African Americans in Early Bluemont
Before the Civil War, James Fields, a free African American, became the first to own property on the Blue Ridge slope behind what is now the Bluemont General Store.
In the years following the war, Benjamin Franklin Young trained under the guidance of white physician George Plaster, eventually becoming the first black physician in Loudoun County. In 1871, he bought 17 acres from Plaster on the same slope and began selling smaller parcels to other African Americans, helping them achieve homeownership. Dennis Weaver also acquired land from Plaster. These residents built homes, the First Baptist Church in 1888, and a school. An 1878 deed records the establishment of the first public school for Black residents in Snickersville (now Bluemont), located on land that also houses a building serving as both a school for the education of Black people and a place of worship for the community. The First Baptist Church of Bluemont was organized at this location in 1888. Dr. Benjamin Franklin Young is mentioned in the deed related to the Snickersville School. Many worked to support the hotels and boarding houses that catered to summer visitors from the cities.
By the twentieth century, more African Americans moved to Murphy’s Corner, just east of Bluemont. As older residents found it difficult to
walk the half-mile up the slope to attend church, the congregation decided to dismantle the church in 1920 and rebuild it on donated land in Murphy’s Corner.
Beatrice Scipio, a beloved teacher and graduate of Storer College, lived in a log house still standing at the corner of Snickersville Turnpike and Foggy Bottom Road. She taught for twenty years at the mountain school, but in 1933, the school board closed it due to declining enrollment. Some students could not afford transportation to nearby schools in Round Hill or Rock Hill (situated on Austin Grove Road about halfway between Upperville and Bluemont), so Beatrice tutored them after completing her substitute teaching assignments at other black schools.