THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 18, 1996 TAG: 9602160230
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Coasal Journal
SOURCE: Mary Reid Barrow
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines
Willis Hodges, a free black in 19th century Princess Anne County who fought against slavery and for the rights of blacks following the Civil War, was the catalyst that made cousins out of strangers recently.
It was a family reunion, of sorts, that took place at Portraits of the Past, a black history event, sponsored by Edna Hendrix last weekend. Hendrix was introducing her new book ``Black History, Our Heritage, Princess Anne County, Virginia Beach.''
Sandi Brewster-Walker of Washington D.C., a great-great granddaughter of Hodges who has been researching her roots in old Princess Anne for years was at the event to lead a genealogical workshop. Brewster-Walker met up with Troy Breathwaite and Norma Owens, who both live in Virginia Beach. Owens has been digging into her roots for a long time. Breathwaite, who has just begun to get interested in his ancestors, came to Hendrix's event to see what he could learn.
Breathwaite, whose great grandfather was a man named Frank Owens, discovered that Frank Owens and Norma Owens' father were cousins. The more they talked with Brewster-Walker, the more they came to realize they were all kin because the Owens line came down from one of Willis Hodges' 11 brothers and sisters!
As it was with all small rural communities in earlier times, a few families stood out as leaders in old Princess Anne County. The Hodges and Owens families were among the leaders in the African American community here.
For example, the Owens family contributed Littleton Owens, who was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates following the Civil War and also served as an assistant keeper of the Cape Henry Lighthouse.
The most prominent member of the Hodges family was Willis, who played a highly visible role in fighting for the rights of blacks and irritating whites in the county to no end. Hodges also was an elected official, serving as a delegate to Virginia's Constitutional Convention following the war and as a Kempsville District supervisor later in the century. Hodges served as keeper of the Cape Henry Lighthouse for a short time, too.
Brewster-Walker grew up in Long Island but became ``obsessed'' as she called it with wanting to find out more about Willis Hodges, who was born down in Blackwater. She has even roamed around the Blackwater area, trying to find were the Hodges family farm used to be.
Unlike many blacks, Hodges left behind a written record of some of his life. The tantalizing autobiography, written in 1849, gives a genealogist like Brewster-Walker lots of tempting clues to follow up on. More than half of the auto-biography describes Hodges' life in old Princess Anne County.
Now Brewster-Walker is writing a book about Hodges' son Augustus Hodges. A journalist, Augustus Hodges, was the one who saved his father's autobiography for posterity by serializing it in the late 1800s in the Indianapolis Freeman, a weekly black newspaper.
For those of you who may be interested, the autobiography also was published in 1982 in book form. Called ``Free Man of Color,'' the book was edited by Willard B. Gatewood, Jr., a professor of history at the University of Arkansas. In the book Gatewood also recounts the rest of Hodges' life, his years in New York after he left Princess Anne in fear of his life to join the abolitionist movement and his later years back in old Princess Anne after the Civil War.
``Free Man of Color'' is out of print, but available in the public library. Not only is it an interesting account of Hodges' life, but it also is a fascinating look at life in the mid-1800s and the relationship of the white community to the renegade upstart.
``I'm very proud that he was notorious,'' Brewster-Walker said, ``and I'm very proud that he got run out of town! I found it all fascinating!''
P.S. ``Black History, our Heritage, Princess Anne County, Virginia Beach'' by Edna Hendrix gives another fascinating look at black history in old Princess Anne. It costs $30 and is available by calling author Hendrix at 557-9724.
THE VIRGINIA BEACH AUDUBON SOCIETY will meet at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Eastern Shore Chapel, 2020 Laskin Road. John Stasko, Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge manager, will speak.
THE BALD EAGLES that have nested the past two years at Back Bay Refuge returned to their nest a couple of weeks ago. ``Looks like we'll have more eagles this year,'' said refuge volunteer Reese Lukei.
A BEAUTIFUL SNOWY OWL, more at home on the Arctic tundra than in Virginia Beach, was seen flying over Northampton Boulevard near Bayside Road by Audubon member Townley Wolfe. Wolfe just happened to be on his way home from the airport, having returned from a bird watching trip to Duluth, Minn., where he was looking for, of all things, snowy owls! ILLUSTRATION: Photo by MARY REID BARROW
Sandi Brewster-Walker, left, of Washington D.C., who was leading a
genealogical workshop, speaks with Troy Breathwaite and Norma Owens,
both of Virginia Beach. Breathwaite and Owens met at the workshop
and found they shared ancestors in old Princess Anne County.
by CNB