The Holley Graded School Historic Site preserves an icon of black education on Virginia’s Northern Neck; the school was established for the purpose of teaching African Americans emancipated at the end of the Civil War. Glasgow Blackwell and other blacks of the Lottsburg area, affiliated with the neighboring Zion Baptist Church, called the first teacher, Caroline Putnam, in 1868. Putnam, who had traveled with Sallie Holley on the abolitionist speaker circuit after their days together at Oberlin College, determined to make the teaching of Lottsburg’s freedpeople and their children her life’s work. Seeking to establish a more permanent site where she might have more autonomy, Putnam solicited Holley’s help; when Holley purchased the property in 1869, Putnam named the school for her in appreciation.
