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Historical Highway MarkersThe ReservationNP-14
Free African Americans settled in this area prior to the Civil War, forming a community later known as The Reservation. The population grew as emancipated people arrived during and after the war. Residents of the self-sustained community owned farms and businesses, cultivated oysters, and built a school, fraternal halls, and three churches. Among those buried at Cheesecake Cemetery, final resting place of many community founders, is Medal of Honor recipient Edward Ratcliff, who served in the 38th U.S. Colored Troops in the Civil War. In 1918, the U.S. government used eminent domain to establish a Navy mine depot here during World War I, displacing hundreds of African American residents.
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References/Bibliographic Citation: “The Story of ‘The Reservation’ (circa 1862-1922)—A Free African American Community” (typescript). Bradley M. McDonald, Kenneth E. Stuck, and Kathleen J. Bragdon, “‘Cast Down Your Bucket Where You Are’: An Ethnohistorical Study of the African-American Community on the Lands of the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station, 1865-1918” (1992). Shannon Sheila Mahoney, “Community Building After Emancipation: An Anthropological Study of Charles’ Corner, Virginia, 1862-1922” (Ph.D. diss., College of William and Mary, 2013). Kenneth Edward Stuck, “Social Stratification in York County, Virginia, 1860-1919: A Study of Whites and African Americans on the Lands of the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station” (M.A. Thesis, College of William and Mary, 1995). Edward Ratcliff, Congressional Medal of Honor Society: https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/edward-ratcliff Correspondence from Reservation residents, National Archives “Source material regarding the free African Americans who lived around The Reservation before the Civil War,” typescript. |