Proffit is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

Albemarle County Albemarle County is a United States county located in the Piedmont region of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Its county seat is Charlottesville, which is an independent city entirely surrounded by the county. Albemarle County is part of the Ch ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

. There is no commercial activity, with only houses lining the road and a bridge under which

Norfolk Southern The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The comp ...

's Piedmont Division, Washington District line runs. It is recognized as a Virginia Landmark and the Proffit Historic District was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1999. Shortly after the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, 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.J ...

the village was populated entirely by

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

s, when it was known as Egypt, and then as Bethel. It became known as Proffit when the

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

line went through, named for the man who bought the right of way for the line. As it became a minor commercial hub, the population gradually became more

caucasian Caucasian may refer to: Common meanings *Anything from the Caucasus region or related to it ** Ethnic groups in the Caucasus ** ''Caucasian Exarchate'' (1917–1920), an ecclesiastical exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Caucasus re ...

. By the late 1920s there were only 15-20 African American families remaining in Proffit. In 1974, the

Charlottesville-Albemarle Tribune The ''Charlottesville-Albemarle Tribune'' was a weekly newspaper in Charlottesville, Virginia published by and for African-American residents of the city. While the title suggests that the paper covered Charlottesville and Albemarle County, the ...

covered the Proffit Area News. The paper notes Evergreen Baptist Church as part of the community, with Rev. Blakely presiding. Pleasant Grove Baptist Church in Earlysville was also noted as hosting the Thanksgiving Union Worship Service with Rev. L.S. Ward, pastor of Chatman Grove Baptist Church, Eastham delivering the sermon. Other congregations joining this service were Evergreen at Proffit and Free Union of Stony Point. The Union Christmas service was planned to be at Evergreen Baptist that year. The historian, Claude Hall, author of ''

Abel Parker Upshur Abel Parker Upshur (June 17, 1790 – February 28, 1844) was an American lawyer, planter, judge, and politician from the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Active in Virginia state politics for decades, with a brother and a nephew who became distinguish ...

'', was born in Proffit, and procured three degrees from the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...

References

Further reading