This book was written by students from the Country School of Madison in remembrance of Tamar.
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Town Dedicates Second Witness Stone in Honor of Madison Woman
By Jesse Williams on Zip06.com on June 15, 2021
MADISON — More than 200 years ago, here on the same beaches where Madison residents are currently laid out on the sand catching some sun, a shipwreck washed ashore. From that ship, a handful of people emerged, people who mostly would be spending the rest of their lives working, living, praying, and raising families in what was then known as East Guilford.
Very little is known about these shipwreck survivors. For the most part, their lineages haven’t been traced; their descendants cannot look back on old letters or follow some long record of property ownership to a plot of land in Madison, as many others in town can.
That is because these people were enslaved by the Reverend John Todd of Madison First Congregational Church, having been forcibly removed from their families and homes likely in West Africa, enduring the long Middle Passage across the Atlantic to become unwilling, unsung early settlers on the Connecticut shoreline. Continue reading.
Students from the Country School Remember Tamar
In the fall of 2020, eighth graders at the Country School began researching the life of Tamar. Tamar began her life in west Africa around the year 1744 and was captured and transported to New England, where she was enslaved by the Reverend Jonathan Todd, the second pastor of the First Congregational Church of East Guilford (now Madison). Student artwork and writing inspired by their research can be found here. A Witness Stones for Tamar was installed alongside her daughter Lettuce’s Witness Stone. These memorials honor the mother and daughter and all they brought to our community.
