Halltown African-American Schoolhouse, Halltown West Virginia

Date added: September 03, 2023 Categories:

South-West corner of building looking North-East (2003)

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In western Virginia prior to 1860, state-sponsored education for African Americans did not exist. In 1863, as the West Virginia Constitutional Convention went about its business establishing the form of a new state, education took a central role. Determined to build upon the successes of the Old Dominion but likewise determined not to repeat its mistakes, the convention prevailed to direct the future legislature to "provide, as soon as practicable, for the establishment of a thorough and efficient system of free schools." High as their intentions may have been, any mention for the schooling of African-American children was conspicuously absent.

Following the precedent established at the Constitutional Convention, the new legislature passed the state's first school law on December 10^th, 1863. It established a township-centered system of instruction for six months out of the year, with voter-elected commissions empowered to hire and certify teachers, build and maintain buildings, and collect school revenues. The first school law also established a school system segregated by race. Townships that contained at least 30 eligible African-American children were required to supply buildings and teachers separate from the facilities used by white children.

Parkersburg opened the era of segregated schooling in West Virginia, when leaders of the African-American community there established the Sumner school, as a private initiative. By 1866, the Sumner school was under public control, making it the first state-sponsored school under West Virginia's laws for supporting segregated African-American education. Jefferson County, notable for its attention to the free public school ideal before the Civil War, by 1876 had ten schools and eleven teachers assigned to the task of educating the area's African-American children. It is during this era that the Halltown Free Colored School came into existence. By the 1890s, popular histories of the area commonly reported the existence of African-American schools in many Jefferson County towns. Charles Town's 1874 African-American school still stands on Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue, as do many other schools of the same nature throughout the county.

Halltown in the late 19^th Century was small, consisting of perhaps 100 residents. The chief occupation in the town most likely was provided by the Virginia Paper Mills, a large manufactory established in 1869 in the works of an old flour mill. The land that the Schoolhouse occupies was purchased by Mr. Thomas Edwards from Virginia Lucas prior to 1870. It is known for a fact, thanks to the deed for the adjacent Chapel, that a "little colored free-school" existed on the Edwards lot in 1901. It is unknown where the money for the purchase came from. Mr. Edwards built the schoolhouse in 1870 using his own time and money, plus help (it is unknown if the help was paid or it was volunteered) from local "Black Males". One of the purposes of the school was to educate Mr. Edward's large family. Among the community of interest was one Mrs. Olive P. (Shelton) Braxton, a granddaughter of Mr. Edwards. Olive was one of 13 children. In a time of low enrollments, the Edwards/Shelton family could indeed have populated a school on their own. Olive and her siblings were the children of Ada R.(Edwards) Shelton, a daughter of Mr. Edwards. Ada married Benjamin Shelton. Following the closure of the school in 1929, they became the owners of the property which eventually included both the Schoolhouse and the Chapel. In the late 1980s the property was officially transferred to the Halltown Memorial Chapel Association, Inc. The Association plans to rehabilitate and find a new use for the Schoolhouse, much as they did for the adjacent Chapel.

Building Description

The Halltown Colored Free School is located in the Jefferson County unincorporated village of Halltown. Halltown is sparsely settled and rural in character. The school faces northwest toward a gently sloping lawn that abuts old US 340, now down-graded to County Route 340/12. US 340 currently follows a four-lane bypass half a mile to the south of the subject property. The view (looking west) from the main elevation of the Schoolhouse includes the Halltown Memorial Chapel (on the left or south edge of the view) and a private residence (on the right or north edge of the view). The view from CR 340/12 toward the subject property includes (from south to north) the Halltown Memorial Chapel, the Schoolhouse, and a private residence. A private residence (farm house) is located on land immediately behind the lot the Memorial Chapel.

In general plan, the Schoolhouse is a rectangular, side gable box of only one story. The exterior walls are made of common bond red brick, constructed on a concrete perimeter foundation. The roof and gable pediments are covered with slate shingles. The interior is plastered. Windows and doors plus the frames are made of wood. Most of the window panes have been broken out. The front facade includes two fixed 42-pane windows, identical in size, located on either side of the front door. Each of the windows is dressed with a plain sandstone lintel and sill, with a keystone carved into the lintels. Originally, a centered hip-roof front porch, supported by a brick and wood column at each front corner was present, but has recently fallen down. The porch steps and floor are concrete, and lead to a paneled wooden door with a glass pane. Above the door is a transom window, which is dressed with a lintel with keystone identical to those over the flanking windows.

The southwest side elevation displays a band of three 6/6 double-hung sash wood-frame windows with transoms located above. Each window is dressed with a simple lintel and sill, with the lintels continuing the keystone theme from the main facade. Immediately above the transom windows, a narrow, white wooden cornice marks the beginning of the gable pediment. The gable is sheathed in rectangular slate shingles, and sports a large, circular louvered vent near the rook peak. Cornice returns assist in imparting a mild Classical Revival architectural theme. The northeast elevation lacks windows, but repeats the features and materials present on the south side.

On the southeast elevation, a rear porch is present and its roof is made of tin sheet metal. It is believed that the rear porch was added some years after the structure was originally built. The floor of the rear porch is concrete. The porch roof shelters one 6/6 double-hung sash wood frame window near the southern corner of the building.

Directly to the northeast of the window is a wood, four-panel door. Continuing to the northeast along the facade are two 6/6 double-hung sash wood windows, closely paired. Each of the three windows in the rear elevation features transoms and lintels with keystones. A steel pitcher pump is set on the floor of the porch. A tall and narrow brick chimney with a corbelled cap is visible on the southwest side of the rear elevation, near the peak of the roof.

The interior layout of the Schoolhouse was modified after the use of the building as a schoolhouse was discontinued in 1929. The interior was eventually divided into four rooms for use as a dwelling. The surfaces of the wall were plastered. Elaborate molding around the doors and windows was also added. No indoor plumbing has ever existed in the building. The building has been serviced by electricity during its lifetime, but all lines are now cut.