North Central Freedom Trail Quilt Display

Archer Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church

Windsor

Iva Allison

A community of African Americans developed in the Hayden Station area during the nineteenth century. One of the religious and social centers for this community was the Archer Memorial Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Zion Church. Its first building was constructed under the guidance of the Reverend Dennis Scott White, who received financial assistance from a local philanthropist, Frederick Thrall. The church was located next to a pine grove north of Hayden Station Road and Pond Road; the Reverend White conducted popular camp meetings in the grove during the 1880s and 1890s. The pond nearby was used by the town for swimming and ice-skating and by the congregation for baptismal services. The present church building was erected in 1982.

Barkhamsted Light House

Barkhamsted

Gay Gardner Wilson

At this site was a village made up of Native Americans, African Americans, and whites who in their time were considered outcasts. The village was established ca. 1740 by Molly Barber, a white woman from Wethersfield, Connecticut, and her husband, James Chaugham, a Narragansett Indian from Block Island in Long Island Sound. They moved to the northwestern Connecticut wilderness to escape the wrath of Molly Barber's father. The community was abandoned around 1860 after nearly 120 years of occupation. Today, as an archaeological site inside People's State Forest, it commemorates people who lived on the margins of society. They were ordinary individuals who created an extra-ordinary multicultural community. This site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Frank T. Simpson House

Hartford

Iva Allison

Dr. Frank T. Simpson was born in Alabama in 1907, graduated from Tougaloo College, and moved to Hartford in 1929. He was active in social work in the city and in January 1944 became the first employee of the Connecticut Inter-Racial Commission, one of the first state civil rights organizations in the United States. Simpson eventually became executive secretary, and during his years with the agency, now known as the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, he worked to end discrimination in education, housing, unions, and employment. Simpson purchased his house in 1952 and resided there until his death in 1974. Built in 1913 near Keney Park (then under construction), the house is on the National Register of Historic Places and is privately owned and not open to the public.

Harriet Beecher Stowe Center

Hartford

Barbara West Jarvis

Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), an antislavery novel of enormous impact in the United States, had lifelong associations with Hartford. She permanently moved to the city in 1864 and resided at 73 Forest Street from 1873 until her death in 1896. Her home is operated as a museum by the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, which maintains a significant research library with collections that focus on nineteenth-century literature and social history, with particular emphasis on race relations, women's issues, architecture, and decorative arts. The Stowe House is listed on the Register of Historic Places and open to the public.

Enfield Shaker's Village

Enfield

Rose Conrad

This area was once occupied by the only Shaker settlement in Connecticut. Dissenting from many activities of American society, the Shakers were associated with reform movements, including feminism, pacifism, and abolitionism. The diary of one member records the visits of fugitive slaves to the settlement, including Sojourner Truth, who spoke at the Meeting House on Shaker Road. Now owned by the State of Connecticut and administered by the Department of Correction, the Meeting House was built in 1827 and is sited adjacent to Shaker Road. The entire Shaker complex is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Walter Bunce House

Manchester

Tracey Gorecki

While there are many structures in the Southern states which are attributed to the craftsmanship of African Americans, few such buildings exist in New England. One example, however, is the Walter Bunce House, constructed by Alpheus Quincy. Born in June 1774, Quincy dealt in real estate in southeastern Connecticut along with his father and brother. As a stonemason, he built several fieldstone houses for prominent citizens and numerous dams in Manchester. The Walter Bunce House is the only fieldstone dwelling constructed by Quincy that still stands today.

Soldiers and Sailors Monument

Hartford

Janet Hochsprung

The Solders and Sailors Monument (Memorial) honors those from Hartford who served in the Civil War. A marker noting the contributions of African Americans in that conflict has been added to the monument. On display in the nearby State Capitol are two banners that were used by Connecticut's all-black Twenty-Ninth Regiment. The Capitol is open to the public.

North Cemetery

Hartford

Sade Davis and Barbara Johnson

Located in the center of this cemetery are graves of a number of African Americans who served in the Civil War. These can be found by taking the entrance next to the building on Main Street and following the paved drive to a path. Between this path and another located a short distance to its right are stones marking the burials of six or more men who served in Connecticut's all-black Twenty-Ninth Regiment. There are also graves here of African Americans who served in other Civil War units. Nearby is the stone of James Law with the inscription "Born a slave in Virginia, Died in Hartford 1881, the Freedom of the Lord".

Francis Gillette House

Bloomfield

Sue Reich

See the Underground Railroad overview.

Old State House

Hartford

Carolyn S. Boyle

When it was Connecticut's Capitol, hosted one of several trials that involved the fate of the Africans of the Amistad. The building is a National Historic Landmark and is open to the public.

Hart Porter Homestead

Manchester

Tracey Gorecki

See the Underground Railroad overview.

Joseph Rainey House

Windsor

Gay Gardner Wilson

This property was purchased by Joseph Rainey on May 20, 1874, and it was owned by him for the remainder of his life. It was used by his family as a summer residence. Rainey is best known for being the first African American elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, serving for the State of South Carolina. He was elected to five terms, holding office from 1870 to 1879, and during this period introduced petitions for the passage of civil rights legislation that would guarantee African Americans their full constitutional rights. He dramatized his stand on the issue of access to public accommodations by his refusal to leave the dining room of a hotel in Suffolk, Virginia, forcing the owner to remove him from the premises. The Rainey family was active in the First Church of Windsor, and in 1876 Rainey spoke at the town's observance of the American Centennial celebration. The house is privately owned and not opened to the public.

Brace-Stephen House

Newington

Connie Harasymiw

See the Underground Railroad overview.

Nancy Toney's Grave

Windsor

Gay Gardner Wilson

Only a few slaves remained in Connecticut by the time the state passed its full emancipation law in 1848. Apparently, several of these individuals were determined too aged to care for themselves and therefore continued with their former owners. It is believed that Nancy Toney, a former slave of the Chaffee/Loomis family of Windsor, was the last survivor of this group in Connecticut. When she died in 1857, she was buried in Palisado Cemetery. The grave is at the rear of the cemetery, located on the left side of the road in an area with few markers.

Union Baptist Church

Hartford

Union Craft Club: Lillian Harris, Mattie Haskins, Barbara Johnson, Pearl Lee, Gwen Moseley, Marilyn Tyson, Nellie Tyson, Beatrice Wood

Through its leaders and members, Union Baptist Church has made significant contributions to the early civil rights movement on the local and state levels. The Reverend John C. Jackson, who began his ministry at the church in 1922, worked tirelessly to open employment opportunities for African Americans, especially for teachers and social workers. C. Edythe Taylor, a member of the church, was the first African American teacher in the Hartford public school system. Other members were the first African Americans in the city to serve on the school board, on the welfare board, and with the police department. In 1943, Jackson helped establish the Connecticut Inter-Racial Commission, now the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities. The church is a life member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and created the local chapter of the Urban League. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Paul Robeson House

Enfield

Iva Allison

Paul Robeson was an All-American football player, a Phi Beta Kappa scholarship student at Rutgers University Law School, and a graduate of the Columbia University Law School. An African American of extraordinary artistic gifts, he later became an internationally known actor and singer, and he was an activist in civil rights causes. Robeson purchased this house during the height of his popularity and used it to entertain his guests. His family owned it from March 1940 until December 1953. Robeson's refusal to remain silent about racism in the United States, along with his ardent desire for full human justice, resulted in his being ostracized by American society. He was barred from appearing at concert halls, had his passport revoked, and saw his name removed from football records he had established. He spent the last 15 years of his life abroad or as a recluse in Philadelphia, dying in January 1976. In 1995, Robeson was posthumously included in the National Football Foundations College Football Hall of Fame. The house is privately owned and not open to the public. It is included in the Enfield National Register Historic District.

Benjamin Douglas House

Middletown

Jim Battle, Mary Chisholm, Eileen Hilsdon, William Freeman, Rev. Moses Harville, Hazel Hewitt, Mardi Loman, Garnell Mitchell, Raleigh Mitchell, Alice Moody, Rev. Ella Perry, Kathy Ellis, Ann Ross, Sara Ruffin, Celeste Vereen, Linda Wilks

See the Underground Railroad overview.

Amistad Foundation Wadsworth Atheneum

Hartford

Meckla Pinnix and Nina Murphy

The nation's oldest continuously operating public art museum, houses the Amistad Foundation African-American Collection. This unique collection of Americana is comprised of over 6,000 art objects, posters, broadsides, photographs, memorabilia, and rare books that evidence the many contributions of African Americans to American culture. The Amistad Foundation provides for public access to this collection, along with changing exhibitions and special interpretative programs, including scholarly and public forums and cultural performances, during the year. The Wadsworth Atheneum also maintains the Fleet Gallery of African-American Art to complement exhibitions in the Amistad Gallery and to further illuminate the role of African American visual artists in American art and culture. The Atheneum is on the National Register of Historic Places and open to the public.

Faith Congregational Church

Hartford

Meckla Pinnix

In 1819, Hartford's African Americans, rejecting being seated in the galleries of white churches, began to worship by themselves in the conference room of the First Church of Christ. Later established as the African Religious Society, the group built a church at 30 Talcott Street in 1826 and soon became associated with the Congregational Church. In 1840, the church opened one of only two district schools in the city where African American children could study free of harassment by white children and teachers at the church's school. Also associated with it were Amos Beman and James Pennington, two of the most prominent African American leaders in the United States. On November 19, 1953 Talcott Street Congregational church merged with Mother Bethel Methodist Church to become the present Faith Congregational Church. The building at 2030 Main Street was purchased and renovated, with the dedication taking place on June 13, 1954. The church is on the National Register of Historic Places.

West Burying Ground

Middletown

Marilyn Cocking

To the rear of this cemetery are the graves of local African Americans including Fanny Beman, the mother of Amos Beman, one of Connecticut's best known African American civil rights leaders of the nineteenth century. There are also graves here of men who fought in the Connecticut Twenty-Ninth Regiment and other African American units of the Civil War. Among them is James Powers, who is listed on the Civil War monument located on the green at South Main Street near the Benjamin Douglas House.

Lantern Block

Heather A. Williams

The North Star and lantern are the key elements of the logo of the Connecticut Freedom Trail.