 We can probably start off with some introductions. My name is Grant McAllister. I am an associate professor and Levison Faculty Fellow at Wake Forest University in the Department of German and Russian. I'm one of the three co-communicers for this conference. And I'd like to welcome you to today's Walk and Learn session on Hidden Town. Good afternoon. My name is Zuleike Wiethaus. I'm professor in the Department for the Study of Religions and also American Ethnic Studies. I'm one of the three co-conveners, and I'm glad to see so many of you in our afternoon event. Welcome. My name is Eric Elliott. I'm the archivist here at Moravian Archives in Winston-Salem. We're so happy to have you here. And so many of you have been here multiple times. There is a lot of good things to learn at this conference. And it's so nice to be able to walk and learn from the comfort of your recliner. So enjoy today. I would like to welcome Martha Hartley here today. She is the director of research and outreach for the Restoration Division at Old Salem Museums and Gardens. She received her undergraduate degrees from Collins College and her master's degree in urban planning. And she got a certificate in historic preservation from the University of Virginia. She has been at Old Salem for more than 30 years and working with her husband, Michael. They have worked together on the archeology, history, landscape, and preservation of the Moravian communities in Winston-Salem. They have also received the Robert E. Stuype Professional Award from Preservation North Carolina, the Archie K. Davis Award from the Wachovia Historical Society, and the Hall of Fame Community Service Award from the Liberian Organization of the Piedmont. Martha's recent work at Old Salem has included Salem History, the African-American Experience, the Horticulture Outreach, and the Horticultural Outreach. She currently serves as the co-chair of the In-Town Project here in Old Salem. So Martha, thank you for being with us. We look forward to your presentation. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you, Dr. Grant, Daniel Orrica, and Eric for having me today. I look forward to presenting. I want to add to that introduction, and thank you so much for that grant, that one of the values of working with my husband, Michael Hartley, is that he is an anthropologist and an archeologist. So we find that together with a cross-disciplinary approach, it brings so much more to the table in terms of research and understanding of play. So I would just suggest that there's great value in different perspectives when we consider our history. So with that, I will try to share my screen here. All right, are we good there, Grant? Grant? Yes, it looks great. Looks good. You're all set. All right, well, thank you. And yes, today I would like to share with you about the Hidden Town Project at Old Salem. It's now in its fourth year, initiated by Old Salem President Frank Vagnone. And the overall mission of the Hidden Town Project is to research and reveal the history of people of African descent in Salem in the continuum of time. So I welcome you today to this tour. I usually give this in person, but I'm pleased to share with you today this way. And I was able to include lots of documentation, so that'll be fun too. So we are gonna start our exploration at St. Phillips, the Restored Black Moravian Church Complex at the south end of Church Street in Old Salem. It is the oldest standing African American church in North Carolina. Next door, the Reconstructed Log Church has an excellent front porch where we'll pause and consider context and some history. St. Phillips is the only historic Black Moravian church in the United States and one of the oldest African American congregations of any denomination. St. Phillips Moravians are a spiritual descendants of the numbers of people of African descent who have associated with the Moravian Church, especially here in the Winston-Salem Forsyth County area. St. Phillips is one of 30 Moravian churches in Forsyth County. 10 years ago, it was included in the Salem congregation with burial privileges in God's acre. St. Phillips is significant in American history and the Smithsonian reached out to engage the congregation late last year. The local community is interested in the deep history as well and Black History Month typically prompts new stories. St. Phillips singularity contrasts with the global Moravian church which is majority people of color. Two years ago, the Reverend David Guthrie hosted worldwide church leaders and I was honored to share the complex with them. St. Phillips' uniqueness is the story of the Moravian church in the American South. Slavery and its legacy brought about the hidden town. Early 20th century city directories inform African-American presence on the landscape. For orientation on these maps, the green rectangle is Salem Square. Small yellow dots indicate Black households. The larger blue dots indicate numbers of Black households. People of African descent had lived in Salem since the colonial period but Jim Crow laws and redlining soon changed all that. Salem became a segregated white neighborhood by the 1930s and the Black presence became a hidden town. By 1950, the museum was established to preserve the old Salem. It must have been an awkward place for St. Phillips to attend church in such a white neighborhood and for some time the congregation had wanted to move. They did so in 1952 across the creek to Happy Hill, initially worshiping in the community center. Unfortunately, the best laid plans and a new church building were destroyed by US Highway 52 and the congregation moved again in 1967 to Bonn Air Avenue. Residential security maps like this one and redlining were formal means of racial discrimination. Black neighborhoods were highlighted as high risks and denied loans or fair loans. They were also targeted for highway development and urban renewal. I've overlaid the map with the I-40 and US 52 corridors which ran through stable African-American neighborhoods in mid-20th century Winston Salem, destroying churches, homes, businesses, livelihoods and social fabric. The purple circle indicates Happy Hill where Highway 52 took St. Phillips new church. In the meantime, the old building on South Church Street became a storage facility for Salem congregation until one might say the hand of God intervened. On St. Phillips anniversary day in 1989, a tornado damaged the church and prompted an ad hoc committee led by home church Moravian Bob Hoffman and St. Phillips pastor Reverend Rodney. The committee included Moravian church officials, old Salem staff, university scholars and community members who came together to save the building. Ernest efforts began to address this highly significant place and to understand the complicated history. Scholarship was developed through the vast documentation of the Moravian archives. Architectural and engineering analysis examined the church and archeology investigated the log church site in the graveyards. An early surprise were 20 gravestones discovered under the church floor. Their presence was highlighted by artist Fred Wilson in his revealing installation. And then the front steps were pulled back to expose 11 more gravestones. Archeological research indicated the gravestones had been removed from the graveyard during a beautification project in 1913, the year of the consolidation of Winston and Salem. The $3 million project included the log church reconstruction and interpretive development. The complex opened to the public in 2003 with old Salem and early museum leader in African-American history. The St. Phillips complex is a remarkable touchstone of the black experience in Winston-Salem. The city's origins are in the Moravian church of the 1750s and Winston-Salem is a product of people of European and African descent. These colorful images are part of the mural displays inside the log church where history is presented. The emergence of the early Moravians, the Unitas Fratrum in Bohemia, coincided with the early slave trade in Europe, which transitioned into the trans-Atlantic slave trade, crimes against humanity of epic proportion and durable impact. Then in the 1730s, the modern Moravian church under Count Sensendorf embarked on vanguard mission work beginning in the West Indies. North America attracted the Moravians for mission work and colony establishment. In 1741, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania was the first permanent Moravian congregation. And in 1753, they purchased 100,000 acres in Piedmont, North Carolina and named it Wachovia. The practice of slavery and Wachovia varied. In the theocratic town of Salem, slave ownership was limited to the church with the hope of keeping enslaved numbers low in the Moravian work ethic high. Like most religious groups in America, the Moravians did not object to slavery but regarded one's place in life as ordained with salvation the key. A small number of enslaved people chose conversion. They were considered spiritual equals with their white brethren. This integrated fellowship included worship and burial practices as well as educational opportunities. However, the passage of time and generational change eroded any semblance of spiritual fellowship and segregation became visible in the graveyard and church of St. Phillips. The lock church was originally built in 1823 for the segregated congregation which had been established the year before at the request of the Salem Female Missionary Society as spiritual outreach to the enslaved population in and around Salem. The white sisters instructed in reading and writing until it was outlawed by the state on January the 1st, 1831. The congregation was led by a white Moravian minister until 1946 when lay pastor Dr. George Hall, a Moravian from Nicaragua was appointed. The lock church was built adjacent to the Negro God's acre. The burial ground established in 1816 at the former parish graveyard. This new burial ground formally signaled segregation in Salem as Black Moravians were no longer a loud burial in God's acre. A selection of recovered gravestones is interpreted through art inside the lock church. Warren Parker, an African-American exhibit designer from New York worked closely with Old Salem staff to create and tell stories of pleasant who served among the Cherokee at Spring Place Mission, Bodney, the administration farms manager and eight others who were buried next door. The bust of Christian David is actually a portrait of Mr. Parker. Archeology has been invaluable to the process of understanding and revealing the graveyards and without intrusion into the burials. Like the church, the land is sacred. In the Moravian tradition, St. Philip's sisters prepare the graveyard on Good Friday for the resurrection. Located graves are marked as adult or child as grave size indicated. One gravestone was found during archeology. Squire was enslaved at the freeze woolen mill and died while digging a well that collapsed on him. A portion of the graveyard remains unexcavated and there may be other gravestones in situ. 19th century Salem saw a significant transition towards industrialization. An expanding population brought about for Syte County in 1849. Not wanting the new courthouse in Salem, land was sold for the new county seat named Winston. In 1856, the theocracy ended and Salem became a regular municipality. Architecture informs change. And by this time, the stylish Greek revival Salem Academy building had replaced the old minehouse that linked to the early congregation town. Columns and hoop skirts recall the old south. The figures may not all be Moravian but the scene reflects a southern town nonetheless. When the brick church was built in 1861, it was placed against the edge of the parish graveyard. It was built for the enslaved congregation and known as the African church in Salem. Although the congregation remained small, special services such as the Love Feast could draw 200 or more. In 1890, the need for education space prompted a front addition. Since the rear lot drops off so dramatically. However, that meant building over part of the parish graveyard. This complicated archeology and interior floors were pulled up for investigation. Moravian graveyard list recorded 131 burials in the graveyards. Since nearly all are unidentified, a memorial plaque on the front of the restored church recorded the name and death date of each interred person. The sanctuary is powerful sacred space and the historic building is now the church home for St. Phillips. It has served numerous functions since the restoration and is also interpreted space for the museum with Moravian church traditions highlighted including the Love Feast and the importance of Sunday school as a religious and educational opportunity. The balcony displays historical information, connections to Happy Hill and a Sunday school exhibit with class rosters where visitors often recognize names. People sitting in these pews, these same pews, learned of freedom in 1865. The Reverend Seth Clark chaplain of the 10th Ohio Regiment, Reginald Orders 32, which began, quote, to remove a doubt which seems to exist in the minds of some of the people of North Carolina. It is hereby declared that by virtue of the proclamation of the president of the United States, dated January the 1st, 1863, all persons in this state, here to four held as slaves are now free, end quote. Education was a priority for the freedmen and church leaders, Lewis Hagee and Alexander Vogler with Robert Wall negotiated with the Salem trustees for school land. Former Schumann farmland near the Walltown road was selected and the freedmen built the school in 1867. Housing, the formerly enslaved people in Salem was not welcomed by all residents. And although some blacks were living in town, the church ultimately created a freedman's neighborhood across the creek, also on former Schumann land. Streets were laid out and lots created which were sold for $10 each, named Liberia. It was the first black neighborhood in Winston Salem and was quickly known as Happy Hill. The church complex includes the connection to Happy Hill and follows the historic pathway at the rear of the brick church. The Happy Hill overlook brings the neighborhood relationship into old Salem. It also connects back to the occupation of Dr. Henry Schumann, who would only move to Salem from Bethania if he could bring his enslaved woman, Celia, and her children. Regulations were emphasized in 1814 to prohibit individuals from owning slaves in town. So Dr. Schumann lived across the creek on the former Salem farm. His enslaved population grew until 1836 when he decided to move back into town. He manumitted his enslaved and paid their passage to Liberia, the new country in Africa established by the American Colonization Society for freed slaves from America. Landscape that might otherwise be unknown is made visible. A year ago, the Liberia-Salem connection was revealed in Happy Hill through the city's historic marker program made possible through old Salem's research. Leaving the church complex, we'll stop by the adjacent residential lot where a partial facade represents the George and Mary Catherine Heggie House. The Heggies owned a prosperous farm south of Salem and in the 1850s, they renovated a Salem house into this stylish two-story Greek revival home. When they moved into Salem, they brought three enslaved people with them, Rachel and two sons, Louis and Thomas. The slave schedule from the 1860 federal census enumerated them and one slave house. Rachel had four other children who were enslaved elsewhere and their father, George, was enslaved by Wilhelm Fries. Rachel and Louis became Moravians. 15 years ago, archaeology revealed the cellar and front print of the Heggie House. The house had been removed in the 1920s for Central School, which with its full basement had unfortunately eradicated much of the lot, including what we think was the slave house circled in red. After emancipation, Louis, like many formerly enslaved people, took the surname of his former enslaver. The 1870 federal census was the first to enumerate Louis Heggie by name. He was counted at his residence in Winston with his wife Diana and two children. Louis Heggie was a leader in his church and community. In 1914, Bishop Ron Tyler named the African church St. Philip's Moravian and four years later, when Louis Heggie died, he was buried on the second St. Philip's graveyard. We'll head north from here to explore more hidden town stories in Old Salem. Our tour route will make a loop, up Church Street and back down Main Street. Old Salem is a series of restoration vignettes. So we'll go back and forth in time as we travel through the district. So please keep this in mind. The 1860 federal census was the final one prior to emancipation and described for Scythe County with about 14% of the population enslaved. Approximately 135 men, women and children were enslaved by Salem residents, including 48 at the Fries Mill. In town, we think enslaved people lived on their enslavers residential lots, but there were also people with farm lots as well. Hidden town volunteer, Moe Lowe, has been researching the Kuhn family who had various domestics, including two enslaved women. When the Kuhns lived in the T. Baggybilt House on Salem Square, Dr. Kuhn enslaved Sarah, who probably lived in the home. She died in 1827 and was buried on the Negro God's Acre, where her parents Timothy and Fanny were also interred. This view from 1882 looks north on Church Street, which is our path, and shows George Hage and Timothy Vogler standing in the foreground. Out of view to the right is the African Church. The circle buildings are ones we speculate were used as slave houses, as counted in the census. Research indicates the enumerated slave houses were detached buildings with other primary uses, such as a kitchen, a laundry, or a shop. None of these survive. The top circle is a building at the second Kuhn House on Main Street that Moe speculates as the slave house. The circle shows the approximate location of that building behind the house today. Charity was purchased by Dr. Kuhn in 1842 and may have lived there. She was Squire's wife, and you recall he was killed in the well collapse at the freeze mill. When Charity died in 1870, she was buried in the freeze plot at the second St. Philip's graveyard, which had been established in 1859 adjacent to Salem Cemetery. Moe and I visited with the archival plat to think about Charity, whose grave is unmarked. Moe has placed a sheet of paper where we think Charity is. We'll proceed up Church Street towards Salem College. Tom erases information and truth. The Bonson House was built in 1925. It's a dormitory. The angled sidewalk at the giant Deodor cedar, marks where Bloom Street was called Kuhn Street in the early 20th century. Kuhn Street and Main Street with Church Street formed a triangle where African-American housing stood in the late 1800s. The photograph of Chris Bottom corresponds to the Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, which noted Negro Tenements. Emerging past Gramley Library is the Schober House. Gottlieb Schober was a man of many talents, and in 1790, established a paper mill on Peters Creek. And since it was outside of town, he was allowed to purchase enslaved people for work there. Enslaved families did not typically live together. The married David and Betsy Ann were associated with the Negro congregation in Salem, but owned by different people. He was enslaved in town and likely lived in the detached brick kitchen that once stood behind the Schober House. Betsy Ann was enslaved on the nearby wall plantation. They had four children, but Betsy Ann died at the age of 24. And it is likely her children were raised on the wall plantation by her mother and sister. Three of her children died young, but son James Francis went on to greatness. After freedom, he grew up to attend and graduate from Lincoln University, followed by a medical school at Howard University. He became a highly respected physician in Wilmington, North Carolina, but died at the young age of 35, leaving a wife and two daughters. It is said that he worked himself to death as the only black physician in a city with over 10,000 African Americans. Salem was established as the central town of Wachovia with formal occupation in 1772. Ambitious Moravian plans were constrained by a small population and renting labor white and black was a solution that brought them into direct relationship with enslaved people. Free and enslaved blacks contributed to the building and function of Wachovia. And in Salem, they were recorded as digging clay, breaking stone, making bricks and roof tiles, cutting wood and assisting in construction. Salem Square was the open green space around which important community buildings were placed with residents nearby. Industry in the tavern were at the town edges and farms further beyond. The consecration of the Gmine House in 1771 included the baptism of the first enslaved person purchased in Wachovia called Sam, he became Johannes Samuel, a Moravian single brother. He was a spiritual equal who was owned by his brothers. He returned to Bethabara where he later married and raised a family. His oldest child, Anna Maria Samuel, was 11 when she moved to Salem in 1793 to enter the older girls' choir and attend school. She is the only nine black Moravian to have lived in the single sister's house. Diagonally across the square is the single brother's house, built 250 years ago. Peter Oliver was an enslaved Moravian who lived there. Rented in 1784 as an 18 year old in Bethania, Peter Oliver had already begun directing his enslaved life with forward thinking tenacity. He pressed the Moravians to buy him, requested baptism, lived in the single brother's house and leveraged his acquired artisan skills from the pottery and his Moravianness to negotiate his work placement. Then in 1800, he was the key participant in a strategy for his emancipation. He married the free Christina Bass in 1802 and leased a four acre farm north of Salem where they started a family. The Oliver farm site is currently in design as a new park along the Strollway. And I'll just add that this is the only black Moravian household in this such setting that we know of. Peter and Christina have many descendants and you may recognize a famous local one, Chris Paul, the NBA All Star. The new Salem church was consecrated in 1800 and its architecture speaks to changing styles and ideas. It was completed 31 years after the half timbered single brother's house, the same year that Sam was purchased. Frederick William Marshall designed both buildings. The new church was stylistically removed from the early architecture and marks an attitudinal shift as by then black worshipers were being held at the church door or turned away as segregation gained traction. The native African Phoebe died in 1861 and her funeral was held in this church because of the expected crowd. Over 90 years of age at death, Phoebe and her husband, Bodney, were already communicate Moravians in Bathabra when they were purchased in 1810 by the Waukeve administration and brought to Salem where they lived at the Negro quarter southeast of town. They were two of the first three communicants of the Negro congregation in 1822. She was buried on the second St. Philip's graveyard. Bodney had pre-deceased her in 1829 and was buried in the Negro God's acre. They have many descendants today. The Moravian ethic of education for girls prompted non Moravian families to request a boarding school in Salem. The girls boarding school brought new dynamics to the town with students from families across North Carolina and the South. The school used enslaved labor, a reality that prompted Salem to examine the role of slavery in its history. Salem Academy and College joined the university studying slavery in 2017. This is a consortium of more than 60 colleges and universities examining their slave past. In 1810, Betsy, a daughter of Phoebe and Bodney was a 10-year-old purchased by Inspector Steiner for the girl's school. Conrad Kreuser, curator of the single sisters who ran the school, soon rented Sam for single sisters household management. Concerned about their proximity to one another led to Kreuser's purchase of both. Betsy and Sam were moved to his farm and soon married. Their first child was born the next year. Salem, slavery in Salem was generational. As we climbed Church Street, we passed the parsonage. This is the house that Dr. Schumann moved to after he sent his freed slaves to Liberia and left his farm across Salem Creek. Next door is the house built by the important Moravian mason, Gottlob Kraus, for Dr. Veerling. Kraus owned enslaved people who may have worked on his construction projects. The Veerling household used much labor, including owned and rented enslaved people for domestic work and gardening. Penny was an enslaved woman Veerling purchased in 1807 and at his death, 10 years later, she was part of his personal property sale and valued at $50. The Veerling house became the headquarters for Wachovia's administrator, Ludwig von Schwinnitz and a church owned man called Davy was moved from the Negro quarter to serve him. It is assumed that Davy lived in the house. He was married to Rose, but they did not live together. Von Schwinnitz was a noted botanist and had a large terraced garden. He said this about Davy, quote, without his help, it would be impossible to cultivate the extensive garden and the yard, end quote. Davy was baptized as Christian David and soon became a church leader. Theodore Schultz followed Von Schwinnitz as administrator and built a house for Davy in 1835. It is the only domestic site of an enslaved person to have been explored archeologically in old Salem. We have been working with Middle Tennessee State University on augmented reality. Because the black presence in Salem is mostly invisible, a virtual landscape may help to better understand the history. The Verling Lot is adjacent to the RGK Davis Center which houses the Moravian Archives and the Moravian Music Foundation. This remarkable archive is the source of much of what we know about people of African descent in Salem and Wachovia. The accessibility to the history is due to the Moravian record-keeping tradition. At the Verling House, Church Street transitions to Cedar Avenue, the western boundary of God's acre. Through the portal to the oldest part of the graveyard, the married brother's square is at the right and includes early white and black Moravians. There were seven people of African descent buried in God's acre before the segregation. Phoebe's day old infant was the last interred in 1813. Reversing course back to the Verling House, we passed the Wachovia Garden at the rear of the Bilo House where numerous outbuildings were once located. Edward Bilo ran a successful mercantile business here and had a foundering north of Salem. The 1860 census recorded Bilo with 11 enslaved people and one slave house. Fronting Main Street, the Bilo House is a monument to commercial and industrial wealth in Salem. We wonder who are these African Americans in front of the grand building at the end of the 19th century? Bilo's wife, Amanda Freese, grew up across the street in the first house. Her father, Wilhelm Freese, received permission to purchase an enslaved woman for domestic work in 1821. From that time on, he regularly pushed against the slave regulations to purchase more people. As he developed a farm northwest of town, he moved enslaved people there, many of whom were used at his son Francis's Woollen Mill. In the 1860 census, Wilhelm owned 20 people and one was Wes. Wesley Freese's portrait is shown here with descendants of enslaver and enslaved. By the early 20th century, the neighboring lots were home to barbers, one black and one white. In 1911, Mr. Lee Smith was an African American barber who had his home and his shop on Main Street with his wife, Fanny. He was part of the black presence in Salem prior to segregation. Now let's go back a hundred years from Mr. Smith to a Salem where leadership was very concerned about the numbers of enslaved people in town and objected to individual ownership. Renting enslaved labor was a compromise and there were various male day laborers who were rented. For domestic work, the single sisters called service sisters provided much in the way of household and garden help. But after the American Revolution, there was an increase in the number of enslaved women and girls in town for cooking, cleaning and childcare as indicated by the blue dots. Black people became an increasingly normalized part of Salem's landscape. The purple shaded area is the 500 block of Main Street where Matthew Mitch had an enslaved woman in his house in 1784. At the corner of Maine and Bank, Johannes writes rented an enslaved girl in 1788 for domestic work, then bought an elderly enslaved woman. He lived in the predecessor house on the lot where the Cape Fear Bank was built in 1847. The 1860 census recorded banker Israel Lash with an enslaved man in one slave house. In 1879, the Salem bank assets moved to Winston and became Wachovia Bank. I'm just as pleased to give a Zoom tour today as many old Salem streets are inaccessible while the city complete sewer work, but I did want to photograph Winkler Bakery. Christian Winkler owned and rented enslaved girls for domestic work in the 1810s. It was noted that because he had a journeyman, it would be, quote, a doubtful affair, unquote, for him to hire a single sister. From the intersection at Main Street at Academy, the view west is toward the industrial sites. The tannery was a church-operated enterprise and enslaved people there were among the first held in Salem. Academy Street was called the Road to the Shallow Ford and a major connector to and from Salem. A Mandingo warrior captured in battle ended up in Salem in 1771 as an enslaved tannery worker. Called Sambo, he had endured the cruel middle passage to a French island and was later taken to Virginia before he was brought to Wacovia to be sold. In Salem, he resisted only to be punished. He ultimately sought conversion and was baptized with the name Abraham. He later married Sarah and he and his wife likely lived at the tannery complex. A respected tradesman and a communicant, he remained enslaved and we saw his grave marker in God's acre. The community store was a church business managed by the astute Trogat baggy. He also brokered many slave purchases for the church. He received permission to buy an enslaved woman for domestic work and in 1775 when Sambo was punished for running away, the Salem diary recorded, quote, Brother Baggy had his negris punished also. He is hitherto done it himself but seemed tired, end quote. In 1847, the church abandoned the slave rules as unenforceable. Not all Salem Arabians were slaveholders but individual ownership increased. Bethy was a 16 year old purchased by John Vogler in 1848. His wife, Christina was chronically ill and Bethy was essential to household function. Bethy may have stayed in the house attic but likely she slept on the floor near Christina. Bethy was baptized in 1851 as Elizabeth Jane. She was a baptismal sponsor for many candidates. However, her situation after emancipation is currently unknown. Two doors down from the Bogler house enslaved people were documented at the Bloom lot from 1815 when John Christian Bloom built his house. It is speculated that in 1823 kitchen on the Bloom lot was the enumerated slave house in 1860. North Carolina State University is assisting with geophysics as a first step to the archeological process of excavation. Across the street Union General William Palmer stayed overnight in Mayor Joshua Bonner's house on April the 10th, 1865. His 3,000 troops camped at the brother's spring across Salem Creek. In the coming weeks Confederates from General Robert E. Lee's surrendered army passed through Salem daily. Then on May 14th, the 10th Ohio volunteer cavalry entered Salem and remained for two months. From the outset Salem was in many ways a sophisticated and cosmopolitan place within the global Moravian world. In this highly organized and religious community the Moravian sought separation from the world but commerce was the economic engine and that meant dealings with non Moravians and their custom styles and traditions. The tavern was a critical interface with non Moravians and operated with the use of enslaved workers from its opening in 1772 until emancipation as maids, field hands, hustlers, waiters for kitchen work and housework. Hittentown volunteer Kelly Dixon is researching the tavern and has identified about 50 different enslaved people who were owned by the church or the tavern keeper or rented. Across the street was a field and storage building for servants who accompanied their enslavers to Salem. We have hosted two slave dwelling projects with high school students sleeping where enslaved slept at the tavern and the single brother's house using the historic place as a teaching tool. Across from the tavern in the 1840s a new building was used by Dr. Zevely as his office and an overflow in with enslaved labor as well. The native African Timothy lived his final years here dying at over 100. He never learned to speak English and interpreted as a sign of resistance. He was buried in the Negro God's acre as was his wife Fanny. Their descendant Spencer McCall is writing a family history and his cousin Lucretia Berry works in racism awareness. We're heading downhill to the lower part of Salem that until the 1830s was used by the tavern for pasture and fields. Henry Limeback was probably on his brother's roof to make this photograph of the south end of Salem. In the foreground is a laundry that we speculate was the enumerated slave house on this lot in 1860 where an enslaved girl may have lived. Last year, Dayana Johnson, a Savannah College of Art and Design student used her master's thesis project to research and create a virtual reality experience for the building's interior. Here are extracted elements of her work. Main Street at Walnut Street speaks to neighbors and relationships. At the Severs Cabinet Shop, William was one of three enslaved men. He was a brother of Louis Heggie. While enslaved, William married Agnes who with much of her family was enslaved across the street at the Limleys. She was a granddaughter of Phoebe and Bodney. Their first child, born enslaved, was baptized at the African Church. The second child, called Tiny, was baptized in 1867 in the home church parsonage. William took the Severs name and we believe he lived in the shop after emancipation. Formerly enslaved by John Severs, who had studied under free black artist Thomas Day, William carried that training in his cabinet making. The 1870 census recorded William and Tiny with grandmother Rachel as a household. Aggie and her firstborn must have died before 1870. Another enslaved man in the cabinet shop was Richard who also took the Severs name. In 1866, he and Aggie's cousin, Anna LaVenia-Folts were married in the African Church. Her father, Louis, a son of Phoebe and Bodney had been enslaved on the Foltz lot across the street. Her mother was enslaved by Wilhelm Freese. This brings us to the end of Main Street. Across the creek in Happy Hill, Richard Severs and Aggie's brother Ned Limley were neighbors again, now as free men. They were the first property owners in Happy Hill in 1872. Happy Hill has been called the mother of all black neighborhoods in Winston-Salem and its connection to Salem runs deep. Our expansion of the National Historic Landmark District successfully made the case to expand across Salem Creek and include much of the neighborhood and the cemetery. Cheryl Harry, formerly adult Salem, is founder and executive director of Triad Cultural Arts. She is leading the effort to create a black heritage center in Happy Hill. So support for Happy Hill is an essential part of our hidden town work. We are building on many people's work, including old Salem staff, beginning with Frank Wharton in the 1950s and to the present, including genealogical work by Mel White, former director of African-American programming at Old Salem. For several decades, outside scholars have contributed much information with John Sinsbox's work as basic text. Interns and volunteers are invaluable research help and I'm especially grateful to Dr. Jake Ruderman at Wake Forest for consistent support with interns. The Hidden Town Tour has presented a few of the countless stories. The buildings and landscape of old Salem provide valuable tools for thinking and learning about people. And I hope you will be inspired to visit with new ideas and perspectives. Consideration and study can reveal truth and the mechanisms that may have erased or hidden it. With the responsibility of then addressing the damage that remains. There is much work to do as a museum, as a community and as individuals. History tells us about ourselves so much. I'll look forward to it. Martha, thank you so much for that presentation. That was an amazing presentation, incredibly informative and provocative. It's exactly the kind of theme that is really important in, or important for today. Such a timely event, a timely topic. And thank you for teaching us about some of these hidden stories and the hidden history that's part of this area. And thank you for bringing that out into public education and being part of our civic education. Very important, thank you. Thank you. Looks like we have a lot of Q and A's so far. So let's move to this. And for those of you who are attending, we will do our best to get to each of these questions, but we're running on a little time. So hopefully we can answer three or four of these. We will do our best. Yes, so is this recorded? It will be recorded and we will be posting this on the video page of the Becoming American Conference webpage. So look for it there. Good. Okay, so those are mostly comments. My ancestors were in Causewell. I've just been visiting that area for the first time as well. Okay, I must log off now. Thank you. Great work, Martha, and I retire here and you tell these stories. I hope you understand why. I can really see a change in your presentation. You keep expanding through time and with detail, a lot more detail on families today than I've heard in these talk is really fascinating. I see the work that all your researchers have been doing on the individual biographies bearing fruit in this that you can actually now place stories on the ground and tie us from Salem to Happy Hill with family stories, which is very compelling. I know you cannot see other people's questions unless you're a moderator, but that's the, because we've got 54 people or 64 maybe in the room, I can't, yeah, 54. This is a way that we do it. We filter the questions. Yeah, I just thought that I'd actually open that up and allow people to see the questions. So you should be able to see other people's questions now. More nice comments. I had a question for you, Martha. So of those Salem black members, how many living in Salem when they went to Liberia, how many wins? Dr. Schumann manumitted 17 people, I believe it was, and six more free people joined the group that went to Liberia. There was a love feast in the log church and then they were taken to Wilmington, I believe, to set sail for Africa. So he had increased his population of enslaved people while he was on the farm. And interestingly, that farm, which had never made any, never done very well before, was suddenly very successful with the use of enslaved people. So he was a successful farmer as well as the town doctor. One of these questions, references, Mel White, I'm glad to see you're using his work. He was there for many years back in the 90s when you guys were doing the work on St. Phillips. There's an interesting couple of questions. One, you said slavery in Salem was generational. Do you mean generational from the African-American side, from the Bravian side, or both? Both, all. But we see that as slaves increase, the number of enslaved people increased in Salem that of course you're gonna have families and children and grandchildren. And I use the example of Phoebe and Bodney who were here in Salem in 1810 and their daughter Betsy then had children. And then they goes on to the Lemleys, Ned Lemleys, who's the first resident in Happy Hills. So slavery in Salem was urban slavery and it wasn't like plantation slavery where you have a row of cabins and enslaved people are living there. In Salem, people were dispersed. The families were dispersed. And not only in Salem, but throughout Wacovia. You might have portions of the family that lived in Salem, portions that lived in Bethania or in another part of the Moravian community or the non-Moravian community. So it was generational in the sense that it perpetuated. And also we know that oftentimes slaves were given to children by their father. We know of many instances in Salem where enslaved people were given to daughters who lived in Salem or they moved between white families as well. So as Mel White will say, it's crucial to understand the genealogy of the white people so you can understand better the genealogy of the black people because there is that close association. And Mel's work is crucial to what we understand today and what we're learning because of his great genealogy. He did amazing work. Did I see something on the question about Peter Oliver and explaining that? Guessing about Peter Oliver's question? Yeah. And somebody was asking, how is it that an enslaved person was able to buy a farm and live back here in Salem? Okay, well, I couldn't go into any detail, but Peter Oliver's story is fascinating and unique. And from his memoir, it tells us that he was able to buy his freedom. Well, that's what we've always understood. But in 2019, one of our Salem staff members, Mary Comer, who's a Moravian, discovered on the internet on the Lancaster History site in Pennsylvania some new information about Peter Oliver. And it turns out that it was a real inside job. And it was that Peter Oliver, who was owned by the church in Salem and through the representative of the church, Brother Stultz, it was arranged that Peter Oliver was sold to a man from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a Moravian and Mr. Brother Leonard. And this was recorded in the courthouse in Germantown. And then that was in March, I believe. And then by June, Peter Oliver went to Pennsylvania, I guess with Leonard or he met Leonard up there. And then Leonard and Peter Oliver went to the magistrate or the courthouse and presented themselves. And Peter Oliver said, I'm here and I'm held as this man's slave. And Pennsylvania had started phasing out slavery in the 1790s, it was sort of a phased thing, but this was in 1800. And so once Peter Oliver presented himself, the magistrates or the judge said, yes, it's unlawful to hold someone as an enslaved person here. And I declared that Peter Oliver is free. So this is in June of 1800 and he comes back to Salem and he wanted to get married and he went back to Pennsylvania evidently to try to find a wife who was unsuccessful. But there was a woman named Christina Bass who is called Mulatto and she is a free person. And she's working in a household in Salem as a domestic. And Peter Oliver and Christina are married. She becomes, she's baptized and becomes a communicant. And Peter Oliver asked to Lisa Farm. And so this is actually no information that we discovered in 2019, I think it was, tracking down where exactly it was and because it was a farm outside of Salem. But in fact, outside of Salem met just beyond the square, basically, because around the square was called in town and maybe four blocks away was outside of town. And so Peter Oliver leased a four acre farm, the Raving Archives has the lease and we have determined that it was on the springs on the town for Creek, which is just north of old Salem, actually on Liberty Street today, where if you know where the Children's Museum, Coliteum South is, it was just north of there. And that's where Walter Hood is designing the park. And Peter and Christina had six children. The first three died as day old infants and they are buried in God's acre. And the three later children all lived into adulthood and that's where this great number of descendants come from today. So Peter Oliver's story is completely unique. He was amazingly tenacious and but he died in 1810 and was buried in God's acre. So I hope that answers that question. That was a great answer. We have a question from Larry Ties. And he asks, how did the Moravians view manumission and colonization? I'm sorry, what? Oh, how did he view manumission and colonization? How did the Moravians view manumission? You mean in general? Yeah. I don't know. You know of any Moravians that freed their slaves? Other than perhaps Dr. Schumann? I can't call out names. I'm sure there were Eric. I hope you have that information in the article. Schumann was very unique because he wanted to move back into town and he had to do that. And of course, this is during all the complicated conversations between the leadership and the residents and the pushback and people wanting to own slaves and the mill getting started. And so Schumann just had to do that. And so he did. But he didn't move immediately back into town. It wasn't until a few years later. Oh, here's another example. When Gottlieb Schober died in 1837, no, 38, 39. Anyway, his will manumitted two people that he owned, Enoch and his wife. Enoch was a child of Timothy and Panny. And Enoch and his wife were sent to Liberia as well. Schumann's is followed the same pattern that Schumann had done three years earlier. So that's another instance. But that's not something I really know a lot about. And that's something we need to understand is manumission within the community. And Larry, if you know of anything, please share. Yeah, absolutely. We probably have time for one more question. And I don't know if this is one that you can answer or perhaps Eric can answer this one. I'm intrigued with the depth that the story has, with this depth that the story has been buried. Is there documentation of the church's intentional desire to neglect this as part of the Moravian story? So I guess a question of intention on the part of the church to bury the history of enslaved individuals living in Sam. Well, I'll just say that it's reported. And when the Negro congregation was established in 1822, the diary of the Negro congregation in and around Salem was started. And so there was a recorded documentation by, or diary by the minister of the congregation. So that was, and that was a tradition of the Moravians in all of their congregations. So that was available. It was not in English, like most of the early documents of the Moravian archives and was translated in the 1980s. Of course, when the tornado impacted the old church, that really turned the whole tide on this. And Old Salem had already through gene caps had already begun thinking about people of African descent in Old Salem and infusing that into the visitor experience to a certain extent. But it was really the threat to the building that coalesced this group to do more and to save the building. And that really jumpstarted the whole effort to do more translations and to uncover the story. So I can't, I don't know about suppression. That's an Eric Elliott or archival question. But certainly the archives and Johnson's bot can say this, he was welcome to come in and read the German. And so, Eric. One of the things you'll find, if you go to the online records of the Moravians in North Carolina, volumes one through 13, you can find it at our website, www.moraviansarchives.org. In the first seven volumes alone, there are the stories of 70 named individual and slave persons in the index. But the story is designed to tell the story of the church with selective anecdotes of different parts of life, including encounters with Korean enslaved persons. So it's, the story narrative has a different purpose. And one of the purposes that is being realized in the course of the conversations of this conference is to hear about other stories in the records of the Moravians and look at the stories from other viewpoints rather than simply one viewpoint. One of the things that Old Salem, I think is dealing with Hidden Town is making evidence stories that have been there all along. But our attention has not been focused on those stories, but the stories that have been there, it has taken the work of like 20 years' worth of research, 30 years' worth of research to pull together from the records a fuller story, a fuller picture of these places. But the records are there. And I think in different seasons of the church's life, of different seasons of our culture, the way we tell stories about ourselves is a public discussion nowadays, discussion about how much we talk about things beyond the European colonization and creation of the United States. What we talk about the indigenous people who were here, the experience of the enslaved. And so having a fuller conversation about the fact that America was multi-cultural, multi-ethnic from the beginning, I think is a good curative to a single perspective on our world this day. Eric, I think that was really well said. That's exactly what I was going to say. It's, the stories have always been there. It's a matter of the society having a willingness to hear the stories, to focus on the stories and to bring these stories out to the public. I think the climate of today, the issues that have happened around race have again focused our attention on some of these stories that have not been at the forefront and it's the culture events that are helping bring this awareness back and bring our attention to some of these stories that indeed need to be told. Well, I'll just add that many of the stories I told you all just now, we didn't know four years ago. I mean, it's a matter of immersing in the documentation and then connecting the dots. These are not, I mean, this is a part of why research is so valuable because the stories are there but they're not there to see and read. You have to put the stories together from many different sources. So for instance, when our interns come in and work, I have, there's a list of primary and secondary source documentation they have to go through to tease out this information. So it's laborious and time consuming and requires a lot of different people working. So it's the stories have got to be told but we have to dedicate ourselves to doing that and all kinds of people, all different perspectives as I said at the beginning of this hour is that it takes all different perspectives to come at these stories and to find the information so that they can be shared. Absolutely. Okay, we are out of time and so I would like to thank everyone for their participation. I encourage everyone to go to the next walk and learn event that is now underway. So please exit out of this Zoom webinar and enter the next Zoom webinar. It's already underway and that is focusing on the collection at the Renault, the house of American art. So I'm heading over there right now. Martha, you're more than welcome to join us and she'll be over there as well and there'll be discussion or Q and A after that. So thank you everyone. Thank you, Martha. Thank you. Good afternoon. Goodbye.