by Larry Chowning –
Along with 19 other newly approved Virginia historical highway markers celebrating African-American history, Gov. Ralph Northam announced last week that a historical “Stingray Point Contraband” highway marker will be placed in Deltaville, alongside General Puller Highway (Route 33), 1.8 miles west of where the original lighthouse was located.
The marker speaks to six enslaved men who used the abandoned Stingray Point Lighthouse building during the Civil War as a safe house while waiting to catch a Union ship allowing them to escape slavery and join the Union army.
The marker will state that “Alexander Franklin, David Harris, and John, Miles, Peter and Samuel Hunter, fearing impressment into Confederate service, sought refuge in the Stingray Point Lighthouse near here on 15 July 1861 and hailed the (Union ship) USS Mount Vernon.
“Similar escapes followed…
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