African American Heritage in Virginia
The Life and Legacy of Hugh Carr & River View Farm

Hugh Carr

Hugh Carr was born into slavery between 1840 and 1843 in Virginia.  The earliest reference to him comes from records of the First Baptist Church in Charlottesville.  There on November 18, 1860, just eight days after the election of Abraham Lincoln as President, Hugh was presented for baptism by his owner, R. W. Wingfield of Woodlands. Four months later the start of the Civil War would mark the beginning of the end of Virginia's centuries-old slave culture.

Emancipation and the breakup of the plantation system at the end of the War in 1865 was a watershed event in rural Piedmont Virginia. For both black and white alike the rules of human society would change forever.  For Hugh, a young man who could neither read nor write, it meant the start of a life founded in freedom.  On Christmas Day, just weeks after the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment which abolished slavery forever, Hugh, having taken the surname Carr, married 18-year-old Florence Lee at the home of her parents in Albemarle County.

Like many newly emancipated men in rural Virginia, Hugh Carr hired himself out to work on local farms, often receiving a share of the crops in payment.  Surviving contracts tell us that in 1869 Hugh agreed to 'labor' on A. A. Sutherland's farm in return for shares of tobacco, wheat, oats, corn, hay, fodder and potatoes.   In 1875, Hugh contracted with J. R. Wingfield to "give his whole time & attention & head all his energies & exercise all the forethought he can" as farm manager on the Woodlands plantation.  For his work, Hugh was paid $150 and provided with a house and garden for himself and his mother.

While working for others, Carr began to purchase land of his own in the Ivy Creek area.  In 1870 Hugh Carr paid John Shackelford $100 "in part payment for lands sold him".  This 58-acre tract would form the core of what would become River View Farm where the Carr residence was built, and which much later would become the Ivy Creek Natural Area.  Hugh Carr continued to add to his farm, acquiring over 125 acres by 1890.

Here, Hugh Carr and his second wife Texie Mae Hawkins raised their six daughters and one son: Mary Louise, Marshall, Fannie, Emma, Peachie, Hazel, and Virginia.  Although Hugh himself never learned to read or write, his highest priority was the education of his children.

Five of his children earned college degrees, becoming teachers and community leaders wherever they settled.  His eldest daughter, Mary Louise, became the well-regarded principal of the Albemarle Training School, and Greer Elementary School is named in her honor.

Mr. Carr is buried in the family cemetery at the Ivy Creek Natural Area.

The handwritten mark ("X") of Hugh Carr