James Wiley, a Tuskegee Airman, received a degree in physics from the University of Pittsburgh and wanted to be a scientist, but because of his race could only get a job as a chauffeur. He obtained his pilot’s license and went to the Tuskegee Institute, a “paradise,” as an instructor. After enlisting in 1942, he served in the famed 99th Pursuit Squadron of the Army Air Force, flew more than a hundred missions over southern Europe, and was awarded the Air Medal. In 1965, Colonel Wiley retired from “a wonderful military career” and then worked for fifteen years as a customer engineer with the Boeing Company. He and his wife, Ruby, raised three children.
Families
Bernd Willand
Karen Cox Willand
Anne Mercer Slaughter
Anne Slaughter and four other descendants of Monticello gatekeeper Eliza Tolliver Coleman were interviewed together in 1995. All live in the Washington, DC, area and work (or worked) in various departments of the federal government. They shared their memories of Eliza Coleman’s daughters Lucy Coleman Barnaby Page and Grace Coleman Harris and recalled summers spent at the Monticello gatehouse. Members of the extended Coleman family lived at Monticello for more than a century—far longer than any of the property’s owners.
Lena Willand
Susan Smart
Ronald A. Smith
Twins Robert and Ronald Smith first learned of their connection to the Woodson family after the death of their father, Karl Franklin Smith, an educator, Bible scholar, and bishop of the Church of Christ, Apostolic Faith, in Columbus. In the 1930s Bishop Smith, who they remember as “very quiet in terms of his family history,” had drawn up an ancestry chart based on what he had heard from his mother, but he had never spoken about it. Bishop Smith, who had a far-reaching radio ministry, founded his church and led it for a half century, from a congregation of twenty to over fifteen hundred. Both the bishop’s parents were Methodist ministers. As Robert Smith said about his ancestor Thomas Woodson, “The key has got to be his religion.”
Maxcine Mercer Sterling
Maxcine Sterling and four other descendants of Monticello gatekeeper Eliza Tolliver Coleman were interviewed together in 1995. All live in the Washington, DC, area and work (or worked) in various departments of the federal government. They shared their memories of Eliza Coleman’s daughters Lucy Coleman Barnaby Page and Grace Coleman Harris and recalled summers spent at the Monticello gatehouse. Members of the extended Coleman family lived at Monticello for more than a century—far longer than any of the property’s owners.
Cynthia Jones Stratton
Gloria Mitchell Thornburgh
James Monroe Trotter
Born in slavery in Mississippi, James Monroe Trotter was educated in Ohio and became a schoolteacher. In June 1863 he and his friend William H. Dupree traveled to Boston to enlist in the 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Both were commissioned second lieutenants in 1864 but had to wait a year for official recognition. Trotter was one of most prominent spokesmen in the dispute over equal pay for African American soldiers.
After the war, Trotter and Dupree returned to Ohio, married sisters Virginia and Maria Elizabeth Isaacs, and moved to Boston where they obtained good positions in the U.S. Postal Service. In 1878 Trotter published a groundbreaking survey of African American music. His distinguished war record and support of the Democratic Party led to appointment as District of Columbia Recorder of Deeds in 1887, the highest government office open to blacks. Trotter’s passionate commitment to equality inspired his famous son, William Monroe Trotter.
Virginia Isaacs Trotter
Virginia Isaacs, daughter of Tucker and Ann-Elizabeth Fossett Isaacs, was raised on a farm in Ross County, Ohio. After the Civil War she and her sister Maria Elizabeth Isaacs married two veterans of the Civil War, Lts. James Monroe Trotter and William H. Dupree. Both couples settled in Boston, where Trotter and Dupree were well-known figures after distinguished service as officers in the 55th Massachusetts Infantry regiment. Virginia Trotter and her sister were described by a contemporary as women of “charming sociability and cultured manners.”
The Trotters lived in Hyde Park, a largely white suburb of Boston, and accumulated property, particularly after James Monroe Trotter’s appointment to the lucrative position of Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia. They had three children, William Monroe, Maude, and Bessie. After her husband’s early death, Virginia Trotter managed the family investments and supported her son Monroe, allowing him to establish the Boston Guardian, and become a leading voice in the early civil rights movement.