Witness Stones

By St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church on Episcopal News Service on June 22, 2023

During the COVID-19 pandemic, St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Wilton, Connecticut, began to explore the church’s complicity with racism since its founding in 1802. At its 2020 annual convention, The Episcopal Church in Connecticut adopted a resolution “to direct each Parish, Worshipping Community, and Intentional Episcopal Community to take steps to discover and document historic complicity in racism in their parish and communities.” Early research showed that founding members of St. Matthew’s were enslavers while later, many freed Black individuals had been active members.

Known as the “Georgia of the North” by abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, Connecticut was a key participant in the Triangular Trade that brought Africans to the Americas via the Middle Passage. Slavery existed in New England just as it did in the South in colonial times, with Connecticut finally abolishing it in 1848. Parishioners learned these facts alongside personal stories of people enslaved in Connecticut, which were collected from primary documents by middle school students and their youth leaders of congregations in three different towns in Connecticut during the first six months of 2023. Continue reading.

“The story of the African-American people is the story of the settlement and growth of American itself, a universal tale that all people should experience.” —Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Beginning in October 2021, St. Matthew’s (through our Social Justice & Racial Healing group) began to explore how we might engage with The Witness Stones Project as one avenue of exploring our church’s complicity with racism over the course of history since the church’s founding in 1802. We recognized that during the 17th and 18th century many individuals, including clergy in local communities, had enslaved others – Indigenous and African. In Connecticut, our towns were settled for the most part by Puritans who came to be known as the Congregational Church and soon after the Church of England that became the Episcopal Church. And our communities enslaved others.

We knew this project was one we could not, and should not, do alone. So we began to seek partners from neighboring congregations. As people of faith, no matter our doctrine or belief system, we all believe in the dignity of every human being. In the spirit of collaboration, we give thanks to all who supported this work in a multitude of ways: spiritually, financially, and educationally – especially The Episcopal Church in Connecticut, St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, The Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Westport, St. Paul’s on the Green in Norwalk, Wilton Historical Society, and Dr. Julie Hughes whose research provided us with more than we could ever have or imagined.

On June 10, 2023 we celebrated the installation of our first Witness Stone Memorial to commemorate John C. Wallyat Wilton Historical Society where the stone will be placed for the wider community to view. Read the John Wally Program Book from the ceremony as well as Comments by Julie Hughes sharing how important this acknowledgment of John C. Wally’s humanity is to his descendants, and Cannot Unring that Bell by Nate Pawelek of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Westport.

The community in Wilton gathered on June 10, 2023, to remember and honor John C. Wally. We invite you to click on the image before to read the full program.