“We know all about Betsy Stockton,” observed Princeton Public Library’s Terri Nelson recently, speaking of the Princeton slave who become the first female missionary of color to go to Hawaii in 1832. “But no one knows about Cecelia Van Tyne, another former slave, who went to Setra Kroo, Africa as a missionary in 1841.” Both women came home to educate Princeton’s African American children, but Ms. Stockton is the one memorialized with a stained glass window at the Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church.

Lacunae like these in the history of Princeton’s African-American community will hopefully be closed as the recently created Witherspoon-Jackson Genealogy Group gets to work. A steering committee, led by Chair Pennie Edwards-Carter, includes Carl E. Brown, Jr.; Diana Bess-Swainson; Eric Craig; Minnie Craig; Francis Craig; Robert Harmon; Wallace Holland; Henry F. Pannell; Lucy Hall; Shirley Satterfield; and Joseph Warren Tadlock. Read More