Recall those classroom lessons filled with exciting and dramatic Connecticut history stories?

There’s the true tale of 16-year-old Sybil Ludington’s heart-pumping April 1777 40-mile ride to muster Colonial militiamen to defend against advancing British troops near Ridgefield, for example. Or, how about the story from 1787 of the heroic efforts of Hebron townspeople who saved Cesar and Lowis Peters and their eight children from a life of slavery in South Carolina even as the family had already been hustled aboard a South-bound ship in Norwich Harbor? Then there’s the story of Venture Smith who was snatched from Africa at age 10, arrived in the Colonies as a slave in 1739, and who worked for more than two decades cutting wood, selling vegetables and performing whatever other tasks he could to buy his and his family’s freedom from one of Stonington’s early white families.

No schooldays recollection of such historical drama? Actually, that’s not unusual. Mainstream Connecticut history – the lessons taught in the state’s classrooms and the places and stories iconic to the state’s history-oriented tourism efforts – too often focus only on the wealthy and powerful from our past.

That makes this spring’s installation of a sign marking the site of Venture Smith’s farm on land now part of the Barn Island Wildlife Management Area especially refreshing. This departure from history told predominantly from the viewpoint of the elite deserves to become a trend.

Venture Smith’s story is enthralling enough to spark interest even from those whose eyes generally glaze at the mere mention of the word history. Taken from central Africa as a young child, Smith arrived in Barbados aboard a Rhode Island slave ship and became the property of a Fishers Island farmer for the price of four gallons of rum and a bolt of calico. Smith accomplished the rare feat of buying his own freedom when he was in his 30s and owned by Oliver Smith of Stonington at a time when New London County was home to more slaves than any other place in New England. He then continued to work to buy his family’s freedom and also purchased land despite laws that prohibited blacks from owning it.

Smith’s story has been rediscovered in recent decades through the diligent work of local history buffs. The recent sign installation by the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection comes a decade after the Documenting Venture Smith Project was founded in 2005.

Even as Smith’s story becomes more familiar, plenty of room remains to expand the contemporary view of who is considered historically significant. Why is the story of Paul Revere’s ride so familiar when that of Ludington, who rode twice as far as Revere and had no assistance from other riders, is far less common? Why are the amazing feats of Mohegan medicine woman Gladys Tantaquidgeon not as well-known as the military might wielded by John Mason’s forces during the Pequot War? Why is Eli Whitney remembered as integral to industrial development when the leaders of immigrant communities who kept the state’s industries operating are largely forgotten?

Venture Smith’s recognition is long overdue and his story still is not as widely known, nor his home sites in Stonington and East Haddam as accessible as they might be. Likewise, so many other African-Americans, Native Americans, women, immigrants and others, still wait for their stories to be discovered.