History Thursday: 309 Wolfe Street
This is the longtime site of Mount Zion Baptist Church
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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The ownership history of the lots that combined into this address includes both a formerly enslaved man; then a man who owned slaves and sold them to pay off a loan; and finally the trustees of Mount Zion Baptist Church, one of Fredericksburg’s historic Black churches.
One of the earliest owners of the lot, according to research conducted in 2013 by Ben Raterman for the Historic Fredericksburg Foundation’s marker program, was Reuben Dixon, a formerly enslaved person.
Dixon is described in Fredericksburg historic court records in 1790 as a “mulatto” who drove a dray. He bought the lot in 1793 and it stayed in his family for more than 50 years. In 1904, John Coleman—identified in the 1910 census as a “street laborer,” according to Raterman—owned the property and conveyed it to Mount Zion Baptist Church.
While Dixon owned this lot, a neighboring lot was purchased by John Hill, who used the property and others that he owned to secure a loan from the Bank of Virginia. He defaulted on this loan, and in 1812 sold the land, as well as “household and kitchen furniture on and about the said premises … together with the following slaves, to wit, Fanny and her four children by name Washington, Thornton, Sally, and Fanny; Fanny the second and her two children named John and Celia; Lucy, Fanny again, and Gavin …”
In 1957, this lot also was conveyed to the trustees of Mount Zion.
Mount Zion Baptist Church was established in April of 1904, when a “large number” of its founding membership split from Shiloh Baptist Church (New Site). As described in an article from the Daily Star, they left a meeting and made their way to Farmer’s Supply Hall, where they reorganized into a new church.
Three months later, according to a letter published in the Free Lance, the fledgling church’s membership had raised about $800, of which $250 went to the pastor’s salary and $550 to carpenters to build a new home for the congregation at 309 Wolfe Street.
This is the lot that had been owned by Coleman, who was one of the leaders of the split from Shiloh (New Site). It sat diagonally across the street from New Site.
The $800 had been raised “without asking the public for a cent,” pastor William Robinson wrote in the published letter. “Knowing that many of the people of the community sympathize with us in our struggle, we desire to state that within the next few days, our agents will call upon you for such aid as you may be disposed to give,” Robinson wrote.
This fundraising campaign was clearly successful, because that same year, construction of the frame church that originally stood at 309 Wolfe Street was completed.
This original building and two neighboring residences burned down in 1925, in a fire that originated in a defective flue in the church building, according to a Free Lance article. The resulting loss would “probably equal the aggregate of other fire damages for the entire year so far,” the article states.
The building that burned down was “a large, well-built frame building” outfitted with “handsome oak pews.” According to the article, only one insurance policy for $1,000 was ever located.
But the following year, according to Raterman, a new cornerstone was laid during a ceremony that preceded by a parade and speech by the mayor—and the entire Fredericksburg community came together to raise $13,000 to build the brick structure that replaced the original frame church in 1928 and still stands today.
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