Gwynn's Island Project
Black Landowners
Black Landowners on Gwynn's Island
Following are names of formerly enslaved people documented as owning land on Gwynn's Island.
Click on button beneath each name to download deed for original land purchase.
Beginning in 1872, land was sold to Black people in two parts:
Gwynnsville, along Gwynn’s Road (now Gwynnsville Road) and Edward's Road (now South Bay Haven) and, from 1900-1908, Slingshot Alley, (now Rose Lane) which is the present location Gwynn's Island Museum (old Odd Fellows Lodge)
Benjamin B. Dutton was a land speculator (born 1811 @ Gloucester, VA), who acquired and sold land on Gwynn's Island.
5 of the parcels were sold to Black people.
Later, he sold at least 100 acres to White men moving from mainland Mathews County to Gwynn's Island.
His 1860 slave schedule documents ownership of 36 people @ Mathews County.
Click on link below to download database of land transactions from 1872-1983.
Original records of land transactions can be found at the Mathews County Courthouse.
William M. Smith
William M. Smith (1846-Aft. 1916), was the first Black landowner on Gwynn’s Island.
A “Billy” appears in Mary T. Hudgins Edwards’ inventory of enslaved people “seized by the Yankees” in 1863.
In January 1865, William enlisted in the Union Army and served in the 1st Colored Cavalry.
Soon after the end of the Civil War, he married Dolly Gwynn Jones, the daughter of William and Harriet Jones.
In 1870, William and Dolly are listed in the federal census at Piankatank with two children, James and Harriet. William is an oysterman.
In 1872, William bought four acres of farmland and one acre of woodland from H.B. Dutton for $75.
His brother Augustine purchased three acres for $45 in the same area in September 1872.
In 1895, their mother Rebecca sold Augustine's land to William for $23 and support for the remainder of her life.
It is presumed that Augustine passed away prior to this transaction.
In 1916, William sold these properties: three acres to B.F. Powell (White) for $500; one acre to Joseph Johnson & Ida Belle Smith (his daughter) for $40, and four acres to James Sidney Mitchem (White) for $550.
Ida Belle Smith Johnson sold her acre to Roland Respess, and his heirs in 1921 for $200.
William Jones
WiWilliam Jones (1808-aft. 1870) was the second recorded Black landowner on Gwynn’s Island.
While enslaved, he was the overseer on the Mary Tompkins Hudgins Edwards plantation.
Mary called him “almost master of the land” when the Union army seized her possessions in 1863.
In 1872, William purchased four acres of farmland and one acre of woodland from H.B. Dutton for $75.
The land remained in his ownership until his death, after which it was divided among his children from his second marriage:
Anna Dora Johnson, Benjamin, W. Lewis Jones, Laura Smith & Lettie West.
Jones family land land was sold to Mary Wroten (White) in 1916 (1 acre @ $100), James A. Rowe (White) in 1916 (.5 acres @ $100),
Alonzo Foster (White) (2.5 acres @ $220) in 1920, Carroll Godsey (White) (1 acre @ $275) in 1920, and James A. Rowe (White) in 1939 (.5 acres @ $75).
George Henry Coleman
George Coleman (1848-1916) migrated from Fredericksburg to Mathews County before 1870 and married Catherine, sister of William M. Smith.
He purchased three acres from H.B. Dutton in 1872 for $45.
After Catherine died in 1880, he married Rosa Sweede.
His property, mortgaged to Washington Respess (White) in 1880 for half of a sloop, was sold in 1886 to George W. Cooper (Black) for $140.
He died on April 7, 1916.
George W. Cooper
George W. Cooper (1848-1903) was born in Goochland.
He was the only one in his family to move to Gwynn’s Island, where he purchased land from George H. Coleman in 1886 (3 acres @ $140).
A lifelong bachelor, he lived for 20 years with a wealthy White man, Charles A. Hill (born in NH).
His four siblings, all at Goochland, sold his land when he died to Benjamin Franklin Powell (White), for $180.
Parker Hayes
Parker Hayes (1846-1920) was enslaved by William Houlder Hudgins, who inherited him as a small child from his father, Walter Gwynn Hudgins.
At age 17, Parker was “seized” by Captain Andrews of the USS Crusader, a gunboat employed to blockade Confederates in 1863.
In 1872, Parker purchased two acres of land for $30 from H.B. Dutton.
Two weeks after he died on May 11, 1920, his daughter, Julia Hayes Peachey, sold his land to Roland Respess (White) for $300.
John Hayes
John Hayes (1850-1918), a Baptist minister and the brother of Parker Hayes, preached at the the Church of the Rising Sun.
The quarter acre church property, containing a school house and cemetery, was purchased in 1896 from Joseph L. Callis (White)
by trustees William M. Smith, Richard Frazier and Beverly Jones.
In 1902, John Hayes purchased 1.33 acres adjoining the church from Lewis N. Powell (White) for $30.
About a year later, his son, Willie Hayes, also a Baptist minister, purchased .13 acres from Joseph L. Callis for $15.
His land was 20 feet from his father’s church.
Deed
Richard Frazier
Richard Frazier (1865-1916) was a trustee of the Rising Sun Baptist Church.
In 1902, he purchased .33 acres from Lewis N. Powell (White) for $10. In 1904, he borrowed $25 from Charles Hudgins (White) against his land.
He left a written will that granted use of the land to his son Jerome Frazier until 1914. Frazier's wife Millie/Mittie paid taxes on the land, but the payments lapsed likely after her death (year unknown).
The Frazier family lost the land in 1983 due to unpaid taxes.
Deed
Deed
Charles West
Charles West (1862-1926), a fisherman from Middlesex County, purchased one acre from Benjamin Jones in 1911 for $35.
West was married to Benjamin's sister Lettie.
He sold half of it almost immediately to Joshua Gayle (Black) for $50.
He sold one acre to Mary A. Wroten (White) for $100, and 1/2-acre to James A. Rowe (White) for $100 in 1916.
Joshua Gayle
Joshua Gayle (1868-1920), the husband of William Jones’ granddaughter Elenora/Elnora Johnson, purchased 1/2-acre in 1911 from Charles West.
His acreage contained the “colored schoolhouse”.
His heirs sold the land to James A. Rowe (White) in 1939 for $75.
The deed was recorded in 1941, when the Gayle family was living in Queens, NY.
Arthur Respess
Arthur Respess (1866-Bef 1956), the son-in-law of William Smith, purchased 1.5 acres in 1900 from Robert E. Edwards.
He was the first Black person to purchase land in this section of the Island, now called Rose Lane.
It was located behind the Odd Fellows Lodge, which was converted to a White high school in 1910. (The Lodge is now the Gwynn's Island Museum.)
He sold his land in 1920 to T. Wesley Buckhannon for $750 but continued to pay taxes on it until 1924 (when Buckhannon likely paid off the debt).
Deed
Deed
William Creighton
William Creighton (1872-1933), a fisherman, purchased 2.5 acres in 1902 from Robert E. Edwards in Slingshot Alley.
In 1921, he sold his land to neighbor Addie Carney Owens for $150, a price only a little more than the $135 tax he paid.
He moved to Hampton, where he worked in an oyster plant.
Estranged from his wife Beulah (nee McKnight), he died in the Norfolk almshouse in 1933.
Beverly Jones
Beverly Jones (1855-1941) purchased 2 acres in the Rose Lane area for $100 in 1903. He took out three mortgages against his property, all repaid.
After marrying his second wife, he sold his land in 1905 to Andrew Jackson Smith and in 1906 to Thomas Jefferson Purley, for $50 per acre.
He lived the rest of his life in Mathews, where his wife owned property. He died there in 1941.
Charles Roy
Charles Roy (1883-1952), a farmer and fisherman, purchased two acres in the Rose Lane area in 1905 from Robert E. Edwards for $100.
Originally from Middlesex County, he married Anne Virginia "Pinky" Smith, the daughter of William M. Smith.
He moved to the Hampton area in 1920 and, in 1922, sold his land to George Buckhannon (White) for $450.
In 1930, he was living in Philadelphia.
Deed
Deed
Willie Peachey
Willie Peachey (1879-1932), purchased 2.3 acres in the Rose Lane area in 1905 from Vitallius Hudgins for $110.
Like most men on the Island, he worked as a fisherman.
He and his wife Sally (nee Hayes) moved to Hampton in 1918. He sold his land to Perry Collier in 1920 for $125 cash plus a $625 deed of trust.
Willie died in Hampton in 1932. Wife Sally died in 1986 at 101 years of age.
Andrew J. Smith
Andrew J. Smith (1857-1944), brother of William M. Smith, purchased one acre from Beverly Jones (Black) in the Rose Lane area in 1905 for $50.
He then purchased two more acres in the Rose Lane area from Susie Hill (White) in 1909 for $100.
In 1915, he mortgaged both acres for $35, which was paid in full in 1918.
He sold one acre adjoining the colored cemetery to E. Filmore Forrest (White) for $25 in 1918, but continued to live on the second acre until 1920, when he sold it to George Pierson (White) for $275. What happened to the third acre is unknown.
Thomas J. Purley
Thomas J. Purley/Perley (1879-1953) purchased one acre from Beverly Jones (Black) in the Rose Lane area in 1906 for $50.
He married Jennie Gwynn of the Mathews mainland.
By 1920, he and Jennie had moved to Thomas’ hometown of Grafton in York County.
In 1939, he sold his land at a considerable loss to George Pierson for $25. Descendants say that he refused to sell his land many times during the intervening years.
Henry & Clarence Coleman
Charles Henry (1882-1961) and Clarence Coleman (1883-1919), sons of George Henry Coleman and Catherine Smith, together purchased one acre in the Rose Lane area in 1916 from Robert E. Edwards for $100.
Their land was sold in 1921 to Charles M. Hudgins for $100.
At the time of the sale, Henry and his wife Virginia (nee Gwynn) were living in Hampton.
Clarence died in Hampton in 1919.
John Henry Jackson
John Henry Jackson (1844-????) purchased 2.4 acres in the Rose Lane area in 1906 from William A. Diggs, a farmer and fisherman, for $137.
Historians believe Jackson was enslaved by Mary T. Hudgins Edwards and that he worked for her family after the Civil War.
John mortgaged his property for $40, paid in full in 1918.
After the family moved to Hampton in 1919, he transferred the land to his son Martin Luther Jackson (1872-1936) for $10.
In 1922, Martin Luther sold the property to J.C. Hudgins for $250.
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