The JXN Haus and Skipwith-Roper Cottage officially opened in April. (Photo by Jay Paul)
The new, $5.68 million JXN Haus and reconstructed Skipwith-Roper Cottage is tucked away on Bates Street, near Shockoe Hill Cemetery and Gilpin Court. It’s part of Jackson Ward, just maybe not the one you’re familiar with.
The cottage belonged to Abraham Peyton Skipwith, the first Black homeowner in Jackson Ward, whose local connections and accumulated wealth were extraordinary. During a tour in mid-April, Sesha Joi Moon, co-founder of The JXN Project and chief diversity officer for the state (appointed by Gov. Abigail Spanberger in January), marvels at Skipwith’s largely untold story.
“Black narratives like this aren’t often told, and particularly of a Black person of wealth and means and liberation and a fight for freedom,” Moon says. “You’ve never seen anything like this, where we know his relationships, we know his race, we know where he lived, we know his family tree, we know his relationships to the founding fathers. … I think what’s notable is he dies in the same year as Patrick Henry and George Washington. And when you look at their wills, he actually had a lot of the same items.”
Skipwith died in 1799, but he left his house, land, a horse and buggy, six Windsor chairs, a gun, silverware, and even a collection of suits to his descendants. He had purchased his freedom in 1789 and became something of a “founding father” in his own right.
His cottage was moved out of Jackson Ward to Goochland County. It still exists, but the building has been repurposed. Now there’s a replica.
Moon sees the recently completed JXN Haus and Skipwith-Roper Cottage as a reclamation project. It’s a memorial of sorts to the vibrant community that was destroyed during the construction of a new federal highway in the mid-1950s. Roughly 1,000 businesses and homes were razed and 7,000 Black residents were displaced when the freeway, which eventually became Interstate 95, was built.
There’s more work to be done, of course. The JXN Project is currently raising funds for the second phase of the JXN Haus, which will include a community center, library and research lab on the second floor and a co-working space on the third floor. The second phase is expected to cost around $3.5 million, Moon says.
