The Columns Museum celebrates Black History Month with lecture and new exhibit

On Sunday February 4, at 3 p.m., the Columns Museum will be holding an informative presentation by Bill Merchant of the D&H Canal Museum regarding the experience of Black people on the Delaware and Hudson Canal. Merchant is a historian who has done extensive research on the marginalized workers on the D&H Canal. As noted in the museum’s event announcement, the D&H relied on low-wage, marginalized workers to construct and operate its canal. Immigrants, people of color, women and children comprised most of its work force. The museum will ask for a suggested donation of $5 to attend; light refreshments will be served.

The museum also announced a permanent installation about the Davis-Bailey family. This new exhibit will feature the life and times of four generations of this notable family, “from the matriarch Sarah Showers Davis, a fearless woman of color who defied the norm by purchasing her family home in predominantly white Milford in 1900 using her late husband’s Civil War pension, to the tragic death of her great grandson Sgt. Milton Wesley Bailey, who was M.I.A., then declared dead during the Korean War.”

The exhibit includes Milton’s letters home, sent to his mother and grandmother, along with family photographs and memorabilia that highlight the family’s history in Milford. Both Milton and his great grandfather, Abraham Davis, are also honored through the “Home Town Heroes” banners that line Broad Street between the Columns Museum and the corner of Broad and Harford.

The Columns Museum is open Wednesday and Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.