LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — A group in Lexington is working to preserve history that is not well-known. After Emancipation, Lexington was home to many hamlets of Black people who'd been freed. City leaders are working to catalog their history and make sure people can learn more about it.
There's a lot of history in Lexington, if you know where to look.
Alvin Seals attended the Cadentown School in the early 1940s.
"When the war started, a year later, we had tables put in there by the government and then we were given food through the U.S. government and had breakfast and lunch here," Seals said, as he walked through the restored schoolhouse.
The Cadentown hamlet was one of at least 20 such communities around Lexington in the late 1800s and early 1900s, after enslaved people were freed.
"Most of the folks just stayed in that area of the farm where they worked and they became their own entities and they named them and they had the church, they had the school perhaps, they had the cemetery, and they became settlements," said Councilmember Kathy Plomin.
Plomin is working with members of the community to make this a place where people can learn about the history of these hamlets around Fayette County. Cadentown, with its church, schoolhouse, and cemetery, is the only one still standing.
"I think this needs to be a community center of stories, of artifacts, of pictures, so that families that were part of these hamlets can come back here and celebrate, rejoice, and let others know about what these hamlets meant to them and their family in our community," Plomin said.
Seals' family was instrumental in helping preserve the Cadentown property.
"It's because I'm a human and I live in America, to be very frank. It's good to know that something is here that was around when I was a boy," Seals said.
The people from communities like Cadentown have a lot of pride in where they came from. Seals says people need to know these places were the foundation of a life well-lived.
"The students need to know that. The community needs to know that. These teachers like Mrs. Newman were pretty good," Seals said.
The city will officially kick off fundraising for the project on Juneteenth. They want to hear from people who are connected to those hamlets to form an advisory council and gather any stories, photographs, or artifacts from the hamlets.
