Hiding in plain sight, William & Mary building identified as New World’s oldest still-standing school for Black children

WILLIAMSBURG — Analysis of the frame of a small, non-descript building on the College of William & Mary campus has helped identify an important structure: one of the first Black schools in the New World, and the only known one still standing.

Results of dendrochronology — a scientific method that uses tree rings to reveal when timber was harvested — indicate the wood used to build the frame was felled in late 1759 or early 1760.

That aligns neatly with the 1760 opening of the Bray School, established to give Black children a “Christian education” — which included reading and possibly writing, but also encouraged them to accept bondage as part of God’s plan.

Terry Meyers, a now-retired W&M English professor, has been researching archives and hunting for the schoolhouse since 2004, propelled by his interest in the lesser-known parts of Colonial Williamsburg’s history.

Meyers could pin down its original location on Prince George Street, but the structure was moved down the lane in 1930 — it wasn’t clear exactly where — and renovated and enlarged until it no longer resembled the cottage it once was.

He almost gave up several times, convinced the structure must have been torn down long ago. But persistence eventually paid off, leading him to the right spot, now part of the campus, and a building the college had been using as offices for its Military Science Department.

The cottage that once housed the Bray School in 18th-century Williamsburg was renovated and enlarged over the years, as shown, until it was nearly impossible to recognize. (Colonial Williamsburg)

Standing out front, mentally stripping away the additions and altered roof line, “all of the sudden I could see it, the way it used to be,” Meyers said. “An incredible moment.”

In a town as exhaustively inventoried as Colonial Williamsburg — 88 restored historic structures — finding a hidden one is a surprise.

“Pretty cool,” said Ron Hurst, Colonial Williamsburg’s vice president for museums, preservation and historic resources.

Beneath the siding and inside, much of the 260-year-old building remains intact: the first-floor frame, walnut staircase, window sashes, floor boards, at least one original chimney.

“We’ll know more when we get into the restoration,” Hurst said.

If things go well, the building will be on the move again, taken off campus and into the historic area where tourists can visit and learn about a complicated chapter.

“The population of Williamsburg was 52% African American at the time of the Revolutionary War,” Hurst said. “Our goal is to tell the full story.”

The school was part of an organization called the Associates of Dr. Bray. The mission of the London-based group, founded by English clergyman Thomas Bray: indoctrinate African American slaves with a “proper religious education.”

A handful of Bray Schools were opened in the colonies. At the suggestion of Benjamin Franklin, one was located in Williamsburg.

Housed for its first five years in the cottage on Prince George Street, the school was overseen by the college and employed one teacher, a white woman named Anne Wager. Some of the students were the boys or girls of free Blacks, but most were the children of slaves, sent by their owners.

Motivations surely varied. “Some took the responsibility for the souls of slaves and free Blacks very seriously,” Meyers said, even as they perpetuated and justified society’s treatment of them.

Conditioning Black people to accept their lot in life was a common theme of the era. An example: the message of a noted clergyman of the day, Thomas Bacon, who preached to enslaved congregations in Williamsburg.

Basically, Meyers said, “he told them that some of us are born to be masters, princes and kings and some are born to be enslaved, and we should accept our role in God’s divine order.”

As absurd and offensive as that thinking is viewed now, Hurst said, “I try to put myself in the mindset of the period. Today, we are too ready to condemn people from the past — whether it be Ancient Rome or World War II — for not having 21st century values. Every human ever born is a product of his or her time and place. Our job is to learn from that.”

Some slaveowners sent children to the Bray School to enhance their practical value. Deportment and sewing skills were part of the curriculum. In order to study the Bible and other religious tracts, students were taught to read — useful for tasks beyond the field. Slate pencils unearthed at the original schoolhouse site — nearly 50 fragments — indicate they were also being taught how to write.

Reading and writing were later outlawed for slaves, a teaching ban aimed at blocking communication that might foment unified rebellion. During the colonial period in Virginia, no such laws existed, but writing was still eyed with uneasiness.

“The danger in teaching writing,” Meyers said, “was that the enslaved could then forge passes and move about more freely than they could otherwise.”

Records from the Williamsburg school don’t specifically mention writing as part of the instruction, but “we found more slate pencil fragments on that site than in the rest of the historical area combined,” Hurst said.

The seeds of knowledge planted there grew into an immeasurable legacy. The Bray School operated for 14 years in Williamsburg, moving to a second home when it outgrew the first, enrolling roughly 400 pupils before closing in 1774.

That might not seem like many, but Bray students shared their newfound literacy with others in the Black community.

“Once you learn to read the Bible,” Meyers said, “you can read the Declaration of Independence.”

As for writing, Meyers said, lore has it that in the 1800s, Blacks in Williamsburg were able to do exactly what the colonials had feared. Slaves escaping from the South came through town, where they were furnished with fake passes, allowing them to board ships in Norfolk bound for Baltimore and freedom.

If true, “they put those skills into service for emancipation,” Meyers said. “Any education is liberating. Even one that’s used to teach subservience.”

Joanne Kimberlin, 757-446-2338, joanne.kimberlin@pilotonline.com