A recent Juneteenth ceremony hosted by NOVA Parks (the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority) and Fairfax County branch of the NAACP served as another step in unearthing the unique history of the Bull Run area and those – free and enslaved – who lived there more than 200 years ago.
The event, held June 17, brought to life the story of the largest private emancipation in Virginia, something occurring generations before the Civil War effectively ended slavery in the U.S.
The Juneteenth celebration, held at Bull Run Regional Park in Centreville, included remarks from NOVA Parks board chair Cate Magennis-Wyatt, Fairfax County NAACP president Michelle Leete and Rev. Lynda Alicudo.
A poetry reading by Anita Gill-Anderson, musical performances by Heritage Baptist Church singers and a presentation by guest speaker Bishop Brett Fuller also were part of the event. Also on hand were Chrystal Gaskins, a descendant of freedmen emancipated by Robert Carter III, and a host of local and state elected officials.
Using ground-penetrating radar, NOVA Parks previously discovered that more than 90 people are buried in the former Harris Family Cemetery, located at the regional park.
They include descendants of those emancipated from slavery by Robert Carter III (1728-1804), who once owned 65,000 acres of land in the local area and in the 1790s emancipated 500 of those enslaved and allowed them to purchase property. His action resulted in a thriving freedman’s community in the Bull Run area well before the Civil War.
Northern Virginia-based Thunderbird Archaeology, a subsidiary of Wetland Studies and Solutions and Davey Trees, was acknowledged at the Juneteenth ceremony for its expertise in historical research. Its work will assist in determining the exact location of the foundation of a Baptist church built by Carter and open to all races – something unheard of in 18th-century Virginia. The efforts also will work to identify whether the site contains additional graves.
Thunderbird Archaeology’s historic-preservation expertise includes the excavation of the historic Columbian Harmony Cemetery in the District of Columbia, as well as an 18th-century ship along Alexandria’s original shoreline.
For information about Robert Carter III, the Harris Family Cemetery and more stories uncovered in Northern Virginia regional parks, see the Website at novaparks.com/ParkHistory.
