06/19/2026
Today is Juneteenth, a commemoration of the day in 1865 when the news of emancipation reached enslaved people in Texas—the last to learn that they were free. Among those freed by the Emancipation Proclamation was James D. Williams, who is buried in the Carmel Welsh cemetery near Rewey, Wisconsin. Indeed, his birth into slavery and liberation is noted in his gravestone. Williams was probably a contraband who had been freed by, and possibly served in, the Union Army, and came north after the war with Welsh members of the 11th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry. He settled in the Welsh community of Pecatonica, and lived for a time with the family of Edward Williams, with whom he had traveled to Wisconsin, and whose last name he adopted. He eventually owned farmland and mined lead, like many of his neighbors. He also joined the Carmel Calvinistic Methodist church and was known for singing in Welsh. He lived among the Welsh of the Pecatonica Settlement until his death in 1903. Williams was one of many African Americans who settled in Southwestern Wisconsin before and after the Civil War. The windlass he used in his lead-mining operation is preserved at The Mining & Rollo Jamison Museums in Platteville, Wisconsin.
