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I didn’t hesitate to accept an invitation to tour the old McCollum home place in Rockingham County’s Pleasantville community with its slave quarters and a cemetery divided into two sections — one for white McCollums and the other for their slaves.

The descendents of both had come together to honor each other and to remember their shared past.

This was the third reunion to include both sets of McCollums.

The descendents of Charles and Minerva McCollum had met together as family in Forsyth County for years, but in 1975, with the encouragement of one of the family elders, Mary McCollum Kiser asked her granddaughter, Shirley Hawkins, to contact other cousins for a picnic on the farm.

A large group attended, and for the next 35 years the cousins — now the McCollum Clan — have met regularly as the McCollum Reunion, mostly in Forsyth County.

Charles and Minerva McCollum were slaves on James McCollum’s property.

Chenita Barker Johnson, a descendent of Charles and Minerva, took on the task of family genealogist. She is a member of the Cindy McCollum Johnson Clan, granddaughter of Louise Barker Hawkins and daughter of Jacqueline Barker.

After Johnson traced her roots to Charles McCollum, she located Lawrence McCollum in Rockingham County, who put her in touch with Bob Carter, Rockingham’s history consultant.

Johnson and her mother visited in Rockingham County and met Lawrence’s cousin Dick Cartwright, a descendant of Jesse McCollum who grew up in the McCollum plantation house near Pleasantville where the meeting began this summer.

With encouragement and an invitation from the local McCollums, the McCollum Reunion has been held in recent years on the grounds of both ancestral lands.

According to a document prepared by Reidsville lawyer Ira Humphries in 1935, the McCollums first came to this area in the 1750s and settled along Hogans and Jacobs creeks near the Dan River. In Scotland at that time, only the first-born son (and sometimes the youngest) could inherit land.

Land was affordable in America, and the McCollums purchased a great deal of it in Rockingham County.

James McCollum, born in 1771, owned a large tract on the Dan River, and his wife, Nancy Yours, owned a large amount of land and a number of slaves.

Johnson learned that Charles and Minerva McCollum had 17 children, but she could find information on only 15 of them.

Lawrence McCollum said that when James McCollum died, his will directed that three of his slaves — including Charles — could not be sold outside the family.

The slave quarters behind the McCollum house still stand. The McCollum house — built in about the 1840s — was partially burned five years ago. Though now bared to a log and dirt frame, the once white weatherboard house remains elegant.

The slave quarters are in good condition. There is some discrepancy regarding the size of the slave housing; Carter thinks it is about 16 by 18 feet.

For Nancy Greene, one of Charles McCollum’s descendants, the slave quarters are depressing.

“To imagine that a family lived in a one-room shack that had to accommodate the kitchen, dining area, sitting area and a stairway to the loft — which served as a bedroom — makes us honor and respect our ancestors because of what they endured,” Greene said.

Greene’s relatives and others inspected inside and outside the dwelling, finding a loom left in the loft. What looked like a bed sat on the main floor.

Not all the members who attended this year’s McCollum Reunion came for the tour. Today’s reunions have grown from one-day events to a three-day weekend.

Some had seen the property before and didn’t want to return this year. The rest stayed in Forsyth County for the meetings, meals and other activities planned for all ages.

There are two McCollum cemeteries in the Bethany-Pleasantville area. The one we visited that day was not far from the county landfill but deep in the woods.

We stopped at the edge and could see across the densely forested property the tall grave stones, etched with names, birth and death dates, and sometimes a verse or Scripture. Time had worn away some inscriptions.

In the slave half of the cemetery, graves were marked with rocks or stones. There are no names . Some of the stones shone with metal streaks. The rocks and stones varied in size and shape. Many of the thinner, flatter stones had jagged edges.

“We are saddened that our ancestors who were also loved and never wanted to be forgotten are in unknown graves,” Greene said. “We may not be able to place a name to a grave, but we have not forgotten them.”

Greene believes that the tours to the cemetery and the old slave quarters are a personal education. “Having no record of our ancestors’ individual experiences and family stories doesn’t make them insignificant,” she said. “We honor their hardships, sacrifices and their very existence by making this journey.”

The McCollum Reunion will meet again next year. The reunion committee, including Greene, Brandon Johnson, Robert Noble, LaTasha Noble-Fleming, and Maurice Barber will start early to plan the location, activities, meals and the tour.

Rachel Wright is retired as a teacher at Morehead High School and an instructor at Rockingham Community College.