History Thursday: 919 Hanover Street
One of the original owners, James Wilkins, an African American barber, was involved with the purchase and emancipation of his family members.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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In 1827, James Wilkins, a Black barber and one of the first owners of this lot on Hanover Street, was only four years removed from being enslaved himself, yet he recorded the first of four deeds of emancipation that freed five of his family members and acquaintances.
That deed was for Charles Lewis, a shoemaker, who Wilkins purchased and emancipated, “[Lewis] having paid James Wilkins his purchase price of $410,” according to Fredericksburg’s historic court records.
In 1836, Wilkins emancipated his daughters, Sarah Ann and Frances, whom he’d purchased in March of 1834. And in 1838, Wilkins purchased and emancipated both his son, John, and his wife or sister, Becky. All of these family members had been the property of different owners.
Wilkins himself had been emancipated by his former owner, James Young, in 1824, according to research conducted by John J. Johnston for the Historic Fredericksburg Foundation, Inc.’s marker program.
At the time of his emancipation, he was working as a barber, and in May of 1824 he opened a shop in the Farmer’s Hotel, which was owned by Young and located at the corner of Caroline and Hanover streets.
“Here he was able to attend to the needs of the travelers on the bustling stage lines, as well as his local customers,” Johnston wrote in the marker report.
Wilkins took out an ad in the Virginia Herald to announce his business and promote his skills. He described himself as a “Professor of shaving, adept at Hair Coloring, and Connoisseur of Perfuming, etc., etc.,” and noted that he could dye hair black or brown using the most “ingeniously prepared” dye lately received “from the North,” which would cover greys “without doing any injury to the skin.”
By about 10 years after his emancipation, Wilkins had accumulated nine pieces of property, including 919 Hanover and the adjoining lot and a lot on the corner of Prussia Street (now Lafayette Boulevard) and Princess Anne where he built a tavern, according to Johnston.
He bought the 919 Hanover lot for $56.25 in October of 1826. A house was first constructed on it in 1840 valued at just $160, but by that time, all of Wilkins’s assets had been transferred to a trustee because he could not pay the debts he owed on them.
According to Johnston, most of the 38 people Wilkins owed were “prominent whites of the town.”
In 1845, all of Wilkins’s assets were auctioned off to satisfy his debts, and he and his son moved to Washington, D.C. The highest bidder for 919 Hanover, at $201, was Joseph Alsop.
In 1852, Monroe Stevens, a drayman—or wagon driver—bought the house for $300 and lived there through the Civil War until 1879. The daughter of John Brauer, a later owner, told Johnston that while she lived in the house in the early 20th-century, there were still bullet holes in the walls and bloodstains on the bedroom floors from Civil War battles.
John Brauer owned a grocery at the corner of Commerce Street (now William Street) and Prince Edward Street. According to his 1922 obituary in the Free Lance, he had a “large patronage” due to his “honest dealings,” and was a member of the vestry of Trinity Episcopal Church.
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