History in Black and White: James Dawson

History in Black and White

by James Dawson

Talbot County is still full of surprises, and often in unexpected places. My ancestors, the Caulk family, had been in Talbot since 1705 and, being farmers, had owned slaves. In fact, some of the papers still in the old Caulk family desk are actual bills of sales for slaves. This is what you might expect, but the surprise was that just recently, I discovered that in among those slave documents were two remarkable letters written by a 20-year-old Black woman, Maidie Thomas, while she was attending Hampton Institute, a private school for Blacks in Virginia, in 1912. What is so remarkable is not just that they were written by a young Black woman who was attending college (something few Whites did then) but also the genuine affection shown in these letters to her White friends, the Caulks.

Maidie Virginia Thomas, the daughter of James and Etta Thomas of Trappe, was born on Dec. 7, 1892. These letters were written to my great-grandmother, Mary Susan Elizabeth Caulk, or Mollie, as she was known to her friends. The

The Caulk Family 137

Black and White Caulks lived on Isle of Rays Farm (now Roslyn) on Island Creek Neck, about three miles from Trappe. Unfortunately, Mollie’s letters to Maidie have not survived. Too much time has passed to know just how this relationship started, but it was more than just casual. It is probable that James Thomas worked for the Caulks and that he and his family lived in one of the tenant houses on the farm. It is also interesting that photographs of James Thomas and his other daughter, Elsie, were found in the Caulk family photo album. Note that Maidie’s letters are not addressed formally to Mrs. Caulk, but with the more familiar Miss Maidie Virginia Thomas Mollie or Mrs. Mollie, and also that

Maidie is on a fi rst-name basis with Mollie’s children, Owen, Elizabeth (Bess) and Sallie. The Thomases and the Caulks seem to have had a special relationship that spanned several generations. In any event, they were certainly very unusual letters for a Black woman to have written to a White family on the Eastern Shore in the early 1900s.

The Hampton Institute was established primarily for Black, mixed race and indigenous students , although anyone could attend. Now called Hampton University, it is certainly one of the most remarkable schools in the Chesapeake Bay area. Wikipedia says that Hampton University is a private, historically Black research university in Hampton, Virginia. Founded in 1868 as Hampton Agricultural and Industrial School, it was established by Black and White leaders of the American Missionary Association after the American Civil War to provide education to freedmen.

Maidie was awarded a scholarship to Hampton, and her letters are very descriptive of student life at Hampton Institute, so here is her story in her own words:

Hampton Institute Hampton Virginia Feb. 18, 1912

Dear Miss Mollie, I take great pleasure in writing to

you. I hope you will not think hard of me by not writing sooner. I am a busy child at Hampton. I can always find something to do here. I am getting along alright so far in both my work and studies.

I often think of you all and wish I was home. I have been away so long that my home will seem strange to me. I like it here, but I want to come home. It is very cold down here, but I think to day is a little warmer. I work in the laundry and it is so warm there that it feels like summer we don’t have to step our feet out side for nothing only to go to school. I wish you could see me now. I got weighed last week and have gained 18 pounds. We have had some interesting entertainments here. The Indians gave a fine citizenship program. And last month we had farmers conference. I wish you could have heard those old farmers talking about agriculture. Mr. Owen ought to have been here because he is a great tomato grower. Anyone can come white or colored. We had one man from Conn. This school is a popular school. Carnagie [sic], one of the wealthiest men of New York presents $10,000 to this school each year. Each student has a scholarship of $100 paid each year if they are worthy of it. I got mine last month and wrote a letter in thanks. I wish you could have read it. We have holiday Thursday. There has been several interesting basket ball games played here this winter. I am going to get a dress and make for our commencement. I have been thinking that I would take up training down the Dixie hospital and be a trained nurse. I am not old enough yet to

The Hampton Institute 142

go. I only wish Elsie could come here next year. Tell Mr. Owen to go and plant his patch. I will be home some time enough to give him two weeks work. I am going out to our farm soon (Shell Banks), when it get warmer. I am going to take quiet hour So I will finish this to-night.

I have started to write again. The girls have a society called the king’s daughters, and they have lovely meetings. To-night all the teachers from Whittier School, whom are Hampton graduates, came over and spoke some fine pieces. The Whittier school is a public school under Hampton Institute. It is mainly for the training of Hampton teachers. I have been down there several times.

I guess Elsie is a little lonely taking so many long drives by her self. She is pretty well satisfied by this time. I would love to see Miss Bessie. I have never heard from Maggie since I came here. I wonder what caused her to stray away from Mama. I wrote to her once but she never answered it. Does Florence still live with you also? How is Martha? I suppose she is a large girl by this time. Take care of your self and Miss Sallie and write when you have time. I am always glad to hear from home. Rremember me to all.

Sincerely yours Maidie

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Notes: Mollie had a big heart. It is quite probable that she may have helped Maidie with some of her expenses in addition to giving her gifts like a handkerchief. As if raising seven children of her own wasn’t enough, Mollie had adopted Martha, an orphan girl, after meeting her in Easton. It was said that Martha had some Native American blood in her.

Hampton Institute Hampton Virginia June 17, 1912

My dear Mrs. Mollie,

It affords me great pleasure in writing to you, as it has been so long since I heard from you. I should have written to you before, but you know how it is with me, and when I do get off from work I am tired and too lazy to write. Papa told me you wrote to me when you was in Baltimore and sent me a handkerchief. I didn’t get it, but I thank you just the same. I don’t know why it did not come here, as I never lose any thing in the mail. I hope this will find you all well and enjoying good health. I have been perfectly well ever since I came here, except I had a slight cold once. This place sure does agree with me. I don’t think I want to come home to stay any ways soon. I like here so well. I think but not sure I am coming home on my vacation the twentieth of August, If my teachers can spare me. I will be some kind of glad to get back to my old home at Trappe

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Elsie Thomas ing. There are teachers here of all descriptions.

Last Sunday, a week ago I spent my happiest day here at Hampton. I have heard a great deal about the president of the United States. That day I had the pleasure of seeing him face to face. It was a rare curiosity to me because I have never seen any before. There has been and is now six large war ships lying in the Hampton Roads near by, and we can see them real good. One day we heard a great firing. When we asked what was it for and about we were told they were greeting the president, Taft, while he was aboard the ships, Dr. Frissell, our principal, went to see him and invited him to come over.

“You know President Taft is a trustee of this institution and he was very much pleased to come visit this school. On Sunday he came here from the ships in a beautiful launch. He was escorted to the mansion house by Dr. Frissell his two guards and others. He was served breakfast at nine-thirty by one of our colored students. The choir entertained him by singing while he ate. His waitress tells me that man went on to eat some more corn bread. He is almost large enough to do so. After breakfast he went to church and talked to us of many interesting things. After church, he went back to the ship and a large crowd followed him. It was a very pleasant visit and we were very interested

once more for awhile. it seem[s] as if I have been away so long from my people a score of years. I often think of you all and wish you could come to Hampton to visit. I know you would enjoy going around looking at the wonderful work done here by the students at Hampton. I don’t mean in the summer because school has closed and there are no students.

To-day has been a very busy one with us all. The school has now opened again for summer normal teachers for a month. It is opened every year. Any teacher can come here and learn new ideas of teach-

in him. I have had a chance to come in contact with so many prominent people here. Mr. Carnegie has been here not long ago also. You know he is one of the wealthiest men in New York and presents to this school $10,000 annually. He also spoke to us. Dr. Booker T. Washington the principal of the Tuskegee institute came here on our anniversary day. Tuskegee Institute is one of the best schools known for colored students also Hampton. I want you to come here before I leave.

The carpenters of the 1913 class are building a Y.M.C.A. building and it is a pretty one too. All the work done at the school is done by Mollie Caulk

Black and White to go north under the school if they want to. The teachers get them serthe students here. The Indians are vice places and the person where very smart. Most all the Indian boys they work pays their fare both ways. are taking a trade of some kind. One I think I can make more money and thing Dr. Frissel says to us very of- will not have to work so hard. I have ten, when he speaks to us in Chapel been credited to more than $100.00 is that here at Hampton the white, but I have my board to pay. I hope by Black and red have all learned to live the time that school closes I will have to-gether in peace. You know there enough balanced to pay my whole are all white teachers here. Some of year’s board next year, together them are very good to me and I have with what I make my work day and learned to love them. eight o’clock work. Every girl has a I am going to try and learn to do portion of work to do at eight o’clock. Fancy work this summer, while I But we get paid for all we do. I did have [the] chance. I will not be here want to be a waitress this summer this time next summer. If nothing but it was so hot I couldn’t make it. happens to me and I keep well I want This is the hottest place I ever was to go to Maine and work the summer in. I don’t think I ever want to go any months. The students have a chance farther south because the sun shines

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Black and White make taps too. The bell will ring at nine for bed. so hot on me. This is a beautiful How is little Sarah I know she is place and I feel so happy. a large girl by this time. Remember

How is Miss Bessie? I should like me to them also the family. to see her. I will not know what to I am a great big girl, weigh 130 do with myself when I come home. pounds. I will be glad if I can get off I know I will be lonely. I have been to come home in August. I am tired kept busy ever since I arrived. I have out. I need rest. I want you to write learned so much that I did not know me a long letter as I did you and tell by taking a work year. You bet I will me all the news. How many chickbe glad when it is over. I want you ens, ducks and turkeys you have. to make up your mind to come here I hope you are all well and happy to visit. We are going on a launching like me. How is Mr. Owen? The bell party soon to Jamestown not far is ringing and I must stop. Write to from here. me soon.

There are only three hundred stu- Good by with best wishes dents here now, and we have most Sincerely yours, every thing we want to eat. I have love to all told you all I think I have in store and Maidie I am very sleepy too. It is now about eight thirty o’clock and I have got to Notes: Fancy work was decorative sewing like embroidery and crocheting. William H. Taft was our heaviest president and outweighed Maidie by at least 200 pounds. Carnegie was the millionaire Andrew Carnegie, one of the richest men in the country, and Booker T. Washington was the famous Black educator who founded Tuskegee University along with George Washington Carver and Lewis Adams in 1881. His autobiography, Up From Slavery, is still in print. Little Sarah was a cousin. No clue who Florence or Maggie were. Maidie lived a long and full life, which included a family. After she graduated from Hampton Institute

Maidie’s father, James Thomas with a bachelor’s degree, she re152

turned home to teach at the Black school on Money Make Road just outside Trappe that had been started by the former slave and Black activist Nathan Hopkins. She became a seamstress on the side to help with expenses. Then she became a governess and nanny for the Peterson family in Wye Heights near Wye Mills, a position she held for nearly 20 years, even following them to New York City. After that, in the 1940s, she opened the O.K. Garage and Storage Center in Harlem for some years, and when that closed due to changing conditions in the city, she opened a daycare center. After that, she became a governess and nanny to the Buegeleisen family in Larchmont, New York.

She also worked in the Civil Rights Movement with the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell and was a member of his church. Rev. Powell was also a U.S. Congressman from New York. n 1965, Maidie retired and returned to Trappe. She was active in Scott’s Church and in many civic activities. She also enjoyed swimming, sewing and letter writing and was known for her generosity. She continued driving and swimming until she was 79.

Maidie Virginia Thomas died on Jan. 11, 1992, just 35 days after her 99th birthday. She is buried in Paradise Cemetery near Trappe next to her sister, Elsie, with whom she shares a tombstone.

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County farmers who had profited from slave labor and had southern leanings. Mollie was born in 1846. Family lore has it that when she stayed in Baltimore during the Civil War, she defiantly pounded out southern classics on the piano from her music book like “I Wish I Was In Dixie’s Land,” “The Southern Right’s March,” “Maryland, My Maryland” (written by a Baltimorean in Louisiana) and “Stonewall Quick-Step,” making sure that Union soldiers passing by on the street heard her through the open window. Yet, 50 years later, she had plenty of room in her heart for her Black friends.

After graduating from the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in Baltimore, Elizabeth “Bessie” Caulk had a career in nursing and then moved back to the farm to help Owen and Sallie care for their ailing mother when Mollie’s health failed. Elizabeth’s letters about farming in the 1930s were the subject of an article I did for the April 2021 Tidewater Times.

Mollie Caulk died in 1926 after continuing the family farm when her husband, John, died in 1913. Sallie and Bessie eventually sold their farm after Owen’s death and moved to Trappe. Although neither married, they raised several children, including my mother after my grandmother died.

Martha, the little orphan girl that

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Mollie raised, grew up and married Bennett Frampton, who was bridge tender on the old Choptank River bridge that opened in 1935. They had two boys.

Hampton Institute is now Hampton University. Wikipedia states that “Hampton University off ers 90 programs, including 50 bachelor’s degree programs, 25 master’s degree programs and nine doctoral programs. The university has a satellite campus in Virginia Beach and also has online off erings. Hampton University is home to 16 research centers, the largest free-standing facility of its kind in the world.”

The Thomas family became part of Trappe. Maidie’s only son, William McKee Thomas, started Thomas’ Salvage Yard in 1942, which was continued by his son, Joseph Henry Lee, Maidie’s grandson, until his death in 2021. The business is still run by the family 80 years later, so it is certainly the oldest business still operating in Trappe. The Thomases defi nitely inherited Maidie’s entrepreneurial skills.

Maidie’s granddaughter Naomi still has the notebook Maidie kept of her expenses while at Hampton Institute.

Many thanks to Naomi Thomas for her help.

James Dawson is the owner of Unicorn Bookshop in Trappe.

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