Bearing Witness: Congregational Church Acknowledges a Dark Episode of Its Past

by Mark Jahne

 Editor

America’s historic involvement with slavery reached all the way to the town of Rocky Hill. The first pastor of the Rocky Hill Congregational Church, the Rev. Daniel Russel, owned a female slave named Cloe Prut.

With the church approaching its 300^th anniversary in 2027 the decision was made to acknowledge this unpleasant historic fact and honor Prut as part of its Black History Month observance.

The church is working with the Witness Stones Project, which was founded in Connecticut, to memorialize Prut. She gained her freedom in 1777 through the will of the pastor’s second wife, Katherine Chauncey Russel.

A church spokesperson said this will be the town’s first Witness Stone. This “micro monument” will be placed in the memorial garden on the grounds later this year in memory of Prut and 19 other enslaved people who were somehow connected to this congregation.

The Rocky Hill Congregational Church is participating in the Witness Stones Project to bring dignity to people connected to the church who were enslaved during colonial times. Shown are, from left, Pastor David Figliuzzi, Christine Kainamura, Pat Wilson Pheanious and Liz Lightfoot.

hree public education sessions led by the Witness Stones Project were recently held at the church for participants to learn about the history of slavery in Connecticut, how to interpret evidence of slavery and the five central themes of slavery.

“Part of being a progressive Christian church is reckoning with the past, even when it’s painful and shameful,” Pastor David Figliuzzi said. “This church is an institution that is part of this world. We didn’t necessarily know every part of our history.”

There is a space at the rear of the sanctuary, now located behind a wall, that was used as seating for slaves. They were separated from the White people in the congregation by chicken wire, he added.

“The architecture of our building included the enslavement of people.”

This was influenced by the politics and culture of that era. Now the goal is to honor the history of those people and give them names. The pastor said this is not in step with modern times.

“It is counter cultural to honestly look at history,” Figliuzzi said. “We’re responding to the call of the church to be counter cultural.”

He added that the tendency these days is for people to deny history. The pastor also said the church needs to advocate for diversity, equality and inclusion.

“The fact is that members of the church, as well as others in Rocky Hill, owned enslaved persons. Only by examining this past are we able to move into our next 300 years with the purpose of alleviating the ongoing implications of injustice.”

“When you remove history, you remove an understanding of the present. You’re studying a particular person. The Witness Stones Project is an educational program,” Pat Wilson Pheanious said.

She is the director of Stepping Stones and the Witness Stones Project at Historic New England. She explained that, while the two are closely related, Stepping Stones is more community based.

Liz Lightfoot heads up its school and youth programming aspect. The project was founded by a middle school teacher in Guilford.

“I oversee the Witness Stones curriculum,” she said. “I love storytelling and educating. It was really a powerful exercise” to deliver this curriculum to eighth graders when she was teaching in Madison.

Christine Kainamura belongs to the church’s Racial Justice Steering Committee.

“We’re very justice focused in this church. We helped fund the program. These people were stripped of their dignity and humanity,” she said.

Kainamura added that it is important to look at painful history and not ignore it. She gave credit to Ed Chiucarello, the church historian, for suggesting the Witness Stones Project to the committee. He is also the president of the Rocky Hill Historical Society and discovered the story of Chloe Prut.

“Restoring a piece of their humanity restores a piece of your own,” Pheanious said.

“We’ve brought in people from the Harriet Beecher Stowe House,” Kainamura said of the committee’s past work.

It has also tackled the issue of affordable housing, engaged in a get out the vote campaign, and stocks a Little Free Library on the church grounds with books about social justice.

“We did a hate has no home here campaign,” she added.

The Witness Stones Project, a program of Historic New England, works to honor the missing history and humanity of enslaved people who have been written out of the historical record. Founded in Guilford in 2017, the project has placed more than 300 Witness Stones in Connecticut and other states.

It is part of Historic New England’s “Recovering New England’s Voices” initiative. RHL

To learn more visit historicnewengland.org.