Georgia, 1841: The Enslaved Woman Who Bore Her Master’s Children—and Buried Them All

3 mi east of Savannah’s historic district stood Foresight Estate, a cotton plantation that embodied southern wealth in the early 19th century.

White columns rose against the Georgia sky and manicured gardens concealed secrets that would remain hidden for generations.

The darkness lurking beneath this prosperity would not surface until long after the principal figures had died.

In winter 1835, a young woman named Lelanina Bowmont arrived at the estate through a purchase recorded simply as a line of cursive and a payment in county ledgers.

Parish documents listed her age as 22, though official records described her domestic capabilities.

Multiple witnesses later suggested other qualities motivated her acquisition by Thomas Harrington, the estate’s 46-year-old owner, who had recently become a widowerower after his wife succumbed to consumption.

The property caretakers journal uncovered during 1958 renovations included an entry from January 12th, 1835, noting unusual attention paid to preparing quarters adjacent to the kitchen.

This level of care was uncommon for that time of year and for someone in Elanana’s position.

Initially, her presence appeared unremarkable to outsiders.

She worked alongside roughly 30 other enslaved people maintaining the cotton fields and manor house.

What distinguished her situation, according to household documentation and subsequent testimonies, was her swift promotion to direct service within the main residence.

By autumn 1836, her circumstances had shifted dramatically.

Estate expense records preserved at the Savannah Historical Society show purchases of quality fabric, leather footwear, and notably a small silver locket.

The receipt for this final item was discovered tucked inside Thomas Harrington’s personal Bible found in an attic trunk in 1962.

Maria Wilson, employed as a cook at the adjacent Wilks plantation, provided testimony to her grandson that was documented in a 1948 oral history collection.

She stated that household workers throughout the area understood the nature of the relationship at Foresight.

The master had developed an attachment to Lalanina.

She received preferential treatment, dining in the house and wearing finer clothing.

But something about her demeanor seemed hollow, as though her physical presence masked an inner absence.

Spring 1837 brought visible evidence of Elanena’s pregnancy.

Though no formal announcement occurred, estate records indicate she was relieved from certain responsibilities.

Dr.

Samuel Thorne, a plantation physician, increased his visits.

His log book, discovered among his possessions after his 1872 death, contained vague references to delicate conditions and prescriptions for settling female constitutions.

On November 18th, 1837, Elanina delivered a daughter.

Unlike standard practice, the child was not entered into Foresight’s official property ledger.

This omission would later be identified by researchers as the first of many irregularities surrounding the children.

Instead, a notation appeared in Thomas Harrington’s private journal, expressing gratitude for new life and naming the infant Caroline after his mother, noting the child’s resemblance to her.

For several months, life at the estate maintained a semblance of normaly.

Lanina and her daughter occupied the enlarged room near the kitchen.

Household inventories revealed unusual items for enslaved quarters, a rocking chair, copper bathtub, and wooden cradle with linens.

Then, tragedy arrived.

In July 1838, infant Caroline developed a fever.

Despite Dr.

Thorne’s treatments, the child died on July 23 at 8 months old.

No death certificate was filed with authorities, which was typical for enslaved individuals.

What was atypical was Thomas Harrington’s order to dig a grave beneath an oak tree at the garden’s eastern edge rather than in the U.

The marked burial area beyond the north field used for other enslaved people.

Official records contain no documentation of Elanena’s response to her daughter’s death.

However, Mary Stillwell, wife of a merchant who frequented the estate, wrote to her sister in Charleston, describing a disturbing encounter.

She had come upon Ella Lanina kneeling motionless beside a fresh grave in the garden, completely silent.

Thomas Harrington observed from the verander, but did not interrupt.

When Ella Lanina finally stood, her expression was completely blank.

Stillwell had never witnessed such restrained grief and found it deeply unsettling.

By winter 1838, Elena was pregnant again.

This pregnancy proceeded normally, and on May 3rd, 1839, she delivered a son, Thomas, named James, after his own father.

Estate records from this period show increased expenditures for the room by the kitchen, including a larger bed, additional linens, and significantly a lock installed on the door.

James initially appeared hy.

Household accounts mentioned his strong appetite and loud cries.

For nearly 10 months, no problems emerged.

Then, in March 1840, tragedy returned.

James developed respiratory problems that rapidly worsened despite Dr.

Thorne’s care.

The child died on March 15th.

Once more, Thomas Harrington ordered burial beneath the oak tree in the garden beside Caroline’s grave.

No marker was placed, though estate gardener records note that LLanina planted white roses at the site.

What transpired following James’s death became a subject of considerable historical speculation.

Estate ledgers show Thomas Harrington departed for Atlanta 3 days after the burial.

During his two-week absence, something occurred that was never explicitly recorded.

Upon returning, Thomas wrote in his journal about finding domestic matters in disarray with Lelanina confined to her quarters.

The housekeeper reported extreme melancholy and food refusal.

Dr.

Thorne was consulted and prescribed lordinum for nerve.

With Thomas noting the situation required careful management, the housekeeper left no personal records of this period.

However, laundry documentation indicates an unusual increase in linens from Lanena’s quarters, and kitchen ledgers show meals being delivered rather than collected, as had been her custom.

By summer 1840, Elellanena had recovered enough to resume some household duties.

Then, in September, she was again pregnant.

This third pregnancy coincided with noticeable changes in Thomas Harrington’s behavior.

Frederick Montro, a cotton broker from Savannah, noted in his commercial diary that Harrington seemed unusually agitated, twice interrupting their business meeting to check on household matters, and inquiring about physicians in Charleston, who might possess greater skill than local practitioners.

His preoccupation with domestic concerns was interfering with business judgment.

As the pregnancy advanced, Thomas Harrington made arrangements that deviated significantly from plantation norms.

He converted a small sitting room adjacent to his own bedroom into a birthing chamber and hired a Savannah midwife, Mrs.

Sarah Blackwood, to reside at the estate for they’s final month.

Mrs.

Blackwood’s presence was documented in payroll records, but she left no personal account of her time there.

The only reference to her observations comes from a conversation her daughter later recounted to a church archavist, stating that her mother would never speak directly about Foresight Estate, except to say once that she had never seen a woman so silent in her suffering, nor a man so desperate in his hope.

On April 10th, 1841, Lelanina delivered her third child, another daughter, Thomas, named Elizabeth.

Unlike previous births, Thomas immediately arranged for Reverend William Stokes from St.

John’s Episcopal Church in Savannah to perform a private baptism.

This highly unusual event was recorded in the church register with no mother’s name listed, only Elizabeth Harrington, daughter of Thomas Harrington, baptized at Foresight Estate on April 11th, 1841.

For the first time, Thomas Harrington’s journals contain daily observations of one of the children.

Elizabeth’s first smile, the color of her eyes changing from blue to brown like her mother’s.

Her apparent recognition of his voice.

He commissioned a portrait of the infant from a savannah artist, which was discovered in the estate’s attic storage in 1959.

The canvas partially damaged by moisture.

Then, in August 1841, Elizabeth began showing illness.

Dr.

The thorn was summoned immediately and Thomas also called for a Charleston physician, Dr.

Marcus Whitfield, known for expertise in childhood diseases.

The combined efforts of both doctors proved futile.

Elizabeth died on August 17th, aged just 4 months.

Estate records show Thomas spent an extraordinary sum on a small marble headstone, the first formal marker for any of the children.

The stone later discovered broken and weathered during a 1965 archaeological survey bore only the name Elizabeth and her birth and death dates.

What happened following Elizabeth’s death would remain shrouded in conflicting accounts and speculation for over a century.

The established facts drawn from estate records are these.

On August 20th, 3 days after Elizabeth’s burial, Thomas Harrington left for Savannah on business.

He returned unexpectedly the same evening.

The next morning, August 21st, LLanina Bowmont could not be found anywhere on the estate.

A search was organized examining nearby woods, roads, and neighboring plantations.

Lanina had vanished.

Thomas Harrington did not contact authorities, which several historians have noted as significant.

Instead, he offered his overseer a substantial reward for Ellenena’s discreet return.

After 3 days, the search yielded results.

Alanena was found in an abandoned hunting cabin on the furthest edge of Forsythe property nearly 4 miles from the main house.

According to the overseer’s report in the estate log book, the woman was located unharmed but mentally unwell and returned to the house under watch.

What followed was approximately 2 months during which Ella Lenena was, according to household accounts, confined for her health.

The room she had previously occupied was emptied and she was moved to a thirdf flooror room in the main house.

Estate records show the purchase of a special lock for this door and the boarding up of the room’s window from the outside.

Dr.

Thorne visited twice weekly during this period.

His medical log contains minimal information stating the patient at Foresight continued under sedation, refused food when lucid, spoke of children calling to her from beneath the oak, and recommended continued isolation and lordinum as needed.

Then on October 12th, 1841, Thomas Harrington’s journal contains a single cryptic entry stating it was finished and asking for God’s mercy.

The following day, housekeeping records note the third floor room was emptied and cleaned.

No F.

A mention of Elanina Bowmont appears in any estate document.

She simply vanished from the written record.

What happened to Elanina Bowmont has been the subject of intense speculation among historians and local chronicers.

The most commonly accepted theory based on fragmentaryary evidence is that she died either by her own hand or from the effects of her treatment and was buried in an unmarked location on the estate grounds.

However, no remains that could be definitively identified as hers were ever discovered in subsequent excavations.

Thomas Harrington never remarried.

His behavior in the years following 1841 grew increasingly erratic.

Business associates noted his declining interest in plantation operations.

He began spending extended periods in Savannah and eventually Charleston, leaving Foresight Estate under the management of his cousin Walter Harrington.

The estate’s productivity declined steadily.

By 1847, Thomas Harrington’s financial records show mounting debts.

In 1850, he sold approximately half of the enslaved individuals owned by the estate.

By 1855, Forsythe estate was operating at a loss.

Thomas Harrington died in 1858 at age 69.

According to his will, Foresight estate passed to his cousin Walter’s son, James Harrington.

The will contained one unusual stipulation.

The oak tree in the eastern garden was never to be cut down, and the area surrounding it was to remain undisturbed.

James Harrington had little interest in maintaining the declining plantation.

After the Civil War and emancipation, the estate fell into complete disrepair.

In 1872, the property was sold to a lumber company.

Despite the stipulation in Thomas Harrington’s will, the oak tree was cut down and the garden area was cleared for development.

According to local newspaper accounts, the workers who removed the tree made a disturbing discovery.

Beneath its roots, they found four small sets of remains, not three as the known graves would have suggested.

The additional set was oh an infant approximately newborn in size with no evidence of a burial container.

This discovery might have remained a mere curiosity had it not coincided with the death of Dr.

Samuel Thorne.

Among his personal papers was a sealed envelope marked Foresight estate confidential.

Inside was a single sheet containing an account dated October 11th, 1841 stating he had been called to foresight under disturbing circumstances.

Thomas Harrington reported that LLanina had delivered a stillborn male infant during the night with no midwife present.

The child was already wrapped and prepared for burial when he arrived.

The mother was in extremely weakened condition both physically and mentally with evidence of significant blood loss.

He advised immediate removal to a hospital in Savannah, but Thomas refused, insisting on home treatment.

Against his better judgment, he acquiesced to these wishes.

He feared the outcome was predetermined and recorded this account to clear his conscience, though he prayed it would never become necessary to share it.

The discovery of this document along with the fourth set of remains created a brief sensation in the local press.

However, with most of the principles long deceased and the estate itself transforming into an industrial area, interest eventually waned.

For nearly a century, the story of Elanina Bowmont and the children of Forsyther estate faded from public consciousness.

Then in 1963, a graduate student named Margaret Wilson from the University of Georgia began researching unexplained disappearances of enslaved women in Antibellum Savannah for her doctoral dissertation.

Her research led her to the fragments of Forsythe estate records preserved in various archives.

Wilson’s work pieced together the narrative from dispersed sources, estate ledgers, church records, business correspondents, medical logs, personal journals, and oral histories.

Her dissertation, completed in 1967, but never published, concluded with a theory that would late gain significant traction among historians.

According to Wilson’s analysis, Alanina Bowmont did not die at Foresight Estate in October 1841.

Instead, after the still birth and secret burial of her fourth child, she was sold through private channels to a plantation owner in Louisiana.

Wilson discovered a bill of sale dated October 13th, 1841 for a domestic servant aged 28 in delicate health sold by Thomas Harrington to Jeremiah Wilcox of St.

Francisville, Louisiana.

Wilson attempted to trace LLAN’s life after this transfer, but found Louisiana records incomplete due to courthouse fires during the Civil War.

Her research trail ended there, and her dissertation was filed away in university archives largely unnoticed.

In 1968, during construction of a manufacturing facility on what had once been Foresight Estate land, workers excavating for a foundation discovered a small silver locket buried approximately 6 ft below ground near where the oak tree had once stood.

Inside was a braid of dark hair and a tiny portrait painted on ivory of a woman with features suggesting mixed ancestry.

On the back of the portrait, barely legible, were the initials EB.

The locket is now housed in the Savannah Historical Society Museum, a small, easily overlooked artifact that represents one of the few tangible connections to Allelanina Bowmont that survived.

The land where Foresight estate once stood, has been completely transformed by industrial and later commercial development.

Nothing remains of the plantation house, the gardens, or the oak tree that marked the children’s graves.

The only physical reminder is a small historical marker erected in 1992 at the edge of what is now a shopping center parking lot.

The marker makes no mention of Lelanina Bowmont or the children stating only site of Forsythe estate circa 1830 to 1870 cotton plantation owned by the Harrington family.

Yet, according to local accounts, strange occurrences have been reported in the area, particular lie in the eastern section of the property where the garden once stood.

Security guards working night shifts have described hearing what sounds like a woman singing softly, though no source can be located.

Maintenance workers have reported finding small arrangements of white roses placed on the ground in the early morning hours, though security cameras have never captured anyone leaving them.

Perhaps most disturbing are the reports from three separate night watchmen spanning the years 1975 to 2005 who claimed to have seen a woman in outdated dress walking slowly through the property around 3:00 in the morning, always in mid- August, always heading toward the eastern corner where an oak tree once stood, always vanishing when approached.

These accounts have been dismissed as urban legends, the kind that inevitably attach themselves to locations with troubled histories.

Yet they persist, passed down through generations of Savannah residents, a whispered counterpoint to the sanitized hista.

Ry presented on tourist brochures and guided tours.

In 1969, Margaret Wilson attempted to return to her research on Lalanina Bowmont, planning to expand her dissertation into a book.

However, she reported increasing difficulty accessing certain archives and collections.

In a letter to her academic adviser, she wrote that she was encountering unexpected resistance from several families connected to the Harrington lineage.

Doors that were previously open had been firmly closed.

She could not help but feel that even after more than a century, there were those who preferred this history remain buried.

Wilson abandoned the project after reportedly receiving anonymous communications, suggesting she focus her scholarly attention elsewhere.

She accepted a teaching position at a small college in New England and never published her findings.

The true fate of Ellen Anina Bowmont after October 1841 remains unknown.

If she was indeed sold to Louisiana, as Wilson’s research suggested, no clear record of her life or death.

There has been discovered.

She vanishes from documented history just as completely as she vanished from four Scythe estates records.

What we know with certainty is this.

Between 1837 and 1841, a young enslaved woman named Ellanena Bowmont bore four children at Forsythe estate.

All four died in infancy or early childhood.

All four were buried beneath an oak tree in the garden rather than in the unmarked ground where other enslaved persons were interred.

And in the autumn of 1841, Elanina Bowmont disappeared from Foresight Estate under circumstances that Thomas Harrington went to considerable lengths to obscure.

The rest exists in the shadows of history, in the spaces between documented facts, in the silences that official records maintain.

We can approach these shadows, examine their outlines, but we cannot dispel them entirely.

In 2008, a descendant of the Harrington family donated a collection of family papers to the Savannah Historical Society.

Among them was a water damaged journal kept by Thomas Harrington’s cousin Walter, who took over management of Foresight Estate in the 1840s.

Most entries concerned plantation operations, but one dated April 1842, approximately 6 months after Elellanena and Nina Bowmont’s disappearance, contained a disturbing passage.

Thomas had confided in him after several drinks.

Walter wished he had not, as some knowledge cannot be unknown once shared.

Thomas believed the children were taken by divine retribution for his sins.

Perhaps that was easier for him to accept than the alternative his physician had suggested that they might have been helped to their ends.

When Walter asked by whom, Thomas looked at him with such hollowess and said, “By the one who loved them too much to let them live as she had to live.

” Walter stated he would not transcribe the rest of what was said, as some words should not be preserved, even in private pages.

This journal entry discovered over 160 years after it was written adds why.

Add another layer to the mystery of Ella Lanina Bowmont and the children of Forsythe estate.

It raises questions that can never be fully answered about agency resistance and the terrible choices faced by those trapped in an inhuman system.

In the spring of 1969, just as Margaret Wilson was abandoning her research on LLanina Bowmont, another discovery was made that would add yet another layer to this troubling history.

During renovations of St.

John’s Episcopal Church in Savannah, workers discovered a hidden compartment behind the vestri wall.

Inside was a small wooden box containing several items, a folded piece of yellowed paper, a small cloth pouch containing what appeared to be dried herbs, and a carved wooden figure of a woman holding a child.

The paper, when carefully unfolded by archavists, revealed itself to be a letter written in an educated but hurried hand.

It was dated October 14th, 1841, and addressed simply to Father William.

The contents described how the writer had participated in something that weighed heavily upon his conscience.

The woman from Foresight Estate was brought to the church the previous night, more dead than alive, by Thomas Harrington himself.

He claimed she had attempted self harm following the loss of her infant, and required sanctuary and care beyond what his household could provide.

The truth, as revealed by Dr.

Thorne, who arrived shortly after, was far darker.

The woman had been kept under lock and key since the still birth.

When sedation was removed, she became unmanageable in her grief.

Thorne confided that Thomas feared she might reveal certain truths about the children who had died at Foresight, truths that would prove ruinous to his standing in the community.

The writer was asked to arrange immediate passage for her on a vessel departing for New Orleans that morning.

Thomas provided papers indicating her sale to a plantation in Louisiana, though the writer suspected she would never reach that destination in her current condition.

She spoke only once during the night as the writer sat with her while the doctor administered preparations for the journey.

She looked at him with eyes that seemed to see beyond this world and said all four sleep beneath the oak.

She had sung to them as they passed.

It was the only kindness she could offer.

When asked if she wanted to confess any sin before her journey, thinking she referred to some act against the children, she smiled in a way that chilled his blood and said the sin was not hers.

The sin was bringing them into this world knowing what awaited them.

She had simply opened the door to a better place.

The writer stated he did not know if he had been party to concealing a terrible crime or providing mercy to a woman broken by unimaginable suffering.

Perhaps both were true.

He would carry this burden to his grave, but left this record in hopes that someday someone might know that Lelanina Bowmont was not forgotten in her final hours in Savannah.

He enclosed her medicine pouch which she clutched until sedation took her and the small carving found among her possessions.

The letter was signed in deepest contrition Reverend James Sullivan, assistant to Reverend William Stokes.

This letter, which came to be known as the Sullivan Confession, was initially kept from public view by church authorities who cited its disturbing nature and unverifiable claims.

It was not until 2003 that historian Eliza Montgomery gained access to it while researching clerical responses to slavery in Antabbellum, Savannah.

Her subsequent paper brought renewed attention to Elanina Bowmont’s story.

Montgomery’s research also uncovered shipping records from October 15th, 1841, listing a female negro infirm among the cargo of the merchant vessel Carolina Star bound for New Orleans.

The ship’s log preserved in maritime archives notes that this unnamed passenger died at sea on October 17th and was buried at sea according to maritime custom.

If this passenger was indeed Elanina Bao Mont, as Montgomery’s research strongly suggests, then her mortal journey ended in the waters of the Atlantic, far from both Forsythe estate and the Louisiana plantation that supposedly purchased her.

The wooden carving found with Sullivan’s letter remains in the archives of St.

John’s Church.

It depicts a standing woman holding four small bundles in her arms, their features indistinct, but their significance unmistakable.

The carving style has been identified by anthropologists as consistent with West African traditions, suggesting that Elanena maintained cultural connections despite her enslavement.

The herb pouch, when analyzed by botonists in 2005, was found to contain dried fox glove, gimweed, and ubberries, all plants with toxic properties when prepared in certain ways, all growing on or near foresight estate according to botanical surveys of the period.

These discoveries led Montgomery and subsequent researchers to a theory that contradicts the long-held narrative of Illa Nina as merely a victim of Thomas Harrington’s exploitation.

Instead, they propose a more complex understanding that Ellanina, faced with the unbearable reality of watching her children grow up in slavery, possibly made the devastating choice to end their suffering herself.

This theory remains controversial and unproven.

Some historians argue that the children’s deaths could have been natural as infant mortality was high in that era.

Others suggest that if the deaths were indeed deliberate, the culpability might have rested with Thomas Harrington himself, who might have seen the mixed race children as a growing liability to his social standing.

What can be said with certainty is that four children died at Foresight Estate between 1837 and 1841.

Their remains were discovered beneath an oak tree in 1872 and Elanena Bowmont, their mother, disappeared from Savannah in October 1841, likely dying at sea days later.

In 2012, ground penetrating radar was used to survey the former forcet.

The estate land now occupied by a shopping center.

The technology revealed a previously unknown feature, a small underground chamber approximately 15 ft below the current surface in the area where the oak tree once stood.

When excavated under the supervision of archaeologists from the University of Georgia, the chamber was found to contain a wooden chest, badly deteriorated but still intact.

Inside were several items.

A child’s knitted cap, four small cloth dolls of different sizes arranged in a row, a handcopied page from a prayer book, and most significantly, a journal bound in faded cloth.

The journal’s pages had largely succumbed to moisture and time, but several passages remained legible.

The handwriting matched that on the back of the ivory portrait in the silver locket discovered decades earlier.

The journal appears to have belonged to Lelanina Bowmont herself, though how it came to be buried in this underground chamber remains unknown.

The legible entries span from 18 38 to 1841, and provide the only known record of Ella Lanena’s thoughts in her own words.

One entry dated July 25th, 1838, 2 days after the death of her first child, reads, “They have put Caroline beneath the oak tree.

Master Thomas says it is a mark of special favor not to be with the others beyond the north field.

He does not understand that the ground consumes us all the same, favor or no favor.

She sat beside the small mound when duties allowed, and had begun to hate the oak for the weight it would place upon her child’s small body as its roots grew.

Yet she also found herself touching its bark, feeling its life continue while her daughters had ended.

She wondered if this was what mothers became in that place.

Women who spoke to trees because their children lay beneath them.

Another entry dated March 18th, 1840, shortly after the death of her second child reads, “James has joined his sister.

The white doctor says his lungs were weak.

What he does not say is why the dampness of their row.

The work she did with him strapped to her back until her seventh month, the poor milk her tired body made for him.

These were the true causes, but they were not written in medical books.

Master Thomas wept for him and called it God’s will.

She did not weep anymore.

She was learning that tears were a luxury belonging to those who expected the world to be fair.

She had no such expectation now.

She thought instead of her grandmother’s stories of children who returned to the other side when this world is too cruel for them to stay, perhaps they were wiser than those who remained.

The most revealing entry dated August 19th, 1841, two days after the death of her third child, Elizabeth, consists of just a few lines.

The third has returned to the stars.

Master Thomas rages against God and fate.

He had such hopes for Elizabeth, had her baptized, spoke of special arrangements for her future, perhaps even taking her to the house in Savannah, where lighter complexions raise fewer questions.

But she has escaped such a life as the others did.

She looked at the one growing inside her now, her fourth and final burden, and knew what she must do.

There were kinder doorways to the next world than the ones the place provided.

Her grandmother taught her how to find them.

May she forgive her.

May they all forgive her.

This final entry written just two days before Ella Lanina allegedly delivered a stillborn son and subsequently disappeared from Foresight estate has been the subject of intense scholarly debate.

Some interpret it as evidence supporting the theory that Elanina deliberately hastened her children’s deaths as an act of desperate mercy.

Others see it as the anguished writings of a grieving mother seeking spiritual understanding of her losses with the doorways referenced being metaphorical rather than literal.

The underground chamber where the chest was discovered has been interpreted by archaeologists as a root cellar that was later repurposed.

How Alanina’s possessions ca me to be hidden there and by whom remains unknown.

One theory suggests that another enslaved person at Foresight Estate, perhaps someone who assisted Ella Lanina or was entrusted with her belongings, concealed them after her disappearance.

The discovered items are now preserved in the Savannah Historical Museum’s special collections, though they are not part of the regular exhibit.

Researchers must apply for special permission to view them.

A policy that has drawn criticism from those who argue that Ellelanina Bowmont’s story, however painful, should be fully accessible as an important part of American history.

In 2015, a descendant of Thomas Harrington, Katherine Harrington Wells, established a memorial foundation dedicated to acknowledging and researching the lives of all enslaved individuals who lived at Foresight Estate.

The foundation funded the creation of a more comprehensive historical marker at the site which now includes Lelanina Bowmont’s name and acknowledges the four child Ren buried there.

The foundation also sponsors an annual scholarship for research into the hidden histories of enslaved women and their children with particular focus on forms of resistance and survival that traditional historical records have often overlooked or misinterpreted.

Harrington Wells stated at the dedication of the new marker that while the past cannot be changed, how we remember it can be transformed, including how we honor those who suffered and how we understand their humanity and agency, even within a system designed to deny both.

Visitors to the site today will find a small contemplative garden where the oak tree once stood.

The garden includes four small stone markers arranged in a semicircle representing the four children who were buried there.

At the center stands a bronze sculpture of a woman with her face turned upward, her arms empty but slightly raised as if releasing something to the sky.

The sculptor Amara Johnson described her work as not just a memorial tea.

Oh suffering but a recognition of impossible choices and enduring spirit.

Elellanina Bowmont’s story is not simply one of victimhood, but of a woman who, even within the most constrained circumstances, found ways to express love, preserve dignity, and possibly resist on her own terms.

Local residents report that white roses frequently appear at the base of the sculpture, left by anonymous visitors.

On August nights, particularly around the 17th, the date of Elizabeth’s death, some claim to see a solitary woman walking slowly through the garden, stopping at each of the four stones before disappearing into the darkness.

The story of Elleanina Bowmont and her four children continues to affect those who encounter it.

It raises uncomfortable questions about America’s past, about the human capacity for both cruelty and resistance, about how we memorialize difficult histories, and about whose voices are preserved in the historical record, in the archives, in the buried chest, in the let to hidden behind a church wall, in the silver locket, and in the oral histories passed down through generations, we find fragments of a life that official records tried to reduce to property transactions.

These fragments do not provide a complete picture.

Too much has been lost to time.

Too much was never recorded in the first place.

But they offer glimpses of a woman who lived, suffered, possibly loved, possibly resisted, and who, even in the most dehumanizing of circumstances, maintained an inner life rich enough to leave echoes that resonate nearly two centuries later.

Elanena Bowmont’s final days remain shrouded in uncertainty.

If she did indeed die at sea aboard the Carolina Star, her body committed to the Atlantic waters, then she has no grave that can be visited, no marker that bears her name.

The memorial garden stands in place of such a marker, an acknowledgement of absence as much as presence.

Perhaps that is fitting for a woman whose life was defined by systematic eraser of her autonomy, her familial bonds, her very humanity in the eyes of the law.

Yet against these erasers, we can now place the evidence of her resistance, the journal entries that recorded her thoughts, the carved figure that expressed her culture, the herb pouch that suggested her knowledge, and the lasting impact of her story on all who encounter it.

What happened at Forsythe estate between 1835 and 1841 was both an intimate personal tragedy and a reflection of a larger historical atrocity.

Ellenina Bowmont’s story is simultaneously unique in its specific details and tragically common in its broader outlines.

Countless other enslaved women lived, bore children, suffered losses, and died, leaving barely a trace in historical records.

What makes Elanina’s story different is not necessarily what happened to her, but the fact that fragments of her experience survived, hidden in walls, buried in chests, preserved in letters, passed down through oral histories, and eventually recovered by those committed to ensuring that such lives are not forgotten.

As visitors leave the memorial garden today, they pass by a simple plaque bearing a quote from Ellenina’s journal, one of the few passages that survived intact.

They say we have no souls to save, yet they fear our spirits after death.

They say we are not fully human, yet they tremble at our humanity when it shows itself.

Remember this, if nothing else, what they took from us in life, we reclaim in memory.

And memory once awakened is a force that cannot be enslaved.

In a system designed to dehumanize and erase, the persistence of memory, individual and collective, becomes itself an act of resistance.

And so we remember Elanina Bowmont and the four children buried be an oak tree that no longer stands on land that has been transformed by time and development.

In a world that has changed and yet carries within it the echoes of past injustices and past resistances, their story continues to be told, continues to affect those who hear it, continues to challenge easy narratives about the past.

In this way, Lelanena Bowmont, a woman who was meant to leave no mark on history beyond her monetary value in transaction ledgers, continues to speak across the centuries, reminding us that behind every entry in those ledgers was a full human life with thoughts, feelings, strategies for survival, and possibly in the end choices made on her own terms, however limited and tragic those terms might have been.