The Hamilton Heights High School theater students will hold a “Lantern Walk” through Cicero Cemetery from 7 to 9 p.m. on Saturday, April 22. The walk will include 12 stops at the gravesites of important folks in the history of Jackson Township.
The Reporter will publish a short biography of each of the 12 individuals in our online editions from Wednesday to Saturday for three weeks, concluding April 15.
Hansel Roberts is featured in today’s edition.
Note: Peter Roberts, pictured above, is Hansel’s first cousin once removed. No known likeness of Hansel Roberts exists.
“I am Hansel Roberts, an African-American pioneer. We were people of mixed African, Native American, and European descent, raised in eastern North Carolina, an area where our families had lived as modest, well-respected, free landowners for at least a generation before the American Revolution. We migrated to Indiana’s frontier in large measure because our freedom seemed in jeopardy. In July 1835, I journeyed to the federal government’s land office in Indianapolis to purchase homesteads in northern Hamilton County. The claims had been intentionally chosen to be within several miles of Quakers, a group known to be accepting and supportive of free blacks. In October 1835, we brought our families to our wilderness claims and settled permanently, establishing a farm community later known as Roberts Settlement. By 1840 the neighborhood included about 10 families and 900 acres of land. In the mid-1920s, growing self-awareness of Roberts Settlement’s special heritage led former residents to organize annual homecoming reunions, establishing a Fourth of July tradition that has continued to the present day. My final resting place is the Roberts Chapel Cemetery.”
Source: Stephen A. Vincent, Ph. D. Copyright 2014. robertssettlement.org/history; Bryan Glover
Interpreted by Sage Dugger