Wall detail, Holley Graded School. Photo by Margaret M. Cook, September 2012.
Welcome to Holley School Histories
About an hour and a half east of Richmond, Virginia, on U.S. Route 360, you'll find the little town of Lottsburg in Northumberland County on Virginia's Northern Neck. Just east of the Zion Baptist Church on the main road, if you take it slow, you might spot a state historical marker and, set back from the road, the school building it commemorates, Holley Graded School. A fine and sturdy example of Arts and Crafts-era architecture, the four-room schoolhouse was built by local blacks in stages from roughly 1922-1933.
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The building is situated on land that, prior to its completion, also supported a one-room schoolhouse for blacks, also known as Holley School. The original schoolhouse was built by recently emancipated local blacks, whose search for a teacher to educate their children and themselves brought white abolitionist Caroline Putnam to Lottsburg. The land for the original schoolhouse was purchased in 1869 by Putnam’s friend and fellow abolitionist, Sallie Holley, to support Putnam's work in answering this call. The original schoolhouse was torn down after completion of the current structure, but the school's cornerstone bears both dates of establishment, 1869 and 1933, representing the foundation and legacy of the original Holley School to the one that followed.
The students who attended this second Holley School were largely descended from students of the first Holley School, and some of these alumni and their neighbors have ultimately become ardent advocates for preservation of the school building and property and the rich history it represents. The oral histories undertaken here help to document and preserve that history.
The students who attended this second Holley School were largely descended from students of the first Holley School, and some of these alumni and their neighbors have ultimately become ardent advocates for preservation of the school building and property and the rich history it represents. The oral histories undertaken here help to document and preserve that history.
Copyright Mary Lamb Shelden, 1 January 2013