The Griffin Family Cemetery

A new lesson I learned was that after the Juneteenth, free men and women "of color" could be buried with their names on a stone.  They may not be buried in the same public city cemeteries, but some blessed person in each community is making historic efforts in documenting the location of the cemetery and the who is buried in it.  This makes lineage easier to track.  My father said that WSB Owens was buried in the 6 mile cemetery and not only can I confirm that but also can see a picture of it.  
As I do on my mornings off, I start with a cup of coffee and with hopes high with a random search.  I typed in "Griffin" and "cemetery" and was blessed.  There it was, not a secret at all, but an amazing discovery for me! The Griffin Family Cemetery!  There are 9 interments and with one deep breath, I pressed a button and there it was. The gravestone of Horace Griffin, the young boy who endured the cruelty of slavery, of losing his mother, trekking across the Gulf of Mexico in a boat, of defending against Indian attacks,  the Texas weather and all sorts of suffering.  

Horace Griffin May 5 1839 Died June 30, 1914

He lived until the age of 75 years one month and 25 days! He lived! He knew freedom for the first time of his life. He moved to Wetmore, Texas (which is now part of San Antonio).  They had purchased some land and made a cemetery.  
And George is here! 
Even though it list George as unknown, I came across records that listed him as living from 1842 - 1909, 67 years.  As anyone can see, Horace outlived George.

Another glaring fact is that all of the names listed, there was no Hagar.  No mother. No Cherry Ann.  

George Griffin unknown

But the thing I did with this information is ran a family tree with it hoping to pick up any descendants of the Griffin Children.  I know this is a late thought, but it took me a while to think outside the box.  I mean, my father and I still exist.  What is to say that the Griffin family is not also thriving.  I ran it forwards and came across one name.  A direct descendant of Horace, and she was lovely.  She had started a Griffin Family Tree and I could easily contact her on the message board.  I found her on Facebook and then I found another.  Did I have the courage to contact them?  What was I going to say "Um excuse me, but I am one of the descendants of your ancestors owners?  I am researching for my own selfish needs and can you share some information?"  Lord I could not, would not wish to bring that retribution on my head.  They have every right to ignore me, block me, despise my family.  I knew of their existence for over a month before I could get up the courage to contact them.  Even in telling my friends about this, they would just stare at me, gaped mouth.  Are you kidding? You want to contact them? I had thought long and hard about it.  I knew something about my ancestors, but not the whole truth.  What if it was the same for them?  What if they always knew about Cherry Ann?  What if the mother had reunited with the children?  Then my search was over.  

I messaged her.  It was awkward.  I prayed about it. 

 "I am hesitant to approach you, but I had noticed that your tree had little information on Horace Griffin, and I have some information on how he came to be in Uvalde from Florida. I am quite shocked as this part of my family history has not been spoken of ever and I am just recently finding information about this. This part of my history is a shame to me and I am trying to reconcile myself to it. When I found both Horace Griffin and Hagar on your tree, I knew these were two of the three slaves that were brought to Texas by my ancestors when they were 17, and 13 years old. George Griffin was only 9 years old. They were owned by William Swinton Bennett Owens, (though the thought is disgusting to me), I wanted you to know this for your ancestors tree. As the family stories were lost to several generations, I am slowly rebuilding them. I noticed that you too have little on your tree and I wanted you to know your family as well. I will continue to search the plantation in which I think the Griffin family was connected to. I understand if you want to block me."

I didn't look at the messages for days for fear of rejection.  I completely understood the predicament.  Then I got a sweet message! 

Thank you so much for reaching out!

From what little I know, Horace and his siblings were sold and brought to Texas due to their previous owner having debts and needing to money to keep his grist mill. If you can find out what happened to Horace's mother and what her name was that would be great. Also, if his father's name is known that would be great. 

Please let me know everything you can find out.
Please know that you are not held accountable for what your ancestors did. They were caught up in a system that was hard to detach from due to the livelihood the system provided. You are very brave to reach out. Not many people would do that.
By the way, what was the name of the plantation?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

It was the beginning of crossing one of the unspoken barriers.  The sharing of information between the  families.  Her loving attitude completely disintegrated my awkwardness and we had crossed the barrier together.  By the way, I still don't know the name of the "plantation".  I never even knew we had one.  I still don't think we ever had a true plantation.  I once found an article in a journal that was about the survival of the Griffin family.  It was full of holes of information and misinformation.  The article mentioned that they were from the Bill Orange plantation.  I asked daddy if ever there was an orange plantation and he said not that he knew.  He told me that in the 70s, a black man came into the lumber yard where he worked and called him Mr. Orange.  He said he was saying Owens, but it sounded like orange. In the article, the Griffins referred to my ancestor as Bill Orange, our family called him "Buck" or "Swint" Owens.  It was obvious that the spoken word and the written word made another barrier.  I imagined Horace's mother looking for Bill Orange and never finding them.