A new Virginia Historic Highway Marker will be unveiled in Mathews County on Saturday, May 11. The public is invited.

Titled “Flights to Freedom,” the marker will commemorate the enslaved people of Mathews who escaped to freedom via the waterways around Mathews County during the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Civil War.

The marker will be erected in front of the First Baptist Church of Mathews, located at 9654 Buckley Hall Road, across from Mathews High School. Founded in 1865, the First Baptist Church of Mathews is the oldest African American church in the county.

The marker states “these recurrent flights from bondage, made at great risk, defied the system of slavery and demonstrated the depth of enslaved peoples’ desire to be free.”

The May 11 program will be held in the church sanctuary starting at 11:30 a.m., followed by the unveiling outside.

Speakers include Martha W. McCartney, historian and author of “Mathews County, Virginia: Lost Landscapes, Unto...