Witness Stones Project Inc.

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Witness Stones Project Installation Ceremony Honoring the Forgotten in Old Lyme

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Friday, June 3, 2022
10:00 a.m.
Hosted by Lyme-Old Lyme Middle School at
The Old Lyme-Phoebe Griffin Noyes Library
2 Library Lane, Old Lyme, Connecticut

 

The community is invited to gather on the Lawn of the Old Lyme Library to celebrate the second installation of Witness Stones on Lyme Street, extending this year to McCurdy Road. The program will include music, poetry, and words from community partners and guest speakers. World-renowned soprano Lisa Williamson and acclaimed saxophonist and U.S. Coast Guard Band conductor Richard Wyman will provide music. Twelve members of the Old Lyme Middle School chorus, led by Laura Ventres, will also contribute to the program.  Seventh-grade students from the Lyme-Old Lyme Middle School will read biographical poems they wrote to tell the life stories of Harry Freeman and Margaret Crosley Lewia. Using primary documents, the students researched these two enslaved town residents, making the story of local slavery tangible, personal, and relevant to their own lives.

Poets Marilyn Nelson, Rhonda M. Ward, Antoinette Brim-Bell, and Kate Rushin and Their Witness Stones Project Collaboration

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The poets’ collaborative project appears in the the November 2021 issue of Poetry magazine. The poems were commissioned by the Witness Stones Old Lyme Affiliate and were debuted at the June 4, 2021, Witness Stones Installation in Old Lyme. We invite you to read the interview about the collaboration and the full portfolio of poems:

What birthed this collaboration?

Although the four of us did think of ourselves as a “team” of poets, our project is less a collaboration among the four of us than a collaboration of each of us with the brilliant and generous historian who was our guide: Carolyn Wakeman. Carolyn is a former professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she served as faculty chair of the Graduate School of Journalism and director of the Asia-Pacific Program. Our collaboration grew from a larger collaboration with the Witness Stones Project, started in 2017 in Guilford, CT, with the mission to restore the history and honor the humanity of the enslaved individuals who helped build our communities. The Project provides research assistance, teacher development, and curriculum support to help middle and high school students study the history of slavery in their own communities. The students explore the lives of enslaved individuals through primary source documents, doing original historical research with the aim of remembering. And, of course, everyone involved in the project knows that we are collaborating not only with each other, but also with long-gone enslaved individuals who were denied voices during their lifetimes.
—Marilyn

Continue reading.

Witness Stones Celebration Highlighted Installation of Plaques Marking Sites of Enslavement in Old Lyme

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Katie Huffman, Director of the Old Lyme Phoebe Griffin Noyes Library, welcomes guests to the ceremony, the inaugural event for the library’s new patio. All photos from the ceremony courtesy of the Florence Griswold Museum. Courtesy of LymeLine.com.

OLD LYME –The Old Lyme Witness Stones Partnership held an installation ceremony last Friday, June 4, celebrating the town’s newly installed Witness Stones—historical plaques commemorating the lives of 14 individuals, who were once enslaved on Lyme Street.

The project expands the understanding of local history and honors the humanity and contributions of those formerly held in bondage. Continue reading.

Honoring the Forgotten

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By Jim Altman on Fox61 News

OLD LYME, Conn. — The Witness Stones Project, a non-profit initiative that honors enslaved people that worked and lived in Connecticut centuries ago has now made its mark in Old Lyme.

Outside the Phoebe Griffin Noyes Library, a ceremony took place to recognize 14 Witness Stones that are along Lyme Street in town. Continue reading.

Witness Stones Dedicated to 14 Enslaved in Old Lyme

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By Cate Hewitt in CTExaminer on June 4, 2021

OLD LYME — Cato, Lewis Lewia, Humphrey, Caeser, Jack Howard, Jenny Freeman, Luce, Crusa, Nancy Freeman, Temperance Still, Jane, Pompey Freeman, Samuel Freeman, and Arabella — 14 African Americans who were once enslaved along what is now Lyme St.

Until recently, their history had been almost entirely unknown and untold, and few people knew the history of slavery in Connecticut. Continue reading.

Old Lyme Installs Witness Stones

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Courtesy of NBC Connecticut

From NBC News Connecticut on June 4, 2021

Stones honoring the lives of formerly enslaved people now line Lyme Street in Old Lyme. The fourteen plaques are called “witness stones” and are designed to help people learn about and honor the enslaved people who lived in town.

“To help people understand the true history of their town because you lose things when you forget,” said Pat Wilson Pheanious.

Wilson Pheanious is the co-chair of the board of directors for the Witness Stones Project. The project has helped communities across Connecticut, including Guilford and New Haven, remember those who have gone unrecognized for so long. Continue reading.

Student Poetry from Lyme-Old Lyme Middle School Students

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Seventh-grade students from the Lyme-Old Lyme Middle School wrote poems to tell the life stories of Jenny Freeman and Lewis Lewia. 

Jenny Freeman
By Ilona Binch

Sun shining through the windows.
Children running through the halls.
There were joyful voices in the air
Even though nothing was right at all.

I was knitting socks and gloves
For children that weren’t mine.
My children worked for families that weren’t ours.
Their children got toys – my children got scars.

My body was their property.
To the Noyes my enslavers.
I took care of their children,
But my thoughts were of mine.

When I was “Old Jenny,”
I worked and worked not even getting a penny.
I would care, and I would clean.
I was nothing, not even a thing

When I was a “Freeman,”
I was something
I helped others be free like me.
No one should have to suffer the indignities of slavery.

[Read more…] about Student Poetry from Lyme-Old Lyme Middle School Students

New Generation of Historians Reveals Untold Stories in Old Lyme

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Marilyn Nelson prompts the audience to repeat each of 14 names after she reads each one during the installation ceremony for the Witness Stones placed along Lyme Street at the Old Lyme-Phoebe Griffin Noyes Library. (Dana Jensen/The Day)

By Elizabeth Regan in The Day on June 4, 2021

Old Lyme — Though they are the town’s youngest historians, they are among the first to reveal centuries-old stories of the people enslaved on Lyme Street.

Seventh graders at Lyme-Old Lyme Middle School this year pieced together the stories of Jenny Freeman and Lewis Lewia, two of the people held in bondage on the street once inhabited by wealthy sea captains, shipbuilders and merchants.

It’s all part of the Witness Stones Old Lyme community partnership to install small plaques commemorating individuals once enslaved. A ceremony was held Friday after the first 14 stones were placed earlier this week. Continue reading.

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