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COMMERCE
Progress made in Elizabeth City County and Town of Hampton demonstrated what could be accomplished by African Americans on educational, religious, economic, and social fronts. Hence, African Americans entered the political arena. From 1869 through 1890 Elizabeth City County had at least one black representative in the state legislature at every session. African Americans held such county and city positions as sheriff, commissioner of the revenue, constable, and commonwealth attorney. During the 1880s, of the nine Hampton elective offices, African Americans held five.
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In addition to its political power, the late nineteenth century African American community had a major economic presence. New industries provided jobs outside agriculture, including opportunities for women. Shoemaking, seamstressing, baking, brick masonry, waiting tables, midwifery, carpentry and blacksmithing were among the trades.
The seafood industry jobs like oystering, crab and oyster packing, and transportation jobs like teamster or driver offered self sufficiency, free of white supervision. African Americans such as Henry Armistead and John Mallory Phillips prospered as watermen, owning their own boats and oyster bed leasing rights. As seafood processing became a vital industry to Elizabeth City County and Hampton, it employed hundreds of African Americans.
Tradesmen such as blacksmiths often owned their own businesses and a large African American mercantile group served both races. African American professionals, including ministers, teachers, social workers, lawyers, doctors, and undertakers, many of whom had graduated from Hampton Institute and had continued their education, had a mostly black clientele. They were generally considered the community’s leaders.
THE BLACK BUSINESS DISTRICT
The district was located from the beginning of Queen Street to west of Liberty (Armistead Avenue) and from King Street northward. It was largely located on the present site of today’s Downtown Hampton. Hundreds of black-owned businesses provided desired products and services.
The Peoples Building & Loan was founded March 4, 1889 on King Street near First Baptist Church and lasted 102 years. A second bank, the Galilean Fishermen’s Consolidated Bank was on Queen Street. W.T. Smith & Sons Funeral Home (later renamed Smith Brothers) and the County Journal were located at the intersection of Lincoln and King streets. Other businesses providing goods and services included groceries, dry goods, beauticians, pharmacies, restaurants, dry cleaning, taxi cabs, butchers, and furniture sales, plus many others. The Lyric Theater, later replaced by the Basie Theater, featured popular African American films and performers.
GARDEN CITY
Garden City, founded in 1913, was an African American community of watermen, shipyard workers, farmers, and tradesmen. Garden City became so progressive during the era of Jim Crow and segregation that later university professionals opted to build their homes there. From 1940-1960, the community blossomed with black-owned businesses giving rise to some of Hampton’s early multimillionaires. Residents were particularly proud of their gardens and showcased them through the Federated Negro Garden Clubs of Virginia as early as 1932. The community members also organized to establish the Greenbriar School. The Garden City movement is an approach to urban planning introduced in 1898 by Sir Ebenezer Howard in the United Kingdom. Garden Cit-
ies were intended to be planned, self-contained communities and the development plan was sold throughout Europe and America. A fully integrated venue for entertainment known as the “Sports Arena” hosting such artists as James Brown, Otis Redding, Bobby Womack, Ray Charles and others was located in Garden City, preceding the construction of Hampton Coliseum. Garden City resident Joseph King, visionary of the restoration and founder of the Garden City Cultural and Historical Society, attributes his success to his Garden City upbringing. The Garden City neighborhood is located west of historic Olde Wythe and now included in the “Greater Wythe” planning district. The small community is bordered by Teach Street, Shell Road, Maryland Ave, and Pembroke Ave. The community is six blocks from the Hampton Roads harborfront where the Battle of the Ironclads occurred during the Civil War.
OLD NORTH HAMPTON
From its establishment in 1850, Old North Hampton was a community built on the premise that African Americans should strive to “own the land they lived on, educate their children, worship God, and be productive.” Its inhabitants engaged in livelihoods that supplied homes, food and education for the residents. For the men, farming, carpentry, and brick masonry were favored crafts, while the waterways offered the opportunity to work in the marine trade or captain your own boat or work on someone else’s. For women it was teaching, nursing, midwifery or domestic work. There were also opportunities as crab pickers and oyster or clam shuckers. The youth were educated in community “nursery” schools, a one-room school, and later Union Street School followed by Phenix High School on the Hampton University campus. Old North Hampton was a “garden” community with nearly every home having a backyard garden and fruit trees to supply the family and to share with neighbors. Many of the families in North Hampton have had “home places” there for over 100 years. Old North Hampton, originally known simply as North Hampton, is bordered today by North King Street, Mercury Boulevard, Armistead Avenue and LaSalle Avenue.
TOURISM AND BAY SHORE BEACH
BAY SHORE BEACH DRIVE-BY SITE, WALKING SITE
The privately owned Hygeia and Chamberlin hotels at Fort Monroe employed many African Americans. Desiring to have a vacation resort by the sea for their own people, a group of African American leaders in Hampton formed the Bay Shore Hotel Company in 1897 and the next year bought beachfront land adjacent to Buckroe Beach, south of the fishing pier. The effort was led by Frank Banks of Hampton Institute. Bay Shore Beach and Resort, considered the first vacation spot for blacks in the South, attracted thousands of vacationers from the mid-Atlantic region, including hundreds who came by excursion train from Richmond. There was an amusement park with rides like the “Dixie Flyer” rollercoaster and a carousel.
What began as a four-room cottage in 1898 grew into a four-story beachfront hotel with 70 rooms and long porches facing the water. There was a dance hall that brought in famous entertainers like Cab Calloway, James Brown and Dizzy Gillespie. On August 23, 1933 a major hurricane decimated the resort. It was later rebuilt by the New Bay Shore Cooperation and the new Bay Shore Amusement Park operated well into the late 1960s. In 1973 the directors sold the property to private developers, but Bay Shore’s existence continues to hold a memorable place in the history of Hampton.
Today, privately owned homes and vacation cottages dot the shoreline. Buckroe Beach is a popular public park for visitors who enjoy swimming, fishing and beach-exploration. Family-friendly music concerts are offered during the summer months.
(From Interstate 64, take exit 268 north and follow signs to Buckroe Park. Open daily. Bay Shore Beach history is interpreted by historical markers located at the James. T. Wilson Fishing Pier.)
Built in 1897 and located at 76 West County Street, this charming Phoebus Victorian home was constructed by William H. Trusty (1862-1902), an affluent African American business owner and a civic leader. Voted onto the Phoebus town council at the turn of the century, Trusty was one of the first African Americans to be so elected. Upon his death in 1902, the home was inherited by his wife and was later occupied by other relatives.
Community preservation efforts saved the home from destruction in the mid-70s. The home is listed on the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places. The home is privately owned and not open to the public.
SOCIAL SERVICES
Janie Porter Barrett, an 1884 Hampton Institute graduate, formed the Locust Street Social Settlement in 1890. The settlement’s child welfare department provided young mothers and children with guidance. In an effort to provide jailed black youth with alternatives for their futures, Barrett personally petitioned judges to release them into her custody. Often they stayed in her home, or she placed them in the Weaver Orphan Home.
Barrett also formed the Virginia State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs in 1908 at Bethel AME Church in Hampton. She served as its first president until 1932. The association was an umbrella for club activity throughout the state. Each club was committed to at least one social service project annually for the community, city, state, or an individual. The State Federation emphasized voter registration, African American history, and other areas of vital importance to family life, and conducted statewide leadership workshops yearly. College scholarships were awarded to outstanding, deserving high school graduates. Her work with young girls led the Federation to found the Industrial Home for Colored Girls in 1915 in Hanover County, where Barrett was Superintendent for a quarter century. It exists today as the Barrett Learning Correctional Center for young men and women.
Also serving the needs of widows and children, Reverend W.B. Weaver and his wife, Anna Belle Weaver, changed the lives of hundreds by operating the Weaver Orphan Home on 25 acres on West Queen Street. From 1904 to 1965 the Weaver Orphan Home provided a refuge for black orphans on a 25-acre farm located near here on what is now West Queen Street. It housed about 20 to 30 children at any given time.
Difficult financial circumstances meant continuous fund-raising, and merchants, grocers, church congregations, sororities, and other members of the local African American community were very generous. One friend donated two cows, volunteers built a barn, and the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute faculty gave a workhorse. The children did much of the work around the farm and dormitory, raised their own food, developed habits of discipline, and gained the satisfaction of jobs well done. Schooling also took place at the home.
Formerly enslaved, Mrs. Weaver had graduated from Hampton Institute in 1881 and was introduced to Rev. Weaver through her brother, his classmate of 1875 at the same school. He had already established the Gloucester Training School and the Cappahosic Academy prior to settling in Hampton. After the Weavers passed on, their daughter Anna W. Fagin and her husband continued the orphanage for several more years. Many young residents went on to lead distinguished lives.
