Piecing Together Pandenarium: Archaeology at the Site of a Free Black Community in Western Pennsylvania

A view of the country crossroads and rolling hills where the antebellum African American community near Indian Run, known as Pandenarium, once stood.
Photo, Angela Jaillet-Wentling

In 1854 newly freed African American men, women and children hailing from a plantation in Ablemarle County, Virginia, arrived at a dusty country crossroads in northwestern Pennsylvania’s Mercer County. Estimates vary, but approximately 63 free people settled together on 100 acres of their own land. Local abolitionists prepared for the arrival by building houses along the hill, digging wells, and planting orchards for the incoming group. The inhabitants of the settlement gained their freedom by various paths, but many were freed by manumission in the will of their deceased enslaver. Coming to Pennsylvania during a tumultuous time meant leaving behind their known world to navigate their new freedom. The community, later named Pandenarium by 20th-century historians, was located along a small stream called Indian Run. The name Pandenarium references wealth and agricultural abundance, but its residents likely just called it home.

The majority of the formerly enslaved people living along Indian Run had been manumitted as part of the execution of Dr. Charles Everett’s estate, which also set aside a fund for each person to start anew. Many used these monies, along with wages they earned working on the plantation after their manumission between 1848 and 1854, to purchase the freedom of family members from neighboring plantations. Some residents lost family to slavery before they could purchase their freedom. Joe Duke arrived at Indian Run with only seven of his children, three remaining enslaved and 12 having died in slavery. Others likely joined the group after escaping slavery, finding refuge within the community.

The route of the recently emancipated men, women and children from Keswick Station in Ablemarle County, Virginia, to Indian Run in western Pennsylvania.

Leaving Everett’s Belmont Plantation, the travelers took a train from Keswick Station, venturing north to Pennsylvania. The men, women and children followed the same route that many of the self-emancipated refugees on the Underground Railroad had traveled. At New Brighton, in Pennsylvania’s Beaver County, near the confluence of the Beaver and Ohio rivers, they boarded packet boats to travel further north along the Beaver Division of the Pennsylvania Canal. The canal followed the Beaver River by prism, built alongside the river, through a series of locks and dams and via slack-water navigation in the river itself. The freed people debarked from the canal in New Castle, where they were met by William Clark, editor of a local antislavery paper, and other local abolitionists who accompanied them by wagon to Indian Run.

Even though the community reached the North as free people, the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, four years prior to their arrival, meant that they would still have to fight for their freedom. In 1855 Act Number 324 of the Pennsylvania legislature would “authorize and empower the Court of Common Pleas of Mercer county to legitimate certain persons who were emancipated by the last will and testament of Dr. C.D. Everett, late of Albemarle county, Virginia.” Many of the original inhabitants of Pandenarium were listed in this act; however, those not explicitly named or manumitted from the Everett estate remained in danger of being abducted. Even with legal documentation, the families and individuals at the settlement lived in danger in the years before the Civil War and with hostility afterwards.

In August 1864 three residents living at the Pandenarium settlement — John Allen, John Garland and George Lewis — enlisted in the famed 127th United States Colored Infantry Regiment and fought in some of the final battles of the war, including the victory at Appomattox Court House, leading to the surrender of Lee in April 1865. The men mustered out of the Union Army in September 1865, returning to Mercer County. That following December, the 13th Amendment formally abolished slavery in the United States having officially received the three-fourths vote for ratification and inclusion in the Constitution.

Three of Pandenarium’s residents, John Allen, John Garland and George Lewis, enlisted in the famed 127th Regiment of the United States Colored Troops in 1864. The regimental flag was designed by African American artist David Bustill Bowser(1820-1900).
Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center

Following the Civil War, the Reconstruction era began in earnest. Efforts were made to reintegrate the Southern states, as well as to guarantee the citizenship and voting rights of the millions of formerly enslaved African Americans. But, by 1877, the rollback of these efforts began with renewed voter suppression, a rise in domestic terrorism and white supremacy groups, and enactment of Jim Crow policies aimed at racial segregation that persisted well into the 20th century. Education as well as expansion of opportunities elsewhere became primary motivations for many African Americans during this time as migrations to urban centers and movement westward were common. Historians Clayborne Carson, Emma Lapsansky-Werner and Gary Nash note in The Struggle for Freedom: A History of African Americans that “the first generations of African Americans born into emancipation struggled to find a place to establish families, make a living, and educate themselves in a hostile white society.”

Local newspaper accounts describe night rides meant to instill fear coupled with false accusations of theft from locals in the surrounding community. Despite these hostilities, the people at Pandenarium persevered. From approximately 63 original settlers in 1854, the 1860 census shows a reduction of nearly half to 31 Black men, women and children in the township. Some original settlers appear to have dispersed throughout Mercer and Lawrence counties in both rural and urban settings, while others may have moved further afield. The remainder of the 19th-century census records indicate that the community’s population varied between 21 and 29 Black men, women and children. From 1880 to 1900, however, three generations of African American families were living in the community.

At the turn of the century, historic maps and census records parallel each other showing only three of those manumitted from the Everett estate still at the settlement: Rose Allen and George and Caroline Lewis. Nearly half a century after arriving at Indian Run to build a new life, these men and women raised their families to include their children and grandchildren at Pandenarium. Both households included grandchildren living with them in 1900. After the original inhabitants passed away in the first decade of the 20th century, the following years showed a steady decline in population from 17 residents in 1900 to 11 in 1910 to nine in 1920 to six in 1930. In History of East Lackawannock Township, Mercer County, Pennsylvania, 1900-2000, local historian Ruth Woods described Charlie Robinson as the last holdout at Indian Run in the 20th century. Although Charlie does not appear in the 1930 census, the Robinsons do, and they were apparently the last Black family living at the settlement. They, like many of the others in preceding decades, then moved on to the nearby town of New Castle.

Differing Perspectives: History vs. Archaeology

A view of the John and Rosie Allen residence cellar foundation in 2017.
Photo, Angela Jaillet-Wentling

No story stays in one place. They swell like waves gaining momentum and meaning. Different perspectives, time and technology can change the way they are perceived. The idea that history is biased is not a new one, but it does beg the question of why we continue to take for fact what others might question. Premiering in 2015 on Broadway, Lin Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton ends on a chillingly beautiful refrain of “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?” Questioning our understanding of history can lead us to a deeper, more nuanced knowledge of our past.

When a historical account or newspaper report ends with “and nothing remains of what once was,” archaeologists cringe. By and large, archaeologists want to dig deeper, be it through excavation or more extensive research. Some sites undoubtedly have been destroyed, but others are more likely to have been forgotten, lain fallow or fallen in — all of which can make for excellent preservation. Sites like Pandenarium are usually considered far gone or no longer visible, and in some sense they are. The people who created them, lived along their lanes, worked their fields, learned to write in the shade of their trees, and watched loved ones come and go are long gone, but some of the materials of their lives may still exist. The structures they built might be razed, yet the foundations persist. The potential to recover parts of their stories, left untold in historical accounts, remains.

Interdisciplinary Insights: History and Archaeology

Created by English artist William Berryman, who lived in Jamaica between 1808 and 1816, these drawings portray some of the many aspects of the African diaspora and transnational slave trade. Shown here are two of the hundreds he produced of the daily lives of the enslaved, entitled Water Hole and Washerwomen.
Library of Congress

The story of Pandenarium was first told as a nod to or proof of the region’s role in early and active abolitionism. Without doubt, the establishment of a free African American community before the Civil War in 1854 is a testament to the abolitionist network in place near the community of Indian Run. The presence of the Underground Railroad network undoubtedly played a significant role in why Black families settled there and why they stayed, despite the hardships they faced. The primary roles and characters were those of the dominant white culture of the region. So, when the story of Pandenarium was told, it was through that lens, with the focus centered on the good deeds of the white slaveholders and abolitionists and then how the white community saw the settlement’s subsequent success or failure.

Most ink used in telling the story in the 20th century focused on the magnanimity of Dr. Charles Everett’s posthumous manumission of those he enslaved. The freed Black community takes a back seat as being propelled to their destiny by the generosity and good will of their former owner and the executor of his estate, the younger Dr. C.D. Everett. These accounts do not square fully with what we know of the two Everetts’ personalities and allegiances. The elder Everett was more than just a neighbor and physician to Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe. He was also an astute politician in his own right, a slaveholding member of the Whig party familiar with the debate surrounding emancipation and colonization. Prominent thinkers and politicians advocating for gradual emancipation outside of Virginia held sway with white slaveholders who sought to end the institution of slavery through posthumous manumission.

Surface finds from the Pandenarium site included a medicine bottle and fragments of other bottles.
Photo, Angela Jaillet-Wentling

Historian Timothy Konhaus notes this in his dissertation, “Freedom Road: Black Refugee Settlement in Northwestern Pennsylvania, 1820–1870”: “What little has been written of the man [elder Dr. Everett] presents him as a very kind-hearted slave owner, a characterization very much at odds with the evidence we have of his personality.” Depictions of Everett range from esteemed neighbor to cruel tutor to a man suspicious of both romance and business affairs. His nephew seems to have been more affable in nature, but his support of the Confederacy during the Civil War included funding an entire company of soldiers and donating large sums of money. Although the younger Everett’s duty was to execute his uncle’s will, it is unclear as to whether he held the same ideas regarding slavery.

The people who settled at Pandenarium were free to move north once manumitted, but they were not necessarily able to remain in Virginia free. In some instances, newly freed African Americans chose to stay near the former plantation on which they were enslaved but were then forcibly removed by local law enforcement. Their presence was thought to inspire enslaved people to foment rebellion against the slaveholders. The hardships the community at Pandenarium would face in Pennsylvania were thought to be less than those in a state dependent upon the institution of slavery. When they arrived in New Castle, Konhaus argues that they did so as refugees of slavery.

The year the first members of the community arrived, they faced floods that swelled the banks of the small stream and an inhospitable winter. None of this proved insurmountable. Houses lined the road along the hill. Newspaper accounts describe early efforts to build “shacks” along the stream. This was likely thwarted temporarily, but by 1860 John Allen’s house remained uphill, and his blacksmith shop is mapped along the stream near the crossroads. By the 1880s his son, Robert Allen, and his family lived in a house at the crossroads.

Volunteers helped excavate test units measuring 1 m by 1 m to help graduate student Samantha Taylor complete her master’s thesis research at a public archaeology outreach event in 2017.
Photo, Samantha Taylor

Each generation restructured the landscape to situate themselves in their community. When agriculture no longer afforded them the ability to thrive as it had for their parents, the next generation pursued their own educational, economic and social opportunities in nearby towns like New Castle, Sharon and Mercer. Historian Roland Barksdale-Hall’s African Americans in Mercer County describes the upward mobility of an intelligentsia that “arose from the citizens of Pandenarium.” Some of this is attributable to the importance placed on education by the formerly enslaved residents but also to their ability to adapt, even when it meant moving on.

What we lose in the accounts of the earlier 20th century is the significance of what really happened at Pandenarium. The recitation of noble intent, failed enterprise and migration leaves out the depth of the lived experience by those who actually formed a community and rebuilt their world. The Black men, women and children and their descendants would flourish at Pandenarium from 1854 into the 1930s, but newspaper accounts of their history would focus on perceived failure, unpreparedness and sickness. None of these assertions were founded in fact or in accounts from the descendants, but they were repeated by later histories. With 80 years of occupation and multiple generations of African Americans living at the settlement, how do we know so little about the people who lived and made a home of nearly 100 acres of farmland? We needed to dig deeper.

Archaeological Insights on the Settlement

In The Archaeology of Northern Slavery and Freedom, archaeologist James A. Delle explores the varying experiences of African Americans living in the Northern states as enslaved and free. “Whatever the situation of African Americans, whether they lived in bondage or freedom, archaeology has the power to shed light on their experiences.” Such is the case at Pandenarium. Where historical accounts fall short in their ability to describe the daily lives of those living at the free settlement, archaeology allows us to see how the men, women and children of the community adapted to and built their new lives. A look at the detritus, or refuse, of their daily lives through archaeology combined with overlooked documentation and emerging historical accounts tells another view of a varied story.

Metal-detected artifacts found at the site of the John and Rosie Allen residence included a spoon, possible handle hardware, button back, a cut nail, and a harmonica reed.
Photo, Angela Jaillet-Wentling

Archaeological investigations at Pandenarium began 10 years ago and continue into the present. The initial emphasis was to locate and establish boundaries of the potential site. To do this, light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data, historic aerial photography, and historic mapping were utilized in combination with ground penetrating radar (GPR) data collection, shovel test pit (STP) and test unit excavations. LiDAR and GPR are two methods of remote sensing. LiDAR allows for a microlevel view of the land’s surface or topography. GPR provides a subsurface view of resistances that lie underground. This landscape-level analysis focused on the original and evolving layout of the settlement, showing that the community’s structure changed from the builders’ mental template of a rural village to the inhabitants’ multigenerational restructuring of the site. Supplemented by in-depth historical research, the archaeological investigations sought to establish the missing narrative of multiple generations of African Americans living at Pandenarium.

By looking at location, site size, topography, layout, basis for establishment, and central focus, Pandenarium was compared to two local communities, Hadley and Mercer, both in Mercer County, and two Ablemarle County settings in Virginia, the Belmont Plantation slave quarters where they had likely lived prior to their trip northward and Monticello’s Mulberry Row. The structure of the initial settlement at Pandenarium most closely resembled Hadley and Mulberry Row. Although the Everetts provided an ideological impetus and financial support for the establishment of the community, a handful of local abolitionists led by John Young constructed the settlement in keeping with their idea of what a Northern rural village should look like.

This image shows an underlying USDA aerial photograph of the community from 1939 (after residents left) with overlays showing residences, roadways and features of the community identified through historic and archaeological research.
Courtesy Angela Jaillet-Wentling

Almost immediately upon their arrival, the Black families began to alter the landscape of the structured settlement. Where the ideas of the Southern planters and the realities of the Northern abolitionists left space, the incoming African Americans made place. With the original structures situated along the historic road, the inhabitants were essentially contained within the settlement along a single-access corridor similar to the layout of many slave rows. The primary route out of and into the site’s structures would have been the internal historic road. One possible motivation for the building of structures along the stream was its proximity to the external roads that connected the site with the community outside Pandenarium, as well as to the water. Rather than live in structured isolation or segregation, the African American inhabitants chose integration. The floods following their arrival put a temporary generational halt to additional attempts to live along the seasonally inundated stream banks, but the presence of John Allen’s blacksmith shop shows it suited his business early on.

It was the second generation of Allens who built a house at the crossroads, slightly set back and at a higher elevation from earlier attempts to build along the stream. Bob and Lizzie Allen raised their biracial children, the third generation, on the boundary of two communities, one specifically designed for free African Americans and one inhabited almost exclusively by European Americans. The artifacts recovered from the Bob and Lizzie Allen family midden feature represent their habitation from circa 1874 to 1896, dates based on the artifacts. Middens are the waste that people leave behind, be it as a dump or a diffuse scatter associated with cultural activities. The domestic detritus of everyday life included buttons from garments, leather remnants from shoes, a partial Bakelite comb or hair pick, a worn-down graphite pencil, and part of a toy tea set — all painting a more complete picture of the people living at Pandenarium. The archaeological remains show us the lives lived: the types of clothes and hair ornaments worn, pencils used to a nub in the pursuit of education, and toys so thoroughly played with they break and disappear in the backyard only to be found nearly 120 years later.

Artifacts recovered from excavations of the Robert and Lizzie Allen residence included leather eyelets, an incised lead pencil, fragments of a toy tea set, a Bakelite comb, and buttons.
Photo, Angela Jaillet-Wentling

In her analysis of ceramics recovered from the cellar feature of John and Rosie Allen’s residence at the center of the site, archaeologist Samantha Taylor explained how that family fared in comparison to their contemporaries at the antebellum free African American community of Timbuctoo, New Jersey; the village of the German American religious Harmony Society at nearby Economy; and a domestic structure for the enslaved people at Monticello’s Mulberry Row. The Allens’ choice of ceramics indicates that they were of modest socioeconomic standing, and their choices were like those of both their regional neighbors at Economy and Timbuctoo. Despite this, the variety of patterns and colors on the ceramics unearthed at Pandenarium were similar to those found at Mulberry Row. The Allens purchased the ceramics that were available at local markets but preferred pieces with more decoration and color. Their lives as free in a time of slavery and as African American in a region predominantly European American is reflected in their choices of ceramics and other small finds.

Taken together, the archaeological findings uncovered multiple generations living in a place of shared space as a community, countering traditional newspaper accounts that prematurely erase Pandenarium from the landscape. The structuring and restructuring of their community over several generations shows that the inhabitants negotiated their intersectional role in the local rural economy, not as enslaved peoples or like their European American neighbors, but as free African Americans in the antebellum period. The agency of the Allens and other families living at the settlement is evident in their choices of ceramics and their efforts to integrate and expand their community.

Beyond the artifacts, revisiting and pulling in additional historical documentation with the archaeological investigations aided in a more nuanced interpretation of the past. The incorporation of census data helped to both better define the length of occupancy at the site and add depth to the daily lives of the people who lived there. Census data include ages, ethnicity, gender, education and land ownership. The aerial photographs from around the time that the settlement’s last occupants departed depict the remnants of fields, wood lines, orchards and structures.

The application of remote-sensing technologies aided in the interpretation of the site as well. LiDAR data provided a microtopographic view of the landscape showing modifications from the former inhabitants as well as clues to areas for future investigation. The application of GPR on the site showed the potential of what lies below the surface, again indicating the possibilities the site holds for future inquiry. Less than 1 percent of the 100-acre site has been investigated to date. The level of archaeological investigation conducted at Pandenarium, so far, is just the tip of the tip of the iceberg in terms of what more we can learn.

Expanding Our Narratives

In 2020, in the wake of civil unrest prompted by the killing of George Floyd, the Society of Black Archaeologists sponsored a public forum entitled Archaeology in the Time of Black Lives Matter. One of the panelists, Dr. Alexandra Jones, founder of the nonprofit Archaeology in the Community, challenged the audience to move beyond being allies to being accomplices, because accomplices are willing to do the work of confronting biases and dismantling systemic racism when allies might not be. Bringing in a diversity of voices to tell the shared story of the past is a first step towards advocating for the underrepresented. Revisiting traditional historical sources with a new lens and pulling on nontraditional historical resources keeps us moving in that same direction.

Historian and author Rev. Roland Barksdale-Hall addresses the audience as the keynote speaker for the Pennsylvania Historical Marker dedication ceremony in 2019. Barksdale-Hall shared from the George and Caroline Lewis family history, “The House that Love Built.”
Photo, Angela Jaillet-Wentling

Three unlikely and disparate groups, the European American slaveholding plantation owners, the recently freed African Americans, and a network of European American abolitionists came together to build another path forward in the decades leading up to the Civil War. It is by better understanding the past and its nuances, how we record it, and how we preserve it that we can build a better path forward in our own times. As historians, preservationists, and people navigating modern social dynamics, we can recognize the limitations of singular storytelling and provide space for the voices of underrepresented peoples in our efforts to decipher and tell their varied histories.

Building that path means recognizing potential for harmful bias in the historical record and ensuring that we are not part of its continuation. Taking a look today at the earlier 20th-century newspaper accounts of Pandenarium, we see in some the use of judgmental phrases and racist terms. Many of these second-hand accounts focus on a perceived early and rapid failure of the settlement. Archaeology and historical documentation say otherwise. By updating our narrative with what we know now, we help to bridge the gap between the present-day and past communities.

Public outreach and community education are an increasingly important part of many archaeological investigations. The outreach helps to build a beneficial dialog between descendant or local communities and researchers. Outreach efforts at Pandenarium included presentations at local, regional and national venues ranging from club meetings to scholarly conferences. Local newspapers documented the archaeological efforts and an evolving understanding of the community. A local news station, WKBN, ran a feature piece on the archaeological site aiding efforts to identify and work with the descendant community. As a result of these combined efforts, Bill Davison and his granddaughter, Amanda Mary Davison, came forward as descendants of Lucy Myers, an original inhabitant of the settlement.

Public outreach identified the will to memorialize the archaeological site of the community with a Pennsylvania Historical Marker through the program administered by the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission (PHMC) and operated by its State Historic Preservation Office. Local funds to support the nomination were lacking. In 2018, however, PHMC began a proactive initiative to encourage nominations for underrepresented subjects and places, providing financial support for accepted markers and their installation. In 2019 Pandenarium was selected for a marker through this program.

In June 2020, Angela Jaillet-Wentling and Roland Barksdale-Hall helped install the Pandenarium marker at the intersection of US-19/Perry Highway and New Castle-Mercer Road.
Photo, Quentin Clark

Historian Rev. Roland Barksdale-Hall’s keynote address at the marker dedication centered on the only known written history from the African American inhabitants at Pandenarium. In his reading of “The House That Love Built,” Barksdale-Hall imparted the story and images of George and Caroline Lewis as remembered fondly by their children growing up in the community. The family Bible sat atop its own stand in the living room. Four maples stood outside their door in the yard, overlooking the gardens cared for by the children. Harvests were taken to market and bounties shared. These remembrances of homeplace stand as a far cry from the failed community depicted in past newspaper histories. Author and social activist bell hooks recounts this type of experience in her essay “Homeplace (A Site of Resistance)” when she describes visiting her grandmother as a “feeling of safety, of arrival, of homecoming when we finally reached the edges of her yard, when we could see the soot black face of our grandfather, Daddy Gus, sitting in his chair on the porch, smell his cigar, and rest on his lap.”

In June 2020, with the help of friends and family, Barksdale-Hall and I erected the new marker for Pandenarium at an intersection located just south of the Mercer exit of Interstate 80. Heading south from the exit, passersby can take a right turn at the intersection traveling through miles of rolling farm fields fed by small streams. The marker proclaims the story of a community tied together by their fight to maintain their freedom while building better lives for their children and grandchildren. It helps highlight the power of historic preservation to provide space for others to tell their stories.

Places like Pandenarium teach us to expand our narratives and develop more robust perspectives on what constitutes history. We cannot continue to rely on and privilege a single view in the face of other, more diverse sources of historical reference.

Further Reading

Barksdale-Hall, Roland. African Americans in Mercer County. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2009. / Delle, James A. The Archaeology of Northern Slavery and Freedom. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2019. / Gall, Michael J. and Richard F. Veit, eds. Archaeologies of African American Life in the Upper Mid-Atlantic. 2nd ed. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2017. / Konhaus, Timothy. “Freedom Road: Black Refugee Settlements in Northwestern Pennsylvania, 1820-1870.” Ph.D. diss., Department of History, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, 2010. / LaRoche, Cheryl Janifer. Free Black Communities and the Underground Railroad: The Geography of Resistance. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2014. / Taylor, Samantha. “Looking Through Dirty Dishes: A Comparative Analysis of Ceramics at the John and Rosie Allen Residence, Pandenarium, Mercer County, Pennsylvania.” Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, PA, 2018

Angela Jaillet-Wentling is a historical archaeologist living right around the corner from Mr. Rogers’ childhood home in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. In 2011 she completed her master’s thesis, “The People of Pandenarium: The Living Landscape of a Free African American Settlement.” When not knee-deep digging history, she enjoys trekking the Laurel Highlands with her usband Richard, their ever-energetic son Aiden, and a mutt pup named Clarabelle.