The Salmon Brook Historical Society will share in Granby’s Juneteenth celebration with information about Black residents who lived here as early as the 1700s.
Sponsored by Granby Racial Reconciliation, The Granby Juneteenth celebration at Salmon Brook Park is on Saturday, June 18 from 3–8:30 p.m. Now a National Holiday, Juneteenth, “Freedom Day,” marks the final ending of slavery on June 19, 1865. Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to Galveston, Texas residents two years after Lincoln’s proclamation in 1863. Juneteenth became a state holiday in Texas in 1980. The holiday also honors the culture and achievement of African Americans.
SBHS will display six signs with QR codes that will direct people to the SBHS website for more information about Granby’s past. Black men from Granby served in the French and Indian War. Many served in the Revolutionary War and more than 11 with ties to Granby served in the Civil War.
There is information about the Wallis family from 1753, and the Elkey clan who lived in the Granby area from the first mention in 1794. There is the tale of the Percy family and its tangled relationship with their owners, the Pettibones. And a bit later, Emily Clemons Pierson, a white abolitionist writer who was born and grew up on what is now Lost Acres Orchard, wrote a novel about a runaway slave that was published about four months before Harriet Beecher Stowe’s blockbuster novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Bring your smart phones, and be prepared to learn more about Granby’s past.