The Conway Colony
Yellow Springs, Greene County, Ohio
Marker Inscription
In 1862, Reverend Moncure D. Conway established a colony near Yellow Springs for formerly enslaved people from his family's Virginia plantation. Led by Dunmore and Eliza Gwinn, the settlers made an arduous journey to a village Conway believed would welcom… transcription continues on the marker
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The Story
In the second year of the Civil War, as the future of slavery hung in the balance, the abolitionist minister Moncure Conway did something few Southern-born sons of slaveholding families ever attempted: he arranged for the people his family held in bondage in Virginia to travel north to freedom. Their destination was the countryside near Yellow Springs, Ohio, a corner of the state already known for its reform-minded, antislavery convictions. Guided by Dunmore and Eliza Gwinn, the group made a long and dangerous overland journey to build new lives as free people while the war still raged around them.
Why it matters
The Conway Colony captures the human reality behind emancipation — the courage of individual families claiming freedom and the network of Northern communities that helped make it possible — during the very war that would end American slavery.
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Related people
- · Moncure D. Conway
- · Dunmore Gwinn
- · Eliza Gwinn
Related events
- · American Civil War
- · Emancipation
Themes & tags
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