Historic marker in Hampton celebrates Syms Free School
HAMPTON — When Faye Sobel did some online genealogy digging three years ago under her family name — Sims — she discovered the name Benjamin Syms, which took her on an unexpected journey.
Syms was not a relative. But his story about endowing 200 acres and eight cows to start the first free school nearly four centuries ago in the Virginia colonies caught her eye.
“I read this little bit (and) I thought, ‘Wow, this is neat. Why hasn’t anybody talked about this man before?’ “said Sobel, 76.
As the honorary state president with the Virginia Society of the Colonial Dames 17th Century, Sobel was looking for a project the group could tackle. It’s an organization for women who are lineal descendants of ancestors from one of the original colonies.
Led by Sobel, the group began the task of gathering the documents to verify Syms’ story and present it to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, which oversees the designation of historical markers.
Sobel, Hampton and NASA Langley officials memorialized the Syms Free School on Friday, recognizing his legacy with a highway historic marker. The event was closed to the public but was attended by more than three dozen members of the Colonial Dames society.
The footprint where the Syms Free School once stood is on federal land now occupied by Joint Base Langley-Eustis. It’s in a wooded area a stone’s throw from the perimeter of NASA Langley Research Center. Archeologists have found artifacts and writing slates and believe the school was built on that site.
The historical marker, approved by the Department of Historic Resources in December, will be placed near the main NASA Langley gate at
Commander Sheppard Boulevard. The marker will be next to two others — including one that commemorates the founding of the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics, or NACA, a predecessor to NASA.
“Syms recognized early that without an education, people were at a disadvantage,” said Sobel, a Suffolk resident.
Syms was an unmarried land owner in Elizabeth City County who could not read or write.
He took first steps to establish a free school before he died and became a forefather of the American system of free education, Hampton History Museum curator Allen Hoilman told attendees.
“At that time, 70% of those who were not of the gentry were illiterate,” Hoilman said
He left a 200-acre parcel and livestock for the public to create, “a free school to educate and teach the children of the adjoining parishes of Elizabeth City and Poquoson from Marie’s Mount downward to the Poquoson River,” as stipulated in his will dated Feb. 12, 1634.
Syms signed his will with an “X,” and left the bequest to fellow parishioners, museum historian Beth Austin said. The school did not officially open until 1649 and a teacher was paid using profits gained from selling the milk and beef, historians say.
In 1805, the Syms Free school merged with the nearby Eaton Charity School, originally established in 1859 via a will from slave owner Thomas Eaton. Eaton bequeathed 500 acres, two slaves, buildings and livestock. The school reopened as Hampton Academy but burned down during the Civil War. It later reopened as the Syms-Eaton Academy, ultimately becoming Hampton High School.
By 1852, Virginia’s General Assembly transferred the assets of the Syms and Eaton schools to the public treasury of Elizabeth City County to fund public schools. At that time, the total amounted to $10,706.55, Austin shared in an email.
The Syms Free School is linked with the origins of public school education in Virginia, but a school in Massachusetts, the Boston Latin School began classes in 1635 and makes the claim as the “oldest free public” school in the country.
A trust fund created from the Syms and Eaton donations has remained intact since the 17th century. It is used to support the Hampton public school system. The trust currently has a little over $50,000, according to Hampton schools spokeswoman Kellie Goral.
It’s not clear in what areas the trust has been used to support the public school system, but the division’s goal is to keep the trust intact in perpetuity, Goral said in an email.