Sep 1, 2023
Christina “Tinah” Levant, the daughter of Frank LeVant and his wife who were brought over on a slave ship from the east coast of Africa1, was born into slavery in 18422 on a plantation in Marion, South Carolina.
Tinah’s first work as a slave began at the age of 13, when she was appointed as lady’s maid or nurse to her plantation’s mistress, Mrs. W. J. Baker. During this time, Mrs. Baker secretly taught Tinah to read and write – something that was illegal and quite dangerous for both.
When Christina’s mother was on her deathbed, she begged Mrs. Baker not to sell her children. Mrs. Baker granted her request and, in her will, left Tinah and her older sister to her son, William J Baker. Mrs. Baker died in 1860, the summer before the Civil War broke out.
Upon Mrs. Baker’s death, Tinah, then 17, was put in the fields by her new owner to work as a water girl. She would fill a heavy wooden pail with water and walk a mile around the plantation many times a day, toting the water bucket on her head, to bring water to the slaves working in the cotton fields. In addition to carrying water, she was a lookout, watching for the switching tail of the approaching overseer’s horse, and warning the others so that the overseer wouldn’t catch them as they secretly knelt and prayed for their freedom. She continued this work until the age of 20 when the war was over.
Tinah was at the first battle of the Civil War in Fort Sumter at Charleston Bay, South Carolina, working in the cotton fields. She said, “The sky was black as night” from cannonball fire and she saw a man decapitated by a cannonball.
When the Emancipation Proclamation was announced, many of the freed slaves stayed on the plantation under contract with the owners who agreed to give them part of the crops raised. Christina stayed for some time. During her stay, a Black clergyman named “Smith” went to Marion to organize a church. He distributed Bibles. Tinah kept hers close to her heart and read it faithfully. One of the plantation owners gave them an acre of land to build a church. The site of the church was called African Methodist Hill. A lay preacher named John Baxter Platt, Sr., a Native American of the Santee tribe, oversaw the nearby African Methodist Zion church in Marion3. In 1868 Tinah married his son, John Baxter Platt, Jr., and together they were able to save enough to buy a small plot of land for a house and garden. They raised vegetables, chickens, and a few pigs. Christina spun cotton cloth to clothe her children and made her own bread and soap. Christina also taught Sunday school at their church.
But Christina was adamant about moving north as she knew their children would not get a good education in the south, and to her education was everything. Prior to 1900, John and Christina moved to Waterbury, CT where they helped organize the Pearl St. Church. There she worked as a laundress and continued to teach Sunday school at their church, while John was employed as a coachman.
She and John had eleven children: Elliott, Florence, John, Mary, Fannie, George, Arthur, Chester, Ruth, and two others who died at birth. Tinah and John worked hard to give their children an education. Three of the girls attended Livingston College in Salisbury, NC, and one of them became a Domestic Science teacher. Arthur graduated from Boston University Law School and practiced in Spartanburg, South Carolina, one of the first African Americans admitted to practice law by the South Carolina Supreme Court in 1922. He owned his office and home. He won two of his four cases tried in SC Supreme Court. John also graduated from Livingston College and was ordained as a minister in 1915. He became a supply minister for the New England District of the AME Zion Church. George became one of the best trap drummers in the theater and worked with bands in Hollywood.
Sometime before 1920, Christina and John moved to Medfield, MA, and purchased their home at 29 Spring Street. John died in 1930 at the age of 83. Christina then made her home with her daughters Fannie and Ruth. Together they had a large garden and 150 chickens and 4 pigs. In addition to her 11 children, Tinah had 26 grandchildren and over 22 great grandchildren, one of whom is Brenda Russell, noted singer/songwriter and coauthor of the Tony/Grammy award winning Broadway musical, The Color Purple.
When interviewed for an article published in the Boston Globe on May 30, 1939, the then 93-year-old Christina attributed her excellent health to the old adage of early to bed and early to rise. The article stated that she retired to bed at 7:30 pm so that she could be up bright and early to take advantage of the early sun and fresh air and that her acre garden and housework served to provide her with plenty of exercise.
Throughout her life, Christina placed her faith in the Bible. In the Globe interview, Christina said, “If people today would spend more time reading the Bible and less time at parties and nightclubs, the world would be a better place to live in.” Says her great granddaughter, Brenda Russell, “Family tells me she put prayers on her children’s children’s heads.” She went on to say, “This apparently worked.”
Christina lived until 1943, dying at the age of 101. She, her husband John, and their children John, Fannie, George, and Arthur are buried at Vine Lake Cemetery.
Sources:
Find a Grave – Christina LaVant Platt
Author’s Notes:
1 Census records from 1880 through 1940 state that both Christina’s parents were born in South Carolina; not brought over on slave ships from east Africa.
2 There are inconsistencies in the date of Christina’s birth. The 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930 and 1940 US Federal Censuses put Christina’s inferred birth at 1855/6 in 1880, 1900 and 1910, at 1851 in 1920 and 1930, and at 1843 in 1940. The 1900 Census states Christina’s birth as September 1855. Her tombstone at Vine Lake Cemetery says she was born in 1842 and died in 1943. According to the various census records as well as tombstones on FindAGrave, her first child was born in 1874 and her last child in 1893, which means she would have been somewhere between 19 and 31 when she had her first child and between 38 and 51 when she had her last child.
3 It is unclear whether the African Methodist Hill church and the African Methodist Zion church in Marion are one in the same, simply renamed, or whether they were two separate churches as suggested in the text.