Spend a moment talking with Bryan Glover and you’ll immediately feel his passion and appreciation for the Roberts Settlement. Be warned, this love of lineage and all that comes with this particular history is contagious.
Bryan Glover on What He’s Learned Through Roberts Settlement
Like many Roberts Settlement descendants, Glover’s genealogy can be traced to not one but multiple families that were part of the earliest movements in Indiana. His maternal great-grandmother was a Roberts who married a Winburn. On his father’s side, his second great grandmother was a Gilliam. These families are three of the familial lines closely associated with Roberts Settlement. Glover, however, is quick to make clear that one family was not more or less important than another. “We don’t think of it in those terms,” Glover says. “They were all important to the larger community.”
Glover continues to expand. “The area of Jackson Township, Hamilton County where the earliest group of Roberts ancestors purchased land was isolated, and still considered wilderness in 1835. These pioneers wanted to purchase land tracts close to one another.” Having lived together in North Carolina they wanted to stay together as family knowing that not everyone may be accepting of people of color as their neighbor. Glover shares, “There was safety in numbers in an unfamiliar environment where you needed to know who you could trust. You were pretty much resigned to this community of people within a small radius of your farm.”
Glover fondly identifies family bonds that go hand-in-hand with being a descendant as one of his favored things about his personal ties to Roberts Settlement. He notes that during the 1830s family was so important because “that’s the extent of who you were able to depend on.” Over time, this became ingrained in family lines, and remains a vibrant focus of the annual homecoming reunions that Roberts descendants celebrate each year. These homecomings, started in 1924, make this a tradition over 100 years old. “When that kind of thing has been part of your life since you were a kid, that family thing takes on added importance … you get together and you renew those bonds on an annual basis,” says Glover.
Another blessing of these familial ties? Almost weekly, it seems, another descendant comes out of the genealogical woodwork, bringing with them new nuggets of knowledge about a shared history.
Glover loves when new facts emerge. “Once I finally invested in learning about my own history to realize what people who came before me did, what they endured, endured to make my life what it has become, it all took on added importance – I understood what it really meant to be a pioneer in Indiana.” Never one to be lost for words, Glover continues. “I like history and learning about it, so … trying to understand all this in the context of a larger history—our country’s independence, slavery, the Civil War—and then understanding the places where my people’s story fits into the picture is what I really like to do.”
Southern Seed, Northern Soil by Stephen Vinecent is a book that brought a lot of clarity for Glover as he sought to understand more of his family’s history within the context of Roberts Settlement. Oral histories have been passed down through generations, though sometimes details change or whole story lines end up omitted. Utilizing this book, along with developing a friendship with author Stephen Vincent has been enlightening to Glover. Glover says, “Southern Seed, Northern Soil packs a lot of interesting history and details that was never passed down through the oral histories provided by my ancestors.” Having to hide true identities, the risk of getting snatched by slave catchers even as free people, the daunting task of taming a wild frontier carried a weight he hadn’t previously identified. “It didn’t really resonate with me until I read this book,” he reflects.
Glover is particularly struck by the migration story of his ancestors. “I have to imagine my ancestors were full of anxiety as they planned their moves to Indiana. Full of hope on the one hand, but leaving loved ones behind on the other. I can’t imagine what that decision process must have been like,” he says. Add in the risk of an 800-mile journey from North Carolina to Indiana, the risk of encountering slave patrols who would just as likely take a free Black person as well as an enslaved person on the run, not fully knowing what was awaiting them on their arrival; the prospect must have been harrowing. And yet, so many said yes.
“As a young person you’re not really thinking about the past. It doesn’t start to resonate until you’re older. I really didn’t come to this until I was 50 years old, and it was kind of by accident.” Bryan goes on. “To be honest, my history, my story that we’re talking about, it’s something that I took for granted most of my life.”
But no more. Glover is more passionate than ever about the Roberts Settlement: “Here’s an opportunity to bring more diversity to the story that we tell about our community.”
Bryan Glover is Vice President and Board Trustee of Roberts Settlement, where he has been instrumental in developing the Legacy Walk—a permanent outdoor exhibit highlighting Indiana’s free Black pioneers. A Noblesville native and Purdue University graduate, Bryan is a direct descendant of the settlement’s original founders. Now retired, he brings extensive experience from small business ownership in Noblesville as well as a career in the media and entertainment industry in Los Angeles. Bryan remains active in the community, serving with organizations including the Hamilton County Community Foundation, Hamilton County Historical Society, Noblesville Chamber of Commerce, and the Noblesville Diversity Coalition. His personal interests include biking, golf, reading, music, and travel.
