Cornelius Saunders Lucas

Cornelius Saunders Lucas, born in Stafford County, Virginia (1845-May 1927), was a servant in Company A, 47th Virginia Infantry Regiment. Lucas, a slave for the Pollock family of Stafford County, served for four years as a body servant to an Infantry Captain William G. Pollock, until Pollock's death in January 1865. After the war, he received a Confederate pension and a citation from the Fredericksburg Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy for his wartime service.

As a free man, he had a grocery store on Douglas Street in Fredericksburg and a coffee house in the 200 block of William Street. He was instrumental in setting up several churches in Stafford and led Little Shiloh Church in Falmouth after becoming ordained as a minister in 1882 and was ACTIVE in the church until his death in 1927. Early members were baptized in the Rappahannock River.

During Reconstruction, he became involved in community affairs. He was an officer of the Shiloh Young Men's Association and Debating Society (1872) and was one of a slate of black men nominated for city council in 1876. He also served as an officer, along with other prominent local black citizens, in the local chapter of the United Order of True Reformers that offered graded insurance in 1884. In 1889, he became a member of the board of directors of the state's first incorporated black savings bank of Richmond, Virginia.

Rev. Lucas emphasized self-help and the need for education for African-Americans. He worked to improve the moral, economic, intellectual, and cultural conditions and enlisted the aid of white citizens in so doing. Among his accomplishments were improvements for his people in the areas of housing and voting rights.

He gave people food from his store when they had no money and made sure families had oil in the wintertime so their children could be warm. He lived on Douglas Street and earned the nickname of "Pap Lucas" because he was always striving to be a father to the children in the area.

"God loveth a cheerful giver" is noted on a book of donations for a new roof at Shiloh Baptist Church, a campaign moderated by Rev. Lucas. Indeed, Cornelius Lucas himself gave much to his community and is remembered fondly more than 150 years after his birth.

His wife was Maria A. Yates Lucas (1849-1905). They had five children, Andrew, Cornelius Jr., Lawrence, Lottie and Monroe Lucas.

He is buried in Fredericksburg, Virginia, at the Shiloh Cemetery.

References

• Fredericksburg, Virginia Wall of Honor Listing (http://www.historypoint.org/columns2.asp?column_id=824&column_type=hpfeature)
• A different story: a Black history of Fredericksburg, Stafford, and Spotsylvania, Virginia, by Ruth Coder Fitzgerald
• Across the Racial Barrier, Fredericksburg Freelance-Star (http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2003/022003/02222003/881301/index_html?page=2)