, Kansas, Fort Crawford in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin and the Old Charleston Jail in Charleston, SC. Together, we have toured the sites of the Nat Turner Rebellion in South Hampton County, Virginia. We have visited sites where the history of the enslaved is not being disseminated to visitors to those sites that are doing great jobs in telling their stories.

For the past two years, we have been tracing the footprints of abolitionist John Brown. Last year, we visited sites in Kansan. This year the group’s journey continued with me at Kennedy Farm in Sharpsburg, Maryland. Kennedy Farm is where John Brown planned his raid on Harpers Ferry. Before the group hooked up with me, they had already visited Chatham-Kent Black Historical Society in Chatham, Ontario, Canada. This was the site of the John Brown Convention. Chris gave me an option of whitewater rafting with them on the Potomac River, but I declined because this Brother cannot swim.

Although my participation in the group’s entire field trip would be minuscule, it is my duty to book the places we stay together. Chris titled this trip 2019 Civil War Adventure: From Canada Thru the Shenandoah. It would happen May 28 – June 6. The places chosen for sleepovers in the past were always places of which I had developed a relationship and had already conducted at least one sleepover.

Kennedy Farm would be different. Board member Terry James and I visited Kennedy Farm back in 2015. We took a field trip while we participated in a cabin restoration in Berryville, VA. No one was there when we arrived, the gate was locked, so we may have been trespassing, when we walked past the gate up to the site. I do recall that we passed more than one Confederate flag when we drove to the site on a long and winding road.

Enter Sprigg Lynn, who is the proprietor of Kennedy Farm. Sprigg and I are Facebook friends. We would often find ourselves debating Confederate monuments. Sprigg for, me against. The debates were always cordial. That proved beneficial because I had to ask Sprigg if me and the Marquette University High School group could spend a night at Kennedy Farm. To my pleasant surprise, Sprigg did not hesitate to say yes to the request.

Not only did Sprigg say yes, but he was a gracious host by providing food and refreshments for the participants. This would be the first time that Sprigg would allow anyone other than himself to sleep in the cabin. The plan was to have some of us sleep in the cabin and the remainder pitch tents on the site, turned out, we only had to pitch one tent for the two ladies who were chaperones for the group.

New to the site since my last visit is a smokehouse that has been recreated, based on researched primary documents. Future plans will have a spring house and slave cabins recreated on the site.

In the back of the building is a huge structure which is currently used for storage. Historically, the building was part of the Chitlin Circuit. The Chitlin Circuit was a collection of performance venues throughout the eastern, southern, and upper Midwest areas of the United States that provided commercial and cultural acceptance for African American musicians, comedians, and other entertainers during the era of racial segregation in the United States.

The campfire conversation focused on John Brown. Was he a martyr, failure or hero? The way the young minds handled the subject matter was brilliant. I personally would like to think that I would have been in John Brown’s camp if given that choice. Interestingly, this is the same stance I took when years earlier, I went with the group on the Nat Turner tour.

The issue of Confederate monuments came up. Sprigg reminded me that we should not blame soldiers for carrying out the will of politicians and other decision makers. We also agreed that if Confederate monuments should stay on the landscape, they should be reinterpreted to include matters such as the number of people they enslaved or fathered. Their stance on civil and human rights for African Americans should also be revealed. Were they for or against African Americans pursuing their happiness?

The next day, we visited the site where John Brown was hung and the courthouse where he was convicted of treason in Charles Town, West Virginia. We also visited the museum that has the wagon he rode in to that hanging.

 

 

 

 

Belle Grove Plantation, 336 Belle Grove Road, Middletown, VA 22645

My time with Chris and the group is always limited, therefore that time must always be maximized. The Slave Dwelling Project has developed relationships with sites that allow us the opportunity to interact with them in ways that are beneficial to all. Members of the Slave Dwelling Project have spent nights at Belle Grove Plantation, in Middletown, Virginia on two different occasions. Both times, students from institutions of higher learning have joined us. The first sleepover was with students and chaperones from Bloomsburg University in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. While I tried to convince the group organizer that they did not have to leave the state of Pennsylvania to find places of enslavement, they sought a site further south that could provide an example of plantation slavery.

The second sleepover at Belle Grove was with students from Lord Fairfax College in Middletown, VA and Shenandoah University in Winchester, VA. This sleepover involved African American living historians.

The request to have Marquette University High School spend the night at Belle Grove was met with immediate approval from Kristen Laise, Executive Director. The site has no extant or recreated slave dwellings, but it fit the profile of what Chris Lese and I were looking for, a historic property where people were once enslaved, moreover, the presence of the enslaved is being interpreted at the site. Most importantly, it has an executive director, who supports disseminating a complete narrative of all who were associated with this antebellum site. In all my time with the group, this would be the first time that we would sleep in the big house together.

Kristen and National Park Ranger Shannon Moeck rolled out the red carpet for us. Shannon started with us at the National Park Service visitor’s center and gave us an overview of the Shenandoah Valley and the Battle of Cedar Creek. She then led us on a tour of the battlefield. It was as if it were scripted, we came upon a monument to the 8th Vermont Volunteers. Appropriately, the conversation evolved into the issue of Confederate monuments, should they stay, or should they go? Again, the young minds took charge of the conversation and expressed their opinions eloquently.

In the past, many sites that once enslaved people used excuses of not having primary sources or other evidence of enslaved people. Through archaeology, some of these sites are exploring and discovering evidence of the enslaved people. Some sites like James Madison’s Montpelier and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello have used this research to place slave dwellings back on the landscape. At Belle Grove, we got a behind the scenes look at the activities of the archaeology that is being done at the site to “uncover” the locations of the original slave cabins.

In the kitchen of the big house, Shannon introduced the students to Judah, the enslaved cook. Being the Park Ranger that she is, Shannon’s riveting program is based on primary sources and does not in any way sugarcoat the hardships of being an enslaved cook. I’m often asked the question: was it easier to be a field slave or a house slave? Shannon’s program gives you important elements to consider in answering that question. The program sparked among the students, questions of how the enslaved had to take care of two households, theirs and that of the enslavers.

Winchester Battlefield  

A bonus for me was visiting the Winchester Battlefield. While I knew that President Rutherford B. Hayes pulled the United States out of the south in 1877. I did not know that he was an abolitionist and a Civil War soldier. When I learned this information on the Winchester battlefield, it presented for me more questions than answers. How can a man of such qualities end Reconstruction so abruptly?

Conclusion 

Chasing the footprints of slavery has taken me to many places throughout the United States. Chris Lese and his Marquette University High School group have been with me for many of those journeys and encounters. For this program to be successful, it takes the Sprigg Lynn(s) and Kristen Laise(s) to believe in changing the narrative that often is dominated by White males and caters to White fragility. When teaching our youths, I could only hope that history that Chris Lese could be duplicated and there were enough programs and funding throughout these United States that could provide similar immersive opportunities. It can help cure what ails America, that is a history that is void of discomfort. That discomfort is the atrocities that we committed along the way like purging Natives and enslaving Africans. The Slave Dwelling Project will always be here to assist in changing the narrative.