Earls (also called "Earl", according to the USGS) is a rural

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

in southeastern Amelia County in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

. It is located in Jackson District along at the southern end of SR 641 (Earls Road), north of the Amelia– Nottoway county line. The area is served by the

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional ser ...

at Amelia Court House, the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, and the United States. The equivalent term shire town is used in the US st ...

, northwest. The nearest

fire station __NOTOC__ A fire station (also called a fire house, fire hall, firemen's hall, or engine house) is a structure or other area for storing firefighting apparatuses such as fire engines and related vehicles, personal protective equipment, fire ...

to Earls is Amelia County

Volunteer Fire Department A volunteer fire department (VFD) is a fire department of volunteers who perform fire suppression and other related emergency services for a local jurisdiction. Volunteer and retained (on-call) firefighters are expected to be on call to respond ...

Station 2, at Mannboro, northeast.

Name & post office

Documentation on the precise origin of the name is lacking, and it is missing from Civil War–era maps. By the turn of the century, however, Earls was a post village, with one of tens of thousands of small mail facilities that then dotted the American countryside. Most of these "fourth class" post offices around the US were closed in the early 1900s amid the spread of

rural free delivery Rural Free Delivery (RFD) was a program of the United States Post Office Department that began in the late 19th century to deliver mail directly to rural destinations. Previously, individuals living in remote homesteads had to pick up mail themsel ...

; Earls was among the last of a long series of Amelia County communities to lose its postal facility. Earl's Grocery continued to operate on Highway 153 just south of Route 641 until around the year 2000.

History

The immediate vicinity of what is now Earls appears to have been spared significant action during most of the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

. Troops from both sides passed close by during the final days of the war in early April 1865, as

Confederate Confederacy or confederate may refer to: States or communities * Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities * Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...

forces retreated westward and

Union Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...

forces pursued and flanked the Rebels. However, most of the movement around Earls would have occurred during a brief lull in the fighting, between the

Battle of Namozine Church The Battle of Namozine Church, Virginia, was an engagement between Union Army and Confederate States Army forces that occurred on April 3, 1865, during the Appomattox Campaign of the American Civil War. The battle was the first engagement betw ...

and a series of increasingly bloody and desperate engagements in central and western Amelia County. General Robert E. Lee surrendered to

Ulysses S. Grant Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant ; April 27, 1822July 23, 1885) was an American military officer and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. As Commanding General, he led the Union Ar ...

at Appomattox on April 9. Manassas (or Manassa) Hill School, built sometime between 1917 and 1920, was one of the first of at least a dozen

Rosenwald School The Rosenwald School project built more than 5,000 schools, shops, and teacher homes in the United States primarily for the education of African-American children in the South during the early 20th century. The project was the product of the part ...

s in Amelia County. The particular design for Manassas Hill called for a 1-acre campus with a building to accommodate one teacher; the school was located on SR 615 (modern-day Namozine Road) near Earls. During the early 20th century, the Rosenwald School project was a collaborative effort that constructed thousands of facilities across the South primarily to improve the education of

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

children. After

desegregation Desegregation is the process of ending the separation of two groups, usually referring to races. Desegregation is typically measured by the index of dissimilarity, allowing researchers to determine whether desegregation efforts are having impact o ...

, the Rosenwald model became obsolete, and many former Rosenwald properties were demolished or sold. The Manassas Hill property, along with several other former Rosenwald Schools in Amelia County, was put up for auction in the late 1960s. Manaza (or "Manassa") Hill Baptist, a historic

church, is 2 miles north of Earls on Route 615. Although the church and the school have similar names and were located on the same road, it is unclear what the connection may have been between the two.

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Virginia Unincorporated communities in Amelia County, Virginia