At Last by Loretta Burwell
During the July 2024 Bray School Stories, W&M Bray School Lab Oral Historian Tonia Merideth shared a small portion of an essay written by Descendant Community member and special guest Miss Loretta Burwell in 2002. With Miss Loretta's permission, it is linked here in its entirety.
At Last by Loretta Burwell
It was bitterly cold. I was aware of that much. Every now and then I glanced through the oaks, pines, and sweet gum to look at the river across the bluff. What held my gaze, though, was the marker at the small memorial nestled in the trees where I sat: "Free at last." Twenty-five remains removed from the wooded site just across the lane and placed in a common grave. Free.
Slaves and indentured servants had lived in these woods by the James River in Williamsburg, it was a Bray quarter, which later became part of the Burwell plantation known as Kingsmill when Lewis Burwell IV married the Bray widow in 1745, and their adjoining properties were merged. It now belonged to Anheuser-Busch. It also belonged to the spirits of my ancestors. I closed my eyes and listened to the whispers of the wind. "I'm here," I said. “I have come to visit you, to pay my respects.”
The path that had led me here had begun in the Visitor's Center in 1998, the year before, when I mentioned to the lady behind the desk that I was a descendant of house slaves of the Kingsmill Plantation that had stood on the land where Busch Gardens is now. I knew that the ruins of the manor house were not open to the public; I was just fishing for information to add to my family research. What followed next was as welcome as it was unexpected. A phone call from someone at the Center had Mr. Thomas Dunn of the Anheuser-Busch Corporation waiting for me at the entrance to the gated community adjacent to the Gardens, and he gave me a personal tour.
My family had left Williamsburg in 1775 with the Burwells when they relocated to Mecklenburg County, Virginia to build Stoneland and to cultivate fresh tobacco land. The process repeated itself in 1816 after Stoneland burned to the ground, and the family went to Vance County, North Carolina, the next county south, in search of new tobacco land. My father, the third Nathan Spotswood Burwell, was born there in 1906. We always thought that our family started in North Carolina, but now I had traced us back to colonial times, to Williamsburg. I wish that my father had lived to see this.
Only the foundation remained of the manor house, but the brick buildings of the kitchen and the plantation office on opposite sides of the house were in fact. In the back leading up to the manor, traces of terraced gardens flanked a long stairway of stones from Wales. Behind all this was a golf course, and beyond that was a young forest so that unlike colonial times, you could no longer see all the way to the river. I had stared up towards the manor at the old gnarled trees on the property and felt oddly at home.
And now, months later, I was back It was Black History Month, and the historic slave grave site, which I had not seen, was open to the public for a couple of Saturdays complete with a talk by the archaeologist. I had driven nearly four hours to get here and wondered if I would "lose it" as I had at the museum the summer before where I had gone after my tour of Kingsmill. There, under glass, was a plate with some utensils that had been excavated from the manor house environs. Like lightning, a sudden thought lashed: somebody who had my blood had washed that plate. Tourists had quietly tiptoed around the weeping woman gazing at a place setting.
Mr. Dunn told me that when they had planned the dedication for the new grave site, they could find no descendants of the slaves who had lived here to participate in the ceremonies. My research had not led me there yet, and Tidewater television did not reach Baltimore, but I was here now. I was back. The ancestors had been patient.
"Stay as long as you like," the kind archaeologist had said when he left. Earlier, when he had given me the academic tour he mentioned that during the long hours when he had sometimes worked alone, be could often feel the presence of the people who had lived there. Oh, yes, I could feel their presence all right, but I wanted more. wanted the wind to deliver their whispers; I wanted to feel that they were happy that I had come.
Kingsmill, built by Lewis Burwell III between 1725 and 1735, had its own quarter. House slaves generally slept on the floor at the manor. When they died, where would they have been buried? How much mixing, if any, occurred between the Bray quarter and the Burwell quarter before and after the 1745 marriage? Historically speaking, I have no real certainty that these are my bones; emotionally speaking, the certainty is absolute. They are all my bones.
I love the Anheuser-Busch people. This was a zillion dollar gated community, and when they wanted to expand, they had discovered the graveyard in the woods. To their credit, they had halted the bulldozing, involved the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, and paid for the archaeological work This went on for several years, I'm told, and everything was duly staked, mapped, charted, and analyzed. The archaeologist had sent me copies of the site maps as he'd promised. The work is impressive.
I also hate the Anheuser-Busch people. Did they really have to move them? Did they really have to put them in a common grave? All because some zillion dollar homes had to face the river?
"Never you mind," I tell the ancestors "This is still your spot; you had it to yourselves for hundreds of years, since the 1670's. It was yours when the powers that be didn't want to be that close to the river, it's yours now that they do.”
The leaves rustle, and I tell myself it is the voices of the people who lived, loved, and worked in these woods. "Yes,” they whisper, “We are still here.”
I draw my coat closer against the February chill. “I love you, my people," I say, again and again, bathing the litany with my tears. “I am the future that you dreamed and worked for, I am here to honor you.”
And I do not leave until I feel a blessing.
Loretta Burwell
January 2002
