Della Irving Hayden (ca. 1855-1924)

Della I. Hayden, educator, was born into slavery in North Carolina and moved to Virginia with her mother after the Civil War. She attended a Freedmen's Bureau school and graduated from the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (later Hampton University) in 1877. She then served as a teacher and principal in Franklin and, for more than a decade, was “lady principal” of what is now Virginia State University. In 1904 Hayden founded the Franklin Normal and Industrial Institute to provide academic, agricultural, and industrial training to African American students. The school, renamed Hayden High School in her honor, moved into a new brick building here in 1953.