Guilford County, North Carolina

Untold Story: Black Woman Abolitionist Lavina Curry of Guilford County, North Carolina
February 20, 2021 - Dr. Krishauna Hines-Gaither

Many have studied abolitionists who risked so much to aid enslaved men and women who were escaping the horrific institution of slavery. White abolitionists commonly referenced are William Lloyd Garrison, Levi Coffin, Angelina Grimke, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lucretia Mott, and others. Fewer African Americans are granted the title of abolitionist; notwithstanding, African Americans William Still, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Tubman are among those who have entered our historical records and modern-day consciousness.

However, few have ever heard of Lavina (Vina) Curry, a free Black woman abolitionist in Guilford County, North Carolina (modern-day Greensboro).

The work of scholars, such as historian Dr. Adrienne Israel, is now focusing on free Black communities who worked in concert with White abolitionists. To date, many of these Black abolitionists remain unnamed, unheralded and unrecognized.

One woman upon which our abolitionist roots hinge is Lavina Curry, along with her husband Archibald (Arch) Curry. Arch was a free Black man who was required by law to carry freedman’s papers on his person. His wife, Lavina, was a washerwoman at New Garden Boarding School in the 1830s (now Guilford College, a Quaker institution).

When Arch died, his papers stayed with Vina. “She decided to loan these to male slaves bearing some resemblance to her late husband, so they could travel north safely.” Levi Coffin, originally from New Garden (now Greensboro, NC), became the esteemed president of the Underground Railroad.

He left New Garden in 1826 for Indiana. When enslaved persons would reach him in Indiana, through a courier, Coffin would return the freedom papers to Vina Curry. (By Land and By Sea, by Hiram Hilty, 1993).

This history is further acknowledged by the memoir of Addison Coffin, a cousin to Levi Coffin. He wrote that Vina Curry made the “free papers” of her deceased husband, Archibald Curry, available to fugitive slaves escaping from Guilford County en route to Levi Coffin’s home in Indiana.” According to Addison Coffin’s memoir, “This was done 15 times to my knowledge.” (Addison Coffin and the Underground Railroad, Addison Coffin, 1897)

How did the story of Lavina Curry resurface? In September 2018, President Jane Fernandes and Provost Frank Boyd endorsed Guilford College’s membership in Universities Studying Slavery (USS) to examine our college’s relationship with the institution of slavery. The Guilford College USS working group was later named the Curry-Coffin Commission on Slavery, Race and Recognition. Serving as co-chairs of the Commission are College Archivist of the Quaker Archives, Gwen Gosney Erickson, and Krishauna Hines-Gaither, Associate Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Director of the Intercultural Engagement Center. Our research with the Commission, the research of Sarah Thuesen’s history class, and the scholarship of Dr. Adrienne Israel brought new life to this unsung she-ro, Lavina Curry.

In an attempt to reveal the fullness of our history while celebrating the contributions of Black abolitionists, the Curry-Coffin Commission on Slavery, Race and Recognition will soon erect both a state and campus marker in honor of Vina Curry. The Commission is working in concert with Dr. Sarah Thuesen’s history classes and her students to conduct research on the Curry family, draft the text that will appear on the marker, and work with state agencies to apply for the state marker.

Guilford College will co-host the Spring 2022 conference of the Universities Studying Slavery, along with Wake Forest University. At that time, we will unveil a historical marker to commemorate Lavina Curry’s contributions and her legacy. The markers will represent the beginning of our public acknowledgement of the Curry’s contributions. We hope that this public commemoration will be a launching pad for deeper conversations and action related to Guilford’s race relations. Moving forward, we will examine the legacies of slavery as well as their impact on our campus community today.
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A Black Washerwoman Helped Free 15 Enslaved Black People

Oh Henry Mag dot com/By Ross Howell Jr. - Photograph by Bert VanderVeen

We don’t know where “Vina” was born or how she died. We have no likeness of her — no etching or drawing.
Yet a Guilford College historical marker honors what she did. Professor emerita Adrienne Israel played an essential role in preserving and telling Vina’s story.

Israel retired from Guilford in 2019, after teaching history there for 37 years. One of her most popular courses was a study of the Quaker community, the local free Black population and the roles individuals played in helping slaves escape North Carolina via the Underground Railroad.

And one of those individuals was Levi Coffin, a Quaker abolitionist born on a Guilford County farm in 1798. His family moved to Indiana in 1826 to avoid persecution for their antislavery views. Historians estimate that Coffin assisted in the escapes of more than 3,000 fugitive slaves during his lifetime.

“Most of the stories about the Underground Railroad were framed around white abolitionists,” Israel says.
“But I was convinced that free Black people in the Greensboro area must’ve been involved, too,” she adds.
Evidence was hard to come by. Then Israel found a memoir written by a cousin of Levi Coffin, published in 1897.

“There was a free negro named Arch Curry, living near our home, who died a few years after father,” wrote Addison Coffin, whose father died in 1826.

“His widow’s name was Vina; she was the washerwoman for the boarding-school for several years,” Coffin continues. He describes Vina as a “shrewd and discerning” woman who had kept “her husband’s free papers” on hand after his death.

The “boarding-school” was the New Garden Boarding School, predecessor to Guilford College. “Free papers” were documents drawn up by county courts to certify a Black man was a freeman and not a slave.

Vina allowed individual fugitive slaves to use Arch’s papers as identification.
“This was done 15 times to my knowledge,” Coffin writes. He explains that after the fugitive reached freedom, Levi would return the “stolen” papers to the widow.

“This was done occasionally with other papers,” Coffin concludes, “but none were ever used like those of Arch Curry.” There it was. A local free Black person helping the Underground Railroad — if Israel could prove “Arch” and “Vina” existed.

Women were rarely named in early records, so Israel started searching for Arch. Deed books showed that in 1820 a Black freeman named Archibald Curry had purchased land on Brushy Creek in Guilford County, and, a year later, more land on Horsepen Creek. Between the 1820 and 1830 censuses, Curry’s household grew from himself, his wife and two children to seven children — four male and three female.

His name doesn’t appear in the 1840 census, so apparently Arch died about the time Coffin had noted in his memoir. And Arch’s widow? The 1840 census counted three female “free colored persons” at New Garden Boarding School. Among the women was washerwoman Vina Curry, age 55.

Assisting Israel in confirming Vina’s identity was Quaker archivist and special collections librarian Gwen Erickson, who located entries in the school’s ledger for “Lavina Curry.” No entries for Lavina are found after 1843.

It was Erickson who secured funding for the historic marker, dedicated in 2022 as part of a national consortium of universities studying slavery. Erickson says the marker reminds us that there were more free Black citizens who worked with the Underground Railroad and “continue to go unnamed.”

It was up to Sarah Thuesen, associate professor of history at Guilford, to involve students with the project, working with classes to draft the text inscribed on the historical marker.

Thuesen says that while her students had some idea about the school’s role in the Underground Railroad, “they probably never would’ve heard the name of Lavina Curry if not for this effort to recognize all freedom fighters, white and Black.”

And retired professor Israel? She’s on the trail of one of Vina’s daughters.

“Her name is Sarah,” Israel says. “She moved to Indiana with her husband, a free Black man named Richard Ladd, who had been accused of helping a fugitive slave.”

There’s pride and delight in the professor’s voice. OH.