League Blog

Unveiling Annie Smith (1854 - 1907)

                           A Gum Springs Legacy

The Portrait and the Spark

My mother was walking me hand-in-hand to Miss Roscoe’s first grade classroom. It was my first day of school when I saw the black-and-white portrait of Annie M. Smith hanging outside the principal’s office at Drew-Smith Elementary School in 1957. Alongside Dr. Charles Drew, the woman’s serene image exuded a quiet dignity and pride. Together, their portraits embodied the highest ideals of Black pride—Dr. Drew, a pioneering medical scientist, and Annie Smith, a trailblazing educator—offering young minds living proof that intellect, resilience, and service were the true measures of character and achievement. At the time, I had no idea how profoundly Annie Smith’s legacy would echo in my own family’s history—or how much she had contributed to the community of Gum Springs.

The portrait presents Mrs. Smith with the serene confidence of a woman who has endured much and given even more. Her features are composed and symmetrical, her gaze direct yet contemplative, projecting a quiet authority. There is a graceful restraint in her posture and expression—neither stern nor soft, but resolutely calm, as though accustomed to bearing responsibility with dignity.

She exudes a quiet beauty, not ornamented or showy, but refined and self-possessed. The simplicity of her dress and the modest styling of her hair speak to her values: intellect, discipline, and purpose. There is in her bearing something of the educator and something of the visionary—someone who walked into Reconstruction-era classrooms not just to teach letters and numbers, but to model Black womanhood with elegance, strength, and grace.

Seen through the lens of the Gilded Age, she stands out as a “class act” in every sense: intelligent, poised, and committed to community uplift. In her expression is the quiet determination of a woman who knew the value of education, the meaning of freedom hard-won, and the burden—and blessing—of being first.

Years later, I returned to her story with new eyes discovering much more. Annie Smith wasn’t just the first Black teacher in Gum Springs. She was a wife, a farmer, a storekeeper, and a woman of remarkable independence and strength. What began as a childhood impression became a personal journey to uncover the deeper truths of her life and times.

Early Life and Marriage

Annie Maria Arnold was born on May 6, 1854, most likely in Virginia. While little is known about her childhood or early education, records confirm that she married William Dandridge Smith on January 8, 1874, in Alexandria, Virginia.  Smith, was West Ford’s grandson, the founder of Gum Springs, and the son of Jane Ford and Porter Smith, a blacksmith at Mount Vernon. 

Dandridge and Annie suffered the heartbreaking loss of their only child in infancy. Yet their marriage endured, symbolizing a union deeply rooted in community strength and resilience. The Smiths lived on adjoining parcels of land totaling nearly 27 acres, though importantly, the land was not jointly held. Annie owned nearly 15 acres, and Dandridge about 12, suggesting intentional economic independence within the marriage—a rare and telling decision for the time. 

Educator in a Post-Reconstruction System

Annie Smith began teaching in Gum Springs in the 1870s. The school was originally established on land donated by her mother-in-law, Jane Ford, and staffed by Quaker teachers with aid from the Freedmen’s Bureau. When federal support waned, the community stepped in. Annie was likely mentored on-site, learning through direct instruction and community support rather than formal training, as was common among Black educators in that era.

It is likely Annie Smith was trained, mentored and recruited into the Freedmen’s Bureau system of teachers. Most of the white teachers recruited from up north usually lasted no more than a year. In1877, Annie Smith was 24 when Reconstruction ended with the Compromise of 1877. As a young African American woman teacher in Fairfax County, she was stepping into a hostile and paternalistic system that often questioned the competence of Black educators, underpaid them, and placed them in schools with inferior resources. 

Unlike the transient teachers who came and went, Annie Smith was a daughter of the community—her roots ran deep in the very soil she taught upon, and it was this intimate bond with her neighbors and their children that sustained her unwavering commitment to their education and advancement. Despite this, teachers like Smith were central to the survival and development of Black education. Many such educators not only taught multiple grades in one-room schoolhouses but also handled administrative duties, advocated for community needs, and mentored generations of children.

By 1870 towards the end of Reconstruction when Annie was 16, Fairfax County had 13 schools for African American students and 28 for whites. The system was separate, unequal, and deliberately underfunded. Black teachers were paid less and often worked in unsafe or dilapidated buildings. Annie stood at the front of one of these classrooms, without the protections or prestige of her white counterparts—but with the resolve to teach children in a community that had long valued education as a path to liberation.

Local oral histories speak to Annie’s dedication—recounting her long journeys by foot or horseback to reach her students, her unwavering presence at the front of the classroom, and her firm yet compassionate teaching style. She likely taught half a year, adapting to the seasonal rhythms of farming life. The school calendar was shorter and more fluid than today, perhaps six months on, six months off—allowing her to divide her time between education and the demands of rural subsistence.

Farming, Business, and Land Ownership

While Annie taught, she also farmed. Together, she and Dandridge operated a successful dairy farm in the 1890s, a period when dairy was a thriving industry in Fairfax County. They owned at least three horses (two attributed to Dandridge, one to Annie) and up to ten cows by 1901. Their land hosted a six-room home and a small general store where they sold everyday goods—groceries, food scales, tobacco cutters, and tea canisters.

Remarkably, the land was always recorded in their individual names. Annie’s 14.95-acre parcel was purchased via a trust with her husband in 1893 from John A. Seaton, who had acquired the land in 1866 from Daniel Ford—a son of West Ford and uncle to Dandridge. Dandridge’s land was inherited, which is why it does not appear in deed transactions.

Their business and farm operations exemplify not only entrepreneurial spirit, but also a form of Black female agency rarely documented: Annie, a Black woman of the Gilded Age, was a landowner, business operator, and educator—roles often denied to women of her race and time.

Legacy, Death, and Estate Disputes

William Dandridge Smith died in 1906; Annie followed a year later. Both are buried in the Peake Family Cemetery, behind the Gum Springs Museum (formerly Drew-Smith School), just a few hundred yards from where her portrait once hung. Following their deaths, a chancery case was filed in 1910 due to multiple claims to the land, particularly Annie’s estate. The land was placed in a “Commissioner’s Sale” overseen by C. Vernon Ford, Commonwealth’s Attorney for Fairfax County. According to Annie’s will, half an acre was set aside as a family burial plot. The rest of the property was divided among her four nieces and nephews: Carrie J. Harris, H. Llewellyn Harris, William Henry Harris, and Annie E. Arnold. Her will also directed that their shares be held in a building association until each heir reached the age of 21. 

Because not all heirs had reached maturity at the time of her death, Annie’s name remained on the land tax rolls well after her passing. A 1914 deed confirmed that H. Llewellyn Harris, then of legal age, inherited part of the estate.  

Reflections and Historical Significance

Annie Smith’s story is one of extraordinary resilience and quiet power. In an era when Black women were expected to remain invisible, she claimed visibility—through land, through labor, and most of all, through the education of children.

Her presence in my life began with a portrait on a school wall. Today, that image has become a window into an era and a woman whose story deserves greater recognition. Annie Smith was not simply the “first Black teacher in Gum Springs”—she was a community builder, a steward of land, and a model of dignity in the face of systemic adversity.

Her legacy invites us to look deeper—not just into archives, but into the soil, the schools, and the silences that shaped her world. I am certain that she taught my maternal great-grandparents, Joseph and Irene Washington King, as well as my paternal great-uncles and aunts. From her life, I have come to understand how the power of one woman can ripple across centuries.

Though I have only scratched the surface of Annie Smith’s legacy, I have yet to explore the Fairfax County Public School archives dating back to 1870. Some sources suggest she taught at both the Accotink and Gum Springs schools—a possibility that deepens the mystery and reach of her influence. My imagination is now colored by the history of two schools serving African American children in the Mount Vernon District, one in Gum Springs and the other at Woodlawn (Accotink). 

My maternal ancestors attended the Gum Springs school, while my paternal ancestors were served by the Woodlawn school. Each of these communities established and operated their own schools, reflecting the deep commitment to education among free and formerly enslaved African Americans in the region.

In Gum Springs, the original school and church were founded by Samuel Taylor, a formerly enslaved man who escaped bondage. The nearby Accotink school was built on land purchased from the Quakers by William Holland and Lewis Quander. The first known school in the area was already operating by June 1865, as noted in a Freedmen’s Bureau report. That report also described how a private school for Black children, housed on the property of Samuel K. Lee—a free Black man—was deliberately burned down by a white arsonist. The school quickly relocated to the home of Charles Ford near Gum Springs.

Beginning in the 1840s, Quaker settlers helped foster a free Black farming community near Mount Vernon. With their support, Holland and Quander established what became known as the Woodlawn Colored School near the historic Woodlawn estate. This school was listed by the Freedmen’s Bureau in 1866 and was located near the site of present-day Fort Belvoir Upper School. A second schoolhouse in the Woodlawn area was built around 1888. When the federal government forced village residents to relocate in 1940, many of their children were reassigned to the Gum Springs School.

Annie Smith was 3 years younger than my Great Great Grandfather William “Billy” Holland. Dandridge and Annie Smith were neighbors and free Black farmers. Dandridge and Billy’s father William Holland are both among List of Colored Voters for the Magisterial District of Fairfax County, October 22, 1867. I wanted to know more about the social and political environment and what a young woman teacher was up against and what her world must have been like dealing with being employed in a bureaucracy dominated by Southern White men. 

Learning about Annie Smith’s life has given me a deeper understanding of what life may have been like for my ancestors. Her experiences as a teacher, landowner, and member of a self-sufficient Black community in post–Civil War Virginia offer a window into the challenges, resilience, and quiet triumphs that likely shaped their lives as well.

—William N. Holland, Jr. 

Bibliography

Hellman, Susan, and Maddy McCoy. “Soil Tilled by Free Men: The Formation of a Free Black Community in Fairfax County, Virginia.” *Virginia Magazine of History and Biography*, vol. 125, no. 1, 2017.

United States. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. *Education Reports and Surveys, 1865–1866*. National Archives and Records Administration.

“1938 Woodlawn Schoolhouse.” *Franconia Museum Historic Sites*, Franconia Museum, www.franconiahistory.com/historic-sites/1938-woodlawn-schoolhouse.

“Virginia Magazine of History and Biography.” *JSTOR*, www.jstor.org/stable/i26322274.

Footnotes

1 Alexandria, Virginia, Marriage Records, 1874.

My connection to the West Ford legacy is one of familial interweaving through marriage. My mother’s stepfather, Bruce Saunders, was a third great-grandson of West Ford. As is common among the descendants of those once enslaved at Mount Vernon, our families are linked by a complex and enduring network of kinship. Over generations, these bonds have created a community in which many individuals are, by blood or by tradition, considered cousins—and they continue to refer to one another as such, honoring the shared legacy of resilience and connection.

2 Conflicting accounts of the origins of education in Gum Springs reveal not a contradiction, but a layered history of community-led schooling. Freedmen’s Bureau records cite an early private school providing property to served as a schoolhouse led by Samuel K. Lee as early as 1865. Only to be burned by arsonist but swiftly relocated to the home of Charles Ford. Oral tradition credits Rev. Samuel Taylor, a formerly enslaved man, with establishing a church-based school at Bethlehem Baptist Church. Later, Jane Ford’s land donation enabled the construction of a formal schoolhouse, supported by Quaker educators. Together, these efforts mark a continuum of African American educational self-determination in the Reconstruction era.

3 “Colored Land Tract List,” Fairfax County, 1894. Listing land tracts by race allowed white officials to monitor and limit the growth of independent Black communities like Gum Springs. Tract books served as a tool of social control, making it easier to enforce vagrancy laws, debt peonage, or discriminatory zoning.

4 Freedmen’s Bureau Records, RG105; research.centerformasonslegacies.com.

5 Oral history accounts from Gum Springs residents; further documentation may be available through the Gum Springs Historical Society. See Judith Saunders Burton, A History of Gum Springs, Virginia: A Report of a Case Study of Leadership in a Black Enclave. 1986. PhD diss., Peabody College for Teachers of Vanderbilt University.

6 Agricultural Census Records, 1901; Fairfax County Historical Society. www.familysearch.org/en/search

7 Casper, Scott E. “Out of Mount Vernon’s Shadow,” p. 47. See Reid, Debra, and Evan Bennett (eds), Beyond Forty Acres and a Mule: African American Landowning Families since Reconstruction (Gainesville, FL, 2012; online edn, Florida Scholarship Online, 20 Sept. 2012), https://doi.org/10.5744/florida/9780813039862.001.0001, accessed 27 June 2025.

8 Fairfax County Deed Book (1893), Grantee Index; Seaton-Ford transaction lineage traced through land records]

9  FindAGrave.com, Peake Family Cemetery; Gum Springs Museum Archives.

10  Chancery Case, Fairfax County, 1910; Virginia Chancery Records Index 

11 Deed Contract, 1914; Fairfax County Land Records.

A Visit to Winterthur

For decades, I've been trying to visit Winterthur, the famed estate located just outside of Wilmington, Delaware. Expanded by Henry Frances du Pont, it was one of the family seats of the du Ponts, who made a massive fortune with gunpowder and chemicals. They arrived from France in 1800, right after the Revolution. The du Ponts of Delaware were staunchly anti-slavery-- a good thing to be when you're supplying materials to the Union Army. (Other du Ponts in Florida did own slaves.) The family built a number of grand homes in the Brandywine Valley. Winterthur began in 1837 as a modest 12 room mansion, but Henry, a fourth generation scion, expanded it to its 175 room current size. It is the fifth largest home in America. Henry's interests included farming, gardening, animal husbandry-- he raised prizewinning Holstein-Freisian cows. But his claim to fame was the grand house. he filled with antique furnishings and interiors. At Winterthur, each of the thirteen original colonies is represented by a roomful of antiques.