This year, Prof. Michael Trotti was asked to join their reunion to give some background on the history of the manumission (emancipation of enslaved by an individual). In 1815, Samuel Gist died and deeded all of his American lands to the benefit of his 350 slaves. Virginia law did not allow freedmen to remain in the state, and so they were removed to tracts of land in southern Ohio and a trust was established to manage what little money was left over from the sale of the Gist estate. A piece of land is still held in common for them (courts can't figure out what to do with it!), but most descendants have scattered over the decades to find better jobs throughout the Midwest.
Prof. Trotti wrote his undergraduate honors thesis on the manumission, later revising it to become his first publication: "Freedmen and Enslaved Soil". Twenty years ago he joined descendants to walk the grounds of one of the Gist plantations in Hanover County, Virginia. In July of this year he traveled to southern Ohio to present to about 40 descendants who have regularly met since the 1990s to celebrate their fellow "land kin." They meet to share stories, to build genealogical skills and insights, and to consider how to keep this unusual and important story of their heritage known to new generations of descendants and perhaps to find ways to share more broadly this story in the public eye.