Little Patrick, Amelia County, VA
By Beverly Belcher Woody
I have heard of Little Switzerland, North Carolina and even Little Sicily, New York, but until recently, I had never heard of Little Patrick in Amelia County, Virginia. So how did Little Patrick get its’ name?
It was 1917 and families in the Red Bank and Claudville areas of Patrick County were dealing with the same problems plaguing many in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The chestnut blight was destroying a source of income that most families needed to survive. Younger generations were finding it difficult to find good land to raise crops. The farms in the area were just not large enough to support several generations of a family.
At the same time, two real estate developers had purchased and cut the timber off of 3,400 acres located only six miles below Amelia Courthouse. Meggs Aaron, Simon Beverly, and John Walter Bowman heard about this available land that was cheap and flat. This appealed to the Patrick County bright leaf tobacco farmers who all lived within five miles of each other along the Dan and Little Dan rivers.
The Aaron, Beverly, and Bowman families were the first ones to leave Patrick County and purchase land along Deep Creek in Amelia County. There were no homes on the recently logged land and families reported living the first year in “sawmill shacks.”
After the first winter, relatives came to visit and soon more families from the Red Bank and Claudville area moved to the settlement known as “Little Patrick.” Soon, twenty-seven young families of Arringtons, Andersons, Barnards, Dickersons, Dillards, Flippins, Halls, Hills, Lynches, Martins, Mills, Sehens, Smiths, and Stones all called “Little Patrick” their new home.
In a 1951 interview with Hamilton Crockford in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Mr. Urby Barnard recalled that “the Amelia locals said that we wouldn’t make it. We’ll starve out within a year.” The locals were also mistaken in saying that you couldn’t grow bright leaf tobacco in the area. J. D. Anderson said that “about all the bunch realized that you had to feed the land if it fed you. As soon as we could get open ground, the folks started sowing clover and things like that to improve the land.”
Mr. Sam Lynch said in the same interview that “it may not sound so good, because we don’t like the women to do such rugged work, but I cut brush and my wife piled it.” Mrs. Sam Lynch (nee Rosa Thompson) recalled that “I helped saw logs for the barns. Most of the other women did about the same. We had chopping’s to clear the land. Then when anybody wanted any kind of building put up, the neighbors put it up. Money was scarce and that way, everybody helped everybody.”
In the winter of 1918, eight families came down with Spanish influenza. Sam Lynch and John Harris went around to each home and got up wood and water for all of them and got home each day after dark to begin their own chores.
Urby Barnard stated that every family in the farming community prospered and that “merchants in Amelia and Blackstone had never lost a dollar on anybody in Little Patrick.”
In addition to the bright leaf tobacco, many families also began raising cattle, beef and dairy, veal, poultry, and hogs. The only thing the little community was missing was a church. Meggs Aaron donated the land and the families pitched in and built a Primitive Baptist church. One of the first moderators, either Bob Arrington or Elvis Stone, named it “Little Flock Church” because initially, it was just small gathering of souls.
So many local folks in our community have ties to the Amelia area. Julia Francis Minter’s great-uncles, who were Hills, left Patrick and Stokes County, NC and went to Amelia. Pamela Joyce Washburn’s great uncle was Meggs Aaron. Tina Cox Puckett’s great grandparents, John William Sehen and Estelle Draughn Sehen are buried at Little Flock Church in Amelia. Glasby Williams from Dobyns married Elder Bob and Sarah Handy Arrington’s son, Bernard and they moved to Amelia too.
Two communities, forever linked, by their families and that true pioneer spirit.
Thank you to Ella Hall, Julia Minter, Tina Puckett, Joanne Shirley, and Pamela Washburn for their contributions to this article.
Woody can be reached at rockcastlecreek1@gmail.com.
