The Garden of Eden neighborhood has endured for well over a century as a homeplace for freed African American slaves and their descendants. Some of the earliest inhabitants in the Garden, Major and Malinda Cheney assembled over 200 acres of productive farmland on which they raised crops and cattle, built a substantial home for their children, and weathered a series of family crises that ranged from a false accusation of rape and attempted lynching to the murder of their eldest son.