Abraham Peyton Skipwith

Portrait Courtesy of Meredith Carrington and Barry O'Keefe

ABRAHAM SKIPWITH ALLEY
Judah Street from Leigh Street to Duval Street

Abraham Peyton Skipwith was a freed Black Richmonder, who purchased his own freedom for forty pounds in 1789 and soon thereafter owned one of the earliest dwellings in Jackson Ward. His home, also known as the Skipwith-Roper Cottage, was located in the part of the neighborhood called ” Little Africa” during the antebellum area, which spanned from W. Leigh Street on the 200 to 400 blocks of Duval Street. The gambrel-roofed cottage, which was built after hepurchased a plot of land in 1793, was located on the western edge of the ward at 400 W. Duval Street. The gambrel-roofed cottage, which was built after he purchased a plot of land in 1793, was located on the western edge of the ward at 400 W Duval Street. In the following year, he manumitted his wife, Cloe, and granddaughter, Maria. In 1797, he would become one of the first, if not the first, Black Richmonders and|or Virginians to establish a fully executed will, after bequeathing his cottage to them both. The cottage would become known as the Skipwith-Roper Cottage as the home descended to his heirs and remained in the family’s ownership until 1905 — with the home eventually being dislocated to a former plantation in a nearby county during the construction of the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike. Skipwith departed in 1799 and was buried at his home; however, his remains were lost to the construction of the highway. In 2026, a reconstructed version of the Skipwith-Roper Cottage was built by The JXN Project in its original home of Jackson Ward.