Browse Items (51 total)

The picture on the left is an image of the original building for the First Baptist Church on its present location one block west of the courthouse. This is not the building that the trustees purchased in 1866. The picture on the right is an image of…

These documents are copies from the Freedmen's Bureau Field Office at Louisa Court House of the contract between John Cammack and the trustees of the First Baptist Church (including Fountain Perkins) for the purchase of the building that would become…

Church became a strong symbol in the African American community after the Civil War. To African Americans, the church was a place where they were in control and free of oppression. One of the first African American churches to be built and organized…

After his parent's death, Virginia law inhibited John Mercer Langston and the other children of Ralph Quarles and Lucy Langston from inheriting his father's estate. A friend, William Gooch, helped John and his brothers relocate in Ohio. As a young…

William Jackson Walton served as the Superintendent of the Jackson District from 1871 until 1884 when he became one of the earliest Superintendents of Schools in Louisa County. As Superintendent, Walton kept records of how many schools were in each…

This document is a contract between William B. Cocke and “his former servants.” The agreement specifies that his servants are to “bind themselves to go on to work on the farm and to do and attend to all the business…faithfully and…

This document is a sharecropping contract between Richard Kennon and Samuel Brown. The agreement specifies that Brown is to repair a house located on Kennon’s land. He must also cultivate the land around the house. Brown’s work must be complete…

This document is a contract between John A. Walker and Casina Shepard. The agreement specifies that Ms. Shepard is to perform her duties as a laborer on the property of Mr. Walker. She is to be given five dollars a month for her and her son’s work.…

“Schools may have been opened sooner in this district [Louisa Courthouse District] than some others, because the County seat was located here, it was more accessible, more thickly populated and easier for a number of people to assemble for…

John Mercer Langston was born on December 14, 1829 to a freed slave, Lucy Langston, and a white man of “extreme old age," Ralph Quarles. At the time of Langston's birth, Virginia law specified that all children would be born into a “free or bond…

In 1866, Lt. Jacob Roth, Assistant Superintendent at the Louisa field office of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Land (usually knows simply as The Freedmen's Bureau or B of R.F and AL) sent this report to his superior listing the…