In Freedom’s Footsteps: Juneteenth Community History Walk
Join the Willamette Heritage Center and Oregon Black Pioneers for a community walk following in the footsteps of families or individuals whose lives were impacted by slavery and emancipation.
In Partnership with:
2023 Walk – Albert & Mary Ann Bayless
Believed to be Albert and Mary Ann Bayless. From St. Paul’s AME Church Photo, State Library of Oregon 2006.001.0705
Albert and Mary Ann (Reynolds/Randles) Bayless were born into slavery. Albert escaped to northern California during the Gold Rush and started a new life mining. Mary Ann was freed by her enslaver as a teenager. She moved to Missouri and started a family before coming west over the Oregon Trail. In 1866, Albert and Mary Ann married Salem — the city that would be their home until their deaths in 1907.
In this walk we will visit the site of their home in the Piety Hill neighborhood (just north of the Oregon State Capitol), where the Bayless family hosted an Emancipation Day celebration in 1879, the site of Albert’s blacksmith shop, and one of the churches Albert was credited with inspiring the last push in fundraising to build.
Digital Map
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.PDF File
Prints best on 11 x 17 paper.
Learn More About the Bayless Family
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Read
Perseverance : a history of African Americans in Oregon’s Marion and Polk Counties(2011)
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