James A. Fields House

Newport News County · dedicated 2003 · 617 E. 27th Street

James A. Fields acquired this late-Victorian Italianate-style brick house in 1893. Fields, born into slavery in Hanover County, escaped in 1862 and became a contraband of war. He graduated in 1871 from what is now Hampton University and taught school. After receiving a law degree from Howard University in 1882, Fields served as the commonwealth's attorney for Warwick County in 1887 and represented the region in the House of Delegates (1889-1890). After Field's death in 1903, four doctors acquired the house in 1908 and it functioned as Newport News' first black hospital. Eventually the hospital became known as Whittaker Memorial Hospital at another site.

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