4300 Captain Yancey Road
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Last updated on March 29, 2024
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Thomas Lewis built the Riverbank estate and was later under the ownership of Captain Charles Yancey. On this 36-arce property, enslaved African Americans worked and lived here until after the Civil War. The Dallard twins, Ambrose and Rueben, were enslaved here and were trained carpenters. After being freed, these two brothers later purchased property in Harrisonburg and established the African American community of Newtown. Another memorable individual is Jourdan Banks, who was formerly enslaved at Riverbank for some time. Banks escaped slavery and later wrote an autobiography entitled A Narrative of Events of the Life of J.H. Banks, an Escaped Slave, from Cotton State, Alabama, in America that can be read on Documenting the American South. In 2019, Brianna Madden Olivers wrote a play based on the narrative of Jourdan Banks titled “Not Made For This”.
References
Jourdan H. Banks, A Narrative of Events of the Life of J.H. Banks, an Escaped Slave, from Cotton State, Alabama, (Liverpool: M. Rourke, Printer, 1861), https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/penning/penning.html.
“Restoring History,’” About Us, Riverbank, accessed March 21, 2014, https://www.riverbankcompaniesllc.com/about.
Jourdan H. Banks, A Narrative of Events of the Life of J.H. Banks, an Escaped Slave, from Cotton State, Alabama, (Liverpool: M. Rourke, Printer, 1861), https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/penning/penning.html.
“Restoring History,’” About Us, Riverbank, accessed March 21, 2014, https://www.riverbankcompaniesllc.com/about.