Tag: Jeff Werner

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History course: Unmarked graves, likely belonging to enslaved, found in Pen Park

Ground-penetrating radar has revealed dozens of unmarked graves in Pen Park. Each colored dash represents a burial site. Image courtesy City of Charlottesville

Tucked behind Meadowcreek Golf Course in Pen Park, just a few yards from where pink-shirted golfers putt the afternoon away, there’s a small, old, weatherbeaten cemetery. The Gilmer, Craven, and Hotopp family plots are indicated by low stone walls and rusted fencing. Inside the cemetery, a few dozen faded and worn graves stand askew among the rough grass.

The cemetery—or, more precisely, the land just outside the cemetery—was recently the site of a striking archeological discovery. Ground-penetrating radar has identified roughly 43 unmarked graves just outside the walls of the established cemetery. These unmarked graves likely belong to people who were enslaved by the Gilmer and Craven families.

Jeff Werner, the city’s preservation manager, presented the new findings to City Council at Monday’s meeting.

A collection of divots in the earth behind the cemetery piqued Werner’s curiosity last year, and this summer the city enlisted Rivanna Archeological Services and NAEVA Geophysics to conduct a high-tech radar scan of the area. Though the radar can’t tell exactly what’s buried beneath the surface, the pattern of objects it detected at Pen Park paints a clear picture. “The sizes, depths, rows, the east-west orientation are all consistent with human burials,” Werner said. 

The location of the graves—on the opposite side from the entrance—is another indication that these are the graves of enslaved people. The Gilmers owned the land from 1777 to 1812, and the Cravens owned it from 1819 to 1845. Both families held slaves. The Hotopp family bought the land in 1866, and some of the unmarked graves may belong to people who worked for the Hotopps shortly after the Civil War. The city acquired the land and created the park in 1970.

Though excavation could provide more information about the location and quantity of the burials, Werner said he feels that “the GPR findings are conclusive enough to establish the presence of human graves here without further physical disturbance.”

Unmarked burials are common in Virginia and Charlottesville. This year, NAEVA and the city collaborated on a similar GPR survey at Daughters of Zion Cemetery, where roughly 140 graves are marked, and ground-penetrating radar confirmed an additional 500 unmarked graves below the surface.

At the council meeting, Mayor Nikuyah Walker said the city had an obligation to address the Pen Park discovery, and that the first step would be to reach out to as many descendants of those buried there as possible. “I think that’s a very important part, to figure out how they would want their ancestors to be honored,” she said.

Werner said the Gilmer and Craven families must have known the unmarked graves were there, since the surrounding area was never disturbed, but that written records of the site as a graveyard are hard to find.

“These graves are all unmarked, and finding which individual was buried where is going to be quite difficult, if not impossible,” said Ben Ford, a principal investigator at Rivanna Archeological Services. “But this type of research has been done… Three large institutions in our area, Monticello, Montpelier, and UVA, have done in-depth, long-term genealogical research. There are resources and individuals that can be of tremendous help.”

For now, Werner and Ford recommend the city take time for “reflection and discussion” before further action.

 

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Slow going: Water Street coal tower restoration project at a standstill

The stairs that led to the top of the coal tower have been removed, but the base and surrounding dirt area are easily accessible. (Photo: Matt Weyrich)

Charlottesville’s C&O train station closed its doors in 1986, but that hasn’t kept the building and its adjacent coal tower out of headlines in the three decades since.

The site of both a double homicide and an apparent suicide, the abandoned tower became a popular hangout spot for drug users and the homeless in the early 2000s. Despite the structure’s checkered history, the land surrounding it on East Water Street was bought out and developed into C&O Row, a string of pricey townhomes that some residents have already moved into while construction for the rest of the buildings is underway.

While the luxury residences are being sold around $1 million apiece, conditions at the coal tower itself have deteriorated; graffiti and overgrown vines line the exterior walls of the base, and a hole on the side of the tower opens up to a crawl space littered with dirt, garbage, and chunks of concrete. A small construction fence separates the tower from the sidewalk, but it’s only a few feet tall and doesn’t wrap around the entire structure.

 

A proposal to turn the area underneath and around the tower into a pocket park complete with a covered patio, bocce court, and dog park was approved by the Charlottesville Board of Architectural Review on August 21, 2018, but construction on that project—and the rehabilitation of the tower in general—has yet to begin, and no one seems to know why.

“The maintenance, improvements at the structure, they could’ve been doing those whenever,” says Jeff Werner, a city planner with Neighborhood Development Services. “As far as the [park], I don’t think you need a building permit for a bocce court.”

There was a holdup on the project in July 2018, when the BAR postponed the proposal over some original 1940s metal the developers wanted to remove. They came up with a resolution a month later, meaning the only thing standing in the way of property owner Choco-Cruz LLC, a Richmond-based company operated by local developer Alan Taylor, moving forward with the project is an application for building permits.

“The other elements like the vent stacks, the pulley on one side, those things that date from the original coal tower will be retained,” says Joseph “Jody” Lahendro, a historic preservation architect on the BAR.

Taylor, the president of Riverbend Development in Charlottesville, didn’t respond to requests for comment, and Riverbend’s Vice President Ashley Davies admits she isn’t up to speed on the project. She says it’s being overseen by project manager Joe Simpson, who Davies says recently celebrated the birth of his child (Simpson also didn’t respond to a request for comment).

Over at City Hall, urban designer Carrie Rainey says Choco-Cruz still needs approval for a light fixture design and historical landmark sign, but Werner insists that shouldn’t be holding up any progress on the rehabilitation of the coal tower. There were questions surrounding the design for a retaining wall and stormwater drainage as well, but those have since been resolved.

Werner has reached out to city building inspectors and asked that they examine the structure’s conditions to determine whether there are any safety hazards. He says there’s confusion among C&O Row residents over who’s responsible for the coal tower’s upkeep, and one has already contacted him to complain about the state of the structure.

For now, there’s no indication as to what the timeline will be for both the rehabilitation and park projects, but the Certificate of Appropriateness that allows for Choco-Cruz to apply for the building permits required for construction expires by March 2020. The company could request an extension if needed, but would have to appear before the BAR again in order to do so.

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Distressed: Historic Tonsler house needs help

The Benjamin Tonsler House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places but has not had proper upkeep. (Photo: Stephen Barling)

By Ben Hitchcock

The roof of the front porch is missing, leaving exposed wood visible from the road. A notice from the Board of Architectural Review approving a window replacement has hung on the front door since 2017. Unused scrap wood sits piled in the side yard. Neighbors report that until last week, the grass in the front lawn was more than a foot high.

This isn’t just any house in need of repair: It’s the former home of Benjamin Tonsler, a self-made educator and prominent Charlottesville citizen who led the Jefferson School for more than 30 years, at a time when African Americans struggled to get an equal education.

For 38 years, Tonsler lived in a handsome house on Sixth Street SW in Fifeville. His home was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, a recognition that reflects Tonsler’s impact on Charlottesville’s black community.

Now, the house has fallen into disrepair. The poor condition of the property has raised questions about the city’s ability and responsibility to oversee the maintenance of historic, privately owned dwellings.

Tonsler was born a slave in 1854. He attended the Jefferson School himself, and then the Hampton Institute, where he befriended Booker T. Washington. He returned to the Jefferson School and served as principal from 1883 until his death in 1917.

When discriminatory laws made it illegal for black students to receive education past eighth grade, Tonsler held secret classes for high schoolers at the Jefferson School after hours. If the white superintendent visited, the students would quickly hide the books.

An exhibit at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center describes Tonsler as “a stern disciplinarian” who “believed in academic education” rather than vocational training. Tonsler also served on the board of directors of the Piedmont Industrial and Land Improvement Company, an organization dedicated to providing opportunities for black people to purchase and finance homes at affordable prices. He is the namesake of Charlottesville’s Tonsler Park, and is buried in the Daughters of Zion Cemetery.

“Mr. Benjamin E. Tonsler was one of Charlottesville’s most prominent citizens,” says Edwina St. Rose, who works as part of a group dedicated to preserving the cemetery. “[He] was largely responsible for the education of hundreds of local African Americans.”

On June 3, C-VILLE Weekly and the city both separately contacted owners Ryan Rooney and Kevin Badke about the house. Later that day, a crew was spotted cutting the grass.

Rooney and Badke purchased the property in 2016. The pair also own of a handful of local restaurants, including Trinity Irish Pub, Coupe’s, and The Fitzroy.

The Tonsler family owned the home until 1983, when they sold it to Curtis Morton Jr. Morton worked to restore it to its original state, and the house was added to the National Register of Historic Places less than a year after he bought it. “He put a lot of time and energy into the house,” says Harold Timmeny, a friend of the late Morton.

But Rooney says when they acquired the place, “The inside was extremely distressed, and we felt at risk of actually collapsing.”

Some work has been done, stresses Rooney. “We have installed all new plumbing, electrical, HVAC, gas lines, and insulation.”

He acknowledges the planned renovations have been progressing slowly. “To be very honest, we have not done a very good job with [landscaping] because we assumed the work and construction would have killed most of it by this point.”

Rooney says the pair have no plans to sell. “We wanted a house with a lot of character that was a ‘project.’”

Jeff Werner, the city’s preservation manager, oversees the maintenance of historic sites like this one. In this case, he says, the renovations require time and money that the city isn’t in the business of providing.

“Restoring that front porch, it’s not something you go buy at Lowe’s,” says Werner. “It’s not as easy as the city simply coming in and saying, ‘This time we’ll do it, we’re gonna do it for them.’”

Says Werner, “We as a community, we value history. We’ve established that…but it still is someone’s property.”

The house is listed as one of Charlottesville’s 74 individual protected properties, a historic designation that requires Board of Architectural Review approval for all exterior changes. The IPP designation does not mean that the city is responsible for carrying out updates and renovations on the building.

Werner fears that threatening to fine the owners for a zoning violation would result in more inaction. If the two sides reach another impasse, “the house loses, the property loses, and the community loses,” he says.

St. Rose suggests the city could have taken a more proactive approach to the situation. “The owner of an historic property is responsible for its upkeep,” she says, “but when the owner neglects that responsibility, it is incumbent on the municipality to take whatever means available to ensure that the historic property is not lost.”

June 13: The house’s exterior damage was clarified.

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Historic effort: Burley High on its way to landmark status

Local activist Jimmy Hollins, who attended Burley High School (now a middle school, above) when it was “colored-only,” led a campaign for the school to receive landmark status. Photo by Skyclad Aerial

Last fall, after Burley Middle School unveiled a monument wall listing the names of students who attended the segregated school from 1951 to 1967, local activist Jimmy Hollins began circulating a petition to officially designate it a historic landmark.

Burley is one of three operating Virginia schools that had once been all-black, as it was when Hollins, 71, attended from 1960 to 1965. The Burley Varsity Club, a nonprofit co-founded by Hollins, collected over 500 signatures and sent a letter to the Albemarle County superintendent.

The Albemarle County School Board approved a resolution for the designation February 14. Next, the proposal goes to the Virginia Landmarks Register, which would officially grant historic status to the school. Then, an application would be submitted to the National Register of Historic Places to designate it a national landmark.

Burley’s unique story makes it a strong candidate for historic designation.

In the late 1940s, Charlottesville and Albemarle County decided to build Burley to show proponents of integration that public schools could truly be “separate but equal,” a common strategy in Southern localities at the time. The city and county provided Burley ample funding, hired top-shelf teachers, and distributed substantial resources to its athletic programs–all in the hopes of maintaining segregation.

At first, it seemed as though the plan may have worked. Burley was built to replace Jefferson and Esmont high schools and Albemarle Training School. “I think all the black kids wanted to go to Burley,” says Hollins, who played defensive tackle on the football team. “Charlottesville had police officers and firefighters who went to Burley, and UVA nursing school worked to get black nurses for UVA hospital from Burley.”

But the U.S. Supreme Court, in its 1954 unanimous Brown v. Board of Education ruling, determined that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal” because segregating black children on the basis of race “generates a feeling of inferiority…in a way unlikely to ever be undone,” wrote Chief Justice Earl Warren. Regardless of quality, schools would have to integrate.

In the years between Brown and Hollins’ first year at Burley, Virginia Governor James Lindsay Almond Jr. shifted his efforts to actively resisting integration, temporarily closing Venable Elementary and Lane High schools in 1958 to avoid admitting black students. But his efforts were repeatedly quashed by mandatory desegregation orders from federal courts, and in 1959, the first black students enrolled at Lane and Venable.

Facing yearly declines in enrollment, Burley converted to a school for seventh graders from the overflowing Jack Jouett Junior High in 1967, then reopened as an integrated middle school in 1973.

Jeff Werner, historic designation and design planner with the city, decided to team up with Hollins after discovering they had a common interest: Since Burley Middle School is squarely within the Rose Hill neighborhood, designating the school could help the effort to preserve the entire historically black area, which has many homes dating from 1900 to 1930.

Werner inherited the project of designating Rose Hill a historic district from his predecessor, Mary Joy Scala.

Last summer, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources deemed Rose Hill eligible for historic status. This has granted special protections, since eligibility alone requires state agencies to take steps to mitigate potential damages when working in the district, even though its status has not yet changed.

Designating Burley a historic landmark “really changes the narrative,” Werner says. “Think about what that means to these individuals. That’s invaluable.”

Hollins concurs. “If I could go back to Burley I would do it all over again,” he says. “It was a family.” And one with a proud history, including the Burley Bears’ 1956 undefeated football season, which Hollins wants to make sure is not forgotten.