The Cenotaph for Robin Starr Has Been Approved!

Memorial
Written By John Mills

As I've shared with you before, my non-profit, The Alex Breanne Corporation, purchased a 1782 pay bond issued to Robin Starr for his Revolutionary War service. Robin was enslaved in Danbury, serving while he was enslaved, purchasing his freedom in the middle of the war. He then received the badge of merit from George Washington. 

I've been working with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to get a cenotaph to install next to his son and his grandson.  That was approved yesterday! Yay!

Also, I've been working with kids at Cornwall Consolidated School to honor Robin Starr.  His home sat near the entrance to the Appalachian Trail near Day Hill Road in Cornwall.  I learned he lived in a community of formerly enslaved. The Cornwall Historical Society shared with me that Robin Starr’s wife, Lily, was the widow of a man named Jack Freedom, who also served in the Revolutionary War. The Historical Society also shared with me that a road near this area is called Guinea Road, and a brook nearby is called Guinea Brook, all named due to the origins of the formerly enslaved living there being from Guinea, Africa. Because of this, I am now working with the Connecticut State Historic Preservation Office to add a panel at the entrance of the Appalachian Trail honoring this community of formerly enslaved Revolutionary War soldiers. I will also be applying for it to be added to the Connecticut Freedom Trail.

We WILL honor our ancestors as part of the 250th! If you know anything about me, you know I'll stop at NOTHING.

More to come. God Bless.

John

John Mills

Originally from San Diego, John Mills is a technologist by trade, but an equity advocate and independent scholar by passion. The descendant of both southern and northern enslaved, John focuses on unearthing little known people and stories of this country’s history in slavery and the transatlantic slave trade. John presents research through the lens and perspective of a descendant, with intent to inspire understanding and empathy, a means to inspire good, God fearing people, now armed with information, to look into whether they may be unwittingly aligning to biases resulting from the reverberating effects of a past time. John is a member of the Connecticut Freedom Trail and a member of the Webb Deane Stevens Museum Council. John is also working with an international team funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) in an effort to deliver transformational impact on digital methods in cultural institutions...a means to decolonize museums. Finally, John is working with the state of Connecticut, business leaders and scholars in Middletown, CT to honor and memorialize a former enslaved individual by the name of Prince Mortimer.

https://alexbreanne.org
Next

Robin Starr - Revolutionary War Hero & Enslaved Man