Last updated: October 10, 2024
Place
Kelley/Robinson House
NPS/B. Miller
Quick Facts
Amenities
1 listed
Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits
The Civil War forever changed the two families that lived in this house both during and after the war. At the outbreak of the conflict, widow Elizabeth Kelley lived in this home with Lorenzo Kelley, one of her five sons. By the fall of 1862, all five of Kelley’s sons had enlisted in the Confederate Army. Leonard and Lorenzo Kelley died of disease in May and December of 1862, respectively, but the others survived the war. Although Lawrence Kelley deserted in December of 1862, Lawson Kelley remained with the Army of Northern Virginia in April of 1865 and was present at the surrender. Charles Kelley departed the Confederate hospital in Farmville five days before the surrender and may have witnessed the Confederate infantry stack their arms in the village on April 12. For many White, Southern families like the Kelleys, Lee’s surrender and the collapse of the Confederacy marked a bitter conclusion to a disastrous war.
Though the war’s end brought grief and uncertainty to many White Southerners, it also brought the promise of hope to those who were formerly enslaved. In 1871, John Robinson purchased this home for his family. As an enslaved man, Robinson had been trained as a cobbler, and in the postwar years he applied his skills by operating his own shoemaking business out of this house. In addition to making shoes, Robinson became a founding member of Galilee Baptist Church, and he likely voted in an election that sent James Bland, an African American delegate, to the 1868 Virginia Constitutional Convention. Robinson’s trade skills likely provided him with greater societal opportunities than those available to formerly enslaved people who did not have a trade skill. In many cases, those who had worked in the fields while in bondage continued to work those same fields as free people through the systems of tenant farming and sharecropping. Emancipation signaled a landmark moment in the lives of freedpeople, but equality remained an unrecognized hope.
Though the war’s end brought grief and uncertainty to many White Southerners, it also brought the promise of hope to those who were formerly enslaved. In 1871, John Robinson purchased this home for his family. As an enslaved man, Robinson had been trained as a cobbler, and in the postwar years he applied his skills by operating his own shoemaking business out of this house. In addition to making shoes, Robinson became a founding member of Galilee Baptist Church, and he likely voted in an election that sent James Bland, an African American delegate, to the 1868 Virginia Constitutional Convention. Robinson’s trade skills likely provided him with greater societal opportunities than those available to formerly enslaved people who did not have a trade skill. In many cases, those who had worked in the fields while in bondage continued to work those same fields as free people through the systems of tenant farming and sharecropping. Emancipation signaled a landmark moment in the lives of freedpeople, but equality remained an unrecognized hope.