Virginia: The oldest surviving schoolhouse for black children was moved to Colonial Williamsburg

A historic building believed to be the oldest school that has educated black children in the United States was picked up Friday and moved to Colonial Williamsburg.

The Bray School, established 25 years before the American Revolution, was loaded onto a flatbed truck and transported a half-mile from an area near the William & Mary college campus to the Living History Museum.

The move comes as the historic site continues to emphasize African American history.

“Religion was at the heart of the school, and it was not a gospel of abolition,” said Maureen Elgersman Lee, director of William & Mary’s Bray School Lab.

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The Bray School will realign to a firm footing on Friday, February 10, 2023 at its new Colonial Williamsburg location in Williamsburg, Virginia. (Billy Schuerman/The Virginian-Pilot via AP)

The pinewood building housed up to 30 students at a time, historians said.

“There was this need to proselytize and bring redemption without doing anything to destabilize the institution of slavery,” Lee said. “Save the soul, but keep enslaving the body. It was this world versus the hereafter.”

On Friday, hundreds of people lined the streets to celebrate the trip to Virginia’s colonial capital, which continues to teach early history through re-enactments, interpreters and restored buildings.

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The Bray School stands as a symbol for historians and descendants alike who defy the belief that all enslaved Americans were uneducated. However, the school’s faith-based curriculum – created by an English charity – justified slavery and encouraged students to accept their fate as God’s plan.

Workers prepare to move the original building, believed to be the oldest schoolhouse for black children in the United States, in Williamsburg, Virginia, on Friday, February 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Ben Finley)

The curriculum is still empowering, perhaps even subversive, historians have said.

“I looked through a facsimile of one of the books and there are words like ‘freedom,'” Lee said. “What did learning these words do to increase these children’s self-confidence? your worldview?”

The school’s student body is believed to have included both free and enslaved students.

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A white teacher named Ann Wager, who lived upstairs in the school, taught an estimated 300 to 400 students, ages 3 to 10, according to surviving records.

The Bray School was founded in 1760 on the recommendation of Benjamin Franklin, chairman of a London-based Anglican charity named after the philanthropist Reverend Thomas Bray. It operated until 1774.

Bray School will move to Prince George Street in Williamsburg, Virginia on Friday, February 10, 2023. The building is by the William & Mary campus and in Colonial Williamsburg. It is believed to be the oldest surviving schoolhouse for black children in the United States, built 25 years before the American Revolution. (Billy Schuerman/The Virginian-Pilot via AP)

The charity also set up schools in other cities, including New York and Philadelphia.

The building became a private home for years before being incorporated into the William & Mary campus.

Williamsburg is less than 10 miles from Jamestown, founded by England in 1607.

Williamsburg’s Mel Horan sketches The Bray School as it relocates to Prince George Street in Williamsburg, Virginia on Friday, February 10, 2023. The building is being moved from the William & Mary campus in Colonial Williamsburg. It is believed to be the oldest surviving schoolhouse for black children in the United States, built 25 years before the American Revolution. (Billy Schuerman/The Virginian-Pilot via AP)

The identity of the Bray School’s original building was confirmed in 2021 through the use of dendrochronology, a scientific method that examines tree rings in lumber to determine the date the wood was harvested.

“This is a remarkable story of survival,” said Matthew Webster, Colonial Williamsburg’s executive director for architectural preservation and research. “And for us it’s so important to put it back (to its original state) and tell the whole and true story.”

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Colonial Williamsburg is a museum established in 1926. It began teaching Black history in 1979.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.