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Rep. Jo Ann Davis talks with guests outside the Conway House in Falmouth yesterday.
Norman Schools talks with members of All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington about his Falmouth home and its former owner, abolitionist Moncure Conway.
Ciara Pryor dances with a group from Little Ark Baptist Church during yesterday's Rappahannock Regional Juneteenth Celebration at Old Mill Park. Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the end of slavery.
A National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom marker |
By KELLY HANNON
A real-estate venture turned into an American history lesson for Norman and Lenetta Schools.
Flipping through a magazine eight years ago, the Stafford County couple spied their dream home in an advertisement.
It overlooked the Rappahannock River near Falmouth Beach. The architectural style was Federal, their favorite. The roof was slate and the facade was brick--both low-maintenance. The Schoolses decided to go for it, moving from Richmond to Stafford's River Road.
Then the sellers mentioned something cryptic about a former occupant.
"The people who were selling the house said something about someone famous who had lived in the house and they were kind of using it as a marketing ploy," Norman Schools said.
The celebrity was Moncure Daniel Conway, an abolitionist preacher born in Stafford who defied social conventions of the era, helping a third of his father's slaves escape to freedom in 1862.
Conway's stand against slavery was commemorated yesterday with a ceremony and permanent marker at his former home, referred to as the Conway House.
The site was approved for a marker by the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, a program of the National Park Service.
The event was held in connection with the first annual Rappahannock Regional Juneteenth Celebration. It included a festival in Old Mill Park yesterday afternoon. People milled through the park taking in live music, children's activities and educational presentations, including a performance by actress Ilene Evans as Harriet Tubman.
Juneteenth marks June 19, 1865, the day Union troops informed slaves in Galveston, Texas, that they were freed under the Emancipation Proclamation. The holiday has evolved into a celebration of freedom and black heritage and contributions.
To the Rev. Hashmel Turner, who represents Ward 4 on the Fredericksburg City Council, the celebration was about "learning our history, to teach our history, to have the truth told and have our young people be a part of it."
The Schoolses opened their home, to about 150 guests yesterday morning for the marker's unveiling.
Shortly after buying the home, the couple delved into Conway's past, enlisting the help of Stafford resident and history buff Frank White, who had been corresponding with a descendant of a slave freed by Conway.
"Once I got into the biography, I got captured by his life and everything he did," Norman Schools said.
In 2003, Lenetta Schools and White went to Yellow Springs, Ohio, where slaves freed by Conway had settled. The Yellow Springs site was getting a National Underground Railroad marker. On the ride home, they decided to pursue a marker for Conway's house.
Rep. Jo Ann Davis, whose 1st District includes the Fredericksburg area, attended the unveiling. She said she believes Juneteenth represents to the black community what the Fourth of July represents to all Americans--freedom.
"I believe that today we all celebrate our freedom because God granted us our freedom," Davis said.
The Rev. Robert Hardies, senior pastor of All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington, came to speak as a representative of the house of worship where Conway once preached.
The congregation fired Conway after he repeatedly made public remarks against slavery. Hardies came to the ceremony as "an act of contrition." He apologized for the church members who, unlike Conway, "didn't fully possess the courage then to stand up for what was just and what was right."
John Hennessy, chief historian for Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, put Conway's efforts and home in context, speaking about the thousands of slaves who passed through Fredericksburg and Stafford before Juneteenth and the end of the Civil War trying to reach freedom.
James Bryant, chair of the history department at Shenandoah University, called the entire Fredericksburg area a "flagship of freedom" for its role as a stopping point for slaves heading north.
Jean McKee of Loveland, Ohio, traveled to the ceremony with two sisters, a niece and a cousin, all descendants of slaves freed by Conway. McKee traced her family's roots back to Dunmore Gwinn, a house servant in the Conway home. She visited the home last year and returned for the marker ceremony.
"It's great to be back. It's great to have this history," said McKee, who has researched her genealogy for 30 years.
The party continued at Old Mill Park. The U.S. Army Jazz Band entertained the crowd while children learned how to make rope by hand and heard from one of the leaders of the Underground Railroad movement, Tubman. "The idea is to keep alive all of the many heroes we have and we should know about," said Evans, the actress who portrayed Tubman.
To reach KELLY HANNON:
Email: khannon@freelancestar.com
