History Thursday: 510 Spotswood Street
The first owner volunteered for the Confederacy. Later occupants were among those who desegregated city schools.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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The first owner of this house was a blockade runner for the Confederacy. Later occupants were some of the first children to integrate the city’s all-white Maury Elementary School.
James Wooddy and his son Edward possibly built 510 Spotswood Street themselves in 1879, according to research conducted by Roger Engels for the Historic Fredericksburg Foundation’s marker program.
James Wooddy first came to Fredericksburg in 1853, but left to work as a “colporter”—a “distributor of inspirational literature,” according to Engels—in Accomac County. When the Civil War started, he organized volunteers for the Confederacy and then was assigned to “special secret service duty” as a blockade runner, according to his 1910 obituary in the Free Lance.
Back in Fredericksburg after the war, he established a business transporting wood and coal on a vessel he captained. In March of 1878, the Fredericksburg News reported that the “Mssrs Wooddy” were planning to ship a log harvested in Stafford across the Atlantic Ocean to show at the Paris Exhibition.
This “beautiful specimen of timber from the woods of the old country” would be displayed as “evidence of the strength and fertility of her ‘sacred soil,’” the paper reported—and it would surely earn Stafford “as big a reputation as California at our Centennial for the wonderful and beautiful display of her native woods, cut into massive pillars.”
It’s not clear whether the Stafford log actually did arrive “amid the artistic attractions of the gay French Capital.”
After building the Spotswood Street house, Wooddy put it in trust for the benefit of his wife and children, making his son-in-law, William I. King, trustee.
King, according to his 1895 obituary in the Daily Star, was “one of the most prominent, active and energetic business men of the city and always ready and willing to aid any enterprise looking towards the advancement of the town or its citizens.” He served on City Council, and owned a store, warehouse, hotel, ice plant, and several mills.
Through King, who was married to James Wooddy’s daughter Mary, Wooddy was the grandfather and great-grandfather of two mayors of Fredericksburg—J. Garnett King, who was mayor from 1920 to 1929, and W. Marshall King, who was mayor from 1936 to 1947.
By 1905, James Wooddy’s daughter Alice was the sole owner of the house, having purchased the interests of her siblings, nieces, and nephews. In 1951, the house was purchased by Karl Pritchett, owner and operator for 32 years of the Lafayette Pants Factory, according to his 1959 obituary.
Pritchett remodeled the house into two apartments and installed hot air heating, according to existing building permits. He, and after his death his wife Cora, rented the house to tenants until 1960, when it was sold to Charles Sprow.
Sprow and his wife Louise both came from large families—10 and 8 children, respectively—and married young, according to a 1998 Free Lance-Star article. Sprow worked as a service attendant for Burke Pontiac in Fredericksburg for 20 years before training as a barber and opening a barber shop on Amelia Street.
Louise worked as a domestic for years before training as a nurse. Four of the couple’s five children went to stay with their grandparents in North Carolina so their mother could go to nursing school, according to the article. Louise Sprow then worked as a nurse at Mary Washington Hospital and Quantico Naval Hospital.
Louise and Charles raised their five children in Fredericksburg and instilled in them a motivation to overcome prejudice, youngest daughter Nancy told the Free Lance-Star.
Nancy was one of the first Black children to integrate all-white Maury Elementary. “It was fourth grade, and I didn’t quite understand why I had to leave all my friends,” she said.
By 1998, Nancy and her older sister Alyce Sprow Carew were playing a part in increasing the representation of Black people in the entertainment industry in L.A. Alyce Carew and her husband owned Rainbow Television Workshop, “one of the few black television production companies,” according to the article. Her 1998 obituary notes that Carew also was president of a talent management company, was honored by Essence magazine, and received two NAACP Image Awards.
Nancy was the only Black person on the production crew of the sitcom “Seinfeld,” according to the 1998 Free Lance-Star article. In addition to working on Seinfeld, she worked on the TV series “Castle,” “The Good Place,” and “The Parkers,” among others.
“Growing up,” Nancy Sprow told the paper, “I was very aware of my parents’ struggle. They sacrificed so our lives could be better… We didn’t want to disappoint them.”
Charles Sprow told the paper that was “just as happy as can be” about his children’s success.
He lived in the Spotswood Street house until 1998.
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