- Details
- Category: Current Issue
POMFRET --- Enslaved, unnamed African people believed to be buried in the Mashamoquet uplands in Pomfret will be remembered with a memorial stone thanks to efforts by the Wyndham Land Trust and local historian Donna Dufresne, who is researching the families who lived in the area during the 18th and 19th centuries.
If you are interested in contributing to the memorial stone project, you can join the fundraising campaign on the Wyndham Land Trust website at www.wyndhamlandtrust.org.
The memorial stone project seeks to foster awareness of those who were excluded from the written record, but whose lives and work contributed to the prosperity of a new nation and to the foundations that created the wealth of today. The stone will be engraved by Karin Sprague Stone Carvers, whose Rhode Island workshop carries on the ancient craft of hand stone carving.
“The story of the people who long ago lived and worked on the land that we cherish and value today as places for nature and outdoor walks, can provide a host of learning experiences we may not expect,” said trust board member, Janet Booth, “This project has allowed us to pause and reflect that slavery was not just a practice of the southern United States. There are documented enslavers in New England; the northern states were deeply entwined in and benefited from an economy that was driven by the work of enslaved people… but because the enslaved were regarded as property, not as people, it is difficult to find records of their lives.”
Although she does not have written documentation for the specific burials, Dufresne has traced enslaved Randalls from Reuben Randall, born in 1777 in Pomfret, down to descendants who still live in the region. According to stories passed down through generations of the Randall family, some of their ancestors are buried in roughly marked graves at the back of the burial ground. Ground Penetrating Radar readings conducted by the Office of State Archaeology in May 2021, show the possibility of six or seven graves, each marked with small, almost unnoticeable, fieldstones.
Small family burial grounds are scattered throughout the woodlands of New England. Many have been long abandoned and forgotten, but the burial ground in Pomfret was looked after for more than sixty years by its owners, Harry and Doris (Deb) Townshend. Doris loved the little burial ground where Rhobadiah Higginbotham, the protagonist in her novel about the Higginbotham family, is buried. Deb and Harry kept the plot clear of trees and debris and repaired some of the stones. In 2021 the Townshend family donated the property that contains the cemetery to the Wyndham Land Trust to be protected in perpetuity. The land became part of a group of parcels in Pomfret and Woodstock christened the Nightingale Forest by the Land Trust.
Dufresne continues the Townsend’s love of local history in her work tracing the Higginbotham family who operated three small mills and farmed at the site. In addition, she plans to restore broken gravestones in the burial ground with the help of Ruth Shapleigh Brown of the Connecticut Gravestone Network and Michael Carroll of Rediscovering History.
.