About - Tablertown People of Color Museum

About The Museum

How It Started and What’s On Display

As a young boy, around age 10, David Butcher confided to his grandmother, Elsie Tabler Butcher, that he found the Black history taught in school to be negative and depressing—all that was reinforced was that his people were “slaves.” She gave him a tin-type photo of his great-great-grandfather, Jerry Sims, and shared stories about Mr. Sims being a Civil War veteran. From that moment forward, Mr. Butcher was inspired to learn more about his family lineage and grow his early collection of cultural artifacts. He was mentored by his uncle Alvin Adams, the namesake of Ohio University’s Adams Hall, in researching the history of Tablertown and its early descendants.

Years later, in 2003, Mr. Butcher started sharing his cultural collection and family history publicly through an exhibit he curated for the Kennedy Museum of Art at Ohio University. Since 2018, he has built and curated the Tablertown People of Color Museum in a modest pole barn next to the log cabin that he calls home, which is located in Athens County, Ohio between Stewart and Tablertown. Mr. Butcher’s goal is to preserve the community’s legacy by building a world-class museum in the heart of Tablertown, where his Tabler family settled in 1830.

The Tablertown People of Color Museum preserves and showcases cultural artifacts that tell the story of Appalachian diversity, while chronicling the history of Tablertown from its time of early settlement to the present day. Community tours include visits to the Kilvert Church and Kilvert Cemetery where the founding Tablers are buried. Another spotlight, Pioneer Cemetery, is Athens County’s oldest non-native cemetery and home of Ohio’s second oldest shagbark hickory tree. Menorahs were carved on the earliest gravestones at Pioneer Cemetery.

Museum exhibits include an impressive collection of Native American arrowheads found on Mr. Butcher’s farm, some determined by archeologists to be 10,000 to 15,000 years old. Tablertown is well-known for its early coal mining and railroading history which is reflected through multiple displays in the museum. Mr. Butcher’s family lineage is highlighted through a diverse family tree and an array of family heirlooms including handmade quilts dating back to the 1870s, a basket made by his 7th great-grandmother, and glass displays of photos, toys, and household items such as a jar of his grandmother’s homemade canned hog meat.

Local veterans who served in every American war are honored through exhibits of military memorabilia, including uniforms, medals, pistols, cannon balls, and a handmade wooden leg that Mr. Butcher’s uncle used after losing that limb in World War I. Several Black soldiers are featured, such as Milton Holland who was the only Athens Countian awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor during the Civil War. He was born into enslavement in Texas, moved to Ohio once freed, joined the 5th United States Colored Infantry Regiment of the Union Army, rose to the rank of sergeant major, and led the Black troops to victory. Sgt. Holland was promoted to captain, but the commission was refused by the War Department based on grounds of his race.

Meet David Butcher, The Museum Curator

David Butcher, Executive Director of the Tablertown People of Color Museum, founded the museum as a semblance of honor for his family’s cultural heritage. He has held a longtime vision for birthing social change through meaningful conversations about race and lineage.

While collaborating with numerous organizations to secure and sustain the future of Tablertown, Mr. Butcher’s initiatives have drawn thousands of museum visitors from across the country. His community service has included serving as Board President for the Kilvert Community Center, Chair for the Kilvert Church Plaque Dedication, and Board Member for the Southeast Ohio History Center, Central Region Humanities Center, and Rural Action.

As a dual graduate of Federal Hocking High School and the Tri-County Career Center (Industrial Maintenance) in 1982, Mr. Butcher went on to obtain an Associate’s degree in Ceramic Engineering Technology from Hocking College in 1989. As a proud husband and father, he has spent almost 20 years making a 200 mile, daily commute to fulfill his career as a Utility Worker at SunCoke Energy in Haverhill, Ohio.

In 2022, Mr. Butcher received the National Association of Black Storytellers (NABS) Black Appalachian Storyteller Fellowship, the Appalachian Heritage Success Stories award from Ohio’s Hill Country Heritage Area, and recognition from Heritage Ohio for his contributions to preserving the history and culture of the region.

Mr. Butcher was the recipient of the 2023 Jenco Award for his visionary leadership service throughout the region. He also received recognition from the State of Ohio House of Representatives when awarded the 2024 Individual Award from the Governor’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Commission for bringing a diversity of people together to advance equity and build unity among Ohio citizens.

History of Tablertown

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.

Kilvert, still known as Tablertown to local residents, 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 Kilvert. This property will soon house the new museum and overlooks where trains transported coal across Federal Creek. Mr. Butcher is also petitioning to change the town’s official name to Tablertown.