Mar 19, 2019 Orange County Review
Last week I asked that readers contact me regarding cemeteries and settlements. I have yet to hear from anyone about the Higgins Settlement but I remain hopeful. However, I have learned of an African-American cemetery of great significance and have been privileged to walk its sacred grounds already!
I am not prepared at this time to reveal its association or its location, but I can share a few discoveries and projections. It appears that there may be more than 50 burials at this cemetery—which is considered quite large—and the initial conversations foretell a grand project to restore and research the history of the site and the stories of those associated with it. Please stay tuned.
In the interim, I have the pleasure of sharing the history of one individual who was associated with this site as well as several other sites in both Orange and Culpeper Counties: the Rev. William (Willis) Duvall (1854-1920).
To be clear, I had come across the name several years ago during two different research projects. I first learned of the Rev. Duvall while exploring the history of Baseball Hall of Famer John Preston “Pete” Hill, born in Buena, Culpeper County, Va., before relocating with his mother and two brothers to Pittsburgh, Pa. after 1885. I was curious about the relocation and the support or connections his mother would have needed to make that move.
I learned that upon her arrival, she joined a Baptist church that was pastored by a Rev. Willis Duvall. Researching the Rev. Duvall, I learned that he was from Virginia and born in Orange County, across the Rapidan from Buena. Pete Hill’s mother and her Seal family also were born in Orange County across the Rapidan from Buena. Were they from the same plantation? There are so many questions that may never be fully answered, but I was satisfied that the Rev. Duvall was her connection from Virginia to Pittsburgh.
When time allowed, I dug a bit deeper into the Rev. Duvall’s history, finding a write-up about him in Pittsburgh related to Rodman Street Missionary Baptist Church and then an obituary noting his passing on Jan. 9, 1920. It is advisable to read earlier news accounts with a grain of salt and a mandate to double-check such facts as dates, places and names. Nonetheless, combined with other data, the information is invaluable. According to the obituary, the Rev. Duvall returned to Virginia around 1894 and was pastoring four churches at the time of his death in 1920. While attempting to create a chronological map of the Rev. Duvall’s life, I hit a snag. Remember when I said earlier that I had run across his name in two separate research projects? The other was a study of the Orange County Freedmen’s Bureau records.
In a report regarding the newly established schools for freedmen, Willis Duvall’s name was associated with the one created in Orange County in 1866. The Rev. Willis Duvall would have been only 12 years old and not a likely candidate to be in charge of education for students of all ages.
(On a side note, the report lists the total number of students, as well as the number of males and females and the number of those over and under the age of 16. Interestingly, both a day program and a night program were offered. In the night program, there were 16 individuals enrolled, all of whom were over the age of 16.)
The obvious question was: Could the Rev. Willis Duvall’s father have been named Willis Duvall as well?
Until next week, be well.
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