Gunston Colored School (Site)

Here follows a history of the school as published on the Fairfax County Public Schools website:

Decades prior to the opening of Gunston Elementary School in 1955, two early Fairfax County public schools were also named after Gunston Hall. During the era of one-room schoolhouses and racially segregated public education, there were two small schools located near the Gunston Hall estate – one for white children and one for Black children. The Gunston school for white children opened around 1878 and closed before the turn of the 20th century. In 1900, the building was sold and converted into a house of worship which still stands today.

The Gunston school for Black children, called the Gunston “Colored” School in historic records, was constructed around 1882. It was located about 500 feet east of the Gunston white school on land purchased from Edward Daniels, then owner of the Gunston Hall estate. Gladys Cook Bushrod, who attended the school in the 19-teens, shared her recollections of the school in an interview.

Bushrod: I was five years old when I started at Gunston School. The teacher stayed with my mother. She boarded – my mother boarded her. And we would walk from the house over here all the way down to the schoolhouse which was down back of the cemetery.

Interviewer: Well, it’s amazing to me because it was a one room schoolhouse. And they say it was 32 feet by 25, which isn’t very big. Now they say it had a tin roof.

Bushrod: Yes, it had a tin roof.

Interviewer: Did it make a lot of noise, the tin roof, when it rained?

Bushrod: I don’t remember it making so much noise because the building was so tall.

Interviewer: Were the windows big? They have glass windows?

Bushrod: It had big windows, yeah.

Interviewer: Was it cold in the winter?

Bushrod: Yes, yes.

The older boys would come and make the fire, but it would be a while before the building got hot – it got warm.

Interviewer: Was it just one little pot belly stove in the middle?

Bushrod: Yeah, in the middle of the – in the middle of the – of the room.

Host: After the Gunston “Colored” School closed permanently in 1936, the children were bused to the Woodlawn “Colored” School, the site of which is now part of the Fort Belvoir military installation. In 1941, when the Woodlawn School was closed, the children were reassigned to the all-Black school in Gum Springs.