Ellen Dammond, who was a social worker and personnel supervisor, was descended from both the Fossetts of Monticello and the famous fugitive slaves William and Ellen Craft. The prominent equal rights activist William Monroe Trotter was her uncle. She felt strongly about preserving and passing on the history of the struggles for freedom and equality, and introduced a 1970s film on the Crafts. Both she and her daughter, Peggy Preacely, were active participants in the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Ellen Dammond worked with Dorothy Height and Polly Cowan in the Wednesdays in Mississippi project. The 2006 Getting Word interview includes a 1995 recording of Ellen Dammond and her sister, Virginia Craft Rose, remembering their family and its history.
The William and Ellen Craft Story
Find out about the Craft ancestors, William and Ellen, an enslaved couple from Macon, Georgia, who made a daring escape to freedom.
Ancestry
Elizabeth Hemings
1735-1807Mary Hemings Bell
1753-post 1834Joseph Fossett
1780 - 1858Ann-Elizabeth Fossett Isaacs
1812-1902Ellen Craft Dammond
1916-2007
Related People
Interview Information
16 July 2006, Long Beach, CA
Interviewees: Margaret Dammond Preacely, Noel Day, Christopher Day
Also present: Ellen Craft Dammond
