By the end of the American Revolution, the population of what was then known as Granville County was about 8,000 people. Of that number, 40 percent – or 3,200 – were enslaved.
The plantation system created by wealthy landowners was utterly dependent on that labor to get in tobacco and other crops.
But mostly, it was tobacco, said Mark Pace, local historian and North Carolina Room specialist at the Richard Thornton Library in Oxford.
In their tri-weekly discussion Around Old Granville, Pace and WIZS’s Bill Harris reviewed the lives of numerous prominent Black Americans who made a mark in their communities and beyond.
Up until the time of the Civil War, farms were getting bigger and bigger so owners could produce more and more tobacco. That meant the number of enslaved people grew, too. This was a common practice particularly in the northern parts of present-day Vance, Granville and Warren counties, Pace said.
But there also were many free African Americans living in the area before 1865, Pace said. He attributes that to this area’s proximity to the Virginia border. Virginia had passed a law in 1807 that said emancipated persons had one year to leave the state or risk being re-enslaved
“They didn’t want a lot of free blacks,” Pace said of the folks in Virginia, “so a bunch just came across the line.”
Some enslaved people planted crops on land given to them by their owners. They’d work on Sundays – their only day off – to tend their crops. Some planted tobacco, and over time, they saved up enough money to buy their freedom, Pace explained. Until Granville County passed a law in 1800 banning the practice.
One of the most prominent and well-known Blacks in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s was John Chavis. Born in Virginia to parents who were free Blacks, Chavis graduated from Princeton and Washington & Lee University and became a Presbyterian minister and a noted tutor to many children of wealthy White families.
“He was a brilliant guy,” Pace said. “He was very urbane, he was well read, knew the Greek classics. He had a lot in common with prominent wealthy landowners and by all accounts, was an excellent speaker.”
The Presbyterian Church was dedicated to the idea of improving the lives of black people, particularly those who lived in the pre-Civil War South. As a Presbyterian minister, Chavis was a key player in that mission.
Other prominent men included Henry Plummer Cheatham, James Hunter Young and George Clayton Shaw, all born between 1857 and 1863. Cheatham and Young both had white fathers. They became state legislators and their rise to prominence was well known.
Shaw, meanwhile, established Mary Potter Academy in Oxford in 1889 to educate African Americans. He was the principal until 1936. The school later became a private boarding school until the 1950’s when it became a public high school and later a middle school.
At about the same time that Shaw was establishing Mary Potter Academy in Oxford, there were similar efforts in Vance County as Henderson Institute and Kittrell College were being established.
“In the 1880’s, education is starting to become important,” Pace said, and it’s where many local African Americans made their mark.
Founded and operated by the United Presbyterian Church, Henderson Institute was originally established by the Freedmen’s Board. It was a four-year school – the only high school in this part of the state for African Americans, Pace noted.
John Adams Cotton led the school for 30 years. He was a Presbyterian minister and the namesake of Cotton Memorial Presbyterian Church in Henderson.
“The school stayed in business in one form or another until 1971,” Pace said.
The N.C. Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church established Kittrell Junior College in 1885-86. The two-year school was housed in the old hotel building in Kittrell for the first few years before James B. Duke dismantled numerous buildings on the Trinity campus and sold the bricks to the Kittrell school as he made space for what would become Duke University.
Warren County native John R. Hawkins was a driving force behind Kittrell College, Pace said. Hawkins joined the faculty and later was elected president of the school.
“People from all over the world came to Kittrell College.”
Now the site of the Kittrell Job Corps, the campus had a series of fires in the early 1970’s that destroyed those structures that had their beginnings in Durham.
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