Historically Free People of Color Moving In and Out of Payne's Crossing, Ohio

• In Event: The Ohio River: Free People of Color, J.P. Ball's Anti-Slavery Panorama, and Zones of Fugitivity

Description for Program

The paper considers the historically Black pre-Civil War settlement known as Payne’s Crossing in southeast Ohio. A rural Black cemetery on the Wayne National Forest exists to this day with family names such as Payne, Norman, Striblin, and Priest. The families were free People of Color who moved from Virginia across the Ohio River into rural Ohio. The travel as a result of increased racial suppression illustrates important pathways of migration that pre-date the Great Migration. Once settled, they built a school, purchased land, and constructed homes. An analysis is conducted of who moved in and out of the historically Black settlement. It reveals that several families eventually moved further north into rural, central Michigan. Others moved to Meigs County, Ohio, who then later moved to central Michigan.

Author

• Andrea Frohne, Ohio University