Proffit Historic District

Proffit is a small rural village in north-central Albemarle County, Virginia, built in two main stages. About 1871, freed slaves began settling here, and Ned Brown later sold small parcels to others. The Brown and Flanagan families built frame houses in the 1880s and 1890s, and three Flanagan houses survive, vacant and deteriorated. A railroad stop established in 1881 brought a second phase of growth, including two-story frame houses, a station master's house, stores and a depot, which was later torn down. The Evergreen Baptist Church, built in 1891 by a black Baptist congregation, remains a visual landmark with its steeple and Gothic-style windows. The district also includes the Bethel church cemetery and the remains of a sulphur mining operation from the early 1920s, the only one of its kind in the county. Proffit was listed as the most intact and best documented historically black community in Albemarle County, with a period of significance from 1871 to 1948.