Some of those who came to Cheyenne Valley were "free people of color"; others were former or escaped slaves. Many came from a four-county region on the North Carolina--Virginia border. They were often aided along the way by Quakers who hated slavery. The migration of black families from this area to Indiana and then on to Wisconsin follows a similar migration of Quakers.
Samuel Arms was a runaway slave from Georgia. He was 12 years old when he ran away from the Georgia plantation. He became a drummer boy for Gen. Sherman's army. Sometime after the War he married a Cherokee woman. Arms came to what was then called Bad Axe County, now known as Vernon County, where he claimed a 160 acre homestead and established a family.
Thomas Shivers was a former slave. He owned about 300 acres in the area. His son, Alga, was the builder of the well known round barns in the Vernon County area.
Mycajah (pronounced Muh-cah-yuh) Revels came to Bad Axe County in 1854 with just a gun and a tent and a desire to make a better life for his family. He began his stay in what was to become Forest Township and that is where he requested to be buried.
Revels was of English, Indian and black ancestry. He was born on a Cherokee reservation in Georgia in 1803. Because of his mixed race he was never a slave, just someone to be barred from the schools and other things open only to the white men in the South. He left the reservation in 1820 with his wife, Morning Jacobs Revels.
Mycajah and Morning had 15 children. So many Revels lived here at one time that it was known as Revels' Valley. The name was later changed to Cheyenne Valley, though no one seems to know why. The Cheyenne Valley Cemetery is still located on land owned originally by Macajah Revels.
