Leithton

LEITHTON Colored and White

Information as of 4/15/2016

Leithton was also known as the Pot House school, as was noted in an exchange of letters in April, 1922 between O.L. Emerick, Superintendent and Miss Charlotte H. Noland of Middleburg.

Instructors for the Colored School

1895/96: Miss Annie E. Gillem of 1150 15th St., NW, Washington, DC was the “colored” instructor, operating on a 2nd Grade certificate. Source: Lists of Teachers, 1892-1975 (1896ColoredCombined Census of Colored Teachers 1895/96 – Done Dec 15, 1895), Richmond, Virginia, USA: Virginia Department of Public Instruction/Education. Note: Ms. Gillem also instructed the previous year at Unison.
Year Unknown: Miss M.S. Stringfellow. Probably Marie or Mariah Stringfellow, born about 1872 in Facquier County, where she showed up in the 1920 U.S. census as a Public School Teacher; however, she doesn’t appear in earlier records.

History:

We believe that the white school Leithton replaced the colored school structure in 1920, though this needs to be confirmed. It was custom, with the notable exception of Banneker, to not place white students in former colored schools.
- Enrollment (source: pg 5, memo of November 29, 1944 to the members of the County School Board. LCPS Archives. 2.2 (School Board Folder).Equality Of Resources1944
  - 1917/18 – 43
  - 1922/23 – 43
  - 1927/28 – 34
  - 1932/33 – 22
  - 1937/38 –
Unfortunately, the only direct records we have for the colored school are from 1895/96 and are in the Library of Virginia. I suspect the school lasted until about 1917, which would mean that the Enrollment figures above for 1917/18 may have been for “colored.” There is the Journal of Work and Expenses by Oscar Emerick (LCPS Archives) a note for October 23, 1917 (pg 24) in which Emerick says he made a road trip of 45 miles to St. Louis (c), Millsville, Middleburg(C)(2), Middleburg (k), Mountville, Leighton (closed). The Leighton reference must be about the old school building, since the new one didn’t take place until 1920. He also visited Leithton on November 26, 1918 (pg 44), though the later might have simply been the village, not the school (there was no (c) after the name). That doesn’t tell us exactly when the colored school was actually closed; but it does at least provide a probably outer marker. I imagine the trip was an orientation mission, as Emerick took charge of the school system that year. He would have wanted to visit each structure.
There are however, for those interested in the white school, 22 pages of class lists in the LCPS Archives, from 1920-21 and 1935-36, when it likely was consolidated over the objections of the white patrons and parents. According to a memo from O.L. Emerick to the County School Board of November 29, 1944, Leithton was closed in the 1937/38 Academic Year and consolidated into one unit, with Blakely Grove, Bloomfield and Unison.
Replacement of the colored school structure by the white one is recorded in “Loudoun County,” by Oscar Emerick in the Virginia Journal of Education, September, 1920 pg 205.