Browse Exhibits (4 total)

This exhibit documents the Elgin-Brown Cemetery in Clifton, VA. The cemetery is home to at least eight members of the Elgin family who lived in the Clifton area during the 19th century. The family serves as an example of an average family living at that time. They also give way to the topic of eugenics as the youngest member of the family, Isaac Elgin, was a patient at the Western State Hospital where sterilizations were carried out during the 21st century.

This cemetery is located in Centreville Virginia on Naylor road.  Located on a large tract of land is over 100 gravestones that include four major families, the Scotts, the Naylors, the Robinsons, and the Harris family.  The family I focused on was the Harris family, an African American family of farmers from Centreville and Manasses Virginia.  Jesse Harris, a freed slave in 1814, acquired farmland along the Centreville/Manassas area in Virginia.  His son Obed and his grandson Anthony Harris eventually bought out land nearby to their father.  The farmland was occupied by Union soldiers according to a war claim made in 1872, and Stonewall Jackson had a hand in destroying some of the family calves and taking hay from the farm.  The reason the Harris family is important is that they were able to prosper and become farmers in America during the pre-Civil War days, a feat that was nearly impossible for colored people.