Existing comment:
Odd Fellows Hall
Built on the northeast corner of Franklin and Mayo, the Odd Fellows Hall hosted all manner of events on its stage: opera performance, dance ensembles and the occasional visit by General Tom Thumb, the famous midget. In the basement, another popular activity took place: the auctioning of slaves. Announced by hanging a red flag on the basement door, these open sales of men, women and children led to an annual dispersion of over forty thousand blacks throughout the slave trading states in the antebellum years. During years of particularly brisk trade, this number could double as parents and children, husbands and wives and brothers and sisters were separated indefinitely. |