Residents take tour of Dean memorial site

With a lot of fanfare, the Manassas Industrial School/Jennie Dean Memorial was dedicated on May 20, 1995, as one of area’s most historic sites.

Then Gov. George Allen gave the keynote address.

Since that time, the site has drawn little attention. Few visitors ever show up.

Nicole Wilfong, public program coordinator for the Manassas Museum System, felt the site was too important to go unnoticed. It had even been placed on the Virginia and National Registrar of Historical Landmarks.

She believed that more attention could be brought to the 4 1/2 acre site off Wellington Road, in front of Jennie Dean Elementary School if properly promoted.

So she asked Ulysses X.  White, a member of the Manassas Historic Resources Board, if he would lead a tour of the grounds. He gladly accepted.

The first of what are planned to be conducted every six months, was held on Sunday.

“We have never had very many people visit the site and this is our first attempt to change that,” he told a gathering of about a dozen people on the first of two tours.

He said the site commemorates the school and Dean for providing the first academic and vocational trade school for African-Americans in Northern Virginia.

“After almost a decade of fundraising by Jennie Dean, the Manassas Industrial School for Colored Youth was charted on Oct. 7, 1873. With funds solicited from the Manassas area and from philanthropists in Boston, New York, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., Dean was able to purchase 100 acres and begin construction the school — the first for African-American children in the area. She was a remarkable woman who wouldn’t take no for an answer. She believed with her heart that an education was vital to very youth,” White said.

The school’s first building, Howland Hall, was completed in time for the dedication ceremonies conducted by Frderick Douglass on Sept. 3, 1894. Over the next four decades, despite numerous setbacks from catastrophic fires, the school grew. Influential donors such as Emily Howland, a suffragette from New York, C.B. Hackley of Tarrytown, N.Y.; Everett Edward Hale of Washington, D.C., and Andrew Carnegie all contributed significant funds toward building and operational needs of the school.

By the turn of the centry more than 150 students attended the school’s three-term academic year which lasted from October through May. An estimated 6,500 students attended the school during its lifetime

“Academic instruction included mathematics, natural sciences, geography, physiology, music, literature and English. Vocational instruction included carpentry, blacksmith, wheelwrighting, matrress-making, painting, mechanical drawing, agriculture, cobbling, shoemaking, and animal husbandry for boys and sewing, cooking, domestic arts, household arts, and laundry medthods.

“The students came from all up and down the east coast … and to keep cost down the school grew it own garden for food and sold some of the products it made, “ White said.

Despite these diligent efforts, the school’s expenses usually exceeded its resources and it often suffered periods of debt. For 44 years, the school operated under increasing difficulty economic, political and social conditions. Despite these challenges the school survived as a private institution until the 1930s.

In 1937, the public school systems of Fairfax, Fauquier and Prince William counties formed a joint board of control and purchased 100 acres of land to establish a regional high school for African-American students. This three-county partnership remained until the 1950s when Fairfax and Fauquier built their own segregated schools. In 1954, Prince William consolidated its African-American students from Brown Elementary school of Manassas with the Regional High School and the school became known as the Regional High and Elementary School.

In 1957, the regional board of control was dissolved and the land was released to the county for the construction of a new high and elementary school. The cornerstone for this $800,000 building was laid in October 1958 and opened in September 1959 and was named to honor Dean — the charistmatic ex-slave and Baptist missionary who dedicated her life to advancing the educational opportunities for African Americans. When the county’s public’s school were integrated in 1966, Dean became a high school. It remained so until it was incorporated into the City of Manassas public school system in 1977 as Jennie Dean Mile School and finally in 1991 as Jennie Dean Elementary School.

The dedicated 4 1/2 acres contains simulated buildings of the original five on the campus, markers honoring contributors, photos of the campus and recreated foundations of the structures, long torn down.
Wilfong said she plans to expand the future tours, perhaps brining simulated tradesmen to the site.

Among the people on tour was Patty Jackson of Manassas with her children, Anita, 13, and Wilson, 9.

“We really learned a lot today … both about the founder and what the school offered back in that period of time,” Jackson said.

Key dates in the life of Jennie Dean and the Manassas Industrial School:
1852 — Jennie Dean born in Western Prince William County.
1893 — Manassas Industrial School for Colored Youth is chartered on Oct. 7
1894 — The school is dedicated on Sept. 3. Classes began the following month with six students enrolled.
1913 — Jennie Dean dies on May 3
1915 — Campus consists of 12 buildings with 164 students enrolled. Four types of courses are offered: academic-normal, agricultural, trades and home economics
1938 — The school becomes the Regional High School owned by Fairfax, Fauquier and Prince William counties. Students from these counties as well as from Arlington, Falls Church, Fort Belvoir, Rappahannock, Page and Warren were educated there.
1960 — Jennie Dean High and Elementary School opens in a newly constructed facility.
1966-70 — Manassas schools are integrated; most building from the Industrial School are razed by this time.
1975 — Manassas becomes a city; the school becomes Dean Middle School.
1990 — The school name changes to Jennie Dean Elementary School.
1995 — The Manassas Industrial School/Jennie Dean Memorial is dedicated and opened to the public.