Last updated: January 22, 2024
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Groveton School House
NPS Image/Nostheide
The Groveton Schoolhouse that currently stands within the Manassas National Battlefield Park was built in 1917, but the history of the Groveton School predates the Civil War. Groveton was a small, rural community that valued education, but only provided a place of learning to the white children; black children had to travel to the Thornton School in Catharpin or Manley School outside of the city of Manassas to receive an education. For the white community, the Groveton Schoolhouse was not only for teaching students, but was a place for all generations to gather and interact.
B. R. and Mary Frances (Feaster) Cross Family, provided by Bonnie McDonald
A newspaper article, written in 1915 by a Groveton area resident, reports that there had “…been a Groveton School for at least seventy-five years…” placing the founding of the Groveton School circa 1840.[1] The school was well established by 1850, when William H. Dogan and Stuart G. Thornton placed a series of newspaper ads searching for a new teacher.[2] The ads state the school was near Groveton, and had about 30 students. Several maps of the Second Battle of Manassas mark the location of the schoolhouse as north of Groveton, near the unfinished railroad bed. One map, drawn by Robert Knox Sneden, includes a small drawing, though it is too small to offer much information on the building’s appearance.[3] Sea-Change, a collection of oral history accounts from the Harrover family and their friends, describes a field school located north of Groveton.[4] At this time, Sea-Change is one of only two written records discussing the filed school, and it provides the most information. However, the account does not provide information on how a typical school day went, or what the building looked like. Groveton was not the only field school, though, so by looking at other schools from the same area and time period it is possible to understand what the Groveton field school may have been like. A good example can be found at Sully Historic Site in Fairfax County, which now includes an early 1800s schoolhouse that was moved from Antioch, a community near Haymarket, Virginia.[5]
Sea-Change reports the field school was destroyed during the Second Battle of Manassas, and was replaced by a log cabin building.[6] This building may have been constructed before the war and then became the schoolhouse after the field school was destroyed, or it may have been built specifically to replace the field school. Like the field school, no information on what a typical day was like at this early school has been found. The name of one student was recorded: Edith May Leachman. May, as she was usually called, would eventually become a teacher at the Groveton School.[7] Before 1871 school had stopped being held in the log cabin building, and it was sold to James Peters. A United States Colored Troops veteran, Peters moved the former schoolhouse to his farm across Featherbed Lane and converted it into a two-room house.[8] By 1979 the building had deteriorated, and the farmland surrounding it had been sold to the National Park Service.[9]
Groveton in the Public School System
After the Civil War, Virginia created a new state constitution. Part of the new constitution established a free public school system. This system provided public education for all children in state, but it was segregated and unequal; for example, in Prince William County, white children usually traveled about two miles or less to school, while black children had to travel three or four miles.[11] By this time, the log cabin building must not have been considered an adequate schoolhouse, because a plot of land near the center of Groveton was donated by a local family to be the location of a new public school. In 1872, John T. and Josaphine Leachman signed over one acre to John H. Butler, Alexander H. Compton, and George C. Round, school board trustees, to be used for the new one-room Groveton School.[12] Years later, some remembered the school being on the lot in 1871, so it is possible the building was completed before the lot was officially given to the school board.[13] The schoolhouse was a simple frame building, with a front gable roof, weatherboard siding, and large windows on the sides. Later, a front porch was added.[14]
The one-room schoolhouse served around 30 students at a time, though the boys would attend only part of the year before leaving to assist with the family farms.[15] The average school day included students being “…taught grade by grade using a course of study followed by all county schools.”[16] Despite the teachers’ best efforts, students recalled recess games and the extra activities the school hosted more than their lessons. Spelling competitions were common at the schoolhouse, with the nearby Catharpin School acting as a friendly rival.[17] Recess at the Groveton School included games of baseball, kick-the-can, and a version of hockey called “shinny,” where students used practically any small object they could find as the puck.[18]
Even when students were away from the building, the Groveton School was a source of community. A Thanksgiving picnic in 1912 drew both active and former Groveton students. In both 1914 and 1916, students created displays for the county fair, and competed against other schools to have the best entries. Groveton students won awards for crafts and farm produce.[19] The school’s location on the battlefield played a role in community activities in 1914, when teacher Grace Metz led her students in a singing performance at the dedication of the Fletcher Webster monument.[19]
By 1915 it was clear that the community was outgrowing the one-room schoolhouse. The school board decided to build a new two-room schoolhouse to serve the area, but the question of where to build it became the source of intense debates. Part of the community believed the schoolhouse should remain in Groveton, while others argued that the Stone House was the most central location, and therefore should be the site of the new school.[20] Eventually the school board decided to keep the school in Groveton, so in 1917 O. H. Evans completed construction on the new two-room building.[21]
Many aspects of the school remained the same after the new building was completed, but the additional space meant it was easier to host large community gatherings. “Entertainment events” hosted by the school were advertised in the newspaper, and when the Sudley Methodist Church was rebuilding the congregation used the schoolhouse every other Sunday.[22] After school hours, the new space was used for student clubs, where participants learned practical skills such as how to can berries, bake bread, and sew.[23]
The End of a Community
The Groveton community had originally formed around a crossroads, and it was these same roads that led to the decline and eventual end of the community. By the 1910s, the Warrenton and Alexandria Turnpike, now Route 29, had been neglected to the point that the road was often considered unusable.[24] In response to complaints from across northern Virginia, the Warrenton and Fairfax Turnpike Company was established in 1914.[25] This company was responsible for improving the roads through the macadam process. Macadamizing was done by stacking and compacting small stones, which created a type of pavement.[26] In 1920, newspapers reported road work was being done between the Stone Bridge and the town of Haymarket.[27]
Although the road improvements were successful in making transportation easier, Groveton as a community did not benefit from these changes long-term. Improving the roads included grading down many of the hilltops. These steep cuts through the landscape, as well as an increase in automobile traffic, made moving through the community on foot or by horse difficult. Community activities began to fade; the once-popular Good Housekeeping Clubs of the Groveton and Stone House neighborhoods had disappeared by 1922.[28] People began to move out of the Groveton area, which affected the school. In January 1924, it was reported that attendance at the Groveton School was “…considerably below the former average…” and that the teaching assistant had been moved to another school.[29] The same report discussed how the county schools had low funding, and that schools would close one month early as a result. The combination of low funding, low attendance, and a new state-wide trend of consolidating one- and two-room schools into larger buildings meant that the 1923-1924 school year was the last for the Groveton School. After the school closed, students in the Groveton area were driven to Haymarket to attend school there.[30]
The Groveton Schoolhouse was sold in 1930, and was soon remodeled into a house. In the 1970s the building was remodeled again.[31] Although the schoolhouse was turned into a home, people continued to move out of the Groveton area. In 1940 the National Park Service established the Manassas National Battlefield Park as a new park unit, but the Groveton Schoolhouse was not included as part of the park until 1986 when B. Oswald Robinson and his wife Adria donated it.[32] Today the Groveton Schoolhouse is one of the last buildings remaining from the community of Groveton, and it is currently being documented for future preservation and restoration work.
[1] Taxpayer, “Opposes Moving School,” Manassas Journal, 29 January 1915, 1.[2] William H. Dogan and Stuart G. Thornton, “Teacher Wanted,” Alexandria Gazette and Virginia Advertiser, 4 November 1850, 3.
[3] Robert Knox Sneden, Second Battle of Bull Run showing rebel position 29 and 30 Aug. [1862-1865] Map, https://www.loc.gov/item/gvhs01.vhs00100/.
[4] Elizabeth Harrover Johnson, Sea-Change, (Princeton: Pennywitt Press, 1977), 10.
[5] “1963 – Relocation for Preservation,” interpretive signage at Sully Historic Site, Chantilly, Virginia
[6] Johnson, Sea-Change, 10.
[7] Ibid.
[8] R. Brien Varnado to Regional Director National Capital Region, “Request for Determination of Criteria of Effect Under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 – Montgomery J. Peters Structures,” 28 March 1979, on file at Manassas National Battlefield Park library.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Lucy Walsh Phinney, Yesterday’s Schools: Public Elementary Education in Prince William County, Virginia, 1869-1969, (1993), 162.
[11] Deed of Sale from John T. Leachman and Josaphine E. A. Leachman to John H. Butler, Alexander H. Compton, and George C. Round, 1 January 1872, Prince William County, Virginia, Deed Book 30, page 290. Circuit Court Clerk’s Office, Manassas, Virginia.
[12] C. E. L. H., “Students Visit Battlefield,” Manassas Journal, 30 October 1914, 5.
[13] Several Taxpayers, “Appeal for Stone House,” Manassas Journal, 5 February 1915, 1.
[14] Mary Harrover Ferguson Smith to Lucy Walsh Phinney, “Prince William County Schools Questionnaire – One-room Schoolhouse at Groveton,” 1992, RELIC Archives Prince William County Libraries, Manassas, Virginia.
[15] Phinney, Yesterday’s Schools, 123.
[16] An Old Pupil, “A Tribute to Old Groveton School,” Manassas Journal, 1 July 1937, 3.
[17] Phinney, Yesterday’s Schools, 122; Libbie Harrover Johnson to Lucy Walsh Phinney, “Memories of Groveton School,” 11 November 1992, RELIC Archives Prince William County Libraries, Manassas, Virginia; Johnson, Sea-Change, 12.[18] “County Day Big Affair,” Manassas Journal, 28 April 1916, 1; “Crowds Line Manassas Streets,” Manassas Journal, 6 November 1914, 1.
[19] C. E. L. H., “Students Visit Battlefield,” Manassas Journal, 30 October 1914, 5.
[20] Several Taxpayers, “Appeal for Stone House,” Manassas Journal, 5 February 1915, 1; Taxpayer, “Opposes Moving School,” Manassas Journal, 29 January 1915, 1.; “Brief Local News,” Manassas Journal, 28 May 1915, 4.
[21] Phinney, Yesterday’s Schools, 123.
[22] Elizabeth Harrover Johnson, E. R. Conner III, and Mary Harrover Ferguson, History in a Horseshoe Curve, (Princeton: Pennywitt Press, 1982), 181; “Brief Local News,” Manassas Journal, 26 April 1918, 4; “George Washington Exercises,” Manassas Journal, 14 February 1919, 1.
[23] Edna Kidwell, “Groveton Club Meets,” Manassas Journal, 13 August 1920, 1; Martha Kidwell, “Willing Workers Meet,” Manassas Journal, 18 March 1921, 1.
[24] E. R. Conner, “Urges Better Highways,” Manassas Journal, 29 January 1915, 1.
[25] Benjamin Ford and Stephen Thomas, Archaeological Investigations Associated with the Fauquier and Alexandria Turnpike, (Charlottesville: Rivanna Archaeological Services, LLC, 2013), 75.
[26] Ibid., 19-21.
[27] C. D. S. Clarkson, “Road Meeting at Gainesville, May 8, 1920, at 2 o’clock p. m. in the School Building,” Manassas Journal, 30 April 1920, 10.
[28] “Brief Local News,” Manassas Journal, 18 July 1919, 4.; A Club Member, “Club Discusses Plans for Fair,” Manassas Journal, 28 April 1922, 7.
[29] “County Schools Face Short Term,” Manassas Journal, 11 January 1924, 1.[30] Mary Harrover Ferguson Smith to Lucy Walsh Phinney, “Prince William County Schools Questionnaire – Groveton Two-Room School 1918-1924,” 1992, RELIC Archives Prince William County Libraries, Manassas, Virginia.
[31] Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission, Survey Form – Groveton School, recorded by Frances Jones. File number 76-141, Virginia: RELIC Digital Archives Prince William County Libraries, 1980.
[32] Warranty Deed from B. Oswald Robinson and Adria L. Robinson to United States of America, 18 February 1986, Prince William County, Virginia, Deed Book 1346, page 1039. Circuit Court Clerk’s Office, Manassas, Virginia.