Paynes Crossing

Paynes Crossing was a rural network of farmsteads forming a freed African American community whose only remaining trace is Payne Cemetery, used from 1852 to 1945. Research indicates the area was involved in the Underground Railroad Movement and may have been established for that purpose. It was not a town in the usual sense, but a dispersed settlement first occupied in the 1830s by free people of color including the Harpers, Letts, Normans, and Stevens. By the 1850s, these families owned considerable land there, and tax records show that some held relatively substantial personal property valued at $1,000. Census records from the period show whites living in black households and black people living in white households. Most of the families came from Virginia, and some traveled together to Ohio. During the Civil War, some of the men enlisted in the U.S. Colored Troops, while others remained behind, presumably to carry on Underground Railroad activities. The Payne family, for whom the area was later named, did not arrive until 1880, suggesting the settlement may have had another name during the 19th century. By the turn of the century, coal companies had purchased most of the local land and the families moved away. In 1995, Wayne National Forest and regional partners restored the cemetery, which became a notable example of early African American history in rural America.

Ohio · United States