Nearly four decades after the Civil War, veterans of the 35th United States Colored Troops gathered on this spot to remember how, in their youth, they fought to free their race from enslavement. Raised in this region in May 1863 as the 1st North Carolina Colored Volunteers and redesignated as the 35th USCT on February 8, 1864, the regiment fought with valor at Olustee, Florida, and Honey Hill, South Carolina, where they went in with a cheer against tremendously destructive fire. The regiment suffered 24 casualties at Olustee and 114 at Honey Hill, and by the time it mustered out on June 1, 1866, 205 men had died. Almost 40 years later, veterans of the 35th USCT and their families reunited at the Prince Hall Masonic Lodge that once stood here, despite the danger of gathering during an era when Southern whites used intimidation and violence to reassert their authority and control. Among those remembered are Sgt. William Henry Singleton, who organized the core of the regiment and declared, "We want to help fight to free our race," and Luke Martin, born in 1838, who escaped enslavement near Plymouth, served in the 35th USCT from May 1863 to June 1866, and was identified in a reunion photograph by his son Luke Perkins Martin in 2013.