Why Crozet: Every Structure Has a Story to Tell

Breakfast was cornmeal mush, lunch was a baloney sandwich, and dinner was brown beans or macaroni and cheese, with vegetables from the garden. Sunday was for fried chicken, and when Grandma made fresh cornbread, you hurried over. That’s how it was in a typical week in Freetown, when Richard Brown was growing up there with his parents, his three sisters and his brother.

The baloney and bread came from Patterson’s Store, a nearby country store. The building, on the north side of U.S. 250 between Brownsville and Yancey Mills, is gone, but Brown remembers the owners very well. “They were Christians, I mean real Christians, not like some today,” he said. “If anyone needed anything, the owners would make sure they got fed. White or Black, it didn’t matter.” In particular, John Patterson—who also taught Sunday school at Hillsboro Baptist Church for decades—was beloved by the community. The Pattersons owned a mill as well as the grocery store and service station, so hungry shoppers in need could pay their store bill by shucking corn.

With his baloney sandwich and his books, Brown would walk from his home in Freetown to Hillsboro School. His travels took him along Hillsboro Lane, then the major thoroughfare to the west of Crozet. His walk gave him the chance to stop at the Apperson Store, where he could buy two gingersnaps for a penny. That, along with the sandwich and the milk furnished by the school, made for a fine lunch. The store, also long gone, was on the northeast corner of Hillsboro Lane and Half-Mile Branch.

On the way home, Brown stopped again, this time to check in with Mrs. Richard Yancey, mother of the Yancey clan connected with the saw mill. Elizabeth Apperson (related to the Appersons who ran the store) almost always had something for him to do: load stove wood, rake leaves or sweep the porch. She also employed several other members of the Brown family, most notably his grandfather, who was her right-hand man. She encouraged all of them to fill their pockets from the pecan trees in her yard.

The home, like other landmarks familiar to the children who once traveled that path, is no longer there. It’s the most recent of the buildings on Brown’s path to be demolished, after contractors advised the owners, Hillsboro Baptist Church, that restoration would be too costly because of mold and asbestos.

Richard Brown and others who treasure Crozet’s history regret the loss of the Yancey House and the other homes, store buildings, schools and churches they grew to love. Crozet’s Rob Langdon has interviewed Brown for many years, recorded him and written about him extensively. He expressed the loss this way: “(While the) Yancey House was certainly a vital piece of local history, its loss feels less about the physical building and more about what vanishes when we lose the stories tied to places like it.”

Once he got a bicycle, Brown could cover more ground and, once he was 16, he drove the school bus, picking up Black students from Nelson County, Batesville, Crozet, and Ivy. It was a two-hour route that required him to start out at 7 a.m. to get the students to Albemarle Training School by 9:05.

Brown also has memories of Crozet Elementary School for African-American students, just west of Union Mission Baptist Church, near the C&O tracks, a building also torn down, although the church still stands. Once there was a community center there that had programs for the neighborhood’s young people. Brown especially remembers programs with a ventriloquist, fried chicken dinners and bingo.

Once he got a little older, Brown headed towards Jerry’s Place, the restaurant and dance hall north of the railroad, operated by Hercules Jerry, a place known in the Black community as Huck’s. Historian and writer Phil James wrote that Huck’s was operated by Hercules and his wife, Chaney, from 1939 until about 1960. This building, now gone, is tied to many stories from Brown’s days as a good-looking and fun-loving young man. “Those were the Elvis years,” he said. “We danced to his music, and there were live acts from Richmond, Roanoke, and Norfolk.” Favorites on the record player at Huck’s were songs by Chuck Berry and Jackie Wilson as well as Elvis.

Brown’s memories remind us that the humble dwellings and commercial spaces from the past have as much to say (maybe more to say) about how life used to be as the grand mansions that a few wealthy people called home. Sadly, there’s little incentive to preserve them. Still, said restoration architect Jody Lahendro, a community can find ways to learn about the history of their neighborhood and take steps to keep the structures that have meant so much to the generations before us.

Although preservation resources are skewed to protect the buildings considered architecturally grand or historically significant, the humble cottages, churches, stores, mills and outbuildings from our past tell an important and perhaps more realistic story of everyday life.

There are still things we can do to save these important artifacts, said preservation architect Joseph Lahendro. Since he retired from his position at the University of Virginia in 2021, he has been working with historically Black communities to preserve the beloved structures of their past.

“Think twice when a contractor tells you that there’s a mold or asbestos problem,” he said.

“For the mold, the best step anyone can take is to prevent it in the first place.” He recommends checking basements, crawl spaces and attics at least once a year to monitor moisture and finding the best ways to keep them dry.

In some places, that means providing ventilation, he said. In others it means forming a barrier or moving shrubbery a distance from the foundation. “Go outside when it rains and examine how the rain is running off your building, and look for problems in gutters and downspouts.”

As for asbestos: “Using that as a reason for demolishing a historic structure makes no sense. The very act of demolition requires contractors to contain the asbestos, just as if they were renovating.”

He suggests that homeowners consult with a contractor with experience in preservation before giving up on a structure. He also recommends finding local support, such as getting in touch with the Albemarle Historical Society.

Another kind of empowerment can come from banding together with neighbors, he said. If there are a number of structures in your neighborhood with an interesting past, form a neighborhood group. “Learn about your history. Educate your neighbors. Get together a group committed to preservation. Send out a newsletter.”

This enables neighbors to share information on contractors familiar with historic renovation, ideas for everyday maintenance and the importance of your property to people you may have never met.

It all comes down to one important piece of advice, one that actually applies to every home, whether historic or not, Lahendro said: “Pay attention. That’s the way you preserve buildings.”