The War Ends, Education Begins in Willisville

The War Ends, Education Begins in Willisville

by Carol Lee and Lori H. Kimball

This is an excerpt from a newly published book, A Path Through Willisville

uring the waning days of the Civil War, the U.S. Congress passed a bill establishing The Bureau for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees. It was to help displaced southerners, both White and Black, by providing food, shelter and other aid. For Black people specifically, the Bureau was to establish schools and “supervise contracts between free men and employers.”

As communities of predominantly Black residents formed across Loudoun County, a school, church, and cemetery became important physical representations in these small villages. The citizens of Willisville achieved all three of these significant milestones.

On March 19, 1868, Richard Dulany of Welbourne petitioned Lieutenant Sydney Smith  at the Freedmen’s Bureau office in Middleburg asking for a school. With his reference to “a large number” of Black people in the area near Crednal, Melbourne and Catesby, it indicates a population, not just of adult workers, but families with young children who could attend a school.

August, 1868 saw a flurry of communication related to the schoolhouse construction and establishment of a school. On August 6th, a note was made that $150 would be appropriated “to assist the colored people in building a school house” when the Bureau was confident that it would be built that season and the school established and maintained for the upcoming year.

The land for the school was officially purchased on October 1, 1868, when John A. Carter deeded a half-acre to trustees George Evans, Garner Peters and Benjamin Berry for the sole use of a school for Black children and place of worship for the neighborhood’s “coloured population.”

The schoolhouse lot was at the corner of present day Welbourne and Willisville Roads. The sale from a White property owner to Black citizens in the neighborhood was the first land transaction in future Willisville and a significant step in fulfilling their aspirations of life in freedom and establishing their community. It further documents the interconnectedness between the White and Black residents who lived along Welbourne Road and the commitment to educating the community’s Black children.

After funds were appropriated from the Bureau, work progressed on the schoolhouse as documented in a letter on November 5, 1868. It noted that four carpenters had been contracted by Henry Mason in September. They worked 15 days each at $2.50 per day, which totaled the $150 allowed by the Bureau. The letter described the schoolhouse as “about halfway between Middleburg and Upperville in the neighborhood of R. H. Dulany‘s place.” Henry Mason was a “mulatto“ painter who lived near Middleburg and it is presumed the carpenters he supervised were Black.

The teacher was McGill Pierce, who at times, with his wife, had been teaching at a Freedmen’s school in Middleburg since January, 1868. Records no longer exist, but it is assumed the Willisville school opened during the 1869 school year.

Considering the Willisville schoolhouse’s location on two public roads and the fact that a school did not open in the village of St. Louis until the 1870s, Black children who lived nearby probably attended the Willisville school, too.

The persistence and commitment of Dulany and Black parents in particular cannot be overstated. Newly freed from slavery, with no financial resources, Black communities were expected to buy land and build their schools, and Black parents had to pay for their children to attend.

Dulany, and perhaps Carter as the seller of the land for the school, saw the commitment of Willisville residents to providing an education for their children, an opportunity the formerly enslaved parents never had.

This book is available at Journeymen Saddlers at 2 West Federal St. in Middleburg.