Laurel Grove Colored School

The Laurel Grove (Colored) School stands as the only remaining African-American schoolhouse out of thirty-two serving Fairfax County, Virginia. Fairfax County established a segregated, public school system in 1870, twenty-six years before the Plessy v. Ferguson “separate but equal” decision.


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Here follows the inscription written on the historical marker nearby:

In the early 1880s, former slaves organized a congregation and held church services near a grove of laurel on Beulah Road. The trustees, including Middleton Braxton, George Carroll, Thornton Gray, and William Jasper, were focused on educating the children of the congregation. In 1881, Georgianna and William Jasper, a former slave of William Hayward Foote of Hayfield Plantation, deeded one-half acre from his thirteen acre farm to the segregated Virginia School System for $10.00. The school served the community until 1932. In 1884, the Jaspers deeded another half acre for construction of a sanctuary next to the school.


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Here follows an excerpt from the Spring 2011 edition of the "Franconia Legacies" newsletter published by the Franconia Museum:

Carrolltown:
comments from Mr. George Baker at the first Franconia Story Swap

At Laurel Grove school, students got up early to make the fire. The teacher lived in Washington, D.C. and would take Route 29 to school. Some children would walk seven miles from Pohick to school and would have to change clothes in the school. It was a one room school house.


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Here follows an excerpt from the Clio history project as written by Genna Duplisea:

Laurel Grove School Museum preserves the history of a one-room schoolhouse that operated between the early 1880s to the 1930s to serve the Black children in Franconia and Springfield. The school was the first publicly-supported school for Black children in the region. Prior to this time, several free Black families pooled resources to support teachers and subscription schools operated in private homes, given the prohibitive costs of renting a facility and the likelihood that such a school would be attacked by a white mob. At the end of the Civil War, there were thousands of few former slaves who wished to attend school but did not have the resources to build one. Because segregation laws prevented Black children from attending white schools, the efforts of Black communities, often with the support of charitable whites, were essential. Today, the Laurel Grove School has been fully restored and is operated as a museum to preserve and share the history of this building and its larger role in American history.

History of Laurel Grove School
The Laurel Grove School is a historic symbol showcasing the values and dreams of freedmen and women in the post-war south. It also provides valuable insight into what public education was like in the 1880s, as well as the freedmen and women’s value of education.

The history of the Laurel Grove School begins in 1881, when William Jasper, a former slave, and his wife, Georgianna, reached out to several members of the community regarding the urgent need for their children’s educations. As such, in 1881, Jasper deeded one-half acre of land from their farm to the Franconia school district.

Soon after, the freed men and women got to work on the school, finishing the one-room schoolhouse in the early 1880s. To build the schoolhouse, parents, grandparents, and neighbors provided the materials, tools, and labor, and the founders (William Jasper, Middleton Braxton, George Carroll, and Thornton Gray, and others) hired teachers, fundraised for books, and found donations for the school’s piano and other furnishings. Emma J. Quander was the first paid teacher at the school; she was 18 at the time and earned $18 a month.

There was substantial resistance and harassment coming from the community’s white residents, but the enthusiasm and pride within the African American community prevailed. This did not, however, prevent rocks being thrown through windows, for example. The school remained a fixture in the Franconia and Springfield Black community until 1932, teaching grades one through seven.

The Laurel Grove School is the only remaining African-American schoolhouse in Northern Virginia. As a living museum, Laurel Grove provides hands-on activities to children and offers tours by request. The museum also offers other cultural and educational activities, such as pictorial history exhibits, talks by history makers, children’s story hour, and other subjects.


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Here follows an excerpt from the Laurel Grove School Museum website:

The Story of the Laurel Grove Colored School epitomizes the actions of many freedmen and freedwomen after the Civil War. In 1881, William Jasper and his wife Georgiana deeded one-half acre of land from their thirteen-acre farm to the local Franconia school district. Jasper, a former slave, cited in a Freedman's Register as a black man 5 foot 6 ½ inches high, scar on the back of the left hand, scar on the ankle, joined Middleton Braxton, George Carroll, Thornton Gray and others in the community to address an urgent need - the education of their children.

Former slaves built the one-room schoolhouse. Parents, grandparents, and neighbors provided the materials and labor. They hired teachers, scraped together funds to purchase books and donated a piano and furnishings for the schoolroom. Thru their efforts, the Laurel Grove School opened a gateway to the literary and basic skills necessary for the first generation born to freedom.

The enthusiasm and pride of the colored teachers, parents, and the African American community prevailed against the resistance and harassment of the county's white residents. Laurel Grove students remember closing the shutters of their school to prevent rocks from breaking windows. Yet, in this segregated school, without the facilities and supplies, Laurel Grove students learned geography without maps and competed successfully with their peers in colored fairs. A few followed the example of teachers, earning certificates to educate new generations of children in the county's segregated public schools.

Family and School Timeline:
Between 1808 and 1814 William Jasper was born a slave to Morris and Eliza Jasper, on William Hayward Foote's Hayfield Plantation.
1846- William Foote dies; William Jasper and his family are freed by his will.
1853- William and Sarah register as free blacks and are given permission to live in Fairfax County, VA.
1860- Thompson Javins deeds land to William Jasper
1867- Jasper votes in Fairfax County, Virginia¡¤ 1869- Marriage License for William and Georgiana Jasper
1870- Census taken-literacy a question
1881- Jaspers deeds land for school to Mt. Vernon District
1886- Laurel Grove School established
1886-1891 Emma J. Quander teaches at LGS
1894- S.J. Jaspers teaches at LGS
1895- William Jasper dies
1907- Photos of schools for black and white children show inequality
1917- Draft registration of Walker Jenkins and other LGS parents
1922- 8th Annual Colored Fair (began in 1914)
1927- LGS wins award for selling tuberculosis seals
1932- Laurel Grove School closed


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

For nearly a century from 1870 to the mid 1960s, Fairfax County Public Schools operated as one school system with two sets of schools segregated by race. This tiny schoolhouse called Laurel Grove has earned a special distinction because it is the last surviving one-room structure specifically built as a public school house for African-American children. The school had its beginnings in 1881 when William Jasper and his wife Georgiana deeded half an acre of land to the school trustees of Mount Vernon District.

"...My great-grandparents were William and Georgiana Jasper. William had been enslaved on a farm owned by William Foote, which was in the Hayfield area and Georgiana was from King George, Virginia. This building was built by parents, parents some of whom had been enslaved on properties nearby. When they got their freedom they knew that in order for their children to succeed in life that they had to have an education and that was stressed with the students who came here to Laurel Grove. Their motto was get an education and everything else will fall into place. Parents had to provide everything. Not only did they have to build the building, but they had to provide the furniture, they had to provide the books, the materials, writing materials, they had to provide blackboards that were used, everything had to be done because the county was not doing it for the African-American students at that time..."

"...The typical day at Laurel Grove began at about nine o'clock in the morning and they were able to have devotions, prayer, pledge allegiance, but they also were able to sing songs and that's why you see that we do have a piano in the building. It was an everyday ritual that they did. They were able to do the devotions and the teacher knew music and was able to play for them. There was no bathroom facilities, there was an outhouse. There was no water fountain or water provided. The boys had to actually go and take a bucket and get water and bring it back. The water came from a nearby property. The kids who went to school here, they of course all had to walk. One student and her sister walked for five miles one way to get here and other students walked a mile, some walk two miles. They had to walk through other farms to get here. Marguerite Giles talks about how she and her family, her sisters, walked across the farms and one time they were chased by a cow to get here. They walked no matter what the weather was, they had to come. So even if it rained or snow they were still walking to and from school..."

The Laurel Grove school educated children from grades 1 through 7. Records indicate that the enrollment at Laurel Grove fluctuated from year to year, with 23 students enrolled in the 1928-1929 school year and only 13 children enrolled at the start of the 1931-1932 school year. By January 1932, the number of children enrolled had fallen to seven, well below the minimum number of pupils required by state law for the school to remain open. Superintendent W.T. Woodson directed the teacher to close the school permanently and reassign the pupils to the Gum Spring school approximately seven miles away. In 1953, the Fairfax County School Board sold the schoolhouse and lot to Thurman and Alma Bushrod, who converted it into a dwelling. Today, the Laurel Grove school functions as a living museum open to the public select days throughout the year or by appointment. Each spring, fourth-grade students from nearby Lane Elementary walk from their school to Laurel Grove just like children in the late 19th and 20th centuries and are given a lesson about slavery, reconstruction, civil rights, and the Jim Crow era in connection with their history curriculum. Once again the Laurel Grove school serves as an institution of learning for the children of Fairfax County.


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Here follows an excerpt from the Atlas Obscura website:

The only remaining African American schoolhouse in northern Virginia is now a museum dedicated to formerly enslaved people.

Originally known as Laurel Grove Colored School And Church, the Laurel Grove School Museum is a small, one-room schoolhouse that sits just off of Beulah Street, dwarfed by the office park that looms behind it.

The schoolhouse was built by formerly enslaved people who organized a congregation and held church services in a grove of laurel near the site of the school, hence the name “Laurel Grove.” Members of the congregation, parents, grandparents, and neighbors, wanted to provide the black children living in Franconia with opportunities to have better lives. The effort to create the school was led by four church trustees, Middleton Braxton, George Carroll, Thornton Gray, and William Jasper, whose names appear on a historical marker near the school building.

Laurel Grove was one of five black schools in the Mount Vernon School District in 1890, the others being Gum Springs, Gunston, Springbank, and Woodlawn. Laurel Grove educated pupils for nearly 50 years until its students were absorbed into Fairfax County’s segregated public school system.

Following its closure in 1932, the Laurel Grove School sat dormant until 1999 when a local non-profit, the Laurel Grove School Association, restored the old schoolhouse to preserve its inspiring history. They also re-opened the school as a living museum. Using historical artifacts, the school offers children the opportunity to participate in educational activities that bring the past to life and allows them to experience local history.

Know Before You Go
The school is located on the left side of Beulah Street heading north, less than a quarter-mile past the intersection with the Fairfax County Parkway. There is ample parking in the lot behind the school, which it shares with the office park that runs along Walker Lane.