Marvin Tupper Jones
May 30, 2024
Staff from the City of Raleigh Museum contacted Libby Jones of the Winton Historical Association to inquire about Winton's Lydia Walden and her husband, Dr. Manassas T. Pope of Rich Square. Their home, the Pope House Museum, is part of the Raleigh museum.
Lydia Walden, born around 1868, graduated from Shaw University and was one of the first teachers at Winton's Chowan Academy at its founding in 1886. Pope, a fresh out of Shaw's Leonard School of Medicine, practiced medicine and also taught at the academy. Later that year, Pope and she married and moved to Raleigh. Lydia taught at Shaw while Manassas continued to practice medicine and pursue political and business leadership. He served in the Spanish-American War and ran for mayor in 1919, a bold move in the Jim Crow south.
Marvin hosted a Winton Triangle tour for three members of the museum staff, showing where Lydia's parents are buried, the probable site of her wedding at Pleasant Plains School House, the original Chowan Academy classroom building on Winton's Weaver Street, the C.S. Brown campus, and the home of Lydia's sister, Annie Walden Jones.
Chowan Discovery’s Winton Triangle tours are given to history professionals and journalists.
Photograph: Karleigh Schuster, Hazel Boomer and Maggie Damghani at the grave marker for James and Milly Walden, outside of Cofield, NC.
