We rounded up 4 important places to honor Black History Month in and around Middlebury, Vermont for all you African American history buffs. Vermont might be the second whitest state in the nation after Maine, but it’s still rich in African American history.
As an Asian American woman, I’m eager to learn more about my newly adopted state’s Black history. I was inspired by the Vermont African American Heritage Trail to put together a tour of our own around Swift House Inn. I learned that Middlebury in particular was an intellectual hub for African American thinkers, many who attended Middlebury College. In general, Vermont was an important place for educating early American educators, and that extends to African Americans as well.
I couldn’t figure out a way to fit this in to the actual tour, but as a side note, I discovered that the Civil War hero General Oliver O. Howard, the Union soldier who founded the prestigious Black college Howard University in Washington D.C., moved to Burlington, Vermont, and is now buried there. Although he was White, he along with others, helped found a college that would educate thousands of Black luminaries, including Kamala Harris, the first African American and Asian American Vice President of the U.S.
Lastly, I’d like to acknowledge Professor Emeritus William Hart of Middlebury College for his insights and corrections as well as the book Vermont Women, Native Americans, and African Americans: Out of the Shadows of History by Cynthia D. Bittinger for an engaging and fascinating historic narrative. I learned a lot from this book!
1. Rokeby Museum
The Rokeby Museum is an austere mustard yellow Quaker building in Ferrisburgh, just off Route 7. This was a farm run by the Robinsons, a Quaker abolitionist family, who opened their farm to runaway enslaved people. They also taught fugitives how to read and write. The Rokeby was an important part of the Underground Railroad.
2. Clemmons Family Farm
The 148-acre historic Clemmons Family Farm is one of the largest African American farms in Vermont. As a heritage and multicultural center, the farm blends agriculture with African American and African American diaspora arts and culture events and storytelling. Dr. & Mrs. Clemmons, both medical professionals at the University of Vermont, purchased the farm in 1962.
This is their mission statement:
PRESERVE and maintain the Clemmons farm in Charlotte, Vermont as an educational prototype, and a model for preserving other African American owned agricultural land, cultural and heritage assets in the U.S.
EMPOWER a growing network of Vermont’s Black artists and culture bearers with opportunities for professional development, advocacy, visibility, networking, paid engagements, collective healing, and a safe haven for creativity that helps them to thrive;
BUILD a loving multicultural community around African American/African diaspora history, arts and culture.
3. Middlebury College
In 1804, Middlebury College awarded Lemuel Haynes, the first Black man to be ordained in America with an honorary degree.
Frederick Douglass spoke in Middlebury in 1843. “Douglass was here in July 1843 as part of The American Anti-Slavery Society’s ‘One Hundred Conventions Tour’ that took Douglass and other abolitionists to Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana. Middlebury was the first stop.”
According to Dr. Hart, “Douglass did not speak at the College but rather what was called the ‘Town Room’ — to us, the Town Hall — which was located in the spot occupied by the 4-story red brick building facing the traffic light near the Middlebury Inn. The Town Room/Town Hall then was a wooden structure that was moved in the 1860s to the fair ground, which is where Mary Hogan Elementary School is now.
Still, Middlebury College boys sought to disrupt the 2-day abolitionists’ convention here and harassed Douglass and the few people who attended the convention. See the green historic marker on the Green by Middlebury Inn that I was able to get installed back in September 2023 that details Douglass’s visit.”
Alexander Twilight attended Middlebury College. Twilight preached in Vergennes and in Ferrisburgh, which are both near Swift House Inn. Martin Freeman, a native of Rutland, Vermont, was another notable African American student of Middlebury College. He was the first Black college professor and college president in the U.S. Dr. Hart fills out the details about this fascinating educator: “Freeman attended Middlebury 1845-49 and graduated No. 1 in his class, the Salutatorian (there was no honorific of Valedictorian at that time). He began his teaching career in 1850 at the Allegheny Institute and Mission Church in Allegheny (across the river from Pittsburgh) and in 1856 was named the school’s president, at which time the name of the institute was changed to Avery College after one of the school’s benefactors (a cotton merchant…). In 1864, Freeman took his family to Monrovia, Liberia, where he taught at Liberia College from 1864 until his death in 1889. He served as president pro-temp during the 1870s and was named the permanent president in January 1889, three months before his death in March 1889. He is buried in Monrovia.”
Mary Annette Anderson was the first Black woman to attend Middlebury College in 1895 and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. She gave the poem at Middlebury College commencement class of 1899. Says Professor Hart, “Anderson was from Shoreham, VT, and she, too, taught briefly at Howard University in the 1910s after teaching at the early HBCU Straight University (1869) in New Orleans, renamed Dillard University in 1930. She died in Shoreham in 1922. You can find photos of her on line & via the College archive.”
4. Old Stone House Museum
The building of the Old Stone House Museum was originally a boarding school, which Alexander Twilight built to educate future educators. Graduates of the school included college presidents, congressmen, and a diplomat. Twilight was the first African American man to serve in the Vermont state legislature. We have a room called the Alexander Twilight room at Swift House Inn.
“Twilight’s Old Stone House, aka Athenian Hall, was built between 1834 and 1837,” says Dr. Hart who serves on the board of the museum. “Technically, it was a dormitory, although some teaching occurred on the top-floor open space. But students actually took their classes at the school house up the road a short way from Athenian Hall, which some folks believe Twilight designed after Painter Hall (1814-17), the first stone building on the Midd campus, where Twilight resided his senior year (1822-23).”
JL Narramore says
Hello Serena!
Excellent post and parsing. I am a biracial historian, and my mother was the last Black woman remaining in Castleton, Vermont prior to becoming an ancestor in 2020.
A couple of things I’d like to point out:
1) Vermont was always the whitest state in the nation until the 2010 census. In fact, when Mom was born, she was one of 326 Blacks enumerated in the state, which was statistically 99.9% white in 1940.
2) the Black history that gets told is highly white washed. The problem is, there aren’t any of us remaining to tell the clearer stories. There is a reason there are so few of us living there, and even fewer who have unbroken pedigrees dating back to the antebellum period.
3) You parsing of Twilight is the most thorough I have read. I would like to add some things that have been overlooked. Twilight was recorded as being born a female under the name Alexandria Twilight. I have seen the original document at the town hall. It may have been an oversight, or, perhaps he not only passed as white, but as a male. The fact he and Mercy did not have children only adds to the mystery, and “pants marriages” did exist in New England at the time. There has been no verification that Ichabod was of African descent. That’s problematic both from a research standpoint, and an ethical one.
As you hint towards, Middlebury College had a strict “No Blacks Allowed” policy at the time Twilight entered. In fact, a man named Harris was denied entry for that reason at the same time. Harris applied to UVM, was accepted, and graduated in 1838. Twilight made no claims of being anything other than white. Middlebury is unscrupulous in doing what they did. In the Black Community we NEVER out anyone who is passing. That’s their story to steward, and no one else’s.
As I understand it, there was a competing college in Mass ready to declare the “first Black college graduate”, and Middlebury made the decision, not understanding its own racist history. It makes me sick they have commodified his name.
The Black History of Vermont is very similar to that of Mississippi. It has been covered up by various institutions and I am in the process of working with the State of Vermont’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission to straighten the record.
I also have an exposé/memoir being edited as we speak.
I run the Facebook group, Black and Brown Vermont History, and invite you to join us!
Eileen Washburn says
3. You have Martin Freeman listed as the first black college professor but is that correct or was he the first black college president?
Serena Kim says
Dear JL Narramore,
Your comment is so valuable. Thank you for adding to the richness of this post with your perspective and clarifications.
May we continue to illuminate the story of non-white Vermonters!
All the best,
Serena Kim
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