The Town of Riverdale Park will name a new park after two formerly enslaved people who were notable in the area.

At a meeting Monday during Black History Month, Council member Aaron Faulx made a motion to name the green space known as the “field of dreams” after Adam and Emily Plummer, a married couple whose life stories in the area are told in a well-known family biography written by their daughter.

The motion was “overwhelmingly supported,” Faulx wrote on wrote on Instagram. “This is the Town’s first attempt at permanently honoring those enslaved at Riversdale.”

The official account of the Riversdale House Museum responded that it was the “best news we’ve heard all week.”

An enslaved person at Riversdale, Adam Plummer met Emily Saunders when she visited Riversdale to care for her aunt in 1839. Though legally married, Adam had to travel increasingly long distances to see Emily until she escaped in 1863 with five children.

After the Civil War, the Plummers bought a 10-acre homestead near Riverdale and their daughter started a church in Bladensburg that can still be seen today, family history covered in the book “Out of the Depths, or the Triumph of the Cross.”

Located at the intersection of Lafayette Avenue and Tuckerman Street, the “field of dreams” space is located just over the bridge from the Station at Riverdale Park, next to the roundabout. The town is currently working to develop it into a park. The current plan involves adding a natural play area, benches, bike racks and lots of trees.

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