“I hope when people see the plaques, they’ll think about those individuals and remember that we’re still living off their labour,” Taylor said. “You’re talking about free labour, sun up to sun down. That’s a huge contribution to this county.”
The first stones were placed in October 2023 at the historic Ball-Sellers House, the county’s oldest surviving dwelling, to remember Nancy, who was born around 1775 and died sometime between 1831 and 1840, and two unnamed men enslaved on the farm by the Carlin family in the 1800s.
In March 2025, three plaques were installed in the Yorktown neighbourhood to honour Margaret Hyson and her children, George and Charlotte. Born around 1825 to enslaved parents, Margaret later appeared in census records as the property of William and Catherine Minor. Though she married a free Black man, Thornton Hyson, in 1850, neither she nor their children were freed until the end of the US Civil War.
Several Hyson descendants attended the ceremony near Harrison Street and Little Falls Road, including Margaret’s great-great-great-granddaughter Nadia Conyers, who reflected on how her ancestors helped build Arlington without reward or recognition. “When Nadia spoke,” Taylor recalled, “you could feel generations in the air. It was as if the ancestors were standing with us, saying, ‘Finally, someone called our names.'”
Barbara Noe Kennedy
