I see places like Ziontown passing away – those small, tight communities [where] everybody was as close as family,” says Richard Lambert. “I’ve never forgotten what it taught me; Ziontown was a blessing.”

With this introduction, Lambert brings into stark reality the grainy idea of his childhood home, Ziontown, a black community in western Henrico County brought to bear by a formerly enslaved man just after the Civil War.  Ziontown was no fabled hamlet whose existence is limited to the minds of those old enough to remember its heyday. It was a community of hardworking, entrepreneurial folk who raised families, worshiped in churches, educated their children and prospered in spite of living in a time that was anything but promising for African-Americans. Through Reconstruction, Jim Crow and the Civil Rights era, the residents of Ziontown lived, worked and loved, pressing ever onward and upward.

Humble Beginnings

In the 1935 book “Zion Town – A Study in Human Ecology” by University of Virginia Phelps-Stokes fellow Howard H. Harlan, Zion Town is described as “a small Negro settlement approximately seven miles west of the business district of Richmond. … It is located on Ridge Road between River Road and Three Chopt Road.” Harlan goes on to describe the community’s land as “gently rolling,” and comprising about 48 homes. 

Henry Pryor, a former slave at the nearby Higginbotham plantation, purchased much of the land that would come to make up the community. Pryor, whom Harlan calls “a very remarkable Negro,” built the first six homes in Ziontown; this was the start of his career as a carpenter and builder.

Remarkable though he may have been, Pryor was not immune to racial prejudice, which threatened the stability of the young community a few years after its founding. Pryor had purchased those first acres from a wealthy white landowner, Ben Green. A few years later, Green’s sons claimed in court that they had rights to the land, now under Pryor’s rightful ownership and the 5-acre homestead of at least eight families. The court, unfortunately but unsurprisingly, sided with the white men. Undaunted, Pryor “marched down to the courthouse and purchased the property for the second time, this time making sure that the deed and titles were authentic,” writes Harlan.

Brenda Dabney Nichols, author of “African-Americans of Henrico County” (2010), is the great-great granddaughter of Henry Pryor. “He bought the property again, officially, on Nov. 1, 1870,” she says of her ancestor’s purchase of Ziontown. “The first time, they really had him over a barrel, because Pryor couldn’t read” and was unable to defend himself in court when the Green brothers brought their claim against his land. “He made doubly sure he got everything in writing and official with the clerk’s office the second time around.” Pryor and his wife, Penola, had five children, all of whom were raised in Ziontown and then moved on to other areas of Henrico County.

Ziontown can be likened to Jackson Ward and other enclaves of black success and growth in Richmond. Jackson Ward was established in the early 19th century by free African-Americans, became a national hub of black business, culture, economic prosperity and homeownership. Like Ziontown, Jackson Ward gave rise to prominent community leaders, including Maggie L. Walker, James Jackson Jr., A.D. Price, Neverett Eggleston Sr. and Rosa Dixon Bowser.

Designed to Flourish

On the shoulders of Pryor and the first residents of Ziontown new generations arose, such as the Lambert family, headed by Benjamin Jr. and Frances. The husband and wife developed a successful catering business, which they began in the 1950s. The family became the official caterers of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and served governors at the Executive Mansion. They had seven children, who all worked in the family business growing up. “That’s what we were doing on the weekends and during summer break,” says Richard Lambert, one of the sons and owner of Scott’s Funeral Home in Richmond.  Another of the sons, Benjamin III, became an optometrist, as well as a state senator.

Richard Lambert says his career’s success and that of his siblings is a direct reflection of their parents, as well as the nurturing environment of Ziontown. “My mother and father were very serious about hard work; it taught all of us responsibility.”

Using what he earned working in the family business, Lambert paid his way through Virginia Union University. He attests to the determined, caring nature of community families. 

“You had some people who started off working for others, as domestics or what have you … they were successful because they were hardworking. And then, many people became entrepreneurs,” Lambert says. “At the same time, everybody was like family to you. You could stop by any house on the street, and if they were eating dinner, they’d say, ‘Come on, sit down and eat something.’ You felt welcome everywhere in the neighborhood.” 

Nichols grew up in Quioccasin, a prosperous black hamlet adjacent to Ziontown. She echoes Lambert, saying blacks in that area continued to strive for success, despite facing racial discrimination, just as Pryor had so many years before. “My father, Earnest Dabney, attended Quioccasin School, and had to walk all the way, through snow, rain, everything,” she says. “The county gave the white children a bus to ride. My father’s school was never given new books and supplies, only used, cast-off ones from the white schools.” 

Lessons for Today

The Ziontown Nichols remembers from her youth was “very much” alive. A bustling, self-contained village, Ziontown’s residents were “gainfully employed, and many of the men, during those years, had businesses: a little corner store, a refuse business, different trades.”

Nichols’ cousin, Samuel Byrd Sr., a retired police officer and Richmond Public Schools educator, was raised in one of the oldest homes in the neighborhood. “What I remember is the feeling of being secure in Ziontown,” he says. “The community was self-reliant, we had everything we needed and took care of each other. Didn’t have to rely on anybody else.”

His grandmother Penola Byrd was born a slave on the Higginbotham estate and moved with her family to Ziontown; she died at 99. Byrd’s sister Vaudine, and mother, Ruth, 92, still live in the home, built in 1924 (the original home, built during Ziontown’s earliest days, was destroyed by a fire).

Byrd says it’s important to honor what the residents of Ziontown embodied: self-determination, respect for the community and a penchant for progress. “What Ziontown represented then, the city of Richmond can learn from now.”