ABSTRACT
Gaston Alonzo Edwards was born in Belvoir, Chatham County, North Carolina, on April 12, 1875. He was one of six children of Mary Edwards and William Gaston Snipes. She was Black and he was White. Like many African Americans born in rural nineteenthcentury towns, he lived in humble conditions and began working at an early age to help support the family. He cut wheat by day and hair by night to earn money toward his college education. His travels often led him past the Chatham County Courthouse in Pittsboro. His passion for the building’s classical design inspired him to become an architect. At age twenty-one, he entered the Agricultural and Mechanical College for the Colored Race at Greensboro (now NORTH CAROLINA A&T UNIVERSITY). He graduated from the architecture program in 1901. Between 1901 and 1903, he pursued graduate studies in architecture at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
