Wallingford Slavery Project Reveals ‘History That Affects Us Today’

Carol Naamon-Kelly, of Meriden, holds a portrait of her great grandfather Allen Lorenzo Washington on Thursday during an interview at the Record-Journal office in Meriden. Naamon-Kelly recognized her family’s name during a presentation on enslaved people at the Wallingford Public Library last year and then traced her family’s history of enslavement in Wallingford. Photos by Dave Zajac, Record-Journal

By Devin Leith-Yessian in the Record-Journal on May 12, 2022

WALLINGFORD — The descendants of a man who was enslaved on a Virginia plantation before coming to Wallingford with Union soldiers are reconnecting with their family’s history with the help of local researchers working on the Wallingford Historic Preservation Trust’s “Enslaved Wallingford” project.

Meriden resident Carol Naamon-Kelly first learned of the journey Allen Lorenzo Washington, her great grandfather, made from Virginia through the work of Bobbie Borne, who was writing about Washington’s life for a magazine article published in June 2021. Continue reading.