Evidence of slave life found at Eastern Shore estate: One day more than two centuries ago, a Maryland slave of West African descent took a smooth stone he had probably found in a plowed field and slid it between the bricks of a furnace he was building.
The slave might have believed, as West Africa's Yoruba culture held, that such stones had connections to Eshu-Elegba, the deity of fortune, and were left behind like mystical calling cards after a lightning strike.
The bond servant sealed the stone into the brickwork, where it would stay for generations, an artifact of the enslaved man as much as the god whose favor he sought.
On Monday, the University of Maryland unveiled, among other things, details of the stone's discovery at the Wye House 'orangery' - a jewel of European architecture, now found to have imprints of the slaves who built it.
