Longtown Descendants Breathe New Life Into Historic Mixed-Race CommunityPosted in Articles, Audio, History, Media Archive, Slavery, United States on 2017-06-05 00:32Z by Steven |
Longtown Descendants Breathe New Life Into Historic Mixed-Race Community
WOSU Public Media
WOSU Radio
Columbus, Ohio
2017-05-31
Kaiser family reunion at Longtown. Kaiser Family
In southwest Ohio, about a mile from the Indiana state line, a long-forgotten town with a special place in African American history is struggling to be reborn.
Longtown was established nearly 200 years ago in what is now Greenville. The settlement grew into a thriving mixed-race community and a major stop on the Underground Railroad.
Now, descendants of those pioneering settlers are working to bring Longtown back to life for others to experience.
Longtown’s Founding
In 1818, James Clemens, a freed slave from Rockingham County, Virginia, settled in Darke County, Ohio, with his wife Sophia Sellers and their five children, and began to farm.
“They were the sons and daughters of slave masters,” says historian and Longtown descendant Roane Smothers.
Smothers says some slave owners not only acknowledged the children they bore with slaves but also provided them with financial support. Such was the case with James and Sophia, who purchased land in Ohio with the help of Sellers’ father, he says…
Read the entire article here. Listen to the story (00:05:45) here.