Witness Stone Project

The Witness Stones Project

Under the leadership of Kelly Bridges, a history teacher involved in the Connecticut project, ATJ is in the early stages of doing the research for the Witness Stone Project. Efforts are being made to partner with varying Florida sites where enslaved individuals lived and work.

A growing number of Connecticut towns, including Guilford, Madison, Greenwich, Suffield, and West Hartford, have worked in collaboration with the Witness Stones Project to install in their communities small plaques that commemorate individuals once enslaved. Through research, education, and civic engagement, the Project expands the understanding of local history and honors the humanity and contributions of those formerly held in bondage. Its research-based curriculum materials engage students of different age groups in history, civics, and language arts classes with inquiry-based learning. Dennis Culliton, the retired Guilford teacher who established the Witness Stones Project, modeled the effort on the Stolpersteine Project in Berlin that commemorates those persecuted by the Nazis before and during World War II. Read more about the Witness Stones Project.

Sources for Florida Enslaved

Each row in the below content includes source description, location, and link to the source.

Walnut Hill Plantation Register of Enslaved Births and Deaths 1860 – 1876

Births range from 1802 – 1876; created by Sallie Bradford. Father, Thomas Bradford, brought the family from Enfield, North Carolina in 1830.
Bradfordville, Leon County, FL
https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/329096

List of slaves, including their ages, at Spring Garden plantation, Florida, 1829 –

Provides a snapshot of the enslaved on the Spring Garden plantation in 1829 including first names and ages. Additional names and years found by Tomoka Correctional Institution students.
DeLeon Springs, Volusia County, FL
https://digitalcommons.wofford.edu/littlejohnmss/304/
Article about TCI students

List of enslaved at Rose Cottage

Through family Civil War letters chronicalled in a book, I created a list of enslaved.
Waleka, FL
Blakey, Arch Fredric, et al. Rose Cottage Chronicles: Civil War Letters of the Bryant-Stephens Families of North Florida. University Pr Florida, 1998.
Spreadsheet of names

Enslaved Laborers at Kanapaha Plantation—enslaved by Haile and Chesnut families on neighboring plantations.

Historic house museum that has embraced the documentation of the enslaved population, actively sharing their stories and seeking more information through research and oral histories.
Gainesville, Alachua County, FL
Haile Homestead at Kanapaha Plantation

Kingsley Plantation

Oldest surviving antebellum Spanish colonial plantation in the US. first source has brief summaries of a few enslaved individuals. Special history study includes the period before and after the Kingsleys’ bought the plantation. Interesting that Kingsley’s wife was born into a noble family in Senegal, captured and sold into slavery, owned, then wedded and freed by Kingsley. Together, they owned slaves in FL. * Will need to read special history to get additional names of the enslaved.
Fort George Island, FL — National Park, 23 miles northeast of Jacksonville, FL
Fort George Island enslaved
special history study on Fort George Island enslaved population —chapter 4 is about the enslaved who were manumitted–there is extensive information about their lives (in comparison to others). list compiled from National Park Service document

The Orman House—State park

Just discovered documents in the house that detail names, ages, and skill sets of the enslaved. They are working on rebuilding slave quarters (some still exist on the property) and including an accurate interpretation of their lives. Might be able to leverage the connection at The Dudley Farm. Currently closed until December, 2022.
Apalachicola, FL
https://www.floridastateparks.org/learn/orman-house-servant-quarters

Bulow Plantation Ruins Historic State Park

According to the video, there were 197 enslaved workers at the site in the 1830 census. They were evacuated and relocated to St. Augustine during the Seminole War in 1836. The Seminoles burned the house and slave quarters. It was never rebuilt.
Flagler Beach, FL
https://www.floridastateparks.org/parks-and-trails/bulow-plantation-ruins-historic-state-park
video about site

The Dudley Farm

Reached out to Kristin about Witness Stones. Doing research via documents.
Discovered David Dudley, wife Eliza Dudley, and child, Samuel b. 1863 in Newberry, FL 1870 census. Possibly enslaved at Dudley Farm? Need to compare to slave schedules.
David Dudley and Samuel Dudley correspond to two males on slave schedule. Eliza Dudley may be the female born in 1842, but in 1870 census, her birth year is listed at 1845.
Newberry, FL
https://www.floridastateparks.org/learn/history-dudley-farm
1870 census – David & Eliza
1860 slave schedule – Philip B. Dudley

Green Plantation

Near Royal, FL along the Withlacoochee River.
Sumter County
Article about Beverley Steele and Royal, FL residents
Article about plans to build highway extension through Royal, FL
Community of Royal

El Destino Plantation

“El Destino was first owned by John Nuttall, a wealthy resident of Virginia and then later North Carolina. He presumably purchased it as a frontier speculation in 1828. In that same year, John sent his son, William B. Nuttall, to operate the plantation. He took with him fifty-two slaves, thirty-two of whom were rated as working hands. Those slaves were property of John and James, another son of John’s. The profits from the plantation were to be divided between the father and two sons. John died a few years later, and in 1832, William B. Nuttall bought El Destino from his father’s estate for $17,000.”
Jefferson County
Florida Historical Society—plantation papers Papers transcribed by genealogy trails of Jefferson county—several lists of enslaved at different times, including at the end of the Civil War—May 1865.

Chemonie Plantation

“George Noble Jones married Mary Nuttall and purchased El Destino, as well as Chemonie Plantation in Leon County. That plantation was located on the Leon County/Jefferson County line and bordered Evergreen Hills Plantation on the west and bordered a tip of Tuscawilla Plantation on the north.”
Jefferson County
http://www.genealogytrails.com/fla/jefferson/eldestinohistory.html

George Whitfield notebook

Online in the FSU archives. “A small notebook with Geo. Whitfield printed on the first page followed by manuscript entries. The notebook documents the financial transactions of George Whitfield around Tallahassee, Florida, including his business transactions regarding slaves he owned and sold.”
Near Tallahassee, FL
https://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/islandora/object/fsu%3A688683#page/14/mode/2up

Estate of Robert K. Shaw

“Division of Robert K. Shaw’s estate probate in Gadsden County, Florida. Valued the total 47 enslaved people at $29,275. Split into 3 lots “as nearly as could be done without separating families…” Names and ages of enslaved people included in document. Valuation done at group level.”
Original document in FSU digital repository.
Gadsden County, FL
https://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/islandora/object/fsu%3A742985

Goodwood Museum

They are working on a memorial to the over 200 enslaved who lived there between 1831-1865. They have posted their research online, and there is a PBS video about the enslaved too.
Tallahassee, Leon County, FL
https://www.goodwoodmuseum.org/memorial
https://www.pbs.org/video/invisible-history-middle-floridas-hidden-roots-5zhkcl/

Cull Bush was an interesting man as he gained his freedom around age 21 and then went on to become a successful landowner in Greenwich. The historians at the Greenwich Historical Society believe he remained near his enslavers’ home because the mother of his children was enslaved for the rest of her life. His children gradually gained their freedom upon reaching 21 under CT’s Emancipation Act.