When former slave, Islay Walden returned to Southwestern Randolph County, North Carolina in 1879, after graduating from the New Brunswick Theological Seminary, as an ordained minister and missionary of the American Missionary Association, he moved in with his sister and her family in a secluded area in the Uwharrie Mountains, not far from the Lassiter Mill community along the Uwharrie River. Walden was sent to start a church and school for the African American community. When the church and school were begun this was, not surprisingly, a largely illiterate community of primarily Hill family members. The Hill family in this mountain community was so large, it was known as "Hill Town." The nearby Lassiter Mill community was larger and more diverse, but only marginally more literate. Walden and his wife accomplished much before his untimely death in 1884, including acquiring a US Postal Office for the community and a new name - Strieby. Despite Walden's death, the church and school continued into the 20th century when it was finally absorbed by the public school system, but not before impacting strongly the literacy and educational achievements of this remote community. From Hill Town to Strieby is Williams' second book and picks up where her first book about her ancestor Miles Lassiter, an early African American Quaker [Miles Lassiter (circa 1777-1850) an Early African American Quaker from Lassiter Mill, Randolph County, North Carolina: My Research Journey to Home], left off. In From Hill Town to Strieby, she provides extensive research documentation on the Reconstruction-era community of Hill Town, that would become known as Strieby, and the American Missionary Association affiliated church and school that would serve both Hill Town and Lassiter Mill. She analyzes both communities' educational improvements by comparing census records, World War I Draft record signatures and reports of grade levels completed in the 1940 census. She provides well-documented four generation genealogical reports of the two principal founding families, the Hills and Lassiters, which include both the families they married into and the families that moved away to other communities around the country. She provides information on the family relationships of those buried in the cemetery and adds an important research contribution by listing the names gleaned from death certificates of those buried in the cemetery, but who have no cemetery markers. She concludes with information about the designation of the Strieby Church, School, and Cemetery property as a Randolph County Cultural Heritage Site. 364 pp. 44 illustrations.

Although antebellum African Americans were sometimes allowed to attend Quaker meetings, they were almost never admitted to full meeting membership, as was Miles Lassiter. His story illuminates the unfolding of the 19th-century color line into the 20th. Margo Williams had only a handful of stories and a few names her mother remembered from her childhood about her family's home in Asheboro, North Carolina. Her research would soon help her to make contact with long lost relatives and a pilgrimage "home" with her mother in 1982. Little did she know she would discover a large loving family and a Quaker ancestor -- a Black Quaker ancestor. -- Publisher's description.

In 1879, Islay Walden, born enslaved and visually impaired, returned to North Carolina after a twelve-year odyssey in search of an education. It was a journey that would take him from emancipation in Randolph County, North Carolina to Washington, D. C., where he earned a teaching degree from Howard University, then to the New Brunswick Theological Seminary, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Along the way, he would publish two volumes of poetry and found two schools for African American children. Now ordained, he would return to his home community, where he founded two Congregational churches and common schools. Despite an early death at age forty, he would leave an educational and spiritual legacy that endures to this day. Born Missionary uses Walden's own words as well as newspaper reports and church publications to follow his journey from enslavement to teacher, ordained minister, missionary, and community leader.

Thus begins the most astonishing true-life odyssey ever recorded—one man's riveting account of his extraordinary experiences with visitors from “elsewhere” . . . how they found him, where they took him, what they did to him, and why. Believe it. Or don't believe it. But read it—for this gripping story will move you like no other. It will fascinate you, terrify you, and alter the way you experience your world.