Cemetery marker officially dedicated to honor lives of Windham slaves
Sep. 8—WINDHAM — It's community effort to honor history and the lives of those who remained hidden on a hill.
And now, that effort has been officially dedicated so everyone remembers the story.
In Windham, the African American Memorial Committee began as a way to honor the lives of four African Americans buried in unmarked graves in the Cemetery on the Hill and, on a larger scope, to honor history as a whole during a time frame around the American Revolution.
Members of the committee and other supporters joined recently at the cemetery to officially dedicate the new marker.
The committee formed last year and in conjunction with other groups in town, including Windham Endowment, cemetery trustees, the Historic District Commission and Windham Presbyterian Church, began a journey to not only identify and honor the four buried in Cemetery on the Hill, but to remember Windham's African American townspeople who may have been forgotten.
That, according to historian and committee member Brad Dinsmore, was the decent thing to do.
"It's only common decency that we remember them," Dinsmore said while visiting the cemetery earlier this summer, "as all the other old Windham residents have been remembered on the Cemetery on the Hill."
Dinsmore continued saying the committee's mission was to remember not only the slaves, but the free men who called Windham home.
The committee work, along with Dinsmore's historical research into town records and personal writings, led to a plaque being created and installed at the opening gate of the cemetery off Range Road, where the four slaves — Peter Thom, Jeffry, Pompey and Rose — were discovered in unmarked grave sites.
The location of the graves, and as Dinsmore discovered in those history records, were chronicled by historian and author Leonard Morrison as being in a specific southeastern corner of the cemetery, was verified through radar imaging techniques.
Dinsmore noted there could be more unmarked graves there.
The bronze plaque honoring Peter Thom, Jeffry, Pompey and Rose was officially unveiled earlier this year in a ceremony and installed recently onto a stone base and now part of the Black Heritage Trail.
When entering the Cemetery on the Hill, the graves are located under what is now a paved roadway, but now offset close by, the new marker tells their story.
And to find the exact location of the graves was an exciting and meaningful way to move the project forward and honor those who had been there for so long.
"It's pretty exciting to have confirmation that they were there," Dinsmore said.
For the committee members, it was a learning experience and a trip back through local history, while doing something worthwhile to also honor a time when many people in town were not recognized or honored.
That included committee member Shelley Walcott-Philippe, saying discovering this African American history in Windham not only served the community well as a whole, but her own life history and ancestry.
"It truly was a labor of love," Philippe said. "We all learned so much from each other. We all came together and we knew something had to be done."
Bob Coole, along with wife Ruth, both served on the committee.
For Bob, hearing the stories and seeing the new monument now standing to honor the four slaves was a fitting end result of a lot of good work.
"It was the decent thing to do," he said.
Pastor John Seiders of the Windham Presbyterian Church, spoke at the recent ceremony, saying it was a day to honor and to remember.
"We want to make a statement in this community that these lives mattered," Seiders said, "so we don't forget about these African American members of our community. They were our brothers and sisters and we call on others not to forget. Today we affirm their lives mattered here in Windham."
