By Stephen Smoot
One hundred and one years ago next month, the Town of Franklin underwent a tragic fire that razed much of the downtown. Many of the structures that defined the streetscapes of the town before, during, and after the Civil War fell in the blaze.
On the edge of the disaster, however, one large structure remained standing. It, unfortunately, succumbed to fire last week. In the 21st century, it served as a residence for eight people. This is the story of the building that stood across a narrow street from the Main Street Methodist Church.
That building served as a home for one of several enterprises started and operated over the decades by the Priest family.
The family first settled in the former Fairfax lands of Virginia’s Northern Neck. In the first years of the American Republic, one could not participate in politics in most areas without owning land. As families gained control of property east of the Blue Ridge, those shut out of that early version of the game of Monopoly looked for unowned lands farther west.
Gary Winkler’s “Common Men, Common Ground” recalls the family’s story, both remarkable and typical. Peter Priest of Culpepper, Virginia, strove to take care of his family in the present and the future, but fell into debt. In 1826, as the book tells, “County Sheriff Robert Slaughter arrived at the Priest hat shop . . . whereupon the poor hatter was taken into custody and remanded to the county jail.”
There, the debtor under the laws at the time “sold off all their property holdings . . . for a sum of $773.50.” That debt would equal just under $24,000 in 2024.
From the wreckage of the family finances, 18-year-old James, their son, was sent to live with an uncle in the western mountains.
The family that found penury in the eastern part of Virginia discovered opportunity in the west.
As Dyer Anderson and Eric Hedrick’s Select Profiles from Pendleton County History note, “the period of the late 1800s and early 1900s was a boom time for Franklin. James Priest had long ago become a doctor.
His sons opened close relationships with established local families. Samuel, Thomas, and James followed the trades pathway to prominence by apprenticing with a local carpenter. Samuel also married 23-year-old Mary Hinkle of Germany Valley and came into significant acreage there.
Samuel and Thomas “followed their father’s tradition of being involved in politics and public service.” Each served as mayor and council members, traveling widely and returning with “progressive ideas.” As “well-read professionals, keeping up with the journals of the day,” they could instill ideas learned elsewhere into Franklin’s development.
The “progressive ideas” included adapting modern industrial techniques for growing their expanding business enterprises. Samuel Priest acquired the textile mill that he had helped to construct for the Anderson family. He then developed a wagon and furniture making operation eventually called S. P. Priest and Sons, while allowing his brother, Thomas, access to his modern equipment to produce coffins more quickly and efficiently.
As Winkler explained, in the late Victorian Era, funeral conventions started to change. What had taken place in the home of the deceased, or in one of the homes of a close family member or friend, now moved out of the home.
Those who could construct and provide the tangible needs for a funeral often went into the business of arranging and conducting them. Thomas Priest had a natural advantage as the son of a prominent doctor and a long-respected elected official. He also constructed coffins in his shop, engaging his “seamstress sisters . . . Julia and Sadie to produce linings for coffins, as well as setting up homes for viewings.” Of course, brother, Samuel, built the hearses used.
As the family combined efforts to establish Thomas Priest’s undertaker business, the conventions of funerals changed.
“Society’s changing attitudes toward the ritual of death played a far more significant role in the undertaker’s trade in the more liberalized religious climate of the late 19th century,” Winkler wrote. He then added that increased mobility, socially and geographically, “meant that family members were not always available to attend to the complex arrangements for a funeral.
An increasing desire also emerged “to separate the living from the dead.” Instead of the tradition of “sitting up” with the body in a house covered in black draperies, the body now went to the undertaker to handle all affairs professionally.
By the time Thomas Priest got into the business, the new fashion lay in using the undertaker’s own “parlor” that was pressed into service to accommodate the grieving family and those who wished to pay their last respects.
Over time, the undertaker started using a separate “funeral home” as a place of business specifically to handle funerals of all sizes. As Winkler wrote, “The undertaker profession was a lucrative trade for those with the right accoutrements.”
The graceful white building with the massive front porch that hosted so many celebrations of life after the time of passing turned into a Franklin Main Street landmark. Winkler wrote that “the children of the town shrieked as they walked past the shop.” Inside the elegant façade whose interior reminded young people of death, they “would enter the shop and ascend the stairs” where they found the big-hearted old craftsman, “’Uncle Tom Priest’ with a smile on his face and a jar of candy on his workbench.”
“Uncle Tom Priest” would continue to serve in business and politics until his passing in 1916. He was remembered as one who “practiced his religion by a uniformity of kindness of disposition, mingled with firmness of conviction and gentleness of manner that always carried respect, without resentment to the hearts with whom he had to deal.”
Fire destroyed the S. P. Priest and Sons works across the river in the winter of 1899, just as it has now also claimed the fate of the building that served as a funeral home for so many years. Despite the loss of historic structures, the culture of Franklin still greatly reflects the kind, respectful, engaged, and ever-productive legacy of the Priest family. It started almost 200 years ago and continues to shine today.
