Gallion, AL news and local guide

In 1867 a group of African American men and women founded the nearby community of Freetown on more than 600 acres left to them in the will of John Collins, a planter who had come from Virginia in 1837. The first residents, members of the Collins, Moore and Jeffries families and Louisa Conway and her children, included formerly enslaved people and free people of color. Many of the men were skilled masons and carpenters; Peter Lee and John Glascow directed the building of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Gallion, and residents helped organize Bethlehem Baptist Church in 1867. Freetown reached its peak in the 1920s, when Brown's general store, opened around 1910, was its business and social hub, and women from the community were among the first teachers in the area's Black schools. After World War II many residents moved to cities, though their descendants keep strong ties to Freetown. Sources The Historical Marker Database: Freetown (Alabama Historical Association) Wikipedia: Gallion, Alabama