The Witness Stones Project
The Witness Stones Project, Inc. (WSP) places local primary and secondary documents in the hands of youth for them to learn about local slavery, investigate individual enslaved persons, and restore the history of the enslaved by writing their stories. The project culminates with the installation of a stone (such as the Stolperstein Projects in Berlin and Amsterdam) that bears the name of the enslaved person in a location that he/she either lived, worked, or prayed.
Beginning in October 2021, St. Matthew’s (through our Social Justice & Racial Healing group) began to explore how we might engage with The Witness Stones Project as one avenue of exploring our church’s complicity with racism over the course of history since the church’s founding in 1802. We recognized that during the 17th and 18th century many individuals, including clergy in local communities, had enslaved others – Indigenous and African. In Connecticut, our towns were settled for the most part by Puritans who came to be known as the Congregational Church and soon after the Church of England that became the Episcopal Church. And our communities enslaved others.
“The story of the African-American people is the story of the settlement and growth of American itself, a universal tale that all people should experience.”
Henry Louis Gates, Jr
We knew this project was one we could not, and should not, do alone. So we began to seek partners from neighboring congregations. As people of faith, no matter our doctrine or belief system, we all believe in the dignity of every human being. In the spirit of collaboration, we give thanks to all who supported this work in a multitude of ways: spiritually, financially, and educationally – especially The Episcopal Church in Connecticut, St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, The Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Westport, St. Paul’s on the Green in Norwalk, Wilton Historical Society, and Dr. Julie Hughes whose research provided us with more than we could ever have or imagined.
On June 10, 2023 we celebrated the installation of our first Witness Stone Memorial to commemorate John C. Wally at Wilton Historical Society where the stone will be placed for the wider community to view. Read the John Wally Program Book from the ceremony as well as Comments by Julie Hughes sharing how important this acknowledgment of John C. Wally’s humanity is to his descendants, and Cannot Unring that Bell by Nate Pawelek of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Westport.
Learn more:
- St. Matthews Church Brings Witness Stones Project to Wilton, Sharing Stories of CT’s Enslaved People from “Good Morning Wilton” (Feb. 28, 2023).
- Remembering a Wilton Man’s Life that History has Obscured —Emancipated Slave John C. Wally by Steve Hudspeth from “Good Morning Wilton” (June 6, 2023).
- Enslaved Black Residents and Their Descendants: Five Lives from Wilton’s Past, a webinar led by Dr. Julie Hughes that includes a member of John C. Wally’s “family tree”: Philes, aka Gin (Abbott Family); Jane Manning James (Abbott Family); Charles D. King (Lambert Family); Susan Dullivan and Charlotte Gilmore.
- Story posted on Episcopal News Service (June 22, 2023): Connecticut church creates interfaith collaboration to learn the state’s slave history
“Education means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man, into the glorious light of truth, the light which men can only be free. or
Frederick Douglass
Installation Ceremony on June 10, 2023
“In Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
Galatians 3:28