Venture Smith site bears witness to the past

Stonington - Just minutes after the hike started, the group was off the trail, walking first through knee-high grass, then thick, prickly bramble. They keep walking, deeper into the woods and toward a rain-swollen stream.

"When we cross over, we are in Venture land," said Marta Daniels, who on Sunday led a group of local history buffs around the property of Venture Smith, a former slave who bought his freedom and then a 26-acre plot in 1770s Stonington.

Daniels and Nancy Byrne, both Chester residents who have been documenting Smith's life, led the excursion through the property, now part of the Barn Island Wildlife Management Area. Last summer, using both original deeds and maps and modern technology, Byrne created a map of Smith's property.

Byrne finished her map by adjusting it by six degrees (the magnetic poles changed slightly over the centuries) and finding the correct property marker. Until this year, most assumed a large boulder was the corner of Smith's property, not the corner of a stone wall.

"Instead of basing it all on this rock," Byrne said, standing next to a massive boulder left behind when the glaciers receded, "we found the right one and everything just slid right into place."

The landmarks visited - stones that mark the edge of the property and a foundation believed to be Smith's home - were off the beaten path, so the hikers made their own route. Though Daniels and Byrne toured the site this summer, Sunday's hike was the first group trip dedicated to Smith's life in Stonington.

"It was exciting to do it intellectually, as Nancy did," Daniels said. "But then to find it in the field, well there's nothing like it."

The rocky property was likely used by Smith for logging and was centrally located in relation to other sites where he worked. Smith traded and did business in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Fishers Island and Long Island. He built his own house on a hill close to the center of the property, located near a farm where his wife worked until Smith bought her freedom.

Archaeological excavation is due to begin next summer, with researchers from the University of Connecticut working to help discover what Smith's property would have been like when he lived there.

Chandler Saint, president of the Beecher House Center for the Study of Equal Rights in Hartford, said the archaeological process will take several years, with the bulk of the work happening in the summer.

"We have a house here and now we have to figure out things like how was the land used, how Smith lived," Saint said.

Saint is leading a push to designate the Stonington property and a farm in Haddam Neck, where Smith had a dry dock used for boat repair, as world heritage sites with UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). Saint said he hopes that public funding will help preserve the site and spread Smith's story to a wider audience.

As the group assembled before the hike, Daniels and Byrne said they were going to shorten the trip, from two hours to one, because of the cold and rain. But the trip continued as planned, with the about 20 hikers exploring much of the property.

"We're intrepid," Daniels said. "I like to think that Venture lived out here and walked this land, even on days with weather like this."