For decades, Colonial Williamsburg ignored the stories of colonial Black Americans. On Thursday, the museum announced archaeologists had unearthed the brick foundation of one of the nation’s oldest Black churches.
Jack Gary, Colonial Williamsburg's director of archaeology, holds a one-cent coin from 1817 on Wednesday Oct. 6, 2021, in Williamsburg, Va. The coin helped archaeologists confirm that a recently unearthed brick-and-mortar foundation belonged to one of the oldest Black churches in the United States.
By 1818, the church had its first building in the former colonial capital. The 16-foot by 20-foot structure was destroyed by a tornado in 1834. Colonial Williamsburg on Thursday announced that it had located the foundation after analyzing layers of soil and artifacts such as a one-cent coin. Congregants and museum archeologists are now plotting a way forward together on how best to excavate the site and to tell First Baptist’s story. The relationship is starkly different from the one in the mid-20th Century.“Imagine being a child going to this church, and riding by and seeing a parking lot ... where possibly people you knew and loved are buried,” said Connie Matthews Harshaw, a member of First Baptist.
The excavation began last year. So far, 25 graves have been located based on the discoloration of the soil in areas where a plot was dug, according to Jack Gary, Colonial Williamsburg’s director of archaeology. Jody Lynn Allen, a history professor at the nearby College of William & Mary, said the excavation is part of a larger reckoning on race and slavery at historic sites across the world.
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