Acrylic on Canvas 30” by 40"
Alexander Turner was a slave on the Gouldin plantation in Virginia, until he escaped behind Union lines in 1862. Almost immediately after his escape, Turner enlisted in the Union army and led a raid of the very plantation that enslaved him, freeing those he left behind, and killing his infamously vile former overseer.

After the war, he moved to Grafton, Vermont, a town run by abolitionists. There, he built a reputation as a prolific and ingenious lumberer, rising from a laborer to a landowner within four years.

His story and legacy were carried on by his daughter Daisy, a famous American poet and storyteller. Her story is told in Jane C. Beck’s “Daisy Turner’s Kin: An African American Family Saga”.