Thanks to historians at Ivy Creek Foundation, we have learned more about how the story of Peachie Carr Johnson and her family home at Historic River View Farm connects with Historic Vinegar Hill, where our yellow house is located. Peachie Carr Johnson (1889-1977) was the daughter of Hugh Carr, who was born into slavery between 1840 and 1843 in Virginia...read more below!
“The earliest reference to Hugh Carr 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 abolished slavery forever, Hugh, having taken the surname Carr, married 18-year-old Florence Lee at the home of her parents in Albemarle County.
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 lived and 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. Greer Elementary School is named in her honor.”
Check out the Ivy Creek Foundation/Historic River View Farm website.
“In 1917, George F. Johnson was six years out of Howard University’s medical school. Three years earlier, the Orange County native had married Peachie Suporah Carr, a native of Albemarle County, who had recently graduated from the Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute (Virginia State University).
Together they lived in the heart of Vinegar Hill at 123 4th Street NW, where Dr. Johnson saw patients as one of Charlottesville’s well-known Black doctors. Mrs. Johnson walked across the street to the Jefferson School, where she taught generations of African American children until retiring in 1958.
Dr. George F. Johnson and Peachie C. Johnson continued to live around the corner on 4th Street NW and serve as integral members of the community—Peachie Johnson was a member of the Colored Women’s Clubs, the Order of the Eastern Star, the Frederick Douglas Memorial and Historical Association, and for many years served as president of the Virginia State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, a large mutual-aid organization founded by Janie Porter Barrett.”
- Jordy Yager, Mapping Cville Project, Jefferson School. African American Heritage Center