In West Virginia's countryside Caesar Mountain took its name for a free man of color. In 1796 English-born George Massingbird had legally freed Caesar and family. Twenty-three years later, when financially troubled, Massingbird claimed that the Freeman family had never been manumitted. Since it was not uncommon for freed blacks to be re-enslaved, the family's perilous situation alarmed members of the white community who assisted them in taking their case to court. Victorious, the Freeman family received in settlement several hundred acres of land in region where they had once been held in bondage.
This is a rare glimpse into Virginia's backcountry between America's Revolution and the Civil War--a story about a former slave, Caesar, who by 1820 lived near a mountain soon to bear his name.
Length: 13 pages.