In case you missed it: Dr. Walter Reed and Yellow Fever Part 1 When the Civil War broke out, Walter Reed’s older brothers, Tom and James, fought on the side of the Confederacy. The Reed family had left Gloucester County and were living in the Piedmont countryside. Walter, who was barely a teenager at the […]
Archaeology is revealing important clues about Woodville School
Guest blog written by Colleen Betti, doctoral candidate at UNC-Chapel Hill and long-time Fairfield Foundation friend and collaborator. In a December 2020 blog, I gave brief updates on my excavations at three of Gloucester’s historic Black schools: Woodville, Glenns/Dragon, and Bethel. Now I’d like to dive deeper into the archaeology of Woodville School and explain […]
Delving into Gloucester’s Public School Past
Guest blog written by Colleen Betti, current doctoral candidate at UNC-Chapel Hill and long-time Fairfield Foundation friend. In 1912, Gloucester County’s surveyor and superintendent of public schools, R.A. Folkes, illustrated a map showing all of the public schools in the county. At the time, he identified 20 black schools and 20 white schools. This nearly […]
Irene Morgan: Virginia’s Freedom Fighter
In 1944, a woman named Irene Morgan was riding a bus from Hayes to her home in Baltimore. Ms. Morgan was at a hard point in her life. She was a mother to several children and had just suffered a painful and dangerous pregnancy ending in miscarriage. After an operation associated with this, she […]
Cemetery Preservation in Mathews
The Fairfield Foundation is coordinating a Cemetery Preservation Day in Mathews County. Read on to learn how you can be a part of this exciting project! The Brooks cemetery is overgrown with trees and brush. The New Point Comfort Natural Area Preserve in Mathews County is beautiful for many reasons. The boardwalk provides fantastic views […]
Beneath the overgrowth: Rediscovering forgotten history at East End Cemetery
We had a profound experience when we volunteered at the East End Cemetery in Richmond last weekend. This historically black, privately-owned cemetery was established in 1897 but largely abandoned by the late 1970s. Currently the subject of a community-led preservation effort, it is a place of awe and mystery. Thousands of the city’s residents are […]
