Hearth: Faculty, staff, students and community members attended the ceremony to mark the beginning of construction on the memorial. Titled “Hearth: Memorial to the Enslaved,” the brick structure will resemble a fireplace and will feature the names of people who are known to have been enslaved by the university. Photo by Stephn Salpukas
Hearth: Faculty, staff and alumni push down the top of a brick wall that stands where the memorial will be constructed. Photo by Stephen Salpukas
Hearth: President Emeritus Taylor Reveley LL.D. ’18, W&M President Katherine A. Rowe and Jody Allen Ph.D. ’07 push down a large panel of the wall in the location where the memorial will be constructed.
Historic marker in Williamsburg will recognize minister who helped found one of nation s oldest Black churches
dailypress.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from dailypress.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
First Baptist has always been a beacon in the community: Descendants share memories of historic Williamsburg church to preserve, share its history
dailypress.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from dailypress.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Image: Jack Gary
Despite the amount of history that sits atop its soil, plenty of stories remain buried below Colonial Williamsburg. One of those stories is that of the First Baptist Church of Williamsburg, an early Black church that stood until the 1950s on the historic site, on which excavations began last fall. Now, archaeologists have found human remains on the site; further assurance that the team was digging in the right place, and a step towards being able to connect those interred residents of the past with today’s descendant community.
Advertisement
Announced in a community meeting this week, the found remains include a human tooth and probable finger bone, alongside a trove of other fragmentary bones that are harder to attribute to any one species. Animal bones were also found on the site, which is currently an approximately 400-square-foot (37-square-meter) area on the west side of Colonial Williamsburg, at the intersection of Francis