SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas – A permanent exhibit opening Saturday at the Sutherland Springs Historical Museum will honor the people who were enslaved at the Polley Plantation, known as Whitehall in Wilson County.
Scholar Melinda Creech, Ph.D., said since there are no photos of the men and women who were enslaved there between 1835 and 1865, “I decided to create a quilt square that would represent their lives in some way and add a bit of color and vibrance to their memories.”
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For instance, she said Theodore Henderson, the last person J.H. Polley bought, later moved to San Antonio’s East Side, where he worked as a blacksmith, so his quilt square is called “The Anvil.”
Creech said Polley had paid his son-in-law $2,000 to buy Henderson.
The 29 quilt squares with a description of each enslaved person’s life at the Polley Plantation are on display in the museum’s Polley Room.
Last August, History Untold reporter Jessie Degollado and photojournalist Sal Sal Salazar spoke with Keith and Robin Muschalek, who bought and restored the old rundown mansion, doing much of the work themselves.
Robin Muschalek said, “We did not know what this building was. We thought it was a dance hall” when first driving by it.
Creech said after she finished her master’s thesis at Baylor University about the architecture, decorative and domestic arts at the Polley Mansion, “I realized that Whitehall was a slave plantation and began to ask myself if there were any slaves in Wilson County.”
She said further research showed that there were 1,000 slaves in Wilson County in 1860 and another 1,800 in neighboring Guadalupe County.
In addition to census records, Creech said using Polley family recollections in books, newspaper accounts, and many other sources of information, she was able “to stitch together all the names of the enslaved by J.H. Polley.”
“Some of the stories were tragic. Others achieved a great deal of success,” Creech said. “All revealed the resilience and strength of people who endured the horror of enslavement.”