Wiley Horace Crocker (26 June 1873–9 July 1943), manager of the Tidewater Fair Association of Suffolk, Virginia, Incorporated, was born in Southampton County and was the son of Sandy Crocker and Jane Doles Crocker. Educated in local schools, he attended Centenary Collegiate Institute (later Centenary College) in Hackettstown, New Jersey, from 1899 to 1900 and also Wyoming Seminary Business College in Kingston, Pennsylvania, and Howard University in Washington, D.C. On 10 September 1902 Crocker married Virginia E. Lee in Suffolk. They had no children. That year he started an undertaking business and by 1910 had formed W. H. Crocker and Company, which incorporated in 1920 with Crocker as president. He also worked in insurance and real estate enterprises and established a reputation as one of the area's preeminent African American businessmen.
Crocker helped found the Nansemond Development Company, incorporated in 1907 to develop properties for Black homeowners and businessmen, and became the company's longtime manager and treasurer. He also helped establish the Nansemond County Farmers' Conference to instruct African American farmers in modern agricultural techniques. In 1911 Crocker began a three-year term on the board of the Nansemond Normal and Industrial Institute, Inc. This church-supported facility later closed and reopened in 1914, chartered as the Nansemond Collegiate Institute with a curriculum emphasizing classical education. In 1928 the institute became the first county school accredited by the state Department of Education. Crocker came to the financial aid of the school several times before it closed in 1939.
At the urging of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute faculty, in 1910 Crocker and other local Black leaders sponsored a farmers' conference and fair in Suffolk. Such events had become popular among African Americans since the 1895 Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta had included an exhibit focused on African American achievements. In Virginia, the 1907 Jamestown Ter-Centennial Exposition had featured a "Negro Building," and in October 1910 the governor attended a Colored State Fair in Richmond. The Suffolk fair, held at the white fairgrounds, ran for two days in November and featured speakers from the United States Department of Agriculture, horse races, and livestock, poultry, and farm-product exhibitions for which local merchants donated prizes. At the 1911 fair the guest speaker was William Henry Lewis, an African American recently appointed United States assistant attorney general. As president of the fair in 1912 and 1913, Crocker worked with Hampton Institute extension agents to teach farmers better ways to cultivate and fertilize crops, breed livestock and poultry, and plant new varieties of seeds. He and other businessmen contributed to the fair, which also received financial support from the white community. Some whites attended, and in 1912 many white businesses made donations and gave employees time off for the event. In 1915 Suffolk's mayor delivered an address at the agricultural fair, and the town council endorsed and appropriated funds for it.
Crocker secured a tract of land that in 1913 became the fair's permanent location. On 14 March 1914 the Tidewater Fair Association of Suffolk, Virginia, Incorporated, was formed with Crocker as treasurer. By the next year he was also officially managing the agricultural fair. Under his direction the Tidewater Fair, or Suffolk Colored Fair as it was also known, grew larger each year. It expanded to five days in 1927 before returning to four days in 1935.
In 1921 Crocker arranged for Maggie Lena Mitchell Walker, president of Saint Luke Penny Savings Bank, to address the crowd on the fair's Woman's Day. By that time the association owned thirty-three acres of improved land and had paid shareholders a dividend each year. The association continued to promote agricultural programs even as it began in 1926 to emphasize an industrial component. Crocker worked to establish a statewide presence. Luring visitors from eastern Virginia and North Carolina, the Tidewater Fair successfully competed with other Black fairs held in nearby Newport News and Norfolk and also in Raleigh, North Carolina, and eclipsed Suffolk's white fair both in attendance and influence. Taking advantage of a state extension service designation, Crocker advertised the event as "Endorsed as the Colored State and Premier Fair of the State of Virginia" and as the "Negro State Fair." Each year the official state exhibit traveled from the state fair in Richmond to Suffolk for display at the Tidewater Fair.
Crocker continued to attract prominent speakers, such as the Black nationalist Marcus Garvey, who in 1924 addressed the thousands who packed the midway. By 1925 the association's assets had increased from $3,500 at its founding to about $25,000. An estimated 100,000 people had visited the grounds that boasted an administration building, grandstand and bleachers, a large exhibits building, county school and state extension exhibits buildings, stables, and other structures. In 1928 about 25,000 visitors passed through the gates. By then the Tidewater Fair had become one of the largest, most successful Black-owned businesses in Virginia, and its economic influence extended to nearby counties, where improved farming methods translated into higher incomes that in turn meant more money for African American education in surrounding rural areas.
Crocker guided the fair through the Great Depression and the demographic changes that occurred as rural life increasingly gave way to urban living. By 1940 he was again president and served until his death. He was a vice president of the Negro Organization Society, president of the Virginia State Association of the Improved Benevolent Protective Order of the Elks of the World, and founder of the Suffolk and Nansemond County Civic League. Wiley Horace Crocker died at his home in Suffolk on 9 July 1943. State and city officials, education leaders, and representatives of various professional and fraternal groups attended his funeral. He was buried in Oaklawn Cemetery, in Suffolk.
Sources Consulted:
Birth date in Birth Register, Southampton Co., Bureau of Vital Statistics (BVS), Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Health, Record Group 36, Library of Virginia (LVA); variant birth dates of 10 June 1876 in Who's Who in Colored America, 3d ed. (1930/1932), 112, of 10 June 1870 in Norfolk Journal and Guide, 17 July 1943, and of June 1877 on BVS Death Certificate, Suffolk City; BVS Marriage Register, Nansemond Co. (age twenty-six on 10 Sept. 1902); State Corporate Commission Charter Book, 84:89–91, Record Group 112, 83:536–538, LVA; Tidewater Fair Association photographs in Hamblin Studio Collection (1910–1975), Morgan Memorial Library, Suffolk; Norfolk Virginian-Pilot and the Norfolk Landmark, 7 Oct. 1912; Norfolk Journal and Guide, 24 Sept. 1921, 17 Oct. 1925 (portrait); Sarah S. Hughes, "The Suffolk Fair," in Jane H. Kobelski, ed., Readings in Black and White: Lower Tidewater Virginia (1982), 34–38; death notice in Suffolk News-Herald, 10 July 1943; obituary and editorial tribute in Norfolk Journal and Guide, 17 July 1943
Photograph in Norfolk Journal and Guide, 17 Oct. 1925.
Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by Donald W. Gunter.
How to cite this page:
Donald W. Gunter, "Wiley Horace Crocker (1873–1943)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2006 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Crocker_Wiley_Horace, accessed [today's date]).
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