Second of Two Markers Will Memorialize Freedmen’s Journey from South Carolina to Texas in 1867
More than 150 years ago, 435 freedmen, women and children traveled from Kingstree, South Carolina to Falls County, Texas to settle in and build a new life.
Today, thanks to genealogical tools and resources, many descendants of these families have been able to trace their roots back to this group of travelers and honor their family history.
As soon as June of this year, a memorial will be placed in Marlin to list all the names of the freedmen settlers who made the journey from South Carolina to Texas in 1867.
Taking the lionshare of the work to memorialize this important piece of Marlin history is David Anthony Taylor, CEO and founder of Black Pearls of Genealogy (BPoG), a nonprofit organization committed to preserving and honoring Black Family History through accessible genealogy tools and historical records.
Taylor started the nonprofit two years ago, in December 2023, and it was born from his involvement with “Find a Grave” that connected him to people across the country, seeking gravesites of ancestors for others. He started by cleaning and replacing broken headstones for people of color, but his work led him to the need for memorial markers at unmarked graves. The website he created grew to encompass a much larger scope than he originally planned, and the same can be said for his work. The website, thebpog. org, includes genealogy research tools, resources and historical documents related to slavery, freedmen records, military records, native rolls, maps, and more.
“I joined a group run by Dr. Shelly Murphy, she’s a genealogist who works with the University of Virginia and she has Zoom meetings every Friday,” Taylor said. “Someone ac-tually found these records while we were going over the Freedman’s Bureau. It’s really rare that you find African American’s first and last names, and there were 435 names on that one document.”
Taylor ran with the finding, and did more research to learn the context of this migration.
“After slavery ended, two gentlemen from Texas (James Sanford Jones and Cornelius M. Summers) said ‘we don’t have anyone to work our land anymore, there’s no more slaves,’ so they went to South Carolina through the Freedman’s Bureau,” Taylor said. “They said ‘hey, if anyone wants to move to Texas for a better life, everything’s great there, we’d want to take you there.’” 435 people took that chance. They left Kingstree by train to Charleston, South Carolina, where they boarded the ship Adele on Jan. 26, 1867. They arrived in Galveston, Texas on Feb. 7 and continued their journey by train to Falls County, where many settled in Marlin and surrounding areas.
The sister memorial marker, located at Kingstree, South Carolina, where the journey began, was installed in May, 2025, just up the street from the railroad station that changed so many lives.
“These two memorials are deeply connected. Kingstree represents a point of origin, and Marlin represents a place of rebuilding and legacy,” Taylor said. “Together, they help tell a fuller story of movement, resilience, and community formation after emancipation, grounded in documentation and carried forward through descendant and community engagement.”
In October of last year, Taylor was chosen for the James Walker Dent Award by the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society, a prestigious award that he was surprised and honored to receive.
“When I got the award in October, I had maybe 20 people? I don’t think we even had 20 people on our Facebook page,” Taylor said. “Since October, we now have over 15,000 followers. If everybody donated a dollar I could pay for this memorial in full, or if people agreed to give a monthly donation of $2.50 per month, that would help pay for more of these memorials.”
The material and shipping costs for these memorials is not cheap, and Taylor would be grateful for any donations toward this effort. He recognizes the importance of sharing the stories of people of color, especially those lesser known figures who directly impacted the communities they lived in and served.
“We’ll never do a memorial for Martin Luther King Jr., we’ll never do one for Harriet Tubman, I’m doing memorials for everyday people that could be an inspiration in the people of color community. It could be someone from 1990 that helped the community get out of poverty, or an athlete that came back and helped someone, or the first black church in a community, a cafeteria lady who has been serving lunch for 50 years… I think everybody’s story needs to be told.”
In next week’s edition of the Marlin Democrat, learn more about this historic journey from Angela Shaw Ross and Sharon Styles, direct descendants of the Shaw family, who made the journey to settle in Falls County more than 150 years ago.
TOP OF MEMORIAL MARKER WILL READ: Journey of Faith: The 1867 South Carolina to Texas Migration This monument memorializes the brave men, women, and children who migrated to Texas in search of better lives. In January 1867 a courageous group of 435 newly emancipated men, women, and children left Kingstree, Williamsburg County, South Carolina with hopes for a brighter future in Texas. These formerly enslaved individuals traveled to Charleston, South Carolina and boarded the steamship Adele on January 26, 1867. The group arrived in Galveston, Texas on February 7, 1867 whereupon they journeyed by train to Marlin, Falls County, Texas. The majority of Freedmen remained in Falls County and the surrounding counties of Limestone, Robertson, Bell, Milam and McLennan. Several families settled in nearby Montgomery and Bastrop counties as well. These brave individuals laid the foundations of vibrant African American communities across Central Texas. Through genealogical and DNA research, their descendants traced family ties between Texas and South Carolina, preserving a powerful legacy of resilience, faith, and unity.
The names of all 435 freedmen, women and children who made this journey will be listed below.