The info in that book about those people supposedly going to work in the Dismal Swamp I think is either incorrect, or applied to only a few of them. As I said earlier, some of those families remained in Halifax, but an even greater amount moved on to other Counties or States; I believe they were getting there papers that acknowledged that they were free people of color so that they could travel. There must have been some kind of mass movement from Halifax at that time, between 1840 and 1860, because according to the 1850 and later census for the children & grandchildren of Bartlet HEDGEPETH, and probably a few HARVEYs, and WILKINS who seem to have traveled with them, they moved first to Indiana, then to Canada, then ended up in Michigan; I wouldn't be surprised if they may have spent a brief time in Ohio prior to Indiana, because that has been the trail I've seen with other families that moved on to Michigan. Bartlet's nephew, Richard HEDGEPETH, moved on later, right after 1860, to Athens Co., Ohio, along with the Emanuel ASH family; some of Emanuel's children settled in Ross Co., OH. There was an earlier migration of Halifax FCP families around 1830 where families moved to Kentucky, then somehow ended up in Canada, and while a few stayed there, some moved back to the midwest.
With more records coming online for the midwest, I'm finding people who had disappeared from North Carolina in earlier times, some of which I knew, and others which can now be confirmed with new databases containing Birth, Marriage & Deaths in those States.

Deloris