Yesterday was soggy and I happily grabbed the excuse to stay inside. Sunday is usually a weekly meal prep day so I made a few things including tuna noodle casserole. I hadn’t tasted the stuff in years but it was great comfort food on a rainy day.
Scout evidently agreed. He isn’t allowed a lot of people food but he loves people tuna so I gave him a nibble. Never in his young life had he tasted such a delectable treat and he was pretty persistent in his demands for more. I didn’t want to give him too much but eventually lost track of how much he had gobbled up.
This is the face I got when I cut him off.
Never underestimate the emotions and the ire of a cat. He basically spent the entire rest of the day staring at me with those eyes.
Sometimes when planning an adventure day, I simply set off with a couple of places in mind that I want to see and then make up the rest as I go along. These are the very best days.
That’s exactly what happened yesterday as I set off toward Lawrence County, Ohio with a few things I wanted to see or do. Five things, to be exact. Three worked out as planned – I wanted to find a great old theater marquee, have lunch at Tudor’s Biscuit World and find a little country church with a big history.
That church is today’s story.
The Burlington Macedonia Church was built in 1849 on Macedonia Ridge, north of Burlington, Ohio. If you’ve never heard of Burlington, that’s ok. I hadn’t either. It’s just down the road from South Point in Lawrence County.
This is the oldest black church in Ohio and is considered significant for its cultural and religious values. I read that slaves fleeing Virginia plantations prior to the Civil War traveled the Underground Railroad to find freedom in Burlington.
This church and the surrounding community were an abolitionist sanctuary for escaped and freed slaves for decades.
This is where the Burlington 37 come into the picture.
The Burlington 37 were twenty enslaved men and seventeen enslaved women who were freed by wealthy plantation owner James Twyman upon his death in 1849. Three other elderly slaves were also freed by Twyman. They were deemed unable to travel so he provided that they be cared for as long as they lived locally in Virginia.
As for the 37, they were accompanied on the 400 mile journey by four Caucasian men. This escort was to insure they arrived at their new northern home in Burlington safely.
I read that these new Ohio citizens quickly gained a reputation for their impeccable work ethic and that their descendants have been doctors, business owners, lawyers, teachers, farmers and even an NBA player named OJ Mayo.
The last of these 37 former slaves died in 1941. Susan Gordon was 99. They all are buried in a small cemetery in Burlington.
The church has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1978. It still stands but is unused. There’s a historic marker at this site but private property signs on the building.
It’s on a quiet county road just a couple of miles from Route 52. The setting is wooded, peaceful and picturesque. It’s easy to imagine some of the going’s on here in the middle of the nineteenth century. Being so close to the Ohio River, I imagine many escaped slaves sought refuge on this ridge. I can’t fathom the fear, uncertainty, exhaustion and anxiety of this dangerous journey from bondage to freedom.
A couple of things to note if you decide to go there. First, the local tourism site and other websites with published information are confusing and are not helpful with finding this church or the cemetery where the Burlington 37 are buried. In fact, the tourism site indicates the church is in town. It is not. Use these coordinates to get there and you’ll find it’s quite easy. 38.439583, -82.529444
Also, they don’t give an address for the cemetery but another related website sends you to 94 Center Street in South Point. That’s someone’s house. Trust me. That’s not where you want to be. Instead, go to Burlington. Once there, search your gps for Center Street and you’ll find it quickly.
These aren’t huge, visually impressive destinations with a lot to do. However, it’s a special thing to visit a place with this kind of history and simply appreciate your surroundings and soak in the gravity of what this place represents. Don’t make a special trip to see this church or the cemetery but do combine paying your respects to the Burlington 37 with other things to do in the area.
The best stop on the Chillicothe Ghost Walk is always the Majestic Theater, a nineteenth century Masonic opera house in the historic downtown.
Practically speaking, these folks are the best in town at storytelling. They are entertainers who don costumes to tell scripted stories about what is likely the most documented haunted building around.
There are tons of stories including an encounter with a mid century theater usher who silently helped a woman to her seat in the early nineties. He wore an ornate uniform, complete with a fez hat and seemed surprised the theater goer could see him when she requested help to her seat. He disappeared and no one else saw him before he vanished. There’s a janitor who still cleans the floors and a diva who still occupies a dressing room beneath the stage.
A gentleman in a top hat was a curiosity for many years. He walks the middle aisle but appears to float as he approaches the stage. His feet are still moving like he’s walking but he hovers above the floor. They learned during a twentieth century renovation that the sloped floor wasn’t always sloped. It was originally flat. Mr Top Hat is walking on the original flat theater floor, the one he likely knew in life.
The most compelling stories come from World War I when the Spanish Influenza came to town. Camp Sherman, a local military training camp, was struck particularity hard. Thousands of cases left about 1,200 dead at Camp Sherman alone.
The city was quarantined and their beloved theater was transformed into a makeshift morgue. Bodies were stacked like lumber in the basement while the stage was used for embalming. Blood and other bodily fluids were drained into an alley just off the stage door, causing the alley to be named “Blood Alley.”
People still use that term today.
Meanwhile, someone would occasionally find that one of those bodies stacked to the ceiling in the downstairs dressing rooms was indeed alive. The spirit of one such individual is said to haunt a specific space in the basement. His spirit is so angry that this area is actually kept locked to prevent lookie loos from stumbling into trouble.
Here’s the door and the bricks of blood alley.
I will be completely honest with you. There is a place in that basement that I find too disturbing for words. But the best of this tour isn’t the ghost stories. It’s the access to the upstairs! You see, there’s a third floor ballroom with old signs, a few artifacts and some magnificent murals.
Hello. My name is Brandi and I am a nerd. Who cares about ghost stories when you have patina and light to admire?
This is one of my favorite images. Tbey have two of these old signs upstairs.
Never let anyone tell you Ohio wasn’t a bad place for people of color. These benches were used as seats during segregation.
Here are two of those murals. They were covered up for many years and forgotten by time until someone pulled back the paper to discover a beautiful face staring back at them.
The Majestic Theater is now operated by a nonprofit organization that has been hard at work making much needed updates. They still host events including concerts and classic movies. Just prior to the pandemic, I saw Pretty Woman and Snow White on the big screen. That was great fun. Find more info here.
Go see a show sometime and look for the man with the top hat or maybe the janitor mopping the restroom floors. By the way, they’ve identified that gentleman as someone who was a caretaker for the theater many years ago. A fellow who saw his spirit found him in an old picture at the theater.
Oh, and make sure your phone is fully charged. Something in that building sucked my battery down from 89 percent to nineteen in under 45 minutes. I was taking some photos but the phone was on airplane mode to preserve the battery life and I couldn’t justify the loss.
Whether or not you go for a show, take a stroll through their downtown which is currently experiencing an impressive rebirth and look for the theater. Read about my other ghost tour experiences at the old jail and at the Masonic Lodge. I’ll tell you about my experience at the fourth and final ghost tour location very soon.
The fall foliage in Ohio has been disappointing so far this year. Experts say our peak will be a little later than normal but I suspect it won’t be grand. It has been hot and dry this fall and the leaves seem to be turning brown and dropping before they have a chance to turn pretty.
The best color I have seen in Ohio so far is at this lovely country church in the Hocking Hills.
I’ll swing by again next week to see how the colors progress. Meanwhile I keep thinking back on the foliage I saw in the mountains in West Virginia earlier this month. It wasn’t nearly as vibrant as it was last year but still quite pretty.
Yesterday’s story about Old Glory and the significance of my DC visit got me to thinking about the time we spent at the Capitol Building.
We strolled by on our first morning in town to enjoy the early morning quiet before heading to Mount Vernon. A couple of tourists were there taking selfies. We stood and admired ducks splashing in the reflecting pool and the way the light and clouds changed before our eyes.
We later got a closer look.
I really liked this view.
Did you catch the story about the Summerhouse? It’s a picturesque grotto on the Capitol grounds and something you don’t want to miss if you visit. Click here to read all about it.
Old Glory has long been the nickname for the American flag but do you know where this name originated?
You can view the first flag to be called Old Glory and learn it’s story at the National Museum of American History. Before we go into the history, let’s set the stage for my 2021 viewing of this artifact.
The trip to DC was originally planned for Labor Day 2020 but was Covid cancelled like everything else. By the time we made it there this year, it was part vacation, part educational experience, and part healing journey.
Just nine months before my DC visit, citizens of our nation staged an attack on our own Capitol. Footage of the violence, the deaths of Capitol Police officers, and politicians downplaying the severity of this event had left my morale and hope for the future feeling beaten and bloodied.
I’m still trying to make sense of how politics have left us so divided there are leaders who think it’s ok to dismiss the threat of domestic terrorism in exchange for a few votes.
By the time we made it to see Old Glory, we had already done many things in the Capitol city.
We had watched ducks peacefully splashing in the watery reflection of the US Capitol building early one morning. It was so peaceful you wouldn’t have guessed what went on here before. We had visited George Washington’s Mount Vernon and learned about this founding father who understood the need for national unity. We had paid our respects to brave men and women who rallied to defeat the enemy at the World War II Memorial.
I have thought a lot about how we have lost sight of the collective good in favor of what’s good for the individual. We’ve lost our ability to set aside differences to fight a common enemy. Heck, we’ve lost the ability to even identify the enemy. The enemy is within us and we have become our own worst enemy. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if World War II were fought today. This is a particularly disturbing thought where I prefer not to dwell.
With this in mind, seeing Old Glory was strangely therapeutic and restorative.
To get to the flag, you enter a pitch black hallway lined with dimly lit displays on one side. That’s handy because you are likely to stand in line for a few minutes on your way to the flag.
Here you’ll learn about how the flag belonged to ship captain William Driver, a Salem, Massachusetts native who received the handmade 24 star flag from his mother and a group of women. It was a gift to celebrate his appointment as a master mariner and commander of his own ship. He was just 21. That was in 1824.
Captain Driver sailed the world during his 20 year career. To China and India and throughout the South Pacific, he sailed always under that flag.
He treasured that flag and kept it with him when he retired to Nashville, Tennessee where he flew it from his home on holidays and carefully cared for this very personal symbol of national pride. In 1860, Captain Driver, his wife and daughters are said to have repaired the flag and updated it by sewing on ten additional stars. He also added a small white anchor in the lower right corner to signify his maritime career.
He later would hide and protect the flag when the Confederates attempted to seize it during the Civil War. He sewed it inside a coverlet and hid it until Nashville fell to the Union Army.
Captain Driver eventually gifted it to his daughter who presented it to President Warren G. Harding in 1922. President Harding had the flag sent to the Smithsonian where it was authenticated as the real Old Glory despite claims from another relative that she had the real Old Glory.
There is much more to the story of this flag and of Captain Driver’s adventures. If you’re inclined, there’s been much written including a novel depicting Driver’s adventures that was written by his great great grandson. Better yet, go see the flag for yourself.
At the museum, once you pass through the hallway and round the corner, this 17×10 foot flag is behind a large glass window. Climate controlled and dimly lit to protect the delicate fabric, the display is simple and it is breathtaking.
You cannot take pictures anywhere in this exhibit so I am borrowing this image from the Smithsonian.
I sat on a bench, staring at the flag and absorbing the moment for as long as I could justify. It was a moment worth savoring and committing to memory.
She’s been painstakingly restored by the Smithsonian. She was lovingly protected by a family that understood her value. If she could talk, I’m sure her stories would fascinate and delight, shock and enthrall us.
But she can’t speak which is why it’s up to the rest of us to speak for her, to stand up for what she represents, to protect the Democracy that has been threatened by people who don’t understand that being an American isn’t about following a single person or party or about one’s rights to do what pleases us.
