James and Sophia Clemens’ lives were part of a broader movement in which tens of thousands of people of color migrated north during the first half of the 19th century in search of farmland and better lives. In 1818, James Clemens purchased 387 acres in German Township, Darke County, Ohio, and he and Sophia Clemens had been brought there by Adam Sellers of Rockingham County, Virginia. In 1822, Thornton Alexander, who had been emancipated by A. Sellers, purchased land in Randolph County, Indiana, about a half mile west of Clemens’ land. These land purchases marked the beginning of the Greenville Settlement on the Ohio-Indiana border, and other settlers of color followed, including the Bass family from North Carolina in 1828. The 1830 census counted approximately 78 people of color in German Township, Ohio, and adjacent Green’s Fork Township, Indiana. By 1838, the Clemens family owned 790 acres, and their holdings continued to grow through the mid-19th century. Their prosperity was reflected in a substantial two-story brick I-house built sometime between 1822 and 1850. Beyond farming, the Clemenses were leaders in their multiracial community. In 1845, they helped establish the local Wesleyan Methodist Church, later named Bethel Long Wesleyan Church, and sold land for its cemetery. In the years before the Civil War, the Clemenses and other families, including the Alexanders and the Goens, served as conductors on the Underground Railroad. Around 1885, the Ohio side of the community took the name Long in order to gain a post office.