This post is inspired by a recent Atlas Obscura article about the Documentation and Preservation of Plantation Slave Cabins. At the Underground Railroad Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio (My Hometown). It is from a Slave Market in Kentucky. After the Civil War, with the end of Slavery, the building had been used to cure tobacco. It was so well constructed, that when the farmer wanted to expand his ‘barn’, he built the new barn around it rather than trying to tear it down.
When the Museum was under development, the story of the Slave Market Building came to their attention. The Current Farmer wanted a new barn, but also knew the probable history of the strange building inside the old barn. Somehow the Farmer and Museum made contact. The Museum torn down the old barn, removed the historic Market Building, and built the Farmer a new barn. Later, the State of Kentucky was upset to lose this historic structure. But it is well preserved now in the Museum Lobby.
Another Place of Interest is the Hermitage Plantation, home of President Andrew Jackson. This is one of the few plantations where Slave Cabins were openly Preserved and Acknowledged.
Since I found this article at the end of Black History Month, I am posting it in Honor of my Father’s Birthday Today. And I think this counts as a #WednesdayWindows posting too.
How good that the farmer and the museum got together! We need to preserve this sort of thing so that we don’t forget the negative parts of our country’s history as well as the good parts. Purpose aside, it’s a lovely building.
janet
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Yes the State of Kentucky was upset when they realized what they were losing, but did nothing to help the Farmer up to that point…….
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