In 2006, an alarmed West Amwell man called Elaine Buck. His neighbor was planning a driveway, but the proposed project would pave over unmarked slave burials. The township knew they were there, and the dissenting neighbor even held the original owner’s deed, which stated the site was to remain a burial ground in perpetuity.
Buck, a lifelong resident of Hopewell Borough, recruited her friend Beverly Mills, who lives in Pennington Borough. They both serve on the board of the Stoutsburg Cemetery Association. Located in Skillman, Stoutsburg is one of three local African American cemeteries.
The State Cemetery Board told Buck and Mills that desecration of African American and Native American graves happens all the time and that people have to prove the existence of the burials. The pair also contacted the state attorney general and local newspapers, and after further pressure, they were able to block construction and the graves were left undisturbed.
“By the time we got through with him, we laid the burden at his feet,” Mills said. “He had to prove that they weren’t there.”
Upset by the experience, Buck and Mills wanted to know more about where other former slaves and sharecroppers were buried. Thinking there may be unmarked graves lying alongside the headstones at Stoutsburg Cemetery, they arranged for ground penetrating radar tests. The site was filled with unmarked burials.
They duo began to research the African American people buried at Stoutsburg and the two other local African American cemeteries in Hopewell Valley. The idea of writing a nonfiction book slowly emerged. Since both had full-time commitments—Buck is the Clerk of Second Calvary Baptist Church in Hopewell and Mills is director of Mercer County’s Workforce Investment Board—they hired a professional researcher, Kate McGuire, to help them comb through deeds, wills, diaries, and slave ledgers. They also hired Wild River Consulting & Publishing to act as editorial advisers. Both were funded for by a Mercer County Cultural and Heritage Commission grant.
For Mills, the most surprising bit of information uncovered during the book’s research was the history of slavery in the state.
“I was never taught or told that there was slavery in New Jersey,” Mills said. “I never knew that the system of slavery was right in my own backyard. It’s how America became America. It’s a part of history and we can’t shut our eyes to the fact that it was here also.”
At times it was hard for Mills to read and write about the past.
“You hear about someone being sold or passed down to family members two, three, or four times,” Mills said. “It’s just unbelievable. You wonder how these people were able to withstand that. It’s inconceivable. They had no rights, no say.”
In fact, Mills discovered that her ancestors, on both sides, were slaves in this area. She is the fourth generation of her family to live in her South Main St. home, built in 1856. The home is two doors down from the A.M.E. Church and was part of 1,000 feet of property purchased by three church trustees in 1847. Mills is a direct descendant of one of the trustees, Samuel Blackwell, who was born into slavery.
Mills’ father, William Smith, worked for Howe Nurseries and then the Mercer County Transportation Department. Her mother worked locally as a domestic and also as an aide at the former Skillman Neuropsychiatric Institute. She and her husband of 42 years, Robert, share the Pennington home where they raised their two sons. Robert retired from a Princeton law firm and currently works part time for Princeton Volvo in customer service. Both their sons live and work in the area: oldest son Jason, works at Merrill Lynch’s Hopewell office, and Drew works for the Mercer County Clerk’s Office.
Unlike Mills, Buck had some knowledge of her family’s past and was able to fill in the gaps while researching the book. She is the third generation to live in her Hopewell borough home on Columbia Ave., which her great-grandparents purchased in the 1930s. Buck was raised by her grandparents: her grandmother, Hester Hunt Coleman, worked on the family’s farm, and her grandfather, Robert Coleman, owned a burial vault service and headed Princeton University’s janitorial department forty years ago.
Buck’s husband, John, is president of the Stoutsburg Cemetery Association. John is retired from the Heavy & General Laborers’ Union, Local 172, and currently works in Princeton University’s Civil Construction Department. Their oldest son, Joseph Buck, passed away in 2000 at age 23. Their son Aaron is the Second Calvary Baptist Church Sexton and Jason is a forklift operator for Hillsborough-based M&U International, in Hillsborough. Their daughter, Shaniqua, teaches special education in Hawaii.
Both Buck (in 1972) and Mills (in 1968) graduated from Hopewell Valley Central High School. Growing up in towns where African Americans made up less than one percent of Hopewell Valley’s population was challenging for both and they felt the effects of implicit and explicit racism. Buck recalls how the school district pushed her fellow African American classmates into special education classes unnecessarily (according to their families), and then into trade schools. Guidance counselors had low expectations for the African American students, so college was discouraged. Mills is still haunted by the memories of three boys who followed her home each day for two years from Pennington’s grammar school as they screamed racial slurs.
Though Mills’ hasn’t felt the effects of explicit racism in recent years, and notes that community life is better now, she still experiences subtle, polite forms of racism. “It’s a hard life being a black person in America,” she said.
Both are active members of their churches. Though one of Mills ancestors was a founding trustee of Pennington’s Bethel A.M.E., Mills belongs to the First Baptist Church of Pennington, established in 1902. Approximately 35 people from surrounding towns pack into the Academy Avenue church each week. Buck is a member of Hopewell borough’s Second Calvary Baptist Church, where approximately 60 people attend. Their families have attended these churches since the early 1900s.
“You can be totally free in church with people that look like you. It plays an important part in black culture,” Mills said.
Many descendants of Hopewell and Pennington borough’s African American original settlers have left the area. Some left for job opportunities and some fled racial prejudice.
Buck and Mills say they have not considered leaving. They are proud to live in the towns that their ancestors helped build and they want to preserve their legacy. The churches and homes their ancestors bought, built, and lived in still stand, and the land they farmed made the area economically prosperous for all living here today.
“When I look at Pennington,” says Mills, “I think about the black people that helped make it what it is. Without free labor of African Americans none of this would have been possible. We are talking about a group of people that clawed their way to create a community from slavery.”
By the end of 2016, their book about African American contributions to the region, will be published by Stockton-based Wild River Book. They hope that readers will find an appreciation for the people that were vital members of their communities and who thrived during desperate circumstances.
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