I have been learning so much of the suppression and oppression of my Black fellow citizens, it is making me reexamine my own experience – and has kept me awake with “monkey mind” on the whys and what ifs. Tuesday night was such a night as my mind recalled information my mother had learned from the abstract for our second home in Hilliard, Ohio. Some background – Hilliard is now a bedroom community to Columbus, but was more of a farming community when my dad grew up there, and was in transition between the two when I grew up in Hilliard. It was a lily white community – the minority when I was a kid were the Catholics, one of whom was in my Blue Bird troop and my Mom and I would pick her up from her Catholic school to take her to our weekly meetings – there were some Amish and Mennonites too in our community – I went to junior high with one of them.
My parents bought one of the post WWII track houses in Hilliard shortly after I was born, and then in the summer between second and third grade they bought an older home (built in the 1930s) in the older part of town on the corner of Norwich Street and Hamilton Road. We were only the second family to live there – the first family had no children and were relatives of my paternal grandfather’s brother’s wife –which is probably how mom got the abstract of the land deeds for the property. She read in fascination how our area had originally been settled by freed slaves from Virginia, who were given their freedom, a horse, $200 and land in Ohio (a free state – no slavery allowed) upon the death of the slave owner. There must have been a fairly sizable community, because there had been a black church just across the street from our home, according to this abstract. Unfortunately, she was naive and mentioned the existence of this abstract to someone in power who required her to surrender it to the title company before my parents could obtain the mortgage.
So – Tuesday night my mind was all ablaze with – what happened to these Black families? Was there “ethnic cleansing” like had happened in Tulsa and in so many other communities across our country?
I spent most of Wednesday doing research on my hometown Hilliard, the township it is in – Norwich, the county – Franklin and the state of Ohio. No mention of Blacks in Hilliard/Norwich area – but I did find out that even though Ohio was a free state when it entered the Union in 1803, it did have three “Black Laws” which were not repealed until 1848:
1. The settlement of black or mulatto persons in Ohio was prohibited unless they could show a certificate of their freedom and obtain two freeholders to give security for their good behavior and maintenance in the event of' their becoming a public charge. Unless this certificate of freedom was duly recorded and produced it was a penal offence to give employment to a black or mulatto.
2. They were excluded from the common schools.
3. No black or mulatto could be sworn or allowed to testify in any court in any case where a white person was concerned.
Finally I started searching about Blacks in Ohio (this was about 4 in the afternoon, I had started in the morning, with only my coffee to drink and was still in my night gown) – I found a 2014 study of early Black communities in Central Ohio. Eureka!!!! It mentions that freed slaves from Virginia settled in what is now the Hilliard area after the death of their master in 1823. Some settled in other parts of Ohio and some in what was to become Hilliard…. “Though several former slaves stayed in southern Ohio, others came to the Hilliard area (sometimes calling the settlement “Scioto”). There they settled and several descendants were still residing in 1906….. With 681 people in 1850, there was a school for African American children, though it is unclear if this was the only school, as separate from schools available in nearby-Hilliard, or a predominately African American community.” (Toni Smith, 2014, African-American Settlements and Communities in Columbus, Ohio -A report).
More background on the area - “This township (Norwich) was laid out and organized by its present name in 1813…. There never was any village in this township until after the Columbus, Piqua and Indiana Railroad was established, and then the village of Hilliard was laid out in the fall of 1853, by John R. Hilliard” (Martin WT, 1858, History of Franklin County, Ohio, Chapter XXV- Norwich Township).
This man Hilliard was not from the area, but from northern Ohio. However, he was on the board for the railroad, and knew that the railroad line was going to go through the area and have a station for collection of agricultural products in the area, so Mr. Hilliard bought up the land and had the town platted out and named after him. Note – this is after the Black families from Virginia had settled in the area – just a few blocks from where my mother had read that there had been a Black Church.
My paternal grandfather’s family moved to Hilliard from Gallipolis, Ohio, between 1910 and 1917, my grandfather joined them in 1919 when he was released from the military after serving in WWI. My paternal grandmother moved to Hilliard from New Richmond, Ohio in the early 1920’s to be the school music teacher – so my grandparents met in Hilliard and my dad was born there in 1927 – there were no Blacks in the area at this time.
So – I still have my question – what happened to the Black families? AND, why is there no mention of these early settlers on any of the City of Hilliard, Norwich Township, or Hilliard Historical Society websites? I was pleased to see a Black family on the banner for the City of Hilliard website and information about Juneteenth celebrations – but no mention of the early citizens of this area.
Did the railroad man Hilliard or others run them out? Did they migrate to Columbus where there was a larger Black community? What happened to the Black community from Virginia that originally settled my neighborhood? I still don’t know – but did get confirmation of the early Black history my mother had taught me.
- Littleton Lady, Littleton, Colorado