Slab Town built along Cedar Lane, was Saint Andrews Black community and the community for a number of the areas notable Black personalities and likely a station on the Underground Railroad for Blacks crossing Passamaquoddy Bay from Robbinston, Maine.
One of the most notable residents from Slab Town was Edward Mitchell Bannister. Bannister would later become one of New England’s most popular and accomplished painters of the 19th Century. Born and raised in St. Andrews, Bannister spent most of his adult life in New England. He became an art sensation when his painting, “Under the Oaks”, won a medal at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial. During his lifetime, Bannister was an outspoken advocate for the abolition of slavery and greater racial inclusion in American Fine Arts.
He has work included in a permanent art collection at the White House in Washington, DC. The Bannister Gallery, Rhode Island College’s central fine arts exhibition hall is named in his honour. Several of his paintings are also on display in the Smithsonian Art Museum, with other individual works in galleries and personal collections around the world.
