The Old Folks Home

Essex County · dedicated 2023 · US 17 (Tidewater Trail), 0.2 miles north of Route 610 (Boston Road)

The Woman’s Baptist District Missionary Convention conceived the Old Folks Home in 1894 and opened it here ca. 1909 to care for aged, destitute Black people, some of whom had been enslaved. Under the supervision of a live-in matron and an all-woman trustee board, residents were afforded life essentials as well as burial. Churches, individual donors, and timber sales provided funds for the Home, which operated for about 30 years. The Home exemplified a nationwide social reform that began late in the 1800s as charitable groups, often led by women, founded residences for the indigent elderly as alternatives to public almshouses. Homes serving Black elders coped with the ills of racism and poverty.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

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under a mile from where William Gabby lived in the 1760s

what this marker records spans 1777 to 1789, overlapping William Gabby's years here

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