Brown Bag Lunch History Talks
Brown Bag Lunch History Talks are offered on the second Tuesday of each month, September through June.
Participants may bring a brown bag lunch; beverages and dessert provided. Fee: $2.
The History of African Americans in Addison County
February 9 at noon
Vermont has always had a famously small African American population, but Jane Williamson, director at Rokeby Museum, wanted to know more about them, even if they were few. Williamson will present a talk entitled The History of African Americans in Addison County at the Henry Sheldon Museum.
To research this topic, Williamson pulled the names of all African Americans from the federal censuses from 1790 to 1860 for Addison County and the towns of Charlotte and Hinesburgh. These names provided her the information she needed to find evidence in town records of land ownership, school attendance, voting, etc. She learned that African Americans in the region owned property, belonged to churches, attended school, and voted - vastly more so than in the cities, where the majority of the northern black population lived.
Williamson has been director at Rokeby Museum since 1995, where she has advanced the Museum's reputation as an unrivaled Underground Railroad historic site. Rokeby Museum’s Robinson family manuscript collection is located and available for research at the Sheldon Museum Research Center. |
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The Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History