Sweet Briar College in Virginia holds a special distinction as the only former plantation converted into a tertiary learning institution. But despite its historic importance, the women-only school was on the verge of closing down after 114 years until officials and supporters stepped in—just in time to host the historic family reunion of the James and Lavinia Fletcher family, who are intricately tied to the institution, Aug. 6-9.
Fletcher family members travel from around the country to attend the reunions, which have been held since 1972. This is the third year that Sweet Briar is hosting the event.
The reunion theme, “160 Years of Faith and Family,” celebrates the enduring marriage of James and Lavinia Fletcher and the strong family bonds maintained by their future generations. The pair were married in 1855 while they were still slaves on the prosperous Sweet Briar plantation owned by Elijah Fletcher, which is confirmed by slave records.
“As a Vermont native and contemporary of President Thomas Jefferson, Elijah Fletcher captured his struggles with the peculiar institution of slavery in letters to his Northern family, later published as The Letters of Elijah Fletcher,” according to a press release by the Fletcher family. It continued, “His daughter, Indiana Fletcher Williams, willed the plantation to become a college upon her daughter’s death. It is believed that Sweet Briar is the only former plantation in the United States whose lands were converted for such a purpose.”
The African-American Fletchers maintained their deep ties with the Amherst County community. Upon Emancipation, with funds saved from his expertise as a master carpenter, James Fletcher purchased land on Turkey Mountain that remains in the family until this day.
But the Fletchers have also maintained their bonds with the college—after Emancipation, many Fletcher ancestors worked on the plantation as paid laborers for Elijah Fletcher’s children, and later generations worked at the college well into the 1970s.
And, a slave cemetery on the Sweet Briar campus is thought to be the burial ground for many Fletcher ancestors.
That is why during its reunion, the family is honoring those who helped prevent the institution’s closing at an award ceremony on Aug. 8 at the Conference Center of the Florence Elston Inn. Those recipients include Amherst County attorney Ellen Bowyer, Sweet Briar President Phil Stone, Amherst County Board of Supervisors Vice-Chair Claudia Tucker, and representatives of Saving Sweet Briar.
The family will also present the inaugural James and Lavinia Fletcher Family Achievement Award to Dr. Lynn Rainville for her work in helping to preserve the African-American Fletcher family legacy as well as that of the greater Sweet Briar community. Rainville gave an honorable mention to the Fletcher family in her book entitled, Hidden History: African-American Cemeteries in Central Virginia.
