In the 1600s and 1700s, Europeans traveled the Atlantic Ocean with hope to settle on North American soil and advance their economic interests. The agrarian way of life in what would become the Antebellum South was heinously built upon the transatlantic slave trade and plantations of enslavement.

In 1732, father and son, Leonard (Lionheart) and Melchior Dobler, set sail from Germania (which later became Germany) on a boat called the Samuel. They arrived in what is present-day Pennsylvania, obtained land from the British Crown, and settled in Virginia (near what is now Berkeley County, West Virginia). By 1736, the spelling of their last name changed to Tabler and they started growing their family plantations.

A couple of generations later, Melchior’s grandson, Michael Tabler who was born in 1774, became infatuated with an enslaved girl, Hannah, who was born on their plantation in 1775. Michael’s father and current plantation owner, George, disapproved of this interest and attempted to keep them separated by selling Hannah to another Tabler plantation, until 1813 when Michael purchased Hannah back from his sister.

Between 1810 and 1816, Michael fathered six children to Hannah, five sons and one daughter. As the owner of Hannah and their biracial children, Michael realized the children would have difficulty claiming their family inheritance; thus, he started making efforts to acquire their freedom in 1818. At this time, Hannah labored as the plantation housekeeper and caretaker of Michael’s mother who lived to be around 100 years old. Upon her death around 1827, and at the will of Michael’s father, documentation was provided to grant Hannah her freedom. Then, in 1830, Michael went to Wheeling, Virginia and filed for the emancipation of their children because “of the affection for which he [had] of them.”

Virginia laws not only made it difficult for the formerly enslaved to remain in the state, but they were forbidden to inherit a white man’s property. In turn, Michael, Hannah, and their children, who were now between the ages of 14 and 20, moved to Federalton (Athens County) in the free state of Ohio. It is speculated that Michael may have chosen this area as a safe place to settle given its central location to active Underground Railroad networks in surrounding towns such as Albany, Athens, Amesville, Cutler, and Chesterhill.

The foundation of Tablertown was formed when Revolutionary War veteran, Francis Munn, sold Michael 50 acres of land in Federalton. Michael used funds from the Virginia land inheritance of his deceased parents to purchase each of his children—John, Jesse, Michael, Isaac, William, and Maria—their own plot of farmland in this new homeland, which would later come to be known as Tablertown. In 1835, Michael also purchased the Barrows Mill, one of the first mills built in Ohio and the first grist and saw mill in the area.

It is unknown whether Michael and Hannah officially married, but they are assumed to have lived in Tablertown as man and wife until his death in 1843.  

As years passed by, Tablertown grew through their booming coal mining and iron ore industries. By the time railroads came through Tablertown in the mid- to late-1800s, multiple small mines were in operation including the Lee Jenkins Coal Mine. Many of the mine workers were outcasts in other communities because of their heritage and skin color. The coal mining industry lasted over a century with railroad tracks linking in all directions, but Tablertown was never established as an official name. A local mine owner, Sam Kilvert, took advantage of this opportunity and visited the courthouse to ensure the town’s official name would become Kilvert.

Over time, the coal mines dried up in Kilvert and then, in 1937, a tornado, called a cyclone by locals because it carried water, came through destroying everything but one and a half buildings (a house and a store). The two-room Kilvert Church took nine years to rebuild and was not complete until 1946. Four people were killed during the cyclone, three of which were Kilvert residents including a 12-year-old boy. Several residents were forced to move and repair their lives in neighboring towns, such as Athens and Cutler.

Mr. Butcher petitioned to change the town’s official name to Tablertown in 2024. Tablertown currently consists of a church, community center, cemeteries, a few homes, and the future site of the Tablertown People of Color Museum. David Butcher is the proud owner of land which harbors an abandoned coal mine in Tablertown. This property will soon house the new museum and overlooks where trains transported coal across Federal Creek.