LoCoHistory

What has 3-feet thick walls, reinforced steel doors, an iron cage, and is surrounded by an 18-foot high wall ? A good guess would be the 1876 Charlottesville Jail (the first Albemarle County Jail was built in 1749). You probably drive by the jail frequently, without noticing it. It sits behind the juvenile court offices, off E High and Park Street (near Hedge Street). Inmates were segregated by gender and race, with a 30-minute window for visitors, from noon until 12:30. The jail held between 35 and 40 inmates. Visit the Sheriff’s Office website for more details and an old photograph of the jail. An adjacent house was added in the early 20th Century for the jailer and his wife. The “Old Jail” closed in 1974 (when the modern Albemarle-Charlottesville Joint Security Complex opened on 5th Street Extended).

After recently apologizing for slavery, the University of Virginia created a committee charged with researching the enslaved and Free Black community at the university. Although these individuals are not (yet) featured prominently in histories of “Mr Jefferson’s University,” they provided much of the labor that constructed the original buildings, ca. 1819-1828. And, up until Emancipation, many professors and students lived with enslaved individuals on grounds. In addition, throughout the 19th Century, the university was surrounded by several African-American neighborhoods (e.g., Canada, located south of Cabell Hall and the site of the Foster House and Cemetery).

Memorials to the African-American community are scattered throughout grounds. One example is the “crackerbox” (allegedly named after 19th Century students from Georgia who were called “crackers”). This small building, located behind Hotel F, has a rich oral history including references to a bordello, a 19th-kitchen, a woodshed, “the smallest dormitory in the United States,” and, quite possibly, slave quarters. For a fascinating discussion of other campus buildings that may have been used by slaves or post-bellum servants, visit Jim Cocola’s on-line essay titled The Ideological Spaces of the Academical Village: A Reading of the Central Grounds at the University of Virginia.

The newly formed university committee that is researching this forgotten history is hoping to compile any and all documents, oral histories, photographs, or family geneologies that relate to the enslaved and Free Black community at the university. A website dedicated to this project will be posted this summer. If you have information on this topic, please consider contributing it so that it can be compiled into formal accounts of the history of the university.

Although there are 100s of hotels in Charlottesville today, one of the most historic is the Gleason Hotel (today referred to as the Old Albemarle Hotel). Located on Main Street, near the Amtrak Station, the building has been repainted in a bright yellow, with white trim. The hotel was built in 1897 by Michael S. Gleason for $12,000. Next door, Hase’s Imperial Cafe was built for $3000. The name “Albemarle Hotel” dates to the 1930s when the original owners went bankrupt and sold the hotel. The hotel was condemned in 1976. Today it operates as a series of shops with apartments above.

Multiple renovations left their imprint and provide a treasure map for curious passerbys. For example, if you go around to the back of the hotel you will see the remnants of plain “structural stars” for providing support between the stories. You will also notice a technique called “quoining” (the non-linear vertical brick work), used to enhance the support for the corners of buildings. The location of this feature suggests that this was originally the corner of the building, with a later addition visible today. If you look along the western side of the building you will see the remains of staircases and if you continue to study the brickwork you will realize that there was once a contiguous building on this side. The front of the building contains numerous architectural features: Corinthian columns, a recessed loggia (the ground floor gallery that is open to the street), and brick pilasters (rectangular columns).

The hotel is on the national historic register. If you wish to read more about this structure, visit the DHR site and download file 104-374 (the property is located at 617-619 W. Main St.). You will need adobe acrobat to read the file. An historic photo of the building is provided to illustrate the once continguous buildings. Visit a UVA site to read more.

If you look carefully, you will notice that downtown historic structures occasionally have a metal plaque next to the door. The one shown below is at 111 Main Street, the former residence of John Vowles, dating to the 1820s. These metal plaques were provided by fire insurance companies as a proof of purchase. If the home (and all of its papers) burned down, the plaque would remain to prove that the homeowner had purchased insurance. Ingenious. Who can say in today’s high tech world whether any file (electronic or paper) would survive a house fire ? The mark shown here is from the Fire Association Of Philadelphia. Visit an external site to view some of the images from other insurance companies. And then keep your eyes peeled when you’re walking downtown. They are rare, but several buildings have these marks….can anyone find the one below ? Hint: the color surrounding the plaque is from the color of the front porch of the house. Although it won’t help you find it, the image identifies the mark as belonging to the Firemen’s Insurance Company, Baltimore, Maryland. This particular policy was issued c. 1835 and contains a wonderful drawing of an old-fashioned water pump.

Albemarle County has many wonderful historic sites, one of the rarest is the last of two remaining pole ferries in the country (located just south of Scottsville). You can ride across a section of the James River on the Hatton Ferry, for free, between mid-April and October. The ferry was used by merchants and farmers who paid to travel back and forth across the river, from Albemarle to Buckingham County. Traded items included: wagons, buggies, horses, cattle, sheep, farm equipment, lumber, and farm produce. Moving goods from the eastern to the western side of the river enabled farmers and merchants to reach the railroad and the canal (located in Albemarle County, to the West). The ferry has sunk several times (in storms and floods), but operates today with the help of a father/son team. To read more about how the ferry works (i.e., how can a person use a fiberglass pole to propel a flat-bottomed boat containing an SUV) and about the fascinating characters who operated the ferry in times past, visit the Scottsville Museum site dedicated to the history of the Hatton Ferry.

Today, the Vinegar Hill Theatre and Vinegar Hill Shopping Center are some of the only landmarks that preserve the name of an historic 20-acre neighborhood, previously located in a triangular area roughly bounded by West Main, Preston, and 4th Street. Up until the 1960s, Vinegar Hill was a thriving African-American community. The eastern edge of the community lies under today’s Omni Hotel (#3 in the photo). The two photos illustrate the neighborhood before demolition (in 1957) and after (in 1966). The Jefferson School is #5 and #1 indicates the neighborhood itself. For comparison, I have added a red circle (the site of the Lewis & Clark Statue on Main St) and a feature highlighted in light blue in each photo. There are several useful on-line sources that document the history of this neighborhood: an IATH project, Blair Hawkins’ blog on a recent presentation about Vinegar Hill history given by Dr Scot French and Dr Reginald Butler, a UVA site with historic photographs, and a Cavalier Daily article on Vinegar Hill reporting on a play written by Theresa Dowell-Vest. For a slideshow of photos from the neighborhood, visit the Albemarle County Historical Society website.

This post is in honor of new book on the neighborhood, In the Streets of Vinegar Hill, written by Mr. James A. Williams, Sr.

P.S. There is no consensus for the origin of the name: Vinegar Hill. Options include: (1) a tannery (that might have used vinegar to tan animals hides); (2) a tribute to the site of a fierce battle during the Irish rebellion of 1798; (3) a reference to bootlegged liquor. Have you heard other explanations ?

As a tribute to the current “colony collapse disorder” among contemporary bees, I thought I would add a note about 19th Century bees in Albemarle County. An 1888 handbook, published to encourage “industrious farmers” to settle here, contains a chapter on “bees and honey” (pp. 48-51). William Dinwiddie’s summary describes “improved smokers,” “movable combs,” and “Italian queen bees.” He encourages everyone to get involved in beekeeping to discover the “delightful and profitable employment in it.” Moreover, he found it strange “that everyone who has a home in a region productive of honey, should not engage in its production; at least so far as to secure for his own table an abundance of this - nature’s own most delicious sweet.” So consider bee-keeping as a possible hobby this summer.