As part of the 2015 Black History Month celebration in Gloucester, guides Harriott Lomax and Franklin Lemon led a well-attended walking tour Saturday of the locations of former black-owned businesses in the court house area.

Along the court circle, Lemon pointed out where Dr. Robert S. Turner’s office was located and Maurice Gardner’s shoe repair shop once stood, both on the east side of the circle near where First Presbyterian Church’s columbarium now stands.

On the opposite side of the circle was the office of Dr. Leon J. Morris, which most recently housed C.J. Kerns’ real estate office. Also in the village was a dress and hat shop owned by Edith Carter Stubbs, according to information provided with the tour.

Lemon also pointed out the home of his grandparents, the Rev. John C. Lemon and his wife, Harriett Cecelia Shorter Lemon, located at the corner of Main Street and John C. Lemon Lane. The couple had 10 children and is buried at Zion Poplars Baptist Church.  

Their children were John W. Lemon, Bertha Lemon, Maude Lemon Holmes, Prophet Lemon, Franklin Lemon, Fannie Bell Lemon, George T. Lemon, Harriett Lemon Watkins, Laura Lemon Harrington and Martha P. Lemon Savage Williams.

Tour guide Franklin Lemon, the son of George T. Lemon, and his cousin, Donald Harrington, the son of Laura Lemon Harrington and a tour participant Saturday, are the Rev. Mr. Lemon’s only surviving grandchildren.

According to the information provided, the Rev. Mr. Lemon was an ordained minister and a traveling missionary who served as pastor of Zion Poplars and Shepherdsville Baptist churches. His wife worked as a housekeeper.

The tour information said four black-owned businesses operated in the building that served as the Lemons’ residence, including the medical office of Dr. A.E. Bovell, who was a native of the West Indies.

The other businesses were the Russ-Mar Inn, owned and operated by Russell and Martha Lemon Williams, the Williams Tailor Shop, operated by the same couple, and a beauty shop owned by Harriett Lemon Watkins and operated by Carolyn C. Jones and Jean Cooper.

Farther down Lemon Lane, according to the tour information, were a cleaners and tailor shop, operated by Russell and Martha Williams, and a livery stable, owned and operated by John Lemon during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Also on Lemon Lane were two homes built by Raymond and Harriett Lemon Watkins, one of which still stands. Next to it is a small motel that was owned by the Watkins couple, and on the other side of the house stands the brick remnants of a florist shop owned and operated by Mrs. Watkins.

Between the florist and the old Botetourt Hotel, which now houses the Gloucester Museum, is a parking lot where the Vaughn Building was located. It was a large, two-story structure owned by a white family but leased to over a dozen black small business owners, according to the tour information.

The tour information lists the ground-floor businesses as a laundry mart operated by Maude Lemon Holmes, Circle Tea Room operated by Doretha May Mallory and Harriett Lemon Watkins, Vashti’s Specialty Shop operated by Vashti Driver and Lemon’s Barber Shop owned and operated by Horace Lemon.

Upstairs were rental apartments operated by Harriett Lemon Watkins and a recreation room also owned and operated by Mrs. Watkins.

A photograph in the Nov. 18, 1954 edition of the Gazette-Journal shows Mr. and Mrs. Watkins and their daughter, Jeanne Jones, inside Watkins Florist. According to the caption, they were making final preparations for the grand opening of Watkins Business Center located in the structure formerly occupied by Gloucester Equipment Company on the corner of Main Street and Lemon Avenue.

The caption states, “In the center will be Holmes and Holmes Wet Wash Laundry, Watkins Motel, Circle Dress and Millinery, Lemon Barber Shop, Circle Tea Room and Carole C. Jones Beauty Clinic.”

Last on the guided tour was the home of the late John L. and Ada Taliaferro Walker, which still stands at the corner of Main Street and Walker Avenue. John Walker, the brother of late educator and attorney Thomas Calhoun Walker, attended Hampton Institute and later graduated from the Echols School of Embalming in Philadelphia, Pa.

John Walker returned to Gloucester and established Walker Funeral Home on the other side of Walker Avenue from his home. The tour information said Walker was one of the first morticians in the state, and possibly the first in Gloucester.

Walker was in the mortuary business for over 60 years before his death in 1945. His wife and their daughter, Clementyne Walker Jones, were also licensed morticians and assisted in the funeral business. Jones additionally gave private piano lessons in the family home for over 40 years.

John Walker was a deacon and trustee at Berea Baptist Church in Ordinary, which was later incorporated with First United Baptist Church. Mr. and Mrs. Walker’s remains are in the old Berea Church cemetery, according to the tour information.

The funeral home building was later purchased by Dr. Morris and used as a family residence and his new medical office. It was next purchased by Horace Cooke and used as his family home and music studio. It was lastly acquired by Gloucester Volunteer Fire and Rescue to accommodate the expansion of its Station One.