Grant Spotlight: Pomfret Historical Society Presents Waking the Dead- Archaeology, Genealogical, and Archival Research About Enslaved Africans in Windham County
September 10, 2021 • CTH Funded, Features & News, Grants

October 2 to November 6
Multiple dates and locations
In-person, registration necessary

A $4,890 Quick Grant was awarded to the Pomfret Historical Society to present four workshops on research techniques and burial ground restoration featuring the gravesites of the enslaved Randalls who married into local Nipmuc families and whose descendants fought in the CT 29th Colored Regiment during the Civil War. Workshops include tours of historic sites and demonstrations on repairing and cleaning gravestones.

Entitled, Waking the Dead- Archaeology, Genealogical and Archival Research About Enslaved Africans in Windham County, these workshops are open to the public and will help facilitate the restoration of the Randall Higginbotham Burial Ground on the Wyndham Land Trust’s Nightingale Woods property in Pomfret. They present a more inclusive local history and educate the public about enslaved Africans and the lives of free Blacks and indigenous peoples who lived in Windham County in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Workshop presenters include historian and writer, Donna Dufresne, Dr. Nick Bellantoni, State Archaeologist Emeritus, Dr. Sarah Sportman, State Archaeologist, Ruth Shapleigh Brown, CT Gravestone Network, Michael Carroll, Rediscovering History Gravestone Restoration, and William Fothergill, an expert in African and Native American genealogy.

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