Chowan Discovery Group

A Roanoke Island Colony Remembered

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L-R: KaeLi Schurr (Outer Banks History Center, Department of Cultural Resources), Marvin T. Jones (Chowan Discovery Group and nominator of the marker), Virginia Tillett (President of the Roanoke Island Freedmen's Colony Preservation Association and Commissioner of Dare County); Dr. Patricia Click (author of Time Full of Trial, the history of the colony, and professor University of Virginia.
L-R: KaeLi Schurr (Outer Banks History Center, Department of Cultural Resources), Marvin T. Jones (Chowan Discovery Group and nominator of the marker), Virginia Tillett (President of the Roanoke Island Freedmen’s Colony Preservation Association and Commissioner of Dare County); Dr. Patricia Click (author of Time Full of Trial, the history of the colony, and professor University of Virginia.
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The Winton Triangle has ties to the subject of the latest Chowan Discovery-nominated marker, that of the Roanoke Island Freedmen’s Colony.  During the Civil War when the colony existed, several Winton Triangle men enlisted in the United States Colored Troops in 1864.  In 1865, William David Newsom, a post-war leader in the Winton Triangle, taught there.  In 1866, another Triangle leader, Lemuel Washington Boon, led the founding of the Roanoke Missionary Baptist Association there.On Feb. 21, 2014 at the Dare Center in Manteo, the new North Carolina Highway Historical Marker for the Roanoke Island Freedmen’s Colony was unveiled.  The Colony was a refuge for people of color when they escaped Confederate-controlled areas during the Civil War.  The Colony was a place for the refugees to re-establish their families, seek livelihoods, study and worship with their new freedoms.  The Union Military and missionaries provided for the Colony.

Chowan Discovery thanks Ms. Virginia Tillett, President of the Roanoke Island Freedmen’s Colony Preservation Association for her leadership in coordinating the dedication event.  Additional thanks goes to Mr. Michael Hill and KaeLi Schurr of the NC Department of Cultural Resources which providedthe marker, and Dr. Patricia Click, who wrote about the colony in her book, Time Full of Trial.

This is Chowan Discovery’s sixth nominated and erected historical marker.  Please the photo gallery of the event.

 

Sgt. Augustus Robbins honored at church he founded.

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Surrounded by the congregation of St. Elmo Baptist, Rev. David Rascoe gives his thumbs up for the nearly cleaned markers of the Robbins family. Dr. John Robbins’ marker is in the foreground.

August 11, 2013: Reverend David Rascoe, pastor of St. Elmo Baptist Missionary Church in Windsor, invited me to take part in the Founder’s Day program.  This was my second worship service there.  I prepared a short biography of Augustus Robbins who acquired the land for St. Elmo at its founding in 1887.  I was delightfully surprised to see that the church had cleaned the markers of the Robbins family in time for church service.

Robbins was born in 1842 in the Chowanoke community in Gates County. By 1860, he was living with his better-known brother Parker and Parker’s wife, Elizabeth Collins Robbins.  In January of 1864, the Robbins brothers enlisted in the 2nd Cavalry, United States Colored Troops at Fort Monroe, Hampton Virginia.  Both were promoted to sergeant by the month’s end.  Their regiment participated in over ten battles from Suffolk to Richmond.  When driving along Interstate 95 around Petersburg and Richmond, one will see many signs that direct to these battles. The Robbins brothers’ service ended February 1866 in Brazos de Santiago, having patrolled Texas at the time of “Juneteenth.”

A week after enlisting, Augustus and Leah Cooper married.  After the war, they reunited and moved back to Bertie County.  Their son, John, graduated from Shaw University’s Leonard School of Medicine around 1891, becoming one of North Carolina’s first physicians of color.

After the war, Augustus Robbins became a store owner, and as a community leader served a term in the North Carolina General Assembly.  He died in 1928 and is buried alongside with Leah and John in the front cemetery yard of St. Elmo’s.  In 2011, the NC General Assembly passed a resolution honoring Augustus Robbins for his deeds. 

– Marvin T. Jones

Ancient Town receives new Historical Marker

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An ancient Native American town and its people were honored Saturday with a historical marker on Saturday.  Large plaque for Dasamunkepeuc, the capital of the Roanoke Indians, was unveiled by today’s Roanoke-Hatteras Indians at their 10th annual powwow held on their ancestral land in Manteo.

Roanoke-Hatteras Indians and friends with the new North Carolina Highway Historical Marker for the town of Dasemunkepeuc. Kaeli Schurr of the Outer Banks History Center is left of the marker. Roanoke-Hatteras Indians Chief Marilyn Berry Morrison is standing, right of the marker. Dare County Commissioner Virginia Tillett is on the far right.

The first Native American town encountered by the English expeditions of 1584 and 1585, Dasemunkepeuc (DA-say-mun-ke-puc) was located on Croatan Sound on the mainland across from Roanoke Island.  After the Roanoke Indians welcomed the two expeditions, miscalculations on part of the English led to attacks on Dasemunkepeuc and other towns. Following that, the third expedition’s settlers, known as the Lost Colony, arrived among an angered and hostile population.

The marker was nominated by the Chowan Discovery Group,   Many of the Winton Triangle people share ancestry and heritage with the Roanoke-Hatteras Indians.  This the fourth marker sponsored by the Chowan Discovery Group and the second Chowan Discovery marker for a Native American town (see Choanoac).   The North Carolina Office of Archives and History (Department of Cultural Resources) approved Chowan Discovery’s nomination and provided the marker.  New CDG-nominated makers are coming for the Roanoke Island Freedmens Colony (Manteo, NC) and another ancient Algonquian town, Aquascogoc (Bel Haven, NC).

Roanoke-Hatteras Indians and Chief Marilyn Berry Morrison (left).
Left to right: Chowan Discovery Executive Director Marvin T. Jones; KaeLi Schurr of the NC Outer Banks History Center, representing the NC Department of Cultural Resources who provided the marker through its Office of Archives and History; Dare County Commissioner Virginia Tillett.

 

Opportunities for Academic Research

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These documents were recovered from one of over 40 commercial buildings in the Winton Triangle.
The Chowan Discovery Group is inviting academics to partner with us to study the Winton Triangle.

The Triangle is a 260 year-old mixed race community of landowners in central Hertford County. Around 1960, its population was in the hundreds, and the land dimensions are 8 by 10 miles from east to west, and 8 miles from north to south with over 20 roads and streets. The Chowan Discovery Group has collected photographs, documents, interviews, books and maps. However, demographic and economic studies are needed. The incomes and occupations of Winton Triangle people were diverse, and the land ownership is estimated at over 20 square miles.

Please contact Marvin T. Jones at info@discovery.org or 202.726.4066.

Winton Triangle History in Chicago!

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L-R: Lars Adams, Gerry Lang, Wayne Winkler, Laura Kina, S.J. Arthur and Marvin T. Jones. Photograph by Sam Clark.

In Chicago, the CDG got the opportunity to introduce our history to a national audience of academics and students at the Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference at DePaul University in Chicago.

Writer Lars Adams, of the Chowanoke Descendants website, presented the history of the Choanoac (Chowanoke) people from the earliest evidence in the 8th century, to their encounter with the English in 1586 in Hertford County and to their decline and supposed demise in Gates County 1821. Adams finished his account by  relating the re-assertion of Choanoac heritage:  the growth of the Robbins family near Cofield, the rise of the Meherrin-Chowanoke people, based in the Hertford County, and the Choanoac marker in Harrellsville that was erected last year.

My latest presentation of the Winton Triangle has since added the recent findings and events of the past year and a new map of Winton Triangle schools. Several audience members told me that is was best presentation they had seen so far, and on that strength, several of them  returned to attend the next day’s panel about Melungeons and other mixed-race people in Appalachia.  S. J Arthur, President of the Melungeon Heritage Association, and Wayne Winkler, from East Tennessee State University and author of Walking Toward Sunset, documented the historical diversity of mixed-race people in Appalachia.  This panel was moderated by the Chowan Discovery Group.

I am excited that this is the CDG’s second participation in a conference in a month’s time, that we bought the CDG presence to a national audience and made new academic friends.

At two of the sessions I attended, during open discussions, I got to alert academics about the wealth of research possibilities offered by the Winton Triangle project, and learned of a new source of documents that we will begin to study this month. Thankfully, these are held by my friends at Howard University’s Moorland Spingarn Research Center.

Steven Riley presented a paper about President Barack Obama and multi-racial issues.

I’d like to thank Laura Kina of DePaul University for paving the way for our two panels, Meherrin-Chowanoke artist Gerry Lang for moderating the Choanoac-Winton Triangle panel, and Mayola Cotterman, a longtime family friend, for taking me into her comfy, lovely and conveniently-located home and attending both panels.  Our friends Steven Riley and Julia Cates of Mixed Race Studies attended, and as always, were supportive.

Next month in December: two firsts for Chowan Discovery! – Marvin T. Jones

Three Winton Triangle Presentations at Greensboro conference.

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In addition to his keynote speech, Earl Ijames lectured about slavery and the naval stores industry in eastern North Carolina.

The Chowan Discovery presentations about the Winton Triangle, its Civil War history and Chowan Discovery historical markers attracted many enthusiastic attendees at the annual conference of the African America Genealogical and Historical Society (AAGHS) in Greensboro. Included in the audiences were history professionals and authors.

One of the joys of having three presentations at the conference was that the reputation of each lecture fed the attendance of the next.  This also gave more people the opportunity to hear about our work.  And then there are those increased sales of Carolina Genesis and the CDG mugs.  Hawking those mugs are fun, whether they sell or not – and they sold.  I enjoyed all of questions and comments.

Among the participants, I saw growing awareness about tri-racial people and free people of color in North Carolina at the conference.  This is an important trend for our mission.

I was among many friends.  CDG advisor Earl Ijames of the North Carolina History Museum was the keynote speaker.  Alice F. Harris, another CDG advisor, served in her role as a chapter president and the recording secretary of the AAGHS board.   Lisa Crawley, a curator at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture in Baltimore,  attended my one of my presentations.  Lisa has Gates County roots.

New friends include authors Margo Lee Williams and Willie Cooper (Bertie County native), Michelle Lanier of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, Lamar and Cheryl Deloatch of the host chapter of AAGHS.  Despite their endless responsibilities, the Deloatches could not have been kinder.

Willie Cooper ( left, with wife Linda) is from Bertie County. He books details the story of U.S. Colored Troops in Bertie County.

On the way to the conference, I met with Darryl Stover at the North Carolina Council of the Humanities who showed me a copy of CDG advisor David Cecelski’s new and long- awaited book about Abraham Galloway. A mighty fine visit.

In addition to all of the conference hosts and guest that made this conference trip so fruitful, there were all of my relatives who visited and took me to their homes.  Cousin Edith Reid Patterson was a conference volunteer.

The Chowan Discovery and Winton Triangle presence have been greatly expanded from this trip.  Coming up next for Chowan Discovery is a historical panel at the Critical Mixed Race Studies conference in Chicago.

– Marvin T. Jones