On April 19th 2024, near the site of the original town of Colemanville and the Lucyville resort, a Highway Marker honoring two members of the Cumberland County historical community was dedicated.
Reuben Turner Coleman and Shed Dungee, helped to shape the path of the people of Cumberland County, the state of Virginia and beyond by their contributions in the areas of education, politics and economics.
The search for Lucyville, and the Special Teacher and Students of Cumberland
Through the guidance and leadership of their history teacher Lewis Longenecker the students at Cumberland Middle School started the long, tedious and difficult task of researching and finding the historical data necessary to have a highway marker dedicated to the forgotten settlement at Lucyville and historical figures from Cumberland County that helped shape Virginia. In 2024 Students at Cumberland Middle School completed the project of getting a highway marker to honor Lucyville and the members of the community that where responsible for creating Lucyville and going forward to change Virginia.
Cardinal news ran a four-part series on the work done by the students to get marker approval and the information they discovered along the way include some key information from our family. Click on the links below to read the full story.
Reuben Turner Coleman, was the child of his enslaved mother and her white owner, who freed Coleman in 1860. He traded in real estate and livestock during slavery and freedom. He operated a general store in Cumberland County and in 1891 incorporated the 
Colemanville Mineral Spring Company to bottle water from springs on his property. He established a resort town with its own post office, hotel, bank, and a newspaper. He was pastor of Mount Olive Baptist Church and a justice of the peace for almost 20 years. The legality of his second marriage to a white woman was challenged, but he was never prosecuted. Although short lived the impact of this community helped to motivate other former slaves to challenge the norms of the times.
Coleman helped found Mount Olive Baptist Church in 1875 and provided it with a two-acre tract of land. He was also the church’s founding minister, and in June 1882 the county court licensed him to perform marriages. Coleman was pastor of the church until he died. On 27 February 1882 the county court named him to fill a vacancy as justice of the peace. He won election to a full two-year term in May 1883 and served, probably without interruption, for approximately eighteen years. In 1901 the governor appointed him to a four-year term as notary public. Coleman was probably the last African American to hold public office in Cumberland County during the decades after Reconstruction.
For the full story of R. T. Coleman please, ‘Click Here’
Shed Dungee, was born into slavery on December 25, 1831, probably on the Cumberland County plantation of William M. Thornton. His parents were Shed Dungee and Harriet Dungee.
During slavery or after gaining his freedom at the end of the American Civil War (1861–
1865), Dungee trained as a cobbler and practiced his trade in Cumberland. On January 7, 1869, he married Mary Agnes Coleman, sister of Reuben Turner Coleman, a prominent entrepreneur. They had one daughter and three sons, one of whom died in childhood. During the 1890s they also raised a boy and a girl who may have been relatives.
In December, thirty-two years after reportedly accompanying his owner to Richmond for a term in the General Assembly, Dungee took his own seat in the assembly. He served on the Committees on Public Property and on Officers and Offices at the Capitol. During his first term Dungee introduced several bills, including one that called for an end to the restriction on interracial marriage. He argued that outlawing such intermarriage was unconstitutional, but in March 1880 the House voted overwhelmingly to dismiss his resolution.
For the full story of Shed Dungee please, ‘Click Here’
The Greatest Tribute, ‘They Came Home’
Cumberland County, like the entire south, drastically changed during the great migration. Like many families, the people of Cumberland County left the only home they had ever known to find better opportunities, to escape restrictive Jim Crow laws and very often for their safety. The Highway Marker dedication brought family members back to Cumberland from all over the country. Branches of the family that had not been together for more than a generation, ‘Found each other and They Came Home’.
Over a hundred Coleman and Dungee descendants came home from Michigan, New Jersey, Missouri, California, Washington State, Massachusetts Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, Connecticut, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and more.
At the dedication ceremony the family was joined by more than two hundred friends and relatives from the local community, local students, representatives from the Department of Historical Resources and visitors from throughout the state. The ceremony started at Mount Olive Church, the church that R. T. Coleman helped to start, and then the dedication of the Highway Marker at Bear Creek Lake Park entrance, which is only a few miles from the location of Lucyville and the home of R.T. Coleman and Shed Dungee.
Below are the Great, Great, Great Grand-children of: Reuben Turner Coleman, Beverly Coleman and Shed Dungee
There were a number of notable speakers at Mount Olive Baptist Church.
Dr. Edward Ayers
Dr. Ayers is President Emeritus and Professor of Humanities at the University of Richmond. He was formerly professor and Dean of Arts & Sciences at the University of Virginia.
President Barack Obama awarded him the National Humanities Medal in 2013, hailing his "commitment to making our history as widely available and accessible as possible."
Dr. Marilyn White
Great Granddaughter of Shed Dungee.
Dr. Marilyn M. White, Professor of Anthropology, an American folklorist who researches African American folklore and family folklore.
Dr White's dissertation, "We Lived on an 'Island'"
"An Afro-American Family and Community in Rural Virginia. 1865-1940"
Was the catalyst that helped to make this day possible.
Prof. Nikky Finney
Great, Great Granddaughter of Shed Dungee.
Author, Poet, Academic
Numerous Awards and Honors.
Guy Davenport Endowed Professor of English at the University of Kentucky for twenty years.
In 2013, she accepted a position at the University of South Carolina as the John H. Bennett, Jr. Chair in Southern Letters and Literature.
Lewis Longenecker
Was the driving force behind the Lucyville Project.
He was honored as one of Virginia Humanities' "Humanities Heroes"
