Category: Witness Stones
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What is a Stopping Stone?
As you go about your day, whether on familiar streets or traveling through new spaces, you might notice something unfamiliar set into the ground: a square of granite topped with brass, bearing a name and a date. This is a Stopping Stone. Stopping Stones is a memorial project that honors enslaved people by marking the places where…
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Our New Home
We’re thrilled to announce that the Witness Stones Project has officially joined Historic New England as the educational arm of its Stopping Stones program. We will be continuing the important work that we have done since 2017 and we welcome more opportunities to educate students throughout the country. This collaboration marks a significant milestone in our…
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‘Cuffee Voorhees!’: Timberlane Students, Descendants, and Community Unite to Honor a Life Once Lost to History
By Seth Siditsky on MercerMe.com on June 6, 2025 For more than a century, the life of Cuffee Voorhees—an enslaved man turned Union soldier—remained largely hidden from the historical record. But on Friday, Timberlane Middle School students, together with his descendants and community leaders, gave his story a place of honor in the Hopewell Valley.…
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Two Enslaved Longmeadow Residents Remembered
by Sarah Heinonen in The Reminder on June 4, 2025 LONGMEADOW — In 2024, the Longmeadow community remembered two enslaved people who lived and died in the town. Two stone markers, inscribed with the names of Phillis and Peter and information about their lives, were embedded in the ground in front of the First Church…
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Lancaster City Witness Stones to Teach about Local Enslaved People
By Sarah Nicell on LancasterOnline.com on June 1, 2025 Historians don’t know much about Susan, Robert, Bet and Frank, who lived in Lancaster in the 18th and 19th centuries. Their ages, heights, births and deaths are inconsistently recorded. There are no last names to track because they likely had none. That’s because Edward Hand, an…
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Witness Stones Old Lyme Installs 12 More Plaques Honoring Enslaved People as Five-Year Project Sunsets, Brings Total to 60
By Elizabeth Regan on LymeLine.com on May 30, 2025 OLD LYME–Ten small brass plaques installed Friday morning on the Sill Lane Green are there to fill holes left by untold stories. Cesar was about 15-years-old when he was purchased for 80 pounds by Reynold Marvin Jr. in 1730. Zacheus Still, born enslaved to Richard Lord…
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Longmeadow Honors 18th-Century Enslaved Individuals with Ceremony
By Julia O’Keefe on WWLP.com on May 27, 2025 LONGMEADOW, Mass. (WWLP) – A ceremony to honor two enslaved individuals from the 18th century was held at the First Church of Longmeadow Thursday morning. These stones come as part of the Witness Stones project, and they not only show that slavery existed in Longmeadow,…
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The Story of Frank
Students at JP McCaskey High School created this video about “Frank,” a man enslaved by Edward Hand during the Revolutionary Era in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. This film is created in conjunction with the Witness Stones Project and Historic Rock Ford. Director: Hana Rebek. Advisor: Todd M. Mealy, Ph.D., Narrator: Lenwood Sloan. Assistant Producers: Hasset Tesfaye Desagn,…
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Bearing Witness: Honoring the Lives of Robert, Bet, Susan, and Frank
By the Lancaster City Witness Stones Project on May 27, 2025 On a quiet city street lined with brick and memory, students, educators, community members, and historians gathered for a moment years in the making. At first glance, it may have looked like a simple ceremony, several brass plates embedded into the ground. But for…
