Most histories of Harrisonburg relating to the antebellum era focus primarily on the city's white residents and mention the African Americnan population primarily in regards to slavery. However, for decades prior to the Civil War, free blacks not only lived downtown, but also operated their own businesses and owned their own property. Although freedmen also resided in the area as renters, either living with white families or in hotels, this project specifically examines the African American Harrisonburg families who owned their own property as of the census enumeration of June 1860. Through the stories of these individuals, the complex nature of the lives free blacks lived in Harrisonburg prior to the Civil War can come to light and add a new dimension to the area's antebellum history. Although the development of Harrisonburg's downtown has physically covered up most of the spaces where these individuals lived their lives, the map feature of this project will attempt to orient the public to where these largely-forgotten Harrisonburg residents once resided.

 

In examining the six families that make up this project, certain patterns appear that may shed light on the everyday lives of free African Americans who lived in Harrisonburg prior to the Civil War. For example, wealthier African Americans, such as William Peters and William Strother, owned multiple homes, which they in turn either rented or sold to other free blacks. Despite the lack of unifying social institutions, such as the schools and churces that characterized the post-war Newtown neighborhood, property transcactions by men like Peters and Strother suggest a bond of community among the free African American antebellum population. Additionally, as the map on the home page reveals, many of these families lived in close proximiy to one another, further suggesting a conscious desire of free people to reside in common neighborhoods.

 

Another observable pattern is the number of free black female property owners in the downtown area. All of these women were widows and took possession of their husband's property following their deaths. Records show that these women were typically the second wives of their respective husbands, and age differences between themselves and their spouses may have contributed to the prevalency of female property ownership in 1860. Furthermore, all of these women shared the same occupation, washerwoman, and through that labor-intensive job were able to support their families.

 

Occupations among men were somewhat more varied. The most wealthy individual, William Peters, worked in the saddling trade that he learned from his father. This fact may be evidence of the role that inherited wealth played in antebellum propsperity. In fact, all African American male property owners passed on their trades to their sons, further showing the importance of passing down knowledge within the community through successive generations.

 

Although the story of the Newtown community rightly headlines Harrisonburg's African American history, the pre-war population of free blacks was an important facet of the city's history in their own right. Just as urban renewal erased much of Newtown's physical presence, development has also eroded the traces of the antebellum community over time. It is the goal of this project to tell the stories of these pre-war African American property owners and to physically show the locations where they lived downtown. In this way, present-day Harrisonburg residents will be able to associate the lives of these historic people and their largely-vanished historical landscapes within the current Harrisonburg cityscape.