DANVILLE, Va. - Koyeton Beavers Jr. turned down a chance to join the Central Intelligence Agency after serving his time in the Marine Corps in the 1940s to follow in his father’s footsteps.

“I had an opportunity to apply to the CIA,” said Koyeton Beavers, 76. “I refused because I was drafted and after I served my time I did not want to serve another two years.”

In the early 1900s, prejudice prevented blacks from having a lot of opportunities, he said. The armed forces had been desegregated by President Harry S. Truman before he served in the military, but prejudice remained, Beavers said.

“There was no visible segregation among the army officers, but there was resentment,” he said. “They did not come out and call you black or a n****r, but you could feel the differences.”

Yet the prejudice in the armed forces was mild in comparison with what blacks experienced in Danville and Pittsylvania County, Koyeton Beavers said.

“A black person could go to a professional school, teach or preach and I did not want to do either,” Beavers said. “I had a business background and my father owned a store.”

His father, Koyeton Hodge Beavers Sr., owned and operated Beavers’ Grocery in the Camp Grove community in the early 1900s. He said Beavers’ Grocery gave many of Danville’s civil rights marchers supplies, such as gasoline, food and whatever needed.

“I was not involved in the march physically, but I was involved,” Beavers said. “I believe that for every person who marched and went to jail, there were five or six other people on the outside to offer support.”

Beavers belongs to a very successful family whose white and black descendents owned more than 1,000 acres of land. In 1884, his family owned more than 100 acres of land in Sandy Creek. The Beavers’ homestead still stands at 360 Beavers’ Park.

“It was my grandmother’s house that was originally a cabin with an upstairs room and then a basement and four other rooms were later added,” he said. “Even now, the roof does not leak and the chimneys are good. My great-grandfather built that house.”

He said his family was considered wealthy.

“Yes, we were considered wealthy,” Beavers said. “There were all kinds of fruit trees, vegetable gardens, the best tobacco land on the road, barns for the cows, chickens and pigs and a stable for three horses. The home place was very self-sufficient.”

The Beavers family has a rich heritage of successful family members.

His aunts and uncles, who were born between 1900 and 1917, also were successful. His aunt, Mamie Leon Beavers, was a nurse. His uncle, William Edward Beavers III, was a shoemaker. His aunts, Lillian Irma Beavers and Ella Jaspin Beavers Baker, were teachers. His uncle, Russell Downing Beavers, was a mortician and his uncle, Charles Theodore Beavers, was an attorney and married opera soprano Camilla Williams.

Koyeton said his great-uncle Charles E. Beavers, who was born in 1878, owned the store before his father bought it from him. His great-uncle, Walter Beavers, who was born in 1891, and great-aunt Gwendolyn Beavers, who was born in 1893, bought additional land on Route 360 when it became available, thus becoming wealthy landowners.

Local historian Danny Ricketts said it was very unusual for blacks to be landowners and to become educated and successful at that time.

“It shows a strong sense of family pride and determination for this family to become so prominent in Danville and Pittsylvania County,” Ricketts said.

But the Beavers’ prestige did not begin with the generation in the early 1900s. The Beavers family has been traced to Maj. William Beavers, an established white slave owner in Danville and Pittsylvania County who lived from 1763 to 1822. He also built a water-grist mill, Beavers’ Mill, on Sandy Creek in Danville.

Maj. Beavers’ will recorded 27 slaves and five free blacks living in his household in 1847.

Koyeton Beavers said some of the names of the slaves listed are names of his family members, such as John and Thomas.

Maj. Beavers’ white son John F. Beavers was born in 1803. John Beavers had eight white children between 1828 and 1843 and a mulatto son named William Edward Beavers by either a slave or a free black woman in the household on Jan. 15, 1844.

William Edward Beavers’ entire family was recorded as mulatto throughout census history. People were considered mulatto if they had both black and white family members.

“William Edward Beavers was my great-great grandfather,” Koyeton Beavers said.

Koyeton said he knew about his grandmother and grandfather, William Edward Beavers II and Lena Lanier Beavers, but he did not know much about their grandparents. He had heard his great-great-grandfather was the son of a slave.

“It is hearsay, but I have always heard that his mother was freed in her slave owner’s will and my great-great-grandfather was given almost 151 acres of land. At that time, if you had land, you had power. I have not had a chance to research any deeds or documents.”

William Edward Beavers married Mary Ella Wilson in 1873 and the couple had seven children, 13 grandchildren and a host of other descendants. In 1875, Beavers and his wife purchased 108 acres of land and sold a lot on what is now Lawless Creek Road to the county’s School Trustees to establish a school for black students.

It is obvious that the family has white and black ancestors, said Koyeton, who has three daughters and four grandchildren.

“Some of us can pass and have passed for white,” Koyeton Beavers said. “I have been called black by white people and white by black people. Because I had been raised in a black community all my life, I learned to deal with it.”

Koyeton’s daughter, Edwina Beavers Motley, said her father would tell her and her sisters about their family’s ancestry.


“He would tell us that we had French, German, Indian, Irish and West African bloodlines in our heritage and that there was no reason why we could not aspire to do great things,” said Motley, a French teacher at Dan River High School and Dan River Middle School. “He said there was no reason why we should not do well and focus on academics.”

She said when a family has a rich heritage it gives the people a sense of accomplishment and absolutely no excuse not to achieve their goals.

“My brother, myself and all of my cousins are college graduates and became professionals,” said Koyeton Beavers, a graduate of West Virginia State College.

He said Julian Swanson was one of his cousins. Swanson was the first black student to attend the University of Virginia’s Law School. Also, race car driver Wendell School was his cousin.

Contact Ann Anderson at aanderson@registerbee.com or (434) 793-2311, Ext. 3119.