Salsbury Free Negro Settlement (Muhlenberg County, KY)

The Salsbury Free Negro Settlement was a community located south of Greenville, KY. Thomas (d. 1848) and Rebecca Salsbury (d. 1860) had willed the land to their former slaves and soon-to-be-freed slaves who were age 25 or older.

The Salsbury's had no children. All of the former slaves who received land had the last name Salsbury. In total, there were 560 acres. Most of the land was eventually sold to whites as the African American Salsbury family members left the settlement.

Thomas and Rebecca Salsbury also sent some of their freed slaves to the Republic of Liberia. Dr. Guy Otha Saulsberry was a descendant of the Salsbury slaves.

For more see Around Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, A Black History, by L. S. Smith (the book covers 1795 to 1979); and Searching for the Roots, Grafting the Branches: the Saulsbury [sic] Family of Kentucky, a Black History of Roots Lost in Slavery (thesis), by C. S. Johnson.