PreservationNation

Written by William D. Holland

In the city of Abiriba in Abia State, Nigeria.

I recently went to Africa to research my family history. Our ancestry traces all the way back to Nigeria. I am a 41 year-old African-American of Igbo descent. On my trip I noticed similarities between Nigerian village construction and my own home in Virginia.

Before my father, a tobacco sharecropper, passed away in 2005, he deeded me, his last son, the dog-trot, chestnut oak cabin. I then took on the task of renovating and restoring the home for the purposes of preserving history and updating our family homestead.

Our small community of Glade Hill in Franklin County is an agricultural region in the southern part of the state. Tobacco was once the king crop. The county earned its reputation during prohibition as the moonshine capital of the United States. We also claim Booker T. Washington, the great educator, as one of our own.

The Holland homestead in Glade Hill, VA, pre-renovation.

Our hand-hewn log home was built in 1821 by slaves who brought building techniques with them from West Africa. Daubing, a process utilizing natural earth as the main source for chinking between logs, was used. Family friends from present-day Nigeria verified the African roots of construction techniques such as this during a recent visit to Glade Hill. Based on my 2009 visit to Igboland, I can also attest to the style’s authenticity.

The home originally housed the Sermones family and their slaves. After the Civil War the Metts family came to own the house. During part of this time, my great-grandmother, Sally Walker, lived in the house with her children. A freed slave, she worked as a midwife and, according to family lore, delivered over 500 babies of African-American and Caucasian descent!

The Holland homestead in Glade Hill, VA, after renovation.

The plantation that we descend from is located about two miles away from the current homestead. It is currently the home of Armistead Burwell, whose family descended from the Tidewater area. Burwell-Holland House was built in 1798. The bricks were made directly on the plantation in front of the house. There’s a bank on the hillside just below the house. The remaining bricks were used to build a 1824 church on a nearby Holland plantation about five miles away.

William and Mrs. Willie Mae Holland in Africa, 2009.

My great-grandfather, Creed Holland, worked on the nearby plantation driving wagons from Virginia to Atlanta. He eventually served in the Civil War. Documents show that Creed Holland’s father, Stephen, was born in Franklin County in 1810. Franklin County was established in 1785. Many Igbo descendants were brought here from the period of 1720 to 1750, so I believe Stephen may have been 2nd or 3rd generation.

Many properties such as mine are being torn down or have already been destroyed. It is my vision to get my historic home listed on the state and/ or national registry. I totally disagree with the intention of not preserving history with structures that are still standing.

When you come to see this precious landmark, you can learn about the Holland family, our Igbo heritage, and some ghost sightings that occurred during our home’s renovation. If the ghost stories do not interest you enough, then I can take you to the cemetery on the property to see 19th century markers! My 79-year-old mother may even bake you a homemade blackberry pie!

William D. Holland is an independent researcher with an emphasis on African-American history and culture.

Written by Rikki Davenport

A group of children learn the history of Drayton Hall.

As a child I wanted to be Laura on “Little House on the Prairie” and dreamed about running away to join the Amish so I could live in the “olden days.” Although, I never became Laura or joined the Amish, I did become a high school history teacher, a Fulbright scholar in Ghana, and now a museum educator. I feel very fortunate that I spend my days with children, teachers, and visitors sharing my love of history and the stories of Drayton Hall.

One of the things that I find that many of our visitors are unaware of is just how much African Americans have contributed to the cultural identity of the Lowcountry. Everything from foodways such as benne seeds and collards to words such as “gumbo” and “shindig” has African origins. Using information from primary source materials and artifacts from our own collections, we are able to tell some of their stories with our programs. But to better share these stories of the enslaved people and their descendants who lived and worked at Drayton Hall, this February we will begin a four-month series of interactive family programs. In recognition of Black History Month, our first program, entitled A Day in the Life of a Colonial Plantation, will focus on the lives of the enslaved people and how their lives compared to those of the Drayton family.

A student practices using a fanner basket as part of "A Day in the Life of a Colonial Plantation." This station is located in a field that would have been planted with rice during the 18th century.

The program will show visitors how the enslaved people were not “nameless” figures laboring in the fields, they were people with names, families, hopes, and aspirations whose artistic skills are evident throughout Charleston and Drayton Hall. During the A Day in the Life of a Colonial Plantation program, families get to try their hand at chores typical for a colonial kitchen and house, use tools to work in a rice field, apprentice for a blacksmith, and play musical instruments with African traditions. We will help guide children in making rag dolls from indigo-dyed cloth and in forming their own clay pinch pots. These items, from our artifact collection, would have been used by enslaved families throughout the Lowcountry.

I encourage families with children ages 6-12 to visit us on Saturday, February 6, for our inaugural family program honoring African-American history through the stories of Drayton Hall. The interactive program will be informative and fun, the perfect recipe for children to love history!

Please visit www.draytonhall.org for more details.

Rikki Davenport is the curator of education at Drayton Hall in Charleston, SC. Contact her by email at rikki_davenport[at]nthp[dot]org or meet her at Drayton Hall on February 6.

February is Black History Month. Visit PreservationNation.org/african-american-heritage to learn more about the people and places that tell the story of African Americans throughout our nation’s history.

Written by Theresa Pasqual

It was from my father that I learned to watch the sun and moon; a farmer and sheepherder, he marked time by the movement of both. Each beginning and ending signaled a time to plant, a time to harvest, a time for lambing, and for shearing. I was reminded of this as I thumbed through the free calendar from the local utility cooperative trying to figure out when spring officially started.

How we mark time is different for all of us. Some of us live by our calendars or day planners, keeping track of important dates. Others of us watch the clock, passing our days by noting the elapsing of hours and minutes, and sometimes we even try to make time stretch or slow down—whatever the situation calls for.

Like my late father, the people here at Acoma still mark the passages of time by the movement of the sun, moon and stars. Long ago, our Puebloan ancestors noted the changing of the seasons, by capturing the shadows of the sun on markers etched into stone. They dutifully noted the changing moon and the journey of the stars across the heavens. Observers could keep track of time during the vernal and autumnal equinoxes and the spring and winter solstices. These times in the Puebloan world signaled death and rebirth, planting and harvest, hunting and gathering seasons and times for cultural observances.

Many of these markers still remain today and, like the numerous archaeological sites that dot the Southwestern landscape, many are under increased pressure from development. Much like the treasured historic buildings of the East Coast, these places are reminders of our past, our collective history. They remind us of our connection to the earth and our need to slow down from our fast paced lives and take note of our world. Through our native language, Keres, the Acoma People maintain our connection in the retelling of our stories, the singing of our traditional songs and the recounting of our migration stories. We keep alive the rich history of these places that matter so that future generations will come to understand and appreciate their significance and preserve them for all to enjoy.

Theresa Pasqual is the director of Acoma Pueblo’s Historic Preservation Office and a member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Board of Advisors.