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At the Crossroads:
CARRSVILLE 'If you like country, this is the place' STORY BY STEPHEN FALESKI
T
raveling toward Suffolk on Carrsville Highway through the southern tip of Isle of Wight County, motorists will pass several farm fields before coming to a wooden sign welcoming them to the unincorporated village for which the road is named. The village itself, as one might expect, owes its name to someone named Carr — though there's some disagreement as to whether this was Nathan or his brother, Jesse. According to “Historical Notes on Isle of Wight County” by Helen Haverty
King, Nathan was the village postmaster in 1836, around the same time the Portsmouth and Roanoke railroad passed through that part of the county. In 1965, however, 77-year-old Rosa Carson Carr wrote a short history of the village, in which she claimed Carrsville was named for Jesse, who had reportedly fathered 21 children. The name “Carrsville” first appeared in the county's tax book for 1846, by which time “there were plenty of Carrs around, so the place was aptly named,” King con-
cluded. The job of postmaster later passed to several members of the Rawls family, according to King. Among them was Dr. Gavin Rawls, a physician. He served as postmaster from 1878-1879 and in 1886 was appointed the third superintendent of Isle of Wight County's public school system, a position he held for the next 36 years. “I have an old desk with a date 1886 that was used by Mr. Duke in the old Carrsville railroad depot,” said Volpe Boykin, a
While most of Carrsville’s once numerous country stores have closed over the decades, Bradshaw’s Country Store — a convenience store and eatery — remains open for business.
