Jacob E. Yoder

Jacob Eschbach Yoder (22 Feb. 1838-15 Apr. 1905), reared a Mennonite in Pennsylvania, came to Lynchburg after the Civil War to teach former slaves in the Freedmen's Bureau's Camp Davis School. Following Reconstruction, Yoder served as supervising principal of Lynchburg's African American schools for more than 25 years and helped start the College Hill Baptist Church Sunday school. When he died, black teachers declared that "he had devoted his life unselfishly, and unstintingly to our race, and wore himself out in service to us." In 1911, the Lynchburg School Board named the new Yoder School for blacks, which stood here, after this public school pioneer.