The Search for Frederick Douglass’s Birthplace
Markers in the Landcape
Douglass wrote:
“The old cabin, with its rail floor and rail bedsteads upstairs, and its clay floor downstairs, and its dirt chimney, and windowless sides, … was MY HOME–the only home I ever had; and I loved it, and all connected with it. The old fences around it, and the stumps in the edge of the woods near it, and the squirrels that ran, skipped, and played upon them, were objects of interest and affection. There, too, right at the side of the hut, stood the old well.” (My Bondage and My Freedom, ch. 2)
In 1806 [Anthony] acquired the 41 acres of wild and untillable land called “Kentucky”, near where Betsey Bailey’s cabin stood, for virtually nothing. (Young Frederick Douglass, p. 27)
1808 map shows “Kentucky” parcel near river at right. |
See photos of Muddy Shore on Tuckahoe River.See photos of Kentucky Ravine.
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