LoCoHistory

A couple years ago I visited an unmarked graveyard off Route 22. Today located on private property, adjacent to a 20th Century house, the fieldstones in the graveyard dated to an earlier period. The un-inscribed stones suggested an informal, family graveyard, most likely used by individuals who could not afford mass-produced markers. With no names or dates, I filed the cemetery away for later research (such as deed and census analysis to try to figure out who owned the land 100+ years ago).

More recently, I saw an intriguing advertisement for a house (MLS 437142) located only half-a-mile from the old graveyard. The description caught my attention: “Albert Johnson was a freed slave who obtained this property from the Meriwether and Randolph families. Construction started in 1882 with the western-most portion (one over one over one with access via rope ladders). The eastern portion was build in 1889.” I turned to UVA architectural historian emeritus, K. Edward Lay, to learn more. He had studied the house as part of his research into historic homes in Albemarle County (see his book for more information: The Architecture of Jefferson County). According to Professor Lay, Albert Johnson was a black carpenter living on land given to Blacks after Civil War. In the 1880 Census, Albert Johnson is listed as age 35 (born in slavery, around 1845), married to Amity Johnson (also 35) and living with their six children and one other boy (possibly a relative, Jesse Spencer, age 17).

Further inquiries with neighbors, Mrs. G. and Sara Lee Barnes, revealed that at some point between the first and second quarter of the 20th century the house was purchased by a white family named Dowell. For much of the 20th Century, Mrs. Dowell and her children lived very simply in the house. Mrs Dowell lived to be over one hundred years old. After her death, her daughter Lyndell stayed in the house for some years. After she was no longer able to take care of herself, the house was sold out of the family.

The kitchen contains logs said to have come from Monticello or possibly Shadwell (Mr Johnson once lived and worked at the former). A modern bathroom was tacked on at the rear of the house sometime in the 20th century (seen in the photo below). The beautiful oaks in the yard were planted by Mr. Johnson. So while the house lacks central heat or air, it retains the beauty of past craftsmanship (only slightly obscured by cheap paneling and carpeting). Ms Barnes commented that this was one of three homes in the immediate vicinity that were originally built by freed slaves for their families. One (or all) of these homes may have used the graveyard located nearby. Located off busy Route 22 in Keswick, this is the house that time forgot. Hopefully it will be bought and restored, rather than torn down.

Before desegregation, the only Charlottesville high school open to African Americans was the Jefferson School. Built in 1926, the building is located on Fourth Street at the edge of the old Vinegar Hill neighborhood. The school opened several decades earlier, in 1894, as the nine-room, K-8 “Jefferson Colored Graded/Elementary School” (that building was demolished in 1959). An informal precursor to the school dates to the 1860s.

The first principal of the “Graded School” was Benjamin E. Tonsler (1854-1917). He received his degree at Hampton University and went on to serve as the principal of the Jefferson School for thirty years. In this post we highlight material culture that remains today to commemorate this man’s life and works. First, his gravestone was “Erected by the Alumni of the Jefferson Graded School and Friends” in his memory. His inscription reads “Gone But Not Forgotten.” This stone can be found within the Tonsler Family Plot in the Daughters of Zion Cemetery, located adjacent to the Oakwood Cemetery. Second, his house still stands on Sixth Street (behind the First Baptist Church on Main Street).

If we check the University of Virginia historic Holsinger Collection we locate a third memorial, a photograph of the funeral flowers brought to his house. And fourth, we remember his life in the name of the park located at the corner of Ridge and Cherry: Tonsler Park (the name was choosen in 1958). One man’s biography writ large around us, if we only take the time to notice.

To read more about the history of the Jefferson School, please visit a website that contains a link to a 46-page downloadable history that was compiled as part of efforts to nominate the school as a historic landmark. Preservation Piedmont conducted dozens of oral interviews with former teachers and students. Information on that project is available on their website.

As mentioned in previous posts, the Division of Historic Resources places gray and white signs at sites of historic interest. Charlottesville has dozens of these signs, commemorating battles, individuals, historic structures, and gravesites. The idea is to draw attention to historic spots. This becomes slightly problematic when the historic sign is miles from the site itself. It’s similar to finding a sign “to I-64″ on an Albemarle County road when you know darn well that the entrance ramp is a dozen miles away. If you don’t look carefully at the sign below you might assume that it commemorates the historic courthouse in the background. Or perhaps Swan Tavern (across the street). Instead, it commemorates the construction of Monticello (begun in 1770) and Jefferson’s death there in 1826 (on the 4th of July). The signs confesses that Monticello is 3 miles to the southeast. While a crow might make it within that distance, a vehicle or lost tourist would not. But if all you’re after is a scenic view, put your back to the sign and look carefully: the open hill-top seen in the photo below is Jefferson’s “little mountain.”

Today the Ivy Creek Natural Area contains hiking trails, copious amounts of birds, and a learning center. In 1880, on this same site, Hugh Carr’s 80-acre farm, River View, contained crops, a milk cow, 4 swine, 10 poultry, and many other agricultural features. Although born into slavery around 1840, Hugh Carr worked hard after emancipation to save his earnings and invest in land in the Hydraulic Mills neighborhood (along the Rivanna). The Ivy Creek Foundation has conducted extensive research into the Life & Legacy of the Carr family. Many 19th and 20th Century features are visible today: the original farmhouse, a clapboard barn, historic road beds, and springhouses. Make sure you visit the ICNF site before you go so that you can enjoy the rich history of this farm.
During your visit, take a few moments to visit the Carr Family Cemetery. It contains an interesting array of granite and carved fieldstone gravemarkers.

Hugh Carr’s son-in-law, Conly Greer, contracted with several area businesses to haul away their trash. Many of these items, referred to by archaeologists as “artifacts” (it’s true, archaeologists study trash), are visible above-ground in trash middens. Below is a sherd with the profile of a famous Charlottesvillian which was the logo for the Old Monticello Hotel (located across from the courthouse).

Since this blog is focusing on historic periods (roughly post 1700), I won’t have the space to describe the indigenous populations in great detail. But I will occasionally discuss the historic records that document the presence of the Monacan people in the region (who arrived long before the European settlers). For example, Captain John Smith’s 1607 map of Virginia indicates a region inhabited by “Monacans.” This map includes a reference to Monasukapanough, located along the Rivanna River near the present-day Polo Grounds Road. Over 150 years later, in 1788, Thomas Jefferson published his Notes on the State of Virginia. In it, on page 102, he refers to the Monacans, attempting to trace their linguistic heritage. His fascination with their language and material culture may have begun as a boy when he (unknowingly) played across the river from Monasukapanough at the home of his boyhood friend, Dabney Carr (today the location of the Carrsbrook subdivision off Route 29). A couple pages later, Jefferson describes his excavation of an Indian Burial mound which he calls a “barrow” which later earned him the sobriquet “father of American archaeology” (his digging techniques reveal a sophisticated understanding of archaeological stratigraphy, post-depositional forces, and faunal taphonomy). In addition, he recalls an event that he witnessed in the 1750s: “…a party passing…through the part of the country where this barrow is, went through the woods directly to it, without any instructions or enquiry, and having staid about it some time, with expressions which were construed to be those of sorrow, they returned to the high road, which they had left about half a dozen miles to pay this visit, and pursued their journey” (p. 106). Jefferson’s observations represents a rare, first-hand, recorded account of Native American rituals in Albemarle County. To the right is a 19th Century representation of a Native American burial mound.
For more information on the Monacan Village, visit, http://www.vcdh.virginia.edu/encounter/projects/monacans/Overview/index.html
To read more about Jefferson’s observations of Native American features and customs go to: http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/JefVirg.html
To learn more about the Monacans, visit their museum in Amherst or take a Virtual Trip.