Last one standing: the history of the Fannie Thompson house
GREENVILLE — Despite the fact that the Fannie Thompson House sits on a corner lot right off of U.S. 11 in Greenville, just passed the BB&T bank, and down the road from the Riverheads schools, it's easy to miss. Even if you're looking for it.
The house doesn't face U.S. 11, or Lee Jackson Highway, it faces the cross street, Old Staunton Road.
The house sits on a steep hill once known as Jack's Hill. The hill despite its hard rock foundation, was once littered with small cabins representing a thriving population of freed slaves after the Civil War in a deeply segregated Greenville.
Greenville is an old town, and once a booming area.
Jack's Hill was the center of the African American population in Greenville, which represented about 25 percent of the town's residents.
Now, only one house stands, and it's in bad shape.
It's known as the Fannie Thompson House, despite the fact that Thompson wasn't the home's initial owner. However, Thompson, born into slavery, and her family would live in the house for almost a century.
Now owned by David McCaskey, the house is the only physical representation of a population of people and a way of life that quickly began to deplete following the arrival of railway stop in Greenville and World War I and World War II. Many of the homes that once stood either burned down or were torn down.
McCaskey, along with local historian and former supervisor for Augusta County, Nancy Sorrells, have been working to see the Fannie Thompson House listed as a historic landmark with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.
It was a lengthy application process that included time-consuming research on the history of the house and its architectural design, as well as appearing before a review board in Richmond to defend the house's historical significance.
Their hard work has paid off. The Fannie Thompson House is officially a historic landmark in Virginia and McCaskey has plans to restore the house over the next 4 to 5 years.
It took McCaskey 8 years to track down all the heirs of the Thompson estate.
"My day job is lawyering, so I was able to do that," he said. He'd been curious about the house for sometime. McCaskey has experience in historic preservation and renovation and was working to restore an old log building in Mount Sidney when he began researching the Fannie Thompson House.
McCaskey was able to purchase the first piece of the property in 2001 and now owns the house and the property.
Lived in by former slaves, and their children
The Fannie Thompson House was originally a one-room cabin and not built on the current site. It was moved to the corner of U.S. 11 and Old Staunton Road in 1876 and occupied by Thompson and her husband, although the Thompson's didn't purchase the house from the original owner — Joseph Anderson — until 1906.
Fannie Thompson was an illiterate laundress born into slavery about 1846, died April 6, 1932. Her father was Sam Harper and her mother was probably Viney Harper. In the first census after the Civil War, Fannie is living in an African-American household of 11 people so almost certainly they were not yet living in the Greenville cabin although they were within close proximity, according to the application submitted by McCaskey and Sorrells to the review board.
A lot happened to the Thompsons between the 1880 census and the one taken in 1900. Fannie Thompson’s husband, Shed, who was a member of Mt. Ead Church, had died, and the Thompsons had moved to the Greenville black community to reside in the house that would eventually be known in the community as the Fannie Thompson house. The 1890 census does not exist, but the 1900 census clearly shows the Thompsons in the house.
A second story frame addition was built onto the cabin in 1913. Although Fannie Thompson died in 1932, her son lived in the house until the 1950s. Following his death, a cousin — Sue Porter — and her husband lived in the house until 1974. It has been unoccupied since.
The arrival of the railway and both World Wars created jobs and opportunities for African Americans and following the end of World War II, many did not want to return to the Jack's Hill neighborhood which could not support a septic system or wells. The community began to scatter and the neighborhood would never return to what it had been following the conclusion of the Civil War.
"They just didn't want to come back to live in a tiny house on a rocky hill with no septic system or well water," McCaskey said.
McCaskey and Sorrells have teamed up on projects like this one for years and so it made sense that the two would tackle the arduous task of securing landmark status for the Fannie Thompson House.
Sorrells was actually responsible for securing the funds needed to get that area of Greenville on a septic system during her time on the Board of Supervisors, thanks to grants.
The state review board, which meets quarterly weighs whether a property or site is historically significant based on certain criteria.
Sorrells argued that the Fannie Thompson House — the last of its kind — represented emancipation in Augusta County, the Jim Crow south and the Civil Rights movement, all of which made the house a historically significant site.
"This place is not Mount Vernon," Sorrells said. "It's a laboring class house. It's one of the rarest types of houses because it wasn't torn down."
When Sorrells and McCaskey made their case to the state review board, there were seven houses in consideration for historic landmark status. Sorrells said she could tell by the reaction of the board, made up of historians and architects, they were impressed with the presentation.
"Ours was the most unique," she said.
Approval came unanimously from the review board.