• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content

Witness Stones Project, Inc.

Restoring History & Honoring Humanity

  • Home
  • What Is the Witness Stones Project
    • What Is the Witness Stones Project?
    • Praise for the Witness Stones Project
    • Annual Reports
    • Our Local Affiliates
    • Speakers Bureau
    • Who We Are
    • FAQ
  • Those We Remember
  • Our Communities
  • News
  • Events
  • Contact
  • Give Now
  • Show Search
Hide Search
You are here: Home / News

News

Witness Stones Old Lyme Installs 12 More Plaques Honoring Enslaved People as Five-Year Project Sunsets, Brings Total to 60

WSP · May 30, 2025 ·

Soprano Lisa Williamson moved attendees with her performance of the American spiritual “Steal Away” and gospel hymn “His Eye is on the Sparrow.” All photos by LymeLine.

By Elizabeth Regan on LymeLine.com on May 30, 2025

OLD LYME–Ten small brass plaques installed Friday morning on the Sill Lane Green are there to fill holes left by untold stories.

Cesar was about 15-years-old when he was purchased for 80 pounds by Reynold Marvin Jr. in 1730. Zacheus Still, born enslaved to Richard Lord Jr. in 1726, served in the French and Indian War and the American Revolution. A 26-year-old known to history only as ‘Negro Woman’ was recorded as being healthy and “capable at housework” when she was sold in 1802 by Enoch Lord Jr.

The information was culled from scant references in land records, emancipation certificates, and other primary sources, according to the Witness Stones Old Lyme organization that for five years has been working to unearth the town’s history of enslavement.

The group on Friday held its fifth installation ceremony on the grounds of the Old Lyme Phoebe Griffin Noyes Library. The Sill Lane Witness Stones join 50 others laid in Lyme and Old Lyme since the organization began in 2020 as an offshoot of the wider Connecticut-based Witness Stones initiative.

The local group marks sites of enslavement and engages students in telling the stories behind the stones.

Witness Stones Old Lyme over the past five years has installed 60 plaques in locations shown here.

Witness Stones Old Lyme Chairwoman Carolyn Wakeman said the ceremony would be the last of its kind as the sun sets on the five-year-project.

“Together, we have restored missing history,” she said.

Wakeman described the map of Witness Stones as a wide circle extending from Lyme Street, past the Lower Town Green to McCurdy Road, south to the Black Hall section of town, north to Lyme and the East Lyme border, and back to Lyme Street’s northern end at the Sill Lane Green.

The 12 most recent installations were located on Sill Lane and at the Florence Griswold Museum.

“Even though we could easily place another 60 plaques to commemorate additional enslaved persons, the Witness Stones website will continue to provide new information about local enslavement, and middle school students will continue in the years ahead to engage with the Witness Stones curriculum and to focus on primary documents in the history of our town,” she said.

Poet Kate Rushin reads “Fishing for Shad” at the fifth and final Old Lyme Witness Stones installation ceremony.

Kate Rushin, a poet and Connecticut College professor, read her poem “Fishing for Shad” as one of four artists selected to remember in verse people enslaved on Lyme Street.

Rushin, along with Antoinette Brim-Bell, Marilyn Nelson and Rhonda Ward, are the Witness Stones Old Lyme poets. The group received a Health Improvement Collaborative of Southeastern Connecticut (HIC) Partnership Grant for Racial Equity.

Rushin wrote the poem from the perspective of Jack Howard. He was born enslaved to Samuel Mather Jr. in 1795 and willed to Mather’s son James in 1809.

She said she used Wakeman’s research, her own understanding of others, and her experiences to imagine how she might feel if she were the enslaved child.

“I don’t know where I belong/but I know I don’t belong here,” she wrote in the poem’s opening lines.

Led by Kate Rushin, the audience repeats the name of each enslaved person honored in the final installation ceremony. 

Rushin is also the author of Meditations on Generations, written for Jane. Born enslaved to Joseph Peck Jr. in 1726, Jane was sold for 25 pounds at the age of 3. No more information about her has been discovered.

“I’ll remember you, Jane,” she wrote in the poem’s final lines. “You were here./I will honor you, respect you;/hold you in my words.”

The poet, who identified herself as the great-granddaughter of an enslaved woman and the free man who released her from bondage, grew up in the first incorporated African-American town in New Jersey.

“This project is very personal to me, as it is to the other Witness Stones poets,” she said.

The Lyme-Old Lyme Middle School Chamber Choir, under the direction of Laura Ventres, sing a medley of American spiritual songs.

Eight Lyme-Old Lyme Middle School students followed Rushin with their own poems honoring those whose plaques were laid Friday.

Michelle Dean, curriculum director for the Lyme-Old Lyme Schools, described the five-year collaboration between Witness Stones Old Lyme and the schools as a shared commitment to telling the stories of “those whose voices for far too long have gone unheard.”

She said historical documents allowed students to confront complex truths and explore diverse perspectives that shaped the history of Lyme and Old Lyme.

Witness Stones Project founder Dennis Culliton, with grandson Joey Tomanelli, lauded the Old Lyme group as a model for other cities and towns. He is retiring from the Witness Stones Project next month after eight years.

“If our past is indeed our greatest teacher, then let it teach us this: We each have the capacity to honor others with dignity and respect,” she said. “Let us honor the past and our future by choosing humanity every day.”

 

Longmeadow Honors 18th-Century Enslaved Individuals with Ceremony

WSP · May 27, 2025 ·

 

By Julia O’Keefe on WWLP.com on May 27, 2025

LONGMEADOW, Mass. (WWLP) – A ceremony to honor two enslaved individuals from the 18th century was held at the First Church of Longmeadow Thursday morning.

These stones come as part of the Witness Stones project, and they not only show that slavery existed in Longmeadow, but also that it’s a history that must be acknowledged.

The project is a non-profit initiative that aims to restore the history of enslaved individuals who lived in communities here in the Northeast.

Students at Williams Middle School have researched Nicholas and Peter, two individuals enslaved by Reverend Stephen Williams in the 18th century. They delivered powerful remarks telling these individuals’ stories and emphasizing their humanity. Their teacher, Tracy Bradshaw, says that’s the goal of the project.

“They have created narratives, they have created artwork and poems, and now we feel like we have a complete history of our town and the kids are really hearing and listening to all of that,” said Bradshaw.

The Witness Stones Project emphasizes that slavery did not just exist in the South, and through its stones, educates students like those in Longmeadow.

The ceremony concluded with a blessing of the stones by Reverend Doug Bixby. Now, their goal is to place a plaque above the stones to explain their purpose to all who pass by.

You can donate to the project by visiting their website.

The Story of Frank

WSP · May 27, 2025 ·

Students at JP McCaskey High School created this video about “Frank,” a man enslaved by Edward Hand during the Revolutionary Era in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. This film is created in conjunction with the Witness Stones Project and Historic Rock Ford. Director: Hana Rebek. Advisor: Todd M. Mealy, Ph.D., Narrator: Lenwood Sloan. Assistant Producers: Hasset Tesfaye Desagn, Marianna Moronta Gonzelez, and Sona Rezhalova.

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Page 1
  • Page 2
  • Page 3
  • Page 4
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Page 138
  • Go to Next Page »

Connect with Us

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Project Partner

Copyright © 2025 · Witness Stones Project, Inc.
WitnessStones a trademark of Witness Stones Project, Inc.

  • Home
  • DEI Statement
  • Financial Statements
  • Privacy Policy
  • Strategic Plan