A dedication service held July 31 for a former slave with a a “yearning to learn” during the 1800s yields an ongoing history lesson for residents and visitors of Limestone County.

Born in Limestone County circa 1846, Hiram Matthews was an enslaved Black man to the Luke Matthews’ Cotton Hill plantation, an area where Buc-ee’s currently sits — but he always envisioned a better life for himself and his people.

In a quest to achieve this better life, Matthews ran to freedom as the United States’ Union Army made its march through North Alabama in 1863. He successfully escaped from the plantation, self-emancipated and on Nov. 3, 1863, Matthews enlisted in the Union Army as a U.S. Colored Troop soldier in Nashville, Tennessee.

“While in the 13th United States Colored Infantry, Private Matthews saw action in the Battle of Nashville, where he was unfortunately injured,” Peggy Allen Towns, historian and author, said. “He was honorably discharged, but while in the service he learned to read and write.”

The education that Matthews was able to gain in the midst of serving his country showcased his need to better himself and the people around him.

“You can literally see the progression of his education in his records. In his enlistment papers, he is only signing with an ‘X,’ and then when he is mustered out in 1866 he is signing his own name,” John Gaines, history instructor at Calhoun Community College, said. “As an educator, the biggest thing to me was his seemingly inherent yearn to want to learn. He learned to read and write on his own accord, and that is just remarkable to me.”

According to Gaines, in 1833 the Alabama State Legislature made it illegal to attempt to educate free or enslaved Black people. That did not stop Matthews and others like him from still securing a valuable education.

“The freed people of the South, right after the Civil War, immediately jumped at the opportunity to educate themselves,” Gaines said. “Within a couple of decades after the law was passed, in a testament to their incredible triumphs in spite of the obstacles they faced, the literacy rate for African Americans in the South was on par with the literacy rate of whites in the South.”

Gaines was credited with discovering the forgotten grave site of Hiram Matthews, which is located on the grounds of Calhoun Community College. Matthews died on Jan. 12, 1895, after serving as a Methodist Episcopal Church minister — preaching across various cities in North Alabama.

“Another instructor and I cleanup the graveyard a little bit each semester,” Gaines said about Oakland Cemetery which is located on Calhoun’s Decatur campus. “We were wanting to repair some of the headstones that had been knocked over, so we were looking for the owner. When we stumbled across Matthew’s grave, which is on the other side of the road, we wanted to find out more about him.”

Gaines’ discovery culminated in local community leaders from Decatur, along with State Senator Arthur Orr, raising funds to adorn the final resting place of Hiram Matthews with a decorative fence and a granite marker.

On Wednesday, July 31, Calhoun Community College hosted a dedication service to the Rev. Hiram Matthews — unveiling the updated gravesite that is now open to the public for people to pay their respects to the local figure.