Ransom and Sarah Williams Farmstead Project

Read about the inspiring investigation of a historic farmstead owned and occupied by an African American family from ca. 1871 to 1905. This project helps to achieve Goal 3: Implement Policies and Incentives and Goal 5: Learn and Experience History through Place of the Statewide Plan, specifically the outcomes of increasing community participation in Section 106 and increasing involvement of underrepresented people in historic preservation. This case study was submitted by Doug Boyd, Vice President of Pruitt and Associates, Inc. an Austin-based Cultural Resources Services firm. Doug also served on the Steering Committee for Texas’ Statewide Preservation Plan and we want to thank him for all his time, support and guidance in developing this plan.

Project Name: The Ransom and Sarah Williams Farmstead Project
Location: Southern Travis County
Region: Hill Country Trail Region
Submitted by: Douglas K. Boyd, Pruitt and Associates, Inc.

Statewide Plan Connection
Goal 3: Implement Policies and Incentives
Goal 5: Learn and Experience History through Place

Project Description
The Ransom and Sarah Williams Farmstead Project (RSWFP) began in 2007 and is still in progress. It is a “cultural resources management” (or CRM) project where cultural resources survey, evaluation, and mitigation of adverse effects are required by state and federal laws because of a planned road construction project. The project involves the investigation of a historic farmstead owned and occupied by an African American family from ca. 1871 to 1905. The project sponsor is the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), the state agency that is planning for the construction of State Highway 45-Southeast—the proposed toll road that will impact the Williams farmstead. The archeological site (41TV1051) is located in an isolated rural area, surrounded by urban development, in southern Travis County about 11 miles southeast of downtown Austin.

Dr. Maria Franklin (right) leads three generations of the Bunton family on tour of the farmstead site.

What community needs/issues did your project or program address?
Emancipation of the enslaved African Americans occurred in Texas on June 19, 1865. But the stories of how people transitioned from slavery to freedom in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are an important aspect of Texas history that is not well represented in archival records or history books. Because post emancipation Black history is underrepresented in the United States, archeological sites associated with African Americans in the Jim Crow era are extremely important. Consequently, the project team decided that the overall research theme for our work would be:

**Post Emancipation Transitions in the African Diaspora**

The primary way that the RSWFP contributes towards increasing participation of underrepresented people in historic preservation is through the project’s oral history component. We have involved the local African American communities nearest the farmstead site by seeking out and interviewing community members. Oral history interviews have been conducted with 18 people associated with the Black community at Manchaca and the freedman community called Antioch Colony (near Buda). The interviewees range between 52 and 93 years old, and all but one person are African American. They represent the descendant community that is connected to Ransom and Sarah Williams by ethnicity and a shared heritage. The oral history project gathered 39.5 hours of digitally recorded audio interviews, resulting in over 700 pages of transcribed interviews—truly a wealth of historical information! These interviews tell stories of early twentieth-century life in rural Black communities, and they bridge the gap between the nineteenth-century Williams family and modern communities.

Who were all the partners involved? How did they contribute to the project’s success?
Under the supervision of TxDOT, the site investigations and subsequent analysis are a collaborative effort between three entities. The project team is:

*Prewitt and Associates, Inc., a private CRM consulting firm in Austin
*Historic Preservation, Inc., a private historical research firm in Austin
*Department of Anthropology and Department of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin

These three groups worked together to gather and analyze historic archival records, oral history interviews, and many levels of archeological data.

Other partners involved are:
*Local African American communities at Antioch Colony and Manchaca
*Manchaca-Onion Creek Historical Association
*KLRU-TV Austin
*University of Texas, College of Liberal Arts

Archeologists Jenny McWilliams (left) and Nedra Lee (center) show Williams Farmstead artifact to Winnie Moyer, who grew up at the African American freedmen community called Antioch Colony.



How was the project funded?
The archeological data recovery project is sponsored and funded by the Texas Department of Transportation. This includes the archival research, the archeological site investigations, and the oral history component.

In addition, the project team members (PAI, HPI, and UT) and many others have all donated unpaid time to work on many community outreach activities that were not planned as part of the project. Two examples of this are the KLRU-TV program and the UT Liberal Arts magazine article.

The RSWFP was featured in the 2010 Juneteenth Jamboree television program that aired on KLRU TV (the PBS station for central Texas) on June 17, 2010. Our project segment was called “Once upon a time, Ransom Williams crossed State Highway 45” and it was 28 minutes of the hour-long program. The entire program can be accessed online at:
http://www.klru.org/juneteenth/2010/williams.html

A magazine article featuring the RSWFP appeared in the Life and Letters: College of Liberal Arts Magazine, a publication of the University of Texas. The article is by Molly Wahlberg and is titled: “Digging up the Past, Close to Home: Artifacts, Descendants Tell Story of Freed Slaves in Texas.” An online version of the article can be accessed at:
http://www.utexas.edu/features/2010/09/20/artifacts/

What challenges did you encounter? How did you overcome them?
The biggest challenge has been following through with the community involvement and public outreach. These aspects of the project have taken on a life of their own as our project has received more and more public attention. We underestimated the amount of time needed to do these kinds of tasks, and all of the team members have had to use much of their own time to work on community outreach activities. Planning a community-based, public archeology project can be a double-edged sword. If you are successful, the public outreach aspects of the project will blossom and grow. But at the same time you can quite easily surpass your funding and manpower allocations.

We met these challenges by being flexible and adapting to the changing project needs based on ongoing community interactions.

What is the future of this project? What are the next steps?
In compliance with the state and federal CRM laws, we will be preparing and publishing a comprehensive report on the RSWFP. We intend for this report to contain all of the details required in a technical archeological report, but also to write it so that it will appeal to a wider audience. In addition, TxDOT and the project team are still considering ways to continue the community involvement and public outreach. Two types of public outreach that are being considered and are supported by the descendant community are a museum exhibit and a complementary online exhibit devoted to the RSWFP.

Based on your experience with this project, what tips or pieces of advice can you share with the preservation community?
A collaborative project like the RSWFP requires thinking out of the box and being creative in seeking partnerships. It also requires planning, planning, and more planning. Involving descendant communities in historic archeological projects is extremely important, particularly for publicly-funded CRM projects. In fact, the state and federal CRM laws state that we spend public money on historic and archeological projects “in the public interest.” If we are really doing our jobs correctly, we should have substantial community involvement and public outreach for every large CRM project.

Extensive archeological investigations were conducted at the Ransom and Sarah Williams Farmstead during the summer of 2009.

Statewide Plan Connection:
Goal 3: Implement Policies and Incentives
Goal 5: Learn and Experience History through Place

While one could argue that the RSWFP contributes to many of the goals and outcomes stated in the Texas Statewide Historic Preservation Plan, it most clearly fits into Goals 3 and 5.

As a CRM project that used federal funds and is subject to Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, the RSWFP fits under Goal 3: Implement Policies and Incentives. Within this goal, the project works toward increasing local community involvement, following but going well beyond the legal requirements of Section 106.

The project clearly fits with Goal 5: Learn and Experience History through Place. In particular, the project seeks to increase the participation of underrepresented people in historic preservation.

For More Information
Contact Name: Douglas K. Boyd
Email: dboyd@paiarch.com
Organization: Prewitt and Associates, Inc.
Website: http://www.paiarch.com