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.


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Here follows an excerpt from "The Dixie Pig" blog written by Senator Scott Surovell in 2013:

Gunston Colored School. Gunston Road, across from Shiloh Baptist Church. In 1882, Fairfax County bought one acre of land from Edward Daniels, then the owner of Gunston Hall. The county built a small school across the road from the Gunston white school and opened a segregated facility. In 1914, Gladys Bushrod, now ninety-eight and a life-time resident of Mason Neck, enrolled at the school when she five. “During the holidays, Mrs. Hertle, whose husband bought Gunston Hall from Daniels, invited all of us kids to her house,” recalled Mrs. Bushrod recently. “On Halloween, we bobbed for apples, and at Christmas, she gave us presents and hot chocolate.” Mrs. Bushrod finished the eighth grade at Gunston, and since there was no was no high school available to her, that was the end of her education. The county closed the school in early 1930s and the African-American families living in Mason Neck had to send their kids to Woodlawn School, fifteen miles away. Parents petitioned the school board for reimbursement for bus fees, a request that was usually granted. The county transferred the land back to Gunston Hall in 1954. (Note: Fairfax County Public Schools used the term “colored” to refer to African-Americans in all official documents until the 1960s.)