Recognizing history: Tablertown gets its signs

TABLERTOWN — During a dedication ceremony Friday attended by Ohio Department of Transportation, Athens County officials, and a family-connected Black community that had once thrived as Tablertown finally received its road signs — one facing northbound and the other southbound. The signs are located on State Route 329, about 3 1/2 miles north of Stewart.

It was a wait that had been on hold since the 1830s, the decade when the Tabler family moved into Rome Township from a part of Virginia that would later become West Virginia. Meanwhile, the less-accurate community name of Kilvert has been retired. Kilvert was the name of local coal mine owner Sam Kilvert, and that name had stuck since the 1850s.

“It’s a very good cause,” said Rich Oster, ODOT District 10 deputy director, one of more than 20 people on hand for the occasion. “So many times we have to say ‘No’ due to restrictions, but any time we can figure out a way to say ‘Yes,’ we like doing that.”

The process of changing the name to Tablertown involved more than 260 signatures presented to Athens County commissioners, two of whom were on hand Friday — Lenny Eliason and Charles Adkins. A former commissioner from 1983 to 1995 who lives near the signs, Roxanne Groff, helped move the project along and also attended.

Friday had special significance for David Butcher and his family. Butcher is owner and executive director of the Tablertown People of Color Museum on State Route 329, located about a mile south of the new road signs. Butcher is a direct descendant of Michael Tabler — whose wealthy family emigrated to America from Germany in 1732, establishing plantations in Virginia — and the love of Tabler’s life, Hannah, a slave. They and their children, emancipated from slavery before their move to Ohio, later came to the state to settle what became Tablertown.

“Probably in the 1850s, Sam Kilvert had the name changed (to Kilvert),” Butcher said. “Now we’ve got it changed back, so we’re correcting history.”

“I was glad to help make something happen, because David is my neighbor,” said Groff, who lives near Amesville. “It’s people working together who make something like this happen.”

Earlier this week, Tabler offered a tour of the Tablertown People of Color Museum and presented its history. Michael Tabler, born in 1774, was the fourth-generation of his family that came to what was then the British-held American colonies, Butcher said. The family traveled to the colonies aboard the ship Samuel, which landed in Philadelphia. The Tabler family lived on the frontier in Berks County, Pennsylvania, before establishing land holdings with plantations in Maryland and Berkeley County, Virginia, near Martinsburg, which later became part of West Virginia during the Civil War.

Michael Tabler’s father, George, was raised in Berkeley County, Butcher said. Michael grew up around plantations and mills, and came to love a slave, Hannah. Such a bond was “not very favorable in polite society,” especially in a state dependent on slaves for plantation work raising crops, Butcher said.

So Michael Butcher and Hannah moved to Ohio County, Virginia, to settle in an area near Wheeling, where he would own a plantation. At one time, he owned more than 1,000 acres. Between 1810 and 1816, Michael and Hannah had six children, five of them boys — John, Jes, Michael, Isaac, William and Maria. Butcher said Tabler so loved his children that he created a Document of Manumission for them in January of 1830 — emancipating them to freedom. The key word in the document was his “affection” for them, Butcher noted.

His love for his family did not stop there, Butcher said. Between 1830 and 1835, Michael, Hannah and their children moved into Rome Township of Athens County, Ohio, part of a free state, where he could buy farm lands for each of his six children.

“Even freed blacks could not inherit property in Virginia,” Butcher said.

Tabler’s first tract of land purchased was along Federal Creek, where there was an existing mill. Tabler knew something about mills from having been raised in Virginia. The makings of Tablertown had been established, with milling and farming as livelihoods for the family. The mill, which had been Barrow’s Mill, was constructed in 1802. It was the first mill in the area to produce white flour, Butcher said. Large wooden parts of the mill can be viewed in the Tablertown People of Color Museum.

“This was a major migration,” Butcher said of his family’s move to southeast Ohio. “Everybody from my generation back, all we ever called it was Tablertown, even though it was known as Kilvert. So it’s exciting to actually get to correct some history.”

Tablertown, being just a few miles north of Stewart, became an area where coal was mined for 100 years, from about 1850 to 1950, Butcher said. Railroad lines were built in the 1850s and 1870s, connecting Tablertown to local communities such as Stewart, Amesville and Cutler, and also far-away places like New England.

Butcher, who works in the coal industry, isn’t the only one in his family who has embraced its illustrious history. At his Museum of Color, he often asks visitors to view a video from March 2003 and taped at Ohio University’s Kennedy Museum of Art. The video features his maternal uncle, the late Alvin Clay Adams, leading an historical discussion about the founding of Tablertown.

Butcher described his uncle as his mentor. Adams was the first black American to graduate from the Ohio University School of Journalism, in 1959. Adams covered the Civil Rights Movement and wrote for Jet Magazine. A residence hall on OU’s South Green is named for Adams. Adams’ wife, Ada Woodson Adams, is president of the Mount Zion Black Cultural Center.

“Most people want to be like their fathers,” Butcher said. “I wanted to be like my uncle, because he had such an interest in history.” Butcher added that he would like to see travel tourism develop in the area in and around Tablertown.

Several of Butcher’s family members were on hand Friday for the sign dedication: his mom, Dessie Nichols Workman; his son, Isaiah Butcher; his sister, Brenda Butcher Moorehead; his uncle, Cecil Tabler; and a cousin, Sandy Tabler Smith. Butcher eventually plans to move the museum across the road from the south-facing road sign and has applied for a grant to do so.

“I’m just happy for my dad because he loves this kind of stuff,” Isaiah said. “He loves his family and its history. He’s worked so hard to find all the pieces for the museum and put it together.”

As an unfortunate “sign” of the times, Groff said someone found out that the Kilvert road signs were to be replaced — and stole them.