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    Generations of Somerset Place: From Slavery to Freedom
    Generations of Somerset Place: From Slavery to Freedom
    Generations of Somerset Place: From Slavery to Freedom
    Ebook258 pages46 minutes

    Generations of Somerset Place: From Slavery to Freedom

    By Burgin Mathews

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    About this ebook

    Located in the rural northeastern part of North Carolina, Somerset was cumulatively home to more than 800 enslaved blacks and four generations of a planter family.


    When the institution of slavery ended in 1865, Somerset Place was the third largest plantation in North Carolina. During the 80 years that Somerset was an active plantation, hundreds of acres were farmed for rice, corn, oats, wheat, peas, beans, and flax. Today, Somerset Place is preserved as a state historic site offering a realistic view of what it was like for the slaves and freemen who once lived and worked on the plantation, once one of the Upper South's most prosperous enterprises.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateAug 31, 2005
    ISBN9781439612941
    Generations of Somerset Place: From Slavery to Freedom
    Author

    Burgin Mathews

    Burgin Mathews is a writer, a radio host, and the founding director of the nonprofit Southern Music Research Center.

    Read more from Burgin Mathews

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      Book preview

      Generations of Somerset Place - Burgin Mathews

      generations.

      INTRODUCTION

      Family pictures visually document our past, comfort and often fill a void in the present, and inform our future generations. They capture a family’s important moments in time, special places and events, and allow us to visit and revisit the close-to-the-heart faces of beloved grandparents and grandchildren over our lifetime. Generations of Somerset Place presents the cherished faces and places associated with North Carolina’s Somerset Place plantation.

      Before the mid-19th century, the faces of Americans that were preserved largely reflected the legal and financial advantages vested in the small fraction of our population who were living on the higher rungs of the socio-economic ladder—and the persuasions and skills of artists. By the mid-19th century, however, photographic imaging became a part of the American vocabulary, and the democratization of image making emerged: black and white, wealthy and working-class families all had affordable pictures taken by professional photographers working out of either permanent or portable traveling studios. Although professional photography still flourished, the full democratization of making images came into its own by the mid-20th century. Someone in everyone’s family owned a reasonably priced, hand-held camera, which permitted families to take their own pictures of anything and everything they deemed photogenic, including houses, barns, automobiles, favored farm animals, and, of course, loved ones. Generations of Somerset Place loosely presents the images included according to the evolution of various methods of capturing them.

      Our photographs are divided into three broad categories and arranged chronologically within each category. The first category, called Poised and Posed, includes members of Somerset’s generations whose images were to some extent staged and shaped by portrait artists, first-generation photographers using first-generation photographic equipment, or more sophisticated photographic artists using the latest evolving technology. The earliest 19th-century portraits are oil paintings, portrait miniatures, and other mediums only the moneyed gentry could afford. By the late 19th century, however, we see for the first time images of African American generations of Somerset Place taken both in studios and by itinerant photographers who brought portable studios to the small towns surrounding Somerset Place. These later images include studio cabinet cards, tintypes, and other studio pictures that are set against studio backgrounds ranging from the exotic to complete blankness. With the 20th century, the era of real-photo postcards (commonly called picture postcards) emerged and remained popular through World War II for Somerset’s generations. Poised and Posed ends with the fun and inexpensive photographs taken when the carnival paid its annual visit to Creswell, North Carolina.

      By the mid-20th century, it seems at least one member of almost every family owned a camera and was staging and snapping family pictures. Among the generations of Somerset Place, formal studio pictures began to be less popular. The exception may have been the inexpensive photographs taken when traveling carnivals paid annual visits to small rural towns such as Creswell.

      Spontaneity best describes the second category, called Snapshots. The subjects are not formally posed or, for that matter, always centered and in focus. The images do, however, present real-life situations and the people who lived them. Family members and friends who owned cameras snapped pictures that exude love, pride, and a fair amount of humor. Consider, for example, a picture of a youngster riding a goat cart through the streets of Creswell in 1954. Each photograph tells a story and prompts a story from the family members (and even strangers) who see it.

      The final category, Generations of Somerset Place Today, includes a mix of professionally taken photographs and snapshots. These pictures begin in 1986, when more than 2,000 descendants of slaves and slave-owners gathered on the grounds of Somerset Place for a special Homecoming. The unprecedented and affirming event honored ancestors and celebrated life.

      The photographs included represent only a fraction of those taken. Some early tintypes and photos deteriorated over their 60- to 70-year lifespan and could not be used. With out-migration and movement away from Somerset, many family members’ photographs have simply been lost. There are also limitations on the number of photographs Arcadia can publish in one book. The pictures that are included contain at least one member of every Somerset family.

      Generations of Somerset Place is not meant to be a scholarly offering. It is our family album, which will hopefully document the past and bring smiles and warm fuzzies to all who view it. Without question, it will inform our future generations of Somerset Place descendants.

      The Collins Family Home is pictured here.

      One

      POISED AND POSED

      1800–1865

      A widowed Josiah Collins I (1735–1819) and his two minor children, Josiah Jr. (1763–1839) and Ann (Nancy) Collins Blount (1765–1796), immigrated to America from England in 1773. Collins spent his life in America creating wealth through visionary business ventures and carving out a prominent place for his progeny within the prevailing economic, political, social, and religious institutions of the time. Among his business ventures was orchestrating the transformation of an uninhabited, jungle-like terrain into Somerset Place plantation through the extensive use of enslaved laborers. One copy of this oil-on-canvas portrait, possibly painted around 1810, hangs in the office of the Collins Family Home at Somerset Place.

      During the 19th century, itinerant miniaturists routinely visited small towns, whose population

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