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Story archives: Marysville's black pioneers
Appeal-Democrat reporter Nancy Pasternack is chronicling black pioneers and their historical contributions to the Yuba-Sutter community. Please click on the links below to read previous stories.
Nov. 15, 2011
Group seeks to restore graves of black pioneers
His name still can be found on a 1920s map of the old Marysville Cemetery north of town. But the Rev. Thomas Edward Randolph, a Baptist minister, church founder, gold miner, farmer, barber and ex-slave, was all but forgotten in Marysville until recently.
Nov. 14, 2011
Tracing Marysville's black pioneer families: The Pogue sisters
Their memories go back to a time when sheep grazed beside the river at what is now the 10th Street bridge. Carol Pogue, 80, was born in a house nearby on I Street that was owned by her family. At that time, the property did not connect Marysville with Yuba City. There was no highway.
Black pioneers in Marysville: Slavery's past touches area
A reprinted 1852 advertisement from the San Francisco Herald offers $100 for the capture and return of an escaped Marysville slave. The ad is featured in a National Park Service informational pamphlet titled "Underground Railroad: The Quest for Freedom Moves West, 1848-1869." Its author, Guy Washington, is on a mission to flesh out the story of black pioneers in California — those who escaped from slave owners elsewhere, those who bought or were granted freedom prior to their arrival, and those who were brought here as slaves.
