8.24.29 Staid in Lewisburg Staid in Lewisburg until evening. It was a quarterly court and a day of great resort in Lewisburg. Started in the evening and…… Read more “Entry 5 From Virginia to Missouri”
Category: Blog
The Genealogy of a Slave
The search for that special slave known as Archer Alexander has begun and needs to be found. Only then can that “true” story, as Keith Alexander calls it, be really known. Not easy when you are trying to find the genealogy of a slave. This is what is known as thorough and exhaustive research, for those of you who like the leaf, click and save method. And while it is not easy, the rewards are truly “Amazing”!
Searching for more descendants
The untold story of Archer Alexander is the life of an enslaved Virginian born in 1806, and brought to Missouri in 1829. An intelligent man, considered uppity,…… Read more “Searching for more descendants”
St. Charles County Missouri
Using DNA the family is looking for other descendants of Archer Alexander. They are planning a reunion in St. Charles County in August 2019.
The Emancipation Memorial
When his friend William Greenleaf Eliot shared a photograph of the Emancipation Memorial with Archer Alexander, he emotionally exclaimed I’se free![i] The bronze monument features Alexander, an enslaved African-American on one knee and wearing a slave’s cuff and rising before President Abraham Lincoln. It was dedicated April 14th, 1876, marking the 11thAnniversary of Lincoln’s assassination, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The beautiful monument located in Lincoln Park was placed[ii]in direct view of the U.S. Capitol during America’s period of Reconstruction, and is the only Washington, D.C. monument featuring an African-American and funded entirely by America’s former enslaved themselves.
William Greenleaf Eliot
Within two years, he would take in a Fugitive Slave from St. Charles County, and under that law, could have been jailed himself. However, he would instead assist that slave in achieving that freedom, an act that he said President Lincoln himself (who was a personal friend) helped in.
Muhammed Ali
Modern science is giving family historians everywhere a big boost. Keith Winstead has been working on his ancestor Wesley Alexander for nearly 30 years, and tried the new technology. The amazing results revealed all kinds of surprises. He knew his family’s connections to Cassius Clay. But it was not until he did further DNA tests, that he learned that they were all related to the slave immortalized in the Emancipation Memorial, Archer Alexander.
Grave located
The final resting place of Archer Alexander, who was famously immortalized in the Emancipation Memorial, in Washington, D.C. in 1876 has been found. The location was unknown, and searched for by his descendant Keith Winstead for years.
