Cooperative Living June 2017 - 34

White
House
People
Clockwise, from upper left: Charles Roy Nichols is pictured on a horse on the south side of the house. John Roy Nichols and his wife (who
built the current White House in 1938) are pictured on the front lawn of the house in a picture his granddaughter says was taken in the early1970s.
Norris Goode lives on the White House property. Jason Johnson and his mother Peggy Harris Johnson in front of the White House.
and later Odd Fellows Lodge can still be
seen today on Route 626, just east of the
White House corner. The structure was
built in 1900 by Alexander Tazewell (Taz)
Owen. His business was known as A. T.
Owen and Co. and closed in 1920. Records
show that court was held at the Owen
Store by Daniel Cassity (from nearby
Leesville) and George Goob Saunders.
Owen later leased the two-story
structure to the Independent Order of Odd
Fellows. The dates the lodge was chartered
and discontinued are not known. Locals
say the building was also used for revivals.
The Ayers Chapel/School is one of the
more interesting stories in White House. It
was named after the Rev. John Ayers, who
was the first licensed Methodist minister in
Bedford County in 1789. The original
building was located on the south side of
Route 608, just west of the intersection of
Routes 626 and 608 and west of Route 853,
the road to the Smith Mountain Lake
airport. The chapel is believed to be one of
the earliest places of Methodist worship in
Bedford County. Dr. Elmer T. Clark in 1958
edited the three-volume series, The Journal
and Letters of Francis Asbury, in which
Methodist Bishop Asbury refers to the
32 | Cooperative Living | June 2017
chapel in 1788. It became part of the Bedford
County school system in 1913 and was
closed in 1937. The school is unique in that
one of its students who became ill in the
influenza epidemic expressed his wish to be
buried on the school property. The youth,
named Jack Harris, loved baseball and was
buried at home plate.
He was the son of Albert Lee Harris and
Annie Belle Ashwell, who were married Nov.
7, 1897, in Bedford County. Harris is the uncle
of Johnson's mother, Peggy Harris Johnson.
After the school was closed, the building was
purchased by J. Roy Nichols of the White
House. The wood from the school was used
in building a house on the west side of Route
626 near the intersection of White House
and Tolers Ferry roads. The building erected
for Grover and Otha Tuck still can be seen
on the property owned by Hertha Nichols.
White House is divided by Moneta on the
White House Road side and Huddleston on
the Smith Mountain Lake Parkway side. The
name Huddleston is interesting. The
community is named after industrialist Henry
Huttleston Rogers, who started the Virginian
Railway in 1907 by combining the Deepwater
Railway in West Virginia and the Tidewater
Railway in Virginia.
The Virginian Railway extended from
Sewell's Point, on Hampton Roads,
Norfolk, Virginia, to Deepwater, West
Virginia, a distance of 443 miles. It
operated from 1909 until 1959, when it
was purchased by Norfolk and Western.
Rogers was a close friend of author
Mark Twain, who frequently visited the
Rogers family, often arriving on Rogers'
225-foot steam yacht Kanawha. At Twain's
suggestion, Rogers gave financial
assistance to Helen Keller, who dedicated
one of her books to him. Rogers also
provided Booker T. Washington with
funds for the establishment of schools
for southern blacks. The Booker T.
Washington connection is interesting
because James Burroughs' sister Katherine
lived alone on a small farm next to the
White House and his father was one of the
early pastors at Moody Meeting House.
James Burroughs owned a small
tobacco plantation, where celebrated
author Booker T. Washington was born
and that is now home to the Booker T.
Washington National Monument. 
Jeff Reid is a freelance writer and photographer
who lives in Bedford County.
www.co-opliving.com

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Cooperative Living June 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Cooperative Living June 2017