Mrs. Samantha Jane Neil

Mrs. Samantha Jane Neil. Amelia Court House, Virginia. Amelia County is largely indebted to one woman for bringing formal education and religion to African Americans after the Civil War. In 1865 Mrs. Samantha Jane Neil left her home in Pennsylvania to search for her husband’s body. He had been a Union army officer and had died somewhere in Amelia County only a few days before Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House. Though she never found her husband’s remains, she did discover a serious need for education for Virginia’s freed slaves. Later that same year Mrs. Neil set up a school under a “venerable oak tree with spreading branches.” Her first class ranged from young children to gray-haired men and women. Her class quickly grew into the formation of six African-American churches: Russell Grove, Albright, Big Oak, Allen Memorial, Mount Herman and Oak Grove Presbyterian. As a result of her work, the Freedom Board of Missions of the Presbyterian Church, later referred to as the Presbyterian Board of National Missions, grew from the Russell Grove congregation. After 1870 this Board supplied missionary teachers to black schools all over the South. Mrs. Neil remained in Amelia and taught African Americans for the rest of her life, often contributing her meager income from her husband’s benefits to her schools. Russell Grove, Albright and Big Oak churches eventually merged to become the Zion Hill Presbyterian Church. The Allen Memorial Church was later renamed the Neil Memorial Chapel, and it is there that Mrs. Neil is buried.