Instructor

Charles Chesnutt began to attend school here in 1867. The Howard School was established by the Freedmen's Bureau with Andrew Jackson Chesnutt, Charles' father, serving as one of the trustees and by 1871, Charles was working as a pupil-teacher.In 1877, after the state of North Carolina designated Howard as the training site for "negro" teachers, Principal Robert Harris chose Charles Chesnutt, who was only 19 at the time, as his first assistant. The name of the school "was changed to the State Colored Normal School."In November 1880, Charles became principal of the school after Harris died of a long illness and would serve in this capacity until 1883 when he finally acted on his ambition to leave the South.Chesnutt was followed by E.E. Smith who served 1883-1888, 1895-1898, and 1899-1933 as the leader of the school.The library at Fayetteville State bears Chesnutt's name.

Charles Chesnutt: age 21 in 1879, just before taking over as principal of State Colored Normal School in Fayetteville.

The school as shown in 1908 on Gillespie Street. 

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In 1877, North Carolina selected Howard as the location of a training school for "colored" teachers. These teachers would fill the faculties of rural schools for recently freed slaves in the aftermath of the Civil War. State Colored Normal School would ultimately relocate to its Murchison Road location in 1908 and become Fayetteville State University in 1969.

The Howard School

Author Charles Chesnutt’s journals from 1874 to 1882 draw a picture of a restless young man of mixed race who spent much of his time in Fayetteville seeking an education both formal and informal. This tour highlights locations which were important to Chesnutt's life in Fayetteville during those years.

Charles Chesnutt's Fayetteville

Also known as "Fair Oaks", the home was built in 1858 and was occupied by the Federal Army during Sherman's time in Fayetteville in 1865 ("Fair Oaks"). The house is located less than a mile from the site of the arsenal which was destroyed during Sherman's occupation. According to the Fayetteville Area Convention and Visitor's Bureau: "During General Sherman's occupation of Fayetteville in 1865 some of the Union troops camped on the grounds. A silver tray bearing the bullet holes of Sherman's soldiers, who used the tray for target practice, still remains in the Lilly family." The home is currently a private residence so it can only be viewed from the street. There's very little parking available in the nearby area. Another view of the home can be seen from Lilly Drive (named after Dr. Lilly) which runs parallel to Morganton Road along the southern side of the property. The outbuildings are viewable from this area.

According to Sylvia Render, prominent businessman Dr. Edward J. Lilly (1813-1890) "let Charles enjoy what was considered the finest collection [of books] in the community-most of it imported from England and Scotland" (19).

Dr. Lilly's home still stands today on Morganton Road almost directly across from the former site of Confederate statue at the intersection of East and West Dobbin.

Books at Fair Oaks

The first was the Lafayette Hotel, which existed on the eastern corner of the two streets and burned in 1831. The Fayetteville Hotel was then built on the western corner of Hay and Donaldson and is mentioned in the journals of Charles Chesnutt. The Fayetteville Hotel burned in 1885 and a third hotel, named Hotel Lafayette, was built on the site. A distinctive feature of the Hotel Lafayette, which opened in 1887, was its fourth-story tower. The tower and fourth floor were destroyed by fire in 1939 and the hotel was completely remodeled. According to the Fire &amp; Rescue Journal, "In its latter years [the hotel] became apartments for the elderly. The Salvation Army used the facility for emergency housing for women, children and families" but the hotel was finally closed in 1972 amid the general decline of downtown Fayetteville.The building remained vacant until it burned in 1995 and was ultimately replaced by an office building which features an homage to the fourth-story tower.Edwin Perry, Charles Chesnutt's father-in-law, supposedly operated the barber shop in this building (Jarrett).According to his journals, during fall 1878 Chesnutt met at the Fayetteville Hotel with John J. Ladd, chief instructor of the white normal school in Fayetteville (104).It was at this meeting that Ladd "declared that he had never met a youth who, at my age and with my limited opportunities for instruction, had made such marked and rapid progress in learning" (105). This meeting spurred Charles Chesnutt to pursue his writing more seriously and may have sparked the ambition that ultimately led him to leave the city.

Multiple hotels have stood at the corner of Hay and Donaldson Streets. Though no hotel stands here now, the current office building, built in 2000, features an homage to one of the earlier buildings. The historical record especially focuses on the Hotel Lafayette, which existed in two different incarnations on the site.


Four Hotels

The former statehouse building was where state delegates ratified the U.S. Constitution, where the University of North Carolina was chartered, and where the state ceded its western territory so that Tennessee could be established. Another notable event was a skirmish that occurred here between Union and Confederate forces during the Civil War. The Market House was also the location of the murder of Archibald Beebee.Beebee, a Black man, had been accused of raping a white woman and was brought down from the second level of the Market House after a hearing. He was being returned to the guard house on Gillespie Street and as he was approaching the eastern archway under guard of two men, one the sheriff, there was a rush in the crowd. One man attempted to take Beebee from the sheriff, and Beebee stumbled. As he was standing up he was shot in the head from behind by William J. Tolar and killed instantly.The southeast corner was mentioned as the place of the murder ("Proceedings" 3).Tolar and his co-conspirators were originally found guilty and sentenced to death by a military court. This sentence was later overturned by President Andrew Johnson.According to The Literary Career of Charles W. Chesnutt, Chesnutt, then age nine, saw the body of Beebee after the murder. He went on to reference a fictional version of the incident in his novel The House Behind the Cedars.The Market House was also the scene of a very telling episode in the restoration of white supremacy following Reconstruction when Charles Chesnutt, in May 1880, attended the Republican Party convention at the Market House and accepted the nomination for town commissioner. Chesnutt's father had served "as county commissioner and justice of the peace for Cumberland County in the years of Republican ascendancy" (Chesnutt 136).The day following Chesnutt's acceptance of the nomination, however, he was approached by two white trustees of the colored normal school and encouraged to withdraw, which he did.Richard Brodhead, the editor of Chesnutt's journals, describes this episode as part of "efforts of the colored normal school's white supporters to depoliticize the school, to separate Black educational leadership from more general public power" (136).

One of 40 National Historic Landmarks in North Carolina, the Market House is one of the more unique buildings in the state. Modeled after similar buildings in England, it was built in 1832 on the same spot where the former statehouse had once stood (this burned down in a great fire in 1831, which destroyed other buildings in the city). As its name indicates, the building served as a market; local farmers sold their produce and meat on the ground floor under the arches. The upper floor was used as the town hall until 1907. It seems that space houses a small museum or is available to rent for meetings. The Market House is also known as a place where slaves were sold up through the Civil War (slaves were sold at the destroyed statehouse as well).    


Market House 

George Haigh (1832-1904) is mentioned frequently in Charles' journals.  In the 1880 census, Haigh was listed as a 48-year-old bookseller whose parents were born in England. Haigh served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War and later would marry the daughter of Edward Jones Hale, founder of the Fayetteville Observer ("Death of Mr. Geo. Haigh"). Haigh and Chesnutt had several discussions on race and the effects of the war in which Haigh lamented the loss of the old order and the "best colored people" who left Fayetteville prior to the war (Chesnutt 134). Chesnutt recorded one of these conversations which began with Haigh complaining that "you can't get a servant to do hardly anything" (126) after emancipation, to which Chesnutt responded: "Well, you see, that is one of the results of slavery; - not of freedom as you are about to say. It is and has been for many years, the custom in the South, to consider labor dishonorable. And now that the slave is free, he naturally takes your view of it" (127). This particular conversation has similar tones to discussions that appear in Chesnutt's final novel The Colonel's Dream. In the novel, the protagonist is a Confederate veteran who has returned to his hometown of Clarendon after years as a businessman in New York. It is entirely possible that Chesnutt's time around white men at Haigh's gave him insights he would later use in that novel. Haigh, obviously by no means progressive in his views on race, allowed Charles to spend a great deal of time in his bookstore reading and engaging in conversation with other Fayettevillians. Haigh, regarding the stratification of the South as unchangeable, ultimately appealed to Chesnutt's own sentiments by insisting that "the only way for a man who doesn't like it to do, is to go away where things are different" (Chesnutt 135).

George Haigh, who would go on to own the Fayetteville Observer, owned a bookstore on the northwest corner of market square during the time that Charles Chesnutt lived in Fayetteville. Chesnutt often visited Haigh's store to talk, debate, and read. It was here that Chesnutt received some of the frankest advice on race and the South.

George Haigh's Bookstore

Emil Neufeld was part of a small wave of immigrants to find themselves in Fayetteville. In the 1880 census, he was listed as a boarder in the hotel of W.G. Matthews, who owned Clarendon House at the time. Born in Germany, Neufeld was 25 in 1880 when he began to offer lessons in German to men in the community. In his entry for 25 June 1880, Charles Chesnutt expressed his interest in learning from Neufeld but regretted that Neufeld "is so fully occupied at present he can not possibly take another pupil. He says there have been some objections made on the part of some of his patrons, to his taking a colored pupil" (141).  Neufeld promised to consider Chesnutt's request despite the fact even William Kyle, at the time mayor of Fayetteville, advised him against it. Chesnutt later wrote that "the people here, some of them at any rate, are prejudiced to Neufeld because he is a foreigner and a Jew...he says that they are so much prejudiced that he would like to hurt them real bad once. I wish he would. Some of these purse-proud aristocrats seem to think they own the whole world" (147-48). By January 1881 Chesnutt had given up on these lessons, feeling he had gotten from them what he desired. This brief acquaintance stands out from the otherwise lonely tone of Chesnutt's life in Fayetteville. Regarding Neufeld, Chesnutt wrote that "a fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind" (147).

Clarendon House stood on this space during the late 19th century and was the residence of Emil Neufeld, a young German immigrant who tutored Charles Chesnutt in the language. Currently, the location features smaller storefronts and the Fascinate-U Children's Museum, which occupies the former city hall building. During Chesnutt's time, Clarendon House was flanked by print shops, barbers, and small grocers. 

German Lessons at Clarendon House

The church during Charles Chesnutt's time in Fayetteville was headed by Reverend J.W. Davis.Though Chesnutt seemed to enjoy Davis' company, detailing several conversations at length, he was also appalled by "the smell of whisky of which his clothes and breath are redolent" (159). In addition to this, Chesnutt mentioned Davis' "abuse of the people, his conceit [,] arrogance, and impudence, together with his fondness for the fair sex, and his lax method of conducting financial matters" (158).The 1880 census listed Davis as a 31 year old minister, married, but living with his younger brother, Frank.In addition to his duties at the State Colored Normal School, Chesnutt "served as organist, choirmaster, and Sunday School superintendent" at the church (Render 21).

Evans Metropolitan was founded by Henry Evans, "the son of free Negroes from Virginia, a shoemaker by trade, and a licensed Methodist preacher. En route to Charleston, S.C., about 1780, he stopped in Fayetteville. Dismayed by the depravity of the slave populace, he decided to stay and preach" (Rives). Evans remained in Fayetteville until his death in 1810.

Evans Metropolitan AME Zion Church

Charles Chesnutt is buried in <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7938356/charles-waddell-chesnutt" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Cleveland, Ohio</a>, where he lived most of his adult life. Though he left Fayetteville in search of a place where racial caste would not limit him he often returned to the town. Chesnutt would rename the city "Patesville" in his fiction, and many of the landmarks of the city appear just as they are in real life. Website Find A Grave has an entry for Andrew Jackson Chesnutt and his adjacent relatives: <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/186656799/andrew-jackson-chesnutt" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/186656799/andrew-jackson-chesnutt</a> Anne Chesnutt Waddell, daughter of Andrew Jackson Chesnutt and Mary Ochiltree, is also buried in this plot. "Mrs. Waddell taught school in Cumberland County, later becoming a county school supervisor, in which she served 22 years until her retirement in 1936. As supervisor, she helped promote elementary education from 1916 to 1936, when she resigned to accept a teaching position in this county. Previously, she had served as teacher in Fayetteville and Wilson." The memorials are in the Brookside section of Cross Creek Cemetery which was traditionally designated as the space for African American burials.

The plot contains the graves for Andrew Jackson Chesnutt, his second wife Mary Ochiltree, their children, and other extended family members: all relatives of author Charles Chesnutt. Parking is available along Ann Street or Lamon Street. The burial plot is in the section of the cemetery known as Brookside, which was built for African American burials following the Civil War.

Chesnutt-Waddell Burial Plots

The grocery store would have been located in this general area, though an exact location isn't known. According to Sylvia Render, Charles helped in the grocery store each day after school while absorbing the conversations of the customers (18). In 1871 Charles' mother died after a long decline in health. Within a year the store failed because of Andrew Chesnutt's "too generous credit practices (Render 18).

Andrew Jackson Chesnutt, the father of author Charles Chesnutt, returned to Fayetteville from Ohio in 1866 and set up "business in a grocery store in Gillespie Street between the Market House and Russell Street" (Helen Chesnutt 4). As of the publication of an 1885 Sanborn Fire Insurance map, most of Gillespie Street between Franklin and Russell Streets was either vacant or occupied by livery stables, so it stands to reason that the grocery store existed between the Market House and Franklin Street. 

Andrew Jackson Chesnutt's Grocery

The location of the famous&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/chesnutthouse/summary.html" title="Link: https://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/chesnutthouse/summary.html">House Behind the Cedars</a>&nbsp;has long been uncertain. Some sources place the home near the corner of C and Person Streets. According to Jon Young, "In an article in the July 1949 issue of&nbsp;Crisis&nbsp;magazine, John W. Parker, a former English professor at Fayetteville State University, states that the real 'house behind the cedars' stood on this site [corner of C and Person] until 1948, when it was torn down for commercial reasons."<div> </div><div>However, in his will, Andrew Jackson Chesnutt mentioned two properties: the home in which he was living at the time of his death and the land on which it stood, and the home and land adjoining which was given to him by his father.</div><div> </div><div>The land given Andrew by his father (one acre) was shared between himself and his brother, George Washington Chesnutt, according to the deed from 1836.&nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>This one-acre was divided from a two-acre plot that was originally part of the estate of Dolphin Davis&nbsp;(CCROD Book 41, Page 398).&nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>In 1870, George Washington Chesnutt, then living in Kentucky, sold the rights to the acre to Andrew (CCROD Book 59, Page 116).</div><div> </div><div>Upon Andrew's death in 1920, the home and land given to him by his father went to his wife, Mary.&nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>Upon her death in 1926, according to the instructions in Andrew's will, the home and land went to his daughter Sara Chesnutt.</div><div> </div><div>On Sara's death in 1969, the land was willed to Evans Metropolitan A.M.E. Zion Church.&nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>The church then sold this land, along with the lot on Russell Street, to Tommy West in 1987 (CCROD Book 3297, Page 230).</div><div> </div><div>In 2006, this lot was sold to Charles McPhail and Danny Fann of Roseboro, North Carolina, who hold it to this day (CCROD Book 7142, Page 350).</div><div> </div><div>It seems safe to assume that the upper two lots are the former location of the "House Behind the Cedars." ----------------------------- Full image descriptions for acreage maps: One Acre: the image shows part of the GIS Map for Cumberland County. The area highlighted consists of exactly one-acre split across three lots. The top lot is owned by Evans Metropolitan A.M.E. Zion Church. The middle lot is currently owned by Charles McPhail and Danny Fann, while the lower lot is owned by Tommy West (CCROD Book 7142 Page 350 and Book 3297 Page 230). Two Acres: the map shows two acres, with the bottom half (one acre) being the land that was given to Andrew Jackson Chesnutt and his brother, George Washington Chesnutt. The two acres were originally a part of the Dolphin Davis estate, being split in half during the division of that estate according to CCROD Book 41, Page 398. This means that to place the House Behind the Cedars&nbsp;along Person Street would be incorrect. It almost certainly occupied the area above the southernmost lot, perhaps on the boundary between the two. </div>

The likely location of the childhood home of Charles W. Chesnutt and the inspiration for the home in his novel "The House Behind the Cedars."

The House Behind the Cedars

<div>541 Russell Street, Jackson's home in 1920, was roughly here according to a&nbsp;1914 Sanborn Map. It is unknown how long Andrew had been living at this location. </div><div>At Andrew's death, the property passed to his wife, Mary. When Mary died in 1926, the property and home went to their daughter, Fayetteville educator Ann Chesnutt Waddell.&nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>Ann willed the property to Evans Metropolitan A.M.E. Zion Church on her death in 1965 and Evans sold the property to Tommy West, who still owns the land, in 1987.</div>

Andrew Jackson Chesnutt, the father of author Charles Chesnutt, was living here at the time of his death in 1920.

Home of Andrew J. Chesnutt

According to Michelle Michael, "Two lots on Blount Street were purchased by Dr. Smith and his wife on May 8, 1902 for one hundred dollars from Nancy Brewington." The house is Queen Anne and Colonial Revival style and although Smith and his wife only lived there for roughly seven years they kept ownership of it as a rental until Smith died in 1933.The home is sandwiched between an industrial area to the west, commercial zoning to the south, residential areas to the east and northeast, and the Cumberland County County Jail to the north.There are four bedrooms upstairs which mirror four large rooms downstairs.

Ezekiel Ezra Smith served as the head of State Colored Normal School (now Fayetteville State University) from 1883 until 1933.  His home on Blount Street, built in 1902, was within walking distance of the school until the campus was moved to Murchison road in 1909. The building has recently been renovated by the City of Fayetteville.

E.E. Smith House

Later information shows the location of the home as follows: <a href="https://library.digitalnc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/dircumberla/id/9082/rec/17" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">1909-10 city directory shows Mary Catherine Perry</a>, Chesnutt’s mother-in-law, as living at 309 Mumford Street (now known as West Russell Street). The <a href="https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/ncmaps/id/5142/rec/5" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">April 1908 Sanborn Map</a> shows 309 Mumford Street almost directly across from where the Fayetteville Area Transportation Museum is now.  On 5 February 1912, the home was sold to Aberdeen and Rockfish Railroad Company for $8,000 by Mary Catherine’s descendants (including Chas. Chesnutt).  By the time of the <a href="https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/ncmaps/id/5186/rec/7" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">January 1914 Sanborn Map</a>, the home was no longer standing. In its place there is the Aberdeen and Rockfish Railroad Depot and, next to that, the Fayetteville CocaCola Bottling Company. As of February 2021, the land is still owned by the Aberdeen and Rockfish Railroad Company through a deed recorded over a century ago.

Home of the in-laws of author Charles W. Chesnutt. Chesnutt lived here from 1878 to 1880 with his wife Susan immediately following their marriage.

The Perry Homestead

According to his journals, Charles' father "Andrew Chesnutt had failed as a shopkeeper and taken up farming in 1874" (76). In Sylvia Render's book on Chesnutt, she writes that Andrew "moved the family to his farm two miles down the Wilmington Road" (18). In Charles' work of fiction, "Goopherd Grapevine", the following description describes the journey to a family farm as follows: "We drove out of town over a long wooden bridge that spanned a spreading mill-pond, passed the long whitewashed fence surrounding the county fairground, and struck into a road so sandy that the horse's feet sank to the fetlocks. Our route lay partly up hill and partly down, for we were in the sand-hill country; we drove past cultivated farms, and then by abandoned fields grown up in scrub-oak and short-leaved pine. and once or twice through the solemn aisles of the virgin forest, where the tall pines, well-nigh meeting over the narrow road, shut out the sun, and wrapped us in a cloistral solitude" (Chesnutt). The 1874 deed (Book 61, Page 575) for the farm mentions that it covers 39 acres, situated between Wilmington Road and the Cape Fear River. The deed specifically mentions that the property begins "at an oak on the Cape Fear River, Brewington's lower corner." Brewington seems to be a reference to George Brewington, whose descendants still own parcels of land about two miles south of Fayetteville along Old Wilmington Road. Andrew Jackson Chesnutt didn't sell the land until 1918.

The likely location of the farm once owned by Andrew Jackson Chesnutt, father of author Charles Chesnutt.  The farm is now on industrial-zoned property that borders the Cape Fear River. Access is likely limited and any sightseeing is inadvisable.  Charles Chesnutt himself never actually owned the property but did live here during his youth. 

Charles Chesnutt's Fayetteville

The Howard School

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Backstory and Context

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Additional Information