Guide to Historical Salem

A Guide to Historical Salem - Volume 7, Number 1 -- Spring 2001

Ex-Slaves Bought Lots: Public Auction Started 'Water Street'
Black Churches Played Key Role
Salem Indebted to Researchers
Salem's 'Black Main Street' Once Thrived
Too Little is Known of Early Water Street Leaders
African American Cemetary Was Land of Slaveholder
First Black Public School Opened in 1872
Location of Carver School was a Hot Issue
Only Three Principals Served Carver
County in 1850 Was 30% Black
School Integration Had Its Trade-Offs
Water Street's Later Leaders Recognized
Water Street Fell Victim to Progress

Ex-Slaves Bought Lots: Public Auction Started 'Water Street'

By Dan Pezzoni

Salem's Water Street neighborhood originated in an 1868 subdivision of lands belonging to the estate of Nathaniel Burwell, a prominent Salem plantation owner of the mid-nineteenth century.

After Burwell's death in 1866, his son Charles W. Burwell hired surveyor John Snyder to lay out lots and streets for a subdivision. Recorded on June 8, 1868, the subdivision was an L-shaped arrangement of 65 quarter-acre lots and three smaller lots, extending between Calhoun and Burwell Streets in one direction, and south along Union Street in the other. Laid out with the lots along Union Street was a parallel street then known as Roanoke Street, but by 1883 renamed Chapman Street after Salem hotelier F. J. Chapman, a principal lot purchaser in the new subdivision.

Burwell arranged a public auction for June 9, 1868, and sold all sixty-eight lots. Successful white businessmen like Chapman numbered among the purchasers, but the sale was remarkable for the participation of newly freed African Americans. The subdivision was probably attractive to black purchasers for a number of reasons. The small, undeveloped lots were presumably more affordable than other Salem real estate. They were relatively near the railroad, an important employer of local African Americans at the time, and other potential employment.

[Tradition has long held that some of Burwell's former slaves were given land as reward for service. If that is true, it doesn't change the fact that some of his former slaves and other freedmen purchased lots at the auction].

Following the auction, the Salem Roanoke Times, in a June 1868 editorial, urged quick development of the subdivision. "Now, gentlemen, you have bought lots, let us go to work and put up dwellings." The paper suggested the creation of a Building Association to assist lot purchasers in paying for houses on the installment plan.

In January 1869 the same newspaper reported favorably about the enthusiasm of the town's black citizens for home ownership. "The freedmen are manifesting quite a commendable spirit of enterprise. So general is the desire to obtain houses of their own that land has been in demand in such sections as they have begun to congregate."

So successful was Burwell's first auction that he had more lots laid out along the east side of Chapman Street and on both sides of an extended Water Street, which he sold at auction on May 18, 1869. The new lots were larger than the 1868 lots, and combined with the fact that Water Street soon joined Union Street as a connector to the railroad depot, the 1869 subdivision would become popular with black church congregations and with the community's wealthier individuals. The 1869 subdivision represented a substantial expansion of the original town plan analogous to the approximately contemporary subdivisions being made for affluent whites on the opposite, north side of town.

Affordable housing was a perennial problem for Salem's blacks. In February 1869, little over a month after it reported on the freedmen's "commendable spirit of enterprise," the Roanoke Times ran an unsympathetic editorial that obliquely referenced the housing crisis. "We desire to discourage negroes from congregating in this place. Already several hundred are stowed away in old cabins in the suburbs and vicinity of the town . . . The negroes who remain at their homes in the county should be encouraged."

The situation at Salem was repeated throughout the South as freedmen left the plantations where they had been enslaved in search of greater freedom and higher-paying employment in the towns, but the towns were ill-equipped to receive them. A similar housing shortage was anticipated in 1891, as reported by The Richmond Planet, an African American paper that occasionally ran articles on Salem's black community. The paper noted an increase in the construction of industrial plants at Salem and the need to house an influx of black construction workers. "Let us wake up, and build neat and comfortable houses for our `renting brethren.'" In contrast to the insistence of the white press that blacks keep to the farms, the Planet urged black mechanics to move their families off the farm and into Salem so as to "build up the town."

By 1883 a predominately black population had filled the blocks along Chapman and Water streets with homes, a sprinkling of churches, and a public school, as portrayed on "Gray's New Map of Salem." Little is known about the form and appearance of these African American dwellings, other than that they were predominately small. One-room log cabins are a possibility.

It is possible that some of the first-generation dwellings represented on the 1883 Gray's map have survived to the present, incorporated into larger dwellings or otherwise remodeled, but none have been identified. What the Water Street neighborhood does preserve, however, are small and plainly finished dwellings from later periods that are probably comparable in scale and simplicity to the original houses. Examples survive at 212 and 230 Chapman Street and 317 S. Broad Street.

By the turn of the twentieth century, some African American property owners had become sufficiently affluent to construct larger and more stylish residences that would not have been out of place in the middle-class white neighborhoods of the era. Three houses serve to illustrate this trend: the two-story frame house at 423 Chapman Street, a representative middle-class Victorian dwelling, the Victorian house at 223 S. Broad Street, and the red brick at 301 S. Broad.

The neighborhood today includes important institutional architecture in First Baptist Church, Carver School and the 1954 modernist Theron Williams Center. Buildings like these demonstrate the continued vitality of the Water Street neighborhood as the historic heart of Salem's African American community.

top

Black Churches Played Key Role
Blacks Had 6 Churches

Salem's African American community followed a pattern established throughout the nation in making its churches &endash; as many as a half dozen of them early in this century -- among the most important elements of the Water Street Community.

How it happened in Salem probably was much the same way that W.E.B. DuBois, analyzed the black church in Philadelphia in 1899:

"Without wholly conscious effort, the Negro church has become a centre of social intercourse to a degree unknown in white churches even in the country. . . Perhaps the pleasantest and most interesting social intercourse takes place on Sunday; the weary week's work is done, the people have slept late and had a good breakfast, and sally forth to church well dressed and complacent. The usual hour is eleven, but people stream in until after twelve. The sermon is usually short and stirring, [afterwards] the social features begin; notices on the various meetings of the week are read, people talk with each other. . . and linger in the aisles and corridors long after dismission. Then they go home to good dinners. . . In this way the social life of the Negro centres in his church."

The premier church on Water Street was and is First Baptist Church (FBC). The congregation was formed soon after Emancipation, in 1866 or 1867. According to church tradition, the organizational meeting and early services were conducted in the home of Elizabeth Campbell on Cove Road (today's Craig Ave.). There was no full-time pastor in the early days, only local preachers or lay leaders delivering sermons. Later, according to the best available sources, the Rev. Walker Smith, the first full-time pastor of the church, hosted services in his home at the corner of White Oak and Calhoun.

The church found a permanent home probably in the 1870's. In November 1875, the trustees of the "African Baptist Church" purchased half a lot on "Broadway" (presumably a term for Water Street as the southern end of Broad Street) from Samuel Scott. The existing church was no doubt built in the ensuing years as funds became available.

This 1875 deed marks a revision of the traditional date of the church's construction. FBC tradition has always cited 1887 as the earliest the sanctuary could have been built, based on another deed of that year. But a close examination indicates that the trustees in 1887 merely purchased lots (numbers 7 and 8) adjoining their existing property (half of lot 6), acquired in 1875. Certainly, the church was standing by 1883, since it appears on Gray's New Map of Salem. Thus, it seems most likely that the church was already standing by 1887, and is older than previously believed by about a decade.

This confusion likely stems from the fact that the later (1887) deed is the first to use the name First Baptist, whereas the first referred to "African Baptist Church." That both are the same congregation is evidenced by the duplication of several names in the list of church trustees.

Records of the early pastorates are also incomplete. The first pastor of First Baptist of which we have an appreciable (if still limited) record is Benjamin Fox. His grave marker (the most prominent one in East Hill Cemetery North) bespeaks his importance to the black community of Salem: "Rests our matchless leader here/ whose life and labor we revere/ carved in deeds in memory's place/ fleeting time cannot efface."

Fox was born in 1848 in Shepherdstown, WV (then Virginia). He came to Salem in the mid-1880s with his wife, Eliza Pullett Fox. He is remembered as "a gospel preacher, a lawyer, and a carpenter of rare ability" whose skills left a mark on the church with the distinctive horseshoe gallery and other remodeling.

Pastor Fox also left a mark on the Water Street Community when he left First Baptist. In what appears to have been a major church split, the causes of which have not been preserved, Fox resigned the pastorate of FBC and with some 125 members formed Shiloh Baptist Church nearby in the late 1890's. It is interesting to note that this property on which Shiloh had its first house of worship was north of Main, near Broad Street (not Water). This meant a crucial African American church in Salem began in the predominantly white part of town. It was only a few scarce yards from the Water Street Community, but it meant a barrier had been crossed that later generations would find inviolable.

Prior to this, the church had also met in Salem's Town Hall. In 1910, they built a brick church on the corner of Alabama and Burwell, in which the congregation remained until building the present sanctuary in 1972.

Whatever occasioned the departure of Fox and his supporters in the late 1890's, it seemed to have done a great deal of damage to First Baptist. In addition to the formation of Shiloh, other members left to form Calvary Baptist Church in 1899, eventually located in the same block of Water Street as FBC. Furthermore, McCauley mentions a Second Baptist Church founded in 1899, which was later located on Alabama as Mount Vernon Baptist. This makes a total of three churches splitting off of First Baptist in a space of about three years. Still, FBC survived the splits, although church records indicate it may have had no full-time pastor between Fox and Edward Cafee in 1910.

Both Calvary Baptist and Mount Vernon (Second) Baptist seemed to have folded in the nineteen-teens, most likely reabsorbed back into FBC and Shiloh. That Calvary was a troubled congregation can be deduced from a March 1904 article in the Salem Times Register about the congregation having its pastor, Rev. Stone, arrested in the pulpit for trespass after being instructed not to try to preach.

Besides the Baptist congregations, the Methodist church has historically been most important to African American communities. In Salem, there were two black Methodist churches within a block of each other: Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church on the southwest corner of Water and Calhoun, and John Wesley Methodist Episcopal just to the south across Burwell. Both churches were founded in the aftermath of emancipation, Bethel in 1866 by L. T. Watson and John Wesley in May 1868 by J. R. Davis, according to William McCauley's list. Closely associated with Bethel A.M.E. Church was the beloved figure of Sallie Cain, who died in 1938 as one of Salem's last surviving freed slaves.

Both Methodist churches thrived for more than a century, but were closed, and their buildings razed, in the 1970's. Today, only First and Shiloh Baptist Churches bear witness to the "nation within a nation" that helped the Water Street Community overcome through years of oppression.

top

Salem Indebted to Researchers

All Salem is indebted to the people who made possible a new publication about Salem history: "South of Main: A History of the Water Street Community of Salem, Virginia." The research publication brings out probably more information on the history of Salem's African American population, and its "Water Street" community, than has ever been assembled before. The publication also forms the basis of this entire issue of Historic Salem.

It is largely the work of John D. Long, Curator of the Salem Museum and Historical Society, with expert help from Daniel Pezzoni, well known architectural historian and preservation specialist from Lexington. The project was completed under a grant made to the First Baptist Church, Salem's first and oldest African American Church, and its pastor, the Rev. James A. Braxton, by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy. The research, itself, was carried out during the year 2000 and published in December.

In the research publication -- and to a far lesser extent in this issue of Historic Salem -- the Water Street story is told from its inception in a public auction of lots right after the Civil War (Page 1), to its end, when Water Street was integrated into the total Salem society (Page 8). The story is told in balanced, measured terms, covering some very emotional and difficult times in national and local history. Among other revelations, it makes clear that, although Salem's handling of the difficulties was far from perfect, it generally was better, more peaceful, and more responsible, than elsewhere in the South.

Historic Salem warns its readers that this issue does not do justice to the research publication. Because of constraints of format and space, it was necessary to eliminate whole articles from the larger publication, and to shorten and/or rewrite many substantial articles that do appear here. We counsel readers to obtain the research publication, if possible, for the full and fascinating story of this heretofore neglected chapter in Salem's history. Those interested in purchasing the report should call the Salem Museum.

Mr. Long, a magna cum laude graduate of Roanoke College and now a Senior Lecturer in history there, earned his Masters of Arts in history from the University of Virginia. He has spearheaded numerous historical programs, exhibits and tours in the Salem area and in the Society.

Mr. Pezzoni, who holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in architecture from Virginia Tech, has provided a wide range of preservation and research services to public and private sector clients throughout the South and Mid-Atlantic. He also has taught at Radford University and Virginia Western Community College. He has served as an architectural historian with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and is now with Landmark Preservation Associates of Lexington, Va.

top

Salem's 'Black Main Street' Once Thrived

Water Street was more than a residential neighborhood. It was also by necessity a business district. In the era of segregation, access to white business establishments was often denied to blacks, leaving them no option but to start their own. But this was not done reluctantly at all; black businesses presented their owners a chance at prosperity, and gave African American customers the opportunity to patronize their neighbors. To shop in a black store, or eat in a black restaurant, or hire a black workman became for many a matter of pride and community, not merely a response to segregation.

Melissa Prunty Kemp, in her paper "A Brief History of African Americans in Salem," identifies a number of these businesses on "Black Main Street" through the years. Ballard Preston, Howard Lawson and Alexander Campbell (son of Elizabeth), Jim Fleming, Vernon Patterson, and Alvin Everett all owned taxi services in the early 20th Century, catering not only to blacks but to the white community as well. Campbell also owned a grocery store on Water Street, as did Daniel Bradpher.

Moses Spurlock, who bought a lot in the initial 1868 land auction on Water Street, owned a restaurant, as well as Jim Fleming, Lou Sellers, Emma Patterson, and Mae Whitefield of Mae's Inn. Simon Anderson ran an ice cream parlor and was also a barber. Jim Campbell, Alexander's brother, owned a livery stable, and John Duckwilder and Jimmy Coleman were blacksmiths. Cabell, Alexander, and Maxie Rayford were contractors of various description, and Bill Taliafero, Charles Williams, Bob Hale, Clarence Anderson and Melvin and Sons were the only plasterers in Salem for years. Richard Burks was an electrician and the first man to string electric lights for the town; and brick mason Edward Russ helped build the Salem Post Office.

Other businesses included moving and hauling services, dry cleaners, tailors, a funeral home, drug stores, coal distributors, and barber shops. John Baptist ran a late- 19th Century hotel on Water Street, half a block south of School Alley. Robert and Ellen Hale in the next century operated the Pine Oak Motel west of Salem, purporting to be the first black motel between Nashville and Washington D.C. For locals, the Pine Oak served as a gathering place and venue for banquets and formal functions. Earlier, the Hales had also owned the valley's first black swimming pool in Roanoke known as Dreamland.

These business concerns, and others like them, provided Salem' African Americans with a crucial degree of self-sufficiency and prosperity. Furthermore, they added to the cohesion and identity of the self-contained Water Street Community in the face of segregation.

top

Too Little Is Known of Early Water Street Leaders

One of the regrettable facts of history is that so few of us leave behind detailed biographies. This was especially true of the African American community of the late 19th Century. While at least two histories of Roanoke County were composed with detailed biographical information on prominent whites, no such records of black civic leaders exists. We know the names of many of the leaders of the Water Street Community, but only a handful of sources give us insight into the lives of these men and women&emdash;deeds, wills, censuses, obituaries, marriage records. Nevertheless, there were several African American Salemites whose impact was so felt by the community that they deserve some mention here.

One of the earliest and most intriguing of these was George Washington Thomas. Most likely a free black before the war, Thomas is a mystery summed up by a gravestone in East Hill Cemetery North which raises more questions than it answers. See the gravestone epitaph in the accompanying box.

These are interesting accolades for the post- bellum American south. What was the "greatest trial," and what did Thomas do to earn this post-mortem praise? The most obvious answer was the war, and that Thomas was a Confederate supporter. More likely is the possibility that he stayed home and stood by his white neighbors. Further evidence is found in Thomas' obituary: "[Thomas was] esteemed by all who knew him, and to show that he was worthy of it we have but to mention that he voted an out-and-out Conservative ticket." The Conservative faction of the Democratic Party was a pro-Southern, anti-Reconstruction group. The obituary also makes mention that another African American was investigated for murdering Thomas by poison, but an inquest determined that he died naturally of congestion of the lungs. "Many white men attended his burial," reported Salem's Roanoke Times.

Daniel Bradpher epitomized a spirit of entrepreneurship, being associated with a number of businesses, most notably his own grocery store in the 1890's and the Crystal Ice Plant in the early 20th Century. He was the manager of the Ice Plant, a position of prominence which made him, according to his 1917 obituary, "regarded by all as a most worthy and honorable citizen, [who] had accumulated quite a good deal of property." He was also for a time the manager of Salem's municipal light plant during the 1890's.

In 1881, Bradpher ran for the Salem District seat of the County Board of Supervisors. He lost but outpolled one prominent white candidate.

Elizabeth Campbell deserves to be remembered not only for her achievements but also for the obstacles she must have overcome to earn them. Campbell was born in 1830, very likely a free black, and was apparently a single mother. She had at least two sons&emdash;Alexander and James&emdash; and a daughter Emma Brown Cousins, and apparently raised them herself.

There is no record of her source of what must have been a considerable income, other than a mention her "keeping house" in the 1870 census (it also states that she could not read or write). And yet she proved to be quite prosperous, leaving in her will at least seven different tracts of land to her children and granddaughters. Her 1912 obituary calls "Aunt" Lizzie Campbell "well known", "highly respected", and a "Salem landmark." "She was considered well to do, having owned some real estate," it adds.

In addition, she made one further crucial contribution to the Salem's African American community: it was in her house on Cove Road (now Craig Ave.) that First Baptist Church was founded.

The Spurlock family of Salem gives a wonderful portrait of the hardships and triumphs of the Water Street Community. Moses Spurlock was born a slave on the estate of Nathaniel Burwell and, according to a relative's memory, had three siblings: Lewis, Ellen, and Shirley (likely named after the Shirley plantation in Tidewater that had connections to the Burwells), the children of a slave named Nathaniel and a white indentured servant named Ellen.

Such a relationship was highly unusual, but also unusual was the entrepreneurial spirit of this family. Moses and Shirley Spurlock were two of the purchasers in 1868 of land in the Water Street area from the estate of their former master, although later both apparently lived in the Government Hill section behind modern Longwood Park. Moses also owned and operated a popular restaurant near the corner of College and Main&emdash;the busiest corner in town since the courthouse was there. One customer on whom he waited, unknowingly, was Governor Andrew Jackson Montague, who served from 1902-1906. Shirley, for his part, became the butler at the Longwood mansion built in the early 20th Century.

John Duckwilder is mentioned elsewhere in this publication as a leader of the Water Street neighborhood, especially in his capacity as principal of the Graded School A. He was at the forefront of the community in many other ways.

In addition, Duckwilder seemed to be at the forefront of encouraging some measure of recognition for his community. One interesting example came in 1906, when Duckwilder published in the Salem Times Register and Sentinel an account of a wedding at First Baptist, giving an unusual picture of life on Water Street. 1906.

Many other residents of the Water Street Community deserve recognition and commemoration for their triumph in the face of adversity, but as a rule their stories were not recorded. We will have to suffice with the above representative examples.

top

African American Cemetary Was Land of Slaveholder

One of Salem's most important African American landmarks was established (according to tradition) in 1871 when East Hill Cemetery North was founded. In November of that year, a two-acre tract of land was deeded from the estate of Nathaniel Burwell for $82 and dedicated as a cemetery for black citizens. Known variously as the Burwell Cemetery, the African Cemetery, and the Colored Cemetery, this burial ground is the final resting-place of dozens of the most prominent residents of Water Street, and countless others whose names have faded into obscurity. There are dozens of unmarked graves as well. According to one count, there are well over two hundred people buried in the graveyard.

However, there is reason to believe that the land was in use beforehand as a cemetery, since at least one grave predates 1871. Furthermore, the same 1868 newspaper account that gives the account of Moses Spurlock's purchase of land from Burwell's estate also states that B. Pitzer purchased these two acres, and "presented it to the colored people for a burying ground." This is significant, since the larger white cemetery across the street was not opened until 1869&emdash;making East Hill North the older of the two (although part of the larger East Hill Cemetery was in use as a burial ground for soldiers during the Civil War).

Over the years East Hill North has been neglected and vandalized. City management of the cemetery has in recent years improved the situation, but not corrected all of the evident problems of toppled or broken gravestones. More needs to be done to solemnize the site and preserve the memories of those buried there, for a walk through this graveyard is to be reminded of the regrettable time when blacks and whites could neither live together nor be buried together.

It was fitting that the land for the cemetery came out of Burwell's estate, since he was one of the largest slave owners in the county. It is interesting to note that Burwell's former slaves remained close for decades after, and even held reunions in 1903 and 1910 (and possibly other years). The Burwell plantation had long since been dismantled, its land comprising much of modern-day Salem, but Nathaniel's grandson Robert Logan still lived on part of the property, and hosted the reunions at Sherwood (the present Elizabeth College tract). Surviving photos of these events, showing the former slaves (including Moses and Shirley Spurlock) standing alongside the descendants of their former owner are wonderful illustrations of the extent to which the hardships of slavery could be forgiven, if never forgotten.

top

First Black Public School Opened in 1872

Freedom for Salem's African Americans was of little use without some attending economic and occupational opportunity, and everyone of both races understood that this would require education. Educating the now free blacks was a crucial undertaking, and one severely hampered by the racial conventions of the day.

Although an 1869 newspaper quoted elsewhere in this publication (See Page 1) speaks of an established school, the first recorded free public school for blacks was opened in 1872. It was a small building on the northwest corner of Chapman Avenue and a lane that was appropriately to become School Alley. Town council had paid $192 for this lot two years before. Classes began on October 1, 1872, with Samuel Windsor as principal and Walter Scott as assistant.

This building, known usually as School No. 2 or Salem Colored, served the Water Street Community until 1890. In that year a new building was erected on the southwest corner of Water Street and School Alley. Principal John Duckwilder would preside over this 6-room schoolhouse, then called Graded School A, intermittently until 1920. The inequities in local education can be seen in the fact that at the same time, Salem built the commodious brick Academy Street School for her white students. Even several years before the Supreme Court's "separate but equal" doctrine of the Plessy vs. Ferguson case, the realities of segregated school systems clearly favored whites in facilities in Salem.

The name of this school would later change to Roanoke County Training School, to reflect the vocational education that was offered there to many. Despite its shortcomings and deprivations, RCTS was the only, and therefore best, opportunity that African Americans had to gain an education and a chance to overcome poverty.

top

Location of Carver School was a Hot Issue

One of the great controversies of this century to strike the Water Street Community involved the necessity of building a new public school. In 1925, Theron N. Williams had become the principal of the Roanoke County Training School. Williams was born in Salem in 1893 and educated at Hampton Institute. He served in the First World War, and later taught at several schools before becoming Assistant Dean of Men at Shaw University in Raleigh, NC. He left that position to return to his hometown, a move that was of incalculable benefit to a generation of black Salemites.

Over Williams' tenure, he had become increasingly concerned with the inadequate facilities provided by the old Training School. Williams and County School Superintendent Roland C. Cook began to lobby for a new black school.

Most residents seemed to agree that there was such a need, but the controversy emerged over where to build it. The choice of many was a tract west of town along Main Street, the site of today's Oakey Field. However, this raised the ire of many white residents, who claimed that the site was unsuitable for various reasons ranging from traffic hazards to declining property values. Further, opponents claimed that the Oakey tract was needed to build a new water system&emdash;a specious claim when one considers that this was never built.

The alternative was a tract of land on Water Street south of 4th Street. It had several disadvantages, including being more cramped than the Oakey tract and having a stream running through it. Nonetheless, it became the preferred location of many in the town of Salem, since it was more out of the way and adjacent to the Water Street Community.

Over the following months, a protracted legal battle ensued between the County School Board favoring the Oakey tract, and the Town of Salem, preferring the 4th Street site. The town eventually preempted the issue by condemning and acquiring the Oakey tract through eminent domain, and the 4th Street site was chosen.

The new George Washington Carver school opened for the 1940 school year, with T. N. Williams remaining as principal. The dedication of Carver was a celebration of the values of the Water Street Community, and of African American society nationwide. Alice Webster, a 92-year-old former slave, helped lay the cornerstone, a reminder of how far blacks had come in a single lifetime. G. W. Carver, himself, the great educator and scientist of the Tuskegee Institute, was prevented from attending by ill health but sent a congratulatory message stating in part "I trust that every pupil will regard the splendid school building as an opportunity to make their lives count 100 per cent as American citizens." Through the years, hundreds of students would live up to Carver's advice, and the school became an anchor for the Water Street Community for generations.

Despite the controversy that surrounded its construction, the school was considered a wonderful contribution to the community, one of the most well equipped and modern schools in the state with a gym, auditorium, library, cafeteria, home-economics department and industrial arts classroom. Still, it was clearly below the standard set by Andrew Lewis High School, built a few blocks away in 1934 to serve the white students.

top

Only Three Principals Served Carver

Throughout its long history, it is remarkable that Carver was served by only three principals. Theron Williams remained principal until his retirement in 1946. He died a year later. The 1949 Carver Yearbook was dedicated to his memory, and it was a fitting tribute: "upon [his] shoulders rested the educational welfare of the youth of Roanoke County for 23 years. He was destined to perform a task in Salem that was his alone. That task was to serve as an instrument through which Negroes were to receive a better chance at education."

Williams' successor was Robert Rush Anderson III, who was a highly popular and effective leader. Prior to coming to Salem, Anderson was on the faculty of the Christiansburg Institute. He is remembered among other things for mortgaging his house to buy football uniforms for the new Carver team, a debt that was not repaid to him upon his death. Anderson died in an automobile accident in 1953, when a car being chased by Roanoke police collided with his. His obituary called his loss a "real community tragedy," and likened his career in education to a ministry.

Rush Anderson's wife Elsie Claytor Anderson was also a teacher. She was the first African American woman accepted to Radford State Teachers' College, and the first to earn a graduate degree there. She taught at Carver alongside her husband, and was considered an accomplished poet. After the accident, in which she was also seriously injured, Mrs. Anderson moved to Roanoke and taught there until retirement.

With Anderson's death, Chauncey Depew Harmon became the principal of Carver. Interestingly, he had studied under G. W. Carver himself at Tuskegee, and even attended a Sunday school class taught by the legendary educator. Prior to coming to Salem, he had been principal of the Calfee School in Pulaski, a black high school which burned in 1938. Harmon used this misfortune as an opportunity to push for upgrading the facilities in Pulaski for African American students and the equalization of teachers' salaries. After a long and often bitter fight (ironically staged in the same year that the Carver debate was occurring in Salem), Calfee was rebuilt and improved, but only as an elementary school. Harmon, a high school principal, was therefore effectively fired for his campaign.

Harmon came to Salem as something of a national celebrity for his fight for equalization at Calfee. Many would later hold Harmon's campaign in Pulaski as a crucial precursor of the landmark Brown vs. the Topeka Board of Education Supreme Court decision in 1954. During his long career in the Roanoke County school system, C. D. Harmon would remain one of the most respected African American leaders in Salem. He would also be in the forefront of another debate over "separate but equal" schools, as integration made the greatest changes in Water Street Community since Emancipation.

top

County in 1850 Was 30% Black

The first African Americans in Salem (or what would become Salem in 1802) were almost certainly slaves, perhaps some born in Africa. We know little of their lives, other than the general knowledge of what slavery was like. In addition to those held in bondage, there were also always a certain number of free blacks, whose life was their own to lead, even if it may have been no easier than that of their enslaved brethren.

In 1985, students of Roanoke College history professor Dr. Mark Miller conducted extensive research in to the lives of black residents of Roanoke County in the 1850's and 1870's in order to measure the impact that the Civil War had on them. The report gives a rather bleak picture of African-American life in the antebellum county. Approximately 30% of the population was black&emdash;2,528 of 8,314. Of these, only 155 were free, and only 26 had taxable property in the middle of the decade. (Interestingly, one black resident owned two slaves.)

The study also explored the statistics of slavery. Slavery in this part of the state never existed on the intensive level of that found in Tidewater or the Deep South. There were about 2,500 slaves in the county, owned by 321 slaveholders. Of these, Edward Watts owned the most at 170, followed by Nathaniel Burwell (a nephew by marriage of Robert E. Lee) with 108. Sixty-three other slaveholders had more than ten slaves each, but the largest group&emdash;258 slaveholders&emdash;had fewer than ten slaves each. And of course, the vast majority of white residents of the county owned no slaves.
top

School Integration Had Its Trade-Offs

The peaceful integration of Salem schools was an exceptional feat, but as always achievement had its trade-offs. For the Water Street Community, the biggest one was the closing of Carver School. Since there was no longer a need for a segregated high school, the building was converted into the integrated Salem Intermediate. The students and teachers were divided and reassigned to other schools. Principal Harmon, for the second time in his career, found himself removed from a position through no fault of his own. He finished his career in the administrative position of "visiting teacher," a change he accepted with customary grace. He retired in 1978 and died in 1993, regarded by all as one of the elder statesmen of Salem's African American Community.

For all the advantages of integration, the loss of Carver was a blow to the Water Street Community. Carver had long been an anchor to the blacks of Salem, a symbol of opportunity, achievement and community in the face of segregation. Its closing meant a diminishing of the community's identity, something which many resented.

Carver teacher Georgia Reeves later told School Superintendent Wayne Tripp that Salem's blacks "lost more than they got." According to Reeves, in the segregated Carver, black students "received attention and values that they did not get in the integrated schools. The exceptional students benefited from academic scholarships and athletic opportunities that opened as a result of integration, but the average student suffered because their new schools were 'not like family."

The reassignment of teachers also engendered a few hard feelings. Still, this nostalgia for the old days should not be taken as a desire to turn back the clock. Few looked on integration as a mistake to be rectified, and no fair observer could miss the many obvious advantages&emdash;better facilities, wider opportunities, and a new dawn in race relations.

But it is no surprise that a later drive would be undertaken to commemorate the role the school had played for nearly three decades by returning to the venerable name George Washington Carver. In 1977, with the building of the new Salem High School, Andrew Lewis became the local junior high, and the path was cleared for Salem Intermediate to once again bear the name Carver, now as an elementary school.

top

Water Street's Later Leaders Recognized

Thomas Carlyle's famous dictum is that "history is the biography of great men." While history is certainly much more than biography, it is true that the history of Water Street in the 20th Century, as always, must be told through the lives of her leaders. Some of these leaders, such as the educators, have been described elsewhere in this publication.. Many others deserve recognition.

In any small community, the medical professionals play a crucial role. Dr. William Rufus Brown played that role for the Water Street Community. Born in Trinidad in the British West Indies, Brown came to Salem in 1911. Although he began in general practice, he eventually settled on becoming an Ear, Nose and Throat Specialist. In addition to his Salem practice, he was a leader on the staff of Roanoke's Burrell Memorial Hospital, the valley's premiere African American medical facility.

Salem's only black physician, Dr. Brown went beyond a medical presence to serve as a civil leader as well. An active member of John Wesley Methodist Church, he was also involved in the local YMCA, NAACP, and the Salem Town and County Civic League. He was instrumental in the campaign to build Carver, and one of the men responsible for bringing Boy Scouts to Salem's black youth. He also was active in recruiting and registering black voters. His uncompensated membership of the Selective Service System won him citations by Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower. He died in 1964.

Also in the medical field were midwives Christine Anderson and Georgianna Saunders. In a sense, they are as responsible for the existence of Water Street in the 20th Century as anyone else, for they brought into the world almost an entire generation. All told, 2000 babies were delivered by the two, generally in the years 1915 to 1940. Their records form a demographic record of the Water Street Community, as well as the rest of Salem, since Saunders served families of both races.

Although George S. Bowles served Salem in many capacities, it was as a dedicated Scout leader that he touched most lives. Bowles helped start the African American Boy Scout Troop 104 and served as its first Scoutmaster. Meeting in John Wesley M. E. Church and in a Roanoke church when the former closed, Bowles led the troop for more than fifty years, and recruited his wife Annie to head the Cub Scout pack. When he retired from scouting, the troop folded rather than try to fill his shoes.

At least three professional athletes have come from the Water Street Community, in addition to several accomplished college athletes. Larry Legrande grew up in the Pinkard Court neighborhood of the south Roanoke County, but was forced by segregation to attend Carver in Salem. After graduation, he was a catcher for the legendary Kansas City Monarchs. He later got to try out for the New York Yankees, but that club's farm system was one of the slower to integrate fully, and Legrande never got a chance to follow Jackie Robinson into the big leagues. He did, however, tour the nation with the Satchell Paige All-Stars in the early 1960's.

Billy Sample came later, when the barriers against black athletes had largely been removed. A graduate of the integrated Andrew Lewis High School, he went on to a stellar career at James Madison University (where he batted .421). He then advanced to the major leagues with the Yankees, Atlanta Braves, and Texas Rangers. Today he remains active in baseball as a radio announcer for the New York Yankees network. The baseball field at Salem high School is named in his honor.

Also worthy of note, if later and not actual residents of the Water Street neighborhood, are the Morgan Brothers. Richard went from Salem High School to an exceptional basketball career at the University of Virginia, and then to a professional career in Europe. His brother Charlie also had a solid college record, and later returned to coach Salem High School. At this time both brothers are in coaching.

Fondly remembered by generations of Water Street denizens, Jessie Penick Jones left her mark in many ways. She was born in Salem in 1899 and attended Graded School A under John Duckwilder,. She later returned to teach in that school and its successors. Her impact on the Water Street Community can be measured by an anecdote: when she spoke at Shiloh Church one Sunday, the person introducing her asked all audience members who had sat in one of her classrooms to stand. The entire congregation responded.

Perhaps no family typifies the achievements of the Water Street Community better than the Morris-Elam family. In 1890, Edgar Lee Morris arrived in Salem to take a position as engineer at the Leas-McVitty Tannery, a high position for a black man of the day. He married and fathered six children here, and started his own electrical contracting business on the side. His daughter Sadie became a teacher in Roanoke.

Sadie Morris married a railroad worker named Joseph Elam, with whom she had two babies before their divorce. The Elam children, Morris Elam and Ann Elam Patterson, were largely raised by the patriarch Edgar Morris, and their aunt and uncle in Roanoke Ellen and Robert Hale, the owners of Dreamland and Salem's Pine Oak Inn. Morris Elam went to Tuskegee Institute and then served in Europe in World War II, before returning to Salem to take over his grandfather's Morris-Elam Electric Co. He later retired from that field and began concentrating on real estate investment and rental properties. He now owns several properties on South Broad, the former Water Street.

Ann Patterson became a highly respected social worker and family counselor in California before retiring back to Salem. She still volunteers extensively. A third generation of Morris- Elams today lives across the country in a variety of successful positions.

African American churches played a vital part in Water Street, and the pastors of First and Shiloh Baptist Churches were therefore indispensable forces in the community.

The foremost pastor of Shiloh during this period was Dr. Enos Glaspie. A Texas native, Glaspie served in the Second World War and then entered divinity school in Texas and at Virginia Union University. He was called to Salem to fill Shiloh's pulpit in 1952.

Glaspie, with his wife, the former Gwendolyn Pitts, led the church ably for no less than 40 years, remaining active in such organizations as the NAACP, the Salem Minister's Alliance, the PTA, and the Civic League. Under his pastorate, Shiloh embarked on a major building program, resulting in the construction of the church's current building on South Market Street. After entering into a well-earned retirement in 1992, Glaspie was succeeded by the Rev. Adrian Dowell.

For First Baptist, the defining leader of these decades was Pastor Charles J. Smith. Born in Oklahoma, Smith served in France in World War I. Afterwards, he graduated from Virginia Union University, as well as Virginia State College. He was called to Salem in 1938 where he was able to build the First Baptist congregation up from 75 members to 210 during his pastorate. In addition, he oversaw the physical growth of the church, remodeling the original structure and adding an annex in 1953 which nearly doubled the church's available space.

Like Glaspie, Rev. Smith played a key leadership role in the community, serving as president of the Salem NAACP, as well as other capacities. Both he and his wife, Irene Gardner Smith, were teachers as well; he served as principal of Glade Spring Elementary in the County as well as teaching at Carver.

The Reverend James A. Braxton succeeded Smith at First Baptist on Smiths retirement in 1968. A native of Tappahannock, Virginia, Braxton graduated from Virginia Seminary and College in Lynchburg, with studies also at the University of Richmond, Virginia Union, Virginia Commonwealth, and Shaw University.

Dr. Braxton has continued the long tradition of essential community leadership for First Baptist pastors. He has served as the president of the NAACP, the PTA, and the Virginia Baptist State Convention. He was a one-time candidate for City Council and in 1993 was named southwest Virginia's Father of the Year.

Under Dr. Braxton's leadership, First Baptist in 1988 dedicated "Salvation's Wing," a $600,000, 8500 square foot education facility, now serving as home to a program addressing the question of literacy in the community. As of this writing, the church is planning another major building program. In this, Dr. Braxton has been working closely with the Salem Historical Society to preserve the original sanctuary, a building that has been an anchor for the Water Street Community for well over a century.

Dr. Braxton's wife, the former Louise Sledd, is a widely respected teacher in the Salem school system. One of their four children, the Reverend Brad Braxton, was a Rhodes Scholar who later pastored a large church in Baltimore, and currently is on the faculty of Wake Forest University.

top

Water Street Fell Victim to Progress

This study concludes in the mid-1970's, with an event that marked the end of an era: Water Street's disappearance.

By 1973, remarkable progress had been made in integration. Salem schools were fully de-segregated, public facilities had mostly followed suit, and a majority of Salemites, black and white, had reached a consensus that African Americans had been victimized by discrimination for too long, and changes in practices as well as attitudes were in order. Not all problems had been solved, but such progress was worthy of celebration.

With these developments, the Water Street Community had evolved. It was no longer as isolated as it had been for generations; and if it was no longer as cohesive and homogenous because of integration, that seemed to be a trade-off most would gladly accept. African Americans were ready to take their deserved place in Salem's society.

Pursuant to this, in April 1973 a group of black residents made an appeal to Salem City Council for a Fair Housing Ordinance for Salem. Led by Pastor James Braxton, the delegation told council of prospective black buyers quoted different prices on houses for sale than white counterparts, and of some fifteen families who had been forced to move out of Salem due to housing shortages. At the same time, they presented a petition by residents to change the names of Water, Alabama, and Union Streets to match those in use north of Main Street: Broad, Market and Academy respectively.

The latter request was largely symbolic. Obviously, different names of streets would not address the continued discrimination in real estate practices. Still, the symbolism was important. As Braxton would later express, the name changes would "make blacks feel a part of the community. . . we want to become one with Salem." At issue then was not merely the name on the street signs, it was the sense that when one crossed to the south of Main one entered a different community.

City Council responded with interest, but later rejected the appeal after residents of Union Street made it clear that they did not prefer a name change. The issue likely would have died there had not a coincidental request come from another street. Residents of Roop Lane petitioned Council to change their name to Camp North Road. The issue here, they asserted, was clarity, not race (although Camp North was the local African American campground). Most residents already referred to Roop Lane as Camp North Road, and it was confusing for many trying to find the camp. Again Council was sympathetic, but realized that to act on this petition while denying the earlier one would be inconsistent. Thus, the motion was amended to change Roop to Camp North, Alabama to South Market, and Water Street to South Broad. Union was left unchanged.

The motion carried, and Water Street disappeared from the map of Salem.

The end of Water Street itself did not mean the end of the Water Street Community, although integration had so revised Salem society that it is no longer entirely accurate to speak of a separate community defined by race. Salem's African American people still feel a sense of kinship, still attend First and Shiloh Baptist Churches, are still sensitive to the divisions that have not fully disappeared. But only the older members remember the neighborhood and its people that once persevered in the face of segregation.

The community is physically quite different today, besides the name change. Few of the businesses that served Water Street are still around, many of the houses have been razed, and both of the Methodist churches have closed. Carver is still there, but has been extensively renovated. "All the things the black community could identify with from when I was a kid are gone, but for Carver and the churches," said Carver Reunion President Douglas Dowe in 1994, as the question of closing the school was being debated. It was a sentiment shared by many.

But more important are the societal changes that are evident today. None would say that all racial problems are a thing of the past, but neither would any deny that real progress has been made. As this manuscript was being prepared, Forrest Jones was promoted to the rank of Salem City Manager, the first African American to hold this crucial post. Only a generation before such a thing would have been unthinkable. But this steady and laudable progress has meant a corresponding loss of the historical identity of the Water Street Community.

Today the neighborhood is far from exclusively African American. Pastor Braxton of First Baptist has observed that South Broad Street is going in the opposite direction that many white neighborhoods once had: as blacks move out of South Broad, whites tend to move in, especially those looking to invest in rental property catering to Roanoke College students.

One wonders what Moses Spurlock, Elizabeth Campbell, Edgar Morris or Daniel Bradpher would think of their neighborhood, could they see it now. Certainly they would find it unrecognizable, but to learn of their descendants' progress would undoubtedly please them. And they would likely be pleased that the groundwork they laid, the legacy they passed on to their posterity, will not quickly fade away.

top