Forty years of combing through old documents for clues about this small seaport's black history told her what physical evidence did not - that a few blocks from the trendy downtown shops, buried and all but forgotten below the brick and asphalt of Chestnut Street, lay the remains of Portsmouth's earliest black inhabitants, freed and enslaved.
"You can park on it, if you've got a quarter," said Cunningham, who co-authored "Black Portsmouth: Three Centuries of African-American Heritage" with Mark Sammons.
The evidence included 19th century newspaper clippings that said workmen laying pipe had "disturbed numerous remains of negroes" and a map in Charles Brewster's "Rambles about Portsmouth," published in 1859. The map showed the "Negro Burial Ground" at the foot of Chestnut Street, then Prison Lane, in 1705.
_________________________
As a guard at the notorious Portsmouth Naval Prison, I lived in the town for over a years time, and everyone knew what was under Chestnut Street. It was considered an old potters-field of sorts, and many such pauper graveyards dotted the area. Thousands of Caucasian burial sites, and yes, folks were certain that a few score Negro graves had to be there as well, and why this moonbat chooses to focus on that particular interment is beyond my ken.
Beg pardon? Can't get a million dollar grant to study the issue, then force the City to tear up half of the streets to see where plain old white folk were buried?
Good point.
No comments:
Post a Comment