In Which I Learn About West Medford's Slave Wall and a Related Estate

From Dave Brigham:

Having spent a bit of time in West Medford Square (see October 14, 2023, "I Went to West Medford Square by Mistake...But That's OK"), I was searching Google Maps for more sites to explore in that neck of the Massachusetts woods, when I stumbled across "The Cistern," which I wrote about recently (see November 4, 2023, "Cisterns Are Going It for Themselves"). Less than a mile away from that place on Lower Mystic Lake is the other map pin that intrigued me: Pomp's Wall.

I find a fair amount of cool historic stuff using this method. Located on Grove Street, across the commuter rail tracks from Playstead Park, Pomp's Wall is one of the few relics of Medford's slaveholding past. Built by a slave named Pomp (aka Pompeii or Pompey) in 1765, it is also known as The Slave Wall.

The inscription on the plaque reads, in part that Pomp, "a slave owned by Thomas Brooks" built the wall "as part of a decorative entrance to his house. This site was part of the estate of the Brooks family, which was first occupied in 1679 and once included some 400 acres of land."

A restoration of the wall was completed earlier this year, according to the Medford Historical Commmission. "The wall is laid in Flemish Bond, a decorative brick pattern that can now be seen clearly. Much of the wall is original 18th century brick and the mason [did] everything he [could] to preserve the hand made features....The bricks were stored to document their exact location so the wall [could be] rebuilt exactly as it was."

The Brooks family farmed their land and may have also owned a mill. MACRIS provides details about the wall and the family that owned Pomp, collected from a genealogy in the collection of the Medford Brooks Estate Land Trust Archives. "The Brooks family were large landowners in Medford beginning in the late 17th century. In 1660 Thomas Brooks...with his son-in-law Timothy Wheeler purchased 400 acres east of the Mystic Lake and River in Medford for £404....According to this genealogy, subdivisions of this land passed to several subsequent generations of the family, including Thomas’ grandson Samuel Brooks (1700-1768) and great grandson Thomas Brooks (1732-1799)."

"The park behind the Slave Wall was donated to the City of Medford in 1924 by the Brooks family," according to the plaque. Thomas Brooks Park is shown in the two photos below.

A fieldstone wall along the property line was also restored.

More from the wall plaque: "By 1765 Medford’s population included 49 slaves, many of whom were tied to the infamous Triangle Trade. Only Boston and Cambridge had larger slave populations. Nonetheless, Medford was an early center of anti-slavery activity. In 1783 Massachusetts became the first state to abolish slavery. Today the Slave Wall and the Slave Quarters at the Royall House are the only remaining physical reminders of slavery in the city. When Slaves were freed, many settled in West Medford which is today considered among the oldest continuous African-American communities in the United States."

Less than a mile north along Grove Street is the Shepherd Brooks Estate, which features a gorgeous Queen Anne-style home situated on expansive grounds adjacent to Oak Grove Cemetery. The large brick home was commissioned in 1880 by a descendant of the slaveholding Brooks family.

I was excited to learn that the estate grounds are free to roam, so I could get some great photos of the outside of the house, which was designed by Peabody and Stearns the well-known Boston architectural firm of the late 19th and early 20th century.

From MACRIS: "The Shepherd Brooks House is among the most architecturally distinguished late nineteenth-century 'summer residences' extant in Medford and the only estate to survive with extensive acreage of undevelopped land. Sheherd Brooks (1838-1922) lived in Medford during the summers from 1880 to 1922; during the rest of the year he resided at 90 Beacon Street in Boston. Brooks graduated from Harvard in 1857 and pursued throughout his life an interest in farming and horticulture for which his West Medford estate was well known along the East coast."

The home and carriage house are not open to visitors, as far as I can tell. The property, which is owned by the City of Medford, has been undergoing restoration with an eye toward "continued community benefit," per the estate's web site.

I hope you enjoyed this post. I'm always excited to learn about connections to the shameful parts of American history.

March Sadness

From Mick Melvin:

I come bearing good news!

Less than two weeks after mentioning that I hoped Mick Melvin would grace the blog's pages again, he sent me the photos and post below (see March 4, 2023, "Happy 13th Anniversary to the Blog!"). I couldn't be happier to welcome him back into the fold! -- DB

In honor of March Madness and the NCAA tournament, I thought this would be appropriate for my first post in quite a while. I took a stroll in West Hartford, CT, near Conard High School a couple of years ago and came across this gem.

I guess they don’t use this basket much. If it were in my driveway, those bushes would be toast.

I plan on taking another stroll in that neighborhood to see the progress. I will keep you all posted.

Simsbury Barns, and Part of MLK's Legacy, to Be Preserved

From King Nutmeg:

Here I am again, with more barns. Just call me Barn-y. Whenever I'm back in my Connecticut hometown (or near it), I make photos of these old tobacco sheds (see September 3, 2021, "Many Barns, Two Minds" and July 19, 2016, "Tobacco Road").

The two barns featured in the photos above and below are along Firetown Road in West Simsbury. I was in town recently for a golf tournament, and before visiting a friend's house, I took the opportunity to shoot these endangered beauties. Along with others in this area (along both County and Hoskins roads), this pair was owned for decades by Cullman Brothers (aka Culbro), a shade-tobacco grower and cigar manufacturer. Click the link above for my "Tobacco Road" post to learn more about the history of Tobacco Valley, a fertile area stretching from Springfield, Massachusetts, south along the Connecticut River and its tributaries to Hartford.

Nowadays, the barns and surrounding acreage, known as Meadowood, are owned by the Trust for Public Land, a California-based conservation nonprofit. Part of the attraction for the TPL, according to its web site, was Martin Luther King, Jr.'s connection to these lands.

"As a student at Atlanta’s Morehouse College...King Jr. joined a group of his fellow students who ventured north to work in these fields. In letters home during those summers, King described the liberating experience of getting out from under the Jim Crow laws of the segregated South," the web site states. "'I had never thought that any person of my race could eat anywhere, but we ate at one of the finest restaurants in Hartford,' he wrote to his mother. Today, just two percent of sites listed in the National Register of Historic Places focus on the experiences of Black Americans. This collective oversight deprives all Americans of a full understanding of the history of our nation. The Trust for Public Land is working across the nation to accelerate the preservation of sites, such as Meadowood, that tell the story of Black life in America."

"To preserve the history that remains — and ensure that future generations have a chance to explore it for themselves — The Trust for Public Land is part of a coalition, along with the State Historic Preservation Office, that had been working to protect the property from development and restore some of its historic barns," the group's web site continues. "Now that it is protected, Meadowood can be included in the Connecticut Freedom Trail, a network of sites associated with Black history across the state."

In addition to restoring some of the barns, the TPL "will also protect 117 acres of prime farmland, which can be made available to local farmers in perpetuity."

I look forward to following the progress of the restoration of these barns.

Many Barns, Two Minds

From Dave Brigham:

What a lovely pastoral scene, no?

Located in my hometown of Simsbury, Conn., these barns were once used to dry tobacco leaves. Simsbury was part of what was called "Tobacco Valley," a fertile area stretching from Springfield, Mass., south along the Connecticut River and its tributaries to Hartford, Connecticut (I wrote a lot of these same words five years ago in "Tobacco Road"). Beginning in 1640, farmers imported seeds from Virginia, according to ConnecticutHistory.org, and for a long time after, tobacco farming was the largest industry in the Valley.

By the time I was growing up, from the late 1960s through the '70s, the industry had shrunk but was still a vital and visible part of the local economy. A decrease in cigar smoking, combined with the availability of cheaper, mass-produced cigar wrappers, led to the demise of the tobacco farms. In the 1930's, total acreage in the Valley dedicated to growing tobacco stood at 30,000 acres, according to ConnecticutHistory.org. By 2006, the land for farming had dwindled to less than 2,000 acres.

I was surprised, then, that a few minutes after I shot those barns, a tractor hauling a trailer laden with tobacco leaves drove by me. I didn't realize that Simsbury was still active in the shade-tobacco business. I posted that photo on a Simsbury Facebook group, and learned that the leaves are grown in nearby East Granby or Bloomfield, and then hung in some of Simsbury's barns. A short distance from where I saw the tractor, is a former tobacco field with an array of solar panels.

I'm of two minds about these barns. As photography subjects, I find them irresistible. They evoke memories of the days before Simsbury became a bedroom community for Hartford's insurance industry. The white barns set off nicely against the surrounding green fields. The patina gives a nice sense of the history here, and the slight overgrowth tells me that someone is still taking care of these places.

But the fact is, these barns represent an industry that is bad for people's health, plain and simple.

I also spent time photographing barns along the main drag through Simsbury, Hopmeadow Street (aka Route 10). The barns below are located on land owned by Culbro, LLC, which has owned tobacco farms in the area for decades. The property below abuts the International Skating Center of Connecticut, where ice skaters from around the globe have trained over the past 25 years.

For more about Tobacco Valley barns, see:

December 17, 2020, "A Towering Discovery in Tobacco Country."

February 27, 2020, "Shoot It If You Got It."

September 20, 2017, "One-Stop Barnstorming Tour."

For more about Simsbury, see:

February 4, 2016, "Stealing Back Into the Past of My Hometown."

December 29, 2012, "Exploring Back Home."

February 7, 2013, "President Little, Part II: From Myth to Man."

September 20, 2011, "In Search of President Little."