Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 1, 1995 TAG: 9510020092
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV10 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY METRO
SOURCE: FRANCES STEBBINS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
That event will be recalled at a 3:30 p.m. service at Schaeffer Memorial Baptist Church at 580 High St. The Freedman's Bureau and its director, Union Capt. Charles S. Schaeffer, are long gone, but the tradition of distinguished black history lingers among members of the congregation he founded.
Leading the anniversary homecoming worship this year will be the Rev. Erdie Trigg and the choir and members of the congregation of Shawsville Baptist Church. Among those to be recognized will be Mattie Calloway who at nearly 94 is the oldest living member of Schaeffer Memorial.
The few folk as old as Calloway can remember when the only school black children had in the whole New River Valley was Christiansburg Industrial Institute, also founded by Captain Schaeffer to educate the generation of blacks growing up after the Civil War. Records carefully kept by Nannie Hairston show that the Union captain had been helping blacks in Philadelphia as early as 1850 in cooperation with the Quaker community.
When Schaeffer was sent to Christiansburg a year after the close of the Civil War, his position was not a favored one. Defeated Southern whites hated the disorder many Freedman's Bureau leaders caused as newly emancipated slaves gained control of land once owned by their white masters.
As a rare book about Schaeffer that Hairston owns puts it, the Philadelphian "went to work in a modest and gentlemanly manner" to bring both religion and education to the Negroes of Christiansburg.
He was backed financially and morally by Philadelphia Quakers who had a long history of support for abolitionists and freed slaves.
The Friends - Quakers to most people - continued to send money for the school as late as the 1930s at which time it was taken over by the Montgomery County school system.
From then until segregation ended, black pupils from Montgomery, Pulaski and Giles counties used the institute as their public school.
This was long after the early times when the church and the school were on High Street. The original "Hill School" still stands next to the church. When Hairston and her husband, John T., moved to Christiansburg from Bluefield, W. Va. in 1953, the historic school was in a sad state of disrepair, she recalls.
Now 74, Hairston regards the old school as her special project. Along with Rosalie Franklin Paige and Lois C. Teele, as well as others long gone, the women rescued the 1884 structure. As a community center it has served small children, senior adults and for many years youngsters who received tutoring from Virginia Tech students.
Noted black educator Booker T. Washington visited the school near the turn of the century and advised that it be expanded. In 1898, the educational operations were moved to a 90-acre tract near the present Christiansburg High School. Older students learned modern farming practices as well as trades.
The school/farm was expanded; by the post-World War II years, it had 350 students.
Schaeffer lived long enough to see the expanded school and the brick church building, much enlarged, on the hill. He died, much honored by the community, in 1899.
by CNB