Reconstruction

After the Civil War, Trinity School founder Mary Fletcher Wells and the American Missionary Association advanced Reconstruction among Limestone County's African American population through an approach that joined education and religion as essential to securing the full benefits of citizenship for freedmen. Veterans of the 110th United States Colored Troops returned to a home transformed by war, with some building their futures in Limestone County and others seeking new lives elsewhere. Doctor Peete enlisted in the 38th U.S. Infantry, served in Kansas guarding stagecoaches, mustered out at Fort Richardson, Texas, in 1870, moved to Dallas, worked as a laborer, and died there on February 2, 1923. George Allen, John Jackson, and John Roberts remained in Limestone County. Allen bought land from his former owner, and he and his wife Martha raised twelve children before his death on May 1, 1896. Jackson returned to Elkmont, adopted the surname Dawson, and died in 1905. Roberts became a farmer, married three times, bought land in 1911 from Jack Grisham for $1601.52, and died in Athens on May 19, 1943, at age 105. By then Fort Henderson, his old post, had taken on a new role as a school for African Americans founded by Mary Fletcher Wells, who established Trinity School in a battle-damaged white Baptist church near the Athens railroad depot in May 1865 and later founded Trinity Congregational Church in 1872.

Athens, Alabama · United States