Mill Pond and Free Blacks Some black residents who are having difficulties tracing their family to the period before the Civil War have speculated their ancestors may have been free and not slaves. Legends and stories have been passed down for generations that there were …
Enslaved people built much of the original Carl Sandburg Home before the Civil War. https://www.blueridgenow.com/story/news/2021/02/26/highlighting-forgotten-slaves-built-present-day-sandburg-home-staff-uncover-their-stories/6804747002/
The people of Black Bottom in southern Hendersonville had a community group to govern and police the neighborhood to avoid crime. Click Here to read excerpt about Black Bottom in Hidden History of Henderson County, NC by Terry Ruscin
Julius Rosenwald, President of Sears, donated funds to build 5,000 schools for African Americans in the 1920’s. One of them was in East Flat Rock. https://www.boldlife.com/learning-from-the-past/
Freed slaves founded the Kingdom of Happy Land in the 1870’s near today’s Lake Summit. With money they earned as porters carrying packages up the mountain to Saluda, they bought land from the Davis family’s plantation, Oakland. There is little documentation about the Kingdom and …
The Landina Guest House was one of many Black-owned businesses that served the Black community in the days of segregation. https://www.blueridgenow.com/news/20190714/beyond-banks-doing-it-by-green-book
Brooklyn was a vibrant community near Hendersonville’s old train depot. It had a variety of Black-owned businesses before urban renewal projects reconfigured the area in the late 1960’s. https://www.blueridgenow.com/article/NC/20160228/News/606017614/HT https://thelaurelofasheville.com/communities/history-feature-hendersonville-community-lives-in-memories-of-its-residents/
Many of the slaves owned by wealthy Charleston planters chose to remain in Flat Rock after the Civil War. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41446547?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
St. John in the Wilderness Church has about 100 graves of slaves, freed men and women, and African American servants. https://docsouth.unc.edu/commland/monument/874/
Two slave cemeteries, with graves marked by elongated fieldstones, have been located around Clear Creek. Slaves were sometimes buried at churches like St. John in the Wilderness and Ebenezer Baptist Church. https://www.blueridgenow.com/article/NC/20050506/News/606051140/HT