"Honoring the Spirits of The Hills Community"
by
Edythe Ann Quinn, Ph.D., Associate Professor of History
 
 

Through creating this shrine, I am honoring the spirits of the members of The Hills community, who as spiritual mentors in my research are my "ancestors."  My career as a historian has been based in large measure on my research on The Hills, An African-American community in rural Westchester County, from the late 1700s through the 1920s.  In particular, I am forever grateful for finding five, extraordinary letters written during the Civil War by Sergeant Simeon Anderson Tierce of the United States Colored Troops to his wife, Sarah Jane, back home in The Hills.  These letters, filed in Sarah Jane's widow pension records in the National Archives, opened a window into the relationships among The Hills residents and between them and the larger white and free Black communities of Westchester County, New York City, and New Haven, CT.  I have been inspired by Simeon and his community and have always believed God used the spirits of The Hills people to lead me to this research and subsequent publication of their story.  Through this shrine, I am saying "Thank you!"

All the natural materials, soil, rocks, acorns, and tulip tree flower seeds, used in this shrine were collected during my Spring 03 Break when I revisited the Westchester County Park land where the ruins of  The Hills community are located. I am represented by the little figure in a white cap and gown.  This is actually the figure from the top of my Master's Degree graduation cake; my Master's thesis is on The Hills community.  I adorned the figure with semi-precious stones at the seven Chakra points, to transform the doll into a fetish. On the doll's back is a cowrie shell, indicating the awesome responsibility, opportunity and blessing I carry to research and write about The Hills community. In this scene I am looking into the "window," through an 1860s map of The Hills community.  The names on the map of Stony Hill Road are familiar people in my research, e.g., S. [Simeon] Tierce, W [William] Tierce, Simeon's father, etc.  The side windows contain excerpts from Simeon's letters -- in his own handwriting. (Map and letters are photocopied on transparency sheets.)

Looking into the community, I see an image of a USCT soldier, to represent Simeon and the thirty other Hills men who served in the Civil War.  Excerpts from Simeon's letters are pasted here.  I have transformed the cigar box into a scene of The Hills community.  Having been freed from enslavement by Quaker and Methodist religious impulses and by laws of gradual emancipation, the Black men and women settled on the rocky, marginal land of The Hills, their community crossing the town borders of Harrison, White Plains and North Castle. I have hung their chains of enslavement from the branches of a bare tree.  The tree, having to bear such a sad and heavy burden, produces no fruit.  However, the tree in The Hills bears a beautiful, red, ripe fruit, signifying  the crops they grew and harvested. (look behind gold vessel)

The road climbing up through The Hills is Stony Hill Road, along which the families built their small homes. The road leads to the Church in The Hills, represented by the cross.  The church foundation and surrounding cemetery is recognized as a county, state and national historical site -- based on my research. (see back of shrine)  One of the little houses is tucked into the rocky landscape and three Hills residents are represented here.   There is a tiny turtle on one of the rocks -- my traditional "signature" on my artwork.  The gold vessel contains soil from The Hills.  A cowrie shell marks its association with African ancestors and its sacredness. (vessel is a "Heaven Sent" perfume bottle)

On the back of the cigar box shrine is a depiction of Stony Hill Cemetery, now under the administration of Mt. Hope A. M. E. Zion Church of White Plains, a congregation that is directly descended from the Church in The Hills.  I took these photos on Spring Break '03 and have collaged several images here. Several of The Hills men who served in the USCT are buried here, with military headstones.  On Veterans and Memorial Days, Mt. Hope congregation places flags on all the graves.  Interestingly, 90 per cent of the graves are marked only by field stones, leaving the cemetery very natural looking.  The tulip tree flower seeds represent Hills souls ascending into heaven, called forth by the Angel.  As the souls ascend they acquire angelic wings, depicted here.  These angelic wings also refer to the lines in the spiritual: "Meet me, Jesus, meet me.  You're gonna meet me in the middle of the air. And if these wings should fail me, you're gonna meet me with another pair."  The acorn crowns or caps resting on a gold surface suggest two meanings: 1) souls, after rising in  vessels, discarded them when entering the spirit realm; 2) acorn crowns look like the baskets that African American women wove.

On each narrow side of the cigar box shrine, I have pasted titles of two of my publications on The Hills: an article in the 1990 issue of The Afro American in New York Life and History,  and a chapter on the Kinship System in The Hills from the 2003 book, Mighty Change, Tall Within: Black Identity in the Hudson Valley.*  With my sabbatical this fall, I hope to revise my manuscript on The Hills, readying it for publication.

For the May 9, 2003 presentation, I included a fetish doll that I created to represent the Spirit of The Hills and, in particular, Simeon Anderson Tierce.  The doll's decorations depict a passage from one of Simeon's letters: "With my epaulets on my shoulder and my saber by my side and the sash across my shoulder, with this knapsack upon my back, boldly [I] march into the filed a rebel for to catch." In African fetish tradition, I have rubbed Hills soil on the doll.  The doll's garb is a combination of USCT uniform and African design.  A cowrie shell supports its back.  I have hung tiny scrolls of  passages from Simeon's letters and other sacred artifacts on the doll.  Because of the sacred and personal nature of this fetish, only a photo of it accompanies the shrine in the exhibit.

*Myra B. Young Armstead, ed., Mighty Change, Tall Within: Black Idedntity in the Hudson Valley, Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003.