1 500 43 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6332/JHSWV_01_01_Summer_1964.pdf 081430f6475b8cd26440f9d203709055 PDF Text Text JOURNAL ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Sum m er V o lu m e O n e 1964 N um ber O ne �ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Officers President A rthur T. El l e t t ........................................................... Vice President J. R. Hildebrand ............................................................................ Secretary James D. Ric h a r d so n ......................................................................Treasurer George Kegley ......................................................................... Directors Raymond P. Barnes John D. Carr Josephine E. Chapman C. Francis Cocke Whitwell W. Coxe S. S. Edmunds B. N. Eubank Edmund P. Goodwin J. R. Hildebrand Nancy E. Himes James J. Izard Shields Johnson Arthur T. Ellett George Kegley Louis F. Kegley Mrs. J. G. McConkey L. G. Muse * * E. H. Ould James D. Richardson Tayloe Rogers R. D. Stoner Mrs. English Showalter W. L. Whitesides Robert W. Woody James P. Woods * B en B ane D ulaney K athy Editor of the JOURNAL T hornton, Photography F elix W alker, Artist CONTENTS Note from the President ......................................................... ......... Letter from Mr. Tom ............................................... ......................... Treasure Trove, by Raymond Barnes ............................................. Some Phases of the Civil War in Roanoke Area by Goodridge Wilson ......................................................... Case of the Warrantless Prisoners by R. D. Stoner ........................ Two Ladies of the M useum ............................................................... Newspaper Days: 1790 ............................................. ....... ............. The Borden Patent by J. R. H ildebrand___| ................................. From a Son After Cold H a rb o r........................................................ Museum Piece ................................................. ......... ............. ........... Page 1 2 3 6 18 21 22 24 27 30 The Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Volume I, Number 1. Published twice yearly by the Society at Box 1904, Roanoke, Virginia, to chronicle the past and present of that part of the state west of the Blue Ridge. Single copy price: 50 cents. The Society will be careful in handling unsolicited material but cannot be responsible for its loss. �Note from the President . . . With this first issue of the Roanoke Journal, the Roanoke His­ torical Society moves into a new field of communication in the poten­ tially vast area of historical activity. This publication is planned to appear regularly. But its future depends on the availability of material. We urge society members to help us look for interesting manuscripts, documents, letters, diaries or other accounts from the past. We are concerned first of all with Roanoke Valley but our historical interest also extends to neighbor­ ing counties, to early Virginia and certainly to the beginning of our nation. Biographies of prominent settlers, histories of churches, homes and schools, descriptions of early taverns, mills, roads, farms, stores and industries may be in future issues. We have a broad field to explore. This journal follows the successful opening of the society’s museum in the Roanoke College library, our first major project. Here we also need the continuing help of our members and of the community. Donations have been numerous and generous since our society was formed late in 1957. Roanoke College graciously do­ nated space for the museum in 1963. We are preserving pictures, maps, records, deeds, books, news­ papers, tools, clothing, flags and many miscellaneous items which -were an important part of the everyday lives of our ancestors. Some are described in this journal. They are on display for the public on (Continued on page 32) A CORNER OF THE SOCIETY'S NEW MUSEUM IN ROANOKE COLLEGE LIBRARY, SALEM. �Letter from Mr. Tom . . . An original letter from Thomas Jefferson referring to a visit to the Peaks of Otter in 1815 and a Beyer print of the Peaks are among the most valuable acquisitions of the Roanoke His­ torical Society. The letter and the print, probably made in the 1850’s, were given by S. H. McVitty of Salem. They are contained in the same frame. Although the letter was not signed by Mr. Jefferson, it bears his initials. Their authenticity and the handwriting were verified by James A. Bear, Jr., curator at Monticello. Mr. Jefferson was writing from Poplar Forest, his “pleas­ ant retreat” in Bedford County near Forest, apparently to the Rev. Charles Clay, his Bedford neighbor. The text of the letter: Poplar Forest Nov. 18, 1815 to Mr. Clay I was five days absent in my trip to the Peaks of Otter and have been five days engaged in calculating the observations made. This brings me down to yesterday evening when I fin­ ished them. I am going today to see Mr. Clarke at his new habi­ tation and tomorrow, weather permitting, will pay you a morning visit. In meantime, I send you a note of the result of my 10 days’ labor and some otaheite or paper mulberries valuable for regu­ larity of their form, velvet leaf and for being fruitless. They are charming, near a porch, for densely shading it. 2 �Treasure Trove by Raymond Barnes There is scarcely a locality anywhere which lacks its lo­ cal legends of lost riches and hidden treasure. But Western Virginia seems particularly rich in these stories of treasure trove so fascinating to almost every­ one. These tales, revived and repeated by succeeding generations, persist—and their versions multiply with time. These yarns fall into two categories: those concerning hidden gold or silver mines and those about fabulous caches of coins. Many Roanoke residents have visited the cemetery on Planta­ tion Road near Hollins to view the peculiar tombstone over the grave of Robert Denton who died in 1805. His father, Benjamin Denton, owned considerable acreage in the vicinity and because he always paid his debts in newly minted gold coin the legend grew that he ex­ tracted ore from his land and had it converted into legal tender. As late as 1875 Frederick Johnston, first Roanoke County clerk of court, who was writing for the Fincastle Herald, was told by one John Smith that his blacksmith father, Pete Smith, always was paid by Denton with gold coins “from the mine.” Mr. Johnson added that “no other mention of this gold mine has been made in my day.” (Draper Mss. 5 qq 98 et seq. microfilm copies, City Library) Then there is the story of the strange old man—perhaps the original tinker of Tinker Mountain—who lived on the south side of that mountain and who occasionally came to town to mend the set­ tlers’ pots and pans. The legend goes that the old tinker had plenty of money of the “white” variety which allegedly came from a secret silver mine. The 3 �story was revived in the early seventies—and promptly labelled “moon­ shine” by Mr. Johnston. Nevertheless, a surveyor named Patterson was reported to have found a keg of silver money cached under a ledge of rock on the moun­ tainside which was said to be that stored away by the old tinker. A Mr. Burger, assisting the surveyor, vowed he was paid money taken from the keg. The legend came back to life in 1897 when James Riley reported to the Roanoke Times that he discovered on the south side of Tinker Mountain a cave whose only entrance was blocked by a stone so cut to completely fill the opening in a manner not apparent to a casual observer as it differed little from the rock formation sur­ rounding the cave. Exploring the cave, he reported finding a column of silver be­ tween two ledges approximately six inches in width, which assayed at 90 percent in pure silver. He also reported that he found evidence of how the lode had been worked for some time in the past. Since that report no further mention is found regarding the mine. (See Echoes of Roanoke— World News, issue Feb. 10, 1962.) In late October, 1905 workmen excavating the slope of the hill along Shenandoah Avenue, N. W., preparing for the new N&W Sta­ tion, found a foot or so below the surface a collection of coins. This consisted of several silver dollars and half dollars dating back to 1797, in addition to gold British coins dated 1808. One familiar with the history of this section can let his imagi­ nation run riot in conjecturing why coins were found at this site. It is hazarded that since the Carolina Trail once passed nearby, a travel­ ler sick, or in fear of his life, may have buried the coins, although by 1808 the old trail had been abandoned. Were they ill-gotten gains a criminal sought to hide? In all probability William Stover, who lived where the Ponce de Leon hotel is located, or one of his guests, unwittingly lost the coins, which were later buried by ploughing, for the hill on which Hotel Roanoke stands was long a field noted for abundant wheat crops. Then there is the famous “Beale Treasure,” an alleged cache of gold, silver and jewelry buried somewhere near “Buford’s Tavern” or “Locust Level” at Montvale. The code to this treasure and a great deal concerning it may be seen at the Roanoke public library. Re­ cently one enthusiastic treasure hunter reported the code had been broken sufficiently to give compass directions, but to date apparently the cache has not been uncovered. In April, 1906, a Vintonian of an old family in that neighbor4 �hood, had been living in Kansas. Returning home he purchased a tract of land on which was an old dwelling, formerly used as a tavern. This building stood on the south side of Highway 460 near Cook’s Nur­ sery, and was described as being a story and a half high. Demolition proceeded with no untoward incident until mid-April. As reported in the Roanoke Times of April 18, 1906, there was found in the chimney several thousand dollars in gold, silver and jewelry wrapped in a Masonic apron, placed in an iron pot, then cached in the chimney! The finder would not talk, so rumors still run that he became the richest man in this part of the county. While it was reported this “treasure trove” was valued at $4,000 only members of that particular family know the truth. Nevertheless rumors were hard on old build­ ings and all over Roanoke and adjoining counties old chimneys came “tumbling down” in an effort to locate treasure. Perhaps a major reason that many believed the stories con­ cerning gold and silver ore was the actual mining of less precious metals in this immediate vicinity. A zinc mine was opened in 1888 south of the railroad near Bonsack and the Washington Mining Company shipped large quantities of this ore north for several years. Another zinc mine was worked on what is now Jefferson Hills golf course where Colonial Avenue crossed Murray Run, and still another deposit lay near State Route 119 about a mile south of Ogden. The Rorer mines were large iron producers and were worked until after World War I. There were two lodes of brown hematite, one south of present Peakwood Drive just beyond the present Roa­ noke city limit and the other east of Ogden. There were also early iron mines at Blue Ridge Springs and near the site of the present Atlas cement plant. An actual gold mine was operated by D. William Good who owned an orchard on the extreme northern slope of Buck Mountain. His son, Neil Good tells me that many loads of ore were mined about 1906 and shipped from Starkey but he does not know whether his father profited from the venture. But despite meagre proof of former fortunes the legends of hidden wealth go on—and will continue as long as human nature is human nature. 5 �Some Phases of the Civil War In the Roanoke Area Goodridge Wilson (This paper was presented by Dr. Wilson at a meeting of the society on May 8, 1964. Dr. Wilson, a longtime student of Southwest Virginia history, also is a veteran Presbyterian minister. He has writ­ ten the Southwest Corner in the Sunday ROANOKE TIMES for 35 years. Dr. Wilson lives in Bristol.) WILSON Outside the arenas of major military operations in the Civil War, no big battles or large scale campaigning occurred within the Roanoke area. What fighting and campaigning there was took place in the latter stages of the conflict—a little in 1863, a little more in 1864, and some in 1865. But from first to last the overwhelming majority of its people were wholeheartedly sympathetic to the South­ ern cause and contributed loyally and sacrificially to its support in wealth, service, and blood. Before and immediately after the opening of hostilities four companies of soldiers were organized, equipped and mustered into the service. One, known as the Salem Flying Artillery, was organized and began training more than a year before Virginia seceded and was ready for duty in the field when mustered into the service of the state at Lynchburg on May 16, 1861. It was organized on January 30, 1860, with Abraham Hupp as its captain. Captain Hupp led this battery until he was incapacitated by illness in 1862. In the spring of that year it was reorganized with Captain Charles B. Griffin at its head, a position he held until the close of the war. This battery had the remarkable record of participating in the first action on Virginia soil, the Battle of Bethel, the last action at Appomattox Court House, and in al­ most every important battle of the Army of Northern Virginia. To­ gether with the Richmond Howitzers and the Rockbridge Artillery it constituted one of the great fighting units of Confederate arms. Mc­ Cauley’s History of Roanoke County quotes General D. H. Hill’s Maga­ zine as saying: “On the ever memorable 9th of April, 1865, the Salem Flying Artillery (Company A), commanded by Capt. Charles B. Grif­ fin, was placed in position on the extreme left. After having made 6 �several ineffectual attempts to obtain possession of the road at the Court House the enemy massed a heavy line preparatory to charging the Salem Battery, which held the position commanding the town. He charged boldly on to within pistol shot, when an order from General Gordon was given to cease firing and at the same time one of his aides bore a white flag to the advancing column. The whole army had surrendered. The hoarse sound of the cannon had died away in every part of the line except this, the extreme left, which was soon after silenced, and with it the last gun of the Army of Northern Virginia.” Three other volunteer companies were organized in June and July of 1861, and each one of them was led by a member of the Deyerle family. The Roanoke Grays was commanded by Captain Madison P. Deyerle, who was killed in battle at Williamsburg on April 5, 1862. The Dixie Grays, Andrew J. Deyerle, Captain, fought with Stonewall Jackson and in most of the important battles of the war in Virginia. It was paroled at Appomattox Court House April 9, 1865. Only one member, a man named John Mangus, was present, all the others being either prisoners of war or on sick furlough. Andrew J. Deyerle was promoted to colonel in 1863. The Roanoke Guards had John S. Dey­ erle as its captain. He was promoted to major in 1862. His first lieu­ tenant was his brother, Ballard Deyerle, a sixteen-year-old boy. This company fought in the West throughout the war and was engaged in most of the important battles in Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee. * * * So far as I have been able to ascertain the first casualty of the war on Roanoke County soil was the death of a non-combat officer, killed while in the line of duty. Prior to 1860 a policy was adopted of appointing men to patrol the countryside seeing that slaves did not get out of hand and watching for raiders of the John Brown type. Negroes and ignorant whites called them “patterollers,” and women would scare children by telling them if they didn’t watch out the “pat­ terollers” would get them. After the war got under way the patrol­ men had the important duty of hunting down and arresting deserters from the Confederate army. Major John R. Peyton was too old for active duty in the army, but served efficiently as a patrolman. One day in the summer of 1863, while attempting to arrest a deserter named James Stover somewhere in the vicinity of Cave Spring, he was shot and killed. Stover was later arrested, charged with the crime, and hung. On the scaffold he admitted killing Major Peyton. This was the last public hanging in Roanoke County. It was attended by a very large crowd of spectators. The hanging took place on August 14, 1863. The principal strategic assets of the Roanoke area were the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad—passing through it from Lynchburg to Bristol, iron operations, food supplies, and horses for the armies. 7 �The iron industry, including mines, blast furnaces, forges and fac­ tories turned out finished products in Rockbridge, Alleghany, Bote­ tourt, Roanoke, Franklin, Wythe and other counties and was of tremen­ dous importance in prosecuting the war. The salt works at Saltville, and the lead works at Austinville were invaluable. It is an interesting fact that although there was hard campaigning and severe fighting in southern West Virginia and along the borders of Virginia with Ken­ tucky and Tennessee in ’61, ’62, and ’63—neither the strategic rail­ road nor the salt, iron and lead industries was seriously damaged un­ til the spring, summer, and fall of 1864. In 1863 a considerable num­ ber of blast furnaces and forges in Rockbridge and Alleghany Counties and some in Botetourt were put out of business by Federal raiders, but the industry as a whole continued operations. The fighting in West Virginia did not reach the railroad and had little effect upon the Roanoke area. Sporadic raids were made from time to time to damage the railroad but without success. The first successful raid undertaken for that purpose was made in December, 1863 when a strong force under General W. W. Averill struck Salem and hurt the railroad there badly enough to disrupt traffic for a while. In the fall and late summer of that year General Averill’s Cavalry had been in Alleghany, Greenbrier and Monroe Counties as a part of Federal forces engaged in maneuvering and fighting battles with Confederates in that region. From there Averill took his troop­ ers into more northern parts of West Virginia. He was unhappy because, while he had been for some time within striking distance of the railroad through Southwest Virginia, he had not been able to do anything that would lessen its usefulness to the Confederates. To remedy that he determined to stage a raid in December, when armed forces generally were in winter quarters. With a mixed force of mounted infantry, regular cavalry, and artil­ lery he started from a place called New Creek, and marched up the South Branch of the Potomac into Highland County, and through Bath and Alleghany Counties to the Sweet Springs. From there he pushed on to Salem. Although he tried to mask his movements by using the more remote and less frequented mountain roads the Con­ federate intelligence service kept General R. E. Lee informed about them, and General Lee set machinery in motion designed to capture or destroy the raiders. General John D. Imboden’s cavalry was operating in the Valley of Virginia. General Sam Jones was in command of the Department of Southwestern Virginia with considerable numbers under his orders. Colonel W. L. Jackson had a brigade on Jackson River in Alleghany County. ‘ General Jubal A. Early in his “Autobiographical Sketch and Narrative” said: 8 �“About the middle of December a force of cavalry and infan­ try moved from New Creek on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad up the South Branch of the Potomac, under General Averill of the Fed­ eral Army, apparently threatening Staunton, while at the same time another force moved up the Valley from Martinsburg to Strasburg. General Imboden, commanding in the Valley, having only a small brigade of Cavalry and a battery of Artillery, applied to General Lee for reinforcements and two brigades were sent to Staunton over the railroad, Fitz Lee’s brigade of cavalry being ordered to move to the Valley also. General Lee then ordered me to proceed to the Valley and take command of all the troops there.” Early was at Orange Courthouse when this order reached him. He started at once to Staunton. General Imboden met him there. The two of them, getting a report that Averill was in the Cowpasture region, rode through Buffalo Gap to investigate. On the trip courriers delivered two telegrams from General Lee to General Early. One said that Averill had left Sweet Springs heading for Salem and the other that he had arrived in Salem. Returning to Staunton they found that General Fitz Lee had arrived there ahead of his brigade. The three generals discussed how to cut off AverilFs retreat and cap­ ture him. The next day Fitz Lee and Imboden met in Lexington with their cavalry brigades, moved on to Colliersville, and camped there. On the basis of information they had it was decided that Fitz Lee should go to Buchanan and Imboden to Covington to catch Aver­ ill at one or the other of those places. General Sam Jones and Col­ onel W. L. Jackson were also alerted to keep a sharp lookout for the raider. �While Averill was on the way from Sweet Springs to Salem Captain Thomas J. Chapman led a detail of Con­ federate soldiers on a scout for Yankees and ran into Averill’s van somewhere north of Hanging Rock. In his of­ ficial report General Averill said: “New Castle was passed during the night and efforts were made to reach Salem by daylight in the morning. A party of Rebels under Captain Chapman reconnoitered our advance and all were cap­ tured except their leader who, declining to surrender, was killed.” Captain Thomas J. Chapman was a Salem boy, a son of Henry H. and Nancy Wright Chapman. He was twenty-six years old when he was killed, From these captives General Averill learned that Fitzhugh Lee was on his trail. This incident occurred early in the morning of either the 15th or the 16th of December. If on the 15th it delayed Averill’s advance until the next day. His force, consisting of four regiments of mounted infantry, a battalion of cavalry, and a battery of artillery arrived in Salem at eleven o’clock in the morning of December 16. Word of his coming had preceded him, but he was not expected so soon. The whole town was thrown into panicky confusion. The raiders put in the rest of the day tearing up railroad tracks, cutting telegraph wires, burning the depot, and destroying or appropriating all Confederate supplies stored in the town that they could find, and camped that night in the vicinity. They captured a number of old men and boys and held them prisoner over night to secure information from them. The next morning Averill ordered them released after he had inter­ viewed them. He started back the way he had come and reached New Castle that day. At its January, 1864 session the Roanoke County Court re­ corded this minute: “It appearing to the Court that during the Yankee Raid on the 16th of December last, the enemy was encamped on the Poor House property of this County and—a large quantity of Bacon and Hay, besides Horses, were carried off and destroyed.” The 10 �Justices advanced money to reimburse the losers of this property and were repaid by the County. (See “Roanoke: The Story of County and City,” page 106). The mountain streams from Staunton to Greenbrier were swol­ len by heavy rain. A telegram from Lynchburg which reported that Averill was unable to cross flooded Craig Creek and had headed back in the direction of Salem caused Fitz Lee to go to Buchanan. A later telegram saying that information was false and Averill had crossed the stream and was on his way from New Castle to Sweet Springs, ar­ rived too late. Lee had already gone to Buchanan, and Averill escaped the trap set for him by crossing Jackson River on a bridge. In a skirmish with Confederates who tried to stop him there he suffered some loss in both men and wagons loaded with supplies. Early’s Narrative says: “When Fitz Lee reached Buchanan and found Averill was not coming that way, he moved by the way of Fincastle in pursuit, and ascertaining what route Averill had taken, he then went to Covington and from there followed to Callahan’s, but the greater part of the raiding party had made its escape, so he de­ sisted from what was then a useless effort. The facts were that on going back on the route he had come, from the Sweet Springs, Averill found his retreat cut off that way by Echol’s brigade of General Sam Jones’ force from Southwestern Virginia, which was posted on what is called Potts’ or Middle Mountain, and he then turned across toward Covington over Rich Patch Mountain, being compelled to come into the valley of Jackson’s River at the point he did to reach the bridge on the road from Clifton Forge to Covington, as there was no bridge on the direct road to that place. He thus succeeded in making his escape by the stupidity or treachery of a telegraph operator, but the amount of damage he had been able to do did not compensate for the loss of men and horses which he sustained, and the suffering the others en­ dured.” * * sfc In the winter of 1864 Confederate troops were quartered in units of varying size scattered from Alleghany and Monroe Counties to the Tennessee line. A regiment had winter quarters at Salem. In that winter General U. S. Grant was made supreme field commander of all Federal armies. In consultation with top Federal brass he drew up a master strategic plan according to which all forces under his unified command would converge upon the Army of North­ ern Virginia and bring the war to an end. This plan brought the war into the Roanoke area. 11 �Georgia was to sear a path northward through the Carolinas. Fed­ eral armies occupying coastal areas of North Carolina were to move in from there. General George Thomas in command of all armies in Tennessee was to move in from that direction. General George Crook with about ten thousand men stationed at Charleston, W. Va., was to push into Southwest Virginia. An army under General Franz Sigel was to advance up the Shenandoah to Staunton. General Grant was to take personal charge of operations in Eastern Virginia. The mission of destroying the railroad and industries of Southwest Virginia was assigned jointly to General Thomas and General Crook. Early in March General John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky was given supreme command of the Confederate Department of Southwest Virginia, with headquarters at Dublin. He had been Vice President of the United States, a U. S. Senator from Kentucky, and one of the three Democratic Candidates for President who lost to Abraham Lin­ coln in 1860. When war was started he went with the South and joined the Confederate Army. He made an excellent war record and attained the rank of Major General. General William E. Jones, who had been successfully fighting detachments of Yankee troops in East Tennessee and Southwest Vir­ ginia, was at Bristol with his cavalry brigade. General John Hunt Morgan, the famous cavalry raider of Kentucky, having recently es­ caped from a Federal prison in Ohio, was at Saltville, recuperating his strength so as to resume his raiding activity. Other bodies of Confederate soldiers of all arms and sizes and serving under sundrygenerals and colonels were in their winter quarters, scattered about 12 �over a large territory. With one eye cocked toward Charleston, W. Va. and the other towards Federal armies in East Tennessee and Kentucky, Breckinridge began concentrating his troops for defense. On May 1 General Crook began his advance, sending General W. W. Averill up the Tug Fork of Sandy with 2500 cavalry, to enter Tazewell County, capture Saltville and the lead mines, and destroy the railroad as far east as Dublin. On May 2 Crook with his remaining 7500 began to move up the Kanawha and New Rivers, heading directly for Dublin. Generals Breckinridge, Jones and Morgan were kept in­ formed by their intelligence service. Breckinridge had concentrated a strong force to receive Crook at Dublin. Two stout forts on heights above New River opposite Radford were occupiet by artillery bat­ teries to defend the railroad bridge across the river. He was ready as Crook drew nearer and nearer. At this critical stage Breckinridge received imperative orders to move the bulk of his force immediately to the Shenandoah Valley to stop the Yankee General Franz Sigel be­ fore he could reach the Virginia Central Railroad at Staunton. Gen­ eral Breckinridge pulled out, leaving General Albert G. Jenkins, a cavalry leader from West Virginia, to collect what scattered units he could and do his best to stop Crook at Dublin. Jenkins succeeded in gathering a total of less than 3,000 men, which he stationed in a strong position on Cloyd’s farm, where they could meet Crook’s superior num­ bers just as they were descending Little Walker’s Mountain. On Monday, May 9 a bloody battle was fought there in which the Confederates were defeated and General Jenkins was mortally wounded. Colonel John McCausland, who succeeded to the command, conducted a skillful retreat of the defeated army until he had it across New River, with the wagon bridge at Ingles Ferry burned so the Yankees could not follow. On Tuesday, May 10, a battle was fought for the New River railroad bridge, Crook attacking from north of the river and McCausland defending from the south bank on the Radford side. Crook finally captured the forts with their big guns and burned the bridge. He then crossed at Pepper’s Ferry and went to Blacksburg. McCausland, supposing that Crook would follow him in hot pursuit retreated hurriedly through Christiansburg into the Roanoke Valley, going as far as Elliston. In the meantime when General Averill arrived in Tazewell County he found that General Jones was waiting for him there with his cavalry brigade, and General Morgan was ready to give him a hot reception at Saltville. So he decided not to go to Saltville, but to strike the railroad at Wytheville instead. When he reached Wytheville on Tuesday, May 10 he found that Jones and Morgan had arrived ahead of him and effected a junction of their forces. In a fierce battle 13 �fought in nearby Crockett’s Cove that lasted into the night Averill was badly beaten. He managed to get his army out of the Cove by cross­ ing a mountain during the night, and proceeded to Christiansburg on the 11th. Crook, instead of pursuing McCausland in the Roanoke Valley as was expected, marched his army from Blacksburg across Salt Pond Mountain to Union, W. Va., where Averill, after some fur­ ther misfortunes, joined him several days later. General Morgan took his troops back to Saltville. General Jones moved his from Wytheville to Dublin, and later, following or­ ders, to the Staunton area, having combined forces with McCausland. As compensation for taking his army away from Dublin in the face of Crook’s advance, General Breckinridge on May 15, aided by V. M. I. cadets, defeated General Sigel at New Market, and sent him reeling down the Valley towards Maryland. General Breckinridge then joined General Lee at Hanover Junction, in defense of Richmond. General W. E. Jones succeeded him as chief Commander in the Valley. General David Hunter succeeded Sigel in command of Federals and, with greatly increased numbers, marched back up the Valley. In the Battle of Piedmont, fought near Staunton on June 5, General Jones was killed and his army was defeated, leaving the way open for Hunter to go to Lexington, pillaging and burning as he went. General Lee sent General Breckinridge back to the Valley to oppose Hunter. Breckinridge moved to Lynchburg to meet Hunter there. General Lee also sent Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early with a part of the 2nd Army Corps to the Valley, with instructions to de­ stroy Hunter if possible, and then try to make a demonstration against Washington City that would divert troops from around Richmond to defend the Capitol. After pillaging and burning in Lexington, Hunter moved his army to Buchanan, where he committed “outrages,” and from there crossed the Blue Ridge into Bedford County to attack Lynchburg. Following the Battle of Piedmont on June 5 and the death of General W. E. Jones, General John D. Imboden assumed command of the de­ feated Confederates, with General John McCausland second in com­ mand. McCausland was promoted to Brigadier General because of his heroic performance at Cloyd’s Farm and New River Bridge on May 9 and 10. Both of these men were able cavalry leaders, and with the small number of horsemen at their disposal they harassed Hunter’s army effectively, seriously retarding his march from Liberty, then the name of the Bedford County seat, to Lynchburg. General Early promptly executed General Lee’s order to move 14 �his 2nd Army Corps to the Valley. At Charlottesville he learned that Hunter had left the Valley and was marching on Lynchburg through Bedford. He commandeered all available cars and moved his troops by train from Charlottesville to Lynchburg, arriving in time to stop Hunter on the outskirts of the city and start him running back through Liberty and Salem into the mountains all the way to Lewisburg, with Early close on his heels. The Confederates caught up with his rear at Hanging Rock, north of Salem, where a small battle was fought which the Confederates won. Many tales have been told about inci­ dents occurring on Hunter’s march through Buchanan and Bedford to Lynchburg, and especially about those occurring during his hurried retreat through Bedford and Roanoke Counties after he found him­ self facing Early’s 2nd Corps veterans at Lynchburg. An excellent collection of these anecdotes is in the book quoted above—“Roanoke: Story of the County and City.” Generals Early and Breckinridge joined their forces at Lynch­ burg, with Early, the ranking officer, in command and Breckinridge cheerfully obeying his orders. Having disposed of Hunter, they rested and reorganized their forces in the Roanoke area, and then, working harmoniously together, conducted what is known in history as Early’s Valley Campaign, one of the most brilliant exploits of the war. He * H« In the fall of 1864 General Breckinridge was reassigned to his departmental command in Southwest Virginia. In January 1865 he became Jefferson Davis’ Secretary of War, a position that he held until the end of the struggle in April of that year. After Hunter’s army was driven out in midsummer, 1864 no hostile soldiers appeared in the Roanoke area until April 1865. In March of that year, in line with General Grant’s master strategic plan, General George Thomas, supreme commander of Federal armies in Tennessee, started General George B. Stoneman on his second raid for the purpose of destroying the railroad through Southwest Virginia. In December, 1864 he had staged a successful and highly destructive raid. Bristol was occupied and some buildings were burned there. The court house and some other buildings in Abingdon were burned. The lead mines at Austinville were captured and put out of operation. The iron works at Marion was destroyed. The Saltworks at Saltville was captured and wrecked. The railroad was put out of business from Bristol to Marion. In the Battle of Marion, fought on the 17th and 18th of December in bitterly cold weather, the Confederates, under 15 �personal command of General Breckinridge, were defeated. Stoneman returned to Tennessee. About the middle of March 1865 he left Knoxville with about 3000 cavalry on a bigger and longer raid that carried him eventually to Asheville, N. C. by a roundabout way. He went through the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina via Boone and North Wilkesboro to Mt. Airy, sending detachments to oc­ cupy Martinsville and Taylorsville. From Mt. Airy he marched through Fancy Gap to Hillsville, where he divided his force. One part went to Wytheville by Jackson’s Ferry and Fort Chiswell and tore up the rail­ road from Wytheville to New River Depot, where General Crook had captured and burned the bridge over the river on May 10, 1864. The other and larger part of the army led by Stoneman himself went through Jacksonville (now Floyd) to Christiansburg. Stoneman set up headquarters at Christiansburg in the Montague house, which is now the residence of Judge Charles Wade Crush. His men destroyed the railroad as far east as Bonsack. Small groups of Confederate sol­ diers operated in the area and inflicted what damage they could on Stoneman’s men, but they were too few and too weak to accomplish much. On April 4, 1865 the town of Salem was formally surrendered to an officer of Stoneman’s army by a committee appointed for the purpose, which consisted of Dr. Bittle, President of Roanoke College, Dr. John Alexander, and the Rev. Dr. Samuel Register. News of General Lee’s surrender of Sunday, April 9, 1865 reached General Stoneman’s headquarters at Christiansburg about sundown on that day. That night his soldiers staged a great and joy­ ful celebration at Christiansburg. A few days later General Stone­ man departed for North Carolina where he campaigned until after the surrender of General Joseph E. Johnston’s army on April 26, 1865. * * * Perhaps the most remarkable achievement of the war was keep­ ing doors of Roanoke College and Hollins Institute open and their class­ rooms filled during the entire four years of struggle. Credit for this achievement is due Dr. David Frederick Bittle, President of Roanoke College, and Dr. Charles Lewis Cocke, founder and President of Hol­ lins. The story of how this was accomplished is well told, for the col­ lege in a chapter of the book, “The First Hundred Years,” headed “Dr. Bittle Wins A War,” and for the Institute in a “Life of Charles Lewis Cocke” by Dr. W. R. L. Smith. Two Confederate generals of outstanding ability and importance were born in the Roanoke area, Brigadier General Joseph Reid An16 �derson and Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early. General Anderson was born in Botetourt County February 16, 1813, and General Early in Franklin County November 3, 1816. Both graduated at West Point, served commendably for some years in the U. S. Army, and retired to private life, Anderson to become an engineer and head of the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, and Early to become a lawyer and Commonwealth Attorney for Franklin County. When the war started both enlisted in the Confederate army. General Anderson served with distinction in the field until July 19, 1862, when, his serv­ ices being of inestimable value as active head of Tredegar Iron Works, he resigned his commission and devoted his time during the rest of the war to manufacturing armament. General Early was one of the ablest field commanders on either side. Some military critics have rated him a military genius second only to Generals R. E. Lee and “Stonewall” Jackson. Following his campaigns of 1864 as related above, after his worn-out little army disintegrated at Waynesboro early in March 1865, he was assigned to command the Department of the Valley and Southwest Virginia, and a few days later, while at Abingdon trying to see what could be done to build a fighting force out of practically nothing, he was relieved of command and ordered to retire to his home in Franklin County. On the way he became ill at Marion. As soon as he was able to travel he proceeded on his homeward way in an army ambulance. Enroute he learned of Lee’s surrender. He considered that he was not in­ cluded in the terms of that surrender and so started on horseback to Texas to join General Kirby Smith who was still fighting in that state. Before he got there Smith had surrendered, so he kept on to Mexico, then went to Cuba and to Canada, and did not return to Virginia until 1869. So “Old Jube” never did surrender, but remained an unrecon­ structed Rebel until his death in 1894. / 17 �The Case of the Warrantless Prisoners By R. D. Stoner While no battle cry echoed from the mountain ridges of Roa­ noke Valley in September, 1861, there was war trouble here. The three letters printed here for the first time shed some light on one of the less publicized aspects of the War Between the States— the care and treatment of spies, dissidents and conspirators. The brief correspondence gives us skeletal insight into one instance that should be of interest to us if only because it concerned our own counties. The three following letters are written on one double sheet of paper, and published through the courtesy of Mr. M. M. Deffenbaugh of Verona, Virginia, owner of the original. In six days, with a war on, this letter had moved from Fincastle to Hanover Turnpike, then back to General Lee at Sewell Mountain (now in West Virginia). Judge Hudson was the circuit court judge of a district which included Roa­ noke and Botetourt counties, and resided at Fincastle. General Wise had just concluded a four-year term as Governor of Virginia, and General Lee, of course, needs no introduction. Fincastle, Sept. 23, 1861 Dear General, A large number of prisoners are confined in the jail of Roanoke County, who have applied to me for writs of Habeas Corpus. I un­ derstand they were Union men, committed by your direction, but that the jailor of Roanoke has no warrant against them, but that he holds them in custody, perhaps, by the verbal direction of some officer under your command. If there was an attorney to prosecute for the Commonwealth, my proper course would be to leave the prosecution in his hands, but as the attorney for the Commonwealth, and nearly all the members of the Roanoke bar are absent in the public service, there is danger that the interests of the Commonwealth may not be properly attended to. They are cases of great importance, and a proper regard to public justice and public safety demands a fair trial. We cannot follow the example of the Lincoln government in denying the writ of Habeas Corpus.' I think the law ought to be administered now, as at all other times, without perverting or over straining a single point. But I should regret exceedingly if these men, some of them perhaps guilty of Treason, should escape for want of proof, or of proper proceedings against them. iNOTE: In the beginning of the Civil War, President Lincoln suspended the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus on his own authority with the sanc­ tion of an Act of Congress. 18 �I am afraid your attention is too much occupied with other matters but would be glad to hear any suggestion you have to make. You might be able to relieve me in a very embarrassing position. The petitions on their face would seem to show that the prison­ ers ought to be discharged. Unless there is some attention given to the matter, I presume I will have nothing else before me. I have understood that these men are not prisoners of war. If they were committed for treason or for any offense against the laws of the State, I presume there ought to be some warrant of commitment but if any warrant ever was issued, I understand it never came into the hands of the Sheriff of Roanoke. I have appointed the 4th day of October, (at the Courthouse of Roanoke), to hear the cases. I hope it will be in your power to give the matter some attention. Very respectfully, Your obt. servt— R. M. Hudson * * * At Hanover Turnpike Sept. 26th, 1861 To Genl. R. E. Lee Comd. etc. Genl.: Stopping here to dine I met this letter. It is one of many I am receiving on the same subject—the devices to get our prisoners of war out of custody by the most inapplicable civil machinery of Habeas Corpus and Bail, etc., etc. Several ancient traitors have at Lewisburg been released by Justices of Peace on bail. Among those at Roanoke, Salem, are several spies who confessed guilt to me. I respectfully submit that an officer be detailed at once to take all on to Richmond. Very respectfully, Henry A. Wise * * * Sewall Mt. 29 Sept. 61 Genl. Henry A. Wise Genl., H It will be impossible for me to attend to this business. I know nothing of the circumstances, names or acts of the individuals. The guilty should not be allowed to escape. I must, therefore, refer back this letter to you, that you may indicate to the Court the proper mode to pursue. Very resp. R. E. Lee * * * If we review the background of the military situation at this time, I think we can draw our own conclusion, as to why Wise for­ warded Hudson’s letter to Lee, and the severity of Lee’s reply—curt even for a military letter. Wise and Floyd, both former Governors of Virginia and men who greatly relied on their own judgment, were unhappy with their 19 �roles of military commanders here at Sewell Mountain. Lee was be­ set by this friction as well as by the Federal forces. To relieve this situation, the Confederate War Department had ordered Wise to im­ mediately report to them at Richmond. This order he had received on September 25th and presumably was very much upset when, on his way to Richmond (probably near Staunton where the Richmond, or Hanover, road intersected the Valley Turnpike) he received Judge Hudson’s letter. The writer feels that he is joined by all our citizens who give thought to such things in saluting the bench and the bar of 1861 for the patriotism, judicial impartiality and humanity shown in this cor­ respondence, in that, while willing to give their service and lives if necessary for their personal beliefs, they were determined to give freedom to their fellow-citizens of a different belief—under habeas corpus or other proceedings—unless evidence could be produced to show them guilty under existing statutes. The Roanoke County Court order books are silent as to what happened to the prisoners at Salem. However, these books do show the jailor was authorized to employ sixteen guards for the twenty-nine prisoners charged with crimes against the Confederate States of Amer­ ica and the Commonwealth of Virginia, while confined there; and authority for his reimbursement of several hundred dollars covering costs of such guards. 20 �Two Ladies of the Museum These mannequins in the society's Roanoke College library museum are wearing clothing at the height of fashion during two war-time periods. The tan duvetyn dress with matching high button shoes, hat and neck­ piece (at left) were popular in the fall of 1917. The outfit was donated by Mrs. Henry Taylor. The dress at right was worn by Mrs. Elizabeth Crenshaw of "Three Otters" in Bedford County about 1860 and re­ modeled in 1880. It was donated by her granddaughter, Mrs. Fred­ erick Carlyle James. 21 �Newspaper Days: 1790 The externals of both newspapers and people today aren’t much like those of 175 years ago—but their inner nature remains just about the same. As witness take these excerpts from the Richmond Independent Chronicle of May 19, 1790, of which a copy in good condition is on display in the society’s museum. DOMESTIC: Winchester, April 28—By a gentleman just arrived from Ken­ tucky through the wilderness we further learn, that about the latter part of March, a Mr. May, going down the river Ohio in a boat, was hailed by a white man from the Indian shore, nearly opposite the mouth of the Sciota, who, in the most express terms, implored Mr. May to take him into the {»oat, as he had escaped from the Indians, with whom he had been for some time a prisoner; that Mr. May, after some hesitation, complied with the solicitations of the supposed ob­ ject of distress, and directed his boat to the shore in order to take him in, when, to his inexpressible sorrow and surprise, it proved only to be a scheme used to decoy him into the hands of the merciless savages, about fifty or sixty of whom were lying in ambush near the spot: melancholy to relate, he was taken prisoner by them, together with a young lady who was going to Kentucky with him. That the Indians immediately made several oars for said boat, and next day gave chase to three others, which happened to be going down the river; that the crews of two of these boats abandoned them, and went on board the other, in which they arrived safe in Kentucky, although pursued up­ wards of eighteen miles by the savages, who frequently fired at them; that the boats thus evacuated were captured, by which means a con­ siderable quantity of goods, belonging to Colonel Hart of Hager’s Town, fell into the hands of the Indians, besides many other valuable articles, and a number of horses, belonging to the other passengers; and that a boat going to New Orleans from Kentucky, on a trading voyage, had been captured by the Indians, near the mouth of Salt River. FOREIGN: London, March 27—We received by the foreign mails of yes­ terday the latest and most authentic accounts from all parts of Europe. But they do not allow us to say one word regarding the probability of peace. . . . MORE DOMESTIC (WITH SLIGHT EDITORIALIZING): Norwich, April 19—The raging disease called the Influenza has made its second attack on the inhabitants of this city and vicinity: 22 �it seems to have resumed its progress with redoubled violence: how often must the frame of man be exposed to this secondary plague. God only knows. So far it calls aloud for medical aid and ought to excite the gentlemen of the faculty to a thorough investigation of the rise and progress of this triumphing pest to society. ADVERTISING: I have opened the CITY TAVERN where Mrs. Galt formerly lived and will give good entertainment for man and horse. AND: t M m ms »»y*» ■¡ intend Janie«» lj>uirdL B. B. D. Bedford County Trip Four old Bedford County homes and a church dating back to the late 18th and early 19th centuries were visited by 125 society members and guests on a bus tour May 23. Passing up a chance to see President Johnson at Woodrum Airport and at the dedication of the Marshall Library in Lexington on the same day, three bus-loads and others traveling by car browsed into the beginnings of Bedford County. They admired the captain’s windows and brick hens’ nests at Three Otters, handsome woodwork and Corinthian Columns in the parlor at Fancy Farm, the gracious manor house, Lochwood Hall, and the beautiful grounds at Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest. A sumptuous lunch on the lawn of old St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church at Forest was a refreshing interlude on a hot day. The tour ended with a drive through the 200-year-old village of New London where Patrick Henry, President Andrew Jackson, Mr. Jefferson and leaders of frontier days once visited. Following a popular pilgrimage to Botetourt County in 1963, the Bedford tour was enthusiastically received. The society anticipates visits to old landmarks in other neighboring counties in the future. 23 �The Borden Patent by J. R. Hildebrand Among the society’s more important acquisitions is a study in depth of the huge Borden Patent of 1739 made by the late Walter Curtis Ayers of Roanoke. The original grant of 92,100 acres covered an area drained by the headquarters of the James River and was so extensive that Benjamin Borden, Sr., its owner, could not even point out his holdings to his surveyor and offered a thousand acres to any­ one who could lay it out accurately. Mr. Ayers spent the last years of his life on this work and completed it before his death in 1963. His widow has given the society the entire study, thereby enriching data available on this famous Scotch-Irish tract of long ago. It would take a full article merely to indicate the vast volume of research done by Mr. Ayers. Here is a brief summary of the contents: 1. Map of the 92,100-acre grant. 2. Numerical register of the individual plats. 3. Index of Benjamin Borden’s original grantees. 4. Index of land holders—1741-1800. 5. Index of original grantees in Orange County. 6. Index of original grantees in Rockbridge County. 7. Index of original grantees in Botetourt County. 8. The will of Benjamin Borden, Senior. 9. A chart of the descent of counties from the original shire. 10. Five books of plats and corresponding descriptions. 11. A folio of maps peculiar to the region. 12. Clippings pertaining to the area from newspaper accounts. 13. Private correspondence and papers. Mr. Ayers’ contribution in the correlation of Western V irginia source material cannot be overestimated. His work covers the original settlement of the region, as it took the Eastern Virginia colonists a hundred years and more to push up the rivers to the foothills of the “Blue Ledge” and permanent movement to the Shenandoah Valley did not begin until about 1730. Three distinct groups of people settled this area: first, the Eng­ lish planter type from the Piedmont and Eastern Virginia who came to America as adventurers, and who made their homes in the Lower Valley; next the German element who left Europe after the Wars of the Palatinate, directly due to civil oppression. These people filled 24 �the area between Winchester and Massanutten Mountain. Last came the turbulent Scotch-Irish, driven by religious persecution from North­ ern Ireland, thence to Pennsylvania, and finally, leap-frogging the English and Germans, making their homes between Staunton and Lexington. It is of the Scotch-Irish settlements and their proprietors that this paper treats. After the Indians had given up the Valley hunting grounds, and had been pushed west of the Alleghanies, certain entrepreneurs fore­ saw the possibilities of a southern-bound flood of emigrants—for the settlement of the Valleys of the Shenandoah and James Rivers. At least four men stand out as active agents in this movement: Joist Heidt, William Russell, William Beverley and Benjamin Borden, Senior. Little is known of Borden except that he owned lands in North­ ern Virginia; prior to that came from the Province of New Jersey; was an agent for Lord Fairfax in the Northern Neck; was one of the Orange County Justices and then came to Rockbridge County in 1734. He acquired from Lieutenant Governor Gooch a patent for 92,100 acres of land. Working with the McDowells and James Wood, Sur­ veyor, he finally located 92 families in Borden’s Grant, then in Augusta County. Borden, like so many of the early settlers, as the Carvins and the Toshes, lived and died in his chosen spot and left little imprint upon history. His family name appears on no importation list; there is no record of military service, and the only date we have is that of his death in 1743. As he once lived near Winchester, his will, dated April 3, 1742, was probated in Frederick County in W. B. 1, page 4. From this will alone we learn much of his various grants and importa­ tion of settlers in them, his children and their marriages, his canny business deals and the names of his friends and associates. His wife’s name was Zeruiah Winter, and she, like Orpah in the Scriptural story, went back to her people in Jersey after the death of her husband. Here is a list of the children: 1. Benjamin, Jr., m Magdalen Woods McDowell. 2. Joseph, who went to the Carolina Country. 3. John, of whom there is little record. 4. Hannah, m Edward Rogers. 5. Martha, (Marcey) m William Fernley. 6. Abagail, m 1. Jacob Worthington.. 2. James Pritchard. 7. Rebecca, m Thomas Branson. 8. Deborah, m ----------- Henry. 25 �9. Lydia, m Jacob Peck. 10. Elizabeth, m 1. ------------ Branson. 2. ----------- Nicholas. Benjamin, Sr., died within twenty miles of the City of Roanoke, on Borden’s Run of Catawba Creek (now the Slusser lands) in present Botetourt County. This location was on his Middle Tract of 3553 acres on Catawba, which he acquired with his Lower Tract of 2880 acres in 1740. This is about all known concerning the life of Benjamin Bor­ den the Elder but we feel that this prototype of the modern realtor would be pleased to know that Walter Curtis Ayers’ work has echoed the Borden name back through history and has haloed it in an aura of romance. The Roanoke Historical Society is grateful to Mrs. Ayers for this gift so helpful to future historians and hopes that others will follow with similar research in other portions of Western Virginia. Note on a New Book Parish Lines— Diocese of Southern Virginia by C. Francis Cocke of Roanoke, second in a series of three studies of the history of the Episcopal Church in Virginia, recently was published by the Virginia State Library in Richmond. Now in the midst of a third career as a historian, Cocke was a Roanoke lawyer before he served the First National Exchange Bank as president and chairman of the board. He is a director of the society. This work follows his Parish Lines— Diocese of Southwestern Virginia, published in 1960. Work has been done on the third book, a survey of the parish lines of the Diocese of Virginia. Cocke, chancellor of the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia from 1919 until 1961, is well qualified to produce such valuable contribu­ tions to Virginia history. J. R. Hildebrand, secretary of the society, has performed im­ portant service in preparing 16 charts and 21 maps for the 287-page book. Members of other denominations may be interested in knowing that Virginia Episcopal parishes north of the James River form the Diocese of Virginia, established in 1785; those south of the James and in the area extending westward to the borders of the counties of Augusta, Nelson, Amherst, Campbell, Franklin and Henry make up the Diocese of Southern Virginia, established in 1892; and the re­ maining counties to the west are in the Diocese of Southwestern Vir­ ginia formed in 1919. 26 �From A Son After Cold Harbor A million words and more have been written concerning the campaign to save Richmond in May and June, 1862—words of specu­ lation and hindsight, technical analyses, colorful descriptions and chill fact. Fighting on the Peninsula that spring was bloody and almost continuous. What happened and what could have happened was fodder for reporters of the time and for historians ever since. Here is a colorful addition to the record—the story of some of that late spring hell from a foot soldier who was there, who “went through the hole fight, without ever falling back once.” Newton Curry was not a literary man. His spelling was not the best and his punctuation left something to be desired. But in this letter to his father, James, at home in Montgomery County, he not only did an excellent job of reporting but somehow snared the essence of the whole campaign. Here is the letter exactly as written—except it is paragraphed for easier reading. Question marks indicate words or phrases which are not clear on the faded original. July 10, 1862 Camp near Richmond To Mr. James Curry Nickells Mills, Montgomery County, Virginia I have gon threw the flint mill since the 26th of last month. We begun the great fight before Richmond on the evening of the 26th ult. Our brigade brought on the fight (Gen. Fields Brig.) I presume you have heard all about the fight here now. I went threw the hole fight without ever falling back once. We were under a most terrific fire of shot and shell on Thursday evening. Got close enough at one time to use our rifles for a while, but made no charge, it alarmed me a little at first, but it was soon over. I fear the shell worse than the musket. They make such a fuss, when they come along, that it almost stuns a man. We lay under a heavy fire all evening, was kept up till late. The ball reopened early in the morning, another brigade took the field in the morning, & we lay back to rest. A South Carolina bri­ gade charged one of the enemys batterys that morning & took it. They charged threw a swamp near a 100 yards wide (also a small creek that lay in the middle of the swamp). They also went over tree tops brush & everything else, routed the yanks at that point 27 �& they didnt make another stand for 5 miles, when we met them at a place called Col harbor. We met them their in overwhelming numbers. Some of the prisoners say they had 50 regiments at that place and ten of that number were U S Regulars. They also sayd that McClellan sayd that we could never drive them from that position, in the world, but they couldn’t stand our gallant charges. Our Regiment wasent engaged that evening but was under fire all the time. We would have been hotly engaged but owing to a misunderstanding of the orders from our General, he had ordered us on, but was misunder­ stood. I would rather have gone on than to have layn under the fire of the enemy all evening. We lay on the battlefield all that night, the day and night following also Friday evening (?) (I for­ got to tell you that we took 50 (?) pieces of cannons (?). We then started on down the chic a homony (on Sunday morning) marched all the next day (Monday) up to 2 o’clock P.M. when we halted and lay down as a reserve. We hadent been their but a short while untill the yanks began to shell us like sixty, we lay their IV2 hours under the fire of their shell while the brigade in front of us was charging their batterys. We had to double quick for neer two miles, we met the yanks within fifty yds of their batterys. At some places along the line they had got up to their guns agan. The 60th (?) behaved manfully, a wounded yank told me the next morning that we met their reinforcements 6 made them run like fine fellows. I was struck in the side by a spent rifle ball (in the Mon­ days charge) it was a glance lick, did nothing but tair a hole in my blowze & raised a knot on my ribs. I was the only one in my company that was struck that evening Milton was struck by a grape on Friday the 27th but didn’t hurt him much. We only got one man wounded & he not bad (Patrick McCann (?) is his name). Some 3 or four were stunned by the bursting of bombs or pieces of bomb hitting (?) them but wasent sufficient to lay them up. We hadent a single man killed in com (?) We lost about 125 killed 7 wounded in our Regiment in the fight, the 3 (?) engagements that we were in. I suppose this has been one of the greatest bat­ tles that history has ever recorded. We had very fine weather threw all the fight with the ex­ ception of the 7th day. It rained very hard all day. We have run the yankees away down the river under cover of their gun boats. If it hadent been for their gun boats I suppose we would have been running them yet. We have taken 30 pieces of artillery & I dont 28 �know the number of small arms amunition provisions & (c & B?) The yanks burnt up a power of one thing & another to pre­ vent us from getting it. We have taken 10,000 prisoners besides a number of sick and wounded I suppose 40,000 wouldent more than cover their loss in all. Our loss is heavy in between 15 & 20,000 or about 15000 I should think more probable. Nute has learned how fighting goes he dont care whether he has to experialed (?) an (?) more from your most, obedient son Newton (?) Young Curry ran out of paper at this point but he carefully in­ scribed several afterthoughts on the edges and across the original letter. Among them were: Father I tell you that it is one of the awfulest sights that my eyes ever beheld to look over a battlefield to see hundreds of dead men strewn over the field also a great many wounded. Guns knapsacks blankets & haver sacks scattered hither & thither. I know some instances in which the wounded yanks lay on the field for 2 or 3 days, we couldnt take care of them. I walked over 3 fields after the fight saw our men & yanks laying side by side both kill & wounded I gave several bad wound­ ed yanks water out of my canteen. You have no idea how men want water after a fight the gun­ powder & smoke makes them very thirsty I should be thankful to most merciful providence for bring (?) me safe threw this far. 29 �Museum Piece To visit the Roanoke Historical Society museum in Salem is to browse among reminders of yesterday. Since the 800-square-foot room was made available by Roanoke College in its new fire-proof library in November, 1963, a variety of objects from the past has been assembled. More than 300 articles are on display or in the files and more are received every week. New hours for the museum are Saturdays from 2 to 5. The rarest acquisitions, given by S. H. McVitty, have been more than 600 pieces of Colonial and Continental currency dating back to 1746. Thirty-six Virginia pieces from 1758-81 are among the collec­ tion preserved in leather-bound volumes. These notes are payable in Spanish milled dollars, best known currency of the time, or in gold or silver. The Continental collection lacks only one piece of being complete. Also through the generosity of Mr. McVitty, the museum has acquired three early “pine tree shillings,” minted almost 300 years ago in Massachusetts, encased stamps used as coins after the Civil War, old coins and an interesting map of Tidewater Virginia in the days of Capt. John Smith and the Indians. Mrs. Henry Taylor, daughter of the late S. D. Ferguson, a pio­ neer Roanoke financier, gave a bronze bust she made of her father and two mannequins with clothes from the ’90s and the early 1900s. A third mannequin and a century-old dress worn by Mrs. Eliza­ beth Crenshaw in Bedford County were given by her granddaughter, Mrs. Frederick C. James. Of particular value for succeeding generations is a collection of early tools with posters describing their use, prepared by J. R. Hilde­ brand, secretary of the society. Among them are a shingle froe, bar­ rel stave plane, threshing flail, steelyard, reaping hook, surveyor’s transit and a corn shucking pin found in the chimney at Lone Oak, the old Booth home. Two powder flasks also are on d isp la y Early scenes of Big Lick and the Roanoke Valley are repre­ sented by many pictures, maps and newspaper clippings. The gate book from a 19th century toll road through the valley, price lists, day books from Franklin County stores, badges from fairs and political conventions, souvenirs from such auspicious events as President Roose­ velt’s dedication of the Veterans Administration Hospital in 1934 and 30 �The Civil War brought a great scarcity of small change. Many enter­ prising firms solved the problem by encasing postage stamps in round metal frames bearing their advertisng messages. The tokens were circulated at the face value of the stamp, protected by isinglass or mica. These are some of the collection in the society's museum donated by S. H. McVitty. historical sketches of other Southwest Virginia counties have been as­ sembled here. Relics from old industries include pieces of pig iron from a furnace at Catawba, two bags of tobacco sold by the R. H. Fishburne Co., a tobacco press, a spike from Roanoke streetcar line and a corn whiskey bottle or two from the former Casper Co. The society’s book collection is scant but there is a strong po­ tential here for assembling printed material on Southwestern Vir­ ginia which could be valuable for research. The Union viewpoint is interesting in the detailed “Medical and Surgical History of the War of Rebellion, 1861-65,” donated by Dr. and Mrs. George B. Lawson. Parts of other series of volumes on the Civil War, Couper’s “History of the Shenandoah Valley,” and a miscellaneous number of historical books are on the museum shelves. 31 �Note from the President . . . (Continued from page 1) Saturday afternoons from 2 to 5. About half of our members haven’t seen their museum. Many of us have articles of historical value in our attics or closets. We ask your assistance in building our collection. If there are items which cannot be given now, perhaps they can be willed to the society. Our society was chartered to encourage the acquisition, preser­ vation, protection, maintenance and exhibition of valuable historical objects. We believe we have made a good start. The Rev. Jeremy Belknap, a Boston minister who founded the nation’s first historical society in the 1790’s, described his activities this way: “There is nothing like having a good repository and keep­ ing a good lookout, not waiting at home for things to fall into the lap, but prowling about like a wolf for the prey.” Mr. Belknap wrote to Ebenezer Hazard, first member of Massa­ chusetts Historical Society, “We intend to be an active, hot a passive literary body; not to lie waiting, like a bed of oysters, for the tide to flow in upon us, but to seek and find, to preserve and communicate literary intelligence, especially in the historical way.” George Kegley, President Henry A. Davenport Henry A. Davenport, executive secretary of the Roanoke His­ torical Society for almost two years, died May 24. He had been a tireless worker on such society projects as the publication of R. D. Stoner’s “Seed-Bed of the Republic,” the spring tours to Botetourt and Bedford counties and a continuing member­ ship drive. He was a retired evaluation engineer for the Norfolk and Western Railway. His successor as executive secretary is W. B. Kerr, retired chief clerk in the Motive Power Department of the N&W. A native of Radford, he has lived in Roanoke since before the turn of the century. In his responsibility for the society’s museum at the Roanoke College Library, Kerr now has it open for members and the public on Saturdays from 2-5, a time convenient for more visitors. The museum previously was open Thursday afternoons. 32 ��� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society Summer 1964 Volume 1, Number 1 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />Treasure Trove<br />Some Phases of the Civil War in the Roanoke Area<br />The Case of the Warrantless Prisoners<br />Two Ladies of the Museum<br />Newspaper Days, 1790<br />The Borden Patent Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Summer 1964 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_01_01_Summer_1964 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6333/JHSWV_01_02_Winter_1964.pdf c7167e446ea8c6722ed2aeeb9f2c7cb3 PDF Text Text JOURNAL of tlie ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY W inter................ 1964-65 V o lu m e O n e N um ber Two �ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Amor montium nos movet Officers George K egley ................................. President Arthur T. E l l e t t ........................................................... Vice President J. R. H ildebrand ................................................ Secretary J ames D. Richardson ........................................................... Treasurer D irectors Raymond P. Barnes John D. Carr Mrs. H. Powell Chapman C. Francis Cocke Whitwell W. Coxe S. S. Edmunds B. N. Eubank Edmund P. Goodwin J. R. Hildebrand Miss Nancy E. Hirnes James J. Izard Shields Johnson Arthur T. Ellett George Kegley Mrs. George Kegley Mrs. J. G. McConkey L. G. Muse * * E. H. Ould James D. Richardson Tayloe Rogers R. D. Stoner Mrs. English Showalter W. L. Whitesides Robert W. Woody James P. Woods * Ben Bane Dulaney Editor of the JOURNAL F rances McN. Lewis, Associate Editor Kathy Thornton, Photography F elix Walker, Artist CONTENTS Page Forgotten Graveyards of Roanoke Valley by J. R. Hildebrand___ 1 Three-layer Cake of Prehistoric Virginia by Jean M. W h ite .......... 4 Fincastle Springs: Resort of the ’80s by Frances N iederer................ 7 Civil War Comes to Buchanan: I An Eyewitness Story by Jane C. B o y d .......... ..................... 15 II The Burning of Mount Joy by Ellen Graham Anderson . . . . 19 A Key Which Stayed Home ............ .................................................. 22 Buena Vista—Roanoke Plantation by Anne M ontgomery................ 23 William Fleming’s Surgical Instruments by Edmund P. Goodwin . . . 26 Roanoke’s Company “F”—Alive After 70 Years by R. Holman Ragland................................ 28 Part of “Fortune” in Society M useum ............................................... 31 Note from the P re sid e n t..................................................................... 32 The Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Volume I, Number 2. Published twice yearly by the Society at Box 1904, Roanoke, Virginia, to chronicle the past and present of that part of the state west of the Blue Ridge. Single copy price: 50 cents; Subscription $1 a year. The Society will be careful in handling unsolicited material but cannot be responsible for its loss. �I fll ff*k|fsíM«fif<?$f i *y « a �Forgotten Graveyards of Roanoke J. R. H ildebrand Roanoke County shares the common fate of all people who neglect their own history: what is known to everyone in one generation is known by none in succeeding generations. Remnants of a colorful past remain—a few houses of early set­ tlers, the sites of old churches, remains of iron furnaces and some— only some of the scores of cemeteries. And almost every week one reads that some landmark has been peremptorily demolished to make way for a superhighway, a shopping center or a housing development. Graveyards have been particularly vulnerable. There are over one hundred of these sites known to the writer. But there are many others he has not visited, and still others which have disappeared en­ tirely. In one location all that is left is a gnarled and stunted cedar and a piece of a child’s headstone. The typical family plot was located on a hilltop possibly because they felt closer to the heavens—and surrounded by a brick or a fieldstone wall. This contrasted with the Indian custom of valley burial grounds. The Established Church made a practice of buying glebe tracts including ample cemetery space. This group kept good parish records but its influence was never very strong in early Roanoke County. Presbyterian dissenters and the Germans coming from Pennsyl­ vania by way of the Shenandoah Valley were the root-stock here. Churches were scarce and travel was difficult, so family graveyards were prevalent. The Society's motto, "Amor montium nos movet,"—"The love of mountains inspires us," is used here for the first time. It was sug­ gested by Dr. E. G. Swem, longtime librarian at the College of Wil­ liam and Mary and scholar of Virginia history. �JOURNAL OF THE BOANOKB HISTORICAL SOCIETY The Roanoke Historical Society Joarnal is published semiannually "to chronicle the past and present of that part of the state west of the Blue Ridge." An illustrated periodical appearing in mid-summer and mid-winter« it is distributed to members of the Society« to donors of items to the Society museum and to libraries and other historical societies of the region. The Journal is available to others at 50 cents for a single copy or $1 for a year's subscription« Inquiries may be addressed to the Society at P.O. Box 1904« Roanoke. Articles in early issues have dealt with cemeteries of Roanoke Valley« the archeological find of Indian points possibly 8«000 years old at the Peaks of Otter« Civil War action in Southwest Virginia« Fincastle as a summer resort in the late 19th century and objects on display in the Society's museum in Salem. Writers for the Journal have been such well-known regional historians as Goodridge Wilson« R. D. Stoner« Raymond Barnes and J. R. Hildebrand... Ben Dulaney is editor. �Here is a sampling of the present status of some of these plots: One leg of a large water tank in the Veterans’ Facility rests in the Brown cemetery whose people were here in Indian times. The Rich­ ard Carvin cemetery is in a pasture surrounded by new subdivisions— encroaching every year. The Old and the Jonathan Evans grave­ yards were erased by the construction of the Municipal Airport. The Frantz plot on the Huff farm has been cultivated over. The George Hannah tract disappeared when Denniston Avenue was graded. The George Howbert plot was engulfed by a subdivision—two houses are located on it today. The Preston graveyard in Vinton and one of the Persinger plots on Carlton Road share the same fate. The YMCA in Roanoke is built on the site of the Shirley cemetery. The Ruddle, Sedon and Jacob Vinyard cemeteries stand like islands in a sea of new houses. A few of the local burial plots have been lovingly maintained by the descendants of those who sleep there. Others, not yet destroyed by “Progress,” lie in ruin, often the victims of grazing cattle which congregate inside broken walls. It is not too late to make records of these plots and it would be a worthy project for the Roanoke Historical Society. We even have a foundation on which to build: research, often fragmentary, done by the Works Progress Administration in the depression of the 1930s. An example of genealogical research originating in family ceme­ tery records has been given the writer by Mrs. Ola Gish Durr, a mem­ ber of our group who has studied the Jacob Vinyard tract, one of the best maintained graveyards in the county. There were three immigrant brothers: Jacob, Christopher and John Vinyard (Weingart or Wyniard). John proved his importation June 17, 1735 in Orange County Order Book I, page 20—long before the French and Indian War and before Augusta, Botetourt or Roanoke Counties came into existence. Various members of the family mar­ ried Whites, Howells, Woods, Edingtons, Kefauvers, Thrashers, Feath­ ers and other local families in the eastern part of the area whose his­ tory is interwoven with that of Roanoke County. Here is the list of those buried in the walled cemetery on the old John McAdoo planta­ tion where Christian “Wyniard” lived: North 5 6 14 21 4 7 15 3 8 16 West 17 East 2 9 16 10 1 11 19 12 13 20 South 1. Susan Kefauver 2. Mary Jane Vinyard, wife of Carson Paul Vinyard 3. Carson Paul Vinyard 4. Girl infant—child of Jacob and Sallie Vinyard 5. Stewart infant 6. Eliza Hartley—child of John and Sarah Hartley 2 �7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. Carey Vinyard Nicholas Vinyard Margaret T. Vinyard Mary Virginia Hartley Aleen Vinyard Jones Sarah Jane Hartley John Hartley Christiana Vinyard Christian Vinyard Nancy Vinyard Kefauver—daughter of Christian and Christiana Vinyard 17. Jacob Kefauver 18. Sarah Jane Kefauver 19. Richard H. Kefauver 20. Thomas H. Kefauver 21. - - - Schoonover (a tenant on the plantation) This cemetery is selected because it is one of the few for which complete records are available. A search for dates of birth and deaths and an examination of wills for family relationships could bring the lives of long departed Vinyards into historical perspective. He Hi Stand by the stone marking the graves of Frederick and Magda­ lena Garst on the hill above the old Kessler Mill site. His stone is inscribed merely “Of Indian Fame.” Or visit the children’s graves in the Tombstone cemetery and read in three languages the epitaph pre­ pared by the cutter of long ago. Or look upon the resting place of John Smith on the side of Green Ridge, marked only by an uprooted cherry tree in a resident’s back yard. Stand by these or the tombs of pioneers in any local burying ground and your hand automatically will remove your hat in recognition of the people who lived, loved, labored and died that we might have this valley in which to dwell. In many Common Service books there is an old hymn which exem­ plifies our pioneer cemeteries: Our years are like the shadows On sunny hills that lie Or grasses in the meadows That blossom but to die; A sleep, a dream, a story By strangers quickly told, An unremaining glory Of things that soon are old. 3 �Three-Layer Cake of Prehistoric Virginia J ean M. W hite The archeological evidence to prove a popular hypothesis about Virginia’s prehistoric Indian culture has been gathered in a couple of hundred brown-paper sacks. The specimen bags hold an assortment of stone weapon points and chips uncovered in three distinct layers on a 15x25 foot site near the Peaks of Otter, in the Blue Ridge Mountains not far from Roanoke. The significance lies not in what was found but rather in how it was found in the ground. For archeologists the exciting thing is that the weapon points were uncovered at different levels. For the first time in that section of the country, there is now tangible evidence of layers of Indian cul­ ture superimposed atop each other. A 3-foot deep cross-section of earth yielded evidence of prehistoric Indian life spanning some 3000 years. The earliest level goes back 8000 years into the early “archaic period” of American Indian culture. The other two layers were spaced roughly 1000 years apart. It was a bulldozer that uncovered the first clues and led to an archeological salvage operation to rescue the past before the area is flooded by a 20-acre lake. John W. Griffin, the regional archeologist for the National Park Service, headed a five-man crew that spent three weeks on the site last summer. The diggers marked off 5-foot squares. Then they pains­ takingly dug up the dirt in 6-inch layers and sifted it through screens to retrieve the stone points and chips. These were wrapped in alumi­ num foil and catalogued in specimen bags for later study. Griffin, a tall, lean man who specializes in archaic Indian culture and puffs an archaic corncob pipe, points to the Peaks of Otter explora­ tion as an example of the slow accumulation and synthesis of knowl­ edge that, is the backbone of archeology. “Archeology is a dirty business,” he says, with obvious affection for his work. “It’s not picking up something and shouting ‘Eureka.’ You have to dig and sift and wash and number and catalogue and draw and photograph and compare. “It’s not the big breakthrough. It’s a slow accumulation of knowl­ edge. Each year’s discovery reshapes the problems.” It also takes detective work and reasoning to piece together the Miss White is a staff writer for the WASHINGTON POST from which this article is reprinted, with permission. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Bucknell, Miss White also holds a masters degree in jour­ nalism from Columbia. Her other archeological stories include ac­ counts of the first tangible evidence that the Norwegians beat Colum­ bus to America and of the finding of the bones of Zinjanthropus and other near-humans in Africa. 4 �Here late in the summer of 1964 in the shadow of the twin Peaks of Otter men of the National Park Service toiled to remove Indian artifacts before the waters of a man-made lake covered the area. The lake, now filled, is below a new tourist lodge on the Blue Ridge Park­ way, 30 miles northeast of Roanoke. Inset is John W. Griffin, National Park archeologist. bits of the past and reconstruct the life of archaic peoples who have left little behind them. “That is where it becomes a jigsaw puzzle,” Griffin observes with relish. For many years, archeologists have been finding the bits and pieces of archaic Indian culture in Virginia and along the East Coast. There has been none of the spectacular finds of the Southwest or the Missis5 �sippi and Ohio River valleys. Climate and urbanization have been hard on archeological evidence along the East Coast. “Even the bones of the animals that the people ate have disap­ peared. So have the skins that they wore and the wood shafts of their tools and weapons,” Griffin points out. That makes the detective work only more exciting and exacting to archeologists like Griffin. They have long found weapon points of different Indian cultures mixed together on the surface. These matched with artifacts left behind in distinct strata in other areas of the country. So the arche­ ologists reasoned that the weapon points in Virginia and other East Coast areas also should belong to different, time periods. Now, with the Peaks of Otter find, they have proof of that hypothesis. “It wasn’t so much that the Indians favored this place,” Griffin says. “It was rather that natural conditions favored the site for us. It was below a slope where the earth slowly built up over the years. If it had been an erosion site, the artifacts would have been mixed on the surface.” The diggers uncovered three distinct firepits, one atop the other. The evidence was cracked stones and bits of charcoal. The arche­ ological timetable was constructed from the design of the weapon points found at the three levels. The earliest matched with the point style found at Russell Cave in northern Alabama. Radiocarbon dating indicates that the Russell Cave points are around 8000 years old. The Peaks of Otter second-layer points are of the Morrow Moun­ tain type, found first in North Carolina and dated 6000 to 7000 years ago. The most recent are of the Guilford type, dated 5000 to 6000 years ago. The Russell Cave reconstruction gives a “reasonable facsimile” of prehistoric Indian life in Virginia, Griffin feels. It was a rugged life. The Indians roamed in small bands of a dozen or less, hunting for food. They probably set up temporary bases for a week or so to gather nuts and hunt in an area. The Peaks of Otter site probably was such a base, and there they sauatted around the firepits. They wore skins and probably built skin lean-tos. Deer and turkey were their favorite game. The stone chips indicate that they made weapon points on the spot. All this has been pieced together from the sackfuls of stone points and the three firepits dug up by Griffin’s party. “And, of course, the accumulation of prior knowledge,” the arche­ ologist adds. “The amount of a find doesn’t always attest to its sig­ nificance. It’s what we can deduce from it.” Griffin washed the weapon points and stone chips at his Richmond home for further study and in December was writing a formal arche­ ological report to add to that accumulated knowledge. It will be com­ plete sometime this year and the artifacts will eventually go on dis­ play at the Peaks of Otter visitors’ center. By then the site will be covered by the man-made lake, but the past will have been salvaged. And further digging at a new site west of the lake may bring new discoveries. 6 �Fincastle Springs; Resort of the '80s F rances J. N iederer This is a chapter from a forth­ coming book by Dr. Niederer on the Fincastle area and its historic struc­ tures. The author, associate profes­ sor of art at Hollins College, has spent several years in sparetime re­ search on the subject. MISS NIEDERER Our name is widely known: Far, far away, and from a warmer zone Fair tourists come with, spirits high and gay— And come to stay! This is our lasting wealth: The mineral water, and the bracing air, The long romantic drives, with tonic rare, Imparting health. So read two of the stanzas in an eloquent testimonial poem by Fanny Johnston which appeared in the Fincastle Herald in 1885. Al­ though Fincastle was on one of the routes leading to the famed Virginia spas of the nineteenth century—one of the earliest stones in the Presbyterian graveyard bears the sad note of the death of Mrs. Maria Kollock, wife of a Savannah physician, who “in attempting a weary and painful journey to the Springs, to alleviate a Pulmonary Consump­ tion,” died at Fincastle on August 7, 1814—it was not until the end of that century that Fincastle itself became a mecca for health seekers. But it had a brief blossoming in the 1880’s and 1890’s with a hun­ dred or more visitors coming annually from such far-off points as New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Opelousas; Vicksburg, Macon, Florence and Mobile; St. Louis, Galveston and Houston. Their names and the ac­ counts of their activities filled the social columns of the Herald in the summer months. Fincastle’s climate, scenery, and the hospitality of its people as a writer for the Herald mentions, combined to make it one of the most desirable “retreats” in the mountains of Virginia. 7 �But it was the discovery of mineral waters which provided the stimulus needed to attract to Fincastle the “refined and intelligent society” of the summer boarders. And very special mineral waters they were: the only ferro-magnesian springs as yet discovered on the continent. Samples were sent to be exhibited at the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 (along with a machine for wrapping oranges, by Mr. T. E. Nininger of Daleville.) One could of course buy the bottled water— “Nature’s Great Health Restorer” reads the Herald advertisement—-it could be delivered on the railroad at five dollars for a case of one dozen half-gallon bottles (and “Ministers of the Gospel will only be charged cost of shipment.” ) But how much pleasanter to drink it in company in a cooler climate, to stroll to the springs in the intervals between other diversions! The little spring house stands on the Mill Creek Church Road less than a mile east of town, in a narrow valley between winding hills. The hexagonal canopy with lattice-work trim, somewhat battered now and its stone base hidden by weeds and briars, is picturesque still. One can imagine how attractive a note it must have been in this landscape three-quarters of a century ago. The railroad which shipped the Fincastle Mineral Water could not bring visitors directly into town (Fanny Johnston’s poem admits we must confess The railroad came just near enough to slay Our trade with Troutville six miles away) but they could make connections with the trains of the Atlantic, Mis­ sissippi and Ohio Railroad (the Norfolk and Western after 1881) at Bonsack’s depot. Arriving at Bonsack’s at 5 p. m., a stagecoach run­ ning daily would get them to Fincastle at 8:30, and the fare (in 1881) was only, a dollar and a half, with fifty cents reduction for a roundtrip ticket. Mr. William B. Hayth was the agent at Fincastle; natural­ ly the stage office was at his hotel near the courthouse. There were in 1881 two main hotels. The older was the Western, built after the great fire of 1870 which had started in its stable. Its wooden units were replaced by brick ones which may still be seen behind the courthouse (they are now owned by C. V. Dodd). In 1881 these were leased from Mr. Hayth by J. W. McCormick. Mr. McCormick’s public notice in the Herald shows him ready for trade: WESTERN HOTEL Fincastle, Va. Having leased the above hotel I am prepared to accommodate the public on terms to Suit the Times! Board by the month as reasonable as elsewhere. Stock fed and Sale Stable kept in connection with the house. Also a first-class BAR will be kept in connection with the house, of purest wines and whiskies. Mr. Hayth, a few years earlier, had bought a boarding house on the site of the Old Nece Union Hotel and Craft tavern, and had converted it into a thirty-bed hotel. The balconied structure of this original Hayth’s House is still in use, as is a later wooden annex to the right on Roanoke Street (the W. B. Crush property.) Besides the summer 8 �Hayth's Hotel as it appears today. visitors, lawyers too patronized the hotel, stepping across the street from the row of brick offices which stood behind the courthouse. Mr. Hayth’s advertisement of 1881 is a bit more restrained than Mr. McCormick’s: HAYTH’S HOUSE Roanoke Street near Court House Fincastle, Virginia I am prepared to offer to the public the accommodations of a FIRST-CLASS HOUSE. The table furnished with the best of the season; also good attention given to horses. I respect­ fully ask a share of the public patronage. But he became the big hotel-manager, for by January of 1882 he was running both: NEW COMBINED HOTEL! In Fincastle Having taken charge of the Western Hotel in Fincastle, I shall keep hereafter Hayth’s Hotel and the Western Hotel together as one house, and will give my own attention to them, and will guarantee a FIRST CLASS HOUSE to the public. The table supplied with the best of the sea­ son. Stables well filled. BAR ROOM at each house filled with the best LIQUORS, WINES, CIGARS, ETC. Thankful for past patronage I ask a continuance of the same. 9 �LARGE SAMPLE ROOM for Commercial men always ready. By the summer of 1894 Fincastle was “quite a lively town” and Hayth’s Hotel was “filled to full capacity since the opening of the sea­ son” with “nearly if not quite one hundred boarders” according to the social notes in the newspaper, “and those stopping at private homes will probably swell the total number to a hundred and forty.” This was a sizable number of visitors for a town with a population of 675 or fewer. An addition was made to the Western in 1894: a large dining­ room with lodging rooms above. Ready for the summer trade in 1895 was a larger addition to Hayth’s Eastern section. This was a three-story structure with its en­ tire first floor, 32 by 56 feet, serving as a Music Hall (an older Music Hall now became a Sample Room.) Eight bedrooms with “12 feet pitch” were lined up on each upper floor along the eight-foot wide hall­ way which ran the entire length of the building, as did the balconies “which afford splendid views of landscape and mountain scenery.” Unfortunately this section of the hotel no longer exists. But at least we can form some picture of the activities of these summers. “Most brilliant social event” of the 1894 summer season was a “Mother Goose party” given in Hayth’s ballroom, which was beauti­ fully decorated with ferns and garlands of evergreens. The domi­ nant New Orleans contingent took over. Miss Mary Young had sug­ gested the theme, Mrs. Valades played the piano, and Mrs. Girault im­ personated Mother Goose. Dancing began at 8 p. m. and continued until long past midnight with diversions, chief of which was the award­ ing of prizes. Miss Loretta McEnany, also of New Orleans, won a live goose as a first prize for her costume of Little Bo-Peep, and Mr. Peachy Breckenridge of Fincastle, who came as Little Boy Blue, won the gen­ tlemen’s first prize, a stuffed alligator. There were, almost weekly, other gala affairs: Donkey Parties, Phantom Balls, Germans. Also there were Musicales, with duets and choruses vying with vocal, instrumental, and whistling solos. Some­ times, especially before Mr. Hayth built the new Music Hall in the hotel, these were held in the courthouse across the street: we can imagine the gaily dressed ladies flirting with their escorts under its handsome col­ umned portico. Held at the courthouse was the World’s Fair Concert in late August of 1892, when Miss Melanie Holt of Galveston was en­ cored for her sweet rendering of a Spanish air, “La Paloma.” Occasionally, tdo, summer guests were invited to a ball or to a picnic party at Grove Hill, the magnificent Breckenridge mansion on Catawba Creek. If they wanted to go further afield they could hire delivery teams and visit the Natural Bridge, the Peaks of Otter (from which they saw the lights of Roanoke), the White Rock and Flowing Spring, or make the extended trip to Warm Springs, White Sulphur, or Old Sweet. Those gentlemen interested in politics may have been drawn to Roanoke by the announcement in the Herald on September 22,1892, which mentioned that the “Hon. Adlai A. Stevenson, of Illinois, the Democratic candidate for Vice-President” was to speak there the following Monday, and added that “he draws large crowds wherever he appears.” But those ladies interested in new fashions need not go afield, for right in the hotel was Mrs. S. E. Hayth’s millinery shop with its new styles imported from Richmond, Baltimore, and New York. 10 �By walking a block or two from Hayth’s Hotel, summer visitors could admire the newer houses on Roanoke and Main Streets. The streets themselves were still unpaved, but rows of stepping stones were placed across their intersections, as we can see in old photo­ graphs of the town. The Herald commented in June of 1881 on Mr. John N. Slicer’s new home, just then finished: “one of the prettiest in town,” with “a good deal of fancy work about it.” There was less fancy work, but instead a sober elegance in two of the houses newly built in “Tuscan villa” style. (Visitors to Roanoke could see a magnificent house in this style on a farm which occupied the site of the present Roanoke Airport. This house, begun by Alexander Bruce in 1854 and finished by John W. Hurt in 1860, was the finest example of Italian villa anywhere in the vicinity.) One of the new Fincastle homes was the Beckley house at 21 Roanoke Street, finished in 1875 as a resi­ dence for Brown M. Allen, then Clerk of Botetourt County, and the other Captain Jim Figgatt’s (now Graybill-Woltz) house, at 20 Main Street, built in 1880. The pairs of tall narrow windows, the bracketed cornice, the porch and bay window at the side of the Beckley house are all typical of the style. The Figgatt house exhibits a somewhat more austere version, especially since the porch which originally extended across the front has been in part removed. Notable here are the sturdy 18-inch thick outer brick walls, the high-ceilinged rooms, and the imported black marble fireplaces in two of the first-floor drawing rooms. Another attractive home which dates from this period and is a variant of the same style is the Godwin cottage, on the other side of town near the spring. Some of the New Orleans visitors may have left their mark on the The Price House in its altered form. 11 �The county jail today is still a unique building. architecture of the town. It is said, for example, that the New Or­ leans bride of one of the owners of the Price (now Waid) house, built in the 1870’s across>from Captain Figgatt’s, had all its ceilings raised and added wrought-iron balconies on front and sides. This charming house remodeled again in a more recent decade, is quite elaborate in surface decoration, and the central hall utilizes curves both in its ground plan and in its graceful hanging staircase. But it reflects still the old Valley of Virginia scheme in its ground plan and its double­ storied porch. Several commercial buildings were erected in these years, notably in the area around the courthouse. The new building for the Fincaptle Herald office, still in existence, was completed in January of 1894, with brick replacing a frame structure destroyed by fire several months before. The Luster store, finished in July of 1894, drew admiring comment from the newspaper: “The iron and brick front of Mr. J. 0. 12 �Luster’s tin and stove establishment on Roanoke Street is .very pretty and attractive, and is naturally the subject of favorable comment by our people. Iron cornice and window capping adorn the front, mak­ ing a pretty combination with the neatly stained and pencilled brick­ work. Mr. Luster evidently has an eye for the beautiful as well as the substantial, and deserves the thanks of our people in helping, at an unnecessary expense, to improve the appearance of the town. His is an example that is worthy of emulation.” Actually Mr. Luster’s example was outclassed in 1897 when the County Jail was erected next to the courthouse. The jail, of red brick, was small, thirty-two feet on each side, and rose three stories above the basement. The first floor was divided into four rooms serving as apartment for the jailer. The second floor held a room for the sheriff, a search room and bath, and four cells, and the third floor was simply one large room with six cells opening from a central corridor. But the jail on the exterior is by far the most ornate building of this period in Fincastle. Again there may have been some Deep-South influence in the delightfully decorative iron-work of its balcony, the gaiety of which masks the use of the up-to-date steel plate jail cells and roof, and the fireproof concrete floors within. Such use of modern materials might seem to presage a new age of modern building in the town. But actually it did not, although there were hopes earlier in the 1880’s for expansion of the town and a boom in building. Fincastle’s population in 1880 totalled 675; for four or five decades it had been decreasing and an influx of a hundred or more summer vistiors yearly had considerable impact. Fanny Johnston’s poem of 1885 was titled “A Retrospect and a Prophecy”—she reminds us of Fincastle that “In ante-bellum years she reached her prime,” but she also reflects the hopes of the mid-80’s. These were of the coming railroad (“The iron horse shall neigh upon her streets” ) and of the expansion of town and industry. On May 21, 1892 the Herald told its readers that “The Botetourt Development Company has lately broken ground for a railroad, which is to connect with the Shenandoah Valley Railroad at or near Cloverdale,” and on July 7 reported a visit by Captain Hathaway, secretarytreasurer of the Roanoke, Fincastle and Clifton Forge Railroad which was to be connected with the Chesapeake and Ohio at Eagle Rock. Captain Hathaway admitted that hands were scarce but were coming in, and spoke hopefully of the early completion of this road. Meanwhile a Fincastle Land and Improvement Company had been formed to enlarge the town south and east of its existing limits. A map showing the property of the company, 468 acres in all, was completed by a Mr. Thayer and commented on in the Herald on May 21, 1891. That the summer visitors played an important part in these plans is evident in the newspaper report, which speaks particularly of a projected new railroad hotel. Evidently this was to be placed on the hill where still stands the lovely old mansion Santillane, for that name was to be used for the hotel, and a Santillane Avenue was to intersect with old Catawba Avenue (the present route 220). “On the property this hotel occupies a splendid place, on a slight eminence, and when the splendid building now there will have been enlarged and converted into a magnificent new hotel it will be one of the loveliest and most in­ teresting places in Virginia for the summer visitor and tourist.” 13 �A passenger station and the main line of the Roanoke, Fincastle and Clifton Forge Railway were also delineated. Streets and avenues were laid out. Four of these bore the names of the company’s officers: President R. T. Herndon, Vice-President C. H. Vines, Secretary R. L. Housman, and Treasurer James Godwin, but others apparently honored the summer guests with streets named Charleston, Houston, and Texas. Building lots had been surveyed, and a factory site was located at the western border of town. “Santillane Park” and “villa sites” were placed at the southeast, and bordered by a street named Frisco Place. The newspaper writer’s enthusiasm for all of this was tempered, and he ended his account on a rather nostalgic note: “The idea then suggests itself that it is a pity to convert such a pretty place into town lots, but sentiment must give way to progress in these booming times.” Expansion and boom, however, did not come. Summer visitors dwindled in number and finally stopped coming to Fincastle. The real estate scheme failed for lack of investors and only Herndon Street remains to commemorate it. The railway never materialized beyond the making of a few stretches of roadbed, and even a projected trolley line failed. Nor did any new industry enter to change the pattern of the town. But one happy result of all this is that it is still possible for us, visiting Fincastle today, to see it almost as did its summer guests in the 1880’s and 1890’s, and to conclude as Fanny Johnston began: All golden is her past; Rich relics rare of dear and distant days Their shadows cast Upon her now, and fill her life with praise. Sweet fragrance of the old regime fills Our town with Southern grace; and makes our home, among Virginia’s hills, A charming place. The mineral spring house today — a weathered monument to past glories. 14 �Civil War Comes to Buchanan: I An Eyewitness Story Mrs . J ane C. Boyd This and the immediately following article are two accounts of the same episode in Civil War history— the coming of Federal forces to Buchanan in June, 1864. This story written hy Mrs. Boyd some y^®J's after the war has not been printed previously as far as we know. The author’s husband, William W. Boyd, who represented his county at “the Secession Convention” of February 13, 1861, was a state senator after the War. The Boyds were among the earliest settlers of Bote­ tourt. Andrew Boyd married Mary, daughter of Col. John Buchanan, founder of the town. At the time of the breaking out of the great Civil War I was living at Oak Hill, near the town of Buchanan. The house had been mine from the time of my marriage; the home had been ours from time im­ memorial. I Hj 1 My husband, William W. Boyd, was a member of the convention which met and decided the question of Virginia’s secession from the Union, and the whole country was in a state of the greatest excitement. I was with my husband and spent the winter in Richmond, and at­ tended many meetings of the convention and heard many speeches for and against secession. There were able men on both sides. The day the Ordinance of Secession was passed the convention sat with closed doors. I was on Main Street, in a dry goods store, when a man rushed in clapping his hands and crying: “She is out. She is out!” Looking out, I saw a man taking down the Stars and Stripes from the capitol and hoisting the Virginia State flag. I knew then that the Ordinance of Secession had passed. , I went out to my boarding house, and by that time the streets were so crowded that it was almost impossible to pass; Dixie was being played and sung on nearly every corner. Soon after the Ordinance of Secession was passed, I was at St. Paul’s Church, and just at the conclusion of Dr. Minnegerode s sermon an alarm bell sounded. Everybody in church left; and when 1 got on the street it was a most exciting scene, people rushing around with old shot guns, swords and whatever weapons they could get. 1 found that it was said a large war vessel, the “Pawnee,” was coming to attack Richmond, and the people were wild. There was an old lady in mv boarding house who seemed very uneasy, and said what scared her most was that some one told her that the “Shawnee” Indians were coming I said to her: “Where, Mrs. Leigh, did you think the Shawnees would come from?” “Oh,” she said, “Mrs. Boyd, in these un­ precedented times I did not know what might happen. Soon after Virginia seceded I returned to my home and saw many of our bravo men prepare for the great conflict that was before them. I shared most cheerfully and willingly in the privations and distresses of our country. I saw many of our brave men go out to return no more—so many that were mere boys. I saw nothing of the enemy 15 �June, 1864. We had repeated alarms that the Yankees were com­ ing, but these alarms so often proved false that we began to feel as if it was the boy crying “Wolf!” But about the middle of June, 1864, the alarm was but too true. General Hunter, General Crook and Gen­ eral Averil came up the valley and, we knew, would soon be upon us. About 9 o’clock Monday morning General McCausland, commanding the Confederate troops, came in on the opposite side of James River from my home, closely followed by the Northern troops. General McCausland sent his men across the bridge, and then had the bridge filled with baled hay (a large amount of which was at Buchanan for shipment), and fired. The bridge was an old-fashioned covered wood­ en bridge, and the flames spread rapidly. From some cause General McCausland neglected to cross before the bridge was fired, and had to be brought across the river in a canoe, and was very near being cap­ tured. The burning of the bridge set fire to the town, and as many, per­ haps, as 30 buildings were destroyed. The scene was terrific, and many people were made homeless. General McCausland formed his line of battle just at the foot of Oak Hill, my old home, and the enemy’s line was on the opposite side of James River, near the foot of Purgatory Mountain. My house was just in the range of the Yankee artillery. One of our officers (Col. R. H. Burks) rode up to my house and toid me I had better take my children and go as far back from the house as possible, as we were in danger, but I concluded we would be just as safe in the large cellar under the house. So I got all the children and servants together and we took refuge there. In a little while the cellar was filled with people from the town, who left thinking it was safer on Oak Hill. The houses of some of these people were burned down and they lost everything. It was a fearful time, and one that filled my heart with deep sorrow; but when I look back now I can but feel amused at some of the scenes of that morning. Some of the re­ marks of the Negroes were very amusing. As the Yankees were com­ ing towards the town, my old cook, whom we all called “Mammy Sally,” was so anxious to see all that was going on that she left the cellar. While out in the yard picking up chips she would now and then look up, and, seeing the long line of soldiers marching towards the town, exclaimed: “Good Lord, ain’t thar no end to dem men!” The battle only lasted a short time, but to our anxious hearts it seemed long. Our men retreated down the Peaks of Otter Road, cross­ ing the Blue Ridge Mountains. As the bridge was burned and the river very deep at the town, the enemy had to go nearly a mile up the river to ford. This gave our men a little advantage to get some dis­ tance ahead of the Yankees. As soon as General Averil got into Buch­ anan, and found that the citizens had not fired the town, he ordered his men to help to put the fires out, and a good many houses were saved. My husband’s office was about to be burned, and I went myself to the town, knowing he had a very valuable library and many valuable papers in his office, to see if I could have them. The town was then overrun with Yankees. I spoke to some of the soldiers and they were very rough, and said the books might burn. This was said with many oaths. They had broken into a gentleman’s house nearby and brought out demijohns and decanters of fine old wines, and were drinking it. Just then I saw an officer, who proved to be General Averil’s Chief of 16 �Staff, Colonel Crawford. The office was not much burnt, but, for fear it would be, I told Colonel Crawford I wished to save the books and papers. He at once ordered his men to go in and take the books and papers out and carry them wherever I wished, and they were carried to my house by these men and my servants. Colonel Crawford told me that the burning of the Virginia Military Institute was a shame. He was very kind and courteous. In a storeroom back of the office there were some old-time military hats with high crowns and green cock­ ades. The Yankees got hold of them and seemed very much amused in putting them on. General Averil sent out part of his army to try and overtake Gen­ eral McCausland on the mountain. The line of battle was formed just back of my home. They went out several miles, but were met with a serious obstruction and had to return. The road is made around the side of a mountain, with high cliffs on one side and deep ravine and precipice on the other. At a point where the road goes around a most precipitous point, my husband sent men there after General McCausland’s army had passed and had the roadway torn up. It took three days for the Yankees to repair the road so their army could pass over it. This delay prevented the Yankees from capturing the City of Lynchburg. We had camped around us from Monday till Wednesday 30,000 men. General Crook’s headquarters were in my yard, and it was fortunate for me that such was the case, as General David Hunter had ordered my home to be burned, as my husband had been a mem­ ber of the Secession Convention. General Crook countermanded the order, and I did not know until afterwards how he had protected me. I watched all one fearful night, not knowing how soon my home would be burned. Colonel Anderson’s house, at Mount Joy, was burned by General Hunter’s orders. He gave Mrs. Anderson an hour to get what she could out of the house, and then the windows were closed and the house was fired. The house burned so rapidly that it was evident some inflam­ mable substance had been placed on the building. Then Mr. J. W. Jones’ foundry and a large storehouse attached were burned. In the storehouse were a number of barrels of sor­ ghum. The Yankees knocked the heads out of the barrels, and they danced around the fire, saying that it was “the biggest molasses stew they ever saw.” v/s,-:' -vy All the provisions that could be laid hold of were taken from the storeroom and smokehouse. Our cook was required to cook for them. General Crook did not reach Buchanan until some hours after Gen­ eral Hunter. Fearing I would be treated badly, I went to General Averil’s headquarters to ask for a guard. General Averil was a splen­ did looking man, and was very courteous and polite. My house was not searched till after part of the army had left. Then three men came, saying they had an order to search the house for firearms. Two of them were very rough, rude men, but one of them seemed kind and begged the other two not to trouble me, and I think now though he went with the men he did it as a protection to me. When he left he gave me his name and photograph. I told him that if the war continued and we should meet again I would befriend him. These men had been told there was a barrel of whiskey in my cellar, and that was what they were looking for, not firearms. They found 17 �no whiskey, but did find some bottles of fine old Madeira wine, which they took. There was not a room or closet they did not go in. The last room was a large storeroom up stairs, and in the middle there was a table, with home-made soap on it, cut in squares. One of the men said, “Oh, maple sugar.” I said “Help yourself,” but he only took one bite. I found out afterwards they had no order to search the house, and had it been known to General Averil or General Crook they would have been punished. General Hunter had no feeling for the people, but the other two Generals were gentlemen. There was a Negro there who seemed to think when the Yankees came he could do as he pleased, and one night got into a lady’s house and behaved very badly. General Averil had him shot. General Crook and his officers were very nice and kind while they camped near my house, and I have felt very grateful to them, for I was alone with four little children and my house some distance from any one. My husband’s health was bad, and I prevailed on him to leave home, as he had been a member of the Secession Convention, and would have been taken prisoner, and could not have stood it. Throughout these trying times my servants were faithful, except two, who left with the army. All the others stayed till after the war, some for a long time, and often came back and lived with me. There is a little incident I must relate. My old cook, whom we all called Mammy Sally, had cooked constantly for the soldiers, and there was a crowd every day. She killed all the fowl out of the poul­ try yard and she cooked them and made bread. But one day, in the midst of her cooking, two men got to fighting and drew their pistols. The old woman ran out in the yard dreadfully scared, and turned a large tub up and sat down, saying, “Gentlemen, when you behave I will cook some more for you. I never see gentlemen do that way.” My old cook was very faithful to me. Stayed long after the surrender, and came back to me after she left. For some weeks after the army left there was a fire almost every night. Two large hotels were burned, several barns near town and sta­ bles in the town, and often horses burned, and some private houses were set on fire, but discovered in time to save them. It was a fear­ ful time. People were afraid to go to bed. It was thought that some of the soldiers induced the Negroes to do this burning, but it was never known. 18 �Civil War Conies to Buchanan; II The Burning of Mount Joy E llen Graham A nderson E ditor ’s N o te : Al­ though before the war was imminent they had been against secession, as had most of the Shenan­ doah, Upper James and Roanoke Valley folk, the Anderson family of Bote­ tourt County had, four brothers aiding the Con­ federacy i n important ways. Col. John Thomas An­ derson of Mount Joy, Buchanan, was in the Confederate Congress. General Joseph Reid, An­ derson, in R i c h m o n d , managed the Tredegar Iron Works. Francis Thomas Anderson, who after the war became a member of the Virginia Supreme Court of Ap­ peals, looked after family mines and furnaces which sent iron down the James River canal to the Tredegar. Dr. William Neely Anderson, a graduate of Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, gave up his health and his whole inheritance to care for the old, the wounded and the ill, with little or no remuneration, during and after the war. As gathered from recollections of her family and others by Miss Ellen Graham Anderson, of Lexington, this is the story of Mount Joy and its burning during Hunter’s raid. Her principal sources were her father, William Alexander Anderson (son of Francis), his sisters, whom she remembers well, and also some of Col. John T. Anderson’s and some Harvey descendants, and many of their Glasgow, Junkin, Shanks, Patton and Johnston connections or friends. si« ^ Mount Joy stood on a knoll rising above beautiful Cherry Tree Bottom, where Looney’s Creek runs into the James a mile or so west of Buchanan, overlooking the river to the north and the Great Road (U. S. 11 now) to the south. John Thomas Anderson had bought it about 1840 from the estate of Matthew Harvey, who had probably built it before 1810. (The Harveys were pioneer iron workers of the terri­ tory and had already erected extensive works on the Mount Joy land, past which was eventually to run the James River canal.—Ed.) 19 �The appearance of the house was impressive, with large white columns, somewhat like Montrose, built later, on the edge of Fincastle, by Francis T. Anderson. (Montrose stood until it caught fire in the 1920’s.) But it is of the interior that I heard most, for my father and his sisters looked on their uncle’s estate as their second home. They often described the library, with its books to the ceiling, and the dining room with gleaming silver and heavy wall mirrors. Living first at Fincastle, then near the Glenwood furnace (formerly Cassandra) in Rockbridge County, F. T. Anderson’s children were thus in driving distance of their much beloved uncle and aunt at Mount Joy. Our great-aunt Cassie, Mrs. John T. Anderson, had been the widow Cassandra Morrison Shanks Patton. She already had two Patton sons; and she and Uncle Joseph had one son who lived to manhood, Joseph Washington Anderson. Two other boys died in infancy and are buried with their parents in the Presbyterian cemetery in Fincastle. Also, Col. and Mrs. Anderson took to live with them two motherless Shanks nephews—one was later Gen. David C. Shanks, U.S.A., of Salem. Joseph Washington Anderson attended the excellent Botetourt Seminary at Fincastle and also a preparatory school presided over by the distinguished W. R. Galt, until he entered the University of Vir­ ginia in 1855. There he studied law under the widely known John B. Minor. On graduation in 1859, he married Miss Susan B. Morris, of Louisa County, and returned to Buchanan to practice law and help run the plantation. Their children, John Thomas and Anna Morris, were born there. Another little boy, mentioned by Gen. Shanks in his Genealogy, died early. Mount Joy was to be an Anderson home for only one generation. For by this time, clouds of war hung low. All the young men at the place left for service in the Confederate armies, and Uncle John be­ came a member of the Congress in Richmond. Though not strong, Joseph volunteered in the “Mountain Rifles,” twenty-eighth Virginia Infantry, commanded by Col. Robert T. Pres­ ton. This regiment served at First Manassas; their names are on the monument in Buchanan. Soon after, however, Joseph requested trans­ fer to the Vicksburg campaign, and was promoted to major in the bat­ tery now called the Botetourt Artillery. On May 16, 1863, at Balser’s Creek near Vicksburg, Joseph W. Anderson fell, mortally wounded. In December, 1863, his remains were moved by his father ^to the Presbyterian cemetery at Fincastle. The battle flag of the Botetourt Artillery was said to have been made from the wedding dress of the young major’s mother, Aunt Cas­ sandra Anderson. The Misses Elizabeth and Mary Johnston (the au­ thor) showed me a portion of the flag, which was divided and pieces given to all the officers. My second cousin, Anna Anderson Ely, daugh­ ter of Joseph, had another piece framed, which I also saw. Just six months after Joseph’s body was brought back to Virginia— in June, 1864, General Hunter came through the Valley burning and destroying in order to starve the people. A detachment of cavalry appeared at Mount Joy, for Hunter had threatened to hang Uncle John if he were captured. In apparent fury at not finding him—he was in Richmond—and knowing the wo­ men were alone, the place was ordered to be burned. But the officer 20 �who had been told to do so set fire only to some out-buildings and went on. Hunter, learning this, sent him and his troops back, and Aunt Cassie was given one hour to remove all their belongings. Much silver was stolen by the soldiers; but some was saved and faithful servants returned it. My third cousin, Anna Ely Morehouse, had some of it in her home at Princeton, N. J. She also had portraits from Mount Joy, which might have been removed before Hunter reached Buchanan. Great-aunt Cassandra and her niece-in-law, Annie Glasgow (later to be the mother of Ellen Glasgow, the novelist), were carrying some of the best china in their aprons and skirts, when a soldier slashed their clothing with his sabre and crushed the china. My aunt Isabel Anderson Bruce told me this. Annie’s husband was Francis Thomas Glasgow, of Richmond, where he was in service with his uncle Joseph Reid Anderson at the Tredegar Iron Works supplying ordnance to the Confederacy. He had sent his wife and two small daughters to Buchanan, a town he knew well in his duties with his uncles at their various furnaces. Aunt Cassie, and those at Mount Joy with her, were brought into Buchanan that dreadful night, to stay at the house to which Annie Glasgow had “refugee’d” from Richmond. Some Mount Joy furniture seems to have been moved into a brick kitchen house in the yard, and there, for the rest of their days, the two old people lived. Mount Joy was never rebuilt. In her diary, Ellen Glasgow speaks of her mother and two older sisters living in Buchanan during the war, and in later years all her family spent summers there. When she was planning to write The Battle Ground, about 1900, she and her sister Cary drove all over Bote­ tourt County. (In the novel, the hero, Dan Montjoy, returns to the site of the old home which had been burned by Federal troops and finds the elderly owners living very graciously and courageously in the over­ seer’s house in the yard.—Ed.) Perhaps my strongest impressions of both the beauty and the tragedy of Mount Joy came from Aunt Isabel Bruce. She had spent the winter of 1864 in Richmond, as had her cousin Sallie Alexander Moore, of Lexington. Trying to return home, the two girls took a train to Salem, and from there were able to secure wagons, and got to Buchanan. “Belle” was sent to her Uncle John Anderson’s home and stayed there until a way came to drive to her father’s place at Glenwood Furnace, near Natural Bridge. This visit was only two months before Hunter came up the Val­ ley. Understandably bitter ever after were the feelings of that gen­ eration who had known Mount Joy against the cruelties of Hunter s men toward helpless women and a beautiful home; or, rather, of Hunter himself, for many of his officers are known to have protested, and one gentleman among them did remain for a day or two to protect Mrs. Glasgow and her children from the stragglers and the drunken soldiers in Buchanan. My father, who had himself been wounded at First Manassas, rarely dwelt on the horrors of that tragic period. He said only, look­ ing over the lovely valley, “Mount Joy became Mount Sorrow. 21 �A Key Which Stayed Home There was no "drop-in-nearest-mailbox" notation on this 1880 key tag from Hayth's Hotel. (See Fincastle story on page 7). Whether by accident or design the sharp points on the copper tag would scrape a man's pocket or ruin a lady's handbag. So the key to room 5 always hung behind the front desk when the guest was out. 22 �Buena Vista Roanoke Plantation A n n e Montgomery A drawing of Buena Vista in happier days. Note landscaping and one-story wing in contrast to picture on page 25. Buena Vista, impressive remnant of what was once a vast and gracious plantation, sits on a wooded hill in the southeast section of the City of Roanoke, surveying the Roanoke valley and the mountains which encircle it. Once the vast rooms of the old house rang with pre-Civil War hos­ pitality, and the master, Col. George Plater Tayloe, could scan his 598 acres of farmland from his verandas. Today the bare rooms are mostly filled with children, rocking and rolling to the music of a record player, and the view from the porch embraces thousands of rooftops, industrial smoke stacks and busy city streets. It was in 1833 that George P. Tayloe, descendant of a family promi­ nent in Virginia and Washington, D. C., affairs since 1642, bought the Buena Vista lands from his father-in-law, William Langhorne. Short­ ly afterwards he commenced the construction of his home, and moved 23 �there from his former home near what is now Cloverdale. George P. Tayloe was born at Mt. Airy, Richmond County, in 1804, the son of Col. John Tayloe, III, a close personal friend of George Washington, and of Ann Ogle Tayloe, a daughter of the Governor of Maryland. This young man, barely 30 when he arrived in the Roanoke Val­ ley, was to become one of the wealthiest, most useful and influential men in the history of Roanoke, city and county. When he arrived in this part of the state, moving westward as so many younger sons of prominent colonial families did, the present Roanoke county was still a part of Botetourt and Montgomery counties. Accordingly Tayloe called his new estate Roanoke, after the river which had carved the valley. It was not until 1838, when Roanoke County was formed, that the name of the plantation was changed to Buena Vista—“beautiful view.” It was from this mansion that Col. Tayloe for 60 years, until his death at 92 in 1897 proceeded to take an active part in the development of the growing community. He was instrumental in building the first church in Big Lick, the church which is now St. John’s Episcopal Church; he concerned him­ self vitally with the sometimes struggling Hollins College for nearly 50 years; he represented the county in the State Legislature; he served on the state convention to consider the question of secession. In this latter capacity, Col. Tayloe spoke and voted against seces­ sion, but when the issue was passed, he signed the ordinance and threw his full support into the Confederate cause. Three of his sons died as a result of the subsequent war. Col. Tayloe was a descendant of a family not only devoted to community service, but also to building houses. His grandfather built Mount Airy, where George P. Tayloe was born, and for a Washington, D. C., residence, George’s father built the famous Octagon House. This house, now the property of the American Institute of Architects, was used as the residence of President James Madison after the British burned the White House during the War of 1812. Some of the furnishings of the Octagon House found their way to Buena Vista and are now the property of George Plater Tayloe’s grandson, Tayloe Rogers of Roanoke County. Curiously enough, a striking coincidence was involved in the building of Mr. and Mrs. Rogers’ present home. Their house was planned to be “a new house resembling an old one” and was partially designed to house furnishings from Buena Vis­ ta. While searching for authentic colonial clapboarding to copy for the exterior, Mrs. Rogers, who had formerly lived in Williamsburg, had her architects copy the clapboarding from an old house she re­ membered liking in Williamsburg. This was over 30 years ago, be­ fore the restoration of the Tayloe house. The architects accordingly copied the boards from a house that restoration research subsequently revealed to have been built in 1757 by John Tayloe, II, grandfather of the builder of Buena Vista, and used by the second John as his residence while the Virginia House of Bur­ gesses was in session. Massive is the word for Buena Vista. The main part of the house is an immense square of red brick decorated with white pilasters. A 24 �two-story wing projects to the left of the entrance today, although an architect’s drawing of the original elevation shows only one story. Inside, the house contains a center hall and four great rooms on each of two floors. Perhaps the single most striking feature as the house stands today—that is, almost bare of furniture-—is the unusual height of the ceilings. The furniture, now in Mr. Rogers’ home, bears out the scale of these rooms Raymond Barnes in a newspaper article on Col. Tayloe writes: “During the boom days of the late eighties and early nineties, a considerable acreage of the once grand estate was staked out in build­ ing lots and lost. The fine old mansion still stood in the grove of huge oaks and east of it, near the foot of the elevation lay Rogers’ Pond formed by a rushing spring. From all I can learn this was once used as an ice pond from which ice was cut and stored for summer use. To boys my age and older it was a mecca for ice skating. “I have been told that a flock of sheep was kept to crop the ex­ pansive lawn. The huge chimneys running from basement to above the roof were open to fireplaces on each floor. The story goes that young lady visitors were placed in a room where the deep breathing of the sheep huddled at the base of the chimney was accented so heav­ ily and heard so plainly that the girls believed their room haunted.” Many people feel that the restoration of Buena Vista would make a fine historical shrine for Roanoke, and a project that could logically look for assistance from patriotic and civic organizations. (Continued on page 30) Contemporary photograph of Buena Vista, now a Roanoke city recreation center. 25 �William Fleming's Surgical Instruments E dmund P. Goodwin Mr. Arthur Kent of Tucson, Arizona, whose old home was on Reed Creek m Wythe County, has presented the Society a most interesting collection of surgical instruments. Originally they belonged to Col­ onel (Doctor) William Fleming. Mr. Kent received the instruments from his father who was given them by his uncle’s wife. She was the granddaughter of William Fleming and before her marriage was Anne Christian Baxter. These instruments represent the type of equipment used by the medical profession in this area during the last half of the 18th century. They are now on display at the Society’s museum and have been iden­ tified as follows: 9 Earliest metal pressure tourniquet. 2. Phlebotome blades, one with handle only, another with blade; also three blades in small case. 3. Scalpel 4. Curette, triangular handle of ivory or bone, sharp point 5. Metal instrument (use unknown) 6. Probably bullet probe and extractor 7. Scale for measuring medicines 8. Instruments possibly used for wound closure (hooks) 9. Spatula 10. Hemostat 11. Tweezers 12. Calipers Fleming’s 3,000-acre plantation Bellmont is now a part of Roanoke City, Roanoke County and the Town of Vinton. In 1728 (new style) he was born at Jedborough, Scotland, of English parents from Westmore­ land County. His classical and medical training was received in both Scotland and England. Governor Dinwiddie appointed him an Ensign of the First Virginia Regiment in 1755 and throughout the French and Indian War he served not only as a line officer but as a surgeon. Immediately after the war he practiced medicine for some five years in Staunton, after which the Flemings moved to Bellmont. His practice in this area was interrupted when he was appointed colonel of the Botetourt Militia. While leading those troops at the Battle of Point Pleasant he was severely wounded. While senator representing a number of counties Fleming was appointed a member of the Council and acted as Governor of Virginia between thé terms of Jefferson and Nelson. Governor Harrison appointed Fleming as a commissioner on two occasions—one to settle land titles, the other to adiust financial claims. Fleming died in 1795 and both he and his wife are buried on the land that was Bellmont. These instruments are in themselves a valuable addition to the Society’s collection, but even more important is their close connection 26 �The 200-year-old Fleming instruments shown here are (from hand at left) a scale for measuring medicines, hooks used probably for wound closure, a phlebotome blade handle, spatula and a metal tourniquet. to this area and to one of its most prominent citizens of the last half of the eighteenth century. The Society extends to Mr. Arthur Kent its great appreciation and thanks for this fine gift. 27 �Roanoke’s Company “F” Alive After 70 Years R. H olman Ragland Corporal, Co. “F” 116th (E&F, 2nd Va.) Infantry Organized in Roanoke in the early 1890s, Company “F” saw serv­ ice against Spain, in the Mexican Border incident and in France during World War I. Officially it ceased to be on May 29, 1919—but each November its men—there are 130 left—meet in Roanoke reunion. It is a proud group. Company “F” began as a unit of the 2nd Virginia Infantry Regi­ ment, National Guard—a regiment which dates to Revolutionary War days. After serving in the Spanish-American War the company was mustered out of service on December 15, 1898 but was reorganized in 1899 and continued as a unit of the Virginia National Guard. On June 27, 1916 the company left Roanoke for service on the Mexican Border. At that time the officers were: Captain Linwood G. Figgatt; 1st Lt. R. E. Lightner and 2nd Lieutenant Vernon H. Speese. The company went through a period of intensive training while on the Border and returned to Roanoke on March 1, 1917. The company was recalled to duty on March 25, 1917 and men of the original unit were assigned to guard bridges and other points on the Virginian Railway. Meanwhile, following the declaration of war on Germany in April, 1917, recruits who would later be assigned to the company were undergoing training in Roanoke. Lt. Lightner was replaced by Speese and Harry F. Powell became 2nd Lieutenant. Walter C. Stevens was 1st Sergeant. On June 1, 1917 the company and other units of the Virginia Na­ tional Guard were inducted into Federal service. As a result the monthly salary of privates was increased from $15 per month to $30. Training of the units continued while additional recruits were signed up and assembled at the Roanoke Fair Grounds. On August 17, 1917, Company “F” and other units of the 2nd Vir­ ginia Infantry entrained at Roanoke and arrived at Camp McClellan, near Anniston, Ala. on August 19. This regiment was the first National Guard organization to set up a camp in the United States. On October 4, 1917 Company “E” of the 2nd Virginia Infantry merged with Company “F” to form Co. “F” of the 116th Infantry, 29th (Blue and Gray) Division. The strength of the merged company be­ came 250 men and officers. Captain Figgatt of Roanoke continued as commanding officer, Robert C. Kent, Jr., was 1st Lieutenant and Walter C. Stevens was 1st Sergeant. Four new lieutenants from other organi­ zations were assigned to Co. “F.” After nine months of strenuous training at Camp McClellan the company sailed for France with other units of the 29th Division on June 15, 1918, arriving in St. Nazaire on June 28. A few days later the company traveled by train and on foot to Frette and, after spending about two weeks there getting outfitted, moved on foot and in box cars, 28 �Company F, 2nd Virginia Infantry, National Guard, stands proud­ ly on the Elks Club steps in Roanoke on June 14, 1914. (Photograph owned by Hugh E. Layman, Roanoke.) stopping at several towns for periods of from a day to two weeks for rest and training, reaching Balschwiller, in the center sector of Haute Alsace on August 7, 1918. The group received its baptism of fire on August 24-25 when the Germans, after laying down a heavy artillery barrage, attempted to reach the Co “F” front line. The attack was repulsed but the unit sus­ tained its first casualty when Corp. Herbert W. Fowlkes of Chase City, Va. was killed and 14 other men were wounded or gassed. These were the first casualties sustained by the 29th Division. The company re­ ceived commendations from regimental and brigade commanders “for gallantry in action.” Early in September, 1918 Co. F moved with the regiment (116th Inf.) to the Boise Bouchet as a part of the First Army Reserve. On October 8 the regiment attacked Molleville Farm which was captured on October 15. Other German strong points were captured and Co. “F” continued to participate in the Meuse-Argonne Drive until relieved on October 29. Casualties sustained by the company were 12 dead and 135 wounded. On November 11, the company was under orders as part of the 2nd Army to proceed to the sector south of Metz when the Armistice was signed. The next five months were spent training near Serquex and Bourbonne-les-Baines. On April 11 the company traveled from Lariciere for Jussey and a short time later to Le Mans, preparatory to returning home. On May 9, 1919 the company boarded the Matsonia at St. Nazaire, arriving at Newport News on May 20. Co. “F” and other 116th Infantry units paraded in Richmond, Va. on May 24, then 29 �proceeded to Camp Lee where the last man was discharged on May 29, 1919. Company F received citations from several regimental command­ ers and others, as a unit of the 29th Division. Several attempts to organize an association composed of men who served with Co. “F” were made shortly after the company returned home but none of these resulted in a permanent organization. In 1936, through the efforts of Robert H. Ragland, Leonard H. Urquhart and Walter C. Stevens, a list of names and addresses of some 450 men who had served with the company was compiled. These names were se­ cured from rosters, sailing lists and other sources. Through the ef­ forts of Rep. Clifton A. Woodrum the U. S. Veterans Bureau for­ warded a communication to these men. At a meeting in Roanoke on August 20, 1936 (Noland A. Gilbert, temporary president, Robert H. Ragland, temporary secretary), it was decided to hold a reunion on November 11. Headquarters was at Mor­ gan’s Restaurant, 7 S. Jefferson St., Roanoke and about 75 attended. Except for the World War II years, a reunion of Co. “F” has been held every year. At first the affair was alternated between Chase City (from which most of the men of Co. E, 2nd Va. Infantry came), and Roanoke but now is held in Roanoke on the closest Saturday to No­ vember 11. Since the first reunion in 1936 211 deaths have been reported and the number whose addresses are known is down to about 130. These men are advised of plans every year on October 7 and following the reunion a reporting of proceedings is sent to every member. No dues are assessed. Except for 1947 when he served as president, Robert H. Ragland of Roanoke has served as historian of the Association and has compiled a history of Company F which includes many pictures, rosters, sailing lists, copies of orders and other items connected with the company. This history is the only complete record available in connection with Roanoke’s own military organization and will be presented eventually to the Roanoke Historical Society. iji sji :jc Buena Vista (from page 25) On the other hand is the side of the Roanoke Department of Parks and Recreation. Since 1937 Buena Vista and eleven acres of grounds have been the property of the city of Roanoke. Now known as Jackson Park, the house and grounds are used by hundreds for recreation and club gath­ erings. The department feels that Buena Vista is meeting a real need and has support from citizens of the community. So it would seem that the question resolves itself into the univer­ sal one of how to preserve the glories of the past and at the same time meet the needs of the present and the demands of the future. One can’t help wondering what Col. Tayloe himself would think. 30 �Part of “Fortune” in Society Museum These three ten and twenty dollar bills issued by the State of North Carolina in 1779 are among the more than 600 pieces of Colonial and Continental paper currency dating back to 1746 given to to the Society's museum in Roanoke College Library by S. H. McVitty. Text on the center specimen reads: "THIS BILL entitles the Bearer to receive TEN Spanish milled DOLLARS, or the Value thereof, in Gold or Silver, agreeable to an Act of Assembly passed at Smithfield, the 15th Day of May, 1779." 31 �Note from the President With a record membership of 230 and an improved financial status, the eight-year-old Roanoke Historical Society should be more active in the Roanoke Valley. Historical objects of value are slipping away from us almost ev­ ery day and as an organization formed to preserve representative items from the past, we have the responsibility to salvage what we can. But, as those few who work in this field can testify, doing something about local history is not an easy job. As John Galsworthy wrote in the 1930’s in a statement quoted in Hume’s popular book, “Here Lies Virginia” : “How to save the old that’s worth saving, whether in landscape, houses, manners, institutions or human types, is one of our greatest problems, and the one that we bother least about.” We have started saving at our fireproof museum in the rear of the Roanoke College library in Salem. And we need your support. Interesting reminders of the past are accumulating in our col­ lection. Old guns, swords, pictures, books and records have been placed on display in recent months. A valuable set of posters designed by J. R. Hildebrand, Society secretary, will have particular appeal to members of the younger gen­ eration interested in history. The museum is open for you and the public Saturdays from 2 to 5. The Society is pleased by sales of the second printing of R. D. Stoner’s “A Seed-Bed of the Republic.” Copies are available for $15 from Mr. Stoner at Fincastle or Edmund Goodwin, 101 S. Jefferson St., Roanoke. It was an important day for the Society when our federal tax exemption was established. We consider the museum a splendid place for tax-free donations of many items of historic value now resting un­ appreciated in our attics and closets. If you do not choose to part with them now, we invite you to will them to the Society. —GEORGE KEGLEY, President. H* * H« Suggested Form of Bequest: I hereby give and bequeath to Roanoke Historical Society, a non­ stock corporation organized under the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the sum of $----------------------- , to be used for the general purposes of the corporation. (If it be desired to make a gift in properties or securities, these must be described. If the gift is to be used for specific purposes, such purposes should be designated.) 32 ��� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society Winter 1964-1965 Volume 1, Number 2 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />Forgotten Graveyards of the Roanoke Valley<br />Three-Layer Cake of Prehistoric Virginia<br />Fincastle Springs, Resort of the '80s<br />Civil War Comes to Buchanan<br />A Key Which Stayed Home<br />Buena Vista-Roanoke Plantation<br />William Fleming's Surgical Instruments<br />Roanoke's Company 'F'-Alive After 70 Years Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Winter 1964-1965 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_01_02_Winter_1964 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6334/JHSWV_02_01_Summer_1965.pdf 212ce35e7b3f855d8d4f9583b3b70319 PDF Text Text JOURNAL ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Sum m er V o lu m e T w o 1965 N um ber O ne �ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Amor montium nos movet Officers George K egley ........................................................................... President Arthur T. E l l e t t .............................................................. Vice President J. R. H il d eb r a n d ........................................................ Executive Secretary J am es D. R ichardson .............................................................. Treasurer Directors Raymond P. Barnes Mrs. L. D. Booth John D. Carr Mrs. H. Powell Chapman C. Francis Cocke Whitwell W. Coxe Ben Bane Dulaney S. S. Edmunds B. N. Eubank Edmund P. Goodwin J. R. Hildebrand Miss Nancy E. Himes James J. Izard Shields Johnson Arthur T. Ellett George Kegley Mrs. George Kegley Mrs. J. G. McConkey * * L, G. Muse E. H. Ould James D. Richardson Tayloe Rogers R. D. Stoner Mrs. English Showalter W. L. Whitesides Robert W. Woody James P. Woods * Ben Bane Dulaney Editor of the JOURNAL F rances McN. L ewis, Associate Editor K athy T hornton, Photography CONTENTS page The South Western Turnpike Road by Edmund P. G oodw in............. 1 Toll Gates in This Century by George K e g le y ............................... 3 Boyhood Collection is Remembrance of Past ................................... 4 Thomas and Tasker Tosh by Margaret S c o tt............................. ........ 5 Lone Oak, 1767? -1964 ......................................................................... 12 Founding of Patrick County by James H. M a rtin ......................... .... 15 Peaks of Otter I: Postscript to Prehistory.......................................... 20 Peaks of Otter II: Coming of the White Man by Don Robinson___ 21 Peaks of Otter III: How It Was in 1907 .............................................. 22 Beginnings of the Virginia Historical Society by William M. E. R a ch a l.................................................. 26 Fashion Department ............................................................................... 32 Almanacs, Ration Books and Rapiers .................................................. 35 Notes from the President ..................................................................... 36 The Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Volume II, Number 1. Published twice yearly by the Society at Box 1904, Roanoke, Virginia, to chronicle the past and present of that part of the state w est of the Blue Ridge. Single copy price: 50 cents; Subscription $1 a year. The Society will be careful in handling unsolicited material but cannot be responsible for its loss. �The South Western Turnpike Road E dmund P. Goodwin The virtual completion of an interstate speedway which closely follows the path of the South Western Turnpike Road chartered almost 120 years ago heightens interest in this pioneer state highway. Two books in the possession of this Society prompted me to learn more about its location and operation. One is the tollbook of Gate # 5 carefully kept from October, 1856 to September, 1876 by Gatekeeper John Woltz—and including official use by the Confederate government. The other is the account book of John McCauley, turnpike superin­ tendent, covering parts of 1855 and 1856. There were a number of private companies operating local roads to the west of the Lynchburg-Salem Turnpike. However it was not until January 28, 1846 that the South Western Turnpike was chartered. It was to be built with state funds, from Salem, passing through Christiansburg, Newbern, Wytheville, Marion, Abingdon, and on to Ten­ nessee. The turnpike was to be graded a minimum of twenty-four feet, the macadam not less than twenty-two feet and the grade at no place could exceed 3%. The initial appropriation by the general assembly was $75,000. Initial progress of the turnpike was fast, as it reached Wythe­ ville by the end of 1847. The completion of this portion of the road was speeded through the purchase of two existing turnpikes, one from Salem to Peppers Ferry; the other from Lafayette to Ingles Ferry, as well as acquiring Ingles Ferry itself. To give an idea of the cost of construction the first three contracts are listed: Section 1, for two miles, was let to Thomas Rosser at a cost of $5,800.; Elisha Melton was the low bidder on Sections 2 and 3, two miles each, at $13,800., and Section 4, for two miles, went to Robert Harvey at a price of $10,590. In April of that year apparently great pressure was put on the members of the Assembly to extend the road from Salem to Buchanan. Surveys of this portion were made, but quite an argument arose as to the route from Salem. Some of the substantial citizens of the Big Lick area thought it should come closer to their community, but so far as can be found the question was never resolved although great effort was made to start construction at Buchanan so the people of Big Lick would have more time to upset or change the original surveys. In January, 1848, the legislature appropriated $300,000 for the completion of the road, but not more than $75,000 could be used in any one year. An attempt was made in the General Assembly, the fol­ �lowing fall, to stop construction but just at the time it appeared the work would be terminated it was discovered a valid contract had been signed by the board of public works. Construction beyond Wytheville slowed. The pike did not reach Seven Mile Ford until the spring of 1851. It appears the contractor had become involved and rather than calling on his bond for comple­ tion the General Assembly, by a vote of 52-44, instructed the board of public works to suspend construction except for completing small por­ tions that had actually been started. Some far Southwest Virginians thought they had been badly mis­ treated by those from Eastern Virginia when it was voted to discon­ tinue the construction of the road to the Tennessee border. The real reason, most probably, was the construction of the Virginia and Ten­ nessee Railroad, the parent of the Norfolk and Western Railway Com­ pany. V. & T. started from Lynchburg in 1849, reached Salem in 1852 and was opened to Bristol in 1856. In March, 1848, it was determined the road was to be divided into sections of ten miles each and a toll gate would be placed as close as possible to the middle of each section. At first it was thought the toll gate keeper, besides the use of a house, could be employed at $300 per year, but by 1855 some had been increased to $450. Tolls in the early days of the turnpike were established as follows: cart or wagon 2” wheels for each horse drawing same 12c cart or wagon 4” wheels for each horse drawing same 08c cart or wagon 6” wheels for each horse drawing same 04c 4 wheeled one horse riding carriage 25c 4 wheeled two horse riding carriage 35c (Continued on Page 33) �Toll Gates In This Century George K egley Toll gates may have been operated on roads through Roanoke County in earlier days but they were not used in this century until the summer of 1914 when the county board of supervisors decided to levy tolls to pay for maintenance of the new macadamized roads. Construc­ tion was financed by a bond issue. Many a toll was collected in the county for almost 14 years. G. W. Gish was elected superintendent of toll gates and four gates were opened July 1, 1914 at these locations: No. 1, near Road Bridge across Tinker Creek on Hollins Road. No. 2, 100 feet or more beyond an oak tree near Mundy’s corner on Williamson Road (near present Liberty Road intersection). No. 3, near the Fallon-Persinger line on the Roanoke-Salem road (west of Washington Heights School). No. 4, on Hanging Rock Road near a cherry tree between the hemes of J. C. and D. C. Moomaw. Gish was authorized to supply each keeper’s house with a tele­ phone to be used “in aiding in catching violators of the road law.” These tolls were charged: Automobile, two seats, 25 cents; auto­ mobile runabout, one seat, 20; motor cycles, 8; every 20 head of sheep or hogs, 5; horse or mule, 3; one-horse wagon, 5; one-horse carriage, 6; and two-horse carriage, 10. The speed limit was recommended at 20 miles per hour on straight road and 8 miles around curves, according to the supervisors’ minutes of October, 1917. Toll gates produced revenues. Gish reported receipt of $314 in May, $377 in June and $452 in July, 1919 at a gate at the intersection of the Starkey Road and the Franklin Turnpike (U. S. 220) south of Roanoke. Other gates were on the land of Hezekiah Lavinder on the Back Creek Road (present Fralin Park near city limits on Colonial Avenue); near Garst Mill (off Grandin Road Extension); on what is now U. S. 460 east of Vinton Road; and at Lockett’s Store, near the intersection of Riverland Road and Mt. Pleasant Boulevard, SE. The state took over the road from Williamson Road to Botetourt County line, from Bonsack to Roanoke and 1.4 miles west of Salem in March, 1919. But the gates at Fairview (Washington Heights) and Hollins re­ mained in business through the end of 1927. The Hollins gate was last operated in January, 1928 and the Fairview gatehouse and lot were sold for $2,700 in March, 1928. O. T. Burch, superintendent of toll roads, was appointed county road superintendent in March, 1928, and an era ended. 3 �Boyhood Collection Is Remembrance of Past -Photograph by JACK G AKING Mighty few youngsters who grew up in small towns in the early years of^ this century escaped the fascination of collecting the multishaped and brightly colored tags from chewing tobacco. Sidney P. Taliaferro of Wash­ ington saved his and recently presented this mounted collection of tokens and samples of plugs to the Society. It will interest and perhaps puzzle future generations. Taliaferro, who grew up in Salem and Roanoke, has served as a commissioner of the District of Columbia and as a Washington bank vice president. 4 �Thomas and Tasker Tosh: The Brothers Who Owned Roanoke Margaret Scott The most conspicuous feature of the 18th century English colonies on the North American continent was growth. Population both native born and immigrant was multiplying rapidly. Moreover, the elements in this population, black and white, strains from the British Isles, and from the European continent—were becoming more varied. Economic enterprise also was expanding in kind and in volume. The cultural life of the Atlantic Seaboard was likewise enlarged through the build­ ing of churches, libraries, schools, and colleges, and the contribution of clergymen, artists, and scientists. No aspect of this revolutionary expansion was more striking or more closely tied to all phases of society than the spacial. In English America pioneers were on the march into unsettled or sparsely occupied regions, pushing outward in all directions. In the Old Dominion, the frontier movement carried groups of earlier settlers and of newcomers fresh from the Old World eastward across the Chesapeake and south­ ward to found counties along North Carolina’s northern rim. But of most importance was the white man’s penetration of Virginia’s West. The rise of this “Old West,” to borrow Frederick Jackson Turner’s classic phrase, involved the Piedmont, the interior mountain valleys and, in time, the trans-Allegheny country. This “Old West” was, of course, a very New West in the middle years of the 18th century. Among its lovely southwestward valleys was that drained by Goose Creek—the Roanoke River. Into it were moving in the 1740’s immigrants from the north to join a smaller in­ flux from the east and southwest. Among these frontiersmen were the brothers Thomas and Tasker Tosh. They arrived on Goose Creek early in the decade. They were not to become distinguished persons in the wilderness they helped to civilize but their lives were typical and symbolic of the development of a Western community in the era of expansion.1 It is believed that Thomas was born about 1715, his brother a few years later, that they Miss Scott, a member of this Society, retired in 1958 as professor of history and head of that department at Hollins College. A graduate of Hollins she earned her master’s degree in history at Radcliffe and her Ph. D. at the University of Virginia. It was while studying under Dr. Frederick Jackson Turner at Radcliffe that her abiding interest in the American frontier was kindled. 5 �were of Welch extraction and originally settlers in Pennsylvania who drifted to Lunenburg County in southern Virginia—that section which became Pittsylvania. From this area they pushed northwest through the mountains to a branch of Pigg River. There Toshes Village proba­ bly perpetuates the family name. More than likely these immigrants to Goose Creek Valley were Presbyterians. It is a matter of record that in March, 1749 the distinguished divine, the Reverend John Craig, baptized Tasker’s daughter Mary.2 But uncertain as is their place of origin, their blood or their re­ ligion, Thomas and Tasker had arrived in their new home by the early Forties. In 1742 Captain George Robinson’s list of the Augusta Coun­ ty Muster mentioned the latter.3 Their residence is also attested to by the fact that, under Mark Evans and James Campbell as overseers, in the early winter of 1746 the newcomers were engaged in road build­ ing. The road under construction was to run from the Blue Ridge to the watershed dividing the New River basin from that of the South branch of the Roanoke.4 Within five or six years of his settlement in this community, Thom­ as Tosh began his accumulation of landed property. But first, a resume of what is known of his other activities: In 1750 he was witnessing wills and appraising the estate of William Alexander. Later in the decade he appraised the possessions of Joseph Cummings and John Robinson and went on Erwin Patterson’s bond as administrator of the McGee estate. In 1753, along with Tasker, Thomas was ordered by the court to assist in the construction of a road from William Carvin’s plantation” to William Bryan’s on the Roanoke near Fort Lewis.5 Just at this time the prelude to the struggle between England and France for the mastery of North America began in the backwoods of the Middle Colonies. Virginia’s frontier was in dire need of protec­ tion from the French and their Indian allies, and Thomas enrolled in Captain James Campbell’s company. He also served as a provisioner of grain for the local militia. To add to his duties, in the fall of 1753 he was appointed processioner by the parish vestry.6 By 1756 the clash of empires along the borders of Virginia and her neighbors widened into a global war—the first, but by no means FRONTIER; THE BEGINNINGS OF THE SOUTHWEST; THE ROANOKE o f COLONIAL DAYS, 1740 - 1783 Roanoke, Va. Slone Printing Co. 1938 pp. »3, »7, 181, 184, 332 . _ Maude Carter Clement, HISTORY OF PITTSYLVANIA COUNTY, VIR G IN IA Lynchburg, Va. J. P. Bell Co. 1929 p. 45. 1. P. Summers, ANNALS OF SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA, 1748 - 1770 Abingdon, Va. 1929 p.572. Anne L. Worrell, HISTORY OF ROANOKE COUNTY, 1748- 1770 Roanoke, Va. 1942 pp.6-7. __ 3 Lyman Chalkley comp.-CHRONICLES OF SCOTCH-IRISH SETTLEMENT IN V IR G IN IA EXTRACTED FROM O RIGINAL COURT RECORDS OF AUGUSTA COUNTY, 1745 - 1800 Published by Mary S. Lockwood, Roslyn, Va. Printers Commonwealth Printing Co., 1912 - 1913 II, 507, 509. Hereinafter cited as ABSTRACTS. 4 Abstracts I, 24 chalkley "Before the Gates of the Wilderness Road" VIR G IN IA M AG AZINE OF HISTORY AN D BIOGRAPHY Richmond, Va. 1922 XXX, 195 - 196. 5 ABSTRACTS I, 61; III, 4, 19, 44 - 45, 55. 6 ABSTRACTS II, 442. Worrell OP.CIT. p. 2 6 �the last, into which the Valley of Roanoke has been drawn. Thomas Tosh’s home “on Roanoke” was the scene of negotiations with friendly Indians who were given flour in accordance with Colonel Clement Read’s orders. In the Fall of 1757, Colonel John Buchanan filed an account for these provisions against “the country.” In April of that year flour “for the use of the Associators” had been delivered to Tosh. During the next two years he continued to receive provisions—includ­ ing those delivered at Evans’ Mill—for the use of Colonel William Preston’s Company.7 The final period of the French and Indian War and the years im­ mediately following the Peace of Paris <1763) saw Thomas Tosh, al­ though still concerned with defense of the frontier, once more busy with peaceful matters like the appraisal of John Mason’s property. In May, 1762 he was appointed constable. He served again as processioner and in the Fall of 1767 was one of three persons commissioned to “view” a road to be built from the Stone House (near Cloverdale in the present Botetourt County) to Evans’ Mill.8 We have a few references to him in the early Seventies as he directed, from his homestead upon the high bluff above the river, the production of winter rolled wheat and beef cattle. Thomas was busy also with Tosh’s ford over the river below his residence. In 1772 the court of the new County of Botetourt ordered the viewing of a road from “Thomas Tosh’s ford to the top of Bent Mountain.”9 Before rounding out this fragmentary recital of facts with a short account of Thomas Tosh’s acquisition of land, the few “shreds and patches” of information we have about Tasker Tosh may be pieced together. Emerging with Thomas from the mists of the vaguely known, he settled “on Roanoke” in the early 1740’s. We know likewise that the two worked as road builders for a decade “before the Gates of the Wilderness Road.” Tasker also witnessed wills and served as an ap­ praiser of estates. Like his brother, he played his part in the protec­ tion of the frontier. In September of 1748 he acquired by letters patent 220 acres in the bend of Goose Creek near Evans’ Big Spring and be­ striding the river where Franklin Road now crosses it. Tasker soon sold the larger portion of this land to Thomas. He secured property now occupied by Roanoke City Mills and perhaps established a home upon it. Moreover, he seems to have got hold of what came to be known as the Elmwood tract. No further record of Tasker’s dealings in real estate have come to light. He died in 1762, a decade and a half before his brother.10 7 Papers of William Preston In PRESTON AND V IRG IN IA PAPERS OF DRAPER COLLECTION. Madison, Wisconsin Historical Society Publications, 1915 Calendar Ser. I, 13, 22, 45, 49 8 ABSTRACTS I, 98, 141; II, 450; III, 70, 79. 9 Kegley OP.CIT p. 560Summers OP.CIT pp. 83, 166, 186. 10 ABSTRACTS II, 507, 509; III, 45, 55. Clement OP.CIT. p. 45. 7 �The story of Thomas Tosh as engrosser of lands began more than a year before that of Tasker. In March, 1747, the former patented 269 acres on the south side of Goose Creek where Salem now stands. There is no evidence that he ever lived on that property, although he kept it until in the early summer of 1766 he sold the land to Colonel An­ drew Lewis." Likewise in the late Forties or early Fifties, Thomas got 120 acres of those 220 which Tasker had patented near Evans’ Big Spring in the autumn of 1748. This plot included land on both sides of the Roanoke. Moreover, about this time Thomas “entered” 65 acres of the high ground on the north bank of the river. Upon it he es­ tablished his home, and below this bluff where Franklin Road spans the river, the ford already mentioned.'* We recall that in the late Fifties and early Sixties, the Toshes were active in the defense of the southwest frontier against the attacks of the French and their Indian supporters. It was not until the coming of peace that Thomas resumed his land speculations. There is a record of his purchasing in 1764 and 1765 two parcels of 264 and 260 acres, the latter on Mason’s Creek.15 The next year, he sold his Salem tract to Andrew Lewis for one hundred pounds.14 In October of that year Thomas got a deed to 100 acres “from James Patton deceased” on the south fork of the Roanoke.15 But 1767 was the banner year in his land business, and September 10 the red letter day of the year. On that date he received a grant from George III to those 65 acres above the river which he had occupied about 15 years earlier. Simultaneously, he secured by patent the Belmont tract of 264 acres, 165 acres on Cedar Spring Creek, the Indian Grave 150-acre plot, 165 acres “adjacent William Campbell,” 150 acres on Mason’s Creek, 165 acres on the north side of Roanoke River adjacent to the Tasker Tosh property, and 254 acres adjoining M. Campbell.15 In No­ vember, 1769, Tosh bought from his son-in-law James Crawford 266 acres on Mason’s Creek.17 In view of the fact that Thomas was dead by early 1778, references Bk. 28, p.' 386Hlldebrand-RECORDS OF ACQUISITION OF REAL ESTATE kegiey OP.CIT. pp. 97, 181, 526. land H H 8 M ,R„°vAeNyf KE- ST° RY ° f CITY AN D C0UNTY n .¡ s t m city of ro an o k e- Roan°ke' ll Hildebrand OP.CIT. T.: V.L.O. Patent Bk. 26, p. 218 Kegiey OP.CIT. p. 96 12 ABSTRACTS III, 295 Hildebrand OP.CIT. T.: Augusta Deed Bk. 3, p. 355 Kegiey OP.CIT. pp. 99 - 100, 526 Miller OP.CIT. p. 135 13 Hildebrand OP.CIT. T.: Augusta Deed Bk. 11, p. 840 Kegiey OP.CIT. p. 304 14 ABSTRACTS III, 441 Hildebrand OP.CIT. L.: Augusta Deed Book 12. p. 519 15 ABSTRACTS 111,467 1 6 ABSTRACTS III, 295 Hildebrand OP.CIT. T.: V.L.O. Patent Bk. 37, pp. 220-221 1 7 Botetourt County Deed Book I, p. 70 Summers OP.CIT. p. 533 Roanoke, Va. T.: V.L.O. Va. 1942 * • 1891 Patent appendix-map of early 47 i po­ �in the Botetourt County Patent Bk. 3 (p. 577) to acquisitions by him in 1780- 1781 are mystifying. But in any event, enough has been itemized to show him a landholder of stature in the early period of white settlement in this community. The will of Thomas Tosh was dated September 7, 1777. Its author died the following winter and the document was probated at Fincastle on February 11. The widow, Mary Tosh, was to possess, “while she remains a widow,” the “plantation whereon I now live”—i.e. the homestead above the river and its ford, with all its servants, furniture, utensils, farming implements, horses, cattle, hogs, sheep, etc.— “In case of her marying” (sic) or in the event of her death, the estate was to go to Thomas’ son, Jonathan, whose education now became his mother’s responsibility.—Thomas left property also to his daughter, Mary, and to his sons-in-law, Crawford and Evans.18 Perhaps this is the place to set down the few data discovered about the immediate families of the brothers Tosh. The maiden name of Thomas’ wife, Mary, is unknown, as is the date of her death. Unknown also is the name of the daughter who married James Crawford. Her sister, Mary, became the wife of Peter, son of Mark Evans. Son Jona­ than, who figured importantly in the will just referred to, married a widow, Mrs. Elizabeth Townsley.19 Tasker’s wife was Agnes Alexan­ der. Their children were William, James, Jonathan, Jeanne and that Mary who was baptized by the Reverend John Craig.20 When Tasker died in the summer of 1762, the Augusta County Court appointed Agnes administratrix of his estate. She posted bond with Armstrong McKeachy.21 According to a letter of Colonel Preston at “Greenfield,” in 1764 Agnes was trying to collect pay due her husband in connection with the late war.22 Seven years later she patented 138 acres on the Blackwater branch of Roanoke River. Agnes survived her husband by two decades, living until 1783, the year Britain acknowledged America’s independence.23 Several additional statements may be made about the Toshes of the second generation. With regard to Tasker’s children: William died late in 1772, a decade before his mother. His will was probated in the court of the new County of Botetourt on the following February 8, his brother Jonathan acting as executor. As heirs to the proceeds of the BOTETOURT COUNTY, V IR G IN IA Hillsville Va. 1958 p. 64 19 Hildebrand OP.CIT. T. 20 Hildebrand OP.CIT. T. Summers OP.CIT. p. 577 21 ABSTRACTS I, 99; III, 70 Summers OP.CIT. p. 572 22 Preston Papers OP.CIT. p. 57 23 Hildebrand OP.CIT. T.: V.L.O. Patent Bk. 40, p. 570 Kegley OP.CIT. p. 542 Summers OP.CIT. p. 57 9 �sale of his “farm on Cannaugh” (Kanawha) he named his sister, Jeanne, and his brothers, James and Jonathan.24 Botetourt court and parish records give us a little bit more information about James. In 1774 he did jury duty. In the late Seventies the church wardens were binding out to him several boys and girls. In the spring of 1781, he was enrolled as ensign in the county militia. In July came a promotion to a second lieutenantcy in Captain Neeley’s company. Several years after the War James was appointed constable.25 One cannot be sure whether some references to Jonathan Tosh are to the son of Tasker or to his first cousin of the same name. Court records show, however, that in 1780 the former was serving as con­ stable, and in 1783 as grand juror. He was selected also to “view the way” of a road proposed from Indian Hill. In 1796 came further service as constable as well as processioner. Late in 1797 he was made guar­ dian to the four sons of Peter Evans and Mary Tosh (Mark, Thomas, Jonathan and William). In their name he was expected to bring suit against William Watts and others.26 Nothing is known of Tasker’s daughters but the reference to Mary’s baptism. The member of the second generation of whom most has been recorded is the only son of Thomas Tosh, Jonathan. Upon his mother’s death, perhaps in the early Eighties, he inherited the estate developed from the nucleus of those 65 acres above the north bank of the Roanoke “entered” by his father soon after he came to the Valley of “Goose Creek” and granted to him by the Crown in 1767. The romantic story of the courtship and marriage on August 6, 1805 of Jonathan to the widow Elizabeth Townsley of Alabama is told by Colonel Lucian D. Booth, who was the past owner of the old Tosh “plantation,” known for over half a century now as “Lone Oak.” Moreover, using as his sources primary documentary materials and the recollections and traditions of Tosh’s descendants, Colonel Booth has traced the development of the old dwelling and its grounds from the construction of the original log home in the middle years of the 18th century to the present time—a tale of more than two cen­ turies. In addition to its detailed account of the oldest home within the limits of the present City of Roanoke, it furnishes a record of the descendants of Thomas Tosh through the third and fourth generations. Especially important is the analysis of the disposition of Jonathan’s property upon the death of the master of “Lone Oak” some time before August 19, 1812 when the estate was settled. Here Colonel Booth makes use both of court records and a contemporary map in his pos­ session.27 Summers OP.CIT. pp. 172, 587 Worrell EARLY MARRIAGES, WILLS, ETC. p. 64 Summers OP.CIT. pp. 217, 254, 274, 283, 340, 345, 409, 527 26 Summers OP.CIT. pp. 307, 372, 393, 463, 466, 474 27 L. D. Booth, Col U. S. Armv, Ret. LONE O AK Roanoke, Va. 1958, typecript, esp. pp. 1 - 5 1942 W.P.A. ROANOKE: STORY OF CITY AND COUNTY OP.CIT. p. 185 Worrell— EARLY MARRIAGES, WILLS, etc. OP.CIT. p. 64 24 25 10 �It is not known where the persons treated herein are buried. But one may surmise that the graves of some of those who dwelt upon that high ground above the river are at “Lone Oak” or upon land nearby that was a part of the Thomas Tosh estate. The discovery in 1910 of four skeletons on the site of the present Griggs house points to that conclusion. As for Tasker, we have done no more than guess where his homestead may have been. We have no clues whatever as to his burial place.28 H* He $ This paper, therefore, ends as it began upon a note of conjecture. However, in between the obscurity of the story’s beginning and end one may follow two frontiersmen of the middle sort or class as they go about their concerns, both public and private. Such observation will throw considerable light upon the days and ways of the white man as he colonized the “New West” of the Roanoke Valley. 28 J. R. Hildebrand: Barbour Letter of November 19, 1959, based on information furnished by Mr. Stuart BIBLIOGRAPHY Bruce, Thomas-SOUTHWEST V IR G IN IA AND THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY, Richmond, Va. J. L. Hill Publishing Co. c. 1891 Chalkley, Lyman comp.-CHRONICLES OF SCOTCH-IRISH SETTLEMENT IN V IRG IN IA EXTRACTED FROM O RIGINAL COURT RECORDS OF AUGUSTA COUNTY 1745- 1860. Published by Mary S. Lockwood, Rosslyn, Va. Printers Commonwealth Printing Co. 1912-13 Chalkley, Lyman—"Before The Gates Of The Wilderness Road" V IRG IN IA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY Richmond, Va. 1922 Vol. XXX. Clement, Maud Carter-HISTORY OF PITTSYLVANIA COUNTY, V IRG IN IA Lynchburg, Va. J. P. Bell Co. 1929 Early, R. H.-CAMPBELL CHRONICLES AND FAMILY SKETCHES, 1782- 1926 Lynchburg, Va. J. P. Bell Co. 1927 Hildebrand, J. R.-RECORDS OF THE ACQUISITION OF PROPERTIES Manuscript Roanoke, Va. n.d. Kegley, F. B.-THE VIR G IN IA FRONTIER; THE BEGINNINGS OF THE SOUTHWEST; THE ROANOKE OF COLONIAL DAYS, 1740 - 1783 Roanoke, Va. Stone Printing Co. c. 1938 McCauley, William-ed. and comp. HISTORY OF ROANOKE COUNTY, SALEM AND ROANOKE CITY, V IR G IN IA Chicago, III. Bibliographical Publishing Co. 1902 Miller, Thomas W .-HISTORY OF ROANOKE CITY; SURVEYS OF ORIGINAL TRACTS, SURVEYS, CONVEYANCES, ETC. Roanoke, Va. 1891 Manuscript in the possession of the Messrs. J. P. and J' L Pendleton, WM. Cecil-HISTORY OF TAZEWELL COUNTY AND SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA, 1747 - 1920 Richmond, Va. J. L. Hill Publishing Co. 1920 , „ Peyton, John Lewis—HISTORY OF AUGUSTA COUNTY, V IRG IN IA Staunton, Va. Sami. M. Yost. Co. c. 1882 2nd ed. Bridgewater, Va. c. 1953 H R . . Summers, Lewis Preston-HISTORY OFSOUTHWEST VIRGINIA, 1746- 1786 Richmond, Va. H' M PUSummers,C Lew^>3pres»on-ANNALS OF by au,^ SOUTHWEST VIR G IN IA 1769-1800 Abingdon, Va. dd’J |29Joseph Addison—ANNALS OF AUGUSTA COUNTY, VIR G IN IA FROM 1726 TO 1871 Pub. 2nd ed' S Worrel'i, A ^ L o w r y - E A l L Y MARRIAGES, WILLS AND SOME REVOLUTIONARY WAR RECORDS OF BOTETOURT COUNTY, VIR G IN IA Hillsville, Va. Carroll Publishing Corp. 1958 . , _ ... Worrell, Anne Lowry—HISTORY OF ROANOKE COUNTY, 1748- 1770 typescript in Roanoke Public Library Roanoke, Va. c. 1942 _ ,, . . , , . u ___ w r W. P. A.—OLD HOMES OF ROANOKE COUNTY Pamphlets in the SalemCourt House, W. C. Sponaugle researcher "Lone O ak" 1936 W. P. A.—ROANOKE, STORY OF CITY AND COUNTY Writers Program: American Guide Series Roanoke, Va. Stone Printing Co. 1942 MAPS J. R. Hildebrand—Court House, Salem 1943: 1825 - 1875: farm lands now in city Carlton Terrace, Roanoke 1955: Official Map: Roanoke and Environs . . M C D s g s H iP fi Man* in Fincastle Court House: Deed Bk. 11, p. 370 Col. L. D. Booth and Mr. E. P. Goodwin: Maps in pr|Vate^p°ssession^0AN 0KE, ST 0 R Y 0 F CITY A N D C 0U NTY: end pieee COURT RECORDS Botetourt County: Fincastle Roanoke County: Salem 11 J.L. �Notable Southwest Virginia Homes—II Lone Oak, 1767M964 Lone Oak, mentioned in the immediately preceding story of the Brothers Tosh, was most probably the oldest dwelling in the City of Roanoke when it was demolished in 1964, replaced by a nursing home. The late Col. Lucian D. Booth, its last resident owner, declared the center portion of the brick house was built by Thomas Tosh in 1767. Others, including Raymond P. Barnes, a regional historian of standing, say that Tosh dwelt in a log house on the site until his death in 1778, that the home later known as “Lone Oak” rose on the hill above Tosh’s Ford under the supervision of his widow. Whatever the date, the house was a fine example of the early plan­ tation manors of this area. It was occupied by direct descendants of the pioneering Tosh brothers until 1901. In these latter days of streets and numbers “Lone Oak” stood at 324 King George Avenue, SW in Roanoke on the remnant of its original 65-acre grant above Roanoke River (and the come-lately Virginian Railway) northwest of Franklin Road. Col. and Mrs. Booth did much to restore some of the original appeal to the old home and in 1958 he wrote a paper, never published, outlining the history of the dwelling. “In 1767 Thomas built alongside the log residence a house with 18-inch brick walls,” Booth wrote. “It consisted of a living room and a bedroom on the first floor and two bedrooms above. A circular stair­ case in the southeast corner of the bedroom connected wjth the bed­ room above. The dining room was in the old log house. The front of the house was on the southside with a single door opening onto a wooden porch which extended around the west side of the house. It included a balustrade around the porch. . . . “The timber used in the construction of the house was all hewn by hand, seasoned on the place and put together with morticed joints, handmade nails and wooden pegs. It is probable that the floors were made of split puncheons, smoothed with a broad-axe. The large bricks in the walls were laid with unusually hard mortar. When it became necessary to cut a window during remodeling the brick had to be chis­ eled out as if it were solid stone. . . . “The place was at one time called ‘Rock of Ages,’ because of the rocky ledge on which it stood, and later, ‘Big Oaks,’ from two magni­ ficent trees which stood on the lower part of the lawn near present Franklin Road. In 1901 when the Lawrence Davises became owners there was only one tree left standing so they changed the name to “Lone Oak.” This tree measured more than 25 feet around the trunk and its branches were enormous. It was blown down in 1917 and 32 12 �LONE O A K IN ITS LAST DAYS. cords of wood were cut from the branches alone—as the trunk was shattered. “ ‘Rock of Ages’ was frequently used as headquarters by Gen. Andrew Lewis during various campaigns and many conferences were held there before Lewis died in 1781. “After the death of Thomas Tosh, his widow Mary and the chil­ dren including the only son Jonathan, continued to live in the brick home near the ford. Once during high water a Negro brought news to Jonathan that his mistress, Mrs. Elizabeth Townsley, and her maid sat in a carriage in midstream, unable to cross or turn back. Jonathan rescued them and persuaded them to spend the night. Elizabeth, a widow and reportedly beautiful, was on the way to Richmond but there must have been a mutual appeal as the trip was forgotten and she and Jonathan were married in the house on August 6, 1805. ^ Col. Booth then details the succession of “Lone Oak’s” owners. Jonathan inherited it from his mother and willed it to his wife who out­ lived him. At her death in 1850 title was taken by their daughter Jean who married William Lewis, a great-grandson of Gen. Andrew. Jean s eldest son, Andrew Lewis, inherited the property at her death m 188 . “In his old age Andrew married a widow named Mrs. King who had 13 �the old house painted red, thus infuriating some nearby residents,” Booth wrote. “They later moved to Florida and rented ‘Lone Oak.’ It was during this period that the place had little care.” In 1901 Patterson Rorer bought “Lone Oak,” then a five-acre es­ tate, and gave it to his daughter Blanche upon her wedding to Lawrence S. Davis. The old log kitchen—farm bell attached, servants’ cabins, smokehouse and icehouse were still standing. There were 3 1/4 acres remaining when Col. and Mrs. Booth bought the house in 1944. First major remodeling was done by Jean Tosh, probably in the 1860s. She removed the old log “dining house” and built the brick addition containing a dining room and the master’s bedroom above, constructed larger porches. The Davises made many changes, includ­ ing the shifting of the main entrance from south to east, the construc­ tion of a sunroom and bathrooms and the cutting of more windows. The old log kitchen was replaced by an addition containing a pantry, kitchen, laundry room and vegetable room on the first floor and a bedroom and two baths above. The original log servant house was torn down for a double garage and servants’ rooms. “Under the ownership of Jean Tosh Lewis, ‘Big Oaks’ was noted for its beautiful shrubbery, boxwood trees and lovely bluegrass sod,” Col. Booth wrote. “It was also noted for its mint juleps. One part of the lawn was so covered with mint that in later years during cutting the odor of mint was so strong it could be detected half a mile away. “At that time a boxwood-lined path led from the rear door of the house to the garden. Two tall cedar trees stood at the garden entrance and there were hedges of English lavender and old red damask roses on each side. Down the east side of the garden stretched a grape ar­ bor. On the west side was a lilac hedge separating the flowers from a lawn on the west. . . . In the center was a small summer-house cov­ ered with wisteria and seven sisters roses. Many tall boxwoods were scattered about. “During Andrew Lewis’ ownership a tenant kept cows which roamed at will upon lawn and gardens, destroying everything they liked. About all that remained was one enormous boxwood tree, a century-old wisteria vine clambering over the remnant of the summer house and part of the lilac hedge.” Col. Booth related how Mrs. Davis rehabilitated the lawns and gardens to the point where they were again a showplace of the area and have been a feature of Virginia Garden Week. “Lone Oak” had been vacant for three years when the Booths moved in and the gardens were neglected and overgrown. They pain­ stakingly restored them. So in the 1950s, two centuries after its be­ ginnings, “Lone Oak” was opened to Garden Week visitors—an exam­ ple of a way of living which can never return. 14 �Founding of Patrick County By J ames H. Martin The beginning of the French and Indian War in 1753 brought construction of numerous frontier forts, both east and west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Among them was Fort Mayo which stood on the North Mayo River in Halifax County—on soil that was later to be­ come Patrick County. The fort was commanded by Captain Samuel Harris, and was visited in 1756 by George Washington while on an inspection tour of all the forts. It was the southernmost of the line of stockades extending from the Potomac River to North Carolina, and stood close to the Indian path leading from the Cherokee country in North Carolina to the white settlements east of the Blue Ridge. The main path led from the west to the east, but a branch of it left the South Mayo River near the present court house of Patrick County, about ten miles due west of Fort Mayo, and went northeast­ ward up Bull Mountain Fork, crossing the head branches of Smith River, toward Woods Gap in the crest of the Blue Ridge on the Pat­ rick and Floyd county line. Near this mountain pass the branch trail up Bull Mountain Fork converged with another Indian path which came from New River valley and western country, crossing the mounMr. Martin, a native of Princeton, W. Va., and a graduate of the University of Virginia law school, is an attorney in Bluefield, W. Va., where for 18 years he was a city court justice. Through his late moth­ er whose maiden name was Rebecca Elizabeth Shelton he is descended from the Patrick County Sheltons about whom he writes. The crest of W ood's Gap on the Patrick-Floyd county line. After centuries it is still a sparsely-travelled gateway. 15 �tain and passing southeastward toward the white settlements in eastern Virginia and North Carolina. Colonel Abraham Wood, who dwelt at the falls of the Appomattox River, on the site of Petersburg, obtained permission from the Govern­ ment more than one hundred years before Patrick County was dreamed of, to open trade with the western Indians. In traveling westward from his home Colonel Wood followed the head branches of Smith River across Patrick County soil in the 1750s. Dr. John P. Hale in his book Trans-Allegheny Pioneers, stated: “In 1758 the State sent Captain Robert Wade from ‘Fort Mayo’, with thirty-five rangers to ‘range for Indians.’ They came by Goblintown, by Black Water, Pigg River, and Smith’s River, branches of the Dan, and crossed over to the head of Little River to New River. Proba­ bly just the route of Colonel Abraham Wood and Captain Henry Batte many years before. Thence they passed down as far as Draper’s Mead­ ows and back up to Reed Island Creek. . . . The result of this ex­ pedition was reported by Captain John Echols and sworn to before Abraham Maury, a Justice of the Peace for Augusta County.” In 1763 Ralph Shelton Sr., of Amelia County, sold his land on the Nottoway River in that county, and with his family joined the west­ ward movement. He settled several miles west of Fort Mayo in what was then Halifax County, where he had purchased four hundred acres of land astride the South Mayo River, in the southern foothills of the Blue Ridge. His land was successively included geographically in four different counties following his purchase: Halifax taken from Lunen­ burg in 1752; Pittsylvania taken from Halifax in 1767; Henry taken from Pittsylvania in 1777, and finally in Patrick taken from Henry in 1791. Later historical developments have proven that the Town of Taylorsville (now Stuart) includes part of his land. It is interesting to note that the two last mentioned counties were named after the patriot and statesman, Patrick Henry, who at one time lived near Mar­ tinsville in Henry County. Shelton’s large family included three sons: Eliphaz, who probably was the oldest, James and Jeremiah. Henry County was formed during the Revolutionary war, and its records show that Eliphaz Shelton took the oath of allegiance, and Jeremiah Shelton furnished supplies to the county militia during the war. In 1777 James Shelton was ap­ pointed Captain, and in March, 1779, Eliphaz Shelton also was ap­ pointed captain in the Henry County Militia. On March 11, 1781, Captain Eliphaz Shelton marched with his men, under Colonel Abraham Penn, to the assistance of General Nathaniel Green who was defending Guilford Court House. The British forces in this battle on March 15 were under Lord Cornwallis and although the Americans lost the battle, the supplies of the British were so badly 16 �depleted that they never recovered, and this battle led to Cornwallis’ surrender at Yorktown on October 19, 1781. The names of the men who marched with Colonel Penn on this historic occasion are recorded in a roster in Colonel Penn’s own handwriting in the possession of one of his descendants at Martinsville, and also in the roster in the Henry County courthouse. The Revolution had ended, our independence had been won, and it was now 1784. On February 28 Captain Eliphaz Shelton received from Benjamin Harrison, Governor of Virginia, a grant of 590 acres on both sides of the South Mayo River in Henry County. His land was bounded on the south by the 400-acre tract owned by his father, Ralph Shelton, Sr., and on the east by another 400-acre tract owned by his brother, Captain James Shelton. At a point close to Captain Eliphaz Shelton’s western boundary, the water from Bull Mountain Fork joined the South Mayo River as it flowed from the rugged crags of the Blue Ridge, winding its way to join the big Dan River near Mayodan, North Carolina. With the formation of Patrick County in 1791, a site was needed for the county seat of government. Tradition has it that the first court of the county was held in a tobacco warehouse near Mayo Forge, in the eastern part of the county, and that later the place for holding court was moved to the home of Edward Tatum on Peters Creek. But the permanent site of the county seat was determined by the Patrick Coun­ ty justices during the early months of the new county’s existence. Rec­ ords in the Circuit Court Clerk’s Office of Patrick County show that Captain Eliphaz Shelton donated a parcel of land containing eighteen acres for the site of the county seat. His donation was by a deed dated October 10, 1791, recorded in Deed Book 1, at page 17. On July 11, 1791, previously he had executed a title or performance bond in the penalty 200 pounds, binding himself to convey the land for the county seat, and William Banks, Sam’l Clark, Charles Foster and William Car­ ter, or any three of them, were to lay the land off. It was almost in the heart of the 590-acre grant from Governor Harrison. On November 17, 1792, the General Assembly passed “An Act to establish a town at the Court-house, in the county of Patrick. This law, in Chapter LXIX of Henning Statutes at Large, Vol. 13, (1789-92). Section 1 reads: “Town of Taylorsville established at Patrick court-house. Sect. 1 BE it enacted by the General Assembly, That the lots and streets, as the same are already laid off at the court­ house in the county of Patrick, shall be, and are hereby es­ tablished a town by the name of Taylorsville; and Archelaus Hughes, Abraham Penn, James Lyon, Samuel Clark, Francis Turner, James Armstrong, William Banks, William Carter, 17 �Charles Foster, and George Penn, gentlemen, are constituted and appointed trustees thereof.” The town was named for George Taylor who came from Wales, and in 1774 obtained a grant of land on North Mayo River, situated in what is now eastern Patrick County. In 1882 the name of the town was changed to Stuart in honor of General J. E. B. Stuart, Confederate hero, who was born and reared several miles west of the town. A monument to the memory of General Stuart stands on the court house lawn. The town was incorporated as Stuart in 1884. During the same year the Danville and New River Railroad, predecessor of the Dan­ ville and Western, ran its line into the town. Captain Eliphaz Shelton owned and operated a mill of Mill Branch (now Campbell Branch) which flows through the town. He devised his mill to his wife, Ann Shelton, for life, by his last will. As early as 1796 Samuel Staples operated a blacksmith shop in the town, on land donated by Eliphaz Shelton to the county. The present courthouse built in 1852 to replace an earlier struc- ^ ture, was remodeled in 1928. It is claimed that long before any church­ es or schools were constructed in the village, the basement of the courthouse was used for church services and as a schoolroom. As early as 1793 there was a meeting house near the head of Russell Creek, not far from the town. Reference to this meeting house is to be found in a deed from James Buford, Jr. to Eliphaz Shelton, recorded in Pat­ rick County. At the May Court of 1847, the surveyor of the county was or­ dered to survey and lay off the prison bounds not exceeding ten acres around and including the court-house and prison. History records, as is pointed out by R. D. Stoner in his recent book, A Seed-Bed of the The present Patrick County courthouse at Main and Blue Ridge Streets in Stuart. 18 �Republic, that in the early days debt was a cause for imprisonment, and either because there was no moral stigma attached to it, or because the county preferred not to support the debtor in prison, ten acres was laid off in a boundary around some prisons, outside which debtor prisoners were not to stray, and within which they enjoyed a degree of liberty. On June 13, 1847, Lewis Pedigo, surveyor of the county, filed in court the report of his survey together with a map showing the prison bounds. It included the courthouse, jail and a spring. It is interest­ ing that his report and map did not show the inclusion of a church. It was customary for the court to require that the prison bounds include the courthouse, jail, a church and a spring. The fact that the sur­ veyor did not include a church in his report and map would seem to confirm that there was no church in the village at that time, and that the basement of the courthouse was used for church services and as a schoolroom. It is also worthy of note that the surveyor’s written re­ port stated that the prison bounds as surveyed by him, included “near­ ly all the dwellings, houses, shops, etc., in the vilage as well as the court house and prison.” In 1849 the town contained about fifty dwellings. So Ralph Shelton, Sr. and his sons, Eliphaz Shelton and James Shelton, were really early pioneer settlers in what is now Patrick Coun­ ty. Their adjoining tracts of land in the Taylorsville area were so situ­ ated with relation to each other that if an imaginary straight line were drawn from a point on the western boundary of Eliphaz Shelton’s 590acre tract, extending eastward through the Town of Taylorsville (now Stuart), crossing the adjoining tracts of Ralph Shelton, Sr., and James Shelton, respectively, to the latter’s eastern boundary, such imaginary line would be two and one-quarter miles in length. Ralph Shelton, Sr. lived to see his residence near the present courthouse of Patrick County successively included in Halifax, Pittsyl­ vania and Henry counties. He died in March 1789, while his residence was still included in Henry County, where his will was probated that year. Captain Eliphaz Shelton died in August 1826, at his residence, which was also near the Patrick courthouse, and where his will was probated. Both of these pioneer settlers are believed to have been buried in an old cemetery on land formerly owned by Ralph Shelton, Sr., in what is now referred to as “downtown” Stuart, the land being now owned by the Carter family. 19 �Peaks of Otter; I A Postscript to Prehistory Archeological research at the Peaks of Otter which indicated human habitation there during periods ranging from 8,000 to 5,000 years ago was described in an article in last winter’s Journal—Jean M. White’s “Three-Layer Cake of Prehistoric Virginia.” The story detailed findings of three distinct firepits, one atop another, and the archeological timetable constructed by the study of weapon points found at each level. It said that National Park Arche­ ologist John W. Griffin was making a further study of the discoveries. This June Griffin reported that carbon-14 analysis of a piece of charcoal from the firepit showed it to be 5,380 years old, “give or take 140 years.” Studies of the carefully-catalogued material taken from the site now covered by an artificial lake are continuing and are expected to shed further light on the lives of the nomadic peoples who roamed the Appalachians 300 generations and more ago. And the waters of the lake on the Blue Ridge Parkway 30 miles northeast of Roanoke well protect other secrets which may be revealed by scientists of a generation to come—one in which techniques have been refined to the point that much more can be learned from evi­ dence which appears worthless today. When Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson visited the Peaks in May, 1965, Don Robinson, chief naturalist of the Blue Ridge Parkway, prepared a talk in which he told the party of the previous summer’s research project, described how the early hunters were believed to have lived in the area and said it was believed that such groups were there more or less continuously until the coming of the white man. “Recent Indian tribes—the Saponis, Iroquois and Cherokees— roamed these mountains from time to time, hunting and warring with each other,” he said. “The mountains afforded plentiful game and a pleasant summer camping site, but they still chose to build their per­ manent villages and plant their corn in the Great Valley or the Pied­ mont at the foot of the mountains and along the larger river banks below.” Robinson then told of the first white visitors and settlers in the shadow of the Peaks. That part of his talk is printed on the opposite page. 20 �Peaks of Otter; II Coming of the White Man Don R obinson We don’t know who was the first white man to see the Peaks of Otter. John Lederer may have seen them from a distance in 1670, but the first actual record of them appeared on a map of Virginia made in 1751 by Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson. A 20,000-acre land grant to Matthew Talbot and Rev. John Brunskill, in 1749, included this area, and was probably its first private ownership. Following this the area changed hands many times, and by the middle of the 19th century included a considerable number of smaller tracts. The late Dr. E. L. Johnson, of Bedford, was born in this area, and he stated that during the 1880’s this was a well-settled community, with 20 or more families living within a radius of two miles. The same area is now rapidly reverting to wilderness, with only a few ancient apple trees, a cabin chimney here and there, and a scattering of crude gravestones to mark the relatively short span of “civilization” in the shadow of the Peaks of Otter. During Revolutionary times a road was built through the area and used to haul lead from the mines in the New River country for Continental muskets and flint locks. This road soon became a common thoroughfare, as teamsters and others learned that between these peaks was an inviting place to pause and rest. This commercial travel soon brought about the first public overnight accommodations. About 1830 Polly Woods, widow of one of the Peaks of Otter’s early settlers, opened an “ordinary” a short distance east of the site of the present motel. It was just a simple, one-room log cabin, with a sleeping loft, catering to the “ordinary” needs of the traveler—a hot meal cooked in the fireplace, a bed in the loft, and a stable for his horses. Polly Woods’ ordinary operated for about 25 years, and near the end of this time Benjamin Wilkes started a competing business. In (Continued on Page 34) 21 �Peaks of Otter: III How It Was in 1907 Today it takes about twenty minutes to drive up from Bedford to the wide meadows on the Blue Ridge Parkway below the Peaks of Otter. State road 43 is no interstate expressway but it is paved and the curves are banked, providing a routine climb for travellers head­ ing either for the Parkway or over the mountain to Buchanan and beyond. Not so 58 years ago. For horsedrawn vehicles it was an Under­ taking. The dusty-or-muddy winding trail was a three or four hour jaunt. The change might have come with the Hudson pictured on these pages. The negatives from which these photographs were made—re­ markable for their time—were found in the papers of R. Cator Rag­ land of Bedford (who died in 1936) by his nephew R. Holman Ragland, a member of this Society. Holman Ragland says the pictures probably were made by a man named Richardson, a Bedford photographer at that time. Owner and driver of the climbing Hudson (and that make of car maintained its reputation for power for another 35 years) was J. A. Heuser, Bedford jeweler. Identification was made by Miss Earle Dennis, former deputy court clerk, who also recalls that R. Cator Ragland him­ self was the first automobile owner in Bedford. From the old pictures we have reconstructed a horseless carriage trip to the peaks in 1907. 1. This is Bedford City's Bridge Street in 1907 looking north from Main. Note there isn't an automobile in sight. HeusePs jewelry store was near this principal intersection. 22 �2. Here are the Peaks as seen from south of the Bedford passenger sta­ tion in 1907. The old Randolph-Macon Academy dominates the scene, center, with the Elks' National Home at left. That is Norfolk & Western NorfolkColumbus Train 3 (due 3:23 PM) with four full coaches and a parlor car. Double-tracking of the railway brought material and work cars, foreground and left. 3. J. A. Heuser mounts his rugged Hudson preparatory to the trip. His four-footed friend in foreground is taking off in opposite direction. 23 �4. On the climb with headlamps covered as protection against dust, flying rocks and chicken feathers, Heuser has picked up an unidentified — but very dignified passenger. 24 �5. Objective achieved, the Hudson is besieged by a gang of most envious youngsters. In background is the Peaks of Otter Hotel, predecessor of Hotel Mons. 25 �Beginnings of the Virginia Historical Society by W il lia m M. E. Rachal This is part■of a talk given before the Roanoke Historical Society at a Hotel Roanoke dinner meeting in May, 1965. Since 1953 Mr. Rachal has been editor of the VIRGINIA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY and other pub­ lications of the Virginia Historical Society. He is the author of numerous articles and has edited several important works including the 1951 edition of Caldwell’s A TOUR THROUGH PART OF VIRGINIA IN THE SUMMER OF 1808. Since 1956 he has represented the University of Virginia as editor of James Madison’s papers. Mr. Rachal is a graduate of David­ son College and holds a graduate degree in history from the University of Virginia. The gentlemen who gathered at Richmond in the Hall of the House of Delegates on the evening of December 29, 1831, were at once cultured and public spirited. The concept of the philosopher, which Thomas Jefferson exemplified so well, was still current. George Tucker, courtly and urbane, moved about the hall greet­ ing friends warmly. A decade earlier he and John Floyd had served together in Congress. Now as professor at the new University of Virginia and as governor of the state respectively, they engaged in last-minute conversation concerning plans for organizing a historical society for Virginia. Jonathan Peter Cushing, the president of Hampden-Sydney College, joined them. Oddly enough, not one of the three was a native of Virginia. Tucker had been born in Bermuda on the eve of the American Revolution, Floyd in Kentucky just after the war, and Cushing in New Hampshire in the month President George Washington was inaugurated for his second term. Success in Virginia politics, experience as a professor of moral philosophy, and distinction as the author of several books made Tuck­ er, a graduate of the College of William and Mary, an ideal leader in establishing the society; but it was Cushing, not Tucker, who had fathered the project. In fact, when first approached, Tucker had de-' murred. “Societies for promotion of agriculture and other laudable purposes” had been formed, but they were “soon suffered to languish and decay,” he reminded Cushing. A historical and philosophical so­ ciety could be established, but it would not continue. Cushing won Tucker over by pointing out “that supposing it should last but some six or seven years, it will in that time have done a great deal of good.” 26 �A statewide character was given to the gathering by the presence of members of the General Assembly, then in session. Many stood around the ornate iron stove, which had warmed the burgesses in the old capitol at Williamsburg, and discussed the issues of the day. In­ stead of damning George III and the tax on tea, as the burgesses had done, the delegates denounced President Andrew Jackson and the Tariff of Abominations. Soon the gentlemen filed into the benches which, during the day many of them occupied as members of the legislature and took their seats. When conversation ceased, Cushing moved that Floyd be in­ vited to take the chair. As soon as the Governor, gaunt and swarthy as an Indian, had mounted the platform and seated himself in the speaker’s ancient chair, John Hampden Pleasants, editor of the Rich­ mond Whig, was appointed secretary and took his place at the clerk’s table, close to the candle. The object of the proposed society, Professor Tucker explained, was “to collect and preserve materials for the civil and physical his­ tory of Virginia.” Scattered throughout the state in private hands were valuable papers which would throw light upon its history, especially during the period of the Revolution. He urged that these records be preserved for the use of future historians, since in the forming of the nation the influence of Virginia and Massachusetts had been “greater than that of all the other states put together.” Tucker added that his examination of the papers of Richard Henry Lee which had recently been deposited at the University of Virginia had confirmed him in this view. Turning to the “physical” side of the society’s proposed activities, Tucker pointed out that mountains were “the natural sites of mineral wealth,” and he looked forward to the day when the hills of Virginia would yield up their treasures. He remarked that the finest porcelain could be made from clay discovered by Professor John P. Emmet on the grounds of the University, and urged each member of the General As­ sembly to bring geological specimens from his county to the society so that they could be analyzed. The organization was to be called “The Virginia Historical and Philosophical Society.” While the word “historical” was specific, the word “Philosophical” was broad enough in that day to include all fields of knowledge. Therefore, the “natural,” as well as the “civil and literary” history of Virginia came within its purview. Indeed, the as­ sociation proposed “to patronize and advance all those sciences which have a direct tendency to promote the best interests of our citizens. This breadth of interest was the rule, rather than the exception, among historical societies founded during the first half of the nineteenth century. 27 �Throughout Virginia at this time a passion for party politics tend­ ed to crowd out “the more calm and rational pursuits of science and letters.” Cushing and others foresaw that identification with a particu­ lar political faction could wreck the society. Success depended on en­ listing support from all parties and choosing a president who was above faction, a man whose character—whose very name—would command support. They turned instinctively to John Marshall, Richmond’s be­ loved senior citizen. But the Chief Justice was! not present; at his modest home several blocks away, he mourned his wife, the adored Polly, who had died on Christmas day. Nevertheless, James H. Gholson, of Brunswick County, who was soon elected to Congress as a Democrat, moved first that Marshall be elected as honorary member and then that he be elected president. The choice was unanimous. The great man subsequently accepted the of­ fice and set the seal of his approbation upon the society. Though he was re-elected president regularly until his death more than four years later, Marshall never attended a meeting. The old Federalist was not well, but a conflict between the February term of the Supreme Court and the annual meetings of the society probably occasioned his ab­ sences. He showed his sincere interest in the organization by present­ ing to its library a copy of his Life of George Washington inscribed to the society “with his profound respects.” Governor Floyd, an ardent state-rights Democrat who could com­ mand support from those who might object to Marshall’s nationalism, was nominated by Tucker for first vice president; and Cushing, thé chief architect of the society, was nominated by Archibald Bryce! Jr-, of Goochland County, for second vice president. Both were elected without opposition. John B. Clopton, of New Kent County, who assembled one of the most remarkable private libraries ever owned by a Virginian, became corresponding secretary, and James E. Heath, of Richmond, soon to be the first editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, became record­ ing secretary. The office of treasurer went to Conway Robinson, a bril­ liant young Richmond attorney. With a view to securing shelf space and professional care for both the library and the cabinet, Gustavus A. Myers nominated William H.. Richardson, the state librarian, to be librarian of the society. Richard­ son, who was not present, was first elected an honorary member and then librarian. With all offices filled, the meeting turned to other matters. Cush- mg was appointed to deliver the first anniversary address in January, 1833. The annual dues were set at one dollar, and though this was at 28 �that time a substantial sum, it was necessary to double it two years later. The important question of how to acquaint the people of the state with the “views of the Society” was disposed of by appointing Cushing, Tucker, Nelson, Bryce, and General William Henry Brodnax, of Dinwiddie County, to prepare an “Address to the Public.” The omission from the Committee of anyone from Richmond emphasizes perhaps the statewide character of the new society. In any case Cushing and Tucker were certainly best qualified to present the aims of the organization. The hour was late and a motion for adjournment was in order, but Tucker rose once more to propose that Virginia’s only living former President of the United States be made an honorary member. Ap­ proval was unanimous, for, like Marshall, James Madison was an elder statesman and patriot whom all delighted to honor. Although he was then too infirm to attend its meetings, Madison was interested in the society. On one occasion he stated that it had a “prior claim” on the manuscripts in his possession, but its library received no papers from him. A short time before his death, Madison enclosed a copy of the proceedings of the society in a letter to a friend interested in natural history. This so encouraged the gentleman, that some months later, he submitted a paper on the gestation of the opossum to the corre­ sponding secretary. The first gifts to the society, of which we have a record came from Southwest. Charles Crockett, who had represented Wythe County in the House of Delegates during the previous session, gathered from Tazewell, Grayson, Smyth, and Wythe counties specimens of lead, zinc, iron, and copper ores, of quartz and gypsum, and of wild cherry wood. These he entrusted to his successor in the Assembly to be delivered to the librarian. Cushing addressed the second meeting on January 7, 1833. He then presented on behalf of absent donors the first manuscripts re­ ceived by the society: a memoir of Indian wars in Western Virginia written by Colonel John Stuart, of Greenbrier County, and a copy of the record of the trial of Grace Sherwood for witchcraft in Princess Anne County in 1705. Both are still treasured possessions of the so­ ciety. The Collections of the Virginia Historical and Philosophical Society . . . , a paper-backed volume of eighty-seven pages edited by Heath and Dr. Robert Briggs, of Richmond, was ready for distribution by the middle of June 1833. At that time Clopton and Heath sent a printed circular letter to the various historical societies in the United States announcing the formation of the Virginia society and “communicating a copy of the first publication.” Besides Cushing’s address, it contained both the “memoir of Indian Wars . . .” and the “Record of Grace Sherwood’s Trial . . D 29 �In response to a letter from the society to “various seminaries of learning and individuals” in Virginia there were several donations of valuable manuscripts, books, minerals, and relics. John Page, of Williamsburg, presented an exercise book contain­ ing etymological praxis in Greek and Latin of Homer’s Iliad made by George Wythe and some notes copied from Sir John Randolph’s breviate book. Among those who made notable donations to the cabinet were several civil engineers employed by the Board of Public Works. Charles B. Shaw, who was engaged in locating the Northwestern Turn­ pike Road between Winchester and Parkersburg, was very active on behalf of the society. He contributed a specimen of “Fungus growing upon decayed Sugar trees, or paper spunk, from Hardy County.” Nevertheless, when Governor Floyd called the third annual meet­ ing to order on January 6, 1834, he was displeased: “Still many of the persons made members and officers of the Society have never met it,” he remarked in his diary. Cold weather with snow undoubtedly pre­ vented some from attending, but indifference kept others at home. A number of gifts were acknowledged, some important, others trivial. Rather musty were “several ancient volumes in the latin lan­ guage, derived from the Library of an episcopal clergyman.” A modern note was struck by “a sample of Uranium from Cornwall in England, a sample of Agate from Spotsylvania county and a Garnet from the Island of Owhyhee.” Of greater value were The Proceedings of the convention of Delegates, held at the Town of Richmond, in the Colony of Virginia, On Friday the 1st of December, 1775 . . . printed by Alexander Purdie, and “a manuscript account of Bacon’s Rebellion in 1675 & 1676 being a copy of the manuscript purchased by Rufus King from Lord Oxford and presented to Mr. Jefferson.” Irreplace­ able were the “original copper plates, from which the state paper currency of the Revolution was struck.” Cushing, who had braved the bitter January weather in his jour­ ney to Richmond for the meeting, had reason to be pleased with the progress of the society. Its membership was increasing, its collections were growing, and a very creditable volume had been published. On the other hand, no place had been found in which to house the library and cabinet. As the collections increased in size and value, their care became a pressing problem. Legally, the society, an unincorporated body, could not hold property. Cushing, therefore, proposed that a charter be secured from the General Assembly, then in session. On his motion, the Standing Committee was directed to apply for incor-" poration of the society, and “to procure a suitable place of deposit for the various acquisitions.” If the Standing Committee met to discuss 30 �the proposed charter, they left no record of their deliberations. On February 12 Charles J. Faulkner, of Berkeley County, a char­ ter member of the society, was given leave by the House of Delegates “to bring in a bill to incorporate the Virginia historical and philosophi­ cal society.” At the same time a special House committee was ap­ pointed to prepare the bill and “to enquire if any, and what aid it may be proper for the state at this time to extend to that institution.” Two days later Faulkner reported a bill to charter the society and “a bill for granting certain aid” to it. These bills appear to have been drafted by Conway Robinson, treasurer of the society, for they are in his clerkly hand. The later bill had two provisions. The first would authorize the society to “deposit for safe keeping such books, manuscripts, mineralogical specimens and Indian Antiquities as they may have acquired, with the public Librarian, who is hereby authorized to preserve and arrange the same in any of the vacant niches of the Library.” The sec­ ond paragraph would appropriate an undetermined sum to aid the society “in the laudable purpose of discovering procuring and pre­ serving whatever may relate to the Natural, Civil and Literary history of the State.” Both bills passed their first two readings and were ordered en­ grossed on March 5. When they came up for a final reading two days later, the charter passed easily, but the bill for granting aid was “or­ dered to be laid upon the table” and so expired. On March 10 the Senate approved the charter and it became effective immediately. Why the legislature refused to provide for the care of the so­ ciety’s collections, one can only guess. Perhaps the state librarian, William H. Richardson, who had never evinced the slightest interest in the society, refused to be burdened with the mounting pile of geo­ logical specimens and used his considerable influence to kill the bill. Certainly Richardson was not again elected librarian of the society, the office being joined at the next annual meeting to that of corresponding secretary, an arrangement which continued for a century. The refusal of aid by the Commonwealth was a turning point in the history of the society. Instead of becoming an agency of the state, as many of the great Midwestern societies were to do, the Virginia society remained independent. This was fortunate, for it left the or­ ganization free from political control at a later time when near-sighted bureaucrats declared much in the priceless state archives wastepaper and consigned these treasures to the junkman. Tucker delivered the annual address on February 4, 1835, “A Discourse on the Progress of Philosophy, and its Influence on the In­ tellectual and Moral Character of Man.” Long and somewhat dry by modern standards, it was carefully reasoned and appears to have been well received. Actually, it was a valedictory, and in it Tucker set 31 �forth a very modem concept of history: In history, ’ he declared, “one most clearly perceives the spirit of the age. Formerly it consisted of a little more than a recital of the actions of princes, public or private; and no occurrence in the annals of a nation was deemed worthy of commemoration, except battles and conquests, revolutions and insurrections—with now and then the notice of a plague, fam­ ine, earthquake or other general calamity. Now, however, the historian aims to make us acquainted with the progress of society and the arts of civilization; with the advancement or decline of religion, literature, laws, manners, commerce— everything indeed, which is connected with the happiness or dignity of man; he does this, not only because he deemed these subjects more worthy the attention of an enlarged-and liberal mind, but also because we can, from a faithful narrative of these events, traced out from their causes, and to their ef­ fects, learn the lessons of wisdom—and seeing the approach of evil, be better able to avert or mitigate it. It is in this spirit that all history must now be written, to be approved or even read.” > 7 . i Jkmgm ■Hi m BMPS . mm • ^^Hul . ■>( HL vv - ™ ^ | \ ,a.-Photo by JA CK G AKING This elegant bonnet was worn 75 years ago by Mrs. Delcie Wade Gard­ ner of Dugspur in Carroll County. It was presented to the Society's museum by her granddaughter, Mrs. J. J. Scruggs of Roanoke. Model is Sandra Sisson. 32 �The South Western (Continued from Page 2) every horse or mule 06c scores of cattle 30c scores of sheep 15c Stage to be charged per year for each section used $75.00 Later the fees were reduced by 10% or 15% but in February, 1864, the tolls were generally increased by 100%—reflecting the de­ preciation of Confederate currency. The earliest record which can be found of tolls collected on the en­ tire turnpike was in the McCauley book, on loan to the Society, for the period from October, 1855 to September, 1856. Until the quarter ending June 30, 1856, there were thirteen toll gates. The fourteenth was added at that time, and was operated by Jacob Myers. The toll keepers were, in order, for that period as follows: B. Zimmerman, George W. Rader, Ranson Jeter, Josiah Johnston, John Woltz, Robert Douthat (later Henry Douthat), Franklin Akers, Ransom Dudley, Wil­ liam G. Hall, John Allen, Samuel R. Wheeler, and M. Kerr and Robert B. Allen. The decision to stop construction was probably wise as Mr. Mc­ Cauley’s book shows the income of the road was $11,568 (including $2,784.06 from the estate of Colonel James Piper, the former Superin­ tendent and chief engineer of the turnpike), but expenses amounted to $12,028.73. The records of Gate # 5 from October, 1856 to September, 1876 show the greatest civilian monthly use in various categories was as fol­ lows: In November, 1862, 217 animals drawing waggons (sic); in November, 1856, 11 two horse carts; in August, 1859, 59 one horse carts; in February, 1860, 352 horses and mules; in December, 1861, 1,200 cattle; and in December, 1861, 1,250 sheep and hogs. The Con­ federate tolls from September, 1862 to September, 1864, show the lowest for any one month was $4.00 in August of 1862 and the highest $415.75 in June of 1864. Although research is lacking, the South West Turnpike was proba­ bly the last of the toll roads built with direct state funds. The years since World War II have produced the closest thing to it with toll roads, bridges and tunnels being built by instrumentalities of the state. All material facts contained herein have been verified by official records or semi-official records of the times, however, this cannot be called a complete history. There are many things missing and it is hoped this short paper might stimulate someone to do the research necessary to develop its complete history. Here are subjects open for exploration: 33 �1. The original backers of the turnpike. 2. The history of the earlier private turnpikes to and from La­ fayette. 3. A more complete profile from Seven Mile Ford to Tennessee. 4. The location of toll gates. 5. The early tolls. 6. The stage coach lines using the turnpike. 7. The significance, if any, of the great fluctuation in Confederate tolls. Peaks of Otter: II (Continued from Page 21) the late 1850’s Wilkes, who had been operating an ordinary for seven or eight years, built the first hotel in the area, called the Otter Peaks Hotel, and soon put Polly Woods out of business. This hotel was located just across the Parkway from the present dining room, and rapidly became popular with vacationers. In 1870 the hotel burned, but was promptly rebuilt. In 1917 it was purchased by a company known as “Peaks of Otter, Inc.”, which built a still larger hotel just west of it and named the new structure “Hotel Mons.” The old building was then referred to as the “Annex.” In 1936 the property was purchased by the Parkway and the build­ ings razed, seemingly putting an end to this vacation mecca. But, soon came the Peaks campground, a picnic ground, and now the new Lodge and restaurant, bringing more vacationers into this restful mountain retreat than Polly Woods or Benjamin Wilkes had ever dared dreamed of. And still they come, men and women, adults and children, the famous and the lowly, from all walks of life and from all over the world, still seeking, each in his own way, the same peace of mind, the same relief from cares and problems that this mountain retreat has offered since the days of stone-age man, and which we hope it will con­ tinue to offer for untold ages yet to come. -*?NEW EIYERY STABEEs*Campbell S treet, between Commerce and Henry, Roanoke, la . W . H. H orton, Prop’r. Hbinllqi3lnnllnnU»iiiitnt3inniiiinininilnnluiniinnibiulnniu|plli|iilifinilnnJljmllnnJCTn3umiInnlumil»inlimuln luggies, lacks, laddie Sorses, F U R N I S H E D D A Y A N D N IG N T . p lq pilnnllniuinnilnnJOrminmtTmltnnJiJinil 34 HORSES BOARDED the 'W eek oia Z L ^ C c o s T T Ih:, H acks w ill M E E T A L L T R A IN S , and carry P as­ sengers to and fro m any p a rt o f the City. �Almanacs, Ration Books and Rapiers The pleasing variety of recent acquisitions by your society’s mu­ seum accents the need for continuing efforts by members and friends in locating items related not only to the development of this area but of the nation. In the last few months we have received relevant material ranging from almanacs in German and English from 1849 to 1934 (Dr. Charles H. Peterson), and World War II ration books (Mrs. W. W. S. Butler) to a “gentleman’s rapier” (Mrs. L. P. Smithey). Other much appre­ ciated donations include: An old steel engraving of the Yorktown surrender (James Izard) An 1840 dress (Mrs. Maude Hopkins) Spoons from Roanoke Red Sulphur Springs Hotel (Mrs. Lyle Stevens) Hand-cranked sewing machine and fluting iron (loan from Mrs. W. H. Horton) 1780 lottery ticket to build New London Academy (Anson Jamison) World War I helmet, gas mask and other items (Mrs. Ola Gish Durr) Candle snuffer (Mrs. S. Beverly Cary) Bricks and beams from Jonathan Tosh home (Raymond Barnes) Newspapers, 1800-1865 (Miss Sallie Cocke) Corduroy suits (Mrs. George Kegley) Brass key, Haythe’s Hotel, Fincastle (Mrs. Charles Bryant) Sitz bath tub (Walter Macdowell) Edison mimeograph machine # 1 (Robert Woody) 1885 insurance policy, Botetourt Insurance Company (Steve Neal) Hand split lathe from Blue Ridge Baptist Church (Marvin Lemon) Walking stick of wood from the first Protestant church west of the Mississippi (Fred Alouf) Collection of 170 chewing tobacco tags from 1895 (Sidney Talia­ ferro ) We have received many pictures depicting early Roanoke life and considerable clothing worn by women and children in the nineteenth century. The late Dr. E. G. Swem said in a talk before the society seven years ago that we in this part of the state still had the greatest oppor­ tunity to find items yet in homes which reflect the life of early settlers. So we hope that the next time you are cleaning out old trunks or files that you will be alert for such memorabilia. The museum, a large well-lighted room in the basement of Roa­ noke College’s new library in Salem, is open every Saturday afternoon. —E. P. G. 35 �Notes from the President Start of a new year on July 1 finds the Roanoke Historical Society with almost 260 members, its officers re-elected for another year and a new executive secretary, J. R. Hildebrand. Long one of the most active students of local history in Roanoke Valley and a charter member of the society, Hildebrand has drawn many maps and completed much research. He has made valuable con­ tributions in his career as city planning engineer and later as engineer with Roanoke Valley Regional Planning Commission. Now working on a Botetourt County research project, he will devote his time to the Society this fall. W. B. Kerr resigned in April after almost a year of efficient work as executive secretary. We are planning an early fall meeting, giving us four programs a year. As our Society picks up momentum, we need more help from our members. If you are interested in collecting items for our museum, local research or any form of delving into the past, please contact your officers. Too, we should have more members. And we invite attention to the Society and its museum in preparation of wills. As an indication of the value of many of our museum pieces, Wil­ liam M. E. Rachal of Virginia Historical Society tells us that apparent­ ly there are only two copies extant of the Richmond Independent Chronicle of May 19, 1790. S. H. McVitty donated one copy to our mu­ seum and the other is in the Library of Congress. George K egley 36 ��� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society Summer 1965 Volume 2, Number 1 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />The South Western Turnpike Road<br />Toll Gates in this Century<br />Boyhood Collection is Remembrance of Past<br />Thomas and Tasker Tosh<br />Lone Oak-1767?-1964<br />Founding of Patrick County<br />Peaks of Otter<br />Beginnings of the Virginia Historical Society<br />Almanacs, Ration Books, and Rapiers Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Summer 1965 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_02_01_Summer_1965 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6335/JHSWV_02_02_Winter_1965.pdf de866e8ab5a7f196a34f74a7013a9707 PDF Text Text JOURNAL ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY W inter............. 1965-66 V o iurne T w o N u m b er T w o �ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Amor montium nos movet Officers George K e g l e y ........................................... A rthur T. E l l e t t ..................................... J. R. H il d e b r a n d ....................................... J am es D. R ic h a r d s o n .............................. ................President ---- Vice President Executive Secretary .............. Treasurer D irectors Raymond P. Barnes Mrs. L. D. Booth John D. Carr Mrs. H. Powell Chapman C. Francis Cocke Whitwell W. Coxe Ben Bane Dulaney S. S. Edmunds B. N. Eubank Edmund P. Goodwin J. R. Hildebrand Miss Nancy E. Himes James J. Izard Shields Johnson Arthur T. Ellett George Kegley Mrs. George Kegley Mrs. J. G. McConkey * * L. G. Muse E. H. Ould James D. Richardson Tayloe Rogers R. D. Stoner Mrs. English Showalter W. L. Whitesides Robert W. Woody James P. Woods * Ben Bane Dulaney Editor of the JOURNAL CONTENTS John Nolen’s Roanoke City Plan of 1907, by Frances J. Niederer . . . 1 Southwest Virginia Turnpikes, by Lee Pendleton ............................ 9 1753: Saga of a Pioneer Pilgrimage Through the Roanoke Region .. 13 You Could Take A Legal Gamble In 1796 ......................................... 20 Butler in Richmond ............................................................................. Machine Age: 1832 ....................................... ....... ............................. Fort Vause: The Site and the Story, by Lena Gardner Sammons . . . . A Day in Richmond ............................................................................ Note from the President ................................................................... 21 22 23 34 35 The Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Volume II, Number 2. Published twice yearly by the Society at Box 1904, Roanoke, Virginia, to chronicle the past and present of that part of the state west of the Blue Ridge. Single copy price: 50 cents. The Society will be careful in handling unsolicited material but cannot be responsible for its loss. �First Work of A Pioneer in His Field: John Nolen's Roanoke City Plan of 1907 by F rances J. N iederer Daily in 1907 the Roanoke Times ran a slogan on its editorial page, just under the weather report: “Greater Roanoke, Population 50,000, Year 1910.” Ambition for growth was keen, and the goal of 50,000 a magic number for the Magic City. Mayor Joel H. Cutchin was sure that the current population figure of 36,800 was wrong, that 40,000 would be more accurate. Definitely 6500 residents had been added since the last census of April, 1906, and these only within the corporate limits, not including suburbs like Norwich and Crystal Spring.1 Four hundred men attended a “smoker” given at the Armory by the Chamber of Commerce in September, 1907 to invite subscribers to a proposed Industrial Securities Company which was to help to attract and to establish new industries.2 More and more people, more and more businesses, more and more buildings: the dream of civic expansion was vivid in the minds of the men of Roanoke. “MORE THAN 700 BUILDINGS OF ALL CHARACTERS HAVE BEEN ERECTED in Roanoke since the publication of the last directory” boasted the Times, and with “more than 200 in course of construction . . . the improvement has been phenomenal.”3 Hoped for were exten­ sion and volume: “The time will come when the whistles of factories will be heard from Roanoke to Salem and to Vinton.”4 Desired were new civic edifices: “a splendid city hall . . . a number of municipal buildings . . . a new police station.”5 “The Smoker,” commented a reporter, “far surpasses any function of its kind ever given here and will live long in the memories of Roanokers . . . as an expression of the new spirit and the new age in the history of the Magic City.”6 Miss Niederer, associate professor of art at Hollins College, is the author of “Fincastle Springs: Resort of the ’80s” in the Winter 196465 issue of the JOURNAL. That article is now part of her book “The Town of Fincastle, Virginia,” just published by the University of Vir­ ginia Press, a fine study of the pioneer community and its buildings which includes some 25 well-reproduced photographs, numerous house plans and an inserted contemporary map of Fincastle in 1880. Miss Niederer received her BA from Douglass College, her MA from Yale and her PhD from New York University. She also has studied at Har­ vard and in Paris as a Carnegie Scholar. Miss Niederer is a member of this Society. �But the women saw things differently. “Patchwork! Patchwork!” cried one, protesting the enlargement of the old courthouse. “More money spent in makeshift streets—macadam streets a year ago, mud streets now—makeshift public buildings . . . Would it not be wiser and more business-like to adopt a carefully thought out plan of city improvement? To learn from unbiased experts the best method of doing things municipal? So that when we do spend the city’s money it will be for improvements which will be adequate fifty years hence, and which will add something to the city’s assets in the way of utility, dignity, and beauty?”7 Size interested the women far less than did betterment of existing conditions, new businesses far less than a program for public sanitation. And the 126 members of the Woman’s Civic Betterment Club, “their watchword the inspiriting cry ‘All for Roanoke’,” decided to do some­ thing about it.8 They sought unbiased experts. They commissioned C. E. Emerson, Jr., and Ezra B. Whitman, civil and sanitary engineers of Baltimore, to do a study on Sanitary Roanoke, and John Nolen, landscape architect of Cambridge, Massachusetts, one on Remodeling Roanoke. Nolen sent his report to Mrs. Lucian H. Cocke, president of the Woman’s Civic Betterment Club, late in August 1907, and the paper on schemes for improved sanitation was ready in November. Both reports were printed as pamphlets, paid for by the Club (which had raised money by giving an elaborate Fall Festival through ten days in November). The text of Sanitary Roanoke totalled 118 pages, plus two maps, dia­ grams, and tables. There were only 25 pages of text in Remodeling Roanoke, but six maps and plans and 94 photographs. Both were ready for distribution early in 1908.9 For John Nolen, who was to become a distinguished city planner, the Roanoke study was a pioneer effort, and as such is of historical importance. John Hancock in his recent article on Nolen says “the early development of modern physical planning as a separate profession in the United States coincides with the reform period in our political history known as the ‘progressive era’. . . . Of the planners, few seem to have been better prepared to deal with the demands of a rapidly changing order than John Nolen, whose background prior to his first 1 Roanoke Times, September 10 and 13, 1907. Walsh's Roanoke City Directory of this month gave the 36,800 figure (28,700 white, 8,100 Negro). 2 Roanoke Times, September 13, 1907. In succeeding notes, those giving date alone refer to issues of this newspaper. 3 September 10, 1907. 4 January 11, 1908. January 5, 1908. 6 September 13, 1907. 7 March 29, 1908. 8 October 4, 1907. 9 These booklets are available in the Roanoke Public Library. For the Fall Festival, see issues of October 4 and 11, November 12 and 13, 1907. 5 2 �REMODELING R O A N O K E Report to the C o m m ittee on Civic Im p ro v e m e n t by J o h n N o l e n , L andscape A r c h ite c t CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS Frontispiece of Original Nolen Report. major works in 1909 exemplifies that mixture of ongoing attitudes and innovations necessary to meet changing cultural conditions.”'0 Nolen (1869-1937), born in Philadelphia and graduated first in his class from Girard College at the age of 15, went on to study economics and public administration at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Then, after ten years’ work as executive secretary of the Society for the Extension of University Teaching and a year in Europe, he went back to school. There was as yet no profes­ sional city planning, but Nolen completed the program of the School of Landscape Architecture at Harvard University and received a master’s degree in 1905. In June of that year he became advisor to the Park and Tree Commission of Charlotte, N. C., and did a tentative city plan for Charlotte (which was, however, not completed until 1917), and in 1906 he did a Park Plan for Savannah." Only four cities in the United States had had comprehensive plans drawn before 1907: San Francisco and Columbia, S. C., in 1905, Oakland, Cal., and Denver in 1906. In 1907 came the plans for Roanoke, New York, St. Louis, Grand Rapids, Dubuque, and Greenville, S. C.'2 The text of the Roanoke plan was printed in full in John Nolen’s first book on his own work, published in 1912 and titled Replanning Small Cities: Six Typical Studies. First of these was Roanoke, subtitled “A Small City of the New South.” Other studies were of “San Diego: to John Hancock, "John Nolen: The Background of a Pioneer Planner," Journal of the American Institute of Planners, X XVI, 4 (November, 1960), p. 302. H Ibid., pp. 303*309. 12 John Nolen, Twenty Years of City Planning Progress in the United States (National Conference on City Planning, 1927), pp. 18, 23. 3 �A Pacific Coast Resort; Montclair: A Residence Town Suburban to New York; Glen Ridge: A Model Borough in New Jersey; Reading: A Small Industrial Center; and Madison: A State Capital and University Town.” By this time, 1912, more city plans were completed or in progress across the country; Nolen listed 70 in the appendix to his book. Roanoke’s was the only one in Virginia, but there were other southern ones (in addition to the pre-1908 plans): Chattanooga and Memphis, Louisville, New Orleans, Savannah, and Dallas. Nolen’s philosophy was first stated in the Roanoke report. He was opposed to the current taste for display and formality, and his credo was much like that of Louis Sullivan, “form follows function.” “It is a grave mistake,” wrote Nolen, “to look upon civic improvement as concerned mainly, or even primarily, with beauty; at least if by beauty is meant merely an agreeable and pleasing appearance—‘What is fair must first be fit.’ Serviceableness as well as charm, use as well as beauty, must always be secured. Without one city life is inefficient; without the other sordid and commonplace. Therefore comprehensive and definite provision should be made for the business of Roanoke— its retail stores, its manufacturing, and its business-like efficiency as a municipality.”13 Nolen’s training and his disposition toward landscape architecture led him to stress planning for parks, civic squares, playgrounds, and parkways; only in his later work was he particularly concerned with such problems as better housing or traffic control. Among the 47 photographs of the Roanoke area in the 1907 booklet the first was of Carvin’s Cove waterfall; there were nine pic­ tures of the Roanoke River and seven of Tinker Creek—all these, he suggested, should be developed as parkways and recreation areas.14 He recommended a grouping of public buildings (city hall, library, post office, federal court, assembly hall) either on a site between Tazewell and Elm Avenues or, preferably, in the public market area south of the railroad. Nolen admired the “superior natural advantages” of Roanoke and praised its progressiveness in planning for the future. But he did not flatter: he pointed out the poorly graded narrow streets, the unsightly localities, the lack of playgrounds and of “adequate provision for quick, easy, and agreeable access to the center of the city.” He said frankly, “The city has developed rapidly from its humble beginning, from Big Lick to Bigger Lick. It has not radically changed its character.” He added a note to the report (and later included this note in the text of his 1912 book) about the fact that each street seemed to have two or three names, so that even the residents were 13 Nolen, Remodeling Roanoke, p. 17, and Small Cities, p. 13. 14 The rest of the 94 photographs were of good examples, which included the 1699 plan of Williamsburg and the University of Virginia 4 �THE GROUPING OF P U B L IC BUILDIN GS W CONNECTION W IT H TH C REMODELING OF ROANOKE S « tl« »»H1IIH-T7 JOHN NOLEN ± 200R—IK JL-" iL Ue LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT CAMBRIDGE MASS i»07 This mao from the 1907 report shows Nolen's plan for clearing the city market area and creating a tree-lined plaza with city hall, library, auditorium, post office and federal building. Now, two gen­ erations later, the Downtown East project proposes a medical and shopping center in the same area still occupied by the same city market. 5 �hopelessly confused; rather than NE, NW, SE, SW he suggested using a variety of names and terms.15 Although brief, in fact limited in scope, the Roanoke plan of 1907 is remarkable for its time, and the ladies of the Civic Betterment Club were well satisfied with it. From the newspaper articles and edi­ torials which followed on its publication, however, it appears that public response was weak. It was difficult to combat the complacency engendered by such statements as that in an article especially written for the Richmond Times-Dispatch in February and widely quoted: “In manufacture, in mercantile lines, in social life and in financial solidity Roanoke is second to no city of its size in the South,” or that in the National Magazine which commended the “wonderful growth of the building and development of the municipality.”16 The ladies urged citizens to read their pamphlets, and in March of 1908 the Betterment Club began to publish a column in each Sunday issue of the Times. Writers pointed out that “The board of the University of Virginia is so pleased with Sanitary Roanoke that they are seriously considering adopting it in toto, with modifications to suit the University grounds,” and that copies of Remodeling Roanoke had been requested “from California to Maine.”17 One had gone to London, to Professor Patrick Geddes, chairman of the Sociological Society of England (who, in his Cities in Evolution, was to praise Nolen for his “excellent city reports and other writings” which led the way “towards reconciling the claims of civic greatness with those of domestic and neighborhood life.” ).18 An occasional editorial or letter from a reader to the Roanoke Times supported the Betterment Club, but there was also a general feeling that the improvements suggested would be “enormously ex­ pensive” and there was, in early 1908, fear of continued financial depression.19 But the ladies kept on. “Why will the men not organize a civic betterment club?” pleads one Sunday columnist; “we entreat them to take the lead . . .”2° An editorial writer for the Times gained the Club’s gratitude early in April for his favorable words, and was praised. “One man, at least, in this community realizes that the Better­ ment Club has—as well as worthy aims and inspiring municipal ideals —a business-like plan of improvement . . . but alas! it appeals but to a few . . . the club feels that it has not had the support of the men of Roanoke, and this editorial is the first public masculine utter­ ance endorsing our policy.21 The first utterance was happily soon followed by another: H. H. Hudgins wrote an article for the Evening15 16 17 18 Remodeling Roanoke, pp. 10-11, 19. February 18, 1908; September 10, 1907. February 25, 1908. February 16, 1908; Patrick Geddes, Cities in edition, N. Y., 1950), p. 67. 19 February 15 and 16, 1908; March 13, 1908. 20 March 29, 1908. 21 April 5, 1908. 6 Evolution, originally published 1915 (revised �World in which he adopted “in toto” the club’s plans. He was awarded by being made “honorary member for life of the Woman’s Civic Betterment Club.”22 The goal of 50,000 people was not achieved by 1910; in fact the population dropped to 34,874, although it was still considered to be 40,000 for “greater Roanoke.”23 As the years passed, some of Nolen’s recommendations were followed; by 1911 there were three public parks: Elmwood, Highland, and Melrose. Others were ignored. But “although the city plans and report made in 1907 had no legal sanction nor the backing of any public authority, they exercised a wide influence on public opinion.”24 The history of the growth of the city has been told elsewhere,25 but it may be of interest to note the coming together of John Nolen and Roanoke, twenty years later. This time the connection was official. A City Planning and Zoning Commission had been appointed in 1926, with Edward L. Stone as chairman and Mrs. Lucian H. Cocke on the committee together with D. D. Hull, Jr., C. Shelburne Spindle, B. N. Eubank, City Manager W. P. Hunter, and City Engineer C. L. Watkins. An Industrial Survey and one on Public and Private Welfare were compiled and a zoning ordinance was being prepared. John Nolen and Associates were en­ gaged to do a comprehensive city plan, which was ready in 1928 and submitted to council in January of 1929. By 1928 Nolen was both more experienced and better known. He had published plans for 16 cities, towns, or park systems scattered from Connecticut to California and had written several more books and pamphlets. One book, New Ideals in the Planning of Cities, Towns and Villages, had been requested by the Army Educational Commission to be sent to the American Army, A.E.F.; the war ended before it was ready, but it was then circulated in the United States.26 This was a type of workbook, with directions for preparing a city survey and making practical applications, but it was still idealistic in nature. In 1922 Nolen had published The Place of the Beautiful in the City Plan, and in 1927 New Towns for Old—the appendix to this mentions the Roanoke plan of 1907 under “more important printed reports on re­ planning.” As President of the National Conference on City Planning Nolen gave a speech in 1927 which was quite different from his remarks at the first National Conference of 1909.27 Then he had posed the query: “What is needed in American City Planning?” and answered it: 22 23 24 25 April 26, 1908. George S. Jack, History of Roanoke County (Roanoke, 1912), p. 102. John Nolen, Comprehensive City Plan (Roanoke, 1928), p. 11. . . . Jack, op. cit.; Writers' Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Virginia, Roanoke, Story of County and City (Roanoke: 1942). 26 It was published in New York in 1919. 27 The 1927 speech was published in pamphlet form; see note 12. 7 �“Everything.”28 But now, in 1927, he was able both to note progress and to point out changes in conditions and ideas which were producing new environments: the influence of the World War of 1914-18, the development of the skyscraper, and especially of the “bewildering increase in the manufacture and use of motor vehicles.” In 1905, said Nolen, there were 77,400 passenger cars registered; by 1927, 22,330,000. The first Ford car had been manufactured in 1908; on January 1, 1926 there were registered 8,164,275 (exclusive of trucks). Again he spoke of the plans of 1907, as “Landmarks—events and publications of exceptional importance either because of their priority or by reason of the influence they exerted on city planning afterward.”29 The 1928 plan for Roanoke was of course longer and broader in scope, with attention given to new problems: traffic circulation, highway entrances to the city, automobile parking, zoning, bridges, grade crossing elimination. But Nolen still insisted on open spaces, on parks and parkways and playgrounds, and on the value of grouping public buildings within a civic center. Although specific in some recom­ mendations, the plan was kept in general elastic enough to allow for independent growth and modification. The situation had changed in the two decades between 1907 and 1928, as it has changed in the nearly four decades since 1928. Were John Nolen to do another plan now, he would again envision “the gradual creation of an environment that will be so different from the present that without exaggeration it may be called new.”30 One feels, however, that he would reiterate a key statement in his report of 1907: “there has been no realization yet of the great possibilities of city-making, of the need to ameliorate city conditions, of the full requirements of child life, and of the necessity for the public to own and preserve its most convenient and most beautiful resources in valley, field, and mountain.”31 28 29 30 31 8 Quoted by Hancock, op. cit., p. 309. Nolen, Twenty Years, pp. 8-9, 18. Ibid., p. 22. Remodeling Roanoke, p. 11. �More About Early Roads: Southwest Virginia Turnpikes by Lee P endleton We were glad to read the informative article on toll roads by Edmund P. Goodwin in the last issue of the Journal as we had done some research on their operation in the Roanoke-Montgomery area. It supplied much we did not have. Dr. Ralph M. Brown, longtime librarian at VPI, spent a good deal of time collecting historical papers pertaining to southwest Virginia. Among other things he obtained from Richmond certain acts of the legislature and had them bound, along with road orders of Augusta, Botetourt, Fincastle and Montgomery counties. He overlooked one act which we feel was the “daddy” of later toll roads in southwest Virginia. On December 31, 1805, a toll road was authorized to run “from the last crossing of the Roanoke over Alleghany Mountain to the house of John Pendleton” (not related to this writer). The ford referred to is now crossed by a double bridge on U.S. 11, half a mile east of Shawsville. It remained a division point in later road work and a tollhouse stood there until the road was taken over by the state. George Hancock, a former congressman, no doubt exercised in­ fluence in having the act passed. He was the successful bidder and operated the road until his death in 1820, after which his son took over the operation until it was sold to Edmundson and McClannahan, and sold by them to the Southwest Virginia Turnpike Authority in 1846. The act recited that work of tithables had not been sufficient to build and keep in repair the eight miles to be improved and maintained. Kegley’s Virginia Frontier shows the South Fork as first used leaving the present Lee Highway opposite “Madison” and going in the direction of Little Tunnel on the present N&W Railway, crossing the river and going up Tobe Hollow to the Walnut Grove home and then making a sharp right turn up a ridge north of the Snead home and reaching the eastern continental divide where the old Lee Highway and the present three-lane road merge. Much credit has been given the buffalo and the Indian as original “surveyors” of roads which pioneers used later. This route was not a good recommendation for their skill. We think there was a steep Lee Pendleton, a resident of Cambria (Christiansburg), Va., is a lifelong student of southwest Virginia history. He is a member of this Society. 9 �embankment now crossed by a bridge and that the valley was covered with a dense forest and swamps through which horses could not travel. At best the road was only a bridle or packhorse path until after the Fort Vause massacre in 1756, after which the road was switched to its present location up Whiteside Branch, and Jacob Kent opened a tavern in 1770. There are several orders relating to the “clearing” and other work on this stretch of road. The terms under which the road was built seem to have been favorable to Col. Hancock. He was allowed to realize not less than six and not more than 15 per cent on his investment. We do not know how much it cost him to build it but we recall seeing at the courthouse a paper concerning his borrowing of money in New York. His 1818 report showed tolls of $921.39 and the stage coach paying $234. He had spent $368.50 for repairs and allowed the tollgate keeper $128, thus realizing a net profit of $658.89. Ten years later the road showed a profit of $831—indicating more traffic or less maintenance or possibly both. Pendleton, the tavern-tollgate keeper when the road was first built with his home as the terminus, was indicted with others in 1780 for selling liquor and operating a tavern without a license. (One of the first pieces of business of the newly formed Mont­ gomery county in 1777 had been to fix the price of good whiskey at eight shillings per gallon; indifferent whiskey half price. It also provided the price of a night’s lodging with clean sheets at sixpence. There was no quotation on used sheets. A “hot diet” was listed as a shilling—16% cents or less than a hotdog today—and cold diet was half as much.) Pendleton had bought about 300 acres adjoining Hancock’s land just east of the cloverleaf, the deed being made to “Pennitent” and so executed when he sold. He served in Capt. Barnett’s company as Pendleton and his marriage license was made out in that name. The tollhouse stood until about 1950 and was considered a county landmark. For 140 years Lafayette has been a small village with a big name. Formerly known as “The Forks”, where Rev. John Craig established the New Derry congregation in 1769, the town was laid out in 1828 and the name “Fayette” given the first post office—changed ten years later to Lafayette. As early as 1745 an order was entered for a road from Isaac Taylor’s house at The Forks to the house of Jacob Brown, with John Robinson as overseer. It would go by Ellett and later to Blacksburg and Peppers Ferry. In 1836 its population was 103, all white, and there were a flour mill, tavern, two stores, a doctor and a church. With the organization of a turnpike company in 1838 Lafayette was designated as the begin10 �ning of a road through Christiansburg to English’s (Ingles) Ferry, books to be opened for $8,000 in stock subscriptions by Joseph Logan, Joseph Barnett, John Pepper, Charles L. Barnett and Powell Huff. In Salem the books would be opened by John H. Griffin, William C. Bowyer, John F. White, William Williams, George Shanks, John Logan and George Walton. At the same time authority was granted for the building of a road from Salem by Lafayette and Blacksburg to Peppers Ferry, and the same citizens to open books for $15,000 in stock. This road would connect at Blacksburg with another into Giles county. It wasn’t long, however, until the South Western Turnpike super­ seded these private projects. Chartered January 28, 1946 with a $75,000 appropriation from the state, the original road was to have a 46-foot right-of-way but a month later the act was amended and the width increased to 60 feet “to be vested in the Commonwealth for the use of said road, or of a railroad, should one hereafter be established over the same ground, or any part thereof.” The next year another $75,000 was appropriated, and the third year $300,000 more was authorized, and the company directed “to complete the road and cause the whole line to be surveyed through Scott County to the Tennessee line.” Only $75,000 could be expended in any one year. By the same act the Board of Public Works was “directed to borrow at 6% so much as may be necessary to make up any deficiency in the Treasury to meet the above annual expense.” We don’t know if funds were actually borrowed. Using the Salem-Peppers ferry turnpike to near Lafayette and then the Ingles Ferry turnpike and purchasing the Alleghany turnpike, the road would bypass Lafayette and otherwise be much straighter than the dirt roads it took over. Virginia had experimented with plank roads where there was an abundance of timber but without much success. Along this route there was limestone rock which would not have to be hauled far. Bridges would take the place of fords. Two long covered bridges would be built near Elliston. It would be a most advanced road for the time, and horsepower would be reduced by half. At the end of three score and ten years it showed little wear and tear. There is a paradox here: Colonel Hancock’s road (the first built except by tithables) was ahead of its time—a ditched and graded highway through a mountain pass. The “Great Road” and its successor, the South Western Turnpike, ranked high among the arteries which helped settle the west. But by 1918 the road from Roanoke county line to the top of the Alleghany summit had become a quagmire, at least during four or five months of the year. It continued to be a disgrace to the state until 1926 when it was rebuilt as the last gap in the new Lee Highway (U.S. 11) and the largest crowd ever seen in Christians11 �burg attended the dedication of a marker commemorating that road’s completion. And at this writing Interstate 81 is being built up the mountain from Dixie Caverns to east of Christiansburg—also virtually the last gap in that undertaking from far up the Shenandoah to Tennessee. REGULAR PROHIBITION TICKET. ELECTION, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1892. For President, JOHN BIDWELL, OF CALIFORNIA. For Vice-President, JAMES B. CRANFILL, OF TEXAS. ELEC TO R S A T LA RG E, ROBERT Y. ZACHARY, of Norfolk City. JAMES R. MILLER, of Pulaski City. D IS T R IC T E L E C T O R S , 1st. WILLIAM S. MILLS, of Accomac Co. 2nd. WILLIAM B. WILDER, of Portsmouth. 3rd. JOHN G. LUMPKIN, of Richmond City. 4th. HERBERT C. BARROW, of Brunswick. 5th. SAMUEL C. ADAMS, of Henry Co. 6th. ROBERT H. BEAZLEY, of Halifax Co. 7th. REUBEN A. FINNELL, of Warren Co. 8th. DANIEL J. HOGE, of Loudoun Co. 9th. WILLIE B. KEGLEY, of Wytheville. 10th. WILLIAM B. BOYD, of Botetourt Co. F o r C o n g re ss, .............District, —Political card donated by Hunter H. Akers. 12 �1753: Saga of a Pioneer Pilgrimage Through the Roanoke Region In 1751 the Moravians were granted 100,000 acres in North Caro­ lina including the site of Winston-Salem. Bishop Spangenberg and party reached the land from eastern Carolina the next year and surveyed it. And in October, 1753 about a dozen brethren, all unmarried, set out from Bethlehem, Pa., to settle there. Apparently they had scant knowledge of the country for instead of taking the relatively flat and much shorter route south through Philadelphia and piedmont Virginia they went west and then up the Shenandoah. For us their route was fortunate because their diary is among the earliest detailed records of people and geography of this area. This diary was translated from the German and printed many years ago but the translators edited out much of the flavor and piquancy of the original. In 1915 Miss Adelaide L. Fries made a literal translation in which the phrasing and original spellings of proper names remain. This Society has a copy of the manuscript from the Moravian Archives in Winston-Salem and we present here the portion of it covering the route from about Buchanan to the Blackwater River northeast of Rocky Mount, Va. By road today it comprises some 44 miles; the breth­ ren made it in nine days and must have covered at least 90 miles. The chronicle makes good reading. It poses questions, too. For example when and how did “Benjamin Reh, an old man of about 90 years, and his wife who is nearly a hundred” establish a house near what is now the Garden City section of Roanoke? Oct. 8, 1753, we rose early and made ready for our start, our dear Dr. Christian Seidel holding morning prayer for us. And so with a feeling of blessing and contentment we set out from our beloved Bethlehem—the Brn. Grube, Jac. Loesch, Merkli, Feldhausen, Erich Ingepretsen, Peterson, Lunge, Hermanus Loesch, Pfeil, Beroth, Lischer, Kalberlahn and Joseph Haberland, the last named to accompany us only to the Susquehannah. Our “Cher Junger” Dr. Gottleb, Hoffman, Eberhard, and several other Brethren went with us for a few miles, and when we had taken tender leave of each other we went our way humbly happy over the goodness that the Lamb of God had shown to us poor mortals in His congregation. The Brethren Gottlob and Nathanael followed us in a few hours, and in the evening we met at the Missellimer Mill and remained there over night—the people were fairly civil in their entertainment of us though hitherto they have refused to let Brethren stop there. On the way we picked up several 13 �pieces of our baggage which had been left by our wagon when it stuck fast and had to be unloaded before it could be pulled out . . . [And so for the next 20 days the Brethren continued their not-too-direct journey—west to “Harrison’s Ferry” (Harrisburg), then south across Maryland and up the Shenandoah Valley, fol­ lowing very generally the route of present U.S. 11 on the west side of the Massanutten range. By October 28 they had reached the vicinity of present-day Buchanan a n d ------- ] Towards evening we saw the Jeams River; the road to it ran down so very steep a hill that we fastened a small tree to the back of our wagon, locked the wheels, and the brethren held back by the tree with all their might, but even then the wagon went down so fast that most of the brethren lost their footing; no harm was done, and we thanked the Lord that He had so graciously protected us, for it looked dangerous and we thought at times that it could not possibly be done without accident, but in spite of stump and stone we got down safely. We made our camp near the River, and rested well after the fatigue of the day, for the road had all been bad, and yet we had made sixteen miles. A man visited us, and asked whether we had come down the steep hill; he expressed surprise at our success, and said we need not have come that way, but might have turned to the right toward the Blue Mountains and have followed a good road around through a valley. Br. Gottlob held evening prayer. Oct. 29. We rose at five, having had a rather cold night with frost for the first time on this trip. We drove half a mile to the River, and found two roads, the one to the right going one mile further to Lunis Ferry, that to the left fording the river. A couple of the brethren rode through to see what kind of crossing it was, for there were many rocks and stones in the stream. Fortunately for us all the rivers and creeks are low just now, otherwise we could make little progress, for even the smallest creeks rise so in rainy weather that the horses would have to swim. From the Buffler Creek here we crossed streams every two or three miles. We crossed Jeams River safely, and thanked our Father in heaven that He had helped us through so many difficulties. We then had two miles of good road, crossed a creek, and came to a house where we spent most of the day, taking time to bake bread and kill a hog that we bought. We were visited by the Mr. Illison from whom Br. Hermanus recently bought corn, and he asked that the brethren would shoe his horse, which was done. He said that he would soon go to Philadelphia, and offered to attend to anything we wished done there. The Brn. Gottlob and Nathanael wrote letters to our friends in Bethlehem . . . This evening we went about four miles further over a rather bad road. On the way we got some bread that we had had baked at Lunis’ Mill. We crossed a large creek and set up our tent two miles from the 14 �BOTETOURT C O U N TY T r a v e ls COUNTY F R A N K L IN THORNTON! MOUNTAIN ! / of ihe morauidn brethren ! through rhe Roanoke fírea S C d le BULL PATRICK, (COUNTY mountain VI RGI NI A NORTH CAROLINA STO K E S COUNTY PILOT FOUNTAIN * |»ATHABARA WACHOVIA W INSTON- S A L E M —Map by J. R. Hildebrand. 15 �Mill near a stream, but immediately had to change our position because the wind blew the smoke into the tent. It also began to rain. We turned our horses loose in the woods. The Brn. Petersen and Merkli, who had remained behind to finish baking the bread, came late in the night, and had had to swim the creek at Lunis’ Mill, which is quite deep. Oct. 30. The weather was bad, it rained and snowed, but we kept fairly dry under our tent. Our horses had strayed off and it took several of the brethren nearly all day to find them, and we were glad when we had them back, for we had heard that in this neighborhood horses were often stolen. As the brethren came in cold and wet through and through we had a cup of tea all round, and enjoyed it together. We changed the position of the tent on account of the smoke. Br. Gottlob held the evening service. We for the first time tried baking bread in the ashes. Oct. 31. We rose very early and prepared to continue our journey. Immediately we had to climb a considerable hill, which was very hard on our horses for the ground was frozen and covered with snow. One mile brought us to. a small creek, and another to a larger one, near which was a plantation. Then came more hills, and from the top a beautiful view, the Blue and South Mountains forming a pretty oval, their summits all covered with snow. The farther we went the more snow we found, and travel was difficult. Two miles to the left was a plantation, and some of the brethren went thither to drink milk. Near at hand was a small creek, then the road rose again. After a mile and a half we came to another creek not far from a plantation; this would be a good place to camp as there is good water and wood. One mile further we came to a very bad piece of road, so sloping that we could hardly keep the wagon from slipping over the edge down the mountain, and had to use the tackle frequently. Then we began to descend, and in a half mile came to a small creek; we drove a bit up its valley, and took our noon rest there. One of our horses was sick, we gave him something that helped. After going a mile and a half further we passed over some bad hills, and by a fence, and came to Joseph Macdonald’s house. Two years ago he came here from Manakesie in Maryland, and before that he used to attend the preaching of the Brethren; he was friendly and told us about our best road without waiting to be asked. Half a mile from his house the roads fork, the right hand going to New River. We took the left, came to another creek, and five miles further we camped for the night. Towards evening we met an old man whom Br. Nathanael engaged in conversation, and as we passed near his fence we asked him to sell us some turnips, but he was so good as to make us a present of a nice quantity, and gave an invitation that any of our people passing this way should visit him. He had heard perhaps a 16 �hundred lies about the Brethren,—that we were “bearded people”, that we enjoined celibacy, etc.—and now learning the truth the old man rejoiced, and took a friendly leave of us. His name is Muller. Another of our horses was sick and we bled him. Nov. 1. With earliest dawn we were again on our journey, but again had to bleed a horse. The change in food is largely responsible for the illness of our horses. At one and a half miles we found water. There was a small creek half a mile beyond, and one mile further another, near which was an old plantation, and the road forked, we going to the left. A quarter of a mile more brought us to the road leading to the left up the hills to Warrik, and to a stone house of which we had heard and where we expected to buy provisions, but we could get little. The people count it nine miles from here to Runoke. The road was narrow and we often did not see how we were to get through, indeed without our axes we would have been in a bad fix. We also had to work the road itself so that we could pass. We met three men from Warrik who had been to Carolina and were returning home; they said the road was very bad, and we would probably not be able to buy any provisions on the way. Br. Nathanael wrote a note to Br. Christ. Rauch, and sent it by these men. Two miles further we came to a little creek, and in two miles more to another which was full of stones, and we had much difficulty in getting up the bank. Another mile brought us to a large Buffalo Lick, where formerly many buffalo gathered because the marsh was rich in salt. Not far from there we came to a plantation where there is good water. We went about half a mile further, and then our road— a rather narrow one—turned to the left. That to the right is much better and leads to Grain Brayer. We stopped for noon by a creek, and had to drive through a large marsh. Br. Losch, who had gone ahead to see if he could buy some corn, rejoined the party. About four o’clock we reached the Runoke, and had to wait for the corn, which was not yet shelled. Several of the brethren went to the nearest plantation to help the people shell the corn, and two of them threshed oats. It grew so late that we had to stay here all night. Mr. Evens, a miller who lives across the river, came to us and gave advice about the care of our sick horses, we tried his plan and it helped them. We thought today much about our brethren in Heidelberg, and wished they could know that the Savior had brought us well and content so far. We made twelve miles today. Nov. 2. We rose early, having slept little because the smoke troubled us all night. At day-break we crossed the Runoke, which was very low, and not quite so large as the Lecha, but full of slippery stones; and in high water it runs half a mile over the banks. We had much difficulty in getting our sick horses across. A quarter of a mile beyond we came to Evens’ mill, where our road turned to the 17 �left and became very narrow. A mile further we came to a steep hill, and the road sloped badly. We soon stuck in a ditch, and were in danger of breaking our axle. In another mile a rather high hill rose before us, and we had to unload half our things and carry them up on our backs, and even then we could hardly get the wagon up. The going down was also steep, we locked two wheels, hung a tree on behind, and all the brethren held back by it; and so we crossed this hill safely. Then we had a mile and a half of good road, and stopped for lunch by a creek. It looked much like rain and there was a large hill before us. We asked a man that we met whether we could get across the hill today and he said “Yes, some one lived on the top, and we could spend the night there”. We believed him and drove to the foot of the hill, crossing a large creek. Then we tried to climb the hill but it was impossible, the hill being too steep. So we decided to unload and carry the things up the hill. The Brn. Lischer and Pfeil stayed with the wagon, and the rest of us made the ascent. Half way up it began to rain and was hard on us and the horses, but we hoped on the top to find the house of which the man had told us. The time seemed long to us and when we reached the summit neither house nor water was to be found. There was nothing to do but go on down the mountain in the darkness and heavy rain. At last in the valley we founda little creek, having been two and a half hours crossing the hill. There we made camp as best we might, having much trouble to get a fire, for it was raining heavily and everything was wet. We set up the tent and lay close together on the wet bedding, and rested a little. Toward morning it cleared and was very cold. Nov. 3. At dawn we went back across the hill to get the other things and the wagon. The Brn. Gottlob, Nathanael, and Kalberland stayed with the tent. The brethren who had remained in the wagon had also had a cold night, and we were glad to see each other again. We loaded our horses and took most of the things to the top of the hill, made a fire, and Br. Haberland stayed while the rest went back for the wagon. Although it was almost empty it was all we could do to push and pull it up, but in half an hour we were at the top. Loading our belongings we traveled a little way upward along the ridge; then came the descent and we locked the wheels, hung a tree on behind, and all held back by it, and so we came safely down to our tent, and rejoiced that the Saviour had helped us. Although there were a couple of steep, sloping hills before us, yet we crossed them before night, and set up our tent by a creek, turning our horses into the woods. We were all very tired and sleepy and let the angels be our guard during the night. Nov. 4. We had an almost untrodden road, and had to cut a number of trees out of the way. Our wagon stuck fast in a mud-hole, and 18 �it took two hours to get it out. The tackle did us good service. One mile beyond we found water, then had four miles of good road to a creek, where we stopped for noon. In the afternoon we crossed Maggedi Creek, near which lives Benjamin Reh, an old man of about 90 years, and his wife who is nearly a hundred. Both are quite bright and active, gave us milk to drink§|and were very friendly. Near this house is a deep muddy place. Then we climbed a steep hill to the Warrik Road, which leads in a western direction and is fairly good. Nov. 5. We rose early and went on our way. Had several miles of good road along the ridge. When we had driven five miles we came to the home of Mr. Robert Kohl, Justice of the Peace, from whom we bought some corn. He is a pleasant man, and expressed regrets that he did not know we were coming, for he would gladly have met us and led us by a better and nearer way so that we could have escaped the hills and mountains. The road was indeed not entirely cleared, but there were so many of us that we could have gotten through with little trouble. He said he would see to it that this road was opened at once. Two brethren stayed here to help shell some bushels of corn that bought. We had again some bad places to drive up. At half a mile was a small creek, and another half mile brought us to Black Water, a large creek with very steep banks. . . ['Twelve long days and innumerable creeks and mudholes later the brethren were approaching their land at Bethabara— near present-day Winston-Salem, 107 miles from Roanoke by road today.] Nov. 17. We rose early having had a cold night; it looked much like snow. Some of the brethren went ahead with axes and grubbing hoes to clear the road and cut down the steep banks of the creeks. One mile from Altem’s we crossed Forck Creek, and came to the new road leading across our land to the Etkin. On the right hand side of the creek is a plantation, and the people gave us two sacks of pumpkins and offered us a wagon-full more free of charge. Two miles from our land we crossed Buffier Creek. One mile from our land we stopped for the noon rest. The Brn. Gottlob and Nathanael had gone ahead to the next plantation, which adjoins our land, and the people presented them with a couple of bushels of turnips. At last, at half-past twelve, we reached the boundary of our land, whereat we all rejoiced; and there we were met and tenderly welcomed by Br. Gottlob and Br. Nathanael. It touched us and we thanked our Saviour that He had so graciously led us hither and had helped us through all the hard places, for no matter how dangerous it seemed, nor how little we saw how we could win through, everything always went better than seemed possible . . . 19 �to o •^VW W VA^ j VA^ IA A.W N ' v v \ v v \ va^ v w w v l^ v \M ilW W \W » V \^ V W W iW iV i\W iW I » W tW » W » V A ll BY AUTHORITY OF THE LEGISLATURE OF VIRGINIA* Lottery for the benefit o f the New-London Academy. S E C O N D C LASS. \T IIIS Ticket vcill entitle the hearer to such a prize as may he drawn to Us number, i f demanded within tivelve months after the drawing, is Jin» ished, subject to a deduction offfteen per cent, payable at one oj’the Banks in Lynchburg, immediately ( f e r the completion of the drawing. "WILLIAM CALLAWAY, Sr. NA T HA S I EL REID, WILLI S U IRVINE, JOHN WA > TS, HENRY BROWN, V W V % W V W \ W \ W \ W \ W \A > V \ v w w x ] SAMUEL W H IT E , CM Al.i I'Oi’ Hii A CL ARK, WILLI VM S i'EPTOE, J. T . W. R EAD, W X# W X fW X A /W W X iV W W ^ I SAMUEL R E A D , ABN ER E. CALLAWAY, SETH. WARD, A LE X A N D E R A U S T IN . ./V W X I W W W V V V * W V W X . W }I » 1P * V W W X . W V W x . W X * V W W X . ,X / % X 'W % V V % W % | You Could Take A Legal Gamble in 1796 A century and a half ago gambling was not only legal, It was essential for the survival of New London Academy. Founded in 1795 as a college preparatory school at the frontier center of New London in Bedford County, the academy was financed for 50 years by a lottery authorized by Virginia's legislature Nov. 21, 1796. This original lottery ticket was given the Society by A. Anson Jamison of Roanoke. �When Editorials Were Editorials: Butler In Richmond [From the Roanoke Times (Salem, Va.) January 18, 1868. Copy in the Society’s Museum collection] News Dispatch: RICHMOND, Jan. 14—In the Convention an article of the Consti­ tution was adopted, declaring that Virginia shall ever remain in the Union; and pledging her to resist all efforts to break it up. — Another article adopted declares that slavery in the State is forever abolished. A resolution from the Republican side of the House inviting Gen’l Butler to address the Convention was adopted. — Another was offered from the Conservatives, inviting General Wise. At this point a Radical moved to reconsider the vote in inviting Gen’l Butler, and pending the discussion, amid motions to adjourn, Butler entered the door. Shortly after, the Conservative members left the House in a body, with one or two Radicals who had opposed the invitation. Butler, in his speech, said: “There should be as few changes in the Constitution as possible; as few disfranchisements, and as few test-oaths.” With reference to the disfranchisements, he thought it should apply to the controlling officers of corporations, railroads, &c. The tax for education should be laid on persons, and other taxes should be borne by property and persons alike. He urged the Convention to be diligent, and to get through their work soon. Suffrage should not be taken from a man after it had been granted; but the Legislature might hereafter, as an incentive to education, confer it only upon those who could read and write. The Convention voted its thanks to him and adjourned. Editorial: This coward, thief, renegade, murderer and outlaw has paid a visit to Richmond; and though in every civilized country on the face of the earth he is loathed and contemned, he is furnished a room on one of the first Hotels in the late capitol of the Confederate States. Instead of being shunned as a loathsome leper, or some vile, poisonous reptile, the Ballard House receives him, and gives shelter and enter­ tainment to the vilest specimen of humanity which any country has ever presented. Is it possible that all self-respect and manly pride and independence has been extinguished in the hearts of the Southern people, and that we have not the spirit left, if not to resent, at least to show that we sensibly feel the insult intended and most shamefully thrust at us 21 �by such abandoned and cowardly wretches, who, taking advantage of our helpless condition, dare to torment us by the presence of their loathsome carcasses? We have been vanquished on the battle-field, and are not now disposed to take up arms to redress our wrongs, yet it is base and servile to show any respect to such men, or recognize them in any other way than BUTLER was by the Conservative band who so faith­ fully represent the true Virginia sentiment in the Convention in Richmond. Butler in Richmond! An insult to every man, woman and child, white or black, in Virginia! . . . Machine & This 134-year-old sewing machine (right) is in working condition after use by several generations of the Horton family. The object at left is not a small printing press but a fluting machine for men's shirts. They were loaned to the Society's museum by Mrs. W. H. Horton. 22 �Fort Vause: The Site And the Story THE FORT STOOD ON THIS HILL. IT WAS ATTACKED AND BURNED BY FRENCH AND INDIANS IN JUNE. 1756. IT WAS REBUILT BY CAPTAIN PETER HOGG. AND VISITED BY GEORGE WASHINGTON IN OCTOBER. 1756. j M R by L ena Gardner Sammons Mrs. Macon Sammons, the writer, teaches history and government at ¿he high school in her native Shawsville. A graduate of Longwood Col­ lege, she has studied at the Uni­ versity of North Carolina and at VPI and during World War II she worked with the Red Cross. Mrs. Sammons, the former Lena Mac Gardner, lives a stone’s throw be­ low the fort site. The Site in the village of Shawsville, Virginia less than a quarter mile off U. S. Route 11, there is a low hill whose level summit marks the site of Fort Vause. At the foot of the hill, a state marker gives this scant but impressive information: “The fort stood on this hill. It was attacked and burned by the French and Indians in June 1756. It was rebuilt by Captain Peter Hogg and visited by George Washington in October 1756.”' Occasionally, tourists stop to read the sign and come to our home to ask questions or to get permission to climb the hill. Whenever this happens, I am glad, for nothing is so gratifying as the opportunity to share a cherished heritage. As I welcome the guests, I think of my father and of his respect for the land and the brave people who first settled it. Father bought the fort site in 1903, several years after moving from the North Fork to the South Fork of the Roanoke River. He often took visitors to the hill and proudly pointed out to them, as older members of our com­ munity had pointed out to him, the embankments that defined the general area covered by Fort Vause. He also pointed out two springs, one to the east and one to the west that had furnished water for the 1 It is the opinion of some people that this markers information is misleading since it refers to the two forts as having one site. They feel that the stockade fort built around the Vause home had a different location from the second fort which was planned by the Colony's War Council (July 1756) to be the largest fortified fort in the southern line of linking frontier forts. Since there is, as yet, no certain proof as to the exact location of the Vause dwelling, we may expect this difference of opinion to continue. 23 �early settlers, and sometimes, he told his visitors a story that had been handed down from one generation to another about an Indian spy shot from a tall sycamore tree at the west spring. Here was an example of alertness and accuracy that we all admired! The Indian spy had climbed the tall tree hoping to look over into the fort. He would have reported what he saw, no doubt, to the enemy, the French and Indians of the Ohio Valley. This calamity was prevented, glory be, by a remarkable feat of marksmanship performed by the guard on duty at the fort. In the last decade of the nineteenth century, when my father first knew the site, the tall sycamore tree was still standing, the two springs were still in use, and on the hill where the fort had been there stood an old log dwelling, perhaps a remaining relic of the abandoned second fort. This old house, which had been used as a home until around 1897, was torn down shortly before father bought the land. He was saddened by the thought that an intriguing historical relic was destroyed—likely used for kindling wood. As the fort site’s new owner, he was resolved to see that the contour of the land, at least, be left undisturbed. To protect the land from frequent plowings he planted apple trees on the hill, spacing them with ample room between the trees and seeing to it that no tree was located so that it blocked the vantage points to the west and to the east. It was awesome to recall the number of significant pioneers who had probably looked to the west and to the east from these vantage points; George Washington, only twenty-four years old and already a veteran of two campaigns in the Ohio Valley, Andrew Lewis, Augusta County’s brave soldier-adventurer, Captain John Smith, fearless de­ fender of the fort at Vause’s home, Captain Peter Hogg, patient and able builder of the second fort, and most certainly, Captain Ephraim Vause, the man who knew a deep love for the land as his frontier home. We children were taught to respect them all, but to Captain Vause we gave the special esteem usually reserved for one’s blood ancestors. This was because Captain Vause’s early adventures, as shown by the Augusta County records, closely paralleled those of our ancestor, Brian McDonald. Both men had been granted land on Virginia’s western frontier in 1746 and soon thereafter had been given similar responsibilities for the building and maintaining of roadways leading westward to New River; Ephraim Vause on the South Fork of the Roanoke and Brian McDonald on the North Fork. In Father’s mind, however, the true bond of kinship between our ancestor and Ephraim Vause was proven by the determined courage with which they held fast to their new homes in the frightening months that followed General Braddock’s defeat in the Ohio Valley. In those days of panic when great throngs of people 24 �Apple trees grow today on the gentle plateau where Fort Vause once commanded the western approach to the upper Roanoke River Valley. It is just west of present-day Shawsville. were going back across the Blue Ridge Mountains to a more assured safety, it was apparent that neither Ephraim Vause nor Brian McDonald considered joining the mass migration. Instead, they busied themselves with building new means of defense. My fourth great-grandfather built a secret staircase back of his fireplace that led by way of an underground passage to an opening some distance from the house (being Scottish, he had little reliance on the British influenced House of Burgesses), while Ephraim Vause, at his own expense, built a fort for the protection of his family and neighbors. Early in 1756 Captain Vause was successful in having the able Captain John Smith assigned to supervise the fort’s defense. These family instigated fortifications, built by brave and willing hands, tell of an intense and loving loyalty for frontier homes. Such loyalty is no passing fancy. It leaves a lasting impression on future sons. It portrays the durable and intimate warmth of personal dreams and desires. One has only to stand on the hill back of our house to feel the presence of these early settlers. They return to their beloved home and we meet them there. It is as natural as the rhythmic motion of the tiny yellow butterflies that move about among the wild mint and the daisies. In the golden summers of my own childhood, father and I often climbed the hill together and sat on the board bench that was built around the trunk of the Rambo apple tree. “Breathe deep and look long,” he would say to me, and we would inhale the sweet fragrance of the ripening apples and let our eyes feast their fill, first to the 25 �west, always first to the west because the Shawnee Indians came through the western pass in the mountains, and then to the east. Looking west, over the pasture field, our eyes would follow the proud winding roadway, moving sedately up and around in its search for the natural divide in the mountains; looking east, over the roof of our home, we could rest our eyes on the friendly hills, as they leisurely rolled themselves out, one after the other, until they fell back to rest against the strong, blue mountains. Father would light his after-supper cigar and we would lean back against the broad trunk of the Rambo tree, basking in the contentment of a mutual appreciation. “I won’t forget,” I promised him, “I’ll tell the story of Fort Vause to anyone who will listen.” The Story The story of Fort Vause is sad but fascinating. It tells of adventure, of suspense, of heart-breaking loss and of magnificent courage. The story begins, of course, with Ephraim Vause. As far as can be determined he was the first inhabitant of Virginia to bear the Vause name. Where he had lived before he came into Augusta County or how long his family had lived in the colonies is uncertain, but it is evident that from the first months of his arrival on the Virginia frontier he was a man of influence in his community. The first land deeded to Ephraim Vause in the county bears the date of January, 1746. In November of the same year he was named by the County Court to be in charge of building and maintaining a roadway west, along the South Fork of the Roanoke River. Although Ephraim Vause bought numerous tracts of land in Augusta County, it was for this land, along the South Fork of the Roanoke, that he developed a particular attachment and it was here in the vicinity of the present village of Shawsville that he concentrated on establishing his estate. His home was described as being where the valley closes in and the trail starts over the mountain, an area satisfying in beauty but sadly exposed to danger from the Indian raiders. The murder of five white men at the home of Ephraim Vause in 1753 probably prompted the appointment of Lieutenant Andrew Lewis, as a representative from the Virginia militia, to assist in the organizing of Augusta County’s defense. Lewis was asked to recruit rangers and select officers who might train them. Before 1754 there were only two known fortified places on Virginia’s frontier. One was at the pass leading from Catawba to the head branches of the Roanoke and the other was on the South Fork of the Roanoke, at the home of Ephraim Vause. Mr. Vause was appointed “Captain of the Horse” and his home was selected as the gathering place for a group of rangers recruited from the vicinity. George Washington’s defeat in 1754, at the hands of the French 26 �in the Ohio Valley, followed one year later by General Braddock’s losses, had filled the settlers with terror. Parties of raiding Shawnee Indians, encouraged and supplied by the French, attacked almost at will along Virginia’s western frontier. The Indian Massacre at Drapers’ Meadow, Blacksburg, in July, 1755 was warning enough of Indian hostility. It was small wonder that alarmed settlers began abandoning their homes and fleeing back across the Blue Ridge Mountains to safety. By the spring of 1756 John Madison, Clerk of Augusta County, spoke of the frontier as being practically deserted. Sometime before August, 1755 Ephraim Vause, at his own expense, built a stockade fort around his home for the protection of his family and his neighbors. In the county records of this period we are told that in the fall and winter of 1755, Fort Vause and the Fort at Catawba, sometimes called Fort Preston or Fort William, served to good purpose. The story of the Indian spy shot from the tall sycamore may have happened during this time of anxiety. Although the Indian raiders and spies were consistently troublesome in the months after the tragedy at Drapers’ Meadow, there had been no mass Indian attack in the period of eleven months and perhaps Andrew Lewis, now a major, felt that the time had come to shift tactics to an offensive warfare against the Indians. At any rate, in the early summer of 1756, he reduced the strength of the frontier ranger companies by taking some of the men with him on an expedition to the Cherokee country, likely to ask the Cherokees to fight with the English against the French and the Shawnees. Very soon after Major Lewis’ departure, on June 16th to be exact, a small band of Indians appeared near Fort Vause. At the time they were sighted, there were only four or five men at the fort, so it was thought not advisable to give battle. Several miles from the fort one white man was taken captive and carried to an Indian camp on the New River. Fortunately, three days after his capture the white man managed to make his escape and straightway came to warn Captain John Smith at Fort Vause. One of the Indians in the group spoke English, he said, and had told him that a large number of Shawnee Indians, under the leadership of a French captain by the name of Babee, were on their way to rout out the English settlers along the frontier line. Fort Vause and the fort at Catawba were among their first objectives. Captain Smith immediately sent a message to Captain William Preston who was in command of the Ranger Company at the fort near Catawba. In Captain Smith’s message he stated that he had only eight or ten men and lacked sufficient ammunition to withstand a major attack. Only an hour before the message arrived on June 22nd, Captain Preston had dismissed his company of rangers so that it was not until June 25th that he was able to gather eighteen of his rangers to march with twenty-nine members of the militia in answer to Captain 27 �Smith s plea for help. With what relish the Indian spies must have relayed this information to their French promoters! For it was on that very day, while Captain Preston and his forty-seven men were marching to bring the requested help, that Fort Vause was attacked and burned to the ground. Some sources say three hundred Indians came about ten in the morning and set fire to the cabins adjoining the fort. The fighting lasted until approximately four in the afternoon when Captain Smith was forced to surrender because of exhaustion of ammunition. At the time of surrender there were only three men able to give battle all of the others having been either killed or wounded. Fire was set to the Vause home within the fort and all buildings on the plantation were burned to ashes. Andrew Lewis later wrote to Governor Dinwiddie stating that about eighty head of cattle and horses were either killed or carried away at the time of the attack. William Preston and his men were met at three in the afternoon three miles from the fort, by a servant of Captain Vause who told of having been that morning at the ruins of the Vause home. He said that he and six men were about two miles from the fort at the time Some say the first stockade fort was located on Vause property near this estate - Walnut Grove - just southeast of Shawsville and less than a mile from the Sammons home. 28 �of the attack and had hastened to give what help they could. His companions had outrun him and twice had got within one hundred yards of the fort and fired on the attackers. He had been without firearms and so could not attack, but had hidden and seen some of the proceedings. Captain Preston took down the names of those persons in the fort at the time of the attack and sent them to Governor Dinwiddie. In all, twenty-five persons were killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. Among those taken were Mrs. Vause, her two daughters, Captain Smith and several of his sons; also, captured was Mrs. William Ingles, aunt-in-law of another Mary Ingles, captured by the Indians in the massacre at Drapers’ meadow. Ephraim Vause and his two sons were not present at the time of the tragedy. The two Vause boys had gone about two miles distant to the mill that day, and Ephraim Vause was probably out on a recruiting mission for frontier defense. Thomas Calloway must have been one of the men who marched with William Preston on that fateful day, for among the Draper Papers may be found an account he gives of viewing the mangled bodies at the fort, “all lying in heaps.” He was one of a group of men who followed the Indians over the mountains into Kentucky and Ohio. On the bark of sycamore and beech trees along the way they sighted the name of Levice, which convinced them that Levice Vause had been carried that way; however, their search for her and others of her party was unsuccessful. It was not until after the war that Levice Vause related the story of her travels to the Calloways and others. She had seen, she said, her family’s scalps hung out to dry and their clothes torn off until the skins of animals were needed to take their place. Levisa Fork, Kentucky and Levice Ford, near present-day Cincinnati, are streams whose names mark the route over which the prisoners were taken. Less than a month after the burning of Fort Vause, a council of war, with Colonel Washington as chairman, was held at Fort Cumber­ land. At this time plans were made to establish a line of frontier forts, about twenty or thirty miles apart, and to fortify each of these forts with fifty or sixty men. The loss of Fort Vause was given as an example of the need for better planned fortifications. Several weeks later a second council of war was called in Augusta County. At this meeting it was agreed to rebuild Fort Vause and the dimensions for this new fort were set at one hundred square feet in the clear with stockades to be at least fourteen feet long. Captain Peter Hogg was put in charge of the construction of the fort. Again plans for the linking frontier forts were discussed and sizes designated for the forts, other than Vause, were set at sixty feet square with two bastions. Seventy men were assigned to Fort Vause, exclusive of officers; other forts were to be assigned from thirty to sixty men. 29 �It was in October of this same year that Washington came on his tour of inspection. In his letter to the Governor he wrote, “We got safely to Voss’ where Captain Peter Hogg, with only eighteen men of his company, were building a fort which must employ them until Christmas without more assistance.” In this same letter Washington reports that Captain Hunt, with thirty men, was present, but none would “strike a stroke” unless he (Washington) would promise that they would be paid forty pounds in tobacco per day, as the carpenters were allowed in Williamsburg by rule of the Burgesses. This he could not, nor would not do! Wash­ ington felt the men under Captain Hunt were insolent and irregular, and that the men, on the whole, were extremely careless, keeping no guard, although the danger was constant. It cannot be certain that the second Fort Vause was built according to the plans laid down for it. In June, 1757 the list of men stationed at frontier forts showed that sixty men rather than the aforesaid seventy men were stationed at Fort Vause. The fact that frontier defense was lacking in efficiency during the year of 1757 is made evident by Governor Dinwiddie’s letter of November, 1757. He wrote that Augusta County was demanding more assistance than all the other counties combined, and he felt that a good part of the trouble was due to poor organization and lack of cooperation. He asked that the militia captains from all frontier forts meet at Vause for the purpose of reorganization. During the winter of 1757-58 Captain Vause and Morris Griffith, listed as escaped victims from the Roanoke settlement, worked to organize a second voluntary expedition against the Shawnee Indians. They travelled to Williamsburg to present their plans to the governor, proposing to him that the expedition be made up of two or three hundred volunteers who wanted only to be supplied with provisions, arms and ammunition. The two men were referred to the council of war and Colonel Read of Augusta County Militia was directed to order a meeting of the chief men interested in the expedition so that they might make a choice among themselves of commanding officers. These volunteers called themselves The Associators. It was agreed that sufficient provisions should be purchased and collected at Vause’s Fort, or near there, to be carried on horses to the pass of the mountains where the horses must be left under guard until the troops returned. Captain Vause was sure that around three hundred men would volunteer to march out with them against the Shawnees. It was further decided that three companies would be left to defend Augusta County while the men were on expedition. Supplies in kettles, Dutch blankets, powder, ball and swan-shot were sent to Colonel Read and commissaries were appointed to purchase other necessities. Flour was actually delivered at Thomas Tosh’s “for the 30 �use of the Associators,” and an order was drawn on the treasurer for money needed. The Associators’ proposed expedition, although ardently supported by many frontiermen including John Madison, was doomed to failure because of the strife and dissatisfaction attending the selection of officers, and arguments over the required number of volunteers neces­ sary for the success of the mission. After much delay and inefficiency, organized aid to the plan was withdrawn. Later in the land petitions of 1780 many land-hungry settlers asked for government grants, justify­ ing their requests by stating that their service had been given to the Associators during the French and Indian War, but failing to mention that the Associators only talked of an expedition. As a group they never saw action. Some of the lands granted in answer to these petitions were for as much as two or three thousand acres, and the ironic truth was that there seemed little relationship between the size of the grant and the worth of the service rendered. There may have been requests made by the families of Ephraim Vause or Morris Griffith for services rendered in the winter of 1757-58, but I cannot locate them. These two hearty pioneers must have known dismay and disappointment following the Colony’s change in plans, but as individuals they had no intention of accepting defeat. Both men moved out of the Colony of Virginia in March 1758. The descendants of Ephraim Vause say he went west into Kentucky. In late 1758 Major Andrew Lewis was instructed to use his own discretion as to the abandoning of Fort Vause and the need for re­ stationing forces there. Virginia volunteers were asked to join with the British forces under Major John Forbes in a major attack against the French and Indians. Andrew Lewis was among those who marched into the Ohio Valley. (He was captured and was held as a prisoner by the French.) This campaign was a successful one for the British. They not only routed the French from their fort at Duquesne, but, after seizing the site of the destroyed French fort, they built Fort Pitt, named in honor of their war minister who had shown a strong interest in Virginia’s struggle for the Ohio Valley. The treaty marking the end of the war with the French was not signed until several years later (1763) but the extreme danger to Virginia’s frontier line was never as great after the Campaign of 1758. It is interesting to speculate to what extent the successful British strategy was influenced by the advice given the authorities by Captain John Smith of Fort Vause fame. It is possible that his return to the Colony may also have encouraged Ephraim Vause and Morris Griffith in their endeavor to strike out at the enemy. Captain Smith’s paper, dated 1758, was read to the war council and referred to the House of Burgesses for action, but ordered to lie 31 �on the table for the perusal of the members of the House. It is given as follows: APRIL 3, 1758—A MEMORIAL OF JOHN SMITH “Captain John Smith, late a Captain of a Company of Rangers on the frontiers of this colony makes this statement, On June 25, 1756, Smith, then at Fort Vause, Augusta County, with a small party, was attacked by the enemy, which after having defended the fort until he had but three men left, he was obliged to surrender; that the enemy inhumanly murdered his eldest son before his face and carried Capt. Smith as a prisoner to the Shawnee towns and French Forts, and from thence to Quebec, where he was put on board a Cartel ship and carried eventually to England. That from the observations he made, while a prisoner, he is of the opinion that a small party of men (about 800) might, if properly conducted, easily destroy those Indian towns and perhaps some of the French Forts. That while he was in England he had the honor to be introduced to Mr. Secretary Pitt, to whom he communicated his observations, who highly approved his scheme and recommended his to Lord Loudon to encourage his and to promote such an enterprise, that he, Captain Smith, lost three sons and a great part of his fortune in the service of his country, and that he is still ready and zealous for his Majesty’s service, and well acquainted with the route necessary to be taken to distress the enemy in those parts. He humbly offers himself to undertake such an expedi­ tion if it should be approved of.” The Vause land on the South Fork must have been allowed to lie practically untended in the years between 1758 and 1760. Ephraim Vause s family, what was left of it, stayed on in Kentucky and later moved on into Ohio. In 1760 the Vause land was sold to John Madison who, during his contact with the Associators, had grown fond of the area on the South Fork of the Roanoke. John Madison’s son sold the land to Jacob Kent Jr. in 1790 and it was passed down from generation in the Kent family until 1897 when the heirs of Sarah Kent Anderson, great granddaughter of Jacob Kent, Jr., sold the property to J. H. and Ella Crockett. There have been two law suits over the ownership of the land, one following the death of John Madison and one later after the death of J. A. and Ella Crockett. The John Spotte heirs, apparently relatives by marriage of the Crockett family, sold the land to W. H. Basham, and in 1903 the fort site was sold by W. H. and Patsy Basham to G. W. M. Gardner. It is now owned by Mr. Gardner’s widow, Mrs. Lena McDonald Gardner. 32 X �NOTES AND SOURCES The only relics I know of the early descendants of the Ephraim Vause family are six silver tablespoons now owned by Mrs. David Wells of Atlanta, Georgia. They bear the initials of William Voss Sodowsky, great-great-grandson of Ephraim Vause. The genealogical research made by Colonel Ralph Wilson establishes the Vause family line as follows: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) Ephraim and Theodosia Vause William Vause Jemina Voss married Jacob Sodowsky Ephraim Sodowsky William Voss Sodowsky Syndor George Sandusky Julie Sandusky married Ralph W. Wilson Louise Anne Wilson married David F. Wells THE ATTACK ON FORT VAUSE June 25, 1756 Persons killed, w ounded, or taken as prisoner according to list sent to Gov. Dinwiddie by Captain William Preston 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7 -5 . 9. 10*11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. Captain John Smith; taken prisoner, returned Peter Looney; Sgt. of the Ranger Co. at the Fort, taken prisoner, escaped Joseph Smith; prisoner William Pepper; prisoner William Bratton Mrs. Vause Two Vause Daughters (One named Levice, later returned) A Negro Servant Two Indians A Man Servant James Bell; Prisoner Christopher Hicks; prisoner Benjamin Davis; prisoner Lt. John Smith; son of Capt. Smith, killed in a brutal w ay before his father's eyes. John Tracey; killed John English (Ingles); killed Mary English (Ingles); prisoner (Mrs. Ingles later returned to the vicinity and there is on record a letter requesting compensation for property lost at Fort Vause.) William Robinson; killed (He had built the causeway at Fort Vause; his w idow was later paid compensation.) Sir (?) Thomas Robinson; wounded John Robinson; killed John Walker; prisoner Cole; prisoner Graham; prisoner THESE SOURCES HAVE BEEN CONSULTED IN THE PREPARATION OF THIS PAPER: Kegley, F. B. Kegley's Virginia Frontier, Roanoke, Va., Southwest Virginia Historical Society, 1938. Journal of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, 1756*1758. Richmond, 1909. Koontz, L. K. The Virginia Frontier, 1754*1763. Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins press, 1925. Deed Books of Augusta Books 1 through 6. County. Vol. 2 through Vol. 10. Order Draper Papers, Mss 5 DD20. Draper Mss. Preston Papers 1QQ Books of Augusta 134*135 Preston Register, Chalkley 11, 511 Genealogical research on Vause family compiled by Col. Ralph W. Wilson County, �. horse — or more correctly mulecar was of a type familiar to Editor Board in 1888. Picture was taken at the railway depot in Bristol, Va. A Day In Richmond Leaving Richmond on Wednesday, February 23 at 6 P. M., the writer was joined at Clay’s by Superintendent N. D. Hawkins, both bound for Richmond. Spending a few hours in the Hill City, at 10 P. M. we boarded the sleeper on the Richmond & Alleghany Railroad, which brought us to the Capital city by 7 A. M. Thursday. The first notable thing we saw was a car on the electric street railway. A street car with­ out horses was a little out of the usual order. The car passed around the southwestern corner of the capitol square and then up a heavy grade for a block, then turned another corner on its way to the western part of the city. As it passed the electric flashes were continually pass­ ing between the wheels and the rails. The power is supplied by a cur­ rent of electricity conveyed by an overhead wire suspended on poles. From the top of the car a lever or arm is extended on which is a metallic pulley that runs on the wire. The arm is attached to the car by a hinge­ like joint, which permits the pulley end to rise and fall so as to adapt itself to the rise and fall of the wire. This system of overhead wires is said to be inferior to others with the conducting wire buried under­ ground, but it has the advantage of being less expensive. —C. A. B oard, editor and publisher, in the Bedford Democrat Liberty, Va., March 8, 1888 Thus a single paragraph points the rapidity of change, the kin­ ship of the words “ultramodern” and “outmoded,” and “current” and “histo rica lF o r today Editor Board could neither take a sleeping car from Lynchburg to Richmond nor see a street car in Virginia. 34 �Note from the President In the winter of 1965-66, our Society is turning its attention toward Botetourt, our mother county, and we have plans to start a museum in a part of the old Western Hotel building in Fincastle. Let me emphasize at once that this will be an expansion of our present activities and it will not be a diversion in any way from the present operation of our museum which is open Saturdays from 2 to 5 in the Roanoke College library. Aided by an anonymous donation of $1,000, matched by the Society for the beginning of a study of possible preservation work in Fincastle, J. R. Hildebrand, our executive secretary, has completed four months of research into the history of the oldest buildings of the town. Using his information, the Society found that a brick building dating from the mid-19th Century, located just a few feet north of the Courthouse, could be leased from its present owner, Botetourt County, for $1 a year for use as a local museum. After signing an agreement with the county supervisors, the Society board and executive committee plan to support a committee of interested Botetourt County citizens in setting up a museum to display This is the old Western Hotel building today. Man indicates with pointer the change in brick type when second story was added. 35 �artifacts and items of historical value from that community which soon will be 200 years old. Using funds derived from the Society’s hah interest in sale of “A Seed-Bed of the Republic,” repairs and a minimum amount of ex­ terior work on the building are planned. Part of the anonymous gift remains for this work. This plan was approved by the membership at the November meeting and the board of directors gave it further con­ sideration in December. Officers and directors of the Society are convinced that establish­ ment of a museum and the beginning of preservation work in Fincastle will be an invaluable step toward safeguarding the rich history of our neighboring county. We trust that the people of Botetourt will respond to our support of an historical project in their midst. Meanwhile, valuable articles have been added to our Salem mu­ seum and its educational merits have been recognized by fourth grade history classes and Scout troops who have made recent visits. A copy of McCauley’s Roanoke County history, an interesting col­ lection of booklets assembled by the late Joseph A. Turner of Hollins College and a Hepplewhite chest, snuffbox, whale oil lamp and other items from the estate of Mrs. Kirk V. Conrad of Salem have been placed on the museum log. Another phase of historical activity was well received when a full house of 75 saw the first in a series of winter films at the Public Library Dec. 5. Movies on Roanoke’s 75th anniversary and the Wilder­ ness Trail were shown by the Society. Others will be presented on the second Sunday afternoons of the winter months—January 9, February 13 and March 13—at 3 p. m. at the city library. In appreciating Botetourt history, we must call attention to a new book “The Town of Fincastle, Virginia,” is a most attractive archi­ tectural history by Miss Frances Niederer, Hollins College art pro­ fessor and a Society member. Published by the University of Virginia Press, it’s on sale at Roanoke book stores for $3.50. George K egley , President MOUNTAIN CLIMBER IDENTIFIED Mrs. Manly B. Luck of Bedford tells us that the unidentified “very dignified personage” riding the Hudson to the Peaks of Otter in 1907 (Journal, Summer, 1965, p. 24) was her father, John P. Scott, and adds “I am confident this was his first ride in an automobile.” 36 ��� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society Winter 1965-1966 Volume 2, Number 2 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include:<br />John Nolen's Roanoke City Plan of 1907<br />Southwest Virginia Turnpikes<br />1753-Saga of Pioneer Pilgrimage Through the Roanoke Region You Could Take a Legal Gamble in 1796<br />Butler in Richmond<br />Machine Age 1832<br />Fort Vause-The Site and the Story<br />A Day in Richmond Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Winter 1965-1966 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_02_02_Winter_1965 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6336/JHSWV_03_01_Summer_1966.pdf eb9502babf1cade7f21831dc54c51e90 PDF Text Text JOURNAL ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Sum m er V o lu m e T lir e e 1966 N u m b er O n e �ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Amor montium nos movet Officers Mrs. English Showalter . Arthur T. El l e t t ............. ............ President ___Vice President ............. Treasurer .............. Secretary Assistant Secretary Executive Director J ames D. Richardson . . . J. R. Hild eb r a n d ............... Paul S. St o n e s if e r ........ Mrs. Anna Logan Lawson Directors Raymond P. Barnes Mrs. L. D. Booth John D. Carr Mrs. H. Powell Chapman C. Francis Cocke Ben Bane Dulaney S. S. Edmunds Arthur Ellett Mrs. Davis Elliot J. T. Engleby, III B. N. Eubank Edmund P. Goodwin Robert Goodykoontz J. R. Hildebrand Miss Nancy E. Himes Shields Johnson George Kegley Mrs. George Kegley Mrs. J. M. B. Lewis, Jr. Mrs. J. G. McConkey L. G. Muse E. H. Ould James D. Richardson Tayloe Rogers Mrs. English Showalter Mrs. Frank E. Snow R. D. Stoner Paul S. Stonesifer Robert W. Woody James P. Woods Dr. J. C. Zillhardt Ben Bane Dulaney Geokge K ecley Editor of the JOURNAL Associate Editor CONTENTS Shot Tower at Jackson’s Ferry, by F. B. K eg ley ............................. New Executive Director Named ....................................... £........... Homelife in Virginia: 1776-1835 ................................................... Big Lick Home Front: 1816-65, by Mary S. T e r r y .......................... The Society Circles Franklin County ............................................. Mountain Lake, by Lula P. G iven s................................................... Historic Preservation: A Challenge to Virginians by Tony Wrenn ......................................................................... Note From the Past President ....................................................... 1 7 8 11 22 24 35 40 The Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Volume III, Number 1. Published twice yearly by the Society at Box 1904, Roanoke, Virginia, to chronicle the past and present of that part of the state west of the Blue Ridge. Single copy price: 50 cents. The Society will be careful in handling unsolicited material but cannot be responsible for its loss. �Shot Tower At Jackson's Ferry By F. B. Kegley High above a scenic stretch of New River at the community of Jackson’s Ferry in eastern Wythe County stands an old shot tower, a limestone memorial to the business enterprise of an Englishman who came into Virginia’s mountains soon after 1800. Rising above the Galax line of the Norfolk and Western Railway and the nearby New River bridge of U. S. 52, eight miles south of Fort Chiswell, the old tower has taken on new life in the 1960’s. After years of promotion and planning in Wythe County, it has become a state park. Tales are told of the manufacture of bullets here for many wars— the French and Indian, Revolution, War of 1812, the Indian umrs and the Civil War. But they aren’t supported by the records which indicate that Thomas Jackson built the tower about 1815-1820 and manufac­ tured commercial shot there until around 1830. The stories probably are inspired by the proximity of the mines nearby on the river where lead, discovered in 1756, was later used for ammunition in the Revolution. The tower is said to be one of only two or three of its kind remaining in the nation today. Through the century and a half, the shot tower remained in the Jackson family until the late M. H. Jackson, a great-nephew of the builder and a member of the General Assembly, donated the land to the Stuart Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, in Wytheville. It later was held by the Lead Mines Ruritan Club when Wythe Countians began talking about preserving the tower in a state park. The campaign gathered steam in 1964 when the local people raised $5,000 to buy the land and legislation in the Virginia As­ sembly provided an appropriation of $15,000 to establish a park. Its masonry needed little attention but new stairs and a new roof have been built. An attractive entrance and other improvements soon will draw travelers to the tower on the river bluff. Interstate 77, the northsouth highway through the mountains, is designed to pass just west of the park. The story of the tower and the community is told by F. B. Keg­ ley, authoritative Southwest Virginia historian. His manuscript was written in 1926-27 when the nearby Jackson’s Ferry was still in op­ eration. * * * Whoever crosses the New River at Jackson’s Ferry in Wythe County, Virginia, is traveling on historic ground, and there are land­ marks which serve as reminders of this fact. As you approach the river from the north, you turn front face toward a picturesque tower standing on a bluff above the opposite shore, looking down on the crowded ferry boat as if wondering what �changes may yet come in its long life history. The ferryman will tell you that this ferry was established before the Revolutionary War and that, even before lead was discovered on this river a few miles above, men crossed at this place and made their homes in the beautiful little valley that leads to Carolina. This place is known as Poplar Camp, and the creek as Poplar Camp Creek. That structure up there is the Old Shot Tower. It is a hundred and eighty-five feet from the top to the water level below. They melted lead up there and dropped it into the water at the bottom, taking it out ready to haul away. The man who built it used to own the Lead Mines and also the farm you will pass through. He hit on this way to get more money for his lead. They quit using it a long time ago, but it’s there yet and will stay until it is torn down. The first man to make an improvement in this immediate territory was John Bingeman, who secured patents for a number of tracts at dif­ ferent places on the river and entered other tracts even as far west as the forks of Cripple Creek. This main tract of 460 acres and the place where he probably lived was “on a branch of Wood’s River at a place called Poplar Camp.” Another tract taken was 100 acres on both sides of the mouth of Poplar Camp Creek; another was a tract of 150 acres on both sides of “ye Great Falls”; and still another 184 acres called Bingeman’s Bottom. The date of this first grant is 1753. This means that the land was selected and staked off not later than 1751, and it is in this year that the name Poplar Camp is first mentioned in two sur­ veys for Colonel Patton containing 86 acres below Poplar Camp and 63 acres above. So even at this early date the name was fixed. In July, 1775, a week or two before the massacre at Draper’s Mea­ dows, a number of people along New River were killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. Among them were John Bingeman, killed; Mrs. Bingeman, killed; Adam Bingeman, killed; Mrs. Bingeman, Jr., wounded; Bingeman’s son and daughter and a stranger, wounded. Just where this happened we do not know. John Bingeman owned at the same time 100 acres at the crossing of New River, later known as Pepper’s Ferry. The fact that to this day a neighboring tract of land is called Binge­ man’s Bottom gives credence to the tradition that the massacre oc­ curred in the Poplar Camp section near by the Old Shot Tower. In the spring of 1756 John Bingeman, Jr., of Augusta County, qualified as administrator of his father’s estate, and in 1762 he sold their holdings on New River to Thomas Stanton, Jr., of Culpeper. The Stantons in turn sold their lands to William Herbert, an Englishman, who appears first in this country in the year 1766. The deed to Her­ bert for the Poplar Camp land was made March 28, 1767. There was little going on in this region at that time. Colonel Chiswell, of Han­ over County, had discovered lead in the hills on the south side of the 2 �THE OLD SHOT TOWER AS IT STANDS TODAY �river a few miles above the camp about the year 1756. He entered 2000 acres and had 1000 acres surveyed in 1760 and had operated mines there in a small way until his death in 1766. So undeveloped was the community in this period that provisions for the men at the mines were procured from the Moravian settlement in North Carolina, Colonel Chiswell himself making the trips when necessary. William Herbert appears to have been more interested in farming lands than in mineral rights. To his Poplar Camp homestead he added land on both sides of the river for several miles up. He established a ferry over the river, and by his will in 1776 provided a home on the north side for his father and mother, who were still living. His lands at Poplar Camp about the ferry and up the river he left to his son William Herbert, Jr., who sold the tract, 387 acres on the north side adjacent to the ferry, to William Carter, and his home place at Poplar Camp to his brother, Thomas Herbert. William Herbert, Sr., was a prominent man in those days. As captain of the militia for his division of Fincastle County, he went with his company to Point Pleasant in the expedition of 1774. He also had the unusual distinction of being the only man to serve as justice in the three counties of Augusta, Botetourt, and Fincastle while living at one and the same place. Herbert kept this land in possession for more than forty years, and then Thomas Herbert sold out to Jesse Evans, another hero of the frontier. When George Rogers Clarke was planning his expedition against the British forces in the Northwest, Jesse Evans was one of a group of men of Montgomery County (at or about Fort Chiswell) who volun­ teered for the service. He went with Colonel John Montgomery down the Tennessee and was with Clarke at Kaskaskia and Vincennes. After the Revolution he lived at Bowling Green on Cove Creek until he came to Poplar Camp. In 1815 he sold his property to Thomas Jackson and went to Missouri, where he died in 1843. When William Herbert, Jr., sold the land on the north side of the river to William Carter, he reserved for a landing at the ferry a strip of land one rod wide and forty rods long centering at the public road. Thus the ferry right went to Thomas Herbert with the land on the south side. The ferry was recognized as legally established by the Vir­ ginia Code of 1792. When Evans purchased the land with the ferry from Thomas Herbert, he took deeds from both Herbert and Carter and so felt secure in his possession of the ferry privileges. But Carter sold his land to Stephen Sanders, Jr., who obtained from the County Court a ferry right from his land on the north side to Evans’ land on the opposite shore. This led to litigation and an injunction proceeding, the outcome of which resulted in Sanders’ favor. Whereupon, the two parties entered into an agreement by which each withdrew the tres­ pass suit he had instituted, and Evans agreed to pay Sanders three hun4 �dred dollars for his ferry, with the provision that Sanders claim no other ferry right and that Evans furnish free transportation over the ferry to Sanders’ family. The sum of three hundred dollars was to be paid: “in horses not old or broken down, one to be paid immediately of the price of between sixty and one hundred dollars, the balance to be paid in one year from this date, the valuation to be made by two disinterested men, mutually chosen, who on disagreement are to choose an umpire, the price to be paid in proportion to him at six dollars for one hundred pounds weight.” Signed and witnessed October 15, 1813. Two years later, in the spring of 1815, Evans sold his plantation and the ferry to Thomas Jackson, the price being 11,000 silver dollars. The Sanders and Jacksons are still owners of the respective plantations on the north and south sides of the river, and the ferry is still being operated from the south side according to agreement. After Colonel Chiswell’s death in 1766, the lead mines were oper­ ated until the opening of the Revolution for the benefit of his own es­ tate, the estate of his son-in-law, John Robinson, the defaulted treasurer of the colony, and Colonel William Byrd, all of whom claimed interests in the property, although the land had never been granted to any one. Through the Revolution they were operated for the benefit of the state, which had taken over Robinson’s interests. Bar lead, not bullets, was manufactured and distributed to the troops in all parts of the state, to other states, and to the Continental Army. From 1783 to 1792 they were in charge of the Lead Mine Com­ pany under the management of Colonel Charles Lynch of Lynch Law fame, who secured for the company in 1791 a patent for 1400 acres of land on the south or east side of New River, including the lead mines. Moses Austin of Connecticut and Richmond came to the mines in 1790, entered into an arrangement with the state to work its share, and bought out the interests of the Lead Mine Company. He and his brother, Stephen, were in charge until 1800, when they dissolved part­ nership. Stephen’s son, Charles, then took charge and leased the pro­ perty to James Howell who kept the industry going for about four years when the state’s interest was purchased by Thomas Jackson who had come to the mines from Westmoreland County, England, at the suggestion of the Austins, and served as an expert mining smith. To secure the purchase money for the mines, Jackson entered into an arrangement with Daniel Sheffey and David Pierce to go on his bond. As an outcome of this arrangement and lawsuits following, all three had a hand in the ownership and operation of the mines. Jackson and Pierce became the final tenants, Jackson holding eleven twen­ ty-fourths of the property and Pierce thirteen twenty-fourths. Each mined, washed, and smelted ore to suit himself, irrespective of the 5 �other’s wishes, and both prospered at the game. Even before this, Jackson had purchased the Sayers farm of 660 acres, situated up the river from the mines, where he lived, and added a number of the best farms in the neighborhood to his possessions. Among these was the Poplar Camp-Ferry Tract on the Carolina Road below. As we have stated, this was in 1815. Thomas Jackson was then a skilled mechanic, an experienced min­ er and mine operator, a well-to-do-farmer, and owner of the main pub­ lic ferry over New River. There were then no wars to claim a part of the products of his mine, and since the expense of marketing bar lead was great, taking as much as one hundred dollars to transport a load to Baltimore, he turned his attention to the erection of a tower for the manufacture of shot. This process demanded a certain eleva­ tion, by convenient water, close to the road. The ideal location was found on his lower place on the bluff over the river close by the ferry, near the mouth of Poplar Camp Creek. Here the tower was built from 1815 to 1820, and commercial shot was manufactured there until about 1830, when the Jacksons sold their interest in the mines and had no further use for the tower. No one of the present generation has talked with anyone who had seen or known anything about the tower in actual use. It has had nothing to do with the ammunition used in any of our wars and represents nothing but the vision and enterprise of an alert business man. It stands, however, as a monument to the industry of a bygone day, and a relic that should be preserved to embellish the history of the country. Thomas Jackson himself was a bachelor and lived and died at the Sayers place, many miles away, and was buried at the Mines grave­ yard on New River. I looked for his grave in the shadow of the tower and was disappointed not to find it there. The tower was built of gray limestone, and the work was done by a good mason. It has stood for more than a hundred years, and only the mortar in the crevices on the outside walls had worn away. The joists for the floor of the furnace room at the top are still sound and strong enough to hold a weight of lead. In the construction a per­ pendicular shaft about six feet in diameter was cut from the surface of the rock cliff to a depth of about fifty feet, and another shaft or tunnel, high enough for a man to walk through, was cut from the bank of the river at an average high water mark straight into the bot­ tom of the perpendicular shaft, where a large kettle was placed to hold water carried in from the river, into which the lead was to be dropped. From the surface of the cliff, the walls of the tower were erected, slightly leaning, to the height of seventy-five feet. At the base the tow­ er is twenty feet square; at the top it is fifteen. The walls are two feet thick. There are no windows or openings in the walls, except an en6 �trance at the bottom, through which one entered to carry the lead to the top. The ascent is made by a stairway winding around the sides of the walls. At the top there is a room thirteen feet square, in the center of which there is a circular colander about three feet in diameter, standing waist high, through which the molten lead was poured for its one hundred and twenty-five foot drop. The furnace was close by on the east side of the room, and an opening leading to a balcony is found on the south side. The whole was covered with shingles. The irregular particles of lead were taken from the kettle through the entrance from the river, graded, rolled, and polished in a shot house near by. The finished product was thus close by the road at the ferry, convenient for loading or for delivery to passing purchasers. The furnace has been dismantled, and the entrance from the river bank has been closed by the railroad. The kettle was left inside, and for many years the shaft was used as a dump for farm garbage. In sight of the tower on the south side in a bend of the road stands the old Poplar Camp mansion house, well preserved and still in use. It has served many families for many generations and housed many heroic individuals. Farther on at the edge of the mountain is the site of the old Poplar Camp furnace and mill, where lived and toiled David Pierce, an unrivaled captain of pioneer industry. A little west of the road and the Jackson farm is the last home and the final resting place of Colonel Walter Crockett, whose career as soldier and statesman in the Southwest is matched only by General William Campbell, himself. New Executive Director Named Anna Logan Lawson has been named executive director of the Roanoke Historical Society to suc­ ceed J. R. Hildebrand, according to an announcement by Mrs. English Showalter, new president. A native of Salem, she is a 1965 graduate of Hollins College where she was associate editor of the newspaper and a columnist for Hollins Alumnae Magazine. She and her husband, Thomas T. Lawson, live near Daleville in Botetourt County. Her mother, Mrs. J. M. B. Lewis, Jr., is an active member of the society. 7 �Here is part of the bedroom exhibit showing maple button bed with appliqued quilt in red, green and white tulip pattern. Chest, hatbox, cradle, washstand with pitcher and bowl and chair also are in view. The kitchen is dominated by large hearth and heavy old chest. Some of the large number of cooking and serving implements collected can be seen. 8 �Homelife In Virginia: 1776-1835 “Homelife in Virginia Between the Wars: 1776-1835”—an am­ bitious exhibition sponsored by the Roanoke Fine Arts Center, drew throngs to the Roanoke Public Library during a month-long spring showing. And those who came—school groups, serious students of the past, or casual passersby—viewed a soundly-conceived presentation of west­ ern Virginia antifacts of a century and a half ago. It was the Center’s most successful exhibit. Articles ranging from beds to betty lamps were traced down and borrowed from scores of owners. This Society’s museum was well represented. A complete drawing room, bedroom and kitchen were created. Additional exhibits depicted hand tools of the era, weapons and the evo­ lution of lighting devices. The last, mostly owned by Mrs. Roger Winborne, Jr., was perhaps the most popular portion of the display, par­ ticularly among youngsters who previously hadn’t considered that the electric light bulb—or even the kerosene lantern were not fixtures in great-greatgranddaddy’s house. Some of the simple and not-so-simple household lighting devices of the period from the wall display which attracted much interest. Their construction and operation were described to visitors by Fine Arts members in attendance. 9 �The children learned that their ancestors used scant artificial light in summer—for living was literally by daylight—but that they employed great ingenuity in creating illumination when the sun set early. Tallow was usually available only once a year and there was never enough; whale oil was scarce and expensive, so light of a sort was created from burning cattails soaked in tallow, from simple wicks floating in hog fat, from beeswax and from a variety of other devices. The collection included crude lamps enclosed in isinglass, and brackets and other devices for holding the fixtures. They were made of tin, iron, pewter, brass or silver. And its viewing brought to most onlook­ ers a certain happiness that they lived in the Twentieth Century. The parlor, complete with pictures, books, a tea service, a sampler and a hooked rug, included a fine cherry lowboy, a slant-top desk with writing materials of the time and mahogany hepplewhite chairs. The bedroom featured a maple button bed and several articles of children’s furniture—a tiny dropleaf table, miniature bureau, two cradles and small fry clothing of the early 1800s. There was a pair of 200-year-old ice skates. Biggest item in the kitchen was a huge hutch cupboard loaded with pewter cups, plates, pitchers, pots and pans. A hunting rifle hung along the wooden mantel and utensils included a hearth crane, kettles, gourds and stirring spoons. A committee headed by Mrs. John D. Carr turned up all sorts of unusual household items of the period owned by residents of the Roa­ noke area. The exhibit was insured and everything on loan was care­ fully described and evaluated by owners. Of particular interest were a captain’s chair once used by John Marshall in his Fauouier County plantation office, owned by Mrs. W. W. S. Butler; a sword worn by Col. William Fleming, now the property of the D.A.R., and a full dress sword, once possessed by Col. George Hancock, loaned by Mrs. George Ellis. On the bed was a coverlet woven of Botetourt county flax in 1815 for the great-grandmother of Mrs. Hobart L. Scott. Some of the artisans’ implements were ingenuous. They included a header tool for forging nail heads, draw knives, a holding dog and rabbit gauge, tongs, auger and evil-looking broad axes. Interest in the exhibit was enhanced by the general knowledge of Mrs. B. B. Bivens, Fine Arts hostess, who was able to parry such ques­ tions as “How did they wash the dishes?” and “Where is the television set?” —B.B.D. 10 �Big Lick Home Front: 1861-65 By Mary S. Terry Born Mary Susan Trout in December, 1839, the author had been married for less than four years to Peyton Leftwich Terry when war broke out in 1861. They lived at “Elmwood,” then a country estate a mile from the village of Big Lick, now Elmwood Park in downtown Roa­ noke. She wrote this narrative in 1894 and lived through many more “wonderful changes” until her death in May 1910. It has never been printed before in its entirety. Two of Mrs. Terry’s grandchildren are members of this Society: Mrs. Dirk A. Kuyk and Edmund P. Goodwin. My father and husband were Union men until after Lincoln’s call for troops, then there was only one thing to do, and that was to go with the State. We were raised with slavery, and thought it right, but we were not fighting for our slaves, but for our rights as we thought, and every true hearted woman wanted her husband, her brothers, her lover, her friends to do their duty bravely. Filled with hope and cour­ age, feeling our cause to be just and right, we never thought defeat possible, that a few months would decide the trouble in our favor. And after the great victory gained by the Confederates at the Battle of Manassas, we thought there was little more to do—but experience soon proved the reverse. Our men were brave, there were none braver, but as time passed, the ranks of the volunteers were thinned by battle, sickness, and death. Their places must be filled by conscripts, the first call was from twen­ ty to thirty years old, then to thirty-five, to forty, to forty-five and then to fifty. The older men were organized into Home Guards. I remem­ ber well when my father, Mr. Word, Mr. Ben Tinsly, Mr. Ferguson, Col. Tayloe and others from fifty upwards were hurried to Saltville to defend the Saltworks. We were dependent upon our home productions for the neces­ sities as well as the luxuries of life—I ought not to say luxuries, for those who did not pass through the war can have no idea how plainly we lived. Each person in a family was allowed IV2 lbs. of salt a month, it required careful management to make it last at that rate the year round. If we carelessly or extravagantly used it, we had to do with­ out, for our neighbors were as badly off as ourselves. The difficulty was, that salt had been so plentiful and cheap before the war that we could not make the servants realize the strict economy that was required. Our coffee soon gave out, or was hoarded for the very old, and the sick, and for special occasions. It seems almost impossible to realize now the different drinks we used; rye, wheat, chestnuts, sweet potatoes were all used in making coffee. Chestnuts and sweet potatoes, 11 �parboiled and baked, made a preparation somewhat like chocolate, but as these were obtainable only a certain portion of the year, we were compelled to use rye and wheat chiefly. The wheat and rye were pre­ pared by first washing carefully, then scalding in boiling water, after which it was thoroughly dried and then parched like coffee. It was a healthful drink, very much like the Postum Cereal of later years. We used herb and root teas, camomile, boneset, balm, sage, raspberry leaf, sassafras, etc., but all these being known for their medicinal qualities savored too much of medicine to be popular as a drink for the table; they were invaluable in their proper place. We had difficulty in obtaining wheat and rye at all times, so we cultivated temperance principles, and appreciated pure, fresh water as a healthful and convenient table beverage. As time passed we could get only heavy, brown sugar used before the war for plantation and factory hands, and in curing hams and corning beef. At one time I was entirely without sugar, and company in the house, I couldn’t buy any, I was afraid to borrow, and consequently was doing without. One of my neighbors learning of my destitution said she would ask her hus­ band to let me have fifty pounds if I would not tell. Her husband was a tobacco manufacturer and had some barrels of sugar stored for that purpose, and she knew of it; were it known that I had bought sugar from him it would be almost impossible to keep any on hand for manu­ facturing purposes. I paid fifty cents a pound and was so thankful to get it. We used it only for tea and coffee, but while we could not af­ ford sugar for cooking purposes, we were not without sweet desserts. Sorghum was raised in great quantities and used in a variety of ways, in cakes, custards, pies, puddings, sauces, sweet pickles, and as a syrup for the table. In fact there was a kind of rivalry among house­ keepers as to who could make the best and greatest variety of good things from sorghum. What we had, we had to do with, for while the supplies were limited, the money with soldiers’ families was still more limited. My oldest daughter says she remembers Mama always had a nice print of butter on the table, but the rule was “you must not eat butter” unless we had an extra print. We had to keep prepared for company, and anyone dropping in unexpectedly at lunch time would not have known the circumstances, besides we had a greater feeling of comfort and respectability when we could see a sufficiency. The most discouraging time I experienced was the Christmas be­ fore the surrender, we felt our cause was well nigh hopeless, we were discouraged, despondent, heartsick, almost destitute of clothing and provisions. For our Christmas dinner we had sorghum cakes, pumpkin custards made with sorghum, without eggs and a small piece of spare rib. I had filled my two little children’s stockings and small chairs 12 �with apples, walnuts, hickory nuts, sweet potatoes and sorghum candy. I did what I could to make them happy, for I dreaded what another Christmas might bring forth. Let no one think we complained of our deprivations, it was the growing conviction of the helplessness of our cause that was destroying our courage. Until the last months we glad­ ly and hopefully endured hardships, we were cheerful and hospitable, always welcoming our guests to our table with its scanty fare, feeling that they knew we were giving our best. The social gatherings were called “starvation parties” and were apparently much enjoyed, taffy pullings were quite common. The refreshments would be walnuts, hickory nuts, apples, cider, sorghum cakes, taffy and often sweet po­ tatoes and Irish potatoes roasted. To have had all these at one time would have been inexcusable extravagance, what I have named would have been sufficient variety for at least three times. At one of the largest parties around here the refreshments were sweet and Irish po­ tatoes roasted, served with butter and with cider and milk for a bev­ erage. When my brother was home on furlough, I had some friends in one evening to be with him, and for refreshments we had brown sugar and sorghum cakes, blackberry wine and apples, another evening he and a cousin made cream out of snow, sorghum, and rich cream and all thought it delicious. The women of the South were heroic, self-denying, never a mur­ mur from those whose hearts were in the cause. We had only the usual amount of clothing at the beginning of the war, we never thought of purchasing for the future, for we expected the war to last only a short while. Our bedding we divided with the hospitals in the beginning of the war, sheets were needed, not only for the beds of the sick and wounded, but for bandages for the wounded; so not only our clothes, but our bedding, our table linen, our china and kitchen utensils all became very scarce. For table linen we sewed two widths of Osnaburg cotton together, fringed the ends (to take away the sheet-like look). But for ourselves and families the question was no longer what to wear and how to make it,” but “what can we get and how shall we pay for it.” But necessity has always been the mother of invention, and in this case the results were wonderful. The sheep were sheared, the wool washed, carded, spun, and dyed, and raw cotton bought by the bale, carded, spun and woven into beautiful cotton and linsy. This was all done in the homes—the factories were engaged in making clothes and blankets for the soldiers. They could not furnish a sufficient quantity, for we had few factories in the South, and as the machinery wore out we could not replace it. My stepmother excelled in making cloth, and kindly supplied my small family. We used red oak bark, cedar tops, sumac, walnut hulls and everything we could gather for coloring mat13 �ter. I regret so much I did not save samples of our home productions to show my children and grandchildren. We had to exercise a good deal of ingenuity to keep supplied with buttons, it was impossible to buy them, so we used hard scraps of leather, pasteboard, and gourds cut into the right sizes and covered with the material of the dresses. Needles and pins were very precious and we could not get hooks and eyes. We knit woolen stockings in solid colors, stripes and checks, and stockings of fine spun cotton in railroad, shell and fence rail patterns. The railroad stockings were knit with a long, narrow leg, and when sufficiently long, every other stitch was dropped and raveled out. The stocking was perfectly straight and easily adjusted to the foot. I sup­ pose they were named because of the speed with which they were made. We had great difficulty in keeping supplied with shoes. My children and all of my friends’ children went barefooted in the summer, their win­ ter shoes were made of natural colored leather by the colored shoe­ makers on the farms, we used leather strings and were very thankful to be able to protect the feet. We had so few tanneries south, and the government took charge of what we had; the soldiers must have shoes if possible to obtain them. I was almost barefooted one summer, Mr. Dillon (a white shoe­ maker) had made me promise after promise to make my shoes “next week,” and after patiently and persistently going each week, would be told that he had no leather, but would be sure to get some the “next week.” I had to walk a mile each time I went, and went each time with a hopeless feeling, but I could not afford to let him alone. I was in despair, for winter was coming on and I must have shoes. At last he made a pair for a lady who wore number sixes, and made them too small. He told me if I could wear them to take them, at that time I wore fours, but I took them thankfully and used them until they wore out. They were a comfort in one sense, and a terrible mortification in another, for our homewoven dresses would shrink when laundered and the shoes could not be concealed. I have told you about the difficulty of covering our feet, now I will tell you how we managed to cover our heads. We plaited wheat and rye straw, and sewed the braids into hats of different styles and shapes according to the taste and skill of the maker. They were dyed brown, drab or black, pressed into shape and varnished. We always managed to get some kind of material for trimming, when ribbons failed we used old silk skirts for bands, bindings and rosettes, and friends would always divide their little store with each other. The prettiest hats were made of white shucks, cut into narrow strips and braided, then sewed into shape. My little girls had beautiful hats made by Miss Sowers. A cousin of mine married during the war had her bridal hat made of white shucks and trimmed with horsehair flowers. Mrs. London made 14 �the hat and trimmed it. For the wreath of flowers she obtained long hairs from the tails of different colored horses, and for white used the long fluffy hair of her little dog’s tail. Oh! how glad we were to get “store clothes” once more, and es­ pecially “store shoes.” They were so comfortable, and looked so pret­ ty and neat that I no longer had a desire to hide my feet. With our rough shoes we did not even have blacking, except a poor substitute made of elderberries, lampblack and brown sugar which we used spar­ ingly for fear of injuring the leather. We had to use tallow with lard to soften the leather as well as to keep down the rusty look. Long cloaks called Beauregardes were another fashion improvised by neces­ sity. We wore them in summer made of light material, I had one made of black silk from one of my wedding silks for summer wear. I remember well a bride who wanted to make a Beauregarde of black silk, she asked the dressmaker to lend her pattern, which she very kindly did, but newspapers being scarce, the pattern was fully three feet shorter than it should have been. She neglected to tell her to lengthen it, thinking as a matter of course she would do so. She said to me, “Just imagine my surprise and dismay when I saw the bride at church with a short black silk sack instead of a long Beauregarde.” The Yankees made a raid through here about the middle of the war, burned the depot and carried off all the silver, firearms, horses and’cattle they could find, killing some of the hogs that were too fat to drive. I remained at home that night with only my two small chil­ dren and two young servants, I was afraid to undress, but we passed safely through the night, no one came to the house. The next morning my little daughter saw them at a neighbor’s on the opposite hill. I told her to look at the Yankees, she said “Are they Yankees, why they look like men.” This reminds me of a colored boy of my father s, the ser­ vants found four Yankees hiding in an outhouse in extremely cold weather My father made them come in the house and sit by the fire until they were comfortable, then gave them a good meal. While they were in the room the boy came in to bring wood, my father told the boy “These are Yankees” ; he stared at them in open-mouthed astonish­ ment then said “I didn’t know Yankees looked like folks, I alius thought they looked more like cows.” Another time a detachment of Yankees came galloping by my house to stop a train of provisions, with­ out halting they broke down two plank fences with their guns, and reached the depot just as the train was passing from sight. We felt so thankful they failed to reach the train, for our soldiers were fed with great difficulty, and those full cars would have furnished many nations, we knew too that the flour and meat had been taken from homes that could ill spare them. Mr. Ferguson, who owned a large tobacco factory on the way, made 15 �the servants roll out two barrels of brandy, knock the heads out and let the brandy waste. He was afraid that after their failure at the de­ pot, on their return they might search the factory, find the brandy and get drunk and do a great deal of damage. It hurt the factory hands so much to see the good brandy wasting on the ground. I remember seeing old Uncle Jordon (one of Mr. Ferguson’s slaves) trying to get some, but it poured too fast. They went to Mr. Ferguson’s smoke-house and carried off nearly all of his meat. His wife sent the old colored woman to beg for some, she said to them “What you reckon me and my chilluns going to eat if you take all dat meat, whar we going to git more from, no more meat around.” They laughed at her, but left part of it. Another neighbor packed hers in ash barrels leaving one piece in the house. When they searched her house they asked if that piece was all she had, she said “Yes, except what is packed in ashes.” Her hus­ band used to laugh at her about losing it “because she could not tell a lie.” We laughed so much at Mrs. Mitchell, who was very brave until the trial came. She boasted that she was not afraid of the Yankees, that she would tell them plainly what she thought of them, but when they came and one of the officers galloped up to the house where she was boarding, she went out to meet him, answered his questions very politely, ending by asking him, “Won’t you have something more, Won’t you have some water?” He replied “No, I thank you, the branch is out hetfe.” My stepmother said she would not be afraid of them (we had heard such dreadful reports of the way the soldiers treated the women), but when they galloped into the barn lot and with their guns broke the slats of the corn crib to let the corn run out on the ground for their horses, she went to bed sick with the silver concealed in the bed under her. There was no pretense about her sickness, excitement and anxiety had really made her sick. I had some pieces of old silver from my husband’s grandfather, and a dozen table spoons that had been made out of a silver sword pre­ sented to Capt. Granville Leftwich, U. S. A. (my husband’s uncle) for an act of special bravery in the Seminole War, I was very anxious to save them and put them and a revolver up the chimney. My little daughter saw me, and kept me very anxious by continually asserting “I won’t tell the Yankees where Mama hid her silver spoons.” I put what little bacon I had under the mattress of my bed and slept on it several nights. But all our hardships were as nothing compared to the terrible suspense and anxiety we endured when we know that battles were raging, the feeling that our dear ones might then be lying dead or seriously wounded on the battlefield; the two most trying times of suspense were the battle of Gettysburg and the seven days fighting 16 �around Richmond. I hope the severe experience of our late war will protect us from another Civil War. I am thankful that we are an al­ most isolated people, we have but two close neighbors, Canada and Mexico, and I feel sure that Great Britain after her experience of 1776 and 1812 will be content with our present friendly relations. Another trial that I omitted mentioning was the difficulty of get­ ting medical attention, our physicians were needed in the army, and in the hospitals, so that the number at home was very limited and they had great difficulty in obtaining medicine. There was a good deal of fever one summer, I was aching terribly and felt very much depressed. I was young and inexperienced, with two small children and two young servants, I know I could not get the proper attention necessary for recovering from fever. A kind neighbor with a good deal of experi­ ence in sickness came to see me, she inquired into the matter. I told her I felt sure I was taking typhoid fever, she said she thought I was very bilious and needed blue-mass, that she would send me some and if I would take two pills I would be relieved. She sent me a piece about the size of a partridge egg, I made it into two pills and took them. I was so sick I thought the fever was developing rapidly and sent for Mrs. Ferguson (who had given me the blue-mass); she asked me how much I had taken, I told her all of it, she said “No wonder you are sick, but I think you will be better soon.” She was right and I have had a great respect for heroic treatment ever since, as well as a great respect for blue-mass. We used boneset, sage camomile, saffron, and sassafras as medical teas, and tansy, sassaparilla and May apple roots, wild cucumber and wild cherry bark were made into bitters, elecampane and mullein were made into syrups for coughs, also rich pine knots soaked in whiskey for the same. Bruised comfrey was used to dress wounds, sprains, dog bites, etc. Teas made from watermelon and pumpkin seed, from pars­ ley roots had their special values. We could always get turpentine for plasters, and spirits of turpentine were used for different purposes. We raised our own mustard seed for plasters, and hops for poultices. Another trouble we had was the want of light to work by at night, for we southern women were certainly not idlers during the war. We could get no sperm or wax candles, electric lights were unheard of, our village was too small for gas works. Tallow was difficult to get for mak­ ing candles, so we had to depend chiefly upon pine knots and wax tapers. We would economize time and light by knitting by firelight in the winter evenings, often several friends would meet together and pass the evening together knitting as rapidly as possible. We not only had our own families and servants to knit for, but our soldiers had to be provided also. We knit not only socks, but gloves and wristlets in numbers. We made a wax taper that was really a work 17 �of ingenuity, we first melted equal quantities of rosin and beeswax in a skillet, then taking a piece of candlewick several yards long would pass it slowly through the melted wax, one person with a short forked stick would hold it down in the melted wax, while two others would slowly draw it back and forth until it was the right thickness. It was pliable enough to wrap around a high candlestick, yet stiff enough to stand upright as it was burned. My husband and only brother went as volunteers in the first com­ pany that left our county. My father was a man of means, had only two children, and he not only willingly consented but wanted both son and son-in-law to do their duty (as he expressed it). It was Henry’s second session at Roanoke College, he left college in April and the first of May left home as a soldier, he was only nineteen. They belonged to Co. 1, 28th Virginia Regiment, Philip St. George Cocke’s Brigade, Pickett’s Division. Their first officers were Capt. Mat. Deyerle, Maj. William Watts, Lieut. Col. Robert Allen, Col. Robert Preston, Brig. Gen. Philip St. George Cocke, Maj. Gen. Pickett. Dr. Edward Rives was surgeon, and Rev. Peter Tinsly, Chaplain. Rev. Peter Tinsly was known as the fighting parson, was always in the midst of the battles to care for the wounded. My father said he didn’t believe in substitutes, that soldiers who fought for money would not fight as those who fought from principle. But many of our substitutes were brave men and true patriots, men who wanted to help their country, but being poor needed the substitute money for their families. �Mr. Terry and Henry served the four years, Henry never missed a battle in which Pickett’s Division was engaged, was slightly wounded at the battles of Gettysburg and Malvern Hill, had one spell of typhoid fever while his command was in winter quarters. After he was taken ill, he was brought home. Both were taken prisoners April 6, at Sailor’s Creek, three days before the surrender. Henry was confined at Fort Johnson, Lake Erie, my husband at Point Lookout, Md. As the prison­ ers were released alphabetically, they were detained some time. Mr. Terry came home the 20th of June, but had stopped ten days with a friend in Baltimore to gain strength for the trip home. He had been very ill in prison, and as the soldiers were brought home, packed and jammed together in box cars, on open flats, etc. he knew he would not be able to bear the trip home. I must speak words of praise for the slaves of the South during the war. They have a noble record for faithful service, while the hus­ bands and fathers were in the army their families were entrusted to the care of the servants, often on country farms there would be no white person, except the mother and small children. It is no wonder that Southerners have a tender regard for the colored people that our Northern neighbors cannot understand. When the surrender had tak­ en place and their emancipation proclaimed they hardly knew what to do, they could not well realize their freedom without changing homes. Two colored blacksmiths had been hired by their master to Mr. Raines who had a blacksmith shop, they quit work and as it was im­ possible for the farmers to make good crops without them, their former master wrote to the Yankees who were in authority in Lynchburg for power to enable him to fill his contract with Mr. Raines. They sent thirty men here to spend the summer, and their first act was to tie these men up by their thumbs, this struck the others with terror, so that there was little difficulty about making the crops. The Yankees de­ cided the ex-slaves must fill the contracts made by their masters at the beginning of the year, and that they should have the wages for which they had been hired. In looking back I feel a great sympathy for them, and can well understand their restlessness, for we had no money to pay wages, or buy clothes until after the wheat crop was made. It was dif­ ficult for them to realize they were free, living in the same homes, without wages, scarce of clothing, often their families scattered, some living one place, some in other places. When the time for payment came it was difficult to settle the wages, they had been hired for Con­ federate money, and although this was well nigh valueless the last year of the Confederacy, yet it had a big sound and the greenbacks, gold or silver in which their wages must be paid seemed so little in pro­ portion to the number of dollars for which they had been hired. Money was so difficult to obtain, there was nothing to sell, and 19 �everything to buy, the cattle and hogs had been killed to feed the sol­ diers, the horses had been taken for the army, wearing apparel, bed and table linen almost worn out, table-ware broken, kitchen utensils worn and broken, all farming implements in the last stages of usefulness; it was more trying financially the year of the surrender than during the war. One of the Yankees came to my house to trade coffee, candles and laundry soap for milk and vegetables. At that time I didn’t feel that it was right to have any dealings with them, but I was desperately in need of U. S. postage stamps, I could not write to my husband or broth­ er in prison without them. I told him I would give him anything to eat I had if he would get me some stamps, he said he had stamps, but no paper, so we exchanged. He seemed a nice, kind man, but I couldn’t bear to have him in my house, I felt like a traitor making friends with the enemy while my dear ones were still in prison. I have often felt when thinking over the terrible ordeal through which we passed, that I could not bear a like experience, but I know when our greatest trials come we are mercifully strengthened to bear them, but war is dread­ ful, especially Civil War, where all the suffering falls on one people. When passing through trying experiences of the war we never thought it possible if defeat should come, that we would live to thank God for it; yet it is so. The South rejoices today over the downfall of the Confederacy, and realizes that our defeat was not only a national blessing, but a special blessing to the South. The war was a necessity, for legislation could never have settled the sectional differences so effectually as has been done, and I do feel that the lives of our soldiers were sacrificed in vain. Each true hearted soldier slain in our war fills a patriot’s grave, and his memory deserves a grateful and loyal tribute from all Southerners. The greatest blessing to us was the abolishment of slavery, we were raised believing the institution right, we thought it sanctioned by Divine law, as well as by the laws of our State, and that the sad things resulting from it were great misfortunes, and not the necesssary results of the institution. Time was required for our old prejudices to pass away, but sec­ tional differences are now unknown. Northern capital has developed our resources, and many northern people (among them real Yankees) are among our most intimate friends, and marriages frequently taking place between the extremes of the Union. One thing we are proud of is that we were overpowered by our own people, no foreign enemy has ever been able to gain a victory over us. Our war was a family affair and settled among ourselves, we required no foreign arbitration to bring us to terms. I was born December, 1839, and feel that I have lived through an eventful age. Among my first recollections of national events was 20 �the Mexican War, the first hairless dog and horned frog I ever saw were brought by the returning soldiers. I delighted in listening to their descriptions of the country and battles, and was familiar as a child with the details of the battles. I remember the excitement caused by the discovery of gold in California, and have heard many wonderful experiences from the Forty-Niners. I read and heard discussed the po­ litical arguments on the slavery question, becoming more bitter as each new state or territory was admitted into the Union, and saw the bitter­ ness and strife increase between the contending until the Civil War was the result, the war ending with our defeat, our surrender and the emancipation of the slaves. I have seen suffrage given to the freedmen, and public schools established for white and colored children alike in the South, and I have seen former slaves elected to the state legislature and to Congress, my father and brother serving in the state legislature with them. I have seen railroads made through our state and cities and towns spring up as if by magic. I remember when there were only three houses where the city of Roanoke now is. My own country home with its yard and garden is now a city residence, and forms a square of eight acres in the central part of the city. I had always felt I would not willingly live in the city, but the city came to us and enclosed us in its circum­ ference and now I would not willingly go to the country again. I was in New York very soon after the Elevated Railroad began running, and I saw there the first public exhibition of electric lights; two immense globes were in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in which a large festival was being carried on every evening. In our state I have seen cellars of the earth opened and rich stores of coal brought forth by the quantity, and kerosene brought from the storehouses of the earth to make our light. I have seen the sewing machine, the tele­ phone, the typewriter, the phonograph, the cigarette, all made and patented. I have seen the mowers, cradles, binders and rakers all turned into machinery; my father purchased the first mower and reap­ er that were brought to Roanoke County. I have seen the six horse­ power threshing machine turned into steam threshers that measure and bag wheat and stack the straw. I have seen ice cream frozen by steam and butter churned by steam, and artificial ice made. I have seen chickens hatched by artificial heat, and hovered by artificial mothers. Truly, the fifty-four years of my life have been the time of won­ derful changes in my country and if six more years be added to my life, I shall see the close of the nineteenth century, and the beginning of the twentieth century. 21 �The Society Circles Franklin County Entrance to the Lovelace home built in Red Valley about 1850. Franklin was a well-covered county when almost 200 members of this Society and friends completed their 85-mile circle tour of homes and historic spots on May 21. It was the fourth annual similar expedition—the others had visited Botetourt, Montgomery and Bedford—and by far the best attended. Five busloads made the seven-hour trip, and travelers not only saw old and beautiful residences but caught the flavor of Franklin’s past and present by viewing smaller homes, a blacksmith shop, sites of forts and pioneer trails, a 200-year-old iron furnace, Booker T. Wash­ ington’s restored birthplace, early churches and schools, and new and shining Smith Mountain Lake. The day was full of contrasts: A once abandoned brick ruin dat­ ing to the 1830s in a pleasant valley north of Boones Mill restored to comfort and beauty by Calvin Nelson, Roanoke architect, compared with the oldest brick house in the county, now a country slum but not yet irreparably lost. Staunch remains of the Washington Iron Works in the yard of a Rocky Mount home near the modern factories of the county seat. The county’s new school and the pitiful remnant of Hales Ford Academy—one small room where fortunate children received a classical “education” in 1870. It was an interesting day made much fuller by a comprehensive 22 �Some of the group of nearly 200 enter "The Grove," fine old home in Rocky Mount owned by Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Keister Greer. guidebook and map prepared by George Kegley and J. R. Hildebrand, plus additional notes provided member-guides who manned each bus. With the help of Gertrude Mann and others from the Franklin County Historical Society they came up with a short history of the county plus a large assortment of often unusual facts concerning everything from tombstones to forgotten railroads and stage lines. Perhaps the gem, a note to be recited at Hales Ford Bridge, was “The late Jasper Hundley, who lived in the white frame house over to your left, official­ ly opened the last three bridges, he claimed, by riding a mule across.” In addition to visits at the Nelson home, the Iron Works and the Booker T. Washington National Monument, major stops were made at The Grove, home of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Keister Greer, and the homes of Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Angle and of R. G. and Miss Sallie Love­ lace. Luncheon was served on the grounds of the Red Valley Metho­ dist Church. Members received a bonus when the tour stopped at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Angle and nearby blacksmith shop. These two classic steam engines were fired and ready to saw or thresh. 23 �Mountain Lake By Lula P. Givens High in the mountains of Giles County, Mountain Lake, crystal cup of the Alleghenies, moves and murmurs in the breeze. Mountain Lake is about three-fourths of a mile long and one-half mile in width, with an elevation of 3,874 feet. Virginia Geological Survey soundings show the head of the Lake to be shallow, the depth gradually increasing until it reaches 100 feet. This greatest depth was discovered about 75 yards from the outlet and it decreases rapidly until the outlet is reached. Topping the divide between the Atlantic and Mississippi water­ shed, the Lake’s outlet forms a small branch which eventually flows into the Mississippi by the way of New River. John’s Creek, rising di­ rectly under Bald Knob, flows east into the James and thence to the Atlantic. Mountain Lake may be reached by two roads leading from U. S. 460. One, Virginia 700, about two miles northwest of Newport, is hard­ surfaced. It crosses Sinking Creek over a new bridge which has re­ placed the picturesque old Red Bridge nearby, built in 1912- and one of the few remaining covered bridges in Virginia. The other road, not hard-surfaced, leaves U. S. 460 at Hoge’s Cha­ pel, one mile southeast of Pembroke. Locally known as the Doe Creek Road, it was once the main road up the mountain. Christopher Gist, surveyor for the Ohio Land Company, surveyed the lake on Salt Pond Mountain in 1751. With entries in his journal Gist described the lake much as it is today. Gist was an important frontiersman and fur-trader. Friendly with and adept at handling the Indians, he had been hired by the great Ohio Land Company to cross the mountains, investigate the possibili­ ties of fur trade, search out arable valleys that were likely sites for settlements, report on the best mountain passes, and the strengths and moods of the various Indian tribes. With a Negro servant and several horses, Gist plunged into the wilderness to find answers to their ques­ tions. It was on his return the following May that he surveyed Mountain Lake. An article in the autumn 1949 Ironworker entitled, “The West­ ern Waters—Then and Now,” by Daniel A. Cannaday, then professor of English and history at Radford College, quotes entries from Gist’s Journal. “Set out E 10 mi. to the big Conhaway or New River and got over half of it to a large island where we lodged that night. 24 �Mountain Lake viewed from lower end. “Wednesday 8. Made a raft of Loggs and crossed the River, the other half, and went up it S about 2 m. The Conhaway or New River (by some called Wood’s River) where I crossed it, which was about 8 miles above the mouth of the Blue Stone, is better than 200 yards wide, and pretty deep, but full of rocks and falls. The bottoms upon it and the Blue Stone River are very rich but narrow and high land broken. “Thursday 9. Set out E. 13 m. to a large Indian Warriors Camp, where we killed a bear and stayed all night. “Friday 10. Set out E 4 mi. S. E. 3 M., through mountains covered with Laurel and Ivy thickets. “Saturday 11. Set out 2 M, S E 5 M to a creek and a meadow where we let our Horses feed, then S E 2 M, S 1 M, S E 2 M, to a very high mountain, upon top of which was a Lake or Pond about 3/4 of a mile long N E and S W and 1/4 of a mile wide, the water fresh and clear, and a clean gravelly shore about 10 yards wide with a fine meadow and six fine Springs in it, then S about 4 M, to a branch of the Conhaway called Sinking Creek.” Gist brought back to Lawrence Washington, President of the Ohio Land Company, a pleasing report and a comprehensive summation of the French threat in the Ohio Valley. Summers said in his History of Southwest Virginia: “From this description, (that of Gist’s quoted in Mr. Cannaday’s article) it is evident that Gist visited Salt Lake Mountain, in Giles Coun­ ty, Va., as early as 1751, and found the lake as it now is. “It is evident from this journal that the traditions that we so often hear repeated about this lake are nothing more than mythical, and that 25 �this lake existed as it now is at the time of the earliest explorations of the white man.” Mr. Cannaday, now deceased, was a native of Southwest Virginia and a recognized authority on its history. He evidently believed in the authenticity of Gist’s Journal or he would not have quoted the entries in his article in the Ironworker. Geologists think the Lake today is as Gist said it was, and that it has been like this substantially since pre-historic times. Other authorities diifer. According to Pendleton’s History of Tazewell County and Southwest Virginia,, John Chapman, moving from the Shenandoah Valley, had settled at the mouth of Walker’s Creek in what is now Giles County in 1768. His son, Henley Chapman, once owned the place where Mountain Lake is. He said that he and other settlers ranged cattle in the mountains using the basin as a salting ground for them. In his History of the Middle New River Settlements, Judge David E. Johnston asserted that the earliest settlers in the vicinity of the Lake remembered the place as a deep depression into which flowed several springs. This depression was a favorite salting ground for cat­ tle. Their continuous trampling filled the crevices through which the water escaped and the depression then began to fill with water. Many families in Giles have legendary stories which agree with these historians. Andrew Williams, the writer’s maternal grandfather, was one of those who said he carried salt to his mountain-ranging cattle and that only a pond was there. He was born in the early part of the Nineteenth Century and was a reliable person owning a large farm on Sinking Creek four miles from the Lake. Col. Benjamin B. Albert, USA Ret., of Roanoke, tells in his fam­ ily history that his great-grandmother, Mrs. Elizabeth Williams Al­ bert, related in an interview: “I was born near the town of Pearisburg in Giles County, April 7, 1803. Mountain Lake as it is now called was then only a small pond in the center of a deep hollow, which later filled with water, and now forms the “Beautiful Lake of the Mountains.” Near there lived the family of Jacob Albert who had a son James (whom he married in 1827) who came to see me often and told me how he followed the cat­ tle trail down into the hollow near a small pond, for the purpose of salting his family’s cattle that came there to water. This is how the mountain got its name, ‘Salt Pond Mountain.’ ” Today among local people the Lake is sometimes referred to as the “Salt Pond.” The mountain on which it is located still bears that name—which could bear out the authenticity of the Pond theory. Gist wrote of coming “S about 4 M, to a branch of the Conhaway called 26 �Sinking Creek.” This stream had acquired the name because it sank before reaching the New. It still has the same characteristic and the name Sinking Creek. So what shall one believe? On one side are the entries in the Journal of Christopher Gist in 1751, and as it has been pointed out, he was a reliable frontiersman trusted with important missions. Geologists agree with Gist as did Mr. Summers and Mr. Cannaday. On the other side Mr. Pendleton believed Henley Chapman. Mr. Chapman was an important man, too, the first commonwealth’s at­ torney of Giles and a member of the convention that framed the Vir­ ginia Constitution in 1829. Mr. Chapman and Judge Johnson’s version of the Lake’s forma­ tion is corroborated by our grandfathers whom we have no cause to doubt. Is it possible that both Gist and the grandfathers were correct? Is it possible that in the first half of the 19th century when our grand­ fathers remembered it the waters flowed out in a subterranean pas­ sage which later closed leaving the Lake as formerly seen by Gist and as it now is? This is an interesting thought. Could the same thing happen again? Both sides may have been correct. There seems no reason why Gist or reliable persons in Giles should have extended or elaborated the truth. No one was to get any personal acclaim. Currently, Fred Marland, of the Biology Department at V.P.I. and working on a Ph.D. there, is studying the sediments of the Lake in an attempt to construct geological history which may establish that at times the waters did recede or drain out. Mountain Lake has been a pleasure resort for many years. Henley Chapman, previously spoken of in this article, once owned the property. His heirs sold it to General Haupt of Pennsylvania about 1859. During the Haupt management, and prior to the building of the Mountain Lake Hotel today. 27 �New River Branch of the Norfolk and Western Railroad in March of 1883, passengers for Mountain Lake got off the train at Christiansburg. The stagecoach brought them to Mountain Lake up the Doe Creek Road and stopped overnight. The next morning with fresh horses and refreshed passengers, the stage continued to Salt Sulphur Springs in West Virginia. On the following day, it would return to Mountain Lake and Christiansburg carrying passengers from Salt Sulphur. It was not the heyday of the Virginia Springs, but people—wealthy, beautiful, and ailing—still fled the heat of the lowlands for the cool­ ness of the mountains. Having purchased the property from the Mountain Lake Land Company, which had acquired it in 1891, Gordon T. Porterfield oper­ ated the resort and 2500 acres surrounding it. He himself was man­ ager for a time. An able lawyer with a lucrative, time-demanding prac­ tice as well as commonwealth’s attorney for Giles County, he later turned the management over to his son, Gilbert. T. Gilbert Porterfield, of Newport, Virginia, born in 1876, became manager in the early years of the twentieth century. For 25 years he was in charge, and perhaps knows more about the Lake than any other living person. Under his direction the Lake Resort’s cuisine and hospitality lived up to the best Southern tradition. Many guests re­ turned season after season. In his early- years there, the guests came by train and were met at Pembroke or Eggleston by three-seated hacks. Four horses were required to draw the carriage full of people up the mountain. The main road then was the one extending along Doe Creek which is en­ tered at Hoge’s Chapel. Gathering on the verandas at hack time, guests would welcome relatives and friends, or meet new arrivals. A four-horse wagon was sent for the baggage of the guests, mak­ ing a round trip everyday from the Lake to Pembroke or Eggleston, both stations having been used at various times. T. Gilbert Porterfield who managed the hotel for 25 years. 28 �About this time a plan was offered allowing individuals to build a cottage for themselves and families, to be furnished as they wished. A liberal discount from the regular rates on meals and maid service was given. Those who did this were given a lease for a period of 15 years . . . after which the cottage and contents reverted to the Lake Resort. Among those availing themselves of this offer were well-known Virginia authors, James Branch Cabell and Edna Lee Turpin. Mr. Cabell and his wife, Priscilla Bradley Cabell, spent many sum­ mers at “Cayford Cottage,” their rustic retreat at the Lake. They gave up their cottage in the summer of 1936 because of the ill-health of Mrs. Cabell, an arthritic who died in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1949. Mr. Cabell, a Richmond native, who died in 1958, had found the quietness and isolation of “Cayford Cottage” and its glass-enclosed porch where he wrote much to his liking. But he had used Rockbridge Alum Springs for the setting of Jurgen (1919), whose main character, a poetic, middle-aged pawnbroker, sought to regain his youth through colorful affairs in the fantastic country of Poictesme. Attempts to suppress Jurgen increased its popularity and Cabell had his greatest vogue in the twenties particularly among college stu­ dents. He was then spending the summers at Mountain Lake. During this period many letters passed between Mr. Cabell and Mr. Porterfield. These are to be found in the Alderman Library at the University of Virginia, donated by Dr. Paul Farrier, retired VPI director of admissions. Popular local legend has it that Mountain Lake and its surround­ ing area had been used by Miss Turpin for the setting of her book, Treasure Mountain. The book’s lakeside summer camp, the wideverandahed hotel, the rustic cottages nearby, and the hacks coming in with passengers and mail, are suggestive of the Lake. Tawney’s Cave at the foot of the mountain could well have been the one where the rising water trapped the exploring children. A former resident of Christiansburg where she had attended Montgomery Female Academy, Miss Turpin returned many times from Echo Hill in Mecklenberg County to her cottage at the Lake and to visit her former classmate and dear friend, Mrs. Agnes Wade Ellett, wife of Guy French Ellett, a lawyer of Christiansburg. Mr. Ellett’s sisters, Misses Mary and Sadie, retired teachers, remember Miss Turpin, deceased since 1952, with loyalty and affection. She dedicated a child’s book, Zickle’s Luck (1938), to Guy French Ellett, II, and to his grandfather, Guy French Ellett, using their photo­ graphs for the frontispiece. Following Virginia 700 to the Lake, one may see on a slope of the foothills on the right side of the road a small white church, its sim29 �Sherry Memorial Christian Church pie beauty bespeaking the auiet charm of a bygone era. Lewis F. Por­ terfield gave the land for the church site and much of the money re­ quired for its building in memory of his son, James Sheridan Porter­ field, who died in a tragic accident in 1902. Sherry Memorial Christian Church was built in 1903. It is the center of an isolated community which extends along the foot of the mountain. Long ago excursions were made to the Lake by people on horse­ back carrying picnic lunches. The natural wonder still attracts them. The clear water is fine for swimming and boating, and despite heat and humidity in the valleys below the breeze which dimples the Lake is cool and invigorating. Bald Knob, highest peak in the vicinity at 4,000 feet, offers a pano­ ramic display of blue mountains and hills, and of snug homes in small valleys. At the foot of Bald Knob, the historic James has a beginning in the source of John’s Creek. Five miles from the Lake are the Cascades on Little Stoney Creek. When the summer is dry, the water is low and the flow over the falls is not great but viewed during a wet season, the Cascades falling in a pristine mist are a sight to behold—a 90-foot drop to the pool below. Behind the Cascades between the rocks and the falling water is a path which courageous persons like to walk. The Cascades now are privately owned—a part of the estate of the late Mr. John B. Laing who had purchased the entire tract of land origi­ nally owned by the Mountain Lake Land Company. They are worth extra time and trouble to see. 30 �Among colorful events formerly held at the Lake, the tourna­ ments were the most popular. They were organized with care and riders from miles around came to participate. An aura of glamour, and the romantic charm of an earlier age seemed cast over partici­ pants and onlookers alike. The meadow near the Lake which was used for the tourney was several hundred yards long and about as wide. It was mowed free of grass and weeds. Ropes extended along the sides to provide a clear track. Substantial poles were set up firmly in the ground. An arm ex­ tended from each pole, and from this arm was suspended a ring larger than a silver dollar. Three poles were spaced at regular intervals. To put a lance through the ring approaching it on a walking horse was, difficult—to take it from a galloping horse was an admirable feat in­ deed. Riding in the tournament required a good seat, a steady arm and hand, and a keen eye. Those who could take the rings on the lance had been practicing on a list of their own in a father’s mountain mea­ dow or creek bottom. Entering the joust, the rider’s name was announced by a herald, a kind of master-of-ceremonies. The rider pounded down the track, lance atilt. The herald repeated the rider’s name after each tilt as he cantered back, and the crowd was told whether he had taken a ring or missed. Every rider was somebody’s favorite and loudly cheered. Each had three trials; the one capturing the most rings won the tourney, a prize—and could choose a queen. Almost every season during Porterfield’s management a jousting tournament was held in a mountain meadow near the Lake. A grand ball was held that night at which time the winner of the tournament crowned his chosen queen of beauty—and dancing lasted till a late hour. Porterfield remembers with nostalgia the tournaments, the dances, and the quiet times of talk and good fellowship about the open fires and on the wide verandahs. He remembers the animals and plants found there—the wild turkeys in the woods near the Lake, and the deer that came to drink warily in the early morning mist. Deer and turkeys are still plentiful, and occasionally a bear is seen. The University of Virginia established a biological station at the Lake in 1930. At an altitude of 4,000 feet, studies are made of plant life in its natural habitat. Plants common to the entire eastern part of the United States can be found on the mountains there. Some of the loveliest ones be­ long to the heath family. The trailing arbutus is seldom seen in bloom by student or guest 31 �as it is ready to bloom in early March. The ground may still be snowcovered, the winds high and cold in the bare trees, when its tiny, frag­ rant pink blossoms open amid dry-winter-worn leaves. Once seen, it is not easily forgotten. The bridal paths and hiking trails at the Lake may lead through thickets of mountain laurel white with bloom. Indians are said to have used the young green leaves of this poisonous shrub to concoct a sui­ cidal drink. Both pink and flame azaleas can be seen. Their bright beauty vies with the rhododendrons. Honey made from these flowers and the laurel bloom is poisonous. Wintergreen, known as mountain teaberry, hugs the ground. In it is no bold beauty . . . no fatal poison. Only modest looks and gen­ eral usefulness . . . from its leaves a tea and a remedy for rheuma­ tism are made. Its edible red berries delight the children, and feed hungry little birds. Galax, not a heath but a small evergreen plant, grows abundant­ ly about the Lake. The shape of its leaf has given it another name, Colt’s-Foot. In the summer, it has white spikes of delicate wand-like beauty. In the fall, its green leaves turn to variegated colors, rose, and wine, and maroon. Mountain people near the Lake used to gather the leaves in bunch­ es of 100, and sell them for needed cash. They are used in floral ar­ rangements. Women picked them in winter for bouquets, shaking the snow from their crisp freshness. Ginseng, perhaps the most valuable herb of the mountains, can still be found. Years ago, it grew on the slopes of the mountain ra­ vines. Its five leaves and scarlet berries were attractive, but the roots were worth money, being valued highly in China for their curative powers. Years ago mountain people gathered the roots of the “sang,” which is scarce now. In a known instance, the dug roots sold have helped to finance a boy’s college education. Mountain Lake is in a land of legend and tradition. From Virginia 700, one may look over the Sinking Creek Valley and almost see the New. Two miles away, as the crow flies, is Gap Mountain. Halting his Bluecoats on the upward climb of the mountain road on a May morning in 1864, General George Crook, looking down on Hoge’s beautiful plantation in the valley below, is said to have fired cannon . . . perhaps in swaggering defiance. Had he not just escaped from the Gap . . . and was he not well on his way to join the Union Army in West Virginia? Ten miles beyond the Gap, Mary Draper Ingles was captured by the Shawnees in 1755, at the Massacre of Draper’s Meadows, now 32 �Blacksburg. New River is near. Its discovery is an interesting story. On September 13, 1671, after having traveled “due west” over the mountains from Fort Henry now Petersburg, Colonel Abraham Wood’s party, guided by Perecute, an Appomattox Indian, discovered a small stream, Strouble’s Creek, near present Blacksburg in Mont­ gomery County. Following it, they came upon the river near the site of today’s Radford Ordnance Works. Thomas Batts and Robert Fallam, leaders of the party, were fascinated by this river flowing west­ ward. All the rivers they knew flowed east! This different river was to have newness commemorated in its later name—the New. They pursued its course to present Narrows in Giles County. The explorers wished to go farther but anxieties beset them. Perecute was ill; Thomas Wood, a member of the party who had start­ ed out with them from Fort Henry, and perhaps a relative of Colonel Wood, had been left earlier in the trip at a village of the Hanathaskies, ill with flux; supplies were low and game was scarce. On September 17, 1671, near present Lurich, members of the party cut initials on the trees, CR for Charles II, King of England, claim­ ing the country that the river drained in his name; WB for William Berkeley, then Governor of Virginia; AW for Abraham Wood, who had sent out the party; and P for Perecute, who was so impressed that he said he would learn “Englishman.” This discovery and exploration of Wood’s River, later called New, gave the English a strong claim on the Ohio Valley which they suc- Among the last in Virginia. �cessfully held against the French and Indians less than a hundred years later. The Lake reflects the beauty of the changing seasons. Autumn flings over the mountains a rich robe of color. Frost is thick under­ foot. It traces flowers in delicate design on the windows of the empty hotel. Blown leaves drift upon the Lake like a flotilla of tiny boats. Geese put down on their way south. The guests are gone. Winter slips across the Alleghanies with snow-sandaled feet, bring­ ing chill and loneliness to the Lake. Deciduous trees are bare, but dark evergreens march, sentinel-like, to the very brink as though to guard its waters. The peepers are loud along the creeks as spring comes, heralded by bird-song and the delicate green of new leaves. Within the leaves’ light embrace, redbud and dogwood lavishly bloom. Summer brings boats upon the water, and gay voices calling. At the lower end near the boathouse, rhododendrons grow close to the Lake. Their purple blossoms and oval green leaves are reflected in the clear water. Tourists and guests have come. The present hotel was built in 1938 . . . a handsome structure of native stone. Mrs. Mary Northern, daughter of the late owner, Wil­ liam Lewis Moody, is in charge. With old traditions, a modern hotel, and many opportunities for relaxation and play in a salubrious climate, Mountain Lake continues to attract the public. Regardless of argument and theory as to formation, all agree that it is a lovely natural wonder. Cupped in living green, and gleaming like crystal in candlelight, Mountain Lake enchants today’s tourist, student, and pleasure-seeker, as it did yesterday’s Indian, scout, and pioneer. 34 �Historic Preservation - A Challenge To Virginians By T ony P. Wrenn Not too long ago a folk song entitled “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” became fairly popular. With the change of one word, this song might well become the state song of urban and rural Virginia. “Where have all the landmarks gone, long time passing, where have all the landmarks gone, long time ago.” Some time after that, a California lady penned a song one night on the way to a concert. Though her lament was prompted by the Southern California countryside through which she passed, it could well apply to Virginia. “Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky-tacky, little boxes on the hillside, little boxes in a row. There’s a red one, and a white one, and a pink one, and a yellow one, and they’re made out of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same.” Even Petula Clark with her invitation to come “downtown” can’t erase the fact that the downtown, or the countryside either for that matter, is no longer what it was. I heard on the car radio recently, a song which may answer for all time the question “Where is Grandma’s house,” for the song was titled “This ole house has got to go, there’s a freeway coming through.” The change will be defended. Many will tell you that nothing can stand in the way of progress, and progress means the destruction of a community for a freeway; it means the denuding of hundreds of acres of good Virginia farm soil and natural cover for a housing de­ velopment; it means the destruction of a significant house for a gaso­ line filling station; it means the widening of a street with the attendant uprooting of trees and ever present increase in weight and size of over­ head telephone cables and electrical wires. Or does it? In 1854, Henry David Thoreau stood on the sidelines at Walden and wondered why “One generation abandons the enterprises of another like stranded vessels?” A century later, Carl Sandburg pondered the question of growth and progress also, and came up with a prediction: “If America forgets where she came from, if the people lose sight of what brought them along, then will begin the dissolution.” There was a vision and a view of history which was always with This is the address given by Mr. Wrenn before the annual dinner of this Society at Hotel Roanoke on June 17, 1966. The author is an archivist with the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Wash­ ington. 35 �John Fitzgerald Kennedy, a young American who dared to dream aloud: At Amherst College in 1962, his dreams were transmitted through these words: “I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty, which will protect the beauty of our natural environment, which will preserve the great old American houses and squares and parks of our national past, and which will build handsome and bal­ anced cities for our future.” In July, 1963, while preparing a foreword for his book The Quiet Crisis, Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall remembered and pon­ dered: “One week last fall, two events came to my attention which seemed to sum up the plight of modern man: the first was a press re­ port which indicated that T. S. Eliot, the poet, was a victim of London’s latest ‘killer fog’ and lay gravely ill; the second was a call from a pre­ servation-minded citizen of New Hampshire who informed me that Robert Frost’s old farm—fixed for all time in memory by the poem ‘West-running Brook’—was now an auto junk yard. “The coincidence of these two events raised questions in my mind: Is a society a success if it creates conditions that impair its finest minds and make a wasteland of its finest landscapes? What does material abundance avail if we create an environment in which man’s highest and most specifically human attributes cannot be fulfilled? “Each generation has its own rendezvous with the land, for despite our fee titles and claims of ownership, we are all brief tenants on this planet. By choice, or by default, we will carve out a land legacy for our heirs. We can misuse the land and diminish the usefulness of re­ sources, or we can create a world in which physical affluence and af­ fluence of the spirit go hand in hand. “History tells us that earlier civilizations have declined because they did not learn to live in harmony with the land. Our successes in space and our triumphs of technology hold a hidden danger: as mod­ ern man increasingly arrogates to himself dominion over the physical environment, there is the risk that his false pride will cause him to take the resources of the earth for granted—and to lose all reverence for the land. “America today stands poised on a pinnacle of wealth and power, yet we live in a land of vanishing beauty, of increasing ugliness, of shrinking open space, and of an overall environment that is diminished daily by pollution and noise and blight.” Perhaps I have already stated the challenge of historic preserva­ tion to Virginians. It is a challenge to walk—and while walking, to touch and feel history. It is a challenge to ride or drive—and while doing so to see and to enjoy history. It is a challenge to read, to re­ search, to study, and while so engaged, to understand what you have read. 36 �And, as had been indicated, no history, no beauty, is really real unless we can touch it and feel it and see. For history really is the stuff of other men’s lives, and this stuff is inalienably woven into the places they lived, and the paths they walked, and the scenes they loved. Except to an engineer or a mathematician, the most beautiful drawing of a suspension bridge has only partial meaning. But drive across the Mackinac Island bridge, or the Golden Gate Bridge, or the Verrazano Narrows, and suddenly the theory involved and the very ink of the drawing is transformed into steel beauty which can be used, and touched, and seen in three dimensions. This is the stuff of history. It is that which can be seen and touched and lived through that completes the picture of history. And, this is the crisis of historic preservation. How can we know where we are go­ ing, unless we know where we came from? And how can we know where we came from unless we can see, and feel and use our heri­ tage from the past. Someone has said that there can be no true archi­ tectural museum, except in existing buildings. No drawing or photo­ graph of a building can be walked around meaningfully. It is neces­ sary to look up at the building itself and judge its height. The build­ ing itself is necessary to stroll through and pace its depth; the build­ ing itself is necessary to touch and savour its texture; to look at and enjoy its color, to see the interplay of sun and shadow upon. A drawing will not provide a place for a sofa to sit upon or a bed to lie upon, a table to eat upon, or a stove to cook upon. And so it is with history, as well as architecture, for the word upon a printed page, and the painting hanging on the wall, give less than a complete picture. Life does not stop, yet there is no continuity in the community which destroys its past for a shoddy present. It is the interplay of styles from colonial to contemporary which gives most communities their value. It is the sterility and sameness which depresses the spirit in the typical development. It is sad that too often the man who ap­ preciates most the quiet tree lined street, is the man living in a com­ munity that no longer has any. It is sad that too often we appreciate the fine old Georgian house on the corner only after it has been re­ placed by a parking lot. It is sad that too often we appreciate the trees and the wildflowers and streams of the meadow only after they have been covered with ribbons of concrete. Man has the capability of creating something better than that which he destroys. It should be quite clear that replacement quality is one of the factors that ought always to be considered in any decision to destroy a building. It is important to consider, before we bulldoze a wooded lot, whether or not the six-foot maple sapling we plant be­ fore the house we intend to build can really replace in beauty and 37 �shade the 50 foot giant we destroy. It must be obvious to you, as it is to me, that we have not learned sufficiently to consider the quality of the replacement and weigh it against the quality of what we intend to demolish. There is irony in this when we realize that some credit is due the producers and promoters of ugliness in our architecture and development, for they have done much to heighten our respect for sufficient open space to match our humanness with our natural sur­ roundings, and to appreciate the beauty of earlier days. In 1964, Cornelius Ripley Sherman wrote a letter to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle about this beautiful America. He sug­ gested paraphrasing “My Country ’Tis of Thee” in this manner: My Country, ’tis of thee, Sweet land of Ways so Free, Speed be the King! Land bulldozed far and wide, Cuts where the trees have died, From every mountainside, Let freeways spring! Fill every blue lagoon, Kill off egret and loon, Concrete be blest! What though this soon may be, All that there is to see, We’ll see it doing ninety-three, Proving we’ve progressed! The Virginia Outdoor Recreation Resources Commission Report —Virginia’s Common Wealth carries these words: “Virginia’s land and waters have abundantly nourished its citizens, in body and spirit, for more than three centuries. To neglect these resources—to abandon their conservation—to let heedless exploitation consume them or re­ move them from reach of the great majority of your citizens—is to sell your birthright for a mess of pottage. Once sold, it cannot be recoveved. Virginia’s resources, abundant as they are, are neither inex­ haustible nor indestructible.” Today a sharp change is taking place. The face of Virginia is tak­ ing on a new character as it becomes increasingly urbanized and indus­ trialized in its commitment to progress. This progress is manifested by population growth and concentration, by increased income, by more cars and better roads, and by more leisure time. But these forces, which increase the demands for recreation are also threatening the very resources which are basic—our brooks and woods, our farms and shorelines. The problem is that the average person—and especially the city 38 �dweller—is having a harder and harder time finding his natural heri­ tage. It is being marred or demolished. It is being walled off with “no trespassing” signs. It is being consumed by unplanned urban sprawl. But such devastation is not an inevitable result of growth and progress. It is inefficiency. There is plenty of room in Virginia for both development and your natural and man-made heritage. The key is effective use of the land. Thus we do not have to choose between material progress and an agreeable environment. We must have both. But we can have both only if we decide now the kind of environment we want . . . and shape our programs to bring it about. The need for action is urgent. I believe, as do the many thousands associated with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, that our historical and architectural heritage of buildings and communities is a natural resource, to be tended and cared for in the same manner that we tend and care for our other natural resources. We believe also that conservation and pre­ servation go hand in hand, for you cannot preserve anything without conserving something at the same time. Buildings and neighborhoods do not exist in a vacuum. They exist as a part of their surroundings, and the surroundings must be a subject for conservation, or the pre­ servation of the structure or neighborhood will not have been suc­ cessful. The National Trust has accepted a challenge, just as has the Roa­ noke Historical Society, to help keep a beautiful and liveable America, but neither can fulfill the challenge without your aid. 39 �Note From The Past President In the summer of 1966, the Roanoke Historical Society has 312 members, an interest in several projects and a new president, Mrs. English Showalter. She was elected at the annual meeting on June 17. A leader in organizations, Mrs. Showalter is a member of the VPI and Community Hospital boards and past president of Roanoke Fine Arts Center and Hollins College Alumnae Association. One of her goals is to expand the participation of our membership in local his­ torical activities. Enrollment of others in Roanoke Valley who share our interests will be a part of this program. Your retiring president is grateful for your support over the past three years. I believe many of us have learned something of local and regional history and have had a good time through our tours, meetings and the Journal. This will continue, I am sure. A fine job of restoration is under way at our Botetourt museum site near the courthouse in Fincastle. Within a very few months, our Botetourt friends should be collecting and displaying objects from their past. Our museum in Salem recently has received maps and books, and we trust that it will continue to grow. Reproductions of an excellent historical map of Botetourt County will be available soon for anyone interested in the colorful beginnings of our neighboring county. The map, prepared by J. R. Hildebrand, lead­ ing Roanoke Valley historical researcher and cartographer, will be sold for a minimal amount, probably $1. At least two of our members have published historical works in recent months. Dr. George Green Shackelford of the Virginia Tech History Department is the editor of Collected Papers of the Monticello Association, from the Princeton University Press. Hoskins M. Sclater, Roanoke lawyer, compiled a history of the first 75 years of Second Presbyterian Church for its anniversary observance. Thank you for your interest and cooperation. Let us continue to strive to keep the past alive as we move into the future. George K egley In Memoriam Henry L. Taylor George Scott Shackelford, Jr. Fielding L. Logan Mrs. Walter Macdowell James J. Izard, director Dr. A. P. Jones Mrs. Störer P. Ware, Jr. 40 ��� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society Summer 1966 Volume 3, Number 1 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />Shot Tower at Jackson's Ferry<br />Home Life in Virginia, 1776-1835<br />Big Lick Home Front, 1816-1865<br />The Society Circles Franklin County<br />Mountain Lake; Historic Preservation-A Challenge to Virginians Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Summer 1966 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_03_01_Summer_1966 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6337/JHSWV_03_02_Winter_1967.pdf 666f477a17e0779145c7fd0bdd6c6144 PDF Text Text JOURNAL o f th e ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY ' W inter........... 1967 V olum e T hree N u m ber Tw o �ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Amor montium nos movet Of f ic e r s Mr s . E n g l is h S h ow alter ....................... Arth u r T. E l l e t t .................................. J a m e s D. R ich ardso n .............................. J. R. H ildebrand ......................................... P a u l S. S t o n e s i f e r ..................................... Mr s . A n n a L ogan L a w s o n ..................... ............... President . . . Vice President ............ .. Treasurer ............... Secretary Assistant Secretary Executive Director D irecto rs Raymond P. Barnes B. N. Eubank Mrs. L. D. Booth ¿.Edmund P. Goodwin John D. Carr Robert Goodykoontz Mrs. H. Powell Chapman J. R. Hildebrand C. Francis Cocke Miss Nancy E. Himes Ben Bane Dulaney Shields Johnson S. S. Edmunds George Kegley Arthur Ellett Mrs. George Kegley Mrs. Davis Elliot Mrs. J. M. B. Lewis, Jr. J. T. Engleby, III Mrs. J. G. McConkey L. G. Muse $ B en $ E. H. Ould James D. Richardson Tayloe Rogers Mrs. English Showalter Mrs. Frank E. Snow R. D. Stoner Paul S. Stonesifer^; j Robert W. Woody ' s James P. Woods Dr. J. C. Zillhardt $ B an e D u la n ey G eo rg e K e g le y Editor of the JOURNAL Associate Editor CONTENTS Hollins College and the Civil War, by Margaret P. Scott and Rachel W ilson..................................... Henry Ford and Friends on Tour ......................... ............................ Searching For Your Ancestors, by Mary Dodd Foley ..................... Note From the President ...................................................................... Society Sponsored Botetourt Museum Opens in Fincastle .............. Roanoke Valley’s Early Iron Mines, by Raymond B a r n e s................. Society’s Toy Exhibit Attracts Visitors to Salem M useum ................. Recollections of Bent Mountain, Virginia, by Mrs. Philip St. Leger Moncure .................................................... Roanoke Historical Society Membership Roll ................................... 1 6 11 19 20 24 26 30 38 The Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Volume III, Number 2. Published twice yearly by the Society at Box 1904, Roanoke, Virginia, to chronicle the past and present of that part of the state west of the Blue Ridge. Single copy price: 50 cents. The Society will be careful in handling unsolicited material but cannot be responsible for its loss. �Hollins College And The Civil War By Margaret P. S cott and R a ch el Wil s o n Among the treasures in Hollins College archives are letters, diaries and diplomas of the 1860’s, some instructive small pamphlets—and even the minutes of the Euzalian Literary Society through 1862. En­ chanting old photographs and engravings illustrate many things men­ tioned in the records of Hollins a century ago. (We were asked by the editor for a photograph of a girl and a Confederate soldier. That we could not find. Few young men visited the campus in the 1860’s, and soldiers who did were on active duty. We know that in 1864 while his men slept under the stars General Early reposed on the floor of Mrs. Cocke’s sitting-room!) The ink may be faded on old picture and page, but the life that emerges is young and vivid. As the war went on, living became poorer and harder. Books and bedding must be brought from home; at the school supplies cannot be replenished. Food is scarce and monotonous. More and more women replace men on the faculty, and the number of students drops. Yet somehow the little institute survives, and courage is never lacking. These years were a time when the session began in June and con­ tinued to Commencement and Exhibition early in April, a departure from the usual scholastic calendar. This arrangement was considered beneficial to the pupils’ health: in summer they could combine study with “taking” the mineral waters of old Botetourt Springs, while in the late winter they would be physically prepared “by the bracing weather” for “those exhausting labours to which pupils are subjected near the end of the session.” And what were Works and Days like within this ten months’ span? The school was set in “the most lovely natural scenery” of a country­ side “remote from town or village.” Under “the two tall peaks in front of the institute called Tinker” were sulphur and lime springs, the former especially well kept with “seats all placed around.” The space between the buildings was “improved” with ash and elm trees, Miss Scott, a member of this Society, contributed ‘‘Thomas and Tasker Tosh” to the Summer, 1965, JOURNAL. An emeritus professor of history at Hollins, she received her B.A. degree there, her M.A. at Radcliffe and Ph.D. at the University of Virginia. Miss Wilson, emeri­ tus professor of French at Hollins, was head of the humanities division there. Also a Hollins graduate, she was awarded master’s and doctor’s degrees at the University of Chicago. �while the front yard was ornamented with walks and flower beds and by a circle in front of Main. The buildings included the “ Old House,” or West, the original “main” building; the new building—East—with its “big steps” leading from the second gallery down to the front yard; and finally what our writers call the “new house,” still incom­ plete in the Sixties—Main. All three buildings had spacious “ver­ andahs.” Certainly for most of our period the chapel and the dining room were in the “Old House,” as the construction of Main progressed, these were housed in its western end. It is always said that the corner­ stone of Main was laid the day Virginia seceded. Within each hall were “ chambers” for the young ladies and the “officers,” “recitation rooms,” and offices. East’s “large and elegant sitting room” was a mat­ ter of especial pride. The young ladies often did their required walking on the wide verandahs—or, as they said, “in these porches.” Walking to the sul­ phur spring in the really early morning after prayers was prescribed. Less rigid excursions on foot were to the falls— now just a dam but in the 1860’s a sweep of water tumbling through the gap in Green Ridge. Girls walked three miles to gather chestnuts—an impossible feat in Virginia in 1967! In early summer they made trips to distant cherry trees and in the fall to neighboring apple orchards. Like outdoor exercise, attendance at class was somewhat sub­ ject to the weather. If it rained, no bells rang and there were no classes! Nevertheless Sue Bagby, diarist of 1860-61, says gloomily, “Raining. Mr. Cocke will have the bell rung anyway. It would not matter much if some of us were to get sick.” In that year of ’60-’61 Susan was studying English, French, mathe­ matics, and history. She seems to have been in the Junior Collegiate course. In French she was reading Les Femmes Savantes by Moliere. The curriculum in our diarists’ day was divided into a two-year preparatory course and a two-year collegiate department. In the latter were eight “schools” : The English Language and Literature; Ancient Languages and Literature; Modern Languages and Literature; Mathe­ matics; Natural Science; Mental and Moral Science; History; Theory, Practice and Composition of Music. When a student completed the work in at least five of these schools she became a “full graduate.” She had also “to present to the Faculty an essay of approved merit composed by herself on some literary or scientific subject.” Classes ran from eight to four o’clock except on Saturday. There were prayers before breakfast and after supper, the superintendent conducting these chapel exercises. On Sundays members of the facul­ ty or visiting ministers of different denominations held religious ser­ vices. On fair Sabbath days girls could walk to the Meeting-House (Enon), or, if they signed up in time, could ride in the omnibus to 2 �Hollins Institute as presented in the college catalogue for 1860. church in Salem. In a letter written home on June 21, 1863, Bettie Jane Miller says, “Yesterday we met and formed the Young Ladies’ Christian Association . . . They made me librarian. We have no books . . . not more than twenty members.” Good music at religious services had always been an important feature of Hollins life. This tradition, reaching back into the earliest years of the school, continued a lively one in the Sixties. Indeed, at this restricted time it was also an enriching diversion. Mr. Henle trained a chorus in such songs as The May Queen, The Wanderer’s Song, and Youth and Charity, and diarist Nannie Armistead sang the solos. In 1863 a “splendid serenade” by the Salem band furnished a whole paragraph for Bettie Jane’s letter. The best pieces were The Bonnie Blue Flag, Dixie, and The Voluntur (sic), “ the prettiest thing I ever heard.” There were no organized sports in the modern sense, but there was plenty of recreation. Every Friday night the girls danced in the Old House; no boys were there, of course! “Sharades” at the Old House, tableaux, fancy and “funny” dress parties were frequent, as were candy-making and egg-boiling over the fires in the girls’ rooms. These fires were made early in the morning by the servants who kept them up throughout the day. Also each morning the maids brought water which the girls heated in big saucepans over the fires. 3 �One of the pleasures often referred to is reading, and in the eve­ ning reading was done by lamp or candlelight. From 1855, when the Euzelian Literary Society was formed, there was “the Society’s” li­ brary from which girls borrowed books. Each Friday night as part of the Euzelian programme a member read from “a chosen book.” The minutes of 1860-61 show among the choices books by Edgar Poe (sic), Irving, Longfellow, Goldsmith, Spenser, Coleridge, Byron, and selections from The Literary Messenger and Harper’s. The Lives of Celebrated Women was a very popular book, as was The Talisman, al­ though according to the “laws” “Novels and light reading are not al­ lowed into the Society.” By 1861 the Euzelians had acquired a small library which in that year the members gave to Hollins Institute, there­ by founding the college library. The world outside moved in on the peaceful little Hollins Institute of 1861. On January 9 Sue Bagby writes that “Lynchburg is m a great state of excitement about the war” and she continues “the darkies say they are going to rise next Sunday night.” The girls are all con­ cerned about these risings, and Sue wishes she were at home. On the 16th of January she is worried lest her brother Ned should have to go to war. Again she would like to go home (January 21) because her English teacher, Mr. Johnson, said “King and Queen (County) was to be the battlefield.” On the 19th she writes that “Pa has been to Rich­ mond and bought a double-barreled shot-gun and a six shooter. Cousin Nannie has moved to (our) neighborhood (in King and Queen.)” Her parents “have written Ned to come home immediately if they have any disturbances in (Washington). Poor Ned says he expects to shoulder a musket soon.” On January 21 Sue says, “ We heard this morning that General Anderson had evacuated the South Carolinians’ ports, and we hope there will be no war. Old General Scott is at the head of the U. S. forces, something that I did not know before.” But on the 22nd Sue writes, “I heard this morning that the news which gladdened our hearts so much yesterday was false. I could not think that everything could pass off so quickly”—a mature reflection from a girl of sixteen who writes on January 24 of “free and noble America” and adds “but we cannot tell what will become of us now.” On February 1 Susan tells us that “Pa has written Ned and Johnnie to come home as Washington was in such a state of excite­ ment that they are doing nothing (in college).” March 4, 1861, Sue noted with this entry: “Well, I suppose ‘old Line’ took his seat to-day. As Maggie says he’ll not be president over me.” The following day she writes, “We expect the president’s message today and are very anxious to see what old Lincoln is doing.” In June, 1863, Bettie Jane Miller writes to her family, “We have had peas, beans, and beets but I have not gotten a good taste yet nor 4 �do (I) expect to get enough this summer. I have learned to eat let­ tuce . . . I think the fare is very good, but we have every reason to believe that it will not be so good after awhile.” She continues, “We heard yesterday (the 20th) that our army had gone to Maryland. Do hope it is so. I tell you that I felt rather gloomy when I heard the Yankees were advancing for I did not know what would become of me if they got to Culp and cut off the communication from here. You must write me about the fight. I will be so anxious to hear from you all and know if the Yankees paid you a visit.” ,, After the war, on November 29, 1866, Nannie Armistead writes, “This day is appointed by President Johnson as Thanksgiving Day. I did not review any as I did not think it exactly right to do so.” And so we come full circle from war to peace, and Hollins moves into the struggles of Reconstruction. We would like to conclude this sketch by quoting from the cata­ logue of 1860-61 a statement of the aims of Hollins Institute: “Every pupil of the school is expected to conduct herself in an upright, honest and dignified manner; to be above every mean and vulgar act, and to live daily in the exercise of such principles and feelings as may be most conducive to high intellectual and moral culture. The Institution is not designed to be a resort for the pleasure-seeking, the idle and the gay, but is held sacred to the cultivation of sound learning, virtuous feelings, and independent thought; and those who cannot join with us with a determination to act in accordance with principles like these, would do better for themselves, as well as for us, to remain away.” WRONG DATE In F. B. Kegley’s “Shot Tower at Jackson’s Ferry” (Journal, Sum­ mer, 1966) the correct date for the Draper’s Meadow massacre (page two) should be 1755, not 1775. On page five a name listed should be James Newell, not Howell. 5 �Henry Ford and Friends On Tour This snapshot is a fine facial study of three men of genius: Harvey Firestone, Jr., Thomas Alva Edison and Henry Ford as they sit on the running board of their touring car during a stop near Roanoke on their 1918 vacation. By G eorge K eg ley “Traveling in a big Packard, with two Fords along behind as bag­ gage wagons, for all the world like two colts following a mare, the daddy of all the Fords slipped into town yesterday chaperoning such celebrities as Thomas Edison and Henry (sic) Firestone,” according to a front-page story in the Aug. 31, 1918 Roanoke Times. The celebrities—Ford, Edison, Harvey Firestone and John Bur­ roughs, writer-naturalist— “had dinner at Hotel Roanoke and would have slipped out just as quietly had they not run short of gasoline,” the newspaper said. The procession was stalled in front of the Red Cross canteen on Jefferson Street at Shenandoah Avenue while a sup­ ply of gas was obtained. This was one episode in a two-week camping trip by the “Four Vagabonds,” as they called themselves, through West Virginia, Vir­ ginia and North Carolina. The itinerary of the circle tour from Pittsburgh south to Ashe­ ville and back and a number of pictures of the travelers are preserved in the Ford archives at Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Mich. Ford had been chosen as the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate from Michigan shortly before the trip but when questioned by 6 �The caravan of Lincoln trucks and Model Ts moves across a typical Virginia highway bridge of the time as it battled the southwestern hills. Trucks carried gasoline, tents and all provisions for the crew. One was refrigerated. Here Ford, Edison, Burroughs and Firestone inspect an abandoned mill between Martinsville and Roanoke. Note that they're all roughing it in ties, stiff collars and business suits. Even Mr. Burroughs wears them under his duster. (All photographs courtesy of The Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Michigan.) 7 �a reporter in Roanoke he “did not appear to be concerned so much about his political chances good or bad.” The pioneer automobile manu­ facturer took no part in the campaign that fall but he lost by only a small margin. As Outdoors Calling! a recreation magazine, recently observed, family camping with its modern refinements, may have had its begin­ nings with the travels of the Vagabonds from 1914 until the 1920’s. Burroughs, who had passed 80 when he made the Southern trip, died in 1921. And that summer, the remaining three took their wives and newly-elected President Warren Harding and Mrs. Harding on a camping excursion in Pennsylvania and Maryland. In 1918, the party drove south by Elkins and on through brief stops at Hot Springs and White Sulphur Springs to “Camp Tuckahoe.” Breaking camp early on the morning of Aug. 24, they passed through Sweet Springs, lunched at Gap Mills and drove on through Narrows to “Camp Wolf Creek.” Perhaps impeded by bad roads, they drove only a short distance the next day, passing through Princeton, Bluefield and Oakvale to “ Camp Tazewell.” From here, they went through Lebanon, Hansonville, Abingdon, Bristol and on into Tennessee. From the Grove Park Inn at Asheville, they returned by way of Winston-Salem. Somewhere between Martinsville and Roanoke, they posed for a picture beside an abandoned mill. From the picture, B. M. Phelps of Roanoke, a Franklin County native who has passed his 90th birthday, says they probably stopped at what once was Hambrick’s Mill, located on property now owned by Phelps on Blackwater River, near Gogginsville in Franklin County. Phelps said the picture was not made at the mill at Boones Mill, which once was operated by his father. Ford reported that the road from Martinsville was “not as bad” as some he had encountered. Three miles per hour is the limit in some places “not so far away that boast of good roads,” he said. Driving up the Shenandoah Valley, the Vagabonds rested at Nat­ ural Bridge and spent the night at Castle Inn, between Lexington and Staunton. “Nineteen tolls were paid before we reached Winchester,” they wrote in their log. Even while driving through the mountains, Ford dressed in his business suit but at the camp site he would take off his coat, roll up his sleeves and pitch in with the work. The inventive genius of Edison, Ford and Firestone undoubtedly made this much more than an ordinary trip. They had separate tents for sleeping, ten feet square with mosquito flaps. Their 20-foot square dining tent contained a large circular table, nine feet across, which had a “lazy Susan” inset to pass food around. The table could be folded into a small portable package. 8 �This spot at White adventurers. Note that his sleeves. But not the the "going" trip, before Sulphur Springs was an overnight stop for the Firestone has removed his coat and rolled up others. The White Sulphur camp was made on they encountered the high mountains. This picture was taken on a later camping trip in 1921. Presi­ dent and Mrs. Harding (rear right center) were along. It demonstrates all the comforts of home, including a nine-foot portable table with lazy Susan (now on display in the Ford Museum) and electric lights. 9 �One of their trucks was refrigerated to keep camping provisions They carried new gasoline stoves but they preferred wood fires. And Ford built a portable electric plant to light Edison’s lamps which were strung through every tent. Their outdoor living may have contributed to the longevity of the Vagabonds. Ford, Edison and Burroughs all lived to the age of 84 and Firestone to 70. Now the campers ALL have shed their coats. This picture was made near Tazewell, Va. where the travelers spent the night of August 25, 1918. 10 �Searching For Your Ancestors By Mary D odd F oley Sooner or later most of us become curious about our family back­ ground. Soon we find that names and dates are not enough. We want to know what our ancestors did, where they lived, what countries they came from, what were their homes like, how were they furnished? What type of social life did they have, their games, politics, the events of historical interest occurring during the particular period in which they lived; their migrations—and anything else we can discover about them. We should know, and pass on to our families, the knowledge of our ancestors’ achievements, patriotic service, helpfulness in estab­ lishing churches, schools, banks and other institutions, building our America and making possible our life in its present environment. You might ask, “how can I hope to find out these things about people I have never seen and know little about?” Don’t hesitate to shake the family tree! All of its branches will not produce illustrious twigs. Contrary to many opinions the early set­ tlers were not always clothed in satin breeches and wearing silver buckles and powdered wigs, but wore homespun and leather. A hardy, rugged citizenry was needed to withstand the inadequacies of pioneer life. Had it been otherwise, they would not have survived the hard­ ships which they endured. The first settlers were busy taming the wilderness, tilling the soil, contending with a new climate, fighting the Indians and defending themselves against the British. Little time was left for art, music or keeping family trees. It is difficult to set in order the names and relationships of the founders of our American families. One needs enthusiasm, accuracy, persistence and the abili­ ty to work hard to accomplish this task. Begin by visiting the elder members of your family and take notes. Their memories may not always be accurate, but you will at least get names, dates and birthplaces as a starting point. Sometimes in the telling, stories and traditions may be distorted. One should listen careMrs. Foley grew up in Roanoke and has been interested in gene­ alogy “since 1 was a girl in high schoolProfessionally a music teach­ er, she makes tracing ancestors a consuming hobby. She is a charter member and now vice regent of the Gen. James Breckinridge chapter, DAR, and is president of Roanoke chapter of GDC. 11 �fully for clues which may tie in later with facts. These clues will often direct you to the proper locality in which to search for proof needed to authenticate the stories and traditions. There may be diaries, old letters and papers in your attics that should be read and evaluated. Also, family Bible records, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks are all waiting for your interest and persual. Collect the ghost stories, slave tales and pecularities of the different members of the family. Some of these are hilarious. Don’t miss the tragedies, disappointed lovers and famous guests. These items add human interest to your facts and make good reading. Genealogy is recognized to be a stimulating living study of humanity. We cannot escape the fact that our ancestors were human beings, who in living, contributed to the development of our civiliza­ tion. If we can learn about them and their times, we can better under­ stand ourselves and our kin. As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, “Every man is a bundle of his ancestors.” A mother wanted her son to show off what she had told him, and asked him to make a little speech to her friend about, “Our Family Tree.” This was the speech: “My grandparents are the roots of the family tree. My parents are the trunk. My brothers and sisters are the branches, and I am the sap.” The origin of names is intriguing. Sherman was the shear man; Smith was the blacksmith; Wood from William who lived by the woods and Doddridge, John by dead ridge. Mason from the stoneman—and so on. Middle names did not come into vogue until after the establish­ ment of the Federal government in 1789. The practice grew until in fifty years the single name was the exception. You will find women named Agreeable, Cynthia, Patience, Mentoria, Desire, Tabitha, Zamara, Experience, Submit, Increase, Obedience and Freelove; while the men were Azariah, Eliphaz, Samuel, John, William, Jeremiah, George, Job, Hezekiah, Daniel, Palatiah, Peter, Bartholomew and David. Often a person was given a title which was used freely such as Justice, Squire, Colonel, Goodman, Goodwife, Master, Mistress, Deacon, Captain, Esquire, Parson and others. An emancipated Negro man or woman was referred to as a free man or woman of color. Marriage laws and banns are most interesting and intricate. Origi­ nally and for a very long time, marriage could be validly performed only by a minister of the established church with a lawful license, or the publication of banns which was a legal substitute for a marriage license bond. This procedure was authorized during the Colonial era. The majority of marriages were celebrated following publication of banns rather than by license. Fees were prohibitive. At one time in the Colony of North Carolina, a marriage license was fifteen dollars. Wheel­ er, in his History of North Carolina, tells us, “the poor people took a 12 �shortcut and after all, since marriage is before God, we really can say little about that.” In October, 1870 an Act was passed in the legislature permitting dissenting ministers to celebrate the rites of matrimony. These included the Quakers, Mennonites, Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists. This law provided that a register of all marriages should be kept and a cer­ tificate of every marriage should be signed by the minister. The clerk of the county court was required to keep the Marriage Register. In many instances this was not done, as we find when trying to locate a marriage record. You will learn a little geography while tracing the migrations of your ancestors— also how to study maps and to place your people on the map according to their ownership of land. We get a bit of his­ tory and politics: parish government, church history and procedures, the processing and granting of land, voting regulations, the interpreta­ tion of platbooks, and census laws, the study of old homes to determine the period in which they were built. You will become aware of the religious persecutions of parent countries, and the great migrations to our country of the Palatine Ger­ mans, the Quakers and the Scotch Irish Presbyterians. If you have a Huguenot ancestor, you will want to know about the “Edict of Nantes” which was revoked by Louis XIV, on October 23, 1685. Perhaps your Coat of Arms will tell you that your ancestor fought during the “Holy Wa^s.” You will inquire into these. We in Virginia are proud to remember that our continent was first colonized in 1607, later became a Royal Colony, in 1776 we de­ clared our independence of the mother country. Records of the coun­ ty courts are invaluable in helping to trace a family, its transactions and migrations. In the beginning, Virginia had four parishes which later became a part of the eight original shires formed in 1634. With­ in our present boundaries, we have 96 counties. Virginia contributed fifty counties to West Virginia when that state was formed in 1861. Part or all of Kentucky was at one time in territory belonging to Vir­ ginia. You will need to visit the county seat where your ancestor lived and examine the records in the courthouse. The civil and criminal records are in the vaults of the courthouse in the care and possession of the clerk of court. These are public records and are available to be studied. You will need a good map of your state with the counties and their county seats clearly defined. It is extremely important to know the date of the formation of each county, the parent county or coun­ ties from which it was taken. The same parcel of land can often be found in the records of more than one county because of the cutting off of territory to form a new county. To follow through on a deed you may be required to check in several counties. �DEED BOOKS contain records dealing with the buying and selling of land, and deeds of gifts. A careful description given in the deed will help to locate your ancestor on his land. WILL BOOKS contain wills, inventories, appraisals, settlements and guardianships. There are two types of wills—the written will signed and witnessed; and the spoken will, called the nuncupative will, gen­ erally given by the decedent on his death bed in the presence of wit­ nesses who later appear before the probate judge and swear to the intentions of the legator. In a will the husband or wife will be named and the children of the deceased. If you do not find the children’s names in the will, check the settlement account. They may appear here. MARRIAGE REGISTERS will have records of marriages from the formation of the county. BIRTH AND DEATH RECORDS beginning in 1853 until 1896 were required to be recorded in the counties. But few were recorded. How­ ever, in some instances the commissioner of revenue for the county secured the information and sent it to the Bureau of Vital Statistics, Richmond. This is not true in every instance. Beginning in 1912, our birth and death records have been compiled in the Bureau of Vital Statistics in Richmond. THE SURVEYOR’S BOOK contains the county maps, and plats of the various tracts of land with their descriptions. THE TAX OR LAND BOOKS give additional proof of people living or holding land in the county. These are dated and give the amount of tax levied. These were first called, “Tithables.” THE COURT ORDER BOOKS contain the record of the transactions of the County Court. They are kept according to the term of the court and on a day-by-day basis. The justices of the county are named, jury lists given, the surveyor of the roads and the overseer of the poor named. Civil and military commissions from the governor were record­ ed. Military rosters, claims for services and pension declarations are to be found. Suits, complaints, divorces and witness attendance also are recorded—a veritable treasurehouse of information. In addition to its counties, Virginia has 33 independent cities. Many of these have their own birth and death records recorded in the city board of health office. Marriage records are in the office of the clerk of the city court. When you go to the trouble to visit a courthouse, plan to allow enough time to search carefully. Be sure to record accurately what you have found. Use the original spelling and terminology of the document. Get the dates, complete name or names and do not let the spelling bother you. They were spelled as they sounded. Sometimes you will find the same name spelled three different ways in the same docu­ ment. You may work out your own system of abstracting a document so as to have the pertinent facts in a concise form. 14 �It is a good idea to have a system in your notes. If you can keep each family record indexed it will be easily located and prove to be a wonderful time saver. Be sure to keep a file of every record checked and note where located. If in a book, give author, volume and page. Sometimes information gathered does not fit into the puzzle until other facts come to light and if you know where your information came from you may save yourself time and effort. Become acquainted with your local librarians. Ask for help and advice. They are prepared to help you. Learn the index system in your library. It will facilitate your searching in other libraries. Virginia has many fine libraries, notably University of Virginia, Charlottesville; Danville Public Library; Mary Washington College, Fredericksburg; Virginia Military Institute, Lexington; Norfolk Public Library; Rich- Mrs. Foley at work on her hobby. —Photograph by Oakie Asbury. 15 �mond Public Library; Virginia State Library; Roanoke Public Library and College of William and Mary Library, Williamsburg. Some of the more important books on Virginia which will be found in most large libraries: Virginia Soldiers of 1776, 3 Vol., Louis A. Burgess, 1927; Virginia Historical Index, 2 Vol., E. G. Swem, 1934; Virginia Magazine of His­ tory and Biography, published by the Virginia Historical Society; Vir­ ginia Calendar of State Papers; Cavaliers and Pioneers, Abstract of Land Patents and Grants, 1683 -1800, 5 Vol., Nell Marion Nugent, 1934; The Edward Pleasants Valentine Papers, 4 Vol., 1927; Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia, 2 Vol., Bishop William Meade, 1897; The Colonial Virginia Register, William Glover Stanard, 1802; Tyler’s Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine, 1919 -; Virginia Wills Before 1799, William Montgomery Clemens, 1925; Early Virginia Mar­ riages, William Armstrong Crozier, 1907; Pioneer Settlers of Grayson County, Nuckolls, 1914; Annals of Tazewell County Virginia, 2 Vol., John Newton Harmon, Sr., 1922; A History of the Middle New River Settlement, David E. Johnston, 1906; Virginia Frontier, F. B. Kegley, 1938; Some Prominent Virginia Families, 4 Vol., Louise Pecquet DuBellet, 1907; A Seed-Bed of the Republic, Robert D. Stoner, 1962; and William and Mary Quarterly, published by the College of William and Mary. There are many others. It is quite an experience to visit the Virginia State Library in Rich­ mond. In the Archives section, you may check the county court records and Federal census records on microfilm. This allows you, from one spot, to check any county of your state. Photo copies of records may be obtained for a nominal fee. All federal census records prior to 1850 give the name of the head of the house and state numerically the num­ ber of males and females in the approximate age group. In the 1850 census you will find the name, age, and birthplace', for the wife, chil­ dren or other member of the household. In the beginning the Anglican or Episcopal Church was the state church of Virginia. All children, regardless of religious affiliation, were required to be baptized by their ministers. Dates of these events, and names of parents, were recorded in the register. The library has parish registers and vestry books which span the period 1618 to 1860, though not for each year of the period. Some of these have been photocopied, others are in print. Parish records are considered to be official records and it is too bad that those covering so many years are missing. These books contain the minutes of the proceedings of the vestry, the finan­ cial statements of the parish, lists of births, baptisms, marriages, deaths, funerals and occasionally other items. In the library are the state land records. These begin with patents dating from 1623 and are indexed by name. Too, you will find the Fed­ eral census schedules for all of Virginia and fifty Virginia counties 16 �I which are now in West Virginia. They also have many early newspapers and a few church records. A trip to our National Archives in Washington, D.C., is worthwhile. Here you will find the census records of all states. They have pen­ sion and war service records, too, which often reveal valuable informa­ tion and sometimes you find dates which were not available elsewhere. They have a fine booklet, “Guide to Genealogical Records in the Na­ tional Archives,” which may be secured for a nominal fee. This will furnish you with a list of materials available. The Congressional Library Annex is a comparatively new building. Its Jefferson reading room is a marvelously beautiful place to search for information. The D. A. R. Library in Washington is open to its members free of charge and to the public for a fee of one dollar a day. It is one of the largest genealogical libraries. Another source of vital records is our cemeteries. Early tomb­ stones were real memorials, often giving parentage of the deceased, the name of the wife or husband and the number of children. Often a eulogy or an account of public service followed. You may copy names and dates and have them notarized or you may photograph them. If you choose to photograph, learn to darken inscriptions with a soft lead pencil when necessary. A lichen covered stone will need to be scrubbed hard with a stiff brush. Use chalk, powder or a white leaded engineer­ ing pencil on the inscription. This is a slow process and will reward you with a clear, legible picture of names and dates. Cemetery trips can be fun. Every member of the family can partici­ pate in copying names and dates. Epitaphs have long been enjoyed. Books of them have been collected. Here is one taken from a stone erected to the memory of a child who lived several days: First I wasn’t Then I was Now I ain’t again. In the Shumate family burial ground at Rich Creek, Virginia, ap­ pears the following epitaph: Remember me as you pass by As you are now once was I As I am now you soon will be Prepare for death and follow me. Some wag scratched on at the bottom of the epitaph: To follow you, I’m not content Unless I know which way you went. Many cemeteries have disappeared. Fortunately, in many instances, the information was copied and preserved for posterity. It is said by many: “we always knew in our family who we were and never bothered with family trees.” This is well and good; however, 17 i- �if you are invited to become a member of a lineal organization, you must furnish proof of your ancestry, which is a splendid incentive TO SHAKE THE FAMILY TREE” and get it in chronological order. There are many types and forms available to record each generation of your family tree. Select the one which appeals to you and see how quickly you can record ten generations with proof. It will be the genealogists and historians of the future who will reap the benefit of the labor of you who toil in the field of genealogy and biography, and they will love you for your efforts. For it will be here that the story of several hundred years of civilization on this con­ tinent will be recorded. And we can realize with pride that remem­ brance with fulfillment is the only appreciation posterity can show. In addition to the county court records of Virginia, the following sources were consulted: VIRGIN IA THE OLD DOMINION, Mathew Page Anderson 1949—The Dietz Press, Inc. Richmond, Virginia HOW JUSTICE G R EW -VIRG IN IA COUNTIES: AN ABSTRACT OF THEIR FORMATION, Martha W. Hiden 1957—Garrett and Massie, Inc. Richmond, Virginia VIRGINIA COUNTY NAMES, Charles M. Long, 1908 The Neale Publishi ng Company New York and Washington IS THAT LINEAGE RIGHT? National Society, Daughters of American Revolution Washington, D. C. 1958 HENING STATUTES AT LARGE, Vol. 10 and 11 CUMBERLAND PARISH, LUNENBURG COUNTY, VIRGIN IA—1930, Landon C. Bell William Byrd Press, Richmond, Virginia 18 �Note From The President The past few months have been eventful ones for the Roanoke Historical Society. We have had two well-attended meetings, with excellent talks arranged by our program chairman, George Kegley. A fascinating historical map of Botetourt County, prepared by J. R. Hildebrand, has been completed and can be purchased for $1.50 through our director, Mrs. Thomas Lawson. Under Mrs. E. P. Goodwin’s guiding hand, the many interesting objects—books, papers, pictures, maps, and so on—which have been donated to our museum, are being filed and catalogued; Mrs. Kemper Dobbins has been employed on a temporary basis to help complete this vitally necessary and long overdue work. Meanwhile, Mrs. Goodwin—assisted by Mrs. Lawson, Mrs. Dobbins, and a committee of volunteers—has provided two special, month-long exhibitions in the museum which have attracted visitors of all ages from a wide area. Most exciting of all, the Fincastle Museum, operated by a newly formed Botetourt County Branch of our Society with R. D. Stoner as its chairman, has opened its doors to the public. Elsewhere in this issue of the Journal, these events are described more fully. Looking ahead: plans are being completed by E. P. Goodwin for our fifth annual spring historical tour. On Saturday, May 13th, we will travel to the Buchanan area where we will undoubtedly find as many rich surprises as we have discovered in other neighboring areas. Plans are also underway for a winter membership meeting, to be held in late February or early March. And sometime during the spring our museum in Salem will offer another special exhibit, probably to fea­ ture pictures of early Roanoke. We invite your suggestions and your help with any or all of these projects. This issue of the Journal makes available to each of you, for the first time, our membership roster. I hope you will urge your historyminded friends who are not on the list to join our Society. We have a committee this year, of which S. S. Edmunds and Mrs. George Kegley are co-chairmen, to recruit new members, and it will appreciate your help. Through its museums, programs, tours, and publications, the So­ ciety is doing an excellent job of stimulating community interest in local history. The more members we have, the better job we can do. With your help, I am sure we will continue to grow in the future as we have in the past. Mrs. English Showalter President 19 �Society Sponsored Botetourt Here are two views of the mu­ seum: Above, right, the elevation which faces the courthouse showing two upper doors which could cause an exitee some t r o u b l e , and, above, the rear with outside steps which afford the only access to second floor. Main museum en­ trance is under the steps. At left is an interesting chair with a George Washington escutcheon. —Photographs by Clare White. �Museum Opens In Fincastle ^ jft After more than a year of work and planning, the Society-spon­ sored Botetourt Historical Museum opened in Fincastle on Sunday, November 27 to a more-than-capacity crowd. The event had received a full-page spread in the Roanoke Times that morning and so many came to see what had been done, inside and out, to the old brick build­ ing back of the courthouse that they had to be admitted in shifts. Initiated by an anonymous $1,000 gift and proceeds from the sale of Member R. D. Stoner’s book on Botetourt, “A Seed-Bed of the Republic,” the project began with the leasing of the two-story struc­ ture from the county for $1 a year. It was cleaned, repaired, painted and made weather-proof. A committee of Botetourt residents includ­ ing Stoner, Mrs. Garland J. Hopkins and Dr. J. C. Zillhardt, assumed responsibility for the restoration and began collecting all sorts of ob­ jects—either through loan or gift—of historical interest to the town and county. The building itself is of considerable interest. Of staunch brick, it dates to about 1800 and early in its life was the office of Andrew Ham­ ilton, local lawyer. It is believed to have been one of a row of similar structures on the grounds of the courthouse which once was the center 21 �of justice for an area extending to the Mississippi. The building was altered several times during the years and the changes can be traced clearly through brickwork. It is now ell-shaped with nine outside doors, two of which upstairs open into space. Ex­ hibits are housed in two rooms below. One 30 feet long across the front has two fireplaces. Items on display are varied. They include a commission issued to George Skillern, from the Committee of Safety for the Colony of Vir­ ginia on April 4, 1776, a silver ladle given by Dolly Madison to her niece, Mary E. Payne Allen who lived near Buchanan, fine embroidery dating from 1798, and many articles of clothing, furniture, china and kitchenware. Part of our Society’s interest in establishment of the museum lies in the fact that Botetourt is the mother county of Roanoke, part in members’ enthusiasm for the ultimate restoration of at least a part of Old Fincastle, which much more than other towns in the area retains an aura of the last century. The committee is much interested in ob­ taining additional objects for display. In general they should be at least a hundred years old and be identified with Botetourt County as it was at the time of their use. The museum is open to the public on Saturdays between 11 A. M. and 3 P. M. Rollin Smith, well-known artist who lives in Fincastle, is curator. This 1908 register for Hayth's Hotel, although of comparatively recent date, is an interesting acquisition. For more about it and other former Fincastle hostelries see "Fincastle Springs; Resort of the '80s," by Frances J. Neiderer, JOURNAL, Winter, 1964-65. 22 �The restored mantel and fireplace in the museum make an excel­ lent focal point for display. Bracelet, fan, spoons and a ladle once owned by Dolly Madison attract attention. 23 �Roanoke Valley's Early Iron Mines By R aym ond B a r n e s The extensive deposits of minerals stored by nature in the moun­ tains of Virginia were, for the greater part, unexploited until after the War Between the States. The lead mines near Fort Chiswell enjoyed early development, but the rich seams of coal in Western Virginia were not tapped until the newly organized Norfolk and Western Railroad in 1882-85 ex­ tended lines into the mountainous regions. It must be emphasized that Virginians were not unaware of these mineral resources—they simply did not have the capital to exploit them, and this factor, taken in con­ nection with the limited demand for coal in the Southland, left de­ velopment unencouraged until rail lines permitted an outlet. In the Roanoke-Botetourt area it was common knowledge that a superabundance of low grade brown hematite iron ore could be easily mined. Locally, the “Speedwell” furnace of Robert Harvey was in operation at present Starkey before the turn of the 19th century. The slag heap of the “Cloverdale” furnace is still in evidence just south of the overhead crossing of the railroad on Rt. 11. Additional charcoal-fired furnaces operated in other sections of Botetourt. When in 1881 it was announced that the Shenandoah Valley Rail­ road would connect at “ a point at or near the Town of Big Lick,” an issue of the Salem Times-Register carried an item that Maj. William Lewis (owner of “Lone Oak” formerly standing off Franklin Road) and several associates were camping in the highlands near Big Lick, “to find out what these mountains were made of.” That Western Virginia had large deposits of coal, iron and lead was well known long before these lodes were exploited. From early days the lead mines at Fort Chiswell were worked at a profit, for this much needed mineral, used principally for moulding bullets or securing window panes, has sold at a premium for many years. Many wagon loads of lead passed over the Blue Ridge on a now-abandoned road en route to Williamsburg or in later times to Richmond. Western Virginia is rich in brown hematite ore deposits, but the iron content is low. Much of this ore was smelted in small charcoalfired furnaces. The famous “Speedwell Furnace” on Back Creek at Starkey produced a particularly fine iron until it was destroyed by flood around 1825 and never rebuilt. About halfway between Buchanan and Troutville there is a small settlement called Lithia. On the exact site of the old railroad depot, 24 -t �FURNACE OF THE ROANOKE IRON CO., ROANOKE, VA. Joseph R. Anderson around 1854 operated a furnace he called “New Cloverdale.” Anderson and his successors iiiined over 200,000 tons of ore off the adjoining property. Although the plant ceased to oper­ ate in 1874, the settlement continues in existence. In the Roanoke direction, the next iron mine was at a station called “Houston,” named for an official of the Crozier Iron Furnace which operated for years in northeastern Roanoke on 9th Street at the railroad. Today anyone familiar with the appearance of hematite-bearing rock or soil can see abundant evidence of this mineral by a casual stroll in our surrounding mountains. The curious can watch excava­ tions for drainage ditches or basements to see if a vein of this ore is uncovered and such lodes are often exposed. Unfortunately, the ore content is of a low grade. Ferdinand Rorer, early promoter and local capitalist, a man of vision, prospected in a more scientific manner. He uncovered on the west ridge of Mill Mountain substantial ore deposits. Mineral rights were secured and a charter for the Rorer Iron Company was granted January 15, 1883 (Charter Book 1, p. 72, Salem). A narrow gauge railroad was constructed, from the mine about 25 �half a mile north of present Rt. 220, just below Peakwood Drive. The roadbed ran east immediately in front of Piney Grove Church, then on a bee line to where the Winston-Salem Division tracks were laid in the early nineties. The little road ran up to cross Colonial Avenue, then down the brow of the hill, northwestwardly to a railroad trestle spanning Murray’s Run. From here it paralleled the Roanoke River (over the same bed now occupied by the belt line tracks) to an ore wash. Still going west over a fill of such a sandy composition, contractors over the years since its abandonment carted it away for use in mixing concrete. The little road crossed the river just below the present Wasena Bridge, then via a deep cut paralleling Ferdinand Avenue, proceeded west to emerge at a point west of 10th Street, S.W. It then ran in a north­ westwardly direction over the hills down to the N&W’s West End Yards to a loading platform about 16th Street, S.W. Rolling equipment consisted of a “dinkey” engine and about 15 cars of the “dump” type. By this time the little road was ready for operation, a considerable tonnage of ore was mined, awaiting trans­ portation. In early Roanoke, Mr. Rorer occasionally entertained guests by giving a picnic, the climax of which was a free ride in empty dump cars out to the mines and return. Crozier Furnace, an early and leading industry of the new town of Roanoke, had a huge plant at Ninth Street, S.E., and the railroad but it did not utilize ore from the Rorer mines, but instead that shipped here from some western counties. The Rorer ore found a market at Ironton, Ohio. Rorer had financial reverses, and men including Samuel Coit, William Welch and a Mr. Body took over leadership of the concern, until the Virginia Iron, Coal and Coke Company (organized originally at Pulaski) came into possession of the corporate properties. (Inci­ dentally, VICC moved its home offices to Roanoke in 1908 and has been here since.) At the mine itself a nice little settlement grew, with small frame houses for workmen (some of which are still standing) plus the in­ evitable commissary. A post office was established, known as “Gale, Virginia.” Wages ran about a dollar a day for common labor but an appli­ cation to secure such a humble job required references of good char­ acter. When the Roanoke & Southern Railroad (presently the WinstonSalem district of the N&W) was constructed in the early nineties, the narrow gauge line was abandoned west of the new railroad and the ore wash located on McClanahan Run (ofttimes called Ore Branch), which parallels the Winston-Salem line. Here there were facilities to J 26 f �1 load “washed” ore directly into freight cars. For some years local ore continued to be sold to plants at Ironton, Ohio. After the Virginia Iron, Coal & Coke Co. took over the mines, this corporation came into ownership of the old Crozier Furnace and smelted local ore there. In addition, VICC opened a new ore deposit lying east of the pres­ ent Ogden store on Rt. 119 and extended the “dinkey line” to the new mines. A crossing was made at the lane on the north side of the store, now a hard-surfaced county road. The little line ran down the bottom on the east of Rt. 119 to the ore wash. The original Rorer mines became in the early 1900’s a favorite objective of Sunday walks, adventure trips by boys, and in the fall of­ fered a bountiful crop of chinquapins which grew on the abundant bushes located around the abandoned diggings. A small colony of col­ ored people took over the “Gale” settlement. When the apparent inexhaustible Mesabi deposits were opened near Lake Superior to produce high grade ore, the brown hematite of the local section could not compete, but the mines still operated on a limited scale. When World War I brought a new demand for iron from any source, our local mines enjoyed a burst of renewed popularity. It is not recalled just when operations ceased or the narrow gauge tracks were removed, but it was probably in the early twenties. W HY VACCINATE? Mr. Editor: The people from our vicinity and, I think throughout the County, were very much agitated a short time ago by a notice from our County School Board, saying “Those (the children) who fail to be vaccinated by Dec. 20th shall be excluded from the Public Free Schools.” Then on the 28th of December this order was followed by another saying: “They had seen no good reason for rescinding the aforesaid order.” Now, the people being uninformed as to this law, feel that they are due an explanation through the Herald by some member of the Board that took so ultra an action as this, at a time when there was not a case of small-pox reported in the State. Hoping to see a satis­ factory explanation, I remain, Yours respectfully, A CITIZEN —Letter to the Fincastle Herald, January 4, 1894. 27 �Society's Toy Exhibit Attracts Visitors To Salem Museum Area residents dug deep among the treasures of long-ago child­ hoods to help the Society create an exhibit of antique toys at our museum in Roanoke College Library. Hundreds of playthings, many re­ markable for their mechanical ingenuity, were on view daily from December 11 until January 15. In addition to all types of dolls, there were replicas of early automobiles, steam engines, street cars, circus parades and horse carts. There were children's books of bygone per­ iods, tiny furniture and ornate Lilliputian houses. Above is an assort­ ment of transportation, including a wind-up hansom cab. At top is a rag doll with real hair, surrounded by her wardrobe. Mrs. Edmund P. Goodwin, was chairman of the exhibit committee. Toys were loaned by Mrs. Thomas O. Broker, Miss Sue Collins, Mrs. Roger N. Winbourne, Jr., Mrs. James M. Richardson, Mrs. Barton W. Morris, Mrs. Louis Showalter, Jr., Mrs. English Showalter, Miss Emily Barksdale, Mrs. G. A. L. Kolmer, Mrs. Charles Blake, Mrs. W. Jackson Shepherd, Mrs. Kemper Dobbins, Mrs. John D. Carr, Mrs. W. J. Bettcher and Mrs. Barton W. Morris, Jr. —Photographs by Mary Bland Armlstead. 28 �At top a china doll, circa 1840, entertains a bisque companion at tea while their children, below, have an airing in toy carriages of the time. 29 �Recollections Of Bent Mountain, Virginia By Mr s . P h il ip S t . L eger Moncure To record a few facts relative to a small section of a county in our state with which one is familiar must necessarily be somewhat personal—a story that was told . . . and what is remembered . . . of the growth that stemmed from the beginnings of a colonial set­ tlement. These memories are nostalgic, as all that is tinged with tender­ ness and the echoes from voices that are still, must be. History encloses us in a twilight zone. We wander in the fringes of fantasy, searching for the concrete substances of fact. General Washington gave a vast grant to the doughty General Andrew Lewis: some hundred thousands of acres—a nebulous do­ main of forest-covered mountains, plateaus and valleys that revealed themselves like the waves of the sea in successive green billows against a horizon that was endless. The boundary lines were conjectural. Some were trails that Indians had followed in pursuit of game, others paths in a wilderness that frontiersmen followed, blazing trees to mark a return, notations of water courses, high points, other data for set­ tlements and defenses. These geographical recordings often bore the names of these pioneer explorers. The plateau south and southwest of Roanoke Valley derives its name for the frontier brothers, James and William Bent who were born in Pennsylvania, explored south and westward and ended their wanderings in Colorado where a county is named for them, and Bent Canyon—a stone memorial glorified by colors of a rainbow. Bent Moun­ tain in Virginia curves in the shape of an amphitheater, where the en­ circling ranges might have been seats for an audience of mythical Titans, who viewed the ceaseless colorama of storms that moved the great oaks and pines and poplars in their ballet measures. The serried west wall of the plateau was “entered” by one of General Lewis’s of­ ficers, Major Poore, and bears his name today. This wall, following Mrs. Moncure, the former Grace Fortesaue Terry, is the daughter of the late John Coles Terry, a leading resident of Bent Mountain. Mrs. Moncure, who says she was born on the mountain more years ago than she would like to recall, kept a home there while living in Norfolk with her husband, a doctor. She lives on Bent Mountain today. Incidentally, her accounts of the naming of Bent and Poore Mountains are disputed by some who say the names derive from physical characteristics. 30 �ridges, rises to its highest point of 3,900 feet on the rim of Montgomery County at Street’s Entry, a point said to be the spot where a man named Street made a notation in his journal long ago. This high point on Poore Mountain, about a mile west of the two television towers, is the site of a fire observation tower today and a peach orchard once was there. A road leads down through Montgomery County into the valley at Elliston—named for the Ellis family whose lands followed the river and adjoined those of other landowners, including the Edmondsons of pic­ turesque Fotheringay, where Louis Phillipe was a guest during his wanderings as an exile from France. Viewed from Poore Mountain the expanse is vast, from the valleys, threaded by flashes of Roanoke Riv­ er flowing toward Salem and Roanoke, to the vistas westward of range upon range, until outlines vanish in the veil of dim horizons. The beginnings of Roanoke River are so circuitous that when it passes Shawsville and makes a sharp right turn, it seems to be aiming to return to the birthplace on the east side of Poore Mountain, where in several deep hollows cool little springs appear among mossed rocks and fern fronds. Down they wander, collecting companions along the way, merging with more and more spring branches. Rivulets, with whis­ pering infant voices, turning slowly northward, grow and mature into Bottom Creek, and its cascading becomes a staccato chorus, as it hur­ ries to join another liquid traveller from Bent Mountain’s eastern bor­ der, for an interlude of tranquillity in swamps and meadows, until en­ countering a blockade of rocks it gathers force and rises to pour into a gorge where it was once harnessed to operate the first “Bent Mill,” and gain its present name, Mill Creek. Nearby springs produce a third stream, Laurel Creek, which plunges in rapids downward to join Bot­ tom and Mill Creek. Then the combined waters hurl hundreds of feet through a great rock-walled gorge, to presently grow calm, and become a placid river, passing “Hot” or Crockett Springs, and Allegheny Springs to Shawsville. There the Roanoke sharply reverses its course and almost completes a circle to flow by “Big Spring” and Elliston at the foot of Poore Mountain where its infantile venture began and con­ tinues its odyssey to Albemarle Sound. Homesteads of hardy pioneers became more numerous and began to emerge in settlements of a new land. During this period in Roanoke County, families were established, homes were given identifying names, more and more settlers moved westward from southside counties, clearing land, building cabins first, “Family Seats” later . . . land­ marks in a wilderness, barns for cattle and sheep, hog pens, stables for horses and mules. Oxen were used in first clearing the land. Patch­ es of corn, wheat, barley, oats, potatoes, flax, tobacco, appeared—the first “cash crops” for export. In homes there were spinning wheels for wool, and little ones for flax. Rude looms were built for weaving 31 �woolens and linens. Dyes were concocted from wild indigo and from other herbs and roots, as well as from the bark of trees—sumac for crimson, red oak for rust and copper colors, the bark of maple made a clear shade of grey, either dark or diluted into paler tints. Boundaries of grants were elastic and ill-defined. Without deeds on “fee simple” security men settled and cleared, and raised families, regardless of government formalities. Through occupation grew possession. Cabins and clearings became neighborhoods, and life assumed order and le­ gality. Finally land “parcels” were surveyed, contracts made, and deeds drawn up with boundaries specified. Family names, already familiar in the Tidewater, Valley, and Piedmont section, were transplanted These valiants who pitted their faith and energy against the ele­ ments and enemies thus bravely earned hereditary rights to the cabins they built and the land they cleared and planted. These families had names already familiar in the lower lands, and these newer settlements were identified by them. In addition to the squatters’ claims for homesteads, the Lewis family began to sell its land. General Andrew Lewis had a hunting lodge on Bent Mountain that later was to be the home of a grandson, Joseph King, whose father was Charles King of Kentucky. There is a portrait, in miniature, of Charles King, showing a man of aristocratic features, strikingly handsome, and suitably dressed in velvet coat and elaborate scarf-like stock. A miniature of General Andrew Lewis was also there at the Joseph Kings, showing the rugged soldier of stern face. I remember seeing them as a child and hearing my father say that the Kings had interesting letters from General Washington and other notables of that day. In the early 19th century, William Dabney from Pittsylvania pur­ chased 2,000 acres from the Lewis heirs. He built a home and lived for a time on Bent Mountain. Later, Captain Joseph Motley Terry pur­ chased this Dabney property, and while living near Chatham and prac­ ticing law there, he operated the place under the superintendence of an overseer. Captain Terry’s father-in-law, John Dabney Coles, also living in Pittsylvania County on his plantation there, about 1835 purchased from the Lewis heirs 15,000 acres in the Bent Mountain area. Both Terry and Coles moved white families to Bent Mountain as tenants, with contracts for clearing, building and crop-raising. This new ground —loose fertile loam—was well suited to tobacco, and it became the cash crop. An overseer managed these settlements as well as separate clearings made by colored families brought from the lower plantations. Wherever a field was planted, a log barn was raised for the cur­ ing and storing of the tobacco until it was ready to be packed in hogs­ heads, each the equivalent of four standard three-bushel barrels. The staves for these were riven from oak or chestnut and securely bound by hoops of stout hickory to withstand the long haul over the roughest 32 �Bent Mountain, left, as if appears from the north with Poor Mountain rolling up the horizon at right. U. S. 221 penetrates the plateau through the center gap. Photo taken from near Back Creek School with telephoto lens. —Photograph by Oakie Asburv. 33 �of roads to the nearest market—Lynchburg, or occasionally Danville. The landscape became dotted with tobacco barns, usually about 25 feet square, and a full story taller than the cabin dwellings. Some­ times these were double size, double and triple pens. They were splen­ didly substantial structures, roofed on log rafters with hand riven boards. Boards were from three to four inches in width and usually of oak or chestnut. The freshly-cut tobacco was bunched and tied on five-foot sticks, packed from joist to adjoining joist, until each barn was filled through to its upper tiers. The tobacco was then ready for firing and curing. There were horizontal flues running from outside walls three feet into the barn. These were stoked with long sticks of wood, and the fire was kept going day and night until the leaf was properly cured. This was a process requiring care—a steady, slow heating and drying, so the leaves remained supple, flexible and whole. Too much heat and too rapid drying ruined the quality by making the leaves brittle and sure to shatter when packed and shipped. A properly cured tobacco leaf has much the same pliability as a soft doeskin glove. During this important curing process there were day and night shifts to keep up the steady heat and regulate it properly. For no mat­ ter how fine the crop may have been when cut, its quality and the price obtained on the market was decided there within those barns where the curing was done. I can recall the fields with tobacco barns on Bent Mountain—37 of them. Later, when tobacco was no longer a main crop they were utilized for other storage purposes, or as shelter for sheep and cattle, with hay lofts above. All these buildings were hand-crafted. Men were skilled in the art of hewing and fitting logs . . . in the chinking, and clay daubing between the logs . . . in the riving of boards and shingles. There were no circular saws. When houses of clapboard began to be built, the planks and framing were laboriously sawed by hand and the nails were hand made in the blacksmith shop. The tools included wooden mauls and wedges for splitting timbers, axes, adz, drawing knives, hand saws, mattocks, hoes, shovels, pitch forks, spades and plows. All were made on the land by forge and anvil, hammer and tongs, as were so many other things: hinges, scythe blades, corn cutters, hatchets and hammers. They were cruder than the imported ones, but filled an im­ mediate need. On the Coles-Terry lands, near Street’s Entry, were two squatters’ cabins, rumored to have been built by deserters from the Confederate Army—“conscientious objectors”—who had no sympathy from those who fought through to Appomattox. They were unoccupied when I remember them, but most interesting as samples of the crudest of abodes. In their structure was neither an inch of metal, nor a piece of glass, nor any sawed timber. They were rock underpinned, clay daubed, 34 �with log pens, log sills and joists, supporting floors of split logs with the flat side up and the underneath notched to fit the sills. Roofed with boards, they had stone fireplaces, and the lower chimney sections were of clay-daubed stone which supported the chimney stem of “stick and mud,” laid like a pen. Doors and shutters were hung with hinges of hickory withies, interwoven. In the absence of nails, there were sharpened locust pegs. Within was family life, and without a clearing that furnished food. Water came from a freestone spring above the dwelling. One was built by a man named Jonas Likens. The other, a mile or more across a ra­ vine, was built by Henry Medley. The Coles and Terry families, their farming operations on Bent Mountain managed by an overseer, continued residence in Pittsyl­ vania County until the Civil War. Already, there were adjacent landowners living on the Bent Mountain plateau whose holdings were in Floyd and Franklin counties. A large oak on a corner of the John Coles land had its roots in 3 counties—Roanoke, Floyd and Franklin. It was felled by a wanton road crew building a wider road down to Adneys Gap, to the Black Water River section, passing near the imposing home of Thomas Callo­ way. The boxwood there was of gargantuan proportions. Along the way was the estates of the Guerrants, related to the Calloways and the Saunders who also had baronial estates along the river. Other families living on the Bent Mountain borders before the Civil War, included Thomas Price, Thomas Baldwin, Huff, Kefauver, Thrash­ er, the Thomas Kings (unrelated to Joseph King), Powell, Lancaster, Teal, Tyree, Henry, Willet, Ferguson, Fralin, Wimmer, Hawse . . . names that belong on the honor rolls of the Confederacy. Patriots, and crack shots, they shouldered their muzzle-loading muskets and marched to join those grey lines. Even after the war wolves still howled eerily in the Bent Moun­ tain night, and all the Indians had not gone. Scattered parties of hunt­ ers would now and then glimpse them, more friendly than hostile, but quick to vanish into the forest. There were groves of giant chestnut trees, with tons of their brown polished fruit plentiful in October through November—a de­ licious and nutritious food to be gathered and stored as a supplement to the winter rations. John Dabney Coles born April 26, 1779, the son of Colonel Isaac Coles, of Coles Hill in Halifax County, lived on his plantation near Chatham, Virginia, and rode the 60 miles now and then to Bent Moun­ tain to go over matters with his manager. He had a cabin near the over­ seer’s home, where he stayed on these trips, with servants near by. He was said to have been a man of energy and ability, quite handsome and 6 feet 7 inches tall, but so well proportioned and with such grace 35 �of bearing that he looked less tall than he actually was. He had mar­ ried early in life—Louisa Spottswood Payne—whose mother was Eliza­ beth Dandridge, the daughter of Nathaniel West Dandridge and Doro­ thea Spottswood, who was the daughter of Alexander Spottswood. John D. Coles’ second daughter, Catherine, was married at 17 to Joseph Motley Terry. She died within the year when her little son was born—John Coles Terry. His grandmother and his mother’s sister Mary, then unmarried, took care of the baby. He was still a baby when his grandfather, John D. Coles, died at the age of 48 on August 28, 1847. He had gone to Bent Mountain on one of his business trips and had been there several days when he became sick, and thinking it best to go home where he could have medical care, he unwisely decided to mount his horse and leave on the 60-mile ride. When he reached home he was seriously ill with a high fever. The doctor pronounced it a far advanced case of typhoid. His wife survived him for a few years. Upon her death, the small grandson, Coles Terry, then four years of age, in­ herited his deceased mother’s share of the estates. The executor divid­ ed the land into shares and the personal property into equal lots. The legal heirs drew from this lottery their inheritance. John Coles Terry, the little grandson, put in his small hand and drew his portion. Certain Negroes were listed as his also. He was a pet on the plantation and he told his children that some of his Negro friends said, “Little Master, please draw me.” After this he lived with his father at his Chalk Level farm and Joseph Terry continued to employ an overseer to carry on the development of his son’s Bent Mountain inheritance, using the white tenants already there, and the Negro families also. At the beginning of the Civil War, Joseph M. Terry organized a company of volunteers and became their captain. Early in the war he was severely wounded in the hip, and on partial recovery, he moved his home to Bent Mountain, living in the former Dabney house. A year before the war, his son was entered as a cadet at V.M.I. At the age of 17, early in the year of 1862, he joined the Confederate forces under the command of General Stonewall Jackson, at first in the infantry and a little later in the cavalry, where he served until the end of the conflict. Gen. Jubal Early, a graduate of West Point, had reached retire­ ment age some time before war was declared and he had taken up the practice of law in Chatham as a partner of Joseph M. Terry. It was a natural consequence of this friendship that Coles Terry should have chosen to join forces under General Early after the death of the great leader Jackson. He was with Jubal Early through the Valley campaign He had an active career on his alternating mounts “Mary” (Stuart) and “Raleigh.” First, with Jackson in his hound and fox forays against Milroy in and out of West Virginia and Virginia, with weeks of bril­ liant maneuvering. These adventurous years were a thrilling delight 36 �to a high spirited boy, and he relived it with many an ancedote told to his children . . . through Maryland, into Pennsylvania to Gettys­ burg . . . sometimes a dispatch carrier . . . or scouting . . . or in the thick of battle with dismounted cavalry. Those gallant horses, “Mary” and “Raleigh,” spent their last years on Bent Mountain. “Mary’s” descendants remained in the Terry fam­ ily for years. Back Creek near its source on Bent Mountain's lower slopes. —Photograph by Bob Phillips 37 �Roanoke Historical Society Membership Roll, 1966-67 ROANOKE Mr. T. J. Andrews Mrs. William L. Andrews Mrs. Patricia B. Avis Mrs. Betty H. Ayers Mr. and Mrs. Ralph K. Baker Miss Emily Barksdale ^ M r. and Mrs. Raymond P. Barnes Mr. and Mrs. C. P. Blair Mrs. Lucien D. Booth Mr. and Mrs. E. V. Bowyer Mr. and Mrs. Samuel T. Brown Mrs. Calvin T. Burton Mrs. M. Caldwell Butler Mrs. W. W. S. Butler Mr. and Mrs. J. Walker Caldwell Miss Sarah E. Cannaday ... Mrs. Clarke Cannon ^ Mr. and Mrs. John D. Carr Mrs. R. L. Carter Mrs. S. Beverly Cary , Mrs. H. Powell Chapman Mrs. Broaddus Chewning Mrs. Dorothy L. Churchill Mrs. E. H. Cline y , Mr. and Mrs. C. Francis Cocke Mrs. E. Dudley Colhoun Mr. and Mrs. Joseph W. Coxe, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Whitwell W. Coxe Mrs. Herbert A. Davies Mrs. King Daywalt Mr. F. C. Dillon, Jr. Mrs. Raymond F. Dudley Miss Judith Dudley ^ —Mrr'fteTr'BT—DoleneyMrs. Ola G. Durr Mrs. John W. Edmonds Mr. and Mrs. S. Spencer Edmunds Mr. and Mrs. Arthur T. Ellett Mr. and Mrs. Davis H. Elliot Mr. and Mrs. George T. Ellis Mr. J. Thomas Engleby, III Mr. and Mrs. B. N. Eubank Mrs. J. P. Fishburn -Mr. and Mrs. Robert N. Fishburn Mr. and Mrs. Edgar Foley Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Fortune Mr. and Mrs. Walter S. Foster Mr. and Mrs. Randolph Frantz \ Mr. John R. Garrett Mr. and Mrs. Fred Gentry Mrs. Corbin D. Glass Mr. and Mrs. Edmund P. Goodwin Mr. Robert Goodykoontz Dr. Kenneth Graves Mrs. Hugh J. Hagan, Sr. Dr. and Mrs. Hugh J. Hagan, Jr. Miss Anna Louise Haley Mr. and Mrs. Lynn R. Hammond, Sr. Mr. and Mrs. John W. Hancock, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Leigh B. Hanes, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. William P. Hazlegrove Mrs. Frank R. Hewitt Mr. and Mrs. J. R. Hildebrand V. Miss Nancy E. Himes Mrs. G. C. Holcomb Mr. and Mrs. William T. Horton Mrs. Frank E. Huff Mrs. Anita D. Ingram Mr. and Mrs. W. Bolling Izard Mr. and Mrs. Frederick C. James Mr. and Mrs. Shields Johnson Mrs. A. P. Jones Mr. and Mrs. D. L. Jordan Mr. and Mrs. Marcus Kaplan Mrs. James G. Kavanaugh Mr. and Mrs. George A. Kegley \ 38 �Miss Mildred C. Kerlin -Mrs. A lroa-Gr"4tatt- Keyset*Mr. and Mrs. James N. Kincanon f y Mr. and Mrs. R. Holman Ragland Mr. and Mrs. Elliott M. Ramsey 'Mrst—Frank-Wr-ReocF- Mr. and Mrs. J. Courtney King, Sr. Mrs. Arthur B. Richardson Mr. and Mrs. Dirk A. Kuyk Mr. and Mrs. J. D. Richardson Mr. and Mrs. Harold P. Kyle Mr. Frank W. Rogers Mr. and Mrs. Beverly R. Lamb Mr. and Mrs. Tayloe Rogers Mrs. Royse A. Landress Miss Chrystella Lehmann Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Lemon x' Mr. and Mrs. John Minor Botts Lewis, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. C. C. Lipes Mrs. James W. Long Mr. and Mrs. William C. Lukens Mr. and Mrs. James G. McConkey Mr. Walter G. Macdowell Mr. and Mrs. D. L. Marsteller Mr. and Mrs. Charles, P. Mayhew Miss Mary Minichan Mr. and Mrs. William Blair Mitchell Mrs. Henry Chase Mobley Miss Frances Moomaw Mr. John E. Moore Mrs. L. Franklin Moore Mrs, Gardner A. Mundy Mr. and Mrs. H. Robert Mundy Mrs. W. J. Nelson Mr. J. F. Newsom, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Edward C. Nininger Mrs. Robert P. Nininger ^ Mr. and Mrs. R. Stedman Oakey Miss Sallie Page Obenshain Mr. and Mrs. E. H. Ould Mrs. Edwin James Palmer Mr. and Mrs. Felix K. Parker Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin F. Parrott Mr. and Mrs. Frank H. Pitman Mr. R. A. Poff Mr. and Mrs. W. M. Rosborough Mr. and Mrs. Harry L. Rosenbaum Mr. and Mrs. Thomas D. Rutherfoord Mr. Hoskins M. Sdater Mr. and Mrs. Hobart L. Scott Miss Margaret Scott Mrs. George Scott Shackelford Mr. and Mrs. English Showalter ■ — Mrs. L. P. Smithey Mrs. A. P. Staples Mr. and Mrs. Paul Stonesifer William P. Swartz, Jr. and Co., Inc. Mr. Arthur Taubman Miss Alma Thomas Miss Ethel Thomas Mr. John M. Thompson — Mr. Joseph Treadway Mr. James L. Trinkle Mrs. Alice G. Trout Dr. and Mrs. Hugh H. Trout, Jr. Mrs. Joseph A. Turner Miss Mary Van Turner Mr. and Mrs. Paul Umbarger Dr. and Mrs. John T. Walke Mr. and Mrs. Francis S. Walters Mr. Storer P. Ware, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. William Watts Mrs. Roy L. Webber Mr. and Mrs. J. R. West Mrs. John W. Williams Mrs. Samuel W. Williams Mr. and Mrs. Holman Willis, Jr. Mrs. Robert P. Winton Mrs. Lake E. Woody Mr. and Mrs. Robert W. Woody •’ Mr. and Mrs. Charles Talbott Young Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Zollman 39 �OUT OF TOWN Mrs. Hubert Austin, Salem Mr. and Mrs. Leonard G. Muse, ^ Mr. Homer Bast, Salem Botetourt County Mr. and Mrs. William Miss Frances J. Niederer, Hollins Cary Breckinridge, Salem Mr. and Mrs. Robert L. Nutt, Jr., Miss Frances E. Bush, Vinton Elliston Mrs. Pauline S. Carlton, Salem Mr. Lee Pendleton, Christiansburg Mr. Stuart Carter, Buchanan Dr. and Mrs. Charles H. Peterson, Mr. and Mrs. Lucian H. Cocke, Hollins Hollins Dr. Clara K. Dickinson, Radford Mr. and Mrs. Robert B. Preston, Miss Mary Unity Dillon, Botetourt County Washington, D.C. Mrs. Phoebe O. Rookstool, Miss Louise E. Easter, Buchanan Washington, D.C. Mrs. O. D. Ross, Shawsville Dr. Joseph H. Farrow, Mr. and Mrs. Macon C. Sammons, New York City Shawsville Miss Virginia D. Haller, Salem Mrs. E. W. Senter, Salem Mr. and Mrs. Warren W. Hobbie, Dr. and Mrs. George Green Botetourt County Shackelford, Blacksburg Mr. and Mrs. Curtis Holland, Hollins Mrs. Lucile D. Snow, Salem Mrs. Garland J. Hopkins, Mr. Walter P. St. Clair, Jr., Botetourt County Rocky Mount Dr. Perry F. Kendig, Salem Mr. and Mrs. Fred Stone, Hardy Mr. R. S. Kime, Salem Mr. and Mrs. Robert D. Stoner, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas T. Lawson, Fincastle Botetourt County Mrs. Henry L. Taylor, Mrs. Fielding Lewis Logan, Salem West Palm Beach, Fla. Dr. John A. Logan, Jr., Hollins Mr. and Mrs. James E. Thomas, Miss Nancy C. Logan, Salem Winona Lake, Ind. Mrs. James McDowell, Fincastle Mr. and Mrs. David F. Thornton, •Mrr^and Mrs. S. H. McVitty, Salem Salem Mr. C. B. Manley, Buchanan Mr. and Mrs. Murray G. Via, Mrs. Elizabeth Pendleton Micou, Botetourt County Richmond Mr. and Mrs. James P. Woods, Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Walter Muir, Salem Salem A Dr. and Mrs. J. C. Zillhardt, Botetourt County IN MEMORIAM Mrs. Kenneth D. Graves Arthur B. Richardson Louis P. Smithey 40 ��� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society Winter 1967 Volume 3, Number 2 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />Hollins College and the Civil War<br />Henry Ford and Friends on Tour<br />Searching for Your Ancestors<br />Roanoke Valley's Early Iron Mines<br />Recollections of Bent Mountain Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Winter 1967 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_03_02_Winter_1967 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6338/JHSWV_04_01_Summer_1967.pdf d6adfb8bba7a600430fc1d6da3222129 PDF Text Text JOURNAL ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Sum m er V o lu m e F o u r 1967 N u m b er O n e �ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Amor montium nos movet Officers Mrs . E nglish Showalter ..................................................... President Shields J ohnson ........................................................... Vice President Jam es D. R ichardson ........................................................... Treasurer J. R. Hildebrand ..................................................................... Secretary Paul S. St o n e s if e r ......................................... Assistant Secretary Su sa n B urks W i l l i a m s ......................................... Executive Secretary D irectors Raymond P. Barnes John D. Carr Mrs. H. Powell Chapman C. Francis Cocke Ben Bane Dulaney S. S. Edmunds Arthur Ellett J. T. Engleby, III B. N. Eubank Edmund P. Goodwin Mrs. Edmund P. Goodwin Robert Goodykoontz J. R. Hildebrand Miss Nancy E. Himes Shields Johnson George Kegley Mrs. George Kegley Mrs. J. M. B. Lewis, Jr. Mrs. J. G. McConkey L. G. Muse E. H. Ould * He James D. Richardson Tayloe Rogers Mrs. English Showalter Mrs. Frank E. Snow R. D. Stoner Paul S. Stonesifer James L. Trinkle Robert W. Woody James P. Woods Dr. J. C. Zillhardt * Ben Bane Dulaney George Kegley Editor of the JOURNAL Associate Editor CONTENTS page The Pennsylvania Dutch Culture of the Shenandoah Valley, by Elmer L. S m ith ........................................................... 1 Interstate Interchange Covers Town of Gainesboro, by Raymond Barnes ..................................................................... 8 New Members ...................................................................................... 11 Bell Mont: The Fleming Plantation, by Edmund P. G oodwin.......... 12 Let’s All Make Whiskey ..................................................................... 22 “Locust Level” ................................................................ 23 Society Makes Strong Plea For Fincastle ......................................... 29 Election of Officers ............................................................................... 31 The Society’s Fifth Annual Tour Into H istory................................... 32 Early Lutherans in Western Virginia ................... 34 Saddlebags and Bank Ledgers ........................................................... 39 The Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Volume IV, Number 1. Published twice yearly by the Society at Box 1904, Roanoke, Virginia, to chronicle the past and present of that part of the state west of the Blue Ridge. Single copy price: 50 cents. The Society will be careful in handling unsolicited material but cannot be responsible for its loss. �The Pennsylvania Dutch Culture Of The Shenandoah Valley E lmer L. S m ith It is commonly noted that in 1716 Governor Spotswood and his expedition of Knights of the Golden Horseshoe were the first white men to set eyes on the beautiful Shenandoah Valley. Although a con­ troversy over the exact location of entry into the region persists (either Swift Run Gap or Milam’s Gap), few have taken the time to note that John Lederer and his party entered the Valley in 1670, and Louis Michelle and his group made notes of their observations in the area in 1707. By 1726 settlements were established: Adam Miller with his friends and relatives at Massanutten; Jost Hite near Winchester; John Lewis at Staunton and others. Almost all of the early pioneers were Ger­ mans who came to the Valley by way of Pennsylvania. They were fol­ lowed by others who were from the Palatinate region of Germany. The Shenandoah Valley became populated by a people unique to those in eastern Virginia. The fact of German domination of the Shenandoah Valley is noted by the early tombstone inscriptions, which were often in the native lan­ guage, the lists of white settlers massacred by Indians, who were al­ most exclusively German (Long, Painter, Myers, Fisher, Stone, Del­ linger, Miller, Roads, Sigler, Sheets, Bingaman, Mallow and others) and early church records, personal documents and family records which were commonly written in the German language. More than two hundred years after the first settlement of the Valley, the noted historian, Dr. John Wayland, wrote that at least three-fourths of the native white population of Rockingham, Page and Shenandoah counties were of German lineage.1 Dr. Heinz Kloss of Stuttgart, Germany, whose history of the Palatinate traced some of the peoples of that region to the New World, claimed that at least a third of the population southward from Pennsylvania into the Shenan­ doah Valley were Pennsylvania Germans. Although early migrants to the region included English, Scotch- Dr. Elmer L. Smith is chairman of the department of social sci­ ences, Madison College, Harrisonburg. This article is an adaptation of a talk he made before the annual meeting of this Society on June 21. �Irish, Huguenots and people of Swiss origin, the larger numbers were of German heritage. Nevertheless it was noted more than a half cen­ tury ago that, “It is a potent fact that the German element in Virginia is a subject that has received but slight attention, either in the thought and literature of our larger Virginia or in the thought and concern of the German element itself.”2 The Germans who settled the Valley were primarily the products of the Protestant Reformation, having come from the Old World in search of religious freedom and the opportunity for a peaceful exis­ tence. They were members of the Lutheran and Reformed churches as well as some newly developed religions and some of the sect groups. This differential religious affiliation has created two major strains of German culture in the region, one secular or popularly referred to as “Gay,” while the other is sacred and termed, “Plain.” The Gay people were affiliated with the Lutheran, Reformed and Evangelical United Brethren churches, while the Plain people were Amish, Mennonite and Dunkard. These two culture patterns were quite often dichotomous in gt aspirations, codes of conduct, beliefs and standards. As a result there developed an ethnocentrism within the peoples of German heritage, with the tendency for one group to disassociate itself from the other. Among the Plain people, simplicity in style of life is a major char­ acteristic while salvation is the goal of life. Simplicity takes many spe­ cific forms ranging from plain dress, (bordering on costumes or uni­ forms) to rejection of modern conveniences such as telephone, radio, television, and the use of the automobile. The Gay people are more similar to other major Protestant groups, they seek modern conven­ iences, decorate their homes and themselves, and seek happiness and satisfaction in this world while also hoping for salvation in the next. This group is considered “Worldly” by the Plain people, who often re­ fer to the scripture, “Be not of this world.” These two groups also differ in attitudes toward government, edu­ cation, and participation in war. For example, the Plain people are pacifists, reflected in their folk heroes, Elder John Kline, the Dunkard, and John D. Heatwole, the Mennonite potter. Both were martyrs for the pacifist cause. The “Gay” people, however, take pride in Peter Muhlenberg, the patriot-preacher who, according to tradition, told his Woodstock, Virginia, congregation, “There is a time to pray and a time to fight.” The Lutheran and Reformed churches established many of the early neighborhood schools in the Valley, while the Plain groups failed to open parochial schools and in fact opposed public education. Some do to the present day! There has been the tendency for the Plain sects to cling persistent2 �¡¡ § J § > J* 0 m * P%D4 M.CHR i s t i .\>.K i \ dig| 1 a Soji os Adam k'indig and wifeAn is 1 ne a d.nigider of Michael Hav] I cKs'ticic was born on the sth o f , , wary i n the Year afour L otcUsmI i ill ttiCTcMWhip of Cons stores in the [County of L ancnstir in the State oi P ennsylvania . I n N o r t h America. la fid V .ts b ap tise d on th e Is'tl v I Day of At will!! theyearef our Loan, |tSS3i>y th e Revwami Henry. B. , IShaiVnet* P a s to r of th cR efo rm ecil | Church mthelioroupT of w ifttirW ifA f i t s Sponcett was his Fa t h e r Thouwith thy eoajiselwhite Ilive, »ilf nit* conduct and rtiidc« And to thy Glory, afterward Hri rive Hit to tindc. v x Whamtoe Iinthe heavens high« but thee Ol.ord atone. And in the earth \s liomldesire, beskie tliee there is none* ft. A\ k j ' v " This fine Fraktur, or elaborate, colored scrollwork, is the property of Dr. Perry Kendig, president of Roanoke College, and concerns his great grandfather, Adam Christian Kindig. —Photograph by Oakie Asbury ly to the family farm and an agrarian way-of-life, while the Gay people have adjusted to the urban way-of-life and to the increasingly industrial and scientific age. The folklorist can note numerous distinctions between the people of German heritage who are of these diiferent cultures. In holiday traditions, for example, the Gay groups looked forward to the fun and fellowship associated with the Christmas practice of belsnickeling, but the Plain people forbid such participation. When Ascension day comes, Plain people avoid farming tasks, such as plowing or discing, and the 3 �women turn from their sewing, but the Gay people pay little attention to the old lore associated with this occasion. When Dr. Wayland noted the lack of pride in their heritage by the German element itself, he observed an interesting phenomenon. It is quite likely that the people of the region mistook the behavior, values and traditions of the Plain people with that of THE Dutch. The characteristics that adequately portray one element of the German population often represent improper description of other portions of that population, as a result one group may refer to the other as “Dumb Dutch.” In the Shenandoah Valley there has been a strong tendency to dissociate those things German from recognition of them as part of the German heritage. (Perhaps the classic example of this was when Con­ gress appropriated $25,000 to honor the contribution of Peter Muhlen­ berg. An Episcopal church laid claim to this Lutheran leader and pro­ posed that a statue of him be placed at the entrance to their house of worship. The ensuing conflict went unresolved, with the result that there is no Muhlenberg memorial at all!) Unfortunately the culture and heritage of the Shenandoah Valley has been ignored by its own people, but not always by others from out­ side the region. The work of the Pennsylvania German potters went unrecognized until three Pennsylvanians visited and researched the region and produced the book, The Shenandoah Pottery ( 1929 ) .3 Since that time specimens are on display in the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and elsewhere. Antiquarians now compare this pottery with the famous Bennington ware. More recent­ ly an entire book was produced by the York County Historical Society pertaining to the diary sketches of Lewis Miller. Virginians have paid little attention to the work of this famous American folk artist, yet among his sketches are those from this region showing Mountain Lake, Brush Mountain, Salem, (with Roanoke College), Blacksburg as a vil­ lage, Bullard Rock and others. Lewis Miller was born in York County, Pennsylvania, and he is featured as one of that county’s most significant historic figures, yet he lived and died in Christiansburg, Virginia. In 1959, this writer and his colleague, Professor John Stewart, started to search for surviving remnants of the Pennsylvania Dutch culture in the Shenandoah Valley. Although it was not our hope to find dialect materials, for Dr. Heber Hays as early as 1908 had noted that the Pennsylvania German dialect had a very limited future,4 nev­ ertheless the first day in the field we came in contact with dialect speak­ ers! Soon we were to find that within several isolated neighborhoods in Shenandoah, Augusta, and Rockingham counties, the dialect was very much alive. In some sections of Pendleton county in West Virginia it was the language spoken in the home. At least 700 dialect speakers re4 �main in the Shenandoah Valley, and from them were collected a wide variety of dialect proverbs, sayings, rhymes, verses, remedies and songs gathered in the oral tradition. (It is understandable that Dr. Wayland and Dr. Hays concluded erroneously that the dialect was extinct. In discussing this with the noted historian before his death, Dr. Wayland indicated that much of his research took him to the towns of the Valley where he sought docu­ ments and written records. He had little contact with the rural folk population of the more isolated and out-of-the-way villages of the region. It was here that the dialect has been perpetuated.) Heartened by these successful initial efforts, specimens of other characteristic Pennsylvania German traditions and culture were sought. In this search a vacuum-cleaner type research methodology was em­ ployed. Selected life-long residents of communities and villages were asked about holiday practices, socials, remedies, weather and similar beliefs and practices; at the same time furniture styles and architectural forms were noted, and time was spent at the neighborhood country stores listening to local gossip. When a neighborhood was visited, the local burial grounds were searched for German-inscribed tombstones, unusual epitaphs, the predominance of selected surnames as well as folk art designs. More than five hundred elderly residents of the region have been interviewed; they ranged in age from 70 to 95, but more than half have since passed away. Our techniques involve the use of tape record­ ers, cameras, duplicators and rubbing equipment; that is, most inter­ views are recorded, activities and artifacts are photographed, docu­ ments and records are duplicated and some tombstones and other inscribed artifacts are rubbed. These are placed on our check-lists and filed; In the many cemeteries visited, one inscription was unusually common. It reads: “Remember vie as you pass by, As you are now, so once was I As I am now, so must you be. Prepare for death— and follow me.” Interestingly, in collecting anecdotes and local stories, in several communities we were told the story of a tramp that visited the local burial grounds and noted the above mentioned epitaph. He added several lines, as follows: “To follow you 1 am not content, Until I know which way you went.” (This story has been often told in Pennsylvania and has been at­ tributed to an actual situation occurring at Ziegel’s Church in Lehigh county there.) 5 �Cemeteries in the Valley reveal interesting folk art; the designs on many markers are similar to those in southeastern Pennsylvania, where the heart, tulip and the tree-of-life are common motifs. The common barn of our region is quite similar to the Swiss or bank barns of Pennsylvania and many of the regional barns were also decorated. The so-called “hex” signs in Berks and Lehigh counties of Pennsylvania are much more intricate, and there are a wide variety of designs compared to those in the Valley, where simple stars, circles and other geometric designs are common. After two years of research the first specimen of fraktur was lo­ cated. It had been our assumption that such items were not produced in the region, although some had perhaps been carried to the area by the early settlers. Several local folk artists have been identified, and at least one was very productive. One specimen of his work is on display in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Included in the fraktur of the Valley are hand-made Birth and Baptismal certificates, book plates, New Years Greetings, House-Signs, Love-letters and Valentines, Writ­ ing Specimens and Rewards of Merit. The Pennsylvania Germans were a superstitious people. Witches were once believed to infest every section of the Old World and some people think they still do! These notions persist to the present in our region and some witch doctors are known, although in Pennsylvania they would be referred to as “pow-wow doctors.” Such people have rituals and formulae, using words and motions to remove spells from bewitched animals, afflicted individuals, and even butter churns. Close­ ly associated is an occult cure used throughout the region, or braucha, as it is called. It is still used in cases of rupture, sprains, goiter, thrash, sore throat, wild fire, whooping cough and for swainee of the horse. In the treatment of whooping cough, the old mill was used. Af­ flicted children were placed in the mill hopper while grain was being run through. (This practice persisted in some sections of Pennsylvania a century ago, but in parts of the Shenandoah Valley it was going strong in the 1930’s.5) Hundreds of children in our region are still measured for under­ growth, greased to avoid being liver-grown, and treated for thrash, measles and similar afflictions by time-honored methods. (Here there is a difference between the Gay and the Plain people, for the Plain group persist in the belief in braucha as a God-given power, while at the same time they condemn the notion of pow-wow doctors and witch doctors as “evil doers of the devil.” The Gay people have about the same acceptance of the pow-wow doctor as the braucha practitioner, ranging from complete faith to the attitude that their activities might help somehow but certainly can’t do much harm.) Closely associated are those beliefs in talking horses during the 6 �Christmas season, praying cattle and the possibility that letters can be written to rats, moths, and other creatures which they can under­ stand.6 In Rockingham county one woman still writes a note addressed to cut worms and places it in her corn field; a pioneer family has notes in an early diary pertaining to the words to be written to the moths and placed on clothing when they were put away for the summer months. The haus segen and himmelsbrief have a similar intent; that is, the house sign is an amulet which seeks to protect the family and the home, while the himmelsbrief (letter from heaven) was carried on the person, protecting him from sickness, robbery, drowning, fire and what not. Finally, specimens of Pennsylvania German crafts have been sought in the Valley. These include products of the ironmakers, of which there were many, including Mossy Creek, Pine Forge, Marlboro and many others, and the potters, of whom the Bells are now nationally fa­ mous. There were also other fine craftsmen—the Coffman family at Elkton, Suter at Harrisonburg, the New Market Schweinfort and the Mennonite, Heatwole. Little is known of the stone-cutters except such craftsmen as Rinker and Funk; nor could the clockmakers be ignored. Here were Jacob Donner, Anthony and Jacob Kline, George Long and the Dunkard, John Hirt of nearby Salem, whose grandfather clocks were sold throughout a wide territory. In conclusion: The Pennsylvania German tradition and culture is a major part of the heritage of the Shenandoah Valley. It persists to­ day and is represented by the two major elements of the broad Pennsyl­ vania German culture, that is, the sacred and the secular. It is my opinion that our region, although unique, is nevertheless the southern­ most part of the section of America popularly referred to as “The Pennsylvania Dutch Country.” 1 Wayland, John. A HISTORY OF SHENANDOAH COUNTY, VIRGINIA, Shenandoah Publishing House,^aSyburg, y ^ ni«'HE’ 9§^ RMAN ELEMENT IN THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY OF VIRGIN IA, CharlottesviHe,^Va.,^1907. Strasburg^Vbg^ jtoudt, J. B., THE SHENANDOAH POTTERY, Shenandoah "Q n Publishing House, ,he German Dialect Spoken in the Valley of Virginia" DIALECT NOTES III, ' 5 Smith, Elmer and Stewart. John, "The Mill as a Preventive and Cure of Whooping Cough," AMERICAN FOLKLORE JOURNAL, Vol. 77, No. 303, Jan.-March, 1964. e Smith, Elmer, VALLEY FOLKLORE, "Conjuring Critters, 1966. 7 �Interstate Interchange Covers Town of Gainesborough By Raymond B arnes Construction of the spur connecting Orange Avenue in Roanoke with Interstate Route 81 has just about erased all visible evidence of the once flourishing Town of Gainesborough.* In fact, save for what re­ mains of the Negro cemetery it is difficult to locate any landmark evidencing the settlement. To the sentimental this move of progress is regrettable, yet be­ cause dwellings once located in the Town of Gainesborough were per­ mitted to fall into such a state of dilapidation the Redevelopment and Housing Authority not only demolished all houses in this section but changed the terrain itself by redirecting thoroughfares. Note on the facing plat prepared by J. Raymond Hildebrand the location of the Spotts dwelling and that of the stone mill. A dotted line indicates the Lynchburg Road, earlier the game-Indian trail known to pioneers as “The Great Road.” Over this route, for generations prior to the coming of the white man, passed great herds of elk, deer and buffalo, seeking among other objectives, to lick salt from the saline encrusted mud of The Big Lick which lay farther east, down in the bottom, south of present Rt. 460 and west of Tinker Creek. This trail was followed by Indians on missions of war or peace and led to a pas­ sage through the Blue Ridge Mountains we know as Buford’s Gap, lying between the present settlements of Blue Ridge Spring and Montvale. The early white settlers were farmers and hunters. Since it re­ quired all of their energies to develop “new lands” there was no ef­ fort to establish a commercial center. Here and there a license was granted to a man “to conduct at his dwelling an ordinary”—a place where food, drink and shelter could be had for prices ordained by the court. There were a few scattered trading posts too. George Spotts must have been operating an ordinary on the site indicated as early as Nov. 8, 1785 for at that term of court he was presented for “retailing without a license.” Another presentment on May 9, 1787 was dismissed. Spotts apparently operated the stone mill (shown on the plat) which had been built by the Campbells, under the impression that their grant bordered along “The Great Road.” Nathaniel Evans, by a re-survey, found unclaimed land so he patented 58 acres which included the Campbell mill. This unneighbor* Later residents spelled it "Gainsboro." 8 �TOWN \ JA N E C A M P B E L L , E X E C U T R IX O F - \ N A T H A N IE L e V A M S C W IL L P R 08A TEO \ IN H E N R IC O C O U N T Y ) GAINSBOROUGH ----- A (S C O R G E S P O T T S ( B.O.B. S / 4 6 E 4 4 ) S Ô A ,J A N U A R Y 2 , I T S * \ 1834 T H I S M A P S H O W S P O R T IO N S O F T H E O R IG IN A L G R A N T S IN T H I S A R E A L O C A T IO N S O F O LO B U I L D I N G S , T H E C O N T IG U O U S H A RT L A N D S f M A G N O L I A ) , AMO T H E TO W N O F G A IN S B O R O U G H ,L A I D O F F BY W I L L IA M R O W L A N D ON TME L A K E L A N D P L A N T A T I O N . THE H EA VY L I N E S S H O W HOW U R B A N S T R E E T D E V E LO P M E N T H A S O B L IT E R A T E D ALM O ST A LL # F T H E O R I6 I N A L L A N D M A R K S . , 70 JO H N A M O C O R N E L IU S P A T E « CO. S B A . (B.O.O. 8 ,P A 8 £ 50 > . S 6 P T . T 7 . l8 0 l JO H N C . J E F F R E Y S 1092. TO W IL L IA M R O W L A N D 1034. —Map researched and executed by J. R. Hildebrand �ly act caused such bitterness between the Campbells and Nathaniel Evans they forbade their sister, Jane, to marry him. The young couple defied convention so flagrantly that Jane was sent to live south of the Ohio River while Nathaniel moved west to Tennessee. Nevertheless, at his death, Nathaniel appointed Jane his executrix and it was she who deeded 58 acres to George Spotts, some years after he purchased them. George Spotts moved on to the Greenbrier, deeding his entire holdings of around 68 acres to John and Cornelius Pate and Company on Sept. 7, 1801. It is said the Pates were merchants of Bedford Coun­ ty. Apparently the firm conducted a store and tavern at the Spotts dwelling and operated the mill together with a “foundry,” probably a smith’s shop. Later, prior to 1830, a new building, a combined tavern-mercan­ tile establishment, was erected on what became known as lots 22-23-24 of the Town of Gainesborough map. The Pates were so successful they purchased a portion of the Campbell lands south of The Great Road which were held until sold to Isham H. Ferguson about 1880. (The Big Lick itself and much of old northeast Roanoke lay on the PateFerguson holdings.) As a result of a lawsuit the 68 acres came into the hands of John C. Jeffreys. In early 1834 William Rowland enlisted the services of Maj. Kemp Gaines to purchase the entire 68 acres with improvements thereon for $2,000. The area was then subdivided into lots, and following con­ siderable advertising, offered for sale at public auction on May 29, 1834. Bidding was brisk until the crowd noticed John Campbell pur­ chasing the most desirable property for a very high figure, including lots 22-23-24 on which the tavern-store stood. A rumor circulated that Rowland and Campbell had a secret understanding whereby the most valuable property would be acquired by Campbell with Rowland to come in for his share later. Bidding became cool. Further representation was made that the Lynchburg Road would be changed to occupy a proposed street. For the record, no street changes were made in this section for decades afterward. Rowland died soon after the big sale, whereupon John W. Thomp­ son, his executor, sued John Campbell for specific performance by ten­ dering a deed and demanding payment of the purchase price. (See settled file 106, Clerk’s Office, Circuit Court of Roanoke County). Despite the unhappy ill-omened beginning (for other law suits were brought respecting the proposed changes in street locations, etc.) lot owners and neighbors successfully petitioned the Assembly of 183435 to charter the Town of Gainesborough. The original 68-acre Evans-Spotts tract with the tavern-store long had been known as Big Lick. Gainesborough, named after Maj. 10 �Kemp Gaines, who received a horse from Rowland for his assistance, sounded alien to local ears. Even residents referred to their town as Big Lick. By 1860, the settlement boasted about 20 dwellings and business houses. Episcopal, Presbyterian and Baptist churches were erected on what is shown on the plat as a “cemetery” with a rectory up on a hill to the west. Stirrups, bits and other articles of harness manufactured at Big Lick earned a not wide but justified fame. In 1837, Zecariah Robinson was induced to build what this gen­ eration knows as “Magnolia,” not within the town limits but on the eastern boundary line with a goodly vacant field in between. Since the new edifice was a tavern, adjoining vacant property was essential to provide a place where drovers of cattle, turkeys and sheep could pas­ ture their charges overnight. Facing the tavern on the south between the “highway” and the building, was a small lake, around which ran a race track. The rails of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad came in 1852. About a mile southwest of Gainesborough a depot on the new rail line was designated as Big Lick. Around the station, after the War Between the States, a cluster of tobacco manufacturers sprang up until the popu­ lation grew sufficiently to demand a degree of local autonomy. In 1874, the Town of Big Lick was chartered, much to Gainesborough’s hurt, for churches and small business establishments moved to join those of Big Lick. Gainesborough, with few exceptions, became a Negro colony, bearing the designation, “Old Lick.” When the Town of Roanoke was chartered in 1882, followed by the City of Roanoke in 1884, Gainesborough was embraced in the new geo-political setup. At one time second only to Salem as a “heavily populated” com­ munity, nearly every trace of this once happy village has been erased. New Members The Society has welcomed these new members since the roll was published in our winter issue: Blair, Mr. and Mrs. C. P., Roanoke Bowen, Mr. and Mrs. Hascall, Roanoke Chaney, Mr. and Mrs. John M., Roanoke Damron, Mrs. J. W., Roanoke Ellett, Mr. and Mrs. J. Albert, Roanoke Logan, Mrs. John Lee, Salem Moore, Mr. and Mrs. Franklin, Jr., Roanoke Painter, Mr. and Mrs. Hunter, Fincastle * * H« And somehow these ladies were omitted from the list: Payne, Miss Frances, Vinton Powers, Mrs. Lois, Rice 11 �Bell Mont: The Fleming Plantation By E dm und P. Goodwin Little has been written about the Eighteenth Century homes of the men who were the leaders in the defense and development of west­ ern Virginia. Here in our valley we have such a place—Bell Mont. In developing information about Colonel William Fleming’s home it has been necessary to search the records and all known applicable writ­ ings of that period, select facts, often unrelated, then to weave them together. A portion of the mansion house still stands and what was the plantation spreads today over parts of Roanoke City, Roanoke County and the Town of Vinton. Less than thirty years had passed since the first settler received title to land in our valley, when, in 1768, Colonel Israel Christian “for natural love and affection and in part of her marriage portion,” con­ veyed to his daughter Anne Fleming “upwards of 500 acres” where Tinker Creek was forded by the Great Road from the Yadkin to Phil­ adelphia “and where Captain Fleming now lives.”1 This was the frontier. The closest town to the north was Staunton and the nearest one to the east was New London.2 The population of the entire Shen­ andoah Valley in 1763 has been estimated at 20,000 whites and 1,000 blacks and by 1776 this had increased to 48,000 whites and 5,000 blacks.3 As the years went by, Fleming purchased 400 acres from Captain Francis Smith,4 “subject to the Quit Rents due the King,” adjoining the southern line of the original tract, 350 acres from Colonel George Skillern,® which had a common boundary with the Smith land and was “on Glade Creek, a branch of the Roan Oak.” Later he came in possession of 1,000 acres to the west of the Christian land in exchange for Treasury Warrant #9322® as well as some 160 to 200 acres7 ad­ joining the Skillern tract. Based on present-day landmarks the boun­ dary of all the property would be as follows: Beginning at a point slightly west of Tinker Creek but north of the Johnson-Carper Furniture Company, then in an easterly direction, crossing the spur of Mills (Dead Man’s) Mountain, some two miles or more, thence turning southwestward to a point across the creek from Edmund P. Goodwin was an organizer and first president of the Roanoke Historical Society. He notes that in addition to the original Fleming spelling of “Bell Mont” and the present day “Belmont” the plantation through the years also has been referred to as “Belle Mont” and “Bell Mount”. 12 �Bell Mont as it appeared about five years ago, surrounded by Monterey Golf Course in northeast Roanoke. It is now much more overgrown. Fallon Park, and then back to the place of beginning, some 2500 acres in all. Although the purpose of this article is to describe a home, one should know something about its master and why he is considered a leader in the defense and development of western Virginia. William Fleming was born in 1727/288 of English parents who had moved to Scotland shortly before his birth. His medical education was com­ pleted at the University of Edinburgh9 and he came to the Colony of Virginia soon after mid-century.10 In 1755, he was appointed an ensign in the 1st Virginia Regiment," then under the command of George Washington, and continued to serve that unit as an officer and surgeon until the end of the French and Indian War.12 Some of his surgical instruments and medical scales are owned by the Roanoke Historical Society. After the Regiment was disbanded he settled in Staunton13 and married Anne Christian.14 He. was a justice15 and vestryman of Au­ gusta16 and when Botetourt was formed, the Governor appointed him to like offices in the new county.17 During Dunmore’s War, in 1774, while leading his troops at the Battle of Point Pleasant, Colonel Flem­ ing received two serious wounds,18 which prevented him from serving 13 �in the field during the Revolutionary War. However, he was appointed the chief military administrative officer of the county.19 He was elected a state senator,20 then became a member of the council of state and as such acted as Governor of Virginia21 between the terms of Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Nelson. On two occasions he received appoint­ ments as a commissioner to Kentucky (then a county of Virginia), first to settle land claims22 and later to review the accounts of public officials.23 On one of his numerous trips to that county he was named president of its first convention.24 In 1788 he was a member of the Virginia Convention that ratified the Constitution of the United States.25 Fleming’s will provided that Bell Mont and the lands contiguous thereto be divided between his sons, William and John.26 In 1807 a survey was prepared to accomplish this division and it shows “The mansion house with 646 acres (including the original tract) was laid off to John Fleming as his share.”27 The map shows a building with two chimneys at the approximate location of the existing house near the Great Road and another building, with one chimney, on William’s part. Most probably, the latter was the one Mrs. Fleming mentions in a letter9 to her son John, who was attending Washington College, where his brother-in-law, George A. Baxter, was President,28 in which she writes “Billy is very busy about getting a house built at the lower place.” John died intestate and his land was divided among his remaining brothers and sisters. Priscilla, whose husband was Samuel Wilson, received 88 acres on which the mansion house stood. At various times the Wilsons purchased from the other heirs a substantial part of the Christian tract. There are letters which show the colonel’s widow lived at Bell Mont with the Wilsons until her death in 1811. In 1815 the Roanoke Navigation Company was formed with the purpose of making Roanoke River navigable from Weldon, N. C. to Salem, Va.29 Some of its organizers created the Prestonville Company to make Tinker Creek navigable to a proposed town near the present site of Hollins College.30 In 1819, the Wilsons sold all of their land to Charles Johnston, this company’s agent, for $23,875.31 When the prior company failed, apparently the Prestonville Company divided the land acquired among the persons who had financed and developed it. Sam­ uel Pannell and Henry E. Coleman received 218 acres30 and the fol­ lowing recital is found in the deed “including the dwelling and out­ buildings where Samuel Wilson formerly lived.” Soon, thereafter, they sold this tract to Thomas Goode.32 Goode traded all of his land to Colonel William M. Peyton,33 in 1832. The deed states the consideration as being “one full moiety of my lands embracing the Hot Springs in the Co. of Bath and the lands contiguous thereto.” It appears Peyton moved here, shortly there14 �after, because he sold the other moiety to Goode34 for $15,000 about seven months later and his acknowledgement was taken in Botetourt. (Roanoke County was formed in 1838). As a result of this transaction a description of Peyton’s home is found in J. Lewis Peyton’s Memoirs of William Madison Peyton: “After a year at the Springs he made sale of that valuable property to Dr. Samuel (sic) Goode, receiving from him in part payment an extensive landed estate in Botetourt. His mansion like so many others in Virginia, timber built and though alto­ gether an extensive edifice was composed of many disjointed parts. These separate buildings were connected by halls and verandahs which gave a picturesque appearance to the exterior, while protecting it from the sun, wind and rain. The rooms were spacious and furnished with all the riches of the Eastern World.” In 1846, Peyton conveyed this property to Betsy Read and her two sons, the consideration being $25,000.00.35 The Read family for many years have lived at Monterey, a fine brick house located on land formerly owned by Fleming, but it was not. a part of Peyton’s proper­ ty. It was built by Yelverton Oliver about 1846, and eleven years later was foreclosed. A deed,36 to the Reads, was made to this property in 1860 and recites “where Read now lives.” Apparently the Reads lived for at least eleven years in the house that had been known as Bell Mont. In these affluent times it is difficult for one to have the right per­ spective to appreciate an Eighteenth Century home without some basis for comparison. An excellent general description of the interior of homes in those days appears in Freeman H. Hart’s The Valley of Vir­ ginia in the American Revolution 1763-1789: “The better homes had some silverware as well as an occa­ sional piece of unusual furniture, such as a book case, a great chair, or a bureau. There were also candlesticks, looking glasses, and a few rugs of various sorts, and sometimes ‘well furnished feather beds.’ More than half the families had books, although in some cases, this meant nothing more than a copy of the Bible. There is, however, another side of the picture, and one that is not so cheerful. Not half the homes had kitchen utensils, only a third had beds, and only one family in six had chairs or tables. This to be sure did not signify destitution in the present day sense, but that most families prepared meals Indian fashion, slept on the floor or in bunks nailed up in the corner of their log cabins, sat oriental fashion or on stools sawed from logs, and used for tables, logs hewn on one side to make a level surface.” In a 1794 letter Colonel Fleming wrote to his niece in England that “I live in a pleasant agreeable situation one Hundred Eighty Miles from Richmond, near the big lick in Botetourt Co.”9 Descrip15 �tions of his home by historians vary greatly. For example one can read “he erected a three-room one-story log house and lived in it until his death,”37 but on the other hand one finds in F. B. Kegley’s, The Virginia Frontier, p. 518: “We are inclined to believe he had a more commodious dwell­ ing than the old home still standing on the grounds. A characteris­ tic of the old plantation homes in this region is a row of huge locust trees, surrounding the mansion house and grounds. This we find at Belmont, although the house on the knoll encircled by the re­ mains of the trees is gone. We know that the Fleming home was an attractive and substantial one, even a literary one in associa­ tion at least.” Based on a review of official records it is reasonable to believe the existing house was the one in which Fleming was living when the original deed was made in 1768—at least it was certainly a part of the house in which he lived. Now that we know what others think about Bell Mont, the time has come to go on the ground and make our own inspection. The house, now surrounded by the Monterey Golf Course, is lo­ cated on a knoll to the east of the Great Road and a short distance north of Tinker Creek. It provides a fine example of the design and construc­ tion of the better homes in our valley during the latter half of the Eighteenth Century. Today one sees a 31 by seven and a half foot porch on the left front of a 40 by 18 foot story and a half building with a onestory addition adjoining it on the rear. The roof peaks over the center portion and gracefully slopes downward covering the other two parts, giving the appearance of tieing it all into the ground. In the main portion there are two 16 by 18 foot rooms on each floor, with an eight-foot hall in between. The rear wing has two rooms. The original exterior log construction can be seen only on the wall under the porch as the rest has been covered with asbestos shingles. The walls of the rooms on the first floor are made of eight horizontal hand hewn logs. Near each end they have been notched in a V shape to receive the logs forming the exterior and hall walls. The latter are the same thickness as the others, but six inches wide and have been tapered to fit into the V. Facing the building one sees in the weather boarded hall portion a door and above it a window. In the center of the right hand room there is a window, and in the left room another door. Some believe the hall indicates dog or possum trot construction but a very interesting staircase in its left rear tends to negate this theory. On each end of the house there are two windows of twelve panes each and a like number in the upper rooms but they are only two panes wide and three high. In between the windows, there are brick chim16 �neys, seven feet, two inches wide. At ceiling height each side is stepped back three inches in a like number of brick courses. Nine courses be­ low the peak of the room each side of the chimney is narrowed nine inches. At the top the last three courses, all around, are stepped out a total of three inches. There is no basement and the foundation of the entire structure is of shaped gray limestone. The beams and joists under the living portion of the house which can be seen because a furnace was installed in recent years, are a foot in diameter. Some logs still retain their bark, hewn only to receive the floor. The similarity of the logs and the slope of the roof indicate all of the existing building was constructed at the same time. The six by ten joists, 30 inches on center, supporting the second floor are smoothly hewn. About one inch from the bottom they are decorated with a neatly cut groove. There are fireplaces in the two lower rooms. Today there is one outbuilding framed with logs, and a well, capped with cement, a short distance from the front of the house. Mrs. Frank Read remembers some slave quarters, to the northeast, on another knoll. 17 �A man who worked for Frank Read and lived in the house prior to 1900, told how he knew it as a small boy. His description was most interesting, and appeared accurate as he remembered where his par­ ents, brothers and sisters slept and how the other rooms were used, in­ cluding those in another one-story hand-hewn log wing attached to the rear. He said there were fireplaces in the upper rooms. His recollection of this other building brings back to mind the description of Colonel Peyton’s home as being “composed of many disjointed parts.” When the Flemings moved here their only child was Leonard Israel, named for his paternal grandfathers. As time went on some 12 or 13 other children were born, but apparently only the following reached maturity: Anne, Eliza, Dorothea, Priscilla, William and John, who was born October 8, 1788.3e With his increasing family, his in­ come from medicine, official duties and land transactions, particularly in Kentucky where at one time he owned more than thirty thousand acres,39 it is possible some, if not all, of the additions mentioned by Peyton, were made by Fleming. Writings by or to the Flemings give some insight into the way of life at Bell Mont. In March, 1780, Caleb Wallace wrote Fleming, who was in Ken­ tucky, that he had engaged Thomas Delziel, late overseer for Mr. Breckinridge, to take care of the “Plantation” the following sum­ mer.9 A few years later, while on another trip to Kentucky, Fleming wrote his wife wanting to know if she had “any person to take care of the Plantation.”9 In various letters there are references to cattle, winter grain, corn, oats, peach trees, tobacco, tomatoes, etc.9 The in­ ventory of Fleming’s estate lists, among many other things, more than a hundred cattle, nine horses, as well as sheep and hogs.40 The most complete information concerning the house deals with the library. In a letter41 of that period it is stated Colonel William Fleming along with others “ . . . engaged Mr. Gabriel Jones, an Englishman, to select for them libraries in London.” No record of such a purchase has been found but an inventory was made by Flem­ ing9 of 324 volumes on ten shelves. The library contained novels and books on many subjects, including medicine, religion, travel, history, peerage, astronomy, government, military matters, surveying, mathe­ matics, law and reptiles. One was on the Art of Angling. Whether this was a complete list at the time it was made is unknown, but he wrote of purchasing other books that are not included.9 In letters from Richmond and Williamsburg he writes about pur­ chasing certain items and they should help to develop a picture of Bell Mont. Among the clothes bought were silk gloves, leather shoes, necklaces, umbrellas, lute string (cloth), silk, cloth buttons, Dutch 18 �and English blankets, Negro cotton, green persian, tambored muslin, dimity, raw silk and everlasting stockings, bonnets, fans, black lace, morocco slippers, linen, and a tambored coat. Some of the foods pur­ chased were, green tea, “Bag and Kegg,” sugar, allspice, coffee, pep­ per, ginger, nutmeg and loaf sugar.42 For the house he writes about soap, needles, pins, table cloths, knives, forks, plates, china cups, coffee cups, saucers, etc.9 It has been stated Colonel Fleming always wore colonial dress and this is substantiated by a list of clothes he carried on a trip to Ken­ tucky, which among other things included two ruffled shirts, four plain ones, six pairs of stockings, waistcoat and breeches made of “Corddu Roy,” leather breeches, shoe and knee buckles, stocks, a fine hat and silver spurs.9 An interesting employment contract, made soon after the Flem­ ings moved to Bell Mont, is recorded in Deed Book 16, page 167, Au­ gusta County. The following is a portion of it: “Mary Williams—for and in consideration of L-25—hath of her own free and voluntary will placed and bound herself as a servant to William Fleming—to dwell and continue—for a space of 5 years from date—said servant to her Master shall well and faithfully serve his lawful commands—and said Master for him­ self agrees with Mary that he will—find and provide for her suf­ ficient wearing apparel and Diet.” The references to slaves at Bell Mont are rather few. In 1779, The Fleming grave on a hilltop some two hundred yards northeast of Bell Mont. The tomb today is completely hidden by weeds and weed trees. 19 �Fleming paid LI 100 for a Negro boy named Patrick, about nine years old and a Negro girl named Sarah, about seven years of age.43 In 1790, Patrick Henry, upon the death of his sister, who had been the widow of Mrs. Fleming’s brother, wrote suggesting that the slaves in her estate be sent to Bell Mont and hired out.9 In the inventory filed after William Fleming’s death the following slaves are listed: Milley, Cyrus, Duke, Tomy, Jack, Alexander, Harry, Fanny, James, Sal and her child Polly. Our valley was becoming civilized as illustrated by a 1785 letter from Mrs. Fleming’s brother, from Viney Grove, Kentucky: “Oh happy are you all at Bellmount and the Stone House [near Cloverdale and owned at that time by Thomas Madison, the husband of another one of Patrick Henry’s sisters] peace smiles upon you and if your little children goes out to play you are not afraid of seeing them brought in murdered by the Savages.”9 Whether this area was becoming too civilized for the colonel or whether it was a desire to look after his large holdings in Kentucky, is not known. He did, however, advertise for sale his Glade Creek tract and wrote Mrs. Fleming he wanted to talk to her about the sale of Bell Mont, for Negroes.9 At another time he wrote of “the Prospect I have of removing to a greater distance westwardly.”9 Another rea­ son for considering the move could have been economic conditions. This is evidenced by a letter he received, while in Kentucky from his wife in which she writes “the Sheriffs are distraining all around for the tax of 83 and 84. Coming both at once makes it hard on the peo­ ple—I have wrote Andrew Lewis to settle the cash part of ours.”9 The only reference to education is mention in Fleming’s journal of “Robert Townsend, schoolmaster, 56 shillings 3 pence for 6 months teaching of 3 children.”9 In 1778, he advised Governor Patrick Henry “that he had built a house of square timber, sixteen by fourteen feet, large enough to hold any supplies needed in the Southwestern quarter.” Among the items deposited in this structure were one thousand five hundred pounds of the best rifle powder and five thousand gun flints.44 While Fleming was in Kentucky he wrote his wife in 1780 that “I hope you are careful of the stores and allow no embezzlements, but keep an ac­ count of whatsoever is taken out of the magazine.” As county Lieu­ tenant during the Revolution he was the chief military administrative officer of Botetourt. There are numerous letters advising that sup­ plies of powder, shot, flints, etc., were being sent him not only for the militia of his County but for those further west.9 It would appear that by 1774 our valley was reasonably clear of Indians. Nevertheless while on his way to the Battle of Point Pleasant he wrote Mrs. Fleming that Colonel Andrew Lewis had assigned three 20 �men to be guards at Bell Mont.45 At the same time, Mrs. Sarah Henry, the mother of Patrick Henry, visited Bell Mont on her way to Scotchtown.9 History tells of many hard-drinking men in those days, but one of the few references to spirits of any kind is found in a letter from Robert Montgomery in 1774 advising Colonel Fleming, who was recup­ erating from his wounds, that he was sending “some excedingly good French wine.”9 The records show Fleming for many years was a vestryman of the Church of England, but there is no doubt whatsoever he was a devout Presbyterian. While living in Staunton he was associated with the Tinkling Spring Church4« and was later an Elder of Denean,47 both Presbyterian. The latter is believed to have been located between Bell Mont and Amsterdam. There are many references in his letters— sometimes a complete paragraph—in which he stresses the importance of his entire family to call on and rely upon the Divine Power. An eminent historian48 states the Fleming home was a haven for ministers. Two of his daughters were wives of clergymen. The closest reference found in Fleming’s letters to a minister being at Bell Mont is “Rev. William Mitchell will preach at my house or its neighborhood.”9 Probably as a result of patriotism resulting from the Revolutionary War, the official name of Fincastle was changed to Monroe49 and it was from there, in 1795, Mrs. Fleming received the following:9 “It being a custom among freemasons to perform certain cere­ monies at the Grave of a Deceased Brother—Your late husband having been one of that Fraternity and a member of the Washing­ ton Lodge—that Lodge, as well as from duty as inclination wishes to conform these usages—provided it meets with the approvation of his family.” Standing on a knoll beside Colonel William Fleming’s grave, re­ stored by the Nancy Christian Fleming Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, one sees the remains of his mansion house and the rolling acres that were once a part of that Eighteenth Century plantation. If one’s eyes should close, it is possible the mist of some two hundred years might vanish and suddenly there will be seen the outstanding men of the area including General Andrew Lewis, Col­ onel William Preston, Colonel George Hancock and many others rid­ ing up the path to Bell Mont to make plans for the defense and de­ velopment of western Virginia. REFERENCE NOTES 1 Augusta County Records D.B. 15, p. 243. 2 Henning Statutes at Large V II p. 473. Freeman H. Hart The Valley of Virginia in the American Revolution p. 7. Botetourt County Records D.B. 1, p. 445. 3 4 21 �Let's All Make Whiskey “Three months ago this burg had six legally licensed bar­ rooms. Now she has two legally licensed ones— but under the aliases of ‘sport rooms’ and ‘barber shops’.” —Wytheville Dispatch A similar state of affairs exists wherever the so-called prohibition law has gone into effect. And such will ever be the result of such a measure. In the humble opinion of the Review there is but one way to remedy the whiskey evil, to wit: Remove all license and revenue. Let it be as free as water. Let every man, woman and child manufac­ ture it who choose to. — Roanoke Saturday Review July 10, 1886 22 �“ The Buford Place" for 200 Years Locust Level By Mrs . B uford H enderson Kilmer “Locust Level” is located on the outskirts of the village of Montvale, once Bufordville, in Bedford County, Virginia. This historic seat of the Buford family was a grant to Henry Buford in 1768 from King George III of England. Henry was of the fifth generation of Bufords in America. His progenitor, Richard, emigrated to Lancaster County in 1635. “He was examined by a minister of the Church of England as to his loyalty to the King, took the prescribed oath of allegiance, etc., age eighteen,” and left Gravesend, England, on his majesty’s ship Elizabeth, August 1, 1635. The spelling of the day was extremely careless. Therefore Richard is believed to be the ancestor of all the Beauforts, Beaufords, Blufords, Buefords and Bufords in America today, the ancestry traced through John Beauford of Christ Church Parish, Middlesex County, Virginia. Henry and Thomas Buford were given adjoining land grants from King George III in the beautiful Goose Creek Valley of Bedford County. Henry’s property lay to the west. He called it “Locust Level,” a name descriptive of the terrain and large locust trees which occupied what became the lawn of his home. Thomas’ plantation was promptly named “Holstein,” and the records state that Thomas was granted “six thousand six hundred and sixty-six and two-thirds acres.” The records further state that Henry increased his holdings until he possessed a large boundary which on the west included Buford’s Gap and far to the east the old “Block House.” This old house was built as a protection against the Indians and stood at the extreme eastern end of “Holstein.” Hence it is assumed that Henry bought “Holstein” from his brother’s estate, as it was in his possession in 1781, at which time General Andrew Lewis, while serv­ ing in the Council of States in Williamsburg, became ill and started the journey to his home near Salem, “to recruit his health.” His condition Buford Henderson Kilmer (Mrs. Horace D.) is the granddaughter of Capt. and Mrs. Jim Buford, who lived on a farm east of Montvale which was a part of the original estate. Her mother, Annie Graham Buford, married H. G. Henderson, a Norfolk and Western Railway civil engineer. 23 �worsened en route, and it was necessary for him to find sanctuary. He and a company of the gallant soldiers he had commanded at Point Pleasant stopped at the old “Block House” on the Holstein Plantation, and here in this lovely valley he breathed his life away September 25, 1781. Henry Buford was born in Culpeper County, Virginia, September 19, 1751. He married Mildred Blackburn of Norfolk and prior to the Revolution built the first residence at “Locust Level,” a modest frame structure surrounded by a wide veranda. Eastward, at a distance of some hundred and fifty yards, he had another building erected, con­ sisting of two huge rooms, one up and one downstairs, the upper cham­ ber to be used for guests and the lower for purposes of entertaining. Behind the main house stood still another, the “dining room,” the main floor of which was used for dining, while overhead a smaller room, the chapel, was for the purpose of daily family worship. In the basement were many shelves, for the storage of wines and liquors. At a little distance to the rear of the dining room loomed the large log kitchen with its wide stone fireplace across one end. All cooking was, of course, done in the fireplace, and until some few years ago the original ovens remained. These were iron boxes with tightly fitted lids, in which all baking was done. In a semicircle near the kitchen stood a dozen or so small log houses, the slaves’ quarters. Today the slave house and the kitchen are gone; only the kitchen chimney remains. Henry Buford “was allowed as captain under date of November 6, 1777, for pay, rations, etc., for his company Bedford County, Virginia, “L 388, s, 1 D.” (Archives of Virginia State Militia, December 23, 1776, to December 18, 1778.) He was one of the presiding Magistrates of Bedford County in 1782 and high sheriff from 1790 to 1795. Henry Buford died at “Locust Level” December 31, 1814. He is buried in the Buford family graveyard at “Locust Level.” Paschal, the youngest son of Henry and Mildred Blackburn Bu­ ford, born February 14, 1791, inherited “Locust Level” from his father. He married Frances Ann Otey October 31, 1820. She was the daugh­ ter of Major Isaac and Elizabeth Matthews Otey and was born at “Fancy Farm,” Bedford County, the home of her maternal grandparents, the Matthews. Paschal Buford commanded a company at Craney Island during the War of 1812, and for his service he received the rank of captain. Shortly after his father’s death, Paschal began plans for a larger residence. This required the making and sundrying of brick, all of which was done on the place, and the assembling of other materials 24 �"Locust Level" today. It is but a few yards from U. S. 460 at Montvale. —Photograph by Oakie Asbury to his liking. In 1822 the new house was completed. Architecturally, it was once said, it is “pure Buford.” The new house was directly east of the original residence. It is of solid brick construction; the walls are almost two feet thick; there are no stanchions of any kind. One enters the center hall, on either side of which is a spacious parlor, each with a large fireplace at the far end. On both sides of the fireplaces, cabinets, called “presses,” extend from chimney to the outer walls and from floor to ceiling. The woodwork in the “presses,” as in the entire house, is handcarved in detail. Upstairs are two bedrooms identical in every respect to the par­ lors below, and over the front entry way is the “linen room.” So gen­ erous are the proportions of this room that it has been used as a bed­ room many times during the years. All windows throughout the house have upper and lower sections of louvered shutters which fold neatly into the sides of the windows when not in use. The floors all are of wide board construction with each plank reach­ ing the entire length of the room, with no splicing whatever. At the rear of this house the back porch was built to extend in a covered walkway, thus connecting the dining room to the new residence. Captain Paschal is reported to have remarked when the brick house was finally completed that he would use the old frame house of his father to house his men guests and sheepherders. 25 �Captain Paschal Buford fostered and enlarged the aura of south­ ern hospitality which had been begun by his father at “Locust Level.” He was well and widely known throughout the state. At all times he wore a large silk bandana, in a triangular fold, which passed under one arm with the corners knotted on the other shoulder. Members of the family gave various reasons for this ec­ centricity. One said it was because it made a handkerchief more con­ venient, another that was because “he was Captain Buford and could do as he pleased.” Paschal loved his broad acres, his fat cattle and his blooded horses, and was widely known as a farmer and breeder of fine stock. When the Washington Monument was erected in 1852 and each state was requested to send a stone to be used in its walls, Captain Buford sent his men and oxen to dislodge the top rock of the Peaks of Otter, a balance rock, this pinnacle being part of the view from the front lawn of “Locust Level,” and for many years considered the highest peak of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The rock was rolled down to the valley below and there cut into blocks. One stone of suitable size Cap­ tain Paschal had inscribed “From the summit of Otter, Virginia’s loftiest peak, to crown the monument to Virginia’s noblest son,” and this he sent to become Virginia’s contribution to the Washington Monument. It is there today. Several other sections of the stone were brought to “Locust Level” and remain there on the lawn to the present time. One section he sent to Bedford, and in one he had two basins chiseled; and it is in the Buford family graveyard, a receptacle for flowers. Paschal Buford’s heart and his hand were with the South in the War Between the States, and many Confederate soldiers were nursed back to health through his hospitality at “Locust Level.” By his invitation the wife and daughters of General Robert E. Lee spent a summer during the war there, as guests of the Bufords. The late Douglas Southall Freeman, in his monumental work Robert E. Lee, devoted several paragraphs to a later visit paid by Gen­ eral Lee and his daughter Mildred. In 1867 when General Lee was President of Washington and Lee University, the General rode “Traveller” and Mildred “Miss Lucy” from Lexington to the Peaks of Otter, thence to visit relatives, and on to “Locust Level.” Mildred Lee wrote a detailed account of this visit some years later which was published in Captain R. E. Lee’s Recollections and Letters of his famous father. According to this record, after spending the night on the Peaks of Otter, General Lee and his daughter visited their relatives, the Bur26 �wells, in Bedford on Sunday, then on Monday resumed their journey to “Locust Level.” Of this visit Miss Mildred wrote: “The Captain in his shirt sleeves, received us with open arms and seemed surprised at my full growth and said, ‘Why General you called her your little girl and she is a real chunk of a gal.’ He showed us his fine Jersey cattle, his rich fields, well filled barns and delighted in talking of the time during the War when Mama, Mary and Agnes paid him a visit. He overflowed with kindness arid hospitality and his table fairly groaned with good things to eat. Papa afterwards constantly quoted his original sayings.” On the Lees’ visits they stayed in the guest house built by Captain Henry Buford, which by this time had acquired the name of “The Dance Hall,” as the first floor was often used for this purpose. Ever after the Lees’ first visit when they occupied the upstairs, this room has been known as the “Lee room.” This building still stands, but it was moved in the early 1920’s to the rear of the brick house and con­ nected to it. The beds slept in by the Lee family are still in use in the same room. Paschal Buford died at “Locust Level” on July 23, 1875, at the place of his birth and home of his long life. He is buried with his par­ ents and his wife in the Buford family cemetery there. His youngest daughter Margaret Letitia, who was almost forty years old and still unmarried at the time of his death, inherited the home place. His other children had been provided for during his life time. Margaret, known to some of her nieces and nephews as “Auntie” (with a broad a) and to others as “Aune Mag,” married Captain Thomas N. Cobbs December 27, 1883. He died a few years later. As a young girl she was considered quite a belle. She was small of stature, with raven hair and sparkling black eyes, a ready wit and a sharp tongue. During the Civil War she had devoted all her energies to nursing the wounded Confederate soldiers, sewing for and sending packages of food and clothing to her brother, other members of the family, in-laws and friends who were serving with the Gray. In later years when the first edition of the Buford Family in Ameri­ ca was published, a picture of the Buford Monument in the Gettysburg Battlefield appeared in the front of the book, and she would never al­ low a copy of the book in her house because General Buford wore the Union uniform and she considered him a disgrace to the family. For many years “Aunt Mag” lived alone at Locust. Level, with only her pets for company. Her peafowls strutted their colorful plumage across the broad lawns, her canary birds chirped and sang in their large cages, and 27 �small dogs scooted from place to place and barked at guests and in­ truders alike. The place ran down to an alarming degree, and in her declining years thieves kept a ladder in the garden to enter the upstairs windows at night and ransack the rooms. Finally when she was past eighty years of age, she deeded “Locust Level” to her nephew, William Hanson Buford, second son of her oldest brother, and persuaded him and his family to live with her. She died February 24, 1920, and is buried on the land where she was born, in the family graveyard. Mr. Buford made many repairs on the old plantation. He moved the “Dance Hall, Lee Room” building to the rear of the brick house to make it more convenient for modern living. The dance hall became the dining room, and an addition of a modern kitchen was placed on the side. The “old house” built by Henry Buford was in such poor repair that it was necessary to have it removed. William Hanson Buford died January 1, 1935, and his widow and family lived on at “Locust Level” until Mrs. Buford’s death in Oc­ tober 1951, when it went into the estate for his son and three daughters. The son, James Lawrence Buford, bought his sisters’ share of the property and further improved the house and brought about many other changes. To quote the newspaper Bedford Democrat of July 23, 1959, when “Locust Level” had been put up for public auction: “Deeds are being completed for ten persons who purchased lots when historic ‘Locust Level’, homesite of the Buford family for two centuries, was put up for sale at auction recently. The home building remains in the Buford family. The owner, James L. Buford, could not bear to part with the attractive old house.” The article goes on to say that Mr. Buford had put everything back in working order, even the old spinning wheel. Much of the original furniture remained in the house, including a sideboard, which is one of only three ever made. Another of these three is at Mount Vernon. A rare set of Henry Buford’s china was displayed in the sideboard. Tradition has it that the dining room chairs, which were also the property of Henry Buford, are original Windsor chairs. James Lawrence Buford died at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn, on October 24, 1963. His widow, the former Frances Turns, and their daughter, Kathryn Hanson Buford resided at “Locust Level” until 1965 when Mrs. Buford sold the historic home and eight acres remain­ ing from the original grant to Mr. and Mrs. James T. Howell of Salem. An antique shop now is operated in the servants’ quarters. Mrs. Buford now lives in Orlando, Fla. 28 �Society Makes Strong Plea For Fincastle Cover of the striking album used in presentation to Commission. —Photograph by Jack Gaking Preservation and restoration of Fincastle—a major project of our Society—was urged both verbally and visually at a Virginia Cultural Development Study Commission hearing this spring. President Showalter, Stuart Carter and Robert Woody spoke at the March 31 meeting in Roanoke, asking that “the town of Fincastle in Botetourt County be given top priority in any state supported or state assisted effort to protect, preserve and restore Virginia’s historic landmarks.” Mrs. Showalter gave a thorough report, listing the back­ ground and activities of the Society and explaining our interest in Fincastle. This served to introduce “The Fincastle Album,” a painstaking, hand-created presentation of town history, photographs of principal buildings—many in color—including interiors and detail, maps and newspaper clippings. Our fear that Fincastle—almost miraculously remaining much as is was a century ago—will be ruined by “progress” was expressed by photographs of “modern” towns. Another graphic page showed that 29 �only two history projects in western Virginia had received any state aid, compared with a score farther east. The album concluded with three dozen letters from western Vir­ ginians prominent in many fields, each supporting the Society’s recom­ mendation that Fincastle be preserved. Dr. Goodridge Wilson, a lead­ ing chronicler of this area’s past, made his plea as a capsule history of the town. He wrote: “The old fashion Virginia court house village was a place of distinction. It was a seat of government, county govern­ ment of course. Hence it was not as pretentious as a state capital, and maybe not as important. But it was where gov­ ernment comes closest to the people, and where legal and public business of the utmost importance to persons in a coun­ ty is transacted . . . Villages like people have personalities of their own. “Since 1770, the year of its birth, Fincastle, seat of a county named for a charming gentleman, Norborne Berke­ ley, Lord Botetourt, has been a community possessed of singu­ lar charm. Perusal of Robert Douthat Stoner’s book, “A Seed Bed of the Republic,” does much to explain the nature of that charm and the reason for it. And a brief tour of the town, with its old churches, its buildings, its homes, its scenic set­ ting and general layout will help to get the feel of it. “Fincastle has always been among the most lovable of Virginia’s oldtime court house villages. When it was a wilder­ ness settlement of log houses built on land near Miller’s Mill that was donated by Israel Christian, known only as Botetourt Court House, and when its name was changed to honor a genial young nobleman, George Lord Fincastle, son of Lord Dunsmore, John Murray, the last royal governor of Virginia, the village was the seat of government for a vast territory, drained by the James, the Roanoke, the New, the Holston and the Clinch Rivers, and extending to the Ohio and the Missis­ sippi. “Throughout the war for independence, the formative period of the United States government, the ante-bellum man­ ner of life in the South and the War Between the States, Fin­ castle developed in culture, in gracious living, in solid busi­ ness and strong citizenship. “With due allowance for inescapable changes in living conditions it is much the same now as it was 100 years ago.” Many members and friends of the Society contributed to “The Fincastle Album” in addition to Mrs. Showalter and Anna Lawson, executive secretary, they included R. D. Stoner, Frances Lewis, J. R. 30 �Hildebrand, Clare White, Edmund Goodwin, Priscilla Young, George Kegley, Maurice Wright and Frances Niederer. It was sent to James W. Moody, director of the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission, whose task it will be to designate areas in the state for protection and preservation. Since the Commission hearing, efforts have continued to bring Fincastle to public attention. A Botetourt group is working with the manager of Hotel Roanoke on regular tours of the town for visitors, especially conventioneers. Mr. Hildebrand has prepared an enormous map, adorned with color snapshots by Mrs. Goodwin of early buildings still standing, which has many display potentials. The Fincastle Herald has printed a “history edition” which makes an excellent sightseeing guide. It also includes advertisements from years gone by. And the Botetourt museum, open Saturdays from 11 to 4, continues to attract visitors. “With so much constructive activity in its behalf there is every reason to hope that Fincastle will soon receive the state-wide recog­ nition that it deserves,” Mrs. Showalter says. Election of Officers Mrs. English Showalter was re-elected president and Susan Burks Williams was announced as the new executive secretary of the Roanoke Historical Society at the annual meeting June 21 at Cherry Hill. Shields Johnson was elected vice president, J. R. Hildebrand, secretary, Paul S. Stonesifer, assistant secretary, and James D. Richardson, treasurer, were re-elected. Mrs. Edmund P. Goodwin and James L. Trinkle were elected to the board and 29 directors were re-elected. Mrs. Williams succeeds Anna Lo­ gan Lawson, who has joined the press relations staff of Hollins College after a year’s service with the Society. Washington Heights Elementary School in Roanoke. She and her husband, Er­ nest Ray Williams, live at 3643 Lake Drive, S.W., Roanoke County. Mrs. Williams, a native of Bedford, is a graduate of Randolph-Macon Wo­ man’s College and a former teacher at MRS. WILLIAMS 31 �The Society Takes Fifth Members entering Greyledge, the fine comfortable home of Sen. Stuart Carter. —Photograph by Clare White What has perhaps become the Society’s most-participated-in ac­ tivity was a happy thing again this year. The fifth annual tour of historical homes and places aimed for eastern Botetourt and southern Rockbridge counties on Saturday, May 13, and the 145 members and guests who filled four busses enjoyed another trip into history. Five leisurely stops were made and dozens of other points of his­ tory were identified by member-guides on each bus. First visit was to Lauderdale, substantial home built almost 200 years ago on land patented in 1742, now the residence of Dr. and Mrs. Donald D. Barnes. Then came Beaverdam, the fine old brick home of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Wickline. The tour entered the town of Buchanan to call at the Com­ munity House, once the general offices of the James River Company 32 �Annual Tour Into History First stop on the tour was at Lauderdale, residence of Dr. and Mrs. Donald D. Barnes. —Photograph by Clare White whose James River and Kanawha Canal reached that precise point from Richmond before it succumbed to the railroads. The tour dipped into Rockbridge to see famed Forest Tavern, now the home of Mrs. Marion Whittington, and then paused long at Greyledge where host Stuart Carter proudly displayed Indian artifacts, and members admired what is probably the finest view from any fronc porch in this part of the country. A scheduled luncheon on the shore of Greyledge Lake was moved to a nearby community house because of threatening weather—but it was held outside anyhow, as the rains disappeared. Mr. and Mrs. Edmund P. Goodwin handled all arrangements, a most difficult and time-consuming chore. �Early Lutherans In Western Virginia (“The Lutheran Church in Virginia, 1717-1962,” a history of the growth of Lutheranism in the state by the Rev. William Edward Eisenberg, D.D., Winchester, was published in Feb­ ruary, 1967. Excerpts from the 731-page history, printed by J. P. Bell Co., Inc., Lynchburg, appear here with the permis­ sion of the author and of Virginia Synod, Lutheran Church in America.) Lutheran settlers came to Virginia in 1717. Their arrival was, as a matter of fact, an accident rather than an act of deliberate choice. Their decision to leave their German homes along the Rhine—in the Palatinate, in Alsace and other adjacent districts—had been occasioned both by the beckoning allurements of America and by the hardships of religious wars and antagonisms at home. Their eager desire was to accept William Penn’s invitation to share the religious liberty pro­ mised by his colony, an invitation to freedom which had been adver­ tised widely throughout their native communities. But circumstances beyond their control intervened and they were led to Virginia instead. As newcomers they came with plans frustrated and dreams blown away by fateful ocean winds. From the Potomac southward into Augusta County the homes of pioneer settlers dotted the virgin valley by 1750. Here and there clus­ ters of cabins marked the beginning of towns and villages in embryo. At the middle of the century immigration continued its steady flow. Hundreds of Germans arrived by way of the port of Philadelphia and a subsequent sojourn of a few weeks or a few years in Pennsylvania. Many of these adhered to the Lutheran Church. No one knows how long is the roll of Lutheran patriots who fought and bled in the struggle for national independence. But taken as a whole, the Valley Lutherans gave an honorable account of themselves in manpower, in materials, and in support of morale. Besides those who rallied around Peter Muhlenberg were many who marched with Daniel Morgan to Boston and Quebec, or who followed commanders such as Adam Stephen, Horatio Gates and Charles Lee, all from Berkeley County, or Andrew Lewis, from Botetourt. The Revolution brought an end to Eighteenth Century German immigration. The “Hessians” who remained in America after serving in the British armies may be considered as exceptions. Those taken at Burgoyne’s surrender were placed in custody of General Morgan, who brought many of them to camps in Virginia. At Winchester they were 34 �Remains of the original Zion Church still standing beside U. S. Route 11 between Roanoke and Salem. put to work as carpenters, stonecutters and masons, where they built from the abundant limestone numerous homes, barns and stone fences. The war years brought a restlessness to the frontier, a restless­ ness that the issues of the conflict, unresolved until Yorktown, could not keep from propelling into motion. A way to the west beyond the mountains had been opened up and the lure of Tennessee and Kentucky could not be resisted. Men were on the move. And the Wilderness Trail led up the Shenandoah Valley. The New River Settlement of the early 1740’s was made by Luth­ eran pioneers, the first white settlers across the Alleghenies in Vir­ ginia. There is reason to believe that a congregation existed among these wilderness exiles prior to 1165, though the claim to origin of new St. Peter’s Church (two miles northwest of present Blacksburg) goes back no further than 1775. Following the Indian wars, but before the Revolution’s fighting began, the compelling and contagious trek to lands beyond the moun­ tains was on. Not all adventurers reached the Tennessee or Kentncky destination of their dreams. Some were captivated by the country through which they passed. They found streams and lands that satis­ fied them in Southwest Virginia. Many German Lutherans thus made their homes in Wythe, Smyth and Washington counties. They were soon joined by other brethren who came into the area from North Carolina. As a permanent result of this movement to the west, St. Paul’s Church, three miles northeast of Rural Retreat, stands to bear witness. 35 �It is the oldest Lutheran congregation west of New River, claiming 1776 as its birthdate. All congregations existing prior to 1785 had but scant pastoral oversight. This fact serves well to emphasize the soul-hunger, the un­ wavering determination and stubborn perseverance of the pioneer forefathers, who sought out new homes, subdued the wilderness, plant­ ed the church and added strength and courage and moral fiber to the soul of the nation. The formation of Roanoke County from Botetourt did not occur until 1838. For a century the area had been sparsely settled. Earliest pioneers built their cabins there in the 1740’s, it is true, and Andrew Lewis, of Point Pleasant fame, took up his Richfield plantation in 1765. But there was no village until Salem was incorporated in 1806. Big Lick, first chartered in 1874, underwent a nominal operation in 1882, and two years later was incorporated as the City of Roanoke (January 31, 1884). This portion of Botetourt was a crossroads. Thousands of new home seekers came and went. Settlers who journeyed up the Valley of Virginia had to decide whether to bear right and continue to Ten­ nessee or to Cumberland Gap and Kentucky, or to bear sharply to the left and go to the Greensboro area of North Carolina. If they took an in-between course they headed for the Moravian settlement at Salem, N. C. Many of them, as time went along, found the valley of the Roa­ noke entrancing, and here they became rooted. The earliest German pioneers were dispersed so widely that their identity became quickly lost. Those Lutherans who settled in the area between Roanoke and Salem were clustered together in a little group of some twenty families. That figure, at least, was their size in 1805, when J. G. Butler reported on them. Here lived families by the names of Muller (Miller), Braun (Brown), Gerst (Garst), Stattler (Stotler), Hartman and others, who could always be counted upon for their hos­ pitality to travellers through the region. Paul Henkel enjoyed the welcome of their homes as he went to and fro. Unlike conditions in counties farther west, where rough log churches were built soon after settlement, in this area of Botetourt, the Lutherans did not erect any church immediately. Again, calling on J. G. Butler’s 1805 testimony, that travelling preacher conducted services at Jacob Miller’s, presumably within his home, or in his barn. The 1809 list of churches bears witness to the fact that Zion Church, Roanoke, was then in existence as a congregation. Its date of organi­ zation is not known. But what is definitely known about it is that the old church, still standing though unused for seventy years, was built in 1826 and was the congregation’s first house of worship. Zion was mother church to Lutherans of Roanoke County. 36 �The Roanoke County area, after embarking upon a slow start in obtaining population, soon went to the opposite extreme of witnessing a tremendous influx of people. This did not occur until the close of the Civil War, however. Prior to that time life moved along in ordinary routine. There was a notable exception in 1847. That year the Lutheran pastor at Zion and Pine Grove congregations, Gideon Scherer, and a layman from Zion Church, Michael Miller, acting with remarkable vision and foresight, succeeded in bringing Virginia Collegiate Insti­ tute [now Roanoke College] to Salem. There were no inducements from town or community in offers of land or money, apart from Scherer and Miller’s enthusiastic endorsement. Those two worthies deserve to be nominated as patron saints by the Salem and Roanoke Chambers of Commerce, because the school that they brought to town was the first concrete realization in brick and mortar of the prophetic future they envisioned. Roanoke County, insofar as the development of the Lutheran Church in Virginia is concerned, offers the best illustration of the gamut of changes that has taken place. The pioneer planting of a Ger­ man congregation such as Zion, gave way first of all to the transition to the English language. Zion survived the transition, but Pine Grove Church, founded in 1845, may be regarded as a second generation church. Other churches came into being: College Church (Salem, 1852), Kittingers (Back Creek, 1868), St. Mark’s (Big Lick, 1869), Cave Spring (1871), and Lowry’s Chapel (1872). College Church ex­ cepted, these were normal rural churches, typical of their time. Roa­ noke City’s growth soon altered their situation and drew their members into the orbit of St. Mark’s Church and four other newly established urban congregations. These congregations were St. James (Vinton, 1889), Washington Heights (1892), Southview (1895), and New Zion (1897). Shiloh Church, still another congregation, was admitted to Synod in 1862. It was served by S. R. Smith and apparently founded by him. Its location is believed to have been near the Montgomery line. It was in existence for at least twenty years, being supplied by Peter Shickel in 1882. Pine Grove, located near the present junction of Highways 220 and 119, succumbed in 1891. Many of its members moved to St. Mark’s. Zion Church gave place in 1897 to New Zion, situated at a poor loca­ tion near the winding McVitty Road. Its inaccessibility doomed it to failure. It merged in 1920 with College Church. Cave Spring congregation existed until 1881 and was continued for another decade as a preaching point. Lowry’s Chapel, near the junction of Peter’s Creek and Cove Roads, a union venture, included a number of former members of Zion 37 �Church, who had been worshiping at this new location since 1872. A few miles nearer Roanoke there had been established, in 1892, a con­ gregation at Washington Heights. It was the result of preaching mis­ sions conducted by Oliver C. Miller, St. Mark’s pastor, and C. Armand Miller, College Church pastor. Through the influence of W. S. McClanahan, whose home and or­ phanage were in the Southview district, Washington Heights members first transferred to Lowry’s Chapel, after which, in 1895, Lowry’s Chapel removed to the newly built Southview Church. Southview Church in time sold its property to the Southview Public School, its members uniting with Emmanuel Church (1922), or with St. Paul’s Church (1913). The proceeds from the sale of its property were divided between these two congregations. St. James, Vinton, organized by J. E. Bushnell, worshipped in a frame building erected in 1891. This congregation never received ade­ quate pastoral care. A victim of inattention, its remaining members merged with St. Mark’s in 1923. Kittinger’s, Back Creek, dwindled in membership but continued in existence until 1959, when its name was removed from the synodical roll. Virginia Heights congregation (Christ Church), organized in 1916 by the Synodical Missionary Superintendent, had thirty charter mem­ bers, of whom fourteen were from St. Mark’s Church. This shuffling and reshuffling of membership came to a temporary halt after 1922 and the establishing of Emmanuel Church. All these congregations by and large were members of the Roanoke County Parish. A static condition prevailed for the next quarter century. Follow­ ing World War II and renewed growth, a new era of missions arrived. The problem now changed from urban to suburban. Trinity Church was started on Williamson Road in 1947; St. Paul’s underwent rebirth in 1948; two missions, St. Philip and St. John, were begun in the old parish domains of Southview and Cave Spring Churches, respectively; and in the older city Christ Church, St. Mark’s and Emmanuel each erected new edifices on new locations without leaving old parish bounds. Roanoke County today has eight Virginia Synod congregations, and one congregation of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. 38 �Saddlebags and Bank Ledgers Indian relics, Big Lick bank ledgers, church histories, early rec­ ords, photographs, saddlebags and a variety of objects from the past have been given or loaned to the Roanoke Historical Society Museum. Receiving, cataloguing, filing, storing and preserving acquisi­ tions have involved many hours of work for Mrs. English Showalter, president, Anna Lawson, executive secretary, Mrs. Edmund P. Good­ win, Mrs. Kemper Dobbins and others in recent months. Determin­ ing what is valuable, what is worthless and what requires special treatment has been a demanding task. Over in Fincastle, the new Botetourt museum in an old building This is part of a room furnished in the Fincastle museum since its opening. The Gothic stove was saved from a burning house in 1870 by an aunt of the donors, the Misses Ruth and Irene Bigler. 39 �has been enlarged through the diligence of Rollin Smith, the curator, who has refinished a third room. Items from the post-Civil War period have been contributed re­ cently to the Botetourt branch where Smith says, “we try by showing the personal effects of past citizens to give our guests a more poignant and personal feeling for history in general. The guests seem to find objects less than 100 years old as interesting as ancient ones.” Misses Ruth and Irene Bigler donated a Cathedral stove (American Gothic circa 1865) which was cast at Pattonsburg, now Buchanan. The Alderson family gave a candle snuffer mentioned in the will of John Alderson, an early Baptist preacher in Botetourt County. And Mrs. Frances Hart Mann of Washington, D. C., sent personal effects owned by her great-great-aunt, Mrs. Harvey Trigg of Botetourt, 1779-1856. Stuart Carter has collected several interesting objects for the Fincastle museum, including gifts from P. W. Stoutamire, who recently sold his large James River farm near Gala and moved to Roanoke. Stoutamire gave a stage chest with a calf hide cover, lard press, foot adz, broad ax, froe, long-handled skillet, bedwarmer, wooden plane, a swedge (to set a crosscut saw) and other items. In Salem, the Society has received two valuable journals of the old Bank of Virginia at Big Lick, listing financial transactions from 1878 through 1881, contributed by J. Holliday and A. R. Kennett and B. W. and K. H. Sink. Mrs. W. S. Russell, daughter of the late Col. J. Sinclair Brown, and her husband have given a sizeable collection of arrowheads, spear points, axes and other Indian artifacts, which will require professional evaluation. W. Darnall Vinyard of Vinton has loaned a burlap-bound copy book used by Thomas D. Wood in 1832, patents signed by Thomas Jef­ ferson and Benjamin Harrison and other important papers. Through C. P. Blair, retired vice president of the Norfolk and Western, railroad passes, freight receipts, pictures and other articles over 100 years old were given by the N&W. Mrs. Joseph A. Turner gave books and pamphlets collected by her late husband at Hollins College. Mrs. Nelson Francis contributed a metronome, silver cigar cutter and other items owned by her father, E. M. Funkhouser, in the early 1900’s. Mrs. Elsie Carroll, a former Roanoker, sent a butter press and old clothing from Florida. Mrs. Randolph Frantz and J. P. Lawson gave an iron mortar and pestle and a stone crock from Floyd County. 40 ��� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society Summer 1967 Volume 4, Number 1 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />The Pennsylvania Dutch Culture of the Shenandoah Valley Interstate Interchange Covers Town of Gainsboro<br />Bell Mont-the Fleming Plantation<br />Let's All Make Whiskey<br />Locust Level<br />Early Lutherans in Western Virginia Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Summer 1967 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_04_01_Summer_1967 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6341/JHSWV_04_02_Winter_1968.pdf 054194f3cd746266653da71d2bddaaea PDF Text Text JOURNAL of tke ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY W inter........... 1968 V o lu m e F o u r N um ber Two �ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Amor montium nos movet Officers Mrs . English Showalter Shields J ohnson ........................................................... Vice J ames D. Richardson .............................................................. J. R. Hildebrand .............................................................. .......... P aul S. Stonesifer ............................................... Assistant Susan Burks Wil l ia m s ..........................................Executive President President Treasurer Secretary Secretary Secretary Directors Raymond P. Barnes John D. Carr Mrs. H. Powell Chapman C. Francis Cocke S. S. Edmunds Arthur Ellett J. T. Engleby, III B. N. Eubank Edmund P. Goodwin Mrs. Edmund P. Goodwin Robert Goodykoontz J. R. Hildebrand Miss Nancy E. Himes Shields Johnson George Kegley Mrs. George Kegley Mrs. J. M. B. Lewis, Jr. Mrs. J. G. McConkey L. G. Muse E. H. Quid James D. Richardson Tayloe Rogers Mrs. English Showalter Mrs. Frank E. Snow R. D. Stoner Paul S. Stonesifer James L. Trinkle Robert W. Woody James P. Woods Dr. J. C. Zillhardt George Kegley Editor of the JOURNAL CONTENTS page 28th Regiment, Virginia Volunteers, 1861-1865, by Arnold Skaar ......................................................................... Roanoke at the Beginning, by Edmund P. Goodwin.......................... New River: First of the Western Waters, by Ben Bane D ulaney................................................................... The Teays, Ancestral River of Mid-America, by Dr. Raymond E. Janssen......................................................... A New Brick House for $105 and a Horse C ritte r........................... Walled in by the Appalachians, by James J. Kirkwood ............................................................... Yesterday’s Tools on Display ........................................................... Hollins Girls Step Into History, by Anna Lawson ..................................................................... Cigar Manufacturing in Roanoke and the Wooden Indian, by R. Holman Ragland...................... Roanoke Historical Society New Members ..................................... 1 12 14 20 25 27 34 35 38 43 The Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Volume IV, Number 2. Published twice yearly by the Society at Box 1904, Roanoke, Virginia, to chronicle the past and present of that part of the state west of the Blue Ridge. Single copy price: 50 cents. The Society will be careful in handling unsolicited material but cannot be responsible for its loss. �Farmers and Shopkeepers 28th Regiment, Virginia Volunteers, 1861-1865 By Arnold Skaar CHAPTER I: THE BEGINNINGS They came from places unknown, and they went to places never to be forgotten. Fincastle, Buchanan, Big Lick, Chestnut Fork were the domain of the few. Manassas, Williamsburg, Gettysburg, Appomat­ tox became the heritage of the many. Some came out of the shadows of the Blue Ridge Mountains. In Bedford County they closed their shops. In Botetourt and Roanoke and Craig counties they put aside their plows. Some began drilling in December, 1859; others, waiting almost to the eve of the first battle, had never marched.' Their only qualifi­ cation was their ability to “put out a squirrel’s eye as far as they can see it.”2 One company of what was to be the 28th Virginia Volunteers first began to take shape in Botetourt County. On December 27, 1859, fiftyfive “strong, able-bodied young and middle-aged men” held a “meetin’ ” at the old Blue Ridge Hall in Fincastle, the county seat.3 John Brown’s raid of the preceding month precipitated the meeting. The Virginians made a unanimous decision to form a volunteer company for Virginia’s defense. These men named themselves the “Blue Ridge Rifles.”4 Elect­ ing William Patton as their captain, and appointing a rather large number of staff officers, the “Blue Ridge Rifles” applied to Gov. Hen­ ry A. Wise for recognition as volunteer militia." In February, 1860, the Governor officially recognized the company “as state troop sub­ ject to the call and orders of Virginia.”6 From that time until mustered into Confederate service, the “Blue Ridge Rifles” drilled every week.7 Arnold Skaar, a graduate student at Virginia Tech, wrote this term paper on the 28th Virginia Infantry in his work for a master’s degree in history. A native of Princeton, N. J., he holds an A.B. in his­ tory from Bucknell University, a B.D. degree from Duke University and he has completed a year of study at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. The first two chapters appear in the Winter issue of the Journal and the paper will be concluded in the Summer issue. In following the men from Roanoke, Craig, Botetourt and Bedford counties who served in the Civil War, Skaar writes of a phase of Virginia history which has been neglected. �On April 1, 1861, the “Blue Ridge Rifles” left Fincastle for Buchanan, about 15 miles away. There the “Mountain Rifles,” com­ posed of men from the southern end of Botetourt County, joined them. Under the command of Capts. Joseph Anderson and William Patton, these Southern patriots subjected themselves to four weeks of drill.8 The two groups were quite similar. Both were composed of farm­ ers and city folk drawn from the countryside and towns of Botetourt County. Farmers predominated. Both captains of these volunteer com­ panies were farmers. William Patton was thirty-one years old. Joseph Anderson was twenty-four. Lieutenant Philip Peters, a forty-one-yearold painter, partially compensated for the comparative youthfulness of Anderson. Peters, no doubt, had considerable influence over the group of Buchanan townsmen and artisans, who in less emotional times were more usefully employed as clerks, tinners, blacksmiths, teachers, moulders, boatmen, and confectioners. One young man, Adam Plecker, had been a “daquerreau.”9 None of his pictures survive—if indeed he made any. After completing this pre-muster training, these aspir­ ing soldiers returned to their homes, some for the last time. On May 1, 1861, a scene took place at the Blue Ridge Hotel in Fin­ castle that was repeated with only slight variations elsewhere in Virginia. On the previous day orders had ar­ rived for the eager “Blue Ridge Rifles” to proceed to a camp of instruction at Lynchburg. Only the wet cheeks of loved ones dampened the gay and confident farewell dinner.10 Gov. John Letcher’s appeal for troops also went to other areas of southwest Virginia, where men quick­ ly responded to the call. On April 19, the Salem Register expressed the ambivalent response of Roanoke County citizens when it re­ ported with some anxiety that R. C. Allen was reorganizing the volun­ teers." A Bedford County resident reported a few days later that “war fever” was “up in old Bedford,” and that three women had raised a Con­ —sketch by Joe Gilliland federate flag “amid deafening huzzas.” Southwest Virginia was responding to “Abe’s proclamation” with emotional unanimity. The people were preparing themselves and their 2 �fighting men “to meet the invader with the motto ‘we conquer or we perish’.”12 It was an ominous oath. Even the people of Roanoke County, who had given “a Union majority in February,” now stood “heartily united for secession.”13 The “Roanoke Greys” were perhaps the most versatile and welleducated of the volunteers. Organized in March, 1861, this company had a total of 130 men during the war. At least fifteen of these men at­ tended Roanoke College, Virginia Military Institute, or Hampden-Sydney College.''1 Two close friends and business associates, Robert C. Allen and William Watts, each served as regimental commander."5 Two others, H. Stevens and Edward Rivers, were physicians and later left the company to become army surgeons. Later in 1861, N. M. Read, a sergeant in the “Roanoke Greys,” became a lieutenant in the 25th Virginia. The Rev. Peter Tinsley became regimental chaplain. Others of special ability, such as teamsters and quartermasters, served in supply capacities.16 That less than 60 of the 130 members of the “Roanoke Greys” returned home was in large measure the result of this “attrition of ability”—as well as the price of war. The “Roanoke Greys” was composed mostly of farmers, with a representation of townspeople.17 Families sometimes supplied more than one soldier. The Ruddell family contributed four boys to the cause. Three never returned home. Many of the “Roanoke Greys” enlisted after the war began. Nine enlisted at Centreville in 1861; 12 at Manas­ sas later in the year; 14 at Richmond in 1862-1863; and 2 at Chester Station in 1864. When Robert C. Allen became commander of the Regiment in 1862, Madison P. Deyerle became captain of the “Roa­ noke Greys.” This V. M. I. graduate was only twenty-one years old when he died at Williamsburg.18 In the early spring of 1861, other volunteer companies were also forming. Perhaps these men did not possess the urbanity and luster of the “Roanoke Greys,” yet preparations for their departure were just as rushed and sacrificial. One observer from Botetourt County re­ ported to the Richmond Dispatch the extent of the prewar labors: The volunteers of the county have been drilling, while the ladies and citizens have been busy making up clothes, can­ teens, cups, knapsacks, etc., for them. On last Friday orders came for the volunteers to repair to Lynchburg as soon as practicable. This causes still more activity . . . and oil cloth for knapsacks given out, carriage curtains, table and piano covers, etc., were put in requisition and today the last knap­ sack for the Mountain Rifles was completed.'9 Other contributors to the cause, such as the father of Capt. Breckenridge of Co. K, could afford to equip an entire company with knap3 �sacks.20 Most communities willingly made the necessary sacrifices and sent their men off to war. Little did the people realize, and much less the proud men, how insignificant these deprivations were in terms of what the next four years would require. CHAPTER II: THE FIRST YEAR — NEW PLACES On May 9, 1861, the Lynchburg Daily Virginian warned its readers that some 6,000 men from the western counties of Virginia would begin arriving in the next four days.1 By then Virginia authorities in Rich­ mond had decided to keep together the volunteer companies from Campbell, Bedford, Roanoke, Botetourt and Craig counties. Prior to May 6, these volunteers were assigned to Col. Philip St. George Cocke of the Potomac Division.2 Yet confusion was the bearer of orders that month. On May 10, seven companies under Col. Robert T. Preston, re­ ceived counter-orders to report to Col. George H. Terrett in Alexan­ dria.3 Although exactly where Preston’s companies would go after the camp of instruction was unknown, two plans seemed fairly definite. After leaving Lynchburg, the men of the seven companies would take a position somewhere on the defensive line between Culpeper and Alexandria. Yet before they left, some minimal organization and train­ ing were necessary.4 Gen. Robert E. Lee, commanding, the Virginia forces, suggested in a letter to Col. Terrett that new volunteer companies be placed in camps and not in towns. “They will sooner become familiar with the necessities of service and be better prepared for ‘hardship,’ ” he claimed.5 On May 16, the “Blue Ridge Rifles” and the “Mountain Rifles,” some 140 men, arrived at the Lynchburg center.6 Ignorant of the plans that awaited them, the two companies enjoyed the hospitality of the Lynchburg community. According to W. B. Simmons, “Several short speeches from different citizens” followed dinner. Fellowship and joviality were the caterers that evening. Only the sleeping benches, “harder than those in Father’s house,” augured what lay ahead.7 The “Old Dominion Rifles,” who arrived earlier the same day, were already in camp and closer to the verities of camp life.8 The end of the “luxuries” of civilian life was as hard to take as the “rough breakfast” the next morning. A two-mile march brought the men to “a very pleasant grove,” which was to be their home for the next two weeks. The labors of making camp somewhat disquieted the pastoral setting. Lack of tents was not as disturbing to the men as having to cook their own meals. After the first supper in camp, two companies began fraternizing with other volunteer units.9 4 �Bedford County’s “Old Dominion Rifles,” captained by a physician, Thomas M. Bowyer, included a variety of professions such as planter, “gentleman” and student. The company numbered about seventy men. Like most of the volunteers from the other counties, they were mostly farmers. Yet as many as ten students appeared on the original muster roll.’® This unit was Co. C of the 28th Virginia; but in August, 1861, it became an artillery company." The “Botetourt Spring Rifles” were from Roanoke County. The ranking officers were Capt. Floyd G. Rocke, a thirty-three-year-old merchant, and Lieutenant William Ryle, a farmer. It too consisted large­ ly of farmers, although a few blacksmiths and townsmen were listed on the rolls. This unit was initially designated as Co. F, but in August became Co. E.12 Every man in Co. F, the “Bedford Greys” was a farmer.13 On May 19, 1861, the “Patty Layne Rifles,” from Chestnut Fork in Bedford County, arrived in camp.14 They too were mostly farmers, and became Co. G.,s After meeting some of the men with whom they would share the years ahead, the men retired at 9 p.m. Drumbeats awakened the camp at 5 a.m. the next day. Half an hour later the morning sunrise fell on marching men. As the day passed, volunteers from all over southwest Virginia fell into the ranks.16 On May 18, Robert T. Preston took command of the volunteers assigned to him earlier in the month. The regimental commander de­ scribed him as “a favorite of all who knew him,” but one who “knew absolutely nothing of military drills or tactics.”17 At the camp of instruction, Col. Preston did not endear himself to his men because of his “very strict and . . . grating . . . program of duties.”18 The first Sunday in camp provided a rest from the labors of army life. “Divine worship” supplanted drill. The Rev. Peter Tinsley, bat­ tling for “the cause of his country as of his God,” conducted an Episco­ pal service. Mr. Berry of the “Old Dominion Rifles” led a Presbyterian service in the “delightful” afternoon sun.19 Yet storm clouds were forming in the distance. May 22 was not an ordinary day at Camp Lee. Provisions arrived from home and elections were held. Col. Jubal A. Early, commanding the camp, ordered Cols. Radford and Preston, and recently commis­ sioned Maj. Robert C. Allen, to conduct elections for company officers. A vote for ratification of the Confederate Constitution followed.20 Prior to the election, some of the volunteer officers went into Lynch­ burg to arrange for tents “at expense of the good old city.” Although the tents arrived later that year, these officers no doubt fared well in the May elections.21 5 �Before the 28th Regiment broke camp, a crisis arose. Men refused to take “old flint lock muskets . . . which had been percussioned.”22 This “mutiny” was serious enough to cause Col. Early to discharge some “recusants,” after which “the balance of the regiment then cheer­ fully took the muskets.” The recalcitrant individuals were “hooted out of camp,” and their discharges were published in the newspapers.23 By 2 p.m. on May 25, “silence prevailed in Camp Lee, which was so soon to be left vacant for other troops.”24 At 8:20 a.m. on May 26, eleven companies of the 28th Virginia, under the command of Robert T. Preston, left Lynchburg amid the “sobs and cries from women left behind.”23 The Regiment’s destina­ tion was Orange Court House. The East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad ran north from Lynch­ burg to Charlottesville. Memories of loved ones no doubt returned as the “smiles and boquets [sic] from girls [and] bursts of applause and cheers accompanied each passing station.”26 Anger replaced anticipation when the engineer’s poor scheduling deprived the volunteers of a feast at Charlottesville prepared by the local women. Switching onto the Virginia Central track, the train con­ tinued northward. Carloads of hungry men looked backward and for­ ward at the same time. At Gordonsville, where the Orange and Alexan­ dria joined the Virginia Central, the train pulled onto a siding. This layover lasted until 2 a.m. the next day. No banquets ensued to make the waiting pleasant. At sunrise on May 27, the train reached Cul­ peper.27 In the not-too-distant-future would be times when these men would wish they could again complain of such travel fatigue. The men were making camp when new orders arrived. They de­ parted immediately for Manassas Junction. The suddenness of the countermanding order led to speculation. Fatigue disappeared. “By 2 p.m. the regiment was again aboard the cars and in the highest glee; never were men so eager for the contest.”28 Yet disappointment was the only foe the men met that day. By 6 p.m. the Regiment was at the junction where the Orange and Alexandria joined the spur line into the Valley.29 Manassas Junction was a place the 28th Regiment would come to know well in the next two years. Among the 8,000 soldiers already there were some men from Botetourt County. For a few, their arrival became a “meeting of brothers.”30 Col. Preston’s command pitched camp at the southern end of the Junction. They remained in camp the entire day after arriving, “not being fully rested,” from their long journey. However, they drilled for several days thereafter. Major Allen put the men through the “manual [of] arms and double quick marches.” Before complaints 6 �could replace the fleeing anticipation of battle, “breastworks com­ menced.” The only enemy were constant duty and sore bodies. It was worse than Lynchburg. One man complained that at least in Lynchburg “we had our bread baked ready to hand, here we [have] to do our own baking and [are] poorly supplied with vessels suitable.”31 Other such “lack of equipments” as tents and blankets were causes of what Col. Cocke termed the “weak, unorganized and widely scattered force under my command.”32 On leaving Lynchburg, the men armed themselves with the hated percussion muskets and/or Bowie knives, made in Lynchburg, and “of as many types as there were types of men in the command.”33 Lack of ammunition and cartridge boxes made the knapsacks con­ spicuously lighter. When the ammunition finally arrived, each man received only nine rounds.3-* Later in the war the men would be charged twelve and a half cents for each lost cartridge.35 At this time they re­ ceived warnings to keep powder dry. That was not an easy thing to do in muddy trenches. Yet the presence of ammunition lifted spirits and fostered courage. Soon the outlying picket line reached “to within sight of Washington City.”36 Although water was plentiful in the often flooded trenches, drink­ ing water was scarce. Camp Pickens had only one well. Diggings be­ gan on a second and proved slow going. Unsanitary conditions brought increased illness among the men. Diarrhea and measles were rife. Lack of shelter, especially tents, forced many men to sleep in the open. Sick men soon filled the hospital at Culpeper.37 As June approached, the discontentment of the Virginia volun­ teers became more serious. Provisions from home, particularly apple brandy, helped assuage the rumblings of uncomfortable men. Yet spirits did not end it. Dissatisfaction with camp life reached its zenith in a near-rebellion by the officers. Disgruntled officers prematurely raised the question of Col. Pres­ ton’s ability to lead an army in battle. They drew up a petition request­ ing Preston’s resignation. After reading it, Preston replied that he would not “leave the regiment though it was smashed all to hell.”36 Higher authorities supported Preston. Before the organization of the First Corps, Army of the Potomac, Preston’s regiment had two fewer companies. Capt. Adam Clement’s “Clifton Greys” and Capt. J. R. Hutter’s “Jeff Davis Guard” became part of the 11th Virginia.36 A command decision averted the possibility of serious revolt. By late June, the Fifth Brigade of the First Army Corps, under the command of Col. St. George Cocke, prepared for its meeting with the “invaders. Maj. Robert C. Allen led five companies out of camp to Centreville. Colonel Preston remained at Camp Pickens with the rest of the 7 �regiment until supply wagons arrived to carry supplies to Centreville. This “first foot march” over dusty roads and in “intensely hot” weather greatly fatigued the men. That night, having neither tents nor sufficient provisions, exhausted troops slept on hard ground under threatening skies.41 The lot of the volunteer was no better in Camp Cocke at Centre­ ville than it had been at Camp Pickens. At Camp Cocke “almost con­ tinuous drilling” supplemented skirmish drills and picket duty.42 Men spent free time in front of the several captains’ tents, where talk flowed freely. Bravado and identification of the “God of battle” and the Con­ federate cause received much attention. The men were surprisingly “respectful” on July 4, “the national day, a day as dear as ever to the Confederate States.”43 The roar of cannon from both sides that day was not the beginning of battle. It was ironically a salute to a common national holiday. Col. Preston made a speech that would have been just as enthusiastically received in the Federal camp a few miles away. He spoke “of the liberties which our forefathers had achieved for us, and the duty which devolved upon us as their descendents to defend it, and to preserve the independence inviolate.”44 Preston’s secretary, William Burrell, then rose and reminded the men of the “deceit” of the North and its “desecration of Virginia soil.” The brief ceremony concluded with a worship service and a reading of the Declaration of Independence. The remainder of that day passed as soldiers relaxed and played cards under the many shade trees in camp.45 On July 5. Col. Cocke arrived at Camp Mason.46 Frequent orders to prepare to march “immediately” became harrowing. Guard duties became more strenuous, and sentinels reported hearing the Northern 8 �army “stir” at night. Pvt. Simmons felt that “everything indicated a battle would be fought in a very short time.”47 At dawn on July 17, reports reached Camp Mason that the enemy had entered Fairfax Court House, only a few miles east of Centreville.46 The 28th Regiment, in accordance with previous orders, fell back from Camp Mason and took up position on high ground south of Bull Run.49 There the men awaited baptism as “soldiers.” The 28th Regiment’s involvement at First Manassas was more a sprinkling than a submersion. While the main battle was taking place to its left, the 28th Virginia remained at the run guarding the Confeder­ ate rear at Ball’s Ford.50 Two successive orders put them first on the north side, then on the south side, of the run. Yet they saw no enemy, and heard only the din of battle. Sometime in midafternoon the Regi­ ment moved to the battlefield.51 Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard’s forces had retreated back to Henry House Hill.52 Advancing toward the main Confederate force, the 28th Regiment drew fire from the Federal sol­ diers. Six men in Co. B fell wounded,?3 The Regiment returned the fire, administered its first casualties and took a few prisoners.54 A passing artillery company forced the men to halt. They dropped to prone positions as artillery shells overshot the mark.55 While this was happening, Preston sought directions from Col. Joseph Kershaw of the 2nd South Carolina. Kershaw sent an officer to guide Preston’s regiment to its proper position. As the lieutenant directed the Vir­ ginians, he was killed.56 The 28th Regiment obeyed orders and as­ sumed its position. Yet it was too late! The enemy had abandoned the field.57 The 28th Regiment joined in the pursuit, and, while not having participated in the actual battle, managed to garner some “praise” by capturing a Federal hospital and its occupants. That night the “sol­ diers” of the 28th Regiment found themselves guarding Mitchell’s Ford on Bull Run.53 In terms of war, the battle of Manassas was indecisive, though the men of the 28th Regiment regarded it as a victory. Well they could, for only nine of their number received wounds.59 Gen. Beauregard sent his compliments.60 Most important of all, the rifle companies now possessed once-used Springfields taken from the Federal prisoners.6' For some, the events at Manassas left more disgusting memories: “It is an awfull [sic] thing to see dead men berried [sic] in graves 30 or 40 feet long . . . see men rising, a yankey [sic] out of his grave . . . took his teeth out . . . berried [sic] him again.”62 On July 23, the Regiment took position on the “suspension bridge” over Cub Run. On August 11, it marched to Fairfax Court House via Centreville.63 Picket duty at Mason Hill, Munson Hill, and Avondale 9 �became the order of each day at Fairfax. “Continued firing all along the line . . . counter charges . . . men killed and wounded” was the daily fete. Fever and dysentery became constant companions.64 Yet, the men were cheerful, and fresh food available from neighboring corn­ fields kept them in high spirits.65 In August-December, 1861, some important changes took place within the Regiment. The “Old Dominion Rifles” transferred in August to the artillery. The “Breckenridge Infantry” from Botetourt County replaced them that same month. In December, both the “Mountain Rifles” and the “Roanoke Greys” re-enlisted as artillery companies. Yet Co. I, the “Roanoke Greys,” continued to be included on the regi­ mental returns.66 By the end of December, only nine companies, with an aggregate strength of 750 men, remained to greet the new brigade commander, Gen. George E. Pickett. Later in the winter, the Fifth Brigade was redesignated the Third Brigade of Gen. Longstreet’s di­ vision.67 The Regiment made winter camp in Germantown, near Centreville.68 The winter was “quiet” and “fairly comfortable.” Some men appended chimneys to their tents. Gathered around the fires, they talked of home and of “Richmond . . . the Potomac River and the ships sailing . . . and Washington.”6® Those who survived mumps and measles, the cold and whiskey, would come to other places not soon forgotten.70 (to be continued) t J". *K. Simmons, "An Epitome of The Blue Ridge Rifles or Company A, 28th Regiment Virginia Volunteer Infantry" (unpublished manuscript in possession of his great nephew, William Simmons, Fincastle, Va.), Hereafter cited as Simmons MS. 2 Lynchburg DAILY VIRGINIAN, May 17, 1861. Simmons MS, 1. 4 IBID. 5 Simmons MS. The ranking volunteers included 4 lieutenants, 4 sergeants and 4 corporals. 6 Lee A Wallace, Jr., A GUIDE TO VIRGIN IA MILITARY ORGANIZATIONS 1861-1865 (Rich­ mond, 1964), 145. Hereafter cited as Wallace, GUIDE. See also Simmons MS. 7 Simmons MS, 2. 8 IBID. 9 Original Muster Roll, 28th Regiment, Virginia Archives. 10 Diary of W. B. Simmons, (unpublished papers in the possession of William Simmons, Fin­ castle, Va.) Hereafter cited as Simmons Diary. The means by which the "Blue Ridge Rifles'' travelled to Lynchburg is a "'family matter." J. K. Simmons reported that they marched. W. B. Simmons claimed they took the train and "raised their spirits . . . by taking spirits down." fi RICHMOND DISPATCH, Apr. 20, 1861. 1 2 IBID, Apr. 24, 1861. 13 IBID, May 7, 1861. 14 William McCauley (ed.), HISTORY OF ROANOKE COUNTY, SALEM, ROANOKE CITY, VIR­ G IN IA and REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. (Chicago, 1902), 21. Hereafter cited as McCauley, ROANOKE COUNTY. See also RICHMOND DISPATCH, Apr. 20, 1861; Charles D. Walker, BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF THE GRADUATES AND ELEVES OF THE VIRGIN IA MILITARY INSTITUTE (Philadelphia, 1875), passim. Hereafter cited as Walker, V. M. I. MEMORIAL. 15 Wallace, GUIDE, 145. 1 6 McCauley, ROANOKE COUNTY, 90-93. 17 Original Muster Rolls, 28th Regiment, Virginia Archives. 1 8 Virginia Military Institute Alumni Files, Lexington, Va. 19 RICHMOND DISPATCH, May 17, 1861. 2 0 William D. Woodson, "War Recollections," 28th Regiment, Virginia Archives. See also Wallace, GUIDE, 146. 3 CHAPTER II Lynchburg DAILY VIRGINIAN, May 9, 1861. U. S. War Department (comp.), WAR OF THE REBELLION: A COMPILATION OF THE OF­ FICIAL RECORDS OF THE UNION AND CONFEDERATE ARMIES (Washington, 1880-1901), Ser. 1, Voi II, 1 2 10 �808, 821. Hereafter cited as OR; unless otherwise stated, all references will be to Ser. 1 IBID., 826. IBID., 821, 827. B OR, II, 826. 6 Lynchburg DAILY VIRGINIAN, May 16, 1861. 7 Simmons Diary. e Lynchburg DAILY VIRGINIAN, May 16, 1861. 9 Simmons Diary. 10 Original Muster Ro'ls, 28th Regiment, Virginia Archives. 11 Wallace, GUIDE, 145. 12 IBID., 146. 1 3 Original Muster Rolls, 28th Regiment, Virqinia Archives. 14 Lynchburg DAILY VIRGINIAN, May 20, 1861. i s Wallace, Guide, 146. See also Original Muster Rolls. 1 6 Simmons Diary. 1 7 Robert E. Withers, AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN OCTOGENARIAN (Roanoke, 1907), 151. Here­ after cited as Withers, AUTOBIOGRAPHY. i s William N. Wood, REMINISCENCES OF BIG I (Charlottesville, 1909), 12. 19 Simmons Diary. 2 0 IBID., See also Lynchburg DAILY VIRGINIAN, May 22, 1861. 21 Simmons Diary. 22 IBID. 23 OR, LI, pt. 2, 111-12. The men discharged included 3 privates from the "Craig Rifles," 1 from the "Clifton Greys/' 2 from the "Old Dominion Rifles," and 2 from the "Piedmont Rifles." 24 Simmons Diary. 2 5 IBID. J. K. Simmons gives the departure date as May 25. 26 IBID. 27 IBID. 2 8 Simmons Diary. 3 4 29 IBID. 30 IBID. 3 1 IBID. As rations were short, the men usually cooked in messes of four to eight men, each man taking his turn as chef. 32 OR, II, 818. 3 3 CONFEDERATE VETERAN, X V II (1909), 123. 3 4 IBID. 3 5 James B. Painter to parents, Apr. 6, 1862, letters in possession of William Simmons, Fincastle, Va. Hereafter cited as Painter Papers. 36 CONFEDERATE VETERAN, X V II, (1909), 203. 3 7 Simmons Diary. 38 Simmons Diary. 3 9 IBID. See also Wallace, GUIDE, 121, 145. Wallace does not acknowledge that Hutter's Com­ pany was transferred. 4 0 OR, II, 943-44. Brig. Gen. St. George Cocke had graduated from West Point and served in the Mexican War. At the outbreak of civil war he lived lavishly on his family wealth. He committed suicide in Dec., 1861. 41 Simmons Diary. The companies are not identified. 42 Simmons MS, 4. 43 Simmons Diary. 44 IBID. 45 IBID. 4 6 IBID. According to W. B. Simmons, the name of the camp was changed from Camp Cocke to Camp Mason when Col. St. George Cocke arrived. This was done in deference to Col. Cocke's "humility." 47 IBID. 48 IBID. 49 OR, II, 549-51. s o IBID. s i IBID., 550. 52 IBID. 5 3 IBID. J. K. Simmons claimed that Porter's Battery and "Long Tom"^ fired on them. 5 4 IBID. See also OR, 11, 409. Those captured were a colonel, a captain and some members of the 1st Michigan. 55 OR, II, 550. One casualty was reported in Co. C. 56 IBID. 57 OR, II, 550. IBID., 551. J. K. Simmons reported that Co. A captured 31 Union prisoners. IBID., 569. 60 IBID., 495-97. 61 Simmons MS, 5. 6 2 James Painter to parents, July 1861, Painter Papers. 6 3 Regimental Returns, 28th Virginia Infantry, Virginia Archives. Hereafter cited as Regi­ mental Returns. 64 Simmons MS, 5. 65 James Painter to parents, [summer] 1861, Painter Papers. 66 Wallace, GUIDE, 145-46. See also Regimental Returns. 6 7 Withers, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 164. Original muster rolls each average about 75 names. The condition of the muster rolls is such that this number may be considered only approximate at best. See also OR, X I, pt. 3, 481. 68 Regimental Returns. 69 James Painter to parents, Oct. 15, 1861, Painter Papers. 7 0 Withers, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 161, 163-64. See also Simmons MS, 5. 58 59 ll �Roanoke at the Beginning By E dmund P. Goodwin Mrs. William Figgat, the former Anne Funkhouser Francis, has given the Society a most interesting collection of Roanokeana. Mrs. Figgat is the daughter of the late Edgar Funkhouser, part owner of Roanoke Water Co, a successor to Roanoke Land and Improvement Co. It describes the background of why and how the little village of Big Lick suddenly became Roanoke, the “Magic City.” In order to properly appreciate this collection a few facts should be known. Sometime after 1876, when the Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad Company was forced into receivership, a group of men repre­ senting northern capital, became aware of the important part bitumi­ nous coal would play in the future development of the nation. In order to exploit this idea they gained some form of control over both the New River and the Shenandoah Valley Railroad Companies and in 1881 purchased the assets of the AM&O, the latter being transferred to a newly formed Norfolk & Western Railroad Company. The plan obviously called for the New River Company to be extended into the coal fields and the Shenandoah Valley lines to be pushed southward to meet the N&W. It has been stated repeatedly, but unfortunately without proof, that Big Lick was designated as the junction of the railroads as a re­ sult of the progressive spirit of its citizens in raising and donating a certain sum of money to the Shenandoah Valley Company. These rail­ road men realized the junction and the resulting industry would create thousands of jobs and plans must be made to create a new city in or­ der to provide housing for the growth of population. The result was the formation of the Roanoke Land and Improvement Company. This collection covers 1881 and the ensuing years. In it one finds, through the eyes of those who made Roanoke, not only new historical facts but the background of what has been generally accepted as gos­ pel. In one of the earlier items dated Nov. 22, 1881, J. C. Moomaw ad­ vises Frederick J. Kimball, president of the Shenandoah Valley, in a letter that he has secured the right of way from Buchanan to Big Lick. Relative to the Big Lick donation, Moomaw wrote, “I now have in my safe bonds covering the entire subscription—they are written payable ninety days after the completion of the Road to Big Lick.” The Land Company purchased hundreds of acres of land as shown on a plat in the collection. In 1881, J. R. Shick prepared a map of Roa­ noke, although the name of Big Lick was not changed until the follow­ ing year, showing the existing streets and roads as well as those initial12 �ly proposed by the company. It is interesting to note most of the new ones were named for governors and lieutenant governors of Virginia. The avenues still carry those names but the street names have been forgotten as a result of the use of numbers. These men had vision not only as to railroads and coal, but as to the requirements of the city which must be built. Wells and cisterns would not supply the necessary water. There is some evidence, in the letter referred to above and in an option allocated for an additional fifty acres of land at $150 an acre, that the Moomaw Spring was being considered as the source of water supply. Apparently this was soon for­ gotten because the company contracted to purchase the McClanahan Spring (Crystal Spring) for $35,000 and received without cost, a right of way through the Peyton L. Terry land. Time was of the essence in providing housing. Soon after lots were laid off, houses were constructed. The earliest contract found in the collection shows three double houses at a cost of $1,300 each and five single houses at $700 each must be completed by January 1, 1882. Each month more houses were completed with the largest single con­ tract being for twenty at a price of $1,110 each. Two-story “houses for colored people,” eight in a row with dimensions of 24 by 100 feet, were priced at $2,800 or $350 per living unit. The following year when the junction of the roads was completed, the officials started moving in and a contract was let for two houses at $3,700 each for Messrs. W. W. Coe and J. H. Sands in the orchard at the corner of Mountain Avenue and Nelson Street (1st Street, S. E.) This became known as Orchard Hill, or Official Hill from the number of railroad officers who lived there. Lots were selling fast, as shown by a list of those unsold, but there was still much to be done. The company contracted to purchase two million brick to be delivered at the rate of one hundred and twen­ ty thousand per month at prices from $6.00 to $8.50 per thousand. Cisterns eight feet wide and eight and a half feet deep cost from $55 to $75 each. Grading of Jefferson, Norfolk, Shenandoah and Lee Streets, was let on the basis of 24 cents for earth, 42 cents for loose rock and 80 cents a cubic yard for solid rock. Division fences were built for 20 cents a lineal foot and picket fences varied from 12 cents to 15 cents. The price for board sidewalks was 19-1/2 cents per foot. The previous items were for the permanent citizens, but there was another urgent problem. The new city must provide for guests and for those who could find no place to live. The original specifica­ tions for the Hotel Roanoke, as well as the annex which was contract­ ed for before the first part was completed, are in the collection. The furnishings and equipment were not only elegant but efficient and (Continued on page 26) 13 �Story of a Stream-I New River: First of the Western Waters By Ben Bane Dulaney Ben Bane Dulaney, editor of the Jour­ nal of the Roanoke Historical Society since its establishment in 1964, died Nov. 2, 1967. His death is a grievous loss to the Society, of which he was a director and a charter member. He was manager of news and com­ munity services for the Norfolk and Western Railway. But more than that, he was a stu­ dent of railroad and Virginia history and a man whose interests and talents extended to a variety of fields. The following article on Dulaney New River, the first of a projected series on the rivers of western Virginia, was adapted from one written by Du­ laney for the Norfolk and Western Magazine in July, 1956. Mrs. English Showalter, president of the Society, has appointed George Kegley to succeed him as editor. Kegley, a past president of the Society, is business editor of The Roanoke Times. For millions of years the great river flowed in solitude. In the Paleozoic Age, before the glaciers came, it rose in the mountains of what is now North Carolina, cut northwesterly to near Huntington, West Virginia, then down the modern Ohio and up the Scioto to the vicinity of Chillicothe. There the exact course of the great river was lost in the Ice Age, but it is believed it may have laid a route all the way across Indiana and Illinois to empty into the ancient Mississippi. Geologists today call the lost stream the Teays. It was the ancestor of New River, majestic and little-known water course so intimately connected with frontier settlement. New River, cutting northwest through the Alleghenies instead of following a seemingly easier route to the Atlantic, was the first of the long-sought “western waters” found by white men. Its discovery came two years before Marquette and Joliet stood on the upper Mis­ sissippi. Upon its finding was based the English claim for all the vast Middle West. And for the next 200 years New River played its part in the settling of that western territory. 14 �Since Columbus, European man had sought the western waters. Harassed at first by Indians, the first Virginia colonists stayed close to the tidal rivers. But after the Indian defeat of 1644 they began eye­ ing the mysteries of the far mountains, tentatively venturing beyond the fall lines of the rivers. Abraham Wood came to the colony as an indentured servant but by 1645 he had acquired property and was placed in charge of Fort Henry (now Petersburg). An Indian trader and born adventurer, he began probing farther and farther into the wilderness. In 1650, when he reached the junction of the Roanoke and Dan Rivers near the pres­ ent Clarksville, he at first thought he had found water flowing west and the report still persists that the New was discovered in that year. But it was not to be found for 21 years and Wood, although he or­ ganized and financed the party, did not go along. Thomas Batts, Robert Fallam, two other white men and an Appomattoc Indian named Perecute left Fort Henry on September 1, 1671 to find “the ebbing and flowing of the Waters on the other side of the Mountains in order to discovery of the South Sea.” Nine days later, after crossing the Blue Ridge they arrived at a Tutelo Indian village near the present site of Roanoke. After a few days rest they continued on foot, following the Roanoke River, then striking up the mountains. At last they came to a wide stream flowing north, a direction entirely different from any in which they had ever seen water flowing. It was New River. The men were sure they had found the “western waters.” In fact, when they climbed a craggy bluff, Batts imagined he saw sails against the western sky. Along the river was a well-traveled path, the Great Warpath which linked the tribes of the north to the Cherokees and Catawbas in the south. They traveled past abandoned Indian habita­ tions for two days and probably reached the Narrows before turning back. At that point they placed their initials and those of Charles II, Governor Berkeley and Abraham Wood on four large trees. They called it Wood’s River. It was 70 years before the first settlers came, hardy men and women of German stock who selected the choice land at Horse Shoe Bend, now the site of Radford Army Ammunition Plant. The first actual village was probably Price’s Fork, still on the map, where the road branched to Pepper’s Ferry on the left and Adam Harmon’s ford farther down the river. Harmon, one of the first to come, settled at a shallow place that could be waded. The ford became the first outlet for settlers bound for all southwest Virginia and Kentucky. In 1745 it became the official terminus of the Indian Road, the first ever ordered by the court. It 15 �was to be built from the Frederick County line. (The area was in Au­ gusta County then which included all of southwest Virginia, West Vir­ ginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin. Its county seat was Staunton.) Later the famed Wilderness Road came down the Shenandoah, through Salem, over the mountain to Christiansburg and across the river at Ingles Ferry. From 1775 until the middle 1800’s it was the route of thousands upon thousands of emigrants who plodded west through Cumberland Gap. Southwest Virginia had been for centuries a neutral hunting ground for northern and southern Indians. The whites were tolerated until their numbers began scaring off the game. Then came raids and warfare which lasted into the last century. Besides bloody forays, such as the massacre at Drapers Meadows which wiped out the settlement, there were numberless harassing incidents. Old Adam Harmon, for example, was robbed three times in three days in 1741. Skins served as money to the pioneers. Adam reported nine deer and one elk skin as the first day’s loot, 14 deer and one elk as the second and 73 deer and six elk as the third. About 1750, people began calling it New instead of Wood’s River. Origin of the name is in doubt. One historian said a man named New operated an early ferry, another that a Captain Bird when surveying the road to Abingdon wrote “New River” on a 1755 Jefferson map that didn’t include the river at all. But the Canawhay Indians lived not on the lower end of the Kanawha River but in what are now Floyd and Carroll Counties near the upper streams. Another historian suggests that the whole river was once called the Kanawha and that the laconic German settlers abbre­ viated it to “Gnawr” and then to “New.” The Norfolk and Western Railway main line follows the superbly beautiful New River for 38 miles between Radford and Glen Lyn and then parallels a tributary almost to its source near Bluefield. But no less than 18 other N&W branches and spurs meet or follow the river or its contributing branches. New River is geologically unique, historically significant and eco­ nomically-important. And it is one of the truly beautiful streams of America. Yet scores of N&W passengers look out upon its stately pas­ sage through the Narrows and express surprise. They have never heard of New River. Perhaps because it passes no town larger than Radford in its entire 330 miles, because most of its course lies in placid meadows and roaring gorges far from tourist trails, the New is among the least known rivers of its size in America. Let’s take a look at it: New River rises close to Blowing Rock, North Carolina. Water 16 �bubbling from nearby springs flows in three other directions. Here are sources of the Pee Dee River which reaches the Atlantic at George­ town, S. C., and of the Santee which enters the ocean farther south. And here is the beginning of the Watauga, which cuts west to join the Holston, which becomes the Tennessee and reaches the Ohio after detouring through Alabama and the Mississippi border. The springs of the New take the hardest way of all to reach the sea. Their currents travel north to form one of the very few rivers flowing in that direction for any appreciable distance in North America. Born in the mountains, destined to end in the mountains at Gauley Bridge, W. Va., the New is on its twisting, horseshoe way. It snakes across two Carolina counties to meet its North Fork near the Virginia line. It is this fork, rising near the Tennessee border in western Ashe County, which first meets the N&W. It slides in beside the mountainous West Jefferson branch below Warrensville and plays tag with it for some five miles. Although still close to its source, the New is a sizable river when it enters Virginia at Mouth of Wilson. Broad and shallow, it winds down its narrow valley, usually with a flat, fertile meadow on one side, a steep, tree-covered bluff on the other. The New’s airline distance across Virginia is only 50 miles, but so erratic is its course that it travels 150 to reach the border north of Glen Lyn. From its mouth at the Carolina line, Wilson Creek reaches up 12 miles to the highest point in Virginia—Mount Rogers, 5,720 feet above the sea. The New absorbs Wilson and Fox Creeks and after 14 miles —photograph by New River Valley Industrial Commission New River flows through fields and forests of Southwest Virginia. 17 �in Virginia, perverse as always, it dips back into Carolina and creates a loop known as the “lost” part of Alleghany County. It picks up an N&W branch at Fries and then is joined by a tribu­ tary which guides another branch to Galax. Then for over 30 milpg the railroad’s North Carolina branch follows the river—past the lead and zinc mines, past mills and rich farmland—through Ivanhoe and Austinville and Foster Falls, below the historic shot tower at Jacksons Ferry. When the railroad swings away at Delton, the river is already widening into man-made Claytor Lake, which backs up 18 miles behind the Appalachian Power dam near Radford. The huge dam was built in the late Thirties after prolonged litigation between Appalachian and the Federal government over whether or not the New was a navi­ gable stream. Old heads testified then concerning barges and even steamboats which plied its waters 60 years before, a time when it cer­ tainly must have contained more waters or less rocks than it does today. The dam created a recreational area with a hundred-mile shore line. Part of the north side is now Claytor Lake State Park, with an ocean sand beach, a well-filled boat harbor, cottages and fish i n g grounds. N&W’s short Radford Branch runs beside the river from the dam to the high bridge at West Radford which carries the rails to Bristol. As oldtimers know, there were once two bridges here with a wye on the north side. Instead of curving down the. river at Walton, the main line ran through Radford, crossed the bridge whose stone abutments still stand and doubled back on the other side. From Radford bridge to Glen Lyn 40 miles downstream rolls the portion of New River which railroad travellers know best. Beyond Pepper the stream makes a great loop and the rails enter a bypassing tunnel 3,300 feet long. It was on the bottom land of Horse Shoe Bend that the first white settlement west of the Alleghanies was established about 1750, according to an early survey. Out of Pepper Tunnel, the N&W runs for miles along the west bank, often on narrow shelves cut from towering cliffs. The river is an ever-changing wonder. Normally it is shallow, al­ ternating with wide, still pools and boiling rapids. There are fishermen in flat-bottomed boats or wading in hip boots. In warm weather there are swimmers and picnickers and courting couples. At flood the New can be awesome. Islets disappear under boiling brown torrents; huge rocks become submerged pimples in the mael­ strom; cascades roar down from the cliffs. In autumn the changing scene is an unbelievable picture postcard. Under gentle snow it is an etching. In fog it is the biggest river in the world. Industries have grown along the river and many more will come. 18 �All the way from the first plant in North Carolina—it manufactures electric parts—to the coal mines on West Virginia tributaries, the river is dotted with industry and crammed with industrial potential: lime­ stone, lead, zinc, rayon, electric power and many, many more. The railroad and river are together at Eggleston. Across the river and almost 3,000 feet above it lies Mountain Lake, famed resort which attracts summer visitors from all over the world. At Blacksburg, near the river, is Draper’s Meadows, the scene of the 1755 Indian massacre and the kidnapping of Mary Draper Ingles. Near Ripplemead a bridge carries the rails across the New and up Stony Creek to the Kimballton lime and gypsum plants. Once the line con­ tinued far up Potts Valley to Paint Bank in Craig County. At Glen Lyn the New swings north in a great bend and the rail­ way heads west up East River to Bluefield. Still cutting through the Alleghanies, the river flows and falls some hundred miles through West Virginia until it meets the Gauley and becomes—for no apparent reason—the Kanawha which rolls past Charleston and enters the Ohio at Point Pleasant. A huge earthen flood control dam erected by Army engineers be­ low the New s meeting with the Bluestone backs up a reservoir over 25 miles to the Virginia line, a lake developed as a recreational area. Curbed by the dam, the New passes Hinton, W. Va. as a shallow stream. After meeting the Greenbrier and other waters which drain a large part of south-central West Virginia, it enters New River Canyon and ends its travels in a spectacular series of twisting cascades. Where the N&W Clinch Valley line meets the main stem at Bluefield, Va., the rails cross the upper waters of the Bluestone and travel beside it to the town of that name. All the coal branches and spurs on the Bluestone Extension to the farthest at Arista and Wenonah are drained by this river which then struggles across Mercer County to­ ward its junction with the New above the dam. There have been many changes along the New in 200 years. Set­ tlements have grown to towns, one-man mills have turned to factories, dams have harnessed its power. Picturesque ferries, operated every few miles, gradually disappeared as steel spanned the waters. The New became the gateway to the vast coal fields when the Norfolk and Western laid its rail down the river and on to Pocahontas in 1883. Now its grade has opened vast commerce although its current carries nothing larger than a rowboat. With the main line of the N&W on one side and its former Virginian tracks on the other the New has become a pathway of modern mass transportation. But strangely New River has not been ruined by man, as man de­ stroys the beauty of so many streams. There is a wild and untamed dignity about New River which has not succumbed to modern machines. It is a great river. 19 �Story of a Stream—II The Teays, Ancestral River of Mid-America By Dr. Raymond E. J anssen The Teays River, mighty predecessor of the New, Kanawha, Ohio, Mississippi and other rivers, was described by Dr. Raymond E. Janssen, head of the geology department of Marshall University, Huntington, W. Va., in an article in The Scientific Monthly of December, 1953. Ex­ cerpts appear here in conjunction with a history of New River. A mighty river, coursing toward the sea, presents a wondrous spec­ tacle of power, strength, and endurance. Its surging waters have cut into the bedrock and stripped away the strata which once lay across its valley. Unceasingly at work, it has become the master of its environ­ ment, entrenching itself into the landscape of which it is a part. The stream is the creator of both the valley and the hills; and in creating them, the river inscribes the history of its own eventful past. The pathway of the river, however, may sometimes be beset with difficulties. Upheavals of the lands, invasions by the sea, advances of glacial ice, landslides, all tend to turn the river from its course. If they be great, the river may be turned aside; if overwhelming, the river meets its end. Such was the fate of one of America’s grandest rivers. Unseen by man, it was the master stream of a prehistoric age, a pre­ cursor of rivers that flow today. More than half a century ago, geologists working in the basin of the great Ohio River first noticed certain peculiarities of the river val­ ley. They saw that some portions of the valley seemed to be much young­ er than others, that some of the river’s tributaries appeared to be older than the master stream, and furthermore, that certain confluent val­ leys showed evidence of former occupancy by torrential currents no longer flowing through them. This led to the conclusion that the Ohio River had not always flowed in its present course, but that during some time in its history it had abandoned portions of its well-established valley and had carved out another route. With this, it was reasoned, had come adjustments in its tributary drainage. Summarizing this ac­ cumulated knowledge and adding much of his own, W. G. Tight in 1903 worked out partial details of these changes. Among these was the recog­ nition of a great abandoned valley extending across West Virginia, from Huntington to Charleston, through which the Ohio River was presumed 20 �<B o ■® V \ f l L iS C {B >, (Lw/afoW ^/ __ x>\ s f i B ¿/hco//?*\ wi *R / I o 4A£ Oecatt/r I IMS! ■ *«ts»a»JS * M O I A W A iw II o'? p \E M>N S Xsprinmf&iJ Q /'"* . «v ^„A"' 1 •. \ .< Da Ofton /«/Ill's l^ M M* I\ \\ "wmfaw N * y . r '/ f s U 0 C f/I V I R 6 1, n / Ia A / ¿•^ P o rtsn to t/tn ^ . i i ■ H u n t/n a to n ifa '^ ^ iA * 6i?... iChar/esron M B f V / U M m . Ancient I Teays River n ^ 3 lo tu /o o R o c k N * m [ w e s -r\f / I ^ Irv*p/easan* ,><i‘ aCVw/ f !Ji.i\\Sx\ ^|ftO,//i|l\N' «- V -r v ' f'^Ch/Z/icothe jf$ o Waaer/afJ: oy * V M| i t |g!p |B l|! ► v u\'s OF I g3£& M Champa/ifn | g LjffS lafayette. , s *"<«<» \(l N m n ° r -r h C A R O L I N A a • I f t -i t u » • jn Relation to —Map by J. R. Hildebrand. ' �once to have flowed. Averaging a mile and a half to two miles wide and nearly fifty miles long, the valley is occupied today only by minor streams that drain the immediate territory and are incapable of hav­ ing excavated so great a valley in the bedrock. To this valley Tight gave the name Teays, from a tiny crossroads station located within it. He also applied this name to the former river which flowed through it to distinguish it from the present course of the Ohio River. He did not know that one day the name he had proposed would become applicable to a greater river—a river which was once the master stream of interior America, with the Mississippi as a tribu­ tary. He was unaware that the Ohio River had not yet been born when the Teays flowed across the lands. The story of how the Teays helped to carve a great continent, of how it ultimately ceased to exist, and of how the Mississippi later became the master stream of the interior was not fully realized until nearly half a century later. The prehistoric Teays, precursor of the present Mississippi, and predecessor of the Ohio, the Illinois, the Wabash, and others, had its source in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. From there it followed a northwestward course across Virginia and into West Vir­ ginia as far as Charleston, along the same route occupied by the New and Kanawha rivers today. From Charleston it continued due west through the abandoned valley to Huntington, and then swerved north­ ward to Chillicothe, Ohio. Here it resumed a northwestward course past Springfield, Ohio, to the Indiana state line southeast of Fort Wayne. It then turned south and formed a great loop to the north. After reach­ ing its northernmost point in Fulton County, Indiana, the Teays swerved southwestward to Lafayette, proceeded west into Illinois, passing near Champaign, swung down toward Decatur, and then back northwest to Lincoln, Illinois. At this point it was joined by its tributary, the Mis­ sissippi, which then flowed considerably east of its present channel. The Teays continued to Beardstown, Illinois, and followed the present lower Illinois River Valley as far as the latter’s confluence with the modern Mississippi Valley near St. Louis. Here the Teays received drainage from the western plains through channels which later became identified with the present Missouri River. The Teays continued for a short distance past St. Louis where it emptied into the Gulf of Mexico, an embayment of which formerly extended northward to this point. Here was the mouth of the great Teays River. With its headwaters in the Appalachians in the East and in the Rockies in the West, the tribu­ taries draining the Great Lakes region on the north and the Kentucky terrain on the south, the Teays was the master stream of a primeval America. The discovery of this ancestral river was not the accomplishment of a single individual. It was the culmination of study and exploration 22 �made in recent years by a great many geologists working individually in the scattered territories through which the river flowed. Gradually it became evident that several streams, shown on present-day maps as individual rivers, are really disconnected portions of a former big, sin­ gle river. Associated underground waters were also found to be mov­ ing along definite buried channels. Finally, the entire course of the ancient river became apparent. The Teays River had its origin many millions of years ago in the Ancestral Appalachian Mountains, a higher range of mountains, pre­ ceding in geologic time the present ranges. These earlier mountains were eroded to an almost level plain, and the Teays River was one of the rivers that had worn them low. Thereafter, it flowed westward across the great plain, which it had helped to create, toward an im­ mense inland sea that covered the central part of North America. The river developed a winding, meandering course as it crossed the plain. In the course of time, pressures from within the earth lifted the plain to a high plateau, with the uplift highest in the East so that its surface sloped westward toward the interior of the United States. At the same time, the great inland sea was drained away, except for a long narrow arm which extended northward from the Gulf of Mexico as far as southern Illinois. These changes did not destroy the Teays River, as it was carried upward on the surface of the rising land. With its gradient steepened, it continued to flow down the new slope to the sea at the northern end of the long arm of the Gulf. The uplift gave the stream renewed energy, and it cut its way downward through the uplifted rock layers. The course of the river could not be straightened; hence, it entrenched itself in the bedrock, while retaining the shape of the meandering course which it had developed previously on the low, flat plain. Evidence of this can still be seen in the gorge of the New River, which is the present name for the upper portion of the Teays where it flows from North Carolina to central West Virginia. The deep canyon, with its nearly vertical walls and winding course, marks the extent of the river’s erosion since the uplift. Similar relationships may be seen throughout the vast Appalachian region wherever other streams have incised their valleys into the great plateau. From some high vantage point, such as those along the Blue Ridge Parkway, one can see that the Appalachian ranges of today are essentially flat topped and of nearly equal elevation in their highest parts. If one imagines all the valleys refilled with the great quantities of rock that once were there, he has reconstructed the vast, rolling plateau surface that existed before the valleys were cut into it. The present Appalachian ranges, with their long, flattopped summits, are remnants of the former plateau which has been dissected by the stream-cut valleys between them. The Blue 23 �Ridge marks the eastern limit and highest part of the former plateau. The steeply tilted rock layers seen in the sides of many of the ranges are the spreading roots of the Ancestral Appalachians, now re-elevated and dissected into numerous parallel ranges. Hence, the Teays, older than the present mountains themselves, actually held its course while the bedrocks were pushed upward from beneath it. The headwaters of the Teays consisted of at least two main forks. One, rising in eastern West Virginia, is known today as the Gauley Riv­ er. The other, rising in North Carolina, is the present New River. It is longer, and was the main headwater channel of the Teays. It rises today near the resort town of Blowing Rock, at the summit of the Appalachian Divide. Originally it extended much farther east to the present Fall Line along the eastern base of the mountains. This was before the east­ ern portion of the Blue Ridge was eroded to become the Piedmont area. Streams flowing down the east side of the Blue Ridge directly into the Atlantic had much steeper gradients than did the Teays and others draining toward the Gulf of Mexico. Consequently, during the inter­ vening ages, the divide has been shifted farther and farther west by erosion, resulting in the disappearance of the uppermost headwaters of the Teays. Contrary to its name, the New River, as the remaining headwater portion of the ancient Teays, is one of the oldest rivers in America. Because it was there long before the mountains were carved, it is the only river crossing the entire Appalachian belt from one side to the other. The union of the New and Gauley Rivers at Gauley Bridge, West Virginia, forms the present Kanawha River, which was part of the an­ cient Teays as far as Charleston, West Virginia. A million years have passed since the advancing ice of the first glacier slid down over the valley of the Teays. This represents a mere fraction of the much greater length of time that the age-long Teays had dominated the drainage of preglacial interior America. But during this relatively much shorter time, the ice sheets completely changed the face of the lands over which they moved. They established the Great Lakes, they left 10,000 smaller lakes in Minnesota, they turned the headwaters of the Missouri southward, they pushed the lesser Mis­ sissippi to the west, and sent the combined waters of a new river sys­ tem down across the old delta of the Teays. In spite of these tremendous changes, the Teays River is not totally extinct. Its headwaters, between North Carolina and central West Virginia, still flow, under different names, along the identical age-old channel. At St. Albans, they were simply diverted to add their flood to the new Ohio. But much more important is the fact that the greater, buried portion of the Teays still carries its waters across Ohio, (Continued on page 26) 24 �A New Brick House For $105 and a Horse Critter A. M. Brugh's Botetourt home. Life was economical in the 1840’s when James Hogshead decided to build a brick house on his land beyond Daleville on what is now Rt. 779 through Botetourt County. Hogshead, who had come from Augusta County, contracted Samuel Rader, a well-known Botetourt brick mason, to do the job. Rader agreed to provide 50,000 brick and use Hogshead’s hands to put up a building with 13-inch walls. His payment: $105 and “one horse critter.” A. M. Brugh, who retired at the end of 1967 after 47 years of service as Botetourt County commissioner of revenue, lives comfort­ ably today with his wife in the 19th century Hogshead home (above). A frame wing was added at the rear in 1896. The contract, printed be­ low, was handed down by O. U. Brugh, father of the present owner, who also was commissioner of revenue. Hogshead is said to have died of injuries suffered when he was kicked by a horse. Rader, a builder who was the father of 11 children, lived past 90. In his youth, Rader went west in a covered wagon and served a short time in the Indiana State Militia before returning to Botetourt to build houses and farm. THE CONTRACT: Article of agreement made and concluded this 17th day of March 1847 Between Samuel Rader of the first part and James Hogshead the other, Both of the county of Botetourt and the state of Virginia. The said Samuel Rader doth agree to make and Burn fifty thousand Brick and Build the Brick work of a house thirty six feet long and twenty feet wide, the storeys are to be nine by 25 �8 feet high and thirteen inches thick to be done in a good and workman like order for which said Hogshead agrees to pay said Rader one hundred and five dollars and said Rader is to put up and help to Burn a Lime Killn to do the work with and said Rader is to take one horse critter at sixty dollars and said Rader is to commence making the Brick by the first of August 1847 and said Hogshead is to furnish sufficient hands in making and building for the true performance we Bind our selves in penal sum of two hundred dollars for the true performance the day and year first Reten Samuel Rader (Seal) James Hogshead (Seal) Roanoke at the Beginning (Continued from page 13) modern. Each room, both public and private, is described in detail. In fact, this information and Col. S. S. Brooke’s description of the fin­ ished building contained in a copy of the Leader (in the Roanoke Pub­ lic Library) would make an extremely interesting story. The papers tell of the gas company, fire hydrants, lights at Crys­ tal Spring and a contract to sell its bottled water in Philadelphia and the terms and prices in a contest to select the best kept yard as well as the most complete garden. Others deal with Rockledge Inn and the plans for the first observatory on Mill Mountain. The Teays River (Continued from page 24) Indiana, and Illinois. Because it is much easier for rainwater and melted snow to percolate between the loose sands and gravels that fill the buried valley than it is for them to seep through the bedrock on either side, there remains an avenue for the movement of ground water along the old channel. The Teays River is not really gone; its waters still flow slowly underground. The discovery of the buried Teays Valley as a carrier of subsur­ face water has greatly advanced the cause of geologists whose task it is to search for adequate supplies of ground water. In many parts of the United States our expanding economy and increasing population have drawn so heavily upon the supplies of water that many communities and areas have found themselves dangerously short of this basic ne­ cessity even when no droughts exist. In the future, geologists concerned with such problems will search for buried river channels with the same diligence that they now search for hidden pools of oil and gas. 26 �"Land of Make-Do or Do Without” Walled in by the Appalachians By J ames J. K irkwood A native of Roanoke County, James J. Kirkwood presently is work­ ing toward a doctorate at Duke University. A graduate of Wake Forest, he will become chairman of the English Department of Bridgewater College this fall. He holds a master’s degree from Wake Forest and he has taught at Campbell College in North Carolina. He is the author of “Waterway to the West,” a brief study of the James River and Kanawha Canal. His paper on the isolation of mountain people stems from a camp­ fire talk given during his summer work as a seasonal naturalist oh the Blue Ridge Parkway. Geographical environment affects the lives of all people but it has nothing like the effect in our country that it had only forty or fifty years ago. Today, with our massive earth-moving equipment, we can build highways and railroads through almost any kind of terrain but until recently, geography greatly restricted communication and transportation, especially in mountainous areas. In the southern Ap­ palachians, the mountains were a hindrance to settlement, first of all, and then, once settlements were made, they constituted, in effect, a wall about the lives of the people. As the mountains were the greatest physical factor for the set­ tlers, the resulting isolation was the most pervasive cultural and social fact. When we speak of isolation, we do not mean that each mountain family lived in a cove or hollow to itself. There normally would be sev­ eral families living within a reasonable distance of each other. But what we do mean is that the mountain people as a whole were insulated from the currents of social and cultural changes that were moving in the world about them. Time, as several writers have said, by-passed them so that they continued to live for many generations much as did the first settlers who came into the mountains from the 1730’s until about the Revolu­ tion. Illustrative of their enclosed world and subsequent narrow out­ look was their speaking of anyone or anything from another state or from an area a hundred or so miles away as foreign or “furrin.” My grandfather always spoke of a car bearing an out-of-state license plate as being a foreign car. Things from an especially great distance were “outlandish.” The circumscribed view of the world is shown by the story told on 27 �J lliili ^ lW Ê k —National Park Service photograph Ed and Lizzie Mabry at home in Floyd County, 1922. a man from my home community who had never been far from home. A group of men were going to Washington one day (a distance of 250 miles) and they persuaded him to go with them. He rode along for quite a time, having nothing to say. When he did speak, he said, “I tell you one thing—if it’s as big in every direction as it is in this one, it’s a big ’un!” In four areas in particular, the lives of the mountain people were much influenced by the geography and the ensuing isolation. In the first place, the terrain, along with lack of roads, allowed one no choice as to how he would make a living. The mountaineer simply had to pro­ vide his livelihood from the land or from the native materials he found at hand, and for this reason the oft-used phrase, the “land of make-do or do without,” was especially apt to describe the mountains. Subsis­ tence farming was almost the sole occupation for a long time. As com­ munities developed, it is true that a few of the more skillful persons would become craftsmen to serve their neighbors, as did Ed Mabry at Mabry Mill. But even these craftsmen nearly always grew some basic crops, too. Not only was the mountaineer’s choice of occupation limited, but all the means of making a living entailed a very hard life. With very few tools, he had to make almost everything he needed, including household items such as furniture and dishes. And then he had to scratch out of steep, often rocky land the few crops he had to have to live. The steepness of mountain land is, of course, the subject of fre­ quent jokes, but it is almost literally true that a person could fall out of some of the fields, or that one had to shovel off a place for the dog to lie down, or that the mountaineer could get his firewood by throw28 �ing it down the chimney. The lot of the mountain woman was particularly arduous. As was customary up until quite recent times, the woman was expected to do much of the field work besides performing all the household duties of cooking and making clothes and rearing children. And her life was often even more circumscribed than that of her husband. He would at least go to the county seat once in a while, especially to pay his taxes, while it was not uncommon for a mountain woman to live and die without ever having been more than twenty miles from home. Out of the exigencies of such a life for both man and woman grew the moun­ tain people’s ingenuity and resourcefulness and hardiness of character. The second area of life affected by the mountaineer’s environment was that of his customs and folkways. Here isolation produced a two­ fold effect—as it nearly always does. It worked to perpetuate the cus­ toms that the settlers brought with them and it produced certain cusoms that sprang directly from the environment. Customs that developed because of living conditions were those such as the “protracted meetings,” usually held in the fall after most of the crops had been gotten in. Many of the people were too far re­ moved from a meeting house, given the lack of roads and poor means of travel, to get to religious services even once a month. Therefore church-going for the year was lumped together into one prolonged session lasting two or three weeks. Just as they postponed religious services, families at times, par­ ticularly in winter, had to put off a regular burial service upon the death of a family member. A preacher may not have been available in the community, and even if he were, road conditions may have made it impossible for him to get to the home of the deceased. So the fam­ ily would have a simple graveside service and then have a more for­ mal one whenever the minister was available. On a lighter note, the same kind of postponement sometimes happened when a couple wanted to get married and a parson was not handy. They would simply build a cabin up the hollow, set up housekeeping, and tend to making their union legal when the preacher came around. Another custom that grew directly out of environmental condi­ tions was that of the fall stock drives. Means of transportation were primitive. Roads were hardly worthy of the name and markets were few. To overcome these problems, people of a large area would drive together whatever livestock they had to sell—cattle, sheep, hogs, tur­ keys or geese—and with the help of several men and some dogs, they would form a herd and drive them to the market. Another aspect of the folkways of the mountain people is their superstitions. Usually people who live isolated lives tend to be more superstitious than those who are in contact with a larger world, and 29 �their superstitions endure longer and play a larger part in their lives. Many superstitions still prevail in the mountain and rural areas of our country that have vanished elsewhere. In these areas, for instance, some people still follow the almanac or signs of the moon in planting their crops. Potatoes are planted when the moon is in the down sign so that they will grow down into the ground instead of coming to the surface where the sun will turn them green. A mountain man would put shingles on a building in the down sign of the moon so the shingles would lie flat and not curl up. My grandfather believed that the best time to clear a “new ground” was in the dark of the moon, for then the stumps and roots would not pro­ duce as many sprouts that would have to be removed a g ain In their folk medicine, the mountaineers had many superstitions. Indeed, much of their medical practice was based on the then very widespread belief in the ancient doctrine of signatures. Based on the Biblical view that all things on earth were created for man’s benefit, the doctrine held that things which bore the sign or “signature” of likeness must have some kind of affinity. The hepadca plant with its liver-shaped leaf must have some affinity with the human liver, and it was therefore assumed that medicine made from the hepatica could cure liver ailments. Particular superstitions found in mountain medi­ cine include the strange method of curing a child of croup—find a man who has never seen his father and have the man blow his breath in the child’s mouth. Or when a woman was in childbirth, an axe or a pair of scissors would be put under her bed to “cut” the pains. Nothing more clearly shows how the mountain people were cut off from currents of change than does their language. At the same time, nothing more clearly illustrates how deeply ingrained habits and ways of thinking become when they exist for several generations. I know people today who use some very old forms of words, such as ‘holp’ for ‘help,’ ‘mought’ for ‘might,’ ‘ax’ for ‘ask’, and ‘hit’ for ‘it.’ If we define grammar as the usage of language that is currently ac­ cepted, then these people are ungrammatical; but in another way, they are simply out of date in their grammar, for all of these words were correct at one time. ‘Holp’ is, of course, the form of ‘help’ found in the King James Bible; mought’ was in literary use in the 16th and 17th centuries, and ‘ax’ was a dialectical form in Middle English, while ‘hit’ was used by Chaucer (along with ‘it’) and goes all the way back to Anglo-Saxon where it was a form corresponding with ‘he.’ People who use these words hear the current forms on radio and television and from others, but the older forms have been used for so long in their familial and cultural communities that it simply would not occur to them to speak differently. Not only did the mountain people retain old forms of speech, but 30 �they also developed their own, forms that are often very colorful and very expressive. An old fellow in eastern Franklin County always re­ fers to something that is slanting as being “slaunchways” and when one hears that word he knows that it does not mean vertical. He also says, not that someone told him of something, but that “he named it to me.” A mountain person frequently says, when he is feeling well, that he is “right peart,” but if he isn’t “peart” he might be rather “dauncy”— not feeling bad, but just not very well, either. A little child who is not yet walking may be described as a “set-along” child—he just “sets” along the floor. My grandfather had an expression that must have been unique with him. Speaking of something of which there was a very small amount, he would say that there was “just in a manner of none.” Likewise, in their humor the mountain folk could be very colorful —and very biting at times—as in the case of the old man in Franklin County who was summoned to court in a moonshine charge against one of his neighbors. He wasn’t going to tell anything on his neighbor, and every time the prosecuting attorney asked him a question, he would say, “I don’t know.” The judge got tired of his evasiveness and said to him, “Do you know the way home?” The old fellow looked the judge in the eye and said in a dry, flat voice: “I reckon I can go the way I come.” A farmer told of one of his hogs getting into his still. The hog knocked over the mash tub and after he ate his fill of the fermenting grain, “he went off down the hollow huntin’ wolves.” Another farmer had been greatly bothered by a wild boar that kept getting in the gar­ den night after night. The farmer had “laid out” several nights trying to get a shot at that hog but was not successful. In exasperation, he declared that “that hog was so ornery he would cross hell on a rotten rail to get in my tater patch!” I have heard my father describe a horse that was very poor as being so thin you would have to tie a knot in his tail to keep him from running through the collar. Undoubtedly the most significant effect of the mountaineer’s en­ vironment on his life as a whole was made in shaping his character. The people who settled these rugged hills must have been very hardy folk to begin with and living in this land of “make-do or do without” served to develop and intensify their character. The kind of resourcefulness and independence that was developed in these people has become the hallmark of their character. Nothing would offend a mountaineer more quickly than a person’s giving the impression that he thought himself better off in any respect than the mountain man. The mountain people were neighborly among them­ selves, but for anyone to offer help with anything that smacked of con­ descension or of pity was surely to offend. The self-reliance and deter­ mination to make his own way in his own manner is well illustrated in 31 �the practice of moonshinin’ and in the story of the mountain man’s role in the battle of Kings Mountain. The making of moonshine has been romanticized and treated in stereotyped fashion, of course. It still goes on today, but it is only a criminal practice for which there is no justification. The mountaineer of the past, however, thought he had ample justification for making whiskey and for refusing to pay a tax on it. The mountain man’s feeling of being justified in this practice is reflected in his referring to making untaxed whiskey as “blockading.” I have always assumed, with no more authority than the meaning of the word, that this term shows that to the mountaineer’s mind he was doing nothing illegal but was merely evading an unjust imposition, just as our privateers evaded the British blockade in the War of 1812. At any rate, the mountain people felt that they were being un­ justly treated in the exaction of a whiskey tax. They thought this for at least two reasons: one was the fact that the majority of them were Scotch-Irish who had made whiskey for generations in Scotland and Ireland, and “if granpappy did it and pappy did it, by dang I can, too— and I will!” The other reason is directly related again to environment. Corn was the principal staple for the mountain people and was there­ fore most likely to be the crop they would have a surplus of to sell. Shelled corn weighs sixty pounds per bushel and the number of bushels was very limited that one could take to a market twenty or more miles distant, whether on horseback or by wagon. And the price it would bring was very low. But the mountain man could convert his corn to a liquid product, sling sixteen gallon jugs over a horse’s back, go off to the settlement and get much more per gallon than he could per bushel. To him it simply made sense to make whiskey, and under the condi­ tions in which he lived, he thought it grossly unfair to tax a fellow’s few means of making a little money. He wasn’t one to knuckle under to anything that he considered unjust. The role of the mountain man in the battle of Kings Mountain is familiar and need not be recounted except to illustrate his resource­ fulness in the face of a challenge and a threat to his home. When Major Patrick Ferguson issued the order for the people in western Virginia, North Carolina, eastern Tennessee and Kentucky to come over the mountain and surrender, the people of these areas reacted in typical manner. Organizing themselves into a fighting force under their own local leaders, they marched 1,600 strong across the mountains to find Ferguson. Battle was joined on Kings Mountain as the 900 men selected from the original number of mountaineers to pursue the British more quickly came up the sides of the mountain fighting Indian fashion. In a brief battle, the 1,100-man English force was defeated. The story of 32 �—National Park Service photograph Rail fences and a path lead to a mountain cabin. the Revolution then moves to Guilford Courthouse and thence to Yorktown. The great historical significance is that these mountain people had the kind of character that has made a great nation. By settling in the mountains, they isolated themselves from the rest of the world so that for several generations many lived a virtually unchanged way of life. In fact, it was not until the coming of good roads in the 1930’s and the advent of radio that their lives changed radically. During a period of 150 to 175 years, their means of making a living, their customs and their ways of speech altered little, and through­ out this time, because of their living in a demanding and circumscribed world, they developed a hardy and self-sufficient character. Theirs was the “spirit of ’76” and theirs was the spirit that enabled America to fulfill its “manifest destiny” of expanding into and develop­ ing the West. The mountain men of the West—men like Jim Bridger, Jess Colter and Jed Smith—were spiritual brothers of our moun­ taineers of the Southern highlands. No group of people has better exemplified what many of us think of as a central quality of American character. 33 �Yesterday’s Tools on Display —photograph by Clare White Susan Williams mans an old plow amid array of tools. “Tools of Early America,” the Society’s fourth exhibit at the Salem museum, featured dozens of articles used in every day chores by farm­ ers, blacksmiths, cobblers, millers, tanners, weavers and housewives in the last generation and the last century. More than 100 tools were loaned from shops, barns and attics on Bent Mountain, Catawba, Craig and Botetourt counties for the fall showing. Major contributors were Max Brugh of Botetourt, Joe Powell of Bent Mountain, Dr. and Mrs. Roger Winborne and James L. White of Roanoke. Heavy anvils, miller’s tools, an adz for barrel making, a farmer’s dung hooks, a powder wedge for splitting logs, fireplace crane and trammel to adjust the height of pots and such varied objects as hand­ made nuts and bolts, a corn shock tier and a colter for plowing new ground came from the Brugh collection which furnished 45 articles. Artistic wooden hayforks were found in Craig County, Harold Craun of Roanoke County loaned a harness horse used by a harness maker, R. D. Morehead of Catawba provided a hackle used to comb flax fibers, Mr. and Mrs. John Carr supplied a blacksmith’s bellows and James L. (Jimmy) White showed a varied selection of carpenter’s planes. Identification was a problem because many of the tools have van­ ished from usage but J. R. Hildebrand, Society secretary, drew from his own background and research to furnish cards describing the func­ tion of each one. After Christmas, the Society’s exhibits chairman, Mrs. Edmund P. Goodwin, researched and assembled a Pennsylvania Dutch display. 34 �Hollins Girls Step Into History By Anna Lawson Fincastle, Buchanan and the Historical Society’s Salem museum became classrooms briefly during January for five Hollins College students. The girls were studying aspects of local history and archi­ tecture as their projects in Hollins’ new four-week short term for in­ dependent study. Fincastle history was a natural project for sophomore history major Julie Breckinridge, a descendant of General James Breckin­ ridge’s brother who went to Kentucky. She collaborated with Lisa Rey­ nolds, an art major from Tampa, Fla., “who was just interested, not for any reason.” Together they and Mr. J. R. Hildebrand braved the early January snow to the Fincastle Court House where he taught them to read a deed book. “Fortunately our friend, Mr. R. D. Stoner, was on hand later when we occasionally forgot part of the lesson,” laughed Lisa. Julie and Lisa, working under the supervision of history professor Frank Albrecht, took two houses each and attempted to trace their building dates and the titles of the property. “We ran into a little trou­ ble on the building dates,” Julie admitted, and then went on to ex­ plain how one can only conjecture a building date from tax increases and the price of the property in the next deed of sale. Julie worked on the Jacob Carpenter House (“I’m still not sure he ever lived there” ) and the Peter Fellows House. Lisa took the God­ win Cottage and the Smith-Switzer House. “But,” explained Lisa, “I’m afraid we didn’t do just deeds and houses. Julie wanted to see where Grove Hill had been, so right away we drove out there. Then we got so interested we couldn’t help driving around some more.” I think the courthouse people thought we were crazy at first,” Julie went on. “We’d spend the morning in the deed room and then go out for lunch, saying we’d be right back. But most days we’d get so excited in the cemeteries or driving around we just never made it back.” And there were other distractions too. Julie looked up some Breckinridge cousin who had them both to a big Sunday dinner, and the day they went to 9:30 service at St. Mark’s, intending to go to the Presbyterian service at 11, the Episcopalians wouldn’t let them leave because they had so much to tell. Then too, Mrs. Pulley Wade had them to tea, as did the Stoners. Working on early architecture in Buchanan were Rowena Boyd of Atlanta and Mary Bess Keiser of Ridgely, Tenn. It was due mainly to Professor Frances Niederer, author of The Town of Fincastle, Vir35 �—photo by Judy Hawkes Julie Breckinridge, left, and Lisa Reynolds stand with R. D. Stoner in front o f the courthouse and old jail at Fincastle. ginia, that Rowena, an art major, and Mary Bess, a French major, be­ came interested in local architecture. What a boon! The survey of area buildings undertaken by the Society for the State Landmarks Commission was far from complete; dedicated help (which would be graded) could not have come at a better time. Rowena and Mary Bess set out for Buchanan in mid-January. They were late starting because Mary Bess couldn’t get out of Ridgely in the snow. Their first day was memorable. They had telephone intro­ ductions from Susan Williams, executive secretary of the Society, to Miss Emma Martin and Miss Emilie Brugh, who had been helpful earlier with information. “But,” said Rowena, “after we left there, it was awful.” “It was like a mystery story. Everywhere we went things had just closed, and one furniture store, which also made coffins, never opened except by appointment.” “People seemed suspicious,” Mary Bess went on, “nobody knew us and we didn’t know anybody, much less what we were doing. For­ tunately, though, I’m from a small town (Ridgely has about 500 peo­ ple) and know something about them. We just started smiling and speaking to everybody we saw everywhere we went. 36 �“I guess word spread because next time we went, about a week later, they not only smiled, but told us all they knew!” “All they knew” was often a way too much, and occasionally con­ flicted with other information. For instance, Mr. Ransone owns the old Miller house where Miss Thelma Allen lives, but Miss Thelma Allen says hers isn’t the old Miller house but the house next door is. Among the buildings they investigated with some success were the B & R Restaurant, the H. L. Williams apartment house (c. 1870), the Hart house which is currently being used for storage, and Oak Hill (c. 1846), now being remodeled. And, like Julie and Lisa, Rowena and Mary Bess made friends; in fact, “ghost town” Buchanan has now become as familiar to them as the Hollins campus. They talk about Federalist and Valley of Virginia styles of architecture; deed books are as familiar—and useful—as text books; and they say they’ll never forget Oak Hill’s owner, Mr. Booze, or Mr. Ransone, the drug store owner, or the Paines, who had them to tea and helped them repeatedly. Susan Bottorff, a sophomore Spanish major of Westfield, N. J. undertook a slightly less adventuresome but likely more gruelling task, that of cataloguing in the Salem museum. Approximately three times a week she went to Roanoke College and read, in the course of the short term, some 114 utilities contracts from around 1880, and then catalogued and wrote a detailed description of each. “Sure it was dusty,” she says, “and often monotonous, but you’d be surprised how much interesting stuff there is in those documents.” In addition to performing an invaluable service to the Society, Susan obtained an idea of Roanoke’s early growth and how utilities and the railroad affected it, and with this and several books on the sub­ ject she was able to put together a paper on the general effects of in­ dustry on urbanization. She was helped by Dr. James Crooks, acting chairman of the history department. The advising professors, Miss Niederer, Dr. Albrecht and Dr. Crooks, and the Society were pleased with the results of all five students. 37 �Cigar Manufacturing in Roanoke and the Wooden Indian By R. H olman Ragland Recollections of cigar manufacturing in early Roanoke were writ­ ten by R. Holman Ragland, a member of this Society who has retired after 46 years with the Norfolk and Western Railway. He is historian of no less than five organizations. The story of the cigar manufacturing industry in Roanoke could be very briefly told except that the writer, who grew up in the business conducted by his father, has many recollections of events marking those early years of this century. So far as I can recall only two cigar manufacturers were located in Roanoke after 1890. The first was Finke and McClaugherty (owned by J. A. Finke and R. H. McClaugherty). In 1891 that firm was located at 103 First St., S.W. later, and at the time the business was closed, they occupied part of the building at IOIMj Salem Ave., West, near the south end of the Henry Street bridge. Their business was principally wholesale and they sold mostly to the many saloons that operated at that time. I remember their principal brand was “The Leader” and my fath­ er would occasionally buy one and do an autopsy on it to determine what kind of tobacco they were using. It was claimed that they dipped the tobacco, in leaf form, into a tank of sweet vinegar so that it would have a sweetish flavor. It was said that the vinegar oozed out of the end of the cigar into the smoker’s mouth and left a very disagreeable taste. Some professional jealousy may have been involved in these stories. Some time in 1899, the firm of J. B. Ragland and Co. moved to Roanoke from Bedford City, where he had been doing a very good business for some years. I say “he” because there never was any “Com­ pany.” John Beauregard Ragland was the sole owner. J. B., as he was usually called, had been working about 8 or 10 cigarmakers and had salesmen traveling in the South but when he came to Roanoke he brought only five cigarmakers, one of these an apprentice who put in part time selling around Roanoke. The firm did a lot of moving the first year. In fact, the Roanoke City Directory could not keep up with it. For a short time the business was located in a building in the 200 block of Salem Avenue, West. Then there was a short period at about the middle of the 100 block of Campbell Avenue. Part of the building was occupied by the Roanoke Times (or some other printing establish38 �ment) and I believe Oakey’s Undertaking Parlor was in an adjoining building. The year 1900 found J. B. Ragland and Co. operating at 19 West Salem Avenue. Benings Jewelry store was next door, Green’s Jewelry and C. D. Kenny Co. across the street, a few doors east. At the new location a retail business was started—one showcase near the front door. The principal brand at that time was “The Ragland” and there was no trouble in disposing of all that could be manufactured. It was here that the wooden Indian, traditional sign of the cigar store, was placed at the entrance to the store. Where it came from or the cost, I never learned. I am sorry now that I never asked about such things. I think it is one of our failings that we don’t think to ask our fathers or grandfathers about so many things that would, in later years, be most interesting. In 1903 Ragland’s store was moved to 21 West Campbell Avenue. The building was owned and rented by W. S. McClanahan, whose in­ surance business occupied part of the second floor. Also on the sec­ ond floor was Kidd’s Photographic Studio. Adjacent to this location, or very near, there was during the years 1903 to 1909 a penny arcade which went through the block. In the Salem Avenue end there was a R Holman Ragland, left, posed with eigarmakers George Dean and William Swain, his father, J, B. Ragland, and a wooden Indian in front of the cigar store at 21 W. Campbell Ave. about 1904. 39 �replica of a railroad coach and, for a nickle, you could sit in the coach and see the Great Train Robbery moving picture. During this period I remember watching the big fire when the west building of the Norfolk & Western Railway burned. Then there was a big carnival on the streets. This must have been something like a Mardi Gras as the confetti was so thick on the streets that one could sweep along the curb and get it up by the quarts, sift it, bag it and re­ sell to the revelers. It was at 21 West Campbell that the box trade in cigars began to develop. Certain affluent customers had developed a taste for more expensive tobaccos than those in the standard brands. My father cat­ ered to these men, ordering samples of various varieties, blending them expertly and trying different combinations on customers until they decided which tasted best. Then an order for the leaf was placed for enough to make a few hundred or even two or three thousand. Regular customers I recall are such well known names as Sam Woody, Sr., L. H. Vaughan and his son Jim, R. R. Fairfax, Dr. William Gregory (a dentist), S. H. McVitty and many others whose names don’t come to mind. It was at this location that I started to make myself useful in the establishment. One job was putting the bands on the cigars. I became expert at this and was paid the munificent sum of two cents for a box of 50 cigars. A new brand, “Cortina,” was developed and soon became very popular. It was really the best 5c cigar in town. Cortina was a stock name developed by the label manufacturers and I didn’t know the ori­ gin until I happened to go through Cortina, Italy, while on a tour of Europe a few years ago. At about this time I tried my hand at rolling up some little cigars, chewing and smoking tobacco, winding up as a very sick little boy. I have always been glad that I never got the chewing habit. Here I smoked my first cigarette, American Beauty brand. In 1909 the business was moved to 8 Campbell Avenue and more emphasis given to the retail trade. This location was a room formerly occupied by the shoe department of Meals & Burke, Clothiers, and now by the First National Exchange Bank of Virginia. The rent was $1,000 per year. The manufacturing part was in the rear and in a sort of bal­ cony over it. There was competition across the street in the form of a cigar store operated by Elmore Heins. At this time Piedmont cigarettes started enclosing picture cards of big league baseball players and I collected them. I worked in the store a great deal and had an advantage over other boys because I could ask customers for them. I did a lot of trading and selling and re­ member clearly selling a picture of Ty Cobb to young Junius Fishburn 40 �for 15c. I still have hundreds of these cards which are now collectors’ items. In 1911 the National Exchange Bank bought my father’s lease and he moved his factory to the second floor at 2OV2 Salem Avenue, West, then in 1912, to I 8 V2 , next door. A small retail store, about half the size of a garage, was opened at about the middle of the 1 0 0 block on Franklin Road. This was near our home on Marshall Avenue and I ran this store for about a year when it became clear that it was not profit­ able and the store closed. In 1915 J. B. Ragland & Co. moved to 212V2 S. Jefferson St. then to 2101/2 in 1917 and the business remained there until the death of the owner February 12, 1945. These locations were on the second and third floors over Fallon, Florist. Mr. Fallon charged a very low rent and in turn, he received all the tobacco stems and dust from the tobac­ co used in the factory. The output of cigars was very small during these last years, only one or two cigarmakers being employed. The sales were entirely to box customers and during World War II when cigars, as well as cigarettes, were very hard to get the entire output of the factory was sold as fast as the cigars were made. One regular customer was George Milliken, who bought many boxes of the highest grade cigars for the Virginia Bridge and Iron Co. to give out at Christmas time. Cigars made in the Ragland factory were hand made, the proce­ dure being as follows: Leaf tobacco, which came in wooden cases or bales from jobbers in New York, Pennsylvania, Tampa, Fla. and Con­ necticut, was put into workable condition by spraying or by dipping in water. After drying awhile, the stems are removed and the leaves rolled up into pads. These are placed in closed cans until ready to use. The cigarmaker breaks the filler into the proper lengths and quantity into his hand and rolls it into an oblong piece of leaf, called a binder, making a bunch which he pushes into a mold. Moulds are placed in a press for an hour or so while they assume a shape which is retained, due to drying and pressure. The shaped bunch is rolled into a wrapper which has been cut to the proper shape. Cigars are placed on a table and sorted into colors, then placed in boxes and again pressed until dry enough to be set. Shapes of moulds changed over the years. They have become col­ lectors’ items and bring from six to ten dollars each. Hundreds of these molds had to be disposed of after my father’s death. Some were hauled to my home and burned in the furnace but some were retained as me­ mentos and laid around in odd places until my wife learned they are classified as antiques. She had some of them cleaned, sanded and var­ nished and they are now on display at my home and homes of my two daughters. Little has been said about cigar store Indians up to now. I have 41 �been asked by many, “What became of the Indian that was in front of your father’s stores?” Well, when my father went out of the retail business in 1911, he had a lot of lumber hauled to his home on upper Marshall Avenue. Among the odds and ends was the Indian. Some time later, he needed some kindling for the furnace and employed a colored fellow to go to the home and break the lumber into kindling. The In­ dian happened to be there with the lumber and was broken into un­ recognizable pieces. I often wonder what became of the much larger wooden Indians that stood in front of 0. H. Goad’s store on Campbell Avenue, near Jefferson, and the one that stood at Hopcroft’s on Jeffer­ son, near the railroad. Some of these Indians now bring hundreds of dollars as antiques. After my father died I returned most of the tobacco left on hand to the jobbers, sold the cigars, had the U. S. Internal Revenue people come in and destroy all boxes, and had the equipment hauled to the home at 835 Marshall Ave, where my sister still resides, and to my home in South Roanoke. Where it will eventually end up is hard to say. Within the last year the old house at 324 Marshall Ave. in which my father, mother, brother and two sisters lived in the early 1900’s was demolished, along with others once occupied by the Oakeys (John, Crawford, etc.) and Virgil Nash’s family. Farther up the street lived J. H. Krantz, Hugh Dyer (former chief of police), Jim Dyer (former chief of Fire Department), Leo Normoyle and others well known to the older citizens. This narrative was written principally for my own historical rec­ ords but may bring back memories to those who lived in the period described. Cigar mould of the last generation is an antique today. 42 �Roanoke Historical Society New Members, 1967-68 ROANOKE Mr. and Mrs. J. William Austin Mr. and Mrs. H. Paul Bigler Mrs. Charles Blake Mr. and Mrs. T. Miller Bradley Mr. E. Collins Brown Mr. and Mrs. M. P. Burks C. A. Brown & Co. Mr. and Mrs. James B. Crooks Mr. and Mrs Beirne B. Carter Mrs. R. R. Chamberlain Mr. and Mrs. A. B. Coleman Mr. and Mrs. John D. Copenhaver Mr. and Mrs. Harry T. Craig, Jr. Mrs. Zella Maud Crawford Mrs. Harwell Darby Mrs. J. M. Darden, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. A. Kemper Dobbins Dr. and Mrs. Julian B. Doss Mr. and Mrs. A. Wade Douthat Mrs. Martha W. Ensign Mr. and Mrs. J. Randolph Flora Mr. and Mrs. James A. Ford Mr. and Mrs. Charles D. Fox, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Charles D. Fox III Mrs. Laetitia Barbour Frye Mr. and Mrs. James H. Fulghum Mrs. E. G. Gill Mr. and Mrs. Jack Goodykoontz Dr. and Mrs. Garrett Gooch III Dr. and Mrs. Robert Hagan Dr. and Mrs. R. B. Harris Mr. and Mrs. Walton Henry Harris Mr. and Mrs. W. M. Harris Mrs. William N. Hobbie Miss H. Mae Hoover Mrs. Paul H. Jamison Mr. and Mrs. L. O. Key Mrs. Alexander M. Krebs Mr. and Mrs. Robert H. Kulp Mr. J. P. Lawson Miss Anne C. Lucas Mr. and Mrs. Robert L. McGee Jr. Bishop and Mrs. William H. Marmion Mr. and Mrs. E. K. Mattern Mr. and Mrs. Richard L. Meagher Dr. and Mrs. W. M. Moir Mr. and Mrs. James A. Moore Mr. and Mrs. F. C. Niederhauser Mr. and Mrs. R. G. Norton Mr. and Mrs. Charles Moir Oakey Mr. and Mrs. M. Lacy Parker Jr. Mr. and Mrs. M. B. Parks Mrs. Martin Patsel Sr. Mrs. C. C. Pearce Mr. and Mrs. J. Guy Persinger Miss Virginia L. Petty Mr. and Mrs. Lacy L. Pratt Mr. and Mrs. Robert N. Richert Mr. and Mrs. Scott Shackelford Mr. and Mrs. John S. Shannon Mrs. W. Jackson Shepherd Dr. and Mrs. H. A. Sieber Mrs. George Emerson Smith Mrs. R. A. Smith Miss Ruth Spradlin Mr. and Mrs. Allen W. Staples Mr. and Mrs. F. Anderson Stone Mrs. Claude Stutts Mr. and Mrs. John H. Thornton Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Carl G. Thurston Miss Charlotte Tiplady Miss Eleanor Tiplady Mrs. Raymond E. Trenor Miss Elizabeth Van Lear Mrs. Charles Via Jr. Dr. and Mrs. Roger M. Winborne Jr. Mr. and Mrs. James L. White Mr. and Mrs. E. R. Williams Miss Lucy Wingfield Mr. and Mrs. Howard D. Wolfe Dr. and Mrs. B. S. Wood Mrs. T. Gilbert Wood Mr. and Mrs. N. M. Woods Mr. and Mrs. J. M. Yeatts Mr. and Mrs. John H. Young, Jr. �SALEM Mr. and Mrs. E. Cabell Brand Mrs. John W. Brightwell Mrs. I. Ray Byrd Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Frazier Jr. Mrs. A. R. Hutchings Mr. and Mrs. Timothy A. Kelly Mrs. George Kolmer Mr. and Mrs. A. Gibson Maxwell Mrs. Furman Whitescarver Sr. OUT OF TOWN Mr. Nash Kerr Burger New York, N. Y. Miss Shelly Carter Buchanan, Va. Mr. and Mrs. R. C. Churchill III Decatur, III. Mr. and Mrs. William B. Figgat Bedford, Va. Mrs. Herbert Gregory Richmond, Va. Mrs. James C. Hancock Troutville, Va. Mr. and Mrs. Felix Hargrett Madison, N. J. Mrs. James B. Kegley Jr. Wytheville, Va. Mrs. William S. Murray Hollins, Va. Mr. and Mrs. R. L. Seichrist Philadelphia, Pa. Miss Jean B. Showalter New York, N. Y. Miss Ann Splitstone Hollins College, Va. Mr. and i»irs. Ralph T. Stewart Arlington, Va. Mr. Cline L. Young Marion, Va. ��� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society Winter 1968 Volume 4, Number 2 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />28th Regiment, Virginia Volunteers, 1861-1865<br />Roanoke at the Beginning<br />New River: First of the Western Waters<br />The Teays: Ancestral River of Mid-America<br />A New Brick House for $105 and a Horse Critter Walled in by the Appalachians<br />Cigar Manufacturing in Roanoke and the Wooden Indian Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Winter 1968 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_04_02_Winter_1968 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6342/JHSWV_05_01_Summer_1968.pdf a22778d3d8d8c818918199c43444f0ed PDF Text Text JOURNAL ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY summer V o lu m e F iv e 1968 N um ber O ne �ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Amor montium nos movet Offic e r s ............... President ___ Vice President ............... Treasurer ............... Secretary Executive Secretary Mr s . E n g l ish S h o w alter ........................ R obert W. W o o d y ......................................... A rthur E llett ............................................. J. R. H i l d e b r a n d ........................................... S u s a n ,B u r k s W il l ia m s ................. D irectors Raymond P. Barnes Homer Bast C. P. Blair John D. Carr Stuart Carter Mrs. H. Powell Chapman . C. Francis Cocke Mrs. John Copenhaver S. S. Edmunds Arthur Ellett J. T. Engleby III B. N. Eubank Edmund P. Goodwin Mrs. Edmund P. Goodwin Jack Goodykoontz Robert Goodykoontz Miss Anna Louise Haley J. R. Hildebrand Miss Nancy E. Himes Shields Johnson George Kegley Mrs. George Kegley R. S. Kime Courtney King Mrs. H. P. Kyle Mrs. J. M. B. Lewis Jr. Miss Nancy Logan Mrs. J. G. McConkey Mrs. S. H. McVitty Richard L. Meagher * * L. G. Muse Miss Frances Niederer E. H. Ould James D. Richardson Tayloe Rogers Mrs. English Showalter Mrs. Frank E. Snow R. D. Stoner Paul S. Stonesifer David F. Thornton James L. Trinkle William Watts James P. Woods Robert W. Woody Dr. J. C. Zillhardt ★ George K egley Editor of the JOURNAL CONTENTS page Montgomery White, 19th Century Social Center .......... Virginia’s Neglected Soldiers, by James I. Robertson, Jr. 28th Regiment, Virginia Volunteers, wby Arnold Skaar . Samuel Rader, 1801-1891, Botetourt Brick Mason, by Jacqueline Hundley Rader ................................... History Grows in Botetourt ................................................ Roanoke Historical Society Members ............................... Pennsylvania Dutch, Fashions and Early Roanoke, by Anna L a w so n ............................................................ Society Tours Home Country .............................................. Roanoke County Map Prepared ...............i ...................... . 1 . 8 . 15 . 27 . 31 . 32 . 33 1 37 1 39 The Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Volume V, Number 1. Published twice yearly by the Society at Box 1904, Roanoke, Virginiat 24008, to chronicle the past: and present of that part of the state west of the Blue Ridge. Single copy price: 50 cents. The Society will be careful in handling unsolicited material but cannot be responsible for its loss. �Montgomery White, 19th Century Social Center Horses graze today in a quiet meadow where all traces of Mont­ gomery White Sulphur Springs, an important spa among the 19th Cen­ tury springs of western Virginia, have faded away. From 1855 when it was incorporated by the Virginia General As­ sembly with a capitalization of $150,000 until it gradually fell into disuse in the early 1900’s, Montgomery White was a resort ac­ commodating from 500 to 1,000 guests in the grand manner. And it gave valuable service as a Confederate hospital during the Civil War. The developers chose a picturesque location in the Devil’s Den section about five miles northeast of Christiansburg and 25 miles west of Big Lick, now Roanoke. Den Creek flows down a fertile valley by the hotel site, fed by sulphur, chalybeate and freestone springs, into the north fork of the Roanoke River near the village of Ellett. Devil’s Den had been mentioned as early as 1750 in a 100-acre patent of Col. James Patton’s James River and Roanoke Company on the north fork. At the south end of the den valley is the Alleghany Mountain where the old Virginia & Tennessee Railroad was built through a tunnel in the 1850s. What became the Norfolk & Western Railway soon will be joined by Interstate Highway 81 boring through the mountains about two miles south of the Montgomery White site. The secluded valley had little access. Gov. John Floyd wrote in his diary of 1831: “We went to Smithfield through Devil’s Den, being the first carriage that ever passed that road.” He was en route to his wife’s Preston family home at Smithfield, now Blacksburg. The origin of the devil’s influence is legendary. A grotesque out­ cropping of rock across the meadow from the hotel grounds long has been known as the Devil’s Armchair or the Devil’s Seat. It was a cur­ iosity seen by hotel guests strolling across the grounds. This strange rock formation has broken loose from the hillside in recent years. Construction of another of the 20 or more popular western Vir­ ginia springs of the last century was acknowledged by Dr. J. J. Moor­ man, resident physician at White Sulphur Springs, in a book published in 1859. Dr. Moorman referred to the Montgomery White as the “springs of recent discovery . . . on the southern slope of the Alleghany Moun­ tain, a short distance from the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad.” Vis­ itors may leave the V&T at Montgomery Station and “take the com­ pany’s railroad on which in a few minutes they are conducted to their destination. The property is owned by a company of gentlemen whose spirit and good taste in its rapid improvement is deserving of public commendation.” �Lithograph from Beyer's Album of Virginia shows Montgomery White Sulphur Springs in 1855. “The buildings for accommodation of visitors that have gone up in the last four years and with a rapidity almost unprecedented in this country are spacious, elegant and convenient and since their construc­ tion have been well filled by visitors during the summer months.” The altitude of the resort and its “health-inspiring climate give to it potent recommendations for summer residence.” But Dr. Moorman asked for medical references. It is to be hoped, he wrote, “that the proprietors will add to their commendable enterprises that of furnish­ ing the public with a correct analysis of the waters . . . and that such observations of their general and peculiar effects upon the various diseases submitted to their use, will be made by scientific and compe­ tent persons, as will enable the public to give them a definite and dis­ tinct therapeutic position among our numerous mineral fountains.” The waters, he wrote, “distinctly sulphurous in character and withal a bland and pleasant beverage, will be found to be well adapted to the cure of a large number of chronic affections.” Perhaps the best description of Montgomery White extant is in the 1855 lithograph of Ed Beyer, the German artist, which shows 25 sizeable buildings around an elliptical lawn crossed by drives, treeshaded walks and Den Creek, with a fountain in the center. The hotel had parlors, a dining room where “delicious food” was served on round tables and “one of the prettiest ballrooms in the South,” according to 2 �Same view of springs site today. Miss Sherwood Flagg of Christiansburg, who recalls visiting the springs as a child around 1900. Pollard’s “The Virginia Tourist” of 1870 described buildings as “less pretentious than the Greenbrier White or less substantial than Old Sweet . . . (but) they have their equals nowhere in the moun­ tains of Virginia for presenting an architectural effect and for practi­ cal designs of comfort.” Pollard said the “elegant cottages will accom­ modate at least 1,000.” Seekers of health in the sulphur water and pleasure in the social round of dancing and entertaining came to the springs from near and far. Retinues of servants accompanied the carriages and the baggage came by hack. “If you were after New Orleans beauty, you would most likely find it at the Montgomery White,” one writer said. In the early years of the Civil War, President Jefferson Davis is said to have assembled his Confederate cabinet here to plan campaigns. But to meet the grim needs of war, the resort was converted to a hospital under the command of Dr. Robert T. Ellett of Hanover Coun­ ty, assisted by Catholic nuns who nursed the soldiers. Smallpox struck down hundreds of Confederate soldiers here. The United Daughters of the Confederacy decorated 280 unmarked graves near the hotel site in 1914. Dr. Ellett, for whom the nearby Montgomery County commu3 �nity is named, later practiced medicine in Christiansburg and two of his daughters live there today. Gen. John Mosby’s men were said to have entered jousting tourna­ ments at the Montgomery White. The thundering of their steeds was accompanied by the rattling of nearby carriage wheels, the cracking of whips and the vociferations of their drivers, according to a report of the time. At the sound of a herald’s trumpet, the tournament began and the knights rode at the rings until one was named champion. Next was the selection of the Queen of Love and Beauty, an honor bestowed on a young lady from New Orleans. Her coronation that night was in the ballroom illuminated by hundreds of Chinese lanterns. After the war, the Southern Historical Society and the Stonewall Brigade Association were formed at Montgomery White. In July, 1871, Dr. T. D. Witherspoon, Presbyterian minister in Blacksburg and later chaplain at the University of Virginia, and Judge W. R. Staples of Vir­ ginia’s Supreme Court spoke at a joint meeting of the Lee Memorial and Stonewall Brigade associations at the springs. After the addresses, those assembled marched to the cemetery to decorate the graves. Papers of the Southern Historical Society state that Gen. Jubal A. Early was elected president at a reorganization meeting at Mont­ gomery White on Aug. 14, 1873. Cottages at Montgomery White Sulphur Springs. Stereoscope pic­ ture was given to the Virginia State Library by M iss Lucy O gden in 1939. 4 �Ladies and gentlemen refreshing themselves at the springs in Lucy Ogden picture at Virginia State Library. Gen. John B. Hood and his family visited the springs and Gen. Joseph E. Johnston was expected in June, 1873. Twenty-four generals were reported there at one time. Mattie Ould, one of the queens of “the golden age of belledom,” led society at Montgomery White until she caused a stir by eloping to Salem with Oliver J. Schoolcraft of Richmond in August, 1876, ac­ cording to Reniers’ “The Springs of Virginia.” Roanokers were at the springs too. F. B. Ludwig of the real es­ tate firm of Kemp & Co. went to Montgomery White “to recreate for a few days,” said The Roanoke Times of July 9, 1890. Among others from Roanoke at the spa that summer were Mrs. Louis Catogni, Harry Crouch and Edwin Felix. On July 13, M. T. C. Jordan, “who is summer­ ing at Montgomery White Sulphur, was in the city yesterday. He says it has been so cool at the springs for the past two or three days that he has slept under two blankets,” the Times said. Later, “W. F. Felix and wife left last night to attend a ball at Montgomery White Sulphur.” On Aug. 16, 1900, the Roanoke Light Infantry, in full uniform, rode a train to Montgomery White for what would be “no doubt, one of its most pleasant outings,” according to the Roanoke Times. And the ball room was “a magnificent sight” for a German dance the next week. Actually, four springs were in Montgomery County on the south­ ern rim of the resort region which flourished 100 years ago. Within 10 miles of Montgomery White were Yellow Sulphur to the west and Crockett and Alleghany springs in the foothills of the Blue Ridge 5 �Mountains to the southeast. Other springs were to the north along the West Virginia line in Craig, Alleghany, Bath, Rockbridge and neigh­ boring counties. Operations at Montgomery White Sulphur were not profitable al­ ways. Stockholders met in December, 1874 and authorized borrowing up to $5,000 on the hotel’s small railroad which transported guests down from Montgomery station. President of the springs at that time was “H. Black,” probably Dr. Harvey Black, Blacksburg physician and member of the family for whom the town was named. Dr. Black also was president of the board of Preston and Olin Institute, forerunner of Virginia Tech. C. W. Wheeling, who has lived his 78 years in Devil’s Den, recalls that guests rode the mile or two from the station on the little railroad by gravity to the hotel. The car was pulled back by mulepower. His older sister, when a small girl, was given a coin when she opened a gate for a carriage driving to the springs. Tradition tells that Montgomery White Sulphur Springs was dealt a near mortal blow by a flood which washed out the cottages and sent hundreds of guests, servants and staff scurrying in the storm. Stories hold that horses were drowned, clothing and valuables destroyed and Montgomery White was deserted at mid-season. However, James G. Crockett of Big Tunnel, proprietor, adver­ tised these items for auction on April 18, 1904: “135 bedroom suites, nearly new, kitchen and hotel ware, one billiard table, one piano, 130 bed springs, 135 mattresses, 175 feather pillows, one large hotel and 15 to 18 houses with from two to 16 rooms each, to be moved from the premises.” Crockett’s daughter, who lived at the Springs from 1902 to 1911 when it was sold, says the buildings were sold to people in near­ by communities. The Devil’s Den-Montgomery White property has changed hands many times in the two centuries since Col. Patton’s land company helped open up western Virginia. Joseph Stras and Arthur D. W. Walton of Roanoke sold the 457acre tract to James G. Crockett for $6,250 in 1902. Later owners were J. N. Lantz and his heirs who sold to Gilbert Cox of Elliston. Cox moved a small monument honoring the “Confederate heroes who died here, 1861-65” from the meadow near the hotel site to a prominent place beside the Devil’s Seat on a bluff near the present road through the valley. First erected in 1889, the monument now rests on a small plot deeded to the Dr. Harvey Black Chapter, U.D.C., Blacksburg. Joe Stewart, an Elliston livestock man, bought the tract from Cox and his horses and ponies graze in the green meadow of the springs today. A nearby roadside sign of the Blue Ridge Coon Hunters and 6 �Sportsmen’s Club points to a pond near the hotel site. Devil’s Den may be visited today by following Virginia Rt. 641 a few miles from its in­ tersection with U. S. 11 at the foot of Christiansburg Mountain. Den Creek quietly flows through the valley to the music of birds and crickets. But echoes of the German band which once played for dances and laughter of the Southern belles still may be heard on sum­ mer evenings, Judge C. W. Crush, Christiansburg historian, has re­ ported. SOURCES Research by Judge C. W. Crush, Christiansburg, Dr. Goodridge Wilson, Bristol, the late F. B. Kegley, Wytheville, and E. P. Goodwin, Roanoke. "The Virginia Springs and Springs of Southwest Virginia' by Moorman. "The Springs of Virginia" by Reniers. "The Virginia Tourist" by Pollard. "The Montgomery County Story" by Crush. I Deed Book T, page 433, Deed Book 50, pages 7-8, Montgomery County C lerks Office. The Roanoke Times, Montgomery News-Messenger. Montgomery County watering places in map of 1890s. 7 �Virginia's Neglected Soldiers By J a m e s I. R obertso n , J r . Former executive director of the U. S. Civil War Centennial Commission, Dr. James Robert­ son is now professor of American History at Vir­ ginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg. He has written numerous books and articles on the Civil war period, and in 1962 he received the Harry S. Truman Award as the nation’s outstanding Civil War historian. This article is an expansion of an address delivered June 26, 1968, to the Roanoke His­ torical Society. Robertson When war clouds obscured the sky in April, 1861, tens of thou­ sands of Virginia’s sons flocked to the defense of their state. Few Of these men and boys were motivated by any desire to perpetuate either the institution of slavery or the doctrine of states’ rights. They were going to war because “noble state pride and love of home” seemed to leave them no choice. Fauquier County’s George Baylor echoed the sentiments of many future compatriots when he dramatically stated: “Now that the Old Dominion had taken her stand with her Southern sisters . . . I felt it my duty to lay down the plow and the pruning hook and take up the sword and the battle-axe.”1 From every section of the state they came: hardy mountaineers from Virginia’s western region, small-scale farmers from the rolling country of the Piedmont, fishermen and planters from the Tidewater’s sandy flatlands. In all, perhaps as many as 100,000 Virginians served in the Confederate armies; and when the smoke drifted from the last battlefield of the Civil War, 14,974 of the Old Dominion’s sons lay dead.2 Wars change, but soldiers rarely do. While the Civil War was unquestionably history’s most transitional conflict—in terms of both strategy and tactics, the men in the ranks of North and South remained for the most part semi-educated, simple, highly impressionable sol­ diers. No better proof of this exists than in the writings of the fighting men themselves, and no war ever produced a greater outpouring of letter-writing and diary-keeping than the conflict of the 1860’s. “John­ ny Rebs” and “Billy Yanks” were lonely men, with no diversions avail­ able to them in camp but to think of home and family, and to put such thoughts on paper. Moreover, in letters and diaries—and later in memoirs—the men could share with a loved one the experiences of army life. 8 �Confederate soldiers from Virginia were certainly no exception in this penchant for writing. Nor was semi-literacy any deterrent to their correspondence. In June, 1862, a Pvt. W. W. Brown protested in a letter home: “Mother when you wright to me get somebody to wright that can wright a plain hand to read I Cold not read your letter to make sence of it it wrote so bad I have lurned to do my own wrading and writing and it is a grate help to me.”3 Virginians went to war with unbounded enthusiasm and optimism. Montgomery County’s James H. Langhorne, a lieutenant in the 4th Vir­ ginia Infantry, wrote exuberantly during his first days as a soldier, “there is not a man in the Southern Army who does not in his heart believe that he can whip three Yankees, he would consider it be­ neath his manhood to count upon whipping a less number, in any sort of fight.”4 A few months later, Capt. Charles M. Blackford of the 2nd Virginia Cavalry informed his wife: “I am well, and I think this kind of life agrees with me, though I have not taken on any flesh. I weigh the same as I did when I left home—one hundred and twenty-five pounds—but all there is of me is bone and muscle, very tough and very active.”5 In the first days of the war, recruits were often anxious to have friends back home join them in the ranks. A young soldier in what became the 27th Virginia Infantry sent a message to his sister in May, 1861: “Tell Sally I want her to talk to John F. Hall and tell him to be a man & come down here & help us fight the Yankeys & If he returns home that she will marry him without fail I think that will entice him to come . . .”6 All too quickly, however, the excitement of army life vanished. Loneliness and homesickness took its place. Shortly after the battle of First Manassas, a Rockbridge County soldier wrote home: “I am affraid My letter this time will Be devoid of Interest or News it will Be in a great Measure like the life we are leading dull & Monotonous in the Extreme if Robinson Crusoe Suffered for want of Society we are Suffering for want of News or communication with the outer world .. In the following year, a Giles County artilleryman moaned in a letter to his aunt: “I . . . would be (glad) to see my bitterest enemy if he was from Giles. In fact, I would be glad to see a dog from home.”7 Romantic communiques kept many soldiers occupied in writing for hours on end. A Virginia infantryman from the Lexington area once evaluated the letters he had been receiving from a number of feminine acquaintances. “Most of my lady correspondents deal too Much in the little trivial affairs of their own circle this may please the Small fish But wont do for Sharks or Soldiers, and vanity if Soldiers Life dont ease a Man of this Burden there is No hopes for him in this world.”8 9 �On a more serious note, Lt. D. B. Baldwin, a Tazewell County member of the 23rd Virginia Battalion, wrote his wife Sallie: “I know I have read each of your letters half (a) dozen times. This might sound foolish to others, but to those who are linked together by ties so dear, and whose hearts beat for each other, only it is reality. . . . I think of you a great deal. Not an hour nor scarcely a moment passes that you are not remembered. There is a place in my memory ever fresh with the recollections of the many pleasant hours enjoyed with each other. I hope God will spare us to meet again and live as happy as we once did.”9 Accentuating the homesickness, and ever-present to most Con­ federate soldiers, were the horrors of the civil war of which they were a part. Only those who have never participated in battle become ex­ cited by it. The average Virginia Confederate soldier looked on mor­ tal combat with uncertainty, dread and revulsion. An Amherst County private observed after his first engagement: “the balls whistled round and about us as thick as hail. It made one feel quite strange to heare them whistle so close to my head not noing but one might strike me at any moment.” Another member of the same regiment wrote a suc­ cinct summary of the three-day holocaust at Gettysburg: “It was the most awful Battle that I have ever Bin (in) yet.” Lietuenant J. L. Doyle of the celebrated Stonewall Brigade vividly described the thick of the fighting in the bloody 1864 battle at Spottsylvania: “The figures of men seen dimly through the smoke and fog seemed almost gigantic, while the woods were lighted by the flashing of the guns and the sparkling of the musketry. The din was tremendous and increasing every instant, men in crowds with bleeding limbs and pale, pain-strick­ en faces were hurrying to the rear and, mingled with those, could be seen many unwounded who had escaped from the wreck of their com­ mands.”10 Too often overlooked—by all but the soldiers themselves—was the carnage left on a battlefield. Private Robert Stiles of the Rich­ mond Howitzers was among those assigned to help bury the dead at Gettysburg. Moving out onto the field with picks and shovels, Stiles wrote, “the sights and smells that assailed us were simply indescrib­ able—corpses swollen to twice their original size, some of them actual­ ly burst asunder with the pressure of foul gases and vapors. . . . The odors were nauseating and so deadly that in a short time we all sick­ ened and were lying with our mouths close to the ground, most of us vomiting profusely.”11 Modern generations can hardly conceive the hardships that were the daily lot of Virginia’s Confederate fighting men. After the first weeks of the long four-year struggle, the absence of the basic neces10 �Oliver Perry Rader of Botetourt County, killed in the Battle of Five Forks, April 1, 1865. (see story on page 27). sities of life was constant and paramount. Yet “Johnny Rebs” bore the adversities with incredible fortitude. Following the strenuous campaign around Yorktown in the spring of 1862, Confederate Gen. John B. Magruder reported: “It rained al­ most incessantly; the trenches were filled with water; the weather was exceedingly cold; no fires could be allowed; the artillery . . . of the enemy played upon our men almost continuously day and night; the 11 �army . . . subsisted on flour and salt meat, and that in reduced quan­ tities, and yet no murmurs were heard . . . patriotism made them indifferent to suffering, disease, and death. ” '2 Five months later, after Robert E. Lee’s army had returned to Virginia from the setback at Antietam Creek, Md., a Richmond news­ paper editorialized: “Posterity will scarcely believe that the wonder­ ful campaign which has just ended with its terrible marches and des­ perate battles, was made by men, one-fourth of whom were entirely barefooted, and one-half of whom were as ragged as scarecrows . . We cease to wonder at the number of stragglers, when we hear how many among them were shoeless, with stone bruises on their feet.”13 Late in 1863, Gen. Lee concluded his official report of the Mine Run Campaign by stating: “Nothing prevented my continuing in (the enemy’s) front but the destitute condition of the men, thousands of whom were barefooted, a great number partially shod, and nearly all without overcoats, blankets, or warm clothing. I think the sublimest sight of the war was the cheerfulness and alacrity exhibited in this army in the pursuit of the enemy under all the trials and privations to which it was exposed.”14 The loneliness and despair of army life naturally led to much complaining among Virginia soldiers. All of it was justified, and all of it was an age-old, natural expression by men in the ranks. While the soldiers continually found fault with officers, surgeons, chaplains, clothing, arms, equipment, few furloughs, filth, low pay, hard duty and alleged discrimination among units, their greatest condemnation was reserved for army rations. Confederate soldiers, wrote Pvt. William Jones of the 19th Vir­ ginia Infantry, were “all ways grum ling a bout somthing to eat.” That the quantity of the rations was poor is evident in a March, 1864, letter from Jones to his wife. “I have bin living of nothing but Corn bread for 7 days,” he stated, “and will not draw (more) for four days (to) Come and will not draw anny meet (during) the time . . . I have felt quite week in the stomake.”15 That the quality of the rations issued was even poorer was sub­ stantiated by Jones, who wrote that a “pare Boile” cat “eat prisisily like a rabbit,” and Pvt. John R. Stafford, who commented on the meat the men received: “i will tell you what the Boyes Say A Bout the Beef Hear they Say when they go to Kill them it takes 2 to Hold them by the Harno’s to Steadey them till they Shoot them & then they Say they Eat the Meet & Make Ring’s out of the Bones & combs ou of the Hornes & whip crackers out of the tales . . Small wonder that Southern soldiers often resorted to theft to obtain digestible food. As a Virginia soldier parodied after the war: 12 �“Man that is born of a woman, and enlisteth in (Stonewall) Jackson’s army, is of few days and short rations. He cometh forth at reveille, is present also at retreat, and retireth apparently at taps. When, lo! he striketh a beeline for the nearest hen-roost, from which he taketh sun­ dry chickens, and stealthily returneth to his camp. He then maketh a savory dish therewith he feasteth himself and a chosen friend. But the Captain sleepeth, and knoweth not that his men are feasting.”17 The above quotations are but a sampling of how Virginians viewed life in the Confederate army. Yet a sampling is all that has so far come to light. The paucity of data available to scholars on the Old Dominion’s soldiers and units is as lamentable as it is incredible. This woeful neglect can be illustrated in the writings done to date on the 65 regiments and 10 battalions of infantry that Virginia contributed to the Southern cause. For 26 of those units, nothing whatsoever exists in print; for 32 others, no more than two small items have been published. In short, 58 of 76 Virginia infantry units have, in the past century, received little or no attention on the part of historians and writers. The scarcity of source material on Virginia’s artillery and cavalry components is even more glaring. As a native of Danville and member of the VPI faculty since Sep­ tember, 1967, this writer is earnestly attempting to call overdue at­ tention to the heroism and sacrifices of Virginia’s soldiers of the 1860’s. Our long-range project at VPI is to prepare histories (in the form of masters’ theses, graduate seminar papers, and scholarly articles) of every regiment, battalion and battery that represented the Old Domin­ ion in the Civil War. Thirteen such studies are already underway, and all of the histories prepared may well serve as bases for a comprehen­ sive study of Virginia’s pivotal role in the sectional struggle. Soldiers’ letters, diaries and reminiscences are the most necessary sources for such histories. Only through them can the historian discern the movements of units, the intricacies of marches and battles, and— more especially—the feelings of men caught in war. For that reason, we are appealing to everyone with such letters,, journals and similar works to loan them to us long enough to copy and digest. (Naturally, the Newman Library on the Blacksburg campus would be honored to become custodian for any Civil War manuscripts that persons might wish to deposit permanently.) To date, scores of persons in southwest Virginia have responded to our plea and loaned letters and diaries in their possession. Such materials are treated with utmost care and returned promptly. Yet there can be no doubt but that hundreds, possible thousands, of other Virginians now possess such documents. These citizens can perform 13 �no greater service for American history in general, and Virginia his­ tory in particular, than in searching for such writings of yesteryear and in making them available to us who need them so desperately. Without these personal accounts, our efforts to perpetuate the deeds of our forefathers will fail. Speaking at Washington and Lee University in 1910, Capt. G. B. Strickler of the Stonewall Brigade expressed a dream. “Time will not suffice to tell in detail the story of the services bravely rendered, and sufferings cheerfully borne in battle, in bivouac, and upon the toil­ some march—in summer’s heat and dust, in winter’s cold, mud and snow. That story must some day be written by some pen inspired by truth and love. When it shall be truly written it will be a story of which any , . . land must be proud, for it will be a story of dauntless courage, of unselfish devotion to duty, of suffering endured without a murmur, and death encountered without a qualm.”18 Today, in the History Department at VPI, we are echoing Capt. Strickler’s dream with words that grace a number of Civil War monu­ ments in Virginia: Lord God of Hosts be with us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget! 1 James I. Robertson, Jr., THE STONEWALL BRIGADE (Baton Rouge, 1943), 10. Of that number of fatalities, 6,947 Virginians succumbed to sickness and disease. William F. Fox, REGIMENTAL LOSSES IN THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, 1861-1865 (Albany, N. Y.), 554. 3 Bell I. Wiley, THE LIFE OF JOHNNY REB (Indianapolis, 1943), 207. 4 James H. Langhorne to mother, June 26, 1861, letter in the possession of David G. Langhome, Jr., Blacksburg, Va. 5 Charles M. Blackford, LETTERS FROM LEE'S ARMY (New York, 1947), 48-49. 6 D. H. Fora to mother. May 25, 1861, letter in the w riter's possession. 7 Unknown soldier to "C ousin," Aug. 9, 1861, letter in the w riter's possession; John D. McClaugherty (comp.), THE HISTORY OF THE FAMILY McCLAUGHERTY (Dayton, O., n. d.), unpaged. s Unknown soldier to "C ousin," Aug. 9, 1861, letter in the w riter's possession. I 9 D. B. Baldwin to wife, June 13, 1862, letter in the possession of Mrs. D. W. Mason, Pearisburg, 2 10 Joseph A. Higginbotham diary, entry o f July 21, 1861, University of Virginia; William H. Jones to w ife, July 13, 1863, W. H. Jones Papers, Duke University (cited hereafter as Jones Papers); J. L. Doyle diary, entry for May, 1864, Jed Hotchkiss Papers, Library of Congress. 11 Robert Stiles, FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT (New York, 1903), 219-20. 12 U. S. War Deot. (comp.), WAR OF THE REBELLION: A COMPILATION OF THE OFFICIAL RECORDS OF THE UNION AND CONFEDERATE ARMIES (Washington, 1880-1901), Ser. I, XI, pt. -1 , 408-9. Cited hereafter as OR. 13 Richmond DAILY DISPATCH, Oct. 9, 1862. 14 OR, Ser. I, XXIX, pt. 1, 408. 15 William H. Jones to w ife. Mar. 29, 1864, Jones Paoers. . . - . 16 IBID.; John R. Stafford to G eorge T. Stafford, Feb. 28, 1863, letter in the possession of A. Clifton Stafford, Roanoke, Va. , . . . S§Hi fj| .. , , .. SR 17 Royall W. Figg, WHERE MEN ONLY DARE TO GO (Richmond, 1885), 64. Lt. John N. LJ ,e the 4th Virginia Infantry asserted that the experienced soldier could beg w ater, food and shelter in one sentence: "Madam, can I a e t a drink of w ater. I'm so hungry I don t know w here I II sleep ton ig h t." William G. Bean, THE'LIBERTY HALL VOLUNTEERS (Charlottesville, 1964), 74. i s IBID., vii. 14 �"A Rugged Group of Men” 28th Regiment, Virginia Volunteers By A rnold S kaar CHAPTER III—THE SECOND YEAR: MANY PLACES As the 28th Regiment reassembled after winter furloughs, Fed­ eral Gen. George B. McClellan persevered, prevailed, and finally pre­ pared for an attack on Richmond from the southeast. By May 1, 1862, the Federal commander was at Fort Monroe with 98,000 effective troops.1 On March 9, 1862, the 28th Regiment joined the Confederate march to combat McClellan. Impassable roads postponed an earlier start. Finally underway, the Regiment sloshed through the small towns of Warrenton, Garnsville and Woodsville. The wet and muddied regi­ ment made camp at Hazel River. Driving snow kept the men who had tents inside them. After the storm abated and the snow melted, the troops moved to Orange Court House, thence to Richmond.2 The first leg of the movement argued ill for what remained. The men joyfully anticipated the steamer transportation from Richmond to Williamsburg. Their anticipation soon turned to grumb­ ling. The men packed the steamers and barges so fully that many almost died of suffocation.3 Upon disembarking, cramped soldiers marched toward Yorktown and made camp.4 Wet, cold, and sick, the men, so recently returned from home, relearned the rigors of a soldier’s duty. As the men huddled together on the Peninsula, a reorganization of the Confederate Army took place. No doubt, many thought serious­ ly of quitting. However, most men re-enlisted and soon afterward elected officers. On May 3, 1862, command of the 28th Regiment passed to Col. R. C. Allen. Educated at Virginia Military Institute, Col. Allen had practiced law in Big Lick with William Watts, who was elected lieu­ tenant colonel at this time. Nathaniel C. Wilson, another VMI gradu­ ate, became major.5 Allen made his mark as regimental commander by demanding rigid and exacting discipline. This may not have enThese two chapters conclude a paper on men from Roanoke, Bote­ tourt| Bedford and Craig counties who served in the Civil War. The first two chapters of the paper, written by Arnold Skaar in graduate work in history at Virginia Tech, appeared in the last issue of the Journal. Skaar was a student last year of Dr. James Robertson, writer of the preceding article. 15 �deared him to his men then, but later they respected him for it. Even so, when he fell at Gettysburg, the rumor spread that his own men had shot him.6 Along with new leadership, the 28th Regiment underwent other changes. New faces filled company captaincies. The men in Co. E even elected a private in another company (John Chapman of Co. I) as their captain.7 With the changes that took place the previous winter, only nine companies composed the Regiment; A, E and K from Bote­ tourt County, B and C from Craig County, D, F and G from Bedford County, and I from Roanoke County. In early May, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston began retreating with the Confederate army to Richmond. Longstreet’s division acted as rear guard and slowly followed the main army. Fifteen hours of heavy rain preceded, accompanied, and continued after the battle of Williamsburg. Contact between Pickett’s divi­ sion and Federal forces came near the woods, where both armies were probably looking for protection from the elements. The 18th and 19th Regiments fought fiercely. During a lull, the 18th Regiment pulled back to reload. The 28th Regiment was sent to replace them. They ar­ rived at the front in time to participate in a charge ordered by Gen. Pickett. The assault was succeeding until Federals appeared in large numbers.® The 28th Regiment never received an order to fall back. Rain and fog, combined with hanging musket smoke isolated the 28th Regiment from the brigade. Soon the men discovered that they had penetrated and pushed beyond the enemy’s lines. Only confusing rain and Col. Allen’s “presence of mind” effected their escape.® When they returned to their own lines, the Virginians found them­ selves relatively intact. The 18th and 19th Regiments had suffered heavy casualties, while losses in the 28th Regiment were few.10 After pausing only long enough to clean weapons and eat rations, the men continued retreating. Whenever someone dropped from ex­ haustion, another soldier would help him back on the march. The re­ treat continued through the night. Longstreet’s rain-soaked division did not stop its retreat until the men crossed the Chickahominy River." New orders reached the brigade a few days later. On the eve of the battle of Seven Pines, the 28th Regiment was holding its position with the brigade on the Richmond and York River Railroad. On May 31, Pickett’s brigade was in reserve. However, the next day Pickett learned of Federal forces coming toward his position. He received or­ ders from Gen. D. H. Hill to attack. The assault soon turned into a re­ treat, as the Confederate lines broke under heavy counterattack. The 28th Regiment sustained few casualties.12 Once again it demonstrated its good fortune by being in the woods while battle raged. 13 16 �After the battle, Gen. Robert E. Lee replaced the wounded J. E. Johnston as commander of Confederate forces. Longstreet’s division withdrew and made camp on the Williamsburg turnpike below Rich­ mond. The soldiers performed familiar camp duties at Battum Bridge and Darbytown.14 Before Pickett’s brigade marched toward Mechanicsville, the 56th Virginia joined the brigade. On June 26, the enlarged brigade moved with Lee toward Gaines’ Mill. The time had come for the brigade’s first charge.'5 Brig. Gen. Pickett personally relayed the orders to the regimental commanders.'6 After firing a few volleys into the enemy lines, the brigade charged down a hill. At the bottom it crossed a small but impeding ravine. Once across, the men hurled themselves blindly against three lines of Fed­ eral breastworks. Fog and dense gunsmoke concealed the first two lines of Federal defenses. It also concealed the assaulting Confederates. The Virginians’ charge carried all three breastworks. Had Gettysburg never been fought, Pickett’s men would have gained their greatest dis­ tinction for this action.'7 Gaines’ Mill was a bitter-sweet victory. Thirteen pieces of Federal artillery and numerous Federal prisoners (including a brigadier gen­ eral and two colonels) could not replace the temporary loss of Gen. Pickett. Colonels Withers and Allen also were wounded.’8 Generals Longstreet and Hill attempted to press for a more de­ cisive victory by outflanking the retreating Federal army. On June 29, the Regiment camped once again on the Williamsburg Road. By June 30, the men realized by the direction of their march that Richmond was not the goal. As they passed Battum Bridge, they saw Gen. Lee perusing his maps. The men then knew they would “see the Yankees pretty soon.”'9 A quarter of a mile farther down the road, they saw bluecoats. Once again the 28th Virginia charged. Again the men succeeded in driving the enemy.20 Yet the battle at Frayser’s Farm was indecisive, as the one the next day at Malvern Hill. By the evening of July 1, the Federal army was withdrawing to the James River.2' The Peninsula Campaign did stop the invading Fed­ eral army, but it cost the Confederates dearly. The Third Brigade had lost its leader, some important officers, and a total of 118 men.22 A rest period followed. Diarrhea and dysentery increased marked­ ly among the soldiers. Casualties of the Peninsular Campaign were still mounting as the leaders made plans for the summer. Maj. Gen. Pickett assumed command of the division; Brig. Gen. Richard B. Gar­ nett became the new brigade commander.23 After a month of working on fortifications around Richmond, Longstreet’s Corps left to reinforce Jackson. Gen. John Pope’s Federal army 17 �was menacing Confederate forces in northern Virginia. On August 9, 1862, the 28th Regiment left by the Virginia Central Railroad for Gordonsville.24 General Lee followed shortly thereafter. Longstreet’s Corps was to join Jackson’s forces at Manassas. Tra­ velling along the route followed by the Manassas Gap Railroad, Longstreet’s Corps began its advance toward Gainesville. Gen. Jas. B. Rick­ etts and a token Federal force impeded its progress at Thoroughfare Gap. Col. Eppa Hunton, temporarily commanding Garnett’s brigade, attempted to outflank Ricketts’ force by marching south through Lam­ bert’s Gap and coming up behind the Federal forces. However, before Hunton could accomplish his flanking movement, the division charged the small Federal force and drove them from the field.25 On August 29, Longstreet’s Corps proceeded to Gainesville. What part Garnett’s brigade took in the battle of Second Manassas is uncer­ tain. Col. Hunton claimed that Longstreet attacked independently of Jackson. Hunton himself decided to use his brigade in support of Gen. J. B. Hood, but Col. Allen of the 28th Regiment refused to follow Hunton’s verbal order.26 At the end of August, 1862, Gov. John Letcher issued a proclama­ tion calling for citizens of southwest Virginia to fill depleted ranks.27 Since late June, Longstreet’s Corps had functioned with only sixty per cent of its manpower, and many of those men were in no condition to fight.28 The 28th Regiment was still a depleted unit when it crossed the Potomac into Maryland. On Sept. 11, Longstreet’s Corps reached Fred­ erick, Md., and bivouacked there for two days.28 On Sept. 13, the Corps marched west through Turner’s Gap and Boonsboro and reached Hag­ erstown late in the day. Meanwhile, the Federal army had captured a copy of Lee’s battle plans. Lee immediately ordered Longstreet to return to Turner’s Gap to support Hill’s troops. The thirteen-mile formed march took its toll; Longstreet arrived with only three small brigades, including Garnett’s. The total number in Garnett’s and Kemper’s brigades did not exceed 800 men. General Hill estimated that the 28th Regiment comprised only 96 soldiers.30 An ambush near the top of South Mountain forced back Garnett’s brigade. Falling behind a stone fence, the brigade repelled four lines of charging Federal forces. The fifth charge carried the day for the Federal forces.31 The forced march and the lack of men no doubt were responsible for the retreat. Yet Garnett’s brigade found some glory in defeat. The Federals thought that they were facing 5,000 Confederates, when actually less than 1,000 confronted them.32 It was an expensive battle for the brigade: 30 killed and 194 wounded.33 The brigade did not participate in the battle of Antietam Creek. 18 �On Sept. 18, a weary and diminished Confederate army recrossed the Potomac. At Martinsburg, Lee reorganized his tattered army.34 Six weeks later, Confederate morale still was lacking as the troops moved to­ ward Fredericksburg.35 Pickett’s division numbered less than 7,000 men. One out of every three was barefoot.36 Some attempted to make moccasins out of beef hides. Had it not snowed on the day of march to Fredericksburg, the improvised foot­ wear might have sufficed. Yet the muddy roads soon reduced the men again to barefootedness. Amid this pitiful situation, an interesting episode occurred. Three days before the battle at Fredericksburg, snow began falling. The next morning after breakfast, a snowball fight commenced. Soon entire brigades, with field officers at their head, performed battlefield move­ ments. Col. Withers of the 18th Regiment had never seen “such a mag­ nificent fight with snow balls.”37 That such spirit existed among such a pathetic group of soldiers is amazing. Even more amazing was the ability of this army to withstand the Federal assaults “on the heights” of Fredericksburg. Garnett’s bri­ gade remained as ready as was possible for such ill-equipped soldiers. Fortunately, they did not participate in the battle. Yet the march to and from Fredericksburg had taken its toll.38 Those who had hoped that this battle might “decide the war,” were sorely disappointed.39 After the battle, the 28th Regiment marched southward from Fredericksburg to Guinea Station.48 There it went into winter quarters. The winter was unpleasant. James Painter advised his parents that if I don’t get to come home shortly I am going to run the Blockade.” He advised his brother “to stay out of this war as long as possible.” In a general indictment of the war, he added: “It is a awful (sic) thing to see men shot down like a brute and then don t get a decent Burial Just a little hole dug and then Rolled in like a Log.”41 Painter had been at Antietam “the most Bloody Battle (that) ever was fought on the American Continent.” Yet he could no longer fight because he was barefooted. Doubtless many others in the 28th Regi­ ment were thinking that “it is little prophet for a poor soldier to run himself in danger for sutch (sic) treatment as this.”43 Confederate Artillery at Antietam. Picture loaned b y Elliott Ramsey. 19 �CHAPTER IV—THE FINAL YEARS: OTHER PLACES NEVER FORGOTTEN In February, 1863, Gen. Pickett received orders directing his divi­ sion to North Carolina. On February 14, Garnett’s brigade left Guinea Station and marched via Richmond to Chester Station on the Rich­ mond and Petersburg Railroad. Recruits increased the brigade to 1,440 effectives. Over 1,200 men were absent.' On March 9, the brigade entrained at Petersburg for North Carolina.2 By the time it reached Goldsboro, the brigade was “very smoked.” The weather was so cold the men huddled around fires in the box cars. Leaving camp at Goldsboro, they moved to Kingston on the Neuse River and then engaged in minor skirmishes at New Berne and Wash­ ington. The purpose of this movement was to keep the Federals fight­ ing, while provisions and supplies were being transferred from North Carolina to the Confederate army in Virginia.3 The 28th Regiment was involved in “little fighting, but (had) great success in getting corn and bacon.”4 By April 21, the foraging force had returned to Virginia and rejoined Longstreet’s Corps at Suffolk. The move to Gettysburg began at Suffolk. The men marched all night before reaching Richmond. Many became totally fatigued. One private wrote his parents: “I am hardly able to move hand or foot we are still in the swamps and among ticks.”5 The march continued. Hanover Junction provided a brief respite, but only camp near Somerville Ford on the Rapidan, southeast of Cul­ peper, afforded time for complete rest. Spirits were at an all-time low. Painter complained to his parents: “We don’t get nothing for two or three day(s) I tell you Dear Friends I never knowed what heard times was, march day and night through mud and water when we get to rest a few minutes lean up a tree like a Brute . . . if they treat our Boys this way they won’t last long.”6 The weary regiment then plodded through Snicker’s Gap and Berryville. On June 25, it reached the Potomac River. Garnett’s Brigade found the water refreshing to sore feet and tired bodies. Wading across the river again and back to Virginia to support the cavalry crossing became a burden. Ordered to cross a third time, the brigade exhaustedly complied. On the evening of June 25, cold and wet men sat hud­ dled together, “without shoes, without clothes, and without blankets.”7 The morning after crossing the Potomac, the 28th Regiment moved with the rest of Pickett’s division through Hagerstown and Greencastle to Chambersburg, Pa.8 There they destroyed the railroad and all other property that could be of use to the enemy.9 The destruction of the railroad was particularly important, as it ran behind the Confederate lines and thus could have been used by Federals in a flanking move­ ment. 20 �Late in May, 1863, Pvt. Painter wrote his parents that he was “very tired of playing soldier.” He, and many like him, were wavering but still committed to “try and stand it the balance of the war.”10 Gettys­ burg was to provide “the balance of the war” for many in the 28th Regmient. On July 2, Pickett’s division left Chambersburg and hastened to join Lee at Gettysburg. The men covered the twenty-three miles in half that many hours. A tired group of men took a “desired position” at 8 p.m. A few hours later, Confederate artillery opened on the Fed­ eral lines with 250 guns. After three hours of cannonading, the bri­ gades of Pickett and Pender prepared to charge.” Garnett led the fewer than 1,300 men of his brigade. Three quar­ ters of a mile separated the contending armies. As one of the survivors remembered it: Brave men marched into the jaws of death against great odds down, across a field, up another hill with over a hundred canon playing on their line as they advanced against four or five times their number of infantry, behind a stone fence. They fought to and across the fence, their ranks had been reduced and they were outnumbered, and then re-inforcement failed to come to their relief, they had to fall back to their original lines.'2 Garnett’s brigade suffered 941 casualties, including the General. The 28th Regiment lost Col. Allen and eighteen others. Fifty-eight managed to reach the division’s Valley hospital at Breen’s Flouring Mill. Many of these, refusing to die in the North, accepted death in Virginia.13 Gallantry soon became a euphemsim for the slaughter on Ceme­ tery Hill. Of the many displays of valor recorded that day, perhaps the example of Capt. Michael P. Spessard of Co. C best demonstrates the agony of courage. His son fell in the middle of the charge, and Spes­ sard comforted him in his final moments. An observer noted that he kissed “the boy tenderly and gently lay his head on the ground. Then the Major rose to his feet, put his sword to his shoulder,” and led a charge into the Federal trenches.14 He was one of the few officers of the 28th Regiment who lived to see Appomattox. The 300 weary survivors in Garnett’s brigade were “reluctantly” detailed by Gen. Lee to escort Federal prisoners to Staunton. Har­ assed in these duties by pursuing Federal cavalry and irate Pennsyl­ vania citizens, the retreating army found no rest. Lee’s promise to recruit the diminished ranks brought little comfort.15 Early in August, 1863, at Chaffin’s Farm, six miles above Drewry’s Bluff, the fragments of Garnett’s brigade went into winter quar­ ters. Between August and October men drifted into and—doubtless— 21 �out of camp. As December approached, only 852 men of Garnett’s bri­ gade were present for duty.16 Gen. Henry Wise’s brigade had been at Chaffin’s Farm previously and had built “very comfortable log cabins, which the weary, gallant men” of the 8th, 18th, 19th, 28th, 56th and 32nd Virginia quite willing­ ly occupied. At this time, command of the 28th Regiment passed to Col. William Watts of Roanoke County, the ex-law partner of Robert C. Allen. Watts was born in December, 1817, attended William and Mary College and the University of Virginia, where he did graduate work in law and medicine. Gen. Eppa Hunton considered him a gal­ lant” leader but “not much of a tactician.” Other changes occurred on the officer’s level. Capt. Wingfield of Co. F became lieutenant col­ onel of the 28th Regiment; and Capt. Michael Spessard became major^ Also, Brigadier Gen. Eppa Hunton finally received the command of “his” long-sought brigade.'7 The winter of 1864 was one of recuperation and comparative ease for Hunton’s brigade. Spirits were high, and men were “confident of whipping the Yankees,” when their chance again came. Hunton was especially kind to the troops. This was usually when he had been drink­ ing, which was “about three-fourths of his time.”18 Food was available and shelters were comfortable. Gen. Lee re­ membered his promise of trying to regroup the brigade. He kept the brigade out of major campaigns until the summer months. On two oc­ casions, Lee told Longstreet and Gen. Arnold Elzey, commanding the Richmond Department, that the brigade was to continue its convalescence until needed.'9 . „ The strength and numbers of the brigade increased markedly. By March 31, 1864, its effective strength was 1,556 men and 112 officers.20 Although this did not even approximate full brigade strength, it re­ presented considerably more men than had made the retreat from Pennsylvania. Gen. Hunton later criticized the brigade for not exhibit­ ing its “old fighting qualities.” This shortsighted indictment failed to take into account that five recruits existed for every veteran in the brigade 21 Most of the veterans of Co. I who were unable to fight found themselves in Danville guarding the Federal prisoners incarcerated m six converted tobacco warehouses. Col. Robert Withers commanded this “Invalid Corps.”22 EHMM In March, the advance of Hunton’s brigade to Richmond to de­ fend the city against Dahlgren’s raiders marked the beginning of the 1864 campaign.28 The month of April proved especially agreeable to the 28th Regiment. It relieved the City Guards of Richmond and live in the “finest quarters” the men had yet occupied as soldiers. Com­ plaints at this time about guard duty were endemic to the Regiment. Yet most men agreed that “it is nothing in comparison to the marching and fighting that we would have to do had we remained in the field.24 22 �The Regiment functioned as guards over the entire city. One group guarded the city jail, another protected Gov. Letcher, and still another took a position at the railroad station. The men of Co. A maintained watch over the Post Office, War Department, and Treasurer’s Office.25 The easy duties, and “plenty of corn Bread, Some Bacon, Shugar (sic) Coffee . . . peas etc.” made Richmond an enjoyable interlude.28 Un­ fortunately, the recruits who comprised the majority of the brigade did not gain any experience in battle. In early May, word came that Grant was moving on Richmond. Hunton’s entire brigade soon moved into the trenches. On one occa­ sion, Hunton took his brigade up the Brook Turnpike—only to be re­ called before he discovered the raiding party.27 On May 21, Hunton received orders to relinquish the brigade’s position at the Mattoax Bridge on the Richmond-Danville Railroad and to report to A. P. Hill’s Corps.28 Six days later, Pickett arrived and took command of his divi­ sion.29 The General and his troops were thus reunited for the last time. On May 23, Hunton’s brigade reunited at Hanover Junction with the “balance of Pickett’s division,” which included Kemper’s, Hunton’s, Barton’s and Corse’s brigades.30 From that place it became “a day and night move . . . as General Lee was all the time in Grant’s front, wher­ ever he turned up ready to give battle.”31 Yet, during this time, in­ creasing numbers of Confederate deserters kept the Federal com­ mand well-informed of Lee’s movements.32 On June 3, 1864, the opportunity for the first battle of the cam­ paign came at Cold Harbor. Hunton sent his smallest regiment to “fill up a space in the fortifications,” while the rest of the brigade remained in reserve. The men knew that this meant trouble: reserves “are sure to be sent to the worst place along the line.”33 Soon the brigade moved to a break in the line. Recapturing the trenches and restoring the breastworks cost many casualties.34 Warfare around the Richmond de­ fenses continued for some days after the battle. On June 16, Lee ordered Pickett’s division to Petersburg to sup­ port the faltering forces of Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard. Hunton’s brigade took a “cross country route,” as it knew the area better than the other brigades. They encountered skirmishers from Butler’s forces on the Richmond-Petersburg turnpike, and were able to push them back in a brief encounter.35 For the 28th Regiment, the entire summer of 1864 passed in this manner. Skirmishes and trench warfare were almost daily fare. The siege of Petersburg continued into winter still unre­ solved but never uncertain. The brigade kept relatively healthy during the months it camped at Howlett House. The Inspector General’s Report for September, 1863, termed the condition of Pickett’s division and especially Hunton’s Bri­ gade “good.” The Report had special praise for Gen. Hunton, who fos23 �tered good morale by camping in the trenches with his men. On the other side of the ledger, the inspector expressed his disapproval with the “large proportion of absent, disabled officers.” He suggested that a board of inquiry be convened to look into their condition, so that, if necessary, the “many potentially good young officers” could be given their chance.36 No indication suggests that such actions materialized. As December passed into 1865, Hunton’s brigade responded to a Federal raid north of Richmond. Even though it travelled by rail from winter quarters, 13 men froze to death and at least 6 deserted. The men no sooner reached Gordonsville when they received orders to return.37 In 1865, spring never came to the South. Grant maintained in­ creased pressure on Lee’s defenses stretched thinly between Richmond and Petersburg.38 In these final months, the 28th Regiment made many movements with Hunton’s brigade. Around mid-March, the brigade marched to combat a threatened Federal attack north of the James River.39 About all that occurred was the desertion of 183 Confederates from the line of march.40 Ordered back to Petersburg, the brigade left again by rail to meet raids at Farmville, Pamphlins and Prospect.4' The thin Confederate lines of defense were also weary lines. The final charge of the 28th Regiment occurred March 31, 1865, at Hat­ cher’s Run. The Federal army attempted to cut the line of communi­ cations between Gen. Pickett, at Dinwiddie, and Hunton’s men, out­ side Petersburg. To remove this threat the Southerners launched an attack. The Federal forces, surprised in their camps, retreated “near­ ly a mile.” Yet the Confederate glory was shortlived. The Union army remassed and charged. Soon the tattered and tired 28th Regiment, plus the remnant of Hunton’s brigade, effected “a very rapid march” to Five Forks. Near sunset, April 1, the men reached Five Forks. Rumors cir­ culated that Pickett had been captured.42 Actually, his recently de­ pleted forces had retreated before Hunton’s brigade arrived. Soon these ragged soldiers heard that Richmond had fallen. Confederate troops fleeing Petersburg confirmed the retreat had begun. The brigades of Hunton and Wise, and Lee’s cavalry, were to cover the withdrawal. This rear guard fended off the enemy all the way to Amelia Court House, where they joined the remainder of the Army of Northern Virginia. On April 5, they drew their last rations, which consisted of “some nubbins of corn.”43 Sheridan’s cavalry followed closely on the left heels of the re­ treating army. Gen. W. S. Hancock’s Fifth Division paralleled Sheri­ dan’s force on the right. It was like a gray stream trying to escape through a valley of two blue mountains. The Confederate army could 24 �not outrun the Federal horsemen. On April 6, Sheridan’s cavalry struck Pickett’s Division as it guarded a wagon train. Hunton’s brigade of some 150 men was the “larger half of the division,” and it was exhausted and hungry.44 The end was near, and the men knew it. When Sheridan struck at Sayler’s Creek, “there was an immediate scattering . . . some going down a ravine, and others bearing to the right.”45 The last battle was a short fight for so long a war. The once ebullient men who went to war anticipating immediate victory against the invaders from the North trudged homeward. Only 150 men of Hunton’s Brigade were paroled. Of that number, one-third were members of the 28th Virginia. Only ten officers’ names appear on the parole list. Maj. Michael P. Spessard, the hero of Gettysburg, and Capt. Robert E. Allen of Co. A, were the only ranking officers of the Regiment listed.46 What went through the minds of the men as they returned home is unknown. Surely what they did not want to ponder were the battlefields behind them. Yet such places are never forgotten. The 28th Regiment was a rugged group of men led by able and brave officers. It existed as a unit throughout the war and participated in at least sixteen major engagements and numerous skirmishes. Al­ though nearly destroyed as a fighting unit at Gettysburg, this regi­ ment continued to serve the Confederate cause with distinction. That the Civil War lasted for four years can be attributed to the quality of such Southern soldiers as comprised the 28th Regiment, Virginia Vol­ unteers. CHAPTER III 1 OR, XI, pt. 3, 204. 2 Regimental Returns. 3 Withers, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 167. 4 Regimental Returns. 5 Walker, VMI MEMORIAL, 26-29. 6 Richmond TIMES DISPATCH, undated clipping. Personal Files of Robert C. Allen, Virginia Mili­ tary Institute Alumni Files, Lexington, Va. 7 McCauley, HISTORY OF ROANOKE COUNTY, 91. 8 OR, XI, pt. 1, 585-86. 9 IBID. See also Walker, VMI MEMORIAL, 28. 10 OR, XI, pt. 1, 569. Total brigade casualties w ere 6 killed and 190 w ounded. 11 Simmons MS, 6. 12 OR, XI, pt. 1, 982-84. The brigade, however, lost 350 of 1,700 men. i s Withers, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 179. 14 Simmons MS, 6. i s Eppa Hunton, AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF EPPA HUNTON (Richmond, 1933), 68-9. 16 Withers, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 183. 17 Simmons MS, 7. See also Hunton, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 70-72. 18 Simmons MS, 7. See also Regimental Returns. 19 Simmons MS, 8. 20 IBID. 21 Hunton, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 74. 22 OR, XI, pt. 2, 503. 23 Simmons MS, 8. R. B. Garnett had fallen out of grace w ith Gen. Jackson. His appointment to this brigade is something of a mystery. 24 Regimental Returns. 25 Hunton, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 77. 26 IBID., 78. J. K. Simmons claimed that the 28th Va. saw only minor action, yet official casual­ ties w ere high: 12 killed and 52 w ounded. See also OR, XII, pt. 2, 560. 27 OR, XII, pt. 3, 923-24. 28 IBID, XI, pt. 3, 614-15. 29 Hunton, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 79. 30 Robert U. Johnson and Clarence C. Buel (eds.), BATTLES AND LEADERS OF THE CIVIL WAR (New York, 1884-1887), II, 577. 31 Simmons MS, 10. 32 BATTLES AND LEADERS, 11, 601. 33 IBID. 25 �Regimental Returns. See also Simmons MS, 10. Hunton, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 81. 36 OR, XIV, pt. 1, 721. 37 Withers, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 193. 38 OR, XXI, 568-72. 39 James Painter to parents, Dec. 15, 1862, Painter Papers. 40 Regimental Returns. 41 James Painter to parents, Oct. 5, 1862, Painter Papers. 42 IBID. CHAPTER IV 1 Hunton, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 84. See also Regimental Returns; OR, XVIII, 915-16. 2 Regimental Record. 3 W. H. Morgan, PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF THE WAR OF 1861-5 (Lynchburg, 1911), 157-58. 4 Hunton, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 85. s James Painter to parents, May, 1863, Painter Papers. 6 IBID. 7 Hunton, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 86-87. 8 Regimental Records. 9 Hunton, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 87. 10 James Painter to parents. May, 1863, Painter Papers. 11 Hunton, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 89-90. 12 Simmons MS, 11. 13 OR, XXVII, Pt. 2, 387. 14 OR, XXVII, pt. 2, 387. See also Hunton, A utobiography, 100. 15 OR, XXVII, pt. 2, 986-87. See also Simmons MS. 16 OR, LI, pt. 1, 1283. See also IBID., XXIX, pt. 1, 378; Regimental Records. This statistic also includes the remnants of the 32nd Regiment. 17 Hunton, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 103. Hunton also claimed Watts was one of the warmest friends of his life. See also Regimental Returns, unidentified new spaper article, June 29, 1910. 18 John Hutcheson to brother, March 15, 1864, Hutcheson Papers, Virginia Historical Society. Here­ after cited as Hutcheson Papers. 19 OR, XXXII, pt. 2, 760. 20 IBID., XXXIII, 1299. 21 J. G. De Roulhac Hamilton (ed.), THE PAPERS OF RANDOLPH ABBOTT SHOTWELL (Raleigh, 1929), II, 93. Hereafter cited as SHOTWELL PAPERS. 22 Regimental Records. See also Withers, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 194. 23 Simmons MS, 12. See also Hunton, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 109. 24 John Hutcheson to brother, Apr. 12, 1864, Hutcheson Papers. 25 IBID. See also Simmons MS, 12. 26 John Hutcheson to unknown party, letter, Hutcheson Papers. 27 Hunton, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 109. This was probably a raid by Sheridan. 28 OR, XXXVI, pt. 2, 813. 29 IBID., 510. 30 IBID., XXXVI, pt. 3, 799. See also Hunton, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 110-11. 31 Simmons MS, 12. 32 OR, XXXVI, pt. 3, 175. 33 Hunton, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 111-12. 34 Simmons MS, 12. See also Hunton, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 112-13. No casualty figures are available. 35 Simmons MS, 12-13. 36 OR, XLII, pt. 2, 1271-72. 37 IBID., pt. 3, 1106-08. 38 Hunton, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 117. 39 Simmons MS, 13. 40 OR, XLII, pt. 3, 1332. 41 IBID., 1365. 42 Simmons MS, 14. 43 IBID. 44 SOUTHERN HISTORICAL SOCIETY PAPERS, XXIC (1896), 83-88. Hereafter cited as SHSP. See also SHSP XV (1887), 81-84. 45 SHSP, XXIV (1896), 87-88. 46 SHSP, XV (1887), 70-73, 83. J. K. Simmons reported that 24 men of Co. A w ere captured at Sayler's Creek. They do not appear on the parole list. Also, Co. E had no members on the parole roster. 34 35 26 �Samuel Rader, 1801-1891, Botetourt Brick Mason Samuel Rader was the sixth of nine children born to Adam and Mary Hotszenpiller Rader of Woodstock. A few months after Samuel’s birth in Shenandoah County on April 11, 1801, the family migrated to Botetourt County where the last three of their children was born. Samuel’s father was a saddler and harness maker who built a shop (still standing) near the present town of Troutville in Botetourt Coun­ ty on what is known as the Old Brick Union Road. Family legend holds that Adam Rader, born in Germany on Feb. 4, 1761, came to Philadel­ phia as a lad. His father died on Nov. 28, 1817 when Samuel was 16 years old. George Stover, Jr., the husband of Samuel’s oldest sister, Anna, was appointed Samuel’s guardian. It was from George Stover that Samuel learned masonry, which was to become his life’s work. In those days a mason not only laid brick but he also made his own bricks from local clay which he chose for that purpose; he constructed his own kiln near the site of construction, and “burned” (fired) his own bricks. Samuel was well suited physically for such a trade. He was a strong man with very large hands. His appearance was typical of many early German settlers. He had light hair, fair complexion, very blue eyes, tall, and his posture was “as straight as a ramrod” even in his later years. He was a large man, but never obese. On Dec. 1, 1825, Samuel Rader married Sarah Brugh, a daughter of Peter and Elizabeth Coffman Brugh. Sarah was born July 22, 1807 in Botetourt County and died there on June 11, 1874. Samuel and Sarah became the parents of 11 children, all of whom lived to maturity except one. On Sept. 13, 1829, Samuel and Sarah Rader left their home in Botetourt County and traveled by covered wagon to Indiana Territory. With them were their first two children, two little girls. One month and one day later they arrived in Crawfordsville, Ind., where they spent the winter. The reason for their trip to Indiana can only be surmised. Per­ haps they were enticed by the Stovers, relatives who had preceded The life of Samuel Rader is reviewed by Jacqueline Hundley Rader of Rt. 1, Troutville, a family historian. Her husband, Jacob K. Rader, is the great-grandson of Samuel Rader, descended through his son, Simon Peter, and grandson, Frank Boone Rader. The story of Samuel Rader’s contract to build a brick house for $105 was told in the Winter, 1968 issue of the Journal. 27 �Samuel Rader, Botetourt builder them. Two of Samuel’s older sisters had married Stover brothers and one of these, Abraham Stover, was a colonel in the Indiana Militia. Samuel Rader became a captain in the Indiana Militia and his original commission papers are still in possession of a descendant in Botetourt County. In October 1832 Samuel and his family, then including another daughter and a son born in Indiana, were back in Botetourt County. According to family legend, Samuel’s aged and widowed mother had pleaded for them to come back and care for her in her last years— which they did. She had remarried in 1829 but her second husband, 28 �Rev. John Crumpacker, was much older than she and she was soon widowed again. So Mary Hotszenpiller Rader Crumpacker lived the rest of her long life with Samuel’s family. She died on March 11, 1853. As was the custom of that time, Samuel Rader did not limit his activities to one occupation. Besides his masonry business he also farmed extensively and, judging from the large number of deeds re­ corded in his name, he must have speculated in real estate as well. On April 11, 1849, Samuel Rader moved his family into the new brick residence which he had built for their own use. There he lived for the rest of his life. This house still stands on the west side of U. S. 11 north of Troutville and near the intersection of the “Nace Road” at Brugh’s Store. The house now belongs to Joseph and Eunice Rader Parks. Eunice is a great-granddaughter of Samuel Rader. Samuel Rader’s family suffered greatly during the Civil War. Sam­ uel’s oldest son was wounded and captured during the Battle of Lewisburg in the spring of 1862 and died a few weeks later at Camp Chase Prison Hospital, Columbus, Ohio, leaving a widow and three children in Botetourt County. Another of Samuel’s sons who fought with the Fincastle Rifles through the whole four years of the war was killed during the Battle of Five Forks just nine days before Lee’s surrender. He was engaged to be married at the time of his death. His comrades notified his father, Samuel, of the death and burial of his son and several others in shallow, unmarked graves on a hillside. This knowledge was more than Samuel could bear, so he went to the area described and had no alternative but to dig into each unmarked grave until he located the body of his son. With a heavy heart he made the journey back home with the body and laid it to rest in the little family burial ground in which lay the remains of Samuel’s parents, Adam and Mary. Samuel had sacrificed two sons, one son-in-law, and two other young men, fiances of his daughters, to the Confederacy. His six daughters were still living, one widowed with seven children and two others who were destined never to marry after their sweethearts were killed in the war. But now he had only two sons left. One followed in his father’s footsteps and became a mason. The oldest, the one who died in a Union prison hospital, was also a mason. In 1875, a few months after the death of his wife, Samuel Rader lost his sight. His family thought it was a result of exposure to so much smoke in the lime kilns which he used to burn brick. Perhaps. Doctors were not always able to determine the cause of blindness in those days, or to prevent it as is often possible now. Samuel spent his last 16 years in darkness, cared for by his two spinster daughters and the family of his youngest son who lived with him in the house he had built in 1849. He often entertained his grandchildren with accounts of his past life and with stories that he had heard in his youth from 29 �Brick work for M ill Creek Baptist Church was done by Samuel Rader, 1852-54. This building was replaced by a new church in 1910. an older generation. Samuel’s stories impressed his grandchildren to such a degree that they passed them on to their children and some of these accounts were recorded on paper by a grandson before his death in 1953. One of Samuel Rader’s brothers, George Washington Rader, was one of the first trustees of Roanoke College when it was moved to Salem from Mount Tabor in 1847. George, born June 14, 1797 and died May 10, 1894, served several years as trustee for the college and for other Lutheran Church property as well. He lived near Samuel in Botetourt County and his old home still stands, now owned and oc­ cupied by one of his great-grandsons, Karl E. Rader. Samuel, George, and the other early Raders of Botetourt County at­ tended the old Brick Union Church which was made up principally of Lutheran and Dunkard congregations. Samuel, George, and most of the others were Lutheran. There is a possibility that Samuel made and constructed the brick work of the old Brick Union Church, which stood for years in the path of the present Interstate 81 north of Troutville. But so far this cannot be verified. It is known, however, that Samuel contracted and did the brick work for the Mill Creek Baptist congregation when they built the structure preceding the present building on U. S. 11. He died May 17, 1891. 30 �History Grows in Botetourt History is on the move in Botetourt County where plans have been started to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the county and Fincastle, its seat, in 1970. From the opening of the Botetourt Historical Museum in Novem­ ber, 1966, interest and pride in local history have slowly but steadily grown. Only in recent months has it become known that the museum located in an early brick building behind the courthouse in Fincastle was instigated by a $1,000 gift of the late Murray G. Via of Botetourt County. Via, a vice president of First National Exchange Bank of Virginia until his retire­ ment Dec. 31, 1967, made an anonymous contribution to promote historical work in his home county. His gift was matched by the Roanoke Historical Society from pro­ ceeds of the sale of R. D. Stoner’s “A SeedBed of the Republic,” which the society co­ sponsored in its second edition and the Murray G. Via funds were used for historical research. After Via’s death, a certificate in his honor was prepared for dis­ play at the museum in Fincastle. It reads: “In memory of Murray Green Via, born Nov. 29, 1911, died Jan. 15, 1968, whose love for his home county and interest in its history, as evidenced by his generous gift for the furthering of historical work in the Fincastle area, are here recorded and gratefully acknowledged by his colleagues. The research accomplished through his gift was a significant factor in the establishment of the Botetourt County His­ torical Museum.” By mid-1968, the community-wide Council for the Beautification and Preservation of Fincastle changed its name to Historic Fincastle, Inc., a group called Friends of the Library of Botetourt County planned to convert the old Fincastle jail to a county library and a committee worked toward establishment of a trust fund to care for the old ceme­ tery at Fincastle Presbyterian Church. Historic Fincastle, the organization which has developed a walk­ ing tour for visitors to the town, has a variety of goals in addition to the bicentennial observance. Plans have been made for eventual re­ storation of two old buildings, a handicraft shop to provide a market for work of local citizens and color postal cards of the town. An immediate project is historical signs for public buildings and at the entrances to Fincastle. 31 �Through the cooperation of Appalachian Power Co., Botetourt County supervisors and the Fincastle council, improvements to light­ ing have been made around the courthouse. Old lamps have been in­ stalled and wires are being placed underground. Funds are being sought to convert the old county jail, an inter­ esting building of Victorian architectural style, to a county library. Pledges are being sought by a new organization, Friends of the Library, and federal aid may be available. Rollin Smith, curator of the histori­ cal museum, said upper floors of the jail would make excellent storage areas for antiques. Tombstones in the Presbyterian cemetery dating back to 1795 are in need of repair and care, said Mrs. Leonard G. Muse, chairman of a committee working to set up a perpetual care fund. Repair and clean­ ing of stones requires professional work, she said. Graves of veterans of the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, and the Civil War, as well as those of early settlers are marked by stones with almost illegible let­ tering. R O A N O K E H IS T O R IC A L S O C IE T Y NEW M EMBERS A N D OTHERS NO T PREVIOUSLY REPORTED R O AN O KE Mr. and Mrs. W. D. Adam s Mrs. E. G. Bosang Mr. and Mrs. Alan M. Fink Mr. and Mrs. E. D. Fox Mr. and Mrs. W. F. Genhelmer Mr. and Mrs. Fred Hamlin Mr. and Mrs. James P. Hart, Jr. Mrs. Inez Hubbard Mrs. George Morton Junior League of Roanoke Inc. Mr. and Mrs. H. M . Redman M iss M ary Phlegar Smith Mrs. H. B. Stone, Jr. Mr. John Coles Terry Mr. and Mrs. William P. Vinyard OUT OF TOW N Mrs. Philip Moncure Copper Hill Mr. and Mrs. St. Julian Oppenheimer Richmond Mrs. Herbert Gregory Richmond 32 �Pennsylvania Dutch, Fashions and Early Roanoke By ANNA LAWSON The month of March, 1968, may itself become of historic import­ ance in the annals of the Roanoke Historical Society. It began with the opening of a display of 79 Pennsylvania Dutch items in the Society’s museum at Roanoke College. Included were a German Bible from 1754, all types of household equipment, and sev­ eral early “frakturs.” On March 13, Miss Anne McClenny, associate professor of music at Hollins College, presented a lecture-recital of early keyboard music in Virginia at a meeting of the society. In the middle of the month an exhibit entitled “Early Roanoke: A Pictorial and Documentary Retrospect,” went up in the gallery of the Roanoke Public Library. And, the following week, the Society co-sponsored with the Roanoke Fine Arts Center at Cherry Hill a fashion show combining current and bygone styles. With the possible exception of the last, the activities were remarkable in their appeal to a mem­ bership of three generations and both sexes. Bride's box was loaned by Dr. and Mrs. Roger Winborne for Pennsylvania Dutch exhibit. Inscription in German reads, "If you want to ease my sorrows, then let me, you beautiful one, kiss you." 33 �Under the guidance of Mrs. Edmund Goodwin, the largest exhibit devoted to a concentrated field of local history was assembled in late February in Salem. Thirty area owners of Pennsylvania Dutch artifacts, many of them direct descendants of the original owners and with names like Ammen, Frantz, Stoner and Kendig, loaned objects from chests to cake molds. On display were such items as cast iron cooking utensils, handwoven quilts, various pieces of carved furniture (often hand painted) and wooden molds, and innumerable examples of the styles of Penn­ sylvania Dutch painting from their immigration to the present. In the exhibit were several “frakturs,” Pennsylvania Dutch records of the birth and baptism of a child. The carefully lettered and painted paper read much as the following, loaned by Mrs. W. P. Henritze. BIRTH AND BAPTISM To these two, Johan Adam Gruber and his wife, Susanna who was born Kieferin, a daughter has been bom by the name of Elizabeth, in the year of our Lord Jesus 1810, on the 11th day of November at 10:00 in America at the sign of Taurus. This Elizabeth has been bom and baptised in America in. the state of Pennsylvania, in the county of Berks, in Winsor township, and above announced Elizabeth has been baptised on the 16th day of December, 1810 by Tiefenback, and the Baptism wit­ nesses were the Grandparents Kiefer and his wife Elizabeth. A basket, now owned by Mr. and Mrs. R. D. Stoner of Fincastle, was also notable as it was carried in 1749 by Mr. Stoner’s great-greatgreat grandfather, Durst Ammen, from Switzerland through a long immigration to Botetourt County, where he settled in 1782. M The ifoanoke Xyceum, at a recent meeting determined, to have a basket pic-nic and excursion to Toyners Springs, Thursday, June respectfully invited to join us. i 9 th, and you are most T rain leaves tf>e jfiorfolk and 'Western depot at d i : 3 0 , and returns in the evening at 6 :1 d T a re— Xjound T rip SO Tents C O M M G E O R G E M OORE, JA S . E . K E N N E D Y , I T T E E O IE T R . G . JO H N STO N , M ISS L IL L IE H A L L , J . B. F IS H B U R N E . M ISS ID A E N G L E B Y , M ISS L A U R A REY N O LD S. Invitation to a pic-nic around 1900, from the Society's early Roa­ noke collection. 34 �Flags flying for Roanoke's decennial celebration in 1892; N&W Railway station is at left; across tracks are old St. James Hotel, Haller & Barnes Drugstore and Terry Building. Miss Anne McClenny’s program, for which she has done research in this country, England and Scotland during the last several years, focused on the music of the 18th and 19th centuries in Virginia. She showed slides to illustrate many of the early instruments and played some of the compositions of the day. Her descriptions of the circum­ stances under which the music was played, for whom and by whom, gave considerable historic perspective to the compositions themselves. “Early Roanoke” was billed as an exhibit designed “to give a picture of the city’s early years through photographs, playbills, maps, docu­ ments, and other memorabilia.” Of all these, most important regarding Roanoke’s development were the papers of the Roanoke Land and Im­ provement Company. Donated to the Society by Mrs. William B. Figgatt, the documents contain detailed information of the early years of the water works, Hotel Roanoke and Mill Mountain. Roanoke’s present prosperous condition may well stem from the situation described in a letter, dated Nov. 22, 1881, from J. C. Moomaw to F. J. Kimball. In it Mr. Moomaw discusses the right of way, deeds and contracts for the Shenandoah Valley Railroad. Along with documentation of industry and commerce, the “Early Roanoke” exhibit also portrayed something of the city’s recreation. The most charming illustration of theatre entertainment came from the almost psychedelic playbills of shows held at the Academy of Music about 1900. “Captain Jinx of the Horse Marines” and “El Capitan” came to Roanoke, along with marvelously dramatic plays like “Rich­ ard Carvel.” And Maud Adams came as Peter Pan. 35 �Two-century-old gown, owned by Mrs. C. Francis Cocke, modeled by Mrs. Frank Ellett. History came alive in the most pleasant of fashions when 16 cos­ tumes, dating to 1768 and made both here and abroad, were worn at Cherry Hill. The show, followed by luncheon, was given March 20 and 21 and attracted approximately 400 viewers. Miller and Rhoads of 36 �Roanoke provided the current fashions and many of the historic ones are owned by the Society. One of the most appealing of the period outfits was a navy wool suit from 1916, modeled by Mrs. J. T. Engleby III. Worn with a white vest, white spats (particularly stylish in 1916), and a navy bonnet of straw and velvet, the suit looked just as it must have when Mrs. Henry Taylor had it as part of her trousseau. It was given to the Society by Mrs. Taylor, the former Mary Scott Ferguson. A gown made in 1768 for Margaret Tilghman Carroll of Baltimore, an ancestor of its present owner, Mrs. C. Francis Cocke, was the oldest and perhaps the most elegant fashion in the show. Worn to a birth­ day ball of England’s Queen Charlotte, it was of brocade with a light gold sprig of flower woven into the silk. Mrs. Frank Ellet modeled it at Cherry Hill. Another interesting piece was a black Chantilly lace shawl, brought to Virginia by Captain Thomas Minor in 1755. Capt. Minor’s daughterin-law wore it in 1824 in Fredericksburg when she and her husband, Capt. Minor, Jr., hosted a fete in honor of the Marquis de La Fayette of Revolutionary War fame. It is now owned by Mrs. Edmund Goodwin. Mrs. John W. Williams and Mrs. Barton W. Morris, Sr., narrated the historical sections of the show. The proceeds were divided between the Historical Society and the Docent Guild of the Fine Arts Center. The Society has turned over its share ($571.50) to the Botetourt Historical Society for preserving the 18th century deed books in the Botetourt County Courthouse at Fincastle. A rewarding outcome of this gift came several days after the an­ nouncement of the Society’s donation. Encouraged by the Society’s ac­ tion, the Gen. James Breckinridge Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution added $100 to the restoration fund. Society Tours Home Country On the misty morning of May 25 four busloads of Roanoke His­ torical Society members and friends, aged six weeks through 80 years, set forth on the sixth annual tour of old homes, churches and historic sites in their own backyard—Roanoke, Salem and Roanoke County. Approximately 150 people visited Monterey, the Read home; Meadowbrook, home of the W. P. Vinyards; Hunter’s Home, the James P. Hart home, and Lone Oaks, home of Mr. and Mrs. Alan Fink. Early morning rain clouds lifted in time for lunch at Salem Presbyterian Church, a congregation dating back to 1831. Many on the tour had taken earlier trips with the society to Bed­ ford, Montgomery and Franklin counties and the two excursions to Botetourt County. They learned something of the past of about 50 37 �W. P. Vinyard home was open for M ay historical tour. significant historic locations described in notes prepared by Edmund P. Goodwin and shown on a map prepared by J. R. Hildebrand. Goodwin’s notes gave reasons why Roanoke County was carved out of the mother Botetourt County in 1838. Petitions for a new county filed with the General Assembly said: “Nearly 1,500 freemen and 700 voters demand it . . . Because of the unjust and improper influence of Fincastle on the other portions of the county, making those parts mere hewers of wood and drawers of water.” Benjamin Deyerle, prominent Roanoke Valley builder of the last century, was the man of the hour. He is believed to have built three of the four brick homes visited—the Vinyard, Hart and Fink houses— in the mid-1800s. Yelverton Oliver, widely known fancier of race horses, built his home at Monterey about 1850. Guides on each bus pointed out such places as Buena Vista, Col. George Tayloe’s home built in the 1830s; the original locations of Big Lick and New Antwerp; Col. William Fleming’s Bellmont; Huntington, the old Elisha Betts home of the early 1800s; the two Samuel Harshbarger houses; Tombstone Cemetery; Melrose, the Rev. Urias Power home on 10th Street, NW; the location of the old narrow gauge rail­ road to the iron mines and Cherry Hill, the former Persinger home dating back to the late 1700s, now owned by the Stanley Weinbergs. West of Roanoke, they saw old Zion Lutheran Church; Belair, the Madison Pitzer home and the Houtz-Sites home on Masons Creek; in Salem, they saw Dropmore, the Nathaniel Burwell home site; the lo­ cation of Gen. Andrew Lewis’ Richfield plantation; the John B. I. Lo­ gan house and site of the Roanoke Navigation Co. headquarters. In the Cave Spring section, they rode by Boxwood Summit, Mulberry Hill, the old Cave Spring Methodist Church, the Gale-White house and Speedwell, the Harvey home near Starkey. Old Piney Grove Church, off U.S. 220 at Rt. 419, was seen on the way home. Antique furniture, old documents and interesting architecture were a major part of the visit into the past of Roanoke Valley. 38 �Map-maker J. R. Hildebrand at work. Roanoke County Map Prepared J. R. Hildebrand, Roanoke Historical Society secretary, map-maker and researcher, has prepared a comprehensive map of the beginnings of Roanoke County. Following the pattern of the Botetourt County map he produced two years ago, Hildebrand has drawn from records and traditions to illustrate what happened here from the first settlement before 1800. 39 �Indian movements, skirmishes and trails, exploration by John Lederer, Dr. Thomas Walker and John Sailing, locations of forts, fur­ naces, mills, springs and the first grants for Roanoke Valley land are shown. The names of 38 prominent early citizens of the county are listed. The map also gives an early outline of Augusta County, which cov­ ered most of western Virginia from 1738 to 1770, and the first plat of the Town of Salem in 1802 is shown. A brief history of the county also contains the military record of its sons from the French and Indian War. Hildebrand, an Augusta County native, has been involved in map­ making and historical research for a good part of the time since he left Virginia Tech to serve in World War I. He retired as city planning engineer after 35 years as a municipal employee and then served in a similar post with the Roanoke Valley Regional Planning Commission several years. Working on a billiard table in his basement, he has utilized a li­ brary of resource material and an extensive memory to produce scores of historical maps and tracings for a variety of uses, including almost every issue of The Journal. At least five writers of western Virginia history—F. B. Kegley, R. D. Stoner, C. Francis Cocke, Dr. W. E. Eisenberg and Raymond Barnes—have chosen Hildebrand’s maps to illus­ trate their work. The Society is selling the Roanoke County maps for $1.50, the same price charged for the Botetourt maps which also are available. Mail orders may be placed by writing the Society at P. 0. Box 1904, Roanoke, Va. 24008. 40 ��� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society Summer 1968 Volume 5, Number 1 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />Montgomery White, 19th Century Social Center<br />Virginia's Neglected Soldiers<br />28th Regiment, Virginia Volunteers<br />Samuel Rader, 1801-1891, Botetourt Brick Mason<br />History Grows in Botetourt<br />Pennsylvania Dutch Fashions and Early Roanoke Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Summer 1968 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_05_01_Summer_1968 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6343/JHSWV_05_02_Winter_1969.pdf 2fd4d451f9aa3bf27525d94dc081a6f5 PDF Text Text JOURNAL ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY W inter......... 1969 V o lu m e F iv e N um b er T w o �ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Amor montium nos movet Mrs . E nglish Sh o w a l t e r ......................................................... President R obert W. W o o d y .......................................................... Vice President Arthur E l l e t t .................................................................................. Treasurer J. R. H ildegrand ..................................................................... Secretary Mrs . P a u lin e Ca r t e r .............................................Executive Secretary Directors Raymond P. Barnes Robert Goodykoontz L. G. Muse Homer Bast Miss Anna LouiseHaley Miss Frances Niederer C. P. Blair J. R. Hildebrand E. H. Ould John D. Carr Miss Nancy E. Himes James D. Richardson Stuart Carter Shields Johnson Tayloe Rogers Mrs. H. Powell Chapman George Kegley Mrs. English Showalter C. Francis Cocke Mrs. George Kegley Mrs. Frank E. Snow Mrs. John Copenhaver R. S. Kime R. D. Stoner S. S. Edmunds Courtney King Paul S. Stonesifer Arthur Ellett Mrs. H. P. Kyle David F. Thornton J. T. Engleby III Mrs. J.M.B. Lewis Jr. James L. Trinkle B. N. Eubank Miss Nancy Logan William Watts Edmund P. Goodwin Mrs. S. H. McVitty James P. Woods Mrs. Edmund P. Goodwin Richard L. Meagher Robert W. Woody Jack Goodykoontz Dr. J. C. Zillhardt * * * GEORGE KEGLEY Editor of the JOURNAL CONTENTS Collectors’ Items Span Four Centuries by Edmund P. Goodwin.............................................................. 1 Saving Virginia’s Treasures by Edward P. A lexander..................... 8 Edward wSliam Johnston and Roanoke Female Seminary by Margaret P. Scott and Rachel W ilso n ................................... 15 Is There an Older Roanoker? .............................................................26 Five Rivers Flow West by Goodridge W ilso n..................................... 27 Longwood Was Salem’s Castle ........................................................ 34 Roanoke’s Cows in 1898 ..................................................................... 35 The Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Volume V, Number 2. Published twice yearly by the Society at Box 1904, Roanoke, Va. 24008, to chronicle the past and present of that part of the state west of the Blue Ridge. Single copy price: 50 cents. The Society will be careful in handling unsolicited material but cannot be responsible for its loss. �Collectors’ Items Span Four Centuries By E dmund P. Goodwin Donors have been exceedingly generous in their contributions to the Roanoke Historical Society in recent months. Into the society’s collection have come many old letters and papers dating from the mid-1700s, three fine crossbows from the 16th century and a variety of guns, journals and ledger books from early Virginia, three 1883 Roanoke census books, and a set of 19th century surgeon’s instruments. Dr. Mason Robertson of Savannah, Ga., has given a magnificent collection of approximately 1,000 letters and documents written by or to the Breckenridge family of Botetourt County. His mother was a Preston and his grandmother a member of the Breckenridge family. The earliest paper in what has been designated as the Breckenridge Collection is dated 1755 and most of the letters were written before 1875. The Breckenridge letters and those of the allied families of Watts, Gilmer, Woodville and Preston greatly enrich the history of Southwest Virginia. Through the years the Breckenridges have been one of the most prominent families in this area. When Botetourt was formed in 1770, Robert Breckenridge was named one of the original justices and the records show the organizational meeting of the county was held at his home. Names of men who contributed to the defense and development of the frontier communities appear frequently in the letters. Among them were Col. William Preston, Col. James Patton, Col. James Buchanan, Gen. Edward Watts, Thomas Lewis, Nathaniel Burwell, Edmund Pen­ dleton and Lord Dunmore. There are references to politics, wars, infla­ tion and education, as well as day-by-day accounts of the development of early Southwest Virginia. M A D E t he ¡0 the Y » r çi-onr Lord, O ® TJioufind Seven Hundred and Bewcca o f the County of , _ ______ L of the W I T N E S S E T H , That thefaid ^ J ' « , current money m y ' " _ . *n j?7 S / S S *r H S M r adon of the____________ Sum o f f t , at or before m or' y - - m ________ _________ the Scaling and Delivery of thefe Prcfents, the t o j p t ***& M & m : H A T H Granted, Bargained, andSold, and by thefe Prefents, D O T H Grant, Bargarn, and SeD, unto the hv acknowledged. H A 1 t l u ran tca, nargauicu, --------/ - ' - o f the on« Part, and W William Preston paid Joseph McDonald five shillings for a tract of 142 acres on Tinker Creek in the County of Augusta (now Botetourt) on Feb. 7, 1763, according to an indenture (above) in the Breckenridge Col­ lection. �Cataloguing a collection of this size is a long and tedious task, With the advice and help of Dr. James I. Robertson Jr., of the Virginia Tech History Department, a chronological method of filing has been adopted and completed to a substantial degree. The material must be properly protected from damage in handling and then cross ref­ erencing will begin. Volunteers for this work are sorely needed. The collection, because of its continuous material, will be of in­ estimable value to historians in the development of many unknown facets of history. However, other letters and documents of the Breckenridges and allied families are known to be in existence today. Many members of these families still live in this general area and it is highly probable that they have letters and documents which would add materially to the collection. The society urgently requests that they be donated. But if the owners wish to keep the originals, the society would like to borrow them for duplication. Gifts or loans will provide a material part in making a great collection ever greater. Old weapons are a fascinating link with the past as is shown by an outstanding collection given by Mrs. S. H. McVitty. She has contributed three crossbows traced to the 1500s, which are in excellent condition. Before the satisfactory development of firearms as weapons, the short bow, the crossbow and long bow were used by the English and European armies. Of the three received by the society, two are French and the third is Swiss. Stones were the am­ munition for these bows. So deadly was the crossbow that an early statute of King Henry VIII condemned it as being evil. Also in the collection are 11 pistols and revolvers made in many countries from the early 18th century on and six interesting rifles from different periods. To look at a blunderbuss with an 11-inch barrel or a flintlock pistol inlaid with silver is to conjure a picture of the men who fired them generations ago. Two of the rifles of Pennsylvania or Ken­ tucky design could have been carried through the valley to the Wilder­ ness Road in the 18th century. A Miquelette lock from a rampart gun of Spanish origin apparently dates from around 1600. A smaller device, first described as a powder tester, was identified by a gunsmith as a tinder lighter used to light a candle in the early 1800s. In addition, Mrs. McVitty gave a number of books which will add materially to the society’s Virginia collection. The earliest bears the date of 1752. The census books record the story of Roanoke’s transition from town to city status by act of the General Assembly in 1884. The name of the village of Big Lick was officially changed to the Town of Roanoke in 1882. And in the following year, many of its progressive citizens decided that the population had increased to 5,000 and the burgeoning 2 �town should become a city. To make this determination, state law re­ quired that a census be taken to show the names and addresses of all citizens. The three original census books, from the estate of Mrs. Alma Hart Keyser, a pioneer Roanoker, show the names and addresses of the city s first residents which contributes greatly to the early history of Roanoke. Mrs. Keyser’s estate, through her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Mamie Keyser of Lynchburg, also gave a souvenir program of Roanoke’s decennial celebration held on June 19, 1892. An interesting set of surgical instruments, used by Dr. Arthur Zirkle Koiner in the first years of Roanoke, has been given by Judge Oscar Ogburn Efird of Winston-Salem, N.C. His wife, Mrs. Frances Katrina Susan Koiner Efird, the only child of Dr. Koiner, died in 1967. Dr. Koiner was surgeon for the Norfolk and Western Railway and co-owner of a drugstore at the corner of Salem Avenue and Commerce (Second) Street, S.W. He formed a partnership with Dr. Joseph A. Gale and practiced medicine in Roanoke for about 12 years until his death, after a short illness, on March 22, 1893. Born in Augusta County in 1855, he graduated from Roanoke College and in medicine at the University of Virginia and New York University. After study in Vienna, he taught at what was then Richmond Medical College and practiced in Richmond before coming to Big lick about 1880. The instruments, made by Weiss of London, are stored in a hand­ some wooden case with the name, “Dr. Maddux,” engraved on the cover. Dr. Hugh Trout, Roanoke surgeon, said he does not recall having seen 90-year-old instruments in such excellent condition. “The set is almost complete, the knives sharp and none of the instruments have been allowed to rust,” Dr. Trout said. The instruments illustrate how surgery has changed since 1880, he added. However, the same type of amputation still is performed, the saws are not too different and many of the hooks and retractors could be used today, he said. Reminders of everyday life as much as two centuries ago come from a ledger and other old Read family books given by Mrs. St. Julian Oppenheimer of Richmond, the former Emma Read of Monterey in Roanoke County. In 1846, Mrs. Betsy Read and her two sons, David and Thomas, moved west from Henrico County and purchased 1,155 acres from William M. Peyton for $25,000. The land adjoined the Fincastle road where it forded Tinker Creek. Among their possessions was a ledger book originally kept by Clement Read and later by his son, Thomas Read, the grandfather of David and Thomas. 3 �The first entry was in 1763 and the ledger continues through 1807. As in ledgers of that period, a vast store of information is recorded on such subjects as genealogy, cost of goods and services, slaves and recipes. Geographically, the ledger covers eight counties in the southeastern part of Virginia. Many references are made to men who contributed to the development of the colony and later the state. Some of them are Paul Carrington, Edmund Pendleton, Peyton Randolph, Francis Nash, William Watts and Nathaniel Terry. Among other books given by Mrs. Oppenheimer was one printed in 1717 and two music books of Priscilla Read dated at Jamestown, 1810 and Petersburg, 1822. This Jamestown is believed to have been a plantation in Prince Edward County. Still another valued acquisition, a framed set of medals bestowed on unknown heroes in six wars, came from the Roanoke Chapter of United Daughters of the Confederacy. Presented by Mrs. L. E. Foley, UDC chapter president and a mem­ ber of the Society, the Crosses of Military Service are given to certain Confederate veterans and their lineal descendants. They represent service in the Civil War, the Philippine Insurrection, World Wars I and II, the Korean and Vietnam wars. Old Browne Was Hung This brief eyewitness account of the hanging of John Broum at Charlestown, W. Va. comes from the Breckenridge papers. Note the role played by Edmund Ruffin, the secessionist leader who fired one of the first shots at Fort Sumter. Charlestown, December 4th, 1859 Dear Mother, I have at last found time and the means of writing you a few lines to let you know that I am well. We have been here just a week and will probably leave next Tuesday. Old Browne was hung on the day appointed and every thing went off quietly. I don’t suppose there is an Abolitionist in fifty miles of this place. I never knew what a soldier’s life was until I took this trip. We are on guard every other night and are obliged to set up all the time. Uncle William has been here since last Monday. No citizens were allowed to go near the gallows on the day of execution so Uncle William borrowed my over­ coat and a sword from somebody and went in Col. Smith’s staff. Old Edmon Ruffin was so anxious to see Browne hung that he borrowed cadet clothes, shouldered a musket and marched with our company to the gallows. As I am very badly situated for writing I will have to put it off until I get back to the Institute. Give my love to all at home. Your Aff Son Cary Breckenridge 4 �Taxable Property of Botetourt Inside the cover of a Breckenridge journal of the 1838-1865 period was the following listing of taxable property in Botetourt County in 1852. Mr. C. L. Alderson, one of the Commissioners of the Revenue for this county has furnished us with the following exhibit, giving a full statement of the various species of taxable property in Botetourt County, for the year 1852. Taxpayers will do well to preserve this form as it will enable them to make out their list for the Commission in future, with little or no trouble. NO. V alue 1765 White males, at 36 c e n ts.............. 67 Male free negroes, at 100 cents . 1750 Slaves, at 54 c e n ts ....................... 3248 Horses, mules, &c........................... $169,734 27217 Cattle, sheep and h o g s ................ 98,338 76 Pleasure carriages .................. 9,375 4 Stage coaches ................................ 480 16 Jersey k ag o n s................................ 1,095 7 Carryalls ......................................... 375 65 Buggies ......................................... 3,918 122 Gold watches ................................ 7,983 183 Silver or other metallic watches . 2,628 3,414 512 Metallic clocks ............................. 333 Other clocks .................................. 1,222 4,465 27 Pianos and harps ......................... Plate ............................................................. 5,401 Household and kitchen furniture........... 122,415 37,228 Other articles of personal property, &c. . 342,331 Solvent bonds ............................................. Capital invested in manufacturing 8,890 business ............................................. Interest or profits, $2,895 at 3 per cent . . Income ........................................................ Toll-bridges, $2,800 at 3 per c e n t ......... 809,272 Value and tax thereon at 18 c e n ts......... 114,577 Exemptions .................................................. $694,695 Aggregate tax on v a lu e s........................... TOTAL ....................... Amount of Tax on La n d .............................. Total amount of Revenue in the County . Tax on V alue Total Tax $ 634.68 67.00 945.00 $ 305.51 177.00 16.87 86 1.97 67 7.05 14.36 4.73 6.14 2.19 8.03 9.72 220.34 67.01 598.19 16.00 86.85 24.00 1,456.68 206.23 $1,250.45 $1,250.45 $3,068.59 $3,996.03 $7,064.62 5 �//* * • ' 4 '■ £ /\ ‘ '• * * When lawyer-statesman Edmund Pendleton wrote from Williamsburg to Col. William Preston at Greenfield on Dec. 14, 1762 he addressed a busi­ ness letter found in the Breckenridge papers as shown at top of page. At the end, Pendleton wrote, "I would give you a history of our legislative pro­ ceedings but am in a great hurry as I leave for home tomorrow morning." Lord Dunmore, last of the Crown governors, certified that Thomas Gist, representative of Christopher Gist, was entitled to 6,000 acres in Fincastle County "or on any of the Western waters if he can lay it on any vacant land." Dunmore's signature (above) was at Williamsburg, Feb. 10, 1774. The Revolution had started in New England when the Fincastle County Com­ mittee met at the home of James McGavock on Sept. 6, 1775 (excerpt from minutes above). After hearing that Dunmore had ordered land auctioned for the king's use, the committee rebelled and moved that an order be entered "requiring that no lands be surveyed agreeable to the said in­ structions." 6 �Three fine crossbows (top), donated to the Society by Mrs. S. H. McVitty, may have been used in European wars 400 years ago. A gunsmith said the upper two are French and the lower is Swiss. All three were used to fire stones, he said. The rifles (from the top) are a Springfield 1870, a Pennsylvania style piece and an 1873 Winchester. (See page 36 for more photographs of articles recently donated to the Society.) 7 �Saving Virginia's Treasures ^ r' Edward P. Alexander, director of interpretation and vice president of Colonial Williamsburg, gave the following talk on “His­ toric Preservation in Virginia” at a meeting of the Society on Nov. 22, 1968. He is chair­ man of Virginia Historic Landmarks Com­ mission, a former president of the American Association of Museums, vice president of American Association for State and Local His­ tory and holder of other imvortant positions in the field of history. He has been at WilDr. Alexander liamsburg since 1946. By E dward P. A lexander For many, many years thoughtful men have recognized the value of historical perspective. Sigfried Gidieon, the Swiss architectural his­ torian, describes its function well: To plan we must know what has gone on in the past and feel what is to come in the future. Living from day to day and hour to hour lacks dignity, is not natural, and leads to a per­ ception of events as isolated points, rather than as part of an historical process. Present day happenings are only the most conspicuous happenings in a continuum. Studying history, then, puts today’s happenings in their proper place in living, on-going movements that began in the past and will project into the future. Historical perspective is as important in its way as the keen contemporary observation of the social scientist or the laboratory experimentation of the pure scientist. It is an informing approach to knowledge, a way of understanding the world about us. This view of history, of course, in the minds of most of us makes two basic assumptions. In the first place we are thinking about social history, that is, history that will be relevant for all of us—what it was like to be alive in another age, what houses we’d have occupied, what kind of food we’d have eaten, how we’d have made a living, our sports and amusements, our education and religion, and a host of other con­ cerns of everyday life. We are not much interested in lists of kings or battles, elections or significant dates. In the second place, we are think­ ing about authentic history—not romantic fairy tales of cavalier an­ cestors with plumed hats, not moonlight and honeysuckle, not bigcolumned buildings and lost causes. We want the hard facts, the homely details; we beg the historian “to tell it like it was.” This kind of living history is stimulated by the preservation or 8 �restoration of full-scaled, three-dimensional historical environment. In fact more than two thousand years ago, that wise old Roman, Cicero, observed: Whether it is a natural instinct or a mere illusion, I can’t say, but one’s emotions are more strongly aroused by seeing the places that tradition records to have been the favourite resort of men of note in former days, than by hearing about their deeds or reading their writings. Historical buildings have length, breadth, and thickness, and so do their accompanying landscape and furnishings. When human beings experience this realistic historical environment, their sensory percep­ tion goes to work—their sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and the kinetic (muscle) senses begin communicating impressions. The result is that the viewers add a fourth dimension to the environment they are experiencing. It is an emotion or feeling of retrogressive time— an insight into what it was like to live in a past age. History books appeal to our reason and help us understand the past. Historical en­ vironment arouses our emotions and creates historical mood that lets us feel almost as if we were there. We thus add our own fourth dimen­ sion to history. The historical approach does not mean that tradition is to stifle the imagination of the present. Scientists, sociologists, and historians all make new discoveries and create adaptations useful to their day. But they are not foolish enough to ignore the accretions their prede­ cessors have contributed to the fabric of civilization. Nor must historic sites and buildings be allowed to prevent the building of new schools or useful highways. Thomas Jefferson was entirely right when he ob­ served: “The earth belongs always to the living generation.” The ideal compromise will keep the best of the past and use it for presentday needs. So much for the underlying reason for historic preservation. Let us now look at some methods by which it can be accomplished. The chief contribution of the United States to the early preservation movement was the concept of the historic house, and the most famed historic house was Mount Vernon. Ann Pamela Cunningham, a frail little woman from South Carolina, saved Washington’s plantation home after the Federal Government and the Commonwealth of Virginia had failed. Miss Cunningham formed the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union, raised $200,000 to buy the plantation, and in 1860 opened it to the public as a historic house museum. When Miss Cunningham retired as regent of the Ladies’ Associa­ tion in 1874, she made a Farewell Address, as her great hero had done before her. 9 �... A _ # (photo courtosy of Mount Vornon Ladies' Association) Miss Ann Pamela Cunningham, the South Carolina lady who saved Mount Vernon. Ladies, she said, the home of Washington is in your charge— see to it that you keep it the home of Washington . . . Those who go to the home in which he lived and died wish to see in what he lived and died. Let one spot in this grand country of ours be*saved from change. Miss Cunningham’s chief object then was historical—to keep Washington’s plantation home unchanged so that visitors could under­ stand and appreciate it. Since her day, American preservationists have considerably broadened their objectives. William Sumner Appleton, founder of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities in 1907, saved more than 50 buildings during his career. He emphasized the architectural or aesthetic values of structures and frequently pre­ served those that had little historical interest but were instead the work of master architects or important architectural type specimens. He also played down the museum aspect of historic houses and often continued them in residential use or converted them into headquarters for clubs, offices for professional men, restaurants or tea rooms, or stores or antique shops. Such adaptive uses needed to be consonant with the preservation of the structure, but they often gave landmarks an economic viability far greater than they could obtain as house museums. In 1926 Colonial Williamsburg broadened the historic house con­ cept by preserving and restoring the major portion of an entire town, and since that day many historical villages have appeared in this coun­ try, either as actual on-site preservation projects or as outdoor museums with authentic buildings moved to a convenient plot and provided 10 �with suitable landscape and furnishings. These historic villages present a larger and more varied slice of history than single houses can do. A different application of this idea has been the historic district, a part of a living city given over chiefly to residential and adaptive uses. The first of these in the United States were the bay area of Charleston in 1932 and the Vieux Caree of New Orleans soon after­ wards. The historic district often succeeds in saving houses that would not survive individually under ordinary historical or architectural cri­ teria. The fact that they add atmosphere to the historic district assures their preservation; this is a case where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Today there are more than 80 historic districts in this country, usually protected by careful zoning acts and supervised by boards of architectural review. We have several of them in Virginia, including Alexandria, Charlottesville, Fredericksburg, Leesburg, Richmond, and Williamsburg. In 1954 the United States Supreme Court in Berman v. Parker upheld the validity of such architectural controls and declared “it is within the power of the legislature to determine that a community should be beautiful as well as healthy, spacious as well as clear, well balanced as well as carefully patrolled.” Two other movements have advanced historic preservation on a national scale. In 1935 the National Park Service began “to preserve for public use historic sites, buildings and objects of national signifi­ cance for the inspiration and benefit of the people of the United States.” Today the Park Service supervises 96 natural or recreation areas and 145 historical sites. In 1949 Congress chartered the National Trust for Historic Preservation which now enrolls 16,000 members and advises and coordinates preservation efforts throughout the private sector. To summarize the how of historic preservation then: Historic house and historic village museums number about 2,000 and preserve structures of historic significance and architectural beauty. They attract heavy visitation by tourists throughout the nation, and these tourists help support the preservation movement, directly through admission fees and the like and indirectly through expenditures for lodging, meals, transportation, and incidentals. In fact, tourism has be­ come big business in many states and foreign countries; it gives in­ creasing support to historic preservation. Some 80 historic districts within America cities emphasize the values of historical environment through residential and adaptive uses. They add historical interest and architectural beauty to the city-scape, and they also give citizens an important feeling of pride. As sociologists and social psychologists have pointed out, individuals need to identify with the society in which they live, and well-planned cities provide their 11 �residents with civic pride and thus help avoid feelings of futility and boredom that can lead to delinquency, crime, and riots. Historic dis­ tricts, then, are closely linked with good city planning. Together these varied approaches have created a great panorama of historic sites, buildings, and objects across the land that tell the social and architectural history of the United States from Jamestown and Plymouth down through the skyscraper and Frank Lloyd Wright. This history is open to everyone, and more and more American families are exploring it as travel becomes easier and vacations longer. The story is huge and ever expanding; a person could spend a lifetime trying to see it all. The General Assembly of Virginia in 1966 determined to promote and coordinate historic preservation in the state by establishing the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission. The Commission has a big job assigned to it. First it is making a survey of historical, architectural, and archaeological sites and buildings of state and national interest. After nearly a year of intensive work, it looks as if the Commission will inventory more than 4,000 sites and buildings. As the survey goes on, the Commission is authorized to certify the landmarks and set up a State Register of them in printed form. If the owners of each landmark will agree to preserve its external appearance according to standards set by the Commission, the Commission will certify the landmark and enter the agreement in the proper county or city deed book. The Commission will inform the local tax assessors that the certified landmark may be entitled to a lower assessment be­ cause its commercial or residential value is reduced by reason of the designation. The Commission will also mark the landmark with an appropriate plaque. The Landmarks Commission is authorized to set up a similar sys­ tem of certification for historic districts. In these cases, however, the Commission is to aid and encourage the county or city involved to create such a district. Landmarks in the district, however, can be certi­ fied, marked, and reported to the tax assessors. The Commission can actually acquire and administer landmarks by gift or purchase, though thus far no significant funds are available for such purchases. The Commission may also secure historic easements under which the owner of a landmark agrees to give up his right to change the appearance of the landmark and its surroundings. Two other activities, formerly administered by the Virginia State Library, have been turned over to the Landmarks Commission. One is the financial supervision of grants-in-aid to several historical agencies and preservation projects. The other is the state historical marker system that so well covers the commonwealth. Both these functions are natural and valuable adjuncts of historic preservation and deserve professional attention and development. 12 �Virginia is thus one of the most enlightened states in the field of historic preservation with its new landmarks legislation. The national government is also taking steps to create a unified national program. The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, under the supervision of the National Park Service, established a National Register to which our Virginia State Register will send national, state, and local land­ marks for listing. The national act also provides matching grants to the states for landmark surveys and for the acquisition of landmarks. In the latter case, the state involved must pay 50 percent of the purchase price and agree to assume the maintenance costs. Thus far, however, the act has not been properly funded, and no matching grants have been made. A most significant part of the National Act of 1966 sets up an Advisory Council on Historic Preservation that includes the Secretaries of the Interior, Housing and Urban Development, Commerce, and Treasury; Administrator of the General Services Administration; At­ torney General; Chairman of the National Trust for Historic Preserva­ tion; and ten lay members. No federal or. federally assisted project that affects a landmark listed in the National Register can be approved until the Council on Historic Preservation has been given an opportunity to comment on the undertaking. This provision applies to varied projects including not only the customary highways and dams but also the new atomic power plant not far from Jamestown Island or the extension of the library of the Medical College of Virginia near the White House of the Confederacy. Other national action of importance sets up safeguards for land­ marks in the Transportation Act of 1966 and provides funds for his­ toric preservation of landmarks in urban rehabilitation projects under the Housing and Urban Development Act. Fincastle and her church spires as seen from "Prospect," the McDowell home. Will the quiet Botetourt County seat be established as a historic district? 13 �What, then, is the future of historic preservation in Virginia as the Landmarks Commission and the federal legislation become fully operative? We can hope for the following general courses of action f 1. A small number of important landmarks will become museums, some of them receiving state assistance but with increasingly profes­ sional standards for their authenticity and their interpretation. 2. Many important and less important landmarks will be saved for residential or adaptive uses—a few with state grants, some under historic easements, but most of them as certified landmarks entitled to certain tax considerations. 3. Some landmarks, often less important in themselves but worth saving because they form part of a historic district, will be preserved chiefly by zoning ordinances and architectural controls but also as certified landmarks entitled to certain tax considerations. 4. The Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission will increase in usefulness as it coordinates the efforts of state, federal, and local governments and private organizations and individuals to promote historic preservation in Virginia. Julian Boyd said not long ago that American historic houses, parks, restorations, and monuments “constitute a vast textbook across the land, wherein millions of people may deepen their experience, renew their acquaintance with the roots of their institutions, and oc­ casionally encounter those rare moments of understanding and insight that regenerate our strength.” The Landmarks Commission intends to preserve the historical and architectural treasures of Virginia and to see them used wisely for the inspiration and benefit of all her citizens as well as for those who visit this historic Commonwealth. Salem Is "Improving Fast” An optimistic view of the county seat was taken by William E. Howbert in this brief description written May 10, 1856. Howbert’s report is part of a Civil War scrapbook in the Virginia Room of Roanoke Public Library. Salem is situated in Roanoke County near Roanoke River and on a very nice piece of ground. It contains a good many handsome buildings. The Court House and Roanoke College, the Town Hall and three churches are very fine buildings. The sidewalks are nicely paved and nice young trees growing up which will be good shade trees in course of time. The town is growing larger fast and the inhabitants are a good many and a great increase daily and yearly. There are seven or eight doctors in Salem and 10 or 12 stores and confectioneries and a few shoemaker shops and little stores. There are two taverns or hotels large in size. The town is im­ proving fast and perhaps in course of time it will be a very large town and a nice one too. 14 �Edward William Johnston And Roanoke Female Seminary By Margaret P. Scott and Rachel W ilson About the year 1820, Charles Johnston of “Sandusky,” Lynchburg, established a watering resort on his property at the springs on Carvin’s Creek in Botetourt County.' This member of the second generation in America of a distinguished Scottish family continued to operate Bote­ tourt Springs until his death in 1833." These facts are familiar to anyone conversant with the history of Hollins College. What is not so widely known, however, is that like many members of the Johnston clan, this proprieter of a resort was a person interested in intellectual things. Certainly he could observe keenly and write force­ fully and reliably of what he experienced. His literary gift is shown in his Narrative of the Incidents attending the capture, detention and ransom of Chas. Johnston, of Botetourt County, Virginia, who was made prisoner by the Indians, on the River Ohio, in the year 1790* This was published by Harper’s in 1827. Thus in addition to his preparation of the site which his nephew, Edward William Johnston, later selected for a school, Charles of Botetourt could write an account of adventure in the old northwest of which considerable portions were considered as late as 1905 worthy of reprinting in a collection of Narratives of Captives published in Cleveland.4 The interest of the Johnstons in reading and writing—in schools and schooling—was demonstrated by the first member of that family to settle in America. In 1727 Peter the immigrant arrived from Scot­ land to establish himself at Osborne’s Landing on the James River in V irginia In that center of tobacco inspection and shipping he became a merchant of some importance. In 1761 he married the widow Mary Butler Rogers. In 1765, when their first son, Peter the second, was two years old, Johnston moved his household westward to the Piedmont of Prince Edward. There on the Richmond road east of Farmville he built his homestead “Cherry Grove” (later called “Longwood” ) where in 1768 his son, Charles, was born. A firm believer in education and determined that his sons should receive a sound one, Anglican Peter I aided the Hanover Presbytery in the foundation of Prince Edward Academy. His donation of 100 acres of land was accepted by the presbytery in February, 1775, and in May, Miss Scott and Miss Wilson, emeritus professors at Hollins College, have done a great deal of research on the school and its forerunners, Roanoke Female Seminary and Valley Union Seminary. Both are Hollins graduates. Their original title for this paper was Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit,” or “It may be that in the future you will enjoy remembering these things.” 15 �two years later, the academy was named Hampden-Sydney College.5 In one of the college’s earliest sessions, Peter II was enrolled to study for the ministry. However, with youthful ardor he took the patriot side in the developing conflict with Britain, left college at seventeen and enlisted in the legion of “Light Horse Harry” Lee. Young Peter fought in the southern campaign of 1780-1782, in 1782 under General Nathaniel Green’s command. The war over, Peter “read law” and began to prac­ tice. He married Mary Wood, niece of Patrick Henry. He became a Jeffersonian in politics, in 1805-1806 and in 1806-1807 representing that faction in the Virginia House of Delegates. He was speaker of the House in ’06-’07. In 1811, Peter II moved to southwestern Virginia where he estab­ lished his family at “Panicello” near Abingdon. He became a dis­ tinguished judge of the Superior Court of the Southwest Virginia cir­ cuit. Exemplifying his family’s concern with education, Judge Johnston gave steady support to Abingdon Academy.6 In view of the judge’s interest in the school as well as the fact that his son, Joseph Eggleston, was a pupil in it, it is likely that the older son, Edward William, enrolled there also. There is no record of the latter’s matriculation at Hampden-Sydney College.7 Indeed, we know nothing of Edward William Johnston until he appears in the late 1830’s as a schoolmaster in the village of Liberty (the Bedford of nowadays) in Bedford County. About the time oP Edward William’s birth at “Cherry Grove” in Prince Edward County—perhaps in 1805—Mrs. Elizabeth C. Leftwich had opened Bedford County’s first boarding school for girls. The Bed­ ford Female Seminary evolved from this school. It was conducted by the Rev. and Mrs. Vinal Smith. Like the Rev. Joshua Bradley, the Smiths came to Virginia from the state of New York. Their regime was brief; the principal who followed them was the Rev. Jacob Mitchell. After a short time he was succeeded by Edward William Johnston. It was in 1837, we think, that the new head assumed responsibility for the little academy at Liberty. In March of 1839, however, Johnston moved his school to Botetourt Springs. In its new home the school became the Roanoke Female Seminary, doubtless taking its name from the newly created County of Roanoke.8 There are only a few scraps of information about life at the John­ ston school during its brief time in Liberty. In the fall of 1838 pupil Elizabeth Steptoe assures her mother that she is studying very hard and that one new scholar (sic) has recently come from Lynchburg. Elizabeth’s first cousin, Frances Mennis, writes to the same lady that the school has no good fires and that she does not like the place “near as well as I did last session.” Frances goes on to say that “Mrs. Johnston doe not treat the gearls (sic) as well as she used to . . . as for Mr. J. 16 �I don’t believe there is any difference in his treatment.” In the midst of this rather unhappy letter the dinner bell rings and Frances concludes with the not surprising observation that the girls are always hungry before dinner. Perhaps Frances’ spirits rose at the prospect of the Christmas party planned by the Johnstons. Of course, pupils did not go home for the holidays. It was from her daughter, Elizabeth, that Mrs. Steptoe learned of “Mr. Johnston’s intention to go to Botetourt Springs to teach. He has bought that place and will move next March to com­ plete the ten months session there . . . He expects to do great things when he gets there.” Elizabeth adds that Mr. Mitchell, the drawing teacher will go along, and that “Mr. Bozzaotra will accompany the ac­ complished folks over there to give lessons on the piano and the guitar.” We hear no more from young Elizabeth until the Liberty school has migrated west to Botetourt Springs, there to become the Roanoke Female Seminary. Then she writes as one of that first group of school girls fortunate enough to enjoy the experience of springtime at Hollins. “I never saw a place I like even half so well as the Botetourt springs,” says she. It is true she admits to getting lonesome. But she goes on to tell her mother of the increased enrollment. “A Miss Lewis from Charleston Kanawha, a Miss Bowyer and Allen from Fincastle with a Miss Dabney from Lynchburg” have arrived since Elizabeth’s last letter home. Her account of springtime diversions has a familiar ring. “We had a delightful party here on the first of May.” A number of guests were invited and evidently a good many came, though “ a little rain just before sunset” prevented some from attending. However, “our general and almost only amusement now is bathing in the creek.” Sewing oc­ cupied some leisure hours. Elizabeth says “we stand in great need of our frocks” ; evidently the girls are working on their summer clothes. Black sewing silk and white kid cut from the tops of long gloves would be a welcome contribution from home. The letter closes with “Fanny Mennis and Sally Langhorne join me in love to you all.” Mrs. Steptoe in June writes to her niece Fanny and her daughter “dear and far off Sally.” For the most part, her letters deal with two matters perennially important to girls at boarding school: clothes and a box of “eatables”—“for which you crave so much”—that will arrive soon at Botetourt Springs.9 We have a copy of a letter written that summer of 1839 bv the head of the school to his nephew, Cadet J. Preston Johnston,'® at West Point. “We are charmed with our inhabitation and the new pleasures and con­ veniences it offers us. Our school is a good one,” Johnston says, and adds that it is already bringing in a good income. He expects that the new term will see more of an enrollment. There will be changes in the faculty: his sister, Jane, and her husband (Michel 1 are leaving, as is “Cousin Sue.” But “Cherie” (Johnston’s wife, Estelle de Coster) naturally will continue at the school where her mother will join her, 17 �“perhaps to take up her abode.” Mr. Bozzaotra plans to stay on. By late November, however, Johnston’s optimism is beginning to wane. On the 26th of that month his niece, Eliza Johnston, writes to her brother, the West Point cadet, from their home at Burke’s Garden in Tazewell County. She tells him that “Uncle Edward writes me that he has but eleven scholars, and little prospect for more.” But Eliza is preparing to return to the Seminary and “he shall have one more as soon as I am able to get off.”11 By its second year and Eliza’s return to her studies, what sort of place was Edward William Johnston’s school at Botetourt Springs? The stage that came by each morning “on the Public Road” picked up letters written by that young miss which add considerably to the infor­ mation afforded by the scanty Steptoe-Mennis correspondence and by the proprietor’s comments of the previous fall. Eliza writes to the West Pointer of the “Great House” which was evidently the old Bote­ tourt Springs hotel on the site of the present West Building and some­ times referred to as “the school” or “the other house.” When asking her aunt Mrs. Floyd (of “Thornspring” in Pulaski County)12 for seeds for schoolgirl planting, she speaks of “our cabin doors” before which the flower garden lies. Here she is referring to a row of dwellings for the pupils which stood approximately where Main Building is today. Eliza makes mention also of Johnston’s large garden, of “cultivated fields,” of fruit trees and of “the creeks.” The young writer was full of enthusiasm that early spring. “I may with safety say that this is one of the best (if not the best) schools in the U. S.” It’s true that only 13 pupils were enrolled. However, “we are now expecting five or six new scholars every day.” She adds that gentlemen of the neighborhood are working for the school, undoubtedly with some success: shortly afterwards Eliza is able to write her brother of 25 or 26 scholars including “nearly all the old ones we had at Liberty.”13 But, alas, by mid-April the cheerful tone had changed! The num­ ber of pupils was “very small indeed” and there was little expectation of a pickup in numbers. Eliza Johnston’s letters give us also some impression of studies at the seminary. She has praise for her teachers, especially the principal —“Uncle Edward is an excellent teacher”—and she anticipates that the new session (the fall of 1840) will see an improvement generally at “the Springs.” That summer she had written Mrs. Floyd about her dancing master, “Mr. Goodsicki of Richmond,” a Polish exile. “He is a capital dancer and teaches beautiful steps,” doing waltzes and galopades to perfection. His manners are those of a “perfect gentleman,” not of a dancing master; “his romantic history has interested us all very much.” Dancing lessons are from four to six p.m. On this subject Eliza concludes with “besides being a dancing master he is also a Catholick 18 �Female Seminary at Botetourt Springs as pictured in 1854-55 catalogue. (sic)—his wife has a city maid and a lap dog.” No wonder that shortly thereafter his pupil had to tell Mrs. Floyd that she was in need of new shoes. “I have nearly danced out those you sent me and cannot get others conveniently in the neighborhood.” Besides dancing, concerts were a part of the school routine, and dresses as well as shoes in demand. Eliza’s “cambrick” has not arrived. “I would like to have it for the last concert,” which, along with “review lessons,” was scheduled for midsummer before the beginning of vacation. Eliza was not too sanguine about her progress in musick (sic). Mr. Bozzaotra said she forgot easily, while his pupil admitted to especial trouble with “time.” But she hoped by improvement to allay her aunt’s apprehension. And improve she did. Her French grades told a different story. Eliza received the extra credit given for French conversation at mealtime “at the other house.” Her June report was the school’s highest and her mark in foreign lan­ guage helped to make it so. She requested Mrs. Floyd to send on a copy of Corinne,'■* “not the translation but the original work.” Good grades in studies were not necessarily accompanied by similar ones in conduct. Eliza admits receiving “bad” marks “for walking across the yard with­ out my bonnet,” for “speaking in school,” and for “not being present one morning at prayers.”15 In other words, our young correspondent had run afoul of the principal’s catalogue of do’s and don’ts for his charges. This formidable document is a revealing Victorian period piece. Upon the ringing of the bell prompt attendance was expected at both morning and evening prayers. Failure to answer at roll call meant a demerit, as Eliza had found out. Sunday was supposed to be devoted entirely to moral and 19 �religious study and activity. Saturday was not Sunday, but even it was to be occupied in “mending clothes, attending to some household art or something improving.” The gospel of improvement, indeed, echoes throughout the Rules. Rule 20 clinches the matter: “There must be no Idleness. Pupils must endeavor to render their very Recreation useful. When not taking Exercise, they must read or work. No plays (sic) will be suffered in the House, unless with the governess’s permission.” One way of busying otherwise “idle hands” for which Satan might “find some mischief still” was to require the schoolgirls to take care of their rooms daily between morning prayers and breakfast. Each room had a student “inspectress.” It was she who was responsible, moreover, for giving out and receiving back the laundry. Every girl was to bring from home a list of her clothes. What she might wear was definitely prescribed, and included no jewelry whatsoever.'6 Johnston’s regulations seemed designed to govern every aspect of his girls’ behavior. Servants were to be treated considerately. Proper manners required also that “no greediness or Daintiness (sic) must be discovered” at table—where “pupils must either learn to speak French or be silent,” a rule doubtless honored as often in the breach as in the observance. Respect was assumed both for the school’s property and for that of fellow pupils. In sum, nothing was acceptable that could injure the reputation either of the school or of the individual pupil. Enough has been cited to show what a tight regimen the Rules of the Seminary at Botetourt Springs prescribed. And the daily schedule of busy bees like Elizabeth Steptoe and Eliza Johnston undoubtedly implied strict routine. However, the reader of schoolgirl letters is bound to conclude that those enrolled at the Johnston school by no means confined themselves to work or to “rendering their very recrea­ tion useful” ! We remember that Elizabeth Steptoe had written home in 1839 of wading in the creek, and of a “delightful” celebration of May Day. There is no reason to think that the next year girls were not pleasuring themselves in the same fashion. That summer Eliza Johnston wrote to her cadet of a party in “the Great House” honoring “the old lady who completed her sixty-ninth year today.” She speaks of feasting on this occasion. A feast indeed—on terrapin and cherry pie! The enter­ tainment which impressed the young people most, however, was the picnic held at the Falls of Carvin’s Creek. At the “little cascade” “Mrs. General Watts” (Mrs. Edward Watts of “Oaklands” in Roanoke County) was the hostess and among the good things set out were juleps—“the girls took a pretty good pull of it,” says Eliza. Rules about dress evidently had little effect upon the girls’ con­ cern with clothes. In March 1840, Eliza wrote Mrs. Floyd that she needed “gloves, corsets, shoes and handkerchiefs.” The last item was in especially short supply and she “had better get a half-dozen new ones”—in Fincastle, no doubt, as her corset was to be made in Bote20 �tourt’s capital. A month later, however, Eliza reported that she had not been able to have the corset made, moreover, she was still m need ot handkerchiefs and also of a white dress “as I have no nice uniforms (sic).” Maybe disappointment about her wardrobe explains the com­ plaint that school life was going on in “a monotonous manner.” Every now and then a vacation helped to break the “monotonous routine of a ten months’ session. At Christmas there were two days of holiday; at Easter and on the Fourth of July one day. Occasionally a trip home was a reward for “unusual diligence.” From time to tune parents visited the school, where, said the principal, they would always be entertained with pleasure.” .iH H . ___ In late October of 1840, Eliza wrote from Burke s Garden«7 to her brother that she was to spend the coming winter in Richmond at Mr Perico’s school”—this in spite of the fact that she seemed to have found Botetourt Springs reasonably satisfying. “If it had been left entire y to m e ” she said, “I think I would have chosen his (i.e., her uncles) school.” But she withdrew from the Roanoke Female Seminary, and with her went our only source of information about the little academy. We do know that Edward William Johnston’s school was not long continued by him after the “low” session of 1840. The Botetourt Springs property was bought in 1843 by the Valley Union Education Society. This local group proposed to operate the Valley Union Senunary at t Springs and did so for some twelve years. Joshua Bradley who had been running a school on the site was instrumental in the organization of the Society to which women of the community as well as; men belong­ ed. Bradley became the Seminary’s first principal m 1843. Like John­ ston he saw his school lose teachers and pupils. The board of the Seminary replaced him in 1846 by Charles Lewis Cocke who was destined not only to save the Valley Union Seminary but to become the founder of Hollins College. In the meantime, Edward William Johnston had spent several years at “Lauderdale,” the house of his cousin, Judge Edward Johnstom This farm is about twenty miles from Hollins College. We have in the Hollins Archives a letter written by Edward William from Lauder­ dale” on Feb. 14, 1844, to Dr. John H. Griffin of Salem about the re­ curring illness of his wife, Estelle. From his Cousin Fanny s Memo­ randum we know that Edward William had abookstore in c^ rleston, South Carolina, at one time - We also know that he wrote, a¡ t a g g cal sketch of Hugh Swinton Legare as an introduction to the latter s Writings published in Charleston in 1846 - This same year_he was writing for the National Intelligencer, a Whig paper published inWa L t o n D. C. He contributed to the Southern Literary Messenger and quarreled with the editor of the Richmond Exammer, John ^ D a rn e l, over the merits of a statue by Hiram Power,5. This Greek Slave ended in a duel, fortunately bloodless.* In 1848, Edwa 21 �Edward William Johnston as a librarian in St. Louis. William Johnston was made a corresponding member of the V irginia Historical Society, along with Lt. Matthew Fontaine Maury and other distinguished Virginians.22 After the death of his first wife, Johnston married a Mrs. Woolley of Louisville, Kentucky, and just before the outbreak of the Civil War he went to St. Louis, where he served as librarian of the Mercantile Library of that city. His portrait—of which Hollins has a photograph—hangs in that library today. He is buried in St. Louis where he died in 1865.23 Ties with Botetourt Springs did not cease for the Johnstons when Edward' William left this community. His great-great-niece, Caroline Hughes Neal, was graduated from Hollins in 1953. Other Johnston daughters who have been at Hollins include Alice Johnston Williams ’92 and her two daughters, Virginia Williams Lee, A.B. ’28, and Jane Williams, B.M. ’30. Eloise Johnston—the sister of Mary Johnston, the novelist—was a student at Hollins during the sessions of 1888-1890. The most recent member of the family to graduate from Hollins was Helen Converse Putzel, A.B. ’63, the granddaughter of Agnes Hughes Johnston who came originally from Abingdon. According to strong Johnston family tradition Agnes came to Hollins about the time of the Civil War. We assume that for some reason her stay was short as we have not yet been able to find her record. However, to the end of her life she had a warm affection for and interest in Hollins, and because of her Helen Putzel came to this college. 22 �Long may the Johnston daughters continue to come to Hollins; long may two small and ancient springhouses, so reminiscent of the earliest history of this area, continue to grace the campus; and may Hollins in fulfilling her destiny never forget her own small beginnings or the little Roanoke Female Seminary, one of whose Botetourt Springs buildings was still being used by Hollins in 1900. This was the “Great House” of Eliza Johnston’s letters. The land and buildings that are known today as Hollins College have been across the years an important part of the life of the Roanoke Valley Hollins, the first chartered school for women in Virginia, is a part of the history of the State. One sees here in brick and stone a pleasing and extraordinarily complete evolution from past to present. With this historic setting is associated the story of some remarkable men and women. Edward William Johnston “rejected . . . superficial studies,” “Smatterings of sciences.” The subjects offered in his school were to be “solidly taught,” and to this end “male teachers alone” were “employed.” Charles L. Cocke was more tolerant of women teachers. In fact, several of his graduates did distinguished work at Hollins In­ stitute These women in turn eventually sent some of their best students on to graduate work. And it should be noted that the men and women who taught here long ago not only acted on a faith that women were educable, they also believed in the pursuit of excellence in learning. Hollins benefits today from a double heritage. Her authentic his­ toric setting and her long tradition of excellence in academic training and performance are today—as they always have been—qualities which set Hollins apart in the minds of the alumnae of the College. FOOTN OTES , Deed Book 14, p. 16, Fincastle Courthouse, Botetourt bounty, V a.: ^C h^ tU n^ O T n*^ and Elizabeth his wife to Charles Johnston. Bargain and sale. Dat May 8, ArehiVes: Photostat of the Richmond, Virginia Constitutional Whig, May 3, 1825, p. 1. Charles Johnson advertises Botetourt Springs. h A Narrative of the Incidents 3 Fishbum Library, Hollins College: g h M les«J o n M O ^ ^ | ^ g ^ | g county, Virginia, , River £ »o ¡ 3 1 w,th ,u“st" t,ve aMedotes- New York: printed by J. and J. Harper, 82 Cltff bt., April 10, 1827. It is more The author's introduction, written at Botetourt Spring y ls ® |h as been found to that than likely that the Narrative was written at the same place, iso proui effect, however. . . „ „« Charles Johnston of Virginia. 4 Incidents attending the capture, detention and c ks Cleveland: The Barrows Reprint from the original, with introduction and notes by E. E. Sparks, Lleveiana. roe BrotherS5 C o m p ^ w1905.American BlograDhyi ^ AUen Johnson and Dumas Malone, New York. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1931, Vol. X, t valor- The Story of General Joseph E. Gilbert B. Govan and James W. lavingood, * Company, Inc., 1956, pp. 12-13. Johnston C.S.A., Indianapolis and New York The_Bobbs M em u L»nip y Wilson, New Robert M. Hughes, General Johnston, Great Commanders senes, eu. York: D. Appleton and Company, 1893, pp. 1, 5-7. 6 D.A.B., op. cit., Vol. X, p. 144. Govan and LAvingood, op. cit., PP. 7-8. LewhfSpreston‘"Summers, History Southwest Virginia, 1146-1786, Washington County, 1771-181». Richmond, Va.: J. L. Hill Printing Co., 1903, pp . 768-769. 23 �7 Hollins Archives : Communication from the Alumni Office, Hampden-Sydney College, Nov. 13, 1961. 8 Edward William Johnston at Liberty and Botetourt Springs a) Hollins Archives 1) Fanny R Johnston, Memorandum, typescript, p. 1. Copy of original MS. Material furnished by her nephew, J. Ambler Johnston. 2 ) i ail? Circuit Court of Bedfo-d County, Va. Letter and enclosure, August 23, 1961. Miss Smith and Mr. Duvall Radford of Bedford very kindly searched the 1834-35 Acts of Virginia General Assembly and the Bedford County records for data concerning the Bedford Female Seminary. b) County Records 1) Deed Book 21, p. 5, Fincastle Courthouse, Botetourt County, Va.: Jas T. Royall, executor of Chas. Johnston, sells to Hezekiah Daggs 475 acres including Botetourt Springs. Dated Dec. 18, 1833. Recorded Dec. 13, 1834. 2) ?®fd A ’ p- fM* A alem Courthouse, Roanoke County, Va.: Hezekiah Daggs and wife Margart (sic) to sell to Edward William Johnston the Botetourt Springs property, 475 acres. Dated. April 20, 1839. Recorded April 23, 1839. Land Book, iS39-!844, Salem Courthouse, Roanoke County, Va.: Edward William Johnston s tax assessment for 1842. _ 9 Hollins Archives: Letters written to and by Mrs. Elizabeth Steptoe of "Fairview ” *t838, tw° let*ers ° n tJie same stationery, Nov. 24th; 1839, May 8th and June 24th. let*er,s were given to Joseph A. Turner of Hollins College by Annie Lowrv of Bed­ ford. Mr. Turner notes that Miss Lowry is related to the Johnston family 19 20 1R47 ?nrSi°rf 0™ ^ ° ” • IWS? during the Mexican War at the battle of Contreras, Aug. an account of this battle see: Robert Selph Henry, The Story of the Mexican War, Indianapolis-New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1950, p p . 329-337. opTnlttarw fetters from Students and Others Connected with the Roanoke Female Seminary at Botetourt Springs, 1931. Unpublished typescript. Unpaged B liiliP R bV i" he tecam eaS or e ™ o f oT v” r g ^ a Oreg0n He ^ " 0f the ? aon’ Jo1?? Buchanan Floyd (1806-1863), was born in Montgomery County at "Smithfield,” ^cam eh CnJoinnr1^ fbv ? n r?St*re,do.oy J Vssociation for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. He an anttsecessionist f VirglIua m 1849' He was Secretary of War under President Buchanan. He was 1840 i« <?)’ 184°- Two advertisements: One dated Feb. 14, dated Feh™20 W' tM' Pf yi™ ' ¿ ohn E- Richardson: the second is Ed. W. Johnston's '¡SP' the courtesy of Mr. M. Carl Andrews, Editor of the Roanoke World-News, ailn, <£ Mlss Virginia Earp (A.B. 30, Hollins), Librarian of the Times-World Corporation, we were able to examine a photostat of these 1840 advertisements. o a « ^ . i ' t „ M.a<!a m e.ae ?.ta®!’ c ®rinne °u l'ltalie, Paris: Nicole, 1807, 3 vo’s. France’s first interot I h e novej^\niSp?^™entlCally..cosmopoli,t,aIll K is also a frank defense of feminism. The success sc h o o le iX fn S S I aS imi ” ens.t-. 14 would be interesting to know how many American We know1 t h a t we re reading this novel m the scattered small schools across the country. We know that it still was being read at Hollins in the 1860’s. ' ,s RoUins Archives: Copies of Letters, on. cit., especially letters of March 11 and July 1, Seminary HolIins Archives: Photostat, Edward William Johnston, Rules of the Roanoke Female ^ d Citaur arirti oeirtian’-.SP;i,dit'- Edward William Johnston’s own advertisement prescribes "Dress” in detail and ends with this injunction, "Jewelry forbidden.” 17 In Tazewell County, Va. S n o n sn riri «•°?er.’ A, Seed-Bed of the Republic—Early Botetourt, Roanoke, Virginia: sponsored 'by the Roanoke Historical Society, 1962, pp. 399-401 19 Fanny R. Johnston, op. cit., Typescript, p . 1. North Carolhmdp r 2 s e 193*UBh Swin4on Legare’ Charleston Intellectual, Chapel Hill, University of ^ r? n h ,^ Plv„.4nCl?de5 ..Writings of Hugh Swinton Legare of which Vol. I is prefaced by a “BioJohnston! (sic)? written by E W.J. ’. Miss Rhea attributes the “Notice" to Edward William 5, „ . ' ' Botiert M. Hughes and Joseph A. Turner, “Roanoke Female Seminary, Valley Union S e m in ^ , Hoi tas Institute, Hollms College,” WiUiam and Mary Quarterly Historical Magasine, voi. LX, Second ser., October 1929, p. 329. 22 The Virginia Historical Register and Literary Advertiser Vol. II, January 1849, p 53 staff nf2fh „'si! I*]? ■ gr? ftly indebted to Mr. Paul Greer, for many years a member of the editorial B M P ‘he St. Louis Post Dispatch, for locating Edward William Johnston’s portrait in St. Louis and for three informative letters about Johnston’s life there. BIBLIOGRAPHY PRIMARY SOURCES Edward William Johnston C o u n t P h o t o s t a t of letter to Mrs. Letitia Preston Floyd of "Thornspring,” Pulaski 1839, Sept. 27: Original letter to Mrs. Emma Breckenridge of Fincastle, Va. Printed copy of Johnston s Rules and Regulations included. ,1840’ duly (?): Lynchburg Virginian. Photostat of advertisement for the summer term of the Seminsiry at the Botetourt Springs.” Applications are to be made to Ed W. Johnston, Botetourt Springs, Roanoke. Dated Feb. 20. 1844, Feb. 14: Original letter written from "Lauderdale” to Dr. John H. Griffin of Salem, Roanoke. Papers marked "Literary Remains.” These seem to be class lectures. Some are in Johnare litera* and'Mstorical1'618 Were copied £or him by a member of his family. The subjects 24 �Fanny R. Johnston , ' ^ , . ., , ^ v. Typescript of Memorandum* written c. 1875* with notes by J. Ambler Johnston of Rich­ mond* Va. (Miss Fanny Johnston, the family historian, lived for two years at Botetourt Springs with Edward William Johnston’s family. She was the granddaughter of Charles Johnston of Botetourt Springs. Mr. J. Ambler Johnston is his great-grandson.) Letters Four original letters by and to Mrs. Elizabeth Steptoe of Bedford County, Va. These letters were given to Joseph A. Turner by Annie Lowry of Bedford, a relative of the Johnstons. Copies of Letters from Students and Others Connected with the Roanoke Female Seminary at Botetourt Springs, 1931. Unpublished typescript. Copies of the Lowry letters cited above are included. The greater number, however, (19 of the letters) were lent for copying to Joseph A. Turner by Judge Robert M. Hughes of Norfolk, son of “Eliza” Johnston, author of most of them. PRIMARY SOURCES Periodical The Virginia Historical Register and Literary Advertiser Vol. II January, 1849. Chain of Title of Hollins College. From Carvin to the present. Courtesy of Mr. John D. Carr of Hazlegrove, Shackelford, and Carr, Attorneys-at-Law, Roanoke, Va. County Records Botetourt County: Fincastle, Va. Deed Book 14, p. 16 Deed Book 21, p. 5 Roanoke County: Salem, Va. Deed Book A, p p . 121, 128. Land Book, 1839-1844. SECONDARY SOURCES: BOOKS Dictionary of American Biography* eds. A. Johnson and D. Malone, Vols. VI, X, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1931. Gilbert E. Govan and James W. Livingood A Different Valor The Story of General Joseph E. Johnston* C.S.A. Indianapolis—New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1956. Robert S. Henry The Story of the Mexican War Indianapolis—New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1950. Robert Morton Hughes General Johnston Great Commanders Series, ed. James Grant Wilson New York: Appleton & Company, 1893. Charles Johnston I _ , „ A Narrative of the Incidents Attending the Capture, Detention and Ransom of Charles Johnston of Botetourt County* Virginia New York: printed by J. and J. Harper, 82 Cliff St., 1827. Incidents Attending the Capture* detention and ransom of Charles Johnston of Virgini» Reprint from the Original with introduction and notes by E. E. Sparks Cleveland: The Burrows Brothers Co., 1905. Lula Jeter Parker History of Bedford County* Virginia Bedford, Va.: The Bedford Democrat* 1954. Linda Rhea Hugh Swinton Legare* Charleston Intellectual Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1934. . T. . . . I Bibiography includes Writings of Hugh Swinton Legare of which Vol. I is prefaced by a “ Biographical Notice” written by "E.W.J.” Miss Rhea attributes the "Notice to Edward Robert Douthat Stoner?*A Seed-Bed of the Republic—Early Botetourt, Roanoke, Virginia Sponsored by the Roanoke Historical Society, 1962. Lewis Preston Summers History of Southwest Virginia* 1746-1786, Washington County, 1777-1870 Richmond, Va.: J. L. Hill Printing Co., 1903. SECONDARY SOURCES: Periodicals and Newspapers Robert M. Hughes “The Fighting Editor” Address to the Virginia Press Association, January, 1926 William and Mary Quarterly Historical Magazine Vol. VII, second ser. January, 1927. Robert M. Hughes and Joseph A. Turner “Roanoke Female Seminary, Valley Union Seminary, Hollins Institute, Hollins College” William and Mary Quarterly Historical Magazine VqI. IX, second ser. October, 1929. Raymond Barnes 4, “Hollins Has Changed—Girls’ 1840 Dress Strict at Old Roanoke Seminary” Roanoke World-News, November 20, 1965 H R _ . 10.A Article based on advertisements in the Lynchburg Virginian, July (?), 1840. Virginia Lee Cox Richmond Times Dispatch, February 27, 1927 Article based on letters in the Hollins Archives _ written by pupils at the Roanoke Female Seminary. 25 �(photos by Bob Phillips) Dr. Henry Clay Hart of Roanoke Valley Health Institute. Is There An Older Roanoker? Mrs. Lena Hart Hoback, daughter of Dr. Henry Clay Hart and the last living member of a well-known family, is recognized for two reasons. She claims the record for living more than 90 years in Roanoke and Big Lack. And she has given the Roanoke Historical Society a portrait of her father who died in 1918 at the age of 81. Mrs. Hoback, who was 90 on Sept. 13, 1968, says she has never lived outside of what is now Roanoke. She wonders “if there is anyone else who has my record? I was born under Mill Mountain and I want to die under Mill Mountain.” The portrait, done by an unknown artist in 1888 when Dr. Hart was 51, has been handed down from Mrs. Hoback’s parents. Dr. Hart came to Big Lick in 1876, just two years before Mrs. Hoback was born, from Corning, N.Y. The family lived at Bonsack for a time in 1875. Dr. Hart purchased “Magnolia,” the old brick house on Orange Avenue at the intersection of Williamson Road. Built by Zechariah Robinson, apparently in 1837, it was a tavern for the stagecoach trade. Dr. Hart, a hydrotherapist, operated the Roanoke Valley Health In­ stitute. Mrs. Hoback, the last of seven children, lives at the Methodist Home. Her late sister, Mrs. Alma Hart Keyser, who was born June 23, 1882, claimed to have been the first baby born in the new town of Roanoke which was chartered on Feb. 3, 1882. However, the late Harry P. Fishburn was born here on May 4, 1882 and his cousin, Miss S. Ella Fishburn, was born May 17, 1882. 26 �Story of Streams--II Five Rivers Flow West By Goodridge W ilson “Western waters” is a term designating streams rising west of the crest of the Alleghany watershed and ultimately flowing westward. Springs run off in branches, branches make creeks, creeks make rivers. A branch, creek, or river west of the national watershed may flow in any direction, but all belong to river systems, trunk streams of which carry their flow eventually in a westward course. The master system of the region that this paper deals with is that of the Ohio River, which ultimately receives all water of the entire region that is not evaporated or absorbed locally, and sends it to the Gulf of Mexico by the Mississippi River. Each contributary system of the Ohio has its own trunk stream that carries its water into the next larger system. All western waters of Virginia are in that part of Southwest Vir­ ginia which is west of the Alleghany divide. Five trunk rivers carry them out of the state on their more or less devious way to the Ohio. Names of the five are: New, Holston, Clinch, Powell, and Big Sandy. Western waters of Virginia and her neighbors have great signifi­ cance, both geographically and historically. The land blessed by their presence is land where “The West” begins and the stage upon which were enacted early scenes in the great historical drama that brought all of the vast territory into the United States. When I was a small boy I would read in a daily paper about big league baseball. Pittsburgh is listed in the western division of National League teams, along with cities in the western states. That puzzled me. Pittsburgh is in Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania is an eastern state. Why is it put in the western division? The answer is simple. Pittsburgh is in “The West.” It is in the part of Pennsylvania that is drained by western waters, along with most of West Virginia and parts of Virginia and North Carolina. All of Southwest Virginia from Blacksburg and Christiansburg, and the Blue Ridge Parkway through Floyd and Carroll counties to the West Virginia and Kentucky state lines is in “The West.” Much of Lee County is nearer to Knoxville than to Bristol. Cumberland Gap in Virginia is nearer to the capital of Illinois than it is to Richmond. Dr. Goodridge Wilson continues the Journal’s series on the rivers of western Virginia with a paper on five streams which flow from, the far southwest into other states. Dr. Wilson, long a student of Virginia history, has written The Southwest Corner in the Sunday Roanoke Times for 40 years. A Presbyterian minister, he lives in Bristol. 27 �That fact of geography is significant in many ways. To mention only one, it makes Southwest Virginia one of the principal gateways into the great Mississippi River basin. Historically, “The West” as English speaking country began on Southwest Virginia soil. Southwest Virginia “blood, sweat, and tears” have been expended copiously in winning and holding it. The first permanent settlement under the British flag in all of “The West” was planted beside New River waters. The first blood shed in the French and Indian War that decided whether “The West” should be French or English was spilled along Virginia’s western waters. The earliest record in the archives at Richmond of a legally recog­ nized attempt to start settlements on the western waters is a petition to the Governor and Council of Virginia to grant Col. James Patton and associates 200,000 acres in that region. It was filed in 1743, but not granted until 1745 when the petitioners, organized as the Wood’s River Land Company, were authorized to take up about one half of the acreage they originally applied for. That action by the Council in the spring of 1745 formally opened the land of the western waters to legal surveying and settlement. Prior to that action by the Council of the Colony on April 26, 1745, quite a number of German families, and perhaps a few of Scotch-Irish or English descent, had chosen some sites, and were living in log houses on them, as far west as Max Meadows on Reed Creek. The claims of these settlers, squatters on the land, were legalized by their paying the Wood’s River Land Company for what they wanted. While I know of no document to prove it, which certainly does not mean that no such document exists, the probability is strong that Col. Patton and others were on New River and Holston for the purpose of finding choice locations prior to 1743. Certainly traders and hunters had been there and some residents on the Roanoke prior to that time may hâve surveyed some choice tracts. Since New River was the subject of an article in this journal in Summer 1968, I will say no more about it except to comment briefly on its name. Its original English name was Wood’s River, given it in honor of Abraham Wood who discovered it either in person or through an ex­ pedition which he sponsored and sent out from his station at the site of Petersburg. According to a persistent tradition, Gen. Wood discovered the stream himself in 1654 when he led a party through Wood’s Gap in the Blue Ridge and down Little River to its mouth. No written proof of this has been found. In 1671 he organized and sent out the Batts and Fallam expedition which reached the river and explored it for some miles, keeping a journal of the trip which may be read now in sundry publications. The earliest appearance of its present name that has come to my knowledge is in an entry of Dr. Thomas Walker’s journal made while 28 �he was with the German folk along the stream in 1750. In that entry he wrote the name “New River.” The Indian name of the river was Kanawha, spelled in a variety of ways. The Indians slurred the first syllable, emphasizing the “na-wha” in such a way that it sounded like the German word for new. The Germans began calling the river that word in their language and when speaking English translated it “New.” Several explanations of the origin of the name have been proposed but this one, given to me by the late Prof. Daniel A. Cannaday of Radford College, is most likely the correct one. Three of the trunk streams of the four other river systems of Southwest Virginia, within the great Ohio system flow out of the state into Tennessee. The fourth, Big Sandy, flows directly into the Ohio. The Big Sandy is mostly a Kentucky stream, but its Russell Fork drains Dickenson County and a part of Wise, and makes the increasingly famous and magnificent Breaks of Cumberland. Pound River, a tributary of Russell Fork, has two federally fin­ anced flood control dams that create scenic lakes suitable for water sports. Levisa River drains Buchanan County and adds its flow to Big Sandy. Both of these streams were notable in times past for their “splash dams,” which enabled residents of Virginia’s Sandy Basin to raft logs down the big river for sale to Kentucky saw mills. Powell River can hardly be classified as the trunk stream of a river system. It is a large tributary of the Clinch, but a small river with few if any so-called rivers among streams that flow into it. But it is one of the historic rivers that rise in Virginia mountains and flow into Tennessee. Its head springs mingle with those of Guest River, another tributary of the Clinch. The right fork of Powell River, flowing through the gap in Big Stone Mountain that named the town, provides a water grade for 29 �a highway and a railroad between Appalachia and Norton. Its left fork passes through an exquisite scenic gem of the mountains, called Powell Valley, forming the junction of streams which makes the river that flows through Big Stone Gap town and traverses Lee County. Winding in its valley between Walden’s Ridge and the Cumberland Mountains, the Powell joins the Clinch in Tennessee. A well written history of Powell River, its valley, its events and its people could be a fascinating story. In the journal of his 1750 horseback ride looking for good land in Kentucky, Dr. Thomas Walker named the stream Bear Grass Creek. Ambrose Powell, one of his companions, carved his name on a tree. Some years later “long hunters” who read that carving in beech bark named the stream Powell River, which in turn gave its name to Powell Valley and Powell Mountain. That Ambrose Powell was a direct an­ cestor of Gen. Ambrose Powell Hill, one of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s corps commanders in the War Between the States. The Patton petition for a land grant in 1743 specified land on New River and on two Mississippi River streams west of it. The two streams are Holston River and Clinch River. (photo by Norfolk and Western Railway) A placid scene on the Clinch River. 30 �An Indian name for Clinch River was Pelissippi, supposed to mean “Clear River.” In his 1750 journal, Dr. Thomas Walker commented on it when his party crossed it in Tennessee. He said it was named for a hunter who discovered it. W. C. Pendleton’s history of Tazewell says the hunter was William Clinch from somewhere in eastern Virginia. Thus that beautiful, historic river is named for an otherwise unknown individual who happened to find it while on a hunting trip some time before 1750. Not only the river, but a mountain range, towns, a railroad, a coal field, nationally known industrial firms, and a college bear the name of that unknown person. Clinch River’s head springs are in the northeastern corner of Tazewell County near Bluefield. Gathering strength from springs and creeks as it goes, it traverses Tazewell County, flowing southwestward through the town of Tazewell, passing Pounding Mill, Cedar Bluff, Richlands, sweeping across Russell County, washing an edge of Wise, and crossing Scott to enter Tennessee. Picking up Powell River and other tributaries, it rolls on to join Tennessee River below Kin­ ston. By generating power for Oak Ridge and other TVA enterprises it has powerfully affected modern warfare and world-wide commerce and industry. Early settlements on Clinch waters were made in Tazewell County in the middle 1760s. The Castle’s Woods settlement in Russell County started about 1770. Its name is derived from an albino whose last name was Castle. He lived somewhere in what is now Rockbridge County. He had a way of wandering off alone into the deep woods and mingled on friendly terms with Indians who treated him with deference because of his pink eyes and white hair. He made a deal with some Indians who claimed that region, by which he acquired what he considered valid ownership of a large body of land along the Clinch, where he lived with natives and begat half breed children. He called his domain Castle’s Woods. Although he had disappeared from the scene when the Dickensons, Russell and others moved in for permanent occupation they adopted the name for their frontier community. During Indian warfare of the Dunmore and Revolutionary War period a chain of forts along the Clinch afforded protection to settlers and their families. Over a part of 1774, Capt. Daniel Boone was in com­ mand of operations involving those forts. Among Indian names for Holston River are Hogoheegee, Callomanco, and Cootcla. A large tributary is the Watauga, said to be a Cherokee word meaning beautiful river, which L. P. Summers m his History of Southwest Virginia and Washington County implies was the Indian name for the main stream. Early surveys under the Patton grant call it Indian River. Dr. Thomas Walker is supposed to have dubbed it Holston in recognition 31 �of a daring exploit of Stephen Holston. An entry in Walker’s journal for March 24, 1750 says he “met Stalnaker between Reedy Creek and Holston in 1748.” That seems to be the earliest written use of the name. Dr. Walker had a penchant for naming streams, mountains and places. The evidence indicates that he immortalized Stephen Holston’s name by giving it to this splendid stream in recognition of a remarkable achievement of that young man and some companions. In the mid 1740s, Stephen Holston was on Catawba Creek in present-day Botetourt County, presumably with his parents who were pioneer settlers in that region. Sometime in 1745 or 1746 he ventured into the west and stopped at a bold spring whose branch flowed southwestward. On a hillside about 30 feet from the spring he built a log cabin, and went to work clearing land and planting corn to acquire corn right title to some acreage. In 1747, having harvested his corn, he sold his land title to James Davis and induced some other bold adventurers to go with him down his spring branch and find out where it went. They made canoes and rode the springtime flow all the way to Natchez, Miss. There they dis­ posed of their canoes and found their way back to Catawba Creek on foot. Stephen Holston married Lucy Looney. After a varied career full of danger and adventure they lived out their last years on Holston waters in upper East Tennessee, where people of substance and promi­ nence are still proud to claim them as ancestors. Stephen Holston’s spring was one of several head springs of the Middle Fork of Holston located close to the Wythe-Smyth county line. Exactly which one of them it is no one seems to know with certainty. The head spring of the North Fork of Holston is in Bland County on the grounds of the old-time summer resort called Sharon Springs. The South Fork is formed by the junction of three mountain brooks at Sugar Grove in Smyth County. The three are Slemp Creek that runs down the mountain south of Sugar Grove along the road from Marion, Cress Creek and Dicky Creek that flow out of Iron Mountain to the northeast. South Fork, gathering tributaries from Iron Mountain, the Mt. Rogers-White Top area and Tennessee, joins Middle Fork below Damas­ cus. From that junction to Kingsport, Tenn., the river is usually called South Fork of Holston. A few miles above Kingsport it is joined by the beautiful mountain river called Watauga, which flows out of North Carolina into Tennessee. The scenic North Fork, twisting along bases of Brushy and Clinch mountains, flows out of Bland from its source at old Sharon Springs as a small creek, increases in volume as it passes through Smyth, Wash­ ington, and Scott counties, to join South Holston at Kingsport. From 32 �that junction the stream is known as Holston River until it gets together with the French Broad near Knoxville to make the Tennessee River. The Tennessee River draws its water not only from Virginia and Tennessee, but also from North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mis­ sissippi. Of the many rivers that combine to make that mighty torrent it is practically impossible to say which is the main stream in its upper course. Donald Davidson in his “The Tennessee” in the Rivers of America Series says: “Most remote from its mouth are the headwaters of the Holston, which rises in Southwest Virginia at a distance of 916 miles from Paducah. If the Holston can be identified with the Tennessee, as it often used to be, then 916 miles would be the length of the main river.” In 1889 the legislature of Tennessee supported this view to the extent of declaring Kingsport, in Sullivan County, to be the upper limit of the Tennessee. But in 1890 a federal statute recognized the junction of the French Broad and the Holston, a few miles above Knoxville, as the point where the Tennessee ought properly to begin. It has been said that “the Tennessee was once the wildest and most untameable river in America, but now it is only the dammedest.” It has been tamed by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Norris Dam, main source of power for Oak Ridge industries, is on Clinch River, well below its junction with the Powell. The Norris Dam lake, however, extends far up both streams. Watts Bar is on the main stream of the Tennessee immediately below the mouth of Clinch River near Kingston. It impounds Clinch River waters, making a second lake on the Clinch. Five TVA dams are on Holston waters. Cherokee Dam is some miles above the junction of the Holston and French Broad. Fort Patrick Henry Dam is near Kingsport on the South Fork above its junction with the North Fork. A few miles above Fort Patrick Henry, Boone Dam is a short distance below the junction of South Fork of Holston with Watauga River, making large lakes on both streams. Watauga Dam above Elizabethton makes a big, exquisitely beautiful lake in the Tennessee Mountains. Wilbur Dam is a little one below the big one on Watauga River, which was in operation before TVA started and was taken over and enlarged by the Authority. South Holston Dam, near Bristol, is in the foothills of Holston Mountain below the Tennessee line-. Its great lake extends twenty miles into Southwest Virginia. 33 �Longwood Was Salem's Castle “Dead at 64” is the epitaph for Longwood, the Victorian mansion in Salem which was destroyed by fire in a snowstorm last November. Built about 1904 by Thomas Henry Cooper, a wealthy West Virginia coal operator, the big house remained in the Cooper family until January, 1942. It was purchased at an auction by the Town of Salem and used as a community center for a quarter-century until it was outmoded by the new Salem-Roanoke Valley Civic Center. At the time of the fire, a private club was preparing to renovate the second floor. The site appears destined for another Salem city building. Salem’s council de­ cided that rebuilding would not be practical. Although its life was little more than one generation, the mansion long has been regarded as a landmark, an architectural curiosity and a nostalgic reminder of a bygone age of leisure. Students at nearby Roanoke College and children of Salem called it “The Castle.” The gingerbread design of the tower, orange-tiled roof, bay win­ dow, porches and the rich carved woodwork and paneling inside made it a unique building representative of the Victorian era. Descendants of Cooper say the mansion cost $100,000 to build in the early 1900s. But after the death of Mrs. Cooper in 1941, Salem bought it for $20,100. Its stained glass windows, fireplaces carved by European artisans, a sweeping staircase, a music room, and a third-floor stage have seen many parties, plays, small concerts, receptions and other social gather­ ings. Longwood has stood on land once owned by Nathaniel Burwell, an officer in the Revolutionary War and owner of extensive holdings in Botetourt County. The 15-acre tract, owned by the Johnson and Nugent families before it was purchased by Cooper in 1903, was the site of an earlier brick house. The name “Longwood” preceded the present mansion. A two-story carriage house was unharmed by the fire but another outbuilding was destroyed in a fire about 18 years ago. Cooper, said to have driven the first electric car in Salem, was born in Pennsylvania of English parents and came to Roanoke College after working as a breaker boy in West Virginia coal mines for his father. He succeeded his father as one of the largest operators in the Pocahontas coal fields and he served as president of the Colonial Bank and Trust Co. in Roanoke and the Cooper Silica Glass Co., Salem. Cooper, who died in 1911 at the age of 41, married Mary Ella Busey Barnitz, daughter of Judge and Mrs. William M. Barnitz of Salem, and they had eight children. Four are living today. 34 �(photo by Kathy Thornton) Longwood before the fire. Roanoke Cows In 1898 In his 844-page “History of the City of Roanoke” published in February, Raymond P. Barnes, writing of 1898, says: It is impossible to write a history of Roanoke about any early year without mention of the cows. The “anti-cows” succeeded in having a cow law passed prohibiting these animals from roaming about at night, but this law was evidently a dead letter. To pre­ vent depredations of cows, most property owners built picket or wire fences around their premises. The picket fence was most attractive. Some property owners vowed that roaming cows knew how to open gates. There was much complaint that cows entered private yards during the night time and devoured expensive shrubs and flowers. In summer, the cow enjoyed a cooling sleep on the sidewalks and in winter found these thoroughfares the driest bed­ ding places. In sections, not well lighted, the late pedestrian often stumbled over sleeping cows. The bicyclist found it nothing amiss if the feeble light of his oil lamp disclosed a cow asleep in the middle of the street. �Dr. Z. Kovner's surgical instruments of 19th century Roanoke. This rare tinder lighter, first used about 1775, was given by Mrs. S. H. McVitty. MRS. J. G. McCONKEY DIES Mrs. Claudine Williamson McConkey, a director of the Society since its organization, died March 15. She was the wife of James G. McConkey and a member of the Williamson family which gave its name to Williamson Road. 36 ��� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society Winter 1969 Volume 5, Number 2 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />Collectors' Items Span Four Centuries<br />Saving Virginia's Treasures<br />Edward William Johnston and Roanoke Female Seminary<br />Is There an Older Roanoker?<br />Five Rivers Flow West<br />Longwood was Salem's Castle<br />Roanoke's Cows in 1898 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Winter 1969 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_05_02_Winter_1969 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6344/JHSWV_06_01_Summer_1969.pdf 295c127902201f1274ee13904f1fae4e PDF Text Text JOURNAL of tLe ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Summer......... 1969 V o lu m e Six N um ber O ne �ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Amor montium nos movet J. T. Engleby i n .......... .................. President Robert W. W o o d y ............... ---- Vice President Arthur Ellett ................. .............. Treasurer J. R. Hildebrand ................ ................ Secretary Mrs. J oel Willis Richert Executive Secretary Directors Raymond P. Barnes Jack Goodykoontz Miss Frances Niederer '•‘C orner Bast Robert Goodykoontz E. H. Ould C. P. Blair Miss Anna Louise Haley James D. Richardson John D. Carr J. R. Hildebrand — Tayloe Rogers —"Stuart Carter Miss Nancy E. Hirnes Mrs. English Showalter Mrs. H. Powell Chapman Shields Johnson —' Mrs. Frank E. Snow C. Francis Cocke George Kegley R. D. Stoner Mrs. John Copenhaver Mrs. George Kegley Paul S. Stonesifer S. S. Edmunds i R. S. Kirne David F. Thomton Arthur Ellett Mrs. H. P. Kyle James L. Trinkle J. T. Engleby III Mrs. J.M.B. Lewis Jr. William Watts B. N. Eubank Miss Nancy Logan James P. Woods Edmund P. Goodwin *—Mrs. S. H. McVitty Robert W. Woody Mrs. Edmund P. Goodwin Richard L. Meagher Dr. J. C. Zilhardt L. G. Muse * S[! GEORGE KEGLEY Editor of the JOURNAL CONTENTS Lewis Miller, Folk A r tis t................................................................... New Claim for Oldest Resident ..................................... ............. .... Johnny Rebs Fron Virginia and the Fairer Sex by James I. Robertson Jr................................... New President, Secretary N am ed ..................................................... The Four Anderson Brothers by Ellen Graham A nderson.............. Early Preston Papers Given ............................................................. Roanoke River: Once Called Saponi, Round Oak, Goose Creek by Raymond P. B a rn es.................. St, Mark’s, Fincastle, Has Roots 200 Years O ld .............................. New Books On Old T hem es................................................. ............. Appalachian Dialect: Vivid, Virile and Elizabethan by Wylene P. D ia l.................. “Kefauver’s Folly” ............................................................................. History Is Examined At Natural B rid g e............................! . . ! ! . ! . Two Fort Sites Explored ................................................................. 1 7 8 14 15 30 33 37 39 41 51 52 54 Cover sketch of Mill Mountain, Roanoke, by J. R. Hildebrand The Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Volume VI, Number 1. Published twice yearly by the Society at Box 1904, Roanoke, Va. 24098, to chronicle the past and present of that part of the state west of the Blue Ridge. Single copy price for members: 50 cents; for non­ members, $1. The Society will be careful in handling unsolicited mater­ ial but cannot be responsible for its loss. �Lewis Miller, Folk Artist Lewis Miller (left) as photo­ graphed in later years. He is buried in Christiansburg (above) where he died Sept. 15, 1882. Lewis Miller, recognized as one of America’s greatest folk art­ ists in his native York, Pa., spent the last quarter of his life with relatives in Christiansburg where he is buried in an overgrown family cemetery. Miller, a Pennsylvania German carpenter who lived from 1796 to 1882, left more than 2,000 paintings and sketches recording the daily lives, customs and dress of his fellow Yorkers, as well as events he witnessed in his broad travels throughout the East and in Europe. Many are owned by the Historical Society of York County but an album of 114 watercolor drawings depicting scenes in Montgomery, Roanoke, Botetourt, Rockbridge, Pulaski, Giles and Wythe counties, mainly in 1856-57, is the property of the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond. Some are owned by relatives in Christiansburg and others are held in private collections or by the Henry Ford Museum and the New York Historical Society. His work was largely unre­ cognized until recent years. Most of Miller’s drawings are accompanied by a charming text in English, German or Latin, with “appropriate comments about every­ thing he saw, heard and recorded, whether trivial or historic in im­ portance,” according to a handsome 183-page book, “Lewis Miller, Sketches and Chronicles,” published in 1966 by the Historical Society of York County. His Christiansburg relatives say the Collections of Miller handed down in the family describe him as “very eccentric.” During a final �Lewis Miller and his nephew, Charles A. Miller, visited six counties in a four-week trip in July, 1846, illustrated by this sketch from "Lewis Miller Sketches and Chronicles," published by the York County, Pa. His­ torical Society. illness when he was in his 80’s, Miller “sat up in bed with his hat and coat on.” A bachelor, he traveled “as long as he could.” The late Miss Mary Craig, with whom he made his home in Christiansburg, told members of the family that Miller “didn’t do anything but sit and draw,” at least in later years. Miss Craig was a member of one of the first and prominent families of Christiansburg. James Craig settled at what was known as Hans Meadows and here he gave the land for the first courthouse near his home the old “Red House,” at the present intersection of U. S. 11-460 and Rt. 114. His son, Robert Craig, served five terms in Congress and later lived west of Salem. Papers held in Christiansburg tell of Miller’s ancestors whose original seat in Germany was Erbach. Lewis Miller’s father, Johann Ludwig Miller, lived at Schwabisch-Hall and apparently sailed from Rotterdam to Philadelphia in 1772. He lived and is buried in York. “In the year 1840, when I Ludwig Miller, visited the old city, several citizens showed me the house where my grandfather had lived in the lower part of the city,” the artist wrote after a visit to the “old country.” (Ludwig is German for Lewis). 2 �A "bird's eye point of view," known on July 5, 1871 as Fisher's View, continues to be a point of interest today in southeastern Montgomery Coun­ ty, near the Floyd line. Miller portrayed the neat houses in the village of "Fayet," in^ eastern Montgomery County. The village of Lafayette remains about this size, 100 years later. 3 �Salem and the Roanoke River valley were sketched by Miller, pre­ sumably in 1853. The higher range in the center is Fort Lewis Mountain, as the artist faced north. Miller drew this sketch of Big Lick in 1853. His exact location is not known but his notes referred to the "new rail road depot" which served as a "way station." 4 �As he rode through Botetourt, Miller completed this sketch of the village of "New Amsterdam" in 1853. Some of these homes probably re­ main In Amsterdam today. The artist said this view of Fincastle, also in 1853, was from the New Amsterdam side. He later added information about the town fire in 1870. �Miller s brother, Dr. Charles A. Miller, lived in Christiansburg, and a nephew, Charles A. Miller, accompanied him on many of his travels. The only Virginia illustration in the York County book shows Miller and his nephew riding from Christiansburg to Pulaski, Wythe, Roanoke, Botetourt and Rockbridge counties “on horseback, four weeks.” For later generations, Miss Craig mimicked Miller’s “broken English but very correct German.” The artist “had a quaint way about him, the family recalls. And “Uncle Lewis,” as he was known in the family, undoubtedly had a temper for one of his expressions re­ membered today is “I’ll knock you hellwards.” Vivid colors were captured in his works. And there was no end to the variety. As he started his “Chronicles of York, Pa.” Miller wrote, “All of this Pictures Containing in this Book. Search and Examine them, the are true Sketches I myself being there upon the places and spot and put down what happened.” His sketches show an engine house with leather fire buckets, pulling down the steeple of an old Lutheran church in 1805, church congregation and choir assembled for worship, a wagon placed atop the market house by boys, a neighbor sawing a limb off a cherry tree, many people of York, a neighbor frying sweet potatoes, theft of beef from a butcher, militia men drilling, a square on main street, early railroad cars, bear-baiting, butchering, a circus in 1807 and an election in 1836, and many other incidents. “I was fond of being present were od and Strange people are,” Miller wrote, “and so many living in the Country, of such kind and manners, curious in there dress and ringlet (wrinkled) cheeks. What ideas in such people.” He ilustrated national events as well. The funeral procession for George Washington, Gen Lafayette’s visit to York, campaign pro­ cession for Henry Clay, surrender of York in the Civil War and the assassination of Lincoln are shown in his work. Miller is described in the York County book as “the chronicler of rural life in America from 1800 to 1882 . . . His bequest to pos­ terity is one of the greatest and most complete pictorial records of an era ever created by man.” This evaluation of a man who “made an unbelievable graphic record everywhere he went” comes from Dr. Donald A. Shelley, executive director of Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, in the introduction to the York County book. His drawings are marked by their realistic accuracy and faces have individualistic character with constantly changing details and costumes and accessories, Dr. Shelley said. He used about eight colors and some cutout papers. In his travels he apparently worked with the paper that was available. 6 �Last seven sketches are from Virginia State Library. The town of Buchanan, with its covered bridge over the James River at right, sat at the foot of Purgatory Mountain in 1853 much as it does today. In a New York Times book review, Roger Butterfield, author of “The American Past” and other works of biography and history, called the Miller volume “one of the choicest treasures of American folk art . . . an archive of pictorial gossip and history which richly documents rural and village life in America in the decades before photography took over.” Miller was self-taught, Butterfield wrote. “ . . . his drawings were often close to caricatures, and his use of perspective was childlike. But his pictures swarm on these pages with exuberant vigor and humor.” N ew Claim for Oldest Resident The claim of Mrs. Lena Hart Hoback that she was the oldest living resident of Roanoke and Big Lick (See “Is There An Older Roanoker?” in the Winter, 1969 Journal) has been challenged a month after Mrs. Hoback’s death. Miss Annie Lee Luck Fishburn, was born in Big Lick, April 4, 1874, and lives today at the home of a nephew, Blair F. Fulton, in Roanoke. The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Reuben Fishburn, she is a sister of the late Blair Fishburn. Mrs. Hoback, born Sept. 13, 1878, died July 26, 1969. She was the daughter of Dr. Henry Clay Hart, who owned Magnolia, the brick home on Orange Avenue at Williamson Road, built in 1837. 7 �Johnny Rebs From Virginia and the Fairer Sex By J ames I. Robertson J r. In the summer of 1861, a forlorn Virginia Confederate soldier wrote his cousin: “I have not seen a gal in so long a time that I would not know what to do with myself were I to meet up with one, though I recon I would learn before I left her.”1 This sentiment was indicative of most of the Civil War’s parti­ cipants. The fairer sex were of supreme importance to the common soldiers of that war. Wives, sweethearts, even casual female acquaint­ ances, occupied the greater portion of soldiers’ thoughts. A girl’s pride in her soldier eased the pain of his departure for war; her abiding faith often sustained the soldier in combat; and around lone­ ly campfires during the dread lull between battles, soldiers would “grow silent and gaze into the glowing embers of the fire, and picture to themselves the forms of early years, the shape and scenes of by­ gone days, build castles in the flames and sigh and long for the time when war’s loud roar shall cease . . . ”2 Modern generations tend to overlook the absence in the Civil War of the USO, American Red Cross, Salvation Army, radio, tele­ vision, or special services. No organized means of diversion and rec­ reation existed to bolster morale. Soldiers of a century ago were left to their own devices and thoughts. Since most GI’s of the Civil War were away from home for the first time, and since romance was more deeply ingrained in them than in their modern-day counterparts (because life was so less complicated), Johnny Rebs of the 1860’s lived—and died—with loved ones ever on their minds. This is why the Civil War produced the greatest outpouring of letter-writing of any period in American history. In Virginia Polytechnic Institute’s continuing search for letters, diaries and reminiscences of the Old Dominion’s Confederate soldiers, much material has come to light. Many of these documents give a rather vivid picture of the average soldier’s affection for a loved one. They reflect how this affection at times buttressed, and at times dampened, his spirits during the nation’s darkest hour. Short of a furlough, nothing in army life generated more enthu­ siasm than mail call. The sight of familiar handwriting, the joy of Recently appointed head of the Virginia Tech History Depart­ ment, Dr. Robertson has spoken to the Society and his article on “Vir­ ginia’s Neglected Soldiers” appeared in the Summer, 1968 Journal. He is recognized as a leading Civil War scholar and writer. 8 �news from home, were brief but exhibiting respites from the deadly atmosphere of war. A Richmond infantryman observed of maxi call that “those who received letters went off with radiant countenances. If it was night, each built a fire for bght and, sitting down on the ground read his letter over and over. Those unfortunates who go none went off looking as if they had not a friend on earth! Acknowledging one of his first letters from home, a lieutenant from Montgomery County stated: “Your letter filled with love was Oh how joyfully received on yesterday. I can not express my emotions when I opened it & found it was penned by your dear hand, and when I finished reading it every page was moistened with my tears. 4 The craving for female companion­ ship was constant among Confederate troops. Letters of Virginia soldiers reflect pointedly, and oftentimes humorously, the desire of the men to be with young ladies. As Private Ben C. Richardson of the 14th Virginia stated to an object of his affec­ tion: “Miss Nola, I had rather see you than to see my Grandfather or enny boddy else.”5 Another soldier, a member of Char­ lottesville’s 19th Virginia, bemoaned the scarcity of women in the area where his regiment was encamped. “Tell Buck,” he wrote home, “if he will come, down here I will give him as many dogs as he wants, but no pretty sweethearts. Now he can exercise his own choice, whether he will come and Miss Lavinia Langhorne stay where we have plenty of dogs and no Callaway of Franklin County probably wrote pretty faces or stay where the ladies are. to at least one soldier in I think myself if it were left to my choice the war. A school teach­ I would rather be with the ladies and never er, she lived from 1848 too. see a dog.”6 to 1936. James B. Hodgkin, a Virginia foot soldier wrote in l^terJ e^ e “I recall that one day word was passed along the line that the wife o ™r lieutenant had come to make him a H H ^ — Well, every man's neck was craned, every last private found busmess down the line and tried to catch a glimpse of the lady . . . Few of us'caught more than a fleeting glimpse . . . hut a thonsand stones of her, of her beauty, her plainness, her manners, were told CamPIn May, 1862, from the earthworks around Richmond, a cavalry­ man reported to a’ friend of a miraculous sight he had M H on Jeems River the other day I saw a - a - gal that ^ a ^ d y . n g h t thar, I lost my heart, as well as the little sense I had. Ef I could get 9 �that gal, I’d give anything that I’ve got. Yes! I’d even part with my new red cotton Handkerchief.”8 William H. Phillips, an Old Dominion infantryman whose letters are heavy on the subject of women, worked out early in the war what he considered a profitable solution to the woman shortage. To a kins­ man Phillips suggested: “You kiss Soo for me and tell Soo to kiss you for me and by manageing the thing that way I will get two kisses, and tell Feb if he possible can steal me a kiss from Miss Bettie and after he kisses her tell her it was for me, I would be very glad, in­ deed I would.”9 Much more enjoyable to the men, however, was being with members of the opposite sex; and a planned get-together suddenly cancelled because of military expediency brought a sagging of the spirits. Private John Worsham of Richmond’s 21st Virginia met with such a disappointment. Writing to his sister in November, 1862, Worsham observed: “I should go perfectly wild with delight to spend a day with a party of young Girls who are somewhat wild. (We) expected (ed) the presence of some young ladies in camp to day, but (we) have just received marching orders, so all that is knocked in the head.”10 Even the mere sight of females could be stimulating for soldiers. In June, 1863, the Stonewall Brigade passed through Front Royal and received a tumultuous welcome from grateful citizens. A home­ sick infantryman in the 4th Virginia commented: “The glance from the eyes of the lovely girls crowding the sidewalks caused our hearts to go ‘pit-a-pat.’ Many soldiers on the other hand, had considerable success in amorous pursuits. Lieutenant George Baylor of the 12th Virginia Cavalry later recalled: “The girls—bright, beautiful, charming girls —were abundant, and acted their parts nobly, and if a susceptible soldier now and then had a couple or more sweethearts, the fault was pardonable, as the temptation was irresistible. The girls understood the situation as well as the boys, and patriotism frequently impelled them to court more than one champion.”'8 Sometimes a soldier’s success with the ladies could backfire. In the autumn of 1863, a company of the 12th Virginia Cavalry camp­ ed along the Rapidan River. One trooper, an unwed man named Bob, chanced while foraging upon the home of a widow and her daughter. Very soon the cavalryman won their favors; and there­ after he was “faring sumptuously” while other members of his com­ pany who wandered that way “were treated pretty much as tramps” by the two women. Some of the soldiers thereupon hatched a plan to eliminate this monopoly their compatriot had established. 10 �One morning, two of the men appeared at the home of the widow and her daughter. While asking for food, they also mentioned their friend Bob. The old lady asked the visitors if they knew Bob; one of them replied: “Oh, yes, we live near him in Jefferson and are well acquainted with him and his wife and children also.” The widow exploded in wrath, while her daughter turned bright red from embarrassment. Then the two women gave the callers a lavish meal and return invitations. A day or so later, Bob himself rode to the house. He was bliss­ fully unaware of the new development and “full of the assurance of a joyous reception and entertainment.” He was just about to enter the house when both occupants assailed him with brooms and drove him from the premises. Not until the cavalry company had long de­ parted from the area did poor Bob learn the joke played at his ex­ pense.13 The Civil War triggered thousands of marriages as soldiers uncertain of the future took the smallest opportunity to bind them­ selves in wedlock with pretty and available girls. Mrs. Judith McGuire, an Alexandria matron, noted in her journal in November, 1963: I believe that neither war, pestilence nor famine could put an end to the marrying and giving in marriage which is constantly going on. Strange that these sons of Mars can as assidiously devote themselves to Cupid and Hymen; but every respite, every furlough, must be thus employed.”14 At that midway point of the war, the Confederate government began granting furloughs to soldiers wishing to be wed at home. This prompted an infantryman who preferred “to play the field” to write his parents in a disgruntled tone: “I never heard of so Much Marring in My life. Chet Walker just got a furlough This morning of 10 days to go home and get Married. . . I am a great Mind to start courting Myself . . . to get me a furlough.”15 Another source of resentment among many soldiers was the practice of the officers monopolizing the attentions of young ladies who paid visits to army camps. That the ladies too often seemed to prefer officers to privates irritated the common soldiers. Private Richard Waldrop of the 21st Virginia captured the anger of such Johnny Rebs when he wrote: “The picnic (Near camp) was an ex­ clusive affair, & I having neither Stars, bars, nor braid was not counted worthy to mingle, in the very select company . . . The ladies of this country are said to be addicted to Star-gazing & nothing of less brilli­ ancy attracts their attention. What is a miserable private fit for? A man had as well be a dog.”16 Knowledgeable or more experienced soldiers sometimes com­ pensated for lack of rank by employing imaginary titles, claims of 11 �great wealth, and the like in order to gain a lady’s favors. A North Carolina soldier-suitor bragged of acquiring fifteen Virginia sweet­ hearts through such falsehoods. He proudly explained his means of accomplishment. “They thout I was a saint I told them some sweete lies and they Believed it . . . After I got acquainted with them I would tell them I got a letter from home stating that five of my negroes had runaway and ten of Pappies But I wold say I recond he did not mind it for he had plenty more left and then they would lean to me like a sore eyd kitten to a Basin of Milk.”17 Virginia soldiers were not hesitant about opening their hearts when communicating with loved ones. On a lonely Christmas Day, 1862, Private J. B. Evans of the 4th Virginia replied to a lady-friend’s letter: “I antisipate you will have quite a nice time at youre proposed dinner I would like to be one of the pertisipants but alas I am doomed to weare a way the time in dull camp attending to My duties and it aint worth while to think about any thing else out side of camp but one cant help it some times to think of times past for it is a con­ solation to the poore Soldier when he is werry and tired and hongry &c. to think of Friends far away with the faint hope that one day he may be spared to see them a gain . . . ”18 Even more revealing is the correspondence between General E. Franklin Paxton and his wife in Lexington. From the banks of the Potomac, late in June, 1861, Paxton dramatically wrote: “I never knew what you were worth to me until this war began and the ter­ rible feeling came upon me that I had pressed you to my bosom, perhaps, for the last time. I always keep upon my person the handkerchief which I took from your hand when we separated . . . It may yet serve as a bandage to staunch a wound with. I keep one of your letters, which may serve to indicate who I am, where may be found the fond wife who mourns my death. May neither be ever needed to serve such a purpose!” Four months later, Paxton philosophized: “Our separation must continue until this sad war runs its course and terminates, as it must some day, in peace. Then I trust we may pass what remains of life together, loving each other all the better from a recollection of the sadness we felt from the separation.” Paxton’s hopes were never realized. He was killed at Chancellorsville while leading the celebrated Stonewall Brigade into battle.19 Similar tragedy befell another Lexington couple. Alexander “Sandie” Pendleton was but twenty-two years old when he was appointed chief of staff of the Army of Northern Virginia’s Second Corps. In the spring of 1863, he became engaged to vivacious Catherine Corbin. “I do love you so much,” he wrote, “& deem it a privilege to be able to minister to your happiness, to bear your 12 �sorrows & lighten your burdens, to share your joys, and heighten your enjoyments I have been very happy since I first loved « n d g g ought to be thankful that you have been able to brighten one life amid the sorrows of the times.” Yet the military campaigns of the critical year continually delayed the marriage of the young lovers. When m November a new Federal threat on Virginia again postponed the wedding, a disconsolate Sandie informed Kate that ‘“if hope deferred maketh the heart sick,’ then my poor organ is well nigh unto death. Finally, on December 29, 1863, Sandie and Kate were married. “How I do love to think about providing for you,” the young bride­ groom stated the following March. “How I do cherish the hope that soon we shall be together for good, & all the pleasures of home & peace be ours to enjoy together.” . . rn innPi Such was not to be the case. On September 22, 1864, Colone Pendleton was killed at the battle of Fisher’s Hill. Six weeks later, his widow gave birth to a son. The child lived but ten months before succumbing to diphtheria. It was then that young Kate Pendleton gave way to total grief. “I wonder people’s hearts don’t break,” she wrote her father, “when they have ached and ached as mine has done till feeling seems to be almost worn out of them. My poor empty arms, with their sweet burdens torn away forever.”20 The chaplain of the 17th Virginia remarked that every sold­ ier’s life has elements common to every other, and these elements make the history of the Civil War.”2' If that be true, then countless thousands of Virginia soldiers shared the sentiments of a lone­ some infantryman who once looked up after reading a letter and shouted: “If it were not for the ladies, God bless them, there would be no use in fighting this war!”22 Source material and research are still needed on the neglected common soldiers of the Confederacy. Each new series of letters, every diary, and even the smallest reminiscence, has the potential of providing a better understanding of the feelings and activities of the ordinary Johnny Rebs of the 1860’s. Few in that embattled gen­ eration knew who started the war, or why they were fighting. Even fewer saw excitement in the holocaust of which they were a part. War is fascinating, except to its principal actors. In a conflict as dramatic as the American Civil War, the old men wanted glory, the young boys craved adventure, and the infirm dreamed of heroics. Yet the soldiers themselves, as attested in their writings to the fairer sex, just wanted to go home. FOOTNOTES , W illiam H . Phillips to cousin, Ju n e 29, 1861, W. H. D uke U niversity. 2 Jo h n E . D ooley, JO H N DOOLEY, C O N FED ER A TE SO L D IER : HIS WAR JOURNAL, ed. by^ _T w 0? r t? m , ONE*OF**JACKSON’S FO O T CALVARY, ed. by J a m e s I. R obert­ son, Jr.^ <JJ aac^ “ n , H T e H u m o th e r. M ay 18, 1861, L anghorne le tte rs In th e possession of D avid G. L anghorne, J r ., B lack sb n rg , Va. 13 �5 B e n C. R ic h a rd s o n to “ M iss N o lak»,'1 “ M ar. 20, L ib r a r y , R ic h m o n d . 6 E d w a r d C ox to “ M iss P o r te r , 7 A n d re w C ro c k e tt to “ H e n ry M a ry F á g a t e , D a n v ille , V a. 8 C O N F E D E R A T E V E T E R A N , X IV (1906). 458. I3lbid., 160-61. 21 J o h n mm A R M Y 2(AtIJ ( A tla'n ta , L. Jo h n so n , 1904), 154. le tte r in nncnm ona, ó n d / j S , T « . « . ' 0 ” 1" ’ 9, 182, 191, 224-31 1862, M ARY ° F A SOBTHE*N REFUGEE * th e V irginia State 19UU), 290. D U R IN G iv n a p e i THE m u, WAR 1959), A U T O B IO G R A P H IC A L N O T E S ( n p 1958) 134 C H E IS T ,N T H E C A M P , O R R E L IG IÓ N IN T H E C O N F E D E R A T E N ew President, Secretary Nam ed Mrs. Joel Richert is the new executive secretary of the Society, succeeding Mrs. Pauline Carter, who has resigned and J. Thomas Engleby III, has been elected president. Mrs. Richert, a graduate of the University of Illinois, previously was active in cataloguing acquisitions at the Society’s museum in Salem. She is the wife of Robert Richert, a General Electric en­ gineer, and they have two children. Engleby, a Roanoke lawyer, succeeds Mrs. English Showalter, who has been president for three years. Robert W. Woody, vice president, Arthur Ellett, treasurer, and J. R. Hildebrand, secretary, were re-elected, as were the 44 members of the board of directors. 14 �The Four Anderson Brothers By ELLEN GRAHAM ANDERSON The Andersons from whom came Col. William Anderson of Wal­ nut Hill in Botetourt County, father of the four brothers, were of Scotch stock. The father of William was Robert Anderson, who was born in Ireland, County Donegal, about 1733, and died in Virginia July 22, 1825. This Robert (whom we call Robert II since his father back in Donegal was also Robert) emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1755, stop­ ping en route in Spain and in the West Indies. Landing in Philadelphia shortly after Braddock’s defeat, he found the inhabitants in a state of consternation lest the colony should be overrun by the French and Indians. He settled in Delaware, where after a few years he married Mar­ garet Neely, whose parents resided in that old colony. In 1769, Ro­ bert Anderson and his wife, Margaret, with their young son, William (born June 2, 1764), moved from Delaware to Virginia and settled on Catawba Creek in what was still Augusta County, but which be­ came Botetourt the next year. The sister of Robert Anderson, Catherine, had previously mar­ ried John McNutt and lived on a plantation six miles southeast of the present town of Lexington in what formerly had been Orange County, in 1745 had been Augusta County and in 1770 became Botetourt County. (In 1778 it became Rockbridge County.) Influenced, how­ ever, by the fact that his wife’s brother, William Neely, had settled farther west in Botetourt, Robert went on to the Catawba Valley, after visiting his sister in her home near present Lexington. The father of Robert Anderson II, Robert I, who remained in Ireland, was the husband of Catherine Graham. Tradition told to “the four brothers” by their father, William Anderson, son of Robert II, and by them to my father, showed that Catherine Graham was a close kinswoman of James Montrose, the great marquis. Certain it is that her mother, a Graham widow with an infant daughter, had taken refuge in Ulster, Ireland, at the time of the Revolution of 1688. A paternal great-uncle of Robert II took part in the historic “Siege of Derry,” or Londonderry, Ireland. Robert II, the emigrant, knew and had great respect for his Miss Ellen Graham Anderson of Lexington is a granddaughter of Judge Francis Thomas Anderson, one of the four prominent Ander­ son brothers who are the subjects of this article. Miss Anderson was assisted by her niece, Mrs. Frances Lewis of Roanoke, wife of J. M. B. Lewis, Jr. 15 �grandmother. Reputedly, she never smiled again after the beheading of her husband, who was captured fighting for the marquis. William Anderson knew from his father, Robert II, that William’s own great­ grandfather Graham had been beheaded when captured! The proud name of Graham continues to this day in the descendants. Our grand­ father, Francis Thomas Anderson, recalling this story of the courage of his Graham ancestors, named his place at Fincastle, Montrose, for the marquis. My niece’s (Mrs. Fred Stone of Hardy Ford) home in Bedford County has been given the same name. Robert Anderson and his wife, Margaret Neely, gladly settled down on their rich plantation on the Catawba not far west of presentday Fincastle and there other children were born. Before many years, though, the dark clouds of the coming Revolution engulfed his new chosen country and his son, William, a growing youth, became eager to fight the Redcoats. William’s uncle, John McNutt, had achiev­ ed distinction in the service of the colony, and had been called to Williamsburg to give the governor his views of the situation on the western waters. Gen. Nathaniel Greene’s troops were fighting in North and South Carolina. The men of the western settlements became more and more disturbed, and patriotic in their support of the infant republic. A young McNutt cousin, with other youths from near his home plantation near Balcony Falls, came by and stayed with his Anderson relatives on the Catawba. William, the eldest child of Robert and Margaret Neely Anderson, then not sixteen, was the mainstay of his parents, and they opposed his going off with his cousins to join the Revolutionary Armies. William became 16, though, on June 2nd, and after much per­ suading was given his parents’ blessing. He was allowed to go alone, on foot, through the wilderness to North Carolina, carrying bags of parched corn, his rifle and shot for game. In due time he reached his destination and served with Greene at the battles of Cowpens and Guilford Court House. He was one of the picked men who, under Col. Otto Williams, formed the rear guard of Gen. Greene’s perilous trip back into Virginia. It was my privilege to go with my father, who had the family name of William Anderson, to Guilford, and there at the monument to Gen. Greene to hear again of the courageous exploits of this young boy who had travelled alone, on a trail which we had traversed by automobile. His service being expired, Wiliam returned home. But almost at once he went out with a company to Rockfish Gap, where Tarleton was deterred by the mountain boys from entering their Valley. William Anderson, after the Revolution and after reaching his 16 �Virginia State Library Photos. William Anderson, Botetourt County surveyor, and his w ife, Anne Thomas Anderson, parents of the four brothers. majority, established his home near Fincastle, which in 1770 had be­ come the county seat of Botetourt. His home place was called Walnut Hill. The largest part of the house, now gone, was a large stone, two story building, with an im­ mense fireplace and chimney and, properly, portholes for firing at Indians or marauders. When I first saw Walnut Hill in the 1920’s it appeared to me that this stone house was built long before the birth of William Anderson (although no record states this) and possibly by other hands. In front of it was a most individual dwelling, originally of logs, but covered with weatherboarding—a four-roomed house downstairs, with an unusual stairway which divided into two, part-way up to the two upstairs wings, without any landing. A beautiful hand-carved mantel was in the largest room and under it a very old iron Franklin Stove. To my regret at that time, I could not ask to buy this stove— indeed, it seemed discourteous to the owners to do so. Under the stairway was a hidden closet, where as county sur­ veyor, we always heard, William kept locked the funds of the com­ munity. There was also a tale told us of buried treasure on the grounds, but this my father discounted. However, it was well known in the family that Robert Anderson II, the emigrant, had brought with him a large bag of coins and gold, which his children may have inherited. Robert’s first house was said to have been farther out “on the Catawba”. His son, William, recalled his father, Robert, as dressed in black, 17 �John Thomas Anderson 1804-1879 Walnut Hill, the William Anderson home, stands a short distance west of Fincastle. The clapboard-over-log structure has been encased by brick siding but the floor plan and the original Y-shaped staircase remain. It is owned by the Ronk family. with ruffled shirts, and a queue of hair tied with a black bow. To their quaint old pioneer home, William Anderson brought his bride. She was the daughter of Francis Thomas of Montvue near Frederick, Maryland, in the section known as the “Merryland Tract”. Her name was Anne Thomas, her mother’s name was Grace Met­ calfe. This Thomas family was of Welsh origin. Anne’s parents, who spent their last years in Fincastle, are buried in the Presbyterian cemetery there. William had met Anne on one of his trips to Philadelphia, the big center of business for the valley Scots. His letter to her father, asking for permission to marry Anne, hangs now in our house in Lexington. They were married on May 15, 1796, in Maryland. On their marriage journey to Botetourt they stayed at an inn, now the Forest Tavern near Natural Bridge. Anne was of the Church of England persuasion. After their marriage, William became a vestryman in the newly-formed con­ gregation of the American Episcopal church. But he continued as a deacon and soon as an elder in the Presbyterian church, which in Fincastle supplanted the Church of England, after the Virginia Act of Religious Freedom in 1785 recognized the Scotch Presbyterian Religion. We own one letter written by William Anderson, the surveyor and self-taught engineer, that deserves recording. He opposed the support of building a “rail road” as visionary, and felt his constituents should apply their efforts and money to the extension of the James River and Kanawha Canal. It is noteworthy that he supervised the 18 �building of the turnpike (now U.S. 220 and U.S. 60) from Fincastle to Covington and beyond. William Anderson died Sept. 13, 1839, at Montrose, the Fin­ castle home of his son, Francis. The funeral sermon was a touching monument to his career and character as churchman, soldier, and in Virginia’s legislative bodies. He was colonel of a Virginia regiment in the War of 1812. Given a military funeral, he was buried in the old Presbyterian Cemetery in Fincastle. The Rev. Stephen F. Coxe’s eulogy was later printed by Watchman of the South, Richmond, in 1840. (F. B. Kegley wrote in his “Virginia Frontier” that William An­ derson was “the best-loved citizen of the community.” He also said that his four sons were deputies to their father as county surveyor. (In 1969, William Anderson was honored by the trustees of Vir­ ginia Western Community College in Roanoke when they named a new science building at the college for him.) John Thomas Anderson, unlike his brothers William, Gen. Joseph and Judge Francis, lived and died in Botetourt county, close to the Botetourt mines and furnaces and the county courthouse. Many of these old stone charcoal burning stacks are still stand­ ing. In fact, Col. William Anderson’s great-granddaughter, Ellen Glas­ gow, used the “vein of iron” that runs through Botetourt’s moun­ tains and through the characters of Botetourt’s men and women, as both the title and the theme of one of her best-known Virginia novels. John is the only one of the brothers buried in Botetourt. His and his wife’s graves, and that of their only son, are in the Presbyterian cemetery near those of his parents and his four grandparents, Ro­ bert and Margaret Neely Anderson, Francis and Grace Metcalfe Thomas. John represented his county in the Virginia House of Delegates, and in the state constitutional convention of 1849-50. He was a lawyer, practicing for 22 years in Fincastle where he was a moving spirit in many affairs such as the excellent Fincastle Academy and the Presbyterian church of which, like his father, he was a ruling elder for years. Appointed by President Andrew Jackson, he served on the board of the United States Military Academy so he evidently visited New York and other distant places from time to time. But getting the iron down to his brother, Joseph, in Richmond be­ came his main concern, especially in his latter years after 1840. It was there that he moved to the handsome house, Mt. Joy just west of Buchanan which he had bought from the Harveys who had built it about 20 years earlier. His life there was described in my article, “The Burning of Mount Joy” in the winter issue 1964-1965 of this magazine. I shall therefore shorten the remainder of these family reminiscenses about this Anderson brother. 19 �He was married rather late in life to a charming widow, Cas­ sandra Shanks Patton, who already had three sons. They also reared at least two Shanks nephews. Their only Anderson child to grow to maturity, Joseph Washington, married Miss Anna Morris of Louisa County and left descendants. But in 1863, Joseph’s wife and his parents, John and Cassandra Anderson, had the anguish of having to send to Mississippi for his body, slain at Baker’s Creek near Vicksburg. As attested by letters and family notes, their home, “Mt. Joy”, which the Union General Hunter insisted on destroying by fire (he gave Mrs. Anderson one hour to get out) had high white columns, smaller than those of Montrose, with beautiful furnished large rooms and hand-carved woodwork, as remembered especially by my Aunt “Belle” Anderson Bruce. My cousin, Anna Morris Anderson Ely of Princeton, New Jersey, had some of her grandfather, John T. Ander­ son’s portraits. They must have been sent to Buchanan or Fincastle before Hunter came. A granddaughter of Mrs. John T. Anderson, Mrs. Lily Patton Kearsley Rhodes, recalled seeing as a child the basreliefs of mythological characters in the cast iron backings of the ruined chimneys. (Cassandra and John lived on in the brick servant’s house and kitchen after the masion was burned.) I Some say “John T.” had a violent temper, and attributed it to his Welsh Thomas blood. His memory is beloved to this day, however, among the descendants of the six boys he and his wife brought up in their home. More likely, his explosive ways came just as much from his strong Scottish inheritance of righteous self-respect, physical strength and upright, uncompromising character. On Sept. 4, 1879, the Botetourt Bar published resolutions of respect at his recent death along with sketches of deceased members. Francis Thomas Anderson, my grandfather, grew up at Walnut Hill with his three brothers and four sisters in the beautiful life of a mountain community, and under the almost phenomenally foresighted guidance of his father and mother and their relations. Visits to his Maryland cousins were rare, and taken on horse­ back. But since his beloved oldest “Sister Kitty” (or “S’Kitty” ) had married Arthur Glasgow, of Green Forest, near Lexington, he could ride from Fincastle there, or stop there on his way to Montvue, his grandparents home in Maryland. Owing to her near residence six miles from Lexington, a fairly new town established in 1788 during the Revolution, Francis, like so many men from Augusta and Botetourt, came to Washington College for academic work and law study. It was in Lexington that he met Mary Anne Alexander, seeing her for the first time on the steps of the same white-pillared Presby­ terian Church which stands there now. She was the daughter of An­ drew Alexander and Anne Dandridge Aylett, his wife. 20 �Francis Thomas Anderson 1808-1887 Mary Anne’s mother, like the mother of Francis T. Anderson, was an Episcopalian who had married a staunch Presbyterian. Their home, on land just north of Lexington, was named Liberty Hall after the old Academy across the lane, for which the family had given land. The earliest approach to it was a short road running from the river and the house of a brother, William Alexander, along the north side of Wood’s Creek, beyond a small spring, to Liberty Hall. My father, William A. Anderson, knew of this direct road, which was closed by the coming of the railroad. And my brother, the late Col. William Dandridge Alexander Anderson, U. S. Army Engineers, traced this road by many signs, during his vacations here. The road now coming east of Mulberry Hill was once a more private one, used by Mary Anne and other children to reach the Anne Smith Academy in town. This road joined the old Covington Turnpike, a road engineered in its western part by William Anderson I, now U. S. 60. Upon his graduation, Francis T. Anderson and Mary Anne Alex­ ander were married, drove to Fincastle and lived in a brick house within the town. There he practiced law with distinction, becoming a member of the State Legislature and of the Constitutional Con­ vention of 1849-50. He also was in the State Senate, and became a leader of the Whig Party. In 1861, after his removal to Rockbridge County, he was a member of the Electoral College for choosing the president of the United States. During his very early years he grew interested in the iron business through his brother, John T. Anderson, and his Shanks relatives, and 21 �other friends. His aunt, Grace Metcalfe Thomas, had married a Shanks of Fincastle. The furnace in Arnold’s Valley, first called Cassandra, was owned by Francis T. Anderson, John T. Anderson and Thomas Shanks jointly and built by them, so far as records show. In 1853 Francis T. Ander­ son acquired sole ownership of this furnace, and of the 30,000 acres of mountain land on the James River in Bedford, Rockbridge, and a small part of Botetourt counties. In this momentous change, my grandfather gave up his law practice in Fincastle, and his interest in other furnaces there. He assumed management of the Cassandra, whose name he changed to Glenwood, moved his family to a lovely, big, white house in Arnold’s Valley, on what had been Burks land. But they lived first in the brick Greenlee house on the James River. Both houses are still standing His handsome plantation house, “Montrose”, which he had constructed on the edge of Fincastle, he sold to his first cousin, William Anderson Glasgow, of Green Forest. The Glasgows lived at Montrose at least 40 years. It burned in the 1920’s. Breckenridge Elementary School stands on the site today. The Andersons, Shankses and Glasgows are intricately involved in the important iron industry of the two adjoining counties. Also, they are inextricably related to each other through various marriages. One is tempted to record some of the many interesting tales which have been handed down concerning these people. But it is of the four Anderson brothers that this account is written. All were tall men, of fine features, as their portraits show, and while I never saw any of them, of course—even my grandfather—I was so deeply imbued with their achievements and high character that it is diffi­ cult to be impersonal. The dark clouds of discord between the states began to hang over our valleys, but Glenwood Furnace became more and more suc­ cessful, shipping all the pig iron possible to Joseph Reid Anderson’s Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, and some perhaps to the Belona Arsenal below the city. The high mountain virgin forests gave wood to fire the charcoal furnaces, and to make the flat boats, or bateaux as they were always called. They were poled down the James River, loaded with pig iron, usually at flood time or high water. Sometimes they overturned, and cargoes and even lives were lost. The boats were sold in Richmond, as a rule, and the men returned by other routes. Very rarely, we were told, was a bateau poled back up the river with supplies, for this was precarious travelling. I here put on record that all the ledger books concerning the management of the Glenwood Furnace have been placed in the Aiderman Library at the University of Virginia, and hundreds of letters from Gen. Joseph R. Anderson at the Tredegar in Richmond to his 22 �brother, Francis T. Anderson at Glenwood about their transactions are also there. Other records of Glenwood Furnace, and hundreds of letters from F. T. Anderson were also in the Tredegar Archives. It is clear that after the James River and Kanawha Canal had been built up the James River to above Buchanan, the Tredegar constructed and owned canal boats, to travel both ways. Thus from 1852-53 to 1861 Francis T. Anderson was absorbed in establishing his family in their new home, and in the management of his furnace at Glenwood, in Arnold’s Valley. In 1861 the family must still have been living in the white house there, since his son, ^ iiiiam, (my father) walked from Lexington where he was at col­ lege to Falling Spring and at his sister, Anna Junkin’s, secured a horse to ride over to Glenwood, in order to secure permission to join the Liberty Hall Volunteers, being then only 18 years old. When Gen. Hunter burned V.M.I., and Governor John Letcher’s house at Lexington he went on through the Valley. But he missed the Glenwood Furnace, which he would have destroyed. Had he known of it, no doubt the old stone stack, now standing, would not be there. But no balloons spied for the Union armies here! He did destroy the Buena Vista and Cloverdale furnaces. In the Reconstruction years the furnaces struggled on; letters are extant showing the efforts of the owners to induce European labor to come into this part of Virginia. Among these letters is one from Gen. Robert E. Lee to my grandfather, Francis T. Anderson, and one from Commodore Matthew Fontaine Maury on the same subject. But the Reconstruction years as they affected those splendid old Vir­ ginians are too painful to record. Francis T. Anderson moved his family to Lexington in the later years of the war, and his first home there was the Samuel Jordan House, now the V.M.I. Hospital, where they were not far from his wife’s sister, Evelina Alexander Moore. After Mrs. Moore’s death they bought the charming Victorian Gothic house, one of several in Lexington built by Henry Myers in the 1840’s, and he lived there until his death in 1887, his wife having died in 1881. He was an elder in Fincastle and in Lexington of the Presbyterian church of his Scottish ancestors. He became a member of the board of Washington College, and at the time of Gen. Lee’s death was rector of that board and continued so for some years afterwards. In 1870, Francis T. Anderson became a judge of the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia and served until 1882. As judge, he spent much time in Richmond, staying sometimes at his brother Joseph’s home on Franklin Street, but more often at the old Exchange Hotel where the judges boarded. As rector of the Washington College Board, he was a pallbearer �at the funeral of Gen. Robert E. Lee, October 12, 1870, and cards of the funeral show this in the college files. A friend of the poor and defender of the oppressed, F. T. Ander­ son was a truly godly man. On his death the Supreme Court of Appeals and the Bar of his state honored his memory by eulogistic resolu­ tions. He was buried in the Lexington Cemetery by the side of his wife. The story of the professional life of Joseph Reid Anderson has been exhaustively and beautifully written by his granddaughters. Dr. Kathleen Bruce and Dorothy Bruce Weske, as well as by his greatgranddaughter, Anne Hobson Freeman, in Virginia Cavalcade, Winter 1963. It is well known and recorded in Richmond. Therefore, my best contribution to the account of this fourth and youngest of the Anderson brothers of Fincastle, must be family tales told over many years, and a further revelation of the loving character of this brilliant son of a memorable father and mother. The active outdoor life of these four brothers, and the example of the parents, of their older sister, Catherine Anderson Glasgow, and of many relatives in Fincastle, gave a background which led to achivements in their world, in both moral worth and financial success. Joseph graduated from West Point in 1832, fourth in his class of 68, and served in the U. S. Engineers until 1838. Letters written by him at West Point to his brother, Francis, at Walnut Hill show a mature mind and character at that time. In 1838 he founded the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond and he acted as president of this company until his death in 1892. 24 �Four times during these years he reorganized and saved the life of this business. He married, in 1837, Sallie Archer, daughter of Dr. Robert Archer, U. S. Army surgeon, and they had 12 children. He married secondly in 1882 the talented and charming Miss Mary Pegram. His acumen in establishing the Tredegar Works must have been phenomenal. Handwritten letters from him concerning the Glenwood Furnace and letters from his brother about sundry matters, give us some idea of the labour involved. These men wrote their own business letters, as shown in files of the Tredegar and of Glenwood Furnace. When the shadow of war engulfed the state, he was commissioned a brigadier general by the Confederate government and served in the field. Yet the Tredegar was responsible for the manufacture of guns and ordnance for the great armies in the upper South and West and adjoining states, especially the Brooke gun, and the “Napoleon’ , the latter designed by him. So the government sent him back to the iron business. The company welded the armor plates for the mysterious iron­ clad vessel which destroyed enemy shipping in Hampton Roads. Word of the construction of this vessel slipped out to Washington, thus in­ spiring the building of the “Monitor,” the “Coffee Pot” of the enemy. John Mercer Brooke, chief of the group of Naval officers whom the Secretary of War (Confederate) encouraged to invent ironclad ships, a submarine and torpedoes, designed the Brooke Gun the celebrated seven-inch Naval gun. To make all this ordnance, even church bells were melted down. The iron “Napoleons” were de­ signed to replace the brass and bronze guns, when brass and copper became scarce. During the war years, the Tredegar never lost any of its guns in proof—they were superior to brass guns without the piercing ring of brass. The Merrimac-Virginia created a new epoch in the history of the world’s navies. The smaller Patrick Henry following her, was only partly sheathed in iron. It was sometime after the Virginia was begun that the Northern government entered the race to complete an ironclad, and produced the Monitor “coffeepot”. In 1862, poor canal boat service had forced J. R. Anderson into ownership of a Tredegar fleet of nine canal boats and several smaller craft, some of which he had built. They were drawn by strong mules and forage was carried to feed them. A manager of the fleet of boats controlled the movement of pig iron, men and mules. Names of the boats—Rebecca, Imogen, Glasgow, Cloverdale, Fawn, Catawba, Tred­ egar, Grace and Goldleaf—reflect those picturesque times. The nephew of Joseph R. Anderson, Francis Thomas Glasgow of Richmond, father of the novelist, Ellen Glasgow, was an officer of the Tredegar, and was retained in that position by the Confederate 25 �government. His important work as agent between his three uncles in securing passage of iron from the furnaces in the mountains down to Richmond made his services indispensable. He must have attended to much loading of the pig iron onto Anderson’s canal boats. Australia Furnace, owned by J. R. Anderson on the Cowpasture River, had to haul pig iron to the junction of that river and the James, then pole it by bateaux to Buchanan, whence the canal boats handled it. During the war, Joseph R. Anderson also owned an interest in the Lucy Selina Furnace at Longdale, which could ship by train to Richmond. Cloverdale was seventeen miles by road to Buchanan; Re­ becca, five miles. Jane, Grace and Roaring Run, near Eagle Rock, hauled iron to the James and could send it by bateaux down to Buch­ anan. Catawba iron had to be hauled 20 miles overland to the town. Joseph R. Anderson became a member of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Richmond (his own mother was an Episcopalian). He was senior warden of that church for most of his later life. Many monu­ ments, including beautiful memorial windows naming the Andersons, are to be seen at St. Paul’s now. His home in Richmond, on the block now occupied by the Jeffer­ son Hotel, was a heart-warming place for all within his loving re­ lationship and friends. My oldest aunts were often there as young girls, going down on the canal boat to what was fairyland to them. My father was too young to go much, before the war. But later he married his first cousin, Ellen Graham Anderson—his Uncle Joseph’s young daughter who had nursed him after he had been gravely wound­ ed at First Manassas. The story of my father’s being wounded when barely 19 years old has been published in a University of Virginia graduate student’s thesis. Found by Dr. John Cunningham lying in the Second Presby­ terian Church which was used as a hospital, my father, William A. Anderson was moved to his Uncle Joseph’s home—and this care, of course, saved his life. That early in the war, food was procurable, but medicines were crude. My grandfather, Francis T. Anderson, came down, and found, after many days search, a sedative which his son could retain. The picture built in our minds of the integrity and the loving heart of our great-uncle is unforgettable. It is a picture of a great man, modest in his demeanor, speaking rarely of his own achieve­ ments, but always giving honor to actions of others. That was printed on our childish and growing minds—this truly “great” uncle whom I never saw, who had saved the life of our father. The quotation in his memorial window in St. Paul’s Church in Richmond is “Suffer the Little Children to come unto Me.” 26 �William Neely Andersen 1806-1868 William Neely Anderson became a physician. He studied at the then well-known Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. He married Mary Jane Kerr of Augusta County and they had one son, William Rush, named for Benjamin Rush, the eminent sur­ geon. William admired but could not have known Dr. Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, since he died in 1813. Rush Anderson died at the age of 21 and was buried in the cemetery at the Old Stone Church in Lewisburg, W. Va., where his father was then living and practicing medicine. His death was a bitter blow to his parents who were later buried beside him. I remember my Great-aunt Jane came to Lexington to bring their three family portraits to my father, he being named William. Mrs. Feamster of Lewisburg told me in her 90’s that she had attended the funeral of the only son, considered a brilliant boy. She took me once to see their resting place in the lovely Old Stone Church Cemetery. Robert Douthat Stoner, writing of “prominent citizens” of Bot­ etourt County in his “A Seed-Bed of the Republic,” said: “Dr. William Neeley Anderson graduated from the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and died at the age of 62 years, apparently barely solvent, a natural result of the fact that the last eight years of his life were four of war and four of recon­ struction, when southern currency had been devaluated, southern economy bankrupted, and southerners had little with which to pay doctors; and doctors of the Anderson type could not press accounts against patients probably even more impoverished than themselves. His will leaves “what little I have” and the debts due to himself and 27 �the debts due to their much lamented son, William Rush Anderson, to his wife, formerly Mary Jane Kerr of Augusta County. It will be noted that William Anderson in his will makes special provision for this son because of the particular professional attention his family had received from him. (Note by Miss Ellen’s niece Frances Lewis, who edited her account of the four brothers) The last Sunday in August, 1969, my husband and I attended service in the Old Stone Presbyterian Church in Lewisburg, (named for his family) Greenbrier County, W. Va.,— once a part of Botetourt and a town on the turnpike engineered by my great-great-grandfather, Col. William Anderson, county surveyor. In the pioneer-style meeting house—the oldest church west of the Alleghenies in continuous use— I could almost imagine that greatuncle, William Neely Anderson, the country doctor, and his wife might be sitting in one of the straight-backed pews. We do not know much about the last years of his life. His three brothers had all gone on to amass wordly goods, while he looked after family and friends with small remuneration. His brothers had numerous children and stepchildren, many of whom had already made (or married) distinguished names for themselves. His only child was buried outside in that very churchyard. The sun-warmed mountain air of early fall blew in through the opened clear glass panes of the tall windows. The black-robed preacher in the high pulpit gave a beautifully simple sermon, firstly-secondlythirdly-style, on the joy of doing one’s work with God as one’s partner— it being the day before our modern Labor Day holiday. And after service the congregation in their welcome to us were as warm and yet courtly as their ancestors must surely have been a hundred years ago. Outside, as we walked in the green grass among the hundreds of old tombstones, there was still that feeling of peace that can come only from the knowledge of work well done in a wholesome atmosphere — as if the spirit of this unselfish country doctor were the actual spirit of the place. Anne Thomas Anderson, warm-hearted mother of the Four Bro­ thers, had long years before set their feet in the path of duty and responsibility, at the same time asking that just the proper allowance be made for human failings. We have proof, as shown in this letter to her son, Francis, 15, then a student of Washington College in Lexington: My dear Francis I can write but little to you, as I have written so much to your brother and sister, but one thing I can tell you, that it gives me great pleasure to hear that you are progressing rapidly 28 �in your learning. There is great need my dear, it is a great under­ taking for your dear father to educate so many sons, and you must do all you can to assist him. Shun all evil. Endeavor to engage your heart in Religion, for we know not how soon we may die, and then if we have not an interest in Christ, we will be lost. Your Uncle Thomas has not yet come. We will be glad to see you all, and any of your friends that can come. Tell Becky 1 am glad to hear she is so much improved and that my love to her, was the cause of everything I said to her. May God bless you all is the constant prayer of your ever affectionate Mother. Ann Anderson September 21, 1823 (Editor’s Note: A copy of Ann Thomas Anderson’s letter came to Mrs. Lewis’ sister, Anne Stone, from their grandfather’s oldest sister, the late Mrs. Alexander Bruce of Berry Hill, Halifax County. Mrs. Bruce was a daughter of Francis T. Anderson. The Bruces first lived in present Roanoke County where they built the handsome late Greek Revival house which was torn down at Woodrum Airport years ago.) Dr. William Anderson once lived in this brick home west of Fincastle, built about 1826. It was purchased by the Rev. and Mrs. William Rutherfoord from the Womack family. 29 �Early Preston Papers Given The Society has recently received another valuable collection of letters and documents covering the period of the last half of the eigh­ teenth and the first quarter of the nineteenth century. It is indebted to Robert B. Preston, the owner of the Mexican Craft Shop, for this material of the Preston family. They complement the Breckinridge papers received last year because those two families were closely related and their dates are comparable. Some indication of the scope of these interesting items is shown by this list: 1. Quit rents due Colonel James Patton for the years 1752 and 1753. 2. David Rowland, of Botetourt, offer in 1810 to build gun car­ riages for the State. 3. Letters from Colonel George Hancock of Fotheringay and Alexander Boyd, an early owner of Fort Lewis. 4. References to the Hot Sulphur, the White Sulphur, the Sweet Springs and the Anne Smith Academy in Lexington. 5. Expulsion of a student at William & Mary for being seen in­ toxicated at the Raleigh Tavern. 6. Certification by General John Preston that he, as Treasurer of Virginia, had received the proceeds of a 6% $350,000 loan. Dr. Earl Swem, the eminent Virginia historian, while addressing the Society about 10 years ago said the attics in the Valley and South­ west Virginia are the most fertile fields in discovering unknown history of Virginia. These generous gifts prove he was correct. It is hoped many more people will be motivated to offer the Society single or collections of family letters. They will be kept safely and will be available for posterity. This material, as well as the Breckinridge papers, has been catalogued in loose leaf books. This information is being transferred to 4,000 or 5,000 cards so that it will be available chronologically, by the names of the writer, the recipient and subject matter. Many interesting details of everyday affairs more than a century ago are described in the Breckenridge family letters. At the beginning of the Civil War, Beverley Whittle, 15, wrote John H. Breckenridge in Botetourt County about the possibility of his military service: The Captains of two volunteer companies have asked me to join; but I think I shall wait until I can take care of myself, and not have to have someone do it for me. There are several boys who have joined, and asked me why I don’t do the same. I told them I thought it foolishness for a boy not 15 years old to 30 �be taking the place of a man and that they would all run when they saw the enemy—they didn’t seem to like this much. You Mountain fellows are the boys to do the work! not these little fever & ague runts, that are not worth a turn of Shucks. . . ” By fall of 1861 fighting was on and W. Wirt Gilmer wrote to his nephew, Capt. P. Gilmer Breckenridge at Manassas on Sept. 11: “Some people think the War will last for many years. I do not believe it, the Yankees will split up before long & end it. Their money will give out long before our crops. We have more patriotism, more valor, more of every manly virtue than the Yankees. One or two more battles with an equal chance will drive them back to their homes anxious for peace.” Three years earlier on Dec. 14, 1858, Beverley Whittle had written to George W. Breckenridge at Grove Hill on a lighter theme: “I went hunting the other day with a boy named Ned Finney and we did not kill any thing but one duck which was a shelldrake. Ned Finney killed him with a rifle across the river, while swimming as fast as he could; he aimed at his head and the bullet struck just behind the head, which shows that if the duck had been still he would have cut its head off. You know that little bow-legged dog of ours, well this morning he went out and caught a hare and this evening also and caught another. Any-body to look at him wouldn’t think that he could catch a hare, he has such short legs.” Mrs. M. E. Tayloe wrote to Mrs. E. W. Breckenridge offering dahlias from her garden and assuring her “that it will give me great pleasure to furnish you with an additional supply when I set them out should you want them.” And a list of wedding presents including a “a silver basket lined with French blue for a sugar dish at $10,” “a little wine set of the same shade of blue at $5” and “a beautiful papier mache writ­ ing desk at $12” was described in a letter from Richmond on Jan. 28, 1862. The presents were for Miss Fanny Burwell of Liberty who married James Breckenridge on March 4, 1862. The bride died of typhoid fever five months later and the groom was killed in the war in 1865. A humorous account of a packet boat race on the James River & Kanawha Canal was given by Beverley Whittle in a letter from Eldon, the Whittle home at Chatham, to his friend, John Brecken­ ridge in Botetourt on March 29, 1861: Eldon, March 29, 1861 Dear John, You must excuse my long silence because I have a good excuse, vis—being in a strange place, getting acquainted, &c. I supose you have heard of my being from home, so shall not say 31 �any thing about it. I arrived here some time ago, and found no one at home but the darkies; so I had to keep bachelor’s hall for more than a week. We had quite an adventure coming down on the packetboat. The boat that was running in opposition to ours had about two hours start on us; and the Captain of our boat was deter­ mined to overtake the other—so we pushed on in hot haste, and by & by we came in sight of her,—then “the tug of war”. We ran on at full speed our horses (three large blacks) in a run, and it was apparent that we were coming rapidly—when lo, and behold, after turning a bend in the river we found that we were very near a lock which the other boat had not yet entered. Our Capt. saw that it was utterly impossible to enter first, and the lock being so small we could not enter together. He determined to hold back, so he called to the driver to hold on, but he mis­ understood him, and only whipped on the harder—therefore we had either to run into the other boat, run against the stone work of the lock or run aground; he chose the latter, and put her ashore. The shore being very steep, she turned completely over. I was on deck, but was not thrown off by the concussion. My first thoughts after picking myself up, were to help the ladies in the cabin, but was knocked down in the attempt by a “young buck” who rushed up like a young steam-boat. I then jumped from the boat to the shore and ran to the cabin windows and opened them, and jerked out the ladies, girls, and babies, by the hand full. I never in all my life saw such cowardice dis­ played as was displayed by the people of that boat, the men especially. Mothers left their babies, boys & men left their mothers and wives and there was general confusion every where. I verily believe that if I had not opened the windows the boat would have turned over and drowned them all, but as the weight was taken out of her, — she righted and we got all on board, and caught up with the other boat after all. There was A Poet and an Irishman by the stove together in the cabin—the one in the land of dreams, and the other in the land of Nod. They were both thrown on the stove and burned, it knocked dreams out of one and sleep out of the other. The Irishman said “He’d be dagged if ever he was thrated so before, and that whin the fire touched him he thought the devil had him.” I reckon you think that this is a long detail, but it is necessary in order to make it plain. When you write direct to Pittsylvania Court house. Give my love to all at home. Believe me to be your old playmate & school-fellow, Beverley K. Whittle 32 �Story Of A Stream III Roanoke River: Once Called Saponi, Round Oak, Goose Creek By Raymond P. Barnes In exploring history of the 380-mile Roanoke River from its beginnings in Montgomery County to its entry into the Albemarle Sound on the North Carolina coast of the Atlantic Ocean, the origin of the name of the stream must be considered. So far as available sources disclose, Roanoke was the first name in the New World incorporated into the English language. When Sir Walter Raleigh founded the first English colony in 1585, he selected a fairly large island lying west of a kind of bar­ rier reef in the extreme northerly waters of Pamlico Sound in what became North Carolina. The name he gave the island came from the shells found by native Indians in eastern North Carolina and such shells were probably found in abundance along the beaches of the island selected by Raleigh. Because of illness and fear of the unknown, the first settlers did not linger long in their new home. They returned to England with Sir Francis Drake in 1586. Whether the colonists had learned of the great river, with the Albemarle Sound as its mouth, is not definitely known. A , . However, Raleigh, determined to found a colony, returned to the same site the following year with 150 settlers, including 17 women. Shortly after landing, Eleanor Dare gave birth to Virginia Dare, the first white child born in the New World. An eastern North Carolina countv. lust south of Roanoke Island, is known today as Dare County. 33 �This strand of "rawenoch" or "rawranoke," donated to the Society by B. N. Eubank, came from an excavation in Bedford County 40 years ago. The shell money, known by many different names, is believed to be the source of the name, "Roanoke." Raleigh returned to England but he was detained by the war with Spain and the destruction of the Spanish Aramada. When he revisited the colony in 1590, he learned that the settlers had myster­ iously vanished. History perpetuates this strange event as the story of the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island. The names, “Roanoke,” “Rawnoke” and “Peake” were attached by the Indians to shell money. The white and blue sections of conch shells were cut into cylindrical sections about one-third of an inch in length. When strung upon a fine strip of hide, it was used as wampum or the medium of value among the aborigines. It is doubt­ ful if this wampum circulated west of the Blue Ridge. The next effort to found an English colony came in 1607 when Jamestown was selected as the site of a settlement. Because one ob­ jective was to locate a route to the South Seas, the settlers pushed westward. A fort was established at the present location of Peters­ burg. From here, Col. Abraham Wood dispatched the 1671 expedition of Thomas Batts and Robert Fallam which reported sighting a “Totera town” at what is believed to be the wide river bottom at the foot of 9th Street, S. E., in Roanoke. Batts and Fallam, the first recorded white men to see the Roa­ noke Valley, called the sparkling stream which drained the valley the Saponi or Sapony after the Indians who lived along its waters. 34 �A later expedition found a reach of the same river flowing through Charlotte County and named it the Staunton, after Lady Staunton, the wife of Sir William Gooch. How many years passed before the upper and lower reaches of the river were recognized as the same is unknown. But a middle section of the river still is known as the Staunton. Certain it is that by 1742, the Saponi River was referred to m patents and deeds as Goose Creek. A deed to James Campbell for property which was later the estate of Gen. Andrew Lewis west of Salem was described as “lying on the waters of Goose Creek.” Yet all men belonging to Capt. George Robinson’s company of militia in 1742 lived “south of the James River, a part on the branches of the James and the rest on the Round Oak.” The north fork of the Roanoke originates in a valley east of Blacksburg. It is augumented, as it flows first south and then east­ erly, by numerous spring branches and small creeks, the larger of which are Ingles Mill and Bradshaw creeks. The south fork is formed mainly by Elliott’s Creek and Laurel and Bottom creeks flowing from Bent Mountain. The village of Lafayette, a few miles west of Salem, is built on the juncture of the forks. As the stream flows easterly through the Roanoke Valley, its waters are increased by Mason’s, Peters, Mud Lick, Back, Tinker and Glade creeks and Murray and Wolf runs. (An interesting map of the watershed is on page 91 of Kegley’s Virginia Frontier.) Although most of the first settlers of the valley soon referred to the river as the Roanoke, Goose Creek continued in use for some decades, probably because scriveners copied the original description into new deeds. Spelling of the name has varied with such usage as the “Round Oak,” “Rawnoke” and “Runoke.” A diary of North Carolina Moravians recounts that on Nov. 1, 1753, “At day break, we crossed the Runoke (near what is now Franklin Road Bridge) which was very shallow. It was not as large as the Lecha (Lehigh).” From the War of 1812 until well after Waterloo in 1815, the United States enjoyed an era of prosperity. In New England, infant industry flourished while increased demand for tobacco came to the South. Some enterprising North Carolina capitalists came forward with a plan to make the upper reaches of the Roanoke navigable, thus tapping resources west of the Blue Ridge and making Weldon, N. C., a port for seagoing vessels. Investors in Halifax County be­ came much interested and in 1818 secured a charter for the Virginia section of the project. Stock in the company enjoyed a good sale. Salem was selected as the “Head of Navigation” and almost si­ multaneously designated as the western terminal of the Lynchburg and 35 �Salem Turnpike. From Lynchburg, goods could be carried by the James River Canal Company to eastern markets. Another interested group formed the Prestonville Company which bought most of the land flanking Tinker Creek north of Big Lick. Plans were made to dredge the creek bed sufficiently to permit the passage of flat boats or bateaux, such as were used on the James River. A trial run was made from Weldon to Salem by pushing and pulling a small flatboat up the Roanoke. Progress was slow and per­ haps more difficult because the voyagers had to map and mark falls, rapids and shallows which would have to be bypassed by sluices or canals. The boat made it to Salem where its arrival was greeted by a goodly crowd. Shortly thereafter, the great panic of 1819 fell over the land, caused primarily by Europe, particularly England, getting back on its feet after the long Napoleonic War and dumping products on the American shores at such prices that small industries were doomed. The nation’s economy was so upset the panic resulted in eventually sweeping away the fortunes of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. The bateaux rotted on the flats of Salem and the Lynchburg-Salem Turnpike finally reached Liberty, now Bedford. Little attention was given to the most westerly reaches of the Roanoke although the Roanoke Navigation Company in some southside counties functioned with a degree of success until a few years after the coming of the railroads at mid-century. The Virginia Re­ ports contained several cases where construction of the franchise terms reached the Supreme Court of Appeals. In the Jones Memorial Library at Lynchburg, there are several reports of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, made shortly after Appomattox, which involved a survey of the upper Roanoke, primarily to determine the feasibility of extending the James River-Kanawha Canal west from Buchanan. It is highly probable that from the City of Roanoke west there was no tampering with or obstruction offered to the free flowing waters of the Roanoke, save mill dams and fish weirs, until the old Roanoke Water Power Company completed its dam at Niagara, be­ low Vinton, to develop a hydraulic power source of electricity in 1906. Above Salem, the Roanoke is still a beautiful stream. There are hopes that sewage disposal operations and regulations of industrial discharges can restore some of the original attractiveness downstream. Below Roanoke, the once placid river has been harnessed by a series of dams—Smith Mountain, Leesville, John H. Kerr, Gaston and Roanoke Rapids—for the generation of electric power. Probably the most far-reaching development is the new dimension in recreation provided by these dammed-up lakes where fishing, water skiing boating and swimming are enjoyed by many in the thousands of acres of man-made reservoirs. 36 �St. Mark’s, Fincastlc, Has Roots 200 Years Old — j St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Fincastie, built in 1837. When Botetourt County was created, just as in all the other counties in Virginia, a standard set of developments ensued. First, justices of the peace were appointed and courts organized. Since the second arm of English authority was the church, the appointment of a vestry followed the appointment of the justices. On the civil side, the next steps were the construction of a courthouse and prison and the establishment of a county seat. On the ecclesiastical side came the 37 �Silver communion service given by George III through Lord Botetourt, royal governor of the colony, is the sole link between St. Mark's and the first Episcopal church in Fincastle. designation of a rector and the construction of a church. The Town of Fincastle was built on land given to Botetourt County by a dissenter, Israel Christian. Land was set aside for a Courthouse, and 10 acres were designated for the “Prison Bounds.” In the northeastern corner of the “Prison Bounds,” an acre of land was set aside for use by the Established Church and came to be called “God’s Acre.” In Botetourt County’s Order Book for 1770-1771, it is re­ corded that the county justices conveyed title to this acre of land to the Botetourt Parish. On the first map of the Town of Fincastle, this site is shown as the plot on which the present Presbyterian Church is situated. We have no record of exactly when the building for the Esta­ blished Church was constructed. The first courthouse and jail were built of logs and their size and the progress of their construction are well documented in the legal records of the County. One of the res­ ponsibilities of the vestry was the levying of tithes for the construc­ tion and repair of churches but it is not known whether this is what happened in Fincastle or whether the church was built by funds pro­ vided by King George III. It is probable, however, that the church was built of brick and that it was the basic structure of the present Fin38 �castle Presbyterian Church. Bishop William Meade recorded that “in Fincastle there was an Episcopal Church on the spot where the Presbyterian Church now stands.” C. Francis Cocke, historian and retired banker and lawyer, has written “St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Fincastle, Virginia, Two Cen­ turies of the Church in Botetourt County,” a valuable story of the founding and growth of one of the oldest parishes in Western Virginia. The church, built in 1837, stems directly from the Botetourt parish of 1770. Cocke, a director of the Society, previously wrote three books listing the parish lines of the three Episcopal dioceses in Virginia and a biography of his father-in-law, Wilton E. Mingea, builder of the Virginia-Carolina Railroad. Cocke gave the St. Mark’s book to the church in Fincastle for distribution. An excerpt appears here. New Books On Old Themes The Journal calls attention, for the first time, to new books pertaining to local and regional history. Reviews of other publications are invited in future issues. Please contact the editor. THE VIRGINIA GERMANS by Klaus Wust, Shenandoah His­ tory, Edinburg, Va., the University Press of Virginia, 310 pages, $8.50. Generally plowing new ground, Klaus Wust tells the story of German people in Virginia from the dawn of the eighteenth century through their difficult times in World War I. His well-documented work tells of the Germans from their settlement in the Shenandoah Valley and into Southwest Virginia and describes their influence on the languages, politics, slavery, the churches and cultural resources such as arts and crafts. The product of almost 20 years of study, his book refers to 1,000 families of Germans or Swiss stock. THE BLUE RIDGE PARKWAY by Harley E. Jolley, the University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, Tenn., 172 pages, $6.95. The interesting background of the Blue Ridge Parkway the decision to build a scenic mountaintop road connecting the Shenan­ doah and Great Smoky Mountain national parks, the controversy over where to build it and its growth and development—is told by Dr. Harley E. Jolley, a North Carolina college professor who has just finished his 12th summer as a seasonal historian on the Parkway. Jolley delves into Tennessee’s early claim for a major part of the drive, one plan to build it from Natural Bridge, through Craig and Giles counties on a “western route” and still another to build a crest of the Blue Ridge highway” south from Marion through North Caro­ lina into Georgia. 39 �VIRGINIA PLACE NAMES: DERIVATIONS, HISTORICAL USES by Raus McDill Hanson, McClure Printing Co., Verona, 253 pages, $5.95. Rauss McDill Hanson, emeritus professor of geography at Madison College, has produced what apparently is the first statewide study of the background of some 5,000 Virginia place names. He may have relied too heavily on local legend and tradition at times but he has broken ground in a fascinating field. A large amount of geographic and historical information is well organized by counties and larger areas. CAPTAIN STAUNTON’S RIVER by Herman Ginther, Dietz Press, Inc., Richmond, 106 pages, $5. Herman Ginther, a Brookneal newspaperman, has compiled a collection of stories about that middle portion of the Roanoke River which is known as the Staunton River as it flows through south cen­ tral Virginia. Ginther says the name is said to originate from Capt. Henry Staunton, a Revoluntionary War soldier who once commanded a patrol along the river. However, authoritative sources say the river name came from Lady Rebecca Staunton Gooch, wife of Lt. Gov. William Gooch, who governed the Virginia colony from 1727 to 1740. His stories of Patrick Henry, John Randolph and other people and events along the river are well illustrated. THE AMERICANS, A SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 1587-1914 by J. C. Furnas, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1,0150 pages, $12.95. A wealth of information about the peculiar people who have in­ habited the United States for almost four centuries has been assembled in a most readable volume by J. C. Furnas, an accomplished social historian. His book concentrates on people—“who Americans were, what they were doing and sometimes why, where they were going and how, what they ate, drank, wore, hoped . . . and on things—covered bridges and flasks of whiskey, canalboats and the Morgan horse.” 40 �Appalachian Dialect: Vivid, Virile and Elizabethan Mrs. Dial, extension education area coordinator for West Virginia Univer­ sity’s Charleston center for Appalachain Studies and Development, spoke on “Ap­ palachian Dialect.” at a meeting of the Society on Sept. 23 and this article is an extension of her talk. The daughter of an Army officer, she holds degrees from Brenau College and Marshall University and has lived in West Virginia since the Mrs. Wylene P. Dial end of World War II. By Mrs. Wylene P. Dial The dialect spoken by Appalachian people has been given a va­ riety of names, the majority of them somewhat less than complimen­ tary. Educated people who look disfavor on this particular form of speech are perfectly honest in their belief that something called The English Language, which they conceive of as a completed work—un­ changing and fixed for all time—has been taken and, through ignor­ ance, shamefully distorted by the mountain folk. The fact is that this is completely untrue. The folk speech of Appalachia instead of being called corrupt ought to be classified as archaic. Many of the expressions heard throughout the region today can be found in the centuries-old works of some of the greatest Eng­ lish authors: Alfred, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and the men who con­ tributed to the King James version of the Bible, to cite but a few. Most editors who work with older materials have long assumed the role of officious busy bodies: never so happy, apparently, as when engaged in tidying up spelling, modernizing grammar, and generally rendering whatever was written by various Britons in ages past into a colorless conformity with today’s Standard English. To this single characteristic of the editorial mind must be as­ cribed the almost total lack of knowledge on the part of most Ameri­ cans that the language they speak was ever any different than it is right now. How many people know, for example, that when the poet Gray composed his famous “Elegy” his title for it was An Elegy Wrote in a Country Churchyard?” . Southern mountain dialect (as folk speech of Appalachia is called by linguists) is certainly archaic, but the general historical period it represents can be narrowed down to the days of the first Queen Elizabeth, and can be further particularized by saying that what is 41 �heard today is actually a sort of Scottish flavored Elizabethan English. This is not to say that Chaucerian forms will not be heard in everyday use, and even an occassional Anglo-Saxon one as well. When we remember that the first white settlers in what is today Appalachia were the so-called Scotch-Irish along with Germans from the Palatinate area along the Rhine, there is small wonder that the language has a Scottish tinge; The remarkable thing is that the Ger­ mans seem to have influenced it so little. About the only locally used dialect words that can be ascribed to them are wamus, for a woolen jacket, “hit wonders” me and briggity, for uppity. Otherwise the Scots seem to have had it all their own way. When I first came to Lincoln County as a bride it used to seem to me that everything that did not pooch out, hooved up. Pooch is a Scott­ ish variant of the word pouch that was in use in the 1600’s. Numerous objects can pooch out including pregnant women and gentlemen with bay windows. Hoove is a very old past participle of the verb to heave and was apparently in use on both sides of the border by 1601. The top of an old-fashioned trunk may be said to hoove up. Another word heard occasionally in the back country is ingerns for onions. In Scottish dialect the word is inguns; however if our people are permitted the intrusive “r” in potaters, tomaters, tobaccer, and so on, there seems to be no reason why they should not use it in ingerns as well. It is possible to compile a very long list of these Scots words and phrases. I will give only a few more for illustration, and will wait to mention some points on Scottish pronunciation and grammar a little further on. Fornenst is a word that has many variants. It can mean either “next to” or “opposite from.” “Look at that big rattler quiled up fornenst the fence post!” (Quiled is an Elizabethan prounuciation of coiled.) “When I woke up this morning there was a little shift of snow on the ground.” “I was getting better, but now I’ve took a backset with this flu.” “He dropped the dish and busted it all to flinders.” “Law, I hope how soon we get some rain!” (How soon is supposed to be obsolete, but it en­ joys excellent health in Lincoln County,) “That trifling old fixin ain’t worth a haet!” Haet means the smallest thing that can be conceived of, and comes from Deil hae’t (Devil have it.) Fixin is the Old English or Anglo-Saxon word for she-fox as used in the northern dialect. In the south of England you would have heard vixen, the word used today in Standard English. It is interesting to note that until very recently it has been pri­ marily the linguistic historians who have pointed out the predominantly Scottish and Germanic heritage of the Southern mountain people. Perhaps I may be allowed to digress for a moment to trace these people back to their beginnings 42 �Early in his English reign, James I decided to try to control the Irish by putting a Protestant population into Ireland. To do this he confiscated the lands of the earls of Ulster and bestowed them upon Scottish and English lords on the condition that they settle the ter­ ritory with tenants from Scotland and England. This was known as the “Great Settlement” or the “King’s Plantation,” and was begun in 1610. Most of the Scots who moved into Ulster came from the lowlands1 and thus they would have spoken the Scots variety of the Northumb­ rian or Northern English dialect. (Most highland Scots at that time still spoke Gaelic.) This particular dialect would have been kept intact if the Scots had had no dealings with the Irish, and this, ac­ cording to records, was the case. While in Ulster the Scots multiplied, but after roughly 100 years they became dissatisfied with the trade and religious restrictions imposed by England, and numbers of them began emigrating to the English colonies in America. Many of these Scots who now called themselves the “ScotchIrish” came into Pennsylvania where, finding the better lands already settled by the English, they began to move south and west. “Their enterprise and pioneering spirit made them the most important ele­ ment in the vigorous frontiersmen who opened up this part of the South and later other territories farther West into which they pushed.”* Besides the Scots who arrived from Ireland, more came directly from Scotland to America, particularly after “the ‘45”, the final Ja­ cobite uprising in support of “Bonnie Prince Charlie the Young Pre­ tender, which ended disastrously for the Scottish clans that suported him. By the time of the American Revolution there were about 50,000 Scots in this country. But to get back to the dialect, let me quote two more linguistic authorities to prove my point about the Scottish influence on the local speech. Raven I. McDavid notes, “The speech of the hill people is quite different from both dialects of the Southern lowlands for it is basically derived from the Scotch-Irish of Western Pennsylvania.”3 H. L. Mencken said of Appalachia folk speech, “The persons who speak it undiluted are often called by the Southern publicists, the purest Anglo-Saxons in the United States, but less romantic ethno­ logists describe them as predominantly Celtic in blood; though there has been a large infiltration of English and even German strains.”4 The reason our people still speak as they do is that when these early Scots and English and Germans (and some Irish and Welsh too) came into the Appalachian area and settled, they virtually isolated themselves from the mainstream of American life for generations to come because of the hills and mountains, and so they kept the old speech forms that have long since fallen out of fashion elsewhere. 43 �Things in our area are not always what they seem, linguistically speaking. Someone may tell you that “Cindy ain’t got sense enough to come in outen the rain but she sure is clever.” Clever, you see, back in the 1600’s meant “neighborly or accommodating.” Also if you ask someone how he is, and he replies that he is “very well”, you are not necessarily to rejoice with him on the state of his health. Our people are accustomed to use a speech so vividly colorful and virile that his “very well” only means that he is feeling “so-so.” If you are informed that “several” people came to a meeting, your informant does not mean what you do by several—he is using it in its older sense of anywhere from 20 to 100 people. If you hear a per­ son or an animal referred to as ill, that person or animal is not sick but bad-tempered, and this adjective has been so used since the 1300’s. (Incidentally, good English used sick to refer to bad health long, long before our forebearers ever started saying ill for the same connota­ tions. ) Many of our people refer to sour milk as blinked milk. This usage goes back at least to the early 1600’s when people still believed in witches and the power of the evil eye. One of the meanings of the word blink back in those days was “to glance at”; if you glanced at some­ thing, you blinked at it, and thus sour milk came to be called blinked due to the evil machinations of the witch. There is another phrase, “Man, did he ever feather into him!” This used to carry a fairly murderous connotation, having gotten its start back in the days when the English long bow was the ultimate word in destructive power. Back then, if you drew your bow with sufficient strength to cause your arrow to penetrate your enemy up to the feathers on its shaft, you had feathered into him. Nowadays, the expression has weakened in meaning until it merely indicates a bit of fisticuffs. One of the most baffling expressions our people use (baffling to “furriners,” at least) is “I don’t care to . . . ” To outlanders this seems a definite “no,” whereas in truth it actually means, “thank you so much, I’d love to.” One is forevermore hearing a tale of mutual bewilderment in which a gentlemen driving an out-of-state car sees a young fellow standing alongside the road, thumbing. When the gentleman stops and asks if he wants a lift, the boy very properly replies “I don’t keer to,” using care in the Elizabethan sense of the word. On hearing this the man drives off considerably puzzled, leaving an equally baffled young man behind. (Even the word foreigner itself is used here in its Eliza­ bethan sense of someone who is the same nationality as the speaker, but not from the speaker’s immediate home area.) 44 �Reverend is generally used to address preachers, but it is a pretty versatile word and full-strength whiskey, or even the full-strength scent of skunk, are also called reverend. In these latter instances, its meaning has nothing to do with reverence, but with the fact that their strength is as the strength of ten because they are undiluted. In the dialect, the word allow more often means “think, say, or suppose” than “permit.” “He ’lowed he’d git it done to­ morrow.” A neighbor may take you into her confidence and an­ nounce that she has heard that "reverend" whiskey the preacher’s daughter should have been running after the mailman. These are deep waters to the uninitiated. What she really means is that she has heard a juicy bit of gossip: The preacher’s daughter is chasing the local mail carrier However, she takes the precaution of using the phrase should have been to show that this statement is not vouched for by the speaker. The same phrase is used in the same way in the Paston letters in the 1400’s. Almost all the so-called “bad English” used by natives of Appala­ chia was once employed by the highest ranking nobles of the realms of England and Scotland. Few humans are really passionately interested in grammar so I’ll skim as lightly over this section as possible, but let’s consider the following bit of dialogue briefly: “I’ve been a-studying about how to say this, till I’ve nigh wearried myself to death. I reckon hit don’t never do nobody no good to beat about the bush, so I’ll just tell ye. Your man’s hippoed. There’s nothing ails him, but he spends more time using around the doctor’s office than he does a-working.” The only criticism that even a linguistic purist might offer here is that, in the eighteenth century, hippoed was considered by some, Jonathan Swift among others, to be slang even though it was used by the English society of the day. (To say someone is hippoed is to say he is hypochondriac.) Words like a-studying and a-working are verbal nouns and go back to Anglo-Saxon times; and from the 1300’s on, people who studied 45 �about something, deliberated or reflected on it. Nigh is the older word for near, and weary was the pronunciation of worry in the 1300 and 1400’s. The Scots also used this pronunciation. Reckon was current in Tudor England in the sense of consider or suppose. Hit is the Old English 3rd person singular neuter pronoun for it and has come ringing down through the centuries for over a thousand years. All those multiple negatives were perfectly proper until some English mathematician in the eighteenth century decided that two negatives make a positive instead of simply intensifying the negative quality of some statement. Shakespeare loved to use them. He used quadruple negatives. Ye was once used accusatively, and man has been employed since early times to mean husband. And finally, to use means to frequent or loiter. Certain grammatical forms occuring in the dialect have caused it to be regarded with pious horror by school marms. Prominent among the offenders, they would be almost sure to list these: “Bring them books over here.” In the 1500’s this was good English. “I found three bird's nestes on the way to school.” This dissyllabic ending for the plural goes back to the Middle Ages. “That pencil’s not mine, it’s her’n.” Possessive forms like his’n, our’n, your’n evolved in the Middle Ages on the model of mine and thine. In the revision of the Wycliffe Bible, which appeared shortly after 1380, we find phrases such as “. . . restore to hir alle things that ben hem.” and “some of oum went in to the grave.” “He don’t scare me none.” In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries do was used with he, she, and it. Don’t is simply do not, of course. “You wasn’t scared, was you?” During the seven­ teenth and eighteenth centuries many people were careful to distin­ guish between singular you was and plural you were. It became un­ fashionable in the early nineteenth century although Noah Webster stoutly defended it. “My brother come in from the army last night.” This usage goes back to late Anglo-Saxon times. You find it in the Paston letters and in Scottish poetry. “I done finished my lessons,” also has many echoes in the Pastons’ correspondence and the Scots poets. From the late Middle Ages on up, the Northern dialect of Eng­ lish used formations like this: “guiltless persons is condemned,” and so do our people. And, finally, in times past, participial forms like these abound: has beat, was bore with it, has chose. Preterite forms were as varied: blowed, growed, catched, and for climbed you can find clum, dome, dim, all of which are locally used. Pronunciation of many words has changed considerably too. Deef 46 �for deaf, heered for heard, afeared for afraid, cowcumber for cucumber, bammy for balmy, holp for help, are a very few. Several distinct characteristics of the language of Elizabeth’s day are still preserved. Words that had oi in them were given a long i pronunciation: pizen, fine, bile, pint, and so on. Words with er were frequently pronounced as if the letters were ar: sarvice, sartin, narvous. It is from this time that we get our pronunciation of sergeant and the word varsity which is a clipping of the word university given the ar sound. Another Elizabethan characteristic was the substitution of an i sound for an e sound. You hear this tendency today when people say miny kittle, chist, git and so on. It has caused such confusion with the words, pen, and pin (which our people pronounce alike as pin) that they are regularly accompanied by a qualifying word—stick pin for the pin and ink pin for the pen. You can hear many characteristic Scottish pronunciations. What, thar, dar (where, there, and dare) are typical. So also are poosh, boosh, eetch, deesh, feesh (push, bush, itch, dish, and fish.) In some ways this vintage English reflects the outlook and spirit of the people who speak it; and, we find that not only is the language Elizabethan, but that some of the ways these people look at things are Elizabethan too. Numbers of our people plant by the “signs” (the stars) and conduct other activities according to the signs too. Many other superstitions still exist here. In some homes, when a death occurs all the mirrors and pictures are turned to the wall. Now I don’t know if today the people still know why they do this, or if they just go through the actions because it’s the thing to do, but this belief goes far back in history. It was once thought that the mirror reflected the soul of the person looking into it, and if the soul of the dead per­ son saw the soul of one of his beloved relatives reflected in the mirror, he might take it with him, so his relatives were taking no chances. The belief that if a bird accidentally flies into a house, a member of the household will die, is also very old, and is still current in the region. Cedar trees are in a good deal of disfavor in Lincoln County, and the reason seems to stem from the conviction held by a number of people that if someone plants a cedar he will die when it grows large enough to shade his coffin. Aside from its antiquity, the most outstanding feature of the dialect is its masculine flavor—robust and virile. This is a language spoken by a red-blooded people who have colorful phraseology born in their bones. They tend to call a spade a spade in no uncertain terms. “No, the baby didn’t come early, the weddin’ came late,” remarked 47 �one proud grandpa. Such people have small patience with the pallid des­ criptive limitations of stand­ ard English. They are not about to be put off with the rather insipid remark, “My, it’s hot!” or, “isn’t it cold out today?” They want to know just how hot or cold: “It’s hotter ’n the hinges of hell” or “Hit’s blue cold out thar!” Other common descriptive phrases for cold are (freely) translated “It’s colder ’n a witch’s bosom” or “It’s colder ’n a well-digger’s backside.” Speakers of Southern mountain dialect are past mas­ ters of the art of coining vivid descriptions. Their everyday conversation is liberally sprinkled with such gems as: “That man is so contrary, if you throwed him in a river he’d float up stream!” “She walks so slow they have to set stakes to see if she’s a’movin!” “That pore boy’s an awkward size—too big for a man and not big enough for a horse.” “Zeke, he come bustin’ outta thar and hit it for the road quick as double-geared lightenin!” “She’s so cross-eyed that she can stand in the middle of the week and see both Sundays. “That’s as smooth as a schoolmarm’s leg.” Nudity is frowned upon in Appalachia, but for some reason there are numerous “nekkid as . . . ” phrases. Any casual sampling would probably contain these three: “Nekkid as a jaybird,” “bare-nekkid as a hound dog’s rump,” and “start-nekkid.” Start nekkid comes direct­ ly from the Anglo-Saxons, so it’s been around for more than a thou­ sand years. Originally “Start” was steort which meant “tall.” Hence, if you were “start-nekkid,” you were “nekkid to the tail.” A similar phrase, “stark-naked” is a Johnny-come-lately, not even appearing in print until around 1530. If a lady tends to be gossipy, her friends may say that “her tongue’s a mile long,” or else that it “wags at both ends.” Such ladies are a great trial to young dating couples. Incidentally, there is a formal terminology to indicate exactly how serious the intentions of these couples are, ranging from sparking which is simply dating, to court­ ing which is dating with a more serious intent, on up to talking, which �means the couple is seriously contemplating matrimony. Shakespeare uses talking in this sense in King Lear. If a man has imbibed too much of who-shot-John, his neighbor may describe him as “so drunk he couldn’t hit the ground with his hat,” or, on the morning-after, the suffered may admit that “I was so dizzy I had to hold on to the grass afore I could lean ag’in the ground.” One farmer was having a lot of trouble with a weasel killing his chickens. “He jest grabs ’em afore they can git word to God,” he complained. Someone who has a disheveled or bedraggled appearance may be described in any one of several ways: “You look like you’ve been chewed up and spit out,” or “you look like you’ve been a-sortin wild­ cats,” or “you look like the hindquarters of hard luck,” or, simply “you look like somethin’ the cat drug in that the dog wouldn’t eat!” “My belly thinks my throat is cut” simply means “I’m hungry,” and seems to have a venerable history of several hundred years. I found a citation for it dated in the early 1500’s. A man may be “bad to drink” or “wicked to swear”, but these descriptive adjectives are never reversed. You ought not to be shocked if you hear a saintly looking grand­ mother admit she likes to hear a coarse-talking man; she means a man with a deep bass voice. (This can also refer to a singing voice, and in this case, if grandma prefers a tenor, she’d talk about someone who sings “Shallow.” ) Nor ought you leap to the conclusion that a “Hard girl” is one who lacks the finer feminine sensibilities. “Hard” is the dialectal pronounciation of hired and seems to stem from the same source as do “far” engines that run on rubber “tars.” This language is vivid and virile, but so was Elizabethan English. However, some of the things you say may be shocking the folk as much as their combined lexicons may be shocking you. For instance, the stratum of society in which I was raised, it was considered accep­ table for a lady to say either “damn” or “hell” if strongly moved. Most Appalachian ladies would rather be caught dead than uttering either of these words, but they are pretty free with their use of a four-letter word for manure which I don’t use. Some families employ another of these four-letter words for manure as a pet name for the children, and seem to have no idea that it is considered indelicate in other areas of the country. Along with a propensity for calling a spade a spade, the dialect has a strange mid-Victorian streak in it, too. Until recently, it was considered brash to use either the word bull or stallion. If it was neces­ sary to refer to a bull, he was known variously as a “father cow” or a “gentleman cow” or an “ox” or a “mas-cu-line,” while a stallion was either a “stable horse” or else rather ominously, “The animal.” Only waspers fly around Lincoln County, I don’t think I’ve ever 49 �heard of a wasp there, and I’ve never been able to trace the reason for that usage, but I do know why cockleburrs are called cuckleburrs. The first part of the word cockleburr carried an objectionable con­ notation to the folk. However, if they are going to balk at that, it seems rather hilarious to me that they find nothing objectionable about cuckle. A friend of mine used to have a small store on the banks of the Guyan River. She told me about a little old lady who trotted into the store one day with a request for ‘some of the strumpet candy.” My friend said she was very sorry, they didn’t have any. But, she added gamely, what kind was it, and she would try to order some. The little lady glanced around to see if she could be overheard, lowered her voice and said, “well, it’s horehound, but I don’t like to use that word!” The dialect today is a watered down thing compared to what it was a generation ago, but our people are still the best talkers in the world, and I think we should listen to them with more appreciation. FOOTNOTES 1 T h o m a s P y les« T h e O rig in s a n d D e v e lo p m e n t o f th e E n g lis h L a n g u a g e . N e w Y ork« H a r c o u r t, B r a c e W o rld , I n c ., 1964, p a g e 35. " I t is n o t s u r p r is in g t h a t th o s e lo w la n d S c o ts m e n w ho co lo n ized th e K in g ’s P la n t a ti o n ’ in U ls te r a n d w h o se d e s c e n d a n ts c r o s s e d th e A tla n tic a n d s e ttle d th e B lu e R id g e , th e A p p a la c h ia n s , a n d th e O z a rk s sh o u ld h a v e b e e n s o li ttl e a f f e c te d b y th e c la s s ic a l c u ltu r e o f th e R e n a is s a n c e .” 2 A lb e r t C . B a u g h , A H is to ry o f th e E n g lis h L a n g u a g e , 2 n d e d .. N e w Y o r k , 1957, p . 409 3 H . L . M e n c k e n , T h e A m e ric a n L a n g u a g e , e d . R a v e n I M c D a v id , J r . , th e 4 th e d . a n d t h e tw o s u p p le m e n ts a b rid g e d , w ith a n n o ta tio n s a n d n e w m a te r i a l, N e w Y o r k , 1963, p . 455. 4 Ib id ., p . 459. a scene from a 19th century Big Lick store re-created 50 �“Kefauver's Folly” A busy country store of Big lick vintage has been re­ created by the Society in its exhibit room at Cherry Hill, the Roanoke Fine Arts Center headquarters. Assembled by Mrs. Ed­ mund Goodwin and Mrs. Roger Winborne, the all-purpose store has been named “Kefauver’s Folly,” after the large wholesale Big Lick store which sold everything from buggies to bootstraps in the 1870’s and 1880’s. Actually named J. Kefauver & Son Repository, it stood at the site of the pres­ ent Municipal Building on the comer of what was then Com­ merce and First streets. Mrs. Goodwin and Mrs. Winborne delved into closets, attics, barns and back rooms in Roanoke, Franklin and Boa chicken weigher tetourt counties to stock the shelves and cases. Their exhibit, another chapter of the Americana which has been replaced by the supermarket and the convenience market, may be seen when Cherry Hill is open—from 10 to 4 Mon­ day through Friday and 3 to 5 on Sunday—through the 1969-70 school year. Many school children are scheduled to visit the store for a lesson in 19th century economics. A pre-inflation price list is shown. Among the almost 200 items displayed in Kefauver’s Folly are a weigher for live chickens, whip holder, kerosene lamps, glass lamp chimneys, curling irons, an iron bank, carpet stretcher, cherry seeder, apple peeler, spittoon, account register, typewriter, tobacco cutter, coffee mill, cornbread molds, wooden kitchen utensils, fluted cake pan, apothecary scales, crochet hooks, brass snuff box, candy and spice jar, crocks, jugs, wooden measures, molasses keg, nail keg, cheese box, mouse trap, school slates, cash register, bolts of cloth, bonnet, collar buttons and a post office from Nace in Botetourt County. 51 �History Is Examined At Natural Bridge Many historical activities were explored in depth by speakers at the fourth annual Conference of Southern Historical Societies, sponsored by the American Association for State and Local History with the aid of the Roanoke Historical Society and eight other organ­ izations, at Natural Bridge Hotel May 1-3. The Roanoke Society received a certificate of commendation from the American Association “for achievements in the field of historic preservation, for gathering and compiling photographs and material on historic landmarks, for maintaining and guarding hist­ oric records and for creating an awareness and appreciation of his­ tory.” The Society also was cited for its work “in an endeavor to pre­ serve the integrity of Fincastle.” The certificate was presented to Mrs. English Showalter, president, by Dr. William T. Alderson, Association executive director. The staff of Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission gave a detailed slide presentation on recording historic buildings. In three years, staff members said they have visited over 5,000 sites and made 20,000 photographs. Their information eventually will be fed to computers for quick data retrieval. Director James W. Moody, Jr. said the first 56 buildings and sites nominated for listing in the National Registry were “by no means the top 56 in Virginia,” Dr. Edward P. Alexander, Colonial Williamsburg vice president, said state nominations usually are “accept­ ed automatically” by the National Registry. This doesn’t mean that a building will be saved, he said, “but it does mean that every alter­ native will be considered.” To get young people involved in historical projects, “you must get them wrapped up in inquiry . . . not entertainment,” said Mrs. Mary Claire Shenkir, assistant to the director of the Association for Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. Visits to historical sites, special programs and events and visits to older people for taped interviews were recommended. “Let young people plan—They’re amazingly articulate,” Mrs. Shenkir said. In a panel discussion on the relevance of history today, Dr. Alexander said “Swingers react violently to history . . . and hippies see museums as a massive put-on which lacks relevance for today’s world . . . But as the swingers pass the magic barrier of 30, they may mellow and talk about good old days too,” he said, “life in the past was just as disorganized and bewildering as it is today . . . Let us not �forget that history includes discontents.” Charles E. Shedd of Richmond, regional interpretation chief for the National Park Service, said his agency made a “honest mistake in misreading visitors.” In the 1930’s when the Park Service “got into history,” people of comfortable means were traveling and the program was geared to them. But after World War II, those who were visiting park sites were “not just comfortable, well educated people.” He called for improved interpretation. “We’re not saying what it meant.” Louis F. Ismay, an Albany, N. Y. planning consultant, said his­ torical societies and similar organizations “ought to be tuned in” to their potential audience. Half of the U. S. population will be under 26 next year, he said. After a pleasant afternoon bus and walking tour of Fincastle, the conference heard an after-dinner talk on “Yankee Ways with Historic Preservation” by Bertram K. Little, director of the Society for Preservation of New England Antiquities. His organization owns 60 separate buildings, including several from the 17th century, and all are in use today. “You’ve got to use them for something,” he said. Victorian buildings are being destroyed, Little said, “and we must work on saving them . . . And we must save our outbuildings, necessaries, privies and barns.” Dr. Jean Stephenson, a veteran Washington authority on genea­ logy, said, “Too many people don’t know enough about history . . . We preserve battlefields and houses and we’re not doing one thing about the people who used them.” A fundamental principal in genealogy, she said, is that “you don’t accept anything anyone tells you unless you can prove it . . . Document it. Go to the records and prove every single step . . . You couldn’t possibly do enough research.” There are “very few good local histories,” Dr. Stephenson said. “We need to tell who the people were who lived down by the river and across the tracks.” Virginia is particularly unfortunate, she said, “because so much was published in the 1880’s, 1890’s, and 1920’s which was based almost solely on tradition and not on the records.” Charles Olin, conservator of the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, said, “All objects are documents in them­ selves. We cannot interpret them if they are not preserved correctly.” And people in the future will not have the opportunity to interpret them if they are not preserved now, he added. Mrs* Marguerite Old of Lexington, formerly with Colonial Will­ iamsburg, talked about publicizing historical activities. 53 �VOLUME V ili ' ” ” " ’ SALEM, KOAKÖKK COUNTY, V1UG1X1A, TUUIÌSUAV MOlìKlKO OCTOBER 16, ISIS. TH E ROANOKE TIM ES ;g j g | g s g g | g | | g m m s f * «j t A t $2 Per Annum, P o e tr y * T il K 03.11 Hl'IIOOl.tlOlXE. iu BOOK AND JOB , KLMBER 18 T hé'lawyer looked up nt liim quirklimi trusted, und to whom Ilo limi ummliw!Sk-th," he «>!■!■whhnil.lK.rs. ' s ä ? i!Z S !« « n n; m- ^ Ymiemi nlways tell u boy whose !i!,,!,!!,7r'.r S i f c S \^Th^ .-hewed Oir l.y no absent-minded lioiw, but you cun tell it by the way :inrkc, ye n.-l,rtil>or.. en.l hear me tell. D 11 U G G I S 1 , I h e J 'u Hiw ilul^y no dut- "uT 'tlie ________ -— i ^ vested ih r proceeds of our lust lumi FRAN K G. W EBBER, SA I.E J1. V A -, puntini;! a ra t,» e a iC .« . No more vvim. In IliolmTO; iTl.c«Kl.l.oyr«lcjlon Koops constantly on lirnirt — •ahidi'tlK-v m ight us well or Imd ns Tlicro uro over forty thousand li. me Go.1 olKive, one Lor.! Ih.1o.kI. Ullt.° in the lumi;, mid speele will flow ■“ P? j'’"’1s,^!>°i ‘„""y 01,0 wnncc" Kohl __ in heuvilv to-morrow. This wil Itnrkrye—I - - T —' : lui vu ijiy suspicions, Mr. Front page of Roanoke Times, published in Salem, for Oct. 16, 1873 do­ nated by the family of the late Dr. J. William McCauley of Salem. ..... v a t ^ g s : eurpet. I t lias never occurred to her 111., ult.w.f ,.r.„..!,l'|,|j draw s the front huh over his eyes thut wldeli Is u t Vie lu rk . T he hair ��� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society Summer 1969 Volume 6, Number 1 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />Lewis Miller, Folk Artist<br />Johnny Rebs from Virginia and the Fairer Sex<br />The Four Anderson Brothers<br />Roanoke River: Once Called Saponi, Round Oak, Goose Creek<br />St. Mark's Fincastle Has Roots 200 Years Old<br />Appalachian Dialect: Vivid, Virile, and Elizabethan<br />Kefauver's Folly<br />History is Examined at Natural Bridge<br />Two Fort Sites Explored Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Summer 1969 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_06_01_Summer_1969 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6345/JHSWV_06_02_Winter_1970.pdf 4c5230ac00c3510017d16766659864bc PDF Text Text JOURNAL o f tlie ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Winter......... 1970 BOTETOURT CO UNTY 1 2 7 0 -1 9 7 0 Number Two �ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Amor montium nos movet in ......... J. T. E ngleby R obert W. W o o d y ............... A rthur E llett ................. J. R. H il d e b r a n d ............... . Mrs . J oel W il l is R ichert ........ ....... President ------Vice President .............. Treasurer ................ Secretary Executive Secretary D irectors Raymond P. Barnes Homer Bast C. P. Blair John D. Carr Stuart Carter Mrs. H. Powell Chapman C. Francis Cocke Mrs. John Copenhaver S. S. Edmunds Arthur Ellett J. T. Engleby III B. N. Eubank Edmund P. Goodwin Mrs. Edmund P. Goodwin Jack Goodykoontz Robert Goodykoontz Miss Anna Louise Haley J. R. Hildebrand Miss Nancy E. Himes Shields Johnson George Kegley Mrs. George Kegley R. S. Kime Mrs. H. P. Kyle Mrs. J.M.B. Lewis Jr. Miss Nancy Logan Mrs. S. H. McVitty Richard L. Meagher L. G. Muse ^ Miss Frances Niederer E. H. Ould James D. Richardson Tayloe Rogers Mrs. English Showalter Mrs. Frank E. Snow R. D. Stoner Paul S. Stonesifer David F. Thornton James L. Trinkle William Watts James P. Woods Robert W. Woody Dr. J. C. Zillhardt # GEORGE KEGLEY Editor of the JOURNAL CONTENTS Here’s To Botetourt ............................................. How the Mother County Began by R. D. Stoner Fincastle—“More Than A County Seat” by Frances McN. Lewis ............................. Early Craftsmen by Roddy Moore ........ ! . ! ! ! ! Mary Johnston, Writer of the P a s t ...................... Cherry Tree Bottom by Harry Fulwiler Jr........... . Fire Destroys Landmarks .............................. The Turnpike Through Botetourt by Edmund P. Goodwin ............................... Western Inhabitants—an “Incumbrance”? .......... The Bells of Fincastle by Clare W h ite .................. 14 Iron Furnaces of B otetourt........................... ! An 18th Century Spinet by Anne McClenny ...’ I The Village of Daleville by Raymond Barnes . . . “Echo from the Hills” ......................................... Historic Fincastle Inc............................. .. Botetourt Bicentennial, Botetourt by Jacqueline Hundley R a d e r........................ A County Album ............................................... Retrospect and Prophecy—1885 .. 1 2 .. .. .. .. .. 8 13 17 24 28 .. .. .. H .. .. .. .. 31 35 37 39 42 44 47 48 .. 50, 51 .. 52 I 59 The Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Volume VI, Number 2. Published, twice yearly by the Society at Box 1904, Roanoke, Va. 24008, chronicle the past and present of that part of the state west of the Blue Ridge. Single copy price for members: 50 cents; for non­ members, $1. The Society wUl be careful in handling unsolicited mater­ ial but cannot be responsible for its loss. �Here’s To Botetourt Bicentennial Emblem With this all-Botetourt issue of The Journal, the Roanoke His­ torical Society tips its hat to its mother county on her 200th birth­ day. A mecca for many who appreciate her beauty, charm and his­ torical associations, Botetourt was recognized by the Virginia His­ toric Landmarks Commission in 1969 when its county seat, Fincastle, was added to the Virginia Landmarks Register, a distinguished list of historic places. Credit for this issue goes to many people: R. D. Stoner, retired clerk of court and county historian extraordinary, for his sketch of the county’s beginning; Frances McNulty Lewis, Roanoke writer, for her story of Fincastle prepared for the Virginia Cultural Development Study Commission hearing in Roanoke in 1967: Clare White, Roa­ noke Times women’s editor, for the account of the bell-ringing; Anne McClenny, associate professor of music at Hollins College, for a re­ port on the old spinet in Fincastle; Harry Fulwiler, Alexandria elec­ trical engineer, for recollections of his native Cherry Tree Bottom at Buchanan: Roddy Moore, Yorktown school teacher, for research on the early craftsmen of his home county; Edmund P. Goodwin, for assembling information on the South West Turnpike in Botetourt; Raymond P. Barnes, for his look at old Daleville and Miss Emma Martin of Buchanan, who supplied most of the information on her cousin, Mary Johnston. She remembers the writer as “a warm, affec­ tionate, lovely person.” Photographers Bob Phillips, Wayne Deel, Jack Gaking and Oakie Asbury gave valuable assistance. J. R. Hildebrand prepared two in­ teresting maps and the cover sketch of the county’s 1847 courthouse. �How The Mother County Began By R. D. Stoner Now that Botetourt County is celebrating its bicentennial, mem­ bers of the Roanoke Historical Society may be interested in reviewing the image of their mother county as it was in 1770. From Botetourt’s mother, Augusta County, it inherited a Haim to all lands beginning at a point in the watershed of the Blue Ridge Mountains, east of present Lexington, and lying south and west of a line running approximately through the center of present Rock­ bridge County, crossing a road between Warm and Hot Springs and continuing through the present state of West Virginia on the establish­ ed course of N. 55° West, to the Ohio River some 30 miles north of Point Pleasant, W. Va. Projecting this north-west division line, the boundary would roughly run through Columbus, Ohio, Fort Wayne, Ind., and cross Illinois north of Chicago into a small section of Wis­ consin to the Mississippi River. The eastern boundary was the water­ shed of the Blue Ridge Mountain from a point east of present Lexing­ ton to the Virginia-North Carolina line. Its southern border was an extension of the Virginia-North Carolina boundary including the pre­ sent state of Kentucky. This immense territory became a part of the Royal Province of Virginia by the British victory won at Quebec in 1759 and ceded to England by France under the terms of the Treaty of Paris executed in 1763. Augusta County then being the westernmost county in Vir­ ginia, this land became its territory before it belonged to Botetourt. Later, with the exception of the present states of Kentucky and West Virginia, most of this was known as the Northwest Territory, and under the provisions of the Northwest Ordinances of 1787 its inhabitants could organize into states in the then new Republic when population justified such a move. From a few dozen families in the late 1730’s, Southwest Augusta County had grown in population to the extent that their numbers were sufficient for its citizens to petition the House of Burgesses in 1767, and again in 1769, for a division of the county. On January 31, 1770, an Act of Division was authorized, which divided Augusta into two counties and parishes. The infant was named Botetourt in honor of Norborne Berkeley, then governor and perhaps the most popular of all the colonial governors of Virginia, Lord Botetourt was succeeded as governor by John Murray, Lord Dunmore, in 1771 and Botetourt’s county seat was named after the title of his eldest son, Viscount Fincastle. At this time the majority of Botetourt’s citizens were ScotchIrish Presbyterians, who so many decades before left Ireland, and 2 �Virginia State Library photo Norborne Berkeley, Lord Botetourt after landing in the Atlantic coast ports had filtered down from Pennsylvania and Maryland into the Valley of Virginia. However, many were from that territory adjacent to the rivers Seine and Rhine of western Europe, as well as from England, Wales and Ireland proper. The Scotch-Irish had a tendency to move westward with the tide of immigration, and the Germanic people of the Rhine Valley to stay once they had acquired good farming land. Many of the des­ cendants of those early Germanic people are still citizens of this County, along with some Scotch-Irish. If we examine the location of the settlers of this period, we find that in their preference for home sites they worked out the pattern of a rough triangle. This triangle was located in the heart of the present boundary of Botetourt, and a concentration of population would be evident along its left line from Looney’s Mill Creek Ferry (now Buchanan) roughly following the present Lee Highway (U.S. Route 11) to the old Dr. Simmons’ place, and then would follow an old road southwesterly to Amsterdam. From this point, the right leg of the triangle would follow the settlements across the water divided between the waters of the Roanoke River and Catawba Creek, following northwardly the watershed of Catawba and Patterson creeks to the mouth of Craigs Creek at present Eagle Rock, with the base line of the triangle meandering down the James River to Looney’s Ferry. Since most of this region was open for settlement to individuals by the government, rather than by sale by large land companies, this enabled the individual to take land in single small surveys, and made the homesteads more scattered than had been the case in Augusta 3 �3 IX N. V �and present Rockbridge counties where the Beverley and Borden grants covered so much of the counties and limited the homesteader to a definite area. The Botetourt pioneers of the 1770’s were primarily involved in three undertakings. First: The protection of their lives and property. A company of Rangers could be called upon, but the primary de­ fense against sudden Indian raids was that of the individual family with their long rifles, either in the defense of their log cabin or, when time allowed for the gathering of these settlers, in local forts. Three such forts available to them were Fort William a few miles west of Fincastle; Fort Fauquier at present Buchanan, and Paul’s Fort near the present Botetourt-Rockbridge county line. Second: The sustaining of life by food and raiment. These frontier settlers were as independent in search of the necessities of life as they were in defending their lives and were as nearly economically independent as a people can be. They supplied their food either from the forest or the field, by their hands. Clothing they produced either from the furs of the wild animals in the forest or from the hides of animals raised; or wove their cloth from fibers raised by themselves, and built their houses with the trees of the forest. At this time, hemp was of great importance to England be­ cause of its use in shipping, providing ropes, cloth, use as bedding and as sails, and the short fibers (oakum) were used to caulk vessels. It was the cash crop 200 years ago for our people. Many years before the 1770’s, the British Parliament had placed a bounty on hemp, and later the General Assembly of Virginia added its efforts to sti­ mulate hemp planting by providing warehouses for its reception. Some of these warehouses were located here in present Botetourt County. Wheat closely followed hemp in production, along with flax, corn, hay, oats, barley and beans, as well as all kinds of root crops. Horses, cattle and hogs were extensively raised and marketed in Philadelphia or other eastern cities, as well as Fort Pitt. The. labor available to the settlers of Botetourt County in this period falls into one of five categories: First, and most important, the family unit, which usually consisted of many sons and daughters; next were slaves, indentured servants, apprentices and free labor. However, we must not overlook the most lucrative of all business in this period and the principal motive for the colonization of America: The acqusition of property and freedom from oppression. Certainly the hope to better themselves financially was the compelling motive that brought our pioneers across a periolous ocean to face a land inhabited by savages and which makes us, his descendants, also 5 �endure the fast pace of modern living in an over-crowded and phy­ sically sick terrain. The early deed books of this county show much activity in acquiring lands through importation rights, that is, the immigrant claim to 50 acres of free land if he could show he came of his own free will and paid his transportation costs to America. The records show these transactions all the way from the 50-acre tracts to the original papers just located in the basement of the Clerk’s Office for a grant of land containing 4,395 acres, lying in Botetourt County on the Ohio River, about three miles above the rapids at the Great Bend. Third: The construction of government and of shelter. The implementation of county government was mainly the pro­ duct of the Royal Governor, the Council and the House of Burgesses through their appointees, the twelve justices of the peace. These justices were the outstanding men of the territory and a certain number of them had to be trained in law matters. They exercised the duties now held by the courts and the board of supervisors, and usually were the leaders in the local churches. However, the construction of dwell­ ings, inns, roads and churches—other than that of the established Church of England—was the responsibility of the average pioneer of this date. At this period the tax lists describe his homes generally as “log house with clay chimney”, “frame dwelling house, brick chimney, four fire places”, “log dwelling house, shingled roof and clay chimney” and “frame dwelling house, one stone and one brick chimney.” The inns or ordinaries, in addition to caring for the travelers, drivers, merchants and others, were required to provide for the food and comfort of the horses and upon occasions for droves of cattle and hogs being driven to markets. From the early records, one would be justified in believing that any resident having a house large enough to provide one extra room for the care of transients, procured a license to keep an “ordinary” in his home. A uniform schedule of com­ pensation for lodging and services was promulgated by the justices of the peace in 1770. These tavern keepers were allowed to charge: For West India Rum, they may demand ten shillings per gallon. For rum made on this continent, two shillings and six pence per gallon For Apple Brandy, four shillings per gallon For Virginia strong malt beer bottled three months, seven pence half penny per bottle For Bumbo with two gills o Rum to the quart made with white sugar, one shilling and three pence For a warm diet with small beer, nine pence 6 �For lodging in clean sheets, one in a bed, six pence; two in a bed, three pence, three farthings. If more than two, nothing For stablage with plenty of hay or fodder, one night, seven pence, half penny. Usually, when a county was formed, a parish was created having the same geographical boundary. This procedure was followed when Augusta County was divided, and the Botetourt Parish erected its established church building at Fincastle which is now used by the Presbyterians. The Botetourt territory contained such a high per­ centage of dissenting population that discord readily developed and church services for these dissenters were usually held in their own home. Botetourt County’s main road ran from Gilbert Campbell’s Ford at Lexington to Cherry Tree Bottom on James River above Buchanan, then to Amsterdam where one division turned left, or south, following somewhat the present Route 220, and the other division continued up the Catawba Creek to Adam Harmon’s on New River, where it be­ came known as the Wilderness Road to Kentucky. The feeder or local roads were of more daily concern to the early settlers than were the arterial roads, and our early records teem with petitions and orders concerning roads to the mill and the market. The establishment of these roads was only the first step and a constant vigil by the county fathers was necessary to keep them in condition. Almost every grand jury indicted more than one overseer of a road for neglect of his duty in connection with it, and sometimes these roads were obstructed by the building of fences across them by irate landowners. Celebration in Print Botetourt and its county seat, Fincastle, have been celebrated by three national publications in articles written by Frances McNulty Lewis in recent weeks. The New York Travel section printed an article, “Living With History In Spacious Fincastle,” Sunday, April 12. Antiques magazine used the heading, “Botetourt County, Virginia Begins Its Third Cen­ tury,” and Southern Living entitled its article, “The First 200 Years of Fincastle.” Both magazine articles were in the April issue and all three used pictures. Mrs. Lewis, the wife of J. M. B. Lewis Jr., is a member of the Society board and an accomplished writer. 7 �Fincastle— "More Than A County Seat" By F rances McN. L e w is For miles around the town of Fincastle there are pastures, grain fields and orchards, watered by creeks which flow either to the Roanoke River or to the James. On nearby hills overlooking the town are handsome homes, many of them built by early residents around the turn of the nineteenth century. Fincastle itself, built mostly of mellow red brick and white clapboard, its churches and court house crowned with pointed steeples, seems the very picture of a peaceful country village. It was not always so. When the Scotch-Irish and German pioneers, during the early seventeen hundreds, began to push their way down from Pennsylvania to accomplish their immense work of settling the Great Valley, the land was a favorite Indian hunting ground. Every inch of soil claimed by the newcomers had to be fought for and defended, over and over, against the raids of Iroquois, Cherokees, and especially the dread Shawnees, the mere mention of whose name “sent chills up the backbone of every early settler” (Robert D. Stoner, A Seed-Bed of the Republic, p. 9) In spite of the dangers, pioneers continued to come in ever growing numbers. Scotch-Irish and German settlers were joined by Huguenots from France, Swiss dissenters, eastern Virginians of English descent, and others, to make their homes in the fertile hills of present-day Botetourt County. As new settlers poured in, the Indians were pushed back into Tennessee, “the Kentuck”, and beyond. The Virginia lands lying just west of the Blue Ridge gradually ceased to be raw frontier and became settled, prosperous territory. Fincastle was one of the first communities—a sprawling area that included all of Kentucky, part of Ohio, most of Indiana and Illinois, and stretched to the Mississippi River. The settlement at Miller’s Mill* soon to be re-christened Fincastle, was chosen as the county seat! Plans for a court house and jail were made, and taxes levied to pay for them, although by order of the General Assembly Act creating the County, “the people situated on the waters of the Mississippi” were spared the tax because they were “very remote from their court­ house.” (F. B. Kegley, Kegley’s Virginia Frontier, p. 379) A village plan (still in existence) was drawn up, with the streets laid out just about as they go today. In an article prepared for the Roanoke Historical Society, R. D. Stoner tells us about these streets: . . . over them have paraded the militia companies on their way to Point Pleasant, and to the Indian expeditions in the south and 8 �Fincastle in the 1840s from Howe's "Historical Collections of Virginia" west, and to the Revolutionary army battlefields. Over them Bishop Asbury passed to exhort the villgers in the religion of the day, and designed a plan for the first Methodist Church here. Over, them, Capt. Patrick Lockhart departed to escort the British pri­ soners captured at King’s Mountain for imprisonment at Fincastle —this at the request of Governor Thomas Jefferson. In Fincastle are lodged the records by which George Washington’s repre­ sentatives perfected before the County Justices his ownership of holdings now in West Virginia and Kentucky; and Thomas Jef­ ferson his ownership of Natural Bridge. Lieutenants Meriwether Lewis and William Clark strolled along the streets of Fincastle—during visits here on furloughs from the French and Indian wars; and William Clark, after his return from the Lewis and Clarke Expedition, deposited his books and records of the expedition at Santillane, the home of his fiancee, Judith Hancock, whom he married there shortly afterward. In this home, too, Patrick Henry visited his niece, Mrs. Henry Bowyer. . . . And along these same streets of Fincastle, General James Breckinridge carried from the post office to his own office the plans drawn by Thomas Jefferson for The County Court House.” Fincastle was far more than just a county seat in those days; it was virtually a sub-capital of Virginia. Through it went the new settlers moving west, for it was the last place where adequate supplies could be purchased before the plunge into the wilderness. Though the territory it administered was steadily diminished in the next halfcentury as new counties and whole new states were carved out of it, Joseph Martin’s Gazeteer of Virginia in 1835 could still describe Fincastle as a “flourishing and wealthy village” with four churches, several schools, and numerous shops and industries. 9 �In these early days, Botetourt County boasted prosperous iron mining and smelting activities; the many forges in the mountains are said to have brightened the sky at night. One of Fincastle’s sons. Joseph Reid Anderson, went to Richmond in the 1840’s where he developed and ran what was to become the only great foundry of the last days of the Confederacy, the Tredegar Iron Works. Iron from the Applachians, mostly supplied by his family and the Tayloes, went down the James River canal on bateaux, after being hauled from the furnaces by ox-cart. Another product which, like the iron, was known far and wide, was the beautiful “Fincastle pattern” of the Ammen family’s woolen mill, now museum material. During the Civil War, this mill manufactured yardage in quantity for the Confederate armies. An extensive operation, the milling enterprise embraced houses for employees, a saw mill, a grain mill, a hatter’s shop, and a carding mill for the wool of the local families, who still wove a great deal at home. Copies of the Fincastle Weekly Advertiser, founded about 1800, one of the first newspapers to be published west of the Blue Ridge, are still preserved. Besides everyday happenings, from straying hogs to travelling circuses, the columns of the town’s early journals re­ flect the growth of political parties, the universal urge for freedom of religion, the determination to found schools, and a lively concern with national or international events, such as warnings of pirates off Tripoli, or the local mustering for the War of 1812. These were also the years when most of the buildings in and around Fincastle were erected. A few small houses have been standing since before 1800, and many homes built during the early nineteenth century still survive. Names of the present owners read almost like a record of taxpayers in the early days of the County—for many of the former are descendants of the latter, “still doing business” in Botetourt. People with the same names, in various spellings, have populated western North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, and of course much of the rest of the country. They are finding that Fincastle, with its old court house records and its ven­ erable gravestones, is a goldmine for genealogical research. The third and present court house, remodelled in Greek Revival style in 1847 over an earlier Palladian adaptation designed by Thomas Jefferson, raises its pointed steeple above Main Street. Ir. stands on a little fenced green, surrounded by law offices, the old hotel and the three-story jail. The jail is a later structure, built in 1897; its handsome wrought iron ornamentation is said to have been inspired by the visitors from the deep south who summered here in the great days of the Virginia Springs. Incidentally, the “ferro-magnesian” water from the Fincastle spring used to be bottled and sold to those healthseekers who could not arrange to go and drink it at the source. It was 10 �Presbyterian church, built in 1818, is probably the oldest brick build­ ing in Fincastle. advertised as chemically unique on the North American continent. Many were those who did come to drink from the healthful springs, however, Fincastle flourished brieftly in the eighteen-eighties and nineties as a gay summer resort. Of great importance as a picture of community life is the record, found in many places, of the churches in Fincastle. Except for a few groups, the original members of each congregation—or their fathers— had come to this country with a memory of some sort of ostracism, even persecution. Yet as soon as religious freedom became law in the new Commonwealth of Virginia, and the various little flocks could 11 �build their own meeting houses undisturbed, it was nearly always stated that said meeting houses would be open for worship to all denominations. The largest dissenting body of pre-Revolutionary days, the Presbyterians, in 1814 took over the neglected Church of England edifice in Fincastle, after petitioning the Legislature for the right to do so, and making clear that other denominations could hold ser­ vices there. When the Episcopal Church was reactivated in 1839, after great effort by the few who had clung to it, Presbyterians were on its first vestry. One is tempted to dwell on the absorbing histories of these deno­ minational groups. They included biographical eulogies of outstanding citizens, full of inspiration for us today, and many homely little family reminiscences of the brothers’ and sisters’ efforts to keep their churches going. For twenty-seven years a Methodist minister, the Rev. R. J. Miller, looked after the Lutherans because they had no pastor. The Rev. Robert Logan, founder of several congregations and pastor of the Fincastle Presbyterians for thirty years, had to teach school to augment his pittance. One would also like to reproduce here some of the descriptions of the regulations and curricula of early Botetourt schools, the first being Botetourt Seminary, established by act of the Virginia Legis­ lature in 1785, with a list of well-known citizens as trustees. Prospect­ uses of two of the classical academies, and a long list of students whose descendants we are likely to know—or to be—may be found in Stoner’s A Seed-Bed of the Republic, pages 473-483. We can be proud that in 1778, long before free public schools were a reality in Virginia, an act provided that now “whereas, for want of a vestry . . . the poor . . . are likely to suffer” the county should tax itself for their upkeep; and it had already provided for educating the “poor and indigent” in the act authorizing that first seminary in 1785. Dr. D. L. Kinnear of VPI, in an article in the Roanoke Times, February 4, 1962, speaks of this as the beginning of the idea that public schooling could be a tax supported work, rather than an ecclesiastical duty—the birth of state education in Virginia. Perhaps nowhere in the country, certainly nowhere in Virginia, can a still-living microcosm such as Fincastle and its environs be found. In one hour of strolling its narrow streets a visitor can experi­ ence in imagination the life of pioneer days in the earliest West, of the Revolutionary War years, of the generation which struggled to produce a strong Republic, of industrial expansion when canals and then railroads were being built not far away—but not too close to change the character of this old Virginia town. Then he can see, and hear described, reminders of the War Between the States, and of the lean Reconstruction years, and of the all-too-brief period, when Fincastle was renowned as one of Virginia’s most popular “Springs.” 12 �Fincastle, you see, does not need to be “restored”, as Colonial Williamsburg did. But before the bulldozers move any closer, as they are moving everywhere, its integrity must be saved for future gen­ erations of Americans. Early Craftsmen Rifles made by John Sites (top) and by John Painter (bottom) By R oddy Moore Early settlers of Botetourt County were almost entirely selfsufficient in such domestic arts as those of the blacksmith, cooper, cobbler, weaver, tailor and distiller. However, several of the ancient crafts—the gunsmith, potter, silversmith and cabinet maker—required apprenticeship. These specialists produced an assortment of utilitarian objects much needed by the hard-working farmers who were ill-equipped to create them at home. The long Kentucky rifle was the frontiersman’s principal poss­ ession. With it, he protected himself and his family from the Indians who did not care to give up their land to white settlers. With his Kentucky rifle, the frontiersman killed the game which provided three-fourths or even all of the meat for his table as well as skins to sell or to trade for commodities he could not produce himself. Botetourt County had a large number of skilled gunsmiths who produced quality rifles in both the 18th and 19th century. In the 18th century, Andrew Telford, Francis Graham, Robert Rowland, Alex­ ander Simpson, George Wilson, William McFerran and George Peter­ man were making and repairing rifles in this area. The best known gunsmiths were John Sites and John Painter. Sites operated a shop in Fincastle from 1808 until he left for Missouri in 1834. Painter had a 13 �"Potter Pete" Obenchain and wife, Matilda Shank Obenchain shop at Haymakertown from the 1830s until his death in 1900. Among the letters in the Roanoke Historical Society’s collection of Preston papers is one written by David Rowland of the Botetourt gunsmith family on March 2, 1810. He wrote: “I perceive by a Notice of the Executive of Virginia—that the time for receiving proposals for making Gun carriages will expire on the 10th of this month— my father is very anxious that I should enter into a contract—to furnish a number of carriages—I am willing to undertake to make the whole number that will be wanted or any other not less than twenty and obligate myself to furnish three every month.” The best known potter of this region undoubtedly was “Potter Pete” Obenchain, who was born in Botetourt County in 1822. His occupation was listed as potter in the U. S. Census of 1850 and 1860. Obenchain pottery, signed "Matthew Obenchain" on bottom 14 �Desk signed by George Sawyers and Thomas Murphey in 1747 His shop on Mill Creek was wiped out by the flood of 1877, according to tradition. The only known signed piece of Obenchain pottery ex­ isting today is a red glazed, redware jardiniere, signed Matthew Obenchain, 1867 on the bottom. Other potters known to have worked in Botetourt were Jesse Hinkle, Joel Noftsinger and Robert Fulwiler, who are believed to have apprenticed under and later worked with Peter Obenchain, the Trout pottery in Troutville and the Sprinkle pottery. Unfortunately, many local potters left their products unmarked so identifiable specimens of their craftsmanship are difficult to obtain. As frontier settlements developed into towns and cities, the people replaced the primitive creations of the earlier period with far more elaborate household objects. By the middle of the 18th century, silversmiths, clockmakers, jewelers, cabinet makers and other highly skilled craftsmen had started to move into the county. One of the earliest silversmiths here was John Welch, who moved into Fincastle during the latter part of the 18th century. He started his apprenticeship to the trades of silversmith and clockmaker in 1806 and by 1817 had become a journeyman and had taken Charles Aunspaugh as apprentice. In 1821, Welch advertised for another apprentice and in August, 1822, Aunspaugh informed the public he was setting up a clock and watch shop across the mountain at Liberty in Bedford County. One of the few pieces of signed and dated 18th century Virginia furniture is a desk bearing the names of the makers, George Sawyers and Thomas Murphey, and the date, 1797. They lived and worked in the Sweet Springs area of what was then Botetourt County. The 15 �style and lines of this Chippendale desk show that it was made by a highly skilled craftsman, rather than a country carpenter. The handmade objects remaining today prove that there were skilled craftsmen living and working in Botetourt in the last two centuries. These products and the work of many of her craftsmen, unknown or long forgotten, make up a rich store of Botetourt County cultural history. Garden Week in Botetourt An added attraction during the Botetourt Bicentennial is the anticipated visit of scores of appreciative people to four notable Botetourt homes, with side trips to Fincastle landmarks, during Vir­ ginia’s Historic Garden Week, April 24-25. Doors will be opened to the public at Mrs. Garland Hopkins’ Gar­ land Orchards; Mr. and Mrs. Gregory Tyack’s home; Oakland, the home of Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Muse, and Santillane, home of Mr. and Mrs. Robert D. Stoner. Buses will bring visitors from Roanoke and other points to see Botetourt in the spring. The Hopkins country home near old Daleville, dates to 1790, although it was expanded in 1938. Its English boxwood is about 150 years old. The home is furnished with portraits, prints, rugs and antique furniture, some pieces from the county and others from Eastern Virginia. The Tyack home is built around a log cabin, about 150 years old. Nearby they will see the Muse home, an early 19th century farm­ house remodeled in 1947. It has a number of antiques and reproduc­ tions. Santillane, just west of Fincastle, is a spacious mansion seated in a grove of old oaks where it was constructed by Col. George Hancock, a soldier of the Revolution and the first Congressman re­ presenting Botetourt. Also open for the Garden Club tour are the Presbyterian, Metho­ dist and Episcopal churches, the Courthouse and Historical Museum, all in the county seat, and Tinker Mill, a restaurant in the Daleville mill built in 1847. "Town of Fincastle” To Be Reprinted Arrangements have been made to reprint Miss Frances Niederer’s book, “The Town of Fincastle, Virginia.” The architectural history has been out of print for some time after two printings. Steps also are being planned for a reprinting of R. D. Stoner’s “A Seed-Bed of the Republic,” a valuable, comprehensive history of Botetourt County. 16 �Mary Johnston, Writer of the Past Mary Johnston, 1911 In 1900, the New York Times called her “one of the women of the hour.” The Baltimore American wrote of “the Virginia authoress who has leapt into eminence at a single bound.” The New Orleans Daily States said her first book made her “a recognized fellow in the world of fiction.” And the Richmond Dispatch described her as “the quiet, retiring little genius whose talent has spread over two continents and made her rich and famous.” This was Mary Johnston, born at Buchanan in Botetourt County on Nov. 21, 1870 and deceased at Warm Springs, Bath County, May 9, 1936. She was the author of more than 25 novels, a play, short stories and poetry. Now seldom heard of, she wrote of the past at a time when ro­ mantic historical novels were in strong demand. Her first book, Prisoners of Hope, a novel on Colonial Virginia, was written in 1898, after she had started with poetry. This was followed by To Have and To Hold, a 17th century Virginia romance, which sold 60,000 17 �copies before it was published. Two months later, a Birmingham, Ala. writer said of Miss Johnston, “There has not been so great a demand for the works of any author since the days of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Mary Johnston “inherits talent,” the New Orleans newspaper said. She came from a prominent Virginia family who descended from Peter Johnston, a Scotchman who came to this country in 1727 and became a wealthy and influential planter. He was her paternal great-great-grandfather. His son, Charles, wrote an interest­ ing account of his capture by the Indians in 1790 and later established Botetourt Springs, the resort at what is now Hollins College, about 1820. (See the article, Edward William Johnston and Roanoke Female Seminary, Winter, 1969 Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society.) Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston was a grandson of Peter Johns­ ton. John William Johnston, father of the novelist and a prominent lawyer, was born at Pattonsburg, the old village across the river from Buchanan, in 1839. An artillery officer, rising to major in the Civil War, he returned to Botetourt and the practice of law. He married Elizabeth Alexander of Moorefield, W. Va., and they had four daughters the writer was the oldest—and two sons. Maj. Johnston was president of the James River and Kanawha Canal Co. and president of the Buchanan and Clifton Forge, later the Richmond and Alleghany Railroad, vice president and general manager of the Richmond and Danville Extension Co. and president of the Georgia Pacific Railway, which became part of the Southern Railway. While Johnston was head of the canal company, Gov. F. W. M. Holliday and a party of Richmond men came up the river on an inspection trip and the governor stayed at the Johnston home. Railroad and other business interests caused Maj. Johnston to move to Birmingham and later to New York. But he returned to Virginia and lived in Richmond from 1902 until his death in 1905. He is buried m Hollywood Cemetery there. Until she was 15, Miss Johnston lived at Buchanan in the family home on Low Street, across from the Community House and the Botetourt Hotel. The 12-room white brick and frame house built around 1860, was purchased in 1969 by Webster E. Booze, Jr. an automobile dealer, and he plans to replace the building with a show­ room for new cars. The Johnston house stands on land patented by George III to Col. John Buchanan in 1769 and later acquired by Andrew Boyd, a Botetourt pioneer. Maj. Johnston acquired the property from the Abraham J. Fort estate. Frail as a child, Miss Johnston was educated by her grandmother an aunt and governesses in a small white building on the west side 18 �Maj. John William Johnston, lawyer, railroad president of her father’s home. Her only formal education was a brief stay at an Atlanta school. Although she was in Birmingham and New York from 1885 to 1902 when she returned with her family to Richmond, she spent most of her life in Virginia. In 1912, she and two sisters, Eloise and Elizabeth, built a home, Three Hills, at Warm Springs where she lived and wrote until her death 24 years later. During the depression, she said people stopped reading and buying books and her sister, Eloise, took in guests at the big house in the mountains. In addition to her literary career, Miss Johnston was a leader in the women’s suffrage movement and she was a pacifist during World War I. She was a member of the Author’s League, the Inter­ national Woman Suffrage Association, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Fellowship for Reconciliation, American Asso­ ciation for Labor Legislation, Woman’s Trades Union and the Con­ sumer League. Following her “instantaneous success as an author,” a New York Times writer interviewed Miss Johnston at her Birmingham home in 1900. She found the novelist to be “extremely reticent” about herself and her fork. Photographs “that have been widely copied reveal a wonderfully sweet-faced young woman, the graceful contour of her features recalling some famous miniatures on ivory by the old masters.” 19 �Johnston home at Buchanan, about 1890; Miss Johnston attended school in the small building at right. At the age of 30, the Times said Miss Johnston is “not very tall and her figure is slender and fraigle. She carries herself well and has that high-bred air that gives her a distinctive charm in any assembly. Her eyes are large and brown, with little flecks of gold. Her light-brown hair is soft and wavy, and she wears it simply. She dresses quietly and fashionably. Her tastes are those of a charming woman, who although unconventional, respects every propriety. She has traveled extensively in this country and abroad.” Her interest in the past obviously stemmed from her girlhood reading of “old-fashioned books in old-fashioned libraries.” The Times said that she came to be regarded as “an authority on colonial history. She seems to have literally absorbed that period of Virginia’s history that she uses as a background for her stories.” And critics were “unable to detect any fault in her minute descriptions of the early Colonial customs and laws.” From her work on the Civil War period, she said, “I know war. I have lived with it, thinking of The Long Roll and Cease Firing (her two war time novels) for four long years. I have fought it with the generals and the colonels and the majors and the captains but mostly with the rank and file. I know the feel of it and the smell of it and the taste of it—and I hate it.” A friend, Arthur Goodrich, who visited at Three Hills, wrote of her work, “The tireless weeks she spent on the pike from Winchester to Staunton, absorbing merely locality material for The Long Roll, were just one indication of many, of her artistic honesty. She made Viiginia, from Colonial days to the Civil War, live with the accuracy of a historian added to the vivid humanity of a novelist.” The late Gen. Dwight Eisenhower said he studied military fea­ tures of The Long Roll and Cease Firing in preparing for World War II campaigns. 20 �Metropolitan newspapers, exploring the background of this new, successful writer, also wrote of Buchanan. “Like others of its ilk, it was a leisurely, dignified, pleasant little town,” said the New Orleans Daily States. Until she was 10, the Daily States said, “there was no railroad within nine miles of the place (Buchanan), only a canal boat and an old red stagecoach connecting it with the outer world.” Miss Johnston always was close to nature. Goodrich said she “loved garden and hillside flowers, just as she loved plain, every­ day people. She saw aristocracy in both.” And the newspapers said “it was her delight to roam over the lovely country about her home (at Buchanan). The town was so small, we are told, that a mile in any direction brought one into thick woods, to mountain streams or up upon the mountainside itself.” The Baltimore American of April 22, 1900, said of Buchanan during Mary Johnston’s girlhood from 1870 to 1885: “The struggling village—a portion of which, fired during the Civil War, lay still in ruins—was walled in on either side by mountain ranges, whose aspect, changing with the alternations of the seasons’ varying atmospheric conditions, presented ever and anon fresh beauties for the eye to feast upon, and amply compensated for the horizon which they ex­ cluded. At their feet, the James River, which further on must bear its part in the world’s traffic, flowed lingeringly, as if loath to leave this quiet spot. The heterogenous population thus isolated, com­ posed in part of those to the manor born, and others who had drifted in on the tide of circumstances, had abundant room for the development of idiosyncrasies, and furnished interesting studies for the analytical mind . . . ” Her other works were Audrey, a 17th century Virginia romance; Sir Mortimer, an Elizabethan romance; Lewis Rand, a novel of Vir­ ginia in Jefferson’s day; Croatan, a story of the lost colony of Roanoke Island; 1942, a novel of Columbus’ voyages; The Great Valley, a Shenandoah Valley novel; Hagar, a study of the feminist movement. Later books included The Witch, The Fortunes of Garin, The Wanderers, Pioneers of the Old South, Foes, Michael Forth, The Slave Ship, Silver Cross, Sweet Rocket, The Exile, Hunting Shirt, Drury Randall and Miss Delicia Allen, her last, published in 1932. She was interested in the mystical and occult in her later works. Her one play, a five-act drama, The Goddess of Reason, featuring the performance of the distinguished actress, Julia Marlow, was con­ sidered a success, She wrote two long narrative poems, Virginiana, and The James, and a number of short stories for such magazines as Harpers and Ladies Home Journal. At the turn of the century, The Richmond Times told her story 21 �under the headline: A Virginia Girl Whose Books Have Reached a Fabulous Sale. A story from Birmingham, where she was living, called her “an international figure” who “receives letters from many parts of the world. Her personality, her past, her present and future are subjects of which the newspapers of the country are as eager as the publishers and public are for her books.” Sales of To Have and To Hold were approaching 200,000 “which will bring Miss Johnston $40,000.” The Richmond Dispatch called that novel “a distinct tri­ umph in American literature.” A magazine of the time said Mary Johnston “wrote five years before anyone noticed her, but her second novel, To Have and To Hold, landed her plump in the lap of success.” When she died in 1936, a New York Times editorial said, “Mary Johnston’s own Virginia mountains and waters, her earlier Virginians created after deep historical studies, her sense of chraacter and drama, gave quality and charm to her books.” The Times said, “the number of her works, not one of them scamped, testifies to her long, patient labor in spite of physical weak­ ness. She has given pleasure to more than a generation.” She was buried beside her father at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond. Three Hills, the home at Warm Springs 22 �Botetourt Men Fought "All Over" They were born, these men, in the State of Virginia, in the County of Botetourt, in a region of wheatfields and orchards, of smiling farms and friendly villages, of high blue mountains and clear flowing rivers. In the War between the States, this County of Botetourt sent out from farms and villages, from forge and mill, from lonely cabins in mountain clearings, and goodly houses set in rose-gardens, from Craig Creek and Back Creek, and Mill Creek and Jennings Creek, from Roaring Run and North Mountain, from Fincastle, Amsterdam and Buchanan, from every nook and corner, twelve full companies to the service of Virginia and the South. The greater number of these, during the four years of the war, fought within the bounds of their mother State. They fought at Manassas and at Seven Pines, at Chancellorsville and on many another stricken field. They charged with Pickett at Gettysburg. They surrendered with Lee at Appomattox. Others of these Botetourt men fought, as the saying is, “all over.” Like the Elizabethan soldier, when they heard of a good war, they went to it. They fought in Virginia, in Kentucky, Tennessee, the Carolinas, Georgia and Mississippi. The command first known as the Mountain Rifles, then as Anderson’s Battery, and then as the Botetourt Artillery, fought “all over.” On the banks of the James, a few miles from Fincastle, lies the village of Buchanan. Across the river rises abruptly a great and high mountain named Purgatory. Below the town the river forces its way through the Blue Ridge; above, the valley widens into smiling farm lands. To the west the sun sets behind the Alleghanies. From this village and its neighborhood came the majority of the men whose deeds in Mississippi are commemo­ rated by this stone. —From an address by Mary Johnston, read at Vicks­ burg in 1907 upon the occasion of the unveiling of a tablet commemorating the services to the South of the Botetourt Artillery 23 �Cherry Tree Bottom By H arry F ulw iler J r . About the year 1740, the sun rose over the Blue Ridge mountains at Buchanan as it had for many years. The James, murmuring gently as it glided toward the sea, was calm, tranquil, pure and peaceful. The mountains were bathed in the mists of early morn, prelude to a new day in the James River Valley. The white man had come, English, Scotch, Irish and later the German and Swiss Palatines were to follow. Near the present town of Buchanan, south and westward, men had surveyed, and colonial governors had made grants of great blocks of land for personal gain or to encourage settlement. Along about 1745 one grant of 50,000 acres was made on the Roanoke and the James. Later many additional grants were made. All of the land in the bend of the James River between the mouths of Looney’s and Purgatory creek in North Buchanan was known as Cherry Tree Bottom, apparently named for a fruit tree or two. The original Cherry Tree Botton of approximately 400 acres was selected by James Patton, an Irishman, for his home. Along with other holdings, Patton had acquired the bottom through several trans­ actions from 1746 through 1753. Unfortunately Patton never realized his wish to live at Cherry Tree, for two years later while visiting the Ingles and Drapers at Drapers Meadows (Blacksburg) he was killed by the Shawnee Indians. Following James Patton’s death by the Indians, Cherry Tree Bottom by his will became the property of his son-in-law, Col. John Buchanan, for whom the town of Buchanan was named. Col. Buchanan lived at Cherry Tree Bottom with his wife, Margaret Patton Buchanan, from the spring of 1756 until his death in 1769. In October of 1756, George Washington visited Col. Buchanan at Cherry Tree Bottom in an effort to raise men to fight the Indians. 24 �In his letter to Governor Dinwiddie, dated at Halifax on October 10, 1756, Washington related that Col. Buchanan was unable to help him and that it was impossible to get a party together in this section to scour the frontiers. This was the land through which ran the old Indian Trail, also known as the Great Road and the Philadelphia Road, crossing the James near the mouth of Looney’s Creek. This was the spot known as the gateway to the West where crossing was made by Patton’s Ferry, successively known as Looney’s Ferry and Crows Ferry. Near here on the south bank of the James and north of Looney’s Creek was established the village of Crowsville in 1788. Pattonsburg was established north of the river the same year, the village being laid out from a part of the Cherry Tree Bottom. John Buchanan willed his holdings to his daughters, Margaret, Ann, Jane and Mary, the latter then at Drapers Meadows. Jane married John Floyd Sr., one of Virginia’s early governors. Part of Cherry Tree Bottom was left to Mary Buchanan Boyd, the wife of Andrew Boyd. Margaret sold her interest to Andrew Boyd in 1796, married William Anderson and moved to Kentucky. Andrew Boyd operated a ferry across the James River and in 1773 was licensed to operate an ordinary. An act of the General Assembly was passed on February 6, 1812 establishing the town of Buchanan and the town was first incorporated in 1839. From the Boyds until the Central Land Co. of 1890, continuity of ownership and subdivisions of Cherry Tree Bottom have not been fully explored While working as a contractor on the James River & Kanawaha Canal from Lynchburg to Buchanan about 1848, Joseph Schultz pur­ chased a portion of Cherry Tree Bottom and built a beautiful home at the foot of Purgatory Mountain. William and Emma P. Jolliffe purchased the land and home from Schultz and named it Branham Hall in memory of Major Jolliffe’s mother, Mary Ann Branham. The Jollifies sold the home and their 395 acres in 1890 to the Central Land Co. Jolliffe, a well known civil and mining engineer, had been chief of a locating party and later division engineer for the valley branch planned by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and later chief engineer for construction of the railroad from Clifton Forge to Buchanan. When work was about three-fourths completed, a tremendous freshet on Nov. 22, 1877 washed out over half of the road bed and damaged the canal to the extent of $500,000. Jolliffe led a crew in repairing these damages between Richmond and Lynchburg. He also helped build the Shenandoah Valley Railroad below Buchanan, the New River branch of the Norfolk and Western and tunnels and yards for the N&W at Pocahontas in 1881-82. He later made a horseback survey for the Virginia Western Railroad in Southwest Virginia in 1887. 25 �Riverside Bridge, west of Buchanan, about 1900 Smith & Briggs Brass Works, Buchanan, about 1891 Fulwiler family at home in Cherry Tree Bottom, 1905 26 �During the 1890 “boom” at Buchanan, the Central Land Co., bought and sold much property. It was an era of speculation. The town was to grow, the Balitmore and Ohio Railroad was coming through and factories were to be built. At this time Cherry Tree Bottom passed into the hands of Robert A. Fulwiler, descendant of early “Pennsylvania Dutch” who settled on the headwaters of Purgatory Creek. In 1901, Cherry Tree Bottom became the property of his brother, who was my father, Harry Fulwiler. The description of the property as recorded reads: “Beginning at a point on the centerline of Riverside Bridge”; “borders on the pro­ perty of Smith and Briggs Brass Works”: “adjoins the lands of E.P. Jolliffe.” , The Riverside Bridge across the James a half-mile south of Buchanan was torn down about 1900 and the timbers used by my father to build the barn which is still standing at Cherry Tree. During the panic of 1893 the boom failed, the bubble burst and many people lost their savings. The Smith & Briggs Brass Works also known as the Buchanan Brass Hardware Co., was also a casualty and only a few faded photographs give evidence of its existence. Around 1880, the Richmond and Alleghany Railroad built its line through Cherry Tree Bottom and in 1889 this became the Chespeake and Ohio Railway. Earlier the B&O had surveyed through with a proposed crossing of the James at Looney’s Creek. However, the B&O stopped at Lexington and beyond that point only a few old culverts and graded slopes remain as signs of a dream never accomp­ lished. On my father’s farm was a private cemetery, grown up m trees and vines. The map on page 427 of Kegley’s “Virginia Frontier’ shows Mount Joy and Cherry Tree Bottom Estates, 1742-1804. On the Cherry Tree Bottom portion is the one word, “Graves”. My father protected these graves with a fence, the surrounding fields being in cultivation. He made no record of the gravestones and as a child I did not know who was interred there Several years ago, the owner said that there were some head­ stones in the weeds on the river bank opposite the mouth of Looney’s Creek. But Troy Harris, a member of the family which now farms the bottom land, said all of the stones are gone today. This last evi­ dence of past generations at Cherry Tree Bottom just across the river from an old fort site apparently has faded away. Author’s Note: The photos of Riverside Bridge and the Smith & Briggs Brass Works, used with this article were taken about 1890 by the late J. C. Dill of Buchanan and are used through the courtesy of his wife, Mrs. J. C. Dill and in coordination with his daughter-in-law, Mrs. J. E. Dill of Roanoke and Miss Emma Martin of Buchanan. 27 �Fire Destroys Landmarks In Botetourt’s two centuries, fire has destroyed some of its most interesting landmarks—notably Mt. Joy, Grove Hill, Montrose, the Berkeley Arms hotel at Buchanan and in modern times, Greenfield and the Cloverdale mill. Open fireplaces made the danger of fire ever-present and other losses were suffered but these are best re­ membered today. In June, 1864, the old covered bridge at Buchanan was set afire by Confederate troops to halt the enemy which burned perhaps as many as 30 buildings when it did enter the town. During that same raid, Gen. David Hunter’s cavalry unit burned Mt. Joy, the home of Col. and Mrs. John T. Anderson, on a knoll just south of Buchanan. The big house with large white columns was burned because Col. Anderson was supplying iron ore for the Trede­ gar Iron Works of his brother, Gen Joseph Reid Anderson, in Richmond. A few decades later, the Berkeley Arms Hotel, a product of the 1890 boom, caught fire and burned on Oct. 26, 1891, shortly before it was to open. The 140-room building on a hill west of Buchanan and south of the James was described as “The Pride of the Town” in a newspaper report. “The flames lighted up the countryside for miles around. Purga­ tory Mountain loomed up grim and silent and the foothills of the Grove Hill, elegant seat of the Breckinridge family 28 �Berkeley Arms Hotel — pride of Buchanan Blue Ridge were dark in their cloud of ..smoke in which the wind that was blowing from the west enveloped them,” said the news­ paper. Although the fire was not discovered until 11:45 at night, the flames were so bright in nearby Buchanan that “a letter could be read anywhere in the streets.” What had been a “magnificent monument to the skill and ent­ erprise of man is now a mass of ruins.” The hotel would have been completed in a few weeks, at most. It was expected that “a large number of guests would make it their summer abiding place. It was being constructed by Hoover, Hughes & Co. of Pittsburgh for the Central Land Co. of Buchanan at a cost of $100,000 and it was reportedly insured for $57,000. Grove Hill, seat of the Breckinridge family for more than a cent­ ury, burned Sunday morning, Oct. 24, 1909, while Judge George W. Breckinridge and his family were away at church. This had been the home of Gen. James Breckinridge, 1763-1833, member of the House of Delegates, a member of Congress for four terms, friend of Thomas Jefferson, a lawyer and statesman. He served in the Revolu­ tion in his teens and became a general in the War of 1812. A Mutual Assurance Society policy in Richmond, dated 1804, K»id the “elegantly finished” mansion located a short distance west of Fincastle was valued at $12,000. The home had 25 rooms and two hall­ ways crossing in the center. Its brick walls were 2 V2 feet thick and a two-story kitchen wing was attached. Montrose, the Fincastle home of Frances Thomas Anderson and later his cousin, William Anderson Glasgow, burned in the 1920’s and Breckinridge Elementary School stands on the site today. It was a two-story brick building with wide front doors, massive white columns and a front balcony the size of the lower porch, according to R. D. Stoner’s Seed-Bed of the Republic. The fire at Greenfield, the Preston home for almost 200 years, was described as a “grievous loss,” in a Roanoke World-News edi­ torial. Located five miles south of Fincastle, off U.S. 220, the white 29 �Cloverdale Mill wheel turns no more frame home stood on land purchased by Col. William Preston in the 1750’s. Col George Washington stayed here on his tour of frontier forts in October, 1756 and the home was headquarters for the Preston family for eight generations until it burned May 25, 1959. Col. Preston’s commission in the militia, signed by Lord Botetourt, a letter from Washington and other valuable documents and antiques were lost in the fire. This also was the home of James Patton Preston, Virginia governor in 1816. On June 7, 1968, Cloverdale Mill, said to be the last of more than 30 water-powered mills in operation in Botetourt County, burned to the ground. Although temporarily closed because of difficulties over the water supply following construction of Interstate 81, it had been operated by the Chambers family for 37 years. The last steel overshot wheel was the third to serve the old min The mill apparently was built around 1800 on a tract of land in the Breckinridge family. None of these buildings of another century have been replaced although a home was constructed at the Mt. Joy site. 30 �Greenfield, Preston home for almost two centuries The Turnpike Through Botetourt By E dmund P. Goodwin History records events of the past but the discovery of new material sheds an ever changing light on them. A good example of this stems from an article “The South Western Turnpike Road”, in Vol. 2, Number 1, Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society. Accord­ ing to the article, “great pressure was put on the General Assembly to extend the road from Salem to Buchanan . . . but so far as can be found the question was never resolved . . . ” It has now been re­ solved as a result of papers given to the Society recently by the heirs of Dr. J. William McCauley of Salem, whose grandfather John McCauley, was a superintendent of the Turnpike. Col. Claudius Crozet, the famous French engineer, who con­ tributed so much to the development of transportation in Virginia, recognized the importance of opening a line of communication between the James River and Tennessee. In 1842, he stated the route “must be through Botetourt, Roanoke and Montgomery counties to New River”1 A reference in this article shows that in December, 1847 the General Assembly directed a survey be made to determine the best route from Salem, then the eastern terminus of the Turnpike, to Buchanan. The McCauley papers show that two routes were surveyed from Salem to Cloverdale, one by way of Big Lick, the other just south of Botetourt Springs (now Hollins College). They mention the names of plantations or the owners of farms, which the Turnpike would cross. The availability of limestone is shown. Although it was a mile and a half longer, the engineer preferred the route by Big Lick be31 �cause the maximum grade was l 1/2 %, just half of the Botetourt Springs route. In support of his recommendation, he stated two wagons going four miles an hour on the easier grade could carry as much as three wagons with a grade of 3%. Alternate routes were surveyed from Cloverdale to Buchanan, one by way of Fincastle, but his pre­ ference was to follow, generally, what is known to<jay as Route 11. Notwithstanding the efforts of the good citizens of the Big Lick area, on January 24, 1848 the Assembly approved the shorter route by way of Botetourt Springs and eliminated the plan of going by Fincastle. The Assembly appropriated $90,000 with the proviso that not more than $30,000 could be spent in any one year. The right of way would be 40 feet wide, the road bed to be graded not less than 24 feet and the minimum width of the macadam to be 22 feet. The papers show on July 25, 1848, an advertisement was sent to the National Intelligencer, to be inserted tri-weekly, stating bids would be received on August 26 at the office of the Turnpike in Salem, for grading and macadamizing the seven-mile section from Salem to Cloverdale. The six bridges that must be built on this portion of the road would be bid on separately. The longest of them was 80 feet over Mason’s Creek and the contract price was $2,500. Some of the residents of Botetourt were unhappy about the proposed location of the road from one mile west of Buchanan to Waskey’s Mill. In October, 1848 they petitioned the Board of Public Works for a change, giving as their reason its closeness to the river and the possibility of high water causing damage. They admitted the new route would be longer but said that when the General Assembly directed the Turnpike should follow the most direct course, that condition had been inserted for the sole purpose of settling the argu­ ment about the road going by Big Lick. Apparently they failed to make their point and even today Route 11 follows the river. The portion of the road from Cloverdale was pro­ gressing and in the summer of 1849, Thomas Rosser and John West were awarded a contract to build a 65-foot bridge over Looney’s Creek with a completion clause of January, 1850. Notwithstanding Crozet’s recommendation that turnpikes built by the state should be toll free, his advice was not followed and this was to become a toll road. The toll houses would be IV2 story, 3 2 V2 by 26 feet “out to out” and each would have a log smoke house 12 by 12 feet with a height of 10 feet as well as the gate itself. Bids were received for them on September 15, 1849. The discrepancies were substantial, but Jordan and Hubbard were awarded the contract to build all of them on this section of the road at a price of $550 each, exactly one half of the high bid submitted by James Deyerle. The next job to be completed before the road could be opened for business was to secure toll gate keepers. A typical bid to man the 32 �South Western Turnpike R pad FROM SALEM TO BUCHANAN /64Ô based on m a p i n the v/ foin /a sta te library and u. s . g . s,. m a p s . �gate near Botetourt Springs was submitted by William Allen in August, 1850. The stipend was to be $130 per year plus the use of the house and garden. This was a problem because it was possible to leave the Turnpike and bypass the gate by going through the Springs. The fine of $10 for avoiding a gate was not applicable because the alternate route was a public road. Even as late as 1854 an effort was being made to get Charles Cocke to eliminate the through road by the way of his school. Now that the entire section from Salem to Buchanan was passable, maintenance became a factor. In November, 1851 S. A. Coffman of Mill Creek offered to maintain this entire portion of the road for a year at $50 a mile. G. W. Rader was tollgate keeper at Mill Creek. Apparently for economy reasons, or inability to employ a toll gate keeper, the second gate west of Buchanan was closed. This action made many in that vicinity unhappy so they petitioned the Board of Public Works to force the superintendent to reopen it. Their reason was quite sound because the toll was based on a 10-mile section so many were being forced to pay for 20 miles when only 10 miles was being used in many cases. The Board agreed with them and orders were issued to charge for only the miles traveled. The tolls were increased from time to time. For example, in 1854 the rate for a pleasure carriage with one horse became 10 cents, but if the vehicle was drawn by two horses the price was 15 cents. The specifications of the road followed those outlined by John McAdam of Scotland. The base was made of stone that could pass through a 2-inch ring, still smaller stones were placed on top and finally, sand or finely crushed stone was added as top cover. This surface was rolled, resulting in a tightly bound pavement “which resist­ ed the penetrating damage of rain and snow”.2 At best, this was in comparison with older types of construction. The McCauley papers contain many references to the problems of maintenance. A typical one came from the gate keeper near Bote­ tourt Springs on July 11, 1834. He wrote that the “uncommonly heavy fall of rain yesterday had washed the fill from the road making it impassable” from his station to Salem. His report said that the 80-foot span over Mason’s Creek had become extremely dangerous. After the completion of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, the means of transportation originally recommended by Crozet, the need of the Turnpike for through transportation decreased materially. Nevertheless it continued to serve local needs for many years as well as the Confederate Army in carrying supplies to rail heads. In March, 1871 the General Assembly approved an act stating it would be “the duty of the Board of Public Works to convey the States interest in any turnpike to the county in which said road may 34 �lie” subject to the approval of the supervisors. In due course such action was taken and state control passed to the counties. Based on increasing maintenance and decreasing tolls this was not an altruistic decision by the state and why a rural legislature approved it is not understandable. Nevertheless Roanoke and Botetourt were now in the position of carrying on because this was one of their main arteries of transportation. The board of supervisors, created in 1870, had this responsibility and the minutes of their meetings showed it was a heavy one. Gate keepers had to be appointed, the road and bridges were in constant need of repairs. As time went by, petitions were filed by citizens stating the condition of the road made it “untollable”. The name South Western Turnpike was used less frequently as the years passed and it became known as the “Macadamized Road”. Botetourt tried leasing the operation of the road to William Thomas for $400 a year and maintenance. A year later, in 1879, the court ap­ pointed viewers and their report was pathetic. The center of the road, the lowest part, became a ditch for the rain water and at places the sides were washed away, making it barely passable. This and the deplorable condition of the bridges created a hazard to travelers. The viewers conclude by stating that reliable information showed the tolls for the preceeding year amounted to between $700 and $800. This majestic scheme, the South Western Turnpike, conceived to raise the counties from the mud, failed because of the short sighted­ ness of the state and in barely 30 years mud roads once again became prevalent. Except for private toll roads and a few provided by the counties, this condition continued for 60 years before the state once again recognized its responsibility. F ootnotes Col. 1 S o u th e rn S k e tc h e s , N o. 8. C la u d iu s C ro z e t, S o ld ie r, W illia m C o u p e r, 1936 2 T h e S to ry of V irg in ia H ig h w a y G ro w th , p . 9 S c h o la r, E d u c a to r , E n g in e e r , by Western Inhabitants-an "Incumbrance”? Thomas Lewis, Augusta County surveyor and justice, was op­ posed to creation of what was to become Botetourt County and he gave some of his reasons in a letter of March 20, 1767, received by the Society in its collection of Breckinridge papers. The 203-year-old.letter does not bear the name of its recipient but it could have been addressed to John Wilson, a member of the House of Burgesses from Augusta. “In opposing the Division of the County,” he wrote, “I would make up of such reasons as follows but first let me give you an idea of the Extent of this County Exclusive of any part belonging to (western) waters of Virginia as those Who inhabit these parts contribute nothing 35 �to the Charge of either county or parish but must be deemed an In­ cumbrance.” Lewis commented, “The poverty of the Generality of the people, the Extreme scarcity of money amongst all orders of people is such that I cannot concieve how it can be got over in these circumstances by a Division or increase of county and parish. Levies will take place, a circumstance that will bear hard on those that are least protected against such contingencies but must be Extremely oppressive & ter­ minate in the ruin of those already in Indigent circumstances. In addition to poverty and difficulty in paying higher levies, Lewis said another reason against division was “the want of men even modestly qualified to act as Magistrates—a difficulty not easily got over.” The “inconveniences” resulting from a lack of qualified men would be “more severely felt than any that can arise from the distance those have to travel to court who live in the Extreme parts of the County.” He pointed to other potential dangers of the times. “It must be remembered that we have but very lately (if in truth we have at all) got clear of a long, dangerous and oppressive war. New troubles or the remains of the old seem to be collecting themselves & too soon I fear will discharge themselves on us, heaven prevent it. I wish there were less grounds for fear should the Indians break on us again as they did . . . ” Lewis, older brother of Gen. Andrew Lewis, added, “in what situation must those infatuated People be in who are now Petitioning for two new Counties.” “But if you are not able to postpone the Division until another session of the Assembly, he continued, “the next object of your case is that it be properly done. If the division is lower down than the North River your Court House will (not be) very central as will that of your church, it might occasion a removal of both. This would be an inconvenience that the people of Augusta County in their Present State of poverty could not surmount.” Lewis’ outline of “equitable” boundaries proposed “the North River as far up as Carr Creek and along it “to above the upper In­ habitant thereof & from there a course N 55 degrees W to the ut­ most extent of the County.” When the House of Burgesses enacted the Act of Division establishing Botetourt County on Nov. 27, 1769, over 2 V2 years later, it accepted the boundary lines listed by Lewis. And the Assembly, recognized that “many inconveniences attend the inhabitants of the county and parish of Augusta by reason of the great extent thereof . . . ” 36 �The Bells of Fincastle William P. Simmons, left, fourth generation bell ringer at the Court­ house, learned the trade in 1966 from his father, William M. "Bill" Sim­ mons who had been Instructed by his father, the late A. G. Simmons, right, in 1950. By Clare W hite On New Year’s Eve men and boys crouch in the cold, dark belfrys of Fincastle as they have for, some say, the last 150 years. They are waiting for the moment to start the tolling of the bells of the county courthouse and churches that will mark the end of one year and the beginning of another. The ceremony, starting at 11:45 p.m. on the last day of the year, is part of a tradition that clings to the little village which has been the county seat of Botetourt County since its founding in 1770. One strong bong is struck on the courthouse bell, the bellwether for the ceremony, at exactly 15 minutes before midnight. Ten seconds later the bell of the Presbyterian Church to the east rings out one note. Then, at ten-second intervals, the bells of the Baptist, Methodist and Episcopal churches take up the tolling, completing a circle to the courthouse. The slow progression continues around and around until just before the hour of twelve when a bugler blows “taps” from the courthouse steeple. At the moment of midnight the bellwether bell strikes the hour. Following the twelve bongs for midnight, comes one bong for the number “one”, followed by nine bongs for the number “nine.” The century being taken care of, bongs for the last two nu­ merals of the year are struck. Then, all the bells of the town peal together in celebration. 37 �No one knows exactly when Fincastle’s custom of ringing the bells on New Year’s Eve originated. Fulton Waid, who was long the mayor of the town’s 400 residents, says it started at least 150 years ago. Robert Stoner, Fincastle historian, traces the New Year cele­ bration to before the Civil War. His grandfather remembered the bellringing as something that “always was.” Over the years the same families have jealously guarded the right to furnish the bellringers. Men of the Simmons family have rung the courthouse bell. McDowells, Stoners and Waids ring the Presbyterian bell, Boltons the Baptist bell, Breckinridges and Waids the Episcopal and Housmans the Methodist. These names go deep into the history of Fincastle. Every year on Dec. 31, the head of the Simmons family, William now, climbs the ladder-like steps to the belfry of the courthouse at Fincastle’s town center. Tradition says the building was designed by Thomas Jefferson. With him is likely to be George Holt and the young sons of each. They will strike the big bell by hand with its hammer. The bell rope is used only for the final pealing. Because the responsibility of timing rests with the bell at the courthouse, Simmons stays outside on the roof so he can hear the other bells plainly. He remembers being at his post when the snow was coming down so fast he could only place the other churches by the pitch of their bells. Roy Bolton Jr. and his son, another Roy, ring the bell at the Baptist church, the 30th year for the older man. His father, Roy Sr., put in 25 years at the job before that. A McDowell son comes from Staunton, about 70 miles away, to carry on his father’s responsibility for the Presbyterian bell. There are no men of the family living in Fincastle now, but the tradition set by his father and grandfather draws him back. One of the Breckinridge men rings the Episcopal bell with one of the Waids. Fulton Waid has turned over his post to his son. He remembers when his father let him help for the first time. When he was 12 years old, he was allowed to pull the rope for the final peals. The historic line of bellringers has been broken at the Methodist church so relative newcomers, only something like 10 years at the job, see to it that the cycle is not broken. In times past another bell joined in, although somewhat errat­ ically, according to Stoner. Hayth’s Hotel, long discontinued, had a bell which was rung, or was supposed to be rung, right after the courthouse bell. The proprietor, however, is remembered as having some difficulty in counting, the New Year’s Eve causes for which are discreetly overlooked by history. The other bellringers would never 38 �know whether to wait for him or not. If the Presbyterian ringer, after a decent interval, decided Hayth was not going to take his turn, he would go on without him. Then, half the time, the proprietor would either wake up or catch up and would come in with a bong out of the proper order, a confusing state of affairs at best and one that has been remembered. The residents of Fincastle look forward to the yearly ceremony and rarely miss it. They hold “waiting up” parties from which the guests are likely to depart in time to get to their own homes for the ringing. Almost without exception, the townspeople think the sound is best from their own homes where they have heard it since childhood. One year a homesick son of the town called from New Mexico, where he was living, to ask his father to open the window and put the telephone outside so he could hear the bells. As they listen, the initiated can differentiate the bells by their sound. The courthouse bell has what is called a “strong” voice. To some the Presbyterian bell, the oldest now hanging (it is dated 1829), has the sweetest ring. The Baptist bell, a very large one, has a sound to match. The only flaw that the years have brought is an occasional in­ vasion by visiting automobiles with squealing tires and blaring horns. It is enough to make the old residents wish for a crippling snow every year so the winter midnight will be shared only by bells struck in an ancient sequence. 14 Iron Furnaces of Botetourt The manufacture of pig iron was a significant industry in early America and particularly in Botetourt County where 14 furnaces operated during most of the 19th century. Robert Harvey apparently “instigated the furnace development” at Cloverdale No. 1 about 1787, according to Kegley’s Virginia Fron­ tier. And the last to be abandoned in the county was Aracdia Furnace on Jennings Creek in 1885, says John D. Capron, Lynchburg iron authority. Capron, who’s working on a book on 155 Virginia furnaces, lists these 14 for Botetourt: Aetna 1 and 2, Arcada, Callie, Catawba, Cloverdale 1 and 2, Grace, Jane, Princess, Rebecca, Retreat, Roaring Run and Salisbury. Catawba and Roaring Run furnaces are in the Jefferson National 39 �Arcadia Furnace was built to supply iron for the Confederacy. Forest and this government agency has placed fences around them as protection from vandals. An extensive picinic area is planned for the Roaring Run site, near Craig Creek in northern Botetourt. The late P. H. Trout of Roanoke, a student of the iron industry, said the mill race at the Cloverdale Furnace later drove the nearby flour mill which burned in 1968. The stream was used to drive the bellows to furnish air blast and power requirements of the furnace. 40 �Capron said the Cloverdale Furnace was burned by Gen. David Hunter June 14, 1864 but it was rebuilt six months later. In a book, “Virginia Iron Manufacture in the Slave Era,” Kath­ leen Bruce wrote, “Iron, known as Catawba iron, smelted at the furnace of that name in Botetourt County, Virginia, had for nearly 40 years been familiar to every American ironmaster of importance east of the Appalachian mountains. So prized was Catawba pig iron, that in past years it had sold for as much as sixty dollars the ton. The Catawba Furnace at this period (1850) had fallen out of blast.” The Catawba Furnace was in excellent conition, Trout reported, until about 1930 when “vandals robbed the arch,es of their cast iron lintels, and thus caused the stone work to collapse,” a fate probably suffered by many of these monuments to 19th century industry. John Wood’s celebrated 1821 map of Botetourt listed these seven furnaces: Tayloe’s Furnace at Cloverdale, Harvey’s on the west fork of Lee’s Branch of Catawba Creek, Mayberry A and B on Pur­ gatory Creek, Taylor’s Iron Works on Catawba Creek at the mouth of Lee’s Branch, Iron Works on Jackson River north of Peters Mountain (in present Craig County) and Harvey’s Iron Works on Back Creek near Buchanan. Arcadia Furnace, built in 1862, was one of four constructed during the war, according to Capron. Iron was shipped down the nearby James River to Richmond for use by the Tredegar Iron Works, headed by Gen. Joseph Reid Anderson, a Botetourt native. More than 50 tons a week was shipped downstream. Virginia’s iron industry dates back to 1619 when the London Company brought workmen to put up a furnace on Falling Creek near present Richmond, Capron said. Gov. Alexander Spottswood’s furnace at Germanna, near Fredericksburg, was active soon after 1700. Col. William Byrd reported on three blast furnaces and an air furnace in 1732. Howe’s 1845 History of Virginia listed 42 blast furnaces pro­ ducing 18,810 tons of cast iron, 52 forges, producing 5,886 tons of bar iron, 1,742 persons employed and $1,246,650 in capital invested. Iron has its greatest need, in wartime, Capron wrote, and during wars, “we find the greatest demand—So it is to war that we attribute the rise and fall of Virginia iron furnaces.” He quoted an iron authority of the last century who said that so far as the basic need of Confederate ironmasters for war pig iron was concerned, “their fate, be it success or failure, lay buried in Vir­ ginia valleys and mountains.” 41 �An 18th Century Spinet By A n n e McClenny If you are a person interested in Southwest Virginia’s cultural history, a trip to the Museum of the Botetourt Historical Society in Fincastle will prove most rewarding. There, in a room that long ago was a parlor, stands a Hitchcock spinet, said to have been brought to the area now Botetourt County about 1740 by the Crawford family. Looking at the spinet, the inquisitive visitor will surely wonder about its history, what kind of sounds came from it and what music was popular when it was in use. The little spinet bearing the nameboard inscription, “Thomas Hitchcock Londoni fecit” looks exactly like one in the Smithsonian Institution’s collection of keyboard instruments. Its maker was well known in London for his fine instruments. The date in the Smithsonian catalog for its Hitchcock spinet is 1710. Although there is no date on the one in Fincastle, we can assume that it too, was built in the early eighteenth century. To find any keyboard instrument from this period in a small museum is unusual but to come upon one made by so famous a person as Thomas Hitch­ cock is very rare. The name, spinet, comes from the Latin word, spina, meaning thorn. This word refers to the quill which plucks the string as the key is struck, producing a clear, delicate tone. Commonly called a bent-side, the Crawford spinet was typical of its day. Its keyboard compass or range, was five octaves running from GG to g3. (The capital letters and small letters are indications used by musicians to describe keyboard range.) Black keys like those on the instrument were nicknamed “Skunk keys” because they had white stripes of ivory runn­ ing down the middle. The key beds were shallow and the action light, making the profuse ornaments (trills, turns, mordents, and the like), which cluttered pages of music at the time, easy to realize. It was a simple instrument for household, not concert use. Actually a one manual harpsichord, its jack action, with tuning pins in front over the key board and strings running diagonal to the key frame, did not provide a big sound. We do not know who played this spinet now in the Fincastle Museum but we can safely assume that the Crawford children did. In colonial times all well reared boys and girls learned to play some musical instrument and the children of Southwest Virginia were no exception. Col. William Preston, bringing up a large family in Bote­ tourt County, saw to it that his children had a musical education. Helen Bullock, writing on music in Virginia, says “A redemptioner by the name of Palfremen, who had been the victim of an 42 �unfortunate experience in London and had come to America was bought by Colonel Preston of Southwest Virginia as a music teacher for his daughters.” (William and Mary Quarterly, Second Series, Vol. 6, p. 233) If John Crawford was not fortunate enough to find a teacher for his children, the so-called method books, whose first pages ex­ plained how to begin, provided a good substitute. At this period in our history, they were imported primarily from England, along with instruments. Their first pages exposed the reader to rudiments. There were charts naming notes on the grand staff and diagrams showing their positions on the keyboard, tables explaining key sig­ natures, note values and how to count. Then followed a dozen or more little pieces to delight young performers. Gavottes, sarabandes, minuets, and marches filled the pages, not surprising since dancing was probably the most popular amusement of the day. The appealing pieces challenged the children and placed demands on them which would astound many beginners of today. In the first short pieces both hands were used and orna­ ments such as trills and turns, which would never appear in early teaching literature now, were sprinkled over almost every page. Often getting printed music posed a problem. Publishing houses did not begin to flourish in America until the last decade of the 43 �eighteenth century and importing music was expensive. Copy books offered the obvious solution. Many children made them and they were almost like diaries, with personal comments and opinions added in the margins. The necessity for copying music was actually very ad­ vantageous. There is no better teaching device and students even today are urged to learn musical notation this way. By the time the young eighteenth century players had mast­ ered even the simplest pieces they were encouraged to perform for family and friends. They enjoyed doing solos, accompanying singers and playing with other instrumentalists. This was truly an age of music making. Many a long evening’s quiet was relieved by the joyful sounds of young people singing and dancing. Today children, as always, like to hear tales of their ancestors’ lives and nothing delights them more than exploring in an attic. Perhaps in the not too distant future some young explorer will dis­ cover an eighteenth century book of dances, a method book or a music copy book and will want to place it on the music rack of the little spinet in Fincastle. In the meantime we can take pride in having this rare instru­ ment in our midst. Our enjoyment of it now can only be visual. When its five-sided top is raised no strings can be seen and so its voice is silenced. The keyboard, with many missing keys, resembles a snaggledtoothed child. And yet its charm is very apparent. Resting on a lovely Queen Anne stand, it is there to remind us that people of an era far removed from ours knew the joys of making music in Southwest Virginia. The Village of Daleville By Raymond Barnes The village of Daleville has an interesting historical background for near here stood the home of Robert Breckenridge where the first court of Botetourt County convened in 1770. Robert Brecken­ ridge died in the fall of 1772 and left part of his holding, including that on which Daleville stands, to his son, Preston. After the Revolution, many of the original settlers sold their land and moved to new frontiers. The Dunkards of Pennsylvania, attracted by the calcareous soil of the Shenandoah Valley and being excellent judges of good land, came to the upper valley in large num­ bers and many purchased farms near Daleville. In 1792, Preston and Elizabeth Breckenridge sold 650 acres to Christian Gish, who in turn let Jacob Gish buy 500 acres in 1705. 44 �It must have been one of the Gishes who built the first mill powered by waters of Tinker Creek in this vicinity. A mill functioned on the same site for countless years. All mills became a community center and when the first Dunkard church was erected at present Daleville, quite a little settlement grew up around it and the com­ munity soon boasted a general store. Just when or why the name, Daleville, was attached to the settlement is unknown but descendants of a Southwest Virginia family have said that Dales lived there in the early days. Peter Nininger, born in 1804, later wed Lydia Gish, who was a daughter of Jacob Gish. Nininger was a good business man, a pre­ siding elder in his church and very prolific, witness the seven sons and three daughters of his union. Benjamin Franklin Nininger, born 1848, was a younger son who wed Anna Marie Denton of a nearby family. George Layman, another well known farmer of the com­ munity, with John C. Moomaw started the first commercial orchards in Botetourt County around 1872. There were about 12 children in the Nininger-Layman families and although the public school system of Virginia had been in effect since 1870, neither Nininger nor Layman approved of their children attending the schools offered. In the summer of 1890, Prof. I.N.H. Beahm, then teaching in the schools of Roanoke City, was induced to take charge of a “select school” attended by the Nininger-Layman children. The summer session was held in a small frame building but with the coming of winter it was moved into a room over the kitchen of Mrs. George Layman. The select school found favor in the eyes of other Dunkards and applications for admittance piled up to such an extent that a building was erected in 1891 on the west side of the highway for school purposes only and to form the nucleus of the educational insti­ tution that followed. It was not long before a sufficient number of pupils graduated and desired higher education. A curriculum was installed, offering two courses of study. One, successfully attended for two sessions of nine months each, earned a graduate degree of bachelor of pedagogy. The other more of a cultural nature, required three years before a bachelor of commercial science was conferred. The institute now assumed the name of Botetourt Normal Col­ lege and many of its graduates taught school here and elsewhere. Coeducational from its inception, time brought an attractive and sepa­ rate building used as dormitories for the girls. This building has been converted into apartments. The Administration Building still stands, in need of repair. Here on the ground floor, pupils took their meals with classes held in the upper rooms. 45 �Bridgewater College in upper Virginia eventually took over all higher subjects and the normal school became known as Daleville Academy, the equivalent of a high school. Baseball and football teams contested with other high schools, but such innovations were of com­ parative recent vintage. It is probable that the school offered little to attract modern youth, for the discipline was strict and there was little diversion. In fact, old grads tell us that a trip across the road to Ikenberry’s store where the post office was located was the big event of the day. One failing to meet required standards of conduct was confined to the school campus, which was not large, but from there the culprit could view fellow students gaily trotting over to the store just across the road. In the early days, each student chopped his own wood and at­ tend to his fire. After a central heating plant was installed, this task was eliminated but replaced with chores equally as onerous. In spite of severe injunction against anyone leaving quarters after dark, girls sneaked out to meet boy friends on an innocent date in a nearby orchard. The depression brought the end of the school and it folded up in 1933. Behind the school, the old mill ground grain until 1949 and now it has taken on new life as the Tinker Mill Restaurant, operated by Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Hopkins. The date, 1847, is carved on the cornice of the mill, constructed here by Peter Nininger. The Hopkins have located a crane and beams from an earlier mill believed to have been at the same site. Nininger acquired this Nininger Hall at Old Daleville Academy 46 �property from William R. Preston in 1834. It was part of a 730-acre tract purchased by Gen. John Preston from John C. Griffin in 1817 and it was bounded by the land of Abraham and Jacob Gish. Today, Daleville is a delightful retreat from the noise and bustle of swiftly moving traffic, yet it is close to all modern conveniences. Cut off from the main highway when U.S. 220 was changed, the little settlement retains all of the characteristics of the old-time village which now is becoming a thing of the past. It would be a pity for Daleville to change. "Echo From the Hills" Will Tell Bicentennial Story “Echo From the Hills,” a two-act pageant linking old Botetourt’s frontier beginnings with the present, will climax the Bicentennial in June. Covering each of the county’s two centuries in a separate act, the pageant is the combined work of co-winners in a countywide contest. As judged by Miss Clara Black of Roanoke, a veteran theatrical director, the pageant of Mrs. Katherine C. Harris and that of Mrs. Jacqueline H. Rader and Mr. and Mrs. Glen Main placed first among five submitted. Others entered were by Mrs. Nell Thompson, en­ titled “Of Thee I Sing”; Mrs. Martha Edwards, “1770-1970,” and Mrs. Faye Caldwell, “From the Beginning to Infinity of A County.” A song, “Parade of the Pioneers,” will introduce the pageant with a description of the emigrants who came here to settle in a “wild, new land.” Instrumental music, songs and dances represent­ ative of periods of history will be performed. Highlights of the first act, “The First Hundred Years,” will be an Indian dance, Col. George Washington on his way to Fort William, a court scene featuring Robert Breckenridge, Israel Christian, Andrew Lewis and other well-known people of the 18th century, British soldiers’ visit to the home of Hattie Brugh in search of supplies, the wedding of Judith Hancock and William Clark at Santillane after his return from the Lewis and Clark expedition and the burning of Mt. Joy during the Civil War. In the second act, covering the second century, will be a des­ cription of early industries, packet boats on the James River at Buch­ anan, the Flood of 1877, Gay Nineties, 1920s and World War II. The production will close with a poem written by Mrs. Harris and a flag ritual, followed by singing of “God Bless America” and the county song, “Botetourt.” Flags from the states whose land was encompassed in early Botetourt will be displayed. Fireworks will be shown. Gar47 �land Stevens, a Botetourt teacher, will direct the pageant with the help of Miss Black. Other features of the Bicentennial, planned by a 12-member board headed by Thomas E. Reynolds of Troutville, are an Easter sunrise service at Lord Botetourt High School and a Patriotism Day program on Memorial Day. During Bicentennial Emphasis Week, June 21-27, special attention will be given to religious heritage, tours of landmarks, homes and gardens, old farm implements, arts and antiques and several performances of the pageant. An anniversary booklet has been prepared. The observance began on New Year’s Eve with the traditional ringing of the bells at the Courthouse and the churches of Fincastle, joined by other churches of the county for this special event. Debbie Myers, a James River High School senior, has been selected as Miss Botetourt Bicentennial. Slogan for the anniversary is “Honoring the Past, Searching the Future,” suggested by J. J. Madine of Fin­ castle. Mrs. Jacqueline Rader of Troutville and Mrs. Gaynelle Stevens of Buchanan composed the song, “Botetourt” and Mrs. Rader wrote a poem for the celebration. The emblem was drawn by Harold Little of Fincastle from themes suggested by Mrs. Alice Crowder of Trout­ ville and Mrs. Martha Edwards of Buchanan. Historic Fincastle, Inc. (A report based on information supplied by Mrs. Hellen Caldwell, President) In the upper right-hand corner of Historic Fincastle’s conser­ vative grey-green stationery, under the seal of the six steeples, is print­ ed the organization’s quiet battle-cry: TO PRESERVE AND RESTORE HISTORIC FINCASTLE. That is a big order. Only two short years ago, the group of determined citizens was formally organized. Since then its projects have really proliferated. Here, in outline form are a representative baker’s dozen of its many plans and accomplishments. The members have: 1. Helped supply part of the funds for restoring the handsome 1897 county jail, with its unusual decorative ironwork, for use as the county library; 2. Sponsored educational walking tours of Fincastle for groups, such as wives of conventioneers in Roanoke, who make advance reservations; 3. Held an arts and crafts festival during the second week of each of the past two Septembers, including also country music, contests, square dancing, home-cooked food, a parade, band concerts, and a country store; 4. Opened a country store on other special occasions for antiques 48 �and home-made articles and food; 5. Cooperated in many ways with the Botetourt Historical Society in acquiring material for the Botetourt Museum in the restored old building behind the courthouse; 6. Leased an 1810 brick building from the county, to be restored from its recent burned-out condition for use as a craft shop; 7. Received as gifts one late eighteenth century log house from Hon. Stuart Carter and another from Fincastle’s Mayor Arich R. Bolton; (Note: There are, in spite of two disastrous fires in the 1970 in the yard of the old log house donated by Mr. Carter and, four others nearby; in all, in a village of 401 inhabitants, there still are at least thirty-five such buildings.) 8. Started negotiations for leasing a brick blacksmith shop—1840 or earlier—to be restored; 9. Placed attractive historical data signs at appropriate spots; 10. Planned for date-of-erection plaques to be put on all houses in town built before 1875; 11. Cooperated with the Botetourt Bicentennial Committee for the county’s year-long celebration in 1970; 12. Corresponded with the history department of Roanoke College which is interested in doing archeological work during the summer of 1970 in the yard of the old log house donated by Mr. Carter: and, 13. At their board meeting in early February, decided to raise funds by selling “loan-a-shares” in Historic Fincastle, Incorporated, at ten dollars each, bearing interest at two per cent a year, payable in 15 years by funds- “derived from hard work”. “They’ll be mighty pretty framed,” says Mrs. Caldwell. You can draw your own conclusions from that suggestion. —F. McN. L. 49 �Botetourt Bicentennial Great men of faith and fortitude Proclaimed this virgin land A frontier county—Botetourt— Forever may she stand! They set aside an Eden in An untamed wilderness, A beacon shining brightly there, So dear and richly blessed. The murmurs of the woodland streams, The grandeur of the peaks, The comfort of the rolling hills A soothing message speaks Botetourt! Bright jewel of Two hundred years ago; Sustained by men of vision till Thy cup doth overflow. And what about those little men Whose efforts go unsung, Those unassuming heroes here From whence traditions spring? Men of firm integrity, Courageous, strong, and true— Persevering mountain men Of strong devotion, too We owe them great respect, you know, Those backbones of our land, Those hardy souls who’d rally ’round To lend a helping hand; No captain ever won a fight, No king retained his crown Without the so-called little guys To help him hold his ground! Two centuries of toil and sweat, The mandate of success— The citizens of Botetourt Have offered her no less. Search and you will find their names On worn and yellowed page, The deeds and taxes, births and deaths, And oaths confirming age. �A legacy they leave to us, Their daughters and their sons, In whom is trusted all their hopes; Indeed! we are the ones! To us is given stewardship, A chance to glorify Old Botetourt— our Botetourt. We hold her banner high! Botetourt Where the Blue Ridge Mountains kiss the sky And the wind speaks softly to me, Where evening soothes the weary soul— That’s where I long to be! High in the mountains a mockingbird sings, Deep in the valley an ageless church bell rings. Chorus Botetourt, Botetourt, blessed by God’s own hand, Mu heart is yours forever— Dear old home and hallowed land! Where the mighty river, James rolls by On its journey down to the sea. Where orchards bloom and grain fields glow— My heart will ever be! Land of my fathers, and priceless to me— Hope of my children; a precious legacy! Chorus Jacqueline Hundley Rader, talented wife of Jacob K. Rader of Troutville is celebrating the Bicentennial in many ways. She is the writer of the official poem and the song and co-author of the pageant chosen for the celebration. Her poem entitled “Botetourt Bicen­ tennial,” ivas first read publicly Nov. 29, 1969 during the Miss Botetourt Bicentennial contest. The song, with music by Dr. John Diercks of the Hollins College music faculty, had its first public per­ formance by the Lord Botetourt High School choral group at the courthouse on New Year’s Eve. 51 �A County Album Herewith is printed a sampling of photographs, old and new, of some of the interesting structures, mainly homes, of Botetourt County. They were chosen for architectural variety, age, beauty and historical interest. The editor will welcome pictures for future issues of the Journal. The Community House at Buchanan was built by John S. Wilson as a combination dwelling, store and warehouse in 1839. It served as storehouse and landing place for the James River and Kanawha Canal and now is owned by the Town Improvement Society. Lock on the old James River and Kanawha Canal was photographed a few miles below Buchanan. 52 �Annandale, a square brick house, overlooks the James River in the eastern corner of Botetourt. A Georgian house with four chimneys, a modi­ fied widow's walk and a double stairway, it has a hexagonal smokehouse at right. The hotel at Blue Ridge Springs, just east of Roanoke, was a popular watering place in the late 1800s. 53 �The Brick Union Church stood for 125 years or more on the old Trinity-Troutville road until it was torn down in 1958 and its brick was used for an addition at Fincastle Presbyterian Church. Interstate 81 now passes over the site where Botetourt Brethren, Lutherans and Methodists worshiped for years. It had a gallery in the rear and long wood-burning stoves on each side of the aisle. 1938 photo. James Harrison Vest and his family posed for a picture at their white frame house just east of Troutville about 1900. Logs were covered with weatherboarding on the house, probably built before 1805. Christian Houseman sold the property to John Vest of Bedford County in 1838. The home, with combination stone and brick chimneys, is one of the oldest wood structures in this area. 54 �Photo by the late J. C. Dill. Flour mill once operated at Springwood. Photo by the late J. C. Dill. Saw mill at Springwood on a winter day long ago. 55 �Hawthorne Hall, the Slusser home northwest of Fincastle, was built about 1800 by Robert Harvey and his son-in-law, Stephen Trigg. An arched overhead light at the main entrance, fluted molding, slender interior columns, wall paneling and an Adam mantel are its main features. Stonelea, a stone house with a stone barn nearby, was built by Ed­ ward Mitchell in 1799. The property had been owned by David Cloyd and later was held by Philip Firebaugh for years. 56 �Santillane is an impressive Greek Revival mansion built by Col. George Hancock in the early 1800s. Later the home of Col. Henry Bowyer and his son, Henry W. Bowyer, longtime clerk, it is owned by R. D. Stoner, his­ torian and retired clerk and his wife. William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition married Col. Hancock's daughter, Judith, and the wedding was probably at Santillane. The Benjamin Ammen House on U. S. 220 was built about 1826, near Ammen's woolen mill. A Federal style home, it is known for the classic detail of its woodwork on the Adam entrance with fan and side lights, moldings on mantels, door frames and chair rail. 57 �The Selander log house, southwest of Fincastle, was originally built in two sections, connected by a breezeway or dogtrot. Axe and adz marks are visible on the beams, as are shreds of horsehair used to bind the clay. Numerals marking placement of ceiling beams and wooden peg can be seen. The house, probably built by the Firestone family, dates from about 1800. Mulberry Bottom, an Early Republic stone house, is said to' have been built in the 1780s. It is near Craig Creek, west of Eagle Rock. 58 �Glebe Mill, the Thomas T. Lawson home near Tinker Creek northwest of Daleville, is built around a log house dating from about 1770. The Rev. Adam Smyth, first rector of the Botetourt Parish, lived on this property, known as the Glebe Tract. Remarkable hand carved pine mantels and panel­ ing probably are the work of a journeyman carver on his way west. Rustic Lodge, originally the Lewis Burwell home, dates from approxi­ mately 1802. Known for its designed paneling and mantels, it long was the home of Martha Burwell. it is located southwest of Fincastle. Retrospect and Prophecy--1885 All golden is her past; Rich relics rare of dear and distant days Their shadows cast Upon her now, and fill our lips with praise. In ante-bellum years she reached her prime— Her brilliant fame spread far— You should have known her in the good old time, “Before the War.” 59 �Sweet fragrance of the old regime fills Our town with Southern grace; And makes our home, among Virginia’s hills, A charming place. And yet, we must confess The railroad came just near enough to slay Our trade with Troutville six miles away, We face distress. The County Court Meets here, and here forever let it meet; Fincastle shall remain the County-seat of dear old Botetourt. Our name is widely known; Far, far away, and from a warmer zone Fair tourists come with spirits high and gayAnd come to stay! This is our lasting wealth; The mineral water, and the bracing air, The long romantic drives, with tonic rare, Imparting health. Fincastle sleeps upon her seven hills, With fast closed eyes! But she shall feel again life’s magic thrillsShe shall awake and rise! Yes, yes, ’twill not be long The iron horse shall neigh upon her streets; While golden past with golden future meets In one grand song. No, reader, ’tis no joke! The trolly cars shall run along these roads— Full cars, and all alive with living loads From Roanoke. The treasured past is gone; With memories priceless, sacred, and sublime! But we proclaim another glorious time; Soon, soon to dawn! —Fanny Johnston The Fincastle Herald 1885 ��� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society Winter 1970 Volume 6, Number 2 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />How the Mother County Began<br />Fincastle-More Than a County Seat<br />Early Craftsmen<br />Mary Johnston, Writer of the Past<br />Cherry Tree Bottom<br />Fire Destroys Landmarks<br />The Turnpike Through Botetourt<br />Western Inhabitants-An Incumbrance?<br />The Bells of Fincastle<br />14 Iron Furnaces of Botetourt<br />An 18th Century Spinet<br />The Village of Daleville Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Winter 1970 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_06_02_Winter_1970 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6346/JHSWV_07_01_Summer_1970.pdf e4b2a9f3c0f089ffda52b85d86735c6b PDF Text Text JOURNAL o í tke ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY V o i.tune Seven N um ber O ne �CONTENTS The Great Flood of 1749, by Klaus W u s t ................................. 1 Roanoke County in the 1840’s, by Maria Jane Gish Frantz . . . . . . . . 5 A Misty Tour of Henry, by Clare White ........ ............................ 10 The Town of Newbern, by Mary B. K e g le y ...... .............. .......... .... 15 On Campus 70 Years Ago . .......... ....................... ............................ 24 Woolen Mill, A Major Botetourt In d u s try ...... ........... ................... .. 25 Civil War Draft Problems in the Shenandoah Valley, by Alice l. H ohenberg...... .................... . . ....................... . 26 Hales Ford Classical School, by Miss Sarah Dinwiddie .......... ......... 34 New Books on Old T h em es.................................. .................... . 43 Botetourt’s 200th B irth d a y ................................................. ........ . . . 44 Col. William Fleming Recalled .......... ................. ............. . 46 High Bridge Church Is 200, by Dr. George West Diehl ............... .. 48 Ancient Artifacts A cquired.......... ........... .................. ..................... 51 James McDowell’s Travels in 1828 .................. .................. ............. 52 Fire Protection ......................................... ... -......... .. 55 Alleghany Turnpike, 7 Miles Long, by Walter K. W o o d ..................56 Where We Were in 1806 ............................... ........... ........... . 66 Geokge Kegley Editor of the JOURNAL The Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Volume VII, Number 1. Published twice yearly by the Society at Box 1904, Roanoke, Virginia 24008, to chronicle the past and present of that part of the state west of the Blue Ridge. Single copy price for members: 50 cents; for nonmembers, $1. The Society will be careful in handling unsolicited ma­ terial but cannot be responsible for its loss. �The Great Flood of 1749 Klaus Wust, a German scholar, historian, traveler and interpreter, described his findings on the Roanoke River flood of August, 1749 in a talk to the Society in Autumn, 1969. His text appears here. Wust, author of “The Virginia Germans” and “Folk Art in Stone— Southwest Virginia,” lives at Edinburg in Shenandoah County. By Klaus W ust While the flood of 1969 will certainly remain one of the most trying events of recent history, the early pioneers on the Roanoke and its tributaries had ample reason to remember the flood of 1749 for a long time. Inundations were frequent in the western parts of Virginia but two German reports made independently from each other seem to indicate that an unusually ferocious flood occured shortly after midnight on August 25th, 1749. Two German itinerant preachers of the Moravian Brotherhood in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Leonhard Schnell and John Brandmuller, who passed through the area in November, 1749, recorded several details about the experiences of people during that fateful summer night. Of one family, Schnell wrote: “The man and his wife with their six children had climbed into a tree, which had fallen down halfway. There they spent the whole night.” The travelers had great difficulties to obtain food because everywhere there was a shortage of grain and bread. About two miles from James River a woman with whom they lodged related “that she and two of her children were lifted up by the water in the bed in which they slept and were carried about on the bed while asleep until they woke up.” The best report, however, is contained in a letter which Samuel Eckerlin, head of the Sabbatarian Dunker colony on New River, wrote to Alexander Mack, junior, in Germantown, Pennsylvania on September 23rd, 1749. Mack, who had lived on New River from 1745 until 1747, considered the letter newsworthy enough to pass it on to Christopher Sauer, publisher of the German newspaper in Germantown. It appeared in the “Pennsylvanische Berichte” on January 16, 1750. Sauer’s news­ paper reported on the Dunker colony on New River from time to time. Only a few weeks after Eckerlin and some followers had set out for western Virginia, the Germantown paper carried their story on October 16, 1745. Eckerlin frequently visited the Roanoke country. He was both a hunter and a doctor, apart from his religious activities as the spiri­ tual leader of a band of monks and married “householders” who pioneered the Dunkards Bottom and Sinking Creek areas. The place name “Mahanaim” was chosen by Eckerlin in 1745. It is of biblical origin (Genesis 32:1-2) and means “Two Camps,” �evidently indicating the separation of the monastic colony from the individual homesteads of the “householders”. Here is the full text of Eckerlin’s letter in English translation: Mahanaim on the New River in Virginia the 23rd of September (1749) Beloved Brother, upon this occasion I want to report to you about the great inundations which occurred on the 25th of August, a little past midnight, on the Roanoke and the area northeast of it. Our rivei; as well as the Little River were also very high but nobody here suffered mentionable damage. On the Roanoke, however, and other nearby places there was much damage. At several spots entire hills were swept down and leveled and several tracts of bottom land, all inhabited, were filled with so much gravel and sand that they can no longer be lived on. This I have seen myself. Also houses and barns were carried away and with them a great deal of the crop. The Roanoke was a mile wide at several places and the water rose to 15 feet above otherwise dry land. Since you are familiar with this area, I want to give you details about several places as follows: One mile below Tobias Breit a man and a child were drowned; a woman managed to save herself on a tree; livestock was practically all drowned because the water rose so suddenly and right at midnight that none could have been driven away. The house of Henrich Braun with whom we stayed has been torn up. Clad in nothing but their shirts they got away with their children, the water reaching up to their arms. His three cows in the field were carried 3 miles downstream by the waters where they gained firm land alive. Peter Kinter and his wife found a horrible end. They were not yet asleep but had been drinking together, were in good cheer and thought of no danger till the water suddenly rose up to the house and no more escape was possible. So they re­ treated to the attic. No sooner had they reached it than the water rose up to them. They placed boards on the collar beam and sat on them. When the water reached up to their arms and no more flight seemed possible, he lost heart and told his people: He believed that this was another deluge and the Last Judgment had come. He asked his wife to give him a kiss. As he grabbed her, both slid from the board and away with the waters. Those who were with them on the boards saw no more of them. Kassel’s wife and children and their old mother were in the house at the same time. They all survived up on the collar 2 �beam save for a small child whom Peter Kinter’s wife had on her lap. It drowned with them. After daybreak, the others found out that they had been carried with the upper part of the house for a mile into some woods. They found a rope and tied it to a tree so that they would not be carried any further until the waters subsided or someone would come to their rescue. After a few days, Peter Kinter’s wife was found dead and naked, hanging on a tree with one arm. And several days later he was also found. But he had no more head and only one arm. Maybe some wild animal had already feasted on him. Thus the children of man pass away in their security. He who fears the Lord, is watch­ ful. We live in a wicked and evil world the fruits and berries of which are speedily ripening. But how hard it is not to be corrupted by it. And not to be frightened by the judgments which hurt and will hurt. The Lord may save our and all pious men’s Ark of Faith which, departing from the shores of vanity, plies the savage seas without casting anchor until it reaches the blessed land of eternity. With the. Faith and the Hope in the compass and the magnet of eternal love it will reach the longed for haven of peace where all storms subside and all peril ends. My heartful longing may thus be part of the prayer of all Children of God awaiting His Salvation, all those who await His Salvation and who tire not, then it. will happen and we shall rejoice and sing many a Halleluiah to the Lamb Who paid the price. Farewell, Samuel Eckerlin The letter is of particular local interest because its writer men­ tions four German families with whom the Sabbatarians were ac­ quainted. Tobias Breit (Bright) and his brother, Erich Breit had settled on the North Fork of the Roanoke soon after 1740. Henrich Braun (Henry Brown) was one of the occupants of Browns Bottom between Cravens Creek and the Roanoke in east Salem and Roanoke County. His three brothers, Samuel, Daniel and David were also among the earliest settlers of this neighborhood. Peter Kinter (Kinder) lived on the other side of the Roanoke along Peters Creek. Kinder had arrived in Philadelphia from Germany in 1738 and located on Peters Creek well before 1744. After his tragic death, neighbors appraised his personal belongings which were considerable for a man who had migrated to America only 11 years before. Besides his land, Kinder left 10 horses, 10 cows, sundry tools and a beaver hat—all amounting to 100 pounds and 10 shillings— to his surviving children, Christian, Sarah, Peter and Catherine. They were bound out by the church wardens. The “Kassel’s wife” men­ tioned by Eckerlin might have been the spouse of Jacob Cassel (Castle) who appears often as a hunter in Augusta County records 3 �and he might have been on one of his long hunting expeditions while his wife, children and mother stayed with the Kinder family. Samuel Eckerlin’s letter thus provides us with the clue to the ethnic origin of four families whose names were thoroughly anglicized in local records: Bright, Brown, Kinder and Castle. The last portion of his epistle gives some insight into the religious thinking of the Sabbatarians. For them, the outsiders were corrupted by the temp­ tations of this world. A flood like that of August 25th, 1749 was taken as a sign from heaven. Little did Samuel Eckerlin dream that but a few years later several of the virtuous Sabbatarians would be killed by Indians and that two of his brothers would perish in French captivity. Another report on the Roanoke River flood of 1749 was handed down in the Journal of Dr. Thomas Walker of Albemarle County, who wrote of “a Fresh” which carried off houses, grain and fences. Dr. Walker, the explorer who is credited with naming Cumberland Gap, wrote on March 15, 1750 that the fresh occurred “last Summer” which would confirm the date. The account in his journal for March 15-16: We went to the Great Lick on a Branch of the Staunton & bought corn of Michael Campbell for our Horses. This Lick has been one of the best places for Game in these parts and would have been if the Hunters had not killed the Buffaloes for divers­ ion, and the Elks and Deer for their skins. This afternoon we got to the Staunton where the Houses of the inhabitants had been carried off with their grain and Fences by the Fresh last Summer, and lodged at James Robinson’s, the only place I could hear of where they had Corn to spare, notwith­ standing the land is such that an industrious man might make 100 barrels a share in a seasonable year. We kept up the Staunton to William Englishe’s (Ingles). He lives on a small branch and was not much hurt by the Fresh. He has a Mill, which is the furthest back except one lately built by the Sect of people, who call themselves of the Brother­ hood of the Euphrates, and are commonly called the Duncards, who are the upper inhabitants of the New River, which is about 400 yards wide at this place. They live on the west side and we were obliged to swim our Horses over. There is no known reference to a Michael Campbell but Malcolm Campbell lived at the Great Lick and later owned a 400-acre tract containing much of downtown Roanoke. A James Robinson lived north of Cloverdale in Botetourt County. William English or Ingles lived in the area between the present towns of Blacksburg and Christiansburg. 4 �Roanoke County in the 1840's This account of girlhood on a Roanoke County farm before the Civil War was written by Maria Jane Gish ’ Frantz in 1914. She died the age of 91 in 1929 at Enid, Okla. Her recollections were pre­ served by her grandson, F. M. Heironimus of Tulsa, Okla., and passed along to another relative, Mrs. Ola Gish Durr of Roanoke, a member of the Society. Born in the year Roanoke County was formed from Bote­ tourt, the writer was the daught­ er of Christian Gish, who moved from near Bonsack to what has Maria Jane Gish Frantz been known as the R. L. Walrond home, near Burlington, north of Roanoke. It now is owned by A. T. Loyd. About 1851, the Gishes moved to Roanoke, III., a community named by families who moved from this area. In 1857, Maria married Henry Jackson Frantz, son of Jacob and Eliza Petty Frantz, who had moved west from Roanoke County. They lived in Oklahoma and had 10 children, including a son, Frank Christian Frantz, who was a captain in the Rough Riders and the last territorial governor of Oklahoma in 1906. By Maria J ane Gish F rantz I was born in Roanoke County, Va. on October 28th, 1838, 8 miles from Salem, the County seat, one half mile from the little Village of Burlington, and 2 miles from Hollins, formerly Botetourt Springs. My father’s name was Christian Gish, my mother’s name was Elizabeth Houtz, daughter of John and Susan Klein Houtz. I am the youngest of 8 children, Hester, John Henry, Eliza Ann, James Rufus, Susan Frances, Sarah Catherin, Mary Elizabeth, Maria Jane (myself). I was in my 14th year when father sold his farm and moved to Woodford County, 111., where we lived on a farm one mile north of Roanoke, 111. Father lived to be in his 90th year, mother having died some years before. Both are buried in the Roanoke Cemetery together with brother, John Rufus, sister Susan and Elizabeth. Sister Hester, Eliza and Sarah having died in Virginia are buried on the old home place on a little hill in the west part of the orchard. I never knew either of my grandparents on my father’s side. (George Gish & Wife Susannah Stover). 5 �My brother John Gish was a very large man, and I remember they used to say he struck back to the Stover family as they were all very large and fleshy men. My oldest sister, Hester, or Hettie as we always called her, married Jacob Smith. Eliza married Isaac Renn, Susan married John Woosa, Elizabeth married John McCauly. My husband was Henry Jackson Frantz. I am the last one living of a family of 8. My father, Christian Gish, was one of 7 brothers, George, John, David, Jacob, Abraham and William Gish. He had 1 sister who married John Beckner. Uncle George lived near Roanoke, Va. (Vinton). Uncle Abraham lived near Salem, Uncle John once lived in Laporte, Indiana, then moved to Livingston County, Mo., where he died, his wife having died before in Indiana. At the time of his death his 12 children lived around him, so that he could visit them all in one day. He was near 90 when he died. Uncle David lived in South Bend, Ind. where his son, Pike, lives, as far as I know, but I think on a farm. Uncle Jacob lived in Lafayette, Ind. Uncle William Gish, lived in Leesburg, Ohio and we visited them on our way to 111. He was keeping a Hotel then, afterwards he moved to Atchinson, Kansas, where he died. He had 6 girls, no boys. His girls were Lucinda, Emma, Eliza, Susan, Phoebe or Rachel, I forget which, and Hattie. If those girls all married and changed their names we will never know who they are, as we never saw them after moving to 111. and we may be living among them and not know it. Neither did we hear from them after they moved to Kansas Father (Christian Gish) was born on August 12, 1792, and was a Soldier in the War of 1812. Was in Camp for 16 weeks but was never called out. Grandfather, (George Gish) hired a substitute for him and came and took him home. He received a Land Grant on land of 40 acres in 111. This was Gov. land. He bought a thousand acres of Prarie land in 111. Father always lived at the same place while he lived in Va. that he bought and moved to when he and Mother were married. (1816). He cleared the most of it himself, having hired hands to help. Mother always had a loom and spinning wheel, and made cloth to sell and help to pay off the hired hands. We raised Flax and had sheep to shear, Wool to wash, pick and Spin. We children took delight in help­ ing to wash the wool. We would all go out in a wagon to the creek, with the baskets, tubs and buckets, and as the water was warm we would each take a basket, put it half full of Wool, and wade into the creek where it was gravel bottom, and get into the baskets with our feet and tramp the wool until the water ran clean from the basket, then the wool was clean. We would walk out, drain the wool, and put it back into the sheets on the grass, fill the baskets and into the water again! 6 �This was great fun to us. Now, as I was the youngest, you may wonder who were the children that I speak of; my oldest sister (Hester) died and left three little girls, Lizzie, Sarah and Susan Smith. These, Mother took to raise, and they were always like sisters to me. Lizzie was older than me, Sarah about my age, and Susie younger. We little girls had to pick wool in the hot summer days and how tired we would get sitting and picking wool. Some times we would slip out to play and Mother would have to call us in to finish our tasks, then we could play. The wool picking had to be done after school closed and before harvest came on. We little girls had to gather sheaves, and carry water to the harvest hands. The wheat was cut with Cradles, perhaps eight or ten Cradles going at the same tiirie. As many rakers and as many men to bind up the sheaves. We had no reapers in those days. It kept my mother and two older sisters busy cooking for so many hands. Then we milked from 6 to 8 cows and made butter for the market. We little girls did the churning down at the springhouse in summer in the early morning while it was cool. We had the old fashioned dash churn and two of us would get hold of the dasher and sing: Come butter come, Come Butter Come, Peter’s standing at the gate, Waiting for the butter cake, Come Butter come. We thought sure the butter would come quicker if we sang that song. I used to milk an old Cow named Cherry when I was too little to know the right side from the wrong. It was fun then, but when I got older it was not so funny; I remember how I used to chase the cows up, when I was older, and stand with my bare feet, in the warm place, of a dewey morning. Then away to the pasture with the cows. We little girls had to take the cows to the pasture in the morning, then go for them in the evening. Sometimes we would have to go a long way to the farthest corner of the farm. Often we would find the cows at the bars, waiting to come home. We always had a Bell cow. If the cows would happen to be in the new pasture or over a hill (for it was hilly in Va.) we would have to listen for the bell. The cows would hurry home to get a cool drink of water from the big spring that ran through the springhouse, where we kept the milk and butter, and any thing else that needed to be kept cool in summer, the water being almost ice-cold in the summer, but seemed warm to the touch in winter. There were big shade trees all around the spring, where father and the hired men would always go for an hour’s rest after dinner in the summer time, either sitting or lying down on the grass, for we 7 �Barn on Roanoke County farm where Mrs. Frantz was born had a beautiful bluegrass yard. Many a time we took-knives and dug up the plantain and danderlions or any other weed that would happen to come up, so that it looked like a green velvet yard. There was a sweet Briar Rose growing and vining over the west window of the sitting room in the dear old home. It seems to me I can smell its sweet fra­ grance yet, after 77 years! How well I remember every nook and cranny of the old house! The Loom house, the smoke house, the hen house, and the spring house, and the bubbling spring, whose waters never, never failed, and was a delight to those who came thirsty for a drink of its cooling waters. The horses too, how they would hurry to the trough on a hot summer day, to quench their thirst, then turn away and march back to the barn to be fed. We had a large barn where the front projected over like a wide porch, where the cattle would gather under to keep out of rain or snow. Besides there was always a large stack of straw in the barn­ yard after thrashing time, so that the cattle would have shelter from the cold on any side of it, as it was in the middle of the barn yard. What fun we children used to have gathering eggs by the dozens in the old barn or on the straw stack, in the hen house too; and what fun we had sliding down the straw stack, for it was nearly tall as the barn, but sloping down so that it was easy to climb up again, and in winter when snow covered the ground we would carry boards to the top of the hill in the orchard, and then get on the slide and down the hill we would go, then roll off in the snow, and the boards would go through under the fence into the barnyard. Then back again we would go. The children in town miss all the fun we children in the country had. 8 �I must not forget to tell of the Flax raising. When in bloom it waved like a blue sea and was very beautiful. When the bloom dropped it would soon begin to turn brown. And when the seed was ripe it was ready for the harvest. We would pull it up, tie it in bundles as large as your arm, and stick it with roots down and seeds up, in small stacks to dry. When dry it was hauled to the barn and the seed beat off and the stacks spread in smooth wind rows in the newly mown meadow where the grass was short, where the rain and the dew would fall on it until the stalks were rotted or brittle so they could be broken, then it was raked up and taken back to the barn, where Father would break it. I cannot describe a Flax break to you so you would understand it. Then we women folks would scrutch it, and mother would hackle it and it was ready for the spinning wheel. It looked like soft and beautiful gray hair as it was made into twists and hung up on the walls of the loom house. Then came the spinning of the Flax by mother and the older girls. We children that were younger had to spin tow. Tow is the tangled part that is hackled out of the Flax on sharp pointed steel pins. This is made into coarse cloath, the flax into figured table linen, or plain cloth for sheets, pillow cases, towels, etc. I used to fill quills for the weaver, and got very tired sometimes, but everybody had to work. My older sisters had to spin the wool in summer on a big wheel and they would sing and spin. I seem to hear them yet, and see them draw out the long woolen thread from the woolroll. That was after the wool had been picked to remove all the trash out of it and it had been sent to the Carding machine to be made into rolls. Then after the spinning came the washing again, then the coloring of it into different colors, to be woven into woolen goods for our winter dresses, or plain blue brown or black for the men’s wear, or left white for the blankets, or the colors were woven into beau­ tiful designs for bed spreads. There were many uses for it. The older sisters used to weave beautiful white figured counterpanes for the beds, or carpets for the floors, some which were made from the coarse part of Tow, and colored different colors. Some were made from rags. I tell you all of this that the grandchildren may know how easy they have it now! All of our sewing was done by hand. We had no sewing machines then, nor cooking stoves. All the cooking was done over a fire place. Our kitchen fire place was half as wide as the kitchen. But we had a big clay oven in the yard where we did most of the bread or pie baking. Occasionally Mother would bake biscuits or custard pies in a dutch oven on the hearth, if needed between baking days, and our corn pone (we never had any other sort in those days) was baked in 9 �the same Dutch oven on the hearth, putting coals of fire under and on top of the oven. And how delicious it was—not hard crusted or dried out like a cook stove makes it. I used to go to school at the old Green Ridge school house near a mile away and sit all day from sun up till sun down, on seats without any backs, but we never thought of getting tired. How we made the air ring with happy voices, and how we tried to get the last tag away as we ran to our homes in the evening. We never had kerosene lamps in those days, but had tallow candles, and we would burn pine knots in the fireplace to see to get our lessons with—it was much brighter. The girls used to spin too by the light of the pine knots, I mean on the little Flax wheels. They never spun wool at night. Sometimes they would want to go and spend the evening with a neighbor girl, or girls. Then they would gather up their wheels and go and laugh and talk and spin and visit till bed time, then pick up their wheels and go home again, to be ready for the business next morning. Those were happy days. A Misty Tour of Henry By Clare W hite On the morning of the historical tour of Henry County, May 16, the weather couldn’t make up its mind whether to settle in for a steady rain or to mizzle along with fog. By afternoon, when 115 members of the Roanoke Historical Society got back to the starting place, the weather was still on the fence. The misty day, however, held back only a few of the number who had signed up for the all-day excursion, the first joint tour with another historical group. The Henry County Historical Society joined forces with the Roanoke society to sponsor the spring tour of historic houses in Martinsville and Henry County. The Henry County group furnished tour guides, both for their own school busloads of 80 weatherproof sightseers, and for the three 10 �busloads of Roanoke visitors. The buses were routed on contrasting schedules so all would not converge on a stop at the same time. One set started west of Martinsville and worked around to the east; the other took the eastern side first. On the western circuit, a guide was picked up at Oak Level, a short distance off U. S. 220. Proceeding south on a country road roughly paralleling the old Carolina Road, a pre-Revolutionary trail to the south, the first stop was made at “Hordsville,” an ante-bellum plantation house built in 1813 by Col. George “Rusty” Hairston. The colonel, a state senator, built the house as a copy of a Richmond house he had admired. The house, occupied by one of Col. Hairston’s two surviving des­ cendants, his great-granddaughter, Miss Mattie Hairston, was not open to visitors. The grounds, however, were open, as was the cem­ etery in the rear where Col. Hairston, his wife and succeeding gener­ ations are buried. The bricks of the house were made on the plantation by slaves, who also did the building. It stands today just about as it did when it was built, with the exception of a porch on the back. Dependencies still standing include the cook house, smoke house and corn bin. One of the original slave cabins can be seen from the road. Further along the Carolina Road, the buses stopped at “Hillcroft,” a house whose beginnings date back to 1740. This house, now owned by Dr. and Mrs. M. R. King, has been added to a number of times. Each section, however, has been preserved with faithful Hillcroft, home of Dr. and Mrs. M. R. King 11 �attention to its authenticity. The first section, a salt box type of architecture, has its original brick flooring, worn into hollows by years of use. Other sections retain their separate staircases, beautiful old mantels and carved woodwork. Of special interest to visitors was Dr. King’s collection of anti­ que guns, clocks and tools. The house is also furnished with a fine collection of antique furniture. “Hillcroft” was begun by CoL Henry Lyne of the Continental Army. In 1814 it became the property of John Cousins Traylor, a clergyman, who built the middle section. James Rangeley, Englishborn, purchased the home in the 1840’s and added the third section, differing from the rest in that it was built of brick. Dr. A. Warren Rucker built the kitchen section in 1936 and Dr. King added a wing to the rear. The Bassett House Not far from “Hillcroft” was what has always been called “The Bassett House.” Visitors were welcomed to the grounds of this house, thought to have been built in 1818 by Alexander Hunter Bassett, by a descendant, Mrs. Reuben S. Reynolds and her husband. Originally a two-room log cabin, one room up and one down, the house has been added to until it appears almost modern. Under the weatherboards, however, are the original logs, grooved by hand and hewn with an adz. Huge tree boxwood surround the house, some as high as 18 feet. English boxwood, equally as old, line the roadbed of the old Carolina Road which went by the front door. Below the house could be seen the roadbed of the Danville and Western Railroad, built in 1885 from Danville to Stuart. It was 12 �in operation until 1942 when the rails were taken up for scrap iron to be used in World War II. Upon leaving the Bassett House, and upon consulting the time, it was decided to skip a planned visit to “Grassdale,” the Dr. John Shackelford home built in 1870, and proceed to the Horsepasture Christian Church for lunch. The women of the church served over 200 people with dispatch and good food in a well-equipped, modern establishment, the third church to occupy the site. The misting rain had cancelled much of a planned entertainment but a country music trio played in the church for those who had to wait for a place in the dining room. The first Horsepasture church is reputed to have been founded in the early 1820s as a free church about a mile west of the present location. After a split in the membership, a new church was built on the present site, to be followed by two others as the congregation grew. After lunch, the tour was resumed, still following the old Carolina Road direction. “Belleview,” six miles southwest of Martinsville, was built in 1783 by Maj. John Redd who, tradition says, liked to sit on his porch and keep a lookout for travelers to invite in for the midday meal. The house, a Georgian colonial, is a two-story gray frame struc­ ture with double porticos. It is particularly significan t for the de­ tailed woodwork both within and without. It features arched door­ ways, wainscoting, original pine flooring, double dentil moldings and carved mantles. The present owner is Mrs. Kennon Whittle, widow of V irginia Supreme Court Judge Kennon Whittle, fifth great-grandson of Maj. Redd. The Whittles restored the house in 1955. A portrait of John Belleview, Judge Kennon Whittle's home 13 �Beaver Creek, James Covington home Redd, painted when he was 87, now hangs over the restored carved mantel in the library. He served in the Indian Wars and the Revolution. From “Belleview” the buses went into Martinsville to see a reconstructed house, “Greenwood,” known also as the “McCabeMartin House.” It was rebuilt in 1944, using the original brick and the original plans. . The house was first constructed 10 miles to the northwest in 1818 by Col. Joseph Martin, son of Indian fighter, Gen. Joseph Martin, for whom Martinsville was named. In 1913 the owner, then Maynard West, attempted to put a basement under the structure. Heavy rains fell during the work and the front wall of the house fell as its foundations sank. Dr. and Mrs. J. P. McCabe purchased what was left and rebuilt the house in Martinsville. Of particular interest are the original mantels, hand carved in England. “Greenwood” is now the home of Col. and Mrs. Paul Roy. The last home on the tour was “Beaver Creek,” the plantation house of one of the largest land and slave owners in Virginia, another Col. George Hairston. Land amounting to 238,795 acres and slaves counting to 2,960 are credited to Col. Hairston. The original house at Beaver Creek, built by Col. Hairston in 1776, was of brick and was destroyed by fire. The present frame building, built by one of the colonel’s sons, Marshall, dates back to around 1837. It is constructed of virgin oak, with beams running the length of the house from front to back. The uprights go from basement to roof, held together with wooden pegs, a construction detail visible now in window cutout sections provided by the owners. The wings have been added, two by Maj. James Thomas Watt Hairston near the end of the 19th century, and a third one by the present owner, James E. Covington. The walk to the family cemetery is bordered by a magnificent boxwood hedge, 35 feet tall and well over 100 years old. Other giant English boxwoods and ancient magnolia trees are on the grounds. 14 �The Town of Newbern Newbern, a hilltop village in Pulaski County By Mary B. K egley The town of Newbern, Pulaski’s first county seat from 1839 to 1895,' is located on a small ridge west of Dublin. From this ridge, blue-green mountains unfolding in the distance perhaps caused the founders of the town to remember Bern, Switzerland. In any case, the town had its official beginning on March 3, 1810 when Adam Hance and his associates laid off 29 lots “for the purpose of erecting a town to be called and known by the name of Newbern.”2 The associates of Adam Hance included Henry Wiser, Jr., George Whitefield, Samuel Cecil Senr. Henry Hance, Jeremiah Early, John Myers, William Eyrs, and two others whose names are not legible.3 Each of the lots, except the tanyard, fronted on Main Street, also referred to as High Street, the Great Road or simply the Highway.4 Twenty-eight of the lots were six poles along the Main Street and 13 poles back, or 99 feet by 214 feet, 6 inches. Main Street was divided into four sections by the Cross Street, each section containing seven lots. The tanyard lot was located below the Main Street, 20 poles from Bullock Pen Branch, a suitable location for such an operation.5 Adam Hance, upon whose lands the town was laid out, first appeared in the records of the neighborhood about 1770s as a young man about 23 years of age.7 He served as a constable in 1773 and 1779s and as a juryman in 1773 and 1785.9 His first land purchased was a small tract of 45 acres which he bought from Samuel Ingram and his wife, Anne, to which he added in 1788 a tract of 376 acres by Mary B. Kegley, wife of Dr. James B. Kegley of Wytheville, writes of the settlement and growth of an often overlooked but important Southwest Virginia village. A native of New Brunswick, Canada, Mrs. Kegley has devoted a considerable amount of time and work to re­ search in early Virginia history. 15 �survey.10 The lands in the vicinity of Newbern were first taken up in small tracts and in 1799 put into an inclusive survey of 1,000 acres by David Crouch." Montgomery County records show that the 1,000 acres was made up of these tracts: “200 acres purchased from Daniel Trigg, executor of William Ingles, and granted to executors in 1783; 45 acres granted to Crouch in 1787; 130, 214 and 137 acres granted Crouch in 1795, and 274 acres entered later and granted in 1797 to Crouch.” In this year, 1799, Crouch died, leaving a wife and 10 children and the lands became available for sale. Adam Hance purchased the dower interest and between 1799 and 1802 bought the shares of some of the Crouch children, but five of them had left the neighborhood and moved to other states before releasing their interest in the lands. A law suit in the Superior Court of Law and Chancery was heard in Wythe County in 1820, confirming the title to Hance.'2 Apparently anticipating no difficulty in gaining the title to the land, Hance undertook to begin Newbern 10 years before the title was validated. In beginning the town, Hance was concerned about the water supply for this location was 2,135 feet above sea level,13 and some distance from the nearest branch. However, there were two avail­ able springs, one lying below and fronting in the Cross Street where a fountain was established, and another at the opposite end of the Cross Street which could provide an additional supply. This second “convenient supply could be obtained by leading the water in pipes or conductors from a spring where Peter Hance now resides.” sug­ gested Adam Hance.14 And the purchasers of the lots , were to “take, use and imploy such practicable measures as shall be adjudged ex­ pedite for conveying water from either or both springs.”15 The fact that Adam Hance left one pair of “water truck wheels valued at $10” in his estate in 1827 would suggest how they solved the con­ veyance problem.16 In 1870 the town erected a reservoir and the town was served by a system of water pipes. Tradition states an earlier system was begun in 1848.17 Hance and his associates wanted to encourage development in the new town, and to those who built the first four houses, timber was to be provided gratis. Each lot was purchased on the condition “that the house on each lot should be at least 16 feet square, lVz stories high of hewn logs with a stone or brick chimney, seems filled with lime and sand, two glass windows at least of 12 lights.”'3 The first lots were sold on August 2, 181119 and sales were recorded over the next several years. Some of those who owned lots between 1811 and 1829 included Gordon Cloyd, Almarine Marshall, Henry Hance, Henry Wysor, Jeremiah Early, Richard Guthrie, John Fizer, Benjamine T. Game, Thomas Wilmore, James Hoge, James Overstreet, 16 �Peter Hance, Phillip Long, John Hance, James Shields, Adam Hance, Christian Dedmore, John Myers, Richard and Harless Macdaniell, William Eyres, Randolph Simpson, James Hance, James Tiffany, Peter Fizer, Samuel H. Gordon, William Flanagan, Daniel Wolford, John Trollinger, Michael Jordan, John Ryan, Isaac Bratton, Reazen (Reason) Vermillion, Meredith Raines, George Vineyard and John Miller.70 From these deeds it was learned that Newbern in its infancy had a tanyard,21 a store house,22 a wagon-maker’s shop,23 a black­ smith shop 24 and a tavern.25 When the new county of Pulaski was formed in 1839, locations were viewed for the new Courthouse. Sites at Thorn Spring and the paper mill were considered, but Newbern appeared to be the logical choice. Dublin and Pulaski were not yet in existence. In fact, when Henry Howe wrote about Pulaski County in 1845 he stated that Newbern was the only village in the county. The town then contained five mercantile stores, one Presbyterian Church, one Metho­ dist Church and a population of about 300.26 In 1970, the population was about 200 persons.27 The first court met at James Tiffany’s, probably at his tavern located on Lot 3 in the town. He was the son-in-law of Adam Hance and the owner-operator of the tavern since 1824.28 The marker in New­ bern gives further details of this first Court. “The first Court held in Pulaski County was in a building known as the James Tiffany house on May 9, 1839 at which term an order was entered adopting the house of Henry Hance (a great grandfather of K. B. Alexander, present owner) as a place to hold Court on the site of which house this monument is erected. This Court was presided over by John McTaylor, presiding Justice.” Other justices sworn in at the same session were: John Hoge, James Hoge, Samuel Shields, Randolph Fugate, John G. Cecil, Henry Wysor, James Crockett, John Calfee, George R. C. Floyd, Joseph Cloyd, Samuel Calfee, David G. Sheppard, David T. Martin, Joseph H. Howe and David F. Kent.29 When the Court met on June 5, 1840 it was ordered that David F. Kent, John Raines, Henry Wysor and Henry Hance be appointed commissioners to superintend the building of the courthouse for this (Pulaski) County.30 On January 6, 1842 the commissioner reported on the building of the courthouse and stated that the contract had been complied with, and the court directed the clerk to remove the books and papers into the office as soon as possible and to take pos­ session of the new courthouse.31 On July 5, 1840, Henry Hance was appointed commissioner to 17 �Courthouse at Newbern, destroyed by fire in 1893 have the necessary repairs done to the house now used as a court­ house for the purpose of using it as the clerk’s office, also for this county.32 On July 10, 1851, the court appointed J. B. Alexander, John Swope, and William P. Kerrin as commissioners to examine the enclosure of public buildings and report whether this had been executed according to the contract and specifications filed in the courthouse. On August 7 of the same year, it was reported that the work had been well and faithfully executed and finished ac­ cording to specifications of the contract. John C. Darst, the sheriff, was to pay James V. Pendleton, contractor $350, the residue due.33 In July 1853, Benjamin F. Wysor and Robert Craig, commissioners, were to contract for the erection of a cupola on the top of the court­ house. George Hubbert was paid the sum of $260 on November 14, 1853 for building it.34 Isaac Carper, the jailor, was directed on September 6, 1855 to procure 24 substantial split bottom chairs for the use of the court house and also a requisite number of spit boxes were to be placed in the court room.35 The business carried out at the court sessions over the years was of a wide variety. School commissioners were appointed, road work­ ers and viewers were given assignments, licenses were issued for taverns and “house of private entertainment,” rates were set for the taverns, free Negroes were recorded by name, persons newly from Europe were recognized as citizens of the United States, and 18 �the Revolutionary soldiers still receiving pensions were noted. There were many other items of legal business taken care of in these sessions. The first lawyers who received permission to practice were James L. Yost, Benjamin R. Floyd, James F. Preston, Benjamin F. ^ Wysor, Richard T. Matthews, David ^S u m m ers, James Edmundson y and Alfred C. Moore.36 Later addiHonThicIuded William N. Harman, William S. Tipton, James J. Hill, James A. Walker and William C. Hogan.37 James A. Walker who became a general in the Civil War, re­ turned afterward to make his home in Newbern. He built his house on a lot in the northwest part of town and operated a school for boys in the basement. The activities at the court house kept Newbern alive, but in the mid 1850’s when the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad completed a line through Pulaski County, the new towns of Dublin and Pulaski had their beginning. It was expected they would grow into important centers and that Newbern would decline for its only claim to im­ portance remaining was the courthouse. When fire destroyed the building in 1893, rumors persisting to this day stated that the citizens of Pulaski wanted the court house removed to their town and knew the only way to get it was to eliminate the one in Newbern. It was not quite that easy, however. Old jail stands near courthouse site For two years, contests among the citizens of Dublin, Pulaski and Newbern raised tempers. The citizens of the whole County eventually became involved, because they had to vote on their choice for a new location for the courthouse. The election was held on March 9, 1894 with the largest turn­ out in the history of the county. Pulaski led with 1,439 votes, Dublin received 308 and Newbern 923. In a second election, Pulaski had 1536 votes, Dublin 615, and Newbern, only 17. But the Newbern resi19 �dents would not give up. They raised funds to bring a suit, which finally was decided in favor of Pulaski in Richmond courts in 1895.38 Newbern’s social life did not depend entirely on the events of the court sessions. The Methodist Church organized a Bible class, the Masons held lodge meetings at the courthouse and a social com­ mittee appears to have directed some evening parties. The Bible class was organized between 1826 and 1830 by Philip Woolwine, who became the teacher. Among the early members of his class were his wife Mary, James Wall and his wife Sallie, Peggy Hance, Polly Wygal, Sallie Wygal, John G. Cecil and Betsy his wife, Elizabeth Jordan, Andrew Morehead, Betsy Morehead, Enoch Morehead and Jacob Woolwine.39 Tradition states that Jerry Early and wife Nancy, Peggy Hoge, and Michael Jordan were also early members. 1870 water works in the county seat In July 1857, the court granted permission to the Freemasons to hold their meetings in one of the jury rooms of the court house. In December 1858, a partition was ordered to be made in the long jury room to make a compartment at least 25 feet square. When not in use by the jury, the room was granted to the Henry Clay Lodge No. 165, the order of Ancient Free and Ac­ cepted Masons of the county, for a period of five years beginning January 1, 1859. Half of the actual cost of the alteration was to be paid by the lodge and the Masons were to provide a stove and fix­ tures for the comfortable occupation and enjoyment of the room. Michael O’Burne was to do the actual work of the alteration.'10 In November 1847, a party was held for Miss Susan Shields and Colonel Thomas Wilson at the Union Hotel in the town of Newbern. The invitation was signed by “The Committee.” The next month, 20 �Mr. and Mrs. John Dunbar Howe sent out invitations for a dancing party to be held on December 28, 1847, beginning at six in the evening. Again the invitation was signed by “The Committee”, ap­ parently indicating a social organization of some kind. The members of the Committee were William J. Jordan, Thomas J. Charlton, James M. Aiken, William J. Wall, John B. Baskerville, J. W. Shields, Leander Smith, Herman Bope, and James M. Ward.41 Log building with old Alexander home at right rear United States postal records indicate a post office was established at Newbem, in what was then Montgomery County, on April 8, 1812. Postmasters and the date of their appointment have been: Henry Hance, 1812; James Overstreet, 1818; Daniel Wehlford (Wohlford), 1819; John Rains, 1824; James Overstreet, 1825; James Tiffany, 1827; Hiram Hayne (Haney), 1829; James Overstreet, 1829; John Rains, 1832; John H. Vermillion, 1844; Regen Vermillion, 1845; Crockett J. Jordan, 1849; James P. Hawley, 1852; William J. Jordan, 1857; J. W. Norville, 1865; John L. Feagles, 1871; Mary J. Feagles, 1874; William W. Anderson, 1893; John M. Feagles, 1897; William A. Smith, 1897; Charles J. Gearing, 1899; Charles E. Swaim, 1906; George T. Swaim, 1906; Lewis T. Jennings, 1908; Oscar M. Jennings, 1909; Mollie E. Hicks, 1910; James T. King, 1924; Roscoe Farris, 1955, and Annis F. Farris, 1958. In 1872 the Corporation of Newbern published 27 by-laws for the town, effective April 1. These regulations were for the safety and protection of the residents and excerpts attached here, show a concern for the Sabbath day, interest in protection of their animals, and attention to fire prevention measures.42 Newbern, plagued by several fires over the years, has seen its courthouse come and go, houses and churches replaced by others, 21 �and taverns and dance halls become silent. The Alexander house and the log outbuildings, probably the oldest in Newbern, have survived. The jail still stands below the lot once used for the court house. The Community Club of Newbern has taken a great interest in keeping Newbern’s history alive and has placed markers at several locations in the town. Current dreams and plans call for restoration or at the very least preservation of this unusual little town. In the meantime, the view from the ridge still is of the blue-green moun­ tains seen by Adam Hance and his associates more than 160 years ago. N M ary KeqJeif EXCERPTS FROM NEWBERN BY-LAWS 1. It shall not be lawful for any boys or other persons to play at ball, engage in throwing stones, or any other game of amusement in the streets of the Town; nor shall it be lawful for boys or other persons to assemble on the Sabbath day in any part of the Town, for the purpose of playing at any game or amusement, such as 22 �wrestling, running, shouting, or committing any other immoral act, and a penalty not exceeding $1 hereby imposed on any person who shall so offend. 6. If any person who is the owner of, or in charge of any mule, horses, or colts over the age of one year, shall permit the same to run at large, without control, in the streets or alleys of the Town of Newbern, he shall be fined $1 for such offence. 7. Any person who shall cruelly beat, bruise, wound or other­ wise maltreat any horse or other dumb animal, within this Cor­ poration, shall for each such offence, forfeit and pay the sum of $5. 9. Any person who shall run his horse within the limits of the Corporation through the streets or alleys shall for every such offence, pay a fine of $1. 10. Any wagoner, cartman, or drayman, who shall be found working his horses, or loading or unloading his wagon, cart, or dray within the limits of the Corporation on the Sabbath day, shall pay a fine of $5 for every such offence. 16. If any person shall build his chimneys or stove pipes in such manner as to endanger his own or neighbor’s property by being likely to catch on fire therefrom, he shall be liable to pay a fine of $10 for every twenty-four hours he neglects to alter his chimneys or stove pipe after he has been notified that the Council requires such alterations to be made. 18. Any person who shall carry a candle, or fire of any kind uncovered, or exposed into a stable, barn, carpenter’s shop, or any room in which there are kegs of powder, barrels of kerosene oils, or other highly inflammable and combustible material, or shall smoke in either or any of said places, within the limits of the Corporation, shall forfeit and pay a fine of $5. 23. A tax of $5 shall be collected from every exhibition of a menagerie or circus; and a tax of $2 on all other public shows, within the Corporation. 26. In case of offence against the By-Laws of the Corporation, by persons under the age of 21 years, the fines and penalties in­ curred thereby, together with the fees of the Sergeant, shall be paid by the parent or guardian of the offender. The foregoing By-Laws shall take effect and be in force from and after the 1st day of April 1872. W. H. Davis, Clerk Jos. L. Anderson, Mayor (Printed by Virginia People Print. Newbern, Va.) 23 �1. “ M ile sto n e s in H is to r y ,” T h e S o u th w e s t T im e s , P u la s k i, V ir g in ia ( J u ly 21, 1968), p . 45 2. O rig in a l d o c u m e n t o u tlin in g p la n s fo r th e to w n , in p o s s e s s io n o f K . B . A le x a n d e r N e w b e rn , V irg in ia . D e s ig n a te d a s K BA (1) 3. I B I D .; ille g ib le n a m e s p o s sib ly J o h n R . J o h n s a n d H e n r y Y o st 4. D e e d B o o k s, M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty , V irg in ia , E-169, 171, 311; G-241. D e s ig n a te d a s D B M 5« F r o m o rig in a l m a p in p o s se ss io n of K . B . A le x a n d e r, N e w b e rn , V irg in ia . D e s ig ­ n a t e d K BA (2) 6. W illia m I n g le s ’ T ith a b le lis t. 1770 B o te to u rt C o u n ty , V irg in ia 7. F r o m B ib le in p o s s e s s io n of K . B . A le x a n d e r, N e w b e rn , V irg in ia “ A d a m H a n c e d ie d J u ly 9, 1826 a g e 79 y e a r s .” 8. L e w is P r e s to n S u m m e r s , A N N A LS O F S O U T H W E S T V IR G IN IA , 1769-1800 (K in g s ­ p o rt, 1929), p . 594, 729 9. IB ID . p . 610, 614 10. IB ID . p . 919; P l a t B ook D-410, M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty , V irg in ia 11. P l a t B ook E-51S, M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty , V irg in ia 12. S u p e rio r C o u rt of L a w a n d C h a n c e ry , B ook 2-245, W y th e C o u n ty , V irg in ia 13. R a u s M cD ill H a n s o n , V IR G IN IA P L A C E N A M E S , D E R IV A T IO N S , H IS T O R IC A L U S E S (V e ro n a , V irg in ia , 1969), p . 169 14. K B A (1 ), K B A (2) 15. K B A (1) 16. W ill B ook 5-494, M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty , V irg in ia 17. “ M ile sto n e s in H is to r y ,” p . 45; O llie Cook, N E W B E R N , V A , R E S T O R A T IO N , W in sto n -S a lem , N . C. n e w s p a p e r ( M a rc h 1. 1970) 18. K B A (1) 19. D B M E-169, 171 20. D B M E-169, 171, 311, 134, 300, 459; F-124, 130; G-146, 170, 158, 164, 172, 176, 241; H-93, 394, 575, 599, 607, 608; IJ-6 1 . 63, 345, 362, 365; K-31, 32, 384, 385 21. D B M G-176 22. D B M E-300 23. D B M H-93 24. D B M K-32 25. W ill B ook 4-262 A d a m H a n c e ’s W ill, co d ic il 26. H e n ry H o w e, H IS T O R IC A L C O L L E C T IO N S O F V IR G IN IA ( B a ltim o r e , 1969 r e p r i n t of 1845 c o p y ), p . 444 27. S ta te F a r m R o a d A tla s , R a n d a n d M c N a lly , 1961 28. D B M H -608; M o n tg o m e ry W ill B ook 4-262 29. A . D . S m ith , S O U T H -W E ST V IR G IN IA A N D T H E V A L L E Y (R o a n o k e , V irg in ia , 1892), p . 303 30. P u la s k i C o u n ty O rd e r B ook 1, p . 36. D e s ig n a te d a s P O B 31. IB ID ., p . 120 32. IB ID ., p . 37 33. P O B 3, p . 74, 76 34. IB ID ., p . 168 35. IB ID ., p . 268 36. P O B 1, d a te d M a y 9, 1839 37. P O B 1, 2 a n d 3, s e le c te d ite m s 38. “ M ile sto n e s in H is to ry ” , p . 45 39. IB ID ., p . 47 40. P O B 2-372, 444 41. D a n ie l D u n b a r H o w e, L IS T E N T O T H E M O C K IN G B IR D (B o y c e , V a . 1961) p . 38 42. B y -L a ^rs of th e C o rp o ra tio n o f N e w b e rn , V ir g in ia P e o p le P r in t ( N e w b e rn , V irg in ia , 1872) On Campus 70 Years Ago Protesting young people who storm dean’s offices and set up picket lines on campuses in the 1960’s and 1970’s would scarcely re­ cognize the advice given new students at Roanoke College for the 1898-99 session. The YMCA Student’s Hand Book offered these “Pointers for New Students” at Roanoke around the turn of the century: Be courteous to the Professors and never fail to lift your hat to them. Treat every student with respect and he will respect you. Don’t be fresh. You’re liable to be salted. Don’t know it all. Leave a little for others. Don’t have the swelled head. It might burst. Don’t ask too many questions. Professors get tired. Don’t try to tell it all in the classroom. There are others. Don’t talk too loud on the front porch. Somebody might hear you. 24 �W oolen M ill, A Major Botetourt Industry Two photographs of the old Fincastle Woolen Mill of the Ammen fam­ ily have been located by Mrs. Jacob K. Rader of Troutville. The view across the millpond comes from a postcard owned by Garland K. Stevens of Fin­ castle. It was taken about 1900. A steam engine is shown at the left and the mill wheel at lower right in the other picture, probably made at a dif­ ferent time. Descended from Durst Ammen who came to this country from Switzerland in 1749, Benjamin Ammen (1800-1867) operated a flour and gristmill, sawmill, hatter's shop and carding mill, in addition to the woolen factory where most of the cloth was made for clothing in this section. Fin­ castle patterns were woven into blankets for years and the mill provided supplies for the Confederacy. Michael Ammen owned the woolen factory after 1900. 25 �Civil War Draft Problems in the Shenandoah Valley by Alice I. H ohenberg Portions of a Hollins College senior thesis by Miss Alice I. Hohen­ berg, Class of 1967, on “The Mennonites and Brethren of Rocking­ ham County, Virginia during the Civil War: A study of non-resistance1 are used here with her permission. The plight of the Mennonites and Brethren relates to the Vietnam draft protest of the 1970’s. The year of 1861 witnessed not only the chaos of secession but also the problems involving the organization of a new state. One of the most urgent problems facing the Confederacy, and one that directly concerned the Mennonites and Brethren, was that of raising and organizing an army. During the first year of the war, the army was recruited by means of a volunteer system, each state being res­ ponsible for providing its own volunteers. However, from the very beginning, this “volunteer” service proved to be more than “volun­ teer” for the Mennonites and Brethren of Rockingham County. In late June of 1861, a Confederate captain walked into a church service being held at Weaver’s Church (a Mennonite church in Rock­ ingham County) and demanded that all males between the ages of 18 and 45 report for military duty.2 In July 1861 an editorial appearing in the Register addressed to the “Tunkers, Mennonites, and others opposed to war,” said that because the Union was the aggressor, the South fighting only in self-defense, it was the duty of all Christians to support the Confederacy; morever, Christians should be willing not only to give one son but two to fight for the Confederacy.3 What were the Mennonites and Brethren to do? They faced the alternative of either joining the army and being ostracized from their church4 or finding ways to escape induction. Some of the sect members were forced into the army. John Brunk, Mennonite, recorded in his claim for war damages that his son was forcefully inducted.5 In the Olive Branch of Peace, John Showalter, a Dunker, recounts the amusing story of how he was forced to join, deserted, was court-martialed, and finally consented to serve as cook for a company.® Other sect members sought employment in necessary civilian occupations in order to avoid induction. Jacob Cecil, a Mennonite, bought the postmastership of Edom (in northern Rockingham County).7 Others were able to avoid induction by find­ ing a substitute to go to war for them. The February, 1862 issue of The Gospel Visitor (a Brethren magazine printed in Illinois but circulated among sect members in the South during the war) said the following about the induction situation: 26 �The news from Rockingham and the adjoining counties is this: the militia are all called into the battlefield, and so our dear brethren there have been compelled to engage in military service unless they could hire substitutes. (Is this the religious freedom to be enjoyed in the Sunny South?).8 But many took part in what Judge Sydney Baxter of the Confederate War Department later called the “Tunker Panic”9 (using the term “Tunker” collectively to include Mennonites also), by hiding or fleeing through the mountains of West Virginia to the West.10 Yet resistance to induction was not as solid as sect chronicles would like one to believe. For example, Melchiah Breneman, a Mennonite from Rockingham County, served in the cavalry until shortly before the end of the war." Margaret Rhodes, in her claim for war damages, stated that two of her nephews died fighting in the Con­ federate army.12 A Dunker, Peter Williams, who lived east of Woodstock, (just north of Rockingham County), related the following account of his experiences during the first year of the war: They made about four attempts to take me, but never got me away from home. In the fall of ’61, the conscript officers came to take me. I told them I could not go and gave them my reasons. They finally went away and left me. Then during that winter and the next spring they came three different times to take me at the point of the bayonet, saying they had orders to take me dead or alive. I told them that if dead men were of any service to them, and they saw fit, they could use me; but that was the only way they could get any service out of me in the army. . . . I reasoned with them kindly, and every time they went away and left me. But citizens and “bushwackers” threatened to take my life, and as my life was in danger I was advised to go into the army. I, however, replied that I could not take up arms even if it would be the means of saving my life. I never went to the woods or the mountains for concealment as some did to get out of the way, - . . Finally, I paid my fine. Still I was accused of being a Union man, and my life was threatened. Three of my neighbors were shot, being accused as Union men; and a number left their homes and went North to save their lives. I remained at home at my post, and I am still here, thank the Lord, who is our Strength, and to whom belongs all honor and praise.13 The language of the above account may seem humorous, but it illus­ trates the fact that civilians often exerted more pressure on the sects than the military authorities. This pressure from civilians be­ came increasingly strong as the war continued. 27 �Despite the fact that civilians often harassed the sects more than military authorities, the arrival of Confederate Major General T. j. (Stonewall) Jackson in the Valley in March of 1862 caused the induction problems of the sects to become critical. Jackson needed men to wage the Valley Campaign. Due to the fact that the Southern armies were still recruited on a volunteer basis, one of his most lucrative sources of men was the area in which the campaign was being fought. In reaction to the increased induction pressure caused by Jackson’s presence in the Valley, the sects made their first organized escape attempts. In March, at least two groups, with a combined total of ap­ proximately ninety men, attempted to escape through the mountains into West Virginia. General Jackson immediately dispatched several detachments and captured the offenders. Among those imprisoned was Elder John Kline.14 It is interesting and informative to note the reaction of different people to the escape attempts. Mennonites and Brethren looked upon these men as martyrs for the cause of non-resistance.15 Judge Sydney Baxter, who interrogated the group held in Richmond, became so convinced of their sincerity that in his report to the War Department he strongly urged their immediate release.16 The editors of the Olive Branch claim that Baxter’s favorable report later influenced the passage of the Confederate exemption act.17 Military personnel viewed the incident in a different light. Stone­ wall Jackson, as commander of the forces in the Valley at that time, was very practical about the matter. As long as sect members, eligible for military service, could be used in a non-combatant capacity, as team­ sters or such, he gave orders not to induct them.18 In his report to Governor Letcher concerning the capture of one of the groups, Jackson explained why he would rather not induct them. “I under­ stand some of them (sect members) say they will not ‘shoot.’ They can be made to fire but can easily take bad aim.”19 But in the same report, Jackson did not hesitate to relate how he had had the group captured as they attempted to escape.20 In other words, he would respect the sects’ beliefs as long as they did not interfere with his military operations. A soldier, serving under Jackson, recorded the following account of the capture of “draft” dodgers. A good many men who lived along the base of the Blue Ridge, who were liable for military duty, and some deserters, had taken refuge in the mountains and fortified themselves, and defied the conscript officers to arrest them. General Jackson sent some infantry and calvary to capture them, when an old lady living near remarked that “The deserters had mortified in the Blue Ridge, but that General Jackson sent a foot company and a critter company to ranshag the Blue Ridge and capture them.21 28 �This writer did not specifically mention either of the sects, but his attitude toward escape attempts illustrated the attitude of the every­ day soldier toward those who tried to escape service. The account is humorous but not very sympathetic. At least one northern newspaper, The Philadelphia Inquirer, used the capture as a “juicy” bit of propaganda. As quoted in the June, 1862 issue of The Gospel Visitor, The Inquirer stated: . . . a short time ago a squadron of Rebel Cavalry made a des­ cent upon a “Donkard” settlement in the valley of Rockingham County, Virginia. They captured around seventy of these hard­ working, long snuff-coated, and longbearded, unoffensive people, and carried them to Richmond . . .2Z The most significant reaction, for the purpose of this paper, was recorded in the Rockingham Register. The Register headlined its account of the capture of the group, in which John Kline was a member, with “Union Men Captured.”23 The Register furnishes the only available source for tracing the changes in the attitude of the people of Rockingham County toward the sects. For the first time, the people of the county seemed concerned not only with the sects’ unwillingness to fight but also with their Union sympathy. During this period of so-called volunteer service, leaders of both sects realized the need for official military exemption. Their initial efforts were directed toward the state legislature since the state was still responsible for their own recruits.24 Though chroniclers occasionally mention Mennonites who were active in the exemption efforts,25 the men responsible for the majority of the letter writing to state officials and the visits to Richmond on behalf of the sects were Brethren such as Elder John Kline of Rockingham County, Elder Jonas Graybill and Elder Benjamin Moomaw of Botetourt County. Through their efforts the problem of conscientious objection was brought to the attention of the Virginia legislature.26 Several legislators from those counties which had relatively large Mennonite and Brethren constituencies, championed the cause of the religious objectors in the legislature. John Hopkins and Algernon Gray of Rockingham County and George Baylor «f Botetourt County were responsible for presenting and defending the exemption bill which passed the legislature on March 29, 1862.27 The act provided for the exemption of religious objectors upon presentation of a certificate of membership and payment of five hundred dollars plus 2% of the assessed value of taxable property. If unable to pay, the individual would be used, when possible, as a teamster. The act also required an “oath or affirmation” of loyalty 29 �to the Confederate government. (Though both churches prohibited the swearing of oaths, both allowed affirmation.)23 Victory was short-lived. On April 16, 1862, the Confederate Con­ gress passed the first universal conscription act. This act took the power of organizing militias from the states and centralized it under the Confederate War Department. Though the system of volunteer service was not abandoned, it was supplemented by a system based on conscription—all men between the ages of 18-45 were liable for service unless exempted by the Confederate Congress.29 Another act, passed on April 21, exempted certain classes of persons vital to the Confederacy in civilian occupations, but the sects were not exempted. In the area of religion, only ordained ministers were ex­ empted.30 The conclusion of this study is concerned with an attempt to evaluate the actions of the Mennonites and Brethren during the war period. This evaluation will be divided into two parts, that which concerns the principle of non-resistance as applied to conscientious objection and that which concerns the principle of non-resistance as applied to the “underground railroad.” Both the Mennonites and Brethren were conscientiously op­ posed to killing human beings, which was one basis for their principles of non-resistance. The army, as that instrument by which a nation counters force with force, condoned killing when necessary; there­ fore, the sects were opposed to military service. Yet both sects during the Civil War allowed their members to buy substitutes to fight in their stead and to pay fines that would undoubtedly be used to further the war effort. How could this be justified in the light of their prin­ ciples of non-resistance? The problem of substitution and fines was debated during the war, especially by the Brethren. In the April 1864 issue of The Gospel Visitor, Sister E. A. Teter of Goshen, Indiana wrote an article criti­ cizing the Brethren practice of allowing substitution. In this article she stated that the hiring of substitutes was a blatant transgression of church doctrine and that it in fact condoned killing.3' In the May issue of the Visitor, the following statement was made: I would make no difference between paying a man to go to war, or going myself. I would not consider that I would any more violate the spirit of the gospel in one case, than the other. Neither do I consider that I am any more violating the command of the Saviour if I serve as a general in the field, or as a soldier in the ranks than I do if I serve as Sherif . . . , or cast my vote for a member of Congress . . . They that vote for officers in government . . . yet refuse to defend the government in time of need, are neither faithful to the kingdom of Christ, nor that of this world.32 30 �The author of this article was one of the few who seemed to recognize the basic problem. How could the sects vote and participate in the temporal government without bearing the full responsibility of citizen­ ship which included fighting to defend that government? Their position may not be morally justifiable, but perhaps it can be explained. The sects, since the Revolutionary War, had ac­ cepted the fact that they would be required to compensate the gov­ ernment for not serving in the army. Both fines and substitutes were a form of compensation; therefore, it is conceivable that the majority of the sect members never even questioned the practice. They never seemed to recognize the discrepancy between their professional beliefs and their actions. This hypothesis is founded on such attitudes as are expressed in the following quotations. In the August, 1865 issue of The Visitor, John Moomaw of Botetourt County stated: Christians, as I understand the matter, are pilgrims and strangers in the world belonging to another kingdom, not of this world. Therefore, they should have as little as possible to do with the affairs of the government or kingdom of this world.33 Even after the war had ended the sects seemed to think that they could withdraw from the temporal world, in spite of the events of the past few years. In the August, 1864 issue of The Herald of Truth, a Mennonite stated: Let us through God’s help make our walk consistent with our profession and not be worldly minded, and seeking the use of the law and the sword . . . We must either belong to Christ’s kingdom or we must belong to the kingdom of the world (Mam­ mon and unrighteousness) ,34 The Mennonite seemed to realize that the separation of the two king­ doms would be difficult, but he still believed that it could be done. Again, it appears that the sects never realized that by paying fines and hiring substitutes they were participating in the world and were in fact transgressing their own doctrines. Edward Frantz, editor of the Brethren magazine, The Gospel Messenger (this was the name given The Gospel Visitor in the late nineteenth century), explained the sects’ attitude as follows: The general attitude at the time . . . (was) that the Church of the Brethren (this applies to the Mennonites also) and the civil government were two different things. Churchmen could not fight and the church should have no connection with the civil government, but the government’s duty was to fight. What was wrong for the Church was not wrong for the government . . . The Brethren did not apply moral and Biblical principles to everyone.35 31 �The “underground railroad” presents another problem. The principle of non-resistance as professed by both churches, required one to passively endure suffering. .Yet, the sects did not passively endure. It is highly probable that they actively aided deserters and refugees to escape from the Coinfederacy, even if they themselves did not bear arms. Assuming that there was an “underground railroad,” how can one justify the sects’ involvement? Perhaps it can not be morally justified; but, again, as in the case of substitutes, it can be explained. Since their founding the sects had forbidden slavery. They had always professed the doctrines of non-resistance and the separation of church and state. The immediate cause of secession was the slavery issue. Based on the belief that the state was ordained by God as long as it did not transgress the laws of God, the sects sided with the Union, whose policy toward slavery was in accordance with their church doctrines. Before Virginia seceded, sect leaders (John Kline in parti­ cular) used their influence against secession. After Virginia joined the Confederacy and the war had begun, the sects seemed to think that once they had obtained military exemption they would be able to withdraw from the war. For almost two years their leaders made a concerted effort to get an exemption act passed, but after passage the act did not solve the sects’ problems. Economic conditions and the increasingly hopeless war effort contributed in making non-involvement impossible. Re­ acting to pressure exerted by their neighbors and by officials, the sects organized an escape system, initially used by their own sect mem­ bers. Rationalizing aiding deserters and refugees was an easy step to take. Why should they not help others escape from war and military service which as churches they condemned? Furthermore, why should they not aid a government they believed to be legal against a govern­ ment they did not condone and a society which had persecuted them? In the case of the question of fines and substitutes and in the case of the “underground railroad,” the sects did not seem to realize that their loyalties to “the kingdom of world” had made them com­ promise their principles of non-resistance. But whether they realized it or not, they were men as well as Mennonites and Brethren; and as men, they reacted to the conditions of the times. They were faced with self-preservation during a period when their front doorsteps were being used as battlefields. As far as humanly possible, they tried to live by their non-resistant principles. They reacted to a situa­ tion; they did not act. The major criticism of the sects during the war period is that they considered themselves martyrs for the cause of non-resistance when in fact they were not. The Mennonites and 32 �Brethren did not realize that one cannot separate the “kingdom of the world” from the “kingdom of Christ.” 1 A lb e rt M o o re, C O N S C R IP T IO N A N D C O N F L IC T IN T H E C O N F E D E R A C Y T h e M a c m illa n Co.» 1924) p p . 1, 14. (N e w Y o rk : 2 H . D . W e a v e r, “ A H is to ry o f W e a v e r’s C h u rc h ,” T H E C H R IS T IA N M O N IT O R , S e p te m b e r , 1932, p p . 302*303. 3 R O C K IN G H A M R E G IS T E R , J u ly 15, 1861. 4 T H E M IN U T E S O F T H E A N N U A L M E E T IN G S O F T H E C H U R C H O F T H E B R E T H R E N 1778-1909 (E lg in , III.: B r e th r e n P u b lis h in g H o u se , 1909) A r t. 15, p . 231-232; L e tte r fr o m L . J . H e a tw o lle to E d w a r d N . W rig h t, N ov. 15, 1928, a s c ite d b y S a m u e l H o r s t, “ M e n n o n ite s in th e C o n fe d e ra c y ; A S tu d y in th e E x p r e s s io n of P a c i f is m ” ( u n p u b lish e d m a n u s c r ip t, b y D r. H o rs t, p ro fe s s o r of h is to r y a t E a s t e r n M e n n o n ite C o lleg e) p . 38. 5 C la im , N o. 21856. 6 S a n g e r, p p . 104-106. 7 C la im , N o. 21844. 8 T H E G O S P E L V IS IT O R , X II, F e b ., 1862. 9 WAR O F TH E R E B E L L IO N : A C O M P IL A T IO N O F O F F IC IA L R E C O R D S O F T H E U N IO N A ND C O N F E D E R A T E A R M IE S , S e rie s 2, IH , p . 835. H e r e a f t e r r e f e r r e d to a s O. R . 10 H a r r y B ru n k , T H E L I F E O F P E T E R H A R T M A N ( n .p .: T h e H a r tm a n F a m i ly P r e s s , 1939) p . 53-54. M AN 11 C h a rle s C. B r e n e m a n , A H IS T O R Y O F T H E D E S C E N D E N T S O F A B R A H A M B R E N E ( E lid a , O h io : b y th e a u th o r, 1939) p . 39. 12 C la im , N o. 9527. 13 S a n g e r, p p . 106-107. 14 L e tte r fro m M a jo r G e n e ra l J a c k s o n to C olonel F r e n c h , M a r c h 21, 1862, H O T C H K IS S P A P E R S , n o . 168 ( N a tio n a l A r c h iv e s ) ; O .R ., S e rie s 2, I I I , p . 835; F u n k , p . 448. 15 Z ig le r, p p . 108-110; S a n g e r, p p . 59-73; B ru n k , T H E L I F E O F P E T E R H A R T M A N , p p . 55-56; F u n k , p p . 448-453. 16 O .R ., S e rie s 2, H I, p . 835. 17 S a n g e r, p . 72. i s S p e c ia l O rd e r, is s u e d to L t. C olonel J . R . J o n e s fro m M a jo r G e n e r a l T . J . J a c k s o n . M a rc h 31, 1862 (th e o rig in a l fo u n d in th e h is to r ic a l li b r a r y o f E a s t e r n M e n n o n ite C o lleg e). 19 L e tte r fro m J a c k s o n to C ol. F r e n c h , M a rc h 21, 1862, H O T C H K IS S P A P E R S , n o . 168 ( N a tio n a l A rc h iv e s ). 2 0 Ib id . 21 J . O . C a s le r, F O U R Y E A R S IN T H E ST O N E W A L L B R IG A D E (2d e d ., M a r ie tta , G e o rg ia ; C o n tin e n ta l B ook C o., 1951) p . 70. 2 2 G O S P E L V IS IT O R , V ol. 12, J u n e 1862. 23 Z ig le r, p p . 109-111, q u o tin g a p h o to s ta t co p y o f th e l e tte r K lin e w ro te th e R O C K IN G ­ H A M R E G IS T E R on A p ril 15, 1862, in r e s p o n s e to th e R E G I S T E R ’S a r t ic l e c o n c e rn in g th e c a p tu r e . 24 T h e Q u a k e rs of th e S o u th d id n o t c o o rd in a te th e ir e f f o r ts w ith th o s e o f th e M e n n o n ite s a n d B r e th r e n . T h is is p r im a r il y a t tr ib u t a b le to th e f a c t t h a t th e la r g e s t a n d m o s t a c ­ tiv e Q u a k e r g ro u p s w e re lo c a te d in N o rth C a ro lin a a n d n o t th e S h e n a n d o a h V a lle y a n d to th e ***eir in t e r p r e ta tio n of th e d o c trin e of n o n -re s is ta n c e w a s n o t th e s a m e a s t h a t of th e M e n n o n ite s a n d B r e th r e n . R e fe r to E d w a r d N . W rig h t, T H E C O N S C IE N T IO U S O B JE C T O R IN T H E C IV IL W A R fo r a fu ll a c c o u n t of Q u a k e r a c tiv itie s . 2 5 Z ig le r, p p . 98-99. 2 6 F u n k , p p . 446-447; Z ig le r, p . 98; S a n g e r, p . 54. 2 7 Z ig le r, p . 101; JO U R N A L O F T H E H O U S E O F D E L E G A T E S O F T H E S T A T E O F V IR G IN IA F O R T H E S E S S IO N O F 1861-1862, p p . 308, 319-320, 329. U g I I 2 8 A C TS O F T H E G E N E R A L A S S E M B L Y O F T H E S T A T E O F V IR G IN IA , P A S S E D IN 1861, c h a p . 25, p p . 50-51. 31 p 299 C 0 N F E D E R A T E STATUTES AT LARGE, F irs t C o n g re s s , S e ssio n I, V oi I I , chap. 3 0 Ib id , C h a p . 74, p p . 51-52. 31 G O S P E L V IS IT O R , V oi. X IV , A p ril 1864. 3 2 G O S P E L V IS IT O R , V oi. X V , M a y 1865. 3 3 G O S P E L t V IS IT O R , V oi. X V , A u g u st 1865. 3 4 H E R A L D O F T R U T H , V oi. I, A u g u st 1864. » 3 5 R u fu s B o w m a n , T H E C H U R C H O F T H E B R E T H R E N A N D W A R , 1708-1941 ( E lg in , 111.: B r e th r e n P r in ti n g H o u se , 1944) p . 119, a u o tin g fro m a p e r s o n a l in te r v ie w w ith E d w a r d F r a n tz . 1942. 33 �Hales Ford Classical School Hales Ford School as it stands today By Mis s Sarah Dinw iddle When a person lives a long time, she accumulates a little know­ ledge, sometimes. Sometimes it begins to get away, but you can usually draw it out. Anyway, I do know and remember something about the Duncan School. I have gotten information from many places: (1) from old scraps of paper found in the old Duncan house after vandals had scattered papers which had been filed in cartons; (2) from correspondence with four grandchildren of the Duncans; (3) from the Bedford County records; (4) from many old letters preserved by a granddaughter of the Duncans, Mrs. E. Bur­ ton Williams of Danville. I went down there early one morning and I read letters all day long, and I didn’t finish. Mrs. Williams picked out the ones which she thought would be the highlights and I read until we had to leave. (5)1 received some information from two patrons, the only living students that I know anything about, and they each said, “It’s been so long,” so I didn’t get too much from them. One Private schools and academies were an important part of 19th century education even after the start of the public school system a century ago. Hale's Ford Classical School, a unique Franklin County institution which operated at least 20 years after it was formed in 1874, is described by Miss Sarah “Sallie” Dinwiddie, a retired school teacher, who lived nearby for years. The old school and the Duncan home nearby are still standing on Rt. 122, about six miles north of Burnt Chimney. Pictures of Capt. and Mrs. W. E. Duncan were pro­ vided by their granddaughter, Mrs. E. Burton Williams, Danville. A building at Virginia Western Community College in Roanoke is named for Capt. Duncan. 34 �was Mrs. C. C. Maxey, mother of Miss Mae Maxey, who was a teacher here. The other is B. H. Hancock of Bluefield, W. Va. who is the brother of Jack Hancock, at one time an official of the Appalachian Power Co. They are the only two that I know about. If anybody else knows of any former students who are still living I would like to know about them. Also, from my memory I got stories told to me by Mrs. Duncan when she was ah invalid with arthritis, and from other members of the family. Duncan School was Captain William E. Duncan and his wife, Sallie Elizabeth Duncan, and so I shall devote most of this article to their lives. William Erastus Duncan (1825-1912), called “Ras” by his family, was born in Amherst County, May 19, 1825, the son of Wesley Leland Duncan and Sallie Camden Duncan. Wesley Leland later moved to Bedford County, but he retained his Amherst property. In his will he made William E. Duncan his administrator of that property. Another son administered the Bedford property. Wesley Leland Duncan was the son of John Duncan, said to be the first Baptist preacher in that area, and Wesley Leland Duncan was also a preacher of the doctrine. I tell you that because of what comes next. When William E. Duncan grew up he considered the ministry as his profession. He wrote to a minister friend of the family to ask what he thought of the ministry as a profession. The friend’s reply, preserved by Mrs. Williams, told of so many difficulties that Ras changed his mind. However, he seems to have kept his interest in the Church. In 1858 there is a letter to his father-in-law on business which has this postscript, “I hope you have a good meeting at the Church.” In 1882 there is recorded in the minutes of the old Hales Ford Baptist Church that “William E. DUncan took the chair, called the church to order to call a pastor.” This meeting was held in the old schoolhouse. It wasn’t an old schoolhouse at that time, it was brand new. William E. Duncan obtained his college education from Columbian College in Washington, D. C., which later became George Washington University. He received both A.B. and A.M. degrees from this college. Mrs. Williams has a photostatic copy of one of the diplomas written in Latin but the date was carefully blocked out, so we do not know when he was in school there or when he graduated. Sallie Elizabeth Holland Duncan (1835-1920) was a daughter of Captain Asa Holland. She was reared in the old brick house which is still standing near the school. She was educated at Danville Female Academy, conducted by Dr. Dame. She probably entered there in 1848. A letter from S. H. Holland, Danville, to “Dear Asa,” says, “Dr. Dame has returned and informs me that his school will commence the 2nd of October, would be pleased to receive Sally as schollar (sic) and boarder, price of board $10 per month, she furnishing her own 35 �towels only. The tuition the same as Miss Benedict’s which is re­ gulated by the trustees at $1.00 to $2.00. Music, $4 per month.” On Dec. 12, 1849, Sally writes to “My Dear Pa” that she had stopp­ ed having two classes in French on Monday because she had caught up with the others who had been studying (French) two months. “Also, Dr. Dame says if I will try I soon can catch up with the class that has been studying two years.” Pretty good for a fourteen-yearold! ! At Dr. Dame’s School in Danville, besides French she studied the usual subjects, piano, and organ music as well as the Episcopal Prayer Book which she could repeat from memory. Mrs. Duncan’s family were staunch Baptists also, and her father was the leading spirit in building the Hales Ford Baptist Church. This building was begun in 1854. Captain Asa was such a prom­ inent leader in the church that the church was referred to as Captain /Asa Holland’s church. Another of her ancestors was turned out of the Quaker Church “for consorting with the Baptists.” Sallie Eliza­ beth Holland was married to William E. Duncan on February 22. 1852. There were eight children, two sons and six daughters, born of this marriage. The Duncan children all of whom are dead, were: Kate Duncan Keeney, who lived and died in Texas; A. Leland Duncan, judge in Missoula, Mont.; Sallie Willie Duncan Keeney, Georgia; Lula Duncan Moir, Virginia; Mattie Duncan, Virginia; Annie (Ras) Duncan Booth, Danville; William Duncan, died young, and Julia Duncan Hancock, Blackstone. Some wag made this doggerel about the children which was much repeated: Kate, Lee, Sal, Lou Matt, Ann, Bill, Ju. ■When and where William E. Duncan began to teach is not known. The first position he held, of which we have positive know­ ledge, was at Hollins College. He took his young wife and baby there in 1854. In the college there was a parlor which was reserved for the faculty members and their wives. One evening soon after they arrived, Mrs. Duncan came into this parlor and took a seat. There were lifted eyebrows and exchanged glances, and also some remarks made about students not being allowed in the parlor. But Sallie Bet knew that she was supposed to be there, so she sat on. Presently, the nurse brought the baby to be kissed goodnight and Sallie Bet was accepted into the group. It is thought that Captain Duncan was at Hollins one or more years when he accepted the position of organizing the Alleghany College at Blue Sulphur Springs, Greenbrier County, Virginia, now 36 �West Virginia. I have two blank report cards, signed with the printed name of William E. Duncan, and from the subjects offered there must have been a considerable number in the faculty of this school. There was English for the junior, intermediate and senior classes. There was also Latin, Greek and mathematics for those three classes. There was French, German, natural science, moral science, history and Spanish for the juniors and seniors. This covers a pretty wide curriculum. Evidently they were also required to attend worship and to attend Bible classes, because on the cards there is a place marked “Absent from Bible class times.” The grades were from one to five, five being the highest. Grade V signifies in scholarship “Excellent,” in deportment “Very orderly.” Mr. Duncan was at this college until 1861 when he volunteered for the Confederate Army. Mrs. Duncan wrote her father that Ras had been made a captain at $140 a month. He seems to save spent a while recruiting for the Army and try­ ing to retain this area in the Confederacy before he was assigned to a quartermaster’s position. His military record is in the V irginia State Library, Archives Division. A record, as told by him to his daugh­ ter, Mrs. Lula Duncan Moir, is also there. In this package there are four photostatic copies of orders from his superior officer. One of these has this interesting statement: “ I assure you that I had not the slightest intention of placing any reflections upon you for the manner in which you have discharged the duties of your office. I am satisfied that under the circumstances you do the best you can. Respectfully your obedient servant, Edward McMahon Major and Quartermaster” (No one, not even a major, treaded upon the Captain with impunity.) During the early days of the war, Colonel Robert E. Lee came to Blue Sulphur to review the troops. Mrs. Duncan and other ladies were on the balcony overlooking the parade ground. They sent an invitation to the Colonel to have lunch with them at the college. He lifted his hat in a courtly bow and thanked them, but said that he always ate with the boys. Another letter in Mrs. Williams’ possession shows the other work the Captain did at that time. This letter, written on April 11, 1905, exactly 44 years after the event, had at the top of the page, S. C. Perrow, Lawyer, Houston, Virginia, and read as follows: “When the Civil War broke out I was going to school at Alleghany College in Greenbrier County. The school (sic) broke up and not having any money to pay my way home in Campbell 37 �Co. I borrowed a little from you. I do not remember the amount (or kind of currency) but I think it was $12. When I got home the war prevented the return of the money and I volunteered. I have never known your address since until a gentleman at the hotel last night gave it to me. Now if this money loaned (sic) me came out of your pocket instead of that of the college, I want to pay you. Please let me know and let me know also if I am right about the amount.” He did not sign it. The college building at Blue Sulphur was burned during the war and Alleghany did not reopen. After the war was over, Capt. Duncan took his family to a farm owned by his father-in-law in Pittsy­ lvania County. The captain was not a farmer, he found it hard to adjust to the changed economic conditions after the war. The family had hard sledding. They finally came back to her father’s home. The captain and his eldest son, Lee, stayed on at the farm. His letters to his wife express his frustrations and keen longing for his family. He was still there in June, 1874. However, he came to Hales Ford and opened his school in the fall of that year. It seems it was held in the Hales Ford Baptist Church, a brick building on a lot given by Asa Holland. He had school there for several years until the building burned, pro­ bably in the late winter of 1881. The handbill for 1881 states: “School will open November 1—in a new, commodious and comfortable school­ room recently erected.” The new school building was a frame building divided into two rooms by a folding partition. This partition could be folded back, making one large room for assemblies. The front room where the Captain taught was heated by a large stone fireplace. The back room where Mrs. Duncan taught was heated by an oblong iron stove which would hold logs two feet or more long. The stove pipe extended across the front of the room and into the stove chimney. The blackboard was really a board, several of the broad ceiling boards painted black. There was a movable blackboard of the same material, boards painted black. This blackboard was used in Mrs. Duncan’s room. The seats were benches, and the desks were handmade. The handbill for 1881 describes the school and the curriculum. “The course of instruction embraces, besides the usual English branch­ es, Latin, Greek, French, Mathematics. Natural Science, and History. Special attention given to INSTRUCTION IN THE PRIMARY BRANCH­ ES.” Mrs. Duncan was employed by the county to teach the elemen­ tary grades. She held a professional certificate. In 1893 in Franklin County there were 21 teachers with pro­ fessional certificates. Five af these were named Duncan. The list of 38 �Asa Holland — Capt. Duncan home teachers which went to the state superintendent of education con­ tains many names of those who attended Capt. Duncan’s School. A handbill, dated 1890, is signed W. E. Duncan and T. A. Walker, principals. How long Mr. Walker was with the school I do not know. In an interesting letter from Mr. Walker, dated in Lynchburg in August, 1890, and replying to the captain’s offer of a position, he says in part: “I ask one small favor. I want one of the offices in your yard all to myself. I won’t want anybody in that office with me. I don’t care how good or how religious he may be. I shall want to study and I don’t want to be bothered. Signed, T. A. Walker.” The Duncan household cared for some of the students. With eight children in their family, one wonders how there was room for more in the house. Early, the two offices were built, one on either side of the front yard, and these were used as dormitories for the boys. The girls were cared for in the house. I heard one of the Duncan girls tell of sleeping on the floor in the attic when the house was full. As the handbill states, other students boarded with neighbors. My mother, whose home was in Bedford County, boarded with her cousin who lived three miles from the school. I heard of more than one family who rented a house and moved near the school so that the children could attend. Some rode horseback for many miles. While Mrs. Duncan taught at the school house and also taught piano and organ after hours, someone had to tend the kitchen. This position was ably filled by Aunt Mandy Hancock. She came to work for the family about the time the school started. She lived in her own house down the lane and reared her family. But the kitchen, a log 39 �building with one room up, one down and a big fireplace, was where Aunt Mandy reigned supreme, preparing delectables and sending piping hot breads to the dining room in the basement of the big house, 75 feet away. The carrier was probably one of Aunt Mandy’s sons. I heard this story from one of the Duncan girls. Some boys came calling on Sunday afternoon and stayed until supper time. Courtesy, which Mrs. Duncan never lacked, demanded that the boys be invited to have supper. Aunt Mandy was not informed that she had hungry young men to feed, in time to make more biscuits. The little bell rang for more biscuits. Sam brought them. Again the bell rang. This time the biscuit plate was not piled high, and was soon empty. Again the bell rang. The boys waited and waited. Finally Sam appeared at the table with a corn pone on the plate, a corn pone which Aunt Mandy always prepared for herself. He presented the plate to Mrs. Duncan, saying, “Dis here is de last.” When the laughter had died down the boys said they were about through anyway. Aunt Mandy remained with the family until after the Captain had passed away. She became so senile she saw little devils all around. Finally she said the devils had gotten in the attic and would have to be burned out. The family sadly and tearfully placed Aunt Mandy in a hospital. School boys of that time, as in other times, had extra energy to work off and got into mischief. The Captain usually fitted the punishment to the crime. One day feathers were floating in the air. The captain found the one who started it, had him stand on the platform facing the school, put a feather in the air, and informed him what would happen to him if he failed to keep it up. The feather went up, the boy puffed, and puffed. When about out of breath came “Captain”—puff—“Duncan,” puff, “please,” puff, “please,” puff, puff. At long last the Captain let him sit down. No more feathers. Two boys got shelled corn from the Captain’s corn house, walked the mile up to the Garret place, then dropping one grain of corn at a time, tolled two geese to the school house and shut them in. One boy then went to the Captain’s house before school time and said, “Captain Duncan!” The Captain, at his desk, did not answer. Again he called, “Captain Duncan, there are two geese up at the school.” The Captain looked up and said, “If I know anything about it, there are more than that up there.” When he opened the door of the school; later, there were the geese. He soon found the boys responsible, sent them to his corn house for more corn, and said. “Now, toll them back where you got them from.” Once a couple of boys climbed on the roof and stuffed the chimney with cedar branches. When the Captain made a fire the next morn40 �Capt. William E. Duncan and wife, Salile Elizabeth ing the chimney would not draw and the school filled with smoke. He soon discovered the trouble and correctly guessing the culprits, sent them up to unstop the chimney. In disciplining the students he usually used a mild, mannerly reproof. But he could administer a sharp tongue-lashing when ir­ ritated. A favorite was to declare before the school that the culprit “had not been half-raised.” His own teen-aged son irritated him once, and the Captain applied his “half-raised” formula to him. The son im­ pudently retorted, “Captain, you raised me.” The captain’s reaction to this is not reported. Captain Duncan was always interested in public education. The law establishing Virginia public schools system went into effect in 1870. In June, 1874, while he was still in Pittsylvania, he wrote this letter to his wife. “Tell Charles (his brother) I would be glad to hear from him about the school. Tell him he need not be at all bothered about the “Civil Rights Bill,” even if that bill were to pass. (I don’t think it will.) I don’t think it would interfere with the Free Schools of the State because the patrons of every free school could easily pay a small sum, say $1 a year besides what the Coun­ ty paid and then the school would not be wholly supported by the Public cost. Again, the Legislature regulates its own domes­ tic matters, schools and all, and they would not allow mixed schools. So, I don’t think it possible with the passage of the Bill to force mixed schools on Virginia. So I see nothing at all con­ nected with the Civil Rights Bill to keep the people of Halesford from going ahead with their school. I wish you would mention these things to Charlie.” The school was built with the help of the citizens and it was called Sandy Fork. The old building, still standing, was used until 1912 or 41 �1913, when a new two-room school was built at Epworth Church. It would seem that Captain Duncan had his hands full, running a school for young people in the winter, a school for teachers in the summer, and running a farm. However, he found time to be superin­ tendent of the public schools in Franklin County. He served from 1877 to 1880, and then again from 1886 to 1889. One of his duties was to give examinations to teachers in various parts of the county. A letter headed Penello, August 31, 1887, to his wife, says, “I am just through my examination at Rock Spring. Had exactly twenty teachers, the same number I had at the courthouse yes­ terday. I expect a still larger number at Providence. There will be a larger number of applicants than schools. Many men applicants whom I have never seen nor heard of are being examined. Quite a number from other counties, and one from another state. I shall try to get home Saturday if possible, but if it should so happen that I do not get home, please send by someone, the bundle of notices in my desk, about the times and places of the examinations.” It seems there was some improvement in the County’s public edu­ cation, by comparison of the reports to the state of 1877, the first year he was superintendent, and the reports of 1889, the last year he served. 1877 1889 Money for teachers’ wages $7,878+ $16,300+ Real estate, buildings, furniture 1,197+ 1,413+ Libraries, maps, globes 21.91 113.18 Number studying higher branches 100 121 The school closed as an academy about 1895. One and another of his daughters taught the public school in the building for many years. But who can tell the influence of one dedicated teacher? This article from the Bedford Democrat sums it up very well: A leaflet bearing the date of October 12, 1885, which in its nature takes the form of a prospectus of the old well-known private school of Captain W. E. Duncan at Hale’s Ford in Franklin County, was shown in this office a few days ago. Pioneering in the field of edu­ cation back in the early ’80’s and ’90’s, the Duncan school of learn­ ing in the State. The leaflet was to all appearances intended as an inclosure for correspondence and sets forth in classic English the aims and intents of the distinguished Principal and his staff of edu­ cators. Captioned “Hale’s Ford Classical School For Both Sexes” it states “the ensuing session of this school will begin on Monday, October 12th, 1885, and continue eight months, with a short vacation for Christmas.” “After years of experience the Principal is convinced that co42 �education of the sexes proves successful both in refining the man­ ners of the pupils and producing a generous rivalry between males and females. “The object of this school is to prepare young ladies and young men to enter the higher classes of our best Male and Female Col­ leges, or to completely fit them for the active duties of life. The Course of Instruction is thorough in all departments. Particular at­ tention given to the Primary Branches. “The curriculum of studies embraces the usual English branches taught in our best schools, together with Latin, Greek, French, Math­ ematics, Natural Science and History. “The Hale’s Ford neighborhood is noted for morality, refine­ ment, healthfulness and freedom from any enticements to idleness of neglect of study. “Board in good families convenient to the school room, at $8.00 per month. Tuition from $2.50 to $3.50 per month, according to studies pursued. “The Principal is assisted by Mrs. Duncan, who teaches Music on both Piano and Organ. Pupils furnish their own lights, towels, combs and brushes. “For other particulars address the Principal at Hale’s Ford P. O. Franklin County, Virginia. W. E. Duncan, A.M. Principal” It is a long backward cry from the present splendid educational system of the State to the wholly inadequate facilities of the’80’s and ’90’s. In that day youth was afforded only a three-months “free school” session during the midwinter months. Parents who could afford to do so employed private tutors or sent their children to private schools, such as conducted by Captain Duncan, and to his institution, many a young man and woman of Franklin and Bedford counties is indebted for the basic ground work of an education. N ew Books on Old Themes FOLK ART IN STONE—SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA by Klaus Wust, Shenandoah History, Edinburg, 28 pages, 43 illustrations, three maps, $1.95. The unexplored field of tombstone art in Southwest Virginia is the subject of a brief study by German scholar Klaus Wust, the man who wrote “The Virginia Germans” and spoke to the Society about the flood of 1749 (See his text in this issue). Excellent photographs are accompanied by a well-written description of stone work in the 1790-1835 period. Wust begins his book this way: “Embedded among the hills of Southwestern Virginia, often hug43 �ging the ground of a breezy hillside and well hidden from the hurried traveler, a great many remarkable creations of folk art have survived on the burial-grounds of erstwhile German churches.” AUGUSTA PARISH, VIRGINIA 1738-1780 by Dr. Beverley Ruf­ fin, McClure Press, Verona, 74 pages, $2.95. Dr. Beverley Ruffin, retired librarian at Longwood College, Mary Baldwin College, Stuart Hall and other schools, has written of the beginnings of Augusta Parish, major branch of local government in colonial days. Augusta Parish and Augusta County were forerunners of all of the westward growth behind the mountains, of course. Dr. Ruffin tells of the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians who held a ma­ jority of the seats on the parish vestry in 1746, of indentures and con­ tracts, processioning of land, care of the poor, laying the parish levy and other matters of importance in the frontier parish. Botetourt's 200th Birthday Climaxed by a rousing pageant, “Echo From the Hills,” Botetourt County’s bicentennial celebration made 1970 the biggest year since the frontier county was formed in 1770. From the traditional ringing of the Fincastle bells on New Year’s Eve—with a special meaning this year—through the Easter Sunrise service, Memorial Day service and Bicentennial Emphasis Week June 21-27, hundreds of Botetourt residents participated in many activities marking the passage of the county’s first 200 years. The pageant alone required the talents of 450 people. Scores of almost forgotten events were recalled as all of present Botetourt and many former residents were reminded of a heritage to be proud of. “Honoring the Past, Searching the Future” was the Bicen­ tennial slogan. The highlight of the year was the pageant, written and produced by Botetourt people, and staged four times at the county’s two high schools, Lord Botetourt and James River. It dramatized the frontier “mother of counties,” the days when the community was known as Miller’s Mill and later Monroe before Fincastle was the name finally agreed upon, the first court meeting at the home of Robert Breckenridge, the county’s role in the nation’s wars, changes in social life and a variety of happenings from Botetourt’s yesterdays. A large choir and colorful costumes aded to the spectacle. Plans have been suggested to stage the pageant again, possibly in connection with Fincastle’s bicentennial in 1972. A great variety of events involved every community of the coun­ ty during Emphasis Week. Opening with Religious Heritage Day, home44 �Celebration of the Botetourt Bicentennial was a family affair as is shown by these pictures of the Billy Simmons and Jim Sifford families as they appeared in the pageant, "Echo From the Hills." Sifford and his daughters, Debra (left) and Sally, and son, Lewis, were attired in colonial dress, on their way to church. Simmons and his wife, Myrtle, stood by a covered wagon with their four sons, Billy Jr. (left), Gene, Phillip and Lynn. Simmons later won the county contest for the most handsome beard. 45 �coming services were held in many county churches and vesper ser­ vices were conducted at the two high schools. Guided walking tours were offered at the county seat several days and Monday was fea­ tured as the day for the county’s high school graduates to have home­ coming luncheons and a square dance on the courthouse square in Fincastle. Graduates of schools long closed held reunions. On Tuesday, buses transported many on a tour of interesting homes, churches and other points and on Wednesday, houses and gar­ dens were on a separate bus itinerary. Old agricultural implements were shown at James River High on Thursday and art works were exhibited at Tinker Mill, Daleville, and at Buchanan Community House on Friday. Bands, floats and costumes were features of a parade in the coun­ ty seat on Saturday afternoon. Prizes were given for the best beard, costumes and parade entries. The week closed with a talk by Edmund Harding, Washington, N. C. speaker, and fireworks Saturday night. Thomas E. Reynolds served as chairman of the 12-member board of directors which arranged and often played major parts in the Bi­ centennial program. After the celebration, one of the directors said the most impor­ tant thing during the year was “that it drew many of our areas within the county closer together.” Col. William Fleming Recalled Col. William Fleming, one of the more important men who have lived in Roanoke Valley, was recalled by three separate incidents in the summer of 1970, exactly 175 years after his death. The Scottish-born surgeon, Indian fighter and governor of Vir­ ginia for 10 days in June, 1781, made local historical news in this manner: —A great-great-great-grandson named Van Fleming brought his wife and three children from San Clemente, Calif., to see where their ancestor once lived on Tinker Creek. —The Iron Worker, a quarterly magazine of the Lynchburg Foun­ dry, published a picture captioned “William Fleming” with an article referring to Fleming’s brief service as governor while senior member present of the Council of State after the expiration of Thomas Jef­ ferson’s term. However, the magazine was in error and the picture was that of a portrait of a state Supreme Court judge named William Fleming, who was born in Goochland County and was a contemporary of Col. Fleming of Botetourt. —The Society has received a desk used by Fleming at Bellmont from Arthur M. Kent of Wytheville, whose great-aunt was the grand46 �daughter of Fleming. A portion of Bellmont is still standing on Mon­ terey Golf Course north of Roanoke. Kent earlier contributed a set of Fleming’s surgical instruments. Van Fleming, his wife, June, and their children, Laura, Kelly and Vanessa, visited Bellmont and took flowers to Fleming’s grave near­ by on the golf course. Mrs. Fleming has done considerable genealogi­ cal research on the Fleming family. The California Fleming, believed to be the only male descendant from this line in his generation, is descended from Leonard Israel Fleming, Col. Fleming’s son, who moved to Kentucky. Leonard Israel was the father of William Bowyer Fleming, who had a son, William Bowyer Fleming, Jr., whose son was Clinton Kelly Fleming, father of Harris Van Alstyne Fleming now of San Clemente. This family retains strong ties with Fleming relatives in Kentucky. Edmund P. Goodwin, past president of the Society and an author­ ity on Fleming, spotted the error in the Iron Worker. It was later ad­ mitted by the State Library, which supplied the picture. Goodwin says he has never heard of a portrait of Fleming but he has seen a refer­ ence to a silhouette. The Fleming desk is being refinished and the Society hopes to place it on display in the future. In still another related development, Bellmont is being occupied for the first time in a number of years. Paul Kosko, the Monterey Golf Van Fleming and wife, June, with Vanessa (left), Laura and Kelley at grave of Col. William Fleming 47 �Col. Fleming's cherry desk, Gov. Winthrop style Course pro, and his wife have improved the 200-year-old log and frame building for use as their home. As part of the golf course property, it is owned by Cy Bahakel of Charlotte, N. C., and leased by Kosko. High Bridge Church Is 200 By Dr . George W est Diehl The tide of migration into the upper James River valley began in the late 1730’s and, as the choice lands in Beverley Manor and Borden’s Grant were taken, settlers and land speculators moved southward on the trough of the Valley of Virginia. The southern boundary of Borden’s Grant, approximately that of the “Thorn Hill” estate, just south of Lexington, was left behind and the virgin valleys beyond were occupied. The channel of the migration was an ancient Indian path, known as “The Great Road,” “The Pennsylvania Road” or “The Irish Road.” In what is now Rockbridge County, it left the Buffalo Creek valley and, crossing the divide, it struck the upper Cedar Creek area, the stream that flows under the Natural Bridge. The exit at the southern rim of the valley was through a low gap in the dividing ridge which opened upon the headwaters of Roaring Run. David Cloyd and his wife, the former Margaret Campbell, with their little family, came down the trail in the mid 1740’s. They had arrived in Pennsylvania in 1730 and were now migrating to the rich limestone land of the James River. On May 5, 1745, Cloyd bought 400 acres of land from John Buchanan in what is now Bote48 �tourt County. He also patented several tracts of land in the “Fork of James” section, on Cedar Creek, Sept. 20, 1748. In March, 1764, Indian raiders struck the Cloyd home, at the head of Rentfroe’s Branch in Botetourt County of today. John Cloyd was slain and his mother was so badly tomahawked that she expired the next day. More than two hundred pounds worth of gold and silver coins were taken. The dead were buried in the little graveyard just west of the home. Here David Cloyd was buried when he died in 1790. When his son Joseph sold the home-place to John Withrow and David Shanks in 1797, he reserved the one-half acre where the grave­ yard “now stands.” David Cloyd 2nd, born in 1783, grew to manhood on the Virginia frontier where he met, woed and won his bride—she was Elizabeth, the daughter of Andrew and Martha Woods and granddaughter of Michael Woods, of Blair Park, and his wife Mary Campbell. On May 29, 1761, he paid his father twenty pounds for a tract of 400 acres, one of those his parents had patented in the “Fork of James.” Here, not far from a cool spring of water, he erected his cabin home to which he brought his bride three years later. Already the settlers, hungry for religious fellowship and the uplift of the spiritual, had formed “societies” for common worship, under the leadership of men of their own choosing. The Cedar Creek group appears to have centered at the “Red Mill,” formerly the home of William Poage, now owned by William McClanachan. Just a few miles south of David Cloyd’s home, the pioneers of Roaring Run and Spreading Springs were holding “society” meetings in Capt. Audley Paul’s stockade fort. With the coming of the Rev. John Craig, of the Tinkling Spring Church, into the community in 1768, the two groups seem to have formed a union at his suggestion. The next year, Hanover Presby­ tery appointed the Rev. John Brown, pastor of New Providence Church, to supply one Sabbath at “Rock Bridge,” as the congregation The story of High Bridge Presbyterian Church in Rockbridge County through its first two centuries, 1770 to 1970, is narrated by Dr. George West Diehl, historian, educator and Presbyterian minister. Dr. Diehl’s new book, “The Reverend Samuel Houston V.D.M.” has just been published by McClure Press, Verona. Houston, a cousin of Gen. Sam Houston, served High Bridge Church for 44 years. He used the initials, V.D.M., to signify “Verbi Dei Magister” or “Minister of the Word of God.” Dr. Diehl, writer of a bicentennial pageant for High Bridge Church earlier this year, has written historical columns, maga­ zine articles and other works. Here, he tells of a church which has been a longtime landmark beside an early trail, turnpike and later U. S. 11 and Interstate 81. 49 �was first known. It is apparent that the two groups were “set in church order” in 1770. No church site had been selected and the congrega­ tion, on Oct. 9, 1771, petitioned Presbytery to designate the Rev. Mr. Craig to assist in the selection of a good location and to determine the bounds of the congregation. David Cloyd 2nd, whose farm was in between the two sections of the new church, gave the site. For some reason, no deed was given— if one had been, it has become lost. However, when Matthew Houston sold the Cloyd estate to Wm. P. Arnold on Oct. 6, 1841, the boundaries were given as “passing High Bridge Church (which, with two acres of land with the use of a spring contiguous thereto, is hereby re­ served to the use of the church forever)”. The first church structure, a small log building, was erected in 1771 after the site had been selected and permission granted. It was replaced under the pastorate of the Rev. Samuel Houston by a larger and more convenient frame structure. This was in the 1790’s. In the valley, John McConkey had bought 93 acres of land from Caufield Taylor who had purchased it from his father-in-law, Capt. Audley Paul. The transaction was made on Sept. 6, 1796. The property was adjacent to the cemetery which had grown up on the hillside between the church and “The Great Road.” The development made expansion of the church necessary. The tract was laid off in town lots with “The Great Road” as Main Street bordered on either side by twenty lots. The village was given the name of Springfield. Soon here R. L. Northern operated a tailoring shop, Joseph Baker opened his hatters establishment, Jacob Siler offered his service as a gunsmith and Daniel Heck operated his wagon and rope shop in a building made from the logs of the old High Bridge Church, to mention a few of the industries. High Bridge Presbyterian Church 50 �The frame building that housed the High Bridge congregation was designed by the pastor and it was he who supervised its con­ struction. The Rev. Mr. Houston loved it. In it he preached for almost forty years and from it he was buried in the cemetery within its shadow. The present brick structure was erected in 1903. In 1922, it was remodeled and a wing was added on the western side without change to the original structure. Then, a few years ago there were many improvements made to the building which have intensified the beauty and the attractiveness of the place. An educational building was erected about two hundred feet away from the church and an ample parking facility was supplied, all of which does not detract from the uniqueness and beauty of the old church, as she breathes a bene­ diction upon the dead of generations as modern civilization flits by on the concrete bands of Interstate 81. About one-half mile north of the old church, where the present exit from the interstate for Natural Bridge joins the service road, stood a large cherry tree by the side of the stage-road. It was said to have marked the center, the heart, of Virginia in those days of long ago. On the tree were four sign-boards, each bearing a distinc­ tive message: “Abingdon, 200 miles”, “Harpers Ferry, 200 miles, “Wheeling, 200 miles” and “Albemarle Sound, 200 miles”. The old cherry tree has long been gone and forgotten, but the church on the hill in the distance still ministers to the community and is loved by a multitude far and near. It is the very center of their affection. Ancient Artifacts Acquired A large collection of Indian artifacts, mainly arrow points, from the estate of Col. J. Sinclair Brown, prominent Roanoke County banker and legislator, has been given the Society by his daughter, Mrs. W. S. Russell. The 784 artifacts classified by Col. Howard MacCord, arche­ ologist with the Virginia State Library, cover a broad time span ranging from a Clovis fluted type point from the Paleo-Indian period, 9,000-10,000 B.C., up through Clarksville triangular points placed at 1500-1750 A.D. MacCord said many of the artifacts came from other parts of the country indicating that Indians or latter-day collectors carried or exchanged them in their travels. MacCord found a Steatite pot fragment, two crude knives, eight pieces of Clarksville type of pottery, five Guildford type knives or blades, a pottery trowel or anvil used in pottery making, a piece of pottery, possibly Catawba, three crude chipped axes, half of a stone 51 �Seven of the older arrow points in the Brown Collection are (from left, top) Clovis fluted type, Paleo-lndian, 9000-10,000 B.C.; Hardaway-Dalton, estimated at 8000 B.C.; Palmer corner notched type, approximately 8000 B.C.; Charleston corner notched, 7900 B.C.; Lecroy bifurcated, 6300 B.C.; Kanawha, 5800 B.C.; and Lamuka type, 3000 B.C. gorget, three hammerstones, five grubbing tools, five stemmed scra­ pers, 10 drills and 27 knives. In quantities, he reported 160 Savannah River type arrow points, 2000 to 1000 B.C., 65 Morrow Mountain type points, approximately 5000 B.C., 85 Archaic Culture Guildford type, 45 Halifax type, 4000 B.C., 44 Big Sandy Side points, 44 McCorkle type, approximately 7000 B.C., 24 Caraway type, 19 Coosa, early woodland, and 16 Yadkin type, early woodland. James McDowell's Travels in 1828 Notes from the Virginia phase of a western trip taken by James McDowell of Fincastle in 1828 were loaned recently by Mrs. James McDowell of Fincastle, whose late husband was a great-grandson of the writer. That earlier James served two terms as U.S. consul to Belfast in his native Ireland, according to his granddaughter, Miss Ruth McDowell of Roanoke. He started the 1828 trip with relatives in North Carolina and went as far as Ohio “traveling in search of a place to locate a store.” He worked for his uncle, Robert Kyle, at his store and bank, known as Bolton’s Store today. Sunday, Jan. 27, I have got to Cook’s 31 miles by sundown after crossing the blue ridge at Ward’s Gap, fare good, the best Irish pota­ toes and milk & butter that I had seen since I left Botetourt. Tuesday, Jan. 29. Started after breakfast for Wythe Co. House 52 �/ 22 miles where I arrived at 2 o’clock p.m. and spent the evening very pleasantly at Mr. Jas. St. Clair’s where I sat with his Mother-in-law, Mrs. Gibboney. The specimen of her family that I saw in Mrs. St. Clair was certainly a good one. Wednesday, Jan. 30. Left Wythe after breakfast and got to Beattie’s 7 miles ford, 33 miles same evening, after passing through a very fertile well inhabited valley stocked with cattle and sheep. Fare at Beattie’s Good. Wythe, the Co. House town of Wythe Co. in good weather when the streets are clean, may be said to be a tolerably handsome village. It is compactly built with a brick Co. House and several handsome private residences, 5 or 6 stores with tolerable good assortments, but business is said to be overdone in it by competition, very little a doing during my stay in it. Stayletown 13 miles west of Wythe is one of the most frightful looking places that I ever saw. It has a scared look about it. I requested a Blacksmith to chain it for fear of its running away. One Tavern, one little shop of Goods, a black­ smith shop etc., with a few log huts compose the town. Thursday, Jan. 31st. Left Beattie’s ford after breakfast and got to Abingdon at 2 o’clock p.m.—the country still fertile and stocked with almost innumerable herds of cattle. The country is very thickly settled along the road, and some of the dwellings very handsome. Abingdon is situated on a tolerably high hill with a considerable fall on each side, but notwithstanding its elevated situation, it beats all the places for mud that I ever saw. Horses have to wade through mud in the middle of the street belly deep and crossing the street is out of the question unless at places where large logs are sunk in the mud for that purpose. In other respects it looks tolerably well, has a brick court house and a Methodist church and 5 stores all of whom have pretty good assortments, and some of them doing very well. It is decidedly in my opinion the best place for business that I have seen since I left home. Friday, Feb. 1st. Still at Findlay’s in Abingdon, waterbound and compelled by the incessant rain to keep the house all day without even a chance of seeing the town. Findlay keeps the bell Tavern, and is an Irishman by birth. Saturday, Feb. 2nd. Left Abingdon at daybreak and got to Shu­ maker’s for breakfast 14 miles. Two months later, McDowell’s notes told of his return trip. Saturday, April 5th. Left Beverly and got to the Warm Springs 80 miles on Tuesday, April 8th after travelling 4 days through snow from 9 to 18 inches deep over the roughest country and worst roads in the United States, unable sometimes to procure anything for my horse to eat and generally obliged to shake the snow off my bed 53 �clothes in the morning that had drifted in through the chinks be­ tween the logs of the miserable cabins that I was compelled to lodge in. This I considered rather an unpleasant situation for a man in a delicate state of health. On my way to the Warm Springs from Beverly I stopped at Barner’s, Waddel’s and Mrs. Gatewood’s the latter the only tolerable house for 90 miles, indeed I might almost say for 220 miles the whole distance from Marietta to Bath Co. House. I spent the greater part of Tuesday at the Warm Springs witnessing their county elections, and when I contrasted the appearance of the citizens there (al­ though I presume the roughest in the valley) with those west of the Alleghany I could not help rejoicing that I had again reached a land of civilization. Wednesday, April 9. Left Warm Springs and got to Mr. McKee’s 30 miles same evening, stopping for an hour on my way at William’s Springs. The honors of the table at Mr. McKee’s were done by Miss Jane McKee, a handsome, blooming, rosy cheeked girl of 16 or 18 whom I could have very soon fallen in love with had I been a marrying man. I was confined to bed for the early part of the next day and on entering the sitting room at 1 p.m. I found Mr. Hutton, a discarded lover, who had come as I was led to believe to renew his suit. Miss McKee entered the room a few minutes after I did and in passing 2 or 3 hours in a conversation of a general nature in which all but Mr. H. took part I began to fear that I was occupying the situation of the dog in the manger and thinking that the parties would come to an understand­ ing sooner if I were out of the way I determined on making my exit, (Not being disposed at that time to take a hand myself) and arrived in Lexington 7 miles at sun set same evening. Lexington is a handsome improving village, contains a popu­ lation of about 1,000, has 10 stores, 4 taverns, an arsenal, a college, a female academy, besides houses of worship and a great number of very handsome private residences and mechanics shops of almost every description. I was present at their general muster and am under the impression that they will bear a comparison with the citizens of any other county in the state with respect to smoothness of appearance & general deportment. Friday, April 11. Left Lexington and got to Lynchburg, 42 miles by way of the canal on at 4 P. M. after stopping all day on Saturday to let my horse pasture on Mr. Paxton’s meadow. Lynchburg is hand­ somely situated on a rising ground south of the James River in Campbell County, has a population of 6 or 7000, from 20 to 30 stores of different descriptions, 4 or 5 Taverns, several tobacco warehouses in which considerable business is done, a Theatre, several good schools, and churches of almost all professions—business is said to be dull in it at present on a/c of the low price of tobacco. 54 �Fire Protection A “remedy against fire” was found in the Bible of George Wash­ ington Rader, a member of one of the older German families in Botetourt County. Born in Shenandoah County in 1797, he came with his family to Botetourt four years later and lived there until his death in 1894. Perhaps his longevity was attributed in part to the old folk remedy. A certain remedy against fire whereby we may greatly with­ stand it. Will also keep lightning or thunder out of the house where ever the same be in the house; it consists of 25 letters as is to be seen in the following table: <T A T O' AT 0 K R.£ T 0 £ S2 T TE H A X 0 AJ These are the 25 letters and is the song which the 3, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego sung, whom King Nebuchadnezzar had cast in the burning fiery furnace unto whom God sent his holy Angel which guarded and protected them in the cruel and raging fire as may be seen and read in the third chapter of Daniel the Prophet; whosoever therefore carries this song with him or has it in his House, his house will not be burnt up neither will lightning or thunder consume his house and if small children have fitts write these 25 letters on a bitt of paper lay it under the child’s back 24 hours and the fitts will leave the child and will never take them again. Which has been proven by many; Also if any person have been bitt by a mad Dog and these letters are given him to eat it will not hurt him. A Receipt for George W. Rader, November 27th, 1837. 55 �Alleghany Turnpike, 7 Miles Long By Walter K. W ood On December 31, 1805, the General Assembly passed “An Act establishing a Turnpike from the Head of Roanoke River over the Alleghany Mountain.” Montgomery County’s two members of the House of Delegates, John Ingles and Andrew Lewis1, sponsored this bill because the cost of maintaining the previous public road in good condition had proved too great a burden on the laboring tithables. John Ingles, Andrew Lewis, Daniel Trigg, Gordon Cloyd, Charles Taylor, Henry Edmundson, James Craig, John M. Taylor, and James Charlton were appointed commissioners and empowered to contract with the lowest bidder for opening the turnpike from the south fork of the Roanoke river to John Pendleton’s house located on the Christiansburg side of the crest of Alleghany Mountain. To obtain the contract an undertaker was required to post a performance bond of $20,000 to ensure performance within four years and to m ain tain the road in good and sufficient repair and to furnish an annual accounting of funds expended and the income derived from tolls, which were calculated to generate profits of between six and fifteen per cent. Whenever profits exceeded fifteen per cent, tolls were to be adjusted downward; if they fell below six per cent, the tolls were to be revised upward.2 As the low bidder on the project, George Hancock petitioned damnum (to what damage) to begin the lengthy procedures before actual construction. On May 10, 1806, the commissioners met for the first time at the home of Thomas Barnett to prepare the in­ quest which was to be returned, under seal, the first Tuesday in June, 1806. Because the result was not recorded until September 11, 1809, it is evident that some adjacent landowners delayed the pro­ ceedings with cross-complaints since opening the road depended upon the consent of surrounding landowners. In addition to these legali­ ties, final improvement of the road, grading, digging the drainage ditch­ es, and building the toll facilities, added to the delay.3 The Act of 1805 required performance upon the part of George Hancock within four years, under penalty of $20,000. Thus, sometime in 1809, the Alleg­ hany Turnpike commenced the first of its thirty-eight years of service to Montgomery County. A thesis on the Alleghany Turnpike, built in Montgomery County more than 150 years ago, was written by Walter K. Wood of Ports­ mouth in partial fulfillment of a master’s degree at Virginia Tech. Excerpts from his paper are used with his permission. Wood, now in the Army, is a graduate of Frederick College. 56 �George Hancock was born on June 13,1754, in Chesterfield County, where he attended school and pursued a classical program of study. The outbreak of the American Revolution drew him from his legal studies into the Virginia infantry, of which he rose to the rank of colonel. In October, 1779, Hancock, a member of Count Pulaski’s general staff during the ill-fated siege of Savannah, was taken prisoner. Not long afterwards he was paroled and returned to Virginia where he read law in Powhatan County before his admission to the state bar in 1784. Soon he removed to the town of Fincastle in Botetourt County, where he served as Commonwealth’s attorney, deputy state attorney, and as a colonel in the county militia. Hancock represented Botetourt County from 1784 to 1787, and in 1792, in the Virginia General Assembly, and between 1793 and 1797 in the United States House of Representatives. When at length he died on July 18, 1820, at “Fotheringay” in Montgomery County, the Lynchburg Virginian recorded that Hancock had been a “venerable man” and “an example of virtue”. Although George Hancock was a practicing attorney, his main preoccupation was the management of his rural estates, first “Santil­ lane” in Botetourt, then “Fotheringay” in Montgomery County. Han­ cock’s father was able to support him as a “gentleman farmer” at first. However, his own abilities added greatly to his father’s aid and en­ abled him to become one of the largest landowners in Botetourt County. Included among his property for tax purposes were six four-wheeled carriages5 and some 2,200 acres purchased in parcels for prices ranging from five shillings to 2500 pounds.6 In 1796, while still a resident of Botetourt, Hancock purchased for 500 pounds, 800 acres7 on the Roanoke river in Montgomery County on which he later built a handsome mansion which he named “Fotheringay”. In 1802, Hancock added by purchase to his “Fotheringay” estate 736 more acres on the north and south forks of the Roanoke.8 Hancock’s “Fotheringay” estate was located on rich alluvial ter­ races, but it was far from existing roads. For his own convenience and for the possible tolls he might extract from his neighbors and unknown transients, Colonel Hancock determined to seek the fran­ chise for a turnpike which would traverse his newly acquired land and inaugurate direct traffic with Christiansburg instead of journey­ ing east about twenty-five miles to secure access to the FincastleBlacksburg-Christiansburg road up the Catawba Valley. Furthermore, as a leading political figure of the Sixth Congressional District, Han­ cock possessed the political acumen to accomplish his ends. The Alleghany Turnpike, seven miles and 396 yards long and twenty-five feet wide, was built on modified macadam principles. The 57 �Act of 1805 prescribed a “smooth convex surface, well-covered with gravel or stone, . . . to render the passing of wagons thereon as con­ venient as possible (without being paved)”.10 Although the Alleghany Turnpike was raised in the center to allow adequate drainage into ditches on either side, it was not a thoroughly macadamized road. Nevertheless, it was quite an improvement over the previous public road which had only been a natural earth pathway. An agreement between George Hancock and Edward McDaniel in 1828 substan­ tiated Hancock’s compliance with the provisions of the act and the approximation of macadamized road principles. McDaniel was “to throw out loos (sic) rock, upon the ditches so as to drain the water in heavy rains, and . . . to cover the whole way with dirt so as to raise the road in the middle high enough to throw off the water to the sides . . . First, the General Assembly prescribed a schedule of tolls and enjoined toll collectors to maintain the road in good order, expedite traffic and administer the tolls impartially under penalty of fines ranging between two and five dollars, coupled with a two-dollar fine upon toll evaders, all fines being designated to aid the poor of Mont­ gomery County. All drivers were supposed to keep to the right, leaving the other side open for passing. Then the legislature authorized Mont­ gomery County to make male tithables work on road improvements. To ensure a return of not more than fifteen per cent per annum on its capital, the Alleghany Turnpike was authorized to establish the fol­ lowing schedule of tolls:12 Each horse carrying ar id e r ......... ......................................... 06x/4 Each horse without arid e r........................................................ 03 Each four-wheeled carriage for the conveyance of commodities ..................................................................... 37Vfe Each four-wheeled carriage for the conveyance of persons ............................................................................ 75 Each two-wheeled carriage for the conveyance of commodities ................................. ................................... 17 Each two-wheeled carnage for the conveyance of persons ...................................................................... 25 Mules and asses were to be charged the same as horses and all things not enumerated were to pass toll free. Although the Alleghany Turnpike opened in 1809, official re­ cords of expenses and revenues have disappeared before 1817-1818, the first extant record of revenues. In 1813, George Hancock filed and the court received without comment aA account of expenses and revenues. To maintain his franchise Hancock felt compelled to file a complaint with the justice of the peace, Samuel Shields, against 58 �Lensey C. Crow for refusing to pay tolls. Crow was fined eight dol­ lars;13 but this was not to be the last time that Hancock experienced difficulties from Crow. As a federal mail carrier, Crow rode on horse­ back twice a week and by stagecoach once a week between Fincastle, Montgomery County’s courthouse, and Wythe County’s courthouse at the contracted rate of $6,000 a year. Hancock had offered to charge the mailman an annual fee of seventy-five dollars for use of the road, but Crow was so reluctant to pay that the owner of the turn­ pike felt compelled to bring suit.14 Despite such difficulties, Hancock, as first owner of the turnpike, prospered from the operation of the road. Like many early toll roads, the Alleghany Turnpike was not bur­ dened at the outset with a heavy capital outlay. Because Hancock was only obligated to improve the preexistent public road and because exclusive rights and privileges were also granted, initial success was assured. However, continued profitable operation depended upon efficient management as well as a constant demand for use of the road. That both these variables were overcome is indicated by the accounts of expenses and revenues. Except for the years during the Panic of 1819, the tolls received increased. At the same time, however, road repairs decreased by forty per cent. Between 1817 and 1827, Hancock averaged $600 net income from the operation of the turnpike. Under the proprietorship of George Hancock, the Alleghany Turnpike met the demands of an increasingly productive Montgomery County. The central location of the road, together with the high cost of land transportation over long distances, insured its initial success. After George Hancock’s death in 1820, his son, also named George, assumed the responsibility of managing the turnpike. Mrs. Hancock assumed, upon her husband’s death, a dower interest of one-third in “Fotheringay”, land on the Alleghany mountain, and in the turnpike lands and profits. Appointed as trustees by Mrs. Han­ cock were James Barnett, David Barnett, James Law, and Walter Crockett.15 As long as Mrs. Hancock retained her dower interest, George Hancock, Jr., could not sell the turnpike and surrounding land. Because of the early success of the Alleghany road, Henry Edmundson became interested in purchasing it. On May 26, 1828, George Hancock, Jr., and Henry Edmundson initiated negotiations preliminary to a contract for the sale of the turnpike. Hancock agreed to sell to Edmundson the turnpike and contiguous lands at the evaluation set by John M’Taylor and former governor of Virginia, James Patton Preston. As a partial payment Edmundson was to deliver nine slaves16 to Hancock on or before August 1, 1828, and to guarantee personally a note of $1,500. The difference between the evaluation and the partial payment was to 59 �be paid in five annual installments. Possession was given on May 25, 1828, after which Edmundson was to receive all tolls and pay for all repairs and improvements'7 after the seasonable performance by Edward McDaniel with whom Hancock had contracted for clearing the road’s drainage ditches and improving its surface with loose rock and dirt.18 When George Hancock, Jr., and his wife conveyed on August 12, 1828, their interest in the property to his mother, they did so in order that his mother’s dower interest could be extinguished and that her share of the proceeds could be invested in a farm in Kentucky in which she would enjoy a life estate with the remainder to her son. On August 30, 1828, Edmundson paid $7,500 for all property and stock designated as the Alleghany Turnpike. The property included two tracts of land totaling 886 acres and adjoining the turnpike road.'9 Henry Edmundson was born in 1774 in Pennsylvania and moved to Botetourt County with his mother while still a child. In Botetourt, Edmundson met George Hancock, who was the leading political figure and one of the largest landowners in the county, and Elijah McClanahan,2° later co-owner of the Alleghany Turnpike. Edmundson re­ mained in Botetourt County “until old enough to act for himself” when he moved to Montgomery county after marrying Peggy King in 1799. In May of 1801, Edmundson purchased from James Barnett fifty acres on Crab Creek2' which he had probably rented. The young man’s industry during the next eight years was attested by the fact that one of the local land magnates, Andrew Lewis, was willing to enter into a contract with him for the sale of 800 acres of Lewis’ pro­ perty on the south fork of the Roanoke River for the consideration of one dollar.22 It was on this tract of land that Edmundson was to build “Falling Waters” and where his and Peggy’s son, Henry Alonzo, was born in 1814.23 Beginning with almost nothing, Edmundson quickly improved his status. In 1816, he paid $2,000 for seventy-two poles of land in Christiansburg and $3,000 for 292 acres in the county.24 Exclusive of the turnpike and “Fotheringay”, Edmundson owned at one time or other some 2,000 acres. Between 1818 and 1820, in 1823-1824, and in 1826-27, Edmundson represented Montgomery County in the Vir­ ginia General Assembly.23 Although he did serve briefly as high sheriff between 1842 and 1843, Edmundson devoted most of his time to successful operation of the Alleghany Turnpike between the time he purchased it in 1828 and his death at “Fotheringay” on December 18, 1847. Possessed of few if any material advantages in early life, Edmundson achieved reputation and standing through hard work, “indomitable energy” and probably a little luck. Besides affording a splendid example of the material rewards of the self60 �made man, Edmundson also so embodied the qualities of courtesy and chivalry that in 1848, the Lynchburg Virginia eulogized him “as a landmark of ancient times—a model of the true gentleman”.28 “Fotheringay” estate became the property of Henry Edmund­ son in a circuitous manner. On August 30, 1828, the same day that the turnpike was sold, George Hancock, Jr., mortgaged his plantation to John Richardson of Albemarle County for $5,000 to be paid in five installments to the actual lender, a certain Isaac Bronson of New York. Since Hancock was moving to Kentucky, he appointed Edmundson to act as his agent in the matter, stipulating that if Richardson failed to discharge the debt, Edmundson was instructed to sell “Fotheringay” and apply the proceeds to the debt owed Bronson.29 In December of 1830, Edmundson bought up the mortage on “Fother­ ingay” for $10,000 cash and $5,000 to be paid Colonel Andrew Beirne of Monroe County, Virginia. Presumably, about $5,000 of the cash Sale should have been paid to George Hancock who needed all the money he could lay his hands on to fit out his “establishments in the Cotton Country” of Kentucky.30 Edmundson moved into “Fother­ ingay” sometime in 1832,31 and although his first draft was refused at Nashville, final settlement was made before the end of 1834.32 Edmundson was more the agricultural capitalist than Hancock. Besides being the proprietor of the turnpike, Edmundson profitably devoted part of “Fotheringay” as an inn for the East-west travelers. In addition he engaged in selling land in Botetourt, Grayson, Mont­ gomery, and Logan counties, from which he grossed $3,307 in 1824 and 1825.33 In negotiations between Hancock and Edmundson and his partner, McClanahan, the purchasers were as much interested in the “appendages” to the turnpike as in the road itself. Particularly did they covet the land on the east side of the top of the mountain which had been cleared for tobacco cultivation.34 Edmundson and McClana­ han later sold their tobacco at Salem via the canal operated by the Roanoke Navigation Company to Weldon, North Carolina. In 1831 depressed tobacco prices were so discouraging that McClananhan wrote to Edmundson that he “hardly had the courage to write.” McClanahan reported the sale of 12,000 pounds of tobacco at prices ranging from four cents to six cents a pound. At that rate of exchange, the gross amount received was between $480 and $720 exclusive of unknown marketing expenses. At best, then, their tobacco venture was only a limited success and not one calculated to make them pretentiously wealthy. Only in connection with their other enterprises did tobacco cultivation become significant.35 Although money was to be made from such staples as tobacco in good years, in years of depression or deflation ownership of the turnpike created certain additional revenue. The $3,750 that Ed61 �mundson and McClanahan each paid to purchase the turnpike was a considerable sum of money. Yet, apart from maintaining the road in good repair and avoiding theft or outrageously bad performance by those collecting tolls, they could expect to receive a steady income from the Alleghany Road as an integral link in one of the main routes between Virginia and the states to the southwest. That Hancock and Edmundson were unusually fortunate to have had so reliable a tollgate keeper as Archibald Murray and later Mrs. Murray, is shown in the difficulties reported by a neighboring competitor. The Salem and Pepper’s Ferry Turnpike Company reported in 1848 that $2,000.43 had been lost to gate keepers who had not produced vouchers.36 Since McClanahan continued to live in Botetourt County, Ed­ mundson himself superintended most of the road work or delegated it to some trustworthy and responsible individual when he was pre­ occupied with his other interests. The proprietors avoided outlays of cash insofar as possible by employing their slaves and by utilizing farm equipment. The seasonal nature of the toll road was more pro­ nounced than one might think. Examination of monthly reports of tolls received indicated that the best months were September through October and the worst was March. In December, 1839, McClanahan wrote to Edmundson concerning improvement of the road for the coming spring:38 We have horses and cattle of our own enough to carry on the work and our farms too. By Braking (sic) some of our young horses and by hiring one or two good plow boys each of us and an overseer. . . . I think we can manage our farms and the road too. As time went on, however, such industriousness was not enough to ensure successful operation of the road. Bad weather, the opening of other turnpikes in the area, and the Panic of 1837 all influenced the steady decline in tolls after 1838. The turnpike did not turn a profit in 1839. Not only did re­ venues decline to $880.73, but expenses doubled to $905.97. Un­ doubtedly, a freshet on one of the tributary streams of the Roanoke River was the cause of the heavy expense. Mrs. Murray, wife of the tollgate keeper, wrote Major Edmundson complaining, “you never come to see us and to know how we are doing at the gate. But you must now (know) as well as we do that they are not the usual tolls taken now as formerly.”39 In 1839, McClanahan was concerned over the deplorable condition of the road which the wet weather and then a freeze had almost made impassable.40 In 1841, Mrs. Murray wrote Major Edmundson that the wagoners complained that the condition of the road was so horrible that “they will not pay by law”. Indeed, she had encountered so much trouble in collecting toll that Mrs. Murray politely threatened to quit unless the road was put in good 62 �order.41 Increased road repairs, however, were not resumed until the summer of 1844.42 The Panic of 1837 and the depression which followed had serious effects in Virginia, even though no bank within the state failed. Planters faced the inability of not being able to dispose of their crops, while internal improvement projects faced reduced operations or abandonment. It is not surprising that so long and deep a depression had its effects on Edmundson and McClanahan. By the spring of 1844 both needed to borrow money and the prospects of neither were good. McClanahan wrote Edmundson that he would not be able to spare any slaves from his Botetourt farm to work on the road in Montgo­ mery.43 A combination of depressed prices, specie contraction and un­ usually inclement weather caused the Alleghany Turnpike to lose money at the tollgate after 1838. These same conditions also affected other turnpikes in Montogmery County that had been chartered in 1838: Salem and Pepper’s Ferry; Buchanan, Fincastle, and Blacksburg; Blacksburg and Newport, Salem and New Castle, and Lafayette and Ingles’ Ferry.44 Had it not been for the Panic of 1837, these new turnpikes would have offered competition to the Alleghany road; but, because of the panic, however, the positive results are negligible! The inability of these two roads to prosper, joined with the recent deficit of the Alleghany Turnpike, typified the reasons for the growing demand by the Southwest that the Commonwealth buy and consolidate into a more effective network the various short-line toll 63 �roads that had been chartered in 1838. As a consequence of these and similar developments, the General Assembly in January and February of 1845 chartered the Southwestern Turnpike Company to construct a macadamized road from Buchanan to the Tennessee line.45 Obviously the Southwestern Turnpike Company would have to purchase the Alleghany road, a vital and logical link, if it were to achieve its stipulated goals. As early as 1838, Major Edmundson had discussed this situation with his neighbor William M. Peyton, before the latter went to take his seat in the Virgina House of Delegates for Montgomery County and serve as a member of the Committee of Roads and Internal Navigation. The legislator assured his prominent constituent that he would safeguard his interests when the charter was written to incorporate a turnpike from Lafayette by Christiansburg to Ingles’ Ferry.46 The charter of the Southwestern Turnpike required that the proposed road pass either by the way of Christiansburg or by Blacks­ burg before crossing the New River, depending upon the report of the chief engineer, Lewis M. Prevost, Jr., after a survey of both routes. On the basis of his recommendation, the shorter route through Christiansburg was selected. This decision virtually dictated South­ western’s purchase of the Alleghany, regardless of what might be done about the Pepper’s Ferry and Lafayette turnpikes. After the route was decided upon, negotiations began at once between the Southwestern Turnpike Company and all private toll roads within Montgomery County.47 Although Southwestern officials had declared $7,000 too high a price for Edmundson’s and McClananhan’s turnpike, especially since the Alleghany revenues had fallen considerably since 1840, both parties eventually agreed on the $7,000 figures.48 Securing the mountainous ascent itself may well have been worth the entire purchase price for an established road in at least moderately good condition, since Edmundson had just completed road repairs the summer before the Southwestern Turnpike was granted a charter.49 With the sale in 1847, the history of one turnpike ended and another began. The purpose of the Southwestern Turnpike50 was indeed a noble gesture by concerned Virginians to overcome the sectional jealousies which had dimished the effectiveness of the broad policy initiated thirty years before. This effort, although noble, was a belated one. By 1847 the railroads had begun to crisscross the state and with every mile of track laid, the turnpike era slipped inexorably into the past as an integral, yet romanticized aspect of the Jacksonian Era. Ironically, an augury of things to come appeared among Major Edmundson’s papers. In February, 1831, an assembly of citizens at Staunton in Augusta County, Virginia, drafted a petition to the 64 �General Assembly that underscored their desire to secure a cheap and reliable means of transportation for the products of the Valley of Virginia. As far as the best mode of transportation for their parti­ cular needs, the citizens adamantly “favored a railroad from Balti­ more to the Ohio over a canal . . . which could not advance beyond the headwaters of the Shenandoah. (We) will do (the) utmost for a railroad, but not for a canal.”51 J E a r l G . S w e m a n d J o h n W. W illia m s , c o m p ., A R e w is te r o f th e G e n e r a l A ss e m b ly o f V irg in ia 1776-1918 a n d o f th e C o n s titu tio n a l C o n v e n tio n ( R ic h m o n d , 1918; h e r e i n a f te r c ite d a s S w e m , R e g is te r o f G e n e ra l A s s e m b ly ), p . 67 2 A c ts o f th e G e n e r a l A ss e m b ly , 1805. p p . 12-14 3 M o n e g o m e ry C o u n ty R e c o rd s , W illbook I ,291, 403. 4 L y n c h b u rg P r e s s a n d P u b lic A d v e rtis e r, J u ly 28, 1820; G e o g ra p h ic a l D ir e c to r y , p. 1001; S w e m , R e g is te r o f th e G e n e ra l A ss e m b ly , p . 383; R o a n o k e : S to ry o f C o u n ty a n d C ity , c o m p , b y W o rk e rs o f th e W r ite rs P r o g r a m o f th e W o rk s P r o je c t A d m in is tr a tio n (R o a n o k e , 1942), p p . 72-73. 5 R o b e rt S to n e r, A S eed -B e d of th e R e p u b lic : A S tu d y o f th e P io n e e r s in th e U p p e r ( S o u th e rn ) V a lle y of V irg in ia (R o a n o k e , 1962; th e r e a f te r c ite d a s S to n e r, S eed -B e d o f th e R e p u b lic ), p p . 295, 407; B io g ra p h ic a l D ire c to ry of C o n g re s s , p . 1001. 6 B o te to u rt C o u n ty R e c o rd s , D e e d B ook H I, 134, 285-287, 321, 512-513; D e e d B ook IV , 339-340, 459; D e e d B ook V , 330-331, 335-336; D e e d B ook V I, 26-27, 503; D e e d B ook V II, 577-578, 603-604; D e e d B ook V III, 0-1, 85-86, 144-145, 401-402. 7 J a c o b K e n t, D e e d to G e o rg e H a n c o c k , S e p t. 17, 1796, M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty R e c o rd s, D e e d B ook B , p p . 262-263. 8 J a m e s B e ll (W o o d fo rd C o u n ty , K e n tu c k y ), D e e d to G e o rg e H a n c o c k , A u g . 4, 1802, Ib id ., D e e d B ook D , p . 30. I n 1809, H a n c o c k b o u g h t se v e n ty -fiv e a c r e s fr o m J o h n B a r g e r , p ro b a b ly a s a n e a s e m e n t to h is tu r n p i k e ; se e D e e d B ook D , p p . 629-630. 9 T h irty -S e c o n d A n n u a l R e p o rt of th e B o a rd of P u b lic W o rk s, D e c e m b e r 6, 1847, p.20. 10 A c ts o f th e G e n e r a l A ss e m b ly , 1805,p . 12. S ee a lso L e e P e n d le to n , " S o u th w e s t V irg in ia T u r n p ik e s ,” J o u r n a l of T h e R o a n o k e H is to ric a l S o c ie ty , I I (W in te r, 1965-1966), 9-12. T h e w r ite r a c k n o w le d g e s w ith th a n k s th e h e lp fu l s u g g e s tio n s o f o n e o f M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty 's le a d in g a m a t e u r h is to r ia n s , M r. L e e P e n d le to n of C h r is tia n s b u r g , V irg in ia , e s p e c ia lly th o s e e x p re s s e d in h is u n p u b lis h e d n o te s o n th e A lle g h a n y T u rn p ik e . 11 A g re e m e n t b e tw e e n G e o rg e H a n c o c k a n d E d w a r d M c D a n ie l, M a r c h , 1928 in th e E d m u n d s o n F a m i ly P a p e r s , 1781-1949, V irg in ia H is to ric a l S o c ie ty , R ic h m o n d , V irg in ia . ( H e r e in ­ a f te r c ite d a s E d m u n d s o n P a p e r s , V H S ). T h e w r ite r a c k n o w le d g e s w ith m a n y th a n k s th e lo a n o f a m ic ro film of th is im p o r ta n t f a m ily a r c h iv e th ro u g h th e g o o d o ffic es o f M r. J o h n M elv ille J e n n in g s . M r. a n d M rs. R o b e rt L. N u tt, J u n io r, of “ F o th e r i n g a y ,” E llis to n , V irg in ia , h a v e b e e n m o s t g e n e ro u s in c o u n s e lin g th e w r ite r on m a tte r s p e r ta in in g to th e H a n c o c k s a n d E d m u n d s o n s w ho liv e d a th is g r e a t c o u n try h o u s e of s o u th w e s t V irg in ia . 12 C e rtifie d C opy o f th e A c ts o f 1805 (im p e r f e c t) in th e E d m u n d s o n P a p e r s , V H S ; A cts of th e A ss e m b ly , 1805, p p . 12-14. 13 M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty R e c o rd s , O rd e r B ook X V III, 6, 96. 14 Ib id ., W ill B ook I I I , 68, 155; N o te s of F . B . K e g le y lo a n e d b y G e o rg e A. K eg le y , R o a n o k e , V irg in ia . C ro w ’s f ir s t c o n t r a c t w a s fo r th e th r e e - y e a r p e rio d b e g in n in g in 1813 a t $3,000 a y e a r. 15 M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty R e c o rd s , O rd e r B ook X X I, 139; W ill B o o k I I I , 429-432. 16 I n 1826, E d m u n d s o n b e c a m e th e o w n e r of s ix te e n s la v e s p re v io u s ly o w n ed b y A n d rew L e w is, w ho h a d b e c o m e in d e b te d to th e h e ir s of T h o m a s W h ite in th e a m o u n t o f $2,338.96. E rm u n d s o n l a t e r r e tu r n e d to M a r g a r e t L e w is c e rt a in p e r s o n a l e f f e c ts ; M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty R e c o rd s , D e e d B ook I J , 348-349; W ill B ook IV , 418. 17 A g g re e m e n t b e tw e e n H e n ry E d m u n d s o n a n d G e o rg e H a n c o c k , M ay 26, 1828, E d m u n d ­ so n P a p a r s , V HS. i s A g re e m e n t b e tw e e n G e o rg e H a n c o c k a n d E d w a r d M c D a n ie l, M a r c h , 1828, ib id . 19 M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty R e c o rd s , D eed B ookk K , 162-163, 188. 20 E lija h M c C la n a n h a n in h e rite d a n e s ta te of 814 a c re s fro m h is f a th e r , W illiam M cC la n ah a n , in 1807. M c C la n a h a n a d d e d 641 a c re s to th e in h e r ita n c e a n d r e p r e s e n te d A n d re w L ew is a n d W illiam T a y lo r a s a tto r n e y . S ee B o te to u rt C o u n ty R e c o rd s , D e e d B ook V II, 256-257; D eed B ook IX , 388-389, 602-603; D e e d B ook X III, 202-203; D e e d B ook X IV , 269, 684-685; D e e d B ook X V , 97-98; D e e d B ook X IX , 553. 21 J a m e s B a r n e tt, D eed to H e n ry E d m u n d s o n , M a y 5, 1801, M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty R e c o rd s , D eed B ook C, 399-400. 22 A n d re w L e w is, D e e d to H e n ry E d m u n d s o n , F e b . 3, 1809, M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty R e c o rd s , D e e d B ook D , 662, E d m u n d s o n e ith e r a id e d Col. A n d re w L e w is in a la w s u it b r o u g h t b y A n d rew C o w an o v e r m ilitia p a y , o r s e r v e d in L e w is ’ c o m p a n y h im s e lf, o r b o th , s in c e h e w a s k n o w n a s M a jo r E d m u n d s o n . In a n y e v e n t, E d m u n d s o n ’s re la tio n s w ith L e w is w e re clo se . S ee S a m u e l S h e p h e rd , T h e S ta tu te s a t L a rg e , fro m O c to b e r s e s s io n 1792, to D e c e m b e r s e s sio n , 1806, I n ­ c lu siv e (3 vo ls. R ic h m o n d , 1836), p. 331. 23 H e n ry A lonzo E d m u n d s o n w a s b o rn on J u n e 14, 1814. A fte r g r a d u a tio n fro m G e o rg e to w n U n iv e rs ity h e w a s a d m itte d to th e b a r in 1838 a n d s e t u p la w p r a c t ic e in S a le m . B e tw e e n 1849 a n d 1861 h e s e r v e d in C o n g re s s a s a D e m o c ra t, re s ig n in g in th e l a t t e r y e a r to s e r v e a s a L ie u te n a n t in th e 54th V irg in ia R e g im e n t. H e d ie d o n D e c . 16, 1890, a t " F a ll in g W a te r s ” » S h a w sv ille . S ee B IO G R A P H IC A L D IR E C T O R Y O F C O N G R E S S , p . 838. 24 M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty R e c o rd s , D e e d B ook F , 389, 212. 2 5 M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty R e c o rd s , D e e d B ook F , 449; D e e d B ook H , 479; D e e d B ook K , 65 �503; D e e d B ook N , 409. " F o th e r i n g a y " a n d th e tu r n p ik e In c lu d e d 1,686 a c r e s . 2 6 S w e m , R e g i s t e r o f th e G e n e r a l A ss e m b ly , p . 371. 27 M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty R e c o rd s , D e e d B ook N , 409. A s H ig h S h e riff E d m u n d s o n p ro b a b ly d id n o t h a v e m u c h tro u b le w ith n o n -p a y m e n t of to lls. 28 L y n c h b u rg V irg in ia n , J a n . 10, 1848. E d m u n d s o n 's o b itu a r y w a s m o r e p r o p e r ly an eu lo g y a n d il lu s tr a tiv e of th e y e o m a n id e a l a n d th e r e a l it y o f th e s e lf-m a d e m a n . 29 M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty R e c o rd s , D e e d B ook K , 190-191. I s a a c B ro n s o n w a s a U n ite d S ta te s C o n g re s s m a n fro m N ew Y o rk b e tw e e n 1837 a n d 1839. S ee B io g r a p h ic a l D ir e c to r y of C o n g re s s p . 603. 3 0 I b id ., D e e d B ook K , 658. A t th e a g e of 33, A n d re w B e irn e c a m e to A m e r ic a in 1793 fro m D a n g a n , C o u n ty R o s c a m m o n , I r e la n d . In M o n ro e C o u n ty , V irg in ia , h e e n g a g e d in m e r c a n ­ tile a n d a g r i c u lt u r a l p u r s u its a f t e r r e p r e s e n tin g th a t c o u n ty in th e V irg in ia A ss e m b ly . S e rv e d b e tw e e n 1837 a n d 1841 a s a U n ite d S ta te s C o n g re s s m a n . S ee B io g r a p h ic a l D ir e c to r y o f C o n g re s s , p . 536. 3 0 G e o rg e H a n c o c k to H e n ry E d m u n d s o n , L o u isv ille , K y ., A p r. 11, 1834, E d m u n d s o n P a p e r s , V HS. 31 E l ija h M c C la n a h a n to H e n ry E d m u n d s o n , J u ly 7, 1833, ib id . 3 2 G e o rg e H a n c o c k to H e n ry E d m u n d s o n , L o u isv ille , K y ., N o v . 1, 1833, ib id . 3 3 M e m o ra n d a of H e n ry E d m u n d s o n , M ay 30, 1835, ib id . 3 4 E lija h M c C la n a h a n to H e n ry E d m u n d s o n , C h r is tia n s b u r g , A p ril 10, 1838, E d m u n d s o n P a p e r s , V H S. 3 5 E l ija h M c C la n a h a n to H e n ry E d m u n d s o n , J u ly 8, 1831, ib id . 36 P r e s id e n t a n d B o a rd o f D ir e c to r s of th e S a le m a n d P e p p e r 's F e r r y T u r n p ik e C o m ­ p a n y , ‘‘R e p o rt f o r 1848" in C o m m o n w e a lth o f V irg in ia , A n n u a l R e p o r t o f th e B o a r d o f P u b lic W o rk s (R ic h m o n d , 1848); h e r e i n a f te r c ite d a s V irg in ia P u b lic W o rk s R e p o r ts , X X X III (1848), 699-700. 3 7 E lija h M c C la n a h a n to H e n r y E d m u n d s o n , J u ly 7, 1833, E d m u n d so n P a p e rs, th e A lle g h a n y T o il A c c o u n t (1838-1839), T h o m a s G o re a n d J o n a th a n L in k w e r e lis te d a s o v e r s e e r s of v a rio u s m a in te n a n c e w o rk . 3 8 E lija h M c C la n a h a n to H e n ry E d m u n d s o n , D e c . ? , 1839, E d m u n d s o n P a p e r s , V H S. 3 9 M rs. J a n e W . M u rra y to H a r r y E d m u n d s o n , A lle g h a n y T o llg a te , A p r. 36, 1838, E d m u n d so n P a p e r s , VHS. V H S. In 4 0 E l ija h M c C la n a h a n to H e n ry E d m u n d s o n , D e c . ? , 1839; ib id . 41 M rs. J a n e W . M u r r a y to H e n ry E d m u n d s o n , A lle g h a n y T o llg a te , A p r. 17, 1841; ib id . 4 2 E lija h M c C la n a h a n to H e n ry E d m u n d s o n , A u g . 16, 1844; ib id . 4 3 E l ija h M c C la n a h a n to H e n r y E d m u n d s o n ,M a r . 5, 1844, E d m u n d so n P a p e rs, 4 4 A c ts of th e G e n e ra l A ss e m b ly , 1838. ( R ic h m o n d , 1839), p p . 130-135. C a p ita liz a tio n ra n g e d fro m $5,000 (B la c k s b u rg -N e w p o rt) to $30,000 ( B u c h a n a n - B la c k s b u r g ) . E a c h w a s r e q u ir e d to b e c le a r e d to a w id th of th i r ty fe e t a n d s u r f a c e d to tw e n ty f e e t in w id th . 4 5 Ib id ., X X X I (1846), 359. 4 6 W illia m M . P e y to n to H e n ry E d m u n d s o n , F e b . 13, 1838, E d m u n d s o n P a p e r s , V H S . P e y to n w a s a d e le g a te , 1838-1839. S e e L y n c h b u rg V irg in ia n , D e c . 35, 1845, f o r d e b a te o n th e lo c a tio n o f th e ro a d a n d th e a m e n d m e n ts o ffe re d by v a rio u s " i n t e r e s t s " f o r p e c u n ia r y r e a s o n s . 4 7 V irg in ia P u b lic W o rk s R e p o rt, X X X I (1846), 553-556. 4 8 V irg in ia P u b lic W o rk s R e p o rts , X X X II (1847), 30; X X X III (1848), 530; M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty RecoHd.«^ W ill B ook V II, 107*100. 4 9 E l ija h M c C la n a h a n to H e n ry E d m u n d s o n , A u g . 16, 1844, E d m u n d s o n P a p e r s , V H S. s o S ee E d m u n d P . G o odw in, " T h e S o u th W e s te rn T u rn p ik e R o a d ," J o u r n a l o f th e R o a n o k e H is to ric a l S o c ie ty , I I (S u m m e r, 1965), 1-3, 33-34. s i P r in te d C ir c u la r L e tte r of th e A u g u s ta C o u n ty C o m m itte e o f C o rre s p o n d e n c e , F e b . 18, 1831, E d m u n d s o n P a p e r s , V H S. In J u n e , 1838, th e C e n tr a l A ss e m b ly re c o m m e n d e d a lib e r a l s y s te m of im p ro v e m e n ts th ro u g h o u t th e s ta t e w h ic h in c lu d e d a d d itio n a l tu r n p ik e s a n d a r a i l ­ r o a d fro m W y th e v ille to th e T e n n e s s e e lin e , w ith a b r a n c h to D a n v ille a n d a n o th e r o n e to th e J a m e s R iv e r, S ee L y n c h b u rg V irg in ia n , J u n e 39, 1838. Where We Were in 1806 This excerpt from an account of Virginia’s counties and their “capitals” was printed in Baltimore 164 years ago by John West Butler. This copy was purchased by Harry Stevens of Botetourt County in 1833. Its full title is “Geographical Compilation for the Use of Schools being an accurate description of all the empires, kingdoms, republics and states in the known world: with an account of their popu­ lation government, religion, manners, literature, universities, his­ tory, civil divisions, ecclesiastical hierarchy, principal cities, with an account of their importance, remarkable monuments, illustrious citizens, commerce and population.” This was arranged in catech­ etical form, compiled from the best American, English and French authors in two volumes by D.L.C., teacher of geography. 66 V �h᧠AMERICA. A. Charlestown, a handsome place of about houses. Q. 35\, hat is the capital of Hampshire ? A . Romney, on the southern branch of the Potowmac; it has 70 houses. Q. What is the capital of Hardy ? A. Moorfield, on the South branch of the Potowmac; it has about 70 houses. Q. What is the capital of Frederick? A . Winchester, on Opeckon creek, the most Considerable town of the western district; it has a newly built Roman Catholic Church, and three for Protestants, a Court House and a ^aol. Winchester carries on much trade in flour. Population 2,000 inhabitants. Q. Wh at is the capital of Shenandoah ? A. Woodstock, on a branch of the Shenando.Vh ; it is chiefly inhabited by Germans, and has 200 houses. Q. What is the capital of Rockingham ? A . Rockingham, or Rocktown, or a branch of the Shenandoah ; it has only 30 houses. Q. What is the capital of Augusta? A. Staunton, on Middle river ; it has a Court House, a gaol, and about 1(50 houses, mostly of stone. Q . What is the capital of Rockbridge ? A. Lexington; it has 100 houses; about a mile from the town is Washington college, formerly Liberty Hall Acadamy, endowed by General Washington, and capable of containing 50 students. In this county is the famous nat­ ural bridge, which consists of a rock arched hy nature, that unites two hills ¡ it is 40 feet 60 �AMERICA. 835 thick, 90 long, and 60 broad; its elevatoin from the water underneath is 205, or according to some, 270 feet. Q. What is the capital of Botetourt? A. Fincastle, on Catabow creek. Popula­ tion 700 inhabitants. Q. What is the capital of Montgomery ? A. Ch ristiansburg, near Little River. Q. What is the capital of Grayson ? A . There is no county town. Q. What is the capital of Wythe? A. Evansham, it has only 25 houses ; in this county are several lead mines. Q. What is the capital of Washington conn* ty? A . Abingdon; population 400 inhabitants, Q. W hat are the capitals of the remaining counties of Virginia ? A . Lee has Jonesviile; Russell and Kenhaway have no towns ; Greenbriar has Lewisburg,a town of 60 houses; Bath has no town, but celebrated hot springs; Pendleton has Frankfort, a to^ri of 30 houses; Randolph has no town; Mo­ nongalia has for capital Morgantown, which has 40 houses, on Monongahela river; Harrison has Clarksburg on the the Monongahela, a town of 40 houses ; and Ohio has West Liberty, on the Ohio, a flourishing town, with some public buildings and 120 houses. Y Yy a �ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Amor montium nos movet J. T. E ngleby HI .......... .................................................... ... President R obert W. W oody ......................................................... . Vice President Mrs . R oger W in b o r n e ................................................... Vice President A rthur E llett ............................................... ......... .............. Treasurer J. R. H il d e b r a n d ........................ ........................... ..... . . . . Secretary Mrs . J oel W il l is R ichert ...................... ........... Executive Secretary D irectors Raymond P. Barnes C. P. Blair John D. Carr Mrs. H. Powell Chapman C. Francis Cocke Mrs. John Copenhaver S. S. Edmunds Arthur Ellett J. T. Engleby III B. N. Eubank Edmund P. Goodwin Mrs. Edmund P. Goodwin Jack Goodykoontz Miss Anna Louise Haley J. R. Hildebrand Miss Nancy E. Himes Shields Johnson George Kegley Mrs. George Kegley R. S. Kime Mrs. H. P. Kyle Mrs. J. M. B. Lewis Jr. Miss Nancy Logan Richard L. Meagher Leonard G. Muse Miss Frances Niederer E. H. Ould James D. Richardson Mrs. English Showalter R. D. Stoner Paul S. Stonesifer David F. Thornton James L. Trinkle William Watts Mrs. Roger Winborne James P. Woods Robert W. Woody Dr. J. C. Zillhardt �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society Summer 1970 Volume 7, Number 1 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />The Great Flood of 1749<br />Roanoke County in the 1840s<br />A Misty Tour of Henry<br />The Town of Newbern<br />On Campus 70 Years Ago<br />Woolen Mill, a Major Botetourt Industry<br />Civil War Draft Problems in the Shenandoah Valley<br />Hales Ford Classical School<br />Botetourt's 200th Birthday<br />Col. William Fleming Recalled<br />High Bridge Church is 200<br />James McDowell's Travels in 1828<br />Alleghany Turnpike, 7 Miles Long<br />Where We Were in 1806 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Summer 1970 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_07_01_Summer_1970 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6347/JHSWV_07_02_NoYear.pdf fae8b262b65b7ff76b6e7d663304e7df PDF Text Text JOURNAL of tlie ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY V o lu m e Seven N um ber Tw o �CONTENTS Gen. James Breckinridge, Frontier Man for All Seasons, by Katherine Kennedy McNulty ............................ ..................... 1 Botetourt’s Three Courthouses, by R. D. S t o n e r ................................ 21 “A Disastrous Conflagration” ................................................................. 26 “Fire Remedy” is 1,400 Years O ld .......................................................... 28 Roanoke’s 300th Anniversary by Edmund P. G o o d w in ...................... 29 Early Lighting Devices, by L ee W inborne ........................................... 35 Montgomery Men in Mexico, by Frank R. Levstik, J r ......................... 43 Rev. Peyton M. Lewis, Slave, Teacher, P re a ch e r................................. 47 Bedford Saves an Old C hu rch................................................................... 51 Floyd County in the 1890’s, by R obert G o o d y k o on tz .......................... 53 George K egley Editor o f the JOURNAL The Journal o f the Roanoke Historical Society, Volume VII, Number 2. Published twice yearly by the Society at Box 1904, Roanoke, Vir­ ginia 24008, to chronicle the past and present o f that part o f the state west o f the Blue Ridge. Single copy price fo r m em bers: $1; fo r non-members, $1.50. The Society will be careful in handling unsoli­ cited m aterial but cannot be responsible fo r its loss. �Gen. James Breckinridge, Frontier Man for All Seasons James Breckinridge by K atherine K ennedy McNulty James Breckinridge, frontier aristocrat, was active in the Virginia House of Delegates during the formation of the United States under the new Constitution. He was a member of Congress from 1809 -1817, a time when the young nation was beginning to stand on its own and develop internal­ ly and internationally. Bearing the Federalist label, Breckinridge’s career fluctuated with Republican mistakes. But he was more of an �independent politician than a doctrinaire Federalist. He voted with expediency to benefit his state and his agricultural section of Virginia. Genuinely interested in developing education and transportation in Virginia, he served on a Janies and Kanawha River canal commission and he worked with Thomas Jefferson in initiating the new University of Virginia. Of great significance to Breckinridge was the Virginia militia of which he was a member from his boyhood days during the Revolution until the War of 1812, when he attained the rank of brigadier general. But it was Breckinridge’s estate, Grove Hill, that gave him the status of frontier aristocrat. Breckinridge amassed a land empire in the Valley of Virginia at a time when land could be bought almost for the asking. Soldier, surveyor, lawyer, educator, politician, and planter, Breck­ inridge led a full and interesting life and can lay claim to being another of Virginia’s outstanding citizens. Early Life To be a Breckinridge of Virginia or of Kentucky between 1750 and 1865 was to belong to one of the most prominent political dynas­ ties in the United States of America. All the members of this family before the end of the American Revolution spelled their name “Breckenridge”; afterwards both John Breckinridge, who removed to Ken­ tucky, and James Breckinridge, who remained in Virginia, adopted the spelling “Breckinridge.”' Although its members were convinced of the superiority of a republican form of government and of the necessity for the protec­ tion of individual freedom by means of a Bill of Rights, the Breckinridges were not less devoted to the maintenance of property rights. Not unlike European aristocrats, in the fertile valleys of transmontane Virginia and in Kentucky, these “barons of the Bluegrass” were acute­ ly conscious of their interrelationship with similar families, chief of whom were the Prestons and their cousinly network of Pattons, Buch­ anans, Floyds, McDowells, and Browns. Among the first families of these border lands between Piedmont, Virginia and the Ohio, there were some of German origin, such as the Hites, and some of Anglican roots, such as the Innesses and Donelsons; but most were, like the Breckinridges and Prestons, Scotch-Irish. With few exceptions before the Civil War, they “went in for land speculation and Indian fighting, for politics and public affairs. . . Fellow citizens honored one Breckinridge with a nomination as U. S. presidential candidate after he had already been a vice president 2 �at thirty-five years of age. Before the Civil War, the Breckinridge name was borne by two senators, five representatives, four generals, three ministers and college presidents, and a minister of Russia. Mari­ tal connections included governors, senators, representatives, gen­ erals, and cabinet members.3 With dignity and sometimes with elegance, the Breckinridge men disproved the old Virginia saying that “Gentlemen and clams end at the fall line.” They were usually “over six feet (in height); handsome with auburn or chestnut hair, which turned prematurely silver or iron gray; eyes piercing and deep set.”4 James Breckinridge was six feet two inches in height with broad shoulders and an erect carriage. He possessed “a fine head with high, expansive brow, a well-shaped mouth and a keen piercing eye. He was elegant in his dress, generally appearing in public with neat fitting cloth coat and pants, polished boots, spotless ruffled bosom, and gold headed cane.”3 Land W as important Just as was the case among Tidewater planters, the Breckinridges sought and acquired title to large, undeveloped tracts of land as a legacy for their children. Since there were not even banks in British North America, there was little alternative to investment in land. In the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the Breckinridges became successful speculators in the lands located in the Western counties of Virginia and in Kentucky. In this activity they followed in the train of the Prestons who came to western Virginia somewhat sooner, with greater capital, and with pre-existing political and finan­ cial allies in the Virginia Tidewater. In 1728 Alexander Breckenridge arrived in Philadelphia with his wife family of young children, and a small amount of capital. He was ’possessed of an ambition fired by a capacity for hard work; and his subsequent activities gave proof of his success. He was the pro­ genitor of the Breckinridges of Virginia and Kentucky and the grand­ father of the subject of this study.3 Direct evidence is lacking to es­ tablish Alexander’s motives in coming from Great Britain via Phila­ delphia to what became the town of Staunton in the Valley of Virginia. Yet there is abundant indirect evidence to project the broad outlines of the Breckinridges’ hardy independence on Virginia’s transmontane frontier in the half century before the United States of America won its independence. If the Breckinridges’ achievement of the Ameri­ can dream revealed a mixture of aristocratic and democratic values, of material success and religious satisfaction, it is likely that they were typical of frontier leadership. Economic opportunity in Northern Ireland was restricted enough, 3 �but for a man of as large a family as Alexander Breckenridge’s, it was oppressive. For a man of as enterprising nature as Breckenridge was to remain in Pennsylvania where the Penns sold land for between ten and fifteen pounds an acre was hardly a meaningful option. In Vir­ ginia, on the other hand, land was to be had from the crown for only ten shillings for each hundred acres. Even after the costs of locating, surveying, and registering land were paid by the Virginia settler lucky enough to obtain land directly from the colony, amounting to about two pounds per hundred acres for small tracts, he paid a great deal less than what was required in Pennsylvania for his homesite. Advertisements in port towns lured many emigrants to the bor­ der settlements. By 1736 William Beverley, a grandson of the famous William Byrd of Westover and a member of the colonial council, had settled sixty-seven Scotch-Irish families on his tract situated on the headwaters of the Shenandoah that he called his Manor of Bever­ ley, after having sold to the settlers on generous terms of payment parcels of less than 400 acres for about one-half shilling per acre. Be­ cause of his success in thus populating the frontier, Beverley and a syndicate he formed received 118,491 acres.7 The Family's First 450 Acres Alexander Breckenridge was no longer a greenhorn when, on May 22, 1740,7 A he traveled to Orange Court House to obtain 450 acres of land to which he swore that he was entitled under Virginia’s ancient head-rights system of land tenure which awarded to whom­ ever transported persons into a colony a bounty of fifty acres per head. Alexander Breckenridge might have been stretching the truth when he swore that he transported to the Augusta region himself, his wife, and their seven children: John, George, Robert, James, Smith, Jane and Letitia.7-8 It is possible that Alexander Breckenridge may have been in the vicinity of Staunton in the Augusta area for some while since deeds were registered in his name in 1738. 8 8A The village of Staunton grew up on Lewis Creek after its foun­ dation by John Lewis in 1732, but it was not incorporated as a town until 1761.9 If the Breckenridges lived there, as was likely, they moved farther west in the 1740’s to the Tinkling Spring neighborhood. At about the same time some other Scotch-Irish settlers made similar moves. Among these were the Pattons and the Prestons; and all three families were members of the congregation of the Tinkling Spring Presbyterian Church, which was founded in 1738. When Breckenridge died in 1744,9 A he was a member of its board of trustees.10 So was Colonel James Patton, the frontier magnate who had invested in Au­ gusta County the proceeds of his voyages between the British Isles and North America, in which trade he had been an associate of Col4 �onel Beverley in transporting Scotch-Irish settlers to transmontane Virginia." Upon Alexander Breckenridge’s death, the leadership of his fam­ ily passed to his son Robert who was then about twenty-two years old.12 He was destined to establish his family’s fortune as a surveyor, Indian fighter, and civic leader of the frontier. In 1750, the young man’s stature was sufficiently recognized for him to be joined with such established figures as Andrew Lewis, the Indian fighter, and Robert McClanahan, the high sheriff of Augusta, as surveyors of lots in the growing town of Staunton. A decade later, when the town was incorporated, Breckenridge was elected to its board of trustees.13 It can only be a matter of conjecture to attribute any financial involvement by the Breckenridges in the grandiose schemes for a land­ ed empire that Colonel James Patton had inherited from his business dealings with William Beverley, but the role of minor partner in such an enterprise became a stronger probability with the son, Robert, than it had been with the father, Alexander. Certainly, Robert Breckenridge was as concerned as his fellow frontiersmen when, in July, 1755, Col­ onel Patton was killed by the Indians when seeking to plant a settle­ ment about 150 miles southwest of Augusta at Draper’s Meadows.14 It appeared as if the Virginia frontier would be engulfed in a general uprising, and retrenchment was the order of the day. Robert Breck­ enridge had been commissioned a captain of Rangers since 1755 and he became a lieutenant colonel of the Augusta militia during the French and Indian war.15 However, when Augusta did not furnish its militia to aid Braddock’s march, Virginia’s Governor Dinwiddie became so furious at Breckenridge that he ordered Andrew Lewis to “put him out of his commission.” The disaster of Braddock’s march and the alarms on the southwestern frontier so impressed Lewis that he did not follow the Governor’s orders against his long-time associate and friend.16 In 1752 Robert married Mary Poage who bore him two sons, Rob­ ert Jr:, and Alexander, before her early death. In 1758 he remarried, this time to Lettice, or Letitia,17 17 A the daughter of John and Eliza­ beth Patton Preston and the sister of Colonel William Preston, who had succeeded his uncle, Colonel Patton, as the leader of their family and of its land speculations. By this alliance, the Breckenridges gained full acceptance as leaders of transmontane Virginia. The M ove to Botetourt in 1760's Following Colonel Preston’s example, Robert Breckenridge Sr., moved his family southward “sometime in the early 1760’s” to the area near Fincastle in what was to become in 1769, Botetourt County. 5 �Here, he and his wife raised their five children: William, their first son; John, the second; James, born March 7, 1763, was the third; fol­ lowed by their daughters, Elizabeth and Jane, who died young; and Preston, the youngest son. 18 According to family tradition, young Alexander and Robert Breckenridge Jr., did not get along with their new stepmother, although they were on good terms with her brother, Colonel William Preston. Proba­ bly at the boys’ request, the latter arranged for Robert Breckenridge Sr., to apprentice them in the building trade to Francis Smith, the “undertaker” of Hanover County who was Preston’s father-in-law. This was accomplished, and when Robert Jr., and Alexander com­ pleted some eighteen months apprenticeship, they built in 1772-1773, Colonel Preston’s new seat, Smithfield Plantation, some sixty miles southwest of Fincastle in what was to become in 1776, Montgomery County. These two Breckenridge boys subsequently removed to Ken­ tucky, where Colonel Preston had extensive lands which required management; but they did not pass on until after Alexander had served Colonel Andrew Lewis’ division in Lord Dunmore’s War.19 Few details are known of James Breckinridge’s boyhood. Like most lads, he liked to hunt and fish and shoot; and he probably dis­ liked performing chores. From the time that his father died, when the boy was nine years old, his Uncle William Preston served as his and his younger brother Preston’s guardian. He was at least occa­ sionally under the kindly admonition of his mother’s brother-in-law, the Rev. John Brown, parson of the New Providence and Timber Ridge Presbyterian churches in Augusta County.20 But the boy must have been more interested in the militia musters that took place near his father’s ordinary at Fincastle,2' and perhaps he helped wash the mugs from which the soldiers in buckskin quenched their thirst. He was eleven when his family’s friend, Andrew Lewis, received orders from Governor Lord Dunmore to enlist more men into the Botetourt militia and to march them down the Kanawha River to its junction with the Ohio in order to crush the Shawnee Indian power. Among those com­ manded by Colonel Lewis in Dunmore’s War were James Breckin­ ridge’s half-brother, Alexander, while his cousin, James Brown, ser­ ved in James Harrod’s party under Colonel William Fleming.22 Like most Virginians, Robert Breckenridge Sr., had been “hardpressed for cash.” By raising “hemp as his chief money crop,” he prospered enough to purchase two slaves in 1771 for 150 pounds.23 We may safely speculate that these two slaves were intended for the cultivation of hemp and for helping Mrs. Breckenridge as house servants. Eight additional slaves were purchased before Robert’s death on August 17, 1772.23 A After his demise, his ten slaves and 6 �2,000 acres were divided among his wife and children. By his last will and testament he provided that when James became twenty-one in 1784, he should receive half of his father’s 800 acres of land on Tinker Creek “known by the name of the Lower Place.”24 Although his will was valid, Robert Breckenridge’s usual informal way of transacting business led to land disputes that complicated settlement of the estate. Mrs. Letitia Preston Breckenridge was confined to her house by illness during most of the first year of her widowhood. Not only was she burdened with the problem of finding an overseer, but many of the problems of settling her husband’s estate fell upon her. Numer­ ous joint claims and dual ownerships made settlement practicularly difficult.25 Like most families whose capital was invested almost exclusively in land, the Breckinridges were short of cash during immediately after the Revolutionary War. As a consequence, they turned to the production of hemp, brandy, and whiskey to obtain goods which they hoped to exchange for cash but which they knew they could barter for articles.26 Shift To Episcopal Church Evolution of the Breckenridges from Presbyterians into Episcopal­ ians occured after their removal to Botetourt. Bishop William Meade gave the contradictory and implausible explanation that James Breck­ inridge was one of those recalled to “the faith of their forefathers” by the Reverend Mr. Gray, who was the Episcopal minister at Fincastle in the late 1790’s before he “died in the parish poor-house, the miserable victim of drink.”27 Chronologically it is much more probable that Fincastle’s rector in 1774-1776, the Rev. Adam Smyth, brought young Breckinridge into the Anglican Church. Contrary to general belief, the Episcopal minis­ ters in the valley, led by the Rev. John Jones of Augusta, were pat­ riots, not loyalists. During the Revolution, they managed to join together in the popular mind their clerical complaints against the royal authorities with popular resentment against British authority that seemed ready to thwart acquisition of land in Kentucky.28 But theological hair-splitting was hardly the normal preoccupation of aschoolboy whose uncle was a Presbyterian minister and who grew up to be an Anglican. In 1770 young Jaimy Breckinridge, along with his Preston and Smith cousins, was tutored at his uncle William Preston’s Greenfield estate near Fincastle. Colonel Preston was a resourceful man in se7 �curing tutors for his family. He once had bought the services of a fine classical scholar named Palfreman, whose creditors in England had sold him into indentured servitude in Virginia, but he came to admire that tutor so much that he released him from his obligations. Utilizing his commanding position as county land surveyor of Bote­ tourt— and later of Montgomery—which extended indefinitely to the south and west and included all of the present state of Kentucky and most of West Virginia, Preston required persons desirous of becom­ ing his deputy surveyors to teach his children for about six months. John Floyd accepted these terms, and it was to him that Jaimy Breck­ inridge went to school until 1773. In that year, Colonel Preston moved his family and the school to his new seat, Smithfield Plantation, farther west, from which he better could superintend his own and his re­ latives’ extensive land claims. At the same time, the Colonel dis­ patched John Floyd to Kentucky. Both John and James Breckinridge later taught for awhile at Smithfield after completing their studies at William and Mary.29 In 1777 Colonel Preston secured a new tutor by the name of Philip Bacragar who would teach his son and his sister’s sons. Every­ thing would be provided for the children who lodged at the tutor’s home except for bedding, which they would have to bring by wagon. Meals would include “beef, bacon, milk, butter, turnips, cabbage, and good bread.” Colonel Preston paid 10 pounds a year for each boy, with a bonus if the Colonel thought it deserved.30 It is likely that the curriculum of the tutorial school did not differ greatly from that at Nomini Hall, Westmoreland County, where in 1773-1774 Philip Fithian taught the eight children of the Tidewater nabob, Colonel Robert Carter. Just before his graduation from Princeton, Fithian received from Carter an offer of 35 pounds a year to teach his eight children English, Latin and Greek.31 Breckinridge Goes To War James’ education was, however, interrupted by the tumultous events of his times. At eighteen years of age Jaimy Breckinridge joined his Uncle Preston’s company of riflemen and served briefly under General Nathaniel Green in North Carolina.32 Like most young men, Breckinridge wanted to see for himself places about which he had heard exciting tales. In 1783 he wrote his mother of an intended trip to Kentucky, stressing with the inno­ cence of a favored son that he was short of both money and clothes.33 Writing to his elder brother Johnny, he mentioned that another in­ tended trip on surveying business was delayed because of poor horses. Surveying jobs in Kentucky gave the young man a good excuse to explore in that area in September, 1784.34 Four years later, when 8 �John contemplated moving to Kentucky, James was still so enthused about the bluegrass region that he declared that Kentucky was “the country in which at present I design burying my bones.” He advised John to wait two or three years before moving his family thither, by which time the area would have become more settled and freer of Indian trouble. He confided to his brother that only his lack of money had prevented him from purchasing a larger Kentucky land claim.35 Even so, he was interested in 7,000 acres of military warrants, in which his cousin John Brown and his half-brother, Robert Breck­ inridge were also interested.36 The hard times of post-Revolutionary years curbed most speculative schemes everywhere in the United States, but deflation was particularly severe in Virginia. Well aware of his inability to fulfill his contract to buy, and equally aware of the decline of land prices, John Brown expressed hopes that Jaimy could interest in their project speculators in Richmond and Williamsburg.37 Breckinridge’s enthusiasm for Kentucky waned and his cousin James Brown questioned his intentions. Urging him to come to Ken­ tucky to live, Brown described how good-looking the girls of Ken­ tucky were in hopes that such a “very womanish man” as Breckin­ ridge would regain his earlier enthusiasm. He reproached Jaimy for his conviction “that Beauty without wealth have no charms.” Continuing his bantering, he wrote that his cousin must have “turned Jew” to believe that there was “No Happiness in Life without Money— No honor without Money, No Women without Money . . .”38 Study at William and Mary Following in the footsteps of his brother John, the Brown boys, and several other relations, James Breckinridge decided to complete his education which had been interrupted by the war. There is differ­ ence of opinion on when John and James attended the College of William and Mary because its records are so fragmentary for the years 1780-1790. Because the History of the College listed James as graduating in 1785 with John’s subsequent achievements, there has been much confusion.39 According to his biography, John entered William and Mary in the fall of 1780 but returned home in 1781 when classes were suspended because of Revolutionary War activities. He returned to Williamsburg in 1783, when classes resumed, but left again in June, 1784, because of a money shortage.40 That John was in Williamsburg in 1784 rather than James is certain from a letter of May 23, 1784, in which James recounted how he and his cousin, John Preston of Greenfield, campaigned in Botetourt for John’s reelection to the General Assembly while John divided his time between his studies at Williamsburg and his legislative duties at Richmond.4' 9 ��Interesting antiques from Gen. Breckinridge's home, Grove Hill, which stood near Fincastle until it was destroyed by fire in 1909, are now owned by Mrs. English Showalter of Roanoke, a descendant. Shown here are a Girandoli Independence mirror, made by a lost art; an Adam chair; a bowl and pitcher from the home of Breckinridge's father-in-law, Cary Selden of Elizabeth City County; a letter from Henry Clay and an invitation to Mrs. Breckinridge to a ball given by "the citizens of Georgetown in compliment to Mrs. M adison" in March, 1817. 11 �In November, 1786, James announced his intention to winter in Williamsburg because his clients would give him no surveying bus­ iness in that season. Asking John to advise him on the merits of studying natural and moral philosophy, the twenty-three-year-old Jaimy blithely requested his brother also to forward his clothes, which he had forgotten.« In the spring of 1787, John wrote to his mother of James’ financial distress and suggested that, since he could not spare any money, Mrs. Breckinridge should insist that the play­ boy Jaimy return home. Apparently the feckless blade did return to Botetourt, but it was only for a summer vacation until his return to Williamsburg in the autumn.« The last record of James’ residence in Williamsburg was in December, 1788, when he had recovered from what must have been a severe illness. To the prodigal, Brother John conveyed their mother’s uneasiness about Jaim y.« Since Jaimy’s reply was dated March 6, 1789, from Botetourt/5 one may surmise that James Breckinridge terminated his studies at William and Mary in the winter of 1789. Nevertheless, both James and John were exposed to the changes which Governor Thomas Jefferson instigated in 1779 at the College of William and Mary. Chief among these was the establishment of a professorship of law and police, chaired by George Wythe, who previously had taught law informally. The method of legal instruction was based more upon philosophic principles in those days, but Wythe also lectured extensively and made use of Blackstone’s Commentaries as a convient abridgement. More important was the Moot Court, which met “monthly or oftener” in the old General Court in the Capital, over which he and other professors presided as judges.46 Letters To Brother John It is at this point in his life that James Breckinridge had the time to correspond with his brother Johnny in letters that show the warmth of his personality. Professing to be more homesick than a prodigal son, Jaimy declared that his brother abandoned and neglected him, ignoring the fact that John was burdened with a family and a business: I have written to you so frequently since I came here without receiving any answer . . . I would not think of taking up your time with reading my nonsense, was it not to convince you that time or the distance which separate us has not yet eradi­ cated my usual affection for you . . . Your not writing I am sure has not been occasioned by the want of opportunities, you have the daily ( post) to Richmond from where the (letter) would come by the Stage safe to me. But I believe nothing is wanting but an inclination which I don’t think any apology ought to excuse . . ,47 12 �Yet the following winter his cousin, Francis Preston, admonished James for being “ungrateful, ungenerous, & lazy” in not answering his letters. Morever, his mother was also anxious to hear from him.48 Actually, correspondence with the two brothers was frequent, often treating scholastic problems. John wrote to James that he was quite courageous in studying Blackstone, but that he should not fear being overpowered by him. He thought James’ talents would suit him well as a lawyer and advised him to “look around you (among those I mean, whose Line in Life you intend to pursue), it is im­ possible you can be discouraged.” As a course of study, he recom­ mended Lawson’s Orator, Cicero’s de orator, Sheridan’s On Elocu­ tion, and Blair’s Sermons.48 Jaimy was quite a ladies’ man, to judge from somewhat racy allusions in his correspondence with his cousin, John Brown, and friend, Samuel McCraw.50 The college youth spent much time traveling back and forth to Richmond, where he visited his cousin, Francis Preston, during sessions of the legislature. When on one occasion he forgot his shirt, Preston declared that he himself would have kept it, but that more honest people had sent it on. Most likely, Breck­ inridge engaged in the favorite pastime of having sport with the reynards while he was in Richmond.51 Another indication of Jaimy’s gallantry showed that the young swain could summon up the strength of a warrior. According to cousin John Preston, “Jeamy Breckin­ ridge fought a duel in Richmond with a certain Young-husband . . . the story was told very favorably for Jaimy.”52 Debates of 1788 It was on one of the expeditions to Richmond that James Breck­ inridge attended debates of the Ratifying Convention of 1788. Properly impressed by that galaxy of Virginia founding fathers who included Edmund Randolph, Patrick Henry, James Monroe, Edmund Pendle­ ton, George Mason, John Marshall, Henry Lee, and James Madison, the young man from Botetourt wrote to Brother Johnny that the de­ bates were “elaborate, elegant, eloquent, and consequently enter­ taining and instructive.” He noted that the convention had intended to argue the Constitution clause by clause, but that the members abandoned such a methodical course as being inexpedient. According to him, it was commonly believed that the only important point of contention was whether amendments should be added before or after adoption of the Constitution. It was his opinion that the anti-federal­ ists’ major purpose was only to require that adherents of immediate ratification give assurance that the Bill of Rights would be added soon after ratification. 13 �Sarcastically, James noted that delegates from Kentucky and the western regions were afraid that northern interests might try to thwart their economic and political progress. The Kentuckians, he commented, succumbed to Patrick Henry’s “eloquence and oratory” which often led “ignorant people astray.” Instead of the mercurial Henry, Breckinridge preferred “Madison, plain (and) ingenious,” even if he was easily eclipsed once the orator of the Revolution per­ suaded the gullible.53 When he returned to the valley in the winter of 1789, James Breckinridge was admitted to the Botetourt bar. Because his com­ munity could not support a lawyer who did not have other economic interests, he became quite active as a surveyor. Most of his law cases were routine, being mainly concerned with “land titles, the collection of debts, the interpretation of wills, and the management of estates.” The careless Virginia land grant system allowed for litigation, and the need for uniform currency caused difficulty in collecting debts.54 Deputy Clerk at 19 Breckinridge already possessed experience with legal forms in­ asmuch as he, at the ripe old age of nineteen, had been, in June, 1782, the unanimous choice of the county justices for the position of deputy clerk. As a popular young war veteran, as well as being the most prosperous young man of the county, Breckinridge in 1789 easily secured election to the General Assembly. His appointment as one of the trustees of Fincastle on November 14, 1789, was al­ most perfunctory. In May, 1796, he was appointed, along with Henry Bowyer and John Miller, to contract the building of a clerk’s office on the Courthouse Common, which was not to cost more than 200 pounds.55 On March 15, 1791, George Washington noted to the Secretary of the Treasury that James Breckinridge had been appointed inspec­ tor of survey No. 6, which included the counties of Rockbridge, Bote­ tourt, Montgomery, Wythe, Washington, Russell, Greenbrier and Kanawha. Breckinridge undoubtedly welcomed his salary of $450 and a commission of one percent.56 He particularly welcomed the receipt of hard money, after a decade of Revolutionary deflation and depression, because he had only recently acquired a bride. James Breckinridge and Ann Selden were married on New Year’s Day, 1791. By marrying the daughter of Cary Selden of Eliza­ beth City County,57 Breckinridge won acceptance of his family by longestablished Tidewater families, who often were inclined to disparage men from beyond the mountains. The marriage ceremony was per14 �I.W TfTOU R T 1 . R0CKBR106E 4. KANAWHA 3. S H E E N B R I E R 5. M O N RO E THE FIFTH COM6RE55IONAL, OR BOTETOURT DISTRICT,OF VIRGINIA. R E P R E S E N T E D BY J A M E S B R E C K IN R ID G E 1809 - 1&I7 formed by the Rev. James Buchanan, the rector (1785-1822) of St. John’s Church, Richmond. The Seldens long had been associated with St. John’s, where their kinsman, the Rev. Miles Selden, had been rector of Henrico Parish from 1756 to 1785 and had been a promin­ ent Revolutionary leader as chairman of the Henrico Committee of Safety.58 The young Breckinridges set up housekeeping in Fincastle and soon witnessed the birth (on August 26, 1791 ) 58 A of their first child, Letitia. Their family increased almost annually and caused father James to return to the legislature to help provide for his growing family. Thus, at twenty-eight years of age, James Breckinridge could look back upon an exciting youth that might have led him into the life of a Kentucky speculator, but which saw him combine an edu­ cation for a Virginia career in law and politics with the high jinks of a young blueblood. The prosperous state of the nation in 1791 per­ mitted Breckinridge to look forward to wealth and station in Bote­ tourt, Virginia, and perhaps the nation. Service in the House For thirteen sessions, during the years 1789-1824, James Breck15 �inridge served as a member of the House of Delegates of the Com­ monwealth of Virginia. He was first elected in 1789, the year of George Washington’s inauguration, as an ambitious young man just out of the College of William and Mary. He and his neighbor, Robert Harvey, were selected to make the trip to Richmond to represent the citizens of Botetourt County. The following year he was accompanied by Mar­ tin McFerran to the General Assembly.59 Around 1790, when Virginia had a population of only 691,737,«° annual elections to the legislature were decided on a personal basis and differed little from those for the House of Burgesses a gen­ eration before. A candidate’s qualifications for office were his personal character and his integrity as a citizen as well as his record of pot­ ential for public service. As befitted an aristocrat seeking the favor of small freeholders, he usually treated the voters on election day to a rum punch or other drink.61 That Breckinridge regularly was elected to a Virginia office before 1800 proves that he was a wellliked and well-off young man. His election neither marked him as a doctrinaire Federalist politician, nor did it attest to the popularity of Federalist principles.62 Breckinridge in Washington In 1808 James Breckinridge reached what might be called the high plateau of his long political career by winning election to the Eleventh United States Congress as the Representative of Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District, because it had been, and was to be, centered about that county. The district also included the county of Rockbridge to the Northwest and the counties of Greenbrier, Monroe, and Kanawha to the west.63 The incumbent between 1804 and 1809 had been a Republican, Alexander Wilson of Rockbridge, who appears not to have stood for reelection. It was remarkable that Breckin­ ridge, the Federalist from Fincastle, was not opposed by any known Republican aspirant during his four terms in Congress and that he declined renomination in 1816. In the Botetourt District, it is clear that party structure and sentiment were weaker than the heritage of leadership by the frontier aristocracy. A panoramic view of the House of Representatives over the years 1809-1817 reveals that James Breckinridge was a true son of the generation of which John Randolph of Roanoke and Henry Clay are perhaps the best-known exemplars. This was a generation that often deserved the adjectives Revolutionary, Romantic, and Quixotic. Posterity often has viewed Randolph’s erratic course as the product of a disordered mind and considered Clay’s gyrations to be sheer political opportunism. Granting that there is some truth in such assertions, one must admit that the times did not permit very stable �political ideology or consistency in alliances. James Breckinridge was not so great a man as Clay or Randolph. He was neither so op­ portunistic as the former nor consistent and more pragmatic than either. Indeed, he comported himself as a natural, frontier aristo­ crat— not as a brilliant, but flawed, scion of the Tidewater nabobs. Without making a parade of his good education, he was better equipped than Clay to guide his little rural world into the brilliance of an en­ lightened, agrarian republic in which the Revolution’s liberty and pursuit of material happiness might be secured. When the forty-six-year-old Breckinridge took his seat in the old hall of the House of Representatives in 1809, that body numbered 140 members. Virginia then had twenty-two representatives. She gained another as a result of the Census of 1810, but this did not effect the composition of the Fifth District.64 Service in W ar of 1812 As somewhat of a defense measure, Breckinridge was promoted to brigadier general in the Virginia militia— even though he was a Federalist. For the most part, he was stationed at Camp Mitchell outside Richmond and missed the opening of the last session of the Thirteenth Congress. He arrived at the Capitol on Dec. 5, 1814, after being absent from the first forty-nine votes.65 Aid for Dolley Madison The most dramatic, and at the same time pleasant, incident of Congressman Breckinridge’s career involved the sociable Mrs. Dolley Madison. Breckinridge was one of Mrs. Madison’s party on board a schooner sailing up the Rappahannock River, when a low tide strand­ ed the vessel far from the shore. The schooner could furnish no small boats to negotiate the shallows. Proving his chivalrous gallantry as well as his muscular prowess, Breckinridge suggested that each gentle­ man take a lady and wade through the water. He promptly took Mrs. Madison in his arms and carried her safely to the shore. Unfortuna­ tely, the other men were unable to follow his example.66 Evidently politics were not allowed to disrupt sociability in the first quarter or the nineteenth century. Retirement from Office After his 1823-1824 term in the Virginia House of Delegates, Breckinridge finally retired from elected offices, but he had a pet project in the new University of Virginia to hold his interest. Breck­ inridge was now sixty-one; and with the exception of an occasional trip to Charlottesville, he remained at his Fincastle residence. From time to time he visited his nearby relatives and his valley neighbors. He particularly enjoyed the company of Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Burwell, 17 �who resided at “Rustic Lodge” in Botetourt.67 Judging from family correspondence, Breckinridge and his wife entertained their neighbors and family, who came to visit for weeks at a time, often accompanied by their in-laws.68 Death at 70 After a long and full life, Gen. James 1833, at his Grove Hill home. A constant grieving family; and not withstanding the funeral was attended by a “concourse” of was buried with full military honors. Breckinridge died May 13, rain set the mood for his weather, his three o’clock friends and neighbors. He Family and associates paid their respects and made their tributes. His daughter-in-law wrote: “Poor old gentleman, we miss him sadly, and shall for many years to come.69 The Botetourt County Court passed the following resolution. The Court being informed that Genl. James Breckinridge, long a distinguished member of this Bar and a most valued citizen, departed this life on this morning and deeming it right and proper to show their affection for his faithful services in the many public offices to which he has been called by his fellow citizens, do therefore, order this Court be adjourned until tomor­ row morning, 9 o’clock. And on motion, resolved that the members of the Court and Bar, and the officers of the Court will wear crepe upon their left arms for one month. (Order, signed by Thomas N. Burwell & Charles B. Penn.)70 Breckinridge was survived by his wife Ann, and five children: John and Cary Breckinridge of Botetourt, Mrs. Henry Bowyer of Bote­ tourt, Mrs. Edward Watts of Roanoke, and Mrs. Robert Gamble of Florida.71 In his will and testament, he named his sons and Edward Watts as executors. Breckinridge provided that his Negroes and stock be retained and that his estate managed according to his plans for seven years for the benefit of his wife. At the end of this time, the estate was to be divided among his five children in whichever equitable manner they chose. He specifically noted that the child of his deceased son Robert should not be awarded any portion of his estate.72 Although his will does not include an inventory of his estate 18 �(and none appears to have been made subsequently), Breckinridge died a wealthy man. By the end of his seventy years, the General had amassed a land empire in Botetourt and adjoining counties and he owned an elegant mansion furnished in the best styles of the day. In other areas he practiced law as “an intellectual pursuit,” rarely charging over ten shillings (less than $2), which was the proper pocket change for a gentleman.73 Breckinridge was an adept surveyor, but this occupation often provided an excuse for him to explore new western lands that he might purchase. He was always interested in furthering education, whether he was serving as the Smithfield tutor or maintaining a seat on the Board of Visitors of the new University of Virginia. The Virginia militia was most important to the existence of frontier settlements, often being the only means of protection. Ad­ vancing through the ranks to brigadier general provided social status on the frontier and possibly satisfied the cavalier notions of a would-be military hero. The militia, however, did remain a life­ long interest of Breckinridge. He was a keenly interested participant in American government at a time when political ideologies were forming the basis of the present system, first in the Virginia House of Delegates and then in the United States House of Representatives. His role in political life after 1815 was equivocal insofar as the expansion of democracy was concerned, as he displayed a genuine interest in gaining more equal representation for his section of Virginia. All writers eulogize their subject, but James Breckinridge was overshadowed by the more dynamic statesmen of the Revolutionary War era. Breckinridge was great only in the sense that he was a satisfied individual in a world of unhappy stereotypes. He was a pri­ vileged person to have the capacities and abilities to satisfy his many interests. 19 �1 Ja m e s B reck in rid ge spelled his n am e both B reck en rid g e and B reck in rid ge, but he signed his will, a leg al docum ent, “ B reck in rid g e .” Both his fa th er and g ran d fath er used the spelling “ B reck e n rid g e.” Ja m e s ’ co n tem poraries used both spellings along with sev e ra l other variation s. 2 Thom as P . A bernathy, T hree V irginia F ro n tiers (B ato n R o u g e: L .S .U . P r e s s , 1940). H erein after cited as Abernathy, T hree V irg inia F ro n tiers, pp. 59, 67. 3 Stephen H ess, A m erican P o litical D y n asties: F ro m Adam s to Kennedy (G arden C ity: Doubleday Co., In c ., 1966). H erinafter cited as H ess, P o litica l D y nasties, pp. 636-627. 4 Ib id ., p. 242. * „ 5 T hom as D . Houston, “ E a r ly D ays in F in c a s tle ,” Ju n e 20, 1873. Speech in possession of M rs. English Show alter, Roanoke, V irginia. 6 M ary S. Kennedy, Seldens of V irginia and Allied F a m ilie s (2 vols., New Y o rk : F ra n k Allahen G en ealogical Co., 1911). H erein after cited as Kennedy, Seldens of V irginia, II , 588. See also Thom as M. G reen “ A Sketch of the B reck in rid ge F a m ily ,” ty p escrip t, L ib ra ry of C ongress. H erein after cited as G reen, “ S k etc h ,” p. 2. 7 R ich ard L. Norton, Colonial V irginia (2 vols., Chapel H ill: V irginia H istorical Society, 1960), II , 549-550. See also Abernathy T h ree V irginia F ro n tiers, pp. 55,. 60. 7-A O range Co. O rder Book II, p. 155. 7- B L e titia was a m inor in 1747 (Chalkley Vol. I p. 79) 8 Kennedy, Seldens of V irginia, II , 588. 8- A R ecord s of Augusta County, V a. 1745-1800, Lym an Chalkey, Vol. I , pp. 307; Vol. I I , pp. 372. 9 Ja m e s R . V. D aniel, A Hornbook of V irginia H istory (R ich m o n d : V irg in ia D epartm en t of Conservation and D evelopm ent, 1949), p . 31. 9-A Died prior to May 24, 1744, when his son G eorge posted bond as a d m in istrato r of A lexander B reck en rid g e. O range C oun ty' Will Book I. 1735-1743 ab stra cte d by Jo h n F re d e rick D orm an, p. 59. 10 Kennedy Seldens of V irginia, II , 588. See also Howard M . Wilson, The Tinkling Sp rin g : H eadw ater of Freed o m (F ish e rsv ille, V a .: The Tinkling Spring P resb y te ria n Church, 1954). 11 M orton, Colonial V irginia, II, 550, 570-72. 12 This estim ate of R o bert B reck en rid g e’s age presupposes th a t: (1) A lexander B reck e n ­ ridge s petition for headrights was truthful in im plying th at his children w ere all born before 1728, (2) th at none w ere tw ins, e tc ., (3) th at each child was one y e a r older than the n ext younger, (4) th at R o b e rt was the eld est child, and (5) th at L e titia was the youngest and only one y ear old in 1740. 13 Louis A. B u rg ess, V irginia Soldiers of 1776 (2 vols., R ich m ond : Richm ond P re s s , In c ., 1927). H erein after cited a s B u rg ess, V irginia Soldiers, I I , 733. 14 M orton, Colonial V irginia, II , 678. 15 B u rg ess, V irginia Soldiers, p . 733. 16 G reen, “ S k etch ” , p. 6. See also M orton, Colonial V irg inia, I I , 642-643. 17 R o bert B reck en rid g e re ferre d to his wife as L e ttice in his will. 17-A L icen se issued Ju ly 6, 1758. Chalkley, Vol. I I p. 276. 18 Lowell H. H arrison, Jo h n B reck in rid g e : Jeffe rso n ia n Republican (L o u isv ille: The FUson Club, 1969). H erein after cited as H arrison, Joh n B reck in rid g e, p. 3. 19 G reen, “ S k etc h ,” p. 8. See also Euben G. T hw aites and Louise P . Kellogg, D ocu­ m en tary H istory of D unm ore’s W ar: 1774 (M ad ison: W isconsin H istorical S ociety , 1905). H ere­ in after cited as T hw aites and Kellogg, D unm ore’s W ar, p. 422. 20 Ibid, p. 27. 21 H arrison, Jo h n B reck in rid ge, pp. 3-4. 22 T hw aites and K ellogg, D unm ore’s W ar, pp. 420-422. 23 H arrison, Jo h n B reck in rid ge, p. 3. 23-A August 17, 1772 date of his will which was recorded Nov. 7, 1773. E a rly M arria g es, W ills and som e Revolutionary W ar R ecord s, pp. 53, Anne Lowry W orrell, pp. 53. Will published, K eg ley ’s V irg in ia F ro n tier, pp. 508-10, F . B . K egley. Also Bo tetou rt County Will Book A, pp. 36. 24 Will Book A, 1770-1801, Bo tetou rt County, V irginia, 36. The ex ecu tors of R o b e rt’s will were W illiam Presto n and Andrew Woods. 25 W illiam P resto n to M rs. L e ttice B reck en rid g e, O ct. 12, 1773, B reck in rid ge P a p ers, L ib rary of Congress. H erein after cited a s B reck in rid ge papers, D LC. S ee also H arrison, Jo h n B reck in rid g e, p. 5. 26 H arrison, Jo h n B reck in rid ge, p. 5. 27 W illiam D . M eade, Old C hurches, M inisters, and F a m ilie s of V irg in ia (2 vols., P h ilad elp h ia: J . B . Lippincott Co.,1939) II , 65. See also R o b e rt D . Stoner, A Seed-B ed of the R ep u b lic: A Study of the P io n eers in the Upper (Southern) V alley of V irg in ia (R o a n o k e: Roanoke H istorical S ociety , 1962). H erein after cited as Stoner Seed-Bed of the Republic, p. 332. 28 G eorge M. L. Brydon, V irginia M other Church and the P o litica l Conditions Under W hich I t Grew (2 V ols., P h ilad elp h ia: Church H istorical Society, 1952). H erein after Cited as Brydon, V irg in ia’s M other Church, I I , 127, 177-188 p assim , 609. 29 L e titia P resto n Floyd to Joh n B . Floyd, Apr. 5, 1860, ty p escrip t, Newm an L ib ra ry , V irg inia P o ly techn ic Institu te. 30 W illiam P resto n to M rs. L e ttice B reck en rid g e, Oct. 13, 1777, B reck in rid ge P a p ers, DLC. 31 Ph ilip V . F ith ian , Jo u rn al and L e tte rs of Ph ilip V ick ers F ith ia n , 1773-1774: A P la n ­ tation Tutor of the Old Dominion, ed. Hunter D . F a ris h (W illiam sburg, Colonial W illiam sburg, In c ., 1943), p. 8. See also Jo h n H arrow er, T he Jo u rn al of Joh n H arrow er, An Identured Serv an t in the Colony of V irg in ia: 1773-1776. ed. Edw ard M. R iley (W illiam sb u rg: Holt, R in eh a rt and Winston, 1963). 20 �32 B reck in rid g e’s m ilitary c a r e e r will be treated la te r. 33 Ja m e s B reck in rid ge to M rs. L e ttice B reck in rid ge, 1783, B reck in rid ge P a p e rs, D LC. 34 Ja m e s B reck in rid g e to Jo h n B reck in rid ge, May 23, 1784; J . Brow n to Jo h n B reck in ­ ridge, K y ., Sept. 20, 1784, B reck in rid ge P a p ers, DLC. 35 Ja m e s B reck in rid g e to Jo h n B reck in rid g e, Aug. 29, 1788, B reck in rid ge P a p ers, D LC. 36 Ja m e s B reck in rid ge to Jo h n B reck in rid ge at A lbem arle, Botetourt, M ar. 18, 1790» B reck in rid g e P a p ers, D LC. 37 Jo h n Brow n to Ja m e s B reck in rid g e, F e b . 25, 1787, B reck in rid ge P a p ers, A lbem arle County H istorical Society, Alderm an L ib rary , U niversity of V irginia. H erein after cited as B reck in rid ge P a p ers, ViU. 38 Ja m e s Brow n to Ja m e s B reck in rid g e, Apr. 4, 1790, ibid. 39 T he H istory of the College of W illiam and M ary F ro m its Foundation, 1660 to 1874 (R ich m ond , J . W. Randolph and En g lish, 1874), p. 98. 40 H arrison , Jo h n B reck in rid g e, p. 7. 41 Ja m e s B reck in rid g e to Joh n B reck in rid ge, M ay 23, 1784, B reck in rid ge P a p e rs , D LC. 42 Ja m e s B reck in rid ge to Jo h n B reck in rid g e, Nov. 6, 1786, ibid. 43 Jo h n B reck in rid ge to M rs. L e ttice B reck in rid g e, Apr. 11, 1787, Ju n e 14, 1787; J a m e s B reck in rid ge to Jo h n B reck in rid g e, Ju ly 31, 1787, ibid. 44 Jo h n B reck in rid ge to Ja m e s B reck in rid g e, D ec. 2, 1788, B reck in rid ge P a p ers, DLC. 45 Ja m e s B reck in rid g e to Joh n B reck in rid ge, M ar. 6, 1789, ibid. 46 R o b e rt M. H ughes, “ W illiam and M ary, The F ir s t A m erican Law Sch ool,” W illiam and M ary Q u arterly, 2nd series, I I (1922). 40. 47 Ja m e s B reck in rid g e to Jo h n B reck in rid ge, M ar. 15, 1787, B reck in rid ge P a p e rs, D LC. 48 F ra n c is P resto n to Ja m e s B reck in rid g e, D ec. 20, 1787, B reck in rid ge P a p e rs , ViU . 49 Jo h n B reck in rid g e to Ja m e s B reck in rid ge, Ja n . 25, 1788, B reck in rid ge P a p ers, D LC. 50 Jo h n Brow n to Ja m e s B reck in rid g e, F eb . 25, 1787; Sam uel M cCraw to J a m e s B re ck in ­ ridge, Oct. 21, 1787, B reck in rid ge P a p ers, ViU. 51 F ra n c is P resto n to Ja m e s B reck in rid g e, Nov. 11, 1788; F ra n c is P resto n to J a m e s B reck in rid g e, Oct. 21, 1787, ibid. 52 Jo h n P resto n to F ra n c is P resto n , D ec. 26, 1786, Quoted in Sto ner, Seed-B ed of the Republic, p. 279. 53 Ja m e s B reck in rid g e to Jo h n B reck in rid g e, Ju n e 13, 1788, B reck in rid ge P a p e rs, D LC. See also Hugh B . G rigsby, H istory of the V irg in ia F e d e ra l Convention of 1788, ed. R o b e rt A. B ro ck (R ichm ond H istorical Society, 1891), I I , 377. 54 H arriso n , Jo h n B reck in rid g e, p. 25. 55 F . B . K egley, K eg ley ’s V irginia F ro n tier, T he Beginning of the Southw est: The R oanoke of Colonial D ay s, 1740-1783 (R o an o k e: T he Southw est H istorical Society, 1938). H ere­ in a fter cited as K egley, K eg ley ’s V irginia F ro n tier, pp. 409-411. 56 G eorge W ashington to A lexander H am ilton, M ar. 15, 1791, quoted in The W ritings of G eorge W ashington, ed. Jo h n C. F itz p a trick (39 vols., W ashington, D . C .; G overnm ent Prin tin g O ffice, 1931-1944), X X X I , 329. 57 M ary N. Stan d ard , “ Ja m e s B reck in rid g e ,” D ictionary of A m erican B iograph y, ed. Allen Joh n so n and D um as M alone (22 vols., New Y o rk : C harles S crib n e r’s Sons, 1928-1958), I I I , 5. 58 Brydon, V irg in ia’s M other Church, II , 434, 450. 58-A B o rn Oct. 26, 1791, M rs. E n g lish Show alter’s R e co rd s; also Seldens of V irg inia and Allied F a m ilie s , M ary Selden Kennedy, pp. 96. 59 E . G . Swem and J . W. W illiam s, A R e g iste r of the G en eral A ssem bly of V irg in ia ; 1776-1918 (R ich m o nd : P u b lic P rin tin g, 1918). H erein after cited as Sw em , R e g iste r of the Gen­ era l A ssem bly, p. 30. 60 U. S. D epartm en t of C o m m erce, H istorical S ta tistics of the United S ta te s : Colonial T im e s to 1957 (W ashington, D . C .: G overnm ent P rin tin g O ffice, 1957). H erein after cited as H isto rical S ta tis tics , p. 13. 61 Noble E . Cunningham , J r . , The Jeffe rso n ia n R ep u b lican s: The F orm ation of P a rty O rganization, 1789-1801 (Chapel H ill: U niversity of North C arolina P r e s s , 1957). H erein after cited a s Cunningham , Je ffe rso n ia n R ep u b licans, pp. 249-250. H istory 62 H arry Am m on, “ T he Je ffe rso n ia n R epublicans and B iograph y, L X I II (A pr., 1963), 153-167. in V irg in ia ,” V irg in ia M agazine of 63 Jo u rn a ls of the V irg inia House of D eleg ates, 1802, pp. 80-90. 64 H istorical 65 Ib id , S ta tis tics , X X I, 66 Houston, 67 Sto ner, 1931; “ E a r ly A pp. XXV, D ay s in Seed-Bed of 68 B reck in rid g e P a p ers, 13, 1151; 692-692. X X V I, the R ep u b lic, 69 E m m a B reck in rid g e to Lucy W. A the R ep u b lic, 72 B o tetou rt Seed-Bed of W addell, Annals County p. 397. R oanoke H istorical Society. 70 Stoner, 71 Jo se p h A. Jo n e s , 1886), p. 141. 1252. F in c a s tle .” R eco rd s, of Will G ilm er, M ay 21, 1833, B reck in rid g e P a p e rs, Augusta County V irg in ia Book RH i. p. 279. E, p. (R ich m o n d : W illiam E llis 372. 73 Roanoke World-News, Apr. 7, 1962. 21 �A Bonsack Election Story A ludicrous election story arrived in Roanoke last night from Bonsack. It is to the effect that a man in business in Vinton, but who votes at Bonsack, went to the latter place yesterday morning to vote. He inquired where the polls were and was directed from one place to another and finally to the depot but could not find the place. Eventually, he ascertained that a big corn-shucking was in pro­ gress three miles across the mountain and suspecting that the judges of election were in attendance, went to see. Sure enough, he found them there and they had forgotten all about the election and their part in it until thus enjoined. — Roanoke Times, Nov. 5, 1890 Botetourt s Three Courthouses B y R. D. S toner On the 13th day of February, 1770, thirteen men theretofore appointed as Justices of the new county of Botetourt, gathered to­ gether at the home of Robert Brackenridge located near the present village of Daleville. These commissioners of the peace had been appointed at Williams­ burg, on Dec. 22, 1769 under the seal of the Colony and Dominion of Virginia and were directed to keep or cause to be kept all ordinances and statutes of the Kingdom of Great Britain. After the Justices had qualified themselves, the county officers presented their commissions of appointment from Williamsburg and qualified before the Justices, giving bond when necessary and four attorneys produced their licenses from the examiners to practice law. Deeds were recorded, road sur­ veyors appointed and general court business performed. Since the new county boundary ran from the Blue Ridge Mountain watershed westward to the waters of the Mississippi River and south to the Virginia-North Carolina boundary line, it seems fair to assume that many in the leadership of this vast territory were there. It must have been a long and tiresome day for those prominent pioneers who saw it through at a private home without precedent as to proper procedure and with only a quill pen to record their pro­ ceedings. This was Botetourt’s first day in a court which since has Robert D. Stoner, author o f “A Seed-Bed o f the Botetourt County’s best-konum historian, recalls the o f his county’s three courthouses in the afterm ath o f destroyed the third building on Dec. 15, in the last county’s bicentennial year. 22 Republic” and circumstances the fire which month o f the �sketch by Debbie Holzbach A log building with clapboard roof and small jury rooms at each end was Botetourt's first courthouse in Fincastle. convened through wars and all weather conditions for over two hundred years. On the following day, Feb. 14, 1770 the Justices, taking into consideration the situation of a point to fix upon as a proper place to recommend to his Excellency, the Governor, for establishing the court house, were of the opinion that the most convenient place for that purpose was eastward from a spring near Miller’s Mill. Resulting from this recommendation, a courthouse was later erected there at a place first known as Miller’s Mill or Botetourt Court House and later as Fincastle. Here on two and one-half acres of land donated by Israel Chris­ tian, a courthouse and a jail were erected, and workmen were employed to build stocks. It was upon this same acreage all three courthouses and many jails that followed were built. The three courthouses occupied what later became the northwest corner of Main and Roanoke streets in Fincastle. The first was a log building twenty-four feet long and twenty feet wide with a clapboard roof, having two small sheds, one at each end, for jury rooms. An order entered on Aug. 12, 1773, shows a valuation on this building amounting to four hundred and thirty-five 23 �pounds, ten shillings and nine pence, (Botetourt County’s Order Book 1772-76 p. 248). Sometime after July 13, 1796 (Order Book 1793-97, page 381) a clerk’s office for the use of this county was authorized to be built on the courthouse common. The space where this office was built is now occupied by the north wing of the present Circuit Court clerk’s office vault and there are those still living who remember the re­ mains of this old stone building. The erection of the second courthouse around 1818-1820 is established by itemized accounting of payments made for labor and materials. The plans for this building were mailed from Monticello on Oct. 6, 1818 by Thomas Jefferson to Gen. James Breckinridge. Jefferson enclosed a letter in which he stated, “I shall not despair in my annual rambles to the Natural bridge of being able at some time to extend them to Fincastle.” The form of this letter shows that Mr. Jefferson used an amanuensis so this may be the reason for the word “bridge” not being capitalized, or it may have been the usage at that period. William Barton was the contractor for this second courthouse, and the minute book which should cover much of the details of erec­ tion of this building is missing, as far as is known. The columns of the building were made of walnut logs, the ceil­ ing of the portico of poplar boards, the floors were made of stone and the pipes and gutters were of copper and tin. The old first court­ house was sold. Since no mention is made in the description of a new bell pur­ chased for this second courthouse and since the bell used here was replaced by a new one in the third building, it is possible that the bell from the first 1770 courthouse is the same used in the 1818-20 structure. This bell is now on display in the Botetourt County Museum on the Courthouse Square. The exterior of this structure is shown as a domed building with one-story offices at each side. The work sheets for payment of labor and materials lodged in the Circuit Court clerks office show itemized expenses totaling $8,382.56. The period for services for this sheet began in June, 1819 and ended Oct. 10, 1821. If no other accounting was made this would be the cost of this building. An interesting order entered June 11, 1821 shows that the stone clerk’s office of 1796 was to be covered with copper or zinc or tin and to be paid for from any funds that may remain from the erection of the new courthouse. An order dated Nov. 11, 1839 appointed a committee to ascertain whether a new (third) courthouse should be built, or the old one improved. The next year, 1840, we find commissioners appointed to 24 �repair the courthouse indicating the committee considered its exist­ ing condition justified repairing rather than replacement. An inter­ esting court order of 1843 provided permission to make a walk on the outside of the railing of the courthouse yard on the western side thereof “providing the same does not interfere with the hay scales.” However, on May 12, 1845, five year? after the commissioners were appointed to repair the building, Benjamin Carper, Thomas Shanks, James McDowell, Benjamin Ammen and John T. Anderson were ap­ pointed to contract for the building of a new courthouse, and the proper authorities were directed to lay a levy to cover the cost of its construction. At the May, 1848 Court the committee made and filed their final accounting with the contractors, Smith and Stratton. The final cost was $11,626.65. This report was signed by James Mc­ Dowell, its secretary, and by Benjamin Ammen, its chairman. This report further shows that the newspapers, The Virginian and The Valley Whig were paid for advertising the contract. As completed late in 1847, the court room in the third courthouse occupied the center of the building between the clerk’s office on the east side and the office recently used by the treasurer on the west side. The court room extended to the roof and was heated by a fireplace in the north end of the room. While none of this committee of five was an architectual stu­ dent, at least two of them were versed in construction work and all were outstanding men who appreciated the value of Jefferson’s ideas and knowing the descendants of each it is my belief they would have Brick one-story building with a dome was the second courthouse. 25 �Tragic fire Dec. 15, 1970 swept through the 1847 courthouse. used them whenever possible on their merits, as well as a matter of economy. The third courthouse which was gutted by fire on Dec. 15, 1970 had been changed by additional extensions on its north or back end and by two floors and additional offices placed in the center of the building. The Courthouse Square in front of these three courthouse^, has resounded to the footsteps of the men of Botetourt who have gathered here for military service for two hundred years. First, in the summer of 1774 for the gathering of the troops at Greenbrier on their way to the Battle of Point Pleasant on the Ohio River. It has heard the Botetourt Resolutions read, proclaiming freedom from Great Britain, and almost one hundred years later resolutions read from the portico in defense of the Southern Confederacy; and through another one hundred years has bade its military personnel off to all our wars. Roughly speaking, this two-hundred-year period of time could be placed into three divisions, corresponding with the physical existence of the three courthouses of Botetourt. The first courthouse, a log structure with a shingle roof, corres­ ponded in construction to most of our homes during this period of 1770-1818 since they were built of the same material. During this period of our birth, our Scotch-Irish and Germanic ancestors were as a child born in a wilderness. Besides the fight for existence, we also fought the Indians, the French and Indians and the British Empire twice. We were victorious, even without the then necessary military equipment, and we forged a republic, the envy of most of the world. 26 �As we began to prosper, we desired and thought that we needed something finer to live in and to be governed from, other than log structures. This we did to our homes and Thomas Jefferson sent ;US his own plan for something better than logs to be governed from. This second courthouse, with the magic of Jefferson’s architecture, surely stimulated us to build in a more fitting manner to match our prosperity, which then was beginning to show. Many of these structures are even now standing and have added to the history and dignity of our country. The Indians and the British departed and we were a peace­ ful farming community with the ambitions of most to clear more land and raise more produce. In doing this we needed more common labor and the New England Yankee ships supplied us with the Negro from Africa. This brought a division in our nation and as the battle lines began to form a new era was conceived and thus the old Jeffer­ sonian courthouse and slave labor gave way to a more modern structure for both. The bugles of 1861-1865 were stilled and a new courthouse, the third, was completed to represent a new mode of life. After the close of the Civil War the Indians and the British along with the Yankee had all departed but we were left with a devastated county. Many homes burned, others broken into and most all needed re­ pair. Nothing in the granaries, stores or banks. But thanks to God, we had an unbroken spirit and with the labor of our hands we fought the overhanging poverty and repaired our buildings and once again our granaries, stores and banks were filled. Our sheer fortitude first was aided by the rebirth of the mining industry, and eventually by manufacturing plants which began to change the character of our county from agriculture to that of the suburbanite. Now, the third courthouse is no more and it could be possible that our mode of existence could change. Maybe there are more im­ portant things now than full granaries, stores and banks. What price have we paid for material riches, as comforting and necessary as they are? The price of unclean water, polluted air and an unkept countryside. Under the pressures of the present we yearn for the call of the wild. Many now think our future struggle will be to ad­ vance ecology within a context of freedom and order. What price must we pay to have less smoke pouring from the stacks of industry in order to be able to breathe and drink? Perhaps the fourth courthouse will look down and judge this struggle and see its answer. 27 �Century-old photograph shows rows of chimneys standing after devastating fire of M ay 6, 1870. "A Disastrous Conflagration” The shock and sorrow over the December 15, 1970 fire which destroyed the Botetourt County Courthouse— but mercifully spared irreplaceable records stored in a fireproof vault— revived memories of the disastrous Fincastle fire of Friday night, May 6, 1870. Accounts of that fire a century ago say 60 homes were burned, leaving 400 people without shelter and destroying $200,000 worth of property! The 1870 fire was blamed on arson. But no lives were lost. James S. Walrond, an elderly resident of Fincastle who kept a daily record of the first frost, the date when corn was planted and other events of significance, wrote this the next day:' “Fincastle was burned the 6th day (or rather at night) of May, 1870 by an incendiary. Commenced in the stable of Western Hotel and burned both sides of Main Street as far down as Water Street and on Roanoke Street, destroying about 60 dwelling houses be­ sides all of the out-dwellings belonging to them, with the greatest part of the furniture belonging to the citizens who lost their houses. The fire was set about half past 9 o’clock p.m.” The Richmond Daily Dispatch of May 10, 1970 took note of the fire as a “Terrible Calamity in Fincastle.” The Richmond report, credited to the Lynchburg News:2 Fincastle, Va., May 7 Via Bonsack’s, Va. “Half of the town was burned last night. More than four hundred peo­ ple are left homeless, about $200,000 worth of property was destroyed. The county jail and the Fincastle Herald office were burned. There is great distress existing. T.H.D. 28 �“In addition to the above we learned from a gentleman who came down on the Tennessee train Saturday afternoon that both of the hotels in the town, one kept by Mr. Price and the other by Mr. Luster, were consumed. The dwelling house of our friend, Col. W. E. M. Word, was also destroyed, together with a large number of other private residences. “Fortunately, no lives were lost, but many of the best citizens of the town are rendered penniless by this disastrous conflagration, having, in addition to their houses, lost all they contained. “The fire originated in a stable and is believed to have been the work of an incendiary. There is a fire engine in the town but owing to the scarcity of water it was of but little service and all efforts to stay the progress of the flames were wholly fruitless.” The peril of fire has long been of concern in the village of Fincastle. After two stables, the property of Messrs. Welsh and Pat­ terson, were “found to be completely enveloped in flames,” a letter from “One Interested” to J. F. Caldwell, editor of the Herald of the Valley, on Oct. 9, 1820, complained about the lack of fire-fighting equipment.3 “I was astonished to find neither hook, bucket and but one or two ladders which are so essentially necessary to check that devouring element. “I have understood there has been from 120 to 140 dollars subscribed for the purpose of furnishing these articles; the ladders have been made but what has become of them, although I have paid my subscription, none has been delivered to me, neither can any be seen put up for the public use . . . “Let those persons who have ladders in their possession either pay the real value of them or be compelled to put them in some public place where they may become accessible when necessary.” 1 R eco rd in granddaughter of 2 M icrofilm 3 M icrofilm th e possession of M rs. K . B . Stoner oi E a g le Ja m e s S. W alrond. in th e possession of V irg in ia S ta te L ib ra ry . in the V irg in ia Room , Roanoke P u b lic L ib ra ry . R o ck , V a„ a g reat-g reat- "Fire Remedy" is 1,400 Years Old George Washington Rader’s lished in the Summer, 1970 issue puzzle for Miss Frances Niederer, and a director of the Society. Miss 1837 “remedy against fire,” pub­ of the Journal, resurrected an old professor of art at Hollins College Niederer’s reaction: 29 �This is a very old prophylactic charm dating back at least to the sixth century; versions of it exist in Greek, Latin, and Coptic (Early Christian in Egypt). I had no idea that it persisted so late in German, and had not heard of the fire-preventive value of it. Words of names of Christian martyrs were often repeated as charms against evil, and evidently somehow these five words became associated with the Children in the Fiery Furnace. But by the 18th century the proper spelling was distorted. It should read in Latin: SATOR (The sower) AREPO (the plough, or I crawl) TENET (holds) OPERA (the labors, or the laborers) ROTAS (the wheels) Although the words appear to make sense their endings are such that it is impossible to get a grammatically correct sentence out of them. Suggested translations have been something like “The laborers hold the plough wheels, (I) the sower, crawl alongside,” or “The sower holds the plough; the work engages the wheels.” Any­ way, it seems to have nothing about fire but rather, insures fertility to the land. Roanoke's 300th Anniversary by E dmund P. Goodwin There are many who consider that the history of this area be­ gan when the Shenandoah Valley Railroad joined the Norfolk and Western; some date it from the formation of the Town of Big Lick while others go back to the creation of Roanoke County in 1838 or Botetourt County in 1770. It would be interesting to know how many realize we should be celebrating the 300th anniversary of the white man’s coming into our valley. From the earliest days of the colony, there was a strong de­ sire to know more about the land distant from the coast. In 1608, when Capt. Christopher Newport returned to Virginia from England he brought instructions that the colonists should find the South Sea Edmund P. Goodwin, a founder and first president o f Roanoke Historical Society and a longtime student o f Virginia history, spoke to the Society Nov. 18, 1970 on “The Roanoke Valley in the Colonial Period, 1608-1776.” His talk appears here. 30 �beyond the mountains or consider themselves banished men. History tells us for many years all explorations were limited to the land ad­ jacent to water. The colonists were far too busy finding food and protecting themselves from the Indians to worry about the distant mountains. William Berkeley was the first royal governor to show any real interest in the land to the west. In 1650, he encouraged Abraham Wood, Edward Bland and two others to form an expedition to ex­ plore that territory. They finally reached the falls on the Roanoke River near present day Clarksville in Mecklenburg County. This was the deepest penetration of the white man into this virgin land and they called it New Brittaine. Repeatedly, we find in history books that Abraham Wood came to our valley in 1654. But after a careful examination of his later writings it would appear this trip was a figment of the imagination of a later historian, Dr. Daniel Coxe. The first written record of an Englishman being in our valley is found in the Journal of the Batts and Fallam Expedition of 1671. These men, Thomas Batts and Robert Fallam, left the headquarters of Abraham Wood near the present city of Petersburg. Their course was again southwestward. Upon reaching the Roanoke River, which they called the Sapony after a tribe of Indians by that name who lived on its banks, they followed the water course until it broke through the Blue Ridge Mountains. After descending a steep incline they arrived at a Totera Indian village. It is thought the location was on the property of the Roanoke Industrial Center, formerly that of the American Viscose Corp. The trip had been difficult so they rested a few days with these friendly Indians. Their mission was to find the western waters running to the setting sun so they left their horses and walked westward. After crossing the mountains, they came to the New River which for many years after bore the name of Woods River. Its waters were followed nearly to the present-day West Vir­ ginia line in Giles County. This was the first written account of the white man being in our valley, but strange as it may seem, their journal clearly shows they had been preceded by others. On Sept. 4, they engaged a Sapony Indian to show them a closer way than usual to the Totera Indian village. While on the New River they found the letters “MA” and “MANI” cut or burned into trees. Soon after returning to the Indian village they learned of Col. William Byrd and his great company’s discoveries a few miles away from Totera town. History fails to tell about these discoveries so let us assume they had recognized the fine climate and beauty of our valley on that fall day. 31 �These men were explorers backed by Wood, who like Byrd was an Indian trader. Their job included finding new Indian tribes and gaining their friendship because fur was a valuable commodity. Unfortunately, a few years later the Indians became conscious of the English continually pushing their settlements westward. In order to stop this intrusion of their territory they went on the warpath. Many settlers were killed and their homes were burned. Nathaniel Bacon, without permission of the governor, gathered a sizable force and marched to Occoneechee on the Roanoke River where they killed hundreds of Indians. Bacon’s Rebellion, as we know it today, set back western explorations by many years. This was augmented by Governor Berkeley’s recall to England. Apparently the governors who followed him had far less inter­ est in the western lands until after the turn of the century when Alexander Spottswood arrived in Virginia. He realized the fortunes of the colony as well as his own lay to the west. In 1716, the Governor and his so-called Knights of the Golden Horseshoe started out to explore the mountains and the land on the other side. Finally having reached their goal, the wine was broken out, the King was toasted and all the land was claimed in his name. Today, history and verse tell about this glorious expedition. Obviously, Spottswood had better press agents than Batts and Fallam because they had claimed the western lands in the name of Charles II nearly 50 years earlier. This expedition, along with the religious and economic condi­ tions in Europe would have a marked effect on Virginia before many years. Families from New York and Pennsylvania began arriving in the lower valley. In the 1730’s, land speculators such as William Beverley and Benjamin Borden obtained large grants on what today is Augusta, Rockbridge and Botetourt counties. In 1745, James Patton and his associates received a grant of 100,000 acres on the Woods River and two rivers to the west. In the files of the Society, we have his original prospectus showing how these lands could be purchased, as well as a receipt book used when money was paid. In our valley there were no enormous grants so it just grew like Topsy. When the first settlers arrived, there was far more land than people. The procedure was to locate a likely piece of ground, clear it, plant it, build a log cabin and cut the new owner’s initials into trees. This was called the Tomahawk Right and if the settler con­ tinued to live on it, he could get a good title in due course. In 1734, Orange County was formed and a portion was desig­ nated as West Augusta but the General Assembly stated that it could not have a court of its own until there was sufficient population, 32 �which did not occur until 1745. Probably the first official land record in this area occurred when George Robinson received three grants of 400 acres each in 1739. Court records then, as today, do not prove who was in an area or when they arrived. This is illustrated by the fact that the roster of Capt. Robinson’s militia company in 1742 showed a substantial number of men living south of the James River and along Goose Creek, an early name of Roanoke River. Actually, the best way to determine the earliest settlers in an area is to find out who claimed the most desirable land. For example, in our valley, Tasker Tosh settled on the rich river bottoms and Mark Evans’ land included the fountain which we know today as Crystal Spring, as well as the Naked Land, a portion of which we call the Barrens, near Woodrum Airport. An appraisal of the Barrens in 1754 and 1755 gives a good picture of one of the better farms in our valley. Eighteen acres was cleared and well fenced under corn and 10 acres of clear meadow. A log house, 10 by 15 feet, a house 22% by 12, a corn crib 15 by 4, and a spring house, 18 by 12, five head of horses, one breeding sow and 22 head of cattle, one wagon and gears, one axe, a grubbing hoe, two plows and gears were appraised here. The early settlers who came into the valley followed the Indian Warriors Path from the north and the Traders Path from the east. It was not until 1745 that the court of Orange County directed a road be built from Roanoke to the top of the mountain adjoining Brunswick County, now Franklin. This would become a part of what was known for many years as the Great Road from the Yadkin River through Virginia to Philadelphia. Shortly after the court in Augusta was organized, a committee was appointed to advise the justices of Lunenburg, now Bedford, that a road had been built from the Roanoke to the crest of the Blue Ridge and to request that it be continued through their county. In 1746, a road from the Big Lick toward New River was authorized. One of the early mills in this area was referred to by the Morav­ ians, who in 1753 came through the valley on their way from Penn­ sylvania to North Carolina. It was originally built by Mark Evans but at that time was operated by his son, Daniel. It was located between Crystal Spring and the river. Another was run by John Robinson by the waters of Tinker Creek, then called Buffalo Creek on what would later become the plantation of Col. William Fleming. A trading post was operated by Erwin Patterson at the Stone House near pre­ sent-day Cloverdale. In 1753 at a court held there, a warrant was issued against John Connally for maltreating the emperor of the Cherokees. Soon after the outbreak of the French and Indian War, Gov, 33 �Dinwiddie ordered George Washington, the commander of the 1st Virginia Regiment, to change his tactics from defensive to offensive. Washington placed Maj. Andrew Lewis in command of what today is known as the Sandy Creek Voyage. Many of the troops passed through our valley on their way to the rendezvous point at Dunkards Bottom on the New River. In June, 1756, after the failure of that expedition against the Shawnees, a strong force of French and Indians captured and de­ stroyed Fort Vaux near the present town of Shawsville. Our valley was wide open to attack. Hurriedly, a council of war was called and the construction of a chain of forts was decided upon to protect the frontier. Vaux was to be rebuilt and the plan called for Fort Mason and Fort Neil McNeil to be built in our valley but it is highly doubtful if either became a reality. Some say the latter would have been located in present-day Montgomery County but the court records of Augusta do not support that theory. Campbell’s soon became known as Fort Lewis. Many of us remember the remains of Fort Garst out near Kings­ town (north of Roanoke). Instead of a fort, it was probably a forti­ fied house as were many in those early days. An interesting story has been told about it but I assure you that I do not certify its veracity. Frederick Garst was splitting a log by means of driving a wedge into it when four Indians arrived with the intention of taking him into captivity. He is said to have prevailed upon them to help finish splitting the log. He placed two on each side with their fingers in the crack. They were to pull as he drove the wedge deeper. Sud­ denly, there was a change of plans and Garst knocked the wedge out, mashing their fingers. They began to holler bloody murder. There was only one humane thing to do— put them out of their misery. Hence four more redskins bit the dust. No place was considered of any importance in those days unless It could be proved George Washington paid it a visit. I remember, as a small boy, seeing a sign in Massachusetts which read, “If George Washington had taken the other road he would have come by this spot!” In the fall of 1756, while he was making an inspection trip of the forts his account book shows he spent three shillings at Widow Evans, the relict of Daniel Evans, who of course, lived close to the place where we are tonight. After the French were defeated, they ceded all of their claims in North America to the English, with the exception of two small islands off the coast of Canada. Hewever, peace did not prevail be­ cause the Cherokee Nation had gone on the warpath from Georgia to Virginia. In the spring of 1760, Col. William Byrd, now in com34 �mand of the 1st Regiment, was ordered to rendezvous his troops at Fort Lewis with the mission of relieving Fort Loudon on the Holston River. As a result of dilatory tactics he got no further than Sayers Mill where he built Fort Chiswell and put his regular companies into winter quarters. The following spring he received orders to ren­ dezvous his new recruits at Fort Lewis where they were to be trained and equipped for the purpose of capturing Long Island on the Holston. Again, he got no further than Fort Chiswell and there he left the regiment. Lt. Col. Adam Stephens assumed command, hurriedly opened a wagon road to Long Island and moved the regiment there. This aggressive action caused the Cherokees to sue for peace. In early 1762, according to orders, he marched the regiment back to Fort Lewis where it was mustered out. After the cessation of to the west. The road from at the Big Lick. It is said, at settlers camped at a spring westward trip. hostilities, there was a mass movement the north and the one from the east met times, there were hundreds of prospective nearby, resting up before continuing the A few tidbits of our valley’s early history: Thomas Tosh acted as commissary and collected flour for the use of the troops and Indians in 1757. James Campbell and later Alexander Boyd maintained a trading post in the Fort Lewis area. Crime is no novelty because in 1765 two men were convicted for counterfeiting. Thomas Barnes operated an ordinary at his home near the Big Lick, as did William Christian at the Stone House. Arch­ ibald Campbell was also granted a license to operate an ordinary at his house which was the predecessor of the Ponce de Leon, now the Crystal Tower Hotel. The charges they could make were strictly re­ gulated by the court. For example, West Indian rum was 10 shillings per gallon, whereas rum made on this continent was two shillings, six pence for a like amount. A warm diet with a small beer cost nine pence but if one would accept it cold, the price dropped a third. Lodging in clean sheets for one was a shilling, six pence; for two in the same bed, an additional charge could be made of three pence and three farthings, but nothing extra for three or more. Hemp was by far the biggest money crop and it had to be registered with the courthouse because England needed it for her Navy. For example, in the growing season of 1770-71, James Campbell reported 3,692 pounds and Nathaniel Evans, 4,500 pounds. Even today, we use the names, possibly unknowingly, of some of our early settlers when we refer to Craven’s Creek, Creely’s Gap, Carvin’s Creek, McAfee Knob, Peter’s Creek, Fort Lewis and Mason’s Creek. 35 �Again in 1774 the Indians went on the war path, killing settlers, pillaging and burning their homes. It is true our valley was generally clear of Indians but obviously the effect on our people was consider­ able. Governor Dunmore directed Col. Andrew Lewis to raise a res­ pectful body of men from the militia of Augusta, Botetourt and Fincastle counties. He should then proceed to the Ohio River and join up with the troops Dunmore would raise and lead from the nor­ thern counties. Lewis alerted the militia and-called a council of war at his home, Richfield, which would be in the corporate limits of Salem, if it were still standing. The commanders reported the conditions of their units and received the plan of operations. On Sept. 12, Col. William Fleming marched out at the head of his Botetourt Regiment, 453 strong. After reaching the rendezvous point at Camp Union, near presentday Lewisburg, W. Va., the troops rested before proceeding to Point Pleasant at the confluence of the Ohio and the Great Kanawha rivers. The astute Indian chieftain, Cornstalk, with his Shawnee, Mingo, Tawa and Wyandot warriers, realized it was imperative for him to attack before the two wings of the army joined. During the night of Oct. 9, the Indians quietly crossed the Ohio and planned to attack Lewis’ troops at daybreak. Fortunately, at first light, intelligence was received of the approaching enemy. Fleming was directed to take 150 of his men and form a line along the river bank and Col. Charles Lewis of Augusta, a brother of Andrew Lewis, was to form a similar line some 200 yards to the right. Almost immediately, the Indians attacked. Charles Lewis fell, mortally wound­ ed, and Fleming was forced to leave the field after being wounded three times. The lines were reinforced and the battle continued furiously throughout the day but as darkness fell the Indians were forced to withdraw across the river. Casualties were high but justified, according to Theodore Roose­ velt’s Winning of the West. He wrote, “If this victory had not been secured, the western boundary of the United States after the Revolu­ tionary War probably would have been the Alleghany Mountains.” Many men of our valley received their baptism of fire in this engagement and others increased their military knowledge which would stand them in good stead in the bloody days that followed July 5, 1776 when Virginia declared itself a commonwealth. 36 �Early Lighting Devices by L e e W in bo r n e The story of artificial lighting began when man first made and used fire. From the open fire, he took burning sticks or torches and later he made holders for the burning wood. These torches were the earliest form of illumination, and continued in use until the 20th century. Primitive man probably used natural things such as shells or stones for lamps. Shaped lamps were used during the Stone Age. A hollowed stone found in a French cave is said to be 15,000 years old. One stone lamp was found still containing grease and a vegetable fiber wick. In some places stone lamps were still being used at the beginning of the 20th century. Later in history, man molded lamps of clay, then of ores. All these early lamps were of the same principle: 1. A hollow receptacle for oil (open or closed). 2. A handle for carrying on one side. 3. The opposite side had a gutter or trough for a wick rest. Later lamps, such as those of the Greeks and Romans, were more artistic and ornamented, but similar in concept and archeologists have found many examples of this simple form. Little is known about dev*ces used for lighting during the E Dark and Middle Ages, but probably they pan lamps simi*ar those used during the 17th I century and float lamps where g S f the wick floated on a surface of oil in a bowl or saucer. On this continent, the Indians are not known to have had any lamps; the only reports tell of their burning wood torches. One type of Eskimo had lamps of stone, clay and bone. They burned seal or whale oil and used moss wicks. pan lamp The first Pilgrim lamp, according to Arthur Hayward, was an iron “Betty” lamp purchased in Holland by Captain John Carver just before he sailed. This iron lamp was designed on the same principle as the earliest known form. As this country was settled, many kinds of lamps were being 37 �used during the same period, and the simpler forms were not always abandoned when improved lamps came into general use. Helen Hebard stated there were five categories of lighting used by the colonists: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Log fires, torches and splint lights Grease lamps, pans, cruses and “Bettys” Rushlights Candles and candle-holders Later oil fluid lamps, which includes whale oil, lard oil, burn­ ing fluid and Argand type lamps The first colonists, except for a few lamps they brought with them, had only log fires to light their rooms. They used branches for torches and they burned pine knots. As had been done in Europe for hundreds of years, and by observing the Indians, they used splint lights, which were slivers of resinous pine wood. In the North it was called “candlewood,” in the South, “lightwood.” These splints, cut 8-10 inches, were carried, stuck be­ tween the stones of the fireplace, or put in iron splint holders. All the colonists gathered these splints and this was popu­ lar, cheap and available form of light­ ing for a long time. splintholder For centuries in Europe, the pan lamps, cruses and “Betty” lamps had been in use. The settlers made these of iron and burned grease or fish oil. The pan lamp was the simplest type of lamp, open, flat and shallow with the wick lying in the bottom. The cruse was a shallow lamp with the reservoir narrowed at one side to form a wick channel. It was sus­ pended by a curved bail with an attached hook. The “Betty” lamp was like the cruse except it had a separate wick sup­ port fixed to the bottom near the wick channel and usually it was covered with a lid. The origin of the name “Betty” is uncertain but most likely 38 �it came from the German word “Besser,” meaning better. This form of lamp was made until the time of the Civil War and for 300 years it was the best lamp commonly used in this country. These lamps were first made of iron, but were later of tin, a cheap durable material, and occasionally of brass or pewter. Gradually, in order to overcome the smoking crusting wick, it was enclosed in a circular tube and eventually positioned upright. The fuel reservoir deepened to hold more grease or oil. In England, the meadowrush was gathered, peeled, and soaked in fat, then burned in a pincer like iron holder. It was questionable whether these rushes were used for lighting in America, but recently the Rushlight Bulletin reported the finding of a rushholder in a parti­ tion of a house in Massachusetts built about 1680. These rushlights were similar to the early candles, which were stalks of flax or rushes bundled together and soaked with grease or tallow. The Roman cand­ les were ropes or twisted threads covered with wax. Candles, as we know them today, are only about 1,000 years old, and were not widely used until the 18th century. Bees­ wax candles were expensive and used mainly by royalty and churches. The tallow candles were most common> but the settlers had no cows or sheep at first to furnish good tallow, and expensive supplies had to come from England. Later, once a year after the slaughtering, the women made their own candles, but the supply was always limited. Candles were burned only for special guests. rushlight holder Mrs. Roger M. Winborne Jr., a director o f the Society, talked about “The History o f Early Lighting with Emphasis on the Colonial Period” at a meeting o f the Society on Jan. 26, 1971. Her talk is printed here and the pictures are o f lighting devices in her collection. Mrs. Winborne is a m em ber o f the Rushlight Club, an organization o f people interested in early lighting. 39 �Bayberries gathered along the coast in the fall made clear burn­ ing, sweet smelling candles, but it took from 4 to 15 pounds of berr­ ies to make one pound of wax. From 1650 to 1750 the Right Whale was caught along the New England coast and the oil was used in the grease and “Betty” lamps. From about 1750 until 1850, the sperm whale was hunted at sea. From the huge head of this species of whale came a light oil and a granular material call­ ed spermaceti. Candles of spermaceti produced a pure light and are still a standard measure of artificial light. From this we get the term “candle power”. Not until the 19th century was the smoky, smelly glycerin re­ moved from tallow, leaving stearin, which burns clear and does not gutter. In this same century the wick was also perfected so it would be self-consuming, and snuffing was no longer required. Candles were first made by hand-dipping, and this method con­ tinued to be used in some areas until the late 19th century. Candlemolds were used in France in the 15th century, but it was a long time before colonial families had their own molds, or could pay a candlemaker to do the job for them. 40 �The first style of candlestick was the pricket or spike. Since the wax was soft and the candle size variable, it could be thrust on the spike. Later candleholders were hollow sockets on a support. In the development of the holder, the drip pan gradually moved up, and by the 17th century it was one-half way up the stem. Solid brass and iron holders were replaced during the first quarter of the 18th century by hollowstem holders. These hollow ones had rods or thumb pieces to raise the candle. Candleholders were brought over from Europe by the settlers, but little brass work was done here until after the Revolution. In the 19th century, sheet iron candleholders were made. In 1845 Will­ iam Palmer, an Englishman, patented a spring candleholder. He put springs in the hollow stems to keep the candle leng­ th constant. Up until the Revolutionary War, less than 200 years ago, there were no real changes in the basic principles of arti­ ficial lighting. Artistically, lamps im­ proved and they were cared for and handled more efficiently but the old lamps were usually kept for economic reasons. cruse Then several inventions greatly changed lighting. In 1783, a Frenchman invented a flat wick burner. That same year, a Swiss chemist, Ami Argand, pat­ ented the first lamp using scientific prin­ ciples. He used a tubular wick with air currents inside and outside the wick to increase the combustion. He also used a chimney to increase the draft. These lamps were very expensive, and used 12 times the fuel of other lamps. At first they burned vegetable or whale oil, la­ ter they were adopted for kerosene. They were used in this country from 18201850, but only the wealthy could afford one. In 1787, an earlier Englishman, John Miles, patented an “agi­ �table” burner. This was an upright wick tube and a closed fuel reservoir. This burner at first had one or two short parallel metal wick tubes fastened in a cork. About 1830, the collar holding the wick was threaded. Today, when we speak of whale oil burners, we refer to these upright tubes which are short on top and extended down into the heavy oil. In the side of the tube there usually was a slot to adjust the wick. As whale oil became I more expensive in the first I quarter of the 19th century, I lard oil came into common I use. Lard oil is a by-proI duct of lard rendering. From I 1833 to 1863, over 50 patI ents were taken out on lard I oil burners, most of them ■ using broad, flat wicks beI cause the oil was thick and I congealed. In 1834, burning fluid, a combination of alcohol and turpentine, was used. It was very dangerous and highly combustible. At first this lard oil lamp fluid was used with the old style burners, but in 1840 a new style burner was designed which was safer. This screw type burner consisted of one or more tall tapered brass tubes, all of which were above the fluid. They also had caps to prevent evaporation. S H 1 ■ Coal oil and carbon oil are names used for what we now call kerosene, although the process of refining differed somewhat. Crude petroleum had been known for hundreds of years, but it was not commonly used until 1861 when the first oil well was drilled. In a short time the kerosene burner was developed with a flat wick, spur wick adjuster, dome-shaped deflector and a chimney. From this time on, all other lamp fuels quickly became obsolete. After the Civil War, lighting was completely revolutionized. The old lamps were finally cast aside and new kerosene burners replaced earlier styles. Gas lighting competed with Thomas Edison. Following his de­ velopment of the light bulb in 1879, less than 100 years ago, electric lighting finally succeeded, and the kerosene and gas burners were gradually replaced by electric adapters. 42 �The Metropolis of the Southwest The President has signed the bill for a $75,000 building (post office) at Roanoke. Hurrah for our sister city; nothing can stop her from becoming— by union with Salem— the great metropolis of the Southwest. — Salem Times-Register, February, 1891 Montgomery Men in Mexico B y F ra n k R. L e v s t ik J r . As the United States-Mexican crisis over Texas worsened in the summer of 1845, President James Knox Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor to take the 1,500 troops comprising the Army of the Southern Department from Fort Jesup in Louisiana to Arkansas Bay in Texas.1 When the Slidell mission failed to gain even a hearing of Polk’s offer to settle claims and to purchase New Mexico and California in Janu­ ary of 1846, Taylor was ordered to encamp on the Rio Grande at whatever point he should consider most favorable. The cautious and methodical Taylor delayed advance on the excuse that torrential rains made the march impossible, but it is likely that he seized upon a pre­ text to perfect and fulfill his logistical plan. In April, Taylor’s force reached the Rio Grande and commenced the construction of Fort Brown on the north bank, opposite the small Mexican port of Matamoros. Later on April 24, 1846, General Mariano Arista’s army of 1,600 Mexicans crossed the Rio Grande to harry Taylor’s men.2 Taylor, upon learning of this movement, dispatched to oppose Arista sixty-three dragoons under command of Captain S. B. Thornton.3 Surrounded by the Mexicans and only partially able to cut their way out, they suffered a loss of sixteen killed and wounded.4 “Old Rough and Ready” immediately sent word to Polk that hostilities had commenced. When Polk received the dispatch from Taylor, he promptly de­ clared that Mexico had begun hostilities and asked that Congress recognize that a state of war existed. Congress’ response was a war Frank R. Levstik, a 1968 graduate o f Virginia Tech, explores the role o f Montgomery County m en in the Mexican War. He is a doctoral candidate in history at Ohio State University and a m em ­ ber o f the staff o f the Archives and Manuscript Division o f the Ohio Historical Society. 43 �bill authorizing the President to accept fifty thousand volunteers and appropriating ten million dollars for national defense.5 Although the regulars of the armed services were to provide the expertise of the Mexican War, other troops appeared needed. On November 16, Secretary of War William L. Marcy issued calls to nine states for nine volunteer regiments composed of 148 officers and 800 privates each.6 From the outset of the conflict, the Polk administration had to wrestle with ideological contradictions: how to balance the needs of a bellicose President with his party’s historic suspicion of generals and standing armies. This dilemma was itself an American tradition and worked a response traditional since at least the days of George Washington: citizen-soldiers must save the republic. The numerical strength of the regular army had stood at 7,194 officers and enlisted men at the end of 1844. By the end of hostili­ ties, the regulars would number 24,033 and the volunteers 23,117.7 The regimental staff included a colonel, a lieutenant colonel, a major, an adjutant, a sergeant major, a quartermaster sergeant, and two musicians. Each of the nine regiments had ten companies who were to have a captain, a lieutenant, two second lieutenants, four sergeants, four corporals, two musicians, and eighty privates. At once, Virginia’s Governor William “Extra Billy” Smith issued a proclamation calling upon citizens of the Old Dominion to form a volunteer regiment. The Governor admonished the volunteers in elect­ ing their officers to discard personal preference and to select the best qualified leaders.8 Though Virginian troopers sang to the tune of Yankee Doodle: I’ll sling my knapsack on my back, My rifle on my shoulder, And to Mexico I’ll go to be a gallant soldier,® the Virginia regiment organized so slowly that her recruiting officers extended their efforts to Maryland.’8 Their task proved difficult, since volunteers were provided with no bounty, no clothing, and received less pay than regulars." Furthermore, there existed no central train­ ing camp for enlistees, who often waited at local depots for an in­ definite period of time until enough of the state’s requirement was filled.12 The inadequate public subscription for uniforms and supplies was rectified when the Virginia General Assembly voted $10,000 for the volunteer regiment until it became mustered into federal ser­ vice.13 44 �A sketch of fighting in the Mexican W ar was drawn by Frank Levstik Sr., of Columbus, Ohio, father of the writer. Although the governor had issued his initial proclamation on November 18, 1846, it remained more than a month before the full text of his message reached Christiansburg, the county seat of Mont­ gomery County. This county of 5,825 citizens exhibited pride in its martial tradition since the French and Indian War, and its citizens responded eagerly to the call to arms. Formation of Montgomery County’s company began immediately under the title of First Grena­ dier Company of Virginia Volunteers. In the election of officers, James Francis Preston was named captain. The choice of Preston appeared by no means unnatural, since his family dominated the area as its most prominent land magnates and office holders. Two had served as governor of the Commonwealth in the preceding thirty years. Among the mixed German-Scot-Irish folk there existed for the Prestons an awe and respect which begets hope of martial laurels. A Preston had led in such conflicts as the Tug River Indian campaign in the 1770’s, as in Lord Dunmore’s War, as in the Revolutionary Battle of Guilford Court House, as in the Battle of Chrysler’s Farm in the War of 1812." Other officers included Fleming Gardner, first lieutenant, Henry Stanger, second lieutenant, James M. Wade, third lieutenant, Robert G. Newlee, first sergeant, James R. Myers, second sergeant, Benjamin Linkous, third sergeant, and Charles Jackson, fourth sergeant. Chosen corporals were Patterson Bowers, George Keister, Joseph Miller, and James R. Davis.14 45 �The largely self-sufficient farmers and laborers of the broken and mountainous country soon formed their special detachments. From the village of Blacksburg, with a citizenry of 250, came the “Blacks­ burg Blues”. This group with others from throughout the county con­ verged on Christiansburg. Christiansburg, the county seat and largest town with a population of 400, seemed the likely place for muster. The town was indeed the trade center of the county with four stores and two churches.15 On January 6, 1847, the company left Christiansburg and marched on foot to Lynchburg, a distance of eighty-six miles. Marching over rugged terrain and crossing steep mountains, the First Grenadier Com­ pany eventually reached the outskirts of Lynchburg, a growing, bust­ ling young city of 8,000 inhabitants, whose citizens at this time were beginning to agitate in favor of a railroad in addition to the James River and Kanawha Canal.16 The Montgomery County company num­ bering between ninety-six and one hundred men were greeted by a deputation of Lynchburg citizens on horseback a short distance from town. Joining the citizens were three volunteer companies from other parts of southwestern Virginia.17 The Montgomery men marched into town amid a large civic and military procession. The company paraded down Main Street amidst strains of martial music and the loud huzzas of the onlookers. Ar­ riving at the Washington Hotel, the contingent was received and welcomed in a patriotic address from William S. Reid.18 Scheduled to leave the following day at two o’clock, the First Grenadiers paraded in front of the Washington Hotel and were thence escorted to the wharf on the James River. Major James Garland, on behalf of the citizens addressed Captain Preston’s company on the deck of a boat in a handsome and appropriate speech, “highly incen­ tive to patriotism, discipline, and valor.” At the conclusion of the speech, Garland shook hands with Preston. There followed repeated cheers by the citizens which the volunteers acknowledged and re­ turned. As the old freight boat “Exit” burdened with volunteers, moved off toward Richmond, there followed a beautiful air from the band and loud peals of cannon and musketry.19 At Richmond on January 15, the company underwent the regu­ lar muster into service as part of the First Regiment Virginia Volun­ teers. Commanding the regiment was Colonel John F. Hamtramck of Jefferson County, a graduate of West Point and subordinate of Gen­ eral Zachary Taylor in the War of 1812. Assisting him were Lieuten­ ant Colonel Beverly Randolph of Warren County, a veteran of the War of 1812, and Major Jubal A. Early of Franklin County, Seminole War veteran.20 The regiment remained in Richmond for two weeks 46 �before it was conveyed by steamer to Fortress Monroe, where it ar­ rived February 1, immediately entering barracks and commencing regular drill for a month.21 The walled fortress at Old Point encompassed nearly sixty-three acres. Perhaps no other fort in the continental United States ap­ proached it in size. It was generally believed that no fort in all the world was larger except those which enclosed towns. The structure was a polygon of six unequal sides and with an awe-inspiring bastion at each of the corners and an extra one jutting out toward the chan­ nel. A moat encircled the graying stone walls.22 While stationed at Fortress Monroe, Corporal James Davis from Montgomery County died of smallpox. Others succumbing to small­ pox were Privates Stephen Lindsey and James Trump of the county. William Black and John Starr died of congestion of the brain before leaving Fortress Monroe. Discharged, before leaving, for disability were Crockett Linkous, Robert Lorton, Charles Elliot, Jeremiah Ferris, R. McDaniel, Charles Lee, and Crockett Roop.23 At Fortress Monroe, the word came that the Virginia General Assembly gave verbal support to the war by declaring that it had been “most unrighteously provoked . . . by a long series of acts of injustice and outrage towards the United States.24 On February 23, the General Assembly authorized the Governor to present to each company’s officer a sword from the armory of the state. Before boarding the ship for Mexico, the volunteers were out­ fitted with blue cloth fatigue caps, jackets and trousers. In addition, the officers wore single-breasted frock coats. Most of the infantry carried general-issue flintlock muskets, which normally could not be relied on for more than a hundred yards.25 On March 1, the regiment went on board the sail ship “Sophia Walker,” recently arrived from Boston, and now sixteen days later disembarked at Brazos, Santiago, Texas. While off the Florida reefs, William Yopp of the First Grenadiers succumbed to an unspecified disease. The primary camp lay three or four miles at the north end of Brazos Island. The island consisted of low hills on the side toward the mainland, a swamp in the center, and in general, “three blades of grass to fifty square feet of sand,” according to Lieutenant George B. McClellan.26 From Brazos, the regiment proceeded on foot to the mouth of the Rio Grande, about nine miles away, where it re-embarked on board a steamboat and after a voyage up the narrow, muddy stream past 47 �Matamoros, landed at Comargo on enemy soil, April 1. Subsequently, the unit marched up the San Juan River, by way of Caddareta and Chena through country covered with mesquite trees, canes, and cab­ bage trees. At Chena, Private William Linkous fell victim to brain fever, which may have been the consequence of sun-stroke. The con­ tingent marched on to Walnut Springs outside Monterrey where they relieved the Second Ohio Company which had been stationed there for an extended period of time.27 Monterrey, which had been taken before their arrival, was marked with pillage, almost exclusively in­ flicted by American troops.28 Thus, the Montgomery Grenadiers and the other Virginia Volunteers saw very little action except for oc­ casional skirmishes with small Mexican scouting parties.29 Two weeks later, the Virginia Regiment again took up the line of march and advanced by way of Saltillo to Buena Vista, where it joined a portion of General Taylor’s army commanded by General John E. Wool, two months after Taylor’s greatest victory.30 Although there was little military activity in northern Mexico after the Battle of Buena Vista, sometimes the Virginians would en­ gage in scouting and patrol skirmishes.31 On one occasion, Early sug­ gested a move involving a high degree of risk. When Major Early per­ sisted, Hamtramck allowed him to take fifty volunteers and go on the expedition. As the adjutant prepared the needed orders, he remarked: “Jubal, I can testify that you are an Early who is never late, but I fear you will soon be known as the late Early.”32 Jubal, however, re­ turned unharmed from the expedition. Meanwhile, the Montgomery Countians remained at Buena Vista until the middle of June 1848. During the Virginians’ garrison duty, five men from Montgomery County died: Andrew Clifton of consump­ tion and Pleasant Clingenpeel, John L. Manson, James A. Morehead and William Battles of fever. After the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was ratified by Mexico on May 19, 1848, the volunteers began their homeward march overland by way of Saltillo, Monterrey, Seralvo, Mier, and Comargo, situated at the confluence of the San Juan and Rio Grande Rivers.33 Down the latter the Virginians proceeded by steamboat and reached its mouth on July 3, celebrating the nation’s birthday the following day. Soon af­ terwards, they marched to Brazos, and after a delay of a few days em­ barked on board the U.S.S. Ohio. The seventy-four-gun ship of the line, “Ohio” was long considered one of the finest vessels of her type in the world and by far the best in the American Navy.34 By way of the Indies they returned to Fortress Monroe. On July 20, they disem­ barked and by August 1, the troop completed the muster out from the 48 �service.35 The citizens of Richmond feted the returning veterans by giving them a dinner on August 5.36 After the celebration at Rich­ mond, the First Grenadier Company began their journey to their mountain homes and a public dinner at Christiansburg. The Montgomery Grenadiers did not join General Taylor’s army in Northern Mexico until after the focus of war had shifted to Gen­ eral Scott’s army in Central Mexico. Although they and other com­ panies of Virginia volunteers did not see any battle action during their tour of duty in Mexico, their garrison duty at Monterrey and Buena Vista had served important and useful service which was by no means lacking in danger. There is no record of casualties among Taylor’s army resulting from guerilla activities after the Battle of Buena Vista, but the twelve Montgomery Grenadiers who died of various diseases were no less heroes than those who had fallen in battle. It would be going too far to say that the men of Montgomery County derived any­ thing from the Mexican War which aided the eleven known to have served in the Civil War some thirteen years later. At best, a former Montgomery Grenadier might in 1861 have related to gullible stayat-homes how he had served not only with “Old Zach” at Buena Vista but with the gallant Colonel Jefferson Davis. In fact, however, the patriotic mythology of Montgomery County gives little or no place to our War with Mexico. 1 Ju s tin H. Sm ith, T he W ar With M exico (Y ol. I in The W ar With M exico, G lou cester: P e te r Sm ith , 1963; h erea fte r cited as Sm ith, M ex ico ), 14«. 2 Glyndon V an D eusen, The Ja ck so n ia n E r a , 1828-1848 (New Y o rk : H arper and B roth ers, 1959), 222. 3 Otis Sin gletary , The M exican W ar (C hicago, U niversity of Chicago P r e s s , 1960; h ere­ a fte r cited as Sin gletary , W a r), 13. 4 Ibid. 5 Ib id ., 14. 6 Sm ith , M exico, I, 537. 7 Ib id , 512. 8 W illiam Sm ith to G en eral A ssem bly ol V irginias Richm ond, N ovem ber 18, 1848s Calend a r of V irg in ia S ta te P a p ers, X I, 18-19. » Alfred Hoyt B ill, R e h e a rsa l for C o nflict: The W ar with M exico 1846-1848 (New Y o rk : H istory Book Club, 1947), 240. 10 Sm ith , M exico, I, 537. (S ee also R . A. Billington’s The F a r W estern F ro n tie r (New Y o rk , 1956), pp. 174-175; for reg ion al response to the c a ll to arm s. 11 Ibid. 12 Ib id ., O , 431. . 13 W. Asbury C hristian , R ich m o nd : H er P a s t and P rese n t (R ich m o nd : L . H. P erk in s, 1912), 155-156. ___ „ I 14 C h arles Wade Crush, The M ontgom ery County Story, 1776-1957; h e re a fte r cited Crush, M ontgom ery, 68. _ _ . . 15 H enry Howe, H istorical Collections of V irginia (C h arleston : W illiam R . B a b co ck , 1852), 385. j § n . 16 E lizab eth D . C olem an, “ Southw est V irg in ia’s R a ilro a d ,’’ V irginia C av alcade, H , No. 4 (Sp rin g , 1953), 20-28. 17 R ichm ond Whig, Ja n . 19, 1847. 18 Richm ond Whig, J a n . 19, 1847. 20 M illard K . Bushong, Old Ju b e , A Biography of G en eral Ju b a l A. E a r ly (B o y c e : C a rr Pu blishing Co., In c ., 1955; h e re a fte r cited as Bushong, Old Ju b e , u . 21 Crush, M ontgom ery, 69. 22 W illiam M . E . R a c h a l, I I , No. 1 (Su m m er, 1952), 20. “ W alled F o rtre s s and R e so rt . . . H otels” , V irg inia _ , C ava cad , 49 �23 Crush» M ontgom ery, 69. 24 Resolution of G en eral A ssem b ly ; F e b . 20, 1847; R ich m o n d ; C alend ar of V irg in ia S ta te P a p e rs , X I , 19. 26 Sm ith , M exico , I, 451. 26 Ib id ., 205. 27 C rush, M ontgom ery, 69. 28 S in g le tary , W ar, 145. 29 Bushong, Old Ju b e , 23. 30 C rush, M ontgom ery, 69. 31 Bushongr Old Ju b e , 23. 32 Bushong, Old Ju b e , 23-24. 33 Crush, M ontgom ery, 70. 34 Howard I. Chapelle, T he H istory of T he A m erican S ailin g N avy (New Y o rk : Bonanza B ooks, 1949), 314. 35 Crush, M ontgom ery, 70. 36 Lyon G . T y le r, H istory of V irg in ia (V ol. I I in H istory of V irg in ia, New Y o rk : A m erican H isto rical So ciety , 1924), 479. ^yton M. Lewis, Teacher, Preacher Two weeks before his death at Waterloo, Iowa in December, 1934, the Rev. Peyton M. Lewis wrote back to Roanoke County: “I am think­ ing of the old home and old folks of years in Virginia. How Henry, David, Berry and I used to go over those fields in the snow, rabbit hunting Christmas day. How we used to drink eggnog and frolick.” This was the last letter in the 85year-old minister’s correspondence over seven months with Mrs. L. E. Freeland of Roanoke County. His let­ ters, held by Mrs. Freeland today, tell the story of a man who went from slavery on Benjamin Deyerle’s planta­ tion at Garst Mill to become valedic­ torian of his class at Hampton Insti­ tute, serve as the first Negro school teacher in Bedford County and then devote 50 years to ministry of the Af­ rican Methodist Episcopal Church in five states. The letters began after the Water­ loo Daily Courier published a story about the busy life of Mr. Lewis after his 85th birthday. Someone sent the Rev. Peyton M. Lewis newspaper story to Mrs. Freeland, who is a granddaughter of Benjamin Deyerle, master of Mr. Lewis from his birth in 1849 until his freedom at 50 I �Brick walk at the Benjamin Deyerle home dates from the mid-19th century. the end of the Civil War in 1865. She wrote to him and this began a renewal of family memories of 70 years earlier. “I have not been idle a week since I left that plantation,” he wrote. “I worked on farms and made and laid bricks for years; went to schools when I could.” With the clear recollection often enjoyed by the elderly, Mr. Lewis wrote about Benjamin and Julia Deyerle and their nine chil­ dren in the 19th century. Deyerle, remembered today as the build­ er of a number of fine old brick homes, “bought my father, Charles Lewis, and his brother, Peyton Lewis, on the auction block in Rich­ mond. I was named after my uncle.” Charles Lewis was “a great distiller of whiskeys and great brick molder and layer. Father laid brick in front of the house you now live in (the Deyerle home now owned by Mr. and Mrs. Alan Fink on Grandin Road Extension, near the intersection of the Garst Mill Road), he laid the front of Mr. James Persinger’s house, Mr. Benjamin Keagy’s house and many others in Roanoke, Franklin and other coun­ ties around Roanoke. He and I made and laid the brick in Henry Dey erle’s house in Franklin Co. after the Civil War closed. “I cannot remember the building of the house you now live in, but I remember the building of rock and brick walls around the yards. Opposite the garden was a hewed log house that our master built for my father and family. 51 �“At the west end of this house stood a large cherry tree. Cher­ ries always got ripe on it in May, so we called it the May cherry tree. Is it still alive? The orchard west of the big mansion Old Master and myself set most of it out. I suppose it is a fine fruit orchard now. “Yes, I remember also when we built the brick spring house and ash house. There used to stand a large sweet apple tree near the ash house.” Later, he recalled that catfish were caught at the old mill dam on the Deyerle place. “When I was on that farm, I drove a two-ox team. I hauled many barrels of flour and whisky from that old mill and a big distillery that stood near the creek south of your house to the Salem and Big Lick depots.” “I used to grease and blacken old Master Benjamin’s and all of his children’s shoes except Miss Susan’s, she was married and gone before I was large enough, every Sunday morning. I used to carry Master George to the Salem College every Monday morning when he was attending that school. Uncle Dick, or Richard Taylor, he was the carriage driver, and carried Miss Eliza and Jenny to the Botetourt school Mondays. Henry, David, Berry, Miss Betty and Charles Chapman had not gotten into these schools when the Civil War closed.” Mr. Lewis recalled that “a teacher got me into Hampton Nor­ mal and Agricultural Institute” in 1869, the year after the school was founded. He graduated as valedictorian of a class of 17 in 1873, the year after Booker T. Washington entered Hampton. His first wife, Mrs. Alice Ferribee Lewis of Elizabeth City, N. C., was a classmate of Washington. After graduation at Hampton, the Lewises moved to Liberty, now Bedford, where he said he was the first of his race to teach in the public schools after the war. This was only three years after the start of Virginia’s public school system. During six years of teaching, he said he succeeded in opening 11 schools in Bedford County for his people. In those early days of public education, the school term for the state was from three to five months and average pay for Negro teachers was $30 a month. But under a special Peabody Fund for public schools, a school showing an average daily attendance of 50 or more could get an appropriation to carry on its work three or four more months. Mr. Lewis took advantage of this opportunity and had eight or nine months of school in Bedford City. 52 �In the beginning of Bedford teaching, he said in a letter to Hampton in 1911, “we had considerable difficulties in getting school homes and their proper outfits, but as far as possible, we always overcame these by using old log churches, cabins and building such school houses as we could. All of them being furnished with a table, a rough made and painted black board and slab benches. No writing desks, no maps or globes. As fast as possible we would get money to­ gether and send off—to friends, white— and supply our schools with maps and globes.” For an alumni publication at Hampton in 1893, Mr. Lewis wrote that in his teaching at Liberty, Thaxton Switch and Bunker Hill in Bedford County, he taught 600 children, 11 of whom became teachers. At this time, he also was busy organizing Sunday Schools “all over that county and getting friendly white people of the north to help supply these schools with suitable literature.” Also at the same time he was active in general church work which he entered fulltime in 1879. Mr. Lewis reported in 1911— 38 years after he left Hampton— that he had had no vacation or holiday. He said he studied Latin, Greek, French and German at Wabash College in Indiana while serving as a pastor in the Indiana Meth­ odist church. After he was ordained an elder in the A.M.E. church, he acquired a reputation for raising money for church indebtedness. He raised $4,000 at Champaign, 111., in two years and he paid a debt of $2,000 at Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In 1926, he received a silver loving cup commemorating 50 years of ministry in the A.M.E. church and he retired in 1930. He wrote that from age 11 until 80 “no one had to give me a meal or clothes to eat and wear.” Mr. Lewis told the Waterloo Daily Courier that he was once priced at $600 by a slave trader but his master refused to sell. Deyerle had about 60 slaves, he said. 53 �Bedford Saves an Old Church Bedford's Historic Meeting House dressed for Christmas. An early nineteenth century church building, believed to be the oldest still intact in Bedford County, is being preserved as a mem­ orial and hopefully as a county museum and cultural center by the Bedford Historical Society. It is a simple wooden structure on West Main Street, built either in 1838 or a few years earlier, as the home of the Methodist con­ gregation in Liberty, by which name the present City of Bedford was known until the 1890s. Late in the nineteenth century, Bedford Episcopalians bought the church from the Methodists and used it for two generations for the Negro communicants of the church. It was then known as St. Philip’s Episcopal Church. Now, it has been renamed the Bedford Historic Meeting House. 54 �However, its congregation gradually dwindled, many members transferring to the larger and more progressive Washington Street Baptist Church, all black, until in the last decade it had only about a dozen members. Then St. John’s Episcopal Church, yielding to pressures for desegration, invited St. Philip’s membership to join St. John’s, which a few did. The old church was empty. The Bedford Life Saving Crew was looking around for a site for a new headquarters and garage and finally purchased the church building and lot from the Episcopal Diocese of Southwestern Vir­ ginia, which held the title. The intention was either to remodel the structure as a crew headquarters and garage or raze it and erect a new building. It was the threat that this relic of another age might disappear which inspired a Bedford group who revered landmarks of the county’s past to form the Bedford Historical Society with salvation of old St. Philip’s as its primary project. This came about in the summer of 1970 and an agreement was reached with the Life Saving Crew to buy the church for $18,000. The crew was promised a site gratis by Bedford City Council. The histor­ ical society began a fund raising drive and enough was collected or pledged to make the down payment on the property. A friendly bank helped with a loan for the remainder, but more funds still are needed. Now marked by a new interdenominational “Meeting House” sign telling of its service as a place of worship for 130 years from 1838 to 1968, the old building has its original pews, hand-hewn wood­ work, a balcony and an old bell in the belfry. Bedecked with Christmas greens and candles, the meeting house was first opened to the public on a Tuesday afternoon in December, 1970. The century-old organ was played as more than 200 came for the open house. They were told the immediate objective of the society is to restore the original building and make it a landmark memorial, dedicated to Bedford citizens of yesterday and today. In addition to contributions and pledges, money for the meeting house has been raised by a sale of Good Olde Favorite Foods in March and plans were made for an old fashioned country auction in June. First president of the Bedford Historical Society was Lt. Col. John R. McCormick, U. S. Army, retired, who had come back to Bedford to live after his military career was over. Elected to succeed him is Mrs. R. Bolling Lambeth. 55 �In the July 22 meeting in which the decision to buy the church was reached, Bolling Lambeth, chairman of the finance committee, declared: “We have arrived at a point in the history of this county when we are about to enter upon an historic restoration, the first the county ever has undertaken. We hope we are at the stage of our culture where we are turning back the trend toward destruction of our landmarks.” He told with regret of the disappearance of two covered bridges and the destruction of a building of the “Jeffersonian type of architecture” to make way for something new. “This is the moment of truth,” Lambeth said, as the decision to take the $18,000 plunge was taken. Col. McCormick, in his president’s report, wrote that the society in its first year of operation “accomplished a major historical achie­ vement” in saving St. Philip’s. “The acquisition of this old edifice, snatched literally from the paws of the building wrecker, became the rally point and cause celebre of our historical group,” he wrote. "We Boys Had a Lot of Fun” Floyd County in the 1890s by R o bert G oodykoontz I was born in the old Goodykoontz home in Floyd County around midnight, June 6th, 1884. Mother said she heard the clock strike and I was born just after. Dr. Calvin M. Stigleman was my doctor and “Aunt” Sara Palmer, wife of “Uncle Thad,” was my “Granny.” (Uncle Thad was a slave belonging to my Grandfather David.) Dr. Stigleman was the first captain of my father’s Company “A”, 24th Virginia Regi­ ment, Longstreet’s Corps, Pickett’s Division, Kemper’s Brigade, C.S.A. One of the first things I remember was attending the burial of a little boy named Elmer Harman, I think in 1889, in the old Goody­ koontz graveyard near home. I told mother he looked very pale. Later his father, Asa Harman, erected a tombstone with a lamb on top. We had a colored family named Scales who lived under a hill B efore R obert Goodykoontz, a director o f the Society, died on Aug. 2, 1970, he had put on paper reflections on 86 years o f life, beginning in Floyd County and continuing with his fam ily, working on a rail­ road and with a hardware. Most o f his life was spent in Roanoke but his earliest m em ories o f boyhood in Floyd are narrated here in his own words. 56 �Robert Goodykoontz, 7, in 1891. from the graveyard. One of the boys broke the head off the lamb. Mother offered a reward of ten cents if the lamb’s head would be returned. A few days later we found the head on the grave but the reward was never collected. You will notice to this day the stone with a lamb, with its head broken off, in the old graveyard. A few days, or months, later, probably in October, (we picked up chestnuts on the way) Aunt Nette Kirkner with her son Ed, bro­ ther Oakey and I, went up to the mill. Little Henry Spangler had died with “The Worms.” I do not remember too much about this except I had a red pair of mittens (yarn), connected with a string, and felt very much dressed up. (It was cold this day.) I guess this same winter, 1889, my brothers, Wells, Emmett, Wilmer and Oakey, took me to school one day. (I was only past 5 years old.) Uriah Harman was the teacher (later a dentist in Richmond.) The most I remember was all the girls tried to kiss me. I crawled under the teacher’s desk. There was Lillian Phlegar, Addie and Lula Hilton, Mandy Harman and more such. I did not choose kissin’. The next year, 1890, I went to school. My first teacher, for two years, was Ellen Meaden. "Too Big for M y Britches" My last term in school, under Miss Florence Harman, I guess I got too big for my britches. 57 �I did not study much, but made spit balls and stuck ’em to the ceiling; made funny faces at the kids; put a mouse in Miss Florence’s desk drawers; also put a pin in the seat of her chair. In general I raised hell. Miss Florence said she would whip me if I was as big as Buffalo Mountain (she didn’t) . Also, she said she would have me expelled. However, I stuck it out and graduated at the age of 16, under Miss Florence. We had it pretty tough going to this country school, which was more than a mile away. Sometimes the snow would be two feet deep and then there would be the rainy and sleety days. We boys had to cut the wood for the pot bellied stove and carry it in and keep the fires up. We had no buses, street cars or cafeterias. We carried a cold lunch basket. Mother would give us sausage, spare ribs, ham, apple butter—all with cold biscuits. We would also have some kind of pie and sometimes cakes or cookies, and always about a dozen apples and chestnuts. We lived good and were healthy. Around Thanksgiving and after Christmas, we would have cold turkey or chicken with our biscuits. We got along fine. We boys had a lot of fun. We played “Auntie Over,” that is the crowd would divide, half boys and girls. We would throw a ball over the school house, and the one catching the ball would chase around the corner and try to pop some fat gal in the rump. We used a soft ball for this, but I carried a hard baseball in my pocket, and sometimes I used it on fat Mary Jones’ rump. Johnny Houses and "G o d's Biscuits" We also had a double johnnie house, one half for the boys and one half for the girls. We boys would go first and when the girls went in we would toss “God’s biscuits” (rocks) against the johnnie house. The gals would come out screaming. The school marm could never prove who tossed the “God’s biscuits.” Around Christmas there was a store about a half mile from school which sold firecrackers, which were “strictly forbidden” but some­ how would slip in. We boys would tie fuses four or five feet long to about five or six cannon crackers and place them under the floor and light them when the bell rang. We were all inside when “BOOM” went the crackers. We boys were all innocent and never squealed. After starting to school I had various chores to perform, among them was carrying water up the hill from the spring, carrying in wood, keeping the fires up and going after the cows. On frosty morn­ ings, I, barefooted, would kick the cows up and stand on their warm spots to warm my feet. 58 �Then I had to help milk and later would have to churn butter. Oakey, my brother, and I would have to dash 100 times each for about 2 hours. Mother would not give us hot water to warm the milk be­ cause she said it made the butter pale in color and not firm. I also had other duties to perform. On Monday mornings, when the weather was good, I had to start a fire under two 20 or 30 gallon iron pots, fill them with water and have the water hot when the washer woman came. However, Oakey and I changed jobs every other week. I would slop and feed the hogs, feed and curry the horses and harness them up, all before breakfast. Then we would go to the fields. We had an old cow horn that mother or daddy would blow about 11:30. We would come in and not go to work until 1 o’clock. It is true we did not have too hard a time. There were 1100 acres on the farm and when I was a small boy, up to about 10 or 12 years old, father had two or three tenants on the farm and they had large families. They did most of the work except around the home, such as the garden, yard, milling, churning, etc. When I was 10 or 12 years old, I was permitted to use a gun. I would go hunting, killed rabbits, squirrels, quail, etc. I had a bunch of steel traps and caught muskrats, mink, pole cats, possums, rabbits. Foot W ashing and Camp Meetings We were right religious these days and attended Sunday School, revivals and camp meetings. They were usually held in the woods on slab benches and everyone took their dinners. Also, the old time Dunkards had kitchens built on to the church with big iron pots in them. They would cook a whole beef and have soup, beef, apple butter and bread and would set a regular meal, wash one another’s feet, take the sacrament with homemade black­ berry wine, usually four or five gallons. The men, all wearing long beards, would kiss one another and the women would do the same. The Iron Side Baptists also took sacrament but washed only one foot. They did not have beards and the men did not kiss. They held their association once a year, usually in August. and and ing. did There were such large crowds the church would not hold them they preached outdoors in a grove or woods, with a stand slab benches. We boys and girls would do considerable court­ We would make new paths through the woods and bushes. We considerable kissin’ and huggin’ and the gals that would not 59 �kiss and hug, we boys would not go with them anymore. We would soon bring them to our terms. Lots of fun. Around the turn of the century, everybody helped the other fellow. We would have barn raisings, threshing, corn shuckings and hog killings. When we had a corn shucking, there was placed somewhere in the middle of the pile of un-shucked corn a jug of apple brandy. Everybody shucked like hell to find the jug. Then everyone would take a “swig.” After that if one found a speckled ear of corn he would be allowed to smell the jug stopper. If he shucked a red ear, he was allowed a good sized drink and if he shucked a “Sque Ball,” an ear of corn with solid patches of red, which were seldom found, then the finder or shucker was permitted to take two drinks. P. S. I carried a “Sque Ball” ear in my pocket. The Great Temperance Movement During the 1880s and 1890s there was a Great Temperance Movement, mostly by the women folks and preachers. Temperance societies were organized and lodges established, mostly in churches and school houses. I remember one in the Falling Branch Schoolhouse. There would be prayer, songs and a mumbo jumbo initiation. The joiner was given a red cloth collar to hang around his neck. The big Mogul, presiding, had a crown with tinsel on it. His collar had glittering stars and he also had a scepter with a battle axe at the top. All new members took an oath “Never to take another drink Goodykoontz homestead in Floyd County, dating in part to 1820. Robert Goodykoontz is standing on the porch. �of liquor.” They would sing Temperance songs such as “Where is My Wandering Boy Tonight?” One of the biggest moonshiners in Floyd County (I will call him Albert) joined, took the oath and was elected the big Mogul (I do not remember his correct title). All the while Albert was mak­ ing hundreds of gallons of moonshine whiskey. But finally the re­ venue agents caught poor Albert red handed. This was the last of the Temperance Society at Falling Branch. Floyd "N ot as Large N o w " Floyd, Virginia (Court House) a boy. There were three hotels, Lee, the Central, run by Howard by Joe Jett. All three had bars and is not as large now as when I was the Jacksonville, run by Jordan Spencer and the Jett House, run the Central had a pool room. Also there were one or two other bars or saloons. One, I re­ member, was run by Bill Russell. These were all licensed places. About 1893 or 1894 there was a big fire which wiped out every­ thing around the Court House except the Jett House. None of the buildings that burned and were replaced were as good or substan­ tial as the ones that burned. Some have never been replaced. During the 1880’s and 1890’s the population of Floyd County must have been almost double what it is now. They sold out and moved to Western States by the hundreds. At one time good land sold for three to five dollars per acre. "Afterthoughts and Things I Forgot To Put In" We boys had snow ball battles and I remember one winter when snow stayed on the ground for months, wild turkeys in the foot hills of Wills Ridge near the school got so poor and weak they could not fly. We would run them down in the snow and turn them over to Nathan Hylton, who lived near the schoolhouse, he put them in a rail pen, fattened them up, killed and cooked them and would bring hot turkey to school for our lunch. Father kept a good many cattle, hogs and sheep. I remember he sold his cattle at only 3 cents per pound in the early 1890’s ( “Hard Times” ). We put up lots of hay for the livestock. We put up over 100 stacks one year. I remember we cut and put up hay from June to Sept. My job was driving the hay rake. Another hard job was taking care of the lambs usually in Feb., snow on the ground, we built a big fire in an old log barn with dirt floor, along with a little brandy. Would make trips all over the sheep lot with lanterns and when we found a lamb that could 61 �not get up after being born, we would take the lamb to the barn and thaw it out, pour some warm milk down it and return it to its Mother, they always lived. Another hard job was shearing sheep. We had over 100 head one year, as we did not have electric clippers, it was all done with hand sheep shears, and our hands got good and greasy, the smart boys now call this sheep grease “lanolin.” We did the usual tricks of boys, Halloween, we set Uncle John Weddle’s wagon on top of his barn. We dragged Uncle Peter Harman’s plow up in the top of a big Black Heart Cherry Tree. Uncle Pete did some tall “cussin.” We also built fences across roads and lanes. Folks did not like this. The damned Goodykoontz boys were blamed whether we did it or not. Most of the time we did. We had other fun, there was threshing, log rollings, barn or house raisings, corn huskings, hog killings, apple butter stirrings, most everyone helped one another and we had fun doing it, especially when we had a nice, fat girl to hug etc. We also attended Wakes, where someone died, the young folks with a few elders would spend the night. We would do some singing, a lotta courting, etc. Usually hot coffee was served along with some kind of sandwiches, during the long night. "About the Birds & the Bees" There was a belled buzzard that flew over Floyd County for two or three years, everyone said the bell was gold, one could hear the bell tinkle and see it glitter in the sunshine, most everyone in Floyd County shot at this Poor Buzzard. I did many times but never heard of anyone killing it. (I guess the bell was brass.) There was a whippoorwill that used to light on the ash hopper, about every night, he would start to “Whip Poor Will,” just as he lighted, he kept Daddy awake. One evening just before dusk, Daddy took some hot ashes from the cook stove and poured them on top the ash hopper, Mr. Whip Poor Will lighted and said “Whip Poor”— he did not get the “Will” out, his feet were scorched, this was the last of Mr. Whip Poor Will. Court Days On court days we would sell lemonade, at first 5 cents per glass, later 2 glasses for a nickle and winding up at 1 cent per glass. I sometime would make as much as $1.00. Melon time, I would take both water and musk melons to Floyd on Saturday afternoons in 62 �the buggy on court days. In the Spring of the year there would be a lot of auction sales, people going West. I would sell apples at those sales, 5 cents per dozen, I managed to have a little change most of the time. The Road to Christiansburg Back in the 1880’s and the 1890’s, Floyd County was in a bad shape, from Floyd Court House to Christiansburg was 21 miles over a dirt road. Up hill, down hill and in the winter time, mud up to the axles of wagons and buggies. There was a hack line that carried the mail and three or four passengers daily, except in winter time, then the mail had to be carried horseback, part of the time. From the old homeplace we had a near cut to Christiansburg, we could go through the Low Gap of Wills Ridge, mostly by horse­ back or light buggy, and I do not think it was more than 17 miles, but it was too steep to take a wagon over it, except in dry weather. We would take the light, empty wagon over and bring back the load by Floyd Court House, which was about 7 or 8 miles further, then we would camp at the foot of Pilot Mt., a few miles from Christiansburg, on what I remember as Ellett’s Creek. There were always as many as a half doz. wagons, sometimes more, there would be a camp fire, and would fry our bacon, ham or dried sausage and with homemade apple butter, etc. So, we lived well. (We always made coffee.) One could smell this cooking and coffee a mile before one reached the camp­ ground. There was always a gallon or so of corn licker or brandy in the crowd, also a (banger) banjo and fiddle. We would carouse all night, no place to sleep, also card games and a fight occasionally. We would holler, fight fair, fist and skull, no rocks? ( Robert Goodykoontz grew up in a time o f great industrial change. In conclusion, he gave his first impression o f inventions now taken fo r granted.) The 19th and 20th Centuries We of my generation have seen more changes in the last half of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries, than have occured since the days of Adam and Eve. Within my lifetime, I have almost seen the beginning, or the complete utilization of the following: the refrigerator, automobile, the aeroplane, the radio and television, moving and talking pictures, 63 �the atomic age, and thousands of modern inventions such as deluxe trains, ocean steamers, giant ships and carriers, big guns, trucks, buses, wonderful farm machinery and tractors, electric heating and air conditioning. I could go on and on. I remember the first telephone, (about 1890 or 92). It was a big thing that hung on the wall with a big box below holding jars of battery acid to create electricity. One had to holler loud to talk to Christiansburg 21 miles away. The first phonograph had rubber tubes which one would place in each ear and hear a squeaky voice. I paid five cents to hear William Jennings Bryan speak in 1896. I paid 25 cents to see the first automobile in a tent at the Rad­ ford Fair. It had high wheels like a buggy. The first flying machine I saw was at the Roanoke Fair. It was a gas bag with a propeller, the operator hung in a basket under the bag and he went as high as Mill Mountain. We paid 25 cents to in­ spect this machine in a tent. The first street car I saw was in Radford around 1890. It was a little doodlebug that would carry 12 or 15 passengers. The first silent movie I saw was in Chicago around 1903. It was a pale blue flickering French film called The Path’e. It would run for about five minutes at the end of Vaudeville, and usually show a cop chasing some one who could run into a fruit peddler’s cart and turn it over. A train would come rushing at you and you would almost jump out of your seat. The first radio was a squally, squeaky thing that gradually im­ proved. Television was just as bad at first. It would flick on and off, howl, screech, etc. It, too, gradually improved. The Atomic Age I do not know much about but I do know it is the most powerful force every invented by man. 64 �ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Amor montium nos m ovet E dm und P. G o o d w in ..................................................................... President Mr s . R oger W i n b o r n e ........................................................ Vice President A rth u r E l l e t t ............................................................................. Treasurer J . R. Hild ebra n d ................. Secretary Mr s . J o el W i l l i s R ic h er t Executive Secretary D ir e c t o r s Raymond P. Barnes Miss Anna Louise Haley E . H. Ould C. P. Blair J . R. Hildebrand Jam es D. Richardson John D, Carr Miss Nancy E . Himes Mrs. English Showalter Mrs. H. Powell Chapman Shields Johnson R. D. Stoner Mrs. John Copenhaver George Kegley Paul S. Stonesifer S. S. Edmunds Mrs. George Kegley David F . Thornton Arthur Ellett R. S. Kime Jam es L. Trinkle J . T. Engleby III Mrs. H. P. Kyle William W atts B. N. Eubank Mrs. J . M. B. Lewis Jr . Mrs. Roger Winborne Edmund P. Goodwin Miss Nancy Logan Jam es P. Woods Mrs. Edmund P . Goodwin Richard L . Meagher Robert W. Woody Jack Goodykoontz Leonard G. Muse Dr. J . C. Zillhardt Miss Frances Niederer �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society 1971? Volume 7, Number 2 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />General James Breckinridge, Frontier Man for All Seasons Botetourt's Three Courthouses<br />A Disastrous Conflagration<br />Fire Remedy is 1,400 Years Old<br />Roanoke's 300th Anniversary<br />Early Lightning Devices<br />Montgomery Men in Mexico<br />Reverend Peyton M. Lewis, Slave, Teacher, Preacher<br />Bedford Saves an Old Church<br />Floyd County in the 1890s Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971? Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_07_02_NoYear https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6348/JHSWV_08_01_Winter_1972.pdf 84ad4e05b8a836eb22aeb7288351d48e PDF Text Text JOURNAL o f tke ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY V o lu m e Eigjkt N um b er O n e �Winter 1972 CONTENTS The Past Is Right Here For the Archaeologist, by Ivor Noel H u m e ..................................... 1 The 51st Virginia Infantry, Farmers Turned Soldiers, by James A. D a v is................................. . 6 Turner’s Creek Valley—“The land that time forgot,” by Pedro T. Slone ....................................... 12 Log Buildings In the Valley of Virginia, by Royster Lyle Jr............ 24 Mary Harvey Trigg, An Unusual Widow, by Pauline Edw ards........ 32 Old Letter Tells of Early Society.............................. ..... ........... 40 The McDonalds of McDonalds Mill, by Lena Mac Gardner Sam m ons........ .................... . ... 42 “Long Way Home” Is Successful, by Mary B. Kegley . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 A Visit To Wythe C o u n ty .......................................................... 57 New Books on Old Themes ............ / . ................................................ 59 19th Century Crafts on D isplay.................. . . . . .............................. 60 Roanoke Historical Society Members ........ ........... ....................... 61 George K egley Editor of the JOURNAL The Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Volume VIII, Number 1. Published twice yearly by the Society at Box 1904, Roanoke, Virginia 24008, to chronicle the past and present of that part of the state of west of the Blue Ridge. Single copy price for members: $1; for non­ members, $1.50. The Society will be careful in handling unsolicited material but cannot be responsible for its loss. �The Past Is Right Here For the Archaeologist by Ivor N oel H um e Archaeology—a word to conjure with, a word to carry us on the wings of imagination to far away places, into distant times, and into the presence, perhaps, of untold wealth. For most of us this is a vicarious, armchair experience—a trip to be taken without any unpleasant after-effects. Unhappily there are few real adventurers left among us. Thanks to the soporific saccharine of television we have become a generation of watchers—watching other people play games, other people playing music, other people talking and other people fighting our wars. Of course you can argue that we are all adventurers at heart— if only there was somewhere left for us to prove it. It’s true. There are very few acres of this earth left unexplored by Western man. Even the Loch Ness monster can’t hold out much longer, Only a very few of us will ever go forward into space, but a great many more can go back into the past—through archaeology. And you don’t have to go to Egypt or to Greece to do it. The past is right here —your own American past. The distinguished archaeologist, Jaquetta Hawkes, has written that archaeology gives a people a “sense of having roots,” and this is indisputably true. It is why in Europe thousands of people from every walk of life give their vacations to working on their countries’ archaeo­ logical sites. They do it here in the United States too, from the Johnson White House downwards, and the shades of countless Indians must scratch their heads in wonder as they watch their trash and bones being treated with the respect that their living descendants are denied. Expeditions are sponsored by universities, sites are protected by government and state agencies, and from East to West across the land societies of amateur archaeologists devote themselves to the study of the American Indian. But do these undeniably worthy efforts contribute to our sense of having roots? I think not. Pertinent thoughts on the present state of historical archaeo­ logy appearing here are excerpts from a talk given by Ivor Noel Hume, director of the Department of Archaeology at Colonial Williams­ burg, at a joint meeting of the Roanoke Historical Society and the Roanoke chapter of the Archeological Society of Virginia on April 28, 1971. Born in London, Hume has been an active archaeologist and prolific writer since 1949. He came to Williamsburg in 1957. �On the contrary, these are the roots of a quite different tree, one which was cut down to make way for the planting of European seeds. The past which belongs to the vast majority of the American people began in the Spanish, French, and English settlements in the New World. This is where the history books commence, for these were the seeds out of which the existing culture of the United States has slowly grown. And it is the study and the presentation of these beginnings which provide that “sense of having roots.” Slowly, much too slowly, there is a growing awareness that the remains of. this past have some meaning, some value. But the sound of the mechanical excavator is loud in the land, and from Florida to Hawaii hardly a day passes without some portion of your heritage being ground into dust beneath the wheels of progress. The carpet of the past is being rolled behind us as we advance into the future, and before long, when we look back over our shoulders, we shall see nothing but the mirror image of ourselves. It has been estimated that within the next century the American population will have increased by eight hundred million and that the east coast will have become a vast concrete jungle stretching from Maine to Virginia. We are told that if we are to preserve our place in the world’s sun, we must devote all our efforts to pressing forward. The buildings that were put up in the 1880’s or 1920’s are torn down, regardless of their architectural merit, to make way for those of the 1970’s—which in turn will be scrapped—regardless of merit—to make way for those of the 1990’s. We are living in the age of the garbage grinder and the disposable, everything. Nothing is allowed to survive long enough to become venerable with age because it first becomes obsolete—and that’s the dirtiest word you can utter in the 20th century. Obsolescence cannot be tolerated, not in buildings, not in art, not in thinking, and not in people. Throw them all on the scrap heap. They have to be young to be good, and if they are young they are good —which is why there’s no juvenile delinquency these days, only de­ linquent parents, delinquent homes, delinquent schools. Those homes and schools will be torn down and replaced by fine new antiseptic boxes, and because those boxes must be stacked higher and higher on top of one another, their foundations must go even deeper into the ground, destroying all traces of what was there before. Thus we are ensuring that there will be little or nothing of our generation left for the archaeologists of A.D. 3000 to dig up. How short-sighted we are! There comes a time in the life of every nation when it can no longer put all its pride and enthusiasm into being young. It must then switch its approach to its own people, and to the world at large, 2 �(Colonial Williamsburg photo) Archaeologist Hume points to hole at field site. saying that it still merits its place at the head of the table because of its wisdom born of long experience. It is not too long a step from there to a reliance on the deference due to advanced age. Much is then made of tradition, pageantry, times remembered— in a word, history. This may not cut much ice among the world’s new giants, the young, virile nations intent on taking our place, but it may be all that we have left. Consequently, the amount of enthusiasm and support that we stimulate today among the American people for the preservation of their historical past, may have a very real influence on how this nation thinks of itself in the centuries ahead. On the national scene there is now a Society for Historical Archaeo­ logy which was founded in 1967. In England there is a comparable organization known as the Society for Post Medieval Archaeology whose members, both professional and amateur, are working in fields that are of immediate interest here in the eastern United States. In Canada much of its archaeological effort is devoted to work on historic sites such as the great reconstruction projects at Louisbourg which rivals Williamsburg in its scope and purpose. All over the world colonial sites of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries are being excavated and developed into cultural attractions for the education of the nations’ people and to attract the tourist dollar. The projects range from the exploration of the sunken city of Port Royal in Jamaica to a sixteenth-century Portuguese fort at Mombassa, Kenya. �(Colonial Williamsburg photo) Two seekers of artifacts in old Williamsburg well. Here at home the catalog is equally broad and dramatic involving sites as varied as a Spanish mission in Arizona, the French and Indian War Fort Ligonier in Pennsylvania, 19th century privy sites in Alexandria, historical Fort Snelling in Minnesota, and the first settlement of 1670 at Charleston, South Carolina, not to mention innumerable amateur projects of which little is heard. Here in Virginia our score is less satisfactory than it should be. As you may know, in 1966, the General Assembly unanimously re­ cognized the need to protect or salvage the information from our many threatened historical sites, and it authorized the construction and operation of the Virginia Research Center for Historical Archaeo­ logy which was to be built adjacent to the campus of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg. Unfortunately funds were not forthcoming, and in spite of keen efforts on the part of the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission under whose wing the Center would operate, nothing was achieved. Last year, however, Governor Holton appointed a new committee to turn the corpse over from time to time in the hope that some miracle might bring it to life, and I am happy to be able to tell you that temporary 4 �quarters have been made available within an existing facility—provid­ ing that the state will employ the skeleton staff needed to get the project going. In the years that we have been wrestling with this splendid but proverty stricken project my own views on archaeological pre­ servation have matured in a manner that will doubtless cause many of my professional colleagues to turn to pot. I am convinced, as I said earlier, that the future of our historical archaeological sites lies not so much in the hands of professionals but in those of dedicated amateurs. There will not and cannot be a sufficient number of permanent jobs in historical archaeology to provide enough trained professionals with a livelihood. Besides, the need for archaeological help is often immediate, and there may be no time to defer the saving of a site until funds can be found and a contract archaeologist hired. The battles must be fought at the local level and funded with amateur enthusiasm, volunteer labor, and a sense of civic pride and patriotism, all in the service of American history. And because we are talking of history, it is only proper that we should call on our Virginia historical societies and preservationist organizations to shoulder part of the responsibility for developing an awareness of the importance of archaeology’s potential contri­ bution to historical, genealogical, and sociological studies. As for the handful of professional archaeological historians, it is up to us to cease denigrating the amateur and indeed to help him, and her, and to foster the establishing of historical archaeological clubs under the aegis of high school history departments, seeking cooperation from skin-diving clubs, from Boy Scouts, garden clubs, anyone with a will to learn and a desire to contribute. For much too long we have tried to treat every archaeological site like a piece of the Holy Grail to be protected until such time as competent professionals are available to fondle them. Meanwhile the sites are being destroyed by horny-handed land developers without yielding so much as a sentence or even a phrase to the history books. We have to recognize that this country’s archaeological heritage is a resource, money in the bank, and while we must conserve the gold, the nickels and dimes are there to be spent. We must therefore make the lesser sites available to the public, putting them to work as training grounds for students of all ages. I can think of no better means of getting high school students interested in local history than by enabling them to dig it up and thus make history as well as read about it. 5 �The 51st Virginia Infantry, Farmers Turned Soldiers by J ames A. Davis An exciting presentation is possible when one combines the life and actions of Southwest Virginians in the Civil War with modernday experiences in researching the topic. Thus, an attempt will be made to relate some interesting moments and personalities in the life of the 51st Virginia Infantry Regiment, S.C.A., with personal research en­ deavors on the subject by the writer. Beginning with a graduate seminar at V.P.I., the story of the 51st Regiment began to march back into visual focus after a hund­ red years of anonymity. In reviewing this historical data this writer attempted to allow the soldier to tell his story of the war years, thereby causing individuals’ personalities to permeate the study. For instance, Gen. Gabriel Wharton, V.M.I. graduate and native of Culpeper County, is now recognized for able leadership of a Southwest Virginia unit in the Civil War and later distinguished service as a state senator from Central Depot (Radford). After 1865, he remained in Southwest Virginia because of his wartime marriage to Anne R. Radford, daughter of Dr. Radford for whom the town was re-named. Wharton’s letters and papers are scattered over the nation in public and private hands, but his home “Glenco” and the U.D.C. monument in Radford stand in recognition of his service.1 Anothe'r individual whose service merits attention is Col. Augustus Forsberg, a Swede who had immigrated to the United States before the War. While serving in the 51st Virginia as an engineer and later commanding officer, he also established marital ties with the Otey family of Lynchburg. At the time of researching this topic, Forsberg’s daughter lived in Lynchburg and reported that her father acted as city engineer and architect in building many of the municipal struc­ tures in that city.2 Perhaps the credit for much of the history of the experiences of the regiment belongs to Private (later Captain) Rufus J. Woolwine. This young Patrick County native kept a diary of daily activities of the men from 1861 until his return home in 1865. His war notes James A. Davis, now on leave from the Ferrum College History Department to work on his doctorate at Florida State University, gave a talk on the 51st Virginia Infantry Regiment for the Society on May 26, 1971. Portions appear here. 6 �varied from accounts of fierce battle, camp monotony, acting as “revenuer” to prevent “bootlegging,” and serving as “truant” officer to return deserters from Floyd and Wise counties.3 During the war, Woolwine recorded the actions of the unit on scraps of paper and after the war, he made a transcription into a booklet. Spring cleaning activities of later relatives almost destroyed the document as it was placed in a glass jar which accidentally was buried in an abandoned well. Later discovered by his granddaughter, the diary has now been placed in the Virginia Historical Society archives.4 The remaining faces of men (800-1,000) who served in the 51st Virginia are blurred, but they were rural farmers and laborers from Wythe, Grayson, Bland, Wise, Tazewell, Patrick, Amherst and Nelson counties. The personal service records of most of the men are now available on microfilm in the Virginia State Archives and the V.P.I. library. An example of one such footsoldier is Private Thomas O. Wilson, from Bland County, who wrote some 50 letters to his wife in a half-literate style: “ . . . we are rite hard run for something to eat and wair (.) nerly one haf of the men is in a maner naket in the way of jackets & pants & some barefooted (.) there is some men dist in thare drawers & no pants on a lot & I am one of them (.) my pants have the legs of (f) up to the (k)nees & the (w)hole seat out but my shirt & drawers is good & the snow about 6 inches deep on the ground at this time & we havent had haf raskens (rations) for six or 7 days (,) sometimes only one meal a day.”5 The letters and diaries of these footsoldiers often related dis­ torted accounts of battles, but expressions of their sincere desire to end the war and return home sound a modern theme. For the most part, my search for written records on the common infantry men led to archive collections at Chapel Hill and Durham, N. C., Lexington and Richmond, Va.; to correspondence with relatives in California, New York, Maryland and Nebraska; to calls and visits with interested persons in a three-state area. Each experience was exciting but often disappointing in terms of material located. A brief resume of exciting moments in the life of the soldiers of the 51st Virginia would have to include glimpses of action in the Kanawha Valley, Fort Donelson, Saltville, Shenandoah Valley, Wilder­ ness Campaign, Lynchburg and Waynesboro. These topics were se­ lected more for interest of the reader than for significance to the Civil War. After enlisment in July, 1861, at Camp Jackson, on the old fairgrounds at Wytheville, the eleven companies, seven-piece band, 7 �surgeon (J. M. Estill) and chaplain (B. S. Highly) traveled by rail to Bonsacks Depot for training. For several weeks the mountaineers and farmers attempted to learn drill instructions but the free-willed men suffered under rigid discipline and attacks of mumps that ravaged the camp. As an example of naivete of military procedure, when rations were issued, without mention of the three-day plan, many men ate theirs in one day and went hungry the next two.6 Excitement filled the ranks as they marched through Fincastle toward their first battlefield in the Kanawha Valley, but it soon sub­ sided with the introduction to battle. The sight of blood, the smell of smoke, the noise from cannon and painful wounds presented the shocking reality of war. The campaign under Gen. John B. Floyd of Christiansburg disappointed the soldiers and the Confederacy as 10 counties previously part of Virginia were allowed to form a separate state—West Virginia—because of failure to successfully occupy the area.7 Some controversy is noted in the escape from Carnifex Ferry, which signaled the loss of control in the Kanawha Valley. In several accounts, soldiers mentioned construction of a bridge across Gauley River that avoided encirclement by the enemy. One soldier recounted that engineers began plans for the structure while battle raged, but at the same time, a group of Wythe County miners, experienced in timber work, completed the bridge. In a vein of humor, he poked fun at the engineers as being “mighty nigh finished with the picter” as the men crossed the footbridge to safety. Accounts written after the war credit the success of the escape to the engineers.8 Thus, the task of the researcher is obvious! Fort Donelson on the Tennessee River was a Southern strong­ hold that defended the western boundary of the Confederacy. The regiment made the long journey from winter quarters at Narrows to Bowling Green, Kentucky, by train. Typical of train service in the South, the trip required five transfers and winter travel in open cars. In the fighting that ensued, the unit suffered heavy casualties as described by Woolwine: “Twas there I beheld the mangled forms of the dead and dying, laying in all imaginable forms . . . I am happy to say thanks God Virginians done their duty as becomes true men and patriots. Though distantly situated they thought of their happy homes far away that they was then fighting for. With them as with the rest of Jeff’s Boys they done all men could do.”9 Gen. Floyd surrendered the fort and 8,000 Confederate soldiers, but not before he evacuated his Virginia command. The men of the 51st Virginia were spared the horrors of the prison camps, but they were not relieved of the duty to fight many more battles. Gen. Floyd 8 �(Virginia Slate library photo) Gen. Gabriel Wharton (Virginia State library photo) Col. Augustus Forsberg was relieved of command and allowed to return to Christiansburg where he died shortly.'0 In 1862 the unit reorganized at Wytheville and immediately embarked on a second unsuccessful campaign in the Kanawha Valley. However, the winter months forced the command to build winter huts on the bluffs overlooking Narrows on the New River. Disease, (rumors of smallpox conveniently spread to obtain leave or to desert), prostitution, gambling, and real loneliness filled the pages of soldiers’ letters. One such example is Woolwine’s diary with the description of “revenuing” and searching for deserters. Even a wanted poster, which now reposes in the National Archives, describes a reward for 13 deserters from the Regiment. Woolwine alluded to a successful mission to capture six such persons in Russell and Wise counties. This writer found no record of punishment for the men, but ex­ ecution for desertion was not uncommon in the Wharton Brigade.” In early 1863 the Regiment defended Saltville, the VirginiaTennessee Railroad, and the lead mines near Wytheville. The men maneuvered throughout Southwest Virginia from the Shenandoah Valley to East Tennessee. In their letters descriptions of destruction, costs (flour $25 a barrel, boots, $30, and a coat, $40), and their own suffering: “uniforms are hardly more than rags . . . only one-third of the men possess a pair of shoes.”12 The largest amount of surviving material on a single engagament which the unit fought was written on the Battle of New Market. The famed Confederate victory involving the V.M.I. cadets also inflicted heavy casualties in the 51st Virginia, which led the initial charge against the Federal positions. It is extremely difficult to reconstruct 9 �the events of May 15, 1864, because of conflicting accounts of the action. The “201 Files” at V.M.I. contain a wealth of information on the topic, but one recognizes another task of the historian—the necessity to select, interpret and analyze documents in order to present as accurate an account as possible.13 The victory at New Market allowed Gen. Lee to move some troops from the Shenandoah Valley to assist in the Wilderness Campaign. The 51st Virginia was part of the transferred command. Once the unit had joined the Army of Northern Virginia, no longer did the men fight the forgotten war! Lee’s army has long been recognized for its courageous efforts to defend Richmond and attack the North. However, until recently, historians have neglected the history of the men and war in Southwest Virginia. The Southwest Virginians remained with Lee only long enough to witness the Federal slaughter at Cold Harbor, before being trans­ ferred to Lynchburg to meet the threat of Gen. Hunter’s Yankee cavalry! The 51st Regiment reached the city after it had come under siege by Federal forces. In a brilliant deception, Gen. Wharton and the Confederate troops marched and counter-marched, and the towns­ people rang bells and sounded whistles throughout the night in a successful attempt to confuse the enemy. Early the next morning Gen. Jubal Early’s Sixth Corps arrived by train to offset the Federal threat. The city was saved!'5 The next six month of 1864 carried the men of the regiment to a high moment of enthusiasm as they successfully maneuvered to within sight of the Capitol dome in Washington, D. C. Yet, within six more months, the unit experienced the low ebb of defeat in the Shenandoah Valley as Gen Phillip Sheridan set it ablaze! The South­ west Virginia farmer-turned-soldier fought the Union cavalry on numerous occasions in the Valley, and finally in March, 1865, suffered complete defeat with surrender at Waynesboro. Although lacking necessary equipment and supplies, the Southern soldier struggled through four years of warfare in defense of the Confederacy.16 This dedicated effort is later symbolized in the popularity of the “Lost Cause”. During the next four months most of the captives remained in the Federal prison at Pea Patch Island (Fort Delaware) on the Delaware River. However, by June, 1865, the United States govern­ ment pardoned most of the men and allowed them to begin the long journey home. No cheering crowds, or clanging bands greeted the survivors of the 51st Virginia, Broken fences and weed-covered fields marked once prosperous farms.17 In his diary Woolwine described the devasting effects of war on 10 �Virginia witnessed during his journey home—charred ruins in Rich­ mond, damaged railroads, burned fields and the black-draped monu­ ment of George Washington in Capitol Square. His closing remarks serve as a benediction for the 51st Virginia and the Confederacy! “Thus ends a journey of four years through the most eventful cam­ paigns known in the history of men or nations.”18 Even though many of the personalities and actions of the unit are lost to history, these records herein symbolize the spirit of the 51st Regiment, Virginia Volunteers, C.S.A. To the many relatives and friends of Civil War studies, this writer is indebted for their assistance in locating documents and their enthusiastic receptions given this project.19 1 “ 201 F ile fo r G . C . W h a rto n " , V irg in ia M ilita r y I n s titu te , L e x in g to n , V a . ; E z r a J . W a rn e r, G e n e ra ls in G ra y ( B a to n R o u g e , 1959), 331; R o a n o k e T im e s , F e b . 25, 1940. I n te r v ie w s w ith r e l a ti v e s a n d to u r of G len c o in J u ly , 1968. 2 U n p u b lis h e d m a n u s c r ip t on e x p lo its of A u g u stu s F o r s b e r g b y d a u g h te r , M r s . J o h n W . D a v is , L y n c h b u rg , V a .; C o n fe d e ra te V e te ra n X V III (1910), 434, 509; E l la L o n n . F o r e ig n e r s in th e C o n fe d e ra c y (C h a p e l H ill, 1910), 244-45; R e c o rd s of th e G a r la n d R h o d e s C a m p , J o n e s L ib r a r y , L y n c h b u rg , V a. 3 L o u is H . M a n a rin ( e d .), " T h e C iv il W a r D ia r y o f R u fu s J . W o o lw in e” , V irg in ia M a g a z in e of H is to ry a n d B io g ra p h y , L X & I (1963; W oolw ine P a p e r s , V irg in ia H is to r ic a l S o c ie ty , R ic h m o n d , V a .; R e la te d m a te r i a ls , p o s s e s s io n of M rs. M a b e l N o r r is , S tu a r t , V a . 4 I n te r v ie w b y w r ite r w ith M rs. M a b e l N o rris , D e c e m b e r , 1967. 5 T h o m a s O. W ilson to w ife, D e c . 12, 1864, T h o m a s O. W ilso n L e tte r s in p o s s e s s io n of D r. J a m e s I . R o b e rts o n , J r . , V irg in ia P o ly te c h n ic I n s titu te . S a u n d e r s G u e r r a n t o f R o a n o k e d e s e r v e s c r e d it f o r lo c a tin g th is c o lle c tio n o f 90 l e tte r s b e tw e e n h u s b a n d a n d w ife d u r in g th e la s t tw o y e a r s of th e w a r. 6 W oolw ine P a p e r s ; N o teb o o k of G ra n v ille P . C o n n e r, C o n fe d e ra te M u se u m , R ic h m o n d , V a .; U n id e n tifie d n e w ° p a p e r c lip p in g . R e c o rd s of th e 51st V irg in ia I n f a n t r y , V ir g in ia A rc h iv e s . 7 U . S. W a r D e p a r tm e n t (c o m p .) W a r of th e R e b e llio n : A C o m p ila tio n o f th e O ffic ia l R e c o rd s of th e U n io n a n d C o n fe d e ra te A rm ie s (W a s h in g to n , 1880-1901), S e r . I , V ol. L I, p t. 2 , 249, 368, H e r e a f t e r c ite d a s O R ; D . B . B a ld w in L e tte rs , in p o s s e s s io n o f D r. J a m e s I . R o b e r ts o n , J r . , V irg in ia P o ly te c h n ic I n s tit u te ; R o b e r t U . J o h n s o n a n d C la re n c e C. B u e l ( e d .) , B a t tle s a n d L e a d e r s of th e C iv il W a r (N ew Y o rk , 1884-1887), I , 148. H e r e a f t e r c ite d a s B a t t’e s a n d L e a d e r s . 8 W illia m G . B ro w n . H is to ry of N ich o ls C o u n ty , W e st V ir g in ia ( R ic h m o n d , 1954) 105-06; O R , V , 157; L e tte rs of W illiam R . W h e e le r to so n , D e c . 17, 1908, ty p e s c r ip t in th e p o s s e s s io n o f C h a rle s W. S a n d e rs , L y n c h b u rg , V a ; F o r s b e r g M a n u s c rip t. 9 W oolw ine P a p e r s , V irg in ia H is to ric a l S o c ie ty , R ic h m o n d . 10 G . C . W h a rto n A u to b io g ra p h ic a l S k e tc h 1824-1862, in p o s s e s s io n o f M r s . F r i t z v a n S o lk e m a , B o w ie, M d ., O R , V II, 285, 381; Copy of o r d e r to F lo y d re lie v in g h im o f c o m m a n d in p o s s e s s io n o f w rite r . 11 D a v id E . J o h n s to n , A H is to ry of M id d le N ew R iv e r S e ttle m e n ts a n d C o n tig u o u s T e r r i to r y (H u n tin g to n , W . V a ., 1906), 223; B a ld w in L e tte r s ; W o o lw in e P a p e r s ; A t le a s t 22 m e n w e r e e x e c u te d f o r d e s e rtio n in th e W h a rto n B r ig a d e . 12 L e w is P . S u m m e r s , H is to ry of S o u th w e s t V irg in ia 1746-1786. W a sh in g to n C o u n ty 1777-1870 (B a ltim o r e , 1966) 528-31; O R , X X III, p t. 2, 886) X X IX , p t. 1, 42, X X X , p t. 2, 606. 13 B a ttle s a n d L e a d e r s IV . 482; " L e tte r s a n d R e p o r ts o f th e B a ttle s o f N ew M a r k e t” , N ew M a r k e t H is to ric a l F ile , V irg in ia M ilita ry I n s tit u te ; R a y m o n d T u r n e r , T h e N ew M a r k e t C a m ­ p a ig n M a y , 1864. (R ic h m o n d , 1912), 142, “ 201 F ile s ” o f B . A. C o lo n n a , H . A . W ise , P e t e r O te y , a n d G . E . E d g a r ; R ic h m o n d T im e s D is p a tc h , O ct. 15, 1905. 14 O R , X X X V I, p t. 3, 826; W oolw ine P a p e r s . 15 O R , L I, p t. 2, 983; C h a rle s M . B la c k fo rd , C a m p a ig n a n d B a ttle o f L y n c h b u rg , ( L y n c h ­ b u rg , 1901), 53»; F r a n k E .V a n d iv e r, J u b a l ’s R a id (N ew Y o rk , 1960), 49. 16 J u b a l A. E a r ly , L ie u te n a n t G e n e ra l J u b a l A n d e rs o n E a r ly , C .S .A .: A u to b io g ra p h ic a l S k e tc h a n d N a r r a ti v e of th e W a r B e tw e e n th e S ta te s ( P h ila d e lp h ia a n d L o n d o n . 1912' 379; B a ttle s a n d L e a d e rs , IV , 493; W oolw ine P a p e r s ; C le m e n t A. E v a n s ( e d .) , C o n fe re d a te M ilita ry H is to ry ( A tla n ta , 1899), I I I , 539; R o s a F . Y a n c y . L y n c h b u rg a n d I ts N e ig h b o rs ( R ic h m o n d , 1935), 121-22. 17 W oolw ine P a p e r s . 18 Ib id . ' , 19 F o r a m o re th o ro u g h a c c o u n t of th is u n it fo r h is to r y o r g e n e a lo g y , c o n s u lt J a m e s A. D a v is u n p u b lis h e d M . A. th e s is , " T h e 51st V irg in ia I n f a n t r y R e g im e n t C S .A .,” V .P .I . L i b r a r y . B la c k s b u rg , o r J a m e s A. D a v is , " T h e 51st R e g im e n t, V irg in ia V o lu n te e r s ” , W e st V irg in ia H is to ry Q u a rte rly , V ol. X X IX , n o . 3 (A p ril, 1968). BRECKINRIDGE WRITER IDENTIFIED The article on Gen. James Breckinridge of Botetourt County in Vol. VII, No. 2 of the Journal was by Kathy Kennedy McNulty, wife of a Marine Corps officer. Formerly of Falls Church, she completed her graduate thesis on Gen. Breckinridge at Virginia Tech. 11 �Turner's Creek Valley— “The land that time forgot” by P edro T. Slone In the southwest corner of Blackwater District, in the mountain­ ous section of Franklin County, lies a little valley. This valley ex­ tends east and west about four miles, and is about two and one-half miles wide between the tops of mountains, which also extend east and west and parallel the creek, which flows due east. How the stream came to be called Turner’s Creek, I have not learned. It was called Ragland Branch at one time, mentioned in old deeds. On the southern border of this valley stands Buffalo Knob and rather southeast is Haynes Knob. I do not know the origin of the name, Buffalo Knob, but Haynes Knob was named for an old man Haynes who owned the land and had his home near the top of the knob. This man could not read nor write but was a local preach­ er of the Primitive Baptist faith. The valley is bordered on the west by the range of the Blue Ridge Mountains from the summit of which the Floyd Plateau extends westward. The eastern border of the little valley is crossed by the old highway which led from the Patrick Iron Works to Big Lick. The people who first settled in this valley, along with thousands of others, who came to the Appalachian mountains from Rhode Island, Maryland and Pennsylvania, before the American Revolution, were no doubt, Scotch-Irish emigrants. Their frugal habits, love of liberty and independence of thought, as well as their religious belief, which was predominantly Calvinistic, would justify such a belief. Some of these may have descended from the Dutch and Huguenots from France. The families who lived in the valley were: Claytor, Bridges, Slone, Sledd, Sigmon, Hale, Wade, Peters, Daniel, Haynes, DeLancy, Mountcastle, Perkins, Troup, Foster, Ferguson, Drewry, Montgomery, and Jamison. One of these, Thomas Hale, was my grandfather. I do not know the date when he came to this valley, but two brothers, Thomas and William Hale, owned lands joining and built houses almost exactly alike. One of these houses with its contents, that of Thomas Hale, is the one I shall try to describe. Vivid recollections of an almost-forgotten way of life in a moun­ tainous Franklin County community 60 years ago were set down by Pedro T. Slone after he retired as a mail carrier in 1942. Now 92, he and his wife live with a son in Roanoke. 12 �Dwelling Houses In describing the houses of the valley sixty years ago we should remember, to quote a Franklin County historian, that this is a part of “The land that time forgot”, and customs and ways of living were still in use here that had been abandoned in other states and in Tide­ water, Virginia for one hundred years. As a model, we will take the Thomas Hale house, which was very much like most all the rest of the buildings. It was built of logs, carefully hewn and notched, or dove-tailed, at the corners. One large room, about twenty-four feet long and twenty feet wide, was the main living room and bedroom combined. The building was one and one-half stories high. The half story con­ sisted of about four or five feet of the same log walls into which joists were placed that distance down from the top log, or wall plate, onto which the massive pole rafters were spiked with home-made spikes or nails. The end logs, or wall plates, projected over the side walls about one foot, to form an eave. The cracks iri the log walls were filled carefully with lime mortar, which made almost an air tight wall. The bottom floor was laid on hewn sleepers, which were notched into the bottom log and ad?ed to an exact level. It was of six-inch oak boards planed or dressed by hand. The top floor was of six-inch poplar boards dressed on both sides. The joists were hewn from poplar and were about three by Slone family at home in Turner's Creek Valley. 13 �seven inches in size and dressed on all sides. The lower edges were beaded. This dressed top floor served as a ceiling for the lower room. The roof was of shingles riven and shaved from chestnut wood. The wide chimney was built of loose stones picked from the ground, dressed with hammers, and plastered together with lime mortar. The fireplace was about five feet wide, and huge back logs were used. The doors were made of heavy boards about eight or ten inches wide, securely nailed to heavy battens on the inside. The fastening was a wooden latch with a string hanging through a hole on the out­ side. The winding stairway was in a corner by the fireplace. This was closed with a door on the turn three or four steps up. Another room the same size and finished similarly was built on the west end of this room by my father, many years later. Between these was an en try ’ six or eight feet wide. A porch extended the entire length of the building. 6 The kitchen which was also the dining room, stood about fifty or sixty feet from the porch in a corner of the front yard. This build­ ing also had a wide stone chimney, and the huge fireplace contained iron hooks and cranes for all sorts of cooking utensils. ITie barn was two square log pens with a driveway between and hay-loft above. The roof was riven oak boards. Another log building, with one log room and loft, was the “cowhouse.” The tall corn crib was built of hewn logs and set on large locust posts three or four feet high. One of these posts was hollow, afford­ ing a den for rats. We children waged many a thrilling battle against them with sticks. We routed them out by pouring a teakettle of boil­ ing water iiito the post. Furniture The household furniture consisted of bureaus, cupboards, fold­ ing leaf dining table, small table, split bottom chairs, and tall “four poster corded bedsteads, with trundle bed beneath. The sweetest sleep I probably ever had was in a little “corded trundle bed,” un­ less it was in the “box cradle,” which had been dyed or stained a deep red and varnished. All of the furniture was handmade of solid black walnut, maple or cherry. The coffins in which the dead were buried were all made of walnut by a local coffin maker. They were usually made to measure after the death of the person. I have assisted m the making of one or two of these. In childhood, I always associated a funeral with the smell of fresh varnish or turpentine, which was on the coffins. In this old home of my grandfather, and later my father, stood an old wall clock. It stood on the floor and reached almost to the ceiling. It was wound by pulling the small chains, which were hung 14 �on pulleys and drew the weights up. Few pictures adorned the walls. I remember two in the living room. “The Madonna and Child’ and a portrait of George Washington. Tools and Farm Equipment It seems rather odd that the crude tools described here should be used at such a late date as to be within my memory, but this was a community where time stood still for one hundred years. I re­ member one wagon owned by a neighbor which was an old skein spindle and linch pin type. The axle, including the spindle, was of wood The spindle was plated with iron “skeins” top and bottom and the wheel was held on by the lynch pin. The spindles were greased with pine tar. On cold mornings, the tar would “pitch” and the wheels would slide for some distance before they began to turn. The turning plows were rather clumsy and had wooden beams. The shovel plows were fastened to the wooden foot piece of the “stock” with iron bands. My father had one of those plows which was made by a blacksmith named Jones, on upper Pigg River. The wooden “stock” was made of white oak, which was probably not thorough­ ly seasoned and the beam warped until it was almost like a bow. It was painted blue. The hoes were home-made and very heavy. The handles were shaved from white oak or were sometimes made of straight sour-wood sticks. The singletrees, doubletrees and even hames for the horse’s collars were home-made. Ox teams were often used to do the farm hauling. My mother had a hand loom which was still in use when I was a boy. I have worn the homespun woven on this loom. She also had spinning wheels large and small, the wooden reel that clicked when a hank of yarn was run, the warping bars, the flax break, wooden swingling knife and hackle to work out the fiber from the broken flax stalks. She wove and made a few linen or flax sheets, towels and bed-ticks when I was a small boy. I had one pair of home-made shoes, made by the old local shoemaker, Ed Willis. I outgrew them when they were almost good as new. My father gave them to some poor people. Orchards The chestnut groves were about as valuable to us in those days as any other orchards. The burrs began to open about the first of October and the first gathering brought a good price, which soon dropped as the season advanced. Almost every fall someone would beat the lower limbs of the trees with a pole and gather a bushel or two, to be shipped by express to Baltimore. These early shipments usually brought about twelve dollars per bushel. It was good sport for us children to gather the glossy brown nuts from under the trees, and it was also a means by which we could earn some money. I doubt if any, or but few apple and peach trees from a commercial 15 �nursery, had been planted in this valley sixty years ago. We did not have the blight which later killed all the chestnut trees, or the scale which has come to the apple trees. The old Pippin, Pearmain, Smokehouse and other varieties grew to perfection with little attention. The peaches which grew on the mountain sides were of the finest flavor. I remember one orchard near the top of Haynes Knob which was noted for the excellence of its peaches. People came long distances each season to get peaches from this orchard. The largest and finest cherries I have ever seen grew on four large trees bordering the west side of the yard of our home. But little fruit was canned; most all kinds were dried. We had a house built into the side of a steep bank on the east side of the yard. The “Applehouse,” was made of split locust logs about eight by ten feet and apples usually kept in this until spring. Fields It was the custom of these small farmers to give a name to each field, however small it might be. On this place was Gum field, near the center of which stood a large black gum tree. The Slip field on the south side of the mountain, so named because of a land slide or slip, which came during a long rainy spell, carrying away more than an acre of top soil to a depth of four or five feet, uprooting small trees. The Rough field, also on this mountainside, was just what its name implied. In the Runaway field, a team ran away with a plow. Also, there were the Sheep pasture, the Elm field and the meadow. The mountain fields were cultivated because they were more fertile, the soil loose and less equipment was required. Most of the plowing was done with single shovel plows. The branch and creek lands were neglected and were grown up in willow and alder bushes. When the heavy rains came during the cultivating season, the rich soil, which washed from the mountain side, lodged in these grown up bottoms and swamp lands, making them very fertile. My father used to say he “followed the soil” when it washed away and culti­ vated it again in the bottoms. The wheat which was grown on these south mountain sides was usually a smooth head variety and most always made a good yield. Commercial fertilizer was never used until a later day. The crop was difficult to harvest and haul from the mountain fields. The hauling was usually done with a sled. The corn was cultivated mostly with hoes, and the grass and weeds grew very rapidly in the rich soil. Woods The wooded areas were also named. There was the Chestnut Orchard, the Squirrel Den and the Stand woods, so called because a speaker’s stand had once been erected there for religious services. The largest boundary of woodlands, which was on the west side of 16 �the place, had no name except “the woods.” To my child’s mind this dark and gloomy forest was the habitation of all sorts of wild beasts and its shadowy and winding paths led to strange and unknown lands, probably the end of the world. This bit of virgin forest was really very beautiful at that time. Many times I have walked around a tall oak or poplar to turn a squirrel for my older brother who was watch­ ing with a gun on the other side. Later, with the coming of the railroad about six miles away, this forest along with all the other woodlands of the valley, was fin­ ally invaded by the timber men. The Hale brothers, (my cousins) because of their unusual height, the three being about the same size, were called the “Little Boys.” They lived together as bachelors. They had cut timber for a Canadian company in the forests of Kentucky and West Virginia. They made staves of white oak, which were shipped to England and France to make wine casks. There was also a demand and ready sale for chestnut oak bark, used for tanning. In this bit of woods were some large hollow chest­ nut oak trees, which had heavy bark but required little chopping. My father told me if I would cut and peel these trees I could have the money received from the sale of the bark to buy a new suit of clothes. I worked very diligently at this job (probably more so than any job since). When the bark was sold and I received the money my father had Henry M. Turner, the general merchant at Callaway, take my measure, and “order” my first long pants suit. A neighbor boy who got a suit somewhat the same way, when asked what kind of goods it was, replied, “Chestnut Oak goods.” So the beautiful trees soon vanished and gradually the bound­ less forest of my childhood shrank until it became a rather small patch of woods, but I think: “Of all the beautiful pictures That hang on memory’s wall, There is one of a dim old forest, That seemeth best of all.” The Cave Near the summit of Buffalo Knob is a cave, and the entrance could be plainly seen from our front porch, especially in winter when the leaves were off the trees that surround it. This cave was the object of much wonder and curiosity to me in early childhood when I gazed with awe at the dark hole in the mountainside about two miles away. Before I visited it the first time, distance had lent such enchantment to this small cavern that I thought of it as the cave of “Aladdin” or the “Wondrous Portal” of the Pied Piper. Later I made many trips to it, sometimes with picnic parties and more recently with Boy Scouts. It still holds a fascination for me and when there in 17 �1940, I carved a message with a chisel and hammer, on the hard stone wall of the interior. Social Life The churches were the meeting places of most of the people of those days, the young as well as the old. The Baptist Associations which came each year in Franklin and adjoining counties were always attended by throngs of people, sometimes several thousand who came long distances in carriages, buggies, wagons and on horseback. I at­ tended these meetings each year, usually accompanied by some girls on Pigg River who were cousins of mine. We rode horseback and spent the night in one of the farm homes in the vicinity of the church. Sometimes thirty or forty people would stay in one home. At these homes and meetings we made the acquaintance of many people. As a rule the young people did not attend these meetings because of the interest in the religious services, but only to meet each other. The people of this valley, like all free liberty-loving people, were fond of music. They knew nothing of classical music, but only the old hymns, folk songs, and also the banjo and fiddle tunes of those days, such as “Susannah,” “Arkansas Traveler,” “Love Somebody” and many others. Some of these fiddlers and banjo players, as I re­ call, were Alex Perkins, T. E. Willis, Tom Slone, John Johnson, J. P. and F. H. Delancey. Occasionally, an old time singing master would visit Pigg River Church and give a few lessons in the shape notes of the old hymn books. This little community, like most others, had some rough fellows who were always ready to quarrel and fight. Just outside the boun­ daries of the valley, in the Long Branch and Pigg River communi­ ties were a number of such characters. They would attend the month­ ly meeting at the old churches, never going inside but hanging around the grounds, drinking and sometimes fighting. There were usually no officers to prevent them at that time, but later constables and other peace officers always attended these meetings. These fellows were divided into clans, and when one clan or group met another, they often had trouble. Some of the people in these communities would have old-fashioned dances at their homes, especially during the Christmas holiday season, but they were finally abandoned be­ cause of these ruffians. Some of these fellows seemed to regard any­ one from a distant community as an enemy. I was present at one of these dances on Pigg River when I was about fifteen years old. An unusual crowd attended. There were some visiting musicians from the eastern part of the county. About 11 o’clock that night one of these made some thoughtless remark about these “mountain Hoogers,” and pandemonium broke loose immediately, pistols were drawn and the girls fled to another part of the house. The man 18 �apologized and finally quiet was restored, but there was no more dancing that night. Card playing was practiced a great deal by these young men; also, pitching horse shoes and target shooting. Community threshings and corn shucking were usually the oc­ casion for such merriment as the people were gathered together: also, apple butter boilings and molasses boilings. One year my father and a neighbor raised quite a large crop of cane jointly or in part­ nership. After boiling for a week or more, they planned to have a “candy pulling” the last night. The rock flue on which the pans were set for boiling the juice was daubed with clay dug from a hole in the ground near by. This hole was used to pour the skimmings into. The neighbor, a practical joker, conceived the idea of having fun at the expense of some of the boys who would come that night. He covered this hole full of skimmings, carefully with sticks and grass. It was near the path to the spring from which they brought water. As he was hurrying from the spring with a bucket of water before the boys arrived, he tumbled into it himself. Mails I do not know how the people of the valley received and dis­ patched their mail before the Civil War, but from the earliest of my recollection there was a post office called Pigg River, and it was in the dwelling house of Wiley A. Via. There was a cabinet in the living room with pigeon holes to contain letters, also the few newspapers, magazines and circulars that came. There was no fourth class mail except a few small packages. The receipts from the office were never more than fifty dollars per year. Mr. Via also had the contract to carry the mail from Pigg River to Rocky Mount and return daily, also to Floyd Court House and re­ turn. The mail was carried on horseback in saddle bags furnished by the Post Office Department. Boys were employed for a very small wage to ride these trips and were called “mail boys.” There were no daily papers coming to this office and the principal weekly papers were the Lynchburg News and the Franklin and Floyd County week­ lies When I was old enough and learned to read the papers, I eager­ ly devoured almost everything that came within my reach. Of course, I was not able to distinguish between the worthwhile and otherwise. I recall the names of some of the magazines: Comfort, Good Stories, Yankee Blade, Farm Journal, and later the Saturday Blade and Chi­ cago Ledger. Children were always glad to get Barker’s Comic Al­ manac. J. Lynn & Co. of New York, was the first mail order house we ever heard of. Politics As there was never a voting precinct in this little valley we will have to go outside its boundaries to tell much about the elections. 19 �The voting place was near Pigg River Church on the “Floyd Turn­ pike,” about three or four miles north of the valley. It was later con­ solidated with Callaway. These people were independent in their political beliefs. Beginning at the western end of the valley, we had two Democrat families and one Republican and so on. My father was a Republican, a conviction he brought out of the War Between the States into which he was drafted. Not being well informed or having read much of the history of our county, he believed that slavery was the sole cause of that war. As his people owned no slaves, it was natural for him to think he was fighting for something in which he had no part or should have no concern. He was a great admirer of Abraham Lincoln. Grandfather Via was a Democrat who held a number of district offices. Election day was quite an event in those days; bit­ ter arguments and disputes were engaged in, which sometimes ended in fights. Whiskey usually flowed freely around the voting places. Education I have learned very little about the opportunities these people had for education before the War Between the States. I think they would have a short term school each year in some log cabin or out­ building furnished by someone in the community. They could usually, find some local person, generally a man, who could teach the three R’s. They paid a small tuition. Just after the war there were two schools in or near the valley, and one was called Ivy Run, taught by N. T. Bridges. The other, just outside the northeastern boundary of the valley, was in a small log building at the home of Dr. William Hairston. This building had been the doctor’s office and stood in a corner of the yard. Mrs. Pru­ dence Hairston was the teacher. I think there was a small tuition for those who could pay, but it was a mission school, probably the first of its kind in this part of Franklin County. Later, after the coming of free schools to Virginia, my uncle, Robert Slone, who ran a general merchandise store on Pigg River, became trustee of schools for this district. He saw the need of a free school in the valley and built Poplar Grove School within a few hundred yards of our home. I think this was in 1884. I was five years old and entered the school the first term. Samuel R. Drewry was the first teacher. His home was about two and a half miles down the creek. Afterwards his brother, Benjamin F. Drewry, became the teacher. He taught a num­ ber of terms in this same school. Both of these young men had at­ tended the Hales Ford Academy in the eastern part of the county. Other teachers were William N. Hale, and Miss Lucy Hall. The coming of this little school brought about quite a change in “the way of life” to the people of the valley; adults as well as the 20 �Teacher Slone with a Franklin County class in early 1900's children. The new brightly painted little building became a sort of community center and religious services were held here regularly. Occasionally a traveling magic or trick show would give an exhibition here, which was greatly appreciated by the people who rarely ever had the opportunity for entertainment of this kind. The new text books, which were scattered about in the community, were perused by the older people as well as the children and the simple stories in some of them, particularly McGuffy’s Readers, taught many pointed moral lessons. It was my privilege some years later to teach four terms in this little school. The building was still standing in 1943, though not in use. It stood the first thirteen years without having a single window pane broken. I made some snapshot photos of it in the autumn of 1940 and thought, while there, of the old poem “Forty Years Ago” which some of the pupils had recited there. Some of the poplar trees are still standing, and around it the “Sumacs Grow and Blackberry Vines are running.” Memories of “School breakins” or “Last days” came to me with the mingled feeling of joy and sadness which I al­ ways experienced on these occasions. The faces of loved ones, long since turned to dust, rose before me as vivid as the sadly changed faces of old friends still living and I departed with sadness being reconciled only by the thought that this is a part of “the way of life” for all. Religion Most of the families of this valley were staunch believers in the doctrine of election and predestination as preached by the Primitive Baptists. Pigg River Church was about four miles around the moun21 �tain or two and a half miles through fields, across the top. My mother was a member of this church. They held services on the fourth Sat­ urdays and Sundays of each month. She used to attend these Satur­ day meetings regularly during the summer months. While the men folks were at work in the fields, she would catch a horse from the pasture, fasten a side saddle on its back and ride across the mountain path to church. She had to open two rail fences, one set of draw bars and one gate. My father was not born and raised in this valley, but came from the lower Blackwater community in which the Dunkard or Brethren doctrine was preached more than any other. His mother was a mem­ ber of this church. He was never connected with either of these churches, but late in life joined the Episcopal Church, which had founded a mission near the valley about the year 1880. After the pub­ lic schoolhouse was built here, the Dunkards or Brethren held ser­ vices regularly every third Sunday. These ministers nearly always had dinner at our home. They rode horseback twelve or fifteen miles to fill these appointments and I never heard of them asking for any remuneration. The local preacher who lived near this valley was Elder Wiley A. Via of the Primitive Baptist Church. He was born and reared in the Long Branch community about ten or twelve miles southwest of this valley. After living in Floyd County for a number of years, he moved and settled at Pigg River about one mile north west of the boundary of the valley on the head waters of Pigg River stream. He served four or five churches in Franklin, Patrick, and Floyd counties, riding long Pedro and Kittie Slone on their 50th wedding anniversary in 1952 22 �distance on horseback. He baptized a number of people in the val­ ley. He also married most of them and buried their dead. He bap­ tized several hundred in Franklin and Floyd and married more than four hundred couples. He, like the other ministers of his faith and order, served without pay. Sometimes when I become skeptical, or cynical, and filled with doubts and fears, I am made to feel ashamed when I remember the simple faith of these good old people of long ago. "Most of Them Have Gone" I spent some time in the valley in the summer of 1940, and visited many of the play places and haunts of my childhood. Most of the fields have grown up into a wilderness. But few of the descendants of the people, who lived here sixty years ago remain. Some have been engaged in “moonshining” as in all of the sections of this mountain country. Their problem has always been a problem of economics. Most of them have gone to other communities where business opportunities offered, and some to factories and other public works. Some of the old houses have fallen into decay or gone entirely and none have been built to replace them. The old Buffalo Knob still stands majestic and grand the same as when the red men roamed about its base where there is an Indian burying ground. I strolled down the bank of the stream and listened to its sweet murmuring song the same as half a century ago. Men have come and gone but it, like Tennyson’s brook, flows on forever. I looked into the clear liquid depths of the old swimming hole and did not see the reflected image of the joyous boy’s face as I did long ago. Then I thought, they pass so soon! The fleeting mortal lives! And so I will end this brief story about this little valley and its people. Far from the mad’ning crowd’s ignoble strife. Their sober wishes never learned to stray. Along the cool sequestered vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Let not ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys and destiny obscure; Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile, The short and simple annals of the poor. 23 �Log Buildings In the Valley of Virginia by R oyster Lyle J r . This paper will attempt to discuss a segment of the folk building styles which started in the western Virginia area in the 18th Century and which in certain ways influenced the later forms of more sophis­ ticated architecture. Concentration will naturally be in the Rock­ bridge County area where the majority of the research was done. Frank Lloyd Wright wrote in 1910 that “the true time basis for any serious study of the art of architecture still lies in those indigenous, more humble buildings everywhere that are to architecture what folk­ lore is to literature or folk song to music and with which academic architects were seldom concerned . . .” Any discussion of the indigenous architectural forms in the Val­ ley of Virginia must necessarily begin with the log .cabin, the log house, and the log barn. During the past several years, I have photo­ graphed or examined over 100 log buildings in the Rockbridge Coun­ ty area and, with the assistance of several recent articles, have been able to draw several conclusions about the styles and types found in the county. Accompanying this investigation has been an effort to determine the ethnological influences that caused these particular forms to develop. It is important to mention that there is a wealth of extant source material available in this part of the country. I was of course able to examine only a small percentage of the log structures still stand­ ing on the Rockbridge County area. I gather that there are probably few places in the United States with a greater concentration of remain­ ing log buildings. The area is fertile ground for further serious study. To explain fully the movement of log construction into the Val­ ley of Virginia, it is necessary to begin in the mid-17th Century when the Swedes began settling in the Delaware Valley in the area near what is now Philadelphia. C. A. Weslager, in his recent book, The Log Cabin in America, states that “because the use of horizontallyExcellent research on the construction of log buildings in the Valley of Virginia has been shared with the Society by Royster Lyle Jr., of Lexington in a talk on March 18 and the article printed here. Lyle, assistant to the director of the George C. Marshall Research Foundation, has written and studied extensively in architectural history. 24 �(Royster Lyle photo) Homer Smith log house west of Lexington laid notched logs, both round and hewn, as an accepted form of set­ tlement housing, made its American debut in New Sweden, the area is of utmost importance for a thorough understanding of the origins and diffusion of what came to be known as the American log cabin.” This is principally the same conclusion of Harold R. Shurtleff in his book, The Log Cabin Myth, published thirty years ago. Shurtleff wrote: “Each group of European colonists in the 17th Century erect­ ed the sort of dwelling they were accustomed to at home. The only 17th Century colonists who brought with them a log-house technique were the Swedes.” Shurtleff, who was director of research at Colonial Williamsburg in the 1930s, spent most of his scholarly book proving that the early settlers in New England and Virginia did not build log houses in spite of the folklore that has survived. Samuel Eliot Morison said that Shurtleff found “strongly in­ trenched in the public mind a myth that the log cabin was the earliest form of dwelling of the English settlers. Whenever there was ques­ tion of restoring Jamestown, or Roanoke Island, or some other earlier colonial village, he was confronted by a strong public bias in favor of the log cabin.” Shurtleff notes that Prof. Thomas J. Wertenbaker, who made his own investigation of earlier colonial housing, conclud­ ed that there were no log houses in Virginia or New England until the 18th Century. But, Shurtleff concludes, “So firmly established is the Log Cabin Myth, and so widely has it been disseminated by 25 �illustrations, picture post cards, pageants, and reconstructions, that the dispelling of (this myth) will take many years.” At the close of the 17th Century, German settlers began landing in eastern Pennsylvania. William Penn had hoped to attract desir­ able Europeans seeking religious freedom and economic opportunity; by 1710 the Germans were arriving in large numbers. Many of them, notably those from Switzerland, the Black Forest, Upper Bavaria and Saxony, had lived in log houses at home, and knew of no other method of housing for people of modest means. The Germans were soon to be numerically superior to all the other groups. And it was the Ger­ man folk culture that soon became dominant in this area, including that of housing construction. That Swedish and Finnish log buildings were present in Pennsylvania is perhaps important, but the Germans’ influence from this point on became the most persistent and the strongest. Three decades after the Germans had begun settling in Pennsyl­ vania, the first Scotch-Irish arrived from Northern Ireland. Of all the American colonies, Pennsylvania best suited the restless, lowland Scots who were already living in an unhappy foreign land. William Penn offered to the Scotch-Irish, as he did to each European group, a government based on universal male suffrage and a promise of eco­ nomic success for a man who was willing to work. As a Quaker and a pacifist, he made no provisions for a militia or any military estab­ lishment and he guaranteed in his charter complete freedom of con­ science. Between 1717 and 1735, 250,000 Scotch-Irish came to Ameri­ ca from Ulster, most of them stopping first in Delaware and South­ eastern Pennsylvania. The Scotch-Irish who settled in New Castle, Delaware, were exposed first to the Swedish-Finnish log housing and those who settled west of Philadelphia to the Germans. The houses of the Scots in lowland Scotland had been almost nondescript; many were one room “shanties of stone, banked with turf, without mortar, the crevices stuffed with straw, heather or moss” to keep out the weather. In Ulster, after they had moved across to Northern Ireland, things were little better. Charles Hanna, in his book, The Scotch-Irish, referred to the Ulster dwellings as “poor thatched houses” and “houses covered with clods.” It would be safe to say the Scotch-Irish brought with them no housing culture or tradition, let alone one of log. Unlike the English settlers who knew of or had seen log buildings on the continent, the settlers from Ulster knew nothing of log houses. In addition, they apparently brought with them “no traditions of horticulture, orchards, and vineyards, nor skilled crafts­ manship, whether for house-building, furniture or farm implements.” James Leyburn, in his sociological study of the Scotch-Irish, paints the Ulsterman and his descendants as almost without an artistic cul26 �ture altogether. “In the earliest days of settlement there was no time for the artistic, even if the motive had been there. A home was a house to be lived in; a church was a building in which one might hear the Word; a school was a place for teaching and learning.” Yet, in spite of this background, it was the Scotch-Irish immi­ grants from Pennsylvania and their descendants who became the dominant American pioneer and from whom developed the American frontier culture—not the least part of which was log building con­ struction. In 1730 a new land policy was instituted by Governor William Gooch of Virginia—that of granting great tracts of land in the Valley of Virginia to individual enterprisers. By this time settlers had al­ ready found most of the attractive farm lands in Pennsylvania while the flow of settlers from Germany and Ulster continued unabated. Many of the Germans had by the 1730’s pushed their way across the Potomac and had taken up much of the finest land in the northern end of the Valley. In 1736 Governor Gooch gave William Beverley and Benjamin Borden two grants of 118,491 acres and 92,100 acres respectively. Beverley’s land covered the area to the north, including the modern county of Augusta and the cities of Staunton and Waynes­ boro. Borden’s land was the southern part of Augusta and almost the whole of Rockbridge, including what later became Lexington. One of the stipulations was that Borden should have a hundred families settled on the land before he could receive title. Within two years he succeeded in securing the necessary settlers from Pennsylvania and in 1739 he received clear title. Within the ten years after 1736, these two tracts were so predominantly Scotch-Irish that they were known as the “Irish Tract.” Charles Hanna recorded that in 1738 these Scotch-Irish settlers had constructed 92 cabins on the Borden tract. Apparently land dispersement, or “cabin right,” was based upon the settler’s having built a log cabin upon the tract he claimed. Weslager records show that during their stay in Pennsylvania the Scotch-Irishmen did not learn log construction easily. He says: “Whereas the skilled German or Swedish cabin builder was capable of hewing logs with two or four flat surfaces, and interlocking them with carefully executed notches to produce tight, square, even corners, Scotch-Irish builders, at least at first, did not possess this sophistica­ tion, and both their round and hewn log cabins were crudely notched, having wide gaps between the logs to be clinked with mud, moss, wood, and stones, just as they had caulked the stone walls of their lowland shanties.” But, undoubtedly, the craft learned by the Scotch-Irish from the Germans and Swedes improved and developed to a certain degree of sophistication as is evidenced by an investigation of examples still extant in this area of Virginia. 27 �Only recently have students of architectural history begun to look seriously at early log construction as an important form of American building. Hardly can a log cabin be called an architectural type, but as a building method it is of special significance in certain areas be­ cause of the forms that resulted from this sort of construction. Social geographers became interested in log construction (and all early folk buildings for that matter) as a way of tracing the diffusion of various ethnic groups throughout the country. As the Valley of Virginia was a key route to the west and south-west, this area is receiving special attention. Two imaginative scholars, Fred Kniffen and Henry Glassie, have been the leaders in developing a number of outstanding studies on housing types, corner timbering methods, chimney construction, roofing materials, and on and on. Hardly could anything be written on the subject today without reflecting on their several first rate books and articles. Full dovetailing of corner timbers was used in Garst Fort House which stood on Carvin's Creek north of Roanoke. Kniffen and Glassie are quick to admit that much more field work needs to be done on the remaining log buildings in every area. There are few places left where log construction is still employed as an authentic method for housing, certainly not in the Valley. However, farm buildings, particularly those involving the tobacco culture, are still being built of log in many sections of the South. Log construc­ tion as a modest housing form has been almost completely replaced in the South by “balloon” frame houses and more recently by the prefabricated, pre-cut, and mobile “homes.” 28 �Most Shenandoah Valley corner timbering was V-notched (left above). Half dovetailing (right above) was seldom used and full dovetailing (right) w as rarely seen. In my field work in the southern part of the Valley of Virginia, I found that the log structures built originally for housing can be con­ veniently divided into two clearly defined categories: log cabins and log houses. Some studies have divided “folk buildings” into square houses and the rectangular houses regardless of the construction ma­ terials, but I found this did not appear practical in the valley. In the Rockbridge County area the log cabin appears to range in outside dimensions from 12’ x 15’ to about 15’ x 18’. There are many exceptions, but this is average. On the whole the cabin is less well built than the house and the corner timbering methods seem to be more crude. The cabin is almost always smaller with one room down stairs and a simple loft above. The loft is usually reached by a ladder through an opening in the corner of the ceiling. In most cases there is only the front door, with one front window on the side toward the chimney. The older buildings had no windows. There seems to be no evidence of dirt floors; the fireplace levels would in­ dicate board floors from the beginning. 29 �It is doubtful if the early pioneer ever planned the cabin for a permanent dwelling; it was just the quickest way of establishing a residence. Undoubtedly he expected as soon as possible to build a more substantial house of log, stone, or brick to accommodate his family. Since he already knew log construction, the larger log house was in many cases his next effort. The log house in the Valley is usually 16’ x 20’ to about 19’ x24’, appearing nearly square but a little wider than deep. The most characteristic house has two rooms downstairs and two rooms upstairs with a central front door and one chimney at a gable end. Some of the larger houses have two chimneys. The stair is entered directly from the front door or in some cases is a “box stair” in the back of the house. The partitions between the rooms are usually vertical boards; interior log walls are rare in a house. Both the cabin and the house almost always have a front porch which was a principal work area. The interior house walls and the porch were generally whitewashed. One of the most interesting special characteristics of the log con­ struction has to do with the different ways the log ends are notched and joined—what is called “corner timbering.” There seems to be little known about why certain forms of notching are more prevalent in some places than others. In the Valley of Virginia the most common log ending type is “V-notching.” Other types which can be found are half dove-tailing (uncommon), and full dove-tailing (rare), and outside the Valley square notching and saddle notching come into use, particularly in the Piedmont. Most of the log endings on build­ ings used for residences are cut flush with the corner, while on many of the farm buildings the logs extend to various lengths. The earliest cabins generally have stone chimneys, but most of the later houses seem to have stone to the shoulder and brick above. The brickwork allowed for a neater flue as the chimney narrowed; in some instances chimneys were built completely of brick. The early German cabins in Pennsylvania had central chimneys, but this almost died out as the form moved deep into Virginia, perhaps the result of the influence from the English. There is some evidence of stick and mud chimneys, but these have long since disappeared. In the better built cabins and houses in the Valley there is found a rather special form of chinking and daubing. Chinking is placing wood slabs tightly at an angle in the log interstices. Then the inter­ stices were made more solid by adding a mixture of mud and lime, known as daubing. The combination of the thick log walls and the careful chinking and daubing thus made the log structures, as Thomas Jefferson put it, “warmer in winter and cooler in summer than the more expensive constructions of scantling and plank.” The primary roofing material at first was “clapboard” which is actually long narrow wood shingling. In some cases smaller shingles 30 �were used. A “clapboard” roof is not to be confused with the New England term, clapboard, which in Virginia is referred to as “weather­ boarding.” Many of the exposed log sides of houses in the Valley were covered with weatherboarding shortly after they were built to protect the logs and the daubing from the weather. This has made it particu­ larly difficult to examine the majority of the extant log buildings, but has had the effect of preserving the buildings, and today many of the very early buildings are still in excellent repair. Anyone who has built a log cabin with a Lincoln Log set will fully understand the impossibility of adding another log room to a log cabin without tearing down the entire building and starting over. Because of the obvious need for the early builder to enlarge his log cabin, various ingenious methods were devised. The most common type is called the “dog trot” (not common in the Valley), which is two cabins side by side with a hallway between. In most cases the houses were later weatherboarded and the area between the two cabins became the hall. Another double cabin form is the “saddle bag,” which is two cabins (pens) built on either side of a central chimney, leaving a small area exposed on either side of the chimney. Most of the addi­ tions to log buildings were of frame as they were immeasurably easier to attach to the original house. Dating cabins and other log buildings is difficult because few records were kept, and as it was a “folk” form, we can assume suc­ ceeding generations built almost identical structures using the same basic methods. Most of the log buildings throughout Virginia and the South were not built as residences, but as farm outbuildings. Among the most interesting is the “double crib barn” so prevalent in Pennsyl­ vania and throughout the Valley of Virginia. What part log construction has in the total picture of the archi­ tecture of the Old Dominion needs considerably more study. But there is no question that it was the most important building method of the early settlers (and their descendants) in a large section of the state. The new findings from extensive field work about the methods of early log construction will be helpful in the many reconstruction projects now under way across the state. It will mean the difference between an authentic restoration and one that is carelessly done. And how much more impressive it will be to announce you have recently begun work on a “full dove-tailed saddle bag,” rather than just a “log cabin.” S U G G E S T E D R E A D IN G L IS T : F r e d K n iffe n . “ F o lk H o u sin g : K ey to D iffu s io n .” A N N A LS O F T H E A SSO C IA T IO N O F A M E R IC A N G E O G R A P H E R S , V ol. 55 (D e c e m b e r, 1965). “ C o rn e r T im b e r in g ,” P IO N E E R A M E R IC A , V ol. | N o. 1 ( J a n u a r y 1969 • . . F r e d K n iffen a n d H e n ry G la s s ie , “ B u ild in g in W ood in th e E a s t e r n U n ite d S ta t e s . A T im e -P la c e P e r s p e c t iv e ,” T H E G E O G R A P H IC A L R E V IE W . L V I: ( J a n u a r y , 1966) H e n r y G la s s ie , “ T h e T y p e s of th e S o u th e rn M o u n ta in C a b in , ( a c h a p te r in ) T H E S T U D Y O F A M E R IC A N F O L K L O R E (N o rto n a n d C o., I » ® * ) ttastvrn U N IT E D PATTERN IN T H E M A T E R IA L F O L K C U L T U R E O F THE EA STERN U NITJSU S T A T E S (U n iv e rs ity of P e n n s y lv a n ia P r e s s , 1968). H . R . S h u rtle ff, T H E L O G C A B IN M Y T H ( H a r v a r d P r e s s , 1939) C A W e s la g e r, T H E L O G C A B IN IN A M E R IC A ( R u tg e r s U n iv e r s ity P r e s s , 1969). 31 �Mary Harvey Trigg, An Unusual Widow by P a u lin e E dwards Two centuries ago widows donned their weeds and sat quietly at home, awaiting the final trumpet call. Not so Mary Harvey Trigg, widow of Maj. Stephen Trigg, one of the signers of the Fincastle Resolutions and one of the founders of the Town of Fincastle. Widowed before she was 25, Mary Trigg wore the finery of the day, sat for her portrait, rode around the countryside with pistols in her saddle holsters and even traveled to Washington where she engaged in conversation with Chief Justice John Marshall. The Trigg marriage took place July 24, 1795 when Mary was only 14. She was born Jan. 23, 1781. It was a second marriage for the groom, whose first wife was Mary Christian, daughter of Israel Christian, also one of the signers of the Fincastle Resolutions and a founder of the Town of Fincastle. By 1806 Maj. Trigg was given up for dead, having disappeared “on a long and perilous journey by land and sea voyage,” prior to which he made a statement giving his wife “the property presently occupied by Samuel Wilson as a tavern together with the household furnishings, silver, pictures, linens, etc., to make provisions for Mary Trigg in case of accident.” This was not all the widow’s property. Her father, Col. Robert Harvey, prior to 1801 had built the house where she resided. This was Thorn Hill (now known as Hawthorne Hall), a story and a half house of Flemish-bond brick with 20-foot square rooms featuring handsomely carved woodwork, an arched hallway, and full-length mirrors in the recessed panels by the fireplace. At least three of the upstairs rooms had nice fireplaces. The land, before being built on, was assessed at 10c per acre—and the homeplace at $1.20 per acre thereafter. In 1831, Mary Trigg came into other property through her fath­ er’s death. His will read thus “. . . To my daughter Mary Trigg, I desire for her life the land whereon she now lives including the ad­ joining land belonging to me, about the title of which there is no disThe story of Mary Harvey Trigg and her family in 18th and early 19th century Botetourt County is recalled by Mrs. Pauline Edwards, publisher of the Altavista Journal. Mrs. Edwards’ mother, the late Mary Harvey Hughes of Botetourt County, was the half-niece of Mary Harvey Trigg. 32 m " *1 ij " in �Copy of painting of Mary Harvey Trigg; original was on a board. " in W pute, and if that part of it which is involved in the controversy with Peck’s heirs, shall be lost, my executors shall . . . give her the use 6f such other of my property as will in their estimation be an equiva­ lent. . . . “I have already given to my said daughter $17,025 in the life­ time of her husband and partly in the time since his death, including the Negroes, Ben, Emeline, Charlotte, with which she is to be charged in the final distribution of my estate.” Col. Harvey’s will was signed March 25, 1831, with James Breck­ inridge and William A. McDowell as two of the five witnesses. , . It was probably about this time that Mrs. Trigg sat for her por­ trait. This was a board painting of Mrs. Trigg in her drawing room with a young girl kneeling at her knees and a likeness of the artist in the background. The artist was Harvey Mitchell, a kinsman who was born near Lynchburg around 1801 and, reportedly studied under Gilbert Stuart. A Lynchburg paper carried the death of Mitchell’s wife in Charles­ town, Mass., where Stuart was then living. The original board painting (now dark with age) is in Texas and a recent owner believes that the young girl in the portrait is Mitchell’s daughter. But Mrs. R. P. Hughes (deceased), daughter of W. M. Harvey of “Locust Hill” in Botetourt County, one-time own33 �er of his half-sister’s portrait, understood the girl was Mary Trigg’s nieee. I H , A family Bible, printed in Philadelphia in 1802 and with Stephen Trigg’s name on the frontispiece, carries the birth of three children: (1) Elizabeth Trigg, born the 23rd day of March at 4 o’clock in the morning in the (year) 1775 at Reed Creek. (2) Fleming Trigg born the 10th of July in the year 1781 “be­ tween the break of day and sunrise at Capt. Gordon’s station in Lin­ coln County of Kentucky.” (3) Mary Trigg, daughter to Stephen Trigg, was born April 19th, 1783 at Viny (?) Grove, Kentucky. There is also the death of Stephen Trigg, son of Stephen and Mary Trigg on April 9, 1806, about 11 o’clock in the night in the 34th year of his age. (Was this his Bible, or one ordered by his father be­ fore setting off on his “perilous journey”?) And were the children those of the first Stephen Trigg, or of his son? Mary Trigg’s death is recorded as of Jan. 13, 1851, 10 minutes after 4 in the evening at Thorn Hill, aged 74 years, 11 months and 13 days. This was a goodly age for that day so we presume she inherited the constitution of her father who, at the age of 60, could jump into the air and clap his feet together three times before touching the ground. Or her grandmother, nee Magdalene Woods, who lost one husband, Ben Borden Jr., of sickness by smallpox; another, Capt. John McDowell, in an Indian massacre, and married yet a third time, all the while remaining a handsome and spirited woman. Mary Trigg had a wide circle of relatives, even in the old coun­ try. Witness this letter from William Harvey of Campbeltown, Scot­ land, in 1829 to her father, Robert Harvey, Ironmonger; “We have your letter of Mar. 26, 1827, which gives us a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction to hear from any relation in America. It is an occur­ rence we never expected. This letter has been lying with the post­ master for two years unknown. . . . It was found at last by his wife who . . . sent it to a friend and it falls my lot to write you and give you what information I can about your father’s relatives here. This, the writer did at great length; concluding, “I have now given you the best account of your father’s relatives in Campbeltown, I was able. I can assure you they are all honest, respectable and well doing and some of them in very affluent circumstances. “I am much surprised you do not correspond with your Uncle Andrew’s children, you both being in America. A good many years ago we had a letter from his oldest son, William. I once had his ad­ dress but cannot find it now. That letter lies with some of Cousin William’s family. 34 �“If this letter comes to hand, I hope you will write me informa­ tion and forward same to Mr. Kelso (Jane Harvey married a Mr. Kelso) at N. Y. and desire him to send it with the first packet that sails between Greenock and N. Y. direct to me; Harvey & Sons, Tan­ ners, Campbeltown, Argyleshire, N. Briton, and you can let us know something about the prosperous climet and law of the country and say something about what religion is most followed after in your dis­ trict and I would wish to know how many miles you are back in the country from N. Y. and I would wish to hear your opinion if you think there is encouragement for people now to emigrate to America. Some friends near think their friends left this place lately would be better at home. . . .” Col. Harvey doubtless shared this letter with his daughter and one can imagine their smugness about the Valley’s prosperous “cli­ mate.” True, Fincastle was some distance “back in the country from New York”, but Col. Harvey regularly made business visits to Phila­ delphia. And there were cousins near by. William Mitchell of Lynchburg in 1816 wrote Matthew Harvey to bring Polly (Mary) Trigg with him on his next trip to Bedford. Doubtless relatives were more than kind to a well-to-do woman with no legal heirs! The Scotch-Irish settlers, according to Howe’s Sketches of Vir­ ginia, were “disposed to cultivate the arts of civilized life. Few ever ran wild in the forest or joined the bands of white hunters who were the link between savages and the tillers.” There was found to be a strong family feeling among a people who not only shared similar problems and often intermarried but also shared a common heritage. A heritage that, in several cases, included the defense of Londonderry. Ephraim McDowell, first of his clan in America and a maternal ancestor of Mary Trigg, at the age of 16 was among the defenders of Londonderry. Robert Harvey’s ancestors are understood to be of this same stalwart group for Samuel Harvey was one of the apprentices who closed the gates of the city at the start of the awful siege. Israel Christian came from Northern Ireland as did the Moores (Robert Harvey’s second wife was Nancy Moore.) These Scotch-Irish were a hardy people and, it is said, “afraid of God, but afraid of nothing but God.” The original Fincastle church, naturally, was Anglican, but dis­ senters were numerous in the Valley and more than one minister found it difficult to get his salary and other benefits. After the Re­ volution the Presbyterian families took over the Old Parish Church in Fincastle and Robert Harvey had the letting the Glebe. Mary Trigg was a regular attendant at this church until the 35 �adoption of a new edition of the Psalms as a hymnbook. “So averse was she,” states R. D. Stoner in A Seed Bed of the Republic, “that when the singing of the first psalm was announced, she arose from her pew in all her black satin and cream-colored lace grandeur, and walked out of the church never to return until brought there for her burial.” Carved woodwork on mantel at Hawthorne Hall Mary Trigg’s ability to buy satin and lace was the result of her father’s enterprises, for Robert Harvey probably was the first iron­ master west of the Blue Ridge. And an iron master was first of all a large landowner. It took V4 acre of hardwood timber to prepare the charcoal to make one ton of pig iron. Robert Harvey had the land on two scores. In addition to patent­ ing land himself, he married widowed Martha Borden Hawkins, Dec. 9, 1779. The bride was the heiress of Ben Borden Jr., Who patented up to 100,000 acres of land on the headwaters of the James and the Shenandoah. Further, she married the first time Benjamin Hawkins, a wealthy landowner and office holder of Botetourt County. Martha came of true pioneer stock. She was the step-sister of Samuel McDowell, father of Dr. Ephraim McDowell, a graduate of the University of Edinburgh and the first to perform a successful ovariotomy. This occurred on Christmas Day, 1809 as the patient lay on the well-scrubbed kitchen table in the doctor’s home in the backwoods of Kentucky. The patient was transported to the operating center on horseback and she remained in the home until well re­ covered. An ironmaster was a diversified industrialist, usually also own­ ing a grist mill and a blacksmith’s shop. He was a person of impor36 �tance in the community, taking pride in serving in the army, but receiving exemptions for the manager and certain workmen in this essential industry. For manufacturing shot and ordnance, he received salt to provision his entire estate. Robert Harvey took the oath of justice of the peace in Botetourt County, Sept. 8, 1789; he acted as security for the new sheriff in 1790; received a license to retail goods, 1790 and was granted leave to build a grist mill on Burden Run, a branch of Catawba, June 12, 1781, and at the forks of Tinker’s and Robinson’s Creeks, 1794. He was appointed surveyor of the roads, June 12, 1798, and surveyor of the highway, Sept. 11, 1798; commissioner for repairing the stocks, Aug, 15, 1799 and was recommended for commissioner of the peace, 1782. Robert Harvey and his brother, Matthew, both locally titled colonel, were included in the list of gentlemen judges for Fincastle, Nov. 14, 1789. The first of Col. Harvey’s four, or five, furnaces was called Mar­ tha after his first wife. The Long Entry Creek furnaces were named Rebecca, for his mother and Jane for his sister. F. B. Kegley, Wytheville historian, and John D. Capron, Lynchburg industrialist and historian, have attested that this first furnace was built on Stone Coal Creek, a branch of Catawba, between 1779 and 1787. This was a cold blast charcoal furnace using water power. In 1787, a road was authorized from Harvey’s Iron Works to the south side of Lees Gap; in 1790 another road waylaid out from the furnace to Craig Creek. Cloverdale Furnace, according to Kegley, was “instigated by Robert Harvey about 1786-1787 on Tinker Creek at Cloverdale.” Speedwell Furnace (or Starkey’s ), Kegley says, was located “at the junction of the Trader’s path with the Indian path from Caroline” on Back Creek, six miles from Roanoke. This was built in 1796 as a cold blast furnace using water power. Harvey “received” this land in 1792 and pig iron probably was hauled by oxen to Taylor’s Forge and pig iron and castings were boated down the Roanoke River to the eastern markets. Capron says this was Harvey’s second furnace. In 1819 Harvey conveyed 7,893 acres of land in this area to his sons, Lewis and Henry. Henry conveyed his share to Lewis. Dr. Kathleen Bruce in Virginia Iron Manufacturers in the Slave Era, states, “ . one Harvey as far back as the first decades of the 19th Century was manufacturing iron for quality and strength famed from Virginia to Boston, the toughest, dark-grey pig iron.” She relates that the iron was sold as high as $60 a ton, pretty reasonable in view of the fact that iron had to be hauled miles by oxen and then floated downstream. Not only pig iron but castings were prepared for sale. William Mitchell wrote Robert Harvey from Lynchburg on Oct. 18, 1816, 37 �“The castings you have sent I have sold to Morgan & McDaniel. Send them when you please.” Bruce again states, “In 1806 a party received from Matthew Harvey 93 bars of iron which were the purest and most malleable iron, he promised to pay what the wholesale market paid for imported bar.” It is likely these bars were of the celebrated Catawba pig. Col. Matthew Harvey was a successful business man. At the age of 16 he had run away from home and joined Lee’s Legion. Married to Magdalene Hawkins, daughter of Martha Harvey by her first mar­ riage, Harvey received a license to retail goods and took the oath of lieutenant of the militia, 1787, and was granted leave to build a grist mill, 1792. He later built Mt. Joy near Buchanan, a 40-room mansion with columned porches on three sides and known as one of the finest of its day. Later sold to the Andersons, Mt. Joy was burned in Hunter’s Raid in 1864. At least one item remaining is a chair later given by an old Negro woman to Miss Laura Harvey, a great-niece of the builder. One can imagine the talk around a Harvey-Trigg dinner table. Harvey’s father-in-law also was an early iron manufacturer. Capt. William Moore of Rockbridge County operated a charcoal furnace on Steele’s Creek near the South River. The furnace, according to Kegley, was built before 1789. The Moores were of material stock, too. Harvey’s father-in-law served throughout the Revolution as did his brother, Gen. Andrew Moore, who later became a U.S. senator, the first ever to serve from west of the Blue Ridge. In late 1781, William Moore marched to Richmond as captain of a volunteer company. From Yorktown he marched with prisoners of war to Winchester, receiving his discharge there and finally reach­ ing home with not over 20 of his original group. But it was in the French and Indian War in the battle of Point Pleasant that Moore, a lieutenant of rifleman, gave birth to a local legend. He killed one Indian and knocked over another as they were about to scalp his wounded friend, John Steele. Moore picked up Steele and carried him off the field. “There was not another man who would have done it if he could, or could have done it if he would,” was the way the story was handed down. In addition to operating his furnaces, Moore kept a store in Lexington and he is credited with stocking the first coffee in that tea-drinking town. He was appointed sheriff of Rockbridge County in October, 1795. A relic of Moore’s long abandoned furnace is a fireback, 26x32 inches inscribed: William & Sam’l M oore.............A.B. (sic) 1789. 38 �This now occupies a place of honor on the wall of John Capron’s museum m Lynchburg. v When Robert Harvey died in 1831, the day of the charcoal furnace was about over (although many were reactivated during the Civil War ) as anthracite coal had come into use. In his will Harvey directed that his one remaining furnace “be rented out and my Negroes hired if it seems advisable upon con­ sultation with my friend James Breckinridge.” Not only was a lucrative business passing, but the Trigg-Harvey connection also was dwindling as some families died out and others moved away. Miss Cloyd Harvey of Huntington, W. Va„ a great-great-grand­ daughter of Col. Robert Harvey of Fincastle, is the last of her gen­ eration. 6 Still alert and active at 88, she recalls her uncle William (Coin) Harvey of Arkansas, whose daughter, Mrs. Halliday, was the “motherm-love” described by actress Mary Martin in a 1953 Good House­ keeping feature. Separated from her husband, Mrs. Halliday went into the interior decorating business with the flair and determination of her long-ago Fincastle ancestor, a heritage that outweighs manv a material possession! The Harvey-Trigg home, first known as “Thorn Hill” and much later as “Hawthorne Hall,” is located about one and one-half miles north of Fincastle, near the site of the old Botetourt County Fair Grounds. Tradition says its architecture was copied from that of Gunston Hall, the home of George Mason. The outside dimensions of these two buildings are approximately the same. The mansion building has recently been purchased by Mr. and Mrs. George E. Holt., Jr. of Fincastle, who are endeavoring to restore it as nearly as possible to the original structure. Hawthorne Hall, once Thorn Hill, after improvements in 1971 39 �Old Letter Tells of Early Society Recollections of close ties with important early Virginians are given in a letter written almost 100 years ago by A. H. H. Stuart of Staunton to William McCauley of Salem. It was presented to the Roa­ noke Historical Society by the McCauley family of Salem from the papers of the late Dr. J. William McCauley, a son of the recipient of the letter. Stuart, a prominent lawyer, legislator and Cabinet member, wrote on April 17, 1876 to accept election as “an honorary member of the Roanoke Historical Society,” of which McCauley was corresponding secretary. McCauley is remembered as the author of “History of Roa­ noke County, Salem, Roanoke City, Virginia,” published in 1902 and long out of print. That first historical society based at Roanoke College, apparently was short lived for it is mentioned only a few times in the mid-1870’s in the Roanoke Collegian and Dr. W. E. Eisenberg gave one reference to the organization in his history of the first 100 years of the college. The Collegian said the organization first met on Jan. 23, 1875 as the Historical Society of Roanoke College, “looking to the collection and preservation of facts and incidents connected with the early history of Virginia and other states of the South.” (Editor’s note: Would that this collection and preservation had continued since 1875.) Dr. J. J. Moorman was president of the society and other officers came from the college and from Salem. Alexander Hugh Holmes Stuart, 1807-91, was a member of the distinguished Virginia family which produced Gen. Jeb Stuart, Gov. Henry Carter Stuart, State Sen. Harry Stuart and a number of judges, legislators and others in public service. He served in the House of Delegates, Senate, in Congress and in 1850 was named Secretary of the Interior by President Millard Fill­ more. Stuart later was rector of the University of Virginia board, president of the Virginia Historical Society and a trustee of the South­ ern education fund founded by George Peabody. His letter told of his father, Judge Archibald Stuart, 1757-1832, a founder of Phi Beta Kappa Society at the College of William and Mary and one of the youngest members of the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1788. The letter: Dear Sir: I have had the honor to receive your letter of April 10th in which you inform me of my election as an Honorary mem­ ber of the Roanoke Historical Society. I beg the favor of you, to express to the society, my high 40 �appreciation of the compliment which they have bestowed on me & to say to them, I am gratified that such a society has been organized in connection with Roanoke College, & that I will cheerfully cooperate with them in carrying into effect its purposes. We of the South have, heretofore been too indifferent in preserving, in an enduring form, the history and tradi­ tions of the achievements of our ancestors, who played so important a part in the establishment of our republic. Many important papers were doubtless lost during the war; others exist in a very insecure form & many important facts have never been reduced to writing & now are known only to a few persons of advanced age, or to the descendants of those who have passed away. I note particularly, your request that I should prepare a sketch of the life and services of my father, the late Judge Archibald Stuart, & it will give me great pleasure, at my earl­ iest leisure, to do so. His father commanded a regiment of Va. troops at Guil­ ford and my father, then a student at Wm. & Mary, left col­ lege, joined the army a few days before that battle & acted as volunteer aid to Gen. Greene. He subsequently studied law with Thomas Jefferson and was the intimate friend of Madison, Monroe & other distin­ guished men of that day. He was associated with them in the convention of 1788, & practiced law, for many years, with Patrick Henry. If you will turn to Wirt’s life of Henry, you will find that he was largely indebted to my father for some of his most valuable materials for Henry’s biography. My father was subsequently, a member of the Va. Senate, & thus was thrown into intimate association with the leading men of that day. He was President of the Senate in 98-9, & was elected judge by that legislature. He was the Jefferson Elector for this district in 1800 & 1804 . . . the Madison Elector in 1808 & 1812 . . . the Monroe Elector in 1816 & 1820 & the Crawford elector in 1824. He held the office of Judge from 1799 to 1831, when, upon the adoption of the new constitution, he retired. In his old age, I had frequent conversations with him in regard to public affairs & derived from him many interest­ ing facts. Very Truly yours, Alex. A. H. Stuart �The McDonalds of McDonald's Mill by L ena Mac Gardner Sam m ons George McDonald, builder and owner of the first mill at Mc­ Donald’s on the North Fork of the Roanoke River in Montgomery County, was born September 26, 1767. He was his father’s sixth son, but the first of his children to be born in the still-standing stone house near the headwaters of Buffalo Creek, Botetourt County.1 George represented the fourth generation of his family in America and the first generation of his family to be born in the Colony of Virginia. . George’s great-grandfather, Bryan McDonald,2 born m Glencoe, Scotland, in 1645, came to America around 1684, bringing with him a company of twelve families, to settle a grant of land given by the Duke of York, later James II of England.3 This settlement in the New World, known as Mill Creek One Hundred in the County of New Castle, Delaware was re-granted later under the jurisdiction of Wil­ liam Penn. It was from this settlement in Delaware that George’s grandparents and parents came when they moved into Virginia. In the Virginia records his grandfather is referred to as Bryan Sr. and his father as Bryan Jr. Early land records in Virginia tell of land granted to Captain George Robinson for the purpose of making a settlement near the head­ waters of Buffalo Creek in Botetourt (1745) and it was apparently soon thereafter that Captain Robinson persuaded his brother-in-law, Bryan Sr., then a man of almost sixty years, and the grown and mar­ ried members of his family to leave the level land of Delaware for the fertile and more scenic Virginia frontier. Virginia land surveys of the 1750’s have frequent listings of land transactions involving mem­ bers of the McDonald family.4 Robert Stoner in his book, Seed Bed of the Republic, describes Bryan Sr.’s home by saying this “may well be the oldest standing structure in present Botetourt because more than two hundred years have passed since the death of its builder in 1757.”5 The home of George’s father is also mentioned in Mr. Stoner’s book and it is interesting to realize that patterns of construction used A saga of the McDonald family, early settlers on the north fork of the Roanoke River in Montgomery County, was written by Mrs. Matcon Sammons of Shawsville, a high school history teacher. Mrs. Sammons, a great-great-granddaughter of the first George McDonald, began this project at the request of a Home Demonstration Club seeking community history. She wrote about Fort Vause in Vol. II, No. 2 of the Journal. 42 �in his father’s home in Botetourt were later copied in the building of his own homeplace on the North Fork of the Roanoke in Montgomery County. Two century-old home of Bryan McDonald Sr., on Lone Star Cement Co. property in Botetourt County The first member of the McDonald family to move from Bote­ tourt County into the area that later became Montgomery County was Joseph McDonald, older brother of George’s father. Joseph set­ tled on a sizeable tract of land in the Tom’s Creek area near the present site of Blacksburg. When the Revolutionary War broke out, he supervised the manufacture of large supplies of powder to be used by the Continental Army.6 The powder was made on his farm and through his ingenuity new improvements were made in its preparation. When Joseph and his six older sons were away with the Army, his wife, Elizabeth Ogle McDonald,7 the younger children and the servants continued to get supplies through to the Army. Elizabeth, in later years, was recognized as a “Soldier of the War” by the Daughters of the American Revolution. The will of George’s father, Bryan McDonald Jr., (1777) men­ tions land owned on the North Fork of the Roanoke.8 This land, al­ though not left to George at the time of his father’s death, passed on to him following the death of an older brother. There is, also, a record prior to 1790 of land on the North Fork being sold to George Mc­ Donald to be included with his homeplace.9 Family accounts say that George came to Montgomery County as a young man in his early twenties and that his first enterprise in es­ tablishing a new settlement at McDonald’s was the building of a waterpowered saw mill to be used in preparing lumber for the construction 43 �of home and business. His plans called for the building of a long race and wooden trunk for the tunneling of water power to supply both saw mill and anticipated grist mill. His home, which was built prior to the stone fortification, was designed to serve for a temporary for­ tification as well as a permanent dwelling.10 George’s great-granddaughter," who was born and spent part of her youth in the family home at McDonald’s, wrote a description of this home and of the stone fortification which stood across the road­ way from the home. She did this with great and loving care, for she did not wish these buildings to be forgotten by the members of her family. She wrote, “The home was a sturdy log structure built on a foundation of solid limestone, measuring seventy-five feet by twenty-five feet. Its doors were of heavy oak timber that could be bolted shut in case of trouble.12 “The windows were small and deep set. In the center of the building was a huge limestone chimney patterned after the one in Bryan Jr.’s home in Botetourt County. The home was built on two levels, connected by a staircase of about five steps. Each level was two stories high with basement rooms underneath. The lower level held kitchen and dining room with two bedrooms upstairs and the upper level had the living rooms with two bed­ rooms above. Running the full length of the house was a porch with wide balusters. A limestone wall was built in front of the house with several big stone steps leading down to the roadway and the yard was laid out to run an equal distance on either side of the house.”13 Regarding the stone building, Mrs. Gardner recalled, “The dimensions of the stone building were approximately sev­ enty by forty feet. The two ends were of quarried, dressed lime­ stone and the front was of polished sandstone, similar to that used by the builder’s father, Bryan, Jr., in Botetourt County. Many of the stones were of extraordinary length and thickness. One slab, used as the sill, was more than ten feet long, while others were almost as large. Considerable labor must have been put forth in securing materials. Where the sandstone blocks for the front of the building had come from, was not told to me, al­ though I knew that this particular type of stone was not native to our immediate vicinity. “Along the front of the building were six loopholes, spaced about six feet apart, three on either side of the center doors. These openings were shaped like a V with a spread of sixteen inches at the top to permit the defenders to direct their fire in any direc­ tion without being exposed. At each end of the building were 44 �three similar loopholes. The windows, cut high and narrow, had across them morticed slats of oak, slanted downward. “The heavy interior timbers were of oak, with beams and rafters morticed and fastened together with strong wooden pins. The shingles on the roof were hand-made as were the iron nails that held them in place.” “In the center of the building there was an open space of about thirty feet in length. This opening was enclosed with stout oak doors and had steps on each side leading down to the dirt base­ ment, where a space had been provided for the safety of the livestock. On the ground floor was a bold spring which ran the width of the building, emptying out into the stream some eighty feet to the rear of the building. This spring was enclosed with a high wall of limestone rock.” Mrs. Gardner had been told that the building was converted into a barn by her great-grandfather, probably around 1800. Her grand­ father told her the building could stable between 28 or 30 horses, as it did on occasion for the Confederate soldiers. He thought that the fortification had been built as a precautionary measure and as a means of encouraging settlers to come into the area. His father’s Uncle Joseph, on Tom’s Creek, had had frequent skirmishes with the Indians when he first came into Montgomery County. Another of his father’s uncles, Edward McDonald,14 had been killed by a sneak Indian attack in Botetourt County. The first George was probably more sensitive to danger than others might have been. If there had ever been trou­ ble with the Indians in their own area her grandparents did not know of it. When Route 209 was built, it was necessary to blast near the old barn and the detonations caused a crack to appear in the west wall of the building. (The brown sandstone on which the road itself touched was not harmed). Harvey Black McDonald,15 before his death in 1923, had iron braces inserted in the west wall in an effort to keep the stone blocks from slipping. During World War II, when labor and materials were hard to obtain, the stones in the west wall again began to slip and the roof of the old building gave way to the ravages of weather and time. Repairs at this time seemed too expensive and too impossible an un­ dertaking for Mr. McDonald’s widow, then a woman in her eighties. Through her son, arrangements were made to sell the stone to T. S. Word, an attorney, in Christiansburg. In 1952 Mr. Word and his wife used the stones in the building of their home, located on the Riner Road in Montgomery County. The first grist mill on the McDonald property dates from an order of the Court in 1794. It was located almost directly across from the present mill. An exact date of its first year of operation is not avail45 �able, but family accounts say that George considered the new settle­ ment securely established when he brought his bride from Botetourt County into the Roanoke Valley in 1803. He was then a man of thirtysix years and she a young woman in her twenties.16 Ruth Owen McDonald seemed well suited to be the wife of a pio­ neer. When George died in the winter of 1815, leaving her with five young children and a growing business to attend, she proved equal to the task, even supervising the building of a second mill when the one built by her husband was badly damaged by a flash flood in 1825. Family recollections tell that at this time water came down in torrents, rushing by the home, carrying large rocks and a great quantity of dirt. The water broke through the lower floor of the house, but the full force of its fury was given to the mill building where dirt and huge boulders, some reaching almost to the ceiling, filled the lower floor. Fortunately, the tools in the cabinet shop of the upper floor of the mill were saved and could be used in the rebuilding of a second mill in what was believed to be a safer location across the roadway from the home. This second mill was used until around the middle of the nine­ teenth century at which time Ruth’s son, who was only five years old at the time of his father’s death, selected a new mill site and made plans for building a new three-and-one-half story mill to the east of the house. His plans called for the first story to be of limestone and the upper floors of frame. It was to allow space for a cabinet shop on the upper floor, as the other mills had done. At this same time, pro­ visions were made for the building of a small miller s house, east of the mill.'7 George, himself then a man past forty years, made the long hard trip to Philadelphia to select the grinding stones and chop­ pers. The stones which he purchased and brought back with him had been imported from France. The oldest of his three sons, the third George, although still a lad at this time, amazed and pleased his father by drawing carefully calculated measurements for the balancing of the big water wheel and the master wheel. In the days before the war, the mill was a busy place. The | big water wheel was put into operation at 1 o’clock on Monday mornings and the gate across the wooden trough that cut off the supply of water was not closed until midnight on the following Saturday night. The mill served people in its immediate vicinity and some from a goodly distance. Nancy Sessler McDonald,18 wife of the second George, often told her grandchildren of these days when once a year the big scoop wagons, pulled by six or eight horses, left for Lynchburg loaded not only with barrels of flour, each weighing 300 pounds, but also, feed, beef, hams, chickens and cheese. The wagons brought back to the farms of the valley such supplies as sugar, spices, salt, tea, soda, 46 �bales of cotton and dyes. Nancy McDonald also told of a neighborhood dinner held in “the new mill,” honoring local boys leaving for service with the Con­ federacy. Her own three sons—five, nine, and fifeen—were too young to go, but among those going were sons-in-law, nephews, cousins and neighbors. In one family of cousins, four brothers were leaving.19 During the war years, her husband’s mill helped to supply flour for the Confederate Army and before the war was over two of her sons had volunteered for service. The 1870’s Nancy remembered as a time of demanding adjust­ ments. Death came to three of her grown children: Kate, the young unmarried daughter whose cheerfulness they had depended on dur­ ing the war years; scarcely a year later, her eldest son, the third George, who it had been assumed would settle at home and manage the milling business; then, before the decade was over, her oldest daughter, Susannah,20 the mother of a family of small children. The roadway from Botetourt County to the New River settlements,; via the Catawba-Roanoke Valley, was not as popular as it had been in the years before the war. Personal and business traffic was follow­ ing the new railroads being built in the valleys across the mountains. Cousins and neighbors of several generations were moving out of the McDonald’s community to adventures in the west, to warmer climates in Florida and to better paying jobs elsewhere. The young people, especially, were leaving. Nancy’s own two sons were among those going. Mark,21 inheriting his forefather’s zeal for conquering the frontier, went with a friend from Salem, to take up land in the territory west of the Mississippi. Harvey Black, her youngest son, left home to enter the new college that was opening in Blacksburg. Four years later, as a member of the college’s second graduating class, with a degree in engineering science, he was offered the opportunity of going west to supervise the construction of railroad bridges in the new state of Colorado, an opportunity that no adventurous young man could resist. George’s mill continued in business, often extending credit that could not be collected, for cash was hard to come by and there were fewer able-bodied men to work the land. He did what needed to be done as best he could, but his first interest in those years seemed to be in planning for the building of a new community church. This “new” church,22 which is still in active use, was made possible through the donation of land, material and labor. Its building represented a pattern of progress that George found understandable in the midst of much that was difficult for him to fathom. This second George McDonald, although raised a Presbyterian,23 joined the Methodist denomination sometime before the mid-eighteen hundreds. His great Uncle Joseph McDonald24 and sons, who have 47 �been credited with bringing Methodism into the Blacksburg area, must have also influenced their relatives at McDonald’s Mill. In the beginning, one definite factor in favor of the new denomination was its well-organized system for serving rural needs. First, there had been the faithful circuit riders and later frequent visits from minis­ ters who were members of the Baltimore Conference, Methodist Epis­ copal Church, South. Shortly before his death in 1886 George told his son-in-law that, for as long as he could remember, a room had been kept available in the McDonald home for visiting ministers, both Methodist and Presbyterian, and that, before the first church had been built, his mother’s home had been used for both Presby­ terian and Methodist services. This same son-in-law,23 writing a memorial to George, said of him, “as a husband, father, friend or counselor, he proved himself worthy of all the interests committed to his care. He had for fifty years been a dear lover of church literature and a constant Bible reader. To his Church, he was a liberal giver, often saying he be­ lieved in a religion that reached the purse as well as the heart.” George died in January, 1886 at the age of seventy-four. Pros­ pects for collecting money owed by his creditors were dim. He left no will and the settling of his estate proved to be a lengthy and com­ plicated affair. His heirs, besides his wife, Nancy, and three living children, included seven grandchildren, all under the age of twentyone. Legal advisors drew up plans for land division26 and recommend­ ed a settlement sale of miscellaneous personal properties. This sale was held in 1887. Soon thereafter it became evident that a firmer family voice was needed in the control of affairs, and Harvey Black McDonald, George’s youngest son, made the decision to return to the valley. This resolution to return to the family farm and milling business could not have been an easy decision for a man in his early thirties equipped, as he was by training and business experiences, Stone barn at McDonald's Mill which furnished material for a home in Christiansburg. 48 �to enjoy and benefit from the expanding opportunities in the fields of civil and mechanical engineering. However, once the decision was made, he seemed determined to establish a productive business. He invited authorities in mechanical engineering from his alma mater in Blacksburg to visit the mill at McDonald’s and inspect the mill s machinery.27 Cheered by their praise of its efficiency, he next put back into operation the saw mill, so that lumber could be pre­ pared for the building of a new home and store building. From his experiences in the Western Rockies, he had learned of the strength and endurance to be found in mule teams when pulling heavy loads up steep inclines, so he invested in six mules of his own to be used for regularly scheduled trips from the store at McDonald’s to the new railway freight station at Ellett. There, via the Virginian Railway, refrigerated cars carried the produce of the mountain farms to the northern markets. In return, back to the country store came mer­ chandise from New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Lynchburg, Peters­ burg, and Richmond.28 Five years later, Harvey Black McDonald married Annie Lee Early of Giles County. With her cooperative assistance his variety of merchandise expanded. Bolts of yard goods, trimmings, ribbon and patterns were added. Often “Miss Lee” would be called from the home or the Post Office to give advice. With the installation of telephones, rural orders could be handled without delay. A call to Barrow-Penn in Roanoke usually meant that the desired article (or articles) could be shipped out on the Vir­ ginian that very day. A ride up the valley road to Ellett provided opportunity to speak to the families along the way—the Bennetts, the Milton Johns, the Browns, the Keslers and the Hendersons. And if you went in the opposite direction, across the mountain to Salem, there would be the Eakins, the John Johns, the Doosings, the Woods, the Huffmans, Thomases, Spessards and John Bennetts. Harvey’s younger daughter28 remembers that as a child she fre­ quently saw all available space at the long hitching post in front of the store taken up and other horses harnessed to wagons and bug­ gies tied to the fence across the road from the store. She remem­ bers, too, seeing the wagons loaded with wheat and corn lined up, one back of the other, in the lane leading to the mill. Harvey took an active interest in the church and the school. His father’s old home was now used only for storage purposes,30 but his own home was always open to the visiting ministers and usually the public school teacher lived in his house. An enrollment of twentyone students was a Virginia state requirement if a teacher was to be assigned. McDonald’s Community, at times, had to draw in the fiveyear old pupils to meet this quota. One teacher,31 recalling these days, told that she taught twenty-one students, grades one through seven, 49 �Harvey McDonald family at mill in early 1900's during the school day and after school tutored Harvey’s older daughta L a to and algebra, preparing her to enter the M ethods college at Blackstone. This daughter, another Kate McDonald, with the same wide black eyes that could flash with fire when angry or É ¡ » ¡ ¡ 1 ness when happy, little realized that when she graduated from col­ lege (1912) she would be coming hack to a new and different honm Her father, on the advice of his doctor, had given up his variety of enterprises at McDonald’s. He leased the store, gave more¡of the mill’s management to his miller, John Moses, and moved with his family to a farm located between Christiansburg and Blacksburg. Twenty-six years had passed since his return in 1887. During the last ten years of his life he made frequent visits back to the farm. Around 1916, the home and store he had buüt burned down. Once, for a brief period about 1919, a a store in the valley. The experiment was not successful. The mill business finally dwindled to the extent that keeping the m il doors open1represented a loss rather than a profit. After Harvey’s death m 1923 the mill was closed and a tenant farmer lived in a s the old house so that someone would be on the premises. Although the mill and farm continued to be owned by the Mc­ Donald family, no family member thirty years after the death of Harvey Black in 1923. Following his widow’s death in June, 1950, his older daughter, Kate ^ cDona1^ ^ ' Collum, purchased her brother’s and sisters She took seriously her responsibility of stewardship to the land. It was her hope to atone for ihe neglect of the past decades by selling 50 �part of the land, but keeping the central area to be used as her own home when she retired. Her serious terminal illness prevented the materialization of her original plans. In 1952, the McDonald pro­ perty on the North Fork of the Roanoke was sold, after two hundred years and five generations of McDonald ownership.33 in th e sid e °w eallh0,,!,e ° " R<>,lte ” 9’ B o te to o rt C o u n ty , h a s d a t e 1766 c a r v e d on a la r g e * O rig in a l s p e llin g of th e n a m e is M a c D o n a ld , s h o r te n e d to M cD o n ald in D e la w a r e so c o n tin u e d in m o s t o f th e V irg in ia r e c o rd s . n e ia w a re sto n e an d ana o f Y o rk u 7 e r ” j ^ D ? r ldH i f f S w COA ,<le4^ 17#7> S erT ed ln th e S c o tt,sh * ' " ? » • D uke m i s in fo rm a tin n u L n ‘a H i , a t h e r ' A le x a n d e r, w a s a c o m m a n d e r in th e A rm y u n d e r J a m e s I. T h is in fo rm a tio n is b ^ e d o n r e s e a r c h d o n e b y M iss E lle n M c D o n a ld a n d D r. F r a n k M c D o n a ld S to n e P r i n t t a i r F » B " V IR ®I N I ^ F R O N T IE R : S o u th w e s t V irg in ia H is to r ic a l S o cie ty , 1938:' S to n e P r in ti n g C o., R o a n o k e , V irg in ia ; p p . 101-111. J R o a n o k e , Va” t r p p E042"ali . S E E D BED ° F THE REPCBU C: R oanoke H is to r ic a l S o cie ty , 1965. 7 R A D F O R D A R S E N A L : H e r c u le s P o w d e r C o .: J u ly 1955: o . 18. Ilf o n « « J m ” s ! >et* l i f e M c D o n a ld w a s th e o ld e r s is te r o f G e o r g e 's m o th e r , S u s a n n a h O gle M cD o n aM . T h e tw o s is te r s m a r r ie d th e M cD o n ald b r o th e r s a t th e O ld S w e d es C h u rc h in D e la ­ w a re " 1M » d f th H ° ly T rin lty < old S w e d e s) C h u rc h ! P u b l. b y H is to r ic a l S o c ie ty o f D e la 8 B o te to u rt C o u n ty W ill B k .: V ol. I , p p . 60 a n d 96. 9 K e g le y , V IR G IN IA F R O N T IE R : p p . 493, 584-85. 10 S o m e b e lie v e d th e r e w a s a lo g f o r t in th e v ic in ity t h a t p r e c e d e d th e s to n e s tr u c t u r e . L e n a M cD o n aM G a r d n e r (M rs . G .W .M .) 1871-1967, d a u g h te r o f th e th ir d G e o rg e M c D o n a ld . B o th of h e r p a r e n t s d ie d w h en s h e w a s a u ite y o u n g a n d s h e liv e d w ith h e r g r a n d p a r e n t s a s a y o n n g g ir l. 6 hn itp ii l 2„ ^ Iri i a G a rd r er.. M i a i d y t o s h e r life tim e in th e h o m e s s h e n e v e r s a w th e d o o rs i n *"* th a t h e r g r a n d m o th e r to ld h e r th a t th e y h a d b e e n b o lte d on s e v e r a l o c c a s io n s d u r in g th e W a r B e tw e e n th e S ta te s . Tiff« ¿ o m e ’ b a d ,y d e t e r io r a t e d , w a s to r n d ow n s h o r tly a f t e r th e p r o p e r ty p a s s e d fro m M c D o n a ld ^ M e C o llu m ( th e la s t m e m b e r of th e f a m ily to o w n it ) to M r. a n d M rs. E d w a r d D . Y o st of O hio (1952). S o m e o f th e m a te r i a ls fr o m th e o ld h o u s e w e re s a lv a g e d to b e u s e d in b u ild in g a s u m m e r c o tta g e f o r th e Y o sts, to th e e a s t o f th e m ill. w m a t U n w a rd M c D o n a ld w a s k ille d in B o te to u r t C o u n ty (1763). K e g le y : V IR G IN IA H H U hlllc< K ! p p . 284. 15 H a r v e y M c D o n a ld w a s th e y o u n g e s t so n of th e s e c o n d G e o rg e M cD o n ald . H e to o k 2S8 m £ n a * e m e " t o f *he m ill a n d h o m e p la c e in th e la te 1880’s, a n d liv e d o n th e p r o p e r ty u n til 1912. H e o w n ed th e p r o p e r ty a t th e tim e o f h is d e a th . G e o rg e e x p r e s s e d in h is w ill th e h o p e th a t h is y o u n g w ife w o u ld n o t r e m a r r y b u t w o u ld c a r e fo r th e p r o p e r ty so t h a t i t w ould b e p a s s e d o n to h is c h ild re n . H e w a s e s p e c ia lly a n x io u s t h a t h is y o u n g so n s, o n e fiv e a n d o th e r th r e e a t th e tim e o f h is f in a l illn e s s , c a r r y on th e w o rk th a t h e h a d b e g u n . M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty W . B . N o. 2, p . 290. IT f i l l e r ’s h o u s e s to o d w h e re th e p r e s e n t Y o st s u m m e r c o tta g e is lo c a te d . 18 N a n c y s f a t h e r , J o h n S e s s le r w a s one of th e e a r l y s e tt le r s in th e v a lle y . H e r s is te r , C a th e rin e , w a s m a r r ie d to G e o rg e ’s y o u n g e r b ro th e r, E d w a r d . 19 T h e J o h n b r o th e r s . 20 S u s a n n a h (1837-1879) m a r r ie d a t h e r f a t h e r ’s h o m e (1859) to J a m e s S lu s s e r o f B la c k s b u r g . a. , , . J ,y e d a n d o w n ed e x te n s iv e p r o p e rty in s e v e r a l o f th e w e s te r n s ta t e s b e fo re r e t ir in g in F lo r id a . H e d ie d in F lo r id a (1953) a t th e a g e o f 101 y e a r s . u_22 T h c “ o ld ” c h u rc h a c ro s s th e r o a d fro m th e p re « e n t c h u rc h , p ro b a b ly b u ilt a ro u n d 1840, b e c a m e th e c o m m u n ity ’s f i r s t p u b lic sch o o l h o u s e , d u r in g th e 1880’s. 23 J a n e M c D o n a ld , y o u n g e r s is te r of th e f ir s t G e o rg e , w a s m a r r ie d to th e R e v . E d w a r d C ra w fo rd , a n e a rl y le a d e r o f th e P r e s b y te r i a n C h u rc h in th e L e x in g to n P r e s b y te r y , a lso in B o te to u rt C o u n ty a n d l a t e r on th e H o lsto n . 24 J o s e p h , w h ile o n a v is it to P h ila d e lp h ia , h e a r d F r a n c i s A sb u ry , l a t e r B ish o p A sb u ry , s p e a k . H e w a s so im p r e s s e d b y w h a t h e h e a r d t h a t h e s ta y e d a f t e r th e s e rv ic e to r e q u e s t th a t s o m e o n e fro m th e M e th o d is t d e n o m in a tio n b e a s s ig n e d to v is it h is h o m e c o m m u n ity in M o n t­ g o m e ry C o u n ty , V irg in ia . 25 G . W . G a r d n e r , h u s b a n d o f R u th M c D o n a ld . T h e ir h o m e w a s n e a r t h a t o f h e r p a r e n ts . T h e y liv e d in th e M c D o n a ld ’s c o m m u n ity u n til 1907, m o v in g th e n to S h a w sv ille , o n th e S o u th F o r k o f th e R o a n o k e , w h e re six of t h e ir n in e c v h ild re n h a d s e ttle d . 26 L a n d fro m th e o r ig in a l h o ld in g s h a d b e e n g iv e n to e a c h o f th e c h ild re n o f th e f i r s t G e o rg e a t th e tim e o f t h e ir m a r r ia g e , p r io r to 1850. O ne d a u g h te r , w ho m a r r ie d a n d m o v e d a w a y , so ld h e r s h a r e to th e o th e rs . T h e o th e r fo u r c h ild r e n m a d e t h e ir h o m e n e a r b y . T h e s e c o n d la n d d iv isio n , m a d e in 1886, w a s b a s e d o n th e s e c o n d G e o rg e ’s p o rtio n o f th e o r ig in a l t r a c t w h ic h h a d in c lu d e d th e h o m e a n d th e m ill. 27 T h e c o lle g e p ro fe s s o rs e x p re s s e d s u r p r is e a n d a d m ir a tio n f o r th e s o p h is tic a tio n o f th e m ill’s m a c h in e r y a n d its in s ta lla tio n , d e c la r in g it a f e a t o f e n g in e e r in g a n d fin d in g it h a r d to b e lie v e t h a t i t h a d b e e n a c c o m p lis h e d b y m e m b e r s o f th e M cD o n ald f a m ily w ith o u t a s s is ta n c e fr o m o u ts id e e x p e rts . 28 H a r v e y B la c k M c D o n a ld to ld of o n e fa m ily w ho p a id f o r a co o k in g s to v e b y se llin g m a p le s u g a r . 29 A n n ie M c D o n a ld W illia m s (M rs . G . B .) of B a th C o u n ty a n d N o rfo lk w a s a b o u t te n y e a r s of a g e w h e n th e f a m ily m o v e d fro m M c D o n a ld ’s to P la t e a u F a r m n e a r C h ris tia n s b u r g . 30 N a n c y M c D o n a ld , w ife o f th e s e c o n d G e o rg e , m o v e d f r o m th e o ld h o m e ( a b o u t 1891) to th e h o m e of h e r d a u g h te r , R u th M cD o n ald G a r d n e r . S he d ie d th e r e (1906) a t th e a g e o f 96 y e a r s . 31 M a ry M a tth e w s R o b e s o n (M rs . F . L .) of B la c k s b u r g . 32 K a te M c D o n a ld M cC o llu m , l a s t m e m b e r of th e f a m ily to o w n th e m ill p r o p e r ty o n th e N o rth F o r k . D e c e a s e d 1956. 33 I t w a s g r a tif y in g to M rs. M cC o llu m t h a t th e p r o p e r t y ’s n e w o w n e rs , M r. a n d M rs. E d w a r d D . Y o st, e x e c u te d m a n y n e e d e d im p ro v e m e n ts to th e p r o p e r ty . 51 �"Long Way Home" Is Successful by Mary B. K egley The New River Historical Society of Radford found out □*£ history is not limited to meetings, tours and textbooks; S ude? the world ol outdoor historical dramas. In February, 1970 the society agreed to sponsor “The Long Way Home,’ a play based on the capture ogf Mary Draper Ingles at the Draper’s Meadows massacre m ^ T h e io r y is well known in Virginia history books and although the society did not seek out a manuscript for presentation, neitte did it turn it down when it was presented by Steve Shelton as p o ssiL project He felt, as others did, that the story of the adventures of X v Ingles in the Indian village and her escape and long walk hack home^to the New River settlement with an old Dutch H D w a7a story worth telling, this time in pageant form. He also noted that the site of the cabin where Mary Ingles lived after her rc‘“r” captivity was in the bottom land of the New River west of Radford and her descendants still owned the land and were willing theater site be placed there. , t Much of the background work for the play and perhaps much of the insniration came from articles written by Paul Simpkins of the M o T n e ^ s p a p e r about Ingles Ferry and the Ingles family in and around the Radford area. Armed with all the material available, th(Tmen interested in promoting the drama, George O M , &mpkins and Shelton set out to find a playwright. They turned to Earl Hobson Smith of Speedwell, Tenn., the author of many outdoor hritorn cal plays, who produced the manuscript presented to the society for consideration. Once the New River Historical Society agreed to sponsor the nlav these persons were named to a special Drama Committee: H C Gravbill Radford, president of the society; Mrs. W. D. Macgill, Pulaski Chairman; Robert Chapman, Radford, treasurer; Mm. James B Kegley, Wytheville, secretary; Shelton, Pulaski, advisor | S™ , Pulaski- Mrs Radford Adams, Radford, and Mrs. R B I Jeffnes, M re p re se n ta tiv e of the Ingles family. Later Sam Mattox, Radford, business manager; Simpkins, publicity cha man and Mrs. Bentley Hite of Christiansburg. I The first work of the committee was to raise funds and find a director. Neither of these chores was easy but both were carried Mary B. Kegley of Wytheville, whose article on Newbern was printedln Vol. Vll, No. 1 of the Journal, is engaged in a number f local historical projects. 52 �on simultaneously. Although money flowed into the treasury slowly, the first year’s efforts were commendable. Money was raised first by soliciting charter memberships from the general public, clubs and organizations. Shelton, Mrs. Hite, Graybeal and Mrs. Kegley told the story numerous times to encourage the sale of individual charter memberships. Certificates were issued as $10 membership fees came in. Once Richard Harshberger of Blacksburg was selected as director in February, 1971, businesses and individuals were solicited for larger contributions ranging from $50 to 1,000, even as the charter membership rolls increased rapidly. At the time Harshberger was chosen there was no stage, no roadway, and not too much money to work with, but when word spread that the project would proceed and that opening night was set for June 17, work began in high gear. Volunteers from Radford, Pulaski, Wytheville, Blacksburg, Christiansburg and other areas appeared to do the tasks that had to be done. Under the direction of Lloyd Matthews and Arby Phibbs of Pulaski, a stage began to take shape. Footings were poured, lumber sawed, boards nailed, a fence built and light towers erected. Under the direction of Jay Constantine scenery was painted while costumes were designed and put together by a team of 17 women under the direction of John Swope and Mrs. Becky Farmer. The site was wired for lights and sound and a thousand other tasks were undertaken by cheerful volunteers. The director and his able assistant, Tim Ellmore of Blacksburg, Three Mary Ingles who met at "Long Way Home" production on Aug. 14 were (left) Mary, daughter of Andrew ingles of Radford; Miss Mary Draper Ingles, who celebrated her 92nd birthday, and Dee Huff, who portrayed the original Mary in the outdoor drama. modified the script and held tryouts in neighboring communities. The cast was selected from a wide variety of interested persons. The pageant has more than 20 speaking parts and a total cast of 62. There was no pay involved, but still they came, willing to play a role requiring rehearsal five nights a week, and then presenting the 53 �play three nights a week, all summer long. Most of the cast had pre­ vious experience, but some were members of the historical society who wanted to appear in their play. The youngest members of the cast are Ted and Kathy Harshberger who play Mary Draper Ingles’ children. Ted is a third grader and his sister Kay is six. The oldest, Mrs. Elizabeth Gunn, is past 80. Mrs. Melville Jeffries, the only direct descendant of Mary Draper Ingles in the cast, portrays Eleanor Draper, her great-great-great-great grandmother. The question of lights and sound for an outdoor theatre was of utmost importance to the Drama Committee. It was fortunate to find A1 Shumate of Wytheville to be director of both. Experienced in the field, after working in army shows in the U. S. and Europe, he soon found the right sounds and right look for each scene. The committee groaned at the largest single expense of more than $12,000 but realized that this would make the show most memorable. Everyone who had any outdoor activities planned for the spring and summer of 1971 will remember it as the year the rains came. Rehearsals were delayed or cancelled or moved to temporary quarters dozens of times, trucks and cars were mired in the mud before gravel was delivered, backstage received a flood for its christening before the roof was finished, and artists delayed painting scenery due to heavy thunderstorms. Graders and heavy equipment were delayed in finishing the work and they simply could not get the site ready for June 17th opening night. The cast, however, was more than ready for an audience and was disappointed when the opening night had to be postponed a week until June 24th. While the stage and the play were being worked on, a group of “diggers” under the leadership of Graham Simmerman of Radford, was carefully moving dirt from measured squares to uncover any artifacts that might have been left in the ground by Mary Ingles and her family. She died here in 1815. The excavation was at the site of the Mary Ingles cabin which had been removed from the location about 70 years ago. Boy Scouts from Troop 345 of Pulaski were able assistants and were joined by members of the New River Valley Chapter of the Virginia Archeological Society. A most interesting variety of artifacts came from the ground, including a wide variety of pottery, china, glass and iron and the foundation of the cabin was uncovered. Once artifacts are marked, identified, carefully cleaned and a report written, they will be returned to the Ingles family for possible display in the reconstructed cabin at the site. This is part of the long-range plans for the “The Long Way Home” drama committee. In addition to yearly summer performances, another suggestion for the future is to revitalize the Ingles Ferry, which began operation across the New River in 1762. Except for a short period when a 54 �Mrs. Bingamin and Mary Ingles at Big Bone Lick during Indian captivity in the historical pageant. bridge was used from 1840 to 1864, the ferry remained in service until 1948. The theater site is within a few hundred yards of the eastern terminal. An old tavern on the west side of the River might be restored and used to welcome the passengers who crossed the ferry, it was suggested. Area arts and crafts could be offered for sale at the theater site and Indian relics known to be in the area might be uncovered and displayed. The only deterrent to carrying out the suggestions immediately was finances. Was the drama a success in its first year? The Drama Committee is very enthused and pleased with the results. Attendance was ham­ pered by a great deal of cool, rainy and uncertain weather but those who came were not disappointed. How did the critics receive the play? The first night performances of Dee Huff as Mary Ingles, Diahn Simonini as Mrs. Bingaman and Dick Harshberger who plays Pierre LeValle, were singled out as outstanding. Lights and sound were highly praised and the costumes were sparkling and attractive. The main criticism was that the third act was too long. This was trimmed and the production was improved. Some questions often asked: “Is that the true story?”, “Is that the way it really happened?” “Are all the characters real?” The answer of course is “No” for the true story has been lost for more than 200 years, and no one knows exactly how every detail of Mary Ingles’ adventure really happened because she did not leave any 55 �written record of the event. The playwright had to be imaginative and because no conversations whatsoever were available for study, the author had to be inventive. The play is historically correct in that the massacre took place at Draper’s Meadows (near Blacksburg) and Mary Ingles was captured, her mother-in-law was killed, her sister-in-law was captured, her children were taken from her and one was lost to all knowledge, and the other returned home many years later. It is also true that Col. James Patton was killed and that William Ingles and John Draper escaped. Casper Barger is portrayed as a single man, when in reality he was married and had a family. The burial is portrayed with Thomas Walker in charge of the service. In reality, Walker was far away with Braddock’s army at the time, and there is no record of such a service taking place after the massacre. Some accounts state Mary Ingles had her third child shortly after being captured, while other writers never mention it. The manuscript fol­ lows the first account. It is known that French traders visited the Indian villages and sold cloth which Mary Ingles sewed into shirts for the Indians, and it is also told that Mary had magic medicine and healed many in the Indian village by the use of plants and herbs. The old Dutch woman, in reality Pennsylvania-Dutch (German), whose real name has not been recorded, was given the name of Mrs. Bingaman for the production. It is known that she and Mary walked about 42 days in the wilderness to follow the rivers and streams back to the land Mary knew as home. Some estimate the walk covered 800 miles, others say as little as 300, but there is no way to be sure. The only thing agreed upon is that it was a miracle they both sur­ vived and were able to find their way back home. It was a “Long Way Home.” O ld Com m union Service D isplayed The four-piece communion set at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Fincastle, was part of an exhibition from 37 churches entitled “Church Silver of Colonial Virginia,” organized and shown by the Virginia Museum in Richmond from Feb. 2 to March 8, 1970. A pair of chalices, a paten and flagon, circa 1780-1800, were on display. They date from the original Botetourt Parish founded in 1770 and located at the site of the present Fincastle Presbyterian Church. St. Mark’s silver and an 18-piece communion service from Augusta Stone Church at Fort Defiance were the only objects displayed from west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The Augusta service, largest colonial set remaining in Virginia, is believed to have been made circa 1760-70. 56 �A Visit To Wythe County Fort Chiswell Mansion has been a landmark since 1840. In the longest tour of an interesting decade of pilgrimages, the Roanoke Historical Society joined the new Wythe County Historical Society for an inspection of iron, zinc and lead mining operations, the Shot Tower on New River, sites of the old Fincastle County seat and Fort Chiswell and a charming ante helium brick manor house in eastern Wythe County on May 8, 1971. Two buses from Roanoke and two from Wytheville, one of which suffered unscheduled motor failure, made the Wythe County trip. The Roanokers had a picnic lunch at Carter Memorial Wayside, a scenic park in a horseshoe bend of Reed Creek just east of Fort Chiswell. The wayside is named for the late George L. Carter, a West Virginia coal operator who had a home at Hillsville and owned the nearby Fort Chiswell Mansion property. This three-story Fort Chiswell home, a landmark on Interstate 81 and U. S. 11 owned by Mrs. J. R. Mabe, was the first stop. Built by brothers Stephen and Cloyd McGavock about 1840, the mansion was made of 300,000 sand brick. The property, once worked by 75 slaves, remained in the McGavock family until 1918. John Montgo­ mery, a Revolutionary War soldier and the first known owner of the land, is buried south of the house. On a slope across Int. 81 to the north, they saw the site of Fort Chiswell, an important frontier stopping point, established in 1760 by Col. William Byrd and named for his friend, Col. John Chiswell. Troops gathered here en route to western skirmishes; the fort was a supply depot for lead, salt, corn and other provisions during the 57 �Revolution; the Fincastle County Committee of Safety met here in 1775-76; Montgomery County’s new courthouse was here in 1779 and Wythe County Court first met here in 1790. Built on land owned by Alexander Sayers, the land was sold to James McGavock, an Irish immigrant and father of Stephen and Cloyd, who moved here in 1772 and obtained a license for an ordinary. A triangular marker, now on a knoll southwest of the fort site, contains three millstones from a mill on a stream below the fort. Archeological excavation is anticipated at the fort site, soon to become the location of a cloverleaf approach to the intersection of Interstate 77 with 81. At the old Cedar Run Furnace in the community of Grahams Forge, the early 19th century iron operations of David Graham were explained by Frederick 0. Graham, his great-grandson. A kettle mold and a variety of iron products and items associated with the furnace and forge were seen on the Graham property. On a scenic hill above New River, the buses visited the Shot Tower, now a state historical park. Built in the early 1800’s like a fortress of limestone 70 feet high and with walls feet thick, the tower was used for molding of lead, carried to the top in kettles. It was poured through sieves and dropped 150 feet to a kettle of water at the bottom of the shaft near the river bank. The lead was mined by Col. Chiswell starting in the mid-1700’s, at nearby Austinville, named for Stephen Austin, “Father of Texas,” who was born here. This was an important source of lead in the Kettle mold on Graham farm was inspected on Wythe County tour. 58 �Revolution and the Civil War. Mining of zinc, conducted by the New Jersey Zinc Co. here since 1902, was described by an official of the company for the tour. Only a marker remains at the site of the 1773 Fincastle County courthouse near Austinville, where the Fincastle Resolutions were signed on Jan. 20, 1775. N e w Books O n O ld Them es VIRGINIA THE NEW DOMINION by Virginus Dabney, Double­ day & Co. Inc., Garden City, N. Y., 629 pages, $12.50. Virginia Dabney, retired editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, has recorded Virginia’s history from Jamestown to Henry Howell in one solidly researched volume valuable for all Virginians. TRANS-ALLEGHANY PIONEERS by John P. Hale, 422 pages, $15, hardback; $7.50, paperback. A third edition of the colorful narrative of the first settlements west of the Alleghanies and of Mary Draper Ingles’ capture by and escape from the Indians has been privately published by Dr. Harold J. Dudley, 2726 Anderson Drive, Raleigh, N. C. 27608. MEMORIALS TO SAINTS IN GLORY EVERLASTING by Jean S. Showalter, 57 pages, $1. Mrs. English Showalter, a past president of the Society, has prepared an interesting historical sketch and record of memorials at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Roanoke. Dating from 1831, St. John’s, one of the oldest churches in Roanoke Valley, has had four buildings and three are gone without a trace. ARTS IN VIRGINIA, a magazine of the Virginia Museum, Vol. 12, No. 1, Fall, 1971, 44 pages, $2. Contributing to a beautifully printed magazine on folk arts of Virginia were six writers and three of them—Marshall Fishwick, Klaus Wust and J. RodericK Moore—have spoken to the Society or written for its Journal. Folklore, painting, music, crafts, instruments and design are their subjects. VIRGINIA LOCAL HISTORY, Virginia State Library, 42 pages. More than 700 entries appear in this useful bibliography of practically all of the published local histories in the State Library. They are listed by cities, towns, counties and regions. 59 �19th Century Crafts on D isp lay The Society's newest exhibit on home crafts in the mid-1800's w ill be seen at Cherry Hill by an estimated 2,500 children from Roanoke City and County public schools this year. A loom from Craig County was loaned by Mrs. Malcolm Eakin. Handwoven spreads and tools for flax and wool preparation are behind the loom and a wool or walking wheel is at left. An 1832 sewing machine, rag rug, appliqued quilt, woolen blanket and old dolls (left) are shown below. 60 �Roanoke Historical Society Members On Nov. 1, 1971, the Roanoke Historical Society had 568 mem­ bers. Of these, 492 were in Roanoke, Salem, Vinton and the County and 76 were in other counties and other states. Local members are listed first; those with no address given are from Roanoke. Mr. and Mrs. W. D. Adams Miss Mary E. Altizer Mr. Willis M. Anderson Mr. and Mrs. T. J. Andrews Mr. and Mrs. J. William Austin Mrs. Betty H. Ayers Cdr, and Mrs. William B. Bagbey Mr. and Mrs. Ralph K. Baker Dr. Eugene M. Bane, Jr. Miss Emily Barksdale Mr. and Mrs. Raymond P. Barnes Prof. Homer Bast, Salem Mr. and Mrs. H. Paul Bigler Mr. and Mrs. Robert G. Bishop Mr. and Mrs. C. P. Blair Mrs. Charles Blake Mr. and Mrs. Milton K. Blank Blue Ridge Parkway Dr. and Mrs. R. F. Bondurant Mrs. Lucian Dent Booth Dr. and Mrs. Leonard C. Borland Mr. and Mrs. John Boswell Mr. and Mrs. Hascall W. Bowen Dr. and Mrs. Moffet H. Bowman Mr. and Mrs. E. V. Bowyer Mr. and Mrs. Abney Boxley Mr. and Mrs. William Cary Breckin­ ridge, Salem Mr. and Mrs. Harvey F. Bredlow, Salem Mrs. John W. Brightwell, Salem Dr. and Mrs. Henry T. Brobst Mr. Samuel T. Brown Mr. and Mrs M. P. Burks Mrs. Calvin T. Burton Miss Frances E. Bush, Vinton Mr. and Mrs. M. Caldwell Butler Dr. and Mrs. W. W. S. Butler III Mrs. W. W. S. Butler Mr. and Mrs. J. Walker Caldwell Miss Sarah E. Cannaday Mrs. Clarke Cannon Mr. and Mrs. John D. Carr Mr. and Mrs. Beirne Carter Mrs. S. Beverley Cary , Mrs. R. R. Chamberlain Mr. and Mrs. John M. Chaney Mrs. H. Powell Chapman Mrs. Broadus Chewning Mrs. Robert Carr Churchill Mrs. Thomas H. Cline Mr. Lucian H. Cocke, III, Hollins Mrs. Lucian H. Cooke, Jr., Hollins Mrs. C. Francis Cocke Mr. and Mrs. H. G. Cole, Jr. - Mrs. S. Dudley Colhoun Mr. and Mrs. John D. Copenhaver Mrs. Joseph W. Coxe, Jr. Mrs. Whitwell W. Coxe Mrs. Henry T. Craig Mr. and Mrs. James B. Crooks Mrs. J. W. Damron Mrs. J. M. Darden Mrs. Herbert Davies Mrs. King Daywalt — Mr. and Mrs. George L. Denison Mr. F. C. Dillon, Jr. Miss Mary Unity Dillon Mr. and Mrs. Kemper A. Dobbins — Mr. and Mrs. E. G. Dodson, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. A. Wade Douthat - Mrs. Margaret W. Dressier Dr. and Mrs. S. F. Driver Mrs. Raymond F. Dudley Miss Judy Dudley KMrs. Ola Gish Durr Mr. and Mrs. Donald E. Dye, Jr. Mrs. John E. Edmonds - Mr. and Mrs. S. Spencer Edmunds Mr. and Mrs. Arthur T. Ellett — Mr. and Mrs. J. Albert Ellett Mr. and Mrs. Davis H. Elliot — Mr. and Mrs. George T. Ellis, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. J. T. Engleby, III Mr. and Mrs. D. M. Erskine Mr. B. N. Eubank — Mr. and Mrs. Robert J. Field Mr. and Mrs. Alan M. Fink Mrs. J. P. Fishburn Mr. and Mrs. R. N. Fishburn Judge and Mrs. Beverly Fitzpatrick ^ Mr. and Mrs. L. Edgar Foley Mrs. James A. Ford - Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Fortune Dr. and Mrs. Walter S. Foster Mr. and Mrs. Charles D. Fox, III - Mr. and Mrs. Charles D. Fox, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Randolph Frantz Mrs. Laetitia Barbour Frye Mr. and Mrs. Blair F. Fulton Mr. and Mrs. George Fulton, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. George V. Gardner Mr. Ray L. Garland Mr. John R. Garrett —• Mr. and Mrs. William F. Genheimer, Jr. Mrs. Fred B. Gentry Miss Dorothy L. Gibboney �Mrs. E. G. Gill Mrs. Corbin D. Glass — Mr. and Mrs. Robert E. Glenn Mr. and Mrs. E. A. Goble, Vinton — Dr. and Mrs. Garrett Gooch, III Mr. and Mrs. E. P. Goodwin — Mr. and Mrs. Jack Goodykoontz Mr. and Mrs. Kossen Gregory Mrs. Maude M. Grogan Mr. and Mrs. S. S. Guerrant, Jr. Mrs. Hugh J. Hagan, Sr. — Dr. and Mrs. Robert C. Hagan — Miss Anna Louise Haley Miss Margaret Haley Miss Virginia D. Haller, Salem Mr. and Mrs. Fred Hamlin — Mr. and Mrs. Lynn R. Hammond Mr. and Mrs. John W. Hancock, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Leigh B. Hanes, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Felix Hargrett Dr. and Mrs. R. B. Harris Mr. and Mrs. W. M. Harris Mr. and Mrs. Lee Hartman, Sr. v'Mr. and Mrs. J. R. Hildebrand — Mrs. James E. Hildreth Miss Alma Hill, Salem Miss Nancy E. Himes Mrs. G. Curtis Holland, Hollins Mr. and Mrs. Horace Hood, III Miss H. Mae Hoover Mr. and Mrs. William T. Horton Mrs. Inez S. Hubbard Mrs. Frank E. Huff Mrs. Lester Hutson Mr. and Mrs. Willard James Mrs. Louise P. Jefferson Mr. and Mrs. Shields Johnson Mr. and Mrs. Clement D. Johnston Mr. Jerry L. Jones Mr. Donald L. Jordan Junior League of Roanoke Mr. and Mrs. Marcus Kaplan Mrs. James G. Kavanaugh Mr. and Mrs. George A. Kegley Mr. and Mrs. Peyton R. Keller Mr. and Mrs. Timothy A. Kelly, Salem Dr. Perry F. Kendig, Salem Mrs. Walter G. Kent, Vinton — Miss Mildred C. Kerlin Mrs. L. O. Key Miss Margaret Emily Keysef Mr. R. S. Kime, Salem Mr. Courtney King, Sr. Mr. and Mrs. Arthur F. Kingdon Mrs. Virginia Kirkwood Col. and Mrs. Donald Klous Mrs. George Kolmer, Salem Mr. and Mrs. Frederick A. Kummer Mr. and Mrs. Harold P. Kyle Judge and Mrs. Dirk A. Kuyk Mr. and Mrs. J. P. Lawson Mrs. Anita D. Ingram Lee Miss Chrystella Lehmann —• Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Lemon Mr. and Mrs. Philip Lemon Mr. and Mrs. William J. Lemon Mr. and Mrs. James C. Lester 62 Mr. and Mrs. J. M. B. Lewis, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. C. C. Lipes Dr. John A. Logan, Jr., Hollins Mrs. John Lee Logan, Salem Miss Nancy C. Logan, Salem Mrs. James W. Long Miss Anne C. Lucas Mrs. William C. Lukens Dr. and Mrs. William T. McAfee Mr. Walter G. MacDowell Mr. and Mrs. Robert L. McGee, Jr. Mrs. S. H. McVitty, Salem Mr. and Mrs. Harry Marley Bishop and Mrs. W. H. Marmion Mrs. D. L. Marsteller Mr. and Mrs. E. K. Mattern Dr. and Mrs. J. Luther Mauney Mr. and Mrs. Charles P. Mayhew, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Richard L. Meagher Mr. and Mrs. D. P. Minichan Miss Mary Minichan Mr. and Mrs. W. Blair Mitchell Mrs. Henry Chase Mobley Dr. and Mrs. William M. Moir Mrs. James A. Moore Mr. and Mrs. L. Franklin Moore, Jr. Mrs. L. Franklin Moore Dr. and Mrs: Warren L. Moorman, Jr., Salem Mr. and Mrs. B. W. Morris, Jr. Mrs. George D. Morton Mrs. Bruce D. Moseley Mrs. John H. Moseley, Vinton Mr. and Mrs. S. T. Moseley Mr. and Mrs. Walter Muir, Salem Mr. and Mrs. Gardner A. Mundy Mr. and Mrs. H. Robert Mundy Mr. and Mrs. John F. Newson, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. James A. Newton Miss Frances J. Niederer, Hollins Mrs. F. C. Neiderhauser Mr. and Mrs. Edward C. Nininger Mrs. Robert P. Nininger Mr. and Mrs. Robert L. Nutt, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Charles M. Oakey Mr. and Mrs. R. Stedman Oakey Miss Sallie Page Obenshain Mr. and Mrs. Frank L. Oliver Mr. and Mrs. E. H. Ould Mrs. E. J. Palmer Mr. and Mrs. M. B. Parks Mr. and Mrs. B. F. Parrott, Sr. Mrs. Martin Patsel, Sr. Mr. and Mrs. John Gray Paul Miss Frances Payne, Vinton Mrs. Blanche B. Pedneau, Salem Mr. and Mrs. Richard F. Pence Mr. Lee Pendleton, Salem Mr. and Mrs. J. Guy Persinger Dr. and Mrs. C. H. Peterson, Hollins Miss Virginia L. Petty Mrs. Robert T. Pickett, Jr. Mr. Frank H. Pitman Rev. and Mrs. Carl R. Plack Mr. and Mrs. Frank David Porter, III Mrs. Lois Powers Mr. and Mrs. Lacy L. Pratt �Mr. R. Holman Ragland Mr. and Mrs. Elliott M. Ramsey Mrs. Arthur B. Richardson Mr. and Mrs. J. D. Richardson Mr. and Mrs. Robert N. Richert Rev. Guy A. Ritter, Salem Mr. and Mrs. H. G. Robertson, Salem Mr. and Mrs. Frank W. Rogers Mr. and Mrs. Frank W. Rogers, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Tayloe Rogers Mr. and Mrs. Harry L. Rosenbaum Mr. William T. Ross Mrs. W. S. Russell Mr. and Mrs. Thomas D. Rutherfoord Mr. Hoskins M. Sclater Mr. and Mrs. Hobart L. Scott Miss Margaret P. Scott ' Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Scrivenor, Jr. Mrs. E. W. Senter, Salem Mr. and Mrs. Scott Shackelford Mr. John S. Shannon Mr. R. M. Shannon Mrs. Ruth E. Sheehan Mrs. W. Jackson Shepherd Mr. and Mrs. English Showalter Mr. and Mrs. Thomas A. Slack Mrs. George E. Smith Miss Mary Phlegar Smith Mrs. R. H. Smith Mrs. L. P. Smithey Mrs. Frank E. Snow, Salem Mr. and Mrs. Robert W. Spessard Miss Ann Splitstone, Hollins Mr. and Mrs. Allen W. Staples Mrs. Elizabeth W. Stokes, Salem Mr. Paul S. Stonesifer Mrs. Arthur Talmadge, Hollins Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Taubman Miss J. Elizabeth Temple Mr. John Coles Terry Miss Ethel Thomas Mr. and Mrs. Henry E. Thomas Mr and Mrs. John M. Thompson Mr. and Mrs. David F. Thornton, Salem m Mr. and Mrs. John H. Thornton, Jr. Miss Charlotte Tiplady Mrs. Raymond Trenor Mr. and Mrs. James L. Trinkle Dr. Hugh H. Trout, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Andrew L. Turner, Jr. Mrs. Joseph A. Turner Miss Mary Van Turner Mr. and Mrs. Paul Umbarger Virginia History Federation Mrs. W. F. Wade Dr. and Mrs. John T. Walke Mr. and Mrs. Francis S. Walters Miss Nell D. Walters Mr., and Mrs. Storer P. Ware, Jr. Mrs. Virginia S. Warner Mr. and Mrs. William Watts Mrs. Roy L. Webber Mr. J. Randolph West Mr. and Mrs. James L. White Mrs. Furman Whitescarver, Salem Mr. and Mrs. Cranston Williams, Jr. Mrs. John W. Williams Mrs. Lucy Henry Williams Mr. and Mrs. Gordon C. Willis Mr. and Mrs. Holman Willis, Jr. Mr and Mrs. John M. Wilson, Jr. Dr. and Mrs. Roger M. Winborne, Jr. Mrs. Robert P. Winton Mr. and Mrs. Thomas R. Wirsmg, Jr. Dr. and Mrs. B. S. Wood Miss Katherine L. Wood Mrs. T. Gilbert Wood Mr. and Mrs. James P. Woods, Jr., Salem Mr. and Mrs. Robert W. Woody Dr. Charles A. Young Mr and Mrs. Chas. Talbott Young Mr. and Mrs. John H. Young Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Zollman OUT OF CITY, COUNTY Mr. and Mrs. B. B. Bumgarner, Boones Mill __ , Mr. Nash Kerr Burger, New York, New York Mrs H. E. Caldwell, Fincastle Mr. Stuart B. Carter, Buchanan Dr. and Mrs. W. R. Chitwood, Wytheville , Dr. and Mrs. Julian B. Doss, Rocky Mount j . 1} Miss Louise E. Easter, Washington, D. C. Dr. Joseph H. Farrow, New York, New York , . , Mr. Hugh M. Figgatt Sr., Wilmington, Del. Mrs. William B. Figgatt, Staunton Mr Harry Fulwiler, Jr., Woodbridge Mr. John J. Greer, Charlottesville Mrs. Herbert Gregory, Richmond Mrs. Anna W. Hess, Olympia, Wash. Mr. George Hill, Jr., Provo, Utah Mr. and Mrs. Warren W. Hobble, Botetourt County Mr. and Mrs. B. Willis Hopkins, Troutville , I Mrs. G. J. Hopkins Sr., Troutville Mrs. Mamie D. Johnson, Buchanan Mr. J. Ambler Johnston, Richmond Mrs. James B. Kegley, Jr., Wytheville Mrs. Philip Kohen, Fincastle Mrs. Anne McClenny Krauss, Blacks­ burg 1 s Mr. and Mrs. Beverley R. Lamb, Hampton Mr. and Mrs. Thomas T. Lawson, Troutville Mr. Royster Lyle, Lexington Mr. and Mrs. Glenn A. Mam, Fincastle Mr. Carroll B. Manley, Buchanan Mrs. James McDowell, Fincastle Mrs Andrew Lewis Micou, Richmond Mrs William B. Mills, Baltimore, Md. Mr. James W. Moody, Jr., Richmond Mr. and Mrs. Leonard G. Muse, Fincastle 63 �Mrs. St.Julian Oppenheimer, Jr., Richmond Mr. and Mrs. Hunter Painter, FinCctstlc Mr. John M. Plank, Washington D. C. Mr. and Mrs. Robert B. Preston, Fincastle Mr. and Mrs. John Rader, Troutville Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton Redman, Fincastle Mrs. O. D. Ross, Shawsville Mr. and Mrs. Macon Sammons, Shaws­ ville Mr. and Mrs. R. L. Seichrist, Phila­ delphia, Pa. Dr. and Mrs. George Green Shackel­ ford, Blacksburg Mr. Walter P. St.Clair, Jr., Rocky Mount Mr. and Mrs. Ralph T. Stewart, Arlington Mrs. Frederick Stone, Hardy Mrs. K. B. Stoner, Eagle Rock Mr. and Mrs. R. D. Stoner, Fincastle Miss Alma Thomas, Buchanan Mr. and Mrs. James E. Thomas, Rainbow Point, Ind. Mr. and Mrs. Carl Thurston, Balti­ more, Md. Mr. and Mrs. E. C. Westerman, Jr., Fincastle Mrs. E. Burton Williams, Danville Dr. and Mrs. J. C. Zillhardt, Fin­ castle Salem , Fincastle W ere Post V illag es Excerpts from the Statistical Gazetteer of the United States of America, Founded on and Compiled from Official Federal and State Returns and the Seventh National Census (1850), Published in 1858: BIG LICK, p. o., Roanoke Co., Virg.; 136 m. W. by S. Richmond. FINCASTLE, p. v. (post village) and cap. Botetourt Co., Virg.; in the Valley of Catawba cr., an affluent of James r., 137 m. W. Richmond. It contains a court-house and other co. buildings, four churches, various mills and mechanic shops, and about 800 inhabitants. Two newspapers, the “F. Democrat,” and the “Valley Whig,” are published weekly. SALEM, p.v., sta., and cap. Roanoke Co., Virg.; on the N. side of the Roanoke r., and on the Virginia and Tennessee R.R., 60 m. from Lynchburg. 145 W. by S. Richmond. It contains a court-house, jail and a branch of the Exchange Bank of Virginia, Norfolk, with a capital of $100,000. 64 �ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Amor montium nos movet E dmund P. Goodwin ................................ President Mrs . R oger W inborne ...................................................... Vice President Treasurer A rthur E llett ............ J. R. H ildebrand ............................................................................ Secretary Mrs . J oel W il l is Ri c h e r t ....................................... Executive Secretary D irectors Raymond P. Barnes Miss Anna Louise Haley E. H. Ould C. P. Blair J. R. Hüdebrand James D. Richardson John D. Carr Miss Nancy E. Himes Mrs. English Showalter Mrs. H. Powell Chapman Shields Johnson R. D. Stoner Mrs. John Copenhaver George Kegley Paul S. Stonesifer S. S. Edmunds Mrs. George Kegley David F. Thornton Arthur Ellett R. S. Kirne James L. Trinkle J. T. Engleby III Mrs. H. P. Kyle William Watts B. N. Eubank Mrs. J. M. B. Lewis Jr. Mrs. Roger Winborne Edmund P. Goodwin Miss Nancy Logan James P. Woods Mrs. Edmund P. Goodwin Richard L. Meagher Robert W. Woody Jack Goodykoontz Leonard G. Muse Dr. J. C. Zillhardt Miss Frances Niederer �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society Winter 1972 Volume 8, Number 1 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />The Past is Right Here for the Archaeologist<br />The 51st Virginia Infantry: Farmers Turned Soldiers<br />Turner's Creek Valley-the Land that Time Forgot<br />Log Buildings in the Valley of Virginia<br />Mary Harvey Trigg, an Unusual Widow<br />The McDonalds of McDonalds Mill<br />Long Way Home is Successful<br />A Visit to Wythe County Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Winter 1972 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_08_01_Winter_1972 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6349/JHSWV_08_02_Summer_1972.pdf befcfd6a2b8108bf17e94bf66f8cada9 PDF Text Text JOURNAL of th.e ROANOKE VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY V olum e Eigh t N um ber T w o �Summer 1972 CONTENTS Benjamin Deyerle, Builder of Fine Homes, by Elizabeth Cheek ...................................................... , ................ 1 Journals, Maps Available ....................................................................... 13 Roanoke County Barns of the 19th Century, by Luci Shaw Kincanon ........ .......................... ...................... .. 14 Old Paintings Recorded ......................................................................... 26 Col. George Plater Tayloe, A Builder of Hollins College, by Margaret Scott and Rachel W ilso n .......................................... 27 Where the Brethren Settled, by Roger Sappington........................... 35 Digging at Looney’s Ferry, by Howard A. MacCord Sr...................... 42 No. 1 Fire Station Is Celebrated .......................................................... 47 The Remarkable Dr. Reid ..................................................................... 51 The Old Gish Ordinary, by Raymond P. Barnes ................................ 54 Poor, Poor Mountain, by Lee Pendleton ........................................... 58 “Valley” Added To Society Name ...................................................... 61 A Visit to Bedford ............................................................................. 62 The General Has A New O ffic e ................................................ .. 65 Rheumatic Recollections, by Dr. Elmer Smith ................................. 67 George K egley Editor of the JOURNAL The Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society, Volume Eight, Number 2. Published twice yearly by the Society at Box 1904, Roa­ noke, Virginia 24008, to chronicle the past and present of that part of the state west of the Blue Ridge. Single copy price for members: $1.50; for non-members, $2. The Society will be careful in handling unsolicited material but cannot be responsible for its loss. �Front of Lone Oaks, 19th century home of Benjamin Deyerle, now known as Winsmere. Benjamin Deyerle, Builder of Fine Homes By E lizabeth Cheek Many nineteenth century craftsmen remain unknown today be­ cause little or no written or oral information on them has survived the years. Though the man in question may have been a person of wealth and prominence in his community, his record in local history may still be scarce. Deed books, land books, chancery causes, original letters and documents, and surviving relatives thus compose the best sources of information for the scholar who is trying to reconstruct the past. Where documentation leaves off, chance and conjecture must take over. The product may be only a hazy portrait of a local hero. But if that work can bring to life the man and his time for present generations, then its author can hope for nothing greater. The personal history of Benjamin Deyerle is often vague, but his ancestry is not. He was born into a family which had played an integral part in Roanoke’s early history. His grandfather, Peter Deyerle, Miss Cheek, a graduate of Hollins in 1971, studied at Winter­ thur Museum in Delaware and now is attending Katherine Gibbs School. Her work is a chapter from a Hollins thesis. Photographs are by Millie McGehee. �was one of the original settlers in the Roanoke Valley. The son of a German wine merchant, he left home at the age of 16 and came to America as the indentured servant of a miller named Bowman. Peter Deyerle did well in the miller’s service for when his time was done, he married Bowman’s daughter, Regina Ann. Together, they repaired to the Virginia frontier in 1767. Deyerle became an extensive landowner in the vicinity of the Forks of the Roanoke River. They pro­ duced six or seven children, the first of whom, Charles, was to be­ come the father of Benjamin Deyerle.1 Charles Deyerle was married twice, first to Mary Poage in 1797, and then to Elizabeth Leffler in 1803, after the death of his first wife. With Mary Poage, Charles had one son, Joseph (1799-1877). By his second marriage, he had four children, Benjamin (born in 1806), David, Charles, Jr., and Susan.2 They were orphaned at an early age3 by the deaths of their mother (date unknown) and father in 1815. As a result, Benjamin received very little formal schooling.4 In 1833, Deyerle married Julia Ann Shaver and took her by horseback to their yet unfinished cabin on Mud Lick Creek.5 But a humble beginning did not forebode a similar future. Despite his lack of education, Deyerle was a shrewd business­ man. Throughout the thirties and forties, he acquired tracts of land on both Mud Lick and Craven’s Creeks.® On these, he began to de- Rear view of Deyerle home, showing L shape. 2 �velop his diversified commercial interests. Part of the land was re­ served for farming, with corn, wheat, and tobacco the principal crops.7 Large amounts of corn went for fattening the hundreds of hogs and head of cattle that were butchered for market each year.8 Much of the grain that was raised was turned into whiskey at Deyerle’s dis­ tillery (perhaps built in 1840)9 or ground for sale at his mill across from the distillery on Mud Lick Creek.10 The Cave Spring Mill, with its accompanying 38 acres of land and assorted outhouses, was a purchase from Jacob Garst in 1834." A former Deyerle slave recalled driving a team of oxen to the Salem and Big Lick depots, hauling many barrels of flour and whiskey from the mill and the distillery to be shipped to market.12 An old ledger recently found in the attic of Deyerle’s log house records the transport of flour to the homes of plantation owners in the area as well.13 Deyerle’s success in these enterprises is confirmed by the Roanoke County census of 1840, which lists a number of slaves in his possession, as well as three males employed by him in agriculture and six in manufactures and trades.14 Deyerle was a genuine country entrepreneur. He had a store on the mill site where he sold not only those commodities which he produced himself, but a general supply of dry goods as well. The ledger found in the attic of his old log house (now known as the Garst log cabin due to its later owner) records the sale of everything from planks and nails to shirts. Brick kiln is unique dependency at Deyerle home. 3 �The presence of a creek was important to Deyerle not only for power for his mill and distillery, but also for clay for the manufac­ ture of bricks. As a contractor and builder, Deyerle erected many handsome brick houses and churches which form the backbone of the Greek Revival style in Roanoke and the surrounding counties. Shortly after the construction of his own new mill in 1841,18 it is believed that Deyerle was commissioned to build his first house, “Monterey,”16 the home of Henry Harrison Chapman in Salem.17 (Chapman’s son, Henry Clay, married Deyerle’s daughter, Susan, in 1854).16 The finished product must have been greatly admired for in 1849-50,19 Deyerle repeated his formula for Madison Pitzer at “Bell-Air” on Craven’s Creek. The “prosperous fifties” brought the opening of the James River and Kanawha Canal at Buchanan in 1851, followed by the construc­ tion of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad from Lynchburg to Big Lick and Salem in 1852.20 In the same year, the two were connected by a turnpike,21 thus assuring “a quick and efficient means”22 of transporting crops to market. The farmers in the Roanoke vicinity prospered accordingly. Deyerle became one of the largest land and slave owners in the area. He consolidated his holdings on Mud Lick Creek and Craven’s Creek and purchased lands along the Roanoke River, Back Creek, and Mason’s Creek.22 The census of 1850 listed the value of Deyerle’s lands at $7,000.24 With affluence, Benjamin Deyerle was boosted into the only public office that he is known to have held.26 Circa 1853, he was a justice of the peace in Roanoke County.26 Around 1850, the log cabin in which Deyerle had been living became too cramped for a man with seven children. Though he had enlarged the one-room house to a double cabin by means of a porch in 1840,27 it no longer was adequate for a burgeoning family. Deyer­ le turned his contracting and building talents to his own use and began the construction of a larger brick home across the creek from his mill. The making of the brick posed no problem, as it was made on the place. The timber for the beams, flooring and woodwork was cut on the plantation. However, many of the finer accouterments for the house had to be brought from farther away. The soapstone slabs for the fireplaces came from Patrick County, and all the hard­ ware had to be made in Lynchburg and imported.28 The most charming story connected with the house is one told by Mrs. L. E. Freeland (Carrine Deyerle, granddaughter of Benja­ min) and Mrs. James R. Renick (Berbee Penn, Deyerle’s great-grand­ daughter). Benjamin Deyerle sold off an unruly slave and gave the money from the sale to his wife. With it, she decided to purchase 4 �a “modern” suite of furniture for her new parlor. She made the long journey to Lynchburg where she happily bought two love-seats, a lady’s and a gentleman’s chair, and some marble-topped tables.29 There is some question as to the date of completion of “Lone Oaks” (now “Winsmere” ), as Deyerle called his house. The Roa­ noke Valley Historical Society files set the date at 1850, but Mrs. Freeland recalls her father or uncle telling her that the family moved into the new house just in time for the birth of John Berryman Dey­ erle in 1852.30 In the Roanoke County Land Book for 1853, the sum added to the value of the lands of Benjamin Deyerle on account of buildings is $5,500. In the immediately preceding years, the sum had been $4,000. Opposite the entry of 1853, there is a note that reads: “$1,500 added for improvements 1853.31 Since he used his own slave labor and materials, Deyerle could have built and furnished a large house such as “Lone Oaks” for $1,500. His only expenditure would have been the imported hardware and trimmings, the fur­ nishings, and the price of a fine carpenter to do the woodwork. Thus, between Mrs. Freeland’s testimony and the record of the land book, it seems more likely that the date of “Lone Oaks” should be set at 1852-53. A letter from George Garst’s grandson, Arthur H. Garst, reveals that the latter’s uncle was born in the Deyerle log cabin “about 1850.”32 If a leeway of two years can be given that date, it can be assumed that Garst took over the cabin after Deyerle’s move. Whe­ ther he was hired by Deyerle and given the cabin to live in or whether he became a partner is not known definitely. However, Deyerle’s mill and store ledger has page headings of “Deyerle and Garst” as early as 1859.33 If the two were not partners before 1850, it seems that they became so in the period between 1850 and 1859. At the same time, Deyerle was involved in the building of two other houses: one for his half-brother, Joseph, in what is now Glenvar, and another for Henry Houtz at “Intervale” in Salem. The for­ mer house, called “Pleasant Grove,” has two bricks on the righthand corner of the facade which attest to the ownership and date of the house. In one is marked the name “Joseph Deyerle” and be­ side it, the date “1858.” Another brick with the date “1853” is as­ sumed to be the cornerstone of the house. This hypothesis is sub­ stantiated by the Roanoke County Land Book of 1854. The value added to Joseph Deyerle’s 125Vz acres on the Roanoke River on account of buildings is $3,500. This figure represents a $2,000 increase over the years before. Opposite it, a marginal note reads: “$2,000 added for improvements.”34 It was thought originally that “Intervale” was built in 1845. However, the Roanoke County Land Books and Deed Books suggest 5 �Bell-Air originally was Madison Pitzer home, near Craven's Creek. Detail of corner design at living room fireplace of Bell-Air. a later date. In 1847, the 220 acres composing the Houtz property on Mason’s Creek were bought by John Houtz’s son, Henry.35 At that point, there were two buildings on the place: a log cabin and a Pennsylvania Dutch barn, both dating from before 1800.36 There is no mention of the construction of any new buildings until the land book of Roanoke County for 1854 notes $1,075 worth of improvements on John Houtz’s property in 1853.”37 Since there is no evidence to the contrary, it must be assumed that the 1853 “improvement” was the construction of “Intervale.” A similar change in date occurs with the James Persinger plan­ tation house. The date of “Hunter’s Home” (later called “Persin­ ger Place” and now “White Corners” ) was believed to be 1856, but the Roanoke County Land Book for 1858 lists “$3,500 for improve­ ments” beside the Persinger name. Until that year, the “value added to the land on account of buildings”38 was $1,000. In 1858, this figure jumps to $4,500. It is logical to conclude that the $3,500 increase was due to the building of the Persinger mansion.39 Late in the 1850’s, Deyerle was still anxious to increase his money­ making ventures. He purchased a large tract of land in Franklin County from Hill Carter, owner of Shirley Plantation in Charles City County. Deyerle apparently had been doing some building in the Rocky Mount area (the Fairmont Baptist Church and the Callaway Presbyterian Church, the latter supposedly built by Deyerle slaves 1850 40) and knew that the land was good for farming. The tract which he bought from Carter was originally a grant of 4,500 acres to James Callaway Jr. At his death, the land passed to his son, William Callaway. The latter Callaway devised it to his grandson, Captain 6 �Edward T. Bridges (known as “Ned”), who was forced to sell the land due to a run of bad luck.4' He sold 1,500 acres on the north side of Black Water Creek to James F. Johnson and William Taylor by a deed of trust dated September 17, 1856.42 Then, by a deed of trust made April 10, 1857, Bridges conveyed 4,500 acres (including the first 1,500 acres mentioned above) on both sides of Black Water Creek to John O. L. Goggin.43 Carter, in turn, bought the land from Goggin and Johnson, as trustees, in May of 1858, for the sum of $39,000.44 Benjamin Deyerle acquired the land from Carter in the same year for $58,420.45 Carter states his reason for selling the land in a letter to Deyerle dated July 25, 1858: “My people down here were sadly disappointed at my selling out, and abused me roundly for it. I ought to have held on to it, but I could not get on with those people in Franklin and it was too far from my home, and too far from market.”46 In 1859, Deyerle wrote to Carter, telling of his problems and land transactions during the first year of his ownership and of his plans for the coming year. He states that progress has been slow due to a lack of hands. He got only ninety acres of land seeded, the corn crop did not turn out well, and the distillery did not get put up, even though the bricks were moulded and fired. He says that he will have to sell some land in order to get the money to buy the slaves that he needs for a proper work force. Deyerle mentions a great deal of sickness and many deaths in Franklin in the fall and winter, but he reports that his family is well. He closes by saying that he expects “to plant about two hundred acres in corn, a large crop of oats, and some tobacco if possible.”47 Three houses remain on the Deyerle land in nearby Frank­ lin County. The dating of these is rather sketchy. On the north side of the Blackwater River (formerly Black Water Creek) is a onestory brick cabin with a porch on one side. To the back of this house is attached a later, two-story frame house. The brick structure (which must date from the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century due to its cornice of moulded brick) was the original home of Henry Clay Chapman and his wife, Susan Deyerle Chapman, according to Mrs. Renick. Her mother was born in the cabin in 1864, and the cooking was done there during the Civil War.48 Mr. Chapman kept ledgers of his financial transactions, starting in 1855. In 1861 through 1863, he records the purchase of bricks, lumber, and planks for building.49 It does not seem presumptuous to assume that these materials may have been used for the addition of the frame house to the older brick one. It is impossible to say whether or not Deyerle constructed this house for his daughter and son-in-law. The only tie between the frame Chapman home and Deyerle s brick house across the river is a similarity in mantlepiece design: that in the 7 �frame house is a simplification of the very elaborate work in the brick house. There are numerous slave cabins on the Chapman place, as well as a small brick building that was used as a doctor’s and dentist’s office.50 The latter building is still standing. The only specific reference to the construction of a third brick house on the south side of the Blackwater River is made by Deyerle’s former slave, P. M. Lewis. In a letter to Mrs. Freeland, he says: “He (Benjamin Deyerle) and I made and laid the brick in Henry Deyerle’s home-house in Franklin Co. after the Civil War closed.”51 In 1865, however, Peyton Lewis rode off with Union troops scouting for horses,=2 and thus was not with Deyerle after the war! His general time period is correct, though, as a Franklin County Land Book re­ cords “1,200 added for improvements” on the Deyerle land in 1861.53 There are no other changes in the value of the land due to bulidings, either before or after this date, so it can be assumed that this was the time of the construction of the house. The 1861 section was added to a small two-room brick house, dating from the period of the William Callaway ownership of the property. The house was passed down with the land. Benjamin Deyerle enlarged it, and then, at his death, the whole went to his son, Henry. Deyerle descendants lived in the house until the 1920’s.5« The Franklin County House is unique in Deyerle’s repertoire in that it is an example of the Italian Revival style, which came into fashion after the Civil War. With the exception of Dr. White’s house near Roanoke (supposedly erected by Deyerle in 1860), this is the only building he did in the 1860’s.55 The “prosperous fifties” lived up to their name. In the census of 1860, the value of Deyerle’s real estate was listed at $91,000 and the value of his personal estate at $97,000.56 This is so extraordinary as to be almost unbelievable. Mistakes in figures are not uncommon in this period, but with Deyerle’s holdings in Franklin County being assessed at $53,533.26,57 it is not infeasible that the value of his 1,010 acres in Roanoke and his businesses could almost equal that. However, in a time when $10,000 was a sum seldom amassed, Deyerle’s fortune was more than spectacular—if the figures are correct. The census of 1860 marked Deyerle’s 54th year. With increasing age, he probably found it difficult to continue in the strenuous business of building and contracting. This may have been his reason for ceasing to accept commissions, or perhaps it was the desire to devote more time to his farm. Business in Franklin County may have diverted Deyerle’s attention from Roanoke. At any rate, he not only ceased to build, but in 1868, he sold one-half of a tract of 161 acres of his land to George Garst, as well as a half interest in his mill.58 8 �Front view of White Corners, built by Deyerle in 1858, now owned by James P. Hart, Jr. Right end wall of Intervale, Houtz-Sites-White home in Salem. Front of Franklin County home of Mr. and Mrs. M . J. Sumrell, described as Deyerle Italianate house. 9 �The 1860’s brought, of course, the Civil War. Many Deyerles fought valiantly for the South. Benjamin’s son, George, died of measles in an army hospital while serving with the first Volunteer Company under the command of Matthew Deyerle (the son of Benjamin’s halfbrother, Joseph).59 Benjamin Deyerle was too old for service and stayed home as a private citizen.60 The war brought financial difficulty to all Southerners. Though Deyerle’s wealth was vastly diminished, he still possessed more than most in his community. The Roanoke County census of 1870 gives the value of his real estate as $16,000 and the value of his personal property as $4,000.®' Whether for financial need or out of interest, Deyerle continued to be active in business. In 1876, a series of chancery causes identi­ fied him as a partner in “Patterson Coon and Company”62 (nature of work unknown). In 1874, Deyerle, then 67 years old, sold his half-interest in the mill to his partner, George Garst. The two had held jointly the mill and a tract of 161 acres on which it was situated since 1868. By a deed of 1874, Garst received sixty-nine acres of land, including the mill, and Deyerle kept the remaining acreage.63 Little is known of Deyerle until his death in 1883. In the census of — y <22*^ V - '^ * 7 ¿0 4 III crz^r lysi C^ /r i; f ~ 44 An 1866 contract with Hill Carter was signed by Benjamin Deyerle, along with three other prominent Roanoke Valley businessmen: Ferdinand Rorer, John Trout and Matthew Harvey. (From papers owned by Mrs. L. E. Freeland). 10 �1880, he is listed as a dependent of his son, James David Deyerle.64 In his old age, Deyerle must have turned the management of his farm over to his son. According to Mrs. Renick, Deyerle called his family together shortly before he died and told his eight remaining children that he would leave each of them land or money to the value of $10,000. The decision as to which piece of property would go to whom was decided by numbers drawn from a hat. Exchanging was permitted. As a result, Henry Deyerle received the “home place” in Franklin County, and Susan Deyerle Chapman and her husband kept their house across the way. James David Deyerle ended with the family home in Roanoke.65 An account of what is known of Benjamin Deyerle sadly re­ veals very little of his character. Mrs. Renick recounts a delightful story about a man who came to see Deyerle on business. Arriving at the plantation in Roanoke, the visitor was greeted by a man in overalls who took his bag. As they proceeded toward the house, the visitor mentioned that he wished to see Mr. Deyerle. The gentle­ man with the suitcase turned to him and said politely, “I’m Mr. Deyerle.”66 Apparently, for a man of his wealth and position, Deyerle was a very “plain” person.67 Hill Carter makes several references to Deyerle’s “usual punc­ tuality”68 in connection with the latter’s payments on the Franklin County property. “You are the most punctual man in the county.”69 In 1934, a story in an Iowa newspaper on Peyton Lewis, Deyerle’s former slave, gave a glimpse of “Boss Ben” as a master. “Deyerle was a hard driver and was cruel at times, but would not sell his slaves. Traders would come often to the plantations, buying up the best to ship down South where the market was more active and the prices of slaves higher. When Peyton was about nine years old, a trader came along and offered his master $600 for him, which frightened him badly. He cried and tried to run, but his master said soothingly, ‘O, don’t be afraid, I won’t sell you to ’em!”70 The tone of Deyerle’s letter to Carter indicates that the writer was a gentleman. The correspondence is polite and beautifully penned. Though endowed with the social graces, Deyerle seems to have re­ mained a simple and direct country farmer. He had an extraordinary business and land sense which he matched with hard work. I en­ visage him as a man of few words, prudence, and strength of char­ acter. He expected the most of men, be they his slaves or his sons. Though stern, perhaps, he had a humanity which kept him from harshness. Above all, he must have had a great sensitivity and an aesthetic sense which found expression in his buildings. He was truly a man of many talents. ll �1 P a r a g r a p h fo o tn o te , M rs . J a m e s R . R e n ic k , V in to n , in te r v ie w , J a n u a r y , 1971; a n d F . B . K e g le y , K E G L E Y ’S V IR G IN IA F R O N T IE R , R o a n o k e , p . 576. 2 M rs . J a m e s R . R e n ic k , in te rv ie w 3 J o h n W . W a y la n d , M E N O F M A R K A N D R E P R E S E N T A T IV E C IT IZ E N S O F H A R R I­ S O N B U R G A N D R O C K IN G H A M C O U N T Y , S ta u n to n , 1943, p . 117. 4 Ib id ., p . 117. 5 M rs . J a m e s R . R e n ic k , in te rv ie w . 6 R o a n o k e C o u n ty D e e d B o o k A , p . 149; D e e d B o o k B , p a g e s 378 a n d 399; D e e d B o o k C, p a g e s 283 a n d 463. 7 F r e d F is h e r , “ R e v e r e n d P . M . L e w is, b o rn a s la v e in V ir g in ia , p a s s e s h is 85th b ir th ­ day,** W a te rlo o D a ily N e w s, Io w a , M a rc h 8, 1934. 8 Ib id . 9 R o a n o k e C o u n ty L a n d B ook, 1839-40. 10 O p. c it., F is h e r . 11 B o te to u rt C o u n ty D e e d B ook 20, p a g e s 625-626; n a m e fo u n d in a n o ld le d g e r . S ee n o te 13. 12 O p. c it. F is h e r 13 L e d g e r c o n ta in in g tr a n s a c tio n s o f D e y e rle m ill a n d s to r e f r o m 1859-1868, fo u n d in a t tie o f G a r s t lo g c a b in , in p o s se ss io n o f R o a n o k e H is to r ic a l S o c ie ty . 14 C e n s u s o f R o a n o k e C o u n ty , 1840, R e e l 43, A rc h iv e s , V ir g in ia S ta t e L ib r a r y . 15 R o a n o k e C o u n ty L a n d B o o k , 1841, p . 4. 16 R o a n o k e H is to r ic a l S o c ie ty , file n u m b e r 129-12. 17 M rs . J a m e s R . R e n ic k , in te rv ie w . 18 Ib id . 19 R o a n o k e C o u n ty L a n d B o o k , 1850, p . 22 20 R a y m o n d B a r n e s , “ M a d is o n P itz e r H o m e ‘B elair* O n e o f V a lle y ’s F in e s t,* ’ T h e R o a n o k e W o rld -N ew s, M a r c h 23, 1963. 21 S T O R Y O F C IT Y A N D C O U N T Y , R O A N O K E , C ity S ch o o l B o a r d , 1942, W r ite r s ’ P r o g r a m o f th e W o rk s P r o je c t A d m in is tra tio n , p . 187. 22 O p. c it., B a rn e s . 23 S ee R o a n o k e C o u n ty D e e d B ook C, p a g e s 557 a n d 560; D e e d B o o k D , p a g e s 130, 240, a n d 526; D e e d B ook E , p a g e s 67, 68, 160, 215, 401, 410, 456, 593, 627, 633, a n d 668; D e e d B o o k F , p a g e s 21, 248, 326, a n d 373. 24 C e n s u s o f R o a n o k e C o u n ty , 57th D is tr ic t, 1850, R e e l 85, A rc h iv e s , V ir g in ia S ta te L ib r a r y . 25 N o te : A th o ro u g h s e a r c h in g o f th e R o a n o k e C o u n ty D e e d B o o k s a p d o th e r le g a l d o c u ­ m e n ts in th e C le rk ’s O ffice w o u ld p ro b a b ly r e v e a l o th e r c o u n ty p o s itio n s h e ld b y D e y e r le , o th e r th a n b e in g a p p o in te d a c o m m is s io n e r o r a s u p e r v is o r b y th e c o u r t, b u t to d a t e , th is is th e o n ly o n e fo u n d . 26 R o a n o k e C o u n ty D e e d B ook E , p . 13. 27 R o a n o k e C o u n ty L a n d B ook, 1839-40. 28 R a y m o n d B a r n e s , “ B e n ja m in D e y e rle B u ilt M ill B e a r in g N a m e o f G a r s t ” , H o m e (1849) S u c c e e d e d L o g C a b in ” , T h e R o a n o k e W o rld -N ew s, M a y 14, 1960 29 M rs . L . E . F r e e l a n d , in te rv ie w , R o a n o k e , V irg in ia , F e b r u a r y , 1971. M r s . J a m e s R . R e n ic k , in te rv ie w . N o te : T h is s to ry w a s a lso in c lu d e d in th e a r t ic l e b y R a y m o n d B a r n e s m e n tio n e d in n o te 28. S o m e of th e o rig in a l p ie c e s b o u g h t b y M r s . D e y e r le a r e in th e p o s ­ s e s s io n o f M rs . F r e e l a n d in R o a n o k e a n d a r e w e ll w o rth s e e in g . 30 M rs . L . E . F r e e l a n d , in te rv ie w . 31 R o a n o k e C o u n ty L a n d B ook, D is tr ic t of A n d re w L . P itz e r , 1853, p . 8. 32 L e tte r fro m A r th u r H . G a r s t to th e R o a n o k e H is to r ic a l S o c ie ty , M a r c h 22, 1971. 33 L e d g e r c o n ta in in g tr a n s a c tio n s o f D e y e rle m ill a n d s to r e f r o m 1859-1868—fo u n d in a t tic of G a r s t lo g c a b in — in p o s se ss io n o f R o a n o k e H is to r ic a l S o c ie ty . 34 R o a n o k e C o u n ty L a n d B ook o f 1854, p . 8. 35 R o a n o k e C o u n ty D e e d B ook C , p . 200. 36 M rs . J a m e s A . W h ite , in te rv ie w , S a le m , J a n u a r y , 1971. 37 R o a n o k e C o u n ty L a n d B ook of 1854, p . 16. 38 R o a n o k e C o u n ty L a n d B ook of 1858, C a v e S p rin g D is tr ic t, p . 23. 39 N o te : D e y e r le 's m e th o d o f c o n s tru c tin g h is h o u s e s a n d t h e ir c h a r a c te r is tic s w ill b e d is c u s s e d l a t e r . H e r e , th e w r ite r is c o n c e rn e d m e r e ly w ith th e e s ta b lis h m e n t o f th e c o r r e c t d a t e s o f c o n s tru c tio n . O th e r b u ild in g s in th e R o a n o k e a r e a a c c r e d it e d to B e n ja m in D e y e r le a r e : “ M o u n t A iry ” (1846), th e G u s ta v u s S ed o n h o u s e (1854), “ N e w c a s tle ” (1855), D r . G a le ’s ( a b o u t 1871), a n d th e C a v e S p rin g M e th o d is t C h u rc h (1854). T h e s e h a v e b e e n o m itte d fro m th is s tu d y fo r r e a s o n s of ti m e o r la c k o f c r e d u lity in t h e i r D e y e r le a u th e n tic ity . I n f o r m a ­ tio n o n a ll o f th e s e , e x c e p t fo r th e G u s ta v u s S ed o n h o u s e a n d th e C a v e S p rin g M e th o d ist C h u rc h , is o n file w ith th e R o a n o k e H is to r ic a l S o c ie ty . 40 C o n v e rs a tio n w ith A nn C a r t e r L e e , g r a d u a t e a r c h i te c tu r a l h is to r ia n , F r a n k li n C o u n ty , D e c e m b e r 1970; a n d M r s . J a m e s R . R e n ic k , in te rv ie w . 41 M rs . J a m e s R . R e n ic k , in te rv ie w . 42 F r a n k li n C o u n ty D e e d B ook 24, p . 342; a n d o r ig in a l m e m o r a n d u m to H ill C a r t e r fr o m J o h n O . L . G o g g in a n d J a m e s F . J o h n s o n , J u n e 29- 1858. d o c u m e n t n u m b e r 69 a n d 69a, B o x 18, “ S h ir le y ' P la n t a ti o n P a p e r s , A rc h iv e s , V irg in ia S ta te L ib r a r y . 43 F r a n k li n C o u n ty D e e d B ook 25, 1857-1859, p . 1 ; a n d o r ig in a l m e m o r a n d u m to H ill C a r t e r fro m J o h n O . L . G o g g in a n d J a m e s F . J o h n s o n , J u n e 29. 1858, d o c u m e n t n u m b e r 69 a n d 69a, B o g 18, “ S h irle y ” P la n t a ti o n P a p e r s , A rc h iv e s , V ir g in ia S ta t e L i b r a r y . 12 �44 O rig in a l m e m o r a n d n m to H ill C a r t e r fro m J o h n O . L . G o g g in a n d J a m e s F . J o h n ­ so n , J u n e 29, 1858, d o c u m e n t n u m b e r 69 a n d 69a, B o x 18, “ S h irle y ” P la n t a ti o n P a p e r s , A rc h iv e s , V irg in ia S ta te L i b r a r y ; a n d e n t r y o n p a g e 89 o f th e “ S h ir le y ” A cco u n t B o o k fo r 1858, w h ic h r e a d s : “ B o u g h t a n e s ta te in F r a n k li n C o u n ty f o r th e s u m o f 39,500 d o lla r s — G o g g in a n d J o h n s o n , tr u s te e s . . . a n d p a id in c a s h $33,312.04,” A rc h iv e s , V ir g in ia S ta te L ib r a r y . N o te : I h a v e n o t b e e n a b le to fin d th e o rig in a l d e e d o n th is tr a n s a c tio n , b n t i t is m e n tio n e d in F r a n k li n C o u n ty D e e d B ook 26, 1859-61, p p . 241-242. 45 F r a n k li n C o u n ty D e e d B o o k 26, 1859-61, p p . 112, 241-242; F r a n k li n C o u n ty D e e d B o o k 25, 1857-59, p p . 326 a n d 327. 46 O rig in a l le t t e r fro m H ill C a r t e r to B e n ja m in D e y e r le , J u n e 25, 1858, in p o s s e s s io n of M rs. L . E . F r e e la n d , R o a n o k e , V irg in ia . N o te : A lth o u g h th e F r a n k li n C o u n ty p r o p e r ty b o r d e r e d on th e R ic h m o n d a n d C a ro lin a r o a d s a n d h a d a c c e s s to t r a i n s e r v ic e , C a r t e r m u s t h a v e w a n te d to s h ip h is p ro d u c ts fro m R ic h m o n d o r h is o w n w h a r f . T h e slo w tr i p a c ro s s th e s ta t e w o u ld m e a n t h a t th e w h e a t a n d o th e r p ro d u c ts w o u ld b e g e ttin g o ld , e v e n b e f o r e th e jo u rn e y to th e ir fin a l d e s tin a tio n . 47 O rig in a l le t t e r f r o m B e n ja m in D e y e rle to H ill C a r te r , F e b r u a r y 21, 1859, d o c u m e n t 72, 72a, a n d 72b, B ox 18, “ S h irle y ” P la n t a ti o n P a p e r s , A rc h iv e s , V irg in ia S ta te L ib r a r y . 48 M rs. J a m e s R . R e n ic k , in te rv ie w , V in to n . 49 Ib id . 50 Ib id . 51 L e tte r fro m R e v e r e n d P e y to n M . L e w is to M r s . L . E . F r e e la n d , M a y 10, 1934, s till in th e p o s s e s s io n of M rs . F r e e l a n d , R o a n o k e . 52 O p. C it. F is h e r . 53 F r a n k li n C o u n ty L a n d B ook o f 1861, D is tr ic t o f H e n r y B . J o h n s o n . 54 P a r a g r a p h fo o tn o te , C o n v e rs a tio n w ith M rs . M . J . S u m re ll, R o c k y M o u n t, D e c ., 1970. 55 S ee n o te 39. 56 C e n s n s o f R o a n o k e C o u n ty , I960, p . 57. 57 F r a n k li n C o u n ty L a n d B ook of 1859 a n d 1860, D is tr ic t o f H e n r y B . Johnson. 58 R o a n o k e C o u n ty D e e d B ook G , 1868, p . 435. 59 M rs . J a m e s R . R e n ic k , in te rv ie w , a n d l e t t e r f r o m R e v e r e n d P e y to n M . L e w is to M rs . L . E . F r e e l a n d , M a y 10, 1934. 60 O rig in a l le t t e r fro m H ill C a r t e r to B e n ja m in D e y e r le , A u g u st 2, 1865—in p o s s e s s ­ io n of M rs . L . E . F r e e l a n d , R o a n o k e . 61 C e n s n s of R o a n o k e C o u n ty , 1870, p . 3. 62 R o a n o k e C o u n ty , C h a n c e ry C a u s e file s 761, 780, a n d 802, M a r c h , 1876. 63 R o a n o k e C o u n ty D e e d B ook I , 1874, p . 423. 64 C en s u s o f R o a n o k e C o u n ty , C a v e S p rin g D is tr ic t, 1880, p . 4. 65 P a r a g r a p h fo o tn o te , M rs. J a m e s R . R e n ic k , in te r v ie w , a n d M r s . L . E . F r e e l a n d , in te rv ie w , R o a n o k e , V irg in ia , F e b r u a r y , 1971. 66 M rs . J a m e s R . R e n ic k , in te rv ie w . 67 Ib id . 68 O rig in a l l e t t e r fro m H ill C a r t e r to B e n ja m in D e y e r le , M a y 15, 1867—in th e p o s s e s ­ s io n o f M rs . L . E . F r e e l a n d , R o a n o k e . 69 Ib id ., C a r t e r to D e y e rle , M a y 13, 1869 70 O p. C it. F is h e r . Journals, Maps Available The publications program of the Roanoke Valley Historical So­ ciety continues and many of its past offerings are available. On sale by the Society at P. 0. Box 1904, Roanoke 24008 are back issues of the Society Journal, maps of Roanoke, Botetourt and Mont­ gomery counties and a book, The Town of Fincastle, Virginia, by Frances Niederer. Vol. One, Numbers One and Two; Vol. Five, Number Two, and Vol. Eight, Number One of the Journal are out of print, but other copies sell at $1.50 to members and $2 for others. The maps, drawn by J. R. Hildebrand, are $1.50. Other county maps are in preparation. The architectural history of Botetourt’s county seat by Miss Nie­ derer, of the Hollins College faculty, is $4.95, plus 18 cents in sales tax for Virginia residents. 13 �"Landmarks of Distinction” Roanoke County Barns Of the 19th Century by Luci Shaw K incanon Barn-. For the purposes of this examination (with the exception of one building which is so indicated) the term refers to an enclosure for stock and hay. Other outbuildings on a farm must be classified separately. A preliminary study of the barn architecture of Roanoke County must of necessity be an impressionistic introduction, an attempt to locate and examine representative types and hopefully relate them to one another. Thus, one must be a theorist and allow for flexibility in the conclusions. I have limited my survey to barns dating before 1900 but the general range is actually 1820-1895. The first barn to be examined here is done in great detail to increase the clarity of the pictures and to provide a standard format for study. Various individual differ­ ences among the barns are prevalent and of course the barns do fol­ low the usual human range from superior to inferior quality. Still, they retain their dignity as representatives of an age of personal as­ pirations and national purpose. An historical perspective is often revealing and it can weigh heavily in determining the validity of a theory. Southwestern Vir­ ginia was primarily settled by two groups of people, the Scotch-Irish and the Pennsylvania Germans. The Scotch-Irish Presbyterians were a venturesome people, constantly in search of rugged terrain and it was they who came to the Roanoke area first. Although they con­ tinued a fairly steady southward and westward migration, they did create settlements at intervals and these were then leap-frogged by the Pennsylvania Germans who came along after them. There was no apparent mingling of ideas between these two cultures. The Pennsylvania Germans, driven by a different mentality, came down the Shenandoah Valley in search of farm lands, these usually being located by the prevalence of hardwood trees which in­ dicated a limestone layer beneath the soil. The rich river bottoms of the Catawba Valley afforded good lands and the Germans followed the westward streams into this area. Benjamin Borden was among the Mrs. Kincanon, a 1972 graduate of Hollins, is assistant registrar of the Wadsworth Atheneum at Hartford, Conn. She also has worked at Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts. 14 �B. A . Ramsey barn, Pennsylvania bank type, dates from around 1832. may be the oldest in the Catawba Valley. Interior shows barn-within-barn concept, saddle notching of logs. It Cantilevered floor joists in Ram­ sey barn as seen from downhill side. 15 �first to select land in the Catawba Valley in 1739-1740. An important settler to remember was Captain James Montgomery who came from Lancaster, Pa. in 1754 to purchase lands and begin development of the valley. He was accompanied by his four grown sons and it is rea­ sonable to assume that the Montgomerys helped provide the initial beginnings of a strong Pennsylvania cultural influence in Roanoke County. The German culture of the Shenandoah Valley prized livestock above all else and it follows that barn architecture was of significant concern to them. Eastern Virginia yields little in the way of older stock bams because more value was placed upon crops. Without rich manure to fertilize the crops, however, soil became poor relatively quickly. Thus the eastern landowners constantly required fresh soil. The frugal Germans’ blood pressure rose at the waste and the treat­ ment of the animals in other areas. Their concern is evident in their barns, where the needs of the stock are the first consideration. There are still yams spun among the old timers about farmers strapping their wives and children to the plows to spare the burden on the stock! The building of barns was based upon two traditions inherent in the Pennsylvania German culture. From the Black Forests of Ger­ many and Poland, these people had learned to build with horizontal logs, notched at the comers. The crib form, or rectangular construc­ tion unit, is traceable to the Bronze age and beyond and thus it is con­ tinuous with Medieval and Prehistoric Europe. The steps to the dou­ ble crib form (and eventually the transverse crib) are logical and dictated by necessity. Thus, the log double crib barns of Roanoke County arose logically out of the heritage of the builders and out of the availability of the natural hardwoods. The early German migra­ tions into the county, therefore, forced men to face nature on her own terms and the response was a practical and logical method of build­ ing. Very early refinements were at a minimum but there existed an overwhelming air of solidity and sturdiness which is still evident in surviving examples. Necessity dictated that the stock have both shelter and food. With this double need as the driving force, the Germans again turned to their heritage. They created close facsimiles of the Pennsylvania bank style bams they had known, basing their construction upon the principle of a lower level for stock and an upper level for grain and hay storage. This is a distinct mark of the Pennsylvania tradition and is easily recognizable. Entrance to the lower level was sheltered by a cantilevered forebay which was usually left unsupported in Virginia localizations. As the settlers became more secure in their new environ­ ment, their building became more refined and we notice distinctions 16 �such as overhangs on the ends and ramp side, these sheathed in wood, to create the “barn within a barn” appearance which can be seen in many bams of the Catawba Valley. As more Germans immigrated and the economy stabilized, the Pennsylvania influence grew more directly apparent and many barns of the mid-to-late 1800’s are merely small scale replicas of typical Pennsylvania bank barns. (The large size of Pennsylvania barns is one element which never travelled southward except in select in­ stances. This is undoubtedly due to a greater sense of practicality and frugality inherent in those who ventured to new lands.) In the final analysis, Roanoke County has no truly indigenous ‘southern Ap­ palachian culture’ represented in its barn architecture. Rather, what is now considered indicative of such a culture is actually the product of a series of Pennsylvania migrations. Some of the influences brought by these migrants derive from their earliest heritage and others arose creatively once the problems of necessity were conquered. The interesting factor arising out of a survey of the bam archi­ tecture of Roanoke County is that the Germans altered their migra­ tion to include this area. Obviously, although Roanoke did not become a county until 1838, it did play a vital role in opening up the south and even the west (to a lesser extent). Even while neighboring Bote­ tourt County was the focal point, Roanoke was biding its time and building itself slowly through the efforts of the people who were travel­ ling southward. Many of these migrants found what they were search­ ing for without going any further. Despite the normal dating difficulties, it is believed the Ramsey barn was probably built in 1832 and may well be the oldest stand­ ing barn in the Catawba Valley. Old-timers note (for a human inter­ est angle) that the German Baptists, lacking a church building, held their meetings in the Ramsey barn. The huge stone where they cooked their meat for the love feast is still to be found just down the hill from the bam. In appearance, the barn is of the Pennsylvania bank type, but one side has a supported forebay and the other side has an unsup­ ported forebay. The supported end gives the bam a partial gable on hip profile, the rest of the barn being covered by a flared gable. It is quite possible that the hip portion was an addition to the bam at a slightly later date and examples of more advanced structural work inside tend to corroborate this fact. There is also relatively poor con­ formity to the line of the hill on the hip side and the method of attach­ ment to the rest of the building is rather disturbing as indicated by an almost soaring effect. The construction is generally crude on the exterior. The unsup­ ported forebay end displays exposed logs except in its triangular 17 �Exposed log crib structure at Damewood barn on Rt. 624 in Catawba. pediment, this being sheathed with boards. The logs retain their round forms and are joined by saddle notching. The floor joists bold­ ly stick out at right angles to the horizontal logs (leaving enough room for the cats to sun themselves). The rest of the barn is sheathed in wood (all siding is done vertically) but there was little concern to cut the pieces evenly and thus the barn has a rather shaggy appear­ ance. Rather than sitting securely on the ground, the main supports are atop small piles of rocks which are placed at essential intervals. This disarray tends to give us a shaky conception of the barn but it still has remarkable stability and is currently in use. When we enter the barn on the lower level, we go under the forebay which is cantilevered on the floor joists (posts also help to support the forebay but these are later additions). The area un­ der the forebay remains unsheathed, the round logs stripped of their bark and saddle notched together as we saw on the exposed end. Here the logs are chinked with long boards placed between them and run­ ning horizontally. (This is definitely a ‘jack-leg’ job and may not be original.) The hardware on the doorways is marked by the distinctive Pennsylvania tapered heart shape and it is original. Where nails are used, they are wrought but this is not an infallible indicator of age. The lower level interior measures only six feet in height but the ground level is built up somewhat since this is the stock area. The mid-section is equipped with stanchions for the cattle and the floor joists above run lengthwise in relation to the total structure. These bear the familiar marks of the scoring axe and broad axe which ap­ pear in all of the barns up to the mid 1800’s (and frequently later in outlying areas). Crossed pieces of wood are used between some of the floor joists above to strengthen the flooring. This mid-section is flat as far back as the point at which the soil bank begins to climb 18 �upwards and one feels that this back area is the entrance to a dark cavern. This phenomenon is not present on the hipped end which I proposed may have been added later. There the floor level is flat and extends all the way back to a dirt wall. Moving to the upper level, we ascend a ramp constructed of stone and rubble and covered with grass which is located in the cen­ ter of the upper front facade. There are double doors which once swung open on crudely fashioned hinges, but the safest entrance now is through the traditional little door which is cut into the left-hand large door. Once inside, we are surprised to discover a double crib log structure complete with a dog trot or breezeway through the cen­ ter. It is as though we are presented with a ‘barn within a barn’ con­ struction, the outer barn being merely a shell to hide the structure within. The logs are, of course, saddle-notched but no attempt has been made to chink them. The rest of the interior is an intricate sys­ tem of balance, one piece against another, with mortise and tenon construction being used only in the frame of the main doorway and in the corner of the proposed newer section. Pegs are not used in these joinings but they are used when the main beams are brought together in an L-shaped junction. There are two long ceiling beams (made of more than one log) along each side of the cribs running lengthwise and these are notched to support the ceilings ribs. There is no ridge pole, the ribs being engaged in a medieval cruck construc­ tion. This is the only time that diagonal bracing is used (except in the new section). Otherwise, right angles reign supreme. The center section of the upper level is fairly high but it drops off on either side in the frontal area for grain storage areas. This is a curious shift of levels but the overall nature of this barn is quite irregular. As a total picture, this barn is worthy of careful examina­ tion because it exhibits the transitional state of the Pennsylvania Ger­ man mentality from concentration on pure necessity to somewhat of a latent aesthetic concern coupled with the ever present yearning for practicality. It is almost as if the interior is a ‘security blanket’, an unwillingness to abandon the tried and true method, but the exterior hints at modern attempts to lighten the material without fear of failure. The Pennsylvania bank style is again the chief influence in a barn on Rt. 624 in the Catawba section, owned by J. M. Damewood and dating from about 1900. This barn was obviously very crude when it was built, and its condition is essentially hopeless now. It does, how­ ever, demonstrate the same type of mentality we saw in the Ramsey barn. Briefly, this barn is a basic gable shape with an unsupported forebay. A shed has been added on one end and another shed is 19 �present on the right front of the barn under a continuation of the roof. The back side of the bam boasts a dormer window rising out of the roof. Here again, this seems to be a later addition. Apparently, the roof is also newer in date (this is to be expected) but it has been supplied with a ridge pole instead of the usual crude construction. On the outside we witness crudely hewn rectangular logs ex­ posed on the front and sides. It is not therefore surprising to dis­ cover our basic double crib log construction inside. The dovetailed notching is a clue to a somewhat later date than the Ramsey barn. The main beams here are astonishingly large and unevenly shaped in an almost defiant manner and the large exposed pegs which are used to strengthen the mortise and tenon joints also help to reinforce this defiant image. Gaming entrance to the cribs is rather difficult because the openings are quite low but this is in keeping with the cumbersome and unrefined nature of this bam. The bottom level of the building has a low ceiling and a builtup ground level (due to the stock as we found in the Ramsey bam.) Much rearrangement is evident here since the needs of the stock are constantly changing. The total feeling one gets here is that the construction is highly innovative but excessively make-shift. It has no lasting quality. The important idea here is that this barn follows the pattern we have begun to see forming despite the obvious deviations. The same concerns stood behind the building of it and it still embodies the spirit of the men who used it. Since we are seeking a common thread, it is expected that the barn on the R. H. Layman farm on Rt. 785 in Catawba is also a basic Pennsylvania bank style with an unsupported forebay. It bears a strong resemblance to the Ramsey barn but it is more architecturally pleasing because of the fine construction. Rectangular logs are used, joined by V notching and the open area between the logs has been carefully chinked. The door jambs are neatly pegged together and demonstrate the importance of details in relation to a constructional whole. Unfortunately, this bam, too, is suffering from neglect and con­ stant exposure to unfavorable elements. Although it has obviously been reroofed, the present roof was unable to withstand winds some four years ago and serious damage was done to one end of the barn. This destroys the symmetry of an otherwise perfect gable shape. The original hardware has also disappeared but the bam, in the manner of the others examined, still maintains its dignity despite the discordant notes. The lower level displays the finest construction and oddly enough seems to have the original stanchions, horning pens and stalls. The 20 �upper level, or hay area, is disturbing for two reasons. The double cribs become increasingly crude as one looks higher and the notches are inexplicably large to receive the logs. This is difficult to explain in contrast to the otherwise fine craftsmanship. Perhaps even more disturbing is the fact that the barn door is not in line with the cribs and dog trot. It is noticeably toward the left as one faces the barn. Both of these features are puzzling but suffice it to say that there was undoubtedly a good reason for them originally, particularly in light of the otherwise exceptional nature of this bam. There is no need to examine this barn further because it speaks for itself in terms of its cultural heritage. The date here is again the mid 1800’s. This seems appropriate for the majority of the older bams in the Catawba Valley since this area was part of the original settlement of Roanoke County. (A barn on the Cook property on Lee Highway in East Salem was studied for this paper but it has since been destroyed to make way for a housing development early in 1972.) The most striking feature of the Cook bam is the brick lower level, constructed of American bond brick (five courses of stretchers alternating with one of headers). The bricks are reputed to have been made on the premises and are indeed unmarked and of a rather large, coarse, chunky form. Naturally the barn is a Pennsylvania bank type with an unsupported forebay but it displays refinements such as wooden lattice work on the lower level that give it a distinct character of its own. Dating this barn is complex for a variety of reasons. The owners state that it was con­ structed in 1829 but its slate roof and the brick bond are indicative of a later date. Even though a substantial amount of wealth must have sponsored the building, it would not be logical to consider it as s t r ik in g ly ahead of its time. A safe guess would be 1850 here, in­ dicating some Victorian influences. Despite the unmistakable elegance, this bam is strongly re­ lated to the Catawba Valley barns in many ways. It is half gable on hip now but appears to have been entirely gabled on hip before one end collapsed. (The latter does permit a closer examination of the construction.) The interior of the bam is full of surprises because it is partially modem in feeling but it has a tendency to revert back to the traditional. It is entirely mortise and tenon and the tree nails are carefully inserted to accentuate the fine craftsmanship. Some of the major supports on the lower level are hand hewn and bear broad and scoring axe marks but the upper level has modernistic bents bearing straight saw marks. (Larger timbers show occasional adz marks.) The timbering is light enough that iron braces have been added to reinforce it. The interior pattern is still one of a double crib arrangement but the cribs are left open, formed only by the 21 �bents. It is worth noting that Roman numerals indicating the place­ ment of each beam are clearly visible in this barn. There are only four bents in the bam although it is of considerable length. The two central ones contain ladders for access to the upper crib area. There are a number of other outbuildings on the property which are rectangular log and V notched. These are not relevant to the paper but one building in particular stands out. It is currently (in 1971) being used as a chicken house and is somewhat unpleasant to investigate but it is a treasure because it is a perfect example on a small scale of a double crib log structure. Here then, we see a distinct mingling of tendencies in a single farm complex. The bam, being the most prominent building, achieves its diginity by conformity to the elegant Pennsylvania style, but the practicality and economy of the sturdy log structures dominates the outbuildings. Houtz-Sites-White barn in East Salem has "stunning proportions." A barn on the James A. White place, once known as the Houtz and later as the Sites home in East Salem, is a perfect Pennsylvania bank type and serves as a culminating example. Built by Christian Houtz, himself a Pennsylvanian, it exhibits stunning proportions that make it highly photographic and its setting further accentuates the perfection of its form. This is the only bam in the survey which represents a genuine concern for an aesthetic approach. This con­ cern is echoed in the cutout work on the doors which are under the unsupported forebay, and in the chamfering on the beams. We sense an overall refinement a beauty arising out of necessity through craftsmanship. 22 �Until we go inside, the date of 1820 is hard to justify, but the interior reflects the heritage the barn takes from the early European forms. We see the familiar double crib log structures, pointed by V notching, and equally as crudely hewn and constructed as those in the barns of the Catawba Valley. The variation here is the exceptionally wide dog trot which creates additional length and space within the bam. Problems arise, however, because a central support is necess­ ary to stabilize the construction. We notice that the front of the barn on the upper level lacks symmetry because the double doors, rather than being centered, are both to the right. The roof, however, is higher in the center and then slopes over the cribs, creating an un­ even roofline across the front. The track upon which the doors slide is placed higher than the roof over the cribs and thus the track can­ not extend to the right. Therefore, to open the doors, they must both be pushed as far to the left as possible. This is disturbing at first but quite logical since the central support is so necessary. It serves to point out that consistency of craftsmanship is difficult to maintain, but far more important, it shows that practicality is an inescapably dominating factor. The White barn increases in significance when it is compared and contrasted to the representative types already discussed. More strongly here than in any other Roanoke County barn we may apply the phrase, a ‘bam within a bam,’ because we have one distinct entity enclosing another. This concept is unique because each success­ fully maintains its own identity. Essentially, this is a compromise of mutual respect meeting the demands of practicality and the capa­ bilities of the builders. The fact that aesthetics can also be a con­ sideration points toward an increasing degree of sophistication. Much as we admire the exterior of the bam, it is little more than a mimic of the fully developed Pennsylvania bam architecture. The interior, while it may look backward, acts as a unifying factor to integrate the barn into the Roanoke County region. Although both of the ideas which create the bam are German derived, still, the double crib form has become so traditional in this area that it can almost take on an aura of being indigenous. In reality, these two German ideas represent different stages of a developing mentality. In Pennsylvania, the earlier form evolved into the more refined form with little concern for its heritage. In Roanoke County, however, we see a persistence of traditional patterns which still reveal them­ selves for over 100 years despite technological advances. When we look at the White bam with all of these ideas in mind, it is clear that it was a rather forward looking structure. It adapted itself to the demands of southwestern Virginia and by so doing, it became a part of Roanoke County, not a mere Pennsylvania transplant. 23 �Much concentration has been centered upon the Catawba section of the county but the Pennsylvania Germans were not enticed by the entire county. South of the city of Roanoke, shale prevailed and thus soft wood trees such as pines were dominant. The Germans shied away from such an area and it was (and still is) largely under­ developed. This area has a noticeably different character from that of the Catawba Valley. There are very few older barns left to cite as examples, since most in this area now date from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. In these barns we see queen post construction, sawn beams, and lightly constructed bents joined by mortise and tenon construction and pinned. There is also much diagonal bracing. The point here is to show the technological advance but we must keep in mind that a different mentality is responsible for these barns, one which is losing the feel of the material per se and becoming concerned with the modernistic way of doing things. One cannot feel nostalgia in such a barn, nor can one develop a sense of the character of the owner or the builder. These barns are containers, nothing more. The southern corner of Roanoke County, between Montgomery and Floyd Counties is largely orchards (particularly Routes 612 and 786). This country is devoid of any barns except those of extremely recent origin. Bordering on Franklin County, however, the diligent searcher is rewarded with two superb single crib log barns dating fom the mid 1800’s. They are located off Buck Mountain on the old McQuire property and are perfect illustrations of the ‘barns of Ap­ palachia’ in the Henry Glassie sense. These barns are of the simplest ‘Lincoln log’ construction with no foundation evident or necessary. The logs are saddle notched in the crudest manner and a structure is ready which is easily adapted to many needs. One of these barns never constitutes the sole barn of a farm since stabling is not their primary purpose, thus we should expect to see at least two on a fair sized establishment. (There is also a log corn crib on the property adjacent to the original log dwelling of the McQuire family.) Here is an example of feeling for material and respect for the labor of man. The crudity of the con­ struction is evident but not offensive and the structures have a special integrity. Of course, the bams do indicate a certain backwardness in light of previous examples but they are the product of a different type of people. It is quite possible that the builders were part of a trader element that is known to have moved southward through this Buck Mountain area. Such spontaneous construction is indicative of a trader mentality, an ability to meet one’s needs by the means most readily available. These people were not homesteaders in the Pennsylvania 24 �Old Cook bam on Lee Highway, near Salem, has been destroyed. Single crib log barn is on McGuire place near Buck Mountain, south of Roanoke. German sense, rather they were frontiersmen and such a farm com­ plex may well stand as a representative of man’s ability to deal with and yet not disturb his environment. It should he clear by this time that Roanoke County, despite constant reference to it in local historical terms as a “Johnny come lately,” is actually a complex and highly influential area. The sequence of necessity, coupled with the Pennsylvania German veneration of 25 �their stock animals, led to a building hierarchy which placed the barn above the home dwelling in terms of priority. Such a mentality is no longer viable or valid in present day society but within the context of the German way of life, it expressed a sense of direction and purpose. The bam architecture of Roanoke County was re­ presentative of a striving for cultural relevance arising out of a different historical situation and a different reality. Today, the traditional patterns are breaking down in the face of a paced urban industrialized society. Barns everywhere are usually constructed with a low gambrel roof of tin and walls of cement blocks, supported by a prefabricated truss. The alternative to this is the nondescript sheet metal rectangle which is a sorry relation of the earlier barns. Yet, in all fairness, we must admit that such bams meet the needs of the times and allow man to give forth greater efforts towards those things which are more meaningful to him now and for the future. Modern values express a different mentality from the one which saw these early barns as landmarks of distinction and advancement. The nineteenth century barns of Roanoke County and elsewhere express in a concrete form the reality of the early American experience and the lives of its citizens. “I know of no way of judging the future but by the past” (Patrick Henry) REFERENCES G la s s ie , H e n ry II I , P A T T E R N S IN T H E M A T E R IA L F O L K C U L T U R E O F T H E E A S T E R N U N IT E D S T A T E S . P h ila d e lp h ia : U n iv e rs ity o f P e n n s y lv a n ia P r e s s , 1968. G la s s ie , H e n ry m , “ T h e B a r n s of A p p a la c h ia .” M O U N T A IN L I F E A N D W O R K , (S o m m e r 1965), 21-30. Kegrley, F . B ., T H E V IR G IN IA F R O N T IE R . R o a n o k e , V ir g in ia : S o u th w e s te rn V ir g in ia H is­ to r ic a l S o c ie ty , 1938. S lo a n e , E r ic , A N A G E O F B A R N S . N ew Y o rk : F u n k a n d W a g n a lls , 1967. S to n e r, R o b e rt D o n th a t, A S E E D B E D O F T H E R E P U B L IC . T e n n .: K in g s p o r t P r e s s , I n c ., 1962. W elsh , P e t e r C ., W O O D W O R K IN G T O O L S , 1600-1900. M u se u m o f H is to r y a n d T e c h n o lo g y , B u l­ le tin 241, P a p e r 51. Old Paintings Recorded As part of the Bicentennial of American Independence, the National Collection of Fine Arts at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington is conducting an Inventory of American Paintings exeecuted before 1914. The Roanoke Valley Historical Society is cooperating with this inventory and its members and friends who own paintings done before 1914 have been urged to notify the Society at P. O. Box 1904, Roanoke 24008, or Miss Abigail Booth, Coordinator, Bicentennial Inventory of American Paintings, National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. 20560. A report form is available but only a brief description is needed. Purpose of the program, according to Miss Booth, is “to discover as many historically lost American paintings as possible and return them to record alongside their better recognized fellows, creating a truly comprehensive index of American paintings.” 26 �Col. George Plater Tayloe, A Builder of Hollins College by Margaret P. Scott and R achel W ilson At its annual meeting on June 3, 1896, Col. George Plater Tayloe of “Buena Vista” in Roanoke, president of the Hollins Institute Board of Trustees, presided for the last time. He died on April 18 of the next year. The Board’s assembly on June 5 was devoted chiefly to recogniz­ ing the invaluable service which Col. Tayloe rendered to Hollins for over fifty years. Presiding was Judge W. B. Simmons of Fincastle, vice president of the trustees.' A committee was chosen to put in writing the board’s opinion of its former chairman. It was composed of Charles L. Cocke, Michael Graybill and Col. Thomas Lewis. The letter which William H. Pleasants, secretary of the board, was instructed to send to Col. Tayloe’s daugh­ ter, Mrs. Mortimer M. Rogers of “Buena Vista”, incorporates these sentiments. These expressions of esteem were spread upon the minutes of June 5 and published in other places, as the conclusion of Pro­ fessor Pleasants’ communication shows.2 We reproduce below the document in full: it is of primary importance for understanding the early decades of Hollins; moreover, this essay is an attempt to make its meaning more concrete.3 Hollins, June 8th, 1897 Mrs. M. M. Rogers, Roanoke Dear Madam: At a meeting of the Board of Trustees of Hollins Institute, held June 5, 1897, the following preamble and resolutions were unanimously adopted, and I was directed to transmit them to the family of your honored father: Col. George P. Tayloe, President of this Board, died on the 18th day of April, 1897, in the 93rd year of his age. Col. Tayloe belonged to the higher type of Virginia gentle­ men, who, in former generations, not only constituted the chief ornament of society, but gave to the Commonwealth its strength and its glory. He was a man of the highest integrity of character, and of the most kindly and generous sympathies towards all classes. His kindred and relationships, his education and training, Miss Scott and Miss Wilson, professors emeritus at Hollins, have written of their college in earlier Journals. Miss Scott taught history and Miss Wilson taught French and was head of the humanities division. 27 �George P. Tayloe as a young man his personal culture and acquirements and his ample wealth, all combined to place him in the highest circles and associations of life. But he was, nevertheless, a man of the people, whom all delighted to honor. He was every man’s friend, and, therefore, every man was his friend. Personally known in many sections and in different states, and thus having a numerous acquaintance, he could say, with truth, as he did on his dying bed, that he did not know of a single enemy he had in all the world, and certainly, he added, he bore no enmity in his heart to any being, living or dead. The death of such a man always makes a void, and, in this case, one which is universally felt, regretted and bemoaned. But Col. Tayloe was more than this. He was a man and a citizen, devoted to the interest, the honor and the prosperity, both of his native state, and of the great sisterhood of states, of which it is so prominent a member. He was advanced to places of honor and trust by his fellow citizens, and always acquitted himself with the highest integrity and full approbation of his constituents. Col. Tayloe was an earnest and active friend of this Institu­ tion from its first inceptions, and continued to be such to the close of his long life. In fact, he saved the property to the Trus­ tees when it was in great jeopardy. Acting as administrator on 28 �the estate of which it was a part, he postponed forced collections of the past-due payments of the purchase money to the utmost limits of the law, and personally aided in their liquidation. Taking an earnest interest in the school from the beginning, he was soon placed on the Board of Trustees, and then made its President, —which position, with brief intervals, he held for nearly fifty years. His dignity, foresight, prudence and wisdom kept this Board entirely harmonious for the long period of his Presidency, and this largely contributed to its success and prosperity. The school never had a faster friend, and the Board never a more zealous and useful member. Therefore, Resolved: That, in the death of Col. Geo. P. Tayloe this Board has lost one of its most efficient, useful and honored members, and this institute a true and faithful friend through all its long history. Resolved: That this paper be placed upon the records of this Board and published in the Semi-Annual of the School; and that a copy be sent to the family of the deceased. A copy from the record. With sincere sympathy for you in your great loss, I am Yours very Truly, Wm. H. Pleasants Secretary of the Board The gentleman to whom this tribute was paid was born at “Mt. Airy” in Richmond County, Va., Oct. 16, 1804. His father was John Tayloe III (1771-1828), whose parents were John Tayloe and Rebecca Plater, sister of Gov. George Plater of Maryland. In 1758 John n built his mansion, “Mt. Airy”, upon the Rappahannock River estate which had belonged since the seventeenth century to the Tayloe family. In 1792 their son, the third John, intimate friend of George Washington, married Anne, daughter of Gov. Benjamin Ogle of Mary­ land and granddaughter of Gov. Samuel Ogle of that colony. In 1800 John III built the Octagon House in Washington. He was likewise a founder of St. John’s Episcopal Church in that city. These facts alone indicate the distinction of many of the men and women of George Plater’s family. Certainly it was conspicuous for colonial governors!4 In 1825 young Tayloe received his A.B. degree from Princeton. In 1822 he had joined the famous Whig Society in that college.5 Shortly after graduation he was sent by his father to take charge of John Ill’s considerable properties on Tinker Creek and in Catawba Valley in Botetourt County. In 1817 there had come into John Hi’s hands 1,132 acres of land belonging to Thomas Madison. Included in this property were two iron furnaces: “Martha”—sometimes called “Cloverdale”—on Tinker Creek and the Catawba furnace known as “Catawba II.” Both furnaces appear on contemporary maps. “Martha” and “Catawba II” were still functioning in the time of 29 �the Civil War. So was another venture of Col. Tayloe’s—his cotton plantations. About 1832-34 he and his brothers began “settling” plantations in the Alabama “Canebrake”. The extent of their enter­ prise made them the most important cotton planters of the region. In the next generation two of Col. Tayloe’s sons were active in the “cot­ ton kingdom” which their father had helped to found: Col. George Edward Tayloe, C.S.A., and Major John William Tayloe, C.S.A. George Edward went from “Buena Vista” in Virginia immediately after his graduation from Virginia Military Institute in 1858. John William —the eldest son of Col. George Plater Tayloe—was perhaps the most notable of the young cotton planters of the “Canebrake” in the decade of 1850-1860.« On his twenty-sixth birthday, Oct. 16, 1830, George P. Tayloe had married Mary Elizabeth, daughter of Col. William Langhorne of Cloverdale. Three years later the young man acquired from his father-in-law 598 acres upon the Roanoke river where he began to build his residence “Roanoke”. In turn he conveyed his Cloverdale property to Col. Langhorne. When in 1839, the “Roanoke” lands were included in the new county of that name the plantation was renamed “Buena Vista”. Its master became a very successful farmer.7 But economic activities and family affairs by no means claimed all the attention of a man so concerned with the welfare of others. Like his father before him, he labored in the vineyard of the Christian Church. St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Fincastle in Botetourt and Old St. John’s in Big Lick in Roanoke County include George Plater Tayloe among their founders and generous supporters. For years he was St. John’s senior warden.8 In 1839 Tayloe was elected a gentleman justice of Botetourt Coun­ ty. In 1858 Roanoke County sent him as its delegate to the Virginia Legislature; and on Feb. 4, 1861 he was chosen by the people of the county to represent them in the special convention called by the Gen­ eral Assembly to decide on Virginia’s course in the Secession crisis. On April 17 the Ordinance of Secession was adopted by a vote of 88 to 43. Tayloe voted in the negative. When war came he supported the Confederacy. Two of his sons fell in that cause: Lieut. James Tayloe of the Confederate Navy and Lieut. Lomax Tayloe of the 2nd Virginia cavalry.9 However, it is with this gentleman’s interest that we are prin­ cipally concerned. For years he served as a valued member of the board of trustees of Roanoke College in Salem.10 But we wish to elaborate upon his labours for the academy at Botetourt Springs, and to do so is to return to the document with which we began! Our place of departure was the letter in which the trustees of Hollins Institute expressed their profound appreciation of Col. Tayloe’s con30 �jg B H H l: nf I . y Wv't •,' ■ l | ;:|i IHfl i H iK "HH m R f*11 1 ...... vdliSfi - •••— ■ Tayloe Rogers stands by portrait of his grandfather, about 1966. tributions to that school. In Professor Pleasants’ words, these began with “the first inception” of Hollins. And what was that “first in­ ception”? After Edward William Johnston’s little Roanoke Female Seminary at the Botetourt Springs lost its struggle with oblivion, and the efforts of the Reverend Joshua Bradley to conduct a school at that place were faced with a similar fate, a group of local men and two women—acting under the urging of Mr. Bradley—met in the Bap­ tist Meeting House near Salem to try to revive the enterprise. This gathering was on May 23, 1843. The Reverend Absalom C. Dempsey, a Baptist clergyman, was made president and George P. Tayloe, treas­ urer and secretary pro tern. Bradley’s constitution for a “Valley Union Education Society” was unanimously adopted. This, in turn, provided for the establishment of the “Valley Union Seminary” for all denomi­ nations and both sexes. The organizers agreed that four directors should be chosen and that 13 trustees be selected; an agent, or agents, should be named to collect money. The minutes of this meeting were duly signed by the treasurer-secretary and attested to be “a true copy” by I. Brosius. The Valley Union Educational Society applied for a charter to the legislature. This it received on Jan. 13, 1844. On Feb. 14 this charter of a “body politic” was laid before the Society’s members at Botetourt Springs. On this occasion Colin Bass served as secretary. The document was accepted, only two members dissenting. A com­ mittee of three, George P. Tayloe chairman, nominated the 13 trus­ tees. His colleagues insisted on naming Tayloe president of this group which was elected unanimously." 31 �On March 14-15 the V.U.E.S. elected A. C. Dempsey president; Mr. Bass continued as secretary. Evidently the majority of members had been absent in February, so the charter was re-accepted and the trustees re-elected! It was decided to rent the Botetourt Springs pro­ perty to agent Joshua Bradley; his contract was made with Tayloe, “executor of George Blain dec’d and agent of James Blair and Hezekiah Daggs”, owners of the property, and was ratified by the So­ ciety. A resolution was adopted affirming that “the thanks of this Society is (sic) due to Mr. George P. Tayloe for the liberal proposi­ tion he makes to the Society to extend the payment of (sic) the pro­ perty at Botetourt Springs”.12 In April the Society discussed proposed Rules and Bye (sic) Laws. Next it declared that charges made “in a vague manner” against Joshua Bradley were without foundation; Bradley was continued as general agent at a salary of $475 a year. These proceedings were to be published in the Religious Herald.'3 The last meeting of 1844 saw Bradley’s resignation. His report of work since “April last” was unsatisfactory. Nevertheless, he received the good wishes and thanks of the group for his “zeal—in originating and sustaining this institution”.14 In March 1845 the school was leased to steward James Leftwich for $100 annually. He was to board “both males and females”. Tuition was to pay teachers’ salaries.15 George P. Tayloe was not listed as present at the two meetings just referred to. But on March 19th the trustees of V.U.E.S. elected him its president, and two months later he was presiding in that ca­ pacity; his signature concludes the minutes.16 If the parent organization met in 1846 we have no record of the fact. The trustees, however, assembled once before May 25. But it was May 25 that was important: what to do about the school pro­ perty was much on the trustees’ minds. In the meantime President Tayloe was in correspondence with Dr. Robert Ryland of Richmond College regarding a person willing to “come up” to be “principal and Steward of the institution”. Dr. Ryland nominated for this position Charles Lewis Cocke, teacher of mathematics at Richmond College; this young man was in­ vited to take the post. The chairman of the Trustees on June 2 re­ ported that Mr. Cocke had accepted. It was agreed at that time that Mr. Cocke’s proffer of a loan of $1500 to the Society should be paid to the chairman of the board and applied to the purchase of the Springs from that group of individuals whose executor and commissioner, as we know, was George P. Tayloe. Again thanks were extended the chairman “for his uniform kindness and liberality toward this in­ stitution”.'7 The last week in June, Charles Lewis Cocke, aged 26, and his 32 �wife, Susannah Pleasants, arrived at what was left of the little semi­ nary at the foot of Tinker Mountain. With their coming ends the first lesson in the history of Hollins! And beginneth the second lesson in that book! Among other things, the story for half a century was to be one of a collaboration between the older man—president of the trustees of the V.U.E.S. and from 1855-56 of the board of Hollins Institute—and the younger, principal first of the Seminary and then of the Institute. jf * 4 S1 Jm11 L & m j ■h M l ||1 v ijjppiwJH ■ hf&Hm r ’ v I'fiW 1 * y, { ji t i l i f l During the April, 1927 Alumnae Easter Pilgrimage to Hollins College, Tayloe Rogers (left) appeared as his grandfather, George P. Tayloe; Mary Stuart Cocke Goodwin and her brother, C. Francis Cocke, as their grandparents, Susannah Pleasants and Charles Lewis Cocke. It is not too much to say that the destiny of “the Institution” was in the hands of George Plater Tayloe and Charles Lewis Cocke. To make this assertion is not to overlook for a moment the gifts of generous donors, particularly those of Mr. and Mrs. John Hollins, or of the devoted service given year in and year out by Trustees, other mem­ bers of the administration, by teachers and by servants. But the type of responsibility assumed by the chairman and the principal was es­ sential to the school’s survival, and neither could have been so ef­ fective without the other. Surely there are few records of appreciation as revealing as the letter of June 8, 1897 which the Trustees sent to the bereaved fam­ ily at “Buena Vista” after Col. Tayloe’s death. It will be recalled that Mr. Cocke was one of the three gentlemen chosen to draw up the “preamble and resolutions” which compose it. Certainly he was in a position to know what Col. Tayloe had meant as “true and faith­ ful”, as “earnest and active”, friend of Hollins. The fourth paragraph of the preamble is a history in miniature of one man’s impact upon the school from the time he saved the 33 �property of the “Institution” “to the close of his long life’’., Wisely the authors of the testimonial include an expression of their admira­ tion for a superior person: his bearing, his qualities of mind and character. These imponderables had much to do with keeping entire harmony in the Board— “and this largely contributed to its success and prosperity”. Thus the wheel has come full turn in our attempt to make a let­ ter of tribute to a builder of Hollins College more meaningful. In our end is our beginning: our last pages and our first are the same! (For an article on Col. Tayloe’s home, Buena Vista, see Vol. 1, No. 2 of the Journal.) 1 H o llin s A rc h iv e s : B o a rd of T r u s te e s M in u te B ook I , 1843-190«: s p 97-98. T h is Is th e C o lle g e 's " n o o k o f G e n e s is " ! 2 H o llin s C o lleg e L i b r a r y : T H E S E M I-A N N U A L P u b lic a tio n o f th e E u z e lia n a n d E u e p ia n L i te r a r y S o c ie tie s. H o llin s I n s titu te , V a . J u n e , 1897: p p . 97-98. B o a n o k e , V a .i S to n e P r in ti n g a n d M a n u fa c tu rin g C o., 1897. 3 (S e e o . 15) P h o to s ta t o f th e o rig in a l in th e p o s s e s s io n o f T a y lo e R o g e r s , E s q . o f “ S o u th d o w n s ’, R o a n o k e . M r. R o g e rs , a g ra n d s o n of C ol. T a y lo e , w a s b o m a n d r a i s e d a t " B u e n a V is ta ” . H e d ie d F e b . 22, 1972. W ith o u t h is k in d a s s is ta n c e th is p a p e r c o u ld n o t h a v e b e e n w r itte n . H e h a s g iv e n v a lu a b le m a te r i a ls to th e C o lleg e L i b r a r y , h a s s p e n t tim e s h o w in g u s o th e r ite m s a t " S o u th d o w n s " , h a s c o u n s e lle d w ith u s —in s h o rt, h a s b e e n o u r “ In d is p e n s ib le m a n ” ! W e w ish to e x p r e s s a p p r e c ia tio n a lso to K a th le e n K e lly C oxe '21, to W illa rd N . J a m e s , v ic e p r e s id e n t o f H o llin s, a n d to M rs. G a r la n d H o p k in s of " G a r la n d O r c h a r d s ” , B o te to u r t C o u n ty . M rs. C o x e ta lk e d to M r. R o g e rs a b o u t p a p e r s w h ic h h e w a s w illin g to m a k e a v a ila b le fo r a s tu d y o f h ts g r a n d f a t h e r . W e w e re e n c o u ra g e d , th e r e f o r e , to a s k h im to a d d h is r e c o r d s to w h a t w e h a d c o lle c te d —e s p e c ia lly th o s e th ro w in g lig h t o n C ol. T a y lo e ’s w o rk f o r th e sc h o o l t h a t g r e w u p a t B o te to u rt S p rin g s . W h a te v e r w e u n d e r t a k e w e c a n c o u n t o n M r. J a m e s . T h is p a p e r h a s b e e n n o e x c e p tio n to th e r a le o f h is k in d n e s s ! W e a r e g la d to s a y th e s a m e o f o u r f r ie n d , M r s . H o p ­ k in s , w ho jo u rn e y e d In to th e d e p th s o f S t. M a r k ’s C h u rc h In F in c a s t le In s e a r c h o f d a t a co n ­ c e rn in g C ol. T a y lo e ’s in t e r e s t in t h a t v e n e ra b le in s titu tio n . F in a lly , w e a r e in d e b te d to L a u r a G u s ta fs o n , a s s o c ia te p ro fe s s o r e m e r itu s of L a tin a n d F r e n c h in H o llin s C o lleg e, f o r e x p e r t a id so g e n e ro u s ly g iv e n w ith th e illu s tra tio n s . 4 A lb e rt W. A tw ood, N A T IO N A L G E O G R A P H IC , V ol. C X I, N o . 6, J u n e 1947, p p . 711 s e a . W. R a n d o lp h T a y lo e , T H E T A Y L O E S O F V IR G IN IA A N D A L L IE D F A M IL IE S . B e r r y v ilie , V a . 1967. E s p . p . 57. T H E R IC H M O N D T IM E S, “ M a s te r s of H is to ric M t. A iry ” . R ic h m o n d , V a. J u n e 28, 1898. T h o m a s T . W a te r m a n , T H E M A N SIO N S O F V IR G IN IA . C h a p e l H ill: U n lv . o f N . C. P r e s s 1945. (N ew Y o rk : B o n a n z a B o o k s, n .d .) p p . 253-261. 5 P rin c e to n U n iv e rs ity : G E N E R A L B IO G R A P H IC A L C A T A L O G U E 1746-1916, V . L . C o llin s, e d . D a ta o n T a y lo e s a t P r in c e to n k in d ly s e n t to H o llin s A rc h iv e s . 6 K a th le e n B ru c e , V IR G IN IA IR O N M A N U F A C T U R E IN T H E S L A V E E R A . N ew Y o rk : T h e C e n tu ry C o m p a n y , 1930. p p . 16-18 : 63-64. J o h n D . C a p ro n , T H E V IR G IN IA C A V A L C A D E . V ol. 17, N o. 2, A u tu m n 1967, p . 12. J o h n W ith e rs p o o n D u B o se , A LA BA M A H IS T O R IC A L Q U A R T E R L Y . V ol. 9, N o. 4, W in te r 1947. E s p . p p 492-494 ; 525. E u d o r a R . R ic h a rd s o n e d . W .P .A . V IR G IN IA G U ID E TO T H E O LD D O M IN IO N , 1940, p . 431. T a y lo e R o g e rs P a p e r s : M E M O R A N D U M , F e b r u a r y 19, 1942, p p . 1-2. H o llin s A r c h iv e s : U n p u b lis h e d ty p e s c rip t. R o b e r t S to n e r, B o te to u rt C o u n ty : A S E E D -B E D O F T H E R E P U B L IC , A S T U D Y O F T H E P IO N E E R S O F T H E U P P E R (S O U T H E R N ) V A L L E Y O F V IR G IN IA . R o a n o k e , V a .: T h e R o a ­ n o k e H i« to ric a l S o c ie ty , 1962. p p . 161. 434. P h ilip H e n ry T ro u t, L O C A L O LD F U R N A C E S A N D F O R G E S . T y p e s c r ip t: 2 n d e d . r e v is e d 1953. B12, p . 6; B13 “ M a r th a ” fu r n a c e . B31, C32b. R o a n o k e , V a . P u b lic L ib r a r y . P h o to s ta t: J o h n W ood’s m a p o f B o te to u rt C o., 1821. 7 T a y lo e R o g e rs P a p e r s , o p . c it., p . 2 ; J o h n S. W ise, T H E E N D O F AN E R A . B o s to n a n d N ew Y o rk : H o u g h to n , M ifflin C o., 1899. p p . 219-221. 8 E d w a r d H . In g le , “ T H E C H U R C H IN R O A N O K E ” . S e rm o n p r e a c h e d in C h r is t’s C h u rc h , D e c . 14, 1902 a n d in S t. J o h n ’s C h u rc h F e b . 8, 1914. H o llin s A r c h iv e s : P h o to s ta t, e s p . p p 4, 7. 9 T a y lo e R o g e rs P a p e r s , o p . c it., p p . 3-5. R o b e rt D . S to n e r, o p . c it., p p . 347, 444. 10 B IO G R A P H IC A L R E G IS T E R O F M E M B E R S V IR G IN IA S T A T E C O N V E N T IO N O F 1861 F I R S T S E S S IO N , p . 75. W illiam E d w a r d E is e n b e rg , T H E F IR S T 100 Y E A R S , R O A N O K E C O L L E G E , 1842-1942, S a le m , V a .: T h e T r u s te e s o f R o a n o k e C o lleg e, 1942, p p . 63-64. 11 H o llin s A rc h iv e s : M IN U T E S BO OK I, p p . 9-11; M a r g a r e t P . S c o tt a n d R a c h e l W ilso n , “ E d w a r d W illiam J o h n s to n a n d th e R o a n o k e F e m a le S e m in a r y .” 12 I b id ., p p . 12-13. S a le m , V a .: R o a n o k e C o u n ty C o u rt H o u se , D e e d B o o k D , p . 137. G r a n to r I n d e x to D e e d s , p . 67. 13 I b id ., p p . 15-16. 14 Ib id ., p . 17. 15 Ib id ., p p . 18-20. T h e te a c h e r s n a m e d w e re G eo. P e a r c y , M iss L . A . S to d d a rd , M r. a n d M rs . G eo . L e ftw ic h . 16 H o llin s A rc h iv e s : M IN U T E S B O O K , H . M in u te s o f th e m e e tin g s o f th e B o a r d o f T r u s te e s o f t h e V a lle y U n io n E d u c a tio n S o c ie ty , A p ril 1844 - J u ly 1856, in c lu s iv e , p p . 4-7. 17 I b id ., p p . 10-15. 34 �Where the Brethren Settled by Roger Sappington The evidence available to us now indicates that the earliest Brethren in Virginia were members of the Funk family from the Brethren settlement at Ephrata, Pennsylvania, who purchased land on the north side of the North Branch of the Shenandoah River, near the present town of Strasburg, in 1735. During the next few years the Funk brothers, Jacob and John, added to their holdings of land in this area, part of a large tract which had been granted by King Charles II to Lord Culpeper, from whom it passed to his son-in-law, Lord Fairfax. The Funk settlement served as an outpost and haven for all later Brethren groups traveling up the Valley to settlements farther south, because the Funks were at the northern edge of the German settlements in the Valley. Most of the land stretching north from Strasburg to the Potomac River was settled by Englishmen. For a number of years, most of the Brethren moving southward simply passed by the Funks on the way to settlements in the Carolinas. However, in the 1750’s with the coming of the French and Indian War, the more protected Funk settlement become a refuge for Brethren who were being forced out of other settlements. The most important leader of this movement was Samuel Eckerlin, whose home farther west in the Monongahela River area had been destroyed in 1757 by the Indians and two of whose brothers had been taken captive, never to return. Samuel Eckerlin had some skill as a phy­ sician, and he erected a building to be used as an apothecary shop and laboratory. During this period, George Washington, who was commanding a detachment of troops engaged in the war against the Indians, became quite concerned about Eckerlin’s activities in re­ lation to the French and the Indians; Eckerlin was arrested but freed by the governor of the colony. Another incident in which the Brethren were investigated by political authorities involved two Brethren named Sangmeister and Hollenthal, who built a tiny cabin high upon the peak of Massanutten Mountain to provide an opportunity for solitude and meditation. Dr. Sappington, head of the History Department at Bridgewater College, is completing a history of his church in Virginia. This article appeared in part in the Brethren Messenger. He also is the author of a biography of the Rev. Reuel B. Pritchett of Maryville, Tenn., collector of 5,000 historical items stored at Bridgewater College. Mr. Pritchett is a brother-in-law of the late R. A. Poff, an active member of this Society. 35 �Their periodic retreats to the cabin aroused the suspicion of their neighbors, and their general queemess set in motion rumors that they were counterfeiting money or practicing the Roman Catholic mass or something else odd. Finally, the reports came to the attention of the sheriff in Winchester, Colonel James Wood, who traveled to Strasburg to investigate. Before his arrival, the two hermits learned of the impending action and completely destroyed their cabin. When the sheriff arrived, he conducted a thorough investigation, including a trip to the mountain peak; he was “greatly interested, and said he would cheerfully give a doubloon if the laura (cabin) were still intact, as it was for so good a purpose.” The ultimate fate of this Brethren settlement is not completely clear from available evidence. Some of the Brethren became frightened by later Indian attacks and returned to Pennsylvania. Some of them returned and settled in the town of Strasburg, which was officially chartered in 1761. One of the finest wells in the community became known as the Dunker’s Well, a reference to the name by which the Brethren were frequently known. Also, the Brethren became known for a pottery kiln constructed on the property of Anton Hollenthal. After his death, the property passed into non-Brethren hands. The mainstream of Brethren migration traveled to areas farther south where land was more abundant and less expensive, and this early settlement perished. A delightful conclusion to this episode in Brethren history was written by Andrew Burnaby, who traveled in this area during the French and Indian War: The low grounds upon the banks of the Shenandoah are very rich and fertile. They are chiefly settled by Germans, who gain a sufficient livelihood by raising stock for the troops and sending butter down into the lower parts of the country. I could not but reflect with pleasure on the situation of these people and think if there is such a thing as happiness in this life, they enjoy it. Far from the bustle of the world, they live in the most delightful climate and richest soil imaginable. They are every­ where surrounded with beautiful prospects and sylvan scenes; lofty mountains, transparent streams, falls of water, rich valleys, and majestic woods, the whole interspersed with an infinite variety of flowering shrubs, constitute the landscape surrounding them. They are subject to few diseases, are generally robust, and live in perfect liberty. They are ignorant of want and are acquainted with but few vices. Their inexperience of the elegancies of life precludes any regret that they have not the means of enjoying them; but they possess what many princes would give half their dominions for — health, content, and tranquillity of mind. 36 �Probably, some people in the hurried twentieth century would also be willing to possess what these eighteenth-century Germans had! One of the earliest groups passing by the Funks to settle on the wilderness frontier of Virginia traveled in 1745 to the New River area southwest of Roanoke. These pioneers came from the Ephrata Brethren group in Pennsylvania, although the settlement eventually came to include settlers from other Pennsylvania Brethren. The site which they chose for their settlement is located on the New River, where it divides at present-day Montgomery and Pulaski counties. The land was quite fertile, and the woods were filled with game. The Brethren named their settlement Mahanaim (Genesis 32:1-2), but the neighbors called it Dunker Bottom. Today, the area is largely inundated by Claytor Lake, the result of a manmade dam. According to one source, the settlement on New River included families of Eckerlins, Macks, Zinns, Negleys, Millers, Shavers, Weisers, Graffs, Webers, Grebils, Freys, Landises, and Huffacres. One of the most fascinating names in the list is William Mack, who died in this area in 1745. He has never been identified as a member of the family of Alexander Mack, the founder of the Church of the Brethren. How­ ever, Alexander Mack Jr. was definitely one of the earliest Brethren in the New River settlement, and after his return to Germantown and his marriage there, he named his first son William. Was he named for his deceased uncle? One account of the settlement was written in 1750 by Thomas Walker, of Albemarle County, an explorer employed by the Loyal Land Company: 16th March. We kept up the Staunton (River) to William Englishes. He lives on a small Branch, and was not much hurt by the Fresh (flood). He has a Mill, which is the furtherest back except one lately built by the Sect of People who call themselves of the Brotherhood of Euphrates, and are commonly called the Duncards, who are the upper Inhabitants of the New River, which is about 400 yards wide at this Place. They live on the west Side, and we were obliged to swim our Horses over. The Duncards are an odd set of people, who make it a matter of Religion not to shave their Beards, ly on Beds, or eat Fesh, though at present, in the last they transgress, being constrained to it, they say by the want of a sufficiency of Grain and Roots, they have not long been seated here. I doubt the plenty of delicious­ ness of the Vension and Turkeys has contributed not a little to this. The unmarried have no Property but live on a common Stock. They don’t baptize either Young or Old, they keep their Sabbath on Saturday, and hold that all men shall be happy 37 �hereafter, but first must pass through punishment according to their Sins. They are very hospitable. This account would certainly indicate the frontier nature of the settlement. The picture Walker gives is generally quite accurate, including the commonly misunderstood name, Euphrates, but where he got the idea that they did not practice baptism is not clear; evidence would seem to indicate that all of the Brethren accepted baptism. This early settlement did not become a permanent Brethren con­ gregation for several reasons. For one, in 1750 the leadership of the settlement, the four Eckerlin brothers, returned to Pennsylvania; actually, they soon became pioneers again, but in an entirely different area, which is another story. In the meantime, the New River settle­ ment was absorbed by the surrounding community. That is to say, various Brethren continued to live in the area but gradually lost their Brethren identity. One example was George Hoopaugh, who is identi­ fied in connection with Indian raids in the 1750s. It was reported later in 1757 that “no one but George Hoopaugh lived on Sinking Creek at the time. He continued there until 1775, when he moved off because of fear of the Indians.” He had certainly been a courageous and per­ sistent man to remain on the frontier that long, but he had not given up, for “he returned, however, when he claimed the land as by settle­ ment and made a conveyance of it.” The second major reason why the settlement did not become permanent was the danger of Indian raids. One Brethren refugee fled in 1755 to the Moravian settlement in North Carolina. He reported that only a few days before he departed, “several families had been attacked, and part murdered, part captured; and the last night before his flight the family of one of his nearest neighbors had been murder­ ed, only three miles from him.” He knew of twenty-eight “persons who had been killed or taken prisoner.” Clearly, the New River was no safe place for the white man, and those Brethren who could were fleeing. However, in their relatively brief stay, they had left an en­ during mark which is still remembered in the area. According to the available evidence, the first permanent Bre­ thren settlement in Virginia began in the southern part of the Great Valley in present-day Franklin County, when Jacob Miller and his family settled on the North Fork of the Blackwater River in 1765. Millor had been born in 1735, possibly in Germany. However, he grew up in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, where he united with the Antietam Church of the Brethren which had members on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. He was elected to the ministry and ordained an elder before his migration to Virginia. Miller was very active as a preacher in southern Virginia, for preachers were gen­ erally quite rare on the frontier. During his thirty-five years in Vir38 �Old Brick Church between Boone's Mill and Rocky Mount in Franklin County is one of the Brethren's earliest in Western Virginia. ginia before he moved on to pioneer in Ohio and Indiana, he laid the foundations for many strong congregations in southern Virginia. Among the many people on the frontier who were brought into the Church of the Brethren by Jacob Miller was an Englishman named William Smith. Little is known about his background but tradition reports that he came to America on an English troopship during the American War of Independence. However, he seems to have been opposed to military service and was not a soldier. At any rate, Smith settled in Virgina in present-day Floyd County, next door to Franklin County. Smith heard Miller preach and underwent conversion and baptism. Smith demonstrated unusual ability as a churchman, and consequently he and Miller began to travel together, with Smith preaching the gospel in English and Miller in German. They evidently made a good team, and they traveled quite widely in southern Vir­ ginia, usually on foot. Based on the work done by Miller and Smith, the Brethren came to be organized informally as the German arm in Franklin County and the English arm in Floyd County. Eventually, the German speaking Brethren learned to speak English, and this designation was replaced by more formal organizational lines in the course of the nineteenth century. The settlement begun by Jacob Miller in 1765 increased in area and in numbers rather steadily both by immigration from Mary­ land and Pennsylvania and by community evangelism. It has become the center of a strong Brethren settlement today. In addition to the Brethren who were settling on the south side 39 �of the present-day city of Roanoke, a considerable number of Breth­ ren were moving into Botetourt County on the north side of Roa­ noke. According to the available evidence, the earliest settlement was in the Amsterdam (Daleville) area about 1780. The earliest Brethren included many Germans from Maryland and Pennsylvania with such family names as Gish, Kinzie, Snider, Nininger, Winger, Lemon, Stoner, Beckner, Harshberger, Ammon, Noffsinger, Hoff, Peters, Rife, and Graybill. Within a few years after 1780 other families came, including the Moomaws, Murrays, Bonsacks, Arnolds, Fishers, Manguses, and Crumpackers. Many of the descendants of these families are members of Church of the Brethren congregations in the Roanoke area today, and many present-day congregations in Botetourt and Roanoke counties trace their ancestry back to these early settlers of the 1780s. At about the same time in the 1760s that Jacob Miller was mov­ ing to southern Virginia other Brethren immigrants of the Good and Glick families were settling in the Flat Rock area of Shenandoah County some miles south of the Strasburg settlement. The nucleus of Brethren in this area did not begin to take on a distinctive Brethren identity until the coming in 1775 of John Garber, who had been a prominent Brethren minister in Pennsylvania and Maryland. He had been living within the bounds of the Beaver Dam congregation in Maryland since 1768 and part of his family remained in Maryland temporarily when he and the other children moved to Virginia in 1775. Although a humble and modest man, John Garber did not hesitate to identify himself as a minister of the gospel and soon regular meet­ ings for the worship of Almighty God were being held in the Flat Rock area. But where did they meet? No church building was erected in this area until 1841, so the obvious solution was the use of one another’s homes. In fact, a number of early Brethren homes in this area were specifically constructed with hinged partitions between the rooms, so that all of the first floor except the kitchen could be opened into one large room for worship services. The number of Brethren settlers in this area increased rapidly because of the American War of Independence. One result of the war was the end of religious persecution in Virginia; Article 16 of the Bill of Rights of the Virginia Constitution of 1776 legally brought a cessation to all prosecution for religious causes. The final step in establishing complete religious freedom was the separation of the Anglican Church and the state in 1786 by Thomas Jefferson’s statute of religious liberty. Through these steps Virginia became a more de­ sirable place for the Brethren to settle. Another result of the war was the persecution of the Brethren in Maryland and Pennsylvania. Because they lived in the more heavily �settled areas in these states, great pressure was exerted on them to fight in the American army or at the very least to take an oath of allegiance to the new state governments. Their refusal for religious reasons either to participate in the army or to swear an oath led to the accusation of being a Tory or being disloyal to the American cause; the accusation was frequently followed by persecution which often involved the confiscation of property. For example, the pro­ perty and press of Christopher Sauer Jr., the Brethren printer of Germantown, were seized and sold. The Brethren often reacted to such persecution by fleeing, just as they had done in Europe fifty years earlier. The tradition persists that four Brethren families moved to the Flat Rock community in 1782 because their property in Pennsylvania and in Maryland had been confiscated by the government. Regardless of the reason, there is neither question about their arrival nor about their vital contri­ bution to the building of the young congregation. They were Jacob Miller with his wife and three children from York County, Pennsyl­ vania, Michael Wine with his wife and five small children, and Samuel and Martin Garber, sons of John, who had recently married sisters, the latter three families were from the Beaver Dam area in Maryland. Each of these families purchased farms and established homesteads in the settlement, thus contributing to the permanence of the Brethren around Flat Rock. In 1787 the death of John Garber, who had taken on something of a patriarchal status among the Brethren, became the first recorded death in the Flat Rock Brethren settlement. According to one writer, “he was universally loved and admired, not only by those who knew him best, hut by the scattered settlers and the roving Indians . . . . The legend still persists that several Indians were present “to witness” his death. He was interred in the family plot on his farm, and a small stone with the inscription “17 J H G 87” is all that marks his grave. Following his death, the mantle of leadership fell on the shoulders of two of his sons, Samuel and Martin, along with John Glick Jr., all of whom were Brethren ministers. They ably continued the work that had been so well begun by John Garber. During the two decades of the 1780s and the 1790s, a large num­ ber of Brethren moved into the three present-day counties of Shen­ andoah, Rockingham, and Augusta. For convenience in ministering to the scattered Brethren, the leaders of the church in 1788 drew a line east and west along Market Street in Harrisonburg, dividing the Brethren into the Lower Rockingham and Shenandoah Brethren on the north side and the Upper Rockingham and Augusta Brethren on the south side. Within these two districts were five distinct congrega­ tions by the 1790s: from north to south, Flat Rock, Lower Iinville 41 �Creek (Broadway), and Upper Linville Creek (Greenmount) in the north, and Cook’s Creek and Middle River in the south. The Garbers continued to be prominent leaders with Daniel Garber, and a son-inlaw of John Garber, John Flory, in charge of the Cook’s Creek group, and Abraham Garber, the leader of the Middle River settlement. Certainly, this family played a major role in the establishment of the Church of the Brethren in the Shenandoah Valley. By 1800, the Church of the Brethren was well established in the state of Virginia. In the years from 1735 on the Brethren had pioneered in a number of areas, but by 1780 the pioneering days had passed in favor of permanent settlements. The Brethren had actually done more pioneering in Virginia than has sometimes been credited to them. For example, one outstanding Virginia historian has stated that the Brethren came to Virginia some two generations later than other groups, such as the Lutherans, the Reformed, and the Mennonites. Ample evidence has been cited to indicate the presence and importance of Brethren in the Shenandoah River area around Strasburg and in the New River area of southern Virginia during the first generation of settlers west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. With the ending of the American War of Independence, the Brethren began to move into Virginia in large numbers. They estab­ lished two areas of permanent settlement, one in the north of the Shenandoah Valley and the second in the south in the Roanoke River Valley in Franklin and Botetourt counties. In both of these areas a large number of Brethren have continued to live and to worship in the twentieth century. Clearly, the Brethren had found something they liked in the limestone soil in the Great Valley of Virginia! Digging at Looney's Fetty By H oward A. MacCord Sr . The Lipes Site lies on the right (south) bank of the James River, just west of the mouth of Looney Mill Creek, 1.5 miles west of the town of Buchanan and .4 mile east of the crossing of the James River by Interstate 81. The site is about 25 feet above normal river stage and has rarely been flooded. Probably in prehistoric times it did not flood at all. The site is owned by the Lipes family, to whom we are indebted for the privilege of making the present study of the site. The site has been known to the archeological world for many years. A letter in the files of the Valentine Museum of Richmond, from Charles L. Wilson, dated July 9, 1903, reports the finding of burials on a point where Looney’s Creek enters the James River. He reports that many burials were found and not removed, and that the site yields pottery, axes, etc. The burials were found about 1892 42 �when an ice house was excavated on the site. In addition, many local collectors of Indian relics have found the site a productive place to search after each plowing. About 1966, Stuart Carter tested a spot near the river bank and found a deep refuse-filled pit, which he excavated. A farm road perpendicular to the river leads from the high ground south of the river valley to the river bank at the western edge of the site. A corresponding road leads north from the north bank of the river. The river between the two ends of the road is still and deep, and here was the only suitable place for miles for ferrying across the river. The present farm roads are the survivors of the “Carolina Road” along which so many pioneers moved during the mid-18th Century, and the ferry was the well-known Looney’s Ferry. Because of the ideal topography of the site and its proximity to the road and the ferry-site, it was almost inevitable that the site would have been settled at an early date. While the earliest history of the site is unknown, it is certain that on July 30, 1742, Robert Looney patented the site, lived there and probably somewhat later, operated the ferry. Presumably, he also kept a tavern for lodging and feeding the travelers using his ferry and the Carolina Road. With the growing threat of Indian attacks in 1754-55, Looney was obliged to fortify his homestead. He probably had enough men (he had five grown sons) at the tavern-ferry to man the fort for routine guard-duty, and he could count on neighbors and travelers to augment this force if an attack came. The fort was already in existence in 1755 and was called Fort Looney. Apparently the fort was never attacked, possibly because it was too strong. In 1758 the fort at Looney’s ferry was renamed Fort Fauquier, in honor of the newlyarrived governor of the Colony. The subsequent history of the fort is uncertain. We know that Robert Looney died in 1769, and one son, Absalom, pioneered into Tazewell County (Stoner, 1962). Looney’s house con­ tinued to stand, with additions and changes until about 1914, when it was torn down. A solitary pear tree still stands as an indicator that the site was formerly a farmstead. In addition, there are people in the neighborhood who can remember the house. The site is now a plowed field, and much debris from the more than 175 years of occupation still litters the ground. Where the house formerly stood, the soil is filled with bricks and stones from the old foundations. The ferry was abandoned long ago, when the James was bridged at BuCol. Howard MacCord, archeologist for the Virginia State Library and treasurer of the Archeological Society of Virginia, has probably been responsible for the growing interest• in archeology in the state more than any other man. 43 �mmm mm spill ■ ■ ■V ' " v . . .•: Lipes site is at distant pear tree, beside James River and Looney Ferry crossing (left). rhanan, and the erstwhile Carolina Road became farm roads, leading to fields along the river. The work was done in two increments. One week was devoted to the site in October, 1968 and another week at the end of September in 1969. The purpose of the work was two-fold. One purpose was to obtain an adequate sampling of the Indian occupations, and the other was to attempt to pinpoint, if possible, the location of Fort Looney (Fauquier). Both of these objectives were met in the work done. Most of the site remains for future study, and we urge the Lipes to protect the site against vandalism in the future, as they have done in the past. The 1968 work yielded two important features—the ice-house, and the remains of Looney’s house, plus important evidence of the Indian occupations. The 1969 work located additional Indian features and also produced a refuse-filled, V-shaped trench which almost certainly was the palisade ditch of Looney’s Fort. Additional work should be done at the site to determine the full extent, shape, and associated features of the fort. Indian artifacts Artifacts were found throughout the excavated area and in nearly all features. The artifacts fall readily into two major classes—those of Indian origin and those of European origin. Indian artifacts were made from stone, bone, shell and pottery. Nothing was found that would prove contact between the Indians and Europeans, and for this reason, we believe all the Indian arti­ facts to be of prehistoric age and most of the Late Woodland Period. Chips resulting from the manufacture of chipped stone implements 44 �were saved from all levels and features. These prove to be entirely of locally available materials. Indian Component summary The evidence found indicates sporadic use of the site throughout Archaic (pre-ceramic) times, and this evidence is primarily Archaic Period projectile points. No features were defined which could be attributed to the Archaic Period, excepting possibly the stone hearth. The main occupation of the site seems to have been during the Late Woodland Period, characterized by pottery of the Albemarle, Dan River, Radford and New River Series. While no complete house outline was uncovered, the two arcs of postmolds found indicate circular or oval houses. These would be compatible with houses found at numerous other sites in the Shenandoah and Roanoke drain­ ages. No indication of community plan was found, although the elon­ gate area of refuse parallel to the river bank suggests a linear ar­ rangement of wigwams, as opposed to a circular or other compact layout. Burials were flexed in disused storage pits, and nothing of an imperishable nature was buried with the dead. Subsistence was based on agriculture, supplemented by hunting, fishing and gathering. The over-all culture of the Late Woodland component is most like that found at the nearby Lauderdale Site and also similar to those found further to the south and southwest in the valleys of the Staunton (Roanoke) and Dan Rivers. European artifacts Since the Lipes Site was occupied by European-built structures from about 1742 through 1814 and is still receiving occasional debris from contemporary activities, it is not surprising that the surface of the site yields many artifacts and much debris of European (Ameri­ can) origin. The surface indications of such materials were concen­ trated in a roughly-oval area 100 feet wide by 200 feet long, with the center just east of the lone pear tree and the long axis parallel to the river. From this distribution, we can assert with confidence that the house and many of the related outbuildings must have been near the pear tree. Trenching in the site and information from local resi­ dents prove this finding. The further east and south of the pear tree we worked, the scantier became the more modern debris. Further, sub­ surface structural features attributable to European activity were also found near the pear tree. Since it was convenient to divide the arti­ facts into categories based on the materials from which manufactured, we shall describe them accordingly. The materials are stone, bone, glass, ceramics, and metals (iron, copper, brass, and lead). Stone artifacts One small gunflint of English flint was found in Level 1. It mea­ sures 5/8 inch long by 9/16 inch wide and seems to be of a size appro45 �priate for use in a flintlock pistol. A jagged fragment of slate found in Level 2 may be merely a stray item, or it may hint that a slate, writ­ ing tablet was broken and discarded at the site. A sandstone ball, measuring 15/16 inch in diameter was found in Level 2, and this is of unknown use. It seems too large to have been a marble, and it may be merely a curiosity brought to the site by some occupant of the house. Similar balls are often found as discards from a pulverizing mill, where stone balls were tumbled with pigment ores, thereby re ducing the ore to a fine powder suitable for use in paints. As the round stones wore down, they became less efficient and were eventual­ ly thrown away. Bone artifacts Two fragments of bone knife handles were recovered from Level 1. Neither is of sufficient size to indicate the dimensions of the knife. One shows diamond-shaped checkering of the flat surfaces, and this was a common treatment of knife handles during the 18th and 19th centuries. Several fragments of cattle and other bones bore marks of cutting with saws and/or knives, but these are more properly con­ sidered domestic refuse rather than artifacts. Glass artifacts Fragments of window and bottle glass were rather numerous. No complete bottle was found, and none which could be attributed to the mid-Eighteenth Century was noted. Most of the glass seems to have been 19th and 20th Century refuse. Lumps of glassy slag were found—24 in Level 1, and 14 in Level 2. These seem not to have been made or produced at the site, since they seem most like the sort of slag which one finds in the waste pile of a charcoal-fired iron fur­ nace. Since there were several such furnaces in the Buchanan area during the 19th Century, the slag can probably be attributed to these. Perhaps one of the residents at the Lipes Site during this century worked at a nearby furnace and brought home occasional examples of the glassy slag. If he also brought home an occasional scrap of iron (including at least one complete pig), this would account for the scrap iron castings found, as well. Numerous fragments of ceramics of several categories were found on the surface and in the general excavations. Historic component summary The archeological remains of an early house enclosed by a pali­ sade ditch, coupled with the abundance of historical debris on the surface and in the upper levels of the soil, comprise the evidence on which we base the identification of the site as that of Looney s Fort of the French and Indian War period. The great amounts of later debris and the two later features demonstrate the continuous use of the site into the 20th Century. 46 �Since one purpose of the work was to locate and identity tne site of Looney’s Fort, this purpose was met. It was not intended to explore the site fully, and it is hoped that additional work at the site can be done by a qualified historical archeologist. When such work is done, we are confident that many questions about the fort which might now be asked will be answered. Until such work can be done, we urge the site owners to avoid damage to the site, either through farming activity or by unqualified excavators. The site is too important to Botetourt County history to allow it to become a mere plaything. No ♦ 1 Fite Station Is Celebrated Roanoke’s Fire Station No. 1 is an excellent example of Edwardian era firehouse architecture, having a richly em­ bellished facade in the English Renaissance style of Sir Chris­ topher Wren, and both handsome and well-preserved inter­ ior appointments. The building survives almost completely unaltered and provides a rare insight into the life of an early twentieth century fireman. Completed by 1908, the firehouse was designed by the Lynchburg architectural firm of Hug­ gins and Bates, who took special pains to give the young city a building of particular dignity. As a functional structure with significant aesthetic quality, Fire Station No. 1 stands as testimony of the high architectural standards of the Ed­ wardian era, and an important monument to the civic pride of early Roanoke. This was the evaluation of the Virginia Historic Landmarks Com­ mission in September, 1972 when the Fire Station was designated a Virginia Historic Landmark and nominated for the National Registry of Historic Places. The designation was doubly significant for the Roanoke Valley Historical Society because plans have been moving— slowly, but they are moving—toward acquisition of the building for use as a museum-headquarters. Members authorized creation of a spe­ cial building fund at a November meeting. Since the property is in the Downtown East urban renewal area, the U. S. Housing and Urban Development Department has indicated that it will grant up to $90,000 for restoration and preservation of the fire station. But in late 1972, the City of Roanoke had not disclosed plans for a new site for its Fire Department headquarters company. The tall, two-story brick building, topped by a bell tower, has been a fixture on East Church Avenue since it was built by & F. Barbour for $24,600 in 1907-08—when Roanoke had just passed its 25th birthday. �Horse-drawn engines leave No. 1 Fire Station about 1912. A Vigilante Fire Company had been formed by a group of vol­ unteers who met at Rorer Hall in 1882, the year Big Lick became Roanoke. Formally organized in 1884 with 40 men, headed by J. P. McConnell as chief, they met in an old carpenter shop at the present 48 �H. J. Daniel, 43-year fireman, points to photographs of disastrous Philip Levy fire o f Aug. 31, 1928 at corner of present Third Street and Salem Avenue, SW, in downtown Roanoke. site of First (Henry) Street and Campbell Avenue, SW. Without a bell as an alarm, they beat on an old saw with an iron rod to summon help and their first equipment was a two-wheel cart with 500 feet of hose. First firehouse for the Vigilante Company was built in 1888 at the northeast corner of Jefferson Street and Kirk Avenue and part of the building stands today! As young Roanoke began to expand, other volunteer groups, such as the Junior Hose, Union and Alert companies, were organized. Horses were an essential part of the early fire-fighting operations which were described by oldtimers at a September meeting of the So­ ciety at its new downtown gallery at 17 East Kirk Avenue. Dozens of pieces of old fire-fighting equipment and related memorabilia were on display there from August through November. H. J. Daniel, who served as a dispatcher from 1916 to 1959, vivid­ ly recalled the days when firemen got up at 5:30 to feed and care for the horses for $60 a month and this had to cover the $24 uniform. “We had jobs in those days—they have a position now,” Daniel said. Firehorses’ bits were removed only when they drank water and their harness was suspended on hangers, ready for quick attachment when the fire bell rang. “You’d be surprised how fast those horses would run,” Daniel said. 49 �J. H. Carty, another veteran who began in 1912, says the sound of horses running on brick streets could be heard for blocks. In his first job, he drove the buggy for Chief Jim McFall and “you had to be there. . . . But when the buggy started, the chief took the lines. He wouldn’t trust the driver.” Horses pulled steamers which operated like the old threshing machines. Hot water circulated to them at the station from a big boiler in the basement. But when the steamer pulled out and headed for a fire, this was disconnected and kindling was ignited in a fire box. When the engine reached the scene of the blaze, steam was built up and this provided pressure to throw water on the fire. Daniel described a fire staged by Chief McFall for the benefit of a convention of firemen. McFall did not tell of his plan beforehand and he dramatically pointed to a blaze as the visiting firemen stood on a downtown corner. But Roanoke’s firemen were at the scene and they quickly extinguished the fire. Retired Fire Chief John Brown said his first assignment was to polish the brass at the new South Roanoke fire station when he came to the department from Franklin County in December, 1928. The “Firematic” exhibit, the first of a series of special showings planned by the Society, was seen by about 1,500 people. Many of the items shown were loaned by Eric Miller, a Salem fireman who has an extensive collection of old fire equipment. Old helmets, badges, shields, and parts of uniforms, fire extinguishers, nozzles, a leather fire bucket, a pompier (firemen’s ladder), lanterns, sirens, hose and many pictures of interesting fires were on display. Old firemen's uniforms on display. 50 Horse collar ready for fast installation. �The Remarkable DrI Reid Dr. Emmet Reid at 100: “1 outwitted the statisticians by eat­ ing well, sleeping well and uniting chemistry books." As the Town of Fincastle celebrated its 200th birthday in 1972, Dr. E. Emmet Reid, a Baltimore man who has lived through half of that span, recalled the circumstances of his birth in the Botetourt County seat more than 100 years ago. A grandson of Benjamin Ammen, the well-known Fincastle millwright, Dr. Reid is professor emeritus of chemistry at Johns Hopkins University and a scholar internationally recognized in organic chemistry. Believed to be the oldest living alumnus of John Hopkins, Dr. Reid has done a remarkable amount of writing and research since his retirement and he produced an autobiography, “My First One Hundred Years,” and received an honorary doctor of science degree in his centennial year. His father was a Baptist minister, Thomas Reid, who had been a missionary to Nigeria from 1857 to 1864. Reid came to a meeting at the Baptist church in Fincastle and stayed at the home of Benjamin Ammen, where he met Ammen’s daughter, Virginia, who was to be­ come his wife. Their son, Emmet, was born on June 27, 1872. Dr. Reid says that when he was three months old, his father was called to serve two churches in Arkansas. The son attended an academy in Chesterfield County and Richmond College, now the University 51 �of Richmond, where he earned a master’s degree at the age of 20 and he recalls that he has spent two or more years in each of 10 states. He taught at Mt. Lebanon College, earned his doctorate at Johns Hopkins in 1898 and later taught at the College of Charleston and Baylor University before returning to Hopkins in 1908. He retired as a full professor of chemistry in 1937. In his book and in recent correspondence, Dr. Reid has told of his “strong sentimental attachment for Fincastle, although I have never lived there.” And he has returned an old blanket, bearing the “N.A.” initials of his grandmother, Naomi Ammen, to be placed in the Bote­ tourt County Historical Museum. The blanket was given his mother when she was married in 1869. He said that his mother made him a suit from the material from the Ammen factory about 1895. Dr. Reid recalls that Benjamin Ammen was a grandson of Durst Ammen, who came from Switzerland about 1748. “The family tradition is that Thomas Cross had a mill site and hired Benjamin, a millwright, to build a mill. When the mill was finished, Benjamin married Naomi, the daughter of Cross, and got the mill.” Benjamin had three sons and five daughters. Born at a time when four out of five Americans lived on farms, he says in his autobiography, “I have seen life on the farm, in a fishing village, in the Southwest and on the edge of metropolitan New York City. I have ridden in an ox cart, hundreds of miles in a buggy behind a horse, and thousands of miles in a railroad daycoach; the latter was heated in winter by a coal stove in one corner and cooled in sum­ mer by the breezes laden with soot and cinders that came in through the open windows. At the end of the trip the passengers were all the same color, which was not white.” Writing of industrial progress, he said that in the first of three stages, from the invention of the bow and arrow to the introduction of steam power, research had been the haphazard activities of indi­ viduals. “Toward the end of the eighteenth century, things began moving much faster. Inventors were busy in this second stage with cotton gins, reapers, sewing machines, the telegraph, electric lights and trolley cars, to name just a few. As I was born in 1872, I grew up in the latter part of this period . . . The third stage began with the takeover of research by industry. I received my doctor’s degree from Johns Hopkins in 1898, just in time to become a participant in this great upsurge of research, training chemists and working as a re­ searcher in both university and industry.” Dr. Reid has done some unusual things. As one of the first six men in chemical warfare in 1917, he said he introduced tear gas which is still in universal use. He came to be known as the “father of sul­ fur chemistry” and he holds 18 patents. �Kitty Harris of Botetourt County holds blanket owned by Naomi Ammen and contributed by Dr. Emmet Reid, her grandson. Of his total of 138 research articles, 66 were published after re­ tirement when he had no laboratory of his own. His greatest work, a six-volume treatise described as the bible of sulfur chemistry, was pub­ lished between 1958 and 1966. Two years before he turned 100, he published a foreign language handbook for chemists. He has been a consultant for such major chemical firms as du Pont, Thiokol and Mobil Research and Development for more than 40 years. He made 300 visits to a dozen Southern schools to lecture and advise on research. When his vision failed, students read to him and in order to continue writing, he taught himself touch typing at the age of 85. His wife of 52 years died in 1967 and he has two sons, an admin­ istrator at the Medical College of Virginia and a San Francisco architect, and a daughter who lives in Baltimore with her family. 53 �After 65, Dr. Reid recently told Chemical and Engineering News, “too many chemists slump down into their easy chairs and just vege­ tate. As a result, many of them die prematurely. The way to stay alive is to keep busy.” Retirement years for a scientist, he said, can be re­ warding when he can do what he really wants. “But he must find something worth doing, something really challenging. He can work in the fields of research, teaching, writing. He can become active in welfare projects and in working with children—anything that is productive.” But, Dr. Reid added, “Time is too precious to waste on trifling pastimes.” Noting that only about .01 per cent of the U.S. population live to be 97 or older, he explained, “I outwitted the statisticians by eating well, sleeping well and writing chemistry books.” The Old Gish Ordinary By R aymond P. Barnes An ordinary in early Botetourt and elsewhere on the frontier was a place where meals were served and drink and lodging were available. Permission to conduct an ordinary required an applicant to petition the court, present evidence of his good character and put up a bond with surety. A permit was granted but it was not to be effective until a license was procured. Alcoholic beverages had to be imported by a keeper of an ordinary in early Botetourt from some community like Staunton or perhaps from as far away as Baltimore. There was little need to pay the license tax until the goods arrived. Since this would have entailed a trip from Big Lick over indifferent roads 18 miles to the county seat at Fincastle, ordinary keepers fre­ quently delayed payment of the tax until some convenient time but proceeded to “entertain” and dispense alcoholic drink when the shipment arrived. Hence, it is not surprising to find a goodly number of keepers of ordinaries indicted for selling drink without a license. It may be remarked that all prices for lodging, board and drink were regulated by a court order. For example, the rate charged for three in a bed was much less than for a particular pioneer traveler who desired a bed to himself. From the records, it would appear that one of the first ordinaries in the Big Lick neighborhood was conducted by Thomas Barnes at Raymond P. Barnes, Roanoke lawyer-historian, has forgotten very little of a vast amount of local history he has collected over many years. 54 �George Gish Ordinary of 1793 was owned by John Seibel family before it was razed in 1964-65. Interior of Gish Ordinary had old woodwork. the northwest intersection of U. S. 460 and 9th Street, NE. In the same year, William Campbell had an ordinary across from the gas tanks at the foot of Rutherford Avenue, NE, near a spring which still flows. His brother, Archibald Campbell, conducted an ordinary near the spring which may be seen today under the Crystal Tower Hotel (formerly the Ponce de Leon) on the northeast comer of Campbell Avenue and Second Street, SW. Necessarily, these were small log cabins with trade confined primarily to pioneers traveling toward the cardinal points of the compass. After the Revolution, George Spotts patented the 58 acres over­ looked in previous surveys and on it conducted an ordinary. This be­ came known as Big Lick and later in 1834, the Town of Gainsborough. The Big Lick, on semi-marshland, lay a mile or so east, opposite the ordinary of Thomas Barnes. The new lands of Kentucky and Tennessee proved so attractive to the early restless Scotch-Irish that many sold their holdings to 55 �settlers of German descent, many of whom had settled in Pennsylvania. George Gish on April 9, 1793 purchased 107% acres from Col. William Fleming and on Sept. 3, 1795 acquired an additional adjoin­ ing tract of 100 acres from Francis Graham. Gish now owned a good acreage lying on both sides of the Great Road or Big Lick-Richmond road east of Tinker Creek. On Sept. 3,1797, Gish was granted a permit to conduct an ordinary at his home. Like a number of his ilk, he was indicted for selling drink without a license but probably had the case dismissed when he appeared and paid the fee. Mrs. Ola Gish Durr, a great-great-niece of George Gish, and I drove down to witness the demolition of the log house, framed over, in 1964. We are both of the opinion that the small log house at the eastern rear of the building was the original dwelling and ordinary of George Gish. Occupied by John G. Seibel and his family for al­ most 30 years, this house stood on the north side of U. S. 460, just across from the junction of Virginia 653 which leads to Vinton. A larger log house later was erected adjoining the original which enjoyed a stairway leading to the second floor. Still later, as the family increased, a similar addition was made on the western end. At what date the house was covered with framework is unknown. Once there were several old log houses in the Roanoke Valley, such as the George Gish home and the Garst House near Hanging Rock, which enjoyed two staircases leading to the upper apartments. The story is current that such approaches were employed to separate the men and women. Such was not the case for a second staircase was used simply because the owner thought it unwise to cut through the big logs separating the original from the addition. The Gish Ordinary enjoyed a tranquil existence until March 14, 1809. Shortly before this the court ordered the overseer of the road to improve the highway between Big Lick and Liberty, now Bedford. The road originally ran in this vicinity, a bit south of the present Route 460, primarily to pass a spring which flows today. It should be remarked that since the Great Road was originally an animal trail, used later by the Indians and in turn by pioneers, apparently this spring was the first “watering spot” east of Tinker Creek. When the overseer straightened the kink or curve in the road, the new route passed closer to the ordinary of George Gish but he found that his water supply was across the road. Accordingly, 56 �George Gish Sr., or his heir, George Gish Jr., or a lessee at the orders of George Gish Sr., actually fenced in and blocked the new road, com­ pelling travelers to use the old highway and to permit the ordinary to enjoy the spring without hindrance. For this act, allegedly commited willfully and vi et armis (by force of arms), George Gish “formerly of this county,” was indicted at the November, 1809 Court for blocking the highway from Big Lick to Stoner’s (Bonsack). Apparently the Commonwealth prevailed and he was perforce compelled to accept the right of eminent domain. George Gish died in 1830, leaving George Gish Jr., and Christian Gish as executors of his estate. By deed dated Sept. 16, 1833, “175 acres, including the Mansion House where George Gish resided before his decease, lying on the western road two miles east of the Big Lick,” LeRoy Campbell acquired the ordinary, now known as a “House of Entertainment,” for the sum of $1,891.89. John Campbell, 1775-1863, had two sons, LeRoy, Sr., and the Rev. Clack Campbell, 1809-1881, both of whom were outstanding citizens of Roanoke County. Clack Campbell played a leading religious role in Town of Big Lick affairs. Time ran on and when Roanoke County was carved out of Bote tourt in 1838, the new county embraced the LeRoy Campbell ordinary. Apparently food, lodging and drink continued to be had at this lo­ cation for Order Book B, page 8, Roanoke County Circuit Court, reflects a license granted to LeRoy Campbell “to conduct a House of Entertainment.” Just when Campbell gave up this privilege is unknown but in all probability it was shortly after Zechariah Robinson built the 12-room brick inn, still known as Magnolia, at the northwest corner of present Orange Avenue and Williamson Road, in 1837. Leroy Campbell died and court records show that his estate, now a goodly one, was partitioned March 28, 1869. Kinsmen of the Gish, Campbell, Nelms and Williamson families are numerous in the Roanoke Valley. It is regrettable that some effort was not made to preserve one of the earliest ordinaries of the community. In passing, it may be remarked that few log houses are left. After a Gish’s Mill inhabitant followed the Gold Rush, a descendant or a purchaser found what was reputed to be a fortune secreted in the chimney of an old log cabin. The amount is not known. But after this find was reported, owners of log cabins hastened to de­ molish them in search of buried treasure. �Poor, Poor Mountain by L ee P endleton Poor, Poor Mountain, a solid rock from the Floyd County line to the Roanoke County line! It stands straight up like a sentinel guarding the South Fork valley. No one has said a good word for it; too few have driven up from Elliston to its top and taken in the view from the west end. Having lived at its foot most of my life, I come to its defense. When the McHenrys, Robertsons, Robinsons, Barnetts, Vauses, Madisons, (cousins of President James Madison), Kents, and others came to the valley, they lost no time in adding the mountain land to their bottoms. Kegley’s history says the first owners of Big Spring and surrounding land were the Robinsons (maybe Robertsons), who sold to James Barnett, and he added much to it, including Poor Mountain. This and the bottoms remained in the Barnett family for 200 years. The bottoms were subdivided in 1950 and sold at auction, and the Poor Mountain land was recently sold for its timber at a good price. Three of James Barnett’s descendants still own a small acreage of the original land. Barnett was a county justice and captain in the Revolution and his son, likewise named James, was sheriff. The Madisons, first owners of the Ellis farm, also claimed a big area of Poor Mountain. Forty years ago the Ellis family sold right of way to Appalachian Power Co. and they still have the land. About 1895, a mineralogist said Poor Mountain had a good chance of having its name changed to “Rich Mountain.” Most everyone agreed, especially those mining iron ore on the east end near the county line. My friend, Walter Apgar, is my authority that one can see today where the ore was mined and shipped to Salem to be con­ verted into pig iron, and then at another foundry melted and made into cast or wrought iron. This caused a “boom” in Salem, and some thought it would outgrow Roanoke. Investors were coming from Boston to buy lots and/or stock in business ventures. Evidently, Lynchburg capitalists thought if there was a thick vein of ore under Poor Mountain to the head of the river (10 miles) as a geologist had written in his book, they could make money by buying up other deposits. Their attention was pointed to Major W illiam Ellis’ Poor Mountain land. So sure were they that they had a “bonanza,” they bought 50 or more acres from the Edmundson’s east end of Fotheringay for processing the mineral. It is now owned by the Ap­ palachian Power Co. Lee Pendleton, born and reared in Montgomery County, delights in correcting historical inaccuracies. 58 �Poor Mountain as seen from near Elliston in December, 1972 Forty years ago, Eskridge Edmundson told the writer that the mineral people wanted an option, and fearing Ellis would sell to someone else, asked him to go with the agent to be a witness to the signing of papers to be recorded at Christiansburg. Ellis wasn’t at home but was expected back soon. Presently he came riding in, dismounted and shook hands with all and invited them to eat with him. One of the men said he had some business to discuss. “Come on in,” said Major with a hearty laugh, “I never let business inter­ fere with eating.” Edmundson said he too went in. They were neighbors. The agent lost no time in presenting his papers and told him it was a 30-day option for $40,000 on the mineral. Conversation stopped while the Major kept eating. Finally he wiped his mouth with a napkin, pushed his plate and the contract back without reading it and said, “I won’t sign for less than $50,000.” In the meantime there was a “boom” at Big Spring Depot, later Carnegie City (now Elliston). Big Spring Farm then belonged to Walter J. Biggs, John Will Barnett, and another Barnett. Possibly 500 acres in all were bought on terms of one-third cash and the balance in one and two years. Biggs gave up his brick house and built a nice frame one on the west end which he had reserved. John Will Barnett built a good house in Elliston. Several stores were built in town, in­ cluding a drug store and an opera house. Another Barnett moved to Roanoke, and his son, Warren, became half owner of the largest drug store. Biggs used part of his money to send his son, Walter, 59 �to VPI, and from there to a school in New York City where he became an outstanding artist. His daughter, Lucy, had a tutor, as had her brother. When about 15, she was sent to Hollins College, having never gone to public school. More than a thousand lots were laid off on the Biggs land. The original Barnett log house across from the spring, barns, pig sties, chicken houses, all log, were burned and rail fences hauled off. Time was running short. An auction was advertised, but only a dozen lots were sold. The “boom” had blown up. The post office and rail­ road station had been Big Spring Depot. The post office was changed to Carnegie City, but the railroad would not recognize the name. Major Ellis, who was born in Richmond, (his military title was com­ plimentary) came with his mother to what is now known as “Madison,” she having married a Peyton, and he inherited the farm. He went to school at VMI, and served in the Confederacy, represented the county for four years at Richmond, and married the youngest daughter of President John Tyler, so it was natural that the town be named for him. There are two television towers on the east end of Poor Mountain, which should give it some prestige. The south side is not as steep Barnett family and friends on a Poor Mountain picnic about 1890. John Will Barnett was the possessor of the long beard at right, according to Lee Pen­ dleton. 60 �as the north side. About 1905, Kent Lumber Company of Philadelphia bought up a large boundary of timber on that side and built a modern lumber yard and planing mill near Elliston. The lumber was hauled over the mountain. The company also bought lumber by the car load. After two or three years the plant burned. The Coles Terry family owned a lot of land on the south side, and it is now owned by his daughter, widow of Dr. Philip Moncure of Norfolk. There is a bold spring, the source of Laurel Creek, a favorite fishing stream for Roanoke sportsmen. It and other creeks make up the head of the South Fork of the Roanoke River. It is a beautiful stream when the rhododendron and laurel are in bloom. The spring and land around it was once claimed by both Terry and Barnett. Barnett died about 1900. He told his children to drop the suit. The road over the mountain has historical value. Mrs. William Madison, daughter of William Preston, in telling a farfetched story of Indians waiting along the road in front of her house to kill Wash­ ington, Andrew Lewis and her father, said “the Indians became discouraged and the chief of the party left his braves to go and look at the road over the mountain to see if they had used that road which was nearer but not as good as the one through the valley” (the pre­ sent Lee Highway). This was not true. Well authenticated tradition says this mountain road was used by Indians as ingress and egress over Poor Mountain, coming out down Dark Run. When Col. Andrew Lewis Jr., moved from the White House Plantation, formerly the Vause home, to his estate, “Longwood,” on Bent Mountain, he used this trail. The road was graded for wagons down the Brake in 1895, pro­ bably under the influence of John Will Barnett, who had cleaned up land on top of the mountain. It was improved in 1905 so lumber could be hauled to Elliston. It requires little maintenance as it is built on solid rock. Cars go up it almost every day. "Valley” Added to Society Name In keeping with the Society’s major area of interest, members voted on Feb. 15, 1972 to add the word, “Valley” to the title, making it the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Many Society members live in Salem, Vinton and other areas of Roanoke Valley, in addition to those in the City of Roanoke. 61 �A Visit to Bedford Six handsome Bedford County homes, ranging in age from almost 90 to about 190 years, were visited by two busloads of Roanoke Valley Historical Society members , and guests on a spring pilgrimage May 20, 1972. Two of the homes, Lochwood Hall and Fancy Farm, had been seen by the society on its first tour to Bedford. Despite the threat and occasional presence of rain, the Roanokers joined hundreds of other visitors in the first house tour conducted by the Bedford County Historical Society. Lunch was served by the Jefferson Woman’s Club at old St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, near Forest. Coming from Roanoke, they stopped in the City of Bedford, the county seat, to see Kingston, the J. W. Hayes home built by Dr. John Sale soon after the Civil War, and the Guy home next door, con­ structed by Judge Martin P. Burks in 1884. Judge Burks was dean of law at Washington and Lee University and later a judge of the State Supreme Court. A ceramic panel in the front wall places the completion date of the Burks home. The Hayes home was once occupied by the principal of Belmont Seminary and used as the school’s din­ ing hall. Rare wild flowers grow in a woodland garden behind the house. Mr. and Mrs. Eric Fessel acquired Fancy Farm, a landmark near the foot of the Peaks of Otter, in 1971 and they have undertaken an extensive restoration program. It was built by Andrew Donald, a Scottish merchant who settled at or near New London, probably soon after 1780. Owned for a time by the Kelso family who operated a nearby mill, it was also the home of Isaac Otey, father of Bishop James Hervey Otey, a founder of Sewanee University and first bishop of the Diocese of Tennessee. Union Gen. David Hunter spared the old brick house when his troops marched from Buchanan to Lynchburg in June, 1864. Bellevue, near Goode, about half-way between Bedford and Lynchburg, was built in three stages—the east side about 1790, the west half in 1825 and two wings were added between 1850 and 1870. Now owned by Miss Jane Henderson and Mr. and Mrs. Louis B. Houff Jr., the property was the site of Bellevue High School, a private school for boys, from after the Civil War until 1913. Originally owned by Robert Steptoe, it was once the property of James P. Holcombe, a law professor at the University of Virginia and a member of the Confederate cabinet. Lochwood Hall, a three-story manor house near Goode, has records extending to a grant of several thousand acres from King George II to William Callaway. Once known as Carlotta, it became 62 �Fancy Farm rests among trees at the foot of the Peaks of Otter. 1884 building date is on plaque at Judge Martin Burks home. New south entrance has been constructed at Lochwood Hall. 63 �Pilgrimage reaches side entrance of Bellevue. Lochwood Hall when it was purchased by the late Mrs. Charles Wise Bird in 1933. Her daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. James Ed­ ward Shank, live there now. Elk Hill, the home of Mr. and Mrs. James B. Hodges since 1928, was built by Waddy Cobb in 1797. It was the home of the Nelson family for three generations and Thomas Nelson Page wrote short stories while visiting there. A paneled hall and Adam mantels and other hand carved woodwork are features of the home. On the Perrowville Road near St. Stephen’s, Elk Hill is a fruit and beef cattle farm. 64 �The General Has A New Office Gen. James Breckinridge's law office is reached by a shady walk in Fincastle. A new shingle hangs outside a restored Fincastle law office and the sign, stating simply “James Breckinridge, Attorney at Law,” has con­ fused at least one Botetourt County woman. “Every time I go by, he isn’t in,” she told a friend. The law office of Gen. James Breckinridge, who lived from 1763 to 1833, has been handsomely restored by the Roanoke D.A.R. chap­ ter which bears his name. The office, dedicated on Sept. 10, 1972, occupies the northeast corner of the Botetourt County Historical Mu­ seum building behind the Courthouse. The precise location of the General’s office is not known but it is believed to have been in this brick building conveniently situated near the county records. Every effort has been made to furnish the office with such early 19th century fixtures as Jeffersonian shutters and bookcases, brass sconces patterned after those in the Governor’s Palace at Colonial Williamsburg, and a desk, wooden chair, barometer and settle, antiques from that period. Bricks from the courthouse which was destroyed by fire two years ago were used in the fireplace. Members of the Breckin65 �Old barometer and settle furnish corner of restored office. ridge family have loaned oval-bottomed candlesticks, books from the General’s library and andirons. The name on the shingle was copied from a bookplate. The Gen. James Breckinridge D.A.R. Chapter has spent more than $2,700 on the project. Gen. Breckinridge, an officer in the Revolution and the War of 1812, and a member of the General Assembly and of Congress, was the subject of an article in Vol. 7, No. 2 of the Journal. A leader on the frontier, he practiced law as an “intellectual pursuit,” charging 66 �a fee of only two shillings. When he died on May 13, 1833, he was buried at his home, Grove Hill, a few miles from Fincastle, which has since burned. The entrance to the law office and an old barometer and settle, beneath restored shutters, are shown in these photographs by Mrs. Winfred Hart, Jr. Rheumatic Recollections By Dr . E lmer Sm ith Madison College With the arrival of brisk winter winds and the chilled cold air we often hear the older residents complain of their recurring rheu­ matism. In years gone by many older men carried buckeyes or horse chestnuts in their pockets in the belief that such amulets would ward off the pains of rheumatism or arthritis. Some few still carry them, claiming they reduce the pain or prevent the ailment entirely. The horse-chestnut or buckeye has been perhaps the most popular folk cure related to the problem of rheumatism. Certainly it was a com­ mon practice throughout our region, although there were some vari­ ations in its use—such as the qualification that it had to be carried in the right hand pocket or that it should be worn on a string around the neck next to the person’s skin. With an ailment as common as rheumatism, one can be certain that there was a wide assortment of folk beliefs about its prevention, several follow: (1) If you wear a nutmeg around your neck it will prevent rheumatism. (2) Wear plain gold earrings in pierced ears to ward off arthritis and rheumatism. (3) Hang a piece of raw potato around your neck or women should place a slice of raw potato in the bodice of their dress. (4 ) Wear a strip of leather around the neck to prevent rheu­ matism. (5) To ward off the cause of rheumatism, place a sheet of rusted metal under the mattress of the bed. 67 �In addition to the numerous preventative folk methods, there were a wide variety of procedures which were believed to reduce the pain caused by the ailment. Perhaps the most common idea was the use of red flannel tied around the neck, but there were some other more acceptable ones, such as “drink plenty of corn whiskey!” The following methods of reducing pain were collected in our region: ( 1 ) Wrap a piece of copper around the painful areas. ( 2 ) Cow manure tied around the painful areas in a poultice brings relief. ( 3 ) Rub grease from a skunk on the knees and feet every day. ( 4 ) Drink a great amount of sweet milk. ( 5 ) Drink poke berry juice in small amounts each day. ( 6 ) Wear burdock root next to the body. ( 7 ) Drink a concoction of black snake root and corn whiskey. ( 8 ) Combine hot lard and buzzard grease and rub it on the afflicted areas as you would a salve. ( 9 ) Make a tea from burdock root, drink it hot three times a day. (10) Mix hog lard and camphor shavings and use it on the painful areas as a salve. (11) Rub the tallow from a pig’s foot on the troublesome areas. (12) Bathe the inflamed areas with a concoction of wine, sweet oil, and castile soap dissolved together in an earthen crock. Use the liquid warm. Those who were inclined toward a more mystical method used this old “witch doctor” technique which combines physical aspects, a ritualistic form and words from the Trinity. Involved was the fol­ lowing procedure: “Trim the fingernails on one hand, then trim the toe nails on the opposite foot. Reverse the procedure and gather the clippings. Take these to a knot hole in a tree (or drill a hole in the tree) and place the nail clippings into the hole. Replace the knot or plug up the hole and strike the area with a hatchet three times while saying the ‘High words,’ which are: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.” Readers must recognize that none of the above are recommended by the writer, they are merely an account of what some people in our region did in former times. You may know of others which could be added to our valley folklore, which is a growing collection of our re­ gion’s social and cultural heritage. 68 �ROANOKE VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Amor montium nos movet E dmund P. Go o d w in ............................ President Mrs . Roger W inborne .................................................... Vice President Arthur E llett ....................................................................... Treasurer J. R. Hildebrand ........................................................................ Secretary Mrs . J oel W il l is Ric h e r t ........................... ..........Executive Secretary Directors Raymond P. Barnes Miss Anna Louise Haley E. H. Ould C. P. Blair J. R. Hildebrand James D. Richardson John D. Carr Miss Nancy E. Himes Mrs. English Showalter Mrs. H. Powell Chapman Shields Johnson R. D. Stoner Mrs. John Copenhaver George Kegley Paul S. Stonesifer S. S. Edmunds Mrs. George Kegley David F. Thornton Arthur Ellett R. S. Kime James L. Trinkle J. T. Engleby III Mrs. H. P. Kyle William Watts B. N. Eubank Mrs. J. M. B. Lewis Jr. Mrs. Roger Winborne Edmund P. Goodwin Miss Nancy Logan James P: Woods Mrs. Edmund P. Goodwin Richard L. Meagher Robert W. Woody Jack Goodykoontz Leonard G. Muse Dr. J. C. Zillhardt �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society Summer 1972 Volume 8, Number 2 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />Benjamin Deyerle, Builder of Fine Homes<br />Roanoke County Barns of the 19th Century<br />Colonel George Plater Tayloe, a Builder of Hollins College<br />Where the Brethren Settled<br />Digging at Looney's Ferry<br />No. 1 Fire Station is Celebrated<br />The Remarkable Dr. Reid<br />The Old Gish Ordinary<br />Poor, Poor Mountain<br />Rheumatic Recollections Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Summer 1972 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_08_02_Summer_1972 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6350/JHSWV_09_01_1973.pdf bd6124cb85d1670130ac86a85d02acfa PDF Text Text JOURNAL o f tlie ROANOKE VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY V o lu m e N in e N um ber O ne �1973 -1974 CONTENTS Old Barns of Appalachia, by Henry Glassie I I I ............ ......,>, „ 4 ^ 1 New Books on Old Themes ................................................................... 13 Montane Virginia in the Revolution, by Andrew P. M ille r ....................................................................................14 Soldiers, Patriots Honored in Fincastle ................................... .......... 20 Roanoke Valley Medicine, by Dr. Warren M oorm an ............ .. .v . ... 21 Society Has New Downtown Gallery ...................41 Recollections of Ballad Collecting, by Fred K nobloch .......................... ..................................... ! ........... .... 43 Ephraim Vause Was Robbed ................................................. ............49 William Preston, Frontier Public Servant, by George Green Shackelford ................. .............................. .. 50 Alexander - Withrow Building, by Royster Lyle J r .............. ................... 54 Cherry Tree Bottom, Crossroads of the Centuries, by Patricia Givens Johnson ........................ .......................................... 63 Southview, Age 150, Replaced by Motel ........................................... 72 A Tour of the New River C oun try........................................................ 73 Two New Maps ................................. ...................................*................... 76 George K egley Editor of the JOURNAL The Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society, Volume Nine, Number 1. Published twice yearly by the Society at Box 1904, Roa­ noke, Virginia 24008, to chronicle the past and present of that part of the state west of the Blue Ridge. Single copy price for members, $1.50; for non-members, $2. The Society will be careful in handling unso­ licited material but cannot be responsible for its loss. �Old Barns of Appalachia By Henry Gl a s s ie III (Sketches by Mr. Glassie) By the Bronze Age, horizontal log construction, which had its origin in the northern European Mesolithic, was employed common­ ly throughout northern and central Europe; it was most usually found on a rectangular building—house, stable, or granary—with the door in one gable end. During the late Bronze Age the log houses of cen­ tral Europe and particularly Germany began developing away from the simple rectangular gable-door form, which was introduced from the Near East in the Neolithic, but it was preserved on various out­ buildings which were brought to America centuries later by the Penn­ sylvania Germans. From this ancient rectangular construction unit —usually in the mountains called a “crib” or a “pen” and here con­ sistently referred to as a crib—developed, partially in Europe and partially in America, most, if not all, of the traditional barn types found today in the Southern Mountains.' The fact that the barns of the Southern Mountains are traceable to the Bronze Age and beyond implies that the Southern Mountain culture, which could become a casualty of the war on poverty, is continuous not only with medieval but also with prehistoric Europe. The first barns of the Appalachian area were constructed of log after the Pennsylvania German fashion: the logs were frequently hewn and dovetailed at the corners; however, barns were often less carefully constructed than houses and the logs left in the round, un­ chinked and saddle notched (fig. 1). Although today in the moun­ tains there are abundant examples of old log barns and corn cribs are still occasionally constructed of log, during the past thirty years the older log barns have, in many cases, been replaced by frame ones of the same types. The rectangular log construction unit, still used in Europe as a granary, was easily adapted to the storage of maize and became the corn crib found throughout the Southern Mountains (fig. 2). The corn crib is the same form as the Pennsylvania one-level out-building; that is, rectangular with a gable or lean-to roof and the door in one This study of Appalachian barns first appeared in the Summer 1965 issue of Mountain Life and Work magazine and is used here with the author’s permission. The author of PATTERNS IN THE MATERIAL FOLK CULTURE OF THE EASTERN UNITED STATES, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1969, Dr. Glassie now is at the In­ diana University Folklore Institute. He was the first Pennsylvania state folklorist and he served on the faculty of Pennsylvania State University. �Corner-timbering of houses (left) and barns (right) on the same farms in Monroe County, Tenn., (above) and Albemarle County, Va. (Fig. 1) gable end, except that the corn crib rarely has the forward project­ ing room so commonly found on mountain smoke and spring houses. Recently corn cribs have been built in the traditional form of hori­ zontal slats; a half-timbering practice which logically succeeded hori­ zontal unchinked logs. Frequently the corn crib has a shed for the storage of farm equipment—“gear” or “plunder”—on one side if it has a lean-to roof (fig. 3) or, less commonly, on one or both sides if it has a gable roof. In the German areas of Pennsylvania the corn crib had another built by its side with a runway between the two producing the drivein corn crib (fig. 4). The corn crib with gear shed of log or frame is found throughout the Southern Appalachian region; whereas, the drive-in corn crib is found usually of frame in southeastern Pennsyl­ vania, central Maryland, and down the Valley of Virginia, and of log or frame in the mountains which surround the Valley. Neither the corn crib with gear shed nor the drive-in corn crib were originally designed for stabling and neither ever constitutes the sole barn of a farm. As the settlers moved out of eastern Pennsylvania the great 2 ��Pennsylvania barn (fig. 12) was found to be uneconomical for the frontier farm so sheds for stabling were added to the sides of the rectangular log construction unit producing the single-crib barn (fig. 5). The single-crib barn is closely related to the corn crib with gear shed but may be distinguished from it' by function (the sheds of the barn are used for stabling, the shed attached to the corn crib for the storage of farm equipment), by form (the crib of the barn is a more moderate rectangle than that of the corn crib with gear shed—ca. 16’ x 12’ as opposed to ca. 14’ x 5’—and may even be square), and by the fact that the crib of the single-crib bam is usually divided into two levels: the lower utilized for com storage, the upper as a hay loft or “mow,” whereas, the crib of the corn crib with gear loft has only one level (compare figs. 3 and 5). The single­ crib barn could be easily varied for the needs of individual farms and as a result of this flexibility and the fact that it is simple to construct and houses the stock, hay, and corn necessary for the operation of a small farm, it became common in the northern Alleghenies and along the Blue Ridge from Virginia to Alabama. Tobacco, the one cash crop for many mountain farmers, is most usually cured in a section of a crib barn or in an abandoned log house. Occasionally special barns are constructed for tobacco curing which have the same floor plan as the corn crib, although they are usually considerably larger and taller (fig. 6). In the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountain areas of North Carolina and Tennessee, Bland County drive-through corn crib. (Fig. 4) 4 �Single-crib barn in Highland County. (Fig. 5) tobacco is air cured so the logs are left unchinked. From the southern Virginia and North Carolina Piedmont eastward, where tobacco is flue cured, the logs are “daubed with mud” and the barn, although similar in appearance to the rectangular mountain one, may be built on a square floor plan with the door in the side as is consistent with English tradition. The simple Neolithic rectangular gable-door construction unit, was, in medieval Europe, varied into a form of stable found occasion­ ally of stone in German Pennsylvania and Maryland and frequently of log or frame in the Southern Mountains (fig. 7). The first level of the rectangular mountain stable is usually divided into three sec­ tions: two areas for stabling separated by a walkway which has ac­ cess to the hay loft above. Each of these three sections has a door of equal size leading to the outside, but it did not achieve its standard form, three doors into the first level and one into the second level all on the same side, until it became commonly built of frame. Sheds may be added to the sides of the stable, making it superficially simi­ lar to the single-crib barn. In Europe the log rectangle frequently had another one built side by side with it or facing it; the two were separated by a runway and joined by a common roof. This barn, the double-crib, was brought by the Germans to Pennsylvania where, although once common, it is now only rarely found. The double-crib barn is found throughout the Southern Mountains in a variety of forms which seem to have re­ sulted from three basic types. The least common of the three, double­ crib barn type I, is composed of two rectangular cribs facing each other so that the doors open into the runway (fig. 8). The rectangular 5 �Tobacco bam in Madison County, N. C. (Fig. 6) cribs of the double-crib barn type II are built side by side so the doors open to the front (fig. 9). It is in this second type that there is the greatest variation, for the cribs may be square as well as rectangular and the doors may open into the runway. In the third type of double­ crib barn, which is most common at the southern end of the moun­ tains, the cribs are built side by side, like those of the double-crib barn type II, but each crib is divided in half and has two doors opening into the runway (fig. 10). The first level of all the types of double­ crib barn is most commonly used for stabling and the second level, usually reached from doors opening into the runway, for hay storage. Although the double-crib barn is not commonly used for corn storage, frequently one crib will be used for stabling and the other for corn storage, in which case that side used as a corn crib is usually the smaller. The mountain double-crib barn may have large doors on the ends of the runway and a heavy threshing floor, as is usually the case in Pennsylvania, but more usually doors and threshing floor are absent (compare figs. 8 and 9). In the general area of the Blue Ridge and particularly the Great Smokies of North Carolina and Tennessee the log double-crib barn type II is found with a large frame loft overhanging in front and back or on all sides by means of the cantilever principle (fig. 11). In south6 �Mountain stable in Hampshire County, W . Va. (Fig. 7) eastern Kentucky similar barns may be found but there the loft is occasionally translated into log. This type was probably not developed in the mountains, but rather was brought down the Alleghenies from Pennsylvania, where similar barns may be very rarely found, and is traceable to a medieval German peasant house—the umgebindehaus— in which the ground level was of log for warmth and the upper level, usually of frame, overhung by means of the cantilever principle. In the great Pennsylvania barn2 the lower level, which is used for stabling, is built into a hillside, and the upper level, which over­ hangs in the rear—the forebay—and is reached by a ramp, is divid­ ed into three: two hay mows separated by a threshing floor (fig. 12). It was apparently developed in eastern Pennsylvania by building a log double-crib barn type II on a hillside with a stone basement under it as barns were often built in England, Germany and particularly in Switzerland. As the forebay is not essential to a log double-crib barn on a stone basement, it is likely that it was contributed by the umgebindehaus. In Pennsylvania and Maryland the great Pennsyl­ vania barn is most usually built of stone, brick or frame on a stone 7 �Double-crib barn, type I, in Washington County, (Fig. 8) basement and rarely of log on stone basement; in the Valley of Vir­ ginia, where it not only has a forebay but also a narrow overhang on the other three sides, and in the Alleghenies, where the forebay is usually supported by posts, it is most often built entirely of frame, although examples of log or frame on a stone basement may also be found. There is nothing in the Southern Appalachian region to com­ pare with the celebrated hex signs of southeastern Pennsylvania; yet, the barns of the Valley of Virginia are often painted white with green trim and green spheres on the doors or red with white trim and white stars or galloping horses on the doors. The great Pennsylvania barn is found commonly in the Valley of Virginia as far south as Roanoke County and very rarely as far south as northeastern Tennessee. Al­ though not well suited to small mountain farms, the Pennsylvania barn, usually of small proportions, may be found in the mountains sur­ rounding the Valley. The Southern Appalachian folk culture is characterized by more Pendleton County, W. Va. double crib barn, type II. (Fig. 9) 8 �Double-crib barn, type III, in Monroe County, Tenn. (Fig. 10) Double-crib barn with overhanging loft in Blount County, Tenn. (Fig. 11) than the preservation of what is archaic in other areas, for tradition­ ally based innovation is clearly reflected in the development of in­ strumental music and certain architectural forms which have achieved wide distribution. The four-crib barn, which was developed in south­ eastern Tennessee by placing two type II or III double-crib barns end to end, is composed of four cribs, usually used for stabling, separ­ ated by runways running from gable to gable and from side to side (fig. 13). In the older form of the four-crib barn, which is limited to the general area of the Great Smokies, the cribs are rectangular, the doors may open into either runway and the runway which runs from side to side may be wider than that running from gable to gable. In the later and more symmetrical form of the four-crib barn, occasion­ ally found in southeastern Kentucky, western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, through the Tennessee Valley and deeply into Alabama and Mississippi, the cribs are square, all doors open into the gable9 �to-gable runway, and the runways are of equal width. The four-crib barn is often found with one runway boarded up leaving only the gable-to-gable runway open. The resultant form is that of the transverse-crib barn (fig. 14) which was probably developed in the eastern Tennessee Valley, as there both the oldest log exam­ ples of the transverse-crib barn and the four-crib barn from which it developed may be found. The transverse-crib barn could be con­ ceivably related to the drive-in corn crib; however, unlike it each crib of the transverse crib barn is divided into two or three units, entered from the runway, which are usually used for stabling, although one might be set aside for corn storage. Like the four-crib barn, the trans­ verse-crib barn has a hay loft and often has sheds on the sides, which are features absent in the drive-in corn crib (compare figs. 4, 13 and 14). The transverse-crib barn, like the Pennsylvania barn, was de­ veloped in America from the ancient German double-crib barn into the perfect barn for the area of its development. The Pennsylvania barn is ideally suited to the rich rolling limestone lands of eastern Great Pennsylvania barn in Augusta County (Fig. 12) 10 �Four-crib barn in Sevier County, Tenn. (Fig. 13) Pennsylvania, central Maryland, and the Valley of Virginia in its capacity to shelter large herds and store great quantities of hay. The transverse-crib barn is equally well suited to the more prosperous farms of the mountain valleys, for under its roof can be stabled a moderate herd and stored large amounts of corn and hay. It has also been easily enlarged and adapted for use as a dairy barn as in eastern Tennessee where it often has large doors on the ends of the runway. Although not commonly found of log outside of its area of probable origin, built of frame it has spread recently north up the Blue Ridge, and at an early date it was carried throughout the Ten­ nessee Valley from where it spread south into Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana; west into Arkansas; and north through Kentucky into Indiana and Illinois. Transverse crib barn in Polk County, Tenn. (Fig. 14) 11 �Although it had parallels in Germany and Scotland, the type of barn which was brought from the East by the English never became common in the mountains. The English barn is composed of two stabling areas separated by a threshing floor on the ends of which are placed large doors (fig. 15). Its tripartite floor plan seems to indicate a relationship between it, the mountain stable and the dou­ ble-crib barn; in fact, the examples found along the Virginia-West Virginia border may be type II log double-crib barns translated into frame (compare figs. 9 and 15). In Germany this barn was built of stone or half-timber, in Scotland of stone, and in England, New Eng­ land, the tidewater South, and infrequently along the eastern slopes of the Virginia Blue Ridge of board over frame. It is difficult to tell whether the English barns in the Valley of Virginia, which frequently have a slight ramp, are of English or German origin; the fact that they bear a greater outward similarity to those found in Ohio than they do to those found in eastern Virginia or New England might, however, indicate a German origin. Occasionally it may be built on a bank with a stone basement as a result of influence from the Penn­ sylvania barn, but it never has the distinctive forebay. Realizing that all the barns of the Southern Mountains, with the exception of the English barn, were either introduced in final form by the Pennsylvania Germans or were developed from Pennsylvania German barns, the scholar should not be surprised that for a great number of Southern Mountain tales, some tunes, and for Southern 12 �Mountain dulcimers and pottery, the closest European parallels are found in those areas from which the Pennsylvania Germans Carney Further, a realization that a comparison of existing buildings with archaeological data reveals that the barns of the Southern Mountains are direct outgrowths of prehistoric antecedents may lead the scholar to imply prehistoric parallels for Southern Mountain tales or melodic scales. south of Pennsylvania. The log doub York and Adams counties, was not r< to as the log and frame barn in the pp. 29, 91-96). 3 The Pennsylvania Germans came from the Rhenish Palatinate, Swltserland. Bohemia, Silesia, Moravia, Saxony, Hesse, Wurtemburg and Alsace. New Books on Old Themes HOLLINS COLLEGE, An Illustrated History, by Frances Niederer. University Press of Virginia. $12.50. More than 300 photographs and a descriptive text by Miss Niederer, professor of art history, tell the story of a century and a quarter of growth from the Roanoke Female Seminary at Botetourt Springs to the Hollins College of today. Divid­ ed into seven sections for the college’s seven administrations, the boo nicely illustrates changes in the education of young women and how they live on campus. _ HHM| I JAMES PATTON AND THE APPALACHIAN COLONISTS by Patricia Givens Johnson. McClure Press. $7.95. Col James Patton, a tall man on the Virginia frontier, had to wait more than two cen­ turies after his 1755 death in the Drapers Meadows massacre to find became a colonel in Augusta County militia, member of the House of Burgesses and sheriff. But he was best known for his role in land development. His Woods River Company held the “ Great Grant for 100,000 acres stretching from Montgomery County to the Tennessee EDWARD MORGAN by Clarita H. Morgan, privately printed. $10. A sketch of the Rev. Edward Morgan, a pioneer Methodist minister m Southwest Virginia, has been written by Mrs. E. L. Morgan, Rt. 2, Radford the wife of a descendant. Morgan, who lived from 1751 to 1844 and was influenced by Bishop Francis Asbury, came into this area in the 1760s. He is credited with establishing the first Methodist class west of New River. He was buried at Page’s Meeting House north of Radford, which he helped build in 1773. 13 �Fighting Redskins, N ot Redcoats Revolution in Montane Virginia By Andrew P. Miller Of all the places in Virginia for which it might be said I have some special concern, none stirs me more than the spot upon which we now stand. I have, as many of you know, some roots here—although I have never lived in this place. My father is descended from the Har­ veys of Botetourt County. He is proud of that heritage, and so am I. In many respects, it is unfortunate that Fincastle and, indeed Botetourt County have remained largely undiscovered by so many Virginians. So much of the early history of our state and our nation transpired here, yet we have tended to concentrate our attention on events that took place to the east. Jamestown and Williamsburg attract the out of state visitor who wants to learn about the genesis of the nation. Yorktown marks the site of the concluding chapter of the Revolution. The plantations along the James illustrate the economic, social and cultural development of the new country. All of this is good, and Virginia has rightly profited by the preservation and enhancement of these shrines. Yet, here in Botetourt County stand the quiet and unpretentious monuments to the beginning of westward expansion. While the early settlers were establishing the coastal developments that would event­ ually become the great cities and ports of Virginia, tough-skinned adventurers were pushing westward into these mountains and establish­ ing the frontier. Even today, few Virginians realize that Botetourt County once stretched from the Blue Ridge mountains to the Mississippi River, with its uppermost boundary travelling northwestward across what we now know as Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The frontier was vast, unknown and unfriendly. Here in Fincastle was the seat of this tremendous territory, and from here began the exploration of that frontier. Few history books recount the role of what is sometimes called Montane Virginia in the War of the Revolution. The exploits of the colonial armies against the British occurred, in most cases, to the Andrew P. Miller, now serving a second term as attorney gen­ eral of Virginia, gave this address June 17, 1973 at the dedication of a monument commemorating the service of 26 soldiers and patriots of the Revolution who are buried in Fincastle Presbyterian Church Ceme­ tery. He noted that one of them, Robert Harvey, 19th Century ironmaker, was his great-great-grandfather. 14 �East, the Northeast and the South. Yet the contribution of Botetourt County in men and deeds deserves more than passing comment. The men of Botetourt were charged with the defense of the western frontier, and the enemy was less the British than the Crown’s unstable ally, the Indian. It is not generally known, for instance, that the Fincastle resolu­ tions, of January 20, 1775, preceded the Declaration of Independence by a year and a half. The resolutions were themselves a statement of independence from England. Three months later came the famous letter from the Freeholders of Botetourt to Virginia’s delegates to the First Continental Con­ gress, a message of defiance from the mountainous frontier which declared: “ . . . should a wicked and tyrannical ministry under the sanction of a venal and corrupt Parliament, persist in actions of injustice and violence towards us, they only must be an­ swerable for the consequences.” Patrick Henry’s admonition to George III two months later to profit by the examples of Caesar and Charles I was no less heroic than the letter of the Freeholders of Botetourt. Who knows, Henry may have been inspired by it. Certainly, the warnings are similar. In the same month in which the Freeholders’ letter was de­ livered to the Virginia delegation to the first Continental Congress, they addressed themselves to Colonel Andrew Lewis and John Bowyer. As your own brilliant historian, Robert D. Stoner, points out in his book “A Seed-Bed of the Republic,” the Freeholders were careful to pledge their loyalty to King George. Their quarrel was solely with the ministers of the Crown. The letter to Colonel Lewis and Bowyer is a ringing statement of the frontiersmen to whom liberty meant even more in the western wilderness: “My gun, my tomahawk, my life I desire you to tender to the honour of my King and country; but my Liberty to range these woods on the same terms my father has done is not mine to give up.” It is clear that the frontiersman was as fully aware of the issues which spawned the Revolution as his fellow colonists at Concord Bridge. What role did Botetourt County play in the long war for Ameri­ can independence? We can be grateful to historians like Mr. Stoner and F. B. Kegley for providing the answers in vivid and comprehen­ sive detail. Men from Botetourt volunteered for service in Washington’s 15 �army. They served in virtually every major campaign of the con­ flict and with distinction; the names inscribed on the marker we dedicated today are the testimony to their service in the first great cause of liberty. Botetourt men bore arms in that phase of the revolution known as the Southern Campaign in 1780 and 1781. Not only was the con­ tribution of the frontiersmen in the form of manpower at the breast­ works, but also in the form of protection for vital supplies for the colonial troops operating in the west and south. Moreover, Botetourt men were engaged in suppressing Tory uprisings in the west. Records show that Tory sympathizers were often placed in custody here in Fincastle. Indeed, there is a record here that has a virtually contemporary sound concerning one David Tate. Tate was fined one thousand pounds and sentenced to two years in jail on suspicion of being a Tory. Later, he was offered his freedom if he would agree to serve in the Continental Army for a period of 18 months. Today’s debates over appropriate penalties for draft dodgers and deserters echo those of the 18th century. The major task for the revolutionary soldier of Botetourt during the years of conflict was fighting the Indians. The British made good use of the Indians’ natural disaffection for the frontiersmen who had intruded upon the lush hunting grounds of the west. The Indians needed little persuasion from the soldiers of the Crown to join in the fight. As a result, the Botetourt militia found itself thoroughly occupied fighting not redcoats but redskins for much of the Revolu­ tion. Botetourt men marched against the Cherokees in October of 1776 in North Carolina, led by Colonel William Christian. In 1778, Botetourt men who had fought Indians in the west went further south to engage a British punitive expedition marching north from Georgia. Some men from this county fell at the disastrous Battle of Savannah. The final glory of the Revolution came, of course, here in Virginia at Yorktown. And it is known that colonial soldiers who called Bote­ tourt County home, stood proudly at Yorktown as Cornwallis sur­ rendered his sword. I have touched on only a few of the contributions made by Montane Virginia to the Revolution. They will live forever in history, on the stones in this quiet graveyard and on the marker we dedicate today. More than that, their memories are enshrined in the graceful relics they left behind in the years both before and after the Revolu­ tion. You who know Fincastle and Botetourt County so intimately can point to the homes of the patriots and their descendants. It is only regrettable that so many Virginians, as well as Americans from 16 �Monument honoring Botetourt men of the Revolution stands in Fincastle Presbyterian Church cemetery. other states, pass by unaware that such a wealth of history is all around them. The end of the war brought this county some difficult times. The colonial soldiers were pensioned by a grateful Congress, but the pensions were meager at best. The years that followed the Revolu­ tion were hard on many citizens of the county. Records show that in 1788 there were 742 judgments against debtors. The problems of war had been succeeded by the problems of peace. Nevertheless, 17 �in time, stability returned, and it was possible to prosper once again. A period of steady growth began west of the Blue Ridge. My own forebears were part of that growth. I mentioned the Harveys at the outset of my remarks today. The Harveys came to Virginia from Scotland and settled here. The names of Matthew Har­ vey and Robert Harvey are, of course, familiar to you. I am particu­ larly pleased today that Robert Harvey’s name is inscribed on this graceful marker, for it is from Robert Harvey that my own family descended. His daughter Anne, born of his second marriage, was my great grandmother. There are a number of stories about Robert Harvey, whose portrait, by the way, hangs in my parents’ home in Georgetown. I remember my father telling me that when Robert Harvey was 12 or 14 he developed an intense in­ terest in mechanical things. As the story goes, his mother discovered him playing hookey from school one day so that he could continue work on a small iron smelting furnace. I don’t know how severe his punishment was, but it evi­ dently did not deter his inter­ est in making iron. When he Robert Harvey reached manhood, he built the first smelting furnace west of the Blue Ridge. It is my understanding that it was located near Cloverdale, and during the years of the Revolution, so family tradition has it, its primary product was bullets for the rifles of colonial militamen. Harvey himself was a junior officer during the War for Independence and later became colonel. He married twice. His first wife was Martha Borden Hawkins, a widow. Her gravestone stands in the cemetery here. Late in life he married again, this time to Nancy Moore. Nancy bore him one child, a daughter named Anne who was to become my great grand­ mother. Unfortunately, Robert Harvey died shortly before Anne Harvey was born. Anne Harvey married William McElwee, and to this day my father proudly remembers his grandmother McElwee. She lived long 18 �enough for him to know her and to say with great pride today that he knew the daughter of a soldier of the Revolutionary War. I would think, however, that Matthew Harvey and his family are somewhat better known in Fincastle today, perhaps because Kyle House still stands. Polly Kyle was Matthew Harvey’s daughter. Her husband owned the store we know as Bolton’s store today, but in frontier days Kyle’s store was known as a place where pioneers stopped to buy supplies before continuing westward. There is one other of my ancestors who left her indelible mark on Botetourt County and Fincastle. In my family she is known simply, yet affectionately, as “Aunt Trigg.” You of Botetourt today may rec­ ognize her as Mary Harvey Trigg, the wife of Major Stephen Trigg. Aunt Trigg, and I’ll call her that because I know her better that way, was Robert Harvey’s daughter by his first marriage. She married Stephen Trigg, a successful merchant. Despite this, though, the home in which Stephen and Aunt Trigg were to live was built for her by her father. You know the house today as Hawthorne Hall. There is little doubt that Aunt Trigg was a legend in her time —as well as now. My father tells me that she was a great friend of Chief Justice John Marshall, and spent much of her time in Wash­ ington. She had no children, because within a few years of her marriage to Major Trigg, she was a widow. But she became an imposing figure in this community as the years of the 19th century unfolded. One of the favorite stories of Aunt Trigg is that she often rode into Fincastle to shop with two pistols strapped at her side. Whether she needed protection, or simply felt impelled to cow the townspeople into an attitude of respect has never been clear to me. She was a tight-lipped, rigid, inflexible Presbyterian. The Har­ veys, after all, had come from Calvinist Scotland. Late in her life, here in this very church, I am told, Aunt Trigg found herself listen­ ing to a new version of the Psalms one Sunday. She disapproved of any change in the service and, with her face tinged with outrage, she rose from her pew and stalked from the church. She never re­ turned, or so the story goes. My own pleasure this afternoon at being here in this churchyard where my forebears lie has led me to talk overlong about them. This observance, after all, is a tribute to all these gallant soldiers and patriots whose names are inscribed on this marker or on these ancient stones. I need not tell you that you have honored me by inviting me to take part in this dedication today. In a few weeks, we will be celebrating America’s independence once again. I suggest to you that this year, we, as Americans, have greater reason to observe the day with pride and humility than in the recent past. We have seen America at war, and we have once 19 I �more contributed the lives of American soldiers to the cause of peace. Our love of liberty has remained constant since the colonial soldiers and patriots we honor today fought for it in the Revolution. We have again discharged our debt to these patriots and have endured pain and sorrow in defense of the principle they established nearly 200 years ago. I would wish today that all Americans could visit this quiet churchyard. I cannot think of a more suitable spot in which to reflect upon America and its heritage. There are larger shrines, closer to the beaten path, where American citizens can stand close to history and savor it. But the mountains that line this beautiful valley pro­ vide a setting so much like that which the Montane Virginia patriots knew that it is almost as if we ourselves were transported back across the centuries. Nowhere could we be closer to our heritage than in this spot. Much has happened to America since the days of men like Andrew Lewis, Colonel William Fleming and the Harveys of Fincastle. We have endured many conflicts, but we have become a greater country than even the founding fathers imagined would be possible. Our democracy has evolved into a system which, despite its fallibilities, has proved itself to be a wellspring of freedom and a bright light burning for all who cherish liberty. To you of the Daughters of the American Revolution who have planned and made this new memorial to patriotism possible, I have only the highest praise. You have helped to rekindle the memories of these early Americans. You have caused to be erected a reminder to all who pass by of the contributions made by patriots. In so doing, you have erected a reminder of what patriotism means and what it should be. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak at this ceremony to­ day. The fact that I have ancestral ties here is far less important than the fact that you have provided this marker to the memory of all the patriots who lived here, who fought and died for liberty and helped to make America the greatest nation in the world. Your own contribution will be long remembered and appreciated. Soldiers, Patriots Honored in Fincastle Twenty-six Revolutionary War soldiers and patriots, buried in Fincastle Presbyterian Church Cemetery, were honored by the Bote­ tourt County and General James Breckinridge D.A.R. chapters at a bicentennial memorial service June 17, 1973. A monument was dedi­ cated by Mrs. Donald Spicer of California, president general of the 20 �National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution. The men of Botetourt honored: Robert Anderson, William Ander­ son, Thomas Bowyer, Jacob Carper, Nicholas Carper, James M. Early, Allen Gulliford, Andrew Hamilton, Matthew Harvey, Robert Harvey, Lewis Hickle, Patrick Lockhart, Samuel Merritt, Alexander McRoberts, John McRoberts, Samuel McRoberts, Jacob Mifford, John Moore, Ar­ thur Moseley, Jacob Peck, John Peck, Joseph Peck, Rev. Adam Smyth, Francis Thomas, Henry Wax Sr., and Feidt Wysong. Roanoke Valley Medicine by Dr . Warren Moorman Everyone should be interested in history for reasons best stated by quoting Ben Johnson, “The present state of things is the conse­ quence of the past; and it is natural to inquire into the sources of the good we enjoy and the evils we suffer. If we act only for ourselves, to neglect the study of history is not prudent; if entrusted with the care of others, it is not just.” This beautiful valley was first seen, so far as recorded history goes, by the expedition sent out from Fort Henry on Sept. 1, 1671, consisting of Thomas Batts, Thomas Wood, Robert Fallam and the Appomattox Indian Chief, Perecute. The German physician, John Lederer’s explorations in 1670, both first, second and third journeys, did not reach the Roanoke Valley. But 80 years later in 1750, Dr. Thomas Walker set out from his home “Castle Hill” in Albemarle County and came through the Roanoke Valley, passing on to the Holston River, the Cumberland Gap and across to eastern Kentucky. He returned through the Greenbrier area. On March 15, 1749 he wrote in his diary, “we went to the Great Lick on a branch of the Staunton (probably where the American Bridge plant was located) and bought corn of Michael (Malcolm) Campbell for our horses. This lick has been one of the best places for game in these parts and would have been of much greater advantage to the inhabitants if the hunter did not kill the buffaloes for diversion and the elks and deer for their skins.” Dr. Walker was a man of wide interests and like so many of his contemporaries, an expert in many fields. His exploration of western Virginia, Kentucky and West Vir­ ginia, and the careful notes that he kept added a great deal to the early knowledge and maps of these areas. His relations with the Jeffer­ son family were close. Not only was he Thomas Jefferson’s medical adDr. Warren Moorman, who is chief of staff at Lewis-Gale Hos­ pital, presented this medical history at a meeting of the Society on Feb. 20, 1973. It is based on his research for THE HISTORY OF LEWIS-GALE. 21 �viser, but he was the administrator of the estate of Jefferson’s father, Peter. On many occasions the author of the Declaration of Independ­ ence warmly expressed the high esteem which he held of Dr. Walker’s abilities, knowledge and character. The first physician to establish a permanent residence in the Roanoke Valley, from my investigation to date, appears to have been John Neeley. In 1752 he acquired 500 acres astride the terminal part of Peters Creek. About this same time Dr. Thomas Lloyd received a land grant in Botetourt County. He paid for his passage here as an indentured servant to Colonel William Preston. During some of his period of voluntary servitude he may have practiced as a physician. The record is clear that Dr. Thomas Lloyd was only 24 years old when he enlisted in Captain Preston s Company of Rangers July 7, 1755 as a surgeon. He served on the Shawnee Expedition. Lloyd was only 5 feet, 7 inches, in height, somewhat below the average for a soldier. In 1756, four years after Neeley’s grant, a warrant for 250 acres of land was granted under the king’s proclamation in 1763 by the following entry, Dr. Thomas Lloyd, of the Preston Rangers, July 1755, disbanded June 1756, surgeon under Preston June 1757 to May 1759, surgeon in same and other companies, and attended to the wounded and country people without fee or gratuity” . In 1762, six years before William Fleming left Staunton to come to thfe Roanoke Valley, an attachment was made against Dr. Thomas Lloyd’s estate and he was recorded as “no inhabitant” . He evidently left in some haste. His tangible property was listed as “one bottle rhubarb, one paper of rhubarb, 14 boxes of Lockyer’s pills, three bottles of Daffy’s Elixir, and spirits of Hartshorn, two papers of Senna, one paper of black brimstone, one galley pot and vial.” In 1783 Mary Lloyd, daughter of Thomas Lloyd, married Joseph Tate. Thomas Lloyd was a member of the militia in Captain May’s Company, 1783. There were no horses, cattle slaves or tithables listed for him. Details of the professional life of Dr. John Neeley have yet to be discovered, but enough is recorded to establish conclusively that he was a physician with an established home in the Valley as early as October 5, 1765, (Augusta County Court Records, Chalkley Vol. 3, p. 438) Dr. Neeley is recorded as having received several land grants in this area. Of particular interest are 500 acres astride the terminal portion of Peters Creek, plus another 165 acres from Nathan­ iel Evans in 1752. On December 18, 1753 he acquired 220 acres on Catawba Creek, adjoining land owned a short distance west of Amster­ dam in Botetourt County. In 1767 Robert Montgomery, constable of Catawba, reported that Dr. John Neeley was among those “who can’t show their property lines” . 22 �Dr. Neeley had several brothers, James, Robert, Andrew and William, all early settlers in this area. Until recent years a log cabin stood behind the handsome main house, Intervale, now the James White house, which was thought to be the home of Captain James Neeley. Segments of the Veterans Hospital Road are shown as Neeley’s Road and there are references to Dr. John Neeley being overseer of the road from his place to the courthouse, which would probably have been from his property in the Daleville-Trinity-Amsterdam area just west of Route 220 to Fincastle. A 1782 list of Captain James Neeley’s militia company includes people generally above and east of Peters Creek in the Great Lick area and included “John Neeley, doctor” , with property listed as “Horses 16, cattle 40, slaves 6 and tithables 2” . On May 13, 1774 Dr. John Neeley and Sarah, his wife, conveyed to William McClanahan 900 acres. John Neeley married a daughter of Daniel Evans, all living adjacent to the Evans Mill place on the Roanoke River. William McClanahan married Sarah Neeley, daughter of James Neeley, on March 7, 1769. They made their home where the First Presbyterian Church now stands. Public Service Claims, Commissioner’s Book No. 1, dated Wed­ nesday, July 10, 1783 for Botetourt County, lists warrants to Dr. John Neeley and to his brothers James, Andrew and William, for beef furnished troops in October and November of 1781 and early 1782. Dr. John Neeley is also recorded as “for salt furnished a guard and prisoners going to the ....................................... ” and on Wednesday, July 30, 1783, “ a warrant to John Neeley for ditto (beef) furnished the militia on their return from the Southern Expedition, cash allowed by the Court of Botetourt $159. Three warrants to John Neeley for beef and provisions furnished United States Commissary L5.0.7V&.” His records of Public Service Claims are broken down as “provided to” : “Militia, Army United States, Southern Expedition, and Prisoners of War.” Dr. William Fleming (1728-1795) was certainly the valley’s most celebrated early physician. His very dramatic and service-filled life is revealed by documents in the archives of Washington and Lee University, and photocopies of these in the Virginia State Library, Richmond. A number of references in Blanting’s “History of Medicine in Virginia in the 18th Century” , and a considerable amount of in­ formation researched and published by the Nancy Fleming Chapter of D.A.R. and by members of this society. Early on in my interest in the medical history of the Valley, Mr. and Mrs. Edmund P. Goodwin graciously shared information about William Fleming, indicating a breadth and depth of research I would not be able to accomplish. 23 �Briefly, let me remind you that William Fleming was born in Jedburgh, Scotland, received his early education at Dumfries and his medical education in Edinburgh, came to America in 1755, practiced medicine in Staunton, before coming to the Roanoke Valley in 1768, where he erected a home on land given to his wife by her father^ Israel Christian. This home became widely known by the name, “Bel­ mont” . This later became the David S. Read and Yelverton Oliver farms. Whether the existing log house on the Monterey Golf Course is Fleming s home or not is uncertain. It appears too well constructed for a dependency or slave cabin. Colonel Fleming’s burial plot lies upon a hill to the east. It was customary to have the family burial ground at a discreet distance from the home. Fleming quickly became closely identified with the civic life of this community and served as a colonel of the militia. In 1774 he was severely wounded in the arm and chest in the battle of Point Pleasant. The remarkable account which he wrote of his wounding, the wound itself, the care he gave it, and his recovery—he never really fully recovered—is an exciting story deserving retelling some day. His medical practice was extensive and successful. “His home was a social center and a minister’s haven.” So well known was he that many letters in the W & L archives are addressed simply: “Dr. William Fleming, Roanoke” . As pioneers moved west toward the Cumberland Gap, they frequently camped near a bold spring at the foot of Casper Hill. Among the many thousands who passed this way, many must have sought Dr. Fleming’s ministrations. The Fleming correspondence reveals a very intelligent and loving series of family relationships. Dr. Fleming was present at Buford’s when his old friend General Andrew Lewis died in 1781. The eight Botetourt militia companies which fought in the Battle of Point Pleasant were served by a medical board composed of Drs. William Fleming, Thomas Buford and Robert McClanahan. In the engagement against Chief Cornstalk, Captain McClanahan was killed, Buford and Fleming wounded. Killed were eight other officers and 44 men; seriously wounded were six other officers and 79 men. Preserved for historians, in addition to the journal of Dr. Fleming, is the inventory of William Fleming’s estate carefully recorded in beautiful quill penmanship which includes not only a listing of his lands, but all of the books in his library, 240 volumes. A couple of years ago I spent a weekend in the National Medical Library, Bethesda. Maryland, examining as many of these books as I could find there. Many had the former owner’s names written in, but I did not have time to examine all the titles that his inventory lists. None that I found were signed by William Fleming. Some might seem to have been a little out of date even in Fleming’s day, as for example Dr. Thomas 24 �Sidingham’s “The Whole Works of His Excellent Practical Physician” , published in 1679. Interestingly, many volumes had publication dates clustering in the 1750 to 1754 years. One went back to 1687 and another to 1702. Surgery tends to improve with each war, physic or what we now call general practice and internal medicine was almost entirely an empiric art, until the time of Louis Pasteur and the Scott­ ish Lord Lister. Drugs of those days were of very doubtful value. Fleming’s medical knowledge did not stagnate, as evidenced by, for example, the booklet published by Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia in 1781, “The New Method of Inoculating for the Smallpox” . It is of some medical interest to note that General Andrew Lewis had an uncle, Dr. William Lynn, a Scottish physician, who settled in Fredericksburg before 1745 and died there in 1758. General Lewis also had a brother who was a physician, Dr. William Lewis. Dr. William Lewis practiced at Urbanna and was preceptor for his cousin, Dr. Richard Lewis. Another point of medical interest in this area has to do with one of George Washington’s physicians, Elisha Cullen Dick. In 1799, Dr. Dick was summoned to Mt. Vernon, to find Washington in his terminal illness and under the care of Dr. Craik, a long-time friend of Washington. Soon thereafter Dr. Brown was summoned across the Potomac from Port Tobacco, Maryland. These three made frantic but futile effort to save their illustrious patient and Drs. Craik and Dick in a written statement to the Alexandria Times published a detailed account of these efforts to save the aging hero. In a separate letter written to Dr. Craik, a few weeks after Washington’s death, Dr. Brown declared his own impressions of the disease and spoke highly of Dr. Dick, whom apparently he had not previously known and pleaded his honor by saying, “Dr. Dick is a most sensible man. He uses his common sense instead of a book as his guide in his profession. He is no bigot. He says our professional practice needs great reform and that can be brought about only by each individual becoming a practical reformer himself. He proposes to put up his lancet forever and turn nurse instead of doctor, for he says one good nurse is more likely to assist nature in making a cure than 10 doctors will be with his pills and lancet.” Dr. Dick married Hannah Harmon of Pennsylvania. After the death of her husband, Mrs. Dick eventually came to live with her great-grand-daughter, who was the wife of the Rev. Robert M. Wharton of Big Lick. The Rev. Mr. Wharton lived at a place after­ wards owned by the Rev. Uriah Powers and later Captain Robert Bruce Moorman, just off Moorman Road. Mrs. Dick was a very elegant and cultured lady and devoted to her church and was listed as a mem­ ber of the Botetourt Parish. She died in 1843 in this house, still standing in the Melrose section of Roanoke. 25 �Magnolia, old Hart home on Orange Avenue at Williamson Road, considered first hospital in Roanoke Valley in 1870s. It was built by Zachariah Robinson as a tavern in 1837. Another early physician in this valley was Dr. James Catesby Madison, son of the first Episcopal bishop of Virginia. Dr. Madison lived on the Lick Road in what later became the old homestead owned by Jacob Diller and is buried on the hill nearby in what is known as the Old Madison Burying Ground. He practiced medicine in this region for many years and died an old man in 1842. He never married. Built in 1837 by Zachariah Robinson in the Town of Gainsborough, and still standing, is a 12-room brick house, which was operated for many years as a stagecoach tavern. When the Virginian-Tennessee Railroad began operation, making Big Lick its local terminal, stage­ coach trade dwindled. The tavern was too far removed to conveniently serve the railroad. After passing through a series of owners, Dr. Henry C. Hart purchased it in 1876 to open a Hydro-Therapy Inva­ lids Home. He continued this operation for about a decade before failing eyesight forced him to close the home. It has always, and rightly so, been accorded the honor of being Roanoke’s first hospital. It is interesting that a place for hydro-therapy would be established so far from a thermal spring; in fact, the only spring near “Magnolia” was a small one on adjacent land which fed a pond in front of the tavern. In 1884, Dr. John J. Moorman, long-time resident of Salem, a member of the board of trustees of Roanoke College and founder and first president of the Farmer’s National Bank, published a book, “The Virginia Springs”, which set forth in detail the chemical composition and the therapeutic virtues of all of the established Virginia springs. 26 �For 20 years he was physician in residence during the summers at The Greenbrier, White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. In 1882 the Norfolk & Western published a booklet, “Tourist and Excursion Guide to Summer Homes in the Mountains of Virginia on the Line of the Norfolk & Western Railroad.” This booklet points out that the N & W passes through what is well known as the Spring Region of Southwest Virginia, a favorite for summer resorts owing to the salubrity of the climate and its altitude above tidewater, both insuring an invigorating and recuperative atmosphere during the warm summer months. Because of multiple springs in a poorly drained, often swampy region, Big Lick rather early acquired a reputation for having more typhoid and other fevers than was accepted as customary and inevi­ table in the 19th century. An article in the Virginia Medical-Surgical Journal, January 1855, by Otis F. Vance, M.D., of Granville County, North Carolina, is entitled “Sketches of the Endemic Diseases of the Roanoke Valley of Virginia and North Carolina” . In this paper he describes a re­ mittent fever which has a sudden onset, considerable malaise, ach­ ing, chills, fever and prostration. The disease described sounds like influenza in its several viral variants. When the Town of Big Lick was incorporated by Act of Legis­ lature on February 28, 1884, one of the councilmen named in the charter was Dr. James McGavock Kent. He is said to have been the first physician in the town. Dr. Kent was the son of Jacob and Mary Buford Kent. He was born at Edge Hill, Montgomery County, in 1825. Dr. Kent is described as a man of fine appearance, always immacu­ late in dress, usually wearing a frock coat and silk hat, even in his country practice. He received his education at the University of Vir­ ginia and took his medical degree from the University of Pennsyl­ vania. He married Lucy Neal Oliver on August 15, 1854, daughter of Yelverton and Catherine Mitchell Oliver. Yelverton Oliver came into possession of part of the farm formerly owned by Colonel William Fleming, known as “Belmont.” Dr. Kent lived first in Old Lick, in the house later known as the Stock Yard Hotel, just where the rail­ road crosses Lynchburg Avenue. Dr. Kent later built a large com­ modious frame dwelling on a ridge west of Commerce Street in Big Lick; the house stood between the railroad and Centre Ave­ nue, N.W. During the War-Between-The-States, Dr. Kent attained the rank of major. He became ill from exposure and had to come home; he never really recovered from the effects of it. His health was poor through his remaining years. He had other physicians associated with him for varying periods of time. In spite of his poor health, Dr. and Mrs. Kent were the parents of 12 children. 27 �Dr. Thomas served Dr. Kent as an apprentice, assistant or part­ ner for a year or two. Dr. Holly is said to have been a very dapper young man, popular with the ladies. Dr. George S. Luck came to Big Lick soon after it was incorporated in 1874 and formed a partnership with his cousin, Dr. Kent, who had an office on the second floor in an old building on the corner of Salem Avenue and Commerce Street, known as Hunter’s Store. Dr. Luck afterwards built an office (one room) on the corner of his lawn at his home where the (old) Lewis-Gale Hospital now stands. After Dr. Kent’s death early in 1882, Mrs. Kent advertised her home to Tidewater visitors during the summer of 1882. Mrs. Kent’s home “will accommodate 20 persons at $7.00 per week and $25.00 per month. The grounds are large and full of shade and no convey­ ances are necessary due to closeness to the Big Lick Depot.” Mrs. Kent died in 1912. Dr. George Simon Luck was born on a large farm near Bufordsville (now Montvale) and enlisted as a private, Company “A” , 2nd Virginia Cavalry Regiment, known as “Clay Dragoons” , when he was only 16. Dr. Luck attended Richmond Medical College and after graduat­ ing he was an “intern” in Washington College, Baltimore, Maryland. Captain R. B. Moorman’s daughter, Lula, played the foot-pedal organ in the Union Baptist Church of Big Lick and since Dr. Luck’s father was a Baptist minister, he naturally attended this church. The doctor was invited to join the choir and in a short time a friendship was formed with the organist, which culminated in their marriage. They lived first in a frame cottage at the corner of 3rd (Roanoke Street) and Luck Avenue. They later built a much more commodious brick resi­ dence on the southwest corner of Church Avenue and 3rd Street, liv­ ing there until his death in March 1911. Dr. Luck had an extensive practice; his patients felt that he was a friend first and then a physician. During his long and honored life he gave unstintingly of his time and means to the First Baptist Church, of which he was for many years a deacon. The Medical Society of Virginia listed the following physicians as practicing in this area: Dr. J. T. Alexander of Salem, 1855 (year elected to membership in the Society); Dr. John B. Baskerville, Roa­ noke, 1871; Dr. Charles B. Griffin, Salem, 1873; Dr. J. D. Kirk, Roa­ noke, 1885; Dr. A. Z. Koiner, Roanoke, 1887; Dr. R. H. Latane, Amster­ dam, 1883; Dr. J. T. Lecato, Amsterdam, 1884; Dr. George S. Luck, Roanoke, 1873; Dr. Jacob K. Simmons Obenshain, Botetourt County; Dr. George T. Walker, Gish’s Mill, 1875; Dr. George T. White, Cave Spring, 1885; Dr. Oscar Wiley, Salem, 1873. There were two physicians in Fincastle: Dr. Cyrus Doggette, 1875; Dr. G. R. Godwin, 1973. One doctor in Buchanan was Dr. Edwin N. Wood, 1878. 28 �In 1885 the 16th annual session of the Medical Society of Vir­ ginia was held at Alleghany Springs, later Crockett Springs and now Alta Mons. Practically every physician at this meeting arrived at Alleghany Springs on the N & W Railroad. Dr. Oscar Wiley of Salem was president of the state society and presided at all sessions. Available records do not permit a detailed study of injuries which occurred during the construction of the N & W. It may be that these records were lost in the N & W office fire of 1896. In the early decades physicians were available at key points along the N & W line to receive accident cases, but no systematic arrangement for medical care existed until the Surgical Department of the railroad was formed in 1895. Whether or not the tragic head-on collision of the two N & W trains in Thaxton in 1889 exerted any influence is not known. The re­ cords clearly reveal that damage suits from actual and alleged in­ juries were becoming more prevalent and claimants’ lawyers and cooperating doctors were wringing very considerable amounts of money out of the railroad following the depression of 1893. When the N & W decided upon a company surgical department, they looked among the physicians then in Roanoke and it was logical that they should select Dr. Joseph A. Gale as the first chief surgeon. A native of Norfolk, his father sent him to sea for a year to get the “wildness out of him.” Dr. Joseph Gale learned military surgery in the tents and temporary buildings of the Chimbarazo Hospital, Church Hill, Richmond, during the War-Between-The-States. He had also been authorized to attend class at the Medical College of Virginia. He com­ pleted his studies and graduated from Bellevue Medical College in Dr. Joseph Gale Dr. J. Newton Lewis 29 �New York, 1866, initially coming to Roanoke only to visit a friend who lived in Catawba Valley. Dr. Gale liked what he saw in the Cave Spring village and settled there, building up a flourishing practice. Initially, he practiced from a rented room. Seven years later he was able to build a commodious brick home, which still stands and is occupied by an unrelated individual whose first name is Gale. With the completion of the Shenandoah line and its junction with the N & W at Big Lick, Dr. Gale saw that Cave Spring would not grow and Big Lick would so he moved his office to Big Lick in 1881. Dr. Gale had been in Roanoke four years when Dr. Arthur Z. Koiner, a graduate of Roanoke College, received his M.D. from the University of Virginia in 1875. Dr. Koiner was invited to join Dr. Gale in practice. Initially, they shared office space near the corner of Salem Avenue and Jefferson Street, my information being that it was diagonally across from the old National Business College in a building about where the Western Union telegraph office is now located. Dr. Gale clearly envisioned the potential of Roanoke. In 1881 he constructed the first brick business house on the southeast corner of old Franklin County and Valley (Commerce or Second Street, S.W.) where it intersected with Salem Avenue, the only named street in the village of 500 persons. On the first floor, a pharmacy occupied the front of the building and the office of Drs. Gale and Koiner was in the back. The second floor was the Gale residence for many years. This building was called the Gale Block and the pharmacy, Koiner & Gale. It was out of this office that Dr. Sparrell Simmons Gale first commenced the Roanoke phase of his surgical practice. During the 1930’s and 1940’s, Fox & Paitsel Drug Store occupied this property. About 20 years ago it was demolished to make a parking lot for the Ponce de Leon Hotel. Dr. Koiner’s association with Dr. Gale lasted 12 years, until Dr. Koiner’s death after a short illness on March 22, 1893. The interim between graduation from the University of Virginia and his coming to Big Lick was occupied by a year of study in Vienna and another two years’ teaching and practice at the Medical College of Virginia, where he was lecturer on materia medica and therapeutics. After coming to Bib Lick in 1878, he was elected a fellow of the Medical So­ ciety of Virginia and attended annual sessions in 1878, ’86, ’89, ’90 and ’92. He was elected vice-president of the Society in 1892 and would almost surely have become president had he lived another year. The deepest snow in the history of Roanoke fell December 16, 1893. It was 33 inches, up to a horse’s body and it caused great disaster. The roof of the Norfolk & Western Shops caved in and many men were injured. Dr. Koiner rushed to their aid. He worked day and night, exhausting himself and contracting a cold which “settled in his kid30 �neys” and in March 1893 he suffered an acute attack at 5 o’clock in the afternoon and at 11 o’clock the next morning died at the age of 39. Edmund P. Goodwin in the Winter 1969 Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society describes an interesting set of surgical instruments made by Weiss of London which belonged to Dr. Koiner and were graciously given by Judge Oscar Ogburn Efird, of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, his son-in-law. In January 1882, the first year of Roanoke’s incorporation, small­ pox and typhoid became so prevalent that a building was set aside to house and isolate those so unfortunate as to contract these diseases. A Board of Health was formed in the Spring of 1882, consisting of Dr. A. Z. Koiner, J. W. Webb and S. W. Jamison. Free vaccinations were offered all residents and participating physicians were paid 25c for administering the vaccination. In January 1883 a house-tohouse program of smallpox immunization was ordered. An epidemic broke out in January 1883 in Salem, causing the two municipalities to cooperate in establishing an isolation house at Buzzard’s Rock. In 1884, Roanoke established two health control organizations, a Committee of Health and a subservient Board of Health. The latter was instructed to “attend all cases of smallpox and to treat prisoners and the destitute.” Dr. Henry V. Gray was appointed the city’s first coroner by the governor, a post he held until 1894. In 1910 the City Council of Roanoke unified functions in a Health Department. The Rebekah Sanitarium was established in 1889-1890 by Dr. Charles G. Cannaday of Floyd County. It was the first surgical hos­ pital in Roanoke. After practicing in Roanoke for a few years, Dr. Cannaday purchased a private residence, 121 Elm Avenue, S. W., and remodeled it with skylighted operating room and beds for about 25 patients. This did not meet with the approval of the resident phy­ sicians and he was refused membership in the Roanoke Academy of Medicine, the charge being “the unethical practice of advertising his hospital” . He was active in the Medical Society of Virginia and had a strikingly long biographical sketch in the Medical Society of Vir­ ginia Annals. When the profession realized that Dr. Canaday was filling long felt needs in the community, their differences were settled and he was identified with the Society. He continued the operation of the Rebekah Sanitorium until his death in 1908. Then it was in charge of his assistant, Dr. J. C. Burks. Two years later Dr. Burks established the St. Charles Hospital, and the institution founded by Dr. Cannaday ceased to exist. Dr. Bittle C. Keister opened a private hospital, located at 22 Seventh (Day) Ave., shortly after the Rebekah Sanitarium was founded. 31 �This was operated with some degree of success for only a few years. Dr. Keister is said to have been the first citizen of Roanoke to own and operate a “horseless carriage” (Med. Annals) Preceding Dr. Cannaday’s private hospital by a few months was the Kings Daughters’ “Home for the Sick,” started in 1888 and re­ located and reopened February 4, 1892. This was initially established in a house at the corner of 5th Street and Campbell Avenue, S. W., but relocated in a house at 526 First Street, SE, at Nelson Street near Tazewell Avenue. The Kings Daughters’ Hospital Association officers were Mrs. S. W. Jamison, Mrs. J. Allen Watts, Mrs. G. H. Henderson, Mrs. R. S. Koehler, Mrs. George W. Gravett and Mrs. Bringham. The leading physician interested in the enterprise was Dr. R. G. Simmons (not listed by the Medical Society of Virginia). It was rather primi­ tive and austere even in its day, but its six beds were filled and soon a waiting list formed. Cots, sheets, furniture and linens were donated by citizens. Joseph Imhoff made much of the equipment. Fracture devices were “made with his own hands” . Its rates did not permit any surplus growth and development, being $1.50 for the first day of hospitalization and $1 for each day thereafter, or $6 per week. If one anticipated long hospitalization, they even provided a yearly rate of $300. Since Kings Daughters was more of a home for the sick than a hospital, effort continued to secure a first-class hospital for Roanoke. In 1888 the Roanoke City Hospital obtained a charter, with three classes of members— charter, life and annual. One hundred dollars would entitle the contributor to a life membership. Every contribution of $5,000 would endow one bed for an adult and $3,000 for a child, as well as have one patient at a time in the general ward. The directors were T. T. Fishburn, D. S. Meadows, Bushrod Rust, C. Markley, Joseph H. Sands, William G. Evans, Thomas Lewis, James M. Harris, Alexander Pope, A. S. Asberry, J. Allen Watts, Anthony Sauter, Joseph T. Engleby, Jr., R. Hawthorne and W. P. Moomaw (Charter Book No. 1, p. 166 and Charter Book No. 2, p. 262). Eventually $25,000 was raised by private subscription, and the Roanoke Gas and Water Company agreed to give to the Roanoke Hospital Association land near Crystal Springs. On March 1, 1893 ground was broken to start erection of this new hospital on the west side of Mill Mountain. The booming business bubble in Roanoke and across the nation began to falter and by late spring and early sum­ mer banks across the nation experienced ruins and failures, forcing generous citizens who had made pledges to the hospital to set these aside until more urgent obligations were discharged. Construction was under way; the walls of the hospital were not complete and the building had no roof when construction had to be stopped. The situa32 �Old Roanoke Hospital started before 1900 at foot of Mill Mountain. tion became so bad that City Council endeavored to relieve the situa­ tion by hiring men to work on the city streets at 80c per day. For lack of funds, the city schools were forced to close in March 1894. President Grover Cleveland called the Congress into special session to deal with the panic. The shell of the partly finished Roanoke Hospital stood through­ out the rest of this decade, where Roanoke Memorial now stands. Interested citizens, notably Tipton P. Fishburn, banker and lay minis­ ter, continued to seek ways to finish this hospital. Finally on December 27, 1899, the N & W Railway announced in the after-glow of Christmas, that in cooperation with the Roanoke Gas and Water Company the build­ ing would be completed and the railroad would pay all bills and take title to the property. A grand opening celebration was held June 30, 1900. Dr. Ben C. Moomaw was physician-in-residence, a Miss Walker was nursing superintendent, and two orderlies were on duty, one working a 12-hour daylight and the other a 12-hour night shift. This building had a partially above-ground limestone foundation with two brick encased floors above this and a multi-dormered roof. A broad inviting porch encircled the first three floors. Newspaper accounts described the building as follows: “ On the ground floor was seen the boiler room, laundry, and cots reserved in perpetuity for sick colored employes of the railroad. The first floor contained six private rooms, chart and drug room, and an operating 33 �room brilliantly lighted by two powerful 40-candle power bulbs with an Arnold sterilizer, bandage and instrument cabinets, etc. This floor was furnished by Catholic, Jewish and other religious organizations (including many members of St. John’s Church), and students of Virginia College and other institutions of learning. On the second floor were three wards having six beds each, costing a patient $5.00 per week. The fourth floor was turned over to the nurses and nursing school. One hundred and ninety patients were admitted the first year, mostly suffering from typhoid fever and its complications. The in­ come from the first year’s operation was $7,850 with expenses of $7,602. The Norfolk & Western contributed $500 per annum and the City $1,000.” About this time, the rumor grew that the N & W was selling the building to Mrs. Thomas Fortune Ryan, wife of a Virginia-born New York millionaire who was a sort of “lady bountiful” . She proposed to turn it over to the Roman Catholic Church, as indeed she surely would have, since it was her gift that made St. Andrews Orphanage possible. T. T. Fishburn again came to the rescue of the hospital, offer­ ing to contribute $5,000 in cash if $15,000 were subscribed by Roanokers. (Mr. and Mrs. W. A. Glasgow, Mrs. J. H. Earman, Mrs. S. W. Jamison and Mrs. J. G. Brughman, also gave unstintingly over the years to this institution.) Mrs. Ryan, sensing little local enthusiasm for her plan, withdrew her offer and somewhat later the railroad gave the title which it held to the Hospital Association. Roanoke Hospital continued to grow and in 1908 treated 477 patients, of which 378 were discharged as cured, 39 improved, 7 died, and 17 carried over in 1909. The total budget for the hospital in 1908 was $15,718; $9,902 of this was paid by patients. N & W’s initial $500 annual donation had grown to $1,700, while the City of Roanoke continued to contribute $1,000 annually. In 1924 the Flickwir Memori­ al Unit was built and equipped by the late D. W. Flickwir at a cost of about $100,000. The first ambulance in Roanoke belonged to Roanoke (Memorial) Hospital. It was purchased from a Philadelphia firm at a cost of $485. It was paid for with contributions and was delivered to Roanoke at N & W expense. It was painted yellow and had red letters on the sides reading SMALL POX — DANGER. It was kept in W. H. Horton’s livery stable. The full story of the continued growth of Roanoke Memorial Hospital should make fascinating reading. Salem had a hospital for about a half-dozen years of the first decade of the" century. Drs. Nolan and Ford, neither of whom held membership in the Roanoke Academy of Medicine or the Medical Society of Virginia, acquired the house which had been the home of Judge William M. Barnitz at College Avenue and Calhoun Street, 34 �and set up a hospital. Leo Denit informed me that they were “more or less run out of town” . I do not yet know where they came from or where they went upon leaving Salem. Considering the increasing industrialization of Roanoke and the rapid construction of new buildings, it is not surprising that many injuries occurred. The location of Roanoke City Hospital in the Crystal Springs area seemed a little too remote for accident cases occurring in the shops of the railroad and the iron works. A large percentage of the cases admitted in the early days of Roanoke Hospital were highly contagious diseases—smallpox, typhoid and diphtheria. Ad­ mission for non-contagious diseases and surgery seemed undesirable. An open staff policy was followed, but this first Roanoke Hospital found it difficult to maintain a sound financial position. As historian Raymond Barnes stated, “In the early 1900’s Roanokers were not yet ‘sold on the idea’ of a public hospital.” Dr. Hugh H. Trout, a native of Staunton, completed training as a surgeon in Baltimore and located in rapidly growing Roanoke. He saw at once what was perhaps less obvious to older residents. Roanoke needed more adequate hospital facilities. At this same time another young surgeon, Dr. Sparrel S. Gale, the son of Dr. Joseph Gale, joined his father in practice. Both of these men viewed Roanoke Hospital as too far from the population center of Roanoke and probably both felt that a public hospital would not offer them as much opportunity as would a private hospital, which they could make more quickly respon­ sive to new medical techniques and improvements. The growing middle class of Roanoke had outrun the growth and adaptability of its charitable hospital. Both Dr. Trout and Dr. Gale, being energetic and determined men, must have realized from the start that they could not enter a joint venture without one becoming secondary to the other. The com­ petition which developed between Trout’s Hospital and the LewisGale Hospital can only be viewed as beneficial to the Roanoke Valley and its people. Because Dr. Trout selected two very well built homes on Franklin Road and joined them together, his hospital was about a year earlier opening than was the Lewis-Gale. Trout’s Hospital opened in 1908 with 40 beds. He had a clinical laboratory. On May 13, 1914 a new charter provided for the erection of a new structure and the training school for nurses was opened. This original building of 1914 had three additions, all of brick and fire­ proof, growing to 151 beds and 15 bassinets. The hospital was equipped with diagnostic x-ray and radiation therapy, a laboratory and cancer clinic, and had a training program for interns and residents. Jeffer­ son Hospital was located at 1301 Franklin Road, with the home for 35 �Jefferson Hospital nurses located just around the corner on Allison Avenue. For many years the officers were Dr. Hugh H. Trout, president, and Dr. George B. Lawson, vice-president. Both hospital and school of nursing closed during World War I when Drs. Hugh Trout and A. P. Jones enlisted in the armed services. The student nurses transferred to Women’s Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland. Between 1914 and 1965, a total of 658 nurses trained at the Jefferson Hospital. On Page 360 of Barnes’ “A History of the City of Roanoke” is a paragraph fascinating in unrevealed implications entitled “Antag­ onism Amongst Physicians,” it states “The age of the individual had not passed (1901). In no profession was jealousy more rampant than among physicians. Some formed into cliques to discredit the others. Two or three newcomers actually left Roanoke because of the hostility encountered from their brethren here. Most physicians were deter­ mined, willful men who brooked no opposition from the patient, druggist or fellow doctors. In consequence, several became such characters that their belligerency was widely known and tolerated. One either liked his physician to the point of utter obedience and respect, or one had nothing to do with him. On the other hand, the most belligerent physician was usually the one of high character, skillful and obliging, but professional jealousy or dislike was only faintly hidden or suppressed.” In spite of these jealousies, the physicians of Roanoke were able to meet in May 1902 (as 19 had previously done in 1890) to dis36 �Old Lewis-Gale Hospital about 1910. cuss a fee schedule. Office visits were raised to $1 and $1.50, and night visits to the home were $2 to $3. A forerunner of the Blue CrossBlue Shield was organized by shopmen as a result of this new fee schedule. They established a general fund to which each paid a cer­ tain sum weekly, from which necessary medical expenses were paid. Two physicians, Dr. A. S. Austin and Dr. S. A. Draper, for a time entered into a contract with the shopmen. Such “contract physicians” were restricted for a time from membership in the Roanoke Academy of Medicine. Dr. Walter S. Slicer owned and operated another private hospital in the life of early Roanoke. This was located in the old Eagles Home, the site of the present National Business College. This was in existence only a short time. When the Shenandoah Hospital was opened Dr. Slicer was one of the founders. Dr. Joseph Gale’s surgical career commenced when the skill of a surgeon was measured by the time it took to amputate a leg or an arm. Dr. W. R. Whitman’s career spanned the decades when deliberate speed was the order of the day. Now a surgeon s operating speed is mentioned only after carefully noting the gentleness and finesse with which he handles tissue, the sureness of his diagnosis, preopera­ tive preparation of the patient and operative plan, and his ability to deal with contingencies. We have gone from a period of conserving blood by operating in such great haste that excessive loss could not occur before the wound was again closed to the present when blood loss is tabulated by weighing sponges and in many situations is replaced virtually cc. by cc. 37 �The surgical career of the senior Drs. Whitman and Trout span­ ned half a century which saw surgeons move from horse hair, heavy linen catheters and silk sutures and the most crude, poorly stand­ ardized, and undependable catgut sutures to almost totally inert synthetic sutures on “ atraumatic” needles in which the sutures are swagged in such a manner that the needle holes are no longer than the suture which rests in it. Their careers also saw anesthesia develop from open drop ether with its sometimes physically violent induction period to the safety and ease of intravenous Pentothal with which patients very often go to sleep with a momentary smile. When Lewis-Gale opened its doors, schools for training nurses were limited to Virginia’s largest cities, Richmond, Norfolk and Char­ lottesville and these had not such a very long history. The Medical College of Virginia dated back to the War-Between-The-States. At the turn of the century, hospital nursing, such as it was, tended to be rather primitive, and many of these women had better intentions than techniques. For a long time male patients were timid about having female nurses bathe and minister to them, though there is little evidence that female nurses had any reticence once the pro­ priety of the situation was established. Male nurses, such as there were, were esteemed more for the strength of arms and back than strength of mind, the latter some­ times slightly clouded by a few drams of spiritus fermenti from the drug room. The fact that Florence Nightingale worked 20 hours a day for a couple of years in Crimea was not lost on the administrative staffs of hospitals, and in the early days both graduate and student nurses lived and worked in a nearly monastic-life pattern. Before accreditation of nursing schools it was said that female nurses, for the most part unmarried or childless widowed, middle aged, and very kindly, “worked like slaves and had about as much scientific training.” There was something ennobling about long hours and backbreaking work, particularly when it was done cheerfully for a monetary pittance. A charter was granted the St. Charles Hospital Training School on October 23, 1913. This was located on Mountain Avenue, S. W., very near its intersection with Park (Fifth) Street. It was operated not only as a training school for nurses, but as a nurses home under the direction of Dr. J. C. Burks, as president, Lelia Burks, secretary, and Dr. D. C. Burks as trustee. This institution ceased to operate about 1932 and the building has been remodeled and is now used as an apartment house. The Veterans Administration Hospital was begun January 16, 1934 on a beautiful 600-acre tract of land in what was still Roanoke County, halfway between Roanoke and Salem. It was opened for patients 38 �in 1935. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited the facility and made the dedicatory address. A charter was granted the Gill Memorial Hospital in 1926. On October 29, 1931 the present building opposite Elmwood Park on Jefferson Street was opened. It was named as a memorial to Charles Biggs Gill, brother of Dr. Elbyrne Gill, the physician who founded it and remained in charge until his death in 1966. Gill Memorial for many years was the only hospital in Virginia devoted entirely to the treatment of the ear, eye, nose and throat. Yearly postgraduate clinics are held for the medical profession, and these are attended by phy­ sicians from throughout the entire South and nearby states. Burwell Memorial Hospital was established in 1915 by members of the Negro medical profession of Roanoke and the vicinity and named in honor of Dr. I. D. Burwell, an early Roanoke physician. The first trustees were Drs. S. F. Williman, J. H. Roberts, John B. Claytor, L. C. Downing, J. C. Cooper, E. L. Beckler, Albert F. Brooks, Green Penn, A. J. Oliver, Charles H. Lawson, Nathan Betts, E. J. Terry, C. Toliver, William Sims and A. J. Watts (CL Bk. No. 9, p. 86). They began operations in a residence on North Henry Street, but it soon became apparent that they would have to have more room. The city owned the old Alleghany Institute building. The matter was presented to the Roanoke City Council and as a result this old building was re­ modeled and was used as a hospital until the present excellent struc­ ture was erected in 1955. Roanoke will always be able to recall with pride and satisfaction that the nation’s first Life Saving and First Aid Crew was organized here through the leadership of Julian Stanley Wise on May 25, 1928. The record of assistance rendered and lives saved is very impressive. The Roanoke Academy of Medicine early acknowledged the great value of this organization and the American Red Cross issued the Roanoke' Crew a charter in 1930. Founding members were: Julian Wise, captain; F. P. Grimes, Allen Gristy, 0. P. Britts, Herman Moor­ man, E. A. Walfinden, C. C. Lansford, Harry Martin, Harry Avis and C. F. Britts. Dr. M. A. Johnson, Jr., was the first medical adviser. He “contributed much to its success.” In its formative years Dr. W. R. Whitman, Dr. W. L. Powell, Dr. L. G. Richards, Dr. L. D. Keyser, Dr. Henry Lee and Dr. R. Earl Glendy also assisted with instruction in first aid, resuscitative methods. In 1934, Mrs. Jane Harris, public health nurse, managed to wheedle from the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors some land and a little house, then being used as a sheep barn. A Roanoke hospital donated several discarded beds, and Mrs. Harris devised bedside tables from orange crates and stoves from oil drums. From this primitive 39 �start grew what is now known as McVitty House. First patients were admitted for a fee of $5 for two weeks’ care, and those not having the money brought in farm produce. Shenandoah Hospital, chartered October 4, 1912, was located in a choice residential section of Roanoke which at the time was easily accessible by one of the best paved streets and the Patterson Avenue streetcar line. Privately owned Shenandoah Hospital was established by Drs. J. H. Dunkley, W. S. Slicer, Thomas J. Hughes and L. G. Richards. For many years it had a school of nursing, and in its quiet home-like atmosphere it has served well some of Roanoke’s most prominent citizens. Now Roanoke’s only locally privately owned general hospital, it continues to expand and upgrade its facilities, having reached a 71-bed capacity in 1972. It has been accredited since 1954 by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals. Dr. W. Banks Huff is president of Shenandoah Hospital, Dr. A.. L. Wolfe is president of the hospital medical staff for 1972, Dr. Walter S. Johnson is chief of surgical staff and Dr. Charles A. Hefner is chief of the medical staff. About 75 physicians have privileges at Shenandoah Hospital. Its administrator is Mastin K. Moorman. About 1955 the Jefferson Hospital became a “non-profit” organi­ zation. Lewis-Gale debated this course of action and elected to re­ main a private hospital. Jefferson was therefore in a position to pro­ ceed with a public fund drive to supply matching funds for a HillBurton Hospital construction grant toward building a 200-bed new Jefferson Hospital. Several members of the Lewis-Gale staff felt rather strongly that it would be wise for Lewis-Gale to explore the possibilities of a joint effort to make this a larger and stronger hospi­ tal. The Lewis-Gale cooperated actively while the Jefferson Hospital administration and lay board carried most of the burden of pushing forward the Community Hospital of Roanoke Valley. Lewis-Gale and Jefferson combined their schools of nursing in 1965 and the combined medical staffs sponsored several outstanding programs at Hotel Roa­ noke in 1961, 1962, 1963 and 1964. 40 �Society Has New Downtown Gallery U ROANOKE VALLEY ■ ■ Historical Exhibit ■ U mm m I I New location of the Society's downtown gallery is at 10 Franklin Road, next to National Business College and west of Jefferson Street. Commemoration of the anniversary of the American Revolution is not new. Ceremonies marked the centennial in 1876 and this medal, presented to the Society by Raymond Barnes, Roanoke lawyer-historian, was struck. 41 �Recent acquisitions of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society include Gen. Andrew Lewis' cufflinks and collar studs, given by George Pitzer of Roa­ noke, a descendant, an 1818 pair of wedding slippers from the J. E. Craig family and a gavel made of wood from the burned Botetourt County Court­ house, contributed by S. S. Guerrant. �Recollections of Ballad Collecting B y F red F. K nobloch This paper will discuss some of the writer’s experiences and activities as a ballad collector in Virginia from 1931 to the present time. All of the items collected are in the archives of the Virginia Folklore Society, either in manuscript or on disc or tape recordings. Many have been printed in one or more publications of the Society. My first interest in folklore developed in the mid 1920’s when I purchased an early edition of Lomax’s Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads. My first collecting was also in the 1920’s when Wendell Hall popularized a comic song, “It Ain’t Gonna Rain No More.” Parodists soon composed scores of additional stanzas, and I was able to find about a dozen of these from my neighbors. In the late 1920’s one of the first sound movies contained two or three stanzas of the soldier song of World War I, “Hinkey, Dinkey Parley Voo.” I had never seen any stanzas of this in print, and during the summer of 1929, when I was in military camp, two of the non­ commissioned officers in our training cadre, veterans of World War I, taught me a dozen or so additional stanzas. When I studied these items, it became abundantly clear why none of them had ever been in print! My interest in serious, sustained collecting of folksongs began in my first year at the University of Virginia, during the session of 1930-32, when I enrolled in an English class under Professor Arthur Kyle Davis, Jr. During one lecture he discussed his work as archivist of the Virginia Folklore Society and introduced us to his then recently published Traditional Ballads of Virginia. When Professor Davis found that I was from a rural area of Virginia, he encouraged me to see if I could find singers in my community and write down their songs. He suggested that I not only attempt to get additional versions of the Child ballads but that any song that appeared to be authentic folk material would be a welcome addition to his archives. In the early 1930’s ballad singers were not too difficult to find. In fact nearly half of the people who sang for me lived within walking distance of my home. Soon after beginning my collecting activities, I realized that my collection would have much more value if music as well as words could be collected. I had no skill in musical dictation but was usually able For more than 40 years, Fred Knobloch has had an ear for folk music as it was sung in many a mountain home of western Virginia. Now secretary of Virginia Folklore Society, he teaches psychology at Dabney S. Lancaster Community College at Clifton Forge and lives in Botetourt County. He talked to the Society Nov. 2, 1972. 43 �after hearing a few stanzas of a song to play it “by ear” on my violin. Then, from finger position on the instrument, I could transcribe a tune to music manuscript paper. My work was always checked by a welltrained musician before turning it in to Professor Davis. I never attempted to keep any diary or “log” of my collecting activities, but references to Folksongs of Virginia show that the first song I collected was from a neighbor, Mrs. Martha Elizabeth Gibson, of Crozet. Although unable to read or write, Mrs. Gibson recalled the words and music of an astounding number and variety of songs. During 1931 and 1932 I obtained a total of 39 versions of Child ballads and other items from her. Mrs. Della Howdyshell and her daughters, Mary and Virginia, also contributed a number of excellent songs, as did another Crozet neighbor, Mrs. W. F. Starke. During the summer of 1932, while I was employed in Orange, Mrs. Lucy Perrin Gibbs sang many fine versions of Child ballads as well as several children’s and comic songs. Most of the singers whom I saw sang ih a somewhat undramatic unemotional manner, but Mrs. Gibson and Mrs. Gibbs both sang with considerable zest and often concluded their comic versions with hearty chuckles and laughter. Nearly all of my neighbors were quite willing to sing for me with little or no persuasion. A few would claim to have a cold or be too hoarse to sing well. In nearly all cases a small amount of persuasion, talking about various song titles, or mentioning the names of other neighbors who had sung for me succeeded in getting a singer started. This occasional reluctance to sing, often pleading a cold or hoarseness apparently was not unique to people whom I saw. One of Shake­ speare’s characters in “As You Like It” admonishes the singer in his group to perform “ . . . without hawking or spitting or saying we are hoarse.” Two somewhat amusing exceptions to singers’ usual willing­ ness to sing are recalled. A Sunday afternoon visit by Professor Davis, the late John Powell, Hilton Rufty, and myself to a neighbor who was reported to be an excellent singer seemed doomed. My appeals to her as a neighbor were met with a firm refusal to sing for us. Professor Davis’ appeals that she would be making a valuable contribution to the Virginia Folklore Society brought only a negative response. Then Mr. Powell began to ask her if she knew certain songs. Although she admitted knowing nearly every title he asked about, she still refused to sing for us. “Do you know ‘The Two Brothers’? ” Mr. Powell asked. When she replied affirmatively he continued, “The way I’ve heard it is like this,” and he began to sing the first stanza. “That isn’t right,” my neighbor interrupted. “It goes like this.” 44 �“I must write this down. Please let us come in and hear the right way to sing it!” Mr. Powell exclaimed. We were allowed to get our song, and without much additional prodding succeeded in getting several more. A year or two later Professor Davis, Miss Emmett Lewis, a pro­ fessor of music at the University of Alabama, and I visited a singer deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains near the Greene-Rockingham border. He insisted that he couldn’t sing unless he first had a little alcoholic throat moistener. One of his grandsons, who was standing nearby, volunteered to get the requested beverage if we would furnish a dollar. Dollar in hand he disappeared into the brush and returned in less than a minute with a pint of moonshine liquor, which rapidly lubricated the singer’s vocal cords to a most efficient degree. Our collection site was just behind a mission station of the Episcopal Church, and the singer pretended to be very fearful that his imbibing would be seen by some of the ladies at the mission. He was careful to pour his drink very slyly and covertly into a cup and then went through some broad, open gestures of dipping the cup full of water from a nearby branch. Looking back on this episode causes me to wonder whether there was really a pressing need for the singer to wet his whistle or if it were not more likely that we were cleverly “conned” into buying some moonshine whiskey! Although most of the singers from whom I got songs when I began collecting were from rather isolated areas and were of limited formal education, Mrs. Thomas Smith of Charlottesville was a cultured, widely traveled women. She gave me a fine version of “Lord Lovell,” “Bonnie Charlie” and the entertaining “Dinkey Doodle-um.” An opportunity to considerably enrich my collection of musical versions as well as to verify my musical manuscripts submitted earlier came in 1932 when the Society acquired the use of a recording machine. Professor Davis described this machine and its use as follows: “The knotty problem of tune collection was partially solved for the Society in 1932, when the Archivist received from the American Council of Learned Societies in Washington a grant of one thousand dollars and the loan of a ‘portable’ recording machine for certain periods. For several years following, with this elaborate mechanism strapped to a specially constructed trunk rack at the back of his car, the Archivist made periodic trips to the most promising folk-singing localities of the state, where, under the auspices and with the assistance of devoted local workers of the Society, hundreds of folk-song recordings were made. Among other places, trips were made into various sections of Albemarle County, in company with Mr. Fred Knobloch and others; to Altavista and Campbell County, under the auspices of Miss Juliet Fauntleroy; to Salem and Roanoke County, 45 �under the auspicies of Miss Alfreda M. Peel; to East Radford and its State Teachers College, under the auspices of Dr. John Preston McConnell; to Marion and the White Top Folk Festival in Southwest Virginia, under the auspices of Mrs. Annabel Morris Buchanan; to New Castle and Craig County * under the auspices of Mr. John Stone; to Orange and Orange County, and to Am­ herst and Amherst County, under the auspices of Mr. Fred Knobloch. Some 323 aluminum records of genuine folksongs were added to the Society’s collection.” ' Songs from Mrs. Martha Elizabeth Gibson, Mrs. W. F. Starke and the Howdyshell family of Crozet, Mrs. Lucy Perrin Gibbs of Orange; and Misses Eleanor Christian, Virginia Cash, and Roselle Faulconer of Amherst; all of whom had previously sung for me, were recorded on trips when I accompanied and assisted Professor Davis. Following my graduation from the University in 1935, I began teaching English at Amherst High School. During my employment then I was able to find many students in my classes who knew numerous folksongs and who wrote them down for me. I forwarded all of these to Professor Davis for the archives of the Society. Misses Edna Casey, Virginia Drummond, Roselle Faulconer, Mamie Iseman, Hawzey Smith, and Doris Watts were among my students who each contributed one or more songs. During the late 1940’s, when I was principal of Meadows of Dan High School in Patrick County, Mrs. Eunice Yeatts McAlexander was one of my faculty members. Professor Davis had previously recorded some of her songs when she was a student at Radford College. I was able to record additional songs from her as well as from her daughter, Edna. Several of the McAlexander’s songs recorded at this time may be found in More Traditional Ballads of Virginia. The Shelor brothers, Bill and Otto, also allowed me to record many fine fiddle and banjo tunes. My most recent folksong activity was in the spring of 1969, when as a faculty member at Dabney S. Lancaster Community College, Clif­ ton Forge, I was chairman of the College’s Spring Arts Festival, in which folk music was the principal activity. Professor Davis was our speaker at the opening session, addressing our group on the history of the Virginia Folklore Society. B. C. Moomaw, Jr., then secretarytreasurer of the Virginia Folklore Society and a long-time folksong collector, entertained with a variety of folksongs and folk tales. Dee Decker, one of my students at the College, also sang on the program, and at its conclusion showed Professor Davis a notebook, which I had seen, acquired from his aunt and comprising a collection of 116 folk­ songs sung by his grandmother. Professor Davis was of course in46 �terested in having copies of these songs. Through the courtesy of Dr. J. F. Backels, president of the College, we were permitted to use our Xerox equipment to duplicate the entire collection for the Virginia Folklore Society. At some later date I hope to have Mr. Decker sing the songs from this collection for me in order that we may have tape recordings for the Society. An incidental observation about folk music which is of interest is the apparent international occurrence of many melodies. During World War II when I was on Army duty in Iran, some sort of night festivity was in progress in a native village beside our camp. Drifting across the desert came a repeated short jingle which was identical musically to the derisive American childhood chant. “John-ny is a sis-sy!” A Persian instrumental group, consisting of a drummer and a play­ er on an oriental flute, when visiting our camp used as a refrain the first two lines, repeated, of “Pretty Polly.” “Oh Pret-ty Jol-ly, don’t you cry. You’ll be hap-py bye and bye.” 2 In Cairo, Egypt, I saw a funeral procession that was led by a highstepping brass band playing “She’ll Be Cornin’ ’Round the Mountain.” Funerals in Moslem countries, I observed on a number of occasions, tend to be rather loud and festive activities. Also in Italy, when listening to “Santa Lucia,” I recalled that its two opening bars are the same as two bars in “Dinkey Doodle-um.” In addition to the pleasure deriving from folksong collecting, my acquaintance with many other folklorists has been a most pleasant ex­ perience. My long and almost continuous association with Professor A. K. Davis Jr., until his death in 1972, was one of the most cherished friendships of my entire lifetime. Meeting and discussing folksongs with other outstanding people such as Alan Lomax, the late John Powell, Richard Chase, Jean Ritchie, and the late Sigmund Spaeth has been a source of many delightful hours. I also enjoyed a close friend­ ship with such dedicated collectors as Miss Alfreda Peel and John Stone. It is my good fortune to be presently employed near B. C. Moomaw, Jr. Every time we meet we spend from minutes to hours talk­ ing about folksongs and folklore. Last but far from least the time I have spent listening to authentic folksingers has always been a re­ warding and entertaining experience. Folklorists, collectors, and sing­ ers appear to be a unique fraternity in that they are never too busy to talk and sing about their interests, and they always want you to come back for another visit. In a purely quantitative evaluation, my examination of Folksongs of Virginia plus songs contributed later to the Virginia Folklore So­ ciety indicates that my independent collecting activities, plus songs 47 �collected or recorded when I accompanied Professor Davis on numer­ ous collecting and recording trips, and adding to this nearly 200 songs submitted by former pupils, which I forwarded to the Virginia Folk­ lore Society, the Society has had added to its collection a total of 411 songs. While this probably does not approach the near monumental contributions of such earlier Virginia collectors as John Stone and Misses Alfreda Peel and Juliet Fauntleroy, it does represent, it is hoped, a fairly significant contribution to the Virginia Folklore So­ ciety and has helped to preserve many beautiful songs which other­ wise might have been lost to posterity. Mrs. Gladden and Miss Peel (Letter to the Editor, The Roanoke Times, July 27, 1966) I AM INDEBTED to my old student, fellow collector of folksongs, and friend, Fred F. Knobloch, of Fincastle, Va., for informing me of the death of that magnificent and authentic folk singer, and my good friend, Mrs. Texas Anna Gladden, of Salem and Roanoke County. Your reporter’s information, though perhaps almost adequate for present-day readers, does not go back far enough to do justice to Mrs. Gladden’s contribution to Virginia folksong. To do her anything like justice, I must also do justice—too long delayed—to her discoverer and friend, Miss Alfreda M. Peel, of Salem, whose contribution to the collection of Virginia’s folksongs and other folklore is almost unique and beyond praise. Mrs. Gladden’s songs and Miss Peel’s labors as a collector of them and of other ballads and folksongs of Southwest Virginia are recorded in three published books: “Traditional Ballads of Virginia (Harvard University Press, 1929), “Folk-Songs of Virginia: A De­ scriptive Index and Classification” (Duke University Press, 1949), and “More Traditional Ballads of Virginia” (University of North Carolina Press, 1960). Since two of the three books are out of print and un­ obtainable, I am not trying to sell books, but rather to call attention to two great women of the Roanoke vicinity who have contributed greatly to the preservation of the oral traditions of their particular locality and of Virginia. Miss Peel’s life, you may remember, was prematurely snuffed out in a tragic automobile accident in the summer of 1953, and now Mrs. Gladden, her favorite singer and one of the finest of Virginia’s folk singers, has gone to join her. If we can believe in a life after death, we may be sure that these two “old girls” are enjoying one another’s company, and whether we can or not, we living Virginians are greatly in the debt of these two women who, in their respective ways, have contributed so much to the perpetuation and preservation of those traditions of folksong and of folklore which are the priceless heritage of all of us. 48 �I hope that the Roanoke vicinity is not unaware of its debt to these two great women. As a friend of both of them, and as one in a position to know what they have done, I salute them, record my grief at their passing, and invite all living Virginians to join in recog­ nizing the contributions they have made. Arthur Kyle Davis, Jr. Professor of English Literature University of Virginia Charlottesville, Va. 1 D avis: FOLKSONGS OF VIRGINIA, Page XXXI of Introduction. _ „ 2 Acknowledgment is made to Jack Hanner of the Dabney S. Lancaster Community College faculty for checking musical notations. R E FE R E N C E S: Davis, Arthur Kyle Jr . TRADITIONAL BALLADS OF VIRGINIA, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1929. ** Arthur Kyle Jr . FOLKSONGS OF VIRGINIA, a descriptive index and classifica­ tion; Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina, 1949. _ ? AyriS ,s Arthur Kyle, Jr . TRADITIONAL BALLADS OF VIRGINIA, Reprint, University P ress of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, 1969. Davis, Arthur Kyle Jr . MORE TRADITIONAL BALLADS OF VIRGINIA, University P ress of North Carolina Press, Chanel Hill, North Carolina, 1960 Lomax, John A. COWBOY SONGS AND OTHER FRONTIER BALLADS, The Macmillan Company, New York, 199—, Ephraim Vause Was Robbed Ephraim Vause, the man who gave his name to the fort burned by the French and Indians at present-day Shawsville in 1756, encoun­ tered another problem a few years later in Pennsylvania. An advertise­ ment in the Pennsylvania Gazette of Sept. 11, 1760, lists property stolen from Ephraim Vause. Vause, appointed captain of horse in the Augusta militia in 1753, owned several pieces of property near the south fork of the Roanoke River and was described as an influential man in the community. Records show that Capt. Vause “removed out of the colony” in 1758. The Pennsylvania Gazette, “containing the freshest advices, for­ eign and domestic,” said a thief had stolen from the subscriber (Vause) at the house of Conrad Housbaum, tavernkeeper in York-Town, about 200 pounds, Virginia currency, and four bolts of ribbons. The thief was identified as John Walters, “a slender man, very freckled . . . has yellow red hair.” Whoever secured the thief “in any gaol in Penn­ sylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North or South Carolina or in any colony” and gave intelligence to the sheriff cf York County was offered “thirty pounds, current money of Pennsylvania.” William M. E. Rachal, editor of the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography and a former resident of the Fort Vause community, found the ad. Rachal said he’s inclined to believe that the money stolen from Vause was paid to him by John Madison for the Fort Vause tract. 49 �William Preston, Frontier Public Servant By George Green S hackelford As a nine-year old, William Preston had been one of the party of sixty-six who accompanied his uncle James Patton from Northern Ireland to the vicinity of Staunton. At seventeen, he assumed con­ trol of the Prestons’ 1,400-acre farm and responsibility for his widowed mother and three sisters. He became an able surveyor, essential pur­ suit for a frontiersman— and he also learned to love literature es­ sential for a gentleman. In his education, young Preston owed much to his Uncle Patton and to the Presbyterian minister, John Craig. His uncle initiated Preston to the uncertainties of peaceful nego­ tiations with the Indians at Logstown in 1751. As the principal or­ ganizer of the Woods River (Land) Company, Patton employed preston in surveying its 120,000 acres along the New River. Patton was responsible, too, for William Preston’s entry into the Virginia militia as a captain of Rangers in 1755. In July of 1755, the two men brought military supplies from Williamsburg with which to defend frontier settlements such as the Drapers Meadow community Patton had found­ ed near Blacksburg. Very soon after their arrival, Indians perpetrated the celebrated massacre in which Patton was killed and from which Preston escaped. I. Preston did not immediately succeed to his uncle’s positions of leadership in Augusta County. He led to Kentucky an expedition to punish the Shawnees, but his men were too exhausted to go further than the confluence of the Big Sandy River with the Ohio. Indeed, mutiny was narrowly averted when food supplies ran low. The Big Sandy Expedition left its mark on Preston. Thereafter, he devoted the greatest part of his military energies to making sure that the forces under his command had enough arms, food and transport to accomplish their mission. Thus chastened by the grim realities of frontier warfare, Preston was made a lieutenant colonel in 1759. Col. Patton had been one of Augusta’s two Burgesses and it was not unnatural that Preston should aspire to succeed to his seat. It was a political campaign marked by such riotous displays of force Dr Shackelford is a professor of history at VP1 & SU. This essay is based on his address on June 2, 1973 at the dedication by the Alle­ ghany and Colonel William Preston chapters of the DAR of a marker to Colonel Preston in that family’s cemetery at Smithfield Planta­ tion, Blacksburg. 50 �and intimidation that the Sheriff closed the polls and declared that no Burgess was elected. It was not until 1766, a decade later, that Preston again sought the office. This time a mature leader, not a headstrong young man of 26. He had learned the arts of patience and he won election handily. In the House of Burgesses, Preston threw in his lot with the con­ trolling coalition of moderates and conservatives led by Peyton Ran­ dolph. Their opponents were only slightly less moderate and cham­ pioned Robert Carter Nicholas. Differences between the two groups were more dictated by regional self-interest than by ideological cleav­ age. The Randolph faction was more interested in developing the James River basin and the Carter-Nicholas faction in the Potomac and Rappahannock. Preston’s choice may have been a natural one, but he certainly solidified the political alliance which bound together the James and the Appomattox Rivers with the New and the Kanawha. When Botetourt was erected as a county in 1770, he became one of its Burgesses in 1771. So rapidly was the western country filling up, however, that the General Assembly divided Botetourt in 1772, creating the new county of Fincastle. As a young bachelor, William Preston lived much of the time with his widowed mother near Staunton. He deeded his interest in his father’s farm to her with remainder to his youngest sister. Mean­ while, he acquired from his uncle and bought on his own account lands near the town of Fincastle in the northern Roanoke Valley. These he formed into Greenfield Plantation, whither he moved with his wife in 1762. Preston met and married Susannah Smith of Hanover County a year earlier. Ultimately, they had nine children. On Mrs. Pres­ ton fell much of the day-by-day responsibilities of plantation life— supervising the household crafts and handiwork of 80-odd slaves, indentured servants hired hands and children. It is true that Colonel Preston secured both a Scotch weaver and a schoolmaster, but Mrs. Preston still had much to do and the menace of Indian raids could not be discounted. At least twice were her nearest neighbors slaughterted. Susannah’s portrait may be idealized, but it shows a lithe beauty whose black hair and aquiline nose would have won admiring glances amid fashionable circles of England or France. One must admit, how­ ever, that it would be more interesting to see a picture of Mrs. Pres­ ton as a forty-year-old matron of the frontier than as a girl of about eighteen painted in fashionable clothes of the artist’s invention. In 1772, Col. Preston created a new plantation about forty miles west of Greenfield Plantation. He did so in order to reside in the western-most county of Virginia whose affairs he might control and 51 �Smithfield, restored 18th Century home of Col. William Preston at Blacksburg. thus protect his family’s extensive land claims. He caused Robert and Alexander Breckinridge to build the fine ■ house we see today before he moved his family into it. And he surrounded it with a stockade. Mrs. Preston gave birth to their youngest son soon after moving in. But Preston’s planning and foresight were consistent with the lessons he had learned in the Big Sandy expedition. We do not know precisely why William Preston named his new plantation Smithfield in honor of his wife, Susannah Smith Preston. To have done so would have been most appropriate in recognition of her bravery and fortitude. Although County Lieutenant William Preston did not lead the militia of Fincastle in Lord Dunmore’s war, he did, however, summon his fellow citizens to meet him near Fort Chiswell to consider the request of the 1st Continental Congress that localities form Com­ mittees of Safety to provide for defense and for enforcement of the boycott of trade with Great Britain. The outcome of this meeting was an eloquent document known as the Fincastle Resolutions. Adopt­ ed by frontier patriots in January, 1775, they called on Virginia’s dele­ gates in the Continental Congress to warn that Fincastle would sup­ port George Ill’s government only if it acted constitutionally—under laws made by our own representatives. These resolutions were among the first to voice the issue so clearly and to threaten independence so resolutely. Preston served as the county lieutenant first of Fincastle and then of its main successor, Montgomery. He owed his appointment to his conservative allies in the old House of Burgesses who respected 52 �his caution. He did not lead troops in person against the Cherokees of Tennessee, but he did fight a skirmish against Virginia and North Carolina Tories near the Lead Mines and he caused others to be dis­ armed. With Charles Lynch of Bedford County, Preston meted out summary punishment of Tories from being lashed to being hanged. Subsequent litigation blamed Preston and Lynch, but their Tory vic­ tims were frustrated by an Act of the General Assembly absolving Preston and Lynch. In response to Gen. Nathaniel Greene’s pleas for troops, Preston led 350 men from Fort Chiswell to the Virginia - North Carolina divid­ ing line near Roanoke Rapids. In March, Greene led his force into North Carolina and fought Lord Cornwallis at Guilford Court House. Preston’s riflemen acquitted themselves well, but others of the militia gave Greene’s regulars such inadequate support that the patriots withdrew. Preston, himself, was thrown from his horse early in the battle and took no further part. He later defended his militia of charges of cowardly retreat and established the fact that they had done their duty and had retreated only when forced to do so. On June 29, 1783, Col. Preston went to review a militia muster three miles from Smithfield. He suffered a cerebral stroke and was taken to the nearby house of Michael Price. Mrs. Preston was sum­ moned to his side. He made known his desire to be bled, but none could or would do it. Thus, Mrs. Preston stood by while her husband died. At fifty-four, he had accomplished much and the prospects for his future were without limit. When Colonel Preston died in 1783, Susannah Preston had the choice of Smithfield with its 1,860 acres or Greenfield with its 1,175. She chose Smithfield—probably because it boasted a more modern house, because she did not care to go through the many troubles of moving, and finally because she had buried William Preston at Smithfield. Susannah lived here until her death in 1823 at the age of eightyfour. Her widowed daughter, Mrs. Letitia Preston Floyd, resided at Smithfield Plantation house much of the time. Before she died, Susannah Smith Preston could have taken pride in her family’s accomplishments. Her son, James Patton Preston, had served as governor of Virginia; her son, Francis Smith Preston had served as Congressman; and her son, John Preston had served as treasurer of Virginia. Others added to the lustre of this great family of the antebellum period, of whom I mention only: —her son-in-law, James McDowell, governor and Congressman; her grandson, John Floyd Jr., governor and congressman; her great-grandson, John B. Floyd, governor and member of cabinet, and her grandson, William Ballard Preston, Congressman and member of the cabinet. 53 �Alexander-Withrow Building, One of the First in Lexington B y R oyster L y l e , J r . Less than two years after the town of Lexington was established in 1778, William Alexander, a prosperous county merchant and a mem­ ber of a prominent Scotch-Irish Valley family, purchased two lots in the center of the new community. A few years later, on one of these lots he built a large unusual brick building — a building which has played an important part in the development of the town of Lexington and which fortunately survives today.' It was one of the town’s first stores, the first post office, and the first bank; it has been a doctor’s office, a haberdashery, a meat market, a shoe store, a residence, and a school. Its original design was especially distinctive, and the various architectural changes it has endured over the years have added even greater interest to this prominent downtown landmark. . . . „ In 1969 the building was purchased by Historic Lexington Founda­ tion and certain necessary exterior repairs were made after long years of neglect. It was subsequently sold to a “purchaser” (Carlson Thomas) who agreed to preserve the street facades in their present condition, and the building’s future seems assured. Thomas plans to convert the building into a guest house for visitors to the area who plan to stay more than a day or so. The Lexington area was settled in the 1730’s by Scotch-Irishmen who had migrated from eastern Pennsylvania west and southwest into the Great Valley of Virginia after a short stay among the Pennsyl­ vania Germans and Swedes. The site chosen for the new town of Lexington was not exactly ideal; the plat of 36 lots in a simple grid was much neater on paper than it actually was when the streets were laid out. In fact, many of the streets were so steep that they were little more than muddy trails until well into the 19th Century.2 William Alexander was typical of the Scotch-Irish who settled in what is today Rockbridge County. His father, Archibald Alexander, came to America in 1737 with the great immigration from Ulster to Pennsylvania. William was born the next year while the family was living in Nottingham, Pennsylvania. Ten years later Archibald AlexRoyster Lyle, an authority on Rockbridge County architecture, wrote of log buildings in the Shenandoah Valley in Vol. 8, No. 1 of the Journal. He is curator and secretary of George C. Marshall Re­ search Foundation at Lexington. A graduate of Hampden-Sydney Col­ lege, he has studied architectural history at the University of Virginia. 54 �ander brought his family to live in the Valley of Virginia near what is today Lexington. One account says young William “grew to manhood amid the hardships of frontier life.” As a young man he “embarked in mercantile pursuits, and kept a store at (Jordan’s) Point” near the ford where the Great Valley Road crossed the North (now the Maury) River. William Alexander had three sons and five daughters; one of his sons, Archibald, became one of the most prominent figures in the Presbyterian Church, president of Hampden-Sydney College, and one of the founders of Princeton Theological Seminary. Young Archibald was born in 1772 while the family lived on a farm near Lexington. The Revolution broke up William’s “mercantile arrangements” and he supported his large family during this period by becoming deputy to his father who was high sheriff.3 During and after the war William was active in the establishment of Liberty Hall Academy, the antecedent of Washington and Lee. He was one of the 20 original trustees when Liberty Hall Academy received its charter in 1782.4 After he bought property in the new town of Lexington, William probably first built a log cabin or house on each lot because there Lexington's Alexander-Withrow building of Historic Lexington Foundation. 1789 after rehabilitation by (Royster Lyle photo) 55 �was a stipulation by the town that a house must be erected within two years or the lot would revert to the town’s trustees. Whatever the case, one of the town’s oldest traditions has it that William Alexander built his large brick house and store combination in 1789 on the corner of Main and Washington Streets.® William’s famous son, Archi­ bald, was 17 when the family moved in the new house. The name of the craftsman Alexander found to build his large town house is unknown, but it is clear that he chose a man of some sophistication who was able to combine a number of architectural fea­ tures which have given the building a special place in the Valley’s late 18th Century architecture. The principal influence on early construction in the Valley of Virginia was German. But the bearers of much of the building culture in the immediate Lexington area in the 18th Century were ScotchIrish who learned their building skills from the Germans in Pennsyl­ vania. Though the stone and log buildings in the Lexington area re­ flect quite clearly this German influence, William Alexander’s house appears to have had other influences. The builder chose to place four corner chimneys in the structure, a feature rare in the Valley of Virginia, and to include in the brickwork elaborate “diapering” designs using dark glazed headers. There appears to have been a gable roof in the beginning with the gable front facing Washington Street. There may have been other buildings with four corner chimneys with corner (or angle) fireplaces throughout built during this period. It is clear that Liberty Hall Academy was one.6 In 1793, William Cravens, a stonemason who had been brought to Lexington from Rockingham County some 50 miles to the north, built the three-story stone academy building. It burned less than ten years later, but its picturesque ruins—its solid stone end walls— still stand today, a monument to the talents of its builder. It is clear that the building had four corner chimneys and the corner fireplaces on each floor.7 There is a third corner chimney building of stone standing less than a mile west of Liberty Hall ruins. Fortunately this former resi­ dence is still intact though deteriorating fast, and the placement of the corner chimneys on one gable end can be studied conveniently, the other gable has a typical single interior chimney in the gable. This remaining building is perhaps the key to the original chimney arrangement and the roof line on both the Alexander-Withrow build­ ing and Liberty Hall. Corner fireplaces in Lexington area houses of the late 18th Century appear infrequently; corner chimneys, except in early mills, are extremely rare. There are obvious advantages to heating a room with a corner fireplace—a feature particularly popular with Thomas Jefferson across the Blue Ridge Mountains in Albemarle, but the 56 �Valley builders, with scattered exceptions, failed to use this feature. The Alexander-Withrow building was one of the few town struct­ ures—maybe the only one—to survive the disastrous Lexington fire of 1796. The building was damaged and the upper floors were later rebuilt. An insurance policy dated four years after the fire indicates that the building was still (in 1800) in “ an unfinished state.” 8 Many accounts attest to William Alexander’s position as a leading member of the early Rockbridge community. Nevertheless, at one point while he was still a county merchant north of town (November 3, 1778), he was forced to appear in court for selling liquor without a license along with a number of prominent citizens.9 In addition to running the store in his large Lexington building in the center of town, William Alexander was also the community’s first postmaster. He reported to the new Post Office Department in Wash­ ington, March 20, 1793, that he had begun collecting and distributing mail in Lexington. He held this position until his death in 1797.'° Following William Alexander’s death, the house and large town lot were purchased from his heirs in 1800 by Captain John Leyburn," who for the next three decades operated a store in much the same fashion as Alexander. John Leyburn, like Alexander, was a ScotchIrishman; he had come with his family to Pennsylvania from Ulster as a child. At the age of 31 he entered the mercantile business in Lexington. John Leyburn’s youngest son, John, left a description of the house during those early years: “Our old house occupied a conspicuous place in the village (and) . . . was in most respects a pleasant abode. Its apartments, for that day, seemed spacious and airy; the prospect of the surrounding hills and majestic mountains was beautiful and grand and the great piles of blazing hickory on the capacious hearth glowed with comfort and cheerfulness, as we cosily gathered around it.” The younger John Leyburn also wrote that the building’s “elevated and isolated position exposed it to the full blasts of the winter winds, Which came rushing down from the snow-clad mountains, roaring in the chimney tops and rattling the windows, moaning like so many spirits in distress through every crevice and keyhole, and throwing a gloom over our little circle.” 12 John Leyburn also wrote that in late summer evenings the chim­ ney swifts in great numbers would “ assemble from nobody knew where and, after floating for a long time in a wide, revolving circle around one of the high chimneys . . . would descend into its funnel and take up their lodgings for the night.” Until recent years residents of Lexington continued to “stand and gaze” at the swifts circling over the house in late afternoon, as Leyburn put it over 100 years ago, “ as amongst the most notable objectives of interest.” 13 57 �The tradition that the first newspaper was published in the build­ ing stems from the fact that the Rockbridge Repository, first issued in 1801, was published, as the masthead indicated, “on Washington Street, one door below the store of John Leyburn.” This building in which the first Lexington newspaper was printed was a smaller build­ ing on the property; Captain Leyburn’s holdings went at that time through the block to what is today Jefferson Street.'4 From the Leyburn papers it is clear that the “corner room of the main floor was used for his store, since it fronted on both Main and Washington Streets.” On the same floor next to the store room was a “counting room, with glass panels in its door so that the Captain or his clerk might look through it into the store.” 15 Local legend has it that John Leyburn had Lexington’s first piano, Photo taken about 1890-1900 shows Alexander-Withrow building at far left. Central Hotel, at right, is the next restoration project of Historic Lexington Foundation. 58 �and it had been bought in Philadelphia and hauled all the way to Lexington by wagon.16 After Captain John Leyburn’s death in 1831, his son, Dr. Alfred Leyburn, a young businessman, a physician by training, and member of the State legislature, took possession of the building. Too busy with other things to practice medicine, Leyburn rented the building for a while to Dr. Archibald Graham, another Lexington physician who had his office there. Dr. Graham was also a member of the Virginia House of Delegates and president of the Lexington Board of Public Works. Alfred, who was a member of the board of trustees of W&L and VMI, and his wife bought a house elsewhere in town. In 1835 Leyburn attempted to sell his downtown house where Dr. Graham made his office. He advertised in the local paper that the building would “accommodate a large family.” Among the other assets he listed were: “A favorable location for the merchant or tradesman, —a store, counting room, and lumber house,—a two-story brick kitchen, smoke house, ice house, carriage house, stable, and cistern.” Leyburn, who had a miniature plantation on his two lots in the center of town, also indicated in the ad that along the Main Street side of the lot there was still “ample space—for the erection of another large building.” 17 An English traveler to Lexington during this period recorded “the town has many attractions. It is surrounded by beauty, and stands at the head of a valley flowing with milk and honey. House rent is low and provisions are cheap, abundant, and of the best quality. Flowers and gardens are more highly prized than in most places.” This was indeed a period of considerable business activity in the town. Wash­ ington College was flourishing under President Henry Ruffner, and the old arsenal on the edge of town was on the verge of becoming a promising new operation: the Virginia Military Institute. But in spite of the town’s prosperous business activity and the advantageous lo­ cation of Leyburn’s building, he was unable to make a sale; Dr. Graham continued his office there for several more years.18 In the spring of 1840, Leyburn began renting to Captain George A. Baker, a prominent Lexington businessman who opened a haber­ dashery in the building. In one advertisement in the local paper, Mr. Baker said that he was keeping “constantly on hand the best and most elegant assortment of CLOTHES, CASSIMERS & VESTINGS, the market can produce, also SHIRTS, SOCKS, CRAVATS, TIES, COLLARS, UN­ DERSHIRTS, GLOVES, of all kinds, SUSPENDERS, DRAWERS, HANKERCHIEFS, COAT-LINKS & INDIA-RUBBER GOODS.” '8 Baker boasted his “tayloring was executed in the best manner and in the most Fashionable styles.” All work committed to his charge “shall be done in the most workmanlike manner and Warrented to Fit. A fine assortment of Ready-Made Clothes kept constantly on hand. 59 �County produce taken in for work done, or clothing.” 20 By 1850 Baker had an impressive operation going. In addition to himself and his wife and five children living in his house, Baker also boarded three young tailors, William Breedlove, age 22, and two brothers from England, George, 16, and Zebulon Brown, 20.21 That same year Baker began including a new sales pitch: “Give me a call before you purchase elsewhere and I am sure to make a sale to you.” He concluded with: “All kinds of country produce taken in exchange for work, except Cabbage.”22 This business ploy was apparently most successful for the next year (1851) Captain Baker bought “ all the houses, tenements, and appurtenances thereto” from Dr. Leyburn.23 It was during Baker’s ownership that Stonewall Jackson became associated with the building. In the 1850s Jackson, a VMI faculty mem­ ber, was a member of the board of directors of the Lexington Savings Institute, what constituted Lexington’s first and only bank. The opera­ tion did not have an office as such, but used • Captain Baker s store as the “place of deposit” since he was the treasurer. To this Scotch-Irish community of the mid 19th Century, saving money was next to Godliness, and the Savings Institute was a popular place. At one point the local paper admonished its readers: “If all who are addicted to the vice of intemperance and to moderate drinking would pay their morning visit to Captain Baker, the Treasurer of the Lexington Savings Institute, and get a certificate of deposit instead of a glass of whiskey, 10 years hence would exhibit fewer poor and helpless families amongst us. Will not all make the experiment?” VMI Superintendent Francis H. Smith was president of the firm, and Wash­ ington College professor (later General) D. H. Hill was another board member with his friend Jackson.24 In 1856-57 the town became involved in an enormous undertaking: the lowering of the level of streets throughout the center of town to improve the steep grades which had been a nuisance for 75 years. At Baker’s building the street was graded about eight feet. The county’s land books indicate that almost all property owners along Main Street made considerable improvements to their houses in 1856-57, un­ doubtedly connected with the street alterations. Baker himself spent $1,000 which must have gone to underpin the building with the large stone blocks that are visible today. Also at this time the roof lines on the buildings were probably remodeled and heavy brackets added, giving the house the appearance of an Italian town house. The Italianate period was popular in Lexington in the late 1850s, and Baker quite clearly wanted the latest things for his thriving haberdashery business.25 As mentioned, the building’s store opened onto both Main and 60 �Iron work casts shadows on porch added on Main Street side in 1850s. Diamond-shaped diapering de­ sign of brick is seen before re­ storation. Washington Streets. Most likely, entrance to the residence was also through the store, but there were also two doors that led to the court­ yard area to the west along Washington Stree. The original Main Street door now opens on to an iron balcony (4’1” wide), added during the remodeling of the 1850s. Baker continued to operate a store in the building until 1875 when the store ownership passed to Jack Withrow. Withrow and his two daughters, Margaret and Lucy, occupied the building for the next 80 years. For a greater portion of the 20th Century, the Misses Withrow ran a school for young children in the upper rooms, and M. S. (Munce) McCoy operated a popular grocery store on the ground floor which had been excavated and underpinned in the 1850s. During the 1960s ownership of the building became hopelessly involved in a legal tangle. At one point during this period a court ap­ pointed attorney complicated things further by running afoul of the law and was sentenced to prison. But finally in 1969, the building was sold at auction and purchased by the Historic Lexington Foundation which raised funds to rehabilitate the exterior and to make the necessary repairs to halt the building’s deterioration. The courtyard, which once held many outbuildings, had been reduced to a fraction of its original size by the construction of a 20th Century shop facing Washington Street. Historic Lexington’s architect 61 �planned a small brick garden here below the mid 19th Century back porch. The entrance to the second and third story apartments is now through this attractive courtyard. During 1971 the building was in­ cluded in the National Register for Historic Places by the National Pcirk Service. The diapering designs in the building’s Flemish bond bricks re­ main a mystery. Brick was not even a popular building material in 18th Century Lexington. As with most early houses it is said the bricks were “made on the place,” and local tradition has it that this was true of William Alexander’s townhouse. The “dark headers,” that is bricks with glazed ends, resulting from being the closest to the fire in the. home-made brick kiln, were used. The “Valley Road” up the Shenandoah Valley and into the west brought many skilled craftsmen on their way to the new frontier. Perhaps one who stopped in Lexington in 1789 was familiar with diapering methods. Whatever the case, the building has attracted the attention of visitors to Lexington for over a century and a half, and will undoubtedly continue to do so. Henry Boley in his amusing collecting of local lore, Lexington m Old Virginia, published in 1930, writes that a “visiting artist told him that the Alexander-Withrow building was “equal in beauty to anything that he had seen in Williamsburg.” In Virginia that seems to say it all.26 1 See Rockbridge County deed book A, P. 211 (Lot No. 18) and p. 218 (Lot No. 12). 2 See Rockbridge County will book No. 1, p. ¿04. w iiii*«* n Foote 3 Washington and Lee University Historical Papers, II, D. 95, and William H. Foote, SKETCHES OF VIRGINIA, Second Series (Philadelphia, J . B. Lippencott, 1855), P. 101 4 W & L H IS T O R IC A L P A P E R S , II , P* 13. n n r ir n n r n r r WTSSTORTCAL 5 See Ruth A. McCulloch, Rockbridge and Its County Seat, ROCKBRIDGE fflSTORICAL s n r iF T V PROCEEDINGS, Vol I, 1941, pp. 62-77. From the scattered tax records of the town t o t a g ^ h e P m S E Mrsi^McCulloch established the 1889 date. This writer, having examined the 6™6V hi r su V c “ ;io»ed Virginia.” PIONEER AMERICA, 1 W & L HISTORICAL 8 See Mutual Assurance by Royster Lyle, Jr.. "E arly Corner Chimneys in Lexington. January, 1912, pp. 9-19. PAPERS, I, P. 43. H S . nd policies (VSL microfilm), reel 2, vol. 19, no. 33 (1800), and ree' »• 322, National Archive,. Washington, D. C. I I , _ \\ Jam es'^G ? K r n D * “ ™ W ' F A M I L Y , 1134-1960, unpublished ms lent by the author, p. 9. i n lbFac,im ile deposited in the Rockbridge Historical Society files. 15 Until the 1911 renovation the glass panel in the door was still Intact. 16 LEYBURN FAMILY, p. 9. S T e ? TCrNe n ^ w ET^ ’N ^RtAbLerL l ^ 8S35fcOLLEGE (Random House, 1969), P. 20 (no footnote given). a first K r K GAZETTE, December 1, 1853. Written clearly in pencil on a sill In r t k possession of this house from Alfred Leyburn, May 21, 184# ” itO^Baker “ra^ m an y ^ d v e rtiso m e n ts8 inS theCILexington papers from 1850 to 1859 21 Virginia ee” s is , “ 'Schedules of Lists of Inhabitants, 1850,” VSL microfilm, reel 85. ¡ 1 See^Rockbridge’ ^ounty^De'ed^Bo^ok B B °’ p. 346. The County Land Books indicate Baker actually began paying taxes as the “ merchant In residence in i »4d. aCtUaIly24 L!x?ngtSn Gazette, March 25, 1847. The editorial was ‘Howard “ 2«? There are many references in the local papers to the condition of the town s streets H H r R5 ° l ? « n g Li f f f ^ .3 £ o 7 lSSfl^'inchme‘ "Blandome^^on0!^ “ ker^trret^and^^SH verwood”04« ! South^Mahir 26 Boley, p. 4. 62 £ 3 4 * 4 0 �Cherry Tree Bottom, Crossroads of the Centuries By P atricia G iv en s J ohnson Following Interstate 81 northward up the Valley of Virginia twenty minutes northeast of Roanoke travelers pass the Buchanan Exit, cross the James River and see the town of Buchanan along the south bank of the river. On the north bank opposite Buchanan, nearer the highway at the foot of Purgatory Mountain lies a broad expanse of fertile river bottom land. To the casual viewer this acreage is nothing more than beautiful farm land. However, if past events could rise with their story from the dust, a marvelous panorama of history would spread before us in that river bottom. For these unassuming acres on the James were once a crossroads of Virginia known from earliest times as Cherry Tree Bottom. Here where Purgatory Mountain comes to within two miles of the Blue Ridge, the James cuts its course making a natural gap to the southwest. Long ago northern Iroquois passed here traveling to fight their southern enemies, the Catawbas and Cherokees. The fertile river bottom directly on the warpath close to a deep part of the James where fish were always abundant was an ideal camping site of travel­ ing Indians, war parties or otherwise. Indian relics found in the Buchanan area attest to concentrated Indian habitation in prehistory. The first white men to pass the bottoms were hunters and trappers who had discovered the rich game country along mysterious Woods River high in the Appalachians. Woods River, known today as New River, was believed by seme white men to wind away to the Indian Ocean. The Indians simply knew it drained a rich hunting ground. John Peter Salley and John Howard, whose exploring party pene­ trated the Mississippi Valley in 1742, were among the first to pass Cherry Tree Bottom. Salley related how they traveled from his place on the James River by Natural Bridge and thence to New River.' Such a course would have led them past Cherry Tree Bottom. Mrs. Johnson, a native of Christiansburg who now lives in Mary­ land, is the author of JAMES PATTON AND THE APPALACHIAN COLONISTS, the first full account of Col. Patton, pioneer land de­ veloper and frontier leader, printed by McClure Press in November 1973. Mrs. Johnson holds degrees from the University of Texas and the College of William and Mary and has taught high school history. She has done considerable research on western Virginia settlement. A different approach to Cherry Tree Bottom was seen in Vol. VI, No. 2 of the Journal. 63 �Along with the explorers came land speculators into the upper James River Valley. In 1739 Benjamin Borden was given a grant of 92 100 acres on the upper James and the James and Roanoke River Company received 100,000 acres on the James and Roanoke.* With this latter grant there appeared on the scene one who would leave his mark on Cherry Tree Bottom for generations. This man James Patton, former sea captain, Augusta militia colonel and county lieutenant, was chosen as land agent by the James and Roanoke Company.3 A man with military training, he was quick to see the strategic location of this beautiful river bottom at the foot of Pur­ gatory Mountain and is probably the person who dubbed it Cherry Tree Bottom. Patton claimed Cherry Tree Bottom as payment for services rendered the James and Roanoke Company. Patton and Borden were instrumental in encouraging a large influx of settlers into this locality. In 1742 these settlers tangled with an Iroquois war party at Balcony Falls on the James, downstream from Cherry Tree Bottom. As a result of this first battle between the Iroquois and the white men west of the Blue Ridge, the Iroquois nearly went to war against the English colonies.4 To soothe the Iroquois the Treaty of Lancaster was signed in 1744. Virginia agreed to provide a road for the Iroquois to travel up and down and safe conduct through Virginia. James Patton as a representative of the backwoodsmen, signed the Trea y of Lancaster and was given the responsibility of laying out the “Indian Road” down the Valley. In 1745 Patton and John Buchanan staked out the road from the Frederick County line to Woods River with Cherry Tree Bottom as the terminus on the James River.5 This road order gives the first mention of Cherry Tree Bottom in colonial re­ cords and thereafter it was a landmark on the frontier. Patton petitioned Orange Court for permission to establish a ferry at Cherry Tree Bottom since he owned land there beyond the mountains” where the “James was wide and often impassable and the need for a ferry was great. The resulting ferry was managed by Robert Looney and became known as Looney s Ferry. But Cher y Tree Bottom remained James Patton’s and the ferry his idea When his chief surveyor, John Buchanan, came by Cherry Tree Bottom in October 1745 he spent the night and gave money to Mother Looney, possibly for running the ferry for Patton.6 Patton had been granted 100,000 acres on the New River, the first land grant on the waters of the Mississippi given to an Eng is subject. He had first petitioned for the grant inj ? cto^ er ,|,743 , f. work in spring 1745 toward establishing the “Indian Road and the ferry at Cherry Tree Bottom where settlers could cross the James 64 �was partially a selfish effort to have the lands he hoped to obtain in the Alleghanies made easily accessible to his buyers. Patton had a small stone house built on a tract adjoining Cherry Tree Bottom where he and his surveyors lived when in the area surveying and from whence they went on land prospecting trips into the Alleghanies. Patton loved Cherry Tree Bottom and in his will of September 1750 left it to his daughter, Margaret Patton Buchanan, wife of John Buchanan.8 By 1745 the “Indian Road” was established to Cherry Tree Bottom and Looney’s Ferry. Ferrying was so lucrative that Robert Looney’s wife Elizabeth could purchase luxuries such as a “lookingglass” from Erwin Patterson’s frontier trading post at Big Lick (present Roanoke.)9 In September 1751 a party of Cherokees returning from a trade mission to Williamsburg passed Cherry Tree Bottom. The Cherokees, dissatisfied with their trade with South Carolina, had been to Williams­ burg hoping to establish better trade relations between Virginia and the Cherokees. James Patton and Attakullakulla, or “Little Carpenter,” the greatest Cherokee chieftain before and during the American Revolution, accompanied the Cherokees to and from Williamsburg.10 Returning home to Tennessee by way of Looney’s Ferry and Cherry Tree Bottom were forty-three Cherokees accompanied by interpreters and friends." Since Patton had been their escort it is likely that At­ takullakulla and his braves camped at Cherry Tree Bottom before crossing the James at Looney’s Ferry. Patton paid Looney for getting them across the river. From Cherry Tree Bottom they set out on their long trek to their capitol, Choto, on the Little Tennessee River.'9 Sub­ sequently the Cherokees made many trade visits to Virginia, usually following the same route, crossing the James deep in the mountains at Cherry Tree Bottom. Increasing numbers of traders, trappers and settlers wound their way through the Blue Ridge, heading west past Cherry Tree Bottom. These came with scant possessions loaded on pack horses for the trails were still so broken that only pack horses could thread their way into these mountains which George Washington described as “nearly inaccessible” . Then came Braddock’s defeat in 1755. Fear swept the frontier in waves. Settlers on the upper James congregated at Cherry Tree Bottom and Looney’s to hastily begin construction of a fort under the direction of Major John Smith.13 A traveling Presbyterian minister, Hugh McAden, who came to Looney’s at this time wrote, “Here I thought we might lodge with some degree of safety, as there were a number of men and arms engaged in building a fort, around the house, where they were fled �with their wives and children.14 Several days after this, James Patton hurried through the settle­ ment with a company of men and ammunition. Patton had just been in Williamsburg where as Burgess from Augusta County he had been pleading with the Assembly for aid for the far-flung frontier settle­ ments beyond the montains. Patton had been given ammunition to carry home with him and instructions to organize a Ranger Company.15 Now, heading for the New River for the last time, James Patton saw his beautiful Cherry Tree Bottom. Several days later he was scalped at Draper’s Meadows. Patton’s death caused many to flee from the Alleghanies such as the family of his daughter, Margaret Patton Buchanan. The Buch­ anans had lived on Reed Creek, a branch of New River, but now re­ turned to Cherry Tree Bottom which at Patton’s death had become their property. Buchanan assumed Patton’s mantle of authority over affairs in the area and helped in the building of Fort William on Waters of Catawba Creek fifteen miles upstream from Cherry Tree Bottom.16 Here at Cherry Tree Bottom the Buchanans were visited the following autumn by a man destined to become one of the most famous in history. One day in October 1756 George Washington climbed down from his horse and stopped for a very important visit with the Buchanan family. Frontier defense had become so imperative that Virginia had sent young George to inspect the line of frontier forts that extended down the Appalachian wall. Washington sought out Buchanan for information on the state of the militia and forts in the area. Buchanan reported that the militia had been unable to drive off the Indian marauders and both Fort William and Fort Vause had been lost to them. Fort Vause had been burned to the ground but Washington wanted to see it since it guarded a very strategic pass in the Applachians. Washington was not deterred by Buchanan’s account, reason­ ing that since he had come this far he might as well continue to Vause’s. From Cherry Tree Bottom, Washington related that he “set out in company with Colonel Buchanan, who being desirous that I might see and relate their unhappy circumstances, undertook to accompany me” .17 Buchanan left Washington at Fort Vause (which was being rebuilt at present Shawsville) and returned home. All through the war the inhabitants of Cherry Tree Bottom and the upper James lived in constant terror of Indian marauders. In July 1757 Shawnees attacked the Renick family north of Cherry Tree Bottom killing the father and carrying the mother and seven children captive to Ohio. One son, Joshua Renick, was adopted by Tecumseh’s parents where he associated with Tecumseh as both grew to manhood.18 66 �After the French and Indian War John Buchanan continued to operate his land business from his James River lands. After his death, his wife Peggy married William Anderson and they remained at Cherry Tree Bottom running a ferry which became known as Ander­ son’s Ferry.19 Their sons, Patton Anderson and William Preston Ander­ son, who were destined to walk with great and controversial men, grew to manhood at Cherry Tree Bottom.20 In August 1781 Capt. David May’s Company of Botetourt men marched from Cherry Tree Bottom to Yorktown to help George Washington. Some in May’s company could perhaps remember how Washington had once visited Cherry Tree Bottom and Looney’s Ferry to help them.21 Now they were marching to repay him. After the Revolution, Patton and Buchanan relations clustered in the Cherry Tree Bottom area and in 1788 petitioned for the establish­ ment of a town there on the James which was the “fitest Place on the River above the Blue Ridge for a town” . They explained that the “place affords a Beautiful Emminence for a Town, with Timber Convenient, excellent water, and suitable Streams for any kind of Mills, together with a fine Harbour for Boats” . . . The Assembly ordered that a town called Pattonsburg be established on the lands of William Anderson which included old Cherry Tree Bottom.22 Pattonsburg had been recognized as a town before 1766 but not officially established.23 It was named for James Patton, the first white man to possess these acres. The “Indian Road”, now called “The Great Road,” carried a steady stream of westward bound pioneers through Pattonsburg and Cherry Tree Bottom. When young Patton and William P. Anderson became men they too faced west. Since Cherry Tree Bottom, after their mother’s death, would descend to their half-sister, Mary Buch­ anan Boyd, James Patton’s beloved “little Molley,” the Anderson brothers moved to Fayette County, Kentucky in 1796 and later to Tennessee where they became friends of Andrew Jackson and Aaron Burr.24 “Little Molley” and her husband, Andrew Boyd, enjoyed the Cherry Tree Bottom lands and ran Boyd’s Ferry and kept an ordinary in 1812.23 By 1800, industry had come to Cherry Tree Bottom. Iron ore was discovered in the mountains around Pattonsburg and the Harvey family, pioneer iron workers, became owners of James River land where by 1800 they had established extensive iron works. Robert Harvey headed the company and was known as an “iron man” . His brother, Matthew Harvey, a successful merchant, about 1810 built Mount Joy, a beautiful mansion on a knoll overlooking Cherry Tree Bottom and the ironworks became known as the Mount Joy Forge.26 67 �One of Edward Beyer's few original oils gives 1855 view of Buchanan from the north bank of the James River. Goods hauled on the James River and Kanawha Canal were stored in warehouses near the covered bridge which was burned during the Civil War. A print of the painting, now hanging in the Buchanan Community House, was made by the State Library. �Religion followed on the heels of industry and commerce. The Baptists had a meeting house in Pattonsburg as early as 1800 and Bishop Francis Asbury came in 1801 to Pattonsburg in his efforts to establish Methodism in Botetourt.27 Opposite Pattonsburg the town of Buchanan was laid off as a town “on the main road to the western country” in 1811. “The Great Road” came through Pattonsburg, crossed the James and ran on through Buchanan.28 The twin towns became a thriving commercial center, shipping tobacco, hemp and iron downstream. By 1830 a covered toll bridge had been built over the James and the main stage line passed through Pattonsburg daily. The Pattonsburg and Rockbridge Turnpike Road Company was organized and a foundry was established in Buchanan.29 Cherry Tree Bottom knew slavery with all its ills and scant benefits to the Negro race. The Negro men were trained in the Mount Joy Forge as refiners, colliers, hammermen and blacksmiths. But men, women and children were sold on the block at Mount Joy Forge when their master, Matthew Harvey, died.30 By 1845 Pattonsburg and Buchanan were described by Henry Howe, the Charles Kuralt of ante bellum America, as “connected to­ gether by a fine bridge . . . considered as one village located between the Blue Ridge and Purgatory Mountain at the head of navigation on James River I . . eventually the James River Canal will pass through here to Covington and probably a macadamized road from Staunton to Knoxville, Tennessee” .3' The canal had not yet reached Buchanan and Pattonsburg due to the difficulty of negotiating around Balcony Falls, the rapids at the Blue Ridge water gap. But Howe reported a seven-mile-long canal under construction around Balcony Falls, which would form the bed of the James Itiver Canal.32 In November 1851 the canal was opened all the way to Buchanan and Pattonsburg and in the decade before the Civil War nearly two hundred canal boats plied between Richmond and Buchanan.33 Old Cherry Tree Bottom became a lively place when the bustle of canal boats loading and unloading competed with the activity around the foundry and warehouses of the iron works. By 1840 Mount Joy mansion overlooking Cherry Tree Bottom, had passed from the Harveys to John Thomas Anderson. Anderson rela­ tives remember Mount Joy as well named. A southern mansion in the grand manner, with white columns, magnificent library and lovely dining room with gleaming silver and heavy mirrors, Mount Joy was the scene of laughter and happiness. However, the times of joy were transient. War shadows gathered and the Andersons sided with the 69 �Confederacy. John Thomas in Richmond went to the Confederate Congress, his son managed the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond and another son supervised the furnaces at Cherry Tree Bottom which sent iron to the Tredegar Works.34 This family was dedicated to the Confederacy and after three years of war when Union armies fought their way deep into Virginia to Pattonsburg, the Andersons were marked for punishment. In 1864 a detachment of Hunter’s cavalry arrived at Mount Joy searching for Colonel Anderson, threatening to hang him. The cavalry had orders to burn Mount Joy, but the officer who had been told to do so set fire only to some out-buildings and went on. When General Hunter heard of this, he sent the officer back to do the job. Mrs. Anderson was given one hour to remove the family belongings. The house was looted and silver stolen. The women (one the mother of Ellen Glasgow) were carrying out china in their aprons when a soldier slashed their clothing with his sabre, crushing the china. After everyone was out of Mount Joy, the windows were closed and the house was fired.35 Later McCausland’s fleeing Confederate Army came helter-skelter into Cherry Tree Bottom and Pattonsburg. McCausland ordered bales of hay loaded on the bridge and the bridge burned. Neglecting to cross before the bridge was fired, McCausland had to be brought across in a canoe and was nearly captured. The burning bridge set fire to Buchanan and destroyed thirty buildings. The Confederates formed their battle line on the Buchanan side of the James and the Union armies of Averill, Crook and Hunter moved into Cherry Tree Bottom. The Union line formed on Cherry Tree Bottom near Purgatory. From this point the Yankee artillery had Buchanan and the Confederate line in easy reach. Thirty thousand Union troops poured into the bottom and an old Negro mammy watching from the opposite bank exclaimed, “Good Lord, ain’t thar no end to dem men!” 36 The ensuing battle was short and bitter. The Confederates re­ treated down the Peaks of Otter Road, tearing up the road and cross­ ing the Blue Ridge. The bridge had been burned and the Union generals discovered, as had James Patton in 1745, that the James at Cherry Tree Bottom was deep and impassible. So they had to go a mile up river to ford. If it had not been for this natural feature causing a delay, McCausland’s troops probably would not have had time to tear up the road which gave them much needed time and saved the city of Lynchburg. After the war Cherry Tree Bottom was visited by the dark days of Reconstruction. A scene from those times was that of the once wealthy John Thomas Anderson and his wife finishing out their days in a tiny brick kitchen house on the Mount Joy property. Only the �charred ruins of the house remained. Mount Joy was never rebuilt. Anderson relatives would look over beautiful Cherry Tree Bottom Valley and the ruins of Mount Joy saying, “Mount Joy became Mount Sorrow” .37 For a while the canal boats came up the James beyond the Blue Ridge. Robert E. Lee wrote his daughter how she might manage to visit him at Lexington by riding the canal boats of the James River and Kanawha Canal. But the hard times in the South affected the canal as they did everything else. By 1877 it had fallen into disrepair. Motions were made to restore it to Buchanan, but eventually the Rich­ mond and Alleghany Railroad made the canal obsolete. The macadamized road that had been predicted in 1845 arrived. In the twentieth century U. S. Route 11 was built through Buchanan and more recently Int. 81 by-passed that town. The busy barges no longer plied their trade on the canal. Pattonsburg, once a landmark on the way west, gradually withered away. Today the existence of Cherry Tree Bottom and Pattonsburg by the James is known onlv to a few. Gone are the visionary colonizer, James Patton, Chief Attakullakulla with his Cherokee wariors, and America’s hero, George Wash­ ington. Generals Crook, Averill and Hunter with their conquering men in blue and General McCausland with his gray legions have faded from memory. But America’s pulse throbs today near Cherry Tree Bottom. On Int. 81 the commerce and life of a nation still roar along, bound for a new century, passing Cherry Tree Bottom, a crossroads of the centuries. XXX 202-222*rfa* Harr,son’ "The Virginians on the Ohio and the Mississippi in 1742” , VMHB, B. Kegiey, VIRGINIA FRONTIER. THE BEGINNING OF THE SOUTHWEST THE ROANOKE OF COLONIAL DAYS 1740-1783 (Roanoke: The South West Virginia Historical Society, 1938) hereafter cited as Kegiey, VIRGINIA FRONTIER, p. 39 and 60. 3- L7™an Chalkley, CHRONICLES OF THE SCOTCH-IRISH SETTLEM ENT IN VIR­ GINIA, (Baltimore Genealogical Publishing Ccmpany, 1966) hereafter cited as Chalkley, I, 361. 4. Great Britain, Public Record Office. C. O. 5:1335/237-239. Library of Congress. Letter, Board o l Trade, 1743 and Edmund B. O’Callaghan. DOCUMENTS RELATIVE TO THE COLONIAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK (Albany: Weed, Parsons and Company, printers 1853-1887) VI, 231-235. „ „ L „ Pennf yl, i ? n la. Co,ony Provincial Council, MINUTES, IV, 718: Orange County Order Book, 18 3 9 7 3 2 ' Sigrnatures)' Treaty with the Indians at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1744, VMHB, 6. 7. 8. 9. Wisconsin Historical Society, Draper MMS JOHN BUCHANAN JOURNAL, 1 QQ 38-52. IBID. 1 QQ 75, and VIRGINIA COUNCIL JOURNALS, V, 133-134. CHALKLEY, IH, 40-41. IBID., I, 467. William L. McDowell, ed., DOCUMENTS RELATING TO INDIAN AFFAIRS, May 21, TgJi J P a4v i C°uIrlimi i.a ’. . ?• C*: South Carolina Archives Dept, 1970) I, 408 and VIRGINIA COUNCIL JOURNALS, V, 414-415; John Blair Diary, WMQ (Series I) VII, 144. 11. Virginia State Library, COLONIAL PAPERS, 43/8. Jam es Patton's expense account. 12. IBID. 71 �13. William Henry Foote, SKETCHES OF NORTH CAROLINA, HISTORICAL AND BIO­ GRAPHICAL ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE PRINCIPLES OF A PORTION OF H ER EARLY SETTLERS (New York: Robert Carter, 58 Canal Street, 1846) 3rd edition (New Bern, N. C .: Committee on Historical Matters of the Synod of North Carolina, Presbyterian Chnrch in the United States, and the North Carolina Presbyterian Historical Society, 1965) pp. 163-164. IBID., p. 164. 15. H. R. Mcllwaine, ed. JOURNALS OF THE HOUSE OF BU RGESSES OF VIRGINIA, 1752-1758 pp. 291-292 and R. A. Brock, ed., THE OFFICIAL RECORDS OF ROBERT DINWIDDIE (Richmond: The Virginia Historical Society, 1883-84) II, pp. 91-94. 16. Chalkley, III, pp. 40-41; William W. Hening, ed., THE STATUTES AT LARGE BEING A COLLECTION OF ALL THE LAWS OF VIRGINIA FROM THE FIR ST SESSION OF THE LEGISLATURE IN 1619, hereafter cited as Hening, VII, p. 197 and John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., THE WRITINGS OF GEORGE WASHINGTON FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT SOURCES, 17451799 (Washington: G. P. O., 1931) 1, p. 478. 17. IBID. 18. Chalkley, II, p. 511, VMHB. II, p. 402 and VMHB, X, p. 93. 19. Kegley, VIRGINIA FRONTIER, p. 371 and CHALKLEY, II, p. 128. 20. Kegley, VIRGINIA FRONTIER, p. 370 CHALKLEY, H, p. 128; DukeUniversity P R E S­ TON PAPERS, Letter, William P. Anderson to General John B. Preston, May 7, 1824 and Nash­ ville Republican and State Gazette, October 21, 1828, Letter, W.P. Anderson, Craggy Hope, Oc­ tober 8, 1828. 21. Robert D. Stoner, A SEED-BED OF THE REPUBLIC A STUDY OF THE PIONEERS IN THE UPPER (Southern) Valley of Virginia (Radford: Commonwealth Press, 1962) hereafter cited as Stoner, SEED-BED, p. 115. 22. Hening, XIII, p. 673 and Stoner, SEED-BED, pp. 240-241 23. CHALKLEY, II, p. 128. 24. CHALKLEY, III, pp. 40-41; Duke University, PRESTON PAPERS, Letter, Jam es Patton to John Buchanan, July 5, 1751; NASHVILLE REPUBLICAN AND STATE GAZETTE, October 21, 1828; and John Spencer Bassett, CORRESPONDENCE OF ANDREW JACKSON, (Washington; Carnegie Institute, 1926) I pp. 84; 160-161-181; III, pp. 392-393; 407-408 and VI, p. 422. 25. Stoner, SEED-BED, p. 171. 26. Kegley, VIRGINIA FRONTIER, p. 511 and Ellen Graham Anderson, “ Civil War Comes to Buchanan: II. The Burning of Mount Jo y ” , JOURNAL OF THE ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, I, no. 2, p. 19. Editor’s note. 27. Stoner, SEED-BED, pp. 370 and 393. 28. Kegley, VIRGINIA FRONTIER, p. 425. 29. Stoner, SEED-BED, p. 487; BUCHANAN COMMERCIAL JOURNAL, October 11, 1839. 30. VIRGINIA PATRIOT, December 26, 1829. 31. Henry Howe. HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF VIRGINIA CONTAINING A COLLECTION OF THE MOST INTERESTING FACTS, TRADITIONS, BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES, ANECOTES, AND C RELATING TO ITS HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES TOGETHER WITH GEOGRAPHICAL AND STATISTICAL DESCRIPTIONS TO WHICH IS APPENDED AN HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTVE SKETCH OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA (Baltimore: Regional Publishing Company, 1969) pp. 176 and 203. 32. IBID. 33. Elizabeth Dabney Coleman and W. Edwin Hemphill, “ Boats Beyond the Blue Ridge” , VIRGINIA CAVALCADE. Ill, no. 4, p. 10 Robert L. Scribner, “ In Memory of Frank Pedgett” , VIRGINIA CAVALCADE, in, no. 3, p. 8. 34. Ellen Graham Anderson. “ Civil War Comes to Buchanan: n The Burning of Mount Joy ” JOURNAL OF THE ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, v. I, no. 2, pp. 19-20. 35. IBID, pp. 20-21. 36. William C. Pendleton, HISTORY OF TAZEWELL COUNTY AND SOUTHWEST VIR­ GINIA 1748-1920 (Richmond, Virginia: W. C. Hill Printing Company, 1920) and Jane C. Bovd, “ Civil War Comes to Buchanan: I: An Eyewitness Story” , JOURNAL OF THE ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, v. I, no. 2, p. 16. 37. EPen Graham. Anderson. “ Civil War Comes to Buchanan: n The Burning of Mount Joy ” , JOURNAL OF THE ROANOKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, v. I, no. 2, p. 21. Two New Maps t. J. R. Hildebrand, indefatigable mapmaker, has produced two more maps of neighboring counties: Bedford and Rockbridge. These, with earlier maps of Roanoke, Botetourt and Montgomery counties, are sold by the Society at P. 0. Box 1904, Roanoke 24008, for $1.50 to members and $2 for others. The maps contain a wide variety of historical information about the first century of each county, usually covering events up to the Civil War. 72 �Southview, 150, Replaced by Motel Southview as it appeared to travelers in bygone days. Southview, once described as “one of the loveliest old homes in Roanoke County,” was razed in April 1973 to make way for a Scottish Inns motel and restaurant constructed on the site north of Roanoke later in the year. Known as the home of Mrs. Annie B. Whitner for almost a halfcentury, Southview gave its name to the community on Route 117, the Peters Creek Road. In bygone years, this was known as the Old Rock Road, connecting Route 11 near Hollins with the highway from Roanoke to Salem. Today, the site is at the northwest corner of Inter­ state 581 and Route 117. The 2 V2 -story brick heme with 10 large rooms and seven mantels was built in 1822 by William R. Johnston, according to Mrs. Eunice Sprinkle Lewis, the last owner. Research by Mrs. Ola Gish Durr shows that Robert Neely, first owner of the property according to Roanoke County records, was deed­ ed 320 acres in 1792. Later owners were William McClanahan, 1808; Daniel Frantz, 1808; William R. Johnston, 1822; Joseph Leonard, 1835; Samuel Forsythe, 1852; John S. Balthis, 1853; Jacob P. Hartman, 1858; Charles H. Day, 1882; Dr. H. H. Haas, 1885; Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Whit­ ner, 1904, and Mrs. Eunice Lewis, 1953. A 1937 architectural description said the home had four chim­ neys, 25 windows, a full-length, one-story porch with 11 Doric columns on the south and east sides. Ceilings were nine feet high, doors were 73 �five-panel cross and one of the seven mantels was elaborate and hand­ made. Tradition holds that President Andrew Jackson stopped at Southview while en route to Washington from his Nashville, Tenn. home. Jackson was said to have had his horse shod at a blacksmith shop here. Southview had vine-covered walls, a long lawn reaching down to a small lake fringed by willows and a lane of old osage orange trees leading from the road to the front door. Mrs. Durr recalls that a Venetian Water Carnival, “a lovely pa­ geant,” was given at Southview by the Roanoke County Junior Wom­ an’s Club about 1930. The pageant was described as “a thing of beau­ ty, unparalleled by anything of its kind ever given in the state.” In July 1944, Mrs. Whitner, known as a gracious hostess, presided over a Mid-Summer Musicale given by the Institute of Musical Activi­ ties at twilight. Willie Dupree and other Roanoke musicians of the time participated. After the old home was taken down, Mrs. Durr salvaged a large king stretcher brick from the site. A Tout of the New Rivet Countty A visit to the older areas of Radford, Newbern and Pulaski Coun­ ty in the New River country was taken by three busloads of Society members and guests on Saturday, May 26, 1973. Others from Mont­ gomery and Pulaski counties joined the tour and lunch was at New Dublin Presbyterian Church, a congregation formed in 1769. Highlights of the trip were the village of Newbern, first county seat of Pulaski County; Rockwood, home of Sam Bell near Dublin; Back Creek, the George Farriss home built by Maj. Joseph Cloyd in 1792; Ingleside, the home of five generations of the Ingles family near Radford; the “Long Way Home” drama site and Arnheim, oldest brick home in Radford. The tour was co-sponsored by the New River His­ torical Society. Newbern, Pulaski seat from 1839 until the courthouse burned in 1895, still has an old brick jail, a brick reservoir, interesting frame and log buildings owned by K. B. Alexander and other 19th Century structures. Rockwood is known for the iron grill work over the windows, 74 �intricate moulding on the ceilings and a hardwood mosaic in the front hallway. It has nine bedrooms and a total of 14 rooms. Near the scene of the Battle of Cloyd’s Mountain on May 9, 1864 stands Back Creek, home of the Cloyds for almost a century and a half. A family cemetery nearby contains graves dating back to Maj. Joseph Cloyd, 1744-1833. The two-story brick home is marked by fine woodwork. Brick dependencies and a stone barn date back to the Cloyds. Ingleside, home of Mr. and Mrs. Melville Jeffries, grew from a log block house built by William Ingles before 1800. It overlooks the stage where Mrs. Jeffries portrays one of her Ingles ancestors in the summer drama, based on the 1755 escape from Indian kidnappers by Mary Draper Ingles. High on a hill in Radford is Arnheim, built in 1836 by Dr. John Radford, a physician whose name was chosen by this industrial-college city on New River. It is used by the city schools today. Unique hardwood mosaic on floor of entrance hall at Rockwood, near Dublin. 75 �Mrs. Elwood Zieber of Roanoke stands in front of Back Creek, Pulaski County home dating from 1792. An unusual view of the maze of street car tracks at the corner of Jefferson Street and Campbell Avenue in downtown Roanoke is seen in this 1935 photograph taken by R. Holman Ragland, a member of the Society, from the 10th floor of the Colonial-American Building. When first installed, the tracks were said to be among only two or three in the country offering right or left turns in any direction, Ragland recalled. �ROANOKE VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Amor montium nos movet Mr s . Harold P. K y le ................ President A rthur E llett ................................................................... Vice President E dmund P. G oodwin ................................................................. Treasurer J. R. Hildebrand ........................................... Secretary Mr s . J oel Wil l i s R ic h e r t ..................................... Executive Secretary Directors Raymond P. Barnes C. P. Blair Mrs. H. Powell Chapman Mrs. John Copenhaver S. S. Edmunds Arthur Ellett J. T. Engleby III B. N. Eubank Edmund P. Goodwin Mrs. Edmund P. Goodwin Jack Goodykoontz Miss Anna Louise Haley J. R. Hildebrand Miss Nancy E. Himes Shields Johnson George Kegley Mrs. George Kegley R. S. Kime Mrs. Harold P. Kyle Mrs.J. M. B. Lewis Jr. Miss Nancy Logan Richard L. Meagher E. H. Ould Mrs. English Showalter R. D. Stoner Paul S. Stonesifer David F. Thornton James L. Trinkle William Watts Mrs. Roger Winborne James P. Woods Robert W. Woody Dr. J. C. Zillhardt �' � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society 1973-1974 Volume 9, Number 1 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />Old Barns of Appalachia<br />Montane Virginia in the Revolution<br />Roanoke Valley Medicine<br />Recollections of Ballad Collecting<br />Ephraim Vause was Robbed<br />William Preston, Frontier Public Servant<br />Alexander-Withrow Building<br />Cherry Tree Bottom, Crossroads of the Centuries<br />Southview, Age 150, Replaced by Motel<br />A Tour of the New River Country Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973-1974 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_09_01_1973 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6351/JHSWV_09_02_1975.pdf 10644283ef5320c57b40d3e7bc9075ed PDF Text Text JOURNAL of the ROANOKE VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY V o lu m e N in e N u m b er T w o �1975 Contents Government by F amilies in Botetourt County, by Sally A. E a d s ........................................................................... 1 Indians Retreat F rom Virginians At Battle of P oint P leasant , by John G. M organ ................................... 16 T he F incastle Resolutions : Southwest Virginia ’s Commitment , by Dr. Thad Tate ........................... 19 The Re so l u t io n s ..................................................................................... 30 Who the 15 Signers Were, by Mary K e g le y ........................... ........ 32 Botetourt P ublications P lanned .................................................... 37 Settlement, Defense of the F rontier, by Emory L. H am ilton .................................................................... 38 A Visit to P atrick Co u n t y .......................... 47 J ournals Wa n t e d ................................................................................... 49 Bleak H ill , A H andsome F arm House, by Anne Carter L e e ........ 50 F arm F ruits of the 1800s, by Alice Saunders ................................. 59 “N oble Souls” of Bleak H ill , by Susie M. T a ylo r ......................... 61 I ndex of the J ournal’s F irst Decade ............................................ 70 Maryland Border War Refugees F lee to the Roanoke Valley, by Patricia Givens Jo h n so n ......................... 73 George Kegley Editor of the JOURNAL The Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society, Volume Nine, Number 2. Published by the Society at Box 1904, Roanoke, Virginia 24008, to chronicle the past and present of that part of the state west of the Blue Ridge. Single copy price for members, $2.00; for non­ members, $3.00. The Society will be careful in handling unsolicited material but cannot be responsible for its loss. �Government by Families In Botetourt County By Sally A. E ads Fincastle originated around the Mill Place built by Johannes Mul­ ler prior to 1745. After the creation of Botetourt County in 1769, and the choice of Miller’s Mill, by this time a thriving establishment, as the county seat, the community became known as Botetourt Court House. Not until 1772 was the community chartered as the Town of Fincastle. As a political body the Town of Fincastle was powerless, not governed by its own residents. When one looks at who governed or who was considered the dominant social and economic group, one has to look outside Fincastle proper to the surrounding estate holders and to the County government as a whole. In trying to describe the socio­ economic structure, one then must look at a greater Fincastle com­ munity.1 Why then did the early settlers bother to charter towns at all? Judging from the statutes, letters, and court minute books, towns served several purposes. One was simply speculative; a chartered town near or on someone’s land would increase the land’s value, particularly as it was divided into lots and sold. Secondly, the sale of town lots and the revenue generated by town business might defray the cost of court houses, jails and other government buildings. Thirdly, if one accepts at face value the statute establishing Fincastle, protection was needed from the Indians.2 Finally, counties simply needed a county seat. The events leading to the creation of Botetourt County and the chartering of Fincastle transpire between 1767 and 1772 in Augusta County itself and the House of Burgesses in Williamsburg. The first reference to any attempt to divide Augusta County occurred in March, 1767, in a petition “from sundry inhabitants of the County of Augusta, praying a division thereof,” which was referred to the Committee on Propositions and Grievances. A second petition in April, 1767, cited the inconvenience of living so far from Staunton, the county seat.® Apparently, however, not all the settlers felt the inconvenience since an opposing petition was also filed on the second date.4 Thomas Lewis, living near Staunton, and his brother, Andrew Lewis, living An in-depth study of “government by families” in Botetourt County was done by Sally Eads, assistant professor of history at Vir­ ginia Western Community College. She is a graduate of Agnes Scott College and she holds a master’s degree from the University of Virginia. She and her lawyer husband, J. Harold Eads, live at Fincastle. �in the present City of Salem, both wrote to William Preston, opposing the division of Augusta and requesting that any action on the petitions be postponed until the next session.5 They were, in fact, postponed. Israel Christian, whom Preston had unseated as a burgess in 1765, favored dividing the county, but John Madison, clerk of Augusta County, opposed it, saying that Christian’s friends, then out of power in Augusta, just wanted a new county so they could fill all the offices.® In 1769, several different plans to divide Augusta were presented to the House of Burgesses and the Committee on Courts and Justice recommended that the previous petitions be discharged. In November 1769, both the favorable and unfavorable petitions were reported to the floor of the Burgesses for action. The bill for division was passed by the end of November by the Burgesses and the Council and signed by the governor.7 Apparently the Burgesses expected the new Botetourt County to be divided because they specifically exempted the residents of southwestern Botetourt from levies to build the new court house.8 It is clear that the Burgesses were quite willing to create new counties when areas under consideration had 800 tithables and could build the church and court house.9 The frequent divisions of counties avoided many problems within the colony, particularly since many of the new counties in Western Virginia were different in religion and ethnic character.10 In the second meeting of the justices of Botetourt County, the court recommended to the governor a tract of land east of Miller’s Mill owned by Israel Christian for a county seat. Christian conveyed to the court forty acres for consideration of twenty shillings, but retained the mill itself. The sheriff, Richard Woods, was directed to lay off ten acres for prison bounds, and a courthouse and jail were to be built under the direction of Israel Christian, John Bowyer, William Fleming, and Stephen Trigg." John Bowyer alone opposed the choice of site for the county seat. It may be conjecture, but Bowyer may have held land on which he wanted the courthouse located. His mar­ riage to the widow of Benjamin Borden Jr., did bring him land within a few miles of Fincastle. His dissent is also rooted in a continuing feud with Christian left over from Augusta County. He, Bowyer, must have acquiesced in the location enough to bring in a bill, along with Edmund Pendleton, albeit on orders from the Burgesses, for establish­ ing a town adjoining the courthouse of Botetourt. The bill passed on March 16,1772, and the new town was named Fincastle. That same year, Botetourt lost most of its territory to the new Fincastle County.12 The ethnic basis for the Fincastle community appears to have been a combination of English, Scotch-Irish, German, and African. In con­ trast with Tidewater Virginia, the Fincastle community was not pre­ dominantly English, though the government structure was English in origin. 2 �The Germans began to settle the area quite early; John Miller in 1745 reflects this as does Jacob Peck Sr., of Wurtemburg, and later Adam Peck. The majority of Botetourt Germans, however, came after 1780. The earliest recorded Valley German settler is Jost Hite about 1731 near present Winchester. These Germans in the northern end of the Valley were militia men, voters and major office holders as early as the 1750’s and 1760’s.'3 In the Fincastle community, however, the Germans voted, appeared on militia rolls but rarely held major offices. Most Germans were small farmers, millers, or other crafts­ men and did not take an active part in politics. Jacob Peck Sr., is exceptional as a large landholder, but even he held no political office. There were also indications that the Botetourt Germans did not actively serve in combat but were exempted because of conscience, i.e., pacifism. These Germans had little in common with Tidewater Virginia; George Washington visiting in the Valley in 1748 was not impressed with the Germans at all.14 The most influential ethnic group was the Scottish or Scotch-Irish settlers.15 Of the original justices, at least nine were Scot or ScotchIrish, though two can be identified as English.16 It is significant that a number of these justices were European-born, showing that they moved rapidly into leadership positions. Many, in fact, achieved far greater power and standing than would have been possible in the old countries. Most also were literate when they arrived. A few settlers were already rather substantial gentlemen before they left Europe. William Fleming was a college trained physician and the Lewis family left substantial enough holdings in Ireland to require a return visit by one family member to settle an estate. John Lewis did have to leave Ireland rather hurriedly after killing an Irish laird; however, he remained sufficiently proud of the deed to have it inscribed on his gravestone.17 William Preston, James Patton’s nephew, and the son of a poor ship’s carpenter, immigrated only in 1740, but was a burgess by 1765. Further confirmation of the origins of many who originally settled Augusta and then Botetourt may be found in the description of Beverly Manor, near Staunton, as the “Irish Tract,” meaning the Scotch-Irish, whose numbers included Breckinridges, Lockharts, Chris­ tians, Skillerns, and McClanahans.18 In addition, the Scotch-Irish and Presbyterian origins are reflected in the substantial number of the first justices and vestrymen who had belonged to the Tinkling Spring Presbyterian Church south of Staunton.19 Most colonial born residents of Botetourt appear first in Augusta, generally having migrated from Pennsylvania. A few, like Thomas Posey, came from Northern or Eastern Virginia. Communal migration or settlement by extended family groups seems the dominant pattern for the leaders of Botetourt as a whole and Fincastle in particular,20 such as the Breckinridge, Lewis, Preston, 3 �Christian, Bowyer, and McClanahan families. Some, like the Lewis, Lynn, Patton, and Preston families had intermarried and left in groups from Ulster in Ireland.21 These settlers appear in Augusta, hold most major positions, civil and military, and stake out extensive land claims. Sons and occasionally fathers continue migrating down the Valley of Virginia as new settlements and then counties appear. This nucleus of settlers with its myriad intermarriages and connections serves as the Com­ mission of Justices in Augusta, Botetourt, Fincastle, Montgomery, Washington, and Kentucky Counties.22 Israel Christian, who gave the land for Fincastle, illustrates the point by his children. His daughter, Anne, married William Fleming, a Botetourt justice; Rosanna married Caleb Wallace, who became a judge in Kentucky; Mary married Stephen Trigg, a justice in Botetourt, Fincastle and Washington Counties; Eliza­ beth married Col. William Bowyer of Botetourt; his son William, married Patrick Henry’s sister, Anne.23 Later, Alexander McClanahan of Augusta married John Lewis’ daughter, Margaret; William Madison married William Preston’s daugh­ ter, Elizabeth; Thomas Posey, a Botetourt justice, married George Matthews’ sister. Matthews lived in Fincastle; his father, Sampson, lived in Augusta. William Preston’s sister, Leticia, married Robert Breckin­ ridge, a Botetourt justice. Henry Bowyer, Botetourt clerk of court from 1788 to 1831, married Thomas Madison’s daughter. Madison, whose father had been clerk in Augusta, married the sister of Patrick Henry. Andrew Lewis’ son, William, married in succession a McClenechan and a Madison.24 These rather involved family relationships do not reflect the American myth of rugged individualists hacking their way through the wilderness, but a pattern of almost tribal migrations of restless wandering family groups. The above discussion of family and ethnic origin of Botetourt County leadership indicates that family connection was a major in­ gredient in the formation of an upper or governing class. Another significant factor was large-scale land owning; however, these men are not just simple farmers, they are more hustling businessmen. A cur­ sory glance at the records of Augusta and Botetourt County deeds shows Israel Christian in 1770 owning singly or with his son, William, or sons-in law, William Fleming, Stephen Trigs, or Caleb Wallace, over 3,300 acres.25 Included in the survey was Miller’s Mill, an income pro­ ducing establishment, and the Stone House near Cloverdale which had been his base of operations as a frontier merchant since the early 1760’s. John Bowyer, Christian’s nemesis on the County Court, married the widow of Benjamin Borden Jr., and while administering that vast estate also owned over 1,000 acres himself. William Preston, county surveyor for Augusta, Botetourt, and Fincastle counties, before 1767, owned 3,000 acres, including the Preston place, Greenfield, near Fin­ castle,26 and bought more land later. 4 �Land alone could not put one in the governing class, but land combined with civil and military office-holding, business dealings, some resulting from the office-holding, clearly put a person in the establishment. By land holding, one does not always mean farming; it may mean wholesale speculation. Once a man became a justice, how­ ever, he was considered a “gentleman” since the two terms were vir­ tually synonymous at this time, and it was difficult if not impossible to remove him. This was made more difficult by the sons and sons-in-law who followed in their fathers’ footsteps.27 Even outrageous behavior, conflict of interest, and abuse of position could not destroy a man socially or politically. John Bowyer, for instance, while a justice and later the sheriff in Augusta, was fined for gaming in the Court Room while court was in session, and in 1763 was fined for gaming in public and assaulting Israel Christian in the latter’s performance of duty, namely, citing Bowyer.28 In later years as a Botetourt justice, Bowyer appears to have remained contentious and difficult, refusing to vote for paying the surveyor 10 pounds above his regular fee for clearing the line between Botetourt and the new Fincastle County. Bowyer, Preston, Robert Breckinridge, and John Howard refused to vote for Fincastle was only a cluster of homes amid rolling countryside In this aerial photograph of 1924, as it is today and was when it was established two centuries ago. 5 �Israel Christian and three other candidates for sheriff in 1770 when the rest of the Court approved the recommendation. This division also had roots in the long feuds and political battles between Preston and Christian, and Bowyer and Christian in Augusta. Of course, Chris­ tian himself was not living an entirely blameless life, being fined for insolence and contempt for the court and the king’s attorney. In 1772, John Madison sued George Skillern for threatening his life. Skillem had to post 40 pounds bond and get two securities at 20 pounds each.29 The position of justice of the peace was perhaps the most crucial post in county government. The justices, once in office, could be dis­ lodged only by death, resignation, or removal from the territory. Most scholars generally agree that the justices were recruited from the wealthiest men of the county. When new counties were created, new justices had to be chosen. Generally, the new justices were men who had held similar posts in the parent county. For instance, in 1763 Augusta County had a new Commission of the Peace; among the justices were John Buchanan, Andrew Lewis, James Lockhart, father of Patrick, Richard Woods, Robert Breckinridge, William Preston, John Bowyer, Israel Christian, John Maxwell, and Benjamin Hawkins.30 Every one of these gentlemen or their sons were justices on the Botetourt County Commission. In a sense, one could say that the act of creating a county meant that a social structure complete with a governing class was already in existence. The justices were appointed by the governor and any additions to the commission were also chosen by the governor, but only on the recommendation of the existing justices. The original commission, then, completely controlled access into its ranks on the part of those who would become part of the governing class. Once on the justices’ commission, a man had enormous power of course, but being a justice also signified that he already had power. The justices also influenced the economic life of the county. The body had executive, legislative, and judicial functions. They set rates for inns and ordinaries, issued licenses for merchants, and ordinary keepers, appointed men to take tithables’ lists and to collect levies, appointed constables, overseers of the roads, and had numerous other duties. The county justices acted as the court, meeting monthly to preside over cases involving debt or civil complaints. When the court was constituted as a Commission of Oyer and Terminer, it functioned as a quarter sessions court for criminal cases where the penalty did not involve life and limb.31 They also ordered the sheriff to summon grand juries and trial juries, when needed, usually for quarter sessions court. It was from the ranks of these already powerful justices that the governor chose the majority of other county posts. In the appoint­ ment of sheriffs, the governor chose one of three justices recommended by the justices themselves, usually the one they specified. The appointee 6 �was usually the senior member of the justices who had not previously held the post.32 The sheriff also posted bond with two men to serve as security; the bond covered any breach of duty such as law suits, jailbreaks and failure to collect tax levies. Any justice refusing to serve as sheriff was fined 3,000 pounds of tobacco and another choice was made. The sheriff was barred from serving as a burgess during his two-year term and for two more years afterward.33 The earliest sheriffs of Botetourt included Richard Woods, Israel Christian, John Maxwell, George Skillern and Benjamin Estill.34 The sheriff not only had tax collection duties and the duty of summoning grand and trial juries. He also supervised the election process; he set the election day, sent around writs of election to all churches to be read, giving time and place of the election, opened and closed the polls when he wanted, decided who was qualified to vote, and recorded the votes cast, either by voice vote or signing under the proper candidate’s name. The actual voting was done publicly with poll watchers present.33 The justices could and did influence the voting on the part of the freeholders. By law any man with fifty acres or a house and twentyfive acres or a town lot and house could vote by attending the polls on election day, usually at the court house.36 The justices usually turned out to vote early and then waited for all the others to vote.37 Gentle­ men also profited from a law barring the solicitation of votes with gifts or drinks to the voters since they were already well known. The enormous influence of the justices over elections is seen in the election for the House of Delegates in 1783. Two weeks before the election, Justice George Skillern gave a party over near Buchanan to which most of the gentlemen of the county were invited. At this party, Archibald Stuart, a young Revolutionary War hero from Rock­ bridge, who had just been defeated in that county for the House of Delegates, made a stirring toast to the recent victory over the British. He so impressed those in attendance that he was urged to run for the House of Delegates from Botetourt. Protesting that he had no land in Botetourt to make him a free-holder, Stuart was offered a house and lot in Fincastle. All the gentlemen went to their homes and told every­ one that Archibald Stuart, their friend and son of Alexander Stuart, was the candidate. William Hamilton, a justice, sold him the house in Fincastle on April 10, 1783, Election Day; the justices all turned out to vote early and do some campaigning. Stuart was elected, and re­ elected in 1784 and 1785.38 The county surveyor was also a justice. In the early days of counties, the surveyors were very important since they charted the land grants and deeds and made up the plats, and often also picked up choice parcels of land. William Preston appears to have gotten quite a bit of land in this way. 7 �Once a justice, a man might be able to seek higher office such as the House of Burgesses, later the House of Delegates, or the Senate. Israel Christian, William Christian, William Preston, John Bowyer, Andrew Lewis and numerous others were all elected to higher office. Being a justice in colonial times also generally meant filling militia posts as well as the other civic duties previously mentioned. Virtually all the Botetourt justices were militia officers; naturally enough gentle­ men were officers, not ordinary soldiers. Such Fincastle area notables as John Bowyer, James Cloyd, William Preston, David Robinson, Pat­ rick Lockhart and others later on held the rank of lieutenant, captain, major and colonel.39 The position of colonel signified the head of the county militia. The militia, of course, pulled some strictly military duty from time to time, in addition to other activities. Botetourt militiamen along with those from Augusta, Fincastle and other frontier counties fought at the Battle of Point Pleasant in October, 1774. There Charles Lewis and Robert McClenechan were killed and William Fleming wounded.40 While the Indians who fought at Point Pleasant generally lived outside the Valley of Virginia, at least a week’s march or more from Fincastle, and few Indians were seen anywhere near the area in the 1770’s, memories of Indian troubles lingered on enough to war­ rant some preparedness by the militia. As recently as 1764, the Cloyd family had been massacred near Amsterdam; this, however, was ex­ tremely unusual.41 The concept of marcher lords holding frontier lands in troubled border areas, filling civilian as well as military roles, had existed in England against the Welsh, Scots and Irish raids or rebellions. The Botetourt justices in a sense were filling much the same function in guarding the Virginia frontier. They might also be compared to the ancient Roman citizen soldier manging his lands and taking up arms whenever called on to do so. Obviously, the Revolution called most of these men to duty as soldiers and commissaries.42 Militia officers were also responsible for taking the lists of tithables. The tithable lists were not merely lists of soldiers by rank, trade and location; such a list would be a simple militia list. The tithable lists enumerated almost all taxable properties such as land, houses, barns, livestock, slaves, and carts or carriages. In other words, these lists, like later census bureau reports, provided the basis for colonial taxa­ tion. The militia companies, which were the units for the tithable lists, were distributed on a geographic basis and were led by the captains. While land and office holding were both very important, the governing gentlemen did a lot more. They were land speculators, merchant traders, Indian agents and farmers. In other words, they were totally immersed in the economic as well as political life of the county. Israel Christian again serves as a pertinent example. A com­ missary for Col. William Byrd’s regiment in the French and Indian 8 �War, Christian was also operating out of the Stone House in Cloverdale as a merchant. His managers and agents included Anthony Bledsoe, Stephen Trigg, and Walter Stewart. Christian also was a state sub­ sidized agent selling goods to the Cherokees.43 Preston, Bowyer, George Matthews, William Hamilton, Robert Harvey and others speculated in land. Hamilton, Harvey, and Henry Bowyer were all well-known merchants. These men also served as guardians to orphans, administrators of the estates of men away at war or prisoners of war and often acted as executors of estates for widows. On occasion this service proved not only very lucrative, particularly if the estate was large and prosperous, but also very hard to give up. Israel Christian was sued more than once by men who wanted to resume the administration of their own estates.44 Such positions often led to future purchases of property. In August, 1766, Israel Christian and Andrew Miller qualified as administrators of John Miller’s estate. In 1768, Christian bought for 100 pounds eighty-one acres of that estate, the Miller’s Mill, site of the future Botetourt County Courthouse. He sold the Mill alone for 13,000 pounds Virginia currency to Andrew Henry in 1783.45 The justices also served as security on each others’ bonds for sheriff, guardians, ordinary keepers and such. Apparently, church affiliation was of little or no consequence in holding public office in the Valley even though office holders were required to take oaths of allegiance to the Church of England. It was well known that most of the vestry and Commission of the Peace of Augusta had been Presbyterian dissenters.46 These included such later Botetourt and Town of Fincastle citizens as the Prestons, Christians, Breckinridges, Flemings, McDowells, Buchanans, Woods, and Lewises.47 This pattern of dissenter government follows in Botetourt; in the first vestry in 1770 were William Fleming, James Rowland, William Ingles, Bryan McDonald, John Bowyer, John Armstrong, John May, Thomas Barnes, Luke Bowyer, Anthony Bledsoe, Thomas Rowland and Philip Love, most of them Presbyterian.48 The dissenter influence on the vestry is especially noted in 1777 when the House of Delegates dis­ solved the vestry and ordered the election of a new one because of that dissenter control. But in 1778 there was still no vestry and commission­ ers of the tax had to see to the care of the poor on orders of the General Assembly.49 Generally, however, the governor, council and Burgesses tacitly consented to the dissenter controlled government and not until attempts were made to incorporate the Episcopal church during the Revolution was there much controversy.50 The vestry was initially elected, but once elected was as self-perpetuating a body as the justices. The governing or upper class, then, was composed of a landed gentry who held a majority, if not a real monopoly, of county offices, 9 �civil and military, and who participated fully in the trade, commerce, and other activities of the county. The Commission of the Peace was an oligarchic, not a democratic, form of government. These men con­ sidered themselves the “gentlemen” of the county and were accepted by both the middle and lower classes of Botetourt as such and, perhaps more important, by gentlemen elsewhere. It is apparent that a nucleus of the Augusta County Court formed the upper class of Botetourt County. It is also clear that Fincastle County and its successors, Montgomery, Washington, and Kentucky counties, follow the same pattern. On the first county court of Fin­ castle County, January 5, 1773, appear: William Preston, William Ingles, John Montgomery, Stephen Trigg, Robert Doack, Walter Crockett, Anthony Bledsoe, James McGavock, and Benjamin Estill, all formerly members of the Botetourt County Court.51 Many of the same gentlemen show up in the newer counties. These men occasionally made public pronouncements of their intent to migrate down the Valley. Israel Christian in The Virginia Gazette advertised his intent to move from Fincastle in Botetourt County to the new Fin­ castle County and invited anyone who had any business to transact to meet him at Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg on a certain date.52 The Fincastle Resolves of 1775 display a list of names that were for­ merly Botetourt notables: Col. William Preston, Col. William Christian, Capt. Stephen Trigg, Maj. William Ingles, Capt. John Montgomery, Capt. James McGavock, Capt. Thomas Madison, plus, of course, others not from Botetourt.53 The upper class remaining in Botetourt County was reflected in a new Commission of the Peace in 1778 composed of William Fleming, George Skillern, Benjamin Estill, Philip Love, Andrew Woods, Adam Smyth, William Madison, William McClenechan, William Christian, also in Montgomery County, Patrick Lockhart, Thomas Lewis, George Rut­ ledge, Jonathan Taylor, William Hamilton, Thomas Rowland, John Armstrong, Robert Poage, and James Barnett.54 Of these, only Patrick Lockhart, William Hamilton, Adam Smyth, George Rutledge, and William McClenechan lived in or near Fincastle itself. In the newly truncated Botetourt the old pattern of justices serving as sheriffs, surveyors, and commonwealth’s attorney prevailed.55 The Town of Fincastle, even with this new Commission of the Peace in 1778, remained powerless as a political entity. The gentlemen justices authorized to sell off town lots in Fincastle were not generally residents of the town, nor were those authorized to collect money due from lots necessarily living there. This group of gentlemen justices, at one time or another, included Fleming, Skillern, Richard May, Adam Smyth, Thomas Madison, William McClenechan, Patrick Lockhart, James 10 �Rowland, Robert Harvey, and David May. Of these, only Smyth, Lock­ hart, and Harvey actually lived in the town, though McClenechan lived nearby. John May, clerk of court until 1778, lived in Fincastle, but his successors, David May and Henry Bowyer III, did not. Even the trustees of the town of Fincastle, named in 1789, were not all residents. James Breckinridge, Henry Bowyer III, Robert Harvey, George Hancock, Mathew Harvey, Philip Speckard, and Patrick Lockhart were all trustees,56 but only Lockart, the two Harveys and Hancock lived in town; the others lived two to five miles away. It would be inaccurate not to mention that as town lots were sold, men who could be considered as governing class through other lands and offices they held, bought into Fincastle. Lockhart, Hancock, Hamil­ ton, Harvey, and Smyth have been mentioned. William Bowyer, colonel in the militia and son-in-law to Israel Christian, lived on Main Street.57 Thomas Bowyer, major in the Continental Army, had a house on Main Street with four fireplaces and a brick chimney and also had extensive holdings near the town.58 It should be noted, also, that greater Fincastle was an active, busy, and growing community in the 1770’s and 1780’s. This is especially evident during the Revolution. Gentlemen such as Col. John Bowyer who lived in or near Fincastle actively participated as recruiters of rangers. Bowyer also organized a troop which saw action on the Ohio River in 1778.59 Patrick Lockhart served as commissary to the militia, transporting arms to Williamsburg, later serving in the same capacity for the Continental Army.60 Thomas Posey, a newcomer to the Fin­ castle community in the early 1770’s, deserves his inclusion in the upper class as a militia major. He led a company at Point Pleasant in 1774 and continued leadership of an active company in the Revolution at the Battle of Monmouth, New Jersey, and other battles. Numerous Fincastle residents supplied Posey’s company in 1776, including John Bowyer, Andrew Wallace and John Gilmer.6' Posey had a substantial home and lots in Fincastle and later moved on to Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois to take important positions.62 Captain Michael Bowyer, a Fincastle merchant, also led a company of militiamen for Virginia.63 Col. William Bowyer, a Main Street Fincastle resident, served in the Continental Army. In the Town of Fincastle itself there is also ample evidence of a thriving middle class and lower class community. Generally speak­ ing, nongentlemen ranking officers in the militia, tenants leasing land, small planters who owned a few slaves and men who were called for jury duty could be defined as middle class. This definition also would include craftsmen, store keepers and the like who did not own large estates.64 Further, if one could vote according to the 1736 Election Law, which enfranchised those owning town lots with a house 12 x 12 ll �A shirt-sleeved crowd heard Gov. Mills Godwin speak at dedication of Botetourt County's fourth courthouse on June 14, 1975. The new build­ ing replaces the structure which burned in December 1970, the county's 200th anniversary year. feet in dimension, he was middle class. If a man served as constable, he also fit the definition. Generally, laborers, indentured servants, and apprentices were lower class, but the latter two categories were, of course, temporary situations. Within this rather broad definition most of Fincastle’s residents through the 1790’s could be considered middle class. Those who owned for any period of time property in the town comprise not too lengthy a list. In 1777, the justices sold to John Todd, a lawyer introduced to the county by William Preston,63 two lots on the south side of Main Street,66 to Henry Shrider in 1778, three lots, to Adam Peck two lots, 67 to John Grattan and George Rutledge, one lot, Pledge Palmer one lot, Jesse Clark, one lot,68 to Samuel Kennerly, two lots, William Miller, two lots, to Richard Thomas, two lots, and to Thomas McMakin, 12 �two lots.69 These men served on juries, served as constables, and surveyors of the road.70 About 1780, there is some property transfer when Archibald Kyle, Jacob Mifford, Nichols and Jacob Carper, Stephen May, William Miller and George Hancock moved into town. Hancock, from his work as commonwealth’s attorney, obviously was a member of the governing class. Most of these men, as mentioned, performed minor governing tasks and also ran small businesses such as ordinaries. Many became merchants, or craftsmen, although there is no mention of merchants’ licenses until the late 1780’s when Thomas King was licensed as a retailer. The existence of a merchant-craft community was evident from men like Michael Bowyer, who was a merchant long before licenses were granted, and Posey was a known saddler.7' In the late 1780’s and 1790’s more people settled in the town such as Thomas King, Isaac Dawson, Robert Harvey, and Mathew Harvey.72 That many of these men were not only property owners but built homes indicates that not all transfers of property were for speculative purposes. The home owners included Kennerly, Nicholas and Jacob Carper, Dawson, John Grattan, George Rutledge, Stephen May, Jacob Mifford, Adam Peck, James Roberts, and Fiat Wysong.73 Some of these men also participated in the down-the-valley migration mentioned earlier.74 Several comments need to be made in conclusion. First, the creation of new counties was recognition that a social structure com­ plete with gentlemen to govern already existed; this is amply illustrated in the example of Botetourt and her successor counties. Second, the governing classes west of the Blue Ridge Mountains were generally not English nor, except when it suited them politically, were they Anglican. Third, those who governed the “Fincastle Community” were obviously the Botetourt justices, some of whom lived in the area; most lived some distance from the town. Finally, additional research is needed on the interrelationships of these governing justices and their families in Ireland and before that in Scotland, since it is entirely possible that family and business connections may have been imported virtually intact from the counties of Ireland settled by the Scots and others dissenting Protestants. 1 F B. Kegrley, K E G L E Y ’S VIRG IN IA FR O N T IE R S: B EG IN N IN G O F TH E SOUTHW EST: TH E ROANOKE O F COLONIAL DAYS, 1740-1753 (T he Southw est V irginia H istorical Society, R oanoke. V irginia, 1938), p. 121. K egley g en erally follows such a p l-n In his selection of docu­ m en ts fo r F in ca« tle, R oanoke, th e J a m e s R iv e r com m unities and o thers in Southw est V irginia. 2 Lew is P re sto n S u m m ers, ANNALS OF SOUTHWEST V IRG IN IA : 1769-1800 (Abingdon, V irginia. 1929). p 66 H e re a fte r cited a« S u m m er<5, ANNALS. TH E STATUTES AT LA RGE B EIN G A COLLECTION O F TH E LAWS O F VIRGINIA, ed., W illiam W aller H ening (J . & G. C ochran, R ichm ond, V irginia, 1821), V III, 616. H e re after cited a s H eniues. 3 JOURNALS O F TH E HOUSE OF BU RG ESSES OF V IR G IN IA , 1766-69. ed., John P en d leto n K ennedy (R ichm ond, V irginia, 1906), pp. 84, 102. H e re a fte r cited as B U RG ESSES' JOURNALS. 4 Ib id ., p. 102 5 L e tte rs of T hom as and A ndrew Lew is to W illiam P resto n , F e b ru a ry 24, 1767, and M arch 19, 1767. D ra p e r M an u scrip ts, M icrofilm . P u b lication of the S tate H istorical Society of W isconsin (M adison, W isconsin, 1951). 2QQ100.101. H e re a fte r cited as D ra p e r MSS, and n um ber. W illiam P re s to n w as a b u rg ess fro m A ugusta, 1765-69, an d fro m B otetourt, 1769-1772. John 13 �Wilson w as also a b u rg e ss fro m A ugusta an d serv ed on th e C om m ittee on Propositions and G riev an ces to w hich all petitions for new counties w ere re fe rre d . 6 R o b ert E . an d K a th erin e Brow n, V IR G IN IA : 1705-1786: DEM OCRACY OR ARISTOC­ RACY? (M ichigan S ta te U niversity P re s s, E a s t L ansing, M ichigan, 1964), p. 223. B row n cites th e D ra p e r M an u scrip ts, 3-1-1767—4-4-1770. (I h av e to ta k e th e ir w ord for it b e ca u se th e re is no refe re n c e in th e Index to th e se m a n u sc rip ts to le tte rs from Jo h n M adison.) 7 B U RG E SSE S' JOURNALS, 1769, pp. 197, 201, 204, 238, 240-1, 251, 298. 8 B row n, p. 223, HEN IN G S, V III, 395. 9 B row n, p. 219. 10 F re e m a n H. H a rt, TH E VALLEY O F V IR G IN IA IN TH E AM ERICAN REV O LU TIO N : 1763-1789 (U n iv ersity of N orth C aro lin a P re s s, C hapel H ill, N. C., 1942), pp. 64-65. 11 S u m m ers, ANNALS, pp. 66, 77. 12 B U R G E SSE S' JOURNALS, 1772, pp. 189, 201, 248, 304. 13 K laus W ust, TH E GERM ANS O F VIRG IN IA (U niversity of V irginia P re s s , C harlottes­ ville, V irginia, 1969), pp. 35, 49, 63. 14 Ibid., pp. 51. 74, 75, 98. 15 T hom as P e rk in s A bernethy, T H R E E VIRG IN IA FR O N T IE R S (L ouisiana S tate U niver­ sity P resc . B aton R ouge, L ouisiana, 1940), pp. 58-59. 16 R o b ert D o u th at Stoner, A SE ED B ED O F TH E R E P U B L IC : EA R LY BOTETOURT (R oanoke H isto ric a l Society, R oanoke, V irginia, 1962), pp. 285, 289, 294, 298, 277, 312, 301. 316. The Scot o r Scotch Irish J u stic e s w ere A ndrew Lew is, R o b ert B reckinridge. W illiam P resto n , Is ra e l an d W illiam C h ristian . P a tric k L o ck h art, G eorge Skillern, J a m e s M cG avock, R ich ard Woods and T hom as M adison w ere E nglish. 17 P a tric ia G. Johnson. JA M ES PATTON AND TH E APPALACHIAN COLONISTS (M c­ C lure P re s s, V erona, V irg in ia 1973), p. 7. 18 K egley, pp. 41, 45. 19 H ow ard M cK night W ilson. TH E TIN KLIN G S P R IN G : HEADW ATERS O F FR E E D O M : A STUDY O F TH E CHURCH AND H E R P E O P L E : 1732-1954 (F ish e rsv ille , V irginia, 1954), pp. 113, 115. 20 C h arles A m bler, SECTIONALISM IN VIRG IN IA FRO M 1776 TO 1781 (U niversity of C hicago P re s s, C hicago, 1910), p. 13. 21 Johnson, pp. 6, 10. 22 See below for ju stic es of o th e r counties, p. 13. 23 H ugh B la ir G rigsby, TH E HISTORY OF TH E V IRG IN IA F E D E R A L CONVENTION OF 1788 (V irginia H isto rical C ollections, R ichm ond, V irginia, 1890), II, p. 43. 24 Stoner, pp. 69, 275. 25 K egley, pp. 85, 298. 304, 486. 513, 520, 493. 543, 475. —t 26 L y m an C halkley, CHRONICLES O F TH E SCOTCH-IRISH S E T T L E M E N T IN VIRGINIA. EX TRACTED FR O M TH E O RIGINAL COURT RECORDS O F AUGUSTA COUNTY: 1745-1800 (G enealogical P u b licatio n Co., B altim o re, 1966), m , 27. 284, 297, 331, 357, 362, 444. H e re a fte r cited as AUGUSTA CHRONICLES. Also, S u m m ers, ANNALS, pp. 547, 548, 549, 552, 554, 560, 564, 568. 27 B row n a sse rts th a t th e only h e re d ita ry office w as the clerk, bu t in B o teto u rt and A ugusta circles, ju stic es, m ilitia o fficers and su rv ey ors a p p e a r to be held in close fam ily groups. H e also fa ils to account for th e V alley m ig rations. B row n a ss e rts th a t it is im possible to tell w h eth er m en w ith th e sa m e la s t n am e w ere re la te d o r h a v e th e sam e political philos­ ophy. Such a ta«k is not all th a t difficult since upon in vestigation of w ills, deeds, m in u te books, and o th e r re c o rd s of lo cal co u rts, as any good g en ealogist c an te stify , it is p a te n tly obvious th a t m an y of th ese m en a re re la te d . I t is a*so not a ll th a t h a rd to discover political philosophy through carefu l study of le tte rs and p a p ers. B row n, p. 217. 28 K egley, pp. 141. 142; AUGUSTA CHRONICLES, I, 99, 125. 29 S u m m ers, ANNALS, pp. 91, 153, 203, 205. Also, see above, p. 3. 30 AUGUSTA CHRONICLES. I, 8?. 104. 107. 31 C h arles S. Sydnor, G EN T LEM EN F R E E H O L D E R S : PO LITICA L PR A C TIC ES IN WASHINGTON'S V IR G IN IA (U n iv ersity of N orth C arolina P re s s, C hapel H ill, N. C., 1952), p. 85. 32 Ibid., p. 84. 33 A lbert Ogden P o rte r, COUNTY GOVERN M EN T IN V IR G IN IA : A LEG ISLA TIV E H ISTO RY : 1607-1904 (C olum bia U niversity P re s s, New Y ork, 1947), p. 70. 34 Stoner, p. 456. 35 P o rte r, pp. 54-5; Sydnor, p. 71. 36 H enings, 1762 law , V II, 520-22. 37 Sydnor, pp. 73-4. 38 G rigsby, n , 13. Also, B otetourt County D eed Book3, p. 136. 39 K egley, pp. 383-4. T h ere w ere, of course, m any m ore m ilitia officers th roughout the county. ^ W illiam F le m in * w as initially re p o rte d killed a t P o in t P le a sa n t. TH E VIRG IN IA GAZETTE, 10 N ovem ber, 1774, p. 4, col 1 (m icrofilm , P u rd ie and D ixon edition, W illiam sburg, V irginia, 1950) 41 S u m m ers, ANNALS, p. 79. 42 See Below, p. 14. 43 C h ristian w as ap p aren tly a tta c k e d on one such v e n tu re and the C herokees stole a ll of his w ares. He w as o rd e re d to rep ay th e colony -L202-9-12. B u rg e sse s' Jo u rn a ls 1766 pp. 29-30. ^ AUGUSTA CHRONICLES, I, 78-79. See su it by John Sm ith to re c o v er his own e sta te . M arch 20, 1758. 45 Ibid., I, 128. K egley, p. 475. Stoner, p. 323. 46 Wilson, pp. 108-9. 115, 171. 47 H enings, VIH, 438. 48 S u m m ers, A nnals, p. 74. 49 K egley, p. 394. P o rte r, p. 146. 50 One exception is th e re p e ated dissolution of the A ugusta v e stry in 1769, 1771, and 1773 because of h eav y d isse n te r influence, H a rt, p. 48. 51 S u m m ers. ANNALS, pu. 588, 689. _. GAZETTE, 4 F e b ru a ry , 1773, p. 2, col. 3. (m icrofilm , P u rd ie and Dixon edition, W illiam sonburg, V irginia, 1950). 53 W illiam C. P endleton, PO LITICA L HISTORY O F APPALACHIAN V IR G IN IA (Shen­ andoah P re s s, D ayton, V irginia, 1927), p. 18. 54 Som e of th ese m en a re n ew com ers to th e governing class like T aylor, B a rn e tt, and A rm strong. S u m m ers, ANNALS, p. 269. 14 �55 Stoner» pp. 443» 456» 45?» 465. 56 K egley, pp. 407-9, 411. 57 Stoner, pp. 233, 286. 58 S u m m ers, ANNALS, pp. 232, 393. Stoner, p. 233. K egley, p. 478. 59 JO U R N A L O F TH E COUNCIL O F TH E STATE O F V IR G IN IA , ed., H. R . M cllw aine (R ichm ond, V irg in ia, 1931), I, 17» II, 80. H e re a fte r cited as COUNCIL O F STATE. 60 Ib id ., I, 17. 61 Ib id ., I, 29, 36, 73. 232. 62 Stoner, pp. 311, 312. 63 COUNCIL O F STATE, I, 232. 64 B row n, pp. 43, 48, 216. 65 L e tte r to P resto n , D ra p e r MSS, 2QQ124. 66 S u m m ers, ANNALS, p. 557. 67 B o teto u rt County D eed Book 2, pp. 355, 406. 68 Ibid., pp. 451, 452, 455, 456. 69 Ib id ., pp. 524, 545. 560, 367. 70 J u ry lists show R o b erts, M cM akin, and Todd. C onstables w ere R o b erts, T hom as K ing, S am u el K ennerly, an d n u m e ro u s o th e rs. This in fo rm ation is gleaned from S um m ers, ANNALS, re c o rd s of c o u rt sessions. 71 Stoner, pp. 275» 312. 72 B o teto u rt County D eed Book 4, p. 255. County D eed Book 3, p. 373. 74 See above, pp. 12, 13. 73 S toner, pp. 233-5. W ysong bought a lot fro m G eorge H ancock in 1776 B otetourt SECONDARY WORKS A b em eth y , T hom as P e rk in s , T H R E E V IR G IN IA FR O N T IE R S (L ouisiana S ta le U niversity P re s s, B ato n R ouge, L a., 1940). A m bler, C h arles, SECTIONALISM IN V IR G IN IA FR O M 1776 TO 1781 (U niversity of Chicago P re s s, C hicago, 1910). B ak er-C aro th ers, H ay es. V IR G IN IA AND TH E FR E N C H AND IND IA N WAR (U niversity of C hicago P re s s, C hicago, 1928). B row n, R o b ert E . an d K a th erin e B row n, V irg in ia: 1705*1786 DEMOCRACY OR ARISTOCRACY? (M ichigan S tate U n iv ersitv P re s s, E a s t L ansing. M ich., 1964). G rigsby, H ugh B lair, TH E HISTORY O F TH E V IR G IN IA F E D E R A L CONVENTION O F 1788 (V irginia H isto rical C ollections, R ichm ond, V a.. 1890). H a rre ll, Is a a c Sam uel, LOYALISM IN V IRG IN IA (D uke U niversity P re s s, D u rh am , N. C.. 1926). H a rt, F re e m a n H ., TH E VALLEY OF VIRG IN IA IN TH E AM ERICAN REV O LU TIO N : 1763-1789 (U n iv ersity of N orth C arolina P re s s, C hanel H ill, N. C„ 1942). J a m e s , C h arles F ., DOCUM ENTARY HISTORY OF TH E STRU G G LE F O R RELIG IO U S LIB E R TY IN V IR G IN IA (D a Cano P re s s, New Y ork, 1971). R ep rin t of u n ab rid g ed publication, first edition of 1900, J . C. B ell Co. Johnson, P a tric ia , JA M ES PATTON AND TH E APPALACHIAN COLONISTS (M cClure P re s s, V erona, V a., 1973). ____ ______ K egley, F . B., K E G L E Y ’S V IR G IN IA F R O N T IE R S : T H E B EG IN N IN G O F TH E SOUTHW EST: T H E ROANOKE O F COLONIAL DAYS, 1740-1783 (T he Southw est V irginia H istorical Society. R oanoke, V irginia, 1938). L ey b u rn , J a m e s G., T H E SCOTCH-IRISH: A SOCIAL HISTORY (U niversity of N orth C arolina P r e s s , C hapel H ill, N. C., 1962). P endleton, W illiam C., PO LITICA L HISTORY O F APPALACHIAN VIRG IN IA (S henandoah P re s s, D ayton, V irginia. 1927). P o rte r, A lbert Ogden, COUNTY G O V ERN M EN T IN V IRG IN IA : A LEG ISLA TIV E HISTORY 1607-1904 (C olom bia U n iv ersity P re s s, New Y ork. 1947). Stoner, R o b ert D outhat, A SE ED B ED O F TH E R E P U B L IC : EA R LY BO TETOURT (R oanoke H isto rical Society, R oanoke, V a., 1962). S u m m ers, Lew is P resto n , HISTORY O F SOUTHWEST V IR G IN IA 1746-1786 (B altim o re G enealogical P u b lish in g Co., B altim o re, M d., 1966). Sydnor, C h arles S„ G EN T LEM EN F R E E H O L D E R S : PO LITICA L PR A C TIC ES IN WASHINGTON’S V IR G IN IA U n iv ersity of N orth C arolina P re s s, C hapel Hi'.l, N. C „ 1952). T a lp a la r, M orris, T H E SOCIOLOGY O F COLONIAL V IR G IN IA (P hilosophical L ib ra ry , New Y ork, I960). — W avland, Jo h n W alter, TH E GERM AN E L E M E N T IN TH E SHENANDOAH VALLEY O F V IR­ GINIA (M ichie Co., C harlottesville, V a., 1917). W erte m b ak e r, T hom as Jefferso n , TH E SHAPING OF COLONIAL VIRG IN IA (R ussell and R ussell, New Y ork, 1958). In clu d es PA TRICIAN AND PL E B IA N IN VIRG IN IA , PLA N TER S IN COLONIAL VIRG IN IA . V IR G IN IA U N D ER TH E STUARTS. Wilson, H ow ard M cK night, TH E TIN KLIN G SPRIN G , HEADW ATERS O F F R E E D O M : A STUDY O F TH E CHURCH AND H E R P E O P L E : 1732-1954, (F ishersviU e, V a., 1954). W ust, K laus, TH E GERM ANS O F VIRG IN IA (U n iv ersity of V irginia P re s s, C harlottesville, V a., 1969). EXTRACTED DOCUMENTS C halkley, L y m an , CH RONICLES O F TH E SCOTCH-IRISH SE TT LEM EN T IN VIRG IN IA , EX ­ TRA CTED FR O M TH E ORIGINAL COURT RECORDS O F AUGUSTA COUNTY: 1745-180«, (G enealogical P u b licatio n Co., B altim o re, 1966). S n m m ers, Lewis P resto n , ANNALS O F SOUTHW EST V IRG IN IA : 1769-180«, (A bingdon, V irginia, 1929) PRIMARY SOURCES CALENDAR O F STATE P A P E R S , VIRG IN IA , VOL. I, 1652-1781, e d „ W illiam P a lm e r, (R ich­ mond, V a., 1875). JOURNALS OF TH E COUNCIL O F TH E STATE O F VIRG IN IA , Vols. I-IH , e d „ H. R . M cllw aine, (R ichm ond, V a., 1931). JOURNALS O F TH E HOUSE O F BURG ESSES O F VIRG IN IA , 1752-55, 1756-69, 1770-72, 1773-76, ed., H. R . M cllw aine, (R ichm ond, V a., 1909). JOU RN A LS OF TH E HOUSE O F B U RG ESSES O F VIRG IN IA , 1761-65, 1766-69, 1770-72, 1773-76. e d „ H . R . M cllw aine, (R ichm ond, V a„ 1907, 1906, 1905). (Continued on page 37) 15 �Indians Retreat From Virginians A t Battle of Point Pleasant by J ohn G. Morgan CAMP POINT PLEASANT, Va., Oct. 10, 1774 — The fierce, day­ long battle between red warriors and white frontiersmen ended just after sundown today. The turning point came at about 1 p.m. when gunfire subsided, and the Indians began a long, slow, strategic retreat from the Virginians. Trees, bushes, old logs, embankments and the general terrain beside the Ohio River were used to great advantage by the Indians as they moved backward under all available cover. They put up occasional shots to discourage immediate pursuit and to shield their efforts to remove the dead and wounded. Until about 4 p.m. there was a genuine lull in the battle. Shooting almost ceased as the two sides stared and cursed at each other. Indians clearly showed that they had lost their enthusiasm for fighting At this time, Col. Andrew Lewis decided on a diversionary tactic to hasten the retreat. He pulled veteran captains John Stuart, Matthew Arbuckle and George Matthews, and Lt. Isaac Shelby from the front, and gave them specific orders. Accordingly, they dropped behind the Kanawha River bank with a detachment of men and moved upstream a quarter of a mile to the mouth of Crooked Creek. They proceeded up the eastern edge of the creek with intentions of firing at the enemy from the rear. Although they were discovered before the mission was accomplished, they succeeded in dislodging the Indians. Perhaps thinking that reinforcements had arrived for the enemy, the Indians swiftly vacated the premises. Although they released a low yell, as if they were about to fight again, they extended their retreat to Old Town Creek, about two miles up the Ohio River. At this point, the Indians were well protected by heavy under­ growth. They chose to make a stand right there. “Come on,” they shouted at the advancing Virginians. But the Virginians, suspecting a trick, chose to halt their ad­ vance. They maintained a quiet battle line until nightfall. An 18-part series on the Battle of Point Pleasant and events lead­ ing up to it was written in the fall of 1974 by John G. Morqan, staff writer for the Charleston Gazette, in newspaper style as if he had been present when that historic battle was fought at the forks of the Kanawha and Ohio rivers 200 years earlier. This part describes the battle of Oct. 10, 1774. 16 �The Indians disappeared into the night. Scouts reported that they were last seen going back across the Ohio. The final withdrawal of the Indians was regarded as a fine dis­ play of generalship on the part of Chief Cornstalk. Why did the Indians lose the battle under a chief of his caliber? One of the reasons given is that they failed to keep their guns in top condition. Another is that too many braves recklessly exposed them­ selves to danger in the hope of getting prize scalps or plunder. When all the firing had ceased today, a voice was heard on the darkening Ohio River shore: “You may come out now, Andy. All is safe.” It was the voice of an old Dutchman named Andrew Kishioner Sr., calling out to his son, Andrew Jr. The two, attached to the Virginia Militia, left camp after the first alarm of approaching Indians and spent the day under piles of driftwood. At day’s end the weary army of backwoodsmen returned to camp, which has been turned into a crude field hospital, practically without medicine or skilled attendants. Col. William Fleming, rated as the best surgeon, remains among the critically wounded. Poultices of slippery elm bark are applied to wounds. Broth, made from beef or wild game, is offered as nourishment. Groans of the wounded pierce the night in a manner that is heart­ rending to other officers and men. At nightfall the official count of dead frontiersmen stood at 46, including nine commissioned officers. More were expected to die. Counts of the wounded varied from 80 to 92. No reliable information is available on how many Indians were killed. Officers insist that the total must be higher than that of the Virginians. Indians were seen putting many of their dead in the Ohio River. They also scalped some of their own to keep Virginians from getting them. Traditionally, Indians don’t like to leave their dead for the enemy to mutilate. Officers counted 18 to 20 scalps of Indians taken during the day. They were certain the Indians got only a few scalps of Virginians, and those only from stragglers away from the main battle scene. Left on the battlefield as the Indians hastily departed were 23 guns, 80 blankets, 27 tomahawks and several skins, shot pouches, powder horns and war clubs. Earlier today Lewis sent a messenger to meet Col. William Christian, ordering him to make a forced march to Camp Point Pleasant. Christian already was en route to camp from the mouth of Elk River with 220 men in a convoy of cattle and supplies. When met by 17 �The colorful battle waged by Virginia frontiersmen against the Indians at the fork of the Ohio and Kanawha rivers was marked by a granite monu­ ment honoring those who fought and died. The monument stands at Point Pleasant, W. Va., in Tu-Endie-Wei (Indian for a point between two waters) Park. the messenger about 15 miles from here, Christian and most of his men left the convoy and continued toward camp with all possible speed. They reached here about midnight. Arrival of Christian and his men, including captains William Campbell, James Harrod and John Floyd, brought new feelings of hope and security throughout this military establishment. A heavy guard was placed around camp tonight. The password is “victory.” But some think it is a hollow victory in view of the heavy losses of courageous men. Thus ended a long day of battle from sunup to sundown, followed by a little happiness and much misery in the night at this camp on “tu-endie-wei” (Indian lingo for a point between two waters). 18 �Revolution on the Frontier The Fincastle Resolutions: Southwest Virginia s Commitment by Dr . T had T ate The Fincastle Resolves of January 20, 1775, the two-hundredth anniversary of which we are commemorating today, are at once a familiar and a neglected episode in the history of the American Revo­ lution. As the first statement to come from the far western and most recently settled area of Virginia in the course of the Revolutionary crisis, they have, of course, deservedly received a great deal of notice from local historians of that region. Some of that attention has filtered through into more general accounts of the Revolution in Virginia, but not, I suspect, very much—at least in a quick check of several standard works I found the resolves themselves cited in a footnote or two but not clearly identified, much less explained in any way as the significant development that I think they were. And as one of literally several hundred of such statements that various county and local meetings all over the colonies adopted in late 1774 and early 1775, one cannot much expect them to have been singled out in any of the more general histories of the Revolution. Nevertheless, I am convinced—almost certainly more convinced than I was when I started my all too sketchy preparation of these remarks—that the action of the Fincastle freeholders did represent a development of some consequence in the progress of Virginia toward revolution, a development that, moreover, had its parallel in every other colony or geographic region of the colonies with a remote frontier area. Before we can say what that importance was and place the Fin­ castle Resolves in some adequate historical setting we need, however, to ask ourselves what was the state of the Revolutionary crisis not only in Virginia but throughout the American colonies at the end of 1774. How were colonists reacting everywhere? What specific events prompted such resolves as those of Fincastle? Why did the county convention meet when it did in the middle of winter at a difficult time for travel? Was the situation so urgent? Even the briefest glance at the history of the American Revolution Dr. Thad W. Tate, director of the Institute of Early American History and Culture, gave this talk on the Fincastle Resolutions and the revolutionary movement in Western Virginia at a ceremony mark­ ing the 200th anniversary of their signing, Jan. 19, 1975 at Fort Chiswell High School in Wythe County. A colorful reenactment of the sign­ ing was staged. 19 �will remind us that 1774 had indeed been a critical year, probably the most critical one since the opening of the conflict with Great Britain a full ten years earlier. American resistance to the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Duties of 1767—the great outcry against Parlia­ mentary taxation and other invasions of colonial autonomy—had run its course; the British government had partially retreated by 1770; and tension had perceptibly lessened. Nothing could easily dissipate the mutual suspicion that had developed on both sides, but for more than three years colonies and Mother Country had generally gotten along. Then the calm had abruptly ended in what must have seemed at first a small enough incident: The Boston Tea Party of December 1773. That well-known event, in which a number of Bostonians half­ heartedly disguised as Indians had thrown a consignment of tea shipped by the East India Company into Boston harbor, was the response to new British legislation designed to give the hard-pressed company a better position in the extensive colonial market for tea. The Tea Act did not directly add a new tax, but it did appear to bar­ gain compliance with an old one for a cheaper price for tea and thereby inadvertently reopened the entire imperial controversy. The British determined to suffer no more of Massachusetts intransigence and coun­ tered the Tea Party with a series of new laws—the Coercive or In­ tolerable Acts, as Americans labelled them. One of the laws penalized the port of Boston by closing it on June 1 to all commerce until the East India Company had received payment for the destroyed tea. Of considerably more long-range effect were other measures that amended parts of the Massachusetts charter by withdrawing several features of self-government and jury trial in the colony. In a word, the Coercive Acts appeared as an even more fundamental invasion of at least one colonial government than any of the taxation or regulatory measures of the 1760s had been. From the approach of June 1, the date on which the port of Boston would be closed, the colonies launched a renewed opposition to British authority that found its ultimate focus in the convening of the first session of the Continental Congress at Philadelphia in September of 1774. With all of the thirteen colonies except Georgia represented, the ^Congress signalled the mobilization of a continent­ wide opposition and the creation of an agency capable of giving central direction to a movement that was so far dispersed and localized. The Congress hammered out a political position on which most of the supporters of the colonial cause throughout America could agree. Expectedly, the delegates at Philadelphia took their stand against the Coercive Acts and in favor of a broad definition of colonial con­ stitutional rights. But in late 1774 they still stopped short of endorsing 20 �armed resistance and reflected a continuing American hope of rec­ onciliation. At the same time the members of Congress completed the organization of a less violent form of resistance, the economic weapon of stopping imports and exports to and from Britain and reducing American consumption of foreign manufactures. The details of the economic boycott were embodied in a document that the Congress named the Continental Association, and it became the chief monument of the first Congress. The Association set Decem­ ber 1, 1774, as the effective date for nonimportation and the fall of 1775 for the beginning of nonexportation of American products, should the conflict still be unresolved. Enforcement would rest on a network of provincial and local committees extending throughout the colonies. As the Congress closed, the immediate task was to gain the widest sup­ port for the Association and to establish such committees throughout the colonies. If that step were successful, the Americans would, in effect, have built a wide revolutionary organization capable not only of enforcing the economic restrictions but potentially able to organize other forms of resistance. Except for the Georgia colony, which had been unrepresented in the first Congress, there was not much doubt that at the level of the central government of each colony, support for the Continental Association would be strong. The members of Congress themselves were for the most part leaders of the pro-American elements in these governments and could be expected to return and take the initiative in forming the necessary provincial committees. In Virginia the process had already gone far in this direction in the spring and summer before the Congress met. A great deal had happened at the end of May just after the news of the closing of the port of Boston had arrived. The Virginia Assembly happened to be in session at the time and as a first move a small group of burgesses, including Jeffer­ son and Henry, planned a day of fasting and prayer for June j j On May 24 they unanimously carried a resolution establishing the day. They were undoubtedly preparing to move on to other forms of action when Governor Dunmore dissolved them on May 26, whereupon 89 of the burgesses—something more than two-thirds of the total mem­ bership—met informally the next day and adopted an agreement that endorsed the idea of a continental congress and the use of the economic weapon—the Virginia leaders, as well as those of several other colonies had in effect already prepared the way for Philadelphia. Before the month was out the Virginians agreed as well on a convention for August 1 to extend the preliminary nonimportation agreement to which they had subscribed on May 27. In the succeeding weeks of early summer something approaching two-thirds of the Virginia counties adopted resolutions generally en21 �dorsing the August 1 convention and in all but one instance, that of Middlesex County, approving the proposed boycott. At the August convention at least 107 of over 150 present and former Burgesses eligible to attend are known to have been present. Over the course of the first six days of August the assembled delegates agreed to support the call for a Continental Congress, elected and instructed a seven-man delegation to represent the colony, and adopted and signed an association that anticipated in almost every respect the one to be adopted by the Continental Congress. With other colonies moving in a similar direction, perhaps the principal function of the Congress was to make the Association the concerted act of all the colonies rather than a series of separate acts, but that was in itself a significant step. When the Virginia delegates returned from Philadelphia, it is hardly surprising, then, that they received a warm approving welcome. The merchants of the colony, it is true, were apprehensive, so much so that four or five hundred of them gathered in Williamsburg in November for an explanation of the economic restrictions from Peyton Randolph and the other delegates, after which they agreed—how reluctantly we may guess—to sign the new Association. But the most important development was the rapidity with which the establishment of local county committees went forward—the Virginia Gazette re­ corded 23 in November and December. Rigorous enforcement of the Association began as well. The colony staged its own mini-tea party in November at Yorktown, numerous merchants and others were publicly denounced, and some were forced to recant their criticism of the Association. By the end of 1775 the colony had both evolved a more complete revolutionary organization and shown signs of de­ veloping a revolutionary mentality that could allow no place for opposition. It may have occurred to you by now that in all of these momentous steps of 1774 I have not yet mentioned a single specific event that took place within the newly-created frontier county of Fincastle. There is, for instance, no record that any of the Fincastle men—William Christian, Robert Doak, or Stephen Trigg—who would have been able to sit in the convention of August 1774 were in fact present. The county was one of only five in the whole colony, including Bed­ ford, Pittsylvania, Botetourt, and Augusta, for which no representation at the convention can be definitely established. Nor is there any clearer evidence of the involvement of Fincastle inhabitants in any earlier phase of the Revolutionary crisis. Settlers in the area had lived first during the 1760s under the jurisdiction of Augusta County, then from 1769 to 1772 within Botetourt until the organization of Fincastle in the latter year. During most of that period from 1766 on, William 22 �Preston, one of the major Fincastle leaders, had represented Augusta and then Botetourt in the Burgesses and must have taken his stand in such events as the protest of the House against the Townshend duties, but there was no reason to think he was a major actor or that the western counties were the scene of any activity beyond the dis­ cussion that the no doubt belated receipt of newspapers from Williams­ burg and elsewhere must inevitably have occasioned. There was nothing surprising about this circumstance. It was a more or less common feature of the Revolutionary movement in all the frontier areas of the colonies that residents of those distant and recently settled areas came actively into the Revolutionary movement no earlier than 1774 and 1775. The events of the 1760s centered very much in the larger coastal towns or the immediately surrounding countryside. The reasons are hardly obscure—the western areas were still at a beginning stage of development. Those who had gone there faced the more immediate problems of protecting themselves, carving out a home from the wilderness, and finding the means of livelihood. They were moreover too distant to receive news quickly and to react before the crisis had passed. Often the threat of Indian attack seemed far more real than that of regulation by distant imperial officials, officials who moreover had in their power the means of pacifying the Indians and protecting the frontier. For that very reason many historians have thought of the colonial west as a region where the possibility of remaining loyal to Britain and resisting the Revolution held a real attraction for many, especially if the settlers also felt that they were denied their full weight in the affairs of the provincial government by the same dominant colonial politicians who often led the Revolutionary cause. It is a plausible theory and there are areas for which it contains some truth, but there was not a great deal to suggest that western Virginia felt the same degree of hostility toward its own “eastern establishment.” The recent creation of Botetourt and Fincastle counties were in themselves evidence of a willingness on the part of Virginia leaders to extend county organization, including institutions of local government and representation in the House of Burgesses, to newer regions of the colony. Indeed much of what we know of William Preston’s career in the Burgesses between 1766 and 1771 suggests, if anything, close support of its old leaders against those who sought to shake up its power structure. The threat of Indian attack was, however, especially acute in Fincastle by 1774, so much so that before the year was over the con­ flict known as Dunmore’s War, because of the Virginia governor’s personal leadership of a force of provincial troops sent against the Indians, had broken out. The men who might otherwise have been 23 �present for the Convention at Williamsburg in August were also leaders of the county’s militia forces and almost certainly too much needed at home to be able to make the long trek to Williamsburg. The essential fact remains, however, that at the end of 1774 Fincastle had not yet come formally into the Revolutionary movement that had by now proceeded very far in many older sections of the colony. Under the circumstances the action taken by the freeholders of the county early in the next year in creating a county committee to enforce the Association and in adopting an address to the Virginia delegation to the first Congress becomes the more remarkable. In a single step the January meeting brought the county inhabitants fully into the Revolution, not necessarily ahead of where others stood but certainly abreast of those older counties that had by now been experiencing the crisis for a decade. And if much of what the Fin­ castle freeholders did and said on that day mirrored what had trans­ pired elsewhere, it nonetheless displayed as well something of the distinctive response of a distant, frontier region. The successful conclusion of Dunmore’s War and the consequent relief from Indian raids are what permitted the freeholders finally to gather at the Lead Mines to consider the outcome of the Continental Congress of the preceding fall. All over the colonies the move to endorse the Continental Association and organize local Revolutionary machinery continued to gain momentum. Within a few days of the Fincastle gathering, for example, provincial conventions in Pennsyl­ vania and New York, county committees in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, and Charles and Frederick counties, Maryland, and a town committee in Jamaica on Long Island had also assembled to record their acceptance of the Continental Association. To be scrupulously accurate we should also observe that at the same time a group of Dutchess County, New York, inhabitants and a convention of Pennsyl­ vania and New Jersey Quakers were meeting to register their ob­ jections to it. So enthusiasm for the Association was not unanimous, but a strong impulse toward revolution was not easily to be denied. Of the two steps taken at the Fincastle meeting, that of choosing a county committee to enforce the Continental Association was in some measure the more consequential, even though we have tended to look with more interest at the address to the Virginia delegation, or the resolves, as they are often termed. Forming the committee was, after all, a concrete step toward resistance, the beginning of a revolu­ tionary political structure. The committee membership, however, looked strangely like the group of men who were already the active and established leaders in Fincastle County. The revolution was directed against a more distant authority. If there are any surprises, it would be, at least for a modern observer, the appearance on an essentially political panel, one really 24 �with extralegal police powers, of the leading Presbyterian clergyman of the county, the Rev. Charles Cummings. Otherwise every member bore a military title indicating that he was an officer in the county militia. William Preston and William Christian, both colonels and easily the most important men in Fincastle, appeared as did one re­ cent burgess, Stephen Trigg. Of the fifteen committee members— fourteen if we exclude Cummings from our calculations—ten were members of the panel of county justices for Fincastle and therefore holders of the major county offices. The formation of the Fincastle committee, even though in one sense a routine step that was being duplicated all over the colonies, in other respects signalled a major advance toward revolution. In the particular case of Virginia it means that the mobilization of sup­ port for resistance to Britain, which had remained incomplete in the western parts of the colony as late as the preceding summer, was now accomplished. A network of leadership and communication now stretched from Congress to the twelve—and soon thirteen provincial governments—and on to the counties and localities. The system was not yet geared to armed resistance, but that advance along the road to revolt would come in a very few months. To some extent I would judge the same mobilization of the colonial frontier went on every­ where, but not in every case as completely as it did in the Fincastle area. The success of Dunmore’s War had doubtlessly helped in western Virginia—to that extent the Governor’s greatest achievement while in Virginia had also sealed his fate as a man who would be driven out of office. But of at least equal importance in the effective mobilization of Fincastle was the extent to which the whole body of local leaders had come actively into the structure of revolutionary organization. There was simply no rallying point around which loyalists or dis­ sidents might easily have gathered. This process, then, symbolized by the establishment of the Fincastle committee, strikes me as the most enduring significance of the events of January 20. Without it Virginia might have entered the Revolution with its Revolutionary effort less than completely organized and with its western frontier more exposed. My emphasis upon the formation of the Fincastle committee to enforce the Association should not suggest that we may neglect the address to the Virginia delegates to the Continential Congress, for its contents provide the best measure we have of the attitudes and frame of mind with which Fincastle’s population approached the conflict. We have no way of knowing, of course, whether the address spoke for the entire body of citizens or whether it represented the views of a few more articulate leaders. The freeholders approved the statement unanimously, but a meeting under these circumstances was not likely to have been an occasion on which dissent would have 25 �A bronze medallion was struck by the Wythe County Bicentennial Com­ mission to mark the bicentennial of the signing of the resolutions at the old courthouse at the Lead Mines on the banks of New River, now Austinville. been encouraged. The pressures for conformity would have been undeniably great. Still, the unanimity of the response of the county leaders, the relative homogeneity of the population, the lack of any evident opposition outside the county meeting itself all argue for the address as an authentic expression of the mood of the far western part of the Virginia colony. Local historians have, I judge, often attributed the writing of the Fincastle address to Charles Cummings, which could well explain his presence on the committee. There are one or two characteristics of the statement itself that tend to support his probable authorship. For one thing, despite the address’ apology for its “unpolished senti­ ments of liberty and loyalty,” it had a finished quality that suggested the work of a better educated, more literate man than some of the leading political figures would necessarily have been. Too, the address’ long, explicit praise of George III for his support of the Protestant religion and its declaration of the desire of the people to “enjoy the free exercise of our religion as Protestants,” while sentiments to which most colonists would have readily subscribed, reveals a some­ what unusual degree of preoccupation with the subject and may have owed something to the sentiments of the Irish-born Presbyterian cleric. You may wonder, however, why an address adopted to proclaim opposition to British policy should contain words of praise for a British monarch. Indeed, in another passage the freeholders expressed a willingness to risk their lives in his service. The address was con­ ciliatory in several respects, not only expressing this sense of loyalty to the king himself as the protector of constitutional liberty but also 26 �praising Governor Dunmore’s conduct of the recent Indian war and expressing the strongest desire “to see harmony restored on an equi­ table basis.” If a sense of loyalty to the British Empire, its constitution, and its king ran deep, so did a sense of outrage at what the address termed a “venal British Parliament” and “the will of a corrupt Ministry.” In other words, the freeholders of Fincastle, as the great body of citizens is prone to do in any age, laid the blame for the crisis on bad politicians. Apart from one reference to the old issue of Parliamentary taxation, the address did not specifically enumerate the misdeeds with which it charged British politicians, contenting itself instead with the general accusation that the colonists had suffered the violation of their constitutional rights and liberties. One can only speculate whether the specific issues raised by the Coercive Acts still seemed a remote and distant matter or whether in an address of approbation to thè Virginia delegates a detailed statement of grievances seemed unneces­ sary. In this respect, however, the Fincastle address does differ a good bit from many others of the same period. Expressing, then, the hope of reconciliation but protesting equally the threat of imperial policies, the address concluded by observing that if the British would not propose “pacifick measures” but would “attempt to dragoon us out of those inestimable privileges, which we are entitled to as subjects, and to reduce us to a state of slavery, we declare that we are deliberately and resolutely determined never to surrender them to any power upon earth but at the expense of our lives.” This was a strong commitment, assuming, as I think we can in the light of what followed over the next months, that it was something more than patriotic rhetoric. It was so strong that it seemed to some to foreshadow armed resistance or the assertion of indepen­ dence, perhaps earlier than any other body of citizens in the colonies had done. At least one will find that claim advanced in some of the old regional histories of western Virginia. But, just as we sought to establish the relationship of the formation of the Fincastle committee to the wider process of organizing the Revolutionary effort, we should now make the same effort to fix the ideas and attitudes expressed in the address, or resolves, in their proper place. What is the nature of the tone and spirit of the address when we place it alongside other declarations, resolutions, and addresses that colonists were making throughout North America in the fall of 1774 and spring of 1775? In what way are its contents distinctive and in what way do they demonstrate that Fincastle was simply moving into the mainstream of Revolutionary thought? From the strength of their opening words of praise for Dunmore and King George, the Fincastle statements can be read as perhaps rather more strongly conciliatory than many such resolutions. One 27 �might seem to find, especially in the praise of Congress for its efforts at reconciliation, which was hardly the major theme of the Philadelphia meeting, an implication that the Revolution was proceeding too fast and too far, that there were genuine benefits in the British connection that ought not to be lightly thrown aside. Are some historians correct in thinking that the frontiersman saw the British government with its channels of Indian diplomacy, military forces, and ultimate title to the next tier of unsettled western land a better protector of their interests than their fellow colonists along the seaboard? Perhaps, but I think one has to recall first that loyalty to Britain, and particularly to the King himself, who was often seen as the victim of deceit by bad ministers and corrupt politicians, was a conventional sentiment in almost all the colonial statements of the period. Had not the James City County committee to enforce the Association, meeting in Williams­ burg itself, concluded the task of organizing and then drunk its first toast to “The King”? In late 1774 and early 1775 Americans everywhere by and large still wanted reconciliation. Allegiance to the monarch as the symbolic and constitutional link of Empire died hard. It was a senti­ ment that Fincastle shared, but in no exceptional way. It is also possible, as I have suggested, to look in the opposite direction and think the Fincastle statement might have gone some­ what beyond conventional claims to constitutional rights and liberties by expressing much more explicitly than any comparable document the determination to defend those rights to the end, by armed resist­ ance and death if necessary. But, of course, this, too, was a frequently expressed sentiment. Americans varied by temperament and the nature of the occasion of their statements in the degree to which they made it explicit, but it was a fixed principle of the characteristic AngloAmerican ideology upon which the colonists drew, that armed re­ sistance to political oppression was the final response, morally justi­ fiable when all else had failed, as, for instance, in the English Revolu­ tion of 1688 against the Stuart monarchy. A few months remained before Patrick Henry would reduce it to the ultimate simplicity with his cry, “Give me liberty or give me death!”, but already in the pre­ ceding summer, in the first round of county resolutions preceding the August 1774 convention, the Fairfax County resolves had been no less direct when they observed that if all the petitions and protest went unheeded, “there can be but one Appeal.” The Fairfax free­ holders had to say no more to be completely understood. At its first opportunity Fincastle had added its concurrence. In their strong sense of loyalty to the Empire, and especially to the King himself, in their consequent desire to see the imperial con­ flict resolved, and in their determination to stand fast if it were not, the Fincastle freeholders, then, largely gave expression to the ruling 28 �sentiments of the day among American colonists. In another respect, however, there is a more distinctive tone to the contents of the ad­ dress, one that strongly reflects the particular geographical and en­ vironmental situation of the Fincastle settlers. This passage will, I think, convey the flavor of what I am referring to: Many of us and our forefathers left our native land, consider­ ing it as a kingdom subjected to inordinate power and greatly abridged of its liberties; we crossed the Atlantic, and explored this then uncultivated wilderness bordering on many nations of savages and surrounded by mountains almost inaccessible to any but those very savages, who have incessantly been commit­ ting barbarities and depredations on us since our first seating the country. These fatigues and dangers we patiently encountered, supported by the pleasing hope of enjoying those rights and liberties which had been granted to Virginians, and were denied us in our native country, and of transmitting them inviolate to our posterity; but even to these remote regions the hand of un­ limited and unconstitutional power hath pursued us, to strip us of that liberty and property with which God, nature and the rights of humanity have vested us. Again those who approved the address claimed essentially the same political rights as all other colonists—so much so that they did not apparently feel it necessary to spell them out in any detail. Yet the address reflected a sense that those rights had been secured in a rather special way, at greater cost and effort perhaps, and through a different experience from their fellow colonists on the Atlantic seaboard. Just as the establishment of the Fincastle committee had served to bring the important frontier region of Virginia fully into the Revolution, so the address served to filter traditional and widely held political values through the frontiersmen’s historical experience and give them, if not added meaning, at least a heightened relevance. In words as well as in deeds, then, the Revolution may be said to have reached the frontier in the events of January 20. Spirited resolutions, even deeply felt ones, do not win a revolu­ tion, however—they only begin them. So there were many hardships and uncertainties ahead for the Fincastle region. Given the Indians’ understandable preference for British rule, the frontier, far from being remote and protected, became a vigorous and sometimes savage theatre of combat. And the Fincastle area was not only involved in its own defense but in the larger aspects of the war as well, through battles fought out of state by its troops and through the supply of men and materiel under requisitions from the state. If its energies flagged at times of particular hardship, nevertheless there was no real 29 �turning back from the commitment that had been made when the meet­ ing of Fincastle freeholders had settled which way southwestern Vir­ ginia would go in the great contest of the American Revolution. The Resolutions In obedience to the resolves of the Continental Congress, a meeting of the Freeholders of Fincastle County, in Virginia, was held on the 20th day of January, 1775, who after approving of the Association framed by that august body in behalf of the Colonies, and subscribing thereto, proceeded to the elec­ tion of a Committee- to see the same carried punctually into execution, when the following gentlemen were nominated: The Reverend Charles Cummings, Colonel William Preston, Colonel William Christian, Captain Stephen Trigg, Major Arthur Campbell, Major William Ingles, Captain Walter Crockett, Cap­ tain John Montgomery, Captain James McGavock, Captain William Campbell, Captain Thomas Madison, Captain Daniel Smith, Captain William Russell, Cap­ tain Evan Shelby and Lieutenant William Edmondson. After the election the committee made choice of Colonel William Christian for their chairman and appointed Mr. David Campbell to be clerk. It was also ordered by the meeting that an address expressing the thanks and congratulations of the people of Fincastle County be prepared and sent to the citizens who had represented Virginia at the recent session of the Con­ tinental Congress. The address was promptly written and addressed as follows: “To the Honorable Peyton Randolph, Esquire, Richard Henry Lee, George Washington, Patrick Henry, Junior, Richard Bland, Benjamin Harri­ son, and Edmund Pendleton, Esquires, the Delegates from this Colony who at­ tended the Continental Congress at Philadelphia: Gentlemen, — Had it not been for our remote situation and the Indian War which we were lately engaged in to chastise those cruel and savage people for the many murders and depredations they have committed against us, now happily terminated under the auspices of our present worthy Governor, His Excellency, the Right Honorable Earl of Dunmore, we should before tbis time have made known to you our thankfulness for the very important services you have rendered to your country, in conjunction with the Worthy Delegates from the other Provinces. Your noble efforts for reconciling the mother country and the Colonies, on rational and constitutional principles, and your pacifick, steady and uniform conduct in that arduous work entitle you to the esteem of all British America, and will immortalize you in the annals of your country. We heartily concur in your resolutions, and shall, in every instance, strictly and invariably adhere thereto. We assure you, gentlemen, and all our countrymen, that we are a people whose hearts overflow with love and duty to our lawful Sovereign, George the Third, whose illustrious House for several successive reigns have been both the guardians of the civil and religious rights and liberties of British subjects, as settled at the glorious revolution; that we are willing to risk our lives in the service of his Majesty for the support of the Protestant religion and the rights and liberties of his subjects, as they have been established by the compact, law and ancient charters. We are heartily grieved at the differences which now subsist between the parent state and the Colonies and most ardently wish to see harmony restored on an equitable basis and by the most lenient measures that can be devised by the heart of man. Many of us and our forefathers left our 30 �native land, considering it as a kingdom subjected to inordinate power and greatly abridged of its liberties; we crossed the Atlantic and explored this un­ cultivated wilderness bordering on many nations of savages and surrounded by mountains almost inaccessible to any but those very savages, who have in­ cessantly been committing barbarities and depredations on us since our first seating the country. These fatigues and dangers we patiently encountered, sup­ ported by the pleasing hope of enjoying those rights and liberties which had been granted to Virginians, and were denied in our native country, and of trans­ mitting them inviolate to our posterity; but even to these remote regions the hand of unlimited and unconstitutional power hath pursued us, to strip us of that liberty and property with which God, nature and the rights of humanity have vested us. We are ready and willing to contribute all in our power for the support of his Majesty’s government, if applied to constitutionally, and when the grants are made by our own Representatives, but cannot think of submitting our liberty or property to the power of a venal British Parliament, or to the will of a corrupt Ministry. We by no means desire to shake off our duty or al­ legiance to our lawful sovereign, but, on the contrary, shall ever glory in being the loyal subjects of a Protestant prince, descended from such illustrious pro­ genitors, so long as we can enjoy the free exercise of our religion as Protes­ tants, and our liberties and properties as British subjects. But if no pacifick measures shall be proposed or adopted by Great Britain, and our enemies will attempt to dragoon us out of these inestimable privileges, which we are entitled to as subjects, and to reduce us to a state of slavery, we declare that we are deliberately and resolutely determined never to surrender them to any power upon earth but at the expense of our lives. These are our real, though unpolished, sentiments of liberty and loyalty, and in them we are resolved to live or die. We are, gentlemen, with the most perfect esteem and regard, your most obedient servants. The Fincastle County courthouse site is marked by a stone monument. 31 �Who the 15 Signets Were by Mary K egley The only minister to sign the Fincastle Resolutions and the name appearing first on the list of 15 signers was the Rev. Charles Cum­ mings. There are those who suggest he was the author of the resolu­ tions, but there is no evidence to support this, and any one of the men could have done the work, or it could have been a joint or com­ mittee effort. Cummings was born about 1746 in Donegal, Ireland and came to Pennsylvania on his arrival in America. He attended college in Carlisle, taught school and studied with the Rev. James Waddell. He was licensed to preach in 1767, the year he married Millicent Carter. He served at North Mountain Church in Augusta County until 1772 when he was called to the Sinking Spring Church on the Holston. He lived the rest of his life in Washington County, where he served the Presbyterian Church and his country. He was known as the “Fight­ ing Parson,” serving in the Cherokee expedition of 1776. He died in 1812. He was about 29 when he signed the resolutions. Col. William Preston, born 1729 in Ireland, came to V irginia about 1740. He was educated by his uncle, Col. James Patton, and the Rev. John Craig. He married Susanna Smith in 1761, moved to the New River settlement about 1772-73 and named his plantation “Smithfield.” The house has been restored and is located near the VPI campus at Blacksburg. Preston was a captain of a troop of rangers, surveyor, coroner, escheator, member of the House of Burgesses, sheriff and a justice of the peace, as well as colonel in charge of the frontier militia He served with the troops in North Carolina during the Revolution. He had 12 children, whose descendants are well known in the political history of the United States. Preston was about 46 when he signed the resolutions. He died in 1783. Col. William Christian was born about 1743 near Staunton. His ancestors were from the Isle of Man. He came with his parents, Israel and Elizabeth Christian, to Fincastle in Botetourt County where they gave the land for the courthouse. William ran the ordinary, studied law, served in the House of Burgesses and married Anne Henry, sister of Patrick. He served as a justice of the peace, and was in the House of Delegates from Botetourt and Fincastle Counties. He was in the militia during the French and Indian War. He moved to the New Mary B. Kegley, newly employed in the archeology section of the State Library in Richmond, has been involved in research and writing of Southwest Virginia history for more than 10 years. 32 �River about 1772, settling at Dunkard Bottom in present Pulaski County. He was in command of the troops in 1774 that went to Point Pleasant. He was chairman of the Committee of Safety in 1775, signing the resolutions when he was about 32. Shortly after, he resigned to accept a military commission as lieutenant colonel of the First Vir­ ginia Regiment. He served on the Cherokee Expedition of 1776, was elected a state senator, and moved to Kentucky about 1784 where he was killed by Indians in 1786. Stephen Trigg, born about 1742, was the son of William and Mary Trigg of Bedford County. He married Mary, the sister of William Christian, about 1768. He was a merchant first at the town of Fincastle, later at New Dublin in Pulaski County, and had other trading centers on Reed Creek and Little River. He served as a justice in Augusta, Botetourt, Fincastle and Montgomery counties. He was a delegate to the Virginia Assembly in 1774. He became chairman of the Fincastle Committee of Safety when his brother-in-law, Col. Christiap, resigned. He was about 33 when he signed the resolutions. He moved to Kentucky in 1777 where he became a member of the land court. His home was at Trigg’s Station, near Harrodsburg. He was killed by Indians in the Battle of Blue Licks, Kentucky in 1782. He had four children, Stephen, Fleming, Polly and Elizabeth. Arthur Campbell, was born about 1743 in Virginia. His grand­ parents came from the north of Ireland to Pennsylvania and to Augusta County. He married Margaret Campbell, a sister of Col. William Camp­ bell, who was a relative. At 15, Arthur Campbell was captured by the Indians and taken to the Great Lakes, where he remained about three years. After his escape and subsequent marriage, he moved to Royal Oak, present site of Marion. He was a major in the militia and about 32 when he signed the resolutions. He served in the General Assembly in 1776, was county lieutenant of militia for Washington County, served against the Cherokees, was a justice of the peace, helped raise troops for the Battle of Kings Mountain, and following the death of William Campbell served as guardian for his daughter. On her behalf he managed the saltworks at present Saltville. He moved to Yellow Creek, Middlesboro, Ky. and died there at 73. Major William Ingles, the son of Thomas Ingles of Ireland, set­ tled on the North Fork of Roanoke River prior to 1746 and moved to the New River about 1754. He married Mary Draper, who was captured during an Indian massacre at Draper’s Meadows in 1755. Ingles served as an officer in the militia during the French and Indian War, as justice in Augusta, Botetourt, Fincastle and Mont­ gomery counties, was sheriff, and operated the first licensed ferry across New River, beginning about 1762. He was about 46 when he signed the resolutions, and he continued to serve in the militia during the Revolutionary War until his health forced him to resign. He died 33 �at his home at Ingles Ferry, present Radford, in 1782. Walter Crockett, born in the 1730’s, served in the French and Indian War in William Christian’s company. He lived in Crockett’s Cove, Wythe County, before 1770. He served as a justice in Augusta, Botetourt, Fincastle and Montgomery counties, and was clerk of court for Wythe County. He was captain of the militia in 1770-75 and was often called upon to lead his rangers along the Clinch and Bluestone rivers. He was probably about 40 when he signed the resolutions. He continued in the militia and became a lieutenant colonel, also serving in the Virginia Convention of 1778 and in the House, 1777-79, and again in 1789. He was called upon to put down the Tory insurrec­ tion in the vicinity of the Lead Mines, at Wythe County in 1780 and was successful. He moved to the Poplar Camp community nearby about 1801 and died there about 1811. Capt. John Montgomery was born 1717 in Donegal, Ireland. He was living on Reed Creek near present Fort Chiswell sometime prior to 1755. He married a Crockett and had eight sons and six daughters. He served as a justice of Augusta, Botetourt, Fincastle, Montgomery and Wythe counties. He was about 58 when he signed the resolutions. He was in the French and Indian War, helped raise troops for the Cherokee Expedition of 1776, served in the General Assembly and as sheriff. He died in 1802, and is buried not far from the Fort Chiswell mansion house. Capt. James McGavock, born in Antrim, Ireland in 1728, came to Virginia in time to serve in the French and Indian War as a captain. He married Mary Cloyd and had 11 children. He served as justice for Augusta, Botetourt, Montgomery and Wythe counties and he ran an ordinary in the town of Fincastle before moving to Fort Chiswell in the 1770’s. He had an ordinary, mill and trading post at the fort during the 1770’s and 1780’s. The Montgomery County court met at his home prior to the building of the Courthouse on his land. The first Wythe County court also met on his property. During the Revo­ lution he served on the Committee of Safety, stored corn, lead and powder for expeditions in Southwest Virginia at his home. He was about 47 when he signed the resolutions. He moved to present Max Meadows in the 1790’s and died in 1812 in the log house still standing on the Main Street. William Campbell was bom about 1745 in Augusta County. His grandparents came from Ireland and his father was Charles Campbell of Beverley Manor. William moved to the Holston River settlement in 1769, served as a justice of the peace in Fincastle and Washington counties, was a captain of the militia in 1774 at the Battle of Point Pleasant, became a lieutenant colonel in 1777. He was about 30 when he signed. He married Elizabeth, the sister of Patrick Henry, was a brother-in-law of William Christian and Thomas Madison, who also 34 �At a reenactment of the signing on Sunday, Jan. 19, 1975, Robert Preston of Botetourt County represented his ancestor, Col. William Preston, when he took up the quill pen. Waiting his turn to sign was Lloyd Matthews of Pulaski County, acting as Col. William Christian, chairman of the com­ mittee signing the document. married sisters of Patrick Henry. He served against the Tories in 1779 and 1780, but is best known for his heroic action at the Battle of Kings Mountain. He became a brigadier general under Lafayette, suffered from pneumonia and died in Hanover County in 1781. His body was removed to the family cemetery in Smyth County in 1823 where an impressive marker has been erected. His widow, Elizabeth, married William Russell. Thomas Madison, born about 1746, was a son of John Madison, the first clerk of Augusta County. He was a lawyer in Botetourt County and also served as sheriff, state’s attorney and escheator. He was in the House of Delegates six different times and he served as captain of the militia in Augusta County. He was active in proceedings at the 35 �Lead Mines during the Revolutionary period, and was probably living there at the time he signed the resolutions at 29. He married Susanna Henry. He served as commissary for the Cherokee expedition, and later as guardian for his niece, Sarah B. Campbell, who inherited the Salt Works in Smyth County. Madison spent some time there on her behalf. He died near Cloverdale, 1798. Daniel Smith was born in 1748 in Stafford County. He attended William and Mary and became a certified surveyor, serving as deputy surveyor for Fincastle County in 1773. There is some evidence he may have lived for awhile with Dr. Thomas Walker. He was captain of a militia company in 1774 and served 98 days. He was about 27 years old when he signed. He continued in the militia, becoming a major in 1776, and a colonel in 1781. He served as a justice of the peace in Washington County and lived on the Clinch River. He and Thomas Walker were in charge of running the line between Virginia and North Carolina in 1780. He moved to the Territory south of the Ohio (later Tennessee), and became brigadier general of the Mero District and secretary of the territory. He served as a U. S. senator from Tennessee in 1798 and 1805. He died in 1818 in Summer County, Tenn. William Russell, born in Culpeper County about 1735, was of Eng­ lish background. He attended William and Mary, served in the French and Indian War, and was sent by the British on a mission to the Cherokee Indians in 1765. He moved to the Clinch River, now Russell County, about 1770. He served as a justice of the peace in Fincastle County, and was captain of the militia, serving on the frontier in 1774. He was in charge of Fort Blair after the Battle of Point Pleasant, and served on the Cherokee expedition in 1776. He was 40 at the signing. He attended the Constitutional Convention with Arthur Campbell as representatives of Fincastle County. He went to the House of Delegates with Arthur Campbell and with William Christian to the Senate. He was a soldier of the Virginia line during the Revolution. He married Tabitha Adams first and after her death the widow, Elizabeth Camp­ bell. He moved to the Salt Lick, now Saltville, in 1788 and lived in a log house. He too served as guardian for Sarah Campbell, but was considered too severe and was replaced by Arthur Campbell later by Thomas Madison. Russell served in the House as a representative of Washington County in 1785, and requested a new county be formed from it. This was done in 1786 and named Russell in his honor. In 1792 enroute to the House of Delegates in Richmond, he became ill with the flu and died at the home of a son, Robert, who lived near Front Royal. He was buried there, but the body was exhumed in July 1943 and moved to the Arlington National Cemetery. Evan Shelby, born 1720 of Welsh ancestry, came to Maryland in 1735 where he became a noted woodsman, hunter and Indian trader. 36 �He served in the French and Indian War in Pennsylvania and Maryland, a n d was a captain at the Battle of Point Pleasant in 1 7 7 4 . He moved to the Virginia frontier, near present Bristol, about 1 7 7 1 - 7 2 and be­ came a merchant, farmer and raiser of cattle. He was about 55 when he signed the resolutions. He served with the troops against the Indians in 1 7 7 6 , served as a justice of Washington County, served in the North Carolina Senate in 1 7 8 1 . He died about 1 7 9 4 in Bristol and is buried there. His son, Isaac, became governor of Kentucky, and Shelbyville, Tenn. is named for the family. William Edmondson was born in Maryland in 1734 but he moved with his parents to Rockbridge County, Va. He came to the Middle Fork of the Holston River, near Lodi, in the 1770’s. He served as a lieutenant of militia on the Clinch River in 1774, a justice of the peace in 1777, a leader against the Tories in 1780, a captain against the Cherokees in 1776 and at Kings Mountain in 1781, where eight men named Edmondson participated in the battle. He also served as sheriff, and became colonel of the militia. He married twice and had 15 chil­ dren. He died in 1822 at the age of 89. He was 41 at the time of the signing of the resolutions. Botetourt Publications Planned In Botetourt County, the Bicentennial Commission plans to pub­ lish letters and diaries written before 1900 and reproductions of old newspapers dating before 1915. Plans have been made to publish cemetery records and other accounts of Botetourt County history before 1880, as well. Copies of letters and diaries and old newspapers should be sent to Mrs. Hellen C. Caldwell, chairman, Botetourt Bicentennial Pub­ lications Committee Fincastle 24090. Government by Families (Continued from page 15) LEG ISLA TIV E JOU RN A LS O F T H E COUNCIL O F COLONIAL VIRG IN IA , ed., H. R . M cllw alne, (R ichm ond V a.. 1918. 1919). L E T T E R S AND P A P E R S O F EDM UND PE N D L ET O N . 1734-1803, ed., D avid Jo h n May«, (U nlversity of V irg inia P re s s , C harlottesville, V a., 1967). TH E STATUTES AT LA RG E B EIN G A COLLECTION O F TH E LAWS O F VIRG IN IA , ed., W illiam W aller H ening, <J & G. C ochran, R ichm ond, V a., 18*1). TH E PR E S T O N AND V IRG IN IA P A P E R S O F TH E D R A P E R COLLECTION O F M ANUSCRIPTS, IN D E X , P u b lica tio n of th e S tate H isto rical Society of W isconsin, (M adison, W isconsin, 1951). U nited S ta te s B u re au of th e Census. HEADS O F FA M ILIES AT TH E F m S T CENSUS OF TH E U N ITED STATES, TAK EN IN TH E Y EA R 1790—RECO RD S O F TH E STATE ENUM ERATIONS, 1782-1785, VIRG IN IA , (G enealogical P u b lica tio n Co., B altim ore, Md. 1900). V IR G IN IA GAZETTE IN D E X : 1736-1780, ed., L e ste r J . Cannon and S tella F . D uth, (Institute of E a rly A m erican H istory and C ulture, W illiam sburg, V a., 1950). MANUSCRIPTS AND MICROFILM R eco rd s of th e B o teto u rt C ounty C ourthouse, F in c a stle, V irginia. D R A P E R M ANUSCRIPTS in M icrofilm , Vols. I-VL TH E VIRG IN IA G A ZETTE, P u b lish ed a t W illiam sburg, V a., M icrofilm covering 1768-1780. 37 �Settlement, Defense of the Frontier By E mory L. Ha m ilton The earliest settlers of Southwest Virginia were generally one or two generations removed from immigrant, ancestors. Many of the immigrants had landed at the port of Philadelphia in the early part of the eighteenth century, worked their way westward into Lancaster County and thence downward into the Valley of Virginia. From the valley some moved westward to the frontier, while others filtered down into North Carolina and westward from there to the Virginia frontier. The cultural heritage of the early settlers was largely ScotchIrish, with some of German extraction and a lesser number of Eng­ lish and other races. It would not be true to say that a certain per­ centage of the blood was Scotch-Irish in all Southwest V irgin ian s, but we could safely say that it dominates, as can be easily traced through family names. The Scotch-Irish were a peculiar breed and usually dominated the communities into which they moved. This is easily proved again through the study of genealogy of the earlier settlements. Who were the Scotch-Irish and why were they different? To answer this one must take a long look at the history of the British Isles. They were neither Scots nor Irish as we think of these two races today. They were a product of many races and had achieved a sort of homogenity over a period of some two milleniums of time. They were descendants of the earliest settlers of the British Isles who had been pushed back by countless invaders into the hilly country along the Scottish border. Perhaps in their veins flowed blood of the earliest invaders from the Roman Empire who pushed them back, but never totally conquered them. In their veins flowed the blood of Scotsmen and English, but also of other invaders who were in turn defeated and pushed inland. They were different in physical and mental qualities of other British people. Through their long period of travail they had become a kind of people whocould survive on little and under adverse conditions — hence theywere inured with the stamina and qualities fitting them for pioneers. They were resourceful, hard-working, and used to self-denial which shaped their thinking and philosophy over many generations. They were stubborn troublemakers, participating in the movements Emory Hamilton’s paper on frontier forts in far Southwest Vir­ ginia was given at a meeting of the Virginia History Federation in Abingdon in October 1974. A longtime student of history, he teaches at the Wise Technical School and has been secretary of the Historical Society of Southwest Virginia for some years. 38 �instigated by thinkers and reformers who were not in accord with the principles of the British crown, such as Cromwell, Knox and others. At the time the British took control of Northern Ireland they found it a good place to resettle the troublesome Scotch-Irish. In Northern Ireland these people had a great opportunity to show their character. This they did by developing an industry, especially in linen goods that became a threat to the London merchants. They became successful farmers and set up an education system that made them the best educated common people in Europe. Becoming a threat to the established order of the British Crown through their industry and aggressiveness, many repressive laws were passed against them, much like the repressive laws later passed by Parliament against the American colonies. They soon began to hate the British bitterly. Then famines began to hit Ireland and mass migration started to the American colonies. Upon arrival on these shores they found all the lands in the coastal areas already taken up by people largely of English extraction and a well established Church of England, both of which they hated. Their only recourse was to emigrate to the western frontier of Vir­ ginia where land was still available if it could be wrested from the Indians and wilderness. They came and conquered, and in the moun­ tains and valleys of western Virginia, and later in Kentucky, they set up their culture — a culture that for more than a century remained almost identical to that of their immigrant ancestors. Here the lan­ guage, the songs, the customs and beliefs lived on as in no other area in all of America. Even to this day our dialect is different in the Ap­ palachians to that of our fellow countrymen. Today it is not unusual to hear an obsolete word that is pure Elizabethan English. This is a heritage of which I am deeply proud and feel no embarrassment when I am referred to as a mountaineer, for my roots are deeply embedded in the soil that cost my ancestors so much pain, heartache, tears and labor to claim and hold. Along the border they carved out their isolated homes and fought back the Indians. During this time their habitations were referred to as the Western Waters. Then the Revolution broke and they were referred to as the “Over Mountain Men”. After the Civil War they were called “Mountaineers,” and with the coming of the Twentieth Century we have been disparagingly referred to as “Hillbillies.” When the Revolution broke, despite the fact that the western settlers had little in common with their sea coast brothers, they re­ membered their old hatred of the British. They did not need to be trained or conditioned as soldiers for they had been this since the settlement of the frontier with every able-bodied man and boy serv­ ing in the militia as a defense against hostile Indians. 39 �With the outbreak of the Revolution they were almost to a man anti-British, and were in a more dangerous position than their coastal brothers who had only the British to fear. The “Over Mountain” men were not only endangered by the British, but were faced with Tories on New River and in the Carolinas, the Indians on the north and south, aided and abetted by British agents, inciting and paying them for the scalps of victims, including innocent women and children. Many names have come down to us through history of these infamous characters such as the British Colonel Henry Hamilton, and the notori­ ous American renegade, Simon Girty. The mountain men were not soldiers in the usual sense, but militia men who lived at home, men at stated intervals for drill, and were ready on call for any service or emergency. When the British Colonel Patrick Ferguson threatened the western settlements, the men of Southwest Virginia and western North Carolina gathered in Washington County and marched overland to the border of South Carolina to de­ cisively defeat the British at Kings Mountain, in an unethical type of warfare which was nothing more than a sort of guerilla warfare. This battle is termed by many historians as the “turning point of the Revolution.” Generals William Russell, Arthur and William Campbell, Evan Shelby and many other military leaders of Scotch-Irish descent led the men of Southwest Virginia in many notable battles of the Revolu­ tion, until victory against the British was accomplished, but victory to secure the last frontier of Virginia was not secure until Captain Vincent Hobbs and a handful of men from Yokums Station in Lee County, Virginia, hastily gathered to defeat the half-breed Indian Chief Benge in Wise County in 1794, ending a war that had started in 1774. Many of the frontiersmen moved on to Kentucky and Ten­ nessee and there fought the Indians until those states were secure. The Scotch-Irish probably brought with them a higher degree of intelligence and education than any other race on the frontier and they assumed leadership in the communities even when they were a minority. They were of a fiery temperament, intensely jealous of their freedom and acutely aware of their personal honor. The literate Scotch-Irish, as was their ancient custom, set up early schools and taught the rudiments of an education to their children. The Civil War came on and the mountain people were divided in their allegiance, some choosing the North, yet a larger number favoring the South, despite the fact that not many were slave holders. It is possible that states rights was a greater issue with them than the slavery question. There were, also, those who wanted no part of either side, and these became a thorn in the side to both the Union and Confederate armies, not to mention the creation of animosities in the communities. In sheer exasperation, Confederate General Humphrey Marshall, who had 40 �his headquarters at Wise in 1864, threatened and may have carried out martial law against the counties of Scott, Lee, and Wise, because of the rebellious, unruly populace. As everywhere in the South, hard times hit the mountain settlers after the Civil War, and their education system broke down, compared to what it had been in earlier times. The censuses of 1880 and 1900 show a smaller percentage of literacy than eras prior to the Civil War. So much for the background. Now, when and where were the very first settlements made in Southwest Virginia? To begin the his­ tory of the first settlers, one needs to go back to the first explorers who were the Long Hunters. This group of daring men had gone on hunts into this area and far beyond into what was to become Kentucky and Tennessee long before the first settlers came. They were fore­ runners of the first settlers. They traveled long distances on horseback, leading pack horses carrying food and supplies out, and furs and hides back. These hides, especially that of buffalo, were shipped to England for leather, but the market was lost at the outbreak of the Revolution, after which no more Long Hunters went out. No record remains to prove who the first Long Hunters were, or from what place they started. After 1769 they originated at the present site of Chilhowie. Dr. Thomas Walker of Albemarle County, who made an explora­ tory trip through Southwest Virginia in 1750 for the Loyal Land Com­ pany entered in his journal on January 15, 1750 this statement: “This day I came to a river which I presumed to be Clinch, named for a hunter.” The rivers, streams, gaps and mountains had been named by the Long Hunters long before the first settlers arrived. Powell Valley in Lee County was a buffalo hunting ground and Elisha Wallen, with other hunters, set up a hunting camp there in what historians think was the year 1761 and the creek and mountain still bear his name—Wallens Creek and Wallens Ridge. The Long Hunters, returning after a winter’s hunt, no doubt told glowing stories of the good land and hunting in the western wilderness. It is not hard to imagine land-hungry settlers hearing these wonderful stories and making up their minds to push westward, and westward they came in ever increasing numbers. The first settlement west of the Alleghenies was Draper’s Meadows in M ontgom ery CountvT under the direction of Col. William Patton, who along with most of the settlers was wiped out in a massacre by the Indians in 1755. At this time Mary Draper Ingles was taken captive and her escape from the Indians has become one of the classical Indian stories of the Virginia frontier. This settlement was made sometime prior to 1746. About the same time, or shortly thereafterwards, a group of people of German extraction made a settlement slightly westward of 41 �the Draper’s Meadows known as Dunkard’s Bottom, of course named for their religious affiliation. This settlement also suffered much at the hands of the Indians at the same time as Draper’s Meadows. There was, at least some contact with this settlement and the Moravian settlements in North Carolina. Records show that some from the area went to the Moravian settlements to find wives. By the year 1769, settlers had pushed into Abingdon, then known as Wolf Hills, and into Cassell’s Woods in present-day Russell County. These two sites were the beginning of the Scotch-Irish settlements of extreme Southwest Virginia. Settlers at these sites were largely from the Valley of Virginia and Western North Carolina. The North Carolina settlers had first filtered down from the Valley of Virginia to Carolina and thence westward through the counties of Orange, Rowan, Alleghany, Ashe and Surry, through Grayson County, Virginia, to the Southwest. The Abingdon settlement was made on an 800,000 acre tract of land granted to the Loyal Land Company and Dr. Thomas Walker was agent for the same. A look at the Land Entry Books of old Fincastle and Washington counties will show by family names that these first settlers were largely of Scotch-Irish lineage. The Castlewood settlement was named for Jacob Castle, who has become almost a lengendary figure, and about whom all sorts of legendary tales have been spun by past writers. One such legend claims he was an albino from Augusta County and had left .the settlenients to live in the wilderness because of the embarrassment of his physical disfigurement, and another states that he had traded a butcher knife and some other trifles to the Indians for all the land at Castle­ wood. There is no basis of fact in either legend. The truth of the matter is that Jacob Castle was not a legendary figure, but one of real flesh and blood, and is about as well documented as many other early settlers. Records in Augusta County prove that he was living in the New River settlement in the early 1740’s and was listed among the road hands at that place. I think there is little doubt that he was an Indian trader, and around 1746-47 he made some sort of threat about bringing the Indians down upon the settlement and courts-martial charges were lodged against him. Shortly after he dis­ appears from the settlement and is not picked up again in the records. Where he went we do not know, but I think this date is certainly too early for his settlement at Castlewood, although we have no date for his settlement here and actually no proof that he ever did live at Castle­ wood, except that the place took his name. There has been found no record that he ever owned any land. In the year, 1780, he was living someplace on the upper Clinch River for his son, Bazle Castle, states in a Revolutionary War pension statement filed in Flody Co., Ky., that he did not serve in the militia that year, having to stay at home because his father was away at King’s 42 �Mountain. Where Jacob Castle went after the battle of King’s Moun­ tain is not known. In 1775, Colonel Joseph Martin from Henry County established Martin’s Station in Powell Valley in present-day Lee County. Martin, with a group of men, had found and marked the site for the land upon which the station stood in the year 1768. They had become lost for several days and had much difficulty in finding the valley on their first trip, which shows the lack of knowledge of the frontier wilder­ ness at this time. After these three sites had been settled the frontier settlements in all areas mushroomed with an ever-increasing number of newcomers, and soon the great Wilderness Road through these areas became the highway to the opening up of the western part of this great nation. The actual military defense of Virginia’s western frontier did not begin on a large scale, until the spring prior to the outbreak of Dunmore’s War in the fall of 1774 more commonly referred to by historians as the Point PleSanTCampaign. It has been stated by some writers that not a single palisade fort existed along the Clinch frontier until after the circulation of Lord Dunmore’s order in the spring of 1774 requesting that forts be built when Dunmore had decided that war with the Shawnee Indians was imminent. Those making these statements used the argument that after the French and Indian war peace existed and there was no need of palisaded forts. It is probably quite true that prior to 1774 there were no real palisaded forts, the inhabitants depending on strongly built fort houses with portholes for warding off surprise Indian at­ tacks. One of these, the old Kilgore Fort house built about 1785, still stands in Scott County. However, those who aver that prior to 1774 peace existed between the Indians and whites need to review their frontier history. Admittedly, peace did exist on paper as the Treaties of Fort Stanwix and Lochaber prove, but a paper peace meant little to many of the savages who had probably never heard of it, or those who did not concur with it in the first place. It is well also to point out that the treaties, which prohibited further settlement of Indian lands, were violated repeatedly by the white settlers. That peace did not exist, we might consider the killing of Boone’s party on Wallens Creek on Oct. 10, 1773, almost a year prior to Dunmore’s circular letter ordering the fortification of the frontier. John McCulloch, whose father, Thomas McCulloch, had settled on Moccasin Creek in 1769, states that in June 1771, all of Moccasin Creek was evacuated for fear of Indians and remained so for more than a year. On June 30, 1773, Col. Evan Shelby had a roster of 71 militiamen. Capt. William Russell also had four Indian scouts on patrol on April 43 �The Kilgore Fort House, built about 1785, still stands near Nickelsville in Scott County, among the few of its kind in existence. 15, 1774, two months prior to Dunmore’s letter, and again in 1773, Col. Shelby lists a group of four scouts on Clinch River. Does it not seem strange to aver that peace existed when we see a contingent of 71 militiamen, scouts on patrol and the massacre of five people on Wallens Creek? ....— After Dunmore’s request for forts, they began to mushroom all along the frontier. The Clinch River frontier of 150 miles from Bluefield to Cumberland Gap was a vast wilderness to defend with the sparsely settled condition then existing. Every able bodied man and boy served in the militia guarding the forts and patrolling the war traces. Even 12-year-old boys who were large for their age became Indian scouts. The Indians would swoop down from the north, suddenly kill settlers and vanish into the wilderness. Horse-stealing and killing of 44 �livestock became common which hurt the settlers greatly because of their dependence on these domesticated animals for labor, food and clothing. The dreaded time of Indian incursions was from April to October when the forests were clothed with leaves, making a screen for sudden attacks upon the settlers who were away from the forts trying to cultivate their crops. At times attacks were so frequent the people had to stay in the forts all summer and no crops could be cultivated, bring­ ing on starvation conditions in wintertime whereby flour had to be brought in from the eastern settlements. Again, during the balmy days of late October and November was another good time for Indian at­ tacks and from this has come down to us the term “Indian Summer.” Looking backward to this remote period it is hard to imagine the privation and suffering of the early settlers from the Indians, but some of the militiamen who lived long enough to draw Revolutionary war pensions paint a vivid picture of their hardships. Perhaps the ones who suffered most were the Indian scouts, commonly referred to as the Clinch scouts. These men who went out in groups of twos and fours, carried their food and blankets on their backs, slept on the ground without shelter or warmth, patrolled for periods of two weeks before returning to the forts. Sometimes after reaching their patrol grounds they would separate, patrol for the day and meet again at a prearranged site to spend the night. The scouts were not fighters and could not shoot at the Indians. They were simply scouts who upon seeing Indian signs or Indians hurried back to the settlements to alert the people so they could flee into the forts and to warn the militia to be on the alert. These scouts patrolled as far away as Floyd, Perry and Breathitt Counties in Kentucky. The pension statements of the Clinch scouts give the impression that the greatest suffering was from the rigors of the cold winters. They all tell of the terrible winter of 1779-1780, and James Farley says the “leaves were all off the trees by August.” James Harvey Laughlin, in his diary written in 1845 and speaking of stories told by his parents and grandparents who were on their way to Kentucky in the fall of 1779, and who were captured in the Spring of 1780 and taken to Canada, tells the following: “Settlers caught on their way to Ky. had to go into camp into any sort of shelter that could be created or found . . . wild animals of all sorts starved to death by thousands for lack of food and from thirst because all the streams were frozen and people were forced to eat dead animals even of unclean type.” The militia stationed in the forts were often hard pressed to defend them because of few numbers. Frequently when the Indians made sudden forays they would kill part of a family and carry others away into captivity. These murdering parties were all followed by the 45 �militia and sometimes overtaken when fights ensued and prisoners were rescued. Many of the early settlers were massacred in their fields while tending crops or often the women and children were killed in the homes when the father was away and the homes were burned down on the victims. On occasions it was hard to persuade men to leave their wives and children unprotected to go on campaigns against the Indians, and it was harder still to get militia from the interior who were comparatively safe to volunteer for frontier defense. The Clinch fron­ tier was a barrier against the Shawnee for the settlements on the Holston. The Holston fortifications were more a barrier against the Cherokee to the South, but being less hostile than the Shawnee there never were as many depredations against the Holston as there were against the Clinch settlements, and many more people were killed and captured in the Clinch and Powell River settlements. In 1775, Daniel Boone and James Harrod made settlement in Kentucky, both of whom had served in the militia on the Clinch fron­ tier in 1774, and while here Boone was made a lieutenant and in turn a captain, which was the only military rank he ever held. During his stay on the Clinch, he was in command of Moore’s and Blackmore’s forts, his family spending their time in Moore’s Fort. While living in Moore’s fort, to Daniel and Rebecca Boone was born a son named William, who died and was buried in the Moore’s Fort Cemetery in an unmarked grave overlooking Clinch River. Not many miles away in an unmarked and unknown spot on the head of Wallen’s Creek, sleeps their son, James, side by side with Henry Russell and Joseph Drake’s son, and Charles and John Mendenhall of Guilford County, N. C., victims of the cruel massacre of Oct. 10, 1773. ------ In 1780, the men of the Clinch and Holston settlements chopped a wagon road from the Holston, through Cumberland Gap to Crab Orchard in Lincoln County, Ky., guarded by the militia under Capt. John Snaddy, which opened up the great Wilderness Road over which many thousand pioneers traveled to settle Kentucky and the west. No doubt the Kentucky settlements relieved some of the pressure on the Clinch frontier, but on at least two occasions the Clinch Militia was ordered to the relief of the Kentucky stations. In 1777 they were sent to Harrodsburg to guard the settlers while they harvested their crops which they had not been able to do the previous year and in 1778 they went to Boone’s assistance at the siege of Boonsboro. 46 �Roanokers walk through Bob White covered bridge in Patrick County. A Visit To Patrick County Two of the comparatively few remaining covered bridges, the Reynolds Homestead and the 18th century Hamon Critz place were highlights of the Patrick County Tour of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society on Saturday, Oct. 19, 1974. . Starting on a cloudy morning punctuated by snow flurries along the Blue Ridge Parkway southward, two busloads of Society mem­ bers and guests were charmed by the hospitality, history and scenery of the mountainous county resting between Southwest Virginia and the North Carolina line. Named after Patrick Henry, first governor of the Commonwealth, who once lived at Leatherwood, near Martinsville, the county was created from Henry County in 1791. Most of its settlers were English and Scotch-Irish. M ill Stuart, the county seat, draws its name from Gen. J.E.B. stuari, famous Confederate cavalryman, who was born and reared at Laurel Hill, a home no longer standing at Ararat, in the southwestern part of the county. Bicentennial efforts are being made to mark the spot. The county courthouse, a large brick building constructed m 18 by Abram Staples, is one of the oldest in this part of the state. A log courthouse, first in the county, measured 24 by 36 feet when it was PUt T h ^ bridges—Bob White and Jack’s Creek—drew the undivided 47 �Patrick County's 1822 brick courthouse. A visit to the 18th century Hamon Critz place at Critz. 48 �attention of photographers and Patrick County people served apples, punch and cookies. Located about a mile apart near Woolwine, both were built in the 1914-21 era. The Bob White Bridge, one of only two covered structures still in the state highway system, unquestionably was designed to protect the oak flooring from the elements, according to J. Edward Weaver of Roanoke, who helped his father build it in 1921. An extensive collection of mountain farm tools and other histor­ ical objectives given by Fred Clifton of Vesta was seen at the Patrick County Historical Society Museum located in Stuart since 1971. At Critz in the eastern part of the county, Mr. and Mrs. T. Linwood Ayers have restored an old family home built by Hamon Critz, great-great-grandfather of Mrs. Ayers, probably about 1786. Weather­ boarding has been added to the log building but the interior is much as it was in frontier days. The Reynolds Homestead, birthplace of R. J. Reynolds, the tobacco magnate, and 15 other children of Hardin William and Nancy Cox Reynolds, was built in 1843. Handsomely restored, the home stands atop a hill not far from the foot of Nobusiness Mountain. J. Sargeant Reynolds, late lieutenant governor, was buried in the family cemetery here. This home is open to the public. Journals Wanted Back issues of The Journal and the historical program of Roa­ noke’s 1957 Diamond Jubilee are in short supply. Persons finding spare copies of either publication are urged to contribute them to the Society. Any articles from bygone days should be considered for donation to the Society’s collections. The address is P. 0. Box 1904, Roanoke 24008. 49 �Bleak Hill. Photo: Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission (VHLC). Bleak Hill, A Handsome Farm House By An n e Carter L ee Set atop a high knoll and looking out onto the encircling Blue Ridge Mountains, Bleak Hill is a handsome Italianate farm house situated between Ferrum and Callaway in western Franklin County. Now the center of a large dairy, it is owned by a great-great-grandson of Judge Fleming Saunders (1778-1858) who settled on this farm in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. Judge Saunders first lived some distance from the present house site in a plain two-room frame dwelling, aptly referred to as “Hardfare” by his fellow lawyers in nearby Rocky Mount. After his marriage in 1814, he built a brick dwelling on the site of the present Bleak Hill. Although it burned ca. 1830, by great good fortune the anonymous master-builder’s project elevations and plan, along with his notations, are still at Bleak Hill. Of particular interest is his suggestion that most of the windows of the east and west sides be sham in order to keep out the summer sun and to avoid extra expense. He also advises sash windows for the lower story and casement windows for the upper ones because, aston­ ishingly, he deems it impossible “to have a house of two full stories Anne Carter Lee of Rocky Mount, an authority on regional archi­ tecture, earned a master’s degree in architectural history at the Uni­ versity of Virginia. She has worked with the Virginia Historic Land­ marks Commission. Her cousin, Bill Lee, lives at Bleak Hill. She pre­ sents here an unusual amount of information about a 19th century house. 50 �Master-builder's elevations and plan, with notations, for Saunders' house built ca. 1815-20 and burned ca. 1830. Typescript of notations can be found in the Appendix. Photos: Courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. W. D. S. Lee and VHLC. Cabin, left, in which Peter and Elizabeth Saunders lived while the present Bleak Hill was constructed. Icehouse at right. Ca. 1900. Photo: Lee, VHLC. Early 19th century brick office in which family lived after the 1830 fire. Photo: VHLC. 51 �in the best taste & correct architectural proportions . . . ” The plan is somewhat eccentric for it provides neither sitting room nor parlor “deeming such a room unnecessary in the habits of Country life.” After the fire, the family lived in the little brick office and other outbuildings until the children grew older and they all moved to “Flat Creek,” near Evington in Campbell County, the old Watts homeplace of Mrs. Fleming Saunders. It was at Flat Creek that Peter Saunders (1823-1904) was born about seven years before his father’s home in Franklin County burned. (Apparently his mother had returned to her old home for his birth.) He inherited the Bleak Hill estate from his older brother, Edward Watts Saunders, who died ca. 1842. In 1855, Peter Saunders married Elizabeth Lewis Dabney of “Vaucluse” in Campbell County. When he and his bride arrived at Bleak Hill, they settled into the frame “cabin” in the yard until the present dwelling, which was being constructed, could be completed. In correspondence dated March 18, 1857, Betty Saunders writes of having much to do before getting in the new house. Evidently, the architect or master-builder submitted a number of al­ ternate plans and elevations and these are still at Bleak Hill along with what appears to be the original floor plan as well as the bill of timber signed by F. Gravelly. The architect’s plans and elevations, unfortunately, are not signed. Since its construction in the mid-nineteenth century, the house has undergone almost no alteration. It has the characteristically Italianate L-shaped massing with, in this case, the projecting pavilion on i p O , ■ " \ ■ : U U S T O f y * . N N : . 4 * ; . :• ‘ ■ '1 , ■ ■ - ' \ . . - ■ u. - f y iP V : ' . u u i r / • ' * i ' ] i a t . ' d .- 1 irk tr ^§i§Ti rr . " iw f i l l 11® FI ¡11 r . 1 ■i i i - I F F g g ' j 1 . v. J g # ■ One of a number of unaccepted proposals for the mid-T9th c. con­ struction of Bleak Hill. Photo: Lee, VHLC. 52 �ip* Original floor plan for Bleak Hill. Bay window on entrance facade. Photo; Leo, VHLC. Chimney stack. Photo: VHLC. Photo: VHLC. the north side of the west entrance facade. The one-story front porch, set in the jog of the pavilion and main block, has simple Doric pillars connected by railings and supporting a plain entablature. The entiy has sidelights separated from the transom by heavy brackets. On the pavilion there is a bay window with three carefully articulated, round-headed openings with the divisions marked by Doric pilasters standing on pedestals with panels between them. The entablature of the bay window has dentil moldings between the cornice projection. The second-floor windows of the entrance facade are paired, roundheaded openings set in a rectangular, wooden frame. The remaining first and second-story windows have 6-over-6-light sashes except for one south side window which has 2-over-2-lights separated by a stanchion that is positioned in front of a partition wall. 53 �Entrance facade detail. Mantel in library. Photo: VHLC. Photo: VHLC. The house is constructed of brick with an all-header bond on the facade and an irregular number of stretcher rows alternating with a row of Flemish bond on the side and rear walls. The foundations up to the first floor line are also of brick but they have been stuccoed and scored in imitation of regular ashlar. In Italianate fashion, a fine, heavy bracket cornice supports the roof overhang. The deck-on-hip �roof with hidden gutters is now sheathed in crimped tin. The brick interior chimneys have Italianate, clustered chimney stacks with four articulated flues. There is a one-story frame addition on the rear of the house. I I Inside, there is a center hall with two rooms on each side, ih e stairs go up the south wall, are broken by a landing on the east wall and continue in a short run up the north wall to the second floor. Beneath a rounded handrail, there are turned balusters and a Victorian newel post. Mantelpieces are simple and are in the Classical Revival style. Doors and architraves, although not elaborate, feature a number of variations. Many of the pieces of furniture which were built on the place in the mid-nineteenth century, as well as furnishings from the earlier Saunders house on the site, are still there. background. Photo: VHLC. Bleak Hill is notable for the number of outbuildings that are still standing. In the front yard, west of the house, is the attractive little office in which the family lived for a time after the 1830 s fire. Dating from the early nineteenth century, it is of brick laid in Flemish bond with plastered jack arches over the openings. The Federal mantel in the office came frome the old house which burned slowly enough for it and much of the furniture to be saved. East of the house is the frame cabin which housed the builder of Bleak Hill and his bride while the present house was being completed. It later served as a guesthouse and as a schoolhouse. Behind it stood a frame icehouse Across the yard is the old brick kitchen with an interior-end chimney. Inside, there is a huge lintel over the fireplace opening and a small warming oven to the right of the fireplace. A brick laundry once stood to the southwest of the kitchen. East of the kitchen is a plank smokehouse with square corner-notching. 55 �M K Ig Lfiuwaey P U -l -House ^ H i ’M S S r .Q ssa- s iKS> OttHIt&j a P q u K & frg S C£7 S«eEB-R006M O f S (T B P L m g lE f iK FP^uKU^ WlLL_ Cjfluwry Beyond the smokehouse is a brick outbuilding which is said to have originally been the dairy, where Jule, the dairy maid, used to churn down in the basement and sing “Way down in de lonesome ground, Oh, Lord, how long!” It was later used as a smokehouse. Still farther to the west stands the chimney of an old slave cabin used by “Aunt Docia.” It seems that most of these outbuildings pre­ date the present dwelling. There are numerous, more recently-con­ structed farm sheds and a large dairy operation at the foot of the hill to the northeast. In 1904, both Mr. and Mrs. Peter Saunders died and the estate passed to the children. Around 1910, Alice and Agatha sold out to William Dabney “Cheese” Saunders, their brother, who ran the place as a dairy farm, taught at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and was a pioneer in experimental dairy practices. In 1946, William Saunders’ heirs sold the farm to Dr. Henry Lee, husband of Dr. Elizabeth Saunders Lee, daughter of William Dabney Saunders. Dr. Lee gave the farm in 1969, to his son, William Dabney Saunders Lee, great-great-grand­ son of Judge Fleming Saunders. 56 �Smokehouse with square corner-notching. Dairy (later used as a smoke­ house) in left background. Photo: VHLC. As part of the extensive documentation of Bleak Hill, there are numerous photos taken of its inhabitants participating in both social and farm activities at the turn of the century. Much of the correspond­ ence to and from the inhabitants of Bleak Hill has been saved. Finally, no less than three lengthy reminiscences of the place have been written and, collectively, they cover most aspects of life at Bleak Hill from the second half of the nineteenth century through the early part of the twentieth century and thus provide invaluable insights into the social history of this region. 57 �Of the two recollections reproduced here, the first excerpt is by Alice Saunders, daughter of Peter and Elizabeth Saunders, who collected and saved most of the documentation at Bleak Hill. Her reminiscences include a particularly interesting section, written in her eightieth year, on the production, gathering, and use of food for homefolks as well as for the endless streams of visitors. Next are reminiscences by Susie M. Taylor, niece of Elizabeth Dabney Saunders. Appendix (Notations of master-builder on elevations and plan for Saunders place which was constructed ca. 1815-20 and burned ca. 1830.) If the platform roof is adopted with a balustrade, around the area within the chimnies, the black lines represent the Form and appearance of the roof. If a plain roof is prefered, the dotted lines represent the appearance both in the front & gable end view. The only advantage of the platform roof consists of the facilities it would afford for extinguishing fire and the view it would give from such an elevation — should these be considered sufficient to en­ counter the addition expense, to render that as light as possible, I would recommend a double floor of heart pine with a declivity from the centre to the front & rear not exceeding 2% or 3 inches; running on the upper course of shingles & terminating with a simple nosing. — Taking it for granted that the building will front North & South, as it is ind— necessary to comfort in our climate. I would recommend sham windows only in the Western gable, except the one over the Door to light the passage up the upper story — and with the corresponding window in the Eastern gable to have no other open windows there except those nearest the South eastern angle. The Evening sun of Sum­ mer must be excluded to give comfort to a room in our climate. As windows are the most costly part of a building, after providing for light & ventilation both economy & comfort prescribe, “the fewer the better” — and it appears to me to be a great mistake, that many windows improve the appearance of a building: —The windows of the upper story being only a single sash, in order to hoist must have casements in the Wall provided to secure them. The half window in the upper story is recommended for its economy & beauty — deeming it impossible to have a house of two full stories in the best taste & correct archi­ tectural proportions—If the clear pitch of the rooms (9 feet below & 8 feet above), should be thought too low — an additional foot to the walls, to make the lower rooms 10 feet, would not be objectionable — upon the score of ap­ pearance. The graduated paper on which the plan is laid down will show the dimen­ sions in every case. I have taken the liberty to extend the plan by the thickness of the walls every way beyond the forty by sixty feet, as I cannot obtain many desirable objects without it. It will be perceived that I have provided no sitting room or parlor deeming such a room unnecessary in our habits of Country life. The colonnade thro’ the Hall supporting a Gallery upon the level of the upper floor will form a communication between the upper rooms of the upper rooms of the East & west ends & supersede the necessity of two stair-cases — The partitions of the upper story will agree with those of the lower except that the sDace occupied by the Dining R. Closet, passage & Dressing Room below, will be appropriated to a lodging room above with its Door opening into the Gallery — The nlan supposes the pitch of the Hall to be the full elevation of the building. The communication with the cellars will be under the Stair Case and it would be found most convenient to place the Kitchen & Servants rooms to communicate with the East passage Door — A part of a bill of timber for Peter Saunders Esqr. by F. Gravelly: 112 Joists 19 feet long Z V t x 12 inches 8 Trimer Joists 19 feet long 3 x 12 inches 48 Joists 11 feet long 2% x 12 inches 36 Raising Joists 21% feet long 2% x 8 inches 58 �Farm Fruits of the 1800s By Alice Saunders There were always visitors during the Summers. Ours was a large connection. I had forty first cousins & ours was a very clannish family All of my Uncles & Aunts on my mother’s side after the war, were poor and Bleak Hill was the only home left intact. My Father inherited a large body of land & the sale of that enabled him to keep the home place and the best farming land and to keep out of debt. The lavish hospitality of those days was possible because the tab e was supplied almost entirely from the products of the farm. Milk & butter in abundance. Flour & meal from the mill. Hams, bacon and lard of our own curing. Lamb from the flock of sheep, vegetables from the garden, fruit, apples, pears, plums, grapes, raspberries and blackberries, gooseberries & currants. Peach trees did not flourish & we seldom grew watermelons and cantaloupes. The soil in the garden was not suitable, and when grown on the low grounds were too great a temptation to the “darkies.” | j? For strawberries we relied largely on the wild ones which grew in abundance on the place, and our tenants kept us supplied at a very moderate price for the picking. They were good, highly flavored, but the “capping” was very tedious job. The cherry trees, of which there were several in my childhood in the front yard (and I lived on them during the cherry season) gradually decayed as did the apple trees in the orchards, a prey to insects. At that time the necessity for spraying was not known. There was one variety of apple which, I remember, as being especially delicious, the “Webster Pearmain.” It was rather small but highly flavored. It is no longer grown, would not sell on the market, where size is desired, rather than quality. Then I remember 59 �a large pear tree, which seldom failed to bear. I never knew the name; but the pears were medium sized & delicious. I wonder if it is still living! Of course we put up our own jellies & preserves & pickles and later canned tomatoes & peaches. Incidentally there was always a barrel of strong apple vinegar in the cellar & another in process of making. Mother made a very re­ freshing drink of raspberries & blackberries soaked in vinegar & sterilized with sugar added. Also wine made from blackberries. I don’t remember that she made grape wine. I don’t know why for there was always an abundance of grapes. She made a very delicious con­ serve of wild fox-grapes, used just before ripening, coddled with sugar & then dried in the sun & rolled in sugar. The finished product was similar to raisins. I must not forget the abundance of nut bearing trees on the place. The “chestnut orchard” at “Hardfare” many giant trees of great age, which furnished many bushels of nut, some of which were stored for our use during the winter & the rest sold. The trees have long since succumbed to the chestnut blight which has killed all the trees in the forests. Then there was the large scaly-bark tree at the foot of the hill which supplied us with delicious nuts, much like pecans in flavor. That too is dead; but there are several seedlings which have come into bearing I think, though the trees are of very slow growth. Then black walnuts, of course, in abundance. I have not mentioned the plentiful supply of ice from the icehouse filled during the Winter months, cut from a pond filled from a spring in the woods, where there were no dwelling houses. The winters then were certainly much more severe than they are now; for I can remember only one winter when we failed to fill the icehouse and there was, generally, more than one hard freeze. When I first remember, Mother did not raise chickens, due to the fact that the flock had been wiped out by an epidemic of cholera. I re­ member a solitary gander. There was a flock of geese formerly. But chickens could be bought at 10 & 12 cents apiece (frying size chickens) and eggs at ten cents a dozen. Later, my sister & I raised chickens & tur­ keys, so we had an abundant supply of eggs & turkeys for special occasions & some for sale. But our “crop” of turkeys was a very un­ certain one, largely dependent upon the weather when the young ones were hatched. We knew nothing of the modern methods. We always kept a cook, a maid who did the laundry and a boy. Wages were unbelievably small in those days. The prevailing wage for domestic service was five dollars a month & the hours were long. I really feel ashamed to chronicle this. But, as a compensation, living was cheap and you could buy material for a calico dress at from five to ten cents a yard. Other dress materials cheap in proportion & people made their own clothes. 60 �During the Winters we lived frugally on the products of the farm, potatoes, beans, black eyed peas (which I never liked), turnips, cab­ bages, salsify, celery sometimes, apples of course, and hominy grits, ground at the mill. Fresh pork during the hog-killing seasons, for there were two killings, one before & one after Christmas. The hog-feet were pickled & kept in the cellar until Spring. One or two beeves, according to the size of the household were slaughtered during the Winter & some of the meat was corned for use in the Spring. We bought only groceries, sugar by the barrel, coffee by the bag, and tea of course. The only lux­ uries were a few oranges, cocoanuts & raisins at Christmas. "Noble Souls” of Bleak Hill By Su s ie M. T aylor My most vivid recollection of Uncle Peter is his reading prayers in the library. I can see him now, his silver hair curling down on his coat-collar, he never adhered to fashion, and anyhow, the men of his day wore their hair rather long. His sonorous voice gave an added dignity to the noble words. He always used a book of prayers said to belong to Grandfather Dabney. It carried you through the week and started you out fresh on Sunday; of course you always knew what the next one would be, so it didn’t matter if your attention wandered which it was apt to do, especially in Spring when the birds were singing outside and the violets so sweet under the open window. Aunt Betty usually came in last, sitting in the corner of the hearth, which she always swept with a little broom kept handy, it was part of the ritual, and we wouldn’t have had it otherwise, though the hearth was immaculate: we laughed about this as we grew older but loved it. When Aunt Liddy was down on a visit, a chair was always placed in the hall just outside the door, so she could hear Marse Peter. Sinai sat there too, when she was spring cleaning. It was a noble ritual, and from it there grew something into our lives, that may have made us better men and women. As a child, I thought Aunt Betty the grandest-looking person in the world. Aunt Liddy said “she was a flower” when Marse Peter married her. Her hair was always brushed like satin and worn in curls in front. She and Mother used to curl these short pieces round at night and stick one ordinary pin through, which was never known to drop out; they must have slept very decorously; but the curls became them both. Washing the breakfast dishes was a social function at Bleak Hill. The ladies all gathered in the dining room, and Aunt Betty had the 61 �Bleak Hill, ca. 1900. Photo: Lee, VHLC. colored boy bring in a low table made for the purpose, which was put in front of her, and a large double action pan, one side with suds, and the other to rinse, ’twas a wonderful idea to sit, as the operation was a slow one. The visiting ladies seized snowy towels, and the conversation began. All topics were discussed, from religion to politics, and other things. It was so agreeable, that the more formal guests, and the men, pipes in their mouths, came dropping in; the house was always full. The art of conversation is said to have passed away, but Aunt Betty held a salon at dishwashing times. As I grew older, I used to wonder why it was necessary for the family to do this after break­ fast and supper, when we consumed food gaily at dinner from plates done below stairs. However there has never been any silver or cut glass that shone like Aunt Betty’s did in those old days. When I first remember Bleak Hill, there were few church privileges. Once a month, we all, children included, went to old Piedmont at Callaways; it was Presbyterian, but considered almost equal to an Episcopal Church, one step lower I think; having no Bishops, only other clergy. It was an occasion when we went to Piedmont in the old carriage which was awe inspiring, with little green silk curtains at the windows, and up­ holstered with tapestry; it had a very close, leathery smell that was rather sickening, especially if you rode on the front seat back to the horses, but we “endured the cross, for the joy set before us.” Dinner generally followed at Cousin Mary Callaways, it was a darling old place and the dinner, oh my! Of course we went sometimes when weather and roads permitted, and the occasion warranted, to 62 �Piedmont Presbyterian Church. This mid-19th c. church, with some additions, is still standing at Callaway. It is reputed to have been «nstructed by the noted Roanoke County bui'der, Beniamin Deyerle who held land in the area. Photo: Courtesy of Franklin County Historical Society and VHLC. Rocky Mount, there were more large dinners, and we returned feeling rather like anacondas, but very happy. Sundays when there was no church, we assembled in the old fashioned parlor and Uncle Peter read the service in his fine reverential way; we learned the responses very early, which made us perfectly at home in any Episcopal Church. ... . . There was an atmosphere at these services, that made the old room seem a sanctuary, as indeed it was, if the presence of God and the pure worships of noble hearts can sanctify. Later on, Ascension Church across the fields, where it lifted its modest cross in the shadow of a wooded hill, was to rise, as a monu­ ment to Aunt Betty and Cousin Prudence Hairston Beginning with nothing but faith, they hit by bit got the money together, Uncle Peter giving the site and building materials; I doubt if any of the great Cathedrals did as much for the uplift of a community as this httle church • When I remember the isolation of the life at Bleak Hill, I Te^ u || what wonderful people Aunt Betty and Uncle Peter were, to uphold so high a standard of religion, conduct, good breeding, and culture, and what all this meant to the young creatures who grew up there. As his boys grew older, Uncle Peter always had a highly educated teacher for them, and some outside boys were taken to board, making quite a little school. M B ,, BB (R 63 �The office and the room under Aunt Betty’s room were dedicated to the boys, with school room in the cabin. I was too young for this, but the other girls were included. Uncle John Dabney taught this school for several years. He was a choleric old gentleman, very agreeable in social life, but terrible in the school room if you were stupid or lazy; I remember one poor boy (a very kindly person) who must have acquired a per­ manent inferiority complex from being told in stentorian tones, that resounded all over the place, that he “was a born fool”. I have delightful recollections of him (Uncle John) however; he used to read aloud to Mother and Aunt Betty, afternoons when they were quilting in the room over the parlor, and other times; I sat, a small figure in the chimney corner listening. My favorite was Abbott’s “Life of Napoleon”, which has colored my opinion of him to this day. The following summer we named our flock large of ducks, after Napoleon and his family, and Marshals; I remember Josephine with a large overhanging top knot, Napoleon was a green-headed drake with a fiery eye, Marshal Ney was my favorite. We had very few children’s books in those days. Miss Alcott was of course delightful, but most of them, like Sandford and Merton, and the Fairchild Family, were too prissy even for us. Nothing daunted, we turned to the classics, and read all the standard novels, when I’m sure I was not more than ten or twelve. Nothing in life can ever equal the pleasure we found in “Ivanhoe”, “David Copperfield”, “The Talis­ man”, “The Last Days of Pompeii”, and others. The grown-ups often read aloud winter nights, always something fine, and the discussions afterward were most enlightening. I must not forget the fairy books of those old days, Hans Andersen and Grimm, also the Arabian Nights, which I adored and Hawthorne’s “Tales of the Alhambra”, I would love to own that old copy. “Pilgrim’s Progress” too, was read with vivid in­ terest. So, though the life was isolated, and would have been considered very narrow by most people, yet we ranged over a wide field, and acquired a wonderful amount of information. One of the most delightful people at Bleak Hill was Aunt Docia, the old cook whose cabin just outside the back gate was a favorite haunt of the children. She was a privileged pensioner on Uncle Peter’s bounty, and a faithful and highly valued friend, another example of the strong ties that existed in the old days between the white people and their house servants. Aunt Docia gathered dried beans in the garden, made soap for Aunt Betty, and raised a few chickens for us, otherwise, she pleased herself and was a great figure about the place. On Sunday afternoons we used to read to her in the Story of the Bible, sitting in summer on 64 �the cabin steps, Aunt Docia in long white apron and head handker­ chief; she nodded a good deal, but always said it was “mighty pretty’ , I still have a heavy feeling in the stomach when I remember the pies she used to make of blackberries we picked ourselves and seconds from the mill; they were baked on the hearth in some mysterious way and were very heavy. In those days there were no Inns or houses of entertainment in that isolated section, so travelers always asked for a night’s lodging at private homes, where the earmarks seemed favorable for a good feed for man and beast. ^ No one was ever turned away from that hospitable gate, and many and various were the people entertained there. Of course all clergymen, who were a people set apart and highly reverenced, were joyfully received. Old Mr. Lee, who ministered in many far flung parishes, was often there for days at a time. The children felt it an honor to untie his leggings, very muddy, after a day’s struggle with the Franklin roads. He wore a long white beard and had a cold, stern, blue eye. I was very much afraid of him and when his glance happened to fall my way I always searched my heart for secret sins. Uncle Peter and Mr. Lee used to play long drawn out games of chess, when they sat for hours without speaking, occasionally a bony hand was lifted and a pawn or knight, or per chance a king was moved cautiously. When dinner was announced the board was set aside, and the game resumed. I never saw one finished. The old men seemed to enjoy this so-called recreation however. In summer the house was always full. Ascension Chapel, Photo: Lee, VHLC. ca. 1900. Aunt Docia, Lee, VHLC. ca. 1900. Photo: 65 �The nearest railroad station was Big Lick, now Roanoke, thirty miles across the mountains, over the most inconceivable road. Friends tried to arrive at the same time, so one trip would bring about ten; they usually spent the summer. The old carriage was req­ uisitioned with Bob and Morgan, the big bay horses, and Uncle Bobby as driver; he nodded a good deal on the seat, but the horses kept faith­ fully to the road. There was a wonderful old green jersey that went too, and a wagon for the luggage. It was like moving day.! often took this trip with Mother, and can see Aunt Betty now, as she stood on the porch to welcome her guests, taking us in her arms and to her warm loving heart, there was never any one like her. Grandma was often at Bleak Hill for the summer. She was a very spirited old lady, full of fire, and interest in everything, the picture of an old time gentlewoman, with white caps that covered her head, tying under the chin, only a silvery band of white hair showing on her forehead. She looked like what she was, a personage, when she entered the room gliding across the floor, and sitting very erect in a stiff backed chair, no lolling for her. We were considered very degenerate as we lounged comfortably about. Grandma cried for joy as well as sorrow, equally when the family came or went. She also believed in groaning, and calling out loudly, when any­ thing hurt, no concealment with her. She was different from any old lady I ever knew and had a wonderful personality. Very partisan, she was violent in her denunciations, and equally strong in her attach­ ments. She had little patience with either laziness or incompetence, but nevertheless would work her fingers to the bone for any one. I’ve seen her slip some impecunious member of the family a coin out of her all too thin, shabby little grey leather purse. This was done secretly as she knew Mother and Aunt Betty would disapprove. Grandma believed in fighting and her heroes were always military ones. A very fiery, impulsive, warm hearted, lovable old lady, interesting to the last moment of her life, I adored her. Aunt Cornelia Dabney was another notable old lady, who spent most of the summers at Bleak Hill. We hailed her advent with joy as did every one. She was one of the most amusing, delightful people in the world, very clever, and eccentric too, but only in an attractive way, it would take more than my pen to do justice to her. Aunt Cornelia always brought us a large package of candy, de­ lightful slabs of pink and white cream, large pink striped peppermints and sticks of hoarhound, I still think them good. The candy was put in Aunt Betty’s wardrobe, and given out, a piece a day, thereby last­ ing a long time and saving many a stomach ache. 66 �Added to these were a number of other younger people, and Edward, home for the holidays, and a perfect torment to the children, and you have a gay assemblage. There was dancing at night in the old parlor, every one participat­ ing, and Mother at the piano playing reel tunes untiringly. Sometimes there were games, and Edward always had catch tricks brought home from college, of course we were always caught. Though he teased us unmercifully we adored him, and were his willing slaves. Uncle Peter kept a number of riding horses, servants and horses seemed to be the luxuries of those days, so every one rode and we all learned at an early age. Horseback riding was one of the chief pleasures, as I remember, and the best way to get about, as the roads were unspeakable. When Fall came and every one left, it was very sad, but winter had many charms, with coasting on home-made sleds, eating apples, and popping corn in Aunt Betty’s room, where in certain bounds we could do as we pleased. Frank Cleaneay, Alice S. Saunders, Chiswell Dabney Jr. on horseback at Bleak Hill, ca. 1900. Photo: Lee, VHLC. There were also quantities of nuts, we had sheltered stores of them outdoors, and on good days cracked them on the area steps, or the old mill stone. Long rambles over the place when the weather was open, the four of us together. Then the long winter nights with books around the fire, or games in Mother’s room upstairs, where we could pull the beds to pieces; this of course was what the girls did, but there 67 �were good times too with the school boys after study hours. Those were happy, innocent, and very good days. Aunt Betty was a great lover of flowers, Uncle Peter, on the con­ trary, was a perfect utilitarian. They were exactly opposite, but Aunt Betty had her old fashioned garden, and a darling place it was. Those old people had an innate sense of arrangement, perhaps brought over from England, and handed down, slightly formal, but not too much so. I remember the profusion of bloom, and the children were allowed to gather nosegays at their pleasure. The hyacinths and peonies I loved best, and the great bed of lily of the valley, their sweet pungent perfume is fresh in my nostrils as I write. The garden had a southern exposure, and a little child could lie in the sun on its sheltered walks, drinking in its perfumes and dream­ ing the unforgettable dreams we all dream that never come true. The yellow jasmine outside the parlor windows was another great joy, it is long since dead. But I must get on for time is passing and we are growing up fast. Grandma and Aunt Cornelia are gone, bless them. Saunders family, ca. 1900. (Left to right, 1st row), Elizabeth Dabney Saunders, Agatha Saunders, William Saunders, Peter and Edward Saunders (these two barefoot boys grew up to be, respectively, secretary of the State of Virginia and dean of engineering at the University of Virginia), Peter Saunders; (I to r, 2nd row,) Betty Montgomery Saunders with her daughter, Isabelle, on her lap, Nancy and Edward Watts Saunders (parents of Peter, Edward and Tom), Alice Saunders, Tom Saunders. Agatha Saunders, Wil­ liam (husband of Betty Montgomery Saunders), Edward Watts and Alice were children of Elizabeth Dabney and Peter Saunders. 68 �Aunt Betty, very little changed, and Uncle Peter frailer, and having to rest more, but looking after his own affairs still. He never complained, though I am sure he never felt well, and could eat only a few things very sparingly. We thought little of it then, but looking back, I know now, that his life was one of heroic self denial. I cannot go farther without speaking of the love that bound Aunt Betty and Mother more closely together than any two sisters I have ever known; theirs was a perfect sympathy and understanding, and no cloud ever rose to mar it. I have no words to express what they both were to Mother and her little children in her widowhood. Years afterwards when Mother and myself were back for a visit, Uncle Peter put his arms about her one day and said, “Sue, I hear you are leaving tomorrow, why are you going? Bleak Hill has never seemed the same since you stopped living with us.” He was like Mr. Greatheart in “The Pilgrim’s Progress” taking the weak and halting and the women and children under his protection. Times changed some at Bleak Hill as the years passed. The sons both married in a very remarkable way, the women Aunt Betty picked for them, who brought only joy into the family circle, and the grandchildren were the crowning glory of their old age. Friends still gathered there, and the open-hearted hospitality was the same, but they were younger and a little more modern. We had many charm ing summers at the old place, with dancing, cardplaying, and horseback riding, long rambles, and a good deal of love-making in the moonlight, so beautiful, with the shadows of the great oaks falling dark across the lawn. It is a joy to think that the home was still carried on in much the same way, and that no terrible troubles marred the serene happiness of a remarkable old age. “Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made.” Some of the old servants were left and Uncle Peter was still “Marse Peter” to Uncle Bobby, Sam, and Aunt Liddy, who outlived them both. I can’t dwell on that terrible time when Aunt Betty left us; crown­ ing her noble life, by a death of self-sacrifice. Uncle Peter did not long survive her. He was over eighty, and very feeble, and I think he did not care to live. “They were lovely and pleasant in their lives and in their death they were not divided.” Thus endeth the story. Two noble souls, “gone where the spirits of just men are made perfect.” A later chapter may be written of Bleak Hill, but by another pen, for me, the book closes. 69 �Index of the Journals First Decade Index of articles in The Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. 1964-1974: Summer 1964, Vol. One, No. One Note from the President Letter from Mr. Tom Treasure Trove by Raymond Barnes Some Phases of the Civil War in Roanoke Area by Goodridge Wilson Case of the Warrantless Prisoners by R. D. Stoner Two Ladies of the Museum Newspaper Days: 1790 .— The Borden Patent by J. R. Hildebrand From a Son After Cold Harbor Museum Piece Winter 1964-6S, Vol. One, No. Two Forgotten Graveyards of Roanoke Valley by J. R. Hildebrand Three-Layer Cake of Prehistoric Virginia by Jean M. White Fincastle Springs: Resort of the ’80’s by Frances Niederer Civil War Comes to Buchanan: I An Eyewitness Story by Jane C. Boyd II The Burning of Mount Joy by Ellen Graham Anderson A Key Which Stayed Home Buena Vista—Roanoke Plantation by Anne Montgomery William Fleming’s Surgical Instruments by Edmund P. Goodwin Roanoke’s Company “F” — Alive After 70 Years by R. Holman Ragland Part of “Fortune” in Society Museum Note from the President Summer 1965, VoL Two, No. One The South Western Turnpike Road by Edmund P. Goodwin Toll Gates in This Century by George Kegley Boyhood Collection is Remembrance of Past Thomas and Tasker Tosh by Margaret Scott Lone Oak, 1767? -1964 Founding of Patrick County by James H. Martin Peaks of Otter I: Postscript to Prehistory Peaks of Otter II: Coming of the White Man by Don Robinson Peaks of Otter III: How It Was in 1907 Beginnings of the Virginia Historical Society by William M. E. Rachal Fashion Department Almanacs, Ration Bonks and Rapiers Notes from the President Winter 1965-66, Vol. Two, No. Two John Nolen’s Roanoke City Plan of 1907 by Frances J. Niederer Southwest Virginia Turnpikes by Lee Pendleton 1753: Saga of a Pioneer Pilgrimage Through the Roanoke Region You Could Take A Legal Gamble in 1796 Butler in Richmond Machine Age: 1832 Fort Vause: The Site and the Story by Lena Gardner Sammons A Day in Richmond Note from the President Summer 1966, Vol. Three, No. One Shot Tower at Jackson’s Ferry by F. B. Kegley New Executive Director Named Homelife in Virginia: 1776-1835 Big Lick Home Front: 1816-65 by Mary S. Terry The Society Circles Franklin County Mountain Lake by Lula P. Givens Historic Preservation: A Challenge to Virginians by Tony Wrenn Note from the Past President 70 �Winter 1967, Vol. Three, No. Two Hollins College and the Civil War by Margaret P. Scott and Rachel Wilson Henry Ford and Friends on Tour Searching For Your Ancestor by Mary Dodd Foley Note From the President m Society Sponsored Botetourt Museum Opens in Fincastle Roanoke Valiev’s Early Iron Mines by Raymond Barnes Society’s Toy Exhibit Attracts Visitors to Salem Museum Recollections of Bent Mountain, Virginia by Mrs. Philip St. Leger Moncure Roanoke Historical Society Membership Roll Summer 1967, Vol. Four, No. One w The Pennsylvania Dutch Culture of the Shenandoah Valley by Elmer L. Smith Interstate Interchange Covers Town of Gainesboro by Raymond Barnes New Members _ . „ „ , . Bell Mont: The Fleming Plantation by Edmund P. Goodwin Let’s All Make Whiskey “Locust Level” Society Makes Strong Plea for Fincastle Election of Officers The Society’s Fifth Annual Tour into History __Early Lutherans in Western Virginia Saddlebags and Bank Ledgers Winter 1968, Vol. Four, No. Two 28th Regiment, Virginia Volunteers, 1861-1865 by Arnold Skaar Roanoke at the Beginning by Edmund P. Goodwin New River: First of the Western Waters by Ben Bane Dulaney The Teavs, Ancestral River of Mid-America by Dr. Raymond E. Janssen A New Brick House for $105 and a Horse Critter Walled in by the Appalachians by James J. Kirkwood Yesterday’s Tools on Display Hollins Girls Step into History by Anna Lawson M j B j Wg _ , H Cigar Manufacturing in Roanoke and the Wooden Indian by R. Holman Ragland Roanoke Historical Society New Members Summer 1968, Vol. Five, No. One Montgomery White, 19th Century Social Center Virginia’s Neglected Soldiers by James I. Robertson Jr. 28th Regiment, Virginia Volunteers (Part 2) by Arnold Skaar Samuel Rader, 1801-1891, Botetourt Brick Mason, by Jacqueline Hundley Rader History Grows in Botetourt Roanoke Historical Society Members . . . Pennsylvania Dutch, Fashions and Early Roanoke by Anna Lawson Society Tours Home County Roanoke County Map Prepared Winter 1969, Vol. Five, No. Two Collector’s Items Span Four Centuries by Edmund P. Goodwin Saving Virginia’s Treasures by Edward P. Alexander I , MB Edward William Johnston and Roanoke Female Seminary by Margaret P. Scott and Rachel Wilson Is There an Older Roanoker? Five Rivers Flow West by Goodridge Wilson Longwood Was Salem’s Castle Roanoke’s Cows in 1898 Summer 1969, Vol. Six, No. One Lewis Miller, Folk Artist New Claim for Oldest Resident I _ _ Johnny Rebs From Virginia and the Fairer Sex by James I. Robertson Jr. New President, Secretary Named The Four Anderson Brothers by Ellen Graham Anderson Early Preston Papers Given jH H | „ , . _ . Roanoke River: Once Called Saponi, Round Oak, Goose Creek by Raymond P. Barnes St. Mark’s, Fincastle, Has Roots 200 Years Old New Books on Old Themes , _ , _ _. , Appalachian Dialect: Vivid, Virile and Elizabethan by Wylene P. Dial “Kefauver’s Folly” 71 �History is Examined at Natural Bridge Two Fort Sites Explored Winter 1970, VoL Six, No. Two Here’s to Botetourt How the Mother County Began by R. D. Stoner Fincastle—“More Than A County Seat” by Frances McN. Lewis Early Craftsmen by Roddy Moore Mary Johnston, Writer of the Past Cherry Tree Bottom by Harry Fulwiler Jr. Fire Destroys Landmarks The Turnpike Through Botetourt by Edmund P. Goodwin Western Inhabitants — an “Incumbrance”? The Bells of Fincastle by Clare White 14 Iron Furnaces of Botetourt An 18th Century Spinet by Anne McClenny The Village of Daleville by Raymond Barnes “Echo from the Hills” Historic Fincastle, Inc. Botetourt Bicentennial, Botetourt by Jacqueline Hundley Rader A County Album Retrospect and Prophecy — 1885 Summer 1970, Vol. Seven, No. One The Great Flood of 1749 by Klaus Wust Roanoke County in the 1840’s by Maria Jane Gish Frantz A Misty Tour of Henry by Clare White A Town of Newbern by Mary B. Kegley On Campus 70 Years Ago Woolen Mill, A Major Botetourt Industry Civil War Draft Problems in the Shenandoah Valley by Alice I. Hohenberg Hales Ford Classical School by Miss Sarah Dinwiddie New Books on Old Themes Botetourt’s 200th Birthday Col. William Fleming Recalled High Bridge Church is 200 by George West Diehl Ancient Artifacts Acquired K James McDowell’s Travels in 1828 Fire Protection Alleghany Turnpike, 7 Miles Long by Walter K. Wood Where We Were in 1806 Volume Seven, No. Two Gen-Jam es Breckinridge, Frontier Man for All Seasons by Katherine Kennedy McNulty Botetourt’s Three Courthouses by R. D. Stoner “A Disastrous Conflagration” “Fire Remedy” is 1,400 Years Old Roanoke’s 300th Anniversary by Edmund P. Goodwin Early Lighting Devices by Lee Winborne Montgomery Men in Mexico by Frank R. Levstik Jr. Rev. Peyton M. Lewis, Slave, Teacher, Preacher Bedford Saves an Old Church Floyd County in the 1890’s by Robert Goodykoontz Winter 1972, Volume Eight, No. One The Past is Right Here for the Archaeologist by Ivor Noel Hume The 51st Virginia Infantry, Farmers Turned Soldiers by James A. Davis Turner’s Creek Valley—“The land that time forgot” by Pedro T. Slone Log Buildings in the Valley of Virginia by Royster Lyle Jr. Mary Harvey Trigg, An Unusual Widow by Pauline Edwards Old Letter Tells of Early Society The McDonalds of McDonalds Mill by Mac Gardner Sammons Long Way Home” is Successful by Mary B. Kegley A Visit to Wythe County New Books on Old Themes 19th Century Crafts on Display Roanoke Historical Society Members �Summer 1972, Volume Eight, No. Two Benjamin Deyerle, Builder of Fine Homes by Elizabeth Cheek Journals, Maps Available Roanoke County Bams of the 19th Century by Luci Shaw Kincanon Old Paintings Recorded Col. George Plater Tayloe, A Builder of Hollins College by Margaret Scott and Rachal Wilson Where the Brethren Settled by Roger Sappington Digging at Looney’s Ferry by Howard A. MacCord Sr. No. 1 Fire Station is Celebrated The Remarkable Dr. Reid The Old Gish Ordinary by Raymond P. Barnes Poor, Poor Mountain by Lee Pendleton “Valley” Added to Society Name A Visit to Bedford The General Has A New Office Rheumatic Recollections by Dr. Elmer Smith 1973-1974, Volume Nine, No. One Old Barns of Appalachia by Henry Glassie III New Books on Old Themes Montane Virginia in the Revolution by Andrew P. Miller Soldiers, Patriots Honored in Fincastle Roanoke Valley Medicine by Dr. Warren Moorman Society Has New Downtown Gallery Recollections of Ballad Collecting by Fred Knobloch Ephraim Vause Was Robbed William Preston, Frontier Public Servant by George Green Shackelford Alexander-Withrow Building by Royster Lyle Jr. Cherry Tree Bottom, Crossroads of the Centuries by Patricia Givens Johnson Southview, Age 150, Replaced by Motel A Tour of the New River Country Two New Maps Maryland Bordet War Refugees Flee to the Roanoke Valley By P atricia Givens J ohnson The first settlers migrating into the upper Roanoke River Valley before 1745 came for many reasons. The circumstances causing most of them to come will never be known. Sometimes from available records we can discover why some came so early to a wild mountain frontier. Mathusalem Griffith, Mark Evans, and Tobias Bright, refugees of the border war between Maryland and Pennsylvania, are three whose reasons for coming are known. All three men came from the Conojacular Valley along the Sus­ quehanna River in Pennsylvania and arrived in the Roanoke Valley be­ fore December 1744. Mathusalem Griffith settled on Peter’s Creek and Mason’s Creek between present Roanoke and Salem. Mark Evans chose land along Evans Spring Branch northwest of the Great Lick and near the Crystal Spring on the south side of the river. Tobias Bright settled on the North Fork of Roanoke.' Tobias Bright or Breit was a Palatine German while Evans and Griffith were probably Welsh. Most of the Welsh in Pennsylvania were 73 �Baptists or Quakers but Evans and Griffith may have been Anglicans. Mathusalem Griffith married Lyky Rees on February 2, 1730, at Christ Church in Philadelphia. Mathusalem’s wife on Roanoke was Lucretia so apparently Lyky and Lucretia are the same woman. Mathusalem was 45 when he married Lyky so she may have been a second wife. Mark Evans married Katherine Thomas on June 17, 1723, at the same church.2 In 1734, four years after Mathusalem married Lyky, they left Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where there was a large Welsh settle­ ment, and moved to a tract of land that Mark Evans had gotten from the Proprietors in Philadelphia in 1732. Evans’ tract lay on the west bank of the Susquehanna River in the Conojacular Valley, so-called for an ancient Indian site, and near the present town of Wrightsville.3 This valley was in Hallem Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, part of old Springettsbury Manor which William Penn had given to his son, Springett. Maryland claimed the same area as part of Baltimore County.4 Thus it was a disputed area where Mark Evans and Mathusalem Griffith came to settle and they found a full-scale border war underway. Thomas Cresap, a notorious Marylander, was forcing the Penn­ sylvanians to swear allegiance to Lord Baltimore or chasing them back across the river. Cresap’s tactics were not admirable but there was some justice to his claim. The original charters given to Penn and Baltimore placed Penn’s southern boundary at the 40th parallel and Baltimore’s northern boundary at the same parallel. Thus, the Cono­ jacular Valley, Wrights Ferry (Wrightsville) and even part of Phila­ delphia lay below the 40th parallel and were legally in Maryland. Penn, however, claimed that “to the 40th parallel” included every­ thing from the 39th to the 40th, placing the above mentioned places in Pennsylvania. Establishing Maryland’s right to the Conojacular region had be­ come a crusade to Cresap. He waged open war with the Pennsylvanians who tried to murder him and his family several times. Once they pushed him from a boat into the Susquehanna, beating him with oars and shooting at him while he was drowning. He saved himself by clinging to a rock.3 By 1735 Cresap had forced many west bank Pennsylvanians to swear allegiance to Maryland. He came with a posse to Mathusalem Griffith and told him he must swear for Maryland. Mathusalem did not want to do so because he believed his claim to land lay with the Land Office in Philadelphia, but Cresap told him he would bum his house down if he refused. So Mathusalem swore allegiance to Maryland to “save himself and family from the threatened ruin.”8 The German Palatines who Mathusalem lived among would not give in to Cresap. To complicate matters further, some Pennsylvanians in Chester County who wanted the Germans’ land formed an association 74 �with Cresap and the Governor of Maryland to drive the Germans out. This betrayal of Pennsylvanians by Pennsylvanians was called the “Chester County Plot.” Pennsylvania issued a decree against these plotters saying they were trying to take land that was in “the quiet and peaceful possession” of Mathusalem Griffith and approximately forty Germans all holding under the proprietorship of Pennsylvania.7 Maryland, meantime, called for the arrest of “Mark Evans, Mathusalem Griffith, Tobias Bright” and others as being illegally settled in Mary­ land. Bright was listed as a German living in Baltimore County who had sworn allegiance to Pennsylvania and Maryland offered a reward for all such people. A twenty pound reward was offered for Mark Evans and ten pounds for Mathusalem Griffith. Maryland issued a public proclamation in August 1736 saying that everyone attending “tumultous and riotous Assemblys & Meetings” would be arrested. Evans, Griffith and Bright and all the Germans are named in this proclamation.8 About this time Mark Evans became involved in the arrest of one Jacob Lochman. When a Pennslyvania sheriff crossed the Susquehanna to arrest Lochman for debt, Evans stopped the sheriff, asking where he was taking Lochman. The sheriff answered, “To jail unless bail could be raised.” Evans replied, “That could be arranged.” Instantly about thirty men on horses armed with cutlasses and clubs rode up, dis­ persed the sheriff’s men, beat the sheriff, leaving him for dead and made off with Lochman. The sheriff’s men named Mark Evans as one of the assailants and a “Marylander.” So goes the Pennsylvania version of the story.9 A Maryland account claims Evans was a “Pennsylvanian.” So he was wanted by both colonies. But it was the Marylanders who arrested him first and had him jailed in Baltimore County before May 18, 1737.'° Meantime, Pennsylvania had sent several posses after Cresap who barricaded himself in his house “with five men of desperate fortunes” and evaded capture. Finally he was taken in November 1736 and driven through the streets of Philadelphia where crowds gathered to see the “Maryland monster.”" The authorities obtained depositions against Cresap and one of those testifying was Mathusalem Griffith. Mathusalem swore that in December 1725 he was traveling along the road with Cresap and began talking of John Wright, Jr., who had built a house on the west bank and ran Wright’s Ferry. Wright had not given in to Cresap so he had decided to burn Wright’s house. Cresap said before he was half a year older he would build a fort where John Wright’s house stood, equip it with cannon and aim these at the house of Samuel Blunston, a Pennsylvania magistrate, living directly opposite on the east bank. Cresap said he would bombard Blunston’s house and “make the sash windows fly about his ears.”12 75 �Mathusalem and others told enough to keep Cresap behind bars in Philadelphia. But the so-called “Conojacular War” did not end with Cresap’s arrest. His confederate, Charles Higginbottom, took up the crusade against the Germans. “He broke into their houses with axes, wounded and carried them prisoners, and drove the women and children forth in the month of January into the woods.” His party drove a whole group of Germans to Baltimore as prisoners. Mark Evans was captured with this group. The sheriff of Lancaster County had to send a body of men to protect the few people remaining on the west bank. Most had fled to the east bank where many nearly starved and some died during the terribly cruel winter of 1736-37.'3 The Conojacular War continued into the 1740’s. By that time it was evident the boundary dispute would not be settled soon and was not until Mason and Dixon made their survey in 1767. The continu­ ing turmoil prompted Mathusalem Griffith, Mark Evans and Tobias Bright to look for land elsewhere. Though we know Evans was imprisoned in 1737 we do not know for how long nor do we know the whereabouts of Bright and Griffith in the years after this. They may all have remained in Hallem Town­ ship on the “Great Road” to Lancaster. In June 1744 the Treaty of Lancaster was signed with the Iroquois giving legality to settlements beyond the Blue Ridge. A Virginian, James Patton, who had a 100,000 acre grant on the Roanoke River, attended the Treaty talks and spent three weeks in Lancaster County, presumably advertising his land on Roanoke River.14 Surely victims of the border war heard his glowing reports. By December 1744, Mark Evans, Mathusalem Griffith and Tobias Bright, refugees of the “Conojacular War”, were living on the upper Roanoke River near the Great Lick. Peace and security had been vainly sought along the Susquehanna. Perhaps along the fertile Roa­ noke they would find it at last. 1. F re d e ric k B. K egley, VIRG IN IA F R O N T IE R (R oanoke, V irg in ia: The Southw est V irginia H isto rical Society, 1938) pp. 94, 9 7 -9 8 and 179 and L ym an C halkley, CHRONICLES OF TH E SCOTCH-IRISH SE TT LEM EN T IN V IR G IN IA (B a ltim o re : G enealogical P ublishing C om pany, 1966) v. in, po. 9, 16. 9 2. PENNSYLVANIA ARCHIVES, S eries n v. 8 pp. 93, 116. R ecord of P en n sy lv an ia M arria g e s p rio r to 1810. 3. M ath u salem G riffith, D EPO SITIO N , D ecem b er 8, 1736, The H istorical Society of P e n n sy lv an ia, cited h e re a fte r a s G riffith, D EPO SITIO N , and G. R . P row ell, HISTO RY OF YORK COUNTY PENNSYLVANIA (C hicago: J . H. B ee rs and Co., 1907) h e re a fte r cited as Y ork H isto ry v. I, m ap . 4. Ib id ., an d M ary lan d A rchives, PR O C EED IN G S O F T H E COUNCIL OF MARYLAND, 1732-1753, h e re a fte r cited a s MARYLAND COUNCIL PR O C EED IN G S pp. 101-102. 5. K enneth P . B ailey, THOMAS C RESA P, MARYLAND FR O N TIER SM A N (B oston: The C h risto p h er P u b lish in g H ouse, 1944) h e re a fte r cited a s B ailey, T hom as C resap, pp. 185-188 an d Y ork H istory, p. 68. 6. G riffith, D EPOSITIO N . 7. Y O R K H IS T O R Y , p p . 5 7 - 5 8 . 8. MARYLAND COUNCIL PR O C EED IN G S, pp. 101-103, 106. J- i : ** M om bert, AN A UTHENTIC HISTO RY O F LANCASTER COUNTY IN TH E STATE O F PENNSYLVANIA (L an c a ster, P a : J . E. B a r r and C om pany, 1869) pp. 140-141. 10. MARYLAND COUNCIL PR O C EED IN G S, p. 122. „ *1; ®*Pcy ' f THOMAS C RESA P, pp. 24, 52 and E d w a rd P ra n d le , D EPO SITIO N . D ecem ber 6, 1736, The H isto rical Society of P en n sy lv an ia. 12. G riffith, D EPOSITIO N . ” ?• 63 - « 5 and H. M. J . K lein, LANCASTER COUNTY PEN NA HISTO RY (New Y ork: Lewis H isto rical an d P ublish in g Co., In c ., 1924) v. I, p. 543. ... » P » " 8 Johnson, JA M ES PATTON AND T H E APPALACHIAN COLONISTS (V erona, V irg in ia: M cClure P re s s, 1973) pp. 50 - 55, 59 and 67 76 �ROANOKE VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Amor montium nos movet Mrs . H arold P. K y l e ................................ .................................. President P h il ip H. L emon .............................................................. Vice President E dmund P. Goodwin ................................................................... Treasurer Mrs . Charles D. F ox HI ..................................................... Secretary Miss D onna W a r e ...................................................... Executive Secretary Directors Raymond P. Barnes Miss Nancy E. Himes Mrs. English Showalter Mrs. John Copenhaver Shields Johnson R. D. Stoner S. S. Edmunds George Kegley David F. Thornton Arthur Ellett Mrs. George Kegley James L. Trinkle B. N. Eubank R. S. Kime William Watts Mrs. Charles D. Fox III Mrs. Harold P. Kyle J. R. West Edmund P. Goodwin Philip H. Lemon W. L. Whitwell Mrs. Edmund P. Goodwin Mrs. J. M. B. LewisJr. Mrs. Roger Winbome Jack Goodykoontz Richard L. Meagher James P. Woods Miss Anna Louise Haley E. H. Ould Robert W. Woody J. R. Hildebrand R. Hoskins Sclater Dr. J. C. Zillhardt �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society 1975 Volume 9, Number 2 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />Government by Families in Botetourt County<br />Indians Retreat from Virginians at Battle of Point Pleasant<br />The Fincastle Resolutions, Southwest Virginia's Commitment<br />The Resolutions<br />Who the 15 Signers Were<br />Settlement, Defense of the Frontier<br />A Visit to Patrick County<br />Bleak Hill, a Handsome Farmhouse<br />Farm Fruits of the 1800s<br />Noble Souls of Bleak Hill<br />Maryland Border War Refugees Flee to the Roanoke Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1975 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_09_02_1975 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6352/JHSWV_10_02_1978.pdf 897296020f5a88432301b1e88fb7ed79 PDF Text Text JOURNAL o f tite ROANOKE VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Volume Ten Number Two �1978 Contents S e e i n g V irginia T h e B ig F o r t , by LouisPhillippe ............................................. in 1 7 97, by Mary B. Kegley C u r e s F ro m M o u n t a in H e r b s , W hat T h e y O w n e d in the 18 4 0 s , L e x in g t o n A r c h i t e c t u r e , Lee W. Winbome of ..................................... | .......................... by Earl Palmer ................................... 30 by Helen Beall Lewis ........................ 34 by John S. Salm on ................................ 62 H istoric P l a c e s , by W. L. Whitwelland . . ...................................• • • .......................................76 B i c e n t e n n i a l P l a t e s ......................................................................... B ringing an T ours B o te t o u r t to 6 by Pamela Simpson ........................................... 54 T he W a sh in g to n I ro n W o r k s , T he N at ional R e g i s t e r 1 O ld P um p to and L ife 78 .......................................................................... 8 0 C h a t h a m ..................................................................... 83 George Kegley Editor o f the JOURNAL The Journal o f the Roanoke Valley Historical Society, Volume Ten, Number Two. Published by the Society at Box 1904, Roanoke, Virginia 24008, to chronicle the past and present o f that part o f the state west o f the Blue Ridge. Single copy price for members, $2.50; for non-members, $3.50. The Society will be careful in handling unsolicited material but cannot be responsible for its loss. �Seeing Virginia in 1797 by Louis Philippe These selections describe Southwest Virginia as seen in April 15-23, 1797 by a future French king who traveled in America 33 years before he ascended to the throne. They are excerpted from the book Diary o f My Travels in America, Touis Philippe, King o f France, 1830-1848, translated from the French by Stephen Becker. English Translation Copyright © 1977 by Dell Pub­ lishing Co., Inc. Originally published in French by Libraire Ernest Flammarion under the title, Journal de Mon Voyage d ’Amerique. Copyright © 1976 by Flammarion. Reprinted by permission o f Delacorte Press. The 15th. We took our noon meal at a little town called Kized’s town twelve miles from Frey’s. There is another road, to the right, from New Market to Staunton and a city called Harrison ’sburg, capital of Rock­ ingham county, about the same distance from Kized’s town. We dined at Hudson’s tavern and slept in Staunton at the General Washington Inn, proprietor Peter Heiskell, a Pennsylvania German. Excellent inn. Staunton’s environs are quite hilly. The town consists of about 300 houses or families, for each family has its own. Bad weather during the day. The 16th. The country still hilly. We begin to glimpse the northern mountains to our right. To our left rise others. Between the two ranges the land is varied, sometimes copses and groves, then smaller ranges cutting through the valleys, etc. We dined at David Steel’s house halfway to Lexington. This poor unfortunate was captured by Parleton’s t corps, and after he had surrendered they fetched him two blows of the saber to the head, so he says, bashing out a piece of bone that his wife showed us. M. de Chastellux stayed with them on his way to and from the Natural Bridge. Steel told us funny stories. We reached Lexington late. It was full night and we had great trouble locating the ford across the north branch of the James river; we even missed it; we even missed the road; and we were a long time finding it and then crossing another stream that lay beyond. The town is only half a mile from it. Weather less bad than the day before. Put up at the Red Lion, proprietor Hanna; nice people, but a beggarly inn. The 1 7th. Stopover in Lexington, [Virginia]. The 18th. One of our horses being Tame, we did almost the whole day’s journey on foot. Country still mountainous, indifferently farmed and uninteresting. We made a halt at Captain Bartley’s inn, areal hovel. The master of the house is a decent sort and a jokester. He guided us to the Natural Bridge, about a mile and a half from his inn. This is a very f Probably a slip of the pen for Tarleton. �unusual bridge. It spans Cedar creek, a very small stream. It is a tall mass of rock which seems to have been hollowed out by the water’s steady action, perhaps like the rifts of the Rhone; and as the mass of rock is quite narrow, it would seem that the earth above and below the bridge either collapsed or was swept away by the stream and left the bridge suspended between two masses of rock. Its height in the middle is 71 yards above the water. In that same spot the rocky arch is 50 feet thick. The gap at water level is 40 feet; above, the span is 30 yards. There is a path below the bridge by which one can stroll under the arch along the stream. This is truly an exceptional sight, and though the region is scrubby, the bridge is surely picturesque. Otherwise it seems to me that a good sketch and a precise description should do the trick, and that it is not really worth a second trip. Captain Bartley gave me all those measurements. Today was very cold; it froze last night and snowed this morning, but the snow did not stick. The 19th. Almost all the oaks leafing, and consequently the forests turning green. Yet in this respect there is considerable variation among the oaks. Some are altogether green, others are only budding, and for still others it might be January. This does not seem to depend on the exposure, for we find many examples proving the contrary; more pro­ bably it is due to the greater or lesser warmth of the ground. The soil here is full of clay, mixed with more or less sand and good humus, and is consequently yellowish or reddish, never black like the rich soil of France. All the forests I have so far seen consist wholly of oaks and pines (in the mountains). Of course I except a scattering of other sorts. In leaving Captain Bartley’s we crossed Cedar creek, which drives a mill wheel. The closer we approached the James river, the sandier, and therefore less cultivated, the soil. We dined on the left bank of that river, at Padensburg, a town of twenty souls, as they themselves boast. Their inn is fairly good. We crossed the river by ferry. The district is rather picturesque. It stretches along the James river’s course through the Blue Ridge Mountains. The landscape improves beyond the river and there are more peo­ ple. About four miles along, the road forks. One fork leads to Fincastle, also called Botitourt, also called Munroe, and crosses the Kanhaway, which along this stretch is called New river, at Pepper’s ferry. That is the right-hand fork. The other passes through a new town called Amster­ dam and crosses the Kanhaway at English’s ferry. That is the better road. The two ferries have given their names to the two roads, Pepper’s road and English’s road. The latter is a bit longer, but better in all respects. We slept in Amsterdam at a good inn, proprietor Mr. Botts, 15 miles from Padensburg and five from Fincastle, which is twelve miles from the river. There is a road from Fincastle to English’s road. In Bott’s tavern we found ourselves among a large group of travel­ ers much like those Fielding describes. They were headed for Kentucky 2 �and uneasy about the latest massacre by the Indians. In their anxiety they wanted us to swell their number, but we ignored the plea, knowing only too well the miseries such a crowd could cause in the region’s tiny inns. Also, every man has hi£ own way of traveling and travelers are mutually annoying; and aside from that, nothing is more boring than bored people who want to talk and have nothing to talk about. During th£ three hours they made hs wait, as usual, for a few slices of fried ham and coffee with brown sugar, there were some who never shut up for a moment and others who never said a word but could not stop yawning, scratching, belching, etc. The 20th. Instead of sallying forth at dawn, as they had boasted they would, our wayfarers only started out at 7 o’clock, leaving the staff at the inn less than overwhelmed by their generosity, and having managed several disagreements with their host. We dined at the home of Mr. Coles, a Pennsylvania German. The countryside unimpressive except here and there. Greenery thick, and in the oak forests whole groves are all green. We crossed the river Raunoake six times and went to sleep at Colonel Lewis’s, two miles above Colonel Hancock. A pleasant and comfortable place. His house is charmingly set on a foothill of the Alleghanys and surrounded by lush meadows. In the old days there was a fort here (Voss’s fort) that was captured by the Indians. The 21st. Our road went on rising gently until we had reached the summit of the hills called the Alleghanys. I do not know their height above sea level; not great, I suspect, because they rise above the valley floors no higher than the hills around Paris, and the Blue Ridge Moun­ tains are real mountains by comparison. To look at the Alleghanys one would never think they are one of the watersheds of this immense continent. Our own continent, though much smaller, has mountains so much more majestic; which brings us to the notion that perhaps the effect attributed to the trade winds is real, that the cumulative level of the sea along these coasts is higher than ours, that these waters, ebbing more reluctantly, are deeper and more widespread than on our conti­ nent, and that this laggard drainage prevents them from leaching off the soil and vegetable matter that still carpet the Alleghanys as most likely they used to carpet the Alps. The Alleghanys (in the region where I crossed them) are covered with oaks; one sees hardly any pines. The soil is dry and arid. It is no more than a stony sand, not cultivable. There are no great masses of rock to be seen, and if not for the river currents and even more the map, the traveler would never believe himself in one of the principal ranges of North America. They say that around Pittsburg the mountains are craggier and higher than around here; we shall see about that on the 3 �way back. Crossing the Alleghanys I saw evidence of the Americans’ ignorance, or laziness, about mapping their roads. The one we followed crossed over the tallest of the rounded hills, leaving vales left and right where it would have been far easier to cut a road because with the land overgrown and no streams in the area, there would be no cliffs or swamps to hinder the work, just trees to fell, the same as on the crests. The only way I could make sense of this road was by assuming that the first travelers who blazed a trail across the Alleghanys were attracted to the highest ground by their impatience to see the land to the west, and that sheer laziness led the road builders to follow that trail and spare themselves the trouble of cutting a new one. The western slope of these mountains struck us as infinitely worse than the eastern. The soil is sandy and dry, the land is flatter, and the springs rarer. The vegetation is much less varied and flourishing than on the other slope. Here, not an oak in bud, where we had before seen whole forests greening; the haws and sloes have only just begun to green and are no further along than those in Maryland at the beginning of the month. We halted at a tiny village of about ten houses called Christiansburg, the seat of Montgomery County. It is nine miles from Colonel Lewis’s. Before continuing I should like to mention the notable height of men and girls on this side of the Shenando Valley. It seems to be in­ creasing still, for most of the young people seem taller than their elders. The countryside was about the same as far as the valley of the Big Kanhaway, which around here they call New river. The settlements here are few and squalid. From all I heard, they exist only along the road. The Big Kanhaway valley is better, though sparsely settled. It seems that fear of the Indians infected this area until the peace of ’94. There is no inn at English’s ferry. We dined two miles on the other side with some Irishmen who have given the name New Dublin to a shanty they’ve been living in for six years. We slept in the home of an old man named Carter who has just sold his house and his 700 acres for 400 pounds. U.S.f and who is shutting down his inn tomorrow. He is moving some twenty miles farther along on the Kanhaway. For some twenty miles the road runs within four or five miles of that river. The 22nd. We halted at Fort Chiswel to have a horse shod. To the left of the road there was a big fort torn down since the peace. Before and beyond the fort you cross Read creek. The soil still indifferent, though better than what we saw as we emerged from the Alleghanys. We dined at Marshall’s in Wythe, a village of ten or twelve houses, seat of the county of that name. A handsome house and a fine inn for the region. Pepper’s road meets the other road here. After dinner we weathered a terrible storm, and we spent the night with a German named •fSterling was still in use, along with dollars, as legal tender at the time. 4 �Katternring. The 22nd. Still rotten weather and indifferent country, the soil being generally yellow and sandy as it was east of the Alleghanys. We ran into some emigrants from North Carolina on their way to Cumberland. They say that last year a prodigious number of emigrants left that state for the same settlement, which is already sizable. Katternring was a Tory during the war. He was arrested and taken to Staunton, and they confiscated a mill built of stone that he had worked not far from his present home. He has only 20Q acres of land left. We had dinner at Atkins’s, a good inn. His house is on the Holstein river. That night we slept at Colonel Campbell’s; we had met him the night before and he all but forced us to come home with him, assuring us that we would find no tolerable inn until five miles from Abingdon. He lives on the left bank of the Holstein river, in a setting that would be lovely if the land were cleared; but, although he has six sons and several Negroes, he settles for what he cleared when he first arrived. And yet he has 3,000 acres here. I do not know what he and his sons do all day, and because he seems a fine fellow I asked him point blank. He an­ swered that because he owns property in other parts he is always on the go and never at home. I saw sugar maples on his property and again enjoyed the sight of their huge branches bowing earthward. I have often used their sugar in my coffee, which sweetening seems to me every bit as good as the other. It is impossible to estimate the yield of this product because it varies with the weather and with the trees themselves. It seems that America’s changeable climate is the most favorable for these trees, as the sap only flows at the end of December, when a warm day with a thaw follows a cold night. In this area are trees that yield up to 15 pounds of brown sugar. There are many such hereabouts. Wild grapevines are another American plant that must subtly alter our impression of the landscape and differentiate it from our own. They always grow about another tree, twining to its upper limbs, whence tendrils droop to the ground. They produce very tart grapes, edible only after a frost. Apparently their leaves unfold very late, for we saw only buds on the other slope of the Alleghanys, and on this Side they are much as they were in January. 5 �The Big Fort by Mary Kegley© 1978 Louis Philippe, destined to become king of France, spent more than three years traveling in America in the 1790’s. One of the places he visited was Fort' Chiswell, in present Wythe County, Virginia. On April 22, 1797 he recorded the following in his diary: “We halted at Fort Chiswel to have a horse shod. To the left of the road there was a big fort tom down since the peace. Before and beyond the fort you cross Read Creek.” ' With the recent publication of the translation of this diary, the existence of this colonial fort is certain. Its demolition between 1795 and 1797 ended a vigorous military period in Southwest Virginia begun about 35 years before. Fort Chiswell—the colonial fort which housed the army of Colonel William Byrd III, the fort which was the center of great activity during the Revolutionary War, the fort which, gave its name to an important crossroads in Wythe County-was located on the south side of Reed Creek on a high barren knoll east of Mill Branch and on the main road which, from the earliest times, passed through Southwest Virginia. Be­ cause of recent highway construction of Interstate 77 and its service roads, the name will probably continue as that of a major intersection of Interstate 77 and Interstate 81. Much of the history of the early fort now lies permanently buried under tons of gravel, rock, and sleek new highway, in spite of some salvage archeology done in the summers of 1975 and 1976.2 Following the archeological work in 1976, the site of the colonial fort was included in the Virginia Landmarks Register and was nominated to the National Register.3 A few years earlier, the brick McGavock home constructed about 1839, which stands south and west of the colonial fort site, was recognized as an outstanding architectural land­ mark in Wythe County and the nation, with its inclusion in the state and national landmarks registers.4 The land on which the house stands and the colonial fort stood was first surveyed in 1747 for Thomas Walker who chose 1,150 acres, “The Great Buffalo Lick” tract, under the terms of the Woods River Company.5 This company had received a grant to take up as much as 100,000 acres on the “Western Waters,” not in a single tract, but in small ones in locations the early settlers and entrepreneurs chose.6 Walker received the patent for the land in 1752 and transferred 504 Mary Kegley, who lives in Richmond, has been researching, writing and teaching Southwest Virginia history and genealogy since the early 1960s. She formerly lived in Wytheville and Dublin. A graduate o f Virginia Tech, she holds a master’s degree from Radford College. 6 �Map showing the new road and site of colonial fort (circled). View to the west from the site of the colonial fort. The brick mansion house built about 1839 is in the center of the photo. By Mary Kegley 7 �Thomas Walker’s Great Buffalo Lick tract, 1150 acres, showing divisions and points of interest. By Mary Kegley acres, part of the 1,150 acres, to Alexander Sayers in 1758,7 although the bargain had been made four years before. Also included in the purchase were millstones and irons.8 In tracing the story of Fort Chiswell, it was learned that there were primarily two families associated with the site during the period 1754-1797: those of Alexander Sayers and James McGavock, Sr. The mill of Alexander Sayers was first mentioned in March 1754 when a road was established from that place to the Holston River.9 It appears to have been built about this time, although Henry Grubb, the millwright, testified that the mill at Fort Chiswell was not finished at the time the inhabitants “were drove from their plantations by Indians.”10 Grubb gave no evidence when or if the mill was com­ pleted, but when the Indians came, Grubb left the community for several years, returning after the troubles were over to a location on Tates Run in present Wythe County which Alexander Sayers had claimed in 1746.11 Shawnee Indians invaded the settlements on the Holston and New rivers as early as the fall of 1754, and a later blow came to the families at Draper’s Meadows in July 1755.'2 These attacks caused the settlers who lived on the Holston and New River to leave their homes and retreat to safer locations east of the Blue Ridge in Virginia and the settled areas in North and South Carolina.13 In an effort to track the enemy, William Preston and 340 men in­ cluding some friendly Indians, set out to pursue and destroy the Shawnee. In February 1756 the men of this so-called Sandy Creek expedition were camped at Alexander Sawyers’ [Sayers’] .14 In 1752 Sayers qualified as a captain of a troop of horse and was active in the militia during the early part of the French and Indian War. Perhaps this 8 �may explain why his home was used as a stopping place, although it is not known whether Sayers was present with the men of this particular expedition.15 During the French and Indian War period Sayers purchased land in the town of New London in Bedford County, where his wife and two children probably remained during the war and where his son was later known to have been in school.16 Sayers himself was mentioned in the Bedford County records in 1757 and 1759.17 He was on the frontier in 1758 and acting as a wagonmaster at Dunkard Bottom in present Pulaski County in 1760, where he purchased land in 1762.18 It is unknown if his wife and children or even Sayers returned to live at the site of the mill during this period. In 1761 he was a resident of Bedford County where he was buying and selling land.19 The place on Reed Creek, however, kept its identity as Sayers’ Mill or Sayers’ Camp in the 1760’s. In March 17 60, 300 men of the Virginia regiment were to remain on duty for the protection of the frontiers.20 On May 8 the Governor and Council received a request for the immediate relief for the garrison at Fort Loudoun in the Cherokee Country', and seven additional compa­ nies were to be raised and the sum of £32,000 appropriated for the same purpose.21 Although Colonel William Byrd requested permission to be ex­ cused from taking command of the regiment, the government found him to be indispensable and he was ordered to take charge.22 On July 8 the Council was notified that the recruits for the Cherokee ex­ pedition were complete but they needed arms. At the same session Colonel John Chiswell reported that many stands of arms had been imported for the militia of King and Queen, Gloucester, and James City Counties, and it was suggested that these be purchased and collected for LAND OFFICE WARRANT, No. To the principal funreyor o f any county “within the commonwealth o f Virginia, 'J 'H lS (halt be you'- w arrant' to fm ve y, and lay o ff in ‘one or , m ore furveys, jfor j/ t o /. ***%*-' * hisheics or affign$á the quantity o f v « | { es o f land, due unto the Grid a y s , | a t f . </ s t & fa s t z j ..... | -j*'* <■■'// azrc-Pxy y* ——— received into the la u d O ffice. G IV E N under m y hand, and the ira ! o f the faid office, this ----- day a t the yearO n e ThouGmd Seven H undrea and z& tiu A iv ify /T & x &j ~~~// /A a/ a /a Alexander Sayers’ warrant which entitled his son Robert to 2,000 acres of land as a result of his father’s service in the French and Indian War. 9 �Colonel Byrd's army. It was Byrd’s plan to have small posts en route to Big Island on the Holston River (Kingsport, Tennessee) where “a res­ pectable fort should be built.”23 Byrd was ordered to proceed with all possible “expedition” to the relief of Fort Loudoun, but to erect no more forts except the one at Big Island, which was to be stockaded to secure the provisions, although they conceded that it was possible that a small post might be necessary at Stalnaker’s on the Holston River.24 Reports were received in September from Colonel Byrd from a camp at Campbell’s, but last from Sayers’ Mill describing the efforts he had made toward the relief of Fort Loudoun. Although the letter itself is missing, the Virginia Council minutes note its receipt.25 He also sent word that the men at Fort Loudoun were unable to wait any longer and had decided to surrender themselves to the Cherokees. Because of this event, Colonel Byrd was ordered to “continue where he is” or proceed to take a more advanced post if it could be done safely, and “to construct a Fort on the most commodious spot thereabouts.”26 As a result of this order the “most commodious spot” for a “big fort” turned out to be Sayers’ Mill. On September 10, still at Sayers’ Mill, Byrd enclosed a report from Major Andrew Lewis with the tragic news of Fort Loudoun. All of the officers (except Captain Stewart) and about 25 privates were slaughter­ ed and the others were imprisoned by the Cherokees. On September 19 Colonel Byrd reported that Andrew Lewis had returned and brought Little Carpenter, a Cherokee Chief, and three more Indians, Captain Stewart, three more prisoners, and two squaws to the Camp at Sayers’. A peace proposal was sent to the warriors in the Cherokee nation.27 On September 29, Captain Ourrey, in writing to Colonel Henry Bouquet, describes the details of the disaster at Fort Loudoun which he had received in an express written September 15 at Sayers’ Mill, “frontiers of Virginia” where Colonel Byrd was encamped awaiting orders from Williamsburg.2 8 The orders were conveyed to Byrd by the Governor with the approval of the Council on October 16, 1760. The letter containing the orders has not been found, but it seems clear that once the fort was constructed, provisions, arms, and items necessary for the continuation of the war would be transported to that central place. Strategy would be planned for future meetings with the Cherokees.29 Colonel Byrd was still at Sayers’ on November 3 where he was joined by Little Carpenter and 32 Cherokees who brought in 10 more prisoners from Fort Loudoun and news that all hostilities would be suspended by the Cherokees until “the new moon in March,” provided that the army would go no further and that they would be allowed to return safely to their homes. The troops of the regiment, however, were to be stationed “in such a manner as will best protect the Frontier.”30 Although the regiment was ordered to continue on the frontier, Colonel Byrd and most of the army did not remain at Sayers’ Mill. However, Major 10 �Colonel William Byrd III, Courtesy of Virginia State Library. Cherokee Indians brought to London in 1730 by Sir Alexander Cuming were (from left) Onacona, Catergusta, Caulunna, Oukah Olah, Tathtowe, Clogoitta and Ukwaneequa, who became the great chief, Attakullakulla or Little Carpenter. From an engraving in the British Museum by Isaac Basire, after a painting by Markham. (Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution.) Andrew Lewis, Captain Thomas Bullit, Lieutenant William Fleming, Lieutenant Walter Cunningham, Lieutenant Reuban Vass, Ensign [Burton] Lucas, and Ensign [George] McKnight remained at the site and were provided with extraordinary rations from November 20, 1760 until May 1, 1761.32 11 �Map showing Fort Chiswell, Stalnakers, and Big Island (also called Long Island) of Holston. From Kegiey’s Frontier. It is evident that these officers were in charge of a group of men who constructed the “big fort” in that fall and winter of 1760-1761, probably according to the specifications conveyed to Colonel Byrd before his departure. Major Andrew Lewis, senior officer in charge, had four years earlier built a fort for the Cherokee Indians one mile above Chota (in present Tennessee), in exchange for assistance from that nation. At that time 60 Virginia men assisted him, and the governor of Virginia provided money to purchase 100 beeves, horses, provisions, and tools.3 3 William Fleming, third in command on the frontier in 1760, is known to have had among his more than 324 books, the authoritative manual on fortifications by Vauban.34 The expertise was present, the men were there over the winter, and the name Fort Chiswell emerged on February 7, 1761 when a letter written by William Fleming on that date used that àddress. Fleming was requesting instructions regarding an expected visit from the Cherokees who were coming to the fort with prisoners. A few weeks later the letter was mentioned in the Council minutes, but the actual letter has not been found among the colonial papers at the Virginia State Library, or at any other place, although inquiries have been made.35 In March 1761 there were further statutes passed for continuing the regiment, and plans were underway for Colonel Byrd’s return to the frontier. Arrangements were being made for the provisions for the army, as well as for the purchase of prisoners who were still in the custody of the Cherokees. The governor was persuaded that the plan for attacking the Cherokee Towns should be carried out and that as a result they would be reduced to “the greatest Extremity’s.”36 The army 12 �was to rid itself of the invalids, and recruiting was expected to obtain 1,000 effective men for duty who would be ready to march as soon as wagons and tents and other necessities arrived from Pennsylvania. They were then to proceed as far as the Great Island of Holston and garrison with militia the forts left by the regiment on the frontier. The Council agreed that the Virginia forces were “quite unequal to so arduous and Perilous an undertaking” and were relying heavily on the support of Colonel Grant and his South Carolina troops.37 In April the Governor of Virginia gave detailed instructions to the Commissioners who were appointed to purchase the prisoners brought in by the Cherokee Indians.. They were to go to Fort Chiswell to meet them, redeem the prisoners and pay them in goods (except arms or ammunition) and inform them that peace could only be made with them in conjunction with the colonies of North and South Carolina. They were to be assured that no trade would be resumed until a general peace was guaranteed.38 Thomas Walker, one of the commissioners appointed to meet with the Cherokees at Fort Chiswell in April, spent more time than expected at the fort due to “frequent and heavy rains,” arriving home in Albemarle County on May 2, about the same time Plumstead and Franks of Philadelphia reported that orders had been given for 40,000 or 50,000 [pounds] of flour to be sent to Fort Chis­ well and 10 or 11 at each of the other forts in anticipation of the movement of the army. The plan was to store the “chief part of the Provisions” at Fort Chiswell.39 The report of the commissioners, Thomas Walker and John Chiswell, was received at the Council on June 10.4° In June the Council received a letter indicating that Colonel Byrd anticipated arriving at Fort Chiswell in July. Byrd reported on the strength of his Regiment of Foot, and although the major portion of the army was then camped at Staunton, there were 138 men stationed at Fort Chiswell. It seems that these men were probably the same ones who had spent the winter at the site constructing the fort and preparing for the army’s return. It is known that Major Andrew Lewis was there in May when an attack was made on 200 Cherokees camped within onequarter mile of Fort Chiswell. Six were killed (presumably by northern Indians), many wounded, and 50 women and children were brought to Lewis for protection.41 By the end of June there were 651 men at Fort Chiswell where Colonel Byrd was encamped en route to Stalnaker’s where he was going to build a magazine. By July 15 he had arrived there and on August 1, reported 670 men fit for duty at Stalnaker’s where they had built a block house and entrenchments for the security of themselves and their provisions, as directed by Governor Francis Fauquier on April 28.42 Since there is no mention of such activity at Fort Chiswell at this time, it must be assumed that the entrenchments, blockhouses, magazine, etc. had already been completed there. 13 �In September Colonel Adam Stephen, who had replaced Byrd, was writing from Fort Chiswell and on October 8 wrote the Council a letter stating that Colonel Waddell, commander of the North Carolina troops, had arrived at Fort Chiswell with about 300 men and some Tuscarora Indians.4 3 Although the army was ordered to be continued in Novem­ ber, peace negotiations were under way as early as January 1762, and in the spring the Indian traders agreed to go as far as Fort Chiswell as agreed upon in an audience of Skiagusta with the Governor of Virginia.44 It seems appropriate to discuss the naming and probable design for Fort Chiswell. Colonel William Byrd chose to name the fort for his good friend, John Chiswell, who had discovered valuable ore deposits at the lead mines, eight miles to the south. There Chiswell’s tract of 1,000 acres was surveyed by Andrew Lewis, assistant surveyor of Augusta County, on October 31, 1760 about the same time he and his men were settling in for the winter at Sayers’ Mill. Chiswell had petitioned the Council on May 6 for permission to have the survey made.45 Although it has often been stated that Fort Chiswell was built to protect the lead mines, this is unacceptable in view of the distance between the two places. In addition, a blockhouse was erected at the mines on the east side of the New River, about the same time work was being done at Fort Chiswell.4 6 In 1776 a new fort was erected for the protection of the mines, but the structure was not mentioned again and apparently was given no specific name.4 7 7 ^ /7 'ycuJ isi* ■ft f U, ■ (T 776*0 s ' rfcûtc&tuà /&/ 3 Z / Zoa /¿ / r 493 3Z 2 / 2û 0 / / <2/ /¿ / / /S f / /6 / /& / H- / Sf /¿ / /<£> Document shows officers at Fort Chiswell from November 20, 1760 until May 1, 1971 received extraordinary rations. Tracing excerpted from Document Z-l 2-1, William Fleming Papers, Cyrus Hall McCormick Library, Washington and Lee University. 14 �Traditionally, Fort Chiswell was believed to have had a palisade or stockade built around a group of buildings for their protection. Forts of the colonial period were usually square, though sometimes pen­ tagonal, with sides ranging from 60 to 500 feet in length, and pointed bastions at each comer. The palisade stakes were set into the ground to a depth of 4-5 feet and were on the average 12 inches in diameter, and 12 to 16 feet in height. In one of the bastions the bomb-proof maga­ zine was usually built of stone or brick and lead, flints, and gunpowder stored there. The other bastions often included blockhouses where mounted guns could be placed.4 8 Just how well the military engineers of the frontier followed the traditional design or just how completely they constructed Fort Chiswell by the standard pattern is not known. Often modifications were made due to terrain, soil conditions and the time allotted for construction. During the recent archeological excavations at the site of Fort Chiswell, the presence of a palisade was not confirmed, but cannot be ruled out because less than one acre of the 10-acre site was sampled and/or excavated in 1975/76. However, during the last few days of excavation, a diamond-shaped structure five to six feet in the ground approximately 17 to 20 feet in length was uncovered. Evidence of tim- Typical fort of the 18th century was a stockaded square with four bastions; three usually contained blockhouses, the fourth was reserved for the bomb-proof magazine. Within the stockade there was ample room for quarters, hospital, guard house, food stores, and kitchen. Drawing by Mary B. Kegley from numerous sources of the 18th century. 15 �bers, stairs, bricks, as well as lead, 50 flints, and gunpowder have led archeologists to believe the powder magazine for the fort had been discovered.4 9 The resulting report on the work done at the site in 1976 is not yet available. About the time the army was disbanded and the peace negotiations were taking place, Alexander Sayers purchased land from John Smith at Dunkard Bottom, the location where Sayers had served previously as a wagonmaster.50 In addition he entered two tracts of land on Reed Creek for which no survey or patent has been found in his name.5 1 Early in 1764 Sayers was at the Lead Mines, “damning over the loss of Dunkard Bottom.”5 2 It was about this time that Fort Chiswell and the Dunkard Bottom lands were mortgaged, and before Sayers could extri­ cate himself from his financial difficulties he drowned in crossing the New River in the spring of 1765.5 3 Under a judgment of Augusta County Court in August 1769, to satisfy the mortgage of Walter Buchanan, proceedings were undertaken to foreclose unless Robert Sayers, the young son, was able to pay the sum of E158.18.1V2 with interest at five percent.54 Apparently neither Robert nor his mother, Mary, nor his sister, Catherine, were financially able to comply.55', In settling the estate James McGavock purchased Fort Chiswell and on September 24, 1771 paid the sum of £100 towards the purchase.56 Thus the era of the French and Indian War and the Sayers’ ownership of Fort Chiswell came to an end. There is no doubt that this period (1754-1771) was one of diffi­ culty for frontiersmen such as Alexander Sayers. First, the Shawnee Indians had attacked the settlements, scattering the inhabitants; his own wife and family were apparently forced to live in Bedford County. Later the Virginia Regiment under Colonel Byrd would attempt to aid soldiers trapped by the Cherokees at Fort Loudoun in what is now Tennessee, and the following year would attempt an all-out attack on that nation. Fort Chiswell played an important role in the drama of the 1760’s. The name was understandably changed from Sayers’ Mill to Fort Chiswell after the “big fort” was constructed. Logically, a fort was a place of protection for the army as well as individual settlers. Those who think in a narrow plane will state Sayers’ house was fortified and this was the fort; while others who think in terms of 650 men of the First Virginia Regiment, thousands of pounds of flour, ammunition and other supplies, will think of a “big fort” and will see that Fort Chiswell had to be more than protection for local inhabitants; there were no local inhabitants—they all had fled. Byrd recorded the building of entrenchments and a block house as well as a magazine at Stalnaker’s. The lack of a written record cannot rule out construction of a similar nature at Fort Chiswell. In fact, with the discovery of the structure of the magazine, and Louis Philippe’s comment regarding a “big fort” recently tom down, as well as the reference to Fort Chiswell as the 16 �storage place for the “chief part of the provisions” for the army, it is clear that Fort Chiswell was a military installation of significant proportions. The missing Council letters of 1760 and 1761 may have the answers. The Governor’s instructions to Colonel Byrd may have the answer. In the meantime, Fort Chiswell of the French and Indian War period stands out as a fortification suitable for the 650 men of Virginia’s army, not just for a few local militiamen who gathered around one Inan’s house. Furthermore, Fort Chiswell would remain an important frontier fortification during the Revolutionary War, a place suitable for supplies, ammunition, soldiers, and settlers alike, a place which flourish­ ed under the direction of James McGavock. James McGavock, a Scotch-Irish entrepreneur, had been in Virginia since about 1754 and spent some time in service during the French and Indian War.37 In 1760 he married Mary Cloyd, daughter of David Cloyd of Augusta (later Rockbridge) County.58 Prior to his purchase of Fort Chiswell, McGavock had served as a justice of the peace and undersheriff. He was also responsible for building the Botetourt County prison and gaoler’s house in the town of Fincastle, where he operated an ordinary or inn.5 9 On May 14, 1772, after he became owner of the Fort Chiswell lands he received a license to operate an ordinary at this new location.6 0 In 1775 William Calk, en route to Kentucky, described it as a place with good loaf bread and good whiskey.”61 The ordinary was pro­ bably constructed by McGavock about the time he moved to Fort Chiswell, and its foundation may be one of the structures discovered by the excavators in 1975. Structure # 3 measured 23 feet by 31 feet and had one chimney. Artifacts such as ladles, spoons, forks, knives, and pot hooks suggested it could have been an ordinary. The archeologists’ report completed in 1976 erroneously identifies the structure as McGavock’s residence and ordinary, when in actuality it could only be the ordinary.62 McGavock’s residence was a separate structure with two chimneys which stood until about 1901 when the house was destroyed by fire.6 3 The foundation of the residence was not uncover­ ed during the excavations of 1975. The second improvement McGavock undertook was the construction of a mill in January 1773. By the summer of that year the main road had been established by way of the mill dam and he was made surveyor of the road.64 The date on which the mill was approved was the first court session for the new County of Fincastle, and James McGavock was one of the seven justices present.6 5 The court sessions continued regularly until November 1775, but only two sessions were held in 1776.®6 Following the successful engagement at the Battle of Point Pleasant in October 1774, the leaders of the community organized a Committee of Safety as other counties had done. Their sentiments and resolutions concerning their rights and liberties were presented on January 20, 17 �y .yfH .^ ¿4. *C JU * ^ 777' - - - — — J Z {-* 4 t* £ i iiC /a ty SZ l ^ a P — to o ' & *4*177/ ¿ 1^ * * * C& _ — — --------- T&m/m+*<r* « ¿ £ 1 ^ « _____ J _ p d 1°° - ~/ / 7 ' ff+6fSbe*u&g 7 j / i .7m~----------— m -jt. / ¿ , 0 'l l 7: ¿ ; *x ~ ^ u <3^ S > r n .j- y ~ y - K 7 f7< 6+¿JL V / — # « — —— —— h Document showing that McGavock made first payment of £100 on Fort Chiswell lands on September 24, 1771. From Joseph Gordon Kent collection, courtesy of Arthur M. Kent. \ 775' ?am®s McGavock was one of the original 15 members of this distinguished committee. The unhappy disputes between England and her colonies worsened, and regular meetings of the committee were 1 * 1 (so™e m them at Fort Chiswell) to deal with appointments to the local militia, delivery of lead to Williamsburg (the lead mines being one of the few operating in the colonies at that time), and bring salt from Hampton Two loads of salt were to be stored at Fort Chiswell, others at Colonel William Ingles’ on New River, William Davis’ on Holston, and at the Town House near Chilhowie. McGavock and others were to settle °" \ £ n ,c<f for ^ sah and were to receive the money and distribute what had been left at Fort Chiswell.68 Although the leaders of the community were concerned with the problems of England and her colonies, the Cherokees, closer to home were their major concern in 1776. These Indians, somewhat subdued after the peace of 1762 were again hostile, and consequently two S a B B out on the s°-called Cherokee Expedition under the leadership of Colonel William Christian.6 9 18 �there is no necessity of describing this expedition in detail, but it may be stated that Fort Chiswell once again was the base of operations for activities on the frontier; Provisions such as corn and flour, as well as powder and ammunition, were stored there. In June 1776, the 500 W. (pounds) of powder intended for a magazine in Fincastle County was deposited at Fort Chiswell. Smaller amounts of powder (200, 100 and 5CFW) were deposited at depots on Holston and Clinch Rivers. The remainder of 1000 W was ordered kept at Fort Chiswell and was con­ sidered of such value to the frontiersmen that the Committee ordered a sergeant and 12 men to guard the supply until further notice. In addition 250 pounds of powder and 2,000 flints were sent from Richmond for several frontier counties.7 0 It is known that John Barron (Barrow) was stationed at Fort Chiswell in June 1776 to guard “the public property deposited there.” In addition, Anderson Armstead stated that in August he marched to Fort Chiswell where several companies met before marching to Long Island of Holston (now Kingsport, Tennessee) and the Cherokee Towns.7 V In 1774 James Brown met with other militia men at Fort Chiswell en route to Point Pleasant against the Shawnees. In 1779 he was serving under Lieutenant Samuel Newell and the meeting place again was Fort Chiswell. In 1781, while serving under Captain James Findley and Colonel Jehu Stephens, James Brown and the troops again assembled at Fort Chiswell before marching to Shallow Ford on the Yadkin River in North Carolina.7 2 It is clear that the “big fort” was an active military installation during the Revolutionary War period. Lead, powder, and flints were stored in the magazine and militia men mustered for duty at this central base of operations. From here they left for duty—some going south­ west toward the Holston, others into what is now West Virginia, and still others to points in North Carolina. Although frontiersmen generally were willing to fight a war with the Indians to protect their families and their plantations, not everyone was so inclined to join the army against the mother country. Many remained “friends of the King” and in a community where the leader­ ship was not Tory in sentiment, there were the inevitable trials. For example, on June 22, 1776 Jacob Kettering, the miller, was summoned to appear at James McGavock’s to answer the complaint that “he had often declared himself a friend to the King and his measures, That he endustriously propagates many false reports that have strong Tendency to prejudice the American Cause in General.” Witnesses were to appear and, perhaps fearing expressions of public discontent, Captains Jehu Stephens and Jeremiah Pierce were to bring 10 well-armed men and Lieutenant James Montgomery the same.7 3 There is no account which records the events of that particular day, but in September 1777 19 �Kettering appeared on a similar charge and the jury levied a fine of £250 and a sentence of a year in prison.7 4 Because there was no suit­ able prison in the county, Kettering was sent to Staunton to the Augusta County prison on January 7, 1778 where he remained a year.7 3 Louis Philippe, who described Fort Chiswell in his diary, also learned of the arrest and imprisonment of Kattenring (Kettering, now Catron) when he spent the night at his home west of Wytheville. He also records in his diary that the stone mill which he operated not far from his home had been confiscated, so that he only had 200 acres of land left.7 6 The mill site is now known as Browning’s Mill. Numerous-other citizens of the area “maintained the authority of the King.” In fact, Southwest Virginia’s two counties—Montgomery and Washington-were hotbeds of Toryism, and at one point in August 1780 Colonel Walter Crockett had assembled 250 men at Fort Chis­ well ready to march against the Tories on,the New River.77 Those who were brought to court are mentioned throughout the court orders of Montgomery County and their trials are well documented in the Draper Manuscripts. 8 Although some, like Duncan Gullion, managed to escape from the sheriff en route to Williamsburg where he was ordered to go for further trial, others such as Joseph McDonald, who was found guilty of treason, were excused. The reasons given were his age (he was 58) and the fact that he had a large family, but the ultimate guarantee for his good behaviour came as a result of the enlistment of his two sons, Joseph and Edward, into the Continental Army. George Walters, Jacob and John Shull (Shell), and Jeremiah Patrick volunteered to en­ list themselves. Gasper Reid, age 60, was sent to the lead mines to serve as a soldier for two and one-half months and his son offered to enlist.7 9 Fort Chiswell added a new dimension to its military character be­ ginning in January 1777 when Montgomery County court held its first session at the fort. The Fincastle County courthouse at the lead mines was somewhat inaccessible for travelers, being several miles from the main road, an inconvenience resolved by meeting at Fort Chiswell.8 0 After more than a year of meeting at the fort the justices accepted proposals from John Montgomery, Walter Crockett, and James McGavock (all of whom were justices) for a place for a courthouse.8 1 The majority selected McGavock’s offer of 20 acres of land on the hill above the house on the north side of the road and within 10 poles of the mill. The spring was to be shared and the offer also included 20 acres of woodland and the use of the quarries for building purposes. The conveyance was to be made in fee simple without consideration other than the advantage McGavock would have by having the court­ house on his land a reservation of one-half acre after the ground for the public buildings was laid off.8 2 On April 8, 1778, at the same session of court, it was ordered that John Montgomery, James McGavock, Walter Crockett, Andrew Boyd, 20 �James Newell, or any three were to agree with workmen to build a log courthouse “20 feet square in the clear with a 10-foot shed at the end for a jury room.” They were also to help overcome the “insufficiency of the prison” expressed by Sheriff James McCorkle and build a log prison, not less than 20 by 18 feet in the clear.8 3 The 20 acres given by McGavock were to be laid off in one-half acre lots with proper streets. In order to cover the cost of these improvements a sum of six shillings was to be collected from every tithable.84 In January 1779, John Floyd was paid £25 and two chain carriers were paid 48 shillings per day for surveying 40 acres [total] at two different places and laying off the town at Fort Chiswell.85 In Febru­ ary the sheriff paid James McGavock £150 toward the building of the courthouse and on August 5 an additional sum of £75 for timber to build it. In September McGavock received £50 over and above his agree­ ment for building the courthouse, and the building of the prison was delayed. On October 6 the balance of the money due was paid to McGavock. In the meantime on May 5 he was paid £40 for the use of his house in which courts were held.86 The personal account book of James McGavock shows that Paul Rezzor (Razor) was paid £22.10 for actually constructing the courthouse and an additional sum of £6 for repairing McGavock’s mill.87 Although the courthouse was now completed and paid for, and the town had been laid off in lots, it became clear that the location chosen for a courthouse and town was “an improper one.” The justices of the court were of the unanimous opinion that it was in “no wise calculated for the purpose for which it was intended.” The reasons given were that the land was on a “high barren hill” which was “difficult of access every way” and was inconvenient to wood and water. The justices added that “it can never be expected People would settle here or that Lotts would sell at any price.” They decided then that no more public buildings would be built as it would be a great and unnecessary expense.88 Thus the Town of Fort Chiswell, begun with great hopes for development as a courthouse center, consisted of the remains of the “big fort” built in 1760-61, the courthouse built in 1779, and McGavock’s residence and ordinary. It was McGavock’s community and he was in command. Perhaps his dream was shattered when the town did not develop, or was this in the back of his mind from the beginning? By offering the land he ob­ tained the courthouse on his property and in addition was paid a hand­ some sum over and above the cost of its construction. Furthermore, he had a guaranteed clientele for his ordinary every time the court met. Not only justices and officers of the county, but persons doing business with the court were almost always overnight guests. At the very least “good loaf bread and good whiskey” were obtainable. In addition, during the Revolutionary War period, McGavock was paid for com, 21 �Log home of James McGavock burned in 1901. Courtesy of Arthur M. Kent. oats, hay, and fodder for horses and cattle; for whiskey to wash the wounds of the wounded men; for biscuits, flour, and additional whis­ key; and for as many as 80 diets or meals.8 9 Because of his ordinary and its location on the main road to the West, McGavock often catered to migratory patrons en route to Kentucky. For several years he had the only ordinary in what is now Wythe County and for additional years the only accommodation of con­ sequence west of the ferry at William Ingles on the New River. Since there were two main routes to Kentucky from eastern Pennsylvaniaover the road to Pittsburgh and then a tedious trip by river to their destination and a more expeditious route through the Valley of Virginia to Fort Chiswell and then across the Cumberland Mountain and the mountains of eastern Kentucky—McGavock had a ready-made business on the preferred route.90 The itineraries through Virginia recorded by John Filson, William Brown, Thomas Speed, and no doubt numerous others, list Fort Chiswell (Chissel) as a stopping place.9 ' In 1781 the Rev. Lewis Craig and his congregation of the Upper Spotsylvania Baptist in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, stopped en route to Kentucky. Kincaid states there were 5 00 people encamped and that they found a militia company stationed there, a store, a tavern, and other conveniences. This group exchanged wagons and goods for packhorses and items suitable for the rest of the journey over poor roads, mountainous terrain, and muddy trails.92 Similarly, James Knox and 22 �his party probably visited Fort Chiswell in the fall of 1784.9 3 These are specific examples, representative of a time of unparalleled migration. In 1783 the population of Kentucky was 12,000. The following spring it had jumped to 20,000 but 1784, according to one authority, was a year to be remembered when 30,000 pioneers moved from North Carolina and Virginia across the mountains into Kentucky and this accomplished in single file on a road which had not yet become suitable for wagons.94 If only half of these travelers—a conservative estimate—came by way of Fort Chiswell, McGavock could have played host to more than 20,000 Kentucky-bound visitors in a few short years. In the 1780s matters of the courthouse and prison were still re­ quiring attention by the justices. In 1782 the clerk was to hire persons to chink and daub the courthouse and make necessary “alterations about the barr.”95 Five years later the prison was still not a reality, and on April 6, 1787 orders were issued to Colonel Ward, Major Love', Captain Newell, and William Davis to let out the building of a log prison 16 feet square.96 On September 5, 1787 the court recognized the great necessity for a prison and noted the failure of the previously appointed James McGavock, Sr. (1728-1812), courtesy of Arthur M. Kent. 23 �gentlemen to act. Immediate action was ordered and a prison 15 feet square with a wall a foot thick was to be built. It was to be made out of hewed timber a foot thick with a pitch of seven feet between the floors, and was to be covered with clapboards. There was to be an iron window, and two doors, an outside one of wood with a strong lock and an inside one of iron.97 Two days latej, it was decided that a house belonging to James McGavock and known by the name of the “magazine” should be appropriated until a prison could be built, and David McGavock was ordered to lay off 10 acres of land around the courthouse and McGavock’s ordinary as bounds for the prisoners.98 The following spring on March 5, 1788 Robert Grimes and Captain Kincannon reported that the prison was “sufficient, agreeable to the first contract or rather better.” In spite of this the sheriff pro­ tested against the new prison on the same day. Duncan Gullion, Tory and scallawag bf the frontier, had the dubious honor of being the first to try out the new prison-the sentence was two hours for “insulting the court.”99 On April 4 David McGavock, son of James, the entrepreneur, was paid £45 for building the prison according to the terms set forth by Henry Patton and John A dam s'00 and three days later the prison boundaries were surveyed by David McGavock. The tract was a 10-acre site to include McGavock’s ordinary, his house, the prison, the spring, and probably the courthouse and numerous other structures. One comer of the survey began at the northwest comer of the stud stable, but this building was outside the limits of the survey.' 01 On April 11, 1789 Manassas Friel was to make further repairs to the courthouse but the expense was to be limited to 10 pounds.’ 0 2 About this time residents of the area petitioned for a new county to be cut off from Montgomery and as a result Wythe County was formed. The new county called for a new county seat-in fact as a result oi its formation two new county seats were laid off—one to become Evansham (later Wytheville) and the other Christiansburg. ' 03 However, the first session of Wythe County Court was ordered to be held at James McGavock’s on May 25, 1790.’ 04 Stophel Zimmerman (Christopher Simmerman) and John Davis donated acreage for the new Wythe County center and the following sessions were held at Simmerman’s pending the construction of the new courthouse.' 05 The Wythe County of today has the distinction of having had within its present boundaries three county seats-one at the Lead Mines, one at Fort Chiswell, and one in Wytheville for the counties of Fincastle, Montgomery, and Wythe respectively. Once these county changes took place in 1790 the vigorous days of McGavock’s ownership began to fade. The courthouse and prison were no longer necessary, a town did not materialize, and a younger generation of McGavocks was in charge. The older James now in his 60’s, having earlier purchased one-half 24 �Prison boundaries surveyed in 1788 included prison, courthouse, spring, and Janies McGavock’s ordinary. The mill and stable were outside the perimeter. of the Anchor and Hope plantation at Max Meadows, established himself in a log house which still stands in that town. The house was said to have been constructed for his son, David, in the 1780’s but it became available when David moved to what is now Nashville on a permanent basis about 1795. Another brother, Randall, also moved to Nashville, while Hugh and Joseph remained in Max Meadows, and James Jr. became the owner of the Fort Chiswell site. The elder James died in 1812 and was buried on a high hill which overlooks the colonial fort site.' 06 In the elder McGavock’s time Fort Chiswell was a military base and storehouse for salt, com, and valuable powder and lead, during the days of Indian wars and revolution. Then, under his leadership, it became a courthouse center without a town, where the local milita would gather to chase Tories or Indians and where sentences were meted out to those loyal to the King. Here too thousands of travelers en route to Kentucky were served by McGavock and his business enterprises—a store, ordinary, mill, and blacksmith shop. But the aging McGavock saw the courthouse era end and his son James Jr. assume leadership in the business enterprises begun years earlier. Although Southwest Virginia was becoming more settled, the years following the Revolutionary War were not entirely free of Indian raids and murders on the frontier. In 1791 and 1792 Montgomery, 25 �Washington, and Russell counties were .to be defended and protected by two companies of volunteer militia raised by Captains Andrew Lewis and John Preston.107 In 1793 hostile attacks of the Indians on the southwest frontier of Virginia caused great concern. John Davidson was murdered at Laurel Fork of Wolf Creek, and a number of horses were stolen from Wolf Creek, Bluestone, and Island Creek. The danger to the frontier’s exposed inhabitants called for immediate action and was so requested by Daniel Trigg in a letter to the Governor of Virginia.108 Throughout 1793 incidents were recorded, and the last invasion reported in Southwest Virginia was in April 1794 in Lee County.109 Although the frontier at this time was somewhat to the westward and removed from Fort Chiswell, the threat of Indian attack had not ended until the general peace made by Anthony Wayne was signed in 1795.110 This peace was the one referred to by Louis Philippe in his sentence: “ a big fort tom down since the peace.” Consequently, the time of demolition of Fort Chiswell can be establish­ ed as being between 1795 and the spring of 1797 when Louis Philippe stopped there. Business continued—at least as late as 1831 when James McGavock obtained a license for a house of private entertainment (May 10, 1831).111 The last log building standing at the site was the home of James McGavock Sr. and Jr. which was destroyed by fire in 1901. Several years later a small frame house was built on the site and stood until about 1968 when preliminary work for the highway construction was undertaken. The hillside now has lost its identity, and the oppor­ tunity to discover underground evidence by archeological survey of the entire area—instead of limited acreage—has been lost forever. New roads to the West will keep the fort’s secrets preserved and feW of the travelers on it will ever realize that Fort Chiswell was once a “bis fort” The Davis house sits on the approximate location of the McGavock log house which was burned about 1901. This recent house was removed about 1968 to make room for the highway construction. Photo courtesy of L. Edgar and Mary Foley. 26 �which served the frontier for more than 30 years. ( I recognize and appreciate the fact that many people have contributed to the research and preparation o f this article. I especially thank George Kegley, William H.B. Thomas, William T. Buchanan, Jr., and Arthur M. Kent for their encouragement and assistance.) FOOTNOTES 1 Louis-Philippe, King o f France, DIARY OF MY TRAVELS IN AMERICA. Trans­ lated 2by Stephen Becker. (New York: Delacorte Press,7 1977,71p. - 52. James H. Cleland and Thomas C. Funk, “Preliminary Report on Fort Chiswell Salvage Project.” QUARTERLY BULLETIN ARCHEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF VIRGINIA, Vol. 30, No. 3,1 9 7 6 ; personal knowledge and attendance at dig August-September 1976. 3 SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA ENTERPRISE, January 25, 1977, “ Fort Chiswell Site Named Official Virginia Historic Landmark.” pp. A -l, B-6. 4 Records o f the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission show Fort Chiswell brick house was put on the Virginia Register March 2 ,1 9 7 1 , on the National Register May 6,1971. 3 Augusta County Survey Book 1, p. 38. Benjamin Hillman, ed., The Executive Journals of the Council of Colonial Virginia. (Richmond: Virginia State Library, 1966), V. 173; F. B. Kegley, VIRGINIA FRONTIER. (Roanoke: Stone Printing Company, 1938), p. 116. ' Augusta County Deed Book 8, p. 2; Land Patent Book 31, p. 147. 8 Patton-Preston notebook, April 22, 1974, n.p. Kegley collection, Wytheville Community College, Wytheville, Va. 9 Lyman Chalkley, CHRONICLES OF THE SCOTCH-IRISH SETTLEMENT IN VIRGINIA, (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1965), 1 ,62. 10 Audrey Kemper Spence, “Heinrich Grobb (Henry Grubb) Swiss Emigrant to Virginia” , VIRGINIA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY, 50, pp. 69-74. 11 Ibid. 12 Chalkley, CHRONICLES, II, 510. 13 Joseph A. Waddell, ANNALS OF AUGUSTA COUNTY, VIRGINIA (Staunton, Va: C. Russel Caldwell, 1902), p. 112; Kegley, FRONTIER, pp. 213,222,224,230. 14 Kegley, FRONTIER, p. 225. 15 Chalkley, CHRONICLES, 1,54. 16 Bedford County Deed Book A, p. 634; Chalkley, CHRONICLES, 1,340. 32 Bedford County Court Order Book lA ,p. 224; Deed Book 1, p. 227. IO Kegley, FRONTIER, pp. 2 5 2,261; Augusta County Deed Book 11, p.18. 39 Bedford County Deed Book 1, pp. 426,434,438,474,478. 20 William Waller Hening, STATUTES AT LARGE. (Philadelphia, 1823), VII,347. 23 Ibid., V II,3 5 7 ;Hillman, EXECUTIVE JOURNALS, VI, 159. 22 Hillman, EXECUTIVE JOURNALS, VI, 161. 23 Ibid., p. 166,167. 24 Ibid., p .1 6 7 . 25 Ibid., p.1 6 9 . 26 Ibid., p .1 6 9 27 Ibid., p. 169, 171; Marion Tinling ed., CORRESPONDENCE OF THE THREE WILLIAM BYRDS OF WESTOVER, VA. (Charlottesville: University Press, 1977), 11,706. 28‘ Letter from Captain Ourrey to Colonel Henry Bouquet, September 29, 1760, Boquet Papers, Reel 696, Folio 138, SR 7509/3 Ms21642, PRO, Virginia State Library. 29 Hillman, EXECUTIVE JOURNALS, VI, 172. 30 Ibid., 174. 3 3 Hening, STATUTES, VII, 370. 32 William Fleming Papers, Reel 432, Virginia State Library, Z-12. 27 �Kegley, FRONTIER, pp. 226-227. 34 “ Library o f Col. William Fleming”, WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY, Series I, No. 6, p. 162. Vauban authored several books including: MANUAL OF SIEGECRAFT AND FORTIFICATIONS, and THE NEW METHOD OF FORTIFICATION. 35 Hillman, EXECUTIVE JOURNALS, VI, 182. 36 Hening, STATUTES, VII, 381; Hillman EXECUTIVE JOURNALS, VI, 181,183. 37 Hillman, EXECUTIVE JORNALS, VI, 184. 38 Ibid., 184, 185. 39 Archibald Henderson, THOMAS WALKER AND THE LOYAL COMPANY OF VIRGINIA. (Worcester, Mass.: American Antiquarian Society, 1931), pp.64,65. 40 Hillman, EXECUTIVE JOURNALS, VI, 189. 4 * Ibid., p. 190; A general Return o f the Regiment o f Foot from William Byrd to Jeffrey Amherst, June 7, 1761, Jeffrey Amherst Papers, Virginia Historical Society; Sylvester K. Stevens and Donald H. Kent ed., THE PAPERS OF COL. HENRY BOUQUET. (Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical Commission, 1941), p. 152. 42 Return of the Regiment, June 30, 1761; letter August 1, 1761 Byrd to Amherst, Amherst Papers, Virginia Historical Society; Tinling, CORRESPONDENCE, p. 727. 43 Hillman, EXECUTIVE JOURNALS, VI, 199. 44 Hening, STATUTES, VII, 463; Hillman EXECUTIVE JOURNALS, VI, 215. 45 Augusta County Survey Book 1, p. 91, Hillman, EXECUTIVE JOURNALS, VI, 157. 48 Augusta County Entry Book I, p. 44. 47 Letter from William Russell to William Preston July 28, 1776, Draper Manuscripts, 4Q Q 57. 48 Charles Morse Stotz, “ Defense in the Wilderness,” part o f “ Drums in the Forest” , THE WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORICAL MAGAZINE, Vol. 41, No. 3 and 4, 1958, Drawings opposite pp. 29,138,141,171,187, also pp. 80-83; John Muller, A TREATISE CONTAINING THE ELEMENTARY PART OF FORTIFICATION, REGULAR AND IRREGULAR, 2nd ed., (London, 1756); Sebastian LePrestre de Vauban, THE NEW METHOD OF FORTIFICATION, 5th ed. (London, 1748); Kegley, FRONTIER, p. 236 shows that forts built in 1756 in Virginia ranged in size from 60 to 100 feet square; John Redd, “Reminiscences of Western Virginia, 1770-1790”, VIRGINIA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY 7, July 1899, No. 1, p. 2 states that the fort built on the Holston in 1776 was 100 yards square (300 feet); Stanley South, PALMETTO PARAPETS, Anthropological Studies 1, (Columbia, South Carolina: Institute of Archeology and Anthropology, 1974), p. 31 shows plan o f Fort Moultrie, 1776-1783 with a distance o f 550 feet between the points o f the bastions. l97649 ROANOKE TIMES, September 4, 1976; DAILY PRESS, Newport News, October 17, 38 Augusta County Deed Book 11, p. 18. 3 * Augusta County Entry Book 1, p. 54. c'y ° Letter from David Robinson to William Thompson, February 18, 1764, Draper Manuscripts 2 QQ 44. 33 Adelaide Fries, ed., RECORDS OF THE MORAVIANS IN NORTH CAROLINA, (Raleigh, N.C.: North Carolina Historical Commission, State Department o f Archives and History, 1968 reprint), I, 302. 54 Augusta County Judgments, County Court File 417; Montgomery County Deed Book A, 143. 55 Chalkley, CHRONICLES, I, 132,158 names son Robert and daughter Catherine; Widow Mary is named in Montgomery Deed Book A,143. 56 Document from Joseph Gordon Kent collection; Montgomery County Deed Book A, p. 143. 37 Rev. Robert Gray, THE McGAVOCK FAMILY (Richmond: William Ellis Jones, 1903), p. 1; Kegley, FRONTIER, pp. 104,248; Hening STATUTES, VII, 195. 38 Kegley, FRONTIER, p. 502. 39 Ibid., pp. 3 8 2 ,3 8 5 ,4 0 1 ,4 0 2 ,4 0 3 . 60 Robert D. Stoner, A SEED-BED OF THE REPUBLIC (Kingsport, Tenn.; Kingsport Press, 1962), p. 166. 3 ^ Thomas Speed, THE WILDERNESS ROAD (New York: Burt Franklin, Reprint, 1971), p. 34. 28 �62 Thomas C. Funk, “Excavations at Fort Chiswell” , University of Virginia Laboratory of Archeology, June 1, 1976, pp. 24,25. 63 Gray, McGAVOCK FAMILY, p. 6. 64 Lewis Preston Summers, ANNALS OF SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA, 1769-1800, (Kingsport, Tenn.: Kingsport Press, 1929), pp. 593,607. 65 IBID., p. 589. 66 IBID., pp. 6 45,647. 67 Richard B. Harwell, THE COMMITTEES OF SAFETY OF WESTMORELAND AND FINCASTLE (Richmond: Virginia State Library, 1956, reprint 1974), pp. 61-64. 68 69 IBID., pp. 6 8 ,7 4 ,7 8 ,7 9 . K Lewis Preston Summers, HISTORY OF SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA AND WASHING­ TON COUNTY, (Baltimore, Genealogical Publishing Company, reprint 1966), pp. 236-253. 70 Gray, McGAVOCK FAMILY, p. 2; Harwell, RESOLUTIONS, pp. 93,110. 71 John Frederick Dorman, VIRGINIA REVOLUTIONARY PENSION APPLICA­ TIONS, (Washington, D.C.: 1960,1958), V (1960), 7 ,8 , II (1958), 18. 72 IBID. XI (1965), 4 0 ,4 1 . 73 Harwell, RESOLUTIONS, pp. 91-92. 74 Summers, ANNALS, p. 684. 75 IBID., p.6 8 6 . 76 Louis-Philippe, DIARY, p. 52. 77 Letter from Colonel Walter Crockett to [William Preston] August 6 ,1 7 8 0 , Papers of William Preston 5 QQ48 Draper Manuscripts. 78 Summers, ANNALS, has printed orders o f court for Montgomery County, and Preston Papers, Draper Manuscripts, 1780,5 QQ 3 7 ,4 8 ,5 0 among others. 79 Summers, ANNALS, pp. 71 0 ,7 2 2 ; Preston Papers 5 QQ 73-79. 80 Summers, ANNALS, p. 676. 81 IBID., pp 6 88,690. 82 IBID., p .6 9 0 . 83 IBID. 84 IBID. 85 IBID., p .7 0 0 . 86 IBID., pp. 7 0 2 ,7 2 2 ,7 2 5 ,7 2 8 ,7 1 2 . 87 From Joseph Gorden Kent collection. 88 Summers, ANNALS, pp. 727,728. 89 IBID., p .7 6 6 . 90 Speed, WILDERNESS ROAD, pp. 11,12. 91 IBID., pp. 1 7 ,1 8 ,2 1 . 92 Robert Kincaid, THE WILDERNESS ROAD. (Middlesboro, Ky.: 1966, Third ed. (first 1947), pp. 160-165. 93 IBID., pp. 167-168. 94 Speed, WILDERNESS ROAD, p. 42. 95 Summers, ANNALS, p. 761. 96 Montgomery County Order Book 1, p. 288. 97 IBID., p. 294. 98 IBID., pp. 297, 298. 99 IBID., pp. 307,308. 100 IBID., pp. 308,315. 101 Montgomery County loose papers, original not seen. 102 Montgomery County Order Book 4 , p. 51. 103 Hening, STATUTES, XIII, pp. 76-78; 583, 585; Summers, ANNALS, p. 1356. 29 �Cures From Mountain Herbs by Earl Palmer The custom of gathering plants for their medicinal value dates back to earliest times. Ancient and medieval books make many refer­ ences to roots, leaves, and barks to help out the “feelin’ poorlys” of mankind. The American Indians used herbs in compounding cures for their ails and hurts, and believed that when worn on the person, they had a magical charm for such diverse purposes as warding off disease, ending disappointment in love, or even ensuring long life. These beliefs, part and parcel, still live in many of the remote parts of our Southern Appalachian Mountains. As one mountaineer herb gatherer told me one fine spring-filled morning, “There ain’t nothin’ what grows that ain’t good for somethin’.” His “lamin’ ” had been passed down through the centuries from mountain family to mountain family along the ridges and in the coves of the beautiful hill country. Aunt Lucy Dehart sums up the essence of all lamin’ in one or two cryptic remarks: “Menfolks, generally, are bom with a dropsical con­ dition, are lazy by nature. They naturally hibernate in the winter like bears. They awake from hibernation lazier than ever, feeling poorly, just tollable, fat as Thanksgiving turkeys, shaggy as mountain goats. To git these old bucks ready for spring plowing, I biles down a round of Earl Palmer o f Christiansburg, a photographer for more than 50 years, has taken pictures o f mountain people and mountain scenes for many publications, such as Dodge News, Plymouth Traveler and Metropolitan Newspapers, a Sunday supplement. His talk about mountain herbs to the Society in August 1977 was based on information in this article he wrote for Popular Gardening magazine in August 1960. Palmer provided information for a National Geographic Society book, “Nature’s Healing Arts. ” 30 �N e w t H y lt o n w a s h e d s a s s a fr a s r o o t s in a s tr e a m . A f t e r t h e y h a v e d r ie d , h e s te w e d th e m in t o a te a w h ic h h e s w e e t e n e d w it h w ild h o n e y d u r in g th e w in t e r . “ F e t c h e s o u t th e s w e a t o n a f e l l e r ,” h e s a id , a n d it “ c u r e s a c o ld in a h u r r y . ” cherry bark bitter, thins their blood down to normal, jacks them up a notch or three.” She went on to add, “Now, in the spring after a long hard winter, I need perking up myself. Tain’t nothin’ better’n a round of bitters to wake one up.” Although it’s been generations since the Indians roamed the mountains, their imprint on pioneer medicine.remains, as witnessed by dozens of names, like Indian pipe, Indian sage, Indian wash weed, Indian balm, and many, many others ascribed to herbaceous plants. 31 �A bee hunter is “smoking down” the swarm into a home-made hive to carry home to a permanent location. When the queen is safely hived, the worker bees are smoked in to join her. Honey taken from bee trees after they re cut down is used to sweeten home-concocted remedies. The ancient Indian medicine men taught skills in primitive treatment of various ills to the early colonists-the Indians sometimes effected cures with their forest-concocted remedials. As recently as six years ago, the Office of Indian affairs sent a delegation of specialists to the Navajo Indian Reservation to try to prove to the Indians the superiority of modern medicine. Well, this “larned” group reported some of the primitive cures as effective as modern ones. Just goes to show us I guess, that we are not so far advanced as we might think. Mention has been made of remedies based upon superstitions No people believed in superstitions more than the Indians, and they told the early settlers about the supposed magic powers of certain herbs to cure everything from knobby knees to rheumatism. So, I was not sur­ prised when Newt Hylton of the Laurel Fork Community said, “Always carry a buckeye in yore left hip pocket. Shore cure for rheumatism.” 32 �“Look for an herb of the shape of the organ you want to cure,” says Bushrod Picklesimer, who does not know he believes in the doctrine of signatures. Because of the heart-shape of the perennial coltsfoot leaves, a tea made by boiling its roots in milk is believed to alleviate heart diseases. The ginseng root often takes the form of a man; hence the age-old belief that ginseng worn about the body will cure whatever ails you. “When is the best time to gather herbs?” I asked the mountain folk, and Rosebud Crockram, of Turkey Cock Creek said, “I digs the roots afore the sap rises, picks the leaves when they’re about the size of squirrels’ ears, and peels the bark in the dark of the moon after sap rises.” Other herb gatherers follow pretty much the same rule of thumb, so Rosebud’s ridge-top information may be taken verbatim. I’m sure she was out early to collect Trillium grandiflorum, known variously as wake-robin, Jewsharp, snakebite, Indian balm, and groundlily. Accord­ ing to her, its roots have astringent qualities and when boiled in milk, are beneficial in treating “certain” stomach complaints. The roots she also uses for insect stings. Bloodroot is a true bitter, known also as Indian plant, red puccoon, and tetterwort. As everyone who’s ever downed a swig of tea made from its roots will testify, “Hit shor’ am good and bitter.” Many mountaineers also call bloodroot yaller root. A round of yaller root tea is guaranteed to “jack up a feller who’s feelin’ poorly and fit him for the storms of life, winds and rains, heat and cold.” Coltsfoot, which looks somewhat like the heart-shaped shuttleworth ginger, is also a signature herb and is supposed to cure heart troubles, real or romantic, say folks in the mountains who know about such things. Sassafras tea is, perhaps, the most popular homemade remedy concocted by the mountain people. In the words of Aunt Lucy Dehart, who lived across the mountain at Hell’s Creek: “Tain’t nothing better’n a round of hot sassafras tea in the spring. Thins out a feller’s blood and gits him ready for plowin’.” 33 �What They Owned in the 1840s b y H e le n B e a ll L e w is Book I of the Inventory, Appraisements and Sales record in the Roanoke County Courthouse, Salem, Virginia, contains the estate in­ ventories of county residents who died between 1838 and 1849. The contents of Roanoke County homes during this period may be dis­ covered through examination of these estate appraisals. The number of rooms in houses, the size of families, the standard of living in the area, and county residents’ tastes and aesthetic sensibilities may be partially ascertained from the number and assortment of goods recorded on the inventories. Careful analysis of the data compiled from these inventories of material goods provides clear insight into mid-19th century life in Roanoke County, Virginia. Taking an inventory of the deceased’s possessions was the respon­ sibility of the executor of an estate; according to mid-19th century Virginia law and the English statute from which it was derived. In his Commentaries on the Laws o f England, published in 1765, Sir William Blackstone enumerates the duties of the executor, or the administrator in cases when no will was left by the deceased. His responsibilities included: burying the deceased, administering the will, making an inventory of the estate, collecting the goods and chattels, paying debts and legacies, and distributing any undevised surplus.’ All goods col­ lected by the executor which were “of a salable nature and [could] be converted into ready money, [were] called assets.”2 The purpose of making estate inventories was to have a legal record of the deceased’s assets; the executor was to sell these assets, to pay any outstanding debts of the deceased. The state of Virginia’s estate laws are based on the same premise as the English law outlined by Blackstone. The 1849 Code o f Virginia, the statutes of which regulated the Roanoke County inventories of this study, states that “every personal representative . . . shall, within four months after the date of the order conferring his This paper, originally entitled “Estate Inventories o f Roanoke County, 1838-1849, from Inventory, Appraisements and Sales, Book I, Roanoke County Courthouse, Salem, Virginia” was written by Helen Beall Lewis for a Hollins College art class, taught by W. L. Whitwell in Spring 1978. The daughter o f Mr. and Mrs. G. H. Lewis III, Amherst, Va., she was an American studies major, a member o f Phi Beta Kappa and a 1978 honors graduate at Hollins. Miss Lewis is a masters degree candi­ date in the history department at the University o f Virginia. 34 �authority,” return to the clerk of the court an inventory of all the personal and real estate “which has come to his possession of know­ ledge, or which is under his management or subject to his authority, in his fiduciary character.” 3 The Code also prescribes the manner in which estate appraisals were to be taken. The Court was to appoint three or more appraisers who, “after taking an oath for the purpose . .. shall appraise such goods or chattels as may be produced to them.” 4 The appraisers each received one dollar per day for their services and their appraisement was considered “prima facie evidence of the value of the estate.” 5 The portions of the Virginia Code which deal with estates, contain ambiguities which could have allowed inaccurate inventories to have been taken in Virginia during the mid-19th century. The clause stating that the appraisers are to evaluate “such goods or chattels as may be produced to them” raises the question of what items may not have been produced for the appraisers. Since the law allowed four months to elapse between the appointment of the executor and the date of his inventory, the family of the deceased had plenty of time to remove certain items from the estate, if they so desired. Because of these loopholes in the 1849 Virginia laws, estate inventories taken at the time may not have always been accurate records. Despite the possi­ bility of incomplete appraisals, much can be learned from the items which are recorded. Problems encountered during study of the inventories include apparently incomplete entries, vague descriptions, misspelled words and 19th century terms no longer in current usage. Several inventories listed no heating devices or kitchen utensils; the omission of such essential articles surely indicates an incomplete record. Frequently, words were misspelled by the estate appraisers, but these were usually decipherable because phonetic spelling was used, and after 1844, misspelled words were underlined.6 Imprecise references such as “one lot books” and “one cupboard and contents” are frustrating as they preclude a thorough, accurate study of a house’s contents. This study of mid-19th century households in Roanoke County is limited to those whose estates are itemized in Book I of the Inventory, Appraisements and Sales record; therefore, it is not a complete survey of the county. The inventories studied are only of those residents who died between 1838 and 1849. Deductions made about the wealth and size of families and the probable number of rooms in their houses are based solely upon information gathered from Book I.7 The purpose of this research is to determine as much as possible about mid-19th century Roanoke County residents from the household articles listed in Book I’s estate inventories. Fifty inventories were made between 1838 and 1849, and recorded in Book I. Forty of these appraisals were selected for research, after the elimination of those which listed mainly farming equipment and one bed or chair as the only furniture. This study is concerned only 35 �with household articles; no slaves, farming equipment, tools, or animals inventoried are included in the data. For purposes of comparison, the inventories were divided into three groups—an upper, middle, and lower group. Classification was based upon the quantity and type of goods owned. The inventories of group three, the upper group, all contained silver, ceramics (usually of a certain type such as Queen’s ware of Liverpool china), books, clocks, and looking glasses. Most of these inventories included linen, bed furnishings, carpeting and window curtains. The chairs owned by this group were designated as “Windsor” or “split-bottom” rather than just “chairs,” as is often the case in the lower groups. Inventories in group three all listed pieces of furniture with a specific purpose such as a sideboard, press, secretary, or wardrobe. Another distinguishing feature of this upper group is that the wood of their pieces of furniture was usually mentioned, which was a rare occurrence in the other groups. Most of the inventories in the middle group listed bed furnishings, linens, books, clocks, and looking glasses. Group two rarely entered any silver, pewter, or ceramics. The lowest group, group one, recorded only essential pieces of furniture such as, beds, chairs, tables and chests; inferior quality of this furniture was indicated by the fact that the type of their chairs or the wood of their other pieces are never distinguished. Group one inventories oc­ casionally listed books, bed furnishings, looking glasses, and clocks, but never recorded any silver, pewter, or ceramics. On the basis of these differences, three groups were distinguished for comparative purposes. As a method of research, the contents of each estate appraisal were recorded on individual surveys. These surveys separate the items into the following categories: furniture, bed furnishings, window hangings and miscellaneous linen, floor coverings, books, lighting devices, heating devices, ornaments, ceramics and glass, silver, pewter, tinware, cooking utensils, and miscellaneous articles. Each of the 40 estate inventories was recorded on such an individual survey which lists the appraised value of each item. These individual catalogues were then transcribed onto a master survey for each of the categories mentioned above. These master surveys reveal the distribution of goods in the estates as a whole and they coalesce individual statistics so that overall conclusions may be made. Introduction Roanoke County was established in 1838 from a portion of ad­ joining Botetourt County. Salem, the seat of Roanoke County, was founded in 1802. Among the first purchasers of land in Salem were Henry Snider and James Godwin, the estate inventories of whom are included in this study.8 The community’s main throughfare, Roanoke Street, followed a former Indian trail, the Valley Pike. Salem began to 36 �grow and prosper after 1815 when “the Roanoke Navigation Company was chartered . . . to connect the Roanoke River with Weldon, North Carolina.” 9 In 1827, Martin’s Gazetter recorded that Salem contained “ ‘70 houses . . . 6 mercantile stores, 3 taverns, 3 houses of public worship (1 Methodist, 1 Presbyterian, 1 Baptist) and 2 female and 1 male school.’ ” 10 Industries included: 1 manufacturing flour mill, with a saw mill and wool carding machine annexed . . . 1 tan yard, 1 cabinet maker, 2 saddlers, 5 blacksmith shops, 1 boot and shoe factory, 2 tailors, 1 ex­ tensive wheat fan manufactory, several carpenters, 1 house painter, and 1 hat manufactory. n In 1829, the General Assembly voted to incorporate Salem into a town. Both the Fincastle-Lewisburg and the Christiansburg-Natural Bridge stage lines passed through Salem. This advantageous position allowed taverns to flourish. In the portion of Botetourt County which became Roanoke County in 1838, there were 23 licensed tavern keepers. Few men in Roanoke County prior to 1850 could be classified as wealthy, and most of those did not own more than 10 slaves. ,z There were, however, numerous large landholders who lived in the county during its early years; among them are nine men whose estate inven­ tories are included in this study. ' 3 Poverty must have been a concern of the county at this time because in 1840, the justices ordered that a poorhouse be built at Mason’s Cove. ' 4 Roanoke County showed evidence of progress during the twelve years with which this research is concerned. In 1849, a circulating library was organized; in 1846, the Roanoke Savings Bank was incorpo­ rated, later to be called the Bank of Roanoke; and the Roanoke Gazette began monthly publication in 1849 with subscriptions costing 20 cents per year. The population of the county grew during the decade from 5,499 in 1840 to 8,477 in 1850. Population growth was further stimulated by the arrival of the Virginia-Tennessee Railroad in 1852. Inventoried Articles Furniture The most common pieces of furniture in the'estates studied were chairs. All but two of the 40 inventories contained at least a few chairs; sets of six or 12 were the most customary. Excepting one rocking, two arm, one writing chair, and those merely listed as “chairs,” Windsor and split-bottom chairs comprised the overwhelming majority. The average appraised value of a split-bottom chair was 25 cents, and that of a Windsor ranged from 50 cents to one dollar. Even the wealthiest group owned no chairs more elaborate than Windsors of the split-bottom variety; as the wealth of the groups increased, the number of these two 37 �types of chairs increased. The average number of chairs owned by the average family in each group may be learned by dividing the total number of inventories con­ tained in each group into their total number of chairs. Following these calculations, households in group one possessed seven chairs, those in group two had 10, and those in the third group owned 25 chairs. Con­ sidering the size of their houses, the quantity of chairs recorded on the upper group’s inventories is astounding. 15 Only one estate in this group contained fewer than 20 chairs and most entries were sets of 12. Chairs must have lined the walls of their houses and been used in every room in order for this large a quantity to have been used. Since this “wealthy” group owned only Windsors and split-bottom chairs, these types appear to have been used for all purposes, in every room from the parlour to the kitchen. In each group, the number of chairs recorded far surpasses the quantity of other furniture forms. Tables were found on all of the inventories and were described as being small, large, long, round, half-round, or as having falling leaves. Table forms included side tables, center tables, toilet tables, dressing tables and dining tables. Woods were not usually mentioned, but when they were, walnut, cherry, and pine were the most common. Fallingleaf tables were the most numerous in each of the groups. Households in both the lower and middle groups owned an average of two tables, and those in the upper group had six. Candlestands were also found in each of the groups, though many households were without them. Inventories in groups one and two recorded merely “one candlestand,” but those in the third group mentioned the wood of which they were made. This distinction of woods suggests higher quality pieces of furniture in the upper group. Both mahogany and walnut candlestands were listed. The appraised values of candlestands ranged from 50 cents to two dollars each. Only four inventories out of the 40 examined did not include some type of chest. References were made to bureaus, chests, chests of drawers, dressers, cupboards, and comer cupboards. When the type of wood was mentioned, it was either pine or walnut. No further descrip­ tions were given other than the few entries of “one fine bureau,” “one fancy bureau,” and “one old-fashioned bureau.” Corner cupboards were numerous in the middle and upper groups, but inventories in group one usually listed simply “one cupboard.” Households in group one usually owned three chests, those in group two had three to four, and those in group three, only two. Members of the upper group probably owned fewer chests because they had more pieces of furniture designed for a specific purpose, such as sideboards, presses and secretaries. Those in the lower groups used chests for the purposes these more sophisticated pieces of furniture served. Desks were owned by families in each of the three groups, but only 14 desks were recorded on the 40 inventories. They are referred 38 �to as fall desks, writing desks, secretaries and secretary-bookcases. Only two inventories mentioned desk woods; these noted one pine desk and one cherry secretary and bookcase. Other furniture forms inventoried were settees, wash stands, workstands, wardrobes, bookcases, presses and sideboards. The majority of these specialized pieces were owned by households in groups two and three. Inventories in group one recorded only one workstand and one settee. Families in this lower group owned mainly essential, practical, plain pieces of furniture such as chairs, tables, chests, and beds. Beds, bedsteads, and bedding were entered on all 40 inventories. In the 19th century, the word “bed” did not refer to the bed frame and mattress as it does today; it meant simply the tick or sack filled with straw or feathers upon which one slept. The “bedstead” is the wooden frame of a bed and the “bedding” or “furniture” refers to the bed clothes. Most inventories recorded the bed, bedstead, and bedding together and several listed additional beds and bedding. Types of beds mentioned were chaff ticks, straw beds, feather beds and mattresses, the material of which was not described. A wide variety of bedding was listed in the inventories. Counterpanes owned by each of the groups were defined as woolen, cotton, yam, knotted or fringed. They were appraised for be­ tween 50 cents and five dollars apiece. Coverlets, frequently spelled “cover lids,” ranged in value from one dollar and a half to three dollars and a half. “Comforts” and quilts were also common bedding items. Only one bedspread was inventoried and that belonged to a family in the wealthier group. None of the inventories in the lowest group listed any sheets or pillow slips, other than those which may have been in­ cluded in the lot of “bedding.” Those in groups two and three do specifically mention both cotton and linen sheets, in addition to their entries of “bedding.” Only one bolster was inventoried and no pillows were recorded in any of the 40 inventories. The bedsteads were usually not described in the inventories with the exception of “one curtain bedstead” and four “acorn” bedsteads which probably referred to the shape of the bed post finials. Several trundle beds, cradles, and cribs for children were recorded. The number of beds owned by households in each group was about the same; the average quantity was four or five. The appraised value of one bed, bedstead, and furniture, varied from 35 dollars to one dollar and a half; the average value was about eight and a half dollars. When bed­ steads were listed alone, without bedding, their average value was two dollars and 25 cents. Comparing the average appraised value of a bed­ stead, with that of a bedstead, bed, and furniture, proves that the bedding was worth much more than the bed frame. Window Hangings Curtains were scarce in the inventories of this study. None of the 39 �Windows of group one’s houses were-curtained and only three families in the second group owned window hangings. Three inventories in the third group included curtains; one listed three window curtains, another six and that of Aaron Barnes, a tavern-keeper, recorded 10 window curtains. The rarity of window hangings in this mid-19th century in­ ventory study is surprising, because most households appear to have produced their own cloth. Thirty-one inventories listed looms or spin­ ning wheels of some sort. 16 Apparently, the cloth which was produced was used for clothing rather than window curtains. Most Roanoke County residents probably did not have the time or money to spend on non-essential window hangings. Miscellaneous Linen Inventories in the lowest group listed only “one lot of table cloths” and no towels. Less than half of the households in the middle group owned towels or table linen. Three of the five inventories in the upper group listed towels and table cloths. As with window curtains, the small amount of linen indicates the frugality with which fabric was used at the time. Floor Coverings Very little carpeting was recorded in the inventories examined. Group one owned no rugs, some were found in the middle group, but even most of the “wealthy” households contained no carpeting. Types of floor coverings mentioned in the inventories were rag carpet, linen carpet, and Worstead carpet. Books Members of the lower group do not appear to have had the time, money, or education required for literary indulgence. Only four of their inventories include any books, three of which state only “one lot books.” One inventory in the group lists a Bible and a Testament, valued together at one dollar. Most families in the middle group owned at least “one lo t” of books. Most inventories did not specify book titles; however, some more meticulous appraisers listed the following titles: three Bibles, one “James Bible,” one volume Memoirs o f the War, one Christian Martyr, and one Life o f Christ. Untitled “lots” of books included those written by English, Dutch, and German authors. All but one inventory in group three listed some books. Titles were given in three appraisals. Aaron Barnes, a tavern-keeper, owned four books of the Census o f the United States and one Hening’s Justice, a work dealing with Virginia justice. 17 Barnes probably kept 40 �A { copies of the latest census report for his customers to browse through while in the tavern. Most of the books in group three were owned by Thomas Micau, who was probably a minister, judging by his selection of reading material. They included: one Scott’s Bible in three volumes, one Josephus in two volumes (Flavius Josephus was a learned Jewish historian and celebrated Warrior), 18 one Davis Sermons, one Pagson’s Sermons, one Philosophy o f Religion, one Book o f Martyrs, and one Theological Dictionary. Other works owned by Micau were: one Napoleon in two volumes, one Byron in two volumes, one Brown Dictionary, one Signers o f Independence, one Lady o f the Manor, one Spectator in eight volumes, one Miss Lesslie’s, one Virginia Magazine in three volumes, and one Tatter and Guardian. This enumeration of book titles is very revealing of Thomas Micau’s occupation and literary tastes. Lighting Devices In each of the three groups there were some inventories which listed no lighting devices. This omission raises the question of the appraisals’ accuracy; however, on the basis of what was recorded, it appears that lighting devices were not so numerous as one might expect. Group one owned a total of nine candlesticks, no candle snuffers, and no lamps. Eight inventories in this group recorded no sort of lighting devices. Twelve inventories in the middle group omitted lighting devices; but the group has a total of 29 candlesticks, seven pair of snuffers, and one lantern. Lighting devices were found on all but one of the inventories in group three. They included 19 candlesticks, three pair of candle snuffers, one glass lamp, and one kitchen lamp. As the groups’ wealth increases, so does the number of lighting devices. When the material of candlesticks was mentioned, it was always brass. Judging from the number of lighting devices recorded in these inven­ tories, mid-19th century homes in Roanoke County were rather dimly lit. H eating Devices | i .1 The accuracy of these inventories may again be questioned in considering the records of heating devices. Some inventories of groups one and two listed no andirons, fire dogs, or stoves. Living conditions without heat would have been impossible in the mid-19th century. Overlooking these omissions, one may conclude that stoves were very rare and that fireplaces were still the main source of heat in Roanoke County at this time. Only six stoves were recorded in all 40 inventories. Two of these were listed among the kitchen items and were described as “one cooking stove” and “one stove.” Other stoves inventoried were “one tin plate stove with pipes,” “one sheet iron stove and piping,” “one sheet iron stove,” and “one large stove and pipe.” Most inven41 �tories recorded at least one pair of andirons or fire dogs. Usually the material of andirons was not given, but there are records of one pair of brass and one pair of wrought iron andirons. The number of pairs of shovels and tongs corresponds to the number of pairs of andirons in most cases. The only other heating equipment contained in the inven­ tories was one fire fender. The number of rooms a house had may be surmised from the number of pair of andirons in the estate. Most of the inventories in the first group list only one pair of andirons which suggest that these “poorest” families lived in one-room homes. Inven­ tories in group two list between one and three pair of andirons, one the average. Their houses probably contained one to four rooms. House­ holds of the third group contained as many as five pair of andirons and the average size of their houses was probably from four to six rooms. Ornaments This category includes paintings, prints, maps, and miscellaneous pictures. From the inventories studied, it appears that works of art were not abundant in Roanoke County at this time. The “wealthy” group owned four framed pictures; group two had one map and one “portrait of a lady,” owned by George H. Sarver, and the lowest group possessed no pictures of any sort. Ceramics and Glass The quantity of ceramics and glassware owned is a good indicator of the comparative wealth of the three groups. Estates in the lowest group included neither of these items. Most households in the middle group did not own any ceramics or glass; however, some of their inven­ tories did list a few odd dishes, one “lot” of earthenware or crockery, stone pitchers, and assorted glassware. A total of eight waiters, stands or trays on which china was stored, were inventoried. One appraisal in this group mentions china ware and “Gable” (Gabel) ware. Gabel pottery was so named because it was first produced by a factory in Gabel, Bohemia. Its forms included jugs, round and octagonal plates, and cups and saucers which were made of red or white earthenware. The pottery was often decorated with molded reliefs of flowers and Oriental or European figures, or sometimes by cold enamel painting.'9 The quantity of ceramics and glassware was much greater in the estates of group three. Every inventory in the group listed some items in this category. Their glassware consisted of tumblers, both “plain” and those of “moulded glass,” wine glasses, cut glass “salts,” and decanters. Their ceramic entries included some miscellaneous bowls, pitchers, plates, and dishes. But inventories in the third group frequent­ ly recorded specific types of china. Liverpool dishes, willow plates, “stake” dishes, Queen’s ware, and one Lustre pitcher were mentioned. 42 �Eight waiters were listed on which the china could be stored. Liverpool plates, dishes, and pitchers appeared on two appraisals. Liverpool pottery was first produced in England in 1710 and was manufactured until 1840. It was made in various forms, including rough, earthenwares, refractories, salt-glazed stonewares, delftwares, porcelain, pearlwares, and creamwares. Transfer-printing was used extensively on Liverpool ceramics after 1750. This was a process by which a “design printed from an engraving on to thin paper could be pressed on to a piece of ware and transferred to it. The designs were printed from copper plates, in one color, and reproduced the linear effect of a copper­ plate engraving.” 2 ’ During the 1770’s and 1780’s, Liverpool held ex­ hibitions of such artists as Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough. The works of these artists were portrayed on Liverpool pottery; the “farmyard” pattern is taken from a Gainsborough painting. 2 2 This quality of late 18th century Liverpool pottery separates it from the cruder, more naive styles found in much of Staffordshire printing. 2 3 American exports played an important part in Liverpool’s pottery industry. In 1807, the pottery was being shipped to New York, Phila­ delphia, Wilmington, Boston, Virginia, New Providence, New Orleans, Charleston, and Savannah. The volume of exports to America was so great that English potters “in the interests of trade, produced designs which were politically almost treasonable.” 24 An example of such a design is one which pictures an American soldier standing with his foot on the head of the British lion, with the following statement above: “ ‘By Virtue and Valour we have freed our country, extended our commerce and laid the foundation of a great Empire.’ ” 25 Other Liverpool transfer prints designed for the American market include: at least eight prints dedicated to Washington, several portraits of other American Presidents and heroes, maps of Newburyport Harbour and Lafayette’s plan for the new capital of Washington, and subjects sym­ bolizing “Liberty” in the new republic.26 Three dozen Willow plates were recorded on Lewis Harvey’s inventory. “The term ‘willow pattern’ has been used so indiscriminately by ceramic historians that it is now virtually impossible to be sure what they were, or are, describing.” 27 The true willow pattern depicts a legend of two young lovers who are fleeing across a bridge, being pursued by the girl’s father who is holding a whip; the lovers are eventually transformed into doves. The standard willow pattern must contain the bridge, a cottage or pagoda at the far end of it, three figures, a boat, and two birds, for “without these elements there is no story.” 2 8 The willow pattern was produced by transfer-printing on pearlware with a blue underglaze. The pattern dominated the useful wares in the 1820’s and its “place in American life throughout the nineteenth century . . . established the ware as one of the landmarks of European civilization.” 29 Another type of china recorded on group three’s inventories was 43 �“stake” dishes. A discussion of “st.ake”’ dishes has not yet been found; but since these dishes appeared on four different inventories spelled the same on each, the term was apparently in common use at the time. All “stake” dishes appear on inventories in the upper group and the word is never capitalized, so it is probable that they were simply dishes used for meat or fish as their name suggests. Because these dishes were listed among ceramic items such as Willow plates and Liverpool pitchers, it is assumed that “stake” dishes were also made of fired clay. The inventory of Henry Snider’s estate was the only one which recorded Queen’s ware. Queen’s ware was cream-colored pottery being produced in great quantities in England by the mid-1700’s.3 0 The introduction of the factory system in England in 1740 and their adoption of the French slip-casting method revolutionized the English pottery industry at this time. 31 The process of slip-casting involved the use of plaster of paris molds and required only semi-skilled labor, which was readily available in England. 3 2 Josiah Wedgwood is responsible for improving the common “cream colored” ware, a white earthenware covered with a cream colored lead glaze, and giving it the name “Queen’s ware.” 3 3 The name was chosen by him in honor of Queen Charlotte who admired the pottery and gave Wedgwood the appointment of Potter to the Queen.3 4 Although most of the surviving Queen’s ware has been traced to the Wedgwood and Leads design books, there were many contemporary factories also making the pottery. 35 In 1775, Wedgwood spoke of “ ‘one hundred manufactories of Queen’s ware.’ ”3 6 Early creamware may be distinguished by its thinness; after 1775, the addition of Cornish china-clay and china-stone made the body of the china stronger. 37 A deep yellow color is also characteristic of early creamware; however, color is not always a reliable dating m eans.3 8 The object’s placement in the kiln causes color variations and a single piece of creamware may be darker in some spots where the glaze has run down and pooled.3 9 English pottery factories shipped much of their Queen’s ware to America. In a letter to Sir William Meredith, Josiah Wedgwood com­ mented on his export market: “ ‘The bulk of our particular manufac­ tures are, you know, exported to foreign markets, for our home consumption is very trifling in comparison, to what is sent abroad.’ ” 4 0 Although Queen’s ware was very popular in America, the lowest priced items seem to have sold best. A 1784 letter from Jonathan Jackson in London to the shipping firm of Thompson and Gordon, regarding a cargo of goods to be traded in Boston, described the American market at that time. He wrote: In the American Trade can give you sufficient Information I suppose-the most Saleable is the Queen’s Ware-Tea cups and Saucers Tea pots and Cream Jugs and Table plates Mugs 44 �and Bowls are most in Demand—have few Dishes Tureens or any fancy Articles for they are heavy and order chiefly the lowest priced.4 i Queen’s ware was manufactured in several different designs; but, America preferred the plainest patterns such as the Trencher or Royal pattern, just as they bought the simplest, most practical pieces. 42 Although Wedgwood pottery was exported to the American colonies, most Americans probably did not discriminate from which factory they purchased their Queen’s ware. Ivor Hume believes that “to the average general storekeeper and to his average customer, Queen’s ware was Queen’s ware, and cauliflower ware was cauliflower ware, no matter who made it.” 4 3 The fact that only one inventory in this study listed any Queen’s ware reveals much about mid-19th century Roanoke County. Queen’s ware was exported to America at a tremendous volume and there are records of its shipment to Virginia; but apparently, very little was owned in Roanoke County. The general poverty of the area and its rural setting may account for the scarcity of Queen’s ware and ceramics common to other areas of the country at the time. Silver Silver appears to have been a luxury item in mid-19th century Roanoke County. Only seven inventories recorded silver and these appraisals all belong to groups two and three. The middle group listed a total of six tea spoons, three “sets” silver tea spoons, twelve “large silver spoons,” and one “set” table spoons. Silver recorded on inventories in the upper group included 27 tea spoons and twelve table spoons. The average value of a silver tea spoon was 55 cents and that of a silver table spoon was $1.95. Except for one pair of sugar tongs, the only silver articles listed were spoons. Two of the inventories recorded only a halfdozen table spoons” and no other pieces of flatware, which suggests that they were used as serving spoons. The large majority of county residents apparently used knives, forks, and spoons of materials other than silver. Pewter and Miscellaneous Metals Only four inventories mentioned pewter in their appraisals. All pewter was found in the second group and included one set pewter plates, two pewter dishes, pewter basins, and one “parcel of pewter ware.” The less expensive, lightweight Britannia metal and tinware must have replaced pewter in Roanoke County at this time. Britannia metal was an alloy of tin, antimony, and copper which resembled pewter, but was lighter in weight and whiter in tone. 44 Inventories list one Britannia tea pot and three Britannia castors. The 45 �metal became a popular substitute, for pewter because it was less expensive. 45 Production costs of Britannia metal were lower than those of pewter because it could be rolled in sheets and then spun into thin-walled vessels over inexpensive wooden molds. Neither bronze molds nor hand finishing was necessary. Britannia metal was developed in England during the mid-19th century when pewter manufacturers began to suffer from Sheffield plate competition.4 6 Beginning in 1816, large quantities of Britannia wares were shipped to America and in 1824, W. Crossman established a factory in Taunton, Massachusetts.47 German silver forks and table spoons were recorded on two inventories. German silver or “nickel silver” was not silver at all, but an alloy of 50 percent copper, 25 percent zinc, and 25 percent nickel.4 8 The wares resembled silver in appearance, though they were slightly more gray in color.4 9 German silver was developed between 1840 and 1847. Tinware Items made of tin were found on inventories in all three groups. Tin cups, knives, forks, spoons, and wash basins were listed, in addition to several “lots” of tinware. Tinware was inexpensive, as compared to other metal goods, and could be easily purchased from peddlers’ wagons in rural areas such as Roanoke County. Practicality also contributed to tinware’s popularity. It was lightweight, easy to mend, and could be used for cooking or eating utensils. Cooking Utensils There was little disparity between the upper, middle, and lower groups’ inventories in the category of cooking utensils. Every household, regardless of their income, had to possess some kitchen utensils in order to survive. Three appraisals did not include any cooking implements; however, the omission of such essential articles may have been the result of appraisers’ oversights or an intentional removal of goods by the de­ ceased’s family. The frequent occurrence of pot racks, pot hooks, fire dogs and sets of shovels and tongs among the kitchen items in the appraisals indicates that most Roanoke County households were still cooking in fireplaces in the mid-19th century. Only two stoves were recorded among the cooking devices in all 40 inventories. These were described as one “cooking stove” and one “stove.” Cooking implements used in fire­ places such as bake ovens, reflecting bakers, and biscuit bakers appeared on most inventories. Estate appraisals in every group recorded some basic cooking utensils such as pots, pans, skillets, and kettles. These items were made of iron, copper brass, and “bell mettle” (metal). Specific types of pots mentioned were coffee pots, tea kettles and 46 �“kettles for ash hoppers.” Inventories listed an assortment of kitchen containers including crocks, jugs, bottles, barrels, kegs, baskets, and sacks. In addition to these basic kitchen items, most inventories listed a few specialized cooking implements. Among these were coffee mills, coffee toasters, com meal sieves, sifters, waffle irons, sausage stuffers, sausage cutters, chums, lard stands, ladles, flesh forks, dough trays, and scales and weights. Washing and cleaning equipment listed in the inventories included washing tubs, one “washing machine,” flat irons, and one “kettle and bob.” A “bob” was an apparatus used for polishing metal. It consisted of leather or cloth-covered disks which revolved rapidly on a spindle, and was sometimes used with sand for a high polish. 5 ’ The number of kitchen implements owned by households, particuarly those in groups one and two, greatly exceeds the amount of silver, pewter, ceramics, linen, curtains, rugs, or lighting devices possessed. The predominance of cooking utensils and furniture in the inventories indicates a generally simple, practical, frugal way of life in Roanoke County during this time. Miscellaneous Items Some articles inventoried did not fit into a specific category. Clocks were one such item. Most every appraisal in each'of the three groups listed some type of clock. Types mentioned were 30-hour and eight-day clocks, brass and wooden clocks, comer clocks and “Yankee clocks.” The term “Yankee” clock probably refers to an Americanmade clock, or simply to one manufactured in a northern city which a Virginia appraiser considered “Yankee.” Looking glasses were recorded on inventories in each group, but they were scarce in the lower group. Most appraisals in the upper and middle groups listed at least one looking glass. The only specific types of mirrors mentioned were two gilt frame looking glasses, one “dressing glass,” and one “oval looking glass.” This “oval looking glass,” which was appraised at $5, probably referred to a Federal style mirror. Miscellaneous household goods were recorded on inventories in each group. Those in the upper group included inkstands, knife boxes, trays, a “tea board,” a castor, and a “tribbet” (trivit). Inventories in the middle group listed picture frames, inkstands, knife boxes, and trunks. The lower group’s appraisals also listed several trunks, two safes, and two knife boxes. Two inventories in this study list simply “one lot trumpery” which must have been the appraisers’ polite expression for a collection of junk. Miscellaneous dishes, knives, forks, and spoons of unspecified materials were recorded on inventories in each group. Dishes included pitchers, wash bowls, sugar bowls, plates, preserve dishes, and cups and saucers. The inventory appraising the estate of Aaron Barnes recorded 47 �one “broken set of ivory handled knives and forks.” Other than this reference, and those mentioned previously about German silver, inven­ tories did not specify the material of which knives and forks were made. The “lots” and “sets” of knives, forks, and spoons were probably made of tin since their material was not significant enough to have been mentioned by the appraisers. Looms and wheels of all sorts were numerous in households of each group. Looms were usually recorded as “one loom and tackings” or “one loom with gear stays.” Wheels included those for cotton, wool, flax, quill, and those simply termed “spinning wheels.” Flax wheels were frequently listed with hackels, which were comb-like instruments used for splitting and smoothing the fibres of flax or hemp. 5 2 Only nine households in this study were without looms and spinning wheels. Their predominance indicates that home-made cloth was still the norm in Roanoke County in the 1840’s. Conclusion The 40 estate appraisals in this study indicate that Roanoke County was not a wealthy area in the mid-’19th century. The fact that 11 inven­ tories comprise the lower group; 24 the middle group; and only five inventories, the upper group, is indicative of the general standard of living in the county at this time. Few striking differences appear be­ tween groups one and two. The only distinctions are a few entries of silver or ceramics on the middle group’s inventories, and an occasional mention of a piece of furniture’s wood on appraisals in this group. Great disparities do exist between the inventories in groups one and three. The lower group’s appraisals record no silver or ceramics, and very few table linens or specialized pieces of furniture, all of which are very common to the upper group’s inventories. This upper group is comprised of only five estate appraisals; this fact indicates that the majority of county residents at this time were, either out of practicality or necessity, very frugal people. Because Roanoke County was predominantly rural in the 1840’s, the majority of its residents were farmers who were not exposed to the popular tastes and modern innovations of more urban areas and who, for the most part, could not afford non-essential household items. The recording of only Windsor and split-bottom chairs, even on inventories in the “wealthy” group, reveals the lack of aesthetic concerns in the county. The very small number of stoves listed on these inventories indicates that Roanoke County residents could not afford, or were not widely aware of, heating devices other than fireplaces. The quantity of farming equipment and livestock recorded- on estate appraisals in this research suggests that most of the Roanoke County residents were farmers. Items listed on a few inventories did indicate that their owners were of non-agricultural occupations. John 48 �Hartman appears to have been a carpenter from some of the items in his estate. These articles include: saws, chisels, planes, tongue and groove planes, sash planes, window sashes, floor plank, walnut plank, maple plank, varnish, and paint. Also recorded on Hartman’s estate appraisal were three notebooks and numerous untitled books. These notebooks could have contained his drawings for buildings, measurements, con­ struction techniques, or his customers’ accounts. These notebooks, added to the assortment of building supplies and tools inventoried, strongly suggest that John Hartman was a carpenter in Roanoke County. An article on Gustavus Sedon in the 1977 Journal o f the Roanoke Valley Historical Society, gives further indication that John N. Hartman was a local carpenter. 5 3 This article mentions a George M. Hartman as having served an apprenticeship with Sedon, a carpenter and architect in the Roanoke Valley during the mid-19th century. Sedon’s journal states that George Hartman worked for him from November, 1867 until May, 1868. Since George Hartman was apprenticed to Sedon in the 1860’s, it is probable that he was the son of John Hartman, who died in the 1840’s; the younger Hartman probably followed his father’s example to become a carpenter. The appraisal of Thomas Micau’s estate itemized an extensive collection of books. The titles of these books indicate that Micau was a clergyman. Theological volumes included: Davis Sermons, Pagson’s Sermons, Philosophy o f Religion, Book o f Martyrs, Scotts Bible, and Theological Dictionary. It is unlikely that anyone but a minister would have owned a theological dictionary and such a large number of books having religious subjects. Another inventory in this study indicates that Roanoke County had a cabinetmaker. Samuel Coon, whose estate was appraised in 1838, possessed numerous cabinetmaking tools. Among these were: molding planes, beading planes, dove-tail planes, hand saws, files, chisels, a lathe, scantling, 84 compasses, “nob” locks, chest locks, screws, paints, mortising, walnut plank, maple plank and cherry plank. Coon must have been a cabinetmaker rather than just a carpenter, because he owned such items as dove-tail planes, “nob” locks, and chest locks. Coon’s possession of both a lathe and dove-tail planes proves that as late as 1838, there was no distinction between turners and joiners in this area. The estate inventory of Aaron Barnes is obviously that of a tavernkeeper. Indications that this was Barnes’ occupation are the entries of one tavern bell, four bar room towels and the great quantities of beds, chairs, tables, candlesticks, flatware, dishes, and glassware. The inven­ tory recorded 14 beds, one crib, 12 tables, 43 chairs and 12 candlesticks. Only a tavern could require so many of these items. Twenty-four of the chairs were Windsors, 18 were split-bottom and one was a writing chair. The inventory listed six falling leaf tables, two pine tables, one 49 �walnut table and three of no particular description. The material of which the candlesticks were made was not specified. The establishment must have had at least seven rooms because seven pairs of andirons were recorded. Every room may have had window curtains as there were eight entries of curtains. Barnes seems to have run a well-equipped, high quality tavern: his customers ate from Liverpool plates; drank from glass tumblers and used German silver forks and spoons, silver sugar tongs, and cut glass salt cellars. The tavern must have offered lodging because of the large number of beds recorded. These included four “acorn” bedsteads, one “curtain” bedstead, one trundle bed, one crib, and eight bedsteads which were not described. Besides offering them a bed, Barnes must have contented weary travelers with plenty of food and drink. His inventory lists 35 gallons of applebrandy, 35 gallons of whiskey, 10 gallons of French brandy and 27 gallons of sweet wine. Oddly, no beer was inventoried. Perhaps the beverage’s perishable nature accounts for its absence on the appraisal. The large quantities of cooking utensils listed indicate a well-stocked kitchen that prepared a great deal of food. Among the appraised cooking utensils were a waffle iron, a sausage cutter, a churn, biscuit bakers, and soup ladles. This selection of implements indicates that waffles, sausage, biscuits, butter, and soup were among the items served at the tavern. Checking the Common Law Orders record after examining this inventory confirmed the evidence that Aaron Barnes was a tavern-keeper. The record of the February 17, 1845 court session, held in Salem, reads: On the motion of Sarah Barnes, it is ordered that the License granted by the Court to Aaron Barnes for keeping a house of Entertainment, be transferred to the said Sarah Barnes, from the time of death of said Aaron until May first n e x t.8 s From the number of andirons and fire dogs recorded on the inven­ tories in this study, the number of rooms in houses has been ascertained. Following these calculations, the average houses in groups one and two appear to have had only one room. Inventories in the third group list many more pairs of andirons than those in the lower groups. Houses in the upper group appear to have had an average of four rooms. These estimates based on the number of heating devices inventoried, show that the majority of Roanoke County families were living in one-room dwellings, probably log cabins, in the 1840’s. Even the homes of those in the “wealthy” group were not overly large. The sharp difference between the size of houses of those in groups one and two, and of those in group three, reinforces the earlier conclusion that the general standard of.living in the county was low at this time. This research has shown that Roanoke County was in a state of flux during the mid-19th century. The transition from traditional means of heating, lighting, and cooking to more modem methods may be seen in the inventories studied. The majority of the heating devices listed 50 �were those used with fireplaces such as andirons, fire dogs, shovels, pokers and tongs; but a few inventories listed both fireplace implements and tin plate or sheet iron stoves. The use of both fireplaces and stoves for sources of heat is indicative of the changing trends during the period. Two inventories recorded stoves with the kitchen items; however, most households still relied upon fireplaces for cooking. The predominance of fireplace cookery is evident from the large number of pot racks, pot hooks, reflecting bakers and biscuit bakers recorded. These implements could only be used in a fireplace. Lighting devices recorded were also a mixture of the traditional and the modem. Candlesticks were the norm, but a lantern and two lamps were also listed. The amalgamation of im­ plements recorded in these 40 Roanoke County estate inventories reveals the transitional state of the mid-19th century. The predomi­ nance of traditional household implements over more modern ones in the estates, indicates that all Roanoke County residents were not able to take advantage of the technological advances of the age. The general poverty and rural character of Roanoke County during the 1840’s may explain its households’ limited furnishings and its people’s simple lives. N a m e s o f T h o s e W h o se E s t a t e In v e n to r ie s A r e In c lu d e d in T h is S t u d y G ro u p 1 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. Samuel T. Barnes James Godwin William Henry Thomas Robinson Andrew Shartzer Henry Showalter Jacob Smith Henry Snider Lawrence Speagle Paul Thrasher Jane Tilson G ro u p 2 1838 1842 1841 1849 1844 1841 1847 1843 1843 1849 1848 G ro u p 3 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Aaron Bames Lewis Harvey Thomas W. Micau Henry Snider William Walton 1845 1842 1846 1843 1845 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. Benjamin Barnhart Soloman Brown Samuel Coon Charles Dillard William M. Evans William Farley Henry M. Frantz David Gish Jane Gosh George Grounds John N. Hartman John Hartz Philip Moomaw James Murry JohnPoage Green Richardson George H. Sarver Michael Stover David Willet Joseph Winger Joseph Wood John Woods Joseph Woods John E. Wright 1841 1843 1845 1841 1839 1846 1844 1849 1841 1842 1844 1847 1844 1840 1840 1848 1845 1841 1844 1841 1848 1842 1849 1844 51 �NOTES 1 Sir W illiam B lack sto n e, C O M M E N T A R IES O N T H E LAW S O F E N G L A N D (P hiladel­ p h ia: J . B. L ip p in c o tt C o m p a n y , 1 8 9 3 ), p p . 5 0 8 -5 2 0 . 2 B lack sto n e, p . 5 0 9 . 3 T H E CO D E O F V IR G IN IA (R ic h m o n d : W illiam F . R itc h ie , P ublic P rin te r, 1 8 4 9 ), p. 5 4 7 . 4 CO D E O F V IR G IN IA , p . 5 4 2 5 CO D E O F V IR G IN IA , p . 5 4 3 . 3 M ost o f th e o b scu re ite m s, slang re fe ren ce s, a n d o b so le te te rm s w ere d efin ed in th e O X F O R D E N G LISH D IC T IO N A R Y o r in F lem ing a n d H o n o u r’s D IC T IO N A R Y O F T H E D E C O R A T IV E A R T S . 7 M ore d e fin ite co n clu sio n s c o u ld b e re a c h e d b y ex am in in g w ills, ju d g e m e n ts, a n d lan d co n v ey an ces w h ich m ig h t reveal c h ild re n ’s n am es, d e sc rip tio n s o f h o u se s an d th e ir lo c a tio n s, a m o u n ts o f lan d o w n e d , an d legal an d financial tra n sa c tio n s o f v ario u s c o u n ty resid en ts. 8 W orkers o f th e W riters’ P rogram o f th e W ork P ro je cts A d m in istra tio n in th e S ta te of V irginia, R O A N O K E : S T O R Y O F C IT Y A N D C O U N TY (R o a n o k e : S to n e P rin tin g an d M anu­ factu rin g C o m p an y , 1 9 4 2 ), p . 79. 9 W PA, p . 8 0. 4 0 Ib id . 11 Ib id . 12 W PA, p . 8 5 . 4 3 W PA, p . 86. 44 W PA, p . 8 7 . 4 3 T he p ro b ab le n u m b e r o f ro o m s in each h o u se , as in d ic a te d b y th e n um ber, o f fire ­ places, h as b e e n d ed u ced fro m th e q u a n tity o f an d iro n s re c o rd e d o n each in v e n to ry . T hese co n clu sio n s are discussed in th e se c tio n o f th is p a p e r e n title d “ H eatin g D evices. 4 6 F o r a m o re d e ta ile d d e s c rip tio n o f lo o m s an d sp inning w heels in v e n to rie d , see se ctio n e n title d “ M iscellaneous Ite m s.” 4 7 L y n d a E . J o n e s, T H E A M ER IC A N C A T A L O G U E : A U T H O R A N D T IT L E E N T R IE S O F BOO KS IN P R IN T AND F O R S A L E , JU L Y 1 ,1 8 7 6 (N ew Y o rk : P eter S m ith , 1 9 4 1 ), p .3 3 4 . 48 N A T IO N A L U N IO N C A T A L O G U E , 1 9 7 4 e d „ V o l. 8 (W ashington, D .C .: L ib rary o f Congress, 1 9 7 5 ), p. 9 3 1 . 4 9 J o h n F lem ing an d H ugh H o n o u r, D IC T IO N A R Y O F T H E D E C O R A T IV E A R T S (N ew Y o rk : H arp er an d R o w P ublishers, 1 9 7 7 ), p . 3 1 3 . 2 0 A lan S m ith , T H E IL L U S T R A T E D G U ID E TO L IV E R P O O L H E R C U L A N E U M P O T T E R Y (N ew Y o rk : P raeger P u b lish ers, In c ., 1 9 7 0 ) , p .2 . 24 A lison K elly, W EDGEW OOD W ARE (L o n d o n : W ard L o ck L im ite d , 1 9 7 0 ), P .12. 2 2 S m ith , p . 3 3 . 2 3 Ib id . 2 4 S m ith , p . 5 8. 2 3 Ib id . 2 8 S m ith , p . 6 1 . 27 Ivor N oel H u m e, “ C ream w are to P earlw are: A W illiam sburg P ersp ectiv e,” in C ERA M IC S IN A M ER IC A , W in terth u r C o n feren ce R e p o rt, 1 9 7 2 , e d . Ia n M . G . Q uim by (C h arlo ttesv ille: T he U niversity Press o f V irginia, 1 9 7 3 ), p . 2 4 7 . 28 H um e, p. 249. 2 9 H u m e, p . 2 4 7 . 3 9 H aro ld G uilland, E A R L Y A M ER IC A N F O L K P O T T E R Y (P h ilad e lp h ia: C h ilto n B o o k C o m p a n y , 1 9 7 1 ), p . 3 1. 34 Ib id . 3 2 Ib id . 3 3 Ib id . 3 4 K elly , p . 8. 3 3 H u m e, p . 2 3 9 . 3 6 Ib id . 3 7 K elly , p . 8 . 3 8 H u m e, p . 2 3 9 . 3 9 Ib id . 52 �40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 G u illan d , p . 3 2 . H u m e, p . 2 2 4 . H u m e, p . 2 3 8 . H u m e, p . 2 2 4 . Flem ing and H onour, p. 1 1 9 . Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. 4 8 F lem ing an d H o n o u r, p . 55 9 4 9 Ibid 5 0 Ibid. P R IN C IP L E B : Tihe ¡C9larenAd o nNEW ON HISTORIC V^ o l., / «B B (O xIfo rd P ress,ENGLISH 1 8 8 8 ), p . 9DICTIONARY 58. 5 2 O xford English D ictionary, V ol. H , p. 1 1 . f k u n C IP L E S , THE JO U R N A L OF 8 4 A “ sc a n tlin g ” is d e fin ed in th e O x fo rd English D ictio n ary as “ a b u ild e r’s o r c a rp e n te r’s m easu rin g -ro d .” y o u u aers or C ou rth ouse.°M^ ° ^ f l ° R D E B S ’ B° ° k B August 4 8 4 3 J u n e 1 8 4 8 , R oanoke County BIBLIOGRAPHY T he A m erican C a t^ o g u e : A U T H O R A N D T IT L E E N T R IE S O F BOOKS IN P R IN T A N D F O R oALilL, JU L Y 1 ,1 8 7 6 . C om piled b y L y n d a E . Jo n e s. N ew Y o rk : P eter S m ith 1941 B lack sto n e, Sir W illiam . C O M M E N T A R IES ON T H E LAW S O F E N G LA N D . V ol I P h ilad el­ p h ia : J . B. L ip p in c o tt C o m p an y , 1 8 9 3 . T H E CO D E O F V IR G IN IA . R ic h m o n d : W illiam F . R itc h ie , P ublic P rin te r, 1 8 4 9 . COM MON LAW O R D E R S . B ook C. A ugust 1 8 4 3 J u n e 1 8 4 8 . R o a n o k e C o u n ty C o u rth o u se F lem in g , J o h n a n d H ugh H o n o u r. D IC T IO N A R Y O F T H E D E C O R A T IV E A R T S N ew Y orkH arp er an d R o w P ublishers, 1 9 7 7 . G u iU a n ^ ^ H a ro h L g E A R L Y A M ER IC A N F O L K P O T T E R Y . P hiladelphia: C h ilto n B ook HUm e’ iM F « T r ei ' P earlw are: A W illiam sburg P ersp ectiv e.” In CERA M IC S IN A“ E ^ IGA- W in te rth u r C onference R e p o rt, 1 9 7 2 . E d . Ian M . G. Q u irab y , C h a rlo ttesville. T he U n iversity P ress o f V irginia, 1 9 7 3 . m V E N T O R Y ^A P P R A K E M E N T S AND SALES. B ook I, 1 8 3 8 -1 8 4 9 . R o a n o k e C o u n ty K elly, A llison. W EDGEW OOD W A R E. L o n d o n : W ard, L o ck L im ite d , 1 9 7 0 . N A T I° 1 9 7 5 U N IO N C A T A L O G U E . 1 9 7 4 e d . V ol 8 . W ashington, D .C .: L ib rary o f Congress, A NEW E N G L IS H D IC T IO N A R Y O N H IS T O R IC P R IN C IP L E S . O x fo rd : T h e C laren d o n P ress, 1 8 8 8 . E d . Ja m es S . H . M urray ™ urray. S m ith , A lan T H E IL L U S T R A T E D G U ID E T O L IV E R P O O L H E R C U L A N E U M P O T T E R Y N ew Y o rk : P raeger P ublishers, In c ., 1 9 7 0 . W hite w ell, W illiam L ., an d L ee W. W inborne. “ T he S ed o n J o u r n a l.” JO U R N A L O F THE R O A N O K E V A L L E Y H IS T O R IC A L S O C IE T Y , V ol. 1 0 , N o. 1 (1 9 7 7 ), p p 1-27 W orkers o f t e e W riteB ’ fto g ra m o f th e W ork P ro jects A d m in istratio n in th e S ta te o f V irginia. R O A N O K E : S T O R Y O F C IT Y AND C O U N T Y . R o a n o k e : S to n e P rin tin g an d M a n u fac tu rin g C o m p an y , 1 9 4 2 . 53 �1 . T h e A le x a n d e r - W it h r o w H o u s e , 1 7 8 9 . P h o t o b y S a l l y M u n g e r M a n n . Lexington Architecture b y P a m e la H . S im p s o n There are several things that are significant about the architecture of Lexington, Virginia. One is that so much survives from the late 18th and 19th centuries. Lexington is and always has been a small town, largely untouched by the industrial expansion that altered the appear­ ance of so many communities. So many of its early buildings survive that it is possible to see a panoramic view of most of the major stylistic developments in American architecture from the late 18th to the early 20th century. Another important factor in Lexington’s architecture is the presence of work by three nationally known architects. Few small Virginia towns can boast as much. One reason for this unusual archiThis paper is based on a talk given to the Society on October 26, 1977, by Dr. Pamela Simpson, an assistant professor at Washington and Lee University. She is the co-author, with Royster Lyle o f Lexington, o f “The Architecture o f Historic Lexington,” published in 1977 by the University o f Virginia Press. A graduate o f Gettysburg College, she earned a master’s at the University o f Missouri and a doctorate at the University o f Delaware. Both degrees are in art history. �tectural heritage lies in the unique character of Lexington’s population. Because it is the home of two colleges and the county seat, it has had more than its share of educated, sophisticated people who were aware of current architectural thinking. Their mark is clearly left in the architecture of the community. Lexington and Rockbridge County were created by an act of the Virginia legislature in 1778. The southern part of Augusta County and the northern part of Botetourt were taken to create the new county and its seat was named in honor of the Battle of Lexington, Massa­ chusetts that had taken place only a few years before. Lexington was laid out in a simple grid pattern with three eastwest streets (Henry, Washington and Nelson) intersecting three northsouth ones (Jefferson, Main, and Randolph). All but one of the streets were named for men prominent in the revolution. The simple grid that looked so nice on paper had little to do with the actual topography of the town. The comer of Washington and Main was about 10 feet higher than it is today and Washington Street descended steeply on either side. Main Street itself sloped steeply to the north and even skirted a spring on its way. The difficulties of getting a horse and wagon up these hills were such that in 1851 Lexington undertook the project of regrading its streets —lowering Main at the top and raising Washington on either side. The result of this project can still be seen in the altered windows and doors of the houses in the historic district. The early buildings in Lexington were predominately log and frame, but there were also some substantial stone and brick structures. The “Castle” on Randolph Street, built c. 1790 by Andrew Reid, clerk of the County Court, served as his law office. Its random coursed fieldstone originally was covered with plaster on the exterior, in contrast to the even ashlar masonry of a building like Liberty Hall (1793) which left its stone exposed. The presence of 18th century stone structures in Lexington and the county (there are a number of large stone houses in this period) may owe something to the German in­ fluence of settlements in Augusta and Rockingham. Indeed, William Cravens, the mason for Liberty Hall, was from Rockingham County. Besides wood and stone, there was also at least one impressive brick building in Lexington in the 18th century. William Alexander built his house at the corner of Washington and Main in 1789 (Fig. 1). The Alexander-Whithrow House (as it is called today) is unusual because of its four corner fireplaces. Very few houses in the county have either feature. Its appearance today reflects the 1851 street lowering which gave it a whole story at the basementTevel. The former street doors were bricked over on the south and made to open onto a balcony on the east. Its present low Italianate roof line was also added in the mid 19th century. In 1796, Lexington was a substantial town with good buildings 55 �but in that year a conflagration occurred that is still called the “Great fire.” It apparently began in a livery stable above Nelson Street, but its flames got out of control and eventually destroyed most of the town. The “Castle” survived (as did the County Court records that were housed in it) and so did William Alexander’s house, though it was damaged. When Lexington began to rebuild in the early 19th century, its residents had learned the danger of building in wood. The red-brick Lexington that we know today is largely a result of this post-fire knowledge. Several common town-house plan types appeared in the early 19th century buildings in the community. The four rooms over four with a central hall was used in the Jacob Reid House (1811) and the two rooms in depth with a hall beside them appeared in the oldest part of the Central Hotel (1805). But by far the most common type was the I house: two rooms divided by a central hall. (The tall, skinny appearance of the house with only one room in depth makes it look something like a capitol I.) This house type appeared all over the Valley in the 19th century and usually represented an achievement of economic security in an agrarian community. Examples in Lexington include the original section of the Stonewall Jackson House (1801), the Sloan House (184445) and the Campbell House (1844-45). Most of the buildings put up in the early 19th century were basically vernacular in style, that is, they were built according to traditions. But in the second decade of the century a consciousness of more sophisticated architectural styles began to appear in the community. A good example of this is the center building at Washing­ ton College (1822-24) built by the firm of Jordan and Darst (Fig. 2). It has tall columns, a pediment and the general appearance of a Roman temple. The style it represents is Neoclassicism and the popularity of the form in Virginia is probably due to Thomas Jefferson who was its greatest exponent. He had designed the Virginia State Capitol in this form in 1789 and the University of Virginia in 1817-26. Jordan and Darst had done work for Jefferson at Monticello and bid on the work for the University of Virginia so they were certainly aware of the new style. But undoubtedly, so were the educated men on the Board of Trustees at the College. The neoclassical style represented a new romantic ideal in architecture, the idea of association. Buildings were appreciated not so much for their extrinsic aesthetic values, but instead for the ideas they stirred up in the imagination of the beholder. Certain styles stirred certain associations. Thus the classical buildings for a college gave rise to thoughts of classical learning, philosophy and culture. This principle of association — that certain styles from the past were appropriate for certain kinds of buildings dominated archi­ tectural thinking for the rest of the century. 56 �2 . C e n t e r B u ild in g , W a s h in g to n C o lle g e , 1 8 2 4 . D . C . H u m p h r e y s r e c o n ­ s t r u c t io n d r a w in g . C o u r t e s y W a s h in g to n a n d L e e U n iv e r s it y . In the 1830s and 40s, the general Roman character of classical building gave way to a more specific style - the Greek Revival. With greater archaeology, people realized that Roman and Greek buildings were different from each other and the Greek became appreciated in its own right. One reason for its popularity in the early 19th century was again association. Greece fought a war for independence against the Turks in the 1820s and Americans with their own newly won freedom identified with their struggle. Greece, the birthplace of democracy, had an architectural style, then, that seemed appropriate for this new democracy. The Greek Revival, popularized by famous architects and spread by architectural books, became something like a national style in the 1840s. Lexington’s finest example is the Lexington Presbyterian Church (1845, Fig. 3) designed by Thomas U. Walter, a nationally pro­ minent Philadelphia architect. But the Greek was not the only style used in the mid century. The same Presbyterians who used it for their church, chose the rural Gothic cottage style for their manse. Again, the reason was its appro­ priate associations. On the outskirts of town, surrounded by the irregularities of rural nature, a less formal and more picturesque style was seen as appropriate. The source for this style was the house pattern books popularized by Andrew Jackson Downing. Downing’s books were present in Lexington and widely read. They undoubtedly did much to form the taste of the mid-century country gentleman. Another example of the Gothic style, and a purer one, could be found in the Barracks that Alexander Jackson Davis designed for the Virginia Military Institute in 1850 (Fig. 4). Davis, a New York architect, is Lexington’s second example of a nationally prominent 57 �i IWi 3. Lexington Presbyterian Church, Thomas V. Walker, 1845. Photo by Sally Munger Mann. 58 �person at work in the community. The use of the Gothic style for a military college was again due to association. The battlements and Gothic forms made one think of medieval castles and military defenses. Moreover, the great universities of Oxford and Cambridge were in the Gothic style. Thus one could combine the thought of English Col­ legiate Gothic and military associations for a Virginia military college. The associational character of the 19th century architectural styles can_ also be found in Lexington’s buildings after the Civil War, for exafnple in Lee Chapel (1867). Here the style is Romanesque, a form known largely from ecclesiastical buildings in the past, so therefore appropriate for a new college chapel. But the pure association of one style begins to break down in the later 19th century. The high Victorian period is marked by a synthetic character in which a building might combine elements from several different styles. A French roof may cover English half-timbering and be next to Italianate windows and bracketed porches. The chief aesthetic principle of the period was not association, but strong, aggressive combination of colors, textures and' changing forms. Lexington has a number of Victorian houses surviving from this period, but one of the best examples was Tucker Hall (1898, Fig. 4) a Romanesque building topped with English iron work and entered through a classically columned doorway. The most aggressive thing about Tucker Hall, though, was not its combination of styles, but where it stood at the end of the red-brick classical colonnade of Washington and Lee University. Victorian confidence was such that the huge stone building was deemed beautiful and its incongruous setting was ignored. By the 1930s however, this view had changed and when the building burned in 1934, the University wasted no time replacing it with a red-brick, white-columned duplicate of Newcomb Hall. One final architectural phase in Lexington is represented by the work of Bertram G. Goodhue, the third nationally known architect to work in the community. In 1914, Goodhue was called on to redesign the Virginia Military Institute post. He returned the post to Davis’ plan, added several faculty houses and Jackson Memorial Hall (Fig. 6). The Hall is in a style called creative eclecticism. It tastefully recalls Davis’ Gothic, but does not imitate the earlier style. Instead, he uses the Gothic as a springboard to create a wholly new style, one that in its geometric clarity and austere grandeur is thoroughly modem. The work of Goodhue represents the final phase of the romantic architectural forms that shaped Lexington’s architecture for more than a century. It is a unique architectural heritage, one that offers a survey of fine revival forms and of the work of a number of outstanding architects. As Lexington celebrates its bicentennial, it should be justly proud of this unusual architectural achievement. 59 �à à à Ifl ÎW t: -"1 1 'j ..... .. it1.7.............. .'•¿r‘ B Î E Si 8 !î It lit til i r s jjm I f 1 t || u n 51 i i ! A K CM î V.üC S o u t h . 4. Virginia Military Institute Barracks. Drawing by A. J. Davis, c. 1850. Photo from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. 60 �5. W a s h in g to n a n d L e e C o lo n n a d e w it h T u c k e r H a ll a t th e e n d . P h o to c o u rte sy o f W & L . 6. J a c k s o n M e m o r ia l H a ll, 1 9 1 5 - 1 6 . P h o t o c o u r t e s y o f W & L . 61 �Washington Iron Works b y J o h n S . S a lm o n [The following article is adapted from an address delivered by the author to the Roanoke Valley Historical Society on May 18, 1977. Salmon is preparing a history of the Washington Iron Works for publica­ tion in book form.] While it is well known that Virginia primarily was an agricultural society in the 19th century, not everyone is aware that there was an important iron manufacturing industry here in the antebellum period. Many of the ironworks of that era were located in the western part of the state, and one of the earliest, the Washington Iron Works was built in Franklin County before the Revolutionary War. The first ironworks in America was built in Virginia between 1619 and 1622 on Falling Creek near the James River below Richmond, and consisted of a charcoal blast furnace and forge. On March 22, 1622, just as the furnace was about to begin operation, the Indians attacked, slaughtered the workers, and destroyed the ironworks. No iron manu­ facturing took place in Virginia for almost a century, although a number of works were built in the Northern colonies. It was the former Virginia governor, Alexander Spotswood, who, about 1716, reestablished the colony’s iron industry by constructing a blast furnace at Germanna. There were four furnaces, but no forges, in Virginia in 1732 when Colonel William Byrd II of West over visited three of the furnaces and recorded his impressions. What Byrd described was the model for the Virginia iron plantation, which would remain virtu­ ally unchanged until the Civil War. “Besides the founder, the collier, and m iner/’ Byrd wrote, who are paid in proportion to their work, the company have several other officers upon wages: a stocktaker, who weighs and measures everything, a clerk, who keeps an account of all receipts and disbursements; a smith to shoe their cattle and keep all their ironwork in repair; a wheelwright, Cartwright, carpenter, and several carters.1 In addition, Byrd found, Spotswood needed 120 slaves to chop and haul wood and to tend the crops, as well as to mine the ore banks John S. Salmon, an archivist at the Virginia State Library since 1972, is a graduate o f the University o f Virginia and he holds a master’s degree in colonial history from the College o f William and Mary. The photos are by the author and the drawings are from Frederick Overman’s The Manufacture o f Iron (Philadelphia: 1850). 62 �which were scattered over Spotswood’s 45,000-acre estate. The iron industry followed the frontier westward, and by the 1750s iron ore had been discovered in what is now Franklin County. On May 3, 1753, John Wilcox entered a survey of 400 acres “on Iron Mine Branch of Pigg River,”2 and on April 26, 1754, he had an adjoin­ ing tract of 403 acres surveyed. Wilcox also purchased the right to 400 acres on both sides of Pigg River that had been surveyed for Robert Hill in 1750. By 1764 Wilcox had obtained patents for all three tracts of S e c t io n o f a b lo o m e r y s im ila r t o D o n e ls o n ’s s h o w in g ( a ) c h a r c o a l a n d ir o n o r e b u r n in g ; ( b ) th e t u y e r e ; ( c ) a c h a r g e o f c h a r c o a l; (d ) t h e p it in w h ic h th e m o lt e n ir o n c o lle c t e d . 63 �The ironmaster’s house, Washington Iron Works, now owned by Dr. J. Francis Amos. The first court meeting of Franklin County is said to have been held on January 2, 1786, in the room behind the window on the bottom right. The upper porch is a 20th century addition. The slave cabin and kitchen behind the ironmaster’s house. The ice­ house was in the circular drive on the left. Scuffling Hill is visible in the background. 64 �land. Soon after he had been issued the patents, Wilcox was approached by John Donelson, the surveyor of Halifax County, with an offer to buy the land. Donelson, a leading frontiersman of his day, is perhaps best known as the father of Rachel Donelson, the wife of President Andrew Jackson. Wilcox and Donelson failed to reach an agreement about the land, and in 1768 Wilcox moved to North Carolina. Colonial patents contained a clause designed to discourage land speculation and encourage actual settlement. A certain percentage of the land had to be under cultivation within a specified period of time, and a small fee called a quitrent had to be paid to the governor annually. The quitrent was a holdover from feudal times as a form of obeisance and served, in a legal sense, to keep the title to the land alive. If the fees were not paid the title would be forfeited and someone else could claim the land. This is what happened to John Wilcox. In 1769 a man named John Cox filed suit in the General Court to claim the land under the quitrent clause, and a trial was held to decide the issue. Wilcox, who was in North Carolina, relied on the testimony of John Donelson to save his land for him, since before Wilcox had left the colony he had given Donelson the money with which to pay the quitrent. Cox, of course, claimed that the money had never been paid. It was not until 1772 that the case was finally heard by the court, and John Donelson took the stand as the only witness in Wilcox’s behalf, stating that he had paid the quitrent. His testimony was thrown out, however, when it was discovered that he had bought Cox’s right to the land, should the case be decided in his favor, in 1769. In other words, Donelson had acquired an interest in the outcome of the case, so his testimony as an impartial witness could not be allowed. Since he was the only witness for Wilcox the land was forfeited to Cox; since Cox had sold his interest to him, Donelson got the land instead. In 1774 new patents for the land were issued to John Donelson. Even before he got the patents, Donelson had built an ironworks on the property. The Pittsylvania County tithable list for 1773 notes four white men and six slaves “at the Iron works.”3 What Donelson had constructed in 1773 was a relatively simple device for smelting iron known as a bloomery forge. It consisted of two parts; the bloomery, which looked like a large chimney and fireplace with a pit dug into the bottom; and the forge, where the iron was hammered into bars. The bloomery was not difficult to operate. Charcoal was piled against the back wall of the fireplace and ignited, and when the heat was great enough the iron ore was shoveled on top of the charcoal. The heat was increased by means of a cold-air blast introduced through a hole, called a tuyere, in the back wall of the fireplace. A leather bellows, like an oversized blacksmith’s bellows, was rigged to a water wheel to provide the blast. As the iron melted it ran 65 �down into the pit at the bottom of the fireplace and cooled slightly, enough to form a pasty mass. Workers used an iron rod to stir and lift this mass until they had collected a ball of iron weighing a hundred or more pounds on the end of the rod. The ball or “bloom” as it was called, was then carried to the forge and hammered into a bar. Although the bloomery forge was relatively easy to build and operate, it also had several disadvantages. The iron obtained was low both in quantity and in quality. A bloomery could produce only about 40 or 50 tons of iron a year, and the iron was loaded with impurities. Also, the cost of labor was high, since coal was burned inefficiently in the open-air fireplace and the bloom needed a great deal of reheating while it was being hammered. As long as the demand for iron remained low, however, a bloomery forge could be a profitable operation. For several years Donelson was able to meet the demand from settlers in the area for iron with which to mend or replace cooking utensils, horseshoes, farm tools, and other domestic gear. Although Franklin County was well on its way to being settled by the time of the Revolutionary War, it was still uncrowded and demand was low. The coming of the war changed the situation. The demand for domestic iron increased as the scarce metal was diverted for military uses, and the bloomery was simply too small to keep up. Before long John Donelson was ready to sell out and move on. He had acquired a great deal of land in the West, and his family was on the verge of moving to the Tennessee country without him. In 1779 Donelson sold his ironworks and led a party of settlers into the Tennessee wilderness. The two men to whom Donelson sold his bloomery were in a unique position to improve the property. Jeremiah Early was a man of means and influence in Bedford County, his home. Early had at one time been the sheriff of Bedford County, and in 1778 he had been appointed a colonel of the county militia. His son-in-law, James Callaway, was even more prominent than Early. He had begun to acquire vast landholdings, had been a partner in the mercantile firm of Callaway and Trents from 1770 to 1775, was manager of the Lead Mines in Montgomery County in 1776 and 1777, and was appointed County Lieutenant, or commander of all the Bedford County militia, in 1778. Callaway gained even more fame when in 1780 he, along with William Preston, Charles Lynch, and others, used what became known as the Lynch Law to put down a loyalist rebellion. Callaway’s most important qualification as far as the iron works was concerned, however, was as a merchant and as manager of the Lead Mines, where a blast furnace had been used to smelt the lead from the ore. He and Early must have set about replacing the little bloomery with a blast furnace almost immediately. Although it was expensive and complicated to build, the advantages of a furnace far outweighed its cost, given the seller’s market in iron. Whereas a bloomery produced 66 �W a s h in g to n I r o n F u r n a c e , lo o k in g e a s t , s h o w in g th e w o r k a r c h a n d c a s t in g f l o o r o n r ig h t . F u r n a c e C r e e k is o u t o f v ie w o n th e f a r rig h t. only about 50 tons of iron a year, a blast furnace could easily make three times that amount. Before the new furnace could be finished Jeremiah Early died in the summer of 1779, leaving his share in the business, which had been named the Washington Iron Works, to his three sons, Joseph, John, and Jubal Early (grandfather of Gen. Jubal Early, Civil War commander). Besides the addition of the blast furnace, the ironworks was increased in size and productive capacity by the construction of a large forge with four fireplaces for heating the pig iron, and two tilt hammers for pounding out bar iron. Callaway also built or enlarged a house for the ironmaster, a sawmill, and a grist mill. The greater size of the oper­ ation called for more slave cabins, an office, and a blacksmith shop, as well as bams, stables, storehouses for the iron ore and charcoal, and warehouses for the castings and bar iron. By the time Franklin County was formed in 1786 Callaway had obtained an ordinary license for his house at the iron works, and had added a company store. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in his Notes on the State of Virginia, by the end of the Revolutionary War Callaway’s furnace was producing 600 tons of pig iron annually, while the forge made about 150 tons of bar iron. The pig iron figure may have included the castings, since pots, kettles, skillets, and the like were usually cast at the furnace. The increase in the size and scope of the Washington Iron Works required a corresponding increase in the complexity of its maintenance 67 �and support systems. The furnace alone could consume as much as an acre of wood per day, and extensive landholdings became necessary to meet this demand. More slaves were needed to act as woodchoppers, colliers, and haulers, and additional cultivated land was required to feed them. From a simple backwoods farm supplying primitive bloomery and forge evolved a complex and largely self-sufficient iron works plantation. L o o k in g w e s t f r o m th e f u r n a c e . T h e h ill in t h e b a c k g r o u n d w a s a t o n e tim e a p a r t o f th e d a m a c r o s s F u r n a c e C r e e k , S c u f f li n g H ill is b e y o n d th e c r e e k o n th e le f t . The center of labor and social life on the iron plantation was the ironmaster’s house. From here were issued the day’s working orders, in a nearby office the financial affairs of the plantation wfere conducted, and from the hill on which the house stood the ironmaster could watch many of the necessary chores being done. In 1786 when Franklin County was formed, the house was a story and a half high. In the 1820s the second floor was added, and in 1856 a two-story wing was built in back of the house. The first court meeting of Franklin County was held here in the north room on the first floor, it is believed, on January 2, 1786. Most of the outbuildings that stood near the house are gone; only a two-room brick kitchen and the office chimney remain. The site of the icehouse is covered by a circular driveway, while the other build­ ings have vanished without a trace. Lawns, gardens, and modern houses now conceal the locations of the slave cabins, bams, stables, carriage house, smokehouse, and blacksmith shop. The sawmill, the gristmill, 68 �the forge, and the storage sheds for iron ore, charcoal, and finished iron products, have all disappeared. On Furnace Creek, however, about 300 yards southeast of the house, the old blast furnace still stands, and part of the dam which once spanned the creek upstream is still visible. In front of the furnace, between it and the creek was the casting floor of sand, where molten iron ran through channels and cooled into pig iron. Two large openings intfhe face and right side of the furnace are, respectively, the work arch, where the laborers tapped the furnace for the iron, and the tuyere arch, through which the blast was applied. The gap between the furnace and the hill behind it was spanned by a wooden bridge, one end of which rested on the notch still visible at the top rear of the furnace. Slaves carried baskets of charcoal, ore, and limestone flux across the bridge to the furnace head, and dumped the contents into its smoking mouth. When the furnace was in blast it commanded the attention of the ironmaster and slave alike, 24 hours a day, in two 12-hour shifts. As much as an acre of wood a day had to be cut, rendered into charcoal, and hauled to the furnace. While some slaves worked as choppers and T h e t o p r e a r o f t h e f u r n a c e . T h e b r ig h t g r a s s y le d g e n e a r th e b o t t o m o f t h e p ic t u r e is w h e r e t h e w o o d e n b r id g e f r o m th e h ill o n c e re s te d . B e h in d t h e tr e e t r u n k is a fo o t - h ig h c h im n e y , d o w n w h ic h th e w o r k e r s d u m p e d t h e ir c h a r g e s o f c h a r c o a l a n d ir o n o r e . 69 �colliers, others mined the ore from open pits dug into the ground from five to 20 feet. The ore was judged for quality and picked by hand, then loaded into carts and taken to the furnace. Although the mining of iron ore by the open pit method required little time and few workers, the burning of charcoal took over a week and called for many hands. The wood was cut to specified lengths, then piled into large, carefully laid heaps, so that a narrow chimney was formed in the center. After a fire was started at the bottom of the chimney, the heap of wood was covered with an airtight coating of mud and leaves, and was carefully watched by the collier for a week or more. The wood charred slowly, and if any holes developed in the mud cover­ ing they were quickly plugged td prevent the pile from burning. When at last the wood was completely charred it was raked out and prepared for carting to the furnace and forge. As a matter of necessity the landholdings of the iron works planta­ tion were huge, with most of the land reserved for growing timber. In 1809, the year of James Callaway’s death, the Washington Iron Works property consisted of 18,908 acres, in addition to Callaway’s personal holdings of 21,571 acres. All of this land, over 40,000 acres, was in Franklin County. After Callaway’s death his executors ran the Washington Iron Works for almost a decade. Callaway had taken a small frontier bloomery forge and had turned it into a major industry for the time and place. What began as a clearing in the wilderness had become a large and thriving iron works plantation, and Callaway’s executors were deter­ mined that it maintain its position of leadership. Although the Washington Iron Works was not the only such opera­ tion in Franklin County, its competitors had been short-lived. In the 1790s Swinfield Hill and Walter Bernard had built the Carron Furnace on Story Creek near Ferrum, and the Carron Forge on Blackwater River. Callaway bought both properties about 1802, and the Carron Furnace ceased operations by 1810. The forge fell into disuse between 1815 and 1820. Several miles down Pigg River from the Washington Iron Works stood Harvey’s Forge, built in 1803 by Robert Harvey of Bote­ tourt County, and abandoned by 1815. Harvey also constructed, around 1792, the Elk Forge on Blackwater River; it was likewise abandoned by 1815. Callaway’s executors had, by 1812, hired a young man named Peter Saunders to work at the Washington Iron Works as an assistant manager. Within a few years he had become a co-manager, and in 1818 he bought a share in the iron works from the descendants of Jeremiah Early. His two brothers, Samuel and Fleming Saunders, joined him to buy out the executors of James Callaway, and by 1822 the three Saunders brothers had complete control of the Washington Iron Works. Peter Saunders continued to act as ironmaster and manager of the 70 �T h e fr o n t o f a fu rn a c e a s seen f r o m th e c a s t in g f l o o r . S e c t io n o f a fu r n a c e s h o w in g a b r id g e o n th e u p p e r l e f t a n d th e w o r k a r c h a t lo w e r r ig h t. T h e in t e r io r , o r b o s h , w a s fille d w it h c h a r c o a l a n d ir o n o r e u p to th e c h im n e y , a n d a s th e ir o n m e lt e d i t f lo w e d in t o th e lo w e r p a r t o f th e b o s h , th e c r u c ib le . T h e b la c k d o t in th e c r u c ib le is a t u y e r e h o ld . property for himself and his brothers for a quarter of a century. Fleming Saunders became a noted lawyer and judge, while Samuel Saunders was a prominent planter and justice of the peace for Franklin County. Peter Saunders was in some ways the most interesting of the men who ran the Washington Iron Works. John Donelson was ever the fron­ tiersman, hungry for new land and unwilling to settle down. James Callaway, on the other hand, was the epitome of the Piedmont patrician, a talented dabbler in business and industry. Peter Saunders, born into a wealthy and prominent Southside family, was rebellious, ruthless, and stubborn—an early example of the 19th century industrialist. He was restless as a young and middle-aged man, acting at one time or another as a militia lieutenant, a postmaster, a justice of the peace, a sheriff, and an ironmaster. He always seemed to be in the center of a controversy, and he easily antagonized people. During the War of 1812, according to 71 �S e c t io n th r o u g h t h e t u y e r e a rc h e s o f a tw o -tu y e re fu rn a c e . T h is is a m o r e e la b o r a t e s y s t e m th a n a t th e W a s h in g to n w o r k s , w h e r e o n ly a s in g le t u y e r e w a s u sed . A t u b o r c y l in d e r b e llo w s lik e t h a t u s e d a t th e W a s h in g to n F u r n a c e . T h e p is t o n s w e r e d r iv e n b y a w a t e r w h e e l a n d f o r c e d a ir in t o th e u p p e r t u b , f r o m w h ic h i t f lo w e d d o w n a p ip e t o th e t u y e r e . A c h a r c o a l h e a p s m o ld e r in g . N e a r b y a r e t h e c o l l ie r ’s t o o ls . T h e r e w e r e m a n y s u c h h e a p s b u r n in g a t o n c e , f o r g r e a t a m o u n t s o f c h a r c o a l w e r e u s e d b y th e f u r n a c e a n d th e f o r g e . 72 �A tilt h a m m e r lik e th o s e u s e d a t th e W a sh in g to n F o r g e . T h e w a te r-p o w e re d w h e e l (k ) stru c k t h e h a m m e r -h e lv e ( b ) a t it s b a s e , l if t in g a n d d r o p p in g th e h a m m e r h e a d (s) o n th e a n v il (c ). F o r g e m a n h a m m e r in g o u t b a r ir o n . F o u r f ir e p la c e s in th e f o r g e w e r e u s e d to h e a t th e b a r s f o r h a m m e r in g . T h e h am m erh ead m a y have w e ig h e d a s m u c h a s 5 0 0 p o u n d s . 73 �some of his enemies, Saunders used his position as postmaster of Roeky Mount to avoid military service. He was also accused of violating the Constitution by holding a state and a federal office at the same time, of using his family influence to secure a high rank in the county militia, and of attempting to cheat a deserving man out of the office of sheriff of Franklin County. Although he was a lifelong bachelor, Peter Saunders fathered a child about 1800. He adopted the girl, Jane Jones Saunders;, and she lived at the iron works with him and acted as hostess and housekeeper. Known as “Cousin Jane” to the rest of the Saunders family, Jane Saunders inherited most of her father’s estate and died a wealthy woman in 1861. Despite Peter Saunder’s best efforts, the Washington Iron Works was afflicted with financial problems during the years he was ironmaster. The competition from cheap Northern iron became intense, and the Panic of 1837 almost bankrupted the iron works. The depression that followed the panic affected the entire iron industry, and in 1842 Peter Saunders had to give up some of his control of the iron works to his brothers. While he maintained control of the land, mines, and iron works, Samuel and Fleming Saunders were granted ownership of the slaves. Conditions in the iron industry improved in the late 1840s, but Southern charcoal iron manufacturing was already doomed by improvements which were being adopted in the North but not in the South. Charcoal iron was becoming simply too expensive to produce in competition with less costly iron made in the North with anthracite coal. Peter Saunders retired in 1846 and moved with daughter to Pittsylvania County, where he died the next year following a series of strokes. He had sold his interest in the iron works to his brothers, who turned the operation over to one of Samuel Saunder’s sons, who was also named Peter Saunders. In 1850 young Peter built a second forge, called the Valley Forge, on Pigg River several miles west of Rocky Mount. In that same year, according to local tradition, the Washington Furnace was severely damaged by a flood caused when the dam on Furnace Creek gave way during a sudden storm, and the rushing water swept away the casting shed and tub bellows. Except for a brief, desperate period during the Civil War, the Washington Furnace was never again in operation. Young Peter Saunders continued in the iron industry for a brief time despite these problems. In 1857 he and one of his brothers rebuilt the old Carron Furnace on Story Creek near Ferrum. Both the Carron Furnace and the Valley Forge were in operation in 1860, but both were losing money. Then the Civil War dealt the final blow to a weakened industry, and 90 years of iron manufacturing in Franklin County came to an end. 74 �Although the .Washington Iron Works ceased production over a century ago, its influence on the history of Franklin County is still apparent. The furnace stands quietly now on the bank of Furnace Creek, a monument to Donelson, Callaway, and the Saunders brothers. A man who lives across Pigg River from the site of the Washington Forge recalls that when he was a boy a large pile of old iron lay rusting near the river. Some time during World War II the iron was hauled away, probably for use in the war effort. Bom in the years of our Revolution, the Washinton Iron Works had not lost its usefulness a mere 35 years ago. Such a heritage is surely worth preserving. FOOTNOTES ^ William Byrd, THE PROSE WORKS OF WILLIAM BYRD OF WESTOVER, ed. Louis B. Wright (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press o f Harvard University Press, 1966), 354. ^PittsylvaniaCounty, Old Surveys 1,1746-1782,70. ^ Pittsylvania County, Tithables, 1767-1785,58. Sclater Correction Hoskins M. Sclater, who has retired as a director and member of the executive committee of the Society, has been incorrectly identified in earlier issues of the Journal. He was listed as R. Hoskins Sclater, his father, who lived from 1884 to 1973. The younger Sclater was chairman of the Society’s corporate membership drive in 1975 and 1976. 75 �The National Register of Historic Places b y W . L . W h itw e ll a n d L e e W . W in b o r n e The National Register of Historic Places is a listing. It describes properties which are worth noting for architectural and for historic interest by the people of this country. The Historic Sites Act of 1935 and the Historic Preservation Act of 1966 empowered the Secretary of the Interior to create this list. The National Register is, in the words of the federal government, “the official schedule of the nation’s cultural property that is worth saving” . Fundamentally, the National Register inventory protects our cultural heritage. Published periodically by the federal government, the National Register is the major source of in­ formation for Americans about historic properties throughout the country. A property of state or local significance is nominated to the Register by a state’s Preservation Office; in Virginia the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission serves this function. The place is then record­ ed in the Register, following approval of the National Park Service. Nominations are usually made by a state liason officer appointed by the governor to administer the program. The Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission’s professional staff, often in conjunction with area repre­ sentatives appointed by the state commission, conducts surveys and nominates properties for the state commission to review. This Com­ mission is appointed by the governor. If a property meets state criteria in Virginia it is uaually nominated automatically for the National Register. Criteria for evaluation of property are flexible and they act as guidelines from local through national actions. Evaluating the signifi­ cance of American architecture is a difficult problem. Some factors considered are the location, design, setting, materials, workmanship and historic and literary associations. Many questions are asked about pro­ perties which are being considered. Is the structure associated with events, which have made an important contribution to our history? Is the building associated with the lives of persons important in the past? Does the building have distinctive architectural characteristics? These architectural characteristics may be in terms of the form, period, or type of construction. For instance, a building may represent the work of a craftsman, or it may have high artistic merit. Architectural charac­ teristics are often considered individually, even though an entire structure may not be coherent. Cemeteries are usually not included, but exceptions have been made, as for the significant monument in Roanoke County’s Tombstone Cemetery. Many people are not aware 76 �that 20th Century buildings are considered if they have exceptional importance. Recently a 1930s Shell station in Winston-Salem, N.C. was added to the Register. The National Register of Historic Places is the common factor in federal historic preservation work. The list is consulted for the signifi­ cance of a historic property. Public recognition, funding and protection are- reviewed by an advisory council of the federal government. There is no injunctive power to stop threats to historic properties, but National Register designation does assure that historic values shall be considered by the governrhent in any proposal which might affect the property. Roanoke City, Roanoke County and Salem properties on the National Register of Historic Places: PLACE LOCATION R o a n o k e City DATE OF REGISTRY 1. Fire Station # 1 13 East Church Ave. 9/19/72 2. St. Andrew’ Roman Catholic Church 631 North Jefferson St. 10/17/72 3. Lone Oaks-Winsmere 1402 Grandin Road Extension S.W. 1/16/73 4. Buena Vista Penmar Ave. and 9th St. S.E. 1/15/74 5. Monterey Tinker Creek Lane N.E. 4/16/74 6. Belle-Aire 1320 Belle-Aire Circle S.W. 10/21/75 Roanoke County 7. Hollins College Quadrangle Route 11, North 5/21/74 8. Tombstone Cemetery Plantation Road N.W. 9/19/77 City of Salem 9. Williams-Brown House-Store 10. Evans House 523 East Main St. 7/6/71 213 Broad St. 3/21/72 11. Main College Complex Roanoke College 12. Salem Presbyterian Church East Main and Market Streets 5/16/72 6/18/74 77 �Bicentennial Plates Thirteen significant events in the American struggle for independ­ ence two centuries ago are illustrated in a special plate collection pre­ sented to the Roanoke Valley Historical Society by the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration through Congressman M. Caldwell Butler of Roanoke. Butler is a member of the ARBA board. Each of the 13 sculptured, pewter plates was designed by a different artist for the Franklin Mint in Philadelphia which issued the limited edition collection. The events commemorated are the Boston Tea Party, Battle of Bunker Hill, Patrick Henry urging armed resistance, Paul Revere’s ride, the Battle of Concord Bridge, the capture of Fort Ticonderoga, the de­ feat of the British vessel, Serapis, by the Bonhomme Richard led by Capt. John Paul Jones, winter at Valley Forge, Washington crossing the Delaware, signing of the Declaration of Independence, Burgoyne’s defeat at Saratoga, Franklin signing the Alliance with France in 1778 and victory at Yorktown. The plates have been on display at the Society’s Gallery at 10 Franklin Rd., S.W., Roanoke. 1I Signing the Declaration of Independence 78 �B a t t l e o f B u n k e r H ill B u rg o y n e d e fe a te d a t S arato g a Horsley Genealogy Published A genealogy, Descendants of Mary Cabell Horsley, has been com­ piled by Mrs. Kathryn Mitchum Osborne, of Pulaski and formerly of Roanoke. Mrs. Horsley was the daughter of Dr. William Cabell, a wellknown frontiersman who claimed land in Nelson and Amherst counties in the early 1700s. She married William Horsley, a tutor in her father’s family in 1744, and from this union came such family names as Pendleton, McCulloch, Davies, Shackleford, Waugh, Glasgow and Roberts. The book is available from Mrs. Osborne at 108 Fifth St., N.W., Pulaski, Va. 24301, for $12.50, postage and packaging included. 79 �Bringing an Old Pump to Life Restoration of a 200-ton, 70-year-old municipal heirloom^-. Roanoke’s Crystal Spring steam pump—was no small task in 1976. Out of the Bicentennial program came an extensive restoration of the big pump, unused for two decades, by a host of volunteers, sup­ ported by the expertise of the Worthington Pump Co. A detailed des­ cription of the restoration has been prepared by Worthington, which took over the old Snow Steam Pump Co., maker of the Roanoke pump at its Buffalo, N.Y. works in 1905. The Snow pump supplied much of Roanoke’s water needs for 52 years until 1957 when its throb was re­ placed by electrical, high-speed centrifugal pumps. “Since many towns and cities still possess precious examples of industrial arts which are slipping into irrevocable loss because of lack of funds and organized rescue programs,” the Worthington people said, the Roanoke restoration experience may be helpful for others. Former City Attorney James N. Kincanon, a member of Roanoke Valley Bicentennial Commission and a World War II Naval officer, saw the restoration as “one project that would be here for people to enjoy long after the Bicentennial had passed.” An anonymous $10,000 donation from a Roanoker who wanted to see the old pumphouse restored to its original grandeur got the project under way. Nearby Crystal Spring’s flow of 5 million gallons a day had been the leading source of Roanoke water since colonial days. Water from the spring once turned a grist mill near Roanoke River and Militia Col. George Washington left a record of his stop there on a frontier fort inspection trip in October 1754. Water from the spring was first pressurized in the early 1880s for the town water supply by a 1.5-million-gallon-per-day Holly steam pump. A second was added later. In 1905, the giant duplex Snow pump, a mechanical marvel for its day, was installed in its new brick pumphouse. With a capacity of 5 million gallons per day, it served the city’s needs for years, almost without disruption of service. The smaller steam pumps in a separate building were placed on backup service. After 52 years, the throb of the steam Snow pump was silenced when the city built a series of new pumphouses with electrical, high­ speed centrifugal pumps. The boiler room which supplied steam for the three pumps and the older pumphouse was torn down and its two Holly steam pumps were scrapped. Fortunately, citizen objections to de­ struction of the steam pump works reached City Council before plans to demolish the smaller pumphouse and the large Snow pump could be carried out and the Crystal Spring pumphouse and Snow pump were left intact. 80 �H u g e w h e e ls a n d d r iv in g p is t o n s a r e m a r k s o f th e tim e h o n o r e d s te a m p u m p a t C r y s t a l S p rin g . Although it w a s saved from scrap, little was done to protect the Snow pump and its house from the ravages of time and weather. But the spectacle of the pump was recalled by a generation of Roanokers, although the big pump sat unused and seldom seen for 20 years. With its pistons reciprocating, the 11-ton, 13-foot flywheel rotating and the sound of compressed steam escaping, it was a sight that school­ boys would give up their arithmetic lesson to see. It was better than a railway locomotive because it didn’t move away and it could be watched for hours at a time. When enthusiasm for restoration of the pump began to build, Kincanon contacted the manufacturer to determine the feasibility of restoring it and returning it to simulated action. Worthington Pump assigned Edward J. Thornton, a veteran of many years of experience with many types of pumps, to the project. Thornton studied the pump, researched the Worthington archives for specifications and parts availabilty. He evaluated the kinds of drive that could be used to simulate the steam-powered action and he visited the Smithsonian Institution in Washington in search of recommenda­ tions on the best way to activate and display the pump. Support of the project was voted by the Roanoke Valley Historical Society and the Bicentennial Commission. City Council agreed to in­ corporate the restoration into the city park system as an historical site open to the public if the work could be done without cost to the city. For technical expertise and trained manpower necessary for the restoration, the commanding officer of the Naval Reserve Training Center was taken to see the pump. He was interested in steam-driven pumps because he had served as an engineering officer aboard a Naval vessel. 81 �Naval Reserve technicians donated weekends to refurbishing the pump. They spent months breaking loose, disassembling, cleaning, lubricating, reassembling and painting the pump. Philip Lemon, a lawyer and vice president of the historical society, was responsible for managing expenditures and supervising research for the restoration. He and Kincanon also spent weekends with the reserv­ ists in the planning, labor and enlisting of voluntary help for the project. Support also came from businessmen, architects, engineers, contractors and civic leaders. The anonymous gift was raised to $13,000 by other contributions which helped pay for rebuilding one wall of the pumphouse and pro­ viding a flywheel drive—items that volunteers could not supply. Kincanon said the value of labor contributed by Navy and Marine reserves and other Roanokers, as well as the parts and installation service donated by engineering and equipment firms came to many times the $13,000. With its concealed electric drive, the restored Snow pump was given its first test run on Aug. 10, 1976, and the new historical site was opened at special ceremonies soon afterward. It was shown to the public on Aug. 22. The neat, red brick building is as clean and freshly painted as. when it was first opened in 1905, and the Snow pump, painted and its brass and nickel work brightly polished, is again active. The steam pump, restored through careful color matching to its original red, black and dark green finish put on at the factory, attracts old-time pump buffs, history enthusiasts, tourists and troops of wideeyed school children. With Worthington’s assistance, the restoration group has installed explanatory signs and old photos around the pump and on the white interior walls of the pumphouse. They raised funds for a recorded message on the history of the pump station and Crystal Spring. A lighted inspection hatch was installed over the covered Crystal Spring basin at the foot of Mill Mountain. The 11-ton flywheel of the pump is driven by a 25 h.p. motor, connected through a fluid coupling and speed reducer to a pneumatic tire. The tire runs against the bottom rim of the flywheel in a service pit, so it is not visible. While the absence of steam may have taken some of the ferocity out of the old pump, it makes its presence known and kids can still watch its 11-ton flywheel turn, the piston rods stroke back and forth in the 19-inch-diameter cylinders, the plunger push rods go in and out and the governor, accentuated by a spotlight, carrying out its mysterious discipline. A mechanical counter registers each turn of the flywheel and piston stroke. All who have seen the restored relic of bygone days, when machines seemed to have had their individual personality and a kind of elegance, agree it is rewarding to have the old giant back on public view. It serves, too, as an example of what can be accomplished by concerted individual efforts, if the will and desire of accomplishment are present. 82 �Tours to Botetourt and Chatham A spring trip to Botetourt County and Fincastle on May 28 and a fall visit to Pittsylvania County to help Chatham celebrate its 200th birthday were the 1977 tours of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. As in the past 15 years, the bus tours went to a variety of homes and other historic points for educational and entertaining visits into the past. Highlights of the tour to neighboring Botetourt were two old favorites, Hawthorne Hall and Glebe Mill, as well as first public visits to Glencoe and the Gish-Potter cabin, both built in the 19th century. Hawthorne Hall, a handsome F/i-story brick home built by Robert Harvey for his daughter, Mary Trigg, in the first years of the 19th century, was seen on the Society’s first tour in 1963. Restored by Mr. and Mrs. George Holt, the home once known as Thorn Hill has a widearched central hall with large rooms on each side. The Holts have added fine furnishings and antiques. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas T. Lawson live at Glebe Mill, a comfortable clapboard-over log house on Tinker Creek at the northern foot of Tinker Mountain. The home has stood near the road from Daleville to Haymakertown since the last years of the 1700s. A mill once stood nearby and the property was known as the Glebe because the land was granted to the rector of the Church of England who served the Bote­ tourt Parish. The Rev. Adam Smyth, first rector of the parish, and the Rev. Samuel Gray, his successor, are believed to have lived here. Many original furnishings, such as locks and hinges, are in use. Glencoe, nicely situated at the edge of a meadow beside Catawba Creek northeast of Fincastle, is a brick home surrounded by a moat constructed to allow light into the first floor rooms. The home of Mr. Glencoe is northeast of Fincastle. 83 �and Mrs. Michael Haynie, it was built by James Madison Spiller in the 1850s. Slaves placed heavy stones for the base of the house and a large bam nearby. Spiller had been a contractor for the James River and Kanawha Canal. A grandson of the builder said the home was con­ structed “bull stout.” Dating from 1836, the restored log cabin of Mrs. J. W. Potter was built by George Gish along the road to Haymakertown from Daleville. A $150 building was put up in 1836, according to Botetourt tax records. The property was owned by the Gish family for about a century until 1903. The colorful rose garden at the J. A. Firebaugh home; Rustic Lodge, the old Nathaniel Burwell home, and the 1840 Methodist church in Fincastle were other points of interest. Filling three buses, Society members and friends visited the new Botetourt County Court­ house, replacement for the building destroyed in the 1970 fire, and then took a walking tour of the county seat. Lunch was served at the Methodist Church. An autumn rain did not dampen the interest of three busloads who rode to Pittsylvania, the largest county in the state, on October 8. After Pittsylvania was formed in 1767, court was held at Callands until 1977 when a courthouse was located at present Chatham. For almost a half-century, from 1807 and 1852, the Pittsylvania county seat was known as Competition because of a dispute over the location of the court house. The present Greek Revival courthouse was built in 1853. With a luncheon stop at the Episcopal Church in Chatham, the Roanokers had a chance to see the 200th birthday festivities and the cutting of a large cake with pageantry on the courthouse steps. They visited SharswoQd, a Swiss Gothic home dated from the 1850s; Woodlawn, built by Patrick Henry’s cousin, who paid taxes on 20,000 acres of land in Halifax and Pittsylvania; Elkhorn, a beaded clapboard home owned by the Coles family for 128 years; Oakland, a charming Greek Revival home built in the 1700s; the old White-Hundley home in Chatham; a distinctive country store-post office at Java, and the historic Yates Tavern, described as an “old house” in 1778. Yates Tavern, located on the main north-south road south of Gretna, has been painstakingly restored to its 18th centry state. Des­ cribed as a true block house by the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission, the tavern once was a major stop along the Pigg River for supply wagons. Covered with weatherboarding over logs, the tavern has & large public room with a rock fireplace and a seven-foot mantel, a large stone chimney and basement walls of stone, almost two feet thick. 84 �ROANOKE V A LLEY H IS T O R IC A L S O C IE T Y Amor montium nos movet O F F IC E R S J . R a n d o lp h W e s t .....................................................................................................P r e s id e n t M rs. R o la n d C o o k ................................................................................... V i c e P r e s id e n t G e o r g e T . E l l i s .......................................................................................................... T r e a s u r e r M rs . C h a r le s D . F o x , I I I ......................................................................................S e c r e t a r y M rs. S u s a n S i m p s o n ........................... .. ......................................E x e c u t iv e S e c r e t a r y D IR E C T O R S R a y m o n d B arnes G eorge K egley Ja m e s L . T rin k le M rs. R o la n d C o o k Ja m es K in c a n n o n W illiam W atts M rs. J o h n C op e n h av e r M rs. H aro ld P . K yle J . R a n d o lp h W est G eorge T . E llis P hillip L em o n W. L . W hitw ell M rs. C harles D . F o x , III M rs. JJM.B. Lew is M rs. R o g er W in b o m e E d m u n d P . G o o d w in R ic h a rd L . M eagher Ja m es P . W oods. M rs. E d m u n d P . G o o d w in E . H . O u ld R o b e rt W oody J a c k G o o d y k o o n tz M rs. G . S. S h ack e lfo rd D r. J . C . Z illh a rd t Miss A n n a L ouise H aley M rs. E nglish S h o w a lte r �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society 1978 Volume 10, Number 2 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />Seeing Virginia in 1797<br />The Big Fort<br />Cures From Mountain Herbs<br />What They Owned in the 1840s<br />Lexington Architecture<br />The Washington Iron Works<br />The National Register of Historic Places<br />Bringing an Old Pump to Life Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_10_02_1978 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6353/JHSWV_11_01_1980.pdf b5cafdc3d490bc4137613bc1589a9cce PDF Text Text �1980 Contents C l if t o n A . W o o d r u m , C o n g r e s s m a n W it h a F l a ir b y James Sargent...................... 1 C o l . J a m es P. Wo o d s , L a w y e r , C o ng ressm an by Roy Hippert .............................................. 23 Dr. Warren M oorm an ........................... 40 Felix H argrett .............................................. 55 Edmund P. G o o d w in ..................................... 60 J ohn H o o k , N ew L o n d o n M e r c h a n t by J ohn H o o k , F r o n t ie r B o o k s e l l e r b y How We B egan by H i s t o r i c P u m p R e g i s t e r e d ...................... 67 What W e .................................... .. ................. .. ................................ 68 ............................................................................................ 70 collect H is t o r ic a l T o u r s S pinning and W ea v in g In M o n t g o m er y C ounty by Dorothy McCombs...................... 73 George Kegley Editor o f the JOURNAL The Journal o f the Roanoke Valley Historical Society, Volume Eleven, Number One. Published by the Society at P.O. Box 1904, Roanoke, Virginia 24008, to chronicle the past and present o f that part o f the state west o f the Blue Ridge. Single copy price for members, $3; for non-members, $4. The Society will be careful in handling unsolicited material but cannot be responsible for its loss. �, Clifton A. W od Congressman With A Flair by James E. Sargent “My campaign is inspired by no class, sex, ring or machine,” stated congressional candidate Clifton A. Woodrum of Roanoke during the 1922 Democratic primary contest, “and I am making my appeal to every voter in the district who on those conditions can conscientiously support me.”1 Such independence often characterized Woodrum’s early life and political career, from his first job at age 12 through his service as judge of Roanoke’s Corporation (Circuit) Court. Indeed, later he became so influential as the Sixth District’s congressman that a Life magazine poll in 1939 ranked him as the fifth “ablest” representative in the House.2 But after his retirement from Congress in December 1945 and his death in October 1950, he slipped into historical obscurity. While he was well known, personally popular, and held in high esteem in Virginia and in Washington, D.C., from the 1920s through the 1940s, to date there has been no scholarly examination of his life and career. Most Roanokers of later generations know his name only because it identifies the city’s airport, Woodrum Field.3 But his achievements deserve to be better known. Historical sources on “Cliff” Woodrum’s early years are incom­ plete, but they are adequate for his adult life. Born in Roanoke on April 27, 1887, he was raised in a family of considerable social prestige. His father, Robert H. Woodrum, became a prominent attorney and public-spirited citizen in early Roanoke. After being raised in nearby Salem, he graduated from Roanoke College in 1876. He associated in a Roanoke law firm with James W. Palmer of Salem by 1883. The partners advertised (a common practice of the times) in the Roanoke Leader that they specialized in claims of mechanics and laborers. Robert Woodrum became so widely respected that he was chosen as Roanoke’s first commonwealth’s attorney, a position he held from June 5, 1884, to June 30, 1888. Shortly after leaving office, he gave up his law practice. An ingenious man, he had invented the Comas cigarette James E. Sargent, associate professor history and government at Virginia Western Community College in Roanoke, has a Ph.D. degree in U.S. history from Michigan State University. He has published articles on Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal era in Oral History Review, Prologue, Peace and Change, Forum and Capitol Studies. In his research for a biography o f Clifton A. Woodrum, Sargent is seeking interviews with those who have personal recollections o f the Congressman. �Cliff Woodrum and friend, about 1888 when he was one. Col. R. H. Woodrum, father of Clif­ ton Woodrum, stood with his dogs and a string of quail after a day’s hunting. machine and acquired a patent for it. He traveled to London, England, where he sold the patent for a handsome profit to the Bonsack Cigarette Co. Returning to Roanoke, he plunged into various real estate and building operations. For example, he was one of the principal investors in the company that built the Academy of Music, which opened in October 1892. The Woodrum family resided at 741 Thirteenth St., Southwest, across from the Fishburn home, “Mountain View” (now owned by the city).4 Expanding his interests, Robert Woodrum also became a gentle­ man farmer who specialized in raising apples and peaches. He supervised the cultivation of orchards near Bent Mountain and in Frankin County. Following years of mixed success with investments and orchards, he died suddenly of a heart attack on April 30,1912. The Roanoke Times reported: “No man in Roanoke city and county was more widely known than Colonel Woodrum, and his sudden 2 �death was a great shock to the entire community.” Later that year the R.H. Woodrum Orchard Corp. with 10 acres of fruit-bearing trees was offered for sale at $2,500. It was estimated that the Woodrum orchards would produce enough fruit to equal the agricultural yield of a $15,000 farm. Woodrum’s widow, the former Anna T. Musgrove, who had been born and raised in Albemarle County, outlived her husband by 27 years. She continued to live a quiet life dedicated to her family and home until her death on May 7,1939, long after her son had become famous.5 Roanoke was a lively and growing industrial center by the turn of the century. The city had 22,007 people, including 5,834 Negroes and 539 foreign-born. The county had 15,837 residents, with 3,845 Negroes and 48 foreign-born. Originally called Big Lick, the town officially became known as Roanoke in 1882. Town officials changed the name when the Norfolk and Western Railway decided to locate its head­ quarters and shops here. Roanoke’s population in 1883 was about 5,000, so the city and the railroad had grown enormously by 1900. The growing industries, notably the railroad, needed more laborers and mechanics, which at­ tracted young men and families to the area. In 1900 many boiler makers temporarily walked off their jobs at the N&W, partly over wage protests. The railroad paid from 26 to 32 cents per hour, reportedly higher than competitors like the Baltimore and Ohio. Having a surplus of local labor as well as other railways and their workers to draw from, The old R. H. Woodrum home on 13th Street, Southwest, across from and west of Mountain View, the J. B. Fishbum Home. Among the young ladies seated on the lawn are Rosalind Rankin (left) and probably Virginia Buford (right). 3 �the N&W generally resisted pressure from strikers.6 The city had a number of churches, especially Baptist and Meth­ odist, and a public school system. But the high school class of 1900 had only three graduates (the number reached 20 in 1910). The small number seeking diplomas resulted because fathers who farmed in the county usually withdrew their sons before graduation, making them full-fledged farmers in their teens. In the city most mechanics wanted their sons to learn a trade. No apprentices received consideration in the local railroad shops unless their father or a close relative worked there. Therefore, public education stagnated. Wealthier families often sent sons to private schools like Alleghany Institute and daughters to prep schools like Virginia College. Other aspects of city life reflected growth and prosperity follow­ ing the national despression of 1893-1897. Many people with cultural interests, the Woodrums included, attended the Academy of Music. There patrons viewed operas like Faust and plays such as The Bohemia Girl. Carnivals occurred frequently. A major carnival to celebrate the turn of the century was held during late June and early July of 1900. Described as a rare beauty, Claudine Woodrum (Cliff’s sister) received the unanimous choice as pageant queen. The fair featured parades, booths, contests, exhibitions and the usual rowdiness. Also, team sports, notably baseball and football, were becoming more popular. The annual Thanksgiving Day game between Virginia Poly­ technic Institute and Virginia Military Institute was already considered a major event (VMI won that year). Major political issues capturing attention in Roanoke included the national election between Republican President William McKinley and famous Democrat William Jennings Bryan, who had lost to McKinley in the 1896 “free silver” campaign. Bryan polled 1,761 votes in Roanoke and carried the city, while McKinley won 1,115 votes—but retained the presidency by polling substantial majorities nationally. On the state level, considerable local interest focused on the new constitu­ tion being proposed (it was written and approved in 1901-1902). A major purpose of Democratic leaders who advocated the constitutional convention was to disenfranchise most blacks and poor whites—who often voted Republican—through poll taxes and literacy tests. On the local level, fraternal organizations like the Elks and the Masons flourished. A custom of the times, belonging to a fraternal order carried considerable social status for professional and educated men. But membership also provided good fellowship and opportunities for public service—a goal which attracted some, like Woodrum, who later entered politics.7 Within that family and city environment, Cliff Woodrum learned the value of hard work, personal achievement and community respon­ sibility. lie attended Roanoke’s public schools but never graduated. At one point he worked as a “soda jerk” in the Keyser Drug Store, probably while he was in high school. Later recalling his first job, Congressman Woodrum said he worked for his father at age 12. 4 �The young man delivered bottled mineral water to 25-30 Roanoke customers from the Aetna Lithia Springs Co. of Vinton. He received $1 a v/eek for driving wagons over the one-hour trip. Aspiring for more, he decided to “railroad.” In March 1900 he applied to the N&W for a position in the telegraph office, which he failed to get. According to the September 1926 issue of the Norfolk and Western Magazine, Cliff later obtained a job as a messenger boy for several months in the Auditor’s Department (but a recent search of the N&W records failed to confirm that). However, there is no doiibt that the young man was ambitious.8 Perhaps because of working for “Doc” Keyser, Cliff settled on pharmacy as a career. He moved to Richmond for most of the 1903- Sixteen-year-old Cliff Woodrum, hymnal in hand 5 �1904 academic year. There he studied the first-year “junior pharmacy” curriculum at the University College of Medicine (now part of Virginia Commonwealth University). Evidently he performed well in his classes. In January 1904 he applied to take the state pharmacy examinations, and later that year he passed them and became a registered pharmacist. He worked at this profession for over two years in Roanoke, mostly as proprietor of the Belmont Pharmacy. Meanwhile, his romantic interest also grew. He courted Martha Lena Hancock, originally from Bedford County. Lena, as she preferred to be known, was a pretty and popular belle who also came from a dis­ tinguished family. Her father was a direct descendant of John Hancock, signer of the Declaration of Independence. On December 26, 1905, Cliff and Lena were married in q quiet ceremony at the Methodist parsonage, attended by a few close friends. Following a honeymoon trip to Palm Beach, Fla., the couple moved in to live (temporarily) with the groom’s parents.9 Sometime in 1906 Cliff decided to go to law school. His daughter, Martha Ann (Woodrum) Zillhardt, remembers a story her father told about that decision. In an after-dinner talk Cliff and his father heatedly discussed a local legal case involving a Negro accused of murder. News­ paper accounts convinced Robert that the man should be hanged. But his son maintained the accused had a right to a jury trial, and he recited facts from the papers. Impressed with his son’s knowledge and ethics, Robert offered to send him to law school. 10 The young Woodrums moved to Lexington in September 1907, and Cliff enrolled in law school at Washington and Lee University. There he spent most of the 1907-1908 year taking courses, notably under Prof. A.P. Staples. His classes included contracts and agency, torts, real property, corporations, equity, evidence, bankruptcy and criminal law—the class in which he scored highest (93 of 100). A motivated student, he also took part in campus extracurricular life. Already he had starred in the Academy of Music’s production The Iron King, performed in May 1906. Now he sang with the Washington and Lee minstrels (most notably in a well-publicized program on April 30, 1908). Again he chose not to graduate. Instead, the Woodrums moved back to Roanoke that spring. Cliff read law in Judge Samuel Hairston’s office, passed the state bar examinations and was admitted to the Virginia bar on June 19,1908.11 Woodrum practiced criminal and commercial law in Roanoke for over 15 years with considerable legal, if not always financial, success. In July 1908 his first case won local notoriety. According to the Roanoke Evening World, defendant Alexander Perkins was given a compromise verdict of 10 years in the penitentiary for the murder of Rosa Lucas. Woodrum and Horatio F. Minton, both young and inexperienced, handled the defense. Virginia law provided that the accused be given a hearing -within four months after indictment, or be acquitted. Each month the clerk of the court had to make a record of the case stating why it was continued. Perkins escaped from jail (later he was captured), 6 �and the clerk failed to make the required records. Woodrum and Minton raised that technicality. However, to avoid an appeal to the state Supreme Court, both attorneys recognized that Perkins was guilty and stipulated that a compromise verdict would be fair to the defendant and the commonwealth. The Evening World observed that Perkins’ counsel “handled it in a manner that would have done credit to more experienced lawyers.” Also, in a murder case tried in November 1908, one newspaper credited Woodrum with handling the defense of accused killer Harry Grant in a masterly manner. While the defendant was convicted, Wood­ rum secured a reduced sentence of only one year. The point is that newspaper accounts indicate that in most cases Woodrum tried to be fair to both his client and the state.12 “The ambitious, capable young lawyer of today,” the Roanoke Times ’ editors wrote on July 31,1913, “is to a very large and increasing extent the hope for the future of the country. They are the men to whom we must look for guidance in the framing of laws, and from whose ranks must be selected the men who will have the construing of the laws, after they are enacted.” The Times concluded that Clifton A. Woodrum was the kind of American who succeeded in a most emphatic and enduring manner. Describing his background, the editors stated that since 1908 Woodrum had been recognized as a leader of the Roanoke bar. The éditorial hinted at what Woodrum’s friends already believed: before long he would use his reputation and prestige to enter politics. 13 All published accounts of cases handled by Woodrum and his associates from 1908 to 1917 suggest a pattern. He displayed a thorough knowledge of the law in general and its application to specific cases. He carefully organized the evidence and presented it in a straightforward manner in court. He showed concern for fairness to his client and to the case of the prosecution. Woodrum became popular with his associ­ ates and with the Roanoke Bar Association for several reasons. He demonstrated a strong sense of integrity and a keen appreciation of community responsibility.14 Woodrum also built a reputation as an excellent baritone singer. Often he sang for recitals, theatricals and church choirs. One notable group with which he performed was the Lyric Quartette. It included Mrs. John Trout as soprano, Mrs. Robert Hatcher as contralto, Charles E. Pless as tenor, and Woodrum as baritone. The quartet’s statewide appearances included, for example, a nine-number concert at the Virginia State Normal School in Charlottesville on July 13,1914. The Roanoke Times called it a splendid concert, noting that Woodrum “with his rich baritone captured the audience with his humorous selection, ‘Peter Peck.’ ” He also sang in a duet, “Passage Birds’ Fare­ well,” and in a trio, “Holy Angels.”15 Some of his other singing en­ gagements in 1914 included a Salem Choral Society concert on Feb. 10; soloing for the Glee Club Concert at Sweet Briar College on March 28; performing “The Elijah” for the Salem Choral Society on June 2; and 7 �The Lyric Quartette, about to burst forth in song in 1914, was composed of (from left) Charles E. Pless, tenor; Mrs. John Trout, soprano; Mrs. Robert Hatcher, contralto, and Clifton A. Woodrum, baritone. Bessie Rust was the accompanist. In 1913, the same singers were known as the quartette of First Baptist Church. singing with the Lyric Quartette at Roanoke’s First Baptist Church on March 6 and Nov. 5.16 After performing with the quartet in Martinsville on July 18, 1913, one critic praised Woodrum’s voice because “it has not only the qualities of a powerful deep bass, but the sweetness and smooth richness of the baritone, with a complete absence of harshness on the higher notes.” In such fashion did the young attorney’s musical talent help him acquire stature as a cultured gentleman.17 In addition, Woodrum joined service organizations. He became an avid Mason, a lifelong interest (later he was awarded the honorary 33rd degree). His memberships also included the Eagles and the Moose lodges and the Fraternal Order of Elks. His education and his splendid voice often won him speaking engagements at fraternal meetings. For instance, on Oct. 30, 1915, at the annual memorial service for the Roanoke Eagles, he delivered the main oration (usually he spoke extemporane­ ously with few notes). A Roanoke newspaper called it “one of the most tasteful, eloquent and impressive deliverances of its kind that has ever been.heard in this city.” His keynote was fraternity and service. “To merit the greatest benefit of the fraternity,” he argued, “man must not only be a good father, a good brother, and a good husband, but he must be a good citizen.” He said the purpose of fraternal orders was to 8 �cure selfish tendencies, a theme he sounded often in such speeches. In 1915, 1916 and 1917 he spoke more frequently at holiday, civic and church functions in the Roanoke Valley. His broadening interests are illustrated by his speech on “Clean Politics” at the Belmont Methodist Church on Dec. 8,1916.18 By 1917 at age 30, Woodrum aspired to a political career. His strong defense in the May 1914 murder trial of Elias Bousliman led C. D. Hewlett of the Roanoke World News to suggest that Woodrum stand for commonwealth’s attorney. Evidently Woodrum decided by late 1916 to run for the prosecutor’s position, but he made no announce­ ment. Instead, he consulted with some close friends and associates, who formed a campaign organization to get out the vote. Most of his backers were younger men, including several professional people. Woodrum thus established a pattern which he later repeated. He ran sucesssfully against an older and more experienced incumbent. He left no stone unturned in having his organization canvass the electorate on his behalf. And he campaigned on the theme of a new personality and a basic fairness, not on the issues. In August 1917 he defeated incum­ bent Everett Perkins (who had served since 1899) in the Democratic primary by the surprisingly large majority of 2,301 to 811.19 Woodrum stood at the threshold of a promising political career. Raymond P. Barnes, who published A History o f Roanoke (1968), wrote about 1918: “Ju]y fourth was celebrated very quietly. The young Commonwealth’s Attorney, C.A. Woodrum[,] was speaking in the different counties of the sixth district [ sic ]. An able orator with an affable personality and a rich baritone voice, Woodrum knew what he wanted.” Barnes added: “He later admitted that he intended to go to Congress and on these county trips he laid a good foundation.” Shortly before taking up his new duties on January 1, 1918, Woodrum with­ drew from his recent law firm of Hairston and Woodrum. But he planned to continue his practice of law, as was then standard, combined with his public position.20 Woodrum coupled his brief term as commonwealth’s attorney with his increasing appearances as a speaker and as a singer. The Roanoke Times soon reported that Commonwealth’s Attorney Woodrum was dealing rigidly with illegal sellers of liquor. In one week during late January 1918 he compelled seven persons to face a grand jury on charges of violating the Mapp Prohibition Act (passed in 1916). He also helped the state collect inheritance taxes of over $41,000 from legal heirs of the late Alfred M. Fuller. In late February Woodrum prosecuted Miss Elsie Stanley, who “borrowed” a coat and went for a walk (then left town), while working at the Virginia House. After cross-questioning witnesses, Woodrum warned the hotel’s proprietor that while his girls claimed to be maids, he would prosecute to the fullest if he found it was a “house of ill fame.” Evidently dealing in illegal liquor and women were commonplace rackets of those times in Roanoke.21 The new commonwealth’s attorney’s efforts at strict law enforce­ ment won him public respect. For example, Woodrum tried to crack 9 �down on perjury by witnesses. He took swom pretrial testimony, and would threaten to prosecute for perjury if the witness altered that testi­ mony in court. That happened, for example, with William Martin, a Negro witness in the murder trial of Byrd Wade. After testifying to it beforehand, Martin denied in court that he had seen a pistol in the defendant’s hand during a fight in which Wade killed another man. Woodrum responded by threatening to prosecute for perjury (to no avail in that instance). However, one Roanoke newspaper praised his conscientious work: “The conviction of the accused [one Karnes], which came somewhat in the nature of a surprise to the public, was due in large degree to the clever and forceful way in which the facts were marshalled and presented by the Commonwealth’s Attorney.” Also, the Roanoke Daily Press praised his singing, which the editors had previously described as undignified. If the commonwealth’s attorney had sung in the past as he did at the Knights of Columbus anniversary, commented the Daily Press on April 22, 1918, “the first time we ever heard him sing, instead of being undignified his singing closely approaches art, because Cliff was in splendid voice and the selections were a treat.” 22 Woodrum continued to enlarge the scope of his community activi­ ties in 1918 and 1919. For instance, in February 1919 he won election as the Illustrious Potentate of the Kazim Temple of Roanoke. He took part in the Shriners’ parade and other ceremonial activities. In May 1919 he played a leading role in organizing a campaign to raise $15,000 for juvenile work. His speech for the Citizen’s Juvenile Committee before the Rotary Club led to donations of $600 that same night. In the meantime, his public and civic reputation made him available for the judicial opportunity that opened when Judge A.E. King resigned in mid-1919 from Roanoke’s Corporation Court. Speculation about potential candidates naturally included Woodrum.23 The campaign on Woodrum’s behalf was secret and complex. At first he actively supported Horace M. Fox. Then he learned that several of his own friends had circulated a petition on his behalf, immediately after Fox withdrew. Woodrum explained his position at a meeting of the Roanoke Bar Association on August 14, 1919. “I would not have the judgeship of this court without the consent of the members of this bar,” he concluded. On the following night at a second meeting, backers of six candidates made a lively fight of it. Four men withdrew as the evening progressed, narrowing the choice to Woodrum or S. Hamilton Graves, the city’s solicitor. Seconding his nomination, Whitwell W. Coxe declared that Woodrum had compiled an excellent record and would make an honest, able and intelligent judge. At the end of the evening, Woodrum won the vote, 44-29. Graves moved, amid applause, that the nomination be made unanimous, which was done. Woodrum’s political fortunes then shifted to Richmond. But the outcome was never in doubt after he won the bar association’s endorse­ ment. The state Democratic caucus routinely approved his and several other judicial nominations on August 20, and the legislature ratified 10 �those approvals. 24 For almost three years, until April 10, 1922, Woodrum presided over the Corporation Court. Finding less time for singing (often he pre­ pared two to four special numbers per week, requiring several rehearsals), in February 1920 he asked to be dropped from the Lyric Quartette. Also, his developing political views can be seen in an address he delivered on Jan. 14, 1920, before the Roanoke Kiwanis Club. After reviewing the progress in America since the World War began in 1914, he stressed “true Americanism,” values which he said were reflected by the work of the Rotary and Kiwanis clubs. He stated that major U.S. problems involved current social, industrial and political unrest. Such problems were caused by people whom he divided into those opposing any form of constituted authority and those professing to be true Americans, but who were misguided. He listed the misguided as, first, the capitalist who only wanted to work his laborers unmercifully and secure every cent of profit. Second, he described as misguided the thoughtless citizens who had good intentions at heart, who continually tore down the government and its elected representatives. Third, he called mis­ guided the laborer who kept striving to cause trouble with his employer. In response, Woodrum could only advocate a general educational campaign to teach young men and women more about the fellowship of man, the Holy Bible and the U.S. Constitution.25 The year 1920 also saw women able to vote nationally for the first time, and in Roanoke Lena Woodrum led a delegation of 20 women to pay their $1.50 poll tax and register. For President and Vice President the Democrats nominated James M. Cox and Franklin D. Roosevelt, respectively, to run against Republicans Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge. The controversy over the postwar Versailles Treaty and the League of Nations had ended with the Senate rejecting the treaty for a second time in March 1920. But Cox and Roosevelt, at the urging of bedridden President Woodrow Wilson (who suffered a stroke in Sep­ tember 1919), made the League and collective security major issues in the campaign. The Woodrums voted Democratic, but to no avail. After the massive wave of industrial strikes and the numerous race riots of 1919, followed by the “Red Scare” engineered by Wilson’s Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, Harding and the Republicans called for a return to “normalcy.” They won the election handily. Wartime hysterias would fade away and the Progressive movement of the prewar period would surface with special-interest reforms in the 1920s. Big business would dominate the federal and state governments, as before the war. His­ torian George B. Tindall has pointed out that “business progressivism” emerged during the 1920s, especially in the South. While Woodrum’s evolving political views did not yet characterize him as a progressive, he did support key progressive ideas: improved public services, notably public schools and paved roads; and improved public administration, particularly in the area of reducing waste and inefficiency.26 The progressive impulse in Virginia during the 1920s, historian 11 �Raymond H. Pulley has argued, focused almost solely on the drive for greater government efficiency and economies. Governor Westmoreland Davis, an antiorganization Democrat who served from 1922 to 1926, aided that movement when he initiated the executive budget. Governor Harry F. Byrd, the organization’s new leader, served from 1926 to 1930 and introduced a “pay-as-you-go” road building program and various governmental reorganizations. While business progressivism helped by resulting in greater honesty and efficiency in public administration, it also hurt the Old Dominion by causing a declining interest by the tradi­ tionalist ruling elite in education and social services. To be anything but an organization Democrat or a business progressive during that era meant to challenge the establishment’s leadership. Stability and order were themes most often heard from state-level leaders. However, if Woodrum’s Kiwanis speech is an indication, he had not yet articulated any specific views on major state or national issues.27 Judge Woodrum immersed himself in the Corporation Court’s business without much sacrifice to other civic and social obligations, although he probably had léss time for his devotion to family life than otherwise would have been true.2 8 The decisions he rendered included, for example, that the city’s board of review was not legally empowered to reduce tax assessments 20 percent. Also, he decided that young businessman T. Chester Fleck (a personal friend) be given only a 60-day jail sentence and a fine of $250, after Fleck pleaded guilty to involuntary slaughter in the automobile death of Mrs. D.L. Davis and agreed to pay the aggrieved husband $10,000. 29 One aspect of Woodrum’s judgeship that later became controversial —during the 1922 Democratic primary campaign—was that he appeared lax on enforcing the prohibition law. In an editorial on July 29,1922, the Roanoke Times asserted that his record for 1920 alone showed Judge Woodrum had given suspended sentences in 69 of 78 cases dealing with selling or possessing liquor. Considering the powerful Anti-Saloon League and the Democratic organization collaborated on prohibition (enacted nationally in 1919), it is not surprising that political opponents tried to smear Woodrum in that fashion. On the other hand, the judge had stated at Bedford City on July 24th that his policy was to temper justice with mercy. In conjunction with Commonwealth’s Attorney Samuel R. Price, Woodrum formulated a plan to suspend sentence after some of it had been served, holding the remainder over the person to secure good behavior. In that way he believed the law would be enforced and the city’s moral tone elevated. He repeated that defense of suspended sentences on July 29 in his only major speech of the campaign in Roanoke. In any event, the dispute suggests the power of the so-called dry forces against “demon rum” during the prohibition era.3 0 In addition, Judge Woodrum carried on with civic activities. He continued performing as a baritone singer, either as soloist or with groups like the new Billy Sunday Club and its quartet. The 1920s witnessed a national revival of fundamentalist religion, and the South, 12 �Virginia and Roanoke were no exceptions. Evangelist William A. (Billy) Sunday arrived with his group and preached in Roanoke for several days during October 1920. Woodrum endorsed Sunday’s religious fervor, if not his fundamentalism. Himself tolerant, he ignored the minister’s intolerance. While he played a well publicized part in the singing and other evangelical ceremonies, Woodrum considered himself a devout Methodist. 31 In various ways Woodrum’s name kept appearing before the public. Recognizing his civic activities, Roanoke College conferred an honorary Master’s degree upon the judge on July 26,1921. Also, his speaking engagements for 1921 and early 1922 suggest that he had thoughts of higher office. The Roanoke World News (probably in late 1921) reflect­ ed such sentiments in an editorial about “The Young Man in Politics.” Quoting from his single term in Congress during 1847-1848, the editors observed that Abraham Lincoln urged young men back home to form a “Rough and Ready Club.” The club should hold regular meetings and discuss issues—“some speak, some sing, and all ‘holler.’ ” Public-spirited young men, the World News argued, should unite on a platform of service to rescue America from “old abuses, old policies of narrow selfinterest, and cynical old leadership that begins and ends in selfishness and spoils.” That thinking paralleled Woodrum’s ideas. He preserved the editorial.32 Woodrum expressed bis developing but general political views in a major address delivered on Dec. 29, 1921, at a Roanoke Kiwanis banquet honoring Governor’s Day. Five regional men who had been or were governors attended, including current Governor Westmoreland Davis and Governor-elect E. Lee Trinkle, an organization Democrat from Roanoke. Judge Woodrum spoke to an audience of over 400 on the topic “Kiwanis.” He said the organization stood for service to its fellow man; it tried to build a brighter day when the business world would follow the Golden Rule; and abiding happiness in personal or business life came from unselfish service to others. The Kiwanians sought to influence the character of people in positive ways, with the help and guidance of divine will, he said. He referred to the recent war and praised America for its effort on behalf of worldwide democracy. But he said nothing about the specific political, social or economic issues of the day. As usual he made an excellent impression with his rich voice, his handsome stature and his charming personality. There is no evidence that his mixture of political and religious beliefs as ex­ pressed in such public speeches was anything but sincere. 33 On March 21, 1922, Woodrum announced he had resigned from the bench effective April 10 to campaign for Congress in the Sixth district. He would enter the Democratic primary that August against the incumbent congressman, Colonel James P. Woods. There had been rumors for months that Woodrum would run. Three weeks earlier during a talk at a meeting of the Roanoke Bar Association, the judge had said he would make an important announcement that night. But he changed his mind during the talk and did not make an announcement. 13 �At least one friend, P.A. Dixon, had written in January and urged Woodrum to follow his religious convictions and enter the ministry, as opposed to his rumored political intentions. However, by then Judge Woodrum had decided that politics could best serve his interest in public service.34 The campaign promised to be controversial. The major Roanoke dailies, the morning Times and the evening World News, both conserva­ tive, immediately endorsed Congressman Woods and pledged to work for his reelection. “The House of Representatives would not stand so low in the public esteem,’’the Times said, “if it possessed more members of the character, equipment, experience and all-around ability of James P. Woods.” A successful local attorney and businessman with interests which included a coal mine, Woods had succeeded Congressman Carter Glass in 1919 when President Wilson appointed Glass as Treasury Secretary. Without specifying details, the Times declared that Woods deserved renomination on his “excellent” record alone. In its editorial, the World News stated that Woods should be renominated because of his deserved Washington reputation as “a hard-worker, a clear-thinker, and as a man of more than ordinary ability.” The newspapers argued that it would be folly to replace a proven legislator with an inexperienced newcomer, merely to send a popular local candidate to Congress.35 But editors do not necessarily account for many votes. Raymond P. Barnes later observed: Cliff Woodrum was an astute politician and just as he sensed a change was needed when he successfully ran against Everett [ sic ] Perkins, he now knew the people had a different outlook on life and perhaps would entertain views of a fresh candidate. Wood­ rum had long ago built the ground work to get himself before the public and now aimed at holding a seat in Congress. He was so prominent in Church choirs, amateur theatricals and lodge membership, this elicited a comment from the sharp-tongued Judge R.C. Jackson that tinged with acerbity. He said to Col. Woods’ backers: ‘Boys, we might beat him but before we do we will have to lick the Owls, the Elks, the Snakes and the Baboons.’ In his sarcastic comment, Jackson only ridiculed what the Woods people and the newspapers disliked: regardless of his political philosophy or political positions, Woodrum would win many votes simply because of his popular personality and his long-standing reputation in the Roanoke Valley.36 To boost these assets, Woodrum launched his own organization. Unlike the Woods Clubs, his Woodrum for Congress Clubs had separate women’s divisions. That was one way in which Woodrum showed his astuteness. Also, his Woodrum Clubs organized volunteer workers, who canvassed city and county voting units and official registration lists to locate and personally inform every potential supporter. The clubs 14 �handled political “detail” work, including printing brochures, sending letters, answering telephones at headquarters, and transporting Woodrum voters to the polls on election day. Leaders of the Roanoke Woodrum Club included well-known citizens like Dr. G.M. Maxwell, president; businessman S.R. Mason, secretary; and attorney John W. Wright (whom Woodrum nominated as postmaster in 1938), treasurer. Woodrum himself supervised the work of the clubs and personally stumped the district. At first he gave general speeches on principles of good government, taking vague positions on national issues. As the campaign progressed, he became more specific in defending his record as judge and on current issues. However, famous New York columnist Mark Sullivan complained that across the nation leaders of both parties and the public were unclear about key issues in 1922.37 Judge Woodrum opened his campaign on March 28 by singing before the Salem Woman’s Club and addressing about the Constitution and its background. In a nativist reference, he called unrestricted im­ migration a grave menace to American democracy. He also asked for voter support of the Towner Education bill currently before Congress., An indication of his interest in improving education, the bill would provide for a Bureau of Education with a cabinet-level secretary and much heavier appropriations for rural schools. In a humorous aside, he said he had been accused of trying to sing his way into office. He called singing his hobby, and “if some could buy their way into office and others could ‘lie’ thqir way into office, he didn’t see why one shouldn’t ‘sing’ his way into office if he could.” That witty touch re­ vealed Woodrum’s well-rounded personality. It also appealed to many voters, while upsetting the establishment. 38 Regarding his later political career, Woodrum’s first campaign for Congress is revealing. Following years of speaking and singing around the Sixth District, his extemporaneous style was well known. Aside from his personality, he also made issues of his youth, his independence and his political record. In a widely distributed statement, he told Roanoke’s Central Labor Council that his campaign was not based on any class, sex, ring or machine. “I believe in the principles of democracy that teach me that a public official should represent every citizen of his district, equally, without favor, and without regard to their occupation, financial worth or religious creed.” In other words, Woodrum would represent more than big business and the establishment if he won election. Union and nonunion labor could scarely misunderstand that promise.39 As part owner of the Borderland Coal Company in West Virginia, Colonel Woods was identified with “capital” by many voters. Further, he had the support of Virginia’s Democratic organization, popularly known as the “machine,” locally known as the “establishment.” The organization had passed from the control of Senator Thomas S. Martin when he died in November 1919. Still in transition, by 1922 it was coming under the leadership of state Democratic Chairman Harry F. Byrd. However, most of the working class people in Roanoke did not identify either with business interests or the Democratic organization.40 15 �The two candidates campaigned differently. Woods, a laissez-faire Democrat and an unemotional public speaker, stressed the organization’s priority of fiscal solvency. While campaigning (at first by letters printed in the papers explaining why he could not leave Washington) on his presumably excellent House record, Woods seemed to take renomi­ nation for granted. Some of the colonel’s law partners later believed that Woods and his supporters thought Woodrum could not beat the establishment. On the other hand, the judge campaigned actively, making speeches and shaking hands. He asserted that his opponent spoke as a friend of the farmer when stumping the counties, and spoke as a friend of the worker when speaking in the cities. He accepted Woods’ congressional record as above debate. He also conceded the colonel was a fine gentleman. But Woodrum repeatedly argued that the people were not obligated to re-elect a candidate merely on the basis of past experience. In addition, Woods, 54, probably won many votes from the older generations, while Woodrum, 35, by all accounts won more votes from younger people and from newly-enfranchised women. 41 Woodrum presented himself not only as an independent, but also as a progressive Democrat. His campaign brochure recorded that in recent speeches he stood for principles such as deploring the tendency of individuals or parties to allow partisan political interests or political expediency to overshadow their concern for the general welfare; for safeguarding the American birthright by adding immigration restrictions to exclude “undesirable aliens”; for giving the youth an aggressive state and federal education policy; for protecting delinquent youth from being treated as criminals, to give them an opportunity to become useful and law-abiding citizens; for enforcing all laws to punish and deter crime, remembering that the higher aim of law was to reclaim the offender as a self-sufficient citizen; for handling the nation’s revenues in a fair and businesslike manner, giving the taxpayer value received for money paid; and for passing legislation to insure the farmer “larger yields, fair compensation for his product, and a more direct and eco­ nomical distribution to the consumer.” While he sometimes spoke more specifically in public, his thinking about national issues had not yet gone much beyond such general principles.42 The Roanoke Times kept criticizing Woodrum for failing to be specific on issues like railroad reform. The editors argued that Wood­ rum only appealed to the emotions and prejudices of the electorate. Near the campaign’s end the Times used a rhetorical question to make a telling criticism: Judge Woodrum is pictured by his supporters as a struggling young man of ability who is being mercilessly throttled by Colonel Woods and his powerful and influential friends. He has spoken glibly though indefinitely about the brotherhood of man and has lauded the golden rule as a panacea for all troubles, domestic as well as international. All of which is very nice, but 16 �why send him to Congress if, as he contends, the ills of the body politic cannot be cured by legislation? Also, during the final week the Roanoke Woods Club filled the local newspapers with paid political advertisements which attempted to dis­ credit, if not smear, Woodrum’s record as judge.43 The 1922 Democratic primary provoked enough controversy to merit a historical study itself. Some of Woodrum’s contemporaries later recalled that it was one of the most bitterly contested elections in modern Virginia history. Reckless charges of a personal nature came from the candidates’ backers on both sides. Stating that Woodrum could hardly criticize the “splendid” congressional record of Woods, the conservative Raymond P. Barnes later commented: The charges and counter-charges made awakened the electorate for the first time in years from the apathy into which it had fallen. As a matter of fact, had Col. Woods not permitted his backers to raise certain issues, he would have been returned to Congress. Certain Woods campaigners, Barnes added, “vitriolic tongued and dealing in personalities, gave Woodrum a limb on which to climb. By adroit political maneuvering he enlisted the support of many as the ‘underdog.’ ” The Times also indicated that some of Woods’ backers were slinging mud. “Because a man wants to go to Congress,” the editors stated on April 28, 1922, “is not sufficient reason for saying all manner of evil things about him, some of which are quite possibly libelous.” In the end, however, such attempts to discredit Woodrum probably gained him more votes than they lost.44 What got into the newspapers concerned Woodrum’s alleged in­ competence as judge. The charge stemmed from his failure to sign, before leaving office, the court order books for over 800 decisions dating from December 1921 to April 10, 1922. The omission was accidentally discovered by Judge R.C. Jackson, an ardent Woods cam­ paigner then serving as attorney for W.M. Truax—who was convicted just before Woodrum left office. Informed of the situation, Woodrum returned and signed the order books on May 2. Truax then filed suit to have his and all other convictions with previously unsigned orders overturned and the prisoners freed. The Roanoke Times and other proWoods papers called it a dereliction of Woodrum’s duty, making him unfit for public office. “Most assuredly it will occur to more than one voter,” the Times observed, “that a man who would neglect the public’s affairs as judge would be apt to neglect them as Congressman.”45 The controversy had its ironic aspects, but it proved a tempest in a teapot. Apparently leaving court orders unsigned at the end of a term had been a common, if delinquent, practice. Woodrum’s campaigners soon charged that former Judge John W. Woods, brother of Colonel Woods, never did sign over 600 days of court orders. Woodrum’s 17 �successor on the Corporation Court, Judge John M. Hart (later a strong anti-organization leader), issued his decision on June 17,1922, and upheld Woodrum’s late signings. Hart stated that the question was moot. It resolved itself into “shall the signature of C. A. Woodrum, Judge, be allowed to remain on the orders of that day, or shall it be erased and that of the present judge be inserted in its stead.” That decision probably boosted public confidence in Woodrum. He consid­ ered it important enough to make no speeches between May 18, when the controversy got into print, and June 17, when Hart announced his decision.46 Woodrum wrapped up the campaign with his only appearance in Roanoke on Saturday evening, July 29, before a large and enthusiastic audience at City Auditorium. Everett Perkins spoke first on Woodrum’s behalf. He charged that the Woods people had appealed only to the voters’ passions and prejudices, not to their reasoning. In his address, Woodrum conceded the main issue was personality, since he subscribed to similar Democratic party principles as did his opponent. Therefore, the voters should choose the best man for the job, but not merely based upon a man’s past experience. He said that he had not criticized Woods for his stands on the soldiers’ “bonus” bill and the Plumb railroad bill, since neither was current in the House. He evaded his critics by promis­ ing to express his views on any “live” issue pending before the House and he expected his opponent would do likewise. He stated that on prohibition his duty had been to enforce the law, not to question it, but he had followed a judicial policy of justice tempered with mercy. On questions of capital and labor, he repeated his belief that no candi­ date could represent the district who was vitally interested in one side or the other. He reiterated his views on improving education and restricting immigration. For the peroration he expressed his basic out­ look on government: if elected, he would judge every measure on its merits, and he would try to represent all of the people equally. He urged all citizens to do their best and build up the nation, because “when you are called before the great tribunal above it will not be asked whether you won or lost but how you played the game.” While such sentiments sounded naive and unrealistic to partisans of Woods, those nevertheless formed an important part of Woodrum’s personal and political credo.47 With only two precincts from Bedford County missing (estimated to be 25 votes), Woodrum won the August 2nd primary by 369 votes out of 18,925 cast. Unofficial returns showed these totals: Montgomery County Floyd County Bedford County Campbell County Roanoke County Radford (City) 18 WOODS WOODRUM 976 395 1,222 888 1,159 231 265 104 1,265 754 678 160 �Lynchburg (City) Roanoke (City) 1,330 3,077 1,447 4,974 9,278 9,647 Despite his razor-thin margin, Woodrum ran well in all eight voting units, topped by his crucial majority of 1,897 in Roanoke City. His campaign strategy shows his political wisdom. He put his major speaking emphasis in rural counties in order to close the gap where Woods was favored, allowing his Woodrum Clubs to concentrate on Roanoke and Lynchburg where he expected to run well with the middle and working classes. On the other hand, Woods put his major speechmaking efforts into the counties and small towns where he already had strength, while neglecting Roanoke—where he lost so decisively that it cost him the election. Woodrum’s broadly based appeal left him in a good position to represent both rural and urban voters. In Novem­ ber he won by a landslide over Lynchburg businessman Fred W. McWane, a Republican political newcomer. Woodrum posted a 9,505 to 2,688 margin, an amazing 78 percent majority.48 Woodrum won and Woods lost for several reasons. First, Woodrum’s social and political prominence helped his majorities everywhere, especially in his home city. But his independent stance probably helped most of all, even though the Democratic establishment was not as strong in Roanoke as In the counties. He conducted a gentlemanly campaign in the Virginia tradition, which obscured the careful neigh­ borhood canvassing by his well organized Woodrum Clubs. His pro­ gressive support for state and national educational programs held a wide appeal. In summary, Woodrum’s dynamic personality and his gift for public speaking along with his progressive approach and his campaign organization combined to win the election. In comparison, James P. Woods had too many disadvantages off­ setting his and his campaigners’ overconfidence. The colonel was known as a machine man who represented the establishment and big corporations. If he had been an energetic campaigner whose speeches carried emotional as well as intellectual appeal, he might have won more votes. Instead, he was an uninspiring speaker who relied too heavily upon his record. Also, his reputation for being hard-nosed against striking workers hurt him in Roanoke. In a short autobiography dictated in 1943, he passed over his defeat by saying it resulted from “labor troubles” and a strike at the Borderland coal mine. That was a masterful understatement. A national railroad strike occurred in 1922, and on July 1st about 4,000 (roughly 85 percent) of the Norfolk and Western’s workers walked out. Supported by Woods and the establish­ ment, the N&W brought in new workers to replace strikers, refused to meet wage and other demands, and “won” the strike—which caused strong antibusiness feeling. All together, such factors made it an auspi­ cious year for a personable, independent, progressive Democrat to run for Congress. The result cost Woods his office.49 19 �Congressman Clifton A. Woodrum, about 1940 20 �In summary, Cliff Woodrum’s early years reflect the growth to maturity of a Virginia gentleman who concerned himself with service to his community. A handsome and polished man of many talents, he displayed unusual musical ability in singing numbers which ranged from the classics to “Carry Me Back to Old Virginia.” He joined the Masons and several fraternal orders, adopting and publicly articulating their goals of good fellowship and community service. He spoke eloquently before civic, church, and political groups about the fundamental values of traditionalist America, emphasizing a Jeffersonian approach to public life and good government. Available evidence shows he was a person of intelligence and integrity who worked hard to achieve a profitable private profession and a useful public career. He was a dedicated hus­ band and father who enjoyed spending spare time with his family. Finally, his political beliefs were not yet specific enough to determine the degree of his Democratic progressivism. But he was not a laissezfaire conservative. During the period following enactment of the 1902 constitution through the 1920s, the major theme in Virginia remained the dominance of economic and political conservatism as expressed by the Democratic organization, statewide by Thomas Martin and later by Harry Byrd and locally by James Woods.50 Following his victories in the primary and the general election of 1922, Judge Woodrum’s record as important citizen, private attorney, and public servant suggested that—as the 1939 Life poll later showed— his future in Washington was promising. In retrospect, the only sur­ prising point about Clifton A. Woodrum’s achievements is that his famous public career became obscure after his death in 1950. If it was not for Roanoke’s airport being named Woodrum Field (because of Woodrum’s major efforts on its behalf during 1939-1941), few Roanokers or Viginians would have any knowledge of an influential congressman who became an outspoken advocate during the 1930s of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and much of the New Deal. 51 FOOTNOTES I f W o o d ru m cam paign statem en t, n .d . [ 1 9 2 2 ], C lifto n A . W o o d ru m S crapbooks #1 (h e re a fte r c ite d as W SB, w ith n u m b e r). W ood rum did n o t keep a c o lle c tio n o f papers a fte r his re tire m e n t fro m Congress on D ecem ber 31 , 1 9 4 5 . B u t he d id preserve over a dozen scrapbooks, w h ic h c o n ta in m a in ly newspaper clip p in g s w ith som e do cum en ts and m e m o ra b ilia . T h e W o o d ­ ru m S crapbooks are in the possession o f his da ughter, M rs. J.C . (M arth a A n n e W o o d ru m ) Z illh a rd t, F incastle, Va. 2 L ife , M arch 20, 1 9 3 9 , p p . 14-17. 3 R oan oke T im e s & W orld-N e w s, A u g . 30, 1 9 7 4 . The Tim es o f O c t. 12, 1941, dedicated a 40-page section t o th e a irp o rt and th e cerem onies as w ell as to W o o d ru m , th e day be fore the fa c ility was renam ed W o o d ru m F ie ld . 4 R o b e rt and A n n a W o o d ru m had five c h ild re n , b u t o n ly C lifto n en jo ye d good health th ro u g h his a d u lt years. T h e oldest son, R o b e rt J. (1 8 7 7 -1 9 4 5 ), was th ro w n fro m a horse at a b o u t age 16 and had to be h o spitalize d and given in s titu tio n a l care fo r th e rest o f his life , w h ic h C lifto n paid fo r a fte r his fa th e r died in 19 12. The olde st da ughter, C laudine (1 8 8 0 1 9 0 3 ), died o f p n uem o nla at age 2 3 . L illia n (1 8 9 3 -1 8 9 8 ) live d o n ly five years, and an in fa n t son survived o n ly six days in S eptem ber 18 92. 5 R oan oke Tim es, M ay 1, 2 , 1 9 1 2 , M ay 7, 8, 1 9 3 9 ; R oan oke Leader, N o v. 2 2 , 18 83; “ T h e R .H . W o o d ru m O rch ard C o rp o ra tio n , R oanoke V irg in ia ,” n .d . [1 9 1 2 ] , WSB # 1 ; in te r­ view w ith Mrs. J.C . Z illh a rd t, Fincastle, V a., A u g . 1 9 7 9 ; R aym o nd P. Barnes, A H is to ry o f R oan oke (R a d fo rd , V a., 1 9 6 8 ), p p . 25 7, 4 9 2 . 6 F o r general ba ckg ro u n d , see W orks Progress A d m in is tra tio n , R o a n o ke , S to ry o f C ity and C o u n ty (R o a n o ke , V a., 1 9 4 2 ), esp. pp. 12 1-154. 7 Barnes, H is to ry o f R o a n o k e , p p . 33 6 -3 7 1 . 21 �8 C lip p in g , Dec. 7, 19 27, and E .J. D avis,.“ F ro m N & W Messenger to Congress,” N o rfo lk & W estern M agazine, S ept. 19 27, p . 77 5, WSB # 2 ; le tte r fro m Lew is M . Phelps, N & W P ublic R elations, and m e m ora ndu m , b o th dated A ug. 14, 1 9 7 9 ; in te rv ie w w ith M rs. J . C . Z ilih a rd t, F incastle, V a., Feb. 19 78. 9 Board re ceipt, N ov. 9, 1903, and “ A p p lic a tio n fo r E x a m in a tio n as Registered P harm acist,” Jan. 16, 19 04, WSB # 1 ; R oan oke T im e s, Dec. 28, 1 9 0 5 ; intervie w s w ith M rs. J.C . Z ilih a rd t, Fincastle, V a., Feb. 19 78, A u g . 1 9 7 9 ; Barnes, H is to ry o f R o a n o ke , p. 4 2 1 ; le tte r fro m N ancy G . S um m ers, V C U L ib ra ry a rc h iv is t, w ith m e m ora ndu m on “ ju n io r p h a rm a c y ” courses, b o th dated A u g . 2, 19 79. 10 In te rv ie w w ith M rs. J.C . Z ilih a rd t, F in c a tle , V a. S ept. 19 78. 11 L e tte r fro m H a ro ld S. Head, W & L registrar, J u ly 25, 1 9 7 9 ; clip p in g s, n .d . [1 9 0 8 ], and progra m , “ W ashington & Lee M in s tre ls ,” A p ril 3 0 , 1 9 0 8 , and R oan oke E vening N ew s, May 19, 1 9 0 6 , WSB # 1 ; R oan oke Tim es, A ug. 19, 19 17. 12 R oan oke E vening W o rld , J u ly 15, 1 9 0 8 , WSB # 1 . A ls o see R oanoke T im e s, June 16, 1914, and clip p in g s, J u ly 15, N ov. 6, 19 08, A p ril 7, 1 9 0 9 , Dec. 2 2 , 1 9 [0 9 ] , ib id . 13 R oan oke Tim es, J u ly 31, 1913, ib id . 14 R oan oke Tim es, Feb. 7, 1914, Jan. 3 0 , 19 16, and clip p in g s fo r 1 9 1 7 , ib id . 15 P rogram , “ C O N C E R T , The L y ric Q u a rte t,” J u ly 13, 1 9 1 4 , ib id .; R oan oke T im e s, J u ly 1 6 ,1 9 1 4 . 16 Programs, “ C o n ce rt, Salem C horal S o c ie ty ,” Feb. 10, 19 14, “ S w eet B ria r College, Glee C lub C o n c e rt,” M arch 28, 1 9 1 4 , “ T h e E lija h ,” June 2 , 1 9 1 4 , “ C O N C E R T , the L y ric Q u a rte tte ,” M arch 6, N ov. 5, 1914, and R oan oke T im e s, M ay 3 0 , 19 11, June 1, J u ly 15, N ov. 30, 19 13, and R oan oke W o rld N ew s, June 3, J u ly 25, 1 9 1 3 , and R oanoke E vening W o rld , S ept. 7, 19 09, and Salem S e n tin e l, Feb. 12, 1 9 1 4 , in WSB # 1 . 17 P rogram , “ A n E vening o f S ong,” n .d . [ 1 9 1 3 ], w ith re p rin t o f c r itic ’s com m ents, ib id . 18 C lip p in g , O c t. 31 , 1 9 1 5 , ib id .; R oan oke T im e s, N ov. 2, 19 15, Dec. 8, 1916. 19 C lipp in gs, A ug. 8, Dec. 26, 1917, WSB # 1 ; R oan oke Tim es A u g . 9, 1 9 1 7 , Jan. 1, 1918. 20 Barnes, H is to ry o f R o a n o k e , p. 5 4 3 ; c lip p in q . Dec. 2 6 . 19 17, WSB # 1 . 21 R oan oke Tim es, Jan. 26, 1 9 1 8 ; Barnes, H is to ry o f R o a n o ke , pp. 5 4 7 -5 5 7 . On state p ro h ib itio n being enacted by 1916, see A lle n W . M oger, V irg in ia : B o u rb o n ism to B y rd , 1 8 7019 25 (C h a rlo tte s v ille , V a., 19 6 8 ), p p . 29 7 -3 1 9 . 22 C lip p in g , Feb. 2 6 , 1 9 1 8 , and oth ers, n .d . [1 9 1 8 ] , WSB # 1 ; R oan oke Tim es, M ay 5, 1919. 23 C lipp in gs, n.d . [1 9 1 9 ], WSB # 1 ; R oanoke T im e s, M ay 9, 19 19. 24 Ib id ., A u g . 15, 16, 17, 21, 1 9 1 9 ; clip p in g s, A u g . 15, 16, 19 19, WSB # 1 . 25 W o o d ru m to Mrs. B everly W o rth a m , Feb. 21, 19 20, ib id .; R oan oke Tim es, Jan. 15, 1920. 26 R oanoke W o rld N ews, A u g . 2 7 , 1 9 2 0 , WSB # 1 ; George B. T in d a ll, The Em ergence o f the N ew S o u th , 19 1 3 -1 9 4 5 (B ato n Rouge, La., 1 9 6 7 ), p p . 21 9 -2 5 3 . 27 R aym o nd H . P ulle y, O ld V irg in ia R esto red: A n In te rp r e ta tio n o f th e Progressive Im ­ pulse, 1 8 7 0 -1 9 3 0 (C h a rlo tte s v ille , V a., 1 9 6 8 ), p p . 17 1-188. 28 C lifto n and Lena W ood rum had tw o c h ild re n , C lifto n A ., J r. (1 9 1 0 -1 9 6 0 ), and M artha A n n e (1 9 1 6 ). 29 C lip p in g , Jan. 27 , 19 21, and oth ers, n .d . [1 9 2 2 ] , W SB # 1 . 3 0 R oanoke Tim es, J u ly 2 5 , 2 8 , 2 9 , 19 22. 31 C lipp in gs, Feb. 15, M ay 1, 19 21, and oth ers, n .d . [ 1 9 2 1 ] , WSB # 1 . A ls o see clip p in g s on W illia m A . S u n d a y ’s serm ons, n .d . [O c t. 1 9 2 0 ], WSB # 4 ; S unday t o W o o d ru m , tw o letters, n.d . [F e b . 1 9 2 1 ], WSB # 2 ; Barnes H is to ry o f R o a n o ke , pp. 5 8 2 , 59 3. 32 R oanoke Tim es, June 16, 1 9 2 1 ; W o o d ru m t o Charles J. S m ith , p resident o f R oanoke College, M ay 17, 19 21, and R oanoke W o rld N ew s, n .d . [1 9 2 1 ] , W SB # 1 . 33 C lipp in gs, Dec. 2 9 , 30, 19 21, ib id .; R oan oke T im e s, Dec. 29 , 1921. 34 C lipp in gs, March 21, 22, 19 22, and P .A . D ix o n to W o o d ru m , Jan. 10 , 1 9 2 2 , WSB # 1 . 35 R oanoke W o rld N ew s, M arch 21, 1 9 2 2 , ib id .; R oan oke T im e s, M arch 2 2 , 1922. 36 Barnes, H is to ry o f R o a n o k e , p . 60 5. 37 C lip p in g , A p ril 10, 19 22, WSB # 1 ; R oan oke T im e s, J u ly 2 3 , 1 9 2 2 ; in te rv ie w w ith Mrs. V irg in ia W rig h t, R oanoke, V a., J u ly 19 79. 38 C lip p in g , M arch 28, 19 22, WSB # 1 . 39 W o o d ru m cam paign s ta te m e n t, n.d . [1 9 2 2 ] , ib id . 4 0 R oanoke Tim es, J u ly 29, 30, 1 9 2 2 ; Barnes, H is to ry o f R o a n o ke , pp. 5 5 8 , 6 1 1 -6 1 2 ; in te rv ie w w ith Le onard G . Muse, R oanoke, V a., A u g . 1 9 7 8 . On th e D e m o cra tic o rg a n iza tio n , see V .O . K e y ., J r., S o u th e rn P o litic s in State and N a tio n (N e w Y o rk , 1 9 4 9 ), p p . 19-35. 41 C lipp in gs, n.d . [ 1 9 2 2 ], WSB # 1 ; R oan oke T im e s, J u ly 16, 29, 1 9 2 2 ; in te rv ie w w ith Leonard G. Muse, R oanoke, V a., A u g . 1 9 7 9 ; in te rv ie w w ith F ra n k W . Rogers, S r., R oanoke, V a. A u g . 1979. 4 2 Campaign b o o k le t, “ Judge C lifto n A . W o o d ru m ,” n .d . [ 1 9 2 2 ] , WSB # 1 ; R oanoke Tim es, J u ly 25, 30 , 1922. 4 3 Ib id ., June 21, J u ly 17, 29, 30, 1 9 2 2 ; c lip p in g s, n .d . [1 9 2 2 ] , WSB # 1 . 4 4 Barnes, H is to ry o f R o a n o k e , p p . 6 1 1 -6 1 2 ; R oan oke T im e s, A p ril 2 8 , 1 9 2 2 ; in te rv ie w w ith M e lville C arico, R oanoke, V a., A u g . 1 9 7 9 ; in te rv ie w w ith F ra n k W. Rogers, S r., R oanoke, V a., A u g . 19 79. 45 “ C o m m o n w e a lth o f V irg in ia vs. C .M . T ru a x ,” F ile N o . 1 0 606 [ 1 9 2 2 ], M u n icip a l C o u rt B u ild in g , R oanoke, V a .; R oan oke Tim es, M ay 18, 1 9 2 2 ; B e d fo rd B u lle tin , J u ly 28, 19 22; c lip pings, n .d . [ 1 9 2 2 ] , WSB # 1 . 4 6 R oan oke Tim es, June 18, 1 9 2 2 ; Salem S e n tin e l, June 19, 19 22. 4 7 R oan oke Tim es, J u ly 30, 1922. 4 8 C lipp in gs, n .d . [A d g . 1 9 2 2 ] , WSB # 1 ; R oanoke Tim es, A u g . 3, N ov. 8, 19 22. 4 9 James P. W oods, “ Personal B iographical Sketches and Rem iniscences o f James Pleasants W oods” (ty p e s c rip t, A ug. 1 9 4 3 ), in possession o f James P. W oods, J r., Salem , V a .; Barnes, H is to ry o f R o a n o k e , pp. 6 0 3 -6 1 8 ; R oan oke T im e s, J u ly 2, 19 22. 50 M oger, V irg in ia : B o u rb o n is m to B y rd , p p . 3 4 5-37 0. 51 F o r trib u te s by colleagues on W o o d ru m ’s 23 years o f service, see U .S. Congress, House, Congressional R e c o rd , V o l. 91, N o . 224 (u n b o u n d e d itio n ), p p . 12 3 7 0 -8 0 . 22 �Col. James P. Woods, Lawyer, Congressman by Roy H. Hippert Jr. James Pleasants Woods was a traditionalist in thought and action. He possessed the attributes of a conservative statesman which, in the words of famous English conservative Edmund Burke, included “a dis­ position to preserve and an ability to improve.”1 Growing to manhood in the late 19th century and serving in Con­ gress from 1919 to 1923, Woods developed a laissez-faire political phi­ losophy. He believed steadfastly in the American work ethic, the Methodist religion, the Democratic party, the free enterprise system and the fundamental principles of individual initiative and personal responsibility. Born in 1868, Woods grew up in rural circumstances in a prosperous Catawba Valley farming family. His childhood environment helped young James develop many of his lifelong attitudes. From farm expe­ riences he came to believe in the value of hard work in shaping character. Furthermore, he later subscribed to the then common belief in the in­ nate goodness and superiority of rural life. For example, in 1923 he remarked that it was “on the farm where the purest patriotism and the hardiest manhood is produced.”2 During the 1870s Woods learned to view federal government inter­ vention and unrestricted Negro suffrage with suspicion. He later de­ scribed Reconstruction as “a travail of misrule” and Negro suffrage as having been “enacted that the Southern states might drink to its dregs the bitter cup of their humiliation.”3 The adult Woods felt that federal government measures on behalf of the black citizen stifled individual initiative. From the pro-business climate of the times as well as from his father’s prosperity, he learned to respect the sanctity of property and to espouse the self-made man theory. He came to believe that success in life was “never an accident” but always the product of hard work.4 His belief in hard work was instilled in him very early in life by his father. His father, William Woods, had Irish antecedents and his mother, Jane Eddington Woods, came from English parentage. William Woods had served as a lieutenant in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. The bitterness of Reconstruction influenced William deeply, and he R oy Hippert o f Salem has completed two years at Virginia Western Community College in Roanoke. He is a pre-law student majoring in history at Roanoke College. 23 �William and Sara Jane Edington Woods, parents of James P. Woods, photographed probably at their marriage in 1856 or shortly afterward! The old Woods home at Indian Camp Farm in the Catawba Valley burned in 1976 and the remains were razed by R. D. Morehead the owner, in 1977. 24 �passed that bitterness on to his children. Many of his father’s attitudes and teachings are reflected in an autobiography which James Woods dictated late in life, when he wanted his own family to appreciate their heritage. Completed in August 1943, the “Personal Biographical Sketches and Reminiscences of James Pleasants Woods” cover 17 legal­ sized pages in single-spaced typewritten form. An edited and reorganized version of Woods’ reminiscences sheds considerable light on his early life and experiences and provides a major source for this article. The following portion covers the Woods family through 1892, when James finished college: I was born Feb. 4, 1868 at “Indian Camp” on Catawba. It was, in my time, not known as “Indian Camp”, but “Valley Echo.” From old deeds in Botetourt and Augusta, ho waver r it is referred to as a “Place called Indian Camp,” and most assuredly it was an Indian camp so many old arrow heads and Indians relics are found there. Besides, my father, who was born in 1817, said when he was young, frequently friendly Indians passing through on their way to Washing­ ton, stopped and camped there, and frequently came to the house for food. I have traced the title to “Indian Camp” through the records of Botetourt and Augusta, but have not found the original crown grant. It is a very old place. James McAfee was the first or second settler in what is now Roanoke County. (See McCauley’s History of Roanoke County) Our place and the McConkey farm on the east were deeded to Archibald Woods of Albemarle Co., by the McAfees about 1770 or 1771. It was deeded to the McAfees by Robert Poage and to Poage by James McCown in Augusta Co. records. Archibald Woods had several children, among them John, my grandfather who owned “Indian Camp.” My grandfather John evi­ dently bought the interest of the other heirs in “Indian Camp ”1*1 some of who lived in Kentucky—and died there leaving several children. My father, William, bought the interests of the other heirs of his father and his brother, Absalom. My father’s mother was Elizabeth Smith of Mason’s Cove. My father, William, the youngest of his family, was born in 1817, and married first, Harriet Painter, before he was 21 and in 1856 married my mother, Jane Eddington. There were five children by the first wife. The second wife’s children were: Judge John W., born 1858 and died childless in December 1912; Amine Eldora, born about 1860 and died unmarried January 1884. She was a beautiful girl of a most happy and amiable disposition and very popular. Joseph Robert, born about 1863 and died in Salem or Lewis-Gale Hospital in 1916. He had the entire confidence of his fellow countymen. Anna Louise, born about 1866 and still lives unmarried in Roanoke. Next came myself. The youngest was Oscar Wiley who graduated in medicine at 25 �the University of Virginia and took a post-graduate course at John’s Hopkins. He became s surgeon in the United States Army and for some time was stationed in the Philippines where he became ill and died in Roanoke about 1910 unmarried. (For the early lineage see “Woods McAfee Memorial”) My father owned a number of slaves, most of the children or rela­ tives of Aunt Lucy, who was bought when she was 10 years old, and was sold in the settlement of one of the Smith estates in Mason’s Cove. My father’s mother was a Smith, and slaves were usually, when they had to be sold, purchased by some relative of the former owners. In fact, when slaveholders, for financial reasons, had to sell slaves they usually told the slave to select for himself a good master to whom the slaveholder would sell at a lower price than could be obtained from a “slave trader” to take them south. Two classes of men, the “slave trader” and the “paper shaver” were, before the war, held in execration in the south, this to the credit of our humane standards and sentimental consideration of the slaves by most people. My father never sold a slave, but kept himself poor buying rela­ tives of Aunt Lucy, upon her importunities when some had to be sold to settle estates. He paid $1,500 for John, Aunt Lucy’s half brother, just a short while before the war. Occasionally he had to threaten to sell one obstreperous slave, Griffin, in order to make him behave. My father lacked one year of being too old for service in the Con­ federate army when the Civil War broke out, but he volunteered and was made first lieutenant in his Roanoke County company in the 54th Virginia Regiment. His command was assigned to guarding the salt works at Saltville, the chief source of salt supply of the Confederates. His command was also sent to West Virginia on the Ohio River to combat the Union military activities there, but the federal gunboats came up the river and drove them back. In his second year of service he contracted measles and pneumonia and was desperately ill at Salt­ ville where he was serving one year after he had reached the age limit which exempted him. My mother rode horseback from Catawba to Saltville to see him while he was sick. He was never strong afterwards but was assigned to “home guard duty” till the end of the war. He was on that duty when Hunter’s Army was driven by Early from Lynchburg to Salem where Hunter left the valley and struck through Hanging Rock Gap across Catawba and the various mountains to West Virginia. Hunter had abandoned his wagon trains and had to subsist his army on the country. He sent out his raiding squads and gathered in all livestock, grain and supplies he could find. At home Charles Blanney, Aunt Lucy’s son, took the horses to Montgomery and hid ‘them in the mountains until all danger from Hunter’s raiders was past, when he faithfully brought them back. Charles was then 16 years old. His conduct is a typical example of the loyalty and devotion of the slaves to their masters and their families. When Hunter’s army came through they took everything in sight. 26 �They gave Griffin whiskey to make him drunk and he continued to show the Yankees where things were hidden, flour, meat, etc. My mother saw him doing this during the day till she went to him and told him the Yankees had found all the food that had been hidden except one barrel of flour hid in the leaves up the branch hollow, and that if he showed them where that was he (Grif) would just have to starve. He didn’t show it to them. They took all the bacon except one ham which she sat on in her rocking chair, and this saved it with the barrel of flour. She hid her silver when she heard the Yankees were coming, and in her excitement forgot where she hid it. She never found it. Presumbably the Yankees found it. One soldier took up a beehive and mounted his horse with it on his shoulder. He rode off with it, his horse kicking from the stinging bees. All the horses had been taken away by Charles except one three-year-old unbroken colt which I afterwards knew as “Old Ned”, a fine Morgan horse. The Yankees chased him in a three-acre lot all day, but never could catch him. They ransacked the house taking blankets. Times were very hard just after the Civil War. The slaves were all freed but the problem was what to do with them. The whole eco­ nomic structure of the South had been wrecked. And under the ‘Reconstruction’ that followed the Confederate soldier was deprived of the right to vote and had few legal rights. The “scalawags,” “carpetbaggers” and the former slaves were in control. Gen. Grant, however, showed chivalrous consideration for the Confederate soldiers and by his influence saved Virginia from many of the hardships of Reconstruction. Father had his own leather tanned and got an Irish cobbler to come each fall to make our shoes. The sole leather had to be bought. Likewise, our clothes till we were about grown were made at h o m ehickory shirts and Kentucky jeans. After we were larger, the tailor at Salem, Z. Boone, would cut out our Sunday suits of good cloth and my mother would make them. I never had a tailor-made suit till I was at college. I plowed corn the first day when I was 11 years old. They wanted me to hoe, but I wanted to do a man’s job. They said if nothing else would do me I could get old Beck, a fractious saddle mare, whom nobody else would plow, and “split middle.” The plow was as tall as I. I couldn’t keep it from chugging under the underlying slate rocks, which would break the trace chains, and cause the plow to “kick” me. Old Beck and I fought all day, and broke down about as much corn as we plowed. When night came I was so tired and mad I refused any supper and went straight to bed. The next morning father called me saying, “Jim, get up, old Beck’s down”. I said, “I ’m glad to hear it, I knew one of us had to go”, but I didn’t know which one of us would hit the pearly gates first, I or old Beck. The wheat was thrashed by horses hitched to a turntable walking around in a circle and operating the thrasher. As a boy it was my job 27 �to hold sacks as the thrashed wheat was poured into them. It required numerous hands to get the wheat to the machine and stack the straw. As a rule Father never sold his wheat, but had it ground into flour at Painters’ Mill and sold the surplus to poor people, many of whom could not pay. I always on the farm would do the heaviest work that men did. I never learned to bind wheat as the strongest men cradled. I cut wheat with a cradle when I was 15. There were no binders then and harvesting was done by hand except mowing machines for hay. In the winter when the branch was up we ran the sawmill and sold the lumber, and used the slabs for wood. Every spring each of us usually had a three-year-old colt to break, and he was then ours to ride. We always stabled the calves which were bought in the fall and the next year ran them in the “range” in Mason’s Cove for two or three months, and would go over to salt them once a week. In the winter time it was our job to haul saw logs and to operate the sawmill, first an “up and down” sawmill, later about 1880 circular sawmill with cornchoppers. My father kept a large force of hands and always found something for us to do. It was rather rare that we got a half-day holiday Saturday afternoon to go fishing or squirrel hunting. We were taught that life is work. We had no time to get into mischief. When we looked out in the morning the first thing that greeted our eyes was a hill to climb. It made men of us. In the early days we had no pleasure vehicles, but rode horseback, the women on side saddles. When I was small my father bought the first family “Jersey” paying $120 for it. It had been made in a black­ smith and wagon maker’s shop, the only source of supply in those days. Later we bought a neat trap, made by Kefauver & Son of Big Lick. I rode horseback behind my sister Amine to visit our Aunt, Mrs. Griggs. I had never seen a train, but saw two boxcars on a switch, and went back to tell my younger brother of the wonderful sight I had seen. Big Lick then had 400 people, and the only business street was Commerce, with four or five stores and some tobacco factories. To me it was a wonderful trip. I never rode on a train till after I was 18. [My youngest brother] Oscar rode the train from Christiansburg to Salem and told me of his experience. He said it ran so fast you could hardly count the telegraph poles. As boys we had learned a number of short poems, each knew them all, and we would “speak” them whenever a stranger came to spend the night. The first one to speak selected for recital the best poem. Father would bet on me and the stranger on Oscar. . . . Our sponsors would give us at the conclusion about five cents each, which we put in our tin banks. I accumulated about $4 that way, which made me richer than my school mates. At school we played “Town Ball,’’ and I became the best batter in school of the solid rubber ball. We all attended the country schools in the neighborhood; a part of the time at the school house [which was taught by private tutors] on the farm, and part of the time two miles away at the school house 28 �near the present Catawba Church. Our various teachers were my brother, John, who had three years at Roanoke College; L. W. Wise, a nephew of Gov. Wise; Frank B. Caldwell who taught me to write; Chas. K. Peck; Miss Fannie Spessard, the mother of Gov. Holland of Florida; Col. James Brent, a relative of President Madison, who taught me to love Bobby Burns, and Arch Wiley, son of Dr. Wiley. My last public school teachers were Edgar Barnett and J. T. S. Wade. I learned enough to stand the examination to teach a school myself at $25 a month and paid $6 for board at Shiloh. While going to the Brand school I, then eleven years old, met my first sweetheart, Lee Goolsby. I wanted to marry that girl, but thought it useless to say anything to my mother about it as she would think me too young to marry. Lee moved back to New Castle and later married before I had a chance to court her. My next sweetheart I met when I was 15, Annie Robinson of lower Catawba. She was visiting my niece, Gertie Lewis. They proposed that we take a walk a half-mile up to the Roanoke Red. I was escorting Annie, but was walking on the wrong side. Annie switched around and got on the right side. Gertie and my brother teased me for not knowing the right side. At the Roanoke Red office the Manager asked if we would like to talk to the Lake Spring Hotel at Salem, likewise owned by F. J. Chapman. The telephone line connecting the two resorts was the first one in Roanoke County. I talked over it. On that trip I made an engagement with Annie to come to see her the next Sunday, as I had my own colt to ride but I didn’t own a saddle. I thought I could borrow Joe’s, but when I asked Joe for his saddle he had an engagement to go to see some girl and couldn’t lend it to me. I was then in a pickle with an important engagement and no saddle. I solved it by writing Annie a postal card telling her I couldn’t come because “I ain’t got no saddle,” a frank excuse and a truthful one, though crude. Oh, we don’t appreciate the things that trouble a boy or his sufferings. Always sympathize with a boy when he stumps his toe or has his troubles, serious to him, as every time the old hall clock ticks it brings that boy nearer manhood. After that I cut out girls except in a casual way till I was through college and for several years after. After my father’s death in June 1882, mother with six children insisted upon my brother, John W., staying with us on the farm and handling the livestock, the chief money income. Calves were not vealed then but were sold as stockers at about five dollars cash when three months old. He bought many from single cow owners at Vinton and near Roanoke and it was frequently my job to drive these young calves, 10 or 15 at a time from Vinton to Catawba, a long and tire­ some drive for one day. He bought a flock of sheep on the north side of Bedford County, and upon his return asked if I wished to take the trip to drive them home SI a three days drive —otherwise he would let the colored man, Mose, go. Boy-like, 15 years old, I wanted the trip and made it. What 15-year-old boy could you find now to 29 �do that five-day trip among strangers? After teaching a country school at Shiloh on Catawba one five months term at $25 per month, I went the next summer to Dr. D. Surface’s private summer school at Childress Store in Montgomery Co. about ten weeks. The tuition was $2 a month and I paid Mrs. Thotnas Hall $6 a month board. I had to walk a mile to school. Dr. Surface was an alumnus of Randolph-Macon, a fine teacher, who drilled us thoroughly in arithmetic, algebra, English and Latin grammar. After five months with him I could write a grammar. The next fall I taught at the Narrows School for $30 per month and paid $4 a month board. At the end of my school term I went to Salem as clerk in Brown Bros. “Red Striped Front” gent’s furnishing store at $25 per month, sleeping at the store to guard it. I paid $10 a month table board at Lake Spring Hotel, F. J. Chapman, the proprie­ tor, saying he would charge me only the same he was charging his brother-in-law. I never forgot his kindness either, and in later years, when I was mayor of Roanoke I was glad to get his son, William, a job with the Norfolk and Western shops. I paid my board by selling him for $10 a little mare with four white feet, called “Silk Stockings,” the first horse I ever owned. I cannot recall now how long I remain­ ed in the store, but all the while I kept constant in mind that I would get a college education. I had my trunk packed to go to Randolph-Macon, but on Friday night before I was to leave for college on Monday, Frank Chalmers, cashier of the Farmers National Bank, came into the store [where I was working] and told me his bank would pay me $6 a month to sleep in the bank at night, make the fires and sweep out the bank each morning. This would save me room rent, lights, etc., and I could go to Roanoke College. The college was kind to me and after the first year charged me only half tuition, $25 a year. Frank Day ran a “mess” and I boarded with him, until he went “broke,” at $7 a month. Financially, I was sailing smoothly. After Joe had bought out several of the heirs and after I had spent one year at Roanoke College and hardly had money to go further, he proposed to sell me a half interest in “Indian Camp” at what he paid for it. I verbally agreed to buy it. One morning after college had opened we were tying up corn shocks, he on one side of the shock and I on the other. I wrapped the two stalks around the shock to tie. That frosty morning the two stalks broke. I pulled them together and they again broke. I walked around the shock to Joe’s side and said: “Joe, will you let me out of that trade for one-half of this farm?” Joe said, “Yes, if you want out. What are you going to do?” I said, “I ’m going back to college.” Joe said, “When?” I said, “Right now.” I walked out of the field, got my little grip and walked cross the mountain to Salem, in September 1889. I have never regretted that decision, nor have I ever seen a man or woman who regretted the time spent in college, regardless of whether they improved with the college opportunities. 30 �The college president had that summer met me on the street in Salem as I was driving the farm wagon and asked me if I would return to college. I told him “no,” as I didn’t have the money without borrowing it; that I thought I would work a year or so and later com­ plete my college course. He said, “You are mistaken. Get your education first and then work. What is a thousand-dollar debt to a man with a college education? If you need the money for the next year I will see the college treasurer and get him to lend you $200. We will not let the best man in the freshman class stay out of college for lack of money.” I had this in mind when I left Joe and the farm. I repaid the college this amount after I began practicing law, and have since repaid it many times gladly. The college charged me only $25 for tuition. Before that year was out the county treasurer, W. W. Brand, voluntarily offered me the job of deputy treasurer to collect the taxes in the Salem District, which I could do in the summer months and on Saturdays and court days, and which paid me $150. He was a Re­ publican while I was a Democrat, and I have never ceased to be grate­ ful for his kindness to me, a struggling boy. I know his action was criticized by some of his Republican supporters for giving the place to a Democrat. He also loaned me a colt to ride over the district from Hollins to Elliston. The tax job enabled me to stay in college until my graduation as president of my class in 1892. I always made “First Distinction” which meant a grade of above 95. In my sophomore year I made an average grade of 98, the highest in college, but my junior and senior years I went to room with Ernest McCauley at his home. He was always in love, and, while brilliant, was never a close student, and I never studied as closely myself after I roomed with him. He was the only man in the senior class who failed to get his diploma, but it was later given to him and he has honored it. I joined the Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity my freshman year, 1888-89. We had a club of fine boys, neary half of them ministerial students. There was never any drinking in the club room. That little chapter, with never at one time more than 10 members, turned out three college presidents and numerous college professors. In later years, however, its membership became somewhat dissipated. I took the records and sent them in to the Grand Chapter. I saw the way the boys were going, and I preferred the chapter’s death to dishonor. In my senior year I was unanimously elected president of the class, which, all things considered, I think the greatest honor that ever came to me. College students usually pass an unerring judgment upon their fellows, though in my case it may have been an all too partial one, but “Big Woods” appreciated it highly. [James Woods, “Big Woods,” stood 6 ’3” and weighed in excess of 240 pounds.] Upon completing his undergraduate education at Roanoke College, Woods moved to Charlottesville and began studying law at the University of Virginia. After a year and a half of law school, he returned to 31 �Roanoke to launch his career. Later he recalled his return to the city: Roanoke had collapsed from the 1890-91 boom when I came here in June 1893. There was very little business of any kind; four of the seven banks broke, but within five years I represented at least for a while, three of the seven banks, and our law business continued to grow till I went into partnership with Edward Robertson and Harvey Hall in 1904, both of whom were older at the bar than I, when it grew rapidly, and last year my present firm’s business was over $70,000, of which approximately 25% was office expense. Over the years James Woods practiced law with a succession of part­ nerships. For 10 years he worked with his brother’s firm, headed by C.B. Moomaw and John W. Woods. In 1903 he became a junior partner in the firm of Robertson, Hall and Woods. He continued with those associates until 1910, when Robertson was elected to a judgeship. By then Hall and Woods had become prosperous, attracting many promi­ nent companies and individuals as clients. Over the years businesses they represented included the Roanoke Street Railway Company, the Tidewater Railroad and the Appalachian Power Company. By 1916 his successful practice encouraged Woods to organize a new partnership, Woods, Chitwood and Coxe. As senior partner he headed that firm until his death on July 7, 1948. Woods still leads the name of Woods, Rogers, Muse, Walker & Thornton, the largest law firm in Roanoke, more than 30 years after his Four Woods brothers-James Pleasants (left), Dr. Oscar Wiley, Joseph Robert and Judge John William—were pictured in Salem late in the 19th century. 32 �death. He coupled his legal pursuits with a successful and varied career in business and investments. He served on the boards or as president of several companies. He and some associates organized and operated the Exchange Lumber Company (beginning in 1899), planted the Hanging Rock Orchard (1902) and formed the Roanoke Marketing Company (1906).5 Woods served for a time as president of the Salem Glass Company, later reorganized as the Cooper Silica Glass Company. In retrospect, his most controversial association—because of the 1922 Democratic primary—proved to be serving as president of the Border­ land Coal Company of West Virginia.6 According to former associates, Woods always displayed sound judgment in financial and real estate investments.7 Having achieved success as an attorney and a businessman, Woods became public-spirited in the noblesse oblige tradition. He began his long local political career by serving for several terms on the Roanoke City Council. His civic reputation led him to campaign for mayor in 1898. He defeated Republican George W. Ramsey, the candidate of the railroad interests, by a slim margin. According to James P. Woods Jr., this was the most satisfying political victory of his father’s career.8 The older Woods later told of those experiences: In the early days we partners worked at the office at least four nights a week, to the apparent neglect of our wives and families, but we were building a law business, which has been our mainstay. Within three or four years I was elected to council from the first, now Highland Ward, and in 1898, five years after I came to the bar, I was nominated for mayor in the Democratic primary over two oppo­ nents, Van Taliaferro and James Neal, both Confederate soldiers, re­ ceiving more votes than both of them. But nomination by no means then meant election as before the new constitution the negroes were all voting and voting the Republican ticket. The Republicans ran Geo. W. Ramsey, a very popular man and formerly chief clerk to the N & W president, and member of several lodges. It was a nip-andtuck race, but I beat him by 27 votes. After serving my term and soon after going into my new law firm, I was never again a candidate until I was elected to Congress. The Woods mayoralty was characterized by conservative fiscal policies and a business-like approach to city government. Serving from January 1899 to January 1901, he restored Roanoke’s credit, which had been strained by the “panic” and depression beginning in 1893. Raymond P. Barnes, in A History o f Roanoke (1968), commented that Mayor Woods “had divorced himself from political alliances and was running the city on his own judgment and ‘backbone.’ ” Woods advocated a sound money policy of spending as little as possible. He also threatened to veto any excessive expenditures ap­ proved by city council. His successful economies soon led to a surplus of city funds and to a conflict with city council over proposed civic improvements. The conflict caused one anonymous councilman to 33 �declare that “if proper appropriations were made there would be no surplus.”9 However, the Roanoke World said of Col. Woods, since he was “always ready to do his duty without fear, favor or affection, it was natural that his acts should sometimes be counter to the wishes of others.” (Roanoke Times, July 8, 1948). By the end of his term, the Roanoke World called Woods a model mayor.10 Returning to his legal and business activities in 1901, Woods re­ mained involved in state politics. For example, in 1905 he became a member of Governor Claude Swanson’s staff and received the honorary title of colonel. Swanson was then an important member of the Virginia Democratic organization, begun in 1893 by U.S. Senator Thomas S. Martin.11 Woods had served as chairman of the State Democratic Central Committee before he became mayor. In such fashion he grad­ ually built his stature with the Democratic “machine.”12 Woods married Susie K. Moon of Chatham in 1904. They had three children, James P., Jr., Elizabeth and Kathryn. A dedicated father, Woods was later described by close associate Leonard G. Muse as “a man of ability, integrity, honesty and good character.” During the 1922 campaign Clifton A. Woodrum stated: “I regard him [Woods] as a gentleman of the highest character.”13 Col. Woods’ fine reputation as an attorney and a civic leader as well as his affiliation with the Democratic organization led to his selection in 1918 as Sixth District congressman. The seat was vacated when Presi­ dent Woodrow Wilson appointed incumbent Carter Glass of Lynchburg as Treasury Secretary on Dec. 5, 1918. Woods began his congressional career on March 4, 1919, with the opening of the third session of the Sixty-Fifth Congress.14 Woods worked so diligently throughout his five years in Congress that he won the respect of both his Republican and Democratic col­ leagues.15 His assignments in 1919 began with the committees on the District of Columbia, on Claims, and on Expenditures in the Post Office Department. As a result of painstaking work on those assignments, he was elevated to ranking minority member of the District of Columbia Committee at the beginning of the Sixty-Seventh Congress in 1922. In this capacity he was mainly responsible for a bill to encourage the merger of the two street railway companies then operating in Wash­ ington.16 Woods drew upon his business experience and his earlier work for the Roanoke Street Railway Company in this endeavor. Also, it is a positive reflection on his abilities that the Republican-dominated committee chose him to draft the bill. Woods resigned from the District Committee on April 8, 1922, when the Democratic leadership appointed him to the more important Post Offices and Post Roads Committee. Since this new committee handled the location and construction of many federal roads and build­ ings, it put the Roanoker in a position to help his district directly.17 Congressman Woods’ conservative political philosophy is best ex­ emplified by his voting record. For example, he voted against Shoals nitrate project and various measures to promote the building of state 34 �roads with federal funds.22 Therefore Colonel Woods’ voting record reflects his conservative principles although he also supported progressive legislation on a few occasions. Woods tended toward progressivism when questions of morality were raised. He seemingly explained this tendency at the 1924 Norfolk Democratic convention by saying “the great principles of honesty, truth and justice in government are eternal . . . . Progressivism is but another term for the application of these fundamental principles to modern conditions and the ever growing needs of society.”23 An example of his progressivism came when Woods backed the District of Columbia Rents Act. Usually he sought to keep government out of business, in the laissez-faire tradition. But in this instance he stated that the government had the right to control and regulate—but not to take over—property. He also supported a bill which would use federal powers to prevent District landlords from price-gouging on rents, while saying he had preferred a bill which would not be of “such a socialistic tendency.”24 Regarding agricultural policy, Woods put aside his traditionalist views. For example, he stated in one House debate that “I would go as far as these gentlemen [his colleagues] to keep the federal government out of business. It is a sound principle, but in looking at agriculture we must have a broader vision.”25 The colonel took a similar view concerning reform of Washington’s tax laws, evidently a haven for tax dodgers. “I have no disposition to indulge in the demagogic raillery against wealth,” he said in debate, “which has been legitimately earned, but no class of taxpayers is better able to pay than the holders, particularly the large holders, of intangi­ bles.”26 Such statements illustrate an enlightened conservatism on his part. However, none of those issues—except for agriculture—had a direct bearing on the Sixth district. Considered altogether, Colonel Wood’s statements and actions in Congress were characterized by a laissez-faire conservatism. On several occasions he stated his firm conviction that government intervention in the economy should be reduced. Also, he usually expressed concern for maintaining such principles as individual initiative, states’ rights, and poll taxes.27 Woods viewed Virginia poll tax as a positive response to difficult social circumstances. Responding to a House colleague who criticized the Old Dominion’s poll tax, the colonel called it “a very helpful thing. It gives us a better electorate.”28 As enacted by the 1902 Virginia Constitution, the major purpose of the tax was to disenfranchise blacks and poor whites—most of whom normally voted Republican.2 9 The poll tax and literacy test were major devices by which the Democratic organization’s elitist leadership kept itself in political power in Virginia. Organization leaders on the state level included Thomas Martin (until his death in 1919) and later Harry F. Byrd, who assumed Martin’s leadership by 1922. In the Roanoke Valley, Woods 35 �best represented the “machine.” Political scientist V.O. Key, Jr., has described the Democratic organization as a group of like-minded con­ servatives who took a narrow view of the public interest.3 0 In thel922 Democratic primary, Woods lost by only 369 votes to “Cliff” Woodrum for several reasons. Not the least of those was his organization ties over the years. Woods represented the successful businessman and the establishment in his attitudes, his congressional service, his law firm, and his campaign speeches. The Roanoke Times and the Roanoke World News, both conservative papers, backed Woods editorially. Such backing confirmed his “machine man” image in the minds of most middle and working class voters.31 Woods’ alienation of labor and the scurrilous attacks by the Woods re-election committee upon Woodrum and his record as judge were two of the main reasons for Colonel Woods’ defeat. Woodrum’s use of the modern 20th century campaign tactics of mass appeal and reluctance to take a stand on any issue, combined with his popularity among young voters and newly-enfranchised women, sealed the fate of the incumbent.32 Following his defeat in 1922, Col. Woods remained involved in Roanoke and Virginia politics. His law partner, Joseph H. Chitwood, became a confidante of Harry F. Byrd, who won the governorship in 1925. Woods and Chitwood kept Byrd informed about Roanoke’poli­ tics throughout the late 1920s and in the 1930s.3 3 Those connections caused Byrd to ask Woods personally in 1929 to announce for governor. Shunning a statewide campaign with speechmaking and handshaking, the colonel, reserved and private in nature, declined. Instead, John G. Pollard announced for the Democratic nomination, won organization endorsement, and easily defeated his Republican opponent.3 5 Woods later recalled his political experiences: I never really enjoyed Congress as the Republicans were in control and there was little that we Democrats could do. Rorer James, the state chairman and Congressman, while he never told me personally was laying plans to run me for governor succeeding E. Lee Trinkle, but he suddenly died. But for his death I think I would have been governor. I had in the state no more loyal friend. Notwithstanding my defeat because of labor troubles and strike in our coal mine, at the conclusion of Byrd’s term, he and the organization forces offered to nominate me for governor, and had I accepted I would have been elected, but just at that time when we had a meeting of leaders in Richmond I was very nervous, which I afterwards learned was due to gall bladder infection, as a result of my sedentary life in Washington. After having Swanson consulted, who while entirely friendly to me, strongly advised against my nomination (he was deathly afraid of labor, which he thought would fight me) I declined to run as I did not feel equal to a speaking campaign over the state. Just the year previous A1 Smith had lost the state, and it looked like a hard fight. I talked confidentially to Trinkle after Harry Byrd had urged me to announce, and Trinkle, as a friend 36 �advised me even though I could be elected, not to undertake the strenuous distasteful campaign, telling me also that Mapp would run and would raise the issue that Tidewater was then entitled to it. In my innocence I did not realize that Trinkle, while personally friendly, did not want an organization or Byrd man as governor, as it might thwart his ambition to be U. S. senator. When I declined, the Byrd crowd brought out Pollard who easily defeated Mapp. Later when I saw Mapp during the campaign, he asked me why I didn’t run. I told him because Trinkle had told me he, Mapp, would run whether or no, and would raise the issue of Tidewater against the western part of the state, which had recently had two governors. He said “Didn’t you get my message to run your­ self, and I would not be a candidate?” But the messenger never delivered Mapp’s message to me and hence I was never governor. I felt a serious factional fight might endanger the election, which had recently gone Republican. I do not regret my career, however. I have spoken the truth, paid my debts and some of the debts of others, and dealt justly with my neighbors, just so-called homely virtues, but Col. James Pleasants Woods, dean of the Roanoke bar, about 1943 37 �without them we cannot build a life or a nation. I wish, however, the family could have had four years in Richmond, though it would have been a finanical sacrifice. By not taking office my law and other business prospered. My terms in Congress were a great financial loss, though I do not regret having gone to Congress. Notwithstanding my defeat I was selected by the State Central Committee as temporary chairman of the Norfolk Convention, and to make the keynote speech. It was one of the few I had ever written and memorized, and the best one I ever made. Many of the state papers published it in full, but my home papers did not. Several governors have appointed me to the V.P.I. board and I have enjoyed the work. I am now the rector and the oldest member in length of service on the board. I have also enjoyed my work on the boards of Roanoke and Randolph-Macon colleges, where constructive work is being done. In these capacities I have been glad to render service to the people who have always exercised a kind judgment toward me. I have always felt a deep sympathetic interest in students struggling to get an education. James P. Woods consistently demonstrated the attitudes of a con­ servative citizen, businessman and statesman. He showed the disposition to preserve and the ability to improve, as articulated by Edmund Burke. In politics, Woods used his abilities to bring more efficiency and economy into government. His low profile approach was less easily appreciated than the more flamboyant style of progressives like Cliff Woodrum. Nevertheless, Woods made solid and lasting contributions to his community and to the government on the city and federal levels. Prob­ ably his political career would have lasted longer if he had been more favorable to the interests of organized labor, the expansion of federal powers and the enfranchisement of women and blacks, and less involved with the elitist politics of the Virginia Democratic organization. Yet he effectively represented the pre-1922 views of the majority of his consituents. Taken overall, the life and career of Colonel Woods made a sub­ stantial mark on his city and state. He understood what many people never learn, “that, after all, serving is the highest form of living.”3 5 (Editor’s note: Woods has been the only man to serve as head o f the boards o f both Roanoke College and Virginia Tech. Mrs. Anne McNulty Stone, who worked for the Woods, Chitwood, Coxe and Rogers law firm in the 1930s, added these recollections. For lunch, Col. Woods often walked across to the drugstore fora “vegetable sand­ wich, ” known today as “B L T ” or bacon, lettuce and tomato. “He had his lighter moments and he was utterly charming. He couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket but that didn’t keep him from singing loud and clear, his eyes twinkling and his great shoulders shaking with glee. Sometimes, among close friends and after a bit o f coaxing, he would “render” his 38 �masterpiece. With his head thrown back and mischief in his eyes, he would begin, emphasizing every other syllable with a flump o f his shoulders, T h’ PURtiest GURL I EVer THAW was THIPping Cl-i-ider THROUGH a STHRAW. . . I ’ll never forget the look on his face as he sang, a mixture o f Saint Nick, Puck and perhaps Em m ett Kelly. ”) FOOTNOTES 1 Q u o te d in J .H . R a n d a ll, J r . , T H E M A K IN G O F T H E M O D E R N M IN D (B o s to n , 1 9 4 0 ), p .4 3 3 . ____ 2 U .S . C o n g re ss, H o u s e , C O N G R E S S IO N A L R E C O R D , V o l. 6 4 , P a r t 5 , p . 4 9 3 7 . 3 IB ID ., V o l. 6 0 , P t. 3 , p p . 3 1 0 5 - 0 6 , a n d V o l. 6 2 , P t. 2 , p . 1 3 6 2 . 4 IB ID ., V o l. 6 0 , P t. 3 , p p . 3 1 0 5 -0 6 . 5 R a y m o n d P . B a rn e s , A H IS T O R Y O F R O A N O K E ( R a d f o r d , V a . , 1 9 6 8 ) , p p . 3 3 0 , 3 7 4 ,4 2 4 . H J 6 In te rv ie w w ith J a n ie s P . W o o d s, J r . , S a le m , V a ., J u n e 1 9 7 9 . C o n g re ss m a n W o o d s c ite d w a g es a n d o th e r b e n e f its o f m in e rs a t th e B o rd e rla n d C o al C o r p o r a tio n d u r in g d e b a t e o f th e 1 9 2 2 c o a l s tr ik e ; see H o u se C O N G R E S S IO N A L R E C O R D , V o l. 5 8 , P t. 8 , p p . 7 5 8 8 -8 9 . 7 L e o n a rd G . M u se , M E M O R IE S O F W O O D S , C H IT W O O D , C O X E , a n d R O G E R S ( ty p e s c r ip t, R o a n o k e , V a ., 1 9 7 7 ) , p p . 2 , 15. 8 In te rv ie w w ith J a m e s P . W o o d s, J r ., S a le m , V a ., J u n e 1 9 7 9 . 9 B a rn e s, H IS T O R Y O F R O A N O K E , p p . 3 3 2 , 3 4 7 . 1 0 Q u o te d in “ R E C O R D o f J a m e s P . W o o d s ” (p r iv a te ly p u b lis h e d , R o a n o k e , V a ., 1 9 2 2 ) , a c a m p a ig n p a m p h le t d is tr ib u te d to th e p u b lic , c o p y in lib r a r y o f T im es-W o rld C o r p o r a tio n . 11 F o r b a c k g r o u n d o n th e D e m o c r a tic o r g a n iz a tio n , see A lle n W . M o g e r, V IR G IN IA : B O U R B O N IS M T O B Y R D , 1 8 7 0 -1 9 2 5 (C h a rlo tte s v ille , V a ., 1 9 6 8 ) , e s p . p p . 1 6 6 - 2 3 0 . 1 2 M u se , M E M O R IE S O F W O O D S , C H IT W O O D , C O X E , A N D R O G E R S , p . 7. 1 3 IB ID ., p p . 1 -2 4 ; R O A N O K E T IM E S , J u ly 2 9 , 1 9 2 2 , J u ly 8 , 1 9 4 8 . 1 4 R ix e y S m ith a n d N o rm a n B e a sle y , C A R T E R G L A S S : A B IO G R A P H Y (N e w Y o rk , 1 9 3 9 ) , p p . 1 5 4 -1 6 8 ; H o u s e , C O N G R E S S IO N A L R E C O R D , V o l. 5 7 , P t. 5 , p . 4 7 7 2 . 1 5 R O A N O K E T IM E S , M a rc h 2 2 , 1 9 2 2 . 1 6 “ R E C O R D o f J a m e s P . W o o d s ” ; H o u s e , C O N G . R E C O R D , V o l. 6 1 , P t. 6 , p . 6 1 8 9 . 1 7 R O A N O K E T IM E S , A p ril 9 , 1 9 2 2 . 1 8 H o u s e , C O N G R E S S IO N A L R E C O R D , V o l. 5 8 , P t. 1, p p . 9 3 - 9 4 , V o l. 6 2 , P t. 5 , p . 4 4 3 3 , V o l. 5 8 , P t. 2 , p . 1 7 7 7 . „ „ „ „„„„ 1 9 IB ID ., V o l. 5 9 , P t. 8 , p p . 7 6 0 2 - 0 3 , V o l. 5 8 , P t. 8 , p . 7 8 2 1 , V o l. 5 8 , P t. 3 , p . 3 0 0 6 . 2 0 IB ID ., V o l. 6 2 , P t. 2 , p p . 1 3 6 2 -6 5 . 2 1 R O A N O K E T IM E S , J u n e 1 7 , 1 9 2 2 . 2 2 H o u s e , C O N G R E S S IO N A L R E C O R D , V o l. 6 2 , P t. 3 , p . 2 4 5 5 , V o l. 5 8 , P t . 6 , p p . 6 1 6 3 - 6 4 , P t. 4 , p . 3 9 8 2 ; “ R E C O R D o f J a m e s P . W o o d s .” 2 3 W o o d s ’ s p e e c h a t th e N o rfo lk D e m o c r a tic C o n v e n tio n , J u n e 1 1 , 1 9 2 4 , c o p y in p o s se ss io n o f J a m e s P . W o o d s, J r . . , _ 2 4 House, C O N G R E S S IO N A L R E C O R D , V o l. 6 1 , P t. 6 , p . 5 5 8 1 , V o l. 6 2 , P t. 7 , p. 7414. 2 5 IB ID ., V o l. 6 2 , P t. 5 , p . 4 9 3 7 . 2 6 IB ID ., V o l. 5 9 , P t. 9 , p . 9 2 0 9 . 2 7 S ee IB ID ., V o l.. 6 2 , P t. 2 , p p . 1 3 6 2 -6 5 , P t. 5 , p . 4 9 3 7 . 2 8 IB ID ., V o l. 5 9 , P t. 2 , p . 1 4 5 5 . 2 9 M o g e r, V IR G IN IA : B O U R B O N IS M T O B Y R D , p p . 1 8 1 -2 0 2 . 3 0 V O K e y , J r . , S O U T H E R N P O L IT IC S IN S T A T E A N D N A T IO N (N e w Y o r k , 1 9 4 9 ) , p p . 1 9 -3 5 . 3 1 B a rn e s , H IS T O R Y O F R O A N O K E ; R O A N O K E T IM E S , M arch 2 2 , J u ly 2 2 , 2 6 , 2 9 , A u g . 4 , 5 , 1 9 2 2 ; R O A N O K E W O R L D N E W S , M arch 2 1 , 1 9 2 2 , c lip p in g in C lif to n A . W o o d ru m S c ra p b o o k s , in p o s se ss io n o f M rs. J .C . Z illh a r d t, F in c a s tle , V a . 3 2 B a rn e s , H IS T O R Y O F R O A N O K E , p . 6 1 2 ; R O A N O K E T IM E S , A p ril 2 8 , J u ly 2 9 , 1922. 3 3 S ee J o s e p h B. C h itw o o d t o H a rry F . B y rd , A u g u st 2 , 1 9 3 3 , M ay 2 3 , 1 9 3 6 , B o x 1 3 2 , J a m e s P. W o o d s a n d C h itw o o d t o B y rd , A u g u st 5 , 1 9 3 7 , C h itw o o d t o B y rd , N o v e m b e r 1 0 , 1 9 3 8 , B o x 1 5 7 , B y rd M ss, U n iv e rs ity o f V irg in ia . ...................................H M B H 3 4 I n te rv ie w w ith J a m e s P . W o o d s, J r ., S a le m , V a ., J u n e 1 9 6 9 ; M u se , M E M O R IE S O F W O O D S , C H IT W O O D , C O X E , A N D R O G E R S , p p . 2 0 -2 1 . 3 5 H o u s e , C O N G R E S S IO N A L R E C O R D , V o l. 6 0 , P t. 3 , p . 3 1 0 5 -0 6 , a s p e e c h in w h ic h W o o d s e u lo g iz e d T h o m a s S . M a r tin . 39 �John Hook, New London Merchant by Warren L. Moorman, M.D. In an age grown accustomed to addressing mail using city quadrant, street, apartment, postal zone and zip code numbers, to learn that letters arrived safely 200 years ago addressed simply, “John Hook, Merchant, New London” seems incredible. John Hook’s address But arrive they did, in large numbers from Williamsburg, Rich­ mond, Hanover Courthouse, Petersburg, Philadelphia, Jamaica, B.W.I., White Haven, England, Glasgow, Scotland and many other places. After 1784 they arrived addressed, “John Hook, Hailsford” . Widely known in his day but now forgotten except for the often told tale of the “New London Beef Trial”, John Hook is worthy of note because of the role he played in the formative years of Bedford, Campbell and Franklin Counties. It is surprising that so little has been written about this unique personality who amassed much wealth in Virginia and in the Revolution became a reluctant Virginian. It is even more surprising that his senior business partner in the 1770s, David Dr. Warren Moorman, owner o f John Hook's store near Hale's Ford, has been studying the thrifty Scotsman's life for years. A student and writer o f history, he is a plastic surgeon at Lewis-Gale Clinic. 40 �Ross, has also been neglected by historians. John Hook was born in 1745, one year after Thomas Jefferson. He was the fourth son of Henry Hook an ambitious but not particularly successful manufacturer of Glasgow, Scotland. The Hook family did not attain clan status. There is no Hook tartan and the telephone directories of Glasgow and its environs currently list not a single person by the name of Hook. Grinding poverty so near the Hook family caused five of Henry Hook’s children to leave Scotland in search of a better life overseas. The older brothers settled in Jamaica; the baby sister married a Captain Frazier and went out to India. John was only 14 years old when his ambition, mathematical abili­ ty and legible handwriting enabled him to come to Virginia as an indentured apprentice clerk and storekeeper for a Glasgow exportimport firm. He arrived at Richmond in 1758 when it was little more than a few tobacco warehouses clustered around the point where Shockoe Creek enters the James River. Scattered higher up Church Hill were the frame houses where Scottish factors, their clerks and apprentices lived plus shacks needed to keep their slaves. Thirty-six years later when the Capitol was moved from Williamsburg, Richmond was de­ scribed as a place that “will afford scarce one comfort of life”. Early in his career in Virginia, Hook learned to keep detailed records of business transactions and copies of his correspondence. Today, 103 boxes of John Hook’s letters and other business documents are preserved in the Perki,ns Archives, Duke University. Two of his letter copy books were saved from probable oblivion by the discerning collector’s instinct of Felix Hargrett of Roanoke who discovered them while spending a summer at the old Mons Hotel at the Peaks of Otter. A descendant of John Hook, Judge Malcolm Griffin of Salem, gave a large number of loose papers to the collection. As a young boy I was privileged to go with my father to Judge Griffin’s home and read many of these papers before he presented them to Duke University. This vast collection sheds considerable light on the years between 1763 and 1808, a period equal to that covered by the counting house papers of “John Norton and Sons, Merchants of London and Virginia” (17501795). Hook commenced keeping copies of his letters in a copy book some time prior to 1763. Someone has very carefully cut out the first six pages from the first copy book, leaving a letter to his brother, Duncan, in Jamaica, dated Warwick, August 1,1763 as the earliest item. By whom and when these were removed will probably never be known. It is unlikely they had any bearing on Hook’s later legal diffi­ culties with his business partner, David Ross. These books were certainly in Hook’s possession throughout his lifetime. Evidence strongly supports the view that John Hook never threw any scrap of paper away which might at some future time have value. It may be that among these letters were comments which he did not wish his family to read. There may be a clue in a phrase which appeared in a letter to his father, March 1,1764 in which he said, “As I have been disappointed in 41 �my expectations with several of my former employers . . . ” . Indenture was for a period of five to seven years. This would suggest that he had satisfied his indenture or was terminated early and had worked for employers other than the one to whom he had been indentured. The answer to this may lie hidden somewhere in now lost or forgotten documents. From that earliest letter to his brother, Duncan, in Jamaica, John Hook was intent upon establishing himself as an independent merchant. On June 1, he left Richmond and went to Petersburg to work for the James and Robert Donald Company of Greenock and Glasgow for “40 pounds sterling a year, bed, board and with the liberty of trade as much as I please so as I do not interfere with their trade. As this place is very advantageous for trade, I beg your endeavors all you can to get me some consignments of rum and sugar as I am convinced of the great advantage, a thing of that kind would be to me and I make no doubt but it would be advantageous to you or any other person that inclined employing their money or by any other method, provide the rum and sugar was on as good terms as it comes from Barbados and Antigua.” After spending June and July in Petersburg, the Donald Company moved him to Warwick (near the site of Richmond’s present deep-water James River terminal), which place he noted “is very advantageous for trade” being well below the falls and accessible to larger ships. Hook’s dour nature caused frequent bouts of homesickness in his first decade in Virginia. His burning desire to attain financial security by becoming an independent merchant carried him through many periods of near despair. In one letter to his brother, Duncan, in 1763 he asked for 20 pounds so that he might leave Virginia while at the same time he was writing brother Thomas “the encouragement that I have now which I gave you a full account in that of August date with the prospect of getting consignments from you and Duncan fixes my mind entirely on staying in this colony.” Throughout his career, Hook expected to build his fortune using other people’s money, “O.P.M.” , as financial genius Bernard Baruch delicately called it. Contractual agreements with Scottish masters routinely prohibited apprentices from having side business enterprises, their full devotion being to serve the company. These agreements were apparently fairly often broken in ways thought too small, too non-competitive to be a cause for discharge from the job. For example, while still an indentured clerk, Hook purchased 100 deerskins, shipped them to his father for sale to a competing firm, that of his father’s friend, Andrew Ramsey. A year later in 1762, Hook joined with another young Scottish factor, Hector McAllister, in importing a small amount of goods on their own. A small profit was realized but a dispute immediately arose over the dis­ tribution of the profit. This was finally settled by arbiters, Alex McCane and Patrick Coutts, who simply on August 3, 1764 divided the 28 pounds, 7 shillings equally between Hook and McAllister. This was the first in a series of incidents in Hook’s career in which he tended to see more of a joint enterprise’s profits as his than his 42 �partners. Another of John Hook’s personality traits, revealed in a letter to his father, was an ill-disguised pessimism. He wrote his father from Warwick March 1, 1764, saying, “I am convinced that a young man without a fortune or good friends will be all his lifetime at it before he can make any more money than he can just live on.” Repeatedly he pleaded with his father to borrow money on his behalf from a well-todo relative, Major Charles Campbell, who had retired to the Scottish Highlands after a prosperous tour in India. In 1766 he wrote to his father’s prosperous friend, importer Andrew Ramsey in Glasgow, “no person could have been more frugal in his station than I ” and he went on to say that after eight years of toiling in Virginia he still had no money. The years 1764-65, were a period of commercial retrenchment. Debts of extravagant planters were becoming more difficult to collect. Hook displayed a zest for seeking payment of delinquent debts by suing the debtors and bringing down “the full weight of the law” upon them. From 1767 until his death, court dockets of Campbell, Bedford and Franklin Counties contained innumerable references to Hook v s ........... Names of those against whom he filed suit reads like a partial catalog of FFV’s. In spite of being alert and well informed John Hook’s letters suggest that he was so intent upon gaining control of his own destiny, of becoming wealthy enough to feel secure, that he paid little heed to the gathering political storm building between the Royal Governor and men like Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson and other Virginia patriots. John Hook was at a pivotal point in his life in the summer of 1766. He was 21 years old, had been here eight years and still felt that he was without dependable friends and without the next best thing, “a heavy purse.” On July 10, he announced in the Virginia Gazette his intention of leaving Virginia “unless I meet with better business than I have any view of at present”. He was working for the James and Robert Donald Company at the time and did not fail to reveal his disappointment when Alex Donald was given the management of one of the eight Donald stores. He wrote senior partner James Donald in Glasgow one of his early and more gentle diatribes about his situation in Virginia: he asked for higher wages as proper recompense for failure to receive promotion to managerial level. James Donald’s reply is not preserved. Hook was always able to speak well of himself. For example in a letter to Andrew Ramsey in Scotland May 25,1766 he said “it has always been my study to establish an honest good character in all parts of this country wher­ ever it was my luck to have been placed.” Hook commenced a campaign of proposals to potential partners for the establishment of an import-export business in which he would be one of the partners. In a master’s degree thesis written by Dr. Willard Pierson Jr., at Duke University in 1962, Pierson makes a deter­ mined effort to estimate the amount of money Hook could have 43 �accumulated which might have been applied toward capitalization of a new business. No matter what the actual sum accumulated, Hook’s usual proposal was that he borrow 500 pounds from Scotland on credit of one of the other partners toward a minimal total capitalization of at least 2,000 pounds, which he saw as the necessary capital for a new import-export firm. He argued that payment of interest on the loan and assuming the responsibility for repayment in five to seven years should be considered the same as 500 pounds ready cash and should be considered a sufficient investment on his part. Hook proved himself a master of understatement: “perhaps you will be alarmed at first thought of my being an equal sharer when my part of the stock is borrowed on your credit He then goes on to argue the value of his services in such an enterprise. Appearing frequently in negotiations toward a new company was a ploy John Hook often used when he wished to plead poverty to relatives and business associates. He had loaned money to one Jeffrey Gresly which had not been paid when Gresly died in prison, apparently the victim of an insatiable thirst for alcohol. Hook had himself appointed adminis­ trator of Gresly’s affairs and recurrently over more than a decade at­ tempted to gain some payment or better still all of the legacy reported to have been due Jeffrey upon his mother’s death. Lady Gertrude Gresly sent Hook courteous and business-like replies to his letters, but I have found no documentation that he was repaid any of the alleged debt and accumulated interest. Hook finally pushed through a copartnery with William and James Donald in which he would have his own store in the developing up- / / G as --- ---- i / o f e g ‘i f f ^ ¿1*%.M ►- -J’fy f c j °)ZJtfU f A. O v*» .V» op .... ^ Hi William Callaway’s conveyance of two acres of land in New London to John Hook on May 16, 1772. The tract was on the north side of the Salem-Richmond Turnpike and east of the courthouse comer. 44 �country at New London at the time it was becoming the thriving county seat of 12-year-old Bedford County. Hook arrived in New London September 1766 with an ambitious plan for a chain of stores to serve the back country. One or two other stores were already in existence in New London. One of these was operated by pioneer planter, William Callaway, who had given 100 acres of land astride the Salem-Richmond Turnpike to establish the court for the new county of Bedford. Three years after Hook’s arrival, French traveler Chastellux passed through New London and described it as “already a pretty considerable town, at least 70 or 80 houses.” Thomas Jefferson, in his “Notes on the Present State of Virginia,” written in 1781, named New London along with Richmond and Manchester as principal towns in the James River basin. Hook initially rented a building and set about urging William and James Donald to hurry goods to him for sale at harvest time. His first consignment, valued at 967 pounds, arrived by wagon train on October 18,1766. Hook complained that the lateness of the arrival would mean poor business since the planters would have already bartered away much of that year’s crops. He proposed allowing the planters 15 months’ credit so that should one crop fail they would be able to pay with the next year’s tobacco crop. His letters alternated between pessi­ mism about the present and optimism about the future. As a newcomer and a Scot, Hook experienced difficulties ingratiating himself to potential customers but this was mitigated by the fact that most of the other merchants were also Scots. Two years after his arrival in New London, Hook found it necessary to explain to his partner, William Donald, why he was slow in remitting payments to their Glasgow headquarters. He described the problem as due to the planters’ crop failures. He stated that by April 1768 he thought he could have 1000 pounds sterling on hand for transmittal to Donald’s Glasgow office. At this time he was again urging his father to borrow 500 pounds from wealthy cousin, Charles Campbell, so that he could pay off his capitalization debt to the Donald Company. By April 1769, John Hook was accepting deeds of trust and mortgages in lieu of tobacco payment or scarce currency and almost non-existent species. In what suggests a Scrooge-like mood he set Dec. 25 as the deadline for payment of a debt owed by John Perrin on penalty of sale of Perrin’s 400-acre farm for a 42-pound debt. Year by year John Hook was able to acquire in his own name fairly extensive tracts of land around and west of New London. By the early 1770s what Hook described as the “unhappy dispute with Great Britain” was seriously interfering with trade. The Donald partnership ended in 1771 and Hook’s letters took on a mood of despair. He aggressively sought other partnerships and at the same time booked passage back to Scotland with a ship sailing from Petersburg. He was never timid about asking favors and wrote instructions to a friend in Petersburg clearly more intent upon finding a new partner with a purse heavier than mine own” than upon finding a ship departing for 45 �Scotland. On Aug. 3, before leaving New London he signed an agree­ ment with Samuel Morris to rent his plantation store house for a period of one year commencing Sept. 15. Of the many business proposals John Hook made, one dated Aug. 18, 1771 to David Ross brought about an interview. Ross was the Virginia-based partner in the very suc­ cessful firm of Ilbeck, Ross and Company. Only six years older than Hook, Ross had prospered much faster than Hook and was already con­ sidered one of the leading Richmond-Petersburg exporter-importers. So successful was David Ross that by 1782 James Madison wrote that “Mr. Ross has unlimited credit in Philadelphia” and others alleged that Ross could ride from his home on the James River to the Mississippi River without ever having to spend a night off his own property. David Ross had already acquired land along the Staunton River. He clearly realized the value of water as power for grist mills and as the route along which canals could be constructed. In addition he was interested in reports of rich iron and other mineral deposits in the mountains of Southwest Virginia. Ross probably knew something of Hook from the latter’s days as a clerk in the Richmond-Petersburg net­ work of Scottish factors. Ross was described by contemporaries as possessing a “remarkable, unerring gift for judging the talents of men.” The partnership between Ross and Hook was dated Sept. 1,1771 with the company capitalized at 4,500 pounds. Ross invested 75% and Hook 25%. True to Hook’s past methods he was able to get Ross to agree to permit him an initial contribution of only 300 pounds, the remaining 700 pounds to be paid by Hook in several sums at intervals until October 1772. Seeds of later discord lay not only in Hook’s payment schedule of the sum of 700 pounds but in the fact that the agreement made Hook a 25% partner when his aggregate contribution to the company by October 1773 amounted to only 22%. He also boldly negotiated an annual salary of 60 pounds the first two years and 75 pounds annually thereafter, somewhat more than usual at the time. The agreement included the usual “no side businesses of any kind” provision, largely unenforceable because of the great distance between Ross’s base of operation in Richmond from New London. The partner­ ship agreement was signed for a period of seven years. At this point no one could have imagined that their affairs would become so tangled as to result in a court battle lasting half of the next century. The store leased from Samuel Morris was not adequate to Hook’s ambition and a new store was constructed along lines suggested by Ross. Hook also set about constructing a dwelling house suitable to his new status and to another ambition which had not surfaced in his letters. Colonel John Smith had moved up from the worn-out soil of Goochland County with his daughter, Elizabeth, and had purchased Lot #11 in New London next door to the courthouse. Just when Elizabeth Smith and John Hook became acquainted is not revealed in extant material— Hook was not given to expressions of tender sentiments, he wrote very little not directly related to his passion for business. However, on June 8, 1770, John Hook wrote William Donald regarding business affairs 46 �and in a postscript mentioned that he was thinking of a marriage which “might augment my fortunes considerably.” As work on the store and home progressed, Ross found it prudent to caution Hook not to build structures more costly than absolutely necessary, since both buildings were being constructed at company expense. Walnut furniture was ordered from an eastern cabinet maker and hauled by wagon to New London. Hook rented quarters from his arch rival, William Callaway, while the dwelling was under construction. After a few months Callaway increased the rent to 2 shillings a day and Hook moved out and into the incomplete store building. By the end of the year the house was com­ pleted and on Feb. 29, 1772 John Hook married Elizabeth Smith. Could it be he selected this date so that a wedding present would be expected only every fourth year? Her father, Colonel Smith, well-to-do in land and slaves, was illiterate and signed his consent with an X. Hook had severed his ties with Scotland more completely than he realized. He hired a young Scottish clerk, John White Holt, and opened a new store at Falling River in the southeastern part of Campbell County near Brookneal, “the town born in a tobacco warehouse.” As the momentous events leading up to the Declaration of Inde­ pendence occurred, the only political interest John Hook revealed in his correspondence was anxiety and uncertainty over trade with Britain. David Ross, possibly because of his proximity to the events in Tidewater, possibly because of his greater breadth of interest, wrote Hook on several occasions of events in and around Williamsburg urging Hook to make every effort to get the tobacco crop of 1775 to Peters­ burg as early as possible before a threatened British blockade became effective. Many British loyalists were departing Virginia, leaving debts as well as plantations and the accumulated property of a lifetime. Money was not available to exchange for these assets. Merchants were having an extremely difficult time since almost no goods from Britain was left on their shelves and none was arriving and there was no way to export their only cash crop, tobacco. On Dec. 18, 1776, the Virginia General Assembly ordered all foreign merchants with British connections to leave the colony, excepting only those closely supportive of the patriot cause or those with wellestablished Virginia family connections. In Richmond, David Ross was shifting his interest to securing arms, ammunition and other supplies for the colony of Virginia. He constructed mills and ships, found ways to transship through the East Indies and ways to evade the British blockade of the rivers by operating out of Norfolk. Hook remained in New London collecting bills owed the company, trading in whatever items he could find and expanding his role as a plantation operator. Hook’s discontent was thinly veiled. He was prone to bluntly speak his mind. The swiftness with which the Bedford Com­ mittee of Safety moved against John Hook on the very day of its formation, May 23, 1775, can be taken as a measure of local hostility toward Hook. That day they served a summons on Hook to answer charges that he had made treasonable comments against the new Virginia 47 �government. Charles Lynch had apparently argued independence with Hook in a chance encounter a few weeks earlier. Hook was not intimi­ dated by the summons, replying that the charges were ambiguous and that until specific statements and witnesses were presented to him he would not honor the summons. Among his papers are several pages of notes which he set down for use in his own defense. These reveal a sharp mind, well informed in legal matters with the ability and courage to boldly articulate his own defense. If the British won as he at that time expected he did not wish to be in a traitor’s relationship to them. On June 26 the committee met and sent another note to Hook detailing the conversation that occurred at Samuel Crockett’s between Hook and Charles Lynch about an independent company in Botetourt going out of Virginia to attack British troops. Lynch said that Hook “expressed himself warmly and swore by God there never will be peace until the Americans get well flogged.” It is not clear whether Hook appeared in person or sent a written reply, but Hook’s notes indicate his explanation and defense were that he should have said, Bostonians, not Americans, “for it had always been my opinion since the beginning of this unhappy dispute that the Bostonians did not behave well in destroying the tea and it is wrong to take a brother’s part under those circumstances.” He was also charged with distribution of Loyalist pamphlets. He replied that he obtained those for his own information so that he could fairly judge both sides of the issue and that he had only shown them to two or three people and that for the most part at their request. Hook’s stubbornness finally landed him in the Bedford jail. He was released on Jan. 19,1777 after Robert Irvine entered into bond on his behalf. Hook clearly was attempting to be prudent by being im­ partial until he could clearly see where his own best interest lay. Impartiality is not something zealots can tolerate easily. On June 18, 1777 a mob gathered outside the Hook home in New London howling for him to come out and threatening to tar and feather him. He resisted until they threatened to set his house on fire at which point he allowed himself to be taken prisoner to the home of John Bates where a hearing or trial of sorts occurred. It is now hard to picture the high drama that must have been this confrontation between John Hook and the mob led by Nicholas Meade. In his strong Scottish brogue, Hook answered the charges against him, defended himself against those he had brought into court for the col­ lection of debts they could find no money to pay. Meade is reported to have said later “Law or no law, we was determined to proceed against him as we did.” Hook proved equal to the task for he was released shaken but unharmed with instructions to cease all trade until he signed an oath of allegiance to Virginia; yet he delayed a little longer. It didn’t seem possible to Hook that the colonies could unite enough to overcome a British blockade and defeat British armies converging from both North and South. Finally on Oct. 10, 1777 he came forward to the Committee of Safety and signed an oath of allegiance to Virginia. 48 �Governor Jefferson’s policy of leniency in offering pardons for Tories who came over to the Virginia cause most certainly influenced Hook. Like it or not this reluctant patriot had done what was best for his pocketbook and passed the point of no return. He was no longer a Scot, he was a Virginian. His behavior was prudent to an extent that allowed him to avoid being rounded up on suspicion of treasonable activities in the Summer of 1780 when 75 suspected Tories were imprisoned in the old Indian prison near the site of the present New London Academy. Hook was appointed to take his turn standing guard over these prisioners. He re­ fused and was found in contempt of court. The court determined that depriving him of some of his funds by a fine was the most uncomfort­ able sentence they could give him. Aerial view shows Hook’s Halesford plantation on Rt. 122 on the Franklin County side o f the Staunton River, now Smith Mountain Lake. It was later the home o f Llewellin Powell, Franklin County treasurer. With the American Revolution over Hook began buying land in the triangle between the Staunton River and Gill’s Creek in what is now Franklin County. He placed slaves on the land, cleared it and began raising tobacco. He now saw the value of a good river as an artery of commerce. In 1783-84 Hook drew rough sketches of a house to be built on the highest promontory west of the Staunton River, along the wagon road that passed the river at Hale’s Ford. One mile above the ford he built a store and a home across the road from the store. He moved there in the summer of 1784 and all letters received by him were thereafter postmarked Hailsford, Hale’s Ford or Haleford. Correspond­ ence with Scotland all but ceased. Just as well for this was the vpnter 49 �The Hook store was moved from across the road to the back of the Powell house and used as slave quarters until 1865. The store building was the home of tenants until 1940. that the Clyde River was frozen so solidly that no vessel moved for five months and 24 days. During the military campaign which ended in Cornwallis’surrender at Yorktown a Mr. Venable, an army commissary, had taken two of Hook’s steers for use by the troops. With the war over Hook felt that Virginia should reimburse him for the value of those steers and engaged William Cowan to bring action against Venable and the State of Virginia in the District Court of New London. Patrick Henry came over from his home at Red Hill to appear for the defendant. Henry in his singularly persuasive way soon gained complete control over the judge, jury and audience in the court by describing the painful distress of the patriots in the American army, their pain and suffering and loss of life. He concluded by asking “where was the man who had an American heart in his bosom, who would have not thrown open his fields, his barns, his cellars, the doors of his house, the portals of his breast, to receive with open arms the meanest soldier in that little band of famished patriots? Where is the man? There he stands! But whether the heart of an American beats in his bosom, you gentlemen, are to judge.” Henry then painted the picture of the magnificent triumph of Virginia .troops at Yorktown and the joy and quiet relief of victory. But, said Henry, “what notes of discord are those which disturb the general joy in the acclamation of victory? They are the notes of John Hook, hoarsely brawling through the American camp, ‘Beef, beef, beef!’ ” 50 �Violent paroxysms of laughter rocked the little New London Courthouse. Clerk of Court Jimmy Steptoe was so convulsed that Hook, according to William Wirt’s biography of Patrick Henry, said to Steptoe, “What the devil ails ya, mon?” The jury had no trouble in returning a verdict awarding John Hook one penny for each of the beef cattle. Murmurs of “tar and feather him” were heard. Wirt reports that “nothing saved him but a precipitate flight and the speed of his horse.” Another more contemporary observer reported that John Hook was so incensed that Jimmy Steptoe, fearing Hook’s unruly Scottish tongue would get him in trouble, took him over to the Steptoe home, Federal Hill, to spend the night. Because Hook was constantly dealing in frontier land by trading, acquiring by warrant or in payment and then selling “at an advantage it is impossible to state more than approximately the peak acreage in his control. From 30 to 40,000 acres would not seem an unreasonable estimate since he had large holdings not only in Virginia but in North Carolina, what became West Virginia, Kentucky and Georgia. In the late 1780s he wrote Patrick Henry asking Henry to represent him in a boundary dispute at Muscle Shoals, adding “if you will do half as much for me in this case as you did against me in the beef case, we shall win it easily.” Hook was active in seeking civic improvements in the years after he took the oath of allegiance to Virginia. His name appears on petitions for road improvements, the formation of a private school in New London and in support of improvements at Lynch’s ferry. To David Ross the urgent need of a physician in the Bedford area was mentioned, “there is not a physician of any skill between Fleming in Botetourt and Goochland Court house.” The seven-year existence of the Hook-Ross Company ended in 1779. During the last several years of this partnership matters grew increasingly strained between Ross and Hook. Ross was much more circumspect in his business affairs than brusque John Hook.^ Words from Ross’ pen carried tones of kindness and concern. Hook’s letters when not strictly matters of business fact swung widely from cajolery to vituperation. Hook and Ross continued doing some business as opportunities developed which appeared mutually advantageous. Particularly did they deal in slaves for several years immediately after the Revolution. Ross would bring in a shipment from the British West Indies where they had had a season or two for climatization and Hook would transport them to the interior for sale, frequently filling orders placed earlier. From time to time some of Hook’s slaves would run away. One such slave “ took up” on Andrew Lewis’ plantation. Hook wrote a strongly worded letter to General Lewis demanding the slave’s immediate return. From 1779 to 1791 Hook and Ross attempted by correspondence to settle their joint business venture. Letters were exchanged in which Ross would make “statements of fact,” while Hook would reply with a “scurrilous attack,” Ross would “make demands” and Hook would 51 �“make every effort possible.” Finally in 1791 David Ross took the matter to court submitting the case for “breach of partnership to the high court of chancery in Richmond,” Judge George Wythe presiding. Again, Hook proved himself a master of delay and indirection. The court required all books of the Ross-Hook Company be brought forth. Hook delayed, giving among several reasons his relocation to Hailsford in Franklin County, heavy rain damage enroute to Richmond and multiple errors made by some of his clerks and storekeepers. Later in 1791 the court issued an order that John Hook’s possessions be sequestrated and all portable goods be moved 18 miles from Hailsford to Rocky Mount for public auction. His store, blacksmith shop and distillery were locked up by the sheriff of Franklin County. When Hook heard the Sheriff was coming he hid the store ledgers from the sequestrators, George Turnbull, Shelton Tailor, and John Hale. Hook made many trips to Richmond, hiring such lawyers as James Innes, Edmund Randolph, Philip Norbonne Nicholas, William R. Davie and John Marshall. By now Hook was a well-known figure in Virginia legal circles. In Richmond Hook testified that some of the records that he had turned over to the Ross agents and attorneys had pages removed and that alterations had been made on entries. Court proceedings showed that Hook kept records meticulously with many in duplicates and some in revised duplicates of duplicates. Hook prepared a long list of questions to ask the attorneys and witnesses at the Richmond hearings, often cleverly to cast a shadow of doubt on Ross and always portraying himself as the badly used and abused underdog. He could plead poverty one moment and later in the same letter boast of “plenty of land warrants.” Proceedings dragged on. There is no record of the number of trips Hook made to Richmond. He was returning to his plantation at Hails­ ford the last week of March 1808 when he grew ill and stopped at Abbott’s Ordinary in Buckingham. Realizing his strength was ebbing he wrote his last will and testament and had it witnessed by Calob Tate, Sally Abbot, who could not write so made her mark, gnd Elisa Falwell. Shortly thereafter he died at Abbott’s and slaves were sent to return his body to Hailsford. The grave is unmarked but tradition has it that it was near a very large boxwood east of the site of his store and home. When his will was probated in Rocky Mount on Dec. 5, 1808, the executors who were named by Hook in the will immediately went on record as refusing executorship. The court then granted permission for Christopher Clark and Booker Preston under penalty of $100,000 bond to obtain letters of administration as directed by law in such situations. An inventory of Hook’s estate required 23 legal pad pages to list his plantation property, items in the Hailsford Store, his slaves and marketable whiskey, rum and brandy. Since the latter items amounted to an aggregate of hundreds of gallons, one might correctly say that he kept a lot of his assets liquid. On 26 additional pages were listed indi­ viduals owing Hook for purchases at his various stores. Proneness to seek court relief continued in the Hook line for another generation. 52 n || �His daughter, Katherine, married Booker Preston, who operated the plantation and store after Hook’s death. Another daughter, Margaret, married Thomas West, who died a few years later in Louisa. Margaret then married Smithson Hobson Davis and had several children by him. These children sued for a portion of Hook’s estate as revealed by deposition dated April 18,1842. Another daughter became the wife of Peter Holland who had a farm three or four miles west of the Hook plantation. A considerable amount of material in the Duke Archives came through two very unusual maiden ladies, Maggie and Rosetta Holland, who were great-great granddaughters of John Hook. It was not until 1850 that the final settlement of the Ross-Hook Company assets was handed down by the high court of chancery in Richmond. Hook’s former clerk and son-in-law, Booker Preston, formed a partnership in 1812 with a miller named Davis whose mill stood where Stony Creek enters Goose Creek and Rt. 122 crosses the two streams. In the financial panic of 1819 the Davis-Preston firm en­ countered difficulties which culminated in bankruptcy in 1830. An inventory of their assets is included in the Duke papers. John Hook lived an eventful life during an heroic era of American history. He moved from the poverty of a back street in Glasgow to a large Virginia plantation and title to thousands of acres extending far down the Tennessee River. He had six children but with the death of his grandson, Dr. John Hook Griffin of Salem, Virginia in 1878 his name disappeared. All that now remains are the 103 boxes containing 7,387 items relating to his business career in Virginia and a few brief references scattered through historic writings, an unpublished Master’s Dentils on the front cornice of John Hook’s store at Haleslord 53 �thesis by Dr. Willard Pierson Jr. at Duke University, a Virginia State Historic Highway marker in New London and what is probably the remains of his store house at Hales Ford. The character and capability, the determination to work his way out of poverty, the keen business and legal mind displayed in his letters and notes, his unshakeable courage in the fact of threats all reveal a singular man struggling through troubled times. The home of Judge Samuel Griffin and later his son, Judge Malcolm Griffin at the comer of Main and Union streets in Salem. Samuel Griffin’s mother was Sarah Jane McClanahan and his maternal grand­ mother was John Hook’s daughter, Charlotte. Thomas D. Griffin, son of the second Judge Griffin, has remodeled the servants’ house for a sm a ll home adjacent to this house. North Cross School was started in the Griffin home. BIBLIOGRAPHY: ( A u t h o r ’s n o t e : D u k e U n iv e rs ity .) A ll q u o ta tio n s e x c e p t th o s e n o t e d a re f r o m th e J o h n H o o k P a p e rs a t J o h n H o o k P a p e rs , P e rk in s A rc h iv e s , D u k e U n iv e rs ity R e a d , D a isy I . , N e w L o n d o n T o d a y a n d Y e s te r d a y , J .P .B e ll C o m p a n y , L y n c h b u r g , 1 9 5 0 M c C a u le y , W illia m , H is to r y o f R o a n o k e C o u n ty , S a le m , R o a n o k e C ity , B io g ra p h ic a l P u b lis h in g C o m p a n y , 1 9 0 2 K e g le y , F .B ., V irg in ia F r o n t i e r , T h e S o u th w e s t V irg in ia H is to ric a l S o c ie ty , 1 9 3 8 J a c k , G e o rg e S ., H is to r y o f R o a n o k e C o u n ty , S to n e P r in tin g C o m p a n y , 1 9 1 2 M a s o n , F r a n c e s N o r t o n , J o h n N o r to n & S o n s , M e r c h a n ts o f L o n d o n a n d V irg in ia , T h e D ie tz P re s s , 1 9 3 7 H a rre ll, Is a a c S a m u e l, L o y a lis m in V irg in ia , D u k e U n iv e rs ity P re s s, 1 9 2 6 W irt, W illia m , L ife a n d C h a r a c te r o f P a tr i c k H e n r y , D e rb y & J a c k s o n , N e w Y o r k , 1 8 5 9 W in g fie ld , M a rs h a ll, P io n e e r F a m ilie s o f F r a n k li n C o u n ty , C h e s a p e a k e B o o k C o m p a n y , 1964 W in g fie ld , M a rs h a ll, F r a n k lin C o u n ty , V irg in ia , A H is to r y , C h e s a p e a k e B o o k C o m p a n y , 1964 54 �W in g fie ld , M a rsh a ll, A n O ld V irg in ia C o u r t, 1 9 4 8 W a rd , H a rry M . a n d G re e r, H a ro ld E ., J r ., R ic h m o n d D u rin g th e R e v o lu tio n , U n iv e rs ity P ress o f V irg in ia , C h a r lo tte s v ille , 1 9 7 7 S c h le sin g e r, A r th u r M e ir, T h e C o lo n ia l M e r c h a n ts a n d T h e A m e ric a n R e v o lu tio n , C o lu m b ia U n iv e rs ity , L o n g m a n s , G re e n & C o . 1 9 1 8 o • S to n e r , R o b e r t D o u t h a t , A S e e d -B ed o f th e R e p u b lic , T h e R o a n o k e H is to ric a l S o c ie ty , ROatlM ea’d e,iIB ish o ’p W illia m , O ld C h u rc h e s o f V irg in ia , J .B .L ip p in c o tt C o ., P h ila d e lp h ia , 1 8 6 1 P ie rs o n , W illa rd , J r ., J o h n H o o k , A M e r c h a n t o f C o lo n ia l V irg in ia , M a s te r’s D e g re e th e s is , D u k e U n iv e rs ity , 1 9 6 2 JJj J e f f e r s o n , T h o m a s , N o te s o n th e P r e s e n t S ta te o f V irg in ia , 1 7 8 1 , John ok H Frontier Bookseller by Felix Hargrett One of the earliest booksellers if not the first on the Virginia fron­ tier was John Hook, prominent Scotch merchant at New London in old Bedford County. His career as a merchant extended from 1766 to 1784 at New London and thereafter in Franklin County until his death in 1808. As a bookseller, he exerted an influence upon the pre-Revolutionary cultural life of the region that should not be overlooked in our attention to his better-known political and mercantile activities. Felix Hargrett, ardent bibliophile, discovered John H ook’s letter copy books and gave them to Duke University. A native o f Georgia and a retired insurance executive, he lives in Roanoke in retirement. I", '1- > ( j m Bfe V » g||F M 1 Wm. -v^B •* .j WÈm B i « Felix Hargrett (left), a Hook scholar, chats with Thomas D. Griffin of Salem, a Hook descendant. 55 �Preserved among his papers at Duke University is a lengthy list or inventory of a stock of books that Hook imported from Glasgow, Scotland in 1772 for sale in his store at New London. This document is significant because of the light it sheds on the interests of the backcountry people, not only in religion and other matters of the spirit but as well in literature and philosophy and the practical affairs of life-all as revealed by the books they bought and read. There were good reasons why this frontier merchant imported his stock of books from across the Atlantic rather than obtaining them elsewhere in the American colonies. By 1772 there were many printers of books in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Williamsburg and Charles­ town, S.C., who might well have supplied Hook’s needs along this line. He looked, however, to his factors in Scotland and England instead because he was conducting essentially an export and import trade between Virginia and the British Isles and found it more expedient and doubtless more profitable to obtain his goods for retail sales through the regular channels of his other trade. ^ Hook exported to England and Scotland tobacco in hogsheads, ob­ taining money for it in the form of exchange or, more often, goods with which he stocked the shelves of his store. For the tobacco, ginseng, deer hides and other produce which he gathered up here and there and shipped across the water, he received in return manufactured articles of many kinds which were needed by the frontier people who traded at his New London store. Discharged from vessels at one or another of the several James and York River ports in eastern Virginia, these goods were hauled overland in wagons to Bedford County. This was the general pattern of the retail mercantile trade on the Virginia frontier before the Revolution. There was little coastwise commerce between Virginia and the other colonies and provinces to the north and south. The books which Hook imported to sell at retail to his customers at his New London store covered a wide range of subjects. As might be expected, many of them were of a religious character: quantities of Bibles in a variety of sizes and prices-“five Quarto Bibles gilt,” common Bibles,” “little Bibles,” as they were described in the list; dozens of New Testaments, prayerbooks by the dozen and scores of catechisms. In the consignment were many volumes of sermons, medi­ tations and commentaries on the scriptures, written by leading 17th and 18th century clergymen of the Established Church in England and by eminent divines of the Scottish church-among them James Hervey and William Sherlock of London and John Flavel, Thomas Boston and Ebenezer Erskine, leading Presbyterians of Edinburgh. The writings of these religious leaders were among the most popular and widely read theological works of the time not only in the British Isles but in the American colonies as well, especially in the frontier regions. In the back-country, more so than in the earlier settled eastern parts of Virginia, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists and other dissenters were rapidly growing in number, and they required Bibles and other religious books as food for the soul. John Hook met this need, just as 56 �he supplied all the other more mundane, workaday necessities of the people. We may be sure that he knew exactly what he was doing along that line; he was certainly not one to burden his shelves with slowmoving or dead merchandise; he was too canny a Scot to lay in a stock of books that he could not readily sell. In addition to these religious books, he offered for sale philosophi­ cal works which were then popular in England and Scotland. Among these were The Economy o f Life (by an unnamed author); the Golden Verses o f Pythagoras, a Greek classic in translation; the Meditations of John Harvey, an English statesman of note in the early 18th century; and Anthony Shaftesbury’s Characteristics, a heavy, three-volume dis­ sertation on moral philosophy which, despite its forbidding subject and title, seems to have been a best-seller in the years just prior to the American Revolution. On his shelf also was Cicero’s Cato Major, a Latin classic (again in translation), which even to this day makes delightful reading for those whose tastes lead them along its pleasant paths. It was a book that Thomas Jefferson loved, and Benjamin Franklin admired it so ardently that he issued from his own printing press in Philadelphia an edition of the work which is one of the most beautiful books ever printed in America. But more engaging and more revealing of the intellectual interests of the people on the Virginia frontier is the record of the books which Hook imported to meet the demands of his customers for the best English literature of the time. The inventory exhibits clearly the reading tastes and preferences of what must have been a respectable number of people in this remote, rural area of the up-country in the shadows of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Peaks of Otter, on the eve of the Revolution. The list is worth examining briefly and thoughtfully, It included among other titles the following ones: Milton’s Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained Thompson’s Seasons, a noted poem The Spectator, of Addison and Steele; an edition in eight volumes (no fewer!) of these delightful and timeless essays The Tatler, also of Addison and Steele; in four volumes Roderick Random, a novel of sea-faring life by Tobias Smollett Tom Jones, Joseph Andrews and Amelia. These three influential novels of English character and country life by Henry Fielding, the first of the great English novelists, still give keen enjoyment to readers of discriminating tastes. Two of the novels, as we all know, have in recent years been made into movies of some merit. A Sentimental Journey, by Laurence Sterne, English novelist and essayist, and a canon of York Minister; a book widely read then and now on both sides of the Atlantic. A Dictionary o f the English Language, by Dr. Samuel Johnson; an important work in two large volumes The Letters o f Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, recounting in a sprightly style her travels and experiences in England and on the Continent in the early decades of the eighteenth century 57 �The History o f the Discovery and English Settlements in America Hudibras, by Samuel Butler, a lengthy, mock-heroic poem of 1663 satirizing the Presbyterians and other Independents On John Hook’s shelves were to be found collections of songs and variety of practical works on agriculture, farriery, carpentry, dyeing, weaving, tanning and other workaday concerns. Along with these were self-help books on medical and health care—“family companions,” as they were often termed—which were of vital importance in days when doctors were few, travel was slow and when people in the back-country, far from cities and towns, often had to rely chiefly, if not entirely, upon home remedies when illness or injury befell them. But among the most interesting books were those for children, which included the following; 12 Dyche’s Spelling Book, 24 primers, 3 dozen “small histories,” 6 dozen Ambrose’s Looking Glass, 2 dozen Fisher’s Arithmetic, 3 dozen Mother’s Catechism, 8 dozen Common Catechism, 8 dozen Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and finally 12 horn­ books. A horn-book, strictly speaking was not a book at all, but the first so-called book made for children themselves. It was composed of a small piece of wood cut in the*shape of a little paddle, in a size conven­ ient for. a child to handle, generally about two inches by three inches. On one side was pasted a lesson-sheet over which was laid a thin piece of transparent’ horn which was held in place by narrow brass strips tacked through the horn into the wood. Sometimes a hole was bored in the handle so that a cord or leather thong could be strung through it to permit the horn-book to be hung about the neck of a child or suspended from its girdle or waist. The lesson-sheet, originally written by hand on parchment or vellum until about 1500, was from that time forward of paper upon which the text was printed from type. First, at the top, appeared a cross, called Christ-cross, but more commonly cris-cross. Next came the alphabet, first in small letters, then in capital letters; the vowels next appeared, followed by the vowels in combination with consonants; the digits ensued; and, finally, and always, the Lord’s Prayer. (It is sad to contemplate that, containing the Lord’s Prayer, as it invariably did, this little form of a child’s primer would hardly be allowed in our public primary schools in this present-day more or less enlightened age.) The horn-book was peculiar to English-speaking people. Used ex­ tensively, perhaps universally, in England from the 14th century for­ ward, it was never, so far as I have been able to discover, adopted in any country other than England and its colonies. The horn-book is men­ tioned by Shakespeare in Love’s Labour’s Lost; Ben Johnson, a London playwright contemporary with Shakespeare, described it in 1609 in these‘words: The letters may be read, through the horn, That makes the story perfect. Colonists brought horn-books with them when they came to our shores from England in the 1600s, and soon colonial craftsmen were 58 �turning out the little objects; nevertheless, horn-books were still being imported into the American colonies up until the time of the Revolution. Frequent references were made to them by New England writers in the 17th and 18th centuries. Nathaniel Hawthorne, in The Scarlet Letter, a story set in Boston in its early decades, has Hester Prynne using the horn-book to teach letters and numbers to her little daughter. In the early public records of New England and of the Middle and Southern colonies, horn-books were listed in some estate inventories but rather infrequently because they were of such slight monetary value, worth at most no more than a few pence. In time the horn-book fulfilled its mission of teaching children the rudiments of learning; developments in paper-making and printing ultimately brought about the manufacture of alphabet or ABC books, primers and little pocket-books into which much more instruction could be put and which were therefore more useful. It seems that by the early years of the 19th century the horn-book had fallen finally into disuse. Naturally the horn-book received rough usage at the hands of children who gnawed them, sucked them, licked them, hit each other with them, and (in the case of boys) whittled them. As a consequence, few of them have survived, and nowadays they are among the rarest objects which were in common household use by our ancestors 200 or 300 years ago. The few'- that were spared are quite valuable now, perhaps more valuable even than the prized illuminated manuscript books of hours, breviaries and other devotional manuals which, before the invention of printing, were prepared at considerable cost by monks, scribes and artists for their wealthy patrons. Where are the horn-books that were once so common, once to be found in almost every household? Where are the ones that John Hook imported in quantity from England and Scotland before the Revolution and sold to his customers in Bedford County? Gone with the wind, of course; gone with all the other perishable household articles used in the daily, domestic life of the people. In my own book-collecting over more than a half-century I have never managed to find and add to my library an original horn-book. Only once did I come even close to doing so: about 30 years ago I was notified that a horn-book, dated from about 1660, was coming up at auction in London; but my bid proved not to be the high one and I failed to obtain the treasure. Shortly afterwards, however, I was fortunate enough to acquire from a rare book dealer in Boston a horn-book in replica, made in England about 1885, which in itself is now quite rare, and with this I have had to be content. To me, the role of John Hook as the first bookseller in our region of Virginia is by no means the least interesting of the many and varied activities he carried on during his long and busy career. That he con­ tributed materially to the intellectual life of the people on the frontier of Virginia in the years immediately preceding the Revolution is clearly evidenced by the record of the books which he supplied to them. 59 �How We Began by Edmund P. Goodwin It came into being on Aug. 23,1957. Dr. D.E. McQuilkin, chairman of the Roanoke Diamond Jubilee Historical Committee asked the following people to a meeting: Raymond P. Barnes, Blair J. Fishburn, Edmund P. Goodwin, Shields Johnson, Edward H. Ould,D.W.Persinger, Claude L. Settlemire, Tayloe Rogers and Robert Thomas. The following actions were approved: 1. A Roanoke Historical Society should be formed. Its purpose would be to collect, preserve and exhibit writings and objects of local historic interest and value. 2. A request be made to the Diamond Jubilee Executive Committee for a portion of any funds that might remain in its hands upon dissolution. 3. That the Roanoke Library Board be requested to provide space as a repository for items owned by the Society. 4. That a president, a vice president and secretary be elected. 5. That a charter be secured. Pursuant to the action, these officers were elected: Edmund P. Goodwin, president Blair J. Fishburn, vice president Raymond P. Barnes, secretary A meeting of the founders was held on Dec. 3, 1957 and it was reported the actions set forth in the previous meeting had been accomplished. The following were approved: 1. Robert W. Woody was elected treasurer. 2. Charter memberships were offered to the public at $5. When the Society had a real membership, a meeting was called for March 6, 1958. The proposed bylaws were read and approved. They provided for the election of 24 directors, who would in turn elect their officers. The following were named to the board: Raymond P. Barnes, Mrs. H. Powell Chapman, C. Francis Cocke, Whitwell W. Coxe, Arthur Ellett, B. N. Eubank, Blair J. Fishburn, Miss Louise Fowlkes, Edmund P. Goodwin, J. R. Hildebrand, James J. Izard, E.R. Johnson, Shields Johnson, Mrs. J.G. McConkey, D. E. McQuilkin, S. H. McVitty, Leonard G. Muse, E. H. Ould, J. M. Richardson, Claude L. Settlemire, Robert H. Smith, Mrs. Edmund P. Goodwin was one o f the founders o f the Society and twice its president. He and his wife, Louise, were presented life mem­ berships in the Society in February 1980. They were cited for more than 20 years o f dedicated service. Both serve on the Executive Com­ mittee. Mrs. Goodwin is chairman o f the Acquisitions Committee and he also has been treasurer. 60 �English Showalter, Clifton A. Woodrum Jr., Robert W. Woody. It was reported there were 120 charter members and the directors were to determine when such memberships should be discontinued. The treasurer stated $3,820.65 had been received from the Diamond Jubilee Corporation, $570 from memberships and $13 from sales, making a total of $4,403.65 in the treasury. The president announced research and acquisition committees would be formed and described their function. Dr. Earl G. Swem, longtime librarian of the College of William and Mary and eminent Virginia' historian, addressed the directors and committee members on Nov! 10, 1958. Among the many interesting and instructive things he said was that eastern Virginia had been thoroughly researched, but the western part of the State Was still a veri­ table gold mine for historical information and artifacts. Dr. Swem’s suggestion for a motto was adopted. The motto is “Amor montium nos movet,” translated “The love of the mountain inspires us.” It has been said acorns grow into mighty oaks. Unfortunately, this is not true of our Society at this time. On the other hand, the following list of accomplishments and activities would indicate it may have reached the sapling stage. Acquisitions In the beginning, the Society’s material fit loosely into one small locked steel cabinet. Today, thousands of items of historical signifi­ cance are crowded into two rooms of a fireproof building which Roanoke College permits us to use. The word “crowded” might indicate a jumbled mess. This is far from true. Each item is numbered, showing the year in which acquired, then listed on cards with descriptive material then filed under subject matter and donor. The following items, selected at random, will give some idea of the type of material in the Society’s collection. 1. A string of Indian beads, “Rawrenoke” 2. Many pieces of Virginia paper money (18th century) 3. A desk, books and surgical instruments owned by Col. William Fleming 4. Hundreds of Breckenridge letters (19th century) 5. Beyer’s lithograph of the Peaks of Otter, with Thomas Jefferson’s letter describing his scientific observations on a trip to the Peaks 6. Indian artifacts found in this area (up to 10,000 years old) 7. Receipts for sale of land in Col. James Patton’s grant (circa 1750) 8. Money order book of the Big Lick Post Office (1869-1880) 9. Census books showing Roanoke had a population of 5,000 (1883) 10. Photograph collection of early Roanoke Obviously, it is impractical to describe everything, but many fall into these categories. Kentucky rifles and other firearms, bullet 61 �molds and powder flasks, uniforms, clothes, shawls, hats, gloves, shawls and bedspreads. Deeds, manuscripts, surveys, maps, farmbooks, ledger and minute books. Postcards, letters, newspaper, pictures and portraits. Furniture, spinning wheels, glasses, china and pottery. Tools and other artifacts used by our forefathers. Coins, buttons, medals and badges. Minerals and an illustrated book on local iron furnaces. A collection of books pertinent to the history of Virginia. Exhibitions In the early days of the Society, some of its acquisitions were dis­ played in showcases and store windows. By 1963, the collection had grown to such an extent, larger quarters were necessary. Roanoke College provided us with two rooms on the ground floor of the rear of its fireproof library. At first, everything was on display, except the most valuable items, which were kept in an iron safe. When the acquisi­ tions became too large to be shown at all times, special exhibitions were arranged on such themes as tools, toys, the Pennsylvania Dutch, clothing, maps, plans and pictures of Roanoke. As time went by, Roanoke College needed this room, but fortunately for us, they made space available in their fireproof science complex. Acquisitions continued growing, and a decision was made to use the space as dead storage. In order to continue exhibitions, a small portion of the second story of Cherry Hill, the Roanoke Fine Arts Center headquarters, was secured. One exhibit was a frontier cabin made of simulated logs. It was equip­ ped properly with guns, powderhoms, bullet molds, pots, trivets, pans, tools, molds for hand-made candles and other items indicative of the period. Another exhibit was a country store. One could see medicine and candy bottles, barrels, thread, cloth, clothes, lamps, tobacco and even a pill-making machine. Later, the Society opened its gallery on East Kirk Avenue in down­ town Roanoke. When the building was sold, the gallery moved to its present location, 10 Franklin Road. One of the many outstanding exhibits was a collection from the Abbey Aldrich Rockfeller Folk Art collection at Williamsburg. Some of the other displays at the downtown galleries have been Roanoke equipment and material, toys that run, dresses, hats, woven bedspreads, tin, old tools, a country store and an account book and pictures of buildings on which a mid-18th century joiner, Gustav Sedon, worked in Roanoke County. Special exhibits have been presented in various places from time to time, such as the Fall Color and Fashion for Living, Allstate Insurance Co., Kiwanis Antique Show, Heironimus, Festival in the Park and Miller and Rhoads. The Heritage Trunk moved from school to school, showing children the types of clothes, tools, toys and material their counterparts used during the Revolutionary period. 62 �Publication» The Society’s first attempt at publication was duplication of out-ofprint pamphlets, such as the burning of Mt. Joy near Buchanan and the history of Co. A, 37th Battalion C.S.A. a cavalry unit from Franklin County. In the early 1960s, the Society assisted in the preparation, publication and distribution of “A Seed-Bed of the Republic” by Robert D. Stoner. It has been associated with the second edition and the third printing. Dr. Swem read the manuscripts, making suggestions and corrections. He wrote in the foreword, “The Roanoke Historical Society is to be highly commended for beginning its program of publications with this worthy publication.” Through the years since 1964, its Journal has made a significant con­ tribution to the development of the history of western Virginia. The initial issue contained a statement about a New England historical society in the 1700s which is still applicable to the Society: “We intend to be an active, not passive body; not to lie waiting like a bed of oysters, for the tide to flow in on us, but to seek and find, to preserve and com­ municate literary intelligence, especially in the historical way.” Articles have described the early days of the Roanoke Valley, such as the Batts and Fallam expedition of 1671, the settlement of Tasker and Thomas Tosh, circa 1742, travels of the Moravians in 1753, and the French and Indian War, 1755 to 1763. Accounts have appeared about many prominent men, including Gen. Andrew Lewis, Col. William Fleming, William Preston, George Hancock and James Breckenridge. Old homes of the area described are Bellmont, Hawthorne Hall, Smithfield, Lone Oak, Locust Level, Fotheringay, and Huntingdon. One article told of Benjamin Deyerle, master builder of many fine buildings prior to 1860. Some articles, but far from all, have told of the Southwest Turnpike, Fincastle Springs, Cherry Bottom, Appalachian dialect, Mountain Lake, the bells of Fincastle, recollections of Bent Mountain, cigar manufactur­ ing in Roanoke, No. 1 Fire Station and Franklin folk tales. The Society has for sale many copies of the Journal and these books: “A Seed-Bed of the Republic,” “The Town of Fincastle,” “Colonel William Fleming of Botetourt, 1728-1795,” “Young John Tyler” and “Historic Tours of Roanoke,” for children. Adults also enjoy the tour book. Some of the most popular items the Society has for sale are historic maps drawn by J. R. Hildebrand. They are the Borden Grant, the Beverly Grant, the Counties of Augusta, Bedford, Botetourt, Fincastle, Franklin, Montgomery, Roanoke, Rockbridge and Wythe. Also, there are copies of a photograph-like map of Roanoke City made in 1891. 63 �Speakers For some years, the Society has had talks at meetings to which the public is invited. Among the many speakers have been Dr. Edward P. Alexander, at that time vice president of Colonial Williamsburg, whose topic was “Historic Preservation in Virginia” ; Dr. Marshall Fishwick, professor of history at Lincoln University, whose subject was “Virginia: Old, New and Contemporary”; Dr. James Robertson, Jr., professor of History at V.P.I., spoke on “G.I’s of the 1860’s, Common Soldier of the Civil War” and Ivor Noel Hume, director of Archeology, Colonial Williamsburg, whose subject was “Digging for America.” These are listed merely to show the caliber of our speakers. Other subjects covered at some of the scores of meetings: Architecture in the Roan.oke Valley; Dunmore’s War and the Battle of Point Pleasant; Booker T. Washington, Negro educator; Thomas Jefferson, social scientist; the Scotch-Irish; the Revolution in Pittsylvania County; early Fire Fighting in Roanoke; Virginia landmarks; German influence in the Roanoke Valley; Old Salem and the Moravians; Battle of Kings Mountain; early medicine in Roanoke Valley; preserving old Lexington; the Colonial Church in Virginia; the Dividing Line and Green Springs. A different type of program was of great interest. A group from Ferrum College pantomimed one of the “Jack” tales and gave a musical program using the types of instruments that were common in the mountains years ago. Historic Tours The first tour was in 1963. Charter buses were used, as has been the case on all other pilgrimages. Each bus has a guide, who points out places of historical interest along the way. But even more important the guide has the responsibility of getting the members and visitors back on the bus in order to meet the schedule. Each passenger is supplied with a map showing the route, the places to be visited and information giving the importance of each stop. Arrangements are made with a church or club to serve lunch along the way. The destination of the initial tour was Botetourt County. The places visited were Stonelea, site of the Cloyd massacre in 1764; Kyle House, noted for its beautiful carved woodwork; Hawthorne Hall, a Harvey house; Prospect, a Federal style house, and Santillane, originally the home of Col. George Hancock. The following year the trip was to Bedford County where the buses stopped at Fancy Farm, Three Otters, Lockwood Hall and Poplar Forest. In 1968, in order to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the first meeting of the Society’s members, it was decided to explore Roanoke Valley. , The places visited were Hunter’s Rest, Winsmere, Walnut Grove, Monterey and the Salem Presbyterian Church. Along the way, other old homes pointed out were Huntingdon, Homewood, Bellmont’ Speedwell and the Garst Log House. 64 �The annual or semiannual tours, from their inception, have been ex­ ceedingly popular with members and non-menbers. Usually there is a waiting list no matter how many buses the route can accommodate. Other tours have gone to the counties of Augusta, Bedford, Botetourt, Rockbridge, Floyd, Franklin, Henry, Montgomery, Patrick, Pittsylvania, Pulaski, Wythe, as well as Green Springs in Louisa County, Old Salem in North Carolina, Lynchburg and Lewisburg, W. Va. The Society arranged a walking tour of downtown Roanoke by pre­ paring a map showing 20 places of interest and copy describing it. It also has cooperated with the Junior League’s bus tour of historical places in Roanoke. Cemetery Research The Cemetery Committee has done outstanding work for posterity in locating more than 250 private and public cemeteries in Salem, Vinton, Roanoke City and County. In the early days many people had a burial ground on their farms and some churches had graveyards, primarily for deceased members. As metropolitan areas grew, public cemeteries came into being and some have maintained lists of burials by plot number. In the others, the committee has listed the people buried, whenever the inscription on the stone is legible, and the location of the grave. Old Buildings The Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission requested the Society to bring up to date the survey of old buildings done by W.P.A. during the 1930s, to make additions and furnish photographs. A house file had been started. However this project should be much more complete. Fincastle Museum In 1965, the idea of such a museum, to be an adjunct of our Society, was developed. With the wealth of historical material in Botetourt, it was felt as much of it as possible should be collected and displayed there. A letter was sent to many Botetourt residents calling a meeting for the purpose of forming a Society. In cooperation with that group, negotiations were initiated with the Board of Supervisors for the use of a very old brick building directly in the rear of the Court House. After a lease was negotiated, our Society appropriated sufficient money to remodel the structure. Their Society proceeded to collect, arrange and label the material without assistance. The Museum was opened in the Fall of 1966. No. 1 Fire House When plans were being made for Downtown East, a Roanoke re65 �development project, it was contemplated the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority would purchase this building and tear it down. Another landmark would disappear. After long negotiations, the Society entered into a verbal contract to purchase the property for $90,000 if the Authority would spend up to that amount for remodeling. At that time, it was our intention to make it a permanent home, which we needed and still need so badly. The portion we did not use would be rented to provide additional income. An architect from the Landmarks Commission was secured to determine the repairs that should be made and the alterations that should not be done. Later we were able to get the Fire House declared a State and National Landmark. But the City continues to use the building, insuring its preservation. Miscellaneous In a number of varied projects, the Society has been associated with restoration of the pump and house at Crystal Spring: we were able to get the City to refurbish Buena Vista, the Col. George Tayloe home, and a study of restoration of the Garst log house was conducted but it had deteriorated to such an extent this was not considered feasible. Name Change In 1964 upon advice of counsel, the charter was amended to assure the tax exempt status of the Society. This action was taken again six years later because it was decided our name was too restrictive, there­ fore we became the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Until 1977, all directors were elected annually and any or all were eligible to serve for life. With the total membership approaching 900, it was decided a rotating board would increase the interest of members and bring new ideas into the management of the Society. In order to accomplish this change in the bylaws it was necessary to amend the charter again. At the 1978 annual meeting, 30 directors were elected. It was determined by lot which 10 would serve one, two or three years. In the future, 10 directors will be named annually, but no person can be nominated for more than two successive elected three-year terms. After the charter membership was closed in 1958, the minimum dues were set at $7.50 for a single person and $10.00 for a man and wife. Notwithstanding inflation and the tremendous increased activity of the Society, the dues remained the same for 20 years, when the two cate­ gories were changed to $10 and $12.50. In 1972, a corporate membership was created which made a down­ town Gallery possible. The Society should expand and extend its operations in many fields. With the employment of an executive director, the next move will be to join the Southwest Virginia Center for the Arts and Sciences in the McGuire Building on the City Market,. 66 �The presidents of the Society and the years served follow: Edmund P. Goodwin, 1957-63; George Kegley, 1963-66: Mrs. English Showalter, 1966-69; J. Thomas Engleby III, 1969-71; Edmund P. Goodwin, 1971-73; Mrs. Harold P. Kyle, 1973-76; J. Randolph West, 1976-79; Richard Meagher 1979-80; J. Randolph West, 1980, and Jack Goodykoontz, 1980-. The heads of committees for 1979-80 are: Acquisitions, Mrs. Edmund P. Goodwin; Cemetery, Mrs. English Showalter; Exhibitions, Mrs. Roger Winbome; Buildings, Edmund P. Goodwin; Finance, S. S. Edmunds; Journal, George Kegley; Landmarks, Miss Anna Louise Haley; Programs and Tours, George Kegley. The executive secretaries have been: Henry A. Davenport, W. B. Kerr, Anna Lawson, Susan Burks Williams, Pauline Carter, Joel Richert, Anne Dibble, Donna Ware, Sallie Brown and Susan Simpson. Betty Ayers was gallery hostess. Nomeka Sours became executive director in June 1980. The foregoing has been a record of what the Roanoke Valley Histori­ cal Society has done andáis doing through the eyes of some of its members. It would be inappropriate to end without quoting a portion of a certificate received from the American Association for State and Local History. The Society was recognized for its “achievements in the field of historic preservation, for gathering and compiling photographs and material on historic landmarks, for maintaining and guarding historic records and for creating an awareness and appreciation of history.” Historic Pump Registered The Crystal Spring Steam Pumping Station has been placed on the Virginia Landmarks Register and entered in the National Register of Historic Places. Restoration of the 1905 pump was co-sponsored by the Society and the Roanoke Valley Bicentennial Commission in 1976. Many visitors have seen the old pump, open to the public by the City Department of Parks and Recreation from Spring through Autumn, since the work was completed in August 1976. The pump provided water for the City of Roanoke from the nearby Crystal Spring from 1905 until 1957. 67 �What We Collect From attics, closets, shelves and other storage places have come a wide variety of articles donated to the Society. Some have been dis­ played in the Gallery at 10 Franklin Road, S.W. but for lack of space many have been stored by the Acquisitions Committee in an unused area of the Roanoke College Science Building. These acquisitions are important links with the past. When the Society joins other organzations in the Southwest Vir­ ginia Center for Arts and Science in the McGuire Building at the City Market, extensive area will be available for exhibits and other activities. A sampling of the items contributed in recent years: Wheat cradle from Showalter (Stewart) farm just north of Hersh­ berger Road, wood, painted red; Shenandoah Club of Roanoke, constitution and general rules, 1893; Hepplewhite chair (1800) scale drawing, chair from “Grove Hill,” home of Gen. James Breckenridge; shucking pin c. 1870; silver spoon from Carlton Layman house. “Smilage Book,” tickets for entertainment of soldiers of World War I at Camp Meigs (engineers) Washington D.C., July 1, 1918 - Feb. 14, 1919; John Phillip Sousa poster, Academy of Music for Sousa’s tremendous operatic success, “El Capitan” ; Spanish-American War, flag, eagle finial, gold fringe, gold cords, two leather fly carriers and flag cover; “A Selected Bibliography of Virginia”, book, 1607-1699; James Alexander Land Grant, Aug. 3,1771 for 150 acres in Botetourt County on Roanoke River signed by Gov. William Nelson; powder flask, engraved with hunting scene; Journal of the House of Delegates of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1832; letter to Mrs. Sara M. Lee, Fotheringay, Montgomery County, from her “affectionate child,” N.E. Wills, Lebanon, Aug. 6, 1837; tuition statement, Abraham Vinyard to Achilles Womack, 1840-1841. Whiskey recipe from Roanoke County, 1840; sketch book by George P. Tayloe for superintendent of Brick Church Sunday School (Big Lick Episcopal) 1842-43; map of Salem, S. W. Turnpike Road, 1848; surveyors level with tripod, c. 1880; Big Lick Weekly News, April 23,1818; deed, McClanahan and Roanoke Land and Improvement Company to sell McClanahan property for $35,000, July 1882; cachet from first Roanoke Post Office 1884-1934; fire helmet worn by Christopher Markley, Roanoke, 1884; glass bottle for smelling salts, Crown .Perfumers Company, N. Y. Pat. 1888; gas mask from World War I in canvas bag, owned by Vernon Bandy Gish; butter mold, round wooden with fern design. Hitching post, found at old barn when Virginia College was torn down. “In memory of Martin, who toted mail, flowers, and candy to 68 �some upstarts at Vir­ ginia College during 1903-04-05; balance for weighing meat, up to 24 pounds, Peter­ son Rutledge Farm, 1850; book, “Youatt on the Structure and Diseases of the Horse,” 1851; pool book, Big Lick, election of the overseer of the poor, May 27,1852; photo­ graph of the U. S. Steam Frigate, Roa­ noke; land grant, bounty, to John S. Scott signed by James Buchanan, President, August 1859. Broad sword, United States Cavalry; 1859; clothing, fe­ male, dress top, brown and cream taffeta with flower­ ed ribbon frogs and medallions, worn by Interesting contrast of shadows is made by Elizabeth Crenshaw, 19th century grain cradle from the Society’s 1860; receipt from collections with 20th century railing at Lee’s headquarters to Roanoke College Science Building. 2nd Virginia Cavalry for contribution to the suffering of Fredericksburg. Letter to Miss Ewing from W. Ayers in Richmond, March 15, 1867, discusses condition of roads from her house to Bonsack to Lynchburg and Richmond; nail, hand-forged from Lee Chapel, Lexington, 1867; clothing, male, wedding, Prince Albert wedding coat, 1869; work basket, woven from honeysuckle vine, 1870; bee hive smoker; fluting iron; pill molding machine used by H. C. Barnes in his drug store 1 S. Jefferson St., 1891; bear trap; calf weaning collar; boot jack, hand made wooden; spindle of railing from Carroll County Court House with bullet hole, relic of Allen family shooting, March 14,1912; corn-shucking pin, made of wood, found in chimney at Lone Oak; wooden ten pins and one ball. 69 �Historical Tours In 1978 and 1979, Society bus tours have traveled to Old Staunton and that part of Augusta County just north of the county seat, to the hill city of Lynchburg, to Henry County and to Lewisburg and Green­ brier County in our first historical visit in West Virginia. Stately old homes, churches, schools, cemeteries and a variety of points of historical interest have attracted the attention of many members and guests on the spring and fall tours. Historical informa­ tion often was presented by owners of the houses and representatives of local organizations and brochures were prepared on the sites and the areas visited. On a most interesting trip in October 1979 to Lewisburg, formed in 1782, the tour recalled the historic march of Gen. Andrew Lewis of Salem with his frontier Indian fighters in the fall of 1774. Their rendezvous point was Camp Union, later Lewisburg. From here they pushed through the wilderness to Point Pleasant where they defeated Cornstalk and his Indians. Detailed descriptions of Lewisburg were given by local guides on the buses. Stops were made at Old Stone Church, built in 1796 and recognized as the earliest church building in continuous use west of the Alleghenies; at the early 1800s Mathews House; at Colonial Inn, built in 1834; the Barracks, a depot for volunteers in the War of 1812, and the John North House and Tavern, the museum and headquarters of the Greenbrier County Historical Society. In a spring 1979 tour of Henry County, the Society visited the Bassett home dating from about 1818; the Homestead at Spencer, built in the 1780s; Hillcroft started near present Fieldale in 1740; Beaver Creek, the James E. Covington mansion built on the Hairston place in 1837, and Chestnut Creek, an 1840 home near Sydnorsville in Franklin County. This was a return trip to the Piedmont area first visited bv the Society in 1970. These large old homes have survived the manufacturing growth that has changed plantation life to an industrial society. Henry County settlers generally came from the English communities in Eastern Virginia. In the autumn of 1978, the Society made its first visit to Lynch­ burg, established in 1786 in Campbell County. Early emphasis was placed on the James River Canal and the tobacco trade. Lynchburg people gave the background for Point of Honor, a restored 1806 Federal mansion; the rebuilt Quaker Meeting House started in 1757; the 1790 Miller-Claytor House, and Sandusky, the unique home of Charles Johnston, who later lived at Botetourt Springs, now Hollins College. A bonus was the visit to Victorian homes under restoration on Diamond Hill, one of Lynchburg’s seven hills. A second trip to Staunton, seat of Augusta County since 1745, 70 �The D. Woodson Ramsey home at Chestnut Creek Farm near Sydnorsville was built about 1840. Ramsey’s ancestors acquired the prop­ erty by a grant from King George II in 1761. Near Spencer in Henry County is the spacious Homestead, sometimes called Grassdale, a 13-room home dating from the 1780s. Owned by Mr. and Mrs. Brooks Leavitt, it was built by James Spencer Jr., an ancestor of Mrs. Leavitt. 71 �was made in the spring of 1978. Buses stopped at the fine Stuart House, a 1791 home now occupied by Justice and Mrs. George Cochran; the distinctive 1866 Sears House; Stuart Hall, the school for young ladies started in the 1840s, and Augusta Stone Church, built in 1741-49. The church, on old U.S. 11 north of Staunton, is the oldest Presbyterian church in the state still in continuous use. The Bassett home near Horsepasture probably was built about 1818. Weatherboarding was placed over what started as a two-room log cabin. Miss Mary Bassett and her sister, Mrs. Reuben Reynolds live there. New Books on Old Themes E A R L Y ADVENTURES ON THE WESTERN WATERS, The New River of Virginia in Pioneer Days 1745-1800, by Mary B. Kegley and F. B. Kegley. Green Publishers; 456 pages. $27.75. Continuing the work started by the late F. B. Kegley of Wytheville in his Kegley’s Virginia Frontier, published in 1938, Mary B. Kegley, a distant relative, follows the frontier into the New River country. GENERAL ANDREW LEWIS OF ROANOKE AND GREENBRIER by Patricia Givens Johnson. Southern Printing Co., Blacksburg, 259 pages. $14.50. Patricia Johnson, a busy historical writer, has completed the first fulllength biography of Andrew Lewis, the most widely known Indian fighter in this part of the country. Born in Ireland, Lewis came with his family to Staunton and later to Richfield, his last home in Salem. (Continued on page 104) 72 �Spinning and Weaving In Montgomery County by Dorothy McCombs When, in 1777, Montgomery County was formed from a part of Fincastle County, to provide frontier settlers with a courthouse reason­ ably close to their homes, it included nine future counties to the west and south which were subtracted from the parent over the next 60 years or so. Its first settlers had arrived in the 1740’s. In the beginning there was a rough balance between those of German and British antecedents, but by 1777 the Scotch Irish were a majority. Many of these had been brought as redeptioners by the colonial magnates Colonel James Patton and Colonel William Preston on their and the Loyal Land Company’s grants.’ The first county court was held in Fort Chiswell near the lead mines. After the subtraction of Wythe in 1790, the town of Christiansburg was established in 1792 as the new county seat where sessions of the county court were held the first Tuesday of overy month.2 The town boasted of only a few hundred persons and four stores, but it was the county’s principal market town.3 (The county was about 100 miles in length and 44 miles in breadth with 8,076 free and 968 slave inhabit­ ants.)4 It had a post office and was on “the post road from Richmond to Kentucky.”5 Unfortunately this road sounded better than it was, since the high plateau which it traversed, between the waters which flowed to the Atlantic and those which flowed into the Mississippi, was alternately mountainous, broken and rocky and fertile valleys. Though smaller be­ cause of the subtraction of Floyd County to the south, its western boundaries still included Pulaski County. Its population in 1830 was 12,306, of which 975 were slaves. The staple commodities of the county were beef, pork, grain, hemp, flax and butter. In the county by this time were three other towns in addition to Christiansburg (230), Blacks­ burg (150 persons), La Fayette (103) and Newbern (190).6 Because of its location, Montgomery County remained isolated from easy shipment of goods until 1850, when the Southwest Virginia Turnpike consolidated all the short-line turnpikes west of Salem and Fincastle. Dorothy Foster McCombs, a reference librarian at Virginia Tech, wrote a paper on hand weaving in Virginia for her master’s degree at VPI. This article incorporates two chapters o f her study. The wife o f C. L. McCombs, head o f the Horticulture Department at VPI, she holds a library degree from the University o f North Carolina. 73 �West of Montgomery, shallow rapids and fast currents prevented boats and rafts from using the Kanawha and the New Rivers.7 The Roanoke River, to the east, was too small a stream to be useful for water transportation. There were plans to canalize the James River but this was not accomplished as far west as Lynchburg until the 1840’s.8 Between Salem and Christiansburg was a long incline to the top of the continental divide. By 1831 this incline was crossed by a toll road, the only graded section of the great valley road, but until that time most traffic into the county was by horseback.9 The county’s staple crops were taken on foot (cattle, pigs) or horseback, and later by wagon, up the valley road to markets in Win­ chester and on to Baltimore and Alexandria, or as roads were built through the gaps in the Blue Ridge, to Richmond or Fredericksburg.10 After the canal was complete, hemp was taken to it and floated down to the warehouses in Richmond. Any goods brought into the county came up the steep dirt road by wagon. In 1805 the cost to carry 100 pounds 20 miles was 50 cents.11 With the difficulties in getting their staple crops to the eastern markets and the expense of receiving goods from these markets, Montgomery County inhabitants, like those of the other western Virginia counties, had no choice but to lead self-sufficient lives in their families and, by barter, in their communities, until much later when turnpikes and railroads reached them. The frontier settlers’ basic necessities came from their land. After shelter was built, food had to be grown and clothing supplied. Because clothing supplies from the outside were bulky, scarce and expensive, frontier folk grew the textile raw materials, spun them into yarn, and Hatchels, scrutching knife and flax break 74 �Flax or Saxony spinning wheel wove the yarn into cloth for clothing and household needs. In the western counties, as in eastern Virginia, land was plentiful. Even men who had been weavers in the old country, here devoted their days to clearing their lands—when they were not at war with the Indians or the British. The chores of spinning and weaving were done generally by women and children. Daily chores of the households were little noted in business or political transactions of the time. There are very few written accounts of textiles manufactured at home, such as the memoirs of Doddrige or Howells.12 The most important and abundant source concerning the raw materials and tools for making cloth is buried in county records, especially in the inventories of personal property, customarily appended to the last will and testaments of the deceased. The county court ap­ pointed three persons to list and appraise the value of these estates. Because the will books of Montgomery County include all appraisals since its formation, plus some early ones dated 1773 when the area was still a part of Fincastle County, the county served as a case study of the kinds and distribution of the raw materials, the means of production and the laborers engaged in the manufacture of textiles. Comparisons with other intermontane counties were made to determine the adherence to or departure from the common experience. Appraisals between 1773 and 1830 were searched to secure data concerning spinning and weaving equipment, yarn and cloth supplies, and the farm tools or production of the raw materials used in making cloth. Only appraisals at least half a page long were considered to insure 75 �that a household, not an individual without a household, was considered. In addition to those of Montgomery County, a small number of appraisals in the same time periods were chosen in three other Virginia intermontane counties: Washington, Augusta and Frederick. In 1749, Moravian travelers in the area which later became Mont­ gomery County spent the night with settlers whose clothes consisted of deer skins, and who offered them bear meat to eat and bear skins to lie on for beds in front of the cabin fireplaces. At night they heard the howling of wolves and one day met a wolf on the trail near the New River.13 Inventories of the 1770’s and 1780’s listed deerskin clothes and occasionally buffalo and elk hides. Because they were unusual and valuable, great coats, velvet breeches, knee buckles or shoe buckles and woolen stockings were also listed. Before the introduction of panta­ loons after the War of 1812, men wore leather or cloth, often velvet, breeches, and consequently stockings were important items in the early appraisals.14 Lists of belongings in the earliest years were brief, showing frontier households with a spinning device to spin yarn of any fiber available, even nettles or buffalo hair.15 However wool was the usual thread used for knitting stockings to wear with the deerskin breeches and jackets. By the 1770’s, the decade in which the appraisals of this study begin, the people of the county had the wolves under control so that some settlers raised sheep for food and wool. Of the 18 appraisals of this period, three included sheep, averaging 15 sheep per flock. An act of 1782 allowed Montgomery County and others to pay a reward in tobacco to inhabitants who killed wolves.16 In the following years a number of persons were awarded certificates in return for wolves’ heads turned in to county officials.17 Wool cards and comb 76 �The sheep grown in the first decades were the common variety introduced to the continent at the time of its first settlements by Europeans. Export of the long-haired sheep of England had been for­ bidden by the British Parliament in 1660. Therefore improvement of wool fleece in America, except for a few examples such as George Washington’s flock, did not occur until the importation of Merino sheep from Spain in the first years of the 1800s. Wool combs and sup­ plies of combed wool did appear in some few 1770 appraisals.18 After 1783 woolen cloth imports increased19 and the percentages of sheep in the years 1780-1800 were considerably lower than the years of the Revolution. Despite the fact that the climate and pastures of western Virginia fostered sheep with superior qualities of wool, as had been rec­ ognized by Lavallee and others, little effort was made to increase the flocks as long as British woolens of far better quality were available. The Embargo and War of 1812 had again cut off imports by the fourth period. By 1810-1819, the Merino craze had reached Southwest Vir­ ginia and over one-third of the households raised sheep. The following letter from a farmer of western Virginia was printed in the Niles 'Register in 1814: Heretofore throughout Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.. . sheep were only considered as a useful appendage to the farm, incurring no expense, generally very little attention, and af­ fording supplies for the table and a little wool for the slaves . . . Since the war the raising of sheep has become an object, and very many gentlemen in the western country have in­ creased their flocks to incredible numbers—three, five and six thousand and I have no doubt but some of the flocks to the south and west will in a few years equal those of Spain.2 0 Of the four counties where records were examined, Washington County had for all periods, by far the largest percentage of households listing sheep, and Montgomery County had the smallest, although Montgomery households had the largest average number of sheep per flock except during the last two periods. It was during this last period that a woolen mill was built in Washington County, the only one in Southwest Virginia, according to the 1810 census. No woolen mills were found in Montgomery County until much later in the century, but the existence of fulling mills and wool carding machines in the censuses, and the continuing average of around 16 sheep per flock throughout the survey indicate a sustained interest in household manufacture of woolens in the county. Sheep were shorn in May, and with the shearing a long series of processes was begun. Most members of the household were involved in some way with the washing, drying, picking and carding of the wool, spinning it into yarn, dyeing the yarn and preparing it for the weaving, the weaving of cloth, then fulling and processing it to make it ready to be used for clothing and other necessities for the family. Maria Jane 77 �Gish Frantz remembered her childhood, and told of the children’s delight in helping to wash the wool after shearing: We would all go out in a wagon to the creek, with the baskets, tubs and buckets, and as the water was warm, we would each take a basket, put in half full of wool, and wade into the creek where it was gravel bottom, and get into the baskets with our feet and tramp the wool until the water ran clean. We would walk out, drain the wool, and put it back into the sheets on the grass, fill the baskets and into the water again.21 Large wool spinning wheel Clock reel and primitive winder Picking burrs and trash out of the wool to prepare it for carding was done during the hot summer months; and was not a favorite job of the children.22 Supplies of wool were found in from 14 to 17 percent of the households in 1778-1789, but the figure decreased to 0 to 3 percent in 1790-1809. During the years of the Embargo and the War of 1812, wool was found again in 16 percent of the households but decreased immediately after the war and remained around 8 percent. Hemp was an important crop in western Virginia from its first setlements. The need for rope for the sailing vessels of the merchant and naval vessels made hemp the commodity England wanted above all others from her colonies.23 In the colonies hemp was also used, in addition to flax, to -make linen cloth. On the eve of the Revolution Virginia had been the leading producer in North America but most of the 5,000 tons of hemp produced annually were consumed in the colony.24 In 1767,1768, hemp certificates were issued in Southwest Virginia to Edward Sharp, Israel Christian, James Montgomery, William 78 �Christian, Margaret Robinson, Jam es' Buchanan, Andrew Woods, Andrew Lewis, William Preston, and James Campbell.2 5 In 1770-1771 bounties were issued to Andrew Woods, James Montgomery, Robert Breckinridge, James Buchanan and 13 more.26 At this time Augusta County grew over 100,000 pounds a year.27 Production continued during the Revolution when the hemp from the valley was sold to a rope walk, where rope was made, established on the James River.2 8 The State of Virginia continued the British colonial policy of en­ couraging the growth of hemp. An act passed in 1783, authorized onehalf the payment of taxes in hemp, tobacco, flour or deerskins.29 The state authorized hemp “to be received in discharge of debt. . . at 30 shillings and 6 pence, cwt.” in 1784.3 0 An act regulating the inspection of hemp was passed in 1790,31 and warehouses for its reception were ordered to be built in Richmond, Alexandria, Fredericksburg, Manchester (Petersburg) and Great Falls in the county of Loudoun. Counties ap­ pointed inspectors who issued certificates to the owners of hemp.32 The records of Augusta County for 1795 include a notation “took a load of public hemp to Philadelphia and bring back mill supplies.”3 3 Montgomery County inventories showed more hemp than other counties, although it appeared in less than 10 percent of the inventories searched. As hemp was collected and certificates were issued by the county inspectors, it is reasonable to assume that supplies were not held long after harvest. A memorandum in the Draper manuscripts gives the following directions for preparing the hemp for market: “To prize hemp make a box 3 feet four inches long to fit a wagon and about 10 inches square and press it hard and bind with four cords contains about 150 cwt.”34 It is assumed that the box described is the cutting box mentioned in many inventories. Today linen is considered to be a cloth made of flax, however in the 18th century, Postlethwayt’s Encyclopedia spoke of a variety of sorts of linen “the chief material of which [were] cotton, flax and hemp.”35 Jefferson’s Farm Book refers to linen made of hemp,36 Tench Coxe’s 1810 Digest o f Manufactures listed Virginia textiles only under the headings woolen, cotton, linen and mixed goods (chiefly cotton).3 7 He listed nothing for Virginia under the heading of hempen cloth or mixed goods (chiefly hempen), although he did for Pennsylvania, Delaware, Massachusetts and Connecticut. In these states, hemp was im­ ported from Russia and manufactured into sailcoth.3 8 Coxe in his introduction to the Digest mentioned the difficulties of processing the tow from the hemp stock.3 9 A number of inventories of Montgomery County specified both tow linen and flax linen. It is impossible to know whether tow linen might have been cloth or hempen tow or whether the reference is only to the snarled tow left in hackles when flax fibers were hacked. Tow, “colored different colors” was also woven into carpets, according to Maria Frantz and carpeting of hemp was made by the Valley Dutch in the early 19th century.40 From the evidence of “watered” and “un­ watered” hemp and hemp brakes in the inventories and the fact that 79 �when hemp was grown for market it was not “Scotched”4 1 it is assum­ ed that hempen cloth was made in Montgomery County. Hemp still appeared in the 1820 appraisals and the 1820 census showed ropewalks in eastern Chesterfield and Dinwiddie counties. By this time, however, the center of hemp.production had followed the frontier into Tennessee and Kentucky where hemp was made into bagging for cotton bales.4 2 Although hemp has been considered the main export crop of the western Virginia counties/ the flax grown was perhaps even more im­ portant to them: Flax was: grown in Montgomery County for three purposes: flaxseed for export, flax fiber for home manufacture of linen, and flaxseed for linseed oil. Until Pennsylvania and Maryland ports were closed during the Revolutionary :War, flaxseed from the Valley of Virginia was carried to Winchester and then on to Alexandria, Baltimore or Philadelphia where it entered the return commerce of ships which had brought linen and indentured servants or other immigrants from Belfast and Londonberry. In October, 1731, “upward of sixty wagon loads of flaxseed came into Baltimore from the country parts for shipment.”43 This trade between Northern Ireland and the mid-Atlantic ports of North America had begun early in the 18th century, bringing young men in particular as redemptioners to the Valley of Virginia until the Revolution closed the trade.44 During the years 1771-1776 the number of these immigrants increased, due to the declining linen trade at home and the increase of rents for Irish lands. An investigation of the House of Commons in 1774 showed that one-half of all Irish linen weavers had been thrown out of work and that 10,000 had emigrated to America since 1770.45 Flax was a difficult crop to grow, requiring experience and good management. In colonial times it was considered hard on the soil and the colonists v^ere reluctant'to grow it, for only a few harvests were made over a number of years. However, the Scotch-Irish settlers of western Virginia had the necessary experience to grow the crop. In addition., the new lands were free of the wilt organism now known to cause severe losses in its production. Flax normally could not be used for both seed and fiber. The stalk must be pulled while still green if it is to be used for fiber for fine linens. If it is to be ripened and the seed exported or saved for sowing, the stalk must be sacrificed/}6! i While export of flaxseed to Ireland resumed to some extent after thé war, it hever reached its eàrlier importance as the Irish had, through necessity, learned to preserve their own seed.4 7 However, after 1793, a new market for the seed opened in this country when linseed oil pro­ cessing began in Pennsylvania.4 8 By 1814 nearly 29,000 gallons of linseed oil were produced in Virginia.4 9 Montgomery County appears to have raised less flax than Augusta but more than Frederick. Seven percent of the inventories in 1790 included flaxseed and nine percent in the 1810’S. Though the 18201829 appraisals listed no flaxseed, the 1820 census showed that two men in the county were employed in linseed oil mills. Augusta County 80 �listed the largest percentages of flaxseed, and also had the largest num­ ber of men (six) employed in its mills. Washington County listed none for 1770-1819, then 34 percent in 1820-1829. No linseed oil mills were shown in the census for the county,5 0 but the flaxseed must have been carried along with other farm produce which every spring was floated downstream on flatboats on the Holston River to markets in Kingsport, Knoxville or New Orleans.51 All during the time of this study, flax was grown in western Virginia for its fiber. Although cotton soon took its place nationally, in 1810 cloth made of flax still outranked 4 to 3, and wool 2 to l . 5 2 Traditionally flax was sown on Good Friday. Its blue blossoms appeared in June and it was harvested in July. Maria Jane Frantz said of the growing flax: When in bloom it waved like a blue sea and was very beautiful. When the bloom dropped it would soon begin to turn brown. And when the seed was ripe it was ready for harvest. We would pull it up, tie it in bundles as large as your arm, and stick it with roots down and seed up, in small stacks to dry.53 Lewis Preston Summers’ History o f Southwest Virginia and Wash­ ington County tells that in 1776 lands near Blacks Fort, now Abingdon, were cultivated in flax. In the summer of that year two men and three women were attacked by Indiáns while pulling flax.54 After bundled stalks of flax were dry they were retted in water by exposure to the dew, or in a pond, to rot the outside coverings. After drying again, bundles of stalks were crushed by flax-brakes, then swingled (or scrutched or Scotched) with a wooden blade, to remove the broken pieces of outside covering or husks. These heavy processes were generally performed by men, sometimes to the accompaniment of a “frolic,” a party to lighten the hard job. To separate the fibers in the stalks of flax a hatchel, or a series of hatchels were used, (hachel, hackle, hacthel or heckle). The hatchel consisted of a thick board four or five inches across and ten to twelve inches long which held three or four rows of iron spikes. Handfuls of flax stalks were pulled through the spikes to separate the fibers. If several were used, the spikes on the hatchels varied from coarse to fine. Snarls of “tow ” left in the hatchels were used for making coarse cloth for bagging or rope. After the first period when only six percent were listed, all periods but one showed that one-third or more of the house­ holds listed flax hatchels. The other, 1790-1799, showed one-fourth of the households listing hatchels. Mrs. Frantz described the flax after hatchelling: “It looked like soft and beautiful gray hair as it was made into twists and hung up on the walls of the loom house.”55 Highest flax supplies in the fifth period were to be expected be­ cause of the embargo and war emergencies, but the continued aDnearance of flax fibers in the last period verifies the statement of Victor Clark that: 81 �. . . in the South there was a territorial and perhaps a racial division between the two crops [flax and cotton]. Flax continued to be grown in the highlands after it was almost entirely supplanted by cotton in the lowlands and coastal country, and linen manufacture still throve among the Scotch-Irish mountaineers long after it ceased to exist among the valley gentry.56 Cotton could not be grown in Montgomery County because of the climate. As might be expected supplies of its fiber were the least of any textile farm produce listed in the county’s inventories. A 1779 record listed “some picked cotton,”57 another in 1790 listed three pounds of cotton. Nonetheless the existence of cotton cloth manufacture is indicated by the presence of cotton spinning wheels. Because supplies of cotton were listed during the Revolution and during the War of 1812, it is reasonable to assume that they came from eastern Virginia. However, referring to Jefferson’s difficulties in buying “cotton wool” in 1816 in Albemarle and Bedford counties,58 a question is raised as to the source of cotton wool which appears in the 1810 inventories. It may have come from South Carolina and Georgia by trade on the branch of the Valley Road which led through North Carolina to those states. How­ ever it may be that it came from a nearer source in southwestern Virginia, south of the Blue Ridge. A history of Roanoke County tells that some southwest Virginians raised a little cotton for domestic purposes and used the surpluses in trade with local storekeepers, who in turn sent the cotton with other farm produce by wagon to wholesale merchants in Baltimore. Accord­ ing to the story, the cotton accumulated there for lack of a buyer until the merchants sent the son of a Scotch-Irish linen draper to London to dispose of it. He was successful and through the venture, Brown Brothers and Company was begun.59 Victor Clark stated that the hand-spun cotton could be manufactured in families only by mixing it with wool or flax warp for strength. Only after cotton was spun and twisted by water-powered machinery was it strong enough to be used for warp in weaving.6 0 In 1803 cotton led the list of American exports by value, and by 1810 the price of cotton yarn and cloth, domestic or imported, became low enough that cotton could replace woolen cloth. At that time, factory-produced yarn appeared in the stores in the South.61 The Niles Register of 1816 stated that cotton yam “is now'as regularly found on the memorandums of country storekeepers as any article whatsoever and is entirely a thing of a few years date.”6 2 The fact that no cotton cloth supplies and that no spinning wheels were designated cotton spinning wheels until 1800-1809 tends to verify the shift from cotton as filling on woolen warp in the earlier fabrics to an all cotton, or cotton as warp fabric, after the factory-spun yarns became available. 82 �Montgomery County, by virtue of its topography and the back­ ground of its inhabitants, was a county of small self-sufficient farm units. Because of its distance from markets and lack of transportation it was not feasible to grow staple crops; therefore its agriculture empha­ sized the food and fiber crops its inhabitants needed for their own use. Sheep, flax and hemp were grown to supply textile fibers. Each of these served a dual purpose, producing in addition to the textile fibers meat for the families, flax seed for export or oil, and hemp for sale or to be used in place of specie. Montgomery County appears to have produced smaller amounts of these products than its more prosperous neighbors to the east or west, however, the data from its appraisal lists shows a more constant percentage in these products over the time in­ cluded in the study. The independence of these self-sufficient settlers, in contrast to the debt-ridden gentry of eastern Virginia would be admired by many persons 200 years later. These traits were also ac­ knowledged by a contemporary traveller through Virginia who remarked: . . . and on my horseback route it was a constant source of surprise. . .for this combination of agriculture and manufac­ ture in the same family appears to me to form a state of society of all others best adapted to produce a happy, independent and virtous population.6 3 In such a society all members of the family were needed to pro­ duce the necessities. The raw materials for textiles and the equipment to fabricate them were produced from the land and forest of the country. While some clothing and cloth were available in the stores, much of these materials used in Montgomery County until 1830 were made in the homes of the farms where the raw materials were grown. From small children to grandmothers, everyone took part in the numerous processes necessary to make the raw textile fibers into cloth. After the washing of wool fleeces in a stream and the hatcheling of flax in the barn of a Montgomery farm, the raw materials were moved into the house or loom-house and the women and children of the household continued the series of processes transforming the fibers into cloth. Just as hatchels were used to complete the preparation of flax for spinning, equipment was necessary to prepare raw cotton or wool into rolls of straight, parallel fibers ready to be spun. A pair of cards was used, each a rectangular piece of wood with handles and rows of wire teeth set in leather which was attached to the wood. By drawing a lock of wool or cotton through the teeth of one card with the other, dirt was combed out of the wool and the fibers were straightened. Re­ moved from the card, the fiber formed a roll nearly an inch thick and ready for spinning. If necessary, wool could be “teased” by hand without cards. In the 18 inventories of the first period of the study, 1773-1779, appraisers listed only two pairs of cards. Though small and simple, cards were 83 �manufactured articles often unavailable on the frontier because the thin wire used for the teeth could not be fabricated by local ironworkers. Purchase of wool cards for the inhabitants of the colony was one charge to Virginia naval captains early in the war,6 4 and by the 1780’s these were imported from New England where they were made by hand.65 The American Museum reported in 1790 that American manufacturers of cards wholly supplied the country,66 and by 1797 a patent was issued to Amos Whittemore for a card-making machine which greatly reduced the labor in their production.6 7 Carding machines were the next step in technological development and the first part of the textile process to be taken out of the home. As early as 1792 a carding machine was available which carded 100 pounds of cotton per day.68 By 1810, water-driven carding devices were common at fulling mills. Although 50 of Virginia’s 96 carding machines were found in the counties between the mountains, the 1810 census listed none in Montgomery County.6 9 The personal property of John Gardner, who died in 1817 in the county, including a carding machine valued at $56.25 with other cloth processing equipment, but it is not known where it was used.70 By the time of the 1820 census, 12 men were employed in Montgomery County who carded 23,700 pounds of wool that year.71 An advertisement in the newspaper of a nearby state offered to pick, break, and card sheep wool into rolls for 10 cents per pound, with the additional charge of two cents for mixing wool of different colors. The advertiser advised prospective customers that: The burrs and sticks must be extracted, and the wool sent in sheets with one pound of grease to eight of wool and the rolls will be so packed as to carry on horseback 50 miles without injury. Country linen, feathers, and wool received in pay­ ment, if delivered in hand.72 William Cooper Howells, whose family immigrated from England to Virginia and then to Ohio, told of wool carding there, 1813-1840: The wool was sometimes carded at home, but usually it was sent off to the carding mill, for the purpose of preparing the wool for spinning by carding and making it into rolls, that were about a yard long and three-fourths of a inch in diameter, light and soft, and from which an even thread was spun . . 7 3 Although combed wool was found in an inventory of Montgomery County, no wool combs were listed in that county’s early appraisals. One pair was listed in the Washington County estate of Thomas Hill, who had probably brought them from England even though sheep-raisers could not import animals for at least 20 years.74 The percentage of households listing cards increased from 16 per­ cent in 1770 to 47 percent between 1810 and 1815, down to 20 percent �in the 1820’s when carding machines were available in the county. Most cards were unspecified, others specified wool cards, and the fewest specified cotton. Even so, the inventory of John Anderson’s Christiansburg store in 1821 showed 45 pairs of cotton cards and 117 pairs of wool cards in its stock.75 The number of cards specifying cotton also peaked in 1810-1815. In addition to the carding machines which carded wool or cotton, by 1816 cotton yarn was available in stores. At first this was in the form of a thick “roving” similar to the roll from a carding machine.76 Later it was available as yarn or thread in a skein known as “prepared chain.”77 This factory-spun cotton was strong enough to be used as warp.78 In 1817 J. and R. Bronson published a practical handbook, The Domestic Manufacturers Assistant and Family Directory, in the Arts o f Weaving and Dyeing. In it Bronson includes directions for the spinning of wool, but the fact that he does not mention spinning cotton, instead refers to cotton yarn by numbers, indicates that his audience now was expected to use factory-made cotton yarn.79 The book was published in New York, where the factory yarns took the place of homespun earlier but by 1803 yarns were sent to Southern cities and sold to peddlers who took them into the backcountry.8 0 When the fibers were hatchelled or carded, the spinning could begin. To spin is to draw out and twist fibers into yam. The roughness of short, but unevenly-lengthed, natural fibers causes the twisted fibers to hold together as a §trong continuous thread. The oldest spinning devices were hand spindles and these were found among the early settlers of western Virginia. Philip Vickers Fithian, traveling preacher in the western country in 1775-1776, described . . . a Scotch matron with her Rock and Spindle twisting away at the flax—the rock is a long staff on one end of which is her flax like a distaff; the spindle is a peg about eight inches long, sharp at one end where the thread is twisted and large at the other where it is rolled on. . .81 Elsewhere the rock, or distaff, is said to have been held under the left arm or perhaps tucked in the girdle or belt of the spinner in order to free the hands. A lock of wool was continuously pulled in a twisting motion from the rock by the right hand and the swinging spindle, and kept whirling by the thicker end or by a heavy stone or weight at the lower end of the spindle. As the yarn was spun, it lengthened until it touched the ground and was then wound onto the spindle and the process repeated.82 An inventory of Washington County in 1782 included a hand spindle. Here it was called an “iron and spindle.”8 3 No doubt the iron part made this an article to include in an appraisal. A simple all-wood spindle would have been too commonplace to mention. Spinning wheels were more commonly mentioned than any other textile equipment in the appraisals of western Virginia. There were two 85 �types of wheels. The large ones were called “great,” “long,” or “muckle” (Scotch) wheels. They were turned by hand or by a small wooden “finger,” and were ordinarily used to spin wool. The small foot-treadled wheels were used primarily to spin flax, but one could also spin wool or cotton on them. Wheels were listed in the inventories as spinning wheels, large wheels, wool wheels, cotton wheels, small wheels or flax or linen wheels. The specific fiber mentioned may have indicated the usual use of the wheel, or in some situations may have referred to an exception. In this study a determination of the meaning was made and the wheels were listed as unspecified, wool or large, flax, cotton, or small and then a total was listed. Total numbers of spinning wheels rose with each period examined until 1820, when they fell slightly. For the first period all wheels, which averaged 50 percent of the households, or one in every other household, were unspecified. The numbers of flax and woolen wheels remained approximately equal through all periods. No cotton wheels were so designated until after 1800, and they remained less than half the number of wool or flax wheels. As in most other categories, the numbers of spinning wheels were largest during the years of the War of 1812. During the decade after 1810, the total number of households listing spinning wheels was 174 percent or nearly two wheels per household represented. Even though Montgomery’s figures were less for each type wheel than any of the counties examined, the numbers of all types of wheels for the years 1800-1810 represented a peak in home spinning. There, as elsewhere during this time, Virginia as a state and its intermontane section had access to and use of all types of materials: the dispersion of new breeds of sheep resulted in an increase of available wool of good quality; increased amounts of cotton were available from states to the south and even from some areas of southwest Virginia; and supplies of New England factory-made cotton yarn appeared in the stores. At the same time, the traditional use of flax continued. Numbers of spinning wheels were needed to furnish a supply of yarn for weaving. It was said that the work of eight spinners was re­ quired to supply one weaver at a loom.84 From many memoirs, we know that children as well as the older girls were set to spinning. If the spindle of the big wheel was too high for a small child to reach, one author said that “the usual way of adjusting it to the child’s height was to cut a hole in the floor and drop the front end of the frame down so that he or she could reach the spindle.”8 5 Maria Jane Gish Frantz of adjacent Roanoke County reminisced how her mother and older sisters spun on the little flax wheels by the light of pine knots. On the other hand, spinning wool on large wheels was always done by daylight be­ cause it required the spinner’s judgment. Usually the youngest children spun only the tow for coarse cloth.86 Although spinning was a continuous task, memoirs did not speak of it as a monotonous drudgery. Instead, it was remembered as a pleasant occupation. There were distinct rhythms involved in turning 86 �or treadling wheels or in walking back and forth alongside the large wheel. Singing was often mentioned in connection with spinning in accounts of this period. Philip Fithian, while visiting in a home in Virginia, in 1775, wrote of his inability to resist joining spinners in the house: Two young misses were singing at their wheels. They sung well. In perfect unison. They sung deliberately. Not one long note or pause did either of them hurry over.8 9 Mrs. Frantz mentioned how her older sisters carried their wheels to spend the evening with friends, during which there was as much laugh­ ing and talking as spinning.8 8 An account of pioneer life in Belpre on the Ohio River told of the young girls congregating in groups in the “spacious rooms of the blockhouse and cheering each other at their labors, with song and sprightly conversations.”8 9 Some spinning wheels were brought with the settlers from across the Atlantic. Others, particularly the simpler ones, the large wool wheels, were made by enterprising fathers or husbands. In 1826 Nelson Sprinkel of Harrisonburg employed 25 men in making all kinds of spinning wheels. He sent these wheels by wagons into the adjoining counties, trading them for money, flaxseed or other negotiable farm products.9 0 For a short time during and after the War of 1812, home spinning machines were popular.91 Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1813 that “Small spinning jennies of half a dozen to twenty spindles will soon make their way into the humblest cottages . . . ”9 2 In the appraisal list for Frederick Smith, reported to the Montgomery County court in January of 1820, there was included a Pleasant Spinner, surely an example of the spinning machine in question.93 A few years later a list in Washinton County, 1827, for John Houston, stated simply “ 1 spinning machine.”94 Other equipment necessary for preparing the yarn to be used as warp or filling for weaving, was listed in numerous appraisals. The reel, onto which the yarn was wound from the spindle of the spinning wheel, was both a hanking (or skeining) and a measuring device. They were variously listed as check, click, clock or Jack reels. Most often they were simple, rough pieces but occasionally were of fine workmanship. Basically a reel was a support resting on a base held by three feet. The support held four or six arms, each with a crosspiece at its end. The yarn was wound round and around the crosspieces to form a hank or skein. Some reels included a device which clicked after a certain number of revolutions and was connected to a clock hand on the support. Called a “weasel” in some areas, the reel was mentioned in the sing-song chant to become a part of American folk lore: 87 �Round and round the vinegar jug The monkey chased the weasel; Thats the way the monkey goes, “Pop” goes the weasel! The reels used in the Virginia back country were usually made to measure 90 inches around because an Act of Parliament specified that linen skeins should be 90 inches. A typical reel clicked after 120 revo­ lutions, which were also shown on the small clock face on the support. At the click the spinner tied the threads of the skein together with a piece of yarn. The skein, or cut, equalled 300 yards. The full scale for linen was: 1 cut — 300 yards (120 turns on reel) 2 cuts — 1 heer — 600 yards 24 cuts — 12 heers — 1 hesp — 7,000 yards 48 cuts —24 heers —2 hesps — 1 spindle —14,400 yards9 5 Such precise measurements might seem unnecessary and unrealis­ tic on the frontier unless onfe remembers that many of the intermontane Virginians had been professional weaver-farmers in Northern Ireland before coming to America. For them weaving was an art. Not only had their guild been strictly regulated with imposed standards and measure­ ments, but it also was a matter of fierce individual pride. They and their families continued to follow procedures learned as apprentices in Ireland. In addition, planning the yarn for weaving projects required precise measurements. John Wily in his Treatise o n .. .manufacture o f fla x ... offered advice on skeinning. His figures were based on the newer yard measurement, rather than the 90 inches, or twice the old 45-inch measurement, for an ell. He wrote: . . . you ought to provide yourself with . . . a Clock Reel that will strike at being twined 120 times; so that you may know when you have 120 Threads on your Reel, which is called a Cut. These Cuts, or Skeins, should be tied separate from each other, so that you may know, by counting the Cuts, exactly what Number of Threads is in each Hank, and if your Reel is exactly two Yards round, which is a proper Size. You will then have 240 yards of Thread in each Cut. 15 of these Cuts is a Days Work for a good Spinner, so that in 12 Days she will spin as much Thread as will warp 30 Yards suitable to a 720 Slay and in 12 Days more she will spin the Filling, so that you may have Thread spun for 30 Yards of Cloth in 24 days.96 Much of the cloth woven was in a plain weave for which only lengths of warp threads needed to be calculated, but often dress materials and sometimes flannels for men’s coats were woven in stripes or plaids which required exact numbers and lengths of different colors. 88 �Numbers of reels climbed from none in the first period to nearly 50 of the households listing reels, or one reel in every other household, in the 1820’s. Again Montgomery County listed fewer for each period than the sample selections of the other counties would indicate. A quill reel was found in the appraisal of Nicolas Allee.9 7 This was not a reel, but a wheel which in other areas was called a bobbin-winder. Wool was stored as skeins, but had to be wound on bobbins, or quills, to fill the shuttles used in weaving, or on spools for making warp. Quills made of paper or cornhusk called “broaches,” or of short hollow pieces of teasel or elderberry stems were not listed, but spools or warping spools were. Also appearing in Montgomery appraisals were other pieces of equipment such as spooling frames or scarnes, warping bars or warp­ ing frames and swifts. With this equipment the people of the county prepared great quantities of yarn for weaving. A traveler to western Virginia in 1818, finding no public house at nightfall, accepted the hospitality of a private family. He wrote of the household: In one place you might see a large map suspended on the wall, and next to it, a proportionately large bundle of hanks of yarn; here a bookcase pretty well stored with useful books, and there a pile of counterpanes and bedquilts; the frame of a fine print of a distinguished American hero, served to hold up by its pressure, skeins of thread or quills. Now, however this curious intermixture might be regarded by some, the tout ensemble was altogether pleasant to me, because associated with ideas of industry, economy, simplicity of taste and feeling, and of that regard to the culture of the mind which ought to characterise, and which enobles a Virginia farmer.98 Yarn appeared in surprisingly few of the appraisal lists. In Mont­ gomery County 11 percent of the households listed yarn or thread during the 1770’s and during the later 1810’s, but in other periods the total percentages ranged only from three to eight percent. Most of these were woolen yarns with some linen or unspecified in the 1800-1820’s. Washington County’s totals were larger but all unspecified, except linen in 1810, 60 percent and in 1820, 17 percent. Its only cotton listings, also in 1820 were 17 percent. By 1820 some cotton may have been grown there, and factory yarn from New England was available in stores by that time, some of it from the mills being built in Piedmont areas of South Carolina.9 9 The low percentages of yarn, in periods when raw materials, equip­ ment and men’s clothing were listed were puzzling to the writer. Most of the inventories were of the estates of men, the property, according to the laws of Virginia, being divided in thirds; one-third to the widow and two-thirds divided among the children.100 In wills, wives and un­ married daughters were sopietimes given their “weaving apparel.” 101 Crops, salt, meat and other expendable items were seldom mentioned in 89 �appraisals. Yarn may have been considered sometimes in that category, as these items would normally be used before the nine month period’ which must elapse before items of the estate could be distributed among the heirs.102 These factors may have influenced the lack of notations of yarn and thread in the appraisals. Yarn in hanks and skeins was ready to be wound onto quills or spools for weaving unless the cloth was to be colored, in which case the yarn was dyed in the hank. Dye tubs, which appeared in a number of appraisals were used for this purpose. Dyes were bought in the stores, or from peddlers, or dyestuffs found growing in the countryside were used. “The most important and most frequently used dyes in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries were indigo for blue, madder and cochineal for red, and fustic and quercitron for yellow. Logwood was the most commonly used black dye,” and sumach although not really a dye, was also much used.103 Indigo was grown for a short time in eastern Virginia, but there is no record of it being grown in the western counties. Madder, according to Thomas Jefferson in 1811, had been cultivated “ever since I can remember in this state for household use.104 Indigo and madder were items in the appraisal of the store which was in the estate of John Anderson of Montgomery County who died in 1821.105 Madder was also listed in the appraisal of the store of Lewis Arniss, Blacksburg, 1826.106 Cochineal and fustic may have been available from other stores in the county or from peddlers. Quercitron or black oak and sumac grew in the area, also walnut and hickory which gave a bright yellow color, sassafras for orange or brown and butternut which was a basic dye for coloring woolens brown and required no mordant. Mordants were ingredients needed in addition to the dyestuffs to prepare the fibers to take the dye and to fix the color in them. Copperas was available in Alexander Boyd’s store at Fort Lewis on the Roanoke River in 1766,107 also in John Anderson’s store. In addition, families could use for mordants, potash from woodashes, chamberlye or oxides of iron. The oxides were made of soaking bits of old iron, such as nails in an acid such as vinegar.108 Surely most dying instructions were handed down verbally in families or, at most, quantities of the ingredients and simple instructions may have been written on scraps of paper. For newcomers to the business, however, a number of manuals were available. The Country Dyer’s Assistant written by Asa Ellis, was published in Massachusetts in 1799. Mr. Ellis’s introduction indicates that he wishes to correct the past situation where: “women and children commonly dictate the colors to be impressed upon the [cloths]. But they frequently make an injudicious choice; the colour which they dictate fades; the coat is spoiled, is thrown aside, or given to Jack the garden boy; and poor little Tommy must have a new one.”109 90 �Publication of The Domestic Manufacturers Assistant and Family Directory in the Arts o f Weaving and Dyeing. . . at Utica, New York in 1817 by J. and R. Bronson was perhaps the greatest boon to the largest number of home weavers than any other book on this subject in the nineteenth century. It gave directions for dyeing woolens and cottons, as well as weaving drafts and instructions on various phases on home manufacture of cloth.110 The largest and most important piece of equipment in the manu­ facture of textiles was the loom. On it yarns were woven into cloth. Looms were heavy pieces of furniture requiring space and a certain skill in carpentry since they must be true in order to weave straight cloth. Most looms were made by the individual settlers, perhaps with the aid of a neighbor skilled in carpentry. In the western part of Augusta County Samuel Weaver made looms and John G. Heatwole charged $8-10 for the carpentry work on a loom.111 Looms were made of heavy beams of wood with only a few parts of iron, such as the ratchets. If necessary, even ratchets could be made of wood. The beams were fashioned with mortise and tendon joints so that they could be assembled and disassembled for storage. Because the looms required at least five or six feet of floor space and were head high, they took up so much space in an early small house, that many house­ holders built a separate loom house or shed for them.112 However, if the mother of the family did the weaving, it was easier to keep the loom in the house where the weaving could be done along with the other household activities. Loom, cradle rocker type 91 �Briefly, a loom is a frame holding the parts essential for making cloth from two sets of yarn, or thread. The warp threads are rolled on a large beam at the back of the loom and were pulled forward in parallel, horizontal alignment to a beam at the front of the loom. In the center of the loom, the beams above held cords from which hung the harnesses. The harnesses were moved up and down by foot treadles tied to the bottom of the harness by cords. In the harnesses were heddles made of tied string, forming openings between knots. The warp threads, when the loom was warped, were pulled through the openings or holes of the heddle in an order determined by the pattern to be woven into the cloth. The simplest looms with only two harnesses wove only a plain weave. The warp threads also were drawn through the reed, or slay, between the heddles and the front beam of the loom. The reed, made of many short pieces of reed or cane held side by side by fine lashings of thread or leather, served two functions. It determined the width of the cloth, and, as it was moveable, swinging from the top, or occasionally' from the bottom of the loom, beat the weft or filler threads. The filler threads wound on quills were carried by shuttles. Weaving was done by making a shed, an opening between warp threads, by raising some harnesses and lowering others. This order was determined by a draft, a written plan based on the placement of warp threads in the heddles. Next the shuttle containing the filling thread was thrown from one side of the loom to the other; the reed was pulled forward to beat that thread against an earlier woven thread; the harness’s positions were changed by the foot treadle; the shuttle was thrown again back to the other side, the beating; and so the weaving progresses. Despite their size, looms were so necessary that by the 1780’s 29 percent of the households listed them in appraisals. The figure dropped slightly in the 1790’s but then continued to rise until the 1820’s when over half the households listed looms. A daybook of the Black family in Blacksburg in Montgomery County notes the progress during the winter of 1837 in building a loomhouse.113 This fact could only report an active weaving activity, thus counteracting any suspicion that these looms resulted only from an accumulation existing in families as the county became more settled. Looms were listed in the inventories in numerous ways, sometimes alone and the various parts listed separately, or more often as a set. Most commonly the whole set was called “loom and tackling.” Other terms were loom and furniture, loom and utensils, loom and appurteances, loom and apparatus, or in one appraisal, loom and “other matters on weaving business.” Another Montgomery County inhabitant willed his daughter various items “and all her weaving apparel.” Prices of the appraised items show the value of the special parts of the loom. While looms alone.were valued at $2.50 to $3 in 1815, looms and tackling were valued at from $7.50 to $18. Listed separately were harnesses, commonly called “geers,” reeds or slays (slais). Slays were sometimes listed by the number of threads they carried per yard as 400, 500, 600 or 700 slays. �The figures of the 1810 census showed that of the 13.3 yards of cloth woven per capita in Montgomery County, 8.3 yards were linen, 1.8 yards were wool, and 3.3 yards were mixed. The Montgomery County figures of 1800-1809 and 1810-1819 roughly reflect the census figures for 1810. Of the total amounts 1/3 to 1/2 were linen, 1/4 or less were mixed and none to 1/3 were woolens. The figures by period clearly reflect the historical events of each decade. During the first period the country was just being settled and all the figures for raw materials and equipment were low. The second period included the last years of the privations of war and, as raw materials and equipment increased, more cloth supplies were listed. Although equipment lists increased, supplies of produce and yarns decreased in the period 1790-1799. Either less cloth was woven or, perhaps with the availability of imported goods, appearing again after the Revolution, there was less reason to keep a supply on hand beyond immediate need. The percentages of cloth supplies began to increase during the period of the Embargo and Non-Importation, and reached their peaks in all fibers during the decade before 1815, only to drop to nothing in all fibers but linen in the following period when imports again flooded the country. Of the other counties examined, albeit superficially, all had higher per­ centages of households listing cloth supplies than Montgomery County. While “Virginia Cloth” coats appeared in the few Washington County appraisals searched, the term was not seen in the Montgomery County appraisals. Any cotton used seems to have been used in stock­ ings or mixed cloth which was sometimes included with linen in statistics. Except for one entry of 6 1/2 yards of cotton cloth (@$5.62) in 1812 and 2 3/4 yards of calico, an important printed cotton, in 1790, Shuttles spindle Reeds and raddle 93 with modem hand �no cotton cloths were listed in Montgomery. Appraisals did include woolens, white, worsted, fulled and unfulled; and linens, raw, bleached, white, tow, flax, “ 700” and new flax linen. Other woven materials listed were home made cloth, ticking, striped huckabac, sheets, towels, tablecloths, counterpanes, coverlets and blankets. Lincey, or linsey-woolsey, a mixed cloth of wool with some other fiber, was not listed in any of the Montgomery County appraisals. However, 26,471 yards or 3.3 yards per capita were listed in the 1810 census for the county. Linsey, generally a mixture of wool for warmth and linen warp for strength, is accepted as a unique American adaptation. According to one historian of the woolen industry, this mixture was unknown in England or Europe because of the guild regulations. On the frontier of North America, it answered the need for a stout, warm fabric made from readily available materials.114 Fulled and dyed blue, it was used for men’s pantaloons and hunting shirts. Howells and others said that linsey, often in a plaid pattern, was mostly used for women’s and children’s clothing. Wool and linen were less flammable than cotton and hence safer for women, whose long skirts presented a danger with open fireplaces. Indeed, some said that women for that reason were reluctant to use cotton when that fiber became plentiful.115 Linen was the most plentiful cloth made in Montgomery County. Fine flax linen was used for table linens and towels, as well as for under­ garments, handerkerchiefs, women’s caps and men’s shirts. Bagging, toweling, bed ticking and servants’ clothes were made of cow linen. Home manufactured woolen, generally called simply “cloth,” or sometimes “homespun” or “homemade cloth,” was a substitute for English woolens and worsteds, especially when imports were interrupted and before the War of 1812 stimulated the development of American woolen mills. The finest flax and cotton yarns in the household were saved for figured table linens and counterpanes, or sets of soft linen towels marked in brown ink with the name of the owner and numbered for laundry purposes. Fine wool was woven into natural, creamy white blankets; or it was dyed red or blue and woven, with natural linen or cotton, into the coverlets which represent the apogee of a handweaver’s skill. Such coverlets were made with special care, often for wedding gifts to the sons or daughters of the family. More of these have survived to the present time than of the common fabrics. The Valentine Museum in Richmond has a fine collection of Virginia textiles. Representative of southwest Virginia handiwork there are a cotton dimity bedspread from Bath County, a blue and natural wool and cotton coverlet woven in an overshot pattern from Augusta County, a natural homespun blanket from Botetourt County and a “rose” blanket, creamy white with brown stripe and an embroidered design reminiscent of a cathedral’s rose window.. Similar examples are to be found closer to the place of origin in such repositories as the Washington County Historical Society Museum at Abingdon, and the Smithfield Plantation House at Blacksburg. In the collections of the latter are fine sheets, woven on the plantation and 94 �a fine white counterpane from Wythe County. Two accounts of clothing worn in Montgomery County during the period of this study illustrate or amplify the information available from the appraisals. In a 1881 lecture on Blacksburg life around the year 1835, Professor T. N. Conrad, described worshipers attending a service in a log church: The dresses of the females and the suits of the gentry were cut by no fashion plates or marked out by scientific tailors. The flax-made hunting shirts and broad [wool broadcloth] pantaloons constituted the suits of the men, and nicely pres­ sed sunbonnets with homespun dresses, the dress of the ladies. As late as 1835 only two straw bonnets could be seen . . -116 The second account was a report “to keeping Agnes Lester” from the overseer of the poor, from whom authority for reimbursement was sought for 2 linsey petticoats, 1 linsey short gown, 2 pair woolen stock­ ings, 2 short shifts (one 700 linen, one 600 linen), 1 tow cloth apron, 2 handkerchiefs and 2 caps.117 Men’s outer clothing was made of dyed and fulled woolen cloth. Fulling was an extra expense but it was necessary to shrink the cloth before it was made into clothing and, according to Tench Coxe, the “Dying saves the domestic labor and expense of washing, while it prevents all that injury to the pleasantness and beauty of woollen cloths, which frequent washing occasions.118 In fulling, woolen cloth was soaked in warm soapy water and subjected to a period of beating by human hands or feet, or by wooden mallets. In the process the woolen fibers shrank, making a tighter, therefore warmer and more durable cloth. The early settlers cooperated in fulling cloth and made a “frolic’ of the job. An early “Kicking frolic” on the Ohio River was described this way: Half a dozen young men, and a corresponding number of young women were invited. The floor was cleared for action, and in the middle was a circle of six stout splint-bottomed chairs, connected by a cord to prevent recoil. On these sat six young men with shoes and stockings off and trousers rolled above the knee. In the center the goods were placed, wetted with warm soapsuds, and then the kicking commenced by measured steps, driving the bundle of goods round and round, the elderly lady with a long-necked gourd, pouring on more soapsuds, and every now and then, with spectacles on nose and yardstick in hand, measuring the goods till they were shrunk to the desired width, and then calling the young men to a dead halt. Then the lads put on the hose and shoes, the lasses stript their arms above the elbows, rinsed and wrung out the blanket and flannels, and hung them on the garden fence to 95 �dry.119 Perhaps the rest of the evening was spent dancing the Virginia Reel, a country dance which, it is said, represents the movement of the shuttle from side to side across the loom.120 As the need arose in a community, fulling became a business. At first, the fulling business was a sideline for an existing gristmill. Later, fulling mills were built solely for that purpose, to which most eventually added carding machines and sometimes the dyeing of yarns. Soon after Stauritoii became a town in Augusta County, John David Wilbert arrived there, rented three lots through which ran “a good and convenient stream of water” and built a grist and fulling mill.121 When Andrew Duncan set up a fulling mill in Augusta County in 1767, he paid an ex­ perienced fuller twenty pounds annually and “vittles” for three years to teach him and his family to full.122 Advertisements in early 19th century newspapers of Rockbridge county attest to that area’s indus­ triousness and facilities for fulling and blue-dyeing.123 Montgomery County in 1810 had two fulling mills. The 1820 census listed among the manufacturing establishments of the county “wool carding and cloth dressing,” which consumed annually 10,000 yards of cloth and 23,700 pounds of wool. That the latter census listed 12 men as being employed in such enterprises indicates the probability of between four and six establishments.124 During 1817, a Montgomery County appraisal showed that William Reynolds left fullers tools valued at 19 pounds and four shillings.125 John Gardner, whose property was also appraised in 1817, may have been a fuller, for in his property were: a sharing [shearing] cloth machine [ worth] 1 copper kettle 1 carding wool machine 1 ten plated stove 1 pair stretchers 1 pair fullers shears and other textile equipment $100.00 40.00 56.25 22.00 4.50126 Gardner’s equipment would have been used after the fulling process. The wet cloth, taken from the mill was hung on stretching frames outside the mill to dry, and shrink.12 7 Cloth woven one-yardwide shrunk to about three-quarters of a yard. After having dried, the cloth was napped with a tool made of the dried seed-pods of the teasel plant.12 8 Because the napping raised the wool fibers unevenly, shearing was necessary. The final process, pressing, involved press boards and a metal stove. For this service, the charges in the 1770’s were the equiva­ lent of 40-50 cents a yard,12 9 which made cloth an expense item even when manufactured at home of home-grown materials. Because of the marked difference in value, cloth in the appraisals was often specified fulled or unfulled. 96 �Some fullers drove through the countryside, picking up and de­ livering cloth to the housewives, in the ancient manner of the English “putting out” system.130 Others, such as James McFarland of Rock­ bridge County, advertised in the newspapers: . . . I intend attending on the first day of every Court, at Mr. Neices in Fincastle, and at Mr. Isaac Robinson’s between that place and Pattonsburg, where I will receive and deliver cloth dressed according to the directions left with i t . . } 31 Often fulling mills became merchandizing centers to which store and post offices were added. At least two fulling mills in adjoining counties developed into woolen manufacturies in the 1820’s: The Fincastle Woolen Mills, belonging to Benjamin Ammen,132 and the Clapps Mill or Old Stone Mill in Abingdon.13 3 In the official records of Montgomery County only one reference to a weaver was found. In secondary sources there are references to persons said to have been weavers, but not full-time craftsmen. Many of the settlers of Augusta and Montgomery Counties were Scotch-Irish from the linen manufacturing area of Ulster. A report to the Irish Parliament in 1774 stated that, due to the decline in the linen trade between October of 1771 and October of 1773, 30,000 persons had emigrated from Ulster, and of these 10,000 were weavers, many of whom “carried their weaving utensils to America.”134 These were the settlers thronging into the backcountry of Virginia and other southern states just before the Revolution. In America they could acquire land but it was uncleared and required a farmer’s full attention. After having escaped from the status of being tenants subject to rising rents and de­ clining profits for their hand work, these men were willing to endure many hardships in order to become landowners. If they served as in­ dentured servants or as hired hands or as tenants, this was only a short­ term compromise of their eagerly-sought independence. For their weaving both large and small landowners in the older and newer areas of settlement sought skilled indentured servants. For a finder’s fee or commission such merchants as William Allason of Falmouth and Winchester sent groups of indentured servants into the Valley of Virginia. William Preston, in the spring of 1774, received two such groups from a merchant named Edward Johnson. Interestingly Preston’s payment was made in hemp.13 5 An advertisement of Stephen Trigg in 1773, among miscellaneous papers in the court house at Christiansburg stated: . . . that there will be for sale at my house on Monday the 11th and at Mr. James McCorkle’s on Thursday the 14th of October, 30 Healthy white servants, Consisting of Men, Women, Boys and Girls. Credit will be given if Required or a Discount made for Ready Money.136 97 �' /¿irà À i On. QtfCicJ. f u i njl> / ito ) fYvi eroe & h f t o J o h g ju A r to u tf Left M , //If »/ P 0 // JgygjsH'i a j t/ h e h o h ctj i l ftAct >dece cu Ir m s / l J j ì A '/l ■» .. ... i....... „ 1 ' / /* SCITA SPé* SC-gsy y V co / Q * g // . /^ I g ’ygA'- //i? rg > sji / ? / /’ « y /¿ c /( e p / y / *1 / AY pìA/> //fc/cgg A ..... f 1/ tft/e c y fila ( A hgA , ,. , . C\e> ¿ h f/o /l t A ' C A I A 0 / / ; 0 1 V 00 / \ s\ ' ._,. , . . . , y j A ? j A // / I A ✓ . A 0 / f 1 |l A 0Ap di/¿> M f A fc /ó r i g e a t i / J; \ v O f flA rg g yg tth j) , v /e yùo<ci> Y f t City' fcj'J^) ■ ^ /) <1 H ; 0 0 y i A Part of Nicholas Allee’s appraisal list, dated July 23 ,1 8 0 8 , from Montgomery County Will Book No. 1 P. 349. 0 �One such indentured servant who came into William Preston’s houshold was Peter Byrns, a weaver by trade. He apparently did not himself weave in Virginia, but, instead, remained with the Prestons until his death as teacher to the family’s children.13 7 Byrns may have supervised the training of others as weavers. Another community source for weavers was the system of appren­ ticing youths, most of whom were orphans. By Virginia law since 1656, orphans were to be bound out to be instructed in the “mysteries of manual pursuits.” 13 8 The Indian wars in southwest Virginia in the second half of the century left many orphans, and the records of Augusta County list the names of many children bound to learn the mystery, or trade, of saddlers, potters, millers, weavers and others.13 9 In the Montgomery County Order Book for October 5, 1779, it was recorded: Ordered that Hugh Pierce, an orphan of 8 years be bound to Wm Doak, gentleman, until he arrive to the Age of Twenty and the sd William is to teach him to Read, Write and Cypher as far as the five Common Rules, and to learn him the trade of a Weaver.140 William Doak, gentleman, a leader in the county, had been a member of the Fincastle County Committee in 1775. No other reference has been found to Doak’s weaving or to Hugh Pierce in any capacity. The identity of Montgomery County weavers is uncertain. Remi­ niscences long after the fact and essays without annotation declare that 1790 and 1800 “Noah Mollet was the county weaver and wove table­ cloths, toe cloths, shorting, “600” towelling, hemp linning, twilled blankets, etc.” 141 Court records say nothing of Mollet, but they include an appraisal of James McElhenney’s estate, circa 1790. He had no farming equipment but did own a loom, four pairs of linen gears, six old reeds, one wooden gear, three shuttles and one pound of wool, which seems to indicate that he was a weaver.14 2 Mollet and McElhenny appear to have been exceptions. Evidence points to the fact that women in their homes did most of the weaving in the county for their own families and for their neighbors. While all the periods after the 1790’s showed one or two spinning wheels per household, at no time did more than half the households have looms. Families appear to have prepared their own yarn and then by a system of barter those with looms also wove for their neighbors. In most cases such transactions cannot be documented but the examples described below must have been duplicated in all communities. A Preston Family daybook from Washington County, dated 17801820, contained frequent entries 1811 to 1818 illustrating the business transactions between the Prestons and their neighbor, Martha Huston. In return for rye, corn, oats and wheat, one and a half to seven bushels at a time adding up to 62 1/2 bushels, two gallons whiskey and paying her $16.00 subscription [to the church?], Martha Huston returned 99 �payment by “sewing” one half bushel flaxseed, by spinning (one week’s spinning by Mary or Nelly—servants or daughters?) and by weaving a total of 578 yards of linen and 41 1/2 yards of cloth. Periodically in the account book the statement is written: “This day settled with M. H. and we stand clear of all claims vs each other.”143 A family anecdote from Rockbridge County also illustrates the simplicity of such cooperative enterprise. The son of Robert Alexander who later established the school which became Washington and Lee College, one early fall in the 1760’s was sent to the house of a neighbor who had contracted to weave cloth for the Alexander children’s winter clothes, but who had postponed the job. The child had been told to complain to the woman that “Winter is almost upon us and all the children are naked.” Raised to respect honesty, the child took off and hid his clothes in a hollow tree and went on to the neighbors’ to deliver the message. It was said the women jumped to the loom and made the shuttle fly without stopping until the web was completed!144 By the 1820’s the national transition from home-produced to factory made cloth was well under way. The inventory of John Anderson, merchant, recorded in Montgomery Court in 1821, included the many kinds of cloth offered in his store: flannel, blue tweed coating, tickings, bombazines, calicos, muslins and cambrics. American cashmeres, domestic sheeting, steam-loomed shirtings and twilled do­ mestic jeans were available, as well as Irish linens, Canton crepe and Italian crepe. However, Anderson’s inventory also listed a weaver’s shuttle, 45 pairs of cotton cards, 117 pairs of wool cards, madder, indigo and copperas, plus 872 hundred-weight cotton, 237 1/2 yards tow linnen and 290 1/2 flax linnen.145 Although factory-made cloth was available, cloth continued to be made in southwestern Virginia. This study covered only the years until 1830, but as late as the 1850’s “linsey jeans, tow linen, flax thread, hose and carpets were the principle home manufactures” in Tazewell, a nearby county, west of Montgomery.146 In 1858 a British novelist visiting Augusta County wrote a portrait of the Valley farmer in which he said “His dress too, is made of domestic cloth, unless on Sunday, or on some other important occasion such as court day, election or muster.”147 Montgomery County was an area at the edge of the frontier in the beginning of the time span considered. In a sense the frontier reached it and passed by during the next six decades, carrying some of the most energetic and ambitious settlers and their children on to more prosper­ ous country in the far southwestern part of the state, into Tennessee and Kentucky and particularly into the rich military bounty lands of Ohio. Compared to the more settled areas of Frederick and Augusta Counties and the richer farm land and more prosperous communities of Washington County, the percentages of equipment and supplies in Montgomery County are significantly less than those of the other counties. Study of the figures resulting from the items in the appraisals can 100 �only suggest conclusions. Inferences were made from knowledge of known historical trends and events—many other, particularly local happenings, such as immigrations as well as emigrations, specie problems, droughts or floods, growing seasons and epidemics are unknown and their results go unnoticed or at least unexplained. Small numbers of random selections always run the chance of a wide margin of errors. Acknowledging all these, however, certain conclusions seem apparent from the study. In summary, Montgomery County from 1777 to 1830 was newly opened frontier country. Men and women settled there to wrest farms from the wilderness and make homes for their families. Cloth for clothing, bedding, and other household uses was a necessity. If it could not be purchased because of poor or no roads to distant markets, embargoes, war and lack of specie, it must be made at home. Most men farmed, and other craftsmen gradually set up practices as demand for their services increased, but spinning and weaving continued to be done in their homes by women. Except for the processes of carding and ful­ ling available at mills, and with the use of some factory manufactured cotton yarn, at least some cloth was home produced in Montgomery County long after American factory-manufactured fabrics were com­ monly available. FOOTNOTES 1 B ru c e D . T u t t l e , “ C o lo n e l W illia m P r e s to n ,” ( u n p u b lis h e d M a s te r's th e s is , D e p a r t­ m e n t o f H is to r y , V irg in ia P o ly te c h n ic I n s t i t u t e a n d S ta te U n iv e rs ity , 1 9 7 1 ) ; s e e a lso J o h n s o n , J A M E S P A T T O N ; R . J . D ic k s o n , U L S T E R E M IG R A T IO N T O C O L O N IA L A M E R IC A ( L o n d o n , 1 9 6 6 ) , p . 5 4 . R e d e m p tio n e r , A n e m ig r a n t w h o re c e iv e d h is p assage t o A m e ric a o n th e c o n d i­ tio n t h a t h is serv ic e s th e r e s h o u ld b e d is p o s e d o f b y t h e m a s te r o r o w n e rs o f th e v e sse l, u n til th e P assage m o n e y a n d o t h e r e x p e n s e s a re r e p a id o u t o f h is e a r n in g s . O E D . 2 H e n in g , S T A T U T E S A T L A R G E , I X , 2 5 7 -2 6 1 . 3 C h a rle s C ru s h , M O N T G O M E R Y C O U N T Y S T O R Y (C h ris tia n s b u rg , V a ., 1 9 5 7 ; h e r e ­ in a f te r c ite d a s C ru s h , M O N T G O M E R Y C O U N T Y S T O R Y ), p . 1 5 . 4 J e d id i a M o rs e , A N A B R ID G E M E N T O F T H E A M E R IC A N G A Z E T E E R (B o s to n , 1 7 8 9 ), p . 23 1 . 5 I B ID ., p . 9 4 . 6 J o s e p h M a r tin , A N E W A N D C O M P R E H E N S IV E G A Z E T E E R O F V IR G IN IA A N D T H E D IS T R IC T O F C O L U M B IA ( C h a rlo tte s v ille , V a ., 1 8 3 5 ) , p . 4 0 0 -4 0 2 . 7 C ru s h , M O N T G O M E R Y C O U N T Y S T O R Y , p . 6 1 . 8 H a r t, V A L L E Y IN T H E R E V O L U T IO N , p . 1 5 4 . 9 W a lte r K . W o o d , “ T h e A lle g h a n y T u r n p ik e a n d I n te r n a l Im p r o v e m e n ts , 1 8 0 0 - 1 8 5 0 ,” (U n p u b lis h e d M a s te r's th e s is , D e p a r tm e n t o f H is to r y , V irg in ia P o ly te c h n ic I n s t i t u t e a n d S ta te U n iv e rs ity , 1 9 6 9 ) , p p . 1 8 -3 3 . 10 H a r t, V A L L E Y IN T H E R E V O L U T IO N , p . 1 4 9 . 11 R o lla T r y o n , H O U S E H O L D M A N U F A C T U R E S IN T H E U N T IE D S T A T E S , 1 6 4 0 1 8 6 0 (C h ic a g o , 1 9 6 6 , c l 9 1 7 ; h e r e in a f te r c ite d a s T r y o n , H O U S E H O L D M A N U F A C T U R E S ), p . 1 5 5 ; t h e w r ite r o f th is p a p e r is g re a tly in d e b te d t o T r y o n . I n s o m e in s ta n c e s I f in d t h a t I h a v e in d e p e n d e n tly re d is c o v e re d s o m e th in g s o f w h ic h h e w a s a w a re in 1 9 1 7 . 12 J o s e p h D o d d rid g e , N O T E S O N T H E S E T T L E M E N T S A N D IN D IA N W A R S O F T H E W E S T E R N P A R T S O F V IR G IN IA A N D P E N N S Y L V A N IA F R O M 1 7 6 3 T O 1 7 8 3 ( W o o d s to c k , V a ., 1 8 5 0 ) ; W illia m C o o p e r H o w e lls , R E C O L L E C T IO N S O F L I F E IN O H IO , 1 8 1 3 - 1 8 4 0 , e d . b y W illia m D e a n H o w e lls ( C in c in n a ti, 1 8 9 5 ; h e r e in a f te r c ite d a s H o w e lls, R E C O L L E C T IO N S O F L I F E IN O H IO ). 13 W illia m J . H in k e a n d C h a rle s E . K e m p e r , e d ., “ M o ra v ia n D ia rie s o f T ra v e l T h ro u g h V irg in ia ,” V IR G IN IA M A G A Z IN E O F H IS T O R Y A N D B IO G R A P H Y , X I (1 9 0 3 - 1 9 0 4 ) , 1 2 2 123. 14 J o h n M a x w e ll, A p p ra is a l, A p ril 7 , 1 7 7 9 ; W illia m H e r b e r t, A p p ra is a l, N o v e m b e r , 1 7 7 8 . D E E D A N D W IL L B O O K B , p p . 3 9 , 4 0 . R e c o rd s o f M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty . 15 W illia m B y rd , H IS T O R Y O F T H E D IV ID IN G L IN E (R a le ig h , 1 9 2 9 ) , p p . 2 8 8 , 2 8 9 , 3 1 5 ; “ H o w T h e y L iv e d a t B r y a n t’s S t a t i o n ,” F IL S O N C L U B P U B L IC A T IO N S , N o . 1 2 , p . 2 7 in T r y o n , H O U S E H O L D M A N U F A C T U R E S , p . 1 9 4 , [a ls o T h e o d o re R o o s e v e lt, W IN N IN G O F T H E W E S T , I , 317; I I I , 2 0 4 ] . 16 H e n in g , S T A T U T E S A T L A R G E , X I, 6 4 . 17 L e w is P . S u m m e r s , A N N A L S O F S O U T H W E S T V IR G IN IA , 1 7 6 9 - 1 8 0 0 (A b in g d o n , V a ., 1 9 2 9 ; h e r e in a f te r c ite d a s S u m m e r s , A N N A L S O F S O U T H W E S T V IR G IN IA ), p . 6 7 6 . 101 �18 J o h n M a x w e ll, A p p ra is a l, A p ril 7 , 1 7 7 9 , D E E D A N D W IL L B O O K B , R e c o r d s o f M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty ; T h o m a s H ill, A p p ra is a l, D e c e m b e r 1 7 8 2 , W IL L B O O K N O . 1, R e c o r d s o f W a s h in g to n C o u n ty . 19 W rig h t, W O O L -G R O W IN G A N D T H E T A R I F F , p . 1 0 . 20 N IL E S R E G I S T E R , V I ( 1 8 1 4 ) , 3 3 5 . 21 M a ry J a n e G ish F r a n t z , “ R o a n o k e C o u n ty in t h e 1 8 4 0 ’s ” J O U R N A L O F T H E R O A N O K E H IS T O R IC A L S O C IE T Y (H e r e in a f te r c ite d a s F r a n t z , “ R o a n o k e in 1 8 4 0 , ” R H S JO U R N A L ), V n (1 9 7 0 ), 6 . 22 I B ID ., p . 7 . 23 B is h o p , A M E R IC A N M A N U F A C T U R E S , I , 3 2 7 - 3 2 8 ; [ J o h n M itc h e ll] A M E R IC A N H U SBA N DRY , p. 184. 2 4 J a m e s S o lt o , T H E E C O N O M IC R O L E O F W IL L IA M S B U R G (C h a rlo tte s v ille , V a ., 1 9 6 5 ) , p . 7 6 ; G . M elv in H e r n d o n , “ H e m p in C o lo n ia l V irg in ia ,” A G R I C U L T U R A L H IS T O R Y , X X X V II ( 1 9 6 3 ) , p p . 8 9 -9 3 . T h e f i r s t b o u n t y f o r h e m p h a d b e e n p a s s e d in 1 7 0 4 , a n d t h e fir s t h e m p e x p o r t r e c o r d e d f r o m V irg in ia in 1 7 3 0 . 25 F r e d e r ic k B . K e g le y , K E G L E Y ’S V IR G IN IA F R O N T I E R , T H E B E G IN N IN G S O F T H E S O U T H W E S T , T H E R O A N O K E O F C O L O N IA L D A Y S , 1 7 4 0 - 1 7 8 3 ( R o a n o k e , V a ., 1 9 3 8 ; h e r e in a f te r c ite d as K e g le y , V IR G IN IA F R O N T I E R ) , p . 3 2 5 . 26 S to n e r , S E E D B E D O F T H E R E P U B L IC , p . 4 6 . 27 H a r t, V A L L E Y IN T H E R E V O L U T IO N , p . 8 . 28 IB ID ., p . 9 . 30 S to n e r , S E E D B E D O F T H E R E P U B L I C , p . 4 6 . 31 H e n in g , S T A T U T E S A T L A R G E , V . 1 6 7 - 1 6 8 . 32 I B ID ., V . 1 6 9 . 33 C h a lk le y , C H R O N IC L E S , I , 3 4 5 . 34 J o h n E . F in le y , D ir e c tio n s t o p riz e h e m p , 1 8 1 0 , D R A P E R M A N U S C R IP T C O L L E C ­ T I O N , 1 7 5 0 7 - 1 9 0 0 ? , 1 2 Z Z 3 2 4 , W isc o n s in S ta te H is to ric a l S o c ie ty , m ic ro f ilm c o p y in C a ro l N e w m a n L ib r a r y , V irg in ia P o ly te c h n ic I n s t i t u t e a n d S ta te U n iv e rs ity , B la c k s b u rg , V irg in ia ( h e r e in a f te r c ite d a s D R A P E R M A N U S C R IP T C O L L E C T IO N S ). 35 M a la c h y P o s tle th w a y t, T H E U N IV E R S A L D IC T IO N A R Y O F T R A D E A N D C O M M E R C E ( 4 t h e d „ N e w Y o r k , 1 9 7 1 , c l 7 7 4 ) n .p . P o s tle th w a y t w a s u s e d a s a m a jo r s o u rc e f o r th e H a m ilto n R e p o r t o n M a n u f a c tu r e s (see h is i n t r o d u c t i o n ) , a lso b y J e f f e r s o n w h e n a d v isin g C o n g re ss o n e c o n o m ic p o lic y in 1 8 0 7 . 36 B e tts , J E F F E R S O N ’S F A R M B O O K , p la te 1 1 6 . 37 C o x e , D IG E S T O F M A N U F A C T U R E S , A S P , F in a n c e , I I , 6 9 0 . 38 A M E R IC A N H U S B A N D R Y , p . 1 8 4 . 39 C o x e , D IG E S T O F M A N U F A C T U R E S , A S P , F I N A N C E , I I , 6 9 0 . 40 F r a n tz , “ R o a n o k e C o u n ty in t h e 1 8 4 0 ’s ,” R H S J O U R N A L , P . 9 ; T h e re is a t S m ith fie ld P la n ta tio n H o u s e , B la c k s b u rg , s u c h a V a lle y D u tc h c a r p e t o f L a n c a s te r , P a ., p ro v e n a n c e . C o l. R ic e o f t h e N a tio n a l T e x tile I n s t i t u t e , W a s h in g to n , D .C ., is th e a u t h o r i t y f o r id e n tif y in g its f ib e r s as a m ix tu r e o f h e m p , w o o l a n d c o t t o n . I t is in p a n e ls a n d h a s n a tu r a l d y e d c o lo rs o f p e a -g re e n fie ld w ith m a d d e r-re d s tr ip e d b o r d e r s . 41 L e w is C . G ra y , H IS T O R Y O F A G R I C U L T U R E IN T H E S O U T H E R N U N IT E D S T A T E S T O 1 8 6 0 (N e w Y o r k , 1 9 4 1 , c l 9 3 3 ; h e r e in a f te r c ite d a s G r a y ,H I S T O R Y O F A G R I ­ C U L T U R E ), I , 8 2 2 . 42 U .S . C e n s u s , 4 t h , 1 8 2 0 , D IG E S T O F A C C O U N T S O F M A N U F A C T U R IN G ; C o x e , D IG E S T O F M A N U F A C T U R E S , A S P , F I N A N C E , I I , 6 8 0 . 43 B is h o p , A M E R IC A N M A N U F A C T U R E S , p . 3 3 7 . 44 M a rc u s L . H a n s e n , T H E A T L A N T IC M IG R A T IO N (C a m b rid g e , M a ss., 1 9 4 5 ) , p . 5 0 ; R . J . D ic k s o n , U L S T E R E M IG R A T IO N T O C O L O N IA L A M E R IC A , 1 7 1 8 - 1 7 7 5 ( L o n d o n , 1 9 6 6 ) , p . 2 2 6 . T h e re lig io u s p o lic y o f V irg in ia d id n o t d is c o u r a g e P r e s b y te r ia n s e tt le m e n t w e s t o f th e m o u n ta in s a s i t d id in t h e e a s te r n p a r t o f th e c o lo n y . 45 H e n ry J . F o r d , T H E S C O T C H -IR IS H IN A M E R IC A ( P r in c e t o n , 1 9 1 5 ) , p . 2 0 2 . 46 C o n ra d G ill, T H E R IS E O F T H E IR IS H L IN E N I N D U S T R Y ( O x f o r d , 1 9 2 5 ) , p . 3 4 . 47 M c p h e rs o n , A N N A L S O F C O M M E R C E , I I I , 3 9 . 48 E a s tm a n , W h itn e y , H IS T O R Y O F T H E L I N S E E D O IL I N D U S T R Y IN T H E U N IT E D S T A T E S (M in n e a p o lis , 1 9 6 8 ) , p . 2 5 ; G ra y , H IS T O R Y O F A G R I C U L T U R E , I , 8 2 1 . 49 G ra y , H IS T O R Y O F A G R I C U L T U R E , I , 8 2 1 . 50 U .S . C e n s u s , 4 t h , 1 8 2 0 , “ D ig e st o f M a n u f a c tu r in g E s ta b lis h m e n t s ,” A S P , F I N A N C E , IV , 1 4 0 . 51 G o o d rld g e W ilso n , S M Y T H C O U N T Y , H IS T O R Y A N D T R A D IT IO N S (K in g s p o rt, T en n essee, 1 9 3 2 ), p . 1 7 4 . 52 C la rk , H IS T O R Y O F M A N U F A C T U R E , I , 5 2 8 . 53 F r a n t z , “ R o a n o k e i n 1 8 4 0 . ” R H S J O U R N A L , V II ( 1 9 7 0 ) , 9 . 54 S u m m e r s , H IS T O R Y O F S O U T H W E S T V I R G IN IA , p . 2 3 2 . T h e f la x w o r k e r s re a c h e d th e f o r t s a f e ly , a lth o u g h th e s e n tin e l s ta t io n e d n e a r b y w a s k ille d . 55 F r a n tz , “ R o a n o k e in 1 8 4 0 ” R H S J O U R N A L , V II ( 1 9 7 0 ) , 9 . 56 C la rk , H IS T O R Y O F M A N U F A C T U R E , I , 8 5 . 57 J o h n M a x w e ll, A p p ra is a l, A p ril 9 , 1 7 7 9 ; D E E D A N D W IL L B O O K B , p p . 3 9 , 2 1 1 , R e c o rd s o f M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty . 58 B e t ts , J E F F E R S O N ’S F A R M B O O K , p . 2 5 0 . 59 J o h n P . H a le , T R A N S -A L L E G H A N Y P I O N E E R S ( C h a r le s to n , W . V a ., 1 9 3 1 ) , p . 1 0 1 ; W illia m M c C a u le y , H IS T O R Y O F R O A N O K E C O U N T Y . . . (C h ic a g o , 1 9 0 2 ) , p . 5 7 -5 8 . 60 C la rk , H IS T O R Y O F M A N U F A C T U R E S , I , 4 4 9 . 61 U .S . B u re a u o f th e C e n s u s . H IS T O R I C A L S T A T IS T IC S O F T H E U N IT E D S T A T E S , C O L O N IA L T IM E S T O 1 9 5 7 (W a s h in g to n , 1 9 6 0 ), p . 5 4 7 ; W rig h t, W O O L A N D T H E T A R I F F , p. 32. 62 N IL E S R E G I S T E R , X I, 1 7 7 . 63 A d a m H o d g s o n , L E T T E R S F R O M N O R T H A M E R IC A W R IT T E N D U R IN G A T O U R O F T H E U N IT E D S T A T E S A N D C A N A D A ( L o n d o n , 1 8 2 4 ) , I I , 7 1 . 64 H e n ry , L E T T E R S , I, 9 2 . 65 S te p h e n H ig g in s o n t o J o h n A d a m s , 1 7 8 5 . “letters o f S te p h e n H ig g in s o n ,” A m e ric a n 102 �H is to ric a l S o c ie ty , A N N U A L R E P O R T , I ( 1 8 9 6 ) , 7 3 0 -7 3 1 . 66 W . B a r to n , . . A m e ric a n M a n u f a c tu r e s ,” A M E R IC A N M U S E U M , V I I , ( 1 7 9 0 ) , 2 2 8 . 67 B is h o p , H IS T O R Y O F M A N U F A C T U R E S , 3 8 8 . 68 J o h n E . F in le y , c irc a 1 8 1 0 , “ M e m o r a n d u m R e la tiv e t o C a rd in g M a c h in e ,” D ra p e r M a n u s c rip t C o lle c tio n , 1 2 Z Z 1 7 0 . 69 C o x e , D IG E S T O F M A N U F A C T U R E S , A S P , F I N A N C E , II. 70 J o h n G a rd n e r, A p p ra is a l, O c to b e r 1 8 1 7 , W IL L B O O K 2 , P . 4 8 9 , R e c o rd s o f M o n t­ g o m e ry C o u n ty . 71 C e n s u s 4 t h , 1 8 2 0 , D IG E S T O F A C C O U N T S . 72 C o m m o n s , D O C U M E N T A R Y H IS T O R Y , I I , 3 2 9 . 73 H o w e lls, R E C O L L E C T IO N S O F L I F E IN O H IO , p . 1 2 3 . H o w e lls w a s th e g ra n d s o n o f T . H o w e lls , w h o e a r lie r a sk e d f o r a id f r o m th e V irg in ia le g is la tu re in e s ta b lis h in g a w o o l m a n u f a c to r y in V irg in ia . 74 T h o m a s H ill, A p p ra is a l, D e c e m b e r 1 7 8 2 , W IL L B O O K N O . 1, p . 7 7 , R e c o rd s o f W a s h in g to n C o u n ty . 75 G e o rg e A n d e rs o n , A p p ra is a l, J a n u a r y 1 8 1 7 , W IL L B O O K N O . 3 , p p . 1 0 8 -1 1 9 , R e c o rd s o f M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty . 76 C a ro lin e W are, E A R L Y N E W E N G L A N D C O T T O N M A N U F A C T U R E (N e w Y o rk , 1 9 6 6 ; h e r e in a f te r c ite d as W are, N E W E N G L A N D C O T T O N M A N U F A C T U R E ), I , 2 3 , 2 6 . 77 C o rn e liu s H e a tw o le , “ H a n d w e a v in g ,” A H is to ry o f R O C K IN G H A M C O U N T Y , e d . b y J o h n W . W a y la n d ( D a y to n , V a ., 1 9 1 2 ; h e r e in a f te r c ite d as H e a tw o le , “ H a n d w e a v in g ,” H IS T O R Y O F R O C K IN G H A M , p . 3 8 3 . 78 C la rk , H IS T O R Y O F M A N U F A C T U R E S , I . 4 4 9 . 79 J . a n d R . B ro n s o n , T H E D O M E S T IC M A N U F A C T U R E R ’S A S S IS T A N T A N D F A M IL Y D IR E C T O R Y IN T H E A R T S O F W E A V IN G A N D D Y E IN G . . . ( U tic a , N e w Y o rk , 1 8 1 7 ; h e r e in a f te r c ite d as B ro n s o n , D O M E S T IC M A N U F A C T U R E ’S A S S IS T A N T ), p p . 1 3 , 4 5 . 80 W are, N E W E N G L A N D A N D C O T T O N M A N U F A C T U R E , I , 3 4 . 81 P h ilip V . F it h ia n , J O U R N A L , 1 7 7 5 - 1 7 7 6 , e d . b y R o b e r t G . A lb io n a n d L e o n id a s D o d so n (2 v o ls ., P r in c e to n , 1 9 3 4 ; h e r e in a f te r c ite d as F it h ia n , J O U R N A L ) , I I , 3 6 . 82 L ip s o n , H IS T O R Y O F T H E W O O L E N IN D U S T R Y , p . 1 3 2 . 83 R ic h a r d S ta n to n , A p p ra is a l, 1 7 8 1 , W IL L B O O K N O . 1 , p . 5 2 , R e c o rd s o f W a s h in g to n C o u n ty . „ 84 A lle n H . E a to n , H A N D IC R A F T S O F T H E S O U T H E R N H IG H L A N D S (N e w Y o rk , 1 9 7 3 , c l 9 3 7 ; h e r e in a f te r c ite d as E a to n , H A N D IC R A F T S O F T H E S O U T H E R N H IG H L A N D S ), p. 95. 85 IB ID ., p . 9 6 ; “ I n th e h o u s e h o ld m a n u f a c tu r e o f o u r f o r e f a th e r s th e s p in n in g a p p a r a tu s w as a w h e e l, w h ic h d ro v e a sin g le h o r iz o n ta l s p in d le m o u n te d o n a s ta n d a r d a t a b o u t th e h e ig h t o f th e e lb o w . A c o r d , p a ssin g a r o u n d th e c irc u m fe re n c e o f th e big fly - w h e e l, d ro v e th e s p in d le a t a g re a t v e lo c ity . T h e e n d o f th e r o ll o f w o o l, f la x , o r c o t t o n , w a s a tta c h e d t o th e s p in d le b y s im p ly ty in g i t a r o u n d , a n d t h e b ig w h e e l w a s s ta r te d . S im u lta n e o u s ly w ith t h e s ta r tin g o f th e w h e e l, th e s p in n e r b r o u g h t b a c k h e r h a n d h o ld in g t h e r o ll o f f ib e r , so a s t o s tr e tc h i t a t th e sa m e tim e t h a t th e s p in d le , o n its lo n g itu d in a l a x is w a s g iving th e r o ll t h e tw is t; th e n , w ith o u t s to p p in g th e w h e e l, th e s p in n e r s u d d e n ly re la x e d th e s tr a in o n th e y a r n , a n d l e t h e r h a n d c o m e q u ic k ly u p t o th e e n d o f th e s p in d le , b y w h ic h m e a n s th e y a rn w o u n d its e lf u p o n th e s p in d le in s ta n ta n e o u s ly in s te a d o f c o n tin u in g t o tw is t. A s s o o n a s th is p ro c e s s h a d b e e n r e p e a te d e n o u g h tim e s t o s e c u re a s p in d le fu ll o f y a r n , th e w h e e l w a s s to p p e d a n d th e y ^ r e e l e d o f f u p o n a w o o d e n re e l i n t o h a n d s f o r k n ittin g , w e a v in g o r s e w in g . ’ B o lle s, I N D U b l RIAL« H IS T O R Y , p . 4 2 1 . 86 F r a n tz , “ R o a n o k e in 1 8 4 0 ,” R H S J o u r n a l, V II ( 1 9 7 0 ) , 9 -1 0 ; R o b e r t E . W ith e rs , A U T O G IO G R A P H Y O F A N O C T O G E N A R IA N ( R o a n o k e , V a ., 1 9 0 7 ; h e r e in a f te r c ite d as W ith e rs , A U T O B IO G R A P H Y ), p . 5 4 . 87 F it h ia n , J O U R N A L , I I , 1 2 2 . 8 8 . F r a n tz , “ R o a n o k e in 1 8 4 0 ,” R H S J O U R N A L , V II ( 1 9 7 0 ) , 1 0 . 89 T r y o n , H O U S E H O L D M A N U F A C T U R E S , p . 1 5 8 q u o tin g J o h n R e y n o ld s , M Y O W N T IM E S : E M B R A C IN G A L S O T H E H IS T O R Y O F M Y L I F E (C h ic a g o , 1 8 7 9 ) , p . 3 9 2 . 90 J o h n W a y la n d , A H IS T O R Y O F R O C K IN G H A M C O U N T Y ( D a y to n , V a ., 1 9 1 2 ; h e r e in a f te r c ite d as W a y la n d , R O C K IN G H A M C O U N T Y ), 3 7 6 . 91 C o le , A M E R IC A N W O O L M A N U F A C T U R E S , p . 1 1 0 . 92 T h o m a s J e f f e r s o n t o J o h n M e lish , J e f f e r s o n , W R IT IN G S , e d . b y F o r d , p . 3 7 3 . 93 F r e d e r ic k S m ith , A p p ra is a l, D e c e m b e r 1 8 2 0 , W IL L B O O K N O . 3 , p . 2 1 0 , R e c o rd s o f M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty . 94 J o h n H o u s to n , A p p ra is a l 1 8 2 7 , W IL L B O O K N O . 5 , p . 3 4 7 , R e c o rd s o f W a s h in g to n C o u n ty . 95 V irg in ia P a rls o w , W E A V IN G A N D D Y E IN G IN E A R L Y N E W Y O R K ( C o o p e rs to w n , N .Y ., 1 9 4 9 ; h e r e in a f te r c ite d as P a rs lo w , W E A V IN G A N D D Y E IN G IN N E W Y O R K ) , p . 1 6 . 96 W ile y , T R E A T IS E O N S H E E P , W O O L A N D F L A X , p p . 4 8 -4 9 . 97 N ic h o la s A lle e , A p p ra is a l 1 8 1 8 , W IL L B O O K N O . 1 , p . 3 4 9 , R e c o rd s o f M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty . 98 J o h n H . R ic e , “ A n E x c u rs io n in to th e V irg in ia C o u n tr y ,“ V IR G IN IA E V A N G E L IC A L A N D L I T E R A R Y M A G A Z IN E , N o v ./D e c . 1 8 1 8 , in T R A V E L S IN T H E O L D S O U T H , S E L E C T ­ E D F R O M P E R IO D IC A L S O F T H E T IM E , e d . b y E u g e n e L . S c h w a a b a n d J a q u e lin ^ B u ll (2 v o ls., L e x in g to n , K y ., 1 9 7 3 ) , I I , 1 9 3 . 99 C la rk , H IS T O R Y O F M A N U F A C T U R E S , I, 5 3 8 . 1 0 0 H e n in g , S T A T U T E S A T L A R G E , X II, 4 4 4 . 1 0 1 J o h n G a rd n e r, W ill, 1 8 1 6 , W IL L B O O K N O . 2 , p . 3 7 1 , R e c o r d s o f M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty . 1 0 2 H e n in g , S T A T U T E S A T L A R G E , X II, 1 5 0 ; V , 4 4 8 . 1 0 3 R ita J . A d r o s k o , N A T U R A L D Y E S A N D H O M E D Y E IN G (N e w Y o r k , 1 9 7 1 , c l 9 6 8 ; h e r e in a f te r c ite d a s A d ro s k o , N A T U R A L D Y E S ), p . 1 3 . 1 0 4 B e tts , J E F F E R S O N ’S G A R D E N B O O K , p . 4 5 2 . 1 0 5 J o h n A n d e rs o n , A p p ra is a l, 1 8 2 1 , W IL L B O O K N O . 3 , p . 2 9 7 , R e c o rd s o f M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty . 103 �1 0 6 L e w is A m is s , A p p ra is a l, A u g u s t, 1 8 2 6 , W IL L B O O K ' N ö . 4 , p . 2 9 0 , R e c o r d s o f M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty . 1 0 7 K e g le y , V IR G IN IA F R O N T I E R , p . 3 2 5 -3 2 9 . 1 0 8 A d ro sk o , N A T U R A L D Y E S , p . 4 9 . 1 0 9 A sa E llis, T H E C O U N T R Y D Y E R ’S A S S IS T A N T (B r o o k f ie ld , M ass., 1 7 9 8 ) , p . v-vi. 1 1 0 B ro n s o n , D O M E S T IC M A N U F A C T U R E R ’S A S S IS T A N T . 1 1 1 H e a tw o le , “ H a n d w e a v in g ,” H IS T O R Y O F R O C K IN G H A M , p p . 3 8 5 - 3 9 6 . 1 1 2 F r a n t z , “ R o a n o k e i n 1 8 4 0 ,” R H S J O U R N A L , V II ( 1 9 7 0 ) , 8 . 1 1 3 B la c k A c c o u n t B o o k S p e c ia l C o lle c tio n s , V .P .I. & S .U . L ib r a r y , B la c k s b u rg , V irg in ia . 1 1 4 C o le , A M E R IC A N W O O L M A N U F A C T U R E , p . 2 9 . 1 1 5 T r y o n , H O U S E H O L D M A N U F A C T U R E S , p . 1 5 7 ; H o w e lls, E A R L Y L I F E IN O H IO , p . 1 2 4 ; P a rs lo w , W E A V IN G A N D D Y E IN G IN N E W Y O R K , p p . 1 9 -2 0 . 1 1 6 . T . N . C o n ra d , “ E a rly B la c k s b u rg H is to r y ,” B L A C K S B U R G N E W S O F 1 8 8 1 , I , ( 1 8 8 1 ) . T y p e s c r ip t in C a ro l N e w m a n L ib r a r y , V irg in ia P o ly te c h n ic I n s t i t u t e a n d S ta te U n iv e r­ s ity , B la c k s b u rg , V irg in ia . 1 1 7 “ T o k e e p in g A g n e s L e s te r ,” 1 7 8 8 , W IL L B O O K B , R e c o r d s o f M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty ; “ I n 1 7 9 5 H u g h M a ire s w a s o v e rs e e r o f th e p o o r a n d w a s p a id b y J o s e p h C lo y d 1 0 p o u n d s f o r ta k in g c a re o f A g n e s L e s te r f o r th e y e a r 1 7 9 3 ,” J a m e s K e n t M a n u s c rip t, W y th e v ille C o m m u n ity C o lle g e , W y th e v ille , V irg in ia . 1 1 8 C o x e , “ D ig e st o f M a n u f a c tu r e s ,” A S P , F I N A N C E , I , 6 7 9 . 1 1 9 J u d g e J o h n s o n , A d d re s s b e f o r e t h e P io n e e r S o c ie ty o f C in c in n a ti, 1 8 7 0 , q u o t e d in H a rry B . W eiss a n d G ra c e M . Z ie g le r, T H E E A R L Y F U L L IN G M IL L S O F N E W J E R S E Y ( T r e n to n , 1 9 5 7 ; h e r e in a f te r c ite d as W eiss, E A R L Y F U L L IN G M IL L S ), p . 1 0 . 1 2 0 E lla S . B o w le s , H O M E S P U N H A N D IC R A F T S (P h ila d e lp h ia , 1 9 3 1 ) , p . 7 2 . 1 2 1 J o s e p h A . W a d d e ll, A N N A L S O F A U G U S T A C O U N T Y , W IT H R E M IN IS C E N C E S IL L U S T R A T IV E O F T H E V IC IS S IT U D E S O F IT S P I O N E E R S E T T L E R S . . . ( R ic h m o n d , 1 8 8 6 ), p . 48 . 1 2 2 H a r t, V A L L E Y IN T H E R E V O L U T IO N , p . 9 . 1 2 3 D E R V IR G IN IS C H E V O L K S B E R IC H T E K , M a y 1 1 , O c to b e r 1 2 , 1 8 0 8 , N e w M a r k e t, V irg in ia , tr a n s la te d b y B a rb a ra C h u r c h ; [ F in c a s tle , V a .] H E R A L D O F T H E V A L L E Y , O c to b e r 1 5 , 1 8 2 1 , m ic ro f ilm a t C a ro l N e w m a n L i b r a r y , V irg in ia P o ly te c h n ic I n s t i t u t e a n d S ta te U n i­ v e r s ity , B la c k s b u rg , V irg in ia . 1 2 4 C e n s u s , 4 t h , 1 8 2 0 . “ D ig e st o f A c c o u n ts ” A S P , F I N A N C E , I I . 1 2 5 W illia m R e y n o ld s , A p p ra is a l, M a y 1 8 1 7 , W IL L B O O K N O . 2 , P . 4 5 4 , R e c o r d s o f M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty . 1 2 6 J o h n G a rd n e r, A p p ra is a l, O c to b e r 1 8 1 7 , W IL L B O O K N O . 2 , p . 4 8 9 , R e c o r d s o f M o n tg o m e ry C o u n ty . 1 2 7 F r ie s , R E C O R D S O F T H E M O R A V IA N S , V I. 2 3 9 . 1 2 8 W eiss, E A R L Y F U L L IN G M IL L S , p . 4 2 . 1 2 9 B is h o p , A M E R IC A N M A N U F A C T U R E S , I , 4 2 0 . 1 3 0 C la re n c e K e a r f o tt, H IG H L A N D M IL L S (N e w Y o r k , 1 9 7 0 ) , p . 1 7 6 . 1 3 1 [ F in c a s tle , V a .] H E R A L D O F T H E V A L L E Y , O c to b e r 1 5 , 1 8 2 1 . 1 3 2 G e o rg e K e g le y , e d ., “ W o o le n M ill, a M a jo r B o t e t o u r t I n d u s t r y , ” J O U R N A L O F T H E R O A N O K E H IS T O R I C A L S O C IE T Y , V II ( 1 9 7 0 ) , 2 5 . 1 3 3 B e rn a rd L . H e r m a n , “ W a s h in g to n C o u n ty G ris tm ills ,” H is to ric a l S o c ie ty o f W a sh in g ­ t o n C o u n ty , P U B L IC A T IO N S , S e r. 2 , n o . 1 2 , 1 9 7 4 - 1 9 7 5 . 1 3 4 M a c p h e rs o n , A N N A L S O F C O M M E R C E , I I I , 5 4 6 . 1 3 5 H a r t, V A L L E Y IN T H E R E V O L U T IO N , p . 1 7 . 1 3 6 C ru s h , M O N T G O M E R Y C O U N T Y S T O R Y , p . 5 9 . 1 3 7 W illia m C . P r e s to n , T H E R E M IN IS C E N C E S O F W IL L IA M C A M P B E L L P R E S T O N . (C h a p e l H ill, N .C ., 1 9 3 3 ) , p p . 2 -3 . 1 3 8 H e n in g , S T A T U T E S A T L A R G E , I , 4 1 6 ; I I , 2 9 8 . 1 3 9 H a r t, V A L L E Y IN T H E R E V O L U T IO N , p . 1 9 ; C h a lk le y , C h ro n ic le s , I , 2 7 7 - 2 8 7 . 1 4 0 S u m m e r s , A N N A L S O F S O U T H W E S T V I R G IN IA , p . 7 2 2 . 1 4 1 J a m e s K e n t M a n u s c rip t., n .p . 1 4 2 J a m e s M c E lh in n y , A p p ra is a l, n .d . [ 1 8 8 1 ] . D E E D S A N D W IL L B O O K B , p . 1 1 , R e c o rd s o f M o n tg o m e r y C o u n ty , see s u p ra f n . 4 4 , p . 3 9 . 1 4 3 P r e s to n F a m ily D a y B o o k , 1 8 1 1 - 1 8 1 8 , S p e c ia l C o lle c tio n s , C a ro l N e w m a n L ib r a r y , V irg in ia P o ly te c h n ic I n s titu te a n d S ta te U n iv e rs ity , B la c k s b u rg , V irg in ia . 1 4 4 W ith e rs , A U T O B IO G R A P H Y , p . 1 4 . 1 4 5 J o h n A n d e r s o n , A p p ra is a l, 1 8 2 1 , W IL L B O O K N O . 3 , p p . 2 7 3 - 2 7 9 ; W a re , N E W EN G LAN D CO TTO N M A N U FA CTU RE, p. 72. 1 4 6 W a y la n d , H IS T O R Y O F R O C K IN G H A M C O U N T Y , p p . 1 0 7 - 1 0 8 . 1 4 7 G e o rg e P . R . J a m e s , “ V irg in ia C o u n tr y L i f e ,” K N IC K E R B O C K E R M A G A Z IN E , 5 2 ( 1 8 5 8 ) , p . 2 6 9 - 2 8 2 , in T R A V E L S IN T H E O L D S O U T H , S E L E C T E D F R O M P E R IO D IC A L S O F T H E T IM E , e d . b y E u g e n e L . S c h w a a b a n d J a c q u e lin e B u ll, II ( L e x in g to n , K y ., 1 9 7 3 ) . New Books --------- Continued from page 72 BUCHANAN, VIRGINIA: GATEWAY TO THE SOUTHWEST, by Harry Fulwiler Jr. Commonwealth Press, Radford; 931 pages. $43.40. Copious information about the old Town of Buchanan has been com­ piled by Harry Fulwiler Jr., a retired civil engineer bom there but now living in Northern Virginia. 104 �ROANOKE VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Amor montium nos movet OFFICERS Jack G oodykoontz....................................................................... • President William C. Wooldridge ...................................................... Vice President Mrs. Dan A. Chrisman ...............................................................Secretary George T. Ellis, J r........................................................................ Treasurer Mrs. Nomeka B. S o u r s ............................................. Executive Director DIRECTORS Mrs. William B. Bagbey Miss Anna Louise Haley Mrs. G. S. Shackleford Mrs. Dan A. Chrisman Mrs. James E. Heizer James L. Trinkle Mrs. John Copenhaver George Kegley William Watts George T. Ellis, Jr. James Kincanon J. Randolph West Mrs. Charles D. Fox, III Mrs. Harold P. Kyle W. L. Whitwell Edmund P. Goodwin Philip Lemon James P. Woods Mrs. Edmund P. Goodwin Mrs. J . M . B . Lewis William C. Wooldridge Jack Goodykoontz Dr. J.C .Z illhardt Richard L. Meagher Mrs. Leonard Muse �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society 1980 Volume 11, Number 1 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include:<br />Clifton A. Woodrum, Congressman with a Flair<br />Colonel James P. Woods, Lawyer, Congressman<br />John Hook, New London Merchant<br />How We Began<br />Spinning and Weaving in Montgomery County Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_11_01_1980 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6354/JHSWV_11_02_1982.pdf a0c2c4d1583556e69040a7a37d93b9d0 PDF Text Text JOURNAL p i tiie ROANOKE VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Volume Eleven__________________ Number Two Centennial Issue 1882—1982 �1982 Contents R o a n o k e h i s t o r y a s r e c o r d e d in 1912................................. .. ........................ W h e r e we w e r e in 1864, by W.L. Whitwell and Lee Winborne ....................... 21 W hen kn igh ts w e re b o ld A Jefferson l ................................................................................... 25 S t r e e t s t r o l l , by Paul S to n e s ife r .......................................... 2 8 R o a n o k e ' s f i r s t f i r e s t a t i o n , by Warren L. Moorman, M.D ...................... 3 2 HOW A RAILWAY CLERK SAW THE NEW CENTURY .......................................... 38 L i f e o n H i g h l a n d A v e n u e in t h e e a r l y 1900s, by Frances Lewis ... 47 H o r a c e E n g l e , a c r e a t i v e R o a n o k e r , by Edward L e o s ......................... 58 E c o n o m i c d e v e l o p m e n t in S o u t h w e s t V i r g i n i a , by Harold W. Mann . 66 T he W a t t s , a p i o n e e r f a m i l y , by Helen R. Prillam an ................................. 8 2 T he B a r r e n s , a g a r d e n s p o t , by Helen R. Prillaman . . ................. ............. 84 M erch ants o r g a n ize, How THE by Edward C. (Ted) Moomaw ................................... 86 STAR w a s t u r n e d o n , Ey Edward C. (Ted) M oom aw .................... 88 R o a n o k e ' s e l e c t e d o f f i c i a l s .............................................................................. 91 by Dwight E. M cQ u ilkin ...................... 94 N e w b o o k s o n o l d t h e m e s ...................................................................................... 95 A c o r n to O a k , t h a t 's R o a n o k e , George Kegley Editor o f the JOURNAL The Journal o f the Roanoke Valley Historical Society, Volume Eleven, Number Two. Published by the Society at P.O. Box 1.904, Roanoke, Virginia 24008, to chronicle the past and present o f that part o f the state west o f the Blue Ridge. Single copy price for members, $3; for non-members, $4. The Society will be careful in handling unsolicited material but cannot be responsible for its loss. �First three decades Roanoke history as recorded in 1912 Through the valleys of East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia ran the “Great Path” or Indian trail, which on account of its central position and direct course, was the most practicable route for communication be­ tween the Northern and the Southern Indians, as nowhere else could the great Appalachian Chain be so easily ascended and crossed. Its course lay along the older portion of the town of Salem, crossing Mason’s Creek just north of Pitzer’s Cliff, thence across the hills to Peters Creek to a point near the old town of Gainsborough, where it diverged into two branches, the one running eastward by way of Bonsack and Coyner’s Springs, crossing the Blue Ridge at Buford’s Gap; while the other route of travel passed by Cloverdale, through Botetourt County, and thence down the valley. In later years, after white settlements had been established, there was a slight divergence from both the Valley and the Eastern trail, in order that the pioneers traveling westward might reach “Belmont,” the home of Colonel William Fleming, situated on the east bank of Tinker Creek. Near the point of divergence of the great Indian trail was a free flow­ ing spring of water, and this spot naturally became the camping ground, not only for the Indians during their expeditions, but later for the pioneers and settlers while on their way to new homes in the valleys west of the Blue Ridge. It has been estimated that during the days of pioneer life in South­ west Virginia no less than sixty-eight thousand persons camped from time to time in the vicinity of this spring, which is located in the northeast section of Roanoke City and is known as the Franklin Mineral Spring. Nearby was a large saline marsh to which deer and other animals came to procure salt, and as it was the largest deer lick of the kind in this part of the country it became known to the early settlers as the “Big Lick.” Consequently, when a settlement grew up nearby, it also took the name of Big Lick and was a convenient stopping-place for wagoners in early pioneer days. Building of Gainsborough The first practical effort to establish a town in the vicinity of Big Lick was the building of Gainsborough, which derived its name from These excerpts from the 1912 H ISTO RY OF ROANOKE COUNTY ROANOKE CITY AND THE NORFOLK AND WESTERN RA ILW AY CO. by George S. Jack and E. B. Jacobs are used with the permission o f Miss Audrey Jack, daughter o f George Jack. �Kemp Gaines, who owned the land on which it was built. In 1825 it was but a mere hamlet consisting of two frame buildings on the Southwest corner of the Lynchburg Turnpike and the Franklin Road. Afterward, when it had grown into a village with two churches, several stores and a blacksmith shop, it was designated “Old Lick” to distinguish it from the new village which had sprung up around the depot a short distance south and which assumed the name of Big Lick. The nucleus of the latter settlement was the stone house built by William Stover in the year 1797, this date being marked on the wall at the time of its construction, according to an old-time custom. This house and the surrounding farm afterward became the property of John Trout and was his home at the time of his death. The Ponce de Leon hotel has been erected on the site of the old Trout house, and a portion of the stone wall is still standing and composes a part of the rear building of the hotel. PrestonviUe Shortly after the war of 1812 a scheme was projected by a company called the Roanoke Navigation Company, the object being to make the Roanoke River navigable by means of dams and sluices from Weldon, North Carolina, to Salem, Virginia. The plan also contemplated the opening of Tinker Creek for navigation from the point where it empties into the Roanoke River to the crossing of Tinker Creek by the Lynchburg and Salem turnpike, about a mile above the Crozer Furnace. It was the inten­ tion of the Company to build a town at this point, to be known as Prestonville, and a tract of land was purchased and laicLoff into lots, a portion of which had been sold when the whole undertaking was abandoned on account of financial reverses sustained by the men who had organized the Company. Big Lick*8 boom in 1834 i During the year of 1834 another town scheme was organized by citizens of Big Lick, who laid off a town into lots, streets and alleys, and in May of that year an auction sale was held which was largely attended by people from all parts of the county. The promoters, however, disagreed about the business of the Company, with the result that this second attempt to build a town in this vicinity was also abandoned. Therefore, the city of Roanoke is the result of the third effort to build a city in this immediate section. Big Lick incorporated When Roanoke County was formed in 1838 there was a strong sentiment in favor of making Big Lick (the Old Lick) the county seat on account of its central location, but after due consideration Salem was selected, and as a portion of Montgomery County was afterward added to 2 �Roanoke County it made Salem the more central point. In 1838 there were but three houses in the new Big Lick, and not until 1852 (when the railroad came) did the place begin to show signs of growth, when several new buildings were erected. In 1853 a blacksmith shop and a small office building were erected, and here improvements ceased, with the exception of the building of the Virginia & Tennessee depot, until 1858, when the first tobacco factory was built. In 1870 several dwelling houses were built but there was little progress or development until the incorporation of Big Lick as a town in 1874. In 1874 the land on which the city of Roanoke is now built was owned by John Trout, Peyton L. Terry, Isham M. Ferguson, Mrs. Jane Lewis, Col. Geo. W. Carr, Ferdinand Rorer and Benjamin T. Tinsley. The latter owned all the land between the Carr farm and Franklin Road, which he afterwards sold to Peyton L. Terry. The farm had been the property in former years of William M. Peyton, whose residence was known as “Elmwood.” The Rorer farm, lying on the east side of Commerce Street, and for the most part south of Campbell Avenue, belonged for many years before the war to John Shirey. The eastern part of the city is built on the Carr and Ferguson farms. On February 28th, 1874, the town of Big Lick was incorporated with John Trout as Mayor, and Ferdinand Rorer, Isham M. Ferguson, Peyton L. Terry, James M. Gambill, Dr. James McG. Kent and William Raines as Councilmen. The act of incorporation gives the boundaries as follows:— “Commencing at the depot of the Atlantic, Mississippi & Ohio Rail­ road in said town, and extending therefrom one-half mile north, east, south and west, and embracing the area contained therein,with the excep­ tion of the land of Mrs. Jane Lewis, which shall be excluded from said Corporation.” At this time the business houses were located mainly on both sides of Commerce Street. In 1876 there were in the town three churches, Lutheran, Methodist and Presbyterian, seven drygoods stores, one drug store, one bank, five tobacco factories, three tobacco warehouses, one plaster and flouring mill, one foundry, one tinware manufactory, one harness manufactory, one wagon and plow factory, two blacksmith shops, two photograph galleries and three saloons. Land around Big Lick could have been purchased at that time for the sum of $30.00 per acre. The building of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad In 1881 when the first intimation came of the building of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad, Big Lick was a thriving town of six or seven hundred population and there had been a few more additions to the manufacturing and general business interests of the place. At this point in the history of the city of Roanoke, Philadelphia capitalists, who had bought and taken charge of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad, which had been built at that time as far south as Waynesboro, 3 �Homes and businesses in Southeast Roanoke were still a dream when this photograph of Mill Mountain was taken, probably about 1900. From a collection of the late Paul S. Stonesifer. An envelope was addressed to Thomas Tosh Esq., a leading Big Lick citizen, in 1858. The Roanoke Hospital, a forerunner of Roanoke Memorial Hospitals, was started in 1893. This view appeared on a 1909 postcard. 4 �Wagons were an important part of the C. W. Francis Lumber Co. coal and wood yard. W. H. Horton’s livery stable stood at the southeast comer of present First Street and Kirk Avenue, S.W. At right is the old city post office. 5 �determined to make a connection with the Norfolk & Western Railroad, which was then in the hands of a receiver. They sent their agents and engineers to this section to select the most available point for a junction. It is a well known fact that the most important event in the history of Roanoke was the advent of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad. On a bright morning in June, 1881, a number of citizens of Big Lick gathered in front of a little building on the Southeast corner of Commerce Street and what is now known as First Avenue. A branch of the Lynchburg Trust Company conducted a banking business on the second floor of this building, which was one of the principal business structures at the time. Peyton L. Terry had just returned from Salem with news of the fact that negotiations between representatives of the Shenandoah Valley Rail­ road and citizens of Salem for bringing the terminus of the road to that point had proved unsuccessful. While the matter was being discussed, Peyton L. Terry remarked that if a subscription of only $10,000 was required, there was no reason why that sum could not be promptly raised, and the terminal secured for Big Lick. Among others in the party were T. T. Fishburne, Henry S. Trout, James M. Gambill, Col. Geo. P. Tayloe, E. G. McClanahan and the Rev. L. L. Loyd, the last named being the young pastor of the Methodist Church. The result of this discussion was that a meeting was decided upon, and the “Big Lick Weekly News” printed posters which announced a meeting to be held that night at the “Neal House” for the purpose of devising plans whereby Big Lick might secure the terminal of the new line of railroad. When the meeting was called to order quite a gathering of citizens of Big Lick had responded to the call. Among those present were Peyton L. Terry, T. T. Fishburne, Henry S. Trout, S. W. Jamison, Col. Geo. P. Tayloe, Ferdinand Rorer, M. C. Thomas, Elijah G. McClanahan. John Trout, Capt. R. B. Moorman, R. H. Fishburne, J. M. Gambill, Isham Ferguson, W. H. Startzman, C. W. Thomas. G. A. Turner, John Kefauver, B. P. Huff, J. W. Neal, D. M. Armstrong, Marshall Waid, Samuel Griggs, Dr. Francis Sorrel, W. K. Andrews, Dr. Jos. A. Gale, Q. M. Word, Lucian H. Cocke, Major Andrew Lewis. A. McD. Smith, Dr. A. Z. Koiner, A. S. Asberry, F. B. Thomas, William Raines, P. W. Huff, J. A. Jamison, T. M. Barksdale, Armistead Neal, Richard Kefauver, C. M. Turner, G. T. Rhodes and L. B. Taylor. After some preliminary discussion, it was agreed that a tender of $10,000 would be necessary to secure the rights of way and defray other expenses incident to locating the terminal at Big Lick, and the question of how the sum could be promptly subscribed was taken up. It was recog­ nized that prompt action was necessary and the question as to who would subscribe was put to the meeting. T. T. Fishburne was the first to reply and pledged a subscription toward the cash bonus necessary to secure the road for Big Lick. A committee was immediately named for the purpose of raising the requisite 6 �amount of $10,000 and in a few hours that sum had been subscribed, Peyton L. Terry and Ferdinand Rorer being specially active in the work of raising the fund. Joseph I. Doran and other representatives of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad were at that time in Lexington, considering the question of a point of connection for the road with the Norfolk & Western, and no time was lost by the enterprising citizens of Big Lick in placing their proposition before this committee. In order to accomplish this promptly, Charles W. Thomas was deputized a special courier to convey the papers pledging the subscription of $10,000 as a cash bonus offered by the citizens of Big Lick to secure the terminal at that point. Mr. Thomas rode horseback throughout the night until he reached Arch Mills, where he delivered the papers to John C. Moomaw, who in turn carried them to Lexington, along with pledges which had been secured for a free right of way from Cloverdale to Big Lick, and delivered them to the committee which was in session at the time of his arrival. The members of the committee were strongly impressed by the pro­ gressive spirit shown by the citizens of the little village, and Col. U. L. Boyce who was one of the committee, as well as a prime mover in the project to build the road, remarked with emphasis, “Gentlemen, this brings the road to Big Lick!” The proposition was accepted, and Big Lick was made the connecting point of the Shenandoah Valley and the Norfolk & Western lines of railway. A few months after it had been determined to bring the Shenandoah Valley line to a junction with the Norfolk & Western at Big Lick, a visit was made to the town by Frederick J. Kimball and others associated with him in the project of building the road, and a meeting was held in the old Rorer Hall, which was largely attended, as the citizens were intensely interested in the matter. , The “Big Lick Brass Band” furnished the music for the occasion, and many enthusiastic addresses were delivered. Col. U. J. Boyce predicted that within three years the town would have a population of five thousand, and at that time his statement was regarded as extremely visionary. Yet in January, 1884, in less time than he had specified, the population of the town had increased to five thousand two hundred and seventy-six. W. W. Coe, now General Manager of the Pocahontas Coal and Coke Company was Chief Engineer of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad during its construction from Hagerstown to Roanoke, and D. W. Flickwir was his principal assistant in charge of the work of construction from Loch Laird (now Buena Vista) to Big Lick. These officers of the road also planned the shops at Roanoke, the Hotel Roanoke and other important buildings along the line, and Mr. Coe was consulted in matters pertaining to laying out the future city of Roanoke. The name of Big Lick changed to Roanoke Shortly after this date another meeting was held in the old Rorer Hall 7 �building, until recently standing on the northeast corner of Campbell Avenue and Roanoke Street, for the purpose of selecting a new name of the town. Some of those present suggested the name of “Kimball” in honor of Frederick J. Kimball, president of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad T. T. Fishbume suggested “Roanoke,” and after some discussion it was decided to telegraph to Mr. Kimball and ascertain his wishes in the matter Mr. Kimball at once replied, “By all means adopt the name of R oanoke. I . Thi„s ™as done’ and when a new charter was granted and the territorial limits of the town were extended by Act of the Virginia Legislature February 3d, 1882, the old name of Big Lick was changed to that of Roanoke. It developed, however, that a minor post office in Virginia already b??uth*Tnamn ° f Roanoke>but Henry Fink, who was at that time Receiver of the Norfolk & Western Railroad, succeeded in having a change made by the Postal authorities whereby the town of Big Lick was enabled to assume the name of Roanoke. The boundary lines as defined by the act of February 3d, 1882 are as follows.— “Beginning at the Norfolk & Western bridge at Tinker Creekthence a due line south to the Gish’s mill road; then with said road west to the forks of road leading into the lands of Col. Geo. P. Tayloe; thence a straight line southwest to the Franklin turnpike at a gate upon the lands of Mrs. Jane Lewis, on the road leading into the land of S. H. Gish; thence a straight line to the southwest corner of the land of William Taylor; thence due south to Roanoke River; thence with said river to the line of F.R orer’s and John N. Shaver’s land; thence with said Rorer’s and Shaver’s land north to the Norfolk & Western Railroad; thence east to the land of Q. M. Word; thence to the line of H. S. Trout, R. B. Moorman and E. H. Ingle; thence with the lands of said R. B. Moorman and E. H. Ingle north to the Lynchburg and Salem road; thence with said road east to the road leading to Watts’ mill; thence with said road to a spring near the mill; thence a straight line to the lands of Mrs. Lucy Campbell at the corner of the land of Henry Langhome; thence east to said Mrs. Lucy Campbell’s land to the comer of the lands of J. B. Muse and Dr. Miller; thence with the line of said Muse and Miller to the Lynchburg and Salem roads; thence with the south side of said road to the corner of the land of said Muse and Miller; thence with the land of said parties to the lands of the Roanoke Land and Improvement Company; thence with the lands of said Company and J. B. Muse to Tinker Creek; thence south with said creek to the bridge of the Norfolk & Western Railroad Company over Tinker Creek to the beginning. ” On June 18,1882, the Shenandoah Valley Railroad was completed and on the following day the first train passed over the line from Hagerstown Maryland, to Roanoke. Roanoke incorporated as a city On January 31st, 1884, by an act of the Legislature, Roanoke was incorporated as a city, the population at that time being over five thousand, 8 �and John H. Dunstan was chosen as the first Mayor under the new charter, with a City Council consisting of twelve members. A meeting of the citizens had been held on January 18th, at which time the result of an enumeration showed a population of five thousand two hundred and seventy-six, and on motion a committee composed of Thomas M. Wood, M. C. Thomas and William Gordon Robertson was appointed to prepare a charter, in order that the town of Roanoke could be incorporated as a city. On January 31st, 1890, the city limits Were again extended by an act of the Legislature. Early progress of the city Following the incorporation of Roanoke as a city a Hustings Court was inaugurated and William Gordon Robertson was elected as the first Judge of this Court. In August, 1881, prior to the completion of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad to Roanoke, the Roanoke Land and Improve­ ment Company was formed, and land was purchased and laid off into lots which sold at that time at prices ranging from $100 to $500. In fact one acre of the land that is embraced in the section through which Salem Avenue runs from Jefferson street to Commerce street, was sold to William Routt by John Trout for the sum of $500. The first great industry established was the Roanoke Machine Works in 1882, with a capital of $5,000,000, employing at that time about one thousand men. The building of this plant and the erection of houses by the Roanoke Land and Improvement Company gave an impetus to business of every character, and substantial and rapid growth resulted. This was checked in some degree during 1884 when a general business depression prevailed, but the shops, secured a contract from the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad for the building of five hundred freight cars, which enabled them to continue work and thereby relieve the local situation. This period of depression was succeeded by one of steady progress, and among the industries which were soon established were the Crozer Iron Company’s Furnace, the Norwich Lock Works, Duval Engine Works, Bridgewater Carriage Works, American Bridge Works, Rorer Iron Works, West End Furnace and numerous other enterprises representing various classes of industry. By an act of the Legislature approved February 12th, 1892, a new charter was granted the city of Roanoke and the boundry lines were defined. This charter also made provision for a board of public works, a police justice, a city auditor, and also place the power of veto in the hands of the Mayor. Boom days To one who has never lived in a town which was undergoing a process 9 �An early view of Hotel Roanoke from Jefferson Street A parade scene at Commerce (now Second) Street and Salem Avenue, looking south toward Greene Memorial Methodist Church on a 1907 postcard. ,^ 10 �The Academy of Music, Roanoke’s cultural center from 1892 to 1952. The nation’s leading musical and theatrical performers appeared at the Academy on Salem Avenue, Southwest. The Randolph Street Market was located just east of the Williamson Road bridge over the Norfolk and Western Railway. Razed years ago, the concrete building was constructed for $132,000 in 1907. It had spaces for 20 retail stores, 45 stalls and three wholesale rooms. 11 �of development commonly termed a “boom,” the general conditions ob­ taining at such times are scarcely conceivable. The haste and bustle, promiscuous buying and selling, quick changes in ownership of property, with the feverish excitement prevailing, all attest the fact that the place is on a “boom.” During 1882 Roanoke experienced its first peiod of rapid develop­ ment, the second occurring in 1885 and the last in 1889. Each of these years marked the beginning of a condition of affairs when land companies were organized almost daily, large tracts laid off into town lots, store­ houses and dwellings erected in all parts of the city, with speculation in real estate the dominant feature of all business transactions. As late as 1891, Salem Avenue had no permanent paving, and it was a common thing to see vehicles during rainy weather traveling hub deep in the mud of the street. The Volunteer Fire Company found it necessary at times to use the sidewalk on Salem Avenue to haul their two-wheeled hand hose reel on account of the condition of the street. This, in fact, was the general state of affairs prevailing throughout the city, as specula­ tion in town lots was made without regard for present or prospective im­ provements; the sole object seeming to be that of buying property, and disposing promptly at an increased price. Values during these “boom” periods were consequently inflated beyond all reason, and when the inevitable reaction occurred, many who had “overloaded” with unimproved real estate were forced to sell at sacri­ fice prices and often had deficiency judgments entered against them. These serious changes in realty values necessarily affected business conditions during the process of adjustment, and for many years there was a feeling of uncertainty and a lack of confidence in the stability of Roanoke institutions that interfered in some degree with the substantial progress of the city. Furthermore, for many years the population of Roanoke was of a migratory character, and the people did not as a rule own their own homes. Beginning with 1904 the building permits showed a marked increase over previous records, and from that date the upbuilding of the city and the erection of comfortable homes (owned in most instances by the oc­ cupants), have progressed on a scale which has not only elicited favorable comment from visitors, but has been viewed with surprise and gratification by the citizens themselves. Values are now permanent, and the financial condition of the city and the stability of its institutions are a guaranty that investments in Roanoke property are safe, and a satisfactory income assured. Further progress From 1882 when the Roanoke Machine Works were established in the city, the history of Roanoke presents an unbroken record of expansion and progress in all channels of trade, manufacturing and general develop­ ment. There were, of course, periods of depression, some of which were caused by conditions that affected business throughout the whole country, 12 �and it was only to be expected that Roanoke would suffer therefrom in common with other communities; but the panic of 1891 to ’93 did not seriously retard the progress of the city, nor did that of 1906-’07, which in many quarters was so disastrous in its effects. It is a notable fact that while banks in many other cities resorted to the issue of scrip during the depression in 1907, the financial institutions of Roanoke paid currency or coin at all times. Following the merging of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad with the Norfolk & Western and the construction of branch lines of the company reaching out through the vast coal and mineral deposits of West Virginia, the city continued to grow in importance as wholesale houses made this point headquarters on account of the excellent transportation facilities afforded. Roanoke, in common with many other cities throughout the country, passed through several experiences usually designated as “booms,” and that of 1889-90 was the last which caused any disturbance of values or necessitated a serious readjustment of affairs. It has often been remarked that a singular incident caused the citizens of Roanoke who were investing largely in real estate to take cognizance of actual conditions and call a halt in over-speculation. During the night of December 16th, 1890, snow began to fall, and by morning it had reached a depth of thirty-seven inches, something unprecedented in the history of the city. The streets and roads were practically impassable for a time, as much moisture had fallen with the snow, making it unusually heavy. People were busily engaged in removing the snow from the roofs of houses, several of which caved in, among them the roof of a livery stable and that of the blacksmith shop at the Roanoke Machine Works, where a man was killed. , Business was practically suspended, so far as real estate transactions were concerned, and for several days people had an opportunity to take stock,” with the result that the boom collapsed, and a readjustment of values followed. The Decennial Celebration During the month of June, 1892, the “Decennial Celebration” was held, commemorating the tenth anniversary of the changing of the name of Big Lick to that of Roanoke and the location of the Roanoke Machine Works in this city. . This was a gala day for Roanoke, and was an occasion of much enthusiasm and interest. There was a street parade with floats representing various classes of trade, secret orders in full regalia, and employees of the Roanoke Machine Works in uniform, representing the several departments of this great enterprise. The parade was reviewed from the Norfolk & Western office building by Frederick J. Kimball, President of the road. There were also entertainments of various kinds, speech-making, and a general celebration commensurate with the progress already achieved and the brilliant prospects for the city’s future. 13 �Building of the Roanoke & Southern Railroad During the Fall of 1886, John C. Moomaw of Roanoke County rode over the line from Roanoke to Greenville, N. C., enlisting the interest and support of various communities in the project of building a new line of railway. These efforts culminated in a mass meeting which was held in Roanoke in the Spring of 1887, when the Roanoke & Southern Company was formed. Delegations from various localities were in attendance, and presented their claims and advantages to the directory which had been chosen for the new organization. D. F. Houston was president of the new company and among the directors were H. S. Trout, P. L. Terry, S. W. Jamison, John C. Moomaw, E. H. Stewart and Jas. S. Simmons. Among others who were actively engaged in the work of bringing the road to Roanoke were T. T. Fishburne, J. W. Boswell, R. A. Buckner, J. F. Wingfield, H. Q. Nicholson, R. H. Woodrum, L. L. Powell, R. H. Gray, Herbert J. Browne, J. A. Pugh and Dr. J. D. Kirk. Shortly after this meeting the Roanoke & Southern of North Carolina was formed with F. H. Fries, President, and R. J. Reynolds, J. W. Hanes, W. A. Lemly, C. B. Watson, J. W. Fries, C. H. Fogle and others as directors. These two corporations were subsequently consolidated, and D. F. Houston was elected president, the united boards constituting the directory. The work of construction was begun in the county of Henry by using convict labor, but it soon became evident that the work could not be com­ pleted in this way, and the Virginia-North Carolina Construction Company was formed during the Fall of 1887. This company contracted to build the line for the subscriptions and assets of the Roanoke & Southern Railroad. F. H. Fries was made President of the Construction Company, and it was planned to build the road in three sections: Section A being from Winston-Salem to Martinsville, Section B from Martinsville to Roanoke, and Section C from Winston-Salem south to some point on the Seaboard Air Line. Throughout the next four years the work of construction progressed, and the line was completed from Winston-Salem to Roanoke, a distance of 122 miles, in January, 1892. Before *the completion of the road, Col. D. F. Houston’s death oc­ curred, and Henry S. Trout succeeded him as President of the Roanoke & Southern Railroad, and acted in that capacity, with S. W. Jamison as Secretary and Treasurer, until the road was acquired by the Norfolk & Western. The Roanoke & Southern Railroad was opened for traffic between Winston-Salem and Roanoke in March, 1892, and was almost immediately leased to the Norfolk & Western Railroad. It eventually became the Winston-Salem Division of the Norfolk & Western System, and in 1910, the connecting link from Winston-Salem to Wadesboro on the Atlantic Coast Line was completed, this last portion of 14 �A crowd turned out for a holiday photograph of the first Norfolk and Western Railway general office building at Shenandoah Avenue and Jefferson Street. The elaborate building binned on Jan. 4, 1896. the work being done through the joint action of the Norfolk & Western and Seaboard Air Line. The present Winston-Salem Southbound Railway is the Section C projected by the men who planned the building of the Roanoke & Southern in 1886, and is the connecting link of a great trunk line of railway from Columbus, Ohio, to Charleston, S. C. The importance of this new link of ninety miles from Winston-Salem to Wadesboro cannot be overestimated, as it completes an air-line from the great Pocahontas coal fields of West Virginia to the port of Charleston, and furnishes an additional outlet for an ever-increasing supply of the world’s best grade of steam coal. It also shortens the haul for fruits and early vegetables from southern points to Roanoke and adds to the importance of this city as a distributing point for farm products of every description. The men who devoted their time and means to the work of making possible the building of the Roanoke & Southern Railroad performed a signal service for the City of Roanoke, and deserve credit for the foresight and energy displayed in an undertaking which resulted in lasting benefit to the community. , Spanish-American War 1898 During the Spanish-American War Roanoke City placed two companies of infantry at the service of the country. Company F of the 2nd Virginia Infantry, U. S. Volunteers, was commanded by Captain Robert F. Taylor, with James 0 . B. Palmer, First Lieutenant, and Homer G. Hogan, Second Lieutenant. Company G of the 2nd Virginia Infantry, U. S. Volunteers, was commanded by Captain Ballard P. Hatcher, with William R. Engleby, First 15 �Lieutenant, and John W. Hancock, Second Lieutenant. Company F was mustered into the United States service May 12th, 1898, and mustered out of the United States service December 15th, 1898, one hundred officers and men. Company G was mustered into the United States service May 11th, 1898, and mustered out of the United States service December 15th, 1898,’ one hundred and four officers and men. The Virginian Railway built In the early part of 1905 engineers in charge of the work of surveying the line of the Virginian Railway from Deepwater to the coast, came to Roanoke after having made several preliminary surveys, one of which ran the line through the city just north of the Roanoke River. They were met by the citizens of Roanoke who showed a most cordial spirit toward the project to build the tracks of the new company through the city limits, and were assured of cooperation in the matter of securing a right of way at a fair price. The city government granted a free right of way through property owned by the city on the route along the north bank of the Roanoke River, which enabled the Virginian line to enter the corporate limits. An agreement was entered into and signed by business men and other citizens guaranteeing that the cost of the right of way of the road through private property should not exceed the sum of $40,000, and on the strength of this guaranty the road was built through the city, the line running just inside its southern boundary. This evidence of public spirit on the part of Roanoke’s progressive citizens secured the second through line of railroad and added materially to the transportation facilities of the city. After the completion of the road, which was built by Henry H. Rogers, a party of its officers, headed by Mr. Rogers, made an inspection of the line from Sewall’s Point to its western terminal. While on this tour of inspection the party was tendered a reception by the citizens of Roanoke as a mark of their appreciation of what had been done for the city by the Virginian Railway in the building of its line through the corporate limits. This inspection of the line by Mr. Rogers took place shortly before his death. A division shop and round-house have been established in Roanoke, employing quite a number of men, and a handsome passenger depot and a commodious freight station have been erected in the southern part of the city. Progress since 1892 When the “Decennial Celebration” was held in 1892 the population of the city was probably eighteen thousand, and those who participated were sanguine as to the city’s future. It is doubtful, however, if many who were present on that occasion believed that in the brief space of 16 �eighteen years the census would show that the population of Roanoke had doubled. During the years which have passed, the city’s progress has been rapid and substantial in every line of material development. Streets have been permanently improved, the matter of sanitation has received especial attention and several public parks have been established. The public-service corporations have kept pace with the city’s growth by supplying necessary transportation, lighting, water and gas, ’phone service, and telegraph facilities. New lines of railway have entered the city, the manufacturing interests have increased in marked degree, the wholesale and retail trade has grown phenomenally, and prosperity is apparent in every branch of business. When the project to establish a great National Highway from New York to Atlanta was taken up by the New York Herald and the Atlanta Journal, the proposition was welcomed by the citizens of Roanoke, who entered into the work aggressively, with the result that the city was desig­ nated as the half-way point on the route. This caused the building in this city of some of the largest and best equipped automobile garages in the State, and assisted in creating a senti­ ment which led to the building of better roads throughout the country adjacent to Roanoke. Several years ago an organization was formed in Roanoke by the ladies of the city known as the “Woman’s Civic Betterment Club.” To these devoted women is due in large measure the progress which the city has made in the acquisition of land for public parks, the increase in school facilities, better sanitation, cleanliness and orderly keeping of private premises, the abatement of dust and dirt nuisances on the streets, and the inculcation of higher ideals in many phases of city life. Their cooperation in work of Roanoke’s uplift and welfare has been of signal service to the community, and the part they have taken in the general scheme of development work is worthy of the highest praise. Much of Roanoke’s progress is due to the spirit of cooperation which animates her citizens when dealing with questions of public moment ; the city authorities and the various commercial and labor organizations acting in unison in matters concerning the welfare of the city. The statistical information contained in the statements pertaining to thè building permits issued, the annual record of real and personal property valuation, the bonded indebtedness of the city, and other data concerning municipal matters, all attest the splended strides that have been made. The Roanoke of to-day is the result of commercial cooperation, the utilization of opportunities, and the concentration of effort for the material development of the city. Proud of her past accomplishments, conscious of her natural ad­ vantages, resourceful and vigorous in her undertakings, she is the embodi­ ment of energy and progress—a queenly municipality, crowned with the well-earned prestige of notable achievements, and destined to occupy a commanding position among the progressive cities of the land. Her people are working for Roanoke’s further advancement along 17 �comprehensive lines, and with confidence inspired by supreme faith in her future greatness. A rare view of open land along the Roanoke River was shown from the top of the Mill Mountain incline railway in an early 1900s postcard. A busy day for traffic on the “new” road up Mill Mountain 18 �No. 47, the last streetcar in Roanoke, ran on the Raleigh Court-South Roanoke line on Aug. 31,1948. Plenty of horses and carriages and a few cars brought the crowd to the Roanoke Fair in the old wooden stands at the Victory Stadium site, shown on a 1909 postcard. Bonsack was the inventor An erroneous statement in the article on the late Rep. Clifton A. Woodrum in Vol. 11, Number 1, of the Journal was discovered by Deedie Kagey. In research for a history of Bonsack, Mrs. Kagey found that the article incorrectly said Robert H. Woodrum invented a cigarette machine. James A. Bonsack was the inventor and Woodrum was his attorney. 19 �piotei efTelix, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19TH, 1889. V Blue PointN on Half-Shell, with Spanish Slaw Puree of Fowl Long Island Clam Chowder Baked Red Snapper, Sauce Tomato • Spanish Olives Pin-Money Pickles French Pickles Pickled Red Beets French Mustard Green Onions White Celery Black Spanish Radishes Dressed Lettuce Cold Spiced Ham Cold Tongue Pickled Tongue Cold Sirloin of Beef Sardines Garnished with Lemon Cold Boned Turkey Fresh Shrimps, ^pn. Mayonaise Dressing Lobster Salad with Turkish Dressing Deviled Crabs in Maryland Style. Chicken Salad Roast Prime’of Beef, with Mushroom Sauce Roast Pig Stuffed with Oysters, Sauce Apple Momlette Roast Stuffed Turkey with Cranberry Sauce, Roast Teal Duck, with Currant Jelly Roast Tame Duck, with Dressing Roast Canvasback Duck Wild Turkey, Stuffed with Oysters .linklied Brown Potatoes French Pens Browned Asparagtin T*ps, with Cream Honey-Drip S;:gar Corn Assorted Cake Fruit fake Coconn at Macaroon Marble Cake Havana Cream Cake Lady Fingers| Gold Cake Pound Cake Angel Cake liemon Jelly P ort Wine Jelly Vanilla lee Cream Apricots Florida Oranges Kdam Cheese I California Plums Apples Malaga Grapes Baisi ns Bananas California Prunes Pineapple Cheese French Candies Assorted Nuts Filberts French Coffee Sweet Milk Brandy Jelly Claret Punch i 1 I I » ¡ I t I Imported Swifserláftd Cheese Alménds Cream Nuts Pecan Nuts Tea Vienna Bread Hot Bolls Good food was bountiful at the Hotel Felix in the Christmas season of 1889. The hotel once stood on the site of the Norfolk and Western Rail­ way office building across from Hotel Roanoke. 20 �Where we were in 1864 (g) by W. L. Whitwell Lee W. Winborne There are few reliable early maps of the Roanoke Valley to help the historian. Eighteenth century maps show only a minimum of detail in Western Virginia, however, the Civil War created a need for accurate maps. Confederate officers demanded good maps of the country in which they might maneuver. Many of the aimless movements of the armies in the first years of the Civil War were due to insufficient maps. When Robert E. Lee took command of the Confederate Army, he organized a topographical bureau for the making of accurate Maps. County maps of Virginia were made under the direction of Major Albert H. Campbell of the Confederate Topographical Engineers. Major Campbell organized surveys of each county from which maps were then prepared. The men making the maps had to “reconnoiter and survey the terrain with telescope and compass.”3 Their drawings were repro­ duced by hand tracing in a laborious process; the entire operation was hindered by lack of equipment and materials. At the end of the war Campbell wrote: “general plan of operation was adapted by placing full parties in each county, and maps of each county thus successfully surveyed in detail were constructed on a comparatively large scale. Confederate map makers were part of the fighting forces and they did their work only as time and conditions permitted. An outstanding record of Roanoke County in 1864 is found on the map by Lt. Walter Izard5 who was directly under Major Campbell. Izard was commissioned in the Provisional Engineers on June 2 0 ,18b2. He surveyed and made maps of Bedford, Botetourt, Orange, B °ck" bridge, Surry, Sussex, Southampton and Roanoke counties. Izard probably did not receive a directive to prepare the Roanoke County map for a specific battle, but rather he worked under the broad orders of General Robert E. Lee who wanted all Virginia counties mapped m case of need. Very little research has been done on the Engineering Departments of the Confederate army so it is difficult to establish Izard’s whereabouts at any time. He moved from place to place as needed for fighting, fortification building or map making. His assistant, John M. Coyle, and his draftsman, W. Hutchinson, are both named on the map. , . ,, The immense contribution of map makers to the war ellort nas long gone unnoticed; not only were their maps invaluable in battle, but • W. L. Whitwell, associate professor o f art at Hollins College, and Lee W Winborne, a leader in Society programs for years, found this interesting Civil War era map during their research for their new book, “The Architectural Heritage o f the Roanoke Valley. Both have spoken to the Society and they have worked closely with the organization. 21 �22 �The Izard map drawn almost a century and a quarter ago shows many names of families still in the Roanoke Valley and a number of place names no longer in use. Such locations as Hemp Patch Ridge, near Mason’s Knob, Shaking Rock on Windy Gap Mountain, Mid Circleville, just west of Salem, are no longer known. Mill’s Mountain is Read Mountain today. South of Big Lick (opposite page) were the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, Tinsley’s Ford, Shallow Ford and the Franklin-Botetourt Turnpike. Several fords are shown along the Roanoke River and many mills are on the map. Among the families on the map are Gish, Persinger, Read, Oliver, Wertz, Coon, Bandy and Kern. Near Salem (in map segment above) were the Chapman, Deyerle, Campbell, Witt, Garst and Trout homes. Garst’s Mill was just north of Salem. the men were also exposed to the same dangers from the enemy as other soldiers. Some of the surveyors kept journals on their experi­ ences in map making, but unfortunately, Izard did not.7 Izard’s map of Roanoke County on a scale of 1/40,000 makes an 23 �important contribution to understanding local history. Details of topography, particularly the identification of the position of buildings and their owners, are important sources for the historian. Most build­ ings are identified by the names of their owners, other structures are labeled mill, barn, cabin or “Tab. Ho” (Tobacco House). Fords on the rivers and creeks are located, but the Roanoke River is not labeled by name, even though its path is clearly indicated. Mill Mountain, familiar to all local residents, is identified. “Big Spring Mills” is noted at the base of the mountain near the river. Gaps and passes and most hills and mountains are also noted by clear elevation lines. The major roads through the county, generally in an east-west direction, are easy to follow. The only railroad, the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, runs through Big Lick and south of Salem from the east to the west. North of the railroad the city of Salem shows clearly with the buildings along what is now Main Street. Salem is the largest community shown. Big Lick was a cluster of eleven buildings. Buildings still standing may be identified on the Izard map by the names of their owners in 1864. The rectangular Scotch-Irish log cabin on what is now Route 785 in Catawba Valley is identified by the name of the owners at that time, the Doosings. The square English log cabin on what is now Route 220 belonged to the Murrays. Speedwell is shown as the home of Mrs. Harvey, located accurately above Back Creek. Joseph Deyerle’s many buildings on each side of the South West ^ rnP*^e> now Route 11 at Glenvar, attest to his wealth at the time. The Red Sulphur Springs Resort complex in Catawba and Hollins Institute at Botetourt Springs are located as landmarks. The fascination of the map lies in finding lesser known names to tie with buildings still standing. The John family building, site of Johnsville Meeting House, are some of these. Perusal of the Izard map can provide endless insight into the architectural history of Roanoke County. NOTES H ollins C oU ^ge,SVan ,n i9 7 7 T ,AppT l - 7 . IZ A R D S M A P ° F R O A N O K E C O U N TY (M .A .L .S . thesis, 2 C o rresp o n d en ce fro m M rs. M arie T . C apps, M ap an d M an u scrip t L i b r a r i a n IT <! M A temb“ y 2 6 T9a?7m e n t °* U n ited S ta te s M ilita ^ 3 Ib id . 4 Ib id . 5 T he original m ap o n tw o sh e ets, N o rth e rn S e ctio n an d S o u th e rn S e c tio n is in th e V lrglnia H isto rical S o c ie ty , P .O . B ox 7 3 1 1 , R ic h m o n d V a 2 3 221 MAP r-™<i!i>JFH5 r i '® N E E D E R A T E E N G IN E E R B U R E A U IN R IC H M O N D V A G E N E R A ! I E o v ' u E K n C H IE F E N G IN E E R . P R E S E N T E D T O T H E V IR G IN IA H IS T O R IC A L S O C I E T Y MAPHIFS 2 3 2 LRY6DA8 6 ? H T E R ’ F ‘ M IN IS ’ S A V A N N A H ,^ 6 C o rresp o n d en ce fro m M rs. M arie T . C apps. 7 S tin n e tt, W A L TE R IZ A R D ’S M A P, p .4 . T .. Early school A four-room frame New Lick School was an early school in Roanoke. It was located at the site where the Commerce School and later the old downtown post office were located at Second Street and Church Avenue. 24 �When knights were bold Big Lick Depot July 7,1871 Messrs. Editors: I take advantage of the short space before the arrival of the down mail to give you a hurried account of the little breeze of excitement with which our good people have been regaled in the past two days. According to announcement, the Tournament came off in the neighborhood yesterday. The Knights assembled at an appointing place about a quarter of a mile from the tilting yard and moved thither in gay procession. A track had been selected on the farm of Mr. B. T. Tinsley and well it was selected. A track situated at the juncture of two beautifully inclined slopes, forming seats in natural tiers, richly carpeted with soft grass and canopied with forest boughs. The Knights, a dazzling pageant, entered the grounds, amid approving smiles and cheering shouts. They moved like clockwork at the word of command from a rebel captain, who on this occasion added honor to that won in sterner combat. The line of Knights valiant, who arrived opposite the stand, faced to the right, halted and with uncovered heads stood ready for the charge. The speaker, Mr. J. L. Payne of Montgomery County, was briefly and neatly introduced by Capt. Moorman of this county. Mr. Payne delivered with unusual grace and ease a most appropriate and elegant charge. He very prettily touched on the Knight errantry in feudal times, its influence on politics and religion, and commended it highly in its present phase as an innocent and manly sport. The ladies received their share of compliments,, if the tongue pf man is equal to the task. Three lusty shouts from the line of Knights attested their appreciation, and off they pranced to enter the lists. The Knights were in costume and rode in the following order: John Crosier of Monroe County, Knight of Monroe, 7 rings and 1 tip; T. W. Crosier of Monroe County, Knight of the Cross Roads, 4 rings and 3 tips; Charles Bear of Roanoke County, Knight of Maryland, 1 ring and 3 tips; G. S. Luck of Bedford County. Knight of Dixie, 3 rings and 6 tips; W. H. Tinsley of Roanoke County, Knight of Bellevue, 4 rings and 5 tips; E. P. Harvey of Roanoke County, Knight of the Air Line, 6 tips; Devereux A. Langhorne of Roanoke County, Knight of the Highland, 6 rings and 3 tips; J. H. Kent of Roanoke County, Knight of the Daisies, 5 rings and (This account o f a jousting tournament at Elmwood, the home o f Benjamin T. Tinsley and later o f Peyton L. Terry, was printed as corre­ spondence o f The Republican, a Lynchburg newspaper. It appeared in Elmwood o f Roanoke, a 1968 booklet by Sydney T. Alexander, Tinsley’s granddaughter, and it also was preserved in the family o f Mrs. M. H. Stewart o f Houston, Tex., a descendant o f Dr. and Mrs. James McG. Kent and Mr. and Mrs. Yelverton Oliver o f Big Lick.) 25 �3 tips; L. P. Stearnes of Roanoke County, Knight of Elmwood, 5 rings and 4 tips; J. Johnson of Roanoke County, Knight of the Grey, 4 rings and 4 tips. Distance, 100 yards; 3 rings, 20 yards apart, time 7 seconds. Marshals: Messrs. McCaw, Franklin and Lewis. Judges: Messrs. Moorman, Kindred and Smith. Everything passed off pleasantly and quietly, though as I heard one gentleman remark, that in consequence of the thermometrical state bf the atmosphere, the contest was necessarily a warm one. I think, Messrs. Editors, you must acknowledge that our county tournament was a con­ siderable success, when you take into consideration that the Knights are very youthful and novices in the exercise. Your correspondent has been informed that not one of the above gentlemen ever poised a lance prior to this occasion, except the gentleman who took first honor. He has frequently been the successful Knight. Before leaving the subject, I wish to mention particularly the horse ridden by Mr. Devereux A. Langhorne, formerly of your city; a most exquisite thing in symmetry, carriage and color, a threeyear-old, as black as midnight and fiery as beautiful. A bandstand, walks, shrubs and flowers graced Elmwood Park after the in 1911 Roan° ke bought the ProPerty from the Peyton L. Terry family Since I have digressed from my determination to make no personal remarks, I must mention the consummate skill with which Mr. Luck managed his horse; it was the admiration of all present and his ill success is attributable only to the fact that the colt he rode was not bridle-wise. Mr. Kent s costume was acknowledged to have been the most tasty and complete on the ground. The coronation room tonight is a scene of dazzling beauty and giddy excitement. Capt. Moorman again came forward to introduce the speaker 26 �and in so doing gave the utterance to a little jeu d’esprit. Mr. Griffin’s address did him honor; his panegyric on the fair sex was beyond comment. One would instinctively say he is a lady’s man and a favorite among them. Miss Thomas of Montgomery County received at the hands of Sir Knight Crosier a crown of golden acorns with that royal dignity which marked her bearing during the entire evening. Miss Kent, the beauty of the neighborhood, was selected as first maid of honor by Mr. Langhorne, the Knight of the Black Horse as we insist upon calling him. Miss Kent on this occasion did herself justice which was the highest praise that can be bestowed and looked as pretty as usual which is as pretty as possible. Miss Scott, the belle of Franklin, received the third honor at the hands of the Knight of the Daisies (J. H. Kent). Miss Scott is a beautiful blonde and was dressed with exquisite taste to suit her style; well did she sustain on this occasion the character of belle. Many a gallant has suffered from the effects of those soft blue eyes. Miss Tinsley of Roanoke County (Minnie Holland Tinsley) was selected as third maid of honor by the Knight of Elmwood. The last honor was far from being the merit of this lady or her ¡gallant Knight, but one of those unaccountable decisions of the fickle goddess. The brave Knights, their fair ladies and the assembled company were regaled with a most sumptuous repast. The tables fairly groaned under the weight of good things. But this is only another demonstration of the fact that Roanoke is the garden spot of Virginia. And now these pleasant scenes are over, long will they be in the memory and talk of our county people. Sir Knights, we congratulate you on your brilliant success and hope you will be encouraged to an early repetition. Juvenis. Restrictive Laws Life often was regulated in 1884, the year Roanoke matured from town to city, even as it is today. Among the ordinances published for the new city were these: No person shall ride or drive at a greater speed than six miles an hour on the streets, under a penalty of two dollars for each offense. Any person who shall feed his horse, mule or ox on any city street shall be fined one dollar. No one shall attach a bell to any cow running at large in the city, under a penalty of five dollars. No hay, straw or long forage of any kind shall be stored in any house in which fire is used, under a penalty of two dollars a day for each day the offense shall continue. 27 �A Jefferson Street stroll at the turn of the century by Paul Stonesifer A citizen of Roanoke today may be interested in a glimpse of the business section of Jefferson Street about 75 years ago as I ask him or her to join me in a stroll. My starting point is a house at the northwest corner of Elm Avenue and Jefferson, built by my father in 1890, the year I was born. I walk down to Jefferson Street and turn left to begin this adventure. First, I glance across the street to the P. L. Terry property, now Elmwood Park, surrounded by a very attractive stone wall extending along the east side of Jefferson from Bullitt Avenue to Elm Avenue. The first house next to my home was built by H. C. Macklin and after a brief occupancy by him was sold and rented to several families over the years. The new brick sidewalk was laid about this time, replacing a board walk used for years. The next house is difficult to describe archi­ tecturally. It was a double house, the first part was one and a half stories and it was attached to a two-story structure. Across the alley is the Green home, built some distance from the street by K. W. Green, a pioneer jeweler of Roanoke. The next house of stone and brick was built and occupied by Dr. F. C. Tice, a pioneer doctor of the city. The next lot at the corner of Day Avenue was vacant. At the northwest corner of Day Avenue and Jefferson is a large frame house occupied by the Camp family for many years. The rest of the property down to Buillitt Avenue was vacant. A house was built at the corner of Bullitt by Levi Witt. The next 150 or 200 feet, now the site of the Patrick Henry Hotel, was vacant. Being level, it made an excellent playground. A baseball field was laid out and I remember seeing games there. On the southwest corner of Franklin Road and Jefferson was a large brick house which went by the name of the Rosenbaum home. I think it was built by Ed Rosenbaum. Across Franklin Road on the northwest corner was a vacant lot. However, a frame store building was built here in the early part of this period. A marble cutting firm occupied a lot in this block but it was not in business very long. The next lots were vacant down to Luck Avenue. From Luck Avenue to Church Avenue was vacant, however the Jefferson Paul Stonesifer, who had one o f the keener minds o f Roanoke's older residents, died at 92 on Sept. 30, 1982. Retired as vice president and trust officer o f First National Exchange Bank, he wrote this account more than a year ago o f a walk down Jefferson Street from his home at the comer o f Elm Avenue in the early years o f this century. He joined the bank as a messenger in 1914 and he retired in 1956. 28 �Paul S. Stonesifer, about a year before his death at 92 on Sept. 30,1982. A 1910 photograph, looking north on Jefferson Street from the top of the Strickland (First & Merchants National Bank) Building. The old First National Bank (laterthe Peoples Federal) Building at Salem Avenue and Jefferson is in the left background. Theatre was built at the northwest corner around 1903. This block, now the site of Heironimus, was undeveloped for years and a deep hole was the remains of the foundation of a skating rink, demolished by the big snow of 1890. We now cross Church Avenue' where Knepps Livery Stable occupied the corner property. This was the premier livery business of the city, where citizens rented space for their horses and where livery equipment was for hire. Knepps’ closed vehicles were largely used for weddings and dances. Next to Knepps was a small frame house occupied by a photographer. At the corner of Kirk Avenue, the Southern Express Co. built a substantial brick building which it occupied for years and it still stands. Across Kirk Avenue on the northwest corner the property was owned by the YMCA. This lot with a high fence was used for basketball, just coming into use then. The YMCA headquarters was in a frame building just west of the lot on Kirk Avenue. Next to the YMCA lot were three business buildings. The first was Vaughan Grocery Co., next was the Western Union Telegraph Co. and the Masonic Building was on the corner of Campbell Avenue. The ground floor of this building was occupied first by Thomas and Burns and 29 �next by Meals and Burke, a men’s clothing store. At the northwest corner of Campbell and Jefferson was the South­ west Virginia Trust Building. Adjacent to it was a small one-story structure about six feet from the sidewalk, partly occupied by Hiler’s confectionery business. The next building at the southwest corner of Jefferson and Salem Avenue was occupied first by Christian & Bud well, druggists and later by another drug store, Van Lear Bros. Across Salem Avenue on the northwest corner was another drug store, operated by T. W. Johnson and his uncle, J. C. Johnson. This was one of the oldest drug businesses in the city. Next to it was a shoe store and then a one-story building occupied in the early years of the century by the Busy Bee Restaurant, established by a Greek family. The next building, according to my memory was occupied by a retail hardware store. We now cross Jefferson Street and start southward on the east side. At the southeast corner of Jefferson and Norfolk Avenue is the building occupied by Barnes Drug Co. for many years. Next was a one-story building with several small shops, including a tailor. Another Greek family operated a restaurant in this block later. At the northeast corner of Jefferson and Salem there was a three-story building and I believe the Didier Grocery was on the ground floor. Across Salem Avenue at the southeast corner was the City Hotel. In this building Milan began his tobacco business. When the building was demolished, the location was occupied by a pawn shop and next to it Mr. Milan created a modern build­ ing in which his sons continued their profitable tobacco business. The next property was occupied by Ryland and Rankin’s Jewelry store. In front was a large street clock which can now be seen in down­ town Vinton. The next building was occupied by a shoe store owned by Mary Gray. Tailor & Payne’s’s haberdashery store was next and at the northeast corner of Campbell and Jefferson E. Wile operated a men’s clothing business. Across Campbell Avenue at the corner we arrive at the Terry Building, Roanoke’s first skyscraper and largest office building. The First National Bank and the National Exchange Bank were on the ground floor. Next was the Vaughan Building. The Post Office occupied part of this building for a while. Then on the corner of Kirk and Jefferson was an old landmark, the Fire House, of stone construction with a bell tower. I remember the date, 1888, in large letters on the front. The Fire Department occupied these quarters until it was moved to its present location on East Church Avenue. The vacant lot between Kirk and Church was used for many events such as small traveling circuses, temporary structures for religious services and a very elaborate carnival one year. I believe the first building in this block was erected at the northeast corner of Church and Jefferson by Edgar Nininger. Now we cross Church and see a one-story building on the southeast corner occupied by C. L. Saul Grocery. It had a canopy over the sidewalk. Saul later moved to a new building at the northwest corner of Jefferson and Franklin Road. Noble’s Livery Stable was next to Saul’s and I remember so well the night the stable was destroyed by fire, with the loss of many horses. 30 �The next lot was vacant until the Boxley Building was erected some years later. A. B. Hammond built a one-story structure on the southeast corner of Luck Avenue and Jefferson where he operated the Hammond Printing Co. for many years until his new five-story building was erected. The remainder of this block was vacant until a man known as “Cucumber” Lemon constructed a very bizarre home often referred to as Lemon’s Folly on the northeast corner of Tazewell Avenue and Jefferson. On the southeast corner of Tazewell and Jefferson, the lot remained vacant for years until the Elks Club was built about 1 9 0 3 ,1 believe. It remained until the club moved to a location off Brambleton Avenue. Next to the Elks Club was the Gale property, a large parcel fronting about 200 feet on Jefferson with a depth of approximately 250 feet. Dr. S. S. Gale, pioneer physician in Roanoke, built his home here. I remember the hitching post in front of the property and often saw his horse there await­ ing a call from a patient. This brings us back to the Terry property, the present location of the Public Library. Jefferson Street was not paved until later. The surface was rolled stone, full of potholes. A single streetcar track traversed the center of the street. The Terry Building, Roanoke’s first high-rise structure, was prominently located at the southeast comer of Campbell Avenue and Jefferson Street in this 1915 postcard view. Its round turret dominated the skyline. 31 �Roanoke’s first fire station by Warren L. Moorman, M.D. Roanoke, the city which grew magically from a swamp, owes its very existence to fire ^ the carefully stoked fires of railroad steam engines. Fire, friend and foe of humankind, by evidences of its use and control has been used by archaeologists to mark progress in the develop­ ment of civilization. And Roanoke’s growth can be measured by the development of fire protection and bench-marked by its fire stations. Historic and handsome Fire Station No. 1, built in 1905 on East Church Avenue,1 is actually Roanoke’s second fire station. The scattered buildings of Big Lick and Gainesborough had no fire protection other than impromptu bucket brigades. When the Shenandoah Valley Rail­ road connected with the Norfolk and Western and news of the Roanoke Machine Shops spread, people flocked to seek work here. “That pretty thriving village,” Big Lick, in about 500 days grew from less than 500 people to something over 3,500 and became the Town of Roanoke on February 3, 1082. In the Autumn of 1881 there were 119 buildings here and on January 1, 1883 the editor of “The Leader, ” S. S. Brooke, noted “now there are 456, and this does not in­ clude the foundations for twenty more.”2 Most of these buildings were hurriedly constructed of wood, closely spaced and highly flammable. Booming Roanoke was a tinder-box. On November 21,1882 some of the more concerned men of the town gathered in Rorer Hall to organize a fire fighting company. Known to have been present were P. L. Van Miller, Rush U. Derr, James A. McConnell, J. H. Sinker, R. E. Hardwick, J. B. Isett, J. M. Ambroselli (elected captain), Thomas W. Milled (first lieutenant) and J. J. Smith (second lieutenant). Also present were Henry S. Trout and Ferdinand Rorer. The first company called themselves the “Vigilant Fire Company.” Tn addition among the first group of about 40 volunteers were Joseph T. Engleby, John Engleby, James G. Knepp and James R. Terry. Some of these young men had fire-fighting experience from the towns in which they lived before coming to Roanoke. They had to solicit funds for equipment from local business firms and individuals. The Roanoke Machine Shop underwrote the cost of the first pumping equipment. The town paid for the first 500 feet of hose.3 When first organized, the Vigilants used a small clap-board carpenter’s building on the corner of Campbell and Henry or First Street (Miller & Rhoads’ corner) to house their hand pump, reel equipment and ladders. By an ordinance of May 7, 1882, these could only be used by the Dr. Warren L. Moorman o f Salem, a plastic surgeon at Lewis-Gale Clinic, has delved into local and regional history for years. A photographer and a careful researcher, he is an authority on Roanoke Valley medical history. 32 �Vigilants or loaned to others by order of the mayor. There was an old circular saw hanging by a rope attached to a pole adjacent to the lumber mill which served as the city’s first fire alarm. Pounded upon with a maul, the unusual sound could be heard throughout tiny Roanoke. When there was rain, the low ground around the mill became a quagmire forcing the Vigilants to pull their hand pump over the rough board-walks. A water tower was erected on a hill at the east end of Church Avenue, S.E. (Woodland Park) with a pump in or near the East End Shops keeping it filled from a near-by creek. In 1883, workmen laid 6,250 feet of 6-inch water mains. Branching from this were 10,900 feet of 4-inch pipe and 2,500 feet of 2-inch pipe serving 35 fire hydrants. The budget for 1885 included $1,200 for the Water Department, $600 for the Fire Department and $400 for the Department of Sanitation.4 Before leaving this first temporary building the Vigilants with the help of the railroad and Hotel Roanoke acquired equipment which was horse-drawn. They also at this time purchased a horse named “Vigie,” which grazed in the ample pasture along the creek running along the north side of what is now Campbell Avenue. The first fire of significance which the Vigilants fought was at the Terry store on the corner of Salem Avenue and Commerce Street. Dave Kramer’s nose was broken when a hose nozzle got away from the man holding it and whip-lashed across Kramer’s face. The Vigilants were assisted by citizens including L. L. Loyd and the Rev. W. C. Campbell.5 Fire fighting continued to be a voluntary activity attracting adven­ turous young men to the Vigilants organization. In 1884 a used horsedrawn steam-operated American LaFrance pumper was purchased from a Lancaster, Pa. firm and put into service. When the City Market Building was occupied April 19,1886, the Vigilants moved their equipment there. An appropriately loud bell was contributed by the N&W. The City Market area became so crowded and space assigned the Vigilants was inadequate for their growing equipment inventory. The area became very muddy after a heavy rain, making the race from there to any fire “up-hill all the way”. A local citizen whose name seems to have been lost from printed records gave a lot on the northeast corner of then almost barren Jefferson Street and Kirk Avenue for a new fire house. This was higher well-drained ground and was in the direction of Roanoke’s drift of growth. “Vigie” would have plenty of leg-room and another horse to share the pulling of added equipment. On December 6, 1887, voters approved a bond issue of $6,000 and $3,380 was designated for construction of an up-to-date fire house. The McCardle Brothers were low bidders on this first fire station constructed on the northeast corner of the Jefferson Street and Kirk Avenue. When the cornerstone was laid in 1888 for the first Masonic Temple on the corner now occupied by the First National Exchange Bank, the new fire station was nearing completion. By 1890, electric street lights were beginning to appear and one of the first was at the front door of the new fire house. In the rather imposing bell tower atop the hose tower was placed a bell weighing 785 pounds. It now is at Fire House Number 2 (actually 3!) on Noble Avenue, Northeast. 33 �Because it was designed to the then best standards, this firehouse had two bays for horse-drawn equipment, a stable area in the rear for off duty horses and second floor quarters for four men during their duty periods. Back of this was a hay loft. A meeting room called the “hall” toward the front of the building was said to have been “handsomely furnished like a club.” Here the brave young volunteer Vigilants held regular meetings, assessed themselves dues (initially $2 per month), levied fines against those with unexcused absence from fires and planned money-making events to purchase additional equipment so parsimoni­ ously granted by the city fathers. The first telephones appeared in 1888 and naturally one of the first was installed in the new fire house. City Council also approved one for the Court House and one for the City Market Building. And a few street alarm boxes appeared in the business section. When the alarm bell sounded in the fire house a rapid chain of action followed. Men jumped into their boots and rubberized coats, horses stepped into position before the pumper and harness was released from above them and quickly Roanoke Vigilant Fire Company members standing in front of the first fire department building about 1890. It was at the northeast comer of Kirk Avenue and Jefferson Street. 34 �snapped into place. A hose to the fire house boiler to keep the pumper’s steam pressure up was disconnected and as the vehicle thundered out onto Jefferson Street oil-soaked waste was ignited to produce a roaring boiler fire within minutes. The hose wagon followed. Because it was lighter it often arrived at the fire first. In the early 1890s chemical tank wagons came into use for smaller fires or where water was not available. A demonstration was arrangd in 1899 on a vacant lot across Kirk Avenue from the fire station. A frame shack was soaked with kerosene and ignited. To the equipment sales­ man’s dismay the flames roared so fiercely his chemical units failed and the volunteers hauled out their equipment and extinguished the threaten­ ing blaze.7 There were many memorable fires in Roanoke’s early years. In 1874 Messrs. Rorer and Son had a factory on the corner of Jefferson and Shenandoah Avenue, Northwest (where the oldest section of the N&W offices is located) which burned to the ground. On June 13, 1878 at 1:30 a.m. a large tobacco factory located near the southeast end of the 5th Street bridge burned to the ground with loss of about 100,000 pounds of tobacco. Bush and Carner’s Planing Mill and Lumber Yard, Shenandoah Avenue and 7th Street, Northwest caught fire in 1891. Fifty volunteers turned out in the middle of the night to fight the conflagration. Several employee houses were damaged or destroyed but a wider con­ flagration was controlled. In the Summer of 1892, the Third Ward Fire and Market house was completed and dedicated. In the Fall of that year, fire broke out on Commonwealth Avenue and when the engines arrived the pumps didn’t function properly and then it was discovered that the city water was turned off to the fire hydrants in that area. Frantic telephone calls were attempted but the lone central operator was fast asleep.8 In 1893, the Brunswick Hotel on the south side of Campbell, about one-fourth of a block west from the Jefferson intersection, burned and took the life of a man by the name of Clenedirst who lived with his family on the top floor of this hotel. Two women fell to their death moments before fire ladders reached the window to which they clung. Three adja­ cent buildings including the post office were extensively damaged. The post office relocated across Campbell Avenue. On April 30, 1900, fire destroyed the Lee Hotel (at the Southwest corner of Salem at 2nd Street, S. W.) without loss of life. The Bitterman building was built on the site. In an interview, J. T. Engleby Sr. and J. G. Knepp, two pioneers, recalled a fire in the early days on Marshall Avenue. It was an intensely cold winter night. Their hoses froze so solidly that it was with great difficulty that they returned the hose to the fire house.9 In 1888 another fire company was organized by W. H. Kester, George Williams and L. E. Lookabill, Jr. (organization president) with Williams elected chief. It was named the “Junior Fire Company”. The city was growing west as well as south and Rorer Hall was remodeled at a cost of $400 (loaned to the city without interest) to house the hose reel cart. Lacking full confidence in their quarters, they insured their equip­ ment (later two reel carts) for $1,000. With the opening of the new 35 �station of Jefferson Street all equipment was moved there.10 Roanoke was growing like a brush-fire fanned to and fro. Northeast began to fill with houses. In 1890 citizens of that area formed the Union Fire Company with W. H. Stennett as chief. Two years later it reorganized as the Friendship Fire Company. The Virginia Brewery Company employees sought the advice of L. E. Lookabill in forming the Alert Company in 1892 to serve the sprawling growth of Southeast Roanoke. This spirit of community service still strongly animates those dedicated volunteers who make up the membership of rescue squads, a public service which first became a reality in Roanoke and is now a vital part of communities world-wide. Considerable friendly rivalry developed between fire units. Compe­ tition to be first at the fire was great, at times so great as to interfere with the pressing business at hand. This was relieved by having races at the fair grounds each summer. There was a prize for the unit which covered one-third of a mile, laid 50 feet of hose and poured the heaviest stream on a designated target, sometimes veering off to douse the competition. Young Roanoke saw many juvenile happenings, for example the near loss of the new fire house on July 4,1890. It was decided the safest place to store fireworks was in the bell tower of the fire house. As four members of the department were rigging the display someone on the street ignited a Roman candle which blasted upward and as if drawn by a magnet landed in the bell tower, prematurely setting off the fire-works devices there. There was a fearful explosion. Luckily, being unconfined it did not do great damage and the fire was quickly extinguished. It was reported that the four men barely escaped with their lives. In 1903 the Council of the city named for Indian money heard the dictum of dollars, this time insurance rates, and voted on January 9 to establish a full-time professional fire department. They voted in the budget appropriations for a chief, an engineman, two captains and 12 fire fighters. Several large fires and many smaller losses preceded this decision. For a time James A. McConnell was fire chief but his duties as N&W shop foreman required more and more of his time so James G. Knepp who operated a nearby livery stable became chief with Joseph T. Engleby and Owen Duggan his first assistants. In 1893 the Vigilants stepped aside and the Junior Fire Company took over operation of the fire station. Volunteers continued to serve Roanoke until March 31, 1907 when the city put in place a full-time salaried department. James McFall was the first chief of this career force of firemen. He was followed in 1918 by C. C. Meador. After Meador’s death in 1930, W. H. Mullins became chief of the Fire Department. After the fine fire station on Church Avenue was occupied the city saw no use for the old Jefferson street property and sold it to C. H. and J. L. Vaughn for $15,000. The bell tower and upper 12 to 15 feet of the hose drying tower were removed and the area of the wide doors opened up into show windows. Over the next 70 years the facade changed many times as various businesses occupied the structure. Hanover Shoes and 36 �Stein’s Clothiers were the last two occupants. Few customers realized that when a Stein’s salesman went to the back of the store for some unusual item, he was ascending into the former hay loft which served as storage space. More than five years ago, when Randolph West, former president of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society, heard that Peoples Federal Savings and Loan Association, which had acquired the former Smartwear-Irving Saks building, planned to raze the old fire house and make an open area he made arrangements with the owner to inspect it for items salvageable for the Society. On Sunday afternoon, January 2, 1977, West and the writer made measurements and photographs. An alert watchman at the First National Exchange Bank observed two men on the roof about 3 p.m. and called the police. Fortunately, West had notified the police of our plans beforehand. The police came around and checked the prowlers nevertheless. In exploring the basement three former furnaces were found in addition to a modern gas fired unit suspended from a steel beam on the ground floor. The largest of these furnaces was fired continuously from 1888 to 1905 in order to keep the horse-drawn pumper water hot and 10 to 12 pounds of steam pressure. The other two furnaces were smaller and circulated hot air. The most striking and appalling finding was ashes and clinkers piled to a depth that almost reached the oak beams of the first floor. Many must have been the cold nights when still hot clinkers were dumped around the basement walls of this former fire house! The section of the fire house next to Kirk Avenue had been the Lynnhaven Kitchen, a restaurant in the 1920s. The old stove hood had not been removed. The horse stalls in the rear still showed the bare and heavily used concrete floor with hay loft above. The Vigilants’ meeting room was quite large. It was paneled in wood and even in its decrepit last days with most of the windows bricked over still gave a feeling of specialness and dignity. But the 70' years that it had served other functions left nothing in the way of salvagable mementos of its glory days. NOTES f t N O .I F IR E S TA T IO N IS C E L E B R A T E D , Jo u rn a l o f th e R o a n o k e H isto rical S o ciety , VOl‘ ^ B ^ R a y m o n i p . ' , A H IS T O R Y O F TH E « ^ Y O F R O A N O K E , P 1 0 9 . 3 . E n g leb y , J.T ., J r . an d K n e p p , J.G ., R O A N O K E TIM ES J a n . 2 8 ,1 9 3 4 . 4 . B arnes, P 1 3 7 . 6 . A n d r e w s ? ^ . C a rL R O A N O K E TIM ES & W O R LD NEW S, A pril 2 2 ,1 9 7 7 , C-5. 7 . B arnes, p . 3 3 8 . 8. B arnes, p 2 5 6 and 2 6 1 -2 6 2 . W E M A N O K E ^ S T O R Y O F C O U N TY AND C IT Y , A M ER IC A N G U ID E S E R IE S , 1 9 4 2 , p .1 3 6 -1 3 8 . 37 �How a railway clerk saw the new century On the first day of 1904 the first entry was made in the diary of a young office clerk at the Norfolk and Western Railway. Each day for the following 56 years a careful chronicle was kept of the happenings in Roanoke and around the nation. The time of his rising and retiring, together with the state of the weather became part of the record. The names of business firms in 22year-old Roanoke were recorded as he had dealings with them, and promi­ nent persons were mentioned when they figured in the news. Most interesting, however, were the events in the daily lives of persons working or living in his sphere of activity. Note the general custom of couples dressed in their finest walking to the homes of friends to visit for ° r S0- 0 n the way they miSht encounter a couple coming to see THEM! Note how quickly neighbor ladies came to help when sickness struck and they stayed until no more help was needed. A good number of respectable middle-class women catered to boarders. The diaries mentioned Mrs. Williamson, Mrs. Fagg, Mrs. Penn and others; and always added that the food was excellent. Any illness called for a hasty trip to the police station because only there was a ’phone available for most persons. A doctor routinely visited the sick at home, and in cases where an infant was tardy arriving, he just as routinely spent the night waiting. Mobs that gathered for good or evil were noted. A late-night fire bell always was well attended. A real or rumored violation of the moral code gave cause for the largest mobs. The offices of the N&W often took on the aspect of a club or fraternity. When business slowed, that was the time for writing personal letters When a baseball game was scheduled, the N&W closed about 4 p.m. so all could attend. Many times, following the supper hour, office workers re­ assembled to work, talk or just enjoy the fellowship. A gathering at the office on Sunday morning prior to church was not at all unusual. Visiting, other than the usual one or two-hour chat, took on many variations. Roanoke, being centrally located in the state, was a great place to stay overnight on a- trip. Relatives going to or from vacation spots stayed the night. Students en route from home to school stayed the night. With some regularity relatives living in Salem spent the night rather than travel by streetcar at a late hour. When furniture moving time came, the Pitzer wagon clop-clopped up Moj. Neal Payne, a former Roanoke resident who does artwork and research for the Pittsylvania County Historical Society, edited a diary written by his father in the early days o f this century. 38 �Frank G. Payne and his wife, Sallie Gilly Payne, in 1904 with its crew of amazingly strong blacks. No task seemed too large — a one-eyed black man in the crew lifted his end of a piano chest high and placed it from the orchestra pit onto thé stage at Lee Junior High School. Money in 1904 bought considerably more than in later years.. The young clerk’s diary noted with some alarm that the account with Hunter’s Grocery on Commerce Street had exceeded $18 for the month. The $25 per month rent for a large house in the 500 block of Church Avenue seemed less burdensome when the couple upstairs paid their $10 share. Water and gas together sometimes cost $1.50 a month. And so, day after day, from five days before his marriage until he closed his eyes at age 82, Frank Gravely Payne Sr. wrote some 20,440 daily entries in his diaries; noting what he did, what he liked or disliked, what gave him grief and what gave him a sense of pride. Here are some examples: 1904, JANUARY 1, Roanoke went wet by 981 and only 2664 votes cast. 2, Received my suit from DuRant . . . [Received ’phone call from a friend.] 3, Took breakfast at Catogni’s. 4, Got some flowers from Fallon. 6, Noted marriage to Sallie Gilly of Big Stone Gap. 39 �.7, . . . I board at Mrs. Allen’s and room at Mrs. Deal’s. 10, . . . preaching by Dr. W. C. Campbell. 15, (News clip): “At the meeting of the board of directors of the Norfolk and Western railroad in Philadelphia Wednesday, General Supt. N. D. Maher was appointed general manager . . .” 23, . . . to Landes, the photographer and had some pictures taken. 30, [A housewife] who lives opposite the P. O. & her child were nearly killed . . . about noon. . . . Large crowd of men around the jail & would have lynched the [suspected rapist] if found. 6, 8, 16, 26, FEBRUARY . . . to Kidd’s Studio and had some pictures taken. Paid my board to Mrs. Allen $30. [for one month -sr- two persons — two meals per day!] Great fire started in Baltimore yesterday at 10 and lasted till 3 today, 75 blocks and 150 million dollars. The Japanese-Russian war seems to be on in earnest. [The rapist] was tried and convicted to hang on March 18 and he and 18 companies of troops left at 2:10 . . . .. . went to see Dr. Buckner . . . MARCH 1, The N&W is stirred up over the proposed Wabash R.R. which seeks to enter Roanoke. 6, . . . to 2nd Presbyterian and preaching by A. Robotham. 23, Copy of the new Republican paper started here . . . APRIL 24, . . . walked to Franklin Springs. Do not like the spring— a flat mudhole. 29, . . . went to Green’s and was examined for glasses.. . 14, 15, 17, 23, JUNE Municipal election came off to-day . . . Cutchin, Democrat for mayor, has the only showing. J. H. Cutchin, Democrat, defeated P. C. Leary for mayor. See that Roanoke is to have a new depot. Norton is about wiped out by a fire as all the business part of town was burned. . . . went out to the Casino to see the Century Minstrels . . . JULY 28, . . . at Thurman, Overstreet and Boone looked at some furniture... 9, 11, 12, 13, 40 AUGUST Took dinner at the Arlington . . . Dinner at Jackson’s. The N&W has begun work on the new passenger station here. Breakfast at Royal Cafe. �OCTOBER 23, [ . . . attended by Dr. Burks] NOVEMBER 24, [Thanksgiving] . . . V.P.I. & V.M.I. game. V.P.I. won by 17 to 5. 1. 30, 31, 8, 2, 3, 7, 8, 24, 29, 16, 15, 20 , 5, 5, DECEMBER . . . Paid Hunter & Co. grocery bill $13.80. Our household ex­ penses for Nov. were $18.89. Paid room rent to Mr. Beadles, $10. JANUARY, 1905 Young banker and broker, charged with killing Dr. Fred Lefew, takes witness stand and recites story. Work begun on the new N&W office building. APRIL Nesbitt has finished excavating for the new office building and ready for the foundation. MAY At 10:45 fire bell rang & Catogni Bros, lumber yard on fire . . . Giant crowd and large blaze, entirely burned. JUNE Rec’d bills from Massie’s Pharmacy and from Dr. Fry. The east end of the old passenger station is almost torn down to make way for the new. The passenger station which is now being torn down to give space for additional track facilities was erected in 1881. . . . went out to Crystal Spring and looked at the new reservoir now building. The new N&W passenger station was opened this A.M. for the first time. JULY He [Dr. W. C. Campbell] scored the Casino and Academy goers. SEPTEMBER Went out to the Casino on car and watched the moving pictures for a while. OCTOBER I went toGreeneMemorial to the exercises as a reception to Dr. W. S. Neighbors, the new pastor. DECEMBER The K of P board of trustees met R. H. Angell at Damall’s office & rented a lodge room from him $12Vi for six months. JANUARY, 1906 Paid my bill at Airheart Kirk. 41 �23, The Tidewater R.R. has begun work in earnest here in Roanoke. FEBRUARY 1, Paid S. H. Heironimus & Co. $5 and C. S. Beller $3.15 for a refrigerator. 11, I went on car to Walnut St. Bridge & saw what work the Tidewater has been doing & took a few pictures. 12, Bill from the Roanoke Times. 13, Roosevelt has recommended G. L. Hart as P.M. of Roanoke . . . 18, Saw the skating rink now building on Commerce St. 20, Went by to see Kyle and while there the fire bell rang 44 and I thought it might be near home so I hurried out & found it to be in the Roanoke Times Building. The flames were coming out of every window when I got there & gutted the back end but were were soon under control. 21, The Roanoke Times came out as usual being printed by the Evening World. 22 . . . on car to Crystal Spring and took pictures of the basin. The new basin is empty now undergoing repairs. MARCH 10, U. S. Senate admits a new state, Oklahoma APRIL 4, At 8 to the First Presbyterian to a congregational meeting & they decided to sell Bethany in the N.E. to the Northern Methodists. 6, Lost most of the a.m. watching the derrick car unload iron for the overhead bridge at Jefferson St. Frank G. Payne standing beside the old Walnut Avenue bridge over Roanoke River on Feb. 11,1906. 42 �12, Hart’s nomination has been withdrawn & L. G. Funkhouser nomi­ nated P.M. of Roanoke. 14, I went to West End furnace and enjoyed looking around and seeing how iron is made. 18, News of an earthquake in San Francisco this a.m. at 5:13 and fol­ lowed by a fire beyond control; about 1,000 people believed to be lost. 22, At 8 to preaching at Second Presbyterian by Mr. Rowbotham. .. . My first time in the new church. 26, The N&W closed at 4 to allow all to go to the opening game of the Va. League baseball season. SEPTEMBER 5, The Vinton car went through bridge into Tinker Creek at 9 :30 a.m. and killed one Negro & injured several others, all whites. An old bridge & heavily loaded car. NOVEMBER 17, John Hardy who killed policeman Beard was convicted by Jury yesterday. JANUARY, 1907 6, . . . went on car to Vinton & walked to the Power Co. dam, com­ pleted and two dynamos in place and space for 3 more .. . 7, Saw a Tidewater engine getting ready to move; No. 14 a passenger engine —it was set up in the N&W shops. 18, . . . to the Academy to see “Prince of Pilsen” and was a very good show. MARCH 12, Mrs. Dr. Campbell died at Richmond last night in Richmond . . . MAY 19, A church meeting held immediately afterwards the church [First Presbyterian] decided to spend 20 thousand on remodeling the present church. JUNE 5, The N&W has started an innovation and will take in lady clerks in the car record office. 14, John Hardy hung for killing Policeman Beard, rope broke and was hung the second time. JULY 12, Sent 50<t for subscription to Danville Weekly Register for six months. 14, Last night some man had trouble in a Greek restaurant and as a result a mob broke up about 15 of them and completely wrecked them. As I came down town the streets were crowded with men looking at. the ruins, The wreck of the Greek restaurants is the talk of the town and there are many who take their side. 43 �17, The City Council last night approved the payment of damages to the Greek restaurants, which amounted to only $987. 30, [ The housewife who lives upstairs ] was sick all day and got worse along towards night and Dr. Gale came in to spend the night. At 12 o’clock I gave up my bed to him and went to sleep in the front room. 31, The nurse called Dr. Gale at 3:30 and a baby girl was born . . . shortly before day. SEPTEMBER 1, At 11 to preaching in the Skating Rink . . . The Presbyterians will be in there until the church is completed. 6, [ Reached ] Norfolk at 9 :3 0 . . . and on to the Jamestown Exposition. OCTOBER 23, President Roosevelt passed through about 8:15 and quite a crowd went down to see him. NOVEMBER 15, At noon the Auditing Dept, of N&W closed ’till 3 o ’clock in order to see the Fall Festival parade, about 10 automobiles and the same number of carriages —and quite pretty. DECEMBER 31, The financial panic and shutting down of business here makes the end of the year not so joyful. 2, 9, 22, 12, 19, 26, 44 JANUARY, 1908 Other departments of the N&W have been cutting off men, and the Auditor’s Dept, began today. Mr. McDowell worked on the subject all day but gave out no names. It is supposed about 20 men will be cut. The Seaboard Air Line Ry. went into the hands of receivers today . .. Fire in the S.E. during the p.m. and destroyed most of the Magic City Lumber Co. plant on Walnut Street. MARCH We saw the new house of Mr. J. B. Fishburn and is by far the handsomest house in Roanoke. APRIL J. H. Cutchin beat L. B. Davis in primary yesterday for mayor by 385 votes. Highland Ward elected Burns & Graybill, aldermen and Phelps, Trout and Fishburne, councilmen. Preaching at 8 at 1st Baptist Church by T. C. Skinner* “The En­ treated Life,’' and he was good. Condoned tobacco chewing as a luxury. People must not get so old that religion is the only solace and pleasure. MAY I went for a walk to the Passenger Station and to the Kimball �monument. 29, S. D. Lee, the last Lt. Gen. of the Confederate cause, died yesterday. 30, Stopped in at the First Presbyterian church which will be occupied again tomorrow. The main room was reversed and renovated to great advantage — floor not so steep & new seats, lights &c. The S.S. annex is large & well fitted & almost as large as the church. JUNE 6, Took dinner at Sheen’s Restaurant. 23, 27, 22, 26, 10, 29, 10, 26, 26, JULY Heavy storm & lightning struck the Watt, Rettew & Clay bldg, down town. AUGUST All went down town to see two moving picture shows. SEPTEMBER The Roanoke Fair opened today and wte saw the air-ship go up about 4 o ’clock. We had a good view of it & saw the evolutions. They were good and various. Took dinner at the Blue Ridge Hotel and did not have much. The hotel is scattered & old & much dilapidated and I did not like the water much. JANUARY, 1909 Mayor Cutchin has put on the lid and closed the shoe shines, cigar stores &c. for Sunday and will drive out the bad women. Campbell & Davis’ Mill burned last night about 12 o’clock— loss $80,000. FEBRUARY A fire alarm rang and I saw at once a fire in the attic of the new N&W annex and made for it at once. Went up on 4th floor & put away books and got out my personal belongings to carry with me. Mr. McDowell and Huffman were on the same floor and heard the roof fall in. I called to Huffman to leave and found the hall full of smoke and the stairway choked. It was hard to locate the rail but I went down in a hurry. The wind was blowing hard and the fire­ men were on top of vaults between the buildings. They kept the fire out of the passageway and when the balance of the roof fell in the rest of the offices were safe. APRIL Signed up to take a phone in our house; No. 1911-W. Va. & Tenn. Tel. Co. MAY Got supper on the dining car. Met with Gov. C. A. Swanson & he was very nice & talked of the home people [ of Pittsylvania County. ] SEPTEMBER 45 �3, There is much excitement over the reported discovery of the North Pole by Dr. Cook & there seems some doubt about it as yet. NOVEMBER 3, At 8:30 to the Colonial with Floyd and saw a string of vaudeville and the most interesting was a small woman whom no man could lift off the floor. 23, See that Dr. [ R. W. ] Fry died yesterday and am very sorry to hear of it. [A committee comprised of Dr. Ralph D. Brown, Dr. W. L. Powell, Dr. C. B. Lawson represented the Roanoke Academy of Medicine.] 28, Sent check for $2.84 to J. B. Batts for city taxes for 1909. Sent check for $2.13 to L. S. Davis for 1909 state taxes. JANUARY, 1910 9, Went to walk up 6th Ave. and the same has been opened to 10th St. and new houses galore and all alike. 15, Bought a gas mantle and it is a great improvement. 27, The anti-meat wave is sweeping over the country and many people are pledging against eating for a time. . . . About 6:30 saw the comet in the western sky and it showed up very well . . . MAY 3, To a meeting of the Board of Deacons [First Presbyterian] and voted to make Dr. Campbell’s salary $2,000. 11, Got up at 3:30 to see Halley’s comet and it showed plainly in the east with a tail about half across the sky. JUNE 10, At night went to moving pictures at the Jefferson. AUGUST 23 N&W closed at 4:10 on account of the ball game. At 6 all of us on car to Crystal Spring and up Mill Mountain on the new incline and it is a nice piece of work but I do not like to ride on it. DECEMBER 1, We heard of death of N. H. Hazlewood at Roanoke last night. [ Chief clerk of the auditor of receipts. ] 4, Caught train with 2 cars of N&W men to Montvale and home of late Mr. Hazlewood [for funeral.] 46 �Life on Highland Avenue in the early 1900s by Frances Lewis Halley’s comet is due to come back soon on its 70-year round trip in the solar system. One of my earliest recollections is of being held up on my father’s shoulders to see “Talley” from our back yard, on a summer night in 1910 when I was three. We lived at 366 Ninth Avenue, which of course is now Mountain. The house and yard, with a high stone wall and steep front steps, are still there. “Talley’s Tomet” became an old. friend; we must have seen it several times, both I and my baby sister Anne, who was two that August. She was not the baby for long. William Anderson (we called him by the double name: “M-An’son”) arrived in September and before Christmas we had moved to the big brick house at 455 (now 427) 10th Avenue, which the city was trying to call Highland. (All numbered avenues had recently been changed to names, and all named streets had just been given numbers.) The house had been bought from Dr. E. W. Speed, one of Roanoke’s early realtors (as was his wife, too) and as long as we lived there the name, SPEED, was to be seen cast in a concrete horse block by the curb. Of course we used it to climb onto the high running board of Daddy’s first car, a 1915 “touring model” Cadillac. As teen-agers, we used to sit on the horse block and talk to our dates — we never heard them tease the McNulty girls with that appellation, “speed”, but they probably did. , But all that, of course came later—I could write a chapter on Daddy s fascination with cars, which was slightly reminiscent of Mr. Toad of Toad Haii. . , . My very earliest sharp, clear memory is of being taken from my mother’s arms by strange people wearing white. At 18 months old, I was about to have my tonsils removed at St. Luke’s hospital in Richmond. I can feel the terror and smell the ether to this day. That would have been 1909, when Grandfather. William A. Anderson was attorney general of the state and lived for eight winters on East Sixth Street in Richmond, not far from his beloved first cousin, Archer Anderson (brother of Grandfather s first wife, Ellen), and also quite near his Glasgow cousins. (The “Ellen Glasgow House” at 1 West Main is now a museum.) Tonsils were just clipped off in those days. Mine grew back, and another sharp memory is of about eight years later, when I and some, maybe all, of the other four children had ours “out” at home. The operW m . Frances McNulty Logan Lewis, a director and longtime researcher and writer for Society projects, wrote this charming account o f her child­ hood days in the Old Southwest section o f Roanoke for her children and grandchildren. 47 �Peering out from a perambulator are Frances Lewis (left) and her sister, Anne Stone, in front of their childhood home, 366 Mountain Ave., S.W. ations were performed on the well-scrubbed kitchen table by Dr. Edward Cary Ambler, general practitioner, sometime surgeon, and beloved family friend. I don’t remember being at all scared, or minding the chloroform, either, that time. Daddy was so busy with his Kodak that my actual memories are sometimes mixed up with the one cherished album of black and white pictures which has survived. I had some of these copied for my brothers and sisters one recent Christmas. Here are a few pictures imprinted only in my mind: Mother planting sweet peas to grow on a chicken wire fence in the Mountain Avenue side yard. A “mother’s helper” named Mrs. Smith dropping a pot of scalding tea on me — I ran into her. (She did not stay with us long.) Chipping my beautiful new front tooth on my iron crib. Anne was in another white iron crib. I can see her now, standing up and holding on. I was about two and a half. A child across the street on Mountain named Pierpont Morgan —to this day I can hear the grown people giggling about his name. And I can hear Mother saying to someone, probably Miss Martha Wilson, that cer­ tainly we couldn’t play with those little Morgans who sometimes didn’t even wear drawers. The bathroom at 366 Mountain, I remember it because it had what I thought was a doll bathtub. Maybe it was a footbath; or was it a bidet? I do remember hearing something about Daddy’s “getting the best for mother” in those early days. All bathrooms, of course, then, had over­ head tanks and pull-chains, and gas hot-water heaters you had to light with a match. Except in our house’s best rooms, most electric lights hung from the ceiling on cords. 48 �At the new house on Tenth Avenue (Highland) our parents had put up four-foot-wide Mother Goose washable wallpaper panels around the walls of the nursery. It stayed there until Anne and I were in high school, when we got new wooden twin beds and new paint. (The old beds, like the cribs, had been white painted iron double ones.) “Hark, hark the dogs do bark”, with beggars in velvet gowns, I remember, and also the belled and be-ringed lady on a white horse at Banbury Cross. Tom, Tom the Piper’s son was seen stealing the pig, and the verse underneath ended, “and away he run.” We knew that was bad grammar. Years later, when I would take my children to the old Jefferson Hospital for their tonsils, I was charmed to find the same beloved Mother Goose paper on the walls of the children’s ward. Dear old Dr. Trout had probably chosen it himself. The only similar paper I know of now is the life-size garden-flower paper in the children’s dining room at the Homestead. Children used to have meals there with their nurses, I suppose; now no one does. I remember being taken into the Tenth Avenue nursery one morning to see our newest baby, beside Mother in one of those iron beds. The nurse was named Mrs. Rippitoe. I was five and a half. The new baby had long black hair and two teeth. Teeth and hair fell out before long and she had to grow them properly, like any other baby. I remember answering the telephone, which hung high on the wall of the front stairs’first landing. Dr. Ambler was calling to get the baby’s name in order to file a birth certificate. (Virginia had just started requiring them again.) Mother, who of course was staying in bed for three weeks, called down, “Mary or Margaret.” I told Dr. Ambler, “Mary-Margaret.” I suppose they got it changed later, for she is Mary Louise. We called her Weesie anyway, and still do. If you want to see what our Highland (Tenth) Avenue house looked like then, (it looks like a tacky apartment house now) examine the Louis Showalter home at the comer of ^venham Avenue and Twenty-Sixth Street, S.W. The oak paneling in the front hall, the basic plan of the downstairs and much else are just like our old house, though we made many changes later, as they have also. Upstairs there was a central hall, which we used to run up and down. Finally, when we’d banged off half of the plaster on the wall at the back end, where the long hall met a cross hall, our parents had that back wall covered with burlap instead of paper. But I still ate the plaster dust which trickled out when we hit it. I also remember liking the taste of red clay in the yard, when I was four or five. Which brings us to the subject of vitamins and minerals. My first year of life we lived at “Miss Fanny” Wilson’s. I heard later that the cook in their kitchen, having seen I was a puny baby, secretly fed me with potliquor from the greens she cooked, and rice water, and gave me a “sugar tit” ( a rag soaked in sugar) to mouth upon. She probably gave me chicken broth, too. Anyway, I soon waxed fat and healthy, with these additions to Mellin’s food, which my frantic parents and the widows and spinsters who lived at Miss Fanny’s had been trying to keep me alive on. Anne had scarlet fever when she was three or four, and even before that couldn’t digest many things. So for a while she was a very thin and 49 �pale child. Dr. Ambler and Mother gave her tomato juice —that, in an era when some very old folks still thought “love-apples” were poison — and she really improved with those minerals and Vitamin C. I do think that in their anxiety about her digestion they almost starved her, at first. I could chew on delicious chicken drumsticks; but poor little Anne had to be con­ tent with “toast-bones” . But in ten more years she was taller and much stronger than I. And now some words about “Miss Fanny’s” household at 365 Highland. The big white frame house, which has lately been torn down, stood in a grove of fine old oak trees (they at least are still there) with a flower garden, side lawn, chicken yard, and vegetable garden, wash house and vegetable cellar. Quite a few of Roanoke’s respectable establishments boasted such amenities, the place being still a country village in many ways. Before his marriage, Daddy had lived at “Crystal Spring,” Miss Annie McClanahan’s handsome home at the foot of Mill Mountain. I don’t know how he got to his office downtown in the Terry Building at Campbell and Jefferson, where he was in the law office of Judge John Woods. He prob­ ably walked, although a carline may have gone to Crystal Spring by then. Mrs. Annie McClanahan was a first cousin of “Miss Fanny” Wilson. (Incidentally, she was to become the grandmother of Allen Palmer, the artist. Her beautiful daughter, Henrietta McClanahan, remembered for great dark eyes and very prematurely white hair, married Charles Palmer.) So it’s natural that my newly-married parents, after a short stay at Hotel Roanoke, would board at “Miss Annie’s” cousin’s, “Miss Fanny’s”, on Highland (old Tenth) Avenue. There they were only a few steps from the Franklin Road streetcar, by which Daddy could reach the office in 15 minutes. As I remember things during the years 1910-1925, when we were growing up on Highland Avenue, Miss Fanny Wilson’s house always seemed full of their old lady relatives in black silk, interspersed with young ladies in prettier dresses, such as Lulie Terry ( “Miss Lucinda”), who often came by to see “Miss Fanny’s” daughter, “Miss Martha.” There were jolly Two men rode down Franklin Road at the Mountain Avenue intersection about 1910. �young bachelors too, who “made a fuss” over children (that means they were nice to us). The frame house and big yard were like a second home to the five littly McNultys. Miss Fanny’s long front porch was a wonderful place in summer. Children were allowed, if seen but not heard, and we listened to many a fascinating discussion. I remember that Judge R. C. Jackson was often there, debating with my father on all the big questions. Young Harvey Apperson boarded there until he married “the widow from Salem”—her third husband. (She was Louise Logan Logan Hansbrough; they built the house which is now the American Legion headquarters on what is now called Apperson Drive in honor of State Senator, .Attorney General and Supreme Court Judge Harvey Apperson.) Joe Chitwood stayed there until he married a golden blonde named Ruth and moved across the street. He loved to tell how he took a gallon of home-cooked snap beans on their honeymoon. Then there was “Sal,” Miss Martha’s aunt, Miss Fanny’s younger sister, my dearest friend in those days. My mother, knowing full well her friend Sal’s gracious fun-loving nature and her good influence for a little child, let me visit at the Wilsons’ for days on end. When Sal was in her early 50s she married a widowed Episcopal minister in whose home she had been a governess when she was a young girl, and he was the rector of the church in Bedford. She had helped him raise his two children, for his wife was an invalid. It was years after his wife died that he visited Roanoke and he and Sal fell very much in love. They used to take me for drives in his Model T, maybe to lend propriety! I still remember being shown the lovely thin dresses in her trousseau. Sal and Mr. Jones had been married only four months, living down in Grenada, Mississippi, where he had a church, when he died of pneumonia. So Miss Sally came home. I spent many a night in her high-backed Victorian bed. But she never knew that whenever I was there I, too, was awake at daybreak and saw her kneeling by a 9 hair across the room, her prayer book before her on the chair-seat, with her sweet wrinkled face slowly changing from agony to peace as she prayed. The family hoped I ’d play the violin and Anne, the piano. So I was sent to take violin lessons from a lady named Mrs. Henley, whom my father entitled Mrs. Haymaker-Heiner-Henley, hyphenating the names of her three husbands. She lived not far, across Franklin Road. So I ’d come back walking up Highland Avenue, carrying my little violin case and, often as not, drop in at the Wilsons’. One afternoon I rang their bell, expecting to walk right in, but was met at the door by Lavinia, the cook. Her starched white petticoats held out her starched white dress until it almost looked like a hoop skirt. She was really dressed up; but her face was very grave. “ M iss Martha’s getting married!” she whispered, and let me tiptoe in. There in the sitting room Miss Martha and Mr. Clifton Smith, who had been courting her for years, were standing before the minister, who was clad in his vestments. Over in the comer sat Miss Fanny, in black silk and lace, wiping away a few tears with a ladylike little handkerchief. So I was the only person outside that household of relations who attended the wedding of Miss Martha Wilson. 51 �A year later, at 41, she had a girl baby and named her Sarah Frances. I thought of Sarah Frances as my own child, and liked to believe her naming was for me, though of course it was for her grandmother and her great-aunt, “Sal.” Then another sad thing happened to that household. One day, when Sarah Frances was about two, her father was standing and holding her when he suddenly set her down, saying, “Here, Miss Martha, take the baby,” and fell over with what was then called a fit of apoplexy—and died. Of course, when he’d married Miss Martha, he’d simply moved into the Wilson home. So Miss Martha joined the widows and wore the black. The family group, surrounded and supported by relatives and friends, kept on with its busy, comforting routine. It was in that atmosphere that I spent some of the happiest days of my childhood. I loved being alone in their sitting-room-library reading and reading; or playing house with neighborhood children in a thicket among the oak trees, where there was a great grape vine for swinging high in the air; or pushing Sara Frances in her go-cart. We grew up in a world of independent women, and I don’t recall any conflict or tension between their numerous interests and those of the men. Mother belonged to the Civic Betterment Club. She worked for women’s suffrage, and along with Mrs. Orvis Kerns and a few others, came out boldly for Margaret Sanger’s birth control movement, forerunner of Planned Parenthood. Every Monday from October through April she went to the Shakespeare club, which had been started in 1893 by Miss Eliza Breckin­ ridge, a charming and scholarly maiden lady who had grown up in her father’s library at “Grove Hill,” Fincastle. By the time Mother joined “The Shakespeare” just before World War I, the club had begun to study modern dramas—writers like Ibsen, Shaw and Strindberg, upsetting as those inconoclasts might have been to a few of the more timid-minded ladies. The point here is that not many of the ladies or children we knew were timid. If circumstances were “straightened” they accepted the challenge in all sorts of ways, though the usual response was to run a pleasant boarding house with a good cook for three meals a day and good conversation every evening. But Miss Eliza’s niece, Mrs. Gordon Robertson, with whom she lived in a drafty frame house at the corner of Franklin Road and Albemarle (12th) Avenue, opened Roanoke’s first lending library, using the volumes saved from the burning of “Grove Hill” plus hers and Judge Robertson’s books. Few people wasted any time proclaiming that women could do any­ thing men could. For in the Roanoke of those days — in fact, all over Virginia, as we heard, read and observed — for this was only two gener­ ations after Reconstruction, women could do a lot of things that a lot of men couldn’t, or, at least, didn’t. Not only have babies, but run a full house, keeping the lives of servants, guests, children, husbands and live-in brothers, sisters or in-laws, in a fairly happy balance. I could name a hand­ ful who did this with an invalid husband, a ne’er-do-well husband, or no husband. Also, besides the army of excellent, dedicated school teachers 52 �and nurses, many women went downtown to work in various businesses and stores each day, although few owned their own. An exception to this last had been “Cousin” Lily Patton Kearsley Rhodes, who lived next door to us (across little 4V6 Street, in the middle of which stood the Big Tree — it’s gone now). She had had a sucessful insurance company in Radford before becoming “Rhodesy’s” third wife. I wish there was space here to tell all they added to our good childhood memories. But to get back to the comer of Franklin Road and Albemarle. People gathered in the Robertsons’ library not only for the books but to join in energetic discussions. Politics and religion were never barred. What else could be more fun than those dangerous diversions? I remember hearing Dr. Leigh Buckner raise his voice till it thundered out into the side yard where we children were often playing. There were Mary Stuart Buckner, my sister Anne and myself, and two Robertsons not much older: Sara, the dancer and bom comic, and Anne, the violinist, partly blind but so plucky. Just across Franklin Road lived Munford Boyd, a little older, also blind (totally), also plucky and fun, and beautiful to look at, as he is to this day, a retired University of Virginia law professor and judge. Often in the summertime, two beloved-by-us Robertson grandchildren came from Oklahoma: Anne and Bill Breckinridge. (Yes, their parents were first cousins and Maurice Breckinridge, their father, had been in W & L Law School with Daddy.) Sometimes we were privileged to witness one of the entrancing dramatic productions of the AORBC—the Ancient (or associated?) Order of Robertson and Buckner Children, written, directed, acted and sung by the older Robertson and Buckner youth. Mrs. Robertson composed poetry and music too. One Sunday after­ noon, in our parlor, Mother and Daddy and the Rev. G. Otis Mead, our rector, put on a mass baptism of four" as-yet-unbaptised little McNultys. After the ceremony, Sara Robertson, Anne McNulty and I sang Mrs. Robertson’s “Good Little Babies” for the assembled friends and godparents. The only ballroom dancing class I ever attended was at the Buckners’, organized by the Doctor’s daughter “Buffy” and her cousin Margaret, also a Buckner. The two teachers might have been 19 years old; most of us were 12 and 13. Boys like “Piggy” Morris, Charles Sanders, Billy Figgat, Joe Burgess and Buddy Weld didn’t think much of girls. Incidentally, as a roll of dancing class children, I may be remembering the names of our mates at Second Presbyterian Kindergarten a few years earlier; but it was very likely the same list. The only thing I can clearly recall about that dancing class is a session when the boys, led by Piggy, decided to dance only with sofa pillows, with which they also jumped in and out of the front porch windows. That day we danced no more, as Dante might have said it in an opposite context. Indeed, we girls would gladly have consign­ ed those little boys to the lowest circle of Inferno. Yet, only two years before, Piggy, as he told me later at VMI, had climbed up and carved my 53 �initials on a tree in the Lewis yard at Franklin Road and Mountain Avenue. Piggy s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Edmund Taylor Morris, always had memorable Christmas parties for the young people at their fine house on King George. The George Paynes (across from the Buckners on Franklin Road) regularly had one, too, where Frank Angell would play the piano divinely. The boys couldn’t misbehave at those dancing parties because cards were made out — and, as I remember, we all quite unexpectedly en­ joyed the planned swap-around dancing. Anne and I had, respectively, pink and blue (of course) georgette dresses with rosebud braid trimming. Boys, rowdy no more, but temporarily “little gentlemen”, were sent to escort us, carrying our dancing slippers in brocade bags. We ordinarily wore highlaced shoes and cotton stockings which had to be changed to slippers and silk when we arrived at the parties. Reminiscences like this wouldn’t sound real if they were put down in chronological order, for ideas don’t associate that way. So now I am suddenly seeing the kindergarten we attended so long ago. Roanoke’s very first, it was held in the little frame Sunday School building of the Second Presbyterian Church. Our teacher was dear red-haired Miss Larmoor. (Could it have been Larrimore?) Anyway, we all called her Miss Lawnmower. She and her assistant guided most of us: Annie Frank, Mary Wise, Lawton, the Woods twins, Buddy Weld, Charles Lunsford, Joe' Burgess and a dozen or so others, all the way through the first grade. But some dropped out after kindergarten and went to Park Street School (now Highland Park) to enter the “Primer” class under Miss Daisy Story, one of Roanoke’s truly great and famous teachers. When I entered Park Street in the third grade, a stranger, I had a real inferiority complex (which I still feel) because I hadn’t had two previous years at Park Street with that third grade class. But more of that later. The next school I went to for the second grade was further away in the small building still standing in the back yard of a big Franklin Road house (now tom down) across from “Lone Oak”, that handsome old Tosh-Rorer-Davis place, a Roanoke landmark which has also gone the way of so many landmarks. I don’t remember much about the little school, except some stories I was very proud of being able to read. I probably wouldn’t have remembered the teacher, a strict “old maid” named Miss Brown, except for Daddy s snapshot of her sitting in our new sun-parlor which had just been added at 455 Highland. She must have stayed with us at times, because I remember how she made me scrub out the basin after brushing my teeth. As I look at her picture now, it is plain she was not a very “old” maid, just a strict and determined one. Pendleton Tompkins was in the class. I think his “plain living, high thinking” parents had been instrumental in starting the school. In the next few years I spent many an afternoon at his picturesque home on King George it is still there. He is my twin, by the way. (They later moved to Lexington near our two maiden aunts and were close friends 54 �C. S. McNulty, a Roanoke lawyer, at the wheel of his first car, a Cadillac, about 1915. there, too.) Pendleton organized a group in which he was Robin Hood and I was allowed to be Maid Marian. With other playmates, most such imaginary activities usually ended in going off to play Kick the Can, or Run, Sheepie, Run, in the alleys, or Parchesi indoors in bad weather. But the Tompkins family, who unabashedly and actively loved history, art and music, seemed to create an atmosphere that this former child will not forget. For instance, when Pendleton was about six years old, they took him with them to Vienna for a world medical meeting, and then traveled around Europe. They brought us all presents — for me a Dutch costume (I have a shapshot) and a china egg cup from Wales on which is painted a Welsh tea party in tall-hat costumes,/with a little ivory spoon for digging out the egg. The summer I was seven, Mother had her fifth and last child, baby brother Charles, and Mrs. Tompkins had her second and last, a boy, Souther. I ’m sure that was another bond for their friendship. Indeed, I could name dozens of children who matched each of my sisters and brothers in age. Weesie even had three exact twins. The third grade at Park Street School (now Highland Park) tinned out to be one of the best school experiences of my life. It was because of our teacher, Miss Katherine Cralle. I never had a teacher anywhere with a greater ability to inspire. She loved and respected every child and expected our best. We soon were working, in and out of school hours, to build up our library of Riverside edition paper-bound classics (ten cents each), to decorate our room, and to prepare programs for our own and other classes. (Virginia Hall and I were loaned out to sing “O Little Town of Bethlehem” in other rooms at Christmas time.) We tended our window garden, both flowers and vegetables. Every week we learned poetry—Longfellow, Shelley, Lowell, Charles 55 �Kingsley, Pope, Browning, Tennyson-from our readers or our little library. We chanted the multiplication tables and the Twenty-Third Psalm. We said prayers and Bible verses and the pledge of allegiance every morning. We marched in and marched out, usually to piano music played by a teacher in the hall, the same piece every day. I can still pick out the tune on the piano. Every day we opened the windows and performed calisthenics, besides our romping recesses in the school yard, where we could roller-skate. Just as important as anything I ’ve recorded so far is the influence of Courtney Ann Rose Diamond. We called her our cook, and we did have other helpers: Nanny King, the laundress, and all her tribe when needed, and old “Uncle Allen” Watts in the yard. Courtney, though, was a second mother. A young black woman from our mother’s native Rockbridge County, with a little girl named Anna Kathryn, she came to us when Weesie was a baby ( “her” baby, of course). She and our parents were a team therafter, until Courtney moved to Washington so that Anna, a teen­ ager by then, might have more advantages. Anna and I were in the same grade, only hers was in the colored school. We often studied together. Courtney’s country schooling in the Virginia of that day may have been limited. But she had learned yards of poetry. We’d put on “shows” in the kitchen and she would declaim “The Wreck of the Hesperus”, or would dash up the enclosed back staircase (“Up the chimney he rose” ') as she enacted “The Night Before Christmas”, or would instruct Anne and me how to lie down and die while she sang “The Poor Little Babes in the Woods”. And this very summer, 1982, my brother BUI (who was in Roanoke for an amazing reunion of Miss DeLoache’s Kindergarten of 65 years ago) was fondly and gratefully recalling how Courtney had introduced us to the poetry of Paul Lawrence Dunbar. Just a few years ago Anna Kathryn came to see us at our hotel in Washington. By then, she was a handsome slender widow, with big brown eyes and slightly graying hair, who had raised a famUy, traveled to Europe and across the United States, and had, at that time, grandchildren in college and law school. Courtney, a very old lady, though stUl doing some catering for people had come to live with her daughter. Kathryn, as she was called in Washington, told me how her mother would often wake up smUing from a nap exclaiming, “I was dreaming of Mrs. Mac”. Kathryn told me an Old Southwest story that I had never heard. One day, when two children across the street called her a nigger, my loyal little spit-fire sister Anne dashed over into their yard and beat up both of them. Courtney Anna Rose Diamond and my two parents had the same standards of decency and friendship. In our yearly letters, Kathryn has told me more than once that she remembers our house as her home, her real chüdhood house, not just the quarters of the cook’s daughter. There is so much to tell. And I haven’t even mentioned our long happy summers at our grandparents’ tall Victorian house in Lexington 56 �between the campuses of Washington and Lee and VMI. Of all our child­ hood impressions, Lexington’s were probably the deepest. But that must make another story. , These pages are about our everyday life in a very small segment of Old Southwest, where Highland Park was our own field, our own woods (Daddy still called it “the Gish Woods”), our own hill for our sleds in Winter. In our 400 block of Highland was Mr. Morton Turner’s buggy for us to ride in, and the ice-wagons came by for us to climb on and scoop up shaved ice. At the far end of Highland was the Virginia Railroad with its all-night sounds of whistles and bells and shifting coal cars, and then the Roanoke River where we could sometimes wade or skate, with meadows beside it (now Wasena park) where everybody old and young worked in the Victory gardens of World War I. These people, those places, those events —that is the framework, the outside. How can you tell — why should you tell? — the inside life of a child not yet 12? The times of silent, bewildering jealousy, the dull long­ ings for all sorts of things you can’t have, the pain of nursing plans you just don’t possess the talent or the nerve to carry out? Such disappoint­ ments lie in layers under all daily life, you learn soon enough: You can t get the attention, the friendship, the love, of the little boy who sits in the back row in Miss Wallace Moir’s fifth grade. You get left out of the fun on 4V2 Street because you are no good at climbing the Big Tree. You love music desperately — the whole family does —yet you soon know (though your parents don’t) that you’ll never play like Anne Robertson. Sunday School is boring but you love church, with its beautiful language and the singing. What then? Well, the layers of frustration aren’t really so bad. They shake down into some middle level of,your personality. And surrounding everything is that framework, ever-changing yet somehow firm and strong. The older you grow, even though most of it is only a memory, the stronger it becomes. Three of the McNulty children—William Anderson (left), Mary Louise and Charles J r —were photographed on Highland Avenue about 1916. 57 �, Horace Engle a creative Roanoker by Edward Leos Engle explained that after 11 months with the Edison Laboratories he was granted a leave of absence, which he used to visit “The South | and because he was “deeply impressed by the resources and other attrac­ tions, ’ he resigned from the laboratories to move to Roanoke. There are many lab journal entries which indicate that the pull of the South was augmented by the push of disillusionment with the Edison job; he found the pay irregular and insufficient and he was exasperated by the interrup­ tions of his research. Nor did it help that the routine testing, which was responsible for the interruptions, was connected with what Horace regarded as Edison’s ore-milling folly. Horace’s judgment was prophetic. Before Edison could deliver his tirst shipment of concentrated ore, the rich ore of the Mesabi range flooded the market, and prices dropped to half of what they’d been at the project s inception. At a considerable loss to himself, Edison honored his contracts, and the ore concentration scheme turned out to be Edison’s greatest financial failure. Years later, Engle’s sarcasm—that one of the test samples would make good cement were it not for a trace of iron-became tact, when the ore-milling machinerey was put to work in the manufacture of Portland cement. To those who asked Horace why he had left the Edison laboratories he said no more than, “I can do better on my own,” a remark that his relatives seem to have regarded as simple egotism. Engle confined the expressions of his disaffection to his journal and thus was able to continue to draw upon his Edison connection for contacts, references, and image, the journal he resumed in Roanoke shows his words to be neither egoistic (Editor’s note: These excerpts and photographs from the book, Other Summers, are used with the permission o f the author, Edward Leos retired journalism professor at Pennsylvania State University, and the Pennsylvania State University Press. (The 1980 book tells o f the artistry o f Horace Engle, a photographer,, chemist, promoter, inventor and researcher at the Edison laboratories, who once lived in Roanoke. Engle, a native o f Marietta, Pa., lived from 1861 to 1949. He apparently lived in Roanoke from about 1891 to 1913. Engie is remembered mainly for his candid photographs taken with a Gray/Stim concealed vest camera. His pioneer work was done with a camera with no viewfinder and only one shutter speed and lens opening He lived in the home o f Mrs. Lucy Kent, widow o f Dr. James McG Kent a prominent doctor, from 1904 through 1911. Engle was the executor o f Mrs. Kent s will when she died in 1908.) 58 �nor supercilious. Virginia had been the focus of his interest ever since he began to re­ ceive Musser’s (his cousin, H. C. Musser) mineral samples. Each was tagged to a location or property. Variously, they promised iron, zinc, clays, rare earths, titanium, manganese, and occasionally pitchblende or gold. (Years after their separation, Edison told Horace of his continued interest in lowgrade gold deposits in the East.) In settling in Roanoke near his cousin, Horace was not a penniless or friendless immigrant, but a trained person, and part of a long-established migration of Pennsylvanians. Roanoke, terminus of the Norfolk and Western and the Shenandoah Valley railroads, was the transportation center of the southern third of the Great Valley between the Blue Ridge and Allegheny mountains. An extension of the rich agricultural land of central Pennsylvania, the valley had traditionally funneled the overflow of that state’s Scotch-Irish and Germans. Since colonial times the valley was known to be rich in mineral resources, and during the Civil War its mines and factories supplied the Confederacy with war materials. Horace’s estimate of its mineral wealth was corroborated by an 1883 report sponsored by the valley’s railroads, which claimed that many of the minerals Horace had found among Musser’s samples would be found in good-sized deposits within easy reach of their lines. Further study had convinced Horace that the region also held promise of oil, fullers earth, and natural gas; and he was alive to the possibilities of hydroelectric power. Roanoke had been created by charter and name change from the town of Big Lick. In 1890 the town and city could boast of a chartered existence of sixteen years. The youthful city’s vitality tended to make boosters out of casual visitors. “Roanoke,” wrote a reporter from Lynch­ burg, had “more patriotism, more dust to the square inch, more noise, more bootblacks and newsboys, and more hotels than any corporation on the American continent. It is preeminently cosmopolitan; the surging masses who throng the streets today will be gone tomorrow, and their places will be filled with others. . . . ” And it does seem that in its exuberance, in its carousing and gambling, the city resembled the Wild West more than the traditional South. Roanoke was riding a real estate boom buoyed by outside investors drawn from the North by agressive ad­ vertising and promotion. In six years its population had tripled. Diverse in population, short on history, long on hustle, Roanoke hardly was typical of the Old South. This impressed Horace because development rather than research was on his mind. Fortunately it was not primarily real estate development, for shortly after his arrival Roanoke was buried under an unprecedented 36 inches of snow. The suspension of business for several days following chilled the speculative fever of the inhabitants and insured the boom’s collapse, causing considerable financial distress. Horace, however, had plans for all kinds of exploitation. Not even his lack of capital discouraged him, for his confidence lay in his skills. He could prospect and assay, invent better processes and products, work up literate reports, imagine, justify, and project developmental possibilities of land and resources. 59 �The operations of the Roanoke Water and Gas Co. were photographed by Horace Engle about 1908. There was no denying that this boisterous new city, living completely in the present and receptive to risks not entertained in staid Marietta, Pa., was as promising to Horace as it was to the other ambitious young men who traveled down the Great Valley in search of a bright future. Horace pursued Roanoke’s promise for 25 years. Materially, the years were disappointing, and if reputation measures success, they were a failure. No local authority in 1972 Roanoke had ever heard of Engle— they had difficulty in spelling his name. As for Horace’s persistent dream of uninterrupted research, never during the entire quarter century was he to devote more than a week to any one project. Yet, although free of family and home ties, he stayed. His unshakeable self-confidence and faith in capitalist America set him apart from those who moved on after fewer disappointments. He raised persistence to the status of a credo: vincit qui patitur, “he who endures wins,” was the motto of his college class, and Horace quoted this in summation of more than one report of failure. The diaries and correspondence of those years evoke an image of Engle seated at his desk, viewing an empire just out of reach, sparkling with the agricultural and mineral wealth of eight states. Its allure is en­ hanced by the frenetic activity of his mind. The initials and surnames which swarm in the pages of the journal indicate that the conquest and 60 �exploitation of each treasure involves the formation of another company; each undertaking initiates a cycle of negotiations, agreements, options, contracts, incorporations, stock issues, and the floating of bonds. It’s this business, plus the care of accounts and the drafting of legal papers, which keep him at his desk. When, occasionally, he escapes, it’s to board and stockholders’ meetings, to inspect a potential property, or to seek money. Competent in mineralogy, chemistry, electricity, and engineering, he has no problems in dealing with the behavior of minerals and physical forces; but his business hinges upon persuasion—convincing a potential investor, selling a product, winning a signature—and these are neither facile nor predictable processes. All plans are contingent upon the actions of other parties, so that waiting is part of the process, time which he uses to initiate or pursue alternate projects. On any page of the journal, therefore, one can expect to see Engle working on one scheme while under pressure from others. A typical entry is that of August 24, 1896: “N.C. Talc,ScC Fe304! Patent work”- a day devoted to at least four projects. The days preceding and following report correspondence, papers, and designing on projects seemingly unrelated to any of the four recorded on August 24. Interwoven in the dense fabric of the Roanoke record, their threads interrupted and fugitive, are lists of men, organizations, schemes, products, and proposed inventions. Each jotting is a hope: one item brought to fruition may provide the means to pursue others. Engle’s papers indicate that this happened at least twice: a sale of a roll-film “indicator” patent to Agfa-Ansco, and the founding of the Appa­ lachian Power Company. The patent sale netted about $2000. The Appa­ lachian stock, whose dividends, according to H. P. Musser, were the main source of his support in later years, Engle received after much litigation, in 1914. One wonders how he subsisted before then. Keystone Mining, Pennsylvania Zinc and Iron, Monitor Steam Generator, Columbia Land Company, and Southern Exploration Company—companies from which, as an officer, he received modest stipends and expenses—were defunct or moribund before 1914. The only other source of income might have been consulting, and his continual indebtedness suggests this income was minimal. Six years after his arrival in Roanoke Horace was reduced to counting the change in his pocket. “Down to .05!” he writes one day in June 1896; his response to his predicament is the writing of the poem “Defiance.” The next year brought no improvement. The month before Christmas was a time of agonizing over the lack of cash for presents. Yet at year’s end he could write, “Dec. 31-E xit ’97, a year of precarious financial footing and uncertain prospects, and in a great degree a prepara­ tory period, geologically and otherwise. May ’98 yield the fruits of 97. Engle’s hope is more than the ability to dismiss past disappointments. Always on hand in the journal are promising prospects: iron ore whose iron content tests at more than 50 percent while yielding zinc and lead as by-products; paint makers interested in the ochre, umber, and sienna on properties under negotiation; local deposits of nickel, titanium, manganese, 61 �and rare earths, as well as building stone, clay, potash, and asbestos, re­ quire only the application of capital. In various stages of patenting are an interlocking paving brick, an improved trolley, a camera viewfinder, and an improved radiator valve. A typewriter design, a cotton mill, a pipe­ casting process, and a car coupler are on a back burner. This is but a sampling of the projects on Engle’s desk or in his mind on December 31, 1897. At the end of 1898 the list is bound to be longer, for the inventory grows with the years. The consequent dilution of his attention and energy is increased by his reluctance to drop any project. He may have set a record of sorts in his attempt to sell a deposit of fullers earth for a client in Georgia. The negotiations continued for 40 years, ending only with the client’s death in 1937. Persistence, broad interests, and multiple skills are virtues when con­ trolled. Engle’s vices were uncontrolled virtues. Periodically, his journal complains of the lack of time for his “own” research and development work. Yet his own reports tell of evenings spent composing poetry, of submissions to Harper's and Scribner’s, of short stories written and queries sent, of cartoons submitted to Funk and Wagnall. He finds time to take lessons in hypnotism, to compete with a design for a Columbian halfdollar, and to compose an involved solution of the silver question. A simple request for the landscaping of the grounds of the Roanoke Water and Gas Company he converts into the design of a riverfront park, devot­ ing, in the process, an inordinate amount of time to research and corre­ spondence for what he knows will be minimal and reluctantly advanced compensation. He is not entire unaware of his shortcomings. One Sunday, after reporting a discussion of one of his inventions, he writes, “Improve! Maj. and Mrs. William Munford Ellis and their two children, Lion and Julia, of Shawsville were photographed by Horace Engle in 1912. 62 �A self-portrait of Horace Engle about 1908 Discipline! Organize!” But he never solves this problem, universally recognized by his friends. A 1933 letter from Edward L. Stone, Roanoke printer and publisher, advises, “I hope that some of these times you will come into your own with your general knowledge of geology and the minerals, and other substances in our vicinity, but I still think you have to make up your mind and concentrate on some matter that you can carry through to a successful conclusion, and not let your mind and energy be diverted from that particular thing, whatever it may be.” The Kent household was the setting, and its members the subjects, for many of Horace’s Roanoke pictures. The nature of the relationship is visible in these excerpts from a letter written in 1908 to “R. H.” of Lancaster: For over ten years I have been living with a family by the name of Kent who are just like “home people” to me now, but they have had business misfortunes in the past, before I came to Roanoke, — and have never been able to own their own home since I have known them. The family at present includes Mrs. Kent, who has been a widow for many years, and three grandchildren. Her grown daughter who really took care of her and raised her grandchildren (her nieces and nephew) died less than a month ago so that I am particularly anxious to do what I can to make a pleasant home for all of us at least for the next few years. The oldest niece who is now living at Winchester, is Superinten­ dent at the Hospital there; her two sisters who are nearly grown are at home with their brother who recently came to Roanoke 63 �Mrs. Lucy Kent, widow of Dr. James McGavock Kent, is shown in a 1908 photograph. Engle lived with the Kent family from 1904 to 1911. where he has secured a position in the Norfolk and Western offices. . . . The boy, the sister at Winchester, and myself together can make ends meet and all live comfortably, but to do so with satisfaction, we now find we must get a house of our own, or at least one where we can stay just as long as rent or interest is paid and where we have a chance to buy such a place as soon as suffi­ cient money can be gotten together for that purpose. Where we lived for several years up to last fall we made great improvements in the yard by planting vines and other plants and in keeping all in attractive shape. When we went there everything was almost as bare as a desert. There was not even good grass in the front yard, and nothing but weeds in the neglected back yard, but it was in a good neighborhood and we soon made a very different place of it as you will see from the enclosed photographs. Almost all of this work I did myself before breakfast and late in the evening. You can understand how this comes natural to me. At any rate, it is a great satisfaction to do it and it gives me exercise which is needed by one compelled to be indoors as much as I am. . . . The balance of the letter presents Horace’s request to R. H. that he purchase the house for Horace and the Kents to rent and improve. I t’s obvious that Horace is no mere boarder. His attachment serves the household’s needs as well as his own; and there’s evidence in the papers that his sentiments 64 �were reciprocated. Mrs. Kent, in fact, appointed him executor of her will. In another 1908 letter to Edward Hughes, a friend of the family, it’s evident that Horace perceived his role as fatherly: Matters are going well at the house. Not without the little family troubles, annoyances, and sometimes heartaches, perhaps, but just as truly, not without the daily “growth in grace” that comes from mutual helpfulness and forebearance. There is still room for betterment in more ways than one, but there is also the daily joy and good cheer which brighten up the occasional trying tim es.. . . O A N O K C .V i. Ladies and gentlemen were sporting at the Roanoke Country Club when these postcard views were made about 1904. In those days, the club was located in South Roanoke near the present fire station. Roanoke’s Market Square was a gathering place for a variety of horse-drawn vehicles, sellers and buyers when this picture was taken about the turn of the century. 65 �Economic development in Southwest Virginia by Harold W. Mann Before the railroads came, the Blue Ridge was a barrier. In time this ancient range was breached and bypassed. In the 18th century the Valley and highlands behind the Blue Ridge became a corridor. From Lexington north to the Potomac, English colonial culture was leavened by the entrance of the Scots and Germans. Southwest of Lexington a more open pioneer society developed in the corridor to East Tennesse. Southwest Virginia was also a way to Kentucky through the Cumberland Gap before the National Road made it easy to get to Kentucky via the Ohio River. In 1792 the Cumberland Gap became the southwesternmost point of the Old Dominion. By then, to Eastern Virginians, the Blue Ridge divided the state into two unequal halves, one dominated by the ambiance of the true Virginia, the western part a’ puzzling less-than-mirror-image. To early residents of the Shenandoah Valley and the highlands southwest of Lexington, the Alleghanies, the ridges west of the Blue Ridge, were a dividing line. Beyond, settlements centered especially on the Kanawha and in the Ohio counties near Pennsylvania, reachable from the upper Potomac. Throughout the region west of the Blue Ridge, the valley and hillsides became both waystations and permanent homes for the descendants of British Isles and European yeomen. Beyond such farming and stock-raising as was possible and elemental handicrafts the economy centered on income from the travel routes themselves, from a modest trade in iron products of furnace and forge, and from the promotion and resale of real estate. The near limitlessness of land in a new continent made land specu­ lation a most important early industry. In Virginia after the 1790’s the largest tracts available were west of the Alleghanies—in the hundreds of thousands of acres. The cupidity of a De Witt Clinton in New York and banker Robert Morris in Philadelphis was stirred to buy huge acreages in expectation of future settlement, hence handsome returns for resale. Lesser names like James Welch and John Beckley also bought timbered lands west of the main Alleghany ridge, some of them in the Greenbrier New River quadrant.1 By the 1820’s the lands of Virginia were known to some British investors, who were also interested in the bonds of A history professor at Radford University, formerly Radford College, since 1963, Dr. H. W. Mann is a Georgia native. He holds degrees from Emory University and the University o f Wisconsin and a doctorate from Duke. The author o f a number o f papers, he wrote a book on Atticus Green Haygood, published by the University o f Georgia Press in 1965. This paper was given by Dr. Mann for the Roanoke Col­ lege Symposium, “Beyond the Blue Ridge Before 1900,” co-sponsored by the Society and the College. 66 �coastal states with lands. For 20 years, until the early 1840’s, the pur­ chase of state securities in North America operated at near the frenzy level, ended by the first of many retrenchments. After a boom in the real estate of open acres of Maine, Englishmen were more interested in the lands of Pennsylvania and Virginia.2 Through buying of state bonds, Englishmen began an underwriting of turnpike, canal, and railroad projects which opened up new areas to development: the state govern­ ment of Virginia bore three-fifths of the cost of internal improvements.3 By 1832 the house of Baring Brothers in London for the first time sold the securities of Virginia to Europeans.4 At the time, the British were the foremost exporters of capital, as they would be for nearly a century. The return on investments in North America was higher than that for investments at home; slave and free states benefited precisely during the decades of transportation network enlargement. It was therefore to the advantage of Americans to keep Europeans informed of new enterprises. Before the Civil War, for the Southern Appalachians, the British were not much interested in the modernization of iron furnaces; Britain was the first iron-processing nation and still sold even railroad rails to the United States. The news of a bituminious coal field stretching from Western Pennsylvania to Alabama was another matter. In the late forties and early fifties English geologists confirmed the findings of American surveys. In western Virginia, a seven-year search by William Barton Rogers, a University of Virginia professor, disclosed numerous coal seams surfacing at the banks of eroding stream channels. British commercial judgment following these disclosures was to the effect that expensive and deep shafts would be necessary to reach the widest part of the seams. Besides, in the late 1840’s, the Southern transporta­ tion system could not yet get coal out in volume.5 So it was Baltimore A Virginia coalfields scene at an unidentified location was shown on this postcard about 1900. 67 �money followed by New York money which was first attracted to the first extensive coal-mines in the Southern Appalachians, those of the Georges Creek region of western Maryland. The coal could be shipped in flat-bottom boats from Cumberland, Maryland, down to Georgetown on the Potomac.6 Less accessible to major population centers were the known coal resources of the Big Sandy River in eastern Kentucky, of Kanawha salt mines, of the Fairmont region in Northwestern V irg in ia before the arrival of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the early 1850’s, and the southern Cumberlands in Tennessee even after the in­ ducement of Northern capital and the completion of the Nashville to Chattanooga railroad. With British inventors still skeptical, alert wouldbe financiers in Louisville, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Phila­ delphia, New York and even Boston could see the likely contours of the economic development future.7 For some, in seaboard and river cities, the chief interest lay in the development of transportation networks themselves—as the competitive reach for markets became more ambitious. The duel between Eastern seaports for the trade of the Mississippi-Ohio River Valley heightened a map consciousness of existing and possible routes. The eyes of surveyors and engineers were challenged both in their travels and in their reading of map plats by the real prospects of jobs in grading for turnpikes, canals, or railroad trackage. Engineers were fascinated by the success of railroads on almost the steepest grades, because the load could be shifted through strategically planned curving ascents and descents. Promoter-types in the cities—and in remote crossroads along the pro­ jected routes—hastened the stage of incorporation of companies. A new art-form was the calculation of just the right amount of capitalization, on paper, to convince stock-purchasers of a new company that it already had major financial backing and was certain to bring a bonanza in return for investment. Yet the early decades of the railroad era were most completely a time for dreamers, using real or fancied straight-rules, who drew bold “air-lines” on the map of the Eastern United States between urban points. The drawers of lines joined New York to New Orleans (through the Southern Appalachians), linked Cincinnati to Charleston (through the Southern Appalachians), connected Louisville, on the Falls of the Ohio, to the Atlantic (through the Southern Appalachians). It was also natural for those interested in the Virginias to project a link between Richmond and the Ohio River, either by a canal through, or a rail­ road over, the central ridges of the Alleghanies. (Pennsylvania had proved that actualization of that dream was almost feasible.) In 1847, as the turnpike era waned, the Staunton and Parkersburg pike was completed, passing through a remote Monterey over the mountains to Buckhannon and Weston, the latter on the upper reaches of the Monongahela. In 1854, partisans of a central route which could carry heavier loads than wagons on a turnpike, hence more freight and passengers, gathered in convention at White Sulphur Springs, already an important spa. They planned to lobby the Virginia General Assembly for support of either a canal or more likely a railroad from Covington 68 �to the Ohio River. The legislature responded though to counter lobbying pressures and vetoed the idea. Commercial interests in the Valley and in what is now Southwest Virginia joined with the proud nabobs of Richmond in killing a development they considered threatening to their best interests.8 Richmond’s commercial expectations from western trade were satisfied by the completion of the James River and Kanawha canal to Buchanan, in the cleft of the Blue Ridge, in 1851. However, eight years later there was enough support generally in the state for the legislature to cooperate with major investors from Bordeaux, France. The Bellot Company, creditors of Col. James Swan, had succeeded to the ownership of 500,000 acres in coal and timber lands in the NewKanawha valley, and bought the James River company with the inten­ tion of completing the canal. The coming of the Civil War fortuitously thwarted this conclusion to a dream going back to the 1780’s.9 Fortunately for the Confederacy of 11 Southern states, the rail­ road network was fragmentarily complete by April of 1861. The Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio ran from Lynchburg to Bristol on the Tennessee line, where now state-subsidized roads linked the battlefronts of Virginia to the resources of Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia. One of the major railroads of the South linked Chattanooga through northern Alabama to Memphis. The Chesapeake and Ohio, known then as the Virginia Central, had been built during the 10 years preceding the war to Charlottesville from Richmond, and by tunnel through the Blue Ridge to Waynesboro, and further to two miles west of Clifton Forge. The Virginia Central sent an Agent to England during the war to buy rails, but circumstances kept the line from being extended. West of the Alleghanies the Baltimore and Ohio joined Wheeling, West Virginia, on the Ohio River, with the upper Potomac counties of the Old Dominion. Unfortunately for the Confederacy, George B. McClellan in 1861 secured the entire route of the B&O for the better binding of the Union.10 ' • From the end of the Civil War in 1865 to the beginning of the First World War in 1914 was a 48-year span in which the railroad net­ work of the Southern Appalachians was completed. The Chesapeake and Ohio, reorganized by Collis P. Huntington of California fame and nine other New York capitalists in 1869, was completed to the new city of Huntington in West Virginia by 1873. The road followed the central New River-Kanawha route to Charleston.11 The old James River and Kanawha Canal bed through the Blue Ridge became part of the track­ age of the Richmond and Alleghany, which followed the north bank of the James to Clifton Forge after 1879.12 In 1881 primarily British investors sold the Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio to Philadelphia and New York interests. Renamed the Nor­ folk & Western, it became the main coal road for the Pocahontas seam of Tazewell County, Virginia, and later for coal lands in West Virginia south of those reached by spurs of the C&O. By agreement with the important Louisville & Nashville railroad in 1887, the L&N and the N&W built toward each other to a point in Wise County, in what would be known as the Clinch River coal field after 1891. The new city of 69 �Norton, named for Eckstein Norton, president of the L&N, marked the L&N’s eastern terminus.13 In the Shenandoah Valley, parallel routes were built to the Potomac. The Blue Ridge railroad completed from Waynesboro down to Roanoke soon merged with the N&W. The western Valley railroad from Harrisonburg down to Lexington belonged to the B&O system.14 Between 1902 and 1909 the Virginian Railway was built as a coal road from the New River field in West Virginia as a competitor to both the C&O and the N&W; its route in Virginia ran through Montgomery County and Roanoke to Sewell’s Point on Hampton Roads.15 Comparable railroad building in other states opened the Southern Appalachians from Maryland and West Virginia to Georgia and Alabama for large-scale development in a first phase of economic modernization. The phase really began in the 1870’s and lasted until the severe de­ pression of the 1890’s. A boom psychology in the 1880’s affected almost any Appalachian venture advertised. Expectation of windfall encompassed mica mines and tourist hotels in western North Carolina, prospective vineyards on the slopes of the Blue Ridge in South Carolina —not far from new textile factories, rejuvenated gold mines in North Georgia, manganese, zinc, lead, and tin mines in western and Southwest Virginia.16 Land booms in northeastern West Virginia, western North Carolina, and in far Southwestern Virginia often occurred where mineralrich acreage was topped by heavy stands of virginal timber.17 By the midpoint of the 1830’s it was clear that the resources most likely to entice English investors were the iron ores of the A p p a la c h ians The U. S. as a major iron-and-steel-producing nation no longer imported heavily from the British Isles, and the American industry was profitable for its owners. Now that the transportaton network was reaching re­ mote mountain areas, and a variety of soft coals could be mined and shipped to both the new iron furnaces and Eastern and Midwestern urban homes and businesses, it was important to buy in early. In December of 1884 the London Economist, a major commercial journal, reported that Eastern...pig iron makers have been surprised to learn of the sum total of Southern (coke and charcoal) iron which has come East in 1884. In consequence, the Lehigh furnaces...have reduced prices... . One of the Lehigh men said...that...the Lehigh and Schuylkill men do not intend to permit the South to sell 100,000 tons of pig iron to the East in 1885... 8 Nevertheless, in 1885 Virginia’s nine furnaces alone, most of them west of the Blue Ridge, shipped 71,150 tons to Eastern cities, for the one year far outstripping Alabama’s 22,814 tons. Within a few years Southern pig iron (and rod iron) became a major part of the supply for Midwestern iron and steel operations.19 A great expansion in the number of furnaces in North Alabama after 1886, and in their volume of pro­ duction, caused Virginia to lag behind; between 1890 and 1910 “Alabama...dictated the price of pig iron in the United States.”2 0 70 �The Crozer Iron Furnace, lighting up the eastern sky of early Roanoke, was located near the Norfolk and Western Railway’s Roanoke Shops. In an effort to compete with the older Pennsylvania and the newer Ohio and New York-New Jersey furnaces, the Southern states used coked coal, a technique which would be considered outmoded after 1910. (In the era of the “beehive” coke ovens, the New River and Pocahontas coal fields were second in producing coke coals only to Pennsylvania.)21 The coal boom was foreshadowed by the expansion of sales and coal acreage owned by the Consolidation Coal Company of Maryland; the early peak of its coal tonnage came in 1873, the year a panic her­ alded the depression of the 1870’s. West Virginia’s emergence as a premier coal-producing state owe«} much to the Consolidation Com­ pany, the ambitions of Senator Henry G. Davis, and the C&O’s opening of the Logan field. Eastern Kentucky came into its own after 1900, with whole new counties opened to coal-mining by British and American capital.23 The Norton Coal Company of Southwest Virginia had British backing at its incorporation in 1894, as did the two long-distance railroads servicing the area. The peak of investor interest in the Clinch coal field paralleled the time of expansion in Kentucky; the city of Norton was at its most opulent about 1906. The expectation of a north-south as well as east-west railroad outlets through the Clinchfield region heightened investor interest and speculative activity.24 The projection of railroads through far Southwest Virginia, 37th latitude, 83rd longitude, went back 40 years. Forty miles farther southwest, in 1861, a short railroad stretched south from Morristown, Tennessee, toward the North Carolina line, bearing the grandiose title of the Cincinnati, Cumberland Gap, and Charleston.2 5 After the Civil War, a parallel construction was that of the Knoxville and Charleston which, it was claimed in 1868, “will constitute a link in the chain of railroads extending from the Ohio River, at Louisville and Cincinnati, to the Atlantic coast, at Charleston...”26 As an outlet from the Jellico 71 �coal fields of the Tennessee-Kentucky Cumberlands, this offered im­ portant enough a route for the N&W and the Richmond & Danville syndicates to fight over the ownership of East Tennessee railroads. Also in 1868, the Virginia and Kentucky, a railroad with its office in Abingdon, was projected on paper west to Cumberland Gap for 100 miles. Capitalize! on paper at $2,500,000. it had less than $200 000 subscribed, hence was never completed. Its chief engineer was Gen. U C. Wharton who in 1872 would incorporate the New River Railroad Mining and Manufacturing Company of Radford.2 7 Before the depression of the 1890’s staunched optimism, four other lines were designed to tap the Clinchfield area.28 The Kentucky Union, aimed from Lexington and Jackson, Kentucky, for Big Stone Gap, went into receivership in 1891 before it was completed to Jackson 29 On the Atlantic side of the Blue Ridge, the Danville and East Tennes­ see, a thinly capitalized extension from Danville west in a ruler-straight line paralleling the North Carolina-Virginia boundary to Bristol was announced in 1890.3 0 A more substantial projection from the east was that of the Cape Fear and Yadkin Valley Railway which had been com­ pleted to Mt. Airy near the Blue Ridge at the Virginia line. The 1890 plan was for its extension northwestward to Ivanhoe in southern Wythe County, near Austinville. Ivanhoe, on the New River, was the site of a modern iron furnace and the terminus of the N&W’s Cripple Creek extension. 1 The most ambitious of all the new companies was the Charleston Cincinnati & Chicago, announced in the Investors’ Supplement of the New York Commercial and Financial Chronicle in early 1888 The projectors planned to build first from Rutherfordton, near Shelby North Carolina, south toward the port of Charleston. A year later there’ was an excited report that the contract had been let to build “from Rutherfordton (north)...to the new town of Minneapolis, in south­ western Virginia, at the crossing of the Clinch River, where the line will make a junction with the Norfolk and Western... , and probably with a proposed eastern extension of the Louisville & Nashville, which is to come through Big Stone Gap.” The announcement affirmed that this opens up the richest mineral, timber and coal country on the conti­ nent, not excepting Pennsylvania.” The route from North Carolina was penciled through Johnson City and the town of Kingsport in Tennessee, to Estillville (Gate City), Virginia, and on through the Breaks of the Russell gorge on the Kentucky line, to join with the existing north-south railroad to Ashland, Kentucky.32 i In ?ei?,te,m,ber 1889 a chief director of the enterprise, Wharton Barker of Philadelphia, reorganized it, but the economic vicissitudes of the early 1890 s caused it to suffer another reorganization before it was bought at foreclosure by the bondholders.3 3 A decade later, in the return of boom times for coal and for securing investment money, . George L. Carter, a Southwest Virginia native, bought the franchise rights of the railroad for a syndicate.34 Now with money enough for the route was drawn slightly differently from that drawn in 1888. At the southern end, it ran from the vicinity of Rutherfordtown, 72 b �The Virginian Railway tracks along the Roanoke River were crossed by the old narrow gauge railroad bridge near present Wasena Bridge. The narrow gauge line was built to haul ore from the mines south of Roanoke to the furnace in the Norwich section. North Carolina to Spartanburg, so as to use the route of the 10-year-old Southern Railway system to Charleston. Another new system, the Seaboard Air Line, provided a direct outlet from Rutherfordton, through Charlotte and Hamlet to Wilmington on the Atlantic. The new name chosen was the Carolina Clinchfield and Ohio Railway. To manage the road, along with Southwest Virginia railroads, the Virginia Iron, Coal & Coke Company, and other properties, Carter organized the Clinchfield Corporation, and then in 1906 a holding company called the Cumber­ land Corporation. In 1909 the Carolina Clinchfield & Ohio achieved incorporation under the laws of South Carolina (after much difficulty), and in 1914 the railroad ran from junction with a C&O extension at Elkhorn, Kentucky through Clinchfield and East Tennessee and the Great Smokies of North Carolina toward the Atlantic at both Wilming­ ton and Charleston. The holding company owned terminal facilities at the mouth of the Cape Fear River in the environs of Wilmington.3 5 An essential part of the story of economic development after the Civil War is the history of state indebtedness. As mentioned earlier, British enthusiasm for buying the bonds of Virginia went back to the 1830’s marketing by Baring Brothers. Railroad bonds were bought in Europe even during the Civil War. With Reconstruction governments issuing new bond issues in support of state transportation lines after 1868 there was a new flurry of interest on the London Stock Exchange in the bonds of the slavery-free Southern states and in a few select rail­ road securities, considered safe even for the most cautious country-bank portfolios. With the waning of Reconstruction, the Southern states had difficulty paying quarterly interest on even the state bonds quite early, and the depression after 1873 guaranteed immense difficulties. A “crisis of recognition” stunned London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Frank­ furt investment circles. The inherent weakness of the tax base in the 73 �impoverished South became more and more evident. All the Southern states had problems, and nearly every railroad in the South experienced reorganization if not receivership.3 6 The political reaction of the indebtedness in Virginia and Alabama during this period of travail of the 1870’s was instructive of differing political and investment climates. In Alabama, a conservative Redeemer” governor put as the highest priority the restoration of the state s credit reputation in order to recapture the investment environ­ ment of the late 1860’s. As part of the settlement after 1877, the creditors of the semi-public railroads and of the state got hundreds of thousands of acres of Federal lands (transferred within 10 years to Alabama) and the railroad from Chattanooga running through mineral lands to booming Birmingham and on to Gulf ports. The railroad was renamed the Alabama Great Southern, with its principal offices and directors in London. Thus, British money had a direct stake in the modernization of the iron-producing facilities of Alabama, as well as in coal production, and by 1890 Alabama had achieved industrial suprem­ acy in the South.37 Disadvantageous timing and political accidents made for a less ebullient future for the industrialization of western Virginia. The period of economic recovery in the late 1870’s and early 1880’s coin­ cided with the dominance in the state legislature of the Readjusters and the U. S. Senate career of William Mahone. Mahone had crossed swords during the 1870’s depression with John Collinson, resident agent for British investors. Partly because of Collinson’s personal dis­ taste for Mahone, largely because the conservative Funders lost political control, there was a virtual embargo of new British money for Virginia enterprises until 1880. In legislative acts of 1879 and 1882, the Re­ adjusters, as their name implies, sharply reduced interest coming to owners of the state s securities. Into the 1890’s there were fevered negotiations for a better settlement, interspersed by litigation In contrast, Alabama seemed to be guaranteeing a high income. In 1886 the London Economist lectured that “The Southern States are beginning to develop rapidly, and Virginia might naturally expect to considerably better her position before long. A different attitude to her creditors would no doubt distinctly help... .”38 A complete, somewhat sullen history of the debt was the subject of an 1891 editorial in the London journal: ‘Englishmen find it difficult to understand how such tactics as have for the past quarter of a century been resorted to in respect to Virginia finance can be tolerated... . But American States are not like counties here, and when they repudiate there is practically no appeal.”39 It was in the face of this disenchantment that promoters sought British money for Western Virginia in the 1880’s. Continued interest in N&W securities on the London Exchange was a helpful sign-C&O stock was not listed, seemingly because official London classed C. P. Huntington with the wicked railroad syndicate-wrecking entrepreneur Jay Gould, with whom Huntington had dealings in the 1880’s. The N&W’s alliance with the Louisville & Nashville road in Southwest Virginia helped, too, because Europeans owned 75% of the L&N debentures and stocks.40 74 �In spite of the embargo in the 1870’s, the quest for funds began. Major Jedediah Hotchkiss, who had seen coal outcroppings in the Pocahontas-Flattop field during the Civil War, read a paper in 1873 on the mineral resources of Virginia before a London audience. An abridged report by Hotchkiss was published by the state in 1876.41 In 1881, John Wiley & Sons of New York City published a book by another Virginia civil and mining engineer, C. R. Boyd of Wytheville. Its ex­ plicit title was, Resources o f South-West Virginia, Showing the Mineral Deposits o f Iron, Coal, Zinc, Copper, and Lead... . Boyd began with the statement that what Virginia needed was to “show up our resources in a proper manner; thus bringing in many men of capital to willingly help us not only bear our burdens, but create new facilities for making money, in the erection of furnaces, etc., and in the building of new lines of railway.”4 2 The 300-page survey, by counties, mentioned gold-bearing rocks in Montgomery, zinc-reducing at Martin’s Depot in Pulaski County, the round-house and railroad repair shops at Central Depot, coal, iron and zinc in Wythe County, especially in the vicinity of the old lead-mining town of Austinville, and various facilities at Saltville. The author noted that the plaster companies in Smyth County hoped, in 1881, that “within a year or two, either the Richmond and Southwestern Railroad, or the Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio... will be built through...their properties.” He also enumerated the as yet undeveloped coal, iron, and timber resources of far Southwest Virginia counties. (These were perhaps better known already to coal men in Pittsburgh than to Boyd, through the contacts and effusions in Pittsburgh of John D. Imboden, who had lived in Washington County .)44 It was Jedediah Hotchkiss who for six years, 1880 through 1885, assumed the role of chief publicist of the mineral riches of Virginia and the New River field of West Virginia. In Staunton he published a monthly mining, industrial and scientific journal. Named The Virginias, it was read by mining engineers, and speculators, from Pittsburgh, to Cincinnati, to London. The first two issued in 1880 set the tone of boosterism. Philadelphia-financed coal companies were in operation on the line of the C&O. A Massachusetts company was enlarging the zincreduction activities in Pulaski County. The building of modern cokefired iron furnaces in Western Virginia had begun. In late 1880, Hotchkiss mentioned the rebuilt Lucy Selina, and the Low Moor furnaces in Alleghany County, William Milnes’ironworks in Page County, two furnaces in Augusta County, and a new Callie furnace near the rail­ road in Botetourt. (The Low Moor furnace was one of several properties in the Virginias owned by A. A. Low of New York City, one of Hunt­ ington’s associates in buying out the Chesapeake & Ohio.)45 In late May and June of 1881, through the urging of Hotchkiss and Boyd, the American Institute of Mining Engineers held its annual convention in Staunton. At the conclusion of the paper-reading sessions, Hotchkiss arranged an excursion by chartered railroad car to Waynesboro, then via the Shenandoah road up to the manganese plant near Crimora station, and on to the Shenandoah Iron Works near Elkton.46 75 �The Virginia Bridge & Iron Co., a longtime leading industry in Roanoke, was followed by the American Bridge Division of U. S. Steel Corn, and Ingalls Steel today. During the six years of publication, Hotchkiss considered the most promising development to be that headed by Capt. William Nelson Page. A cousin of Thomas Nelson Page—the contemporary author of tales of “01’ Virginia,” William Nelson was a civil and mining engineer. In 1881 he was able to interest the British owners of the Mount Carbon coal mines in the Hawk’s Nest section of the New River in organizing the Iron and Steel Association of Virginia, Limited, at the time of a craze in buying mining securities. The company’s main endeavor was to build and operate an iron furnace at Goshen, to be named the Victoria Furnace after the British Empress. The company owned 10,000 acres of iron lands mostly in Rockbridge County, and its furnace was to be fired by cokes processed at the allied operation at Hawk’s Nest. The large 100-ton-daily-capacity Victoria Furnace “blew in” in May of 1883, but because of high manganese content in the iron ore had to “go ou t” for the first time in April 1884, to be relined. Page had access to no technology which would help purify the ore, arid despite further attempts, the Victoria Furnace was abandoned. He nevertheless retained the backing of his British investors, and was even promoted to be the general manager at Mount Carbon. Another ambitious project, to use the phosphorous-laden ore of Greenbrier County, also failed. Page’s entrepreneurial skills would be tested again in the organization of the Virginian Railway from Deepwater on the New River, in West Virginia after 1898.47 British money helped form the Southwest Virginia Improvement Company which developed the mining town of Pocahontas in Tazewell County, Virginia, and the residential showplace of Bramwell across the state line.48 In 1882 the Holston salt works were bought by English and Northern capitalists for a million dollars.49 There was English 76 �money with Pittsburgh money in the American Manganese Co., Ltd. in eastern Augusta County.50 A November 1889 issue of the London Economist advertised the organization of the Virginia Development Company, with capitalization at $5,000,000, “to promote and encour­ age the establishment of mining, manufacturing industries, etc., in the section of the country tributary to the lines of the Norfolk and Western and Shenandoah Valley Railroads... .”51 In 1893 Samuel Dixon, backed by Eastern, English and Scottish stockholders, formed the largest consolidation of New River coal mines at the time; it was called the MacDonald Colliery Company.5 2 American money developed the Crozer Furnace in Roanoke and the Low Moor in Clifton Forge, the latter in operation until 1926.5 3 As Barbara Hensley and George Kegley have written, an industrial town called Bessemer, in Botetourt County, during 1889, bore promise.54 More successful was the industrial acreage east of Waynes­ boro, called Basic City in 1889.55 Luther Addington’s history of Wise County recounts the attempt by rival groups of Charlottesville investors to found the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul on opposite banks of the Clinch River, in a land-speculation boom from 1885 to 1889. The flier collapsed even before long-distance train trackage arrived. Today, a much diminished St. Paul, within the eastern nub of Wise County, is all that is left of that dream.56 To conclude this sketch of Southwest Virginia’s early economic development, I should like to call attention to the careers of two men, J. Hoge Tyler and the already mentioned George L. Carter. After General G. C. Wharton, the future Governor Tyler was Radford’s chief promoter. His boosting of the New River Valley region began in the 1870’s when he was in his twenties and still living at the family’s estate in northern Pulaski County which he called Belle Hampton. “Tyler’s main interest in politics at this time was to promote the economic development of the Southwest... , the expansion and improvement of cattle production, introduction of sheep, improvement and introduction of feed grains, and the stimulation of the lumbering and mining industries.”57 Tyler won a State Senate seat in 1877 in his 31st year, and during the Readjuster period was torn between a desire to reduce the state’s tax burden and his booster instincts; “he feared that ‘forcible’ readjustment...would destroy the honor of Virginia and discourage any further movement of capital into the state.”58 At the time, his main property was the Bell Hampton Coal and Iron Company, estimated to be worth $100,000. He was deeply involved in the land boom of the 1880’s, and in 1890, his first year as lieutenant governor, incorporated the Radford Development Company. He hastily built an imposing chalet-style mansion called “Halwick” in East Radford to entice other industrialists to come to reside in the railroad city and perhaps inaugu­ rate new factories. (There were numerous examples of this kind of residential-industrial promotion in the Southern Appalachians at the time, notably by Senator Henry G. Davis at Elkins, West Virginia; the British town of Middlesborough in southeastern Kentucky; and the Boston-inspired city of Ft. Payne on the Alabama Great Southern rail77 �As a sleek engine built steam, Walter Wade and his crew prepared to make a Shenandoah Valley run on the Norfolk and Western Railway about 1910. In 1906, workers were photographed during the construction of the generating plant at Niagara Dam, still in use by Appalachian Power Co. on Roanoke River below Vinton. The 2,500-horsepower hydro­ electric plant was built by old Roanoke Water Power Co., a pre­ decessor of Appalachian. 78 �road in northeastern Alabama.) In the 1890’s the depression caught up with Hoge Tyler, and he was forced to close his mines for over a year. The Radford Development Company was bankrupt. Ten years later, in early 1903, when the ex-governor returned to Radford, he sold his mines to a Northern company, and spent his energies in revitalizing the development company in the prosperous times until the Panic of 1907. His last important venture was securing a two-year state normal school for East Radford in 1910.5 9 George L. Carter was about 10 years younger than Hoge Tyler, having been born in Hillsville in the late 1850’s. As a young teenager he worked as a clerk for a local mining company, and later for the Virginia Coal and Coke Company. As a very young man, he became office manager and bookkeeper for the Wythe Lead & Zinc Mine Company in Austinsville. Through his association with George T. Mills who built the Cripple Creek extension of the N&W into Carroll County, Carter ambitiously set his sights at the managerial level of the Eastern men who financed the expansion of the 1880’s. It was Carter who persuaded some New York investors to merge scattered interests—furnaces in Pulaski, Roanoke, and Johnson City, with mineral lands in Wise, Buchanan, Wythe, and Carroll counties. Carter became the president of the South and Atlantic Railroad from Bristol into the Clinch River field. After the reorganization of the Kentucky-to-the-Atlantic railroad, he quietly bought up lands at Kingsport, which the railroad reached in 1909. In 1915 Kingsport, Tennesee, rather than St. Paul or Radford, Virginia, emerged as the most promising industrial city of the central Appalachians.6 0 This narrative of economic modernization before 1914 has been couched in careful language. I have attempted to leave the moral of this story of development to the taste of the beholder. I have not used the metaphors of Harry Caudill of Kentucky, who sees the experience as social and psychic rape and exploitation of the native mountain population. Perhaps I have echoed the cheery tone of the commercial journals, which were thrilled by the workings of finance capitalism in whatever comer of the globe Western money went to seek higher dividends. Henry Shapiro has recently written of the “discovery” by outsiders of Southern Appalachia and its inhabitants after the 1870’s. Here, a century later, we might seek discovery ourselves, not in an ideo­ logical reading of these events, but rather as apprentice anthropologists trying to analyze the “culture shock” for all the participants in the economic awakening in the mountains during America’s Gilded Age.61 NOTES 1 J e rr y B . T h o m as, “ C oal C o u n try : T he R ise o f th e S o u th e rn Sm okeless C oal In d u stry and I ts E ffe c t o n A rea D ev elo p m en t, 1 8 7 2 -1 9 1 0 ,” P h . D . d isse rta tio n , th e U niversity o f N o rth C arolin a, C hapel H ill, 1 9 7 1 , p p . 1 2 -1 3 . ./ . J /XT v . 2 L elan d H . J e n k s , T H E M IG R A T IO N O F B R IT ISH C A PITA L T O 1 8 7 5 (N ew Y o rk , 1 9 7 1 ), p . 6 6 ; R a lp h W. H id y , T H E H O U SE O F B A R IN G IN A M ER IC A N T R A D E AND F IN A N C E , E N G L IS H M E R C H A N T B A N K ER S A T W O R K , 1 7 6 3 -1 8 6 1 (N ew Y o rk , 1 9 7 0 ), PP" 3 ’ * F re d e ric k A . C leveland an d F red W ilbur P ow ell, R A IL R O A D P R O M O T IO N AND C A P IT A L IZ A T IO N IN T H E U N IT E D S TA T E S (L o n d o n , 1 9 0 9 ), p . 2 1 3 . 4 H id y , H O U SE O F B A R IN G IN A M ER IC A N T R A D E A N D F IN A N C E , p . 1 5 2 . 79 �5 T h o m a s, “ C oal C o u n try ,” p p . 27-25# 1 8 6 4 ® 9 3 4 % “ w % t k Br 9 t i i r p p H 2ST8 ° i l8Y ° F T H E C°N * > L ID A T IO N COA L CO M PA N Y , T K E f T O B Y O F CO A L A N D IR O N IN A L A B A M A ^ N e w T S S f w V s f / r o f a W B * “ A r“ eS’ PP 258- • AJ * b lf r ’ W EST y iR G IN IA , T H E M O U N TA IN S T A T E (N ew Y o rk , 1 9 4 0 ) (C W c « o ,’ l9 lS ) ,p p ^ “ s f l j t " * SEC TIO N A L ISM IN V IR G IN IA F R O M 1 7 7 6 T O I M l ® T h o m a s, “ C oal C o u n try ,” p p . 3 3 -3 5 . F 0 R l 8 6 8 -6 9 y<Ne w PY o i k , ^ 8 6 8 ) f p p 0lF - ™ F 1 4 J 8^ 5 9 ^ I1640 19 0 H2 0 9 i o T 3 2 3 2 4 ^ K E S " ' S o ^ D S m L d T o M K ^ p ’ 2 9 ^ 5 3 “ CUft° n ^ * # S | W‘ T u™ e r ’ B E S S I E * II, <2 >N - P O « N ew s, 1 9 5 4 ), R A IL R O A D S O F T H E U N IT E D S TA T E S F O R ^ Jo s e p h T . L am bie, FR O M M IN E TO M A R K E T T H F H IS T O R Y n p r n i x mr» * ato ? 9RJ oATm ° N ° £ N o r f o l k A N D WEST E R N R A liw A Y (N ew Y o?k 1 9 5 ^ p p ^ J ' Y o r ^ ; ^ ry„ i P ein, ’ M O F T H E L O U IS V IL L E & N A S H V IL L E R A IL R O A D (N ew C O U N TY (V IR G IN ! a w n ^ 40_4I ’ 2 7 9 -8 3 ; L u th e r F . A d d in g to n , T H E S T O R Y O F W ISE X X X v iin O c t l f i T s f f i C l 7 ° ? 3: ™ E (L o n d o n ) E C O N O M IS T *., V of. A AA V1U ( O c t . 1 .6 , 1 8 8 0 ), 1 2 1 1 ; V o l. X X IX (A p ril 2 , 1 8 8 1 ) , 4 1 9 : (A D r 2 3 1 8 8 1 1 5 1 3 i g??l A N D W E s? E R T R A T L W A CY Up T y264-7Pl' 1 6 1 '®3! T H ^ m S T O R Y O F THE* N O R F O L K FACTUREER « NRE*?:O R b VV oi < 1 880-1890), P assim ; (B altim o re) M A NU1 8 8 5 ), p asS m . R E C O R D ’ Vo1- 7 (1 8 8 5 ); ( S ta u n to n ) T H E V IR G IN IA S ..., V ols. I-V I (1 8 8 0 1Q l.7 C h i l e s M . P ep p er, T H E L IF E A N D TIM ES O F H E N R Y GASSAW AY D A V IS 1 8 2 3 . C A R O LIN A ^SIN C E*T H E 'C IV IL^W A R W* a1n0d^ ? h " J ‘ V a" N o p p e n fw E S T E R N N b R T H S T O R Y O F W i 3 F r o i i S ^ V IL VYA R „<8 ° o n e ’ 1 9 7 3 ), P P . 2 6 2 , 2 6 5 -9 9 , 3 0 9 ; A d d in g to n , T H E 18 8 5 1 ?<M.WIm E B O U N T Y , p p . 1 2 5 -2 6 ; M A N U F A C T U R E R S ’ R E C O R D S , V ol. 7 (S e p t 26 (V IR G IN IA M N “ 1 9 « r p y 406e n ‘ ennial C° r p o ra tio n ’ H IS T O R Y O F BLA N D C O U N TY 1 8 E C O N O M IST , V o l. X L II (D ec. 2 0 ,1 8 8 4 ) , 1 5 4 6 -4 7 53 1 9 EC O N O M IST , V o l. X L III (N ov. 1 4 , 1 8 8 5 ), 1 3 8 6 -8 7 ; V o l. L (D ec. 1 0 , 1 8 9 2 ), 1 5 5 2 EC O N O M IST ^ V oL ^X V H ^(F eb.^8F 1 8 9 ^ L IN A L A B A M A ’ — PP' f 5 8 ^ 9 .2 ' 1 9 7 6 ’ P ' 1 1 ’ BeaChley* H IST O R Y O F T H E C O N SO L ID A T IO N C O A L COM PANY^ p p ! 2 2 B each ley , o p . c it., p p . 17-24. „ „ 2 3 P e P P " ’ T H E L IF E A N D TIM ES O F H E N R Y GASSAW AY D A V IS p p 1 0 0 - 0 3 i r r r r . „ , 2^ „ T ^ <y in g to “ ’ T H E S T O R Y O F W ISE C O U N T Y , p p . 2 1 1 -1 9 ; K lein H IS T O R Y O F T H t voi COM 1 8 7 9 2 N e w ^ Y o rk /L o n d o n ,^1^79L^pp.*4 8 R A IL R O A D S O F ™ E U N IT E D S T A T E S F O R 2 6 P o o r’s M A N U A L F O R 1 8 6 8 , p . 2 7 7 . A ND W E S m N MR 4 n W 4 V O R 1 8 6 8 < p . 3 1 1 ; L am b ie , T H E H IS T O R Y O F T H E N O R F O L K A n r t^ L A 1. . . , 29 h " e.’ 7*th W t am b itio u s nam e o f C arolina C u m b erlan d G ap & O hio w as a 1N V E S T O R S ’ s u p p l e m e n t t o t h e c . C O M M ERC IA L & F IN A N C IA L C H R O N IC L E , V o l. X L V II (O ct 2 0 Vo1-so'v^iciiri m C urrent IN V E S T O R S ’ S U P P L E M E N T . ’ °*- 18 8 8 1 479 . ™. &j|fl$fy e«: <Jan' 1X’ ! 8 9 0 ) , 7 0 , an d m ap h X1L6V1(8J8“ ; *. 1894)3,326.IN V E S T ° R S ’ SU P pL E M E N T , V o l. L I li ( J u ly ’ 25,' 1 8 9 1 ), 2 7 ; V o l. L IX (S e p t. 2 9 , /, 34 S8 A d d in g to n , TH E S T O R Y O F WISE C O U N TY p 201 IB ID -, P P . 2 0 1 , 2 2 5 -2 6 ; CO M M E R C IA L & F IN A N C IA L C H R O N IC I F V ol r v v v 3 6 See esp ecially J o h n F . S to v er, T H E R A IL R O A D S O F STU D Y IN F IN A N C E AND CO N T R O L (C h ap erH iU 1 9 5 5 ) p 80 t h f c p it t u <i . e - , �1 3 5 -3 6 ! and V o ls. 37 »■!*„ w X X V III-X X X V I (1 8 7 0 -1 8 7 8 ) o f th e E CO N O M IST. G oing, BO U R B O N D EM O C RA CY IN A LA BA M A , 1 8 7 4 -1 8 9 0 (T uscaloosa, 19511 o o 1 2 7 -4 2 ; A rm es, T H E S T O R Y O F CO A L A N D IR O N IN A LA B A M A , especially p p . 2 2 3 -2 6 , 2 4 3 4 9 , 2 9 3 7 ^ 2 1 , 3 3 1 -3 3 , 5 0 9 i EC O N O M IST , V o l. X X X V I (Ju ly 2 0 , 1 8 7 8 ), 8 6 3 ; V01’ 3 8 IVE *C O N O M IST *^ol. X L IV (S e p t. 2 0 , 1 8 8 6 ), 4 2 7 ; also see IN V E S T O R ’S M O N TH L Y M A N U A L, V o l. X L I (M arch 1 0 ,1 8 8 3 ) , 2 8 6 ; an d T h o m as, “ C oal C o u n try ,” p p . 4 6 ,5 0 . o q F C O N O M IS T . V o l. X L IX (D ec. 1 2 ,1 8 9 1 ) , 1 5 8 8 . 4 0 C K H o b so n , T H E E X P O R T O F C A P IT A L ...(L o n d o n , 1 9 1 4 ), p . 1 5 2 ; E CO N O M IST, V ol X X X H I (Ju n e 2 7 ? 1 8 7 5 ), 7 6 1 ; V o l. X L (F e b . 4 , 1 8 8 2 ), 1 3 0 ; V ol. X L IV (Ju n e 1 2 ,1 8 8 6 ) , 7 4 1 ; V o l. X L V (M ay 2 1 ,1 8 8 7 ), 6 6 2 ; V o l. X L V II (S e p t. 6 ,1 8 9 0 ) , 1 1 4 0 -4 1 . 4 1 T h o m a s, “ C oal C o u n try ,” p p . 4 6 4 6 , 4 9 -5 2 . 4 2 C harles R . B o y d . R E S O U R C E S O F SOUTH-W EST V IR G IN IA ...(N ew Y o rk 1 8 8 1 ), p .l. 43 4 4 A d d in g to n ?^T H E ° STO R T^ O F 4W ISE C O U N T Y , p . 2 0 1 ; B oyd; R E S O U R C E S O F S° U ™ - W^ ^ IK ^ d ? S E T H 1L O W , T H E R E F O R M E R IN AN U R B A N A ND IN D U S T R IA L AGE (N ew Y o rk , 1 9 7 1 ), p p . 1 4 -1 5 ; T H E V IR G IN IA S , V o l. 1 , (1 8 8 0 ), passim . 4 6 IB ID .. V o l. II (M ay 1 8 8 1 ), 6 9 -7 2 -7 3 . „ . EU 47 E C O N O M IST , V o l. X X X IX (A ug. 6 , 1 8 8 1 ), 9 8 1 ; T H E V IR G IN IA S , V ol. 1 1 , (A p r. 1 8 8 1 ) 5 2 f f .; (Ju n e 1 8 8 1 ), 8 4 ; (S e p t. 1 8 8 1 ), 1 3 4 ; V o l. IV (F e b . 1 8 8 3 ), 1 9 ; V o l. V (A p r. 1 8 8 4 ) ’, 5 3 ; V o l. V I (M ay 1 8 8 5 ), 7 5 ; T h o m a s, “ C oal C o u n try ,” p p . 1 0 5 -1 2 . 4 8 T h o m a s, o p . c it., p . 74 _______ 4 9 T H E V IR G IN IA S , V o l. H I (S e p t. 1 8 8 2 ), 1 3 7 . , 5 0 IB ID ., V o l. V (M ar. 1 8 8 4 ), 5 1 ; M A N U F A C T U R E R S R E C O R D , V o l. 7 (A p r. 1 1, 1 8 8 5 ) 2 6 5 -6 6 51 E C O N O M IS T , V o l. X L V II (N ov. 2 ,1 8 8 9 ) , 1 4 0 0 -0 1 . 5 2 T h o m a s, “ C oal C o u n try ,” P P . 1 5 3 -5 4 . 5 3 T H E V IR G IN IA S , V o l. IV (M ay 1 8 8 3 ), 6 5 ; (Ju ly 1 8 8 3 ), 1 0 3 ; V ol. V I (A p r. 1 8 8 5 ) 45- M A N U F A C T U R E R S ’ R E C O R D , V o l. 7 (M ar. 7 , 1 8 8 5 ), 1 0 6 -0 7 ; C lifto n F orge C ham ber o f C o m m erce, “ T h ere is o n ly o n e C L IF T O N F O R G E ... .’’ .. u n i N O K F TTMFS ft 5 4 G eorge K egley, “ B essem er: B o o m T o w n W ith o u t P o w d er, R O A N O K E TIM E» & WOR5 5 ) 1>W ayn'esboro?East A u g u sta C h am b er o f C o m m erce, “ A B rief H isto ry o f W ay n esb o ro ,” a“ d 1 8 8 5 ), 1 3 9 ; A d d in g to n , S T O R Y O F WISE C O U N T Y , p p . 1 9 9 -2 0 0 . 5 7 . T h o m a s E d w ard G ay, J r ., “ T h e L ife an d P olitical C areer o f J . Hoge T y le r, G overnor o f V irginia, 1 8 9 8 -1 9 0 2 , P h.D . d iss e rta tio n , th e U niversity o f V irginia. 19f>9, p . 1 7. 5 8 . IB ID ., p . 2 3 . cn' 3 i CTO RY 1 C)F W ISE C O U N T Y , p p . 2 2 3 -2 6 ; o ral te s tim o n y o f J o h n A™ S ° v S f F « b 1 6 , 1 9 8 0 ; W. F . W inders, “ U p th e Y ears fro m th e B oat Y ard ” (K in g sp o rt, 1 9 6 7 ), PP. 8-9; K in g sp o rt C ham ber o f C om m erce and C ity o f K ingsport, iiKI^ W ^ ^ U T y r i d eC audiu/N IG IFI^CX )M ES T O ?T H ^C U M B E R L A N D S , A BIO G R A PH Y O F A n F P R F S S E D A R E A (B o n sto n , T o ro n to , 1 9 6 3 ), see especially p . 6 5 ; S hapiro, A PPA LA C H IA ON O U R M IN D , T H E SO U T H E R N M O U N TA IN S AND M O U N T A IN E E R S IN THE A M ER IC A N C O N SC IO U SN ESS, 1 8 7 0 -1 9 2 0 (C hapel H ill, 1 9 7 3 ). N&W shops were big in the beginning The first great industry established in Roanoke was the Roanoke Machine Works capitalized at $5 million in 1882, according to William McCauley’s 1902 History o f Roanoke County, Salem, Roanoke City, Virginia and Representative Citizens. This was one of the largest car and locomotive manufacturing plants in the South, employing well on to 2,000 men” at full capacity. , non a These works soon gave employment to more than 1,0UU ana tne Roanoke Land & Improvement Co. went to work to build houses for occupancy by these men and their families. Most were skilled mechanics, McCauley said, and they were well informed and accustomed to do skil­ led work and receive high wages. After the machine works and offices were built for the new Norfolk and Western Railroad, “the growth was almost magical.” 81 �, The ats W a pioneer fam ily by Helen R. Prillaman The Watts family has contributed more to the Williamson Road area than any other pioneer family — if for no other reason, most of the land in the Williamson Road area was Watts’ land — “The Barrens”. In 1789 William Watts, from Prince Edward County, purchased 400 acres in ^ "The Barrens” from General James Breckinridge, who had in­ herited The Barrens” from his father, Robert Breckinridge, to whom the original patent had been granted. William Watts’ family was prominent in state and local affairs. His brother, Colonel John Watts, was a hero of the Revolution and a charter member of the Society of Cincinnati. William, a lawyer, was a member of the Virginia Constitutional Convention in 1788. William Watts’ son, General Edward Watts, inherited the 400 acres of land which his father had purchased. In 1811 he married Elizabeth Breck­ inridge, daughter of General James Breckinridge, thereby getting control of a very large plantation in “The Barrens”. General Edward Watts built “Oaklands” about 1820. All historical accounts tell us that “Oaklands” was not a great or beautiful home in comparison to some of the elegant homes which had been built but it was a large, attractive and roomy house which was known for its charm and hospitality. “Oaklands” was so popular to the many friends and relatives of the Watts family that it was necessary to construct cottages on the grounds to accommodate them. It was said that Oaklands could easily have been taken for a small watering place in view of the warm atmosphere of enjoyment experienced by all of the many guests. We also find many comments about Mrs. Edward Watts’ charm and gentleness and hospitable nature in addition to her business and executive abilities. General Edward Watts was truly a fine Virginia gentleman from all accounts and was known for his graciousness and modesty. He served as Roanoke County’s first commonwealth attorney from 1839 to 1845. His son, William, served in the same capacity from 1845 to 1854. General Edward Watts twice was a candidate for governor of Virginia on the Whig ticket in 1834 and 1842. General Edward Watts died at “Oaklands” on August 9, 1859. His wife died in 1862. The couple had ten children. William Watts, the oldest surviving son, came into an estate of over Accounts o f the Watts family and the Barrens, the Peter Huf f home which stood at the site o f Valley View Mall, are used here with permission o f Miss Helen Prillaman, from her new Williamson Road history, “A Place Apart. A longtime resident o f Williamson Road, she is a service director for an insurance agency. 82 �I , 150 acres — the Watts Mill was located on Evans Spring Branch in what is now Washington Park and the land extended beyond Hershberger Road. On October 8,1850, William Watts married Mary Allen, who was the daughter of Justice John J. Allen of Beaverdam near Buchanan. Mrs. Watts lived only a few weeks following the birth of their only child, J. Allen Watts. William Watts was 44 years old when the clouds of the War Between the States reached the Roanoke Valley. He immediately joined the Roanoke Grays and was promptly elected lieutenant. He won rapid pro­ motions because of his gallantry and qualities of leadership, advancing to colonel. When he returned home after the war he lost no time in trying to restore the economic and physical health of Virginia. He served in the Virginia legislature in 1875 and died at Oaklands on May 1, 1877. The local United Daughters of the Confederacy — William Watts Chapter en­ shrines his memory and we also find a large picture of Colonel Watts hanging in the Courthouse at Salem, Virginia. We also want to mention that history reflects another contribution for Colonel William Watts which greatly benefited the people of the Blue Ridge — before the war he served as a member of the State Constitutional Convention of 1850-1851 which finally broke the lock which had been held by Eastern Virginia over the Commonwealth. We have learned of another contribution of this great family — we learn that needy farmers of Roanoke, Craig and Botetourt Counties would drive up to the huge Watts’ barn at will and help themselves to seed wheat and com. The practice was so common they didn’t even bother to get permission before loading up the seed. The famed “Oaklands” burned in 1897 - much to the sorrow of the many people who had shared many an enjoyable time there. The Watts family continued their service to the area and the Com­ monwealth. John Allen Watts, the only son of William and Mary Allen Watts, married Gertrude Lee, whose grandfather was a Justice of the State Court of Appeals. J. Allen Watts practiced law first in Salem, Then when the City of Roanoke was chartered in 1882, he moved his practice there. He served as counsel for the N&W Railroad for 20 years and also served on the Roanoke City Council. In 1893 he was elected to the State Senate. His daughter, Jean, married Abram P. Staples, who was a Senator, Attorney General and Justice of the Virginia Supreme Court. William, his son, married Ellen Catogni, daughter of Louis Catogni. Their son, William, the last male survivor of the direct line, lives in a house built near the famed “Oaklands”. It is interesting to find that the Watts home place has remained in the hands of the original pioneer family for almost 200 years. Shortly after 1900 we find that families began moving into the Williamson Road area, buying acreage from 5 to 60, from Mrs. Gertrude Lee Watts, surviving wife of J. Allen Watts. When Interstate 581 was built into the City of Roanoke the Watts home place tract was intersected; the nature and need of the land changed. Round Hill School was built on a knoll overlooking the site of the famed “Oaklands . The Watts Cemetery was moved a few years ago to Fairview. We must reflect on the many well-known and prominent people who were laid to rest there. 83 �The Barrens, a garden spot by Helen R. Prillaman Letitia Gamble Watts, born in 1829, was a daughter of General Edward Watts and Elizabeth Breckinridge Watts of “Oaklands”. She married Dr. Langdon Rives, a physician from Ohio, on January 22,1850. The couple resided at Oaklands until 1861. When the War Between The States began, Dr. Rives offered his ser­ vices to the South. He was an Army surgeon and was stationed in Richmond until his death from pneumonia on March 18, 1862. He was buried in the Watts Cemetery at Oaklands. (This cemetery was moved to Fairview a short while ago). On March 11, 1865 Mrs. Rives married Dr. Francis Sorrel whom she had known for some years. Dr. Sorrel was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1827, graduated from Princeton and took his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He accepted a commission in the U.S. Army Medical Corps when he com­ pleted his studies in 1848. Working in the Army on the frontier was a difficult job and he resigned his commission in 1856. He toured Europe and after returning to this country he decided to go to the booming state of California. He served one term in the California legislature. There were many Southern sympathizers in California and when the War Between The States began he had little trouble deciding where his sympathies lay. He returned to Richmond and offered his services to the Confederacy. In view of his training and experience he was charged with erecting and maintenance of the general hospital in Richmond. He re­ mained in this position until Richmond was evacuated in 1865; he returned to “Oaklands” and was there when the news of the surrender came. General Edward Watts died in 1859 and while by partition, his eldest son, William, received the major part of the estate, Mrs. Sorrel received over 240 acres of land as did her sister, Alice, who had married Justice William J. Robertson of Charlottesville. Shortly after the war ended, Dr. Sorrel and Letitia built a lovely twostory brick house on the land which she had inherited from General Watts. Thi§ house stood north of Oaklands and was called “The Barrens.” This land was truly the garden spot of the valley, producing lush crops, es­ pecially wheat. Dr. Sorrel and his wife lived at “The Barrens” until her death in 1900. J. Allen Watts (grandson of General Edward Watts), owner of Oak­ lands, moved into the City of Roanoke to be near his work. He rented “Oaklands” plantation to George and Peter C. Huff. It was while George Huff lived at Oaklands that it burned in 1897. Peter C. Huff lived in a cottage nearby. After Mrs. Sorrel died in 1900 “The Barrens” was sold to Peter C. 84 �Huff for the sum of $24,400 with a portion only being paid in cash. Actually “The Barrens” only brought $100 per acre - not counting the house. What an investment for Peter C. Huff! “The Barrens” —a beautiful house surrounded by beautiful and fertile land - was demolished in Nov­ ember, 1981. This is the land that the Valley View Shopping Center hopes to put the big shopping center on. What a shame, and how sad it is to see such a beautiful place disappear from the Valley and our area. We find that Dr. Sorrel moved into Roanoke after his wife’s death and lived on Franklin Road. In 1901 in St. John’s Episcopal Church, he dedicated the beautiful stained glass memorial window overlooking the altar, “To the Glory of God and in memory of Letitia Gamble Sorrel” . Dr. Sorrel died in Washington, DC in 1916 and his body was returned to the Watts cemetery for burial. The Barrens, long known as the P. C. Huff home, was razed for the Valley View Mall shopping center in 1981. Mule power Chartered in 1887, the Roanoke Street Railway Co. began with mule power pulling a car from Jefferson to Fifth (Park) and Sixth (Grove) streets and back down Salem Avenue for a fare of 5 cents. The downtown transportation system began to switch to electric power by 1892. 85 �Merchants organize by Edward C. (Ted) Moomaw Roanoke is fortunate in the number of organizations and individuals who have contributed to its 100 years of progress. My 39 years of associ­ ation with one of these organizations encourages me to recall some of its activities which may be of general interest. The City of Roanoke was only 19 years old when a group of business men in 1901 organized what is now the Merchants Association of Roanoke Valley —MARV for short. Among those active in the Association in its early days were M. M. Ramsey, J. R. Weaver, E. R. Chick, D. P. Sites, E. A. Thurman, R. H. Angell, R. Lee Lynn, W. L. Andrews and Richard H. Wills, to mention a few. The organization’s purposes included “the mutual aid and protection of its members, correction of trade abuses, and the promotion of the general welfare of its members and the City of Roanoke.” To activate “mutual aid” among members a card file of the paying habits of credit customers was set up. The recording and exchange of credit information through a central file system grew and developed into the most demanding and valuable service of the Association. Other activities through the years were trade promotion events — such as special city-wide sales, Christmas parades and street decorations, the ambitious project of building the Mill Mountain Star and the annual’ selection of Mothers and Fathers of the Year; attempts, not always suc­ cessful, to secure cooperation of members for uniform store hours and holidays; application of rules to govern certain types of solicitations and donations; legislative work locally and with state and national organizations for members’ welfare; the publication of a membership Bulletin with essential information and membership meetings for general benefit. The Merchants Association’s efforts for the betterment of greater Roanoke have been many. To mention a few: Urging the elimination of street cars; planning and promotion of the first big parking garage (on Jefferson Street); display of flags on downtown streets; meetings of biracial groups to foster integration of lunch counters, restaurants and theaters; and active promotion of bond sales and many other projects. The Association helped lay the groundwork for the organization of the Better Business Bureau, Downtown Roanoke, Inc., the Credit Women’s Club, the Distributive Education program in the public schools and the Consumer Credit Counselling Service — all providing valuable services to their members and the public. The continuing growth and progress of western Virginia and the widespread increase in the use of consumer credit sparked periodic up­ dating and improvements of the Association’s credit reporting capabilities. In 1926 a group of dissatisfied credit merchants founded the MerMoomaw is the retired executive vice president o f the Merchants Association o f Roanoke Valley. 86 �chants Protective Association. Among those active in its early years were N.W. Schlossberg, J.H. Weinstein, Roy T. Wright. A.T. Loyd, Ernest L. Light, Nathan Fink and AM. Renick. The Merchants Protective and Retail Merchants Association competed until 1940, when the two were united to form the Roanoke Merchants Association. Probably the late T.S. Deyerle of Thurman & Boone Furniture did more than any other to accomplish the merger, which required a number of meetings of the two committees and boards. A retirement plan was established for U.T. Lemon, Retail Merchants secretary. As Merchants Protective secretary, I was made executive secretary of the consolidated organization. A record over­ flow crowd of 1,000 turned out at Hotel Roanoke in early 1941/for the first annual meeting of the new Association. In 1930, while credit manager of Hobbie Brothers Co., Inc., I was elected president of Merchants Protective and was made fulltime secretary by the board in 1931. From then until 1970, when I retired, the Associ­ ation Office Staff grew from three to over 5(1 Key staff members includ­ ed Charles B. Ralston, Hazel O’Brien and Karl L?Kregloe —who served as secretary during World War II while I was in the Navy. Accelerated by the merger, membership continued to increase to well over 800 business, financial and professional firms in recent years. More space for employees and constantly expanding file cabinets was required. From time to time the organization moved —from the Boxley Building to the Rosenberg (formerly Payne) Building, to the Walters Printing Building, and finally in 1967 it purchased and completely remodelled the building at 410 First Street, S.W. (back of First Federal). It had been occupied by Davidow Wallpaper Co., and in early days was a livery stable. George B. Cartledge Sr., was the sparkplug in this progressive move. Through the years members depended more and more on reports from the Association’s Credit Bureau. File records grew to cover some 350.000 residents of our trade area, and the number of reports developed and furnished increased from a few hundred in the early days to well over 200.000 annually in recent years. Telephone lines required increased to 25 or 30. Meanwhile public recognition grew that Bureau reports served to make prompt credit available to deserving customers. In 1969 the Association purchased the former Britts Mercantile Agency, and established a Collection Service Division which renders in­ valuable service to members in the collection of their delinquent accounts, and even helps many individuals improve their credit. Under the direction of the late Thomas O. Pugh, who succeeded me in 1970, the Credit Bureau files were completely analyzed, coded and computerized. His successor as executive vice president, Larry Poteat, has continued improvements in modernizing Bureau and Association services. More than 80 men have devoted many hours of dedicated work as presidents of the Association through the years, compensated only by the satisfaction of their contributions to the business community and the Roanoke Valley’s progress. The same can be said for countless committee members, men and women. Certainly it was a privilege working with so many fine people. 87 �How the star was turned on by Edward C. (Ted) Moomaw The Roanoke star, symbol of postWorld War II pro­ gress Little did I realize in the Spring of 1949 when our Christmas Street Decorations Committee met, what an exciting and demanding project would be initiated. Frequently at meetings of our dozen or so active committees established projects and procedures would be approved. But this time Committee members opted for something different for Roanoke’s Christmas decorations. The discussions were wide-ranging. Discarded were suggestions for a great cross atop a high downtown building and for colored lights draped on top of trees on the front side of Mill Mountain to form a gigantic Christmas tree. Finally it was decided to investigate the feasibility of building a permanent great star on top of the mountain, to tie in with our multi­ colored stars on downtown streets. I do not recall who first suggested the approved idea, but possibly it was Kirk Lunsford Jr. or Fred Mangus. Now the fun began! Subsequent meetings involved such matters as clearance from J. B. Fishburn, former owner of the mountain, engineering and sign company discussions, road access to the sTte and cost estimate and financing. As plans went forward enthusiasm mounted for this project to give Roanoke just claim to become the “Star City of the South.” With an estimated cost of $25,000 — a considerable sum in those days — the Association board approved the Committee’s plans on faith. The Chamber of Commerce board, more conservative, refused to assume any financial liability but agreed to help raise the money required. The contract for erecting the Star was awarded Roy C. Kinsey Sign Co.; the steel structure was designed by Robert L. Little of Roanoke Iron & Bridge Works. The late Roy Kinsey Sr. took great pride in the project and worked diligently to solve problems as they arose, which threatened to prevent completion by our target date of Thanksgiving Eve, long the traditional opening of the Christmas shopping season. Major p r o b le m s included transportation of large steel beams up the mountain, and adverse weather, wind, cold and sleet at critical times. Meanwhile the campaign to raise the money for the project was going forward. A joint letter from Dewey C. Wynn, Merchants Association president, and Edward H. Ould, Chamber of Commerce president, went out to hundreds of business and professional firms of greater Roanoke, setting forth in each case a “suggested amount” to be contributed. The response was uniformly good, with some exceptions. A few “admired our nerve” in spending “their money” without prior approval. Follow-up appeals including personal contacts were used to wind up the 88 �campaign, with almost $25,000 raised. The final cost was over $28,000, the difference being paid by the Merchants Association, which also of course assumed the upkeep and operation costs, estimated to be about $1,800 annually. With Thanksgiving Eve, November 23, 1949, fast approaching, and the lighting ceremony involving scores of participants and guests arranged, there were some sleepless nights due to uncertainty of completion of the Star on schedule. But problems made headlines and added to the public excitement when the big night arrived. Crowds congregated in the parks where loud speakers brought the program, people gathered everywhere and traffic stopped on many streets. Congressman Clifton A. Woodrum dedicated the Star with the Bibli­ cal text: “When they saw the star they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.” Mayor A.R. Minton threw the switch to light the Star, and the Greene Memorial Methodist Choir sang “America” and the “Star Spangled Banner.” James H. Moore, manager of WSLS-TV, was master of cere­ monies. Among the distinguished guests were mayors and officials of western Virginia communities, and John Payne, the Roanoke area’s own movie star. Publicity was nation-wide and fantastic. Newspapers everywhere, including New York, Washington, Detroit, Memphis, Savannah —and even Australia— featured the“Largest Artificial Star in the Universe.” George Chernault of Roanoke, Lowell Thomas and Ted Mack reported the event on national radio, NBC-TV carried it and Life magazine covered it. Immediately the Star found a warm spot in the hearts of Roanokers. Thousands love it, some have written poems and songs about it. With pride they sing its praises to visitors. Soon the public demanded that it shine the year around, not only during the Christmas season. It has become a tourist attraction —truly a “Symbol of the progressive spirit of Roanoke, the Star City of the South,” as set forth on the marker at its base. Thousands of post card pictures of the Star in color have been sold, reporting that its 8-story height, with 2,000 feet of neon tubing, 975 feet above the City, makes it visible for many miles, a fact verified by airline pilots and passengers. Utilitarian uses of the Star have included burning red for traffic fatalities; burning red, white and blue during the nation’s Bicentennial; turned off as an example of voluntary compliance during the energy crisis of 1973; and red, white and blue again on release of the Iranian hostages. The Star has some critics, which is to be expected among conservative Virginians. Some of us just are not comfortable tooting Virginia because we feel that smart people already know it is the best place in the world! The Star has been called a monstrosity. The same could be said of the Eiffel Tower, but what would Paris be without it? In both cases the public relations value is inestimable. Some personal opinions: The cost of moving the Star suggested by some, would be prohibitive, and a way should be found for it to be incor­ porated in implementing any development plans for the mountain. The City should regularly trim trees below and around the Star to afford the maximum viewing possible from all areas of the City and Valley. The 89 �Merchants Association should constantly monitor for burned out neon tubing which give the Star a “snaggle-toothed” appearance. And I hope that some day the tall beacon tower near the Star, unsuccessfully opposed by some of us at that spot, will be moved or eliminated, as it spoils the desirable illusion of the Star being suspended in the sky, especially on dark nights. The Mill Mountain Star foretells Roanoke’s fortune: “We’re One Hundred and Still Shining!” A horse and carriage waited outside the Elk» Club, site of the Blue Cross Building today. Virginia College once ranked “among the foremost colleges in the South for the higher education of women,” according to the Jack and Jacob history. About 150 students from 32 states were enrolled on the campus along present Rosalind Avenue, S.W. 90 �Roanoke9s elected officials Members Virginia House of Delegates representing Roanoke: 1882 to the present Green B. Board James W. Marshall Giles C. Huffman John W. Woods M.C. Thomas M.C. Thomas R.H. Logan W.W. Berkeley J.L. Hannah John P. Caldwell R. Randolph Hicks W.W. Dupuy W.B. Bowles R.H. Angell A.M. Bowman A.B. Coleman A.M. Bowman A.B. Coleman A.M. Bowman A.B. Hunt E.L. Keyser William Watts R. Holman Willis James Adam Bear John Wesley Wright 1881-1882 1883-1884 1885-1888 1889-1890 1891-1892 1893-1894 1895-1896 1897-1898 1899-1900 1901-1904 1904 1906 1908 1910 1912 1914-1923 1924-1927 James Adam Bear 1928-1930 John W. McCauley 1932-1934 Blair J. Fishburn Walter H. Scott 1936-1937 Marion S. Battle Raye O. Lawson 1938-1942 Walter H. Scott Earl A. Fitzpatrick 1944-1945 Earl A. Fitzpatrick Walter W. Wood 1946-1947 James Adam Bear Walter H. Scott E. Griffith Dodson, Jr. 1948-1952 Julian H.RutherfoordJr. Julian H.RutherfoordJr. 1954-1960 Kossen Gregory 1962-1963 Kossen Gregory M. Caldwell Butler 1964-1971 M. Caldwell Butler Willis M. Anderson 1972-1973 Ray L. Garland John C. Towler 1974-1979 Ray L. Garland A. Victor Thomas C.A. Woodrum A. Victor Thomas 1980- Members of the Virginia Senate representing the City of Roanoke: 1882 to the present James E. Eskridge Henry S. Trout D.F. Houston John R. Johnson James W. Marshall 1881-1882 1883-1886 1887-1888 1889-1890 1891-1892 J. Allen Watts M.H. Claytor Edward Lyle Archer A. Phlegar John M. Hart 1893-1894 1895-1898 1899-1904 1904-1906 1908-1915 91 �William L. Andrews Robert J. Noell Robert J. Noell Abram P. Staples Harvey B. Apperson Abram P. Staples 1915-1923 1924-1926 1928-1933 Harvey B. Apperson Leonard G. Muse Leonard G. Muse Earl A. Fitzpatrick William B. Hopkins Ray L. Garland 1933-1934 1936-1942 1944-1947 1948-1959 1960-1979 1980- At times this district has been much larger so that in addition to the U ty of Roanoke these senators have represented Roanoke, Franklin Montgomery and Craig Counties and the City of Radford. Roanoke’s Congressmen James P. Woods 1918-1922 J. Lindsay Almond, Jr. 1945-1948 Clifton A. Woodrum 1922-1945 M. Caldwell Butler 1972-1982 (No U. S. senators have been from Roanoke.) Roanoke’s Governors Three men have gone from Roanoke to Richmond to serve as governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. They were: E. Lee Trinkle J. Lindsay Almond, Jr. A. Linwood Holton 1922-1926 1958-1962 1970-1974 Much earlier, some historians have said that Col. William Fleming a surgeon and a leading settler of the Roanoke Valley, was acting governor for a short time near the end of the Revolutionary War. Fleming, senior member of the Virginia Council, served as lieutenant governor and chief administrative officer after the expiration of the term of Thomas Jefferson 1 7 8 1 ■H n S Nelson took office, the period from June 4 to June 19, Mayors of Big Lick and Roanoke 1 n r. 100 Mayorf ° f the Town of Big Lick from 1874 to 1882 and of the first years of the Town and City of Roanoke, from the City Clerk’s Office: �John W. Woods C. B. Moomaw John Trout 1874-1876 Charles M. Broun Samuel Griggs 1876-1878 W.W. Boxley William H. Startzman 1878-1880 Blair J. Fishburn Marshall Waid 1880-1882 Charles D. Fox Sylvester P. Seifert Town of Roanoke Sidney F. Small James A. Bear Marshall Waid 1882 Walter W. Wood Lucian H. Cocke 1882-1883 Leo F. Henebry City of Roanoke Richard T. Edwards Williams P. Hunter 1884 Lucian H. Cocke Archer R. Minton 1884- 1885 John H. Dunstan Roy L. Webber 1885- 1886 Samuel G. Williams Archer R. Minton 1886- 1890 William Carr Roy L. Webber 1890-1892 William G. Evans Robert W. Woody 1892-1894 Henry S. Trout Walter Young 1894-1896 Sturgis E. Jones Vincent S. Wheeler 1896 Robert McClelland Willis M. Anderson 1896-1898 William K. Andrews Murray A. Stoller 1898-1900 James P. Woods Benton O. Dillard 1900-1902 J. Randolph Bryan Roy L. Webber 1902 Robert A. Buckner Noel C. Taylor 1902-1912 Joel H. Cutchin 1912 Sylvester P. Seifert Town of Big Lick 1912 1913-1915 1915-1918 1918-1922 1922-1926 1926-1930 1930-1934 1934-1938 1938 1938-1943 1943-1946 1946-1948 1948- 1949 1949- 1950 1950- 1951 1951- 1952 1952- 1954 1954-1956 1956-1958 1958-1960 1960-1962 1962-1964 1964-1968 1968-1975 1975- Roanoke ’s good labor relations Roanoke offers peculiar inducements to the laboring class, wrote William McCauley in his 1902 Roanoke County history. The friendly relation maintained between employer and laborer may be reckoned as one of the causes of its prosperity, he said. “On account of the great demands for labor, remunerative wages are paid for all kinds of competitive work, and many of the workmen are enabled to purchase homes of their own and make useful citizens.” By the installment plan, houses may be bought for $15, $30 and $25 a month, or about the same as the rent of a house, he said 80 years ago. “Many such homes have been established, where families are now living in comfort. As a natural result, the disturbances and agitations so common all over the country among the laboring population are almost unknown here.” 93 �ACORN TO OAK, THAT’S ROANOKE Dwight E. McQuilkin In the days of Pocahontas, long ago, By a wigwam lay an acorn, in the snow, Many winter winds have blown, Many sunpner suns have shone, Now the acorn is an oak tree, fully grown. But the wigwam long since vanished to the west, And the warriors on the long trail seek their rest, Many battles here were fought, Many gains were dearly bought, Ere a city from the wilderness was wrought. Now a city in her splendor points her spires From the valley of “The Daughter of the Stars.” Many prospects for great fame, Many honors to her name, But her learning will her glory most proclaim. Like the germ within the acorn, source of strength, Always knowledge gains ascendency at length; Many students, hour by hour, Many leaders filled with power, Such our city pays the future for a dower. As the oak tree that endures from age to age Sees our history in the making, page by page, Many elders now behold Many golden dreams unfold, And success for virgin efforts is foretold. Thus the old is ever yielding to the new, As the masses gain the knowledge of the few; Ever upward, Roanoke, Like the acorn to the oak, And the blessing of All-Wisdom aye invoke. s A Salutatory written and published in the first issue o f “Acorns o f Roanoke, ” the Roanoke High School Annual, inaugurated by the Class o f 1910. The writer, Dr. D.E. McQuilkin, was superintendent o f schools for the City o f Roanoke from 1918 until his retirement in 1953. He died in 1962 at the age o f 80. A native o f Shepherdstown, W. Va., he came to Roanoke in 1909, and was a teacher and principal at Roanoke High School before he became superintendent. 94 �New books on old themes Roanoke’s year-long 100th birthday party was a publisher’s dream. Five Roanoke histories were printed in the centennial year of 1982. Still another area history at the printers is Deedie Kagey’s study of Bonsack, a community at the crossroads. The books, in their order of publication: A PLACE APART, subtitled A Brief History o f the Early Williamson Road and North Roanoke Valley Residents and Places, by Helen R. Prillaman, $17.10. The product of a year’s hard work, the 187-page book gives a broad description of the sprawling Williamson Road section and some of its interesting people, homes, farms, churches, schools, and a variety of legends. It is well illustrated by old photographs and sketches by Paige Fisher. ROANOKE: 100, a Centennial Edition reprint of the Roanoke Times & World-News, $5.95. This 196-page book is a reprint of the news­ paper’s special Centennial sections published on April 18 and 25. Arranged by decades, the papers report and illustrate many of the major events and some of the lesser-known happenings of Roanoke’s first 100 years. THE ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE OF THE ROANOKE VALLEY by W. L. Whitwell and Lee W. Winborne, University Press of Virginia, $14.95. The authors, longtime students of all types of building structures, have completed a valuable survey of the diversity of architec­ tural forms and styles within the borders of Roanoke County. Their 150year study goes back to the design of log cabins and early farm buildings. But the role of 7-Eleven stores and McDonald’s golden arches is examined as well. The authors see the Mill Mountain star as Roanoke’s architectural landmark and they believe the Williamson Road strip development “em­ bodies commercial expression. Its advertising is successful.” ROANOKE 1740-1982, by Clare White. Paperback $5.95; hard­ cover, $12. To complete an assignment from the Roanoke Centennial Committee, the Society commissioned Clare White to write a brief, popular history of the city in a comparatively short period of time. Mrs. White, retired Tempo editor, writer and columnist for the Roanoke Times & World-News, prepared a new look at the settlement and growth of the community from frontier days through Big Lick organization and on into the 20th century. Starting with the attraction of animals to the salty marshes and the crossroads pattern of trails and roads, Mrs. White tells of the pioneers and the people who built Roanoke. Her highly readable history reports how Roanokers have lived and how they earned their living from Civil War days through the wars of this century. She writes of the growth of rail­ roading and of this railroad town and city. ROANOKE' PAST AND PRESENT, by Carolyn Hale Bruce, was published in early December by the Donning Co. of Norfolk-Virginia Beach at $16.50. Mrs. Bruce, author of a 1976 pictorial history, has written and collected many old pictures for an admirable 216-page book. Many people, buildings and places are shown. 95 �Hill Crest was the dormitory for women employees of American Viscose Corp. on Ninth Street, S.E. Main Street in Wasena was fresh and new in this 1922 postcard view. Hotel Ponce de Leon looked like a Mediterranean resort hotel before the 1930 fire. After it was rebuilt, it became the Crystal Tower Building. 96 �ROANOKE VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Amor montium nos movet OFFICERS Mrs. William J. L e m o n .............................................................. President Richard A. M organ........................................... Vice President/Treasurer Mrs. John Boswell ..................................................................... Secretary Nomeka B. S o u rs ...................................................... Executive Director DIRECTORS Term expiring June 30,1983 Term expiring June 30,1984 Term expiring June 30,1985 Mr. Gilbert E. Butler Jr. Mrs. James E. Heizer Mr. James Kincanon Mrs. Harold P. Kyle Mrs. Leonard A. Muse Mrs. James L. Trinkle Mrs. John P. Wheeler Jr. Mr. W. L. Whitwell Mrs. John Boswell Mr. George T. Ellis Mr. Jack M. Goodykoontz Mr. George A. Kegley Mrs. William J. Lemon Mrs. J. M. B. Lewis Jr. Mrs. G. Scott Shackelford Mr. J. Randolph West Mrs. William B. Bagbey Mrs. Jack B. Coulter Mr. David R. Goode Mr. John R. Hildebrand Mr. Hugh A. Meagher Mr. Richard A. Morgan Miss S. Ann Splitstone Mrs. James L. White �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society Centennial Issue, 1982 Volume 11, Number 2 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />Roanoke History as Recorded in 1912<br />Where We Were in 1864<br />When Knights Were Bold<br />A Jefferson Street Stroll<br />Roanoke's First Fire Station<br />How a Railway Clerk Saw the New Century<br />Life on Highland Avenue in the Early 1900s<br />Horace Engle, a Creative Roanoker<br />Economic Development in Southwest Virginia<br />The Watts, a Pioneer Family<br />The Barrens, a Garden Spot<br />Merchants Organize<br />How the Star was Turned On<br />Roanoke's Elected Officials<br />Acorn to Oak, That's Roanoke Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1982 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_11_02_1982 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6355/JHSWV_12_01_1984.pdf 793f39f0e494e7fe4343d090968140ce PDF Text Text JOURNAL o f tlie ROANOKE VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Volume Twelve Number One �ROANOKE VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Amor montium nos movet OFFICERS John T. Jessee ............ ....................................... ................................. President Miss S. Ann Splitstone .................................................................Vice President Mrs. James L. White . . ■• ................................ .. ■• p • • ...................Secretary Richard E. Morgan . . . ..........................................................................Treasurer Nomeka B. Sours . . . . ....................................................... Executive Director DIRECTORS Term expiring June 30,1985 Term expiring June 30,1986 Term expiring June 30,1987 Mrs. Andrew J. Airheart Jr. Mrs. Jack B. Coulter Mr. J. Randolph Garrett III Mr. David R. Goode Mr. John R. Hildebrand Mr. Richard E. Morgan Miss S. Ann Splitstone Mrs. James L. White Mr. Gilbert E. Butler Jr. Mr. Walter M. Dixon Mrs. James E. Heizer Mr. John T. Jessee Mrs. Leonard A. Muse Mr. Thomas D. Rutherfoord Mr. T. Garrick Steele Mrs. James Trinkle Mrs. John P. Wheeler Jr. Cmdr. William B. Bagbey Mr. Arthur T. Ellett Mr. John W. Eure Mrs. J. T. Hopkins Jr. Mrs. Harold P„ Kyle Mrs. William J. Lemon Mrs. English Showalter Mr. William Watts Mrs. Edward A. Lovinguth, Junior League representative �1984 Contents Farmers Supply Transformed into Center in the Square................... 3 Roanoke’s First Dairy was on Orange Avenue, by Clare W hite......... 6 Vinton’s Beginnings, by Irma Moseley and Madeline Forbes ...........18 How Dr. Hart Lost His Sight, by W. H. H art....................................... 19 Dr. William Fleming Made House Calls, by Dr. Warren Moorman . . 23 Benjamin Keagy’s Home, by Martin O. L. Spangler .......................... 32 Dr. Landon Cabell Rives Jr....................................................................41 The Back Creek Road, by Lynn Dickerson I I ..................................... 42 Guerrant Family Lived at First Baptist Church Site, by Saunders S. Guerrant...................................................... 57 Where the Bonsacks Settled, by Deedie D. K agey................. ............ 60 George Kegley Editor o f the Journal The Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society, Volume Twelve, Number One. Published by the Society at P.O. Box 1904, Roanoke, Virginia 24008, to chronicle the past and present of that part of the state west of the Blue Ridge. Single copy price for members, $3; for non-members, $4. The Society will be careful in handling un­ solicited material but cannot be responsible for its loss. �iU ¿ U ¡4 ,i ��Bou8“ f arm ers Supply Com pany W H O L E S A L E S E E D SM E N D ealers in C arriages, Buggies, W agons, H arness, A gricultural Im plem ents, E tc. G R A SS SEED S A N D F E R T IL IZ E R S A S P E C IA L T Y Red C lover Seed, S a p lin C lover Seed, C rim son Clover Seed, T im othy Seed, O rch ard G rass Seed, F ancy R ed Top Seed, E tc., E tc., E tc. O FF IC E A N D W A R E R O O M S—C A M P B E L L A V E N U E , M ARKET S Q U A R E A N D N E L S O N ST P r o m p t P a y m e n t In s u r e s G ood C red it, L o w P r ic e s a n d M a k e s F a s t F r ie n d s Folio_______________________ T erm s---------------------------------- Woodcut and billhead from the first years of Farmers Supply Farmers Supply Transformed into Center in the Square Paintings, Broadway plays and historical exhibits are everyday attractions in the renovated McGuire building where carriages, wagons and seed once were sold to farmers on Roanoke’s Market Square. The building has been transformed into Center in the Square, the new home for the Roanoke Valley Historical Society, the Science Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Mill Mountain Theater and Roanoke Valley Arts Council. The Center opened with fanfare in December 1983 in the five-story building constructed in 1914 for the Farmers Supply Co., headed by W. E. McGuire. J. F. Barbour and Sons, a major Roanoke contractor, built the sturdy concrete structure at 29 East Campbell Avenue. McGuire, born near Burnt Chimney in Franklin County in 1864, was reared by a half-brother and his wife after his mother died when he was a baby. When he was old enough to look after himself, McGuire found a job in a Vinton store according to his daughter, Mrs. Margaret Cutshall. He later bought a house and lived at 360 W. Campbell Ave., she said. The Farmers Supply Co. was founded in 1895 by McGuire, John W. Woods and D. S. Meadows, according to Roanoke historian Raymond Barnes. In 1904, he said, they bought the lot on Market Square from the heirs of an Englishman named Gray. The company operated in a smaller building there until the 81,500-square-foot structure was built. 3 �SOCIETY The Roanoke Historical Society Journal is published semiannually "to chronicle the past and present of that part of the state west of the Blue Ridge." An illustrated periodical appearing in aid-summer and mid-winter, it is distributed to members of the Society, to donors of items to the Society museum and to libraries and other historical societies of the region. The Journal is available to others at 50 cents for a single copy or $1 for a year*s subscription. Inquiries may be addressed to the Society at P.O. Box 1904, Roanoke. Articles in early issues have dealt with cemeteries of Roanoke Valley, the archeological find of Indian points possibly 8,000 years old at the Peaks of Otter, Civil War action in Southwest Virginia, Fincastle as a summer resort in the late 19th century and objects on display in the Society's museum in Salem. Writers for the Journal have been such well-known regional historians as Goodridge Wilson* R. D. Stoner, Raymond Barnes and J. R. Hildebrand. Ben Dulaney is editor. �No man was better known in the countryside for miles around Roanoke than McGuire, according to Barnes. “Because he was a dealer in sturdy wagons, dependable carriages and buggies, vendor of the latest agricultural implements, and the finest fertilizers and seeds, literally hundreds of farmers went to Mr. McGuire for advice and often purchased what he recommended. He is another example of what a young man from Franklin County can do if given an opportunity.” Officials from the county treasurer’s office at Salem made the Farmers Supply Co. headquarters on certain days for the convenience of farmers, he said. Mrs. Cutshall recalled in an interview on Feb. 4, 1984 how her father debated whether he should build a reinforced concrete building or a steel building. McGuire and Barbour “worked on the plans over at our house a whole lot. . .Everybody marveled that he built such a big building for his store. Mr. Hutcheson, an architect, designed it.” Hutcheson persuaded McGuire that the reinforced concrete would, last much longer. The worst part, Mrs. Cutshall said, was a problem with Lick Creek that runs along Campbell Avenue. “It took them a whole summer long just to get that one little comer. The water would come up and they pumped and pumped.” Round columns throughout the fireproof building are spaced 15 feet apart on center. Such columns are mass produced today but in 1914 the forms were custom made by carpenters on the job. “My father, I don’t know how he managed, but he had that whole building jam-packed with things to sell,” Mrs. Cutshall recalled. “Papa cut it up and used it all. . .An auto dealer was on the first floor, he had an office on the second floor, seed was on the third floor and whatever he had to store was on the fourth and fifth floors.” McGuire had a big machine to grade peas on the fifth floor. “He would buy cowpeas in South Carolina and ship them up here by the carload and run them through this cleaning machine. They were sold to sow.” Mrs. Cutshall’s mother, Mary Margaret Harris, came from her home at Churchville to visit her brother, “Uncle Mac”, J. M. Harris, in Roanoke. While here, she went to Stuart’s furniture store and saw McGuire. “She was engaged to a man and he was engaged to a woman but they broke the two engagements and got married,” Mrs. Cutshall said. The Farmers Supply sold “cultivators, binders, anything you can think of that was salable for farm supplies. . .1 loved every stick of it.” Started in 1887, the Barbour contracting firm was a leading Roanoke builder in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Among its many projects were First Baptist and Calvary Baptist churches, Oakey’s funeral home, the old Colonial-American National Bank, No. 1 Fire Station, Patrick Henry Hotel, the old Lewis-Gale Hospital, the American and Jefferson theaters and Andrew Lewis High School. John Fletcher Barbour, the builder, also came from Franklin County to Roanoke. Small restaurants and farmers’ booths located on the first floor of the McGuire Building almost from the beginning. The celebrated Roanoke Weinme Stand started there in 1916. The Famous Lunch opened next door in 1959. After McGuire’s death in 1923, his son, W. E. McGuire Jr. kept the business several years. Later, it was a furniture warehouse and a variety 4 �of retail stores occupied the ground floor. A Federal Bakery, the Waldrop-Price hardware and later Witten-Martin Furniture were there. Witten-Martin, Roanoke’s oldest furniture store, closed in 1980 after 76 years in business, the last 18 in the McGuire Building. In addition to buying supplies in the building, farmers have sold their produce on the City Market for at least a century. Barnes said the first market house was dedicated in 1886. W. E. McGuire City Centennial Unnoticed When the 100th anniversary of Roanoke’s incorporation as a city came on Jan. 31, 1984, no public celebrations or ceremonies were held. Perhaps the city was exhausted from the memorable events of 1982 when the centennial of Roanoke as a town was recognized. The Town of Roanoke, incorporated on Feb. 3,1882, became the City of Roanoke in 1884. That centennial was marked throughout the year by a giant parade, musical and dramatic events, fireworks, histori­ cal publications and many recollections of what had happened in the first century. But the growth from town to city almost two years later passed unnoticed. 5 �Roanoke’s First Dairy Was on Orange Avenue by Clare White The little brick house is on a rise above a bold spring and a creek. Orange Avenue runs in front of it and just east is the busy interchange of Orange Avenue and Interstate 581. The house in Washington Park has been called the oldest in Roanoke, and has been named as the home of early settlers Peter Evans and/or his brother Nathaniel, both of them sons of pioneer Mark Evans. As it turns out, none of these claims can be proved. Turning a blank face to the world, the house has been painted green, its windows are boarded and its door is padlocked. Only the shaped bricks of the eaves and the adjacent spring, defiled by trash, speak of a history. The bricks suggest the early 1800s, the spring sug- A photograph of the Charles L. Lukens house, also the Eagle Dairy, before it burned about 1895-96, leaving the brick portion at right standing in what is now Washington Park on Orange Avenue. The house or a part of it was built Clare White is known for her centennial book, Roanoke 17401982, and for a wealth o f historical research and writing. 6 �gests pioneers. Although the house may not be as old as was thought, the site is one of the oldest in the settlement of the Roanoke Valley. The spring played a part from the early 1700s down to the 20th century when it furnished water for Roanoke’s first dairy. The adjacent stream, now hidden in culverts for most of its course, was to boast two mills less than a half mile apart. When Mark Evans migrated to the Roanoke Valley from Pennsyl­ vania about 1740, he patented two significant parcels of land. One of them included what was to be known as Crystal Spring at the foot of Mill Mountain, the other embraced over 1,000 acres of The Barrens, a treeless expanse in the northern segment of the valley now bisected by Interstate 581. Appended to the survey of the open land were two long, narrow strips stretching to the south to take in two springs and two creeks. The westerly strip went to and beyond what was called Cedar Spring near 20th-century Tenth Street, Northwest. The other followed the creek to be known as Peter Evans Spring Branch whose flow was enlarged by the twin springs at the Evans homeplace (near the inter­ change of 1-581 and Hershberger Road), and into which the spring near the brick house emptied.1 When settlers chose their acres, water was the first order of business after the quality of the land; Mark Evans made sure of the adequate supply, not only for himself but also, conceivably, for the two sons who accompanied him to the valley. Water was necessary for human and animal consumption and to raise crops; it was also prized as the re­ quisite for the mills which played so important a part in pioneer economy. Evans had secured two mill sites: the incomparable Crystal Spring and the creek north of Orange Avenue which flowed between two hills just above a spring. The mill at Crystal Spring was well established in 1753 with Daniel Evans, son of Mark, as the miller.2 The first mention of a mill on Peter Evans Creek occurred eight years later, in 1761,3 although it could have been there much earlier. Mark Evans died during the winter of 1748-1749, some eight years after coming to the valley.4 Considering he was married in Philadelphia in 17235 and assuming he was a young man then, he was probably in his late forties or early fifties when he died. He did not leave a will, so the estate went to his eldest son, Daniel, in accordance with English law. Soon after the settlement of the estate in 1751, Daniel, who must have been already in residence at Crystal Spring, sold the Barrens tract to his brother, Peter. The deeds divided the land into three 400-acre tracts for each of which Peter paid £50.6 Daniel would have been about 24 when his father died, which would have made him 16 to 18 when the family came south. In those days, 16 was an adult and he could have been married by then, but it seems unlikely as, when he died in 1756, he left only two young daughters and his wife Rhoda.7 His brother, Peter, married Mary Tosh, daughter of Thomas Tosh who is first mentioned as being in the valley in 1746.8 We do not know when they were married. For many years, Peter Evans’ name was associated with the land he bought from his brother, as well as with the creek by the little brick house. That stream was known as Peter Evans Spring Branch, Peter Evans Mill Creek, Evans Branch, or Peter Evans Creek from the time he took possession until the village of Gainesborough came into being. Malcolm Campbell identified it in 1761 as Mill Creek, having already 7 �designated it as “Evins Branch” in a survey relating to the same tract.6 Since the mid-1800s, it has been called Lick Run. Thanks to Campbell’s will, we know a mill was on the Evans’ creek well ahead of the more famous stone mill farther downstream which a court order will date as 1773. It would appear that Peter Evans built his mill between 1755 (see below) and 1761. The mill has been proved to be just upstream from the spring. It is conceivable that Peter Evans lived on the site of the brick house in Washington Park, adjacent to the mill, although no proof can be found. If he did, his house would cert­ ainly have been of logs; brick was almost unheard of in 18th century western Virginia. His mill was surely built of wood; it burned in 1821.10 The 1755 date is of interest because in that year Peter Evans made a declaration of the improvements he had made on the land he had bought from his brother four years before. (Improvements were re­ quired when a piece of new land was settled.) His list included one “logg” house 15 by 10 feet, one house 22x/2 feet by 12 feet, and one spring house, along with 28 acres of cleared land, 100 fruit trees, five horses, 22 cattle, a breeding sow and assorted tools.11 The building of a spring house would indicate the houses were near a spring. The springs on the property of which we are aware are the two at the homeplace, the Cedar Spring and the spring on Peter Evans Spring Branch near Orange Avenue. There may have been another near the Great Road (Orange Avenue) about half a mile west of the brick house. A dwelling was there in 1815.12 Or, Peter Evans may have built at Cedar Spring; the family of Capt. Andrew Lewis was living there in 1815,13 having bought the Evans lower or Cedar Spring Farm. To the confusion of who lived where, we must add another element. There was another son. At the time of Mark Evans’ death no mention was made of any sons except Daniel and Peter. The first reference to Nathaniel Evans, brother of Daniel and Peter, occurs in Daniel’s will in 1756. In his will, he left his brother Nathaniel £20, two-thirds of the profit from the sale of what were called “moveables,” and a horse, more than he left to Peter. Peter, however, was named an executor; Nathaniel was not.14 Where Nathaniel had been all that time is anybody’s guess. Judging by what we know of him after he turned up in the Roanoke Valley, he could have been anywhere. There were Evans in the neighborhood of Looney’s Creek (Buchanan) and on the north fork of the James River (near Glasgow).15 There was another Daniel Evans and another Nathaniel Evans in those areas who may have been relatives of the Mark Evans family. While, by comparing dates and records, the two Daniels and the two Nathaniels can be disentangled, no light is thrown on where Mark’s son spent his early years. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that Nathaniel, son of Mark, did not accompany his father and brothers to the Roanoke Valley, nor did they seem to know where he was. As for Nathaniel living near the spring on Peter Evans Spring Branch when he finally arrived, there is no evidence for or against. The only information we have on where he may have lived is a road order of 1779 which called for a road, petitioned by Nathaniel Evans and others (unnamed), to be established from Thomas Barnes (on the hill above the Big Lick in northeast Roanoke), passing by Nathaniel Evans and into the main road near James Bryant’s (at the big spring in Salem).16 8 �That would put him on the Great Road, but where on it is impossible to say. We can be sure, however, that a mill was on Peter Evans Spring Branch by 1761. Malcolm Campbell’s will, written in 1761 and recorded in 1763, refers to a tract of land he had patented in 1751 and was de­ vising to his son Archibald as being on “Mill Creek.”17 A survey of the land done in 1751 locates it on a branch of Roanoke “called Evins Branch.”18 Then, in 1774, Archibald Campbell was granted a license to “Build a Grist Mill on Peter Evans’ Mill Creek, he being proprietor of the land.”19 The license not only establishes the existence of an earlier mill on the creek, it dated the construction of the stone mill that was to be built farther downstream on the property Archibald had inherited. Malcolm Campbell, Archibald’s father, who owned 400 acres of what became downtown Roanoke, was somewhere in the valley by 1748.20 He had the survey done in 1751 on 42 acres “on Evins Branch,” listed as a part of Zachariah Lewis’ Order of Council to take up 30,000 acres. One of Lewis’ partners in the James and Roanoke Co., a company formed to sell the lands of the grant, was John Smith, a surveyor for .Ta m p s Patton.21 In 1756, Smith patented 400 acres in the Roanoke Valley, including the Big Lick. He sold it to Malcolm Campbell in 1759,22 eight years after Campbell had entered his small patent. Whether Campbell ever lived on the 42-acre tract before he acquired the larger piece is not known. It was an unusually small tract to patent in those days of open lands. Also, it is doubtful if Smith ever lived in the valley, although Tinker Creek was at that time called Smith’s Creek. It seems quite possible, in light of what we know of 18th-century land practices, that Campbell was a squatter on the Smith land, on which Smith took out a patent to secure it, intending all along to sell it to Campbell, who would then have made the improvements required by Council. The 42 acres may have simply appealed to Campbell as a mill site, there being no suitable site on the 400-acre tract. In any event, by 1774 there would seem to be two mills on Peter Evans Spring Branch, one above 20th-century Orange Avenue, one below. The upper one would have been built between 1755 and 1761, and the lower sometime after 1773. The upper mill was located not far upstream from the spring on land now under a landfill. The dam for it was on the upper line of an 1815 Mill Lot of 14 acres. Using that 1815 survey as a measure, the dam was about 100 yards above the mill.23 The lower mill would have been under the hill on which St. Andrew’s Catholic Church stands and its dam was on the lower line of the Peter Evans sur­ vey, just below Orange Avenue.24 The upper mill was obviously built of wood for it was consumed by fire in 1821, the lower was built of stone. A tract that has been confused with Malcolm Campbell’s 42-acre patent is one for 72 acres entered by his son Archibald. This plot is re­ ferred to in Archibald Campbell’s will, as well as in later deeds. The land was south of his father’s 42-acre grant and evidently lay between that plot and the 400-acre tract. Archibald’s will reads: to John Simpson (his nephew) “one plantation on Mill Creek that was willed to me by my father” (the 42-acre tract), and to Archibald Simpson “one tract adjoining the above on lower side sd. Mill Creek.”25 Archibald Campbell, who got the license for the stone mill and presumably built it, wrote an unusual provision in his will. He left his 9 �sister Jean (or Jane) Campbell one Negro girl named Peg (or Pegg) who was about 9 years old “in case that my sister Jean doth not intermarry with Nathaniel Evans, brother of Peter Evans, her and her increase forever. But if my sister Jean should marry the said Evans my Will is that the Negro girl Pegg shall be sold by publick vendue and the money ky such sail (sic) to be equally divided between my Brother William s son Thomas Campbell and William Simpson’s sons John Simpson and Archibald Simpson.”27 Archibald’s sister Elizabeth had married William Simpson. was recorded in April, 1774. In May of that year Nathaniel was presented at court for unlawfully cohabiting with his housekeeper. That the housekeeper was Jane Campbell is borne out by a second court appearance in the fall of that year, this time for unlaw­ fully cohabiting with Jane Campbell.28 Archibald had reason for the terms of his will. The next reference to Nathaniel was the road order of 1779. Then in 1781, he was again in court, or rather he was supposed to be in court! James Barnett (or Barnes)29 brought suit against him in May, 1780. In February of the next year the suit came up again. It was listed as “an Attachment. According to the minutes of the court, the defendant Nathaniel was solemnly called but came not,” and the ruling was in favor of the plaintiff. Barnett was to recover against “said Defendant his acct. amounting to fourteen gallons of good merchantable whiskey at the rate of £15 per gallon & it is ordered that the Sheriff make sale ol the still by him attached and apply as much of the Money arising trom such sale towards satisfying this judgment of £210 & his costs bv him in his behalf expended.”3 0 xt H By- ,A£ ri1’ Nathaniel was in real trouble. The court “ordered that Nathaniel Evans be discharged from his Confinement on his first giving Bond and Security for his good Behavior in future in the form of twenty thousand pounds.”31 This prison term and extremely high security bond can only be explained by the assumption that Nathaniel had been found to be a Tory. At the time of this order, there were other judg­ ments on men whose offence was spelled out as being Tory activities ■ B H th°se charges were the bonds required for good behavior so high. The nearest m size was that for John Griffith, £10,000 for him­ self and £5,000 for the man who would go his security.32 Griffith was known to have taken up arms in the Tory cause. It would be interesting to know what Nathaniel had done. Nathaniel’s brother Peter was also having trouble in 1781. Accordvu H his father’s Patent, he was the owner of 1,200 acres of land in The Barrens and the adjoining Cedar Spring Farm. It seemed to his " ei?kk°rs, however, that he was claiming more than 1,200 acres. Finally 1 ° j q, ’ | S county surveyor was ordered to make a resurvey of the ’ T B e °Urvey; M finally finished, showed 1,910 acres, more than 500 off the mark.34 Peter Evans elected to pay the difference and keep the land. During these land hassles, which took years to settle, Malcolm Campbell s claim to the 42 acres he had patented on Evans Creek must have entered the proceedings. The tract may have been seen as a part of Mark Evans original grant or, as it was a portion of the 30,000 acres granted by order of the Virginia Council to Zachariah Lewis for settle­ ment, it may have never been properly entered. For whatever cause ! The, HI 10 �M il L o I. CvnNi 'll a . sp*•Is*c S. V»©uS€. 4-. .5p©Tti Mi |( S~. ’P a t'« ’* T rti/ « * * ' A map of the Big Lick Tract shows the 58 acres patented by Nathaniel Evans in 1787. and the IIV 2 acres patented by George Spotts in 1798. The parcels adjoined the Evans land which went to Capt. Andrew Lewis in 1812. The old village of Gainesborough was laid out on the lower part of the Big Lick Tract at what is the Orange Avenue interchange of Interstate 581. (Map by Clare White.) Nathaniel Evans entered 58 acres on Evans Spring Branch in 1787, which included 38 of the 42 acres “devised by Malcolm Campbell to his son Archibald.”35 That land was now in the hands of Archibald Campbell’s nephew Archibald Simpson. The uproar amongst the Campbells can be imagined. Not only were they about to lose the land, but also the stone mill they had built. Nathaniel’s patent held. Nathaniel’s final appearance in the Botetourt Court took place the following year and the Campbells may be forgiven if they got a certain satisfaction out of it. Nathaniel was caught stealing, and this time the court threw the book at him. The court order for April 21,1788, lists seven counts of theft which, although none was of much moment, had been committed against some of the most prominent men of the neigh­ borhood, including Thomas Preston, Anthony Gholson, and George Spotts. He was accused of taking such items as bacon, a hoe, “linning overalls & woolen stocking legs,” and a cowbell. He was sent to the General Court in Richmond for trial, and eight plaintiffs gave bond that they would go to Richmond to testify. The General Court was to meet in June.36 What was decided at the court in Richmond we do not know; the Henrico County records were burned during the Civil War. However, in August of that year, 1788, a case Nathaniel had brought against John Vineyard in the Botetourt court was dismissed, “the plaintiff being dead.” An attachment George Spotts had brought against him was dis­ missed for the same reason.3 7 Nathaniel Evans left a will in Henrico County in which he appointed Jane Campbell as his executrix. (So she never married him and there is no hint of what their relationship may have been during those fourteen 11 �years since her brother Archibald had died.) Two years later, in 1790, the records show Archibald Simpson (John Simpson, had died at age 12 and his brother Archibald got the 42-acre tract) releasing his claim to 38 of the 42 acres to Jane Campbell as executrix of Nathaniel Evans, deceased.38 Jane must have been still in Virginia then but, four years later, when she deeded 58 acres to George Spotts, she was listed as being “of the Territory South West of the River Ohio.” The deed reads: “Whereas George Spotts in the lifetime of the said Nathaniel Evans had purchased of him fifty eight Acres of Land being the same whereon he now lives and on which is a Stone Mill House, the Title to which the sd. Evans had not made in his lifetime...”39 To the 58 acres bought of Nathaniel Evans, George Spotts added an adjoining 11 Vi- acres on the hill northeast of the creek and next to Peter Evans’ line.40 (The administrative offices of the Roanoke City Schools are on that hill today.) His property then lay below and to the east of the Evans tract, an acreage eventually to be surveyed for Gen. Edward Watts as the Big Lick tract, where Gainesborough would be laid out.41 Spotts sold out to John & Cornelius Pate Co. in 1802, after he had migrated to Greenbrier County. He got £1,000 for 58 acres “where they now live and on which there is a stone mill house.” He also sold them the 1VA acres adjoining.4 2 The Pates ran the mill and a store, as well as a tavern. A little community had begun to grow. In the meantime, Peter Evans had died; his will was recorded in January of 1797. He left the lower part of his land, known as the Cedar Spring tract, to his son Mark, who seems to have been the eldest of his four sons.43 Thus Mark inherited the Evans mill. In 1800, Mark married Temperance Bratcher of Bedford County44 and, five years later, sold 500 acres, his inheritance, to James Breckinridge.4 5 In 1812, a deed was recorded from Breckinridge to Capt. Andrew Lewis, son of John Lewis and grandson of Gen. Andrew Lewis.46 Capt. Lewis had married Jane McClanahan, daughter of William McClanahan and sister of Elijah McClanahan whose land adjoined the Evans on the west. Three years after Lewis had purchased the land, he was dead, leaving his widow and eight children. His widow was assigned as her dower the land south of the Great Road, including the Cedar Spring and a dwelling house. She also got a 17-acre tract on Peter Evans Mill Creek, the southern tip of the strip down the creek, just below what would be known as the Mill Lot, and just below the spring. It is that 17-acre tract upon which the little brick house was built. However, no house of any sort was mentioned in the dower assignment and it was customary to do so if there was a house there. The Andrew Lewis family lived at Cedar Spring.4 8 It makes sense to conclude that the house at Cedar Spring was the house where Mark Evans, son of Peter, had lived, the house Peter Evans had built. Also, it must surely be significant that, from Peter Evans’ time, the southern part of his estate was called the Cedar Spring Farm, implying that the center of the farm was at Cedar Spring, not the spring on Evans Creek. There is, however, another house that could qualify as having been built by Peter Evans. In 1821, the portion of the Lewis land north of the Great Road, excepting the 17-acre tract, was divided between the eight children. The commissioners laid out the land in eight parcels of equal value, leaving two lots to be jointly owned. The Mill Lot, containing 14 acres 12 �and the spring, went to the eight children and to the widow as part of her dower. Jane, the widow, was to get one-third the profit from the mill and the children two-thirds. A small lot of 2% acres with a dwelling and outhouses was to go to the eight children jointly, they to have an equal share of the rents and profits deriving from the same.” There may have been a spring at that location also; the early dwellings were dependent on springs. If so, this house could have been the one built by Peter Evans and listed in his improvement report of 1755, later to be the home of Nathaniel Evans. It would have been on the Great Road about half a mile west of the 17-acre tract. There is just no way to know. For most of the 12 years between the division of the Lewis lands and their sale about 1827, the tax accounts are not very helpful. Until 1820, everything taxable was lumped together in the land tax books, with no notations for improvements such as houses, barns or the like. Starting in 1820, however, the value of buildings was listed separately from the value of land, although they were also given in a lump. The addition of a house, however, or the loss of one, is noted. In 1820, the heirs of Andrew Lewis were taxed on the basis of $1,300 worth of buildings on 245 acres of land.50 The north 255 acres of the 500-acre farm bought by Andrew Lewis had been sold to Gen. Edward Watts in 181551 and would become the Watts homeplace. The 1821 tax record carries a notation that the mill on the Lewis land had burned, and the evaluation for buildings dropped to $700. The note stated that $600 had been taken off for the loss of the mill.52 A mill was always worth far more than a house, so it could be the $700 re­ maining tax was for two houses, the one at Cedar Spring and the one on the Great Road. The tax records are no further help until 1827 when the remainder of the Lewis land came on the market. A man named Jeremiah (Jerry) Whitten bought most of it, a piece at a time. One of his first purchases was the 17-acre tract.53 No tax assessment was made on it for build­ ings, however, foi the next 10 years. In 1834, the town of Gainsborough was laid off adjoining the 17acre tract and, in 1836, a significant agreement was drawn up between Elijah McClanahan and Edward Watts, neighbors on either side. Elijah McClanahan, brother of Jane Lewis and advisor for the family, traded water rights to the spring on the old Mill Lot for Watts right to take water out of the portion of Evans Spring Branch now on McClanahan’s land. Watts now owned the old Mill Lot and had built a new mill in 1831 on the site of the old mill.54 He did not own the land on the creek above the mill, however, and traded with McClanahan for the right, to divert water from that part of the creek for his mill.55 The following year, $900 was added to Whitten’s taxes for a build­ ing on the 17 acres.56 That has to be the brick house. The sequence can be easily read as Whitten wanting to build on his land near the new village and McClanahan securing for him the right to use the water of the spring so he would have a water supply. According to later deeds and surveys, Whitten built almost on the dividing line between his property and the mill lot, evidently to have ready access to the spring. When Whitten got into financial troubles years later (1840 to 1848 off and on) and had to sell portions of his property, reference is made to this particular piece as “the tract upon which the said Whitten formerly resided.”57 13 �(The Watts mill stayed in operation until well after the Civil War; the Watts papers first show wheat being sent to Richmond in 1872 to be ground into flour.58) The records do not offer much information on the Whitten family, where they came from nor where they went. (A short street near St. Andrews is named Whitten on today’s map of Roanoke.) The first reference to them is in 1827 when Jeremiah started buying the Lewis land. At one time he owned 400 acres on both sides of the Great Road, about half of it the former Lewis holdings, and the other half bought from Elijah McClanahan (north of the road) and James C. Madison (south of the road). He owned the Cedar Spring farm, but the house there was tied up in Jane Lewis’ dower rights which she did not release until 184359 when Whitten was about to sell that land to the Rev. Uriah Powers. Whitten’s wife’s name was Susan, and they had six children, four boys and two girls, according to the census records. The records show Whitten to have been bom about 1794, his wife about 1800. They were evidently married about 1817.6 0 Presumably he was a farmer for most of his life. In 1843, when his holdings were listed as security for debt, he had six slaves. Twice he mortaged all he had to get out of debt, and twice he managed to redeem it by the sale of land.61 In 1843, he sold the Cedar Spring tract, then 196y2 acres, to the Rev. Uriah Powers,6 2 who would build a new house on it named Melrose. That land was to pass, in 1870, to R. B. Moorman and, in 1890, 12Vi acres of it on the north side of Orange Avenue to the Creston Land Co. The house at Cedar Spring went to Moorman’s daughter, Mrs. T. J. Buford, and from her to Dr. George Moore. It has been restored by Jim Lindsey.6 3 Jeremiah Whitten’s name disappears from the land tax books in 1849. He had deeded the last of his land, 200 acres, to William M. Peyton for $5 in 1848.64 The 1850 census records give his occupation as manager for Peyton, who was then living at Elmwood and who had a hand in various commercial ventures. The space on the census for the value of real estate was blank. In 1860, his wife was dead and he owned real estate worth $200. As for the 17-acre tract, on which it is presumed the brick house was built, Whitten sold that in 1840 to one John Bowers.65 Bowers sold off 4X U acres of it66 and paid taxes on the rest until 1849 when it went to Elijah McClanahan,6 7 who soon deeded it to his son Elijah G. McClanahan.6 8 In 1852, the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad came through the valley, missing the village at Gainesborough by almost a mile. In the succeeding years, the village moved to the railroad and property near Gainesborough (or Gainsboro) deteriorated in value. In 1854, Elijah G. McClanahan sold the 17-acre plot, now down to 12x/2 acres, to Mary A. Sowers.6 9 The Sowers held it until 1872.7 0 After that, it went through several hands until 1888 when Peyton L. Terry bought it as the site of Roanoke’s first dairy.71 During all that time, the tax books showed buildings on the lot. The value of the buildings fluctuated from $600 to $1,000, possibly reflecting the fortunes of the neighborhood as Gainesborough, now called Old Lick, gradually became a black community. No real pattern can be established for the fluctuations. In 1890, J. Allen Watts, grandson of Gen. Edward Watts and heir 14 �to the Watts property, sold the homeplace, Oaklands, and almost 1,000 acres to Cornelius O’Leary.72 In the deed, Watts reserved “the spring used by P. L. Terry for his creamery and one acre of land surrounding said spring.” By the following year, however, Terry had found one acre not enough, so he purchased a larger portion along with the spring. (At last, the spring was on the same lot as the brick house.) The dairy pro­ perty now consisted of 10.70 acres (see survey).73 To run his dairy, Terry brought in Charles T. Lukens of Pennsylvania and settled him in the house in today’s Washington Park.74 The neigh­ bors to the east were the Williamsons for whom Williamson Road would be named. One day, goes the story, a cow from Lukens’ herd strayed onto the Williamson land. When Lukens went to round up the cow, he met young Lucy Williamson. They were married in 1893 in the tiny Methodist Church on Commerce Street in Roanoke.75 The Lukens lived in the brick house on what was then called the Lynchburg Turnpike (Orange Avenue). At that time, the house was much larger, having two wooden additions on the west side of the brick portion, (see picture). The city directories of the period list Lukens as living at the dairy.76 In 1896, Terry’s bank, the Roanoke Trust, Loan and Safe Deposit Company, closed its doors in failure,77 a victim of the bursting of the real estate boom in Roanoke. The Eagle Dairy disappeared also, but not necessarily as a result of Terry’s problems, although the property was put into the hands of trustees as security for debts.78 In 1901, Lukens took over the notes and bought the property for an additional $1,000.79 The Lukens and Mrs. Nancy C. Williamson, Lucy Lukens’ mother, sold it to the city in 1922.80 Tradition has it the Eagle Dairy house was burned at the turn of the century and the city directories bear out the story. Lukens is listed as living there in 1895, running the dairy as well as a restaurant in town on Jefferson Street called the Eagle Dairy Restaurant. The 1896 and 1897 directories show him living on Patton Avenue, several blocks south of the dairy property; his occupation is given as a planter. Neither the dairy nor the restaurant are listed after 1895. 1898-1899 finds the Lukens at 15 Elm Avenue and he is the manager of the Roanoke Creamery. In 1900, he is manager of the Clover Creamery and is living at the Williamson house, listed as “suburbs,ne” (northeast).81 There they would remain, probably because William Littleberry Williamson, Lucy’s father, had died in 1898.8 2 The Williamson house was back of 20th-century Searstown and, until Williamson Road was opened in 1911, faced west. Access to it was by a road from the Lynchburg Turnpike. The house had been the home of the Rev. Clack Campbell, a Methodist minister whose family had come to Roanoke from eastern Virginia. He and his wife were childless and reared a niece, Nancy Campbell, as their own child, leaving her all their considerable estate. Nancy married W. L. Williamson and continued to live at the Campbell home. It was Nancy’s daughter who had married Charles Lukens.83 In time the house would become known as the Lukens House; it was demolished in 1974 to make room for Roanoke’s city service center. As far as can be ascertained, the old stone mill on Peter Evans Spring Branch, now Lick Run, went into a decline in the first quarter of the 19th century. A survey of the property made at the request of Gen. 15 �Edward Watts in 1832 makes no mention of a mill; the only buildings listed were a tavern, barn and outbuildings.84 In 1834, the land was sold to William Rowland, who was to lay it out in lots as Gainesborough. Again, there is no mention of a mill, although the tract is identified as the same sold to George Spotts and the Pates.8 5 The last reference to the old mill is a deed of Jan. 4, 1829, transferring this same tract to one James Bullock, an interim owner; “ . . .one tract of land lying and being in the aforesaid County of Botetourt on k^ill Creek, a branch of Roanoke on which there is a Stone Mill & known by the name of Spotts’ or the Mill Tract containing 58 acres by patent bearing date on the 23 day of August 1787 which said Tract of Land was granted to Nathaniel Evans and conveyed to George Spotts and by George Spotts to John & Cornelius Pate & Co. Sept. 7, 1802. . .also III /2 acres adjoining last mentioned tract, the land of Peter Evans & Daniel McNeel, granted to George Spotts by patent April 11, 1798 and sold by Spotts to John & Cornelius Pate & Co.”86 To sum up, the little brick house on Orange Avenue is hardly the oldest in Roanoke; it was built by Jeremiah Whitten in 1837. Moreover, there is no way of knowing whether a log section of the brick part was built then, only that a house was built. The value placed upon it would argue for brick. Neither Peter Evans nor his colorful brother Nathaniel lived there, unless in a house that disappeared in the 18th century. What is sure is that the environs have been busily engaged since the first settlers drank from the spring. Two mills used the waters of the stream, one site being so occupied for over a hundred years. The spring was an asset as only a spring could be during the early history of the valley and continued to be so until 20th-century methods made both spring and stream more of a nuisance than a necessity. However, all three, the spring, the stream and the house, are still there. The old house in Washington Park stands as it has for almost a century and a half, little used in 1984. 16 �NOTES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Augusta County Deed B ook , p . 2 7 . (hereafter Aug. Co. DB) Moravian diaries, Virginia Historical Magazine, V ol. XII, p . 1 5 3 . Augusta County Will B ook 3, p. 2 6 6 . (hereafter Aug. Co. WB) Aug. Co. WB 1, p. 1 1 6 . m SM Pennsylvania Archives, Series II, V ol. 9 , N o. 2, p . 7 3 ff. Aug. Co. DB 3, pp 5 1 8 -5 3 0 . Aug. Co. WB 2, p . 1 4 7 . Augusta County Order B ook , Nov. 1 7 4 6 . (hereafter Aug. Co. OB) 9. 10 . Botetourt^C ounty Land Tax Records 1 8 2 1 , m icrofilm at B otetou rt County Court, Fincastle. 1 1 . Aug. Co. WB 2, p . 9 8. 12 . 13. 14. Preston papers on m icrofilm . N o. 5 2 2 1 1 2 , Virginia R oom , R oanoke Public Library. 15. A 'm im ber o f de*eds, particularly Aug. Co. DB 1 1 , p . 248; also B ot. Co. Order B ook , May 1 5 ,1 7 7 1 ; and B ot. Co. WB A, p . 48. 1 6 . B ot. Co. OB 1 7 7 6 -1 7 8 0 , p . 2 0 6 . 17. Aug. Co. WB 3, p. 266. 18. Aug. Co. Survey B ook N o, 1, p. 53. , , I I ■ — 1 9 . B ot. Co. OB 1 7 7 2 -1 7 7 6 , p . 3 1 4 . 220 0 . B o t. Co. OB Nov. 1 7 6 7 ; in the settlem en t o f Malcolm Cambpell s estate a d eb t, in ­ curred in 1 7 4 8 , was paid to Mary M cDonald, adm x. Edward M cDonald, for “tanning & currying le a th e r /’ Givens Joh n son JAMES p ATTON A ND THE APPALACHIAN COLONISTS, pp. 59-60. 2 2 . Aug. Co. DB 8, p . 238. 23. B ot. Co. DB 1 7 , p. 2 7 3 . 24. B o t. Co. DB 9, p. 1 2. 25. B ot. Co. WB A, p. 78. 26. B o t. Co. DB 4, p. 2 3 5 . 27. B ot. Co. WB A, p. 78. . „ 28. B o t. Co. OB, May 1 0 ,1 7 7 4 , an d Nov. 8 ,1 7 7 4 . 29. T he spelling o f n am es in th e early o rd e r b o o k s, d eed h o o k s an d will b o o k s w as d o n e p h o n e tic a lly a n d varies. 3 0 . B ot. Co. OB 1 7 8 0 -1 7 8 4 , Part I, p . 15 & p. 9 0. 3 1 . ibid., p . 95. 3 2 . ib id ., p . 4 0 . „. . . 33. B ot. Co. OB, Aug. 1 5 , 1 7 8 7 . 3 4 . V a. Patent B ook N o. 2 5, p. 3 8 ff, Virginia State Library, R ichm ond. B o t. Co. DB 5, p. 44-4 5 . 35. 3 6 . B ot. Co. OB 1 7 8 8 -1 7 9 2 , Part I, P. 1 3. 3 7 . ib id , Aug. 1 2 ,1 7 8 8 , & p. 91. 3 8 . B ot. Co. DB 4, p . 3 0 3 . 3 9 . B ot. Co. DB 5, p. 4 4 -4 5 . 4 0 . B o t. Co. DB 1 8, p . 598. 4 1 . B ot. Co. Survey B ook N o. 4, p. 227. 4 2 . B ot. Co. DB 8, p . 56-57. 43. 4 4 . M A R R IA G E ^ O N D ^ O F BEDFO RD COUNTY 1 7 5 5 -1 8 0 0 , Earle S. Dennis & Jane E. Sm ith com pilers, p . 21. 4 5 . B o t. Co. DB 9 , p . 12. 4 6 . B o t. Co. DB 1 1, p . 75. ■ ¡■ I 4 7 . B ot. Co. WB C, p . 2 1 . 4 8 . B o t. C o. DB 1 7 , p . 65; P re sto n p a p e rs N o. 5 2 2 1 1 2 as above. 44 99 . B ot. Co. WB C, p. 3 2 2 ; the phrase “rents and p rofits” d oes n o t necessarily m ean the house was rented. It was a standard phrase used in wills and deeds as part o f the form at. 50. B ot. Co. Land Tax, 1 8 2 0 , m icrofilm . 51. B ot. Co. DB 1 1, p. 63 3 & 6 1 5 . 52. B ot. Co. Land Tax, 1 8 2 1 , m icrofilm , 53. ib id . 1 8 2 0 -1 8 2 7 ; B ot. Co. DB 1 7 , p. 2 7 3 . 54. B ot. Co. Land T ax, 1 8 3 2 , m icrofilm . 55. B ot. Co. DB 1 7, p . 2; ibid. p . 51. 56. B ot. Co. Land Tax, 1 8 3 7 , m icrofilm . 57. B o t. Co. Survey Oct. 9 ,1 8 4 3 , for Jonathan Reed. 58. W atts fam ily papers in the possession o f William Watts. 59. R oanoke County D B B, p. 1 6 9 (hereafter R ke. Co.) 6 0 . U .S. Census Records, m icrofilm , R oanoke Public Library. 6 1 . R ke. Co. DB B, p. 107; ib id . p . 4 4 3 . 6 2 . R ke. Co. DB B, p. 1 6 5 . 6 3 . R oanoke Times-World N ew s, Sept. 8 ,1 9 8 3 . 6 4 . R ke. Co. DB C, p . 3 5 2 . 6 5 . Rke. Co. DB A, p. 1 8 2 . 66 . ibid., p. 2 5 2 . 6 7 . R ke. Co. DB C, p . 4 4 5 . 68 . R ke. Co. DB D , p. 4 5 1 . 6 9 . R ke. Co. DB E, p. 3 3 2 . 70. R ke. Co. DB H, p . 6 5 1 . 71. R ke. Co. DB R, p. 6 3 9 . 72. R ke. Co. DB 4 , p . 5 0 5-506. 7 3 . R ke. Co. DB 2 4, p . 2 3 1 . 74. R oanoke City Directory 1 8 9 0 . 17 �—. . 3!!16 M ethodist Church o n Com merce Street had been b u ilt in 1 8 7 5 as PnW>e S t r e ^ T r iS ir M ^ t h o d i1.? 9t2 ’ k*16" i f f ! EPiscoP 4 ,ch urch m oved to its n ew church on J^fferaon i ohi ’ u iu M ethodlst ,to o k over the form er Episcopal building, where they remained until 1 9 0 1 , w hen the congregation o f Christ Episcopal to o k over Y rem am ea untu 76. Roanoke City D irectory 1 8 9 0 . 77. The R oanoke Times, June 1 6 , 1 8 9 6 . 78. Rke. Co. DB 2 3 , p. 581. 79. Rke. Co. DB 24, p. 229. 80. Rke. City DB 3 8 4 , p . 2 9 8 . 81. R oanoke City Directories 1 8 9 5 -1 9 0 0 . 82. Rke. City WB 1, p. 3 3 9 . 83. Sylvia N elm s^ R oan ok e^ 8 ° f NelmS a"d CampbeUs' com p iled by Robert C. Nelm s and 8 4 . B ot. Co. Survey B ook N o. 4, p. 227. 85. Bot. Co. DB 2 1 , p . 3 4. 8 6 . B ot. Co. DB 1 8 , p. 598. Vinton’s Beginnings From the small dirt roads with horse and buggy transportation and a population of a few hundred people to a thriving town of 8,027 (1980 census), the Town of Vinton has endured because of the determination of its people and the concern they have shown one for another. Vinton’s history encompasses more than just the past 100 years smce the Town was chartered. The town can trace its heritage back to the mid-1700s when the area was first settled or even further back in time when the area was a part of an Indian trail which led to the Carolinas. i iBjjJl settlers of this area was the Matthias Gish family (spelled Gisch) who arriyed in Philadelphia in 1733 from Germany. Christian Gish, son of Matthias who was born around 1735, was one of the first members of the Gish family to arrive in the area. In 1797, the Gish brothers, Christian and David, established a grist mill on Glade Creek, and this led to the first “official” name for the Vinton area—Gish’s Mill with Gish’s Mill becoming a part of Roanoke County. As the railroad expanded into the Roanoke Valley, Gish’s Mill be­ came a flag stop for the Atlantic, Mississippi & Ohio Railroad. Gish’s depot, initially nothing more than a small boxcar, was burned by Stoneman s Calvary in 1865. After the Civil War, through the persuasion of George McHenry Gish, the railroad company constructed a more substantial depot building. Before the War Between the States, William Gish operated a general store near the depot. When the war broke out, his sons George and Griffin Gish joined the Confederate army. Upon the death of Captain Madison P. Deyerle, George McHenry Gish was promoted to the rank of Captain of the Roanoke Grays and his brother, Griffin, was designated as corporal in the same company. A neighbor of the Gish brothers, M.P. Preston attained the rank of first sergeant. After the war, the Gish brothers re­ turned home and engaged in the mercantile business and Preston continued farming and land speculating. There is no doubt the Gish, Vinyard, and Preston families play an important part m establishing the town. In fact, much of the land which is a part of the town was formerly the Gish land. Captain George Mc­ Henry Gish gave the land on which the depot was constructed as well as the property on which Washington Avenue was built. The Vinyards and the Prestons also owned much of the land on which the town now stands. However, over the years other families settled around Gish’s Uepot. Among the early families were the Prestons, John C. Fox, Jones Funks, Pollards, Pedigos, Walkers, McLains, Bushes, Ruddells, and others. tt‘ I B k E h B B I Vinton's^ beginnings is from a new book, Vinton HistcpL 1884-1984 by Irma Trammel Moseley and Madeline Simmons rorbes The book, priced at $10, was published by the Vinton Cen­ tennial Committee. 18 �How Dr. Hart Lost His Sight (Editor's note: Two views o f the cause o f Dr. H. C. Hart’s blindness are given here. The first is by his grandson, W.H. Hart, a binder o f books who retired from American Viscose Corp. Another opinion came from George L. Hart, a son o f the doctor. George L. Hart, an owner o f the old Roanoke Evening News later was a court reporter in Roanoke and Washington. His son, George L. Hart Jr., a federal judge, died in Washington on May 21, 1984, at 78.) by W. H. Hart My grandmother told me that her son Clayton I. Hart, years ago had a nightmare and his father, Dr. Henry Clay Hart went to see about him and fell, hitting his head on the steps, causing him to become nearly blind. He did not believe in operations unless it was the last and only thing to do, but another doctor talked Dr. Hart into allowing him to operate. After the operation Dr. Hart never was able to see again. This was in September 1886, so the record shows. I, Winfred H. Hart was born in 1898 so I did not know him when he had his sight. I remember that I lived with them at “Magnolia” in 1912. How do I remember the date? We received a message by phone that the Titanic sank April 15, 1912. We had the old fashioned tele­ phone on the wall in the hall. That was when we turned the crank to ring the operator and she rang the number for us. I think I am right in A snowy view of Magnolia, the Hart home, when a fence stood along present Orange Avenue. A comer of another house can be seen on the Williamson Road side. 19 �remembering the phone number to be 1831-J. The number of Mrs. Artie Richardson (Dr. Hart’s daughter) I think was 1821-R, but I do not claim to remember other numbers. I also remember my grandfather got up each morning and got his tin cup, which was kept in that certain place so he could find it. He got about a pint of hot water and I think he added a little salt, stirred it and took a sip at a time, drinking it before eating his breakfast. No coffee; no tea; but nature’s water. He did not believe in stimulants, I am told, and served only milk or water at the table. He, being a doctor, did things the old-fashioned way, which seemed the best way. Although he was blind, he would do a lot of things and he did them well. I worked with him also but it was fascinating to watch him. He would put a small log on the saw-buck and with a hand saw cut the wood about a foot long for the kitchen stove, then split it with the ax without getting hurt. He got a few scratches now and then, we all do. Dr. Hart had a stick for a cane, about 6 feet long by 3A inch thick. He used it to help find his way around, to prevent him bumping into something. He would carry the milk bucket to the bam, milk the cow and feed the cow and horse, leaving his cane at the gate leading to a well at the old Thomas place about 150 feet east from the barn which supplied water for both places. He took two buckets to the well and got water for the cow and horse. At the well he would turn the crank backwards and lower the bucket. The heavy bucket would sink into the water and fill. He turned the crank, winding the rope around the cylinder and up came the bucket of water. He would empty it, draw another and carry the two buckets of water, one in each hand, to the barn. Since the path was lower than the grass on both sides, it was easy to follow. If the well was still there today, it would be about 200 feet from Orange Avenue, looking north, where Williamson Road is now. At that time it was Magnolia, at 550 Hart Ave., N.E. Grandpa Hart also could halfsole shoes, peal apples and potatoes, string beans, shell peas and churn butter. It is surprising what the blind can do. He died Jan. 17, 1918 at the age of 81. His wife, Mrs. Pluma A. Thayer Hart, died May 31, 1916, at the age of 77. I was told I was bom in the Beehive Building. I do not know why they called a plain, two-story building a beehive. We lived upstairs and Papa operated a bicycle shop downstairs on the ground floor. Imagine me being born in a beehive and not getting stung. It was on the north­ east corner of what is now Wells Avenue, Northeast, across the street from where the old American Legion Auditorium was later on. Now, it is a parking lot, a block from the old Norfolk and Western Railway passenger station. According to the record, my brother, George W. Hart, was born in 1894, now deceased. My mother died in 1900, two years after I was born. Papa (William H. Hart) married the second time in 1903 to Mary Jane Stoughton and the four of us moved to a farm. My dad worked for the N&W East End Shops but we then lived on a farm. He was a machinist and later worked in the upstairs toolroom until he retired April 25, 1938. I think all of us would fare better if we could spend some time on a farm and learn to do whatever is to be done to work. Papa bought the Jim Day farm of nearly 40 acres, which joined 20 �Dr. Henry Clay Hart and his wife, Pluma Artilissa Hart the Poor House Farm on the Poor House Road, now Colonial Avenue, across from the former Jefferson Hills golf course. On the farm, we had a large bam. We lived in a two-story house. We used an old log cabin for a do-it-yourself workshop and we had a woodshed, spring house and good spring water. Papa and my step­ mother raised three children—Ralph, Mary and Lenore—all still living. Papa died Sept. 12, 1953 and the farm was sold about a year later to G. G. Fralin and Son, who sold lots and built houses, now known as Fralin Park. I do not remember cousin George L. Hart, Jr. in his younger days. The family of his dad lived in southwest Roanoke a block or two from Jefferson Street. George Hart became a federal judge in Washington. I remember his dad, my uncle, George L. Hart, coming to visit my grandparents in the old Magnolia building that was built for a hotel in horse and buggy days. He drove a car, as I remember, that looked a bit like the old fire truck. Being high off the ground, you had to climb up to get on it. During President Harding’s administration, as I remember, Cousin George L. Hart’s dad moved the family to Washington, D. C. Both his parents are deceased and I think are buried in Washington. Eight or 10 years ago, my sister-in-law and her husband took me to Washington, D. C. to visit her brother, Ashby Crawford and Ashby took me to see my cousin, George L. Hart. He could hardly walk because of arthritis but still was judge of a lower court. I have been told he was judge of a high court but had to become judge of a lower court when he reached a certain age. I think he is still active as judge, or was the last I heard. 21 �Dr. H. C. H art’s Life The following biographic sketch of Dr. Hart was prepared by his son, George L. Hart, many years ago. Dr. Henry Clay Hart, eldest son of David and Submit Coleman Hart, was bom in Wayne, Ashtabula County, Ohio Aug. 11,1837. His mother died May 6, 1839, and he was reared by his maternal grand­ parents, Mr. and Mrs. Nathaniel Coleman, in Williamsfield, Ohio, with whom he remained until February 1863, engaging in farming and carpenter work. He then moved to Bristol, Ohio, where he continued the same avocation; and in 1867 he removed to Linesville, Pa. He married Pluma Artilissa Thayer of Linesville, Crawford County, Pa. Dec. 24, 1863. Before reaching the age of 21, the subject of this sketch was elected township trustee in his native town, but was unable to serve. After reaching his majority he was again elected in Trunbell County, O., and served for three years. He was also supervisor in Crawford County, Pa., for three years. He entered a medical school, where for four years he was engaged in the study of medicine. After graduation, Dr. Hart located at Westfield, Chautaqua County, N.Y. Six months later he joined the Ingersoll Health Institute, at Corning, Steuben County, New York as assistant superintendent. While at the Institute Dr. Hart treated many patients of the Dunkard faith from Roanoke and Botetourt counties, Virginia, and they prevailed upon him to establish a similar sanitarium in their midst. Having purchased Magnolia, Dr. Dennis’ residence, an old Southern home at the then Big Lick, (afterwards Roanoke) Roanoke County, Virginia, on April 14, 1875, Dr. Hart opened the Valley Health Institute. In September 1886, Dr. Hart lost his eyesight as a result of glau­ coma and retired from active practice. And thereafter for 32 years, as before, he was apparently the happiest member of the family, ever radiating the sunshine of goodwill and never uttering a complaint. He passed away Jan. 17, 1918, at the age of 81, having been preceded by the death of wife May 31, 1916, age 77 years. Dr. and Mrs. Hart were Congregationalists. Being opposed to all stimulants, they never served even tea or coffee at their table. More Hart Memories Alma Hart Keyser, youngest daughter of Dr. Hart, contributed additional information about the family before her death at the age of 86 in 1968. Magnolia was built by Zachariah Robinson in 1837 of brick made from clay in the bottom field “as our father called it.” Her father told her of a very thick wall between the old sitting room and the room on the west to keep noise from bothering Robinson’s ill sister. Near the house, she said, were an old kitchen, a smoke house, granary, henhouse, horse and cow barn, two old houses and the old post office where the Harts lived when they moved from Bonsack. The family moved from New York State to Bonsack and then on to Big Lick, she said. Dr. Hart started the “Invalid’s Home,” she said, “but people just would not pay their bills so our father went to work for the railroad.” 22 �Dr. William Fleming Made House Calls in 1700s by Dr. Warren Moorman William Fleming, “Colonial Surgeon, Soldier and Patriot,”1 com­ missioner to settle the public accounts in the western counties and for a brief period acting governor of Virginia, has received a modicum of notice because of his services to Virginia in the formative years of our nation, but an equally interesting facet of his life, his practice of medicine, has received little attention. This aspect of his life can now be more fully appreciated as a result of the fairly recent discovery of his Ledger Book “B” in the archives ofWashington and Lee University. W & L Archivist Richard Oram, said the ledger was in the accession records but because of lack of adequate space had somehow been mis­ placed for many years2. When the new library building was occupied in 1969 Fleming’s Ledger “B” was found in good condition. This 16-by-40-cm leather-bound volume is a part of the 432 items in the Fleming collection. Because the back is missing, the last few pages may also be missing. Fleming’s signature appears nowhere in the book, but the handwriting, a rather small, carefully formed script, with few flourishes, is identical with that observed in his diary. From this account book’s 126 pages of entries a rather clear picture of his medical practice can be obtained. Also, some information on 453 persons named as having accounts with him can be obtained. On the Virginia frontier in the tumultous years covered, 1769 to 1781, most individuals were on the move. In many instances Fleming recorded their place of residence. An effort has been made to determine from other sources3 where those not identified by location may have been residing at the time of the entries. Counting excited chickens best describes this endeavor! And Fleming himself was not one to stay in one place long at a time. Edmund P. Goodwin quoted a letter Fleming penned in his latter years regarding his reason for becoming a physician (date not given) in which he observed: “My inclination leading me to the study of medicine (Phisick) rather to enable (me) to satisfy my curiosity in traveling than as a business on which I was to depend at a future day for my support.” Since many of his professional charges were paid very slowly, some not ever and some in the only medium of exchange available to many, farm products or personal services, Fleming’s original inclination seems very foresigh ted. Fleming made his decision to study medicine at a time when the scientific method was being applied for the first time to observation of Dr. Warren Moorman, a frequent contributor to the Journal, lives in Salem and works as a surgeon at Lewis-Gale Clinic when he isn’t doing historical research. The information from William Fleming’s account book came from the Fleming Papers in University Library at Washington and Lee University. 23 �nature and before it was accepted that human kind was a part of nature. The diagnosis of diseases was still imprecise, awaiting the birth of Pasteur (1822-1895), Koch (1843-1910) and fellow Scotsman Lister (1822-1912). But foundations were being laid in the understanding of normal and morbid anatomy. Fleming was born in Jedburgh, Scotland, February 7, 1728 of clearly middle-class parents. Education was the important ladder to improvement and his parents, Dorothea Saterthwaite and Leonard Fleming, saw to it that he received a sound basic education. He then became an apprentice under a surgeon named McKee in Dumfries and moved with him to Kirkcudbright for a period of three years. He then worked for and studied under Christopher Brown, an apothecary in Kendal, Scotland. It is clearly documented that he studied at least one session in the year 1746 under Alexander Monro, professor of anatomy at the University of Edinburgh. This was near the peak of Monro’s teaching career, his classes having grown from 57 students in 1720 to more than 180 per year in 1749, the year his son, Alexander Monro, secundus, became professor of anatomy. In those days the education of a physician was not strictly prescribed and further documentation of Fleming’s studies is lost. The University does not list him as a graduate.5 Letters by his children in the Draper collection6 indicate that for several years after his Edinburgh studies Fleming served on board ship as a surgeon’s mate, assistant surgeon and/or surgeon. Goodwin’s efforts at documenting Fleming in the years 1747 to 1751 met with no success.7 Merchant ship records were not well-kept and it is no surprise that a professional researcher, Col. M.E.S. Laws, could not find Fleming among “the fosters of all British naval ships operating in African and American waters from 1747 to 1755.” Obtaining a crew for merchant ships was very irregular in those days, “shanghaing” being frequently used to get enough ordinary hands on board to clear port. Officers, which Fleming would have been, would have signed ship’s articles, but such documents are ephemeral. I like the story written by his children years after their father died, in response to Lyman Draper6 , in which it was noted that he had been for a time in a Spanish prison. Fleming also said in a letter to William Preston that he had visited the Island of Fernando Po, off Africa’s west coast. This island was used as a staging area by some of the slave traders. Perhaps ongoing study will shed some light on this dark period. It is now clear from references discovered by Goodwin that Flem­ ing practiced medicine in Suffolk from 1750 or 1751 to 17558. There were other William Flemings in Virginia at the time but only the subject of this essay seems to fit the entries in the Vestry Book9 of Upper Parish, Nansemond County. The French and Indian War may be said to have dated from George Washington’s skirmish at Great Meadows May 28, 1754. Washington was forced to surrender Fort Necessity July 4, 1754. The English sent Braddock to halt French acquisitiveness in the Ohio area. With Braddock s defeat and death on July 8, 1755 the English became worried and the settlers who had been constantly moving westward, became even more alarmed. It was just the time for an able and adventuresome young man like Fleming to step forward. He did and was commissioned an ensign by Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie on August 25, 175510. 24 �From February 11 to April 4,1756 Fleming was with the ill-fated Sandy Creek Expedition against the Indians. He acquitted himself well, accusing no individual for the failure but stated simply it had failed “for want of provisions.” Upon Washington’s recommendation, Fleming was promoted to lieutenant on June 12, 1757. Braddock’s crushing defeat emboldened the French and their Indian allies. Terror was rampant among settlers on the Pennsylvania and Virginia frontiers of Augusta, Frederick and what became Botetourt counties. Washington wrote from Winchester in April 1756, “The Blue Ridge is now our frontier...The supplicating tears of the women and moving petitions of the men melt me with such deadly sorrow that I solemnly declare, if I know my own mind, I could offer myself a willing sacrifice to the butchering enemy, provided that would contribute to the people’s ease.” Fleming’s interests had moved from eastern Virginia to Augusta. When an expedition under the command of Col. William Byrd assembled at Fort Lewis, August 1760, Fleming was there. This was not a very aggressive effort and after about 16 days the militia was disbanded at Fort Chiswell and Fort Lewis. Dr. Fleming saw Staunton as a village with good prospects and so settled there to resume medical practice as a civilian. On April 6, 1763 a marriage license was issued for the ad­ venturous doctor and “Nancy” Ann Christian, daughter of Colonel Israel Christian, a prominent settler and merchant of the southern Shen­ andoah Valley frontier. On September 24,1763 Fleming purchased lot # 11 in Staunton and an additional 300 acres from the Beverly Mills tract. His practice thrived. He became a vestryman in the established church on November 24, 1764. He was appointed a justice of the Staunton District in May 1765. He had many entries in his Account Book “A” which were still unpaid when he had filled the more than 130 pages of that book. He started Account Book “B” about 1769. This was the year he moved his family to a 500-acre gift from his wife’s father, Israel Christian, “at the fording of Tinker Creek.” He had a home constructed that they named “Bellmont” or “Belmont.” It appears to have been sufficiently complete to have become their perma­ nent home by the spring of 1768. On page 123 of Account Book “B” is a list of items purchased from Hook & Donald including three “stock locks,” 16 pair of hinges, nails and white lead. The builders were men by the names of Bates, Teatum, Martin and Davis. Work continued after the Flemings moved in. On May 10, 1771 he paid Charles Mull £ 2,12,6 for building a smokehouse, and an outdoor oven was con­ structed by a mason for £ U,lU,0 and Capt. Bowman received £ 1,0,0 for “waggoning” material to the building site. The inside walls were not plastered for a year or two for on January 10, 1772 Fleming paid George Berry £ 4,1,0 for plastering “Belmont.” Fleming was a man of organized energy who forged ahead. His practice thrived. In 1768 he made only seven “house calls,” which he appropriately, in view of the poor road conditions, termed “journeys.” In 1769 he made 31 “journeys” ; 1770, 18; 1771, 51; 1772, 35; 1773, 36 and for reasons generally well-known, he made only 18 in 1774, the year of the Battle of Point Pleasant. From time to time he would mount his horse and ride back to Staunton to attend the ill and injured. One of the first such entries was on Jan. 7 to treat his father-in-law. He noted the charge for the trip as £ 1,0,0 and medicines at 0,10,0. Dr. Fleming’s pattern of charges is similiar to that observed in the 25 �account books of his contemporaries. His penmanship was decidedly better than most. His bookkeeping practices were, in my estimation, less precise than those observed in the account books of fellow Scot! John Hook of New London. It appears that Fleming’s charges were about a shilling for two miles; he seems to have seldom gone less! He was careful to bill from where he was when the call came, noting “from ...” when not departing from Belmont. There was no differential that I can observe for winter and summer visits. He noted when there was prolonged attendance and numerous were the nights he spent away from Belmont with some sick settler as far away as Pittsylvania, New London, Staunton, the New River settle­ ments and Greenbrier, now West Virginia. In the Roanoke valley he probably could sleep in the saddle and his horse unerringly took him home. Another pattern in his visitation charges suggests that on journeys in this valley area he would have two levels which may have been related to half and whole day investments of his time. To the Lick was £ 0,5,0. Over a decade and a half no effect of inflation is seen. Perhaps improv­ ed roads permitted him to hold down his fee when traveling within a few hours of his home. Fleming apparently was lenient in seeking payment for his services. Lyman Chalkley12 cited one instance in which Fleming in 1763 was awarded a judgment against Jessy May who owed Fleming £ 9,18 I0t4 “for service and sundries.” The court noted that May’s wife had’worked as a servant for the Flemings for three months and £ 0,10,10 should be credited to May. Fleming was not adverse to travel, indeed a chronology of his travels reveals that he probably traveled in excess of 8,650 miles on 26 �horseback carrying out his various official duties and 9,650 miles of documented medical “journys” are recorded in Ledger Book B! If one estimates his trips to and from Williamsburg and later Richmond, five trips to Kentucky, the Sandy Creek Voyage, the march to Point Pleasant and to Fort Duquesne, the Cherokee expedition, his retreat as acting chief of Virginia’s government at the time Lt. Col. Tarleton attempted to capture Jefferson at Charlottesville and trips betwen Bellmont, Fincastle and Staunton, one has a grand total of 18,300-plus miles. On horseback at 3 miles per hour (the estimated speed of the roads) he spent the equivalent of 610 ten-hour days in the saddle! The actual distances must have been much more for these estimates do not include the tortuous trails around rough terrain, up and down streams until a safe fording was reached, searching for supplies, strayed horses and AWOL militiamen. In considering Fleming’s trips in service to the sick and injured one must constantly remember that he had to carry in saddle bags all the medical supplies that he used on journeys that sometimes lasted many days. He made these calls in all weather and all seasons over roads of all kinds, mostly bad to worse. Traveling alone, as he must have done much of the time, he not only was exposed to the hazards of weather and roads but to misadventure with stray Indians, runaway indentured servants and slaves. His trips to Kentucky were made in the winter months because that was generally when the Indians were less likely to be prowling about. Vause’s fort at Shawsville was attacked and burned with considerable loss of life in 1756 and passage of Indian groups in this area was a familiar sight until the 1770s. There is no indication whether he did or did not record all patients seen at his home. It seems probable he may have had many who came to his door, were treated and paid cash so no entry was made. There were no income taxes to evade and such a practice was commonplace until physicians began to see the value of clinical notes, records of pre­ vious medical encounters and patient responses. He did make entries such as “medicine sent to...by...” or “for his wife” or “for his child” or “for a negro servant.” Much prescribing was based only on secondhand accounts of the patient’s problem. Since specific pharmaceutical agents were not known in Fleming’s time this probably made little difference in the outcome. His therapeutic armamentarium consisted of the four “P” agents of the day which were thought to rid the system of poisons or have a counter­ ing action on wayward body functions. These caused the patient to “puke,” to be “purged,” to be bled of toxins, properly called in Phila­ delphia medical circles “phlebotomy,” but always listed by Fleming as “blooding.” The other “P” was application of soothing poultices or counter-irritating plasters such as mustard. Dr. Fleming’s use of surgery does not appear very extensive in today’s era of desire for a “quick fix” but compared to his contempo­ raries he appears to have been relatively accomplished. He had studied anatomy under the world’s leading professor. He had been on his own as the person who repairs shipboard injuries. He had about as much experience treating battle wounds and trail injuries as any man in the colonies by 1775. His name is, however, missing from Louis C. Duncan’s basic study, Medical Men in the American Revolution, 1775-1783. The reason, Dr. 27 �A communication to Mark Bigler from Colonel William Fleming dated July 1, 1769. The original of this is owned by Ralph W. Firebauah a descendant of the Bigler family. ^ ’ Fleming was recovering at Belmont from nearly fatal musket hall wounds received in the Battle of Point Pleasant October 10, 1774. One of the ways a physician is evaluated is examination of his reading habits. An inventory of Dr. Fleming’s library reveals it to be one of the largest among Virginia physicians of that time. He owned ¿24 volumes, of which 43 were medical works. Because students then as today purchase and study the books by their professors it is not surprismg to find Alexander Monro’s The Anatomy o f the Human Bones, 6, among Fleming s books. Some of his books were published as much as several decades before he studied medicine but in those much slower times these could not be faulted as outdated. Today’s better physicians are apt to become anxious with the appearances of every new edition of books related to their area of conern! It is impossible to determine when he purchased all but three of the 43 medical books in his library. These three were published just before, or after he moved to Belmont and indicate his continuing interest in keeping current: Astruck, Jean, L Art d'Acoucheur, 1767 (obstetrics) Rush, Benjamin, Inoculation, 1781 Dimsdale, Thomas, The Present Method o f Inoculating for the Small Pox, 1776 Several of his books were old medical classics found in the office of many physicians of the day such as The Aphorisms o f Hippocrates the Aphorisms o f Hermann Boerhaave and William Lewis’ New Dispensatory. In evaluating Dr. Fleming the work of shrewd New London mer­ chant, John Hook, must be viewed as sound testimony to Fleming’s reputation among his knowledgeable contemporaries. Hook wrote13 his business partner, David Ross in 1773 asking his assistance in finding a doctor for the growing Bedford area. He added, “Fleming in Botetourt is the nearest, there is not one of skill or experience in any of the counties nearer than Goochland.” y That Dr. Fleming maintained a high level of intellectual curiosity is obvious from many entries in the journals he kept of his travels. He recorded carefully distances traveled, the kind of terrain, condition of nvers and soil. On his way to the Ohio River in 1774 he described the uauley River, an outcropping of coal which “burned very well” ; and 28 �there were “two curious Springs, the Vapour of which kindles quick as Gunpowder and burns with a surprising force,” though the water “tasted unctious.” He had found the natural gas of the “Burning Springs” east of Charleston, W. Va. He recognized the role contaminated water played in transmission of disease without knowing the actual agent. In 1779 he wrote in his journal14 about conditions in Harrodsburg, Kentucky: “The Spring at this place, is below the Fort and fed by ponds above the Fort so that the whole dirt and filth of the Fort, putrified flesh, dead dogs, horse, cow, hog excrements and human odour all wash into the spring with the Ashes and sweepings of filthy Cabbins, the dirtiness of the people, steeping skins to dress and washing every sort of filthy rags and cloths in the spring perfectly poisons the water and makes the most filthy nauseous potation of the water imaginable and will certainly contribute to render the inhabitants of this place sickly.” Additional evidence of Dr. Fleming’s scientific curiosity is found in items in his diary. For example, he took the trouble, while enroute to Kentucky to settle land claims, to dissect the spine of a buffalo to understand the nature of the buffalo’s hump: The hump or that remarkable rising on the shoulders of a Buf­ falo1 5 is formed by the Spinal Processes of the nine first Vertebrae of the back gradually rising in hight from the ninth to the third. The Second and the first being some thing shorter than the third, and the process of the third rising sometimes in bulls to the length of Eighten Inches the ninth to 3 or four inches these spines cut off and dressed the meat is reconed the sweetest part of the Buffalo. As one reflects upon the entries in Fleming’s ledger from the vantage point of today the question of doctor-patient relationship is the only aspect which permits comparison. Definitive drug therapy did not exist. Had there been a Federal Drug Administration in his time to evaluate the effectiveness of medicines, only Cinchona bark, opium, some of the mercurial preparations, Ipecac and perhaps some of the topical applica­ tions would have been rated as “questionably effective.” So if his materia medica (material used in preparing remedies) was so ineffective why did so many individuals seek his ministrations and pay well for his services? The answer must be that he somehow sus­ tained the spirit of patient and family while the patient’s own natural resources were responding to the challenge. And when death appeared inevitable he provided the comfort of his kind, wise and stable personality. He knew something of suffering from personal experience, having been a prisoner of the Spanish near starvation and a casualty of three Indian musket balls which inflicted wounds with a very high mortality rate in those days. A more detailed analysis of Dr. Fleming’s Ledger Book “B” and of his journeys in service to the sick and injured would serve no useful purpose. He gave without reservation to the advancement of his state and nation. Wayfarers received a friendly welcome at Belmont. He was a friend to ministers of many faiths. While never wealthy he was viewed as having provided comfortably for his family. His wide-ranging interests, intellectual attainments, engaging speech, dignity and courtesy made him a favorite in the social life of Virginia. Although away from home often, his devotion to his wife “Nancy” Christian Fleming and their 29 �children would justify an extended essay. It was in the blood and toil of our ancestors and their friends like Nancy and William Fleming that the payments for this nation were made. In summarizing his exertions one must reflect with appreciation approaching reverence upon his well-balanced life. He was an individual revealed by the records to have, as his contemporaries might have said “worn the whole armour of God16...the shield of faith” who went about “with good will doing service” to those of his time and to those who have followed him. Fleming’s medical heritage traces directly hack to Dr. Hermann Boerhaave o f Leyden, Holland, the most renowned physician o f Europe in the period “when reason reigned and charity was reborn. ” Boerhaave had intended being a clergyman but was excluded from that study when he asked a minister who was violently critizing Spinoza if he had actully read Spinoza’s works. Boerhaave’s great contribution was the idea o f placing the patient’s interests first; he remarked on one occasion the poor are my best patients for God always pays me for them .’’ REFERENCES 1. Colonel William Flem ing, Colonial Surgeon, Soldier, Patriot, a b o o k let com m em o­ rating display o f F lem ing’s sword at First National Exchange Bank, 194 2. Personal com m u n ication from Richard W. Orem, Archivist, W ashington and Lee Universtiy, L exington, Va. 3. K egley, F.B. VIRG INIA FRO NTIER (K ...) Stoner, Robert D outhat, A SEED-BED OF THE REPUBLIC (S ) McCauley, HISTORY OF ROANOKE CO UNTY, SALEM A N D RO ANOKE CITY 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. A ckerly, Mary Denham and Parker, Lulu Eastm an, OUR KIN (A&P ) Read, Daisy I., NEW LONDON TO DAY A N D Y ESTERDAY (R Niederer, Frances J., THE TOWN OF FINCASTLE (N ...) Waddell, Joseph A ., A NNALS OF A U G USTA CO UNTY, VIRG INIA (...) Wise. 8CC38 and G oodw in, Edmund P. COL. WM. FLEMING OF BOTETOURT p3 Finlayson, Charles P., Keeper o f Manuscripts, Edinburgh University Wise. 8CC38 G oodw in, p 5 G oodw in, p 6 Vestry Book o f the Upper Parish, Nansem ond C ounty, p 5 7 . 6 9 . 86 91 97 Flem ing Papers, W & L U, IN WESTERN V m G ^ S p i l ^ ™ E EAR LY SETTLEMENT6 A N D IN D IA N WARS 12. Chalkley, L y m a n ,, SCOTCH-IRISH CHRONICLES, p 451 13. H ook Papers, Perkins Archives, Duke University 1 I 4 ’, . , A? w o t e d from H oyt, William D ., Jr., Colonel William F lem ing’s Scientific Observetions m Western Virginia» The Virginia Journal o f Science» V ol. 1 1 , 1 9 4 1 , p 6 6 q u oted in Mereness, N ew ton D. TRAVELS IN 1 AMERICAN COLONIES, 1 9 6 1 National S ociety o f Colonial Dam es, p 627 16. Ephesians, Chapter 6 BIBLIOGRAPHY Cocke, Lelia Sm ith, William Flem ing, A Man o f Colonial Affairs 1 7 5 5 -1 7 7 4 Master’s thesis. University o f Virginia, 1941 G oodw in, Edm und P., COLONEL WILLIAM FLEMING OF BOTETO URT, 1 7 2 8 -1 7 9 5 H oyt, William Dana, Colonel William Flem ing, Com m issioner to Exam ine and S ettle the Public A ccou n ts in the Western C ountry, from Am ericana, V ol. X X X V I, # 2, April 1 9 4 2 H oyt, William Dana, Colonel William Flem ing, C ounty Lieutenant o f B otetou rt, 1 7 7 6 1 7 7 9 , from Americana, V ol. X X X V , # 3, July 1941 H oyt, William Dana, Colonel William Flem ing on the Virginia Frontier, 1 7 5 5 -1 7 8 3 , John H opkins Ph.D. thesis, 1 9 4 2 , reprinted in West Virginia H istory, V ol. I ll, Jan. 1 9 4 2 K egley, F .B ., VIRG INIA FR O N TIE R , S ou th est Virginia Historical S o ciety , 1 9 3 8 Stoner, Robert D outhat, A SEED-BED OF THE REPUBLIC, 1 9 6 2 P eyton , J. Lewis, HISTORY OF AUG USTA CO UNTY, VIRG INIA 1953 W addell, Joseph A ., A N NALS OF AUG USTA CO UNTY, VIRG INIA 1 9 0 2 R ead, Daisy I., NEW LONDO N TO DAY A N D Y EST ER D A Y , 1 9 5 0 Wilson, Howard McKnight, THE TINKLING SPRING , HEADWATER OF FREEDOM 1954 Blant° n ’ W yndham B-> MEDICINE IN VIRG INIA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, 30 �Niederer, Frances J., THE TOWN OF FINCASTLE, VIRG INIA, 1 9 6 5 Duncan, Louis C., MEDICAL MEN IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTIO N. Carlisle. Pa 1931 MEDICINE IN COLONIAL MASSACHUSETTS, 1 6 2 0 -1 8 2 0 , A Conference b y the Co­ lonial S ociety o f M assachusetts. 1 9 7 8 Burton, Charles T„ BOTETOURT COUNTY 1 7 8 5 ENUMERATION Hall, Wilmer L„ Ed., THE VESTRY BOOK OF THE UPPER PARISH, NANSEM OND CO UNTY, VIR G IN IA , 1 7 4 3 -1 7 9 3 , Virginia State Library, 1949 A ckerly, Mary Denham and Parker, Lulu Eastman, OUR K IN, 1976 DeHass, Wills, HISTORY OF THE EARLY SETTLEMENTS A N D IN D IA N WARS IN W ESTERN V IR G IN IA , 1851 Shields, Randolph T., M.D., He Helped Shape Virginia: Dr. William Flem ing, 1 7 2 8 -1 7 9 5 , Virginia Medical M onthly, V ol. 1 0 9 , July 1 9 8 2 William Flem ing Papers, Archives, Washington and Lee University Ephesians, Chapter 6 Dunlap, B outw ell, AUG USTA CO UNTY, VIRG INIA IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, K entucky State Historical S ociety, 1918 J o h n J o h n ò f F le m in g A p r . 1 7 2 1 H u g il m 9 .L e o n a r d o f F le m in g L e o n a rd R e s to n M a ry m L e o n a rd W illia m S a t e r w h a ite _ D o ro th e a S a t e r t h w a it e A u g . 1 7 2 5 E liz a b e th o f H a w k s h e a d , L a k e m Is r a e l C a t h e r in e W in d e r m e r e m .W illia m 9 F e b . 7 , 1 7 2 8 C a r y m H . R e v . M . 1 7 6 3 A lle n ( 1s t ) D a w s o n S a m u e l R a m s e y A n n e Is r a e l C h r is t ia n (2 n d ) (3 r d ) (N a n c y ) A n n e C h r is t ia n m m .E jis c illa R e v . G e o rg e A . B a x te r m E liz a b e t h S ta rk T h o m a s B u llit t D o r o th e a m .R o s a n n a Ja m e s B ra tto n m C a le b P r is c il la W a lla c e THE WILLIAM FLEMING FAMILY m W illia m S a m u e l W ils o n m A n n e W illia m H e n r y C . s is t e r o f P a t r ic k m H e n r y M a ry S a ra h N . L e w is J o h n ( d ie d m S te p h e n R o b e r t T r ig g ag e d ( 1s t) D a n ie l ( 2 n d ) 3 1 1 8 ) �Benjamin K eagy’s Home by Martin O. L. Spangler The Benjamin Keagy house on Lee Highway in 1976 In 1941, my parents, Horace C. and Rüth (Webster) Spangler pur­ chased an old house now known as Keagy House from the heirs of William H. Trout. They lived there until their deaths in 1970 and 1977, respectively. My sisters and I did much of our growing up there. When we moved to Keagy House I was 13, Jo was 11, Mary was 6, and Eleanor was 2.1 What follows is information on the old house and some of the people who lived there before us. Between 1851 and 1855 Benjamin Keagy purchased the 135 acres of land upon which he was to build Keagy House from the heirs of George Trout, his father-in-law, who had died in 1849.2-3-4-5 The land was south of the Roanoke River and most of it was east of Cravens Creek. The deeds show that the tract of land included both sides of the creek near its mouth, where it flows into the Roanoke River, and a large spring west of the creek and directly across the stream from the site of the house. This spring is still being used as a source of water for Keagy House although it was covered over about 1977. Benjamin and Martin Spangler, a chemistry professor at Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, Pa., lived in the Keagy house from the age o f 13 while he was growing up. His family still owns the house on Lee Highway at the southwestern edge o f Roaoke. Spangler, a graduate o f Bridgewater College, holds a master's and doctorate from Virginia Tech. Clare White added to Spangler's work. 32 �Catherine (Trout) Keagy were already living on the property when they purchased the land, as is mentioned in the 1855 deed by which Anna Airheart’s one-tenth interest was transferred to the Keagys.6 (Anna Airheart was.Catherine Keagy’s sister.) Keagy House, or at least the larger portion of it was built by Benjamin Keagy in 1857. The Roanoke County Land Book for 1857 shows the value listed for buildings on the property as $1,500, an in­ crease from the $800 listed the previous year. An explanatory note on the listing was “$700 for improvements.”7 While other changes in valuation for buildings on the property were noted between 1834 and 1903, in every case except the above the changes were made because of reassessments.8 The 1857 construction seems to have been adjacent to an older brick house, with the two joined by a back porch. Today (1983) the two houses are joined by a bathroom which was added in about 1945. As far back as 1822, the land books show a valuation for buildings of $400 and $800. The valuation was $400 until the 1840 reassessment, and $800 from 1840 to the 1857 construction. George Trout (Catherine Keagy’s father), his wife Mary (Miller) Trout and their infant son John (b. Feb. 13,1813) had moved into the Roanoke Valley in 1814, and settled on land near the mouth of Peters Creek which flows into the Roanoke River from the north several miles down the river from Cravens Creek. He built a “sturdy brick house” there in 1823.9 Another couple, Michael Miller (Mary’s brother) and his wife, Elizabeth (George Trout’s sister), settled on an adjoining farm. Their homes were about a half-mile apart, in full view of each other.7'8’9’10 George Trout purchased the 135 acres on Cravens Creek from Michael Frantz in 1825.11 A small, iy 2-story brick house was pre­ sumably already there at the time of purchase. Michael Frantz reserved “twenty poles of land to be laid off in regular form including the Grave Yard which is on the said tract...”1^ for himself and his family and for the Trout family and heirs. Most of the 135-acre tract was part of a tract of 245 acres of an original land grant to Ephraim Vause in 1748, which was conveyed to James Neely as recorded in Augusta County Court March 1, 1749. (Ephraim Vause moved on up the Roanoke River where he later converted his house near present Shawsville into a fort, Fort Vause, for the protection of his family and neighbors. His fort was destroyed by the Indians in 1756.)13 Neely conveyed the property to Alexander Ingram in 1752, and Ingram sold it back to Neely, possibly as Ingram joined the general exodus from the area fol­ lowing the fall of Fort Vause. In 1752, Neely conveyed the land to Christian Frantz and, in 1800, Christian Frantz sold 134 acres of it, plus 1.4 acres from another tract, to Michael Frantz. The 1825 deed to George Trout states that the adjoining property west of Cravens Creek belonged to Henry Frantz whose wife was Anna Keagy Frantz (b. about 1790)14’ Benajmin Keagy’s aunt. George Trout’s daughter, Catherine (b. Feb. 19, 1815), married Benjamin Keagy (bom July 22, 1816) on March 25, 1841.15 They may have moved into the old house on her father’s Cravens Creek land soon after this date. By 1857, not only had Madison Pitzer built Belle Aire15_a (1849), a beautiful Greek Revival house, on a bluff across Cravens Creek from the Keagys, the Keagy children were also beginning 33 �to grow up. Mary Susan, George and Anna Eliza were 15, 13 and 10, respectively; their father may have thought the time was right to enlarge the house. One room upstairs seems to have been built specifically for the girls. It is separate from the rest of the upper floor, with its own stairway, and has a beautiful view of the creek from the Italianate arched window over the front porch. The house is of the right-angle style with a strong Italianate influ­ ence as shown by the overhanging bracketed eaves and arcaded porch.16 The railing on the porch roof was added after 1941. There is a fireplace in each room, including the unfinished basement rooms, each with a separate flue in the two chimneys. Also, all the original floors remain, except for the back porch. The older house consists of a l^-story brick portion to which has been added a frame storage room on one end and a frame kitchen on the other, where a chimney serves the kitchen fireplace on one side and fireplaces for two rooms, one above the other, on the other side. The brick, at least along the front of the house, was laid by Charles Lewis, a master bricklayer and slave of Benjamin Deyerle who had laid brick “in front of the house” for many homes in Roanoke and adjoining counties. Most brick houses of the 19th century had their best-formed and bestlaid bricks on their front facades.17 Overhanging bracketed eaves and front porch arches are features of the house built in 1857. 34 �A hooded window opens onto second floor porch. The slave quarters, the frame house attached to the big house, were probably built about the same time. According to the property tax books of 1858-1863,18 Benjamin Keagy owned at least one, and in some years as many as three slaves. The brick smokehouse may have been built at the same time. The upper side of the smokehouse has a structure attached that may be the remains of a blacksmith’s shop. Benjamin Keagy died in 1872 when he was 56 years old. At his death he seems to have been a moderately prosperous farmer; he owned 302 acres along Cravens Creek and the Roanoke River at that time. His wife lived until 1877 or 1878. Benjamin Keagy’s son George married Nannie S. Linkous in 1875; they had no children. The George Keagys and George’s two sisters, who never married, lived at Keagy House the rest of their lives. In 1895, all the land except 7.75 acres on which the house stands, was sold at auction to pay off a mortgage due the Holston National Building and Loan Association of Bristol, Tenn.19 The graveyard was reserved to the Keagys20 along with “a suitable walk right of way along the orchard fence...” The sale was enjoined and thrown into court. The injunction was dissolved in 1898 and the sale was permitted by the court. At this point 127.5 acres went to William H. Cook.21 By 1903, Mr. and Mrs. Keagy and Mr. Keagy’s sisters were appar­ ently feeble and “of advanced age.” All the 7.75 acres and their 35 �Slave quarters was believed to be in frame, two-story building behind house at right. personal property was deeded to William H. Trout, a close relative, as a result of his paying off two debts and the taxes for 1902 and 1903.22 The Keagys were allowed to remain on the property although Trout was the legal owner. George Keagy was 59 at the time. The Trouts were a very influential family in the Roanoke Valley. Catherine Trout Keagy’s brother, John Trout, owned the Trout House, a substantial stone building where he was operating an inn in 1852. The Ponce de Leon Hotel (now the Crystal Tower Building) was even­ tually built at this location. He was twice a councilman, and was mayor of Big Lick, which later became Roanoke.23 He was also an active supporter of Roanoke College which was established by two Lutheran ministers in 1842 in Augusta County and moved to Salem in 1847. John Trout’s son,-Henry S. Trout was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 1877 to 1881, and was in the State Senate from 1882 to 1886. He was mayor of Roanoke in 1892. The Trouts were very active in the Lutheran church. Soon after George Trout purchased the land on which Keagy House was built, the first known Lutheran church in the Roanoke Valley, Zion Church, was built on the same property. This log building was constructed in 1826, or earlier,24 and services were held there until the congregation relo­ cated in 1897. In 1828, the Lutheran Synod of North Carolina met there and consecrated the church. After the building ceased to be used as a church, the ownership of the lot and structure reverted to the Keagys. The Roanoke County Land Books show that Mrs. Nannie L. Keagy paid the taxes on the “Old Zion Church” property in 1901 and 1902.25 The 1898 deed shows distinctly where the church lot was cut out of the Keagy property.26 The church building remained until it 36 �Random width flooring has been in place since the mid-19th century. was torn down in 1976. The family of Trouts is descended from the George Trout who came to Pennsylvania from the Palatinate in 1723 on the ship Eliza.27 His wife’s name was Mary. George Trout’s father was Valentine Trout. His son, Michael Trout, married Elizabeth Baer and they moved to Rockingham County where he became a captain in the Continental Army. Michael Trout’s son George (bom Jan. 11,1782) was the same George Trout mentioned above who came to the Roanoke Valley and then purchased the land on which Keagy House was built. He also served in the War of 1812. The Keagy family is descended from John Rudolph K&gy (Hans Kâgy) who came to the “Swiss Settlement” of Mennonites in Lancaster County, Pa. in 1715. Soon after he arrived, he married Rebecca Patterson. They had four sons and three daughters: Jacob (bom 1719), Abraham (bom about 1723), Rudolph (bom about 1725), Henry (born 1728), and Susannah, Barbara and Anna.28 Henry Keagy I, the youngest son of John Rudolph, married Barbara Stoner in 1756. They lived near Conestoga, Lancaster County, Pa., until 1768 when they moved to Virginia. They went first to Page County, and afterward crossed Massanutten Mountain to Shenandoah County where they settled along Smith’s Creek. Henry bought 404 37 �acres in 1769 and built a mill. He died in 1783, leaving a family of eight sons and three daughters: John, Henry II, Jacob, Anna, Abraham, Christian, Rudolph, Barbara, Isaac, Martin and Elizabeth. John Keagy, the eldest son of Henry I, was born in Lancaster County, moved with his father to Virginia and became a minister in the German Baptist Brethren Church. He was devoted to his ministerial duties for 40 years, until his death in 1845. Highly regarded for his piety and noble generosity, he became known in the wider community as Father Keagy or “the good man.” He lived and died near the home place near New Market. Henry II was also bom in Lancaster County, in 1758, and also moved to Virginia with his father. He married Catherine Grabill and moved to that part of Botetourt County that is now Roanoke County about 1816. They had five children: Barbara, Henry III, Anna, Chris­ tina and Mary. Henry II died in 1844; his wife died in 1835. Henry III was born in 1788 and married Anna Strickler in 1816. They had four children: Benjamin, Catherine, Elizabeth and Susan. Benjamin and Catherine were born in Shenandoah County in 1816 and 1818, respectively. Henry III, his wife and their children, Benjamin and the new-born Catherine, moved to what is now Roanoke County in 1816, the same year as his father did. Henry III and his family settled about nine miles northeast of Salem in the Carvin’s Creek area and, by 1838, he owned some 485 acres in that region. His son Benjamin married Catherine Trout and eventually built Keagy House. Brick and frame and brick make up the many additions at the Keagy house. 38 �THE KEAGY FAMILY J o h n R u d o lp h K a g y (H a n s K a g y ) m . R e b e c c a to I---------------------- 1 J a c o b (c . (c . 1 7 2 5 - t-----------------------------------1-----------------------------1-------— -1 8 4 5 ) N e w I I J a c o b 1 7 5 6 B a rb a ra S h e n a n d o a h m . C a t h e r in e m in is t e r |-------------- ---------------------- 1 A n n a A b ra h a m C h r is t ia n 1 R u d o lp h G r a b ill B o te to u r t C o . c . 1 8 1 6 i---------------- 1----------------- i-------------i-------------| B a rb a ra H e n r y I I I A n n a C h r is t in a M a ry ( 1 7 8 8 m . 1 8 1 6 A n n a S t r ic k le r C a r v in ’s C r e e k B e n ja m in m . C a t h e r in e a re a C a t h e r in e ( 1 8 1 6 - E liz a b e t h ( 1 8 1 8 T r o u t ( 1 8 1 5 - M a ry S u s a n u n m a r r ie d A n n a G e o rg e ( 1 8 4 2 m . 1 8 7 5 N a n n ie n o E liz a ( 1 8 4 7 - ( 1 8 4 4 S . L in k o u s is s u e 1 A n n a S to n e r -1 8 3 5 ) to B a rb a ra C o u n t y ( 1 7 5 8 -1 8 4 4 ) M a rk e t F S u s a n n a h ( 1 7 2 8 -1 7 8 3 ) to H e n r y I H e n r y m . J o h n P a la t in a t e ' R u d o lp h 1 7 2 3 - in C o ., P a . 1 7 1 5 I A b r a m ( 1 7 1 9 - L a n c a s te r - b o m P a tte rs o n u n m a r r ie d S u sa n 1 B a rb a ra T- !Is a a c — i-------------------------r M a r t in E liz a b e t h �THE TROUT FAMILY V a le n t in e o G e o rg e to T r o u t T r o u t ( w if e M a ry ) A m e r ic a , P e n n s y lv a n ia , in M ic h a e l to T r o u t ( w if e R o c k in g h a m 1 7 2 3 E liz a b e t h C o . B a e r) V ir g in ia 1 E liz a b e t h m . M ic h a e l to J o h n 1 . E liz . ( 1 8 1 8 -c S h a v e r m . ( 1 8 2 0 -1 8 5 3 ) 2 . M a rth a 1 8 1 4 to R o a n o k e S a ra h 1 8 7 7 ) 1 8 4 1 E liz a b e t h m . J o h n B e n j. A . m . J o h n G is h B . S e e A n n a S . N o f t s in g e r ( 1 8 3 8 -1 8 5 7 ) m . M ic h a e l ----------r----------------------- ! D a v id J a c o b m . S a ra h ( 1 8 2 8 - M a ry - L e f t w ic h H e n r y m . E . 1 8 6 6 ( 1 8 6 7 - E . J o h n T h o m a s M a ry ( 1 8 4 6 - m . P e y to n T .’ ( 1 8 7 1 - M a t tie ( 1 8 6 7 -1 9 3 4 ) G o o d w in M a ry ( 1 8 6 4 -1 9 3 3 ) E liz a ( L ila ) A lic e ( 1 8 5 9 -1 9 3 5 ) m . P . S u sa n L e f t w ic h M a ry m . L e e 1 9 0 2 I l ------------ 1-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- P T e r r y - m . D ir k A . E d m u n d e y to n P e n d le t o n ( 1 9 0 5 -1 9 8 1 ) K u y k m . 1 9 3 4 L o u is e M o r r is ( 1 9 1 2 -1 9 8 1 ) A . K e r n s T e r r y ( 1 8 3 5 -1 8 9 8 ) B .'( 1 8 7 5 - -1 9 2 1 ) 1 8 7 9 S . W . A n n ie D e y e r le ( 1 8 7 0 -1 8 8 3 ) L ila ( 1 8 8 2 - L u n c in d a L e e ( 1 8 7 3 -1 9 5 7 ) J a m is o n ( 1 8 8 0 O . ( 1 8 3 8 -1 9 1 0 ) | ------------------------------- J ------------------------------------ z-------- u n m a r r ie d ( 1 8 5 0 -1 9 2 3 ) M a ry ( 1 8 3 3 - S h a v e r S . ( 1 8 4 2 -1 9 1 5 ) A n n ie u n m a r r ie d ( 1 9 H a n n a h m . P e te r A ir h e a r t ? W e st 1 8 1 4 K e a g y M a ry M a rth a c. ( 1 8 1 6 -1 8 7 2 ) in s a n e m . T h o m p s o n ( 1 7 9 2 -1 8 5 6 ) V a lle y K e a g y ( 1 8 2 5 -1 8 8 5 ) G e o rg e c. ( 1 7 8 5 -1 8 4 4 ) M ille r -----------------------------1--------------------------- --------------------1--------,------------------- C a t h e r in e ( 1 8 1 3 -1 8 8 2 ) V a lle y m . M a ry » 1 ------------------------------------------------ m . R o a n o k e G e o rg e M ille r P e y to n E d it h �NOTES 1. J o is n o w Mrs. Fred Wampler, Mountain City, Tenn; Mary is Mrs. David Garrett, Santa M onica, Calif.; and Eleanor is Mrs. Dan Brogan, Salem, Va. 2. R oanoke County D eed B ook D, p. 247 (1 8 5 1 ) 3. R oanoke County D eed B ook D , p. 351 (1 8 5 2 ) 4. R oanoke County Deed B ook E, p. 1 4 4 (1 8 5 4 ) 5. R oanoke County D eed B ook E, p. 3 9 8 (1 8 5 5 ) 6. ibid. 7. R oanoke County Land B ook , 1 8 5 7 , p. 16 8. There were reassessm ents in 1 8 4 0 , 1 8 6 2 , 1 8 7 0 , 1 8 7 2 , 1 8 8 0 , 1 8 8 5 , 1 8 9 0 , and 1 8 9 5 . 9. Clare White, ROANOKE 1 7 4 0 -1 9 8 2 , p . 3 5 . 10. Martha L eftw ich Terry-G oodwin, “ The First Millers and Trouts o f R oanoke C ounty, V a.,” an unpublished m anuscript m ade available to the author by Melvin M. S co tt, Jr., Waltham, Mass. 1 1 . B otetou rt County Deed B ook 1 6, p. 3 1 0 (1 8 2 5 ) 12. ibid. 13. Clare W hite, ib id , p . 10. \ 1 4 . All inform ation on the Keagy fam ily from Franklin K eagy, A HISTORY OF THE KAGY RELATIONSHIP IN AMERICA FROM 1 7 1 5 TO 1 9 0 0 , Harrisonburg, Pa., Publishing Co. (1 8 9 9 ). 1 5 . Franklin K eagy, ibid., p. 271. 15-a This h o m e, a Registered Landmark since 1 9 7 5 , is currently (1 9 8 3 ) the residence o f Richard S. W hitney. 16. W. L. W hitwell and L. W. W inbom e, THE ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE OF THE ROANOKE V A LLEY, University o f Virginia Press, 1 9 8 2 , p p . 116. 17. ib id ., pp. 87-88. 18. R oanoke County Tax B ooks, 1853-1863. 19 R oanoke County Deed B ook 1 4 , pp. 72-74. 20. R oanoke County Deed B ook 1 8 , p. 584. The graves were m oved in 1 9 6 8 . R oanoke County Deed B ook 8 6 4 , p . 126; Deed N o. 4 9 3 1 , recorded Nov. 1 , 1 9 6 8 . 21. ibid. 22. R oanoke County D eed B ook 27, pp. 581-583. 23. Som e o f the inform ation on the Trout family came from a letter to the author from Glenn D. Trout, R oanoke, Va., Feb. 1 3, 1 9 8 0 . 24. Inform ation from a marker placed near the Lutheran retirem ent h om e on Lee High­ way in R oan ok e, Va. 2 5 . R oanoke County Land B ooks, p. 33 (1 9 0 1 ) and p . 31 (1 9 0 2 ). 26. R oanoke County Deed B ook 1 8, p. 584. 2 7 . Martha L eftw ich Terry-G oodwin, ibid. 28. Franklin K eagy, ibid. Dr. Landon Cabell Rives Jr. Information on Dr. Landon Cabell Rives Jr., first husband of Letitia Gamble Watts of Oaklands, has been provided by Hoskins M. Sclater, a former director of the Society, who is related to the Rives family. Rives, who lived from 1825 to 1862, was bom in Virginia and reared in Cincinnati, where his father, also a doctor, lived. He was mentioned in an article in the 1982 Journal on The Barrens, another old home in Northwest Roanoke. The younger Rives was a nephew of U. S. Sen. William Cabell Rives, also ambassador to France, and of Judge Alexander Rives of the Virginia Supreme Court and of U.S. Western District Court. In 1850, he married Miss Watts, the daughter of General Edward and Elizabeth Breckinridge Watts. They lived for 11 years at Oaklands, located near present Interstate 581 in Northwest Roanoke until it was destroyed by fire in 1897. Dr. Rives became an Army surgeon in the 1st Virginia Cavalry Regiment. He died of pneumonia in 1862. His grave was among those at Oaklands moved to Fairview Cemetery in Roanoke in 1977. His widow married Dr. Francis Sorrel of Savannah, Ga., also a Confederate doctor, in 1865. She died in 1900. 41 �The Back Creek Road by Lynn Dickerson II Some people call it the “corduroy road” ; others, the “old county road” or the “wagon road.” Botetourt County deed books, court order books and road order books refer to it as the “Back Creek Road.” Beginning as Route 640 some two miles southwest of Buchanan in Botetourt County, it follows Back Creek in a westerly direction along the northern slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains to an intersection with Route 606, the old Fincastle-to-Buford turnpike. Leaving its State maintenance status behind it, the old road then plunges into the forest at Camp Bethel to emerge at the Lemon homeplace as Routes 647 and 711. After leaving Rabbit Run, headwaters of Back Creek, and passing the old Shay house, the road again disappears into farm and forest land. Continuing on its westerly course over foothills and through mountain hollows, it passes Troutville, sometimes as a State road and sometimes as a wagon road, on its way to the old Ore Bank near Cloverdale. A .002-mile segment of the Back Creek Road over Rabbit Run to the Craighead driveway. An alteration was made c. 1910. References to the road appear frequently in the Botetourt County deed books. An 1840 deed in the chain of title to the William B. Shay property on Route 711 notes that the boundary line comes to a point Lynn C. Dickerson II is a great-grandson o f Joel Lemon, who lived along the old road until his death in 1910. Dickerson, who teaches American literature and American studies at the University o f Richmond, is a graduate o f that school and he earned a doctorate at Emory University. This article first appeared in the Summer 1982 issue o f Appalachian Heritage. 42 �“in the middle of back Creek road [sic] thence with the said road as it meanders 100 poles to a stake in the middle of said road.”1 The des­ cription is the same in the deed conveying the parcel of land from Henry and Milly Kelly to William B. Shay in 1849.2 In 1936 when the Shay heirs deeded their interest in the Shay property to Bage Shay, their brother, in appreciation for his taking care of their deceased mother, the deed again notes that the boundary line for one of the parcels follows “the old Back Creek Road.”3 Similar references appear in the deed to the Lemon property on Route 647. In 1855 Joel B. Lemon bought 254 acres from the firm of Anderson, Shanks and Anderson “lying on Back Creek & its waters” for $1,778. Beginning at “2 chestnuts and a chestnut sapling on a line of Samuel Obenchain,” the Lemon property line follows the Obenchain line south thirty-five degrees west for sixty-six and one half poles to “2 red oak sprouts from one stump on the west side of Back Creek road” and con­ tinues with ~the road for more than a half mile on its way to the Shay line.4 In 1860 Martin McFarlane (also spelled McFarlan, McFarland, McFarlin and McFallen) bought one hundred and forty-two acres adja­ cent to the Lemon tract. The McFarlane survey begins on “the south side of Back Creek road, comer to the land of Joel Lemon in a line of the furnace tract” and follows the road in a westerly direction very much in the manner of the Lemon survey.5 At the time of the Civil War, six families seem to have owned most of the land along Back Creek Road from the intersection of Routes 640 and 606 at Camp Bethel to the Shay property on Route 711, a distance of approximately four miles. The Shays, the Lemons and the McFarlanes lived at the western end ofihis section of the old road; the Obenchains, Linkenhokers, and Graybills were on the eastern end.6 In 1872, Martin McFarlane sold his tract of land to Joel B. Lemon for $1,500.7 When Lemon died in 1910, his heirs subdivided both tracts.8 In 1913 and 1918, Samuel Craighead purchased two parcels of land from J. P. Saul, a Lemon heir, that included a portion of the McFarlane tract.9 Park and Allie Lemon Price, Joel’s youngest daughter, bought seventy acres of the McFarlane tract and much of the original Lemon tract for timber and farmland shortly after the division of the Lemon property. In 1951, Allie Lemon Price sold the seventy-acre McFarlane tract to her daughter, Ruth Price Dickerson.10 After Ruth’s death in 1953, the land passed into the hands of the Dickerson family. In 1960 the original Lemon tract passed from Allie to C. H. May and in 1971 from May to the Hidden Acres Company, a partnership that subdivided the farm into residential lots.11 When the iron industry was flourishing in Botetourt County, the Back Creek Road may have been second in importance only to the turnpikes. It was the road for the Cloverdale Furnace lands, the source of the excellent metal for which Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond became famous. After the Cloverdale Furnace moved its operation in the 1840’s from Cloverdale to a site on the Back Creek Road near the intersection with the Buford (Blue Ridge) Turnpike, the new furnace became the landmark that divided one section of the old road from the other.12 During the Civil War, the Back Creek Road was the only way to move ore from the mines on the north slopes of the Blue Ridge to furnaces and from the furnaces to the barges on the James River and Kanawha Canal at Buchanan. An 1883 plat of the Cloverdale Furnace 43 ��lands on Back Creek, bearing the name of Joseph R. Anderson and identifying the site of the furnace, shows the lands to be almost co­ extensive with the road, lands that are described by Professors J. L. and H. D. Campbell as beginning two miles from Buchanan and extending towards the southwest “about ten miles.”13 The plat, moreover, seems to emphasize the importance of the Back Creek Road by naming it, en­ larging it, and ignoring other public roads that existed in the area at that time. Furthermore, references in the court order books to William B. Shay’s property were also references to an iron industry landmark, for Shay had a foundry at his homeplace on the Back Creek Road, and in the 1880’s Houston Mines operated a commissary on the old road a few hundred yards from the Shay house.14 Thus it is not surprising to discover that in 1857 the county court appointed a road overseer to “the Back Creek Road, leading from the old Ore Bank, down to Cloverdale Furnace.”15 In 1863 and 1867, the appointment is to “the road from Cloverdale Furnace to Wm. B. Shays.”16 In 1885 there is a refer­ ence to the road “from some point on the Buford Turnpike to Houston Ore Mines Commisary.” and in 1910 the plat for the Lemon Division refers to a portion of the old road as the “Houston Mines Road.”17 Mining along the Back Creek Road prior to the boom of the early 1880’s was small scale and crude. The miner’s tools were the pick, the shovel and dynamite. If there was a shaft, the miner entered it in a bucket attached to a windlass. The same bucket was used to remove the ore. After removing the ore, the mine operator had to transport it by wagon to the furnace. At best the road was paved with logs. More often than not, the team had to drag the heavy load through mud and dust, over ruts, and across the shallows of dry branches and creeks. Some times the road was simply impassable.18 Although the boom in the iron industry along the Back Creek Road in the 1880’s was part of a larger boom that began in the James River Valley in 1879, some of the contributing factors were peculiar to the Cloverdale Furnace lands. Roanoke was experiencing extraordinary Old Shay house on Route 711 in 1982 45 �growth, and the American Institute of Mining Engineers gave its bles­ sing to the mining endeavors in the area by selecting the city for its 1883 national convention.19 The 1883 report on the Cloverdale Iron Tract by Professors J. L. and Harry D. Campbell of Washington and Lee University was very optimistic about the quantity and quality of the ores and the simplicity of the topography.20 The Shenandoah Valley Railroad was in place and serving Houston mines with a spur.21 Following the completion of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad and the acquisition of the Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad, Frederick J. Kimball, president of the Norfolk and Western and Shenandoah Valley railroad companies, employed Andrew S. McCreath “to examine, sample, and analyze the various mineral developments tributary to the lines, and prepare a report upon their commercial values.” Since the primary objective of the study was to gather data that would enable the railroad management to estimate future mineral traffic, McCreath’s instructions were “to report on everything good, bad, and indifferent, just as found.”22 What is significant about this report for a study of the Back Creek Road is that it reflects the great expectations that people had for the Houston Mines. Not only is the report on the Houston Mines very optimistic but also Houston station is printed in larger letters on the railroad map than either Christiansburg, Salem or Buchanan.23 These expectations, however, were short-lived. Centralization of the iron industry and the discovery of more lucrative deposits made the Houston Mines operation profitless.24 A 1907 report on the mineral resources of Virginia does little more than acknowledge that in the 1880’s the Houston Mines “produced considerable ore.”25 A 1919 report on the manganese deposits of the west foot of the Blue Ridge is more informative. The opening paragraph in the section on the Houston mines, however, reads like an obituary. The Houston mines comprise two large banks, between onefourth and one-half mile apart on the northwest slope of the Blue Ridge about 1y2 miles south-southwest of the Village of Nace. This property was first worked as a source of manganiferous iron ore but purer manganese ores were encountered in the lower part and attention was then turned to them. Some of the manganese was used for chemical purposes, but most of it was used in the manufacture of steel. Bauxite was discovered in the west bank and eight cars of it are reported to have been mined and shipped in 1915. This is said by T. L. Watson, Director of the Virginia Geolo­ gical Survey, to be the only known bauxite deposit in Virginia. A railroad once connected the mines with the Norfolk & Western Railway at Nace, but the track was removed several years ago.26 The rise and fall of the iron industry on the Cloverdale Furnace lands was an important, but not the sole, factor in shaping the story of Back Creek Road. Another factor was the modification of the road law. Prior to the creation of the secondary road system in 1932, county roads were maintained by residents who lived in the vicinity of the road. The road work, however, was not entirely voluntary. The county court appointed an overseer, or surveyor, for each section of the road, ordering him to recruit such help as he needed from the male residents to keep the road in good repair. A resident’s failure to be present on a work day or to send a substitute was punishable by a fine.27 46 i �Lemon-Price house in 1933. The brick home, built in 1868 from bricks made on the place, was attached to an old log cabin. The county court, which had jurisdiction over the local public roads, was established in Virginia in 1618 when Governor George Yeardley ordered courts to be held in remote places. The purpose of these courts was to save litigants the long journey to Jamestown.28 The men administering the affairs of these courts were generally of good character who served at the pleasure of the governor and his council. They were not, however, trained in law.29 They were the forerunner of our present board of supervisors, functioning sometimes as administrator, sometimes as legislator, sometimes as justice of the peace.3 0 The decision to elect and to pay the justices in 1850 was the first major change in the system in two hundred years.31 Other changes followed, but the system was doomed. The Constitutional Convention of 1902 abolished the county court.3 2 In addition to appointing surveyors to keep the roads in good re­ pair and assigning male residents to work sections of the road, the county court could grant permission to a landowner to erect a gate across a public road, could alter and discontinue roads and could open new roads. Whenever there was a petition to open a new road or to alter an existing one, a jury of neighbors or “viewers” was empaneled to make recommendations to the court. After 1834 the width of a county road was always thirty feet unless the court ordered it to be otherwise.33 Sending viewers to look at a road that was to be opened, altered, or discontinued was an entrenched principle in Virginia law. In 1849 The Code o f Virginia stipulated that the viewers were to report to the court “the convenience and inconveniences that will result, as well to individuals as the public, if such road or landing shall be as proposed, and especially whether any yard, garden, orchard or any part thereof, will in such case have to be taken.”34 In 1919 the Code stipulated that the viewers were to report to the board of supervisors “the probable cost of establishing or altering the location of such road, landing or bridge; the convenience and inconvenience that will result as well to in­ dividuals as to the public; whether the said road, landing, or bridge may be one of such mere private convenience as to make it proper that it should be opened, established, or altered and kept in order by the person or persons for whose convenience it is desired; whether any yard, garden, 47 �or orchard will have to be taken; the names of the landowners on such route; which of such landowners require compensation,” and they were to file “such report with the clerk of the board.”3 5 When the General Assembly made some revisions in the general road law in 1928, they left the duties of the viewers as stipulated in the 1919 Code unchanged.36 By the turn of the century, however, some people in Virginia were attempting to modify the viewer system. Alterations were especially troublesome. The Code o f 1887 stated that the county court “shall... appoint viewers...to view the ground and report to the court.”37 In 1904 the language in the Code was changed to read “the board of supervisors...may appoint five viewers.”38 The change in language suggests that some alterations might not require such a cumbersome system for approval, that if the alteration were small, cost the county nothing and involved only one landowner, that alteration need have only the consent of the landowner and the approval of the local road official. By the turn of the century, local road officials in Botetourt County had the authority to make these minor alterations without a formal hearing. In February 1886, the General Assembly passed an act “to provide for working and keeping in repair the public roads and bridges in Botetourt County.” The legislation created “a board of six commis­ sioners of road, two for each magisterial district,” who would “divide each magisterial district of the county into two sub-districts, and assign one of their number to each sub-district.” The legislation authorized the board to divide all the public roads in the county into three classes and provided for the third class to be “kept up by the parties benefited by said roads, as they may see fit.” The legislation also stated that “the commissioner may order any change in a road in his sub-district, which may be agreed to by the board, which does not involve the condem­ nation of land or payment of damages, as where the landowner consents.”39 Although some modifications were made in the office and duties of the road commissioners in subsequent legislation, the pro­ vision for three classes of county roads and commissioner’s approval of minor alterations apparently remained in effect as long as Botetourt County had jurisdiction over its roads.40 Thus in 1906, following the restructuring of county government in Virginia, the General Assembly passed an act that again included the provisions to divide all county roads in Botetourt into three classes and to permit commissioners to approve road alterations when all parties agree to the change without compensation.41 The supervisors, however, soon began to function as road commis­ sioners themselves. The 1906 act authorized the supervisors to accom­ pany the commissioners on the trips to inspect and classify the public roads in the county. In 1908 the Assembly passed legislation that abolished the office of road commissioner and created the office of superintendent of public roads for each magisterial district. Although some of the duties of the commissioners went to the superintendents, others went to the supervisors. Each supervisor, for example, received $2 per day for inspecting the roads twice a year.4 2 Under the 1908 act the maximum payment to any supervisor was $30 per year; in 1914 the Assembly raised the ceiling to $100.43 In 1916 the Assembly gave the board of supervisors all the power that had formerly been vested in the county court.4 4 48 1 �When the Back Creek Road was a main traveled road, surveyors, or overseers, kept the road in good repair. Six of these surveyors can be identified with certainty. In the 1850’s David Firestone and Isaac Hinkle were overseers of “the Back Creek road, leading from the old Ore Bank, down to Cloverdale Furnace.”45 In the 1860’s the appoint­ ment to survey the “road from Cloverdale Furnace to Wm. B. Shays” went first to William Switzer, then to William Patton, and finally to J. R. Linkenhoker.46 In the 1880’s, Samuel Burger was surveyor for the district in which lay the “road from some point on the Buford Turnpike to Houston Ore Mines Commissary.”47 The 1867 Linken­ hoker appointment reads as follows: James R. Linkenhoker in the room of William T. Patton, is appointed Surveyor of the road from Cloverdale Furnace to Wm. B. Shays, and with the hands assigned to his section is ordered to keep the same in lawful repair. And William T. Patton & Joel Lemmon are appointed Commissioners to allot the hands to work on this road, & are required to report their allotment to Court.4 8 These appointments were for two years, and if the road was in “good order, ’ the surveyor could give up his office and “not within two years thereafter be appointed surveyor without his consent.” A provision in the law for prosecuting and fining surveyors who failed to keep their roads in repair discouraged some surveyors from taking consecutive appointments.4 9 By law, every surveyor had to keep the roads in his precinct “cleared, smoothed of rocks and obstructions, of necessary width, well drained, and otherwise in good order, and secure from the falling of dead timber therein.”50 Although the county officials were authorized to reimburse the surveyor for some of his expenses and to give him a modest compensation for his work, the surveyor was expected to perform most of his duties with free labor and material. The language in the Code o f 1849 is as follows. All male persons in each county shall be appointed by the court thereof, and compelled to work, on some public road therein, with the following exceptions, viz: persons under sixteen and above sixty years of age; persons who reside in a town that provides for its poor and keeps its streets in order; the officers of the peniten­ tiary, or any lunatic or other state asylum; the servants or slaves employed therein; the persons necessarily employed at any ferry; those employed on any state road or any turnpike, canal or rail­ road; and the officers of any literary institution, and ministers of the gospel.51 The Code then states that those appointed to work “shall either in person or by a sufficient substitute, when required by the proper surveyor, attend with proper tools, and work the road on such days as the surveyor may direct.” The fine for failing to appear on a work day was seventy-five cents, payable to the surveyor within twenty days.52 The law was essentially the same in 1887 with some changes in the days.53 Under both the 1849 Code and the 1887 Code, the surveyor was authorized to “take from any convenient lands so much wood, stone, gravel or earth, as may be necessary, to be used in construction or repairing such road or any bridge or causeway therein.”54 �The corvee system of a local authority exacting free labor for road maintenance came from the Medieval practice of a feudal lord exacting a day of unpaid labor from a vassal. It did not meet the needs of a county entering the twentieth century. By 1886, only second class roads were being maintained by the corvee system. First class roads, “generally and frequently used by the public,” were kept in order by contract, by convict labor, or by hired help, and third class roads were the responsibility of the people who used them.5 5 Although road legis­ lation for Botetourt County approved by the General Assembly on January 23, 1894, retained the provision for exacting two days libor without pay from “all male persons in said county over eighteen and under fifty-five years of age,” one month later, on February 23, the General Assembly amended the January act, inserting the statement that “no person shall hereafter be compelled to work upon the public roads of Botetourt County” and including a provision for a road tax to pay people to work on first and second class roads in the future.56 In 1885 the Back Creek Road was still a heavily traveled road. Mining activities were booming on the Cloverdale Iron Tract along the north slopes of the Blue Ridge. The Shenandoah Valley Railroad, lying a half mile north and parallel to the old road, had turned Houston village into a major shipping point. The only alternative route from Coverdale to Buchanan was still the Southwest Turnpike, and the turnpike was almost a mile north of Houston village. Perhaps out of a deep concern for the welfare of the community or perhaps from the fear that the road through his property might become even more heavily traveled, Joel B. Lemon petitioned the Botetourt County Court on November 9, 1885, for “a change of road from some point on the Buford Turnpike toHouston Ore Mines Commissary.” The proposed alteration would cause the Back Creek Road to follow generally the course of the railroad right of way to the northeast comer of Lemon’s land and from that point, after crossing the tracks, to follow Lemon’s north boundary line to a Neighbors Samuel Craighead and W. P. Price keeping Route 647 in good repair c. 1930. 50 �Joel B. Lemon feeding his sheep c. 1908. Son-in-law Park Price looks on. Ruth Price Dickerson riding horseback over Back Creek Road c. 1918. Comer post at left marks the route before a 1910 alteration. 51 �road a few hundred yards south of Houston village. The effect of the change would be to divert the traffic from the road immediately in front of Lemon’s house to a route that lay about one-fourth mile north of the house. The county court, however, granted Joel Lemon only part of what he requested. The justices authorized a “new road,” not a “change in road.” The road in front of Lemon’s house, although less traveled, remained a public thoroughfare.57 The court decision nevertheless, was to have a tremendous impact on the future of the Back Creek Road. The new road offered the village travelers a much more direct route to the Buford Turnpike and other points east. On March 22, 1913, A. M. Scaggs and others who lived on the north side of the railroad tracks at Houston village petitioned the supervisors to place the road on their side of the tracks all the way from the Buford Turnpike to the Houston depot. On March 21, 1914, the board approved the request.5® In the 1930’s the new road with the Scaggs alteration became Route 640. By the turn of the century most of the traffic on the Back Creek Road that passed in front of the Lemon house was mining and farm-tomarket traffic. During this period, the Pulaski Iron Company mined iron and a small amount of manganese from an ore bank in Deal Hollow approximately one mile south-southeast of the Houston depot. T h is mine was located about a half-mile south of the McFarlane house. Although “many pits and open cuts” occurred over “an area of several acres,” the principal opening “was a bank about 1,580 feet above sealevel.”59 Wagons carrying the ore over the Back Creek Road passed the McFarlane house, crossed Rabbit Run at a ford in front of the Lemon house, and proceeded to the Houston depot by the present Route 647.6 0 The farm-to-market traffic was not heavy during this period, for only a few families found the old road the most convenient way to the stores and depot at Houston, but the road was open, paved with logs in wet places, maintained by the County and used by the general public.61 The crossing at the ford in front of the Lemon house, never a very satisfactory arrangement, was becoming increasingly difficult by the early 1900’s. Despite the attempt to stabilize the creek bed by building a submerged bridge, erosion from the wagon traffic had led to a wearing Back Creek Road crossing the rolling hills of Botetourt County c. 1920. McFarlane house is in the foreground. Lemon house is hidden in clump of trees at left. 52 �By 1933, Ruth Price Dickerson was traveling on wheels along the road. away of the south bank and a change in the course of the branch. The only alternative was to find a more suitable crossing. Apparently around 1910, some member of the Lemon family, with the approval of a local road official, built a bridge across the branch a short distance up­ stream from the old ford. The Back Creek Road has followed this slightly altered route, with only one minor modification, to this day.6 2 During the 1920’s and into the 1940’s, families living along the old road east of- the McFarlane house continued to travel the road on their way to the stores and depot at Houston, or Nace, village. Until the State took a portion of the old road into the secondary system in 1932, the County cleared the ditches and scraped the road to the point where the Craighead driveway entered Back Creek Road about forty feet south of the bridge over Rabbit Run.63 The County effort, however, was not sufficient to keep these local roads passable, and so the residents frequently had to perform the maintenance themselves. When Allie Lemon Price and her husband, Park, began farming the Lemon property shortly after Joel’s death, they also contributed labor and materials to improving the public roads in the neighborhood. Allie and Park Price, however, disliked having a public road running through their property from the Craighead driveway, past the McFarlane house to the intersection with Ore Bank Road, and into Deal Hollow. The road, fenced on both sides, was something of a nuisance. Thus on October 19, 1925, Allie and Park petitioned the board of supervisors “to close and discontinue the road beginning 270 yards west of the McFallen [sic] house on their place and extending one half mile east.”6 4 Because the Code in effect at this time stated that “where a way has been worked by road officials as a public road and is used by the public as such, proof of these facts shall be prima facie evidence that the same is a public road” and because the provision that “when any road is altered, it shall be discontinued to the extent of such alteration and no further” was long standing, the supervisors assumed jurisdiction and appointed viewers to make a recommendation the the board.6 5 Notice of this application appearing to have been posted at the front door of the Court House of this County on and before thé first day of the October term last, and at two places in the neighbor53 �hood of the road sought to be discontinued, all of which appears to have been done more than seventy days before this date, it is ordered that E. L. Boone, J. J. Paynter, R. E. Murray, E. L. Brugh, J. D. Graybill, free holders of this County, hereby appointed viewers for >the purpose, any three of whom may act being first duly sworn, to view said road on the 30th day of December, 1925 at 11 o ’clock a.m. and make report in writing to this Board at its next meeting, whether in their opinion any, if any, what inconven­ ience will result from discontinuing the road.6 6 Despite the recommendation of the viewers that the road be closed, the supervisors refused to act favorably on the Price petition. Thomas Curry, who lived in Deal Hollow and used the road to travel to the stores and depot at Nace, opposed the closing. When Allie and Park Price appeared before the supervisors a second time on May 19,1930, the supervisors ordered that “Thomas Curry be summoned to appear here at the next meeting to show cause, if any he can, against the same”6 7 The summons was executed on June 13, and Thomas appeared before the supervisors on June 16 to protest the closing. The supervisors then ordered Allie and Park, who were not at the June 16 meeting, to appear at the next meeting.6 8 There is no mention of the matter again in the official records, but members of the Price family remember Allie still talking about trying to close the road as late as the 1950’s. When the Byrd Act created the secondary system of State high­ ways in 1932, the highway department took over the maintenance of a portion of the Back Creek Road from the Lemon house to the Shay house. On April 21, 1941, the supervisors asked the State to take the rest of the road. The State granted the request and also extended Route 647 at the Lemon house another .002 mile on the county road map, an extension that brought the road to the Craighead driveway.6 9 Although E. E. Patsel (left) and Lynn Dickerson II on Back Creek Road near the McFarlane house site in 1982 54 �the extension appears on the 1981 General Highway Map, Supplement A, Botetourt County, the State apparently ceased to maintain the ex­ tension, except for clearing the ditch that carries surface water from Routes 647 and 711 to Rabbit Run, after a flood washed out the old wooden bridge in the early forties. Following the flood, neighbors put the replacement bridge and new roadway just east of the old public road, an alteration that the State could not accept. In 1964 neighbors installed a culvert in the branch at the site of the old bridge and returned to using the old roadway. The story of the Back Creek Road is a story of a region. Its industrial and economic history is a story of dreams and disappoint­ ments, of hopes and fears, of life and death. Its legal history is the story of the making of American civilization. Its social history is the story of a changing lifestyle from early nineteenth-century days to the present. Its engineering history is the story of advances in technology. But most of all, the story of the Back Creek Road is a story about a road. To know the story and to walk the road is literally to pass from one century into the next. Portions of the road are very much as they were one hundred and fifty years ago. There has been no restoration here. What remains nature has preserved. What has vanished is gone forever. NOTES 1. D EE D BOOK 2 4, p. 3 9 0 . This research was supported by grants from the University C om m ittee o n Faculty Research and services o f the Learning Resources Center, University o f R ichm ond. 2. D EE D BOOK 30« p. 60. 3. DEED BOOK 9 0, p. 269. 4. DEED BOOK 3 3 , p. 3 6 . 5. DEED BOOK 3 4, p. 6 6 5 . 6. B otetou rt Co. Va. (1 8 6 4 ): MAP FROM THE CONFEDERATE ENGINEER BUR EA U IN RICHMOND, V A ., GENERAL J. F. GILMER, CHIEF ENGINEER - PRESENTED TO THE VIRG INIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY BY HIS ONLY DAUG H TER, MRS. J. F. MINIS SAVH . G A., The Virginia Historical S ociety, R ichm ond, Virginia. 7. DEED BOOK 3 7 , p. 2 2 0 , McFarlane is spelied “ M cFallen,” “ McFarlan,” and “McFarlin” in the deed. 8. DEED BOOK E, p . 4 4 8 . 9. DEED BOOK L, p. 4 3 0 ; DEED BOOK 2 2 5 , p. 1 2 7 . 10. DEED BOOK 1 0 4 , pp. 3 3 9-440. 11 . DEED BOOK 1 4 2 , pp. 3 4 7-351; PLAT BOOK 6, p . 77. 12. Herbert P. W oodward, GEOLOGY AND MINERAL RESOURCES OF THE ROANOKE A R E A , VIRG INIA, Bulletin o f the Virginia G eological Survey, N o. 34 (Charlottes­ ville: University o f Virginia, 1 9 3 2 ), p. 103; Kathleen Bruce, VIRGINIA IRON M ANUFACTURE IN THE SLAVE ERA (N ew York: Century, 1 9 3 0 ), pp. 212-13; B otetou rt Co. Va. (1 8 6 4 )MAP. 13. SUR V E Y O R S RECORD BOOK, 1 8 4 2 -1 9 1 4 , pp. 392-93; CLOVERDALE IRON TRACT: REPORT BY PROFESSORS J. L. A N D H. D. CAMPBELL, WASHINGTON & LEE UNIVERSITY, O ctober 2 3 ,1 8 8 3 , Virginia State Library, R ichm ond, Virginia. 14. On June 1 2, 1 8 5 4 , William B. Shay was appointed “surveyor o f the road from S h ay’s d io p o n the Back Creek road to the forks o f the road at George S im m on ’s p lan tation .” COURT O RDER BOOK 1 8 5 1 -1 8 5 7 , p. 181; and E. E. Patsel, video tape May 1 0 ,1 9 8 2 , Boat­ wright Library, University o f R ichm ond, Virginia. 15. COURT O RDER BOOK 1 8 5 1 -1 8 5 7 , p . —, June 8 ,1 8 5 7 . 16. COURT O RDER BOOK 1 8 5 7 -1 8 6 7 , pp. 3 4 4 , 6 2 0 . 17. RO AD O RDER BOOK 1 8 7 8 -1 8 9 0 , p . 1 8 5 ; DEED BOOK E, p . 4 4 8 . 18. Patsel V ideo; W oodward, N o. 3 4, p . 1 0 3 . 19. W oodward, p . 103. 20. CLOVERDALE IRON TRACT: CAMPBELL, 1 883. 21 . SUR V E Y O R S RECORD BOOK, 1 8 4 2 -1 9 1 4 , p . 392-93. 2 2 . Frederick J. Kimball, “Preface,” THE MINERAL WEALTH OF VIRG INIA TRIBUA RY TO THE LINES OF THE NORFOLK A N D WESTERN A N D SH ENANDOAH VALLEY RAILRO AD COMPANIES, by Andrew S. McCreath (Harrisburg, Pa.: Lane S. Hart, 1 8 8 4 ) pp. iii-v. 23. McCreath, MINERAL WEALTH OF VIRG INIA, p p . 51-54. 24. W oodward, p. 1 0 3 . 25. Thom as Leonard Watson, MINERAL RESOURCES OF VIRGINIA (Lynchburg. Va.: J. P. Bell Com pany, 1 9 0 7 ), p. 4 4 4 . 26. G. W. S tose, H. D. Miser, F. J. Katz, and D. F. H ew ett, MANGANESE DEPOSITS OF THE WEST FOOT OF THE BLUE RIDGE, VIRG INIA, Bulletin o f the Virginia Geological 55 �Survey, N o. 17 (C harlottesville: University o i Virginia, 1 9 1 9 ) p. 121. 2 7 . CODE OF VIRG INIA (1 8 4 9 ), title 1 6, ch . 5 2, sec. 23-28; and CODE (1 8 8 7 ). title 1 6 , ch . 5 3 , sec. 9 6 3 -9 8 2 . 2 8 . Albert Ogden Porter, COUNTY GOVERNM ENT IN VIRG INIA: A LEG ISLATIVE H ISTORY, 1 6 0 7 -1 9 0 4 (N ew York: AMS Press, 1 9 6 6 ), p p . 1 2-13. 29. Porter, pp. 1-3. 3 0 . Porter, p . 3 4 8 . 3 1 . Porter, p. 232. 3 2 . Porter, pp. 1 3, 3 0 9 . 3 3 . CODE (1 8 4 9 ), title 16, ch. 52, sec. 5-20; CODE (1 8 8 7 ), title 1 6 , ch . 53, sec. 9 4 6 -9 5 3 , 9 5 8 , 9 6 1 ; sind Porter, pp. 1 7 4 -7 5 . 3 4 . CODE (1 8 4 9 ), title 1 6, ch . 52, sec. 6. 3 5 . CODE (1 9 1 9 ), title 1 8, ch . 8 4, 1 9 7 8 . 36. VIRG INIA ACTS, 1 9 2 8 , ch. 1 5 9 , pp. 5 6 8 -5 8 9 . 3 7 . CODE (1 8 8 7 ), title 1 6, ch . 53, sec. 9 4 7 . 3 8 . CODE (Pollard 1 9 0 4 ), title 1 6 , ch . 4 3 , sec. 944a. 3 9 . ACTS, 1 8 8 5 -8 6 , ch . 2 6 2 , sec. 1, 4, 2 4, pp. 2 8 6 -8 7 , 2 9 1 . 4 0 . In 1 8 8 2 , B otetou rt C ounty began to request special legislation from the Virginia General Assem bly for the m aintenance o f cou n ty roads. By 1 9 2 4 the Assem bly had passed more than a d ozen acts “to provde for working and keeping in repair the public roads and bridges o f B otetou rt C ou n ty.” 4 1 . ACTS, 1 9 0 6 , ch . 2 6 7 , sec. 1-3, 1 4 , p p . 4 6 8 -6 9 , 4 7 2 . 4 2 . ACTS, 1 9 0 8 , ch. 3 7 8 , sec. 1-13, pp. 6 6 2 -6 6 5 . 4 3 . ACTS, 1 9 1 4 , ch . 7 3, sec. 9, pp. 1 1 6 -1 1 7 . 4 4 . ACTS, 1 9 1 6 , ch . 3 6 7 , sec. 1, p. 6 3 0 . 4 5 . COURT O RDER BOOK 1 8 5 1 -1 8 5 7 , p . B , June 8, 1 8 5 7 . 4 6 . COURT O RDER BOOK 1 8 5 7 -1 8 6 7 , pp. 3 4 4 , 6 2 0 . 4 7 . RO AD O RDER BOOK 1 8 7 8 -1 8 9 0 , p . 2 8 5 . 48. COURT O RDER BOOK 1 8 5 7 -1 8 6 7 , p. 6 2 0 . 4 9 . CODE OF V IRG INIA (1 8 4 9 ), title 1 6, ch. 5 2 , sec. 2 4, 3 4 ; CODE (1 8 8 7 ), title 1 6 , ch . 53, sec. 9 7 7 , 1 0 06. 50. CODE (1 8 4 9 ), title 1 6, ch. 52, sec. 25; CODE (1 8 8 7 ), title 1 6 , ch . 5 3, sec. 9 8 2 . 51. IBID., sec. 26. 52. IBID., sec. 28. 53. CODE (1 8 8 7 ), title 16, ch . 53, sec. 1 0 0 9 -1 0 1 0 . 54. CODE (1 8 4 9 ), title 2 6, ch. 5 2, sec. 32. 55. ACTS, 1 8 8 5 -8 6 , ch . 262, sec. 1, 4 , pp. 286-87. 56. ACTS, 1 8 9 3 -9 4 , ch. 6 9 , sec. 1 1 , pp. 66-67; 3 7 7 , sec. 11-1 4 , pp. 4 4 3 -4 5 . 57. R O AD O RDER BOOK 1 8 7 9 -1 8 9 0 , pp. 2 8 5 , 291. 58. R O AD O RDER BOOK 1 9 0 4 -1 9 3 8 , p. 1 2 0 ; W. E. Hughes, Cassette Tape, January 9. 1 9 8 2 , Boatwright Library. 59. Stose et al., p. 121. 6 0 . H. R. Rader, Cassette Tape, May 23, 1 9 8 2 , Boatwright Library. ____ 6 1 - SUPERVISO RS O RDER BOOK 2, pp. 2 2 1 , 2 3 2 and R O A D COMMISSIONERS BOOK - AMSTERDAM DISTRICT, 1 9 0 1 -1 9 0 5 , p . 8. In N ovem ber 1 9 0 0 the supervisors accepted a bid o f $ 1 0 per m ile per year from Jacob Shay to keep in repair a five-m ile section o f road from John G raybill’s house on the Blue Ridge Turnpike to Stony Battery R oad. Jacob received his first paym ent o f $ 1 6 .6 6 on May 1 7 , 1 9 0 1 . On Septem ber 1 2 ,1 9 0 4 the p aym ent was reduced to $1 0 for the four-m onth period. In her 1 9 2 5 p etitio n to close that p ortion o f the Back Creek Road that ran through her farm, Allie Price stated that although the road was still being u sed, cou n ty officials had n ot worked it for fifteen years. 6 2 . In the 1 9 1 0 Lem on Division, the language o f the deed suggests that the change in road has taken place, but the plat d oes n o t sh ow the alteration. The alteration appears in a 1 9 1 5 photograph o f W. P. and P. L. Price, Jr. and in a 1 9 1 8 Saul-Craighead deed. 6 3 . E. E. Patsel, video tape. The 1 9 2 9 U. S. GEOLOGICAL SU R V E Y o f the R oanoke Quadrangle show s the road crossing Rabbit Run and ending at the turn-around at the Craighead driveway. The SU R V E Y appears to show only those roads being m aintained by road officials at the tim e o f the survey. 6 4 . RO AD O RDER BOOK 1 9 0 4 -1 9 3 8 , p. 294. 6 5 . CODE (1 9 1 9 ), title 1 8, ch. 84, sec. 1 9 8 5 , 2 0 1 5 , p p . 7 4 5 , 753-54; CODE (Pollard, 1 9 0 4 ), title 1 6 , ch . 4 3 , sec. 9 44a, pp. 3 48-49; CODE (1 8 8 7 ), title 1 6 , c h . 5 3, sec. 9 5 9 ; CODE (1 8 4 9 ), title 16, ch. 5 2, sec. 19. 6 6 . RO AD O RDER BOOK 1 9 0 4 -1 9 3 8 , p . 294; Price P etition papers. 6 7 . IB ID ., p .3 4 8 . 6 8 . IBID., p. 349. 6 9 . SUPERVISO RS ORDER BOOK 6, p. 30; MAP OF BOTETOURT COUNTY SHOWING PRIM ARY A N D SECO NDARY HIGHWAYS, 1 9 4 0 ,1 9 4 2 . 56 �Guerrant Family Lived A t First Baptist Church Site by Saunders S. Guerrant My father, Samuel S. Guerrant, was bom on a farm four miles north of Callaway in Franklin County on July 12,1867, two years after the surrender. All events were dated from Gen. Lee’s surrender on April 9, 1865. Daddy told me that he did not know “Yankee” was a single word until he was 21 years old. He was graduated in medicine at Tulane University in 1890. He interned in New York where he met Florence Thomson, a young lady who trained as a nurse at St. Luke’s in New York. She was born in Toronto, Canada in 1869. You will note the spelling—that is the dry “Thomson” without the “p.” Daddy was a doctor in Roanoke from 1894 to 1904. In 1897 he and Florence were married and in 1898 they purchased a house from the four children of Q. M. Word. It was on Roanoke Street, now the site of First Baptist Church. I think the number was 515. The name has been changed to Third Street. The purchase price was $4,000. My sister, Esther, was bom there on Nov. 1,1898 and I was bom there on March 14, 1900. We were baptized as infants in the First Presbyterian Church by Dr. Creighton Campbell. Daddy inherited land near Callaway and he planted apple trees there. The apple orchard was to be for his retirement fund. He gave up his medical work and moved to his Franklin County property in the fall of 1904. I remember very little about living in Roanoke because we left when I was 4V2. I do remember standing under a water spout, fully dressed, during a rain where I got a shower bath. This did not make my mother happy. Daddy kept a cow in a shed back of his property. Edward Saund­ ers, a relative, came with his mother from Rocky Mount to visit us. He was a little boy at the time. He was wearing a white suit and white shoes. The cow had access to a sizable back yard where she had just relieved herself. As young Edward was walking around, he said, “Look at the pretty mud” and waded in with his nice, white shoes. Edward Saunders went to the University of Virginia and made the best gradd^on record there in the School of Engineering. Later he served as deiin of the School of Engineering there. Daddy owned a horse and buggy. He did not want to use his time and energy looking after his horse so he arranged with Pitzer Transfer Co. to take care of the horse and buggy. Pitzer was a block or so away, Saunders Guerrant, a longtime member o f the 1900 Club o f Roanoke, will talk and write about Franklin County at length any time. Guerrant was bom at the site o f First Baptist Church on Third Street, Southwest. 57 �where Appalachian Power Co. has a parking lot across from the Poff Federal Building. Daddy had an office at 414 Salem Avenue, upstairs over Van Lear Drugstore. He would walk to his office early in the morning and get to Pitzer’s about 10 o ’clock. His horse and buggy were ready for him. After making house calls to 2, 3 or 4 o ’clock, he would drive the horse and buggy to Pitzer’s. The house sat back from Roanoke Street and it faced east. Across the street was the First Baptist Church and a grocery store was next to the church at the comer of Luck Avenue. Now, the Chesapeake & Telephone Co. is on the spot where the church and the store were located. Let’s take a look in the rear of my father’s property. It went down to and faced on Luck Avenue. If we look across Luck Avenue today from this property, we will see the entrance to Oakey’s Funeral Home and Jamont Press. In 1907, Daddy had three houses built on his property, the part that faced Luck Avenue. He employed a man named Pinkard to do the work. There was a sawmill and a planing mill on the farm. Mr. Pinkard would write out his specifications and Daddy would prepare and send him the lumber. He said Mr. Pinkard was an “expert Measurer.” From the farm in Franklin County to the Roanoke property there were 25 miles of mighty rough roads. The lumber was hauled by wagons. Several wagons would go together, a full day over and another day back. The drivers slept at night in their wagons and carried their Saunders Guerrant was bom in this house at the site of First Baptist Church. 58 �food and coffee brewing equipment with them. The wagon drivers were men who “ain’t never been nowhar and ain’t never seen nothing.” Some years later after the building of these houses, the subject of the size of the world came up. Just how big is the world? One of the men who had been a wagon driver to Roanoke said, “I don’t know how big the world is but if it is as big the other way as it is to Roanoke, it sure is a whopper.” For many years a Mrs. Peters rented the Roanoke Street property and she ran a boarding house. The three houses on Luck Avenue were rented to individual families. If my memory serves right, W. W. Ander­ son was the rental agent. After World War I, business got better and better for several years. Suddenly in 1929 there was the stock market crash and the Depression and the situation was bad for everybody. In 1927, Daddy sold his Roanoke Street and Luck Avenue property to the First Baptist Church for $80,000. He did not get cash but 6 percent bonds. Then he pur­ chased another $20,000 of these bonds. That meant his income from this transaction was $6,000 a year. The Baptists built the beautiful building they are in now, just across the street from their old church. There were other bondholders, all of whom were looking on their 6 percent as income. Business got worse and some good church contributors died. Others could not meet their church pledges. The church bonds did not look so good. The church wanted to go to 3 percent. At a meeting of the church leaders and the bondholders a rate of 3 percent was dis­ cussed. Daddy made himself unpopular. He said, “Tell us first how much you have cut the preacher’s salary.” Daddy had a deed of trust on the property. He did not use pro­ fanity but he would walk the floor and say, “Thunderation, I don’t want to own a church. I want the $6,000 a year.” The interest went to 3 percent. The bonds were finally paid off but not in my father’s lifetime. Recently I found a picture of the house where I was born. I had copies made, one of which I gave to the First Baptist Church. As a result, my wife and I and a friend were invited to lunch at the church. We were treated as honored guests. This whole affair makes me feel a bit unique and honored. I know of no one else who has a $3 million marker to show where he was bom. Iron Ore Attracted Investors An article in the 1982 Centennial edition of the Journal on Economic Development in Southwest Virginia, by Dr. Harold W. Mann, contained an error. A statement should have read: By the midpoint of the 1880’s it was clear that the resources most likely to entice English investors were the iron ores of the Appalachians. 59 �Where the Bonsacks Settled by Deedie D. Kagey The origin of the Bonsack family in America begins with the immi­ gration of Johann (John) Jacob Bonsack and occurred at the end of his apprenticeship as a master joiner (cabinetmaker) in the city of Stuttgardt, Germany, March 17, 1786. Since it was customary for apprentices to travel from place to place learning their trade, the guild in Stuttgardt was the last known guild to which Johnann Jacob belonged. Setting sail on a ship called the Herman and Jacob on April 22,1786, he disembarked at Portsmouth, Virginia, from which he traveled to Fred­ erick County, Maryland, where there was already a growing element of Germans, especially German Baptists, brethren in his faith. Johann Jacob’s reasons for emigrating to America were two-fold: 1) Religious adjustments were being forced on the people to adhere to the Catholic, Lutheran or Calvinist faiths. Reportedly, Johann Jacob “had been in France and returned to Germany because there had been an order to fight for the pope, die, or leave France”. 2) A competent craftsman, he would have the opportunity to pursue his trade in America. Whatever other reasons for emigration existed, they were comparatively insignificant. Religious freedom was, by far, the primary motive, a fact that is recurringly evident in letters among family members during the late 18th and early 19th century. Having been born in the tiny village of Eisenach, a town in the Duchy of Wurtemburg in 1760, it is believed that Johann Bonsack’s family resided at one time in nearby France, or perhaps a Saxon neighborhood where French was spoken, due to French entries in the family bible. Shortly after his arrival in Frederick County, Maryland, he met Marya (1771), the only daughter of John and Magdelena Shallenberger Hockman, and wed her in 1787. Legend says he met a weaver in Baltimore named Shallenberger who took Johann to his home in Frederick County and introduced him to his granddaughter, Marya. Of this union there were five children: three sons—John (1790 or 91), Jacob (1795) and Nathaniel (1789), and two daughters—Salome (1793) and Elizabeth (1788). At the age of 35, Johann Jacob died, only nine years after his emigration to America. Son John migrated to present Roanoke County in March 1816, where he wed Susannah Harshbarger on June 4th of the same year. In August they purchased a 300-acre farm in Bonsack for $6,000. Three years later John’s brother, Jacob, arrived in Roanoke County and took up residence on Carvin’s Creek (about four miles away). Jacob wed Catherine Harshbarger, Susannah’s sister, whose father was already a successful This account o f the origin o f the Bonsack family appeared in Com­ munity at the Crossroads: A Study o f the Village o f Bonsack o f the Roanoke Valley, by Deedie Dent Kagey. 60 �Catherine Harshbarger Bonsack wife of Jacob Bonsack Susannah Harshbarger Bonsack wife of John Bonsack farmer and miller at the forks of Tinker and Carvin’s Creek. Jacob died in late 1823 or early 1824 leaving his wife, Catherine, and two daughters. In 1825 Catherine married Joseph Brubaker and eventually bore ten more children. In 1836, the Brubakers moved to Tennessee, and then moved to Iowa (1853), where they remained until death. Since Jacob remained in Roanoke only three years, he had little to do with the Bonsack community directly, although it is believed he helped his brother start the woolen factory. When John Bonsack left Frederick County, Maryland for Glade Creek, Botetourt County, Virginia, the elders of Pipe Creek Church (Dunkard) sent a letter of recommendation to Virginia. Translated from the German, it reads as follows: Frederick County, Md. March 17,1816 Grace, love and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ with all that is best for you in time and eternity and also we include our hearty greetings. As at present our beloved brother Johannes Bonsack desires to go from here to establish a new home with you, we wish to inform you that we are all at peace with him and he is in fellowship with our community and they with him, and we hope that you also will receive him as a brother. In the name of our community we commend him to you and 61 �your community. We are Wilhalm and his Co Brothers Philip Englar Christoph Jansen Johannes Garber David Wampler Jacob Snader Samuel Pfautz Jacob Switzer it is apparent from this letter that John Bonsack had received news of the rich, fertile soil that was available in the Roanoke Valley and Glade Creek community, probably via his former neighbor, Daniel Stoner, who had been established in the area for fifteen years. Of John and Susannah Harshbarger Bonsack’s union there were nine children. The first child, Samuel, died in infancy. The remaining births were those of Jacob (1819), Elizabeth (1821), Mary (1824), Nathaniel (1826), Salome (1829), John Harshbarger (1832), Susan (1834) and Catherine (1836-39). John became a successful farmer and established a woolen mill in 1822. When the railroad (Virginia and Tennessee) began laying tracks in 1852, he gave the part of his land for this purpose to the railroad. In so doing, the railroad called the depot, Bonsack’s Station. John died in 1859. John’s son, Jacob, carried on the family business established in 1822 by his father, along with the operation of the flour mills (registered under the name of Bonsack and Kiser in 1856), and the store once run by the Stoners. Correspondence relates that Jacob was a merchant who dealt in “Foreign and Domestic Dry Goods, Groceries, Boots, Shoes, etc.” at Good Intent, (an early name for the Bonsack post office). In addition, he served as postmaster for twenty years at Stoner’s Store and Bonsack’s (before and after the Civil War). In 1844, he married Sarah Whitmore of Mount Meridian in Augusta County. She came from a family of means and of their union were born eight children—four boys and four girls. One of these children, James Albert, became the inventor of the cigarette rolling machine, an invention that led to the formation of the Bonsack Machine Company. The invention of the cigarette machine created wealth for father and son along with many others in the tobacco industry. By the time Jacob Bonsack died in 1889, he had amassed approximately 1,000 acres of land in Bonsack along with the mills, held $236,000 stock in the Bonsack Machine Company and owned estates in Augusta County and Rome, Georgia. Jacob Bonsack was known to be a man of great charity, having donated the land to the Baptists for the construction of a church. This structure is presently used as the Youth and Family Development Center, child-care facilities, but it is for sale. Bonsack Baptist Church has relocated on Rt. 221 about one quarter of a mile from Rt. 460. In addition, farmers of the area entrusted Jacob with all their excess monies when they accumulated more than they wished to keep in their immediate possession. During the 62 �—U.S. Patent Office James A. Bonsack’s cigarette rolling machine as shown on a U.S. Patent Office sketch. Civil War, Jacob defied the command of General Hunter’s troops to supply the North with cloth. His denial resulted in the burning of the Bonsack Mills and Depot, which he witnessed. By 1870, Jacob Bonsack had rebuilt the woolen mill and was in business once again. Susan Bonsack, sister to Jacob, married Dr. Benjamin Jeter of Bed­ ford County in September of 1853 and reared eight children on their Bonsack farm which they inherited from her father. Today, Richard Bonsack Jeter, a grandson, operates one of the largest farms in the Bonsack area. Mary Bonsack, another sister, married David Plaine October 8,1848 and they too took up residence in Bonsack (1849) on her father’s property. The Plaine family remained on this property until 1902, at which time the descendants moved to Salem. David Plaine was of English descent and met his wife, Mary, while she was visiting relatives in Frederick County (now Carroll) Maryland. He became a zealous Dunkard preacher, ulti­ mately preaching at Bethel Church in Bonsack. Letters indicate he often made long trips for the purpose of preaching. In 1869 David Plaine served as the postmaster of Bonsack’s. Furthermore, in the 1870’s, he was the schoolmaster in the old Bonsack neighborhood school near Bethel Church 63 �(later it was part of the Big Lick District, Roanoke County Schools). He was also the first station agent at Bonsack’s Station when the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad began operating in 1852. David Plaine wrote many letters until his death, many of which are on file at Duke University, Perkins Library, “Bonsack Papers” . The last Bonsack to reside in the community was the grandson of Jacob, son of John William, also named Jacob. He worked for the Norfolk and Western Railway for 52 years (in later years as a telegrapher) residing near the Bonsack Depot in a white frame house which still stands and is presently owned by the Pack family. Jacob Bonsack passed away in 1955 leaving the village of Bonsack with no descendants carrying the Bonsack name. Samuel Elliott Bonsack III (1918), recently retired president of Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone, remembers nostalgically his boy­ hood days spent on the farm of his grandfather, Samuel Bonsack, in Bonsack. In 1980 a branch office of Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company, located one mile east of 604 and 460, was appropriately named the Bonsack Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone office. The Bonsack family has played a major role in the founding, develop­ ment, and prosperity of this tiny community. The pioneers brought with them many skills that benefited both the residents and the area. They were industrious, ambitious, and religious people who attained the respect of those who resided within the community and without. Many Bonsack family members are interred within the walled-in plot of the Bonsack cemetery that was once behind Bethel Church but now borders the property of Alvin R. Kagey and Mrs. Vivian Blake. Farming at Bonsack What were the people of Bonsack doing in the early nineteenth cen­ tury? We know that Botetourt County was primarily agricultural. Pioneer Bonsack families, along with others in Botetourt County, were farming, creating economically independent units. The records in Fincastle indicate nearly everyone was growing hemp. The Bristish placed a high value on hemp because of its uses in shipping — “providing ropes, cloth used as bagging and as sails, and the short fibers (oakum) being used to caulk vessels.” Wheat ranked second in production. Frequently, grist mills would be operating on large farms, spawning the growth of a settlement around them. Flour eventually was marketed on a large scale in and out of Virginia. The Valley became known as “the granary capital”. Corn ranked third in production, followed by a variety of root crops, and hay, oats, barley, and beans. Livestock (cattle, horses, pigs) were also raised and marketed in the eastern cities. In addition, flax was grown ex­ tensively in this area for the purpose of weaving linen cloth. 64 ��� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society 1984 Volume 12, Number 1 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />Farmers Supply Transformed into Center in the Square<br />Roanoke's First Dairy was on Orange Avenue<br />Vinton's Beginning<br />How Dr. Hart Lost His Sight<br />Dr. William Fleming Made House Calls<br />Benjamin Keagy's Home<br />Dr. Landon Cabell Rives, Jr.<br />The Back Creek Road<br />Guerrant Family Lived at First Baptist Church Site<br />Where the Bonsacks Settled Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_12_01_1984 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6356/JHSWV_12_02_1988.pdf 81a4884a7b0aad42c6ea5c2385f56af9 PDF Text Text JOURNAL of the ROANOKE VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Volume Twelve Number Two ��1988 Contents First County Courthouse Stood from 1841 to 1909, by W. L. Whitwell and Lee W inbom e...................................................... 2 Fleming Backed Constitution......................................................................................... 9 Roanoke’s First Judges, by Judge Jack Coulter .......................................................... 10 A Tale of Two Houses, by Frances McNulty L ew is....................................................29 Norfolk and Western Archives at VPI, by Glenn L M cM ullen................................. 38 Roanoke Catholic Churches, by Anna Louise Haley.................................................... 44 Letters from School...........................................................................................................56 Salem Mills, by Norwood M iddleton..............................................................................66 A Roanoke Visit in 1762, by Felix H argrett................................................................ 73 Roanoke Fast Becoming Known For Its Hay-Rides and Picnics............................... 75 Roanoke History in 1923 ................................................................................................ 78 COPYRIGHT 1988 ROANOKE VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY GEORGE KEGLEY Editor o f The Journal The Journal o f the Roanoke Valley Historical Society, Volume Twelve, Number Two. Published by the Society at P. O. Box 1904, Roanoke, Virginia 24008, to chronicle the past and present o f that part o f the state west o f the Blue Ridge. Single copy pricefo r members, $3;fo r non-members, $4. The Society will be careful in handling unsolicited material but cannot be responsible fo r its loss. �First County Courthouse S tood From 1841 to 1909 by W. L. WhitweU and Lee Winbome The original Roanoke County Courthouse represents an important part of local history, despite a second and a third replacement. The first courthouse, like others throughout America, played a role in town planning similar to that of European churches because it reflected a desire of the townspeople to build something of lasting value. American courthouses epitomize self-government and democracy. Dignity and respect for the law are portrayed by the fineness of public buildings. “The courthouse... has been a dominating feature making the transition from a settlement without focus to an awareness of its role as the judicial and administrative center of the county.”1 In the South, the courthouse was so central to many communities that it was often completed before churches. It was particularly crucial to settlements because land deeds were recorded there. From the beginning, the area around the courthouse served as an important gathering place; it endured as a Southern institution beloved by novelists as well as the “good ole boys” who sit there on benches. Business districts developed around the courthouse squares, so that lots facing the square naturally became valuable properties. As the focal point of town, builders intended their courthouses to represent the county’s “stature, prosperity, and confidence in the future.”2 Local affluence was often judged by the degree of pretentiousness of the courthouse. Early, crude framed or log buildings were quickly replaced in the nineteenth century by structures in the Greek Revival style. “Gifted amateurs designed properly proportioned Doric columns for the Classical Revival temples that served as county courthouses in all parts of the nation before the Civil War.”3 First Roanoke County Courthouse, circa 1900. Credit: Clerk o f Court, Roanoke County. W. L. Whitwell, professor o f art at Hollins College, and Lee W. W inbome o f Roanoke are the authors o f The Architectural Heritage of the Roanoke Valley. This article recognizes the 150th anniversary o f Roanoke County observed in 1988. 2 �Virginia law mandated that each county have a courthouse on two acres of property. The 1792 Code of Virginia, reprinted April 1, 1803, specified detailed requirements for court buildings, but by 1838 when Roanoke County was formed, and in need of a courthouse, those specifications were no longer enforced.4 The Code did continue requiring every county to provide a courthouse and a fireproof clerk’s office.5 The two acres of land had to “be occupied with the courthouse, clerk’s office and jail, and the residue planted with trees and kept as a place for the people of the county to meet and confer together."6 The Code specified neither the form nor shape of the buildings; the layout generally followed tradition. Interiors of most nineteenth century courthouses appeared simple and plain. The courtroom arrangement seldom varied with its judge’s bench, desk for clerk, tables for lawyers, and witness stand.7 Often the courtroom functioned as a community assembly hall. For instance, soon after being built, the Roanoke County courtroom was rented to a local debating society. Roanoke County’s first courthouse came into being after March 30, 1838, when the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia created the county out of Botetourt County. At that time, 1838, the population numbered “about 5,000.” The 1840 Federal Census shows “3,843 whites, 1,553 slaves, and 100 free colored for a total of 5,449 [sic].”8 Five commissioners from surrounding counties were appointed to decide on a place for holding temporary court and for later erecting public buildings. The first organizational meeting of Roanoke County’s court was held at the residence of Benjamin Farris.9 On May 21,1838, the court formally met in a house owned by James C. Huff and continued to meet there regularly until a new courthouse was finished.10 Courthouse planning probably occupied discussion during the first session, because the following session on May 24, 1838, called for building models. It is ordered by the Court that William M. Peyton, Edward Watts, William Langhorne, John F. J. White, and William C. Williams be appointed commissionersfor the purpose ofreporting to this Court at the next term, modelsfor a courthouse and an estimate o f the cost o f each model, and that they visit such courthouses as they may deem proper.11 Two of the commissioners, William Madison Peyton and William C. Williams, played a significant part in the courthouse planning and construction. Peyton, commonly known as the “Colonel,” served as justice of the peace and commissioner of revenue for the County. He designed the courthouse. Williams, politician, publican, postmaster, and noted promoter of Salem development, acted as contractor and builder. Peyton was born September 4, 1805, in Montgomery County, Vir­ ginia.12 Sometime during 1808 or 1809 his family moved to Staunton. At the age of 12 he attended Staunton Acade­ my, where he received a “good classical and mathematical education.”13 During the 1821-22 academic year he attended Princeton, where archives list him as “a non-graduate member of the Class of 1824.” In 1823 and 1824 he attended Yale University as a member of the Class of 1825. Although he did not graduate, he studied mathematics, phi­ losophy, geometry, and classical litera­ ture, according to Yale’s archives. William Madison Peyton 1826 Peyton married Sallie TayCourtesy the Historic New Orleans Collection, M useum / who owned estates in Hot Springs. Research Center, Acc. N o. C ol Dames M 14-2. Peyton Studied law by apprenticeship 3 �First Roanoke County Courthouse, wings, circa 1900. Credit: Clerk o f Court, Roanoke County. First Roanoke County Courthouse in Town of Salem, from oil painting by Edward Beyer, photo by Roger M. Winbome Jr. and was admitted to the bar in 1828. By 1837 he had come to Botetourt County, where he served as a member of the Vestry of the Episcopal Church.14 The portion of Botetourt County in which the Peytons lived became Roanoke County in 1838, the same year he was elected to the House of Delegates. 4 �After deciding where to place the new county’s courthouse, Peyton and the other commissioners contracted on June 21,1838, to buy two lots in the Town of Salem from John H. Gay for $400.15Included in the levy was $2,000 toward building the courthouse.16 The court also requested proposals ‘Tor the erection of the courthouse.” Peyton submitted a design; at the August 23,1838 session, the court authorized the committee to make changes. The other commissioners changed the size of clerk’s offices and jury rooms from 18 feet square to 20 feet square and the stone foundations for the center and wings to brick. Where Peyton called for ‘The front to be plastered and lined in imitation of stone,” the court simply left brick. Peyton had the first story 16 feet 6 inches high; the committee decided on 17 feet. The committee added two neatly turned columns for the gallery and painted woodwork for the courtroom. Charging the committee with contracting “on the most advantageous terms for the courthouse with authority to make modifications as will not seriously affect the cost.. .,”18the court also asked the committee to superintend the building to completion. On August 24,1838, the day after the plan was submitted, an agreement was reached with William C. Williams and his helper, Unsay Shoemaker, to erect a courthouse and jail for $10,400.19 Builder of a store on Main Street, Williams was “experienced enough in construction business — with adequate capital, access to supplies and laborers — to execute this commission.”20 An early twentieth century historian of Roanoke County wrote about Williams: “in entering into the contract for building the Courthouse he looked more to the public good than to his own private interests for he undertook the work believing it would prove a financial loss and the event justified his belief.”21 The last court session at Huffs house was on March 15,1841.22Edward Watts, who had been appointed to oversee construction of the courthouse, reported that the interior was done according to the contract and the work was accepted. Commissioners were appointed to “contract for and provide chairs, benches, and all necessary furniture for the courthouse and jury rooms and also a clerk’s table with railing and bannister enclosed the same.”23 During this last home court session it was ordered that the next session would be held at the new courthouse. On April 19,1841, the first court was held in Roanoke County’s new courthouse.24In Bedford County Courthouse, circa 1920 Credit: Virginia Cavalcade, Sum m er 1971, page 12. 5 �a simplified Greek Revival style, the building rested on a raised basement of brick two feet above ground. The portico had four brick Doric columns plastered smoothly without fluting. Specifications called for the columns to be stuccoed and finished with bases and capitals corresponding to the Greek Doric order. A simple, straight-run wooden staircase, interestingly without risers, arose between the center columns. Above the columns was a Roman-like entablature with proper triglyphs, metopes, and guttae. A triangular pediment was free of ornament and a small cupola surmounted the building. The roof of the cupola was formed by four gables in a cross form; a tiny spire emerged from their intersection. Four chimneys serving both the courtroom and wings were built into the outer walls, two on each side of the center portion. Two side wings, two stories high, flanked the main portion. The wings displayed gabled roofs abutting the central portion at right angles. Windows in all three sections had flat lintels and were shuttered. A central doorway topped by a window panel opened into the courtroom, with a separate exterior door leading into each wing. Adjacent one-story wings were added later. All sections had stairs without risers in front. Specifications for the courthouse called for “the cornice to be a plain Doric after the stile [sic] of the Bedford County courthouse.” William Campbell from Bedford, one of the first commissioners, may have influenced this design choice. (The Bedford Courthouse was built in 1833 and continued in use until 1930.) While the Doric order was basically the same for both buildings, there were some differences. Bedford’s portico was raised a full story above ground; Roanoke’s was only two feet above ground. The Bedford columns, in the proper Greek manner, had conspicuous round bases; Roanoke’s had only square plinths. Bedford had an open cupola with a bell; Roanoke had a small gabled cupola with a spire. Chimneys were on the outside of the wings and at the rear of the center portion at Bedford, but inside the wings at Roanoke. The Bedford Courthouse proportions were squat and square, whereas Roanoke’s proportions were high and narrow. In its finished state, the Roanoke County Courthouse presented a grand, noble appearance for the new county. It was an object of immense civic pride. When the courthouse opened, the judge posted notices that a $5 fine would be imposed for defacement of the new building.25 At the June 21,1841, session a $200 levy was made for a stove and other furniture for the building. The new courthouse, however, was not without problems, as the clerk recorded: “It appearing to the court that the roof of the courthouse is not waterproof whereby the building is liable to be injured it is ordered that the commissioners of the public buildings withhold from the contractors a sum sufficient to indemnify the County for the deficiency of the work and the injury like to ensure therefrom.”26 Not until June 1842 did the builder receive any payment. Then he was paid $1,552.10 by county levy which noted “claims and allowed W. C. Williams (for public buildings).”27 If Williams, the builder of the courthouse, lost money on the endeavor, the designer, Peyton, retained his meritorious stand in the community. He was a large landowner who lived at “Elmwood,” now the site of the Roanoke Public Library. Peyton’s lifestyle was chronicled in detail in 1873 in a biography by his son, John Lewis Peyton. In describing his father’s Roanoke mansion, John Peyton referred to a collection of art works and his father’s “fondness for the arts, music, poetry, painting, and sculpture.”28 The son noted that his father was skilled at drawing and painting: “It was said by the late Mr. Sully, an eminent painter of Richmond and Philadelphia, that he was not only an amateur and a connoisseur, but an artist as well." From the library at Elmwood, the son remembered “many old, rare, and valuable works with plates and engravings in them.”29 A portrait of William Peyton painted about 1855, attributed to George P. A. Healey, which probably hung at Elmwood, now resides with a private collection in New Orleans. 6 �Although the son may have exaggerated his father’s wealth as he reminisced over pre-Civil War luxuries, the 1857 tax records indicate he certainly was not poor. Thirty-two slaves over 16 years old and 36 over 12 years old were recorded. Peyton had 25 horses, with only one carriage recorded, and 200 cattle, sheep, and hogs. Special items noted by the tax assessor included three watches, two clocks, and two harps and pianos. Peyton also owned gold, silver, and jewelry valued at $250, and $ 1,200 worth of household and kitchen furniture.30 In 1859 Peyton went to New York to organize a joint stock company around his coal mining interests.31 A year later the land tax book in Roanoke County lists Peyton as a resident of New York. After the secession of Virginia on April 25, 1861, Federal authorities would not allow him to leave New York, according to his son. After the Civil War he did return to Virginia and his family, but poverty, sickness, and domestic toubles prevailed until his death in 1868.32 Some Roanoke ties apparently remained because William Madison Peyton’s will, dated December 17,1861, was filed in Roanoke County.33 The Roanoke County Courthouse, as originally designed by Peyton, underwent renovation in 1888 with the addition of two one-story wings to give more room for the clerk and a vault. Architect W. P. Tinsley of Lynchburg, who designed the addition, also renovated the courtroom. His proposal, in a letter of April 27,1888, to P. H. McCaull in Salem, stated: “The courtroom to be made entirely modem by new judge’s stand, clerk’s desk and office, new bar railing, etc., and all to be properly painted and otherwise well finished.”34Much of the old building endured until its complete destruction in 1909. It was replaced in 1910 by the second courthouse which stood until the third seat of the county courts was occupied in 1985. In 1938, the building was still remembered by Alvin H. Magee, who was 82 at the time. In the Centennial Edition of the Salem newspaper, Magee recalled that “I can still see in my mind the two old fireplaces that were expected to warm the building for the loafers; the rusty old stove to warm the bench, the jury, and the judge; also the old stone (ware) pitchers which were filled with drinking water from the town pump that stood on the street comer.”35 Today, the second Roanoke County Courthouse is being preserved as a historic landmark and the third Roanoke County Courthouse looms over Salem with angular, modem forms. Who remembers the first Roanoke County Courthouse? (Editor’s note: See poem on page 72.) First Roanoke County Courthouse, overall view, circa 1890. Credit: Salem, Virginia: Its Advantages and Attractions. New York. The Giles Co. Print, 1891. 7 �FOOTNOTES E Richard Pare, COURT HOUSE: A PHOTOGRAPHIC DOCUMENT, p. 7 2. A COURTHOUSE CONSERVATION HANDBOOK, p. 7. 3. Ibid., p. 9 4. THE CODE O F VIRGINIA, 1849, p. 254-55. 5. Ibid., p. 255. 6. Ibid. 7. Richard Pare, “Courthouses: County Symbols,” p. 33. 8. THE TIMES REGISTER, ROANOKE COUNTY CENTENNIAL EDITION, p. 25 9. Writers’ Program of the Works Progress Administration in the State o f Virginia, ROANOKE: STORY OF CITY AND COUNTY, p. 82. (Hereinafter cited as W.P.A.) 10. Ibid., p. 84. 11. COMMON LAW ORDERS A, MAY 1830-MAY 1840, p. 9. 12. John Lewis Peyton, MEMOIR OF WILLIAM PEYTON OF ROANOKE, p. 2. 13. Ibid., p. 15. 14. Robert Douthat Stoner, A SEED-BED OF THE REPUBLIC, p. 347. 15. W.P.A., p. 84. 1«. COMMON LAW ORDERS A, p. 21. 17. Ibid., p. 17. 18. Ibid., p. 42. 19. W. L. Whitweii and Lee W. Winbome, THE ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE OF THE ROANOKE VALLEY, p. 80. 20. Ibid. 21. William McCauley, e d , HISTORY OF ROANOKE COUNTY, p. 300. 22. COMMON LAW ORDERS B. JUN E 1840-JULY 1843, p. 86. 23. Ibid., p. 76. 24. Ibid., p. 88. 25. Carolyn Hale Bruce, ROANOKE: A PICTORIAL HISTORY, p. 30. 26. COMMON LAW ORDERS B, p. 100. 27. Ibid., p. 200. 28. John Lewis Peyton, MEMOIR OF PEYTON, p. 49. 29. Ibid., p. 49-50. 30. PROPERTY BOOK 1857-60. 31. John Lewis Peyton, MEMOIR OF PEYTON, p. 234. 32. John Lewis Peyton, MEMOIR OF PEYTON, p. 307. 33. WILL BOOK II, p. 239. 34. Vertical Files, Roanoke County Courthouse. 35. THE TIMES REGISTER, CENTENNIAL EDITION, p. 64. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. American Bar Association and American Institute of Architects Joint Committee on Design of Courtrooms and Court Facilities. TH E AMERICAN COURTHOUSE. Ann Arbor, Michigan: The Institute for Continuing Legal Education, 1973. 2. Bruce, Carolyn Hale, ROANOKE: A PICTORIAL HISTORY. Norfolk, Virginia: Donning, 1976. 3. THE CODE OF VIRGINIA. Richmond, Virginia: Wm. F. Ritchie, 1849. 4. COMMON LAW ORDERS A, MAY 1839-MAY 1840. Salem, Virginia, Roanoke County Courthouse. 5. COMMON LAW ORDERS B, JUN E 1840-JULY 1843. Salem, Virginia, Roanoke County Courthouse. 6. A COURTHOUSE CONSERVATION HANDBOOK. Washington, D.C.: Preservation Press, 1976. 7. McCauley, William, ed. HISTORY OF ROANOKE COUNTY, SALEM, ROANOKE CITY, VIRGINIA AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. Chicago, Illinois: Biographical Publishing Company, 1902. 8. McClelland, Cynthia. Letter to authors, 21 March 1984. Princeton University, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton, N J . 9. Pare, Richard, ed. COURT HOUSE: A PHOTOGRAPHIC DOCUMENT. New York: Horizon Press, 1978. 10. Pare, Richard, “Courthouses: Country Symbols.” HISTORIC PRESERVATION. Vol. 29, No. 4, Oct.-Dec. 1977, pp. 31-37. 11. Peyton, John Lewis. M EMOIR OF W ILLIAM PEYTON OF ROANOKE. London: John Wilson Publisher, 1873. 12. PROPERTY BOOK 1857-60. Salem, Virginia, Roanoke County Courthouse. 13. Stark, Patricia B. Letter to authors, May 15, 1984. Yale University Library, New Haven, Connecticut. 14. Stone, Robert Douthat. A SEED-BED OF THE REPUBLIC. Radford, Virginia: Commonwealth Press, 1962. 15. THE TIM ES REGISTER. ROANOKE COUNTY CENTENNIAL EDITION 1938. Salem, Virginia: May 27,1938. 16. Vertical Files. Salem, Virginia, Roanoke County Courthouse. 17. Whitweii, W. L. and Winborne, Lee W. THE ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE O F TH E ROANOKE VALLEY. Charlottesville, Virginia: University Press of Virginia, 1982. 18. WILL BOOK II. Salem, Virginia, Roanoke County Courthouse. 19. Writers’Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Virginia. ROANOKE: STORY OF CITY AND COUNTY. Roanoke, Virginia: Stone Printing Co., 1942. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors wish to acknowledge the assistance o f Mrs. Elizabeth Stokes, Clerk o f the Court, Roanoke County; Mrs. Peter G. Burke; The Historical New Orleans Collection; Ms. Carol Tuckwiller; and Mrs. Lynn Davis. 8 �Fleming Backed Constitution William Fleming, pioneer Roanoke Valley surgeon, soldier and acting governor for almost three weeks, cast Botetourt County’s vote for the new United States Constitution two centuries ago. Fleming, who lived in a log house still standing on Monterey Golf Course along Tinker Creek in Northeast Roanoke, voted for ratification at a Richmond convention on June 25, 1788. The vote was 89 to 79 for the Constitution. Seven years earlier, Fleming as the only member of the Council of the State of Virginia was acting governor. His role is described in this brief biography from Journals o f the Council o f the State o f Virginia, Vol. V, Virginia State Library, 1982: William Fleming (1728-1795), son of Leonard and Dorothea (Saterthwaite) Fleming, was bom on 7 February 1728 in Jedburgh, Scotland. Fleming served as an apprentice to a surgeon in Dumfries, Scotland, and also studied pharmacy with an eminent Scottish apothecary before enrolling as a medical student at the University of Edinburgh in 1746. There is evidence to suggest that following his medical studies Fleming worked as a surgeon either in the British navy or on an English merchant ship. Early in the 1750s his travels brought him to Virginia. In 1755 Fleming accepted an ensign’s commission in the Virginia militia, and he fought for eight years in the French and Indian War. At the war’s close he settled in Staunton, where he practiced medicine. In 1768 he moved his family to an estate called Belmont in the southwestern part of Augusta County. A year later the General Assembly separated the area in which Fleming lived from Augusta and created Botetourt County. Fleming helped to establish the government of the new county and became a justice of the Botetourt County court. In June 1774 he was appointed colonel of the Botetourt militia. In October of that year he fought in Dunmore’s War at the battle of Point Pleasant, where he received a serious wound from which he never fully recovered. Although his health kept him from active military duty in the Revolution, he did serve as county lieutenant of Botetourt during the war, and from May 1777 through June 1779 he sat in the General Assembly as a state senator for Botetourt and several other southwestern Virginia counties. In June 1779 Governor Thomas Jefferson appointed Fleming to head a commission to settle land claims in Kentucky and to recommend locations for new forts on Virginia’s frontier. Fleming spent more than eight months traveling in Kentucky, returning in mid-May 1780. While on this expedition Fleming learned that on 18 December 1779 the General Assembly had elected him a member of the Council of State. Early in June he set out for the new capital at Richmond to take his seat on the executive board. Fleming, who is often confused with Judge William Fleming (1736-1824), served on the Council during a particularly trying period for Virginia, as in May 1781 a British army invaded the commonwealth, marched on Richmond, and forced the government to flee westward. Governor Jefferson’s term expired on 2 June 1781, while government leaders were in Charlottesville. As the only councillor on hand during the first eleven days of June 1781, Fleming assumed the duties of governor until the General Assembly could reconvene in Staunton and elect a new governor. On 12 June the assembly chose Thomas Nelson, Jr., to succeed Jefferson, but Fleming continued to act as governor until Nelson arrived in Staunton on 19 June. The strain of these responsibilities proved too much for Fleming, and in an 8 September letter to the Speaker of the House of Delegates he resigned his place on the Council. Several months later, however, Fleming reluctantly accepted an appointment as a commissioner to investigate charges of corruption and mismanagement in the government of Virginia’s western territory. In this capacity, he once again traveled to the state’s frontier. His last appearance in public life occurred when he represented Botetourt County 9 �in the Convention of 1788, at which he voted for ratification of the United States Constitution. Although he visited Kentucky on more than one occasion in his later years, his health declined precipitously early in the 1790s. Fleming died at Belmont in August 1795 at the age of sixty-eight. Roanoke’s First Judges by Judge Jack Coulter R oanoke C ity C ourts 1884-1973 When Big Lick became the Town of Roanoke in 1882, the community continued to be a part of the 14th Judicial Circuit. At that time the 14th Judicial Circuit was made up of the counties of Roanoke (including Big Lick), Botetourt, Craig, Montgomery and Floyd. Hence, until the Town of Roanoke became the City of Roanoke on January 31, 1884, legal matters requiring a court of record were handled through the Circuit Court of Roanoke County since the Town of Roanoke was still a part of the county. Soon after Roanoke became a city, its Circuit Court was established by the General Assembly on March 17,1884, and was made a part of the 14th Judicial Circuit. This new court held its first session on December 18,1884. The same judge presided over all the 14th Judicial Circuit, therefore the Circuit Court for the City of Roanoke was held here only two months out of the year. By Act of the General Assembly in 1892, the Circuit Court for the City of Roanoke became a part of the 18th Judicial Circuit, whose territory included Bedford County and Roanoke City. This court held its term in Roanoke four times a year. Then, in 1904, the Circuit Court for the City of Roanoke became a part of the 20th Judicial Circuit, made up originally of the counties of Roanoke, Bedford, Montgomery and Floyd, as well as Roanoke City, and court was held in the city five times during the year. On February 25,1884, the Corporation or Hustings Court for the City of Roanoke was authorized by the General Assembly, 20 days earlier than the Circuit Court. Identifying itself as the Hustings Court, it convened every month except August. In June 1902, this court began calling itself the Corporation Court, but in June 1928 reverted to the Hustings Court. In 1910, the Law and Chancery Court of the City of Roanoke was organized, holding court every month except August, but having no criminal jurisdiction. In order to avoid confusion in the names of the courts, the General Assembly enacted statutes during the 1950s, naming the courts precisely: Hustings Court of the City of Roanoke, Court of Law and Chancery of the City of Roanoke, and Circuit Court of the City of Roanoke. In 1973, all of these courts, the Circuit, Hustings and Law and Chancery, were merged by the General Assembly into the Circuit Court of the City of Roanoke as part of the 23rd Judicial Circuit. The Circuit Court of Roanoke County and the Circuit Court of the City of Salem became a part of the same circuit. Judge Jack Coulter o f Roanoke City Circuit Court, writer o f this article, led in the recognition o f Roanoke’s first judges in 1984. Through his efforts, portraits o f thejudges o f the city’s courts o f recordfro m 1884 to 1973 were placed in the new city courthouse. Twenty-three men were judges o f the Circuit, Hustings (Corporation) and Law and Chancery courts during this period. 10 �S ta tistica l Sum m ary o f pre-1973 Judges Up to the time that the courts of record for the City of Roanoke were consolidated in 1973, there had been 25 judges of the three courts — Circuit, Hustings and Law and Chancery. These 25 judicial positions, however, were filled by only 23 men since Judges William W. Moffett and Herbert B. Gregory served as judges of both the Circuit Court and Law and Chancery Court. Since 1973, four additional judges have served on the Circuit Court bench, making a grand total of 27.* Through 1984, Judge Frederick L. Hoback served the longest period of these 27 judges, a total of 32 years (1952-1984), closely followed by Judge S. L. Fellers, who was on the bench for 30 years (1944-1974). Judge Henry E. Blair was on the Circuit Court bench for 31 years (1873-1905), but he served the City of Roanoke for only eight of those years. Judge Gregory was a member of the judiciary for 28 years, but 21 of them were as a justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia. Judge Cephus B. Moomaw was a Circuit Court judge for the shortest period, 135 days (October 1, 1905, to February 12, 1906). The average term served by the pre-1973 judges was 9.6 years. The average age of the 23 judges who served through 1973 was 46.2 years at the time of their first appointment. Judge William Gordon Robertson, appointed at age 28, was the youngest, while Judge Roy B. Smith, appointed at the age of 63, was the oldest. Judge Archer E. King was also appointed a Circuit Court judge at 28, but that was as judge of the Circuit Court of Fluvanna and other adjoining counties, a post he resigned after six years. Of the 21 judges who are deceased, Judge Fellers lived the longest, to the age of 90, closely followed by Judge John M. Hart, who lived to 89. Judge Robert J. Rogers, the youngest, died at 48. The average life span of these judges was 66.85 years. Of the 23 judges who served before 1973,18 were bom in the last century and nine before the Civil War; only five were bom in the Roanoke Valley (Fox, Woodrum, Fellers, Edwards and Ballou). Five were graduates of Roanoke or Jefferson High School (Keister, Hoback, Fox, Edwards and Ballou). Eleven received their law degrees from the University of Virginia (Dupuy, Tucker, Hoback, W. G. Robertson, Woods, King, Hart, Almond, Kuyk, Ballou and E. E. Robertson); and six were graduated from Washington and Lee Law School (Gregory, Keister, Fox, Staples, Edwards and Fellers). Only Judge Tucker was not a native-born Virginian. He was bom in Philadelphia, but he grew up in Richmond and had perhaps the most notable Virginia pedigree of them all. Of these 23 judges, two went on to Congress (Woodrum and Almond); one became attorney general and governor (Almond); two went on the federal bench (Tucker and Almond). There were five who served as a commonwealth’s attorney (Blair, Woodrum, Almond, Edwards and Smith); three were mayors of the City (Moomaw, Woods and Edwards); and two served on City Council (King and Hart). There were four who were in the state legislature, either as a delegate or senator (Blair, Tucker, Moffett and Hart). W. G. Robertson was very active as a delegate from Roanoke at the Constitutional Convention of 1902. E. W. Robertson was the only unmarried judge. Tucker, Keister, Woods and Almond had no children. Five judges died in their 50s (Dupuy, W. G. Robertson, Woods, Edwards and E. W. Robertson). Although some may have technically resigned shortly before their deaths, only six of these 23 pre-1973 judges died while serving on the bench (E. W. Robertson, Smith, Moffett, Keister, Edwards and Hoback). Judge Rogers, who died a few days after resigning, was elected after 1973. *This article was written before the election o f Roy B. Willett and G. O. Clemens to the Circuit Court bench in 1985 and Clifford R. Weckstein in 1987. The otherfour judges elected after 1973 were: Robert J. Rogers, elected in 1974, Jack B. Coulter, elected in 1975, Lawrence L Koontz, Jr., elected in 1976, and Kenneth E. Trabue, elected in 1977. Hence, there have been seven additionaljudges since 1973, making a grand total o f 30 men who have served or who are presently serving asjudges o f the courts o f recordfo r the City o f Roanoke. 11 �Biographical Sketches JUDGES OF THE PRE-1973 CITY CIRCUIT COURT 1884-1973 No. Years Age at Judge Period Served Served Appointment Age at Death Henry E. Blair (1884-1892) 8 49 81 James A. Dupuy (1892-1900) 8 38 55 John Randolph Tucker (1901-1904) 3 46 72 Cephus B. Moomaw (1905-1906) 1 56 66 William Walter Moffett (1906-1923) 17 52 72 Herbert B. Gregory (1923-1926) 3 39 67 Thurston L. Keister (1926-1952) 26 38 64 *Frederick L. Hoback (1952-1973) 32 47 79 *Tom Stockton Fox (1970-1973) 4 60 76 ♦Judges Hoback and Fox continued on the bench after the consolidation of the courts in 1973. H enry E dm undson B lair (1825-1906) When the Town of Roanoke became the City of Roanoke on January 31, 1884, Judge Henry Edmundson Blair had been serving in Roanoke County as judge of the 14th Judicial Circuit for nearly 10 years. He had succeeded Judge A. B. Mahood in July 1874 and was a member of the House of Delegates from Roanoke County at the time. Judge Blair was 49 when he became a judge. All told, he served as a circuit court judge for 31 years, until he resigned in September 1905, but he was judge of the Circuit Court of the City of Roanoke only from 1884 to 1892. In 1892, Roanoke City broke away from the 14th Judicial Circuit to form the 18th Judicial Circuit with Bedford County. Born in Richmond on January 31, 1825, Judge Blair was the son of Walter D. Blair and a grandson of the Reverend John D. Blair, an eminent Presbyterian minister. He moved to Salem in 1847 and formed a 27-year partnership for the general practice of law with his uncle, Col. Henry A. Edmundson, which continued until he was elected to the beach. On October 4, 1866, he married Miss Evelyn A. Burke of Botetourt County. He enlisted in the Civil War as lieutenant of Blair the Salem Artillery and served through the entire war. His battery was one of the last in action at Appomattox. From 1856 to 1868 he served as commonwealth’s attorney for Roanoke County, and again from May 1870 to January 1871. He was president of the board of trustees of Roanoke College and was an elder of the Presbyterian Church in Salem. He died on October 17,1906, at the age of 81, survived by his widow and his daughter, Ellen, the wife of Dr. R. Minor Wiley. His descendants included three granddaughters, the late Mrs. John P. (Blair) Fishwick of Roanoke and Washington, D.C; Ellen Edmundson Blair 12 �Wiley Rice of Roanoke; and Evelyn Blair Wiley Chapman of Greenville, Tennessee; and seven great-grandchildren, including Mrs. Dudley (Evelyn R.) Marsteller of Roanoke and Mrs. Robert (Lellen) Dawson of Salem. Jam es A sa D u puy (1854-1909) James Asa Dupuy was the first judge of the 18th Judicial Circuit, created in 1892. He served the City of Roanoke and Bedford County until the circuit was reorganized in 1904, Bom in Prince Edward County in 1854, Judge Dupuy was the seventh of nine children of Col. Joseph and Sarah W. Walker Dupuy. He received his academic training at HampdenSydney College and studied law under Prof. John B. Minor of the University of Virginia, earning his law degree in 1883. He first set up his law practice in Rocky Mount, but moved to Roanoke in 1888. He was elected judge of the 18th Judicial Court in March 1892 at 38 and served until his retirement in 1900. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Parkersburg, West Virginia, but returned to Roanoke in 1904 where he remained until his death at 55 on October 3,1909. He was president of the Roanoke Bar Association at the time of his death and was associated in the practice of law with S. G. Whittle, Jr. His wife, the former Mary Vaughan, a Dupuy daughter of Reverend Clement Read Vaughan of Roanoke, had died 20 years before Judge Dupuy. He was survived by a daughter, Miss Loulie Rochet Dupuy, a long-time English teacher at Jefferson High School who died August 3, 1968. Descendants of his wife’s family include Mrs. Hubert (Page) Wright, S. Wilson Blain, Mary Frazier Blain and Mrs. Jack (Ann Blain) Weldon. Relatives include Mrs. G. Donald Black of Blacksburg and Mrs. Kitty Dupuy Nelson of Yorktown. John R andolph Tucker (1857-1926) John Randolph Tucker was elected by the General Assembly on February 7, 1900, to succeed Judge Dupuy as judge of the 18th Judicial Circuit, beginning January 1, 1901. His time on the bench was shortened, however, by the reorganization of the circuit courts throughout the state in 1904. The Circuit Court of Roanoke City became a part of the 20th Judicial Circuit. Judge Tucker was born of distinguished paternal and maternal ancestry in Philadelphia on August 13,1857, the son of Dr. David Hunter and Elizabeth Dallas Tucker. On his father’s side he was a 10th generation member of the famous Tucker clan that first came to Virginia at James­ town in 1606. Some of them migrated to Bermuda where his great-great-grandfather, Col. Henry Tucker, was secretary of state for Bermuda prior to the Revolutionary War. His great-grandfather, Col. St. George Tucker of Williamsburg, married Tucker 13 �Frances Bland, the widow of John Randolph and the mother of John Randolph of Roanoke Plantation. His grandfather, Henry St. George Tucker, was president of the Virginia Court of Appeals from 1831 to 1841. On his mother’s side, he was the grandson of George M. Dallas, a senator from Pennsylvania, who served as vice president of the United States from 1845 to 1849. John Tucker’s early life was spent in Richmond, but, because of the early death of his father and the family’s property losses during the Civil War, he had to stop school at 17. He worked in a cotton factory in Manchester and then for the Richmond and Danville Railroad. Later he attended Washington and Lee University and in 1881-82 studied law under Prof. John B. Minor at the University of Virginia. He began his law practice in Richmond, but soon moved to Bedford County where he practiced until elected to the bench in 1900 at the age of 46. After leaving the bench, Judge Tucker was elected to the State Senate where he served from 1908 to 1913. Hewas appointed a federal j udge for the 2nd Judicial Division of Alaska at N ome in 1913, serving there until 1917 when he returned to the private practice of law in Richmond. Judge Tucker died at the age of 72 in Bedford on December 18,1926, and was buried in Columbia, South Carolina. He had no children, and he was survived by his wife, Mary Singleton Hampton Tucker, the daughter of Confederate General Wade Hampton of South Carolina, and one sister, Mrs. Forest Brown of Charles Town, West Virginia. C ephus B enjam in M oom aw (1849-1915) Cephus Benjamin Moomaw became the first judge of the Circuit Court of the City of Roanoke after it became a part of the 20th Judicial Circuit. He served only 135 days, from October 1, 1905, to February 12,1906, the shortest term of any judge in our history. He was appointed to succeed Judge Blair who had resigned as judge of the 20th Circuit because of failing health. Judge Moomaw, the son of Joseph and Polly Moomaw, was born in Botetourt County on October 23, 1849. He was initially a farmer, but read law privately and was admitted to the bar of Botetourt County in 1882. He came to Roanoke and formed a partnership with John W. Woods, a partnership which continued until November 1892, when Woods was elected to the Hustings Court bench. In April 1893, he went into partnership with Woods’ brother, James P. Woods, until the summer of 1903. After his tenure on the bench, Judge Moomaw went into partnership with his son, Hugh Moomaw. He died on October 18, 1915, at the age of 66. Judge Moomaw was a member of City Council and was mayor of the City of Roanoke from 1913 until 1915. He was also city solicitor from 1897 to 1905. He was married to Sarah E‘. Mangus of Botetourt County, and they had three children: Edith, Hugh M. and Joseph Frank Moomaw. Hugh Moomaw’s daughter, Mrs. William (Dolly) E. Hall, lives in Roanoke. W illiam W aller M o ffett (1854-1926) In January 1906, William Walter Moffett was elected by the General Assembly to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Judge Blair in October 1905, succeeding Judge Moomaw who had been appointed as interim judge by Governor Montague. Judge Moffett had been the county judge of Roanoke County from June 19, 1893, 14 �until 1902 when the county court system was abolished by the new Constitution. He had moved to Salem in 1891 from Washington, D.C., where he had practiced law for five years. Judge Moffett was of early Virginia stock, his forebears having located in Fauquier County in the early 1700s. He was born July 19, 1854, in Culpeper County, the eldest of four children of John and Sarah W. Brown Moffett. His father died when he was only 13 and he was reared by his uncle, Horatio G. Moffett, under whom he read law after graduating from the Rappahannock Academy. He was admitted to the bar in 1877 and was elected to the Virginia legislature from Rappahannock County in 1883. Judge Moffett went on the Circuit Court bench at the age of 52 and continued to serve as judge of the 20th Judicial Circuit for 17 years, Moffett until 1923. He then moved to the Law and Chancery Court of the City of Roanoke, succeeding Judge Roy B. Smith. He served that court as its third judge until his death on August 25, 1926, at the age of 72. Judge Moffett also was president of the board of trustees of Hollins Institute, president of the Baptist General Association of Virginia for two terms, and chairman of the executive board of the Baptist Orphanage of Virginia. He was survived by his widow, Jessie Mary, and four daughters: Mrs. Frank (Gates) Jones, Mrs. B. N. (Fannie) Eubank, Mrs. W. N. (Sarah) Walters, and Lois Umstot, all of whom are now deceased. His grandchildren include Mrs. Jessie Miller Turner of Washington, Virginia, Mrs. Mary Lee Walters Worrell of Richmond, and Mrs. Sarah Umstot Jones of Atlanta. H erbert B ailey G regory (1884-1951) In 1923, Herbert Bailey Gregory was appointed at the age of 39 as judge of the 20th Judicial Circuit, which then comprised the counties of Roanoke, Montgomery and Floyd as well as the City of Roanoke. He succeeded Judge Moffett, who had moved over to the Law and Chancery Court of the City of Roanoke. In 1926, Judge Gregory followed Judge Moffett to the Law and Chancery Court. He served until 1930, when at the age of 46 he was elected by the General Assembly to the Supreme Court of Appeals. He was a Supreme Court justice for 21 years until his death at 67 on March 9, 1951. Judge Gregory was born in Westmoreland County on April 10, 1884, the son of the Reverend Werter Hancock Gregory, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and Sallie Payne Gregory. He was educated at private schools, attended Randolph-Macon Academy at Bedford and Pungoteague Academy in Accomac. He earned his law degree at Washington and Lee University in 1911, was a member of Omicron Gregory Delta Kappa and Phi Beta Kappa, and later 15 �received an honorary degree of doctor of laws from his alma mater. He was survived by his wife, Margaret Kossen Gregory, and three children: James Blair Gregory, Kossen Gregory and Mrs. Herberta Eagler. Thurston L an tz K eister (1888-1952) Thurston Lantz Keister was born in Bowman, Shenandoah County, on October 6, 1888, the son of the Reverend T. O. and Ellen Rebecca Lantz Keister. He was graduated from Roanoke High School in 1904 and from Roanoke College, with honors, in 1910. He earned his law degree from Washington and Lee University in 1913 and began the practice of law in Roanoke and Salem, first with R. W. Kime and later with R. T. Hubbard. During World War I, he served in the Field Artillery. Judge Keister was appointed by Governor Harry Byrd to fill the unexpired term of Judge Gregory as judge of the 20th Judicial Circuit in 1926 when Gregory moved to the Law and Chancery Court of the City of Roanoke. He was elected to the position by the 1927 special session of the General Assembly and was re-elected for successive terms until his death on October 26, 1952, at the age of 64, having served 26 years on the bench. He was survived by his wife, Marion Zirkle, whom he married in 1923; his three sisters, Mrs. R. W. (Mary) Stoneburner of Edinburg; Mrs. A. Pelzer (Rebecca) Wagener of Williamsburg; Mrs. J. F. (Emma) Ouzts of Greenwood, South Carolina; and five nieces and nephews. He was a trustee of Roanoke College from 1933 until his death. He was also a member of College Lutheran Church in Salem; the Kazim Keister Temple, Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of Mystic Shrine; Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks; and was a charter member and the first commander of Salem Post 19 of the American Legion. F rederick L ane H oback (1905-1985) Frederick Lane Hoback, the chief judge of the 23rd Judicial Circuit for 10 years, was on the bench for 32 years, a longer period of service as a circuit court judge than any other of the 30judges who have served or are serving the courts of record in Roanoke. Judge Hoback was bom in Floyd on Decem­ ber I 1905, to Frederick S. and Lottie Howard Hoback. He grew up in Roanoke, was graduated from Roanoke High School in 1923, earned his B.A. degree with honors from Roanoke College in 1927, obtained a master’s degree in economics with honors from the University of Virginia in 1928, and in 1931 he earned his law degree with honors from the University of Virginia, where he made Phi Beta Kappa. Judge Hoback practiced law in Salem from 1931 to 1952, and for many years he was a partner 16 Hoback �in the law firm of Kime and Hoback. He served as assistant trial justice for Roanoke County from 1932 to 1952, and was professor of business law at Roanoke College for 34 years, from 1936 to 1970. He was active in many civic and professional organizations, serving as president of several and served on the Judicial Council of Virginia for many years. . He was elected judge of the 20th Judicial Circuit, to succeed Judge Keister, in 1952 and was re-elected four times. He died on January 3, 1985, survived by his wife, Louise Van Lear Hoback, whom he married on February 3,1934; their three children, Frederick L., Jr., Charles Van, and Andrew F., and several grandchildren. Tom S tockton F ox (1910-1987) Tom Stockton Fox was born in Roanoke on August 18,1910, the son of Horace M. and Mildred S. Fox. He grew up in Roanoke, graduating from Jefferson High School m 1927. He attended Roanoke College from 1927 to 1929 and earned his B. A. degree from Washington and Lee University in 1931 and his law degree from the same university in 1933. He began his law practice in Roanoke in 1933, was with the Department of Agriculture from 1935 to 1942, and then resumed his practice in Roanoke. He was an instructor in business law at the National Business College from 1942 to 1950 and served in a leadership capacity in many civic, fraternal and professional organizations, particularly the Shrine and Masonic lodges. Judge Fox was elected by the General Assembly as a judge of the 20th Judicial Circuit on March 13, 1970, for an eight-year term. He suffered a stroke, however, in 1974 and was obliged to retire for reasons of health, effective January 15, 1975. He was married to Ellen Crush Fox on August 1, 1964. By his first wife, the former Virginia Lacy, Judge Fox had two children: Laura F. Hardy, deceased, and Thomas Stockton Fox, Jr. Fox JUDGES OF CITY HUSTINGS (CORPORATION) COURT 1884-1973 Age at No. Years Age at Death Appointment Served Period Served Judge William Gordon 54 28 8 1884-1892 Robertston 54 34 17 1892-1909 John W. Woods 56 37 5 1909-1914 Waller R. Staples 73 56 5 1914-1919 A. E. King 63 32 3 1919-1922 Clifton A. Woodrum 89 56 11 1922-1933 John M. Hart 87 35 12 1933-1945 J. Lindsay Almond, Jr. 81 48 18 1946-1964 Dirk A. Kuyk 57 53 4 1964-1968 Richard T. Edwards 48 17 1969-1973 —' *Ernest W. Ballou *Judge Ballou continued on the bench from the time of the consolidation of the courts in 1973 until his retirement on January i 1987. 17 �W illiam G ordon R obertson (1856-1910) William Gordon Robertson was the first judge chosen by the City of Roanoke, assuming the bench of the newly organized Hustings Court on February 25, 1884. The City had inherited Judge Henry Blair as part of the 14th Judicial Circuit when it became an incorporated municipality. Judge Robertson was the son of Judge William J. Robertson, who was a member of the Supreme Court of Appeals for six years. He had eight brothers and sisters by his father’s first wife, Hannah Gordon, and five half-brothers and halfsisters by his father’s second wife, Alice, the daughter of General Edward Watts. One of his half-brothers was Edward Watts Robertson, who was the first judge of the Law and Chancery Court of the City of Roanoke, serving from 1910 to 1918. Judge William Gordon Robertson was born at Charlottesville on February 12, 1856. He received his early education at Col. Horace Jones’ preparatory school and in 1873 he entered the University of Virginia, where he received his law degree in 1879. He began his professional career in Big Lick and formed a partnership with John W. G. Robertson Allen Watts, a nephew of Judge William J. Robertson’s second wife and a son of Col. William Watts. In 1884 when the Town became the City of Roanoke, William Gordon Robertson was named the judge of the Hustings Court at the age of 28. He served 8 years and returned to private practice in 1892, rejoining his former partner, J. Allen Watts. Edward Watts Robertson was soon added to the firm, which became Watts, Robertson and Robertson. Judge Robertson took a leading role in the Constitutional Convention of 1902, serving as Roanoke’s representative. Some of his forceful arguments are recorded in the debates of that convention, particularly his views urging the abolition of the county court system, the abandonment of the archaic requirement of unanimous jury verdicts in civil cases, and the disallowance of bench trials in not-guilty criminal cases. He died at the age of 54 on March 15,1910, survived by his wife, Nannie, who was the daughter of Peachy Gilmer and Julia Anthony Breckinridge; and their seven children, Julia Anthony (Mrs. Maurice) Breckinridge, William Joseph Robertson, Peachy Gilmer Robertson, William Gordon Robertson, George Morris Robertson, Anne Anthony Robertson (an accomplished violinist with the New York Philharmonic), and Sarah Brand Robertson, who married Carroll St. John of Salem. Some of his living descendants include Dr. Mason Gordon Robertson of Savannah, James C. Robertson of Adelphi, Maryland, George R. St. John, a prominent attorney of Charlottesville; Lindsay G. Robertson, a law graduate from the University of Virginia; and Judge Phillips Breckinridge, a former judge of Tulsa, Oklahoma. John W illiam W oods (1858-1912) J ohn William W oods was born in Roanoke County July 27,1858, the son of William and Sarah Jane Edington Woods of Catawba. He was of Scotch-Irish descent, his forebears having settled in the Roanoke Valley in 1770. 18 �Judge Woods attended public schools and Roanoke College. Later he studied law at the University of Virginia. He was admitted to the bar in 1887 and located in the City of Roanoke. He represented Roanoke City and the counties of Roanoke and Craig in the Virginia House of Delegates for the term 1889-1890. In 1892, at the age of 34, he was appointed judge of the Hustings Court to succeed William Gordon Robertson, who had resigned to return to private practice. He was twice elected to the same position on the bench by the General Assembly, each term being for a period of six years. At the expiration of his last term in 1909, he refused to accept reappoint­ ment. On December4,1900, Judge Woods married Minnie P. Staples, daughter of William and Patience Manchester Staples of Frostburg, Mary­ land. Judge Woods was a member of Greene Woods Memorial Methodist Church and served as steward and Sunday School superintendent for a number of years. He was the senior member of the law firm of Woods & McNulty. At varying times he was president of the City National Bank, the First National Bank of Rocky Mount, the Bank of Vinton and Farmers Supply Company. He was elected mayor of Roanoke City in 1910 and died in December 1912, at the age of 54, while serving in that office. His brother was Col. James P. Woods, also a former mayor of the City of Roanoke, a representative of the 6th District in Congress, and a founder of the prominent Roanoke law firm of Woods, Rogers, Muse, Walker and Thornton. Judge Woods had no children. His living collateral descendants include James P. Woods, Jr., of Salem, Elizabeth Woods Denison of Lynchburg, and Kathryn Woods Cobbs of Roanoke. W aller R ed d S taples (1871-1927) Waller Redd Staples, the son of Samuel Granville and Caroline DeJarnette Staples, was bom at Stuart in Patrick County on September 14, 1871. He was educated at Washington and Lee University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and worked in engineering for the U. S. government in the Land Office in Washing­ ton. While engaged in such work, he studied law at the National University and was admitted to the Virginia Bar in 1899. He practiced a few years in Lynchburg and Marysville, West Virginia, moving to Roanoke and forming a partnership with A. B. Hunt in 1905. In 1908 he was elected judge of the Corporation (Hustings) Court, taking his oath of office on February 1,1909. He resigned in 1914 to resume private practice. While on the bench he Staples 19 �was appointed by Governor William H. Mann to try the celebrated Allen murder cases in Hillsville. During the latter years of his practice, he was a partner in the law firm of Staples, Cox & Hazlegrove, and associate trial counsel for the Norfolk and Western. He died in Roanoke County on March 21,1927. He was survived by his wife, Olivia Trout, the sister of Dr. Hugh H. Trout, Sr., who founded the Jefferson Hospital, and by their two children, Mrs. George Emerson (Olivia) Smith and William Staples. His living descendants include his granddaughter, Mrs. Allen Bissell of Virginia Beach and her children, Lelia and William. He was the uncle of Abram Staples who served Virginia both as attorney general and as a justice of the Supreme Court. Justice Staples was the father of Allen Staples, a prominent Roanoke attorney, and Abram Penn Staples, both of Roanoke and now deceased; William Hunt Staples, Portsmouth, and Mrs. English (Jean) Showalter, Roanoke. A rcher E m m ett K in g (1858-1931) Archer Emmett King was born in Fluvanna County on October 22,1858, the son of Major Joab and Sarah Elizabeth Thomas King. He was educated in the public and private schools of Fluvanna County and earned his law degree at the University of Virginia in 1883. After graduation he returned to his native county where he began his professional career with James O. Shepherd under the firm name of Shepherd and King. He practiced in the courts of Fluvanna, Goochland, Louisa and Albemarle counties. In 1886 he was elected to the bench in that circuit at the age of 28. Four years later he came to Roanoke and formed a partnership with Roy B. Smith under the name of Smith and King. After 19 years of practice, their firm was dissolved in 1909 when Judge King joined Poindexter and Hopwood in a new association. Judge King was appointed a member of the City Council to fill the unexpired term of the late J. H. Skinker and was later elected and served a full term in his own right. He was elected judge of the Hustings Court, taking his oath of office on August 24,1914, and served for five years until his resignation on August 19,1919. He continued thereafter in local practice, moved to Florida in 1925 and died in February 1931. He was survived by his wife, Laura E. King, and their three sons: Lt. Cdr. Archer E. King, J. Minor King, and W. Courtney King, Sr., a former vice mayor of the City of Roanoke. Judge King’s living descendants include two grandchildren: W. Courtney King, Jr., currently practicing law in Roanoke, and Mrs. James L. (Muriel) Trinkle and their children. C lifton A lexan der W oodrum (1887-1950) Clifton Alexander Woodrum was bom in Roanoke on April 26, 1887, the son of Robert H. Woodrum, who was the first commonwealth’s attorney for the City of Roanoke, serving from 1884 to 1888. Woodrum started off to be a pharmacist, passing the state pharmacy examination in 1904 and operating the Belmont Pharmacy in Roanoke for nearly two years. After his marriage to Martha Lena Hancock on December 26, 1905, he moved to Lexington where he studied law, returning to Roanoke to read law under Judge Samuel 20 �Hairston. He passed the state bar examination in June 1908, practiced law for several years and became commonwealth’s attorney in Roanoke in 1917. At the age of 32, he was named judge of the Hustings Court in 1919 upon the resignation of Judge A. E. King. He resigned three years later in 1922 to campaign for Congress, upsetting the incumbent, James P. Woods, by a narrow margin. He served in Congress for 23 years, gaining national recognition as a strong supporter of President Franklin Roosevelt. He was a pioneer aviator (Woodrum Field is named in his honor) and a singer of considerable renown, touring the country as a soloist with the Army and Marine bands and performing nationally on Major Bowes’ radio “Amateur Hour” in 1937. Judge Woodrum died October 10, 1950, Woodrum survived by his widow and their two children, Martha Anne Zillhardt of Fincastle and the late Clifton A. Woodrum, Jr., the father of lawyers Clifton A. (Chip) Woodrum, III, currently Roanoke’s representative in the House of Delegates, and a member of the law firm of Dodson, Pence, Viar, Young & Woodrum, and Lanier Woodrum of the law firm of Fox, Wooten & Hart. John M arion H art (1866-1955) John Marion Hart was born in Prince Edward County on January 2,1866, the son of John Marion Hart and Fannie Sanford Smith Hart. He attended Prince Edward Academy, Hampden-Sydney College and earned his law degree at the University of Virginia in 1889. He came to Roanoke and formed a partnership in 1896 with his brother, James P. Hart, the father of our present-day Col. James P. Hart and John L. Hart. Judge Hart was elected to the Board of Alderman of the City of Roanoke in 1903 for a two-year term and was re-elected in 1905. He was elected to the State Senate in 1907 and went back for a second term in 1911. He resigned from the Senate in 1914 when he was appointed by President Woodrow Wilson as collector of inter­ nal revenue for the 6th District of Virginia. He was appointed judge of the Hustings Court by Governor E. Lee Trinkle in 1922 to succeed Judge Woodrum, who had resigned to run for Congress, and he was twice re-elected to that position by the General Assembly. In a heated judicial battle in 1932, in which the Senate and House were divided, J. Lindsay Almond was elected to succeed Judge Hart who stood for his third term. Judge Hart thereafter ran for commis­ sioner of revenue in Roanoke and unseated R. D. Hunt, who had led the judicial fight against him. Judge Hart continued as commissioner until his Hart resignation in 1954. Judge Hart died December 12,1955, survived by his widow, Carrie Harris Hart, and his two daughters, Marion Hart Nuckolls Lamons and Margaret Hart Barnes, now 21 �deceased, the wife of the late Raymond P. Barnes, a lawyer and one of Roanoke’s leading historians. Jam es L in dsay A lm ond, Jr. (1898-1986) James Lindsay Almond, Jr., was bom in Charlottesville on June 15,1898. Heearned his law degree from the University of Virginia in 1923 and received an honorary doctor of laws degree from William and Mary in 1969, while he was governor of the Commonwealth. He was awarded doctor of laws degrees in 1982 from Christopher Newport College and Roanoke College. He began his law practice in Roanoke in 1923 and became assistant commonwealth’s attor­ ney in 1930, serving for two years. In 1933 a group of young lawyers decided they wanted to replace Judge Hart on the Hustings Court bench and persuaded Lindsay Almond to be a candidate. In a bitter political battle, Almond won the election in the General Assembly by six votes, a rare feat of upsetting a sitting judge. Almond served as judge of the Hustings Court for 13 years until he resigned in 1945 to succeed Clifton A. Woodrum as the representative of the 6th District of Virginia in Congress. He resigned in 1948 when he was elected attorney general for the state, serving until 1957. He became governor of Virginia in 1958, breaking with Senator Harry Byrd soon thereafter because of his stand against massive resistance. Upon the conclusion of his term as governor, Almond he was appointed by President John F. Kennedy to be associate judge of the U. S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals, a post he held from 1962 to 1973 when he became a senior judge. He married the former Josephine Minter in 1925; they had no children. Almond died April 21, 1986 in Richmond where he lived in retirement. D irk A driaan K u yk (1898-1979) Dirk Adriaan Kuyk was born in Nottoway County on December 15, 1898, the son of the Reverend Christian Robert Kuyk, an Episcopal minister, and Mary Powell Goodwyn Kuyk. He moved to Richmond, and he was still a young boy when his father died. He was educated at the University of Virginia where he was an outstanding baseball player, and he was also a member of the football team. He graduated from the law school there in 1922 and began his professional career in Roanoke associat­ ed with E. W. Poindexter. He soon organized his own law firm with A. B. Coleman, Jr., which later merged with English Showalter and T. X. Parsons to become the law firm of Showalter, Parsons, Kuyk and Coleman. Judge Kuyk married Mary Terry Goodwin, the daughter of a pioneer Roanoke family, on October 30, 1929, and they had two children, 22 Kuyk �Dirk A. Kuyk, Jr., a professor of English at Trinity College in Connecticut, and Mrs. James G. (Martha) Hull of Belleville, Illinois. In 1938 Kuyk was president of the Roanoke Bar Association. Judge Kuyk was elected to the Hustings Court bench on January 17,1946, at the age of 48 to succeed Judge Almond, who had resigned to run for Congress. He served for 18 years until his resignation in late 1964. He served as judge of that court longer than any other judge. Judge Kuyk was an outstanding gardener, specializing in camellias, and won many awards from the garden clubs of Virginia and America. He was an avid hunter and fisherman and loved sports. He died on July 8,1979, survived by his wife and children and grandchildren, Dirk A. Kuyk, III, Lucinda Lee Hull and Robert C. Hull, and numerous nieces and nephews. R ickard Thom as E dw ards (1911-1968) Richard Thomas Edwards was born in Roanoke on April 15, 1911, the son of E. Harvey and Clara Greenwood Edwards. He was educated in the public schools of Roanoke, graduating from Jefferson High School in 1929. He received his A.B. and LL.B. degrees from Washington and Lee University and began his practice in Roanoke soon after graduation. He served as assistant commonwealth’s at­ torney for the City of Roanoke from 1937 to 1941 and thereafter formed a partnership with John D. Copenhaver under the firm name of Copenhaver and Edwards. After service in the Navy during World War II, he resumed his law practice in Roanoke and soon became heavily involved in community affairs, serving on City Council from 1946 to 1950. He was mayor of Roanoke from 1946 to 1948 and served on the City School Board from 1957 to 1961 and the State Board of Law Examiners from 1962 to 1964. He was president of the Roanoke Bar Association in 1951, served as president of several other civic organizations, and taught the Men’s Bible Class at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church for 29 years. Judge Edwards, at 53, was elected judge of the Hustings Court to succeed Judge Kuyk on December 3,1964, and served until his resignation Edwards shortly before his untimely death four years later. He died at the age of 57 on December 11,1968, survived by his wife, Augusta Saul Edwards, their two sons, Dr. Richard T. Edwards, III, and Attorney John S. Edwards, their daughter, Betsy Anderson of Charlotte, grandchildren, and a brother, H. Green­ wood Edwards. E rnest W ade B allou (1921- ) Ernest Wade Ballou was born in Roanoke on December 3, 1921, one of seven children born to Clara Wade and Charles Edward Ballou. He grew up in Roanoke and was educated in its public schools, graduating from Jefferson High School in 1939. He attended Roanoke and Emory and Henry colleges and was graduated from the University of Virginia Law School in 1949. Judge Ballou served as a Navy officer aboard a destroyer escort in World War II. He was recalled to service during the Korean conflict and served on active duty for 18 months. He retired some years later from the Naval Reserve with the rank of commander. 23 �Judge Ballou practiced law in Roanoke until 1969, except for military service during the Korean conflict and for a short period before and after that conflict when he was in private practice in Fairfax County. In 1969, at the age of 48, he succeeded Judge Richard T. Edwards on the Hustings Court bench. He served four years as the last judge of the Hustings Court until the consolidation of the courts in 1973 and continued as one of the judges of the 23rd Judicial Circuit until his retirement became effective January 1, 1987. Judge Ballou has been very active in state judicial affairs, having served as chairman of the Judicial Inquiry and Review Commission and the Committee on District Courts and as a member of the Judicial Council of Virginia. He was president of the Roanoke Bar Association in 1968-1969. Judge Ballou is married to the former Ruth Sachers of Roanoke, and they have four children: Ernest Wade Ballou, Jr., Kathryn Ballou Clement, Eric Edward Ballou, and Robert Stewart Ballou. JUDGES OF CITY LAW AND CHANCERY COURT 1910-1973 Age at No. Years Appointment Age at Death Served Period Served Judge Edward Watts 42 53 11 1910-1921 Robertson 65 63 2 1921-1923 Roy B. Smith 72 69 3 1923-1926 William Walter Moffett 67 42 4 1926-1930 Herbert B. Gregory 65 14 50 1930-1944 Beverley Berkeley 90 55 30 1944-1973 ““Stanford L. Fellers *Judge Fellers continued on the bench for one year after the consolidation of the courts in 1973. E dw ard W atts R obertson (1868-1921) The first judges of both the courts that served only the City of Roanoke were the sons of Supreme Court Justice William J. Robertson, who served on Virginia’s Court of Appeals during the Civil War. Edward Watts Robertson, the younger half-brother of William Gordon Robertson, was born in Charlottesville on January 11, 1868. His mother was Alice Watts, Justice Robertson’s second wife. His early education began at Pantops Academy, near Charlottesville. He was graduated from the University of Virginia in 1890, and soon thereafter joined the prominent Roanoke law firm of Watts and Robertson, made up of J. Allen Watts, his cousin, and Judge William Gordon Robertson, his half-brother. After the death of Watts, Edward Robertson became a member of the law firm of Robertson, Hall and Woods, his partners being Harvey T. Hall and Col. James P. Woods. It continued as a highly successful firm until 1906 when Robertson was stricken by a disease while attending the annual meeting of the Virginia State Bar Association. He was a cripple for the rest of his life. 24 �When the new Court of Law and Chancery was created in 1910, the Roanoke Bar induced Robertson to accept the appointment, and he was thereupon elected its first judge at the age of 42, serving for 11 years until his death in 1921. Judge Robertson, who never married, was an avid reader and literary expert. He bore his illness with amazing fortitude and a cheerful mind, being carried to and from the bench during his many years of service. The following poem which he wrote about his own burden shortly before his death became a local classic. It was framed and hung for many years in the chambers of the Law and Chancery Court. It is spread of record in Common Law Order Book 4, at page 398: E. W. Robertson ANIMUS TRIUMPHANT Life was fair, and I loved it so When, at its best, a cruel blow Suddenly struck and laid me low, To walk no more where others go. A high ambition had held me thrall, Of the strength that was mine I’d given all, And then— with the goal of the race in sight— The darkness fell, and the hopeless night. Deep was my anguish, bitterness, hate — Destiny’s puppet, plaything of Fate — But the spirit within arose and fought And victory won in the realm of thought. For helpless is Fate to conquer him Whose heart and spirit it cannot dim; Though it leaves in ruins each hope and plan, He’s safe while he loves his fellow man. L’ENVOI And you who pity me, little know All that life holds for me, In looking on at the passing show With love and sympathy. For the body’s ill is lost to sight, And Fate’s no more unkind To him who has found the pure delight Of a contented mind. 25 �R oy B ooker Sm ith (1858-1925) Roy Booker Smith was born April 1,1858, in Campbell County, the son of Dr. and Mrs. Booker S. Smith. He was educated in Lynchburg and taught school for two years before entering the University of Virginia School of Law from whence he was graduated on June 20, 1882. He began his law practice in Lynchburg where he formed a partnership with William Minor Lyle, who later became dean of the Law School at Charlottesville. Smith moved to Roanoke soon after it became a city and formed a partnership with T. W. Miller which lasted until Smith became Roanoke’s commonwealth’s attorney on July 1, 1888, a post he held until June 30, 1892. In 1909 he was a leading candidate for the judgeship of the Hustings Court upon the retire­ ment of Judge John A. Woods, but in a close and controversial battle in the General Assembly, Smith Waller R. Staples won out by 9 votes, 57 to 48. Judge Smith was very active in the war effort during World War I, being in charge of the local draft boards. He was president of the Shenandoah Club and prominent in the Masons and other fraternal organizations. He was in partnership at one time with Judge A. E. King, and his last partnership before assuming the bench was with King Funkhouser. Upon the death of Judge Edward W. Robertson, Judge Smith was the unanimous selection of the Roanoke Bar Association to succeed him. He took the oath of office on May 3,1921, but shortly thereafter became ill and for his last two years on the bench was a patient at St. Albans Hospital in Radford. He died on November 3,1925, survived by his wife, Florence Hatcher of Lynchburg, and three children: a daughter, Mrs. Charles H. Carson, Roanoke, Roy H. Smith, Jr., of Lynchburg, and William Minor Smith of Atlanta, all now deceased. He was buried in Lynchburg. His only direct descendants, Lelia Carson Albrecht and her son, Charles Ray Cox, both of Roanoke, are journalists with the Roanoke Times & World-News. W illiam W alter M o ffett H erbert B ailey G regory Upon the death of Judge Smith, Judge Moffett, who was sitting on the 20th Judicial Circuit, which included the Circuit Court of the City of Roanoke, was elected to succeed him. He served as judge of the Law and Chancery Court until his death in 1926. Judge Gregory followed Judge Moffett to the Law and Chancery Court bench by the same procedure and served until his appointment to the Supreme Court of Virginia in 1950. Biographical sketches of these two judges appear under the pre-1973 Circuit Court section. B everley B erkeley (1880-1945) Beverley Berkeley, the son of “Colonel” William Wilberforce and Betty Sims Read Berkeley, was bom at Glade Creek in Roanoke County on April 29, 1880. He was educated in the public schools including Allegheny Institute in northwest Roanoke. He 26 �was graduated from the University of Virginia Law School in 1904 and joined his father’s law firm of Berkeley and Bryan. Some time later he was a partner of Peter H. Dillard, who later served as Circuit Court judge in Franklin and Bedford counties. In August 1909 Beverley Berkeley was appointed Civil and Police Court justice for the City of Roanoke, a position he held for 21 years. Upon Judge Gregory’s elevation to the Supreme Court in 1930, Judge Berkeley received the endorsement of the Roanoke Bar Association and was appointed judge of the Law and Chan­ cery Court. He served on that bench for 14 years until his retirement in November 1944. When Judge Berkeley’s total judicial career is counted (21 years as Civil and Police Court justice and 14 as a Circuit Court judge), he served on the bench 35 years, a longer period than any of Roanoke’s Berkeley other judges. Judge Berkeley died on May 11,1945, survived by his widow, Alla Southall Turner, his son, Beverley, Jr., and his daughters, Mrs. Paul S. (Alla) Cooper of Vienna, Virginia, Mrs. Peter H. (Sara) Hinck of Miami, Florida, and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren. S tan ford L ee Fellers (1890-1980) Stanford Lee Fellers, the son of M. L. and Sudie E. Nininger Fellers, was born in Roanoke County on January 8,1890. He attended the schools of Roanoke County and Daleville College at Daleville. He was graduated from Roanoke College in 1911 and earned his law degree from Washington and Lee University in 1913. His law practice was interrupted by his service in the Army during World War I, but he continued his profession in Roanoke after the war, gaining fame and considerable respect as a commissioner in chancery in many important and complicated causes. He was appointed to the Law and Chancery Court bench in January 1945, succeeding Judge Berkeley who had resigned, and continued on the bench until his resignation at the age of 84 on February 1,1974, shortly after the consolidation of the three city circuit courts into one. He served as the first chief judge of the newly created 23rd Judicial Circuit. Judge Fellers died on March 25,1980, soon after his 90th birthday, survived by his wife, Louise Harris Fellers, to whom he was married on November 16,1920; one son, S. L. Fellers, Jr., a Roanoke lawyer, and one daughter, Catherine Fellers H. Fellers. * * * * * * * * * 27 �This concludes the biographical sketches of those 23 men who served as the judges of Roanoke’s three courts of record before their consolidation into one court in 1973. They include Judges Hoback, Fox, Fellers and Ballou who continued on the bench after the merger in 1973. Since one judge, Robert Jett Rogers, who was appointed in 1974 to succeed Judge Fellers, has since died, his biography is also included. R obert J ett R ogers (1928-1976) Robert Jett Rogers was born on December 10, 1928. He was the twin brother of Frank W. (Bo) Rogers and the brother of Virginia (Jinks) Holton, Virginia’s first lady when Linwood Holton, her husband, was governor. His parents were Frank W. and Annie Jett Rogers. His father and brother have been outstanding lawyers in the Roanoke community. Judge Rogers was graduated from Episcopal High School at Alexandria in 1947. He thereafter went to Princeton, where he received a B.A. degree in 1951 and his LL.B. in 1954. After graduation, he served three years in the Judge Advocate’s Corps of the Army, mostly in Germany, and attained the rank of major. He joined the firm of his father, Woods, Rogers, Muse, Walker and Thornton, in 1958. He soon became established as an outstanding trial lawyer and gave his time and talents to many professional and community service activities, particularly the Red Cross and the Society for the Crippled of Southwestern Virginia. He was elected to the bench in 1974 to succeed Stanford L. Fellers, although the Court of Law and Chancery of the City of Roanoke had been merged into the 23rd Judicial Circuit the year before. He served with dedication and considerable courage as cancer claimed him soon after he assumed his judicial responsibilities. He died shortly before his 48th birthday on November 21,1976. He was survived by his widow, Barbara, and their five children: Robert, Jr., Christopher G., Anne, Scott and Hilary. The close of Robert Fishbum’s Roanoke Times & World-News editorial on Judge Rogers on the occasion of his death sums up his life: “He approached the law the way he approached everything else in life: with dedica­ tion and fairness.” 28 �A Taleo f Two Houses by Frances McNulty Lewis Milton Hall in Alleghany County and Santillane in Botetourt are two of the handsomest houses in our part of Virginia, the first one built in mid-nineteenth century Victorian Gothic style and the other in the Colonial-Federal of three generations before. Travellers driving north on Route 220 often admire and wonder about Santillane, the large brick house with two-story columns which graces a hilltop on the left as the highway approaches Fincastle. About 40 miles farther on, on Interstate 64, they see the Victorian villa, Milton Hall. It is down in the valley called Callaghan, to one’s right soon after passing Covington, quite close to the highway. The history of the two houses is linked by the two English families for whom these dwellings were home, the once closely-knit lives in England and Virginia of Viscount Milton, son of Earl Fitzwilliam, and Dr. Thomas Miller, Lord Milton’s companion and physician. Reminiscences about them, with their wives and their children, their English and American friends, their servants and farmlands, their ancestors and descendants, may soon fade from memory, though these two families, in their own way, once created a sort of little England in the upper James River country. Fortunately some of the Millers’ grandchildren and great-grandchildren are with us today, with their cherished family lore, as are church and courthouse records at Fincastle. A principal source for this saga is conversations with a Miller great-granddaughter, Dorothy Simmons Kessler, and her brother, William Simmons, both of Fincastle. She is an indefatigable worker in family and legal archives. A granddaughter, Elizabeth Foster Omdorff of Roanoke, remembers Dr. and Mrs. Miller well and has written some charming recollections of both. And, happily, these and other Miller descendants also possess some valued records of the noble Milton family, as do the present owners of Milton Hall. By the autumn of 1873, Earl Fitzwilliam’s son, Viscount Milton, and his wife, searching for a climate in which he might build up his weakened constitution, had visited western Canada, about which he had written a book, and also New York State, where lived a brother of his (some say of hers) who had come over and fought on the Union side in the American Civil War. They, with their children and the doctor’s family, spent some time in Staunton, too, and probably it was there that they heard about the Callaghan “stand” on the Bluegrass Trail (now old U.S. Route 60). It had once been a famous stagecoach stop, offered for sale in 1872 because the railroad had taken most of its customers away. The Miltons bought the whole stand: inn, outbuildings and acreage for farm and garden. The innkeeper, Joseph Dixon, stayed to welcome the newcomers. His relatives have kept memories of the British entourage’s impressive arrival, and of that snowy night when the main building burned to the ground. Some have said the fire happened the very night they arrived, December 29,1873, though the truth seems to be that it happened later on in that winter. One account has it that Lady Milton had made a return trip to England in the late autumn of 1872, returning in midwinter for a belated Christmas with the family in Virginia, and that all the portmanteaus full of Christmas presents she had brought back with her were consumed in the fire. Whenever it happened, Eliza James, a 13-year-old servant girl, lost her life when she darted back into the flames to search for her mother s ring, a gift she had brought from England. Her ring was found the next day in the ashes, as were Lady Milton’s diamonds, still intact, although their gold settings had melted away. Frances M cNulty Lewis, historical writer and form er board member o f the Society, tells o f interesting homes in Alleghany and Botetourt Counties. 29 �Milton Hall, a Victorian villa near Covington, was the home of Lord and Lady Milton. Needing a roof over their heads, the Miltons went back to Staunton. But they soon returned to Wood Hall, as they had named the place, with their three children, a young son and heir, aged one, and his three- and four-year-old sisters. Also came the doctor and his wife with their five, plus house servants for all of them. The two families managed to live in the buildings that remained. Soon, however, a home for the Millers was remodeled from an unscathed structure which had contained the old inn’s dining hall, butler’s pantry and a storage area. The Miltons moved into a cottage near the gate of the property. Within weeks, a new brick villa was going up, oriented for coolness against a steep shale bank. Both kitchen and flower gardens had been started, too, and the raising of farm crops and cattle had begun. For three busy years, 1873 to 1876, they all made the Callaghan Valley their home. But evidently Lord Milton’s health was failing rapidly for the troupe crossed the ocean again, this time to try the salubrious air of the English Channel Island of Guernsey. Said to have been a “debility” brought on by overwork at his studies and writing, Lord Milton’s illness may really have been that all-too-common plague of those times, “consumption,” as tuberculosis was then euphemistically labeled. This group soon moved to the French mainland to consult doctors in Rouen whom Dr. Miller either knew or knew about. These did what they could. But before the year was out, the invalid had returned to England where he died. By 1877, the Millers had returned to Virginia. At the time they visited Rouen with the Miltons they had settled their daughter Florence in school in France and the two elder boys, Hugh and Frank, at school in England. One family report said that, with the three younger children, Florence, Montague (Monty) and Helen, they spent a few more months in France, and this is possible since then they could all come to America together at the close of an academic year. It is of record at the Botetourt County clerk’s office that Dr. Thomas Miller bought the Bowyer place at Fincastle, which we know today as Santillane, from Henry Bowyer’s heirs on September 14,1877. Lady Milton must have planned to come back to Virginia, at least temporarily, for she did not immediately sell Milton Hall. The Miltons’ farm manager, David Guy, had 30 �never left; he is buried there beside the young servant girl, Eliza James. Lady Milton’s brothers, Sidney and Herbert Beauclerc, or Beauclerk (it is spelled both ways) had come over to live at Milton Hall and, after the Viscount’s death they both stayed on in America. Herbert was a bachelor; Sidney had his wife and children with him. (His daugh­ ter Laura Marie was born at Milton Hall.) The Sidney Beauclercs moved to Vermont, but Herbert remained in the neighborhood. Eventually, he became a golf professional at the Homestead Hotel at Hot Springs. Milton Hall did not go out of the Milton-Fitzwilliam family for several years. In later years, after a five-year ownership by a lady from Baltimore, Mrs. Annie Hollins, it was bought at auction by another native of England, Monty (left), Helen and Florence Miller rest the colorful Captain Henry E. R. Rum- after a tennis match at Milton Hall. bold, late of the Essex Rifles. He had not only witnessed the Charge of the Light Brigade, but had also served in India during the Sepoy uprising. The eighth Earl Fitzwilliam, our Viscount Milton’s grandson, is said to have sent five pounds in the 1930s to Hugh McAllister, then the owner of the Hall, for restoring the tombstones of David Guy and Eliza James. This earl was killed in 1948 in a plane wreck in France, reportedly the same crash that killed Kathleen Kennedy, sister of the future president of the United States. The father of Lady Milton and her Beauclerc brothers had been Charles Beauclerc, eighth Earl of Saint Albans of Devonshire. He was a direct descendant of King Charles the Second and Nell Gwyn, whose son by Charles had been created by that monarch, the first Earl of Saint Albans of Devonshire. Their mother had been Laura Marie Teresa Stepford, daughter and heir of a long-time English ambassador to Spain. Lady Milton was named for her. At the time Wood Hall (Milton Hall) was built, the Miltons and Beauclercs possessed among them at least seven other houses in Britain, including country estates, two castles in Ireland and a town mansion on Grosvenor Square in London. A tragic episode which must have shadowed the Beauclercs’lives was the death of their father, the ambassador-earl, while he was assisting with the rescue of a lifeboat crew off the shore at Scarborough. The atmosphere of both Milton Hall and Santillane can be brought to life by the treasures left to those who came after them. The descendants of Dr. Thomas Miller and his wife, Edwina, still treasure and use some of the things their forebears possessed, including heavy, old embossed leather albums of lively or impressive photographs, brought over from England. Mrs. Orndorff has the sampler her great-grandmother, Dr. Miller’s mother, embroidered in 1811 when she was eight years old, which was brought from England by the Millers. Great-granddaughter Mrs. Kessler has an English walnut rocking chair, probably the only furniture Dr. and Mrs. Miller found it convenient to transport across the ocean. For their American furnishings, they are said to have gone down the James to Lynchburg by railroad or canal boat. We can assume these were in the late Victorian style, judging from the high-backed carved bedstead to which Mrs. Orndorff fell heir. She doesn’t have either that or her grandfather Miller’s tall bookcase now because modern 31 �ceilings are too low. A Miller chest of drawers is still in her possession, however, as is her Aunt Florence Miller L’Engle’s desk. Mrs. Kessler cherishes an ornamented silver chest which holds ivory handled knives and forks, also a walnut sewing box and a very handsome wide gold bracelet set with turquoise and pearls, all from her great­ grandmother Miller. And Mrs. Omdorff is the owner of her mother’s (Helen Miller Foster) Book of Common Prayer which was presented to his daughter, Helen, by Dr. Miller himself. It was carried by his great, great-granddaughter at her wedding not long ago. Particularly important, and a lasting tie between the two families, are two paintings in oils by Helen Miller Foster. One is of the remaining buildings in the old Callaghan Stand, with Milton Hall in the background. The other shows Milton Hall in the early years of this century, looking very much as we see it still. The Miller young people became close friends of the Rumbolds, then owners of Milton Hall, and had many happy visits at Callaghan. Unfortunately, many of the Miller family “things” were dispersed at a sale after the doctor’s death. And some must have gone either with son Montague to North Carolina, where he lived for some years, or to Florida with daughter Florence after she married Dr. Claude L’Engle of Jacksonville, a member of a family of a noted pioneer in the treatment of yellow fever. Some years after Florence Miller had wed Dr. L’Engle, Helen Miller married a Botetourt County native, Archibald Foster, and at first lived just a few miles from her parents. Later, the Fosters moved to Salem. Over at Milton Hall, it would be surprising to find any Milton “things” at all. There is one reminder, though: a Beauclerc coat-of-arms painted on leather still hangs on a wall of the long front hall. And we can deduce something about their character as a family, their way of life, from the house itself. The outside of their brick mansion may be classed as elaborate “high” Victorian, with its gracious French doors in the main downstairs rooms, its “gingerbread” trimmed eaves, its patterned slate roof, above which rise double and triple chimney stacks and gables with finials at every possible point. The brick, plastered Dr. Thomas Miller 32 The Miller family: Florence (seated, front), Helen (seated, left), Dr. Thomas Miller and his wife, Edwina Miller; Hugh (standing, left), Monty and Frank. �Lord Milton IB M ,ton interior walls are a solid eight inches thick, but the woodwork of all 17 rooms, except for a mantel or two, is of the plainest. Perhaps these gentle people did not want to flaunt material riches, but chose to live as simply as their Western neighbors. Somehow Lord Milton appears to us as an intensely serious, even sad, young husband and father, a wanderer on the face of the earth despite his great wealth — or because of it. His wife, on the other hand, could have personified beautifully the ancient aristocratic ideal of noblesse oblige. Her picture shows her as a young, tall, blond, with smooth hair and blue eyes and an air of gracious dignity. Years later, a niece, one of Sidney Beauclerc’s daughters, visited Alleghany County and called oil Susie Martin, a very old black woman who had been her aunt’s chambermaid 60 years before. “Aunt Susies dearest possessions were her many memories of “her lady’s” benevolence, of hard­ working, unselfish kindness to the whole community, rich and poor, black and white. When the Millers had bought Santillane, they had bought not only an elegant setting, but also actual American history, both local and national. Before 1800, there were few great houses in Botetourt to compare with those of the Tidewater. Along with the Breckinridges’Grove Hill, though, George Hancock’s handsome dwelling (later chnstened Santillane by Mrs. Miller) was certainly one which did. A colonel in the then-prestigious Virginia militia, Hancock was often host to important travellers, among them Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their trips back and forth to St. Louis, getting ready to launch their famous expedition across the continent. , , , . . When the explorers returned at last from the far Northwest, bringing with them certain army personnel, a delegation of Osage chiefs, and the Mandan chief Sheheke, his wife and son,* the two by-then-famous explorers were guests at the Hancock mansion and were feted in Fincastle for days, with speeches and fireworks, balls and parades. Not long after Clark was married to Miss Judith Hancock in her father’s house. An extant letter from the bridegroom shows he even deposited in the care of his father-in-law priceless records of his and Lewis’ history-making journey, until the documents could be properly assembled and transported to The Historical Committee m Philadelphia by his friend, Dr. Nicholas Biddle, who came to Fincastle in 1810. (It is known, however, that President Thomas Jefferson saw the papers first.) , . Colonel Hancock later sold all his extensive Fincastle holdings and moved up the Roanoke River to build a place, now called Fotheringay, near Elliston in Montgomery ♦Quoted from Robert Stoner, “A Seedbed of the Republic,” pp. 253-54, from Letters o f the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Univ. 111. Press, 1962. 33 �Santillane, Fincastle home of the R. D. Stoner family, was occupied by Dr. Thomas and Edwina Miller in the late 1870s. County. He never finished the handsome house there, but others did over 100 years afterward. He is supposed to have been buried standing up in a tall white tomb, which is still easily seen from Route 11, so he could keep watch over the superstitious workers in his fields. After the Hancocks, the important Bowyer family lived at Santillane, then called “the Bowyer place,” until the Millers came. The state and local public offices, Civil War records and prominent Virginia and Kentucky marriages of both Hancocks and Bowyers would fill chapters. Col. Henry Bowyer was Botetourt County’s clerk for a record 47 years. Naturally, the very center of the Millers’Fincastle existence was the good doctor. All the family’s activities seem to have radiated, like the wheel-spokes of his own horse-drawn buggy, from his personal inspiration and guidance. Twenty miles in every direction, it is said, he would drive or ride horseback to care for his patients. His business sense was sound, too. And, raised in the Church of England, the family became active members of Episcopalian Saint Mark’s Church in Fincastle. Even today, many Fincastle folk in nostalgic mood will describe the charm of the social life in their village and its countryside in the olden days. So it is not hard to imagine Santillane’s spacious rooms, two on each side of the great central hall beyond whose impressive arch rises a wide staircase, as scenes of all sorts of entertainment when the Millers lived there — charades, tableaux, “conversaziones,” musical evenings, parlor games and dancing, and, of course, the Englishman’s inevitable daily afternoon tea. Edith Taylor Miller (Monty’s wife) often described to her granddaughter Dorothy Simmons Kessler those regular teas at her mother-in-law’s, loaded with cake, desserts and sandwiches if there were guests, simpler for just the family. “Mrs. Dr. Miller,” her kin remember, always addressed the servants, male or female, by their last names in the formal English fashion. At the proper moment, “Smith” or “Walker” would announce that the water was boiling on the kitchen stove, and Edwina Miller herself would then go back and brew the tea for her maid to carry in. Also, she always washed the fine china teacups with her own hands, as people say many Virginia ladies used to do. Reprinted here is one of her “receipts” from “The Housekeeper’s Friend,"the 1896 Fincastle Presbyterian Ladies Aid’s cookbook to which the whole community contributed. (The elegant but somewhat 34 �fractured French of the dish’s title must have been taken down exactly as Mrs. Miller pronounced it.) Le’che Crema Beat up three eggs, leaving out the whites of two; add to them gradually one and one-half pint of milk; then mix carefully four tablespoons of flour and two ounces of powdered sugar, with grated lemon peel to taste. Boil these ingredients over a slow fire, stirring constantly until the flour is quite dissolved. Prepare a shallow dish with some macaroons or slices of stale sponge cake at the bottom, and when the crema is sufficiently boiled pour it through a sieve upon the cakes. Serve cold, and just before sending to the table, some powdered cinnamon should be dusted over it. Mrs. Dr. Miller It is well to remember that the late nineteenth century was a time when many British gentlefolk, frequently younger sons, came seeking their fortunes in North America, whether in Florida orange groves, on western or Canadian ranches, or perhaps on farmland in England’s former seaboard colonies, especially Virginia. Travel may have been arduous then, but it was intrepidly accomplished: witness the fact of the whole Miller and Milton contingent having crossed on the original Mauritania, arriving in New York in May 1872, after a record-breaking passage of only 11 days, followed by their procession overland by train and stage to Virginia. Miller descendants of today recall being told that in Lord Milton’s train were an English lady medical student, who came along as a nurse, and a German governess, both well-fitted for ensunng both good health and good order among their charges. Dr. Miller, it is also remembered, later made several voyages back to England to see his mother. (The Kesslers have a picture of the Millers’ English home.) And, in 1883, Lady Milton returned briefly to Milton Hall, and paid a visit to the Millers. ^ ..... Frank and Montague Miller both married English brides. About 1900, Dr. Miller sent his son Frank to France to go on with his medical studies. There he attended the lectures of a famous English professor of natural history, Dr. John E. Taylor. Dr. Taylor’s daughter, Kathleen, was travelling on this tour with her father and they all became such good friends that Frank followed Kathleen to her home in Ipswich. Before long, his brother, Montague, came over to visit, and very soon Frank married Kathleen and Monty wed her sister, Edith. Granddaughter Dorothy Simmons Kessler and grandson William Simmons remember well their Miller grandparents, Edith and Monty. Mrs. Kessler owns copies of her great-grandfather Taylor’s collected lectures and states that these books influenced her decision to major in biology at college. William Simmons named his daughter, Montague, and calls her Monty. _ , . Dr. F r a n k Miller and his wife, Kathleen, often visited their Botetourt kin. After their deaths in Clifton Forge, their daughter Dorothy, who never married, spent her last years, the 1950s, in Fincastle. As her parents’only child, this maiden lady cousin was a storehouse of British lore for her younger relatives. . Dr. Thomas Miller sent his eldest son, Hugh, to Guy’s Hospital in London tor training, to follow his own footsteps; Thomas’father, doctor/ farmer William, had sent his son there Surely the Virginia doctor intended that Hugh would share the Botetourt County practice with him. But Hugh died at about 30; how, we do not know, and was buried in Godwin Cemetery at Fincastle. He was the only Miller child who did not marry. Dr. Thomas Miller’s mother, Eliza, and his wife, Edwina Eliza, both bore the same last name, Ablitt; the couple must have been related to each other. They were married in January 1861. By 1872, they and their children were living in Woburn, Bedfordshire, where Thomas had bought a practice. By 1873, they were in America. 35 �We have referred to Dr. Miller’s business wisdom. The great land “boom” of the early 1890s hit Fincastle as hard as it did many another western Virginia community. People went wild. Factories were going to be built, more railroads were expected, whole towns were laid out. A railroad seemed almost certain to come through Fincastle on its way to join with the Chesapeake and Ohio. In 1891, Dr. Miller sold Santillane, with its 440 acres, to the Fincastle Land and Improvement Company, James Godwin, president, for $30,000: $15,000 in cash, and the balance contingent upon the sale of the lots. A great crenellated castle-style hotel was to be built on the place; some say the Santillane house barely escaped being torn down. Then, in 1892, the doctor bought, from Hunter Breckinridge, Catawba Manor on Catawba Creek, part of the extensive Breckinridge lands, and moved there. But the boom collapsed, the bubble burst. Here is where the doctor’s foresight shone. In 1895, Santillane, with 377 of its acres, was reconveyed to him, and he still had his $15,000. The family did not live there again, however, choosing to remain at Catawba Manor. The doctor sold Santillane to a family named Spencer. In 1905, he sold Catawba Manor back to the Hunter Breckinridges at a handsome profit, its productivity greatly enriched by the intensive farming, especially in grass and sheep, he had learned during his boyhood in England. Both families apparently were satisfied. Later on, he bought more land “on Catawba,” records show. Closer to highway U.S. Route 220 than the Santillane mansion is a large frame house in late Victorian style. This is Santillane Lodge which Dr. Miller built in 1902 for his son, Montague, and Monty’s English bride. With it went (for one dollar) 218 acres of land. In 1903, the elder Millers bought a farm of 92 acres (from Alfred Beckley) on the hill across present U.S. Route 220 from the Santillane holdings and moved into its much smaller dwelling, which they called Stoneycroft. It is there that the doctor had his office, which in the English manner he called “the surgery,” for the last 10 years of his life. The name Stoneycroft seems to have been forgotten in Fincastle, but the house is still there. Stoneycroft is the place Thomas and Edwina’s grandchildren would have known best. After the couple’s 14 years as master and mistress of Santillane, followed by nearly 14 more years living in the same style at Catawba Manor, and with their four remaining children all married, simpler surroundings could have been a welcome change. In 1905, Dr. Miller was in his early 60s and Mrs. Miller was nearly as old. He lived until 1916, she for many more years, the last of which she spent in the house of her daughter Helen Foster in Salem where she died in 1927. They are buried in Godwin Cemetery, Fincastle. Their great-grandchildren remember hearing that a little boy wearing a black armband was sent through the streets of Fincastle to announce the death and funeral of Mrs. Miller, following an old custom of both England and Virginia. Let us see this English pair through the eyes of their granddaughter, Elizabeth Foster Omdorff, now a grandmother herself: “Grandpa mixed his own medicines, or most of them, in his office. A laxative pill of his was in such demand that he had it made up for him in Richmond, and it could be obtained there under the name of Miller’s Pills. When we went to see him, Mother often asked him to look us over, whereupon he made us stick out our tongues and (then) gave Mother calomel pills for us. Calomel is a dangerous product of mercury — not used in these days — how I hated it! “Once a mad dog came to Catawba Manor. It bit the beloved little dog, Fritz, a dachshund, and Monty Miller, too, before it was destroyed. There was no antitoxin in those days, if there had been it would have had to come from far away. Dr. Miller heated a knife and applied the flat side to the wound, searing the flesh. It must have been almost as painful for Grandpa as for Monty, but there were no after-effects, except that the poor dachshund got rabies. “Grandpa was a charming man, beloved by his patients and his friends. He rode or drove many miles to see them. It was said he never lost a case of pneumonia 36 �if he was called in time. He liked to hunt and fish. There were deer antlers at the top of the dining room sideboard, and deer were far less plentiful than now. “He left the management of the house and children and servants to Grandma and she was a good manager and a stem disciplinarian. “He was very fond of children and took pleasure in his grandchildren. Gwen Miller, the first, (later Mrs. Simmons) and John Miller, the last, (both Monty’s children) were his favorites. He called John ‘Jack, my boy’and was much amused by his antics. When I was small, he called me ‘Lady Betty,’and when I was a little older he liked to have me sing to him, such songs as ‘Cornin’ Through the Rye,’ ‘Annie Laurie,’ The Blue Bells of Scotland’ and Stephen Foster songs.” “Jack, my boy” grew up to become the popular radio announcer and umpire of sports in Winston-Salem, known always as Johnny Miller. Catawba Manor burned some years after the Millers left it. Lovely Santillance, after the Spencers and several other owners, became the home of the family of Robert Stoner, Botetourt’s historian and for 21 years clerk of its county court. Milton Hall, after Captain Rumbold’s ownership, was bought and modernized in the 1930s by the Hugh McAllisters, who lived there for over 40 years. Now, after several shorter ownerships, it has become the property of Mary Dudley Dowdy, an Alleghany County native who, with her husband William, also has a home at Bonsack. She has restored the main building, inside and out, to its original dignity, even to the extent of designing a more formal garden than she believes the Miltons had a chance to develop. At times, she operates the estate as an exclusive bed-and-breakfast inn, and at other times rents all or part of the estate for longer terms. As for our Viscount Milton and his lady, Burke’s Peerage states facts about the outstanding military and civil career of the seventh Earl Fitzwilliam, the baby who lived at Callaghan, and his many positions and honors. We can find in Burke that Lord and Lady Milton’s only son, William Charles de Meuron, born July 25,1872, became the seventh Earl Fitzwilliam, succeeding to the title of his grandfather, his father having died young, as we know. But there is not a word about the restless travels of this brilliant, ailing young father, not a word about Virginia. And, of course, not a word about the father’s companion and friend: devoted, gifted, resourceful Dr. Thomas Miller. A painting of the old Callaghan Stand, with Milton Hall in the background, by Helen Miller Foster.. 37 �Norfolk and Western Archives at VPI by Glenn L. McMullen The early archival records of the Norfolk and Western Railway, along with those of its predecessors and subsidiaries, were placed on permanent deposit in the Virginia Tech libraries in Blacksburg by an agreement concluded in 1981, Norfolk and Western’s centennial year. The collection, housed in the Special Collections Department of Carol M. Newman Library, is organized and open to researchers. Known for short as the Norfolk and Western Railway Archives, the collection in fact contains archival records from over 90 companies historically connected with N&W, including other railroads, coal companies, and land development companies. Comprising 300 linear feet of manuscript material, much of it previously inaccessible, the N&W Archives promises to become a major resource for research in the history and economic development of Southwest Virginia. For some of the companies whose records are included in the collection, only the most basic records have survived, usually minute books for stockholders and directors meetings. For many others, the available documentation is much greater, both in terms of the variety and number of materials that have survived. Fortunately, the records of N&W itself and of its direct predecessors are among this latter group. For these railroads, the records available to researchers may include minute books, stock ledgers, financial records, construction records, and executive correspondence and subject files. Even where the documentation is most complete, however, gaps in the historical record are evident, and it is hoped that other relevant materials may be uncovered and added to the collection in the future. A brief summary of the early history of N&W and its predecessors will help explain how the major groups of records listed below fit together.1 The Norfolk and Western Railroad was organized in 1881, growing directly out of the ailing Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad, which had been sold to the Philadelphia investment banking firm of E. W. Clark and Company. The AM&O, in turn, had been created in 1870 by the merger of three Virginia railroads: the Norfolk and Petersburg (connecting these two cities), the Southside (running from Petersburg to Lynchburg), and the Virginia and Tennessee (running from Lynchburg to Bristol on the Tennessee border). Primarily a line carrying agricultural products at its inception, N&W rapidly became associated with the mineral development of the Southwestern part of Virginia and West Virginia. Under the leadership of Frederick J. Kimball, then N&W’s vice president, the railroad acquired the franchises to four other lines in mid-1881: the New River Railroad, the New River Railroad, Mining and Manufacturing Company, the Bluestone Railroad, and the East River Railroad. Together, these became the basis for N&W’s New River Division, which ran to the coal fields of West Virginia and Southwest Virginia. Much of the early history of Norfolk and Western can be written in terms of expansion and the absorption of other lines. In 1890, it acquired the Shenandoah Valley Railroad, which ran from Roanoke to Hagerstown, Maryland. By 1891, an Ohio extension was well underway, giving the railroad access to the industrial Midwest. In 1892, N&W leased the Roanoke and Southern Railroad, connecting Roanoke with WinstonSalem, and in 1893 it leased the Lynchburg and Durham, connecting these two cities. But Glenn L. McMullen, special collections librarian at the Carol M. Newman Library at Virginia Tech, prepared a description o f the Norfolk and Western Railway Archival Collection at Virginia Tech. 38 �the economic depression of the mid-1890s hit N&W hard, sending it into receivership in 1895. It emerged in 1896 as the reorganized Norfolk and Western Railway. The Railway, of course, still exists today as a subsidiary of the Norfolk Southern Corporation. The archival records summarized below represent two groups of materials: those relevant to the early history of N&W (including the history of its predecessors) and those relevant to research in Southwest Virginia history. Not all of the companies whose records are included in the collection are listed. Nor can a summary do justice to the richness of the collection in terms of the individual gems it contains. To give only a few examples, it includes an 1881 petition from the citizens of Salem asking that their town (rather than Big Lick) serve as the junction between the Shenandoah Valley Railroad and the AM&O; the reports of the Englishman J. B. Austin to Frederick Kimball on the resources of Southwest Virginia (1881); and Kimball’s own recollections of his role in opening the Pocahontas coal fields (circa 1896).2 ATLANTIC, MISSISSIPPI AND OHIO RAILROAD COMPANY. RECORDS, 1870-82. Ran from Norfolk, Va., to Bristol, Tenn. (408 miles). Incorporated in Virginia in 1870 for the purpose of consolidating the Norfolk and Petersburg, the South Side, the Virginia and Tennessee, and the Virginia and Kentucky railroads. Sold in 1881 and reorganized as the Norfolk and Western Railroad Co. Records include stockholders’and directors’ minutes (1870-76, 2 vols.); stock ledger and index (1 vol.); financial journals (1871-76,5 vols.); cash book (1874-76,1 vol.); side ledgers(1871-76,7vols.); bills payable (1871-76,1 vol.); unpaid wages (1873-81,1 vol.); copies of documents dealing with the sale of the AM&O (1881-82, 1 vol.); subject files and contracts (1871-81, .5 cu. ft.); annual reports and other printed materials (1871-80). LYNCHBURG AND DURHAM RAILROAD COMPANY. RECORDS, 188796. Ran from Lynchburg, Va. to Durham, N. C. (115 miles). Chartered in 1886; road opened in 1890. Leased to Norfolk and Western Railroad Co. (1892). Records include stockholders’and directors’minutes (1891-96,1 vol.); stock ledger (1887-92,1 vol.); trial balance book (1891-93, 1 vol.); contracts, indentures, etc. (1888-96, .5 cu. ft.). NEW RIVER INVESTMENT COMPANY. RECORDS, 1889-1904. Chartered in Virginia in 1889 for the purpose of developing land in Montgomery County, Virginia. Records include stockholders’and directors’minutes (1889-1904,1 vol.); vouchers, deeds, correspondence, etc. (1889-94, .5 cu. ft.). NEW RIVER RAILROAD COMPANY (VIRGINIA). RECORDS, 1879-86. Ran from the New River Bridge at Radford to the Flat Top Coal region (75 miles). Chartered in Virginia (1872) as the New River Railroad, Mining and Manufacturing Co.; name changed in 1877. Consolidated with the Norfolk and Western Railroad in 1882. Records include stockholders’and directors’minutes (1881-82,1 vol.);financialjoumal(188I-84,1 vol.); cash books (1879-81,2 vols.); cash book for lands and leases (1880-81,1 vol.); day books (1880-81, 2 vols.); Virginia penitentiary account book (1879-81, 1 vol.); ledgers (1879-86,4 vols.); ledger for lands and leases (1880-81, 1 vol.); voucher book (1880-81); capital stock ledger (1 vol); construction contracts, reports, etc. (1881-82, .3 cu. ft.). NEW RIVER RAILROAD, MINING AND MANUFACTURING COMPANY (VIRGINIA). RECORDS, 1873-1882. Chartered in Virginia (1873); name changed to New River Railroad (1877); consolidated with the Norfolk and Western Railroad in 1882. Records include stockholders’anddirectors’minutes(1873-79,1vol.); capital stock ledger (1 vol.); correspondence, rights-of-way, etc. (1881-82, .3 cu. ft.). NORFOLK AND PETERSBURG RAILROAD COMPANY. RECORDS, 185369. Ran from Norfolk to Petersburg, Va. (81 miles). Chartered in Virginia (1851); consolidated in 1870 with the Southside, Virginia and Tennessee, and Virginia and Kentucky railroads to form the Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad. Records include stockholders’and directors’ minutes (1853-69,2 vols.); stock ledger (1 vol.); stock transfer book (1 vol.); financial journals (1855-71,8 vols.); cash books (1858-62,1865-66,2 vols.), ledgers (1858-62, 1866-71, 7 vols.); chief engineer’s account book (1853-56, 1 vol.); chief engineer’s accounts with assistants (1854-58, 1 vol.); construction accounts (1854-58,2 39 �Leading Salem citizens sent this petition to General William Mahone, president of the Atlantic, Mississippi & Ohio Railroad, asking his support in locating the junction of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad and the AM&O at Salem. Mahone later said Salem was “the more desirable point ofjunction,”but Big Lick was chosen as the connecting point in 1881. Courtesy N orfolk and Western Railway A rchival Collection at Virginia Tech. 40 �vols.); bonds given for the hire of Negro slaves (1858,1 vol.); subject files (1857-69, .5 cu. f t ); annual reports (1869-70). NORFOLK AND WESTERN RAILROAD COMPANY. RECORDS, 1881-96. Main line ran from Norfolk, Va., to Bristol, Tenn. (408 miles); later branches ran to the coal fields of West Virginia and Southwest Virginia. Reorganized from the Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad (1881); went into receivership (1895) and reorganized as the Norfolk and Western Railway in 1896. Records include stockholders’, directors’, officers’, and committee minutes (1881 -96,15 vols.); indexes to minutes (1883-86,4 vols.); index to secretary’s papers (1881-90, 1 vol.); index to valuable papers (1881-92, 1 vol.); stock ledgers (13 vols.); indexes to stock ledgers (5 vols.); real estate ledgers showing property owned (1881 -90,3 vols.); index of registered bonds (1 vol.); stock list of Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad, Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, Southside Railroad, and Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad (1880,1 vol.); register of common stock certificates returned(1881-95,1vol.); rolling stock records (1886-96,3 vols.); inventory and appraisal of equipment (1895, 1 vol.); treasurer’s letter books (1881-96, 91 vols.); treasurer s statements (1882-96, 9 vols.); treasurer’s bank deposits (1893-94, 1 vol.); treasurer’s miscellaneous memoranda (1886-95, 2 vols.); treasurer’s newspaper clipping scrapbook (1881-96, 1 vol.); unclaimed wages (1881-88, 2 vols.); advances on payrolls (1895-97, vol.); sealed instruments (1887-96, 1 vol.); register of recorded papers (1883-91, 1 vol.); arbitration correspondence (1894,1 vol.); arbitration record books (1894-96,4 vols.); pass register (1884-89, 1 vol.); catalogue of map tracings and blueprints (1 vol.); executive correspondence, reports, subject files, and contracts (1881-96,20 cu. ft.); indexes to letters (1895-96,3 vols.); scrapbooks of newspaper clippings (1882-93,17 vols.); receiver s records (1895-98, 3 vols.); minutes of executive reorganization committee meetings (1895-99, 1 vol.); annual reports and other printed materials (1881-96). NORFOLK AND WESTERN RAILWAY COMPANY. RECORDS, 1896-1930. Reorganized in 1896 from the Norfolk and Western Railroad. Records include executive correspondence and subject files (1905-18,35 cu. ft.) and card index to them (ca 10,000 entries); preferred stock index ledgers (2 vols.); treasurer’s letter books (1896-97,11 vols.); records of auditor’s claims(1896-99,1 vol.); inventory and appraisal of equipment (1896 1 vol.); rolling stock records (1909-21, 2 vols.); letters received index (1904-08, 2 vols.); account book (1914-24, 1 vol.); cash books (1925-30, 6 vols.); estimated expenditures (1918-19 1 v o l); sealed instruments (1896-1911,1 vol.); unclaimed wages (1896-1933,6 vols.); advances on payrolls (1898-1930,27 vols.); files dealing with labor disputes, train robberies, World War I, and train accidents (1915-30,13 cu. ft.); annual reports and other printed materials (1896-1930). HHHH POCAHONTAS COAL AND COKE COMPANY. RECORDS. 1927-39. In­ corporated in New Jersey (1901) with the authority to purchase and lease coal lands and rights in Virginia and West Virginia; controlled by Norfolk and Western Railway. Records include stockholders’ and directors’ minutes (1927-39, 2 vols.). POCAHONTAS COAL COMPANY. RECORDS, 1885-1909. Chartered in Virginia (1884) for the purpose of developing coal and coke lands; controlled by the Norfolk and Western Railroad Co. Records include stockholders’and directors’minutes (1885-1909, 1 vol.); stock ledger (1 vol.); contracts, leases, etc. (1889-96, .3 cu. ft.). RADFORD BRICK COMPANY. RECORDS, 1889-1917. Chartered in Virginia (1889) for the purpose of manufacturing brick in Radford, Va. Records include stockholders’ and directors’ minutes (1889-1917, 1 vol.); stock ledger (1890-92, vol.), scrip book (1895-96, 1 vol.); letter books (1890-95, 5 vols.); correspondence and subject ^RADFORD LAND AND IMPROVEMENT COMPANY. RECORDS, 1888-98. Records include title abstracts and deeds (1888-98, 1 vol.). M B B B i RADFORD SOUTHERN RAILROAD AND MINING COMPANY. REC­ ORDS , 1899-1911. Chartered in Virginia (1898) for the purpose of constructing a railroad from Radford, Va., to a point in Patrick County, Va., and developing timber and mineral 41 �lands in the area. Records include stockholders’and directors’minutes (1899-1911,1 vol.). ROANOKE AND SOUTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY. RECORDS, 1886-96. Ran from Roanoke Va., to Winston-Salem, N. C. (121 miles). Chartered in Virginia (1886); leased to Norfolk and Western Railroad in 1892. Records include stockholders’ and directors’ minutes (1886-96, 1 vol.); stock ledger and index (2 vols.); subscription books (1886-90, 3 vols.); contracts, reports, etc. (1887-95, .5 cu. ft.). ROANOKE MACHINE WORKS. RECORDS, 1881-97. Chartered in Virginia (1881) for the purpose of building and repairing railroad engines and cars; controlled by the Norfolk and Western Railroad. Works situated in Roanoke, Va. Records include stockholders’and directors’minutes (1881-97,1 vol.); stock ledger(1881-88,1 vol.); first mortgage bond ledger (1883-84,1 vol.); account books (1885-95,2 vols.); voucher indexes (1884-96, 3 vols.); construction contracts, equipment leases (1881-95,1.5 cu. ft.). SHENANDOAH VALLEY RAILROAD COMPANY. RECORDS. 1870-90. Ran from Hagerstown, Md., to Roanoke, Va. (238 miles). Chartered in Virginia (1867). Controlled by the Norfolk and Western Railroad after 1883; purchased by Norfolk and Western in 1890. Records include stockholders’and directors’ minutes (1870-91,6 vols.); indexes to minutes (1870,1887,2 vols.); index to papers (1870-80,1 vol.); secretary’s letter books (1881 -84,3 vols.); treasurer’s statements (1880-89,5 vols.); treasurer’s scrapbook of newspaper clippings (1881-83, 1 vol.); construction cash books and journals (1879-81, 3 vols.); construction ledger (1879-81, 1 vol.); financial journals (1879-85, 5 vols.); ledger (1879-81, 1 vol.); daily estimates of gross earnings (1886-89, 1 vol.); register of income mortgage bonds (1883-90, 1 vol.); drafts issued (1880, 1 vol.); treasurer’s memoranda (1881 -84,1 vol.); executive correspondence, reports, subject files, and contracts (1870-91,4 cu. ft.); scrapbooks of newspaper clippings (1881-86,4 vols.); annual reports and other printed materials (1870-90). SOUTHSIDE RAILROAD COMPANY. RECORDS, 1849-73. Ran from Peters­ burg to Lynchburg, Va. (123 miles). Incorporated in Virginia (1846). Consolidated with the Norfolk and Petersburg, Virginia and Tennessee, and Virginia and Kentucky railroads (1870) to form the Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad Co. Records include stockholders’ and directors’ minutes (1849-68, 4 vols.); stock ledger (1 vol.); financial journals 1864-71, 5 vols.); cash book (1868-71, 1 vol.); bills payable and receivable (1854-60,1866-71,2 vols.); ledgers (1860-62,1865-71,7 vols;); bonds, stock balance sheet, etc. (1871-73, .5 cu. ft.); annual reports (1865-70). VIRGINIA AND KENTUCKY RAILROAD COMPANY. RECORDS, 1860-71. Chartered in Virginia (1869) for the purpose of constructing a railroad from Bristol, Tenn., to Cumberland Gap, Tenn.; construction never begun. Acquired by the Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad in 1870. Records include directors’ minutes (1860-62, 1 vol.); ledger (1860-66, 1 vol.); letter book (1869-71, 1 vol.). VIRGINIA AND TENNESSEE RAILROAD COMPANY. RECORDS, 184871. Ran from Lynchburg, Va., to Bristol, Tenn. (204 miles). Incorporated in Virginia (1848) as the Lynchburg and Tennessee Railroad; name changed to Virginia and Tennessee in 1849. Consolidated with the Southside, Norfolk and Petersburg, and Virginia and Kentucky railroads in 1870 to form the Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad Co. Records include stockholders’and directors’minutes (1853-71,3 vols.); draft stockholders’and directors’minutes (1855-57,2 vols.); memoranda book (ca. 1869,1 vol.); financial journals (1848-71,17 vols.); day books (1855-67,8 vols.); cash book (1866-68,1 vol.); ledgers (1848-71, 20 vols.); contract ledgers (1852-67, 2 vols.); bills payable and receivable (1850-68,2 vols.); stock ledgers (5 vols); stock transfers (3 vols.); bond book (1 vol.); Salt Works Branch mortgage interest coupons (1857,1 vol.); contracts, bonds, etc. (1849-71, .3 cu. ft.); annual reports (1852-70). VIRGINIAN RAILWAY COMPANY. RECORDS, 1907-26. Incorporated in Virginia (1904) as the Tidewater Railway Co.; name changed to Virginian Railway in 1907. Records include stockholders’and directors’minutes (1907-08,1 vol.); letter books (1907-26, 6 vols.); printed documents (1 vol.). 42 �NOTES 1 Norfolk and Western has been the subject of two excellent historical studies: Joseph T. Lambie, From M ine to Market: The ' History o f Coal Transportation on the Norfolk and Western Railway (New York: New York University Press, 1954) and E. F. Pat Striplin, The Norfolk and Western: A History (Roanoke, Virginia: Norfolk and Western Railway Company, 1981). 2 A detailed inventory of the collection is available in Carol M . Newman Library. For further information, contact the Special ' Collections Department, University Libraries, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, 240il. When “Old H ickory” Visited “Salum” President Andrew Jackson was a frequent traveler through the Roanoke Valley, riding from The Hermitage, his Nashville home, to Washington while he was president. Norwood Middleton’s book, Salem, A Virginia Chronicle, contains a letter written to his son, Andrew Jackson Jr., while the president was stopping at the home of Dr. John Johnston, at the Great Spring, later Lake Spring in West Salem. Doctor Johnstons Salum July 17th 1836 Dear Andrew, I am thus far on my way to the Hermitage, but from the State of the roads, there can be no calculation made when we may reach there — it took us seven hours to day, to travel 10 miles, and in the Streets of Salum broke a swingle tree and the fore axes of the Carriage - t in many places it takes ten horses to pull through the bog one waggon — in this section of country it has been raining for 14 or 16 days and the earth is perfectly full of water, we shall proceed on as early tomorrow as we can, after refitting. It is now clear and a prospect of fair weather, and we are determined to leave the old road and take a new one by the way of Peppers ferry, as the old road from this to Newriver, is impossible with carriages, and indeed, for single horsemen. I shall write you again from Abingdon. . . ” Jackson’s letter of 1836 bespeaks volumes for the woes of just moving about in wet weather in Salem in those days, Middleton wrote. “Getting through the mud was perhaps even more onerous than coping with swirling dust during dry spells, the residents fumed and fussed at the condition of the roads and paths. 43 �Roanoke Catholic Churches by Anna Louise Haley On the grounds of St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in Roanoke, looking out over the city that grew as St. Andrew’s developed, is a small burial plot guarded by a statue of St Joseph, patron of the universal church. In it is buried Father John William Lynch founder ofSt. Andrew’s parish. He lived from September27,1847, toDecem ber 4 , 1926.' Around it is physical evidence of the labors of the priest who guided the destiny of St Andrew * from 1882 until 1910: the Rectoiy, built in 1887; the orphanage/convent, 18921 Ryan Hall, 1898, and St. Andrew’s Church, 1902. t ^ Scf " ered around the Valley are other parishes that branched from St. Andrew’s- Our Hdpy i% 3aZareth’ 1914; St' EliaS’ 191?; S t Gerard’s’ 19461and ° ur Lady of Perpetual The. Caiholies of the Roanoke Valley were not always so well served, spiritually. Until assigned their own missionary, Catholics in the counties around Roanoke were dependent on pastors of these other parishes: Wytheville, Staunton, Lynchburg and especially Sweet Springs. J 5 Lhe earliesthistory of the Catholic Church in Virginia is similar to the early history of the Church in Rome; for Virginia, like most English colonies, was not given to the toleration of Catholicism. The Anglican religion was the established religion and harsh laws were passed against dissenters, especially against Catholics. Because of the penal laws, very few Catholics came to Virginia. They could not vote nor hold office, nor keep arms, nor own a horse worth more than 5 pounds, nor even be a witness in any cause, civil or crimmal. The Cathohcs scattered throughout Virginia were deprived of religious succor and the faith, with few exceptions, died out among them. , I ^ ^ a i y l a n d and Pennsylvania were priests permanently located. Maryland had about 16,000 Catholics and 12 missionary Jesuit priests. Most of the Catholics in Virginia were near the borders of Maiyland, along the Potomac River. The Jesuit priests of Maryland came secretly into the parts of Virginia least remote from their province One of the most zeatous was Father (later Bishop) John Carroll, who founded the episcopacy in the United States. Bishop Carroll, as religion began to be free in Virginia, employed one or two priests exclusively on the missions here. The Virginia Declaration of Rights in 1776, the presence of Catholic officers and soldiers during the Revolution, the Vlrginia Statute of Religious Freedom in 1786 and the appointment in 1789 of Father John Carroll as the first Catholic bishop of the United f™le? ,^ C° Uraj f d tl!f growth of the faith in Virginia. Growth was slow. In his “Relation of 785, Father Carroll stated that there was not one priest in Virginia, and that the Catholic fiock numbered about 200 souls. Few of these were in the Roanoke Valley. The first settlers of the Roanoke Valley were primarily Scotch-Irish Presbyterians and German Lutherans or Brethren who came into the area, beginning around 1740 Most groups were accompanied by their religious leaders. Any Catholics in the area lacked spiritual guidance since there is no record of any priests stationed here for over a century. If Sacraments were received, they were conferred by ministers of another faith, l he Rev John Craig, a prominent Presbyterian minister of the mid-1700s in his baptismal records lists baptisms of several babies of Catholic parents Up to Father Carroll’s visitation in 1785, the Catholics in the Harper’s FerrvMartinsburg area had been visited four or five times a year by Jesuit priests from Maryland and Pennsylvania. They had all received an education second to none in tt /I iiyici Louise Haley, longtime Roanoke City school teacher and member o f the Society’s board, prepared this article on Roanoke Valley Catholic churches. She died on March 2, 1988 after a tong illness. 44 �Europe. Their very profession in the Society of Jesus was equivalent to high social and intellectual standing in centers in Rome, Paris, London and Liege. In the colonies they were harassed by penal restrictions and were keenly sensitive to the bigotry that was always latent, and sometimes evident, in the colonial life around them. Their flocks were scattered and timorous of Protestant neighbors. Throughout such trials and hardships the missionaries bore up with tactfulness and courage. Meanwhile, most of western Virginia was an unorganized spiritual wilderness. But change was coming. On December 10,1840, the Rev. Richard Vincent Whelan, the first resident pastor of Harper’s Ferry and its missions (1835-1841), was consecrated bishop of Richmond. The diocese had six priests and a Catholic population of 6,000 scattered over 61,000 square miles. Bishop Whelan sent urgent appeals to the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. With that help, he erected mission chapels at Lynchburg, Wytheville, Jeffersonville (later Tazewell), Parkersburg, Weston and elsewhere. Poverty of means, of priests, of Catholic population were continuing problems as the Dioceses of Richmond and Wheeling were formed. Missionaries from All Hallows College in Dublin, Ireland, helped relieve the shortage of priests. The Catholic population grew as the railroads pushed into the western part of the state and coal and iron mines were opened. In 1850, the Richmond Diocese was divided and Bishop Whelan became bishop of the new Diocese of Wheeling. Rev. John McGill became the third bishop of Richmond. That same year, 1850, the parish of Sweet Springs, West Virginia, was established. It covered four West Virginia counties in the new Wheeling Diocese. The priests, however, went outside the parish into Alleghany, Botetourt and Craig counties, in the Richmond Diocese of Virginia. Father John Walters and his two successors, Father Hugh McMenanim and Father David Walsh (between 1850 and 1874) baptized, officiated at weddings and celebrated Mass in private homes until a priest of the Diocese of Richmond was assigned to the area in 1874. Before that happened, Bishop McGill was called on to see his diocese through the ravages of cholera and yellow fever plagues, to cope with the anti-Catholic activities of the Know-Nothings, and to rebuild after the death and destruction caused by the Civil War. The Diocese of Richmond was a battlefield. In October 1869 Bishop McGill appointed Father James McGurk pastor of St. Francis Xavier Church in Lynchburg. Father McGurk built up Catholicity in the city and surrounding missions, one of which was Lexington, 52 miles away, which he visited on horseback. On October 20, 1871, Bishop McGill sent Father Thomas Murray to attend the Lynchburg parish while Father McGurk was away. When Father McGurk returned, Father Murray was made assistant pastor. He ministered also in the missions. Lexington was visited monthly and there Father Murray built St. Patrick’s Church. On July 19,1874, Bishop James Gibbons, who had succeeded Bishop John McGill, dedicated the church and appointed Father Murray its pastor. The bishop also gave Father Murray charge over Rockbridge, Botetourt and Roanoke counties. Father Murray had recently ministered in Roanoke County in Salem. The earliest known Catholics in the Roanoke area were in Salem. Best known was the John A. McCaull family. Captain John Anthol McCaull was an attorney and landowner in Salem. He was commonwealth attorney for Botetourt and Craig counties from October 12,1867, and apparently served until April 11,1870. He was a member of the House of Delegates, representing Roanoke and Craig counties in 1869-70, and Roanoke County in 1870-71. From April 26,1871, until the end of 1875, when the paper ended its existence, Captain McCaull was editor of The Roanoke Times, a Salem newspaper owned by Frank and Charles Webber. During his editorial career, Captain McCaull spent much time in the state and national capitals. On September 21,1871, he was married in St. Peter’s Cathedral, Richmond, by Bishop John McGill, to Angela Monteiro, a member of a prominent Richmond family. After the ceremony, the bridal 45 �party took the cars on the Danville railroad for Salem, the home of the bridegroom. Four children were born during the years following. A son, born about 1872, died July 17, 1873, and was buried in Richmond. Three daughters were baptized in Salem during the next four years: Mary Lavinia on March 4, 1874, quite probably by Bishop James Gibbons. One of her sponsors was Father Murray, assistant pastor at Lynchburg. Angela Agnes McCaull was baptized on April 20, 1876, by Father Murray. Leonora Monteiro and Patrick H. McCaull were her godparents. On March 5, 1878, Margaret Blandine McCaull, was baptized by Father Peter J. Hasty. A month later, April 5,1878, Leonora Monteiro, age 30, died of cancer. She was buried in Richmond. Father Murray was pastor at Lexington until January 1877. The second pastor at Lexington was Father Peter J. Hasty, who arrived on January 18,1877. Scarcity of funds and the extent of his mission territory were problems during his short pastorate. When his pastorate ended is unclear. On September 22, 1879, the Right Rev. John J. Keane, bishop of Richmond, assigned Lexington and its adjacent missions to the Rev. John W. Lynch. The missions comprised the counties of Rockbridge, Alleghany, Bath, Botetourt, Craig and Roanoke. At that time neither the Shenandoah Valley, the Richmond & Alleghany nor the Baltimore & Ohio railroads had entered Lexington, so the missionary priest had to travel for the most part on horseback. Even after the railroads were built, much of the mission territory was inaccessible by train. Some trains did not run on Sunday and accidents often delayed service. Father Lynch held services in Salem in 1879. He intended to start a church in Salem in a building near the present J . Sinclair Brown Bridge, but Roanoke began to develop so he moved. A great many of the first Catholics in the Roanoke Valley were skilled mechanics from the North, who came here when the Roanoke Machine Shops opened in 1882. So far as is known, no services proper were held in Roanoke prior to November 19, 1882, when Mass was celebrated in Passenger Car #6 of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad.’ From then until a church was built, services alternated between the passenger car and Rorer Hall, a frame building on the site of the existing Times-World Corporation parking lot which served also as theatre, fire station, courthouse, mayor’s office, and jail. Father John W. Lynch, first pastor of St. Andrew’s Catholic Church, 1882-1910, was ready to make his calls when this early photograph was taken. 46 �The first St. Andrew’s Catholic church, built in 1883, and its Rectory, dating from 1887, stood alone on their hill in Northwest Roanoke in this rare photograph. Courtesy St. Andrew ’s Catholic Church Historical Collection. S t A n drew ’s Church A meeting was called for October 26,1882, in the parlor of Kimball House, a place of lodging on Norfolk Avenue east of Jefferson Street, to consider erection of a church in Roanoke. At that time there were about 50 Catholics in the area. The first proposal to build a church was made by William Welch, master mechanic of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad, who said it was vitally necessary to the success of the railroad. Although a Protestant, he said he would subscribe $50 towards it. The Roanoke Land and Improvement Co. offered any desirable unselected lot in the gift of the company as a site for the new building. Father Lynch chose two acres at the top of the hill where the present church now stands. A year and two days after this meeting, on October 18, 1883, a neat little brick church, adequate for the 18 families then in the parish, was dedicated by Bishop Keane. There were now six churches serving the major denominations already established in the community: St. John’s Episcopal (1850), First Presbyterian (1851), Greene Memorial Methodist (1859), St. Mark’s Lutheran (1869), First Baptist (1875) and St. Andrew’s. In his “History of the City of Roanoke,” Raymond Barnes cited a notice in the Post Office “that Bishop Keane of Richmond would dedicate the new Catholic church and that night lecture on the Holy Land. It was a coincidence, but just above this announcement was one in larger type stating that a distinguished doctor of divinity would lecture at the same hour in the new Lutheran church on the life of Martin Luther.” As the congregation grew, so did its activities. A choir was organized. The first choir director also organized the vested choir at St. J ohn’s Episcopal Church and conducted the music for that congregation for five years. He had charge of the music at the dedication of both the old (1883) and the new (1902) St. Andrew’s Catholic Church. He was also director of the musical program at the Decennial Celebration in 1892. St. Andrew’s congregation raised needed funds through fairs and picnics. (The July 4th picnic in Woodland Park served a dual purpose.) Sunday School classes were organized. Twenty-eight candidates were prepared for confirmation on October 25,1885, and 29 for confirmation on August 14, 1887. Lay teachers operated a school until the 47 �St. Andrew s, mother church for Roanoke Valley Catholics, as it appears in the snows of winter. Sisters of Charity arrived inl893.Inl887, men of the congregation formed a group to visit the sick, bury the dead and provide food, clothing and shelter for the needy. Social ministry has continued as a major parish interest. Because of the scarcity of priests in the diocese, Roanoke remained a mission of Lexington until 1889, despite the fact that a rectory had been completed in 1887. As the city grew (the population passed the 16,000 mark in 1890) the parish flourished. A little wooden school was built at the bottom of the hill, near Lick Run, about 1888. A 104-acre cemetery was bought in 1890. The brick orphanage was completed in 1892 for the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth who arrived the next year to assume care of the orphans and to staff the school. The Ryan School was built in 1898 with funds from Mrs. 48 �Thomas Fortune Ryan. Her husband, a New York investor, was one of the wealthiest men in the nation. The proposal made by Mrs. Ryan to buy the recently completed hospital was dropped because of public protests against denominational management. By 1897, a larger church was needed as the congregation numbered over a thousand. The present St. Andrew’s Church was dedicated November 23, 1902. Modernizing and improvements, including a side entrance, have left the building structurally intact. In 1972-73 it was declared a state and national landmark. Eight pastors have served the parish since Father Lynch. Father William S. O’Brien was named pastor in 1981. O ur L a d y o f N azareth The continued growth of the city and of the Catholic population indicated the need for a new parish. In 1914, Father James Gilsenan, (January 1 ,1877-September 12,1953) who first came to Roanoke in 1904 as assistant to Father Lynch, returned to St. Andrew’s as assistant to Father Joseph Frioli, with the commission to start a new parish. St. Andrew’s congregation had about 2,000 members. In 1915 two lots were bought on West Campbell Avenue in the “fashionable West End.” The anticipated acquisition of the adjoining property to the east was never realized. The Campbell Avenue property is part of a crown grant made to Thomas Tosh in 1781. In the succeeding years it was owned by other prominent citizens of the area, including Jonathan Tosh, William McClanahan and Ferdinand Rorer. The frame house that stood on the site of the rectory was the home of Charles Thomas, famous for the ride which resulted in the selection of Big Lick as the connecting point for the Shenandoah Valley Railroad with the Norfolk and Western. This led to the subsequent growth of the village of 600 to 700 people in 1881 to a city of over 5,000 three years later. Our Lady of Nazareth Parish had a school before it had a church. In 1916, the Thomas house became the school and the Walker house, next door, became the convent. In the fall of 1918, St. Andrew’s Hall, the little wooden school at the foot of St. Andrew’s Hill, was razed and the lumber used in erecting the hall which still stands at the rear of the old Nazareth property on West Campbell Avenue. Bishop Dennis J. O’Connell blessed the hall and named the parish on February 16,1919. The hall was used as the church and the school auditorium until a brick church/ school was completed in June 1926 to serve the nearly 300 families on the church roll. In 1930, the Nazareth rectory was completed and occupied. Members of all three parishes helped to furnish it. Until then, Father Gilsenan had lived with Catholic families on Chapman Avenue. A small frame building on Nazareth school grounds served as his office. Nazareth remained a mission of St. Andrew’s until the fall of 1920. Until then, Sunday Mass was celebrated at St. Andrew’s and marriages, baptisms, deaths, first communions and confirmations were recorded there. During Father Gilsenan’s pastorate (1914-1953), May was usually a month of church and school celebrations: first communions, the annual May procession, the school play and music recitals. Population trends and political and economical developments world-wide brought changes to Nazareth. Many new families came when the General Electric plant opened in Salem in 1955. Nazareth High School, which graduated its first class in 1924, was consolidated with St. Andrew’s High in 1950 to form Roanoke Catholic High. By 1973, the primary and elementary grades of the two schools were merged. And by 1973, a parish move was being discussed to meet the new needs and larger numbers of the congregation. During the pastorate of the Rev. Thomas Caroluzza (1976-1983) a modern complex, designed to accommodate the recommendations of Vatican II, was completed at a new location on Electric Road in Southwest Roanoke County. It was dedicated on July 9, 1978, by Bishop Walter F. Sullivan. Growth continued in the new location. In July 1983, Rev. Thomas F. Shreve came to Our Lady of Nazareth Parish as its 49 �Nazareth School, circa 1918; Thomas house was at left and Convent at right. Iron hitching post, gate and fence, hidden by shrubbery, fell to the scrap iron drive in World War II. Congregation of Our Lady of Nazareth Church on Feb. 16,1919, the Bishop Dennis J. O’Connell blessed the hall and named the parish. seventh pastor. Prior to coming to Roanoke, he studied canon law at North American College in Rome. Father Shreve served as vice officialis of the Diocesan Marriage Tribunal, a church court that considers annulments of broken marriages involving Roman Catholics. He was succeeded in October 1985 by the Rev. William Gardner who came from Richmond. Father Gardner had been the first pastor of St. Jude’s in Radford. S t. E lias Church Except for St. Elias, the Catholic communities in Roanoke Valley are under the jurisdiction of the bishop of Richmond. St. Elias is part of the Maronite Diocese erected in 1966 with its see in Detroit. The see is now in Brooklyn, New York. 50 �The story of St. Elias is closely tied to the ministry of Father (later Monsignor) Peter Rabil who served the people of Roanoke for approximately 51 years, from 1913 until his death on February 19, 1964. Father Rabil was bom on July 10, 1884, at Hammana, Lebanon. He attended Lebanon College and was ordained on November 5,1907. Before he was appointed to the Roanoke parish on January 20, 1916, he had served at St. George Maronite Church in Hammana and at Goldsboro, North Carolina. When Father Rabil first came to Roanoke in 1913, he was a traveling missionary priest attending the Lebanese people in North Carolina, with his station in Goldsboro. A sizable Lebanese colony had developed in Roanoke in the decade after the boom resulting from the junction of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad with the Norfolk and Western. The bishop of Richmond asked Father Rabil to establish a parish for the Lebanese in Roanoke. This he did. Father Rabil celebrated mass at St. Andrew’s which had ministered to the Lebanese before his arrival, and baptized the babies bom between his visits. Soon thereafter, the upper floor of St. Andrew’s Hall was made available. After a brief tenure, the St. Elias congregation found it needed more space. The Lebanese population had increased to about 250. Members of the congregation bought a church at 626 Salem Avenue from the Ghent Brethren. The church was remodeled, furnished and ready for dedication on December 23, 1917, when it was blessed and dedicated by Bishop Dennis J. O’Connell. The congregation was proud not only to have a church in which it could celebrate in its own rite, but the church was paid for. Until the Maronite Apostolic Exarchate (Diocese) was erected by His Holiness Pope Paul VI on June 11,1966, St. Elias was under the jurisdiction of the bishop of Richmond. At regular intervals, Father Rabil was required to request permission from the Sacred Oriental Congregation to remain another three years in the Diocese of Richmond. Reports to the Sacred Congregation for the Oriental Rite were required in English and Arabic. As a priest under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Richmond, Father Rabil participated in inter-parish activities. He was present at religious ceremonies, graduations and parish festivities. At the Corpus Christi procession at St. Andrew’s on June 18,1922, the Blessed Sacrament was carried in royal state under a silk and gold canopy borne by the Right Rev. Maximo Saigh, archbishop of Tyre, Syria, and by the Rev. Peter Rabil and Rev. Nicholas Amaktiage. In 1927, while on a one-year visit to his native land, Father Rabil was ordained a chor-bishop by the Patriarch of Antioch. This gave him the right to wear the vestments and cross of a bishop. He was also allowed to celebrate a Pontifical Mass twice a year, on the feasts of Easter and Christmas. For years, St. Elias was the only church in Roanoke to have a midnight mass on Easter. There are a few liturgical differences between the Maronite and the Roman Rite. Some of the Roman Rite changes adopted since Vatican II were already part of the Maronite liturgy: Communion under both species, the “kiss of peace” and the use of the vernacular language are examples. The congregation grew during Father Rabil’s ministry. In 1938, there were 312 Maronite Lebanese in the parish. About 75 of them understood only enough English to do business. By 1962, the congregation numbered about 500, most of whom did not understand Arabic. Four Lebanese priests have served St. Elias since Father Rabil died. Father Assad Awad (1966-69,1972-), the current pastor, was appointed monsignor by Pope John Paul II in the fall of 1984. In 1967, the congregation celebrated the golden anniversary of the parish. While looking back at the accomplishments of half a century, they looked forward to new growth. Under Father Awad’s direction, the congregation bought land on Cove Road in Northwest Roanoke, where a community center was opened in 1977. On December 18, 51 �1983, ground was broken for the erection of a new church, and it was completed by All Saints Day, November 2, 1984. S t G erard’s Church St. Gerard’s Catholic Church at 809 Orange Avenue, N.W., is geographically at the hub of the Roanoke black community. It originated in 1946 when the Redemptorist Fathers were invited by Bishop Peter L. Ireton to assume the spiritual care of black Catholics in Roanoke. On September 15,1946, the Rev. Maurice J. McDonald, C.SS.R. (Latin for Congregation of the Most Holy Redemptor) arrived in Roanoke to establish a Roman Catholic Mission for the blacks in the city. The Redemptorists devote themselves primarily to establishing new congregations, especially among blacks in the South. Sunday Mass was first celebrated on September 22, 1946, in a room at Harrison School, rented from the Roanoke City School Board. On the first Sunday, 17 people came to Mass. In October 1946, a house at 833 Moorman Road, N. W., was bought. It served as chapel and rectory for four years. The present church was built in 1951 and dedicated on December 23,1951. At the time it was built, only 30 members of the parish worked for wages. Its facilities, under one roof, included a sanctuary/ hall which doubled, five days a week, as a day care center In 1955, a rectory was added. The pastors of St. Gerard’s have been active in civic and ecumenical affairs and have involved their congregation. The $70,000 building drive conducted in 1951 was itself an ecumenical affair. A prominent black Presbyterian doctor was co-chairman of the drive Contributions were made by people of Catholic, Protestant and Jewish faiths and bv blacks and whites alike. During the civil rights activity of the 1960s, the attempt to close St. Gerard’s was prevented by vote of the congregation, but steps were taken to integrate it. Father Edward McDonough (1969-1974) helped establish a Tuesday night interracial group at St. Gerard’s that met for worship and fellowship, emphasizing the power of the Holy Spirit. Both Protestants and Catholics attended the group. He was also active in inter­ denominational social ministry in the Valley and was among the early supporters of Roanoke Area Ministries (RAM), as well as the Catholic Office of Social Development groups to involve the church with the needs of the poor. Between 1946 and 1974,18 Redemptorist priests served St. Gerard’s parish. In 1974, the parish was transferred to diocesan administration, with the specific desire of the bishop to bring black Catholics into the mainstream of diocesan and ecclesial life, with emphasis on developing, sharing and celebrating the unique spiritual and cultural heritage of the black Catholics. In October 1974, Bishop Walter Sullivan appointed the Rev. Michael Schmeid the first diocesan pastor of the black parish. He helped to phase himself out of the job as diocesan black clergy, and religious and lay leadership developed. The Rev. Walter Barrett was succeeded by the Rev. Lloyd Stephenson in 1985. They were the first black priests m the diocese. In 1974, St. Gerard’s congregation numbered about 75 families, 96% of them black and 98% of the blacks converts to Catholicism. By 1977, the parish included 96 families and grew to 133 families by 1983. The parish broke ground on October 2,1983, for a new fellowship hall, a gathering area and classrooms. The new rooms freed the worship area lor its primary purpose. The congregation dedicated its new facilities in April 1984. O ur L a d y o f P erpetu al H elp Our Lady of Perpetual Help, the newest Catholic parish in the Roanoke Valley lies a little distance west of Route 11 at 314 Turner Road in West Salem. Like St. Andrew^, the church is located on a hill, with a magnificent view of the surrounding mountains. ’ 52 �Marchers in a May procession at Naza­ reth Church about 1927 were (from left) Jimmy Mercer, Pasquale Bisise, Father Peter Rabil and Father James Gilsenan. Rabil was pastor of St. Elias Church from 1917 to 1964. Father Walter Campbell, administrator of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Salem from 1948 to 1951. Local history notes that there were a few Catholic families in Salem at the time of the Civil War. It also notes that Cardinal Gibbons, then bishop of Richmond (1872-1878) offered Mass in a private home there in the 1870s. This could have been March 4,1874, when Mary Lavinia McCaull was baptized or July 25, 1876, when four persons were confirmed in Salem. Until Salem had its own church, Salem Catholics were largely dependent on the Roanoke Catholic churches. Scarcity of priests was one reason requests for their own parish and priest had not been granted. In 1945, Mass in Salem was celebrated in the Colonial Theatre by the Diocesan Missionary Fathers. From 1946 until 1949, Mass was celebrated by the Redemptorists on the grounds of Roanoke College, first in the chapel and then in the Laboratory Theatre. Our Lady of Perpetual Help began in 1948 as a mission of St. Gerard’s, which the Redemptorists had established two years earlier. Bishop Peter L. Ireton asked the Redemptorists on April 11,1948, to establish the mission in Salem. In less than a year, Our Lady of Perpetual Help was a reality. In the summer, land at the corner of Green and West Main streets was donated by Lorenz Neuhoff, Sr., for the construction of the church. Through the efforts of Father Walter Campbell, C.SS.R., an Army chapel at Camp Butner, Durham, North Carolina, was dismantled and moved to Salem on April 3,1949. A large proportion of the financial aid came from the Diocese and from the Redemptorist Fathers. The priests from St. Gerard’s ministered to the Salem mission while continuing to reside with the Redemptorist community on Orange Avenue. In October 1963, Our Lady of Perpetual Help became independent. Father Bernard Krimm, C.SS.R., who had been pastor at St. Gerard’s, became the first pastor at Salem and remained as pastor until 1969. A building behind the church was purchased for a rectory. Due to the growth of the parish and the cramped area of the church and rectory, a new location became necessary. Land was purchased west of the original site and the present church was built. It was dedicated by the Most Rev. John J. Russell, bishop of 53 �Richmond, on May 27,1973. The building was a combination church/ hall, with space for five classrooms, and a sanctuary seating 400. A building at the rear of the property housed the church offices and the rectory. Changes are underway. The rectory has been converted to classrooms, the church was enlarged and a parish hall was built. The renovated church was dedicated on February 12, 1984. Redemptorist priests ministered in the parish until the summer of 1980, when a diocesan priest was appointed to head the new diocesan marriage tribunal and to serve as pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. The Rev. Glenn Charest was followed by the Rev. James E. Parke as pastor. Catholic religious experiences vary from parish to parish. The five Roanoke parishes are examples of the unity in diversity that has come to be characteristic of the post-Vatican II Catholic Church. The diversity is expressed in architecture. St. Andrew’s is a classic Gothic structure; St. Gerard’s has been renovated from a multipurpose space to a worship center. St. Elias is a new church of Middle Eastern Design. Nazareth and Our Lady of Perpetual Help have been constructed since Vatican II and both attempt to articulate some of the principles of the reformed Catholic liturgy. The diversity also comes from the age, economic, ethnic and cultural differences of the people who form the parishes. These socio-cultural differences express themselves in music, gestures, rites and ceremonies. But all still confess their faith in common not only here in Roanoke but with the church in Richmond and with the universal church. SOURCES Archives, Diocese of Richmond, Richmond Archives, Diocese of Wheeling, Charleston, West Virginia Parish records: St. Andrew’s, Our Lady of Nazareth, St. Elias, St. Gerard and Our Lady of Perpetual Help Annals for Roanoke Redemptorists, June 1946-October 29,1974 Annals, St. Andrew’s Convent, Roanoke Annals, Our Lady of Nazareth Convent, Roanoke Official Catholic Directory Directory, Diocese of Richmond Anniversary/Souvenir booklets: St. Elias Maronite Church, Golden Jubilee, 1917-1967 St. Francis Parish, Staunton Memorial of the Church o f the Holy Cross, Lynchburg, 1904-5 St. Joseph’s, Martinsburg, West Virginia, 1969 St. Mary’s Star of the Sea, Fort Monroe, Centennial 1860-1960 Karnes, Helen, “Father Lynch, Founder," essay published in The Catholic Virginian, December 1941 Maier, M .M . (Cochener), “Father Lynch, Founder,” unpublished essay, 1941 Shank, Mary Patricia, “Memories of Father Gilsenan,” unpublished essay 1980 Martin, Charlotte, “A Layman’s View, A Story of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church” Monteiro, Mrs. C. M ., correspondence Hildebrand, J. R„ statement BIBLIOGRAPHY Ahem, Patrick Henry. THE LIFE OF JOH N J. KEANE. Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Co. 1955 Bailey, James HenryJI. A HISTORY OF THE DIOCESE O F RICHMOND. THE FORMATIVE YEARS. Richmond: Chancery Office, Diocese of Richmond, 1956. Barnes, Raymond P. A HISTORY OF ROANOKE. Radford: Commonwealth Press, 1968. DeClerq, the Rev. Victor C. CICM. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE ALLEGHANY HIGHLANDS AROUND 1882. Clifton Forge, 1983. Guilday, Peter. THE LIFE AND TIM ES OF JOHN CARROLL. New York: The Encyclopedia Press, 1922 Holland, R uth S. HISTORY O F ST. PATRICK’S PARISH: LEXINGTON. 1953. Jack, George S. HISTORY O F ROANOKE COUNTY. Roanoke: Stone Printing Co., 1912. Jacobs, E. B. HISTORY O F ROANOKE CITY AND HISTORY OF THE NORFOLK AND WESTERN RAILWAY CO. Roanoke: Stone Printing Co., 1912. McCauley, William. THE HISTORY O F ROANOKE COUNTY, SALEM, ROANOKE CITY AND R EPRE­ SENTATIVE CITIZENS. Chicago: Biographical Publishing Co., 1902. 54 �Magri, F. Joseph. T H E CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE CITY AND DIOCESE O F RICHM OND. Richmond: Whittet & Shefferson, Printers, 1906. Walsh, Grace. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN LYNCHBURG 1829-1936 ST. M ARK ’S LUTHERAN CHURCH, 18691969. Four prominent Roanoke Valley Men — two dressed for sport — were photographed at Monterey Golf Course about 1930. They were P. C. “Pete” Huff (left)» Frank Read, Harvey Hall and S. D . Stokes. 55 �Letters from School, 1842-1843 Mary Jane Allen of Botetourt County was 17 in 1842 when she left for boarding school in Maryland, where she would remain for over a year. Her home was “Beaverdam,” built c. 1817 by her grandfather, Judge James Allen. (Since about 1900, “Beaverdam” has been the home of the Wickline family, who graciously opened it for our Society’s 1967 History Tour.) Of the many letters Mary Jane must have written her parents from school, only the following seven have been preserved. Five of them went to her father, John James Allen, in Richmond, where his position as a justice on the Virginia Supreme Court required him to spend much of his time. The other two were addressed to her mother, Mrs. Mary E(lizabeth) P(ayne) Allen, near Pattonsburg/ Botetourt Cty/Virginia.’’(Pattonsburg was renamed Buchanan a few years later.) Mrs. Allen was a niece of Dolley Payne Madison, wife of President James Madison, and a daughter of long-time congressman, John George Jackson of Clarksburg, Virginia (now West Virginia). The letters contain references to Aunt Madison” as well as to the Jackson relatives. The school Mary Jane attended was the Patapsco Female Institute on the outskirts of Baltimore. It was presided over by Mrs. Almira Hart Phelps, who, like her better known sister, Emma Willard, was a pioneer in women’s education. Not only did Mrs. Phelps beef up the traditional girls’ school curriculum of the period, she also wrote textbooks for many of the courses which were widely used in other schools as well as her own. Mary Jane’s estimate of her headmistress’s abilities, accomplishments and influence is confirmed by an article in Notable American Women: 1607-1950, A Biographical Dictionary (Vol. Ill, p. 58 et. seq.) In 1850, Mary Jane married William Watts of Roanoke County and moved to his family home, “Oaklands.” The young couple lost their first child in infancy in 1853. A second son, bom March 30,1855, was named John Allen Watts for her father. He became a prominent lawyfer in the early days of Roanoke, and left a number of descendants. His mother, however, did not survive the illness she contracted following his birth. She died on June 1, 1855, four months before her 30th birthday. Patapsco F Institute December the 3 1842 My dear Papa Your kind letter was received with much pleasure not only from the gratification I felt to hear that you were well but also from the assurance contained in it of your approbation. It has strengthened me in my resolutions of improvement and I feel assured that if I labor not only from the pleasure of acquiring knowledge but also from a desire to please you that I will succeed. My course of study gives me pretty constant employment but I find that I still have leisure to take exercise needful for my health and write to m y parents. This is owing to the regularity and uniformity that prevail throughout this establishment. When I last wrote (to use a nautical phrase) we had not set fairly under weigh. The teachers had not all arrived from their respective homes and new scholars were coming daily These letters o f Mary Jane Allen, written a century and a h alf ago, were edited by Jean Showalter, her great-granddaughter, and by Clare White. (Editor’s note: Thefirst o f the letters is beingpublished in its entirety so the style o f the writer may be seen. The other letters have been edited in the interest o f brevity, particularly by deleting the philosophical musings and leaving enough to give a picture o f the young woman o ff at school and an idea o f the school itself.) 56 �breaking in on the regulations and rules of the school. The classes had not been well arranged and I thought I would be compelled to study all the time without any recreation. Now a different order of things prevails and I find there is a season for all things. We have quite a large school at the present time and it is increasing daily. I do not know the exact number of pupils but believe it is about 75. The teachers as well as pupils have returned to the Institute with renewed energy and appear (if possible) to take more interest than before in the improve­ ment of the girls intrusted to their care. I have just returned from reciting a lesson in Chimistry (sic). These lessons were Mary Jane Allen written by Mrs. Phelps several years ago. Last January she revised and corrected the work and we are now studying the second edition. I commenced Chemistry with Mrs. Sheffey but thought it dry and difficult — now I am very fond of the study and to quote from Mrs. Phelps “think it a most comprehensive science E - while it instructs philosophy in the constitution of matter it teaches us how to perform the most common operations in the business of life. "The lecture today (I have not the book near me) treated of Vaporization, Ebullition Gases and Vapors. We have a very good chemical apparatus but our teacher has not yet shown us many experiments. Professor Aiken of Baltimore will deliver lectures at the Institute after the Christmas holidays. Mrs. Phelps writes with so much ease and simplicity that it seems almost impossible for me not to become interested in her works. She has written a great deal for the improvement of youth and certainly merits the title of a benefactress to her country. Her series of volumes on Botany, Philosophy, Chemistry and Geology are used in all the best female institutions in New England which is a sufficient testimony of their worth. Mrs. Phelps is certainly one of the most remarkable women of the present day not only for her literary talent but for vigor of thought and action. She enforces strict obedience to all the rules, yet she is always amiable and kind. We are deeply immersed in the enigmas of Lord Yeame (?) — as we proceed in the work I become more and more interested. If we had not a competent teacher the study would be irksome and difficult but Miss Lincoln appears to be perfectly familiar with the work which proves I think that some if not all females are capable of learning a little more than the elementary branches of an English education. The advantages derived from the study of this work are very great. It not only gives us a better knowledge of the philosophy of the human mind but it refines our taste and makes us prefer the more elevated pleasures to those that are low and grovelling. As for French I am tired of it. I can read the language tolerably well and the time I devote to it could be better employed however if you wish me to proceed with it I will do so. I am very fond of drawing. I will continue to take lessons this term and hope to have some pieces to show you when 1 return home. I received a letter from Eliza Jackson a day or two since. I do not think there is much probability of her return here. Her brothers will remain at home during the winter and commence their collegiate course in the Spring. Her father has purchased a country residence somewhere on the Ohio and she said that it was probable that they would leave Parkersburg before Spring. I was sorry to hear of the disagreement between the families at Clarksburg but it is nothing more than we all expected. It is well we are removed from all their contentions.* My visit to Washington has not yet been fully decided upon. If Mrs. Phelps determines to go her stay must necessarily be very short. Do you think it would be well for 57 �P h e n u S i n rv!Zl U u fon of my intention to visit the city this winter. Mrs. p helPs thinks it will be better but it looks to me as if I were trying to force myself on her B SP ! 1 W.ould not do yP°n any consideration. Will you write to me your opinion on the subject and of course I will abide by it. Mrs. Phelps will draw on you for funds whenever it is necessary. I have always applied to her for funds when I required them but she says you provided me very amply before you left here. f r y 'l l 1“ 6 n,0t heard from Mama since 1last wrote but hope her silence does not proceed irom illness. I am veiy anxious to see her and the children and look forward to Spring with joyful anticipations. This letter is full of blunders but I cannot get in a quiet place. The girls are speaking to me every moment and I scarcely know what I have written three w e e k r118^ H E f i immediately aS We wiU Probably go to Washington in two or Your affectionate daughter Mary J. Allen P.S. Mrs. Phelps sent for me a few minutes ago and desired me to give her best respects and enclose to you two circulars. She intends writing to you very soon but says it is vnnna D B B f l her | B | you an account of m y improvement as it would be^for a y anf er pupi1’ My letters she said would show you how much I improve but I do not agree wi h h er as m any sensible well-educated women write indifferent letters. She also said a great many complimentary things about my deportment, studiousness etc. but as she will write to you soon herself I will not repeat them Directed to: Hon. John J. Allen Court of Appeals Richmond Virginia seal £ T Stma? S^ e reads“PataPSC0 Fetoale I n s t i t u t e d was perhaps the school seal. The other reads “Ellicotts Mills Md„ Dec. 5”) ratapsco F Institute January the 6th 1843 A happy new year to you my dear Father. You will not I trust have thought me very ungrateful for your kind letter though it has been left so long unanswered . . . ■ ast Chnstmas and New years day I spent at home with my little brothers and sister little expecting that I would ever again tread the halls of a Female Institute. This year’s festivals I have enjoyed among strangers. The next I hope will be spent at home. New Year s day was a happy one — of the happiest, perhaps the most so, which I have ever spent In the morning we had an excellent sermon addressed principally to the girls Monday evening we had vivants tableaux and dancing. anticipated visiting Washington this week and wrote to Aunt Madison to hat effect. Since then I heard that she was in Virginia and of course will remain at the Institute. That affair of young Spencer it is said has thrown a gloom over the city The presidents family^ are in deep mourning and do not receive company. I was but little disappointed in not going as it would interfere with my studies and divert my attention from books to the frivolities of the city. And again the examination is fast approaching and I must apply all my energies to be prepared. I look forward with much pleasure to mv return home but I shall never forget the kindness I have received from Mrs. Phelps and the teachers, and though the clouds of the future may partially dim the brightness of the remembrance, still it shall never quite fade away, but endure, “like the perfume of the withered rose, until life itself shall end” I H IKS 58 �I wrote some time since to Mama that I was ill — la m now pretty well. I intend writing again very soon. You must excuse the brevity* of this letter as it (is) dark and as I said before I’m only pretty well. Mrs. Phelps received your letter containing a check on the bank of Virginia. Your affectionate daughter Mary Allen P.S. Mrs. Phelps desires me to say that Mr. Phelps received your letter containing the check and answered it — she believes. (Addressed, as the first letter was, to her father in Richmond, with the Ellicott’s Mills, Md. postmark, stamped with date Jan. 11.) Patapsco F. Institute Feb. 3rd 1843 Friday evening My dear Papa Thank you for your kind letter. My apology for not answering it sooner is somewhat uncommon — a visitpaid which with me are like angels’visits, few and far between. This I hope will be considered a sufficient excuse when I assure you that it is the first time I have been permitted to accept any invitation of the kind since I came to Maryland. Last week Dr. Thomas asked Mrs. Phelps to let me accompany his daughters home the next Friday. She consented to do so and Friday night (the time I generally write to you) he sent his carriage for us. The night was piercing cold, it makes me shiver even now to recall the sensations of the ride although I was snugly enveloped in cloaks and furs. We reached Dr. Thomas’s alive and was kindly welcomed by the whole family. I cannot say enough of their cordial kindness®- it made me feel as if the handsome rooms and pleasant grounds were old familiar scenes. Saturday the day was lovely and I rode on horseback for the first time since I left home. The visit has had a good effect upon me and I have returned to the Institute happier and with renewed energy to pursue my various studies . . . I must acknowledge that after spending 8 months at the Institute I was heartily glad to leave it for a short time. I am happy to say our school continues prosperous. Every Wednesday and Friday after­ noon all the young ladies assemble in the hall. On Friday evenings the reports of the officer of the week and teachers are read. If we have passed through the week without any palpable offences and with a good degree of order and industry the Principal assigns us a general credit which she writes in the book of the teachers reports. For any disorder in which a number of the pupils are implicated or where the offenders are not known Mrs. Phelps orders a general fault mark for the whole school which is recorded in the same manner. These marks form what is called the conduct list which is read aloud at the examination for the benefit of the public. This evening (Friday) I received 5 credits (the highest number given) for all my recitations during the week. On Wednesday Judge John James Allen, 1797-1871 afternoon we assemble in the hall with our needlework. After the reading of a few select Virginia State Library photo 59 �pieces or compositions by the pupils Mrs. Phelps, who always presides at the assembly gives us a familiar lecture on those duties which as women we must be prepared to perform. I still take drawing lessons ||- it is an accomplishment much attended to in this school and painting in water colors is taught with skill and taste. We have an excellent music teacher and I hope to make some progress in this branch before returning home. I have not taken up Italian as the studies 1 now have occupy the greater part of my time. In mental philosophy the meditations are very interesting. To this subject the first hour of the day is devoted when my mind is clear and not wearied with the daily routine of lessons. I received a letter from Mama some days since — she said that she was very lonely since you returned to Richmond. Beaverdam is a dull place to her but with me the feeling oi home throws light and loveliness over the most uninteresting spot. Last week I inclosed to her a letter which I received from Aunt Madison. The letter is very flattering and gives evidence for one so far advanced in life of great strength of m ind3 Although she has been the center of a circle composed of the gay, the refined and exalted in rank, both foreign and American, she appears to be a pattern of gentleness and affection Mama has probably written to you of my illness. I am very much better now. The complaint in my side is indeed most pertinacious if not hopeless. I have therefore only to meet it as cheerfully as I may. Whether I shall return to you all brighter and in better health I know not but I hope there is a prospect of my returning improved . . . . How much I wish to be with you all once more. Mama wrote that I would have to remain here next vacation. I felt very badly about it at first as I had anticipated seeing you and Mama a few days after the close of our examinations. But as she says there is no alternative I suppose I must be resigned. Did you receive a letter from Mrs. Phelps? I hope she gave me a good report. She is expecting an answer. Please answer my letter very soon. Your affectionate daughter Mary Allen Patapsco F. Institute June 4th 1843 My dear Mama Four weeks have elapsed since I received a line from home and during this time I have written repeatedly to you and once to Papa. I fully anticipated receiving a letter this morning and the disappointment has redoubled my uneasiness and anxiety to hear from you. I fear that either you are ill or Grandpapa4 is worse and I hope Mama that you will answer this letter as soon as it reaches you; living in a state of uncertainty day after day is terrible. I do not even know if Papa’s journey home was accomplished in safety and you can well imagine how badly I feel___ You are probably aware that I take the graduating studies this session. They consist of French, Italian, Mathematics, Music, Painting and Brown’s Philosophy. The latter work comprising two very large volumes is very difficult and metaphysical and requires much attention and deep reflection. We read over several chapters every day and then write an analysis upon them — This is not an easy task but with patience and perseverance I hope to accomplish it and be prepared for our semiannual examination. Miss Gable from Baltimore is my only classmate and one of us must necessarily be appointed to write the valedictory. I do not wish the office to devolve on me (although I need not have any such apprehensions) for I am fully convinced that I could not discharge it with honor to myself and to the Institution to which I belong... In Italian we are reading Silvio Pollico. This language is very soft and beautiful and I like it much better than the French . . . I continue to take music lessons from Mr. Rohbock; he is an excellent teacher and I intend practicing very diligently this term. Tell Papa that my arm is well but as it is impossible for me to be without some disease I have a very sore fo o t or rather toe brought on by my 60 �awkwardness in leaping from a rock. Mrs. Phelps sent for me a few moments ago and had a poultice applied it; she also made me put on a pair of Indian moccasins which had been presented to her by Mr. Ross and my foot looks both sizable and showy . . . . Last week one year since I was enjoying the calm and rational pleasures of home and this day one year since I had been entered at the Patapsco Institute for an indefinite period. Next spring I hope to spend at home with those I love, but I may find by that time still greater changes. . . I will hope for the best and look forward with bright anticipations to the future — the fall when I shall return home. It is so warm that I am almost suffocated and my little room is as close as a cell. Mrs. Phelps wants to know if any one wishes to engage a governess in your neighborhood as she desires to procure situations for several young ladies during the summer. Give my best love to Papa, Grandpapa and the children and believe me my dear mother your affectionate daughter Mary Jane Allen Addressed to: Mrs. Mary E. P. Allen Pattonsburg Botetourt Cty via Winchester Virginia Patapsco F. Institute Oct. 29, 1843 My dear Mama I have been expecting a letter from you for three weeks and indeed have had some fond hope of seeing Papa in propria persona but in both of these pleasant anticipations I have been sadly disappointed and am consequently very uneasy. I have written you a letter this vacation and two others during the term since I received a line from you and I now feel the dull heart sickening suspense of awaiting tidings— tidings which my heart tells me (the heart too faithful prophet of the future!) may be possibly bad. Your last letter my dear Mama said Papa was ill and my anxiety has been proportionally increased. You cannot know the agony of experience in waiting every day the return of the servant from the office -4^each minute seemingly an age — and then the disappointment which has hitherto awaited me! — The daily repitition (sic) of this has made me desponding and heartsick and I hope therefore, even though your letter may be the bearer of bad news that you will write me immediately on the receipt of my letter. I enclosed you a paper containing an account of our examination which you have probably received. We had a very large audience during the three days particularly on Wednesday. The crowd was so dense on the evening of the last day that many persons were not able to enter the salon . . . . As I have before said to you Mrs. Phelps has so arranged her public examinations that every pupil is brought thoroughly to test her own requirements, not in comparison with a classmate, but with her own previous knowledge. The standard of excellence here is that every one must do the best she can and the appeal is to her own conscience, not to the station she holds in her class. This is said to have been our best examination, and everything, the music, compositions, recitations, manners etc. have been highly commended by all the Baltimore papers. The diplomas are very neat and pretty. . . I can scarcely realize that I am no longer a “school girl.” I cannot place too high an estimate on the obligations I owe to my father. He has given me every opportunity for cultivating my mind, and although they have been in a great measure neglected yet I trust he will find that I have not wholly unappreciated his kindness or unimproved these advantages. I will not speak of my good resolutions but let my future conduct speak for any that I may have 61 �formed in my heart. The greater part of the pupils have returned to their homes but enough remain to make the vacation pass pleasantly. . . You will naturally ask, how do you employ your time. Well I will tell you. I sew, practice, read, ride, walk, and talk — but more particularly the latter. As for sewing I have been very industrious — made me a wrapper and am about making a nightgown. 1 have had several very kind invitations to pass the vacation with some of my school companions and intend accepting several of them. Gen. Howard and Dr. Thomas have both sent for me this week but I have declined their invitations as 1have my wardrobe to arrange and besides felt exhausted both in mind and body after the great excitement 1 have so recently gone through. 1 will however go out next week and spend a day or two with my friends. Mrs. Phelps is not at the Institute. She left last evening for Troy5and will probably be absent some weeks. No one accompanied her but her little daughter M ira. M r. Phelps and our dear good vice principal remain with us. Mrs. Phelps lauded me very highly before she started for my industry and said she was as much pleased to see me sewing as she was two weeks since to see me applying myself to my studies. She is a kind lovely woman — indeed Id o not think she has but one fault if it may be called such, and that is, she is an egotist — not a bas bleu however. But I think this fault, in her, is excusable when we bear in mind that she is wholly self educated and that one or two of the best female schools in this country have been founded by her, sustained by her talents and their improvements have been effected by her perseverance . . . . I suppose Papa has returned to Richmond. I sent him a paper today containing an account of our examination. I don’t think he will fancy more than I did our names being put in the paper. I am in a state of uncertainty as to Papa’s intentions with regard to me — whether I am to remain a part of next term and still attend to my studies — the languages and music, or whether I am to remain only as a boarder. Mrs. Phelps has received no communication from him and therefore does not know what course she shall adopt in regard to me. The bill for my tuition etc. has been drawn up and she does not know if it is Papa’s wish that she shall advance me any money that I may want. Thus you see it is very necessary that I should receive intelligence from you or Papa. I hope dear Mama you will write immediately and tell me everything and anything. How the children are # what they say and what they are doing. Kiss them for me and tell them sister is more anxious to see them than they can be to see her for she has had no one to love, while they have all been together and of course could not miss her so much. How is Jane? How is James Allen? Have you heard from Grandmama?6 How is Grandpapa? My love to him. Love to Papa when you write. Where is Virginia Harvey? Has anyone bought Mount Joy or happiness I do not remember which. Addressed to: Mrs. Mary E. P. Allen near Pattonsburg Botetourt Cty via Winchester Virginia Patapsco F. Institute 5 o’clock Oct. the 1843 Your letter my dear father was received last evening, and in compliance with your request to write immediately, I have risen very early in order to do so before the close of the mail. I recollect in one of your former letters you said to me “promptitude in matters of business was always necessary” and acting upon your suggestions, I have determined although with many misgivings and much shame to enclose the account for my tuition and other expense. I was startled when I opened the bill and read the sum total, but much to my relief found upon looking it over that a little could be deducted — the singing lessons 62 �Beaverdam, built about 1817 in Botetourt County, was the home of Judge John James Allen and his family. The Wickline family has lived there since about 1900. and stationery. I also find upon comparing the bill for cash advanced with my own private ledger book that he had charged me 10$501/2cts more than I have actually received. Of this fact I am perfectly confident since 1 have been very careful in making entries into this book whenever I have asked for money. Mr. Phelps is very liable to make such mistakes in drawing up the accounts — he is imbecile both in mind and body, and again he is apt to get his bills confused. I did not say anything to him about this mistake, because I thought you would rather pay than have any difficulty. I know you will think me very extravagant and blame me deservedly but I have endeavored to economize this summer. I have purchased but very little clothing and I thought (erroneously, it seems) spent but little money -Hi have also another bill of 20$ which has not been added to the account. When I expected to return home at the close of the term I bought some books and presents for the children and a little present for home — the whole amount to 17$ H the other three dollars I paid (to particularize) for some winter stockings. If you will send me 25$ I will pay for my board until December and cancel the debt of which I have spoken. I do not wish or expect you to give me any more money before I return home. I have already spent more than enough. I wrote Mama a long letter containing an account of the examination which I asked her to enclose to you. The examination was attended by a crowded audience. . . Bishop Whittingham was here the second day — he appeared to take much interest in the recitations and said afterwards that he was both gratified and astonished at the unexpected progress made by the pupils in the various branches . . . . You say I am to remain here as a boarder until December and although I am very anxious to return home I will make an effort to be contented and endeavor to pass the time profitably. . . I hope I shall never mistake my interest or happiness so much as to wish to step forth from my appointed niche in the seclusion of the domestic circle to take a stand in the exhibition room of fashion — therefore you need not have any fear on this point— my motive to study has proceeded from a desire to strengthen and enrich my mind, not to add to my attractions before the world. Knowing the state of society in our vicinity I shall endeavor to make home the seat of innocent enjoyment as well of real improvement... I agree with you in thinking we should pursue a course of solid instructional reading of the best authors and have therefore marked out a plan for myself. Miss Tuthill and 1 have commenced reading systematically the works of the English and American poets. It is a great pleasure to have the companionship and assistance of a person as highly gifted as Sarah Tuthill... We have read Campbell and commenced reading the works of one of our 63 �most celebrated American poets today — those of Bryant. Campbell is certainly a poet of most exquisite taste. His Gertrude of Wyoming is a most beautiful specimin(sic) of poetry — the language copious, smooth and elegant with many fine touches of sentiment interspersed through it. As for prose reading I have not determined what authors I shall read first — indeed the library here is so indifferent and small that we find little in it either to instruct or amuse and I would be much obliged to you if you would mark out a course of reading for me and I will procure the works if possible... Mrs. Phelps left home last Wednesday for Troy and will probably be absent a week or two. Mr. Phelps and the vice principal remain at the Institute. The pupils generally have returned to their homes but enough remain to form a pleasant family circle. We walk, ride, sew, read and talk. We have taken some long rambles . . . Mrs. Phelps intends taking us one day to Baltimore to visit Green Mount cemetery. I think I have seen every thing else in the city worth visiting. I made some improvement in Italian last term but we had an indifferent teacher. Mr. Phelps has just come in and says I was charged for a semester singing and that he made a mistake, I never took but three singing lessons and as I hurt my breast Mrs. Phelps made me discontinue the lessons. I suppose however you will have to pay him 10$ of the 20$ for singing. I have forgotten one inquiry you made me in respect to a Piano but I cannot nay do not wish you to purchase me one under existing circumstances. If my bill had not been so large I would be much pleased to have a Piano but as this cannot be remedied now I will not tax your generosity and kindness any further. You have given me every opportunity for improving my mind and I should not expect anything more. I think I wrote to you a good Piano could be procured at 150$ or 200$. I received a long letter from Mama (the) day I received yours. They were all well. I intend answering Mama’s letter today. You must excuse this letter but I have been writing in a room without fire and am very cold and chilly. I will write soon again. Your affectionate child, Mary J. Allen Patapsco F. Institute My dear Papa November 29, 1843 Y our letter of the 26 inst was received yesterday morning and I have several excuses to offer for not answering it immediately— the principal of which was, unfortunately, that it was handed to me in the carriage on the road to Baltimore and I was thus compelled to defer answering it until today. You may from this circumstance (my going to town) know that I am convalescent. I wrote to you a week since and I believe gave you some little account of my occupations as well as the state of my health. Of the latter I can truly say that I feel much better than when I wrote last although I was confined to my room some time with the influenza. A deep seated pain in my breast was felt for several days brought on I suppose by the cold. I lost no time in resorting to remedies which I have found most successful. The pain has completely subsided and the cough is leaving me. Should my health continue to improve as it has done for a few days past I may hope soon to recover so as to be prepared to commence my journey home. I was grieved to hear that my slight indisposition had given you so much uneasiness and hope this letter will relieve all apprehensions in regard to my health. The pleasant news you gave me has had a most exhilerating effect upon my health and spirits. I am so much obliged to you for this handsome present, it will indeed serve to make the time pass pleasantly in the country and I will endeavor to teach my little sister. I look forward to this day two weeks with many delightful anticipations as the day that I shall return to my sweet home. I have provided myself with warm clothing for traveling and feel assured that my health will not suffer from any exposure to the weather. I practice, read and walk and thus continue to be occupied the greater part of the tim e... I passed a 64 �very pleasant day in the city yesterday — made several calls and visited the Catholic convent. With the latter place I was agreeably disappointed. Mrs. Phelps says she wishes to send this letter to the office before the mail closed and as I wish to write a few lines to Mama this morning I must say farewell. You will excuse all mistakes as I have not time to rewrite the letter. Do not however think that I am not well from my writing so miserably, it is for the want of time. Your affectionate daughter Mary Jane Allen FOOTNOTES 1. Mary Jane’s maternal grandfather, John George Jackson, was a resident of Clarksburg. He had chiIJren by a second marriage whose families are referred to in these paragraphs. 2. John Tyler, president, 1841-45. •H alf of this letter has been deleted. 3. Dolley Madison was 75 years old in 1843. 4. Judge James Allen, who continued to live at Beaverdam. He died the following year, 1844. 5. Troy, N.Y., location of the school founded and headed by Emma Willard, Mis. Phelps’ sister. 6. Widow of John George Jackson, step-grandmother to Mary Jane. Electric Line to Blacksburg W anted in *96 Efforts to provide a better transportation link between the Roanoke Valley and Blacksburg date back almost a century. In 1896 plans were made to connect Salem and Blacksburg by an electric railway line. On Jan. 23,1896, an act was passed by the General Assembly permitting incorporation of the Salem and Blacksburg Electric Railway Co., according to the Salem Times-Register of May 27, 1938. The company was to be capitalized at $300,000 and the incorporators were J. W. F. Allemong, E. P. Wilson, C. P. Kanode, J. C. Langhome, James Chalmers, D. B. Strouse, M. W. Bryan, T. J. Schickel, and S. D. McCammon. The main office was to be in Salem. The line was to start at Salem “running hence by the most practical and eligible route deemed advisable by the board of directors of said company to the town of Blacksburg,” according to the newspaper report. But the company did not materialize and the electric railway was not built, apparently because the stock was not sold. 65 �Salem M ills By Norwood Middleton Only street signs preserve the memory of one of the critical enterprises in the homespun life of early Salem. Sites where once-proud, water-powered grist mills stood receive only vague, passing notice by the existence of Mill Lane in West Salem and Kesler Mill Road and North Mill Road in East Salem. No such locator even hints at the third and earliest, and the most historic such mill that once operated a few yards west of Union Street and south of today’s westbound tracks of the Norfolk and Western Railway. Grist mill. Water mill. Merchant mill. Flour mill. Feed mill. By whatever name, the mill with its water wheel beside the stream was as romantic as it was utilitarian, as social as it was mechanical. It brought relief to the housewife from the arm-wrenching chore of pounding com into meal with pestle and mortar. It brought neighbors into the company of each other. The operator exacted as his fee a standard portion of grain delivered to him for grinding into flour, meal or feed. In the early days, the miller took one-tenth of the grain brought in by the grower. As they have a habit of doing, costs increased, however, and later one pound of every eight went to the miller; and more recently, one of every six. Occasionally, the arrangement was based on leaving behind a stipulated portion of the final product. So vital was flour and meal to the diet of early settlers, mills could be found near most rural communities if grains were grown and there was a stream nearby. The sometimes lengthy wait at the mill for the slow process of subjecting the grain to the millstones afforded farmers a chance for conversation and gossip, and if there were several waiting, so much the merrier. Nearby, the youngsters often took a dip in the refreshing waters of the millpond, or skated on the ice if it were winter. At the mill across Union Street from the railroad station, there was an added attraction — small boats to paddle on the Roanoke River. Even the names of the mills may be unfamiliar, changing as they did over the 130 years they were in operation. Here is how the three handy to the people of Salem were known, the names, dates and site of each: Samuel Lewis’Mill, Salem Mills, Pitzer& Martin Mill, Martin’s Mill — About 1817 until 1903. On the north bank of the Roanoke River, west of Union Street between the N&W Railway’s east- and west-bound main lines. Roanoke Mills, Bellevue Mills, J. C. Langhome’s Roller Mills, Shank Milling Co., Moore Milling Co. — Before 1844 until 1947. On the north side of the Roanoke River, east of Mill Lane and south of the N&W tracks and Tidewater Street. Mill Lane was once Langhome’s Lane and at that time was the western corporate boundary of the town. Garst Mill, Salem Roller Mill, Kesler Mill — 1820 until 1938. On the western bank of Mason Creek, between the creek and Kesler Mill Road and north of Garst Street. There were many others in Roanoke County. Operators of early mills built dams to impound water to a depth sufficient to channel a strong flow through a wooden flume onto a huge wheel with sills. As the wheel turned, crude cogs on the other end of the shaft meshed with cogs on a grooved stone that revolved to grind the grain between it and the bottom, stationary bedstone. The grain was fed Norwood Middleton, retired managing editor o f the Roanoke Times & WorldNews, researched the mills o f Salem while working on his book, Salem, A Virginia Chronicle. 66 �through a hopper into a hole in the middle of the upper stone, and the grist worked its way out to the edges of the stones, thence into reels and through sieves of various fineness to separate the flour or meal from the bran and refuse. Furrows or ridges were chipped into the burrstones, as they were called, to provide the grinding surface. These stones became collector’s items. Arthur H. “Pete” Moran laboriously dug up part of a millstone at the Union Street mill site a few years ago and numbers it among many treasured mementoes of Salem’s past. Eventually, grains were pulverized between metal rollers turning at different speeds. Three such mills in what is now Salem indicate there was an ample harvest of corn, wheat and other grains in the area, as well as a good market for flour for the kitchen and feed for the stable. M artin M ill Salem’s first grist mill of record once stood near what was envisioned as a dock for boats that would bring merchandise up the Roanoke River from the Atlantic. Samuel Lewis, the second son of General Andrew Lewis, probably built the mill. Following the legislative chartering of the Upper Roanoke Navigation Co. in 1816 for the purpose of making the Roanoke River navigable between Salem and Weldon, N. C., a single bateau was drawn and poled from Weldon to Salem. Its docking on an undetermined date near what is today the W. Frank Chapman Bridge at Eddy Avenue occurred in the midst of a commercial boom that developed in futile anticipation of canal-like traffic from the ocean to Salem. “The Salem Mills were built about the same time,” according to William McCauley in his monumental 1902 history. “Union Street, along which it was expected that other business houses would be erected, was to be a sort of Broadway through Salem to the head of navigation, near the Salem Mills.” On the basis of that account, an approximate 1817 date has been ascribed for the startup of the Salem Mills. That Samuel Lewis built the mill is deduced from the fact that the 1822 Botetourt County Land Book assessment against the owner, Charles Johnston, bears the notation that it was “known by Sam i Lewis’Mill.’’That, plus the fact that the 13 If 2-acre site was part of extensive holdings formerly owned by his father on the Roanoke. In 1831 or 1832 the mill came into the possession of Dr. John Johnston, who owned large acreage near Salem, including what is now the Lake Spring Park area. In February 1836 Dr. Johnston sold the tract to Joseph and George Johnston, and in the deed of that transfer the name “Salem Mills” is first documented. They in turn sold it for $9,360 to two Salem business men, Madison Pitzer and Bernard Pitzer, in October 1836. The first Roanoke County Land Book in 1838, the year in which the county was created, assessed the Pitzers for taxes based on a valuation of $5,000 for the buildings and $5,319 for land and buildings, the same basis that had been in effect since 1822. The valuations went up in 1840 to $7,500 for buildings and $8,302.50 total. The mill and a large adjacent storehouse were burned by the Federal forces of General William W. Averell during his Civil War foray on Salem to disrupt the Confederate supply line between Richmond and the salt works and bread basket of Southwest Virginia. Destruction of the mill in the raid was reported in two news stories at the time, written by correspondents of the Lynchburg Daily Virginian, one of which said it was “burned to the ground, destroying an immense quantity of flour and wheat, only allowing the miller to remove three or four barrels.” The County Court ruled a year later, in a tax adjustment case, “that the value . . . was reduced $7,000 in December 1863 by the destruction by fire of the mill, store house etc.” In his official report of the raid on Dec. 16,1863, Averell said his forces found 2,000 barrels of flour, 10,000 bushels of wheat, 100,000 bushels of shelled corn and 50,000 67 �bushels of oats in buildings near the Virginia and Tennessee Rail Road. “The depots with their contents were burned . . . parties were sent 4 miles to the eastward and 12 miles to westward to destroy the road.” By 1865 the mill had been replaced at a cost of $4,500 and William R. Martin had bought the interest of Madison Pitzer, who died in 1861. Tax records continued to designate the property “Salem Mills” through 1886. However, it became popularly known as the Pitzer & Martin Mill based on the names of the operators, Bernard Pitzer and William R. Martin, Robert A. Martin and Conrad B. Martin, who bought Pitzer’s interest, and in 1882 naturally it became Martin’s Mill, or the Martin Mill. The mill was on 13.5 acres in a V-shaped plot bounded by the river and Union Street. In 1884, exercising a function that today is under federal control, the Roanoke County Court granted James W. Martin & Co. permission to build a four-and-a-half-foot-high dam across the river, on condition that a suitable fish ladder was installed for the passage of fish. George P. Tayloe bought a half interest in 1888. Two years later, D. R. Beale & Co. bought the property and operated it 12 years before selling it to the founder of what was by then the Salem Machine Works, Edward Corbett, who kept it only 15 months before selling it to J. H. Smith in 1903. A month later, at 1 a.m. Tuesday, June 16,1903, fire broke out and within an hour and a half, the mill, stable, corn house, 2 wagons, plows and farming implements were smoking ashes,” the Salem Sentinel reported. Its days as a mill were over. Two footnotes may be added to its history: (1) Salem policemen began issuing warrants for unlawful swimming in the millpond in the summer of 1904. (2) The people of Salem were dismayed if not appalled when a work force arrived in December 1906 and began a major re-channelization of the river near the mill site; the purpose was to eliminate a sharp bend so tracks of the new Virginian railroad could be laid in a straight line. Concrete ruins of the mill dam are still visible on a spot that today is well removed from the river because of the re-channelization. The site is gradually being covered by fill dirt. M oore M ill A flour mill well remembered by many near the Roanoke River in west Salem started out as a sawmill and brick plant. Operated before 1844 by William L. Walton, his business was known as the Roanoke Mills and occupied a small part of the 249-acre tract he owned about two miles west of town. This information comes from 1844 real estate records showing that Walton sold his “brick manufactoring mill, sawmill and appurtenances” on the north bank of the Roanoke River to Robert Sutphin. Taxes were assessed against Sutphin in 1845 on the basis that this one-acre plot was worth $7,016.81, of which his buildings were valued at $7,000. Sutphin apparently substituted a grist mill for the brick plant and ran into a problem, perhaps financial, because a year and a half after he bought it, he returned the property to Walton, and Walton canceled Sutphin’s promissory notes. The 1846 deed formalizing this repossession mentions only “a merchant mill and saw mill,” the term merchant mill a common one for a grist mill. In December the same year, Walton sold a one-quarter interest each to George W. Shanks, Henry H. Chapman and Lewis Zirkle, all prominent Salem area residents. The new owners changed the name to “Bellevue Mills,” by which it was known 33 years. Shanks still headed the company but had at least one new partner when, in 1852, Shanks, Martin & Co. advertised in Salem’s weekly, the Roanoke Beacon, that “this large brick mill” was for sale. The ad spotlighted its “four pair of stones, with never failing water 68 �power,” as well as its location “in one of the finest wheat-growing countries in the State with every facility for sending it to market when converted into Flour.” Its pinpointed location as “about a hundred yards from the Railroad” was somewhat anticipatory inasmuch as the ad appeared a year before the Virginia and Tennessee tracks reached it. There was no outright sale but apparently there was an infusion of new capital, because by mid-1853 the operating firm was known as G. W. Shanks & Co. and advertised the mill had “recently been newly repaired and improved with new cloths of superior quality.” Moreover, the ad said Bellevue wanted to buy 20,000 bushels of wheat and would deliver it “when ground, if desired . . . on the Railroad, free o f charge.” By 1855, Shanks had sold out to members of the Chapman family. At first, the principals were Henry Harrison Chapman and his son, Henry Clay Chapman; then by 1865, James and Orlando Chapman; and joining them within a few years was F. J. “Joe” Chapman, who by then was operating two resort hotels, Lake Spring in Salem and Roanoke Red Sulphur Springs at Catawba. In 1879, James C. Langhome paid $9,000 for Bellevue Mills to consolidate its ownership after another period in which a number of leading business and civic leaders had become financially involved. Among them were Robert H. Logan, Joel C. Green, W illiam Watts, James S. Persinger, Josephus Johnston, John T. Johnston and Joel S. Thomason. The name became Langhorne Mills. In major capital improvement projects in 1885 and 1887, the millstones used in grinding grain were replaced by newly available iron rollers to produce smoother and finer flour. A large, new sign was painted on the four-story tower, reading “J. C. Langhome’s Roller Mills.” The manager was E. G. Langhome, and two brands of flour,“Patent Family” and “XX,” were being marketed. By 1890, Salem’s corporate limits had been extended to embrace the mill. A year after Langhome died in 1912, Shank Milling Co. paid $10,500 for the mill. For Shank M illing, this was a natural extension of its interests; since its incorporation in 1909, it had been operating an electrically powered flour mill in a building beside the Salem Foundry and Machine Works near the N&W Railway passenger station. The machine works was owned by members of the Shank family and produced flour mill machinery that was being shipped throughout the southeast. Henry D. Shank was president of the milling company, John E. Shank, of the machine works. Most of the machinery from the original Shank mill was moved to its new operation. However, new turbines were required to take advantage of water power available at the river site, according to J. Leonard Shank, a former Salem mayor who, as a boy, pushed a broom and did other odd jobs for his uncle one summer at the mill. “Old Dominion” brand flour proved popular, and Shank, in 1919-1920 added a brick building adjacent to the old mill and modernized its equipment to increase capacity. Assessments for taxes increased from $9,000 in 1919 to $25,000 in 1922. Even with its modem roller equipment, however, Shank continued to turn out corn meal on the old com rocks,” or millstones, Leonard Shank recalls. In a move with interesting overtones in light of recent water supply negotiations involving both Roanoke and Salem, the City of Roanoke paid $75,000 in 1924 for the mill and adjacent property, principally for its water rights, and kept it until 1934. The flour mill, however, continued operations, presumably under a lease arrangement with the City of Roanoke. Henry Shank was the sole operator, the Shank Milling corporation having been formally dissolved the same year that Roanoke bought the property. Even though the grain market was dominated during this period by the Roanoke City Mills, which opened in 1918 about nine miles away and had a 1,200-barrel-a-day capacity, there was still a place for a successful smaller operation. New owners took over in 1934 when a Salem partnership of R. A. Moore and T. Munsey Moore, trading as Moore Milling Co., paid Roanoke $11,001 for the mill. The city, however, retained the water and impoundment rights and kept them until 1946, when they were relinquished to Moore for $5,000. 69 �Garst Mill, built in 1845 by John Gharst Sr., closed in 1922 and it was razed in 1935. Moore Milling was incorporated in February 1936, with D. E. Moore, president, R. A. Moore, vice president, Munsey Moore, treasurer, and Grace Moore, secretary. Munsey Moore became sole owner in November 1938. As in the case of Martin Mill 44 years earlier, fire was Moore Milling’s nemesis. In October 1947, the mill went up in flames. Only an abandoned railway spur, a patch of asphalt and a trickling remnant of the once gushing raceway mark the site today. K esler M ill Milling and the Garsts were almost synonymous in early Roanoke County, and the Garst Mill that stood 93 years in present-day Salem was drawn into a bit of history during the Civil War. There were at least two other Garst Mills, one at Hanging Rock, the other southwest of Roanoke on Mud Lick Creek. Salem’s Garst Mill was a predecessor of Kesler Mill, after which the street that runs north from near Lakeside past the mill site was named. It was also known as the Salem Roller Mills for a time. The mill was on the west bank of Mason Creek, a few feet north of Garst Street and between the creek and Kesler Mill Road, which links East Main Street and Hanging Rock. During the war, Henry Garst, the owner, produced flour and meal for the Confederacy and, according to historian William McCauley, “rendered invaluable service to the cause” after being detached from the army for the purpose. The mill also may have served as a headquarters of one of the Confederate generals when the southern forces were chasing the Union troops of General David Hunter through Hanging Rock during a retreat from Lynchburg in June 1864. Roanoke historian Raymond Barnes mentioned this use of the mill in a newspaper article, but without attribution. Chronologically, the Garst Mill at Hanging Rock was the first built and stood on the west bank near a shallow “U” in the creek. Its date of construction has not been determined, but John Gharst, Sr., is known to have built and operated it. (He insisted on spelling his name with an “h.”) 70 �This same John Gharst built a new and larger, brick mill 1.4 miles downstream from Hanging Rock, facing a wagon road and backing up to the creek and a dam. The date of construction is recorded as 1845 in a Roanoke County land book of tax assessments, the specific notation reading “$2,500 added for new mill 1845.” However, a family Bible owned by Virginia Clark Solloway of Roanoke, great-great-granddaughter of John Gharst, gives an earlier date in an entry reading: “This mill was built 1840.” Gharst was given permission by the county court in 1853 to erect a dam “to a height of ten feet,” possibly indicating that an earlier dam may not have been high enough. In any event, it was operated as Garst Mill more than 40 years and became the Salem Roller Mill, then Kesler Mill. The mill was sold in November 1855 by John and Christine Gharst to their son, Henry Garst, who lived nearby and probably was operating it for his father. This sale included a 195-acre tract on both sides of the creek. The Henry Garst residence, which burned some years ago, stood on a rise west of the road; the foundation remains. A Garst family graveyard higher on the bluff overlooks the former mill site, and just east of the mill site is one of Salem’s oldest houses, the log house of Henry’s brother, William Garst, now occupied by the Kenneth Blounts. Ledgers detailing grain and product transactions, individual customer accounts, and work records of mill employees in the 1880s are owned by Mrs. Solloway. Newly designed milling machinery became available in the mid-1880s, and in order to modernize the operation, Henry Garst sold a two-thirds interest in November 1888 to W. H. Shuff & Co. Affiliated with Shuff were Josephus Johnson, Sparrel F. Simmons and Joel S. Thomason. The deed contained two interesting provisions: (1) The $5,796 purchase price was to be spent by the Shuff company to remodel the mill and fit it with a “roller system” to manufacture 35 to 40 barrels of flour a day. (2) A spring in the yard of the Henry Garst home place across the wagon road to the west was to be available as a source when water at the miller’s house was insufficient. Salem Roller Mill was the name under which Shuff & Co. operated the property, which in the sale was defined as a little more than a two-acre portion of the 195 acres in the Henry Garst tract, Thomason, one of the Shuff & Co. partners, became sole owner through buyouts in 1898. Thomason’s acquisition came at the time of a devastating Mason Creek flood, in which one person was drowned farther downstream. A cloudburst over Fort Lewis Mountain on Saturday night, Aug. 13,1898, sent the creek far out of its banks. The Garst grist mill and sawmill at Hanging Rock were swept away, along with his machinery, farming implements and tools, and a carriage house that housed his surrey and buggy. At Joel S. Thomason’s Salem Roller Mills, the surging waters washed out some 20 feet of the dam, “the fare boy, penstock and trunk,” and part of the foundation of the brick building. Following repairs, milling resumed, a news account said. When Otho D. Kesler moved to Salem from Bloomington, Ohio, in 1904, he brought a background of milling experience with him and probably went to work for Salem Roller Mills. This assumption is based on his experience plus the fact that he moved into a nearby house that still stands; it is set back off the west side of Kesler Mill Road near North Mill Lane. In this house, Kesler reared his family, three members of which live in this area. Misses Isabel and Emily Kesler, his daughters, are in Salem and William O. Kesler, a son, in Roanoke. Kesler and a partner, H. H. Sides, of Winston-Salem, N.C., bought the mill in May 1906 and changed the name to Kesler Mill, which marketed its flouring products with the “Green Ridge” label. During its last years, the Kesler millpond was popular for swimming and ice skating. Roanoke College students were among the steady customers, who paid a small admission fee. Competition intensified on both the milling and recreation fronts after Roanoke City Mills, with a 1,200-barrel-a-day capacity, opened in 1918 and after Lakeside opened its 71 �large swimming pool in July 1920. Kesler Mill closed in 1922 and was razed in 1938. Part of a concrete footing and reinforcing rods for the dam remain in the creek bed. M ove the Courthouse in 1843? Moving the new Roanoke County courthouse from Salem to Big Lick apparently was the subject of this old unsigned poem, found recently by Palmer St. Clair of Roanoke. No other information on this theme has been discovered. There was a meeting at the Lick, They thought they would move the Court House quick. Up came old Watts with talents bright, Saying they are wrong and we are right Says Gent Watts, 1 know ther plan, 1 am a bright and talented man. We will have the papers throughout the County And pay the men a handsome bounty. Now Watts got up to make a speech, Says he, these men 1 won’t impeach, For if with money we can get it, Oh says Clag Campbell never quit it. Now down to de Sembly we will go, And papers long & mighty show, And on the table we will throw them, Shanks and Paten they will know them. Now Salem is a pretty sight And Williams works with all his might, The timbers hewed, the plank is sawing, The paints are bought, the brick is drawing. Now if we can their plan flustrate, 1 know that Salem it will hate, For everything there turns an axes But still they fill out there hevey taxes. Now Capt. Cook’s the clerk you know, But he don't care where the Court House go. He says the licens he will sell, If Old Watts goes to hell. Says Watts, I am a wealthy man, One hundred Negroes on my land And money aplenty in my drawer, And what I lack, I soon can borrow. And now says Johnston don’t be scared, lie tell you news that I have hered, For Watts and Campbell will raise the money, And the way weal get the Court House will be funny. Said Robinson as the meeting’s full, It’s at them folks I make a pull, For i keep a house that cant be beaten Yes I have all that can be eaten. Now Martin has goods in store, And if he had the cash head buy some more. Oh send the court house to the city And the way lie thrive will be a pity. Said Peck I want to keep an inn, And then He make that Robinson grin. My eating shall be nicer & quicker, And He give the people all my Liquor. Old folks young folks clear the kitchen, Old Virginia never tire, Ash pone and sit by the fire. August the 4th, 1843 72 �A Roanoke Visit in 1762 by Felix Hargrett That John Bartram (1694-1777), pioneer American botanist, renowned not only on this side of the Atlantic but as well throughout the scientific community of Europe, visited the Roanoke Valley on one of his botanical explorations is a fact almost forgotten and seldom if ever mentioned in books of Virginia history, local or state. This gentle, unassuming Pennsylvania Quaker was a recognized figure in the intellectual life of his age, a life-long, intimate friend of Benjamin Franklin, a longtime correspondent of Linnaeus, Gronovius, Sir Hans Sloane, Dr. John Fothergill and other eminent European scholars and men of science. His opinions and advice on botanical matters were eagerly sought by fellow botanists and plant collectors throughout the colonies. Among them were Virginians William Byrd of Westover, Daniel Parke Custis of Williamsburg and John Clayton of Gloucester County. For several decades, Bartram traveled widely on botanical expeditions throughout the British colonies of North America. These excursions, always on horseback and for the most part alone, took him from Canada to Florida. It is a well-documented fact that he visited Virginia on a number of occasions in the years from 1737 to 1762. Botanizing in the Shenandoah Valley seemed to have an especially strong attraction for him. He came to the Roanoke Valley in the fall of 1762 on his way back to Pennsylvania, toward the end of a journey of several weeks and some 1,100 or 1,200 miles through South Carolina, the western part of North Carolina and a portion of Southwest Virginia. The only known surviving account of this journey has come down to us in a letter which he wrote on Nov. 9, 1762, to his son, William. “I am now returned home,” he writes, “in good health... I had the most prosperous journey that ever I was favored with. Everything succeeded beyond my expectation; and my guardian angel seemed to direct my steps, to discover the greatest curiosities... In this ride I found a wonderful variety of rare plants and shrubs.” Setting out from Charleston, South Carolina, on his return trip, he rode for about 250 miles to the Moravian settlement (where Winston-Salem, North Carolina now stands). Upon taking leave of his friends in that community he soon joined the company of “four hunters who were just going to the mines (meaning the lead mine on New River in Virginia) and to Holston’s river.” Their course took them to the headwaters of the south-flowing Yadkin River and the headwaters of the north-flowing New River. Here he and his hunter companions were somewhere in the general vicinity of the present-day towns of Sparta and Mt. Airy, North Carolina. After crossing “very high mountains,” it seems that his four hunter companions left him and proceeded on their way toward the Holston River. In any event, Bartram continued his journey into Virginia in the company of a single guide until the two of them reached the lead mine in the southern part of what is now Wythe County. At the mine and along the river bank they rested themselves and their horses for an afternoon, one of the few rests in which Bartram indulged himself in his journey of many weeks’ duration. The next morning, accompanied by the overseer of the mine, they crossed the New River in a boat, the stream being “about 10 yards over,” and “away to Fort Chisel (Fort Chiswell),” the well-known fortification east of present Wytheville which had been erected in 1750 by the colonial authorities to protect the frontier settlements against the French and Indians. Felix Hargrett, bibliophile and scholar, wrote this account o f John Bartram’s travels before moving from Roanoke to Lynchburg where he lives at the WestministerCanterbury Home. 73 �After riding in a northeasterly direction for what must have been some 30 or 40 miles, the travelers were ferried across the New River, now the main stream,“where it was three hundred yards broad.” Of the next part of his journey, Bartram wrote to his son: “Set out early, and by noon my guide parted with me and 1 set forward alone; being obliged to my guide, and very thankful to Providence, being now on the branches of Staunton (the Roanoke River) and among the inhabitants.” The lone traveler had now reached the Roanoke Valley, somewhere near the present City of Roanoke. There were no well-established, smooth roads in the sparsely settled, remote region which Bartram had just traversed to reach the Roanoke Valley, and we can be sure that he found nothing of the sort here. The valley and its surrounding mountains were still largely a rough, uncharted wilderness in which travel was difficult and dangerous. It was Bartram’s custom to comment, though uncomplainingly, in his journal and letters on the hardships he suffered and the perils he encountered in the wilds, while describing carefully plants, shrubs, grasses, trees and other interesting features of the land through which he was passing. We know for a certainty that he followed this custom in his journey in the fall of 1762 through the Carolinas and Southwestern Virginia, and presumably in his passage through the Roanoke Valley. These descriptions have not come down to us. Nevertheless, of the difficulties of the journey we may gain a fair understanding from a letter he wrote some years earlier to one Alexander Catcot about his travels in other and probably similar, remote, unsettled regions of the colonial back country: “Thee (he writes to his Quaker friend) may suppose that I am often exposed to solitary and difficult traveling, beyond our inhabitants, and often under dangerous circumstances, in passing over rivers, climbing over precipices among the rattlesnakes, and often obliged to follow the track or path of wild beasts for my guide through these desolate and gloomy thickets.” We know that John Bartram did not linger in the Roanoke Valley but continued right along his lonely journey northward through the Shenandoah Valley — his beloved Great Valley of Virginia — toward his home and garden on the west bank of Schuykill River near the southern limits of the City of Philadelphia. Shortly after reaching home on October 31, 1762, he wrote a letter to his London patron, Peter Collinson, containing an account of his recently completed travels in the Carolinas and Virginia, along with a map of the country through which he had toiled. The fruitful journey had produced many new botanical discoveries which he wished to share with his fellow botanists and friends abroad. Some months later, Bartram sent a journal of these travels to Collinson. Unfortunately, the records reveal no further information about the fate of the letter, the map or the journal, all of which appear to have been lost or destroyed. There can be little doubt that these papers, could they be found, would afford not only an invaluable addition to our knowledge of large regions of the Carolinas and Virginia in their 18th-century primitive state but as well the earliest description of the Roanoke Valley by a keenly observant naturalist. Our loss is indeed a grievous one. But we may rejoice in our knowledge that so distinguished an American man of science was here in the autumn of 1762 and be grateful for that bit of the early history of the beautiful valley in which we live. BIBLIOGRAPHY Darlington, William. M EMORIALS O F JOH N BARTRAM AND H UM PHREY M ARSHALL W ITH NOTES OF THEIR BOTANICAL CONTEM PORARIES, W ITH ILLUSTRATIONS. Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blackiston, 1844. Reprinted, Hafiiir Publishing Co., New York, 1967, pp. 246-48,420-23. Swem, Earl Gregg. BROTHERS O F TH E SPADE: CORRESPONDENCE OF PETER COLLINSON OF LONDON AND JOH N CUSTIS OF W ILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA, 1734-1746. Barre Gazette, Barre, Massachusetts, 1957, pp. 133-139. True, Rodney H . “JO H N B A R T R A M « LIFE AND BOTANICAL EXPLORATIONS,”in BARTONIA, Special Issue, Supplement to No. 12,1931, pp. 13,14. 74 �Roanoke Fast Becoming Known For Its Hay-Rides A nd Picnics (from The Roanoke Times of July 17,1921) Pittsburgh, the Smoky City; Chicago, the Windy City, and Roanoke, the Magic City, will surely be known to all the world as the City of Hay-Rides — that is if Roanoke, growing more important daily, clings to the traits that make her dear to the pleasure­ seeking young folk. Who looking so far into the future will dare to say Roanoke may not some day be famed for summertime joy-riding picnicers (sic) as widely and as justly as Nice, France’s renowned City of Spring Carnivals? Som e N earby S p o ts Bent Mountain, Carvin’s Cove, Glenvar, Blue Ridge Springs and a host of other ideal mountain picnic spots see scores and scores of young folk daily and nightly seeking, perhaps unthinkingly, the beauties of nature, an hour’s relief from social and business thought, and above all, the freedom of spirit found nowhere so quickly as in the great, restful beauty of the mountains. Early in June trucks freighted down with boys and girls, young men and women, begin wending their way with many a noisy shout and hollow, through the business streets of the city, thence out quiet roads that lead to well-remembered pleasure retreats. The Roanoke hay-ride season is thus heralded in. Then as unexpectedly as cooling, darkening thunder showers come in sultry days, the A wagon-load of young people enjoyed a ride behind a team of horses in the early 1900s. Blue R idge Institute photo. 75 �A band of Bent Mountain residents paused for a picture on and beside a wagon. Where were the horses? city’s hay-riding season comes to full bloom, blossoming with hundreds of shouting, happy, carefree, young people seeking their favorite mountain resort, truck load after truck load following unfrequented mountain roads. On until September these picnicing bands, all of them deemed hay-rides, form and reform, yielding at last before only the uncompromising advances of winter. N or are these hay-rides limited to any one strata of the social scheme. From factories, from shops, from offices and from the ranks of the “idle rich, "participants are drafted, one and all in search of nothing more definite than a “good time.” Of course, the mountain fastness might tell many a moving tale of inspired couples who sat unwrapped to watch the moon or stars. But even so, that has little to do with hay-rides and the joys thereof, for all the world knows that youth will be youth and billing and cooing is perhaps as old as these wise old mountains that mayhaps stoicly watch the hay-riders seek the goddess of pleasure in Nature haunts. B illing an d C ooing Then, too, this billing and cooing would go on in the stifling atmosphere of the city even without the hay-ride’s help. Thus, the only glory Roanoke as a hay-riding city may claim in this is, after all, only the inspiration mountain scenes of beauty lend the lagging, halting tongue of a modern Romeo whose slowness exasperates the heart of the winsome, versatile Juliet. Furthermore, the hay-ride and the following picnic lends itself but poorly to the cupid victimized couple. There are far too many present, gripped by the rollicsome spirit of the crowd, what chance has the lone would-be spooners? They, by force of circumstances must abandon the soulful role and join in the frolic. First, of course, there comes the work of preparing for supper. A cloth is spread, and immediately a thousand and one things, all unexpected, appear and must be done. Everyone works an hour just getting ready. Then comes the frolic of eating. Never in the world did things taste quite so fine, no, not even on the last picnic. “We brought twice as much as anyone ever dreamed we’d eat, and just look at the basket now, absolutely empty,” is the almost unvarying exclamation of picnicers. 76 �The work of putting cloth and the few picnic utensils in baskets then begins. Someone tells a joke on someone else, and forthwith the butt of the hearty laughter feels bound to reciprocate. Another story and another hearty laugh. Comes a minute of personal pleasantries and without anyone realizing just how it has happened some particular form of fun making is in full swing, perhaps story telling. After what seems like a minute or so someone happens to glance at a watch. With an exclamation the time is told. There is a guilty start of picnicers, much wondering about how in the world the time has gotten away, and then comes a hurried scurrying for the truck. Thus one typical picnic is done. Between silent, dark, night-outlined mountains the journey home begins, singing, shouting, laughter and jesting abound upon trip. Perhaps this part of the outing is paramount in the minds of picnicers, because from it comes the name, hay-ride designating the entire trip. . . . At last in the city all gives way to shouting and so the yelling erstwhile picnicers wend their way to the dispersing point. One big hay-ride finished. A n O ld C ustom Year after year has seen this form of pleasure seeking grow in vogue, greater numbers joining its pursuit just in such proportions as the city numbers increases. Not the oldest citizen can remember when Roanoke had no hay-rides. “Why yes when I was a boy we used to go on em regularly, one citizen who remembers when all Roanoke people could stand in a good size living room, said recently. “It was then a regular country custom,” he said priding himself a little that the city of Roanoke had retained at least one of the customs that marked the endeared Roanoke of his boyhood days. However, sad or pleasant, the fact is that the City Roanoke’s hay-ndes are not the hay-rides of the Village Roanoke, nor even of the present day country town. In Roanoke of old, and in the country today, the moonlight night alone was destined to see the old two-horse wagon yanked out, the body covered with hay and the young folks piled in. Too there was no stop or picnic, the riders jogging continuously over bumpy country roads. Too, old style hay-riding, it might be added, has become obsolete in practically all the country towns. For all small town and farm young folks prefer joy-riding in the flivver or near-flivver to the custom of the parents and grandparents. The Roanokian hay-ride, the picnic and truck trip; to and from the grounds is altogether unexploited by them, and likewise the other cities of the country. Its local popularity of course is due to the attractiveness, natural surroundings, the ideal picnic coves and springs continuously inviting to the open country. And, as these will be, all hope, unmolested by Roanoke’s growth who is to say the city in time may not become nationally known as the City of Hay-Rides? 77 �Roanoke H istory in 1923 The headline in the Nov. 11, 1923 Roanoke Times read: Pictures of Big Lick and Old Roanoke Thrill Big Audience A subhead continued: Collection Shown by Mayor Blair J. Fishbum Leads to Plans for Permanent Historical Society — Many Citizens See Old Sights Thrown Upon Screen. The newspaper story said: Ancients of Big Lick, early comers to Roanoke, men and women who laid the first foundation for the city they now love and honor, turned out to the number of four or five hundred last night and packed the Chamber of Commerce assembly room to overflowing to see Mayor Blair J. Fishburn’s valuable collection of stereopticon views and hear his lecture on the early history of Big Lick and Roanoke. It was difficult to seat everybody that sought admittance, but Secretary Ben Moomaw finally accommodated most of the interested ones. H istorical S ociety It required nearly two hours to show the pictures and hear from old residents who told what they knew about the various scenes and incidents; and when the last view was shown and the lights turned on, at the suggestion of Dr. W. C. Campbell the meeting resolved itself into a Roanoke Historical Society. For the purpose of perpetuating the history that Mayor Fishbum had brought to light, and also to honor the memory of that almost forgotten hero of Point Pleasant and the American Revolution, Col. William Fleming, who lies in an unmarked grave just beyond the limits of the city. Mayor Fishbum, who acted as chairman, encouraged the movement and when Dr. Campbell had concluded his remarks, entertained a motion of J. W. Hancock that an historical organization be formed, by the appointment of a committee to take charge of the matter, and do what is necessary to get the movement in tangible shape. Mayor Fishburn will announce the personnel of the committee later on. M an y O ld P ictu res The first view exhibited was that of St. M ark’s Lutheran Church, that stood on the site of the present Greene Memorial. This was followed by a picture of the Bell Printing Company building on the site of the present Times building; the old post office on Campbell Avenue, the Bridgewater Carriage building, the Vigilant Fire station, 1888, the Trout house on present Ponce de Leon site; the old mill at Crystal Spring; the hotel in Old Lick (Gainsboro) known as the Franklin house; view of Big Lick in 1882 from “Bunker Hill” and a view of Roanoke from the same point twenty years later; N&W yards in the early ’80s; the Gambill home at the corner of Roanoke and Campbell; Rorer Hall; old N&W office building; two views of South Roanoke before any buildings were erected; Elmwood fifty years ago; fire companies, including the Vigilants Junior Hose company and Friendship Fire Company; livery stables, laying of cornerstone of first Masonic Temple and many others. The last was the fine old picture entitled “Big Lick at Sunset” taken in 1873 by A. H. D. Plecker. During the exhibition of the pictures, remarks were made concerning the early history of Roanoke by L. E. Lookabill, M. C. Thomas, C. Markley, S. P. Figgatt and others. 78 �F ishbum C om m ended The movement to found a permanent historical society was crystallized when Dr. Campbell took the floor, who after commending the work of Mayor Fishburn in gathering the valuable data pertaining to the early history of the community, and recounting some of his own recollections of the Big Lick days, told in a brief way the story of Col. William Fleming, who is buried on the Read farm just north of the city. Dr. Campbell said it has been suggested that the remains of Col. Fleming be taken up and buried on the Municipal Square, and that a suitable memorial be erected to perpetuate the memory of one of the greatest men of Colonial and Revolutionary days. Wounded severely at Point Pleasant, he carried an Indian musket ball in his lung at the time of his death. Col. Fleming died in 1795. His plantation was known as Belmont and his residence is supposed to have occupied a commanding little knoll just across Tinker Creek from the Cloverdale Road. J. W. Hancock followed Dr. Campbell and submitted the motion looking to the formation of a permanent historical society. A rising vote of thanks was tendered Mayor Fishburn for his interesting collection and excellent entertainment. (This effort to organize an historical society more than 60 years ago did not succeed. The Roanoke Valley Historical Society grew out o f the observance o f Roanoke’s 75th anniversary in 1957.) When G ood R oads Were at a Premium H ere (The Times-Register, Salem, May 27, 1938) Many residents of Roanoke County today speak of the past when a hard-surfaced road in this section was a miracle, and the earlier automobilists were demons of the highway, fit only to scare horses and raise great clouds of dust. At the time when the first automobiles were chugging and snorting over the county, stopping every five miles to tinker with balky engines and patch punctured tires, Roanoke County was sliced again and again with toll gates, erected by the county for the purpose of maintaining the road systems. Toll gates were familiar pictures to many of the county residents. Many complex systems of charging had to be worked out with the advent of the automobile, and motorists had to purchase cards of different colors depending on their destination. 79 �ROANOKE VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Amor montium nos movet OFFICERS William B. B agbey............................................................................................... President Gilbert E. Butler Jr.......................................................................................Vice President Mrs. Edward L. Gordon....................................................................................... Secretary Richard E. M organ............................................................................................... Treasurer Mitchell Bowden................................................................................. Executive Director DIRECTORS Mrs. A. J. Airheart Jr. Mrs. Jack B. Coulter S. Spencer Edmunds Jack M. Goodykoontz Mrs. Edward L. Gordon George Kegley J. T. Moldenhauer Mrs. J. L. White 80 Gilbert E. Butler Jr. John T. Jessee Mrs. A. M. Krebs Richard E. Morgan Mrs. William J. Lemon Mrs. Edward A. Lovinguth, Junior League representative William B. Bagbey John W. Eure Mrs. J. T. Hopkins Jr. Mrs. Harold P. Kyle Richard Meagher Ms. Wendy O’Neil Mrs. English Showalter William Watts ��� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society 1988 Volume 12, Number 2 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />First County Courthouse Stood from 1841-1909<br />Fleming Backed Constitutio<br />Roanoke's First Judges<br />A Tale of Two Houses<br />Roanoke Catholic Churches<br />Letters from School<br />Salem Mills<br />A Roanoke Visit in 1762<br />Roanoke Fast Becoming Known for Its Hayrides and Picnics Roanoke History in 1923 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1988 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_12_02_1988 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6357/JHSWV_13_01_1989.pdf 60dd2c34fa53ee3a9e70e00b918bc6fd PDF Text Text 1989 JOURNAL of the ROANOKE VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Volume Thirteen Number One �1989 Contents Roanoke County and Valley: The Lessons of History, by Marshall W. Fishwick ......................................... .. Roanoke County Communities Started Between the Mountains, by Deedie Kagey . . . . . . . . . 1 . 1 The Early Economy of Roanoke County, by Norwood Middleton . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . — . . . . . . . . 27 Old City Point “Rail Road” Was N & W Forerunner in 1838, by Louis M. Newton ............................................................. 37 Overlooked Buildings By the Side of the Road, by W. L. Whitwell ....................... ...................... .. 42 How Did Colleges Choose Locations in the 19th Century? by Mark Miller and Tony Thompson ...................... 48 Roanoke County Schools’ Legacy, by Bayes E. Wilson and N. J, Peters ........ .......... ................ 34 Farming Was the Backbone of Roanoke Area Growth, by Lowell Gobble, P. B. Douglas and Glenn Ramsey ----- 63 Nationality and Religion, by the Rev. Guy A. Ritter . . . . . . . — ................ ......... • • • • 69 How “A Religious Lot” Began, by the Rev. Alpheus W. Potts ------- - 74 Contributors ............ ....... ......... .. • • -------- . . . . . . ....... .............................. 80 GEORGE KEGLEY Editor of The Journal The journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society, Volume Thirteen, Number One. Published by the Society at P.O. Box 1904, Roanoke, Virginia 24008, to chronicle the past and present of that part of the state west of the Blue Ridge. Single copy price for members, $3; for non-members, $6. The Society will be careful in handling unsolicited material but cannot be responsible for its loss. �Roanoke County’s First Years This special issue of the Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society marks the observance of Roanoke County’s Sesquicentennial in 1988. This Journal contains the texts of many of the talks given at a series of historical forums held from Sept. 12 through Sept. 17,1988. Some speakers did not have a text and their tapes were transcribed. The speakers described business, industry, education, architecture, music, religion, agriculture and other facets of life in the county during the past century and a half. The elequent keynote speaker at the main forum on Sept. 17 at Roanoke College was Dr. Marshall W. Fishwick, professor o f humanities and communica­ tion studies at Virginia Tech since 1976. A Roanoke native, Fishwick earned degrees at the University o f Virginia and the University o f Wisconsin before he received a doctorate at Yale University. A prolific writer o f many articles and more than 25 books on a variety o f themes in history and American studies, Fishwick also has taught at Washington and Lee, Yale, Temple and Lincoln universitites. f ^ ' 3 1 ¿1 *7 i * Fishwick (R oanoke Times & World-News) Roanoke County and Valley: The Lessons of History by Marshall W. Fishwick Try to imagine how silent it waS-this magnificent motley valley-not hundreds or thousands but millions of years ago. We still shoot the deer and recall the now-extinct buffalo, but how many know that dinosaurs once roamed these hills and perhaps enjoyed a tasty meal at the very spot at which you now sit—say, half a million years ago? You ask for proof? It was found by that greatest of Virginians in whose shadow we all stand: Thomas Jefferson. In compiling his Notes on Virginia, Jefferson discovered that arthritic dinosaurs bathed in Virginia’s mineral springs aeons before Homo sapiens did so. He actually discovered the bones of a giant prehistoric sloth near what is now White Sulphur Springs, and promptly named the creature Megalonus Jeffersonii. Water, history, and life are all of a piece. How little we know of those endless days and nights . . . not only before our time, but before the concept of time. The first lesson of history is humility. For those of us who spend our lives studying and writing history, one truth tops all others: how little we know about the past; and how hard it is to explain what we DO know. . , What are the “lessons of history?” History does not teach “lessons ; that is the task of historians. History doesn’t “demonstrate,” “prove,” “justify”; like Old Man River, it just keeps rolling along . . . . Or coming closer to home—like the James, l �New, or Roanoke rivers, which we all know and love. We would like to know the facts-yet we know there are no “facts” in history. Rocks, stones, animals, books—but not FACTS. Facts are made-or drawn-by humans. What we call “facts” are conclusions drawn by the human mind . . . , and often they turn out not to be true. “History,” said Voltaire, “is a pack of lies agreed upon.” Or is it “propaganda of the victorious?” In any case, we are not here to repeat the facts (real or assumed) of our Sesquicentennial. We must, in these few minutes, try to catch the mood and meaning of those recent years . . . to show how the meaning of life dwells in this valley, in this soil. . . then ask how, contemplating this microcosm, we can glimpse the macrocosm. We are not the first humans who have loved this valley, and what has come to be known as Southwestern Virginia. The Archeological Society of Virginia has found materials going back 8,000 years, to the Paleo period, then the Archaic period (to about 1000 B.C.), the Woodland period (to about 1500 A.D.) and the Contact period, covering the brief span when Europeans first came into contact with native Americans. The Shannon site, near my home in Blacksburg, is believed to have been repeatedly occupied more than 3,000 years ago, and later until 1670. Nearly 12,000 pieces of pottery fragments have been gathered. The State Library has published the findings of Joseph L. Benthall, project archeologist, and I recommend it to you. For the white settlers this must have fulfilled Drayton’s famous description of the new Virginia colony—“earth’s only paradise.” Plants, game, trees of all kinds abounded; and there was more space than Europeans could even conceive. Here men and women could work all day with their hands their only company, listening for the screech of a soaring bird or the sound water makes when it gushes over a ledge of limestone. Try to visualize the strong morning sunlight turning the Blue Ridge bluer than tropical waters. And the long lonely nights, broken only by the wail of wolves and the plaints of whippoorwills; the stealthy and eyeless fear, creeping through the floorboards, lapping at the cabin door; the silent prayer of sunlight to fill up the chinks in the wall and to warm cold aching bones. Perhaps they agreed with the Indians who said the Great Spirit brought the stars together here to sing for joy. Even the angels joined in, according to an old Indian saga: “While the stars and angels were singing, there came a crashing sound, as of mountains falling, or of thunder in the sky. As the stars and the angels stopped singing to look and to listen, a great rock in the mountain wall split and fell asunder; through the deep opening the waters of the lake began to pour out and to rush towards the sea. The first white settlers came in the 17th century. John Lederer reached the Shenandoah Valley in 1669, killing a six-foot rattlesnake and watching a wildcat kill a deer. He returned in 1670, was bitten by a spider, and passed off the stage of history. Then came German Protestants, driven from Europe by Louis XIV, and a host of sturdy settlers who left their indelible stamp on the interlocking mountains and valleys in which ours rests. One splendid book summarizes what we know of that heroic period: Frederick B. Kegley’s Virginia Frontier; the Beginning of the Southwest; the Roanoke of Colonial Days, 1740-1783. In 1988 we celebrate not only the 150th anniversary of our valley, but the 50th anniversary of Kegley’s book. What a fine moment in time! Drawing from Kegley, and others, we can imagine what our county was like when it was the frontier. Men wore coats with broad backs, straight short skirts, and short breeches reaching to the knee. Stockings were drawn up under the kneeband and tied with a garter just below the knee. Shoes were of coarse leather; hats of wool or fur had crowns about four inches high and broad brims. 2 �The women wore petticoats, “shortgowns,” and tight calico caps, except in summer when their feet, hands and arms were bare. They usually helped the men labor in the fields of rye, flax, oats, potatoes, grain and hay. Fine mowers and reapers, they also hoed, plowed, and did much heavy labor. These women not only kept house; they also helped make it. The barn, the finest building on the farm, was usually built before all else. The typical one-and-a-half story house had a large cellar, a chimney in the middle, a fireplace in one end, and a stove-room in the other. Invariably there was a long pine table with permanent benches attached to one side. On the upper floor were garners for holding grain. The beds were filled with straw or chaff. Living wasn’t easy. From all indications most newcomers were sober, stern, and unadorned. As soon as their families were properly housed, they built churches to worship their God. The walls were thick enough to withstand attacks. Every spring saw some red blood on the white dogwood. With few large plantations and infrequent European contacts, life was hard and lonely. Mountain barriers blocked the way to the sea, and settlements were few and far between. Rye, oats, barley, com, and wheat were the chief crops. Only a few who raised cattle drove their herds north to Winchester or Philadelphia. On the horizon just beyond are the inexorable mountains, with a magic kind of majesty, a brooding sullen stillness. This has been hard country to conquer. West of the six valleys of Virginia is an ocean of leaves. There are elms with slim weeping tops; sturdier, plumper maples; gnarled, many-fingered oaks. Here and there a great pine pierces the horizon. From the first there has been a raw, Darwinian quality about the people who live here. Call up the hogs, pack the pony, line up the old lady and kids, spit on the fire, and start west! Only the hardiest survived. What has survived are folk tales and songs of those bygone days—for me, the most precious part of my Virginia heritage. Do you remember things like this, from your childhood—or did you hear words like this from grandparents’ lips? “If a white pigeon settles on your chimney, or an owl screeches with a hoarse voice, calamity is near. You can never catch a weasel asleep. In dog days toads never open up their mouths. A spider is an old quilt, hung around your neck, cures ague. The white stripe on a donkey is the cross of Christ, impressed when He rode into Jerusalem. If you see a wolf before he sees you, you’ll drop dead on the spot. Where the devil came out of the swine’s forefeet, there’s a small hole. King Arthur was turned into a raven, and in the springtime he circles over Virginny. Raven once snow-white, a tattle-tale, now he is black. Robin plucked a thorn from Christ’s temple, now his breast is red. And on the dogwood you can see the imprint made by the nails of the cross.” We have these tales and songs because of men like A. K. Davis, my beloved English professor at the University of Virginia. His Traditional Ballads of Virginia is (like Kegley’s) another indispensable book, listing 650 versions of 51 songs, still echoed on home-made dulcimers (John Jacob Niles, Susan Reed) and store-bought guitars (Burl Ives, Willie Nelson). How many of you know 01’ Joe Clark? You will not find him in the Roanoke Public Library, or the archives of Roanoke College. The Clarks had no chroniclers. No Ph. D. has studied their close3 �knit world; they left no documents to lure the literate. But old Joe, whose progeny stretched clear from Wigwam Ridge to somewhere over Bent Mountain, was a king-sized cockalorum saver of souls: Old Joe Clark set out to preach He preached all over the plain. The highest text he ever took Was high low Jack and game. Old Joe Clark had a yaller cat She’d neither sing nor pray She stuck her head in the buttermilk jar And washed her sins away. With Joe the law of love did not prevail. Nor were all those who followed him distressed by it: Old Joe Clark killed a man Killed him with a knife. I’m damned glad he killed that man Now I’ll have his wife. The song took hold and grew because it was a good song. In his Treasury of American Folklore, B. A. Botkin lists verses heard in Cleveland County, Oklahoma. Back in Virginia new verses were contrived to meet new situations and times. Eventually book-learning came, and a school teacher appeared on the local scene. If this verse of “Old Joe Clark” is any indication, she was not treated in a way befitting Virginia Cavaliers: I wouldn’t marry a school teacher I’ll tell you the reason why; She blows her nose in yaller corn bread And calls it pumpkin pie. Joe Clark is a single tree in the vast forest of American history. No one has ever bothered to examine and record full the story of his life and influence. Musing on his obscurity, as well as that of thousands like him, one wonders if there is not a lesson here for us. Instead of not seeing the forest for the trees, we have frequently missed the trees while admiring the forest. We have been too far removed from the landscape and the people to know the specific, unique, and local. Our concern has been with size, spectacle, and generality; the glory and the truth contained in the ordinary and immediate has eluded us. Ralph Waldo Emerson understood this danger when he advised us to discover the real meaning of America by examining “the meal in the firkin; the milk in the pan; the ballad in the street; the new of the boat; the glance of the eye; the form and gait of the body.” Walt Whitman insisted that a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels. His brilliant nineteenth century contemporary, Soren Kierkegaard, couched the same thoughts in more philosophic language. “Most systematizers stand in the same relation to their systems as the man who builds a great castle and lives in the adjoining barn.” Each of these three quotations is close to the earth; they deal with firkins, mice, and barns. Much twentieth century scholarship, produced in urban areas and library stacks, is far removed from the earth which is the womb and hub of man’s existence. It is the earth alone, as A. C. Spectorsky reminds us in The Book of the Earth, that man may touch, probe, pat, smell, work with-and upon which he lives, 4 �toils, and dreams. Culture and land surface are interwoven, and interact in countless directions. Basically, the United States is a two-billion-acre-farm on which all of us work and live. Roanoke County is one small segment of that vast farm. The story of land use, pieced together and understood, furnishes a commentary on our nation more accurate than all the histories ever written. But only fragments of that commentary exist; and many of us do not know even them. We have favored the abstract over the earthy. Worse yet, we have insisted on explaining our culture from the top down, rather than from the bottom up. Very few of us have been willing or able to discover just how Americans have lived and thought, as individuals and members of communities, in specific eras and places. Let us, here in the Roanoke Valley, continue to record (even as did the Old Testament writers) details of our families, our land, our churches and colleges. And let us train others who can make of these items a grand mosaic which will add meaning to minutiae. Then, and only then, can we give positive answers to the questions asked by America’s greatest poet, Walt Whitman: Who are you indeed who would talk or sing to America? Have you studied out the land, its idiom and men? Have you learn’d the physiology, phrenology, politics, geography, pride, freedom, friendship of the land? its substratums and objects? Are you faithful to things? Do you teach what the land and sea, the bodies of men, womanhood, amativeness, heroic angers teach? Are you really of the whole People? Have you vivified yourself from the maternity of these States? A m eric a and the world have changed beyond belief since Walt Whitman died almost a century ago. We have entered the Electronic Age, and become the leading world power. Now we have the pill, the tube, the bomb. America looks less like a Currier and Ives landscape than a Jackson Pollock abstraction. The prophetic words of William Butler Yeats echo in our ears: And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches to Bethlehem to be bom? Is there a lesson here? One thing history DOES teach is “This too shall pass.” Visionaries (like Yeats, Edgar Cayce, Arthur Clark, Herman Kahn) see Western civilization, which unified us with machines, giving way to a new one, in which we shall be unified in consciousness. Birth is a cry of joy and a scream of pain; the environment that sustained us for a time is now crushing down and pushing us out. But death, too, is a scream of pain and a cry of joy, and so we cannot be certain that we are headed for one and not the other. Birth and death are ultimately confusing; to make sense of them we will have to make our peace with myth. We are on the threshold not only of a new myth, a new century, but a new millennium. Historians try to decipher the past, but only a fool thinks he or she can read the future. We cannot tell what is out there beyond the year 2000. But we do know, as William I. Thompson says, that we are on the edge of history. The future is blowing wildly in our faces, sometimes delighting, sometimes blinding us. Here, in this good college, this good town, this good valley, let us remind ourselves where we have been—so that we need not fear where we are going. How shall we use this land? How shall we honor our heritage, and those who first explored our valley? The answers are not easy and will change with time and 5 �In Roanoke County’s changing scene, this once pastoral area of orchards and wheatfields on the north side of Read Mountain now is the site of the IngersoIIRand plant and many houses. (Underwood & Underwood) circumstances. Even the meaning of “explore” changes. Some would attach it to a giant theme park to attract waves of tourists. When does “explore” slip into “exploitation?” Our heritage isn’t for sale. Once we were an uncertain chain of small settlements perched on the frontier, looking west to what was rightly called “dark and bloody ground.” We are still sparsely settled, close to nature. Seventeenth century Virginia centered around Jamestown, eighteenth century around Williamsburg, nineteenth century around Richmond. When Richmond became the capital of the Confederacy, no great battles occurred in our County—Roanoke had not even been incorporated. That gave us little space in the drum-and-bugle history books, which in the long run may have been a blessing. The War Between the States so transfixed and absorbed Virginia that for some it froze time, leading to that dread disease which historian Arnold Toynbee had labled “The Idolization of an Ephemeral Past.” How else to explain how Virginia, the cradle of democracy, came near to being its graveyard in the decades after Appomattox? The thunder of galloping horses has given way to the roar of mighty missiles—from horse wars to star wars. We move from Washington to Richmond in a few minutes by jet plane, a trip that consumed four bloody years of American warfare. We are a tiny corner of the global village: computerized, televised, terrorized by the fear of sudden death. This is still “dark and bloody ground.” A century ago the great historian, Thomas Carlyle, pondered all this and saw that the myths of the Old World had found new meaning in the new. “How beautiful,” he wrote, “to think of lean Virginians, tough as guttapercha, with most occult unsubduable fire in the belly, steering over the Blue Mountains, to annihilate the Jungle, and bring bacon for the posterity of Adam. There is no myth of Athene or Heracles equal to this fact.” Let me close with a local version of this same sentiment. Before preparing this talk, I had a visit with Julia Wilkins, who at 98 is the oldest resident of a nearby 6 �nursing home, Heritage Hall. Think of what her keen eyes have seen since her 19th century childhood. “Are you ready for the 21st century, Miss Julie?” “The 21st century?” she said in a firm voice. “Bring it on. We can handle it!” And so we can. Roanoke County Communities Started Between The Mountains by Deedie Kagey CATAWBA, CAVE SPRING, BENT MOUNTAIN, BONSACK, HOLLNS, GISH’S MILLS, POAGES MILL. The establishment of Roanoke County communities such as these began in the 1740’s and 1750’s as Scotch-Irish and German immigrants took up land in a wilderness situated in a lush valley between two mountain ranges—the Blue Ridge and the Alleghenies. The Roanoke Valley became the home of those who ventured into an area known for its fertility and resources, but feared because of the presence of Indians and danger of attack. Enticed by the offer of inexpensive land, these hardy, trans­ planted Europeans protected the frontier and made an English stronghold possible. The story of Roanoke County’s beginnings lies rooted in those pioneers who led the way and left behind remnants of their past-mirrored in the culture, traditions, religions, architecture, and work ethic of their descendants. Being largely a group of religious dissenters, the Scotch-Irish and Germans began pouring into the religious haven of Pennsylvania in the early 18th century. It would only be a matter of time before they traveled the Great Wagon Road (U. S. Rt. 11 and Int. 81) in a southerly direction throughout the Valley of Virginia and into the Roanoke Valley. The Scotch-Irish, who arrived first, were largely Calvinists or Presbyterians in faith, while the Germans were Lutheran, Dunkard, or Reformed. Many had been persecuted or prosecuted for their beliefs and worship activities in their mother countries. Hope for religious freedom was placed in the new lands these people were settling. While religious persecution was not only motive for the throng of people who left Europe and populated colonies such as Virginia, it was a strong factor in the settlement of what was to become Roanoke County. Other reasons centered around free or inexpensive land (if one would but settle and cultivate it), adventure, the hope of financial gain and the availability of abundant natural resources. Almost always the choicest pieces of land were “taken up” first and nearly always included good water sources and fertile soil. The natural resources of the Valley provided an ideal location for the agricultural lot who farmed and tilled the land as soon as they acquired it, and left it to their children, grandchildren and great-children to continue the tradition. The farming tradition earmarked Roanoke Valley for the past 200 years, only straying from this pursuit in the Deedie Kagey, author o f the new book A History of Roanoke County, is assistant principal o f Penn Forest Elementary School in Roanoke County. Formerly an elementary teacher at Hardy Road School in Jacksonville, Fla. for 19 years, she also is the author o f Community at the Crossroads: A Study of the Village of Bonsack of the Roanoke Valley. She is president o f the Southwest Virginia Genealogical Society. A graduate o f the University o f Florida, she holds a Master’s degree from Hollins College and she is a doctoral candidate at Virginia Tech. 7 �mid-20th century because of urbanization. Consequently, the result has been fewer operating farms and increased suburban or residential development. Early communities developed in direct proportion to the acquisition of land by early settlers along streams rich and abundant in springs and high-quality soil and timber. Surveys generally went to the tops of surrounding ridges, and roads paralleled the ridges or fences along the fields. Early settlements generally occurred at a crossroads, or point at which two main roads intersected. The roads, traveled by men and horses in the early years, originated with animals that fashioned the dirt paths as they sought to lick the large pockets of salt, feed on other game, and drink from the plentiful water supply. What kind of lives were the pioneers leading in the first decades of settlement? Nearly all of the families (and they were usually large) were functioning as relatively isolated, independent units. Using the natural resources of the area, they produced their own food and clothing and built their own houses. As more people arrived, settlements developed and people became more dependent. When several families acquired land in a particular section, a community began and was usually centered around a mill or mills from which grain could be ground, timber sawed and planed, or cloth made. As roads improved, other visible signs of these hamlets, in addition to farms, surfaced in the form of stores, inns, taverns (or ordinaries as they were often referred to in early court records), distilleries, blacksmith, cabinetmaker and cooper shops, and wagon or carriage shops. In essence, specialized services increased and growing communities reflected a burgeoning era of diversification that would only intensify as the years moved forward. Certain areas developed more quickly than others—usually in direct response to improved roads and transportation. When the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad laid tracks in 1852, many communities grew because of their proximity to the railroad, which not only provided the ready availability of transporting farmers’ goods to market but also facilitated the receipt of goods from eastern markets. What were some of the early communities and rural neighborhoods that had their beginnings deeply embedded in agriculture? And what of a town that sprang from the boundaries of the County? A brief treatment of some of these neighbor­ hoods and the Town of Vinton might be of interest and broaden one’s understand­ ing with regard to their place within the Roanoke Valley. Beginning geographically with the southwest corner of Roanoke County and moving in a counterclockwise fashion, these treatments follow: BENT M OUNTAIN/BACK CREEK The Bent Mountain/Back Creek section in the southwest area of Roanoke County was a 1740’s settlement that is believed to have received its name either from its horseshoe shape or from two brothers, James and William Bent, who came from Pennsylvania to survey the Bent Mountain area. The Back Creek section, at the foot of the mountain, is named for the creek that winds through the southwest, south, and southeast sections of the County. For many years Bent Mountain was sparsely populated because large amounts of property were in the hands of a few families. An early legend reveals that the first settlers were Pennsylvanians who bore the names of Willet, Martin, and Webster, and that a man by the name of Heckman, who accompanied them, moved on to Franklin County near Cahas Knob. Descendants of the Willet, Martin, and Webster families still populate the mountain. General Andrew Lewis had been rewarded for his service during the Indian and Revolutionary wars with a 20,000-acre grant which he, in turn left his son, Colonel Andrew Lewis. This land included about 8,000 acres of mountaintop land and the remainder was situated in the Back Creek section. Eventually, the Lewis land fell into other hands. Among them were the families of Dabney, Coles, Terry, Price, Powell, Baldwin, Huff, Kefauver, Thrasher, Lancaster, Teal, Tyree, Henry, Ferguson, Fralin, Wimmer, and Hawse. �Marie Moir and Cab Tench were “sparking” when they took a Sunday afternoon carriage ride on Bent Mountain. (Sue Tinsley Angle) In the early 1870’s Jordan Woodrum bought a large tract of forested Bent Mountain land and planted an apple, known as the pippin, with great success. This beginning spurred the growth of many orchards bearing apples and peaches which have brought millions of dollars to Roanoke County. After Woodrum, other successful orchardists have included the families of Terry, Shockey, Bowman, and Huff; and in the Back Creek section, Bell, Grisso, Wertz, Smallwood, Aliff, Willett, and Turner. While many orchards have given way to residential growth, orchards in this section still provide large quantities of fruit to the City Market and more distant markets. Many other crops, such as cabbage and livestock, have also been successfully raised in this section. More recently, poultry has become a major industry. Begun in the 1960’s, the former Coles Egg Farm, the state’s largest egg producer, is owned by a Japanese firm and known as Seaboard Farms. Bent Mountain/Back Creek is primarily an agrarian community, as it was in the early days, but suburban sprawl is taking effect. Residential growth in the Back Creek section is occurring faster than county officials had projected and old-timers have remarked about the change also. Today, Bent Mountain remains primarily agricultural, but at the foot of the mountain, changes are being felt-not only in Back Creek, but in another southwest community, Poages Mill. POAGES MILL The Poages Mill community is part of the Back Creek valley, located in southern Roanoke County about eight miles south of Salem. It is surrounded by Masons Knob, Twelve O’clock Knob, Sugar Loaf, and Bent mountains. Poor Mountain lies to the west. The chief stream is Back Creek, a name also applied to the community. One of the earliest settlers in the Roanoke Valley was Robert Poage, who first took up land in Catawba by grant, and soon thereafter moved to Back Creek. The grandson of Robert, Elijah, was born in 1823 in Rockbridge County and moved to Back Creek as a young man, residing there until his death in 1900. It was because of Elijah, also known as “Squire” for a justice of the peace appointment, that Poages Mill became a community center. 9 �Elijah Poage was a cabinetmaker and possessed a special mechanical aptitude. He manufactured chairs that had intricately turned posts and rounds. According to court records, Elijah sought a license in 1848 to build a sawmill and grist mill, powered by the waters of Back Creek. After the 12-foot-high dam was built, he ran the grist mill, farmed, and handcrafted furniture from early in the morning to late at night. Because of his furniture-making ability, he became an undertaker, fashioning all kinds of caskets and coffins from wood. He also developed embalming fluid. In 1882 Elijah Poage constructed a big frame house that stands in the wide bottom on the west side of U. S. Rt. 221. Near the frame house was once a loom house, where carpets and cloth were made. Other dependencies included a smoke­ house, slaughter house, a spring house, a storehouse-post office, and the flour mill and coffin factory. Today cousins of Elijah Poage provide milk and Old Poages Mill eggs to local stores. The community is quickly changing from a rural retreat to a suburb, where homes are assuming the place of apple trees that once provided much fruit. CAVE SPRING The community of Cave Spring, now part of the larger residential area called “Southwest,” is located southwest of Roanoke and south of Salem, off of Va. Rt. 419 and U. S. Rt. 221. The name of the community stems from the large spring located at this spot in Roanoke County. In early days, the area was often referred to as Cave Springs because of the presence of several springs in the vicinity of the main spring. Old timers often referred to the section as the “Cave” and the community was well-established long before Roanoke City. The community provided a market for turkeys, chestnuts, wheat, and other grains grown in that section, along with goods from Bent Mountain, Floyd, and Franklin counties. Before good highways were built, it was a favorite camping site for farmers hauling goods from these This cluster of frame houses stood in the heart of the early Cave Spring community. (Roanoke Times & World-News) locations. Hauling wagonloads of produce was a difficult job which required strength and perseverance. It usually took one day from Bent Mountain, for instance, to deliver a load of turkeys to the “Cave” and return. From Floyd and Franklin counties a round trip might take three or four days. The spring at the “Cave” was a favorite meeting spot. 10 �On the west side of Va. Rt. 419 (at the junction of Rt. 702) lies a lowland that was noted in early surveys as the Muddy Lick. The spring and its branches flow into the bottom and the stream that drained it was known as Muddy Lick Run. The earliest land acquisition in the Cave Spring area was that of a 400-acre patent by David Stewart. His holdings comprised most of the present-day Cave Spring community. There is no indication, however, that he ever lived on this property. The Stewart tract was left to a daughter, Elizabeth Woods, and Esom Hannan bought the Stewart tract from her and her husband in 1790. Keeping his tract for many years, Hannan moved to Missouri with his wife and six children in 1834. Joel Cooper bought the tract. Abram Greenwood, through marriage to a Cooper, acquired the tract and descendants of this family lived and farmed in the community for many years, adding to their land holdings over the years. Among the other important families to live in the Cave Spring community in the 19th century were the Bells, Chapmans, McCampbells, Hartmans, Harrises, Lavinders, Turners, Beckners, Harveys, Boons, Trouts, Starkeys, Shartzers, and Zirkles. John Steele and Richard Fowler, merchant and blacksmith, built a storehouse along the western side of what is now the intersection of Va. Rt. 419 and U. S. Rt. 221, serving the needs of the early community. (Later their store became known as the Berry store, which was demolished in 1959 in order to widen the road.) The store passed through the hands of Nathan Chapman and Thomas Sublette, James Watts, and Robert Thaxton. In 1868 Thaxton turned over the store to Joseph Berry, who ran it until 1911. Robert Wyatt then became the proprietor until 1917, and was followed by W. A. Rasnake. A. J. Phelps also ran a blacksmith shop near the store in 1880. After the Civic War, Joseph A. Gale, a Confederate veteran and also a doctor, opened up an office in a small cabin in the yard of S. H. Greenwood. Other doctors already present included Hardin and White. In 1881 Dr. Gale left Cave Spring and moved to Big Lick to become Norfolk and Western’s chief surgeon. The home he built in the 1870’s still remains. Dr. Gale was associated with the founding of Lewis-Gale Hospital. The Frank Richardson family was also important to Cave Spring. He ran a flour mill, but also invented and assembled Richardson cradles, which were similar to scythes, with wooden fingers running parallel to the cutting blade. Wheat was cut with a sweeping motion and dumped on the ground. The implement caught the grains on the same end, which made binding easier and faster. Cave Spring has quickly transformed into a suburb of residential subdivisions. Business and industry have located on Va. Rt. 419 and other thoroughfares and disguised the agricultural nature of the past. STARKEY Starkey, located southwest of Roanoke, is an old village off U. S. Rt. 220 and Buck Mountain Road. It is located on lands originally in the Robert Harvey grant. Harvey became a prominent “iron man” in Botetourt County in the late 18th and early 19th centuries and owned 7,000 acres in Roanoke County, stretching to Franklin County and including part of the Starkey community and Penn Forest subdivision. In 1819 Harvey gave 7,000 acres to his two sons, Lewis and Harry, but only Lewis retained the acreage. It was Lewis Harvey who built an iron furnace on the far bank of Back Creek, where brown hematite ore was mined. The Harvey furnace became well-known for its high-quality iron ore. He also built the house called Speedwell, a name taken from the ship that brought his mother’s ancestors to the New World. Built in the 1830’s, the house is one of the oldest remaining homes in Roanoke County. The presence of a serpentine wall is typically Jeffersonian. The village was not named until the Roanoke and Southern Railroad 11 �connected with the Norfolk and Western in the early 1890’s. Tazewell Starkey, owner of land in the vicinity, gave land to the railroad for a right-of-way and his name was assigned to the community. Eventually, a store, residences, stationmaster’s house, post office, and the Shenandoah Packing Company were estab­ lished. The packing company was a thriving industry until 1928 when sugar prices fluctuated, causing the demise of the company. Large amounts of sugar were used in the manufacture of apple butter. The village of Starkey has practically faded as residential development has nearly obliterated the traces of this once busy railroad stop. Va. Rt. 419, which has become heavily traveled and an industrial and commercial strip, is nearby. CLEARBROOK/RED HILL The Clearbrook/ Red Hill community is located in the extreme southeastern corner of Roanoke County, off of U. S. Rt. 220 South, and extends to the Franklin County line. Located a mile north of the Roanoke-Franklin county line, the community extends westward two miles to an area known as Wright’s Siding. In an area near the present Clearbrook School, the community extends eastward and southward off U. S. Rt. 220 South. The names of many early families are retained in the community. Near the Wright’s Siding section is a hill named McElhaney (Mcllhaney) Hill, for an early family. Boones Chapel, a union church nearby, was named for the Boon (Bohne—German derivation) family, who settled in large numbers in both southern Roanoke County and in the Boones Mill area of Franklin County. The Clearbrook community was first known as “Dry Hollow.” An explana­ tion of this name reveals that, in all probability, early settlers found an abundance of springs all along the land near the Blue Ridge Mountains until they reached this section, where they only found two. Hence, it was called “Dry Hollow.” This name was perpetuated until 1925. In that year three schools, Red Hill, Piney Dale, and Dry Hollow consolidated at a more central location. Since three different schools merged, a single name was sought. A contest within the school was held and a girl suggested “Clearbrook” for a clear flowing stream near the school. That school building is now Clearbrook Grace Brethren Church, located about a mile south of the current Clearbrook School. William Mason secured one of the earliest, large grants in the Clearbrook section in 1797. Conveyed to Abram Gish in 1803, the land was divided into tracts. In 1843 William Williamson bought one of these tracts and in 1850 Jonathan Martin bought another. By 1889, William F. Neighbors bought Williamson’s tract and in turn sold it to P. H. Rorer. P. H. Rorer’s purchase was significant because he began an iron mine operation known as Rorer’s Mine. The mine was situated north of Clearbrook school, northwest of a section called Welcome Valley. Eventually, P. H. Rorer sold his property to William and Thomas Campbell. The Campbell family retained this land, but sold a portion of it to the Roanoke County School Board in 1939. The present Clearbrook School was built on this site. Other early land acquisitions were made by Lewis Hartman, Jacob Kingery, and Thomas and Jacob Fowler. Thomas Fowler was an early sheriff of Roanoke County. His daughter married John Boone and they resided on the Fowler property in the Wright’s Siding section. It is believed that the original part of a brick mansion that stands on Va. Rt. 615 was built in 1797 by Christian Holderman and another portion was added in the 1830’s or a little later, perhaps by the Fowlers or Boones. The Boones kept this property for many years, but today Blanche Pedneau and Lida Robertson, sisters, own the home known as “Afton Plantation.” The home is a Virginia I-Form, having a central hall with two rooms up and two rooms down. With additions, there are a total of 12rooms, includingtwo in the basement. If the 1797 date is accurate, only the Harshbarger home in North County is a little older. 12 �The Hartman family, present in large numbers, possessed mechanical abilities. They operated a grist mill and sawmill and some were skilled in making cabinets and coffins or general carpentry work. In addition to the Hartmans, prominent settlers of the Clearbrook community in the past century included the surnames of Graham, Jordan, Kingery, Minnix, Simmons, Mays, Haislip, Donahue, Carter, Ridgeway, Campbell, Hofawger, Argabright, Patsel, Dangerfield, McGuire, Wingo, Petit, and Snyder. Wright’s Siding, named for a Wright family, was primarily a lumber and logging center, but became a flag stop for the “Punkin Vine” railroad that ran between Winston-Salem and Roanoke. In the early 20th century iron mines were worked two miles west of Clearbrook School in a valley known as “Potter’s Hollow.” A small railroad was built from the mines to Starkey. The ore was hauled to a location between Starkey and Roanoke for smelting into pig iron. Most of the families of Clearbrook cultivated smaller plots of land because of the hilly terrain. In the 1950’s the Bova and Beasley families grew apples and peaches commercially in the Wright’s Siding section. Home farming often became a sideline to work in Roanoke, Salem or Vinton, as those areas became more industrial and jobs became available. Most everything was grown—even tobacco, which was not a major crop in Roanoke County but was more prevalent in this location. In the early 20th century, timber and chestnuts were sold by families to be used in furniture making and dyeing. Many early families of the Clearbrook area were of German descent, whose names have undergone transformation but who often populated the rural areas of the County located on the fringes. Their religion has always been an integral part of their lives, as noted by many current descendants who shared stories and activities centering around church, both in the old days and today. The Brethren Church, a church with Germanic origins and branches, is prevalent in this community. There are seven churches of various denominations, however, in the vicinity. The Clearbrook community today is a mixture of rural and suburban, with an emphasis on the rural. Most families work in Roanoke, Salem, the Town of Vinton, or along busy Va. Rt. 419. Some people are also employed at Rockydale Quarry, near Clearbrook School. BA LLY H A C K -M T. PLEASANT Ballyhack is an old name used to refer to an area known today as Mt. Pleasant. Though there are not official boundaries, it could be roughly outlined by the Roanoke River on the north, Back Creek on the south and east, and Roanoke Mountain on the west. According to tradition, the name Ballyhack was more encompassing than Mt. Pleasant. It included the suburb known as Garden City on the western end near Roanoke Mountain; the center was known as Mt. Pleasant because of its location on high ground; and the lower southeastern suburb, extending to the hills along the Roanoke River, was Riverdale. The origin of the name Ballyhack is uncertain but two traditions remain. The most accepted tradition is that the name grew out of a terrible fight. The fight may have occurred at an election precinct between rival political factions whose views clashed. Tempers flared and weapons were used and some of the participants were “hacked” up. A second version of the fight places the free-for-all at a distillery which stood across the Roanoke River from the present Roanoke Industrial Center. The corruption of “Battlehack” or “Battly-whack” has become Ballyhack. A local historian, Raymond Barnes, once proposed that “Bally Hack” is an Irish place name. “Bally” in Ere means “home site” or “place of.” A pioneer named Simon Akers took up some of the land that became part of the Tayloe estate known as Buena Vista, along with some acreage south of the river. Therefore, the early 13 �Scotch-Irish settlers could have labeled his land as “Akers Place” or “Bally Akers,” which became “Ballyhack.” The earliest settlers of the Mt. Pleasant community arrived in the latter part of the 18th century and included Charles Hungate, William Seagraves, Tolliver Craig, Samuel Seagraves, and James Mason. In the 19th century the families of Kefauver, Richardson, Lloyd, Lunsford, Eddington, Bandy, Oliver, Persinger, Garnand, Filson, Leslie, and Huff owned much land and were active in community affairs. Farming was the main occupation, in addition to flour and sawmill operations, blacksmithing, and wheelwrighting. Isaac Huff ran a large dairy farm which later was sold to P. L. Terry, a v / Roanoke banker. Terry engaged the services of Frank Rutrough to manage the farm and dairy. Since Rutrough had married Huffs daughter, the farm became theirs after Terry fell into financial distress and returned the farm to Huff. The Riverdale Corporation ultimately bought his farm and divided it into small tracts so that employees at the silk mill would be provided with available homesites. Today the Roanoke Industrial Center is located where the viscose plant used to be. Some of the old Ballyhack area has been annexed by Roanoke City, while much of the farmland in the northern part has been used for building individual residences and subdivisions. Mt. Pleasant is located in close proximity to the City, where most people are employed. City expansion has usurped the farmland in much of this area except for the land around Windy Gap Mountain and off of Yellow Mountain Road. BONSACK Bonsack, a community on the eastern border of Roanoke County and southern Botetourt County, has an early history primarily rooted in a German migration. While there are no official boundaries, as is the case with other communities in Roanoke County, it encompasses a roughly square area with its center located just south of the intersection of U. S. Rt. 220 Alternate and U. S. Rt. 460. It is generally thought by residents of Roanoke County that its limits (except for the eastern one) extend approximately two miles in all directions from this intersection. The peripheries are bounded by Read Mountain to the north, Coyner Springs to the east, the Blue Ridge Parkway to the southeast, and the present Roanoke City limits to the west. The earliest land acquisition in Bonsack was made by a Scotch-Irishman of Lunenberg County in 1749 for 160 acres on Glade Creek, referred to as Big Spring. Robert Ewing listed his home as Lunenberg County, so he probably never lived on his Big Spring property. Big Spring is synonymous with Coyner Springs today. Shortly after Ewing’s patent, others began settling in the Glade Creek community. Among them were John Bowen, John McFall, John Mills, Hugh Mills, Richard Kerr, John Askins, Nathan Nichols, Robert Orr, William Graham, and John McAdoo. In 1755 Ewing conveyed his tract to Benjamin Starrett, who in turn left it to his son, James. In 1785, James sold it to James Stewart, who had acquired other property in the community in 1771. Significant purchases were made in Bonsack by John Howard in 1770. Others to arrive in these years included Thomas Blanton, David May, Benjamin West, Joseph Hawkins, and Anthony Gholson. In 1787 John Depew was granted a 900-acre Glade Creek tract and by 1798 had a total of 1,180 acres. Anthony Gholson had acquired four adjoining tracts in the late 18th century and combined them into a package, selling it in 1801 to Daniel Stoner of Maryland. In doing so, Daniel Stoner became the largest landholder in Bonsack history. The Stoner tract was the real beginning of what became a thriving German settlement along the banks of Glade Creek with easy access to the main east-west route of travel-today U. S. Rt. 460. In the same year as the Stoners arrived, Frederick Thrasher (Drescher) purchased 130 acres in the same area. 14 �Following the Stoners and Thrashers in 1801, were the St. Clairs in 1815 (or perhaps before) and the Bonsacks in 1816. The Stoner family farmed successfully, established a flour mill, distillery, and a store/post office known as “Stoner’s Store.” The community was also known by the same name. The inheritor of the Stoner estate died in 1845, leaving his wife, Catherine Ammen Stoner, to return to Fincastle. At this point, the Bonsacks picked up where the Stoners left off, assuming the proprietorship of the store. The Bonsacks had already begun a wollen mill in 1822 that made woolen articles and dyed cloth. This industry was perhaps one of the earliest in the Roanoke Valley. After the Stoners left the community, the community was called Good Intent for an interim period. Good Intent was also the name of the ship that carried German immigrants to America. In 1852, when the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad laid tracks through Bonsack, the Bonsack family gave the land for the right-of-way and a depot was built and named Bonsack’s Station. The name has remained virtually intact with only slight modifications. It was shortened to Bonsack’s and then Bonsack in the 20th century. Another contribution of the Bonsack family centers around a unique invention~a cigarette-rolling machine. Grandson of pioneer John Bonsack, James Albert Bonsack invented the device after seeing an advertisement at an outing at nearby Coyner Springs, a popular resort and spa. After many trials and obstacles, a patent for this machine was registered in the United States Patent Office September 4, 1800. The invention allowed the rolling of 120,000 cigarettes a day and did the work of 48 men. The popularity of smoking was growing and the machine was in demand. James Bonsack became a wealthy man within a short time, but unfortunately never used his talents and abilities to create other useful devices. In the 19th century, Bonsack bustled with mills, stores, the railroad, mail and stage runs, the close proximity of Coyner Springs, and the attention the cigarette­ rolling machine was bringing. In addition, agricultural products, especially fruit, were being shipped in large quantities from the Bonsack depot. The Crumpacker and Murray families were especially involved in growing apples and peaches. Today, Murray descendants still operate a cider mill on U. S. 220 Alternate. Other 19th century families of importance to the agricultural tradition of Bonsack included Charles Carney, Samuel G. Wood, Benjamin F. Moomaw, Fleming James, George Cook and Greene Foutz. Today what was once Crumpacker Orchards has been changed by Roanoke developers, Fralin and Waldron, into the Botetourt East and Orchards sub­ divisions. Productive, agricultural land is fast diminishing into residential and urban growth. There are some large farms remaining, however. The main farms still functioning are operated by the Jeter, Murray, Dowdy, Seibel, and Hale families. The first three are geared primarily to livestock and vegetables, the Seibel farm is exclusively a dairy operation, and the Hale farm is used for the artificial insemi­ nation of cows. Other traces of the past remain in a home built by Samuel and Catherine Ammen Stoner in 1836. A Virginia I-Form, it was built for $3,600 and is situated across from the Methodist Church on Bonsack Road. The farms that identified Bonsack for so many years are fading and the community is becoming an amalgamation of urban, suburban, and rural wrapped up in one package. NORTH COUNTY/HOLLINS The North County area is generally located between Roanoke City on the south, Green Ridge on the north, Read Mountain on the east, and Salem on the west. Within the North County community is a smaller section known as Hollins. The Hollins community is near Hollins College and U.S. Rts. 11 / 220, extending to the Botetourt County line on the northeast and Plantation Road on the south. It 15 �also includes part of Carvins Cove, a major water source that supplies Roanoke with a half-million gallons per day. The North County area used to be abundant in wheat fields, livestock, and dairy farms. Most of the land is level, with just enough slope for good drainage. Since Roanoke City immediately adjoined this land, it was inevitable that a growing city would need expansion room. Consequently, this area developed rapidly. Farm after farm was bought and divided into lots, leaving nearly no farms but rather business, industry, and residential developments. The land in the North County area was settled early because of its location close to the major north-south route of travel, now known as U.S. Rt. 11. Peters Creek, Tinker Creek, and Carvn Creek, all tributaries of the Roanoke River, keep the land well-drained. Mark Evans was probably the earliest settler in what is now north Roanoke County. He received his patent in 1748 for 1,910 acres of land, north and south of the Great Lick. This acreage was divided into three farms—Cedar Springs, the Barrens, and the Naked Farm. Part of this land is now inclusive in the Roanoke 'Regional Airport property. Evans’ son, Peter, inherited the North County tract and he in turn left to his children. Two of the three children sold their farms to James Breckenridge and Charles Johnston, developer of Botetourt Springs (Hollins College). The third child, Thomas, continued to live at Evans’ Spring. William Carvin appeared earliest in the Hollins area, leaving a creek and cove in his name. His name appeared first in Captain George Robinson’s Militia in 1746. The Carvins Cove community was once a thriving village that was doomed to extinction because of the desirability of the cove as a major water supply for Roanoke City. The dissolution of this community began when Francis Collins, manager of the Roanoke Water Works, announced that a dam was going to be built to impound water. Long stockings and knickers were standard dress at Carvins Cove School in 1917. (Helen R. Prillaman) In 1942 Roanoke City acquired the Roanoke Water Company and began purchasing land in the Cove for a reservoir. As a result of this action, people were displaced and nearly 60 homes were razed. The community that had developed such close ties was disbanded. Families such as the Rileys, Leonards, Guslers, Kerns, Tinnels, and Laymans lost their homes. Early settlers of the Hollins/Summerdean area, south of U.S. Rt. 11/220, included William McClanahan in 1748, Israel Christian in 1764, and Leonard Fleming in 1782. Neal McNeal settled in the Burlington area in 1770. John Mills was located south of the Summerdean section of Hollins in 1752. By 1767 16 �S Robert Breckenridge owned four tracts totaling 1,508 acres, nearly surrounding the present airport site. John and Joseph Robinson acquired land in the same period, along with Francis Graham, west and southwest of Read Mountain. Tolliver Craig (1787), James Neeley (1762), and Methusaleh Griffith (1748) acquired property in North County, mostly south and west of the airport. The largest landholder in what later became North County in the 18th century was Robert Breckenridge. He was active in civic and military duties until his death in 1772. . . Colonel William Fleming, a*surgeon in the British Navy, came to America m 1755 and served in the Indian wars. He also owned much land, most of which is now in Roanoke City, along the Monterey Golf Course and Tinker Creek. An old house on the Fleming plantation remains on Tinker Creek Lane, N. E. Some historians, however, think it was not the main dwelling. In the 19th century, some newcomers, mostly Germans, arrived. The Garst family took up land at the foot of Green Ridge, on the west branch of Carvin Creek, later in Hanging Rock and Kesler’s Mill in Salem. General Edward Watts, from all records the most wealthy Roanoke Countian in the 19th century, operated a 1,200-acre plantation called Oaklands, now in North Roanoke City. This property descended to family members and eventually George and Peter C. Huff bought some of the property and ran a large farm. T heH uff farm, as it became known, is now Valley View Mall, a reality in the micPT98us. other settlers of the 19th century important to the North County development included the Reads, Olivers, Farleys, Campbells, Niningers, Richardsons, Pettys, Days, Myers, Barnes, Rivercombs, Walronds, Frances, Deyerles, Peffleys, Persingers, Obenchains, Brubakers, Bushongs,Tloutzes, Graybills, Showalters and Laymans. The Hollins community developed rapidly because of the early establishment of Hollins College, first known as the Roanoke Female Seminary and established by Edward William Johnston. Later, when John and Anna Hollins of Lynchburg made large contributions, the college became known as Hollins Institute and eventually Hollins College. Across from the college is Enon Baptist Church, a mid-19th century church established through the efforts of Charles L. Cocke, long­ standing president of Hollins College. It has been speculated, though not fully documented, that the Black Horse Tavern, an early hostelry established in 1782, was located on Old Mountain Road. Old Mountain Road is perhaps the Old Carolina Road that ran from Cloverdale to the Big Lick in earlier days. The only definitive placement of the tavern is one and a half miles from Botetourt Springs in 1851 when John B. Luck purchased part of the land on which the Black Horse Tavern was located. The land was purchased from Thomas Madison and one and a half acres came from Christian Frantz. There is a state road marker in Cloverdale, on U.S. Rt. 11 /220, which places the location of the Black Horse Tavern on this road. The original owner of what has been described as the Black Horse Tavern was John Madison, a cousin of President James Madison. Through the years the property passed through many hands, but many have heard the story that Andrew Jackson, both before and during his term as President, stopped at the Black Horse Tavern on his way to Washington, D. C. The largest contribution of residents that settled North County has been to agriculture. A part of the past now, the Andrews Farm is now the airport and Crossroads Consumer Mall area; the.jluff farm, now Valley View Mall; the Ramsey farm, now the Sheraton and Marriott hotel location; the Kinsey farm, now the site of the Countryside Country Club and Golf Course; the Showalter dairy farm, in the same location; and the Garst dairy and poultry farm is now a myriad of businesses. All farms were located near Interstate 581. Beyond the limits of these Roanoke City farms, were the Petty, Boxley, and Sunnybrook farms, all located in the Plantation Road area; Spring Hill farm, where 17 �«* Walrond Park is today; the Hinman farm and greenhouses, off of Plantation Road just past the city limits; the Bushong farm, off Peters Creek Road; and Wipledale Farm, the land that is the North Lakes subdivision. A mid-19th century home with Greek Revival details stands off of Plantation Road. Built by Peter Nininger, it is now owned by the Vinyard family. A late 18th century home, built by Samuel Harshbarger at Hershberger and Plantation roads, is also still standing but in a dilapidated condition. The North County area has assumed an urban atmosphere in the past 25 years. Business and industry, such as Double Envelope, ITT, and Dominion Bank Operations Center, are located off Exit 43 of Interstate 81. Another large employer, Ingersoll-Rand, is located off of U.S. Rt. 11 on Shadwell Drive and produces drilling equipment. These four companies employ over 2,000 people. North Roanoke County has turned the corner in the latter half of the 20th century—from rural to suburban and urban. The diversified industries now provide employment for many Roanoke Valley residents. The productive farms of the 19th and 20th centuries have succumbed to the continuing development of the Roanoke Valley. M ASO NS COVE The Masons Cove community is located between Fort Lewis Mountain and Catawba Mountain, east and west of Va. Rt. 311. The original land grant to John Mason Sr. gave the name to the community and the creek. Mason left this tract to his son, John, who in turn left it to his son, James. At this point, the Mason ties were broken when James sold it to Jeremiah Pate of Bedford. In 1795 Absalom Smith owned most of the land in the Masons Cove area. Daniel Goodwin had a 600-acre grant above the head of Mason Creek in 1799. Others with 18th century holdings were John Robinson in 1751, Samuel Crawford in 1787, and George Chambers’ large 1794 survey composed of 12,700 acres. Near to Bradshaw were Patrick Sharkey in 1760, Cain Scantland in 1783, and Wiley Murdock in 1798. The mountainous terrain of the Masons Cove/Bradshaw area has caused this section to be sparsely populated through the years. By the mid-19th century some new names appeared in the community. Among them were the Leonards, Hansons, McDaniels, Humphreys, and Runnels. In the Bradshaw area appeared the families of Martin, Hines, Moore, Stump, Murdock, Dallas, Garman; and later the families of Bain, Hix, Barton, Bradford, Jones, Long, and Trent. Early families in the Masons Cove community, before growth really occurred in the mid-20th century, were few. Most residents worked at the Catawba Sanatorium or a large peach orchard nearby that was run by a New York millionaire named Dr. Lease. The surnames of Crawford, Haines, Sumner, Thomas, Francisco, Moses, and Lark were some of the families between Masons Cove and Bradshaw. It was not until the depression years that the characteristics of this very rural community began to slowly change. In this period, timber and tan bark were the source of jobs. Other jobs were found in a canning factory, in sawmills, and at the Sanatorium. G. K. Custer, originally from Catawba, has been a store owner in Masons Cove since 1933. His store carries everything from weed eaters to key chains, along with being a big game checking station. Hunting and fishing licenses are also sold there. Since it is the only store in Masons Cove, there are few people Custer does not know. In 1933 the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) pitched tents in the Cove and built cabins. The cabins became a camp where they were based while building fire trails through the mountains. In 1941 the CCC camp became an Army camp/mechanical school. Soldiers were trained to work with Jeeps, trucks, tractors, and other equipment. From 1943 - 1946 German prisoners were housed in * this camp. They picked apples in the orchards and worked on nearby farms. 18 �The Havens Game Refuge is located in the Masons Cove area. The game sanctuary, a part of the State of Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, comprises about 6,000 acres of Fort Lewis Mountain, running from Hanging Rock to a point just short of the Montgomery County line. Timber companies own much of the land abutting the Havens Game Refuge and running to the Carvins Cove Watershed. Masons Cove has never been suited to farming on a large scale. Today it is perhaps only five percent agricultural. Most people work in the cities of Salem or Roanoke and grow small gardens for their families. New residents find its rural atomosphere and proximity to jobs in Roanoke and Salem desirable. CATAW BA^ ^ > c th a r J s o r 7 S Just across Catawba Mountain from Masons Cove is the community of Catawba. It is actually a valley nestled between Catawba Mountain on the south, and the North, Cove, and Brush mountains to the north. It is also east and west of Va. Rt. 311, the route that carries the traveler through the gap at Hanging Rock and Masons Cove and over Catawba Mountain into the valley. The name of the community comes from a once powerful Indian tribe of Siouan stock whose territory lay mainly in North and South Carolina, including several towns on the Catawba River. These Indians may have been on warring raids of the Shawnee tribes of Pennsylvania. At any rate, the name appears at the time of the first white settlement in the Roanoke Valley. Along the northern shoulder of the Catawba Mountain is Sandstone Ridge. The community is located at the base of the ridge; on its eastern side is Catawba Hospital, at the site of the once popular spa known as Red Sulphur Springs. Settlement in the Catawba Valley occurred early, the result of’adevelopment by Benjamin Bordon Sr. A large, 90,000-acre tract was issued to Borden and was called the Borden Grant. (The land encompassed the heart of what is now the northern part of Rockbridge County^In addition, Borden developed smaller tracts on much of the choice land along the lower Catawba. Borden passed on much of this land to his heirs and some to other settlers. The first settlements of his land in the Catawba Valley were by John McFerran, James Montgomery, James Davis, and Bryan McDonald. Soon after appeared David Mitchell, William Snodgrass, James McAfee, Samuel McRoberts, Robert Poage, Henry Switchard, John McClenachan, Joshua Hadley, and John Hadley. The upper McAfee place was purchased by Archibald Woods of Albemarle County in 1771. In 1783 this tract was inherited by his grandson, John, and was known as Indian Camp. Several other farms surrounded Indian Camp. George Painter, G. Washington Lewis, Charles Peck, Nelson Barnett, John Lester, George'w. Wallace, David Barnett, Captain W. W. Brand, and John Hackley lived nearby. Nearly everyone" farmed, but others were cargenters, blacksmiths, wagonmakers, mill owners, merchants, and wheelwrights. (Jffter families present since the early days, included the McConkeys, Spessards, Brillharts, Doosings, Sesslers, McHenrys, Gordons, Moomaws, Damewoods, Garmans, Alls, Brunks, Burks, Custers, Halls, Johns, Surfaces, Huffmans, Thomases, Laymans, Shelors, Starkeys, Wrights, and Jeters. The settlers of this community and their descendants continued farming in a tradition that has remained relatively constant through the years. In addition to farming, and running flour mills and sawmills, a stave mill was in operation in the early 20th century that drew many people to work in Catawba from nearby Craig County and the Masons Cove area. After the staves were cut, they were loaded on wagons and hauled across the mountain to the Catawba depot in Masons Cove in order to be shipped. The staves were made into whiskey barrels before Prohibition. Tomato canning factories also provided additional employment about the same time as the stave mill. 19 �Employment was also augmented when the Catawba Sanatorium opened in 1909 for tubercular patients. Today, Catawba HospitaTisserving primarily as a geriatric facility with psychiatric services and continues to employ many residents. Today, the job orientation of the Catawba Valley is still primarily agricultural, just as in the past. There are several big farms, specializing in dairying and Black Angus beef cattle. The largest dairy operations are those of Claude Sirrey, Earl Sirrey, Bobby Custer, and Vernon Lee. Those raising mostly Black Angus cattle include the Phelps, Morehead, Steele, NcNeil, Custer, and Garman farms. A trip over the mountain to Catawba is a retreat from the asphalt and concrete in the Roanoke Valley. Some of the oldest homes (mostly log) still remain visible as one travels the roads of this community. An escape to this pastoral scene makes one appreciate the land and its unspoiled, idyllic nature. WEST C O U N TY -FO R T LEWIS A N D GLENVAR The Fort Lewis community derived its name from the fort and estate of the same name in the earliest days of settlement. It was once the inclusive name of the area west of Salem. Today there are two communities. The communities are bounded by Fort Lewis Mountain on the north and west sides, and Poor Mountain on the south side. Though the communities of Fort Lewis and Glenvar once comprised an entity, they are more separate today. The origin of the name, Fort Lewis, springs from Andrew Lewis, early settler of the Roanoke Valley and Indian fighter who, along with other settlers, experienced danger from the threat of Indian attack. As a matter of protection, stockaded forts were built along the frontier. Fort Lewis was one of those built. The area around the fort was sparsely settled in 1750. However, prior to the Civil War until about 1890, there were three large farms in the community north of Roanoke River. The Joseph Deyerle farm was located in the community now known as Glenvar; the White farm, south of U.S. Rt. 11 and west of f o r t Lewis School, where the forLonce stood; and the Zirkle farm, east of the White farm. These farms were especially large compared to others in Roanoke County during the 19th century. The White farm encompassed 4,500 acres, the Zirkle farm 1,200 acres, and the Deyerle farm, approximately 1,500 acres. The Deyerle farm was the oldest, lying in both Roanoke and Montgomery counties. These three large farms, because of their size, utilized slave labor prior to the war. Principal crops were corn, wheat, hay, and some tobacco. Before the restraints of prohibition, stills and the manufacture of intoxicating liquors were common. In 1822 Samuel White built a residence named Fort Lewis east of the old fort, prior to the White purchase, beginning in 1748, the land had been in the possession of James Campbell, Alexander Boyd, Alexander Baine, and Thomas Norvell. In 1910 the Fort Lewis estate was sold to Franjc Burwell Gordon, who had amassed a fortune in South America with Standard Oil Company. The White home was extensively remodeled. In 1948 the mansion was destroyed by fire. Only a I highway marker locates the historic spot that housed the fort and the mansion. Farming continued to dominate the Fort Lewis community until about 1890, when the effects of the Roanoke City boom were spreading and the first industry was established. The diversification of Roanoke County as a railway manufactur­ ing and commercial center provided job opportunities for many people in the Glenvar area. People no longer depended on farms for a livelihod but instead were employed by firms in Roanoke City. Some worked in Salem, some at Pierpont Brick Works, and some at the Glenvar and Hurt canneries. Between 1917 and 1927 Fort Lewis experienced a 67 percent increase in population, double the growth of the rest of Roanoke County in this period. This increase was brought about largely because of a movement of people from the adjacent territories of Floyd, Franklin, and other counties, along with some from Roanoke City, the Town of Salem, and a few out of state. Between 1920 and 1930, these new residents comprised 40 percent of the population. 20 �In essence, the years between 1890 and 1930 showed a trend away from agriculture with only 28 percent involved in farming and 72 percent engaged in other occupations. The other jobs were a direct result of the industrial growth of Roanoke City and Salem. By the mid-20th century the Fort Lewis community made the transition from rural to suburb or residential district of Roanoke City and Salem. Subdivisions now comprise what were once the three large farms. The Glenvar community is located to the west of Fort Lewis and Va. Rt. 642. Though the area both south and north of U.S. Rts. 11/460 is considered the Glenvar district because of school attendance, the section south of the highway is commonly referred to as Wabun or the “Bend” neighborhood. Further west is the Big Hill neighborhood and Dixie Caverns, near the Montgomery County line. The name Glenvar originated in 1891 from Mary Glenvar Harmon, daughter of Frank P. Harmon, a large landowner who was originally from Floyd County. Mary Harmon was often seen near the railroad stop commonly referred to as Deyerle’s Switch, a mile or two east of Glenvar. When the Norfolk and Western railroad station was established, the Harmons built a store and cannery there. The store later became.Logan’s Barn. The Virginian Railway also had a flag stop in Wabun, just across the Roanoke River, a little farther upstream. The earliest acquisitions of land in the Glenvar area were those of James Campbell in 1742; Thomas Arthur in 1774; Peter Deyerle in 1779; and Thomas Taylor in 1796 (near Dixie Caverns). Prior to the Civil War, the names of Duckwiler, Goodwin, Hatcher, Harvey, Beamer, Gaines, Owens, Goff, and Buckner, appeared in the “Bend” area near Deyerle’s Mill. North of U.S. Rt. 11 and west of the White estate lived the family of Joseph Deyerle (grandson of Peter), as well as the families named Yates, Wythe, Will, Bean, Moses, Kent, and Thomas. Prominent families of the Glenvar area in the early mid-20th century included the Callahans, Rettingers, Hatchers, Chapmans, Nichols, Boards, Duckwilers, Goodwins, Hinderlights, Taliaferros, Bandys, Thomases, and George and Bill Johnston. . Green Hill, a home belonging to Congressman Robert Craig, was later converted to a country club after the inside was gutted. Today the grounds are Green Hill Park Equestrian Center, a county horse farm site. The Glenvar area, like Fort Lewis, has completed the change from rural to suburban. The influx of Medeco Security Locks, Kroger warehouse, Richfield nursing home, and several light industries has helped bridge the gap. A subdivision explosion is apparent in the development of Broadview, Cherokee Hills, Glenvar East, Glenvar Heights, Andrew Lewis Place, North Beverly Heights, and Westwood Lake Estates. There are still some “hollows,” however, that capture the rural flavor of the past. They survive in the names of the roads—Cove Hollow, Dry Hollow, Fort Lewis Hollow, and Hemlock Dale. GISH’S MILL BECOMES THE TOWN OF VINTON The boom associated with the arrival of the Norfolk and Western Railroad and the subsequent chartering of Roanoke City in 1884 was felt in a small eastern hamlet-Gish’s. Perhaps best described as a domino effect, the population catapulted from 96 in 1880 to 584 in 1884. The sudden swelling of numbers who established their homes in Vinton caused the residents of what was known as Gishjs Mills Gish’s Mill, or Gish’s to incorporate. Many of the new residents of Gish’s were ’workers employed by the Norfolk and Western Railway Shops and the Crozier Furnace. .........................1 1 ... The 1880 census for the community, Gish’s, listed only a few families, one physician, two merchants, two ministers, a shoemaker, a harness maker, a cooper, a house contractor, a miller, and a depot agent. By 1883 Vinton was experiencing growing pains. I , , ., In the winter of 1884 the people of Gish’s convened at the schoolhouse to consider incorporation. A change of name was proposed, with several names 21 �thrown into the hat. B. A. Jones suggested “Vinton,” perhaps because he liked the sound (some Western states have towns with the same name), or perhaps because it contained syllables from the name of the two large land-holding families~the VINyards and the PresTONs. The Vinyards had been present since 1759 and the Prestons arrived in Gish’s from Bedford in 1848, when the first purchase of property was noted. The name of Vinton was adopted on March 17, 1884. Although the growth of Vinton seemed to mushroom in the 1880’s, the history of the village began several decades earlier. When several Gish brothers and one sister arrived in the U. S. Rt. 460 East and Vinton areas in the late 18th century, along with other German families after the Revolutionary War, they found fertile and productive soil along the bank of Glade Creek, a tributary of the Roanoke River. On this land David Gish settled, closer to the East-West route (now U.S. Rt. 460) than present-day Vinton. One brother, George, lived nearby. Another brother, Christian, had acquired land mostly north of U.S. Rt. 460, and at least one brother set up a grist mill with David on Glade Creek sometime in the early 19th century. A Gish family history states that David and his brother, John, owned the mills. When Christian married Susan Houtz in 1816, he left the Bonsack area and moved to what later became known as the Walrond farm in North Roanoke, not far from Burlington. In 1851 Christian and his family moved west to Roanoke, Illinois, just as other Brethren families had done in order to take up new grants of land and escape the slave issue in a “free” state. By 1840, the land books indicated another mill was built, this time on some property purchased by David Gish on Wolf Creek. At some point only the mill on Glade Creek was operating and the plural form of Gish’s Mills was dropped. Early families of Vinton included the Vinyards, Joneses, Harrisons, Walkers, Hunters, Franklins, Obenchains, Longs, Foxes, Matsons, Boyers, James, and Craigs. The growth of the town has moved steadily forward, in direct relationship to the growth of Roanoke City. In the 1960’s, when Vinton nearly doubled its territory, the population also nearly doubled. Today Vinton is a progressive town that is part of Roanoke County, but functions governmentally as a town. Population has increased from 14 families in 1880 to approximately 8,500 people in 1988. A small, hometown spirit prevails where businesses, churches, and residences comprise the majority of land. Vinton and eastern Roanoke County border the Blue Ridge Parkway, providing the natural scenery and recreation areas for those who want an escape form a city atmosphere. Vinton is on the threshold of a new era that may have an effect on the small town atmosphere. The Explore project may come close to its boundaries, how the zoological park and greenway are handled could be a boon or perhaps a detriment to the town. Conclusion While the urban growth and development of the City of Roanoke and the City of Salem have had a profound effect on many of these communities, there are some neighborhoods remaining with the rural, agrarian atmosphere that has earmarked the Valley since the early days. The communities most directly affected by this growth and suburban, residential development are those in close proximity to the cities. In some cases, signs of agriculture have been obliterated (such as in the Williamson Rd./North County and Southwest County areas). In other cases, such as Bonsack, Mt. Pleasant, and Ft. Lewis/Glenvar, the neighborhood is in a transition—a mixture of suburban, urban, and rural. In the Back Creek/Poages Mill area, the rural atmosphere is fast becoming suburban. The peripheral areas, such as Clearbrook/Red Hill, Bent Mountain, and Catawba, are still virtually agricultural, with ties to the earlier days. Descendants of settlers are often farming the same soil and providing the basic need of food for their families. Since farms are 22 �much smaller, as well as families, farming on a large scale is more rare. Catawba is one of the few communities that remains more stable with regard to agriculture. What is going to happen to the remainder of Roanoke County as it continues to grow and head for the 21st century? Will the rural remnants of the past disappear altogether? Only time will render this answer. SOURCES USED BOOKS AND MONOGRAPHS Bicentennial Publication Committee. Botetourt County History Before 1800. Fincastle n.p., 1976 Bonsack, Daniel M. and Edith Bonsack Barnes. Bonsack Family History. Elgin, 111.: The Brethren Press, 1970 Gish, Ira M. Footprints in the Sands o f Time. Loma Linda, Ca.: A. M. and I. M. Gish, 1970 Harshbarger Association. A History o f Jacob and Maria Eva Harshbarger o f Switzerland. Lafayette, In.: 1908 Jack, George and E. B. Jacobs. History o f Roanoke County. History o f Roanoke City and History o f the Norfolk and Western Railway Company. Roanoke: Stone Printing, 1912 Kegley, F. B. Virginia Frontier. Roanoke: Southwest Virginia Historical Society, 1938 Leggett, J. W. What Hath God Wrought? Roanoke: Progress Press, 1964 McCauley, William. History o f Roanoke County. Salem, Roanoke City, Virginia and Representative Citizens. Chicago: Biographical Publishing Company, 1902 Prillaman, Helen R. A Place Apart. Roanoke: Helen R. Prillaman, 1982 _____________ _ Places Near the Mountains. Roanoke: Helen R. Prillaman, 1985 Stoner, Robert Douthat. A Seed-Bed o f the Republic: Early Botetourt. Roanoke: Roanoke Valley Historical Society, 1962 Summer, Lewis Preston. History o f Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786. Richmond: J. L. Hill, 1903 Whitwell, W. L. and Lee W. Winbome. The Architectural Heritage o f the Roanoke Valley. Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1982 Work Projects Administration in the State of Virginia. Roanoke: Story o f City and County. Roanoke: Stone Printing, 1942 ________ PERIODICALS, NEWSPAPERS, PAMPLETS______________________________ ___ Armistead, Mary Bland. “Poage’s Mill.” Roanoke Times & World News, 8 November 1978 Barnes, Raymond. “A Specialty on Bent Mountain.” Roanoke Times & World-News, 26 September 1964 _______________ . “Bent Mountain Section is Rich in History.” Roanoke World-News, 3 September 1960 ______________ _ “Brethren, or Dunker, Church Began at Peters Creek.” Roanoke World-News, n.d. Virginia Room, Roanoke City Library ______________ “Cave Spring Fostered Many Churches and Gave to Roanoke Many Prominent Early Families." Roanoke World-News, 24 April 1959 ________________f «Doc j 0hn Henry Pinkard Made Fortune with Yarbs.” Roanoke World-News, 13 April 1963 ___________ “Doctor Walker: A Vinton Leader.” Roanoke World-News. 21 October 1967 _____ __________ «Fort ^ ¡ 8 Long Disappeared, Yielded Bones of Dozen Victims of a Tragedy.” Roanoke World-News, 4 November 1961 ______________ “Gish’s Mill, Built Prior to 1838 Provided Start for Town; Railroad Did Remainder.” Roanoke World-News, 7 May 1960 ______________ “History of Cave Spring Began with Patent of David Stewart About 1850,” Roanoke World-News, 22 April 1959 ______________ i “Jordan Woodrum: Apple King.” Roanoke World-News, 27 May 1967 ______________ . “Log Cabin Had Prominent Part in Development of Cave Spring,” Roanoke World-News, 23 April 1959 _______________ “Rich Zinc Mine Once Made Bonsack Big Freight Center.” Roanoke World-News, 13 November 1958 _____________ “Richardson Cradles for Harvesting Grain made Cave Spring Pioneer Area Celebrity” Roanoke World-News, 22 October 1959 23 �_______________“Scotch-Irish Settlers Gave Unusual Name to Ballyhack Area of Southeast Roanoke” Roanoke World-News, n.d. Virginia Room, Roanoke City Library _____________ S “Squire Elijah Poage Built Back Creek Mill in 1848.” Roanoke Times, 30 April 1960 _______________“Surveyors Gave Bent Mountain Name.” Roanoke World-News, 27 August 1960 _______________“Valley’s Farmed Orchards Yield to Suburban Growth.” Roanoke World-News, 1 January 1967 Brown, R. C. “Roanoke County, A County of Diversified Living.” Virginia and the Virginia County, Vol. 5, No. 3. March 1951 _______________“Longwood Was Salem’s Castle.” Journal o f the Roanoke Historical Society, 5, No. 2, Winter 1969 Kennedy, Joe. “Then Where Will the Farmers Jaw?” Roanoke Times & World-News, 19 July 1981 _______________“Test-tube Cow? They’re Working Veterinary Miracles in Bonsack” Roanoke Times & World-News, 31 May 1981 Layman, Mark. “Egg Farms Aim to Cut Down Manure, Tension.” Roanoke Times and World-News, 12 October 1987 Moncure, Gracy Terry. “Recollections of Bent Mountain, Virginia.” Journal o f the Roanoke Valley Historical Society, 3, No. 2 (Winter 1967) Salem-Roanoke County Chamber of Commerce, Better Living, Salem, 1987 Salem Times-Register: Centennial Edition, 27 May 1938 The Iron Worker, Winter, 1955 Vannoy, Tam “Etna’s Water Was Famous” The Vinton Messenger, 17 March 1984 _______________“From Mill Days to Modern Ways.” The Vinton Messenger, 17 March 1984 “Vinton Town Charter, 1884” The Vinton Messenger, Vintennial Edition, 17 March 1984 Wright, Andy. “Changing Scene” Roanoke Times & World-News, 25 March 1979 Yancey, Dwayne “Welcome to Custer’s Last Deer-check Stand.” Roanoke Times and World-News, 17 November 1987 _______________________________ GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS AND PUBLICATIONS________________________________ Botetourt County, Virginia. Deed, Land, Surveyor, Tax, Will and assorted other record books, Botetourt County Court House, Fincastle _______________ Deed, Estate, Land, Order, Minute, Surveyor, Tax, Will and assorted other record books. Roanoke County Courthouse, Salem Vinton, Town of. Minutes of the Town Council, 1908-1911. Municipal Building, Vinton Virginia, Commonwealth of Land Grant Book, Vols. 25, 27, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34 _______________Report o f the Superintendent o f Public Instruction. 1871-1986 U. S. Census o f Agriculture Virginia Department of Agriculture and Commerce. ________________________ LECTURES, TAPES, UNPUBLISHED PAPERS AND MANUSCRIPTS________________________ Bonsack, Jacob. Personal letter, 17 July 1845 Bonsack, James Evans. Paper, “A Sketch of the Life of James Albert Bonsack, Including a Brief Account of the Bonsack Cigarette Machine,” 1938. Vertical flies, Virginia Room, Roanoke Public Library. Roanoke Bonsack, John Personal letter, 1 September 1845 Bonsack, Salome Personal letter, 16 September 1845 Brunk, John. Mid-19th century carding receipts. Lucille B. Garman. Catawba Duke University, Manuscript Division, Divinity School Library. “Bonsack Papers,” selected letters from 46 vols., by permission, Durham, N. C. Durr, Ola Gish. History o f the Harshbargers, n.p., n.d. Roanoke Hospital, Catawba. Informational Brochure, 1987. Jane Lockwood, hospital administrator, Catawba ______________ Program, “75th Anniversary of Catawba Hospital, 1909-1984.” Dr. R. Michael Marsh, Catawba Nester, George, W., town manager, Vinton. Letter 3 February, 1988. Vinton Peters, Dr. Norma Jean. Paper, “Afton Plantation,” May 1987. Roanoke Pinkard, Dr. John Henry, “Roanoke Biographies.” Vertical files, Virginia Room, Roanoke Public Library, Roanoke Poage, Elijah. Mill books. Mary Gregson, Roanoke 24 �Roanoke County Schools, Patrons. Historical Data of Clearbrook, 1950, (revised by principal, Dave Trumbower, 1986, and retitled “The Clearbrook Community Since 1787") Roanoke School files, Back Creek Elementary School, 1987, Roanoke ______________ School files, Fort Lewis Elementary School, 1987, Salem ______________ School files, Glenvar Elementary School, Salem ____________ _ School files, Mount Pleasant Elementary School, Roanoke Roanoke Valley Historical Museum. Deyerle U tters (correspondence between Peyton U wis, ex-slave, and Mrs. Freeland, Deyerle descendant). Center in the Square. Roanoke Virginia, Botetourt County. Deed, Will, Marriage, Order, Surveyor, Chancery, Land, Tax, Death and other assorted record books. Botetourt County courthouse. Fincastle WPA (Work Projects Administration). “Roanoke County Communities" (No. 14), 13 March 1942. Virginia Room, Roanoke Public Library. Roanoke _____________ . “Social Customs and Colorful Reminiscences of Roanoke County," 1940. Virginia Room, Roanoke Public Library. Roanoke Woods, James P., “Personal Biographical Sketches and Reminiscences of James Pleasants Woods,” 1943. James P. Woods, Jr. Salem Hildebrand, J. R. “An Historical Map of Roanoke County, Virginia.” The Roanoke Historical Society, Roanoke, 1968 _______________ . “Historical Map of Botetourt County, Virginia 1730-1820” (Charles Burton, researcher; F. B. Kegley, annotations). The Roanoke Historical Society, Roanoke, Va, n.d. _ _ _ _ _ _ J “Map of the Early Roanoke Community, 1740-1760” (as cited in F. B. Kegley’s Virginia Frontier, p. 176) _______________. “Original Land Grants in Roanoke County” (showing a portion of Roanoke County). The Roanoke Historical Society, Roanoke, 1986 Hotchkiss, Jed. “Map of Roanoke and Botetourt Counties” (under the direction of Major A. H. Campbell, engineer, P.A.C.S., from surveys and reconnaissance). Engineering office of Jed Hotchkiss, Staunton, 1865 Walker, Harold W. “Official Map of Vinton, Roanoke County, Virginia.” Roanoke County Plat Book 1. p. 159,30 April 1911, Roanoke County Clerk’s Office, courthouse, Salem ___________ INTERVIEWS________________________________________ Amos, Annie, Masons Cove resident. Interviews by Deanna Gordon and the author, July and November 1987, Roanoke Angle, Mrs. Sue. Bent Mountain resident. Interview by George Kegley, September 1987, Roanoke Boone, Otha. Clearbrook/Red Hill resident. Interview, 25 May 1987. Roanoke Bowman, Carl. Catawba resident and owner of Bowman’s Store. Interview, 31 July 1986 Brooks, Ronnie and Brenda, Bonsack residents, Interview, July 1981, Roanoke Briggs, Grace Terry, Bent Mountain resident, Interview by George Kegley, September 1987, Roanoke Carter, Hazel Simmons, Clearbrook resident, Interview, 22 May 1987. Roanoke Cook, Keith and Doris Lee, Bonsack residents, Interview, July 1980 and March 1981, Roanoke Custer, Gerald K. Masons Cove resident, Interview, 12 June 1987. Roanoke Damewood, Gertrude, Catawba resident. Interview by Carol Giallanza, 6 July 1987, Roanoke Davis, John. Coyner Springs resident, Interview, June 1981, Roanoke Dillard, Mary Plaine, Descendant of the Bonsack family. Interview, March 1981, Roanoke Douglas, P. B., and Lowell Gobble, Roanoke County extension agents, Interview, August 1986, Salem Francisco, Frank and Virgie. Masons Cove residents. Interview by Carol Giallanza, 2 July 1987, Roanoke Garber, Mary Crumpacker, Bonsack resident, Interview, February 1981, Roanoke Garman, Clovis and Lucille, Catawba residents, Interview, 31 July 1986, Roanoke Garman, Goldie. Catawba resident, Interview, 25 March 1987. Roanoke Giles, Ruth. Masons Cove resident, Interview by Deanna Gordon, July 1987, Roanoke Grant, Vester, Bent Mountain resident, Interview by George Kegley, September 1987, Roanoke 25 �Gregson, Mary, Descendant of Elijah Poage, Interview, November 1986, Roanoke Hartman, Mr. and Mrs. Owen, Mt. Pleasant residents, Interview, 1 July 1987, Roanoke Hartman, Wade Hampton “Hamp”, Clearbrook resident, Interview by David Trumbower, August 1987, Roanoke Jeter, Richard. Bonsack resident, Interview, October 1980. Roanoke Keffer, Minor, Former member of the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors and owner of Catawba Mercantile, Interview, 25 March 1987, Roanoke Lucas, Howard. Clearbrook resident. Interview by David Trumbower, August 1987, Roanoke Murray, Dottie and Max, Bonsack residents, Interview, January 1981, Roanoke Pedneau, Blanche. Clearbrook resident and former librarian for Roanoke County, Interview by George Kegley and the author, 4 January 1987, Roanoke Reed, Mrs. Essie. Bent Mountain resident, Interview by George Kegley, September 1987, Roanoke Ronk, Betty Showalter, Daughter of the Reverend Showalter of Masons Cove Church of the Brethren, Interview, November 1987, Roanoke St. Clair, Palmer, Descendant of St. Clairs in Bonsack. Interview, November 1980, Roanoke Saul, George. Roanoke resident who worked on the Andrews farm as a boy, Interview, November 1987, Roanoke Seibel, George. Bonsack resident, Interview, July 1981, Roanoke Shelor, Kyle, Catawba resident, Interview, 31 July 1986, Roanoke Wilkerson, Dorothy Cook, Bonsack resident, Interview, July 1979, Roanoke Wine, Ruth Crumpacker, Bonsack resident, Interview, January 1981, Roanoke Wingate, Harold, Owner of the Homeplace Restaurant, Catawba, Interview by Inez Kline, August 1987, Roanoke Young, Pauline Patsel, Mt. Pleasant resident, Interview by Tom McCarty, August 1987, Roanoke 26 �The Early Economy of Roanoke County by Norwood Middleton Roanoke County’s early economy was keyed to the land, the river, the rail and the human spirit. In a sense, it still is. Sturdy settlers, faced with necessity, strengthened and inspired by determina­ tion and vision, moved into the Valley of Roanoke in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Daily, they faced the hard realities of subsistence. But there was also time for dreams, for a glowing optimism, and for many, a spark of entrepreneurship. The Indians, by felling trees and burning brush from bottomland along the river to improve their hunting grounds, became unwitting developers. The lure of fertile soil on a fairly narrow but flat floor of this spectacular valley proved irresis­ tible to the pioneers migrating from the north and east. Many stopped and set up a lifetime of housekeeping and cleared more and more land for farming; others paused and moved on. Those who stayed were joined by other wanderers and soon became the vanguard of countless thousands who have lived and thrived, suffered and died here since then. In the beginning there were only a few families. They staked out claims for homesteads, for expansive fields and flowing streams, for strategic sites along the primitive paths that served as roadways for those moving on horseback and wagons. They hardly recognized what they did as the basis for an economy, but that in fact is what it was. This was a time when the pioneers scraped together food, fuel and shelter from the land, hunting wild game, planting and cultivating a few crops, chopping and sawing wood from plentiful forests. Some brought with them a few chickens, a milk cow and other livestock, and seed for grain, tobacco and vegetables. Basic furniture was mostly hand-hewn from felled trees, as were primitive utensils for eating. As the attraction of their surroundings and the climate grew, the settlers began to diversify their crops and to clear more land. Holdings varied in size from small plots for a cabin and vegetable garden to tracts of about 5,000 acres, some acquired by purchase, some by grants, others by squatter choice. By the late 1700’s, planters were growing modest crops of corn, hay, hemp, flax, beans, potatoes, wheat, oats and barley. Hemp and what little tobacco could be produced were being shipped elsewhere for cash or barter. Wheat became by far the predominant field crop, followed closely by corn, inasmuch as flour and meal were vital to sustenance. By the mid-1800’s there were additional and larger farms, fruit orchards, improved dwellings, more comfortable furnishings, and more people. Livestock, Norwood C. Middleton, author o f Salem: A Virginia Chronicle, retired in 1983 as assistant to the president and publisher o f the Roanoke Times & WorldNews after 36 years with the newspaper. A graduate o f Roanoke College, Middleton also worked fo r the Martinsville Daily Bulletin and the Southwest Times in Pulaski. He was managing editor o f The Roanoke Times fo r 20 years and he held the same post fo r the combined papers three years. He is aformer president o f Salem Historical Society. 27 �including cattle, horses and hogs, grew in importance not only for home-farm use but for trade. It soon became apparent that the blue grass sections, such as Catawba Valley, offered the best opportunity for the more profitable cattle operations. In the Roanoke Valley, the plantations, with their expansive fields and slave labor, brought their owners economic and political influence that pervaded the whole area. Their names are legend. The Andrew Lewis lands of more than a thousand acres near Salem were bought in 1811 by Nathaniel Burwell. The Peter Evans estate embraced nearly 2,000 acres, as did those of William Carvin and Edward Watts. The largest holdings were those of the McClanahans. Planting and harvesting these lands had enormous economic impact on the entire valley, given the idiosyncrasies of the weather, transportation, crop experimentation and other factors. Something of the concerns of the planters is illustrated in a mid-summer harvest accounting which Burwell, one of the larger slaveholders, gave his son, Nat, who was on an extended visit at Shirley Plantation near Hopewell: “We have gotten out 2700 bushels of wheat and have all the balance of the crop in the barn. We have gotten all the oats in the barn and the hay in the house and the mill field into a rick. The oats crop is a very fine one. We made between 8 and 900 bushels of wheat on the Town field and about 1400 bushels off the Bot t om. . . The corn had suffered for rain. We had a good rain the day before yesterday but want more for the corn. The Tobacco looks very well NOW; I have not sold my old Tobacco . . . We shall begin in a few days to break up the oats stubble, get out the balance of the wheat and attend entirely to the Tobacco. The health of the plantation has been good.” Burwell’s reference to tobacco is typical of its special fascination for valley farmers, presumably because of its export value as well as for its growing popularity and the large markets in Lynchburg and Richmond. Despite small yields and inferior quality of tobacco, they kept trying to find the right growing and curing combination that would bring them the success of Virginia’s Piedmont and Tidewater and North Carolina. Some of their crop went to local tobacco factories where it was packed for shipping and some twisted for local personal consumption. In the end, tobacco failed to make the grade as a major crop, due to unsuitable soil and climate. Agriculture was a basic pursuit of the early 19th century, but there were ancillary enterprises as well, all contributing to the frontier economy. A few general stores appeared. Services, such as those of blacksmiths and wheelwrights, became essential, as well as a source of livelihood for the practitioners. There were even efforts at heavy industry. Two of the most important were roadside taverns and merchant mills. Let us look at some of these endeavors. Taverns Travelers along the county’s crossroads increased in number, prompting wayside residents to open taverns or inns for overnight lodging, meals and refreshments and to provide stabling and forage for horses. In turn, these taverns became the community centers, where neighbors often congregated when the day’s work was done. Several were strategically situated in the new Town of Salem and at the intersection of the Great Wagon Road and the Carolina Road, near Big Lick; others dotted the countryside at intervals, most of them in the larger houses. Tavern operators were required to obtain licenses from the county courts. Already, there were governmental regulations to contend with! For a while the courts regulated prices not only of liquor and food but of the number of people in each bed. For example, while today’s Roanoke County was still a part of Botetourt, the bars could charge 10 shillings per gallon for West India rum and only two shillings, 28 �six pence for domestic rum. One favorite drink known as Bumbo went for only one shilling, three pence per gallon since it contained only two gills of rum per quart. They could charge nine pence for one warm dish of food and a small beer, but only six pence if the food was cold. When it came to lodging, one person had to pay six pence to have a bed with clean sheets, but if there were two in a bed, the price for each was three pence and three farthings. Stabling with plenty of hay for a horse was set at seven and a half pence, but pasturage, when available, only six pence. Competition was intense for the customers’ money, manifest primarily in the colorful signs seeking to lure them inside such taverns as: The Leather Bottle. The Mermaid. The Star and Garter. The Indian Queen. And the Bull’s Eye. As you see, signage has long been an important economic factor. Merchant Mills Within the scope of the merchant mills which sprang up along practically every stream with enough water to power their operations were three main activi­ ties—grain grinding, timber sawing and brick making. A few of these mills combined all three; some diversified by distilling whiskey and carding wool. Grist mills were the more numerous and more widespread. The larger ones became social meccas. Here farmers and their families brought their grain to be ground into flour or meal; while waiting, they exchanged pleasantries, discussed the weather, politics or other issues of the day. And here primitive economics was often at work; the grower bringing in raw grain for processing and the operator exacting a portion of the final product as compensation, using it himself or selling it. More often it was a matter of cash instead of trade. The millponds were popular for ice skating in winter and sometimes for swimming in summer; there were even paddle boats for recreation at some. Salem and what became Gainsboro and Big Lick were sites of the principal mills, but the Evans Mill at what is now Crystal Spring was one of the earliest. The economic importance of these mills during their heyday can hardly be over-emphasized. From a newspaper advertisement, we know that in Salem in 1821, one mill offered a variety of services and products. It was the Salem Mill, built by Samuel Lewis, the son of General Andrew Lewis, sometime before 1821. Here along the Roanoke River at thefoot of today’s Union Street, one could buy a variety of flours, sawn lumber, carded wooITahd distilled spirits; it was to figure later in Civil War fighting. . Upstream just outside of Salem was the William L. Walton Mill, which, in addition to grinding grain and sawing timber, manufactured bricks that went into a few houses and even mansions being built in the county. On Glade Creek, a woolen mill was established early by two Bonsack brothers, who gave their name to today’s developing section in northeast county. General Store and Services As James Simpson found buyers for the lots that he laid out in his Town of Salem in 1802 and houses were built on them, two or three of them were adapted as general stores to provide some of the needs of the few residents and transients. Elsewhere in the sparsely populated part of the county, there were also a few country stores. By 1820, Salem was the valley’s population center. There is documentation that 290 individuals were living there, compared to 610 in Fincastle. We learn this from a newspaper that was being published in 1821, the Salem Register. The newspaper itself represented an economic step of note. 29 �Along with news reports within its pages, there were advertisements--economic indicators then as today. From them, we know that one Ezekiel Tenison operated a hat manufactory; that he also sold shoes and tobacco products. For these he would accept cash or barter, but he insisted that either medium of exchange had to be delivered “at the time the hats are taken away.” The barter he desired most was “country produce, such as furs of all kinds, lambs’ wool, bees-wax, tallow, feathers, whiskey or grain of any kind.” The ads also pointed to trading in real estate and livestock and to continued strength in tavern operations. Innkeeper Joel Bott was promoting his wine list heavily; in 1823, he wanted all to know that he had added Mataga and Currant wine, and substituted grape for raspberry Bounce. There was no reluctance for doctors to advertise in those days. Four of them published so-called “cards” in the newspaper. One by Dr. Lewis Shanks wanted it known in 1821 that he had “permanently settled himself in Sale. . . and tenders his service to the public in the various branches of his profession (and) has a general supply of medicines for the accommodation of the public.” Another record dated 1827 summarizes the status of service enterprises in Salem, in addition to the mills heretofore mentioned. There was a tanning yard processing hides; a cabinetmaker; two saddlers; five blacksmith shops; a boot and shoe factory; two tailors; a manufacturer of fans used to separate the chaff from wheat; several carpenters; a house painter; and a hat manufactory. The economy of the county clearly was budding and diversifying. Heavy Industry Stabs were made at heavy industry, most of it related to mineral resources, during the pre-natal days of Roanoke County. These efforts met with some success. In fact, minerals were to prove an ever-beckoning lure throughout the 19th century. One of the first who capitalized on iron ore in the area was Robert Harvey, who operated processing furnaces on Catawba and Back creeks before 1800. Another was Samuel G. Adams of Richmond, who built what became the Cloverdale Furnace, which sputtered along until its demise about 1836. While high mining costs and inferior ore quality limited the economic viability of iron production, it was flooding of streams and the river that in 1825 had shut down the Speedwell Furnace in today’s Starkey section. And flooding has continued to be a major factor in the economy. Transportation Transportation was a negative economic factor. Early on, the farmers and townspeople grappled with the vicissitudes of not only moving about in their chosen neighborhoods but of bringing in and shipping out needed and desirable supplies. Travel on horseback and assorted horse-drawn rigs was about all that was available, other than by foot. And bad weather often made extensive movements almost impossible. Rain and mud posed great difficulty in just getting to and from the garden, cowshed and fields on one’s own property; to and from stores, and neighbors’ homes. For horse and wagon, there were little more than narrow roadways that history calls the Great Road north and southwest, the Wilderness Road west and the Carolina Road south. Lynchburg was the direction toward which travelers pointed as they considered their ties with Richmond and Eastern Virginia, and the Blue Ridge was the big obstacle. The trail across Buford Gap was often impassable and always rough-a fact that led to a state-sanctioned project in 1818 to build the Salem-Lynchburg Turnpike. After about ten years of problem-plagued work, the road was completed from Lynchburg to Liberty (now Bedford). Many years passed, however, before a reasonably satisfactory road linked Salem with Lynchburg. 30 �Road scraping was an important part of highway transportation for years. (G. H. Moulse) Somehow, these woes, these major obstructions to trade had to be overcome. Waterways were commonly used arteries elsewhere, and eyes and thoughts soon began turning to the Roanoke River, which flowed eventually to the Atlantic through Albemarle Sound in North Carolina. The James was in the dream stage of development for river traffic-why not the Roanoke? Thus it was that in 1816, the Virginia legislature chartered The Upper Roanoke Navigation Company with the purpose of linking Salem with Weldon, North Carolina, to provide a new channel for moving tobacco and other crops, raw material, and occasional passengers. The project required venture capital in the form of $50 shares from residents along the way, and any others interested. In Roanoke, the stock sale management was undertaken by five leading citizens, Elijah McClanahan, James McClanahan, William Lewis, Griffin Lamkin and William C. Bowyer, The McClanahans, as we have seen, were large land­ holders; William Lewis, a son of General Andrew Lewis; lamkin, the son-in-law of Salem’s founder, James Simpson; and Bowyer, an entrepreneur who wanted a hands-on part in the navigation project. The risk was great, the construction challenging, the progress slow. By 1812, however, a convoy of three flat-bottomed boats had traversed 244 miles of the river through locks and sluices and were tied up at Salem. Now all that was believed needed was cargo for shipment. Overlooked, or at least discounted, were the relatively shallow waters of summer and the floods of spring and fall, r * Nevertheless, by 1834, locks had been completed in Salem. For nearly 40 years thereafter, transshipments on the Roanoke became a reality east of the Blue Ridge. But after only a few years, floods ravaged the locks and sluices west of the Blue Ridge, and traffic ceased above Brookneal (in today’s Charlotte County) after 1837. Fleeting though it was, the navigation project had an economic impact on Salem. In anticipation of river traffic, several buildings went up in the Union Street area where the batteaus were docked, and this community of businesses never really shut down completely. Closer to Main Street, the Salem headquarters building for the river project was erected by two staunch supporters and officials, William C. Bowyer and William Ross. Bowyer lived and operated a general store and warehouse in his substantial brick building, and, incidentally, was the Salem postmaster for a decade during development of the locks and canals. It can be assumed that few if any of the canal investors recaptured their capital. The lack of transportation put a damper on any prospect for real development of this section of what was then Botetourt County. Even the formation of Roanoke County in 1838 could not totally surmount the 31 �transportation problem, although there was a gradual improvement in the roads. These better roads, coupled with the presence of the county courthouse in Salem v rather than Fincastle, gradually began to affect the economy. Now more and more people found it more convenient, indeed necessary, to visit the county seat occasionally. The storied “court days” became a magnet in themselves, and this meant new service businesses in Salem. Agriculture, however, did not lose its dominance in the county and indeed became stronger. Then, in mid-century, came the railroad! In 1852, the course and focus of the local economy was changed forever, gradually but surely. For years, Lynchburg, in the eyes of the people of Roanoke county, was the “big city” to the east, with its markets and influential newspaper. Now the County was to see its frustrating efforts of many years for a railroad culminate in reality. Two and a half years after ground was broken for the first rails under a contract for the Lynchburg-Salem leg of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, a train arrived in the county seat. The road had reached Big Lick the first day of November, 1852, but apparently occasioned little notice. Six weeks later, December 15, 1852, wood-burning locomotives pulled, not one, but, three trains into Salem. They were filled with officials of the railroad, residents of Lynchburg and guests who climbed aboard along the way-all invited for a gala, overnight celebration in the county seat. Even then, there was not unqualified support for the railroad from Roanoke County, which had offered no governmental financial assistance. The challenge to reverse that fact was not long in coming; in one of the speeches at the depot, a rail­ road official called on the county to subscribe $25,000 to help extend the rails westward. Substantial public resistance to a railroad had developed on the mistaken belief that it meant benefits would accrue only to the immediate Lynchburg area; as a result, the voters overwhelmingly rejected any public funds in a March 1853 referendum. Three and a half years later, however, in October 1856, the railroad was completed to its destination at Bristol. Effects of this rail link to the east were soon evident to all and have been sustained for the nearly 140 years since. Trains began moving freight and passengers, and new enterprises emerged. Other Mid-Century Developments The decade prior to the coming of the railroad was not one of exceptionally strong economic growth but it had witnessed other developments worthy of note. For starters, commercial banking appeared on the business scene. While there is no record of its success or fate, the Salem Savings Institution appeared in 1840. Six years later, the Roanoke Savings Bank opened for business. This one seems to have had a measure of success, inasmuch as the year after the trains started moving, it changed its name to the Bank of Roanoke and offered stock by public subscrip­ tion. Nearly all the investors were from the Salem area, leading to the assumption the banks themselves were in the county seat. Still another, the Exchange Bank of Virginia, opened in Salem in 1855, perhaps based on business stirred up by the railroad. We know, too, that what may be described as light industries were thriving in the county. Three of them were in the county seat. The Salem Carriage Factory advertised that it was manufacturing “every variety of carriage now in use, such as, rockaways, buggies, chariottes, barouches and carryalls,” as well as harness. This seems to have been the first of several later wagon manufacturers. Phillip Reed by patent was producing a bevelled wheat fan, which he said cleansed “all kinds of grain from cheat, cockle and smut.” Abraham Hupp operated a sheet metal business next to the county courthouse. In another part of the county, on Back Creek, Elijah Poage set up a sawmill and cabinet works that achieved note. By no stretch of the imagination, however, could it be said that manufacturing had overtaken agriculture. 32 �Two other enduring endeavors of economic importance emerged before the railroad was built. Although the founders of Hollins and Roanoke colleges probably thought only casually, if at all, about how their institutions would affect the business climate, the two colleges nevertheless have had a profound and continuing impact. Launched at Botetourt Springs in 1838 as the Roanoke Female Academy and its name and ownership changed first in 1841 to Valley Union Seminary, later to Hollips Institute and finally to Hollins College, this school grew to its present prestigious stature over the years. Roanoke College was transported in a wagon from Augusta County to Salem in 1847, first as Virginia Collegiate Institute; occupied a section of its first building on its own campus in 1848; and adopted its lustrous present name in 1853. It is clear that the ordinary residents of the county were not totally isolated from the products of distant manufacture before the railroad was built. In their advertisements, merchants were boasting of what they called splendid and tremendous stocks of goods from New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Richmond. It was no simple thing to make buying trips to these commercial centers, however, and the merchants made this plain. One called on customers in February to pay their bills so the merchant could make a buying trip in March. His ad said: “You know I don’t often dun you, nor would I now, but I really want money and must have some before I can make my Spring purchases.” Something of the state of the economy in 1852 is evident from the plea by one leading merchant that he would bargain with his customers for wheat, flour, corn, tobacco and oats and that he would be pleased to offer sugar, salt, iron, nails and blankets in exchange for produce. Gradual Change Such predicaments began gradually to change in the few years between the arrival of the railroad and the Civil War. The operation of spas at the sites of supposed healing springs began making a real impact on the economy. The earliest seems to have been Botetourt Springs in 1822 at the site of today’s Hollins College. Another, Roanoke Red Sulphur Springs in the Catawba Valley, was chartered and added a somewhat different emphasis to a predominantly agrarian section of the county. At both, the waters and pleasant surroundings attracted guests from both the county and, from the standpoint of the economy more important, from far afield. Roanoke Red Sulphur eventually became the core of a state tuberculosis sanatorium, which became the present Catawba geriatric hospital. These were but two of a number of springs that became popular with the reasonably well-to-do throughout mountains, valleys and foothills of the Alleghanies. Hotel operations were also expanded, at least two opening for guests in Salem and another in Big Lick, where the railroad had sparked interest in real estate sales. The first store in what became Roanoke was built by Samuel P. Holt, who unhappily, soon faced the stark reality of an always lurking economic bugaboo—bankruptcy. There were other stores and service shops. A newspaper, the Salem Register, was founded in 1854, the second one of record by that name. Its pages contained advertisements by some of the leading businesses; on them were faithfully printed the schedules of the trains which were becoming increasingly important as a supply link to the east. The War Period Slavery as an economic factor was not as critical for Roanoke County as for the region between the Blue Ridge and the Atlantic. Nevertheless, as the Civil War years neared, slaves labored in the fields, barns and homes of the wealthier landholders here. 33 �In numbers, the slave picture looked like this: There were 2,510 among the 8,477 people in 1850; ten years later, there were 133 more slaves (2,643) and 429 fewer people overall in the population of 8,048. One landowner, Edward Watts, was taxed for 89 slaves in 1854; another Nathaniel Burwell, for 69. There were 18 others with substantial land and with more than 10 slaves; three of them had more than 30; five, more than 20. Politically, slavery was a relatively remote issue for most, removed as the area was from the capitals and centers of debate. The war itself produced immediate and depressing results locally, as elsewhere in the state. Owners of small farms were reduced to a struggle for existence, as the menfolk went off to fight and the women and children had to take over. Somehow the larger operations, with their loyal slaves, were able to fulfill an increasingly vital role as a breadbasket of sorts for Confederate forces. A reasonably steady supply of grain and flour, some livestock products and even some seasonal vegetables were funneled to the army through a few warehouses and the three railheads in the county. The critical value of these stores became apparent when they became the object of raids into the county by Federal forces in 1863 and 1864. Destruction by the enemy of mills, warehouses and rails on two brief forays dealt a severe if temporary blow to the already strapped economy, not to mention the loss of supplies to the troops themselves. Leather paralleled the importance of grains and foodstuffs being produced in the county. The Snyder tanning yard in Salem was a source of hides for shoes and harness for the military. Overall, the War, emancipation, reconstruction and military rule devastated the local, money-starved economy, and it took a few years to recover. But recover it did. Education Not until 1870, when a statewide public school system was established, did Virginia move with zeal toward overcoming the deficiencies in its primary and secondary education. A few earlier efforts had done little to raise the literacy level. In Roanoke County, there had been a few so-called free schools in the decade before the War, along with a number of private academies and schools that charged tuition. The County was quick aboard with a superintendent in September 1870 and public school classes began within a couple of years. This new dimension of education began strengthening the economy. The Focus Shifts By 1881, the town of Big Lick beside the railroad had become a center of some growth, marked by a growing number of businesses of its own and the physical shift of some businesses and churches from Gainsboro. The population of Big Lick was 669 in 1880, compared to Salem’s 1,759 and the county’s 12,436. The stage was set for a refocusing of economic leadership and power from Salem to the Big Lick that became Roanoke. There was drama attached to this refocusing in the night-time ride of the courier who was the human link to the rise of Roanoke~C. W. Thomas. The story is a familiar one and won’t be repeated here. The bottom line is that a new railroad, the Shenandoah Valley, selected Big Lick as the junction with the new Norfolk and Western. Big Lick became Roanoke later in 1881 and was incorporated as such in 1882. A new era was at hand. Now there was to be a railway system with ties to the markets of eastern and northern Virginia, Baltimore and the developing areas of Southwest Virginia and beyong. Business and industry began modifying, if not reversing, the dominance of agriculture in the Roanoke County economy. 34 �The Boom Years Concurrently with expansion of the railroad, scores of business houses and residences went up near the rail junction, and the cornerstone of the economy, a machine works, was under construction. The rosy outlook became a bit cloudy during the panic and depression of 1884, but the picture brightened shortly there­ after. The influx of workers from other parts of the country injected a zest among developers and entrepreneurs to meet their needs and earn some money for themselves. More hotels, including the original Hotel Roanoke, were built, along with the Crozier Steel & Iron Company. With them, there were boarding houses, rest­ aurants, saloons, retail shops, additional medical and consumer services. And especially real estate ventures. Workers waited for the streetcar at the old American Viscose Corp. plant, a major Roanoke County industry until the annexation by Roanoke City in 1949. (Roanoke Times & World-News) The pace of development was almost frantic, but the optimists called it magic and Roanoke soon bore a slogan-the Magic City. Inevitable ripple effects were felt throughout the county, most noticeably at Salem and the new (1884) Town of Vinton, less so on the farms. In a small village east of Vinton, a personal saga was unfolding that was to deliver a product that had a major impact on the world economy. Bonsack Station on the new railroad was an unlikely place, even as James A. Bonsack was an unlikely person for the role he was to play. Here was a teen-ager who saw an advertisement by a Durham tobacco manufacturer offering $75,000 to anyone inventing a machine to roll cigarettes. A fascinating account of what happened next is included in Deedie Kagey’s sesquicentennial history of Roanoke County: Young James Bonsack became absorbed in his dream to win that $75,000 and, in k shop in his father Jacob Bonsack’s woolen mill, began tinkering to produce such a machine. After many setbacks and frustrations, he and his father obtained a patent on their invention in 1880 and organized the Bonsack Machine Company. Their machine to roll and cut cigarettes was installed first in Richmond. By 1884, six others were in operation in other cities in this country. The Bonsacks later licensed their manufacture in Paris, Argentina and other places, and royalties soon catapulted James Bonsack into a wealthy man while still in his twenties. This Bonsack invention also injected a residual shot of adrenalin into the local economy, through its manufacture for some years by the Comas Cigarette Machine 35 �Company in Salem and by a Lynchburg company. Tracking details of the economic growth of the late 1880s and early 1890s is virtually impossible, so many and varied were the enterprises. Joint-stock land companies were chartered by the scores, some with stable leadership, others resting on paper-thin speculation. Nearly everybody with any financial spunk, however, bought into the action as tracts of land became developmental plats with lots for sale. These companies staged lusty promotions to attract buyers of their lots. They also offered appealing incentives to bring in manufacturers and heavy industry, still confident that in iron ore there was “gold.” All in all, they had remarkable initial if not untroubled and lasting success. The pioneer among these was the Roanoke Land and Improvement Company, which laid out today’s main Roanoke streets in wheat fields of that day. Then it provided the land for the railroad station, the Hotel Roanoke and the Roanoke Machine Works, which in a year or so was bought by the railroad for its shops. A daily paper, bearing the name The Roanoke Times that had earlier been on the masthead of a weekly paper in Salem, was established in 1886. Mining began in earnest with ore for the Rorer Furnace. Business was bustling and three buggies were parked on Main Street in Salem in earlier days. (Salem Times-Register) Catching the spirit from its lively neighbor, Salem jumped onto the fast-moving treadmill. The Salem Improvement Company became the major developer in the county seat, but two of its major efforts, a 100-room hotel and an iron furnace, fell victim to the deflation that befell the boom and never reached even the minimum expected potential. Water works, electricity, telephones and telegraph were installed in Roanoke and Salem, and a street railway was built to link the two, as well as Vinton to the east. Several industries weathered the 1893 recession that followed and provided a foundation for the future. An industrial sampler of those boom days and the period before the turn of the century, in addition to the railroad and ore furnaces, would contain such as: Lumber and specialty planing mills, woolen mills, commercial printers, wagon and carriage works, foundries, brick works, tanneries, chair manufacturers, machine works, ice and candy makers, beer brewers, distilleries. Flour mills grew in size and product variety throughout the county; fruit orchards became larger and more numerous; livestock dealers branched out into 36 �dairy farming; timber from surrounding forests fed the building spree. Financing for these businesses and for much of the real estate trade came from an array of banks and loan companies. When hard times struck, all underwent financial strain but only one, Roanoke Trust, Loan and Safe Deposit Company, went bankrupt. Several predecessors of today’s banks proved remarkably resilient in very difficult times. Many small, boom-era investors were hurt badly, as they lost their life savings when the half-dozen, 25-foot lots or so they bought for re-sale found no market. The heavy losers were those who furnished the major capital for large-tract acquisitions, but most of them started over again and bounced back. Not only did most bank depositors show restraint under stress, but some emerged as key leaders. The county sought to shrug off its setback and moved into a period characterized by optimism and resourcefulness, coupled with organized promotions to strengthen the economy. Chambers of commerce by other names tried all sorts of ways to keep businesses on their feet and to bring in new ones. These organized efforts and those of the real dynamos, the people who were willing to take risks and work hard, nudged the economy into the 20th century. While the road to the present has not always been smooth, successes have outnumbered failures and have brought us into today’s strong economy. Old City Point “Rail Road” Was N & W Forerunner In 1838 by Louis M. Newton In this Sesquicentennial year of Roanoke County, I would like to call your attention to an important event that occurred 150 years ago in another part of the Commonwealth. Although eventually it would have a great effect on Roanoke County, it was probably not even noticed here at the time. In the early 1830’s the citizens of Petersburg, proposed building a “Rail Road” from their city a distance of nine miles to a location on the James River at City Point, now part of the city of Hopewell. Several years were required to incorporate a company, secure financing, construct the line, and acquire equipment, but the difficulties were finally overcome, and the City Point Railroad operated its first train from Petersburg to City Point on September 7, 1838, exactly 150 years and 10 days ago. The City Point was the beginning of what was eventually to become the Norfolk and Western Railway. In the meantime, closer to Roanoke County, the citizens of Lynchburg, interested in better transportation, considered gaining access to the Ohio River by building a canal to connect the James and the New Rivers. As an alternative, they proposed building a railroad, but again securing authorizations and financing caused a long delay. Finally, in 1850, Governor John Floyd turned the first spadeful of dirt, and the construction of the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad had begun. The route progressed across Bedford County, through the community of Big Lick, and by December, 1852 reached Salem. Work continued through the difficult Louis M. Newton retired as assistant vice president fo r transportation planning o f the Norfolk and Western Railway in 1987 after 37 years with the railroad. A native o f Chattanooga, he is a mechanical engineering graduate o f the University o f Tennessee. 37 �mountainous terrain to the west to New River and on through southwestern Virginia to Bristol, 204 miles from Lynchburg, where the line connected with the East Tennessee & Virginia Railroad. While the Virginia & Tennessee was building west from Lynchburg, there was further activity to the east as the South Side Railroad built a railroad from Petersburg to Lynchburg, a distance of 124 miles over relatively level terrain (except at High Bridge, which was an engineering marvel of its day), completing it in 1854. Meanwhile, the original City Point Railroad had been renamed the Appomattox Railroad in 1847 and was then acquired by the South Side in 1854. Even farther to the east, the builders of the Norfolk & Petersburg Railroad, while not having to contend with mountains, may have faced even greater obstacles. The first was topographical, the Great Dismal Swamp, which was overcome through the genius and the tenacity of Chief Engineer William Mahone. The second was a pestilence, yellow fever, which struck the Norfolk area in 1855 and brought local activities to a virtual standstill. Despite the difficulties, the Norfolk & Petersburg was completed between the two cities by 1858. Two years later, William Mahone, who had been so instrumental in its construction, at the age of 33 was elected as its president. The construction projects in Virginia, coupled with those farther to the west, resulted by the time of the Civil War in a thin chain of railroads stretching from Hampton Roads across Virginia into Tennessee and on to the Mississippi River. They represented six or seven independent companies, including three in Virginia, and as Robert H. Smith said in his Short History Of The Norfolk & Western Railway, “ . . . . (they) had been built on faith, hope, and probably with some charity. These lines were striving eagerly to improve their respective lots and the communities which they served.” U nfortunately, their hopes of improving their lots suffered a tragic setback as a result of the Civil War. Instead of improvements, there was catastrophic destruction and deterioration, both physically and financially, as these railroads found themselves in the middle of some of the war’s most intense battles. The reconstruction era was almost as difficult as the war years, as they attempted to rebuild their properties in an area suffering from extreme economic deprivation. Meanwhile, William Mahone had served with distinction in the Confederate Army, particularly at the Battle of the Crater, emerged from the War as a major general, and returned to his former post as president of the devastated Norfolk & Petersburg Railroad. By 1870 he had succeeded in uniting the three separate Virginia railroads—the Norfolk & Petersburg, the South Side and the Virginia & Tennessee— into a single system stretching 408 miles from Norfolk to Bristol, under the corporate name of the Atlantic, Mississippi & Ohio Railroad, headquartered in Lynchburg. Under General Mahone’s leadership and with the aid of English capital, the AM & O began to recover from the adversities of the war and the Reconstruction era. Within a few years, however, adversity struck again, this time in the form of a financial panic in 1873. With a general decline in business, the AM & O was unable to make the interest payments on its debt, went into receivership in 1876, and was then sold at auction in February, 1881 to the Clark banking interests of Philadelphia. One account of the sale, perhaps overly dramatized, describes the successful bid by Clarence H. Clark, previously unknown to the crowd, of $8,605,000, and his immediate payment of exactly $100,000 as a cash deposit. The Clark interests, however, were not completely unknown in Virginia at that time, because in the 1870’s they had become interested in the Shenandoah Valley Railroad, which was building a line from Hagerstown, Maryland into the Shenandoah Valley. The Pennsylvania Railroad also had an interest in the line, perhaps to discourage the Baltimore & Ohio’s interest in the territory. The B & O had built a line from Harper’s Ferry into the Shenandoah Valley, and with encouragement from General Robert E. Lee, who at that time was president of Washington College, finally reached Lexington. There is evidence that the B & O surveyed a route from Lexington to Salem for an intended connection with the 38 �Virginia & Tennessee (by that time probably the AM & O), and even constructed stone culverts at some proposed stream crossings in Botetourt and Roanoke Counties, but the eventual completion of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad, as we will see, probably kept the B & O from completing the line south of Lexington. The Shenandoah Valley Railroad had progressed as far south as Waynesboro at the time the Clarks acquired the AM & O in 1881. For the next several years, events moved in quick succession. The AM & O was renamed the Norfolk & Western Railroad, George F. Tyler became president, and Frederick J. Kimball was named first vice president. In May 1881, Kimball personally confirmed the existence of extensive deposits of high quality coal in southwestern Virginia, which his wife according to tradition, named the “Pocahontas” coal seam. Kimball then pushed to complete the Shenandoah Valley to a connection with the Norfolk & Western. Surveys were made for the connection to be made at any of several locations, including Montvale, Bonsack, Big Lick and Salem. According to E. F. Pat Striplin’s account in The Norfolk & Western: A History: “One day the leaders of Big Lick heard that the directors of the Shenandoah Valley would meet the next day in Lexington to decide on which point to intersect the N & W. They got busy and collected $5,000, and an acre of land was donated in writing to the Shenandoah if they would agree to come to Big Lick.” A messenger was then dispatched on horseback to deliver the petition to the directors in Lexington by 10:00 the next day. Whether for that reason or for others, Big Lick became the junction point, and a boom town grew up around it. The citizens voted to rename the town for Kimball, who modestly refused the honor, and the name of Roanoke was chosen instead. The headquarters of the Shenandoah Valley was moved from Hagerstown, as was that of the old AM & O from Lynchburg, to the new town. The Roanoke Machine Works was chartered in 1881 to repair equipment for both roads and then developed into the East End Shops of the Norfolk & Western. The original Hotel Roanoke was constructed in 1882. A new city in the valley blossomed almost overnight. As the connection was being effected at Roanoke, Kimball was progressing the construction of a new railroad line from Radford along New River to Glen Lyn, then through the town of Pocahontas, where a new mine was producing coal. The first car of coal, on March 12, 1883, was used for railroad fuel. The second car, shipped the next day, was consigned to the mayor of Norfolk. Like millions of cars since, it moved through the Roanoke Valley on its way to Tidewater. Not content with only an eastern outlet for coal, Kimball, by that time president of the Norfolk & Western, foresaw the potential market for coal in the industrial Midwest and pushed for the construction of the Ohio Extension of the N & W for 200 miles through the rugged terrain of southern West Virginia and across the Ohio River to a connection with the Scioto Valley Railroad at Ironton, Ohio. The Scioto Valley itself was acquired by the N & W, thus providing a route to Columbus and connections with several Midwestern railroads. The construction of the Ohio Extension strained the finances of the N & W and resulted in a brief receivership before the company was reorganized in 1896 as the Norfolk & Western Railway. The value of the Extension, however, has never been questioned, as tremendous volumes of coal have moved toward the west for many years. The decade of the 1890’s was one of great activity in the railroad industry. In the Roanoke area, the Roanoke & Southern Railway was completed between Roanoke and Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1892 and was absorbed into the N & W in 1896. Other construction projects and acquisitions enabled the N & W, by about 1902, to attain the configuration that it would keep for most of the first half of the twentieth century. About the same time, it lost its leader when Kimball died in 1903 at the age of 59. His integrity, vision, devotion to duty and other fine qualities had combined to make him the ideal leader at the time of the Norfolk & Western’s greatest period of expansion; and the Roanoke Valley is indebted to him for establishing the headquarters of a great transportation company in the area. After the turn of the century, the management of the N & W concerned itself 39 �In 1895, a steam-powered passenger train stopped at the old Norfolk and Western Railway station. The old General Office Building and Hotel Roanoke grounds were at left. (Norfolk and Western Railway Archival Collection, VPI & SU Libraries) with building on the foundation laid in previous years. The company’s facilities grew to accommodate increased volumes of traffic, and new technologies were used to improve the safety and efficiency of operations. There was a general increase in the capacity of both roadway facilities and equipment. In the Roanoke area, general office buildings were constructed and expanded to accommodate the head­ quarters of a growing company. The Roanoke Yards were expanded several times through the years. East End Shops was not simply a repair shop; for many years the Norfolk & Western designed its own locomotives and cars and built them in its own shops. Roanoke was the headquarters of a relatively small railroad geographically, but one recognized throughout the industry as a leader, and one that rightly adopted as its slogan, “Precision Transportation.” Meanwhile, the N & W endured the usual ups and downs of the business cycle, went through World War I, struggled through the Great Depression, and met one of its greatest challenges during World War II, when it moved unprecedented volumes of both freight and passengers. Roanoke Shops not only built new locomotives and continued to maintain older ones, but it also overhauled locomotives for neighboring railroads. Competition from other modes of transportation, particularly from those using government financed highways, began to erode railroad traffic in the 1920’s and became particularly acute after World War II. The result was a reduction in passenger trains and the eventual elimination of their operation by the railroad itself (although Amtrak continues to operate in some areas). As for freight, much of the merchandise traffic shifted to highways, and the railroad industry had to adjust accordingly. Coal traffic, always the mainstay of the N & W, has had its peaks and valleys, but in recent years has been affected more by a change in the sources of supply and demand, including international competition, than by a change in the method of handling, with rail still being the dominant mode. However, with rapidly changing business climates and developing technologies, there is a constant challenge to avoid losing the business to competitors. Within the industry, there were dramatic technological changes following World War II, especially as diesel-electric locomotives came on the scene. The N & W, under the leadership of President R. H. Smith, countered by improving its coal-fired steam locomotives, designed and built in Roanoke. The N & W carried the development of steam power to its zenith, and was the last major U. S. railroad to remain completely committed to steam. Finally, economic pressures and other 40 �considerations forced the company to dieselize in the late 1950’s. The result was a drastic but unavoidable drop in employment in the shops, which had an adverse effect for a time throughout the Roanoke area. Shortly after the N & W had completed the task of putting its system together early in the twentieth century, a competitor entered the field in the form of the Virginian Railway. This company, financed personally by millionaire Henry Huttleston Rogers, was well-engineered, with its favorable grades enabling it to operate highly efficiently. It was opened for through operation from the West Virginia coal fields to Norfolk in 1909, passing through the Roanoke Valley generally south of and parallel to the N & W main line. The Virginian did not handle a great deal of business of moving coal to Tidewater. In the 1920’s the N & W’s proposal to lease the Virginian was rejected by the Interstate Commerce Commission. Years later, however, with a changed business climate, the ICC did approve a consolidation of the two companies, and on December 1,1959 the N & W and the Virginian were merged. Most of the local facilities of both companies were retained, and a number of headquarters personnel of the Virginian were relocated from Norfolk to Roanoke. The merger of the two parallel coal-hauling railroads was generally regarded as highly successful. At the time, merging the Virginian’s 650 miles of line with the N & W’s 2,100 miles seemed to be a big project—and it was—but it was small in comparison to the next proposal: Within months after the N & W - Virginian merger had been effected, a dramatic announcement was made that the Norfolk & Western, the Nickel Plate and the Wabash railroads planned to merge. After a number of legal and financial maneuvers, the ICC approved the proposal, and the unification of the three principal railroads and two smaller lines, along with the acquisition of the Sandusky Line of the Pennsylvania Railroad, became effective on October 16, 1964. Overnight, the N & W had practically tripled in size as it became a system of about 8,000 route miles serving 13 states in the U. S. and a province in Canada, and extending from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes and west to the Missouri River. There have been few mergers of its size involving such diverse carriers as the N & W (primarily a coal line), the Nickel Plate (primarily a long haul carrier), and the Wabash (primarily a carrier of products related to the automotive industry and agriculture). Roanoke realized an obvious benefit as it became the headquarters of the unified system. In the late 1960’s, an even larger merger was proposed with the neighboring Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, but the collapse of the Penn Central and other events dampened the enthusiasm for such a consolidation, and in 1971 the plan was abandoned. During the decade of the 1970’s, the Norfolk & Western, led by John P. Fishwick, was concerned with increasing its efficiency and strengthening its financial position while coping with the usual problems of business fluctuations, competitive pressures, strikes, floods, blizzards, and similar challenges. Without going into great statistical detail, let us say that the company met the challenges with a high degree of success. As Conrail was formed when the railroads in the Northeast and Midwest were restructured following the bankruptcy of the Penn Central and other carriers, N & W’s principal involvement was the acquisition in 1976 of about 100 miles of Penn Central trackage northwest of Cincinnati in order to obtain a shorter route for traffic moving between the eastern and western regions of its system. Elsewhere, during the 1970’s and 1980’s there were mergers and super-mergers, as systems such as the Burlington Northern in the West and CSX in the East were formed. The managements of the Norfolk & Western and the Southern considered merger, backed away, then reconsidered and agreed to consolidate their operations under a common management. After approval by the ICC, the resulting Norfolk Southern Corporation was formed on June 1, 1982, with Robert B. Claytor as chairman and chief executive officer of a railroad with about 15,000 miles of line and assets of over $5 billion. Although the consolidation resulted in a move of the corporate headquarters to Norfolk, Roanoke continues to be the headquarters of 41 �an operating region as well as several important departments, and Roanoke Shops continues to maintain a substantial part of the company’s equipment, as it has done for over a century. Norfolk Southern currently employs about 3,000 people in the Roanoke Valley. Although still the Valley’s largest single employer, Norfolk Southern is no longer the dominant industry in the Roanoke Valley that the Norfolk & Western was for many years. However, it is probably better for all of us for the area to have a more diversified economy rather than to be dependent on a single industry or an individual company. With diversification, changes in technologies or in business or commercial practices can be absorbed with a less severe impact than would otherwise be the case. For me, it is interesting to look back at 150 years of Roanoke County history—and an equivalent number of year of railroad history—and see the ways in which our predecessors successfully met the challenges of their times. My hope is that future generations, looking back at out times, will be able to say the same about us. Overlooked Buildings By The Side O f The R oad by W. L. Whitwell What I would like to do for this group and for the Sesquicentennial of Roanoke County is to make selections of Roanoke County architecture. Of course, I’ve selected from the past. I’ve selected here. I’ve selected there from major trends in architecture. These will give us some idea on what the architecture of this area is all about. We live in a wonderful spot. I remember when I came here to Southwest Virginia from the University of New Hampshire, somebody said there’s no architecture there in Southwest Virginia. It’s all over in the Tidewater plantations, they said. That, of course, is not true. I think that any given area where you live or where you are you can find architecture of equal interest to the ecology, or people. You begin looking around this area from an historical perspective. The thing that struck me in the beginning is the number of log cabins which are still in existence in Roanoke County. I am confining myself to just Roanoke County. Throughout Roanoke County are some very interesting log cabins. There they sit on the side of the road, relatively forgotten today. You drive past them very quickly. The majority are covered up with asbestos siding but there are a few here or there which are naturally preserved, like the McNeil cabin out in Catawba Valley which dates from approximately 1840. It is an excellent example of the architectural settlement of this area. Settled in this case by the Scotch-Irish who came down the valley, down the Great Road, approximately what is now Interstate 81. The log cabin represents a natural architectural tradition coming to this area. It is a particularly interesting building, a rectangular building which has lost its front porch and the wood over its porch. Other than that it’s pretty much the way it was. W. L. “Tony” Whitwell, professor o f art at Hollins College, is the co-author, with Lee Winborne o f Roanoke, o f The Architectural Heritage of the Roanoke Valley. Whitwell, who holds degrees from Wittenberg and Columbia universities, often writes and speaks on Roanoke area architecture, art and antiques. 42 �A story-and-a-half Scotch-Irish log cabin still stands in the Catawba Valley. Its stone foundation and V-notching recall buildings of the late 18th and early 19th century. (W. L. Whitwell, Lee Winborne) Log cabins need to be seen as temporary housing. Most early settlers built a log cabin as a wedge against the wilderness, not as something to live in for the rest of their lives. The Murray log cabin down on 220 south dates from approximately 1830. This represents another interesting settler’s house here in this area. The English settlers came over the Blue Ridge from the Tidewater area which is not the normal way of settling here. One real fascination of looking at log structures, if you can find good ones, is within their construction. A spring house in the Catawba section of the county is particularly fascinating because it has two basic kinds of notching logs. On the top portion were V-notches, standard notches of structures of log cabins in this section. Very easy to do, no problem at all to construct a V-notch log cabin, all you need is an axe and an adze. Down below, on the other hand, is a half-dovetail notch which is very unusual to do. The maker of the lower half of this building had some cabinet making skills or understood how to construct a dovetail form. Log cabins sit there much in need of preservation in our time, very much overlooked. They are vernacular, by-the-sideof-the-road architecture. A lot of fascinating barns and barn structures are still left in Roanoke County. This is the form of a barn called a single crib barn. A box made out of logs has what is called a saddle notch, just a rounded-out notch. You can see the log up on top of it. This dates to about 1900 in the southwest area of the county. The interesting thing about log structures in many of these vernacular, everyday folk structures is they are carriers of tradition. Long, long after log building went out in Roanoke County, it was still often seen in barns and outhouses. The standard barn of this area, however, was called the double-crib barn, taken out of the Eric Sloane tradition. You may be familiar with his structure of barns when you talk architecture. It’s a Virginia barn of 1840, a little earlier than what you find in this section but it has the standard double crib. It’s called a three-bay barn, two long boxes, a center passage in between and another box on the 43 �other side. They’re called cribs, very easy to build, very simple, very direct verv S t thhIlfh thtrUCRreS:fA double' cnb barn out in Catawba has been covered up now * ! » But if you go inside the barn, you can see the fascinating interior. It s your double-crib barn format with long beams over the top and saddle notches Une ol these days we are going to come to a real understanding of this vernacular barnyard architecture which is still left here in Roanoke County Everybody always asks me what is the oldest house in Roanoke Countv as soon as you get into architectural history of any kind. I suspect it is the Harshberger house nght off of Plantation Road, down below the skating rink. If we can believe e rather scant, documentary evidence, this house was built about 1797 The Harshberger family was German, coming to this area but later leaving because they were opposed to slavery. They went out to Illinois. The stone part of the building is an interesting structure called one over one, one room over one room. The brick K 0nrhf he buddín8 was Put on in 1825-ish and the porch was put on in the preseívlrion 1 ' l l f * hlS buUding’ about a year aH°- it was badly in need of Another most interesting component of the architecture in Roanke Countv is not only the vernacular form used here. The form of this house is related to Pennsylvania houses of the same period. Another interesting component about this building and many like it in the rural section of Roanoke County is what architectural historians call aspects, the positioning of a house, how the house is located m relationship to all the elements of the landscape around it Consider a house seen from Rt. 795 in Catawba, looking down on the little Catawba Creek. Its fields are above the flood plain which floods at high water In front of the house are, and I love this term, bride and groom trees, planted when the houses were first built, nestled behind the hills. There are outcroppings of fieldstone in the hills up above. One chimney is built out of fieldstone and the other chimney is built B f l H j S St° nCS of the creek. The house faces in the general southwestern direction so as to see the sun m the wmter. Outbuildings are scattered on the field behind. , iT ^ 0 lnterest“\g points: Number one, and some of you who have looked at my book have seen this point, reading a description of a first century Roman villa outside of Dorset in England. The creek, flood plain, fields, road, trees and house ront-teV ° 1 Su0UtlT St- Cr0ppings of stones are behind h. You have a sense of S 18 í ten 0Ve[l00ked architecturally. But the other point I would like to make is the old man who used to live here until his death in the late 1970’s when we were doing our research on the place. He bought his young son-in-law á mobile home. He and the son-in-law camped around in the area until they found are you ready, above the flood plain, above the fields, sited to the southwest and planted two trees m front of them. There’s a lot of fascination in the everyday architecture and siting of buildings. y y The most common architectural form from the 19th century in Roanoke mnm jpp Ca led an ¡:house- The 1 refers to the fact that the house is one ]t ^ , d p a" d 11 co™ef m a11 sorts and varieties. In Speedwell, at Starkey, you find l b d Ut ° !'logs, built out of bricks, built out of all kinds of different materials The form is the important thing. This house has a corridor, a room on either side a verTg: no feev S n c : 6W f | ^ ^ tOP‘ Speedweddat - from 1831, on A later example on the Hollins College campus makes the same point. It is the same form of the I-house which is a post-Civil War example of the type that probaWy dates from around 1870, 1872. You’ve got some new decoration on the ° f the gable’you .ve moved the chimneys inside so you’ll have better insulation for chimneys at that time and you have better stoves. That’s basically exactly the same form of the house. y y inc t An°,ther m° st inferesting phenomenon is that Roanoke County also participates in the springs culture of the early 19th century. The very grand Greenbner and Homestead are the last vestiges of the great resort culture here in rgima that clustered around the sulphur springs. Here on the grounds of the 44 �The Fort Lewis Mansion, built by Samuel White about 1822, was one of the fine homes of the county until it was destroyed by fire in the late 1940s. (Salem Times-Register) Catawba Hospital were the spring as it goes down below, the water pump and one of the old hotel buildings that was still left. Most Virginians are familiar with the spring culture. The people from the deep South coming up here to take the waters and creating a whole vacation culture here around the springs. Historic preservation and concerns for preservation of architecture, indeed concerns about architecture generally, begin at the point where I did not begin, at the mansion phenomenon. In the period following the Civil War, large mansions were those that brought the attention of architecture to most people’s attention. There are a few of these and I emphasize, a few, around in Roanoke County. One of the grandest of the mansions in the Roanoke County area is Pleasant Grove, west of Salem, dating from 1853. This was not a large slave holding country, not great mansion building country. Pleasant Grove is a four-over-four, with four rooms down and four rooms up center hall. One of the most interesting things about Pleasant Grove is the fine architectural detail on the front which was put out on the house by Gustavus Sedon, a German carpenter/ handyman contractor. The house has interestingToniccolumns which Sedon carved and a cast-iron balcony up on the top which Sedon or Joseph Deyerle, the owner of this house, ordered probably from Lynchburg or maybe from Richmond. Some day I’ll pursue this iron work but it’s interesting to know that the exact same iron work is on the Witherow house in Lexington, on a house in Main Street in Lynchburg, and another building in Richmond. Those things under the carving of the columns imitate forms which he had seen in architectural handbooks. The joint has been painted. The line between the bricks has been painted. In areas today where brick work has been protected from the elements, you often see this. Nineteenth century brickmaking was, to put it bluntly, done very sloppily and 19th century bricklaying was sloppy too. They painted in the lines to make it look better than it was. There was no name for it back in the 19th century, but it was the highly admired thing to do. Pleasant Grove had a grill ventilator at the top of the house to allow air to come and go. Sedon, who carved this grill, had a very distinctive curvilinear kind of carving. These elements he brought from the local lumber mill. This is atypical Sedon adaptation of American Greco-Roman motifs. In fact, I think they’ll say that §g{lon was one of Roanoke County’s most interesting early citizens.| He was a German who came into the United States through the Port of Baltimore and walked, accordingto family oral tradition, to the Roanoke County area. His dates are 1820 - 1893/ He was what you would think of today as a competent carpenter, handyman, small-time contractor. He didn’t build buildings, he ornamented them. He put the 45 X �woodwork on Pleasant Grove, he carved the columns, he put the woodwork on West Dormitory at Hollins and a number of other places. I’m sure you are probably aware that the best scholarly discoveries are often the simplest discoveries. A number of years ago, students at Hollins College and myself were working on Sedon. We were trying to find out all we could about him. We’d heard his name here, we’d heard his name there. We didn’t know where to go so we were tracing his genealogy down the line and we came up to fairly current ties And one of my young lady students said, look in a phone book. We picked up the county phone book and found the name of his descendants, dialed the number and yes, we had Sedon’s journal. We have his daybooks, we have his tools. And even better we had the chest which he probably brought over from Germany with him. Progressing on Sedon, let me mention there’s a lot of research yet to do in Roanoke County. Not only do you have Sedon, but a lot of other people. We have, for instance, over in the Roanoke County courthouse the entire inventory down to the last nail, screw, screwdriver, saw, it goes on three or four pages, of a cabinet maker who was working in the county in the period just before the Civil War. Wouldn’t it be nice to find some furniture by him? Wouldn’t it be nice to find some ancestors of him? I ran his genealogy as far as I can afford to and then I had to stop. All sorts of wonderful research projects are still left in this area. Johnsville Meeting House is a classic example of that, one of those wonderful little buildings in Roanoke County, indicative of the old culture which is still here, the Dunkard culture. The top floor has one of the most wonderful spare, lean interiors in this entire section. It was built between 1871 and 1872, on very good evidence. But there is still a lot of work to be done on Dunkard culture and any type of architecture they built. In our liberated society, the meeting house has separate doors for the men and the ladies. It’s off Rt. 785 in Catawba. You can’t see it from the road, over the hill. It s just about two miles this side of the Montgomery County line. Hollins College is the outstanding educational complex within the county. Hollins architecture is particularly interesting because it has grown and changed as architecture changes, not in one consistent style. Looking across the quadrangle Main Dorm had decorations put on it by Sedon. In Sedon’s daybooks, his journals, all these bits and pieces of decorations are noted. Seadon was a very interesting character with a wry sense of humor, even though he had trouble with his spelling in English. One year just before the' Civil War, his journal notes that he had to build a walkway to the necessary-a walkway to the outhouse behind the building. The next year he cryptically noted a cover for the walkway to the necessary. Obviously, the young ladies didn’t like getting wet as they walked downstairs. One of the most enigmatic buildings on the Hollins campus is East Dormitory, built in 1856/1858. I wish I could find the architect of this building. Early Hollins records give me lots of names but I can’t put them together with an architect. The prototypes of this building are very interesting. They are springs resort architecture that you see up in West Virginia and in Virginia in that particular area. The funny thing, it blew my mind when I found it and someday I’ll go to print with this, is a military barracks near New Orleans with almost the same form. Now, something is going on there and I m not quite sure yet. It’s an excellent research project for someone. Generations of Hollins students and maybe some of you who haven’t been on the Hollins campus in some time remember East Dormitory without the straight-run staircase. In 1974, you may remember, the federal government had some very stringent codes and regulations about helping to occupy buildings. We tore our hair at Hollins on how to get this building to conform to the new codes There were wild schemes from fire escapes out of the side, bursting through walls and doing all types of things to this building until then President Carroll Brewster and myself said let us look at the 1857-58 Hollins College catalog and there was a straight run of stairs. It had been taken off prior to the Civil War and the balustrade 46 �run across there. The staircase now is aluminum, by the way covered with wood, which helps to make the building conform to the 1974 code. One of the earliest architectural remnants that I know in this entire section is in the little treasure room, as it is called, at Hollins. This is the mantelpiece from Botetourt Springs hotel, which was built by Charles Johnston in 1820. It’s the last remnant of this springs resort hotel which stood on the site of what is now Hollins College. Stylistically and according to the oral tradition which comes down at Hollins, I have no reason to doubt that fireplace mantel is not what it is said to be. Prosperity came slowly in the Roanoke County area during the period of post-Civil War. But architecturally the prosperity is represented by a house which is off of Plantation Road, design circa 1882, which represents the coming of the first boom to the Roanoke Valley. Roanoke City had its boom, with the coming of the railroad. Salem had its boom with all the promoters, boosting the town and little pockets here and there throughout Roanoke County. This building represents this idea of pockets of prosperity. You have farmers, merchants and lawyers. You have doctors, who could afford up-to-date architecture, and in times embellished their houses with the wooden millwork which was being turned out commercially in this area. If you keep your eyes open you can see these same forms on some of the streets of Salem. You can see these same forms on the streets here and there in Roanoke City. They were buying them from the same place and putting them on their houses. An old German bake oven, unique in the Roanoke Valley, stood near Hanging Rock for an estimated century and a half until it was moved to the Blue Ridge Institute at Ferrum in the summer of 1987. (Roanoke Times & World-News) Architecturally, let me finish up with two problems: Roanoke County in the 20th century is faced with two fundamental problems. The first one is urban spoils. What are we going to do architecturally with what is happening to us as suburban 47 �shopping malls, various buildings and factories take over our available land? Suburban malls threaten to engulf all of us. Structurally, does any of this have any m e rit/1 think I can say quite equivocally, no, it does not. The second architectural problem and the one which I would like to leave with you is at the same place where I started with you-the architecture by-the-side-of the-road. We had best start taking a look at what is still on the sides of our road We drive past it, we overlook it. It’s time to take a good look at what is happening to our county. It s time to take a good look positive and if it’s the best kind of thing it supports our taxation for the county, then it’s time to take a look as to whether this architecture is good looking or bad looking. Some people would say this is the vernacular folk architecture of the 20th century. These are the log cabins and outbuddmgs maybe, of the 20th century, the forgotten and overlooked by the side of the road. So 111leave you m the same place that I started with you on the side of the road. H ow D id Colleges Choose Locations In The 19th Century? by Mark Miller and Tony Thompson MILLER: If I were to ask you to identify a time in American higher education when schools will blossom, where higher education is transformed, perhaps the period that would come most readily to mind, something that most of us have lived through, would be the recent 1960s or the early 1970s. Small colleges around the country are transformed overnight as institutions, many times their earlier form and stature of the late 1950s or early 1960s. Many state universities, small schools in the 1960s, become major comprehensive universities by the early 1970s. If there is a more familiar story and a closer example to home of a boom time in American higher education, I suppose a story less familiar but in many ways even more significant is an earlier boom and this comes in the mid-years in the 19th century. Between 1830 and 1860, no fewer than 516 colleges and universities were established around this country. Being someone who teaches geography and being a little bit interested in things graphic, I spent a summer a few years ago, attempting to identify just where in the 19th century would these 516 schools be located. From a little map, I wondered exactly why that distribution might look the way it did. A rather stylized view of American demographics of 1850 shows centers of population in this country before the Civil War, roughly existing across the upper Midwest with concentrations along the East Coast megalopolis still with us today. But the location of the schools gives no relation at all to questions of population, of accessibility, of markets or of strategy that many private schools and Dr. Mark Miller o f Roanoke College and Tony Thompson o f Hollins College described the formation and early student bodies o f their schools. Miller has been assistant professor o f history and geography at Roanoke since 1979. A graduate o f Loyola University o f Los Angeles, he holds master’s and doctoral degreesfrom the University o f North Carolina. He is working on a Roanoke College history and he was principal author and general editor o f American Military History Time Line. Thompson was archivist and administrator o f the rare book collection at Fishburn Library at Hollins fo r about six years until he moved to Lexington, Kentucky last fall. He is a graduate o f the University o f Virginia. 48 �public schools are certainly concerned with to an extent even in the 20th century. When you put the locations of the colleges and a map of population centers together, they’re almost exclusive. The locations of the colleges and centers of population along the coast and farther to the interior are there with seemingly no relationship at all between the two. The question that I started with was how could you make sense of those two rather disparate pictures. To me, one statement was useful early on, a statement suggesting that you and I, as members of the 20th century, expect to live. We expect to be healthy. We expect to continue. We have our hopes and aspirations and dreams to be doing something a few months from now, a couple of years from now. And I think it’s fairly honest to say that members of our society in the 19th century truly expected to die. They didn’t expect to be here a few years from now or five or 10 or 30 or 40 years from now. And I suppose if you expect to die and if you’re concerned about environment and questions of health and one’s survival, you attempt to order things and arrange a society a little differently. I think that’s what we’re looking at. Another question I had to ask of the 19th century was who is doing the selecting of schools. That is probably more for the 19th century than for the students we would meet today in the 20th century. If our students would tell you today that they chose Roanoke College or they selected Hollins or they decided to go to Virginia Tech, in many ways that is a legitimate response. They were the ones doing the choosing. Parents are going to be there at some point to help or referee or decide matters of finance when that’s appropriate. But in many ways, students’ selection process today is essentially their own. In the 19th century, I suspect that was less the case. Probably a more appropriate response would be that the parents of affluent males and a few females in the 19th century are doing the selection. The parents are the ones deciding where they are going to take their young son and where would they put him for safe­ keeping for a period of some time, two, three, four years, whatever the program might stipulate. I think what we are looking at then is a 19th century picture where colleges are almost monastic in their arrangement. They’re in the hills. They’re in places that are perceived by 19th century Americans, they couldn’t have explained why, but they were almost on the right track. They’re putting the schools in places that they believed to be healthy, a little more distant and remote from population centers. In the 19th century, cities were awful places. There was disease in the cities, there were epidemics in the cities, associated with clusters of population. There was crime and there was temptation in the cities, as well. If we’re talking about young males in the 19th century, they are always going to be led astray. Perhaps parents felt at least concerned that the young males could be tempted by evils of city life in the 19th century. So where do we put our young sons? We almost put them away. You don’t bury them in mountains but rather you put them in the kind of outlying regions of mountains. You want some kind of accessibility, I suppose. So when you go back to get little Langhorne for vacations or back in the fall or back in the spring, you want to be able to get to him at some point with some ease and you don’t put him in the center of the mountains. You put him in the first folds of the mountains. Obviously, Roanoke and Hollins are precise examples of that kind of national picture. They believed that what could be a better response to ensuring their son’s survival, education and general enlightenment. But for safekeeping, they would identify a college network that identified with the mountains. I’ll read you a section from the Roanoke College catalog entitled “climate and health:” “The Roanoke Valley has a climate noted for its equitibility, its summers being seldom too warm and its winters free from excessive cold. In the salubrious climate few of the diseases which infest many portions of the country are known. Most 49 �young men from lower altitudes improve greatly in physical health and consequently in mental vigor after a stay of some months in this mountainous region.” What yarns were spun when the Confederate veterans gathered on the Roanoke College campus for a reunion. Dr. Charles J. Smith, popular Roanoke president from 1920 to 1949, stood at the rear center in this photograph made at Rose Lawn, the college president’s home. (Salem Times-Register) This is the whole 19th century notion of spas and resorts. If there was a Fort Lauderdale, if there was a place that Robin Leach’s television program, “Lifestyles” might have gone to a hundred years ago, it might have been Salem. It might have been right here with a concentration of hotels. The Greenbrier and the Homestead today are just vestiges of this old order and it was an impressive one, certainly, a century ago. “Within a radius of 30 miles of Salem are seven resorts for mineral water, while in the. immediate vicinity are both sulphur and chalybeate springs. Salem also attracts a number of summer visitors. Families from different sections of the country find here the comforts of a home while affording their sons the educational advantages of Roanoke College.” That says in two simple paragraphs what I’ve suggested in a couple of minutes. The trick about that quotation though is this doesn’t come from a 19th century catalog. Roanoke College is still presenting that picture in 1939. THOMPSON: I’m not going to be covering the entire history of Hollins College. I’m going to give a thumbnail sketch of one part of one aspect of Hollins, its students. That means I won’t be saying anything about endowments or faculty committees or curriculums or building programs, things I know you’re on the edge of your seat to hear about. But instead I’ll be talking about students which perhaps we academics like to think less about. Anyway, what kind of girl came to Hollins in the 19th century? I use the word “girl” advisably here because the average age of a student who came to Hollins in the 19th century was much lower than the average age that a college student is now. 50 �And there are a couple of reasons for that which I’ll mention. What kind of girl came to Hollins in the 19th century? How did she fill her time outside of class? What did she think about? Did she ever leave the campus? Was she superstitious? What about religion? How did she meet boys? Or did she meet boys? What in short was it like to go to Hollins? Well, I shall begin by saying something about the founding of Hollins. In direct corroboration of what Mark Miller is saying, Hollins was a hotel watering place with sulphur and chalybeate springs in the 19th century. The hotel went bankrupt in 1842 and an itinerant Baptist minister named Joshua Bradley came and founded a little coeducational school. Hollins was coeducational for the first 10 years of its existence. ! However, the school struggled quite a bit and in 1846 the trustees of Hollins called Charles Lewis Cocke, who was from the Richmond area, a very young man, to take over the school. It had no name up to that point, so he called it the Valley Union Seminary. Cocke was 26 years old at the time, very serious and intensely Protestant. He had a capacity to take almost infinite pains with what he perceived to be his life’s work. And furthermore he had this ability to inspire his teachers and his family with the same sort of intensity about education. Cocke soon found what had been Bradley’s problem. Bradley was only associated with the school a couple of years. Bradley’s problem was he didn’t have any money and the discipline problem with the young men was almost over­ whelming. I’m going to read you a little bit from the demerit book that Cocke kept in 1847. The names are of students, all male. “Lewis, guilty of making an unusual noise at night. Williams, heard swearing. McClanahan, charged with communicating with a female department on several occasions. Jordan, accused of using drink on the premises. Sergeant, shot a pistol on way to the Dunkard meeting.” The sort of lore of Hollins College is that Cocke very early on in his life had decided that he would devote himself to the higher education of women. Now, I don’t dispute that but I think it is fairly evident that he had, as many teachers do, very little interest in discipline. He wanted to teach so in 1851 he persuaded the trustees to let him abolish the male department. In 1852 Hollins became all female, as it has been ever since. Before the Civil War, they were largely from surrounding counties, Roanoke, Montgomery, Franklin, Bedford and Botetourt. When war broke out, there were 113 students, almost all from Virginia. Of course, Virginia included West Virginia then so it was somewhat a larger geographical area they were from. Now, by the end of the century that had changed completely. In 1894 there were 184 students, not that many more but they were from 21 different states and occasionally they began to come from foreign countries. We don’t have any direct evidence of the social status of our students. The only thing we have to go on pretty much is the father’s name and whether there was a title involved Before the war, military titles might be helpful. Of course, after the war almost everyone had a military title so that doesn’t give us any very good clue about what their social status was. But titles such as doctor and judge sometimes give us an indication about what kinds of families these students came from. They largely came from good families, especially before the war. It changed after the war quite a lot. It was after the war that Hollins established its normal school, a school for teachers, because there were so many indigent students coming to go to school here. Students were also from the country. Again corroborating what Mark has said, when Cocke wrote in 1857 about “a country school for country girls” he was emphasizing his institution’s location and appealing to those who he expected to patronize it. Students were not only going to a country school, they were from the country to begin with. This is true of Hollins but I don’t know how true that is nationally. The students were young. The collegiate structure in the 19th century, especially outside the male universities, was not at all standardized as it is today. 51 �Students, especially female students, and this goes for the Northeast as well as for down here in the South for the “seven sister schools”, were often young because the standard of education wasn’t as high as in the male universities. Also, the later teen years for a young lady were the years she got married and especially in the rural south, parents were unwilling to commit their children to school at a later age, at least their female children. N ow to our modern eyes, the amount of regulation is just incredible with these young ladies that came away to school. They largely were leaving home to go to school. There were very few day students, for example, Nannie Armistead kept a diary at Hollins in the late 1860s. She writes: “The rules are tolerably strict. The rising bell is rung at 5:30 a. m. Miss Sally Ryland, the governess, takes the girls to walk; 6:30 praying; breakfast 7 a. m.; 8 a. m. school commences. Then school all day. At 6 in the evening, walk again; 7, supper; 10, the retiring bell is rung.” This pretty much covers the entire day. Every waking minute almost seems to be covered by these regulations. Again in corroboration of what Mark was saying, these schools at the foothills of the mountains were perceived for women especially, even more than for men, as places of protection. In fact during the Civil War, we actually had more students at Hollins rather then less students because families in the east were sending their girls to Hollins for protection. Cocke’s idea in establishing a school for young women was a very progressive idea in the 1840s but the context of that education for young women must have been very conservative. He would not have gotten students if he hadn’t been willing to have a very protective environment for them. This, of course, reflected 19th century ideas about femininity anyway. Women would be unsexed if they would become mannish or if they were exposed to the sort of world as we think about it, like cities. Of course, the greatest danger was men. A rule that sort of crosses the entire second half of the 19th century during Cocke’s tenure is: Young ladies will not be allowed the attention of gentlemen while connected with this institute. Well, does that mean there were no men? No, it doesn’t mean that at all. Men came quite often as a matter of fact. There were lots of ministers and fathers and brothers were always seeming to swing by. Students often were here during holidays and then there was a virtual cataract of visitors and many of these were young men, plus there were professors. The structure of women’s education in the South, at least, didn’t allow for very many women teachers. They were almost all men. They brought their families. They had sons. As we progressed towards the end of the century, the rules relaxed somewhat. Nannie Armistead records in the 1860s that she and a bunch of her friends wanted to get together and invite a local, very handsome, young Methodist minister to come every month and preach at Hollins. Ada Bryant, in another diary in the ‘90s, gives this little description of an evening of entertainment at Hollins. “After the concert we all went to the parlors. Anna Taylor called me and I went over to her and I met lots of Salem boys. I thought they were all rather tacky. I talked to Mr. Whitman and Mr. Walden the most. I think Mr. Walden is the cutest. He is going to be an Episcopal minister and he said he is coming to Kansas sometime. Of course, that is just because I’m from Kansas. Mrs. Childs rang her bell at 11,1think it was, and we were walking out, that is, I was walking out with some of the boys and Mrs. Childs said, walk right on up the stairs, young ladies, and I had to skip to my room.” Well, so, the regulations were one thing and the prohibitions about young men were one thing but the life as it was lived was quite different. This was sort of a continual battle that administrations have to fight all the time. Nannie Armistead regularly reports that even though the going-to-bed bell is rung at 10, she was staying up past midnight studying for her exams. She also reports how three girls tried to hire a wagon ta ta k e them to Salem. They were caught though. Another 52 �thing that students liked to do in the dorms, as recorded in the literary magazine for November 1878: . “Some of the amusements most enjoyed by the girls were screaming, hallowing, vamping and running through the halls.” This hasn’t changed, eating was a constant delight. I think between 1900 and 1910 at least seven different chafing dish clubs were formed. One of them was called “Etta Hunk of Pi.” Probably during the 19th century the most common clubs were the literary societies and almost all colleges during this period had them. Roanoke College did. In this case they were called the Euzelian and the Euepian societies. These were basically debate or literary societies. Readings were given but they also performed a socializing function. They let students get away from their professors for a little while and also talk about serious subjects. Students weren’t always running through the hall. They did have very serious lives, academic lives outside their rooms and they published a literary magazine. Cocke was an ardent Baptist and he made sure he helped found the Enon church which is right across the road from Hollins. He was also very much nonsectarian and he encouraged students to practice their religion any way they wanted to as long as they practiced it. They were willing. When the missionary society was formed in 1860, one-half of the school showed up. Chapel met twice a day and still students looked forward to revivals and going to church in Salem. At that time, Salem was two hours away from Hollins because you had to go by ^ The students were also superstitious and I want to read you an exchange of letters that I find very amusing. I don’t know how instructive it is but a woman is writing to Cocke about her daughter in 1896: “Dear Sir: I have received a letter from my daughter stating that she has a room on the third floor which is called the devil’s room. Now I do not know what the meaning of devil’s room is but I would like for you to please give her a room on the second floor. I am paying you what you asked and I expect my daughter to be comfortable.” A few days later: . “My dear Madam: Your letter of the 19th instant has been received in which you state that your daughter wrote you a letter saying she was on the third floor which is called the devil’s room. Such a term or phrase, we have never heard before and certainly should not be in vogue around refined young ladies. I immediately sent for your daughter and asked her about this matter. She at once declared that she never wrote any such thing.” . Then he goes on and talks about some of the accommodations in the various building and concludes, saying: “Your daughter has a very comfortable and pleasant room. As comfortable and pleasant a room as any on the place and her surroundings are respectable as any. I hope this will prove satisfactory to you. Yours truly, Charles Lewis Cocke. Well, there was, there still exists quite a lot of speculation about the devil s room, I haven’t been able to trace that about a ghost at Hollins. This is something I get questions about almost annually. . ,. ... I’ve left out sports, health, clothing-they were obsessed with clothing, their friendships-they had passionate friendships. I’ve left out money, pohtics-there was a lot of talk about politics, especially with the suffrage movement in the early part of the century. Also there was a great deal of talk about the very usefulness of educating women. I left out slavery and race. There’s a good deal of talk about that. I’ve left out things like dancing and concerts. But I hope I’ve conveyed a little bit of the vibrancy and the seriousness and the humor that was going on at this women’s college in the 19th century. We tend to have a very patronizing idea about the past and I think we tend especially to have a patronizing idea about single-sexed institutions. A lot was going on at Hollins in the 19th century. Despite the sort of circumscribed nature of life for these young women students, they lived rich lives. 53 �f Roanoke County Schools’Legacy by Bayes E. Wilson and Norma J. Peters In Virginia the concept of public education was slow to be accepted. Prior to the Civil War, various attempts to develop public schools slowly evolved into the foundation for a free school system. When Virginia adopted a plan in 1870 to inaugurate public education statewide, some other states had systems which had been in operation for almost 100 years. Education Prior to 1870 Educational opportunities on the frontier in western Virginia were similar to those in the older settlements in eastern Virginia. Wealthier settlers often employed tutors to provide education for their children. Some of them, including William Preston, allowed their neighbors—rich and poor—to send their children to classes provided by these tutors. Prior to the Separation Act of 1802, churches were involved in providing basic education for children on the frontier. For example the Reverend John Craig, noted Presbyterian minister, wrote of his visitations to frontier communities in the Roanoke Valley to preach the gospel and teach the children the rudiments of reading, writing, and counting. As early as 1779, Thomas Jefferson proposed a plan for public education. His bill finally passed in 1796, but it was amended and changed to the point of making it weak and ineffective. Although Jefferson’s bill failed to establish a system of public education, it stimulated and kept alive the idea of free schools supported by the state. The Literary Fund was established in 1810 by the Virginia General Assembly for the purpose of setting aside money to be used for a school or schools in each county. Many of the attempts to provide public education during the early years of the nineteenth century were met with little enthusiasm. Education at public expense was looked down upon and thought to be for paupers. Even some of the poorer people were suspicious that publicly funded education was “aid” and an attempt to pauperize them. Although public schools in Virginia prior to the Civic War were mainly for paupers, several significant legislative acts provided the basis for the public school system that would begin in 1870. These acts included establishment of the Literary Fund in 1810, the Act of 1818 augmenting the Literary Fund and assuring a type of public education from state funds, and the District Free School Act of 1829 This paper on the beginnings o f public education in Virginia and Roanoke County was presented by Dr. Bayes E. Wilson, Roanoke County superintendent o f schools. The paper was written by Wilson and Dr. Norma Jean Peters, county supervisor o f social studies and foreign languages. Wilson earned a bachelor’s degree and a doctorate from Virginia Tech and a master’s degree from the University o f Virginia. Earlier, he was business manager and assistant superinten­ dent o f county schools andprincipal o f Salem High School. Dr. Peters is a graduate o f Trevecca College and she holds a master’s degreefrom George Peabody College and a doctorate from Virginia Tech. She has been chairperson o f the Social Studies Department at Northside High School, an adjunct professor at the University o f Virginia Roanoke Center, co-author o f a manual and workbook fo r Virginia History and Geography, winner o f the Outstanding Alum ni Award fo r the Virginia Tech College o f Education and president o f Southwestern Virginia Genealogical Society. 54 �providing the first authorization of state funds for school buildings and furniture. The District Free School Act of 1846 provided public educational opportunity for any white child between the ages of six and 21 with any cost beyond the Literary Fund allocation to be levied on the county as determined by the school commissioners. The 1851 Constitution provided for a portion of a capitation tax to be allocated to primary and free schools, and a special authorization was given in 1806 for the Town of Charlottesville to establish a public school from local taxation (to the extent of $200). History o f the County School System As a result of the passage of the District Free School Act in 1846, Roanoke County made a meager attempt to establish a public school system. A super­ intendent, who served without remuneration, was appointed and the county was divided into districts. Efforts were made to seek out indigent children and to find teachers who would teach them the rudiments of education. Little progress was made to provide free schools for all children until after the Civil War. Some private schools were established in the 1830s and 1840s in Roanoke County. One of the first to be built was Salem Academy which was incorporated in 1837. Numerous other private schools came into existence in the antebellum period, but few students were able to attend these schools because of the tuition cost. Establishment o f The System in 1870 Virginia’s new constitution, adopted July 6,1869, contained the first provision for a complete system of public education in the state. In compliance with the new constitution, Virginia’s public school system was inaugurated by legislation on July 11, 1870. Professor Luther R. Holland, who had been principal of a boys’ preparatory school at Roanoke College, was appointed the first superintendent of Roanoke County Schools on September 22,1870. Roanoke County was organized into four school districts-Catawba, Salem, Big Lick, and Cave Spring. Each district had a Board of Trustes with one member chosen annually for a three-year term. The members of the first boards were influential members of the community and were often shopkeepers, merchants and persons holding positions of political leadership. Their responsibilities were to enforce the school laws; hire and fire teachers; suspend or dismiss pupils; supply textbooks, buildings and equipment; call meetings of parents; and arrange votes on school taxes. They were allowed a clerk who was to take the school census and keep a record of the trustees’ meetings. The clerk received a per diem pay of two dollars. The first recorded meeting of the district trustees was held on December 10, 1870. This meeting outlined how the districts should proceed with the organization of schools. The following plan was adopted and published in the county newspaper: Persons living in the vicinity of any school house in the county may have a free school established among them by complying with the following conditions: 1st Provide a comfortable school house with all the necessary furniture. 2nd Admit to the school all the children of the proper age within a district of such a size as will secure an average daily attendance of twenty scholars for five months. 3rd Employ a teacher who has a certificate of qualifications from the County Superintendent and who shall be appointed by the Trustees. 4th Raise by subscriptions or donations, an amount equal at least to one third of the teacher’s salary. 55 �5th Begin the school before March 1st End continue it five months previous to September 1st. 6th Place the school in all things under the regulations of the public free school law. To any school complying with these conditions, the district trustees will appropriate an amount sufficient to make up the teacher’s salary, they reserving the right of saying what the salary shall be; and will establish schools in the order of time in which they apply until the funds are exhausted. The trustees will appoint a public meeting at any school house when requested to do so by two or three citizens interested in having a free school at that point. At this meeting the trustees will ascertain whether the conditions above named will be complied with in that neighborhood. Beginnings, 1870-92 In 1870-71, the superintendent’s report listed 23 school buildings, 1,113 students enrolled, 571 average daily attendance, and 23 teachers. Tuition was $ 1.13 for each pupil each month. Teachers had a student-teacher ratio of 48:1 in enrollment and 25:1 in attendance. The entire cost of education in 1870-71 was $3,560.56 and the state paid $2,695.35 of that amount. Most of the early schools were one-room buildings with one teacher. There was little in the way of teaching materials. Few of the schools had blackboards and the textbooks provided the basis of the instruction. In 1871, trustees adopted four textbooks: Holmes Readers and Spellers, Maury’s Geography, Davies Arithmetic and Harvey’s Grammar. School trustees leased some school buildings, and others were constructed according to the needs of the communities. The Academy Street School building in Salem, which had been operating as the Salem Male and Female Academy, was leased in 1871 and subsequently purchased by the Salem District School Board. The first Roanoke County public school for black children opened in 1872 in a frame building on Chapman Street in Salem. A new six-room frame building was built in 1890 on Union Street extending to Chapman Street. This school was later called the Roanoke County Training School and served black students until the new Carver School was built in 1939-40. The Hartman School, named for the family who owned the land on which the school was built in 1875, was typical of the early buildings. Located near the present site of the Roanoke County Public Safety Building (formerly Southview School), the building was 25 feet x 35 feet with four windows and a door. The seats were benches with attached desks with seating for six children on each. There were 30 or 40 children enrolled and one teacher was employed. The children were expected to carry water and chop wood for the stove. Minutes of May 1872 recorded the school board called for a county wide tax levy of 7.5 cents per $100 for county school purposes and a levy of equal amount for district purposes. At the same time another tax for education, a dog tax of 75 cents, was imposed. In two of the districts, Cave Spring and Catawba, the amount raised for education from the dog tax was almost as much as the general levy. The amount levied indicated a dog population of 1,932. At the same time the census of school age children listed 3,140. The superintendency in the early days was considered almost an honorary position. Superintendents were appointed by the State Board of Education and received very little salary. Short terms of service may have been indicative of the economic sacrifice required of those who served. The salary was to be $15 per 1,000 of population in the county plus $5 for each one-teacher school and $10 for each graded school, but the total was not to exceed $350 per year. After serving as superintendent for two years, Luther Holland left Roanoke 56 �County in 1872 to take a position in Richmond as secretary of the State Board of Education. Although acceptance of public education was slow, Holland noted in the Virginia School Report for 1872 that “public sentiment concerning public schools has improved . . . the supervisors promptly and unanimously levied the maximum rate of taxation and expressed a regret that they were not permitted to do more.” He indicated that some very influential citizens were sending their children to public schools and that some thought these schools to be superior to those in existence before. Some of the schools ran for only three months; others for five mOI1Major William W. Ballard served as superintendent from 1872-1883. He was an attorney and had served as a school trustee for the Salem District. His experience was no doubt valuable in the formative years of school administration. In his report in 1880, he indicated that much progress was being made in education in the county. He predicted that the “children of the more ignorant classes will surpass their parents in intelligence.” , , , Marshall P. Frantz, who had previously served as a teacher and a school trustee, served as superintendent from 1883-1885. He stated in his 1885 annual report that “the system has been steadily growing in public favor, until now there is no open opposition-all classes accepting it as an institution that is here to stay, and determine to make the most of it.” Professor Wiliam M. Graybill served a short two-year term from 1885-188 /. He had been a principal of the Academy Street School in Salem and was known as a very successful conductor of teacher training institutes in various counties of the state. . , I . In the late 1870s and the 1880s, public education showed increases in attendance, numbers of schools, numbers of teachers, and costs. Gradually the stigma of pauper schools began to decline. The increase of population in the 1880s and the development of the City of Roanoke resulted in growth in public education. Roanoke was made a separate school district with a city superintendent in 1885-86. In 1887 Luther R. Holland, who had served as Roanoke County’s first superintendent, returned to the superintendency. In a controversial move, Superintendent Holland condemned the old Academy Street building,.and this action led to the construction of a new eight-room building which opened in 1890. Superintendent Holland served until 1892 when he resigned because of ill health. Early Days, 1892-1906 Reaumur Coleman Steames of Dublin served as superintendent from 1892 to 1906 This was a time when calls were coming from all quarters for improvement of public education. The 1902 Constitution of Virginia extended the powers of the State Board of Education. The “May Campaign” of 1905 featured Governor A. J. Montague and other distinguished Virginians making speeches across the state supporting improvements in public education. It was during Stearnes tenure that the beginning of consolidation and standardization of schools took place in Roanoke County. The Steames administration established a graded course of study throughout the county in 1893-94. Two advanced grades were added in 1894 creating a three-year high school. A second building was built on the Academy Street site in 1895 to accommodate the high school which became a four-year program in 1900. Named Salem High School, this facility served as the first high school in Roanoke County. The first class of six students from the three-year program graduated in 1896; the first class of nine students from the four-year high school graduated in 1902. Roanoke County was one of a few places in Virginia which had a high school at that time and quickly became known throughout the state for its excellent public schools. In 1906 Steames resigned to become secretary of Public Instruction for the state of Virginia. Subsequent to his state positions, he taught mathematics at New York University until his death. 57 �Education wasn’t half as important as having a picture taken outside the Narrows School in the Catawba Valley early in the 20th century. (Lucille Brillhart Carman) Organization, Consolidation, and Change, 1906-45 Roland E. Cook became superintendent of Roanoke County Schools in 1906. Cook began his career as an educator in 1896 as a teacher in a one-room school in Norwich in Roanoke. He then became principal of the Vinton School and organized and taught the first high school courses in that school. After several years at the Vinton School, he served as principal of Blacksburg High School for one year before being appointed superintendent of Roanoke County Schools in 1906. He served as superintendent for 39 years, a period of sweeping changes in public education in the county. Cook’s administration was characterized by increased enrollment, increased staff, consolidation of schools and thorough organization of the Roanoke County Schools as a modem education entity. State legislation in the 1920s changed the local school organization from the district system to a county unit plan with the county school board assuming all responsibility for public schools and eliminating the district boards. The county school board was also given the responsibility of appointing the local school superintendent. As the enrollment and staff increased, there was a need for more professional activities for teachers. In service activities were developed that dealt with topics that are still major concerns. Topics for discussion at a teacher’s meeting in 1913 for example, included “The Physical Welfare and Moral Training of Children in School,” “How to Interest Children in History,” “Educative Seat W ork” “Teaching Poetry to Children,” “How to Secure Good Composition Work ” “Manual Training,” “Teaching Arithmetic,” “Means of Interesting Patrons in the School,” and “School Fairs.” It was also interesting to note that teachers were asked to attend three days of meetings and be paid for two of them. In his annual report of July 31, 1917, Superintendent Cook noted “he was glad to be able to report that every district in the county has increased the salary of teachers by 58 �amounts varying from $2.50 to $7.50 per month for the coming session.” In the 1930s more consolidation of schools took place. Transportation by buses began and a variety of new courses was offered. Agricultural, shop, and other vocational training classes were offered in the high schools. Parent-teacher organizations participated in a number of activities to benefit the schools with such projects as beautification, building of playgrounds, equipping auditoriums and, as one account mentioned, buying talking machines, filing cabinets, pianos and books. The parent-teacher organization also assisted in providing free lunches for undernourished children. The old Mount Vernon Elementary School, now the Roanoke County Admin­ istration Building, was constructed in 1926. (Roanoke County Schools) In May 1932 an election was held to vote on a bond issue for constructing school buildings. It was defeated by 32 votes. The board of supervisors, however, authorized borrowing three-fourths of the money needed for new buildings from the Literary Fund. In 1934 the federal government began making Public Works Administration grants available for buildings and paid up to 45 percent of the cost. During the five-year period following, Roanoke County received federal grants of over $382,000 and borrowed over $691,000 from the Literary Fund. This, along with local funds, brought about the construction of or additions to Back Creek, Burlington, Clearbrook, Mount Pleasant, and Southview elementary schools; Andrew Lewis High (now Andrew Lewis Middle School in Salem), William Byrd High (until recently William Byrd Junior High School), William Fleming High (now Breckenridge Junior High in Roanoke City), and Carver High (now G. W. Carver Elementary in Salem) schools. Andrew Lewis, William Byrd, and William Fleming high schools opened in 1933. New construction during this period left Roanoke County with only five one-room schools in 1940. Consolidation of public schools did not come easily. A report attributed to Superintendent Cook suggested that “any person who suggested closing a small county school was branded Public Enemy Number One.” By the end of Cook’s administration, the Roanoke County School System had become recognized throughout Virginia for progressive educational practices. Post-World War II Year, 1945-55 When Cook died in 1945, R. Douglas Nininger was appointed to fill the remaining two years of his term. Nininger, who had served as principal of William Fleming High School and director of instruction under Cook, was reappointed for two more four-year terms. Nininger left the superintendency in 1955 for private business. 59 �The post-war years were times of financial dilemma for Roanoke County. Annexation by the City of Roanoke reduced taxable value in the county by 34 percent. Many school needs such as improvements to buildings had been put off during the war, and it was very discouraging when voters in every precinct rejected a $3.5 million bond issue for schools in December 1950. In 1950-52 the state provided $75 million statewide for school buildings. These funds were known as “Battle Funds in honor of Governor John Battle who was instrumental in gaining approval of the Virginia General Assembly for appropriation of funds for this purpose~the only time before and since that the state has allocated funds for school buildings. Beginning in 1954, additions and improvements were made to certain Roanoke County schools including West Salem Elementary School and the present Cave Spring Junior High School (previously Cave Spring High School). Years o f Growth, 1955-65 The 10-year period while Herman L. Horn was superintendent was one of growth in the Roanoke County Schools. From Mt. Solon, Horn served as a teacher in Augusta County, principal of Troutville High School in Botetourt County, and William Byrd High School in Vinton. He was director of instruction from 1940-42 but left education to serve as a field director for the American Red Cross during World War II. He returned to public education as principal of Marion High School for one year in 1946 and then taught at Hollins College and Virginia Polytechnic Institute prior to being appointed superintendent of Roanoke County Schools in Cave Spring Junior High, originally a high school, was built in 1955-56. (Roanoke County Schools) The late fifties and early sixties was a period of construction in Roanoke County. In 1957 a school bond issue was passed which led to construction of five new schools and additions to eight existing ones. The new schools were Northside High School, and Glenvar, Oak Grove, Mountain View, and Craig Avenue elementary schools. In 1962 another bond issde resulted in five more new elementary schools-Cave Spring, Mason’s Cove, Pinkard Court, East Vinton (now Herman L. Horn Elementary), and East Salem. Years o f Rapid Expansion, 1965-80 The growth in Roanoke County continued through the late sixties and into the seventies. Arnold R. Burton was superintendent during the period of rapid growth 60 �which was characterized by increases of 800 students a year and additional expenditures of $ 1 million a year. Burton, a native of Rogersville, Tennessee, came to Roanoke County as principal of William Byrd High School. Prior to being appointed superintendent in 1965, he served as assistant superintendent. In 1969 needs of the rapidly increasing school population were presented to the voters in the form of a $15.8-million bond referendum for school construction. A massive campaign to promote the bond issue was waged through the media, parentteacher groups and civic organizations. When the issue was presented to the voters, however, the date was omitted from the official statement making it necessary to vote a second time. The bond issue passed both times. The new schools financed by this issue were William Byrd High; Cave Spring High; Hidden Valley Junior High; Northside Junior High; Roanoke County Occupational School; and Glen Cove, Hardy Road, and Penn Forest elementary schools. Nine elementary buildings received additions including gymnasiums, cafeterias and multi-purpose rooms. During this time period the cost of a junior high/ middle school was approximately $2.5 million and the cost of an elementary school was $1.5 million. The 1962-63 school year marked the beginning of racial integration in the Roanoke County School System. The school division, under a court order, was completely desegregated in 1966. Good planning and a cooperative spirit on the part of black and white educators led to a smooth transition. The plan, which included integration of two grades a year, was placed into effect without large scale busing. The final desegregation effort resulted in the closing of Carver as a black school and assigning black teachers to other schools. Sweeping changes in curriculum and the structure of schooling occurred in the late sixties and seventies. These included kindergarten, special education, elementary guidance, teacher aides, open-space plan, intermediate school concept, and modular scheduling. Vocational education expanded and became more diversified during this time period. The increasing student population and teaching staff including curriculum supervisors, resource coordinators, and directors of major areas. Three assistant superintendents were appointed-Bayes Wilson, Theodore Viars, and Con Davis. Throughout Burton’s tenure an overriding school issue was whether Salem would create a separate school division or remain part of the Roanoke County system. From the time Salem became an independent city in 1968, discussions ensued about creating a separate city school division. Roanoke County continued to operate the Salem schools by a contractual arrangement, and Burton served as superintendent of both divisions. Salem built a new high school in 1977 and funded additions to East Salem and South Salem elementary schools. The complete separation of the two systems came at the conclusion of the 1982-83 school year. The Eighties and Beyond The eighties in Roanoke County brought increased challenges to education. Roanoke County lost 3800 students to the new Salem School Division in 1983 and faced declining enrollments in subsequent years. These enrollment decreases coupled with increasing costs for education demanded that educators seek ways to adjust to new situations while maintaining programs which ensured quality education for all students. Bayes Wilson, a native of Russell County, became superintendent in 1980only the 10th superintendent of Roanoke County Schools in the history of the' public school system since it began in 1870. Prior to his selection as superintendent, Wilson served the county schools as a teacher, business manager, director of finance, high school principal, and assistant superintendent. In 1988 the Roanoke County School Division served a student population of 13,200 with a staff of 980 teachers and 907 other personnel. Despite declining enrollments, the Roanoke County School System made substantial progress during the 1980s and continued to be considered a flagship school system in 61 �Virginia. Approximately $15 million was spent from 1980 to 1988 to build a new middle school in Vinton and to provide additions to Cave Spring (two additions), Northside, William Byrd, and Glenvar high schools; and the elementary schools of Mason’s Cove, Herman L. Horn, Mt. Pleasant, Glenvar, Cave Spring, Back Creek, and Bent Mountain. Additionally, Northside and Glenvar High schools were air conditioned, and improvements were made at all high school stadiums. Academic excellence was a major national focus in the 1980s. In keeping with this emphasis, Roanoke County reaffirmed its commitment to excellence and a curriculum which met individual student needs. This commitment brought about increased graduation requirements, the accreditation of all schools, greater emphasis on technological education and more programs designed to meet special needs of students. This focus has resulted in high standardized test scores, academic awards and honors, and the fact that over 80 percent of the graduates pursue post­ secondary education. Beginning in 1983, the United States Department of Education sponsored a national program of recognition of exemplary schools for excellence in education. Four Roanoke County schools, Cave Spring High, Hidden Valley Junior High, Mountain View Elementary, and Oak Grove Elementary, received this recognition during four of the first five years of the program -a record unequaled in Virginia and, perhaps, by any other school system in the United States. As the school system moves toward the twenty-first century, excellence in education for the children and youth of the county continues to be the goal of educators and citizens alike. The challenges are great but the lessons of the past teach us that schools, community, and government working together can meet these challenges. We must plan and prepare for the future. Appreciation is extended to Deedie Kagey, assistant principal of Penn Forest Elementary School in Roanoke County, for sharing information about the history of the Roanoke County School System from the research for her book, When Past is Prologue: A H istory o f R oanoke C ounty, and to Deanna Gordon, director of elementary education, Roanoke County Schools, who provided certain other resource materials. SOURCES “A History of the Southview Community.” Unpublished paper. Files of Roanoke County Schools, Salem Buck, J. L. Blair. The D evelopment o f Public Schools in Virginia 1607-1952, voL 35, no. 1. Richmond, Va.: State Board o f Education (1952). House, Floyd, Frank Hoffler, Robert Barker, and Charles C. Rodeffer. Fort Lewis: A Com m unity in Transition. University of Virginia Institute for Research in Social Sciences, 1930. Kagey, Deedie.44A Glimpse at the Evolvement of the Free School Idea in Virginia and the Origin of Roanoke County Public Schools, 1870-1876.” Unpublished paper. Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, 1987. When Past is Prologue: A H istory o f Roanoke County. Roanoke County Sesquicentennial Committee, 1988. Maddox, William Arthur. The Free School Idea in Virginia Before the C ivil War. New York: Teacher’s College, Columbia University 1918. Middleton, Norwood C. Salem, A Virginia Chronicle. Roanoke: Progress Press, 1986 Monroe, Paul. Founding o f the Am erican Public School System . New York: Macmillan Co., 1940. Morrison, A. J. The Beginning o f Public Education in Virginia 1776-1860. Richmond: Virginia State Board of Education, 1917. Moseley, Irma Trammell and Madeline Simmons Forbes, Vinton H istory, 1884-1984, Centennial Committee, Vinton, 1984. Porter, Albert Ogden. A Legislative H istory. New York: Columbia University Press, 1947. n j Roanoke, Story o f County and City. Writers Program of the Work Projects Administration o f the State of Virginia, 1942. Statistical Reports. Files of Roanoke County Schools, Salem Stiff, Annie B. The H istory o f Secondary Education in Roanoke county, Virginia, 1838-1940. Master’s thesis, University o f Virginia, 1942. . “History of Education in Roanoke County,” R .C .E A . News, vol. 6, no. 2, December 1963. ** “The Beginnings of Public School Education in Roanoke County.” Unpublished paper, files o f Roanoke County Schools, Salem ) Wilson, Bayes E. “A Study of the Financing of Public School Capital Facilities in the Commonwealth of Virginia.” Ed. D. dissertation, * Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1988. 62 �Farming Was The Backbone O f Roanoke Area Growth by Lowell Gobble, P.B. Douglas and Glenn Ramsey GOBBLE: It’s good to see smiling faces and interested people and folks who can contribute, folks who have been around a long time. I’m here simply because I’m the new one on the block, even though I’ve been here a few years in extension, I’m the new one. You know agriculture has come a long way in the last 150 years and even the 28 years that I’ve been here in Roanoke County, I guess I have seen perhaps more development than we have seen before in terms of losing agriculture and the big farms. You know the North Lake Farm, I mean the Wipledale Farm which became North Lakes. Now we’re dealing with 200 to 300 citizens over there when it used to be that Harold Craun was the only one asking for information. We have changed quite a bit. We have a rich history. We’re recognized as the hub of agriculture for Western Virginia. We have been for years and we still are. We go back to the farmer’s market down in Roanoke, over 100 years old and it continues in operation. We’re going to lose a lot of agricultural history if it’s not recorded very soon. As we began to think about folks who could come here tonight and share with us agricultural history, we had real difficulty because those folks that told us about the history have died mostly in the past 10 to 15 years or so. We’ve lost this generation and if we do not record it very soon, we’re going to lose a lot more. But Roanoke is important and agriculture has been a backbone to Roanoke. It has a rich history when we look at the apple orchards, we look at the vegetables, we look at the history of tomatoes, tobacco and we go on back to flax. Is there anyone here that is familiar with tobacco being grown in Roanoke County? Were you a part of it? It was a medium of exchange, not that many years ago and that was one of the primary reasons that it was grown here. You probably have not been associated with flax but it was an important product. To go back a little bit, take P. B. Douglas, who became my county agent in Washington County when I was in diapers. That’s what he tells people so I might as well tell it before he does. So he’s known me a long time, really longer than I’ve known him. He came here and was Roanoke County agent. DOUGLAS: I was agent here at Salem for three or four years and after that my office was here for nearly a 20-year period in the Southwest District. We want to take a look at what has happened in this 150-year period from the standpoint of Roanoke County agriculture. The only qualification I really have is that I’m 73 years old, will be 74 in March, and I thinned com with the son of a slave when I was a 10-year-old boy, for 10 cents an hour. My grandparents on both sides, especially my grandfather on my mother’s side were not owners of slaves but his Joining in a discussion o f a century and a half o f farming were Lowell Gobble, P. B. Douglas and Glenn Ramsey. Gobble, Roanoke County extension agent since 1960 and unit director since 1967, is a Virginia Tech graduate. He won the National County Agents Distinguished Service Award in 1970. Douglas, president-elect o f Salem Historical Society, retired in 1977 after 26 years as district county agent in Southwest Virginia. Earlier, Douglas, also a Virginia Tech graduate, was county agent in Roanoke, Washington and Spottsylvania counties fo r 14 years. Ramsey has farm ed in the Hershberger Road section o f Roanoke all o f his adult life, except for three years o f military service during World War II. Most o f hisfam ily farm has been taken over by hotels and other commercial developments. 63 �Imagine a threshing crew dressed up in coats and ties! It must have been Sunday afternoon on the Huff Farm. daddy was. So thinning corn with the son of a slave gave me almost an accurate record of what agriculture was like down in middle Virginia~in Albemarle and Orange counties. As I migrated west, I got my agricultural license from VPI in 1933. We agreed that we would begin here with the land and the people. The land hasn’t changed a great deal. It’s still here like we found it. We are preserving it and taking care of it. The land began with the limestone, sandstone and shale soil which is so basic to this valley. It’s important to know that one-third of this great state is west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, then the Piedmont, the upper Piedmont with Bent Mountain as the start and the costal plain area. So the soil is one of the basic things. Now, let’s break this 150-year period down into time segments. The first was one in which we ought to say something about the people. The last Indian raid recorded in history was in 1764 in Catawba Valley. And then Gen. Andrew Lewis, a major at the time, went from Salem to the battle of Point Pleasant, W. Va. when the Indians just wouldn’t let us go any farther west than the Alleghany Mountains and the Appalachian Range. We thought that the following categories of things that have affected the agricultural history could be handled best if done by an outline. We broke this 150-year period into the following categories: Transportation, energy, education and research, communication, merchanization of agriculture, conservation and environmental concern. What was transportation all about in the beginning, in 1838? At the start, we had the James and the Roanoke rivers and the canals that brought the people. They also came by foot, by riding horses, or by wagon, all kinds of wagons. Every town or part of a county or city that had any size had a wagon factory, certainly Lynchburg was famous for that. And then the Conestoga wagons, the six shooters and deep wells conquered the West. Roanoke is the only county in Southwestern Virginia that doesn’t have a tobacco allotment at the present time. When the canal was on the James River and during the Revolutionary times tobacco was money and every planter planted it and used it for money. It’s still one of the top 10 dollar producers for income for farmers, when we look at it and the value nationwide. Something happened in 1852 that’s recorded in this new county history, when the Virginia-Tennessee Railroad came to town. This is an important date when we 64 �look at what happened to this valley. We’ve got all the people who came this far and they didn’t move very fast until there were ways to travel more efficiently. So one of the first things that helped them was the rivers and canals, then came the railroads. What were the energy resources at that time? Many of the historical societies that exist in this part of Virginia go back to the importance of the grist mill, the flour mill. And every stream that was large enough and had enough volume of water in it, somebody impounded it into a mill dam and they ran the grist mills the old way to make flour. Wheat was one of the important crops in this area. Then of course, came sources of energy-fuel power, horse power, water power, and then steam power. I remember bagging wheat, some of you men in this room do too, when the little boys held the sacks for the wheat that came out of the threshing machine. The energy was a steam tractor engine that was being fed slab planks by us. That was all the energy it needed. Something happened in 1862 in the Civil War. How many know that Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Act that created the land grant college system? That act probably had more to do with the education of the common man than any other one act that was ever passed by the United States Congress. It provided some type of education and experience to the people who lived all over the land because we had a surplus of acres and that was one way to provide a start. VPI celebrated its 100th year in 1973. It was one of the first land grant colleges to get under way. The Morrill Act had more influence probably than any other one thing in bringing about changes in agriculture. What they were doing was trying to solve problems as they existed on the land. When the land grant colleges act was passed, there was a great fight here m Virginia about how many places in this state, how many colleges, how many politicians tried to get it located in their area of the state when it got started. Probably the greatest single thing that has happened that affected agriculture in modern time is the increase in communication and mode of travel. Look what’s happened from the telephone, the telegraph, the radio, the TV. WSLS in 1952 opened here in our immediate community. Turn on the TV and 24 hours a day you can see where the hurricane is moving in the next 25 miles and which way it’s going. So the farmer knows when to make hay and when not to make hay. The next biggest thing in communication that I see on the horizon is the satellite and worldwide stock market which never closes. Each morning you wake up to see what it did in Tokyo, already a day ahead of time, and what’s going on in London and when it opens up in New York. We keep in touch all the time. Now, the mechanization of farming is one of the other categories when you look back. Joe Gish, the first county agent, starting in 1911, had the second longest service-21 years. He probably had to change more in his time than in any other, being the salesman to bring the information from the college and research stations to us. 3 There are other dates that are important: 1932, when the Agriculture Adjustment Act, the old AAA, was passed. I see the chairman of the county ASCS, that stands for Agriculture Stabilization and Conservation Services. You see that word conservation has gotten in there now. You stabilize agriculture so that we 11 never go hungry. You haven’t heard anybody with a good mouthful of food complaining about some of these programs real loud, have you? They don’t always agree with some of the things we’re doing but that’s a fact of life. 1936. Leo Painter, who is here, served as one of the professional technicians in this county for soil conservation. „ , , , In 1940-45: “Food will win the war.” They turned the farmers loose and oh boy did they t u rn them loose! They put it on the line too. It soon became obvious that between 1945-50, mercy, we had to do something about how we were going to manage our production/control program. So in 1950 we had the first soil bank program. Here we are in 1988 and still dealing with the most severe, the most important soil conservation program probably that’s ever been enacted by the Congress. 65 �/ GOBBLE: Let’s remember a couple of dates. The Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical School, now Virginia Tech, was started in 1872 and then the agricultural research station began in 1897. That has brought about the education and the changes that have taken place in the state. The reaper was invented just up the valley and that has come here locally. Think of Roanoke County, think of Catawba Valley, and Bent Mountain as the only two rural areas that we have left. Anytime that we talk about agriculture in Roanoke we have to think of the airport and that general Williamson Road area, the Pete Huff and Tom Andrews farms. Then we go to the Kinseys and the Ramseys and several more, and that was sort of a bread basket because that supplied the Roanoke farmers market. That’s where the mules were raised that pulled the fire trucks in the City of Roanoke and so many things happened in that general area. That’s where the airport was built. That was the bread basket. That’s where the largest shopping mall, next to Richmond, has been built. And so many things that we can get back after the turn of the century when Gordon Ramsey s father came to Roanoke. I would like him to tell us just how high-priced land was in Roanoke County in 1916 and tell us about what we’ll call the bread basket of Roanoke County, what is now the shopping center and the metropolis. RAMSEY: You know it’s always a pleasure to talk after Doug(P.B. Douglas) because he takes more than his time and I don’t have to say too much. We’ve been to a lot of conventions together and I’m always glad to get behind him because he takes up plenty of the time. Lowell asked me to speak a little bit on the Hershberger section. My father bought that tract of land out there in 1909, Gordon (Ramsey, a brother) can remember, he’s older than I am. But anyway, Daddy shopped around different areas and counties, but he didn t like the soil there. He wanted to raise vegetables and he wanted to find something that was suitable for that and he found it in that section. He bought it for over $200 an acre, which was a premium at that time. He could have bought land in other places for $30-$40 maybe but he didn’t. Everybody said, “You’re crazy, Joe, you’ll never pay for it.” But anyway, he tried. He worked just like Gordon and I do, we don’t know when to quit, we just work all the time anyway. He did. The first year they were obligated to pay this note off. It was early spring and a big frost killed everything. He was about as sad as anybody could be, I reckon. But anyway, my grandmother said, “Now Joe, go back in there and start planting again. You’ll make it.” And that’s what he did. When he finally paid the thing off, they had bought the land from Dr. Allen Kirk. And he said, “Joe if I had thought you were going to pay for this thing, you never would have gotten it in the first place.” That was the story of Hershberger. Anyway, we were real fortunate to have the type soil that we had there 'cause if you took care of it, it almost took care of you. I mean you had to treat it like it was supposed to be treated. You had to fertilize it. You had to put green manure back here. Anyway, we learned through daddy and ourselves what to do and how to do it. In that section, land belonged to Huffs, Andrews, Kinseys and Garsts all around us; the Lackeys, Showalters, Harold Craun, just to name a few. Now all of these didn’t raise vegetables but a good many of us did. Back in the '30s and '40s, Roanoke City was an excellent market. It was equal to anything in Greensboro! Winston-Salem, or any of the rest of them. Now when I got up old enough, Daddy put my job as going to the market and that meant getting up 2 or 3 o’clock or 4 o clock every morning. At the time, we didn’t have many super stores like Kroger, Mick-or-Mack, chain stores. For miles around, 100-150 miles of Roanoke, they came in every morning to pick up a load and be out of there by 5 o’clock. They wanted to get back to the store in time to open up. You can sell a pile of stuff to these out-of-town shoppers like that. They had to get back to their stores. And it was a good market, it was an excellent market. Some of you remember it. But times have 66 �changed on that. You go to super markets now and they would just as soon buy from California or anywhere else as they would local. Although we still sell a lot of stuff, people’s eating habits are different now than what they used to be. They used to buy the biggest head of cabbage they could get. Now they want the smallest one they can get. I don’t know. The younger generation, if it wasn’t for the fast food places, I don’t know what they would do, to tell you the truth. They could starve plum to death, I reckon. Wi Three men were riding high on a truck-load of hay on the Joe Ramsey farm off Hershberger Road. (Glenn Ramsey) A young farmer was proud of his steel-cleated tractor, used until after World War II on the Ramsey Farm. (Glenn Ramsey) ___ _ Gordon and I farmed with my father on up ‘till Daddy retired and he lived to be 94. So we took the business over and operated under the name of Ramsey Brothers. We specialized in greens, sweet com, beets, radishes, no green beans 'cause it took too long to pick them. We had to get something that’s in a hurry. We didn’t have time to pick beans. We had turnips, lots of them, squash, cucumbers, melons. We just had a variety of everything when it was in. You know, you have to keep something coming in all the time, anyway. Onions, we had that whole valley in onions a number of years, up and down that creek on both sides. It was a good crop. It was a working crop. Back then, you could get help with no problem but as years went on, the labor situation was really against us. We just had to more or less give everything up. Talking about different areas, toward where the airport is now, that was the ^ Cannaday farm. I was just a kid, a little bitty kid, when I reckon they had the first steam engine and probably the first tractor in Roanoke County. I asked Gordon the other night, I remembered our John Deere was on steel wheels with cleats on it. I think it was a '35 model, wasn’t it? So man, we were really getting on with it, when we got rid of the horses. Well, we never got rid of all the horses. But when we got that tractor, we were doing something. We paid $600 and kept it for about 15 years and still got about $600 for it. So man, you can’t beat that, can you? You know ever since then, things just keep going up, up, up. You take what a tractor costs today. You know, a small tractor costs about $20,000. Everything is advanced pricewise, labor, parts, fertilizer, seeds. Name it, it’s sky-high. It s amazing, the difference. Well, you take my father. He lived to be 94 years old. From the time he came to Roanoke, look at the difference he saw in his life span. Hershberger was just a dirt road, nothing but dirt and everybody helped keep it up. Everybody hauled rocks to put on it. I think the first macadam road was Melrose Avenue. I was born in 1919, look at thetEanges I have seen in that length oftime. Not only in history and work. In the service, I saw half the world. It’s just a 67 �f dramatic change from 10-15-20 years ago for today. I mean pricewise and the way people live, the way they travel, the way they eat. There’s nothing you see, look at or taste that ain’t going to hurt you anymore. It’s going to kill you before it’s over with. So you have to be careful in what you do. We do. When we were in vegetables, we had to do a lot of spraying. But we had to be careful. They said wait three days! we always waited seven days before we would sell anything out of that field. We had different fields we could work out of. We didn’t have to depend on that one. I don’t know how strict they are on it now but I tell you one thing, I’ve seen some of them spray one day and cut the next. So it didn’t kill everybody anyway. A little bit of comparison, from the $£00 myjfather paid for that land on Hershberger Road, I can’t even quote a price on that anymore. It depends on who wants it and how bad they want it. It’s either a shopping center, a motel, restaurant or fast food. We used to not have any trouble flooding with that old creek out there but everytime it come a big hard rain we catch it cause all of the water runs off the hard surface. Any chance that there will come a time when there are no more working farms in Roanoke County? RAMSEY: I definitely see that coming, don’t you, Lowell? GOBBLE: At least we will not see them as working farms as we know them today. On Catawba Valley and Bent Mountain they have them but I’m talking about in the vicinity where we are. RAMSEY: Well, Hershberger Road was still farm land. A lot of it was 10 or 12 years ago but it’s not anymore. Crossroads Mall was the first big piece of property sold out there and after that everybody was talking about what a price they got for that. That was just $15,000 (an acre) and it went down in history as the biggest sale that ever happened in Roanoke County, which probably was at that time. What about the changes from horse to truck to go to the market? RAMSEY: The first truck we had was an older truck, solid wheel, solid rubber. I know one thing, I had to stand up to touch the clutch to drive that thing. I was too short to stay on the seat. I’ll tell you another little story about that truck. Herbert Thomas used to work for us. Daddy left the hillside down there to get plowed. We were about to work the old horses to death. So Herbert sent me up to get the truck and told me to bring log chains with them. I didn’t know what he was going to do. Daddy went away and when he came back we had that hill plowed. He didn’t believe it. He said, “What in the World, how did you do it?” We wrapped the log chains around the wheels so the thing wouldn’t spin so bad. He held the plow and I drove the truck for him. That’s how we got it done. GOBBLE: There’s a publication, “Roanoke Past and Present,” and on page 91 it has a picture of Joe34-Xiisht the first county agent, who had a demonstration set up on the Roanoke farmer’s market in 1906.1 understand Gish’s farm and across from the farm was immediately adjacent to the Huff farm and across from the Andrewsjarm. It backed up to the Round Hill School. I understand that he was one of thefm est farmers in the county and he was selected as a demonstrator farmer. This was prior to his becoming county agent in 1911. He was down on the farmer’s market, just asking questions and as a demonstrator. The great Roanoke Fair of 1908 was pictured. What does the ticket have on it? Horse racing. Parimutuel betting. So I guess horse racing is not new in the Roanoke Valley. They raced around what is now Victory Stadium. That was the race track. If I could, let me go through some names, like Howard Bush and T. Martin Bush and several of those over in Vinton. W. P. Saul over in Mount Pleasant. Frank McDonald, Fred Gross, John Seibeldown Bonsack way, and then the Gish farm and Elmer Layman down in Bonsack. And we go down to Vinton for Darnall, Walter and Sam Vinyard; then over on Peters Creek Road, the Garst family and Harold Craun; the Plunketts and then the Huffman farms. Levi and several of the Huffmans happened to be at Exit 41 on Interstate 81. The Jamisons and then the Bowmans had the finest Jersey farm in the United States up at Salem. Then we would go to Poages Mill. 68 �Jerry Morgan over in Catawba raised draft horses for fire stations and many others in Catawba. The Dr. Hugh Trout farm down Hollins way; the Albert farm is now Greenhill Park up~m~Salem; another fine farm, the ChapmanTârm^ became Catawba Hospital and now the VPI research station over in Catawba. And then purebred breeders like Russell Johnson,. Earl Simms, T. D. Steele, who came along. And we have to mention our fruit growers that this county is probably the most famous for. We would love to tell the story about the pippin apples and how they went to England and the queen exempted them from export. Paul Grisso can tell you all about it. The Back Creek Orchard Co. was probably the largest orchard in the county and it’s now almost forgotten. That was a big one. We think of Crumpackers, Murrays, the Beasley orchards, the Andrews orchards off of Old Hollins Road; the Mount Regis and Diamond Hill orchards up in Salem. They’re almost forgotten now. Over at Back Creek, we go around the side of the mountain and look at Paul Grisso and Joe Wertz and their ancestors who scratched out a very good living on the side of the hill. Paul finally got his tractor, his first rubber-tire tractor just a few years ago. Another kind of history that we have right here in the county is the institutional farm. The county poor farm, later the McVitty House farm, and the city poor farm that T. D. Steele bought; the Catawba Sanatorium and how they bottled milk; Hollins College and its bottled milk; the Lutheran Children’s Home and the Baptist home; a number of institutional farms. We have a rich history. The only thing I know is we are going to have to adjourn the agriculture section just now until a later date. Nationality and Religion by the Rev. Guy A. Ritter When Roanoke County was formed in 1838 the religion of the people was not different from their Botetourt neighbors and relatives. At that time Botetourt represented a good cross-section of the religious beliefs and activities of the United States generally. Denominational membership, as we think of it today, was relatively unimportant and one associated with people with similar notions of the powers that be and the morality that dictated right from wrong behavior. A similar concern for the welfare of the state and nation was well entrenched in the people and a common understanding of acceptable behavior was generally recognized. Varied strains of European religious ideas had come into the area with the migrations of the people. Even at this late date two very divisive characteristics existed, language and ethnic background. The migrants tended to settle near people of their own language and ethnic origin. Despite a common loyalty to the results of the Revolution and establishment of a “new nation under God,” they remained German, English, Scottish, Swiss by virtue of language and dissenters or loyalists to the Church of England. Though eastern Virginia was settled primarily by English Episcopalians •' this area was settled primarily by dissenters from the State Church, German i Lutherans and Reformed and Brethren and especially by Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. The Rev. Guy A. Ritter, retiredfrom the religion faculty at Roanoke College, is a past president o f Salem Historical Society. He is a graduate o f Roanoke College and the Lutheran Seminary at Philadelphia. A retired Army chaplain, he also served churches at Manassas and Blue Ridge. 69 �These Germans, Swiss and others recognized the quality of the limestone land of the area and looked for limestone and walnut trees, having found these characteristics indicative of “good” land down the Shenandoah Valley and in Maryland and Pennsylvania. These people came to stay and they chose their land carefully. Most of these German-speaking people had left Europe to escape the restrictions of the state churches and the disastrous results of the 30 Years War. They were for the most part grateful for a place to live in peace. The Scotch-Irish were not quite so pacific. Despite the relief from poverty in Scotland by removal to Northern Ireland by the Crown, the diligence and thrift of the Scots provoked legislation to curtail the threat to English industry. Then later the restriction of the practice of Presbyterianism, to which most Ulsterites subscribed, provoked these people to migrate in great numbers to the New World. They were an embittered people and particularly to the king and Established Church of England. These groups were encouraged to settle the frontier by Governor William Gooch, who promised that they could practice their religion freely if they would take the oath of allegiance as prescribed by Parliament’s Act of Toleration. This they apparently did and came in great numbers to our area. Raymond Barnes writes that “By the 1730s the wave of migration reached present Staunton, Virginia. The hordes of the Scotch-Irish now overleaped the advancing Germans to push ever westwardly and southwesterly. There were few save the Scotch-Irish settler in the Roanoke Valley.” Though the area of Roanoke County was only sparsely settled at the end of the colonial period nearly all of the in­ habitants were dissenters from the State Church and were of non-English backgrounds. These settlers, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist as well as the Brethren, met in their homes for worship and learning. Most were served by itinerant missionaries who came occasionally. In the meantime these people provided their own teachers and preachers. The Rev. John Craig, a Presbyterian minister, came to the Roanoke Valley in 1749 and in 1762 he was appointed for one Sunday at Roanoke and one at Catawba. By 1767 New Antrim congregation had 49 families as members on Peters Creek. By 1785 Paul Henkel, a Lutheran minister, visited the Lutheran people in the area and by 1796 a thriving congregation with John George Butler as pastor, was established on Mill Creek near Troutville. Jacob Scherer and Robert J. Miller visited Botetourt in 1811,1813 and 1815. They found John William Meyer serving six congregations and Copp’s Church was founded by Miller and Scherer on the James at present Springwood in 1815. Butler reported that there was a group of 20 families between Salem and Big Lick with names of Muller, Braun, Traut, Gerst, Stattler, Hartman and others. There were no church buildings and they met in the homes or barns of the people. Zion Lutheran Church was a congregation in 1809 but it did not build a church building until 1826. This log church stood on the main road (Lee Highway) between Salem and Roanoke near what is now the Virginia Lutheran Home on Lee Highway. Baptists had a similar experience with visiting ministers and a dearth of church buildings. There was a Baptist congregation on Catawba Creek in 1780 and a congregation in Salem in 1784. These may have had buildings then but the group in Salem was able to build a church in 1823. This church was used until 1845 and stood in what is East Hill Cemetery but the congregation moved to “the Bend of Roanoke River” and again in 1854 to what is now known as Fort Lewis Baptist Church. One interesting thing about this period of limited church buildings and numerous congregations was the universal sharing of property. It seems general all over the country that Protestant denominations in the early 19th century reached a working agreement to share the property in a joint effort to church the unchurched and to offer some general social improvement in the population. Denominational rivalry was not very evident though distinctive doctrines were exercised. One of these union churches was situated on the land of David Read on present Monterey Golf Course. This was variously called the “Brick Church,” “The Free Church” or 70 �more often, “Tinker Creek Church.” Apparently the building was used by every denomination at one time or another with little difficulty. The Botetourt Parish of the Episcopal Church was formed in 1770 but fell on hard times during the Revolution and the famous Act of December 1784 disestablished the Church of Virginia. The Presbyterians had taken over the Episcopal church in Fincastle by 1801 and in 1813 wanted to build a new church on the site. In 1814 the Virginia Assembly responded to a petition to give the property to the Town of Fincastle and the town gave it to the Presbyterians. For many years no Episcopal church building existed in Fincastle but by 1837 a new Episcopal Church was built in the town in the newly popular “Gothic” style. The Rev. Dabney M. Wharton became the leading Episcopal clergyman from his arrival at Fincastle in 1836. He met the congregation at the Tinker Creek Church until 1840 for he had already moved the rectory to the Lick. In 1849 the congregation at the Brick Church moved to Gainsborough and built the first St. John’s Church, a small classical revival building. In the year that the Methodist Episcopal Church was formed in Baltimore, 1784, Francis Asbury, co-superintendent of the Methodists in America, began his journeys in V irginia Frequently coming down the Great Road, preaching at one settlement and another he came to Fincastle and is reported to have preached to more than 1,000 people. Another time he was in Big Lick and probably visited Vinton at this time. Tradition has it that he preached at Aunt Sallie Thrasher’s. In 1815 Thrasher’s Chapel was completed. In 1869 the Methodists’ congregation in Big Lick met in the First Presbyterian Church and afterwards in a school building and later in the Lutheran church on Loudon Avenue. The first building owned by the Methodists was a frame church seating about 300 people erected in 1875 on the corner of Henry and Loudon Avenue. This building was sold to the Black Methodists when the congregation moved south of the railroad to a larger building on Church Avenue. During these years as The Lick became Roanoke the Presbyterians in the area were better established. When the Lexington Presbytery was formed in 1786 there were regular requests for supply ministers at “Roan Oak,” Craig’s Creek and Sinking Springs (Fincastle). A congregation organized out of the congregations of Ebenezer and Catawba Union was called the Church of Salem. The organizational meeting was in June 1831. In 1802 the Rev. Robert Logan was pastor of congregations at Roan Oak and Fincastle though there is some doubt about the buildings. Presbyterians worshipped at the Tinker Creek Brick Church, the Piney Grove Church south of Roanoke was shared by Presbyterians, Lutherans and Baptists. The first building of Salem Presbyterian Church was on Academy Street on the site that later became Academy Street School. This was a two-story building with a school on the ground floor and a sanctuary on the upper floor, a not uncommon arrangement for Protestant churches. It was this building in which the second session of Roanoke College in Salem was held in 1847-48. The Salem Female Academy also occupied this building. The present Salem Presbyterian Church was built on Main Street at Market and dedicated in August 1852. The cooperative use of our buildings was not the only common denominator in Protestant churches during the nineteenth Century. They all exhibited an enthusiastic presentation of their message in a manner called “evangelical” which emphasized above all else the preaching office. This is the result of the general acceptance of this principle which motivated the two Great Awakenings of the Protestant church in America, the first in the 1740’s and the second from about 1800 on even to our own day in some denominations. This revivalism was the norm for Protestant churches. The focal point of every service was the sermon. The buildings were so arranged as to emphasize this fact—the pulpit was placed prominently in the middle of the auditorium. There was no liturgical arrangement even in Episcopal and Lutheran churches. Only a few had altars and the Sacraments played a secondary role in the sermon. Much emphasis was laid on the 71 �necessity of conviction of sinfulness, repentance, and acceptance of Christ as personal savior. It is reported that the Rev. David Caldwell, minister of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Liberty (Bedford) in the 1840’s preached a sermon on fam ily prayer in which he said that “the souls who neglected this important duty were so much combustible material cast upon the shores of time, to be ultimately borne on its current to the ocean of eternity, there to feed the flames of that fire which would never be quenched.” This period showed a general consensus of concern for the soul of the believer. What happened to the soul now in this lifetime of sin and the prospects of the soul in eternity were of prime concern. There was a general notion that the soul was immortal and that temporal death only opened the door to two prospects: Eternal bliss in Heaven or eternal damnation in perpetual hell-fire. Not a pretty prospect! Another cooperative development in Protestant churches was a great concern for the condition of the halt, the lame, the blind and the widow and the orphan. During the colonial period this was the concern of the Established church and this became the interest of benevolent societies with general cooperation. Some historians have called the theology of most American Protestant denominations in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, “theology of disinterested benevolence”. By this they mean replacing the harsh doctrine of predestination with an offer of salvation available to all persons, while at the time teaching that depravity is found in self-love and holiness is found in a disinterested benevolent concern with rescuing others from evil. The practical expression of this powerful idea was the formation of dozens of state and national societies, some denominational, but many inter-denominational, for purposes ranging from the distribution of free Bibles, to the rescue of fallen women, to the conversion of the heathen at home and abroad through the missionary movement. “The early nineteenth century has been characterized as a time of the feminization of American Religion.” A compilation of communicant statistics in the parish registers of Southwestern Virginia indicates that in the period from 1830 to 1860, the single and married female communicant together outnumbered male communicants by at least two to one, and in some parishes by as much as three to one. This was of the Episcopal Church but there is some evidence that this was true of Protestant churches generally. This ratio seems to have continued even to our own time. One very important contribution of the religious groups in the area from colonial times until today is the concern with education and the efforts to which they have all contributed. In the earliest congregations the preacher was often also the community teacher. The church buildings when they appeared were also used as school buildings. We have already cited the Presbyterian Academy in Salem. Hollins College was founded by enthusiastic Baptists and Dr. Charles Lewis Cocke was instrumental in establishing that institution as a solid educational unit. Incidentally, he spent many years in ministering to the Black community of the county: originally in the Brick Church on Tinker Creek and later in their own church buildings. Hollins was founded in 1842 and Roanoke College, founded in the same year near Staunton, moved to Salem in 1847 and brought a strong Lutheran influence to the community. The first town church of the Lutherans was College Church, founded in 1852. Their building was located across College Avenue from the Court House where the First Virginia Bank stands. Church colleges were established all over Virginia in this period and Roanoke County was actively involved in the education of the young. After the War of 1861 the churches of the county continued to grow as the population grew. The fastest growing part of the county was the railroad town of Roanoke. Between 1882 and 1884 the population grew from 500 to 5,000.By 1872 St. John’s Episcopal Church had outgrown its little church in the Old Lick and sold its little church to the First Baptist Church (Black) and the new church was built of brick on what is now the plaza in front of the old Post Office. St. John’s moved to its present building at the comer of Elm and Jefferson in 1892. In 1886 the 72 �Presbyterians moved across the railroad and built an imposing building at Church Avenue and Roanoke Street (3rd street today). This building was razed in 1929 and a new stone church was built in South Roanoke where it remains today. The Baptists grew in this time too. The Rev. J. A. Mundy of Enon Baptist Church at Hollins visited the Lick and established a congregation in 1870, the First Baptist Church. In 1878 a small frame church was erected and later another building was erected across the street but in 1929 they built their present church, which has been added to occasionally. Other large Baptist congregations arose in the 20th century. Until the railroads came there were virtually no Catholics in the area of Roanoke County. But with the growth of the early Roanoke came many Catholic people to the town. In 1879, Rev. John William Lynch was sent to establish a mission in the area. He is reported to have found only one Catholic family on his first visit to the Lick. The Shenandoah Valley Railroad offered Father Lynch a passenger coach in which to hold services. The first Mass was celebrated November 19, 1882. As the congregation grew Mass was held in Rorer Hall. The congregation of St. Andrew’s was organized in 1883. The rectory was built first to keep Father Lynch close and the first church was small, having only eight pews. The congregation had increased to 1,600 by 1900. The cornerstone for the new church of buff-colored brick was laid on December 2,1900. This excellent church building was constructed by J. J. Gary, a member of the congregtion. St. Andrew’s Church was completed and dedicated November 2, 1902. It remains one of the most imposing churches in the community. Since then other Catholic congregations have organized: Our Lady of Nazareth, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, and St. Elias. The history of Jews in the Roanoke area begins in 1889, when 18 families formed a congregation they called Temple Emanuel. For five years they worshipped in a hall on Henry Street and then in a hall on Campbell Avenue. In 1904 the congregation purchased a frame building from the Church of the Brethren on Franklin Road. In 1937, a new synagogue was erected and dedicated in South Roanoke. This too has been replaced by an imposing synagogue near Virginia Western Community College. A second Jewish congregation, Beth Israel, was formed from Temple Emanuel and built another synagogue on Franklin Road. The Black community of the area has built its congregations from migrants to the area from many places. In the last century the Black churches, especially Methodist and Baptist, have thrived in the area. As with white congregations missionaries from Salem came to Big Lick to organize congregations. Mt. Zion Methodist Church was organized in 1883 from inspiration from Salem. The congregation met in a school house on Shenandoah Avenue and in 1888 they built “Cuffey’s Hall,” and later moved to the brick Church on Gainsboro Avenue. The Baptists early had the help of Dr. Charles Lewis Cocke of Hollins College. His Baptist mission to slaves continued and in 1867 the First Baptist Church was formed. At first they met in a home on Hart Avenue and later on Diamond Hill. In 1874, the congregation purchased the brick building of St. John’s Episcopal congregation when they moved to their new church. Later the church on Jefferson and Patton Avenue was built for the growing congregation. The Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church was organized in 1890 by Dr. L. L. Downing, who was a missionary to the Black populace. Needless to say, there are over 30 Black churches in Roanoke today. Since World War II the Roanoke area has experienced the arrival of almost every major religious conviction in the world. Today, in the cities we have Moslems, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Baha’i, Greek and Eastern Orthodox, Mormons and many others. All seem to live amicably in the midst of serious and concerted efforts by Protestant groups to proselytize. I have just looked at the listing of “Churches” in the April 1988 Telephone Book. I find 281 churches or other religious organizations listed with a telephone. There may be others but this gives as close an idea of our present religious varieties as I can. , , The Roanoke Valley Ministers Conference, made up of professional religious 73 �people, includes the following denominations in its 1988 Yearbook: African Methodist Episcopal; Anglican Catholic; Assembly of God; Baptists: Southern, Independent, and National; Christian (Disciples of Christ); Churches of Christ and Christian; Church of God; Church of God Prophecy; Church of the Nazarene; Eastern Orthodox; Episcopal; Foursquare Gospel; Brethren; Jewish; Lutheran; Pentecostal Holiness; Presbyterian in several varieties; Roman Catholic; Unitarian Universalist; United Methodist; Unity Church; Wesleyan; Christian and Missionary Alliance; Seventh Day Adventist; Southeast Community Church; Salvation Army; Household of Faith; African Methodist Episcopal; Temple Beth-El (Black Hebrew) United Christian Fellowship; Baha’i; Divine Science and probably others. From this list the tolerance of other religious convictions is healthy in the area and though many of these groups hold all others in contempt, we are able to be ourselves in a great variety of profound religious convictions and find company with others of similar persuasion. BIBLIOGRAPHY Roanoke - 1740-1982, Clare White, Roanoke Valley History Society, 1982 Roanoke, A Pictorial History, Carolyn Hale Bruce, c. 1982 Roanoke - Story o f County and City, WPA, Roanoke School Board, 1942 A History o f Roanoke, Barnes, Raymond P., Commonwealth Press, 1968 Hills O f The Lord, Brown, Katherine L., Diocese of Southwestern Va., 1979 Presbyterian Churches o f Roanoke, Virginia, Hoffer, Frank W. Economy Printing Co., Roanoke, c. 1936 Salem Presbyterian Church, 1831-1981, Harvey, Collier S. 1981 Historical Sketches of some Christian Churches (Disciples) Lynchburg College and Fairview Christian Church Lynchburg, 1983 Virginia Brethren History, Sappington, Roger E. Bridgewater, 1965 The Lutheran Church In Virginia, 1717-1962, Eisenberg, William E., Virginia Synod; Roanoke, 1967 How “A Religious L o t” Began by The Rev. Alpheus W. Potts Roanoke County was created in 1838. Later some territory was added to it from Montgomery and some was cut off into Craig county. In Roanoke: Story of County and City the authors/state: “In 1851 the people of Roanoke County remained a religious lot, with Presbyterians, Methodists, Dunkards and Baptists vying with each other for supremacy.” We are interested in the phrase “remained a religious lot.” It arouses our interest in the origin and roots which made them a religious lot. Dr. A. W. Potts, retired district superintendent and pastor o f the United Methodist Church, is the author o f papers on church history in Bedford, Franklin, Botetourt and Roanoke counties. He studied at Hampden-Sydney College and Union Theological Seminary and served churches in a half-dozen Virginia cities before retiring in Roanoke. He is a past president o f the Virginia Conference United Methodist Historical Society. 74 �The Presbyterians, we are told, came into the Roanoke Valley as an extension of the migrations of Scotch-Irish settlers who came up the valleys of the Shenandoah River into Augusta County. We find the Rev. John Craig (for whom Craig Creek was named), pastor of Old Stone and Tinkling Springs Churches, visiting his parishioners in 1749. These migrants were the Prestons, Pattons, McDonalds, Breckinridges and Flemings--to name a few. The Rev. Craig came to baptize infants and to marry couples. These people had been lured to the area by the attraction of “unclaimed land that lay to the west of the Blue Ridge.” Later, about 1790, Presbyterian evangelists passed through the area “looking for members and seeking to find enough in any one area so that a church could be organized.” Episcopalians, who were an extension of the pre-revolutionary Anglican Church (the Church of England), were the inheritors of the Botetourt Parish which had been created by government (English) order in 1769. However, this never developed into an effective parish as a state church. In the forming of the Protestant Episcopal Church over the years from 1783 (after the final Treaty of Peace) to 1789, the local parish lay dormant until the Rev. Nicholas Cobb of Bedford, between 1825 and 1836, came through the passes ofthe Blue Ridge. It is said of his visits that “hopes were raised” of a “church of their fathers in their midst.” The church at Fincastle, under the ministry of Dabney Wharton, was established between 18361840. The Baptists, under the leadership of the Rev. John Alderson, came to Botetourt (the larger area including Roanoke County area) in 1775. He was a part of the immigration into the Roanoke valley of the Baptists who were “lured by fertile soil.” The Baptists in eastern Virginia had led the fight for religious liberty (aided and abetted by Samuel Davies, a Presbyterian, and Patrick Henry, lawyer) in the earlier days of the Colony of Virginia. After 1785, when religious liberty articles were approved by the General Assembly of Virginia, the Baptists moved throughout the state and through the Blue Ridge more freely. The Dunkards, we are told, were first called “Brethren” in 1708 in Germany. They were among the first or second settlers in the Valley. One has said that they came through Pennsylvania behind the Presbyterians and took up land as the Presbyterians migrated to Kentucky and Tennessee. These Dunkards separated in our valley into several bodies ranging from the Old Order Dunkards (old German Brethren) on through the more numerous (today) Church of the Brethren. Their roots are in German pietism and out of this tradition they contributed greatly to making the Roanoke County area community “a religious lot.” Stoner says that the Church of the Brethren began at Amsterdam (near Daleville) in 1780. Lutherans were of this German tradition also. In Roanoke: Story of County and City, we read: “By 1787 Lutheran missionaries were reaching Botetourt. Until then no regular Lutheran pastors served the county. It is also said that Lutheran emigrants moved down the valley from Pennsylvania beginning in 1775 “taking up land already cleared by the Scotch Irish, on patented land that was free. “The Rev. Paul Henkel arrived in Botetourt c. 1787. For 27 years beginning c. 1805 when Lutherans were without a pastor the Rev. Robert J. Miller, former licensed Methodist local preacher of North Carolina, served the Lutherans. As a Methodist (I am glad to note with an ecumenical thrust) that even in that day, far from “vying for supremacy” of denomination we reflect with pride that it was a Methodist who helped keep alive this German pietist tradition in the Valley. It was in this tradition that John Wesley found roots for his “heart-warming” experience. Miller’s experience of 27 years with Lutherans brings us down to 1832. It was very close to the creation of Roanoke County that the Lutherans were on their way to an organized church. Now we turn to the Methodists in the area. They were after a manner of speaking the “Johnny-Come-Latelys” to the valley. George Whitefield of John Wesley’s “Holy Club” whose members were later dubbed “Methodists” shared preaching in The Great Awakening of the 1740 s in Hanover County with Samuel Davies. Not until 1772 did the Methodist lay preacher, Robert Williams, 75 �come to Norfolk. His evangelistic ministry attracted crowds. He was the forerunner of other lay preachers whose mission was to work within the Anglican churches to revive “vital religion.” No services were held in competition with Anglican stated services of the parish priests. These preachers found a hearty welcome from the Rev. Devereux Jarrett of the Bath Parish, Dinwiddie County. They worked together for the upbuilding of the Church of England. The Methodists, not then a denomination, existed in societies within the church. In 1776, as the colonists thought in terms of independence, the Methodist English lay preachers began to go back to England. Native preachers began to be recruited. They were American and developed a spirit of independence. This affected the relationship of Methodists to parish priests who were Tories. The parting of the ways came. It is too much to detail here, but suffice it to say that in December, 1784 the Methodist Episcopal Church in America was organized. In organizing the church the small group of preachers faced and answered the question: “What may we reasonably believe to be God’s design in raising up preachers called Methodists?” The answer explains not only the “design” but illuminates for us the motivating drive behind Methodist ministry. The answer was, “To reform the Continent and to spread Scriptural Holiness over the lands.” In the light of this we dare to say the Methodists broke through the Blue Ridge mountains and into the area of Roanoke County in 1789. Their motive was higher than that of “vying for supremacy” with other denominations with a larger concept “to reform the Continent” and “spread Scriptural Holiness.” The salvation of souls was important and basic but it was also important to so influence the total community that people could live together as Christians and raise their children in Christian traditions. This was a part of creating “a religious lot” who formed Roanoke County. When and how did Methodism come to our Roanoke County part of the larger Botetourt Circuit? W. W. Bennett states in Memorials of Methodism In Virginia that Henry Ogburn was appointed to Botetourt “after the war” (not in 1779 as some date it.) 1789 was the year of a great revival extending largely through the Mitchell families from revivals near Lynchburg where Samuel Mitchell then lived. The Bedford Circuit was created in April 1784 and grew to extend from east of Appomattox to the west into Greenbrier County. Circuit riders traveled far to find hospitable homes open to Methodist preachers. In 1787 a new Greenbrier Circuit was cut off which included areas in present Giles, Montgomery, Craig and Allegheny counties. There were then 100 members in that area. From the diaries of John Smith (1787-8) and John Kobler (1791-2) we find that the area in present Roanoke County was seemingly bypassed from which we deduce the religious life of the people was satisfied by other denominations. We are told that through the efforts of Edward Mitchell who served as preacher in Botetourt in 1795 that the circuit grew by extension into Rockbridge and Bath Counties. Background history of the coming of Methodism is tied in with what has been called “The Second Great Awakening.” This revival began in 1786 in Charlotte County, near Rough Creek Baptist Church among Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians. This revival spread in 1787 to a wide area around Brunswick County and to Cumberland County (on the Methodist Amelia Circuit). The development among Presbyterians is especially important in this paper. Under the Methodist preaching of Hope Hull and continued under the preaching of John Blair Smith, president of Hampden-Sydney College, students of the college were converted. Preachers from Rockbridge County and Bedford County were drawn to it. It is an interesting story of how what we would call today a “student deputation” carried the revival to Rockbridge and Liberty Hall (the Washington and Lee University of today.) The revival went north into Augusta County. The Reverends James D. Mitchell and James Turner of Bedford returned from the meetings in Cumberland and the revival came to their church at Peaks of Otter (near Bedford or Liberty, as the town was called then.) The revival continued under their ministry into the 1800’s and spread over a wide area. It is stated by Foote in his Sketches that James D. Mitchell of Bedford “was 76 �fond of missionary excursions of weeks and months at a time in the southwestern counties.” Two other statements are pertinent here: “In the latter part of the year 1801 the churches under the care of Messers Mitchell and Turner were greatly revived. A meeting held at the close of the year was noted for the number of people impressed with a deep sense of the value as well as the truth of the gospel.” The intensity of the revival should be mentioned here: “bodily agitations of numbers were uncontrollable.” “There were many hopeful converts where there were no stated ministries or regular church organizations. Many of these looked in vain to the Presbyterian Church for a living ministry and not receiving it they turned their attention to other denominations prepared to supply their wants and they are now lost to the Presbyterian Church.” There are local traditions in oral history of a great revival in 1801 on the edge of today’s Roanoke County at Coyner Springs. I believe such a meeting eventuated in the deeding of property on August 11,1802 by Daniel James and Thomas Bandy to Trustees Matthew Pate, Charles Horn, Abner Howell, Stephen Ferrel, Samuel James and James Howell. Stoner identifies this as a mostly Baptist group. Stephen Ferrel seems to have been a Methodist. The Ferrel family was for years active in Methodist societies along Goose Creek up from Montvale in Bedford County. In addition to being named a trustee here he was named a trustee along with Samuel and Edward Mitchell of the Methodist church at Salem in 1804. (Stephen Ferrel later migrated with others to Illinois.) Matthew Pate may also have been a Methodist. A Pate family was connected for years with Union Church (Methodist) in Bedford County. This is sufficient to justify the conclusion this was a union congregation though we may make the deduction that Presbyterians have through the years insisted upon an educated ministry and a reading of Henry Foote’s Sketches shows us they were not able to follow through with results of their leadership in this Second Great Awakening. We learn from other sources that revivals reoccurred at this Coyner SpringsGlade Creek area for several years. There are records of meetings in August 1804 and 1805 at Depew’s. John Depew and Elijah Depew both owned property near Coyner Springs and on Glade Creek. “Camp Meeting at Depews commenced August 10th where the power of the Lord was displayed in the awakening of many and about 40 professed to find God.” To tie this in with the extension of Methodism in Roanoke County area Elijah Depew, on whose property the meetings were held, was an original trustee of our Salem church. (Trustees in these early days were not necessarily local but were Methodists from the general area.) Local oral history refers to a “camp” meeting in 1801. Methodist meetings at that time in this area were extended quarterly conferences or “general meetings” and were ecumenical in nature. It is stated in Price’s Holston Methodism that camp meetings, (which originated in North Carolina in 1799 and Tennessee and moved to Kentucky in late 1801) and they first came to that part of Virginia - Bedford, Campbell and Franklin Counties in the spring of 1804. Camp meetings of which we have record were held at Depew’s in 1804 and 1805 in August of each year. . . The diary of the pastor of Botetourt in 1805 (which he began in April) is available. He preached on May 16th and June 12th at Elijah Depew s and at Thomas Bandy’s on May 17th. It is of interest to note his trouble at Bandy’s, the Blue Ridge Meeting House. While Stoner observed that at Blue Ridge they were mostly Baptist, Fidler says “they were harping on baptism” so “I thought it proper to retaliate” since “the Society was almost broke up by them.” He had the same trouble at Kesler’s (seemingly near Salem) and at Guthries and at Rock Spring in Rockbridge. 77 �We see here the beginning of the end of union services and the formation of a strictly Methodist Church. At Salem, the deed of December 10,1804 was made to the Methodist Episcopal Church. Fidler’s circuit was large—he ranged from up in Rockbridge south to and including Christiansburg and Blacksburg. Local oral history states that services were held in the home of Paul Thrasher. In view of disputes at Bandy it is believable that a sympathetic reception on the part of a Methodist was appreciated. (We do not know what happened to the Depews unless they migrated from the area.) We do know that by 1815 a deed was made and Thrasher’s Church became an appointment on the circuit. As for the separation from Blue Ridge, we do not know about the Presbyterians’ participation or lack of it. We have observed that they were not able to provide educated ministers to further their work. We do know that at a very large camp meeting at Amsterdam to which Francis Asbury came and preached to about 3,000 souls, who had come from miles around, Asbury observed, “Friendship and good fellowship seem to be done away between the Methodists and Presbyterians.” He also added “few of the latter will attend our meetings now: well, let them feed their flocks apart, - and let not Judah vex Ephraim or Ephraim Judah; and may it thus remain, until the two sticks become one in the Lord’s hands.” Asbury believed the Lord would use both churches. When Asbury was in August County and the revival fires were burning brightly and the Methodists were few he expressed his faith thus: “I believe the Lord will work through the Presbyterians in Augusta County.” Louis Fechtig was the Methodist presiding elder supervising the Methodists in 1819. When he came to Salem he found the Methodist societies depleted in strength from “outward migrations and backslidings.” He bemoaned the fact that religion had once flourished here. He reported on one of his quarterly meetings that “not one soul (was) converted.” In 1829 N. B. H. Morgan served Botetourt Circuit which extended from along the James River west to New Castle and Craig Healing Springs (Atkins) to Blacksburg and Bent Mountain to Thrashers. He had 20 preaching places. Those in the Roanoke County area were Bent Mountain, Salem, Thrashers, Keslers, Greenridge. Others close by were Fincastle, Mill Creek and Timber Ridge. He had another 20 scattering (unnamed) preaching places. Dunkards, Presbyterians, Baptists, Lutherans and Methodists were “a religious lot” and in their ministry made their contributions to the C h ristia n iz ing of the culture of Roanoke County. The comment of William Warren Sweet is applicable here: “ .. There was fortunately in every considerable community a little company of people, the majority of them constituting the membership.. of frontier churches who believed that conditions could be changed; and that life on every frontier could be raised to a higher level.. in refining manners and taste, in creating new and higher interests, in inspiring men with loftier ambition and sacrificial purpose, religion played a major role.” 78 �BIBLIOGRAPHY Roanoke: Story o f County and City, and Roanoke County School Boards, WPA Project, 1942, p. 81, 91-92, 323 Headwaters o f Freedom, Tinkling Springs, Howard McK. Wilson, p. 81 A Seed-Bed o f the Republic, Robert Douthat Stoner, Roanoke Historical Society, 1962, p. 350, 370-77, 392 Sketches o f Virginia, Henry Foote, First Series, p. 412-13, 425-28, Second Series, p. 103, 225, 289 Old Churches, Ministers and Families o f Virginia, Vol. II, Bishop William Meade, p. 64 Handbook o f Denominations, Frank S. Mead, Abingdon-Cokesbury, p. 40 Life Sketches o f Lutheran Ministers, North Carolina Synod, p. 140 Methodism in America, an unpublished paper by J. Manning Potts, library of A. W. Potts M inutes-A Form o f Discipline o f Methodist Episcopal Church in America, Charles Cist, 1785 General Minutes o f Methodist Episcopal Church, 1773-1828, T. Mason and G. Lane, 1840, p. 34 Memorials o f Methodism (in Virginia), W. W. Bennett, p. 135, 136, 275, 417, 450 Old Baltimore Conference, J. A. Armstrong, 1907, p. 72 Journal o f the Greenbrier Historical Society, Vol. V, No. 4, October 1966 Diary o f John Cobler, handwritten manuscript, Lovely Lane Museum, Baltimore, Md. Virginia Methodism, A History, William Warren Sweet, Virginia Conference Historical Society, Richmond, 1953 What God Hath Wrought, J. W. Leggett, Roanoke Years o f Grace, A History o f First Methodist Church, Salem, Mildred R. Chapman, 1953, Observer Printing House, Charlotte, N.C., p. 16 Church records, Bedford Circuit Methodist churches, 1837-53, 1852-79; copies in Roanoke City Library History o f Cosmopolite (Journal and Diary of Lorenzo and Peggy Dow) 6th edition, Joshua Martin and Alex S. Robertson, Cincinnati, 1849, p. 188-190, 600 Unpublished diary of Noah Fidler, original in Upper Room Museum, Nashville, Tenn. Holston Methodism, R. N. Price, Vol. I, p. 361-367, Publishing House of Methodist Episcopal Church South, Nashville, Tenn. Journal and Letters o f Francis Asbury, Elmer T. Clark, editor, Abingdon Press, Nashville, Tenn. 1958, Vol. II, p. 515 Unpublished diary, Louis Fechtig, Lovely Lane Museum, Baltimore, Md. Virginia United Methodist Heritage, Bulletin, Virginia Conference Historical Society, Richmond, Spring Edition, 1978, p. 11(manuscript in Lovely Lane Museum, Baltimore, Md.) Religion in the Development o f American Culture, W. W. Sweet, Scribners, N. Y. 1952 p. 162 History o f Roanoke County, William McCauley, Biographical Publishing Co., Chicago, 1902 Community at the Crossroads, Deedie Kagey Vinton History 1884-1984, Irma Trammel Moseley Story o f Roanoke County, George S. Jack and E. B. Jack Some Churches o f Roanoke, Virginia, Vol. I, WPA Project Roanoke Churches, Alice Constance Moore, 1940, WPA Project Annals o f Southwest Virginia, Lewis Preston Summers, 1929 Abingdon The Lexington Presbytery Heritage, Howard McK. Wilson, Verona, 1971 The Baptists o f Virginia 1699-1926, Garnett Ryland, The Virginia Baptist Board of Education, 1955 The New Creation - Greene Memorial Methodist Church, Millard Rewis, Jr. 1959 Virginia Frontier, F. B. Kegley, Southwest, Virginia Historical Society, 1938 History o f the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Botetourt County Rev. E. W. Leslie, 1901 79 �Contributors Donors of $100 or more for the 1987 annual appeal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society: Mr. and Mrs. Andrew J. Airheart Mr. James Atkinson Cdr. William B. Bagbey Mr. and Mrs. John W. Boyle Dr. and Mrs. Henry T. Brobst Mr. and Mrs. Carter L. Burgess Miss Frances E. Bush Mrs. John D. Carr Mr. and Mrs. W. James Carter Jr. Mrs. C. N. Freeman Mr. Horace G. Fralin Mr. and Mrs. Robert A. Garland Mr. John W. Hancock Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Lee Hartman Mr. and Mrs. George A. Kegley Mr. and Mrs. James N. Kincanon Mrs. Dirk A. Kuyk Mr. and Mrs. William J. Lemon Mrs. J. M. B. Lewis Jr. Mrs. Katherine T. Marechal Mrs. Norman R. McVeigh Mr. and Mrs. William S. Moses Mr. and Mrs. Charles M. Oakey Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Rutherfoord Mrs. Jean S. Showalter Mr. John W. Sours Jr. Miss S. Ann Splitstone Miss Mary Van Turner Mrs. James L. White Mr. Edwin M. Wilson 80 Donors of $100 or more for the 1988 annual appeal: Mr. and Mrs. Andrew J. Airheart Miss Frances E. Bush Mrs. John D. Carr Mr. Horace G. Fralin Mrs. C. N. Freeman Mr. and Mrs. Lucian Y. Grove Mr. and Mrs. Robert E. Harshbarger Mr. and Mrs. Horace Hood Mr. and Mrs. Harry G. Johnson Jr. Mrs. A. M. Krebs Mr. and Mrs. Jack Loeb Hon. and Mrs. James Olin Mr. Walter Rugaber Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Rutherfoord Mr. and Mrs. G. S. Shackelford Mrs. Frances S. Shepherd Mrs. Jean S. Showalter Mr. John W. Sours Jr. Mr. T. Garrick Steele Mr. and Mrs. Geoffrey W. Whittaker Mrs. Hubert Wright �ROANOKE VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Am or montium nos movet 1989-90 OFFICERS President . . . . ..................................... ................. G- Logan Forsyth Vice President ................................................. ., J. Donlan Piedmont Secretary H ........ .......................................... Treasurer . . . .................... ......................... Wendy O’Neil Richard E. Morgan 1989-90 DIRECTORS Mrs. Andrew J. Airheart (Sara) Cdr. William B. Bagbey Michael B. Barber D. Kent Chrisman John W. Eure Mark E. Feldmann G. Logan Forsyth Jack M. Goodykoontz Mrs. David C. Gunter (Evie) R. Carey Harveycutter, Jr. Mrs. J. T. Hopkins, Jr. (Nell) George Kegley Ted R. Kingsley Donald M. Kinzer Dominion Bankshares Carp. Mrs. A. M. Krebs (Virginia) Mrs. Harold P. Kyle (Ann) Mrs. William J. Lemon (Barbara) Richard L. Meagher Richard E. Morgan Wendy O’Neil J. Donlan Piedmont Mrs. Steve A. Points (Susie) Mrs. Donald W. Spicer (Katherine) Benny Summerlin W. Darnall Vinyard Dr. John T. Walke William Watts Gordon Watson Mrs. James L, White (Clare) �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society 1989 Volume 13, Number 1 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />Roanoke County and the Valley: the Lessons of History<br />Roanoke County Communities Started Between the Mountains The Early Economy of Roanoke County<br />Old City Point Railroad was N&amp;W Forerunner in 1838<br />Overlooked Buildings by the Side of the Road<br />How Did Colleges Choose Locations in the 19th Century? Roanoke County Schools' Legacy<br />Farming Was the Backbone of Roanoke Area Growth<br />Nationality and Religion; How a Religious Lot Began Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1989 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_13_01_1989 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6358/JHSWV_13_02_1996.pdf ac22946af19cda42d646472047c10623 PDF Text Text 1996 JOURNAL of the ROANOKE VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY P "iv, 'jM k 8®£;!l8 §kjgS&§§ VOLUME THIRTEEN NUMBER TWO �ROANOKE VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY AND MUSEUM DIRECTORS AND OFFICERS Amor montium nos movet OFFICERS Paul C. Kuhnel Mrs. M ary A nn Johnson W illiam S tephenson IV Mrs. B a rb a ra Thornton P re sid e n t Vice P resident T reasurer S ecretary R ichard Loveland Mrs. Betty H undley E xecutive D irector Financial M anag er DIRECTORS M rs. S ara A irh e a d W illis M. A nderson M rs. S arah C larke W illiam M. C laytor Mrs. B arbara D uerk Mrs. E lizabeth Frankl Paul M. Frantz F. Fulton G aler M rs. A nne H am m ersley M rs. C arol Ja rra tt Mrs. M a ty Ann*Johnson G eorge Kegley Paul C. Kuhnel R obert H. Kulp M rs. B arbara Lem on J. Don Ian P iedm ont M ichael R am sey G eoff S eam ans Dr. John S elby M rs. V irginia S hackelford W illiam S tephenson IV Mrs. B arbara T hornton C arl W hite Mrs. C lare W hite C ranston W illiam s Jr. �1996 CONTENTS T h read ing a P arkw ay T hrough th e Blue Ridge by David P. H i ll....... ................................. ............ ................. ........... 2 Hotel R oanoke, “Large and W ell E quipped” ...................................... 14 T h e R ailroad O ffices by Don P ie d m o n t................... t .....:v........... ........... ;................... 18 Totera Town R econsidered by T h o m a s K la tk a ..................................- i ..................................... 23 Col. W illiam F lem ing’s O rigins by C lare W hite......'................................... !.!................................. 28 O ld S peech P atterns S tu d ie d ...................................................................42 C u pboa rd C o m es H om e .................. .t..............;............ ......................... 43 K entland Farm , A N ew R iver Plantation by John K e rn ............. ....................................................................... 45 A rchitecture of Kentland by J. D aniel P e z z o n i........................................................................53 M aking P ottery in B otetourt C ounty by Kurt C. R u s s ...... ............ 59 C ultural S h ock in B otetourt C ounty by E dw ard L. “Buck” H enson J r ..........: . 0 . . * ^ ......................... 75 This issue of The Journal was made possible by a grant from Roanoke Electric Steel Corp. GEORGE KEGLEY Editor of The Journal T h e Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society and M useum , Volum e Thirteen, Num ber Two. Published by the Society at P. O . Box 1904, R oanoke, Virginia 24 0 0 8 , to chronicle the past and present of th at part of the state w est of the Blue R idge. T h e price for additional single copies is $ 3 .5 0 for m em bers; non-m em bers, $ 6 .5 0 . T h e Society will be careful in handling unsolicited m aterial but cannot be responsible for its loss. 1 �Threading a Parkway Through the Blue Ridge b y D a v id P H ill N ow the m ost visite d national park, th e B lue R idge P arkw ay w as pop ula r from th e beginning. A p rim a ry reason fo r its e a rly pop u­ larity w a s th e parkw a y’s location n ea r W ashington. It provided an o p p ortun ity fo r th e p resid ent and o th e r to p officials to see q u a lity w o rk of the C ivilian C onservation C o rps and o th e r public relief a ge ncie s on the job. Secondly, at th e tim e o f its design a ta le n te d pool o f designe rs w h o had w o rked in p restigious East C o a st o ffice s w a s in search of w o rk w h e re ve r it could be found, and offered to th e N a tional P ark S e rvice not only a great deal o f experience, but a new co nce pt th a t a designed la ndscape could be a national park. Third, th e A p palachia n R egion offered a palette of m aterials, legends and land uses th a t had becom e ve ry pop ularized by th e press in the 1920s, co n trib u tin g to interest in th e possibility of a parkw a y th ro u g h it. An ox from the Blue Ridge Parkway archives) D a vid H ill is a landscape a rch ite ct w ho live s in R oanoke. N ow p re sid e n t o f H ill S tudio, he in te rn e d fo r the B lue R idge P arkw ay from 1982 to 1984. H ill S tudio specializes in design fo r the A p palachian cu ltu ra l landscape. 2 �Most Americans do not care that the most visited park in the National Park Service was designed in the former Sunnyside Awning Building on First Street in downtown Roanoke. The above circumstances certainly helped fuel the early interest in the parkway, but a six-decade tradition in creative planning and design excellence has furthered the success of our most popu­ lar park. This article describes some of the design decisions made in the Sunnyside building, and introduces some of the early techniques used in the design of the parkway. To understand the early design of the parkway, first imagine the im­ age of our region in the 1920s. The 1920s marked a decade significant for the closing of the American western frontier and the turn of popular interest to the Southern Highlands as the last remnant of American pioneer iconogra­ phy. For photographers and writers, the Southern Highlands became a source for the juxtaposition of pioneer lifestyles against spectacular natural scenery. This sudden interest in Appalachian culture had a gradual beginning. The popularity of novelists Thomas Wolfe and John Fox, Jr., owed a debt to the preceding half-century of descriptive documentary by itinerant ministers and reformist journalists, such as James Watt Raine, Horace Kephart and Frederick Law Olmsted. Railroads and good highways brought the South­ ern Highlands to within one day’s journey of the fast-developing northeast corridor. The Appalachian Trail Club, and the ever-popular springs such as the Homestead, Greenbrier and hundreds of others, brought a well-educated clientele to the region, and they documented it to its fullest potential. William Barnhill worked on a short line train that linked Asheville to Mt. Mitchell, and in his spare time, produced photos of Appalachian cultural landscapes to market to tourists. His classic works present the pre-parkway Appalachian land. Prints by Barnhill and others fixed an image of Appalachia as a unique place. The images both attracted people to the region to get a glimpse of the last American frontier, and served as a tool for parkway design­ ers to design interpretive compositions. Route Selection One of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s strategies to end the Great Depression was to undertake public works projects that would employ multi­ tudes. The Park Service, one of the primary agencies responsible for public works, had several large projects underw ay in 1933, including Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. There was great enthusiasm for this park, as it was the closest national park to Washington, D.C. and the metropolitan eastern seaboard. The Skyline Drive followed the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains from Front Royal to Jarmon Gap. In 1933, only a portion of the drive had been completed, but it led to the natural suggestion that the road be extended to Rockfish Gap and beyond the limits of Shenandoah National Park to connect with Great Sm oky Mountains National Park. President 3 �Roosevelt authorized the Department of the Interior to investigate the possi­ bility of such a road in late 1933. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes chose to hire outside consult­ ants rather than use his own staff for planning studies. Gilmore Clarke and Jay Downer were the designers (landscape architect and engineer, respec­ tively) responsible in large part for the Westchester County Park and Park­ w ay System in New York and the Mount Vernon Memorial Highway in Vir­ ginia, some of the most successful parkway systems in the country. They agreed to serve as consultants, for $75 a day plus expenses, provided they could choose their own field supervisor: Stanley W. Abbott, a Cornell land­ scape architect, and the public relations officer for the Westchester County Park System. Abbott began work in January of 1934; he was the first person to go into the field equipped only with a truck and sketchy maps of the South­ ern Appalachians. Clarke and Downer resigned after Secretary Ickes sug­ gested that they reduce their fee by two-thirds, leaving Abbott in near-total control of the parkway route reconnaissance. Working out of his Salem residence, Abbott realized that maps and plan drawings would mean little to his superiors who were unfamiliar with the region and chose photographs to communicate route alternatives. His re­ connaissance report includes a written description of the region and a sug­ gestion of the acreages necessary to create the parkway. The reports served as an initiation to field trips with Bureau of Public Roads engineers and Inte­ rior and Park Service officials. Abbott’s notes were gathered into reconnais­ sance reports, illustrated with photographs on which he drew the suggested roadway alignment. reconnaissance report) 4 �A b b o tt’s supe riors in th e P ark S e rvice and the Interior D epart­ m ent becam e involved in a lign m en t judgm ents, as it w a s from the sta rt a political issue w ithin th e region. B eginning at S h enandoah, there w a s no dou bt th a t th e northern part of the parkw ay w ould be in V irginia. T he state s of North C arolina and Tennessee w ere in direct co m petitio n fo r th e southern end of th e parkw ay and offered variou s reasons fo r th e route to go thro ugh each state. Tennessee argued th a t N orth C a rolin a w a s a “dry” state, and conse quen tly w ould not tre a t its cosm opo litan guests from the northeast in a m anne r to w hich th e y w e re accustom ed. N orth C arolina countered th a t it had supe rior scene ry than Tennessee, w hich is m ore app ro priately associated w ith th e co nce pt of a parkway. G etty B row ning, a North C arolina right-ofw a y engineer, produced a 12-foot-long fu ll-co lo r plan and section of the proposed route th ro ugh his state to illustrate th a t the North C a ro ­ lina a lterna tive w as so scenic it w a s irresistible, w inning the final route selection in N o vem b er 1934. A b b o tt’s trainin g in W e stchester is app arent ve ry early in the design process; the W e stch e ste r parkw ays con n e ct a series of pre­ existing recreation and natural areas, to give the im pression of a single large park. A b b o tt fe lt th a t a series of sm all areas of natural interest in terspe rsed w ith larger recreation areas w e re essential: “T h e y are like beads on a string; th e rare gem s in the necklace.” In draw ings produced betw een 1933 and 1936, w hen the nam e w as finalized, the parkw ay had va riou s nam es and alignm ents. T he A ppalachia n N a­ tional Parkw ay w as one, in w hich A bbott suggested the parkw ay driver e xpe rience th e full breadth of the A ppalachian landscape. He pro­ posed th a t th e road com e dow n off the crest of the Blue R idge into th e G re a t V alley of V irginia a t N atural Bridge, in w h at he describ ed as “the interesting piece of m usic th a t fo rtissim o m ixed w ith a little pia­ nissim o provid es.” U nable to m uste r su p p o rt fo r th e N atural B ridge route, he later agreed th a t it w ould not have been th e best alignm ent. T h e S h e n a n d o a h -to -G re a t S m okies Parkway, o r S G S Parkway, w a s a cu m b e rso m e w o rking title used on m any of the e a rlie r draw ings. Finally, th e Blue Ridge P arkw ay em erged as the official nam e in 1936. A lthough the D esign O ffice of the parkw ay had m aintained the “string of beads” co nce pt as a goal, the authorizing legislation passed by C o ngress did not include provision fo r land purchase. T h e lands fo r th e roadw ay w e re acquired by the state s and given to the federal governm ent; m ost of the recreation areas w e re acquired through private don ation. F or exam ple, M oses C one and Julian Price parks w e re nam ed a fte r th e ir donors, w h ile Linville Falls w a s purchased fo r th e N ational P ark S ervice by John D. R ockefeller. O th e r recreation areas w e re obtained thro ugh th e cooperation o f th e N ational Forest 5 �S ervice and the Federal R esettlem ent A d m inistra tion. W hen ch est­ nut blight sw e pt through the region around 1930, it rem oved a d o m i­ nant fo re st tre e species and a m ajor source of fo ra g e fo r livestock, dealing a severe blow to the a lrea dy m arginal agricu lture of the re­ gion. R esettlem ent A dm inistra tion funds w e re used to purchase land in several devastated areas and co n ve rt them into recreation sites. Architectural, Engineering Work T he e a rly ye a rs of th e parkw ay w e re productive, w ith la nd­ scape architects and oth e r designe rs involved in an unprecedented range of activities. T he parkw ay office becam e som ethin g of a d e ­ sign a te lie r, w ith people of diverse backgrounds w o rking in historic preservation, new design and construction, research into vern a cu la r precedents and new engineering techniques, cultural interpretation, and even m achine invention. S everal person alities stand out in this assem bly of talen ted people. A b b o tt w as first given th e title resident landscape architect. His skills in adm inistration of people and projects m ade the parkw ay a reality. He did th e great m ajority of the initial reconnaissance, supervised the align m en t design, and still found tim e to draw details in the search fo r a ve rn a cu la r building style. T he first person he hired w a s E dw ard A bbuehl, an a rch ite ct w h o had been one of his instructors at C ornell and w h o w a s by A b b o tt’s accou nt som ething of a renaissance m an. W hen A b b o tt left to design the C olonial Parkw ay in W illiam sburg, A bbuehl becam e the resident land­ scape a rchitect of the Blue R idge Parkway. G il Thurlow , a H arvard Eliot Fellow, interned fo r the parkw a y in 1936 and 1937, and later w e nt on to becom e chairm an of L andscape A rchitecture at N.C. State. G ary E verhardt began as an e n g in e e r on the parkw a y and w orked his w a y to d ire cto r o f th e N a tional P ark S ervice. He is cu rre ntly pa rk­ w a y superintenden t. Ted Pease, G eorge W ickstead, Bob Alt, Bob Hall, Van Van G elder, M alcolm Bird, Al Burns, A rt Beyer, Lynn H arriss and m any oth e r talen ted d e signe rs w o rke d w ith th e parkw a y at som e point o f th e ir careers, and resided around the R oanoke Valley. M any had great individual contributions, w h ich are now taken fo r granted as part of a great park. It w as la ndscape a rchitect Ken M cC arter, fo r exam ple, w h o sugg este d th a t M abry Mill shou ld not be rem oved, as w as called fo r on th e acqu isitions plans, and su cce ssfu lly saw the restoration of th e building and creation of the site. T h e educational backg ro unds of the park designe rs co n trib ­ uted greatly to the form ation o f a “ P arkw ay style.” T h e 1920s Beauxarts trad ition required th a t students go o u t in th e field and m easure c la s s ic a l a rc h ite c tu re b e fo re a tte m p tin g to d e s ig n n e o -c la s s ic a l 6 �architecture. Presented with young designers trained in Beaux-arts m eth­ ods and lacking a source of local classical architecture, Appalachian ver­ nacular architecture filled the void. Abbott and staff architect Haussmann produced typical coffee shops and gas stations influenced by barns and cabins they saw around the Roanoke Valley. The log cabin, shake shingles, stone barn and gas pum ps were designed to look like stone foundations. A coffee shop and gas station designed for the south end of Peaks of O tter w as converted to an interpretive center. Using vernacular build­ ing precedents, Abbott and his staff architects explored several varia­ tions for structures appropriate within their em erging parkway style. During reconnaissance and afterwards, the parkway staff was alw ays on the watch for local precedent for new construction. The pho­ tographic archives have num erous exam ples by Abbuehl and others, with the landscape architect’s com m ents recorded for future reference. Stone m asonry standards for bridges and architectural work are the trans­ lation of these precedents into guidelines for new stonework. The draw ­ ings feature precision of m ortar joint detailing, and a difference in joint design on the inner and outer faces of sloped retaining walls. The detail w as developed after studying stone fireplaces around the Roanoke re­ gion. It w as further interpreted into new details. For exam ple, stonelined gutters w ere standard early in the parkway’s construction, when hand labor w as abundant and cheap. A consistently high standard of design and m aintenance has been the parkway tradition, bringing elem ents which are often distracting on public highways into m anicured foreground details within the Appala­ chian setting. The parkway staff’s design in detail is filled with exam ples of the historic preservation and cultural interpretation. Signage has be­ com e one of its m ost widely recognized details. Staff landscape archi­ tects have devised num erous alphabets that are inscribed into w ork us­ ing the freehand router. W hite, gray and blue paint is specified within the routs of w ood indigenous to the area. The white pine tree is featured on the parkw ay logo, and the m ountaineer’s m usket and pow der horn are specified fo r interpretive signs. M any fences and gates were needed since the parkway w as built in discontinuous sections through a largely agricultural landscape. Som e were designed for visitor control, som e for livestock control, and som e for purely aesthetic effect. Bill Hooper w as the staff agronom ist respon­ sible fo r fences. Using designs derived from Blue Ridge precedents, he pioneered a program w hereby the parkway provided m aterials to the agricultural lessees, w ho in return contracted to build the specified fences. Fanners’ im plem entation of the plans necessitated the unusual clarity of these drawings. 7 �Ribbon Through A Borrowed Land T h e a rchitectural palette deve lo p e d by th e parkw a y staff c o m ­ posed a unique m odel fo r design, w h ich w a s used to help blend the road and park stru ctu re s w ith its surro undings. H ow ever, creative land planning and design w a s essential fo r th e parkw a y to b eco m e a success. If fo r no o th e r reason, th e parkw a y is unique fo r its s hap e — 1/2 m ile w ide by 4 70 m iles long. T h e “typ ica l” national pa rk shap e is a large chu n k of land, rough ly square, in th e c e n te r of w h ich th e v is i­ to r is able to a ch ieve a level of insulation from th e o u tsid e w orld, by virtu e of park se rvice o w n e rsh ip o f th e su rro unding lands. B y co n ­ trast, th e parkw a y is part and parcel of its landscape. In ve ry fe w places is th e v is ito r rem oved fro m so m e o u tsid e influence and co m ­ bined w ith th e to p o g ra p h ic situ a tio n o f th e roadw ay on th e ridgetop. H a ppen ings to th e land ju s t o u tsid e the bo rd e r are fre q u e n tly the fo ­ cu s o f th e view. through mature pine forest in background. “Paint your parkw ay with broad strokes,” Abbott encouraged his young designers. In retrospect, a sense of urgency in the design pro­ cess is m anifest in a sequential driving experience along the parkw ay w ithout visible boundaries. W ith a palette of less than a dozen land­ scape techniques, coupled with the region’s topography, the broad strokes of the draftsm en created a 470-m ile landscape orchestrated into a seem ­ ingly endless variety of spaces. Abbott w as a reader and loved music. He created an uninterrupted orchestrated landscape. Abbott achieved a “cinem atic view of nature” (W ilson, 101) and of agriculture, based on the scale of private estates and expanded to a speed of 45 m iles per hour. T he bridges and tunnels w ere set as the consistent point of reference within a variety of spectacular natural scen­ ery, agricultural fields, pastures, m eadows, forests, and distant views 8 �orchestra ted to the vie w p o in t and speed of th e autom obile. T h e parkw ay legislation required th a t land be acqu ired by the states and conveyed to the federal governm ent. M uch of the land in the Blue R idge M ountains region had not been surveyed, so A b bott m ust have used d ia gram m atic m aps w ith a single line show ing the proposed roadway. P arkw ay staff aligned th e roadw ay onto parkw ay deve lo p m e n t plans. T h e right-of-w ay w idth varied, from abo ut 200 feet at the narrow est to m any tim e s th a t w hen cond ition s dem anded; on th e average, abo ut 125 acres per m ile w a s acquired fo r th e park­ way. T h e acquisition m aps w ere sent to the Federal H ighw ay A d m in ­ istration w hich, in cooperation w ith the park service designed th e e n ­ gineering and construction docum ents fo r th e roadw ay itself. A fte r the roadw ay w as built, the park service prepared planting plans and land use plans w h ich specify th e landscape installation and m ainte­ nance requirem ents. Each o f these sets o f draw ings w a s done at a 1 inch equals 100 fo o t scale, requiring several room fuls o f draw ings fo r th e 4 7 0 -m ile length of the parkway. T h e parkw a y w a s built in non-contiguous sections, w ith the e arlier construction begun in areas w ith out paved roads and in areas w h ere th e align m en t w a s m ost likely to be m aneuvered politically. T he section s varied in length from 5 to 15 m iles, so local contracto rs could participate in th e construction. W ork began on th e North C a ro ­ lina borde r in S e p te m b e r of 1935. S outhw estern V irginia w o rk fo l­ lowed, in Floyd, P atrick and G rayson counties. In 1935, th e parkw ay w a s th e first paved road in Floyd County. T h e broad -stro ke efforts of th e landscape arch ite cts’ draw ings are reiterated in the w o rk of the legal tra n sfe r of land. Land w a s acquired in tw o w ays: fee sim ple and under a scenic easem ent. Fee sim ple is a legal term fo r outright purchase of the prope rty and all rights to it. A lthough th e park service had the a u thority to condem n, w ith rare exception G etty B row ning and others such as Sam W eem s (later sup e rin te n d e n t of the parkw ay) negotiated w ith landow ners to find an a ccep tab le price fo r th e ir land. T he scenic easem ent w as a con ce p t borrow ed from the W e stchester Park system in w hich the landow ners g ave up certain rights to the use of th e ir land in excha nge fo r a m o n e ta ry consideration , w h ile m aintaining all o th e r rights of ow nership. T h e conditions w ere usually th a t land w o uld rem ain in agricu ltural use, w ith no chan ges th a t w o uld affect its scenic quality, such as billboards, oth e r com m e rcial structures, cutting of tre e s or shrubs, o r building of structures w ith o u t prior approval. P rope rty acquisition fo r th e parkw ay often left a fa rm e r w ith to o little land to farm profitably. S ince rural sce n e ry w a s a goal of the parkway, a policy of leasing land back to farm ers w a s begun early in 9 �the parkw a y’s m anagem ent. T he leasing program blended w ell w ith scenic easem ents to sustain a rural im age. S om e existing conditions could not be m oved, such as rural cem eteries. T he se w ere pre­ served and valued as visual rem inders of an e a rlier se ttle m e n t era, tended by the fam ilies and local church con g re g a tio n s w ith o u t m a­ nipulation by th e parkway. T he sim ple structuring of th e sce n ic ease m e nt te xt in the deed w as m eant to rem ove the deve lo p m e n t rights on the property, w h ile allow ing th e existing agricu ltural land use to proceed. A lthough the short-term use of the ease m e nts w a s beneficial to both parties, all have not been w e ll-received o v e r th e ye a rs as land va lu e s have in­ creased significantly. In som e cases th e g randchildren of 1930s fa rm ­ ers are surprised to find th e y are not allow ed to build a house on land th a t th e y though t w as unencum bered. In som e cases, th e easem ents have also failed the parkway. W hen an e ase m e nt w as purchased to show a 2 0 0 -ye a r old tree, and som eon e unfam iliar w ith th e conce pt of the ease m e nt cuts the tree, the resource is p e rm anen tly lost a l­ though there is legal recourse. N evertheless, th e 1930s easem ents w e re an enlightened w a y to knit the parkw ay into a depressed a gri­ cultural landscape and m any successful ease m e nts still exist. O nce design and construction w ere com plete, the parkw ay land use m aps w e re prepared to guide m aintenance efforts on th e pa rk­ way, and in som e cases as substitutes fo r the m ore detailed planting plans. Individual tre e sp ecim e ns are located on th e plans as refer­ ence points fo r m aintenance. T he final orchestra tion of th e land is achieved thro ugh m ainte­ nance of several generic landscape effects used on the parkway. V is­ tas w ere often of ad ja ce n t open agricultural land, but m ay also ex­ tend fo r m iles at th e higher elevations. T he ca no py vista appears through a thin screen of tre e trunks; th is te ch n iq u e is rarely used, since it requires hea vy m ainten ance of the shrub layer and is effec­ tive only at slo w e r trave l speeds. S hrub bays are planted and m ain­ tained e xclusive ly w ith shrubs, intended to provide relief from the fo r­ est canopy. T he dom in ant roadside condition is the fo re st and regen­ erative forest, w ith m ultiple ca n o p y layers so th a t one cann ot see very fa r into it. O pen w o o d s are co m p a ra tive ly rare, as th e y require intensive m aintenance to keep the shrub layer out. O pen land is of several types: agricultural, ranging from field crops, pasture, hay field, to orchards; naturally m aintained o r m ow ed grasslands; and old pasture grow ing up w ith w ild flo w e rs but w ith o u t sig nifica nt tre e and shrub plantings. M alcolm Bird to o k great care to o rchestra te th e se land uses through every section he designed. He w o uld va ry the w idth and 10 �to p o g ra p h y o f th e grassed s h o u ld e r so th a t one is a lm o st ne ve r c o n ­ scio us o f a cu ltiva te d rig h t-o f-w a y typ ica l of o th e r pub lic roads. Ironi­ cally, the naturalistic appearance of the parkw ay corridor requires m uch m ore in ten sive m ain te n a n ce than a typ ica l roadway. View from the parkway; adjacent land was leased back to farmers while more distant farmsteads were placed under scenic easement. T h e la ndscap es com p o se d by th e parkw a y d e sig n e rs sh o w a reverence to w a rd scene s of th e 19 th -C e n tu ry H udson R iver painters. A tra d itio n of v ista s holds tru e to th e sam e rules of cla ssical co m p o s i­ tion. In th e fo re g ro u n d , rustic d e ta ils fra m e th e scene from below. In the m iddleground, th e subject of the scene, there m ay be a farm scene o r a m eadow , and in th e distan ce, w ild fo re ste d m ountains. T h e fo re ­ ground m ay be co n trolled on p ark property, but th e rest of th e vie w is frequently “borrow ed.” T he farm scenes and the distant w ooded m oun­ ta in s are not u n d e r co ntrol o f th e park, and if ta ste le ssly developed, th e park sta ff m ust w a it ye a rs fo r tre e s to gro w and screen th e view. S igns fre q u e n tly cue th e visito r to th e distan t scenes, and pa rk­ w a y land use m aps a re th e m edium th a t blurs th e d istinction betw een w h a t is in th e park and w h a t is im m e d ia te ly adjacent. T h e successful use of v e rn a c u la r planting and build ing m a te ria ls m akes it alm o st im ­ possible to find th e bou n d a ry in m any places. L a b o r fo r th e planting, precise grading and roadside im p ro ve ­ m ent w a s provided thro ugh the W orks P rogress A d m inistration (WPA), C ivilian C o n se rva tio n C orps (C C C ), and, durin g W orld W a r II, co n sci­ e n tio us o b je c to r la b o r cam ps. A b u n d a n t but unskilled la bor fa c ili­ ta te d a rustic style w h ich w a s ve ry a p p ro p ria te to th e parkway. 11 �Not only w as the a rchitecture and land planning successful, but the parkw ay is rem arkable fo r th e degree to w hich road e ng ine er­ ing tech n o lo g y w a s and is em braced. For exam ple, in 1934 w hen design on th e parkw ay began, spiral tran sition al curves (curves of contin uously changing radii) w e re new in highw ay design and w ere not w idely used. A b bott m olded th e highw ay to th e m ountains, using spiral transition curves abu n d a n tly to create a “sp a ce -tim e ” effect of being connected with the soil a n d ... of hovering ju st above it” (Giedion, 554). Used extensively on th e parkw a y fo r the first tim e, spiral curves w e re used in th e design of the interstate highw ay system . T h e rural se p a ra te d -g ra d e in te rch a n g e w a s a n o th e r te ch n iq u e used on th e parkway, later em plo yed on large highw ay system s. T he innovative engine ering trad ition continued to the final link: Figg and M uller’s S -shaped Linn C ove V iaduct w as constructed above the m ountainside. T h e via d u ct w a s a part of the final section to be com pleted on th e North C a rolin a parkw a y and w as ded icated in S e p ­ te m b e r of 1987, 52 ye a rs a fte r th e start of construction. T his a c ­ claim ed structure has w on num erous design recognitions, including the P residential D esign A w ard. S tanley A b b o tt had located th e pa rk­ w ay align m en t across the face o f G ra n d fa th e r M ountain at Linn Cove, but technological and political difficulties prevented prope rty a cq u isi­ tion and roadw ay construction fo r decades. Figg and M uller Interna­ tional w as retained fo r th e technical design of the structure, erected by cantilevering precast segm en ts betw een piers 180 fe e t apart, so as to m inim ize harm to th e rare plant co m m u n ity below. S ince its D epre ssion -era beginning, there has not been a m o­ m ent w ithout som e design o r construction occurring on the Blue Ridge Parkway. F ifty-tw o ye a rs a fte r construction began, the roadw ay has been com pleted. However, A b b o tt’s con ce p t fo r the parkw ay is fa r from finished. A ttention is now focused on building the beads o f the necklace — the recreational areas. H em phill K nob near A sheville, F isher’s Peak nea r G alax, and th e R oanoke R iver P arkw ay are three curre ntly in the design o r construction process. Now h ea dquartered in Asheville, the parkw ay has provided this nation w ith national park leadership and design excellence fo r alm ost sixty years. M any creative design so lu tio n s w e see fa r a w ay have som e alleg iance to th is area. P ioneer-style architecture, routed inter­ pretive signs, sce n ic easem ents, and spiral curves ow e som e fo o t­ note to the precedents set by A b b o tt’s R oanoke design atelier. O ften the greatest w o rks of landscape a rchitecture are those unnoticed by the casual observer. It is hard to im agine th a t som e of th e m ost su c ­ cessful pastoral scenes o f the parkw a y are not accidental, but very carefully planned from creative sce n ic e ase m e nts to th e details of the 12 �fences. T h e careful attention to detail derived from local precedent has contribu ted to th e parkw a y’s em ergence as A m e rica ’s m ost v is ­ ited national park. Note All pho tog ra phs and draw ings used in th is article are courtesy of the Blue R idge P arkw ay archives, N ational P ark Service, A sheville, N.C. Sources Everhardt, Gary, Personal Interview, 1988. Everhardt is superintendent of the Blue Ridge Parkway Giedion, Siegfried Space, Time, and Architecture, Harvard University Press, 1946, p. 554 Hill, David P. and Richard Johnson, The Blue Ridge Parkway, exhibition text for Harvard University, 1988 Hill, David P , The Blue Ridge Parkway, exhibition text for National Building Museum, 1989 Hill, David R, Threading a Parkway through the Blue Ridge, travelling exhibition for Friends of the Blue Ridge Parkway, Inc. 1991 Hope, Robert A., Many personal interviews. Hope is the retired resident landscape architect for the Blue Ridge Parkway. Jolley, Harley, The Blue Ridge Parkway, University of Tennessee Press, 1969 Jolley, Harley and William Bake, The Blue Ridge Parkway: The First 50 Years, Appalachian Consortium Press, 1985 Jolley, Harley, Painting with a Comet’s Tail, Appalachian Consortium, 1987 Jolley, Harley, Many personal interviews. Dr. Jolley has served as historian for the Blue Ridge Parkway. Wilson, Richard Guy, The Machine Age, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1986, p. 101 13 �Hotel Roanoke A Description o f this Large and Well Equipped Hotel (E d ito r’s Note: T h is de scrip tio n of th e new H otel R oanoke is printed verbatim from The L e a d e r, pub lished in R oanoke on O cto b e r 28, 1882.) years after it opened. By invitation of H. Chipm an, Esq., the polite and attentive super­ intendent of the Roanoke Land and Im provem ent C om pany of this place, we, accom panied by him, visited and inspected this splendid hotel, which is now nearly ready to be opened to the public. The main building of this hotel is 177 feet long by 73 feet in width, to which is added an annex 132 feet long by 48 feet wide, the w hole containing about 100 rooms. Enter­ ing the BASEMENT on the left hand cam e the Barber shop, with bath room s attached, all fully equipped and supplied with hot and cold w ater and finished up in handsom e style. Adjacent to these room s is a com ­ partm ent in which is a Lebrant & M cDow ell hot air furnace of large ca­ pacity, with three coal room s each 30 x 40 feet. On the right com e the large finely finished bar rooms, in which w e observed large fire places of pressed brick after the Q ueen A nne style, which is the style of architec­ ture of the entire building. Passing through the bar rooms, w e reached four large and excellently ventilated store-room s for keeping supplies, w h ile still fu rth e r to the right co m e s the a p a rtm e n t fitte d up fo r a STEAM LAUNDRY This apartm ent contains a boiler of great capacity fo r use in w a sh in g and d ryin g room s lined w ith g a lv a n iz e d iron, 14 �to g e th e r w ith m any m inor arra ngem ents fo r com plete efficien cy and prom pt w ork. Lastly under th is w ing com es the BAKERY in w hich is a large brick oven, 6 x 6 feet inside m easurem ent, w ith several sm aller co m partm en ts adjacen t fo r use in connection w ith th e bakery, w hile an e le va to r runs from th is a pa rtm e nt to the 3rd floor. All th e different a pa rtm e nts in th e basem ent are supplied w ith all necessary closets etc. A sce nding to th e first flo o r and entering the south entrance fronting th e union depot, w e cam e to the OFFICE of th e hotel, han d­ so m e ly fin ished in paneling and carved oak; the flo o r polished until it shone like a looking glass. T he ceiling is also in highly polished w ood, natural grain; th e room is lighted by th re e elegan t chan deliers of eight lights each. It also has electric bell atta chm e nts to every room, a handsom e gong and large firepla ce of pressed brick, besides regis­ te rs from th e hot a ir fu rn a ce beneath. O n the right, approaching the grand stairw ay, is th e ...o ile d w oods, as is the office, equipped w ith handsom e ch an deliers and num erous conveniences. P assing be­ yond th e stairw ay, w e en te r the grand DINING SALOON capable of seating tw o hundred guests, brilliantly lighted by six chan deliers of e ight lights each. T his room is finished up in the sam e style as the office and g e n tle m e n ’s p arlo r and is extre m ely handsom e. A djoining the dining room is a spa cio u s and fu lly equipped b u tle r’s pantry, w ith e lectric and spea king tu b e conn ections w ith th e variou s departm ents w ith w h ich he has use. O n th e left hand side of this pantry is a store room fitte d up w ith shelves and boxes fo r groceries etc. N ext to this a p a rtm e nt com es th e KITCHEN. T his m ost im portant q u a rte r is m ost a d m irab ly and co m p le te ly equipped w ith all appliances and aids to the culinary art. A range of the largest size, m anufactured by Bram hall, D eane & Co. of Philadelphia, is located on one side of th e room ; it contains tw o fire boxes, th re e large ovens, an im m ense broiler and boile r of great size. T h e re is also an apparatu s fo r keeping m eats, ve g e ta b le s & c. w arm by m eans of hot w a te r circulated ingeniously thro ugh pipes, in w hich th e heat can be dim inished o r increased as pleased. H ere w e also noticed th e coffee, tea and m ilk urns, large and handsom e, w ith g lass gau ge a tta ch m e n ts w h ich indicate the am o u n t in each vessel; these w ere also m anufactured by Bram hall, D eane & Co. Ju st beyond are the dish com partm ents, containing 12 clo sets closed from flo o r to ceiling and fitted up w ith apparatu s fo r w a rm in g dishes by steam . An ele va to r passes th ro ugh th is room also. F urther beyond is a refrigerating a partm ent of the J.H. R idgew ay patent. T h is contains tw o apa rtm e nts w ith places fo r ice, each c a ­ pable of holding som ething like a ton, and arranged with banks, shelves & c. fo r m eats, butter, vege tab les & c. S ix beeves could be hung in 15 �eithe r one of th e se apartm e nts and kept indefinitely. A t th e extrem e end of this w ing is a no the r storage room . A sce nding th e grand sta ir­ w a y ornam ented with carved and polished o ak and lighted by a ....strik­ ingly a rranged w ith paneling ove r hard finished plaster. Here, also, is a spacious pressed brick fireplace, besides registers from the hot a ir furn ace below, and glass doo rs opening on the verandah. T his flo o r contains nineteen sleeping apartm ents, all roomy, e xcelle ntly ve n ti­ lated, and furn ishe d a lte rn a te ly in ash and ebony, th e floors all c a r­ peted, linen room s and all possible co n ve n ie n ce s provided th ro u g h ­ out. A sm all ebo ny knob in each room needs but to be touched by the gue st to ring th e bell in the office. A back sta irw a y also leads d o w n ­ w ard and upw ard. O n the th ird flo o r is fifteen sleeping apartm ents, besides linen room s & c., all e le g a n tly furn ishe d and carpeted, with e le ctric call bell a tta ch m e n ts and eve ry p o ssible co n ve n ie n ce fo r guests. A t the end of th is flo o r is an ap a rtm e n t containing a large iron ta n k capable of holding som e 3,000 gallons w hich w ill be kept filled w ith water, pum ped up by th e m achine w orks, to be used in case of fire. P assing thro ugh an open hallway, w e e n te r the a nn ex o r w ing of the m ain building, 132 fe e t long by 48 fe e t w ide. T his w ing is su r­ rounded on thre e sides by spa cio u s vera n d a h s at each flo o r from w hich th e vie w of th e surro unding co un try is a lm ost enchanting. The basem ent of th is part is at presen t in one large ap a rtm e n t th e full size of the building, and w h ich w ill p roba bly be fitted up fo r a billiard sa ­ loon. T he first and second floors have fourteen sleeping room s each, and on the th ird flo o r are seven, besides num berless closets, linen room s & c. T his portion is also fitted up in th e sam e style as th e m ain building: electric call-bell attachm ents, elegant chandeliers, and hand­ som e protected lights fo r the verandahs. T he hotel and groun ds are lighted by gas, and supplied w ith w a te r from th e fam o us M cC lanahan spring. T he system of drain age is e xtensive and m ost com plete. S itu ­ ated on a com m a nding em inence, there is am ple fall to take off all w a ste m atter, and keep th e entire p rem ises dry and sw eet. T he grounds— containing som e six acres— are being enclosed and graded, and w ill be lighted by som e tw e n ty gas lam ps. A t each post in the surrounding fence w ill be planted a vine. S om e five hundred tre e s have been ordered fo r planting on th e grounds, w hich w ill be laid off and arranged by Mr. Hayes, la ndscap e gardener, of P hiladelphia, under the supervision o f H. C hipm an, Esq. T he entrance and d rive ­ w a y gates w ill be m anufactured by the C leveland W ro ught Iron Fence Co. of Ohio. Taken in its entirety, th is is one of the m ost com m odious, w ell arranged and han dsom ely fin ished hotels w e have e ve r seen outside 16 �of a fe w of o u r la rge st cities. T h e re is one feature, how ever, in w hich it cannot be equalled, and th a t is th e MAGNIFICENT VIEW presented from the ve rand as and every w in d o w and d o o r in th e building. T he vie w needs to be seen to be appreciated. W e have n e ith er the ability o r space to de p ict it in w ords. On every hand the horizon is m et by m ountains o f a ttractive outline, w h ile the landscape intervening is beautiful and attractive. O n th e S outh, the hotel overlo oks the union depot, th e m achin e w orks, round houses, and a large portion of our picturesque tow n; on the East w e have the round houses, m achine and ca r w orks, also besides th e iron fu rn aces w hich loom up in the distance and a n o th e r section of th e tow n; on the North and W est, an extended and va ried landscape, w hile, as before said, m ountains are seen on all sides. T h is ca n n o t fail to becom e a m ost popular resort, and under the e xpe rienced m anag em e nt of the lessee, Mr. M ullin, w ill soon b e ­ com e fa m o u s w ith the tra ve lin g public and visitors to our grow ing city. T h e hotel has been built by the R oanoke Land and Im prove­ m ent C o m pa ny at a co st of about sixty thousand dollars. 17 �The Railroad Offices b y D on P ie d m o n t The first office building o f the Norfolk and Western Railroad was built in 1883 on North Jefferson Street, beside the tracks. It burned in 1896, the same year the company emerged from receivership as the Norfolk and Western Railway. It w as a m any-gabled thing, this ram bling, chim ney-rich Q ueene A n ne office building th a t w a s fo r a dozen ye a rs hom e to th e N o rfolk and W estern R ailroad. It sa t th e re ju s t a cross Je ffe rso n S tre e t from the new H otel R oanoke, and end-on to the m ain line. A photog ra ph from th e tim e su g g e sts th e presen ce of retail shop s on th e ground flo o r and a bay w in d o w th a t m ay o r m ay not have been a telegraph office on th e sid ew a lk facing the track. Through th e d e e p ly shad ed d o o r passed th e lu m inaries of th e tim e: F rederick J. Kim ball, no do u b t sporting his fa m o u s checke re d su it and glittering tie pin; H enry Fink, bearded and bulky, w h o succe e d e d K im ball as president, and L. E. Jo hn son, a n o th e r futu re president. T h e re w ere others, of course, a n o n ym o u s th e n and fo rg o tte n now, exce p t as fa d ­ ing im ages in old album s; derbied d a n d ie s in high collars and ladies in long dresses, th e ir a m ple skirts covering high-button shoes. G ran d­ parents, g re a t-g ra n d p a re n ts even, a n ce sto rs p erha ps of m any w h o w o rk in to d a y ’s offices, fo r in R o anoke th e N o rfolk and W estern has alw a ys been a fa m ily business. D on P ie d m o n t is the re tire d m a n a g e r o f p u b lic re la tio n s fo r N o rfo lk S o u th e rn R a ilw a y in R oanoke. H e w rote th is a rtic le f o r a b ro ­ ch u re p u b lis h e d w hen ra ilro a d e m p lo ye e s m o ve d in to th e n e w o ffic e s in the s p rin g o f 1992. P ie d m o n t is a m e m b e r o f the b o a rd o f th e S o ci­ e ty a n d M useum . 18 �It was built in 1883, in the heady years when Big Lick became Roanoke and coal began to move east. The railroad bought it in 1887 as headquar­ ters. On January 4,1896, a cold and windy day, a fire broke out in the Car Records Office. It started at about 10 in the morning; before one in the afternoon, the fire was out, not through the efforts of the fire company al­ though they fought the blaze bravely but because there was nothing left to bum. Employees had saved what they could, but papers and debris of all kinds littered the streets about the stark ruins and despair crowned every brow among the huddled spectators. The ashes were not even cold before city fathers were gnawing their knuckles in anxiety about the possibility of the railroad’s moving away from Roanoke; and the railroad, with such a thought far from its collective mind, began planning to rebuild. And rebuild it did, with such speed and efficiency that some employ­ ees were at work in their new offices by July. It was the first of two pieces of good news the fates had in store for the Norfolk and Western, the second being its delivery that fall from receivership, and with a new and only slightly different name: Norfolk and Western Railway. It is a matter of record and pride that from that day forward the railroad never looked back. In the new building, comfortable charm gave way to an earnest busi­ ness-like brick structure of six stories, with an imposing broken pediment above the front door. It was 186 feet long, embraced 106,200 square feet, and cost $95,852. Before long, these spacious quarters were inadequate. A West Wing, identical in design with the original - but not as long - and costing just as much, was put up in 1903 and “improved” in 1907. And so it remained, although internal changes and remodelling of many and diverse kinds took place over the succeeding decades. It was the place of livelihood for hundreds of Roanokers. They worked in “the offices” and when they crossed the tracks for lunch or other business, they went “over town.” This phrase remained in the working language until the recent past, in fact, until just about everything moved “over town.” In the Great Depression, Norfolk and Western took a bold and brave step by deciding to add another major office building to its facilities and to the city’s skyline. Said to have been modeled loosely on an office building in Winston-Salem belonging to the R. J. Reynolds Company, it turned out to be a solid piece of work. The general contractor was J. R Pettyjohn, who also built, among other structures, the Roanoke passenger station. On the site stood an old hotel called the Stratford; the Norfolk and Western Magazine, reporting on the new building, said it had been built 29 years before, which would date it at about 1902. However, it strongly re­ sembles the Hotel Felix as shown in a photograph of the 1896 fire. Whatever the name, the hotel was home to a number of NW employees who, thus dispossessed by progress, had to find another. These employees and hundreds of others moved into their new office home in May 1931. Its square tower stood 138 feet above street level and topped a structure of eight stores and a basement with a total of 247,600 19 �square feet. It w a s 152 feet by 141, contained tw o million pounds of steel, one million m ostly taw ny bricks and cost $831,927, eight tim es the original cost of its neighbor to the south. It m ust have been about this tim e that the tw o general office buildings began to be called “new G O B ” and “old G O B ,” a custom that continues in som e vocabularies to the present day. Not until years later did “north” and “south” and “east” be­ com e office G O B suffixes. A 5 0 0 -p lu s s e a t a u d ito riu m w a s on th e firs t flo o r a t th e re a r on th e so u th , o r C e n te r A v e n u e sid e , b u t w h e th e r it w a s lo ng used is n o t n o w cle ar, 6 0 y e a rs later. S h a rin g th e flo o r w e re th e In d u s ­ tria l a nd A g ric u ltu ra l a n d R e lie f and P e n sio n D e p a rtm e n ts , w h e re Below the two Norfolk and Western office buildings on North Jefferson Street, a group o f employees lined up to deliver Christmas baskets in 1932. 20 �u n d e r s lig h tly d iffe re n t n a m e s, th e y re m a in e d until N o rfo lk and W e s te rn ’s c o n s o lid a tio n w ith S o u th e rn R a ilw a y m a n d a te d th e ir p re s e n c e e ls e w h e re . T h e F re ig h t T ra ffic D e p a rtm e n t g o t th e se co n d floor, E n g i­ n e e rin g th e th ird . A c c o u n tin g g o t th e fo u rth , fifth , s ixth and s e v ­ enth. T h e M a g a z in e and A d v e rtis in g D e p a rtm e n t (the P u b lic R e­ la tio n s D e p a rtm e n t’s a n c e s to r), th e a s s is ta n t e n g in e e r fo r th e R adford and S h e n a n d o a h D ivisio n s and th e ca te n a ry e n g in e e r filled up th e e ig h th . T h e P re s id e n t’s o ffic e re m a in e d fo r m a n y y e a rs on th e firs t flo o r o f th e o ld b u ild in g , in fa ct, until S tu a rt S a u n d e rs ’ tim e . G e n e ra lly th e in te rio r re fle cte d a firm ly p la n te d n o -n o n se n se ra ilro a d ha rd at w o rk in a d e p re s s io n . N e ve rth e le ss, th e im p re s ­ sio n w a s n o t a lto g e th e r grim . In c e rta in a sp e cts o f th e e x te rio r and in th e lo b b y a n d e le v a to r cage s, fa n s o f th e a rc h ite c tu ra l and d e c o ra tiv e a rts o f th e 192 0s w ill fin d d e lig h tfu l c o u n te rp o in t to th e u n a d o rn e d fu n c tio n a lis m e lse w h e re in th e b u ild in g . T h e re are, fo r e xa m p le , g ra c e fu l lig h tin g fix tu re s , bold m a rb le h ig h lig h ts and in ­ te re s tin g use o f m e ta ls, all e v o c a tiv e of th e tim e s. T h e V irg in ia n m e rg e r cam e, th e N ickel P la te -W a b a sh et al m e rg e r c a m e , e m p lo y m e n t g re w a n d s h ra n k . A rc h ite c ts a n d re m o d e le rs w ro u g h t a c e rta in a m o u n t o f m a g ic in th e o n e old and one a g in g b u ild in g to a c c o m m o d a te th e s e co m in g s a nd g o ings, but fin a lly th e re ca m e th e c ritic a l tim e fo r d e cisio n . A nd th e d e c i­ sio n ca m e d o w n on th e sid e o f c o m m itm e n t and R oanoke. T h e re s u lt o f th a t d e c is io n is c le a r to all. It is a ste e l and c o n c re te m a n ife s ta tio n o f th e ra ilro a d ’s fa ith in its e lf as w e ll as in R o a n o ke , a d e s ig n o f im p re s s iv e a rc h ite c tu ra l d is tin c tio n , as fitte d fo r th e c o m p u te r a g e a s its 188 7 p re d e c e s s o r w a s fitte d fo r th e a ge o f G ro v e r C le ve la n d . It c o s t $ 2 5 m illio n . It has 10 w o rkin g flo o rs and an 11th lo a d e d w ith c o m p u te r and c o m m u n ic a tio n s e q u ip m e n t, s o p h is ti­ ca te d b e yo n d th e m in d s o f m o st p e o ple . It is h o m e to a d o ze n d e p a rtm e n ts : C o a l a nd O re T ra ffic, M a rke tin g , In d u stria l D e v e lo p ­ m ent, E n g in e e rin g , A c c o u n tin g , Tax, P o lice , E m p lo ye e B e n e fits, In te rn a l A u d it, M a n a g e m e n t In fo rm a tio n S e rv ic e s , F in a n c e and P u b lic R e la tio n s, p lu s B u ild in g M a n a g e m e n t. Its p o p u la tio n on a n y g ive n d a y is a ro u n d 900. It h a s 2 0 4 ,0 0 0 s q u a re fe e t and c o n ta in s 500 to n s o f re in ­ fo rc in g s te e l, 150 to n s of s tru c tu ra l ste e l, 8 0 ,0 0 0 s q u a re fe e t of p re -c a s t c o n c re te , 4 0 ,0 0 0 s q u a re fe e t o f g la ss and 7 ,0 0 0 y a rd of c o n c re te . G ro u n d w as broken on O ctober 15,1990, with “topping out” at the end of M ay 1991. The first m ove took place on February 21,199 2, the last at the end of April. 21 �This cool, contemporary building, so far removed in form and style from its predecessors, is a continuation of our railroad’s century-old presence in Roanoke and of our confidence in the city, in ourselves, in our people. Queene Anne gables or tinted glass, som e things just don’t change. Home for many o f the railroad’s Roanoke offices in the 1990s is a new $25-million, 10-story, steel and concrete building, striking in contemporary business design. The two form er general office buildings on North Jefferson Street remained vacant in 1996. 22 �Totera Town Reconsidered b y Thom as K latka In September of 1671, Thomas Batts and Robert Fallam led an ex­ ploration westward from Fort Henry (at what is now Petersburg) “for the find­ ing out the ebbing and flowing of the Waters on the other side of the Moun­ tains, in orderto [attain] the discovery of the South Sea.” This exploration was privately documented in a short journal kept by Robert Fallam. Fallam’s journal is an intensively studied, yet problematic, document relating to west­ ern Virginia’s early history. Although various interpretations of the route taken by the Batts and Fallam expedition have been advanced, no consensus has emerged. This lack of consensus stems from the recognition that Fallam’s brief journal of the expedition contains little detail in its descriptions of distance traveled, direction taken, or terrain traversed. For more than three centuries, Fallam’s journal has been received as a politically sensitive and historically controversial document. Nonetheless, this important document provides undisputed testimony to the first recorded exploration of western Virginia. It also carries critical implications for the study of the early history of Roanoke Valley. This article will discuss Fallam’s jour­ nal in light of recent archaeological research in western Virginia. This re­ search may be used to inform discussions of the journal, and purported loca­ tions of Totera Town. In the late 19th century, renewed interest in the journal of Fallam stemmed from scholarly discussions of Virginia’s Native Americans, and the process of European-American settlement in western Virginia. Of particular interest to these discussions was the following journal entry by Fallam on September 9,1671: W e were stirring with the Sun and travelled west and after a little riding came again to the Supany River where it was very narrow, and ascended the second mountain which wound up west and by south with several springs and fallings, after which we came to a steep descent at the foot whereof was a lovely descending Valley about six miles over with curious small risings... Our course over it was southwest. After we were over that, we came to a very steep de­ scent, at the foot whereof stood the Tetera Town in a very rich swamp between a branch and the main River of Roanoke circled about with mountains. W e got thither about three of the clock after we had travelled twenty-five miles. Here we were exceedingly civilly entertain’d. Thom as Klatka, archaeologist in the Roanoke Regional Preservation Office since it opened in 1989, cam e here after earning a m aster’s degree and doing other graduate work a t the University o f Virginia. A native o f N ew Castle, Pa., he is a graduate o f Indiana University o f Pennsylvania. 23 �This jo u rn a l entry includes th e first w ritten m ention of a N ative A m erican settlem ent in w estern V irginia, and provides a description o f the terrain around the settlem ent. T his inform ation has becom e one of th e central clues in deve lop ing an und erstan ding of the history of w estern V irg inia’s inhabitants before se ttle m e n t by th e EuropeanA m ericans. M odern interest in F allam ’s jo urn al w as initiated in 1894 by the S m ithsonian Institution anthropologist, Jam es M ooney. His study of the jo urn al concluded th a t Totera Town w as located in present day Patrick County, Virginia. Since M ooney’s publication, num erous schol­ ars have interpreted th e jo urn al and conjectured on the location of Totera Town. S om e of th e se scholars have conclude d th a t Totera Town w as located in the R adford Valley. However, th e m ajority have concluded th a t Totera Town w a s proba bly located in th e R oanoke Valley. N um erous areas in th e R oanoke V alley have been offered fo r the location o f Totera Town. S om e have cited S alem as the likely location of Totera Town. M any o thers believe th a t Totera Town w a s probably located in so u thea st R oanoke on th e broad flood pla in of the R oanoke R iver betw een th e 9th S treet bridge and th e 13th Street bridge. In all likelihood, all of th e se sch o la rs w ould proba bly agree th a t the brevity of F allam ’s jo u rn a l preclu des a conclusive in terpreta­ tion of Totera Tow n’s location. A s m odern scholars contin ued th e study of Totera Town, th e y have turn ed to archae olog y fo r the “hard e vidence .” T h e so u g h t-a fte r evidence consists of “trad e artifa cts.” Trade artifacts are item s that w e re trad ed to th e N ative A m erican s by the European A m erican ex­ plorers. M any different articles w e re used fo r trade, but th e trade item s w hich m ost often rem ain preserved in archae olog ical sites in­ clude fragm ents of m etal items, glass beads, and perhaps shell beads. Trade artifacts have been recovered from a fe w archae olog ical sites in the R adford and R oanoke valleys, and th e se sites provide th e best available inform ation fo r the study of Totera Tow n’s location. In 1974 and 1975, a rch ae olog ists excava ted an entire N ative A m erican villa ge prio r to th e construction of th e B. D avid B issett R ec­ reation P ark in Radford. T h e site, referred to as the Trigg Site, w as located along th e N ew River. E xca vations at th e Trigg site yielded the largest collection of tra d e artifacts in w estern V irginia. A stu d y of th e trad e artifacts recovered from th e site has led som e a rch a e o lo ­ gists to conclude th a t the Trigg S ite w a s occupied circa 1600-1635. R adiocarbon dates sugg est th a t site occup ation occurred in the pe­ riod betw een th e m id-16th century to the m id-18th century. S om e scholars, w h o believe the Batts and Fallam expe ditio n tra ve le d as fa r 24 �w e st as p re se n t-d a y W e st V irginia, use e vidence from th e T rigg site to su g g e st th a t Totera Town w a s located in th e R adford Valley. In 1975, a rch a e o lo g ists exca va te d a portion of th e B uzzard Rock site in so u th e a st R oanoke. E xca vations at th e site w e re c o n ­ ducted prio r to th e build ing of th e 13th S tre e t extension and bridge. A d ditio nal e xca va tio n s at th is site w e re und ertake n in 1984. W hile these tw o excavations did reveal evidence of a N ative A m erican settle­ m ent, tra d e artifa cts w e re not recovered. F urtherm ore, radiocarbon dates fo r th e excava tion a re a s su gg est th a t th e site w a s occu p ie d by the N ative A m e rica n s at least 250 ye a rs before th e 1671 expedition of Batts and Fallam . R ecent a rch a e o lo g ica l e xca va tio n s at tw o sites in S alem are also no te w o rth y. T h e T h o m a s -S a w y e r s ite is lo ca te d w ith in th e S outh side Industrial P ark on th e south sid e of th e R oanoke River. Various po rtio n s o f th is large site have been excava ted sin ce 1980. In 1988, e xca va tio n s on a sm all part of th e site yie lde d several trad e artifacts. R a diocarbon da te s asso cia te d w ith th e tra d e a rtifa cts s u g ­ gest th a t th e exca va te d m ate rials d ate from the late 16th ce n tu ry to the m id-17th century. M ore recently, arch a e o lo g ica l e xca va tio n s w e re con d u cte d at the G ra h a m -W h ite site in S alem . T h is site is located betw een W ill­ iam s B ranch and th e R oanoke River, a b o u t one m ile d o w nstre am from th e T h o m a s -S a w y e r site. W h ile th e area su rro unding th e G ra ­ ham -W h ite site is ve ry sim ila r to F allam ’s d e scrip tion of th e te rra in surro unding Totera Town, it shou ld be noted th a t m any areas in w e s t­ ern V irg in ia fit th e description. A trigger from a British firearm (left), an iron needle and a piece o f brass were among the trade artifacts found at the Graham- White archaeological site along the Roanoke River in Salem in 1990. (Roanoke Times photo) 25 �E xcavations at th e G rah am -W hite site w ere undertaken d u r­ ing the construction of th e Jam es M oyer S ports C om plex. T h e G ra­ ham -W hite site has yielded a large num ber of trad e artifacts. A lthough radiocarbon dating has not been com pleted, a study o f th e recovered trade artifacts sugg ests a m id to late 17th ce n tu ry date fo r the site. These artifacts include m etal scraps of iron, co p p e r and brass, glass beads, and the triggers from a snap haun ce firearm . S n apha unce firearm s w e re am ong the first guns brought to Jam estow n by the English colonists. T h e y w e re m anufactured and used in E urope as early as 1580. A lthough the sn a p haun ce w a s superseded by the English lock around 1650, it w a s issued by the B ritish m ilita ry until th e end o f th e 17th century. T h e re covered snaphaunce trig g e r supp orts a 17th ce n tu ry date from the G raham W hite site. Also, archae olog ical research in th e N orth C a rolin a p ied­ m ont provides additional evidence th a t certain typ e s of glass trade beads and N ative A m erican ce ram ics found at the G rah am -W hite site are not com m on on contem porane ous sites until the period from 1670 to 1700. Using historical and archae olog ical inform ation to determ ine conclusively the location of Totera Town is a difficult, if not im possible task. W ith o u r cu rre n t level of know ledge, the m ajority of co n te m p o ­ rary scholars believe th a t th e Batts and Fallam expedition o f 1671 passed thro ugh th e R oanoke Valley, and th a t Totera Town w a s lo­ cated along th e R oanoke River. A lb e it inconclusive, th e best e vi­ dence fo r Totera Tow n’s location in th e R oanoke V alley is at the G ra ­ ham -W hite and T h o m a s-S a w ye r sites in Salem . T he N ative A m erican s living in w estern V irginia prior to European-A m erican se ttle m e n t w e re likely practicing sw idden agriculture. T his a gricultural te ch nique requires th e periodic relocation of villa ges and surrounding agricultural fie ld s to allow the rejuvenation of old fields. It is reasonable to hypo the size th a t the G rah am -W hite and T ho m a s-S a w ye r sites w e re occup ied by th e sam e people, and w e re the product of villa g e relocation during th e 17th century. It is unfortunate th a t only ve ry sm all portions of th e B uzzard Rock, T ho m as-S a w yer, and G ra h a m -W h ite sites w e re excavated. R arely are the necessary resources and tim e available fo r a co m ­ plete excavation. W e can only hope th a t the evidence still buried in th o se sites w ill rem ain unharm ed until futu re circu m sta n ce s allow prope r and careful excavation and study. Inform ation from archae olog ical sites in w estern V irginia m ay be used to inform d iscussio ns of th e location of Totera Town. H o w ­ ever, conclusive evidence fo r the villa g e location has ye t to be unco v­ ered. O nly by the contin ued study of early colonial docu m e nts and archaeological sites can w e deve lop a better und erstan ding of the route taken by the Batts and Fallam expedition, th e location of Totera Town, and th e ea rly history of the R oanoke Valley. 26 �Sources Alvord, Clarence W . and Lee Bidgood, The First Explorations o f the Trans-Allegh­ eny Region b y the Virginians 1650-1674. Cleveland: The Arthur H. Clark Com­ pany, 1912. Barber, Michael. The Thomas-SawyerSite (44RN39b) Salem, Virginia:A Progress Report on Emergency Excavations, December 1988. Unpublished report suDmittea to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, Richmond, 1988. Barnes, Raymond R, Roanoke River: Once Called Saponi, Round Oak, Goose Creek. Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society 6(1 ):33-36,1969. Briceland, Alan Vance. Westward from Virginia: The Exploration o f the Virginia-North Carolina Frontier 1650-1710. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia 1987. Bruce, Carolyn Hale, Roanoke: A Pictorial History. Norfolk: Donning Company, Bruce, Carolyn Hale, Roanoke Past and Present. Norfolk: Donning Company, 1982. Buchanan, Willliam T., The Trigg Site, City o f Radford, Virginia. Special Publication 14. Richmond: The Archeological Society of Virginia, 1986. Bushnell, David I., Discoveries Beyond the Appalachian Mountains in September, 1671. American Anthropologist 9:45-57,1907. Clark, W ayne E., A Pelim inary Report on the 1977 Excavations o f the Buzzard Rock Site, 44RN2. Unpublished report on file at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Richmond: 1978. Givens, Lula Porterfield, Highlights in the Early History o f Montgomery County, Virginia. Pulaski: B.D. Smith and Brothers, Printers, 1975. Hildebrand, J.R., An Historical M ap o f Roanoke County, Virginia. Roanoke: Roanoke Historical Society, 1968. Kagey, Deedie, When Past is Prologue: A History o f Roanoke County. Marceline, MO: Walsworth Press, Inc., 1988. Kegley, F.B., Kegley’s Virginia Frontier. Roanoke: The Southwest Virginia Historical Society, 1938. Kegley, George, The Valley’s Beginnings. Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society 10(1): 48-50,19 77. Klatka, Thomas, Preliminary Report on the Graham- White Site: A Contact Period Site on the Roanoke River, Virginia. Paper presented at the Up­ lands Archaeology Conference, Boone, North Carolina, 1992. Mooney, James, The Siouan Tribes o f the East. Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of Ethnology, Bulletin 22. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1894. Summers, Lewis Preston, Annals o f Southwest Virginia, 1769-1800. Published privately in Abingdon, Virginia, 1929. Summers, Lewis Preston, H istoiy o f Southwest Viginia, 1746-1786, Washington County, 1777-1870. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1966 (original 1903). Swanton, John R., The Indian Tribes o f North America. Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 145. Washington D.C.: Government Print­ ing Office, 1952. 27 �Col. William Fleming’s Origins b y C lare W hite “The Revolution that took place in North America in the Year 1775 separating the Thirteen United States from Great Britain for ever, and the remote part of Virginia where I now reside, and the Prospect I have of removing to a great distance westwardly, where the communication will be small, and the opportunities to Europe but seldom, it may not be amiss to inform my Family that I am the third son of Leonard Fleming, a Gentleman whose Ancestors have long been settled in Westmoreland in the North of England not fa r from W inanderm eer (sic)...M y Father being straitened in his circumstances sold his Paternal Estate...and moved to Scotland...”1 Thus Col. William Fleming began an abbreviated, and incomplete, account of his life. He probably wrote it in July of 1782 when he had been named a judge for the District of Kentucky and was contemplating a move to that remote part of Virginia where he owned thousands of acres of land. For Fleming, as for others who lived west of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains in the 18th century, Kentucky’s meadows and forests had become the new horizon,a lodestone for the men and women whose lives were shaped by a dream. Land! While land and the freedom to possess it may not have brought the earliest settlers to Virginia in the 17th century, it soon became a central theme in their struggle to survive and succeed. A hundred years after the first settlers arrived on the eastern shores of Virginia, Scotch-lrish and German pioneers followed the same beckoning star as they crossed the Atlantic to Pennsylvania, pioneered up the Shenandoah Valley and on to the valley of the Roanoke River, cupped in mountains at the southern end of the great Valley of Virginia. Fleming’s house was there, under the shadow of one of those great ridges. William Fleming was neverto settle in Kentucky. His judgeship never materialized. When the powerful Council of Virginia thought overthe governor’s appointment, they decided it would be unwise to name as judge a man who had already tried to arbitrate the kinds of land claims that were sure to come before him as a judge. Only two years before, he had headed a governor’s commission sent to unravel the tangled legal complexities of possession that clouded most titles to land in the Kentucky of the 1780s.2 C lare W hite is a lo n g tim e w rite r o f R o anoke a re a history. A g ra d u a te o f H o llin s C ollege, sh e is a fo rm e r w o m en’s e d ito r o f the R oanoke Tim es & W orld-N ew s, a b o a rd m em ber, lib ra ria n a n d n e w s­ le tte r e d ito r o f the S ociety. S he is the a u th o r o f “R o anoke 1740-1982. ” This a rtic le is the firs t c h a p te r o f a p ro je c te d b io g ra p h y o f W illiam F lem ing, a surgeo n, le g isla to r, In d ia n fig h te r a n d p ro m in e n t s e ttle r o f the R oanoke Valley. The p h o to g ra p h s w ere m ade b y the author. 28 �F le m in g ’s auto b io g ra p h y neve r got beyond his entering the University of Edinburgh to study anatom y under the fam ous Alexander Munro, primus. The account stops alm ost in m id-sentence, leading one to think he put it aside abruptly when the news reached him, less than two w eeks after his appointm ent, that the Council conceived it “im proper that he should sit in a Court before whom cases m ay com e on w hich he had before given his opinion.”3 That the Council’s belated decision w as a bitter disappointm ent m ay be m easured by his im m ediate resolve to resign his m ost recent com m ission to travel once m ore to Kentucky, this tim e to settle m onetary claim s resulting from military expeditions on the O hio River. It w as with difficulty that he w as persuaded to undertake that assignm ent, although, as the reasoning man he was, he m ust have appreciated the w isdom of the judgeship revocation.4 The short autobiographical account, written in the latter years of Flem ing’s life, serves as a kind of introduction to the m an’s life before he cam e to Virginia in the 1750s. A visit to Dumfries in the lowlands of W est Scotland, w here he spent his youth, fills in som e of the background so a sketch can be attem pted of the influences that w ere to mold the man he would become. A s Fleming put it, he w as the third son of Leonard Fleming, “a G entlem an.” That designation following his father’s nam e im m ediately puts the senior Fleming in a special class,that of a man of good birth who did not w ork with his hands. The descent of the Fleming line that conferred that title on him is cloudy. Col. Fleming stated his fam ily had long lived in W estm oreland and, indeed, Flemings had lived there for generations, connected with Rydal Castle. These Flemings were descended from Michael Le Fleming (translation: Michael, the Fleming), w hose father, W illiam Le Fleming, cam e to England with W illiam the Conqueror. William Le Fleming had lands in both England and Scotland; his eldest son, W illiam, inherited his Scotland lands w here his descendants became identified as the Earls of W igton.5 W hen the m ale line of the Earls of W igton becam e extinct in the late 18th century, Col. W illiam Fleming of Virginia w as reputed to be the nearest male heir to the title. He refused to enter a claim to the title, saying he w as then in the decline of life and did not wish to expend the large am ount of m oney necessary to go to England to prove his right, only to aggrandize his eldest son at the expense of his younger children. Furthermore, he said, he w as now com m itted to his adopted country and had no desire to return to England.6 It is significant, however, that he, like his father, w as referred to as W illiam Flem ing, G ent., w hen not designated as C olonel o r Doctor. Also, according to a peruser of his papers in the 19th century, he used the Flem ing seal on his corre sp o n d e n ce .7 29 �T h e Leonard Flem ings, Col. F le m in g ’s parents, w e re living at a house called R eston in E n g la n d ’s Lake C ountry, on th e road from K endal to A m b le sid e and o n ly a fe w m iles from R ydal C a stle 8 w hen, as his son later wrote, Flem ing “becam e straitened in his circum stances (and) sold his P aternal E state.” T h e e ld e r Flem ing secured a jo b w ith th e Excise, th e E nglish ta x collectin g agency, and m oved his fam ily, first in 1725 to R utherglen ne a r pre se n t G lasgow , and then, a y e a r later, to Jedb o ro u g h in th e S co ttish Lo w la n d s.9 His son notes that, w ith his sa la ry and an a n n u ity co m in g to his w ife, th e fo rm e r D orothea S atterthw aite of W estm oreland County, he w a s able to “live w ith C redit and R eputation.” 10 T h e a n n u ity m ust have been tru ly sub sta n tia l fo r W illiam F lem ing’s unm arried sisters, M arg are t and S arah, a fte r th e ir pa re n ts’ death, lent th e tow n o f D u m fries £1,000, an e n o rm o u s sum fo r th e 18th century.11 A t Je d b o ro u g h on th e 18th o f February, 172 8,12 a third son w a s born to Leonard and D orothea Flem ing, a son they nam ed W illiam . T h e y a lrea dy had tw o sons, Leonard and John, both o f w h o m died in th e ir youth, and a daughter, C a the rine. W hen th e new baby w as alm o st th re e years old, th e fa m ily m oved again, th is tim e to D um fries as Flem ing se n io r w o rke d his w a y up in th e E xcise service. W ith the exception o f five years in K ilm arnock and a y e a r each in O ld M elorum , W igton and Bridgend, th e F lem ings w o uld live in D u m fries fo r the next 45 years. Leonard Flem ing beca m e S u p e rviso r o f th e Excise in 1730 and filled th a t position fo r th e rest of his life.13 William Flem ing’s parents and sisters were members o f St. M ichael’s Church a t Dumfries, Scotland, and they were buried in its graveyard. 30 �A classic 15th century bridge at Dumfries, Scotland, where William Fleming’s family lived. In the 18th century, D um fries, a tow n of about 5,000, w a s know n as th e “S co ttish L iverp ool.” S itu ate d at th e first ford o f th e Nith River, about five m iles from S o lw a y Firth on th e w e st co a st of S cotland, the tow n built ships and carried on a lively trade with Virginia, N ew England, G othenburg, th e French ports, Spain, Italy, D antzig, Norw ay, H olland and all aro u n d th e British coasts. M any o f th e tra d in g firm s in th e tow n had one son at th e D u m fries end and one in th e V irginia, N ew England o r B e lfast office. A ll th ro ugh th e ce n tu ry th e re are records of repeated a tte m p ts to keep th e river chan nel open and m arked, along w ith co n stru ctio n of new outports. Tobacco fro m V irg in ia w a s an im portant im port, as w as w ine from O porto and tim b e r from th e B altic.14 It w a s on im ports such as these, along w ith exports, th a t th e British P a rlia m e n t im pose d an E xcise ta x from tim e to tim e, a ta x sim ila r to th e 20th ce n tu ry VAT (Value A d ded Tax), but collected at th e p o int o f m a n u fa ctu re o r im port ra th e r than at th e point of sale. T he S u p e rviso r o f th e E xcise had th e re sp o n sib ility of c a lcula ting and collecting th is tax. In addition, it w a s his duty to app re hend sm ugglers. For eve ry s m u g g le r arrested, th e E xcise o ffice r received an aw ard and half of th e g o o d s re co ve re d .15 D uring Leonard F le m in g ’s te rm s of office, D u m frie s a nd th e w a te rs o f th e N ith w e re b e sie g e d by sm ugglers, so m uch so that, by the end o f th e ce n tury w h en the to w n ’s foreign tra d e had been decim ated, th e blam e w a s laid on th e activities of sm ugglers. T h e situatio n w a s exace rb a te d by th e co n n iva n ce of th e co u n try people. M obs of w o m e n are said to have re pea ted ly assau lted th e lu ckless e xcisem e n w ith p itchforks and sto n e s .16 In the records in Edinburgh is a note about Flem ing: “To an old C O (C ustom s O fficer) w h o m ust have had m any a tu ssle w ith th e bold ad ve n tu re rs 31 �w h o ran sm uggled goods up the Solw ay...” 17 T h e tow n itself, in F lem ing’s day, had m uch th a t w a s m edieval abo ut It. M u rd e re rs’ hands w ere still being exposed on spikes and conditions in the tow n’s prisons w ere said to be frightful. M ost prisoners had been incarcerated fo r debt, sm all deb ts of a fe w shillings. O ne account details th a t a cro fte r com pla ine d he had been held fo r six m onths on a five shilling d eb t and his cre d ito r had taken over, not only his croft, but also his w ife and fam ily. N ear th e end of th e century, the officers of the tow n w e re dism issed fo r refusing to bring dow n tw o corpses from the gallow s. W ithal, how ever, the 18th ce n tu ry w a s a tim e of grow th fo r D um fries, if not fo r its life as a port. T h e Flesh M arket (butchers) w as m oved and prope rly laid out in m id-century, despite the w ish e s of the butchers w h o insisted on th e ir right to sla y cattle a n yw here in the streets; one o f th e steep, narrow lanes th a t ran dow n to the river from th e High S treet had been know n as S tinking Fennel fo r its association w ith offal (Fennel m eans “narrow stre e t”). T ha t chan ge w o uld have taken place durin g W illiam F lem ing’s boyhood. T he M idsteeple, o r Town Hall, w ith its sle nder spire, w a s built in the m iddle o f th e High S treet in the e a rly ye a rs of th e century; it still stands in the 20th ce n tu ry as a rem inde r of the past. T h e N ew Kirk, the first new religious building in th e tow n fo r centuries, w a s built in 1727 as a re su lt o f o ve rcro w d in g in St. M ic h a e l’s, a chu rch firs t m e n tio n e d a b o u t 1200. In 1742, w h ile y o u n g F le m in g w a s still attending St. M ichae l’s, its m edieval to w e r w as replaced by a steeple; th e body of th e church w a s rebuilt in 174 5-17 4 6 .18 Leonard and D orothe a F lem ing and th e ir d a u g h te r M a rg a re t are b urie d in the churchyard at St. M ichae l’s, a P resbyterian stro n g h o ld .19 O th e r 18th ce n tu ry im provem ents included a new hospital and the sale of disre p u ta b le te n e m e n ts to new proprie tors w h o prom ised to repair o r rebuild. T hatch roofs w e re replaced w ith slate to rem ove f ir e h a z a rd s a n d n e w s tr e e ts w e re la id o u t, a lto g e th e r an unprecedented effort in civic pride. On th e reverse sid e o f th e coin, th e tow n of D um fries financed all these im provem ents w ith loans, and loans com ing due w ere sim ply repaid w ith fresh loans. In the 1790s, D um fries w as several tim es cited in the H ouses of Parliam ent as a shining exam ple of a thoroughly corrupt burgh.20 M argaret and S arah Flem ing, having loaned th e tow n £1,000, w e re tw o w h o w e re ca u g h t in th a t loan cycle. Years a fte r M argaret’s death, her executor w as still trying to collect from the tow n.21 In o n e re s p e c t, D u m frie s co u ld , a n d d id , e n jo y p rid e of achievem ent. T h e G ra m m a r S chool of D um fries dates from the 16th ce n tu ry w ith an unblem ished record of scholarship. A “sculem a ister” 32 �tu rn s up in 1521 and the sch o o lh o u se is describ ed in 1548 as a thatched sin g le -sto ry building, 36 feet long w ith its do o r in th e gable end. T his w a s to be the only g ram m ar school in the tow n. In 1741, w riting o f th e m oving of th e schoolhouse, a historian said it had stood in the sam e place fo r “nigh 200 years.” In the 18th century, the school w as run by a succession of generally brilliant rectors, one of th e finest being Dr. T rotter w h o to o k it ove r in 1724 and w h o w a s headm aster w hen young W illiam Flem ing received his “classical edu cation” there. An education such as the young Flem ing w a s given included a thorough grounding in G reek and Latin, as w ell as such subjects as arithm etic, m athem atics, w riting and English. A m ong m ore esoteric subjects taught at the school in F le m in g ’s tim e w e re n a v ig a tio n a n d a s tro n o m y .22 E v id e n c e of F lem ing’s solid educational background turn s up later in the titles of the books in his library. T h e y co ve r a w ide range, from the expected m edical books a d o cto r w ould have (43 of them ) to the 281 other titles he listed in 1787, w hich m ay not have been all the ones on his shelves. O f these, however, there are histories, essays, classics such as Plato, Plutarch and Voltaire, books on law, agriculture and m ilitary fortifica tions, poetry, philo sophy and religious dissertations, including the se rm o n s of som e divin e s w h o reflected th e new ideas o f the S c o ttis h E n lig h te n m e n t. “ P a ra d is e L o s t” ru b b e d s h o u ld e rs w ith K im b e r’s “P eerage,” S hakespe are w ith Dryden, H orace (in Latin) with W e b ste r’s “ M a th em a tics.”23 In addition, Flem ing w rote a graceful, flow ing script of great style and clarity. A fte r th e yo u n g s c h o la r had co m p le te d his stu d ie s at Dr. T ro tte r’s establishm ent, he decided to study m edicine, “rather,” he w rote later, “to enable m e to S a tisfy m y curiosity in traveling than as a business on w h ich I w as to depend at a futu re day fo r m y su pp ort.” To th a t end, fo llow ing th e practice of the day, he w as apprenticed to a surgeon at D um fries, one Dr. M cKie. He w as then abo ut 16 years old and he gives a distinct im pression he m ade this decision, and later ones, entirely on his ow n, an unusual circum sta nce in a tim e w hen, in Europe, m aturity w as reached at the age of 28 rather than the Am erican 21. He spen t thre e years with Dr. M cKie, follow ing him to K irkcudbright on the S o lw a y Firth w hen the d o ctor m oved there tow ard the latter part of his app re nticeship. A t th is point, let him take up the tale from his sh o rt autobiography: “A t th e expiration of th is tim e, instead of going im m ediate ly to C ollege to study th e T h e o ry under the different P rofessors fo r a little tim e, th e usual course of the greatest part of th e Youth brought up to th e P ro fe s s io n o f P h y s ic k & S u rg e ry in S c o tla n d , I th o u g h t th e F oundation oug ht to be w ell laid and th a t it w a s necessary to have a �thorough know ledge in the M aterica M edica & Pharm acy, to obtain w hich I w e nt to K endal in W estm oreland (near his fa th e r’s fo rm e r hom e) and lived w ith Mr. C h risto p h e r B row n, an em ine nt A p o th e ca ry in that Place till I w a s m aste r o f th is.”24 T h e y e a r w a s then 1745 and C h a rle s E dw ard Lou is P hilip C asim ir Stuart, otherw ise know n as the “Young Pretender,” the “Young C hevalier,” o r “ B onnie Prince C h arlie ,” had been in S cotland since A ugust, intent upon raising supp ort am o n g st th e H ighlande rs and anyone else he could rouse, in q ue st of his claim to the English throne. H aving o ccu p ie d E d inb urg h in S e pte m be r, w h e re he p ro cla im e d him self Jam es VIII of S cotland, he left th a t city in the beginning of N ovem ber to invade England. He w a s at the head o f at least 5,000 m en w hen he started, but the ranks w e re gradu ally thinn ed by the desertion of the H ighlanders, w ho did not relish a long cam paign; th e ir tradition led them to co n sid e r w a r as a raid, here to d a y and hom e tom orrow . C harles, how ever, hoped to co un teract th e d ese rtio ns by recruiting fo llo w e rs as he w e n t along. O n N o vem b er 9, he laid siege to C arlisle w hich fell in a w e e k’s tim e. He then started south fo r London and his w a y led thro ugh K endal w h ere 19- year-old W illiam Flem ing w as learning pharm acy. C harles g ot as fa r as D erby before accepting his failure to rebuild an a rm y and the atte ndan t nece ssity fo r retreat.25 “D uring th e tim e I lived at Mr. B ro w n ’s the R ebellion broke out in S co tland. T h e R e bels h a vin g ta ke n p o sse ssio n o f C a rlisle in C u m b e rla n d , m arch e d th ro u g h W e stm o re la n d by K endal in th e ir rout(e) to D erby in 1745 and left the M easles w hich I ca ug ht but with care I recovered in the usual tim e and felt no bad effect from them . T h e C h e v a lie r o r P re te n d e r a s he is c a lle d , not fin d in g h im s e lf supported as he expected on his adva ncin g into England, and that W illiam Duke o f C um be rland w a s advancing w ith tro o p s a g a inst him, retreated from D erby th e sam e w a y he advanced... “T he Van o f his A rm y consisting of som e light horse under the Duke of Perth, passed th ro ugh K endal on S a turday in th e forenoon, w hich being M arket D ay and great num bers o f C o untry P eople in tow n, w hen th e y spied a led horse w h ich one of the D uke of P e rth’s servants had, and knew him to belong to Colo. W ilson o f D alen tow er w ho had m arched the M ilitia of W estm oreland to reinforce the G arrison at C arlisle before it fell into th e R ebels possession, w h ere the horse w as captured on the su rre n d e r of th a t city. T he P eople w e re furious (and) attacked the P arty w ith S tones, C lubs and such A rm s as cam e to hand, knocked the G room dow n, seized the horse and drove the party out of tow n. “All w a s im m ediate ly confusion; the shop s and houses w ere instantly shut up and several shot w e re excha nged by w h ich som e of 34 �the T ow nsm en w e re kil(l)ed and som e w ounded. T he Party galloped through th e Town and m ade the best of th e ir w a y to w a rd s Penrith. The m ain body of th e Rebel A rm y cam e in on S a turday evening and next d a y and contin ued till M onday, plundering w h o e ve r th e y m et of th e ir shoes, sto cking s and w h a t clothes suited them . T h e D uke of C um berland being close in th e ir R ear w ith th e Royal Arm y, his Van entered K endal on T uesday and, a fte r taking a sm all refreshm ent, continued th e pursuit, the Inhabitants happily relieved from th e ir fears of an e n g agem ent being brought on betw een the tw o A rm ies in or near Kendal, w h ich m ight have been of great detrim ent to a trading tow n. (Flem ing does not m ention his part in any of th is but, as an experienced physician and a pharm acist’s mate, he surely took a hand with the w ounde d tow nsp eople, if not an active part in the assault to repossess the horse.) “To retard the Royal A rm y in the pursuit, the Rebels sacrificed a fe w m en at C lifton M oor by lining the hedges and dikes (ditches) near th e road and firing on the Duke o f C um be rland’s advanced party, by w hich m eans th e ir m ain body had tim e to m ake th e ir retreat good from P enrith to C a rlisle.”26 C h arles and his by now ragtag arm y had started th e ir retreat from D erby on D e cem b er 6th. B y m id-January he m anaged to defeat G en. H aw ley w h o had m arched from Edinburgh to intercept him, but he contin ued to be plagued by desertions. A t last, on April 16, 1746, he faced th e Duke of C um be rland at C ulloden and w a s com ple te ly w orsted. All th a t rem ained w as to escape; he finally sailed fo r France in the late sum m er.27 In th e m eantim e, one supposes Flem ing had com e dow n with the m easles in due course, a result of the Kendal experience that argue s a close connection of som e sort w ith one of the arm ies as th e y cam e thro ugh the tow n. T h e youn g d o c to r’s adventures w e re not yet over. He w rote that, in th e fall o f 1746 he left Kendal and w ent to th e U niversity of E dinburgh to study, fo r w h ich he borrow ed m oney from his sister C a the rine.28 It m ust have been w hen he left Kendal th a t th e other a d ve ntu re of w hich he w rote in his a utobiograph y to o k place. A fter g ivin g a h is to ry of K e ndal and its g e o g ra p h ic a l and c o m m e rcia l features, he continues: “ In m y jo u rn e y from Kendal to D um fries in com pan y w ith m^K siste r C a the rine and a young gentlem an, w hen w ithin tw o m iles o t ^ C arlisle, th e evening gun w a s fired and a young m an w h o had jo ine d us on th e road, obse rving th a t the G ate s w o uld be shut before w e could reach th e City, advised us to put up at his Fathers w h ere w e could be w ell entertained as he kept a public house of good repute. 35 �Being strangers and necessarily forcing, w e com plied w ith the proposal and w ere show n into a room. I obse rve d as w e w e n t thro ugh a public room, a rab(b)le of P eople drinking, som e o f them being intoxicated. S om e o f them view ed o u r horses in th e stables and w e re in hopes to plunder us of som e of them . B efore w e w e n t to bed I w e n t to the stable and, being obliged to return thro ugh the room w h ere th e y w ere, I w as stopped by them w hen a fe llo w in a soldie rs dress stepped up to me, looked in m y face, sw ore he sa w m e a m ong st th e R ebels at Carlisle, on w hich tw o o r three fellow s attem pted to seize me. Breaking from them , I got into our room and bolted th e door. T h e y broke open the S table door, to o k out th e horses and rode them off. “ I w e nt a fte r them to the suburbs and found them in a little tip(p)ling house w hich w a s th e only house th a t had a light in it. Not being able to enter the C ity that night, I w as obliged to leave the horses (which he seem s to have recovered) in charge of th e P eople of the house and returned to our P ublic house. N ext m orning w e got horses and to o k the Landlord, his son and the hostler to C arlisle as evidence a g a inst the person w h o w a s fo re m o st in th e outrage, w h o I found w as a person of bad character, but having a vote fo r a representative of P arliam ent fo r C arlisle. (H aving a vote m eant he ow ned property.) “ It cost m e som e tro u b le and loss of tim e before I could get satisfaction. However, th e fe llo w w a s taken up. O th e r felon iou s acts com ing to light, I w ith d re w m y prosecution and left him to ta ke his fate in a tryal fo r breaking open a tru n k in a stage w a gon.”29 W hen W illiam and C a th e rin e got b ack to D um fries and he related his e xp e rie n ce s w ith th e R ebel army, he heard w h a t had happened at hom e during th e R ebellion. T h e records show th a t “ In the ye a r 1745 th e Inhabitants of D um fries w e re by th e R ebels in three days subjected to plunde r by vile, ruffian, barbarous highlanders, and w ere forced to give hostages fo r tw o thousan d pounds and upw ards, and these lay hea vy on the p oo r in habita nts.” T he a ccou nt goes on to sa y th e ransom lay even h e a vier beca use th e to w nsp eople w ere alrea dy paying tw o Excise ta xe s im posed by the British P arliam ent “w ith to n n a g e on m erch andise im ported by sea.”30 A n o th e r accou nt says that, w h e re a s th e tow n had vig oro usly opposed the 1715 Jacob ite threat, the first of the S tuart uprisings, w ith m assive ditching, re-fortification s and the like, in 1745, 30 years later, no atte m pt w a s m ade at resistance beyond shifting the to w n ’s stock of arm s to a good hiding place.31 Perhaps, a fte r five centuries o f in c e s s a n t ra id s a n d in v a s io n s by b o th th e E n g lis h a n d th e H ighlande rs, th e b o rd e r tow n of D u m fries had decid e d to acce p t w h a te ve r cam e and ju s t go on as best it m ight. Such w as th e fate of borde r tow ns. In th e case of D um fries, th e physical destruction w as 36 �accom panied by ta xe s to pay th e dam ag es.32 N o o ne could claim th a t life w a s serene in S cotland during the years of W illiam F lem ing’s m inority, a clim ate w hich m ay have led naturally to his a ction s w hen he left the U niversity of Edinburgh. A fte r com pleting his cou rse in anatom y, he set off fo r an adventurous life of his ow n, to realize th e desire fo r travel th a t had led him into m edicine in the first place. T h e hints to be found of his experiences in the next few years prove that, w h e th e r intentional o r not, he certa inly achieved adventure. S om etim e after leaving the university,33 he sailed as a surgeon’s m ate a board a vessel th a t even tua lly landed him off the coast of W est A frica. A s research into A d m ira lty records fails to yield a trace of a Dr. W illiam Flem ing, the assum ption gains credence that he sailed in either a m erchant ship, a supp ly vessel fo r the slave trade, o r a slaver, all of w h ich sa ile d fro m D u m frie s and neig h b o rin g K irkcu d b rig h t. P ort records of such 18th ce n tu ry m anifests are yet to be found. In later life, Flem ing w a s to offer only hints of w h at happened to him during th e years he w a s at sea. He told his children he w as captured by th e S panish and put in a S panish prison; he did not say w here, altho ugh his children assum ed it w as in Spain. T h a t he w a s in som e kind o f fig h t w a s evidenced by a sabe r sca r across his nose w h ich he bore all his life. It seem s the reason he even brought up the m atter w a s to explain his not turning aw ay from his d oo r in V irginia anyone w h o soug ht food o r assistance. He said his life w a s saved w hen he w a s in th e S panish prison by the kindness of a w om an, alw ays unknow n to him , w h ose w indo w overlooked the sm all yard w here, a fte r his health began to fail, he w a s allow ed to w alk. She dropped food to him and the oth e r prisoners w hich, he said, kept him from dying of starva tion.34 T h e o n ly oth e r reference to th a t period of his life is in a letter to his friend, Col. W illiam Preston, accom panying th e return of som e borrow ed books in Decem ber, 1756. C oncerning a book by Blake M orris, he w rote, “W hat induced m e to the reading of his A dventure s w a s his laying one of his S cenes in th e Island of Fernando Po w here I m yself w as in m ore real than he in im aginary distress, but I sufficiently paid fo r m y cu rio sity by reading such a heap of indigested stuff.”35 T h e Island of F ernando Po w a s at th a t tim e a P o rtuguese possession off th e w e st co a st of Africa, later trad ed to Spain, w hich w a s a place fo r ve sse ls to stock up on w a te r and provisions.36 T he island and th e A frican m ainland co u n trie s of th e C a m e ro o n s and N igeria to the east and north of it w ere all discovered by the Portuguese na vig a to r F ernan do Po tow ard th e end of th e 15th century. S ince ea rly in th e 17th century, British ships had visited th e e stuarie s of the 37 �C am eroons, and English com pan ies had set up tra d in g sta tions or facto ries fo r the slave trade. In 1713, Britain had w on the right to furnish sla ves to th e S panish colonies in the N ew W orld by the Treaty of Utrecht, a m onop oly th a t w as supp osed to last fo r 30 years. T he contract, o r asiento, cam e to an end in 1739 w hen com pla ints on both sides rose to such a height th a t w a r w ith S pain ensued. Peace w a s not obtained until 1750; it could be Flem ing got in the w a y of these hostilities, hostilities w hich involved sm ugglers and the attendant excesses. Even a fte r the British outla w ed th e slave tra d e in 1807, ships of oth e r nations contin ued the slave trad e in th o se w a ters and m erch ant ships from G re a t B ritain fo u n d pro fita b le m a rke ts.37 In Flem ing’s tim e th e area w a s cle a rly an a ttractive spot fo r ships o f all nations, fo r w h a te ve r reasons, although perhaps not the safest. The sabe r cut on F lem ing’s nose m ay w ell have been delivered on these coasts. All th a t rem ains are ta n talizing conjectures, overlaid by his expressed dislike of the naval service. T he next know n record co n ce rn ing Flem ing fits w ell w ith a peace betw een England and S pain in 1750. A series of notices in the annals of the U pper Parish of N ansem ond C o unty in V irginia, taken w ith other evidence, establish his residence there in late 1750 o r early 1751, and refute th e long-sta ndin g claim th a t he cam e to the colony in Ju ly of 1755. In 1751, 1752, 1753 and 1754, the parish paid a Dr. F lem ing fo r m e d ic in e s a n d th e ca re o f its, pre su m a b ly, in d ig e n t parishioners. O ne of the duties of the V estry of the P arishes of the English E piscopalian (later called A n glican) C hurch in V irg inia w a s the care of the p oo r and parish a ccou nts are full of th a t service? T he annual reports of the U pper Parish concerning Flem ing read as follows: “A t a Vestry held in S u ffo lk Town O cto b e r th e 21 st 1751 fo r the U pper Parish in N ansem ond C ounty w f “To D o ctr W m . Flem ing fo r M edicines and A ttendan ce to Robt. Taylor, £14.0.0. “To D o c tr W m . F le m in g fo r M e d ic in e s e tc ., £ 4 .7 .1 1 ” on N o vem b er 30, 1752. Again, on N o vem b er 1 9 ,1 7 5 3 , “To D o cktor F lem ings fo r H enry G win, £ 3 .12.0.” A n d, lastly, on N o v e m b e r 14, 1754, “To D o c tr F le m in fo r M edicines fo r the W id o w H a rm on,£ 0 .1 5.O.”38 T he U pper Parish of N ansem ond C o unty included th e Town of Suffolk. U nfortunately, th e court records o f th e c oun ty w e re burned w hen the courthouse in S uffolk w a s torch ed by the British in 1779. T herefore, w h a t m ay have been corro borating records of Flem ing’s residence in th a t coun ty are irretrie vably lost.39 There w e re other Flem ings in the U pper Parish, as indeed there 38 | �/ I * f w ere others in other parishes and counties of Tidew ater Virginia, som e of w hom had been resident since the m id-1600s. An U pper Parish processioners’ return of M arch, 1752, ta ke s note of a W illiam and Isaac Flem ing being “present on (their) land.” O the r Flem ings nam ed during those years, and after, w e re John Flem ing, N athaniel Flem ing and M ary Flem ing.40 W hether they w ere related to Dr. W illiam Flem ing is now here substantiated. M ore convincing in the m atter of Flem ing having been in Suffolk fo r the years 1751-1754 are references he m ade in later life to his connection w ith th a t tow n, references w hich fu rth e r deny the theory th a t he cam e to V irg inia right a fte r B raddock’s defeat in 1755. The 1775 d ate w a s given by his son Leonard Israel Flem ing and has been accepted by alm ost every chronicler since, particularly by those writing about Flem ing in the 19th century. In 1763, in a letter to Gov. Fauquier recom m ending A ndrew Lew is as the C ounty Lieutenan t fo r A ugusta County, Flem ing w rote th a t his letter w a s dictated by a sincere desire to serve his country. “T his w a s m y m otive w hen I first entered the service of the Colony,” he w rote, “and m ade m e decline a lucrative B usiness...”41 Flem ing’s com m ission as Ensign from Gov. Dinw iddie is dated A ugust 2 5 ,1 755.42 W h ile th e s h o c k w a v e s fo llo w in g B ra d d o c k ’s d e fe a t m a y have precipitated his resolve to join th e V irginia forces, he could hardly have w o rked up a lucrative practice in th e space of the fe w w eeks sin ce th e J u ly rout o f G en. B ra d d o c k ’s a rm y on its w a y to Fort D u quesn e. M ore fe a sib le is th e o p inion th a t F le m in g ’s son w as m istaken; he w a s th e only son to have reached m aturity w hen his fa th e r died and he had then been in K entucky fo r six years. The fam ily early on, w ith no concrete evidence, assum ed th e ir fa th e r had served in the Royal Navy, a service w hich entailed seven years of duty. By th e ir reasoning, if he had to serve th a t long, he m ust have arrived in A m erica at a later date. In fu rth e r supp ort of his earlier years in Virginia, Flem ing w rote his fa th e r from S uffolk in 1760 saying, “You m ay perceive I date this from th e place I fo rm e rly lived at.” A s he had been in the service on th e w estern fro n tie r contin uously since being com m issioned in 1755, the only tim e he could have lived in S uffolk w ould have been before th a t year. He also added, in a postscript, “ Please direct yours to the C a re o f C o lo n e l Lem ue l R id d ick in S uffolk, N a nsem ond C ounty, V irg inia.”43 Col. R iddick had lived in S uffolk since at least the 1730s and had served on th e V estry of the U pper Parish fo r 4 0 years w hen he resigned in 1773. A m em b er of the G eneral A sse m bly from 1738 to 1775, excepting 1769, he w a s a very prom inent m an in the coun ty44 and w a s also, evidently, a close friend to W illiam Fleming, a relationship 39 �hardly to have been establishe d betw een th e tw o w ith one of them in T id e w a te r and th e o th e r on the V irginia frontier. There is evidence to suggest Flem ing cam e to Am erica because of the Riddicks. R iddick is a nam e th a t tu rn s up in the first w ritten h is to rie s o f F le m in g ’s n a tive D u m fries. F u rth e rm o re , a m e rch a n t R iddick of D um fries, R obert R iddick, had a m erchant son in V irginia, A le xa n d e r Riddick, in the late 18th century, und oubtedly carrying on the S cottish trad ition o f one m erch ant fa m ily foot in V irg inia and one in S cotland. W h a t m ore natural than a fe llo w tow n sm a n seeking a berth in th e new co lo n y w ith fa m ily frie n d s? 45 In May, 1779, w h en Flem ing w a s in W illiam sb urg as a m em b er of the G eneral Assem bly, he w rote his w ife about the burning of Suffolk by the British. “A party of them m arched to S u ffo lk and burned the Town. O n hearing Gen. Scott w as advancing against them th e y hastily re tre a te d d o in g a ll th e d a m a g e th e y c o u ld . M a n y o f m y o ld A c q u a in ta n c e s & F rie n d s ha ve s u ffe re d g re a tly b y b u rn in g th e ir houses, having th e ir N e gro es & S to ck taken off & the w om en m ade C aptives and exposed to the g reatest insults th e y can be subjected to .” T he R iddicks w e re in the th ick of th a t affair.46 T h e e vid e n ce w o uld seem co n clu sive th a t W illiam Flem ing arrived in Virginia som e tim e w ell before O ctober of 1751 and practiced m edicine in th e tow n of S u ffo lk until, m oved by patriotic feeling fo r his adopted country, he offered h im self in its defense, a m ove th a t w ould involve him, in one w a y o r another, until th e d a y of his death. Notes 1Grigsby papers, Mssl 987925 5807, Virginia Historical Society. 2 Fleming papers, Virginia State Library. 3 Journal of the Council of the State of Virginia, Vol. Ill, p. 126. 4 Calendar of State Papers, Vol. 2, p. 205. 5Charles A. Hanna, The Scotch-lrish or the Scot in North Britain. North Ireland and North America. Vol. 2, p.409; Burke’s Peerage, p.218. 6 Fleming papers, Washington & Lee University Library. 7 Hugh Blair Grigsby, The History of the Virginia Federal Convention of 1788. Vol. 2, p.53. 8 E. P. Goodwin, Colonel William Fleming of Botetourt. 1728-1795. p.2. 9RH 4/6/1-2 4953D , W est Register House, Edinburgh. 10 Grigsby papers. 11 W est Register House. 40 �12 Edinburgh records give date of William Fleming’s birth as Feb. 7,1727 ; in 1752, when England adopted the Gregorian calendar, that date became Feb. 18,1728. 13 W est Register House records. 14 History of Dumfries. Dumfries Museum, Scotland; Selections from the Customs Records 1710-1747, Dumfries. 15 Bums Center records, Dumfries. 16 History of Dumfries. 17 W est Register House records. 18 History of Dumfries. 19 Dumfries Archives Center records, Dumfries. 20 History of Dumfries. 21 C C /5/18, Scottish Record Office, Edinburgh. 22 History of Dumfries. 23 Fleming papers, W&L. 24 Grigsby papers. 25 Encyclopedia Britannica. 1958, Vol. 5, p. 291 ff. 26 Grigsby papers. 27 Enc. Brit., ibid. 28 According to Fleming papers, his sister Catherine loaned him the money to attend the university, a debt he was still paying off years later from Virginia. The only record at the University appears in a list of the students of Alexander Munro, primus, noting William Fleming paid the class fee of 3.3.0 for the year 1746. 29 Grigsby papers. 30 Robert Edgar, An Introduction to the History of Dumfries, Vol. 1, p.40. 31 History of Dumfries. 32 Robert Bums came to Dumfries in 1701 as, like Leonard Fleming, an Excise officer. His salary was 70 pounds a year which was considered a living wage. Already dissipated, he died in Dumfries in 1796 and is buried there. 33 There is no record of Fleming having gotten a degree from the University of Edinburgh (see Note 28); the university records, however, are reputedly defective. 34Grigsby papers; Spanish scholars attest that Spanish prisoners in the 18th century were expected to provide their own food. 351QQ140, Draper Collection. 36 Encyclopedia universal ilustrada europeo-americana, Vol. 23, p.832ff. 41 �37 Enc. Brit. (1958), Vol. 16, p.442; idem, Vol. 4, p.663; idem, Vol. 2, p.543-544; idem, Vol. 20, p.779. 38 The Vestry Books of the Upper Parish, Nansemond County, Va., 1743-1793, pp 5 7 ,8 6 , 91 ,9 7 . 39 James B. Dunn, The History of Nansemond County, p. 45 40 I bid., pp. 2 9 ,3 2 , 69, 7 2 ,1 1 1 ,1 1 2 ,1 2 6 ,1 6 9 ,1 8 1 ,1 9 7 . 41 3ZZ50, Draper Collection. 42 Grigsby, Virginia Convention. Vol. 2, p.47. 43 Mssl 987862 5781, Virginia Historical Society. 44 Dunn, pp. 68-70; Upper Parish Vestry records. 45 Register of Confirmed Testaments for the Commissariot of Dumfries, Scottish Record Office, General Register House, Edinburgh, No. 1 2 ,1 3 Mar., 1795, p. 177. 46 Mssl 987826 5759, Virginia Historical Society;Dunn, pp.43-44. Old Speech Patterns Studied A South C a ro lin a English professor is seeking docum ents, especially fam ily letters, from before 1830 th a t w e re w ritten in inform al English (with irregular sp e llings and gram m ar). M ichael M ontgom ery is w orking on a project to d e term ine from such d o cu m e nts th e speech patterns of people in e arlier days of th is country. A n o n ym ity o f all m aterial w ill be scru p u lo u sly respected, he said. Interested persons m ay w rite M o ntgom ery at th e D epartm ent of English, U n iversity of S outh C arolina, C o lum bia, S.C. 29208. 42 �Cupboard Comes Home A handsom e 8-foot cherry cupboard has returned to the Sam uel H a rsb a rg e r H ouse on C arvin C re e k in R oanoke C o u n ty a fte r a 150ye a r sta y in Indiana. Ed and D elores Truett, th e restorers and o w n ­ ers of th e 1797 b rick and stone H a rshb arger hom e, disp la y th e c u p ­ board and th e house w ith pride. A m atching piece of green and gra y floral w a llp a p e r and a longstanding fa m ily record confirm ed th a t th e cupb oard w a s taken w e stw ard by S a m ue l H a rsh b a rg e r w hen he left th e R oanoke V alley in th e 1830s. T h e G e rm a n -S w iss fa m ily m oved to Indiana because H a rshb arger d isapproved of slavery, according to tradition. T h e conn ecting links o f m ore than a ce n tu ry and a half o c­ curred th is w ay: P olly P a rker of V irg inia Beach to u re d th e T ru e tts’ The landm ark H arshbarger house in Roanoke County welcomed this old cupboard, returned after a stay of more than 150 years in Indiana. 43 �new ly restored hom e w h ile on a R oanoke visit in A u g u st 1990. She told her friends, the K e ssler fa m ily of Ladoga, Ind., abo ut w h a t she had seen. S everal m onths later, T ruett received a te le p h o n e call from S am uel H arshbarger-K essler, a fo u rth-gen eration de sce n d a n t of the original H arshbarger. K essler to ld Truett he had a large cupboard from his R oanoke a n c e s to r’s hom e and it w a s to o tall fo r his o r his c h ild re n ’s hom es. K e ssler decided to give th e cupb oard to Truett. Truett drove to Indiana th e next day w h ere he m et Kessler, w h o is 74, a n d h e a rd th e s to ry o f th e w a g o n trip w e s t b y th e H a rshb arger fa m ily and th e tw o -p ie ce “se tb a ck” cupboard. Truett loaded the valuable piece of fu rn itu re and returned hom e th a t night. O n his Indiana trip, T ru e tt sa w the graves o f H a rsh b a rg e r and his son, as w ell as the site o f th e fa m ily’s 1830s house w hich w a s dem olished abo ut 12 ye a rs ago. T he G erm an-style cupboard is m ade of cherry. Its paneled doors follow the T-shape design of the doors in the H arshbarger house. S tudents of fu rn iture believe it w a s built by o r fo r H a rshb arger about 1825, perhaps at the tim e th e brick addition w a s constructe d to the stone house. Fam ily legend said H a rsh b a rg e r store d liquo r in th e bottom section of the cupboard. T his w o uld explain th e large notch in the fron t of th e shelf, providing cle ara nce fo r long-necked bottles. Burn m arks on the face of the upp er doors indicate th e th e shelf atop the bottom section w a s used to hold a candle. M ost of th e glass panes a p p e a r to be original. C ut nails are used th ro u g h o u t th e cupboard and a handm ade scre w a tta ches a w ood latch to the back of th e door. 44 �Kentland Farm, A New River Plantation b y Jo h n K ern Kentland Farm is situated on the east side of the New River below the mouth of Toms Creek on a parcel of land which is recorded as one of the earliest patents in what is now Montgomery County. The farm contains some of the richest land in the region and has been owned by a succession of important leaders in pioneer settlement and commercial agriculture. An Orange County Order Book entry in 1745 reported that James Patton and John Buchanan had viewed and marked off a road from the “Frederick County Line to . . . . Adam Harman’s on the New or W ood’s River.” Adam Harman served as overseer of the road to the New River in 1746 and as captain of the local militia under Augusta County jurisdiction. In 1750/1 Adam Harman’s tract, “500 acres of Land lying on the north [and east] side of the New River on Toms Creek oposite to the lower end of the Horse Shoe Bottom,” was entered in the Augusta County Surveyors Record. Adam Harman’s 500-acre tract roughly approximates the land of Kentland Farm placed on the National Register. Adam ’s brother, Jacob, also obtained a survey of 985 acres across the river on “Horse Shoe Bottom,” in 1750/1, and the survey of Jacob’s patent, “Beginning at an Iron W ood tree at Adam Harman’s ford,” fixes the Harman ford at the shallows which are still apparent just downstream from the island at Kentland Farm.1 In 1752Adam and Jacob Harman received patents from Augusta County for their lands discussed above. Jacob was killed by Indi­ ans in 1756 and Adam lost his 500 acres in 1763 for tax arrears.2 Colonel John Buchanan became the next owner of the “tract on the east side of the New River where Adam Harman formerly dwelt, containing 500 acres.” John Buchanan had begun service in Augusta County as deputy surveyor in the 1740s. He later became deputy sheriff and in 1755 suc­ ceeded Colonel James Patton as commander-in-chief of the Augusta County militia. W hen he died in 1769, Buchanan’s will named his son, John, as heir to “the 500 acres formerly Harman’s.” The tract, known thereafter as Buchanan’s Bottom, remained in possession of the Buchanan family until 1792. John Kem was the first director o f the Roanoke Regional Preservation Office o f the Virginia Departm ent o f Historic Resources when it opened in 1989. A native o f Iowa City, Iowa, he is a history graduate o f Swarthm ore College and he earned a m asters and a doctorate in Am erican history from the University o f Wisconsin. Kem served in the Peace Corps in Tunisia, N orth Africa, a n d taught A m erican history a t C alifornia State College, Stanislaus. He was historic preservation coordinator for the M ichigan His­ toric Preservation O ffice and head o f the Delaware State historic preserva­ tio n p ro g ra m earlier. 45 �VIRGINIA TECH PROPERTY IMUHM* _____ _ JH H M M H iIft MMR H_____ _ _____ . ORIGINAL KENT HOLDING Brushy Mountain Back Creek N ew R iver Main House • KENTLAND FARM The location of Kentland in western Montgomery County is shown on this map. Abram Trigg purchased Buchanan’s Bottom in 1793. Trigg had com ­ manded Montgomery County troops during the American Revolution. He had represented Montgomery County at the Virginia convention of 1788which ratified the federal constitution, and he represented western Virginia in Con­ gress from 1797 to 1809. During the years of his congressional service, Abram Trigg and his wife, Susannah, acquired additional lands adjoining Buchanan’s Bottom where they may have resided. The 1810 census for Montgomery County recorded Trigg as the head of a household of seven whites and no slaves. The 1813 Land Book for Montgomery County shows him in possession of the 500-acre Buchanan’s Bottom tract and three other parcels with all four parcels totaling 1,781 acres.3 In 1813three brothers, Gordon, Thomas, and David Cloyd, paid Abram and Susannah Trigg $10,000 for a 1,630-acre tract which comprised all of the land “owned or held b y . . . Trigg on the east side of New River, adjoining and below Toms Creek.” Joseph Cloyd, father of Gordon, Thomas, and David, 46 �had commanded militia forces during the Revolution, after which time he built his home at Back Creek Farm around 1790 on land, now in Pulaski County, about seven miles from Buchanan’s Bottom. Joseph’s oldest son, Gordon, built his home at Springfield, adjacent to Back Creek Farm, around 1800. The 1820 Montgomery County Land Book, the earliest to record building evaluation, showed Joseph Cloyd paying taxes at Back Creek Farm with buildings valued at $3,500; Gordon Cloyd paid taxes at Springfield with build­ ings valued at $1,500; and Gordon, Thomas, and David Cloyd paid taxes at Buchanan’s Bottom where buildings were valued at $200. Sometime around 1820, Gordon Cloyd bought out his brothers’ interest in the 1,630 acre “tract of land upon New River called Buchanan’s Bottom” and gave the land to his daughter, Mary, who had married Jam es Randal Kent in 1818. The 1820 census recorded James R. Kent as the head of a Mont­ gomery County household comprised of himself, his wife, and two young daughters. In addition he owned 15 slaves. In 1821 Jam es Kent paid taxes for the first time on the 1,630-acre tract where he and Mary would live for the remainder of their lives. Jam es and Mary Kent were the intermarried descendants of families who had gained wealth and influence in southwestern Virginia during the period of the American Revolution. Their common grandparent, Jam es McGavock, was a staunch Scotch-lrish Presbyterian and a member of the committee of 15 which drafted the Fincastle Resolutions in 1775. James McGavock married Mary Cloyd in 1760, and their daughter Margaret, mar­ ried militia colonel, Joseph Kent, in 1787. Colonel Joseph Kent and Mary Cloyd Kent raised 14 children on their estate at Kenton in W ythe County; Panoramic view o f bottom land from the front lawn of Kentland 47 �James R. Kent was their fourth child. Elizabeth, another daughter of James McGavock, married her first cousin, Gordon Cloyd, of Back Creek in 1797; Mary Cloyd, their eldest daughter, completed the family ties at Kentland when she married her first cousin, Jam es Kent, in 1818.4 W ell m arried and e stablishe d on rich N ew R iver bottom lands by 1821, Ja m e s R. Kent proceeded to m ake K entland th e m ost p ros­ perous plantation in M ontgom ery County. He served as d ep uty sh e r­ iff of M ontgom ery C o unty in 1822 at abo ut w h ich tim e he began to accum ulate land holdings in addition to th e hom eplace a t B u chana n’s Bottom . By 1830 he paid ta xe s on th e 1,630- a cre parcel at th e m outh of Tom s C reek w h ere build ings w e re then valued at $250, and he ow ned tw o m ore parcels of und eveloped land w h ich to ta le d 2,605 acres and contained no evaluated buildings. T h e 1830 censu s re­ corded Ja m e s K ent as the head of a hou sehold w hich included him ­ self, his wife, and fo u r daughters. In th a t y e a r he ow ned 39 slaves. T he follow ing y e a r K ent acqu ired an add ition al parcel o f 169 a cres on both sides of Tom s C reek near its m outh, and th e 1832 Land Book show ed build ings valued at $10 0 on th a t tract. T h e build ings on the 169 acre parcel m ay have been associated w ith the m ill ju s t east of Tom s C reek w hich is show n as belonging to Ja m e s K ent on Jam es H e rron’s m ap of 1833-34. S o m etim e around 1834, Ja m e s R andal K ent proba bly built the form al brick residence w hich survives to d a y and is know n as Kentland. W hen Ja m e s K e n t’s father-in-law , G ordon C loyd, prepared his last w ill and te sta m e n t in N o ve m b e r 1832, C loyd specified, “ I have al­ ready given to m y daughter, Mary, w ife of Jam es R. Kent, th e tra c t of land upon N ew R iver called B uchanans Bottom . S hould th a t gift need a n y confirm ation, I do ratify and confirm it.” C lo yd ’s w ill also provided fo r M ary to inherit 100 sha re s of stock in tw o V irg inia banks and fo r Jam es K ent to receive “m y third part of 80,000 acre s o f land lying in G iles C ounty.” A fter G ordon C lo yd ’s death in M ay 1833, Jam es and M ary Kent m ay have decided to build a new house beca use th e y had ju s t re­ ceived confirm ation o f th e ir title to th e land at B u ch a n a n ’s Bottom and beca use th e y w e re now in receipt of a substantia l additional in herit­ ance o f real and personal property. M o n tgom ery C o u n ty Land Books provide add ition al e vidence supp ortive of a circa 1834 construction date fo r Kentland: from 1828 to 1834 buildings on K e nt’s 1,630-acre tra c t on th e N ew R iver at th e m outh of Tom s C reek w e re valued at $250; from 1835 to 1850 buildings on th a t tra ct w ere valued at $2,500. S ince Josep h C lo yd ’s build ings at B ack C re e k Farm w e re valued at $3,500 and G ordon C lo yd ’s buildings at S p ringfield w e re valued at $2,500 during th e 1820s, and since K entland clo se ly resem bled the 48 �dw ellings at Back C reek Farm and S pringfield, it seem s likely that K entland w a s not constructed in its present form until ju st before 1835 w hen th e va lue of buildings at Kentland Farm first rose to a com p a ­ rable evaluation of $2,500 .5 Jam es K ent su bstantia lly increased his w ealth and influence in M ontgom ery C o unty betw een 1835 and the Civil War. By 1840 he ow ned abo ut 6,000 acres of land and 90 slaves.6 Two decades later his 6,000 acres of farm land valued at $126,000 and his 123 slaves m ade him by fa r th e c o u n ty’s m ost prosperous planter; no one else in M ontgom ery C o unty in 1860 ow ned farm land valued at m ore than $63 ,00 0 o r m ore than 71 slaves. T h e 123 slaves o f Jam es Kent w ere quartered in 13 slave houses in 1860 w hen the Kent farm s kept 40 horses and 1,100 o th e r head of livestock and raised 15,000 bushels of corn and 3,600 bushels of grain. In addition to his agricultural estate and slaves, K ent ow ned personal property valued at $196,000 in 1860. T his included substantial holdings in the M ontgom ery W hite S u lph ur S p rings Com pany, a resort near the present com m u nity of Ellett, w h ose build ings w e re valued at $89,000 in 1859, as w ell as shares in thre e V irginia banks and in the V irginia and Tennessee R ail­ road Com pany. A p p a re n tly Jam es K e nt’s extensive financial interests o ccu­ pied m ost of his tim e and ene rg y fo r he never held elective office, though he did serve as a M ontgom ery C ounty justice in 1842 and 1845 and as the M ontgom ery C ounty surveyor in 1847. From 1849 to 1853 K ent played a leading role in prom oting construction of the V irginia and Tennessee R ailroad through M ontgom ery County. In th is ca pa city he attended at least one m eeting of the V irginia Board of P ublic W orks as a representative of V irginia and Tennessee stock­ holders. S uccessful in securing construction of the m ain line through C hristiansbu rg by late 1853, K ent failed in his efforts to prom ote a branch line w hich w ould cross his plantation on the N ew River. C o n­ sequently, in O cto b e r 1853 he asked to be relieved of his reporting responsibilities to the Board of P ublic W orks, requesting the a pp oin t­ m ent of som eon e in his stead “w h o w ill have m ore leisure than m y­ self.” In 1855 K ent a lso served as a trustee of O lin and Preston Insti­ tute, a p recursor of V irg inia P olytechnic Institute and State University. M ontgom ery C ounty and Jam es Kent experienced hard tim es during the C ivil War. M ilitary records have not been found to su b ­ stantiate fa m ily trad ition w hich te lls of a devastating Yankee raid on K entland follow ing th e Battle of C loyd’s M ountain in M ay 1864, but a M ontgom ery C ounty O rd e r B ook specified in N ovem ber 1864 “th a t Jam es R. Kent be exem pted from paying th e C ounty levy fo r the ye a r 1864 on 44 negroes and 38 horses w hich w ere taken by th e public 49 �e ne m y previo us to th e laying o f th e said levy.”7 A n o th e r e n try from the M ontgom ery C o unty O rd e r B ook in J a n u a ry 1865 recorded the a p p o in tm e n t o f a special co m m ittee w ith in struction s to presen t a m em orial to the g o ve rn o r of V irg inia w h ich stated th a t “w ithin the past tw e lve m onths a large nu m b e r o f th e able bodied negroes . . . have been carried off by o r m ade th e ir escap e to th e Y ankees.” Because “alm ost all the ablebodied and efficient w h ite laborers have been w ith ­ draw n from th e cultivation o f th e soil and placed in the arm y,” and because sla ves had been captured o r escaped, the m em orial ex­ plained th a t “th e su rplu s o f cro p s m ade by th e la bor o f th e coun ty during th e past y e a r has not been sufficien t to feed the fa m ilie s of the soldie rs . . . . and a great portion of o u r population w ill be reduced to destitution and great su ffe rin g .” Ja m e s Kent w as not d estitute at the close of the C ivil War, but his estate ce rta in ly suffered substantial losses in conse q u e n ce of th e conflict. W hen he died in 1867, his land holdings w e re evaluated at $74,000, 4 1 % less than in 1860, and his personal estate p roba bly suffe red at least a com p a ra b le reduction in value. Jam es K e nt’s w ife, Mary, had prede ceased him in 1858; and w hen he prepared to divid e his p rope rty am ong his five surviving d au ghters in M ay 1867 th e w e e k before his death, his last w ill and te sta m e n t specified th a t “M arg are t G. w h o is m y yo u n g e st child shall have the hom e place know n as B uchanan B ottom s, to g e th e r w ith any and all lands a d joining belonging to m e.”8 M arg are t Kent m arried M ajor John T. C ow an o f C larksburg, now W e st V irginia, in 1868 and th e y lived at K entland Farm and Tom s C re e k fo r th e re m a ind er of th e ir lives. John C ow an, w h o had served as an office r in the 25th V irginia Infantry during the C ivil War, m anaged K entland Farm as a profitable agricu ltural and m illing enterprise until around W orld W a r I. In 1880 C o w a n ’s farm , valued at $58,000, produced 8,000 bushels of corn, 2,700 bush els o f grain, and 4,500 pounds of to b a cco on 1,650 acres of tilled land at the cost of $1,000 paid in w a ge labor. C ow an also raised and trad ed S horthorn cattle th ro u g h o u t his te n u re at K entland Farm . C o w an s M ill on Tom s C re e k w a s listed as a post office during the 1880s and 1890s, ye a rs in w h ich the m ills th e re produced corn m eal, flour, and saw n lumber. C o w a n ’s flo u r sold fo r $ 4 a barrel in 1899, a com m odity w hich he exchanged with a m erchant in Blacksburg fo r shoe s and dry goods. C ow an d o u btless used th o se store goods as partial p aym en t fo r th e la borers w h o w o rked his land, a fe w of w hom w e re d e sce n d a n ts of sla ves ow ned by Ja m e s K ent.9 50 �John C ow an had attained sufficient status through his success­ ful adm inistration of his m ills and farm lands so th a t he w as chosen as a m em b er of the original board of trustees of V irginia A gricultural and M echanical C ollege, eventually to becom e V irginia Tech. He also served on the V irginia S tate Board of A griculture and Im m igra­ tion from th e Sixth District, and he represented M ontgom ery C ounty fo r one term as a D elegate to the V irginia G eneral A sse m bly in 18991900. M argaret and John C o w an’s son, Jam es R andal Kent C ow an, m arried M aude Battle and m oved from R adford to the m ill house at C o w an s M ills som etim e a fte r 1900. Ja m e s and M aude C o w a n ’s daughter, M argaret, rem em bers that the C ow ans hired som eone to operate th e ir fe rry across the New R iver at th e m outh of Tom s Creek; the fe rry at H arm an’s Ford w as operated from the o th e r side of the river.10 In 1907 the Virginian Railroad com pleted a line along the north and east bank of the New River, and W hitethorne, the rail stop at Tom s Creek, replaced C ow ans M ills as the place nam e associated w ith Kentland. S hortly before W orld W ar I, Jam es C ow an and his im m ediate fa m ily traded dw ellings w ith his parents, and Jam es and M aude C ow an lived at Kentland Farm until 1936 w hen the C ow ans lost th e estate to th e ir cousin Francis Bell of D ublin.11 T h e Bells sold K entland Farm in 1966. V irginia Tech acquired the acreage and im portant cultural re­ sources of Kentland Farm in 1988. T he rich bottom lands form erly ow ned by the fam ilies of H arm an, Buchanan, Trigg, Cloyd, Kent, and C ow an are now used fo r research by the V irginia A gricultural E xperi­ m ent Station. FOOTNOTES 1. Local historian Jimmie L. Price is probably correct when he reasons that Adam Harman lived near his ford rather than a mile away at the mouth of Toms Creek. 2. Adam Harman is reported to be the person who found Mary Draper Ingles after her escape from Indian captivity in 1755. 3. Montgomery County Land Books prior to 1816 neither list buildings nor provide land descriptions, so they do not provide evidence which can be used to locate the place of the Trigg dwelling. 4. Joseph Cloyd, father of Gordon Cloyd, was Mary Cloyd McGavock’s brother. The Cloyds, Kents and McGavocks were also related by marriage to James McDowell, the husband of Sarah Preston. Sarah’s father, William Preston, had headed Revo­ lutionary W ar efforts in the New River Valley where he also established large land holdings and built Smithfield. These intermarriages of influential and landed families in southwestern Virginia between 1760 and 1818 are similar to the ties of kinship and status established in Tidewater Virginia a century earlier. 51 �5. The value of Gordon Cloyd’s buildings at Springfield was listed at $2,500 from 1823 through 1827. Of course, earlier buildings at Kentland may have been re­ tained after the new residence was constructed circa 1834. Perhaps one of these structures was the two-story brick kitchen which survived as one of the domestic outbuildings at Kentland until about 1970. 6. Mary Kent had inherited 20 of her father’s slaves when Gordon Clovd died in 1833. 7. Jimmie Price located this information and reported it on a video tape of Kentland which he generously provided to the author. 8. Buchanan’s Bottom was the most valuable portion of James Kent’s estate and two of Margaret Kent’s brothers-in-law, Francis Bell and James Otey, and one of her widowed sisters, Mrs. Henry Bentley, unsuccessfully contested the Kent inherit­ ance in the Montgomery County courts for 15 years. The James R. Kent Papers in the Special Collections at VPI&SU contain some of the depositions pertaining to this complex litigation. For a cogent summary of the dispute, see John Nicolay, “Foundation Notes,” Montgomery News Messenger. Feb. 6,1983 ; Mav 1 5,198 3 and May 22,198 3. 9. John Nicolay’s papers in the Special Collections at VPI&SU contain fascinating interviews with residents of W ake Forest, a black community located off Route 652 to the north of Kentland Farm. Margaret Gordon Cowan had provided land for the church at W ake Forest in the 1920s, but Nicolay and Clyde Kessler, who conducted the oral history interviews in the early 1980s, found no informants who discussed ante or post bellum life at Kentland. 10. Interview with Margaret Cowan and Josephine Scrivenor, Aug. 9 ,1990 . Roanoke, Virginia, 11 .Josephine Scrivenor, also a daughter of James and Maude Cowan, explained that her father had mortgaged Kentland to cover cattle trading losses in the 1920s and could not meet payments during the Depression. Mrs. Scrivenor said that she learned from this loss by noting that her parents never expressed any bitterness about their misfortune. James Cowan went on to serve many years as Montgomery County treasurer, an office which his daughter, Margaret Cowan, later held for 19 years. Ibid. (This text and the following article on the architecture o f Kentland cam e from the nom ination o f the property fo r the N ational R egister o f H is to ric P laces. The V irg in ia D e p a rtm e n t o f H is to ric R e so u rce s re fe re n ce n u m b e r is VD H R S ite 6 0 -2 0 2 .) 52 �The Architecture ofKentland b y J. D a n ie l P e zzo n i In 1834, when James Randal Kent began the construction of his plantation seat overlooking the New River, he built on a scale commensurate with his status as one of Montgomery County’s largest antebellum landown­ ers.1 Kent’s house, known as Kentland to his descendants, combines fea­ tures at once traditional and novel in the context of Virginia’s New River Val­ ley. Kent chose a dwelling type with a long pedigree in Virginia: the sym­ metrical l-house form. Architecturally, Kent followed in the footsteps of his influential in-laws, the Cloyds, who built impressive l-houses in the Back Creek Valley of Pulaski County, across the New River from Kentland. Kentland and the Back Creek houses share a remarkable range of similarities, pointing to the contribution of a common builder skilled in the popular Federal style of the early 19th century and the Greek Revival style that followed. Kentland is a two-story brick house with a symmetrical five-bay front facade. In plan the house is one-room deep, a characteristic that combines with its two-story height to define the house as an l-house. The walls of the house are laid in a stylish Flemish bond and rise to a hound’s tooth cornice, a construction detail that also characterizes several of the houses on Back Creek. Stylistically, Kentland’s restrained front facade is transitional between the Federal and Greek Revival styles. Over the front entry is an entablature supported by capitals with delicate frond-like ornament. These capitals now float above the door— the engaged columns that formerly stood under them have been placed in storage elsewhere on the farm. In front of the entry is a limestone stoop with gracefully flaring steps. Iran handrails formerly rose with the steps. 1The information in this article derives primarily from the National Reg­ ister nomination (1990) for the Kentland Farm Historic and Archaeological District, for which the author prepared an architectural analysis. The discus­ sion of Kentland’s local architectural context draws on historic sites surveys of Montgomery and Pulaski counties conducted by Gibson Worsham and J. Daniel Pezzoni. Information on John Swope’s activities at Belle-Hampton was provided by Barbara Church. Pezzoni, form erly an architectural historian in the Roanoke Preserva­ tion O ffice o f the State Departm ent o f H istoric Resources, has been a preser­ vation consultant with Preservation Technologies, Inc., since 1991. �Front view o f Kentland T h e n e g lect of recent d e ca d e s has ta ke n its to ll on K e n tla n d ’s exterior, but fo rtu n a te ly th e Interior is in a good state o f repair. M any original fe a tu re s rem ain such as th e ela b o ra te F e d era l-S tyle m antels in th e fro n t room s on th e m ain floor. T h e m antel in th e east rooom (at o ne tim e th e m ain parlor) is d e co ra te d w ith a stylize d representation o f an eag le e xecu ted in flo w in g bas relief lines. Inspiration fo r the eag le p ro b a b ly cam e from th e im a g in a tive ca llig ra p h y o f th e period. In th e frie ze to e ith e r sid e o f th e central eagle m otif are sw a g s s u g ­ gestin g ribbo ns tie d in bow s. F lankin g th e m antel are con so le s w ith Mantel in the east room o f Kentland 54 �w a te r leaf carvings. S w a g s and w a te r leaves w e re com m o n d e co ra ­ tive m otifs illustrated in th e pattern books of th e period. T h e covered urn feature d on th e m antel in th e w e st first-sto ry room at K entland w a s p roba bly copied d ire ctly from P a in ’s B ritis h P a lla d io , an e xp e n sive London pattern b oo k of the late 18th century. T h e other, less pub lic room s in th e house contain p la in e r detailing m ostly in the Federal style. In th e end room s o f th e w ing extending to the rear o f th e house are m antels m ore akin to th e G re e k R evival style, e vidence th a t th e room s w e re an ea rly add ition to th e house. Today th e base m e nt at K entland is cave rn o u s and dank, but in the 19th ce n tu ry it w o u ld have been lighted and w a rm ed by tw o fire ­ places, and th e base m e nt room s filled w ith a ctivity centered on the preparation and preservation o f food. In a brick partition w all betw een tw o of th e base m e n t room s is an e n ig m a tic feature: a barred vent w ith pliable o a k sp lin ts w o ven betw een th e bars fo rm in g a screen. A clue to th e fu n ctio n of th is screen com es not from K entland but from its n ea r tw in, S pringfield, in Pulaski County. S pringfield also has a barred ve n t (lacking a screen) in one of its base m e n t partition w alls. T h e S p ringfield ve n t fo rm e rly perm itted a flo w o f a ir to a room -sized root sto ra g e area partition ed off from th e rest o f th e basem ent. T he K entland ve n t m ay also have ve n tila te d a root stora ge room , and the screen m ay have served to keep rodents from apples, potatoes, o r oth e r contents. A s w ith m ost 19th-century V irg inia farm hou ses, m any e sse n ­ tial household a ctivities at K entland to o k place in sepa ra te structures Hexagonal meat house has lattice vents creating a decorative pattern. �clu stered aro u n d th e m ain house. O n ly o ne of th e se ea rly do m e stic o u tb u ild in g s su rvive s at K entland: a hexa gona l b rick m eat house w ith b rick lattice ve n ts cre a tin g a deco ra tive pattern of hexa gons on th e o u te r w a lls. T h e w o o d -sh in g le d pyram ida l roof o f th e m eat house is su p p o rte d on th e in te rio r by a m assive king post. Until recent years a tw o -s to ry b rick kitchen and la u n d ry stood off th e w e st gab le end of th e m ain house. T h e fa m ily co o k and o th e r d o m e stic serva n ts m ay have lodged in th e upstairs room s of th e kitchen and la undry building. Loo m s stood in th e upstairs of th is building durin g th e e a rly 20th c e n ­ tury, su g g e stin g cloth w a s fo rm e rly m a nufacture d there. N ot m uch is know n abo ut th e a cco m m o d a tio n s fo r K e n t’s huge sla ve w o rk force, num bered at 123 in 1860. Tw o o n e -sto ry b rick slave hou ses stood to th e w e st of th e m ain hou se durin g th e early 20th century. T h e se tw o d w e llin g s m ay have been th e last rem n ants of a d o u b le row of as m any a s 12 sla ve houses. A n u m b e r of log te n a n t hou ses fo rm e rly stood at outlying locations on th e farm ; som e of th e se m ay have once served as sla ve dw ellings. To th e north of th e m ain house is a n o th e r im p o rta n t com plex: th e barn and asso cia te d farm buildings. T h e a n tebe llum K entland barn is unlike a n y o th e r barn so fa r identified in S o u th w e st V irginia. T h e barn co n sists of tw o m o rtise -a n d -te n o n fra m e units se p a ra te d by a d rive -th ro u g h area th a t m ay on ce have been fitte d w ith a th re sh in g floor. T h e lo w e r levels of th e units contain horse stalls; th e upper levels are open on all sid es and proba bly served as hay m ows. A b ove th e hay m ow s is a roof w ith unusual tru ss-like supports. N e ar the barn is a n o th e r 19th -ce n tu ry structure: a slatted corn crib w ith tw o units se p a ra te d by a d rive-thro ugh. A lso n ea rb y are a 2 0 th -ce n tu ry granary, a w o rksho p, silos, and o th e r s m a lle r structures. B eyond th e d o m e stic and fa rm com ple xes, m any to p o g ra p h ica l fe a tu re s are still papi Wmmrnm m ^ ü Barn and nearby farm buildings are in a cluster at Kentland. 56 �Barn roof at Kentland has unusual truss-like supports. visible such as fie ld sto n e piles, lanes and culverts, and a m ile-long drain age ditch th a t skirts th e edg es of th e bottom below th e m ain house. A g ric u ltu ra l p ro d u c tio n w a s c e rta in ly th e m a in s ta y o f th e K entland farm , but also im portant w e re m illing and lu m be r production th a t to o k place at th e K ent-C ow an m ill on Tom s C re e k a m ile e ast of the m ain house. K ent acqu ired th e m ill w ith his p rope rty and m ay have em plo yed a m an nam ed H o naker to run it in th e 1830s. T he m ain house and barn at K entland are built w ith straight-sa w n lu m be r th a t w a s likely produ ced at th e mill. T h e m ill still sta n d s on th e east bank o f Tom s C reek, although th e fra m e su p e rstru ctu re a p p arently dates to th e late 19th ce n tury w h en K e n t’s successor, John T. C ow an, operated th e facility. A p ost office w a s located at C o w a n ’s M ill during the 1880s and 1890s, sugg esting th a t a store o r co m m issa ry m ay also have been associated w ith th e com plex. O ne of th e m ore in te re stin g a sp e cts o f th e m ain hou se at K entland is its a ffin ity to a group of stylistica lly related hou ses on Back C reek in neighboring Pulaski County. B ack C re e k Farm , S pringfield, and B e lle -H am pto n in p a rticu la r are sim ila r to K entland in th e ir overall (original) form and detailing. B ack C re e k Farm and S pringfield w e re built by K e nt’s in-law s, th e C loyds; the original section of B e lle -H a m p to n w a s built b y Ja m e s H oge in 1826. K e ntland and S pringfield are th e m ost alike, altho ugh S pringfield w a s partially d e ­ stroyed by fire in 1950. Both hou ses have fro n t entries fram ed by 57 �delicate engaged colum ns, and both have elaborate Federal-style main p arlo r m antels w ith central frie ze ta b le ts bearing representation s of eagles. T he eagle on th e S pringfield m antel is m ore realistically carved than the one a t K entland and bears tra ce s o f its original paint schem e: a ye llo w head and talons, blue feathers, and a green w reath e ncir­ cling th e w hole. B y all a ccou nts th e in terio r at K entland w a s su m p tu ­ ously app oin ted during th e 19th century; h istoric photos and su rviv­ ing fa b ric point to sim ila r refinem ent at S p ringfield. In th e sta ir hall at S pringfield w e re m ural painting s of fanciful m ountain scenery. In the m ain p arlo r are tra ce s of ea rly w a llp a p e r depicting vivid green and blue-green foliage. T h e w a llp a p e r a t S pringfield is ap p a re n tly a rem ­ nant of a French sce n ic w a llp a p e r dating to th e e a rly 19th century. T radition ascrib e s K entland and th e B a ck C re e k hou ses to a local ca rp e n te r nam ed John S w ope, an attribution given stron g s u p ­ port by recent research. John S w ope (ca. 1776-1856) w a s largely responsible fo r th e construction o f th e original 1826 section of BelleH am pton, located nea r B ack C re e k Farm and S pringfield, w h ich has m antels th a t are virtu a lly identical to ones at K entland. B ack C reek Farm , the hom e of Ja m e s R andal K e nt’s father-in-law , w a s exte n ­ sively rem odeled by S w ope in the m id-1830s. A lthough the third house in the B ack C reek group, S pringfield, m ay be co n sid e ra b ly o ld e r than Kentland, it w a s acqu ired by Ja m e s R andal K e nt’s brother, David Fenton Kent, in 1833, and it seem s likely th a t D avid em barked on a rem odeling o f S pringfield at the v e ry tim e th a t Ja m e s w a s building his house from scratch. P resum ab ly both m en em plo yed th e a cco m ­ plished Sw ope. A d ditio nal research and a na lysis m ay reveal m ore ab o u t the interplay of kinship and cultural expression in the K entland/B ack C reek houses. O th e r aspe cts of the p rope rties such a s farm and d o m estic com ple x layout, w o rkfo rce com position, and general farm o p e ra tions m ay prove to be sim ilar. K entland and th e B ack C re e k prope rties ranked am ong the largest antebe llum fa rm in g o p e ra tions in S o u th ­ w e st V irginia. Together th e y d isp la y som e of th e m ost sophisticated a rch ite ctu re in the region. 58 �Making Pottery in Botetourt County b y K u rt C. R uss In 1984, W ashington and L ee’s Laboratory of A nthropo log y ini­ tiated an investigation of the traditional pottery m anufacturing indus­ try in V irginia. A research design w a s form ulated w hich outlined the need, justification, and m ethodology fo r a statew ide survey of this early industry1. C om bining both docum entary and archaeological field research, th e research design focused on the identification of historic pottery m anufacturing sites, the individual potters associated w ith th e se sites, and the types and varieties of w ares produced. T h e statew ide survey to g e th e r w ith detailed investigations of particular potteries is intended to reveal inform ation regarding the tech­ nological history of th e pottery m anufacturing industry in V irginia2. T h e data generated from th is w o rk w ill also address the econom ics involved in th e production and distribution of historic pottery. S ince the inception of the statew ide survey in 1984, the W ash­ ington and Lee Laboratory of A nthropo log y has concentrated its re­ search efforts on thre e w estern counties w ithin the ridge and va lley region of the state: Alleghany, B otetourt and R ockbridge3. These counties w ere selected fo r several reasons. First, the historic pottery m anufacturing industry w a s generally undocum ented fo r these areas o f V irg in ia . S e c o n d ly , p o tte ry k iln s ite s w e re kn o w n to e x is t a rc h a e o lo g ic a lly as w e re e x ta n t lo ca lly m ade e a rth e n w a re s and stonew ares. And finally, the proxim ity of these counties to the labora­ to ry provided relatively easy access to the sites and relevant histori­ cal docum ents. T he purpose of th is paper is to docu m e nt the traditional pot­ te ry m anufacturing industry in B otetourt C ounty by presenting the in­ form ation gleaned to date from archaeological and docu m e nta ry re­ search. Tw o m id-19th century pottery kiln sites and 11 19th century potters have been identified in the B otetourt C ounty area of Virginia, indicating th a t this w as, indeed, an im portant pottery ce nter fo r the region4. K u rt C. R uss, a 1978 cum la u d e g ra d u a te o f W ashington a n d Lee U niversity, co m p le te d g ra d u a te stu d ie s in a n th ro p o lo g y a t the U n ive rsity o f Tennessee. A n e xp e rt on V irginia ceram ics, R uss fo r­ m e rly w as research a rc h a e o lo g is t a t W & L. H e a n d h is w ife Linda a re a v id co lle c to rs o f lo c a l ceram ics. This p a p e r w as p re s e n te d to the R oanoke V alley H is to ric a l S o c ie ty M arch 27, 1990. 59 �P e rha ps th e best know n of th e se 19th c e n tu ry potters w a s G e o rg e N. Fulton w h o produ ced in pro d ig io u s q u a n titie s a d istinctive sto n e w a re d eco ra ted w ith both m ang a n e se and co b a lt oxides. Fulton d e sce n d e d fro m a fa m ily w h o w a s d e e p ly im m erse d in th e pottery busin e ss in O hio. F u lto n ’s fa th e r and his tw o brothers w e re both potters; o ne having a kiln in M a rietta and th e o th e r in Z an esville, O hio. A t the age of 21, Fulton m oved to Richm ond, V irginia and w orked w ith th e e sta b lish e d potter, D avid Parr. George Newman Fulton, a remarkable potter, and his wife, Sarah Ellen Shaver Fulton, who were married in Parkersburg, W. Va. in 1866, Thereafter, Fulton enlisted w ith the Union A rm y on 23 Ju ly 1862 a t M eado w bluff, V irg in ia as a private in C o m p a n y “E” , 9th R egim ent, V irg in ia -W e st V irg in ia Infantry. H e w a s later tra n sfe rre d in N o ve m b e r 1864 to C o m p a n y “ B” , First R egim ent, V irg in ia -W e st V irg in ia V eteran Infantry and u ltim a te ly disch a rg e d on 14 Ju n e 1865 at P arkersburg, W e st V irg in ia a s a private. A fte r his se rvice in th e w a r betw een th e states, Fulton m oved to th e Potts C re e k are a of A lle g h a n y County. T h e re he e stablishe d a p o tte ry and had a th rivin g business from circa 1867 until 1875, a c ­ co rdin g to oral and fa m ily history, but a cco rd in g to ce n su s records he rem ained an active po tte r in A lle g h a n y C o u n ty until so m etim e a fte r 18805. S ubsequently, Fulton m oved to th e B o te to u rt C o unty area of V irg in ia w h e re he w a s also said to have e n g aged in th e m a n u facture o f p o tte ry6. 60 �F o ur-g allon ston e w a re cro ck with brushed blue cobalt floral decoration and signature (Russ collection) 61 �Potters w o rking in B otetourt County, during th e 19th century: Potter A p pro xim ate D ates o f O peration E dw ard D unbar (b. ca. 1835) ca. 1850 G eorge N. Fulton ca. 1875-1894? (b. 1 8 3 5 -d. 1894) R obert F ulw iler (b. 22 Ju ly 1 8 2 5 d. 17 June 1908) ca. 1850 Jo sh u a Hill (b. ca. 1790) ca. 1850 Josep h (Jesse) H inkle (H enkle) (b. ca.1796 in M aryland) ca. 1830-1850 Joel N o ftzing er (b. 11 Feb. 1812d. 3 O ct. 1857) ca. 1850 M athias N oftzinger (b. 1821) ca. 1850 W illiam O bensha ne (O benchain) (b. 1804) ca. 1860-1880 P eter O bensha ne (O benchain) (b. 1828) ca. 1860-1880 P eter M. O bensha ne (O benchain) (b. 1817) P hilip S p igle (b. 9 Nov. 1828d. 16 Feb. 1880) ca. 1850-1880 ca. 1850-1880 62 �Handmade stoneware tombstone with tree o f life m otif in relief, attributed to Fulton Pottery, Alleghany County Reverse o f tree o f life tombstone showing inscription, “Sacred to the Memory o f Davis 2 boys” 63 �E arly in th is century, M arion R aw son cond ucte d oral history research w hich docu m e nte d trad ition al A p palachia n lifew ays. In her book, C a n d le d a y Art, she interview ed D aniel A rritt w h o as a young m an lived next d o o r to Fulton and w o rke d in his A lle g h a n y C ounty pottery shop. T h e interview reveals num erous insights into th e pro­ cesses involved in m anufacturing stonew are during th e 19th century. “You see yonder out that door where the grass looks brown just over the knoll? That’s where I dug the mud and carted it a mile and a half down to Fulton’s shop. He had what you call a mill standing up two feet or so from the ground and about as big as a hogshead, that was worked by an old horse at the end of a sweep; I’d throw the mud or clay in there and the knives revolving would cut it up. When it was cut up enough we took it out in blocks about a foot square - it would be about as stiff as wheat dough - and carried it to the lathe, and old man Fulton would work it round and round so, running the treadle with his foot to make the platform revolve. He’d draw it up so and so and make it like the shape he wanted it to be, sometimes using a little piece of wood to fix it right, and when it suited him he’d take a wire and cut under it to loosen it so he could pick it up and carry it into the dry room. It took five days to dry and when it was dry enough he’d take his brush and paint his name in blue across it, the full name on the big crocks, and then put some of them fancy patterns out of his head on it,. He got the blue indigo at the store in a chunk and softened it up with a little turpentine - yes marm. When he had enough ware - a thousand gallons - we’d set it up in the kiln.” A t th is point A rritt explained th a t the kiln w a s abo ut 18 fe e t in d ia m e te r and ab o u t th e sam e height. It w a s shap ed like an egg, w ith the fire d o o r close to th e ground on one sid e and th e o n ly o th e r o p e n ­ ing being the central chim ney. It is inferred from his descrip tion that the kiln w a s of th e circu la r updraft variety, a com m on 19th century stonew are kiln He also indicated that there w e re four iron bars stretch­ ing across th e kiln abo ve the flues, upon w h ich rested stones placed abo ut eight inches apa rt and so arra nged th a t th e crocks and pots could be set up on them and stacked, being separated by hand-form ed sand -co ate d pottery pieces called kiln furniture. T h is a rra ngem ent kept th e ve sse ls from sticking to g e th e r during firing and allow ed them to be expo sed to equal heat on all sides. T h e kiln held 1,000 gallons of w are, w ith th e pot q u a n titie s being com puted by add ing to g e th e r half pints, qua rts and g allo ns7. A rritt continued: “We burnt the ware for three days and three nights and I’ve set up and watched many a batch and tended fire. When the ware was burnt just enough I’d go up on top of the kiln and looking in it would seem just like a raging iron furnace, and I’d take a right smart of salt and throw it 64 �down over the w are and you could see it m elting all over the w are, inside and out. You had to leave the w are w here it stood for two days to cool off before you could draw it. Then it w as my job to load it onto a wagon - 3 50 gallons would m ake a good tw o-horse load -all sizes, and it brought fifty cents for a gallon and seventy-five for the bigger ones, w ine crocks and w ater coolers. “You know, m arm , this w as good stonew are, not that no ‘count red earthen w are. You could bile in our stonew are. I’ve drive the wagon m any a tim e to Blacksburg, and there old W addel that sold the redw are would see m e coming and shout, “W hat you bringing that no ‘count stuff to this town for?” And I’d shout back, "Yours is the no ‘count stuff, aint burnt to a body. M ine’s burnt to a stone body. G ive m e a piece of your old no ‘count w are, I w ant to pitch it and one of m ine down the road a little piece.” So I pitched one of my crocks down the road tw enty feet and it never broke none. His’n? H e darent’s give m e any. H e w ent out of business afore long. Fulton’s w are w as good stone body.” A lth ough oral history and fa m ily tradition suggest th a t Fulton m oved to B otetourt C ounty in 1875, he is listed on th e A lleghany C o unty census records as a potter in both 1870 and 1880, but does not ap p e a r in census records o r any deed o r w ill books fo r Botetourt County. Fulton died in 1894 and both he and his w ife are buried in the old N o ftzing er ce m e te ry w hich is located south of Fincastle along Route 220 in B otetourt C ounty8. T h e docum entary and oral history inform ation is conflicting w ith regard to precisely w hen Fulton estab­ lished residence in B otetourt County. Unfortunately, the nature of his participation in the pottery industry in B otetourt is understood with even less preciseness. In addition to m anufacturing crocks, jugs, ja rs and other utili­ tarian storage vessels, Fulton also m ade tom bstones, a fe w of w hich still survive. Perhaps the m ost im pressive extant vessel m ade by Fulton is th e 2 0 -g a llo n sto n e w a re w a te r co o le r on disp la y in the P resident’s C ottage at th e G ree nbrier Hotel in W hite S ulphur Springs, W est V irginia. T h e vessel is elaborately d ecorated and w as m ade by Fulton in 1856 during his te n u re as a potter in R ichm ond, Virginia. The Fincastle Kiln A s a part of the do cu m e n ta ry and archaeological research dealing w ith historic pottery m aking in B otetourt County, a pottery kiln site, th e Fincastle Kiln, w as identified and tested archae olog ically9. S ubsequently, in th e sum m e r of 1988 the site w as intensively investi­ gated by W & L U niversity under the auspices of the T hreatened A r­ chaeological Site Program of the D e partm ent of H istoric R esources10. 65 �T h e site is located in th e ridge and va lle y p h ysiograph ic prov­ ince situated ju st south o f Fincastle, near the ju n ctio n of R outes 640 and 602. Identified as a m ounded area ad ja ce n t to and ju st south of R oute 640 at the edge of rolling pasture land, th e site is at an e le va ­ tion of a pp ro xim ate ly 1,280 fe e t above sea level. T h e goals of th e archae olog ical e xcava tions w e re to v e rify the existen ce of the pottery kiln as w ell as to d ocu m e nt the va riou s stru c­ tural fe a tu re s of the kiln w ith em pha sis on the tech n o lo g ica l level at w hich it operated. T h e e xcava tions w e re undertaken because of the im m ediate thre at of destruction the site faced. T he nature o f th e threat w a s tw o-fold. First, th e northern section of th e pottery kiln w as e ro d ­ ing into a highw ay drain age ditch cut along th e edge of Route 640; secondly, the land on w hich th e site is located w a s fo r sale and the o w n e r of th e land had plans to bulldoze the site in o rd e r to achieve a m ore level acreage. T h e te s tin g and su b s e q u e n t sa lva g e e x ca va tio n s revealed structural foundations and features interpreted as a single-cham bered, tw o-flued, arched, rectangular, groun dhog o r cla m p style pottery kiln. T he portions o f th e kiln w h ich had not been destroyed included e vi­ dence of one central and tw o e xte rio r kiln w a lls sepa ra ted by flues w ith m ortared flo o rs leading into sm all chan nels w h ich provided a flue ventin g function representing the kiln ’s chim n e y ba se 11. T h e A m erican groun dhog kiln is sim p ly a cro ss-d ra ft recta n g u ­ lar kiln usually built into a hillside o r slo pe w ith th e fire b o x situated on the low er ground level at the fro n t of th e kiln12. T h e low linea r nature of the kiln, earthen banking of its sidew alls, and fron t opening result in it resem bling an anim al burrow and und oubtedly relates to th e d e ­ ve lo p m e n t of th e nam e. A cco rding to G reer, co n sta n t fe a tu re s of th is kiln typ e include: a fire b o x at th e fron t end; a sin g le fla t shelf fo r loading th e w a res and form in g th e flo o r of the firing cham ber, th is being raised at least 18-24 inches above th e flo o r of th e firebox; and a tru e ch im n e y structure te rm in ating th e kiln at th e rear.13 The expression of these constant features is highly variable betw een individual kilns as noted by G re e r and illustrated by th e F incastle e x­ am ple. A s detailed previously, th e Fincastle pottery kiln has thre e brick w a lls se pa ra ting tw o parallel flu e s w ith m ortared floors. T he outsid e o f th e tw o e xte rio r w a lls is banked w ith both earth and lim e­ stone rock, providing su p p o rt and insulation. T h e central kiln w all sepa ra tes th e tw o flues, each of w h ich w e re arched o ve r w ith brick. It is w ithin th e flues th a t vessels w e re placed fo r firing. Leading from th e flues into th e chim n e y base are tw o chan nels w h ich w o uld have fun ctio n e d in controlling th e exiting kiln draft. 66 �T h e structure o f th e kiln ’s fire b o x is unknow n beca use the fro n t portion of the kiln w as destroyed prior to th e salvage e xcavation. Fire­ box dim e n sio n s w e re co m m o n ly eight fe e t w ide and fo u r fe e t deep. T h e F incastle kiln w a s p roba bly betw een 16 and 20 fe e t long, w hich is th e general length range fo r docum ented groundhog kilns. Its width is approxim ately nine feet which is ju st beyond the six to eight-foot width range observed by Greer.14 In term s of the kiln operation, when fired the heat o r flam es travel up from the firebox and a bag or baffle wall directs them over into the firing cham ber w here they travel across the kiln firing the vessels, eventually escaping through the chimney. Drawing o f the hypothetical reconstruction o f the mid-19th century Fincastle earthenware pottery kiln 67 �Artifacts recovered from the site include glazed and unglazed earthenw are w aster shards, fragm ents of earthenw are tile, kiln Artifacts recovered from the site include glazed and unglazed earthenware w aster shards, fragm ents of earthenw are tile, kiln furniture fragm ents, and m is­ cellaneous artifacts. Artifact analysis indicates that a relatively restricted variety of lead-glazed earthenw are utilitarian vessel form s w as m anu­ factured at the pottery. The nature of the artifact assem blage with wellpotted, glazed and fired earthenw ares suggests a technologically effi­ cient operation. Reconstruction efforts show that the m ost com m on ves­ sel form represented in the assem blage is the w ide o r open mouth stor­ age crock. The kiln furniture types encountered include hand-form ed circu­ lar pins, placing bars, points, stilts, triangular pins, spurs and saggers. These types of kiln furniture are distinctively different from those observed on 19th century stonew are pottery kiln sites. The differences in this kiln furniture assem blage as com pared with those from other stonew are pot­ tery sites reflect the technology unique to m anufacturing lead-glazed earthenwares. The low linear nature of the groundhog kiln and the type of w ares fired therein are tw o factors which m ight help explain the varia­ tion in kiln furniture types encountered. The spatial configuration of the groundhog kiln restricted the stacking of vessels. A s a result, earthen­ ware kiln furniture pieces are relatively sm all with w ell-defined features which served to limit the am ount of surface area contact with the ves­ sels. The kiln furniture w as designed to separate vessels from both one another and the kiln floor during firing. This “separation” w as essential to reduce the likelihood of vessels sticking together on to the kiln floor as well as to provide an even distribution of heat. In term s of the nature of the w ares fired in the groundhog kiln, not only w as the vessel wall of the earthen crock less sturdy than a corre­ sponding stonew are exam ple, so that stacking w ould have been a prob­ lem in term s of w ares surviving the weight, but also the nature of the lead glaze w as such that it would drip and run between vessels if stacked. Therefore, the kiln furniture utilized w as adapted to and a part of the technology of earthenw are production in the valley of Virginia. Prelim inary oral history and docum entary reserch indicates that the Fincastle pottery w as located on land once owned by the Noftzingers. Both Joel and M athias Noftzinger, Jacob Noftzinger’s sons, are listed on the 1850 Botetourt C ounty census records as potters. The Noftzinger fam ily cem etery is located on a hilltop to the northwest of the Fincastle pottery site and includes the graves of G eorge N. Fulton and his wife, Sarah Ellen Shaver (Schaffer), indicating that Fulton w as in som e w ay affiliated with the Noftzinger family. According to fam ily tradition and secondary historical sources,15 Fulton, the well-known Alleghany county potter, arrived in Botetourt C ounty in 1875, lived with the Noftzingers, and established a a pottery which he operated until his death in 1894. Despite this information, Fulton is not listed in any 19th century census 68 �records, land records, or will books fo r Botetourt County. Fulton’s inclu­ sion in the N oftzlnger cem etery and the oral tradition which Indicates that Fulton lived on Noftzinger land, after m oving to Botetourt County, to ­ gether with the lack of docum entary evidence fo r Fulton’s residence in Botetourt County, provides contradictory evidence regarding Fulton’s resi­ dence and involvem ent with the Noftzingers in pottery m anufacture in Botetourt County. On the other hand, the absence of salt-glazed stonew are shards seem s to suggest that Fulton, w ho w as involved with the stonew are in­ dustry in A lleghany C ounty fo r several years, m ay not have been associ­ ated w ith the pottery. In either case, the evidence indicates this w as the kiln operated by the Noftzingers. If, in fact, Fulton w as involved in pot­ tery m aking in Botetourt County, then either he w as working at a different site or he w as involved with the Noftzingers in the m anufacture of earth­ enware exclusively. The archaeological testing and salvage excavations conducted at the pottery have provided for docum enting the technology involved in the production of earthenw are during the mid-19th century. The lack of docum entation of “groundhog” type earthenw are kilns during this period and in this region - w here circular up and down draft stone­ w are kilns predom inate - m ake the data generated by this w ork particu­ larly valuable from a com parative perspective fo r understanding the evo­ lution of technology in the pottery m anufacturing industry in Virginia. Hinkle/Spigle Pottery Phillip Spigle, Botetourt painter who worked with Jesse Hinkle, and his wife, Frances Susan Fluke Spigle. (Anna Gray and Patsy Cronise, Spigle descendants, Fincastle) W orking in the county as early as 1830 w as a potter nam ed Jesse Hinkle. He w as born in M aryland in 1796 and probably learned the pot­ tery trade there by apprenticing to an established potter. Having ac­ quired the requisite skills, Hinkle m oved to Botetourt County during the early 19th century and established his own pottery business. P hilip 69 �Spigle, w h o w o rked w ith Hinkle, is listed on th e 1850 co u n ty census. S p igle w a s “a p otter o f considerable ta le n t and had a pottery shop at A m ste rd a m ”16 w hich is located to th e south of Fincastle along R oute 220. No evidence of th e actual H inkle/S pigle p o tte ry shop rem ains today. It is th o u g h t th a t construction associated w ith R oute 220 d e ­ stroyed th e rem ains of th e pottery. P relim ina ry research indicates th a t E dw ard Dunbar, w h o is listed on the 1850 censu s as a potter, w o rked w ith H inkle and Spigle. It is also interesting to note th a t by the m id-19th ce n tury S pigle ow ned a tra ct of land con tig u o u s with land ow ned by Joel N oftzinger, indicating a possible historical a s s o ­ ciation betw een th e tw o individuals. H inkle and S p igle produced le ad-glazed earth e n w a re s utiliz­ ing both com bin g and fre e h a n d incising as d eco ra tive trea tm ents. O ne extant sem i-ovoid le ad-glazed stora ge vessel w ith lid is signed Jesse Hinkle, B o tetourt County, V irg inia and dated 1839. T h is pre­ sentation piece e xhibits a va rie ty of incised deco ra tion and w a s m ade by Hinkle fo r M rs. Spigle. T h e vessel w a s acqu ired from S p ig le ’s granddaughter, M eta Bertha C offm an C ronise and her daughters, w ho still reside in B otetourt County. A lth ough th is is th e only signed H inkle piece know n, several pieces w ith sim ila r form , glaze, and deco ra tion survive in local co lle c­ tions. A t least one piece w ith th e typical lead glaze and incised d e co ­ ration on both th e body of th e vessel and m atching lid has been id en­ tified w ith an “S ” stam p ed in the bottom , undoubtedly indicating S pigle w as th e m aker. A le ad-glazed earthenw are p itche r w ith an incised floral m otif w as handed dow n in th e S pigle fa m ily as w a s a large im pressive le ad-gla zed bow l w ith p ro m in e n t rim and bold app lied handles. The Obenchain Pottery T h e 1850 B o tetourt C o u n ty censu s lists W illiam O bensha ne (O benchain), w h ose o ccup ation w a s farm er, a s having one R obert Fulwiler, a potter, in his household. T his su g g e sts th a t F u lw iler w as involved w ith th e O b ensha ne (O benchain) pottery operation w hich is know n to have included P eter O benshane. W illia m ’s son, w h o is listed in the 1880 censu s as a p otter 52 ye a rs of age, and P eter M. (P otter Pete) O benshane, a cousin listed on th e 1850 censu s as a p o tte r 33 years of age. T he censu s records indicate th a t P e ter M. O bensha ne listed his occup ation a s a p otter in 1880, as well. T he O benshane pottery w as probably started by P eter M. (P ot­ te r Pete) O b e n sh a n e circa 1850 and durin g th is period em ployed R obert F ulw iler (w ho w a s later eng aged in th e pottery m anufacturing 70 i �Peter M. “Potter Pete” Obenchain and his wife, Matilda Shank Obenchain (Mrs. Edmonia Boblett) in R ockbridge C o u n ty - 1860 th ro ugh 1880). P otter P ete’s cousins, W illia m s and Peter, un d o u b te d ly becam e involved in the business at a la te r date, p roba bly circa 1860. O ral h isto ry in form ation had su g g g e ste d th a t O b e n s h a n e ’s pottery kiln w a s located along M ill C reek in B otetourt C o unty until it w a s d estroyed by a flo o d in 1877. R ecent archae olog ical and d o cu ­ m entary research resulted in locating th e O b ensha ne pottery kiln. A cco rding to th e cu rre n t land ow ner, th e previo us o w n e r of th e land, a Mr. C rist, had his tw o sons haul a w a y fo u r w agon loads of w a ste r shards and bricks o ve r 50 ye a rs ago. O nly tw o brick fra g m e n ts and one le ad-gla zed e a rthenw are p o tte ry shard w e re recovered from a w a lk-o ve r of th e area. P lans are to c o n d u ct a system a tic shovel te s t­ ing effo rt to see if a n y fe a tu re s of th e p o tte ry rem ain archaeologically. Tw o sig ned pieces of O b e n sh a n e pottery have been identi­ fied. Both are tall, sem i-ovoid, le ad-gla zed stora ge ja rs w ith d istin c­ tive applied han dle s and a flat, broad, extruding rim. Incised on the bottom of one ja r is “M atthew O bensha ne 1868.” S everal other pieces have been found locally and attributed to the O benshane pottery based on e ith e r prove n a n ce o r identification of d istinctive vessel attrib ute s such as glaze (an often hea vy reddish-bro w n m etallic glaze), form (sem i-ovoid and w ell potted), rim tre a tm e n t and handle style. O the r form s identified include bow ls and cups. C o ntinue d d o cu m e n ta ry and archae olog ical research should provide fo r clarifying and refining the inform ation presented here about the h istoric pottery m a nufacturing industry in B otetourt County. N ew kiln sites m ay be identified o r w e may, in fact, find th a t several of the potters w o rke d to g e th e r at th e Fincastle kiln site in th e A m sterd am district as w ell as at O b e n sh a n e ’s kiln site located along Mill C reek. 71 �Obenshane (Obenchain) Pottery — lead-glazed, earthenware pieces: threegallon storage jar, signed Obenshane (left); cup or mug (center), and a bowl, found in Buchanan and attributed to Obenshane A lso to be cla rifie d is th e relatio nship of several of th e in dividuals identified on th e U. S. C e n su s records as potters living in B otetourt C ounty, to th e existing p o tte ry kiln sites in op e ra tio n at th e tim e. Summary T h e h istory o f th e tra d itio n a l p o tte ry m a n u fa ctu rin g in d u stry in B o te to u rt C o u n ty b eg ins w ith th a t e sta b lish m e n t o f th e H inkle pottery in th e 1830s. T h is e a rth e n w a re p o tte ry e m plo yed P hilip S p igle and co n tin u e d to o p e ra te until 1880. A lth o u g h th e re is no historical o r a rch a e o lo g ica l e vid e n ce fo r th e p o tte ry in dustry in B o te to u rt before th is tim e, it is likely th a t o th e rs w e re eng aged in th e m a n u fa ctu re of p o tte ry in sm all sh o p s o r p e rha ps on a p a rt-tim e basis since th e last q u a rte r of th e 18th century. B y th e 1850s, th e N o ftzin g e rs had e sta b ­ lished th e F incastle kiln and th e O b e n sh a n e s w e re op e ra tin g a p o t­ te ry along M ill C reek, both produ cing le ad-gla zed earthenw are. Even th o u g h th e in d u stry in B o te to u rt w a s d o m in a te d by th e produ ction of e a rthenw are, it is p o ssible th a t Fulton w a s m a n u fa ctu rin g deco ra ted sto n e w a re d urin g th e last q u a rte r of th e 19th c e n tu ry at a site w h ich is a s y e t uniden tified. T h e F in ca stle /A m ste rd a m are a of th e co u n ty w as a c e n te r fo r p o tte ry m anufacture , w ith a n u m b e r o f p o tte rs living and w o rkin g in th e are a fo r m ost of th e 19th century. 72 �By th e 1880s the m anufacture of dom estic ceram ic w ares w as no longer econom ically feasible and with the closing of the O benshane Pottery, th e trad ition al pottery m anufacturing industry ceased to exist in th e B otetourt C o unty area of Virginia. Footnotes 1. Russ, Kurt, C., Historic Pottery Making in Virginia, Upland Archaeology in the East, II, United States Dept, of Agriculture, Forest Service Southern Region Cultural Resurces Report No. 5, pp. 252-272,1984. 2. Russ, Kurt C., and McDaniel, John M., Archaeological Excavations at the Rockbridge Pottery: A Preliminary Report, Quarterly Bulletin of the Archaeo­ logical Society of Virginia, 41, pp. 72-88,1986; Russ, Jurt C., “Archaeological Investigation at an Historic Earthenware Pottery Kiln in Botetourt County, Va.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Virginia Social Science Assoc., Sweet Briar College, Va, 8 April 1988;, Russ, Kurt C., ‘The Fincastle Pottery: Salvage Excavations at a 19th Century Earthenware Kiln in Botetourt County, Va.” Report submitted to Division of Historic Resources, Richmond, and Occa­ sional Papers in Anthropology No. 28, Laboratory of Anthropology, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Va., 1989. 3. Russ, Kurt. C., “Pots, Potters, and Potteries in Botetourt County, Va. 1830-1984.” Paper presented to the Roanoke Chapter of the Archaeological Society of Virginia, 1986; Russ, Kurt. C., ‘T h e Traditional Pottery Manufacturing Industry in Virginia: Examples from Botetourt and Rockbridge Counties,” Rockbridge Historical Society Proceedings X, pp. 453-489, Lexington, Va., Rockbridge Historical Society, 1990; Russ and McDaniel, ‘T h e Historical Pottery Manufacturing Industry in Rockbridge County, Va. -1785-1882, “Manuscript on file, Laboratory of Anthropology, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Va., 1986; Russ and McDaniel, “A Survey o f the Traditional Pottery Manufacturing Industry in Botetourt and Rockbridge Counties,” Upland Archaeology in the East: A Thira Symposium, Cultural Resources Report 87-1, pp. 35-50, USDA, Forest Service Southern Region, Atlanta, 1987. 4. Russ, Kurt. C., “Pots, Potters and Potteries in Botetourt County,” 1986; Idem, “Historic Pottery Making in Central Southwestern Virginia,” Paper pre­ sented at the New River Chapter, Archaeological Society of Va., Blacksburg, Va., 14 May, 1987; Idem, “Archaeological Investigation at an Historic Earthenware Pottery Kiln in Botetourt Co;” Id em ,‘T h e Fincastle Pottery;” Idem ,‘T h e Tradi­ tional Pottery Manufacturing Industry In Virginia;” Russ and McDaniel, A Survey of the Traditional Pottery Manufacturing Industry in Botetourt and Rockbndge Counties.” 5. Russ, Kurt C., and Langheim, Tom. ‘T h e Allegheny County Pottery Manufacturing Industry.” Paper presented at the Virginia Social Science Assoc. Meeting, Sweet Briar College, April, 1988. 6. Arritt, Gay, “Fulton Pottery,” Historical Sketches, Alleghany Historical Society, Covington, Va., 1982 (Originally published 13, Oct., 1952); Russ, Pots, Potters and Potteries;” Idem, ‘Traditional Pottery Manufacturing Industry in Virginia;” Russ and McDaniel, “A Survey of the Traditional Pottery Manufacturing Industry in Botetourt and Rockbridge Counties.” 73 �7. Rawson, Marion N., CandledayArt, New York, E. P] Dutton, 1938. 8. Russ, Kurt C., “Pots, Potters and Pottery.” 9. Ibid; Russ, Kurt C., “Historic Pottery Making in Central Southwestern Virginia;” Idem, “Archaeological Investigation at an Historic Earthenware Pottery Kiln in Botetourt County, Va. 10. Russ, Kurt. C., “The Fincastle Pottery.” 11. Ibid. 12. Greer, Georgeanne H., “Groundhog Kilns - RectangularAmerican Kilns of the 19 and Early 20th Centuries,” Northeast Historical Archaeology, 6: 42-54, 1977; Idem, “Basic Forms of Historic Pottery Kilns Which M ay be Encountered in the United States,” The Conference on Historic Site Archaeology Papers, Vol. 13, edited by S. South, pp. 133-147,1978. 13. Greer, “Groundhog Kilns.” 14. Ibid, p. 47. 15. Arritt, Idem, p. 68. 16. Austin, J.W ., and Austin, R. H. R., Related Families of Botetourt County, Virginia, Roanoke, Va., 1977. Russ, Kurt C., “Understanding Virginia’s Traditional Pottery Manufacturing Industry: An Interim Report on the Statewide Survey,” Paper presented at the Archaeological Society ot Va. Symposium, “Ceramic in Virginia,” Virginia Piedmont Community College, Charlottesville, April, 1988. Idem , “Understanding the Historic Pottery Manufacturing Industry in Rockbridge County, Va.: Archaeological Excavation at the Firebaugh Pottery.” Paper presented at the Middle Atlantic Archaeology Conference, Ocean City, Ma., 1990. 74 �Cultural Shock in Botetourt County b y E d w a rd L “B u ck” H enson C ulturally, the longest 13 m iles in the state of V irginia in th e 1930s w e re those, m easured in a straightline distance, betwen dow ntow n R oanoke and m y grea t-g ra n d p a re n ts’ farm w hich lay in the general vicin ity of H aym akertow n in B otetourt County. I supp ose th e m ain thing w as that, in those days before the REA (R u ra l E le c tric A d m in is tra tio n ), y o u le ft e le c tric ity b e h in d . T h e responsibility of carrying a lighted glass-based coal oil lamp up a steep and narrow flig h t of steps w a s a sobering experience fo r children. It to o k a w h ile to get accustom ed to the quiet. A sm all creek, alw ays called T h e Branch, ran in fro n t of the house and sounded like N iagara fo r th e first fe w nights you w e re there. You learned th a t sheep did not w e a r bells ju s t so you could find them w hen they w ere lost. T hey p ro v id e d an in s ta n t m e a n s o f te le g ra p h y by w h ic h th e s h e e p com m u nica ted w ith th e ir ow ner th ro u g h o u t the night. You learned th a t dogs in th is enviro nm ent w e re basically nocturnal anim als. T h e y lay around sleeping and scratching all day and chased o th e r a nim a ls all night. A sou rce o f p a rticu la r pride fo r m y g re a t­ g ra nd father w e re the “ m ouths” his dogs had on them . “ Isn’t th a t pretty m usic?” he is supposed to have asked a city visitor as Old Bell brought a raccoon around th e m ountain one night. “ I ca n ’t hear any m usic for the dogs barking,” w a s the city fe llo w ’s reply. O ne of the fe w conce ssion s to m odernity w a s a party line cranktype telephone. M y g re a t-g ra n d fa th e r perm itted th is only after a large knife-sw itch w a s installed on a pole 50 yards from the house so that he could d isconne ct it w ith the appearance of the first dark cloud. O ne of H enry F ord’s black T -M odels w a s kept under a w agon shed because it had no top. It w a s used exclusive ly to haul produce in to th e R o anoke C ity M a rke t on S a tu rd a y m ornings. It also broug ht n e ce ssitie s b a ck to th e farm : salt, coffee, sugar, pickling spices, shotgun shells and a pint of O ld R ocking C h air w h iskey w hich w as alw ays stored in one of the beehives. My great-grandm other w as afraid of bees and little else. Dr. E d w a rd L. “B u c k ” H enson, is a Lexington native w ho has re tire d a s a h isto ry p ro fe s s o r a t Clinch Valley C ollege o f the U niversity o f Virginia a t Wise. H e w rote this colum n a b o u t his great-grandfather, L. R. Ferrell, fo r the C o a lfie ld P rogress a n d B ig Stone G ap Post. 75 ���� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society 1996 Volume 13, Number 2 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />Threading a Parkway through the Blue Ridge<br />Hotel Roanoke, "Large and Well-Equipped"<br />The Railroad Offices<br />Totera Town Reconsidered<br />Colonel William Fleming's Origins<br />Kentland Farm, a New River Plantation<br />Architecture of Kentland<br />Making Pottery in Botetourt County<br />Cultural Shock in Botetourt County Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1996 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_13_02_1996 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6359/JHSWV_14_02_2001.pdf 9a866db22f3c3feca807d9a7d872328c PDF Text Text 200? JOURNAL Volume Fourteen Number Two �OF WESTERN VIRGINIA A m o r m o n t i u m n o s mo v e t (F o r t h e Lo v e o f M o u n t a i n s I n s p ir e s U s ) R obert H , K ülp .................................................................. P resident W illis M . A n d e rs o n ........... ................................................Vice P resident A nn F. Stephenson ......................... .......................................... T reasurer W hitney H . F eldm ann S ecretary D. K en t G hrism an ..................................... . E xecutive D irector B etty H undley ......... . A dm inistrative M anager Sara A irheart Paul G. B eers J o h n P. B radshaw , Jr. B ruce B ren n er Paul C. B uford, Jr. W illiam M. C laytor A lison A . C onte Jack B. C oulter B etty C. C raig Jam es F. D outhat B etty K. D ye S. S pencer E dm unds George A. Kegley A lice T. H agan W hitney A. M . L eeson D avid L. L em on W T ucker L em on E dw in E. L unsford C. W hitney M arkley Thom as O. M axfield A lice B. R oberts M ichael K. Sm eltzer R alph K . Sm ith M ary M . U tt E dgar V. W heeler Clare S. W hite �C o n te n ts Note from the D irector........................................................................................ ............ Page 3 Vice presidential candidate had Carvins Cove summer hom e............................. ....... Page 4 by George Kegley Emma Comer, first graduate of Roanoke City High School, 1894................................Page 10 by David Bearr Celebrating the millennium - 1901...................................... .......................................... Page 18 by Donlan Piedmont Mrs. Breckinridge’s Brewery................... .......................................................................Page 20 Growing up and having fun in South Roanoke........................ ..................................... Page 21 by Dorathy Piedmont Peyton Terry, Roanoke’s first millionaire ...J...................................................................Page 29 by Betty Low Where the Toshes came from ................... ..................................................................... Page 35 by Clare W hite George Washington slept in Big Lick............................................................................ Page 39 by F. B. Kegley First President honored on 200th anniversary of his death.......................................... Page 41 by Scott Sarver Edgar A. Long building recalls Christiansburg Institute’s legacy...................................Page 43 by Caroline Bott Peggy Ballard Maupin, 10 2 ............................................................................................. Page 50 by Ben Beagle Sherwood Anderson rides through Southwest Virginia............................................... Page 53 Big Lick’s first post office............................................................. .................................. Page 56 How do our gardens grow?.................... ........................... ............................................ Page 57 by Alice Trout Hagan Ships & Shipmates sails o n ........................ .................................................................... Page 61 by Donlan Piedmont 50 Star Citizens............................. ..................................................... ........................... Page 63 This issue of the Journal was made possible by grants from: Mr. & Mrs. Granger Macfarlane ❖ Eastern Motor Inns Lanford Brothers •> Commonwealth o f Virginia George Kegley Editor of the Journal Christina Koomen Smith P roduction, E d ito rial A ssistan t T he Journal o f the History M useum &. Historical Society of W estern Virginia, formerly the Roanoke Valley Historical Society, Volume Fourteen, Num ber Two. Published by the M useum at P.O. Box 1904, Roanoke, Vir­ ginia, 24008, to chronicle the past and present of that part of the state west o f the Blue Ridge. T he price for additional single copies is $4.00 for members and $7.00 for non-m dling unsolicited materials but cannot be responsible for their loss. 1 �This rocking chair, like the kettle below, are on permanent loan from the estate of long­ time Museum & Society board member W. Darnall Vinyard. The chair belonged to Abraham and Mary Haddon Vinyard and probably dates to the early 19th century. The chair is composed of oak for hickory), maple and poplar. Both the finish and the rockers appear to be early, if not original. This copper kettle with iron fittings dates to the 18th century, and was used for making apple butter, as well as for other forms of cooking. It was most likely made in Pennsylvania and brought to the Roanoke Valley by the Vinyard family, who settled in what is now Vinton. It is believed to be the kettle identified in Vinyard’s 1798 estate inventory. It is now on view in the permanent exhibits gallery. 2 �J\Jote J ro m ^Lhe D irecto r T h e Museum and Society is pleased to present this, the 28th issue of the Journal, Volume Fourteen, Number Two. This is our second issue in an expanded format, allowing both for greater depth and more topics, with twice the amount of print space available. In the all too brief sixteen months since the last issue, Museum and Society volunteers and staff have busily provided thirteen lectures, four tours, five exhibits, nine displays, three special events, eleven newsletters, and five free children’s “Saturday hands-on workshops.” O ur highlights include organizational and programmatic growth coupled with improved collections services and several exciting new acquisitions. Organizational growth has included the Museum & Society’s merger with the former Museum of Theatre History and the resulting launch of a permanent Theatre History Gallery in June of 2000. Just last November, the Museum & Society announced, along with our “benevolent landlord,” the Western Virginia Foundation for Arts and Sciences, their acquisition of the former Norfolk & Western passenger station. The facility will once again serve as a gateway to our community, housing both an expanded Roanoke Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau as well as a significant “satellite” expansion for the Museum & Society. Programming highlights include the opening last summer of the largest revolving exhibit in the Museum and Society’s history, “Ships &. Shipmates,” complete with our special guest, former Secretary of the Navy, Senator John Warner. Other programming highlights include the recent publication of “Iron Horses in the Valley,” announcement of a Virginia Foundation for the Humanities grant to develop a historical resource guide for area counties, and outreach exhibits at Valley View and Tanglewood malls; which presented a slice of the Museum and Society to over 150,000 visitors. Collections, acquisitions and improvements include the purchase of a signed 1850 boot pistol by Fincastle gunsmith John Painter, installation of new state-of-the-art recording thermohygrometers in Col­ lections and Permanent Displays, purchase of a new copier for the Library and receipt on permanent loan of two objects, a chair and an apple butter kettle on a stand, with a history of descent in the Valley’s own Vinyard family. (See photos at left.) Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the past two years have brought increased financial stability to the Museum and Society. Membership has increased from 550 to 615. G rant receipts have doubled. Funding provided by the Commonwealth of Virginia has allowed the Museum and Society to reach out and aggressively market itself as never before. All the while our very modest endowment funds have increased from $20,435 to $29,872. None of the above would have been possible without the unflagging support of our active Board of Directors, members, volunteers, corporate and foundation supporters, local and state governmental sup­ port and our literally thousands of visitors, from schools to nursing homes and everything in between, who each m onth make this institution their encounter with regional history. Read and enjoy! D. Kent Chrisman Executive Director 3 �Vice P re sid e n tia l C a n d id a te h ad G arvins C o ve S u m m e r H om e By George Kegley 66 • • • [ A ] nation has lost a leader and a statesm an,” said a R oanoke W orld-News editorial on Aug. 21, 1917, i n a report on the funeral and burial o f form er U. S. Sen. Jo h n W orth K e m o f Indiana at his sum m er hom e, K em cliffe, in C arvins Cove. T he statesm an w ho tram p ed o v e r the hills around the cove also conferred w ith P resident W oodrow W ilson about W orld W ar I and rec e iv e d m ore th an 6.4 m illion votes in a losing race fo r vice p resid en t in N o vem ber 1908. K e m had b e e n the un su ccessfu l candidate fo r vice president, th e n a tio n ’s second h ighest office, less th an nine years before his death. In the 1908 election, th e D em o cratic tic k e t o f W illiam Jennings B ryan and John W. K e m lost to th e w inning R epublican slate o f W illiam H o w ard Taft a n d Jam es S. Sherm an. The p o p u lar vote w as m u ch closer th an th e totals from the E lectoral C ollege. Taft a n d S herm an w on 321 to 162 on th e elec­ toral count. H ow ever, the p o p u lar vote m argin w as m uch closer— Taft and S herm an had 7,679,006 p o p u lar vo tes to 6,409,106 for B ry an and K em . A fter losing for vice p resid en t, K e m w as elected to th e Sen­ ate and served from 1911 to 1917. I n a rap id rise to prom inence, w ith in tw o years after his electio n to the Senate, he w as nam ed chairm an o f th e controlling D em ocratic caucus, serving from 1913 to 1917, and as chairm an o f th e Senate C om m ittee on ¡Privileges an d E lections. In 47 years in p olitics, K e m lo st m ore elections th an he w on b u t he briefly h e ld influence in h ig h places in W ash­ ington. A lm ost forgotten today, Sen. K e m h a d several strong ties to th e R oanoke V alley an d V irginia. B o m in A lto, Ind. on D ec. 20, 1849, he died at 67 on A ug. 1 7 ,1 9 1 7 . H is great-great-grandfather A dam K e m cam e from G erm an y in the 1700s and settled near W inchester. T he fam ily left its n am e w ith K em sto w n in F rederick U.S. Senator John W. Kern on his way to the County, Va. Capitol. (Photo from T he Life o f John Jacob H arrison K em , fath e r o f Sen. K e m and a greatW o rth Kern, by Claude Bowers) grandson o f A d am K em , a cq u ired land in B o teto u rt C ounty and liv ed there b efore he m o v ed w est, becam e a p hysician and prac­ tic e d in Indiana an d Iowa. A fter the death o f his first w ife, Dr. Jacob K e m returned to C arvins C ove about --------K | George Kegley, a longtime resident of Roanoke, is a permanent director of the History Museum, and editor of the Journal since 1968. 4 �1870 and lived there and a t nearby D aleville u n til h is death in 1901. H e and his w ife w ere b u rie d in a fam ily cem etery in D alev ille and th e rem a in s even tu ally w e re m o v ed to M o unt U n io n C em etery at H aym akertow n in B otetourt County. Sen. K ern b uilt a large sum m er hom e, K em clifFe, on a b lu ff overlooking the ro ad in to the cove soon after he w as elected to the Senate. H e often retreated there w ith his fam ily and th ey en­ tertained prom inent guests from W ashing­ ton. A m ong the guests w as K e m ’s friend and fellow Indianan, Vice President Thom as M arshall and his w ife, w ho w ere royally en­ tertained at KemclifFe, at H ollins College and a m a jo r r e c e p tio n o n O rc h a rd H ill in R oanoke in 1914. M arshall w as vice p resi­ dent under President W oodrow W ilson from 1913 to 1921. W h en S enator K ern d ied three years later at A sheville, N .C ., w h ile resting from a strenuous Southern speaking trip, h e was buried at KemclifFe but the b o d y was m oved to Indianapolis in 1929. T his w as about the tim e w h en the C ity o f R oanoke w as b uying property in C arvins C ove before th e dam w as constructed an d the lake filled. A nother local tie cam e through his daughter, Julia, w ho m arried Dr. G eorge B. L a w so n o f R o a n o k e o n C h ristm as Day, 1913. She later said that w as the o nly day th e fam ily w as certain that h e r father w ould b e h o m e from th e Senate. T hro u g h h er father’s political connections, she knew five p resid en ts: G ro v er C lev elan d , B en jam in H arrison, W illiam H o w ard Taft, W oodrow W ilson and T heodore R oosevelt. S he had Imagine U.S. Vice President Thomas Isi&rshall, in full business dress, fo u r children, w as a M o th er o f th e Year, posing for a photograph from Tree Top House at a summer home in play ed a piano duet in the G overnor’s M an­ Carvins Cove about 1914! Marshall fright, in tree) was visiting his sion in R ichm ond w hen she w as alm ost 90 friend, Sen. John Kern (center) at his home, Kerncliffe. They appar­ and w as president o f the T hursday M orning ently brought their wives up for the view. (Photo courtesy of Alice Hagan) M usic Club. The Law sons h a d four children b u t none are living today. G eorge Jr. lived in Salem ; K atherine w as a w n ter/photograp h e r in Paris and C alifornia; Judy liv ed in N o rfo lk an d John, a p ilo t, d ied in W orld W ar n . T he W orld-News editorial in 1917 h a d h ig h praise fo r th e form er senator: “O ne for w h o m over six m illion o f his fellow m en h a d c ast th eir vo te fo r the second h ighest office in th eir po w e r to bestow ; w h o m his o w n state h a d ever d elig h ted to honor; w ho h a d fo r fo u r years b e e n the leader o f his, the dom inant p arty in th e Senate; w ho h a d b e e n th ro u g h a great w orld crisis (W orld W ar I); 5 �w ho h a d been th e intim ate friend a n d tru sted counselor o f the president; w ho h ad m easured up to th e full status o f a m an u n d e r every test w hich h ig h office and trying tim es could apply to him , w as laid to rest in the presence o f a few friends and n eighbors a n d w ith a burial service o f a sw eet a n d beautiful sim plicity appro­ p riate to the strength and gentleness o f his exalted character.” A bout 200 p eo p le attended th e funeral. Dr. G eorge B rax to n Taylor, m in ister at E n o n B aptist C hurch, H ollins, conducted the funeral at the sum m er hom e. L ucian H. C ocke, a N o rfo lk and W estern R ailw ay law yer and a R oanoke friend, spoke o f the se n ato r’s life and service, several H ollin s C ollege students sang and Joseph A. Turner, a H ollins official, closed th e service w ith a prayer. K e m died o f urem ic p o iso n in g at A sheville, N .C . H e had traveled to A sheville a w eek earlier to recuperate after a speaking to u r in the South u n d e r the a u sp ic e s o f th e N a tio n a l L in c o ln C h a u ta u q u a sy s­ tem . H e spoke in G eorgia, Alabama, M ississippi, Loui­ siana, A rkansas an d K en ­ tucky. His last public speech w as at C arrollton, Ky. on June 23. B efore starting the tour, K e m had a conference w ith P re sid e n t W o o d ro w W ilson and b rought a m es­ sage from the P resident to the people urging th em to be steadfast in the w a r situ­ ation, according to The In ­ dianapolis News. The W orldN ew s e d it o r ia l c lo s e d K e m ’s career: “It w a s at The Kern family stands outside their rambling Kerncliffe, a woodland house of many sunset, above the w aters o f porches. (Photo courtesy of Alice Hagan) C arvins Creek, on one o f the w estern foothills o f Tinker M ountain that he w as buried. T here his father and grandfather h ad lived; there he h im se lf h ad spent m any o f the y ears o f his early youth; there he h ad ho p ed to find an age o f rest from his long life o f generous and untirin g service to his country, and th ere he sleeps today.” C laude B ow ers, fo rm er secretary for K e m and later editor o f the Ft. W ayne, Ind. Joum al-G azeteer and th e author o f a 4 7 5-page bio g rap h y o f the senator, w rote, “ Senator K e m sacrificed his life in the service o f his country, and w hen th e histo ry o f P resident W ilson’s adm inistration is w ritten and the in n er facts are disclo sed the greatness o f th e m an w ill b e e sta b lish e d .. .N o m an ever served Indiana in the Senate m ore conscientiously, w ith greater co n stan cy o r w ith p u rer purposes.” In his biography, B ow ers d escrib ed h o w A ram inta K em , w ife o f the senator, designed Kem clifFe on a breezy, w ooded knoll betw een tw o m o u n tain ranges. H e quotes an article fro m The L adies H om e Journal and The Indianapolis News, telling o f a living room 40 feet long, a dining room w ith a big fireplace, a sitting room fo r the tw o K e m sons, Sunset porch, “w here w e eat supper a n d w atch the sun go' dow n beh in d the 6 �m ountains, fo u r sleeping p orches (and) dozens o f little sanctuaries w here one m ay w rite o r read in p leasan t o r in tem pestuous w eather.” T he big, ram bling house h ad a lodge and Tree Top H ouse in an oak tree, “a charm ing little house w ith a lookout to w er in th e treetop.” Ju liet V. R oss, th e In d ian a w riter w ho told o f th e sum m er house, said A ram inta K e m “h as fo r neighbors th e cosm opolitan folks o f R oanoke, the w onderful and noble people fro m the nearb y college at H ollins an d th e plain, sturdy farm ers o f the cove.” T he peo p le w ho lived in the cove, w ho h a d to m ove out w hen th e p resen t lake filled, “th eir quaint hom esteads cling to the feet o f the m o u ntain,” R oss w rote. In her article w ritten about 85 years ago, she said, “R oanoke is th e m ost progressive city in V irginia— a b u stling m o d em city, w ith no d istinct flav o r o f the old regim e in its business life. A ll sorts o f progressive peo p le are there.” W h e n th e senator escaped from his b u sy governm ental tasks, he w as rev iv ed as he rode th e fo u r m iles from H ollins, crossing th e foot o f Tinker M ountain, to K em cliffe, according to B o w ers’ biography. H e cam e h e re “fo r rest a n d in ­ s p ira tio n d u rin g th e lo n g dreary grin d o f his senatorial career.” K e m spent his tim e r e s t in g o n th e s le e p i n g porches, read in g or tra m p ­ ing the hills, w earing the garb o f a m o u n tain clim ber and carrying a heavy cane as prot e c t io n a g a in s t s n a k e s . S om etim es he carried an ax and a hatchet to help in clear­ ing land. T h e B ow ers b io g ra ­ p h y sa id K e m “lo v ed th is h o m e in th e B lu e R id g e , w here he could relax, ram ble at w ill o v e r the hills, and sit in the evenings h olding the A nattily dressed party entertained Vice President and Mrs. Thomas Marshall at Cockespur, hands o f h is b o y s.” the Lucian Cocke home on Orchard Hill in Roanoke on May 4, 1914. They were (from Ju st three y ears b e ­ left, seated): M attie Cocke, Lois Marshall, Araminta Kern and C. Francis Cocke. (Stand­ fore his death, the K erns and ing, right to left): Sarah Johnson Cocke, Vice President Marshall, Lucian Cocke, Sr., their guests, V ice P resident Francis Mingea, Harry St. George Tucker, Mary Stuart Cocke Goodwin and Col. Alfred B. and M rs. T hom as M arshall Williams. Sen. John Kern, host for the Marshalls, had been called to Washington on w e re c e n tr a l fig u re s in a business. (Photo courtesy of Alice Hagan) m om entous social w eekend at K em cliffe and in R oanoke. T he party enjoyed M ay D ay festivities at H ollins C ollege on S aturday and the follow ing day, guests enjoyed “ a genuine, old-fashioned V irginia dinner” at K em cliffe, M any people called in the afternoon to m ee t the M arshalls, the W orld-News reported: “M u ch m errim en t w as cau sed during th e afternoon b y the arrival o f a m o u n tain couple, asking to see these distin g u ish ed guests, w ho p roved to b e M rs. L ucian C ocke an d M r. Joseph T urner o f H ollins, w hose clev er disguises m ystified the guests for a short tim e.” O n M onday, the Vice P resident and his w ife, accom panied b y A ram inta K em , “m otored to R oanoke” 7 �to C ockespur, th e O rchard H ill hom e o f the L ucian Cockes, fo r a reception fo r nearly 1,000 guests, o n “one o f th e m o st notable days in th e social history o f the city.” Sen. K e rn w as called aw ay from th e festivities to W ashington b y urgent business. T he new spaper account o f the 1914 reception said the scene w as “one o f m ark ed brilliancy and anim ation. W ith the handsom e gow ned w o m en and th eir escorts, beautiful surround­ ings a n d m usic, it is an event that w ill long b e rem em bered.” D uring “the serving o f the delicious m enu, an im ated conversation w as enjoyed.” T he reception ended a series o f “delightful entertainm ents” in honor o f the M arshalls, w ho later left on the M em phis Special fo r W ashington. A n o th er rep o rt in H elen P rillam a n ’s P laces N ear the M ountains said Vice P resident M arshall spoke to the M e n ’s B ible C lass a t th e C ove Alum B aptist C hurch d u ring a visit to K em cliffe. The Indianapolis N ew s h a d this evaluation o f K ern in an editorial on A ug. 1 8 ,1 9 1 7 : “ .. .he w as w idely know n as a m an o f friendly and kindly nature. T h ough a strong partisan, he h a d m an y adm ir­ ers am ong R epublicans. F o r m an y years, Mr. K e rn had been p rom inent in politics. Tw ice his p a rty ’s candidate fo r G overnor under conditions th at m ade election im ­ possible, and once its candidate for Vice President w hen success w as out o f the question. Mr. K ern fought three losing battles in such a w ay as g reatly to strengthen his h old on th e people. A s senator, he h a d th e confidence and respect o f his colleagues w ho gladly accepted him as m ajority lead er o f the Senate. P resident W ilson had no m ore steadfast supporter in th at body.” K e rn attended the norm al school at K okom o, Ind., tau g h t school and graduated from th e law depart­ m en t o f th e U niversity o f M ichigan in 1869. H e p rac­ ticed law in K okom o, w as an unsuccessful candidate for the state H ouse o f R epresentatives, his first elec­ Sen. Kern with his first grandchild, George B. Lawson Jr., tio n cam paign, in 1870. H e served as K okom o city at­ and daughter, Julia Kern Lawson. (Photo from The Life torney, rep o rter o f the Indiana S uprem e C ourt, as a of John W o rth Kern, by Claude Bowers) m em ber o f th e State Senate, special assistant U .S . dis­ trict attorney and Indianapolis city solicitor. H e lost tw o elections fo r governor before he ran on the B ryan tick et fo r V ice President. The N ew York Times reported th at in 1853 the K e m fam ily “m oved to a farm in Io w a and there for ten y ears he led the life o f a pioneer, fo r during that tim e, he n e v e r saw a railroad train .” T h e senator cam e to b e k n o w n as “U ncle John K e m ” and everybody w ho knew h im h a d a kind w ord fo r him , according to The Indianapolis News. W hen th e Senate h eard o f his death on Saturday, A ug. 1 8 ,1 9 1 7 , Sen. H arry S. N ew , th e R epublican w ho defeated K em , m ade a m otion, adopted b y the Senate, calling fo r recess until M onday. Jo h n W. K e m Jr., one o f th e sen ato r’s tw o sons, p lac e d a m arker at his fa th e r’s grave in C arvins C ove, bearin g this inscription: “H ere lies in Peace, the body o f Jo h n W orth K em ; R esting a fter the L abors o f a L ife L ived fo r the W elfare o f the P eople.” 8 �A m ong the tributes after Sen. K e rn ’s death w as th is com m ent b y W illiam B. W ilson, secretary o f labor under P resid en t W oodrow W ilson, in th e C laude B ow ers biography: “H e belonged to a race o f statesm en w hose type an d exam ple w as A braham L incoln. T hese unite sim plicity and sincerity w ith ability and pow er. They are ru g g ed and strong, like the hills, genial a n d fruitful like the prairies, and like all these qualities o f nature, honest. “T hroughout a long and distinguished pu b lic career w h ich attained to em inence in the h istory o f his country, S enator K e m n ev er w av ered fro m his early ideals. L ike all constructive m en, he endeavored to adapt th em to th e necessities and requirem ents o f a changing age, b u t he m aintained them in th eir integrity to the last. T hey becam e p a rt o f the strong structure o f b e tte r things— b e tte r because John W orth K e m lived.” S ou rces The L ife o f John Worth K em , C laude G. B ow ers. T h e H ollenbeck Press, Indianapolis, Ind., 1918 B iographical D irectory o f the U nited States Congress P laces N ear the M ountains, H elen R. Prillam an. P riv ately published. R oanoke, Va., 1985 The N ew York Times, A ug. 18, 1917 The Indianapolis News, A ug. 18, 1917 The R oanoke World-News, A ug. 21, 1917 ❖ ❖ ❖ G rossing th e JVlountain in Congjohns D u r i n g the C iv il W ar, C om pany B o f the 28 th R egim ent w as cam ped at H anging R o ck and one Jo h n M ay b erry A b b o tt w as itching to get h o m e to C raigs Greek. H is buddies h id his clothes because th ey w ere a fra id he w ould b e absent w ithout leave. T hat d id n ’t stop Jo h n M ayberry. H e cam e over the m ountain in his longjohns and w as b a c k in cam p before ro ll call th e next m orning. -H a rd Times, a C raig C ou n ty h isto ry b y Jane Johnston a n d B renda W illiam s 9 �tintina C om er, J i r s t g r a d u a te o f VZoanoke C ity High School By David W. C. Bearr M o r e th an a decade before V irginia established a public high school system , at a tim e w hen m any fam ilies w ho desired advanced education for th eir children still preferred to patronize private academ ies, the R oanoke C ity B o ard o f E ducation organized in 1891 a high school departm ent fo r th e “thorough study o f h ig h er m athem atics, L atin, F ren ch and G erm an.” T hree years later, Emma C arr C om er received the first diplom a aw arded b y R oanoke C ity H igh S chool.1 T he M ay 25, 1894 com m encem ent w as a trium ph for b o th the school system and the scholar. In slightly m ore than a decade, th e railroad h a d transform ed tin y B ig Lick, Virginia into w h at w as fast becom ­ ing the m agic city o f R oanoke. This n e w grow th and prosperity p rom pted city officials to expand the school system , but despite adequate public and financial support at the start, it w as the p erseverance o f faculty and students th at m ade th e fledgling high school a success. F o r E m m a Com er, w h o spent h er childhood in the H ollins neighborhood, attendance at a public high school w as a decision borne o u t o f necessity, n o t preference. H er parents took for granted that th ey w ould provide university educations fo r th eir sons and study at a private w o m an ’s college fo r th eir daughters. H ow ever, w hen C avalry o fficer F rancis C om er returned hom e to C am pbell C ounty from R ichm ond’s C him borazo H ospital early in 1865, th e soon-to-be C onfederate veteran faced chronic h ealth problem s and financial reversals as w ar-tom V irginia reconstructed itself. R egardless o f the circum stances, Francis and his wife, the form er E llen R ebecca B ishop, rem ained determ ined that their children w ould be form ally schooled, even i f it m eant relocating th e fam ily to a n eighborhood o f “greater educational advantages.”^ F o u r m onths after A ppom attox, Francis and E llen C om er and h er brother, the R everend M ilton L. B ishop, started a fam ily school at his hom e, M ount H erm on, n e a r Lynch Station. T here, the oldest four C om er children com pleted several years o f coursew ork before th eir uncle returned to th e full-tim e p ulpit and disbanded the school. C harles C o m er eventually m oved w ith the B ishop fam ily and graduated high school from a P alm yra academ y, and th en enrolled a t the U niversity o f V irginia.3 A B ishop aunt played a key ro le in the plan th a t allo w ed her nieces from the M t. H erm on school to finish th eir studies. India B ishop R ice (w idow o f Dr. John H olt R ice o f Salem ) reasoned that i f h e r sister and brother-inlaw lived near a school th a t adm itted w om en, all o f th eir daughters could be educated fo r tu ition alone w ithout th e added in stitutional expense o f room and board. In 1870 India Bishop convinced th e C om ers to m ove to the R oanoke Valley, and after a b rie f stay in th e city, the fam ily relocated to B otetourt Springs, to David. W.C. Bearr wrote two histories of Blackstone College, including Scholars for Blackstone, wrote and edited Historic Fluvanna in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and he is the author of more than a dozen articles and monographs on Virginia history. He works in student services with Baltimore County Public Schools in Maryland and is an adjunct professor in the graduate department at Western Maryland College. He found original source material on Roanoke City High School among family papers and books given to him by his cousin, the late (Miss) Emma C. Tinsley. io �First graduates o f Roanoke High School in the 1894 class were (front row, from left) Nora Hartwell, Em m a Comer, (middle row, from left) Alto Funkhouser, M aude Knepp, Annie Stevens, Lizzie Featherston; (back row, from left) Dora Trent, Cora Board, teacher, Prof. M auzy and Miss Wyant, teacher. (Photo from History M useum of Western Virginia) a house in sight o f H ollins Institute. T he arrangem ent succeeded for three daughters - L elia, A n n a and Sym anthia - w ho “w alk ed dow n the lane from their new hom e to th e college.” B efore E m m a (b o m in 1873 at the house n e a r H ollins) and tw o other sisters w ere ready to follow in their siblings’ footsteps, bo th parents h ad died, and in 1888 th e y o u n g er children w ere scattered am ong various relatives across V irginia.4 India R ice w as in declining health, b u t the ties o f kinship rem ained strong and she w elcom ed E m m a into h er hom e, lo cated in R oanoke on F o u rth A venue, n e a r the n ew brick F irst W ard S chool on C om m erce Street. Em m a still dream ed o f attending h e r sisters’ alm a m ater, b u t in 1888 she becam e th e first m em b er o f h er fam ily to enroll in a public school w hen she registered at the C om m erce S treet school. It w as a difficult tim e for the 15-year-old, still in g rie f over the deaths o f h e r parents and her sister, M ollie. E m m a w rote to one o f h er siblings: “I am truly orphaned apart from all o f you.” In less than tw o years, she becam e “parentless” again w ith the d eath o f “A u n t India,” a n d already E m m a show ed signs o f m elancholia, a type o f severe depression she suffered perio d ically th e rest o f h er life. A n n a C o m er w eath ered the loss o f so m any loved ones b e tte r than E m m a did, a n d she assum ed responsibility fo r h e r y o u n g est sister. T he tw o w om en and th eir first cousin, A lonzo R ice ( o f C. O ’L eary & Co., a real estate firm ), established a hom e together on C hurch A venue - strategically lo ca ted fo r E m m a to begin h ig h school in th e fall. A fte r A nna m arried C.J. C o o k in 1892, E m m a liv ed w ith th e couple in V inton, �and, fortunately, co u n ty residency did not prevent h e r continued enrollm ent at the city high school.6 R oanoke C ity H igh School spent its first session (1891-1892) in the crow ded C om m erce Street School bu ild in g w h ere one o f te n room s w as set aside for advanced instruction. John R M auzy w as the teaching principal, a ssisted b y another form er city elem entary school principal, C ora M . B oard. T hat the 23m em b er first class consisted o f “ all girls” w as not an extraordinary 19th century endorsem ent o f education for w om en, b u t sim ply the preference so m any local m ales o f high school age show ed fo r w ork at the railro ad shops v ersus school attendance.7 A cco rd in g to the high school report card, the academ ic y e a r consisted o f 175 days, and student perform ance in e a ch subject w as graded from five to ten w ith the follow ing notations: “ 10, E xcellent; 9, Very G ood; 8, G ood; 5, Indifferent,” and a lesser perform ance earned a zero fo r failure. Student deportm ent was evaluated on the sam e scale. The school b oard im plem ented the three-year h ig h school cur­ riculum one year a t a tim e, w ith the first graduation scheduled for 1894. Enrollm ent nearly doubled the first year, and a t the start o f the second session (1982-1893), Z ada K. W yant jo in e d the fac­ mm ulty to teach English. “i l l m >; A fire th e su m m e r o f ' -*■ > ELpy' .ShB!g&TS-XUR$&j:! ■*c.. t . ■•1 1894 destroyed th e records o f ifik •+r ______ ££{&KOi£fc :iiSlL. S .*»* infernos.-*:#v&ik. • ^ ' _ ■■■ - the landm ark school, but courses identified on E m m a C o m er’s di­ of P of idiitate: lie plo m a and a sh e lf full o f text­ 7 u6fie Se/joote,. and (Je name of,ll)ejfyuwipaC of '«¿fceijftlo ;ii8jc!i6ii, ifjie ^ tic u i of tfe^-1.1 1804 books th at survived h er confirm •i wmmm I S W&m m 1 that th e three-year high school c u rric u lu m p r o p o s e d b y th e e s c h o o l tru s te e s w a s o ffe re d . Each year students took required Em m a Carr Comer’s graduation diploma from Roanoke High School, May 25, 1894. E n g lis h c o u rse s in g ram m ar, (Photo courtesy o f David Bearr) com position, rhetoric and litera­ ture. T hree years o f h istory and m athem atics w ere m andated. H istory and g overnm ent course titles covered the w orld, the natio n a n d the C om m onw ealth o f Virginia. O fferings in m athem atics ranged from b asic arithm etic to trigonom etry, and E m m a started w ith second-year algebra and also com pleted a full y e a r each o f geom etry and trigonom etry. She to o k F rench ev ery session, finished tw o years o f both L atin and science (astronom y and chem istry), and had a t least one course in natural philosophy (m ental philosophy on rep o rt card). She did not tak e botany or G erm an, b u t b y a lm o st any m easure, she undertook a rigorous academ ic load.^ E m m a scribbled in the m argins and open spaces o f h e r textbooks. This personal annotation appears accurate, fo r th e g rades she listed for H igh E nglish corresponded to th e 9.2 average recorded on h e r report card, a n d the class ro ste r she com piled m atched th e graduation register. In h e r copy o f W hitney’s French G ram m ar, she p ro claim ed the rom ance language “m y favorite subject,” but h er averages in F ren ch seldom equaled th e n ear-p erfect 9.9s earned in m athem atics (and deportm ent). The principal taught E m m a geom ­ etry, a n d th e “seven y o u n g ladies” in his class addressed th eir teach er as “P rofessor M auzy.” F.mma h ad the - 12 �prerequisite tw o years o f algebra, b u t she w rote in h e r g e o m etry text, “Oh! T he long hours o f study over this.” F orm ulas an d proofs copied into h e r copy o f S elect O rations o f Cicero suggest a preoccupation w ith geom etry even w h ile in L atin class.^ R oanoke H ig h School students studied Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare and D ryden, and they m em o­ rized countless lines from the poetry o f W ordsw orth, B yron, K eats and Shelley. E m m a w as so tak en w ith the w orks o f these p o ets that she fram ed sketches o f th em to d isp lay in h e r hom e. She to o k copious notes on M ilto n ’s “ E le g y W ritte n in a C o u n try C hurchyard” and C oleridge’s “The A ncient M ariner.” T he com panion to h er gram m ar text w as a w ell-w o rn copy o f A H andbook o f Punctuation b y C harles Turner. T he au ­ thor w as a H ollins professor, and the b o o k w as used originally b y one o f her sisters w ho attended the college. “A m o st in terestin g subject” w as E m m a ’s e d ito ria l o n astronom y, b u t she o m itted a n y c o m m e n t on chem istry, the course in w hich she received an 8.9 aver­ age. It w as th e only tim e in h er high school career w hen she earned less than a nine (Very G ood). B ible w as n o t yet p art o f the cur­ riculum , bu t E m m a kept am ong h er school­ books tea c h e r ed itio n s o f th e Illustrative N otes fo r Sunday School L essons. P erhaps she taught in the Sunday school at h er M eth­ odist church, G reene M em orial, then located on the southw est co m er o f C am pbell A v­ enue and R oanoke (now T hird) Street. O r possibly she assisted one o f h er high school teachers, C ora B oard, w ho also taught in the church school. A city school trustee and p r o m in e n t R o a n o k e r , T ip to n T in s le y Emma Carr Comer Tinsley, 1894 graduate o f Roanoke High School, F ishbum e, w as S unday school superinten­ and her daughter, Em m a Comer Tinsley, 1919 graduate of the school. dent at G reene M em orial. H e and his w ife, (Photo courtesy of David Bean) the form er C allie G reer, took a special in­ terest in E m m a, a n d in 1892 “U ncle Tip” introduced h er to his younger relative and business associate, C harles L ippitt Tinsley. T here w ere no school dances o r sporting events fo r the couple to attend, b u t th ey “k e p t com pany” at church functions. A lso, “L ipp” T insley arranged frequent outings, usually in th e spring, to M aury B ros. Portraits, and about a dozen different studio pictu res show E m m a a n d h e r adm iring b e a u w ith as m any as four o f h er girlfriends as chaperones. C.L. T insley cam e to R oanoke in 1882 and w as a p artn er and vice p resid en t o f R .H . F ishbum e & Co., L im ited, “M anufacturers o f F ine V irginia S m oking T obacco.” 1® A bo o k ad d ed to h er sh e lf years later, B ig D an, The S tory o f A C olorful R ailroader, reveals that there w as a m ale presence in the first h ig h school class. D an C unningh am returned to the city w ith his fam ily 13 �in 1891 after several years in Texas, a n d h e created his ow n w ork-study arrangem ent: during th e school day h e enjoyed L atin a n d history, “b u t he dislik ed m athem atics,” and after school he w orked at th e N orfolk and W estern shops. E m m a rem em bered th e late en tran t in h er class as outgoing, and he rem em bered h e r as “one o f the sw eetest [and] m ost in tellig en t p u p ils in the old C om m erce Street H igh School.” T he new com er found life at the R oanoke school “n o t as colorful as schooling in Texas [where] cow boys cam e to classes in th eir chops and spurs” to im press an attractive young teacher, but he did find his niche w ith the student thespians and lan d ed the role o f Jam es F itz Jam es in the school production o f Scott’s L ady o f the Lake. B efore m oving to Texas, D an attended elem entary school in the sam e building now housing the high school, and he credited his speaking skills to the req u ired V isitors’ D ay recitations he gave w hile in the low er grades. A t the conclusion o f the high school’s first session, D an w orked full-tim e in the shop, but h e h a d c o m p le te d e n o u g h courses (here and in Texas) to en ter the V irginia A gricultural a n d M e c h a n ic a l C o lle g e a t B lacksburg (V irginia T ech).11 T h e C la s s o f 1894 dw indled to ju s t eight m em bers at the beginning o f the third and final session (1893-1894). D e­ spite the dram atic drop in enroll­ m ent, the com bined h ig h school registration fo r th e three classes could not be accom m odated at th e C om m erce S treet facility, and the old carriage factory at the com er o f C hurch Avenue and H enry Street (now F irst Street) Commerce Street School. (Photo from History M useum of Western Virginia) w as rented and “fitted up” for th e h ig h sch o o l. T h e alread y sm all senior class w as reduced furth er w hen illness forced L izzie F eatherston to w ithdraw , an d graduation fo r the rem aining scholars w as jeo p a rd iz e d w h e n “for lack o f funds” th e public schools closed in M arch. R oanoke w as n o t im m une to th e Panic o f 1893 th a t still gripped the nation, and according to Jam es B otts, a city school teacher, this econom ic d ow nturn w as the start o f fiscal problem s fo r the school system that persisted into th e n e x t century and caused b anks routinely to discount faculty pay ch eck s.12 W ith th e school officially shut dow n, h o w did the C lass o f 1894 graduate? Emma C o m er claim ed th at “n o t a day w as lo st fo r our teachers w ere a rem arkable group o f pedagogues w ho encouraged their girls to stay the course, a n d w ithout salary th e y (the teachers) continued senior class lectures to ensure our tim ely graduation.” In M ay, 1894, seven graduates receiv ed their diplom as in alphabetical order. F o llow ing Em m a C om er, th ey w ere Sadie Ferguson, A lto F unkhouser, w ho later taught m athem atics and English a t the high school, N o ra H artw ell, M aude K nepp, A nnie Stevens (at 16 the y oungest and the p rettiest according to E m m a), and D o ra Trent, w ho w en t o n to study at P eabody C onservatory in B altim ore an d later replaced M iss W yant at th e hig h sch o o l.13 Soon a fter graduation, E m m a C o m er tau g h t in a fam ily school at Staunton, the city w here she 14 �m arried L ip p Tinsley on Septem ber 2 9 ,1 8 9 6 . T he couple retu rn ed to R oan o k e an d set up housekeeping on A lbem arle A venue, and on N ovem ber 13, 1897, th eir d au g h ter (w hom th e fath er n am ed E m m a C om er Tinsley”) w as bom . In 1904 the Tinsleys occupied th eir n ew h o m e in R o a n o k e ’s expanding W est E n d on the northw est c o m e r o f 13th Street and C am pbell A venue, opposite the future site o f W est E n d M ethodist C hurch w here the fam ily w ere charter m em bers. F o r over 30 years, C.L. T insley w as president and principal ow ner o f Tinsley C onstruction C om pany (general contractors); the v ice p resid en t w as h is nephew , W alter Tinsley, an d the secretary-treasurer w as E.C . T insley — its identification dep en d en t u p o n w h ich “E m m a C om er T insley” (w ife or daughter) w as available.14 W hatever m isgivings the senior E m m a Tinsley h ad h e ld about attending a public school, she cam e to appreciate h e r place in history. A t an alum ni banquet h e ld at H o tel R oanoke in 1919, m ore th an 250 guests heard th e first R oanoke C ity H igh School graduate sing the p raises o f th e teach ers w ho 26 years earlier h ad taught w ithout com pensation to give h e r and h er classm ates an education. A lto Funkhouser, an o th er m em ­ b er o f th e first class and n o w a faculty m em ber at the school, also attended th e dinner, an d that evening she and F.mma publicly thanked yet another w om an present: C ora B oard, in h e r 26th y e a r as an adm inistrator and teacher at R oanoke C ity H igh School. A nd, perhaps that evening the form er E m m a C om er b eliev ed th a t events h ad com e full circle. T he R oanoke T im es soon reported w hat the banquet crow d already knew: th e ju n io r E m m a C om er T insley w as valedictorian o f the C lass o f 1919 and “b y virtue o f achieving the h ighest ho n o rs [intended] to accept the H ollins scholarship.” 15 End JVotes 1. Barnes, Richard P., A History ofRoanoke, pp. 232-233; “Evolution o f High School,” Acorns o f Roanoke 191.9, p. 11. Some sources cite June 1,1894 as date of the first graduation, but Emma Comer s diploma is dated M ay 25,1894. 2. “Francis Comer,” Civil War Records at Library o f Virginia, Vol. 8, p. 197; Lafferty, Rev. John J. “Rev. Charles F. Comer,” Sketches o f the Virginia Conference (1890), p. 198. Comer family Bible recorded nine children: Charles Francis (1853-1921), Lelia Ellen (1856-1933), Anna Ellis (1858-1926), Symanthia Beard (1861-1927), Mollie or Mary Fletcher (1864-1882), Loulie Belle-Roberta (18671940), John Bishop (1870-1933), Emma Carr (1873-1953), and James William (1875-1957). 3. Lafferty, Rev. John J. “Rev. Milton Lafayette Bishop.” Sketches, 1880, pp. 56-57. M ilton Bishop, alumnus o f Emory and Henry and Randolph-Macon colleges, served the Fincastle Methodist Circuit in 1859. The junior Emma Tinsley’s aunts told her that Miss Ada Armstead, descendant o f Edward Winston Henry (Patrick’s son) ran the Mount Hermon school. From the 1890 edition of Sketches-. Charles graduated from the University o f Virginia in 1876, and after graduation from Vanderbilt University in 1882, he joined the clergy ranks o f the Virginia Conference o f the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 4. Student records for Charles Comer at the University o f Virginia reveal domicile of Francis Comer family, Alumnae Directory o f Hollins College, p. 20: lists Lelia, Anna and Symanthia Comer. From Comer Family Bible: Mollie or Mary Fletcher (known as Fettie) died in 1882, Ellen in 1885, and Francis in 1888. From F.mma Tinsley’s notes in 1966: Loulie attended Wilson Collegiate Institute in North Carolina; she married J.O. Otey, Sr. o f Charles City County and after his death returned to Roanoke and resided with the Tinsleys. Her name appears in the published histories of both Greene Memorial and West End M ethodist churches. Will attended and then taught at Roanoke Business College and was a well-known city councilman and president o f Hix-Palmer, John sought his fortune with the railroad and lived at Vinton. 5. ND letter from F.mma Comer to a sibling ca. 1889; death record from family Bible; 1951 medical “Abstract” identified manic depressive history. 15 �B'W°a”°^e B H ^>irectory’ l**9 1 B U 1892 editions, list the relatives boarding together; marriage record from family 7. Barnes’s history and the 1919 yearbook provide information about the new school; “School System Had Early Start,” The Roanoke Times, June 9, 1957, p. 26: newspaper’s Diamond Jubilee coverage o f the first city public schools. 8. From 1919 yearbook: history includes faculty additions and changes, and different facilities used over the years. 9. In addition to Emma, the students were Nora Hartwell, Alto Funkhouser, Dora Trent, Annie Stevens, Maude Knepp and Lizzie Featherston. 10. Rewis, Millard, Jr. “Tipton Tinsley Fishbume,” H is New Creation, pp. 47-50; Tipton was an owner and head of the tobacco firm until 1892 when he sold out to his brother, Reuben H., T. J. Phelps and C.L. Tinsley; history of Greene Memorial Church mentions Miss Board on page 64. Acorns o f Roanoke 1919, p. 12. This year partially through Miss Board “a course in Bible Study was put into the regular curriculum.” 11. Cunningham, Frank. Big Dan, The Story o f a Colorful Railroader, pp. 91, 94-95, 105-106. D an’s roommate at Blacksburg was another Roanoke student, J.I. Palmer. “Big Dan” visited Emma in Roanoke in 1947 and autographed his biography. 12. Barnes discussed closed schoolhouses on p. 275 in his book. From the 1919 annual, p. 11: “The carriage factory building burned down on the eve o f the 1894-1895 session,” and the Smith Building, on the comer of Salem Avenue and Roanoke Street, was used through May 1898. Next the high school went back to its starting point, the Commerce Street School. In 1898, the first building specifically built for the high school was erected at Roanoke Street and Church Avenue. This building was replaced by Jefferson High School in 1924. Miss Botts quoted in 1957 Diamond Jubilee newspaper article. 13. “Roanoke HighAlumm BanquetABig Success,” ND. Mrs. Tinsley spoke extemporaneously to the 250 graduates and Class of 1919 at Hotel Roanoke. Senior class picture identified by Mrs. Tinsley; Dora Trent’s joining faculty mentioned in 1919 yearbook (p. 11). 14. C.L. Tinsley was a prominent citizen: a steward first at Greene Memorial and then West End, a 50-year veteran o f the city s Osceola Lodge o f the Pythians, and during the Golden Jubilee celebration in 1934 (commemorating the first city charter) he was recognized as one of the “Pioneers” o f the city. 15. “Roanoke High Alumni Banquet A Big Success,” Roanoke Times, nd; “City High School Commencement Exer­ cises Held,” Roanoke Times, M ay 30,1919, p. 2; “Faculty,” Acorns o f Roanoke 1919, published by the Senior Class o f Roanoke High School, p. 14; Notes by (Miss) Emma C. Tinsley, 1966. According to Miss Tinsley, her mother was undecided about speaking to the group (as requested by the banquet committee), but at the dinner she stood up at her table and captivated the audience with her story o f the first graduation. Miss Tinsley attended Hollins two years and earned a biology degree from the University o f Virginia. After teaching at St. Anne’s School in Charlottesville, she taught during the 1940s at Lee Junior High School and then at Jefferson High School, descendent to the 1894 high school. (Between 1917 and 1929, Mrs. Tinsley congratulated nine nieces and nephews who also graduated from her alma mater: Gladys Cook, Allen Otey, and seven Comers: Edward, Elizabeth, Francis, Percy, Virginia Rebecca and Walton.) P rim a ry S o u rces Comer Family Papers Anna Ellis Comer - Mrs. C.J. Cook (1859-1926) Diplomas: Hollins Institute Charles Francis Comer (1853-1921) Diplomas: M ountain View School (Palmyra, Virginia), University o f Virginia, Vanderbilt University Letter, Charles to Loulie Comer, ca. Summer, 1888 Francis Comer (1825-1888) and Ellen Bishop Comer (1835-1885) 16 �Civil War record (copy fom Library o f Virginia file) Family Bible Emma Carr Comer - Mrs. C.L. Tinsley (1873-1953) Abstract o f medical record, 1951 Ca. 1889 letter to unnamed sibling; notes transcribed by daughter in 1947 Roanoke City High School 1892 report card 1894 senior class photograph with identifications 1894 diploma Schoolbooks, 1891-1894 F.mma Comer Tinsley (1897-1981) “The Golden Jubilee Banquet,” 1934 Letter, F.mma to Gladys Cook Williams, August 2,1957; (notes) to author, January 10, 1966 Newspaper clippings from The Roanoke Times and Roanoke World News Roanoke High School: 1919 yearbook, graduation banquet program, commencement invitation and program, valedictory speech Gladys Cook Williams (1900- ) Interview with author, Friendship Manor, August 16,1992 P r in te d S o u rces Alumnae Directory o f Hollins College, 1922. Barnes, Raymond R A History o f Roanoke. Radford, Virginia: Commonwealth Press, Inc., 1968. Cunningham, Frank. Big Dan, The Story o f a Colorful Railroader. Salt Lake City: The Deseret Press, 1946. Hesser, James M. A History o f West End M ethodist Church 1908-1958. Roanoke: West End Methodist Church, 1958. “James William Comer,” History o f the Shenandoah Valley, Vol. Ill, pp. 262-264. Kesler, Claudine (editor). Acorns o f Roanoke. Roanoke: Senior Class Roanoke High School, 1919. Lafferty, Rev. John J. Sketches o f the Virginia Conference, Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Richmond: Christian Advocate Office, 1880. ________ . Sketches and Portraits o f the Virginia Conference, Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Richmond: Christian Advocate Office, 1891. Rewis, M illard Jr. His New Creation. Roanoke: Greene Memorial Church, 1959. Roanoke City Directories: 1890, 1891, 1892, 1896, 1898, 1900, 1902, 1904. Salmon, John S. (compiler). A Guidebook to Virginia’s Historical Markers. Charlottesville and London: Univeristy Press of Virginia, 1994. Seventy-Seventh Annual Catalogue ofH ollins College fo r Women. Roanoke: The Stone Printing and Manufacturing Company, 1920. �C e le b ra tin g th e /Millennium - 1 9 0 1 By Donlan Piedmont R o a n o k e rs o f a century ago m ay n o t have enjoyed the blessings o f television com m ercials, fastfood shops, traffic congestion and e-m ail, b u t b y golly, th ey flat out b eat th eir m unicipal descendants w hen it cam e to id entifying th e starting date o f a n e w century. U n d irected b y CN N , th o se M cK inley A m ericans knew very w ell that th eir n ew century began Janu­ ary 1, 1901, n o t 1900. I f p ro o f o f their w isdom is required, y o u m ay consult T he R oanoke Tim es fo r that date. T he contents are rew arding. “T he D aw n o f the N e w C entury” proclaim s a headline on P age 1, and “E laborate C erem onies M ark its A dvent in N e w York”— a n d elsew here, as the rest o f the new spaper reveals. F o r R oanokers, “ it w as an event that few w anted to m iss and the h o u r o f 12 w as noted b y b o th the young and th e old. M any bells w ere rung and w histles blow n to m ark the change. A t a n um ber o f churches especial w atch services w ere held, and at som e very attractive program s w ere rendered.” H ere, St. Jam es M ethodist w as perhaps m ore th an typical: It held tw o services, one at 9 p.m ., the second at 10:30. T he first h a d a num ber o f hortatory “R ecitations” including “H ow to M ake the C om ing Y ear B etter T han The P ast” . Rev. T. T. F ishbum e spoke, a m ale quartet sang, and th e E pw orth L eague rally song w as also rendered, p resum ably b y the congregation. There th en follow ed “a th irty m inutes interm is­ sion fo r social hand-shaking, g o o d w ill, etc.” The second h a lf o f the e v en in g ’s events w as less secular, including as it did, a “consecration service, prayer, song and benediction.” W atch services at G reene M em orial M ethodist, T rinity M ethodist and B elm ont M ethodist follow ed the sam e g en eral pattern, except at the latter, w here a love feast w as also p a rt o f the program . St. Jo h n ’s E piscopal’s ran from 11 to 12:15. T he R escue M ission offered a tum -of-the-century service too, b u t thought­ fully beg an it a t 7:30 and “en d ed [it] in tim e fo r those p resen t to attend the various church m eetings.” In Savannah an ecclesiastical observance took a different form w hen “the end o f one century and the beginning o f the n ew w as celebrated tonight b y a Pontifical H igh M ass in the C athedral o f St. Jo h n the B aptist w ith B ishop K elly officiating.” I f th ese proceedings w ere in every respect celebrated in dignity, p iety and appropriate environm ent, the sam e c o u ld not b e said fo r one C harles R oss, w hose w oes w ere chronicled in a story h eaded “The P risoner D id n ’t K now T hat H e W as L oaded.” C elebrating th e new century som ew hat early, M r. R oss had, alas, looked to o long upon the w ine that w as red.” H e returned in th e ensuing condition to his jo b a t a livery stable and created a disturbance,” in part because “the w ine w as running rio t in his m ental faculties” and in further p art b y a m arked disinclination to accept his dism issal at the hands o f his em ployer. M atters w ent on like th is fo r aw hile, b u t at length, as often happens in such cases, an officer w as called to the prem ises. T his w o rth y constable w as “greeted effusively b y C harles, w ho trod on his feet and otherw ise be­ hav ed m o st unbecom ingly.” Later, in court, M r. R oss “disclaim ed all know ledge o f th e affair,” citing a loss o f m em ory. H is m em ory w as th en restored b y a fine o f $15. H appy N ew Year, C harlie. Donlan Piedmont, retired public relations director for Norfolk Southern Corp. in Roanoke, is the author of Pea­ nut Soup and Spoonbread: A n Informal History of Hotel Roanoke. He is a native of Norfolk and a graduate of the University of Notre Dame. 18 �In a w id er w orld, th e tu rn o f the century w as m ark ed in less celebratory fashion. In the P hilippines, the U n ited States, u n accustom ed to the rubrics o f em pire, laid out a m unicipal governm ent p rogram and other reform s fo r th e territory re ­ cently acquired from Spain. It w as h ighly sim ilar to th e schem e pro ­ R O A N O K E . V A .‘. T U E S D A Y . J A N U A R Y 1, 1901. p o s e d b y G e n e ra l M a c A rth u r. (T hus d o e s h isto ry c a st a lo n g THE ARMY SITUATION. shadow ahead, for less than a halfcen tu ry later, this g e n e ra l’s son Sei Secretary Root and thé President brought dem ocracy an d a consti­ r Have a Conference. tu tio n to a d e fe a te d Ja p a n .) In South A frica the B oers w ere busy _c pulling the British lio n ’s tail, in one fers Washington, Dec. 31.—Secretary Elaborate Ceremonies Mark lis Ha: Root had a Tong conference with Pres­ «• case stopping and shooting up a f Advent in New York and ident McKinley today at which ‘they lan re r lewed-hrdctall the aTmy ’Situation. train, and in another, raiding a Brit­ Philadelphia. ¡ | ure They were together over an hour and ish outpost at 2:30 in the m o rn ­ « half _ So important-waa the-confer-ext ence that the President sent out word ing and inflicting som e casualties. to th a t he could not he j disturbed and In celeb ratin g A m erican LS. several Senators and Representatives AT CHICAGO AND ELSEWHERE hin ■who had called grew tired of waiting ure cities, how ever, th ere w ere h ap ­ ine and leftr • When Secretary Root depart­ fou ed he was very uncommunicative. Be­ pily no reports o f casualties o f that -New York, Dec. 31:—A dinner was lot yond saying th at the President and he ally m agnitude, although th ere w ere that had gone over the entire situation, not given tontghLaLArlluKton Hall under too sin only In China and the Philippines, hut undoubtedly m any o f the C harles son­ In Cuba and Porto Rico, he declined to the auspices of the workingmen of to New York, and wâft “called “Labor's di of a 1 R oss category . A s in R o an o k e, son­ make any statement, Greeting to the tw entieth Century." It wo was, projected by the committee of 100, a 1 W atch Services w ere held in C hi­ ati* PHILIPPINE GOVERNMENT. which wa3 organized to call a conven- ten thft cago, b u t in that to d d lin ’ to w n ’s “business districts, crow ds o f m en and bo y s [NOW , w here are you?] m arch ed up and dow n th e streets blow ing horns and cheering w hile every steam w h istle in th e city w as tu rn ed loose on the stroke o f 12.” In o u r R ichm ond, “the incom ing o f th e new century w as signalized...by the blow ing o f steam w histles and the ringing o f church bells.” “ T he great C ity H all and the historic State H ouse w ere the centers o f celebrations” in Philadelphia. T here w ere a m ilitary parade and pyrotechnic an d electrical displays. A t 11:55 p.m . all lights w ent out and the m ultitude w aited in the gloom as th e last five m inutes o f the century w ere tick ed off, and sim ultaneously a gorgeous display o f firew orks b u rst forth from every p o in t o f the [State H ouse].” In N e w York, T rinity C hurch in L o w er M anhattan presented a concert on its chim es, beginning at 11:30 “w ith the concerto in R ondo” (w hatever th at w as), follow ed b y “fourteen num bers in all [played]...at b rie f intervals.” F arth er uptow n, “A dinner w as g iven...at A rlington H all u n d e r the auspices o f the w o rk ­ ingm en o f N ew Y ork a n d w as called ‘L a b o r’s G reeting to the Tw entieth C entury.” T he sponsors’ ultim ate goal w as to form a council o f lab o r and refo rm societies to seek legislation to “fram e the w ill o f the people on m atters o f tenem ent house problem s, sw eat shop system s, etc.” P a rt o f the apparently considerable p rogram included a po em by E dw in M arkham w ritten for the occasion. T hough th e celebrations from th e beginning o f one century to the n ex t varied in style, content and attitude, lines in th e p o em resonate today, as i f M arkham h ad a profound vision o f our tim e: THÉ ■ “L o, M an has laid h is sceptre on th e stars, A n d sent his spell up o n the continents. T he H eavens confess th eir secrets...” A n d indeed h e has. B 19 �JVlrs. B reckinridge's O n F ebruary 1 5 ,1 7 8 1 , G overnor Thom as Jefferson ordered the m ilitia o f A ugusta, R ockbridge and R ockingham counties to th e aid o f G eneral N athaniel G reene in G uilford County, N orth C arolina. The R ockbridge troops started from L exington on February 23 and headed south dow n th e Valley Pike. Travel­ ing w as slow and th e y a rriv ed at G eneral G reene’s headquarters on M arch 10 a n d fought in the B attle o f G uilford C ourt H ouse o n M arch 15. A m ong non-officers in the R ockbridge m ilitia com pany w ere A rchibald S tuart and Sam uel H ouston. H ouston w as tw enty-three years o f age and a student o f divinity w hen he enlisted an d he kept a diary o f his trip w h ich en d ed one m o n th later on M arch 2 3 ,1 7 8 1 . Stuart w as his com panion a n d m essm ate. H o u sto n ’s d iary reco rd ed the com pany’s daily jo u rn e y from and return to L exington. T he first over­ night stop w as at G rig sb y ’s in R ockbridge C ounty and the nex t day they m arch ed fifteen m iles to the A m sterdam com m unity. H ere they p robably encam ped at P urgatory M ountain, n e a r the Jam es R iv er cross­ ing at B uchanan. O n th e first day o f M arch th ey m arched seventeen m iles to the A m sterdam com m unity in p resent B otetourt County. H ere th ey probably encam ped n e a r the residence o f th e late C olonel R obert B reckinridge fo r H o u sto n w rote the n ex t day: “D rew liq u o r in the m orning and p a id fifteen dollars fo r beer to M rs. B reckinridge.” H e did not record how m uch b eer he p urchased, but at this ju n ctu re o f the R evolu­ tionary W ar, the d ollar w as h ighly inflated and he m ay have acquired only a day o r tw o o f rations. T hree days later, th e com pany reached N ew L ondon, the county seat o f B edford, and th en turned south and h eaded to N o rth C arolina. The scene o f battle at G uilford C ourt H ouse w as six m iles north o f p resen t G reensboro. H o u sto n recorded in his diary that h e fired his rifle fourteen tim es in the battle w hich lasted tw o hours and tw en ty -fiv e m inutes. G eneral G reene’s troops w on the b attle an d helped tu rn the tide o f the R evolution. T he n e x t day, the R ockbridge m ilitiam en started their jo u rn e y h o m e and arrived in L ex­ ington on M arch 23. H o uston tu rn ed o u t to be a n o ted Presbyterian m inister and Stuart becam e district ju d g e o f W estern V irginia in A ugusta C o u n ty and a v ery close friend o f Jefferson. Source: Annals of Augusta County, Virginia, 1726-1781, Joseph A. Waddell. Staunton, Va., 1902. Pages 223-225 20 �g ro w in g U p a n d H aving J u n in S o u th tZoanoke By Dorathy Brown Piedmont E xcerpts from “H ikem aster,” a m em oir o f George E rnest Brown Jr. by his sister I n 1932, w e — m y m o th er and father, brother E m and I — m oved to “ Short R osalind” fro m the top o f V irginia [later C rystal Spring] A venue. W e children enjoyed th e opportunity these fla t blocks afforded u s to ride tricycles and w agons an d later to skate and ride bicycles. T hey w ere perfect fo r w h at w ould p ro v e to be E m ’s favorite riding toy, his “flexy.” T he Flexible Flyer, w hich all the boys had, w as essentially a sled w ith w heels. T hey rode them kneeling on one knee and pum ping w ith the o ther leg and th en w ould flin g th e m ­ selves fla t to tea r headlong dow nhill. A n o th er w onderful advantage o f o u r new location w as sleigh riding at the Funkhousers ’, n o w C herry H ill. W ith few cars to w orry about w e co u ld bu ild all sorts o f trails and ram ps. F u nkhousers’ w as also a great p lac e fo r cow boy and In d ian gam es. A nd for som e reason o r other, w e all liked to p erch on top o f th e little co n crete spring house th at faces S hort R osalind. I think M r. Funkhouser w as to leran t o f all the little folks w h o ran g ed through his property. B ill Skelton rem em bers children going to the large house o n H allo w ­ een, a n d sm all groups at a tim e b e in g invited in fo r cider and cookies in the dining ro o m and th en in to th e library to h e a r M r. F unkhouser tell ghost stories. B ill also rem em bers that M r. F unkhouser on h is w alks w ould stop b y th e spot on C arolina A venue w here boys alw ays play ed m arbles and jo in th e gam e fo r aw hile. T h en there w as no m ore p leasan t and restful place than th e C rystal Spring R eservoir Park. A t first w e w o u ld w a lk there w ith M o th er in the afternoons o f sum m er b u t soon w e w ere able to go there in little n eighborhood groups, a b ig adventure fo r us. R iding our tricycles and w agons, w e w o u ld take along p a p e r bags w ith grape je lly sandw iches and graham crackers. W e w ere endlessly fascinated b y the spring b ubbling up o v er m u lti-h u ed stones. W e follow ed its course through the various w aterw ays an d stared a t th e w ater, em erald g reen a n d sparkling like sapphires in the b ig reservoir. T he w alkw ays w ere fragrant w ith R ose o f Sharon an d sw eetgum bushes. To pe e r into the pum p room at th e enorm ous hissing b rass gears a n d p istons w as a thrill. W e could visit there w ith the kindly, patient m en w ho p o lished and o iled this equipm ent constantly, k eep in g the w ater flow ing in o u r kitchens and bathroom s. T here w ere som e exciting happenings w here w e lived. G ordon H unter, w ho liv ed across th e street, rem em bers better than I w hen “m oonshiners,” being hotly pursued dow n B roadw ay into M cC lanahan, crashed at the com er. I rem em ber the screeching crash, the broken glass a n d the “w hite lig h tn in ’” spilling out o f th e c a r’s trunk. G ordon rem em bers th at the m oonshiners’ car “th rew a w heel” th at w ent up on the p o rch o f a M cC lanahan S treet house, and m aybe through a w indow . N o rm an W einstein w rote m e fo r this tale: “a n d shall I e v e r forget the day w h en a m o o n sh in er’s c ar cam e roaring dow n B roadw ay an d o n to M cC lanahan Doratfi/y Brown Piedmont, a Roanoke native, graduate of Hollins College and mother of six, has taught and practiced art most of her life. She has a Vanishing Valley series of notecards and prints on significant local historic sites. Known today as Dot, she writes of her brother, Em Brown, who served in the Army in Korea where he contracted polio and died in 1953. 21 �to carom o ff the curb in front o f our house. T he last tim e I looked, not so v ery lo n g ago, th e curb still show ed the sam e triangular gap that h a d resu lted and h ad often a n d alw ays u nsuccessfully b e e n repaired.” G ordon also rem em bers a bootleg raid on a house at the lo w e r end o f the S hort R o sa lin d block. But that w as before w e m o v ed there. Som e m em ories o f G ordon, not connected w ith alcohol, centered on h o w S outh R oanoke boys could go all around the neighborhood in the sew ers. H e says th ere w ere “rats in th ere as b ig as cats” and th a t y o u c o u ld g o up to 27th S treet b e fo re th e space in the sew ers g o t too sm all. A lso h e tells h o w boys w ould go dow n in th e “ sw am p,” now S outh R o an o k e P ark, to catch snakes. O nce h e h a d p u t a box o f snakes u n d e r his porch with only a screen o v e r it. W hen his m other, w ith no tolerance for the creatures, found th e box, she or­ d ered h im to g et rid o f them . So h e p o u red th em dow n the drain, w hich m u st have produced a few surprises a t o th er residences. A n o th e r tim e, how ever, Gor­ d o n d id k eep a h ap less snake aro u n d all day, a snake he had A wagon train was driven by eight little folks on Lafayette (now Longview) Avenue beheaded. H e h a d heard that a in South Roanoke. N ext to a dog in the last wagon were Lloyd Engleby, Buddy beh ead ed snake w o u ld “keep on Hamilton, Norma Hamilton, Jimmy Huston, Dot Brown, Buddy Hughes, E m Brown tw itchin’” until sundow n, and he and Rea Low Jr. The wagon was made in the Norfolk & Western Railway’s East End Shops by Ed Shoffner, grandfather o f Rea Low and Dot Brown. (Photo courtesy of aim ed to test th a t theory. A ll day lo n g E m an d I w o u ld p eer into Dorathy Piedmont) th e b o x a t the h eadless reptile. I d o n ’t k n o w w h e th e r or not the theory w as proved correct. A bout South R oanoke Park, N orm an, w ho lived on M cC lanahan, w rites, “Im agine looking out your back w indow ju s t across the tracks and into S outh R oanoke P ark, ju s t a few h u n d red y a rd s away, to see zebras and elephants and cam els and giraffes chom ping on hay. R in g lin g B rothers C ircus w as setting up its b ig top at M aher F ield and tem porarily p ark ed these exotic h erbivore not fa r b eh in d o u r house. N ot that South R oanoke P ark h ad alw ays been w orthy o f exotic or any o th er kind o f animal ex cept rats. It had for years b een a m ajor dum p. It w as odoriferous a n d sm oky from the tin -c an stoves o f th e h oboes w ho cam ped there.” H obo cam ps w ere a feature o f the D epression, and w ere alw ays lo cated n e a r railro ad tracks in an area w here trains h ad to slow down. T his w as such an area. O ut-of-w ork m en w ould frequently show up a t th e b a c k doors o f houses in the neighborhood — certainly ours and the W einsteins’ — w here th ey could co u n t on a m eal. T hey were said to have m arked the houses that w ere friendly. M other w ould fix them a p late o f fo o d an d th e m en w ould sit on the b ack steps to eat it. M any offered to do yard chores in gratitude. O ccasio n ally m y father would give som eone a little m o n ey o r som e clothing a n d I think a t least once he let som eone tak e a bath. 22 �Su m m er gam es G ordon rem em bers w ith great fondness the sum m er gam es w e p lay e d until tw ilig h t tu rn ed to d ark­ ness, and the voices o f m others calling children hom e in the w arm air. G iant steps, statues, hide-and-go-seek and kick-the-can w ere favorites D uring th e day there w as alw ays a lot o f street-hockey, o r “ shinny,” p lay ed b y th e boys a n d w atched b y the girls. M ainly E m a n d the yo u n g er boys p lay ed cops and ro b b ers or cow boys a n d Indians. In the cops and robbers set w ere a cap pistol, a b illy club, a badge and handcuffs. T he cow boy and Indian set had a belt w ith double holsters and cap pistols and u sually a lariat (to tie up captives, o f course). F o r the girls, gam es w ere jack ro ck s, hopscotch and ju m p rope, single o r the lo n g rope w ith people taking turns and th e ju m p e rs skipping nim bly in and out. O ften w e w ould see w ho co u ld keep it up the longest. O ther tim es tw o ropes w ere turned at once for “double dutch.” T hese w ere also playground gam es at C rystal Spring School, either before school started o r at recess. O ften th ere w ere teacher-organized singing gam es at recess, too. I w ell rem em ber E m ’s fury w hen he reported at lunch one day that he h a d to p lay “oat pea beans and b a rle y grow , w hether the farm er do them sow ” and som ething about ranee and tance gpd tidy-o. W ho k now s w hat it really w as, b u t one th ing w as clear: he sure d id n ’t like it. F o r a couple o f days one sum m er, an elaborate gam e w as p lay ed b y our neigh b o rh o o d boys and others from farther up S outh R oanoke. It w as “T he R ubber G un W ars.” M y cousin B ob B row n rem em bers that at first there w ere ju s t casual skirm ishes, som ew hat like p ick-up ball gam es. B u t later there w ere structured battles som ew here on o r n e a r W ycliffe A venue. H e clearly rem em bers how p ainful th e hits w ere. A nd he rem em bers too m y father dow n in his basem ent w orkshop m aking guns and slicing up inner tubes for “am m unition.” G ordon says “there w as a lot o f inventiveness in th e gun-m aking, all sizes and types. T here w ere repeaters an d even one w ith a half-star like a cog on one side to feed th e rubber bands. N orm an recalls th at “w e becam e adept at m anufacturing o u r w eapons, m ostly L -shaped pieces o f w ood w ith a spring-loaded clothespin fastened at one end. A n in n er tu b e cross section, perhaps six inches long b y one-half-inch w ide, w ould b e stretched from the front o f th e L and pin ch ed b y th e clothespin. W hen the p in w as squeezed and the top opened, out w ould fly the tau t oversized rubber b a n d w ith am azing accuracy. SPLAT w as the usual sound o f contact.” N orm an p ersonally experienced “a rubber-gun cannon, a h ighly destructive w eapon. It consisted o f a five-foot long tw o-b y -fo u r w ith an enorm ous rubber ban d from front to r e a r — n othing L -shaped, ju st a long piece o f lum ber and th at rubber b a n d w ith a cord below it at the rear. W h en the cord w as pulled up, this prim itive b azooka let go. The only redeem ing m em ory o f the South R oanoke R ubber-G un W ars, says N orm an, “is that I did once m anage to splat one o f our enem ies into nosebleed w ith a standard w eapon.” G radually leadership evolved w ith the loosely organized groups (perhaps now th ey w o u ld be called gangs), and the bo y s w ould attack, retreat, regroup and am bush each other. K itty B la ir F isher an d I w ere terribly jealo u s o f the fu n th e bo y s w ere having, b u t w ere able only to drag alo n g th e frin g e s as se lf-a p p o in te d n u rses. W e p u lle d a w a g o n ca rry in g w a te r, b a n d a g es an d m ercurochrom e. B u t in the course o f the w hole fracas, m uch to o u r disappointm ent, w e treated only one injury, a skinned knee. M ore childhood “battles” occurred around th e co m er in a v acan t lot on C arolina A venue. N orm an rem em bers the lot as “unkem pt ... rich in w eeds an d high grasses a n d sticky things.... It becam e th e center o f highly concentrated ju n g le pursuits.... In the late fall, w ith th e tall reed y th in g s dead a n d dry a n d stiff w e found w e h ad w onderful spears to hurl long distances w ith at least a m o d icu m o f accuracy, o r the things m ight serve as arrow s fo r a hom e-m ade bow .” 23 �E m ’s other battles w ere fought w ith h is to y soldiers, the ubiquitous lead toys o f th e day. A nd you d id n ’t go out a n d b u y them : you c ast them . To m ake these m artial figures bo y s poured m elted lead into m olds an d then pain stak in g ly p a in te d according to th eir m ilitary affiliation. B ob B row n relates th at during th e w ar years — th e real w a r years — w hen lea d w as unavailable, bo y s w ould go up on Stone M ountain to a n o ld tree that w as u se d fo r target p ractice a n d dig lead slugs out o f it. T hese w ere then “m elted dow n in a p o t on the stove — i f M o th er d id n ’t yell at u s.” M y sister A n n e’s ever-present com pan­ ion, B etty L o u (G ordon H u n te r’s sister), says th a t o n ce she and A n n e k id n ap p e d E m ’s soldiers an d buried them , saying they “h a d k illed th em .” A nne says this is not true, b u t I have to say it m akes a good story, B oys that th ey were, E m and his friend Jake P atsel p ro w led the alleys and checked o u t th e g a rb a g e can s. O n e m e m o ra b le lunchtim e, E m seated h im se lf and, looking unusually broad-shouldered, declared excit­ edly that he and Jake had found great shoul­ der pads. To the astonishm ent o f m y par­ ents he pulled K otex pads out o f his shirt. Ern, Anne and Dot Brown rest from a day o f play in South Roanoke. (Photo courtesy of Dorathy Piedmont) T h e Pig m a n A long w ith his flexy, toy soldiers a n d ru b b er gun, E m ’s large-gauge L ionel electric train w as the favorite occupation o f his childhood. In the lo n g w in ter m onths his train w ould often be set up u n d er and around th e dining room table. A w o rld o f cars, tru ck s and soldiers w ould g a th e r beside it. A n d m y father m ade him a little w atchtow er and gate to “g u a rd th e crossing.” T he advent o f autom atic gates o f co urse displaced som e railroad w orkers, and in one case, a bridge rep laced the n e e d for g ates and g av e rise to a neig h b o rh o o d character, “ The P ig M an.” B efore th e bridge w as b u ilt over th e m aze o f tracks called the F ran k lin R o ad B ottom , this m an h ad stood g uard there. W hen he lost th at source o f incom e he b eg an to raise p ig s and sank into a seem ingly unsavory lifestyle. H e and his p ig s lived in a co llection o f shelters a t the c o m e r o f F ranklin R oad and B randon Avenue, alongside the creek. B usinesses cam e a n d w ent in th e front p o rtio n o f th a t triangle o f land (a florist is there at the present tim e), b u t the P ig M an rem ained. F o r years, th e O range M arket, a pick-up food store, w as there, and M o th er nev er failed to te ll m y father to “ stop b y th e O range M arket on y o u r w ay hom e.” It becam e a fam ily jo k e . I am no t sure w h e th e r or n o t th e P ig M an h a d a p roprietary interest in th e store, but I think he did. W h en E m tired o f the L ionel, he h ad h is L incoln L ogs a n d E recto r set. H e built m arvelously w ith both, show ing his engineering bent. H e had h o p e d one d ay to b u ild real bridges. H e h ad a w onderful w ater to y called a p u tt-p u tt boat. It w as th re e o r fo u r inches long w ith details painted on, and in it the effigy o f a little m an. T here w as a p lace to stick th e stum p o f a candle, and w h en th e candle w as lit, the tin y craft w ould p u tt-p u tt no sily aro u n d th e bathtub, o r w herever. 24 �O ur neig h b o rh o o d entertainm ent included stilt-w alking. T his w as actually started b y m y fath er w ho, w ith his u su al agility dem onstrated th e skill to us and then set about supplying us w ith th e stilts. W e gam ely stum ped up a n d dow n th e front w alk, and G ordon got so go o d a t it that h e could balance on stilts as tall as th e top o f the fro n t porch railings. O nce th e group becam e fascinated w ith ju m p in g o ff a neighboring garage. To get on th e r o o f w e h a d to m ake a risk y clim b u p a tree a n d then a p o le and stretch across a sm all space. T hen w e w o u ld take turns j um ping off, w h ich w e d id all afternoon. E ventually I got tired and w en t hom e b efore being called to supper. W hen w e sat d o w n to eat, w e w a ite d for E m but he d id n ’t com e. H e w as called an d called, b u t still no E m . F inally I thought, “I w o n d er i f h e ’s still on th at garage?” I ran over a n d there he w as, all b y him self. H e h a d “frozen” and lo st his nerve, and everyone else had gone hom e. I talk ed him hom e a n d w e w ent on to supper. I t’s h ard to b e lie v e th at this w as th e E m w ho w ould later am use h im se lf by ranging all o v er th e terrifying heights o f the r o o f o f o u r A venham A venue house. A n d w ho w ould b ecom e an avid rock clim ber. A n o th er S outh R oanoke activity w as hiking to the ore m ines. Fam ilies and Scout troops to o k hikes over there and «mall groups o r p a irs o f boys w ould often trek over fo r real o r im aginary adventures. T he ore m ines w ere reach ed b y a p ath at th e end o f C ornw allis A venue or b y a path o ff Y ellow M ountain Road. A ccording to G u y B uford, one o f E m ’s great friends, the ore m ine area h a d b een the p roperty o f V irginia Iron, C oal and C oke C om pany, a n d w as abandoned in the early 1920s. H e says the area h ad test p its w hich, “i f y o u fell into y o u w o u ld have b een in real trouble.” Fortunately no one did. O ur favorite activity there w as sliding dow n th e loose clay sides over an d over again. W e m ust have gone hom e filthy after this. B ob B ro w n rem em bers th a t once he and E m w ere there w hen a b ad rainstorm b lew up. T hey sought shelter u n d er a large overhang o f those clay sides. T he storm loosened a boulder th a t fell on B ob s head, stunning h im an d gashing him p re tty badly. H e rem em bers being grateful that E m didn t panic b u t calm ly w alked him hom e. H e en d ed up w ith stitches, and still has the scar. B ill Skelton, like E m a m em b e r o f F irst Presbyterian C hurch’s B oy Scout Troop 1, rem em bers the tro o p ’s cam ping trips an d capture-the-flag gam e at th e m ines. B ob recalls im prom ptu capture-the-flag gam es that expanded in to elaborate gam es betw een various groups. “It could get quite row dy and rath er rough at tim es. Som e p eo p le w ere really com petitive,” he to ld m e. F o r E m , h iking w as his w orld. N orm an w rote m e about tw o Saturdays w h e n he and E m hiked up M ill M ountain. “ O n the first clim b, w e w en t the long route, m ore or less follow ing the o ld toll road on the R oanoke side o f the m ountain. T h e second tim e w e w ent pretty m u ch straight up, ju st to the side o f and actually o n th e trolley p ath , w h ich consisted o f the countless rocks th at form ed the b ed fo r th e tracks w h en years before a cable tro lley h ad tak e n passengers up and dow n. E rnie w as a strong hiker, N orm an says, “and h e rarely p a u sed to rest. B o th tim es w e ate o u r C am pbell’s beans and bouillon at the top o f the tro lley path by th e ru in s o f th e o ld tro lley station. H ow pleasant it w as,” N orm an recalls, “ju s t to sit up there and gaze out at th e w orld. A n d o f course, the old R ockledge Inn existed then. SCOUTING “E m w as a strong hiker,” N o rm an said. It w as an acquired strength, firm ly founded on a love o f th e outdoors. In h is te e n years, w hen h e w orked at old C am p P ow hatan n e a r N atural B ridge, ru nning the cam p store a n d driving the cam p track , E m becam e legendary as a hikem aster. E ddie W heeler recalls th a t as hikem aster, w h e n E m w o u ld step off, “he w ould b e halfw ay across th e room . It w as like he w as all legs fro m his feet to his chest, an d those in th e b ack o f the line w ere, on the hike, left progressively farth er and farth er back.” E ddie says he learn ed to start out w ell up front. 25 �It w as at C am p Pow hatan th at E m cam e to know one o f the piv o tal persons in h is life, the cam p d irecto r M r. Poff. K e n M o tley says th ey called him “ Skipper Poff.” E m adm ired him g reatly and m atured u n d e r his influence. G uy B uford even rem em bers that w hen E m b u ilt the slate w alk in front o f our house at 2601 A venham , “ S kipper P o ff cam e o u t there and helped.” It w as in reg a rd to sw im m ing th at E m perform ed one o f his k indest acts, an act th at show ed h is real character. D uring som e o f h is Scout w ork h e becam e acquainted w ith a b lac k troop. W h en h e learn ed those bo y s c o u ld n ’t sw im , having h ad no place to learn, he g ot our father to free up one o f h is trucks and to o k the w h o le tro o p to a p lace near M artinsville w here they w ere allow ed to sw im , and he h elp ed teach som e o f th em him self. F irst P resb y terian ’s Troop 1, E m ’s troop, w as the oldest in R oanoke. In his d ay th e leaders w ere C harlie G earhart and P reston Leech. E m especially adm ired Preston, an d flourished u n d e r h is leadership. O ne sum m er in his m iddle teens E m learned about an inter-C ouncil Scout trip, sailing on a fullrig g e d ship on C hesapeake Bay. E m applied fo r this and gained the opportunity to go. I w orried and w orried ab o u t h im because o f his tricky stom ach, b u t h e conquered seasickness b y sleeping on deck an d to o k to the sea like a sailor. H e especially liked clim bing high in the rigging (rem em ber w h en he w as a fraid to ju m p o ff th e g arage?), and he cam e hom e a n e w person. This adventure w as m ost certainly his inspiration fo r his in genious rigging o f his canoe w ith sail. I sew ed the sail fo r him and w as p rivileged to go o u t to C arvins C ove w ith him several tim es. H e— w ith Jim C lendenin, I think— even to o k th eir sailing canoe to N orfolk and h a d m an y adventures in the harbor. T h e St r e e t c a r A ll th at cam e w ell after our Short R osalind days. T hese, especially in th e sum m er, o ften involved streetcar trips dow ntow n or to the end o f the line and back. C lutching m oney from our allow ances w e w ould b row se the ten -cen t stores. K ress’s w as our favorite. A t the entrance w ere th e enticing candy counters full o f th in g s th a t never tasted as good as they looked...big orange gum drop slices, aw ful p ale orange candy peanuts, nougats, fudge, non-pareils (chocolate disks w ith h ard w hite sprinkles) and b ig chunks o f to o th ­ cracking p ean u t brittle. W hile M other searched fo r a particular kind o f thread, hairpins, h a ir n e t o r w hatever, w e w o u ld h e a d to th e left, pausing to enjoy th e w onders in the huge fish tan k at the top o f the m arble steps— full o f goldfish o f all sizes, seaw eedy stuff, colored gravel and little china castles. T hen it w as dow n the steps to th e to y d epartm ent w here w e took care to look at everything. U sually E m en d ed up b u y in g m ore rolls o f caps fo r a b o y ’s best friend, his cap pistols, and I m ight have got a coloring book, crayons o r doll clothing. S om etim es M o th er w ould tak e E m and m e dow ntow n on the streetcar to go to th e m ovies. We w o u ld e ith e r see collections o f cartoons— F elix the Cat, M ickey M ouse an d so forth— o r w e w o u ld see E m ’s favorite, The T hree Stooges. A s a rule E m w ouldn’t sit through a w hole m ovie and definitely w o u ld n ’t w atch an y th in g sad o r sappy, i.e., kissing. B u t there w as one m ovie he co u ld n ’t get enough of, and th a t w as C h arlie C h a p lin ’s M o d e m Tim es. W h en the e ar o f co m w hirled around in C h a rlie ’s m o u th in the assem bly line scene, E m laughed until he w as o ut o f breath. W e had to go to th at m o v ie several tim es. In later years E m to o k th e sam e delight in a perform ance b y V ictor B orge at the A cadem y o f M usic. O n days th at w e rode to the en d o f th e line— M other m ust have b e e n h ard up for som ething to do w ith u s— it m ean t catching the streetcar at ou r upper block, beside the F u nkhouser spring house, th en riding to a left tu rn onto Jefferson Street, p a st C rystal Spring R eservoir, veering rig h t to w ard th e h o spital a n d then up a n d o v e r H am ilto n Terrace. That route w as called “round th e m ountain” b u t yo u co u ld also go through “th e b o tto m ” p a st th e fairgrounds a n d th e flo u r m ills. A t th at tim e rides w ere seven cents, w h ich you d ro p p ed into a m etal contraption, and the coins w ould rattle reassuringly d o w n into its m ysterious w ork- 26 �ings. F requently th e m otorm an so rt o f absent-m indedly tu rn e d a little crank on this contraption. To get o ff the car at y o u r chosen stop y o u p u lle d th e cord in tim e a n d stood w aiting, holding a m etal pole. W hen the car stopped y o u stepped d o w n a step, a n d w ith a w onderful pneum atic sound th e accordion-fold doors w ould open. A fter negotiating th e “ro u n d the m ountain,” o r H am ilton Terrace, route, w hich som e m otorm en to o k at a fast an d scary clip (the retu rn w as even scarier), th e cars continued over the W alnut A venue bridge and turned rig h t on Jefferson Street. T hey w ould trundle though dow ntow n and creak and groan into the left turn onto C am pbell A venue. T his w o u ld take y o u to M em orial A venue and out G randin R oad. T he “end o f the line” w as on G randin R o ad n e a r the p resent site o f P atrick H enry H igh School. T here th e m otorm an w o u ld relax a bit, ch eck his schedule and then beg in his preparations fo r the return trip. F irst h e w o u ld get o ut o f the car a n d reach u p and change the direction o f the trolley. N e x t he w ould tu rn the handles to ro ll th e front and b ack signs th at displayed retu rn trip desti­ nation. T hen h e w o u ld lug the m etal m oney co n trap tio n — th e fare b o x — to w h a t w as now the fro n t end o f the car. Finally, w ith a w onderful rhythm ic ban g in g he flip p ed all o f the seats, w oo d en o r w icker, to face th e right direction. The ability to flip these seats w as one o f the m any charm s o f streetcars. F am ilies or friends c o u ld sit as convivial groups fac­ ing each other. T his w as especially fun fo r giggling girls returning from th e m ovies o r perhaps a trip to th e M arth a W ashington candy store fo r a h o t fu d g e sundae o r a chocolate soda. T he seat arrangem ent w as Dot and E m Brown stand by a bicycle. (Photo courtesy of Dorathy ju s t the th in g fo r fle d g lin g b o y /g irl gettogethers, w h ether going to and from ju n ­ Piedmont) ior o r senior hig h school o r on a date. In the evening hours o f w in ter I th ink th at n o thing before o r since could m atch th e sight o f a streetcar em erging out o f th e snow, its interior lights glow ing and creating a k in d o f halo. S om ehow snow alw ays seem ed to m ak e th e streetcars quieter. A little b it o f dow ntow n w ould glide by, enveloped in dark­ ness, ro u n d the com ers, th en h e a d b ack w hence it cam e. M y sister A nne says she loved lying in b ed on a snow y nig h t an d listening to the streetcar round the bend a t Avenham . T he m o to rm en w ere w onderftdly kind and patien t m en. M r. H arbour and M r. Flora, to nam e ju s t tw o, w ere p art o f ou r lives. T hey even endured th e trolley-pullers. Pulling the trolley cut o ff p o w er to the c ar and so the m o to rm an h ad to go out a n d rese t the m echanism onto the electric line. To pull th e trolley as one got o ff the b a c k o f th e car w as considered the height o f daredevil behavior, and m u st have b e e n a rite o f passage or in itiation into th e “cooler” group o f boys. R ecently I saw a friend from grade school days a t the grocery store. A s w e rem in isced h e said, “W hy w ould y o u w ant to rem em ber m e? I w as one o f th e tro lley ­ pulling boys.” “B ecause y o u w ere the excitem ent in our lives,” I answ ered him . A t H allow een, these groups o f boys w o u ld n o t only p u ll th e trolleys b u t also grease th e tracks, stalling cars on up-grades, o r causing them to careen out o f control on dow n-grades. T hey w o u ld also pile porch furniture on th e tracks. ^ A nother frequent reaso n fo r M o th er to tak e us dow ntow n on the streetcar w as fo r “T he H aircut.” 27 �E m g o t his h a ir cut in th e basem ent o f the C olonial-A m erican B an k B uilding b y Mr. L eftw ich, a patient, gen ial m an w h o w ould som etim es trim m y h a ir a little. I rem em ber the b arb er sh o p ’s all black-and-w hite tile floor, trad itio n al b a rb e r chairs, heavy ticking bibs and flying scissors and clippers. W e d id n ’t n eed to ride th e streetcar fo r grocery shopping. T here w ere, o f course, no superm arkets in th o se days. O u r groceries cam e from the Piggly-W iggly, literally in sight o f our house a t the c o m e r o f V irginia A venue and M cC lanahan. U sually w e w ould take along th e w agon to b ring th e groceries hom e— not m u ch at a tim e, because m y father bought m ost o f our m eat at his favorite butcher shop inside the m arket building, and m elons and o th er fruit on the outside. A nd ou r daily lives w ere full o f delivery trucks. In add itio n to th e early m o rning deliveries o f the G arst B rothers m ilk track , the d ark green M ic h a e l’s bakery tra c k w as a w elcom e sight fo r bread and bak ery treats. A nd there w ere still ice w agons com ing by. S um m er days w ould include trips to R o b e rts’ sw im m ing pool, out th e L ee H ighw ay, on the righth an d side n e a r M u dlick R oad. T he pool w as in a large grassy area w ith a tree-filled picnic area w ith creeks ru n n in g th ro u g h it. T he shallow e n d o f the p ool w as ju s t right fo r non-sw im m ers like E m to p lay w ith sm all b oats an d w a te r toys. C H R IS T M A S C hristm ases on Short R osalind w ere sheer m agic for tru e believers, though th ey m u st have n early k illed ou r m o th e r and father because o f their custom o f decorating th e tree after w e w ere in b e d (only to bob up o v er and o v e r and have to b e chased ba c k up the stairs). A bare ced ar tree stood b y th e stairs an d “the stockings w ere hung b y the chim ney w ith care.” F inding the rig h t tree w as alw ays a crisis b etw een m y m o th e r and m y father. T he tree h ad to be cedar, it h ad to touch th e ceiling, but m o st im portantly it had to suit M other. O ne y e a r m y father h ad to send one o f th e m en from his business out to the house three tim es w ith trees fo r M o th e r’s approval. E ach tim e she sent h im back. F inally I th in k he sent a huge tree. In the w eek s leading up to C hristm as w e w ould have w ritten ou r painstaking letters to Santa Claus an d listened in tently each evening hoping to h e a r ou r very ow n letters read over the radio. I d o n ’t rem em ber th at he ever did. E ach letter alw ays h a d to end w ith “and candy, n u ts and oranges and d o n ’t forget th e poor peo p le.” It w as u sually long after m idnight b efore ou r parents got to bed, and w e w ere alw ays up fa r too early— 5:30 o r earlier— C hristm as m orning. This w as m y fault. E m alw ays slept so w ell, b u t I w ould aw aken h im a n d w e ’d b e g to go dow nstairs. B ut before th at w as allow ed, m y p o o r bedraggled, befu d d led father w o u ld b e ro u ste d out o f b e d and sent dow n to stoke the coal furnace. M any m etallic noises w ould ensue as h e o p ened th e dam per, shook dow n the clinkers and shoveled in m ore coal. Soon the radiators w o u ld hiss and k n o ck a n d h e w ould call up to u s th at Santa h ad indeed com e, a n d w e w ould tum ble w ide-eyed dow n th e stairs. In the early darkness o f one Christm as m orning, w e h ad an am azing visit from G ordon, w hen w e saw a p a ir o f little lights com ing across th e street. H e h ad gotten a w ag o n w ith headlights an d he cam e o v er to show his p rize p resen t to us. W e w e re suitably im pressed. ♦> 28 �P e y to n *Lerry ¡Roanoke's J i r s t /M illionaire By Betty Low W h e n R oanoke w as chartered in 1882, P eyton L eftw ich Terry w as reco g n ized as the w ealthiest m an in tow n. Terry w as b o m in C am pbell C ounty o n February 2 ,1 8 3 5 , the son o f S tephen a n d L ucinda L eftw ich Terry. F ro m a fam ily o f successful m erchants, he w as educated in A pp o m atto x C ounty. H e cam e to B ig L ick D epot a t th e age o f 16 in 1851 and w orked in a m ercantile business. B ig L ick D ep o t w as little m ore th an a cluster o f 10 to 12 buildings aro u n d th e T rout H ouse, an old stagecoach stop ow ned b y G eorge Trout, located at th e present site o f th e C rystal T ow er B uild in g (form erly Ponce de Leon H otel). Trout w illed the busi­ ness to his son, John Trout, w ho enlarged th e h ouse and ran it fo r th e convenience o f p assengers o f th e V irginia-Tennessee R ail­ road, w ho stopped at th e depot across the tracks. A spring and a creek w ere in the yard o f th e house. John T rout ow n ed all o f the land fro m p resent Shaffers C rossing to the E ast E n d Shops, n o rth to O range A venue and south to F ranklin R o ad and Tazew ell Av­ enue. Benjam in Tinsley ow ned the land south o f th e T rout p ro p e rty to th e to p o f M ill M ountain, jo in in g the M cC lanahans, w ho ow n ed th e m ill, C rystal Spring and the land south o f R oanoke River. G eorge Tayloe w as T in sley ’s n eighbor to th e east. surveys his Southeast Roanoke acreage. Terry w orked in B ig L ick four years peyton Terry, on > Hull) before m oving to Texas briefly. H is short (Photo courtesy oj tim e there w ould prove b en eficial in the fu­ ture. W h en he returned to B ig Lick, he m arried M ary Shaver Trout, daughter o f Jo h n and E liz a Shaver Trout, ow ners o f the Trout H ouse. H e resum ed his career as a m erch an t at a store on th e no rth east co m er o f C om m erce (now S econd Street, SW ), and the railroad. P eyton an d M ary Trout Terry w ould becom e the parents o f five daughters: L ila; A lice P., w ho m arried Sam uel W. Jam ison; M artha L. w ho m arried T hom pson W. G oodw in; A nnie B ., w ho d ied June 14, 1883, an d L ucinda. Betty Low, a long time volunteer in the History Museum library, prepared this paper for a meeting of the Wednesday History Club on Jan. 15, 1997. 29 �W hen the C ivil W ar began, P eyton Terry w as one o f the first from B ig L ick to enlist. H e jo in e d the R oanoke Greys, the com pany o f C apt. M adison D eyerle, Jack so n ’s D ivision, S econd Corps. They fought at C old H arbor, A ntietam , G ettysburg and F ive Forks. T erry w as n e v e r w o u n d ed in his fo u r years o f service but Capt. D eyerle w as k illed in 1862. H ow ever, th e w h o le com pany w as cap tu red th ree days before Gen. R obert E. L ee surrendered at A ppom attox. They w ere sent to P o in t L ookout, M d., fo r six w eeks. R eturning hom e, Terry resum ed his career as a resp ected businessm an. H e adhered to G en. L e e ’s p h ilosophy and quickly becam e a com m unity leader in reconstruction. In an account o f the B ig L ick hom e front during the w ar, M rs. Terry related that U nion G en. D av id H u n te r b u rn ed th e B ig L ick D ep o t and searched som e hom es, m issing theirs, although it w as n e a r th e depot. M rs. Terry reported that she slept, fully clothed, w ith only h er tw o babies and tw o young servants in th e house. She h a d hidden the last o f their b aco n under h e r m attress and th e fam ily silver and L eftw ich sw ord w ere hidden in th e chim ney. In 1868, B enjam in T insley so ld his h o u se and land to P eyton Terry and th e Terry fam ily m o v ed to th e house, k n o w n as Elm w ood, located a t a site on the hill in the p ark e ast o f the p resent M ain Library. H is land extended from F ranklin R o ad e ast to th e Tayloe property in present Southeast R oanoke and to th e top o f M ill M ountain. A lane passed th rough the property, leading to C rystal Spring a n d the m ill. Terry paid less th an $20,000 fo r th is land. B y 1874, the sm all com m unity o f B ig L ick h ad a new , b rick d e ­ p o t and a jail. A pplicatio n fo r in ­ c o rp o ra tio n a s a to w n o f o n e square m ile w as sought and ap ­ p ro v ed by the state. A survey in ­ cluded all land o n e-h alf m ile from the depot in all directions, except fo r Jane L ew is’s land. T he n e w tow n w as nam ed B ig L ick and the Peyton Leftwich Terry street in front o f T erry’s store b e ­ (Photo courtesy of Martha Hull) cam e C om m erce Street, running from the railroad south to Franklin R o a d . T h e to w n i n c lu d e d G ainsboro on the north, w here m o st o f the houses w ere sold o r ren ted to freed blacks. Jo h n Trout was elected m ay o r o f B ig L ick an d Terry w as a to w n councilm an. Terry and his w ife ’s brother, H en ry Trout, bo u g h t M ary Shaver Trout Terry 96 acres o f land from John Trout, northw est o f B ig L ick, and th ey (Photo courtesy of Martha Hull) opened a stockyard there. T hey raised and shipped cattle. Terry w as considered an expert cattlem an. Seven years after the tow n o f B ig L ick was incorporated, the com m unity learned that the Shenandoah V alley R ailroad w as looking fo r a term inal location in th e B ig L ic k area. Jo h n M oom aw , a C loverdale orchardist, recognized th e advantage o f a north-south rail line fo r shipping apples to northern m arkets. Terry, H enry T rout and others becam e interested an d called a m eetin g to p la n strategy to get the term inal in B ig L ic k at a p o in t connected to th e east-w est N o rfo lk an d W estern R ailroad. 30 �T he co m in g o f th e Shenandoah V alley R ailroad led to the grow th o f the tow n to a “M agic C ity” and h elp ed establishT erry’s status as the w ealthiest m an in R oanoke. T he R oanoke L and & Im p ro v em en t Co., organized b y the railroad, began buying lan d and building houses. T he com pany p aid Terry $ 125,000 for his 6 5 0 -acre farm, leav in g him 6.5 acres around his hom e, E lm w ood. Terry w as th e only R o an o k er asked to serve on the b o a rd o f th e developm ent firm . W oodland Park, th e eastern portion o f the T erry farm , w as developed for about 100 houses fo r railroad em ­ p loyees a n d th e T erry O rchard, later know n as O rchard H ill or O fficials H ill, w as m ade avail­ able for railroad officials. The com pany decided o n th e hilltop lo catio n fo r H otel R oanoke an d a site b elo w fo r th e p assen g er station. R oanoke L an d & Im p ro v em en t bought th e M cC lanahan land, near the foot o f M ill M ountain, including C rystal Spring a n d m ill. W ater w as pu m p ed to a tan k in W oodland Park. Terry, w ith th e w ealth from the sale o f his land, becam e th e principal officer in the new R oanoke G as C o m p an y and later he h a d the sam e role in the electric com pany, w ater com ­ pany, the W inston-S alem rail line and a Salem V inton rail line. W h e n R oan o k e’s population reached 5,000, th e to w n asked fo r and received a state charter to g a in city status in 1884. T erry a n d H e n ry Trout, h is brother-inlaw , w e re m em b e rs o f St. M a rk ’s L u th eran C hurch. W hen a n e w church w as proposed at a cost o f $9,000 in 1882, th ey saw that the m oney w as in place quickly. T erry gave a stained glass w indow in m em o ry o f h is daughter, A nn, w ho h ad died recently, a n d T rout gave a w indow in m em ory o f his father, John. The church w as re­ placed in the 1890s at the sam e location, C hurch Peyton Terry stands with three daughters (from left), Martha, Lila Avenue and C om m erce (present Second) Street. and Lucinda, around 1887. (Photo courtesy of Martha Hull) The Lutherans, facing financial problem s, traded church buildings w ith G reene M em orial M eth­ odist, th en lo cated in a red , b rick church at C am pbell A venue and R oanoke (now T hird) Street. M rs. Terry and M rs. Trout gave lan d for th e C ity C em etery on Tazew ell A venue. Terry sold h is store on C om m erce Street to C. R. W ertz and w en t into the w holesale business. O n Jan. 5 ,1 8 8 5 , W alter H u ff w ho occupied a room over the Terry store, w as undressed, p rep arin g fo r a bath, w h en his oil lam p exploded, starting a fire w hich spread so rapidly he w as fortunate to escape w ith an unscorched hide. M o st o f the sto re’s m erchandise w as cigars a n d m anufactured tobacco w h ich bystanders m oved an d th en h e lp e d them selves to so liberally th at serm ons on th e incident w ere preach ed th e follow ing Sunday. T he city, seeing the necessity fo r fire protection, soon acquired a steam pum p. Terry an d h is son-in-law , S. W. Jam ison, husband o f A lice Terry, founded R oanoke Trust, L o a n and Safe D eposit C o m p an y w ith pow ers o f unusual latitude in th e 1880s. T he com pany enjoyed such prosperity 31 �32 �(at least o n paper) th at it soon sought p ro p er quarters befitting its dignity. O n Sept. 2 6 ,1 8 9 0 , announcem ent w as maHt» that a veritable skycraper, seven stories in height, w o u ld be erected on the southeast co m er o f C am pbell A venue and Jefferson Street, hou sin g three banks, each w ith a separate entrance. Two hydraulic elevators and offices w ere located above. (T he n e w Ponce de L eo n H otel, n e a r com pletion, h ad o nly six stories). F irst N ational B an k h ad an entrance on C am pbell A venue, R oanoke Trust on th e curved co m e r o f C am pbell and Jefferson and the entrance from Jefferson led to a lobby and elevators. Som e tenants eagerly m o v ed in before th e b ro w n brick a n d stone bu ild in g w as com pleted. F o r years, the Terry B uilding (no other n am e w as ev er suggested) w as the point o f reference w hen giving directions to other parts o f th e city. A ctiv ity in R oanoke w as bey o n d description in i 890. T he A cad­ em y o f M usic on Salem A venue a n d R ockledge Inn on top o f M ill M ountain w ere started. In A pril, a to rn a d o w e n t th ro u g h th e tow n, cau sin g $20,000 dam age and k illing tw o people. In th e sum m er, th e w ater lin e from C rystal Spring b ro k e an d m any R oanokers h a d to carry w ater from cisterns. O n D ec. 16, a light snow b e g a n to fall. F irst B ap tist C h u rch m em b ers w ere m eeting to decide w hether certain m em bers should form a n ew church. H aving decided, th ey created C alvary B aptist. B ut m em bers h a d difficulty getting hom e from th e m ee t­ ing. A t E lm w ood that evening, th e Terrys h e ld a grand reception attended b y m o st o f R o an o k e’s society. W hen th e p arty ended, the snow w as so deep that m any guests spent th e night at a nearby hotel. A t 2 o ’c lo c k in th e m o rn in g , th e w histle fro m the M achine W orks b e g a n to b lo w a distress signal. U n d e r the w eig h t o f tw o feet o f snow, th e ro o f o f the b lacksm ith shop collapsed a n d started a b rie f fire. B y m orning, three feet o f snow had fallen and flimsy buildings collapsed all over Roanoke. Efforts to dig out w ere ham pered b y an ad­ ditional eight inches on Christm as Eve. This m em orable snow seem ed to end th e boom The Terry Building, Roanoke’s seven-story “skyscraper,” stood at the th at h ad sustained R oanoke for a decade. southeast corner of Jefferson Street and Campbell Avenue. (Photo from That sam e year, th e Shenandoah Valley R ail­ History Museum of Western Virginia) road, in receivership, w as auctioned to the N orfo lk an d W estern. T he bo o m only slow ed b ecau se b u ild in g continued in 1891 on the Terry B uilding, the A cadem y o f M usic and R ockledge In n on M ill M ountain. T he Terry fam ily and young John T rout w ent to E urope. W hile th ey w ere away, a stone a n d chain w all w as b u ilt around E lm w ood, w ith an iron carriage gate bearin g the nam e, E L M W O O D above. A spring beh in d th e h o m e w as enclosed to form a sm all lake. T he year 1892 saw excitem ent in the city. T erry’s W inston-S alem rail line w as com pleted and opened 33 �fo r traffic. W ith the A cad em y o f M usic, R ockledge In n and the now fam ous Terry B uilding com pleted, the city h a d cause to celebrate its 10th anniversary, th e D ecennial. O n June 16, th e day selected, several thou­ sand p eo p le cam e to h e a r a 200-voice chorus, the M achine Shop orchestra and speeches. T he n ex t day, a p arad e featured the M ach in e Shop m arching band, V M I cadets, C ivil W ar veterans an d m any floats. The u n its gathered a t E lm w o o d and serenaded Mr. an d M rs.T erry before the p arad e began. O ne rep o rt said there w ere 40,000 p eo p le a lo n g the parade route. In 1893, the w h o le country w as hit b y a terrible recession. People b eg an to default on loans an d the b a n k s’ only reco urse w a s to tak e near-w orthless property. O n June 1 5 ,1 8 9 6 , th e R oanoke Trust, L o an and Safe D eposit C om pany, T erry’s bank, d id not open its doors fo r business. Terry m et w ith S. W. J am ison^ his son-in-law , a n d other officers o f the ban k b eh in d closed doors in his office. W hen th ey em erged, Lucian C ocke, trustee, announced th at the b a n k w as bankrupt. C reditors hoped to collect 5 cents on th e d ollar but there w ere no assets. A t a hearing, it w as decided th at the b an k officials w ere guilty o f n o thing m ore than b a d judgm ent. Jam ison, w orth $100,000, and Terry, w orth $645,000, m ade an effort to repay every creditor. The editor o f the n ew sp ap er w rote a letter o f encouragem ent and the com m un ity stood together. A fter that; m o st o f the old crow d w a s no longer prom inent in com m unity affairs and n e w nam es beg an to appear. Terry d ied on S unday evening, D ec. 17, 1898, at the age o f 63. A new sp ap er obituary stated: “He w as a steadfast friend, a devoted and affectionate father and in his death the city loses one o f h e r m ost p ublic-spirited m en. T he reverses and losses th at overtook him in the e v en in g ’s sunset o f life m ay have h asten ed his death.” T erry w as bu ried in the C ity C em etery on Tazew ell A venue, as w as his w ife, w ho died M ay 7 ,1 9 1 0 . She had in d icated th at she plan n ed to sell E lm w ood to the city b u t the decision w as left to her heirs. T he p roperty w as sold to th e city fo r $ 150,000 and the house, Elm w ood, w as u sed for R o an o k e’s first P ublic L ibrary from 1921 to 1952. In the m id-1880s, th e Terry fam ily jo in e d St. Jo h n ’s Episcopal C hurch. T he altar rail there is dedi­ cated to “the glory o f G o d and the m em ory o f P. L. Terry.” T he N ational E xchange B ank p u rch ased the Terry B uilding w hich w as dem olished and rep laced w ith the C olonial-A m erican B an k B uilding in 1927. It later w as k n o w n as the C olonial A rm s B uilding. Terry w as so m u ch a p a rt o f R oanoke and R oanoke w as a part o f him . In 1893, he and th ree other industrialists erected a m onum ent in W oodland P ark in Southeast R oanoke, bearing this inscription, “E rected 1893 b y P. L. Terry, F. J. K im ball, S. W. Jam ison and Joseph H. Sands as an Industrial M onum ent to M ark th e P rogress o f the C ity o f R oanoke, C hartered 1882.” Today, the m onum ent stands on the southeast com er o f E lm w ood Park, w h ere it w as m oved for R o an o k e’s C entennial in 1982. B ib lio g ra p h y E choes o f Roanoke, R ay m o n d P. B am es, R oanoke W orld-News F eb ru ary 2 0 ,2 7 ,1 9 6 0 ; Ju n e 1 0 ,1961; Ju ly 4 ,1 5 ,2 2 ,1 9 6 1 ; January 1 3 ,2 0 ,1 9 6 2 ; February 2 ,1 9 6 3 ; M ay 30, 1964; A ugust 31, 1968 C onfederate Veterans III, R aym ond P. B am es, R oanoke World-News, Ju ly 22, 1961 A H istory o f the C ity o f Roanoke, R aym ond P. B am es, C om m onw ealth P ress Inc., R adford, Va., 1968 Roanoke, 1740-1982, C lare W hite, R oanoke V alley H istorical Society, H ick o ry Printing, 1982 R oanoke 100, a centennial ed ition o f T he R oanoke Tim es, A pril 1982 H isto ry o f R oanoke County, R oanoke City and the N o rfolk & Western R ailw ay Company, G eorge S. Jack an d E. B. Jacobs, Stone P rinting, 1912, page 172 34 �W h ere th e G am e Jro m By Clare White E v e r since w e started in-depth research o n the R oanoke V alley b a c k in 1982, w e h a v e b een aw are o f a gap in the h istory o f the early settlers o f th at area. W hile it soon becam e obvious th at m em bers o f the Tosh fam ily w ere am ong the very earliest o f the R oanoke V alley settlers, now here in th e various accounts was there m ore than a hint o f th eir antecedents. In 1965, historian M argaret Scott w rote an article fo r ou r Journal, setting d o w n w hat she had been able to find. She quoted a history o f Pittsylvania C ou n ty 1 to hazard w hat seem s n o w to have b een an educated guess that the Toshes, from a settlem ent in Pennsylvania, drifted to L u nenberg C ounty in southern Virginia and established a village in w hat is now P ittsylvania C ounty on a branch o f th e P igg River. F rom there, she surm ised th ey cam e through the m ountains to the R oanoke Valley.2 In th e 1980s, our H istorical Society received queries from descendants o f the Tosh fam ily in Texas and C alifornia, asking i f w e k n ew anything about Toshes in V irginia from w h o m th ey h a d b een told th ey were descended. W ith that im petus, and th eir additional inform ation, w e beg an w h a t becam e a lengthy research into the fam ily’s history w hich, w hile there are still m any b lind spots, h as resu lted in som e clarifica­ tion o f th eir backgrounds. O ne o f the m ajor finds from that correspondence w as the assertion, by one o f th ese (to us) new found descendants, th at th e nam e Tosh w as derived from th e Scots H ighland clan, M ackintosh, and that, upon arriving in A m erica, the fam ily h ad dropped the prefix M ac. In Scotland, the prefix M ac m eans “son o f ’ and, in this case, M ackintosh m eans “son o f the chief,” Tosh being a G aelic w ord w ith that connotation.3 A ccording to a m ap o f th e clans w hich spells out the location o f each o f th o se storied groups o f H ighlanders w ho lived in the Scottish m ountains, the M ackintosh clan w as based in the foothills o f the G ram p ian R ange o f m o u n ­ tains east and southeast o f Inverness.4 T he tw o Jacobite rebellions, one in 1715 and the other, m ore fam ous one, in 1745, fueled the em i­ gration o f th e Scots to A m erica. H undreds o f Scots cam e or w ere sent to A m erica at th e close o f the 1715 rebellion, som e on th eir ow n and hundreds as prisoners o f England. In particular, hundreds o f M ackintoshes were know n to have left Scotland th en .5 In the light o f later evidence, it m akes sense to date the tim e o f our Tosh fam ily’s arrival in A m erica at this tim e. T he m ore desperate rebellion in 1745, know n to m ost historians as that o f B o n n ie P rince C h arlie’s defeat at Culloden, m arked the end o f the clans o f H ighland Scotland, an end th at h ad its roots in the earlier rebellion o f 1715. A fter 1745, n o t only w ere the clans outlaw ed, the tartans w ere forb id d en and the crofters were forced to leave the H ighlands in droves. B etw een the tw o rebellions, the e m ig ratio n to A m erica as a prom ised lan d grew until, in the 1770s, it becam e a stream , perhaps p ropelled b y th e additional th ru st o f the Clare White, author of Roanoke 1740-1982 and a history of St. Jo h n ’s Episcopal C hurch, is a native of Roanoke, a graduate of Hollins College, former womens editor of T h e Roanoke Tim es and retired librarian of the History Museum. 35 �Cedar Bluff, the old Tosh homestead in South Roanoke, was shown in a photo dated 1843 and sent to the History Museum by Betty Claytor Bryant of Corpus Christi, Texas. Mary J. Tosh White wrote on that photo that the old Tosh homestead was the “grandest spot on earth to me.” The same photo, in the Museum’s library, bears this caption: “Old McClanahan home at Crystal Spring, Roanoke, 1890s.” (Photo from History Museum of Western Virginia) H ighland C learances w hen absentee landlords sw ept the H ighlands clear o f crofters so sheep could be substituted fo r cattle as a profitable export.6 In the 1720s the settlers in P ennsylvania w ere seeking em igrants an d m an y w ere th e H ighlanders w ho to o k advantage o f the offer. A m erica becam e the p rim ary refuge fo r the u p ro o te d clansm en. That one o f th o se fam ilies w as the Toshes is proven b y th e w ill o f Jo n ath an Tosh, w ritten in L ancaster County, P ennsylvania, in 1744. H e m entions h is sons T asker and Thom as, as w ell as daughters M ary and Jane.7 It w o u ld seem the Toshes cam e to V irginia along w ith o th er settlers fro m L ancaster County. We have p ro o f o f such a jo u rn e y fo r the E vans fam ily, and fo r several others w ho a rriv ed in our valley at about the sam e tim e. B y 1742, all w ere m em bers o f a m ilitia w hich w as com posed o f th e able-bodied m en o f the neighborhood. Tasker Tosh is listed here; Thom as Tosh turns u p a few years later. O f even m ore im portance to fix a tim e fo r th eir arrival is the fact that P eter E vans and th e Toshes app ro p riated th e very b est land in the valley, a settlem ent procedure that w as based strictly on “first com e, first served.” E vans laid claim to the big spring un d er R o an o k e’s m ountain, as w ell as the open land o f th e W illiam son R o a d area w ith another bold spring, w hile th e Toshes to o k over th e fertile riv e r bottom s o f th e R oanoke R iv e r w h ere th ey established an all-im portant fo rd to reach E v a n s’ M ill and th eir ow n land o n th e south side o f th e river.8 O nce started, the R oanoke V alley quickly grew into a settled com m unity a n d the first inhabitants quickly becam e connected to all th e other fam ilies in the area. T h e Toshes w ere no exception, having 36 �interm arried w ith th e Evans, M cC lanahan and L ew is fam ilies am ong others. O f particular interest here is the m arriage o f a T hom as Tosh, grandson o f th e original T hom as, w ith L ucy Jo h n M cC lanahan, daughter o f John M cC lanahan, a son o f W illiam M cC lanahan.9 H ere is w here another Tosh, G eorge Jacob, fo rm erly unknow n to us, should be m entioned. It is from that G eorge that the C alifornia and Texas Toshes claim th eir heritage. So far, the exact spot in th e genealogi­ cal tree into w hich to p u t G eorge Jacob is n o t entirely clear. Judging by the birth and death dates, he should fit in as a grandson o f the Thom as Tosh w ho cam e to V irginia as the brother o f Tasker. In that case he w ould be the b rother o f th e Thom as Tosh w ho m arried L u cy M cC lanahan and lived a t E lm w ood in B ig L ic k .10 T hat relationship w ould explain a later co n nection b etw een a G eorge Tosh o f P ittsylvania County, son o f a Tosh n am ed G eorge Jacob, w ho turns up in a diary b y C lack Stone o f Pittsylvania County, grand­ father o f th e researcher o f this article. Tw o o f S to n e’s neighbors and responsibilities w ere an elderly widow, Mrs. L ucy M cC lanahan and h er daughter M rs. G eorge (Lucy)Tosh. Stone lived n e a r these people in Pittsylvania C ounty and to o k care o f the p ension p apers o f both. T he fam ily tree furnished b y th e w estern branches o f the fam ily places G eorge Jacob as th e son o f a Thomas Tosh w ho died in 1778, “pro b ab ly son o f Jonathan.” A ccording to their chart, th at T hom as m arried an unidentified M ary. (O ur inform ation is the sam e, b u t it does n o t include G eorge Jacob.) T heir inform ation was gained from a nephew w hose sources are n o t k n o w n .11 T hat Thom as w ould have b een the first o f that name in th e R oanoke Valley. It w as h e w ho rep u ted ly b u ilt th e house above Toshes F ord that w as later known as “L one O ak,” 12 now th e site o f a nu rsin g hom e on K in g G eorge A venue, S.W. T he date o f th e death o f the second R oanoke T hom as Tosh, b o m in 1809 and son o f Jonathan, is not definitely know n. T hom as’ father Jonathan is said to have b u ilt the original E lm w ood in 1830 fo r his son and the son’s n ew w ife, L ucy Jo h n M cC lanahan. T hom as w as, according to one reference, given to horse racing and dissipation and eventually lost E lm w ood th ro u g h d e b t.13 T he census records are not m u ch help, since accurate census records are not available fo r the early years. A Jam es Tosh and Jonathan Tosh are rep o rted as b e in g in B otetourt C ounty in a 1787 listing o f heads o f fam ilies.14 T he tax reports follow R oanoke T oshes into th e nineteenth century w ith Jonathan and T ho­ mas m ost evident. Thom as stayed w ith his E lm w ood p ro p erty until 1841 w hen it w ent to John F. P. W hite whose w ife w as sister to L ucy Jo h n M cC lanahan Tosh; Jo n a th a n ’s heirs are listed (as such) until 1860. The only R oanoke Tosh in the 1850 U .S . C ensus is C harles, ag ed 10, w ho is an apprentice to tin m anufacturer H upp.15 T hat C harles w ould seem to have b e e n th e son o f Jonathan w ho, w ith tw o other such sons, w as placed u n d er the guardianship o f his uncle T hom as about 1841.16 It w ould appear the R oanoke Toshes, all but C harles, w ent w est to w ard the end o f the n in eteenth century. In P ittsylvania County, Toshes persist w ell into th e tw en tieth century. T he first definite notation in the county record books is 1812 w h en a G eorge T osh h a d a survey m ade on o v er 600 acres on F rying Pan Creek, a branch o f P igg R iver.17 In 1786, a Tosh w as in litigation w ith one W illiam Sim pson.18 G eorge Tosh’s descendants are num erous, w ith m any o f th em b u rie d at Siloam M ethodist C hurch, a church fre­ quented also b y the C lack Stone w hose diary furnishes inform ation about his neighbors; Frying P an C reek is in the n eighborhood.19 F urther p ro o f o f the Tosh w estern m igration is furnished b y th at diary. In 1882, Stone w rote, “Ja c k Tosh, w ife a n d son, an d G eo rg e T osh cam e fro m K an sas to see M rs. Tosh this m orning...They cam e to spend the w in ter w ith th e ir m other; h a v e b een gone to w est about 33 years.”20 A fascinating, and as yet unproven, connection to th e R oanoke Valley in all th is fam ily history is a picture sent us b y th e w estern descendants, a m atch fo r a pictu re found in our photograph collection (and reproduced here). It show s a b ig w oo d en house w ith a d eliv ery w agon alongside its property fence. O n the side o f the w agon is p rinted “R oanoke B akery.” T he w estern T oshes’ version h a d w ritten on the b ack (as copied from th eir original), “C edar B lu ff 1843. D e a r o ld Tosh hom estead, grandest spot on earth to m e,” 37 �reputedly w ritten b y M ary J. (Tosh) W hite, g reat gran d m o th er o f our correspondent, B etty C layton B ryant o f C orpus C hristi, Texas. O u r version, n o w sadly faded, h a d w ritten on its b a c k in the handw riting o f Tipton Fishbum , an early donor, “O ld M cC lan ah an h ouse at C rystal Spring R oanoke, 1890s.” P erhaps it w ill all be clarified som e day. End / Votes 1 Clement, M aud Carter, History o f Pittsylvania Countv. Virginia. 2 Scott, Margaret, “Thomas and Tasker Tosh,” Journal o f the Roanoke Valley Historical Society, Vol. II, No. 2, Summer 1965. 3 Burke, John, A Traveller’s History o f Scotland, p. 156-157. 4 Johnston’s Clan Map o f the Scottish Highlands. W. & A. K. Johnston & G. W. Bacon Ltd. ' Adams, Ian, & Somerville, Meredvth. Cargoes o f Despair and Hope, p. 35. 6 Ibid. 2 Copy o f will o f Jonathan Tosh, Lancaster Co., Pa., Aug. 3, 1750, written Dec. 4, 1744. 8 White, Clare, Roanoke 1740-1982. pp. 3-8. 9 Kegley, F.B., Keglev’s Virginia Frontier. 1740-1780. Southwest Virginia Historical Society, p. 532. Letter, D. Wubben, Santa Cruz, CA, to Roanoke Valley Historical Society, Nov. 2, 1987. 11 Letter from Betty C. Bryant, 3233 Catcay Drive, Corpus Christi, Tx., 1984, to Roanoke Valley Historical Society. 12 Rorer, M ary Eleaor, “Lone Oak,” The Roanoke Times, no date. 13 Ibid. 14 1787 Census. Heads o f Families. 15 U. S. Census, 1850. 16 Inventory, Appraisement & Sale Book #3, Roanoke County Clerk’s Office, p. 99. 12 Old Survey Book. Pittsylvania Countv. No. 2. 1797-1829. 1^ Alphabetical Index to the Court Order Books o f Pittsylvania County. 1767-1800. 1^ Pittsylvania Cemetery Records, vol. 2, p. 57. 20 Clack Stone, Diarv 1879-1885 38 �By F. B. Kegley (E d ito r’s N ote: G eorge W ashington lodged a t the hom e o f the Widow Evans, near C rystal Spring in present South R oanoke on the n ig h t o f Oct. 13, 1756, according to his expense account fo r a tour o f fro n tier fo rts. Washington, then a m ilitia colonel, age 24, p a id 3 shillings fo r the lodging. (The fo r t inspection tour rangedfrom A ugusta C ourt H ouse as fa r w est as F ort Vause in M ontgom ­ ery County and south to p resen t M artinsville. The inspection was described by Wythe County historian F. B. K egley in an article fo r City P lan Paragraphs, a new sletter p u b lish ed by Roanoke C ity P lanning and Zoning Com m ission in June-July 1932. The com m ission w as chaired by Edw ard L. Stone, p resident o f Stone P rinting Co.) I n connection w ith the building o f a chain o f forts on the V irginia frontier in the fall o f 1756, G eorge W ashington m ade a special trip to “ see th e situation o f th e forts an d observe the circum stances o f the inhabitants.” H e w as th en a young colonel in com m and o f the V irginia forces stationed at W inchester.O n hearing o f the continued depredations o f the Indians on Jack so n ’s R iv er he determ ined to go to A ugusta Court H ouse and secure m en to rid e w ith h im to scour the w oods and, i f possible, com e u p o n th e enemy. Only a few w o u ld volunteer to go w ith h im to th a t region, so he decided to continue his jo u rn e y to C olonel B uchanan’s on the Jam es R iver an d see w h at could b e done there. R eceiving no greater encouragem ent there, he c ontinued on to V ause’s o n th e S outh B ranch o f R oanoke, w here C aptain H og w as bu ild in g a fort. From there he w ent south across th e R id g e to inspect the forts in H alifax County, and on th e eleventh o f O ctober tu rn ed b a c k tow ards th e R oanoke an d C ataw ba Valleys to jo in C olonel B uchanan on a to u r up Jackson’s R iv er and along the n o rth ern en d o f th e line o f forts. A fter leaving H ick ey ’s O rdinary, n e a r present M artinsville, his next stop as indicated b y his expense account w as at “W idow E v an s’,” w h ere h e p a id out three shillings, presum ably for lodging, and one shilling three pence fo r a guide. H e had left V ause’s w ith only his servant and a guide, b u t there is no w ay o f know ing w hether this w as for th e services o f th at guide across the R idge, or fo r another one to p ilot h im about The G reat Lick. In his letter to G overnor D inw iddie in w hich he gives an account o f this to u r h e m akes no com m ent about the situation o f a fort fo r this im m ediate neighborhood nor about the circum stances o f the people. H ere he h ired a horse to co nvey h im to C ataw ba w here he bought tw o, one from Jam es M ontgom ­ ery for w hich h e paid eight pounds, an d one fom D avid M itchell for w hich he p aid thirteen pounds and ten shillings. T he W idow E vans m en tioned h ere could have b een no one else than R hoda Evans, w id o w o f D aniel Evans, w ho, as son and heir-at-law o f M a rk E vans, h a d ow ned the C edar Spring and N aked F arm s no rth o f the R oanoke R iv er n e a r The G reat L ic k an d th e E vans M ill T ract at the big spring on the south side o f the F. B. Kegley, Wythe County historian-farmer-teacher, was the author of Kegley’s Virginia Frontier. He died in 1968. 39 �river. T he lan d n o rth o f th e riv e r he sold to his brother, P e ter Evans; th at on the south side he reserved for his hom e place. A fte r h e r h u sb a n d ’s death in 1755 and W ashington’s v isit in 1756, R h o d a E vans m arried R ich ard D oggett, o f B ed fo rd County, w ho m igrated w ith h e r to the w estern w aters an d w as killed b y Indians. H e r tw o daughters, S usannah and C athrine, rem ain ed in the hom e co m m u n ity u n til they w ere m arried; th en C olonel W illiam M cC lanahan, in 1782, bo u g h t their land “know n as th e E vans M ill P lace” and established his ho m e n e a r the spring w hich in later y ears has been know n as C rystal Spring, and the p lace as M c C lan a h a n ’s M ill. T he lo catio n o f the m ill w as n e a r th e m outh o f the spring bran ch o n the south side o f the riv e r b e lo w T osh’s Ford. W h eth er th e M cC lanahan M ill and dw elling occupied th e sam e sites as did th e E vans buildings w e do n o t know . H ow ever, th ere could h av e been b u t little difference in positions occupied. T he Tosh land lay on b o th sides o f th e riv e r a t th a t point and the eastern and southern lines extended so n e a r to th e spring and the spring branch that there could be little choice in building places. We are safe, I think, in placing W ashington’s stop at the o ld M cC lan ah an place h a rd b y C iystal Spring. D oubtless he w ondered a t th e volum e o f w ater flow ing from this fountain, w hich cam e w ith sufficient force to tu rn th e o ld m ill wheel. E arly m aps show th a t the Yadkin Val­ ley R o ad th ro u g h V irg in ia to P h ilad elp h ia cam e through the B lue R id g e at th e w ater gap o f the R oanoke, b u t a t this tim e all roads led to this M ill, w hich w as th en the only one in th at part o f this valley; W ashington probably cam e to the place o v er th e trail later know n as the C arolina R o ad and w en t out by T osh’s F o rd and T he G reat L ick. I f he talked w ith the inhabitants near the Lick, he w as im pressed w ith the progress the settlem ent h a d m ade. H e re , as n e ig h b o r s o f th e W id o w E vans, lived T asker Tosh, John M cC lellan, T hom as Tosh, W illiam A lexander, W illiam Terry, E rw in P atterson, D av id B ryan, Sim on A kers and M alcolm Cam pbell, all on land now w ithin the lim its o f R oan o k e City. H ere w ere th e early trading stations o f the valley and the neighborhood m ill. H ere w as the intersection o f the roads leading from th e w est to the east an d from the south to th e north. H ere w as a neigh b o rh o o d th a t n e e d e d for p ro tectio n a strong fort at the h ead o f th e valley, and here w as a center w hich in v ited fo r its e lf a fort w hich w as afterw ards b u ilt fo r a base o f sup­ plies for Colonel B yrd’s C herokee Expeditions and for th e convenience o f C aptain P reston’s Portrait of Gen. George Washington by Charles Peale Polk, many years after he spent a night in Big Lick, as a young militia colonel. (Photo courtesy of Virginia Historical Society) 40 a n d C aptain M aury S com panies o f soldiers. W ashington says nothing about John M ason S n o r about a F o rt M ason. ♦♦♦ �J i r s t P r e s id e n t H on ored on 2 0 0 t h A n n iversa ry o f H is D e a th By Scott Sarver (E d ito r’s N ote: The F incastle R esolutions chapter o f Sons o f the A m erican R evolution, based in Roanoke, com m em orated the 200th anniversary o f the death o f G eorge W ashington, fir s t president, w ith a ceremony a t F allon P ark in R oanoke on D ec. 14,1999. Scott Sarver, director o f capital projects a t Explore Park and a com patriot o f the chapter, spoke on "The E ternal Im portance o f G eorge W ashington in A m eri­ can H istory. ” This is an edited version o f his talk, w ritten in collaboration w ith M. R upert Cutler, also a com patriot o f the SAR chapter.) I n view ing history w ith a life-long interest in colonial A m erica an d 18th century political thought, there stands one m an above m any great m en o f his tim e. A lexis de T oqueville once w rote, “L iberty is generally established w ith difficulty in the m idst o f storm s, it is p erfected b y civ il disorders and its benefits cannot be appreciated until it is already old.” W e are fortunate th a t one m an in the eye o f the storm o f his century stood firm w ith quiet resolve. T his dedicated, selfless, disciplined and able m an stepped into the fie ry unknow n to forge a nation into the g reatest dem ocracy on earth. W ithout G eorge W ashington, w hat course w ould our country have taken? H ow does one envision our h istory w ithout this m an? A fter an illustrious m ilitary career, W ashington becam e the first p resid en t o f the U nited States o f A m erica in February o f 1789. D uring tw o term s, he presided over the fo rm atio n and initial operations o f a dem ocratic governm ent. H e established m an y o f the procedures a n d traditions th at p revail today. R efusing to run for a th ird term , he retired to M ount Vernon. W ashington fell ill on D ecem b er 1 3 ,1 7 9 9 , a fter a frigid afternoon m arking trees to b e cut. D octors w ere sum m oned the follow ing d ay w hen W ashington could barely breathe and according to th e standard m edical practice o f the tim e, h e w as b led fo u r tim es. O n D ecem ber 14, his w ill and papers in order, W ashington, 67, uttered his last w o rd s to secretary Tobias Lear, “Tis w ell.” Today, exactly 200 years later, w e gather to m ourn the death o f G eorge W ashington, A m erica’s first hero. To sum m arize the im portance o f G eorge W ashington in A m erican h isto ry and his positio n on the m atter o f slavery, I w ill quote from an article, “W ashington Slept H ere,” b y T im othy Foote in the current issue o f Sm ithsonian m agazine: “ [G eorge W ashington] w as a leader and a patriot, not a politician; th e authority figure o f all author­ ity figures. L ike the R om ans, he saw am bition not as a m atter o f individual ego b u t as a public duty. Infinitely scrupulous, infinitely patient, endlessly devoted to the vision o f political union, a dem ocratic republic strong enough and ju s t enough an d sensible enough to prosper, he becam e quite literally th e father o f a new country... “N othing sym bolizes the m o d em a g e ’s difficulty in understanding W ashington’s life and tim es m ore than the easy m oral outrage th at encourages the p resent to sim plify the p a st in order to condem n it. E spe­ cially in th e m atter o f slavery. W ashington w as deeply troubled b y slavery. A fte r th e R evolution, h e did not, with one exception, sell M ount V ernon’s slaves aw ay fro m their fam ilies, a n d h e studied w ays in w hich they �m ight be equipped fo r freedom , including an arrangem ent b y w h ich th ey could w ork fo r one o f his tenants and get p a id for it. In his w ill, he stipulated th at h is slaves should b e freed upon his w ife ’s death, and specifically left m oney th a t w as still supporting th em a t least 30 years after h is death. “In th e end, w h at d id aw ay w ith slavery w as th e decline o f state sovereignty and the grow ing pow er o f th e u n io n that the C onstitution m ade possible. T hat an d the rise o f com m erce, set in m otion by W ashing­ to n a n d H am ilto n ... W ashington understood that th e e n d o f slavery w o u ld b e possible only w h en the federal governm ent w as strong and m o re people m ade th eir liv in g in trade an d o ther nonagrarian pursuits. It w ould take a long and bloody civil w a r to prove th at W ashington h ad b e e n rig h t.” A n d to describe G eorge W ashington’s leadership in th e m atter o f religious freedom and tolerance, I w ill quote a hom ily w ritten b y our ow n S A R chapter president, Jam es R o b ert Justice: “W ith the sam e foresight he show ed b y refusing to becom e a dictator, W ashington w as ju st as firm in his b e lie f th a t there should b e n o State religion as h a d existed here in V irginia and elsew here during the C olonial period. H e obviously b eliev ed th e U nited S tates should b e a safe haven, under th e law, fo r persons o f all religious view s. A s w ith m an y o f h is other farsig h ted visions fo r the real m ission o f the N ation, it becam e a reality.” O u r deeply religious first p resident w rote in a 1790 letter to th e H eb rew congregation o f N ew port, R hode Island, “F or happily the governm ent o f the U n ited States, w hich gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only th a t they w ho live under its p rotection should dem ean them selves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions th eir effectual support.” Shrouded in m yth, m isconception an d legend, W ashington the m an d ied as he lived: beloved, heroic and a w orld apart. Seven generations after his, w e stan d looking to th e p a st for com fort and solace, for rem em brance, for heroes, o f character, o f selflessness, o f stability in a w o rld turned upside dow n. Seven generations after his, w e stand living in W ashington’s legacy, his leadership, his devotion to country, his nobility. A s w e face the com ing years, I challenge e ach o f u s to th in k o f the legacy th at w e too m ay leave. G eorge W ashington, fo r th e gifts y o u have so graciously g iv en to the people o f the U n ited States o f A m erica, o f your century and ours, w e tip ou r hats a n d b id y o u a silent adieu. W e rest in y o u r debt. ♦♦♦ 42 �G dgar / l . C ong lfiuilding R eca lls i n s t i t u t e ’s C eg a cy By Caroline Bott F o r years p rio r to the C ivil War, V irginia law m ade it illegal fo r A frican A m ericans to attend school, regardless o f w hether th ey w ere freedm en or slaves. B ut w ith C ongress’s approval o f the Fourteenth A m end­ m ent in 1866, it becam e not only perm issible b u t necessary fo r states to p rovide educational opportunities for blacks. T hat sam e year, th e C hristiansburg Industrial Institute opened, and w en t on to play a m ajor role in the secondary school education o f A frican A m ericans fro m R econstruction to the C ivil R ights era. O ver its 100-year history, the Institute served as a private academ y, a training school, a teacher education facility, and a regional high school, helping to shape V irginia’s education system along the way. O ne o f the last rem aining structures on the C hristiansburg In stitu te cam pus is the E d g ar A. L o n g Building. C onstructed in 1927, and nam ed for the m an w ho served as p rincipal o f th e Institute from 1906 until his death in 1924, the tw o -an d -a-h alf story G eorgian R evival-influenced edifice served as one o f the Institute’s m ain academ ic buildings, un til the school’s closure in 1966 due to integration. Interestingly, it is the only b u ilding in the school’s history to have b een nam ed fo r an A frican A m erican .1 A lthough it h as not been u sed fo r several decades, the C hristiansburg Institute A lum ni A ssociation, form ed in 1976, is w orking to restore the stately building fo r use as an archive and m useum , as w ell as a com m unity learning center. T he group recen tly received a $300,000 federal grant to begin w h at is estim ated to b e a $ 1.2 m illion renovation effort.2 T he history o f the C hristiansburg Industrial Institute dates to its founding in 1866 b y C aptain C harles S. Schaeffer, a U nion A rm y officer and an assistant superintendent o f th e F reed m en ’s B ureau. Significantly, the Institute opened five years earlier than the public school system in M ontgom ery County. In 1868, Schaeffer was appointed a field agent fo r the Southw estern V irginia Schools u n d e r th e care o f th e F riends’ F reed m en ’s A ssociation o f Philadelphia. H e w as appointed assistant superintendent o f education for the State o f V ir­ ginia the follow ing year. Schaeffer operated the private school for freedm en — w hich later becam e know n as the H ill School — w ith assistance from th e F reed m en ’s B u re a u u ntil 1869, and w ith assistance from the Friends’ F reed m en ’s A ssociation until 1885, w hen th e school w as d eed ed to th e F reed m en ’s A ssociation.3 The transfer o f the school w as a significant event in its h isto ry b ecau se it m arked the beginning o f the transition fro m a literacy and religious curriculum to an agricultural a n d industrial curriculum . In 1886 B o o k er T. W ashington entered into an agreem ent w ith th e F rie n d s’ F reed m en ’s A ssociation to take charge o f organizing an industrial departm ent at the C hristiansburg school.4 F rom his post at Tuskegee, W ashington agreed to serve as supervisor o f the Institute, a n d he ap p o in ted C harles L. M arshall, an 1895 Caroline Bott is currently a project coordinator at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. She recently fin­ ished her Master of Public Administration degree at Virginia Tech. While completing her degree, Bott worked as an intern with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources Roanoke Regional Preservation Office where she researched and completed the historic designation nomination for the Edgar A. Long Building (from which this article is adapted). 43 �The Christiansburg Institute Alumni Association plans to restore the Edgar A. Long Building for use as a museum and community learning center. (Photo courtesy of Christiansburg Institute) T uskegee graduate, to serve as principal an d to develop th e industrial program .5 W ashington rem ained as supervisor o f the C hristiansburg Industrial Institute until his d eath in 1915, after w hich R obert M oton, W ashington’s successor at T uskegee, executed supervisory responsibilities until 1934. To accom m odate th e expanded industrial focus o f th e school, 87 acres o f land w ere purchased on the no rth bank o f C rab C reek, tw o m iles w est o f the existing school.6 T his site served as the n ew cam pus for the hig h school and industrial training program s, w h ile th e elem entary school continued at the H ill School site. T he cam pus continued to grow w ith a n aggressive building p ro g ram in 1901 a n d the acquisition o f an additional 85.63 acres o f farm land in 1905.7 U pon M arshall’s death in 1906, E d g a r A. L ong, also an 1895 graduate o f Tuskegee Institute, b e ­ cam e principal o f th e school. L ong sustained B o o k e r T. W ashington’s p lan for agricultural instruction and continued M arsh all’s b uilding cam paign.8 H e also b eg an co m m u n ity outreach and extension at th e school. It is significant to note th at during L o n g ’s tenure as principal, th e school w as reported to have th e highest ranking am ong th e schools evaluated a n d fu n d ed b y Julius R o sen w ald .9 L ong rem ained prin cip al o f C hristiansburg Institute u n til his death in 1924. A s th e F rie n d s’ F reed m en ’s A ssociation noted at their January 6 ,1 9 2 5 m eeting: “D uring the 18 y ears in w h ich E d g ar A . L o n g served as Principal, the school m ade substantial progress, th e outstanding m ark s o f w h ich w ere th e erectio n o f B aily-M orris H all, the hospital, a farm er’s cottage, an d th e raisin g o f the $50,000 E nd o w m en t fund, all o f w hich enterprises w ere in large m easure the result o f his initiative.” 10 F ollow ing L o n g ’s death and a short term as prin cip al b y h is w ife, A nna P. L ong, A braham M. 44 �W alker, a graduate o f H am pton Institute, becam e principal o f th e Institute. It w as u n d er W alker th at the plans fo r a n ew school building — w hich w ould eventually b e n am ed the E dgar A. L ong B uilding — w ere begun. In A pril o f 1925, the F rien d s’ F reedm en’s A ssociation decided to begin a cam paign to raise $75,000, part o f w h ich w o u ld b e used fo r the construction o f the L ong B u ild in g .11 The A sso ciatio n ’s treasurer, J. H enry Scattergood, approached John D. R ockefeller’s G eneral E ducation B oard, a N e w Y ork b ased p h ilan ­ thropic organization dedicated to higher education and education in the South. In 1926, the organization agreed to donate $25,000 for the L ong B uilding, provided th a t th e F riends’ F reed m en ’s A ssociation raise tw ice th a t am o u n t.12 W illiam L. B aily, a registered architect w ith B aily & B assett o f Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a n d a m em ber o f th e F rie n d s’ F reedm en’s A ssociation, w as the architect o f the L ong B uilding. J. D. H u ffo rd o f Pulaski w as th e contractor.13 T he bu ild in g ’s design is rem iniscent o f m any public schools o f the tim e. B oth the north and so u th facades w ere heavily fenestrated to provide adequate light and ventilation fo r th e class­ room s. T he east an d w est facades had no classroom w indow s to avoid shadow ing o ver students w hile th ey w orked. G roundbreaking for the L ong B uilding w as held on F ebruary 7 ,1 9 2 7 . T here, Principal W alker w as quoted as saying th a t th e new school building w ould m eet pressing needs, add to the opportunity o f th e school to do g o o d w ork, and enlarge its responsibility to perform faithfully the tasks b efo re them . H e ended by saying th at th e b u ild in g ’s com pletion w ould “m ark a new era o f usefulness for the Institute.” 14 A s w ith m ost construction on th e Institute’s cam pus, students perform ed a large am ount o f the excavation and construction w ork. F o r the L ong B uilding, students did the excavation and laid the underground soil pipe at a cost o f $ 2 ,0 0 0 .15 T he L o n g B uilding, w hich officially opened for class in D ecem ber o f 1928, w as used fo r all aca­ demic courses, including physiology, history, agriculture, L atin, E nglish, B ible, m athem atics, public speak­ ing, general science, reading, biology, chem istry, and m usic. It also provided recreation space fo r physical education a n d indoor gam es during the w inter m onths. In deference to B ooker T. W ashington’s p lan for practical education, th e building also offered classroom space fo r instruction in sew ing, cooking, and a g ri­ culture.1^ F o r a tim e, the basem ent w as divided into tw o room s th at housed a cafeteria and a m en s restroom . The first flo o r h a d fo u r classroom s, tw o on each side o f the central hall. The second flo o r w as also divided into fo u r room s, three o f w hich w ere used fo r classes and one o f w hich w as u sed as the school s library.12 F o llo w in g com pletion o f the L ong B uilding, the school’s enrollm ent p eaked at over 300 in 1931. The n ex t year, th e Institute becam e accredited as a standard four-year high school b y th e State B oard o f E ducation an d b y th e A ssociation o f C olleges and Secondary Schools o f the Southern S tates.111 D uring this tim e, the Institute w as involved in m any statew ide educational and health initiatives as w ell as in local projects, w h ich resu lted in favorable relations betw een th e school and the com m unity.1^ In 1933, th e F rien d s’ F reed m en ’s A ssociation proposed to deed the school p roperty to th e M o n t­ gom ery C ou n ty S chool B oard w ith the suggestion that th e C hristiansburg Institute b ecom e a regional high school fo r A frican A m ericans.211 A fter som e discussion, the School B oard agreed to th e deed tran sfer o f th e Hill School property. T he lease began on July 1, 1934 w ith the B o a rd ’s m anagem ent and operation o f the C hristiansburg Institute as a regional high school. This event m ark ed the beginning o f th e school s change from a priv ate to a public institution, and also heralded th e end o f th e “industrial” supervision fro m R o b ert M oton a t T uskegee Institute. In 1935, M ontgom ery C ounty renew ed its lease on th e C hristiansburg Institute fo r a five-year p e ­ riod, and th e follow ing year 27 students received aid from th e N ational Y outh A dm inistration, a student program th at w as affiliated w ith the W orks Progress A dm inistration under President F ranklin D. R oosevelt s second N e w D eal.21 In 1938, the N ational Y outh A dm inistration, in cooperation w ith th e C ounty School 45 �B oard, b e g a n th e R esident V ocational Training P roject at th e Institute. F o rty y o uths b etw een th e ag es o f 18 and 25 w ere selected from th e W orks Progress A dm inistration re lie f roll to com e to C hristiansburg and spend th ree m onths in w o rk and intensive training - agriculture fo r boys and h o m em aking fo r girls.22 This p ro g ram w a s continued fo r th e 1938-1940 school years. F o llow ing several m ore lease agreem ents, the F riends’ F reed m en ’s A ssociation m ade a final deed o f th e C hristiansburg Industrial Institute to the school divisions o f M ontgom ery C ounty, R adford City, and P ulaski C o u n ty in 1947,23 m arking the final transition o f th e school from a priv ate philan th ro p ically sup­ p o rted in stitution to a pu b lic institu­ tion. U n d e r th is n ew arrangem ent, enrollm ent grew to 340 students, but th e industrial and v o cational focus o f the curriculum dim inished. That sam e y ear, th e d o rm ito rie s w ere c lo s e d a n d s tu d e n ts w e re tra n s ­ p orted d aily to and from school. In 1950, th e term “Industrial” w as re­ m oved fro m the school’s n a m e and the school to o k on th e characteristic s 'o f a reg u la r public h ig h school. T he farm operations all b u t ceased, and the self-help idea w as alm ost to tally eradicated. T he C ivil R ights A ct o f 1964 m arked the sc h o o l’s fi­ nal days. W ithin the nex t fo u r years, th e C h ristian sb u rg In stitu te ’s stu­ dents and teachers w ere integrated into the surrounding schools, and in For many years, the Christiansburg Institute’s curriculum had an industrial and 1966 the school grad u ated its final agricultural focus, the objective of which was to teach marketable skills to the class. Institute’s students. (Photo courtesy of Christiansburg Institute) C hristiansburg Industrial Insti­ tute alum ni b o m in th e 1920s and early 1930s w ho attended school there before 1947 rem em ber th e ir school w ith pride. W alter L ew is, Sr. spoke o f th e Institute as a “h ig h school w ith sort o f a college atm osphere.” Students receiv ed a “good, solid education,” took pride in th eir outstanding football team , an d h a d one o f th e best b an d s around. “W h en they m arched dow n the street everyone k n ew it. T h ey h ad drum m ajo rs that w ere fantastic.” A u b rey M ills, Sr. rem em bered dedicated teachers, outstanding educational facilities, an d practical in struction in trades such as brick m asonry, barbering, and shop and autom otive w ork fo r students not in terested in academ ic subjects. A gricultural crops and livestock raised on the In stitu te ’s farm fed boarding students a n d those w ho ate in the school cafeteria. Farm chores also p rovided disciplinary w ork fo r students w ho m isbehaved. M ills rem em bered th at m ale and fem ale students u sed separate entrances to th e E d g a r A. L o n g b u ild in g and th a t there w ere alw ays chaperones b etw een the girls an d th e boys; nevertheless, both M ills a n d L ew is m et th eir w ives at th e C hristiansburg Industrial Institute. A u b rey M ills’ w ife, M a ry M ills, en jo y ed th e Institute, m ad e good friends there, and learned sew ing an d m athem atics, w hich en ab led h er to w o rk fo r 30 years a fter graduation, first in a B lacksburg dress shop and th en as m an ag er fo r a n outlet clothing store in C hristiansburg. 46 �W illiam “B illy” A lexander observed th at going to the Institute gave b lacks from th e N ew R iver Valley an opportunity to k n o w b lack s from o ther com m unities. L ew is, M ills, A lexander, and E laine D ow e Carter all em phasized the extended sense o f b lac k com m unity they gained from attending the C hristiansburg Institute w ith students from around V irginia, and other states. A ll referred to the distinctive note the F rien d s’ F reedm en’s B ureau play ed in support o f th eir school. C arter also recalled th at the C hristiansburg Industrial Institute o p ened m any conceptual doors. In h e r w ords, th e “C hristiansburg Institute represented an enor­ m ous expansion o f educational a n d extracurricular activities.” C arter doubtless spoke for m an y fellow stu­ dents w hen she observed th at C hristiansburg Industrial Institute alum ni still talk about going to school there “as though it w as yesterday.”24 T he E d g ar A. L ong B uild in g sits on a sloping site w est o f U .S. R oute 460 B usiness in the northw est portion o f th e Tow n o f C hristiansburg n ear S cattergood D rive. Its outw ard appearance today belies little o f its historic significance, b u t its solid construction an d strong institutional presence suggest a place intended for generations o f service. A lthough m ost o f the L o n g B uilding rem ains in its original state, it has undergone som e alterations. Each entrance originally h a d an architrave w ith a classical entablature; both o f these elem ents have been rem oved from th e current structure, as have th e original gutters. T he original slate ro o f w as hipped w ith one brick gable on th e south façade. O f the several ro o f alterations, the m ost recent w as the addition o f the plyw ood gables on the north, east, an d w est facades. O n the interior o f the building all plastering has b een rem oved, as hav e the original ro o m divisions. (T he south side room on the second floor show s fire dam age on the ceiling jo ists, and evidence o f fire is also apparent in the attic on the south and w est gables, b u t the date and cause o f this fire, o r fires, have not b e e n determ ined.) E rosion caused a change in the grade on the north façade o f the building, w h ich eventually led to the in-filling o f the basem ent w indow s w ith brick. M ost o f the south façade basem ent w indow s have also b e e n in-filled, although n o t because o f erosion. A n um ber o f the w indow openings on th e n o rth and south facades o f the building have b een boarded over, but m u ch o f the original w indow fram ing still exists. A ll alterations o f the E dgar A. L ong B uilding occurred after the M ontgom ery C ounty School B o ard sold th e p roperty in 1967. In 1996, th e C hristiansburg Institute A lum ni A ssociation received title to the one-and-a-half acre parcel w here the E d g ar A. L ong B uilding sits; in 2000 th ey received the adjoining 1.2877 acres o f land east o f the L ong parcel. B oth p arcels w ere donated b y developer Jack E. Via, w ho purchased the C hristiansburg Industrial Institute after th e school closed in 1966.2^ T he A ssociation hopes th at the rehabilitation o f the Edgar A. L o n g Building, and its future use as a m useum a n d com m unity learning center, w ill provide a living tribute fo r a school that, in th e w ords o f its alum ni, “laid the foundation fo r th e educational, spiritual, and political developm ent and train in g o f a new ly em ancipated people, and play ed a p a rt in the educational history o f V irginia.”2” P ost Script: Since w e beg an p u ttin g to g eth er this edition o f the Journal, the E d g ar A. L ong B uilding w as accepted to th e N ational R eg ister o f H istoric Places. End JQotes 1. On 6/14/1927 the Friends’ Freedmen’s Association decided to name the new academic building the “Edgar A. Long Building 1927.” They also agreed to buy furniture for the building in the amount of $1,485.25; see Friends’ Freedmen’s Association minutes. 2. Roanoke Times. Article on federal grant to Christiansburg project, November 16, 2000. 47 �3. Harrison, Charles H. The Story o f a Consecrated Life: Commemorative o f Rev. Charles S. Schaeffer Brevert-Captain U.S. V. J.B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1900. Montgomery County Circuit Court Clerk’s Office, Deed Book Z, p. 51. 4. In 1895 the Friends’ Freedmen’s Association invited Booker T. Washington to address their annual meeting, which was half a year before he gained national prominence among American whites with his famous Atlanta Exposition speech: “In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to human progress.” At the Friends’ meeting he spoke about the success of education at Tuskegee and emphasized the importance o f manual training for blacks. The following year Washington agreed to take the Christiansburg Industrial Institute under management of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute and enlarge and widen its field of usefulness for an expenditure o f $2,000 per year. Friends’Freedmen’s Association, Executive Board Minutes, 3/10/1896. Friends Library, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pa., microfilm. 5. Friends’ Freedmen’s Association Minutes, 4/17/1897. The purpose of an Industrial School as stated in a Tuskegee Institute Annual Catalogue was “to provide an opportunity for young coloured men and women to acquire sound vocational training so that upon graduation they may be thoroughly equipped for active service and leadership in promoting moral, educational, industrial and economic betterment in the community of their future choice.” Jones, Lance G.E. Negro Schools in the Southern States. Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1928, p. 64. 6. Thirty-three acres were purchased 11/21/1898 (Deed Book 46, p. 273), and 54 acres known as the “Adams Tract” and adjoining “Hix Property” were purchased 3/14/1899 (Deed Book 48, p. 547). 7. Abam, boy’s dormitory, shop building, and teacher’s cottage were constructed, and 85.63 acres were purchased 11/13/1905 from Charles and Nellie Marshall and Edgar and Annie Long (Deed Book 54, p. 139). 8. Baily-Morris Hall, named for Elliston P. Morris, President o f the Friends’ Freedmen’s Association, and Joshua L. Baily, a firm and generous supporter, was dedicated January 1, 1912. The building served as a combination girl’s dormitory, dining room, kitchen, assembly hall, administrative offices, and chapel. Long also oversaw the construction of a new cottage for the Farm Instructor and construction o f the Christiansburg Colored Hospital on the grounds of the Christiansburg Institute. 9. Christiansburg Industrial Institute Annual Catalogue, 1916. The Rosenwald Schools were schools that received support from Julius Rosenwald. Rosenwald served as vice-president and treasurer (1895) of the mail-order concern o f Sears, Roebuck & Co., president (1910), and chairman of the board of directors (1925). He contributed large sums for the promotion of education in the southern U.S. and for the aid of the Jewish population in the Middle East and German children during and after World War I. He favored the Tuskegee model of education, gave his first gift to black rural schools in 1912, and subse­ quently established the Julius Rosenwald Fund, a charity for the economic, medical, and cultural advancement of blacks in America. Leavell, Philanthropy in Negro Education, pp. 76-80. 10. Friends’ Freedmen’s Association Minutes, 1/6/1925. 11. Friends’ Freedmen’s Association Minutes, 4/9/1925. 12. See Leavell, Philanthropy in Negro Education, pp. 61-71. The Christiansburg Institute’s request to the General Education Board was referred to Jackson Davis, a Virginia native who was affiliated with the GEB from 1915 until 1946 and who was ultimately the GEB’s vice-president and director; see the Jackson Davis Collection in the Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia. See Agreement, General Education Board and Christiansburg Industrial Institute in the Friends Freedmen’s Association Minutes, 10/14/1926. In a letter dated 2/10/1928, the Friends’ Freedmen’s Association informed the GEB about their completion o f the said challenge. 13. In a letter dated 5/13/1926, William Baily made reference to blueprints and an elevation for the Long Building, but these were not included in the microfilm; see Friends’ Freedmen’s Association Minutes 3/1926. J.D. Hufford submitted the low bid of $29,787 for the project, but the final contract price was negotiated at $29,921; see Friends’ Freedmen’s Association Minutes 3/18/1927. 14. Principal’s Annual Report, Friends’ Freedmen’s Association Minutes, 3/1/1927. 15. Friends’ Freedmen’s Association Minutes 1/11/1927. 16. Principal’s Annual Report to the Board of Managers, 3/1/1928, Friends’ Freedmen’s Association Minutes. 17. Friends’ Freedmen’s Association, Executive Board Minutes 3/28/40. Friends Library, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pa., microfilm. 18. The 1931 Annual Report to the Board of Managers of the Christiansburg Industrial Institute states that in that year the Institute gave instruction to the largest number in any one year in its history. Three hundred and thirty students were enrolled - 198 of which attended the Industrial campus. At the time of its Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools accreditation, the Christiansburg Institute was one o f only three African American high schools in Virginia to be so accredited; see Annual Report of the Principal, Friends’ Freedmen’s Association Minutes, 1932. 19. The Ninth District Conference, composed of teachers of ten counties and three cities in southwestern Virginia, held its annual meetings at the Institute for the purpose o f promoting better teaching; the State Department of Health also held a 48 �Doctors’ Helpers Institute there during the summer of 1932, which was the first of its kind to be held for African Americans in the western part o f Virginia. In addition, the Health Department also held annual five-day institutes where instruction in home pursing, baby care, and home sanitation was given. Friends’ Freedmen’s Association Minutes. 20. The Christiansburg Industrial Institute was the last of 47 schools that the Friends had helped to start and support in North Carolina and Virginia after the Civil War. Within two decades after the war, all of the schools except Christiansburg were turned over to local school boards. The “regional high school” idea was forwarded by J. Henry Scattergood to the Division Superintendent of Montgomery County schools in a letter dated 8/8/1933. The idea was looked upon favorably by the Virginia Commission on Interracial Cooperation and was adopted by several school systems in Virginia. Friends’ Freedmen’s Associa­ tion Minutes. 21. 1935-1936 Annual Report, Friends’ Freedmen’s Association Minutes. 22. Friends’ Freedmen’s Association Minutes 3/31/38. 23. Deed Book 151, p.54. The deed agreement was partially a result of Senate Bill 42 of the Acts of the General Assembly 1946, which authorized school boards of two or more counties and/or cities to jointly acquire and operate school properties, and partially the result of five years of federal funding support. 24. Interviews conducted in April 2000 by Virginia Tech Service Learning students, compiled for this report by John Kern. 25. Jack Via also donated two parcels of land approximately 82 feet east of the northeast comer of the Long Building property to the Christiansburg Institute Alumni Association; the first was 0.026 acre in 1986 where now stands a replica of the school’s smokehouse that is used as a museum, and an adjacent 0.517 acre in 1990. Deed Book 510, p.31 and Deed Book 672, p.428. 26. Christiansburg Institute Alumni Association, Christiansburg Institute History, 1996. B ibliograph y Anderson, James D. The Education o f Blacks in the South, 1860-1935. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London, 1988. Christiansburg Institute Alumni Association, Inc. Christiansburg Institute History, 1996. Smokehouse Museum. Archives. Friends’ Freedmen’s Association. Executive Board Minutes. Friends Library, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Microfilm. Givens, Lula Porterfield. Christiansburg, Montgomery County, Virginia. Edmunds Printing, Pulaski, Virginia, 1981. Harrison, Charles H. The Story o f a Consecrated Life: Commemorative o f Rev. Charles S. Schaeffer. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1900. History o f the American Negro, Virginia Edition. Edgar Allen Long biography. Caldwell Publishing Company, Atlanta, 1921. Jones, Lance G.E. Negro School in the Southern States. Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1928. Leavell, Ullin Whitney. Philanthropy in Negro Education. Negro Universities Press, Westport, Connecticut, 1930. Montgomery County Circuit Court Clerk’s Office Deed Books. Richardson, Archie G. The Development o f Negro Education in Virginia 1831-1970. Richmond Virginia Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa, 1976. Roanoke Times. Article on Christiansburg Industrial Institute, February 23, 1947. Smith, James W. and DeHart, Amanda E. Christiansburg Institute: A Proud Heritage. Westar Publishing Company, Petersburg, Virginia, 1991. Special Collections at the University of Virginia Library. The Jackson Davis Collection of AfricanAmerican Educational Photographs. Swain, Ann Christiansburg Institute: From Freedmen s Bureau Enterprise to Public High School. M. A. Thesis, Radford College, 1975. Via, Jack E. Personal communication, April and July, 2000. 49 �P e g g y JVlaupin R eca lls 1 0 0 y e a r s in B e d fo r d By Ben Beagle I th in k o f P eggy B allard M aupin a n d I see h e r on the steps o f A venel — surro u n d ed b y needy college boys o f the late F orties and early F ifties — and I rem em b er th e m agnolias a t th a t solid, som ew hat foreboding hom e b u ilt in 183 8. M rs. M aupin w as 102 years old on January 29. She lived in B edford fo r a century. She w as in h e r 50s w hen she w as k in d to m e and m y Yankee room m ate, D ick A ugsbach, and o ther collegians sim ilarly situated. W e w ere fraternity brothers o f h e r son, th e late H arry B allard M aupin, at R oanoke C ollege. She n o w lives in Birmingham, A labam a, w ith h er daughter-in-law , B arb ara M aupin, and it’s im pos­ sible n ot to think th at the farth er south she is, the hap p ier she m ig h t be. H er aide in the feeding o f needy college boys w as h e r husband, H arry, a k in d m an and a B edford pharm acist for years. Talk about feeding college boys. T here w as a country h a m and chicken and oysters and G od know s how m any kinds o f pie in th e dining room at A venel. A n d som etim es, w e ’d take the bus to M ontvale and the M aupins w o u ld take u s to a steak d inner at the old, and n o w gone, C olonial R estaurant on U .S . 460. It ought to b e m entioned that I — along w ith R obert E d w ard L ee — have slept in Avenel. The general m ay have slept m ore soundly th an I. A u g sb ach and I w ere in co n stan t fear o f seeing A venel’s ghost — the W hite L ady o f A venel. It is a lovely story, th is o f a p ro p er fem ale g h o st that w as said to appear w h en any m em ber o f the fam ily w as in d an g er o r w h en events a t A venel d id n ’t please her. Mrs. M aupin to ld L.B . Taylor, Jr., author o f several books on V irginia ghosts, th at she saw th e W hite L ady w hen she w as a girl in 1906 — a fter the B allards m oved to Avenel. T hey w ere o n the p o rch at dusk an d th e W hite L ad y “w a lk e d up the lane in fro n t o f the house.” Her m other asked, “D o y o u see w h a t I see?” S he w as dressed, o f course, in w hite and carried a w hite parasol. T here w as an im pression o f blonde hair. L ater, the W hite L ady w alked w ith a gen tlem an — w ho w asn’t w earing the kin d o f clothes y o u saw in B ed fo rd in 1906. M rs. M a u p in thinks the gh o st m ay b e the shade o f Fannie Steptoe B urw ell, the first m istress o f the house — th e “b ig house” o n a p re-C iv il W ar plantation. M rs. M aupin m arried H a rry — th e pharm acist, the pragm atist, the perso n w ho co u ld balance chem i­ cal equations and knew about hum an anatom y. H e laughed a t the id ea o f th e W hite Lady. B u t one night as th e pharm acist w as sitting on his b ed — tak in g o ff h is socks o r som ething — the W h ite L ad y floated down the hallw ay an d dow n the staircase. T he druggist becam e a b e lie v er after that. I ’ve never seen h er b u t the m ention o f the W hite L ad y raises th e hairs on m y n e c k a half-century after m y fitful sleep at Avenel. A venel is now a B ed fo rd com m unity center and y o u h av e to guess th a t the W h ite L ady w ould have liked that. Ben Beagle, longtime columnist and reporter for The Roanoke Times, tells of a century of life of an old friend, Peggy Ballard Maupin, in Bedford. 50 �A n article in The B edford B ulletin said th at M rs. M a u p in ’s first nam e w as really L illian. She never told us that. In the B ulletin article, M rs. M aupin recalled th e days w h en she w as y o u n g in the to w n o f Bedford. T here w ere plenty o f horses and carriages then, b u t running w ater and electricity w ere scarce. Those w ere tim es w h en children carried bouquets o f ram bling roses to p lace on the g raves o f C onfederate soldiers. Southern veterans o f the C ivil W ar still w alked the streets o f B edford in those days and, M rs. M aupin recalled, the to w n gave th em a “big dinner.” In a cem etery in m o d em B edford are the graves o f m em bers o f A -C om pany, 116th Infantry, 29th Infantry D ivision, w ho died on O m aha B each in W orld W ar II. Seventeen B edford m en — w ho h a d started their m ilitary careers as local m em bers o f th e N ational G uard well before Pearl H a rb o r— died on the beach in France. O ne o f M rs. M a u p in ’s c o u s in s , R a y Nance, survived th at aw ful day in June, 1944. In th e B u lle tin article, Mrs. M aupin recalled the days w hen a C hatauqua festival w as held in a large ten t near the p u b ­ lic school. It lasted tw o w eeks, with dancing, m usic and gam es. The hospitality she later lavished on th e college boys was in the best B allard tradition. “People cam e and stayed for w eeks a t A venel,” she told The Bulletin. “W e h ad tw o beds in each bedroom in the house and Peggy Ballard Maupin, 102 (Photo courtesy of Barbara Maupin) they w ere alw ays filled.” B ut b y 1920, the festival was gone. The P eaks o f O tter rem ained, how ever; to give an O ld South flav o r to M rs. M au p in s early years. A nybody from B edford in those days w ho h a d n ’t h ik ed u p the P eaks fro m the o ld H otel M ons — on w hat is now th e B lue R idge Parkw ay — probably w as suspect. M rs. M aupin to ld th e B ulletin reporter: “People w o u ld go to H otel M ons and spend the w hole sum m er. W e’d spend th e days h ik in g to Sharp Top and enjoy entertainm ent like parties an d dancing at th e hotel a t night. W e w alked to the P eaks nearly every day. Funny, b a c k then, I w a sn ’t afraid. I never thought about snakes.” This hiking o f th e P eaks spilled over into m y tim e as a college b o y — staying a n d eating greedily at Avenel as a non-paying guest. W ith M rs. M au p in ’s son, H arry B allard, and h is girlfriend, B arbara, m y Y ankee frien d and I used to get dates and p arty a t Tim berlake T avern near Lynchburg. A fter m idnight, w e w ould return to Avenel, change into bluejeans and hike the Peaks. T he id ea w as to g e t up there to see the sunrise w hich w as usually n ot p o ssib le because o f cloudy w eather. I once fell a good w ay dow n Sharp Top, along w ith m y date. W h en w e got b a c k to Avenel it w as daylight, so I slept w ithout w orrying ab o u t the W hite Lady. 51 �Avenel B ut I h ad a near-term inal case o f chiggers. P eggy M aupin fully endorsed th ese post-m idnight clim bings. She w as aw fu lly good w ith young people. A nd she has b een m o d em in h e r th inking — although rem em b erin g w inters th a t w ere m ore severe than th ey are today. A nd ice-skating and h o g killing in p ro p er chilly w eather, and cutting ice from the frozen ponds to keep th e pork fresh all w inter. A nd once, as children in h e r generation often did, she lo n g ed to ru n aw ay w ith th e G ypsies w ho, she told T he B ulletin, “w ere cam ped dow n n e a r th e creek.” She p a c k ed h e r clothes in a g reen box, but she didn’t m ake it to the G ypsy cam p. H er p arents intercepted her. W hich w as a good th in g fo r n e e d y college boys an d fo r B edford. ♦♦♦ �S o u th w e s t V irginia " /1 JVlore S e le c ta b le Cand" By Sherwood Anderson (E ditor ’s N ote: Sherw ood Anderson, novelist and short story writer, lived in o r near M arion fo r the last 15 yea rs o f his life, a tim e w hen he w rote extensively about Southw est Virginia. Anderson, who lived from 1876 to 1941, w as described by Vanity F a ir m agazine in 1925 as the country ’s m ost distinctive novel­ ist. ( In the late 1920s, Anderson w rote two travel pieces, “M arion to Roanoke, ” and “A T raveler’s Notes: The Shenandoah Valley. ” They were p u b lish ed in Southern Odyssey: Selected W ritings b y Sherw ood Anderson, edited by W elford D. Taylor and C harles E. M odlin. The book w as copyrighted in 1997 by Charles E. M odlin and H ilb ert H. Campbell, Trustees, Sherw ood Anderson L iterary E state Trust.) M A R IO N T O R O A N O K E I t is no doubt a no tab le drive. This w riter has n e v e r driven through a m ore delectable land. F or the procession o f choice landscapes along the w ay, for color and land contour, there is not, I believe, a finer three o r fo u r h o u rs’ d rive to be fo u n d in the country — a t least n o t that I have seen. A bout M arion a n d all th rough Sm yth C ounty the hills have a soft sensual quality. I drove to R oanoke recently on a cold grey January Sunday. There w as that peculiar hushed still Sunday feeling everyone know s. It could b e felt on the ro ad , in the tow ns, about farm ho u ses and alm ost in the fields and w oods. Everyone was indoors. S unday dinners w ere on. You kn o w how th e y eat in Sm yth County. I left M ario n at n o o n and w h at few p eo p le I m et o n the ro ad w ere in their Sunday best. A s I got over toward R oanoke m ore cars appeared. The Sunday dinners w ere over. People w ere out fo r an afternoon’s drive. N e a r C hristiansburg, on a side road, a lo v er w alked w ith his lady in th e cold drizzle o f rain. H e h ad an um brella in his h a n d b u t h a d forgotten to p u t it up. I d id n ’t particularly blam e h im after I looked a t his lady. In one field, the spring lam bing had begun. T here h a d been four lam bs b o m , all black. I w ondered i f black lam bs w ere m ore forw ard-looking th an w hite ones. “I m ust ask Paul B ird about th at,” I thought. A ll four lam bs w ere b u sily nursing. I have b e e n to ld b y Mr. B u rt D ickinson (w ho next to Mr. H enry Staley is no doubt our b est classicist) that in Sm yth C ounty th e hills h av e a particular soft roundness because o u r country is so old. (D eep Sea Club please take note o f th is) It cam e up out o f th e sea earlier than m ost places in A m erica. The land has h ad time to soften its outlines. A s I h a v e often said, it w ill becom e, som e day, a p a in te r’s land. Ju st th is side o f R e e d C reek B ridge, an d ju s t beyond, as you go east, on top o f the tw o hills, the m ountains in th e fo reg ro u n d b rea k aw ay an d y o u have a view o f distant hills and m ountains. It is breath­ taking. I k n o w o f no b e tte r p lace o n this drive to stop the c a r and fill y o u rse lf w ith the beauty o f o u r country. Grey and taw n y h ills in th ese w in ter m onths. I thought o f the view from the top o f Iron M ountain, at the crossing o f Sm yth an d G rayson C ounties, w h ere y o u lo o k aw ay into N orth Carolina. O , th e soft b e a u ty o f our V irginia landscapes. T here are no such hills anyw here I have b een — and where in A m erica have I n o t been? W hen painters com e into our land and begin to paint here I hope they w ill 53 �b e g o o d p ain ters an d n o t the sloppy sentim ental k in d that spoil everything th ey touch. W ytheville, w ith its w ide m ain street, is an enticing tow n. T here is alw ays a pecu liar a ir o f leisureli­ ness th a t com es fro m th e sense o f space. I dare say th at the citizens th ere are as alert as in any o f ou r tow ns. C hristiansburg, in M ontgom ery County, is another lovely p lace b u t P ulaski is p retty bad. It seem s ra th e r a sham e th at all th rough traffic m u st go som e seven o r eight m iles o ut o f the w ay to pass th rough this tow n. T he hills th ere are also not so inviting. T hey are m ore sharp an d rugged. I suppose it is p olitics th at takes u s all aro u n d th at long d etour to get us east o r west. P u lask i its e lf is given o ver to the factories. T hey protrude everyw here. T he to w n a little m akes the flesh q u iv er a fte r th e b eau ty o f Sm yth, W ythe and M ontgom ery C ounties. It is like bein g in som e industrial suburb o f C hicago. G aunt, half-ruined m ills are everyw here. T he v ery g round is black. B e y o n d P ulaski again the lovely soft hills. I like the red b rick a n d th e com fortable-looking w hite fram e ho u ses th ey b u ild h ere in this section o f V irginia. U sually th ey stand w ell b ack from th e ro ad w ith g reen and, in th e w inter, taw n y yello w fields betw een th em and th e highw ay. W hite farm houses b uilt clinging to th e sides o f hills are p articularly nice. It w as a pain ter w ho first called m y attention to this. It w o u ld b e hard, how ever, to find, in all A m erica, a m ore charm ing country hom e than th at o f O scar K. H arris, ju s t east o f M arion, th at stands rig h t out on the highw ay. A t one p lac e on the drive to R oanoke y o u plunge abruptly d o w n a w inding hill and fin d y o u rse lf fo llow ing a p u rp le and grey riv er in a long horseshoe bend. It is a m arvelous place. M an y breath -tak in g places d u ring this drive. H ills a n d fields an d houses and th en m ore lovely hills. A t long last Salem . It does n o t take long to g et th rough Salem . It is a sad-looking tow n. T he factories and m ills h av e n o t spoiled R oanoke yet. It is a h ard tow n to spoil. A beautifully situated tow n, th e R oanoke River, th e hills, the pleasant valley in w hich th e tow n stands. F ro m y o u r hotel b ed ro o m w indow , pro v id ed y o u arrive before d ark o f a w inter evening, as I did, and are fortunate enough to get a ro o m fa r up an d looking aw ay to the w est, as I did — and there is a sm oky rain falling o v er th e hills in the distance and th e city streets. P ro v id in g all these things happen to you, as th ey did to m e, y o u w ill stand a m om ent b y the w indow looking out an d shake a b it w ith cold because y o u left the c ar door slides open to m iss nothing, and y o u w ill b e glad, as I w as, th a t fate has sent y o u to live in so gracious a country. A TR A V ELER’S N O T E S: T H E SH E N A N D O A H VALLEY T he spring is a h ard tim e to g et through at best. In o u r country natu re is a b it too lovely, too exciting. T he y e a r ’s passio n is on. It affects everyone. N o w I am o n the ro ad alone in a car. Tough looking young m en hail m e at th e edge o f each tow n. I do n o t stop. I do n o t w an t incidental com panionship. Just the sam e I feel lonely. H um an beings m u st ever be lo n ely in th e spring. L ast w eek I w rote a story about spring loneliness. I gave it the title, “A sham ed.” T he story w as o f tw o m en m ad e asham ed b y the loveliness o f earth in the springtim e. T hey w ere co m m o n m en m ad e suddenly sensitive, suddenly com e to th e realization th a t w hen all the earth w as lovely th e y did n o t feel them selves so. O ne o f th e m en felt th e sam e w ay about h is w ife. H e cam e h o m e in the evening along a m ountain ro a d an d h a d d in n er w ith her. H e co u ld n o t stay in th e house so w ent to w a lk alone and found an o th er m an. E a c h w a n te d to tell the o ther w hat h e felt b u t could n o t fin d w ords to express it. T hey w ere b o th dum b and asham ed in the presence o f trees putting on leaves, a riv er flow ing through a valley, th e sm ell o f n ew grow th a t night. T here is a great feeling o f g u ilt connected w ith not picking up an o th er m an on th e road, ev en w hen 54 �he looks a to u g h one. W hy should I ow n this car w hile h e h a s no car? T his is som ething I cannot under­ stand. I h a v e m oney in m y pocket. W here did it com e from ? W h at rig h t do I have to anything all m en c a n ’t have? O n all sides o f m e are m en w ho have b e e n m ore honest, w h o have been b e tte r citizens, w ho have w o rk ed h a rd e r and suffered m ore. I cannot understand w hy things fall out fo r m e as th e y do. I am a lucky m an. I take w h at I can get. I am in the Valley o f V irginia and w hat a noble valley it is. M y m ind leaps b ack to m y childhood. N o w m en h av e com e in the evenings to sit on the front porch o f th e little yellow house on a b a c k street in a n O hio tow n a n d ta lk to m y father. T hat w as in the days o f saloons. Som e o f th e m en h av e b e e n drinking. T here is the p ecu liar p u n gent smell o f alcohol in the air. It is com bined w ith the spring sm ells. A great beech tree reaches w ith its long arm s out o v e r th e porch, the house and the little fro n t yard. M en are talking o f other spring m ornings in the V alley o f Virginia, o f M anassas, W inchester, L exing­ ton, B ull R un. O nce the attention o f th e entire w orld w as centered on this V alley and on the V irginia country down ab o u t Richm ond. M en w ere struggling b itterly here. D eath and carnage w ere on all sides. It w as the N orth against the South. T here w as never any bitterness in the voices o f the Y ankee soldiers w ho cam e in th e evenings to our house to tell over and over the tales o f the w ar in the Valley. T hey adm ired the fighting qualities o f th eir foes. T here w ere little incidental tales told. T here w as a m an alone on a dark ro ad at night. It m ig h t have been th e very country ro ad I have ju s t passed in m y car. T he m an had been out foraging and up cam e a group o f cavalrym en. It w as dark and he did not know w hether th ey w ere friends o r foes, so plu n g ed across th e road and g o t into a field. T he m en shouted at him and tw o o r th ree shots w ere fired. H e m ay have ru n across that field there, p ast that old b a m and into the w oods I see yonder. In the tale he to ld w h en I w as a b o y he got lost an d w andered about all night, not know ing w h eth er he w as w ithin his ow n lines or w ithin th e enem y’s lines. I do not rem em ber all th e details o f his n ig h t o f adventure, b u t do rem em ber how, as a sm all boy, he m ad e m e feel th e darkness a n d terror o f th e night. N early all old soldiers are g o o d story-tellers. T hey m u st have learned the art at night in th e cam ps o r when, w ith tw o o r three com panions, they w ere o ut o n p ick e t duty or on a foraging expedition. N ow , i f there w ere another w ar, the m en w ould all b e equipped w ith radio sets. A t n ig h t cheap singers in city burlesque houses w o u ld baw l at th em about som e blue vaudeville H eaven. T he V alley opens out gloriously on both sides o f th e road. H ow m any tim es it has b een described. The ro llin g fields, the fine old houses standing on hills am ong the trees. I rem em ber the descriptions given by the N o rth ern m en com e hom e from the war. They, how ever, said nothing about the sign boards. T here are fine houses to b e seen and fine cattle and, as I ride up th e Valley m ountains, are alw ays in sight to th e rig h t and to the left. T he yanks w ere d ow n here once and m ust have com e again. A friend in N ew Y ork to ld m e recently that th e yankees w ere all becom ing southerners and the southerners w ere all becom ing yanks. T he w hole Valley n o w is plastered w ith sign boards and every other old V irginia house is a T ourist’s Rest. C ave shouts at C ave along th e ro ad and T ourist’s R e st shouts at T ourist’s R est. H ow m an y caves to be gone d o w n into and how m u ch m oney to be m ad e gettin g tourists dow n un d er the ground. I am no t ready to go dow n un d e r the ground yet. I ignore the sign boards. T here is a persistent m erchant in R oanoke. H e has p u t up signs every m ile, telling h o w fa r aw ay y o u are from him . N o w you are forty-tw o m iles from h is store, forty-three, forty-five, forty-six, fifty m iles from his store, fifty-one, fifty-tw o, fifty three. W ell, w h at th e h ell o f it? A re w e to b e m ade glad, g etting so far away fro m his store? I w e n t to the N atural B ridge. I could not resist that, although I did stay out o f the caves. T he bridge 55 �is lovely bey o n d w ords, the nearest thing to the cathedrals o f th e o ld w orld I have seen o n this side o f the w ater. T here is som ething G othic in nature as it expresses itse lf here. T he N atu ral B ridge is rea lly m ajestic a n d vast, th e great stone arch o f it seem ing to spring up from earth as m en in th e age o f faith once m ade the g rea t stone arches o f th e cathedrals go up to God. T he N atural B ridge left m e dum b and deeply m oved. In an age o f faith m en w ould have gone to th at place to w orship. B u t w h a t m o d e m p rea c h e r w ould dare preach a serm on d o w n there in the deep valley u n d e r that strange a n d lovely arch? g ig tick 's J ir s t P o s t Office F o r years, historians h av e been unable to determ ine th e earliest official u sa g e o f th e nam e, “B ig L ick ,” fo r the com m u n ity w hich developed at the ju n ctio n o f Indian trails, ea rly w ag o n roads, railroads, highw ays and even airlines. T he question appears to h a v e been settled w ith th e finding th a t W igton K ing w as officially ap p o in ted first postm aster o f B ig L ic k on Jan. 11, 1798. T h is w as lo n g b efo re B ig L ick w as chartered in 1874. T he research cam e from a m aste r’s thesis a t H ollins C ollege (now U niversity) on “M ail D elivery in th e M agic City,” b y P aul M . E nglish in 1997. In early tim es, p o st offices often w ere op erated at existing tav ern s a n d postal b u sin ess w as h a n d le d b y tavern-keepers. W igton K ing w as o perating Spotts Tavern, o w n ed b y G eorge S potts and located ju s t w est o f th e p resent intersection o f O range A venue a n d W illiam son R oad. K in g w as indicted fo r selling liq u o r w ith o u t a license and h e later retired, according to p o stal records. O ther early B ig L ick postm asters: John C ornelius Pate, 1804; Jam es B raw ley, 1813; Jo h n M use, 1813; E dw ard P ate, 1818; R obert R obertson, 1821; E dm und P ate, 1821; W illiam S m ith, 1826; B en ­ ja m in B erry W ard, 1826; Seth W ard, 1827; Jam es C. M adison, 1827; P asch al B. W ade, 1829; Y elverton O liver, 1831; Jo h n C . Jeffreys, 1831; F rederick Johnston, 1834; T hom as W. M icon, 1838; Z achariah R obinson, 1846; an d A rm istead N eal, 1847. P o stal records list L ew is C ooper as the first postm aster o f Salem in 1802, before th e to w n w as ch artered in 1806. Jo h n H olley w as the first po stm aster a t G ish ’s M ill, la te r n a m e d V inton, in 1856. In the beginning, m ail w as delivered occasionally b y stage coaches o r transient riders. P o stm as­ ters w ere appointed a fte r th e U .S . Post O ffice D ep artm en t w as created in 1794. M a il deliv ery to hom es an d businesses in th e n e w city o f R oanoke beg an in 1888 a n d th e first o fficial p o st office b u ild in g in R oanoke o p ened at C h u rch A venue and H enry (now F irst) Street in 1897. T rucks replaced h orse-draw n w ag o n s in 1922 a n d th e first a ir m ail service cam e in 1924, according to p o stal records. R u ral Free D eliv ery (R FD ) fro m Salem started in 1903. 56 �3~fow 7)o O a r h a r d e n s SOroiv? By Alice Trout Hagan (E d ito r’s N ote: On A p ril 19, 2000, A lice Trout H agan saluted the 75th anniversary o f the fo u n d in g o f the Roanoke Valley Garden Club in this speech to its m em bers, celebrating its founders, notably “M iss M innie ”, w ife o f Edw ard L. Stone, ( o f whom, m ore later), and the c lu b ’s m any and visible com m unity achievem ents. In 1975, M rs. H agan s mother, A lice Green Trout, w as the speaker a t the club s 50th anni­ versary celebration.) M i s s M innie’s account o f ou r first [Club] m eeting begins, “It w as a lovely day in A pril that B lanche (Mrs. D avis) called m e over the ph o n e saying, ‘M iss M innie, I w a n t y o u to com e over here tom orrow m orning to help organize a garden club. ’ That m eetin g p ro v ed to be fo r election o f officers. It w as done in this fashion w hich, as far as I knew , w as the w ay to do it. B lanche said to m e, ‘M iss M innie, y o u are the president.’ I said, ‘I A M N O T !’ She said, ‘Yes, y o u a re ,’ and so I w as th e president. Then, looking at M rs. McVitty, she said, ‘A nd you are the vice p resid en t.’ A fter w h a t h ad h ap p en ed to m e, M rs. M cV itty said nothing, and neither did M rs. C raw ford w hen to ld she w o u ld b e treasurer. N o one w as asked to be secretary. You can read ily see th at w e h a d nev er heard o f M r. R oberts — o r his R u les.” B efore M iss M innie started serving her term , she secured the services o f th e b est local parliam entar­ ian to instruct her as to “how to get the th ing along.” W h en the instructor cam e to give M iss M innie h e r third lesson, M iss M innie said he h a d already taught h e r too m uch — that h e r club w as a G arden Club. T he first official m eeting produced the nam e o f the club, the club flow er and the club m otto: “W hat is H eaven? Is it not ju s t a friendly garden plot?” A t th e next m eeting th e p resid en t advised punctual atten­ dance, avoidance o f confusion in the proceedings and p ro m p t paym ent o f dues, w hich w ere S3.00 p e r year. A furor developed w hen the hostess announced th at light refreshm ents w ere available. Thus beg an the eternal struggle o f w hether o r n o t to h av e refreshm ents. B y th e follow ing y e a r th e pro-refreshm ents forces had won. M rs. W aller Staples served ice cream in clay po ts a n d lem onade fro m a b u cket in her w ell. O ur c lu b ’s m ajor pro ject for th e first y e a r an d into follow ing years w as th e planting o f E lm w ood Park, w hich M iss M innie forgot to m ention in h e r first report. So a fter tw o o r three years o f listening to other reports about it, she quietly g o t hold o f th e m inutes b o o k and rew rote h e r w hole report including Elm w ood P ark this tim e. D uring these years our club m et tw ice a m onth, recessing fo r July and A ugust. T he ladies knew little about exhibits, containers o r ribbons. O ne m em b er asked w hy she h ad w on a blue ribbon w hen she had brought re d flow ers. T hey all tho u g h t ju d g e s g av e ribbons only to th eir best friends. E arly on, m em bers gave reports on th eir o w n gardens, since a n aw ard w as given fo r the m ost im provem ent. Alice Trout Hagan, a Roanoke native, is a past president of Roanoke Valley Garden Club and a board member of the History Museum. 57 �’T w as said that M iss M arion M aher has m ade m ark ed im provem ents in hers, follow ing a plan suited to the location o f th e garden. M rs. E dgar F unkhouser m o d estly reported o n the establishm ent o f a sm all peren n ial garden ju s t outside h e r living ro o m at C herry H ill. M rs. S. K . F unkhouser notified th e club o f h er intention to begin a garden to cover th e entire re a r o f h e r lot. A n d “M rs. Joseph C raw ford has recently p u t out m an y shrubs, plants a n d bulbs w h ich m ay b e a feast fo r o u r eyes i f w e are so fortunate as to be in v ited to m eet there in the future.” Two m em bers com plained th at th ey h a d accom plished little, as they co u ld n ’t figure out h o w to raise dogs and flow ers on th e sam e lot. D e a r old M rs. W.K. A ndrew s, one o f the best-lo v ed m em bers o f the group, had a large g ard en w ith long p ath sloping to th e south. “H er friends are alw ays w elco m ed there — even h er cow ram bles up and d o w n this p a th nibbling flow ers and grass alike.” She reported h o w beautiful it w as, a glorious sight w ith flow ers b loom ing on th is side a n d that — as far as th e eye could see. A n epic rep o rt w h ich she en d ed w ith, “T h an k G od fo r m y old brindle cow !” A s m em b ers’ gardens flourished our ladies p assed th e ir energies o n to th e highw ays. T he ladies attacked tree p lanting along R oute 11 w ith shovels, w atering po ts an d yardsticks, covering several m iles. W hen th e ro ad w as later wddened the trees w ere dem olished an d th e billboards cam e, rem em bered b y this little ditty: I th in k that I shall n ev er see a b illb o ard lo v ely as a tree A n d unless th e billboards fall, I ’ll n e v e r see a tree at all. T he w orld w as c au g h t up in a cruel and destructive war. Sixty-tw o m em bers o f o u r im m ediate fam ilies served in the arm ed forces. O ur ladies w ere involved in m an y w a r activities: the R e d C ross, the U SO , T rav eler’s A id, the m o to r corps an d civilian defense. U n d er th e v e ry ro o f w h ere w e are now sitting ou r m em bers gathered on W ednesdays and tu rn ed out 7,000 em ergency dressings fo r use in em ergency stations. M rs. D avis p a c k ed u p som e m em bers to go w ith h e r to help wdth the landscaping at the C am p P ickett p erm anent hospital grounds at B lackstone, Virginia. C lub m em bers w ere w atching th e progress o f th eir o w n 40 V ictory G ardens w hich spaw ned another ditty from an unknow n poet: B eh o ld ou r garden plots today, or rather, w hat w e ’ll see in M ay. O u r gardens only flow ers did grow , now v egetable seeds w e also sow. T he rose w e love, the clim bing vine, grew side b y side w ith th e b u tterbean vine. T he jo n q u il wdth b lossom so yello w finds the carrot its neighboring fellow ; A n d n e a r th e evening, scented stock onions flourish in th e garden plot. B esides feeding o u r souls on flow ers o f beauty, wdth V ictory G ardens, w e do our duty. 58 �A fter the war, G C V [G arden C lub o f V irginia] m eetings, w hich h ad b een suspended, b eg an again. I rem em ber a couple o f tales I can tell o f m y m o th e r’s and S arah B u tler’s adventures at these m eetings. In those days delegates d id n ’t stay in hotels and m otels fo r state gatherings, b u t in th e hom es o f th e hostess club m em bers, w here som e m eetings w ere also held. O n one occasion they started up a drivew ay w hich w as blo ck ed b y a “Q uarantine” sign. T his w as done on a regular basis then to curb the spread o f infectious diseases. A m an approached th eir stopped car, asking i f th ey w ere garden club m em bers. U p o n receiving their affirm ative reply, he said, “G o rig h t on in. M rs. Sm ith put up the sign because she didn’t w an t p eo p le w andering o ff the street to see w h at w as going on.” A nother tim e they cam e dow n for breakfast, all dressed u p for the day. A m aid m et them at the foot o f the stairs and said, “O h, m ercy! B reakfast w ill be served in y o u r room . M rs. B row n d oesn’t like to get dressed early.” So M other and Sarah w ent b ack u p to th eir room and p u t on th eir gow ns and ro b es until their breakfast arrived. N ow , a few facts and figures: T he R oanoke V alley G arden Club, founded in A pril 1925, w as the first garden club in the City o f R oanoke. It soon spearheaded the organization o f seven other garden clubs— M ill M ountain, M agic City, G reenw ood R oad, A lleghany, W asena, M ountain V iew and B ig Lick. T he first garden w e developed w as started in 1926 at E lm w ood Park, w hich over the n e x t 20 years involved the planting o f hundreds o f trees and shrubs an d 1,800 rose bushes. In 1930, w e p lan te d hundreds o f dogw oods and other trees fo r several m iles along R oute 11 near H ollins, th en the northern entrance to the city. In 1931, w e began to contribute tree seedlings to th e city tree nursery. D uring th e follow ing 10 years, 400 trees w ere p lanted along city streets from th e original seedlings. In 1941, w e b eg an the restoration o f the F incastle P resbyterian C hurchyard, the oldest in the tow n, an d this becam e a state restoration project the next year. In 1955, w e planted a garden at the R oanoke C h ild G uidance Center. In the 1970s, w e p lan ted trees to beautify an unsightly dirt b a n k above the C rystal Spring tennis courts. W hen C herry H ill becam e the R oanoke Fine A rts Center, w e plan ted 675 boxw ood, 26 hem locks and countless p eriw inkle plants there. W hen the center m oved dow ntow n, w e m oved som e boxw ood to Fairacres, the G arden C lub center, sold some to m em bers and m oved th e rest to the T ransportation M useum , th en in W asena Park. A fter the 1985 flood subm erged the m useum plantings, club m em bers salvaged som e box w o o d to a w arehouse, p roving the durability o f the plants, not to m ention the m em b ers’ backs. T his garden club does gardens! The R oanoke Valley G arden Club jo in e d the G arden C lub o f V irginia in 1929. T hree state presidents have com e from this club; w e h av e hosted th ree annual state m eetings, sponsored lily, daffodil and rose shows and received three state M assie M edals, th e D eL acy G ray M edal and th e runner-up C om m onw ealth Award. F o r our 75th A nniversary these “old d ays” anecdotes w ere chosen, as there is no one left to banter them around. E very one o f y o u harbors sim ilar tales o f personal garden club experiences, w h ich should be recorded. W rite them dow n and g ive them to m e som etim e. O u r centennial is ju s t around the com er! A nd finally — M iss M innie, thank you fo r w riting dow n your m em ories, and m o st o f all fo r accept­ ing M iss B lanche’s invitation to “com e on over tom orrow m orning a n d help organize a G arden C lub.” ❖ 59 �Cfl (D ia ry o f J<IC rs. & cfw arcf/3 . <5/o n e (E ditor’s Note: “M iss M innie, ’’ aka M rs. Edward Stone, had lived in Roanoke fo r 45 years before she was dragooned to serving as the Roanoke Valley Garden C lub’s fir s t president. W hatfo llo w s here are excerpts fro m her diary about the c ity ’s early days, which Journal readers m ay fin d evocative. The Journal is indebted to A lice Trout Hagan fo r m aking M iss M innie’s m anuscript available.) O n D ecem ber 13, 1880 a train stopped at w hat is now know n as Com m erce Street crossing. My father and m other and several small children w ere assisted in getting o ff the train. W e were at last in Big Lick where w e w ere going to live. There w ere nearly four hundred people here. It seem ed a rather largish place to our childish eyes. T he little tow n as I rem em ber it consisted o f a row o f houses on each side o f the railroad tracks. On one side lived one o f m y uncles where w e stayed until a house could be found; on the other side, another uncle, the N eal fam ily, Dr. K ent’s lovely old hom e, Mr. H enry Trout, and m y cousin, M rs. M .H. Taylor. The Neals and Trouts and the fam ily o f one o f m y uncles still live in Roanoke. W here the Ponce de Leon now stands w as the only hotel and was know n as the Trout house. It was a sm all tw o-story fram e residence. There was a large yard w ith a pink rose bush and a good spring. The spring has been utilized in the basem ent o f the Ponce de Leon. To the N ortheast was the colored section know n as Gainsboro. In this section stands the building which in days gone by was the first tavern and the post office o f that day. To the Southeast was Elm w ood Park, the hom e o f the Terrys at that time. It was a long w ay from the Com m erce Street station w here w e left the train. D uring the Civil War, Elm w ood was ow ned by m y grandm other’s brother, Benjam in Tinsley. N ow go quite a w ay over rough ground to a point w here now stands the Lutheran Church. Halfway between this point and the Johnson Chevrolet Corporation, back from the road, stood the J.M. Gam bill home. Aw ay to the South was the M cClanahan home; to its left, a w onderful spring, later called Crystal Spring w hen w e got to be called Roanoke. A bird ’s eye view over to the N orth show ed H ollins, a long w ay at that tim e; also the Watts and Sorrell farms. W e knew o f a tow n called Salem, quite a journey in those days o f horses and buggies over a very rough country road. In 1882 a great thing happened to us. The Shenandoah [Valley] R ailroad w as brought to little B ig Lick. T hen our nam e was changed to Roanoke, and after that things happened very fast. Salem could have had the Shenandoah [Valley] Railroad, b ut she didn’t w ant it then [em phasis in the original]. In those days the w ildest excitem ent for this little new Roanoke w ere trips to R oanoke College com­ m encem ents or Hollins comm encem ents, to say nothing o f trips to pick blueberries or, m ost w onderful o f all, a trip to Peaks o f O tter o r Luray Cave. To Luray on the train, and, i f to Peaks o f Otter, thirteen or fourteen buggies. A n d picnics! I can still taste the lovely cake m ade by M ary Trout — later M rs. J.C. D avenport. O n these occasions he w ould send a colored boy w ith a note asking the pleasure or honor o f our com pany to the picnic, to the Literary Society, the dance, o r w hatever w e h ad in those days. In these days he dashes up in a car o f som e kind, honks several tim es, and out she goes. 60 �S h ip s <£ S h ip m a te s S a ils O n By Donlan Piedmont I t w ill n o t have escaped anyone’s notice th at R oanoke has n o apparent relationship w ith th e sea, save fo r tw o strips o f steel rail w hich end at a large c o a l p ier o n the E lizab eth R iver in N orfolk, 250 m iles east. D ow ntow n R oanoke ship chandlers do n o t p ly th e ir trad e on th e M arket; our riv er has n o seaw eed, no docks; no crow ds o f roistering shore-leave sailors ja m o u r A rt M useum , o u r Library, our R oanoke Sym phony concerts. A nd yet, read h ere th e w ords o f O ne W ho K now s, W illiam B. Cogar, vice president and c h ie f curator o f the M ariners’ M useum in N ew port N ew s: “R oanoke and th e [R oanoke] V alley ... m ay be in the m ountains, b u t they are very m uch connected to the sea. M erely b ecau se they c a n ’t see the sea d o e sn ’t m ean they are not. ... [Their] histo ry transcends th e m ountains an d goes to the sea. “It is,” he continues, “an im portant exhibition ... an extraordinary am ount o f m aterial o f interest especially to those w ith a personal interest in th e sea.” A nd that num ber includes so m any o f u s in W estern Virginia. T here w ere, after all, at least 52 vessels - naval and otherw ise H n am ed Roanoke, an d 19 o f th ese are celebrated in th e lively, evocative “ Ships & Shipm ates” exhibit at the H istory M useum o f W estern V irginia in R oan o k e’s C enter in the Square. This truly blockbuster display to o k nearly three years to assem ble, interpret an d m ount. K ent C hrism an, executive director o f the M useum , credits the exhibit’s outstanding quality to th e effort led in large part b y C live R ice and B ill Claytor: R ice is an old N avy salt an d C laytor, an A rm y veteran, soon becam e passionate about the N aval display. B oth becam e alm ost obsessed w ith th e n o tion o f a R oanoke-rooted nautical exhibit and took it on, and, by doing so, violated the old N avy m axim : “never volunteer fo r anything.” W ithout them , C hnsm an believes, the exhibit w o u ld have never gotten o ff the ground. O r m ore properly, got to sea. T hey helped raise m o n ey - m ore th an $125,000 - a n d begged, borrow ed, cadged, cajoled and in other w ays persuaded donors here, there and n ationw ide to p rovide item s fo r th e exhibit. T hey even visited a governm ent w arehouse in E astern V irginia from w h ich th ey acq u ired o ld sh ip s’ gear, including a com pass and an engine telegraph - all free. T here are thousands o f item s on display here —an eclectic assortm ent o f uniform s, signal flags, the silver service from the cru iser USS Roanoke an d shards from th e cham pagne bottle u sed by Ju lia H enebry C hilders (daughter o f R o an o k e’s M ayor L eo H enebry) to ch risten th e ship in 1947. T he exhibit also con­ tains, oddly, a three-disc long-play recording o f that v e ry christening. M ichael B lankenship bo u g h t it on the Internet - 1 1 bucks - a n d gave it to the M useum . (A nd this is h o w c ertain things w ork in the donation trade: w ith th e L Ps in one h a n d C hrism an extended th e o th er for funds to b u y equipm ent to p lay them .) T he cruiser R oanoke w as perhaps th e star v essel to b e a r th e nam e, b u t there w ere in addition, as M ary B ishop points out in a R oanoke Times article o n the exhibit, “b rigs, barques, barges, sloops, schoo­ ners, steam ers, tugs, tankers a n d tow boats.” Som e w e re n a m e d fo r th e city, others for the riv er and others fo r—w ho know s. The salubrious effect o f all this variety, B ishop w rites, w as to m ake the exhibit a sam pler o f A m erican naval history.” O ne o f th e Roanoke s w as a frigate from 1854. E ig h t years later, disabled and scheduled for repairs, she lay in H am pton R oads w h ere h er still o n -duty crew w atched as the C SS Virginia (aka M errim ac ) and the U SS M onitor m ade n av al h isto ry a fe w h u n d red yards away. (The crew thus proved that th e po et John M ilton w as correct w hen h e w rote th a t “ [T ]hey also serve w ho only stand and w ait.) 61 �A nother R oanoke, a barq u e b u ilt in B ath, M aine, in 1892, w as a very large w oo d en cargo ship w hich served in th e w orld-w ide coal and sugar trade until, one day in 1905, it w as destroyed by fire near N e w C aledonia. T he v ast stretch o f th e southw est P acific w as a long w a y from the city w hose nam e the ship bore, and farth er still fro m its birthplace. T he exhibit includes m odels o f th e frigate an d a C onfederate tu g (clearly nam ed fo r the river, there bein g no city o f R oanoke at th e tim e). T hey w ere com m issioned b y th e M useum from a m odel-m aker in N e w M exico —an e v en greater distance from the sea th an R oanoke. R ice raised $3,400 fro m his C ivil W ar R oundtable colleagues to p ay fo r the tu g ’s m odel. W hen th e jo b w as com pleted, the m o d eler becam e so concerned over the safety o f his exquis­ itely crafted h an d iw o rk that he drove from h is hom e to deliv er b o th m odels b y h a n d a n d in perso n to the M useum . O ther support fo r th e project, politi­ cal, fiscal, physical, cam e from m any: S enator Jo h n W arner fo r one, and Sam G ile s , b o th e x -N a v y m e n . W a rn e r o p ened doors to help in acquisitions; G iles and S teven D odd, a cabinetm aker from Salem , b u ilt w alls fo r the exhibit, and R ice and G iles re-created a crew ’s bunk, adding verisim ilitude to the enter­ prise. T hese volunteers, and dozens o f others, C hrism an declares, “have spent thousands o f hours - 1 am n o t exagger­ a tin g - th o u s a n d s o f h o u rs on th is The USS Steam Frigate Roanoke (c. 1854) and other artifacts from Ships p ro ject.” & Shipmates. The exhibit will be on display until March, 2003. T h e e x te n s iv e c o lle c tio n in c lu d e s The History Museum is open every day except Mondays. m em orabilia, m aps, instruments, bits and pieces o f uniform s, decorations, m ed­ als, ashtrays, virtually everything nautical except perhaps a salt-air breeze astern, and a glim pse o f the actual p eo p le w ho w ore, operated, saw, w orked on or u sed these artifacts. T he M u seu m c a n ’t p rovide a salty breeze. B u t the p eople, those w ho served in w a r and peace, have n o t b e e n forgotten here. O ne h u n d red and fifty o f them lo o k dow n on th e exhibit from a com plem entary W all o f H onor, w h ich com m em orates th e area m en and w o m en w ho w ore th e N a v y ’s unifo rm at one tim e or another. T here are another hundred or so w aiting for their tu rn to be displayed on the Wall. Further, Chrism an says friends and relatives o f th e a rea’s seafarers from tim e to tim e still b rin g in even m ore photographs, and th e y ’ll have th eir tu rn as w ell. M ary B ishop h as described the range o f this p h o tographic collection: “T h ere’s Jam es L anghom e Tayloe, said to b e th e v alley ’s first N avy veteran, w ho serv ed from 1853 to 1862. T h ere’s Seam an Lakita H enderson, in th e N a v y now. T h e re ’s form er G overnor L in w o o d H olton. T here are five Sink brothers in W orld W ar II - R obert, D aniel, H ow ard, E arl and G raydon. T h e re ’s the chairm an o f the M u seu m board, and an attendant in th e C en ter in th e Square garage, all p o sted o n th e w all w ith o u t reg ard to ran k .” H igh p rofessional p raise fo r th e ex h ib it’s scope an d qu ality cam e from the interim director o f the V irginia M useum o f F ine A rts, w ho, to u ring C enter in th e S quare one day, ev en before the exhibit was to tally installed, ask ed C hrism an, “W here d id y o u borro w th is exhibit - th e M arin ers’?” “N o,” said C hrism an w ith pride. “W e did it ourselves.” ♦♦♦ 62 �5 0 S t a r C itizen s H onored fo r “S e lfle ss C ontributions" T o m ark the 50th anniversary o f R o an o k e’s M ill M ountain star, 50 “ Star C itizens” o f th e last half-century w ere h o n o red at a gala celebration on Nov. 3 0 ,1 9 9 9 at R ockledge, the hom e o f R alph Sm ith o n M ill M ountain. Sm ith, w ho w as co-chairm an o f the Star C elebration C om m ittee, w as elected ■ m ayor o f R oan o k e a y e a r later. T he event w as co­ sponsored b y th e R oanoke R egional C ham ber o f C om ­ m erce, U n ite d W ay o f R oanoke V alley and the H istory M useum a n d H istorical Society o f W estern Virginia. T he black-tie celebration recognized 50 “Star C iti­ zens,” individuals a n d fam ilies, “w hose selfless contribu­ tions h av e m ad e our V alley w h at it is today,” according to planners o f th e event. Som e o f th e “ Star C itizens” and m em bers o f th e ir fam ilies cam e to the d inner w here they received a m o d el o f th e star. T he citizens, selected to co­ incide w ith th e 50-year life o f the star, w ere chosen b y a three-m em ber anonym ous panel. T he dinner w as for th e b enefit o f a Star Fund, nam ed fo r th e M ill M ountain star, recently designated a state and n atio n al H istoric L andm ark. T he fund is to be used for g ran ts for th e preservation and m aintenance o f R oanoke V alley properties listed on the V irginia L and­ m arks o r N atio n al R egisters. T he fund, n o w am ounting to about $12,000, is m anaged b y the H istory M useum and H istorical Society. M oney from interest on the fund w ill be u s e d fo r preservation grants after th e total am ount has reach ed about $20,000, according to K e n t Chrism an, M useum executive director. ^tar j^war^ T h e Star C itizens, chosen for the y e a r o f their civic and philanthropic acts, are: 1950— c . F rancis C ocke, banker, lead er in local and regional education, library and history program s 1951— R euben Law son, law yer w h o filed the first school integration suit in R oanoke; Rev. F. G . Sam pson, first A frican-A m erican m em ber o f R oanoke M inisters C onference, elected secretary 1952— A rthur O w ens, R oanoke city m anager, a n d M ayor R o y W ebber, led p rom otion for R o an o k e’s first A ll-A m erican C ity aw ard 1953— Junius B . F ishbum , Junius R F ishbum and B lair F ish b u m (father, son a n d cousin), w ho gave p a rk land to th e city a n d contributed to com m unity program s 63 �1954— V irginia Y. L ee, G ainsboro librarian for 43 years, assem bled the first collection o f 1955— A frican-A m erican histories in R oanoke p aui B uford, p resident o f Shenandoah L ife Insurance Co., active supporter o f city and college education 1956— Dr. A . L. Jam es, p asto r o f F irst B aptist C hurch, N o rth Jefferson Street, fo r 38 years in th e D epression, started a free m ilk line, first daily vacation B ible school, served on the C ity S chool B oard L eonard M use, law yer, state senator, lead er in local an d state education; F rank W. R ogers Sr., law yer, library and com m unity leader 1958— R. H. Sm ith, N orfo lk & W estern R ailw ay president, led successful school b o n d cam paign 1959— Dr. J. B. C laytor, h ead o f fam ily o f professionals— sons Dr. F. W. C laytor, internal m edicine; Dr. J. B. C laytor Jr., surgeon; Dr. W alter Claytor, dentist 1960— “P roblem solvers”— Dr. M aynard Law, Rev. R. R. W ilkinson, L aw rence H am lar, F rank C lem ent and A rth u r Taubm an, leaders in A frican-A m erican and w hite com m unities, form ed a secret com m ittee w h ich integrated R oanoke lunch counters 1957— w ithout incident 1961— C lem D. Johnston, civic and C ham ber o f C om m erce leader 1962— P ercy K eelin g w o rk ed w ith thousands o f youngsters at W illiam H u n to n Y M C A ; Dr. W endell Butler, H u n to n branch Y M C A m em ber, chairm an o f R oanoke C ity School B o ard L arry Dow , lead er o f Y M C A b u ilding fund, co-chair o f C itizens fo r A rena-A uditorium Rev. F. E. A lexander, R oanoke Tribune founder-publisher; daughter, C laudia W hitw orth, follow ed as publisher 1965— Drs. L . C. D ow ning, G ordon D ow ning a n d E . D. D ow ning, m edical leaders; Dr. L. C. D ow ning w as superintendent o f B u rrell M em orial H ospital 1966— C abell B rand, Salem catalog com pany executive, founded Total A ctio n A gainst P o v erty 1963— 1964— 1967— 1968— 1969— E dm und P. G oodw in, historical and cultural leader Sam M cN eil, first p resident o f W B R A , p u b lic television, in R oanoke G ordon W illis, led developm ent o f A m erican V iscose C orp. plant site into industrial center 1970— Dr. N o e l Taylor, longtim e R oanoke m ayor, conciliator, com m unity peacem aker 1971— Dr. M argaret G lendy, first w om an health co m m issio n er in R oanoke an d lead er in 1972— 1973— health care circles R obert W. W oody, m ayor, leader o f tw o successful R oanoke b o n d issues Julian W ise, founder o f R oanoke L ifesaving Crew, first in w orld, receiv ed 1974— presidential citation H erm an Pevler, N orfo lk & W estern R ailw ay president, supporter o f education, 1975— civic program s D orothy G ibboney, first fem ale school superintendent in R oanoke, com m unity leader; Sadie L aw son, longtim e teacher o f classics a n d principal at A d dison H igh 1976— 1977— School, influenced thousands o f students E. H. O uld, banker, lead er in financial and ed u cation com m unities C harles P. L u n sfo rd a n d son, C harles I. L unsford, insurance executives, behindscenes contributors to m an y valley causes; C harles I. L unsford, C en ter in th e Square leader 64 �1978— Jo h n W ill Creasy, advertising executive, designer, artist, leader in founding P atchw ork Players, Show tim ers, M useum o f T heatre H istory (M O T H ), a n d Sidew alk A rt Festival 1979— Dr. P erry K endig, R oanoke C ollege professor, dean, president, leader in cultural services 1 9 g Q _ H a ze l T hom pson saved H arriso n School, w h ich becam e H arrison M useum and 1981— housing fo r th e elderly N icholas T aubm an, A dvance A uto P arts executive, contributor to Explore Park v isitor center and o ther civic p rogram s W illiam B. H opkins, law yer, state senator, play ed significant role in obtaining funding fo r C enter in th e Square, Science M useum o f W estern V irginia 1983— Jo h n H ancock Jr. and G eorge C artledge Sr. originated the idea and contributed to C enter in the Square and dow ntow n developm ent 1984— Sigm und D avidson, m ajo r fund ra ise r fo r com m unity program s, follow ed b y his son, 1982— L arry D avidson B ern E w ert, R oanoke city m anager, led dow ntow n R oanoke developm ent, started E xplore Park; D ouglas C ruickshanks, banker, first president o f R iver Foundation, paren t o f E xplore Park; N o rm an F intel, R oanoke C ollege president, President o f R iver Foundation, supporter o f com m unity program s 1986— B eim e Carter, C arter M achinery Co. executive, w hose estate set up a m ajo r statew ide 1985— foundation 1987— W arner D alhouse, banker, leader a t C enter in the Square, responsible fo r D om inion Tow er 1988— Dr. D ouglas Pierce, pediatrician a n d co-founder o f R oanoke area C hild H ealth Investm ent Partnership (C H IP), pro g ram providing health care fo r p o o r children 1989— M arion Via, m ajo r b ack er o f R oanoke Sym phony, C enter in the Square organizations, B radley Free C linic and R escue M ission 1990— B ittle and C harlotte P orterfield, supporters o f com m on causes 1991— G lenn and Joanne T hornhill, backers o f A rt M useum o f W estern V irginia 1992— W illiam J. and B arb ara Lem on, supporters o f C enter in the Square, education and com m unity program s B etty C arr M use, active lead er an d supporter o f civic, cultural causes R osalie and Sydney S haftm an an d son, F red Shaftm an, m ajor contributors to U nited Way, C enter in th e Square, Jefferson C enter and other program s 1995— Thom as R obertson, C arilion H ealth S ystem chairm an, led cam paign to raise m oney 1993— 1994— for H otel R oanoke renovation 1996— H eidi K risch, first fem ale U n ited W ay chairm an, m ajor b ack er o f R ed C ross, Jefferson C enter and o th er program s 1997— Judge B everly F itzpatrick led the Jefferson C enter drive 1998— H orace and H eyw ood F ralin, b ro th ers w ho h av e b een large contributors to A rt M useum o f W estern V irginia, V irginia Tech, 4 -H C enter and other causes 1999— G arnett Sm ith, A dvance A uto P arts executive, supporter o f 4-H Center, V irginia W estern C om m unity C ollege and o th er program s 65 ��w w ä fw %ssT' «-K-. 1111 -'Vt;^. M:fs£¿‘-y<z » graSn R « I ,f‘iS ■ H H ^ ^ I a .^ ^ æ  f e ' ■'.- ■ �h isto ry jfiuseum & h isto rica l Society O F W E ST E R N V IR G IN IA Center in the Square, One Market Square, SE Roanoke, VA 24011 Tel: 540/342-5770 Email: history@roanoke.infi.net Web Site: www.history-museum.org � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia 2001 Volume 14, Number 2 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />Vice Presidential Candidate had Carvins Cove Summer Home Emma Comer, First Graduate of Roanoke City High School, 1894 Celebrating the Millennium, 1901<br />Mrs. Breckinridge's Brewery<br />Growing Up and Having Fun in South Roanoke<br />Peyton Terry, Roanoke's First Millionaire<br />Where the Toshes Came From<br />George Washington Slept in Big Lick<br />First President Honored on 200th Anniversary of His Death<br />Edgar A. Long Building Recalls Christiansburg Institute's Legacy Peggy Ballard Maupin, 102<br />Sherwood Anderson Rides Through Southwest Virginia<br />Big Lick's First Post Office<br />How Do Our Gardens Grow?<br />Ships and Shipmates Sails On<br />50 Star Citizens Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2001 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_14_02_2001 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6360/JHSWV_15_01_2002.pdf f1c8216c0cc5f6bfdb32cfbfcb1b1e7e PDF Text Text OF WESTERN VIRGINIA Volume Fifteen Number One �Of Western V irginia A m o r m o n t i u m n o s m ov et (For The love of mountains inspires u s ) John P. B radshaw , Jr. Jam es F. D outhat ...... A nn F. S tephenson .. W hitney H. Feldm ann ........ Vice ...... ....... P resident President T reasu rer Secretary D. K en t C hrism an ..................................... E xecutive D irecto r Betty H undley .......................................Adm inistrative M anager '¿reclxfnsy SaraAirheart Paul G. Beers Bruce Brenner Paul C. Buford David H. Burrows Betty C. Craig Betty K. Dye Alice T. Hagan William C. Hagan David G. Helmer Robert H. Kulp Dr. Whitney A. Monger Leeson David Lemon W. Tucker Lemon James Lesniak Edwin E. Lunsford C. Whitney Markley Thomas O. Maxfield III Alice B. Roberts Michael K. Smeltzer Ronald E. Sink The Hon. Ralph K. Smith Mary M. Utt Edgar V. Wheeler Cranston Williams, Jr. 'ireetor& George A. Kegley Clare S. White �Table of Contents Note From the Executive D irector.................................................................................................... P age 3 Railroads and Their P eople............................................................................................................... P age 4 Louis M. Newton The Virginia & Tennessee Railroad -150 Years A g o ..................................................................P age 17 George Kegley Working with Winston Link at the End of Steam Pow er............................................................. P age 20 Thomas H. Garver The Turnpikes o f Southwest Virginia............................................................................................. P age 29 Dr. K enneth W. K eller The Harris Family A rchives............................................................................................................ P age 36 Kathleen Ingoldsby What Do We Leave B ehind?........................................................................................................... P age 49 Anna Fariello Gwynn’s Island R evisited.......................................................................................................................P age 53 Candy Daugherty Who Named Salem ?................................................................................................................................ P age 57 John Long Regional Manuscript Guide Completed.............................................................................................. P age 60 Oliver Hill’s Home May Become Human Rights C enter.................................................................. P age 61 George Kegley What Victory May M ean........................................................................................................................ P age 64 Roy B augher HI This issue o f the Journal was made possible by a grant from The Foundation for Roanoke Valley, Stan and Elise Lanford Family Fund George Kegley Editor of the Journal Christina Koomen Smith Production, Editorial Assistant The Journal, Vol 15, No. 1, chronicles the history of the Commonwealth west of the Blue Ridge. Published by the History Museum & Historical Society of Western Virginia (formerly the Roanoke Valley Historical Society), P.O. Box 1904, Roanoke, VA, 24008. The price for additional single copies is $5 for members, $ 10 for non-members. The Museum will be careful in handling unsolicited materials but cannot be respon­ sible for their loss. FINCASTLELIBRARY 11 ACADEMY ST. P.O. BOX 129 FINCASTLE, VA 24090 1 �This salt glazed stonew are field ju g , circa 1880, w as given to th e M useum & S ociety through th e bequest o f die late John R . M ontgom ery, along w ith 14 other item s, all w ith a history o f use and/or production in W estern V irginia. This “presentation piece” is inscribed “m ade b y W.J. W ooten, Z enobia, V irginia,” an d on th e reverse “Dr. N.P. W hite, M endota, V irginia” (b o th tow ns, W ashington County). m m This p air o f cast iro n andirons, circa 1810-1830, w as donated b y M argaret Fluke. T hey w ere u sed a t F lu k e’s Tavern near B lue R idge in B otetourt County. F ounded by P eter “Flook” in 1801, the structure rem ained in use until 1918, w hen the fam ily razed the tavern and b u ilt a new residence. B otetourt C ounty produced large quantities o f iron ore, pig iron and sim ple cast iron throughout th e 19th centuxy. The C loverdale furnaces w ere in close proxim ity and are th eir m ost likely source. A p a rt o f th e collection o f w orks the M useum & Society is acquiring fo r the O. W inston L ink M useum , this im age, N W 2222, w as tak en a t th e M assey M ine n ear G ilbert, W est V irginia on M arch 16 th, 1960, less th an tw o m onths before th e engine, Y 6b 2190, w as retired. A co lo r version o f the im age w as used on th e cover o f L in k ’s fourth record album , “Second Pigeon and the M ockingbird,” issued in 1961. �N ote From the Executive Director T he M useum & S o ciety is p lea se d to p rese n t th is, th e 2 9 th issue o f th e Journal, V olum e F ifteen , N um ber O ne. O f particular note, th is 2002 issue m arks th e first back-to-back annual issuance since those o f 1988 and 1989. T he Journal’s very b u sy E d ito r’s efforts are even m ore rem arkable in view o f th e fact that during this sam e period, th e M useum & S ociety p u b lish ed C lare W hite’s long anticipated and definitive w ork, William Fleming, Patriot. D uring this sam e period, th e M useum & Society launched w hat is easily its m ost am bitious and note­ w orthy effort in its 45-year history, the O . W inston L ink M useum . O nce com plete, the $2.6 m illion effort w ill result in: the appropriate reuse o f the only public structure in the R oanoke V alley designed b y an individual o f international renow n; a greatly enhanced view ofW estem V iiginia’s role in our region’s history and culture; a broadened and m ore balanced role fo r our institution w ithin the greater historical com m unity; a m ore synergis­ tic role w ithin W estern V irginia’s h isto rical tourism ; a significant increase in the relevance and u tility o f the Society’s collections; and, im portantly, a m ore financially stable institution. W ith th e intern atio n al p ress an d w id esp read in terest th e O . W inston L ink M useum C am paign has received, and th e substantial effo rt bein g p u t fo rth to create that success, it is all the m ore rem arkable th at the M useum & Society has been able to m aintain a full schedule o f regular lectures, tours, exhibits and m ore. E xhibits have included th e V irginia M useum o f F ine A its’Arcadian Monuments, and What Victory May Mean, the story o f the only N avy ship nam ed fo r a citizen o f th e Valley, the USS Horace A. Bass, curated in. by M useum sta ff m em ber R oy B augher C ollection highlights include an im portant p air o f andirons from Fluke’s Tavern and a signed piece o f Southw est V irginia pottery (see facing page). R ecently, on N ovem ber 1, the M useum & Society led a highly successful jo in t effort w ith the C ity o f R oanoke, D ow ntow n R oanoke, Inc., N o rfo lk S outhern C orporation, C enter in th e Square, the V irginia M u­ seum o f T ransportation, C om m onw ealth C oach and T rolley M useum and th e R oanoke V alley P reservation Foundation to celebrate the 150th anniversary o f th e sem inal arrival o f the Valley’s first train, the “Roanoke,” in 1852. A s a result, a historic m arker now m arks th e approxim ate arrival spot along dow ntow n R oanoke’s R ail W alk. L ooking tow ard the future, th isy e a rth e M useum & Society w as aw arded tw o grants from theV irginia Foundation for the H um anities, a rare honor. T he first w ill support th e production o f th e M useum & Society film Bright Leaf: The Tobacco Culture o f the Old B elt o f Virginia, b y Jim C raw ford. T he second w ill support a M useum & S ociety ex h ib it org an ized b y A nna F ariello , Movers & Makers: Doris Ulman’s Portrait o f the Appalachian Craft Revival. T he latte r has also received a grant from the V irginia C om m ission fo r the A rts - a first-tim e aw ard fo r th e M useum & Society. It is to you, th e M useum & S o ciety ’s in d iv id u al, co rporate and foundation supporters, volunteers, participants and visitors, that thanks b e given. D espite difficult tim es, your M useum & Society thrives! R ead and enjoy! D. K ent C hrism an Executive D irector 3 �Railroads and Their People: 20th Century Rail Development in Southwest Virginia By Louis M. Newton A lthough p ro p o sals w ere m ade b y w estern V irginians to build a railro ad as early as 1833, it w as not until 1850 th at actual construction w as begun on the V irginia & Tennessee R ailroad in Lynchburg. The -A -A jo u te progressed across C am pbell and B edford counties, through a com er o f B otetourt, into Roanoke County, through th e com m unity o f B ig L ick, and by D ecem ber1852 had reached the county seat o f Salem . W ork th en continued through th e difficult m ountainous terrain w est to the N ew R iver and on through southw estern V irginia to B risto l, on th e Tennessee state line, reached in 1856. B y th e tim e o f th e C ivil W ar, through connections to th e e a st and w est, th e V irginia & Tennessee form ed p art o f a thin chain o f railroads stretching from H am pton R oads to the M ississippi R iver at M em phis. Som e historians are o f th e opinion th at the existence o f the V irginia & Tennessee betw een Lynchburg and B ristol kept th e southw estern V irginia counties from seceding from th e C om m onw ealth and jo in in g the counties to the north in the form ation o fth e state ofW est V irginia. A t any rate, the V irginia & Tennessee and its connections suffered bad ly during the w ar and struggled through the R econstruction era. T he lines in V irginia w ere united after the w ar into the A tlantic, M ississippi & O hio R ailroad, headed by form er C onfederate G en eral W illiam M ahone, in 1870. U nfortunately, econom ic troubles o f th e 1870s forced th e A M & O in to receivership. In 1881, its properties w ere acquired by the C lark banking interests o f P hiladelphia and renam ed th e N orfolk & W estern R ailroad. T he C larks also ow ned th e Shenandoah V alley R ailroad, th en u nder construction, and com pleted it the follow ing year to a connection w ith th e N & W in the com m unity o f B ig L ick in R oanoke County. J\ M eanw hile, th e C la rk in terests, th ro u g h th e leadership o f F red erick J. K im ball, p resid e n t o f the Shenandoah V alley an d a v ice president— and later president— o f N& W , becam e interested in reaching the coalfields along alo n g th e V irginia-W est V irginia border. B y 1883, a railro ad line had been b u ilt w est from R adford through th e N ew R iv er V alley to G len Lyn, then along E ast R iver and into the coalfields in the B luestone V alley to th e to w n o f P ocahontas in Tazew ell County. T he subsequent rapid developm ent o f the coal industry in th e area resu lte d in th e construction o f a num ber o f branch lines and established th e N o rfo lk & W estern as one o f th e leading coal-carrying railroads in the U nited States. E xtending to w ard th e southw est from B luefield, V irginia, by 1891, the N & W had constructed a line through the C linch V alley w hile the Louisville & N ashville had built east from Cum berland Gap. T he tw o lines connected in W ise C ounty at P rince’s Flats, later renam ed N orton in honor o f L& N President E ckstein N orton. In a project o f even g reater im portance, the N & W also extended its m ain line w est into the O hio R iver Valley, and by 1892 h ad a ro u te extending from N orfolk all the w ay to C olum bus, O hio. It w as th en in a position to haul coal b oth east and w est o u t o fth e highly productive Pocahontas coalfields. T he area o f fa r so uthw estern V irginia, in the counties o f R ussell, D ickenson, W ise, S co tt and L ee, attracted a num ber o f railro ad s, including th e L ouisville & N ashville. In th e late 1890s and early 1900s, the area saw th e en trance o f o th er carriers, including th e predecessors o f th e Southern, th e C lin ch field and the Louis M. Newton worked fo r the Norfolk & Western and Norfolk Southern railways from 1950 until 1987, retiring as assistant vice president, Transportation Department. He has written fo u r volumes o f railroad history. 4 �In the summer o f 1897, a Class D 10-wheel steam locomotive pulled a passenger trainload o f Norfolk & Western Railway employees to a meeting at Grottoes in Rockingham County. (History Museum photo) In terstate, all b u ilt prim arily to tap the coal resources o f that p art o f the state. In later years, th e N & W b u ilt an extensive rail netw ork in B uchanan County. L ines o f th e C hesapeake & O hio R ailw ay and its predecessors operated through the A lleghany H igh­ lan d s, in clu d in g th e co u n ties o f A lleghany, B o teto u rt and C raig. T he c ity o f C lifto n F orge b ecam e a k ey lo catio n on the C & O system . The first decade o f the 20th century saw th e construction o f th e V irginian R ail­ w ay, p a rt o f w hich paralleled the N & W from R oanoke w est through the N ew R iver Valley. D esp ite th e p resence o f the oth er carriers, th e N o rfo lk & W estern becam e th e dom inant railw ay in southw estern V irginia. The location o f its general offices and extensive shop facilities in the form er com m unity o f B ig L ick, w hich had developed into the C ity ofR oanoke, m ade it particularly prom inent in th at section o f th e state. A n overview o f th e N&W^ and its organization show s th e w ide variety o f skills and talen ts necessary fo r th e efficient operation o f a great industry. W ith a few variations, the sam e general principles w ould apply to th e o th er railroads o f southw estern V irginia. B y about 1910, th e m ajor railroad system s o f th e U nited States h ad been w ell established. T hey w ere th e dom inant form o f transportation. T heir only real com petition, but only in lim ited areas, w as from w ater­ w ays. R ailroads hauled virtually all the freight, express m ail and passengers. In m any com m unities, the railroad station w as the center o f com m ercial activity. H ow ever, th e dom inance o f railroads in the transportation field probably peaked around 1915, a fte r w h ich th e in d u stry b egan a slow decline, brought about prim arily by th e rise o f th e autom obile and p av ed roads. L ocal passenger business w as the first to be affected, follow ed by short-haul and tim e-sensitive freight traffic. T his decline accelerated during th e 1920s and becam e precipitous during the G reat D epression. T hen 5 �A fading photo shows an old steam locomotive manned by a Bluefield yard crew. (History Museum photo) a tem porary reversal o f fortunes occurred during W orld W ar II w hen th e railro ad s experienced th e ir “finest hour,” handling unprecedented volum es o f traffic. U nfortunately, for m any railroads the decline in virtually all segm ents o f their business resum ed and continued during the latter h a lf o f th e 20th century. R ailroad em ploy­ m ent, o f course, w as drastically reduced. A lthough its functions have changed to a great degree, the railroad industry is n o t dead. L et us go back to th e tim e w hen railro ad s w ere a t th e ir p o sitio n o f g reatest pro m in en ce, in th e e a rly decades o f th e 20th century, and consider how N orfolk & W estern “railroad m en” w orked. First, railroading w as prim arily a “m an’s w orld.” Few w om en w ere em ployed b y th e industry until the 1920s and th en usually only in clerical positions. Second, the term , “railro ad m an,” covers a w ide range o f positions and includes individuals w ith m any different skills and tem peram ents. “R ailroad m en” did, how ever, generally have one com m on characteristic: They w ere intensely loyal to th eir em ployer and m any spent their entire w orking careers, som etim es m ore than h a lf a century, w ith one com pany. In recent years, w e have learned about “24/7” com panies, those th at operate around-the-clock, seven days a w eek. There is really little new about such a system — railroads have been operating th at w ay fo r m ore th an 150 years. M uch railro ad w ork w as perform ed a t n ig h t and m an y em ployees c a rrie d o u t th e ir duties behind th e scenes and out o f the public eye. L et us look a t som e o f th e p articulars. The operation o f a railroad has been likened to th at o f a m ilitary organization. To a great extent, such a com parison is true. A strict system o f discipline w as applied in order to ensure safety and to provide fo r the punctual operation o f trains. O rders from the top w ere expected to be com plied w ith throughout the organiza­ tio n and th e failure o f any link in the chain could have a detrim ental effect on the rest o f th e operations. L arge system s w ere bro k en dow n into o p eratin g d ivisions, each h ead ed b y a su p erin ten d en t and responsible for its ow n operation and its coordination w ith connecting divisions o f th e system . The N & W had five road operating divisions, four o f w hich had som e trackage in V irginia. The m ost basic elem ent in a railroad is its track and structures. In principle, although greatly im proved in quality, it is alm ost the sam e now as w hen railroads began— steel rails fastened to crossties and supported by 6 �crushed stone, o r ballast. R ailroad lines w ere divided into sections o f various lengths, perhaps five o r 10 m iles, headed b y a section forem an. In m any cases, th e forem an w as furnished a com pany house, ad jacen t to th e right-of-w ay. H is forces consisted o f a group o f laborers usually called “section m en,” w ho h ad th e resp o n si­ bility for th e routine m aintenance o f the track on th eir section. T hese m en labored in th e heat w aves o f sum m er, th e cold blasts o f w in ter and in every o th er k in d o f w eather condition. T hey earned their living truly by the “sw eat o f their brow s,” w orking m ostly w ith hand tools such as p ick s, shovels, spike m auls, track jack s and b allast forks. T hey trav eled to and from th e ir w o rk on hand cars, pro p elled b y the pum ping section o f the riders. T heir norm al w ork hours w ere during daylight, but w hen trouble such as broken rail occurred at night, the section forem an w ould assem ble his m en, gather the necessary m aterials and m ake repairs as expeditiously as possible. T he first rule w as to ensure safety. The next w as to restore service as quickly as possible in o rd er to keep th e trains running. W hen snow accum ulated in w inter, the section m en w ere th e ones called upon to rem ove it fro m sw itches, clear station platform s and road crossings and do anything else required to keep the railroad running. T heir w o rk had to b e done betw een train m ovem ents, so as to cause as little delay as possible. In sh o rt, th e m aintenance-of-w ay personnel labored under often trying conditions to ensure th e safety and continuity o f th e railroad’s operations. F o r large-scale projects, such as laying new rail, the railroad em ployed large groups o f m en know n as “extra gangs.” T hese gangs m oved over the system as th eir w ork required and w ere frequently long distances from th e hom es o f th eir m em bers. They w ere usually housed in cam p cars, consisting o f several dorm itory or “bunk” cars and a dining car. T he cars w ere m oved from place to place as th e w ork req u ired and on w eek ­ ends, th e m en w ere furnished free rail transportation to and from th eir hom es. E m ployees o f th e brid g e and building departm ent included carpenters, m asons, steelw o rk ers and painters. T heir responsibilities included m aintaining station buildings and other structures along the way, includ­ ing bridges ranging in height up to 150 feet or m ore. O ther “outside” w orkers w ere th e signal m aintained, responsible fo r th e safety and efficiency o f th e signal system s along th e way. In daytim e, they perform ed routine m aintenance and tests o f signal equipm ent. T hey w ere subject to call at any tim e, how ever, and w ould frequently be sum m oned at n ig h t to tak e care o f trouble, especially during or after w indstorm s, ice storm s o r snow. Frequently w orking alone and in th e dark, th ey k ep t th e silent sentinels o f safety w orking. Telephone and telegraph linem en often had sim ilar w orking conditions. Steam locom otives w ere the very sym bol o f railroading itself. Their m aintenance in top-notch shape w as essen tial to an efficien t operation and required a sm all arm y o f m en. A fter every trip , a locom otive w as routinely serviced b y cleaning the fire, dum ping th e ashes, replenishing the fuel, w ater, sand and lubrication su p p lies a n d w ash in g . T hese task s w ere usu ally perform ed b y laborers. L ocom otives w ere m ov ed in th e engine term inal by hostlers and their helpers. R outine m aintenance w as generally perform ed in roundhouses at strategic locations on th e system , usually a t crew change points. The w ork w as perform ed b y various crafts, including m achinists, boilerm akers, p ip efitters, blacksm iths and th e ir respective helpers. B y its nature, the w ork w as dirty, w ith soot and cinders m ix in g w ith grease an d o il to form a grubby and grim y m ixture th a t adhered to m any o f th e su rfaces o f a locom otive. A t any rate, in th e often dark recesses o f the roundhouse, these m en w ent about duties, using b oth b rain and braw n as th ey w orked underneath, on to p of, and inside th e locom otives to ensure th a t th ey w ere properly m aintained. The failure o f a locom otive on the road could be highly disruptive to an efficient operation. R ollin g sto ck w as m aintained b y a separate class o f em ployees, know n variously as “carm en, car repairers” o r “car knockers,” from their practice oftapping on car w heels w ith a ham m er to see if th ey w ere in good co ndition. A w heel w ith a defect w ould yield a hollow sound. B y its natu re, m uch car w o rk w as p er- 7 �form ed outdoors and, o f course, in all kinds o f w eather. Inspectors w ould carefu lly in sp ect ev ery car in an inbound train and add oil to the journal boxes. O n an outbound train, they w ould couple th e air hoses, assist in th e testing o f the brakes and m ake a final inspection o f the train before it w as released from a term inal. R efrigerator cars, handling fresh m eat o r produce, required special handling a t certain term inals en route. A m ixture o f ice and salt w as added to the bunkers in order to m aintain th e desired cold tem peratures. Cars found to be defective in an inbound train w ere tagged and sw itched to a “shop track,” som etim es called a “rip track,” w here they w ere repaired and returned to service. M uch o f this w ork w as also perform ed outdoors. Train operations w ere controlled from the division dispatcher’s office, under the general supervision o f th e superintendent. M ost divisions had a ch ief dispatcher w ho w orked during the day, and a night c h ie f as well. So-called “trick dispatch­ ers,” w orking eight-hour sh ifts, issu e d o rd ers to trains on the road through o p erato rs a t statio n s and sig n al to w ers alo n g the ro a d . F o r m a n y y e a rs th ese ord ers w ere tran s­ m itted by telegraph, a process th a t req u ired a spe­ cial andhighly prized skill. T elegraphers w ere som e­ w hat o f a fraternity o f their ow n as th ey com m uni­ cated through th eir arcane system o f M orse code. S ta tio n s w e re lo ­ c a te d in c o m m u n itie s A Norfolk & Western Railway wrecking crew paused fo r a picture around 1910-1912. (History Museum photo) alongthe way, usually five to 10 m iles apart. In m any cases, th ey w ere th e cen­ ter o f atow n’s activity. The sm aller stations were staffed by a single individual, generally w orking daylight hours, w ho had m ultiple duties. A s th e com pany’s local agent, he sold passenger tickets, handled freight and express, delivered orders to train and engine crew s, and took care o f any other duties that cam e his way. Som e stations in rem ote locations were tw o-story structures, w ith th e upper floor serving as a residence for the agent and his fam ily. The larger stations, open around the clock, w ere staffed by several em ployees w ho had m ore special­ iz e d duties. In any case, th e local railro ad statio n w as th e p lace w here p assen g ers b eg an o r en d ed th eir journeys. Express and sm all freight shipm ents w ere handled and in m any cases the railroad station also w as the local telegraph office. U . S. m ail w as handled at the station for further m ovem ent to o r from the local po st office. A ll these people and facilities existed fo r one purpose— so th at th e trains could ru n and m ove people and goods. O therw ise, the railroad and all its facilities w ere o f no value. O f course, the trains required train and engine crew s to m an them . B ut b efo re th e train s could run on the road, th eir cars w ere assem bled in a y ard , thus req u irin g the services o f a yard or sw itch crew , w hich norm ally consisted o f a yard conductor, tw o brakem en, an engineer and a firem an. Typically, under the supervision o f a yardm aster, they gathered cars from local industries, the 8 �local freight station, interchange from other railroads and inbound trains. T hey then classified them on various tracks, b u ilt them in blocks by destination and assem bled them in to an o u tbound train . U sing hand signals prim arily and w orking in all kinds o f w eather conditions, y ard crew s sw itched cars sw iftly but carefully and safely. T hey had to b e constantly alert and all m em bers o f a crew learned to w ork to g eth er as a team in order to carry out th eir duties. R oad freight trains w ere in charge o f a conductor. A m ong other things, before beginning a trip, he w as required to see th at he had a proper w aybill o r other authorization to m ove every car in his train. O nce u nder way, he rode in th e caboose w ith the rea r brakem an o r flagm an, k eeping a constant lookout fo r any defects th at m ight develop in cars on th eir train. W hen the tra in stopped en route, th e rear brakem an w ent b ack w ith flagging equipm ent to provide protection against follow ing trains. T he front brakem an rode on the locom otive, observed his portion o f th e train w hile m oving and coupled o r uncoupled cars p icked up o r set o ff en route. U nder som e co nditions, as in th e case o f lo cal o r m ine sw itch in g ru n s, th e crew s inclu d ed a th ird brakem an to assist in sw itching and/or to load and unload less-than carload freight en route. The locom otive engineer—enginem an w as the m ore form al term — w as perhaps the m ost recognized o f all railroad m en. C hildren— and others— loved to w ave at a passing train and have a friendly engineer w ave back. Perhaps such an exchange o f greetings w as one o f the “fringe benefits” o f a dem anding jo b , because an engineer had m any duties. B efore a ru n began, he had to know th at th e locom otive w as in proper operating condition. Then, from his seat on the right side o f the cab, he had all the pow er o f the locom otive at his disposal. W ith the throttle lever, he controlled the flow o f steam from the b o iler to th e cylinders. W ith the reverse lever, he regulated the flow. O ne o f his crucial duties w as to keep a constant eye on th e w ater gauge to ensure th at a pro p er level o f w ater w as m aintained in the boiler. A h ig h level w ould im pair th e efficiency o f th e locom otive; low w ater could resu lt in severe dam age to the b o iler or, in extrem e cases, a d isastrous explosion. The engineer super­ vised th e w ork o f th e firem an to see th at a proper fire bed and adequate b o ile r pressure w ere m aintained. M eanw hile, he w as required to operate the locom otive at th e correct speed to m aintain the schedule, at the sam e tim e not exceeding the speed lim it, especially on curves and in oth er restricted areas. The engineer w atched for w ayside signals and operated his train in accordance w ith th eir indication. H e sounded the w histle for grade crossings and at other tim es as required b y rule. In addition, he h ad to com ply w ith the provisions o f train orders w ith respect to m eeting o r passing other trains. H e observed n ot only w hat w as im m ediately w ithin his view but also visualized w hat w as a m ile o r m ore ahead. In addition, w ith a long freight train, he had to be aw are o f the profile o f the line a m ile o r m ore to th e rea r in ord er to avoid excessive slack action. In the case o f a freight train, the engineer som etim es had to contend w ith handling a train o f as m any as 175 cars w eighing 16,000 tons or m ore. In the m ountains, he had to be especially skilled in the operation o f th e train’s braking system . G oing dow nhill safely w as often m ore challenging th an going up. P assenger trains, som etim es consisting o f 18 o r m ore cars operating a t speeds o f m ore th an a m ile a m inute had to be handled w ith exceptional sm oothness in order to avoid injury to passengers or dam age to the chinaw are in the dining car. Skilled experienced engineers could m ake it look as easy as driving an autom obile, but, as w e have seen, there w as m uch m ore to it th an th at. The firem an’s position w as on the left side o f th e locom otive. In th e days o f hand-fired locom otives, how ever, he had little tim e to occupy his seat there w hen the train w as m oving. Instead, he w as busy conveying coal from th e ten d e r to th e fireb o x b y m eans o f a h an d shovel, an o ften stren u o u s task . H ow ever, h is jo b required m ore th an sim ply shoveling; he had to know w here and w hen to p lace the coal in the firebox so th at the fire w ould bum evenly and w ould m ake a m inim um o f sm oke. H e carefully coordinated his w ork w ith that o f the engineer, such as anticipating stops or slow dow ns and handling th e firing accordingly. A s locom otives grew increasingly larg er and h eav ier d u rin g th e e a rly p a rt o f th e 20th century, th ey exceeded th e a b ility o f a m an to fire them . A s a re su lt, m ech an ical sto k ers cam e in to use. A lthough th ey 9 �reliev ed th e firem an o f m uch o f th e d ru dgery o f h is w ork, it w as still n ecessary to co n tro l th eir operation m anually in o rd er to obtain an even fireb ed and m ain tain th e p ro p er steam p ressu re. L ocom otives could som etim es be quite tem peram ental, especially w ith respect to th eir steam ing qualities, and th eir proper firing w as p art art and p art science. W hether h and o r stoker-fired, th e efficient operation o f a locom otive required team w ork on the p art o f the engineer and firem an as w ell as the locom otive itself. Passenger trains probably provided m em ­ bers o f the general public w ith th eir m ost fam iliar co n tact w ith railro ad s. P assen g er train s w ere in charge o f a conductor, w ho w as resp o n sib le for the overall safety and operation o fth e train. Am ong h is o th er du ties, he lifte d (to o k up) tick ets from p assen g ers o r co llected cash fares and pro p erly acco u n ted fo r them . T he train m en — one o r tw o depending on th e length o f th e train— announced stations, opened and closed doors and helped pas­ sengers on and o ff the train. A porter assisted pas­ sengers w ith luggage and k ep t the in terio r o f the cars clean. A baggage m aster o r equivalent po si­ tio n to o k care o f checked baggage in the baggage car. T rains w ith sleep in g cars had a Pullm an conductor, w ho supervised the Pullm an porters and h an d led tick ets and reserv atio n s fo r passengers occupying sleeping car space. Pullm an porters— one p e r car— h an d led luggage, m ade up berths, shined shoes on overnight trips and called passen­ gers in th e m orning, on request. O n train s w ith din in g cars, a stew ard su­ p erv ised th eir operation and w as in charge o f the chefs and w aiters. C ooking and serving appetizing m eals on a m oving train w as an art in itself. The results, how ever, w ere thoroughly enj oyed by the traveling public. V eteran travelers can rem em ber Brakeman James A. Cook appears readyfo r duty on the N& W. (History Museum photo) b rea k fa st on N o rfo lk & W estern din in g cars as the trains rolled through the Shenandoah Valley or g lid ed alo n g sid e th e b an k s o f th e N ew R iv er in Southw estern V irginia. Sm ithfield ham and eggs, fried apples and h ot biscuits w ere am ong th e m ore popular item s. Passenger trains generally carried express b y m eans o f th e R ailw ay E xpress A gency, an entity jointly ow ned by m ost o f th e m ajor railroads. A n express m essenger handled th e loading and unloading at various stations. A lthough not railroad em ployees as such, railw ay postal clerks w ere closely associated w ith the indus­ try and w ere earned on m any passenger trains. T hey w ere actually em ployees o f the R ailw ay M ail Service, a division o fth e U .S. P ost O ffice. T hey rode in cars designated as “R ailw ay P ost O ffices,” w hich in fact they w ere. T he cars contained boxes into w hich m ail co u ld be deposited and postm arked b y th at p articu lar post 10 �office. R ailw ay P ost O ffices could be as short as 15 feet in length, occupying only a section o f a larger car and o ften m anned b y a single clerk. O r th ey could be as long as 60 feet, stretch in g th e fu ll le n g th o f a car an d m anned b y as m any as 10 o r 12 clerks. O ne o f the m ore dram atic m om ents for bystanders in sm all tow ns w as th e fleeting glim pse o f a postal clerk in th e doorw ay o f a R ailw ay P ost O ffice car on a fast-m oving train as he m anipulated a hook to catch th e m ail hung on a trackside crane w hile sim ultaneously throw ing o ff a bag o f inbound m ail for the local post office. In those days, long before th e use o f zip codes, R ailw ay P ost O ffice clerks sorted m ail en ro u te and in som e cases even pre-classified it fo r destination cities. M any people w ould agree th at o ver m oderate distances, say up to 500 m iles, m ail m oved faster and m ore consistently under the R PO system th an it does today. R ank and file em ployees w ere generally paid by the hour as covered b y labor agreem ents, w ith provi­ sion fo r overtim e after a certain num ber o f hours p er w eek. T hey generally had fix ed d uty hours on various shifts. Train and engine service em ployees, how ever, w ere paid on a com plex system based on m ileage, w ith 100 m iles bein g a basic day in ro ad service and w ith provision for overtim e w hen app ro p riate. T he p ay fo r engineers and firem en varied according to the w eight on driving w heels o f their locom otive, and fo r conductors and trainm en according to th e num ber o f cars in th eir train. V arious arbitrary paym ents w ere m ade fo r ex tra duties n o t considered to b e connected w ith the direct operation o f th eir train. T rain and engine crew s w ere su b ject to th e F ederal H ours o f S ervice L aw , w h ich fo r m any y ears generally lim ited them to 16 continuous hours o f duty, later reduced to 12. T here w as no d istin ctio n betw een n ig h t and day o r any day o f th e w eek. O lder em ployees w ith sufficient sen io rity co u ld u su a lly h o ld dow n assigned runs w ith m ore less fixed reporting tim es. O thers, though, w ere generally subject to call on one h o u r’s notice at any tim e o f the day o r night after having had eight hours’ rest from th eir previous to u r o f duty. B efore com m ercial telephones cam e into general use, m ost train and engine crew s liv ed w ithin close proxim ity o f th eir reporting point. T hey w ere called for duty by a “call boy.” M inute-by-m inute operation o f trains w as controlled by dispatchers. The training and general supervi­ sion o f train crew s, how ever, w as the responsibility o f a division trainm aster and his assistants. T hese division su p erv iso rs trav eled ov er th e ir resp ectiv e territo ries, rode train s as necessary, o b serv ed th e w o rk o f th e ir crew s and acted as troubleshooters w hen needed. They w ere subject to call a t all tim es, day o r n ig h t and often w orked long and unpredictable hours. T he operation o f the railroad required a voluminous am ount o f record-keeping, handled b y a m ultitude o f clerks w ith varying levels o f skills and responsibilities. O riginally done m ostly b y hand, clerical w ork w as gradually m echanized through the years. A t sm aller stations, the local agent w as his ow n clerk. A t larger ones, clerks had m ore specialized duties. O ther clerks w orked in division offices and in th e various departm ents o f the general offices. C lerk-typists w ere required to be able to type a specified num ber o f w ords p e r m inute and stenographer-clerks w ere required to be proficient in shorthand. T he E ngineering D epartm ent w as headed by the c h ief engineer, w ho had a num ber o f assistants spe­ cializing in various areas o f civil engineering. These included roadw ay m aintenance, track construction, bridge design and m aintenance and building design and m aintenance (architecture). In th e field , survey p arties ob­ tained data from w hich draftsm en in the office could prepare draw ings. A system m aterial y ard supplied track and b rid g e m aterial fo r th e system . T rack m aintenance at th e division level w as supervised b y roadm asters. The N & W had its ow n plant at R adford for creosoting crossties. The E ngineering D epartm ent h ad its ow n test departm ent fo r evaluating m aterials and processes. The Telegraph and Signal D epartm ent w as responsible fo r designing and m aintaining th e com pany’s communications and signal system s. Signal circuit designers w ere am ong the specialists em ployed to design the com plicated circuitry required for railroad signal system s. 11 �The M otive Pow er D epartm ent, headed by a general superintendent, w as divided into tw o m ain areas: locom otive and cars. Shops at outlying points perform ed routine m aintenance on locom otives and cars. H eavier w ork, how ever, such as overhauling locom otives and rebuilding cars, w as perform ed at a centralized location: N & W ’s R oanoke Shops. In addition, fo r a num ber o f y ears th e N & W desig n ed and b u ilt m any o f its ow n locom otives and cars. T his required a skilled group o f m echanical engineers w ho sp ecialized in various phases o f design w ork. T he several departm ents o f th e shops w ere p a rt o f a m an u factu rin g fac ility th a t w orked n ot o nly to produce replacem ent parts but also com ponents for new equipm ent. The foundry produced castings o f iron, steel, brass and bronze, thus requiring patternm akers, corem akers, m olders and others to tend the furnaces and cupolas. The w ork w as ho t in th e sum m er, cold in th e w inter and potentially hazardous. Even so, skilled and experienced foundrym en could m ake the spectacular sight o f pour­ ing red-hot m olten m etal into a m old appear alm ost as effortless as pouring b atter into a w affle iron. It w asn’t th at easy, o f course, but th ey could m ake it look th at way. The blacksm ith, o r forging shop, carried on the ancient process o f pounding m etal into various shapes. A lthough it had been partially m echanized, the “large and sinew y hands” a n d “braw ny arm s” described by L ongfellow in “The V illage B lacksm ith” w ere still useful characteristics fo r blacksm iths. In som e o f the m ore dram atic operations o f th e shop, red-hot steel billets w ere m ethodically pou n d ed into th e desired shapes by m assive steam forging ham m ers m anned by skilled ham m ersm iths and th e ir crew s. A gain, although it w as a process th at w as a com bination o f art and science, coupled w ith h ard w ork, skilled craftsm en could m ake it look alm ost as easy as pulling toffee candy. Bo il e r m a k e r D id L o u d W o r k B y its nature, the boiler shop w as a place noted for, am ong other th in g s, its noise. T hat, how ever, w as sim ply a byproduct o f its w ork o f repairing locom otive boilers and building new ones. B oilerm akers could roll h eavy steel plates to the pro p er contour, fasten them to g eth e r b y m eans o f riv ets o r b o lts, and perform th e other w ork required to fabricate a huge vessel that could safely and efficien tly generate steam at pressures up to 300 pounds p e r square inch. It w as all in a day’s w ork. Skilled craftsm en in the m achine shop turned out a variety o f finished products, ranging from sm all nuts and bolts to locom otive com ponents w eighing several tons. Tool and diem akers w ere am ong the m ost skilled o f the m achinists. V irtually every part o f a locom otive had som e w ork perform ed on it in th e m achine shop. In the erecting shop, locom otives undergoing h eav y rep airs w ere lifte d o ff th e ir w heels by m assive overhead cranes and stripped o f their com ponents, w hich w ere overhauled a n d then reassem bled. It w as also the location w here new locom otives w ere assem bled. C raftsm en o th er th an th ese w ho w orked in the erecting shop o r other areas included w elders, sheet-m etal w orkers, electricians an d carpenters. N ew freight cars w ere constructed at R oanoke Shops on an o u td o o r facility know n as th e “F reight L ine.” M aterials produced in other portions o f the shops o r purchased from outside vendors w ere handled by steam -pow ered cranes and assem bled by carm en into th e finished product. P assenger cars w ere repaired in a separate shop. C rafts em ployed there included cabinet-m akers, upholsterers and electricians. T he Test D epartm ent w as a p a rt o f th e M otive P o w er D ep artm en t. Its s ta ff in clu d ed several test engineers as w ell as chem ists. Am ong its responsibilities w as the testing and evaluation o f m aterials purchased o r produced by th e com pany. From tim e to tim e, it perform ed ro ad tests o f locom otives in o rd er to evaluate their perform ance and im prove efficiency. The Purchasing D epartm ent w as responsible for purchasing and storing the vast am ounts o f m aterials u sed on th e railroad. A large general storehouse w as lo cated in R oanoke, w ith sm aller facilities lo cated at outlying points, staffed by storekeepers. T he Purchasing D epartm ent sta ff also included a lum ber agent, re- 12 �Railroad p a in t shop office workers were on the jo b , with an upright typew riter and old telephones. (History Museum photo) sponsible for acquiring crossties and other tim ber products, as w ell as a stationer, responsible fo r purchasing stationery and office supplies fo r the system . T he Transportation D epartm ent had general supervision over system train schedules, locom otive dis­ tribution and car supply and it w as responsible for car rental paym ents w ith other railroads. K eeping track o f all th e m oney collected and disbursed throughout th e system w as th e function o f the A ccounting D epartm ent. It w as staffed b y num erous accountants, bookkeepers, auditors, agents and clerks, all o f w hom had th eir special areas o f responsibility. O ther departm ents related to finance w ere th e treasurer’s office, the payroll departm ent an d th e tax a­ tion departm ent. C laim agents and claim adjusters w orked in the C asualty C laim D epartm ent, responsible fo r investigating and settling casualty claim s. T he F reight C laim D epartm ent w as a separate section, staffed b y freight claim adjusters, w ho handled claim s fo r dam aged o r lost freight. T he railw ay had its ow n police departm ent, usually know n as the Special S ervice D epartm ent. P lain­ clo th es special ag en ts or railw ay policem en w ere stationed throu g h o u t th e system to p ro te c t p assen g ers, em ployees, com pany p ro p erty and lading. T hey gen erally kept a low p ro file b u t w ere q u ick to act w hen needed. T he Public R elations and A dvertising D epartm ent w as responsible fo r advertising th e com pany’s ser­ vices an d prom oting its im age. It included the editor, w riters and photographers fo r th e com pany m agazine. The Traffic D epartm ent w as m ade up o f the com pany’s salesm en, although they w ere generally know n as “tra ffic m anagers,” “general freight agents” or b y sim ilar titles. A lthough th e d ep artm en t h ead s w ere in R oanoke, sales agents w ere located in all im portant on-line cities as w ell as outlying locations from coast to coast. T he Industrial and A gricultural D epartm ent assisted in getting new rail-oriented industries to locate in N & W territory. A s its nam e im plies, th e Law D epartm ent handled the com pany’s legal m atters, including regulatory issues a t th e local, state and federal level. 13 �A s in m ost corporations, th e E xecutive D epartm ent co n sisted o f th e to p o ffic ia ls and departm ent heads o f th e com pany. A ll w ere located in R oanoke, except fo r th e tre a su re r and co rp o rate secretary, who had their offices in Philadelphia, apparently a concession to the Pennsylvania R ailroad’s heavy financial invest­ m ent in th e N orfolk & W estern. M ost o f the executives w ere N & W v eterans w ho had w orked th e ir w ay up the corporate ladder through m any years o f service. T hroughout its long history, the N orfolk & W estern w as fortunate to have m en o f h igh integrity in its leadership. N ot only did they serve the com pany w ell but they w ere also leaders in the civic and cultural life o f the community. Educational requirem ents for railroad em ployees obviously varied w ith the particular job. Through the years, the com pany becam e m ore selective, especially as the general level o f education rose. L aborers required m inim al educational standards; indeed in th e early p art o f the century and fo r some years later, a few w ere illiterate. The standards for helpers w ere som ew hat higher. A pprentices fo r journeym en positions, as w ell as locom otive firem en and brakem en, w ere generally required to have a h igh school educa­ tion. O n -The -J o b T r ain ing M ost railroad training in the early part o f th e 20th century w as on-the-j ob. In th e unskilled crafts, firstline supervisors and m ore experienced w orkers taught th e new em ployees. F o r m echanics’ positions, such as m achinists and boilerm akers, em ployees served a four-year apprenticeship before establishing their seniority in a particular craft. L ocom otive firem en, after several years o f experience, w ere required to pass an exam ination on oper­ ating rules an d locom otive and air brake operation before being prom oted to engineer. B rakem en (trainm en) w ere sim ilarly required to pass an exam ination fo r prom otion to conductor. D ispatchers w ere prom oted from the ranks o f telegraphers. Y ardm asters and trainm asters w ere usu­ ally prom oted from the ranks o f clerks, telegraphers and trainm en. T he m ore skilled levels o f clerks, such as stenographers, usually h ad som e business school training. C orrespondence courses w ere offered in a num ber o f fields o f study for railro ad w orkers, including th e shop crafts. A s tim e w ent on, a num ber o f m iddle m anagem ent positions w ere filled by college graduates, although som e posts continued to be filled from the ranks. R ank-and-file railroad em ployees have been organized into craft lab o r unions for m any years. H ighly detailed labor agreem ents covered rates ofpay, w orking conditions and separation o f w ork according to craft. E m ployee pensions w ere covered by a system established b y th e federal R ailroad R etirem ent A ct o f 1935. The benefits w ere som ew hat sim ilar to those provided by th e Social S ecurity System . A num ber o f strikes occurred through the years, m any o f them on one railroad at a tim e. A nationw ide strike b y th e shop crafts occurred in 1922 b ut replacem ent w orkers w ere h ire d and th e railro ad s continued operations. T he passage o f th e R ailw ay L abor A ct in 1926 w as in ten d ed to a v o id strik es b y p ro v id in g for a cooling-off perio d before a w ork stoppage could b e initiated. H ow ever, in M ay 1946, th e n atio n ’s railroads w ere shut dow n for several days by a strike. A n u m b er o f th reaten ed strik es in th e post-W orld W ar II years resulted in tem porary governm ent seizure o f the railroads. A t other tim es, selective strikes w ere called against individual carriers o r groups o f carriers. In th e sum m er o f 1971, th e N orfolk & W estern w as one o f sev eral railro ad s targ eted in a selective strike w hich lasted about tw o w eeks. A m ore serious situation arose in 1978 w hen th e com pany w as struck by th e clerks’ u nion in a w ork stoppage that lasted fo r 82 days. D uring th at tim e, how ever, the com pany w as able 14 �Precision work was daily routine in the N& W ’s E ast End Shops in Roanoke where a worker operated a metal lathe. (History Museum photo) to operate at a reaso n ab ly h ig h lev el o f cap acity w ith tw o -m an su p erv iso ry crew s and no cabooses. T he N & W ’s success in operating w ithout th e cars on th e end o f trains is generally regarded as an im portant factor in the eventual elim ination o f cabooses nationw ide and th e adoption o f tw o-m an crew s in freight service. The second h a lf o f the 20th century saw dram atic changes in th e railroad industry in the U nited States. O ne o f th e m ost obvious w as th e conversion fro m steam to d iesel-electric m otive pow er. E ven th e N& W , w hich had rem ained loyal to steam lo n g er th an an y o th er m ajo r U .S . railroad, com pleted th e conversion to diesel in 1960. A m ajor result w as a substantial reduction in em ploym ent related to locom otive m aintenance, particularly in such crafts as boilerm akers. A fter W orld W ar II, railroads saw an erosion o f m uch o f th eir business. Jet airplanes took aw ay m any o f th e passengers. Im proved highw ays and particu larly th e interstate highw ay system , siphoned o ff not only passengers but also huge volum es o f freight traffic. A num ber o f railroads w ere forced into bankruptcy; som e rather large system s virtually disappeared from th e m ap and a w holesale “rationalization” o f the railroads took place. T hose factors, coupled w ith autom ation an d m ech an izatio n o f m any functions form erly handled b y manual processes, caused railroad em ploym ent to b e d rastically reduced b y the end o f th e century. From 1910 un til about 1960, th ere w as little change in th e railro ad m ap o f th e U nited States. Som e m inor branch lines w ere abandoned, som e subsidiary com panies w ere absorbed by th eir ow ners, but only a few new railroad lines w ere built. In 1959, how ever, the m odem m erger m ovem ent began w hen the N orfolk & W estern and Virginian railw ays m erged. T his w as follow ed in 1964 b y an expansion into the M idw est that saw 15 �the N ickel P late and W abash railroads included in th e N orfolk & W estern. In 1982, the N orfolk & W estern and Southern railw ays com bined to form N orfolk Southern and th e system headquarters w as m oved to N or­ folk. M eanw hile, m ost o f th e oth er railroads in th e Southeast had been consolidated into the C SX system . In the late 1990s, N orfolk Southern and C S X then divided the lines o f C onrail betw een them selves. The result has been th at N o rfo lk S outhern and C S X are th e tw o rem aining large system s in th e E ast. A s fo r W estern V irginia, CSX operates lines in the A lleghany H ighlands in the coalfield counties. N orfolk Southern, how ever is still the dom inant carrier in Southw estern Virginia T he fo rm atio n o f A m trak in 1971 reliev ed m ost o f th e U . S. railro ad s from d irect p articip atio n in p assen g er business. A s fa r as th e g en eral pu b lic w as concerned, th is action p ro b ab ly rem oved th eir m ost fam iliar contact w ith the railroad industry. O ther things have changed as w ell. B eginning in th e 1980s, th e nation’s railroads w ere partially de­ regulated by the governm ent, thus helping to strengthen their ability to com pete w ith other form s oftransportation. In an efibrt to reduce the labor-intensive nature o f the industry, the carriers have contracted out som e o f their m aintenance w ork. C om puters and other centralized autom atic processes have virtually elim inated agents in the sm aller on-line com m unities and have greatly reduced the num ber o fclerical and accounting positions. M ost trains now operate w ith only tw o-person crew s. A nd railroading is no longer an exclusive “m an’s w orld” as w om en are now on th e payroll in p ractically all categories o f w ork. In sum m ary, railroads are now som ew hat specialized “w holesalers” transporting freight rather than retailers handling a variety o f business. T hey still haul large am ounts o f certain com m odities, such as coal, chem icals, grain, lum ber, autom obile parts and finished autom obiles. B y increased involvem ent in the handling o m term odal traffic, th ey are endeavoring to reliev e som e o f th e congestion on th e n atio n ’s overburdened highways. O bviously, th e industry is n o t so prom inent in th e public eye as it once w as. Still, railroads, far from bem g dead, are vital to the n atio n ’s econom y. A nd, even i f in reduced num bers, people are still essential to the operations o f railroads. R eferences B edingfield, R obert E. H ie N orfolk and W estern Strike o f 197S R oanoke, Va.: N orfolk and W estern R ailw ay Co. 1979 1942 HCIT’KinCaid L ouisville and N ashville Railroad. 1850-1942. L ouisville, Ky.: L& N M agazine. Lam bie, Joseph From M ine to M arket. The H istory o f C oal Transportation on the N orfolk and West­ ern R ailw ay. N ew York: N ew Y ork U n iv ersity P ress. 1954. N ew ton, L ouis M . R ails R em em bered. V olum es 1 .7 and 3 R oanoke, Va.: L ouis M . N ew ton. 1992, 1996, 1999. P ow ered b y P eo p le. R oanoke, Va: N orfolk & W estern R ailw ay Co. 1957. Sm ith, R obert H . G eneral W illiam M ahone. F rederick J. K im ball and O thers. A Short History o f tho N orfolk & W estern R ailw ay. T he N ew com en Society in N orth A m erica. Princeton U niversity Press. 1949. S triplin, E.F. P at. The N o rfo lk & W estern— A H istory. R oanoke, V a.: N orfolk & W estern R ailw ay 16 �The Virginia & Tennessee Railroad 150 Years Ago_______________________ _ By George Kegley The first train “coughed and bellowed” when it reached Big Lick on Nov. 1, 1852 century and a h a lf ago, on N ovem ber 1,1852, the first train, a w ood-burning locom otive believed to have b e e n n am ed “R oanoke,” p u lled into B ig L ick from L ynchburg, opening a pro sp ero u s e ra o f steam and diesel transportation o f freight and passengers. In three decades, B ig L ick becam e R oanoke, recognized as a railro ad tow n, hom e o f th e N orfolk and W estern Railw ay. “T he ro ad is b u t com pleted to B ig L ick, and on this day passengers and freights are conveyed a t th at point,” C harles F.M . G arnett, c h ie f engineer o f the V irginia and Tennessee R ailroad, w rote to the president and directors in th e com p an y ’s annual rep o rt dated Nov. 1,1852. T hat proved to be an h isto ric date in R oanoke A V alley railroad history. In this anniversary year, th e com ing o fth e railroad w as m arked by the unveiling o f an historic m arker at th e ap p ro x im ate site o f th e tra in ’s arrival. A fter th e m ark er cerem ony, luncheon talk s w ere giv en at H o tel R oanoke by John R Fishw ick, chairm an o f the N orfolk and W est­ ern R ailw ay before its m erger w ith the Southern 20 years ago, L.I. Prillaman, vice chairm an o fN o rfo lk Southern, successor to N&W , and L ouis N ew ton, a retired assistan t vice president o f N&W . Fishw ick said th at in his tim e w ith the railroad (1945-1981), N & W “w as a b ig deal in R o an o k e... The E ast E nd shops w ere the b lo o d b a n k fo r th e com m unity.” N & W and A ppalachian P ow er Co. “dominated local politics.” Prillam an said that first train in 1852 gave B ig L ick a ju m p start to w ard becom ing the com m ercial and so cial ce n te r fo r th e w estern p a rt o f th e C om m onw ealth and b e­ A free ticket to ride the Va. & Tenn. yond. E xecutives o f th e V irginia & Tennessee w ere visionanes, but fo r three years, from 1853-1856. th ey h ad no w ay o f know ing ju s t how b ig th eir enterprise w ould (History Museum photo) becom e, h e said. In th e early 1950s, N ew ton said, N & W w as the longest railroad inV irginia, the state’s largest taxpayer and the big­ g est R oanoke V alley em ployer, w ith an estim ated 9,000 w orkers, including 3,000 in th e shops and an o th er 3,000 in th e o ffices. N o rfo lk S outhern em ployed about 1,800 in R oanoke in 2002. B ack in 1852, ho w d id residents o f the crossroads village o f B ig L ick see the arrival o f th e first tra in from L ynchburg? C harles A . D eyerle o f R oanoke County, a sm all boy at the tim e, later to ld a new spaper, “A h ush fell u p o n th a t assem bly w hen w reaths o f sm oke w ere first seen to rise and hover o v er th at cu t th rough w h ich th e tra in w as to com e. T h en th e sm oke stack cam e into view , loo k in g like som e u n can n y and u g ly m onster, having a sm all, lady-like w aist out o f all proportion to its huge b ell crow n.” D ey erle re p o rte d “ex p ressio n s o f aw e, fear and c o n ste rn atio n ... expectancy a n d w onder” on th e George Kegley, a longtime resident o f Roanoke, is a permanent director o f the History Museum and editor o f the Journal. 17 �faces o f th e people w ho had no t seen a train before. “T heir greatest concern and curiosity centered chiefly in th e m otive pow er and its operation,” he said. The engine “fainted, breathed, sneezed, coughed, bellow ed and com plained.” H enry Trout, later m ayor o f R oanoke, recalled that the first trains w ere tiny, w ood-burning m achines, p u llin g at b e st th ree passenger cars and a few freight cars, all they could handle. “B ut all o f u s in th o se days thought they w ere great m achines, and they seem ed as big and pow erful to the youngsters” as any locom otives th e future w ould bring, Trout said in a rem iniscence published in the Roanoke Evening News in 1913 and in Roanoke 1740-1982, b y C lare W hite. A nother b rie f eye-w itness account cam e from W .H. Tinsley, son o f B enjam in T insley, w ho w as an ow n er o f E lm w ood, th e p lan tatio n house once standing above R oan o k e’s M ain P u b lic L ibrary. In a short histo ry o f E lm w ood by Sydney Taylor A lexander, W .H. T insley w rote: “O u r fam ily divided th eir sum m ers betw een m y G randfathers T rent in A ppom attox and T insley in S y d n o rsv ille , F ra n k lin C ounty. T hat year, 1852, w e left o ur hom e in R ich­ m o n d , V a., v ia p a c k e t boat for Lynchburg, where w e caught this first train for B ig L ick. T here w e took a stage fo r R ocky M ount w here w e w ere m et b y a big four-horse ‘new tow n’ w agon, fille d w ith straw , and had the tim e o f our life rid in g to G rand-P as. The ro a d s w e re to o b a d to drive other vehicles.” In h is annual re ­ p o rt fo r 1 8 5 2 ,0 .G . Clay, re tirin g p re sid e n t o f th e A Virginia & Tennessee Railroad steam engine was shined and ready to roll in the 1850s. (History Museum photo) V irg in ia an d T ennessee, rejo ice d a t th e p lan n ed com pletion o f th e railroad to Salem , th en a 50-year-old tow n, but he did not m ention th e Nov. 1 arrival at B ig L ick, a sm all com m unity. C lay said th e new railroad w as earning revenue o f $9,000 a m onth after it w as built to L iberty (B edford today) and he anticipated th at w ould rise to $10,000 w hen trains began serving Salem . W hen the first train reached Salem on D ec. 15,1852, local tow nspeople th rew a p arty w ith oratory, barbecue, a m ilitary salute and firew orks, according to N orw ood M iddleton’s Salem, a Virginia Chronicle. In 1952, th e centennial o f the com ing o f th e first train w as celebrated w ith a w eek-long observance, featuring a reenactm ent o f that arrival, a $5-a-plate dinner addressed b y form er Gov. W illiam Tuck, a display o f a m iniature railroad in the R oanoke passenger station, exhibits in stores, civic club program s and m odem locom otives. A bronze m edallion com m em orated the event and a plaque w as placed in the station. “N one o f us get too old to enjoy the thrill o f a locom otive,” Tuck said. “The people o f th e little village o f B ig L ick m ust have been thrilled w hen the first locom otive cam e into th at tow n.” R .H . Sm ith, N & W presi­ dent, talked about th e arrival o f that first train “over the new ly laid and probably som ew hat shaky track” o fth e V irginia and Tennessee. There w asn t any R oanoke then. From the best record I am able to get, there w eren’t 18 �even any houses close to th e new tra c k .. .the ham let w as know n as B ig Lick.” Through the years, w riters h ave n o t sp ared lan g u ag e to d e­ scribe that first train. .. [G joggleeyed citizens o f B ig L ick a n d th e surrounding countryside heard for the first tim e the shrill w histle ofthe locom otive echo across th e h ills and w atched w ith m ingled feelings as the puffing m onster rum bled into th e ir c o m m u n ity ,” s a id R .R . H o m er, lo n g tim e h e a d o f th e N & W A dvertising and M agazine A plaque commemorating the 100th anniversary o f the arrival o f D ep artm en t, in The Common­ the firs t train was placed in the Norfolk & Western passenger wealth m agazine in O ctober 1938. station in 1952. The plaque is in the History Museum collection Irish immigrants and slaves today. provided m uch o f the labor fo r the construction o fth a t first ra il line, according to B edford C ounty census records. B uilding a railroad w as not an easy task through the rocks, hills and stream s o f Southw est V irginia. C onstruction o f th e 204 m iles betw een Lynchburg and B ristol took m ore than six years. T he new lin e started at an elevation o f 767 feet at Lynchburg and reached a height o f 2,594 feet near R ural R etreat. W orkers b u ilt 254 bridges, including one alm ost a m ile long across N ew River. T hey built five tunnels; one n ear C hristiansburg w as 724 feet long, according to E lizabeth D abney Colem an, w riting in Virginia Cavalcade. W hen the V irginia and Tennessee w as com pleted to B ristol, John R obinson M cD aniel, president o fth e railroad, happily w rote to his board o f directors, according to H om er. “You are n o t alone in your rejoicing. The m erchant, th e m echanic an d th e farm er u n ite w ith you. It is a successful term in atio n o f one o fth e m ighty struggles o f our good old C om m onw ealth to throw o ff th e trappings o f vassalage she has w orn so long. It is a great advance up the ascent o f com m ercial independence. T he w inter o fy o u r trouble is passed. A genial spring is now opening w ith its budding o f future prosperity.” “A Century o f Service to Roanoke” was cel­ ebrated on the obverse side o f this medallion struck in 1952 fo r the 100th anniversary o f tghe arrival o f the first train. The reverse side portrays that firs t engine. (Medallion is owned by Don Piedmont o f Roanoke) 19 �W orking with W inston Link at the End of Steam Power on the N & W By Thomas H. Garver n th e late sum m er o f 1957, W inston L in k w as looking fo r a part-tim e assistant, I w as looking fo r p arttim e w ork, an d I to o k th e jo b . I ’d g rad u ated from co lleg e in suburban P hiladelphia th e prev io u s y ear and subsequently m oved to N ew Y ork C ity to w ork in business at ju s t about th e low est level (and fo r a I ^ i 1 A II6 St° n D m ade photographs a tB c°h e g e fo r an adm issions brochure a y ear before I ’d M ^ ^ o n t o o i ^ h ^ 6114^aSS1Sted ^ “ isto n 111g etting around the cam pus and setting up his photos a n d 1 m et T his w as th e so rt o f w ork th a t p ro v id ed th e bread and b u tter fo r W inston’s photographic p ractice w eh w as a m ix tu re o f in d u strial p lan t p hotos, w ork fo r corporate annual reports and college adm issions brochures, general w ork fo r advertising and public relatio n s firm s, and product illustrations. H e shot a few c o v e m f o rP o ^ /a r& ^ c e m a g a z in e , and d id a b it o f fashion w ork too, b u t his real specialty w as taking on ousT^ ex m dustna projects w hich dem anded careful planning, precise lighting, and m ight even be a bit danger- a t the B r tf k h ^ M n T I H H H R 1■ m y 'j° b | business S B B M * * restoration a t file B rooklyn M useum . T his w as ap art-tim e activity, and I needed som e additional w ork, ju st as W inston MB^ In ^ d°vetailedprecisely. H is studio w as then in a sm all old building w ith M M S f 1 a COUi 6 ° f blocks east o f 1 E m pire State B uilding. H e had a floor-through space, tw o H ,iw e reCePt *?n ™°™>w here no °n e ever sat, a dressing room , iarge studio at the front o f the space and a s sis to t* 001118 ^ ^ baCk' 1 w or^ ed a couPle ° f days a w eek, m aking prints and being a genera1“gofer” and By that tim e, W inston had been w orking on his docum entationoftheN orfolk& W estem R ailw ay fo r m ore th an tw o years, so-he had a v e iy good idea o f w hat he w anted to capture before it w as too late. D uring tiie sum m er o f 1956, W m ston had taken h is studio apart so th at he could create th e first exhibition o f photo? IM B I M o d ^ ^ ^ s ^ ^ a m l^ ^ V T M h M M V6iy ^31®e E dnts’ ^ d the installation, influenced by the M useum o f u ' ^ b ^ ’^ ^ d b y S ^ T ^ a g m p h ic d e s ig n e r a n d o ld f iie n d o f tiie photographer. It h ad been a b eau ttiu l show, and W inston’s intent had been both to generate new business ^ d em o n stratin g his capabilities as an industrial photographer, and to see ifh e could sell any o fth e prints for thT+n^VCrtlS1^ g us6’ ^ n ston later taiked a b it w istfully about this exhibition, having com e to the realization that there w as ju st no real com m ercial value to the photos he w as m aking o fth e railroad, particularly as his goal was to document a fast vanishing technology. y Re^ m b e r th a tin the 1950s, everyone w as striving to be “m odem .” The idea o f historic preservation w as reserved fo r only a tiny fraction o fth e m ost im portant and historic buildings, the use o f revival architectural styles w as un thinkable, and th in g s old, particu larly if th ey w ere ju s t m oderately old, w ere o f little interest. Thomas H Garver o f M adison, Wis. gave a talk on his work with O. Winston Link at an Anril worked nv 20 s an , is a graduate o f Haverford College and the University o f Minnesota He has �Splendid V ictorian buildings w ere com ing dow n all over th e country and w hole sec­ tions o f cities w ere giving w ay to bulldozer “urban renew al.” T here w as little concern about the lo ss o f steam on th e railro ad s, and c e r­ tainly none on the part o f the railroads them ­ selves. It w as th e “price o f progress,” and p ro g ress w as m oving fast. F o rm e, h o w ­ ever, w hat W inston w as doing in m aking th ese p h o to g rap h s m ade p erfect sense. E ven though I had taken a num ber o f h is­ to ry o f a rt courses in college (and w ould go on to take a graduate degree in th e sub­ jec t), I had loved m achinery from m y ear­ lie st y ears. I had w atched steam engines on land and on the G reat Lakes. I had even c o lle cte d a few o ld clocks b y th en , and w ould certain ly have collected m ore had m y living accom m odations perm itted it. W inston approached the ta s k o f docum enting the N orfolk & W estern R ail­ w ay w ith the inevitability o f an assignm ent th a t he m ig h t h av e receiv ed from one o f h is clien ts. W hen he receiv ed a jo b , I do n o t rem em b er h im talk in g m uch ab o u t w hether he lik ed o r disliked w hat h e w as asked to do (although he had plenty to say ab o u t th e p eo p le w ith w hom he h a d to w ork, som e o f it no t very com plim entary). M achinist O.N. Carroll (left) and engine hostler R.H. I f W inston to o k on a jo b fo r one o f h is Carrier stand by the huge tools used in the repair o f steam clients, he w ould give it his best efforts. H e locomotives in the Bristol roundhouse in October 1957. seem ed to feel exactly the sam e w ay about the assignm ent o f documenting the last years o f th e N & W , only in this case it w as an assignm ent he gave him self. I m ade three trips w ith W inston, the first one du rin g th e la st tw o w eeks o f O ctober, 1957. T he N & W had let W inston know th at they w ould b e replacing steam on th e A bingdon B ranch w ith d iesel p o w er as o f D ecem ber 1, and W inston w anted to m ake m ore photos there. T his w as h is fo u rth trip to the A bingdon B ranch. H e began his record in m id-June, 1955, w ith a tw o-day trip, riding the train and u sin g a R o lleiflex, a sm all, hand-held cam era th at he carried on a strap around his neck. H e p roduced slig h tly m ore than 200 im ages this first trip, m aking photos both from the train, and hopping o ff to photograph w hen the little engine, w ith its m ixed load o f freight cars, a baggage-express car and a passenger car, all ancient, stopped at one o f th e m any stations along the line. W inston cam e back three m ore tim es, in O ctober o f 1955, again in O ctober, 1956, and th e final trip o f O ctober, 1957. H e alw ays cam e in th e fall because o f the beautiful foliage at th at tim e o f year. W hile he d id n o t often shoot in color, the photos he took on m y first trip w ith him w ere alm ost all in color. H e ju st couldn’t resist 21 FINCASTLE LIBRARY �H I H H 8 9 W? Aevv a city ted from New York, posed with several young women at a g r o u n d ,^ u g u T T ^ ^ “ ° h° tshot frei%ht moved ^ t w a r d on the N& W main line in the backthe im age o fth e black engine and little train m oving through such beautiful trees and alongside little stream s o f cle a r w ater th a t seem ed to change nam es w ith every tu rn o fth e road. W inston b ro u g h t h is tw o 4x5 view cam eras w ith him , fo r those w ere w hat he used w hen he w as m aking “serious” photographs. B ut he brought along som ething else this trip, am am m oth and extrem ely heavy tape recorder E arly the previous year, W inston and his then-assistant, G eorge Thom , had m ade som e recordings on a very m odest hom e tape recorder, to provide “background” for W inston’s studio exhibition. T he sounds w ere so effective at W inston, operating as he did w hen he bought photo equipm ent, researched th e m arket and bought a very good tape recorder. A ll the cam eras, heavy tripods for the 4x5 view cam eras, film , lenses, filters and the tape recorder w ere p ack ed into th e back seat and trunk o f his 1952 B uick convertible. B efore leavm g fo r any o f these trips, W inston w ould p rep are an d ch eck o v er h is supplies w ith the precisionland c a re o fa n explorer departing on an expedition. O vernight shipping services didn’te x is t then, and it w ould have been a disaster if som e im portant piece o f equipm ent had been left b eh in d fo r it could no t have een replaced m ru ral w estern V irginia o r W est V irginia. It w as an overnight trip to V irginia then, dow n U S H ighw ay 11, stopping at C arlisle, Pennsylvania, o rF ro n t R oyal fo rth e night. O n th at first trip, w e spent m ost o f o u rtu n e at the M artha W ashington Inn in A bingdon, a b it seedy then, and w e w ould be up at daw n o r before to head[out on th e A bingdon B ranch to get set up fo r the first sh o to fth e day. W e c o u ld g e t in tw o o r perhaps th reep h o to s by setting up in advance, m aking th ep h o to as the tm in cam e by, th en quickly pu ttin g th e equip- 22 �m ent in th e b ack o f th e B u ick and rushing on to the next spot W inston had staked out. H e seem ed to hav e th em com pletely m em orized, and he knew every tu rn in th e very w inding ro ad betw een A bingdon and W est Jefferson, N orth C arolina, th e southern term inus o f th e A bingdon B ranch. H e had a rem arkable v isu al m em ory and could vividly describe the photo he w anted to m ake, including cam era placem ent and how he had planned the lighting. A s the A bingdon B ranch never ran at night, w e m ade no night photos th a t trip , b u t w e p u t o u r evenings to good use. Instead o f m aking p hotos, w e m ade tape recordings. O ne o f W inston’s favorite spots w as th e round­ house in B risto l. It w as sm all, and th e locom otives for the A bingdon B ranch and local freight service w ere m aintained here. O ccasionally one o f the m agnificent J Class engines, used on the through passenger runs that connected w ith th e S outhern R ailw ay in B ristol, w ould be found here, b ut usually the engines w ere sm all and old. W e m ade som e w o n d erfu l tap e recordings here, and several photos as w ell, including one o f m y very favorite portraits o f tw o locom otive w orkers, standing proudly behind their collection o f m assive tools. O n Sundays, w hen th e A bingdon B ranch trains w eren’t running, w e w ent up to R oanoke and B lue R idge to m ake m o re p h o to s a n d reco rd in g s, fo r th ere w as no tim e to w aste. I rem em ber stopping a t th e R oanoke station, n o t to m ake photos, b u t so th at W inston could say hello to som e o f h is friends there. A t this tim e W inston h ad b een divorced fo r alm ost 20 years, and the people he had com e to know on th e railro ad or along the lin e had becom e h is surrogate fam ily. In “glam orous” N ew Y ork City, W inston lived in a furnished apartm ent in a ta tty a p artm en t h o tel a few blocks from his studio, and I th in k he trie d to liv e as sim ply, inexpensively and conveniently as possible so th at he could devote as m uch m oney as w as necessary fo r the N & W p ro ject. N. W. 362 / Summer Evening, Lithia, Virginia �In January 1959, near the end o f steam on the N&W, this A Class locomotive was working hard as it began ascending the Blue Ridge grade, east o f Roanoke. F rom tim e to tim e, he w ould grum ble about w hat the project w as costing him , but th at w as ju s t about th e only difference I can recall betw een this “assignm ent” and the ones he received from others. A few years before he died, W inston to ld m e th at h e ’d spent about $20,000 on the project, an am ount equivalent to about $ 125,000 today, a lo t o f m oney fo r a one-person photo studio to provide, w ith o u t an y hope o f retu rn , fo r W inston financed the entire proj ect him self. A recent look through W inston’s carefully m aintained expense logs show s th at th e cost o f staying in sm all southern tow ns then w as m odest. A n ig h t in a decent m otel co st th en w h at a go o d b reak fast m ight today, and a solid breakfast— country ham , eggs, to ast, coffee— w as ab o u t a d o llar o r a b it m ore. W hen w e cam e into R oanoke, w e took som e back roads and headed fo r the B lue R idge grade on th e m ain line, n ear V inton and B onsack. W inston had found a place there w here he w anted to photograph. It w as a narrow ro ad bridge w hich ran over a cut, so the m ain line o f the N & W w as ju st below our feet. H e could also m ove from side to side o f the tracks, thus changing the shooting angles, w hich w as im portant as th e lighting changed. B ecause it w as an upgrade, w e knew th a t any tra in com ing th rough w ould be w orking h a rd and w ould be m aking th e w onderful synchronized racket o f a steam locom otive p u llin g upgrade at fid l th ro ttle w hich w as p erfect b oth fo r photos and recordings, fo r the engines w ould be producing huge clouds o f steam and sm oke, as w ell as m aking loud bu t beautiful m usic to o ur ears. A t first w e p aid to use som e electricity for the recorder from a nearby house, but w hen th e hom eow ner unplugged u s during a nice recording, W inston knew that he had to build a se lf contained pow er supply, w hich w as ready fo r th e next trip I m ade w ith him , in late M ay and early June o f 1958. B y th is tim e, he had released 24 �Old Maude, pulling a load o f oak logs, came along in October 1956 ju st as Link started to photograph the arrival o f Train 201, southbound to West Jefferson, N.C., at the little station at Green Cove in Wash­ ington county— the last stop on the three percent grade up to White Top Mountain, the highest point east o f the Rockies reached by a regularly scheduled passenger train. The West Jefferson line closed years ago, and the rail bed from White Top to Abingdon has been converted into the Virginia Creeper Trail. his first L P recording, “ Sounds o f Steam R ailroading,” and it had b een v ery w ell received. It w as selling w ell and making som e m oney, so th is trip w as devoted specifically to m aking recordings fo r the next LP. W inston h a d long w an ted to docum ent th e sounds o f an en tire trip from on b o ard th e tra in , so th e N & W obligingly allow ed us to set up in th e baggage car directly b ehind th e engines o f Trains 15 and 16, the w est- and eastbound C avaliers. W e spent about 151/2 hours in that baggage car, from R oanoke to W illiam son, W.Va., and back again, first behind the J-6 11 (now preserved at the V irginia T ransportation M useum ). A fter a couple o f h ours in W illiam son, w hen w e rech arg ed o u r pow er su p p ly ’s b atteries, it w as b ack to R oanoke b eh in d J-605, w h ich W inston h a d p h o to g rap h ed so b eau tifu lly w hile it w as bein g w ashed in th e Shaffers C rossing yards a couple o f years earlier. It w as a m agical day, and a pow erful vision o f another fife fo r m e as w e w heeled along the Tug Fork and through th e gritty m ining tow ns o f M cD ow ell Com ity, W est V irginia. M y final trip w ith W inston w as in A ugust, 1958, and w e again returned to M cD ow ell County, w orking in W elch, N o rth F ork, and P anther. W e w ere m ak in g n ig h t p h o to s, an d W inston’s teen -ag e nephew , R oy Z ider, w as along fo r extra m uscle. W inston L ink is b est know n fo r th e photos he to o k o f th e railro ad and its surroundings at night, w hich he did so th at he could control the fight, and thus focus on the subjects he w ished to em phasize, w hile largely elim inating distracting elem ents through his selective fighting techniques. T he trip produced tw o o f W inston’s b est know n photos, “Swimming Pool, Welch, West Virginia,” in 25 �w hich R oy g o t to p u t on h is sw im m ing su it and m eet som e o f th e local girls a t th e pool, and “Main Line on Main Street, North Fork, West Virginia.” In N orth F ork th e v alley w as so narrow th at a num ber o f th e old busm ess buildings (now all dem olished) fronted on the m ain line o f the railroad. W e w ere doing tw o tasks in N orth F ork, m aking photo s, and sound recordings, too. B ecause this w as a trip in w hich night photos w ould be m ade, w e had to tow a sm all trailer behind the B uick, filled w ith the flash equipm ent and light stands. A gain, W inston had the photos w ell in his m ind, and I recall that in W elch, he m ust have seen the m unicipal swim m ing pool on one o fh is scouting trips w hich he took b y train, because it w as far from any through roads. Setting up w as a disciplined business. W inston invariably handled the cam eras, tripods and th e pow er supply fo r the flash units w hich he had designed and built. It w as sm all, about th e size o f a w om an’s m akeup case, bu t it contained sufficient pow er to fire up to 60 flash bulbs and three cam eras at once. R oy Z ider and I w ould handle unpacking the fighting equipm ent and laying out the electric cables as W inston in stru cted us to. H e w ould then m ove in and w e w ould set up th e light stands and brace them against any w ind, p lu g in all the cables and fit the reflectors w ith Sylvania No. 2 flashbulbs (w hich have not been m anufactured in decades). C alculating th e am ount o f fight necessary for each photo w as an exacting jo b , and this w as w ell before th e advent o f hand held calculators, so it took W inston som e tim e to m ake his com putations. O ccasionally, he w ould set up a p o rtab le darkroom so he co u ld develop th e sheets o f film on the spot if he felt unsure o fh is figures, but usually the film w aited to be processed until his return to N ew York. N eedless to say, our arrival in m any o f these sm all tow ns w as a m ajor event, b u t w e w ere alw ays very w arm ly received, and everyone w as eag er to h elp , alth o u g h som etim es w e h ad to ask them to keep sile n t du rin g our recording sessions. T hat A ugust trip w as m y la st w ith W inston, and after about a w eek o r 10 days, I boarded the Pow hatan A rrow in W elch, and left fo r C incinnati, and on to graduate school. I have b een asked on m any occasions to describe W inston’s rationale for m aking these photos, w hich rem ain unique to this day in th eir photographic achievem ent, and I have to answ er that I never asked him then w hy he did it, and he rarely said m uch about it. W e both loved steam locom otives, and places and objects that had a long and m ellow history. T hat w as enough fo rm e then, b u t since th at tim e I have thought about the old saying th at one contributes to th e w orld, “each in his ow n w ay,” and that w as true fo r W inston. H e w anted to see this m ode o f transportation, and the m ode o f life that it supported, preserved in som e m anner, and the best w ay that he could do that w as through his skills as a photographer. H e even thought about buying the A bingdon B ranch, and th e N & W said th at it w ould sell it to him for the bargain price o f $2,000 p er m ile, about $ 110,000, total, but they also advised him against doing it. It w as a m aintenance nightm are. W inston finally had to agree and reluctantly dropped th e idea. Q uite sim ply, th e creation o fth is unique group ofphotos w as a task that W inston L ink “ju st had to do ” C ertainly he w as m otivated by a desire to dem onstrate his absolutely preem inent photographic technique and h e m ay have th o u g h t ab o u t th e b e n e fit to h isto ry th ese photos w ould provide, b u t there w as absolutelV no consideration o f th eir being “art.” In fact, W inston knew nothing about art or the art w orld. H e m ight have gone to a m useum a few tim es, and he loved C urrier & Ives prints, w hich he collected in a sm all w ay because they w ere old and often had train s in them , bu t th e idea o f “art photography” w as highly suspect. H e w anted to m ake g o o d p hotos, ones th at w ould be appreciated, and one o fh is N & W im ages did receive an aw ard giv en b y a cam era com pany in 1956, b ut the thought o f m aking a photograph to create or en capsulate “b eau ty ” w as co m p letely b ey o n d his ken. T hat w as ju s t as w ell fo r th e N o rfolk and W estern project. W inston applied his innate com positional sensibilities (for he never studied photography) arid brought his engineering background and alm ost 20 years o f com m ercial photographic experience to this task in exactly th e sam e w ay as he m ight fo r B.F. G oodrich, Texaco or V olkswagen, w hich w ere som e o fh is clients. W hat w e m ay be especially grateful fo r is th e fact th at W inston L ink w anted to record “everything,” to m ake a com plete statem ent o f w hat he found in th e m ountains and valleys o f w estern V irginia and W est V irginia through w hich th is railroad passed. A nd fo r th a t w e m ust be grateful. 26 �These are not astronauts in space paraphernalia. In anticipation o f an exhibition o f early N&W photos in his studio in 1956, Winston Link photographed him self (left) and his assistant, George Thom, with the special equipment needed to make night photos using a synchronized flash. 27 �The O. Winston Link Museum will be housed in the renovated N& W Passenger Vtntinn TUo u r , ,, Roanoke Valley Convention & Visitors Bureau, which will occuvv m od o f the t e d „ ■ ' l l ™. ^ um Wllj share lobby space with the level. The Link Museum will occupy the east wing and the bulk o f the llw er level. ^ °f * buildmg and a Smal1 portion ° f the lower NORTH ELEVATION PASSENGER LEVEL ROANOKE PASSENGER STATION PHASE 2 - RENOVATION ROANOKE TRAINSTATION, L.P. �The Tumpikes of Southwest Virginia By Kenneth W. Keller n antebellum w estern V irginia, few subjects raised m ore debate th an th e transportation developm ent o f V irginia w est o f the B lue Ridge. W estern V irginians realized th at th e econom ic prosperity o f th eir region depended upon the construction o f an effective transportation netw ork, p rim arily o f roads, to link I w estern V irginia settlem ent to m arkets. Yet eastern V irginians controlled the governm ent o f th e C om m onw ealth and m ost o f its capital, so the governm ent a t R ichm ond supported such tran sp o rtatio n d ev elo p m en ts w ith lu k ew arm enthusiasm . T he C om m onw ealth’s half-hearted support for w estern V irginia transportation projects did no t discourage w estern prom oters from dream ing o f a netw ork o f to ll roads th at w o u ld h elp w estern ers g et th e ir pro d u cts to th eir custom ers. So by 1860, the enthusiasm and indignation o f th e w est spurred in terest in dozens o f projects that honeycom bed w estern V irginia w ith turnpikes— both planned and com pleted. T urnpikes, th e favored roads o f w estern V irginia’s in tern al im provem ent p lanners, w ere to ll roads, access to w hich w as controlled by a gate m ade o f a long sta ff o r pike. W hen a trav eler p a id th e toll to travel on th e road, th e to ll co llecto r w ould raise o r tu rn th e pike, hence th e nam e “tu rn p ik e.” W esterners hoped th at trans-B lue R idge V irginia w as w ell on its w ay to becom ing a “G reat T horoughfare.” T he turnpike w as the key to these aspirations w ell before anyone had ever seen a railroad in th e w est. D eveloping to ll roads as a w ay to bring m arket goods to custom ers probably originated in E ngland in the M iddle A ges. The A m erican colonists brought know ledge o f E nglish turnpikes w ith them to N orth Am erica, and although som e English colonists proposed transportation im provem ents th at w ould lin k eastern seaports w ith the O hio Valley, few projects began until after A m erican independence. T he first long inter-city road in A m erica w as the Philadelphia-Lancaster Turnpike, finished in 1794; other turnpikes appeared in N ew England soon after th at tim e. C oastal Virginia had a to ll road near A lexandria as early as 1785. Since up u n til 1815 th e A m erican population concentrated near the seaports, m ost people used coastal riv ers and th e ocean fo r transport. W hen after the R evolution population began to cross the A ppalachians, th e spread o f interior settlem ents triggered a dem and fo r roads. P ioneers brought th e P hilad elp h ia-L an caster ro ad w e st an d so u th to th e uplan d s o f the C arolinas before the A m erican R evolution, so that by the end o f the eighteenth century, freight w agons, horses, m ules, oxen, pioneer fam ilies, slaves, circuit riders, artists, cattle herders, con m en, and nobility all traversed th e unpaved and ru tted route from the Potom ac to the South. So m any people w ere m oving w est from V irginia th at easterners b egan to fear th e depopulation o f the older settlem ents. B y 1816, these fears led to a drive fo r “internal im provem ents,” as transportation im prove­ m ents w ere called. E astern V irginians reasoned th at they m ight stem th e tid e o f em igration by prom oting the econom ic developm ent ofV uginia through im provem ents to Potom ac R iver navigation, a canal from the Jam es R iver to th e K anaw ha and the O hio, and interior roadw ays. In 1816 th e C om m onw ealth created th e B oard o f Public W orks to supervise the construction o f such transportation im provem ents. T he B oard suggested to the legislature th at am ong th e first p ro jects it study should be a num ber that benefited w estern V irginia, including the im provem ent o f the navigation o f th e R oanoke R iver and the establish- Dr. Kenneth W. Keller, a history professor at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, gave this talk at the April, 2001 meeting o f the History Museum. Keller, who has taught at M ary Baldwin since 1981, holds a doctorate from Yale University. He is researching the Valley Turnpike. 29 �m ent o f a road from A bingdon to Lynchburg along w ith one from Salem to W inchester. B ut despite its sugges­ tions, th e id ea o f a governm ent activ ely p ro m o tin g th e econom ic d evelopm ent o f a state w as alien to the dom inant Jeffersonian creed o f early nineteenth century V irginia, w hose leaders favored states’rights, frugality, lim ited governm ent, and a strongly laissez faire econom y, w hich th e state left alone. In V irginia, if there w ere to be transportation projects, p riv ate investors, not the state, w ould have to in itiate them , and, although th e state m ight be p a rtia lly in v ested in th ese p ro jects, th e prim ary im petus for S outh-western Road — We announced some time since that nine miles of the South-western Road had been let out to contractors, in sections of three miles each. The road commences at Salem, and the nine miles now under contract will complete it to Lafayette in Montgomery county. One section of the road has already been commenced. We understand that it has not yet been decided which branch of the Roanoke, the road will traverse from Lafayette. It has generally been thought, heretofore, that the Mac­ adamized road would be constructed up the south fork, by way of Christiansburg; but we learn that the Lynchburg Company talk of charging $7000 for the use of seven miles of their mud pike, over which the road will have to pass; and if such should be the fact, the new Road will most likely take the route of the North fork, by way of Blacksburg. Fincastle Whig Announcement o f a contract to build the Southwestern Turnpike nine miles from Salem to Lafayette in August 1846, Fincastle Whig. (Archives Research Services, The Library o f Virginia) tran sp o rtatio n developm ent w ould have to com e from pri­ vate interests. Accordingly in­ ternal im provem ents in ante­ bellum V irginia w ere “m ixed enterprises,” o r ones in w hich both private stockholders and the C om m onw ealth w ere in­ volved. S oon a fte r th e c re ­ atio n o f th e B oard o f P ublic W orks, groups o f p riv ate in­ vestors approached the legis­ lature for charters o f incorpor a tio n f o r v a rio u s ro a d p ro je c ts, m any o f th em in w estern V irginia. T he inves­ to rs w anted th e rig h t to sell stock and to enjoy the protec­ tion th at corporate status pro­ vided. In exchange fo r th eir special corporate status, the com panies w ere supposed to rep o rt annually to th e B oard o f Public W orks and seat rep­ resentatives o f the C om m on­ w ealth on th e ir boards o f di­ rectors in proportion to the am ount o f stock th e C om m onw ealth controlled in the com pany. In 1816 the legislature responded by chartering a V alley Turnpike (w hich w ould run from W inchester to H arrisonburg, and w as later extended to Staunton) and a S outhw estern T urnpike (to run from Salem to the Tennessee line). In the follow ing legislative session o fl8 1 7 -1 8 1 8 , the legislature sim ilarly chartered com panies to construct a turnpike from Staunton to th e Jam es R iv er and an o th er from Salem to L ynchburg. So m any requests for such turnpikes cam e to R ichm ond th at the C om m onw ealth enacted a general turnpike law, w hich set basic requirem ents that all incorporated turnpike com panies h ad to fulfill and gave to the B oard o f Public W orks supervisory pow ers over the com panies. It also set to ll rates for all turnpikes and established rules for the pavm g, grading, and m arking o f the new roads. U nfortunately, the am bitious plans ofV irginia’s turnpike advocates w ere soon dashed, for the financial depression o f 1819 plunged th e new ly incorporated turnpike proj ects into bankruptcy. M oreover, b itter rival­ ries w ithin th e C om m onw ealth betw een the east and the w est, and betw een advocates o f roads and o f canals and railroads, com plicated the efforts o f leaders to revive th e p ro jects throughout the 1820s. 30 �C onstruction expenses often exceeded initial estim ates, so th e com panies had to seek the legislature’s perm ission to sell m ore capital stock to finance th eir operations. Often^com panies had to be com pletely reo r­ ganized, and th e legislature had to enact statutes to reincorporate them . W ith the revival o f the econom y in the early 1830s, interest in turnpike developm ent reaw akened, so th a t th e leg islatu re began creating o r reviving turnpike com panies again. In the leg islatu re o f 1829-30, th e G eneral A ssem bly incorporated th e Fincastle and B lue R idge Turnpike Com pany. B etw een 1830 and 1838, th e leg islatu re chartered routes from Staunton to Jennings G ap in th e A lleghenies, to C ovington, an d to the Potom ac; from Fincastle to B lacksburg and Buchanan; from Fincastle to D anville through R ocky M ount; from C lifton Forge to N atural Bridge; from Lexington to Richm ond and to the Jam es R iver; and from Salem to N ew C astle, to B ent M ountain, and to B uchanan. B y 1840, th e legislature had chartered 47 turnpike com panies, b ut construction progress on th ese roadw ays stopped because o f the effects o f an o th er fin an cial depression from 1837 to 1842. ON AKB PO LES' W hen th e tu rn p ik e craze reaw akened, b y 1860 § r a w r ínü th e state h a d chartered 190 to ll roads, w ith m any o f them in w estern V irginia. Pikes established in th e 1840s an d 1850s included th e H ow ardsville T urnpike from southern A ugusta to the Jam es; the M w w ya c o re i « K g g tv ! Salem and H arrisville Turnpike; th e Staunton and C#rtfor, N o rth R iv e r G ap; th e H arrisonburg and W arm C to e r e * y E I « n tt ,M tt « S p rin g s T u rn p ik e ; a n d th e S a le m a n d R appahannock Turnpike. W estern V irg in ia seem ed p a rticu la rly -4 #***». S* ad ap ted to th e turnpike. Its needs fo r roads w ere ímtffé tmim&í drawtng lije g reat. O nce a su fficien tly large p o p u latio n had settled w est o f the B lue R idge, the land to its w est WmmỿmstÍímmíW!SÍ ¿53 p ro v id e d am ple m aterials fo r b u ild in g th e road. U nlike eastern V irginia, m uch o f th e w est lay on a Rates o f toll on the Lafayette and Ingles Ferry b ase o f lim estone th at could be used fo r building Turnpike, 1848. (Archives Research Services, The th e road and paving it. T he best roads in th e era o f Library o f Virginia) th e turnpike w ere paved according to the specifi­ catio n s o f R obert M e A dam , a S cottish engineer. A cco rd in g to M e A dam ’s design, roads w ere to be paved to th e depth o f a t least one fo o t b y th ree lay ers o f ro ck , called “m etal.” A layer o f larg er rocks w ould be put dow n first, th en sm aller ro ck s on top o f tho se, and o n top o f th o se y e t a th ird layer o f even sm aller stones. R oad builders w ould hire com panies o f w orkers to b rea k th e ro ck in to appropriate sizes, and inspectors w ould m easure th e ro ck w ith iro n rin g s fo r each size b efo re it co u ld be laid dow n. To help drainage, the surface o f the ro ad o f th e “high” w ay w as to be above the sides o f th e road, w hich w ere to b e ditched and lined w ith flat rocks. A ll the rocks necessary fo r the construction o f such a “m acadam ized” surface could b e found am ong th e lim estone o f th e w est, although in m any places it w ould have to be blasted from th e land first. T he abun­ dance o f paving m aterial m ade V irginia w est o fth e Blue R idge the section o fth e state w ith the m ost extensive m acadam ized roads— both com pleted and proposed. H ow ever, other characteristics o f w estern V irginia m ade it m ore difficult to b u ild roads there in spite o f th e av ailab ility o f building m aterial. There w as both a shortage o f capital and a shortage o f lab o r in w estern Virginia Virginia’s w ealth w as concentrated in the Tidew ater, so it w as difficult to sell enough sto ck in th e 31 �turnpike enterprises to properly finance th eir construction. The scattered nature o f w estern V irginia settlem ent, and the dem ands on w orkers fo r agricultural labor, construction and other pursuits m ade it hard to find enough w orkers to break the rock and to pave and m aintain th e road. M oreover, th e tw isting m ountain ranges, num er­ ous rivers, and steep grades presented further obstacles to w estern V irginia road builders. N evertheless, there w as no shortage o f projects for transform ing w estern V irginia. O ne o f the m ost am bitious w as th e creation o f th e Southw estern T urnpike, a ro ad o f approxim ately 150 m iles th at w as supposed to run from B uchanan to the T ennessee line, though it w as never com pleted. Its advocates clearly w ished to connect the southw est w ith distant m arkets rath er th an w ith ones in the southern p art o f th e Com m onw ealth. It w as one o f th e first projects to be suggested w hen th e B oard o f P ublic W orks Elevation fo r a toll house on the Southwestern Turnpike, February 1848. (Archives Research Services, The Library o f Virginia) ° ' b eg an its o p eratio n s in 1816. F irst ch artered in th at year, it faced num er­ ous reorganizations, hav­ in g b een re-ch artered in 1831,1835, and finally in 1846. It w as to connect southwest Virginia with the Jam es R iver, w hose canal locks reach ed B uchanan b u t w ere n ev er to go far­ th e r w est. T he Jam es w as su p p o sed to give south­ w est V irginia access to the “principal m arkets” ofV irginia, according to its supp o rters w ho m et in 1841 . ’ . in a c o n v e n tio n in Q m stiansburg to plead for a m acadam ized road from Tennessee to B uchanan. Its prom oters, believing th at a public necessity should be a public project, uiged that th e ro ad be b u ilt en tirely b y th e state, sin ce all p riv a te com panies o rg an ized to b u ild th e ro a d h ad failed. A ccording to the petitioners, southw estern V nginia suffered from a “destitution o f com m ercial facilities” fo r its iro n ore, salt, lead, and gypsum . N ot only w ould a ro ad provide an o u tlet fo r such com m odities, bu t also it w ould draw trade from east Tennessee to th e Jam es and to R ichm ond. O ther states w ere surpassing Virginia, the petitioners w arned: Tennessee w as extending the old w agon ro ad th at lay in its right-of-w ay to K noxville, and perhaps even to N ashville. A railro ad w as being b u ilt from C harleston, South C arolina, to A ugusta, G eorgia. It, too, m ight tap th e trade th at R ichm ond w ould lose w ith­ o ut a public road. T here w ere already at least 50,000 tons o f freig h t shipped annually on th e crude ro ad that ran through the G reat V alley from the southw est. T he glittering econom ic opportunities th at lay ahead could hardly be im agined. A pparently not, for it took th e legislature an o th er fo u r y ears to rec h a rte r th e road, and even w ith its rechartering, the road w as never com pleted to Tennessee, fo r construction stopped ju st south o f M arion, and o nly a sm all p o rtio n o f th at p a rt o f th e ro ad th at w as supposed to b e m acadam ized w as ever paved. B y 1871 th e S outhw estern Turnpike C om pany folded, and th e ro ad right-of-w ay w as turned over to the com m issioners o f the counties through w hich it ran. O ther turnpikes had less am bitious goals, b u t experienced even less success. Som e tow ns in the G reat 32 �V alley sim ply needed turnpikes to get th eir produce to neighboring V irginia cities th a t had b etter riv er or rail connections o r to carry travelers to th e springs. B otetourt C ounty needed a turnpike to run from F incastle to Salem so it could carry its goods through Salem across the B lue R idge to Lynchburg. T his route w as supposed to provide a m eans by w hich the herdsm en o f B otetourt could drive th eir cattle to L ynchburg, R ichm ond, and P etersb u rg . It d id n ot p a y as a turnpike, so in 1856 the legislature turned over the Lynchburg and Salem Turnpike to Bedford, Roanoke, and B otetourt counties. In 1860, th e legislature authorized th e counties o f A ugusta and A lbem arle to purchase the S taunton and Jam es R iv er T urnpike, so another o f th e turnpike projects becam e a county road. T he abandonm ent o f th e sm aller turnpikes by their com panies w as becom ing so frequent by 1860 that the leg­ islature established a procedure by w hich an abandoned tu rn p ik e could be turned over to the county supervisors o f the county through w hich it ran. U nder Virginia’s gov­ ernm ent during th e period o f the C onfed­ eracy, the legislature incorporated no m ore turnpikes. T he problem o f abandoned tu rn ­ p ik es becam e especially severe after the C ivil War, and the legislature itself declared in 1866, “m any turnpikes have been aban­ doned by th e chartered com panies having charge over them .” A lthough the legisla­ tu re ch artered a few m ore turn p ik es in southw est V irginia after the Civil War, such as the A bingdon and D enton’s Valley and th e A bingdon and R ich Valley (1867) and th e M arion and Jeffersonville (1875), by 1874 only seven turnpikes in the Com m on- „ . , , I I I I „ m J r t w ealth w ere reporting to the B oard o f Publie W orks, an d none o f th em w as in V irginia southw est o f Staunton. Engineers drawings oj a bridge jo r the Southwestern Turnpike over Reed Creek, near K ent’s Mill, east o f Wytheville. (Archives Research Services, The Library o f Virginia) T he m ost successful o f th e w est­ e rn tu rn p ik es w as th e V alley T urnpike, a 92-m ile-long ro ad th a t ra n fro m S tau n to n to W inchester. It w as com pleted in 1841, had a fully m acadam ized surface, and rem ained under th e supervision o f its com pany until 1918. It w as know n as the best extensive road in V irginia. In the w ords o f its last president, H arry Flood B yrd, it w as the probably the “best thoroughfare” in the South. Initially constructed to carry th e w heat, p ig iron, and livestock o f th e Shenandoah V alley to B altim ore, som e V irginians east o f th e m ountains resen ted th e V alley P ike because it drained V alley com m erce out o f the state to th e north. T here w ere num erous problem s in th e construction o f th e road, a ll o f w hich drove u p construction 33 �costs. M any p assages through th e V alley w ere to o n arro w to p ro v id e th e leg ally req u ired 18 feet o f road. R ocks w ere hard to b last aw ay. Farm ers dem anded stra ig h t ro ad s so th ey co u ld g et th e ir goods to m arket quickly and bu ild straight fences th at w ere supposed to h arb o r few er w eeds. E ngineers objected and insisted upon a gently curving road to elim inate the need fo r steeply graded roadbeds, w hich th e straight road schem e produced. R epairs, b rid g e w ashouts, d u st p ro d u ced b y th e ch u rn ed up m etal, and drainage problem s all caused great expense and cu t into p rofits fo r the road. A lthough the Valley Pike carried m uch freight in th e antebellum years, its revenues fell sharply w ith the com ing o f the railroad to the Shenandoah Valley, so that b y the C ivil W ar it w as beginning to lose its function as a freight earner. The destruction by both U nion and C onfederate arm ies play ed havoc w ith the surface o f the road and the bridges th at crossed th e V alley rivers. O nce th e dam age the C ivil W ar brought w as repaired by the 1870s, th e V alley Pike had becom e a local road, used p rim arily b y neighbors visiting each other, o r by an occasional traveling circus, peddlers and gypsies. B ut w ith the com ing o f the autom obile, its pro m o ters trie d to p o pularize it as a to u rist highw ay for northerners visiting D ixie. The V alley Pike p aid a few dividends to its investors in the years before the C ivil W ar, b ut it w as unprofitable in the post-C ivil W ar years, and in 1918 th e C om m onw ealth o f V irginia took it o ver to m ake it p art o f the recently established state hig h w ay system . A fter th e passage o f th e F ederal A id R oad A ct o f 1916, th e federal governm ent becam e in creasin g ly in te rested in im proved roads o v er w hich W orld W ar I supplies and troops could be m oved m ore quickly. T he C om m onw ealth secured federal grants in aid for building state highw ays, but eventually turned the P ike over to the federal governm ent, w hich nam ed the ro ad U .S . 11. It w as th e first N atio n al H ighw ay b etw een N ew Y ork an d A tlanta. Its prom oters and the A m erican A utom obile A ssociation said it w as th e first N orth-S outh highw ay, pre-dating the fam ous coastal highw ay U .S. 1, th at took m any a northern to u rist to F lorida. W herever in w estern V irginia they w ere built, the turnpikes w ent through three phases o f developm ent. F irst, there had been freight roads, w ith stagecoach traffic secondary. Stockm en herded cattle along th e roads and heav ily laden w agons carried cotton, seneca ro o t, beesw ax , feath ers an d d ried peaches, as w ell as the m ore typical w heat and p ig iron. N ext, w ith th e en try o f th e railro a d into th e G reat V alley, w ith penetration through the B lue R idge to W inchester (1836), M t. Jack so n (1 853), and S taunton (1854), m ost o f th e cattle herds and freight w ere shipped by rail. O nce all the Shenandoah V alley tow ns w est o f the M assanutten M oun­ tain w ere linked by a railw ay (1874) and another line cam e dow n along its eastern side to Luray, W aynesboro and R oanoke (1882), the freight shipping role o f th e V alley P ike vanished, unless it served as a feeder road to g et produce to a railroad depot. F arther south, b y 1872 th e operations o f th e A tlantic, M ississippi, and O hio R ailroad betw een B ristol and Salem provided the shippers o f southw est V irginia w ith a m ore attractive freight alternative than the still incom plete Southw estern Turnpike. M oreover, farm ers pressed b y declining postbellum farm prices began to resent th e tolls the turnpikes charged even w hen they traveled by buggy to church. Som e m em bers o f farm protest m ovem ents singled out th e turnpikes as m onopolies as bad as the railroads, w ith w hom th ey frequently battled. The com ing o f m ore railroads in the 1870s and 1880s, as w ell as financial depressions, led to th e tran sfer o f such turnpikes as the Southw estern Turnpike (1871), the Junction V alley T urnpike (1873), the G iles and P ulaski (1879), Fincastle and C um berland G ap (1884), L ynchburg and Salem (1873 an d 1886), an d th e S taunton and P arkersburg (1887) to county com m issioners or other local authorities. Finally, the com ing o f autom obiles led to further outcry against the turnpikes th at rem ained, though few w ere still operated by private com panies by th e late n ineteenth century. T he speeding flivvers tore up the m acadam and th eir drivers becam e deeply im patient w ith th e fru stratio n s o f stopping to pay tolls every five m iles o r so along the road. In addition, hotel ow ners m aintained th at tolls discouraged tourism . M erchants and businessm en seeking to attract n o rth ern capital to th e im p o v erish ed S outh argued th a t to lls kep t northern 34 �investors out ofV irginia. These interests’ dem ands for the end o f w hat som e called a “m edieval” system o f toll roads helped push th e C om m onw ealth into creating a state highw ay com m ission in 1906. C om plaints about county com m issioners’ tightfistedness led to further dem ands for a state-adm inistered system o f roads, and in 1918a state highw ay system began in Virginia. T he experience o f w estern V irginians w ith th eir turnpikes led m any citizens to see th at in th e public interest, the Com m onw ealth had to take on responsibilities its Jeffersonian founders had n o t envisioned. There w ere m any people in w estern V irginia w ho had long believed th at the com placent, eastern-dom inated govern­ m ent o f th e Com m onw ealth did not have the interests o f w estern V irginia a t heart. E ven i f resources had been adequate fo r the building o f a proper road system w est o f the B lue R idge, it w ould n ot h ave been done because th e political w ill w as not in R ichm ond to do it. V irginians cam e to see th at m any people in the C om m onw ealth w ho m ay n ev er have u sed th e w est­ ern turnpikes b en efited from them . P roprietors o f resorts and springs, h o tel and tav e rn ow ners, b u ild ers o f carriages and coaches, tan n ers, w heelw rights, and m akers o f harn esses an d b rid les a ll b en efited from th e roads even though they m ay not have used them . B ut the roads also brought investors into th e C om m onw ealth, and they provided opportunities for em ploym ent for w orkers w ho m ight otherw ise have left the state, thereby draining labor from th e pool o f w orkers needed to sustain a com plex, m odem society. R oads enabled governm ents to allocate resources and supplies m ore efficiently in w ar tim e, so w hen th ere w as a need to defend all w ho lived in the society, th e roads had to becom e a p u b lic concern. N o county o r private com pany could m anage to collect sufficient tolls from all the people w ho benefited from th e turnpikes to m aintain them adequately. The social benefit o f these enterprises w as so great th at th e y had to be publicly supported, for there w as a large public interest in m aintaining them , and th at realization m ade it necessary for governm ent to act as it had never done before in V irginia’s long history. 35 �T he H arris Family Archives and “ M a Sue” H all By Kathleen Ingoldsby sm all, slender, leather-bound album filled w ith brittle, black p ap er pages, m ost floating loose from their binding, arrived at the Floyd C ounty H istorical Society alm ost 15 years ago. The collection o f photographs w as a gift from the fam ily o f June H all (S lusher) Shelor, th e adopted granddaughter o f th e Rev. John K ellogg H am s, Presbyterian m inister, m issionary, and educator, w ho had settled his fam ily in F loyd over a century before. Just inside the album ’s fro n t and b ack covers, inscriptions and quilled flourishes penned in an opaque w hite ink told a profound story o f one fam ily’s enduring affection for thenadopted hom e: ■ “(To) Clara H arris Akers from Susan H arris H all Scenes from . Floyd, Virginia. Taken O ctober 16, 1912. Court Day. ” “Sis: — I send you these in knowing that they [represent] the town scenes m ost sacred to us — Being the last and best loved o f our dearly belovedfather, John K ellogg Harris. S u e’’ Rev. Munsey and Susan Harris Hall (Ma Sue) at Court Day. (Courtesy Floyd County Historical Society) O u tfitte d w ith a K odak B row nie cam era, in th e trad itio n o f K odak’s pre­ w a r ad v ertisin g icons, th e independent “K o d ak G irls,” 1 Susan H arris H all ar­ rived in Floyd on a visit and photographed th e tow n at its busiest, on C ourt D ay, the o n e day o f th e m onth w hen th e entire com m unity cam e into tow n to barter and sell, to see and b e seen. Sue com pletely fille d the palm -sized album w ith scenes ofF loyd, fastening one w hite-edged print to each p age, an d m ailed it to h e r sister C la ra , in K entucky. T he album rep re­ sented a labor o f fam ily love, inspired by th e d eath o f th e ir father, John K ellogg H arris, tw o and one h a lf years earlier. M ost o f the photographs depict th e tow n a n ^ lts p eo p le , b u t som e show th eir fa th e r’s g ran ite m em orial, w hich w as Kathleen Ingoldsby directs the Floyd County Traditions oral history program at the Old Church Gallery in oyd. She has documented historic soapstone uses and prehistoric quarries, completed an architectural survey o f Floyd and photographed county life fo r a video. A graduate o f Massachusetts College o f Art and Hollins University, she received the Mimi Babe Harris Art Award from Hollins for her film ’’Ma Sue Hall: Living the Legend. ” 36 �raised through popular subscription and placed at the new Jacksonville C em etery w ith the inscription: “P astor — T e a c h e r— F rie n d .” A new spaper account (ca. 1910-11) lists donors to the H arris M em orial F u n d in am ounts o f $1.00 to $25.00, and a grand to tal o f $186.50.2 In 1912, “m oved b y the m eaning o f the Rev. H arris’s w ork,” a com m ittee form ed u n d er R ev. P eter C unningham C lark, Superintendent o f H om e M issions o f M ontgom ery Presbytery, and th e Rev. E dw ard E. L ane, P asto r o f th e C hristiansburg Presbyterian Church, to build a series o f m ission schools as a living m em o­ rial in underserved rural areas.3 B y the fall o f 1914, under the auspices o f th e Presbyterian H om e M ission, th e H arris M ountain Schools becam e a reality w ith the opening o f the first school at Shooting C reek on th e FloydF ran k lin C ounty line. Soon after, A m os C annaday offered p art o f his F loyd farm , and th e H arris-C annaday School im m ediately com m enced operation in a grove o f large trees. S tudents used slab seats, th e ir lessons ch alk ed o n a p lan k b lack b o ard n ailed to a “giant chestnut” tree.4 A fter an unsuccessful attem p t fo r m ore perm anence w ith a large tent, C annaday donated 14 acres o f land, an d w ith th e P resb y tery ’s help, construction began on a th re e -sto ry b u ild in g fo r perm anent classroom s. B y the m id1930s, w ith enrollm ent reaching 500 pupils, eight school build­ ings, including the 1922-23 Buffalo M ountain M ission School, h ad b e e n b u ilt o r b ro u g h t in to th e H arris M ountain Schools system in F loyd, F ranklin, R ockbridge, C arroll, and B edford Counties.5 The Presbyterian H om e M ission created a success­ ful, substantial and m eaningful testam ent to one person’s life o f selfless en terp rise. T he H arris M ountain S chools’ stationery com m em orated th e Rev. John K ellogg H arris as “A M an R ich and U nique in G ifts, C haracter and D evotion.”6 This benevo­ lent m inister, know n affectionately as “The Shepherd ofFloyd,”7 left a lastin g legacy to th e citizens o f his beloved com m unity. L ater, w hen his daughter returned perm anently to Floyd from N ew Y ork, Susan H arris H all w ould do th e sam e. Jo h n K . H arris and his w ife C hloe devoted th eir lives and th eir fortunes to m issionary education, each independently holding teaching assignm ents in Indian Territory during the early 1850s, w h ere b o th cam e to revere th e p articu lar m ission for th e e d u c atio n o f yo u n g w om en and g irls. In 1851, C hloe B igelow , th en a single w om an, traveled to w hat is now O kla­ hom a to teach for tw o and one h a lf years at W heelock Fem ale Old Presbyterian Church, built 1850. Sem inary, a school fo r young w om en o f the relocated Choctaw (Courtesy Floyd County tribe.8 W heelock, established in 1833 by Rev. A lfred W right,9 Historical Society) a dedicated m issionary and translator o f the Choctaw language, becam e p art o f the C hoctaw N ational School System in 1843.10 It quickly becam e a progressive educational m odel for native A m erican education w ithin all o f th e five tribes. (W h e e lo c k A c a d e m y is c u rre n tly a n e n d a n g e re d O k la h o m a N a tio n a l H is to r ic S ite . S e e : w w w .choctaw nation.com /w heelock/w heelockl .htm .) M iss B igelow w as associated w ith C hoctaw m issionar­ ies, K ingsbury, an d C yrus B yington, w ho along w ith W right developed a phonetic, w ritten C hoctaw lan ­ guage.11 John K ellogg H arris w as at th e sam e tim e, 1852-1854, in the sam e territory, teaching a t N atio n al School fo r C hoctaw s, m ost likely at nearby N orw alk.12 A fter tw o and one h a lf y ears’ m issio n serv ice as a teacher, experiencing overw ork and p o o r health, C hloe M . B igelow p rep ared to leave th e C hoctaw N atio n and retu rn hom e to V erm ont. She sent her sister, A ddie, “probably the last letter I shall ever w rite you from the 37 �C hoctaw N ation.” This letter contains th e only b rie f m ention o f h er future husband: “N orw alk, Feb. 28,1854 — W hen M r. H arris cam e in w ith the m ail last evening__ ” 13 B oth th e Rev. and M rs. H arris atten d ed N ew E n g lan d co lleg es steep ed in th e e th ic al d o ctrin es o f benevolence and charitable evangelism . C hloe Bigelow, Susan’s m other, studied briefly a t M ary Lyon’s M ount H olyoke C ollege prio r to 1850. The P rotestant revival o f th e 1790s-1820s b u ilt its principles on the “Puritan ethic o f using education to enhance th e experience o f G o d ’s w ord.” 14 B y 1830-50, w om en’s in creased re ­ sponsibilities in the m aternal vocation” o f child rearing necessitated m ore schools fo r fem ales. M ary Lyon established M ount H olyoke Sem inary fo r young w om en in 1837, soliciting p riv ate funds a fte r th e G eneral A ssociation o f C ongregational M inisters opposed any support. H er m ission o f train in g w om en fo r “useful w ork in society [ . . . ] im bued [her students] w ith notions o f self-sacrifice; m any [M ount H olyoke] graduates b ecam e m issionaries and teach ers.” 15 T eachers in th e C hoctaw N ation in clu d ed m an y g rad u ates o f M t. H olyoke, D artm outh, andW illiam s.16 John K ellogg H arris graduated from W illiam s C ollege, A B 1852, be­ longing to the Philotechnian Society (literary-debating) and the M ills Theological Society, w hose m em bers, for th e m ost part, devoted th eir lives to m issionary goals.17 T he H arrises kept careful w ritten records o f th e ir m issionary w ork and stu d ies, th o u g h th e H arris fam ily journals are sparse and to the point. Illum inating one w ell-w orn diary o f John K ellogg H arris is the scrupulous accounting o f each o f his serm ons at various P resbyterian stations in central V irginia, and the poignant listings o f his repeated preaching on the m arch as chaplain for th e C onfederate A rm y during m ore th an three years o f w ar servrce. The jo u rn al begins on Septem ber 6,1 8 5 8 as the recently ordained m inister leaves his hom e state ofN ew York for m inistries at K err’s Creek, R ockbridge County, andN ew M onm outh, V irginia, positions under the Lexington, V irginia Presbytery. H e joined his w ife o f one year, then teaching at C apt. G ilm ore s fam ily school fo r “ 10 o r 12 young lad ie s” on K e rr’s C re e k .18 H is n o tes con tin u o u sly reco rd his godly path through D ecem ber 2 4 ,1871, along w ith births, m arriages, deaths, unusual w eather, and oth er events. The en tries in th is diary begin and end w ith serm on listin g s: “M onm outh — Sept. 12 (1858) T hou shaft love th e L ord th y G od w ith all th y h e a rt & c.” A nd on th e sam e d ay “R eh o b o th rfc U nholy C haracter,” through to “D ecem ber 24 (1871) H um bled H im self. M t. P.” (M t. Pleasant). B ut it w as th e one sim ple entry in flow ing ochre script on February 7,1869, that caught m y attention and m y interest: “ ‘Susan M aria’bom . A .C .H .” (A m herst Court H ouse).19 T he H arris’s fourth child, S usan M aria, w as bom in V irginia and soon m oved aw ay w ith h er fam ily to K entucky in Septem ber 1869. T here, th e Rev. H arris b egan his pastorate o f the K irkw ood C hurch in H arrodsburg, and assum ed th e jo in t po sitio n w ith h is w ife as principal o f the H arrodsburg Fem ale C ollege.20 Tim e and tim e again, it appeared th at Susan M aria H arris w as destined to retu rn to Virginia it is the second diary o f John K ellogg H arris, — “John K . H arris — C hristiansburg, 1872” — th a t rev eals th is providence o f the H arris fam ily: Jan. 11,1872, “I left H arrodsburg— ”; Jan. 13, “R eached C bg 10 P.M .”; M ar. 19, “W ife & c. left H arrodsburg” ; M ar. 21, “(W ife & c.) reached xtnsbg 4 P.M .” W hile w aiting for his fam ily to arrive from K entucky, and before assum ing his new m inistry, th e Rev. H arris spent the w inter preaching in scattered regional locations— C hristiansburg, R ocky M ount, L ovely M ount, and N ew River, M rs. H udson’s, M rs. P rice’s, and H airston’s — in churches and in hom es, som e listed as “colored,” from January to M arch 1872. H is serm ons at this tim e included “A labaster B ox,” “P aul M ay P lant,” “Preaching Foolishness,” “W rsdom Justified,” and “Sins as Scarlet”21 The entry for A pril 6 ,1 8 7 2 , is “O vercom eth” — and is the very first m ention o f Floyd, the place w here th e H arrises w ould settle, th e place that, over tim e, inspired a deeply held sentim ental attachm ent in the entire fam ily. The Rev. H arris accepted th e pastorate o f th e P resbyterian C hurch a t F loyd C ourthouse officially on June 30 ,1872,22 and excepting an intervening m inistry in R ed C loud and Scotia, N ebraska, 1882-1889,23 he retained th is p o sitio n u n til h is death a t age 78, in 1910. The H arris fam ily, the Rev. John K H arris, his w ife Chloe, and th eir fo u r living children, C lara E lizabeth, John L eonard, Susan M aria, and infant M ary A delaide, bo m in C h ristiansburg M arch 27, ac- 38 �Old Floyd Courthouse, built 1851. (Courtesy Floyd County Historical Society) com panied by John K . H arris’s father, John H arris, settled in th e Tow n o f Jacksonville (now F loyd), Floyd County, V irginia in the spring o f 1872. T he relationship betw een the H arris fam ily and the tow n w as lasting, loving, and beneficial, and it becam e one th at ultim ately shaped the grow th and spirit o f the com m unity. Susan M aria H arris w as bom at A m herst C ourthouse, V irginia in 1869, coincidentally, th e sam e year as the birth o f the tw o m ajor national w om en’s suffrage organizations, the N ational W om an Suffrage A sso­ ciation and A m erican W om an S uffrage A sso ciatio n .24 A t th e age o f th ree, she arriv ed in F lo y d w ith her parents, w ho true to their m issionary-educators’nature quickly becam e com m unity leaders. That year, H arris began teach in g in th e p u b lic school a t Jack so n v ille. H is reco rd s noted on Sept. 1 0 ,1 8 7 2 th a t “ School opened. Floyd C .H .,” and w ith enthusiasm evident, o n Sept. 20, H arris presented a “ Speech in C.H . (C ourt H ouse) on E ducation.” H arris taught at th e public free school from 1872 to l 878, as his diary read: “Sept. 12 (1876) 5th School opened. 60.” The closing o f the public school in 1878 coincided w ith dim inished support paym ents from th e P eabody Fund. B y 1877, th e fund, w hich h ad supported Southern education after the C ivil War, had shifted priorities tow ard teach er education. In 1875, as enrollm ent at th e Jacksonville A cad­ em y public school declined, John K . H arris, as principal, and his w ife Chloe, as first assistant, began a private preparatory school, Jacksonville H igh School, teaching the subjects o f “G reek, Latin, and higher m athem at­ ics.”25 T his w as th e beginning o f th e H a rris’s coeducational O xford A cadem y, w hich opened som etim e betw een 1876-1878. T heir academ y enjoyed g reat success, w ith an average o f 35 to 86 students p e r year during the period 1892 -1901.26 H arris instructed th e higher grades: “him self a scholar, H orace, C icero, and the H ebrew B ible w ere dear and fam iliar friends”;27 C hloe had charge o f th e younger students, providing a good elem entary education “based on th e B ible and th e ‘3-R s’.”28 T he couple took personal interest in the pupils, supplem enting boarding fees o r tuition, encouraging scholarship, and, every spring, taking their “entire school” on overnight w agon trips to B uffalo M ountain especially to w atch the sun rise,29 o r to the m ill pond 39 �at the Phlegar farm for ice-skating, w here th e students found it as “hard to m atch” H arris in “playing ‘shinny’ o r cutting in tricate figures on th e ice as to trip him in V irgil o r m athem atics.”30 H arris h eld tw o o r m ore pastorates during his Floyd tenure, one at F loyd C ourthouse and another at Turtle R ock Presbyterian Church; he w as called on to p reach at D illo n ’s C hapel, C annaday, N ew H aven, C entral, an d L ovely M ount. The popular m inister traveled w idely in the region, often preaching three serm ons on a Sunday and several during th e w eek. “M any y ears” a fte r his death, a P resb y terian m em orial p am phlet p raised John K . H arris: “ So d ifferen t w as he from us, so original, his actions and his hum or so fu ll o f u nexpected quips and turns, that our schoolm aster brought to o u r... lives the charm o f novelty and ro m an ce___[W ]ell w e knew th e te n d e r lo v e w ith w h ich he w atched over us.”31 Sue accom panied h er fam ily w est in 1882 and rem ained w ith them fo r m ost o f th e ir m issionary stay in R ed C loud and S cotia.33 Sue once w rote th at h er father had d e v e lo p e d “p r e a c h e r s ’ so re th ro at,” an d w ent w est fo r a cure, b u t m issio n op p o rtu n ities on the frontier possibly influenced his de­ cision.33 H arris b u ilt and pastored a church in R ed C loud; h is w ife taught Sunday School. A fam ily let­ Red Cloud home, ca. 1882 ter in 1883 reported th eir progress: (Courtesy Floyd County Historical Society) “Mr. H arris is still w orrying w ith his church. It is about done. H e is try ­ ing to raise m oney fo r the w indow s now . O ur M ission Sab. Sc. is very large and w e had a grand supper for it one w eek ago this evening.” A decade prio r to th eir trip there w ere effusive letters from a cousin at the L incoln, N ebraska, office o f th e “B urlington and M issouri R iv er R ailro ad C o., in N ebraska” proclaim ing th e fertility, desirability, and profitability o f w estern lands. O fficial governm ent reports at th e tim e read: “N ebraska i s . . . richly agricul­ tu ral and p asto ral w here m illio n s o f acres are alm ost d onated to th e brave p io n eers o f th e w orld.”34 R ed Cloud, established in 1870 and nam ed fo r th e Sioux chief, w as by 1884 a fast-developing frontier tow n w ith a population o f alm ost one thousand. T he railroad, encouraging w estw ard expansion, arrived in 1879, and w ithin five years even the to w n ’s outskirts w ere inhabited. A ccording to W illa C ath er’s descriptions o f the sam e p erio d in 1884, the R ed C loud com m unity w as a b o hem ian one, w ith m any foreign im m igrants to div ersify th e fro n tier experien ce.35 S co tia su p p o rted a L iterary S ociety th at Sue and h e r siste r M ayday participated in. C ather w rote perceptively o f th e N ebraska influence on young w om en in a character descrip­ tion o f the fictional heroine in Tommy, the Unsentimental, “that blunt sort o f familiarity is not infrequent in the w est, and is m eant w ell enough. People rather expect som e business ability in a girl there, and they respect it immensely.”36 The H arrises evidently farm ed on the plains. M ayday H arris, interview ed in 1919 for the New 40 �Oxford Academy, ca. 1897. (Courtesy Floyd County Historical Society) York C om m ercial, com m ented on th e H arris farm in N ebraska, m entioning the m echanical expertise re ­ quired o f h er and th e oth er children on th e ranch th ere.37 A lthough C hloe reported hom e about the beautiful vistas, bountiful harvest, picnics, and the w onderful prairie bloom s, N ebraska w as not th e p erfect place. Shaded sum m er tem peratures reached 96 degrees, and the fam ily slept w ith an open door covered in gauze. O n D ec. 31,1883, C hloe H arris w rote a long letter from R ed C loud to h e r siste r A ddie in B rattleboro, Verm ont: “W e are having o ur first cold spell. It is so cold we cannot leave the f ir e ... It is so cold that I cannot think o f m uch beside how cold it is. W e have no trees o r hills to break th e w in d and w e g e t th e fu ll b en efit o f it. W e do n ot b u m w ood b u t coal.”38 M rs. H arris’s h ealth declined severely in th e p o o r clim ate, forcing the fam ily to depart N ebraska in 1889. T hat sum m er, John K. H arris lectured a t th e F loyd Institute, a m onth-long, Peabody Fund-sponsored, sum m er norm al session for teachers.39 In S eptem ber 1889, th e H arrises reopened O xford A cadem y, w hich had operated as O xford Sem inary until 1886 w ith an interim director, the Rev. W.R. Coppedge.40 The year after th e H arris’s return to V irginia, law yers’ letters b egan to arrive from N ebraska concerning foreclosure o f th e H arris house in R ed Cloud. The letters w ere interspersed w ith excuses for tenant problem s and rental difficulties on the property. A resu ltin g law su it req u ired M r. H arris to send a $400.75 m ortgage ju dgm ent to th e N ebraska court.41 Susan left N ebraska e arlier th an h er parents to stay w ith h er m arried sister C lara, in K entucky. In the fall o f 1887, a t age 19, Sue H arris becam e one o f “eig h t w om en in an undergraduate departm ent o f about 160 students” at C entral U niversity in K entucky, w here her brother-in-law , Dr. Jam es Tazew ell A kers, w as the Ford Professor ofEnglish.42 A lthough Sue H arris com pleted only one college course, naturally in English, her rigorous y o u th fu l education at th e classically inspired O xford A cadem y prepared h er w ell fo r a life o f learning. A t th e auction o f h e r belongings in 1974, am ong the item s listed w ere 1,200 books.43 41 �The H arrises enjoyed a lifelong affection fo r prolific personal correspondence. Fam ily letters describe p ast lives and places, enlivened b y evidence o f the w riter in the handw riting’s playful o r serious m indset o r m ood. A le tte r w ritten A u g u st 1 5 ,1896, plead s M rs. H arris’s cause fo r th e ir sm all, coeducational O xford A cadem y in th e Tow n o fF lo y d : “I f l could only get $500 fo rth e girls o fth e county to board them selves and com e to school. It is th e ir o n ly chance.” In 1899, H arris w rote his ow n p articu lar prescription concerning higher education: “I b elieve in going to a good college and digging through a good course. B ut I w ould tie a plow aro u n d ev ery u n d erg rad u ate’s n e c k — & an axe to h is arm . L et him rem em ber w here he cam e from and b e st go to — .” O th er lette rs describe th e to w n ’s new s o fth e day: “F rid. Jan 22nd, 1908. 8:30 p.m . M r. S ow der is to b u ild a stru ctu re betw een his b rick office & M r. P eter H ow ard’s H ouse. It is to connect w ith th e b ric k and accom m odate b e tte r M r. S ow der and th e b ank.” ; “W ed. June 2 3rd 4 1/4 p.m . 1909 S ow der b u sin ess ho u se (now the B lue R idge R estaurant) n early done. O utside stairs gone. W hole thing looks village like & harm onizes.” The H am s-A kers collection o f nineteenth-century fam ily letters andjournals reveals th e fam ily ’s open-m inded, unprejudiced, sharp-w itted, sentim ental, w orldly, and “dry, sly and high” hum or-laden personality. In 1899, from th e pen ofR ev. H arris: “R evenues captured 1100 gallons o f w hiskey last nig h t and p u t it in B rack. S cott’s cellar for safe keeping. E verybody is drinking a t it.” ; “W ed, M ay 3 0 ,6 p.m ., 1 9 0 6 .1 am tired. N ext tim e, Sam Sw inney [can] preach his ow n funeral.” ; and sw eetly, in solitude after C hloe’s death in 1897, “The w ind blow s [ . . . ] The night w ind is an old and dear friend. It calls to m y v ery heart. I love it.”44 “Papa” w rote to his “dear Sue,” on Sat. Nov. 1,1 9 0 0 : “You have b een raise d from th e d ead now about th ree tim es — once at D ublin — th en on the night o f the surgical o p eratio n — then on Sab. N ight O ct. 28th — . A nd I d o n ’t know how m any tim es in R oanoke— besides once trying to tear up the R.R . in N ebraska.” (A ccording to A rthur A kers, Sue w as a sleepwalker and clim bed o ff the train in her nightgown; th e tra in departed, leaving h e r at th e statio n .) Rev. H arris th en added: “G od does n o t send such m ost uncom m on deliverances w ithout a purpose — .” M a S h e ’s S t o r y Sally and Betsy Hall, ca. 1898. (Courtesy Floyd County Historical Society) S usan H arris H all w as “som ething e lse.” Forty-five years after h er death, the drop o f her fam il­ iar nicknam e “M a Sue” still sparks a storm o f gleeful enthusiasm . Spoken w ith w arm th and genuine affec­ tion, adjectives burst thick and fast from everyone she knew. In th e tape-recorded interview s, “unforgettable,” “irrepressible,” “intelligent,” “colorful,” “ju n ,” “de­ pendable, ‘tough, com ical,” “opinionated,” “w itty,” “w ell-read,” “outspoken,” “generous,” “obstinate,” “w ell-know n,” “honest,” “sharp,” “com m unity-spirited,” and “all-’round-good-person” circled Sue H all like so m any stars m a crow n. W hen I asked each respondent to describe M a in ju st one w ord, “caring” topped the list. B ill H ayden, w hose m other cooked for M a Sue’s H otel B ram e, related that a say o u n g ster he alw ays knew th a t M a Sue “ cared the world ” fo r him . I heard m ore th an once th at M a Sue had a “h eart o f g old,” tem pered, o f course, by h e r “taut,” “vitriolic,” and “salty” tongue. “You didn’t w ant to cross her; she could tell 42 �Hotel Brame (Courtesy Floyd County Historical Society) you o ff in 15 languages,” B ob S helor confided. H azel E dw ards, w ho lived w ith M a Sue as a fo ster child, confirm ed, “ She w as to u g h , b u t she h ad to be th at w ay; she w ould go h ead to h ead w ith th e law yers o r anyone, and they w ere big g er than she w as, and she w ould w in! ” D uring h er career a t U .S . Steel P roducts in N ew Y ork City, Sue lived aw ay from F loyd Com ity. She m issed h e r ch ildhood hom e and v isited frequently, expressing her sentim ents on a fam ily postcard, once w riting th at she ju st w anted to live up on top o f the B uffalo M ountain.45 M a Sue accom plished h er dream o f returning “hom e” in 1916, w here she rem ained for the rest o f her life.46 Susan H arris H all m ade h er ow n way, in h er ow n way. Self-supporting throughout m ost o f her adult life, she reconciled personal im pulses o f p ro­ gressive po pularism and unbounded hum anitarian benevolence (w anting to “do” for people), w ith profes­ sional p o sitio n s th a t satisfied h e r in stin cts o f social service. “H er second love w as th e R ed C ross,” P ete H allm an to ld m e, and Sue H all becam e best-know n for h er unceasing w ork to attain help for people in need. For m ore than th ree decades, she led locally adm inistered social w elfare program s and w artim e fam ily ser­ vices as th e A m erican N ational R ed C ross Executive Secretary for F loyd County.47 She “p rid ed h e rse lf in know ing everyone in the county,” M aud Shelor recalled. I f anyone in Floyd C ounty needed assistance, they w ere ju s t to ld , “G o see ‘M a S ue.” ’ In 1922, th e character o f each o f the 3,627 R ed C ross C hapter offices, small and large, reflected the needs o f the local comm unity. R ed Cross chapters form ed a very loose coalition: “T hese people do as they please, and th e national organization can accept it or not.”48 D uring th e influenza epidem ic o f 1918, Sue H all stayed w ith one F loyd fam ily th ree w eeks, nursing them all b ack to health.49 Servicem an H em y B . S helor received an unexpected call a t b oot cam p during W orld W ar II; n ot know ing that his father w as ill, they to ld him only to return to Floyd. Susan H arris H all had quickly arranged a furlough on his behalf. 43 �Summertime. (Courtesy Floyd County Historical Society) M a Sue H all was out-of-the-ordinaiy, b u t I w asn’t prepared fo r th e im pressive ta lly o f accom plish­ m ents as I n eared th e en d o f m y accounting. A t each step along th e p ath o f discovery, in v estig atio n , and d o cu m en tatio n , as I g rad u a lly becam e m ore inv o lv ed w ith th e study o f h e r life in a co n tex tu al w ay, m y conviction grew , and m y research confirm ed, th at Susan H arris H all deserved the designation in h er fro n t page 1958 obituary: she tru ly w as a “living legend.”50 Sue H am s m arried Jacob T. H all on F ebruary 6,18 9 0 , and m oved to R oanoke, w here he held m ana­ g erial and editorial p o sitio n s at the Roanoke (Daily) Times, and, later, th e Southern Weekly Journal.52 The couple m et at O xford A cadem y years earlier, w here Sue, age 11, and Jake, age 20, w ere listed in the ro ll call o f 1880-81 ;53 it’s p ro b ab le th at Jake w as th en a teacher at th e school. The H alls h ad tw o daughters, M ayday H arris H all (Sally), 1891, and E lizabeth B igelow H all (B etsy), 1892. W idow ed in 1898, h e r h usband succum bing to heart disease at age 37, Sue H arris H all left h er tw o sm all children w ith fam ily in Floyd, and w ent alone to N ew York C ity to study typew riting and stenography at P ack ard ’s, B roadw ay & 2 6th.54 It w asn ’t long before she w as teaching th e course, and b y 1902 Sue w as fetch in g h e r dau g h ters a n d h e r sister, M ary A delaide (M ayday), to N ew Y ork. Sue soon advanced to an alm ost 20 -y ear career a t U .S. Steel C orp. in N ew York City.55 In his 1974 autobiography, h e r form er sonin-law observed evidence o f h er social conscience as the hum anitarian office m anager at U . S. Steel in 1915. H e w ro te, “ She h ad so lv ed th e p ro b lem o f th e handicapped and und erp riv ileg ed . She g ro uped th em in v ario u s d ep artm en ts, a ll th e b lin d , th e parap leg ics, and th o se retard ed b y language.”56 She w as a single m other in m anagem ent w hen w om en totaled less than 20 percent o f th e national w orkforce, at a tim e w hen this statistic represented m ostly nonprofessional, factory, o r teaching positions.57 44 �Sally and B etsy stayed w ith th eir m o th er and aunt at 204 W. 114th St. in N ew Y ork fo r 14 years. B oth children exem plified th e H airis fam ily ideals. B etsy founded the C ity H istory C lub at her high school w here she w as fo r four years class President. She graduated from B arnard w ith m any celebrated accom plishm ents, including President o fth e Fem inist Forum , executive com m ittee m em ber o f the B arnard and Socialist C lub, literary ed ito r o fth e B arn ard B ear, m em b er o f th e C olum bia C om m on Sense L eague, and delegate and elected d eleg atio n secretary to H en ry F o rd ’s 1915-16 Peace E xpedition aboard th e O scar II to N orw ay and the H ague.58 B etsy m arried a B roadw ay lyricist, H ow ard D ietz (“D ancing in the D ark”), and becam e a published w riter w ith ties to th o se in th e A lgonquin R ound Table, a literary clique in N ew York City. Sally attendednursing school in W ashington, D .C ., returning to Floyd w ith her m other in 1916 to becom e m anager at the H otel B ram e in F loyd. A s did h er m other, Sally appreciated and docum ented local Floyd history; she also possessed a lifelong love ofnature. Finding sundry w ild critters in residence at their hom e w asn’t unusual. A n early photo in the Floyd C ounty H istorical Society collection pictures Sally w ith three other young ladies, all in apristine w hite dresses, standing in front o fth e old courthouse in Floyd. Sally is clutching a large, black duck. A p air o f caged grey squirrels, S ally’s p ets, accom panied B etsy as m ascots on her ocean expedition to N orw ay; reporters and p hotographers h a d a field day.59 In A m erican social history, Susan H arris H all’s life o f self-em pow erm ent stands out as a m arker for the tum -of-the-nineteenth century Progressive E ra vanguard. This political m ovem ent in the early 1900s sought “to increasepopular participation in th e A m erican system ,” “to alleviate the ills o f society” w ith a governm ent m ore responsible tow ard social w elfare and justice.51 Sue H arris’s confident, independent nature, com bined w ith a very unique set o f circu m stan ces— th e personalities, principles and experiences o f h er parents, h er upbringing in th e sm all com m unity o f F lo y d , th e freedom s experienced b y w om en in th e w est and in th e progressive areas o f N ew Y o rk City where she hved — all influenced Sue’s path. In 1916 at age 47, w hen Susan H arris H all returned to Floyd from N ew York, she did so w ith a singlem inded desire: to purchase th e landm ark B ram e H otel on the tow n square. She ow ned and ran this establish­ m ent and its dining room w ith h e r d au g h ter S ally fo r m ore th an 12 years, retirin g ( if th at term is applied loosely) in 1929 to a cottage com pound nam ed “ Sum m ertim e.” She took in boarders there and hosted entire road and P arkw ay crew s during th eir w o rk ten u res.60 O ne story tells o f a local person getting a speeding tick et in S outh C aro lin a a few y ears ago; ta k e n to th e m ag istrate fo r p rocessing, h is hom e o f F loyd w as noted. T he ju d g e only asked, “D oes th a t o ld lad y still liv e up there? D oes she still have th at parrot?” M a Sue’s place w as th e stu ff o f legend, a p o w erfu l presence even as I w atched it decline. A fter W orld W ar I, M a im m ediately involved h erself in county affairs, assum ing hands-on nursing and fam ily assistance responsibilities as F loyd’s R ed C ross Secretary.61 H er w ork continued through all o fth e depression era 1930s; a t a tim e w hen so c ia l serv ices sat solely u n d er lo cal control, she w as the county w elfare w orker, oftentim es w ith o u t pay. S ue trav eled anyw here th ere w as a need, o r w herever som eone needed help. She w ould ju st go. She h e ld th e po st o fP ro b atio n O fficer from 1930-31, a n d a ta g e 65 h a d h e r ow noffice as County R eliefD irectorunderF E R A funding.62 H er varied roles included bem g an ew s reporter for the Floyd Press, a stringer (paid b y th e inch) correspondent fo r the Roanoke Times, a contributor to The Pom m onw ealth. R ed C ross lia iso n fo r so ld ie rs’ fam ilies during W orld W ar II, official U .S . w eather ob­ server,63 a country m idw ife o r m ortician w hen necessary, and, at th e age o f 51, an adoptive m other o f a 13m onth-old baby girl. M y favorite o f M a S ue’s new s headlines w as in the Roanoke Times, Septem ber 1937: “Frost and P rosperity H it F loyd Together.” M y first encounter w ith Susan H arris H all occurred m ore than fourteen years ago. I have the penciledinpaper that startedm y quest: “V irginia D ivision ofH istoric Landm arks: H istoric D istrict: B riefSurveyForm : 28 Mar. 1988.” In the m iddle o fth e w ork on th e V irginia D epartm ent ofH istoric Resources histone buildings survey in the Tow n o f F loyd, som eone p o in ted to an o ld house hidden beyond the back o fth e Jacksonville 45 �cem etery. “Sum m ertim e,” they said, “M a Sue H all’s house.” Beating m y w ay through the bram bles, I snapped three black and w hite photos and drew a sketch o f the cottage and site plan. The architectural details are few, but under landscape features, I listed th e form idable rem ains o f her gardens: “O vergrow n specim ens: rhodo­ dendron covering front; flow ering bulbs; crocus; narcissus; star o f B ethlehem ; yucca; huge yew tree; rem ains o f flagstone edging; old rose trellis; stone steps to a depressed abandoned roadw ay a t arched trellis entry.”64 I kept returning to take m ore photographs. O ver tim e, the building collapsed inw ard, crushed by debris from H urricane H ugo, and, in 1995, all perishable evidence o f “ Sum m ertim e” burned to the ground in a suspicious fire. In 1990, as a m eans o f p reservation and w ith historic im portance in m ind, I m ade negatives o f m any im ages in her album s at th e F loyd C ounty H istorical Society. In 2 0 0 1 ,1 produced a short com puter-gener­ ated film on th e life and tim es o f S usan H arris H all,65 and included a sam pling o f photographs from the collection. U sing a cam era lens, video footage, tape-recorded in terv iew s, and p erio d m usic, the final film sketch features the lad y w ho, in 1912, cam e to tow n w ith the K odak Brownie: th e indom itable, irrepressible, and principled “M a Sue” H all, pictured w ithin the sounds and sights o f the Floyd C ounty set­ tings in w hich she thrived. N ar­ rate d e n tire ly b y th o se w ho k n ew a n d rem e m b e red M a Sue, th e recollections endorse th is g ran d lady and h er fam ily w ith first hand im pressions and c o n n ectio n s n o t p o ssib le in m ore form al accounts. The na­ tu re o f o ral h isto ry , as P ete H allm an, form er ed ito r o f the Floyd Press explained in his in­ terview , m ay not “be exactly the w ay it happened, b ut it was the w ay it w as told.” MBS, SlflASS XTAXREH. HAUL . . . “ 31a and- P-olly i t WflWk “ M a S u e ” H a !! L a id t o R e s t in .Jacksonville C e m e t e r y ; O f S e r v ic e to 46 L ife W a s O n e P e o p le o f F lo y d C o u n ty �NOTES 1Nancy Martha West, Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000) 5360. 2 Harris-Akers collection of family papers. W 3R. Gamble See, letter to Miss Blanche Sprinkle, original Harris Mountain Schools letterhead, Early Ihstory o the Presbyterian Missions, or Mission Schools in Franklin and Floyd” Floyd, VA, March 14, 1947, The Hams Mountain Schools Collection, Special Collections, Virginia Polytechnic and State U., Blacksburg. 4 See 3-4 5Goodridge Wilson, “The Harris Mountain Schools,” “Southwest Comer” column, Roanoke Times 1 June 1958: n.p., clipping, Harris-Akers Collection. 6 See stationary letterhead. BBHI M BBI 7Margaret Welch, “The Shepherd of Floyd,” Presbyterian pamphlet, n.d., The Hams Mountain Schools Collec­ tion Special Collections Virginia Polytechnic and State U., Blacksburg. 8 Mt. Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections, “Alumnae who were missionaries to Native Ameri­ cans,” LD 7092.8 (South Hadley: Nov. 1992). 9 Grant Foreman, The Five Civilized Tribes (Norman: Univ. Oklahoma, 1934) 39. 10 Foreman 80. , TT 11 Mt. Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections, student file: Chloe Minerva Bigelow Hams — non­ grad. ‘50, Mt. Holyoke [directory] 1837-1937 (South Hadley). „ . ,, 12 John Kellogg Harris, letter to Bro-[ther] McAllister, Floyd, 23 Nov. 1906, Hams-Akers collection of family papers. 13 jj^rris-Akcrs 14 S.J. Kleinberg, Women in the United States 1830-1945 (New Brunswick: Rutgers, 1999) 61-62. 15Kleinberg 64. 16 Foreman 85. ~AA1 17Williams College Special Collections, “RE: Collection Archives,” e-mail to author, 1 May 2001. 18Chloe Minerva Bigelow Harris obituary, handwritten by John K. Harris, 16 Aug 1897, Floyd, VA, Hams-Akers collection of family papers. 19 jj^m s-A kcrs 20 Susan Grey Akers, “Oxford Academy Founded 1875,” 31 Oct. 1962, The Floyd Pregs 1 July 1976: 12B. 21 fj 2 ms"Akcrs 22 Amos D. Wood, F1ovd Countv: A History of Its People and Places (Radford: Commonwealth Press, 1981) 336. 23 S.G. Akers. 24 K jginbcrs 193. , . 25 Sarah James Simmons, “The Development of Schooling in Floyd County, Virginia; 1831-1900” Diss. Virginia Polytechnic and State U., 1987,117-122,224. 26 S.G. Akers. 27 Welch 28 Susan H. Hall, “Three Floyd County Teachers. . . .“ Roanoke Times 14 Oct. 1950, clipping, Harris-Akers collection o f family papers. 29 Wood 283. 30 Welch. 31 Welch 32 Susan Harris Hall, handwritten notation in frontispiece, Mildred Bennett, The World of Willa Cathgr (NY: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1951). . A1 n0~tintl 33 Susan Harris Hall, letter to Nancy Akers, 27 Nov. 1945, Summertime, Floyd, VA, Hams-Akers collection of family papers. 34 Harris-Akers. 47 �35 E.K. Brown, Willa Cather. A Critical Biography (NY: Knopf, 1953) 21-26. 36 Brown 79. 37NY Commercial, clipping with date in pencil notation, 23 Oct. 1919, Harris-Akers collection o f family papers. 38 Harris-Akers. 39 Tom Hunt, and Sarah Simmons, “The 1899 Floyd Institute,” Journal of the New River Historical Society. V5. No. 1 1992:24. 40 Wood 360; Sarah Simmons, “Legacy of John K. Harris,” Journal of the New River Historical Society, V4. No. 1 1991:18. 41 Harris-Akers. 42 Central University Annual 1887/1888. (Richmond, KY: 1888); Bob Glass, “Re: Bob Glass - Special Collec­ tions,” e-mail to author, 11 Oct. 2001, Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, KY. 43 “Auction Sale o f Valuable Antiques and Real Estate,” The Flovd Press 25 July 1974: n.p., Harris-Akers collection o f family papers. 44 Harris-Akers. 45 Susan Harris Hall, Harris family postcard collection, Floyd County Historical Society Archives, Floyd, VA. 46 Ben Beagle, “ ‘Truth, Decency Same in Any Age,’” Roanoke Times 18 Nov. 1956: F 1. 47 American Red Cross, NARA, “Record Group 3,1935-1946 Floyd Co., VA, Box 1154; Record Group 4,19471964,200-85-10, Box 88,” Brenda Pruitt, “RE: Am. Red Cross FAQs,” e-mail to author, 16 May, 2001. 48 Charles Hurd, The Compact History of the American Red Cross (NY: Hawthorne, 1959) 191. 49 Ora Brammer, personal interview, audiocassette, Floyd, VA, 26 Apr. 2001. 50 “‘Ma Sue’ Laid to Rest [ . . . ],” The Flovd Press 27 Feb. 1958: 1. 51 Daniel Rankin, “U.S. Progressive Era Outline 1900-1920,” Austin State Univ., 1996, 10 Sept. 2001 <http:// www.progressivism.org/pera.html>. 52 “Death o f J.T. Hall,” Roanoke Times 29 June 1898: 4. 53 Sue Jefferson Shelor, Pioneers and their Coats of Arms of Flovd Countv (Winston-Salem: Hunter Pub, 1961) 144-145. 54John Kellogg Harris, letter to Mrs. Lathrop, Floyd, VA, 21 Oct. 1899, Harris-Akers collection of family papers. 55 ‘“ Ma Sue’ Laid to Rest [ . . . ]”. 56 Howard Dietz, Dancing in the Dark.Words bv Howard Dietz (NY: Quadrangle, 1974) 38. 57Kleinberg 105. 58 Henry Ford’s Peace Expedition. Who’s Who (Christiania, Norway: Aas & Wahl, 1916) 12; Elizabeth Bigelow Hall, personal scrapbook, 1915-16. 59 E.B. Hall. 6° “Bridge Party [ . . . ],“ newspaper clipping, 18 Sept. 1937, Harris-Akers collection o f family papers. 61 Am. Red Cross. 62 Flovd County Board of Supervisors Minutes. Book 7 (Floyd: 1930-1943) 63 “Veteran Observer,” Roanoke Times n.d., n.p., Jessie Peterman scrapbook collection, Floyd County Historical Society Archives, Floyd, VA. 64 VA Dept, of Historic Resources, “Virginia Division of Historic Landmarks: Historic District: Brief Survey Form,” Summertime, Susan Harris Hall, Floyd, VA (Richmond: DHR, 28 Mar. 1988). 65 Ma Sue Hall: Living the Legend. Quicktime movie file, CD, dir. Kathleen Ingoldsby, Allemande Arts, 2001. �W hat D o W e Leave Behind? By Anna Fariello F or fo u r hundred miles through Virginia, the Blue Ridge is essentially a single long fin , only a m ile or two wide, notched here and there with deep, V-shaped passes called gaps but otherwise holding generally steady at about 3,000feet, with the broad green Valley o f Virginia stretching o ff to the Allegheny M ountains to the west and lazy pastoral pied­ m ont to the east. So here each time we hauled ourselves to a mountaintop and stepped onto a rocky overlook, instead o f seeing nothing but endless tufted green mountains stretching to the horizon, we got airy views o f a real, lived-in world: sunny farm s, clus­ tered hamlets, clumps o f woodland, and winding highways, all made exquisitely pictur­ esque by distance. - B ill B ryson, A Walk in the Woods he exhibition, “A rcadian M onum ents,” organized and circulated by the V irginia M useum o f F ine A rts Statew ide E xhibitions Program , was on view last spring at the H istory M useum and H istorical Society ofW estem V irginia. The color im ages displayed in the Shaftm an G allery w ere intentionally rom anticized im ages o f the “real, lived-in w orld” view ed b y B ill B ryson from his hike along the A ppalacian ■ Trail. T he 30 photographs th at m ade up th e show w ere selected from a larger body o f photographs th a t I b eg an m ak in g in th e e arly 1990s as a silent p ro te st in th e face o f a no t-so -d ig n ified end to a m ag n ificen t antebellum hom estead. I first saw it alone on a bare hillside, a tw o-story hom eplace w ith colum ns and a sm all portico. B y the tim e I encountered that lonely m ansion at the end o f the 20th century, no one had lived there for years. T he building w as beyond habitation, light piercing its em pty interior. “R ock R oad” seem ed a fittin g address for th e venerable structure, surely the bedrock o f a long-faded com m unity. T he house stood apart from the ever-w idening asphalt ro ad before it. It stood in stark contrast to the new hom es springing up around it. It stood proudly as a stately rem inder o f another century. It stood sim ply as a m onum ent to generations o f lives lived and lost along th e way. The R ock R oad house continued to intrigue m e until, one day, I decided to m ake its portrait. I spent an afternoon exploring its far com ers w ith m y cam era. I recorded its dark interior, its faded exterior, and its sunny surroundings. D uring that afternoon, I im agined the m any generations o f children w ho played am ong the w ildflow ers and w oods surrounding a sm all space claim ed from N ature b y th e ir forebears. A fter seeing th e initial photos, I planned to return to shoot a couple o f m ore rolls o f film . A t th e tim e I could n o t h ave know n th at th e fate o f th at R ock R oad house w ould be the catalyst fo r w hat w ould am ount to a decade-long photographic preoocupation. O ne day I happened to be driving along R ock R oad and glanced to the place w here the house stood. M y plan o f re-photographing it idly passed through m y m ind and I m entally Anna Fariello is owner o f Curatorial InSight, a consulting firm providing research, development and curatorial services to non-profits and private collectors. She is currently doing research fo r the 2003 Smithsonian Folklife Festival and is on the faculty o f Virginia Tech. 49 �c a lc u la te d h o w lo n g it h a d b een since m y first v isit. M y rev erie w as in terru p ted b y n o t seein g th e house im m ediately. I looked again and doubled back, believing I w as at the w rong place in the road. B ut the fact w as, th e house w as gone. W here once stood a tw o-story hom eplace w as nothing b ut a grassy field. The R ock R oad house had com pletely vanished, w ithout a trace o f its presence in evidence anyw here. To m e th is seem ed th e cruelest fate, to b e erased from history so com pletely, to be gone from all m em ory, fo r all eternity. T he p h o to g ra p h ic series Arcadia docum ents th e cu ltu ral landscape at a sin g le p o in t in tim e. It is intended to capture the fading presence o f a regional identity that is quickly being replaced by a national facade o f fast-food franchises, suburban tract houses, and m ultinational businesses. Sm all creeks and roads m eet this sam e fate and, as w e develop the technologies to carve aw ay at the steepest o f o ur m ountainsides, w e en ter a new era o f d estru ctio n . A s w e tu rn th e pages o f our calendars, w e w ill ju st as surely w itness th e continued destruction o f o u r natural and built landscape as I had w itnessed the destruction o f the R ock R oad hom estead. A s w e m ake ro o m fo r expanded in terstates and “sm art” roads, w ill w e rem em ber w here w e are o r w ho w e are? R u ral h eritag e h as been overlooked at a tim e w hen th e culture o f “other” has been celeb rated ; w e overlo o k oth er-n ess close to hom e. A fter the disappearance o f the house on R ock R oad, I becam e aw are o f th e im portance o f th ese fa d in g — and faded — surroundings, n o t for th eir actual w orth, b u t fo r th e ir m eta­ p hysical w orth. I decided to record the presence o f rural A ppalachian architecture w hile there w as still som e le ft to reco rd . A g rarian hom esites are found in ever decreasing num bers. O nce com m on and u nique to th e region, v ern acu lar agrarian arch itectu re— structures th at create a visual sense o f p la ce — is eroding. Iro n i­ cally, ru ral A m erica is endangered. A g rarian arch itectu re grew from physical necessity. It is understated. Its design is an expression o f function. Its stark exterior and lack o f superfluous decoration is som etim es confused w ith poverty. B ut it is this very sim plicity and lack o f pretense that defines the beauty o f this regional form . T here is som ething w onder- 50 �fully sm all about hum an-m ade structures built into the rural landscape. T hey blend into their environm ent and underscore the m ajesty ofN ature by their sm allness and their hum ility. They are th e architectural opposite o f skyscrapers, w hich appear to dom inate the landscape and proclaim an indestructibility. In contrast, rural hom esteads allow us to feel the expanse and pow er o f N ature, evoking feelings o f aw e and grandeur. Aesthetically, pioneer hom esteads and th e landscape they inhabit are one; they look as if they grew from the soil. They appear inte­ g ral to th e landscape, a w ooded tru n k sup­ porting a canopy o f tin. The oldest o f these are rev ertin g to N ature. N o lo n g er hum an-ized, they revert to the W ild. T heir sole inhabitants are cow s or bales o f hay. They are abandoned, discard ed , soon to be destroyed. T hey are w orthless architecturally, w orthless com m er­ cially, and w orthless financially. T hey can nei­ th e r co n tain anything o f value, n o r keep out the elem ents. M y v ersio n o f P aradise ex ists in th e ru ra l landscape and sense o f place found in the southern A ppalachians. It appears to m e a place w ith fluid geographic boundaries spilling from m odern-day V irginia into neighboring states, m eandering across ridges and dipping into dark hollow s. A rcadia refers to an ancient lan d o f m ilk an honey, a paradise lost. A ccording to legend, peaceful peoples once lived free from strife and care, in p erfect harm ony w ith th eir environm ent and th e anim al com m unity. N ature retain ed h e r ch aracter as M o th er and benevolent friend. In those halcyon days, hum anity w as unobtrusive and in keeping w ith the elem ents. Tradi­ tional m ythologies and religions are filled w ith such places called Eden, A tlantis, o r Peaceable K ingdom . D id suchplaces exist in thephysical w orld? C an su ch ap lace exist to d ay ?F o rm e, A rcadia exists in th e present as it d id in the past, as a place o f the m ind and spirit, rather than an actual place on the planet. It continues to exist today in childhood, in dream s and reverie, and in hopeful im aginings. T hrough m y photographs, I attem pt to take the view er on an im aginary jou rn ey through a pastoral and m editative space inhabited by understated m onum ents to the rural and natural w orld, rem nants o f an old w orld im posed upon th e new. T he im ages in Arcadian Monuments are intended to sharpen one’s aw areness to th e experiential perception o f seeing, aprocess I som etim es call “deep seeing.” It is im portant to recognize A rcadia in our ow n fives, w henever or w herever w e m ay stum ble into it. The sublim e could be right next door and m any o f u s w ould pass w ithout notice. W hile it is im portantto dream a grand future and m ind-w alk in th e reverie o f o ur past, o ur presen t is m ade m ore m eaningful by threads o f m aterial culture w hich form the connective tissue o f our hum anity. D uring the latter h a lf o f the 19th century, th e physical rem ains o f culture w ere valued, no m atter how tattered o r w orn. T hese lo st favor in the 20th, as the new century cam e to represent a clean b reak from th e past. B ut before w e 51 �u sh ered in th e age o f M odernism and a love fo r new -ness, W estern culture rev ered th e p a st as a w indow to understanding and self-realization. Such a view w as m anifest in English gardens in w hich “ruins” w ere intention­ a lly co n stru cted to create a visual lin k to heritage and culture. In A m erica, w e p ick e d u p th is thread in th e construction o f “garden” cem eteries, pastoral environm ents visited by harried urban citizenry in the V ictorian era. In cem eteries such as these, one can still com e upon a “broken” colum n o r “vine-covered” m onum ent. The built environm ent is filled w ith stories; som e are real, som e im agined. S helter cam e in the form o f m odest structures in A rcadia, like m any throughout rural A m erica today. In th eir tim e, each w as the physical m anifestation o f som eone’s dream . W hen w e are content, w e pretend these rural hom esteads w ere filled w ith h appiness. W hen w e are sad, w e can p reten d they w ere fille d w ith m elancholy. S m all d w ellin g s w atch as m ortals com e and go, w itness our birth, our grow th, our flow ering, our w ithering, o u r decay. D w arfed b y the m ajesty o f the A ppalachian m ountains, m odest structures stand patiently in contrast to b u sy inhabitants w ho scurry like ants through life. Theirs is a different sense o f tim e, a tim e n o t m easured in days an d m onths, but in centuries and eons. G ravity w orks around th e clock to rearrange th e original com position desig n ed b y som e unknow n craftsm an. Slow ly and relentlessly the elem ents invade their space. Tim e takes its toll. N ature reclaim s w hat is left o f th eir grandeur. Tendrils o f fast-grow ing vegetation first spread along foundations, catching fast like little children’s fingers at M other’s hem . Soon the tenacious vines enfold the clapboard sides, weaving in and ou t o f w indow s, eventually laying claim to th e roof. The ro o f no longer keeps out th e rain, th e flo o r m eets th e earth below , the w alls lean this w ay and that. O vertaken by nature, vines intrude into its privacy, clawing at its faded dom esticity. The floor no longer prom ises support, becom ing precipitously dangerous, discouraging all bu t a few brave souls w ho d are to enter. D irt floors sprout new saplings w hich reach out to sunlight through broken w indow s. T hey are in ruin, y e t liv e on, becom ing m ore and m ore a p a rt o f th e landscape w ith each p a ssin g day. T h e v iew from each w indow is transform ed. It is m agical to look up and see a piece o f sky surrounded b y a p icture fram e o f rafters. In som e w ays, th e transform ation o f these decaying, hapless buildings elevates th em fro m th e realm o f th e everyday to th e realm o f th e sublim e. O nce stout structures are p u lled dow nw ard in to th e w aiting arm s o f M other E arth, like th e body o f a loved one laid to rest in w arm ground. In late afternoon, w hen th e sun is low and light cuts across th e landscape, hom esteads w hich d o t the rural A ppalachian countryside are bathed in a w arm , yellow glow. L ike richly encrusted B yzantine icons, they are hallow ed andhalo-ed. They are the w izened, m artyred saints o f our com m unities. T his is o u r H erculaneum , o u r P aradise, our A rcadia. O ur m ountainous landscape is its e lf w eathered b y tim e and elem ents th at cycle ro u n d sping rain , sum m er heat, autum n drought, w in ter freeze. B u t th e h ills are n o t th e w orse fo r w ear. Tucked am ong them are a few rem aining regional, vernacular hom esteads, containing rem nants o f past fives. T hey are relics o f our ow n near past. T hey are our archeology. W e exit th eir doors as w e leave this life, leaving b eh in d th e fru its o f o u r labors and loves. W hat have w e m ade? W hat do w e leav e b e h in d a s a m ark o f out passing through this place? 52 �How Andrew Lewis Drove Gov.. Dunmore out of Viiginia (Gwynn’s Island Revisited) By Candy Daugherty The R oanoke V alley’s favorite son o f th e revolutionary period, G eneral A ndrew L ew is, is rem em ­ bered for tw o crucial battles. A t Point Pleasant in 1774, he com m anded a force o f w estern V irginians against the Shaw nee, and in victory secured the O hio R iver frontier from further attack. The story o f Point Pleasant has been w ell docum ented in th e history books. B ut less w ell rem em bered is th e B attle o f G w ynn’s Islan d , w h erein the G eneral w ho had ended the Indian threat evicted from a new ly independent V irginia h er last B ritish governor. John M urray, Earl o f D unm ore, had arrived in V irginia, the largest and w ealthiest o f the 13 colonies, in 1771 follow ing agovem orship inN ew York. A lthough initially unhappy w ith his reassignm ent, D unm ore em ­ braced his position and used his authority for his ow n personal gain. W estw ard expansion w as forbidden to the colonists by British authority and strictly enforced by D unm ore, bu t settlem ent o f new territory w as inevitable. F or even the governor him self w as speculating on land claim s. In 1774, follow ing violent In d ian raids on w hite settlem ents, D unm ore ord ered an expedition into W estern V irginia. In D unm ore’s W ar, o r the B attle o f P oint P leasant, A ndrew L ew is, resident o f R ichfield on th e R oanoke, led th e defense, w hile D unm ore failed to arriv e in tim e fo r th e fig h t. U nbeknow nst to L ord D unm ore, th e next tim e the tw o com rades w ould m eet on th e field o f b attle, they w ould be adversaries. O ver th e n ex t year, relatio n s b etw een th e B ritish a n d th e co lo n ists rap id ly decayed. In response, D unm ore in July 1775 gathered w hat B ritish forces w ere available, as w ell as loyalist supporters, and housed them in vessels harbored in H am pton R oads. U sing this as a base fo r operations, D unm ore dispatched priva­ teers to patrol the bay. The Chesapeake Bay, the m outh o f w hich w as controlled by V irginia, provided deepw ater access ideal fo r sailing large trade vessels into Pennsylvania, D elaw are and M aryland, as w ell as V irginia. T he T idew ater reg io n included som e o f th e co lo n ies’ larg est p o rt cities - N o rfolk, H am pton and Portsm outh - and w as th e outlet from w hich m ost o f the colonies’ tobacco w as shipped to the W est Indies in exchange for necessary staples. D unm ore realized th at if the very w ealthy andpersuasive V irginia colony w ere loyal to the K ing, then it could quite possibly curb the pending rebellion throughout th e region. Seizing colonial v essels on th e slig h test o f pretenses, priv ateers co n fiscated n eed ed supplies and b ro u g h t them b ack to th e governor. W ith the support o f B ritain’s R oyal Navy, m ost notably C om m odore A ndrew S. H am m ond, Dunm ore controlled the w aters in w hich his “floating tow n” disrupted trade from Pennsylvania to G eorgia. Tensions ran high in H am pton R oads in the sum m er o f 1775. M ilitia forces had. gathered in an attem pt to fo rtify th e city against raiders in search o f necessities. W ith m ore and m ore L oyalists loading th eir m ost beloved treasures onto vessels and joining D unm ore’s fleet, th e need for staples and supplies increased. R aids w ere m ore frequent and increasingly violent. V acated L oyalist hom es and businesses w ere often vandalized and in som e cases torch ed by hostile patriots. In O ctober o f 1775, B ritish reinforcem ents arriv ed from St. A ugustine; how ever, as D unm ore’s forces grew in num bers, so d id co lo n ial m ilitia troops. In N ovem ber, D unm ore acted on V nginia’s biggest fear and issued the first ever em ancipation proclam ation, stating: Candace ‘‘Candy’’ Daugherty, a Roanoke County library assistant, is a regular contributor to Salem Historical Society’s quarterly publication, Guide to Historic Salem. She home-educates her two daughters and has attended Virginia Western Community College. 53 �"And I herebyfurther declare all indentured Servants, Negroes, or others (appertaining to Rebels)free, that are able and w illing to bear Arms, theyjoining his M ajesty’s Troops. ” T hose freed slaves w illing to take up arm s and fig h t alongside o f th e B ritish w ere recruited into D unm ore’s R oyal Ethiopian Regim ent. V iew ed as an act o f w ar, D unm ore’s tactic angered and frightened m ost V irginians already fearful o f a slave uprising. N o rth ern ers and Southerners alike thought D unm ore’s tactics to be ex­ trem e. L oyalists aboard the “floating tow n” still had strong fam ily and econom ic ties to N orfolk and w ere frequently com ing to shore fo r n ecessities. S poradi­ cally placed snipers concealed in v acated b u ild in g s along the w harf did little to discourage the raids. P atri­ ots reasoned that if the city w ere destroyed, D unm ore and his forces w ould have to m ove on. T he opportu­ n ity presented itse lf N ew Years D ay, 1776. B ritish troops landed u n d er a cover o f naval gunnery and set fire to 19 vacated buildings know n to have harbored m ilitia snipers. C haos and confusion follow ed. P atrio t forces, seizing th e m om ent, eith er burned o r allow ed to bum 863 buildings. W ith p o w ­ erful coastal w inds to fan th e flam es, th e fifth largest city in all th e colonies disappeared in th ree days. A s w ord o f th e conflagration m ade its w ay to the N orth­ ern cities, the B ritish w ere blam ed, though patriot com ­ m anders w ere also culpable in N o rfo lk ’s destruction and u sed th e trag ed y to g reat advantage as p ro p a ­ ganda. W hile N orfolk w as burning, C olonel A ndrew Lew is w as attending the fourth V irginia C onvention in W illiamsburg. Previously in August, Patrick H enry had been appointed com m ander ofV iiginia’s regim ent, an appointm ent based m ore upon p o p ularity than capa­ bility. Lewis, whose m ilitary experience far outw eighed The location o f Gwynn’s Island, between that o f Henry, declined the offer o f a subservient com ­ Gloucester and Virginia’s Eastern Shore, is m and. H ow ever, n ot long a fte r th e F o u rth V irginia shown in this map o f the lower Chesapeake Bay. Convention had adjourned, H enry’s regim ent o f 1,300 (From The Governor’s Island, by Peter Jennings volunteers had been accepted as V irginia’s quota fo r Wrike) the Continental A rm y and on M arch 1, the new ly com ­ m issioned officers w ere announced. T he P hiladelphia C ongress had appointed M ajor G eneral C harles L ee com m ander o f the S outhern D epartm ent o f the A rm y and nam ed A ndrew L ew is and R obert H ow e o f N orth C arolina b rigadier generals beneath him . H enry, furious that L ew is and H ow e w ere prom oted above him , resigned im m ediately. L ew is’s appointm ent pu t him in control o f all the V irginia troops and on M arch 18,1776, he assum ed com m and. Just lingering offN orfolk’s coast loom ed L ew is’s adversary and his fleet o f over 80 Tory ships, includ- 54 �ing the w arships Fowey and Otter. Lew is arrived in H am pton in M ay, ju st in tim e to find D unm ore and his fleet preparing to sail. Initially, he saw them “ stand out to sea, b u t instantly tacked about and ran up th e B a y ....” D unm ore’s suspected destination w as G w ynn’s Island, a 2,200-acre island on the northern end o f G loucester County. In a report to Lee, L ew is w as critical o f the local civilians, w ho had failed to tell him o f the flesh w ater and livestock available on th e islan d so th a t it co u ld be rem oved before D unm ore reached it. B efore L ew is could finish the report, a m essenger arrived to confirm th a t th ree to fo u r hundred o f D unm ore’s troops had ju st taken up resi­ dency on G w ynn’s Island. W hile D unm ore w aited there, events in V irginia m oved rapidly. V irginia’s lead­ ership unanim ously adopted a resolution fo r independence and began th e process o f form ing a new state governm ent. The C onvention appointed Patrick H enry gov­ ernor o f th e new ly established C om m on­ w ealth June 2 9 , th e sam e day V irginia’s state constitution, w ritten by Thom as Jef­ ferson, w as recorded. T hese resolutions, radical and revolutionary, w ere the begin­ ning o f the end o f nearly 170 years o f B rit­ ish rale. S oon after th e C ontinental C on­ gress adopted Jefferson’s D eclaration o f Independence, G eneral L ew is decided it w as tim e to rid V irginia o f the last vestiges o f royal control. The m orning o f July 9 arrived w ith a low tide and little breeze. A t approxim ately 8:30 a m , G eneral Lewis him selfaim ed and fired the first 18-pound cannon directly at the Dunmore, the governor’s flagship, hit­ ting the stem and traveling the entire length o f th e vessel. T he second shot to h it th e Dunmore, also fired b y L ew is, ag ain h it the stem , killed the governor’s sailing m as­ ter instantly, and destroyed D unm ore’s fine china. Shrapnel from these attacks slightly A painting o f Gen. Andrew Lewis at Gwynn’s Island, by Anne Bell, hangs in the Salem Civic Center. injured the governor slegs. T he low tide caused several ves­ sels, including th e Otter, to be grounded; thus they w ere vulnerable to attack. A t the first shot, H am m ond ordered th e Row buck’s boats to tow these vessels out o f cannon range; sim ultaneously, G eneral Lew is ordered the A m erican battery to begin firing on the island. The already heavily 6anaagedDunmore w as h it by n early every p atrio t shot aim ed a t her. A m azingly, D unm ore’s crew w as able to return fire, bu t the cannons w ere too sm all and the A m erican troops w ere too fortified fo r their shots to be effective. D unm ore, in retreat, ordered th e anchor cables cu t and his v essel tow ed out o f range. 55 �G eneral L ew is’s p a trio t b atteries h ad th e advantage th at day. From “C ricket H ill,” th e height advan­ tage m ade D unm ore’s ships easy targets and retaliation difficult. (The nam e “Cricket Hill” derived from Dunm ore’s likening L ew is’ troops to “C rickets on a H ill,” for they disturbed his sleep w ith th eir cajoling.) W ith a low tide and no breeze, the only effective w ay to m ove th e “floating tow n” from such confined w aters w as tow ing. Few loyalists w anted to row a b o at to safety in th e m idst o f all th e gunfire. T hat night, under cover o f darkness, loyalists gathered w hat supplies they could in preparation to sail the next m orning to St. G eorge’s Islan d in th e Potom ac. V essels th at could b e repaired w ere patched enough to m ake a day’s jou rn ey north; those deem ed n o t seaw orthy w ere burned. A t daw n on the m orning o f July 10, as D unm ore and h is “floating tow n” sailed u p th e C hesapeake, G eneral L ew is gave the order fo r L ieutenant C olonel A lexander M cC lanahan and h is battalion o f th e 7thV irginia to go ashore. W hat they found th at m orn­ ing greatly disturbed them . M cC lanahan’s troops “w ere struck w ith horrour (sic) at the num ber o f dead bod­ ies, in a state o f putrefaction (sic), strew ed all th e w ay from th eir battery to C herry Point.” Sm all pox as w ell as ja il fev er h a d rav ag ed th e “ floating tow n” and a lack o f clean w ater, nutritious food, and adequate m edical treatm ent allo w ed disease to flourish. T he dead and dying as w ell as those quar­ an tin ed and to o ill to tra v e l w ere sim p ly le ft b eh in d . D ue to fea r o f contam ination, th e tro o p s b u rned the quarantine cam ps w ith m any dying still inside. G eneral L ew is o rd ered tro o p s to fo llo w th e exodus o f ships up th e C hesapeake to be assu red th at D unm ore w ould not land elsew here in V irginia. A s D unm ore and his loyalists sailed into M aryland w aters, they had becom e exiles. Few people tod ay have ev er h eard o f such a p lace as G w ynn’s Island and few er still can te stily to its significance. G eneral A ndrew L ew is had successfully dislodged L ord D unm ore from his tem porary post on the island and w as able to prevent his “floating tow n” from reestablishing itself elsew here. This victory then began V irginia’s independence, and a resident o f o u r ow n v alley had m ade it possible. B ibliography Johnson, P a tric ia G ivens. General Andrew Lew is o f Roanoke and Greenbriar. C hristiansburg: Johnson. 1980. Selby, John E. The Revolution in Virginia, 1775-1783. C harlottesville: U niversity P ress o f V irginia. 1988. W ilkerson, G ene. Guns on the Chesapeake: The Winning o f A m erica’s Independence. B ow ie, M d.: H eri­ tag e B ooks. 2000. W rike, Peter. The G overnor’s Island. L ively, Va.: B randylane. 1997. �W ho Named Salem? By John Long u r Salem can claim m any special d istin ctio n s, b u t a u nique n am e is n o t one o f them . T he nam e Salem fo r a tow n o r city is one o f th e m o st com m on in th e U .S .— som e 35 o th er states feature Salem on th eir m aps. Som e states can claim m ore than one, including V irginia. M arshall in F auquier C ounty w as o rig in ally nam ed Salem ; th ere are p arts o f th e V irginia B each area, an d C u lp ep er an d P age counties, that bear this venerable nam e. The origin o f th e w ord is B iblical, an abbreviation o f Jerusalem , and it m eans “peace.” The traditional Jew ish greeting, “Shalom ,” is a variant o f th e sam e w ord. Salem , Virginia is neither the oldest nor the youngest place to b ear th is nam e. T he tow n w as founded w hen Jam es Sim pson, a som ew hat m urky character in the historical record, laid out a g rid o f lots on 31 acres o f his land astride the G reat W agon Road. H e began selling these lots in 1802, bu t in 1804 divested him self o f O m ost o f his V irginia holdings and m oved for unknow n reasons to A labam a. Perhaps because o f his sudden disappearance from th e area, a g reat m ystery has alw ays surrounded the origins o f the nam e o f Salem . W ho nam ed th e to w n 200 years ago? W hy? A pparently no one deem ed these questions im portant enough to record an answ er. H ow ever, th ere is a traditional account o f th e nam ing o f Salem th a t has b een rep eated m any tim es, often enough to be considered dogm a by m any local history buffs. It appears in the tw o m ost recent surveys o f local history: N orw ood M iddleton’s Salem: A Virginia Chronicle and D eedie K agey’s History o f Roanoke County (K agey cites h er inform ation back to M iddleton). A ccording to the prevailing theory, the nam e Salem w as im ported from N ew Jersey b y the B ryan fam ily. W illiam B ryan, know n as The E m igrant, an d h is son, W illiam Jr., m oved to this area in the 1740s from Salem , N .J., T hey settled along the G reat R oad w here a fresh spring bu bbled to th e surface— th e area know n to d ay as L ake S pring P a rk in Salem . A s fa r as m any are concerned, they brought the nam e Salem w ith them . This is an entirely plausible theory; how ever, it has alw ays seem ed to th is researcher th at it presents a problem : it virtually bypasses Jam es Sim pson, Salem ’s founder. D id he have no role in nam ing the tow n he laid out him self on property he ow ned?W hat evidence is there to support th e “B ryan theory” o fth e nam e’s origin? W hat can w e deduce from the scant docum entary evidence o f Salem ’s early days? The first question to ask is the genesis o f the “B ryan theory.” The originator seem s to be a Salem native by the nam e o f T hornton W haling. A fter grow ing up here, W haling becam e a Presbyterian pastor, serving the Jackson M em orial Church in Lexington and eventually serving as president o f the U nion Theological Sem inary in Louisville. H e had a particular interest in local history and genealogy, especially the B ryan fam ily, from w hich he w as a descendant. In 1926, W haling h elp ed to place a m arker in S alem ’s W est H ill C em etery to m ark th e g rav es o f W illiam B ryan, his son, and his son’s w ife, M argaret W atson. O n th e dedication day, W haling gave a speech w hich (as far as I can te ll) w as th e earliest public appearance o f th e B ry an theory: “th e lo v ely o ld tow n o f S alem .. .w hose v ery nam e [the B ryans] brought w ith them .” (quoted in The Roanoke Times, Sept. 9 ,1 9 2 6 ) The sam e basic inform ation appears in the Salem Times Register edition com m em orating R oanoke C ounty’s centennial on M ay 27,1938, quoted as a recent letter from W haling on page 127. W haling does n o t identify a John Long director o fth e Salem Museum, is a graduate o f Roanoke College and holds a master’s degree in history from the University o f Virginia. He is an adjunct history professor at Roanoke College and the author o f South of Main: A History ofthe Water Street Community of African Americans m Salem. 57 �source for this inform ation, but seem s to hint that it w as a fam ily oral tradition. T hat th e th eo ry w as no t in vogue e arlier th an 1926 is ev id en ced b y its o m issio n fro m th e earliest sources for local history. W illiam M cCauley, in his chapter on Salem ’s founding in th e 1902 History o f Roanoke County, prepared for Salem ’s C entennial, w rote, “it w ould be a m atter o f in terest to know w ho suggested the nam e o f th e tow n, b ut on this point, tradition is silent.” (page 138) It is in terestin g to n o te th at W haling w as invited to be a speaker at the C entennial C elebration, but had to decline a t th e last m inute. O therw ise, he m ay have provided an answ er to M cC auley’s question. N or is th e B ryan theory m entioned in G eorge Ja ck ’s 1912 H istory o f Roanoke County. W hat actual evidence, then, is there to support W haling’s hypothesis? Scarcely any. F or one thing, the m ost prom inent B ryans m ay have been dead several years before Salem w as laid. W illiam B ryan the Emigrant died in 1786, and W illiam B ryan Jr. died in 1796, assum ing that the dates on W haling’s aforem entioned 1926 grave m arkers are accurate. Som e sources give W illiam Jr. ’s death as 1806, b u t th is m ay have only b een the y e a r his w ill w as probated. M any o f th e o th er B ryans in th e area m o v ed w est, a n d o f th e rela tiv e s w ho rem ained in th e area, none appear to have been leaders o f early Salem , since th e ir nam es are n o t am ong the early settlers o f th e tow n. N or w as th e B ryan land p a rt o f the original tow n. R ather, it w as about a m ile up th e road, a consider­ able distance considering Sim pson’s tow n w as only a few blocks long. Furtherm ore, it stands to reason th at if the B iyans brought th e nam e w ith them , it w ould have been in use p rio r to Sim pson’s creation o f th e tow n. B ut th eir land w as alw ays referred to as “B ryan’s on R oanoke,” a reference to th e riv er th at adjoined th e farm , and an exam ination (although n o t an exhaustive one) o f early deeds fo r th e area fails to show an appearance o f th e nam e Salem p rio r to 1802. So, i f th e B ryan theory seem s tenuous a t b est, w ho nam ed S alem ? A g o o d can d id ate, th ough n o t a proven one, w ould be Sim pson him self, based on a num ber o f pieces o f circum stantial evidence. F irst, it is w orthw hile to fin d th e earliest use o f th e nam e Salem . It ap p ears to b e th e d eed w hich is Salem ’s “birth certificate.” O n June 4,1802, Susanna Cole purchased from Sim pson a lo t o f land in the new ly laid-out tow n along the G reat R oad, a transaction trad itio n ally tak en as th e fo u n d in g o f th e tow n. T he lo t is described as such: “w hich L ott or piece o f G round is in a plan o f a Tow n laid o ff b y th e said Jam es Sim pson n e a r w here sd. S im pson now liv es which Town is now known by the name o f Salem .” (B o teto u rt C ounty D eed B ook 7, p age 731; italics m ine) Interestingly, the w ord “now ” w as edited in w ith a caret. W hat does this signify, if anything? I f nothing else, it seem s reasonable to assum e th at th is indicates the area had n o t p rev io u sly b een know n as Salem . Second, in D ecem ber o f 1805, residents o f th e new Salem p etitio n ed th e V irginia legislature to offi­ cially establish th e tow n, w hich fo r three years had apparently had no official existence. In th e ir application, th ey note th at “a C ertain Jam es Sim pson laid o ff a Tow n in his la n d .. .which said Town he designated by the name o f Sa lem ...” (quoted in Stoner, Seedbed o f the Republic, p ag e 2 4 4 ; ita lic s m in e). S im pson, b y th e w ay, had left V irginia the year before, according to the w eight o f th e evidence. T he signatories o f th is petition (w hich the legislature passed in January 1806) seem ed to know noth in g o f a B ryan connection to th e nam e, and no B ryan w as am ong the petitioners. This docum ent, incidentally, also provides th e earliest description o f th e tow n. O nly three years after h e r founding, Salem w as in a “fertile p art” o f B otetourt C ounty w here a nu m b er o f “p ro p rieto rs have m ade good buildings and settled, and sundry others are now building— w hich from th e p rese n t appearance m ust m ake it in a short tim e a flourishing place— as it lies on a very eligible spot and in th e m idst o f a w ealthy and populous part o f the said county— being at the junction o fth e roads from y our seat o f governm ent and from the n o rth w ard lead in g to th e w estern country and w here th e farm ers and o th ers m ay fin d a m ark et fo r th e ir produce and be conveniently supplied w ith such m aterials as they m ay b e in n eed o f as there are a num ber o f m echanics and som e vendors o f m erchandise resident therein.” �T hird, there is som e Sim pson fam ily tradition w hich m ay b e relevant. Theodore Sim pson, a genealo­ gist, p ro d u ced a m anuscript in 1990, en titled “ Som e p relim in ary d ata o n Jam es Sim pson, th e fo u nder o f Salem, V irginia, and related Sim psons.” In it, he notes a strong connection betw een the Sim pson nam e and the nam e Salem . O ne branch, it seem s, can be traced back like the B ryans to Salem , N .J. (although not th e branch affiliated w ith B otetourt’s Jam es Sim pson). A nother Sim pson liv ed near Salem (now M arshall) in F auquier County, and another apparently near Salem , W.Va., w here a Sim pson C reek is found. W hile all this is conjec­ ture, it seem s possible that the nam e Salem follow s th e Sim psons. (To be fair, it should b e noted th at in a later letter to Salem historian N orw ood M iddleton, T heodore S im pson in d icates th at he had never h eard o f the B ryan theory, and notes that he did n ot have “ sufficient inform ation to say one w ay o r th e other.”) W hat then are w e to deduce from this evidence? F ollow ing are the conclusions I have draw n from m y research into this m atter: 1) There is no docum entary evidence to support T hornton W haling’s hypothesis that the B ryan fam ily nam ed Salem . N or is there such a preponderance o f evidence th at it can be rejected outright. 2) A t the sam e tim e, the w eight o f the early docum entary evidence gives m uch m ore credence to the idea that Jam es Sim pson nam ed h is ow n tow n. 3) T he po ssib ility cannot be d ism issed th a t som eone in th e B ryan fam ily m ade the suggestion to Sim pson th at Salem w ould b e a good nam e fo r a new tow n. Such an idea w ould in effect harm o­ nize the tw o accounts. 4 ) Thus, it w ould seem reasonable to include b o th th eo ries in future discussions and w ritings about Salem ’s history as unproven possibilities. In th e end, w e are left to agree w ith M cC au ley — “o n th is p o in t trad itio n is silen t and rem ain satisfied th at Salem is Salem , regardless o f the origins o f th e nam e. 59 �Regional manuscript guide completed D r. C harles B o d ie o f L ex in g to n has c o m p leted h is d raft o f a m an u scrip t g u id e fo r the R oanoke and N ew R iv e r valleys, sp o n so red b y th e H isto ry M useum and H isto rical S o ciety o f W estern Virginia. F unded by a grant o f $10,000 from th e V irginia Foundation for the H um anities, th is p ro ject w as also p a rt o f a larg e r p ro g ram o f sp eak ers w ho explored n eg lected facets o f the region’s history. Dr. B odie undertook h is research to lo cate m an u scrip t collections in public repositories pertaining to the counties o f B otetourt, C raig, F loyd, M ontgom ery, and R oanoke, as w ell as their m unicipalities. H is w ork required travel to scores o f libraries around V irginia and am ong neighbor­ ing states, and to extensive searches o f in tern et lib rary sites. B y M arch 3 1 ,2 0 0 2 , he had com piled a d escrip tiv e list o f 1,604 co llectio n s lo ca ted in 61 lib ra ries. A m ong th ese lib ra ries, 26 are in Virginia. T he diverse co n ten t o f th e co llectio n s spans th e p erio d from th e co lo n ial era to th e 20th century. T he published guide, w ith diverse references to private correspondence, diaries, business ledgers, legal m aterial, m aps and photographs, w ill offer abundant inform ation to researchers inter­ ested in fresh directions. T hese item s touch on th e lives o f people on farm s, in stores, a t hom es, in schools, and in professional w ork. T hey docum ent th e lives o f people neglected by m any histori­ ans, including w om en, children, A frican-A m ericans, sm all farm ers, and w orkers in extractive in­ dustries. O verall, th e guide should stim ulate new approaches to th e reg io n ’s history, rev eal new them es, and help to fo ster a b etter understanding o f its developm ent. T his understanding, in turn, can help m em bers o f th e region’s com m unities to address contem porary issues. T he M useum m eanw hile sponsored a set o f speakers during th e second h a lf o f2001 w ho touched on a range o f seldom -visited topics o f Southw est V irginia history, including archeological evidence o f aboriginal settlem ents, aspects o f railroad developm ent, A frican-A m erican entrepre­ neurs, and w ays o f conducting fam ily and com m unity history. T he final step fo r th e M useum is to raise th e n ecessary fu n d in g o f ab o u t $8,000 fo r the publication o f the guide to m ake it available to individuals and to libraries as a strong addition to its current publications program . A nother id ea bein g explored is to also produce an on-line version th at w ill greatly increase its access. T he guide w ill b e available in th e spring o r sum m er o f 2003. �Oliver H ill’s Home M ay Become Human Rights Center By George Kegley rien d s and adm irers o f O liver W. H ill Sr., prom inent desegregation law yer, organized a fo u n d atio n to acquire his boyhood hom e in N orthw est Roanoke and develop it as a center to foster hum an rights. H ill, now 95 and blin d , recalls h is R oanoke years from 1913 to 1923 and again w hen he b eg an practicin g law in 1934 in an autobiography, The Big Bang, Brown v. Board o f Education and Beyond, p u b lish e d in F 2000. H is hom e is in Richm ond. H ill w as one o f a team o f civil rights law yers w ho w on the 1954 B row n v. B oard o f E ducation deseg­ regation su it before th e U .S . Suprem e C ourt. In the Jim C row era, H ill’s N A A C P legal team filed m ore civil rights law suits in V irginia than w ere filed in any other Southern state. T hey led to landm ark decisions on voting rights, ju ry selection, access to school buses and em ploym ent protection. In a recent telephone interview , H ill said 99 percent o f his recollections about R oanoke are good. H e h ad “a w o n d erfu l tim e as a ch ild ” and th en he cam e b ack and started h is law p rac tic e in Judge L in d say Almond’s H ustings C ourt in R oanoke. “W e’ve m ade a w hole lo t o f progress” on race b u t “there is a w hole lo t o f w o rk to be done, n o t ju st black and w hite in the U nited States but in th e w hole w orld. We need to think differently on a lo t o f things,” he said. “P eople are m ore sophisticated today. T hey don’t com e out and say th ey are segregationist. T hey are m ore subtle.” “A ll segregationists need to look at the situation from a realistic view and g et over all th is nonsense rela te d to sk in color,” H ill once to ld an A sso ciated P ress reporter. “T h ere’s no b a sis fo r th in k in g th e re ’s anything o th er than a hum an ethic. I f G od h ad intended for people to be defined as races and separated, w e w ould assum e G od had sense enough to give them different m eans o f procreation.” In his autobiography, H ill said, “I arrived at the conclusion that it w as ju st as stu p id fo r m e to hate w hite people because they w ere w hite as it w as fo r w hite people to hate m e because I w asn ’t w hite. C onsequently, I began to ju d g e people as people on the basis o f m y experience w ith them . L aw yer H ill has a lifetim e o f accom plishm ents. A fter that landm ark legal victory alm ost 50 years ago, h e w as elected as R ichm ond’s first black council m em ber. H is aw ards are m any: th e C hicago D efender M erit, A m erican B ar A ssociation C om m ission on O pportunities, W alking H istory M illennium , T hom as Jefferson A w ard fo r P u b lic S ervice, th e A m erican C ollege o f T rial L aw yers A w ard fo r C ourageous A dvocacy, th e V irginia C om m ission on W om en and M inorities in the Legal System , and th e Freedom F ighter A w ard o fth e V irginia S tate C onference o f N A A C P branches. In R ichm ond, the form er Juvenile andD o m estic R elations C ourt B uilding w as nam ed for H ill. A nd forem ost, in 1999, he received the M edal o f Freedom from President BiUClinton. O n Feb. 5,2 0 0 3 , Virg in ia ’s G eneral A ssem bly honored H ill as th is y ear’s O utstanding V irginian. H e w as recognized as a V irginian “w hose dedication and service are an inspiration to all civic-m inded citizens. A fter graduating from H ow ard U niversity and its law school in W ashington w hile w orking as a w aiter in a restaurant, H ill passed the b ar exam ination and in 1934 he began practicing law in R oanoke w ith J. H enry George Kegley, a longtime resident o f Roanoke, is a permanent director o f the History Museum, and editor o f the Journal since 1968. �C lay to r in an office at th e presen t site o f the new park in g garage fo r the H igher E d u catio n C enter, n e a r the railroad. H e w as one o f few er than 40 black law yers in the state. “In th o se days,” he w rote, “m ost N egro law yers had a solo general p ractice. L ik e gen eral m edical p ractice, o ur general legal practice required us to m ake house calls. P eople in real serious co n d itio n needed y o u to v isit th em at hom e. I frequently w ent to c lie n ts’ hom es to talk to th em .” W hile lo o k in g fo r w ays to generate incom e, H ill typed chain letters and represented w orkers w ho gave him w age assignm ents, and som e N egro professionals gave him th eir unpaid debts to collect, b u t his crim inal practice w as “alm ost en tirely p ro bono.” W hen these activities failed to produce a reasonable am ount fo r upkeep, H ill disco n tin u ed his R oan o k e p rac tic e and returned to W ashington in June 1936. H e later spent m ost o f his career in R ichm ond. H e had taken m any pictures o f th e in te rio r an d ex terio r o f R oan o k e C o u n ty one-room schools to use as evidence fo r com m unity edu catio n and for litigation. The O liver H ill Foundation w as established in O cto­ b er 2000 w ith the goal o f carrying on th e w ork o f H ill and h is associates in civ il rig h ts, acco rd in g to C laren ce M . D unnaville Jr., a law p a rtn e r o f H ill. Its p u rp o se s are to function as an educational an d p o licy cen ter fo r th e p ro ­ m otion and study o f hum an rig h ts, as w ell as developing th e onetim e H ill hom e a t 401 G ilm er A venue, N W , as a center for hum an rights. K ay Strickland is president o f the foundation. O th­ ers on the b o ard are C abell B rand, A lice R oberts and E d B arnett, from th e R oanoke V alley; C laren ce a n d N orine D unnaville and Jonathan K. Stubbs, Richm ond; and Esther V assar, N orfolk. Oliver Hill o f Richmond, noted desegrega­ T he first p ro ject o f th e fo u n d atio n w as to o b tain a tion attorney, attended a reception at the g ran t from th e V irginia L aw F o u n d atio n e n ab lin g th e Transportation Museum in Roanoke in June R oanoke group to sponsor tw o law students as interns w ith 2002. (Photo by George Kegley) public interest law firm s devoted to civil rights. In his autobiography, The B ig Bang, H ill said w hen h e w as a child, “people in our social circle used to call R oanoke Tittle N ew York. ” ’ Few cars w ere ow ned in th e N egro neighborhood, he said. “I no ticed th at each m ake o f car had a d ifferen t sound. A ccordingly, b e­ cause o f th e scarcity o f cars and distinctive sounds, I know everybody’s car a b lo ck b efo re I co u ld see it.” H is stepfather, Joseph C. H ill, operated a pool parlor. “H e even b uilt a tittle stand for m e to stand upon so th a t I co u ld see over th e pool table. H e started teach in g m e to play b illiard s an d p o ck et p ool. B efore he could teach m e m uch about the art o f playing billiards o r shooting pool, V irginia w ent d ry and th at closed the saloons and k illed the neighborhood in w hich h is pool p arlo r w as located. H e trie d to fin d an o th er location. U n fo rtu n ately , a t th at tim e in R oanoke, th e lo catio n s w here a N egro co u ld o p erate a b u sin ess w ere v ery lim ited . H e d id n ’t see an y th in g he w anted to do in R oanoke. A ccordingly, he d ecid ed to go b a c k to H ot S prings to w ork. T hat term in ated m y career as a p o ten tial p ro fessio n al p o o l player. W ho know s, th a t m ay have kept m e from becom ing a ‘V irginia F ats.’” A s a boy, H ill liv ed at 401 G ilm er Ave. w ith his m other and stepfather in th e hom e o f B rad fo rd and L efia Pentecost. In those days, N egro children couldn’t go to public school until they w ere seven. People were 62 �w ork-oriented in his boyhood days. H is daily chores w ere bringing in coal and w ood for stoves and washing dishes. Once a week, he h ad the responsibility for dusting furniture, m opping the floor and cleaning comm on areas o f the house. H ill also w orked at an ice cream parlor w here he was paid in ice cream for his services. The firm w as cited for violating child labor laws. D uring W orld W ar I w hen he w as 10, H ill w oke up at 3 a.m. to deliver newspapers. H e began selling the New York Examiner on Saturday afternoons. W hen he w alked through w hite neighborhoods, “I knew that y o u had to be very, very careful that you didn’t get caught as you m ight be cuffed around... I f white boys came along, I had to run like hell. They w ould c u ff m e and w hen w e w ould catch them in our neighborhood, we w ould c u ff them too. It w as sort o f tit fo r ta t.. .B ut nobody shot anybody or broke their arm or anything like that. T hey let us k n o w th a t th ey d id n ’t care anything about us and w e let them know th at we d id n ’t care anything about them. This w as one o f the unfortunate results o f racial segregation.” Roanoke w as a railroad tow n, Hill wrote. “In our circle, practically everybody either ran on a railroad or w orked for the N orfolk and W estern or V irginian in such capacities as cooks, w aiters, porters, trainm en, brakem en, firem en and m essengers at the m ain office.” H ill started at 16 as a laborer at N& W , earning 25 cents an hour for such jo b s as m ixing concrete, transferring shippers’ claim s from one office to another and guiding rails to a “frog shop.” (H oles w here rails w ere connected w ere called frogs.) H e w orked on an ice w agon and in a shoe shine parlor. In his school days, Hill played football, baseball, basketball and shot marbles. Com m enting on the N egro class structure he saw in Roanoke, H ill said it w as m ore democratic in the sense that A frican-A m erican people from various social strata m ingled freely. M rs. Pentecost, his friend and landlady, said that in W ashington at that tim e, “there w as m ore division: a kind o f ‘pecking order’based upon skin color and econom ic status.” H ill h ad a b rie f m ovie career in Roanoke. In the 1920s, he said, O scar M ichaux, a prom inent Negro film producer, persuaded a group o f Roanoke N egroes to invest in a film, “H ouse B ehind the Cedars,” about middle class N egroes here. Hill had a role, walking am ong guests at a law n party filmed in his front yard, at the northw est co m er o f G ilm er A venue and 4th Street. In 1991, m any years later, w hen a R ichm ond professor heard o fh is m ovie role, H ill w as invited to appear at the Virginia Festival o f Am erican Film in Charlottesville to discuss O scar M ichaux and his w ork 63 �W hat Victory M ay Mean: A History of Ensign Horace A . Bass Jr., USNR, and the U S S Horace A . Bass APD-124 By Roy C. Baugher III orace A n cel B ass Jr. w a s a R oanoke citizen w ho served as an aviator in th e U nited States N aval Reserve during the Second W orld War. H e served as a fighter pilot in the Pacific Theater, participât ing in the Battle o f M idw ay and the Battle o f Eastern Solomons in 1942. During the Solomons battle, Bass w as declared m issing in action and he w as never found. He w as posthum ously awarded the N avy Cross for his actions at M idway. Two years later, the D epartm ent o f th e N avy announced it w ould nam e a ship in honor o f Bass: the U SS Horace A. Bass A P D -124. T he h igh-speed transport ship w ith her officers, crew, and em barked ser­ vicem en served th e N a v y fro m 1944 to 1959, w hen it w as decom m issioned. F o r its Second W orld W ar service, Horace A. Bass earned tw o battle stars and w as credited w ith shooting dow n tw o Japanese planes and sinking one enem y subm arine. T he ship earned the N avy U nit Com m endation and six battle stars for its extensive service during the K orean War. It is a rare h onor for a ship to be nam ed after a person o f B ass’s rank o f ensign, rarer still for that ship to render distinguished service and to gam er accolades during its career. B oth the m an and the ship are to be recognized for their contributions to the traditions o f the U nited States Navy. H orace A n cel B ass, Jr. w as b o m in R oanoke on Septem ber 22, 1915. H e w as the first child o f H orace A. Sr. and M innie K. B ass. B a ss’s father w orked as a draftsm an in the engineering departm ent o f the N orfolk & W estern R ailw ay, b a se d in R oanoke. A bout three years later, his sister, M innie K ing B ass, w as bom . T he B ass fam ily liv ed o n W oods A venue, in w h at is now R oanoke’s “O ld Southw est.” In the early 1920s, the fam ily m oved to M adison, N orth C arolina and lived there. Bass, however, still w orked at N orfolk & W estern in R oanoke, and he visited w ith his fam ily on the weekends. The fam ily m oved back to R oanoke eventually and lived in a house o n A llison Avenue. H orace Jr. attended Jefferson H igh School. In his senior year, he participated in the sen io r play, and h e served o n the staff o f the school’s annual, The Acorn. B ass graduated from Jefferson in the spring o f 1933. N ext to his senior portrait in the yearbook, he is described as “artistic, versatile, reserved.” In the autum n o f 1933, B ass beg an studies at R oanoke C ollege in Salem , attending fo r tw o years. W hile at Roanoke, he w as a m em ber o f the Chem ical Society, Sigma Delta Pi (an academic classics fraternity), and K appa A lpha fraternity. It was around his tim e in high school and college that Bass developed a serious interest in art. Besides doing artistic projects at hom e, h e w as art editor o f the R oanoke College annual, Rawenoch, in 1934-1935, and h e contributed p en -an d -in k draw ings fo r that y e a r’s edition. B y 1935, Bass decided to leave R oanoke College to attend R ichm ond P rofessional Institute in Richm ond, to further his studies in art. RPTwas then a division o f the C ollege ofW illiam & M ary, and at the tim e was the prem ier art school in the state. Bass earned Roy C. Baugher III, administrative assistant at the History Museum and Historical Society o f Western Virginia, was the curator o f an exhibit on Ensign Horace Bass and the Navy vessel named fo r him and he also founded an archives collection devoted to Bass, the ship and its crew. Baugher is a graduate o f Roanoke College. 64 �a bachelor’s degree in art from R P I in June 1937. B ass retu rn ed to live w ith h is fam ily in R oanoke, and he becam e an art teacher at his alm a m ater, Jefferson H igh, in the autum n o f 1937. B esides teaching art classes, h e w as faculty advisor for the school’s dram a set productions, th e student new spaper, and The Acorn. O ne o f his students, K en Platt, rem em bers Bass fondly as a teacher. Platt did not consider him self a very good artist, but he said that Bass had a great deal o f patience w ith him in his art class. In 1940-1941, B ass b ecam e interested in aviation and learning to fly an airplane. H e to o k flying lessons at College A ir Express, a flight instruction school operating at the Roanoke Municipal Airport. H e also becam e a m em ber and shareholder in the Sportsm en’s Flying Club. M em bers ow ned shares o f a Piper C ub J2 airplane, kept at the airport. M em bers w ould sign up to schedule th eir tim e to fly th e plane. U sage fees w ere charged to offset costs for fuel and maintenance. In F ebruary 1941, B a ss d ecided to leave his teaching position at Jefferson, and enlisted in the United States N aval Reserve w ith hopes o f becom ing a naval aviator. D uring his tenure at Jefferson, Bass im proved the school’s art department b y procuring new art desks, a w orktable and an airbrush painting system . H e also expanded the art curriculum from just tw o classes w hen he began teaching, to six classes. O n h is last day o f teaching at Jefferson, B a ss’s fo u rth p e rio d art class threw a farew ell p arty fo r him , com plete w ith a cake bearing the inscription “H appy Landing.” B ass rep o rted to th e N a v a l R eserve A viator Base in Washington, D.C. in M arch 1941. From M arch 6 to April 24, he underw ent flight training at the base. H e w as appointed an av iatio n cad et on M ay 15. H e com pleted further training at the N aval A ir Stations at Jacksonville a n d M iam i, F lo rid a u n til late O ctober 1941. B ass w as designated officially a N aval Aviator Ensign Horace A. Bass, Jr., USNR, (H eavier T han A ir) on O cto b er 27, a n d h e received Roanoke, Virginia, December 1941. his com m ission as a n en sign o n N o v em b er 7,1941. (Photo courtesy o f Minnie King Thomas) O ne m onth later, Japanese naval forces attacked Pearl H arbor, and the U n ited S tates en tered the S econd W orld War. B ass w en t on to rec e iv e aircraft carrier training w hen he reported to the A dvanced C arrier Training Group-Atlantic at N orfolk on January 5,1942. In M arch o f that year, he m arried the form er Sarah S. M iley, w ho w as also from R oanoke. B ass w as assigned to Fighting Squadron Three (VF-3), com m anded by Lieutenant Com m ander John S. “Jim m y” Thach. H e arrived at K aneohe A ir Station, H aw aii w ith six other rookies on M ay 20,1942. He and others conducted flight an d g unnery exercises w ith the squadron’s new G rum m an F4F-4 single-seat fighter planes, also know n as “W ildcats.” B y late M ay, VF-3 w as assigned to the U SS Yorktown CV-5. The squadron consisted o f 27 pilots, som e o f w hom w ere veterans from Fighting Squadron 42 (VF-42), w hich had ju st returned from the B attle o f the C oral Sea in early May. T he Yorktown and h e r ta sk force sailed from Pearl H arbor on M ay 30, tw o days after U SS Enter­ prise C V -6 and U S S H ornet C V -8 an d th eir task forces departed Pearl. N avy A dm iral C hester N im itz 65 �ordered the carrier groups to m e e t north o f th e island atoll o f M idw ay, to counter the suspected m ounting threat to the island and its im portant airfield and seaplane base b y Japanese naval forces. In fact, four aircraft carrier task forces u n d er Im p erial Japanese N av y A dm iral Chuichi N agum o w ere indeed sailing to attack Midway. The B attle o f M idw ay occurred on June 4 ,1 9 4 2 . O n b oard the Yorktown, B ass w as assigned to the Fourth D ivision o f VF-3 com prised o f six pilots. A t 6:30 a.m., the 4th Division was launched to fly the second com bat air patrol, or CAP. T hey returned to land on Yorktown b y 9:25 a.m., after the third CA P w as launched to relieve them. The 2nd and 4th D ivisions o f V F-3 w ere launched at 11:50 a.m. to fly the fourth CAP. B ass and the rest o f the 4th D ivision w ere ordered straightaway to intercept “bogey,” or unidentified aircraft, contacts w est o f their position, about 32 m iles away. The 2nd D ivision soon jo in ed them . A round noon local tim e, the 12 F4Fs intercepted 18 A ichi D 3 A1 Type 99 carrier bom bers (later know n as “Vais”) and six M itsubishi A 6M 2 Type 0 M odel 21 carrier fighters (later know n as “Zekes” o r “Zeros”) that were en route to attack the Yorktown. These groups o f enem y planes w ere from the Japanese carrier Hiryu. In defense o f the Yorktown, B ass and th e rest o f the fo u rth C A P en g a g ed the Japanese planes. D uring the m elee, B ass and his section leader, Lieutenant (Junior G rade) E dw ard D. M attson, U S N (a veteran o f V F-42), came under attack from a Val and a Zero. A lthough his plane sustained dam age from several hits, B ass m aintained form ation and protected M attson from the rear, shooting dow n eventually both the Val and the Zero. Type 99 bom bers w ere still able to get through, and three scored hits on the Yorktown, one tearing an 11 -foot hole in h er flight deck. A s a result, portions o f VF-3 already aloft had to land on either the Enterprise or the Hornet. M attson landed on the Enterprise, w hile Bass landed on the Hornet by 1:00 p.m. The Yorktown suffered another attack from the H iryu ’s planes at 2:43 p.m . Japanese torpedo planes scored two hits, and the ship began to list to its port side. Efforts to repair and keep afloat the Yorktown w ere m ade. However, she was attacked b y the Japanese subm arine 1-168, and she sank a day later on June 7. The B attle o f M idw ay, how ever, w as w on. E ven though outnum bered, the U.S. forces w ere able to sink all four o f N a g u m o ’s airc ra ft carriers: Akagi, H iryu, Kaga and Soryu, com pared to the N a v y ’s onecarrier loss o f th e Yorktown. A fter M idw ay, B ass and the rest o f VF-3 w ere ferried back to Pearl H arbor on b o ard the Hornet. B ass w ro te in a letter to his parents that he h a d seen “plenty o f action,” a n d th at his Japanese counterparts w ere “g o o d fighters.” H e post-scripted his letter w ith, “I shot dow n tw o Jap planes.” The N orth A m erican N ew spaper A lliance, though not verified, reported one interesting story about Bass, shortly after the B attle o f M idw ay. T he account begins after B ass landed on the Hornet, w hen those o f V F-3 could not lan d on the Yorktown because o f h er dam aged flight deck. B ass w as lounging in one o f the H ornet's pilot ready room s w h e n he was asked i f he could help respot airplanes on the deck. Bass agreed to assist, and he ju m p ed into an F 4F w ith only his helm et. H e did not even w ear his standard fife preserver. Bass began to taxi the plane, as directed b y the deck crew. H e thought he w as heading to respot the plane, but the flight deck crew stopped him at the take-offline instead. The dispatcher then gave Bass the hand signal to rev the plane’s engine for launching. Bass shook his head vehem ently and yelled backat him, trying to explain he w as only there to respot the plane. The dispatcher m isunderstood B ass’s protests, and gave Bass the signal to take off. B ass obeyed grudgingly, and he to o k off, probably very m ad and frustrated w ith his predicam ent. However, he returned to the H ornet to land. Realizing their m istake, the flight deck crew apologized to Bass, prom ising him that w ould not happen again. Som etim es prom ises are n o t kept. A bout an hour later, B ass assisted the flight deck crew again w ith respotting planes on the flight deck, and again, he w as launched by m istake. It w as reported that B ass w as so angry, he shot dow n a Japanese Z ero before h e landed back on the Hornet. B ass rem ained w ith V F -3 at M aui N aval A ir Station until July 2 ,1 9 4 2 , w hen he w as transferred to Fighting Squadron Five (V F-5), com m anded b y Lieutenant C om m ander Leroy C. Simpler, USN. V F-5 w as 66 �Fighting Squadrons 3, 42 and 8 aboard USS Hornet after the Battle o f Midway, 10 June 1942. Bass is kneeling in front row at fa r right. (Photo courtesy o f Minnie King Thomas) assigned to U S S Saratoga C V -3. The task forces o f both the Saratoga and the Enterprise sailed from Pearl H arbor on July 7 tow ard the Solom on Islands for the upcoming Guadalcanal Campaign, the first counteroffen­ sive in the Pacific by U .S. forces. O n Ju ly 11, the Saratoga and the other task forces neared crossing the equator in the vicinity o f the island o f Palm yra. For such a momentous occasion, every Navy ship holds a traditional ritual to initiate Jh o se w ho have not crossed th e equator w hile at sea. Bass him self was am ong those uninitiated “Polliw ogs” w ho endured unconventional capers from the veteran “Shellbacks.” Such antics included physical exercises in cold­ w eatherflying suits, all in the tropical heat on the Saratoga’s flight deck, andpushing shoe polish tins dow n the flight d eck w ith only th e ir noses. B y the nex t day, the carrier crossed the equator and B ass and h is fellow Polliwogs becam e Shellbacks themselves. T he Saratoga an d Enterprise then sailed south to the Fiji Islands to rendezvous w ith the other task forces. O n Ju ly 30, B ass and others o f VF-5 participated in a practice air strike and com bat air p atrol exer­ cises around the Fijian island o f Koro, w here the amphibious task force practiced landing U.S. M arines onto its beaches. B ass, bein g th e consum m ate artist, captured a scene o f th at day in a color pastel draw ing he com pleted shortly afterwards. H e titled it “W e D ove on K oro Island.” The draw ing shows four F4F W ildcats practicing a strafing run; som e are pulling out o f their dives while some are just starting theirs. V F -5 ’s exercises w ere soon put into actual use on A ugust 7,1942. Bass and the rest o f V F-5 and the Saratoga’s a ir group flew constant com bat air patrols, inner air patrols and ground support operations in support o f the First M arine D ivision’s amphibious landings on the island o f Guadalcanal. The next day, VF-5 flew C A Ps around Tulagi, a small island north o f Guadalcanal, from noon to 1:30 p.m. F ro m A u gust 9-21, the Saratoga an d Enterprise refueled and m aintained a presence south o f G uadalcanal w hile the m arines w ere still m aking inroads against the Japanese on the island. They w ere then dispatched 170 m iles east o fth e island o f M alatia to search for Japanese carriers com ing possibly from the north. They arrived on A ugust 23. 67 �USS Horace A. Bass APD-124, San Diego, California, circa 1951-1953. Horace A. Bass garnered two battle stars and three kills during World War II. During the Korean War, the ship earned six battle stars and the Navy Unit Commendation, the first U.S. Navy ship to earn the NUC o f that conflict. (Original photograph gift o f Jesse Montemayor) T h e B attle o f E astern Solom ons occurred on A ugust 2 4 ,1 9 4 2 . The Saratoga and Enterprise re ­ c eiv ed w o rd th at enem y carrier task forces w ere indeed in the region north o f M alatia. A d m iral C huichi N agum o again led th e Japanese forces, w ith the carriers Ryujo, Shokaku, and Zuikaku. A ro u n d 2:30 p.m . local tim e, N agum o had found w here the Enterprise and Saratoga groups w ere located, from a report b y a Japanese reconnaissance seaplane. A half-hour later, 27 Val carrier bom bers and 10 Zero escort fighters were en ro u te fro m the Japanese carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku w hen they w ere spotted b y Enterprise around 4:00 p.m . Bass was assigned to the VF-5 com bat air patrol division SCARLET STANDBY, w ith division leader Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Jam es C. Smith and Ensign Charles E. Eichenberger. Fighting Five divisions SCAR­ L E T 6 a n d SC A R L E T STANDBY, w ith three F4Fs each, w ere launched from Saratoga to fly C A P at 4:10 p.m. A t 4:38 p.m ., 18 Vais w ith fo u r Z eros from Shokaku and nine Vais w ith six Z eros fro m Zuikaku deployed to attack the Enterprise and Saratoga, respectively. A t this point, SC A R LET 6 spotted this group and entered into com bat w ith the enem y group attacking Saratoga. Fighting Squadron Six’s (V F-6) division R E D 4 from the Enterprise jo in ed V F -5’s SCA RLET 6 and SCARLET 5 divisions. W ithin m inutes the Vais 68 �and Zeros cam e under intense fire and they decided to abandon their attack on Saratoga and proceeded to attack Enterprise, w hich w as closer. A round 4:43 p.m ., SC A R L ET STANDBY, still flying CAP, entered the fray as the Vais and Zeros headed tow ard the Enterprise. M om ents later, b o th the Japanese planes and F4Fs entered within range o f the Enterprise task force’s anti-aircraft fire. T hough n o t know n exactly, it is probable that Zeros brought dow n both Sm ith and Bass o f SC A RLET STANDBY. T hey w ere not found or recovered afterward, and both m en were later reported as m issing in action. Eichenberger, the sole survivor o f SCARLET STANDBY during the battle, perished later on Septem ber 12,1942 in continued fighting around Guadalcanal. The Battle o f Eastern Solomons was am aiginal, yet strategic, victory for the U.S. Navy. The Saratoga rem ained unscathed after th e battle. T he Enterprise, how ever, w as h it three tim es from Japanese e arn er bombers, but she w as able to sail back to Pearl H arbor under her ow n pow er for repairs. The Japanese carrier Ryujo w as at least dam aged heavily o r sunk, a n d th e carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku w ere neutralized as a result o f their air groups being decimated. Bass w as declared m issing in action after the battle. The D epartm ent o f the N avy soon sent this word to his w ife and family. H is draw ing o f K oro Island, probably am ong his other belongings, was sent back to Roanoke. O n N ovem ber 14,1942, B ass w as aw arded the N avy Cross, the N avy’s highest decoration, for his heroism and “superb airm anship and unyielding devotion to duty” at the Battle o f M idway. The U .S. N avy pronounced Bass as “presum ed dead” in 1943. H e w as aw arded the Purple Heart posthum ously on October 22,1943. D uring his service Bass also earned the A m erican D efense Service M edal and the Asiatic-Pacific Area Cam paign Medal. O n A ugust 3,1944, the keel o f a new destroyer escort (D E) o f the Rudderow class was laid dow n at the Bethlehem Steel Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, M assachusetts. Though it was unnamed, its hull num ber was D E -691. However, during the ship’s initial construction, the N avy decided that this ship was to be con­ verted to a high-speed transport (A PD ) o f th e Crosley class, w ith the hull num ber A P D -124. T he N avy announced on August 29,1944 that this new high-speed transport w ould be nam ed in honor o f Ensign Horace A. B ass Jr. The U S S Horace A. Bass w as lau n ch ed a n d christened in a cerem ony at the B ethlehem Steel shipyard on Septem ber 12. B a ss’s w idow , M rs. S arah M iley B ass, christened the ship. H er m other, M rs. M artha M iley, and B ass’s parents, M r. and M rs. H orace A. B ass Sr., attended the cerem ony as w ell. A fter­ ward, they were the guests at a reception and breakfast held at the Neighborhood Club in Quincy, M assachu­ setts. A high-speed transport such as the Horace A . Bass served as a small amphibious troop transport. The ship’s crew consisted o f 12 to 15 officers and up to 192 enlisted personnel. The ship’s length was 306 feet, its beam , o r w idth, w as 37 feet, and its m ax im u m sp eed w as 24 knots. T he Horace A. Bass could em bark a company-sized group o f M arine or A rm y troops, as m any as 150 enlisted and 12 officers, and all their neces­ sary equipment, rations and am m unition. The Horace A. Bass h ad an enlarged superstructure deck for troop berthing space. Two davits w ere built on this deck to house the ship’s four am phibious landing craft, usually LCVPs (landing craft, vehicle/personnel, the fam ous “H iggins boats”) or LC PRs (landing craft, personnel/ ram ped). These landing craft w ere u se d to tran sp o rt th e em barked troops and their equipm ent to shore. A cargo crane w as p laced on the aft o f the ship, a n d th e fantail area w as u sed to stow troop equipm ent and amm unition. F or arm am ent, the Horace A. Bass h a d one 5-inch/38 caliber enclosed dual-purpose cannon, and 40m m and 20m m guns, as w ell as depth charge racks. The Horace A. Bass entered into service o f th e U .S. N av y w hen the ship w as com m issioned on the cold day o f Decem ber 2 1 ,1944 at Quincy. Lieutenant C om m ander F. W. K uhn was the ship’s first comm and- 69 �ing officer. The ship entered th e Pacific T heater during the O kinaw a campaign by A pril 1945, and it served in the anti-aircraft/anti-submarine screen around O kinaw a and escort convoys around Ulithi, Saipan and Guam. The Horace A. Bass and her crew were credited w ith three “kills” during the w ar for tw o Japanese planes and the Japanese subm arine RO-109. A fter th e atom ic bom b attacks on H iroshim a and N agasaki, Japan capitu­ lated on A ugust 15,1945. The Horace A. Bass w as am ong the ships o f the U.S. N avy that entered Tokyo Bay on A ugust 29. T h e ship and h e r prize crew took o v er and accepted the surrender o f the Japanese battleship Nagato, the last rem aining battleship in the Japanese navy, on A ugust 30. The ship w ould serve in the occupa­ tion o f Japan until 1946. The H orace A. Bass served the ensuing y ears in th e W estern Pacific. In N ovem ber 1948, the ship helped in the evacuation o f A m erican civilians from the U.S. Em bassy in Nanking to Shanghai, China during the Chinese Civil War. The ship served as station ship in H ong K ong in late 1949. It also served as the flagship o f the U.S. Seventh Fleet for Vice A dm iral R ussell B erkey on his official visit to Bangkok, Thailand in January 1950. The Horace A. Bass w as the first U .S. N a v y ship to visit B angkok since 1941. For this occasion, the Thailand governm ent presented the Horace A. Bass w ith a neillo-design silver box. A t the outbreak o f th e K orean W ar in June 1950, th e ship w as throw n im m ediately into service. It transported elem ents o f the First Provisional M arine B rigade from California to K orea. In August, the ship’s U.S. N avy U nderw ater D em olition Team O ne (UDT-1) and a U.S. M arine elem ent o f Reconnaissance Com­ pany, First M arine Division, w ere designated the Special O perations Group (SOG). From A ugust 12-16, the SOG perform ed am phibious dem olition raids against transportation and supply targets on the eastern coast o f the K orean peninsula. The ship also effected offshore bom bardm ents on railroad yards, bridges, a factory and warehouses. In planning the counteroffensive against N orth K orean forces, the SO G played an important part in reconnoitering alternative landing sites to that o f Inchon during A ugust 20-25. F o r these operations, the SO G w as aw arded the N avy U n it C om m endation. T he Horace A. Bass was the only high-speed transport to earn this com m endation in the K orean War. F o r the am phibious assault at th e p o rt city o f Inchon, the ship em barked th e M arines o f H “H ow ” Com pany/3rd Battalion/5th M arines and departed Pusan, K orea on Septem ber 12,1950. The L C V Ps o f the Horace A. Bass p u t her troops o f H ow C om pany ashore in the first w ave onto the island ofW olm i-D o, codenam ed “G reen B each,” on th e m orning o f Septem ber 15. T he ship then served as th e landing craft control vessel fo r the assault landings a t “R ed B e a c h ” th at afternoon, w here 1st and 2 n d B attalions/5th M arines landed. The successful offensive at Inchon led to th e recapture o f the capital o f Seoul and put N orth Korean troops in disarray, changing th e course o f the war. In early O ctober 1950, the ship em barked R oyal M arines o f C Troop, 41 Independent C om m ando for dem olition raid s along th e northeastern coast o f K orea. T he next m onths w ere spent in m inesw eeping operations at W onsan and C hinnam po w ith UDT-1 em barked. B y January 1951, th e Horace A. Bass com ­ pleted h er first to u r o f the K orean War. The H orace A. Bass returned to th e K o rean T heater in late 1951. In early D ecem ber, the ship em ­ barked B Troop o f 41 Independent C om m ando R o y al M arines fo r raids near Tanchon. F rom m id-A pril to early M ay 1952, the ship carried the Special M ission Group (SM G), an assem bly o f K orean partisans trained in combat, amphibious landing, sabotage and intelligence-gathering techniques by various U.S. m ilitary advi­ sors under the Joint A dvisory C om m ission-K orea, know n as JA C K , o f the Central Intelligence Agency. The SM G conducted a series o f eight raids from the Horace A. Bass along the northeastern coast o f K orea during this tim e. Later, a second series o f four raids was conducted b y the SM G in m id-June 1952. The ship and her crew com pleted a second to u r o f duty in K orea in July, and she returned to the U.S. A y e a rla te rin 1953, the ship again returned for a third tour o f Korea. The Horace A. Bass becam e a flagship fo r an amphibious control squadron. The ship m aintained its presence in the W estern Pacific until early 1954. F o r its service during the K orean War, the ship earned six battle stars, in addition to h er N aval U nit Com m endation. �In early 1955, the Horace A. Bass h elp ed in the evacuation o f Chinese N ationalist troops from the Tachen Islands to Taiwan, and it also supported O peration P a s s a g e Tv Freedom, in w hich U.S. N av y ships assisted in the evacuation o f Vietnam ese from Com m unist N orth Vietnam to Saigon, South Vietnam. In m id-1955, th e ship h a d retu rn ed to th e U .S., a n d w as transferred from the Pacific F leet to the A tlantic Fleet, w ith its hom e p ort at P hiladelphia. F o r the nex t three years, the Horace A. Bass served as a Naval Reserve training ship in the w aters as far north as N ew foundland and N ova Scotia, to as far south as the Caribbean. In N ovem ber 195 8, the ship w as transferred to the Atlantic Reserve Fleet at Orange, Texas, and w as decom m issioned on F ebruary 9 ,1 9 5 9 . In 1969, the ship w as reclassified as an am phibious transport/ small., or LPR , and she spent h er last years as the Horace A. Bass L P R -124 at Orange. The ship w as struck from the N aval Vessel R egistry on Septem ber 15,1974, and w as disposed for scrapping on July 1,1975. The ship was sold at the auction price o f $79,002.00, and she w as tow ed from Orange to Brownsville, Texas to be taken apart. The histories o f H orace A. B ass, Jr. and the U SS Horace A. Bass A PD -124 are forever bonded with each other. The heroic service and sacrifice o f one m an w ould inspire and lead the service o f the ship’s officers and crew, and those o f the U.S. N avy U nderw ater D em olition Teams, U.S. M arines, R oyal M arines and the Special M issions G roup that served fro m h e r decks. N othing reflects this better than the follow ing poem , w ritten by D avid C. Holly, w ho w as a lieutenant and executive officer o f the Horace A. Bass from 1949 to 1950. H e w rote this po em fo r the sh ip ’s cruisebook, The Wake o f the Horace : A Sonnet to Ensign Horace A. Bass, USNR I f from your paradise o f F iddler’s G reen, W here pilots in the endless setting sun W ith folded w ings w hen the cry o f battle’s done, M ay contem plate w hat victory m ay m e a n — You ventured forth to view this spray-bound scene, A nd there am ong your Fleet y o u cam e upon A salt-stained A PD , the very one They nam ed for you, hero, sight u n se e n — W hat think you o f this vagrant cockleshell; A ferret o f the lurking deep; a guard To hold the flag ‘neath Oriental cloud; Chinese bazaar; evacuee’s hotel; A n AVP; and A dm iral’s barge three-starred! P roud o f you are we! A re n ’t y o u as proud? 71 �B ib liogra phy Documents A ll are in the B ass/U SS H orace A. Bass A P D -124 C ollection, H istory M useum and H istorical Society o f W estern Virginia, Roanoke. B iography placard o fE n sig n H orace A . B ass Jr., U S N R from U SS Horace A. Bass APD -124. C irca 1951. Captain A lan Ray, U S N (R et.) Collection. Knox, Frank, Secretary o f the Navy. E nsign A ppointm ent o f H orace A. Bass Jr. Citation. 7 N ovem ber 1942. Knox, Frank, Secretary o f the Navy. N av y C ross C itation o fE n sig n H orace A. B ass Jr., U nited States Naval R eserve, 4 June 1942. C itation. 14 N o v em b er 1942. K nox, Frank, Secretary o f th e N avy. P u rp le H eart C itation o fE n sig n H orace A . B ass Jr., U .S. N aval R e­ serve. Citation. 22 O ctober 1943. M atthews, Francis, Secretary o f the Navy. N avy U nit Com m endation, Special Operations Group, Am phibi­ ous G roup O N E, 12-25 A u gust 1950. C itation. 8 June 1951. Unpublished Sources Horace A. Bass, U SS, A P D -124, O fficers and crew of. “The W ake o f the H orace.” C ruisebook o f the USS Horace A. Bass A P D -124.19 4 9 -1 9 5 0 . B ass/U SS Horace A. Bass A P D -124 Collection, H istory M u­ seum and Historical Society o f W estern Virginia, Roanoke. Peters, Bobby. Telephone interview. Vinton. 5 M arch 2001. Platt, Ken. Telephone interview. Roanoke. 6 M arch 2001. Swank, Jam es R. Personal com m unication. Tomball, Texas. M arch-A pril 2001. Thom as, M innie K ing Bass. Personal com m unication. Roanoke. 2001. W einstein, Sidney. Telephone interview. Roanoke. M arch 2001. Published Books and Articles A dcock, Al. Destroyer Escorts in Action. Carrollton, Texas: Squadron/Signal Publications, 1997. C agle, M alcolm W. and F ra n k A. M anson. The Sea War in Korea. A nnapolis, M aryland: N aval Institute Press, 1957. D w yer, Jo h n B . “A ny Purpose D esignated.” N aval History, May/Jxme 1996,pp. 22-25. D w yer, Jo h n B. Commandosfrom the Sea: The H istory o f Amphibious Special Warfare in World War II and the Korean War. B oulder, C olorado: P aladin Press, 1998. D w yer, Jo h n B . “ Special O perations G roup, K orea, 1950.” Leatherneck, Ju ly 1994, pp. 18-23. H aas, M ichael E. In the D evil s Shadow: UN Special Operations during the Korean War. A nnapolis, M aryland: N aval Institute Press, 2000. H ayhurst, Fred. Green Berets in Korea: The Story o f 41 Independent Commando Royal Marines. C am ­ bridge, England: V anguard Press, 2001. H einl, R obert D ebs, Jr., C olonel, U S M C (Ret.). Victory at High Tide: The Inchon-Seoul Campaign. B al­ tim ore, M aryland: The N autical & Aviation Publishing Com pany o f Am erica, 1979. Jefferson Senior H igh School. The Acorn. Roanoke: Jefferson Senior H igh School, 1933. L undstrom , John B. The F irst Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign: N aval Fighter Combatfrom Au­ gust to November, 1942. A nnapolis, M aryland: N aval Institute Press, 1994. 72 �L undstrom , John B. The F irst Team: Pacific Naval A ir Combatfrom Pearl H arbor to Midway. A nn ap o ­ lis, M aryland: N aval Institute Press, 1984. M ooney, Jam es L., ed. The Dictionary o f American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol. 3. W ashington, D .C .: Ships H istory Branch, N aval Historical Center, 1968. Navy, D epartm ent of. “H orace A. B ass (L P R 124).” Naval Vessel Register. Internet docum ent. 23 February 1999. Internet site: www.nvr.navy.mil/nvrships/details/LPR124.htm. R oanoke College. Cherobiblos. Salem, Virginia: Roanoke College, 1935/1936. R oanoke College. Rawenoch. Salem: R oanoke College, 1934,1935. “A rt Teacher Volunteers.” Jefferson News [Jefferson Senior H igh School, R oanoke], Vol. 5 no. 13,7 M arch 1941, p. 4. M em orabilia R oom , Jefferson Center, Roanoke. “Class Clippings.” JeffersonNews [Jefferson Senior H igh School, R oanoke], Vol. 5 no. 14,21 M arch 1941, p. 4. “E nsign B ass, Sent O ff C arrier B y M istake, Shot D ow n Z ero.” The Roanoke World-News [R oanoke], 19 F ebruary 1945, p. 7. “M rs. B ass H onored.” N ew spaper clipping (Roanoke), n.d. (circa 12 Septem ber 1944). B ass/U SS Horace A. Bass A PD -124 Collection, History M useum and H istorical Society o f W esternV irginia, Roanoke. “N av al Vessel W ill B e a r N am e O f R oanoker L ost in P acific.” The Roanoke World-News [R oanoke], 29 A ugust 1944. . “R oanoke, Salem M en See A ction in M editerranean, Pacific.” N ew spaper clipping (R oanoke), n.d. (circa June-A ugust 1942). B ass/U SS Horace A. Bass A PD -124 Collection, H istory M u seu m and H istorical Society o f W estern Virginia, Roanoke. “ Seven Instructors A d d To Faculty O f School.” Jefferson News [Jefferson Senior H igh School, R oanoke], vol. 2 no. 1,1 O ctober 1937, p. 1. M em orabilia R oom , Jefferson Center, R oanoke. “That Artistic Touch.” Jefferson News [Jefferson Senior H igh School, Roanoke], Vol. 4 no. 10,20 D ecem ber 1939, p. 1. M em orabilia R oom , Jefferson Center, Roanoke. “T he C arriers M eet A gain: T he B attle o f the E astern Solom ons.” Internet article, n.d. Internet site: www.microworks.net/pacific/battles/eastem_solomons.htm. “Vessel Is N am ed F or R PI G raduate Killed in Pacific.” N ew spaper clipping (Richm ond), n.d. (circa 12 Sep­ tem ber 1944). Bass/U SS Horace A. Bass A P D -124 Collection, H istory M useum an d H istorical Society o f W estern Virginia, Roanoke. 73 ���FINCASTLE LIBRARY ��fi i l ■m . MÄ äMä M¡EWS II M Hi IM O F W E S T E R N V IR G IN IA C en ter in the Square, O ne M arket Square, SE R oanoke, VA 24011 Tel: 5 4 0 /3 4 2 -5 7 7 0 Em ail: history@ roanoke.infi.net W eb Site: w w w .history-m useum .org IS B N # : 0 -9 7 1 0 5 3 1 -2 -X � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia 2002 Volume 15, Number 1 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />Railroads and Their People<br />The Virginia &amp; Tennessee Railroad 150 Years Ago<br />Working with Winston Link at the End of Steam Power<br />The Turnpikes of Southwest Virginia<br />The Harris Family Archives<br />What Do We Leave Behind?<br />Gwynn's Island Revisited<br />Who Named Salem?<br />Oliver Hill's Home May Become Human Rights Center<br />What Victory May Mean: A History of Horace A. Bass, Jr. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2002 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_15_01_2002 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6361/JHSWV_15_02_2003.pdf 0d5f9c30bf96cc646082f9895b9beb46 PDF Text Text OF WESTERN VIRGINIA 2003 JOURNAL Volume 15 Number 2 �O f W estern V ir g in ia A m o r m o n t i u m nos m ov e t (For The Love of Mountains Inspires Us) John P. Bradshaw, Jr. James F. D outhat..... Ann F. Stephenson ... Edgar V. W heeler.... D. Kent Chrisman Betty Hundley.... ...... President Vice President ...... Treasurer ...... Secretary ............ Executive Director .... Administrative Manager ^¿rec£or& SaraAirheart Bruce Brenner C. Whitney Brown, Jr. David H. Burrows Betty C. Craig Betty K. Dye Scott A. Graeff Alice T. Hagan William C. Hagan Gordon S. Hamilton David G. Helmer Stanard F. Lanford Dr. Whitney A. Monger Leeson David Lemon W. Tucker Lemon James Lesniak C. Whitney Markley Thomas O. Maxfield III David Robbins Alice B. Roberts Michael K. Smeltzer Ronald E. Sink The Hon. Ralph K. Smith Quinn D. Thomas Mary M. Utt Cranston Williams, Jr. & erm aneals d ire c to r ~ George A. Kegley �^ *t a b le o f {Contents GAINSBORO BRANCH LIBRARY ROANOKE CITY PUBLIC LIBRARY 15 PATTON AVENUE, N.W. r o a n o k e , v a . 2 4 0 1 5 -192 ? 3 Note From the Executive Director 4 The Legend of Benjamin Deyerle, Revisited M ichael J. Pulice 18 Lest We Forget: A Vinton Landmark D avid W .C. B earr 2 7 The New River on Mid-Eighteenth Century Maps Em erson Knapp 3 6 The Craft Revival in Appalachia: 1896-1937 AnnaFariello 47 And the Mountains Sing With Joy: White Top Music M iss Claudia Hagy, ed. 5 2 The Great Natural Bridge Hoax D oug H arw ood 5 5 End Notes from “Turnpikes of Southwest Virginia” 5 6 Murder in Fincastle D avid W.C. B earr 6 3 Havoc at Hanging Rock Clive E. Rice 67 Growing Up With Roanoke: A Lively Adventure D orathy Brow n Piedmont 7 0 A Horseback Ride on the Back Roads of Roanoke County 75 African-American “Firsts” ArleenOllie 75 Prof. C.E. Kregloe’s Roanoke Classical School W ilia m J. Robertson 8 6 Journal Index: 1964-2003 This issue of the Journal was made possible by a grant from The Foundation for Roanoke Valley, Stan and Elise Lanford Family Fund ........... - --:= -: ....... - George Kegley Editor of the Journal Christina Koomen Smith Production, Editorial Assistant -........ ......... ... -■ :■...... :- ... The Journal, Vol 15, No. 2, chronicles the history o f the Commonwealth west o f the Blue Ridge. Published by the History Museum & Historical Society o f Western Virginia (formerly the Roanoke Valley Historical Society), P.O. Box 1904, Roanoke, VA, 24008. Printed by Jamont Communicaitons, Roanoke. The price for additional single copies is $4 for members, $7 for non-members. The Museum will be careful in handling unsolicited materials but cannot be responsible for their loss. CORRECTION: The prices listed here for additional copies were printed in error. The actual prices are $5 for members and $10 for non­ members for each copy. y �fiJew ricq u isitio n s C lockw ise, f r o m left: a n Em pire style chest o f draw ers, labeled Edw ard N eedles Co. o f Baltim ore; a detail o f a m em ory crazy quilt m ade as a gift for J.B . F ish b u m ’s w edding; an im age fro m O. W inston L ink currently on display at the new ly opened L ink M useum ; an d a late 19th century carte d e visite o f Jam es M cG avock Sr. o f B otetourt a n d W ythe counties. �X h e M useum and Society is pleased to present, this, the 30th issue o f the Journal, Volum e Fifteen, N um ber Two. Past issues contain a w ealth o f research b y som e v ery notable historians, presented over a 40-year period. Follow ing requests, it was decided that N um ber 30 w ould be an appropriate po int to include an index. The last index was published in Volume N ine, N um ber Two, in 1975! 2003 w itnessed the developm ent o f three m ajor endeavors for the M useum and Society. First, after being delayed by water shortage-related construction for over a year, the historic Crystal Spring Steam Pum p was refitted for public display, m ade available for tours and a perm anent fund established for its operation and maintenance, in a rapid fire cam paign, led by R oanoker D avid H. Burrows. Secondly, a perm anent source to support publication developm ent w as established w ith the Kegley Publication Fund which has already been used to leverage additional funds and place in print L ew is a n d Clark, The Visits o f Lew is a n d C lark to F incastle, Virginia, b y G ene C rotty; R o a n o ke a n d N e w R iv er Valleys, Virginia, M anuscripts: A G uide to C ollections in the U nited States, C harles A. B odie, editor; a n d M overs a n d M akers, D oris U llm ann’s P o rtra it o f the C raft R e v iv a l in A ppalachia, a n exhibit catalogue, A nna Fariello, Curator. Thirdly, 2003 w itnessed th e successful developm ent o f the single largest project in the M useum and Society’s 4 6 -y ear history, the O. W in sto n L ink M useum . N o w operating in the renovated R aym ond L oew y-designed form er N & W P assen g er Station, the L in k M useum is a tribute to its hundreds o f supporters, volunteers; o u r w o n d erfu l region o f the country, captured in tim e and the genius w ho envisioned a n d created th e grand artistic and d o cum entary w ork displayed, W inston Link. In tandem , the M useum and S ociety’s reg u lar p ro g ram o f activ ity has continued apace, including 13 public lectures, tours to H alifax and Staunton, the afo rem en tio n ed exhibits, including: F irearm s in W estern Virginia, A C entury o f B ridal F ashion, M overs & M ak ers and a red u c e d form at versio n o f the popular Ships and Shipm ates o f th e R oanoke Valley. A s to collections, in addition to the several hundred spectacular original im ages, created b y O. W inston Link and now on view at the Link M useum , the M useum and Society during the p ast year has received an array o f an archival artistic or natural culture. This includes the papers o f our dear late friend, C lare S. W hite, a “m em ory” crazy quilt m ade on the o ccasio n o f R o an o k er J. B. F ish b u m ’s w edding, a labeled (E dw ard N eedles Co. o f B altim ore) E m pire style c h est o f d raw ers and a late 19th century carte de visite o f an earlier pastel o f Jam es M cG avock Sr. o f B o teto u rt a n d W ythe counties. You m ake this possible. Your m em bership, attendance, assistance and interest are transform ing the history o f W estern Virginia into a potent resource for our education, enjoym ent and econom ic betterm ent. Read and enjoy! D. Kent Chrisman E xecu tive D irector 3 �^Lhe C e g e n d o f Ifien jam in D e y e rie , R e v is ite d b y M ich ael eJ. Pulice B e n ja m in D eyerle (1806-1 8 8 3 ) is w idely kn o w n as R o a n o k e ’s forem ost builder o f the 19th century. L ocal h istorians h av e c o llectiv ely attributed no less than 23 h o u ses and churches to him . H e is routinely credited w ith the b ric k m ak in g , construction and d esign o f buildings. A survey o f historic docum ents and in-d ep th analysis o f the buildings, w ith con cen tratio n on the bricks them selves and the m an n er in w hich th e y w ere laid, p ro v id e s som e support for this attribution; but suggests that D eyerle m a y have been c red ited w ith m o re th an h is share o f the construction. The Legend The story o f B enjam in D e y e rle ’s prolific career in the co n stru ctio n o f fine hom es and churches in the R oanoke V alley during th e anteb ellu m period h as b een to ld since the 1930s, w hen D ey erle’s descendants c o rresponded w ith P ey to n M . Lew is, a fo rm er D eyerle slave. L ew is, w ho lived at the tim e in W aterloo, Iow a, spent 6 y ears o f h is life as an educator an d 50 as a m inister. H e w rote fondly about “ O ld M aster B enjam in” and in q u ired a b o u t his fam ily m em bers, all o f w hom he rem em bered b y n am e.1 H e m entioned little o n the subject o f bu ild in g s, except th at his father, C harles Lew is, w as a great brick m o ld e r and layer w h o laid the b ric k in th e houses o f B enjam in D eyerle, Jam es Persinger, B enjam in K eagy, H enry D eyerle, and “m an y oth ers in R oanoke, Franklin, a n d o th er counties around R oanoke.” 2 H e also explained, “ O ld m aste r B e n h a d a brother Joe. T hey tw o a t the sam e tim e bought m y father C harles Lew is and h is b ro th e r Peyton. It w a s on the au ctio n b lo ck in R ichm ond, Va.” 3 In 1937, the W orks Progress Adm inistration-sponsored Virginia Historical Inventory described Ben­ ja m in D eyerle as th e b u ild e r o f “m an y o f the large b ric k colonial hom es in this section o f R oanoke C ounty.” H ow ever, the surveyor n a m e d M ary D eyerle as an inform ant. M ary, a D eyerle descendant, h a d corresponded w ith P ey to n L ew is th ree years p rio r to this. H o w m u ch she or any o f the relatives k n e w about D eyerle s bu ild in g c areer before L ew is’s letters is uncertain. L ater historians m ay have re lie d on the W PA inventory, w h ic h co n tain s several references to B en jam in D eyerle as the b uilder o f R oanoke landm arks, to corroborate the fam ily ’s oral traditions. It is therefore possible that there m ight n e v e r have been a D eyerle leg e n d h a d P ey to n Lew is n o t w ritten a few sentences about his fath er in his letters, ju st m onths b efo re h is o w n d e a th in 1934. M ichael Pulice, architectural historian in the Roanoke Preservation Office o f the State Department o f Historic Resources, is a graduate o f Radford University and he holds a m aster’s degree in architecture with an emphasis on preservation technology fro m Virginia Tech. H e form erly was assistant to the director o f restoration at Poplar Forest. �L o n e Oak, h o m e o f B en ja m in D eyerle, is on G randin R o a d E xten sio n today. The Controversy In the 195 0 s and 19 60s R aym ond B am es, a law y er w ho w rote a w eekly co lu m n fo r the R o a n o ke World-News, published several articles containing references to Benjamin Deyerle and properties traditionally associated w ith him . B am es also wrote the volum inous H istory o fth e City o f Roanoke, in w hich he states that D eyerle “w as th e m o st p o p u lar builder in the county.” S urely B am es did m uch to pop u larize the D eyerle legend, but he rare ly cited his sources, subm itting his stories as factual. C onsequently any further research b a sed on his w ritin g s can b e easily confounded. U nfortunately m any o f his statem ents h av e p ro v en to be inaccurate o r ev en contradictory. O ne o f th e few p iec e s o f research to docum ent B enjam in D eyerle w as a 1971 thesis b y E lizabeth C heek, a H ollins College student. Benjam in D eyerle, B uilder 1806-1883 w as largely based on the assum p­ tion th at oral trad itio n s w ere accurate. A lthough C heek w ent to great effort to survey the buildings, search through records, and docum ent details about Deyerle and six o f the houses attributed to him , she did not report an y concrete e v id e n c e o f h is building career. A c o n d en sed version o f C heek’s th esis w as pu b lish ed in th is jo u rn a l in th e S um m er 1972 issue and w as e n jo y ed b y m an y readers, yet m an y years later, in 1987, a R o a n o k e Tim es article entitled “T he H ouses D eyerle B uilt, or did he?” rev ealed that there w as a w h isp e r o f d isse n t about th e attributions to D eyerle. T he reasons for the dissen t w ere n o t m ade clear. Today there rem ains a w idely held, although unsubstantiated b e lie f that B enjam in D eyerle and his slaves built a g ro u p o f sim ilar houses and a num ber o f churches in Roanoke, Salem , an d F ranklin County. U ndoubtedly the m ost perplexing aspect o f the collective writings and oral traditions about the Deyerles is that they focus alm ost exclusively on Benjamin, w hile his fam ily m em bers are ignored. Recent Investigations A nother look at the Deyerle Legend, under new light, w as undertaken by the author beginning in the D eyerle ~ 5 �spring o f 2001. S urvey d a ta fro m all know n buildings attributed to the D eyerles, c o lle c te d o v er th e nex t tw o years, w ere co m p ared w ith data from m ore th an one h u n d red con tem p o rary b u ild in g s o f sim ilar co m p o sitio n in so u th w estern V irginia.5 W hen possible, discarded b rick s w ere c o lle cte d from sites. T hese bricks w ere c o m p a red w ith in-situ bricks to verify w hich structure th ey cam e from , an d w ere later co m p ared w ith b ric k s fro m o ther buildings. T he search for historical reco rd s in v o lv e d exhaustive courthouse research in R o an o k e, B otetourt, Franklin, M ontgom ery, an d P ulaski co u n ties, m u c h o f it back track in g o v er E liz a b e th C h e e k ’s w ork to see i f a n y m ention o f B enjam in D ey e rle h a d b e e n over­ looked. O ther referen ces in clu d ed p eriod new spapers and h andw ritten letters, as w e ll as the V irginia H istorical Inventory, N a tio n a l U nion C atalogs, gazetteers, business directories, v a rio u s w ritte n h isto ­ ries, historical society files, a n d church records. A nalysis o f th e b rick s an d brickw ork, in com bination w ith archival e v id e n c e a n d traditional architectural analyses, w a s th en u sed to isolate any bu ild in g attributes th at signal th e id en tity o f D eyerle fa m ily m em b e rs as th e b u ild e rs o f th e s tru c tu re s in q u e s ­ tion. Findings W h ile th e re h a v e b e e n num erous m o d ern -d ay re fe r­ e n c e s to B e n ja m in D e y e rle as a w e llk n o w n builder, he is v e ry r a re ly m e n ­ tio n e d in su rv iv in g d o cu m en ts fro m the p erio d .6 D espite the Springhouse at Lone Oak, mentioned in letter by Peyton Lewis, a Deyerle slave. r e g i o n ’s r e la tiv e ly s p a r s e p o p u l a t io n d u ring the p erio d an d D e y e rle ’s docum ented success as a farm er and m erch an t, h e d id n o t m ain ta in a h ig h profile. S urviving issu es o f new spapers feature n o advertisem ents and few n e w s stories b earin g his n am e, a n d his o b itu a ry consists only o f the date o f his passing, h is age, a n d th e cau se o f death .7 M oreover, h istories w ritte n b efo re the 1930s include no m en tio n o f h is n am e.8 A clo ser look a t th e D ey erle legend w as com plicated b y the fact th at five co n te m p o ra ry fam ily m em b ers w ere d o cu m en ted as h av in g b een involved in the b u ilding trades, w h ile B en jam in , surp ris­ ingly, w as n o t.9 B u ild in g s co n stru cted by D eyerle fam ily m em b ers clo sely re se m b le e a ch o th e r in term s o f the b rick w o rk a n d d e sig n aspects; y et there is little evidence th a t the fam ily m em b ers w o rk ed to g eth er on b u ild in g pro jects. M oreover, research suggests th at the D eyerles a n d th e ir slaves w ere som etim es su b co n tracted o n ly fo r brickw ork, and therefore are n o t cred ited fo r th e ir ro les in m an y projects. 6 ~ D eyerle �mmmmmmm mmmmmmm mm ■ mmmm mmmmmm Flemish Bond American Bond ...... m m m mwum mmmmmmm Header Stretcher a . m - flB».-? é m ë m m : -M— jp Ë É M Flemish ariant ond Stretcher Bond Flemish courses Common 19th century brick bonds. B en jam in ’s half-brother Joseph and nephew Jam es C. D ey erle h a v e b een all b u t ignored w ith resp ect to the R oanoke Valley’s architectural history, w h ile his b ro th e r D a v id is cred ited o n ly for the b rick w o rk on the Peters C reek C hurch o f the B rethren, th e 1861 M a in B u ild in g at H ollins U niversity, and a ca. 1861 w ing addition to his o w n house.10 Yet it is clear th a t b o th J.C . and D av id w ere accom ­ p lish e d builders w ho w ere active in the construction tra d e s for se v era l d ecad es a n d b u ilt m an y m ore structures th an they are credited fo r today.11 B ased on com parisons, a core group o f b u ild in g s sharing d istin ctiv e attributes em erged and becam e the focus o f m ore intensive study, including several n o n -a ttrib u te d b u ildings in o utlying areas that w ere given consideration based on prelim inary su rv ey data. A ll o f th e se w ere b u ilt b etw een c. 1845 and 1861 an d designed in the G reek R evival style. Six b u ild in g s h a v e h e a v y c o m e r p ilasters and full entablatures below the roofline, and te n are houses w ith sin gle-pile L -p la n s.12 A ll o f the houses are tw o-storied, w ith low -pitched hip ro o fs, and all have p ro m in e n t w o o d lin tels and decorative treatm ents derived from A sher B enjam in or M in ard L aFever p a tte rn books. M o st o f th e b u ildings have largerthan-average bricks. The buildings h av e identically tre a te d m o rtar jo in ts , b u t there is m oderate v ari­ ability in the neatness o f the w ork fro m site to site. Tw o o f the b u ild in g s w ere in d isputably b u ilt b y D eyerle ~ 7 �Belle Aire, the M adison Pitzer house, is located o ff Lee Highway. Intervale, the Henry H outz house, was removed from its site along M asons Creek in Salem. (Photo courtesy o f J. D aniel Pezzoni) (All other photos are by M ichael Pulice) White Corners, the James Persinger house, is in Southwest R oanoke. 8 ~ D eyerle �D avid D eyerle, w h ic h suggests that he w as involved, at least as an in flu e n ce , in the co n stru ctio n o f som e o r all o f th e other buildings. W ithin R oanoke, only B uena V ista, th e 1849 h o m e o f G eorge R Tayloe, has no tra d itio n involving a D eyerle, w hich is baffling since it h a s m u c h in c o m m o n w ith the buildings attrib u ted to B enjam in. M oreover, som e o f the reg io n ’s b est h a n d m a d e b rick s a n d brickw ork can be seen on B u e n a V ista’s façade.13 W hile th e search for concrete docum entation o f B enjam in D e y e rle ’s b u ild in g c areer w as not successful, the leg e n d cannot sim ply be dism issed. C ircum stantial ev id e n c e su g g ests th a t B enjam in w as involved, i f o n ly as a slave holder and patron, in building at least one o f th e m a jo r b u ild in g s in this su rv e y —h is o w n hom e, L o n e O ak. L one O ak is o n e o f th e m o st re p re ­ s e n ta tiv e e x a m p le s o f R o a n o k e ’s G re e k R e ­ v iv al m an sio n s, a n d has all o f the h allm ark s that d efin e th e lo cal idiom . N u m e r o u s b r ic k o u t­ b u ild in g s also survive at th e site, including a tw ostory office b uilding and th e s p rin g h o u s e m e n ­ tio n e d b y P ey to n L ew is in h is letter. T h is su g ­ gests that bricks w ere in­ e x p en siv e an d plentiful The Stokes house, in ruinous condiiton today, is located o ff Plantation Road. o n th e p lan tatio n . W ith th e n u m b er o f b rick s at L o n e O a k in th e h u n ­ d red s o f th o u san d s, it is v ery likely th at D ey erle m ade the bricks on the prem ises, im proving h is b ric k m a k in g skills through trial an d error w ith the help o f his slave, C harles L ew is.14 H e m ain ta in e d a co n sid erab le slave w ork force m ade up p red o m in an tly o f adult and adolescent m ales, an d m ay h a v e h a d som e o f h is b ro th e r’s slaves a t his d isp o sa l.15 L one O ak is located w ithin a few m iles o f m o st o f th e b u ild in g s in question, a n d it appears lik e ly th at B enjam in w as acquainted w ith the ow ners o f all o f th e m .16 R eco rd s show that he w as industrious, resourceful, and respected b y his peers. L etters sh o w th a t he w as literate, w ell m annered, honest, an d punctual. The body o f circum stantial evidence is considerable, yet P eyton L ew is’s recollections are still the m ost persuasive evidence.17 A lthough L ew is m ade no m ention o f his m aster B en jam in ’s close in v o lv e m e n t in bu ild in g , it is clear th at D eyerle ow n ed at least one slave, C harles L ew is, w ho w as sk illed in b ric k m ak in g a n d bu ild ­ ing. N othing h a s com e to light to show conclusively th at D eyerle h im s e lf w a s acco m p lish ed in the bu ild in g trades, b u t it is possible that he acquired C harles L ew is b e c au se L e w is h ad m aste re d brick- D eyerle —9 �m aking and bu ild in g u n d er a p rev io u s m aster in e a ste rn V irginia. L ew is h a d b e e n b ro u g h t from R ich­ m o n d by the tim e D eyerle and his fam ily m ad e the tra n sitio n from a log house to L one O ak in 1849.18 A round the sam e tim e B enjam in’s b ro th er Joseph, w h o to o k p o ssessio n o f C harles L e w is’s brother, Peyton, helped b u ild R oanoke C ollege and h is o w n su b stan tial b rick h ouse a n d farm com plex. The earliest brick buildings attributed to th e D eyerles w e re b u ilt circ a 1845, w h e n B enjam in w as 39, Joseph w as 46, D avid w a s 32, and J. C. w as only 19. N o n e w e re a t the age th a t one w o u ld ex pect them to suddenly begin p ro d u cin g the a re a ’s finest b ric k b u ild in g s, y e t w h e n an d fo r w h o m an y o f the D eyerles apprenticed has n e v e r b een established, and th ere are n o b u ild in g s o f lesser quality attrib u ted to them .19 Furtherm ore, all except J. C. are listed in e a ch c o n sec u tiv e census o n ly as farm ers.2 0 Analysis of Brickwork M ost bricklayers in R oanoke and surrounding counties used Flem ish bond on the facades o f hom es a n d in stitu tio n a l b u ild ­ in g s i n to th e 1 8 5 0 s, w h en the G reek Revival style reach ed its zenith. H ow ever, around 1850 th e D e y e rle s b eg an to follow th e nation-w ide tr e n d o f u s in g a ll­ s tr e tc h e r b o n d o n th e p r im a r y facad es of c h u rc h e s a n d u p s c a le hom es, in p u rsu it o f an e v e r m o re uniform a p ­ pearance. O nly ten ante­ b e llu m s tre tc h e r-b o n d b e a rin g w a ll b u ild in g s survive in th e R oanoke Valley, a n d all are strik­ Pleasant Grove, the Joseph Deyerle house, is west o f Salem. in g ly sim ilar G reek R e­ v iv al stru ctu res. Seven buildings feature stretcher b o n d u se d in c o m b in atio n w ith tw o o ther b o n d s on different elevations. A ll local com binations o f three bonds em p lo y ed o n a sin g le b u ild in g can b e cred ib ly attrib u ted to B en­ ja m in and/or D avid D eyerle. A lth o u g h no ex am p les h a v e b e e n enco u n tered am ong o v er tw o hundred nineteenth-century b ric k buildings surveyed o u tside o f th e R oanoke Valley, it m ay be th a t the D eyerles w ere am ong o th er b ricklayers o f th e p e rio d w h o e m p lo y e d a m u ltip le-tier hierarch y o f bonds; yet it appears that b u ild in g w ith a va rie ty o f bonds in c o m b in a tio n s o f three w as a D eyerle tradem ark. D avid D eyerle seem s to h a v e b een p a rtial to stre tc h e r b o n d fronts, F lem ish-variant sides, and four-course A m erican re a r elevations. T his c o m b in a tio n is seen on his b est-k n o w n b u ild in g at H ollins U niversity. O nly tw o historic b ric k build in g s su rv e y e d b y th e author em ploy a 1:3 F lem ish variant 1 0 ~ D eyerle �brick bond. O ne o f them is B e n ja m in ’s L o n e O ak; the o ther w as Intervale, attrib u ted to B enjam in. Intervale w as b u ilt w ithin a few years o f L o n e O ak, an d only tw o m iles a w a y .21 In V irginia, co m e r pilasters w ere co m m o n ly u sed on the G reek R evival courthouses and P res­ byterian churches dating to the m id -nineteenth-century, b u t they are rare on p riv a te residences. T here is good evidence that the D eyerles w ere in v o lv e d in the construction o f n u m ero u s churches. The D eyerles m ay have found that the pilasters offered certain advantages that facilitated co n struction and thus adapted the c o m e r pilasters to the houses such as L o n e O ak an d B elle A ire b ecau se th e y w ere w ell accustom ed to the construction technique.22 A n intensive analysis o f the bricks w as cm cial to m any insights regarding details o f construction as well as w hom the builders m ight have been. B rick size w as one im portant variable. Since the size o f a typical brick presum ably evolved as the best size for easy handling, a brickm aker w ho had sm aller-than-average hands m ay have preferred handling smaller-than-average bricks. For others, however, a reduction in labor was involved in m aking few er but larger bricks. A t a tim e w h e n contracts typically p ric e d the b ric k w o rk in units o f every thousand bricks laid, there was incentive for brick contractors to m inimize the size o f their bricks. The Deyerles undoubtedly kept this in m ind w hen undertaking the construction o f institutional buildings. The bricks at the colleges and churches are typically sm aller th an the average Deyerle brick. A t Peters Creek Church, however, D avid D eyerle w as contracted at a price o f $250 fo r com pletion o f the brickw ork, w ith no estim ate o f the num ber o f bricks provided. N ot surprisingly, the bricks there are the sam e oversized bricks that he used on his ow n farm.23 Frogs, or indentions in the bottom s o f bricks, facilitated the m anufacture o f taller bricks w ith sharper edges b y channeling the clay into the c o m e rs o f the m olds, allo w in g for less d ry in g tim e before the bricks co u ld be fired, and im proving the in te rn al firin g o f each brick. T he sizes a n d shapes o f frogs vary Frogs, or indentions, are shown on similar bricks from three Benjamin Deyerle structures: Cave Spring M ethodist Church, a g rea t d eal from site to site b u t are d istin ctiv e ly sim ilar at each site [F ig u re ]. T h e refo re, as a ru le , n o tw o p ro p e rtie s h a v e identical frog bricks. I f tw o sites h a v e s im ila r-s iz e d h a n d m a d e b rick s w ith identical frogs, it is a safe b e t th at the sam e brickm ak e r m o ld e d the bricks. T his is the case w ith the bricks from W h ite C o m e r s , th e (fo rm e r) C ave S p rin g M ethodist C hurch, and B u e n a V ista, and also those from L o n e O ak and Intervale.24 A ll o f th e b ric k s at B en jam in D e y e r le ’s L o n e O ak w ere m o ld e d w ith frogs. In contrast, none o f D a v id ’s know n b u ild ­ ings e m p lo y e d frog bricks. D eyerle ~ 11 �In p a rt b e c au se n eat an d fin e jo in ts are m a d e possible b y bricks w ith sharp edges and o f u n ifo rm shape a n d size, th e brick -m ak ers o f the late eig h teen th to m id-nineteenth centuries seem to h av e fo ­ cu sed th eir atte n tio n on the qu ality o f the bricks. B o th the analysis o f bricks in this study and do cu m en ­ ta ry evid en ce su g g e st th at m eth o d s o f m o ld in g b rick s, building kilns, stacking bricks in the k iln s for ev en firing, an d ra isin g firin g tem p erature w ere continually refined, b ringing dram atic im provem ents to the quality, consistency, durability, and ap p earan ce o f handm ade bricks. T h e D ey erles w ere c ertain ly am ong the b e st brickm akers in the region. T heir bricks w ere u su ­ ally fire d to a u n ifo rm deep re d o r brow n color. T hey are exceptionally h ard and durable, as w e ll as reg u la r in size a n d shape. B ricks h a d to be so rted b y quality after firing, and a left-over supply o f p o o rly fire d b rick s w as inevitable. T hese w ere u sed p rim a rily to b u ild outbuildings and to fill the interiors o f w alls. Conclusion It appears certain th at B enjam in D eyerle did indeed engage in a building career that began b y 1849 and m ay have ended b y 1861, and he w as at least partially responsible for the construction o f a core group o f the buildings in question. M oreover, David, Joseph, and Jam es C. D eyerle have em erged as im portant con­ tem poraries w ho should be credited w ith at least som e o f the structures form erly attributed to B enjam in, as w ell as n u m ero u s others that have n o t been p rev io u sly identified. A lthough the D eyerle legend m ay over­ em p h asize B e n ja m in ’s role a n d overlo o k th a t o f h is brothers and nephew , it is clear that the D eyerle fam ily p ro v id e d m u c h o f th e fin est n in eteen th -cen tu ry G reek R evival brick w o rk in the area. T h u s the D eyerle leg e n d continues. Acknowledgements T h e a u th o r w ish e s to th an k the follow ing in d iv id u als w ho generously p ro v id ed inform ation, support, o r access to th e ir pro p erties: T h o m as B eason, A n n e Stuart B eckett, K ent C hrism an, John E isenhow er, Sr., A la n Flora, A n n e C arter L ee G ravely, M r. a n d M rs. Jerry M . G reen, T racy H all, H ow ard H am m ond, P at H onts, K itty H o u sto n , V incent F astabend, G eorge and L ouise K egley, Jo h n K em , Tom K latka, A ilee n L ay n e, M o n ty L eitch, Jo h n Long, C arl L ounsbury, G erard Lynch, Travis M cD onald, L in d a M iller, D a n P ezzo n i, C arl a n d O dessa Poff, E la in e Pow ers, Pat Q uillen, F rank Selby, Pam S im pson, A Deyerle autograph dating from 1853 remains on a wall on P leasant Grove. MSS MM �K a ro ly n Sink, F letcher Sm oak, Ja n n et Turner, V irginia V inyard, Dr. W alter J. a n d M ary D. W alker, R ic h a rd a n d A u d re y W hitney, an d S u san Z orn. Notes 1 In a letter dated May 10, 1934, Peyton Lewis wrote that he graduated from the Hampton Nor­ mal and Agricultural School in 1873, and then be­ came the first black educator in Lynchburg. Sev­ eral o f his letters were found in a Deyerle file at the History Museum o f Western Virginia. 2 B en jam in K eagy’s right-angle plan , brick, Italianate style house survives only in photographs. The Persinger home, now called White Comers, and Deyerle’s Lone Oak both survive in excellent co n d itio n . See W hitw ell, W. L. and Lee W. W inborne. The A rchitectural H eritage o f the Roanoke Valley. Charlottesville: University Press o f Virginia, 1982, 86-88, 116. Henry Deyerle (1847-1923) was Benjamin’s son. Benjamin willed the house in Franklin County, today known as Ev­ ergreen, to Henry in 1874. Under Benjam in’s ownership (1858-1874), a large right-angle front section was built onto an existing I-house that is now the rear wing. The front section o f Henry Deyerle’s house closely resembles Keagy’s house in Roanoke. D avid Deyerle provided the bricks f o r 3 Lewis later explained that Joseph took ownerChristiansburg Presbyterian Church. ship o f his Uncle Peyton, and Benjamin took own­ ership o f his father, Charles, and also that Charles was the first male slave that Benjamin and his wife Julia owned. 5 Any suggestion o f a Deyerle’s involvement in print, correspondence, or interview was considered an attribu­ tion for the purposes o f this study. 6 Deed books being a major exception. Between 1839 and 1870, Benjamin was involved in more than 50 land transactions. These are recorded in the Grantor and Grantee Indexes to Deeds, Roanoke County, 1838-1923. 7 It was mentioned on one occasion that a young man who had stolen a horse o f Deyerle’s had been caught, and on one other occasion he was listed as a member o f a commission. His age was incorrectly stated as 72 in his obituary. According to census records and other sources, he was 76. 8 See McCauley, William, History o f Roanoke County, Salem and Roanoke City, Virginia and Representative Citizens. Chicago: Biographical Publishing Co. 1902; also Temple, Charlotte. Roanoke, Story o f County and D eyerle ~ 13 �City. Works Progress Administration W riter’s Program. Published by Roanoke City School Board, 1942. 9 Contemporary builders were David (1813-1898), Joseph (1799-1877) and son James C. (1825-1897), and Charles Jr. (dates unknown). Charles was the brother o f Benjamin and David and Joseph’s half-brother. Their father, Charles Sr., may have also been a builder, but no evidence has been found to support this notion. Charles Jr. is never mentioned in literature or interviews, but two letters dated 1831 and 1837 from a cousin in Missouri provide clear evidence that he was a builder. Walter C. Deyerle was a first cousin who built roads and is listed in the 1850 and 1860 census as a carpenter in Montgomery County. The contents o f an 1839 letter from Walter to David suggest a close relationship between the two men. These letters were found in a Deyerle file in the History M useum o f Western Virginia archives. 10 The contract between David Deyerle and the Trustees o f Hollins Institute, dated October 13, 1860, called for “construction o f the brick work o f a large edifice. ..176 feet in length.. .40 feet in w id th .. .and to have four stories [in the] center passage.. .and three stories [on each] end.. .The work is to be o f the best ‘sand bricks’ laid with neat, narrow, smooth joints in all the outside walls, and the cement used is to be o f the best materials this country can afford, mined in such proportions as to ensure strong and durable w o rk .. .The outside bricks o f all the outer walls are to be selected and made o f the same color, so far as practicable.” The agreed payment to Deyerle was “ 9 1/2 dollars per one thousand [bricks] for all the work,” signed by Deyerle and George P. Tayloe, President o f the Trustees o f Hollins Institute. (Tayloe was also the patron for whom the m ansion called Buena Vista was built.) David Deyerle apparently had little to do with the design o f the Hollins building, since the contract specified that he was to follow drawings made by “Grant & Nenning o f Richm ond.” The contract for the wood­ w ork went to prolific local carpenter Gustavus Sedon. D a vid Deyerle built the Lafayette M ethodist Church. «pk ^ W ~ D eyerle 11 In addition to the three known David Deyerle buildings, a June 1844 Roanoke County C ourt order appointed David “a com m issioner to view and exam ine the brickwork o f the poor house,” presumably in Salem. A year later the court ordered that he be paid tw o dollars “for measuring the b ric k w o rk a t the p o o rh o u se .” O th e r churches that can be credibly attributed to him include the Lafayette M. E. Church, the C hristiansburg Presbyterian Church, and the form er Blacksburg Presbyterian Church. James Crawford Deyerle (J.C.) is listed in the census as a brick-layer, speculator, and brick-m aker between 1840 and 1870. On Novem ber 16,1854 he advertised in the Salem R egister that he wanted to hire “3 or 4 good journeym an carpenters”. Physical evidence strongly supports the notion that he (and possibly his father, Joseph) built M onterey in Salem, in 1852, Pleasant Grove in 1853, and the Fort Lewis Baptist Church, in 1854. He is documented as the builder o f the D avid M cGavock m ansion called Spring D ale, in Pulaski County, around �J.C. Deyerle built Spring Dale, the D a vid M cG avock house in Pulaski County. 1856. On June 5, 1857 he advertised “Land Warrants Wanted,” in the Salem Weekly Register. By the 1870s he owned and operated a brickyard in Salem (see Middleton, Norwood C. Salem: A Virginia Chronicle. Salem, Virginia: Salem Historical Society, 1986. A map on inside o f cover shows the location o f J. C .’s house and brickyard). Raymond Barnes credited Benjamin Deyerle for building the house known as Belle Aire, but years later, in a separate article, credited “James Deyerle” for the same work. 12Hollins College was begun in 1861 ; how much was completed that year is uncertain, but it was not finished until after the Civil War ended and Deyerle was not paid in full until 1882. See Niederer, Francis J. Hollins College: an Illustrated History, University Press o f Virginia, 1973, 25. 13 Tayloe, as a trustee, was primarily responsible for retaining David Deyerle for the brickwork on the M ain Building at Hollins in 1860. His signature is on the contract. 14 Period literature regarding handmade, clamp-fired bricks suggests that one-quarter to one-third o f the bricks from a clamp firing could not be used for building because o f imperfections. Thus Deyerle’s brickm akers prob­ ably molded well over 300,000 bricks strictly for use at Lone Oak. Reports on the existence o f a surviving brick kiln at Lone Oak are erroneous. The extant building that others have identified as a possible kiln was examined in the course o f this study and found to be a privy. Its unusual brick flue for shaft ventilation has been m istaken for a downdraft chimney. All o f the buildings at Lone Oak are roughly contemporaneous and are built o f frog bricks o f sim ilar dimensions and composition. Only one record o f Benjamin (and Garst, his business partner) selling bricks has been found: an 1862 entry in a Deyerle and Garst M ill ledger, dated 1859-1867. It w as in fact Benjamin Deyerle who purchased the bricks from his own business. Who made the bricks is uncertain. The transaction cost Deyerle $45 for 15,000 bricks (3 cents apiece). 15 It is equally possible that Benjamin leased his slaves to his brothers for building projects. In 1850 Benjamin owned 13 slaves, including 7 males ranging in age from 16 to 52. By 1860, he owned 34 slaves, o f w hom 23 were males. The 1860 census shows that he had 3 slave houses at Lone Oak. (Peyton Lewis recalled that Benjamin had about 60 slaves, but the manuscript slave schedule does not support such a figure.) David owned 7 male slaves ranging in age from 8 to 28. James C. owned 5 males ranging from 16 to 35 years, and a 14 year-old girl. D eyerle ~ 15 �Joseph owned 25 slaves, only 5 o f whom were female, and had 5 slave houses at Pleasant Grove in 1860. 16 Documents such as deed records, lists o f commission members that appear in Court Order Books, and Salem Presbyterian Church records support this notion. Many patrons o f the homes in question who were o f German descent attended the church or were church elders, including Benjamin Keagy, Henry Houtz, and Jeremiah and Madison Pitzer, as well as some Deyerle family members. Joseph actually named one of his sons, M adison Pitzer Deyerle, after the church elder. Both Benjamin and J.C. were also involved in land transactions with many o f the homeowners. 17 Benjamin Deyerle was apparently also skilled at building with logs in the German tradition, evidenced by existing photographs o f the log house he and his family lived in and reportedly enlarged in the 1830s, as well as by Peyton M. Lewis’s accounts o f his former master building log slavehouses. 18 Peyton M. Lewis mentioned in a letter that his father was the first male slave that Deyerle owned, and it is documented that Deyerle owned many slaves by 1850. 19 The single exception is the Green-Richardson House (ca. 1837), vaguely attributed to Benjamin. This house is isolated by several years, as well as several miles, from the other “Deyerle houses.” David is perhaps more likely the builder o f this house. Benjamin and his brothers were bom in Montgomery County. It is possible that Charles Deyerle, father o f Joseph, Benjamin, David, and Charles, Jr., was a builder who passed on his knowl­ edge to his sons. 20 J. C. may have been considered too young at age 20 to have received major commissions such as the Jeremiah Pitzer House, known as Mt. Airy, in 1846. Mt. Airy is a stylistic predecessor o f the large 1849-1856 Greek revival homes that have been most often associated with Benjamin. 21 The single mid-nineteenth-century example o f a building with three, five, or seven-course American bond in the Roanoke Valley is Monterey (c. 1845) in Roanoke, which features five-course American bond. The brick­ work at Monterey (not to be confused with Monterey in Salem) was probably done by David Deyerle, based on similarities with his Peters Creek Church of the Brethren, built the same year. The bricks of the two buildings are identical in size. These buildings predate the bond hierarchy used by Benjamin and/or David Deyerle beginning ca. 1849. Intervale had a great deal in common with Lone Oak, including the use o f three bonds, but unfortunately it was razed in the 1980s. Photos show that Intervale had the Flemish variant bond on the front façade, while Lone Oak employed it only on secondary facades and outbuildings. The bricks from Intervale have been saved in a new location, and were made available for this study. 22 Com er pilasters can be both decorative and functional, in that they hide the comers of buildings where courses o f different sizes and qualities o f bricks meet, and they conceal the use o f closers (and may help stabilize walls). For instance, the best-quality, larger-than-average bricks were used on the front façade o f Buena Vista, while fire-shrunken and slightly distorted bricks o f less regular size and shape were used on the side elevations. Thin­ ner joints on the front elevation, made possible by bricks o f a consistent size and shape, compensated somewhat for the smaller bricks and thicker joints on the side elevation, but the brick courses on the two elevations inevi­ tably became poorly aligned where they meet at the com er o f the building. In this case, however, the resulting unruly appearance was neatly covered with stuccoed pilasters. 23 J. C. Deyerle was listed as a speculator in the 1860 census, and records show that like Benjamin, he was heavily involved with buying and selling tracts o f land. 16 ~ Deyerle �A letter sent by a friend in 1837 to Charles D eyerle, brother o f B enjam in and David, urged him t o m o y e t o Missouri, buy parcels o f land, and put up houses to sell to em igrants for “four tim es the w orth o f our labor. e letter not only reveals yet another D eyerle who w as active in construction earlier than any other Deyerle docu­ mented, but also that speculative building m ay have been a profitable venture in the 1830s. H H The face bricks on Lone O ak’s front façade are am ong the largest and best m ade o f the sam ple group, w hile the bricks at H ollins University, priced per 1000 bricks in the surviving contract, are exceptionally w ell m ade, but much smaller. 24 It appears that brickm akers routinely replaced the blocks o f w ood called kicks, fixed on a palette laid beneath the mold in order to form frogs, w ith the same preferred shapes and sizes that they w ere accustom ed to. J.C. D eyerle’s cost o f making, hauling and laying brick is in court records in Pulaski County. (frdk /4 ------- $ 5 » ■ _ « r / * ° i J j ----*> /¿ T O * ------p j, ~ ^ r H ¿7,. , ., ‘ ..£—j Ûy~-*U^"T**** 4 ? /3-^cfc $+*3" , #*■——**-*&~s* * ** _ .a n — ¿iff ^ ' jm .Ljiun ** D eyerle ~ 17 �C e s t \A /e J o r g et: A Vinton Landmark b y David IV.G. tfe a r r 814 East Washington Avenue, Vinton, Virginia. Here, crow ning the knoll in this spacious park, stands the im posing public hall that tow n officials built as a tribute to the over 700 Vinton residents w ho served m th e a rm e d serv ices d u ring the second w o rld w ar, including the 28 m en w ho gave th eir lives “to save o u r fre e d o m s.” T h e citizens w h o p lan n ed th e V inton W ar M em orial en v isio n ed a civic cen ter op en to the com m unity. A n d , since its d ed icatio n in 1948, the “living m em orial” has h o sted so m an y social an d c iv ic ev en ts th a t despite its relative n ew n ess the colonial-styled b rick b uilding w ith its sig n a­ tu re w hite c o lu m n s h a s b eco m e one o f the tow n s b e st-k n o w n assets and is reco g n ized thro u g h o u t the R oanoke V alley.1 Less k n o w n is that this m odem landm ark is situated at the footprint o f a fam ily dw elling described in Vinton H isto ry 1 8 8 4 -1 9 8 4 as “one o f th e m ost m ag n ific e n t hom es” ever built in the tow n. E rected late in th e 19' century, th e 15-room , three story Q u een A n n e-sty led house graced this gentle h illtop for m o re than 50 years, a n d w as a notable relic its e lf b e fo re b ein g razed for the p rese n t structure.2 G iles G u n n and h is w ife, the form er Virginia M orrison, christened their residence The Gunnery. The house, that overlooked the tow n in the shadow o f the A lleghany and the Blue Ridge M ountains, faced M eadow Street near its southeast intersection w ith W ashington Street (now Avenue). The white, clapboard building w as defin ed b y a steep p re sse d tm roof, staggered facades, and six gables w ith an apron overlapping the front D avid W.C. Bearr, an historian and teacher in M aryland, supplemented his research fo r this article with a 100' birthday interview with Gladys Cook Williams. H e has written histories o f Blackstone in!!?8? and Fluvanna County and he wrote about the fir s t graduate o f Roanoke High School in the 2001 Journal. H is article on D aniel Pegee also appears in this issue. 18 �The Oaks, the 15-room Cook house in 1940 before it was razed to make room f o r the Vinton War M emorial. (Photo by Kile Williams Jr.) Opposite: The C.J. Cook home was a Queen Anne house o f f Washington Street (now Avenue) in Vinton in 1912. (Photo courtesy o f Vinton H istorical Society) peak. A long p o rc h w ith a tall second-story section aro u n d th e m iddle b ay c re a te d an im pressive front entrance, b u t resid e n ts a n d v isitors alike frequented th e sm aller p orch (partially en clo sed as a g reenery for plan ts) on th e W ash in g to n Street elevation o f the house. A ll o f the porches, in clu d in g one th at w as screened a n d ra n n e a rly th e entire n o rth side o f the residence, featured deco rativ e tu rned p o sts a n d spindle friezes. P o sts o n th e front porch, how ever, w ere susceptible to ro t a n d w ere rep laced w ith square b ric k co lu m n s - a rem ed y that clash ed w ith th e architecture o f the house. A m anufactured stone w all w ith gates m a rk e d th e M eadow S treet p ro p erty line. T he h ouse in clu d e d an entry h allw ay d o m in ated b y a n open th ree-flig h t staircase, a n d across the h a ll from the e v e ry d a y p a r lo u r w as a slightly sm aller, m ore form al rec e p tio n room reserv ed for “funerals, the n e w m in is te r’s first visit, an d w ed dings.” C onnecting doors b e tw e e n the larger o f these room s a n d the a d jo in in g bedroom , an d b e tw e en th a t room an d an ex ceptionally large dining ro o m could b e opened to c reate a space o f b a llro o m proportions. A ll o f these room s h a d fireplaces, an d m the parlo rs th e surro u n d s w ere faced w ith D u tc h p o rcelain tiles an d th ree-sectioned b ev eled m irro rs th at rea c h e d from th e m a n te ls to the ceilings. A k itch en w ith a p a n try and a b a th ro o m com pleted this le v e l U p stairs w ere fo u r m o re bed ro o m s, in clu d in g the g uest cham ber w ith a fireplace a n d a w indow v iew o f R o a n o k e ’s M ill M o u n tain , a n d a second bathroom . T he tw elve-foot high ceilings o n these floors an a n abundance o f larg e w in d o w s lightened the in terio r d espite d ark oak flooring a n d h e a v y m olding. Servant quarters, a packing room (for storage), a n d a p la y ro o m w ere located o n the third floor w ith m ountain vistas fro m every w indow. T he utility stairs enclosed in the back hall connected the entire house, stretching from the cellar to the attic. , . . ... u U ncom m on for a house o f its day, built-in storage closets w ere found throughout the house, w ith shoe closets in the se co n d flo o r bedroom s. A nd, u nusual fo r V ictorian V inton, w ere th e dw elling’s central heat an d indoor p lu m b in g ; b u t, neith er p ro v ed to be to tally satisfactory. W ater pressure:w as insu fficien t u p stairs for th at b a th ro o m to b e functional, an d one resid en t equated the im p act o t e ° t air u m a c e m a h o u se w ith o u t in su la tio n to lighting a candle fo r heat. E ventually, stoves su p p lem en ted fireplace h eat, Landmark. ~ f9 �a n d the furnace sa t idle. B y 1907 the h o u se had electricity .3 O ne tra d itio n asserts that the old O benchain p la c e w a s incorporated into T he G unnery. T h e 1892 d eed for the p roperty (from M o ses and L ucy Preston to Giles Gunn) cited no improvem ents on th e land; how ever, it did identify L o t 15, N u m b er 5 as a p a rt o f the Obenchain tract subdivided b y th e V inton L and and Im ­ provem ent C om pany o f Roanoke. N one­ theless, the uniform framing and woodwork throughout the G unn residence convinced a subsequent o w n e r that the entire build­ in g w as c o n stru c te d at the sam e tim e. It remains uncertain w here the early dwelling stood or its fate. It m a y have b een on an­ other section o f th is large tract o f land, or i f located on L ot 15, it w as rem oved prior to the new co n stru ctio n . N o evidence linked the old h o u se to any o f the several dependencies o n th e lot.4 Giles and Virginia Gunn surely in­ ten d e d for th e ir fin e hom e to be passed dow n from one generation to the next, but they occupied the n ew house on the eve o f th e Panic o f 1893 a n d soon th ey had an “ e n c u m b ra n c e n o w u p o n th e la n d .” R ecords in the R o a n o k e C ounty C lerk s O ffice p o in t to re p e a te d efforts b y the G unns to clear th eir property o f debts, but C.J. C ook w h e n G iles, th e n m a y o r o f V inton, died in 1902, liens rem ain ed on the p lace. Five y ears later his w idow so ld the p ro p erty to C. J. C ook for $6,400 including o u tstanding n o tes.5 A t the tim e o f the sale, C ook w as rea d y to b u ild a house on h is lan d ju s t b e y o n d the to w n lim its to w a rd B edford, b u t he told his w ife that bu y in g the G unn p ro p e rty w as to o g o o d o f a n in v estm en t to p ass. H e p ro m ise d h e r that th ey w ould stay there o n ly long en o u g h to g a in a reaso n ab le pro fit, and then h e w ould sell it a n d b u ild th eir dream hom e. T he couple and th eir children, how ever, so o n th o u g h t they h a d found p a ra d ise o n U pper W ashington Street.” T he house w as am ple, the g ro u n d s spacious, and th e spring w a te r th e “best anyw here.” The fam ily stayed. C harles Ja c o b “C harlie” C ook hailed from the W ebster area n e a r B lu e R id g e S prings, th e oldest o f six children b o m to G eorge and M ary C ook. A s a y o u n g m an he m o v ed w ith h is p a re n ts to B onsack b efo re he cam e to V inton in quest o f business opportunities, a n d am o n g h is co m m ercial p ro p erties w as o ld G ish ’s M ill - th e first local industry a n d the source o f th e to w n ’s o rig in al nam e. H e w as a founder o f Peoples B an k o f V inton - the co m m u n ity ’s first b ank, a n d he p e rio d ica lly served o n the to w n co u n ­ cil. H e also o rg an iz ed and play ed w ith the first to w n b and, a n d w as an ard e n t m em b e r o f th e M eth o d ist C h u rch w here h is future w ife sang in the choir.6 2 0 ~ L a n d m a rk �C o o k m arried A nna Ellis “A nnie” C om er in 1892. Francis a n d E llen C om er o f C am pbell C ounty relo c ate d to the R oanoke Valley in the 1870s to reg ister th eir three o ld e r dau g h ters a t H ollins Institute (U niversity). A fter A nnie com pleted h e r education, the C om ers liv e d e a st o f V inton n e a r the R uddell hom e, an d she tau g h t at G ish’s A cadem y. C. J. C ook and h is bride set u p h o u se k ee p in g a t w hat is today 125 W ashington A venue, and in that hom e their three children w ere b o m : Ju lia M a ry in 1895, G eorge C o m er in 1898, and A nnie G ladys in 1900.7 A t h e r 100th birthday celebration G ladys w ould recall the e x c item e n t o f m o v in g day in 1907. E arly th a t m o rn in g she donned her favorite outfit including a m atch in g p in k b o w rib b o n in h er h a ir and filled a p la y w ag o n w ith her dolls an d toys for “the m o to r rid e to th e b ig h ouse up the street.” A fter unloading h e r treasures she returned on foot to the o ld h o u se w ith h e r w agon in tow to -¡s'. 5 | t ' T ' repeat the routine. O nce the m ove w as com ^ pleted, th e little girl search ed every nook a n d c ra n n y in h e r n e w h o m e u n til h e r M b ro th e r fo u n d h e r “lo st a n d in tears” o n the th ird floor. G ladys also rem em b ered from m th at d ay a lo ca l w it rib b in g h e r father w ith a q u e stio n : “ W ill T h e G u n n e ry n o w b e called T he C ookery?” T he n ew ow ner ig ­ nored th e c u sto m o f n a m in g h is hom e, and the so u v e n ir p ictu re p o stc a rd o f the house sold at a d o w n to w n store id en tified it (w ith the o w n e r’s in itials tra n sp o sed and the p lu ­ ral in ste a d o f p o ssessiv e form o f his sur­ nam e) as “M r. J. C. C ooks R esidence.”8 F a m ily m em b ers fo rg o t w h en th eir hom e b e c a m e k n o w n as T he O aks, b u t no doubt the inspiration behind this m oniker was the group o f stately trees th a t surrounded the house. Som e o f the best m em ories guests had o f the C o o k household w ere m ade Sunday af­ tern o o n s a n d ev en in g s sittin g on the front porch, “j u s t v isitin g ” th e y c alled it. V isitors often c o m m en ted on the w onderful oaks that p ro v id e d sh ad e fro m th e daytim e heat and rela x in g so u n d s in th e e v e n in g w h e n the m o u n tain b re e z e s ru stle d th e leaves. A bout 1916 Ju lia C o o k b ro u g h t so m e o f h er c la ss­ m ates fro m R adford N orm al School (U niversity) hom e w ith her, a n d she sp e cu la te d th at the “R adford girls,” som e o f w hom later boarded at h er hom e w h en th ey tau g h t a t th e V inton p u b lic school, sug­ g ested th a t the house take on the n am e o f the trees. In any event, b y 1919 the n e w identification ap p eared in p rin t w h en a new spaper account o f the w ed d in g o f Ju lia C o o k to I. N . “N e w t” M oseley rep o rted “the nu p tials took place at the b rid e ’s lovely hom e, The O a k s.”9 Closely identified with the C.J. Cook family was a wom an distinguished w ith five given names, Araminta S tra w b erry F itzsa lly Johnson M cC ra y Turner. She arrived in to w n u n e x p e cte d ly so o n a fter A nnie and C harlie C o o k m arried, and she w ould rem ain a m em ber o f their h o usehold for the rest o f h er long life. This C a n d m a rk ~ 2 1 �spirited w o m a n h a d left the em p lo y o f A n n ie ’s cousin a fter “b eco m in g pro v o k ed w ith the Y ankee w ays o f th e m an s N o rth e rn e r w ife. B o m en slav ed in F ranklin C ounty, she n e v e r knew h er fath er w ho h e r m o h er said w as so ld “to a n e w m aste r out W est som ew here.” A ram in ta offered no reason for h e r unusually lo n g n am e, b u t she d elig h ted in ch allenging the C ook children and their young cousins to rep eat it. She also lik e d to tell folks th at she w as a “co n victed M eth o d ist” and w as p roud o f h e r m em ­ bership at St. Paul m R o anoke. She also frequented the C o o k s’ church, T hrasher M em orial, located a c ro s s th e s tre e t fro m th e ir h o m e.10 A r a m in ta T u r n e r b e ­ cam e a V inton leg en d fo r the s p e c ia l s a lt ris in g b re a d sh e b a k e d , lo a d e d o n to a s m a ll w agon, and sold door-to-door. A s the b re a d ’s reputation grew for “m aking such good to a st,” she filled orders for city custom ­ ers at the R oanoke M arket. She also gained notoriety fo r p a c k ­ ing a pistol. She seldom talk ed about h er earlier life, b u t som e o c c u rre n c e c o n v in c e d h e r to keep a gun, som etim es loaded, “to keep m e safe.” N o one re ­ c a lle d h e r e v e r f i r i n g th e w eapon except during an o cca­ sional nighttim e shooting p ra c ­ tice, b u t that habit created a vir­ tual n o -m an ’s land at The O aks. W ithout notice she w o u ld raise a rea r w indow and start sh o o t­ in g , a n d o n c e sh e n a rr o w ly m issed hitting a fam ily m em ber. N o a m o u n t o f p le a d in g fro m C harlie C ook disarm ed her, and one g uest at the house said he a v o id e d th e b a c k y a r d a f t e r n ig h tfa ll.11 M em bers o f the C o o k fam ily lived at The O aks until M I , ,, , 1945. A fter attending R ad fo rd b o th sisters retu rn ed ho m e a n d tau g h t fo r several years in the p u b lic school system and for a m u ch Araminta Turner and Kile Williams Jr., who lived in the Cook home. i Cn ud 1 1 3 m thC Sunday Sch° o1 at their church. Julia a n d h e r husband left the m ain h ouse in i -u x T thCy b m lt a b n c k b u n g a lo w on th e south east c o m e r o f th e property, to d a y ’s site o f the V inton library. N ew t, a V m tom te a n d a 1916 V P I (V irginia Tech) g rad u ate, w o rk ed for N orfolk and W estern R ailw ay fo r 45 y ears an d re tire d as a sen io r research and test engineer. H is m an y com m unity accom p lishm ents in clu d ed 25 years as V in to n ’s rep resen tativ e on the R oan o k e C ounty School B oard an d also 2 2 9 C a n d m a rk �a quarter-of-a-century as the superintendent o f the Sun­ day S chool at T hrasher M em orial. In the m id-1950s the M oseleys m o v ed to R oanoke, b u t the couple re ­ m ain ed active in th eir hom etow n com m unity. T he R ev­ eren d M arv in W hite credited N e w t’s leadership in the 1960s as a significant factor in the congregation’s b u ild­ ing the p resen t colonial-styled edifice for the church in stead o f the less expensive m o d em design under con­ sid eratio n .12 In 1925 G ladys m arried K ile C. W illiam s, from Southwest Virginia and another VPI son-in-law in the fam ­ ily. T heir son and the only Cook grandchild, Kile, Jr., was b o m the follow ing year. A lso in 1926, A nnie C ook died. A fter K ile, Sr.’s tran sfer w ith the telephone com pany in 1935, h is fam ily m o v ed from V inton. George C ook (a b a c h elo r w ho w o rk ed for N orfo lk and W estern), his father, a n d A ram in ta T urner w ere th e last residents at The O aks.13 G ladys W illiam s died N ov. 10,2003 at the age o f 103. Gladys Williams, daughter o f C.J. and Anna Cook, on her 100th birthday. The War Memorial H is gravestone at E vergreen B urial P ark in R oanoke m ak es k n o w n th a t C h arles Jacob C ook d ied o n F eb ru ary 1 0 ,1 9 4 5 , a n d notes from a called tow n council m eetin g rev e a l th a t five d ays later the T ow n o f V inton offered to b u y the C ook residence “to p lan a suitable w a r m e m o ria l” to its W orld W ar II heroes. N o n e o f the fam ily (A ram inta T urner already resided a t a n u rsin g h o m e) in te n d e d to live in th e house in the future an d C. J. C o o k ’s children w ere pleased w ith the to w n ’s d e c isio n to u se th eir ho m e p lace in such a n auspicious way. W ith 20 p e rc e n t o f V inton’s 3,500 w artim e resid en ts serv in g in th e m ilitary, local sentim ent ran high, ev en before th e last battle w as w on, to recognize its sons a n d d a u g h te rs in service. In A u gust 1944 the to w n council, com posed o f M ayor Joe Pedigo, W. R o ss M cG ee, a n d R. L. M eador, appointed tw o groups to d raft a p la n for a perm anent m em orial: the W ar M em o rial C o m m itte e (o r C om m ission) led b y F. W. D o d e n h o ff a n d the Civic C om m ittee chaired b y H. B. W ade, Sr. T he g ro u p s chose the C ook p ro p erty ov er tw o o th er sites, and a three-tier headline in the M arch 18, S u n d a y e d itio n o f The R o a n o ke Tim es disclosed V in to n ’s purchase o f the C.J. C ook E state for a m e m o ria l p a rk a n d co m m u n ity center. T h at m o n th the to w n p aid the C ook H eirs $15,000 for th e 11.5-acre pro p erty , a n d th e m em orial c o m ­ m ittee launched a drive to raise an additional $10,000 fo r d e v e lo p m en t o f the p ro p erty .14 O n S eptem ber 2, 1945, Jap an signed the term s o f surrender, a n d the n e x t d ay “T he V inton V ictory R ally ” to o k place at the W ar M em orial Park. It w as the first p u b lic e v e n t h e ld in the n ew park, a n d I. N . M oseley, as m aster o f cerem onies, stood in front o f th e h o u se w h ere he once lived and w e lc o m e d the ju b ila n t crow d. The rally w as scheduled w e e k s earlier, w h e n p e a c e n eg o tiatio n s opened, a n d in ad dition to perform ances b y the com m unity ch o ir an d b an d , th e sp e ak e r w as Judge J. L in d say A lm o n d o f R oanoke H ustings C ourt and later g o vernor o f V irginia a n d a K e n n e d y appointee to the federal bench. T he p rinted program listed the nam es o f 23 fallen h e ro e s, a n d tw o soldiers m issin g in C andm ark ~ 2 3 �action. T he list w ould grow .15 „ ° n ° ctober 31 the to w n council aw a rd ed a contract to the Paul A. W ood C onstruction Com p an y to p ro ceed at once w ith rem o d elin g the C ook residence.” A t the outset the plan w as to transform the grand old hom e into a co m m u n ity center, b u t as w ork p ro g ressed the contractor discovered exten­ sive term ite dam age to the structure. A t a jo in t m eeting o f the m em orial com m ittee and the tow n council m D ecem ber, the entire group v o ted to raze the original b uilding and to erect a new, firep ro o f structure o f brick and cem ent block. T he n e w building w o u ld face W ashington Avenue, a n d w hen com pleted w ould contain a library, clu b ro o m s, a banquet hall and a kitchen, and living quarters for a hostess. T he L ions C lub o f V m ton h a d a lre ad y given m o n ey for a public sw im m ing pool on th e site 16 j j 11 ,TheB E S B com P!etion o f th e project w hile architectural p lan s w ere draw n, and since total cost for developm ent w o u ld n o w rise to five tim es the original $25,000 estim ate, substantial new funding from both private donations a n d taxes w as needed. Tow n officials m ade the project a payas-you-go affair, and on M ay 1 0 ,1 9 4 7 , w h e n funds ran out, construction halted on the building that still required interior w ork and grading. A lm o st im m ediately, th en M ayor W. R oss M cG ee proclaim ed June E , aS M em o n al W eek (a n m e-d a y w eek!), and he urged fellow citizens to raise $25 000 to com plete the m em o n al T here w ere n o h o use-to-house solicitations, b u t containers for donations w ere m fn earl y GVG7 b1USmess m to w n ' A th erm o m eter graph w as displayed at the V inton b ran ch o f the M ountain Trust B ank to p o st the p ro g re ss o f the drive. “V inton W ar M em orial B ond” certificates had no p a r value, b u t A lbert C. H a m s , tre a su re r o f the m em orial com m ittee, issued the handsom e certificates w ith a draw ing o f the b u ild in g to contributors as a historical receipt for their donations The g o a P ^ 6 nCtted ° Ver $ 18,000 m subscriPtions, and w ith later g ifts the total eventually exceeded the was , , ° n.A ,U^ St? 0; . 1948, four years after the m em orial com m ittee first m et, the W ar M emorial Building h e ro e s^ maJor *n the U.S. A rm y Reserves and a comm ittee member, called the roh o f fallen heroes. F. W D odenhoff presented the k e y to the building to M ayor M cG ee, w ho then asked the crow d to say a prayer for the W orld W ar II heroes each tim e they entered the m em orial.18 In a se n es o f ed ito n als, T he R o a n o k e Tim es saluted V inton as “far ah ead o f the c ity — in front o f m ost V trgm ia com m unities fo r that m atte r - in recognizing its w a r h e ro e f A nd, the p a p e r heaped re praise on its little n e ig h b o r to the e a st” fo r its m unicipal progress. T h e w ar m em orial w as b ut one o f four significant p ro jects the to w n h a d undertaken, and, referring to a recen t court decision that in d e p e n ^ n tg ro w th C ’leX atl0n^ ^ Clty’ ^ ^ d e d a r e d “ “ “ “ “ ‘OW" “ n ° W e a m e d itS rig h t'° Despite setbacks and delays the effort to build the w ar m em orial w as an am azingly harm onious en­ deavor for the town. Nearly every action taken b y the w ar m em orial comm ittee and the town council received th eir unanim ous votes, and “V m ton s sp irited citizens resp o n d ed to the need fo r finances ” T he final p lan w as a bittersw eet directive fo r a t least o n e com m ittee m em ber, Julia C ook M oseley, b u t even t “ a8!', rT ! T t d em olition o f h e r o ld h o m e, she an d h e r h usband saw the w ork to c o m p le tio n 28 In addition to M rs. M oseley, F.W. D odenhoff, A . C. H arris, a n d M ajo r Stiff, other m em bers o f the w ar WT ^ ' W ' COTbin> ° " G ° ° de>L 1 T hom pson, T. M artin Bush, W. E. Cundiff, M rs. M aude Lassiter, and M rs. G. W. F u n k (secretary).21 In the intervening y ears, th e W ar M em o rial building has evolved into a shrine dedicated to all n p ^ r rST r i Wh°KiaVe IOSt th eir hV6S in f° reign WarS’ includm S the V ietnam War and O peration D esert S t o W ith public room s, ex ten siv e recreation facilities and the senior center, the V inton W ar M em o n al BuiM m g anci P ark is th e “living m em o rial” citizens envisioned w h en they w orked to create a lasting tribute to those “w ho d ied for A m erican freedom .”22 24 ~ Candm ark �Vinton War Memorial, dedicated in 1948. Commemorated at the Vinton War Memorial: World War II Roy A. Arthur, James Earl Baldwin, Alfred Brown, Otway David Creasy, Jr. Fred Cumbie, Raymond S. Fielder, Benjamin R. Hubbard, Alfred E. Long, Jr. Lynwood Marshall, Howard Giles Mattox, Charles Hobert McAllister Dallas Don Moody, Frank Nave, Clarence Neighbors, W. Gray Newman James B. O Brien, Joe R. St.Clair, James L’Caney Sexton, Beverly Smith Earl Smith, Douglas Spradlin, Henry McCabe Spradlin, Norris Stanley Billy S. Thomas, Edmund Tompkins, Manuel Weeks, John A. Witt, and Maurice Wright Vietnam War Ronald H. Chittum, Joseph T. Keesee, Daniel R. Meador, William F. Silver, Jr. Hardy: Lloyd M. Starkey; Moneta: John S. Myers, Elmer M. Nance Montvale: John S. Myers, Allen Taylor Operation Desert Storm Terry Lawrence Plunk -Names from The Vinton Messenger, M ay 27, 1993 L a n d m a rk ~ 2 5 �Notes 1Notes from Town of Vinton; “Vinton Acquires Property For Park and Community Center,” The Roanoke Times 18 March 1945,8. 2Irma Trammell Moseley and Madeline Simmons Forbes, Vinton History1884 to 1984 (Vinton, VA: Centennial Committee, 1984), 24; Roanoke County Deed Book 10,407. 3Gladys Cook Williams, interviews with author, 20 May 2000; 16 August, 30 September 2001; 16 August 2002; 20 July 2003. 4Deed Book 10; Moseley, 24; Williams. 5Deed Book 10,618; Moseley, 22,24; Deed Book 39,2-3. 6 Deedie Kagey, When past is prologue: A history o f Roanoke County (Roanoke: Roanoke County Sesquicentennial Committee, 1988) 147,422; [David Bearr], “Gladys Williams celebrates 100thbirthday Aug. 16,” The Vinton Messenger 24 August 2000,3. 7Marriage records from Comer Bible; Hollins Institute certificates; inscriptions from Evergreen Burial Park, Roanoke; Williams. 8Williams. 9 “Cook-Moseley Nuptials,” society column clipping without newspaper’s identification or date of publication; wedding took place on 11 January 1919, according to Roanoke County marriage license; Julia Cook Moseley, interviews with author before 1981. 10Moseley, 144; Williams. "Ibid. Gladys and Mary Gray Finney (a teacher who boarded with the Cooks) talked about organizing the first traveling girls basketball team at Vinton High School. Their squad played before the 1925-1926 academic year when a Miss Bower coached the girls. Moseley’s history (p.121) credits Bower’s team as the first. Deed Book 115,68 -A nnie Cook and George C. Cook had lots adjoining the Mosleys’ recorded in their name reducing the original property to 11.5 acres. C. J. Cook thought his lot had totaled 16 acres, but to his dismay it was less. “I.N. Moseley, N. & W. Research and Test Engineer, Retires,” Norfolk and Western Magazine, December 1960,544-545; Thrasher Memo­ rial Methodist Church bulletin, 1 May 1966. 13Bearr; Comer Bible; Williams. 14Kagey, 434; Minutes of the Council of the Town o f Vinton, Virginia, 8 March 1945; “Vinton Acquires Property”; “Con­ tract of Sale,” 9 March 1945; “Program,” Vinton Victory Rally, 3 September 1945. 15 “Program.” 16Minutes of the Vinton [War] Memorial Committee, _D ecem ber 1945; the town council took concurrent action on Decem­ ber 10. “Vinton Begins Campaign To Finish War Memorial,” The Roanoke Times, _ J u n e 1947; “For Vinton’s War Memo­ rial,” (editorial) The Roanoke Times, _ J u n e 1947. Bernice Ward was the first hostess at the War Memorial Building. 17“Vinton Begins Campaign”; “L ets Finish the Job!” promotional sheet, 13-21 June 1947; Moseley stated cost of $127,000 including the swimming pool. Grading significantly reduced the original height of the hill where the main building stands today. 18 “Announcing the formal opening of the Vinton War Memorial Building,” (program), 20 August 1948; Kagey, 533. At the Veterans Day ceremony in 1977 Major Stiff again called these names, now engraved on a plaque attached to the building. This plaque and another with the names of those who served on the War Memorial Committee were placed at the memorial that year by the Town of Vinton and the Veterans ofForeign Wars, Post #4522 (Vinton). 19 Three editorials published in The Roanoke Times in 1947 or 1948 followed the town s progress. The titles were: “For Vinton’s War Memorial,” “Vinton Votes Aye,” and “Vinton Moves Ahead. ” 20 Official town records and local memory made no mention o f an early plan to construct the present building, but inexpli­ cably on the 1945 rally program is a drawing of the current building. 21 Minutes: War Memorial Committee-18 June, 29 October, _D ecem ber 1945; Town Council-8 March, 19 June, 17 July, 10 October 1945. The description of citizens appeared in a promotional item written by the town. Committee members are listed in multiple sources including the tablet found on the War Memorial Building. 22 Carolyn S. Ross, letterto author, 25 July 2003; “Memorial Day,” The Vinton Messenger, 27 May 1993 8-A- “Let’sFinish the Job!” 2 6 ~ L andm ark �Lhe K a n a w h a / M e w K i v e r on JVlid- E ig h te e n th C e n tu r y JV laps b y tim er son Knapp n 1673, the French explorers L ouis Joliet an d Jacques M arquette d iscovered the M ississippi River and claim ed all o f its watershed for France. T hey had no idea ju st how m uch territory this included. B y the m id 18thcentury France and England w ere o n the brink o f w ar over w ho had the right ofpossession o f the land w est o f the A llegheny M ountains a n d so u th o f the G reat Lakes. E n g la n d ’s claim to the O hio R iver reg io n w as through their ally the Iro q u o is F ederation, w h o claim ed th e a re a b y conquest1. A lso, to counter the F rench claim , th e E nglish c ite d d o cum ented evidence th a t tw o E n g lish colonials, Thom as B atts and R obert Fallam , h a d b een o n th e N e w R iver in w estern V irginia in 16712. The N ew River rises in the m ountains o f w estern N orth Carolina and flows n orth through Virginia into W est Virginia w here it and the G auley R iver com bine to form the G reat K anaw ha, w h ich flows into the Ohio River at Point Pleasant, W est Virginia. To orient the reader w ith the location o f the K anaw ha / N ew River, Sam uel L e w is ’ 1 8 0 4 m a p o f V irg in ia , w hich nicely features the river, is included as Figure 1. D iscovery o f th is trib u ta ry o f th e M ississip p i R iver w as E ngland’s claim to prior discovery o f “W estern W aters,” or the M ississippi Basin. S om e early m a p s c a ll th e G re a t K a n a w h a / N e w R iver “W oods R iver” , p ro b ­ ably fo r A braham W ood, th e E ast­ ern V irginia trader w ho sent B atts & Fallam o n their expedition3. He also sponsored several other explo­ rations o f the N ew River. Virginia, Arrowsmith & Lewis, Tanner, sculp. From the “New A lth o u g h th is n o rth -flo w in g and Elegant Atlas, ” 1804. riv e r is n o t navigable in its passage th rough the m ountains, it still had strategic im portance in the m id 18th century. E ven so, it does n o t ap p ear o n p u b lish e d m aps until ju s t b e fo re th e start o f the French and I Emerson Knapp, a Pulaski native and a 1949 graduate o f Roanoke College researched maps o f New and Kanawha rivers fo r 10 years before completing this article, shortly before his death on August 11, 2000. H e served in the A ir Force, earned a m aster’s degree in chemical engineering at Virginia Tech and worked fo r Exxon Research and Engineering fo r almost 30 years. The maps illustrating this article are from his collection (though some are not printed here). H e lived at Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey. This article was originally pub­ lished in Issue 48 (Fall 2000) o f The Portolan, journal o f the Washington M ap Society. Reprinted by permission. 21 �In d ia n War. P rio r to this, m ap s o f th e reg io n show rid g es o f im penetrable m ountains south o f th e O hio River. T h ese m o u n ta in s exist, but in fact, th e N ew R iv er does flow th ro u g h them . The dev elo p m en t o f the carto g ra p h y o f th is a re a o f colonial A m erica by the French and E nglish, w ho w ere ab o u t to go to w a r to determ in e w h o w o u ld control the v ast area w est o f the m ountains and east o f the M ississippi R iver, is th e su b je c t o f this article. T he F rench w ere first to represent m id-continent N orth A m erica w ith any degree o f accuracy. G uillaum e D elisle, a pioneer in scientific cartography, produced one o f the first m aps to properly locate the m outh o f the M ississip p i R iver. T he m ap, first p u b lish e d in 1700, is titled L ’A m eriq u e Septentrionale. T his m ap also sh o w s a riv e r sy stem flow ing from the east into the M ississippi in the general vicinity o f th e O hio / T ennessee w atersh ed . O n ly the m o st n o rth ern b ran ch o f these rivers is nam ed and is called the “O u ab ach e R .” O n h is 1703 m ap, C arte d u M exique e t d e la F lo rid e (see Figure 2), D elisle adds the nam e “ O hio ou B elle R iv iere” as an alternate nam e for th is m o st n o rth ­ ern branch. H e also n am es som e o f the o th er rivers in the area, fo r ex ­ a m p le , “ R . d ’A c a n s e a ,” p la c e d clo ser to the O hio s actual position, is p ro b ab ly a branch o f th e T ennes­ see, p erhaps the H olston. D e lisle ’s 1718 m ap, C arte de la L o u isia n e e t du C orns du M ississippi, p u b lish e d ju s t b e fo re the fo u n d in g o f N e w O rlean s, m oves th e “ O h io ou la B elle R iviere” south as a b ran ch o f th e “ O u a b a c h e o u d e S. Je ro m e .”4 The tw o riv e rs farth er south could be the C um berland and the Tennessee. Carte du M exique et de la Floride, P ar Guillaume D e l Isle T he E nglish cartographers o f the Géographe, A Amsterdam, Chez. Jean Covens & Corneille Mortier, 1722. tim e seem to rely on the French for the depiction o f the M ississippi R iver and its trib u taries. F o r exam ple, John S en ex ’s m ap o f N orth A m erica, 1710, copies D elisle’s 1703 C arte du M e x iq u e e t d e la F lo rid e fo r the M ississip p i system . H erm an M oll, a D utchm an w ho w o rk e d in E n ­ g land, a lso d e p e n d ed on D elisle fo r coverage o f N orth A m erica w est o f the A lleghenies. H e p u b lish e d tw o m ap s in 1720, N o rth A m eric a (the C odfisheries m ap) and ^4 N ew M a p o f the N orth P a rts o f A m erica c la im e d b y F ra n c e . T he first one is b a sic a lly sim ilar to D elisle’s 1703 m ap, w hile the seco n d appears to m o re clo se ly fo llo w th e 1718 m ap o f L ouisiane. T h e n a m in g o f the riv e rs is fascinating: the translation from Indian nam es to F rench a n d th en to E n g lish , an d the a d d itio n o f new F ren ch a n d E nglish n am es to rivers w h ich d o n ’t alw ays co rrespond v e ry w e ll to c u rre n t g eo g rap h y causes real confusion. F o r exam ple, b o th o f these m aps, p u b lish e d b y M o ll in th e sam e year, sh o w the “ O uab ach n o w called b y the F rench R. St. Jerom e.” H ow ever, the se co n d o f the tw o m ap s calls the m ain river, a t its m o u th into the M ississippi, the “ Sault,” a n d th is nam e is a lso sh o w n fu rth e r u p stre a m on a so u th ern b ran ch o f f o f the St. Jerom e. Sault in French m ea n s rapids o r w aterfall, as in S ault St. M arie, an d p ro b a b ly refers to th e falls o f the O hio at p resent d a y L ouisville. It is in te restin g to no te th a t I have found n o o th er m aps w ith this nam e fo r the O hio or L a B elle R iviere. A n o th e r E n g lish m ap , b y H enry P opple, A m erica Septentrionalis, pu b lish ed in tw en ty sheets in 2 8 ~ JVlaps �1733, includes v ery little detail o f the O hio region,5 and yet the orientation o f the O hio in rela tio n to the W abash,“ St. Jerom e,” and the T ennessee (“H ogohegee,”) is som ew hat im p ro v ed o v er e a rlie r m aps. T h e first real im provem ent in the representation o f the O hio R iver System , p a rticu la rly as the riv e rs re la te to the G reat L akes, is p rese n ted in B eilin’s C arte de la L o u isia n e p u b lish e d in C h a rle v o ix ’s “ H isto ry and G eneral D escrip tio n o f N ew France” , 1744. A lthough this m ap is an im p ro v em en t o n the o v e ra ll p re se n ta tio n o f th e O h io , it is still quite p rim i­ tiv e. F or exam ple, the u p ­ p e r river or A llegheny show s a lo t o f detail b u t runs east to w est in stead o f no rth to so u th as it rea lly does north o f P ittsburgh. T his p laces th e M u s k in g u m ( c a l le d “ C h ianouske” o n this m ap6) a b it too far w e st relative to L a k e Erie. T he n ex t nam ed stream dow n riv e r and flo w ­ in g fro m th e s o u th is “ R. C a c h iq u e to ,” n o t f a r u p ­ stream o f the falls, at present d a y L ouisville. T his riv er is p r o b a b l y th e K e n tu c k y River. It therefore seem s that a larg e m iddle section o f the O h io w a s u n k n o w n to th e F ren ch explorers. This is the A New & Accurate Map o f Louisiana, with Parts o f Florida and Canada, by Eman Bowen, 1747. a re a o f the tw o M iam is, the S cioto, and several rivers fro m th e south such as the L icking, the B ig Sandy a n d the G reat K anaw ha. A riv e r from th e south, w hich I in itially thought m ight be the K anaw ha, is p ro b ab ly th e M o n o n g a h ela an d th e “R. C hiagnez” is p ro b ab ly B eav er River. (See Figure 3 for B o w en ’s 1747 c o p y o f B e ilin ’s m ap .) Tw o years after B eilin ’s m ap o f L ouisiane appeared, Jean B aptiste B o u rg u ig n o n D ’A n v ille p u b ­ lish e d his tw o -p ag e m ap o f A m ériq u e Septentrionale dated 1746. T his m ap is a g o o d e x am p le o f the p ro b le m o f d eterm ining the actu al publication date o f a particu lar copy o f an o ld m ap. M y c o p y show s th e date, 1746, in the lovely cartouche. H ow ever, the m ap n o t only show s th e K an aw h a / N e w R iv e r b u t also F ort D uQ uesne, w h ic h w as n ot b u ilt until 1754! So far I h av e n o t seen a co p y o f the orig in al m a p ,7 but the B ritish L ibrary h a s B o lto n ’s 1750 copy o f D ’A n v ille’s m ap, title d A m eric a . T h is c o p y e v e n has the sam e cartouche b u t no F ort D uQ uesne and, m ore im portantly for o u r study, th e O hio R iv er is b a sic a lly the sam e as B e ilin ’s 1744 rendition. A later copy o f B olto n ’s m ap , d a te d 1752, reta in s th e sam e configuration o f the O h io region, b u t show s Fort D uquesne an d F o rt N ecessity, a n d th erefo re m u st have b e e n p u blished a fter m id 1754. H ow ever, it show s the “ C onw ay” in its p ro p e r p o sitio n b rea k in g th ro u g h the m o u n tain s from the south (see Figure 4). T he earliest m ap that I have found to definitely name the K anaw ha is a reproduction o f the m anuscript m ap m ad e by Father Bonnecam p, w ho accom panied Captain Celoron on his m ission to plant lead plates at points a lo n g the O hio R iver to in d icate th at the area belonged to F rance (see Figure 5). T his e x p e d itio n to o k p la c e in 1749, and one o f the p late s w as planted at the m o u th o f the riv e r C h in o h d aich io (a F ren ch JVlaps ~ 2 9 �North America Performed under the Patronage o f Louis D uke o f Orleans, First Prince o f the Blood, by the Sieur D/Anville, Greatly Improved by Mr. Bolton. 1752 (Actually after June 1754.) rendition o f an Indian nam e fo r the K anaw ha) as it enters th e O h io R iv e r at Point Pleasant. T he m ap show s the A llegheny / O hio riv e r system from w here th e e x p e d itio n en tered it, a t the end o f th eir po rtag e from L ake Erie, d o w n to the G reat M iam i River. T he re p re se n ta tio n o f the u p p er O hio R iv e r is extrem ely accurate for the tim e8 and F ather B o n n ecam p in d ic a te s th e location w here e ach o f the lead plates w as p laced9. A s far as I can tell, the first m ap to properly show the N e w R iv e r risin g in N orth Carolina, flow ing north through Virginia and the A llegheny M ountains to the O hio R iver is the F ry / Jefferson m ap o f Virginia title d ^ M a p o f the In h a b ited p a rt o f Virginia containing the w hole P ro vin ce o f M a ryla n d with P a rt o fP ensilvania N e w Jersey a n d N orth Carolina. Joshua F ry and P eter Jefferson, fath e r o f T hom as, prepared their historic m ap for the R oyal B oard o f T rade and P lantations in 1751. A lth o u g h th e m ap w as com pleted and sent to England late m 1751, it was not published until som etim e in 17531°. T he driving force for the creation o f an up to date m ap o f Virginia, particularly o f the area w est o f the Blue Ridge, w as the influx o f settlers into the region M an y o f the settlers cam e d o w n the G reat W arrio r’s P ath w h ic h le d from P ennsylvania th ro u g h the S henandoah Valley to the C herokee country o f N o rth C aro lin a a n d Tennessee. The first settlem en ts o n the N ew R iv er w ere established about 1745 at D ra p e r’s M e ad o w s, n e a r p resen t d ay B lacksburg, V ir­ gin ia on the east side o f the riv e r and at D u n k a rd ’s B o tto m o n th e w e st b an k n ear R adford V irginia alo n g w ith a few other scattered farm s.11 In 1755, a revised or second state o f the m ap w as issued, w ith num erous additions and im provem ents in the w estern h a lf o f the m ap that F ry and Jefferson had been collecting since 1751 from various sources including frontiersm en like C hristopher G ist.12 U nfortunately, som e o f th e “ Im provem ents” w ere errors. T he first state o f the m ap p ro p erly locates the stream s that e n te r th e N e w R iv er in S outhw est V irginia specifically, B ig W alkers C reek, L ittle R iver, P eak C reek a n d R e e d C reek. T he seco n d state m oves W alkers C reek south (upstream ) and m oves L ittle R iv e r far so u th to th e p o sitio n o f B ig R eed Islan d C reek, upstream o f P eak C re e k .13 These errors w ere p e rp e tu a te d o n m ap s o f V irginia to a t least the end o f the 18th century, for exam ple, Joseph Scott s 1795 m ap o f Virginia. 3 0 ~ M aps �T here is another m anuscript m ap from this b rie f b u t im portant tim e p eriod that also show s and nam es the “ G reat K ankaw a River.” T his m ap o f the O hio country b y Jo h n Patten in 1752 show s the riv er breaking through the m ountains to the south and east w ith several b ran ch es but no further d etail.14 A s the w ar b etw een E ngland and F rance o v er control o f N o rth A m erica developed, E nglish p eriodi­ cals published inform ation on the events in A m erica. Just after G eorge W ashington’s retu rn from his m ission to Fort Le B o e u f to inform the F rench that the O hio Valley w as B ritish, L ondon M agazine published “T he Journal o f M ajor G eorge W ashington” 15 along w ith A M a p o f the Western p a rts o f the C olony o f Virginia in th eir June 1754 edition16 show ing W ashington’s ro u te to Lake E rie (see Figure 6). This m ap, draw n b y John G ibson, also show s the ‘Gr. K unhaw ay o r N e w R .’ reaching south into N orth C arolina. Soon after, Thom as Jefferys p u blished a sim ilar b u t m ore in clusive m ap titled M ap o f the Western p a r t o f the C olony o f Virginia as f a r as the M ississip p i.17 T his m ap indicates a fort taken b y the French in 1754 at the forks o f the Ohio. A t the sam e tim e, G en tlem a n ’s M a g a zin e included a m ap in their Ju ly 1754 issue b y E m an B ow en titled A M ap o f the B ritish A m erican P la n ta tio n s extending fro m B oston in N ew E n g la n d to G eorgia including all the b a c k Settlem ents in the respective Provinces as f a r as the M ississip p i.18 Q uite a title, but it gets its p o in t across. This m ap show s the ‘G reat K inhaw ay or N e w R iver in the sam e detail as above. It is interesting that these three m aps share sim ilar depictions o f the K anaw ha River which are a bit different from Fry / Jefferson. O n the Fry / Jefferson, the river com ing from the south turns to the w est-northw est and then continues quite far before entering the Ohio. O n these m aps the river turns sharply west, then north and finally northw est into the Ohio. A nd yet, th ey do not seem to be tak e n from John M itchell’s m odel either. The m ost im portant m ap o f N o rth A m erica produced in the m id-eighteenth century is Dr. John M itchell’s A m ap o f the B ritish a n d F rench D o m inions in N orth A m erica pu b lish ed Feb. 13,1755. O ur Carte Dun Voyage Fait dans La Belle Riviere en la Nouvelle France, by Rever­ end Pere Bonnecamp Jesuitte Mathematicier, 1749. From Report o f the Commission to Locate the Site o f the Frontier Forts o f Pennsylvania, Vol. Two, Clarence M. Busch, State Printer o f Pennsylvania, 1896. This map is a reduced copy o f a part o f Father Bonnecamp’s manuscript map now deposited in the Archives o f the Department de la Marine in Paris. ' ----- — .......~ ~ JVlaps ~ 31 �d isc u ssio n w ill o n ly include M itchell’s in terpretation o f the Virginia frontier. Dr. M itchell m o v ed from U rb an n a, V irginia to E ngland in 1748 a n d soon after w as com m issioned b y the B oard o f Trade and lan tatio n s to d raw up a report on the colonies and to prepare a m ap o f N o rth A m erica p resenting the B ritish p o sitio n as to political boundaries a n d rights as com pared to F rench and Spanish claim s. H e h ad a c ce ss to rec e n t charts and surveys o f the various colonies prepared fo r the B oard o f Trade T he first d raw in g o f th e m ap w as m ade in 1750.19 It w ould certainly be v ery interesting to see this ‘first draft. In a n y event, one w onders i f p relim in ary copies or inform ation from drafts w ere seen b y or m ade availab le to others before initial p u b lic a tio n in 1755. Dr. M itchell includes a trem endous am ount o f d etail o n h is v e ry large m ap. It w as p u b lish ed in eight sheets, and the co p y I saw at G reenw ich in | R-M.&L&frsx 1976 covered an entire w all. He included a ‘settle­ m en t’ on the C um berland R iver nam ed ‘W alkers (the extent o f the English settlem ents 1750).’ T his w as a cabin b u ilt b y Thom as W alker’s party w hile exploring for the Loyal Land Com pany.2 0 Dr. M itchell m ust have used the sam e inform ation th at Fry / Jefferson had for their second state because he also m isplaces Little River. This, plus the inclusion o f W alker’s settlem ent, is a good w ay to recognize other English, French, D utch, G er­ m a n a n d Ita lia n m ap s w h ic h c o p y M itc h e ll. T h e K anaw ha / N ew R iver fu rth er dow n stream does n o t conform to Fry / Jefferson, b ut instead flow s northnorthw est into the Ohio. T his is quite accurate, b e ­ cause from the outlet o f the N ew R iver G orge to the O hio the direction is generally northw est. T he other great m ap o f the p eriod is L ew is E v an s’ A G eneral M ap o f the M iddle B ritish C olonies in A m erica w hich w as also published in 1755.21 E v an s used his ow n surveys in constructing his m ap, b u t h is p resen ta­ tio n o f the K anaw ha / N ew R iver is defin itely F ry / Jefferson state 1,22 He places the tributaries o f the N ew R iver in Southw est V irginia properly, an d there is no great loop in the river ju s t dow n stream o f th e G reen­ brier, w hich w as added to later states o f th e F ry / Jef­ ferson m ap .23 T he exam ple o f L ew is E v an s’ G eneral M ap in m y collection w as published b y L aurie and W hittle on 12th o f M ay 1794 (see Figure 8). It is a reissu e from the original copper plate m ade fo r the K itchin co p y p ro ­ duced in 1756.24 N one o f the topography o f the m ap . b een changed, only the title and som e n e w printH ■ tltC haS b een changed to A ■ a n d G eneral M a p o f the M iddle D om inions b elo n g in g to the U n ited S ta te s o f A m erica . A dotted line h a s b een draw n through the center o f the G reat L ak es to show the b o u n d a ry b etw een the U nited States a n d C anada and yet the title ‘P rovince o f Q uebec’ w h ich starts deep m In d ian a a n d ends m eastern C anada (and w as correct in 1756) has n o t b een erased. T he state o f V erm ont h as b een added, but the m o st in terestin g addition is the title ‘K en tu ck y ’ w hich is m isplaced n o rth o f the O hio R iver! It is even a d d ed in the inset o f the ‘R em ainder o f the L ak es’ in the w rong A M ap o f the Western Parts o f the Colony o f Virginia, J. Gibson, sculpt. For R. Baldwin f o r London magazine, June 1754. 3 2 ~ M aps �place. A s an exam ple o f L ew is E v an s’ geography it is a n ice m ap but the m ess it m akes o f the political boundaries o f the tim e m akes it a curiosity. The F rench w ere quick to adapt the n ew B ritish carto g rap h y o f the O hio basin. In 1753 D idier R obert V augondy produced a m ap o f C anada titled ‘C arte d es P a ys C onnus sous le nom de Canada w hich caused a political uproar w ith E ngland over the d efinition o f w hat com prised A cadia and/or N ova Scotia. T he first state o f this m ap o n ly show s a p o rtio n o f the O hio R iver, b u t the little it does show seem s to follow B eilin s 1744 ‘C arte d e la L o u is ia n e : F ort D uQ uesne is n o t show n, o f course, since it w as n o t built until 1754.25 The second state o f th is m ap show s b o th F ort D uQ uesne and Fort Necessity. T herefore, this revision w as m ade a fter Ju ly 1754. B ut, m ore im portant for us, it show s and nam es the N ew R iver w hich starts at a ridge o f m ountains, th e eastern side o f w h ich is the h ead w aters o f the Jam es River. M ary Pedley, in Bel et U tile , points o u t th at the O hio R iver in state tw o is depicted in a m anner sim ilar to that on a m anuscript m ap from th e D ep o t de la M arine, titled C our de I Ohio. She includes illustrations o f b o th m aps in h e r b o o k .26 T h e m anuscript m ap p resen ts the K anaw ha / N ew River ju s t like Fry / Jefferson and even im plies th at it flow s from the south b e y o n d the scope o f the m ap. A lthough V augondy s published m ap ‘C arte des P a y s C onnus sous le nom d e C anada’ state tw o shows and nam es la Riv. N euve, it chooses n o t to show th e riv e r penetrating the m ountains to the south. I think it is significant that in late 1754 to early 1755, w h e n the w ar w as ig n iting on the A m erican frontier b u t n o t y et jo in e d in E urope, th at th e F rench chose n o t to show the geography w hich w ould help substantiate E ngland s claim o f prior d iscovery o f w e stern w aters. W ithin m onths o f the publication o f M itch ell’s m ap, D ’A nville and V augondy b o th pro d u ced m aps w hich essentially m irrored M itchell south o f the G reat L ak es an d east o f the M ississippi. F rom a political standpoint it is a b it surprising th at th ey so read ily accepted a riv er from th e south through the m ountains into the M ississippi system w h ich co u ld o n ly strengthen B ritish claim s to the O hio region. H ow ever, by m id -1755 the fat w as in the fire, the struggle fo r the forks o f the O hio w as over, Fort N ecessity surrendered to the French, and w a r w as inevitable. T he m ap b y D id ier R obert Vaugondy titled P artie D e VA m érique Septentrionale, q u i co m p ren d L e C ours D e l ’O hio, 1755, is an excellent reduced v ersion o f the central portion o f M itc h e ll’s m ap w h ic h includes a great deal o f detail. D ’A nville published a four-sheet m ap in N ovem ber 1755 titled Canada, L o uisiane e t Terres A ngloises which follows M itchell south o f the Ohio. It includes the loop in the N ew River dow nstream o f the Greenbrier and shows ‘W alkers Settlem ent.’ The stream s entering th e N e w R iver in S outhw est V irginia are show n w ith the E nglish nam es translated into French, e.g. ‘Petite R ’ for Little R iver an d ‘Pic C riq for Peak Creek. A lso, L ittle R iver is m isplaced as o n M itc h e ll’s m ap. (Figure 10 show s a p o rtio n o f the south­ w est sheet o f this D ’A nville m ap.) A s m entioned earlier, D ’A nville also u p d a te d his A m é riq u e Septentrionale d ated 1746 ju s t before publishing the above 1755 m ap. T he revision p ro b ab ly w as m ad e in m id-1754, certainly after A pril o f that year, because Fort D uQ uesne is show n, b u t p erh ap s b e fo re July 1754, since it does n o t show Fort Necessity. T he m ap is draw n on a larger scale th an the 1755 m ap, so only a few stream s entering the N ew R iver are show n an d only the G reenbrier R iver is n am ed. O n b o th m aps, the low er (northern­ m ost) stretch o f the K anaw ha / N ew R iver flow s alm ost due no rth into the O hio. T his earlier m ap, how ever, does n o t include the great loop n o r does it show W alkers S ettlem ent along the C um berland River. D ’A nville probably u sed Fry / Jefferso n ’s State 1, w h ich w as then ju s t recen tly published, in revising his A m érique Septentrionale. G erm an m aps o f A m erica published at th is tim e w ere favorable either to the E nglish or to the French depending on w hose cartography they copied. O ne example, a sm all m ap b y Johann George Schreiber, which he added to his A tlas Selectus, is titled C arte von dem E ngellaendishen u.Franzoesischen Besitzungen in N ord America. This m ap shows the area betw een the A llegheny M ountains and the M ississippi River to be in M aps ~ 3 3 �■ H B ib lie o th e <lue N ationale du Q uebec, D ocum ents C artographiques, lists the publication date o f this m ap as ca. 1756. H ow ever, there are indications that it w as pro d u ced before 1755. The m ap seem s to b e b a se d on M itch ell’s m ap as ev id en ced b y the shape o f Lake Erie, the rendition o f the O hio River, th e in clu sio n o f W alkers (spelled W alks), and the shape o f the K anaw ha / N ew River. H ow ever, it also sh o w s m o st F rench forts such as F orts Presque Isle and Le B o e u f on and n ear Lake n e th a t w ere b u ilt m 1753, but not Fort D uQ uesne o r Fort Necessity. T here is such detail throughout e m ap that it seem s im probable that F ort D uQ uesne w ould be left out i f it existed (see Figure 12) H H B B M itch ell sm a p . the map before April 1754 and imP]y tha* Schreiber had access to an early draft o f T he years after 1755 see a proliferation o f m aps covering the A m erican frontier based m ainly on M itchell E v an s a n d D 'A n v ille . T he accuracy o f the p resentation o f the geography o f the region did n o t im prove m uch until a fter the tu rn o f the 19» century. Table I lists som e other m aps published d u ring the French an d In d ian W ar w h ic h show w estern V irginia. T his is n o t intended to be a com prehensive list b u t a rep resen tatio n o f th e explosion o f new m aterial. In conclusion, it does n o t appear that any m ap p u b lish e d p rio r to the F ry / Jefferson M ap o f V irginia show s the K a n a w h a / N e w R iver com ing through th e m ountains from the south; yet the F rench should h av e h a d such in fo rm a tio n to use i f th ey so desired. In 1742 John H ow ard, Peter S alley and three others, w ith the p e rm issio n o f the V irginia C ouncil, set o ff to m ake ‘discoveries tow ard the R iver M ississippi. T h e y actu ally w ent p art w ay by boat d o w n the K anaw ha / N ew R iver to the O hio an d on to th e M ississippi. T h ey h a d traveled w ell dow n th at riv e r w hen they w ere captured and taken p riso n ­ ers b y the F rench. A fte r b ein g interrogated b y the S ieur de Bienville, then G overnor o f L ouisiana in N e w O rleans, th e y w ere th row n into prison. Two y ears later Salley escaped and eventually returned to I j g F ry a n d Jefferson used his inform ation in p rep arin g their first m ap. T he French m ost likely h a d th is sam e in fo rm a tio n in 1742, but chose n ot to use it, or at least not to publish it. 34 ~ M a p s �NOTES 1 Reuben G. Thwaites, France in America 1497-1763. p. 150-51. 2 British Library Manuscript Room, A Journal from Virginia Beyond the Apallachian Mountains in Sept. 1671; Presented to the Royal Society by Mr. Clayton; read Aug. 1,1688 before the said Society. Also quoted in Lewis Preston Summers, Annals o f Southwest Virginia. Vol. I., p. 1-7. 3 Johnson, Patricia Givens, The New River Early Settlement. Chapter 11, p. 23. 4 Emerson D. Fite & Archibald Freeman, A Book o f Old Maps, p. 178. 5 Eduard Van Ermen, The United States in Old Maps and Prints, p. 56-57. 6 Lawrence Henry Gipson, The British Empire before the American Revolution. Vol. IV, p. 170, continuation of Note 61. 7 M y search for a first state o f the D ’Anville 1746 map, Amerique Septentrionale has resulted only in copies identical to mine as follows: British Library — 5 copies, Royal Geographical Society 2 copieNew York Public Library — 4 copies, Library of Congress - 8 5 copies, University of North Carolina 2 copi A.private communication to the author from Francis Herbert, Royal Geographical Society, Curator o f Maps includes copies of card catalog listings o f the D ’Anville map in the archives of the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris which indicate at least ten copies and suggests that at least one or two may be of the first state. 8 C.E. Heidenreich & E. H. Dahl, ‘The French Mapping of North America 1700-1760’. The Map Collector, Issue No. 19, June 1982, p.5, first paragraph. 9 For an interesting presentation o f Captain Celeron’s mission see Allen W. Eckert, Wilderness Empire, p. 115142. 10 W. P. Gum m ing, The Southeast in Early Mans. April 1973 Impression, p. 229, col. 1. 11 Mary B. Kegley & F. B. Kegley, Early Adventures on the Western Waters. Vol.l, p. 9. 12 E. M. Sanchez-Saavedra, Description o f the Country. Virginia’s Cartographers and Their Maps 1607 —1 M L p. 30 — 31. 13 W. P. Gumming, The Southeast in Early Mans. Plates 57 &58, compares states 1 and 2 in Southwest Virginia. 14 Lloyd A. Brown, Early Mans o f the Ohio Valley, p. 87-88 and Map 16. 15 L. A. Brown, p. 92. 16 David C. Jolly, Maps in British Periodicals. Part 1, p. 105. 17 L. A. Brown, p. 91-92, and Map 19. 18 D. C. Jolly, Part 1, p.57. It should be noted, as Jolly points out, that Cumming in The Southeast in Early Maps, item 272 misdates this map as 1749. This error is not corrected in the Third Edition published in 1998. 19 Fite and Freeman, p. 182, col.l. 20 W. P. Cumming, S. Hillier, D. B. Quinn, G. Williams, The Exploration of North America 1630-1776, p. 138, col.l. 21 L. A. Brown, p. 111 — 13 and Map 41. 22 Seymour I. Schwartz & Ralph E. Ehrenberg, The Mapping of America. Plate 92. P. 158 shows the first state o f the Fry / Jefferson Map o f Virginia. 23 W. P. Cumming, et al, Illustration 93, p. 65 is a good example o f an early edition o f Evans’ map. 24 P. J. Radford, Catalogue, Americana No. 18. p. 6, Item 39. 26 Mary Sponberg Pedley, Bel et Utile, p. 70 — 73. 27 W. P. Cum m ing, et al, p. 118 — 19 and 136 — 137. 28 Library o f Congress Geography and Map Div. Washington DC. Call No. G3300 1750 .S3 Vault. From http:/ /lcweb2.1oc.gov/cgi-bin 29 Since both Fort DuQuesne & Walker’s Settlement are shown, probably the Ohio region is from Mitchell. 30 E. D. Fite & A. Freeman, p. 186. /Maps ~ 3 5 �^Che G r a f t R e v iv a l in A p p a la ch ia : 1 8 9 6 -1 9 3 7 b y A n n a Jan ello Movers & Makers: Doris Ulmann’s Portrait o f the Craft Revival in Appalachia w as sh o w n a t th e H is to r y M u seu m a n d H isto rica l S o c ie ty o f W estern Virginia fr o m A u g u s t 1, 2003 u n til F eb ru a ry 1, 2004. The exh ib itio n w as su p p o rte d by g ra n ts fro m the Virginia F o u n d a tio n f o r th e H u m a n ities a n d the Virginia C om m ission f o r the A rts. T his e ssa y is an excerpt fr o m a fo rty -p a g e catalog that in clu d es g u e s t e ssa y s by R ich a rd K urin, D irecto r o f the Sm ithsonian C en ter f o r F o lk life a n d C ultural H erita g e a n d Jea n H askell, C o -ed ito r o f the fo r th ­ com in g E ncyclopedia o f A ppalachia, a s w e ll a s a n u m b er o f D o ris Ulmann ph o to g ra p h s, a n d a c o m p le te c h e ck list o f the exhibition. The ca ta lo g is a va ila b le fr o m th e H isto ry M u seu m g ift shop. Movers & Makers: Doris Ulmann’s Portrait o f the Craft Revival in Appalachia w as th e re su lt o f research into a revival that to o k p la c e in the late 19th a n d e a rly 2 0 th centuries in southw estern Virginia, w estern N o rth C arolina, a n d the eastern p o rtio n s o f K e n tu cky a n d Tennessee. C u ra to r A n n a F ariello, a fo r m e r Sm ithsonian research fe llo w , u se d m aterials a n d docum ents in the collections o f the S m ith so n ia n A m erica n A r t M useum , the A rch ives o f A m e ric a n A rt, th e Sm ithsonian A m erica n H isto ry M useum , a n d re g io n a l c ra ft sc h o o ls to p ie c e together the b ro a d sto ry o f cra ftsm en a n d re viv a l advocates. L en d ers to the exhibition in clu d e d B erea C ollege in K e n tu c ky a n d th e Jo h n C. C a m p b ell F o lk S c h o o l in N orth Carolina. F a riello also se le c te d w o r k fr o m lo c a l collectors a n d the H isto ry M u s e u m ’s ow n co llection to a u g m e n t th e exhibi­ tion. O bjects on display fr o m the H isto ry M u s e u m ’s collection in cluded a loom a n d sp in n in g w heel, a f a c e j u g a n d p re se n ta ­ tion clay p o t, a q u ilt m ade fr o m f e e d s a c k m aterial, a n d a zither. Tw enty-four o f the a r tis t’s p h o to g ra p h s w ere se le c te d to create a co llective p o r tr a it o f the revival, d e fin in g the m o v e m e n t’s sc o p e a n d revea lin g its m otivation. Anna Fariello ow ns Curatorial InSight, a consulting fir m providing research, developm ent and curato­ rial services to non-profits and private collectors. She wrote the article “What do we Leave B ehind?”fo r Volume Fifteen, N um ber One, o f the History Museum and Historical Society Journal in 2002. 36 �A revival o f craft — or handicraft as it w as called at th e tim e — sw ep t o v er the A ppalachian m ountain region at the end o f the 19th century and w e ll in to the 20th. T he revival w as p a rt o f X A . a ren ew ed w orldw ide interest in things m ade b y hand. In the m id d le o f the 19th century, w hile the E nglish Industrial R evolution w as in full sw ing, people b e g a n to n o tice th at the objects m ad e b y n ew technologies— cast iron in place o f w rought o r h am m ered iron, fo r exam ple— w ere in ferio r to th o se m ade b y traditional m ethods. A nother concern w as design; n ew tech n o lo g ies allow ed th in g s to be produced rapidly w ith little thought to their function. Finally, an d p e rh a p s m ost im portantly, the division o f labor, sw eatshop conditions, and exploitation o f ch ild ren th a t characterized m uch o f the industrial environm ent robbed w orkers o f the pleasure o f th e ir w ork. John R uskin, a professor at O xford C ollege in E ngland, b e g a n to ad d ress these concerns in his w riting and lectures. W ithin his lifetim e, his books w ere re a d w o rld w id e a n d translated into several languages. R uskin’s w riting w as so often quoted that his w o rd s ap p ear like stock phrases in revival literature; h e a d and hand, dignity o f labor, and arts a n d cra fts are c o m m o n to the period. W illiam M orris, a fellow Englishm an and follow er o f Ruskin, w ould likew ise b eco m e a household nam e th rough his decidedly political w riting. H is essay “U seful W ork vs. U seless T oil” w as an indictm ent o f th o se w ho profited from the labor o f others. R uskin and M orris, w h o se n am es o fte n appear conjoined, w ere unceasing advocates for good design and craftsm anship. W illiam M o rris d ied in 1896, the y e a r in w h ich the first A m erican A rts a n d Crafts Societies w ere form ed. In A p p alachia, that sam e year w as punctuated b y events that w ould shape the region as B erea C o llege w o u ld b eg in to h o ld its annual H om espun Fairs, prom oting the idea that hom e-spun an d h a n d -m a d e w ere w o rth y o f interest and study. L ike m any w ho orchestrated the A ppalachian craft revival, D oris U lm an n (1882-1934) w as b o m outside thé region to a fam ily o f m eans. T he daughter o f a p ro m in e n t Je w ish textile industrialist a n d raise d in N ew York C ity’s fashionable U pper W est Side, U lm an n a tten d ed C olum bia U niversity a n d the C larence W hite School o f Photography. She w as am ong the fo u n d in g m em bers o f the P ictorial P hotographers o f A m erica, a group that attem pted to m ak e p ictu res th at w ere expressive, artistic, and beautiful. T hrough her interest in the Ethical C ulture Society, w h ic h a d v o cated that cultural difference can contribute to a dem ocratic society, U lm ann beg an lo o k in g at h e r photographic subjects n o t as individuals, b u t as m ore universal cultural types. U lm an n ’s ea rlie st subjects w ere those w ho shared h er w orld; she invited w ell-know n w riters to sit for h er in h e r M an h attan apartm ent. You se le c t y o u r own chair... [a n d p o se ] with o r w ith o u t p ip e, cigarette, ukulele, o r vol­ um e o f the E ncyclopedia... Ulmann w ould sa y that these th in g s are o ffered to “draw y o u out. ” S h e studies y o u r hands as y o u p a ss h e r a p la te o f cakes, o b serves which le g y o u cross o ver the other... tells y o u a fu n n y sto ry to m a ke y o u laugh, a n d another n o t so fu n n y to see i f y o u are easily reduced to tears.1 In Virginia Ulm ann photographed authors Ellen Glasgow (who asked that she destroy the pictures) and Sherwood A nderson in rural Troutdale. B ut m ore and m ore, she p h o tographed w h at she called vanishing types. A n early series w as m ade o f esoteric religious sects: Shakers and M ennonites in Pennsylvania and D unkards (G erm an Baptists) in the Shenandoah Valley o f Virginia. In the late 1920s U lm ann traveled to rural K entucky w here she photographed m ountain families and to coastal South C arolina w here she turned her cam era on the A frican A m erican G ullah people. A lthough she w orked on the cusp o f the m o d em age, U lm a n n ’s pho to g rap h ic m ethod b elo n g ed to the 19th rather than the 20th century. She used a heav y 6 1/2" x 8 1/2" v iew cam era th at req u ired a cum bersom e setup. U sing a soft-focus lens, U lm ann u sed n o lig h t m eter. Instead, she rem o v ed the lens cap to allow light to reach the film. E xposures w ere m ad e o n glass plates, producing full-sized photographic im pressions that w ere then printed on p latin u m paper. A lth o u g h expensive, platin u m allo w ed for a subtle range o f grays, resulting in a w ide tonal p alette. D u rin g h e r lifetim e D oris U lm ann G rafts ~ 3? ��created p o rtra it po rtfo lio s o f m edical doctors (1919 and 1922), editors (1925), and A frican A m ericans in the volum e R oll, Jordan, R o ll (1933). F o r the m ost part, her A ppalachian portraits w ere p u blished p osthum ously w ith m any p rinted from som e o f the 10,000 glass plates left at h er death in 1934. In 1937 fifty -eig h t o f U lm an n ’s A ppalachian im ages w ere published in H andicrafts o f the Southern H ig h ­ lands, a su rv e y o f the craft revival in A ppalachia. In the 1920s U lm an n w as asked, first by the Southern W om an’s E ducational A lliance o f R ichm ond and later b y a u th o r A llen E aton, to photograph A ppalachian craftsm en. She w orked in eastern K en ­ tucky, so u th w e ste rn V irginia, and w estern N o rth Carolina. The photographer ventured out from h e r Park A venue a p artm en t in a large L incoln driven b y a G erm an chauffeur. W ith equipm ent in the tru n k and m ap in h a n d , th ey often left on extended photographic tours at m idnight. She som etim es p ro cessed photographic p la te s in hotel bathroom s, renting out an extra room for that purpose. M ost o f th e p h o tographs in M overs & M akers: D oris U lm ann’s P ortra it o f the C raft R eviva l in A ppalachia w e re m ade in the last tw o years o f the artist’s life. W ith frail health exacerbated by ch ain sm oking a n d a p o o r diet, 1933 and 1934 w ere spent on the road, punctuated by shorter and shorter stays in M anhattan w h e re she w ould develop pictures, recoup and repack, before heading out again. O n about the 10th o f A p ril (1934) the 7th Ulmann N iles F o lk Lore P hotographic E xpedition w ill se t out. With cars a n d tra ilers a n d cam eras a n d notebooks, w rote assistant John Jacob N iles.2 U lm ann a p ­ proached h e r p o rtra itu re o f craft m akers and m ovem ent leaders in m uch the sam e way. She p o sed each w ith som e ta n g ib le sym bol o f the sitter’s role. R evival m ovem ent leaders w ere o ften p osed w ith books, m ak ers w ith the tools o f their trade. M any such m overs recorded their lives in p u blished m em ­ oirs detailing th e ir activities and work. In contrast, m ost m a kers’ w ritten records are few ; som e nam es are know n, b u t m an y are not. Instead, they left a w ealth o f physical records in the form o f baskets, coverlets, a n d carvings. The A p p a la ch ia n C raft R evival took place at the intersection o f four key states, covering the m o u n ­ tain counties o f N o rth C arolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia. From the late 1900s into the early 20th century, a n entire com m unity o f m ountain w orkers criss-crossed geographic lines, w orking to ­ gether to b rin g th e handm ade products o f A ppalachia to national m arkets. The question o f w h y A p p a­ lachia m ight first b e asked as W hat A ppalachia? because the concept o f A ppalachia as a distinct region o f the U n ited S tates had n o t yet b een bom . It w as at a tea c h e rs convention in 1895 th at B erea College president, W illiam G oodell F rost (18541938) a n n o u n c ed the discovery o f a new w orld...H ave y o u ever heard o f A ppalachian A m erica? he asked. U sing th e term A ppalachian A m erica in his frequent fundraising speeches, Frost defined the g eo ­ graphic en tity as a new g ra n d division...a m ountainous backyard...extendingfrom the line o f P en n sylva ­ nia to the iron h ills o f B irm ingham .3 C uriously, F ro st’s geography coincides closely w ith the official definition o f A p p a la ch ia used b y the U.S. A ppalachian R egional C om m ission today. D uring their first sum m er in K entucky, W illiam and E leanor M arsh Frost traveled through the counties surrounding B erea C o llege to m eet local fam ilies. T hey w ere soon im pressed w ith the handw ork th ey saw, in particular, th e w o v e n coverlets m ade by local w om en. The Frosts acquired several to d isplay during college fu n d ra isin g activities and to sell to supporters directly. B ut the coverlet cam e to serve a broader, less tangible, p u rp o se . Sym bolically, it w as evidence that the A ppalachian people— m alig n ed in sensa­ tionalized p re s s accounts an d p opular novels b u ilt on stereotypes— w ere capable o f reform through education a n d direction. B erea C ollege developed tw in program s. In its on-cam pus Fireside Industries program stu d en ts w orked to offset their tuition; o ff cam pus, the college began a program o f outsourcing w eaving to lo c a l w om en. B oth approaches becam e m odels for others that w ould follow in th eir w ake. M issionaries h a d been in the region early in the 19th century, and b y the 1890s, they w o u ld b e jo in e d b y other secular, philanthropic, and educational groups doing m ountain work. S uch w ork cam e to C ra fts ~ 3 9 �Young carver (name, dates unknown), Brasstown, N.C.; Identified as both Quenton Clayton and Quinton Donaldson (c. 1923, unknown) Doris Ulmann portrait, 1923 Collection o f John C. Campbell Folk School 4 0 ~ C ra fts �target education, since rural com m unities had few, i f any, schools. W here sch o o ls w ere operational, the school ye a r seldom w ent beyond a few m onths. A 1921 pub licatio n lists alm o st 200 such schools in the region, o n ly fourteen o f w hich are listed as independent o f a religious d enom ination. C lose to one third o f the denom inational schools w ere Presbyterian.4 In 1897 the W om en’s H o m e M issio n o f the M eth ­ odist E piscopal C hurch began to discuss m ountain w ork in th eir publications, u rg in g the establishm ent o f m anual training and industrial schools in their section o f V irginia. In th e coal counties further southw est, a H andicraft G uild w as established by the P rotestant E piscopal C hurch. N earby, in the B anner com m unity o f C oebum ju st over the county line in W ise County, D oris U lm an n m ade a picture study o f a w o o d carver. W hile U lm ann usually m ade portraits, h e r im age o f N ic o d e m u s D em on A dam s focused o n the craftsm an’s w ork, show ing only his hands. O ne ty p e o f independent school w as the settlem ent w hich, in A m erica, w a s a type o f college out­ reach or service-learning program . N ationw ide, the grow th o f settlem ent schools w as exponential. In the last decade o f the 19th century, there w ere six settlem ents in A m erica; b y 1910 there w ere 400. Settlem ent schools w ere independent o f organized religion and, for the m o st p a rt, w ere independent o f one another. T he settlem ent m ovem ent in A m erican grew from a n u m b er o f d iverse influences that coalesced at the turn o f the 20th century. Its prototype w as the E nglish T oynbee H all, established in 1884, as a fraternity o f college students w ho lived and w o rk ed in L o n d o n ’s slum s to show their solidar­ ity w ith th e w orking class. F rom the point o f view o f the m ountain student, there w as little d ifference b etw een a m ission school and a settlem en t school. The difference betw een the tw o lay in th eir m an ag em en t and intention. W hile the o v ert purpose o f a m ission school w as to teach, its im plied in te n tio n w as to add to its de­ nom inational rolls. Likew ise, settlem ent schools attem pted a conversion o f sorts b y introducing m iddleclass values to the poor. Paradoxically, settlem ent schools som etim es tau g h t th in g s like table setting to those w ho h a d little o r nothing w ith w hich to fill a table. Settlem ents w ere n o t com pletely divorced from religious interpretation; on the contrary, their w ork w a s b ased on the Social G ospel, a m ovem ent that applied religious theory to social activism . In A m erica the settlem ent m ovem ent w as prim arily a w o m e n ’s m ovem ent. A s such, it w as influ­ enced b y the current place o f w om en in society, especially co llege-educated w om en. U p th rough the late 19th century, higher education for w om en w as lim ited b y issues o f propriety. W hile future settle­ m ent lead er Jane A ddam s w as attending R ockford C ollege, fo r exam ple, w o m e n w ere not allo w ed to speak in pu b lic; their ow n com m encem ent speeches w ere rea d b y m en .5 A fte r graduation, w om en found th em selves closed out o f m any professional occupations. Som e o f the m o re adventurous am ong them struck o ut on their ow n, leaving the com forts o f their upbringing to s e ttle am o n g p oorer peoples, and m aking professionally rew arding w ork for them selves. In 1899 Jane A d d am s founded H ull H ouse, a C hicago settlem ent that cam e to serve as a training ground for others th a t fo llo w ed in its w ake. H ull H ouse p ro v id e d am enities to the local com m unity, including reading circles a n d m o th er’s clubs, as w ell as p o litical advocacy for child labor regulation, equal rights legislation, a n d suffrage. A L abor M useum ex h ib ited handw ork and craft instruction w as p ro v id ed in m etalw ork, pottery, w eaving, and w ood carving. In p e rio d w riting, there is m ention o f a social settlem ent established in A p p alach ia as early as 1894, but the settlem ent w ith a m ore lasting im pact on the reg io n w as the H in d m an S ettlem ent School in eastern K entucky. In 1900, w ith support from the W om en’s C hristian T em perance U nion, K atherine Pettit and M ay Stone pitched a tent village on a high b lu ff above the to w n o f H in d m an and called it Camp Industrial. Sixty-seven people cam e for m orning co o k in g classes a n d m o re th an one hundred, including thirty-five boys, for afternoon sew ing. So successful w as th eir settlem en t cam p that, a t the end o f the sum m er, nearly 350 people show ed up to b id the w om en good-bye. H indm an, like B erea C ra fts ~ 41 �Fireside Industries students (names, dates unkown) Berea College unknown photographer, c. 1900; Collection o f Berea College Archive C ollege, n o t only tau g h t crafts on its c a m p u s, b u t also serv ed as a b ro k er fo r lo cal craftsm en, providing an o u tle t for local b a sk et m akers, w e a v e rs, c h a ir a n d b ro o m m akers. T h ro u g h o u t A ppalachia, as m is­ sion, settlem ent, an d in dependent sc h o o ls w e re estab lish ed , handcraft w a s ad d ed to their curricula. C raft in struction served m ultiple p u rp o se s: as a focus fo r p reservation a n d ex ten sio n o f local culture; as a m eans o f enhancing econom ic o p p o rtu n ity ; a n d as a tra in in g m ethod a im e d at b uilding discipline and character developm ent. O f all the craft p ro cesses p ro m o te d d u rin g the rev iv a l, w eaving w as th e m o st w idespread. U pon seeing a local coverlet fo r the first tim e, sev eral m o u n ta in w orkers rec o rd e d a sim ilar response. The b eau ty o f the coverlet as a m aterial fo rm a n d v isu al p a tte rn im m ediately im p ressed them . Som e b e ­ cam e collectors and som e w ere in sp ired to le a rn h o w a coverlet w as m ade. T heir interest resulted in m ore d eveloped educational, com m ercial, a n d c h aritab le program s in w h ic h m o u n tain w eaving played a central role. W eaving w as a traditional skill fo u n d in m o st A m e ric an households u ntil th e end o f the 18th century. 4 2 ~ C ra fts �One o f the first hom e industries to becom e fully industrialized, in the N o rth , m ill tow ns grew into huge textile production centers, like L ow ell, M assachusetts. In the South, m ills w ere established w here there w ere enough peo p le to pro v id e a sufficient labor force, w h ich m ean t their location favored the low lands rather than the m ountains. Factory-m ade coverlets w ere p ro d u ced on w ide industrial loom s and w oven in a single piece. Typically, hom e loom s w ere only fo rty-four inches w ide, so to m ake a full bed cover, a w eaver h ad to p iece tw o lengths together, creating a seam d o w n the m iddle o f the coverlet. Before the revival, especially am ong fam ilies w hose coverlets w ere m ade prim arily for warm th, m atching the central seam w as n o t an issue. D uring the revival, how ever, h av in g the coverlet h it the seam w as considered a sign o f good craftsm anship. In A ppalachia, the differences betw een cottage and com m ercial p roduction centers w ere not dis­ tinct. C ottage industries w ere estab lish ed at educational institutions, like B erea’s Fireside Industries and the m any A frican A m erican industrial institutes throughout the South. C raft program s w ere part o f settlem ent schools, like H indm an a n d Pine M ountain in K entucky a n d the Pi B eta Phi Settlem ent School in Tennessee; and at m ission-affiliated program s, like A llan stan d C ottage Industries and the Penland School o f H andicrafts in N o rth Carolina; St. Jo h n ’s-in-the-M ountains, the B lue R idge Indus­ trial School and the B ear M ountain M ission in Virginia. Independent schools, like the John C. C am pbell Folk School in N orth C arolina and the Tallula Falls Industrial School an d B erry School in G eorgia, em braced handw ork as w ell. Coverlets w ere also pro d u ced com m ercially in sm all-scale shops. C om m ercial production centers included individualized shops selling in-hom e piecew ork, at the S pinning W heel and B iltm ore Indus­ tries in N orth C arolina, M atheny W eavers in K entucky, S huttle-C rafters in Tennessee, the W eavers o f R abun in G eorgia, and R osem ont Industries in Virginia. N ot restricted to w om en and girls, B erea’s M ountain W eaver B oys w as a p ro g ram that produced high quality clo th for m en ’s w are, rather than traditional A ppalachian-style textiles. A few com m ercial w eaving operations, such as C hurchill W eav­ ers, w ere p artially autom ated, b u t m an y processes rem ained essentially h an d operations. O n the practical side, w eaving w as p o p u lar during the revival b ecau se it w as so easily transportable. O ther handm ade objects— po ttery an d m etalw ork, in particular— w ere breakable and heavy. B askets, although bulky, w ere lightw eight an d th eir m aterials w ere inexpensive and abundant. W oodcarving w as encouraged, but favored a sm all-scale. C arving program s w ere established at tw o schools in particular: at the P leasant H ill A cad em y in Tennessee and the John C. C am pbell Folk School in N orth C arolina. B oth b ask et m aking and w oodcarving w ere produced b y C herokee craftsm en on the fringe o f the G reat Sm oky M ountains N atio n al Park. In recognition o f the im portance o f their cultural tradi­ tions, the C herokee b eg an ho ld in g annual craft celebrations. A s to u rism in the p ark grew, their w ork increasingly w as m arketed to p a rk visitors. W hen com parisons w ere m ad e b etw een hand m ade objects and the industrially produced products that appeared to b e replacing them , preservationists h eld that the ha n dm ade p ro d u ct [was] not a su b sti­ tute ¡for store-bought p ro d u c ts,] b u t an archetype.6 A s such, the cov erlet w as considered to be an icon o f individual an d original expression, a piece o f pure A m erican culture. Further, the know ledge and skills required for h an d craft w ere considered to be a b inding cultural force, one that provided continu­ ity in a century m arked b y change. T extured and colorful, coverlets w ere exported from the region to urban centers in the E ast and N ortheast. Ideas w ere exported as w ell; the coverlet becam e a tangible sym bol o f tradition, preservation, sim plicity, nature, and m orality. T hus, handw ork w as linked w ith character, using m aterial culture to d efen d the inherent goodness o f m o u n tain people. The craftsm an w ho m ade a coverlet w as n o t o n ly cred ited w ith skill, b u t also w ith d esired personal characteristics. A B o o k o f H and-W oven C overlets (1925) expressed som e o f the ideas th at m ade A ppalachian w eaving popular outside the region. A p o etic passage explains how tradition w as transm itted from one genera- G rafts ~ 43 �tio n to the next. T he oldest w eaver recalled, “M y m other sp u n a n d wove it; ” A n d the m iddle aged: “M y gra n d m o th er wove it; ” A n d th e young... [w ill] whisper: “This is m y g re a t g ra n d m o th e r’s coverlet. ”7 In spite o f a proliferation o f h an d icraft activity under the direction o f m ountain w orkers, som e d id n o t rea lly u n d erstan d the com plexity o f m aking sim ple objects. W hen W illiam Frost attem p ted to o rd er a large n u m b e r o f coverlets to sell to college patrons, a local w eaver replied, P resident, in order to m ake so m any kivers, w e w ill have to raise m ore sheep, sh ea r them , p i c k a n d wash the wool, ca rd a n d spin it, then collect the b a rk and sich to co lo r it. Then w e w ill have to have the loom all s e t up, f i x the warp a n d beam it, then g e t a d ra ft a n d th re a d the w arp f o r the p a tte rn w e w a n t then tie up the loom. I t w ill take nigh on to a y e a r o r m ore afore w e can have that m a n y kivers w ove.8 O n the surface, Appalachian crafts w ere prom oted and sold for a pragm atic reason: to put m oney into the pockets o f people farm ing harsh m ountain ground. But other, less direct, factors influenced the revival as w ell. A t the end o f the 19thcentury, A m erica w as undergoing a national identity crisis. D id A m erica h av e a culture o f its ow n? W ould the growing influx o f immigrants help in the formation o f a national culture or w ould such g ro w th dilute it? C raft revival leaders appeared to propose th at the nation reconsider handw ork. H ere— in linsey-w oolsey coverlets, in w hite oak baskets, in hand-carved anim als, and patchw ork quilts— w e m ig h t, at last, find a true A m erican style. We are fo u n d e d as a nation o f fa rm e rs, w rote T heodore R oosevelt in defense o f a rural natio n al identity. B y th e tu rn o f the century, the rural pro b lem had becom e a national conversation, tak in g p lac e in ev e ry p a rt o f the country, from the M idw est to N ew E ngland to the A m erican South. T he o u t m igration o f farm ers to urban factories w as thought to threaten the very fabric o f A m erican life. T hrough­ o u t th e 19th century, the concrete differences em erging betw een rural and urban sections o f the co u n try w id e n e d the g u lf betw een agricultural an d industrial lifestyles. W hile electricity w as changing the w a y u rb a n A m e ric a lived, rural A m erica retain ed its ties to natural cycles o f daylight and seasons. W h en the auto m o b ile w as b eginning to have an effect on transportation, it rem ained im practical for rough terrain and, m o re so, o n lan d w ithout roads. In 1908 P resident Theodore R oosevelt convened the C ountry L ife C o m m issio n to exam ine solutions to m aking rural life attractive. W hile the C om m ission dealt w ith specific issues, som e o f w hich w ere controversial such as school consolidation, it also sp aw n ed a p o p u la r m o v em e n t and nationw ide in terest in rural living. That m ovem ent w as know n as both s im p le life a n d co u n try life. The form er term cam e from a b o o k o f the sam e nam e published in 1901, the latte r sp aw n ed a n atio n al organization an d m ag azin e.10 In 1933 the A m erican C ountry L ife A ssociation held its annual national convention in B lacksburg, V irginia and, w ith it, w as launched M o untain H andicrafts, the first-ever nationally circulating e x h ib i­ tio n o f S o u th ern handicrafts. A llen E ato n (1878-1962) organized the exhibition. E aton h ad d ev elo p ed a n atio n al rep u ta tio n for his exhibitions an d w riting on handcraft; b y 1917, he w as creating ex h ibitions fo r th e A m erican Federation o f A rts a n d the R ussell Sage Foundation in N ew Y ork City. W h en h is e x h i b i t i o n e r s a n d Crafts o f the H o m ela n d s traveled to Buffalo in 1919, 50,000 people cam e to see it. H is b o o k Im m ig ra n t Gifts to A m erica n L ife focused on the contributions m ade b y im m igrants to the ric h cu ltu re o f A m erican life. In 1926 E aton w as invited by O live D am e C am pbell, founder and d ire c ­ to r o f the C am pbell Folk School, to sp eak at the annual Conference o f Southern M ountain W orkers in K n o x v ille, Tennessee. From that initial introduction to craft revival leaders in 1926, E ato n dev elo p ed lastin g frien d sh ip s an d becam e a spokesm an for regional handcraft. W ~ C ra fts �In 1933 E a to n installed over 500 w orks o f A ppalachian handcraft in V irginia P olytechnic In stitu te ’s M em orial G ym nasium . W ork subm itted from Kentucky, N orth C arolina, Tennessee, and V irginia in ­ clu d ed w eaving, quilts, hoo k ed rugs, baskets, broom s, w oodw ork, and toys. The C herokee n atio n w as represented b y baskets an d b ead w o rk and b y m ore culturally specific form s, such as bow s, arrow s, g ourd rattles, a n d racquetball sticks. B ecause ironw ork w as too heavy and po ttery too fragile, th ey w ere not p art o f the exhibition. O n view w ere fifty D oris U lm ann prints and 128 reproductions o f p ain tin g s depicting scenes o f rural life. E xhibition guests give som e indication o f the im portance o f the event, for am o n g the dignitaries arriving in B lacksburg w ere the Secretary o f A griculture, the p resid e n t o f th e A m erican Federation o f A rts, and the chair o f the Tennessee Valley A uthority. E aton’s o p en in g rem arks, on A u gust 3rd, 1933, w ere later broadcast nationally on radio. Such an exhibition o f regional arts w as unprecedented and, in fact, an exhibition o f A ppalachian craft on this scale has not ap p eared on the national stage since th at tim e. Influenced b y R uskin and M orris, E aton’s interest in art w as dem ocratic, rath er than ratified , a p o sitio n he shared w ith the tw o earlier thinkers. They believed th at art should, and could, b eco m e a p e o p le ’s art w ith o u t sacrificing quality. A ll three endorsed e ducation program s that w o u ld reach large nu m b ers o f people: design ed u cation for w orkers in industry, m anual education fo r school children, a n d technical education for craft professionals. M oreover, i f any nation em braced such ed ucational efforts, then a rt w ould spill o ut into the everyday life o f its citizens. R uskin, M orris, and E aton e n v i­ sioned a w o rld bathed in beauty, a w orld reform ed. G oing one step further, E aton included the th e ra ­ p eu tic value o f art and art m aking, thus, contributing to the developm ent o f occupational therapy. B u t the repercussions o f this approach w ere devastating for professional craftsm en. T he typical a rts a n d crafts object cam e to be associated alm ost exclusively w ith am ateurism . N o t tw o w eek s after A llen E aton m ounted the M ountain H andicrafts exhibition on the cam pus o f V irginia Tech, the third annual W hite Top m usic festival w as held less than 100 m iles away, in w h a t is n o w the M ou n t R ogers N ational R ecreation Area. A t the first festival, one h u n d red contestants c o m ­ p e te d on a ten ted platform stage b efore an audience o f 3,000 spectators. W hile E aton d id n ’t m ak e it d o w n to the festival from B lacksburg, the paths o f Clem D ouglas an d Doris U lm ann crossed in M arion. D ouglas w as founder and directo r o f the Spinning W heel and one o f the founders o f the S outhern H igh lan d H andicraft G uild. A lso attending the festival w as its guest o f honor, F irst L ady E le an o r R oosevelt w hose presence caused additional crow ds, not to m ention additional press. B ut Doris U lm an n n e v e r m ade it to the 5,500-foot sum m it and im agined, in a letter to O live C am pbell, th at the buzz o f the reporters ’ typew riters all b u t dro w n ed out the m ountain singing and p laying.11 T he follow ing spring, U lm an n had a second opportunity to m eet E leanor Roosevelt w h en she w as invited to the W hite H ouse a fte r an exhibition o f her w o rk w as installed at the Library o f C ongress. In 1936 a conference w as h eld in M arion in conjunction w ith the festival. P resenters in clu d e d a representative from the L ibrary o f C ongress w ho spoke on b allad preservation, and a gov ern m en t official from th e W orks P rogress A dm inistration w ho addressed the issue o f w o m e n ’s handicrafts. A llen E aton addressed the conference as w ell. The follow ing y ear E aton’s survey o f the craft rev iv al H a n d icra fts o f the Southern H ighlands, including fifty-eight o f D oris U lm ann’s photographs, w as p u b ­ lished. T he opening sentence o f E a to n ’s book is indicative o f his philosophy. E v e ry k in d o f w o rk w ill b e ju d g e d by two m easurem ents: one by the p ro d u c t itself...the other b y the effect o f the w o rk on the producer. When th a t tim e com es the handicrafts w ill be given a m uch m ore im portant p la ce in our p la n o f livin g than they n o w have, f o r unquestionably th ey p o s s e s s values which are not g en era lly recognized.12 H e w arned th at to confine our estim ate o f handicrafts to m arket possibilities is to overlook th eir m o st im portant values. E aton continued, debating the relationship o f w ork to life and o f the p resen t to the C ra fts ~ 45 �past. D uring m uch o f the revival, consideration o f the object its e lf—in iso latio n from its m aker— w as rare. C raftw ork w as m ore often seen as evidence o f skill o r o f p articu lar character traits— such as p atience and discipline— a tangible m easurem ent o f intangible values. T hroughout the revival, the social, educational, traditional, and even therapeutic values o f c raft w ere elev ated above its aesth etic value, a situation w hich contributed to the m arginal place o f con tem p o rary c raft in to d ay ’s m u se u m s and universities. B ut m the region, craft m aking has persisted. T hroughout the A ppalachian m o u n ­ tains. a significant num ber o f craft organizations continues to operate; enro llm en t in area craft schools is healthy. T hroughout the 20th and into the 21st century, second and th ird g en eration craftsm en have em erged. E dd Presnell started m aking dulcim ers in 1936, ju s t a year before A llen E a to n ’s survey appeared o n the national stage. From his hom e in Banner Elk, N orth Carolina, he kep t count o f dulcim ers he m ade since the m id 1950s. W ithin tw enty-five years, Presnell w as up o v er 1,000. Q uoted in a 1977 exhibition catalog, Presnell expressed a sentiment com m on to craft makers. I ’ll tell y o u what. L o t o fp e o p le these days d o n ’t know w h a t th e y ’re w o rk in g for.... W e’ve been through every age: The Stone A g e; The Iron A g e; T he M a ch in e A g e ; The A to m ic A g e; a n d now the Space A g e and the C om puter A g e p u t together, on ly to f i n d ourselves sm a c k in The M oney A ge. ...You d o n ’t su p p o sed to be a -doin ’ things j u s t f o r money. M e, I w ork because I like to w ork.13 NOTES D ale W arren, D oris Ulm ann: Photographer-in-W aiting,” B o o k m a n (O cto b er 1930), 131. 2 John Jacob N iles to W illiam Hutchins, M arch 11,1933, B erea C ollege Archive. 3 W illiam Frost, “The A m erican M ountaineers,” Berea Q uarterly (F ebruary 1900) 12. O live D am e C am pbell, Southern H ighland Schools M a in ta in e d b y D e n o m in a tio n a l a n d In d ep e n d e n t A gencies (N ew York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1921). John Farrell, B e lo ve d Lady: A H istory o f Ja n e A d d a m s ’ Id ea s on R efo rm a n d P ea ce (B altim ore: Johns H opkins, 1967) 34. 6 Sam uel M cC hord Crothers, “O ur C ontem porary A ncestors,” B erea Q uarterly (O ctober 1906) 21. 2E liza C alvert H all, A B ook o f Hand-W oven C overlets (Boston: L ittle, B row n, a n d Com pany, 1925) 188A nna Em berg, (unpublished) H istory o f F ireside Industries, Berea College, B erea College A rchives. W hile th is oft-quoted passage is usually attributed to W illiam F rost, it appears in a typed draft b y w eaving teacher A nna E m berg, B erea C ollege A rchive. 9 U.S. D epartm ent o f A griculture, Exhibition o fth e R u ra l A rts (W ashington DC: D ept o f A griculture 1937 )2 0 . The book, The Sim ple Life by C harles W agner, w as published in 1901 and im m ediately drew national attention. A review was included in The Craftsman, itself originally su b title d ^ « Illustrated M onthly M a g a zin e f o r the Sim plification o f Life. The C raftsm an devoted a n entire issue to the concept o f simplicity in August 1902. 11D oris U lm ann to Olive Dam e Cam pbell, A ugust 1933, John C. C am pbell Folk SchooLArchives. ^2 A llen Eaton, H andicrafts o f the Southern H ighlands (N ew York: R ussell Sage Foundation, 1937) 13 D av id G aynes, A rtisans/A ppalachia/U SA (B oone: A pp alach ian C onsortium Press, 1977) unpaginated. ^6 ~ C rafts �S i n g Q à M I i ¿ ^ o y White Top Music Festival This article fir s t appeared in the A p ril 1935 M ountain N u m b er o f The Southern M agazine, p u b ­ lish ed in W ytheville a n d ed ited by M iss Claudia Hagy. igh up in the A ppalachian range, 6,000 feet above the level o f the sea, stands old W hite Top, the cornerstone o f three states, Virginia, N orth Carolina and Tennessee. H ere the m orning m ist gleam s white in the sunshine and the early snowfall o f this section flings its blanket first over the peak. But in the sum m er tim e, the vast stretch o f nearly 500 acres o f level grass land, w hich crow ns the top o f the m ountain, is carpeted w ith gorgeously colored wild flowers that fill the air w ith fragrance. B ordering this space and far below, is a grow th o f beautiful ornamental evergreens resem bling the N orw ay Spruce and know n b y the n am e o f “L ashhom .” The trees w ith a spread o f 20 to 30 feet are flat on top a n d the interlocking lim bs form a platform beneath w hich no grow th is found. Indians knew W hite Top and held it sacred as The H appy H unting G round o f their tribe. It w as too perfect to be lived upon, but w as dedicated to their god, the G reat Spirit, and to the lesser spirits. It w as in peace the tribes from the Six N ations o f N ew York and Pennsylvania, the Shaw nees and D elaw ares from O hio River, the C reeks o f N orthern G eorgia and the C herokees o f Tennessee and W estern N o rth C arolina m et here for their com m on hunting ground where thousands o f elk and buffalo roam ed am idst the virgin forest to fatten on the rich grass and enjoy the cool w ater from clear streams fed b y m ountain springs. Legends, myths, ghosts, folklore and folk songs o f the m ountains have their origin and linger here, handed dow n generation after generation by word o f m outh from the Anglo-Saxon ancestors. It is said that the nam e is derived from the legend that the bridal veil o f an Indian goddess w as spread upon the m ountain peak, but her lover being killed in battle, she threw h erself upon the ground in an agony o f spirit and where her tears fell, all the trees and shrubs were killed, her hair turned w hite from g rie f and in m em ory o f her sorrow, the Great Spirit sends the snow s here first each season to form a perm anent bridal veil. So the natives call it “W hite Top.” The beauties o f the W hite Top m ountain region are indescribable. From Sunset R ock n ear the sum m it, one m ay see range after range rolling away in the distance like bands o f azure ribbon. The Blue Ridge partly hidden b y clouds, the N orth Carolina peaks, the B lack and Grandfather, the G reat Sm okies, the R oan and to the north, the Clinch, W alker’s and Iron M ountain, w ith the C u m b erlan d s div id in g V irginia from the dark a n d bloody hunting grounds o f K entucky. T here are the p eak s o f B ear Tow n and B urkes G arden m ountains and to the east the lofty ranges betw een V irginia a n d N o rth C arolina. G lim psed th ro u g h the eternal m ists w hich hang over W hite Top, one m ay see m iles a w ay the H olston R iver w inding its w ay through Tennessee and the to y tow ns along its banks, an d n o w and then a w hite thread o f highw ay. H �W ithin this section, com passed in a rad iu s o f 100 m iles, is the region u sually k n o w n as the H eart o f the A ppalachians.” It is peo p led b y the direct a n d unestranged descendants o f the original Scotch, E nglish and Irish settlers w ho cam e into the m o u n ta in vastness p rio r to or follow ing the R evolutionary War. H ere has been retained m u ch o f the orig in al in m anners, custom s, religion, language, m usic and lore o f the “old country.” F o u r sum m ers ago, in 1931, there w as in au g u rated in this b eautiful spot one o f the m ost un iq u e events in the histo ry o f the m o u n tain section. Jo h n A . B lakem ore o f A bingdon, m an a g e r o f the W hite Top A ssociation Inc., together w ith M rs. P reston B uchanan, n o ted m u sician and com poser, o f M arion, as co-organizer, conceived the novel idea o f h olding a F o lk F estival on the top o f the m ountain. The dates w ere set fo r A u gust and the p la n fo r the pro g ram w as broadcasted. P rizes w ere offered for the b e st violinist, b an jo player, stringed orchestra, clog d a n c er and the “w h o ppinist y am .” T he festival w as to last for tw o days. Ookjwww a«3 iwiiy INT^ Vf fs t iv a l MUSICAL est» 1 WHITE T O P M O U ^ W h en the tim e a rriv ed for the first event, h u n d red s o f m ountaineers from V irginia, T ennes­ see, N o rth C arolina an d ev e n P ennsylvania a rriv ed to p lay fo r the “lady,” as m o st o f the . ti»«*»»** canotti Ü m o u n ta in p eo p le call M rs. B uchanan. It w as a . ***** «***J - S t rio to u s p ro g ram o f ballads, spirituals and •ftmî n ativ e folk songs, string bands, b an jo and fid d lin ’, interspersed w ith clog d an cin g and *****”' square dancing w hich all m ountain people, (aiiWrti •»*»“““T Ä KW“ ™ w h o are n ot too religious, enjoy w ith the u tm o st zest. « T .. l i l whM»« «**>• s s a ü ü ~ ril- ^ » « * * 1* * * a'*® T he second y ear found som e 5,000 AMPLE PA.KKÍNO SPÄßE 5 fÇjW «? p e o p le congregated o n the m o u n tain to eith e r enjoy o r particip ate in the program . A n u m b er o f em inent m usicians attended, as w ell as m an y representatives o f F olk Lore a n d A m erican F olk D ancing Societies. In 1933, M rs. E leanor R oosevelt and the P ress A sso ciatio n w ere am ong the guests and th e crow d had doubled. V isitors from o v e r h a lf the states in the U nion w ere p resent a n d m an y n ew events w ere ad d ed to the program . T oday it is one o f th e m o st unusual a n d outstanding festivals o f th e nation. K—Baefcef»- Into lives devoid o f interest or event, segregated in the prim itiveness o f life w ithin the narrow con­ fines o f the m ountain coves and forest vastness, M rs. B uchanan has brought great joy. The sim ple m ountain m usic o f their fathers and m others w hich was dear to their hearts and sung by them in the solitude o f their cabin hom e, is now w orld famous. Life w ith wonderful vistas and visions has been unfolded before them. They have suddenly been thrust from the utter seclusion o f their native haunts into the open, and are playing h o st to hundreds o f enthusiastic a n d adm iring throngs o f visitors. R adio com panies have d em anded them , the W hite H ouse has w elcom ed them . P icture co m p an ies and the A ssociated Press interview them . T hey did n ot go forth to co nquer the w orld, the w o rld h as com e to them . T he great m o u n tain is ~ M u s ic �a theatre w here the m ountain folk lift up th eir v o ice s and from each ravine a n d recess o f the m ajestic peaks a song o f jo y is raised to the heavens above. W hen the A ugust m oon is full and the days are filled w ith sum m er sunshine and the drone o f the bee is h eard in the sum m er flow ers, tho u san d s w ill trek their w ay again to th e glorious W hite Top and the m ountains w ill be filled again w ith m u sic o f those days o f long ago. Mrs. Roosevelt’s Visit in 1933 Attracted Thousands to Abingdon E xcerpts fr o m a 1962 article, apparently p u b lis h e d in the B risto l H erald-C ourier, about E leanor R o o se v elts v isit to Abingdon a n d the W hite Top F e stiv a l follow . W hen M rs. Franklin D. Roosevelt cam e from W ashington to Abingdon that A ugust m orning in 1933, the w elcom e she was given w as o f record-shattering proportion She w anted to visit places w hich had been fam iliar to her father and to m eet people w ho had know n him Elliott Roosevelt, father o f Eleanor, for a num ber o f years w as one o f the best-know n figures in Wash­ ington County. E lliott R oosevelt— also the b ro th e r o f P resident Theodore R oosevelt— w as the brother o f M rs. D ouglas R obinson (C orrine R oosevelt). Mr. R obinson w as o w n er o f the D ouglas Lum ber C om pany, w ith vast tracts o f tim ber, in clu d in g thousands o f acres in W ashington County and other tracts in Sm yth and T azew ell counties. E llio tt R oosevelt w as sent from N ew Y ork to oversee the tim b er cutting operations. H. Em ory Widener, a retired Bristol attorney, recalls that the first political speech he heard w as delivered b y E lliott R oosevelt. “I ro d e b eh in d him on the horse to M o ck ’s M ill, now D am ascus, an d he delivered a speech in L a u rel’s S chool H ouse in b e h a lf o f th e candidacy o f W illiam M cK inley, R epublican, w ho to o k office as p resid e n t o f the U nited States in 1897, having defeated the D em ocratic candidate, W illiam Jennings B ryan.” John H. Blakemore (an organizer o f the Festival) recalls the colorful episodes o f the A ugust 1933 day w hen M rs. R oosevelt cam e to A bingdon a n d to th e folk festival on W hite Top M ountain. “W hen her private c ar w as unhooked from the m o rn in g train at the railroad station, shouts w ent up from the enorm ous crow d th at w as gathered to m eet her,” B lakem ore related. “M ayor R a y B. H agy m ade a little talk. H e h a d his speech pa ste d inside his straw h a t and he held the hat in fro n t o f his face as he m ade the w elcom ing address. T hen M rs. R o o sev elt w as presented flow ers b y a group o f pretty girls.” W hen the party reached W hite Top, w here a crow d o f 22,000 w as w aiting to greet M rs. Roosevelt and jo in her in attending the festival, she retired for a b rie f rest in a cabin that had b een set aside for her. Later, she w ent to the festival pavilion w here she w as introduced to the assem bled crow d. M rs. Roosevelt was highly praisew orthy o f the folk m usic program , w hich featured such folk artists as H orton Barker, famous Chilhowie blind folk singer, and J. W. Pesterm an o f G rayson County, w ho played the dulcimer. A W ashington, D.C. new s photographer ventured far out on an overhanging ledge to get a better shot o f Mrs. Roosevelt. He slipped and fell but b y grabbing a tree limb saved h im self from crashing into a 200-foot abutm ent. B efore leaving A bingdon, M rs. R o o sev elt p u rch ased a set o f the fam ous C um bow china, w hich she p resen ted as a gift to the Q ueen M o th e r o f England. M usic ~ 4 9 �******** White Top F olk F estival Remembered W hlte Top F o lk F e stiv a l Rem em bered, a m u sica l heritage p erform ance com m em orating the 50th a n n ive rsa ry o f the Virginia H ighlands F e stiv a l a t A bingdon, was p re se n te d in 1998. F o lk m usicians fr o m G rayson County, K onnarock, C hilhow ie a n d N orth Carolina p la y e d A ppalachian m usic F o r th a t event, the fo llo w in g pro g ra m text w as p re p a re d b y Vaughan Webb, a ssistant director o f B lue R id g e In stitu te a t F erru m College. B e tw e e n 1931 an d 1939, the m eadow s o f G rayson C ounty served as the site for one o f V irginia’s b e st k n o w n festivals. Spanning the G reat D epression, W hite Top Folk F estiv al’s foundation w as traditional m o u n ta in m usic. T he eight festivals staged u p o n the slopes o f V irginia’s second highest m o u n ta in w ere fine opportunities to en jo y the talents o f regional old-tim e m usicians. F rom the outset, the W h ite Top festival featured carefully selected m usic and dance— ballad singing and fid d lin g as w ell as banjo, harm onica and du lcim er p lay in g and clog dancing w ith cash prizes being a w a rd ed to w inners. Spun around its core o f entertainers w ere the o rganizers’ dream s o f com m ercial g a m a n d ro m an tic notions o f cultural purity. A n Id ea Ta k e s Hold N o n e o f the three people w ho play ed piv o tal roles in the W hite Top festival’s developm ent w ere A p p alach ian folk m usicians. John B lakem ore p racticed law in A bingdon and w as the principal o w n e r o f W h ite Top C om pany, the land developm ent firm w hich ow ned the festival site. John P o w ell o f R ich m o n d w as V irginia’s b est-k n o w n classical com poser o f the period. A nnabel M orris u ch a n an liv ed m M arion and w as a dedicated p reserv er and prom oter o f A ppalachian folk m usic. L ik e m o st festivals, W hite Top Folk F estival b e g a n w ith the idea for a m usical event designed to a ttract reg io n al m u sician s and a paying crow d to h ear them . Fiddlers’ contests h ad b een held on the m o u n ta in p reviously, and in 1931, Ike Sturgill o f nearb y K entucky p roposed to John B lakem ore that a c o n test b e o rg an ized on W hite Top for the F o u rth o f July. Blakem ore, in turn, m entioned the idea to h is c o u sin s w ife, A nnabel M o m s B uchanan. She b rought John Pow ell into the project, and the In terstate M u sic F estival, as it w as b illed that first year, w as underway. M oved to A ugust in hopes o f m e w eather, the 1931 festival w as pro m o ted w ith press releases and 10,000 flyers stating that only old -tim e m u sic w o u ld be considered fo rju d g in g and that contests w ere “open to m ountain m usicians o m V irginia, N o rth C arolina and T ennessee.” A dm ission w as $1 p er car, $2 p e r truck or bus and 50 cen ts for h o rse-d raw n vehicles. P re-registered m usicians w ere adm itted free. The com petitions took p lac e u n d e r a te n t th at year, and over th irty individual perform ers and groups com peted before an aud ien ce o f th ree thousand. C hanging T hrough t h e Y ea r s The 1932 festival added a second day, regional crafts and drew tw ice the m usicians. The crow d grew , too, reaching a dram atic peak in 1933 w hen E leanor Roosevelt, the new First Lady o f the U nited States, v isited the festival. Suddenly, w ith h er attendance, the W hite Top festival stood in the n a ­ tio n a l lim elight. M rs. R oosevelt w as entertained w ith special m usic and storytelling perform ances w h ile p h o to g ra p h e rs snapped shots o f the F irst L ad y surrounded by m ountain m usicians. R oads to the festival im proved, a perm an en t pav ilio n rep laced the ten t and crow ds grew to betw een tw elve a n d tw en ty thousand. 5 0 ~ JVlusic �Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) at White Top M usic Festival, Grayson County, Va., August 1933. (Unknown photographer; Southern H istorical Collection, University o f North Carolina at Chapel Hill.) F o llo w in g M rs. R o o sev elt’s m em o rab le visit, the W hite Top festival continued to evolve in w ays lo cal m u sic ia n s an d its organizers m a y n e v e r have im agined. B y the m id-1930s, certain artists w ere c o n sid e re d so m u ch a p a rt o f the festiv al s identity, they w ere guaranteed m o n ey to com e. T he organizers— n o w in clu d in g R ichard C hase w h o w o u ld later b ecom e k n o w n fo r his books o f Jack Tales— ad d e d sw o rd an d m orris dancing perfo rm an ces, a scholarly conference, p u p p et show s an d plays fea tu rin g th e actors o f A b in g d o n ’s B a rte r T heatre. N o W hite Top festival w as held in 1937, a n d A nnabel M o rris B u ch an an h a d little to do w ith the event after that year. Still the festival attracted attention. P o rtio n s o f the 1938 festival w ere bro ad cast over pow erful W RVA rad io in R ich m o n d an d the N e w Y ork T im es sent a ph o to g rap h er in 1939. B y th e latte r 1930s, the festival h a d beco m e a b len d o f traditional and non-traditional en ter­ tainm ent w h ic h w o u ld h a v e confounded an yone try in g to grasp an accurate pictu re o f the re g io n ’s folk heritag e. In short, the artistic directors p resen ted th eir prejudiced beliefs th at w ithin the culture o f the m o u n ta in s only A nglo -S ax o n co n tributions h ad value. A fter floods p rev en ted staging the 1940 festival, th e e v e n t w as n e v e r revived. Illustration, p. 48: Flyer promoting fir s t White Top Folk Festival on August 15, 1931. M usic ~ 51 �Tile Q r e a t H o a x b y Doug Harwood ockbridge C ounty has had its share o f hoaxes over the years, but one o f the best ever w as pulled in 1873 by, o f all people, the m an for w hom B uena V ista’s P arry M c C lu er H ig h School is nam ed. W ith considerable egg on its face, the M arch 21, 1873 L exington G azette an d A dvertiser of­ fered an unapologetic explanation for its sizable role in spreading the h oax. “W e co p ied into the G a­ zette o f last w eek an article from the Southern C ollegian, a sem i-m onthly p u b lish e d b y the students o f W ashington and Lee U niversity, purporting to give an actual account o f th e p a rtial destruction (o f N atural B rid g e) by spontaneous com bustion. Taken all in all, it w as a bo ld , sm art and successful hoax. T he effo rt to bam boozle a com m unity into believing the granite arch w ith ab u tm en ts o f solid stone__ fam iliar to ev ery m an o f the tow n and county— had burned up, seem ed an ab su rd attem pt. Strange to say, the ingenious and daring report o f such a conflagration w as credited in L e x in g to n and R ockbridge C ounty b y n o t a few persons, and som e n o t unknow n to letters, the law a n d scien ce.” N o t to m ention journalism ; The R ichm ond Enquirer, the N ew York H erald Tim es, the Baltim ore G a­ zette, th e W inchester Tim es, and even the N e w York Tim es fell for it, a n d p rin te d , m ostly verbatim , J. P arry M c C lu e r’s account o f the spontaneous com bustion o f N atural B ridge. “ Som e ladies w ep t for the bridge,” reported the G azette. “The d e b a tin g society in C ollierstow n w as speech less at the n e w s... The sh e riff tu rn ed som e b ack w ho h ad set o u t to see for them selves.” Special serm ons about the calam ity w ere preach ed from the pulpits. It w a s three years after he graduated from W & L w hen Parry M cC luer co n co cted the hoax. B ut he ap p aren tly still had friends at the Southern C ollegian, the u n iv ersity ’s lite ra ry m agazine that loved hoaxes an d b a d jokes. (“W hy w as R obinson C rusoe unable to get up an o y ste r stew ? B ecause he h a d n ’t the sk ill-it req u ired .”) R T h ey dropped the bom b on M arch 8 under the headline: PROBABLE DESTRUCTION OF THE NATURAL BRIDGE F an cy Hill, M arch 8,1873 M essrs. Editors: A s the regular new spapers have all been issued for the w eek and I am a n o ld student, I ask for freedom o f your colum ns as a m eans o f com m unicating a phenom enon o f the m ost extraordinary description that has ju st throw n this com m unity into the w ildest excitement. Last Tuesday, as I w as returning w ith Mr. Pogue o f this place from a visit to a friend on the other side o f the Bridge, I observed upon glancing over into the chasm a vapor issuing from some crevices in the w estern side o f the B ridge, and detected a peculiar odor in the atm osphere. Mr. Pogue soon having his attention directed to the m atter, w as positive that he could detect som ething o f the sort himself. W e w ere at a total loss to conjecture the cause o f this unw anton disturbance in the chasm below. Upon returning hom e and inform ing our friends o f w hat w e had seen, w e w ere inform ed that our vapor was a m ere m ist, and i f w e had sm elt anything unpleasant, it m ust have been a This article is edited from an article which appeared in The Rockbridge A dvocate in April 1993 and in a book, “ ’Fesser McCluer, The Life and Times o f J. Parry McCluer, ” published in 2001. It is used with perm ission o f Doug Harwood, editor o f The Rockbridge Advocate, Lexington. �polecat, for these anim als are m o st plentiful in that locality. B ut having occasion to ride over to the Bridge early this m orning, I found things in that quarter in a m ost sadly excited condition; for about a m ile before arriving at the H otel, I thought I could discern in that neighborhood heavy clouds o f smoke hanging intensely black all around th at p art o f the horizon. A s I neared the spot, the sm oke becam e blacker and denser, and w hen I got to the hotel, I found everybody excited and everything in w ildest confusion. The negroes w ho occupy the deserted p rem ises n e a r the bridge on the brow o f the hill, had m oved dow n to the hotel, so great w as their terror, and everyone w as m aking ready to depart a t once. From below the Bridge, volum es o f deep black sm oke w ere rolling continually, except w hen interrupted by jets o f bright flam e w hich occasionally flared up to a great height. T he surface o f the ground is w arm for som e distance around, and is steam ing very visible. T he peculiar sm ell I noticed on Sunday last is now p lainly perceptible to all. The rock on the w estern side o f the bridge h a s b e e n cracked b y the heat and large m asses have fallen into C edar Creek. A s yet the arch, as w ell as can b e seen in the intervals betw een the volum es o f sm oke, is intact. Occasionally, however, w e could distinguish the crushing sound o f a boulder as it crashed into the w ater below. The negroes say that the first inform ation they had o f anything o f the kind w as last night about nine o r te n o ’clock; a b o y w alking across the b ridge w as frightened b y a bright light sh o oting from the side o f the bridge; he fled in terror, and aroused the rest o f the im m e­ diate neighborhood; everyone w as alm ost p e trifie d w ith terror. I have ju st reached Bridge; I shall return as soon as I can get another horse. E verything here is about to start for the bridge. I f you w ill lay this statement before Professor C am pbell o f the Geological Departm ent, he can doubtless from his extended acquaintance w ith the geology o f our country, throw light upon the causes o f this extraordinary phenom ­ enon. C an it be due to electricity? I have refrained from all effort at description as I am in too great a hurry to return. Yours truly, J. P arry M cC luer W hat follow ed w as a forged letter, that w as apparently written by the editors. (From later issues, it is clear that the three o f them , W illiam E dm onds, W.H. Taylor and T. J. K erm an, w ere in on the hoax.) The letter, purportedly written by Prof. Campbell, said th at the b ridge contained “large fissures filled w ith G raham ite, w hich as is w ell know n is a k in d o f b itu m in o u s coal o f asphaltum d ep o sited in seam s...” It w as ignited, said the Natural Bridge, som etim es described as one o f the seven natural wonders o f the world, in Rockbridge County. Hoax ~ 5 3 �letter, by heat produced b y the reactio n o f su lp h u r w ith “m etallic o x id es,” w hich the p a p e r claim ed C am pbell said w ere also p resent at the bridge. (T he editors w rote C am pbell an apology, o f sorts, the day the p a p e r rolled o ff the press.) The editors o f the Collegian professed to have no idea o f w hat they h ad unleashed w ith the story. As they w rote in the next issue, “A s o u r circu latio n is alm ost entirely local, w e did n o t at first expect anything m ore than a hoax on the tow n; b u t o u r neighbor, the G azette, gave us a lift, a n d w e confess we felt n o m ore doubts about the success...” Refusing to admit that it had been totally duped, The N ew York Times, for instance, developed its own w ay to b u m the bridge. Two w eeks a fte r ru n n in g P a rry M cclu er’s p iece o f correspondence, it wrote: “A scientific person has been appealed to w ith a request for an explanation o f those horrifying occurrences and has solem nly intim ated that in his o p inion ‘ch em ical actio n ’ is at the bottom o f the affair, and that w here it w ill end no m an can predict. “T here is reason to believe th a t the scientific p erso n is rig h t in h is diagnosis o f the N atural B ridge difficulty. C hem ical action, su ch as tak es p lac e w h en fire is b ro u g h t into close pro x im ity w ith a tax barrel, w ould fully explain the m atter. S uch actio n w ould pro d u ce the flam e and sm oke w hich w reaths the bridge, and w ould diffuse th ro u g h o u t the neighborhood the p ecu liar odor o f w hich m ention has been m ade...” O ther papers w ere sim ply outraged th at th ey h a d b een fooled. The Lancaster, Pa. Intelligencer, for instance, said, “W e do n ot share the G a z e tt’s a d m iratio n for the ‘c le v e rn e ss’ o f the fabrication. It w as nothing b ut a square lie.” It w as obvious that M cC lu er an d the C o lle g ia n ’s editors w ere enjoying their hoax enorm ously T hey printed som e o f the reactions: “Prom inent law yers w ho b e lie v ed the sto ry said, on learning th at it w as a hoax, th at the authors o f it should b e indicted for forgery a n d sent to th e penitentiary. “A n old w om an w ho used to live n e a r th e b rid g e told her m istress that the sm oke at the bridge w as nothing new ; that she h ad often seen it sm oke herself. T he people o f Snakefoot sa id th ey h a d sm elt sulphur for tw o days and could n o t tell w hat w as the m atter. “A young gentlem an o f the to w n becam e v e ry grave and said th at now the nam e o f the county w ould have to be changed. “T he sh e riff turned b ack a b rid a l p a rty w h o w ere on a visit to the ruins; they stopped on their return at M ile y ’s and had their ph o to g rap h s taken. M ile y im m ediately said it w as the b e st jo k e he ever heard in his life. W icked old gentlem en w h o h a d n o t b e e n in church since the w ar, w ent the n ex t Sundaythought it w as getting too m u ch like Ju d g m en t D ay... “ [A] p rom inent citizen o f th e to w n w as o v erh eard explaining h o w the lim estone w as burnt up by as/zphaltum . “ [A] w ell-know n ph y sician affirm ed th at P ro fesso r C am pbell h a d h it the nail on the head; that the bridge could n ot h ave b een d e stro y ed in an y o th e r way. ‘Jest w h at w e said at fu st.’” B efore letting the w hole th in g drop, the C o lleg ian couldn’t resist tw eaking the press one last tim e w ith this little item in the issue th a t cam e o u t th ree days before A p ril Fools Day: A special from Jacktow n h a s ju s t b e e n received...conveying the alarm ing inform ation that the H ouse M ountain on the night o f th e 3rd w as su d d en ly transform ed into an iceberg, an d floated dow n K errs C reek to N orth R iver w here it w as m elte d b y th e ardent rays o f the B altim ore Sun (w hich had blasted the C ollegian for the N atural B ridge ho ax ), a n d created a great freshet in that p a rt o f the coun­ try...” A fter graduation from W & L , P a rry M c C lu er tau g h t at F ancy H ill A cadem y, w as the first cash- 54 i Hoax �ier o f F irst N a tio n a l B an k in B uena V ista, an d becam e the first school prin cip al and later superinten­ dent. H e died a t 74 in 1924. H is obituary spoke o f h is “beautiful Christian character w hich...com m anded w id esp read e ste e m a n d resp ect.” B ut his ob itu ary did not note that in his y o u th P arry M cC luer h elp ed p u ll o ff o n e o f th e b ig g e st hoaxes o f his day. END NOTES from “The Turnpikes of Southwest Virginia” (Through error, these end notes were omitted from an article hv Dr. Kenneth Keller ofM ary Baldwin College in Volume Fifteen, Number One, o f the Journal in 2002. Ed.) ! Some general studies o f the history o f roads and turnpikes include Robert F. Hunter, “The Turnpike M ovement in Virginia 1816-1860, ” Virginia M agazine o f History and Biography 69 (1961): 27889; Nathaniel Macon Pawlett, A Brief History o f the Roads o f Virginia 1607-1840 (Charlottesvil le: Virginia Highway and Transportation Research Council, 1977); Commonwealth o f Virginia, Depart­ ment o f Highways and Transportation, Office o f Public Affairs, History o f Roads in Virginia: “the most convenient waves.” prepared in conjunction with the Virginia Transportation and Research Council (Richmond: Commonwealth o f Virginia, 1989). See also John Lauritz Larson, Internal Improvement National Public Works and the Promise o f Popular Government in the Early United States (Chapel Hill: University o f North Carolina Press, 2001), 91-97. ’“The Virginia Board o f Public Works.” N iles’s W eekly Register 10, no. 10 (29 June 1816), 298. 3 Carter Goodrich, “The Virginia System o f Mixed Enterprise: A Study o f State Planning o f Internal Improvements,” Political Science Quarterly 64 (1949); 355-387. 4 John S. Salmon, Board o f Public Works Inventory (Richmond: Virginia State Library, 1978), ix-xii. All references to incorporations and transfers from the Act o f the General Assembly o f the Common­ wealth o f Virginia for the respective dates. 5 There is a good collection o f letters, papers, and other materials o f the Southwestern Turnpike Company in the papers o f the Board o f Public Works at the Virginia State Archives in Richmond. It seems little used. See also Edmund P. Goodwin, “The Turnpike through Botetourt,” Journal o f the Roanoke Historical Society 6. no. 2 (Winter, 1970), 31-35. 6 See petition o f the inhabitants of Roanoke County, 8 January 1842, Legislative Petitions Collection, Virginia State Archives, Virginia State Library, Richmond. 7 Acts o f the General Assembly o f Virginia, 1866: 223. 8 Commonwealth ofVirginia, Annual Reports o f the Internal Improvement Companies o f the State o f Virginia to the Board o f Public Works for the Year 1874 (Richmond: R. F. Walker, 1874). 91 am working on a longer study o f the Valley Turnpike, upon which this research is based. For Byrd’s rem arks, see the Staunton Daily News, 25 July 1917. 10Tim Hollis, Dixie before Disney— 100 Years o f Roadside Fun (Jackson, Mississippi: University o f M ississippi Press, 1999), 6; Jean Gottmann. Virginia at Mid-Century (New York: Henry Holt, 1955), 211,452; Am erican Automobile Association, 1912 Map ofVirginia Highways, in the Map Collection o f the Virginia State Library in Richmond. 11John R. Hildebrand, Iron Horses in the Valley—-The Valley and Shenandoah Valley Railroads. 18661882 (Shippensburg, PA: The Burd Street Press, 2001), 10-12. Valley railroads experienced many financial reverses and produced frequent complaints about their inefficiency and inconvenient sched­ ules for local shippers. 12See statutes for respective dates in the Acts o f the General Assembly ofVirginia. 13Jack Temple Kirby, Westmoreland Davis—A Planter-Politician 1859-1942 (Charlottesville, University ofV irginia Press, 1968), 87-89; Virginia Department o f Highways and Transportation, 18. 55 �JV lu rder in J 1in castle b y D a v id W.C. Vfearr ra y ’s 19th cen tu ry m ap o f Fincastle lo cated “the W estern H otel” on th e lot situated b e h in d the B otetourt C o u n ty C ourt H ouse. H ere, on January 10, 1857, a sudden c a lle r startled b arro o m p atro n s w ith h is adm ission: “I struck the dam ned old rascal m an... .” T h e m ortally w o u n d ed v ictim w as the to w n s “h ig h ly respected co lo red M ethodist preacher, n am ed D an iel P egee,” attack ed b y a n em ployee a n d a m em b e r o f his ow n h o u seh o ld .1 A cco rd in g to the g ran d ju ry report, W illiam N elson G feloniously, w ilfully (sic), and o f his m alice o f forethought did m ake an assault, and that the said [suspect] w ith a certain shovel in his right h a n d ... d id strike; giving the said Daniel Pegee then and there, w ith the shovel aforesaid, in and upon the h e a d . . . one m ortal w ound o f the breadth o f one inch and o f th e depth o f tw o inches. In an article fo r The Fincastle Herald on the “Great F ire” o f 1870, Dr. I.R. Goodwin wrote recollections o f 80 local personalities, including Daniel Pegee, a preacher o f upstanding character and business acumen, who was murdered. Other sources are records in the Botetourt County Clerk o f Courts office and Lovely Lane M useum in Baltimore. This manuscript by D avid Bearr also appeared in the Virginia United M ethodist HERITAGE bulletin o f The Virginia Conference Society o f the United Methodist Church. Bearr works in student services with Balti­ more County Public Schools and is an adjunct professor at Western M aryland College. A Virginia native, he spent childhood summers visiting relatives in Fincastle and Roanoke. H e has written several books and more than a dozen manuscripts on Virginia history. Bearr is also the author o f the article “Lest We Forget” on page 18 o f this Journal. 56 �T he nearly 60-year-old Pegee “languished” eight w eeks b efore succum bing to the attack. T he grand ju ro rs, “in a n d for the body o f the county o f B otetourt upon th eir oaths,” determ ined that N elson, also a free black, “ did kill and m urder, against the p eace and d ignity o f the C om m onw ealth o f V ir­ ginia.” T he ju ry issued a w arrant for N elso n ’s arrest.2 Located alm ost 20 m iles north o f the present City o f Roanoke, Fincastle w as incorporated a tow n by the H ouse o f B urgesses in 1772. Strategically situated fo r trade w ith travelers h ead ed farther south into the C arolinas, o r w est into the K entucky w ilderness, the tow n grew rap id ly and prospered. W hen Jo ­ seph M artin inventoried the “ seat o f ju stice ” o f B otetourt C ounty fo r h is 1835 G azetteer o f Virginia, he found “a flourishing and w ealthy village” w ith a pop u latio n o f 703 peo p le, including 192 slaves and 43 free blacks. T he “m echanical shops” (m ostly built o f brick) m en tioned in the p u b licatio n included one confectionery— D aniel P egee’s business, w hich also h o u sed his b a rb e r’s shop.3 A barber, according to The F ree N egro in Virginia 1619-1865, w as the m ost prosperous class o f free blacks. “M any o f the tow ns and cities w ere at tim es alm ost w holly dependent up o n free co lo red b arb ers,” an d in 1850 Pegee and three other free black m en m onopolized the trade in Fincastle. P egee also en gaged in tw o addi­ tional occupational m ainstays o f free b lack em ploym ent: confectioner a n d caterer. I.R. G odw in, a local physician w ho early in the 20th century w rote o f a bygone F incastle, rem em bered P eg ee’s business. It stood n ex t to T em perance H all (L ot 145) on the east side o f R oanoke Street, one lot south o f the courthouse com plex. The F incastle confectio n ery shop sold the custom ary “ sw eet preparations” (candy, cakes, preserves) and m o re, according to the sign the ow ner p laced on a pole in front o f h is store. O rnam ented w ith the draw ing o f a cake in one top c o m e r and a glass o f cider opposite it, the sign advertised Cakes and cider, Cheese and crackers, Call and see Daniel Pegee.5 T he surnam e “Pegee” first appeared in the 1804 R eg ister o f F ree N egroes fo r B otetourt County: “N a n c y Pegee, Fem ale; Fincastle; Spinster.” The fam ily nam e w as v ario u sly spelled Pegea, Pagee, Poage, Pogoa, in addition to Pegee, b u t no one else b y the nam e is en u m erated again on any o f the co u n ty ’s lists o f free blacks until the 1823 registration o f D aniel. In addition to name, registry entries routinely noted skin color, age, distinguishing m arks, i f the person w as b o m free or the conditions o f emancipation, and occasionally the nam es o f one or m ore parents. Accord­ ing to the A ugust 7 ,1 8 2 3 paperw ork, D aniel w as then “25 years o f age; d ark m ulatto; 5 feet 8 inches hig h ,” and a State C ourt o f A ppeals ju d g m e n t in 1811 established h is freedom . N o in form ation regard­ ing h is birthplace or parents w as recorded, b u t 28-year-old “P olly Pagee” o f B ed fo rd C ounty registered at the sam e tim e and m ay have b een related. A nother possible relation, C elia P egee, appeared on an 1828 lis t. N o age w as given for this w om an, b u t she gained her freedom b y the sam e co urt action that em ancipated D aniel.6 Free blacks were required by state law to register every three years in the county w here they resided, in an attem pt b y the state legislature “to restrain the p ractice o f N eg ro es going at large.” D aniel Pegee did n o t register h is freedom a second tim e for m ore th an a decade, an d th is lack o f com pliance m ight reflect less restraint o f A frican V irginians in the w estern counties th an in som e areas o f the state. Pegee does a p p ear on the June 9 ,1 8 3 6 list. He w as then 39 years old, and he h a d acquired “ a scar over the left eye p ro d u ced b y a cut.” C ounty m arriage records further reveal th a t the “ Judy P egee” w ho registered Jin ca stle ~ 57 �w ith h im w as his w ife.7 The Rev. A bsalom C. D em psey, a w hite B aptist pastor, m arried D aniel Pegee and Judy M artin o n June 21, 1827, and th eir m arriag e licen se identified the bride as th e g ro o m ’s w ard.8 Judy w as 11 y ears younger than h er husband, a n d th e F incastle native first registered as a free black in 1829 w ith her m other, Jane M artin, older brother, M esh ack , and younger sister, H arriet.9 A ll o f the M artins, including the m o th er w hose birth dated to ca 1779 (probably in H alifax C ounty), w ere “b o m free” and w ere classified as m ulattoes. O n the 1836 reco rd , Ju d y Pegee w as “28 years o f age; five feet 2 or 3 inches h ig h [with] the little finger on the rig h t h a n d crooked.” 10 D aniel Pegee rented his shop, b u t co u n ty deed books and tow n ta x lists docum ent that he ow ned his hom e. In 1832 he and his m o th er-in -law p u rch ased tw o adjoining lo ts (N um bers 148 and 149) in F incastle, and, like his business, the p ro p e rty w as on the east side o f the ro a d “leading from [the] C ourt H ouse to A m sterdam n o w R oanoke Street. O nly P e g e e ’s nam e ap p eared on the original conveyance for the half-acre parcel, b u t the fo llo w in g year a n ew deed w as filed a t the clerk s office “m aking official [that] 1/2 belonged to Jane M a rtin .” 11 A n 1840s engraving o f F incastle presents a picturesque im pression o f the tow n from its so u th en tran ce on R oanoke Street, b e lo w the E piscopal Church, to the courthouse and farther no rth to the m o u n tain s. T he illustration show s “im provem ents in the vicinity” o f the Pegee and M artin lots. Tax ap p ra isers assessed D an iel’s hom e as m o re valuable than his in-law s’, b u t the engraving lacks detail to d ifferen tiate am ong m an y o f the bu ild in g s. Jane M artin had already transferred her p roperty to h er d a u g h te r H arriet, and in 1846 Jam es M a rtin received this parcel o f land from his sister.12 A t the taking o f the 1850 census, H arriet M artin ow ned the lot (N um ber 92) on the northeast com er o f C ataw ba (to d ay ’s U .S. R oute 2 20) a n d B ack streets, and there she liv e d w ith her now blind mother. D aniel and Judy Pegee still resid ed o n R oanoke Street w ith their five children: M ary, 11; M artha, 10; Joseph, 8; H arriet, 6; and L ucinda, 2. (A n o th er son, Thom as, w as b o m in 1851.) O ne o f the tw o 21y ear-old boarders in the hom e w as W illia m N elson. In F ebruary 1855, th e Pegees sold their “lot and dw ellin g ” to H arriet, b u t they c o n tin u e d to live there and to p ay the p ro p erty tax. It is not know n w h eth er financial w oes or a desire to m ak e a different investm ent m o tiv ate d the sale, but at D aniel’s death he held no real e state.13 Some time after their marriage, Daniel and Judy Pegee affiliated w ith the M ethodist Episcopal Church. T hey w ere am ong m ore than 100 blacks w ho com prised 16 percent o f the total m em bership on the Fincastle C ircu it.14 D epending on w h en th e y jo in e d the M ethodists, the couple m a y have w orshipped in the d en o m ination’s first m eetinghouse in F in castle, designed by Francis A sb u ry in 1802 during one o f his visits to the tow n. In the late 1830s th e b u ild in g w as ju d g e d structurally unsafe and w as leveled. The P egees did attend services in the larger, G reek R evival edifice erected in 1840 on the original church site, w here the couple sat in the g a lle ry b u ilt fo r slaves and servants. ” 15 I.R. G odw in also rem e m b e red D aniel P eg ee’s call to preach. F o llo w in g the N at Turner insur­ rectio n in 1831, the V irginia leg islatu re d ecreed “no slave, free N egro o r m ulatto shall preach, or hold an y m eetin g for religious p u rp o ses e ith e r d a y o r night.” A nd, ju s t as the m andate to register free blacks w as erratically enforced, G o d w in ’s m e m o ry gives evidence that the anti-preaching law failed to stifle Pegee. H e w as no t ordained, and th is m ea n t th at he did n o t adm inister th e sacram ents, but typically lay p reachers like Pegee took resp o n sib ility fo r the spiritual needs o f o ther b lack s in the congregation and w ere especially pro m in en t as “fu n eral sp eak ers.” 16 The 1850 census states that D aniel Pegee could neither read o r w rite; how ever, he signed business docum ents and m ay have w ritten a n o te o r letter p resen ted at the trial o f h is accused m urderer. Available inform ation does n ot reflect P e g e e ’s rea d in g level, b u t the status o f h is literacy w ould not have neces­ sarily lim ited his capacity as a speaker. T h ere w as no form al education req u irem en t for a lay preacher.17 58 ~ Jincastle �A report p u b lish ed in th e m inutes o f the 1854 annual m ee tin g o f the B altim ore M ethodist C on­ ference identified D aniel Pegee as one o f a group o f individuals w h o gave above a “ sundry level” to the denom ination’s m issionary fu n d .18 Ironically, it w as at this sam e conference at L ight Street C hurch in B altim ore th at B otetourt M ethodists gained notoriety for questioning the action o f the 1844 G eneral C onference, 10 years before th is m eeting, w h ich directed th at a slave-holding bishop “desist from the exercise o f his office so long as th is im pedim ent rem ains.” A lthough the denom ination had long soft­ ened its stance on the m atter in regards to the laity, it resolved to keep its traveling preachers “free from slavery.” 19 It is n o t k n o w n i f F in castle’s b lac k M ethodist preacher found h im se lf caught in the m id d le as the slavery debate engulfed h is church, b u t he m ay actually have b een surprised b y the question. A fter all, this local ch u rch ’s legacy w as th a t o f E dw ard and Sam uel M itchell, founders o f the congregation and local preachers, w ho freed th eir slaves to b e in harm ony w ith M ethodist principles. F ifty y ears later, how ever, the Fincastle C ircuit w as n o t o f one m ind on the issue, and a m ajority (described in B altim ore C onference records as “a p o rtio n o f the m em bers”) condem ned the national church fo r its action. T heir response, know n as the Fincastle R esolutions, w as the only form al w ritten protest m ade by a circuit in the Baltim ore C onference. D espite their questioning, Fincastle continued to accept p reach ­ ers appointed to th em b y the M eth o d ist E piscopal B altim ore C onference until about 1862, w h e n w ar conditions m ade it im practical, an d the Fincastle congregation did n ot leave this ecclesiastical b o d y until after the C ivil W ar.20 TH E TRIAL: COMMONWEALTH vs. NELSON W ho w as W illiam N elson? H e nev er registered in B otetourt County, supposedly a prerequisite to em ploym ent for free blacks, and there is no obvious connection b etw een him and any o f the 10 individuals from the registers w ho shared his last nam e. The w eek after the D aniel and Judy Pegee wedding, her brother M eshack m arried N a n c y N elson, and although a free w om an, h e r nam e, too, does n ot appear o n the county’s lists o f free blacks. P erhaps it w as th rough N ancy, Ju d y ’s sister-in-law , th at W illiam m e t the Pegees and w ent to w o rk for th em an d bo ard ed at their hom e. A c o u rt record related to D aniel s m u rd e r show s that W illiam p o ssib ly h a d a m ale relative living in G reenbrier C ounty (now W est V irginia) w here he retreated after the assault.21 I.R. G odw in called W illiam N e lso n a m an o f “unsavory reputation,” b u t he gave no rea so n for his judgm ent. N elso n h a d no p rio r run-ins w ith the law, but p erh ap s G odw in knew o f problem s Pegee h ad had w ith this em ployee. W h e n the story unfolded in court it appeared that Pegee w as pro b ab ly w eary o f N elson b efore the attack.22 O n June 2 ,1 8 5 7 , at the Fincastle court house, W illiam N elson late o f the County o f Botetourt, w ho stands Indicted for the m urder o f D aniel Pegee, w as led to the B ar in custody o f the jailor o f this County and thereupon the Prisoner w as arraigned, and pleaded not Guilty. The circuit co urt clerk sum m oned 24 potential jurors, an d after the prisoner struck eight from the panel, “out o f the 16 rem aining 12 w ere selected b y lot.” T he ju d g e then determ ined that it w as too late in the day to com plete the trial, a n d he ordered the ju ry sequestered until 9 o clock the next m orning. T he ju d g e instructed th e sh e riff n o t to perm it ju ro rs “to hold conversations w ith s e lf or others.”23 Five m en receiv ed subpoenas to testify “in a certain m atte r o f controversy,” and on the second day in court only one failed to appear. Sam uel M . Carper, P e g e e ’s next-door neighbor and one o f the physicians w ho treated him , to o k the w itness stand first. H is b r ie f testim ony: “T he w ound w as in flicted Jincastle ~ 59 �b y so m e h e a v y instrum ent, several p iec e s o f skull w ere taken out, and I consider th e w o u n d in flicted” w as th e cause o f death. A nother physician, W illiam M. W oodson, located the w ound inflicted on P egee at “th e left section o f [his] h ead above the ear rather in front.” 24 Jo h n A. (age 20) and W illiam G. H azlew ood (age 18) also testified. These m en w ere apprentice tailo rs w ith th eir father, Jam es C. H azlew ood, a n d they w ere apparently in or around the hotel bar w h en W illiam N e lso n m ade his public confession. John understood that Pegee b eliev ed he w as cheated b y th e a c cu se d in a business deal to p ro cu re oysters for resale and w as determ ined to h av e his rightful share. T h e ju ry forem an took notes on Jo h n ’s testim ony: B ill N elson cam e into the B ar R oom at the W estern H otel and stated that he had shuck the dam ned old rascal [Pegee] and that he was then laying in his room . That D aniel had attem pted to take his oysters and choked him. A pparently while in the county ja il aw aiting trial, N elson dictated his side o f the story to the younger H a z lew o o d brother, and the p riso n e r (as he w as called in trial records) asked the scribe to rea d the lette r” in court. W illiam H azlew ood rea d that P egee and N elson w ere partners in an O y ster S aloon an d th at N e lso n receiv ed a $5 note from P egee for an order. A s the w itness continued, the co urt heard o f an ex asp erated P egee im patient w ith th e m an be h ad em ployed fo r 10 years or m ore: “W h en the oysters cam e [N elson] stated that D a n ’l h a d attem p ted to take his oysters, choked him and b a c k ed him against the w a ll an d stated he w ould shoot h im .” H azlew ood further described, or p ossibly show ed to the court, the c o a t th e d efendant w ore on January 10. T here w as w hitew ash on the back o f the garm ent, consistent w ith b e in g b ru sh e d against a w all. H azlew ood said that N elson adm itted to striking Pegee “w ith a spade a n d left h im lying in his ro o m .”25 L eroy N elson o f G reenbrier C ounty presum ably would have been a helpful w itness for the accused, b u t h is failure to appear in court p ro b ab ly m attered little since W illiam H azlew ood’s tim e on the w it­ n ess stan d am ounted to a strong de facto defense. N elson’s claim that Pegee m ig h t shoot him w as su rely d ism issed b y the jury, w ho k n ew that it w as illegal for blacks to ow n a w e a p o n and th at the v ictim w as a law -abiding m an Yet, the story to ld b y H azlew ood persuaded the ju ry th at Pegee w as n o t stain less in the confrontation. C onsequently, the ju ry found N elson o f less prem editation, g uilty o f se co n d d eg ree m urder.26 T he ja ile r returned W illiam N elso n to the courthouse fo r sentencing on June 19. T he ju d g e p ro n o u n ce d ju d g m e n t against him w ith im prisonm ent in the Public Jail and P en iten tiary H ouse o f this C o m m o n w e a lth for the Term o f eig h t years.”27 E pilo g u e D espite the legal and social disparities o f his day, Daniel Pegee w as a productive resident o f antebel­ lu m Fincastle. W ith a relentless w o rk ethic and business sense Pegee supported a large fam ily, p ro v id ed needed trade for the community, and offered em ploym ent to other free blacks. In his desire to live out his faith in G od, even w hen the church w as too m uch a part o f the prevailing culture to recognize fully w ho he w as, he extended his influence beyond the corporate lim its o f Fincastle, Botetourt County, and the C om m onw ealth w hen he supported the m inistries o f the M ethodist Episcopal denomination. T here is scant record o f the surviving Pegee family, but the em otional toll notw ithstanding, it never re c o v e red econom ically from the loss o f its m ain breadw inner. Ju d y Pegee could n o t fill her h u sb a n d ’s Illustration on title page: An 1852 view o f Fincastle from Grove Hill, the James Breckinridge home north o f the county seat, is shown in this woodcut from Henry Howe’s Historical Collections o f Virginia. S O ~ Jin ca stle �shoes in his various business ventures, an d alth o u g h she p robably continued to w ork as a nurse and nanny, she n o w took in laundry to support h e rs e lf and h er children. H arriet M artin outlived Judy, and she w as a devoted aunt to h er sister’s children. O ne niece, M artha Pegee, lived all o f her life m Fincastle, and her son, M ontville G. L aw son, w ho also liv e d at the county seat, “died m any years ago.”28 NOTES I — 1 1Testimony o f John A. Hazlewood, Commonwealth vs. Nelson, June 1857, Common Law Order Book (CLOB) 1850-1857, p. 425. Completed in 1847, the third courthouse burned in 1970, but it was rebuilt as a near replica and dedicated in 1975. The Western Hotel saloon and offices are used today for county offices; Godwin, “Fire!” ’ p. 10; booklet is reprint o f M ay 7, 1903, front page story in The Fincastle Herald. A 1996 feature in the same newspaper with excerpts from the original article omitted mention o f the Pegee murder. 2 CLOB, “Commonwealth Indictment fo r Homicide ( vs. William N elso n ).” 3 Martin p.328. 4Russell, pp. 150-151. 5 Godwin, pp 9-10. 6 Register o f Free Negroes (RFN), 1804:#9; 1823:#40,39; 1828:46. 7 __ pp.vii,18. . I Ta 8 Register o f Marriages (ROM) pp. 321, 612; Judy Martin Pegee, also appears m county records as Judey and Judith. Dempsey is credited with later founding two local churches: the white Fincastle Baptist Church and the First African Baptist Church. 9 Deed Book (DB) 27, p. 509, identified another brother, James Martin. 10RFN. 1836: #91, #92, #96; 1829: #55, #56, #57. 11 DB 19, p.843 (Kegley to Pegee); DB 20, p.49 (Pegee to Jane M. ). Lots bought from Martin Kegley and his wife Polly, then o f Wythe County; Grays Map. 12 Letter from Nettie L. Switzer to author, 31 M arch 2000 : “There were two houses between our house (147) and the Carper house ( 1 5 0 ) , . . they burned.”, p.5 ( 1840s sketch): DB21, 1416 (Jane to Harriet M . ); DB27, p. 509 (Harriet M. to Around Town, p. 5 (1840s sketch); DB 22, p. 476 (Jane M. to Ham et M.), DB 27, p. 509 (Harriet M. to James M.) H R H H jB H 13 DB 22, p. 477 (Shanks to Harriet M.); DB33, p. 48 (Pegee to Harriet M.); CLOB, (Vol.6, p.326) recorded debt Daniel Pegee owed William Erek, but the dispute appears to be one o f personal principle, not financial ,, m O C e n su s: #216 (Martin), #1323 (Pegee). Sometimes whites lived in free black households as boarders, laborers or family members, but it is uncertain in the M artin enumeration what the relationships were among the residents. There are also county deeds for both women with “Life Estates” provided them, and again the relationships are not stated. Inter-racial marriage was prohibited by law. 14 Annual Register (BAC}, 30; Statistics, 1828-1868. ,. „ , 15Journal, September 5, 1802, p. 361: “I drew a plan o f a house forty feet long, thirty feet wide, and two stories high, o f brick-to be built in Fincastle; Sketches, p.28. 16Russell, p.144: Godwin, p.10. Jordan, pp.110-111. , H | 17 Pegee used “his mark” on 1827 marriage bond, but he signed deeds executed m 1832 and afterward, while his wife continued to show “her mark.’ Literacy and education were important to the family. Even a s a financially strapped widow Judy Pegee kept her 19-year-old daughter, Martha, m school full-time (1860 Census), is b a C. p.49. 19 p.20; Baker, p.211. Information gleaned from June 1844 editions o f the Christian Advocate. 20Niederer, pp. 22-26; Baker, p. 196; DB8, p.213~ Sketches, pp.14-15,46.47; K ’f l | unfortunately the quarterly conference minutes referred to in this reference are no longer available; Court Order Book 7 p 295: On October 26, 1867, communicants and pew owners over 21 of the Fincastle Church unanimously voted to belong to that branch o f the Methodist Episcopal Church known and designated as the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Gray 1 1880 Fincastle map shows the “colored” M.E. Church on Hancock Street, and the congregation also built a parsonage here (Lot 139 and 1395). Trustees of this church in 1878 were Booker Hawkins, Joshua Hawkins, Booker Evans and Griffin Evans (DB7, p.550). Jincastle ~ 61 �21 ROM, June 30, 1827 (Martin-Nelson); CLOB, Summons for Leroy Nelson, May 1857. 22 Godwin, p. 10; Commonwealth Indictment. 23 “Daniel Pegee,” CLOB, pp. 326,425. 24 Summons, M ay 1857; (CLOB, Testimony o f Dr. Carper and Dr. Woodson. 25 CLOB, Testimony o f John A. and Wm. G. Hazlewood. The latter’s assistance at the trial indicates that the defendant w as illiterate. 26 CIOB, Testimony; Jordan, p.169; “Commonwealth Indictment for Homicide, William Nelson,” (John C. Bell, foreman) 27 COB, pp. 342,477. Census o f 1870 lists Thomas Pegee, then 19 and a hotel waiter, a member o f the Harriet Martin household. Judy ( Judith ) Pegee married Archy Leuster, 20 years her junior, on November 7, 1860. He was a Lunenburg County native, bom free, and was a ‘Private Servant’ at a Fincastle hotel. The Rev. Abraham Buhrm an o f the Fincastle Methodist Church married the couple. Incidentally, the marriage license shaved four years o ff o f the bride’s age. M ontville (or Monteville) G. Lawson was the son o f Martha Pegee, and the husband o f Maggie Mayhew (married M ay 21, 1894), daughter o f W illiam and Cassie Mayhew, all of Fincastle. Lawson (last descendant) inherited the property o f Harriet Martin and sold part o f Lot 92 in 1933 to the state to widen Route 220 (DB W, p.563) List of References Primary Sources A nnual R egister o f the Baltimore Annual Conference o f the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1854. “Gray’s N ew M ap o f Fincastle, Botetourt County, Virginia, 1880,” Philadelphia: O. W Gray & Son, 1880. M embership Statistics, Virginia Card No. 1, 1828-1868 (Lovely Lane Museum, Baltimore). United States Census for Fincastle, Botetourt County), Virginia: 1830-1870. Virginia. Botetourt County Common Law Order Book, Voi. 6; Court Order Book, Voi. 7; Deed Books 7, 8, 19,20,22,27,33 and W; Register o f Free Negroes 1804,1823,1828, 1829, 1836; Register o f M arriages 1827,1860.1894. Virginia. Town o f Fincastle, property and poll tax lists, 1836-1856. Secondary Sources Around Town—A Pictorial Review o f Old Fincastle, Virginia. Fincastle, Historic Fincastle, Inc.,nd. Baker, Gordon Pratt (ed.). Those Incredible Methodists. Baltimore: Commission on Archives and History. Baltimore Conference. 1972. Boyd-Rush. Dorothy A. (transcriber). Free Negroes Registered in the Clerk’s Office, Botetourt County, Virginia 1802-1836. Athens, Ga.: Iberian Publishing Company, 1993. Clark, Elm er T. (ed). Journal and Letters o f Francis Asbury, Volume II, 1794-1816. Nashville. Parthenon Press, nd. First published in 1958 by Hazell Watson and Viney Ltd. Great Britain. Godwin. I.R. “Fire!” Reprint o f May 7, 1903 article in The Fincastle Herald. H istorical Sketches o f the Fincastle M ethodist Church, Botetourt County, 1787-1954. Fincastle: Young Adult Class, 1954. Jordan, Ervin L. Jr. Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia. Charlottesville and London: University Press o f Virginia, 1975. Martin, Joseph. 1835 Gazeteer o f Virginia and the District o f Columbia. Westminster, Md. : W illow Bend Books, 2000. First published in 1835 by Moseley & Tompkins, Printers, Charlottesville. The Negro in Virginia. New York: Hastings House, 1940. Compiled by Virginia Writers’ Project; sponsored by The H am pton Institute (now Hampton University). Niederer, Frances J. The Town o f Fincastle, Virginia. Charlottesville: The University Press o f Virginia. 1965. Russell. John H. The Free Negro in Virginia, 1619-1865. New York; Dover Publications Inc.. 1969. First published in 1913 by The Johns Hopkins Press. Baltimore. W alking Tour Guide— County Seat, Botetourt County, Virginia: Fincastle: Historic Fincastle Inc.; nd 6 2 ~ R incasile �H a vo c a t H an gin g VZock b y C live E. H ice O n M arch 8, 1864 the clerk o f the W illard H otel in W ashington C ity d id n o t k n o w that the d u sty m ilitary officer signing the register w as the n ex t G eneral in C h ie f o f the U. S. A rm ies, U lysses S. G rant. The n ex t day, G ran t m et President A braham L incoln and his cabinet, and rec e iv e d h is com m is­ sion as L ieutenant G eneral. H e im m ediately discussed his cam paign p lan s w h ich w ere to concentrate h is arm ies, m ake sim ultaneous m ovem ents o f this m ilitary strength tow ards the areas h e ld b y the C on­ federate A rm ies, and d estro y C onfederate railroads and resources. G rant felt th a t all the planning should be in place b y M ay. His plan w as for G eneral N athaniel Banks, w ho w as in Louisiana, to finish his expedition into East Texas and prepare for th e capture o f M obile, A labam a. T he W estern A rm ies, led b y G en eral W illiam T. Sherm an, w as to strike tow ard A tlanta and the Confederate A rm y o f Tennessee. In the East, G rant w ith the A rm y o f the Potomac com m anded by M ajor General George M eade, planned to advance against the A rm y o f N orthern Virginia. In addition, the A rm y o f the Jam es led by General B enjam in F, B utler, w as to threaten Richmond. The plan also included the invasion o f the Shenandoah Valley. The invasion into the Valley cam e from the D epartm ent o f the W est com m anded b y G eneral Franz Sigel. This D epartm ent w as m ade up o f W est Virginia, M aryland w est o f the M onocacy, the Shenandoah Valley, and L oudon County. Part o f Sigel’s com m and included M ajo r G eneral G eorge C ro o k in the K anaw ha Valley o f W est Virginia. G eneral G rant’s p lan for the cam paign w orked w ell in theory, b u t the ex ecu tio n w o u ld be left w anting. G eneral S herm an fought his w ay to A tlanta, G eneral M eade found h im s e lf in m o rta l com bat in the W ilderness, G eneral B anks m et defeat before reaching Texas, an d G eneral B u tler rem ained b o ttled up at B erm uda H undred. B efore he reached the Shenandoah Valley, G eneral C ro o k claim ed v ictory at C lo y d ’s M ountain, b u t w as forced to retu rn to the K anaw ha V alley as G en eral Sigel m et d efeat at the B attle o f N e w M arket on M ay 15, 1864. H ere C onfederate M ajo r G en eral John C. B reckinridge hastily assem bled an arm y, including the cadets o f the V irginia M ilitary Institute, and ch ased Sigel b ack dow n the Valley to C edar C reek, 18 m iles from W inchester. General Breckenridge joined General Robert E. Lee and left behind a small force to guard the Valley. M eanw hile, U nion M ajo r G eneral D avid H unter prom ptly relieved G eneral Sigel. H u n te r’s orders w ere to push the en em y southw ard tow ards Lynchburg and C harlottesville an d d estro y C onfederate transportation system s. H unter m oved fast and only five days after assum ing com m and, h e notified G eneral C rook that he w as h eading south up the Valley Pike. H unter o rd ered C rook, w ith his force o f 10,000 m e n , to jo in him as soon as they could m ake it across the A lleghenies fro m th eir cam p on the G reenbrier R iver in W est Virginia. O n M ay 26, 1864, H unter, w ith 8,500 troops, h e a d ed southw ard fro m C edar C reek to w ard Staunton. A fter a ten-day m arch, he reached the sm all v illag e o f Piedm ont eleven m iles from Staunton. H ere he w as confronted by a disorganized force led b y C onfederate B rigadier G eneral W illiam “G rum ble” Jones w ho h ad arrived from S outhw est V irginia, v ia Lynchburg, to reinforce the cavalry o f C onfederate B rigadier G eneral John Im boden. O n June 5 ,1 8 6 4 , the guns o f H u n ter’s artillery opened fire and together w ith the infantry, defeated th e rag tag a rm y o f G rum ble Jones at the “B attle o f P iedm ont.” Jones w as k illed and his rem aining force o f v e te ran s a n d m ilitia Clive Rice o f Roanoke, a Civil War student fo r many years, is a retired Navy c h ie f petty officer with 23 years o f service. A native o f England, he came to this country in 1950. 63 �scattered to fight another day. T he u p p er Valley, S tau n to n to Salem , lay o p en for destruction. A rriving from W est V irginia, G eneral C rook a n d h is cav alry jo in e d G eneral H u n ter at Staunton a n d created a force o f som e 20,000 soldiers. The U n io n ’s first target w as the occupation o f L exington a n d the sacking o f V irginia M ilitary Institute. C o nfederate C avalry w as the only thorn to p ric k and stab at H u n ter’s colum ns. C onfederate G eneral Im boden re p o rte d the m ovem ents o f U nion B rigadier G en­ eral A lfred N apoleon A lexander D uffie w ho, w ith h is F irst D ivision o f C avalry, scouted in the direction o f W aynesboro and the Tye River. C onfederate B rig ad ie r G eneral Jo h n “T iger” M cC au slan d and his 1,600 troopers did th eir best to slow the snaking U n io n c o lu m n s’ fo rw ard m otion, b ut co u ld only w atch as Lexington succum bed and D uffie rejoined the horde. The tow n o f Buchanan, south o f Lexington, w as entered by a covered bridge across the Jam es River. U n io n B rigadier G eneral W illiam W. A verell’s S econd D iv isio n C av alry h u rried forw ard to secure this crossing, but G eneral M cC ausland b u rn ed it before it c o u ld be saved. S low ed by this setback, G eneral H u n ter faced the arduous task o f m aking the clim b o v e r th e B lue R idge M ountains. P assin g the Peaks o f O tter, the exhausted colum n entered L iberty (B ed fo rd ) o n June 15. T he sam e fate b e fe ll L iberty as th e tow ns and villages o f the Valley; anything o f m ilita ry valu e w as destroyed. Lynchburg lay only 16 m iles away. The disaster unfolding in the area captivated the attention o f the Confederate capital in Richm ond. G eneral B reckinridge had returned to L ynchburg w ith 2 ,100 m en o f W harto n and E c h o ls’ Brigades. T hese, w ith the rem nants o f G rum ble Jo n e s’sA rm y , w e re no m atch for G eneral H u n te r’s Arm y. On Ju n e 12, G eneral R obert E. Lee at Petersburg, raise d th e stakes in W estern V irginia a n d divided his force in the face o f the enemy. L ee sent the new ly p ro m o te d L ieutenant G eneral Jubal A. Early, and his S econd Corps o f 8,000 m uskets, to the Valley. H is o rd ers w ere, “ Save Lynchburg a n d drive H unter fro m the Valley.” M arching, and then transported b y train, G eneral E a rly w as able to reach Lynchburg in tim e to en­ tren ch and defend. General H unter had no idea o f the strength o f the C onfederate force and hesitated. The B attle o f Lynchburg w as fought June 17-18,1864. Fearing a m ajor assault b y Early, H unter began his retreat the night o f the 18th at 10 p.m . Early, unaw are o f the U n io n w ithdraw al, did not start his p u rsu it until the following morning. The Federal colum n stretching from 11 to 15 miles, follow ed the Lynchburg-Salem Turn­ p ik e back through L iberty and B u fo rd ’s G ap (M ontvale). In b oth locations, instances o f violent rear actio n erupted. The m ain colum n continued tow ards B o n sack , B ig L ick (R oanoke), a n d Salem . Overall com m and o f Confederate Cavalry w as g iv en to infantry com m ander M ajor General Robert R ansom Jr. by G eneral Early w hen Early arrived at Lynchburg. B efore the engagem ent at Liberty, General M cC ausland, along w ith R ansom e and M cC lanahan’s B attery, raced to B uchanan because E arly thought General Hunter w ould retreat by using the same route he used for his advance. This left General Im boden and the rem aining cavalry to harass the U nion colum n along th e L ynchburg-Salem Turnpike. A fter it becam e apparent that H unter w ould continue along the Pike, a courier w as dispatched to Buchanan to order Ransome an d M cC ausland to rid e to Salem and stop H unter’s escap e. T he havoc a t H anging R o ck h ad been set in m otion. From B u fo rd ’s G ap, U nion G eneral D uffie a n d h is cavalry w ere ordered to p ro ce e d to Salem a n d destroy the V irginia-Tennessee railroad tracks e n ro u te. A t the sm all com m unity o f B onsack, the w o o len m ill o f Jacob B onsack w as burned. In addition, teleg rap h lines w ere cut, the dep o t burned, and h o u ses searched for food. D uffie reach ed Salem at 2 a.m . on June 21 a n d burned the depot. R ousted fro m their exhausted sleep, D uffie s troopers w ere o rd ere d to h ead the A rm y ’s w agon tra in and secure th e w ay up C ataw ba M ountain. Slowly the ambulances, equipm ent, supply w agons, artillery, and m unitions wagons left Salem. They passed by the old Courthouse, the B row n house, and u sin g the old Cove Road, they w ould see the buildings 6 4 ~ Havoc �The Battle o f Hanging R ock was fo u g h t in a bottom below this landm ark boulder, north o f Salem, on June 21, 1864. (Photo courtesy o f Clive Rice.) o f R oanoke C ollege. T hey m ad e th eir w a y o v e r the ford at M aso n s C reek, p a sse d in view o f the gap at H anging R ock, and continued up the N e w C astle-S alem T urnpike (D u tch O v e n R o ad and U S 311). G eneral D uffié and his tro o p ers, sco u tin g a n d c learin g the w a y ahead, failed to p ro tect and direct the w agon colum n and it beg an to slow to a h alt. T he tired horses pu llin g the a rtillery an d its m unitions, stopped alongside M aso n ’s C reek on th e T u rn p ik e and lay vulnerable to a n y attack. G eneral “ B lack D av e” H u n ter w a s so m e distance b eh in d G eneral D uffié on the LynchburgSalem Turnpike entering S alem after h is fo ra g in g th ro u g h B ig Lick. A n y d w e llin g w as fair pillage and hogs w ere k illed i f too fat to b e d riv en o r carried . A t B ig L ick, Isham F erguson, ow ner o f the only tobacco factory, poured o ut his tw o rem a in in g b a rre ls o f b ran d y rath er th an see it fall into enem y hands. In the early m orning o f June 21 as th e F e d e rá is en tered Salem , C o nfederate C av alry w as follow ing close behind. T hese w ere factions fro m G e n e ral Im b o d en ’s com m and a n d M ajo r H arry G ilm ore’s independent M aryland troopers. Im b o d e n b ra n c h e d o ff and raced a h ead to b lo ck passage w est o f Salem . To h a lt the C onfederate C avalry, U n io n A rtille ry w as p lac e d on h ig h g ro u n d n e a r the N e ff M ill, w hich stood beside M a so n ’s C reek e a st o f S alem . T he cannon sent th eir d ead ly m essage dow n the Pike. H u n ter reported, “A b o u t 9 a.m . the e n e m y m ad e a dem onstration ag ain st o u r rea r guard.” M ean ­ w hile, C onfederate G eneral M c C a u sla n d p u s h e d his ex h au sted troopers a lo n g G reen R idge to the foot o f F ort L ew is M ountain. G eneral R an so m e, still in com m and o f all C o nfederate Cavalry, w as ill and recuperating a t a house som e d istan ce fro m th e dev elo p in g situation. O b serv in g the slow m oving and unprotected w agons, M cC au slan d re q u e ste d p e rm issio n to attack from h is C om m ander. R ansom e, after som e delay, finally relin q u ish ed c o m m a n d to the anxious general. In 1901, M ajor R obert C. S aunders w ro te o f his exploits around H an g in g R ock. Saunders w a s a M ajor o f V irginia State T roops in L ynchburg, a n d h ad attached him s e lf to G eneral M cC ausland and C olonel P e ter’s 21st V irginia C avalry. H e w ro te o f h is b ein g ordered b y C o lo n el P eters to fetch up the guns. H e relates his running the guns ac ro ss a field o f w h eat and a m uddy b ra n c h th at led up a steep hill w hich w as clim bed in short circles. T h e g u n s w e re u sed to fire a t F ederal g u n s across an open w heat field. A fter observing the g u n s’ fire, h e re tu rn e d to find M cC ausland an d P eters consulting. Today, Havoc ~ 6 5 �there is a large o p en field th at stretches up from the entrance to H anging R ock G ap and the old B en ­ ja m in B ru b ak er house. A t the end o f the field, there is an incline that falls sharply on the reverse side. A creek at the base o f the incline can be interpreted as the “m uddy branch” described by M ajor Saunders. G eneral M cC au slan d had to attack w ithout any support from G eneral E arly ’s m a in colum n. E arly d id n o t arrive in the area until the evening o f June 21 because h e w as still m arching to w ard Salem . M cC au slan d did n o t know h o w far b eh in d the stalled w agons the U n io n troops w ere follow ing. M ajo r S aunders w rote, in 1901, that 60 troopers rushed dow n the Gap. W hatever the num ber, W illiam S tarke o f the 34th M assachusetts reported, “W heels w ere knocked o ff guns an d w agons, trunions b ro ­ ken, lim b ers tip p ed over a n d som e p u sh ed into M aso n ’s Creek. H orses w ere run o ff, killed, o r tak en captive w ith the prisoners. C aissons an d m u nition w agons w ere set afire causing explosions an d death. U n io n A rtillery m e n tried to defend th eir p ieces and w ere shot dow n for th eir efforts. G eneral H unter w rote in his report, “W hile attention w as directed to the rear o f the colum n, a detachm ent o f the en e m y ’s cav alry fell upon the artillery en route - th ey w ere presently driven o ff b y o u r cavalry.” T h e cavalry w as fro m the 2nd D iv isio n u n d er U nion G eneral Averell w ho forced M cC ausland to exit H anging R ock. F ederal troops occu p ied the G ap th roughout the day and held back any th re a t from C onfederate C av ­ alry, th u s enabling th e rest o f H u n ter’s colum ns to com plete their escape into W est Virginia. T he havoc at H an g in g R ock h a d n e tte d the C onfederates ten pieces o f artillery, horses, prisoners and plunder. P reserv atio n o f b attlefield sites is an im portant objective. Six acres o f G arst p ro p erty w as b e q u e ath e d to the V irginia D ivision, U n ited D aughters o f the C onfederacy b y M attie C. G arst in 1960. T his p ro p e rty is to b e m aintained as a m em orial to the m em ory o f the b rav e soldiers w ho fought and died in th e “skirm ish” o r B attle o f H an ging R ock. This property consists o f the H anging R ock an d land k n o w n as “B u zzard R oost C liff” . In O cto b er 1996, the V irginia D ivision, U nited D aughters o f the C onfederacy, m ade a gift o f this p ro p erty to T he H anging R ock B attlefield an d R ailw ay P reservation F oundation. Two grants from the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency A ct (ISTEA) for battlefield preser­ vation and rails to trails project were approved. The Virginia Division o f the U nited Daughters o f the Confed­ eracy, w ith the gift o f the pro p erty b eq ueathed, provided a m ajor p art o f m atch in g funds n eeded fo r the H an ging R ock B attlefield an d R ailw ay P reservation Foundation. Today, the “R ails to Trails” pro ject has b e e n com pleted. It b egins at the p ark in g lot on the site o f the B attle o f H anging R ock, crosses M a so n ’s C reek, a n d progresses to the railro ad b ed and on into Salem . A t the starting point, interpretive signs in fo rm the pu b lic about the battle, display photographs o f the generals w ho w ere there, and ack n o w led g e the im portance that the V irginia D ivision played in the p reserv atio n o f the b attlefield site and th e dev elo p m en t o f the w alking trail. BIBLIOGRAPHY B arnes, R aym ond P. A H isto ry o f Roanoke. C om m onw ealth Press Inc;, R adford, V A 1968. C atton, B ruce. G ra n t Takes Com m and. Little, B row n & Com pany, B oston 1968. Judge, Joseph. Season o f Fire. R ockbridge Publishing Co., Berryville, VA 1994. K agey, D eedie. A H isto ry o f R o a n o ke C ounty. D on M ills, Inc., Salem , W VA. 1988. M id d leto n , N o rw o o d C. Salem , A Virginia Chronicle. Progress Press, Inc., R oanoke, VA 1986. U n ited States W ar D epartm ent. A C om pilation o f the O fficial R ecords o f the Union and C o nfederate A rm ies. S e rie s I, Vol. 37. W ashington, 1880-1901. W hitaker, B.W . H u n te r ’s C o m in g -A R e b e l’s Experiences in H u n te r’s R a id on Lynchburg. T he C ivil W ar Q uarterly Vol. V I. C ounty Publishers Inc., M iddleburg, VA 1986. W oodw ard, H arold R. Jr. D efen d er o f the Valley. Ibid. 1996. W oodw ard, W .E. M e e t G eneral Grant. H orace Liveright, N Y 1928. 6 6 ~ Havoc �g r o w in g lAp W ith Ifcoanoke b y D o ro th y g r o w n p ie d m o n t rnie B ro w n w as b o m on July 2 ,1 9 0 1 , the youngest o f four boys, w ith a baby sister to com e. Feisty and full o f fun, he w as appropriately a firecracker o f a fellow. A t age five, he m oved w ith his fam ily to a com fortable V ictorian house at 923 S outh Jefferson Street. The W entw orth b o y s, Jo h n and “R uschy,” w ere across the street, W arren W ellford lived nearby, and O rchard H ill w as ju s t a shout aw ay. P ast E lm w o o d Park w ere rival folks from Southeast. It w as a good location fo r the fun and m is c h ie f o f active, grow ing boys. T hese stories m y father E rnie to ld m e paint a colorful pictu re o f life E in an earlier R oanoke. F o r b icy c le fun, a favorite activity w as a “R ide to the End o f the Yellow B ricks.” In p lace o f the prevailing m ud and stepping stones o f other thoroughfares, Ernie rem embered that Jefferson Street w as paved w ith yello w b ric k s to “Five C om ers,” the W alnut Avenue intersection. W hen the bo y s w an ted to go som ew here, R u sch y w ould holler, “L e t’s ride to the end o f the yellow bricks.” “It w as a reg u lar route fo r u s,” E rnie said. “O r,” he added, “i f som eone ju s t cam e out front and w histled, a B ro w n b o y o r tw o (F rank, H enry, L ou or Ernie) w ould com e out and “th ey ’d ju m p on their bikes and go.” O ther tim es, he said, “I have to get a yeast cake for M other,” w hich m eant a ride d o w n to D a lb y ’s at th e c o m e r o f Jefferson and Franklin. “I ’d w histle for R uschy or w e ’d go a sk a lady i f w e co u ld cut h er law n. W e settled on 50 cents; th at’s tw o bits apiece. T hen w e ’d go [to D alb y ’s] and g et a ch ocolate m ilk. T h ey ’d p ut a little ice cream in a glass o f m ilk and pum p in som e chocolate.” In addition to their bike-riding, hiking was a favorite activity. Ernie rem embered the hikers as him self, h is b ro th e r L ou, B lackburn Johnson, A lfred “D uck” W heeler and W arren W ellford. A n d he rem e m ­ b e re d th a t h is first hike w as w ith B lackburn Johnson to Yellow M ountain [now R oanoke M ountain]. “A t the en d o f th e bricks w as a sm all store and w e each bought a can o f vegetable soup an d a can o f b ean s...w en t o n up the m ountain to an o ld stum p.” T here, w ith his m ail-order axe, he rem em b ered that h e “ch o p p ed w o o d o ff the old stum p an d [we] h eated up our canned food. C aught hell w ith M o th er for g o in g o f f a n d n o t telling her.” O ne W ashington’s B irthday holiday, there w as a m ore adventurous hike. “L e t’s hike o u t to B en n ett S prings,” som eone said. “T his particu lar tim e,” Ernie rem em bered, “B lackburn Johnson h a d th at arm [b roken in an accident in L ee Junior H ig h School]...in a sling.... [We] got lo st o v er b eh in d M c A fee ’s K nob and cam e out on the other side o f M ason’s C reek.” Ernie recalled th at th ey “m ad e a ro u g h bridge fro m a dow ned tim ber an d w alked B lackburn across the creek...then h ik ed to B ennett S p rings...bu ilt a fire and cooked w h at w e w ould have had for lunch...then hiked all the w a y b a c k to Jefferson S treet...in one day.” F o r th ese outings Ernie said th ey “alw ays hiked in full length khaki pants, khaki shirts an d p lain ro u g h shoes. O n m y belt, I had a B ow ie knife I ’d sent aw ay for.... [A ]lw ays kept a lig h tw eig h t arm y b lan k e t in m y kn ap sack .” H e says he d id n ’t have a standard knapsack. H is had a single flap a n d the h ard w are fo r “b o o k strap s” to h o ld it. “W ent dow n to old m an T em ple’s tent com pany and got a p iece o f canvas.... W h e n I got older, I’d slip in a holster and a .22 pistol, later a .38. Those th in g s looked like D orathy Brown Piedmont writes o f her father, Ernie Brown, who had an active boyhood, growing up on South Jefferson Street in Roanoke. A graduate o f Hollins College, wife o f Don Piedmont and the mother o f six, she wrote about her own childhood in the 2001 Journal. 67 �G a tlin g g u n s.” E qually clear w ere his m em ories o f their cooking equipm ent: “I b o u g h t a 6-inch frying pan. ..could a lw a y s h e a t w ater in a bean can...O h, yeah, sure, m ake coffee in the b e a n can , [too]...rinse it out good. I f it s a little stu b b o rn to clean, sw ish sand aro u n d in it....W h ite H o u s e o r G eorge W ash in g to n co ffe e ...ab o u t a h a lf pound ; and tellin g m e as i f I w ere g o in g to p a c k fo r a hike, “Take som e o f the co ffee o u t and carry an egg o r tw o d o w n in there. Take a p iec e o f b a c o n o r h a m in w axed paper...Put ’em d o w n in that can .” M ore o f a w alk than a hike, but still an adventure for Ruschy, John, E rnie and his brother Henry, w as a stilt-w alk in g endeavor across the R oanoke R iver (below to d ay ’s R o an o k e M em orial H ospital). “M ay h a v e b e e n m y suggestion and m ay hav e b een R u sch y ’s ‘cause he w as ’b o u t th a t crazy,” E rnie to ld m e. “ Should have k n o w n b etter.” It w as “ Sunday after­ n o o n ” an d th ey w ere “still w earing our blue serge suits.” A s he to ld th e story, their goal w as to prove that th ey c o u ld cro ss th e riv e r in their good clothes and n o t g et w et. “W e to o k dam n few steps. F ound out in quick o rd er w e c o u ld n ’t do it.” H e recalled that e a ch one slo w ly tip p e d over. “ O nly w ay w e c o u ld g e t s tra ig h te n e d o u t w as to tak e o ff ou r clothes an d h a n g ’em o n the bushes.” A n o th e r w atery ep iso d e involved h is first canoe. He alw ay s said he b u ilt h is first canoe in his early teens. H e said h e m ad e h im s e lf a shop up in the b a m a n d ask ed fo r to o ls fo r C hristm as. “First ones w ere sto len b u t w h ile I h a d ’em , I b uilt th at canoe.” H e rem em b ered th at h e g o t som e idea o f how to do it from Y outh’s C o m p a n io n m agazine a n d th at his b ro th e r L o u h elped. H e u se d barrel hoops for ribs and c o v ered the canoe w ith 8-ounce canvas (cer­ tain ly from the T em ple T ent C om pany). F rom Jef­ ferson S treet to the W alnut A venue crossing, he and L ou “carried the c a n o e...p u t it in the w ater an d dug in the p ad d les.... F lip p e d rig h t over.... P ut in seats after th a t” — w h ic h m u st h av e solved the pro b lem — “ a n d u se d it fo r y e a rs.” A t co llege age, h e g o t an o th er canoe, “a hand-m ed o w n one fro m so m e m a n in S outheast th rough ‘S u c k e r ’ M o s s. E r n ie r e b u ilt it a n d W a rre n W ellford w o v e th e se ats o u t o f m aso n ’s cord. Still, Ernie Brown (left) and brother Lou Brown fle x their muscles. (Courtesy o f D ot Piedmont) ^ b e lo n g e d p a rtly to Sucker. E v entually he m u st have b o u g h t o u t S u c k e r because Ernie “sent the canoe d o w n to A rcad ia S tation on a n N & W flat car” a n d he a n d his friends used the canoe o n the Jam es River. O n the b o w o f the canoe, th e y p ain ted R O E, th e a c ro n y m fo r th e ir club, w h ich since their c h ild h o o d h ad m et in the loft o f the B ro w n bam . “W e d id th in g s to g eth e r so w e had to have a club,” E rn ie to ld m e. A lo n g w ith Ernie, W arren W ellford w as one o f the fo u n d ers. O ther m em bers w ere B la c k b u rn Johnson, A lfred “D uck” W heeler, R uschy a n d Jo h n W en tw o rth a n d E rn ie’s brother, Lou. 6 8 ~ Ernie �“ B ecause at e v e ry m eetin g each m em ber h ad to brin g an egg,” he said, “I nam ed it R O E ....R oyal O rder o f E ggs.” T h ese eggs m o st certainly w ere n o t destined for the frying p an b u t w ere throw n, left on seats or slipped u n d e r caps, a fter w hich the victim w o u ld be given a firm p at on the head. R eportedly, one p o o r fellow, w h o w as w earin g a yarm ulke, cried out, “ O ooh m ’ brains are runnin’ out.” M isch ief, predictably, w as not lim ited to the ovoid category. Tic-tacs w ere another favorite tool o f their in v en tiv e endeavors. To m ake the tic-tacs, Ernie said, w e cut notches around the ends o f w ooden sp o o ls...p u t a p retty good size nail in the hole and w ound cord around it...put it against a w indow pane a n d p u lle d the cord.... You can im agine w hat kinda noise it m ade,” he said, rath er glee­ fu lly even a fte r all th o se years. “O nce,” he rem em bered, “it w as early evening and H enry, Jo h n and R uschy and I fig u re d to go out and do som e m eanness,” and they chose the hom e o f the R everend Johnson, B la c k b u rn ’s father. “W e took a tic-tac...John h ad the tic- tac in his hand. W e stepped up to the w indow .... T he Jo h n so n s w ere ju s t sitting dow n to eat. John w atched a few m inutes an d w hen th ey all h a d their h e a d s b o w e d Jo h n [w ho had a distinctive w ay o f speaking] said, ‘ ’at old m an got too m u ch to say over e a ts,’ a n d ran the tic-tac. The w hole fam ily,” Ernie rem em bered, “rose up as one.” N aturally, th ere w ere risks and consequences to their antics. O nce, he w as w ith John, R uschy an d H enry o n a fo ra y to E lm w ood Park. “T he city,” he rem em bered, “h ad set up a b an d stan d there for the N & W B rass B an d to pu t on Sunday concerts. C harlie M cH ugh and som e other fellow s from S outh­ east w ere sittin g o n th e platform . H enry and Jo h n got the idea to go up under the platform and p ull them b y the legs. C h arlie M cH ugh blacked H enry’s eyes up pretty good. I saw them w andering around the W entw orth y a rd w ith H en ry w ith a beefsteak o n h is eye.” O ne w inter, w h e n th ey w ere about 16 o r 17 years old, they w ere sleigh riding, “ coasting dow n 14th A venue.” A s E rnie to ld the story, “K ite P enn, W arren’s future w ife ’s cousin, h ad a good fast sled a n d he co u ld c a tc h up to people. Kite said, ‘C om e on and ride w ith m e.’ W e caught up to this six-foot fellow and K ite to ld m e to tip him and p u t him in the gutter. A t the bottom o f the hill the fellow w as so m ad he w o u ld h a v e fought the D evil him self. W h en he said, ‘W ho dum ped m e? ’ I said, ‘W ho did th at? ’ b u t he n ev er fo u n d o u t w ho did it.” A nd E rnie gratefully declared th at w hat he h ad learned from w atching H e n ry g et a b lac k eye had saved h im from a beating. N o t all o f the b o y s ’ pursuits w ere self-directed. T hey also spent a great deal o f tim e at the Y M C A w here, u n d e r th e direction o f “C aptain” M eissner, they learned sw im m ing and tum bling. He rem em b ered a lo n g m a t for tum bling and an oblong m at for the high bar. Ernie took to tum bling and gym nastics so m u c h so that he m ade a rough h ig h b ar out o f a discarded piece o f w ood to practice in his o w n backyard, a n d p ractice he did, to the p o in t th at he could chin h im se lf w ith one hand. O ut o f th e ir efforts at the Y cam e w h at m u st have been a m em orable perform ance — the Six P aw Circus. I n e v e r learn ed the origin o f that nam e. Perhaps there w ere three o f the bo y s participating, w h ich w o u ld ac co u n t fo r the “six paw s.” A nyw ay, am ong other feats, Ernie could w alk on his hands a n d he rec a lle d th a t “Z an ie K rebs had good balance and could do ju m p s and turns.” W h en th ey b uilt pyram ids, h e n a m e d Paul Stonesifer, along w ith other older fellows from the Young M en ’s C lub, as p a rt o f this stunt. E rnie, b ecau se he w as the lig h test and m ost agile, w as usually on top. Som e rea d e rs m ay w onder why, in this account, there are no stories o f escapades in school. It m ay be b e c au se E rn ie ’s m other, w ho had once b e e n principal o f an all-boys school in B altim ore, h ad a deep respect fo r ed u catio n and the discipline th at goes w ith it. H er philosophy w as “i f you w ere p u n ­ ished in school y o u w o u ld b e equally p u nished at hom e.” Probably that dictum kept h er sons obedient during school h ours. A ll in all, life in early R oanoke, p ictu red through the m agic o f E rnie B row n’s m em ory, seem s in d eed to h a v e b e e n fo r h im self, his brothers an d his friends a m ost lively adventure. tzrnie ~ 69 �7^1 H o rseb a ck VZide on th e Iffack VZoads o f R o a n o k e C o u n ty in 1 8 9 6 in tr o d u c tio n b y John Cong n 1896, correspondent J .A.F. took a tour through the b ack roads o f R o a n o k e C ounty an d reported on his travels to the Salem Tim es-Register. “J.A .F.” apparently trav eled th e circum ference o f the county and reported on the numerous small communities there w ith a w it ranging from the insightful to the bitingly sarcastic. Unfortunately only his ventures in the south county survive in their entirety. In 1928, a fire at the offices o f the Tim es-Register destroyed alm ost all back isues. O nly random private copies and assorted clippings survive o f p re -1928 issues, including the passages transcribed below , found in the archives o f the Salem Museum. I The author w as identified only by his initials, but internal and external evidence suggest that he was local businessm an John A. Francis. For instance, he refers to trees purchased from the Salem Nursery, which w as ow ned by the firm o f Francis and W ertz (located behind present-day W al-M art in W est Salem ). He also m akes a tongue-in-cheek reference to running for office. Francis did serve from 1890 to 1892 on Salem tow n council, and ran for the position o f county C om m issioner o f the Revenue in 1900. Sadly, he died only days before the prim ary. H is son, W illiam, a w riter for the Times-Register, quickly entered the race and w on not only the prim ary but the election ~ at the age o f 24. P e o p l e and T h in gs S e e n O n a R id e T hrough t h e S outh S id e o f t h e C o un ty A r t ic l e No . 2 Editors Times-Register: Last w eek w e left you at the last bend in Bent m ountain turnpike, and n e a r the top o f the m ountain w hich is reached b y a gap, and find ourself in a great basin or depression in the m ountain, the soil being good, and fine for grazing, as large num bers o f fine cattle show; the original forests being heavily timbered, while good w ater abounds on every side; in fact, large quantities o f the land needs ditching to relieve it o f its surplus water. The south fork o f Roanoke river has its rise in this section, B ottom creek form ing one o f its principle tributaries, running westerly by w ay o f Alleghany Springs, while the sm all spring, running east through the gap, through w hich w e enter the basin, runs into Roanoke river in the southeast end o f this county. Thus tw o stream s rising so near each other on the m ountain, going in opposite directions, m ingle their w aters together nearly forty m iles from w here they start. O n the m ountain w e find good crops o f grain, fat cattle, hogs, and cabbage in abundance; the cabbage o f this section being as fine as w as ever eaten, while the Irish potatoes are o f the largest size and finest quality. N um erous young orchards have b een planted along the road. H ere w e fin d M r. Jordan W oodrum , w ho has turned his old orchard over to his son John, and though venerable w ith age, is still planting apple trees - a n d k now s w here to buy them . B y the way, Mr. Editor, it w as M r. W o o d ru m w ho started the “ S alem R egister” aw ay b ack in the fifties, and you m ight pro fit b y his e x am p le a n d p lan t an apple John Long is director o f the Salem Museum and Historical Society. JO �orchard to furnish solace fo r y o u r declining y ears and, lik e h im , b u y your trees fro m the S alem N ursery. In this neighborhood y o u find the P rices, C oles, K in g s, H uffs, and o th er h o p e s to b ecom e acquainted in the near future. O u r business tak e s us to M r. J. C oles T erry’s p ro b ab ly the largest lan d ed proprietor on the m ountain. H e, too, h a s tu rned h is a tte n tio n to the raisin g o f re d apples, having last year purchased a thousand trees. H e, too, k n e w w h e re to b u y h is trees. H ere y o u find horses, fat cattle and big hogs, and h o sp itality for m an a n d b e a st, a n d as you eat a ju ic y steak you w ill see hanging on the w alls a po rtrait o f a y o u n g n av al officer, in the unifo rm o f the U n ited States, w ho on inquiry I learned w as C om m odore W h ittle, the fath e r o f M rs. Terry, w h o becam e a distin­ g u ished officer o f the C onfederate States N avy. H aving finished ou r d inner and b u sin ess, w e tu rn o u r face eastw ard on th e b a c k trail to travel the southern and eastern p a rt o f the county. W e look fro m th e to p o f the m o u n ta in to the east, on the P eaks o f O tter, w hile the sm oke curling up yo n d er from th e g rea t valley below is from the furnace at R oanoke city. T hat m o u n ta in o f f to the southeast, w h ic h looks like a hu g e p ack-saddle, is T in k er M ountain, n e a r the b a se o f w h ic h stands H o llin s Institute, and Prof. P leasants, o f w h ich m ore anon. T he w hole scene o f farm an d forest, h ill a n d dale, rem inds one o f a g reat checker­ board. It is o fte n said th a t m an y o f o u r y o u n g m en w h o w e n t W est years ago, i f th ey h a d w o rk ed as h a rd and subm itted to as m a n y inconveniences Dr. Edward O. Tinsley prepared to make house calls from his office on Bent a n d dep riv atio n s here as Mountain in the early 1900s. (Photo courtesy o f his daughter, Sue Tinsley th ere, th eir success Angle.) w o u ld h av e b e e n as g reat h ere in V irginia as in the W est, b u t w h en w e lo o k at the h a rd w o rk n ecessary to subdue th e forest, extract the stum ps, pile th e rocks, a n d th en h a v e land so steep, ro u g h and p o o r as to m ak e it danger­ ous to cultivate, the scanty crops raised, th e n after y ears o f w o rk opening up such land, to fin d the sum m er show ers have w ash ed aw ay y o u r soil a n d the stream s h a v e e a rn e d it d o w n to th e o ld O cean, then, w hen w e think o f the level, treeless lands o f in ex h au stib le fertility o f the W est, the w o n d er is th at any rem ain. O n som e o f the farm s o f th e county, th e m e n w h o cultivate th e m sh o u ld b e m ade w ith a long a n d short leg, reversible, so n o m atte r w h ich w a y th e y go they co u ld p u t the long leg below , and, like a hill-side plow , ru n eith er way. From here w e w o u ld like to take a n e a r cut, like the c re e k w h ich ju m p s d o w n n e a rly a th o u ­ sand feet in the distance o f a m ile, to the v a lle y below , w h ile it takes u s n e a rly fo u r m iles to go aro u n d the pike, but Joe O w ens bein g the ro a d o verseer a n d h a v in g the ro ad in g o o d condition, w e Hide ~ 71 �get safely dow n to B ack C reek. A ny one fam iliar w ith th is section thirty years ago, w o u ld be astonished at the im provem ent m p lace and people. T he o ld -tim e to bacco house has ro tted dow n, or is used o f other purposes, no one b ein g w illing to su n b u rn h is b ack and strain his eyes to w o rm tobacco for the sake o f the few dollars to be earned b y its cultiv atio n , w h en it is so easy to raise golden apples. The im provem ent in the p eo p le has been as g rea t as the m aterial. I rem em ber w h e n a few o f the B ack creekers w ould com e to Salem on public d ay s fo r the pu rp o se o f “tak in g the to w n ,” and generally did, o r give old m an Jim m y H u ff and A lb e rt a g o o d deal o f trouble. B ut n o w n o better behaved people com e to Salem than the p eo p le o f th a t section. T he change in p lace a n d p eople has been largely w rought by apples, free schools a n d th e bible; a n d B ack Creek, from b e in g considered the poorest section o f the county, is now the richest, - h e r apple crop being w o rth m o re th an the w heat crop o f the county. A nd w hat is done on B ack C reek can be done all over the county, as is show n by the nice apples raised in every section o f it. N o d a n g e r o f over-production, as the m o re apples w e raise the m ore com petition we w ill have am ong b u y ers. H ere on u p p e r B ack C reek w e fin d the Fergusons, Tinnells, K ittingers and o th er good people, a still-h o u se a n d Jim Turner. In the Poage s M ill n eig h b o rh o o d w e find M r. L. D. R ell, a clever m an, w ho gave m e a quart o f chestnuts. H e is a chip o f the o ld block, and fast reach in g the diam eter o f his father. A t P o a g e ’s M ill w e find ‘Squire E lija h P oage, a little battered b y h is co n tact w ith the w orld and the frosts o f m any w inters, but he is still in the ring, an d ow ns a little to w n o f his ow n, besides the m ill, has nice fat h ogs, and honey fo r b rea k fa st. N otw ithstanding as goes ‘Squire Poage, so goes P o ag e’s M ill, no son o f his w ill ever sit o n h is fa th e r’s throne. C rossing the in te rv en in g ridges, w e com e to M r. G. M . B e ll’s probably the biggest m an in the section. He, too, w ent into the forest w ith a m attock w ith w hich he has m ade the forest to blossom as the rose - everything about h im h av in g an a ir o f prosperity. Such w o rk m ust be healthful, as w itness his avoirdupois o f 300 pounds. A curve in the road brings the village o f Cave Spring to view, nestled in that beautiful valley o f H epsidam , w here “the lio n ro are th and the w hangdoodle m o u m e th for his first b o m .” W ill tell o f it next w eek. J.A.F. P e o p l e and T h in gs S e e n On a R id e T hrough th e S outh S id e o f th e C ounty A r t ic l e No . 3 Editors Times-Register: In our last w e w ere in sight o f C ave Spring, w hich w e n o w enter w ith a good deal o f se lf and official importance, but those quiet unostentatious citizens did not seem to fully appreciate a visit from an im portant dignitary, and treated m e as thought I w as only a com m on citizen. Cave Spring is a nice village (none o f your boom tow ns), w ith four nice churches viz: M ethodist, B aptist, P resbyterian a n d D un k ard ; tw o stores that carry a gen eral assortm ent o f goods (one o f these stores h as a “B erry” g o o d m erc h an t an d a “C oon” clerk), a “W h ite” doctor, a deputy treasurer and such good citizens as th e G reen w o o d s, C hapm ans, T urners, H artm ans, Zirkles, and others. H ere, likew ise, a p o st office in th e suburbs. T he tow n is w atered b y a spring from the cave. N o hotel is here, b u t p len ty o f h o u ses o f entertainm ent. Lack o f h o tels giv es m e an excuse to dead-head m y w ay at friend G reen w o o d ’s, th e lo ca l law y er o f that place. A lth o u g h the supper w as cooked b y “G reen- 72 ~ R ide �w o od,” it w as w ell done b y the tim e I got through. A Bell with History: The B ell in the M ethodist church has som ething o f a history. Being considered too small for the large ideas o f the present M ethodist congregation in Salem , it w as taken down and a large failure put in its place. It w as presented to the Cave Spring congregation together for worship; and as our big bell is cracked it w ould be a v ery graceful act in the Cave Spring people to give it back to us. T he young people o f Cave Spring are frolicsom e in their natures; they throw rice and old shoes at a bridal party, and treat local political speakers to a shower o f hen fruit, a post m ortem exam ination o f which w ould show that they died o f old age. S tartin g fo r R ed H ill, w e pass (w hen w e d o n ’t stay all night) at Bro. B rickey’s, w ho, w ith his g o o d w ife, entertains a stranger in a w ay to m ake him feel at hom e, w hile “D ad” has a hearty w el­ com e for all. W e n e x t com e to T. M . S tarkey’s, another m an w ho has a little to w n o f his ow n, and serves h is d istrict as S upervisor through all adm inistrations, and no m atter w hat k in d o f currency is in vogue, alw ay s h as plenty. H e is also the p o ssesso r o f an old-tim e pen o f fattening hogs, a v ery rare th in g n o w in the county, the people seem ing to prefer to spend their m o n ey for w estern pork. H is build in g s are in good repair and his w ell-tilled farm seem s to say, “B y industry w e thrive. I have n ev er sto p p ed here, b u t am expecting an invitation next spring, as I m ake m y rounds, i f I ev er get w ith in a m ile o f his house to stop. H ere w e strike the Roanoke and Southern railroad, that was to have b een built and finished to Salem w ithin thirty days after it was built to Roanoke; said report being w orth thousands o f dollars to the Salem D ev elo p m en t C om pany, but n o t to the purchasers o f lots. H ere at S tarkey’s depot last year we found Jo h n B e a r w ith a force o f hands m ak in g barrels fo r the apple crop o f B ack C reek an d this vicinity. The Old Harvey Furnace: A t th e lo w er end o f the S tarkey’s bottom , w here the hills close in on the creek, you ride over a little m o u n d an d see cinders scattered around, and close observation show s you the rem ains o f an o ld furnace stack and forge, know n in an cient tim es as “H arvey’s Furnace.” Mr. H arvey w as the great g ran d fath er o f M rs. Starkey, w h o ow ns the ancestral hom e. The g reatest flood ever kn o w n in B ack C reek, in 1812, sw ept aw ay the furnace and all its belongings, an d it w as never rebuilt; so you see iron w a s m ad e in R oanoke county p ro b ab ly one hundred years ago. M y ro ad now leads dow n B ack Creek, a rough section o f country, and the question before m e is w h ich has the right o f w a y — the railroad, the rocky road or the creek; or w hether the road is in the creek bed, or the creek in the road bed. The creek seem s to com e nearer doing as it pleases than its com petitors for right o f way, and had evidently not only taken possession o f the road bed, b u t w ashed it away. You ford the creek lengthw ise, an d w hen it is m u d d y and you d o n ’t know w hether the creek is one foot or ten feet deep y o u r sensations are far from pleasant. W h y do the road com m issioners persist in locating roads in the creeks? They are usually rough, im passable in tim es o f high water, never good, and have to be rebuilt after every freshet, w hen the land on eith er side o f th e creek is often com paratively w orthless. M r. E ditor, did yo u ever travel in a strange country, and com e to the forks o f the ro ad and k n o w n o t w h ic h w ay to go? W ith no finger-board to direct you? W ell, i f y o u travel in R oanoke county a w h ile y o u w ill experience th at unpleasant predicam ent, and after traveling a few m iles out o f y o u r w a y o n a rough horse, a h ard saddle and a sore body, and find it h a s caused you to m iss R ide ~ 7 3 �Grading apples in Bent Mountain orchards was a big operation fo r m any years. (Photo courtesy o f Sue Tinsley Angle.) co n n ectio n w ith y o u r dinner, o r ride into the night, ev en M oses w o u ld lo se h is m eek n ess a n d becom e o u t o f sorts, an d i f I did n ot expect to run for office som e day I w o u ld h av e som ething to say about this sign-board b u sin e ss and call attention to the C ode o f V irginia on th a t subject; b u t as it is, I am silent. The w orst roads in the county are in the R ed Hill section; as they have very little road m oney it w ould be m uch to the advantage o f that section i f they belonged to B ig L ick district. There has b een great im provem ent in nearly all the roads in the county— the best is in Salem and B ig L ick districts, these districts having m ore m oney and better located roads. The Salem tannery is m aking itse lf felt, as w itness all sections o f the county, w here chestnut oak tim ber grows, bark-peeling is carried on extensively, it being hauled by w agons and shipped b y the R oanoke and Southern railroad, thereby circulating a good deal o f m oney am ong the bark-peeling community. In all the south side o f the county you see the effect o f a city m arket. Truck patches abound on every hand for the grow ing o f all kinds o f vegetables, and i f you go into that section early in the m orning you will m eet team s o f all kinds hauling their produce to m arket, w hile the tim ber from the b la c k ja c k ridges is m anufactured into stove-w ood and hauled into R oanoke to cook the veg­ etables. The capital city o f that section is Corleyville, i f you can get on the right ro ad and find it. I asked a young lady how far it w as to Corleyville, she said it w as n ot so far. R ather indefinite, but still I h ad the satisfaction o f know ing that it w as not so very far. The post office is called Battle H ill, I suppose after the g o iy color o f the hills. Corleyville needs a good hotel, and Hotel Salem w ould m ake quite an acquisition on a p ro m in e n t lo ca tio n there. In this section you w ill fin d the M artins, P eters, R idgew ays, K ingerys, & c., a n d “ S quire” W illiam H enry H arrison R ichardson. N e a r here I saw a stack o f b u c k w h e a t straw, a p ile o f sorghum stacks, and the fat hogs in the pen. It d id not tak e a v e ry liv ely im ag in atio n to s e e ' b u ck w h eat cakes, p o rk gravy, and “lasses” for breakfast — m ig h ty g o o d grub. I f I d o n ’t get lo st w ill tell y o u o f B alleyhack in m y next. J.A.F. 74 ~ R ide �The history o f A frican-A m ericans in R oanoke C ity has been p u lle d fr o m the s h e lf a n d d u sted o f f A frica n -A m erica n “fir s ts ” in B ig L ic k a n d R oanoke were draw n fr o m the b o o k A frican-A m erican H istory in R oanoke City: A C om pilation o f Records. The source w as o ld c ity directories. ♦ H enry L an g h o m e w as the first A frican-A m erican to ow n property in R oanoke. H e pu rch ased the six acre p ro p erty from M ildred G oodm an on A ugust 1 ,1 8 6 9 . A lthough R oanoke city h a d n o t yet b e e n incorporated the property w as included w hen the city boundaries w ere set. ♦ T he first co lo red school w as located on D asher H ill (later know n as D iam o n d H ill) in 1870 or 1871. ♦ First B ap tist C hurch w as organized on Septem ber 3 0 ,1 8 6 7 , in B ig Lick. ♦ T he first A frican-A m erican new spaper w as the R oanoke “W eekly S un.” Jo h n H. D avis w as the editor and H o w eard G ordon (or Jordan?) operated the printing press in 1888. ♦ Dr. R obert B oland, one o f the first A frican-A m erican physicians in o u r city, w as the first A fricanA m erican to o w n a car. Dr. B oland had an office in Pulaski also. ♦ A lfred F ran k lin B rooks, b o m in H ale’s Ford in Franklin County, w as th e first m ail carrier o f color. ♦ T here w ere fo u r grocers in 1888: B enjam in C ollins, Jefferson E vans, T h o m as P enn, Jr., C lem ent G ary and Jo h n W hite, doing business as G ary and W hite. ♦ A bram B. W h ite w as the adm inistrator o f the C olored Private School in 1899. T he school was located at 405 N in th Avenue NE. ♦ In 1895, th ere w as an A frican-A m erican ice cream parlor called B anks a n d M cP hierson. W illis C. B anks and E m anuel M cPhierson w ere the ow ners. ♦ A ndrew J. O liv er w as the first A frican-A m erican attorney listed in the R oan o k e C ity D irectory for 1895. ♦ P eter D e a lin g w as listed as an engineer at C entral M anufacturing C om pany. ♦ T he D eaconess H om e and Training School, 610 M cD ow ell A venue, w a s ap p aren tly the first A fri­ can-A m erican hospital. R everend J. D. Tynes w as the general superintendent. (1904) ♦ T he first fem ale A frican-A m erican schoolteacher w as M ary B rooks from B oston, M asachusetts. ♦ G olden C h io lin D m g C om pany at 704 Fourth Street N E w as the first d rug store. W. S. R eaves w as the m anager. ♦ L ew is B ro w n w as the head w aiter at H otel R oanoke. E m m a D ugan w as th e c h ie f m aid. R ichm ond G rant w as th e c h ie f Bellm an. ♦ C harles R. P ark er w as the first undertaker (m ortician) listed. Arleen F. Ollie completed African-American History in Roanoke City: A Compilation o f Records in 2003. She received an award from the Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation f o r her book, a catalog o f 6,000 names in the years 1888, 1890, 1895 and 1910. She is a graduate o f Hollins University. 75 �♦ In 1904, T hom as T. T raynham w as listed as a shipping clerk a t N & W R ailroad. B enjam in J. G askins w as a m ail clerk, D aniel G askins as a m essenger, and Sam uel G askins w as show n as an assistant m ail clerk. ♦ In 1895, M atilda N oel w as ind ex ed as an em ployee o f N & W ’s offices. ♦ Julia S. Jam ison ow ned a n d operated D ix ie S team L aundry at 12 L uck A venue. Som e o f her em ­ ployees w ere: W alter Priest, m anager; T h o m as D ehaven, driver; Florine Jam ison; and N ora Booth. ♦ In 1910, E dw ard A. M cG hee operated A m erican D ye W orks at 302 F ranklin R oad. H is em ployees w ere listed as John Upshur, driver, H attie Brown, an d Sam uel James. ♦ Clarence C. Talley w as the proprietor o f C lio Tailoring C om pany at 123 N orfolk Avenue. ♦ Benjam in B. Bartee ow ned and operated V iaduct Tailoring C om pany at 98 H enry Street. His business was incorporated M ay 19,1910. The officers w ere: Benjam in B. Bartee, president and m anager Frank Callaway, vice president H.C. Johnson, secretary D.L. Ferguson, treasurer J.C. Dugan, auditor W.H. Hilton, assistant auditor B artee’s em ployees were: Jam es Cooper, sales Benjamin Hankins, tailor H erbert Rayford, driver Jam es Austin, presser Lucy Arrington, presser W oodson B. M arshall, presser William D. Brown Daisy Jordan ♦ There w ere several artisans listed in the 1888 R oanoke City Directory: Gilbert Christian w as a b o ttle r—a m ak er o f leather or glass containers for holding liquids. There w as a stonem ason, Tyler H. Callow ay, and several brickm asons: H ugh Day, Jacob and Robert Southall. There w ere three shoem akers: N icholas Sanders, D avied Ganner, and Jam es Coliman. W illiam W atkins, John Turner, John M use, Charles Lovely, R obert D ow dy, and Jam es F. Brooks were blacksmiths. W illiam Dunning, W alter Christian, and Isaac Ham pton w ere carpenters. Charles W. Bright w as a coachsm ith an d later becam e a blacksm ith. ♦ M ark B am es w as a m arble w orker. ♦ The first A frican-A m erican nurses w ere listed in 1904: Three m onthly nurses -Frances M artin M aria M ickey M alinda W ashington F our nurses — Estelle Brooks Jam es Fizer M aria Saunders 76 ~ fir s ts �Grace Thom as ♦ John H. D avis, fo rm er editor for the “W eekly Sun,” w as listed as the p resident o f R oan o k e L and a n d B uilding A ssociation in 1890. ♦ Some other firsts that occurred in 1890: John Hale -- lather H enry H ow ard —butcher R ichard W. Jones —m achinist Virginia B rooks —dressm aker B uck M alone —baker Patrick W. O liver —general m erchandiser at 129 Railroad Ave. SE. ♦ Occupations o f interest in 1895: G. T hom as D avis —head w aiter at the H otel Ponce de Leon C aspar Fuller —m echanic L ucinda J. C urie ow ned and operated a barber shop at 6 South Jefferson. W illiam G raham —miner Thom as Lindsay -- stem m er at Reynolds Cigar Com pany Jam es Tyson —m arble cutter ♦ W illie P riest w as the only A frican-A m erican fem ale given the designation o f “M rs.” in any o f the directories u sed to com pile this inform ation.. ♦ Inform ation for 1904-05 John Evans —cigar m aker M argaret G ordon w as the principal for the G irl’s Training School at M cD o w ell A venue near 6th. E dw ard H aristo n w as the sexton at G reene M em orial C hurch General L. Pittm an was the first Pullman car porter listed Sam uel R obinson ~ City blacksmith R ichard W inn —cooper W illiam S. W oodson - chief, R oanoke D ivision, U O T R (U nited O rder o f T rue R eform ers, A banking an d insurance com pany) John E vans — cigar m aker Jam es L a v e n d er—m usic teacher N elson Poindexter -- basket m aker ♦ Persons o f interest for 1910: Calvin T. C lark w as the first herbal doctor listed. Julia C olem an operated a Cigar and Tobacco store at 501 N orfolk Avenue. Julia A. H icks ow ned Fruit and Confectionary. It was located at 562 S alem Ave. G eorge K insey and Patrick H. Arm strong w ere contractors. Jam es R. M ed ley w as listed as a “gas m aker.” A rm istead P. W ashington was a carpet layer. Benjam in Sm ith w as a jeweler. Lee Sunders w as a horse trader. J ir s ts ~ 7 7 �P r o f e s s o r G .fc. K r e g lo e ’s R o a n o k e C la ssic a l S ch o o l, 1 8 9 9 - 1 9 0 3 H orace M ann, the fam ed educator, a p io n ee r in A m erican school m ethods an d organization in a w ork w ritten in the 1850s entitled “L ost, Tw o G olden H o u rs,” declared, “L ost, yesterday som ew here betw een sunrise and sunset, tw o golden h ours, each set w ith six ty diam ond m in ­ utes. N o rew ard is offered, for th ey are gone forever...” L ooking back on m y boyh o o d in R oanoke I c a n envision n o t golden hours, b u t m any golden days w hen R oanoke, as an incorporated city, w a s o n ly 15 years old, days w h ich are n o t lost altogether because I can say w ith Shakespeare, “I sum m on up rem em brance o f things p a st,” a n d I can see through the m ists o f bygone tim es fam iliar faces and b e lo v e d scenes. It w as m y good fortune to atten d Prof. C. E. K reg lo e’s R oanoke C lassical School for Boys during the sessions 1899-1900,1900-1901 and 1901-1902, and m y recollections o f m y old teacher and o f the days I spent under his tutelage are am ong m y happiest. Prof. K re g lo e ’s p riv ate school, for a b rie f p erio d in R oanoke’s early history, w as an institu tio n com parable, in m y hum ble opinion, to M cG uire’s School m R ichm ond and C h arlo ttesv ille’s c eleb rated school for boys, w hich flo u rish ed in the 1850s headed b y Prof. H orace Jones. Prof. Kregloe, a m an o f sterling qualities, w as an excellent teacher. The G eim an strain in him prompted m to be a m ethodical adm inistrator w ho step-by-step, throughout his career, k ep t a detailed record o f his activities even the hours he spent in the w oods and fields and by the stream s at his favorite sports o f hunting :s even and fishing. His son, Karl L. K regloe, for the past 16 vears connected w ith the R oanoke M erchants Associatioi has been good enough to lend m e a sm all ledger in w hich the professor recorded his educational background, the various schools in which he taught prior to the establishm ent o f the Roanoke Classical School, nam esofhis pupils, and the nam es o f those w ho aided him in his scholastic enterprises. , C harles E m ory K regloe w as b o m at Luray, V irginia, M arch 2 0 ,1 8 5 9 , the son o f E phraim L. and M artha (H ull) K regloe. E phraim w as the son o f Jacob an d Sophia (B uffington) K regloe, and w as b o m at Taneytown, M aiyland, July 2 3 ,1 8 2 9 . H is boyhood a n d youth w ere spent in Pennsylvania and he w as edu­ cated at G ettysburg C ollege. T he nam e, in Ja c o b ’s tim e, w as “K reg elo ,” b u t w h en E phraim reached m anhood he changed it to “K regloe.” It is a G erm an co gnom en an d is b eliev ed b y som e genealogists to have been originally “K n e g lic h ,” m ean in g w arlike. Ephraim Kregloe becam e a sturdy old-school M ethodist clergym an. He entered the m inistry in 1852, w as adm itted to the Baltim ore C onference the fo llow ing year. In 1855 he m arried M artha W ilson Hull, o f Lexington, m em ber o f a leading Rockbridge family. H e w as assigned to various charges in the South, including Luray, w here C harles w as bom . In 1870 E phraim w a s sent to L exington w here h e served a church for 17 years, and there C harles grew to m anhood. E p h ra im ’s w ife d ied in 1887, an d from th a t year he lived m o st o f his tim e w ith his son, in clu d in g the y ears a fte r C harles m o v ed to R oanoke in 1894. In 1906 E phraim m arried M rs. K ate K e a rn ey M cQ u ilk in , w h o m he h a d k n o w n w h e n h e h a d a charge in Shepherdstow n, W. Va. H e m oved to S h epherdstow n the sam e y e a r an d died there N ov. 1 9 ,1 9 1 7 at the wrote this �age o f 88. H e w as b u ried in L ex in g to n . C h arles’ father w a s a d ig n ified , austere m an, w ho w o re a long beard. I recall he custom arily appeared in a b la c k suit a n d a b lac k h at. H e w as deliberate in h is speech a n d m ovem ents. In 1916 he w as affectionately h o n o red b y th e B altim o re C onference as its “o ld e s t living m em ber.” C harles attended W ashington and L ee a n d w a s g rad u a ted in 1877. H e tau g h t sch o o l for one y e a r a t T im ber R idge in R ockbridge County, tw o years a t G r e e n v il le , a n d th e n a tte n d e d R andolph-M acon C ollege, fro m w hich he w as graduated in 1883. A t R andolphM aco n h e w as a Pace M edalist, E nglish E ss a y is t, a n d w in n er o f th e F u rn e ss S h a k e s p e a r e a n p r iz e o f L o n d o n , E n g la n d . T he aw ard w as fo r an essay o n K ing H aro ld o f E ngland, a scholarly sk etch o f the ill-fated m o n a rc h “w ho w as slain a t H astings in 1066.” It re ­ v e a le d p a in sta k in g re s e a rc h a n d w as w ritten in a sim ple, appealing style. F ro m th e y e a r 1883 u n til he cam e to R oanoke in 1894, he h e ld a suc­ cession o f teaching positions, including H arrisonburg, Lexington, T azew ell and Prof. C.E. Kregloe (Courtesy o f Sterling Kep art) B uena Vista. B e tw e e n 1883 a n d 1 8 8 5 , h e tau g h t in the H arrisonburg schools, as first assistan t the first y e a r a n d as p rin ­ cipal the next. His salary th e first year w as $50 a m o n th and his b o a rd cost him $15. T he second year he rec e iv e d $75 a m onth. F o r one m onth the first year and fo r tw o th e second, he con d u cted a pri­ vate school. In H arrisonburg, he form ed a S hakespearean class for yo u n g ladies, w h ich m e t once a w eek. It w as w hile he w as in the v alley to w n th a t h e m et h is w ife-to-be, M iss M am ie E. Sterling, daughter o f S am uel R. and E stelle Sterling, a p ro m in en t R o c k in g h a m C ounty fam ily. H is sta ff o f p u b lic school teachers included J.G . F isher an d th e M isses Jen n ie D av is, M ollie C onrad, B ettie C onrad, E m ily Strayer a n d G ussie Patterson. T he first year, h e w a s a ssista n t to Principal W. W. R obertson. T he second y ear he w as p rin­ cipal, a n d his a ssistan t w as C.P. N ow lin. A s p rin cip al o f th e L ex in g to n schools, 1886 to 1888, h e b o a rd e d w ith his father. “It w a s perhaps the m ost p leasan t year o f m y life,” he w ro te. H is sta ff at the “M a in bu ild in g included M rs. Dr. W ilson, M isses N .L . G ibbs, K ittie E still, M a ria Effm ger, Jennie B aco n a n d G iles G unn, at w hat w as kn o w n as the R iver School. H is N e g ro school s ta ff w as com posed o f H am m eline M iddleton, C harles R obinson, E dm und W hite, M aggie B iley a n d H a rriet C leaveland. Kregloe ~ 79 �H e spent tw o years, 1888 to 1890, as principal o f the Tazew ell H igh School. H is s ta ff o f teach ­ ers th e re included M isses K ate R ussell, C arrie Spotts, K ate C abell, E m ily Strayer, L ulu K reg lo e (his sister), M rs. G us Spotts and a M rs. D oggett. “A kinder, m ore retired and m ore hospitable p eo p le, it has n e v e r b e e n m y lot to m eet,” he observed o f the Tazew ell folks. F rom Tazew ell, he w ent to B uena V ista in 1890, w here he served as principal o f the B u e n a V ista F e m ale Sem inary, later know n as the Southern Sem inary (Southern V irginia U niversity today) H is assista n ts included his w ife, M rs. M am ie K regloe, m atron; M isses E loise Capshaw , L u c y B osw ell, M a ry L eybum and his sister, L ulu K regloe, a teacher o f m usic. O thers on the sta ff w ere M rs. O. J. H a rd y and M iss M innie M orris, an art teacher. H e left B u en a V ista in 1893 and took charge o f the G reenville school at $40 a m onth. H e b o a rd e d w ith a M r. C lay P alm er for $12 a m onth. H is p u p ils num bered 50 in tw o room s. H is assistant w as M iss M ay O gilvie. That sam e year, he visited the W orld’s Fair in Chicago. H e w rote o f th is S eason’s e x p e rien c e that the year w as one o f discom fort, bad health a n d insufficiency o f m eans to su p p o rt m y fam ily, the session lasting but six m onths.” in July, 1894, Prof. Kregloe w as elected principal o f the old Com m erce Street School in Roanoke. He w rote: “I m oved to R oanoke S eptem ber 3 and rented a house on 11th A venue (370) for $ 13 a m onth. O n the fo llow ing M onday I opened school. This school h ad a total enrollm ent for the session o f o v e r 800 p u p ils. T he building, a 10-room structure and assem bly room , w as a first-rate one and v ery co n v en ien t fo r sch o o l purposes. H e explained that his salary w as $75 a m onth, w hich he said he felt “w as w ell earn ed . H is sta ff o f teachers consisted o f J.M . W illiam s, M isses E m m a M . H unt, Fannie C. W illiam s L ouise C. Griggs, Janet H ill eary, A nna Clare, Fannie Fishbum e and Ella F. Trent. M iss N annie A lexander w a s n a m e d to succeed M iss C lare, w ho m arried after the C hristm as holidays. H e served Com m erce Street again for the session 1895-1896 at the sam e salary, and listed his teach­ ers as: Misses Fannie Fishbume, Ella Trent, Fannie Williams, Louise Griggs, Nannie Alexander, Lucy F Boawell and Janet Hilleary. In the fall o f 1896 he joined the faculty o f Allegheny Institute, w here he said his salary for the session w a s $500. “O ut o f th is,” he w rote, “I h ad to p ay for K a rl’s tuition. M y p rincipal w ork w as teach in g L atm , French and H istory.” He listed as the Institute’s official roster: S.S. Handy, headm aster; A . K ingm an H an d y , b u sin ess m anager; F ran k D uke, m athem atics; M iss Jennings, p rim a ry teacher; a n d D.W . P ersinger, general assistant. Seventy-five pupils w ere enrolled. H e rem ained at A llegheny Institute for the se ssio n o f 1897-1898 and for 1898 to 1899, w ith an increase o f $200 in salary, m aking it $700. F o r the 1897-1898 session, Joseph T urner and Phil M eade (a son o f Dr. W illiam M eade o f St. Jo h n ’s E p isco p a l C hurch) w ere added to the faculty. F or the session 1898-1899, the Institute m oved its quarters to the old stable on the Fairfax place on Jeffe rso n Street. F o r that session A lpheus C oon and M iss Saunders w ere added to the fac u lty a n d Prof. K re g lo e ’s salary w as fixed at $750, although he w rote that he received only $700. D uring h is service as a te a c h e r o f m o d em languages a t A llegheny Institute, he also taught L atin at V irginia C ollege, in its tim e a leading institution o f learning for young w om en. In 1899 he established the R oanoke Classical School for Boys. H e w rote, “F inding th a t A lleg h ­ e n y Institute w as likely to go to pieces, I w ithdrew and opened a school o f m y ow n fo r b o y s a t m y h o m e, 372 Tw elfth A venue, S.W. O w ing to w ant o f room , I lim ited the school to 25 pupils. I found that I h a d th e patronage o f the w ealthiest and m ost influential people in the city. I h a d b u t one assistan t, M r. Jo n es (o r Jam es) H art, and him only for one hour a day. The w ork w as about the m ost o n ero u s I have u n d e rta k en and a t the close o f school I found m y se lf th o roughly broken dow n. M y incom e fo r the vear (net) w as $1,077.” y H e listed th e follow ing pu p ils w ith their ages: Irving Bragg, 14; R alph B ragg, 9; B e v e rly B er- 8 0 ~ Kregloe �keley, 18; N elso n Berkeley, 14: C. Francis C ocke, 14; H arry and W illiam D avant, 17 and 16; E dw ard Johnson, 17; C avan and G eorge Low e, 14 and 9; D onald Royer, 17; W illiam R obertson, 11; C lifford Fred Tice, 15; K arl K regloe, 12; Thom as Sw eeney 16; A bram Staples, 14; H u n t Staples, 13; Sam uel Staples, 14; F red Stras, 16; H arvey W hite, 13; C lifford W oodw ard, 14; W illiam W atts, 16; H ugh W atts, 15; Paul B erger, 10; and G eorge M cN am ara, 9. He eq u ipped his school w ith the typically designed school desks o f th e day, bought from the H andy brothers o f the A llegheny Institute. It w as his son K arl’s responsibility to du st them o ff at the d a y ’s end, start a n d bank the fires, and serve generally as a ja n ito r fo r $3 a m onth. T he outstanding m em bers o f the school’s first enrollm ent, in later life, p ro v ed to be Judge B everly B erkley o f the R oanoke Police and L aw and E quity C ourts; C. Francis C ocke, president o f the First N ational E xchange B ank, currently president o f the A m erican B ankers A ssociation; the late A sso ­ ciate Justice A b ram P. Staples o f the V irginia C ourt o f A ppeals; and E dw ard Jo hnson, R oanoke b u si­ ness m an and p resid en t o f R otary International for the year 1935-1936. N elson B erkeley, nicknam ed “H uzzy,” w as given to florid verbiage in h is boyhood. H e w as a good-sized lad w h en he w as christened at St. Jo h n ’s Episcopal C hurch. It is rep o rted th at as he w alked up the aisle o f the church after the christening som eone asked him how he lik ed it. “T h at p reach er (Dr. M eade) m ade m y h ead too dam ned w et!” he exclaim ed. I w ill nev er forget a h o c k e y (shinny) gam e in w hich, as a m em b e r o f m y side, he w hanged his stick into the sm all o f m y b a c k a n d knocked m e out com pletely for a h a lf an hour! Prof. Kregloe sat in a straight-backed chair, usually with his legs crossed. In the cold m onths he heated the classroom w ith a Franklin coal stove. Paul B erger’s father gave the p ro fesso r carte blanche in the use o f the rod— and it w as u sed several tim es during the year! N o o th er boy, so fa r as I know , receiv ed corporal pu n ish m en t at the p rofessor’s hands. C l a s s ic a l S c h o o l M o v e d t o J e f f e r s o n S t r e e t For the session o f 1900-1901, the Roanoke Classical School w as m oved to the old A llegheny Insti­ tute b am on the Fairfax place on Jefferson Street and the enrollm ent w as 40 boys. T he professor wrote: “I em ployed a M iss C ordoza from Lunenburg C ounty to assist m e w ith m y w ork. T his session w as quite pro sp ero u s and m y w ork nothing like so hard as it h ad been. I p a id m y assistant $300, and after deducting this and fuel bills and ja n ito r’s fees m y school n etted m e ab o u t $1,150, p robably the m ost profitable w ork, i f I except that at Tazew ell, that I ever h ad.” In add itio n to h is day classes the p rofessor th at y e a r taught n ig h t school for several m onths, w h ich n etted him , all told, $60. The 1900-1901 enrollment included the following names: Irving and Ralph Bragg, 15 and 10; M alcolm Bryan, 9; Ivy Bryant, 16; H ugh Buford, 14;________Burchfield, 12; Charles B aughm an, 16; N elson B erke­ ley, 17; Lucian C ocke, 12; C. Francis Cocke, 15; Courteney Carpenter, 16; John D ow ney, 12; E dw ard and R inggold D avant, 13 and 12; A lex Kindred, 15; W illH anff, 13; D aniel H oge, 15; C avan and George Law e, 15 and 10; G eorge Luck, 15; Sam uel N elm s, 23; C harles Roher, 16; H unter Perry, 14; K arl K regloe, 13; W illiam Robertson, 12; Versa! Spalding, 10; Abram , H unt and Sam uel Staples, 15,15 and 14; Fred Stras, 17; Clifford (Fred) Tice, 16; Henry Tice, 12; Vernon Trueman, 15; W illiam Tanner, 15; H arvey W hite, 14; Joseph W alton, 11; H unter Donald, 14; and W illiam M itchell, 16. Fred Stras had a genius for m aking a noise like a m ouse w ith a suction m ovem ent o f the palm s o f his hands, w hich annoyed the professor no end. Hunter Perry, in a duel, stabbed m e in the palm o f m y right hand w ith a lead pen cil— w hich Dr. L eigh B uckner (G od rest his soul) dug out w ith a scalpel. T he m ark is there today. H unter P erry w as a cham pion m arble shot. I re c a ll he could use his h o m e y (agate) taw, and, p ro ­ tected b y a cham ois skin knuckle pad, could hit a dab in the b u ll’s eye at a d istan ce o f from six to eight Kregloe ~ 8 1 �feet. Som etim es he used a sm all steel taw. T he o th er R C S boys, after losing all th eir m arbles to him , refu sed to play w ith him . H e w as forced to offer a b ig han d icap to those w ho w ere w illin g to m eet him . I recall going hom e w ith M alcolm B ryan after school one day, and, at the suggestion o f R inggold D avant, I threw a preten d ed floor-rolling fit in the B ry an p a rlo r to frighten M alcolm . M rs. B ryan cam e on the scene and I w as com pelled to escape th ro u g h a w indow ! A t a recess, on one occasion, Sam Staples p la y e d m e a sorry trick at a gam e o f F oot-and-a-H alf, w hich I ’ll never forget. The story can b e told in m ale co m p an y only. For the session o f 1901-1902, the p ro fesso r d e c id e d to p u t up his ow n school. H e w rote: “This session, not being able to secure the b u ild in g used the previous session, it having been sold, I purchased in the S um m er a lot on 13th A venue, S.W ., fo r $267.50 and p u t up on it, at a cost o f $500, a small bu ilding o f tw o room s, so designed th at w h e n th rough w ith it for school purposes, I could use it as a seven-room building for a residence. “This session I em ployed no assistant, d o in g th e w o rk m yself. I h ad som e 25 pupils, and as these w ere o f various ages and sizes, necessitating m a n y classes, I found m y hands v e ry full. The w ork w as taxing to a degree, but I m anaged to get fairly g o o d results. T he older pupils esp ecially did good w ork. “This y ear m y school p aid m e $1,036 (collected). T he C ity H igh School (then o n C hurch Street) b y this tim e w as becom ing quite p opular an d I fo resaw in the n ear future a decadence in m y ow n school.” The 1901-1902 enrollment contained the following names: M alcolm Bryan, 10; Ivy Bryant, 17; Courteney Carpenter, 15; L ucian Cocke, 13; H ugh Buford, 15; R inggold, E dw ard and St. C lair D avant, 13,14 and 11; John Downey, 13; P eyton Jam ison, 16; R andolph M iller, 18; S im sM o rto n , 16; H unter Perry, 16; W illard Pace, 15; W illiam Robertson, 13; Versal Spalding, 12; C lifford (Fred) Tice, 17;H enryT ice, 13; L. Thom as, 25; Frank B row n Truem an, 16; H arvey W hite, 12; Joseph W alton, 12; G eorge Luck, 15; K arl K regloe, 15* W hen the p ro fe sso r’s tw o-room h ouse h a d b e e n com pleted, he contracted w ith a Mr. W hitlow , in the Sum m er o f 1901, to p ain t it a w hite base w ith g ree n borders. I happened b y one day and asked M r. W hitlow i f I could help him . H e pu lled the Tom S aw y er trick on m e. P roviding an extra ladder, he allow ed m e to help him pain t h a lf the school house! M y m o th er w as indignant; ask ed m e w h at rem u­ neration I w ould receive. I told her Mr. W hitlow said it w o u ld b e a “valuable ex p erien ce.” “Valuable experience indeed, she said. “Go and tell Mr. W h itlo w to b u y you a new shirt a n d p a ir o f pants. It’ll take a w eek to g et that paint o ff y our face an d arm s, a n d out o f yo u r hair!” In a late r conversation, how ever, Mr. W hitlow stuck to his theory th at “v alu ab le exp erien ce” w as rew ard enough. L. T hom as, the oldest youth in this en ro llm en t— he w as 25— had fought w ith G en. F u n sto n ’s forces in the P hilippines against the insurrectionist lea d e r A guinaldo. O n one o ccasio n the P rofessor asked him to reco u n t his experiences. I recall h o w I sh uddered w h en he told ab o u t digging up the graves o f m en w ho h ad died in battle and found th e ir h e a d h a ir a n d beards h ad g ro w n as long as their bodies! During 1901-1902, the pupils acquired cadet gray jockey-like caps w ith the initials R C S on the front, ju st above the beak. I recall that m ine got buried beneath a huge pile o f stove w ood at hom e. Until the w ood supply was exhausted I co u ld n ’t get at it. W h en found, it h a d shrunk so that it w o u ld n ’t fit. M y scholas­ tic attainm ents, how ever, w ere not such as to cause a sw ell head. In a letter to m y F a th er that year, the Professor hinted th at I w as slightly dum b— along w ith several other students I w ill n o t nam e! The pro fesso r s son, K arl, during this session, a t th e age o f 15, had acquired outstanding p ro fi­ ciency w ith the g ravel-shooter (sling-shot). H e m ad e h is ow n Y -shaped prongs from hickory. W ith half-inch rubber b ands he could shoot sparrow s w ith an accu racy and at a distance th at am azed his fellow pupils in the R oanoke C lassical School. 8 2 ~ Kregloe �Professor K regloe’s w ife, w hom h e m arrie d N o v em b er 17th, 1885— the form er M iss M am ie E. Sterling o f H arrisonburg— w as a charm ing, p etite, b row n-eyed w om an w ho exercised a fine influence over her fam ily. In his teaching ventures in B u e n a V ista and other places she gave him valuable aid in this work. K arl, her eldest, and Jennie L ou, w h o later m arried W. G uy L aughon o f Pulaski, w ere her only children. A t the age o f 85 she is now liv in g w ith h er son at 432 W ashington A venue. She is keenly interested in the affairs o f the changing w o rld around her, particularly in h er fam ily and in the boys her husband once taught. K arl w as bo m in L exington January 9 ,1 8 8 7 and Jennie Lou, n am ed a fter the P rofessor’s sister, w as b o m at B uena Vista M arch 9 ,1 8 9 4 . S he d ied on February 14,1917. In 1911, K arl m arried W inifred W hitfield C am pbell o f Pulaski, and the c o u p le h as three children: K arl C., S terling, w ho is now M rs. R. E. K ephart o f R oanoke, and Frank, o f Jack so n v ille B each, Florida. Jennie L o u ’s children are Jennie L ou and M am ie A nne L aughon o f G reensboro, N . C., and M rs. Joel W hitten o f Pulaski. In the 1900s, boys w ore long b lack stockings. M y recollection is th at one o f the c h ie f w orries o f “M am ie,” as K arl and Jennie L ou called th e ir m other, w as h er constant annoyance over K arl’s propen­ sity to tear holes in his stockings at the knees. In addition to his sling-shot p ro w ess— I recall no broken w indow s— K arl w as som ething o f an athlete, a M ercury-like sw ift runner, an d skilled at w restling, o f w hich I have personal know ledge from v a rio u s encounters. M y rem em brance o f Jennie L ou is that she w as petite, like her m other, p ossessed o f a rea d y sm ile, and w as a great favorite w ith the P rofessor’s boys. In the summ er o f 19021 took a special exam ination to enter the Roanoke H igh School, and how I ever p assed I d o n ’t know because the P rofessor listed m e at the bottom o f his scholastic ladder as one who m ight clim b h ig h er i f he only w ould. In his listing o f pupils, the P rofessor u se d a set o f m arks to designate th eir scholastic ratings. A “v ” next to a b o y ’s nam e signified that h e w a s “brig h t” ; an “x ” that he w as “d iligent” ; and an asterisk that he “w ould in all probability m ake a sc h o la r o f him self.” K r e g l o e L e f t T e a c h in g I n 1903 T he session o f 1902-1903 w as th e la st o f Prof. K regloe s teaching years. H e w rote: “Find that m y school the previous session w as too m u c h for one teacher. I took D.W . Persinger, an M .A . o f the U niversity o f Virginia, in w ith m e as a partner. P ersinger w as a fine fellow , an athlete and a finished scholar. W e got along excellently w ell to g ether, b u t the school from a financial standpoint, w hen it cam e to dividing the receipts, w as a failure, e ach o f us receiving about $400 fo r the session’s work. “F o r tw o years I h a d been w orking d u rin g the S um m er and at odd tim es for the N ew York Life Insurance Company. This in itself gave m e a good living. A t the close o f the session in June I sold the building to Persinger for $800. H e afterw ards ad d ed to it and converted it into a good dw elling. I gave up m y life ’s w ork w ith regret to go into insurance a n d o nly the prospects o f better rem uneration satisfied me in doing so.” The 1902-1903 enrollm ent included the follow ing nam es: Julian A ddison, 10; M alcolm Bryan, 11; H ugh Buford, 16; Fred Carr, 10; Lucian C ocke, 14; Ringgold, Edw ard and St. C lair D avant, 14,13 and 12; Joe Hunter, 16; George M acB ain, age not given; Sim s M orton, 17; W illard Pace, 16; B ertram Rhodes, 16; Verasal Spalding, 12; V ernon T ruem an, 16; Jo sep h W alton, 12; V ivian W inter, 13; John M arshall, 17; _____ Sm ith, 14; and Karl K regloe, 16. Searching m y m em ory for traits and events that impressed m e most concerning m y fellow pupils, I will record a few nam es at random . A be Staples was a fine L atin scholar, an excellent debater and a boy w hose opinions and judgm ents w ere respected b y his fellow pupils. H e w as a first-rate trader. I ’ve know n h im to start out on a Saturday Kregloe — 8 3 �m o rning w ith a p o c k e t-k n ife and go hom e later in the day w ith a bag full o f m arbles containing tw o or three h o m ey s (agates), a n y one o f w hich w as w orth as m u ch as the knife. H is brother H unt w as ex­ trem ely popular, w ore a perp etu al grin, quoted the V ictorian poets freely, and thought his U ncle B ob (R obert D. H unt, one-tim e R oanoke com m issioner o f revenue) w as the greatest m an on earth because he caught b all once a w eek w ith K irk Lunsford! Irving B ra g g p rid e d h im s e lf on his ability to m ove one hand up and dow n on his stom ach w hile sim u ltan eo u sly p a ttin g th e top o f his head, th ereb y exem plifying the E nglish p h ilosopher B ishop B erkeley s th eo ry o f m in d o v er m atter! R alph B ragg and I once w ent on a foraging expedition in “O ld M an T ro u t’s” w aterm elo n patch, situated ju s t no rth o f the F ranklin R oad bridge on the w est side o f the thoroughfare. I recall w e w ere about to confiscate an enticing-looking b it o f fruit and take it to the F ranklin R o ad sw im m ing hole, w hen one o f M r. T rout’s agents fired a blast o f bird shot at us, one o f w h ich stu ck in m y leg. C lifford (F red) T ice w as a taciturn b o y w h o h ad a gift for “m inding his ow n business.” N ev er­ theless, he w as co m panionable and respected. H is b ro th er H enry had a faculty for “playing d ead ” by straining the m u scles an d arteries in his body. It w as frighteningly life-like. H ugh W atts w as a great arboreal climber, a daredevil w hen it came to ascending to high tree-tops. On one occasion, he trie d to scale the side o f St. J o h n ’s E piscopal C hurch and h ad a serious spill. H e w as a d ashing football player. H arry D avant w as a quiet fellow w ho seem ed to take life seriously. H e w as the first b o y to b rin g a W aterm an ’s fo u n tain p e n to school. W ill D avant p rid e d h im se lf on his ability to apply p h ilo ­ sophical reaso n in g s to m o st o f life ’s p roblem s, w h eth er th ey had to do w ith the P rofessor’s m ethods o f teach in g o r w ith th e fine p o in ts o f shinny (hockey). Ted D avant, one o f the handsom est youngsters in the school, w as one o f th e pleasan test com panions, p o ssessed as he w as for the gift o f being interested in the affairs o f o th e r boys. I nev er k n ew him to do an ungentlem anly thing. H is brother R in g g o ld ’s perpetual grin w as m ark ed b y the disappearance o f a p a ir o f kindly brow n eyes in the folds o f his cheek. H e alw ays ap p eared to be happy, and in good hum or. St. C lair D avant, the youngest son o f the late T.D. D avant, an executive o f the N orfo lk & W estern R ailw ay, w as a freckled-faced, w istful lad, rem iniscent o f D ickens little P aul D om bey. H is w as the only death o f a pupil w hile the school w as in progress. W h en I th in k o f h im I th in k o f the E nglish essayist L eigh H u n t’s idea that w hen D eath calls a 1ittle lad it m akes h im “ fo rev er an im m ortal boy.” B ev B e rk le y w as serious-m inded, b u t w as loved an d respected as an “older boy” for his fairness an d his co n scien tio u sn ess, traits w hich he d isplayed to a m arked degree on the bench. Francis C ocke w as inevitably in a goodhum or. The leitm otif ofhis school days seem ed to be to laugh constantly and to keep the Professor in a dither w ith his w hisperings, punctuated b y infectious chuckles. He w as frequently kept in. Lucian, his brother, w as serious-m inded, a good athlete. W illard (Fatty) Pace w as a loyal booster o f RCS. H e w as so proud o fh is cap that he w ore it to m eals at home! H u g h B u fo rd a n d I attem pted to b u ild a row -boat in h is father’s cellar. It w as w ell-designed, the product o f good w orkm anship. Its only trouble w as that w e could never get it to float! H arvey W hite, w ho rode to school from his R oanoke C ounty hom e on a pony, w as the envy o f the other pupils. E d Johnson w as a personification o f taciturnity, serious-m inded, a good scholar. The boys liked him for his dignity, m ixed w ith a pleasing companionableness. W illiam W atts w as a fluent talker, a good student. H e had a habit o f constantly opening and shutting the blade o f a jacknife. H e w as fond o f discussing public affairs, even as a boy. Joe W alton w as a sh y fellow , had little to say, b u t confided in his intim ates that he w anted to be S4 ~ Kregloe �a B ig League pitcher. Sam Staples, first cousin o f A be and H unt, w as constantly up to som e sort o f m ischief. He developed a sm all underslung w art on h is nose w h ich drew no end o f jib in g from his fellow pupils. Cavan Love w as an excellent runner, a first-rate m an behind the plate. His brother, George, took life easy but w as one o f the m ost popular boys in school. B etw een 1903 and 1912, the Professor w as engaged in the insurance business, first w ith the N ew York Life up to 1905 and then as district m anager for the Sun Life o f Canada. H is average incom e for these years w as $2,000— a little m ore than he ever m ade any season in his school. In M ay, 1912, he was m ade m anager for the State o f M aryland o f Sun L ife an d m o v ed to B altim ore. H e w rote th a t the annual incom e from his insurance for the years 1913 to 1921 averaged betw een $4,000 and $5,000. H is high­ est w as in 1920 w hen he received $6,132. In 1924, in accordance w ith the requirem ents o f his com ­ pany, he w as retired from his executive p o st w ith S un L ife a t the age o f 65. H e retu rn ed to R oanoke w here he spent the last years o f his life. I shall alw ays think o f him as a m an o f inspiring character, possessed o f gifts and qualities that are exceedingly rare. In his prim e he w as heavy-set, w eig h in g about 200, sto o d five feet, te n and h a lf inches, w as bald and possessed the clearest blue eyes I’v e ev er seen. T here w as a trick o f erectness in the cast o f his w ell-shaped head w hich gave his glance a certain penetrating intentness. It seem ed to m e that there w as about him a physical an d m ental com petence, a courageous sufficiency w h ich drew o n e ’s adm iration and trust. He h ad a rea d y sm ile an d w as an excellent story-teller. A lthough a m em ber o f the K appa A lp h a college fraternity, he w as n ev er a joiner. A devoted m em ber o f T rinity M ethodist C hurch in R oanoke, he w as an accom plished organist, a n d po ssessed a rich, resonant bass voice w hich he u sed in am ateur entertainm ents, notably as the m em b e r o f Prof. P.C. L eary’s quartet. B ird-hunting and raising b ird -d o g s constituted his o u td o o r hobbies. H e w as a skilled fisherm an w ho h ad a particular y e n for bass. In his private library could be found a w ide assort­ m ent o f books, especially on travel. H e knew E urope as w ell as one w ho h a d b e e n there, although he never left these shores. H e could teach L atin, gram m ar, algebra, chem istry an d g eo graphy w ith equal facility but his preferred subjects w ere F rench, G erm an an d G reek. His cronies in Roanoke were Dr. L eigh Buckner, w ith w hom he room ed at Randolph M acon; Herbert Huske, prominent insurance man; and Principal Boatright ofV irgim a College. The three for years w ere insepa­ rable. The Professor w as an inveterate cigarette sm oker, b u t he never touched alcoholic beverages. He was a strong advocate o f tem perance in all things, particu larly in the m atter o f drink. H e h ad n o h ard and fast political view s, but w as a great adm irer o f W oodrow W ilson. In his school and in his home he w as a purposeful disciplinarian. He was a firm and just, but never harsh m an His pupils loved and respected him, but his dem eanor and his dignity were such that it never occurred to any o f them to disobey o r to protest his instructions. N o m ore devoted son, husband an d father ev er lived. A scholar and a classicist at heart, he w ould never have given up teaching if econom ic considerations had not dem anded it. H e told m e once before going to B altim ore to take over an im portant insurance executive position, “I k n o w now I should, for m y fam ily ’s sake, have given up teaching y ears ago— fo r som ething m ore lucrative. B ut, W ill, I ’ll alw ays love teaching. A s one tries to m ould the m inds a n d characters o f o n e’s p upils, one is co m pelled to set them a good exam ple. It is a challenge th at em bodies a call to the b est qualities in a m an .” Possessed o f the utm ost integrity, he w as strictly honest. He looked upon debt as an evil persistently to be shunned. H e once declared that he w o u ld rath er h av e one real friend than the fattest b a n k account in Roanoke. In his teaching and in his insurance work, he never accum ulated a great deal in w orldly goods, but he boasted w ith pride that he raised a fam ily decently, educated his children an d that he h o p e d he w ould Kregloe ~ 8 5 �leave this w orld en jo y in g th e resp ect o f his com m unity. H e considered his life b y these tokens had been a success. His Roanoke Classical School is a m em orable sym bol and a tradition in the history o f Roanoke. A t the tim e he taught, the city h ad a population o f 22,000. It was ju st em erging from the status o f a town into being an important city. From an educational standpoint, in the b rie f tim e he taught, he contributed largely to the whole­ som e foundations u p o n w h ic h rests to d a y ’s educational system o f the city. In his retirem ent, h e sought the p eace and b eau ty o f h is garden. H e gave to his roses particularly the ten d er care and th e nu rtu re o f a skilled horticulturist. W h ile tending his flow ers one day in 1928, he suffered a stroke from w h ich he n e v e r recovered. F or three y ears he lay in bed, speechless, a hopeless invalid. It w as a cruel b lo w to one w ho h a d led such an activ e life. O n A pril 1 2 ,1 9 3 1 , he passed aw ay quietly in his sleep and w as taken to L exington, the scene o f a happy boyhood an d y o uth, w here he w as buried in the ch erish ed G o d ’s acre w here the m ortal rem ains o f S tonew all Jackson rest. I salute his m em ory, as one w h o w as not only a b e lo v e d teacher, but w ho w ith his pupils w as a fellow pilgrim , capable o f p o in tin g to th em the w a y to the challenging hills o f Som ehow Good. 86 �Index o f The Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, History Museum & Historical Society of Western Virginia, 1964-2002 Vol. I, No. 1: Summer 1964 Note from the President Letter from Mr. Tom Treasure Trove Some Phases of the Civil War in Roanoke Area Case of the Warrantless Prisoners Two Ladies of the Museum Newspaper Days: 1790 The Borden Patent From a Son After Cold Harbor Museum Piece Raymond Barnes Goodridge Wilson R. D. Stoner J. R. Hildebrand Vol. I, No. 2: Winter 1964-65 Forgotten Graveyards of Roanoke Valley Three-layer Cake of Prehistoric Virginia Fincastle Springs: Resort of the ‘80s Civil War Comes to Buchanan: I. An Eyewitness Story II. The Burning of Mount Joy A Key Which Stayed Home Buena Vista-Roanoke Plantation William Fleming’s Surgical Instruments Roanoke’s Company “F”— Alive After 70 Years Part of “Fortune” in Society Museum Note from the President Vol. II, No. 1: Summer 1965 The South Western Turnpike Road Toll Gates in This Century Boyhood Collection is Remembrance of Past Thomas and Tasker Tosh Lone Oak 17677-1964 Founding of Patrick County Peaks of Otter I: Postscript to Prehistory Peaks of Otter II: Coming of the White Man Peaks of Otter III: How It Was in 1907 Beginnings of the Virginia Historical Society Fashion Department Almanacs, Ration Books and Rapiers Note from the President J. R. Hildebrand Jean M. White Frances Niederer Jane C. Boyd Ellen Graham Anderson Anne Montgomery Edmund P. Goodwin R. Holman Ragland Edmund P. Goodwin George Kegley Margaret Scott James H. Martin Don Robinson W. M. E. Rachal Vo/. IV, No. 1, coni’d 9 netex ~ S7 �Vol. II, No. 2: Winter 1965-66 John Nolen’s Roanoke City Plan of 1907 Southwest Virginia Turnpikes 1753: Saga of a Pioneer Pilgrimage Through the Roanoke Region You Could Take A Legal Gamble in 1796 Butler in Richmond Machine Age: 1832 Fort Vause: The Site and the Story A Day in Richmond Note from the President Frances J. Niederer Lee Pendleton Lena Gardner Sammons Vol. Ill, No. 1: Summer 1966 Shot Tower at Jackson’s Ferry New Executive Director Named Homelife in Virginia: 1766-1835 The Society Circles Franklin County Mountain Lake Historic Preservation: A Challenge to Virginians Note from the Past President F. B. Kegley Lula P. Givens Tony Wrenn Vol. Ill, No. 2: Winter 1967 Hollins College and the Civil War Henry Ford and Friends on Tour Searching For Your Ancestors Note from the President Society Sponsored Botetourt Museum Opens in Fincastle Roanoke Valley’s Early Iron Mines Society’s Toy Exhibit Attracts Visitors to Salem Museum Recollections of Bent Mountain, Virginia Roanoke Historical Society Membership Roll Margaret P. Scott, Rachel Wilson Mary Dodd Foley Raymond Barnes Mrs. Philip St. Leger Moncure Vol. IV , No. 1: Summer 1967 The Pennsylvania Dutch Culture of the Shenandoah Valley Interstate Interchange Covers Town of Gainesboro New Members Bell Mont: The Fleming Plantation Let’s All Make Whiskey “Locust Level” Society Makes Strong Plea For Fincastle Election of Officers The Society’s Fifth Annual Tour Into History 8 8 ~ 9 n d ex Elmer L. Smith Raymond Barnes Edmund P. Goodwin �Early Lutherans in Western Virginia Saddlebags and Bank Ledgers William E. Eisenberg Vol. IV , No. 2: Winter 1968 28thRegiment, Virginia Volunteers, 1861-1865 Roanoke at the Beginning New River: First of the Western Waters The Teays, Ancestral River of Mid-America A New Brick House for $105 and a Horse Critter Walled in by the Appalachians Yesterday’s Tools on Display Hollins Girls Step Into History Cigar Manufacturing in Roanoke and the Wooden Indian Roanoke Historical Society New Members Arnold Skaar Edmund P. Goodwin Ben Bane Dulaney Raymond E. Janssen James J. Kirkwood Anna Lawson R. Holman Ragland Vol. V , No. 1: Summer 1968 Montgomery White, 19thCentury Social Center Virginia’s Neglected Soldiers 28thRegiment, Virginia Volunteers Samuel Rader, 1801-1891, Botetourt Brick Mason History Grows in Botetourt Roanoke Historical Society Members Pennsylvania Dutch Fashions and Early Roanoke Society Tours Home Country Roanoke County Map Prepared Vol. V , No. 2: Winter 1969 Collector’s Items Span Four Centuries Saving Virginia’s Treasures Edward William Johnston and Roanoke Female Seminary Is There An Older Roanoker? Five Rivers Flow West Longwood Was Salem’s Castle Roanoke Cows in 1898 James I. Robertson, Jr. Arnold Skaar Jacqueline Hundley Rader Anna Lawson Edmund P. Goodwin Edward P. Alexander Margaret P. Scott, Rachel Wilson Goodridge Wilson Vol. VI, No. 1: Summer 1969 Lewis Miller, Folk Artist New Claim for Oldest Resident Johnny Rebs From Virginia and the Fairer Sex New President, Secretary Named James I. Robertson, Jr. Vol. VII, No. 1, cont’d 9ndex ~ 8 9 �The Four Anderson Brothers Early Preston Papers Given Roanoke River: Once Called Saponi, Round Oak, Goose Creek St. Mark’s, Fincastle, Has Roots 200 Years Old New Books On Old Themes Appalachian Dialect: Vivid, Virile and Elizabethan “Kefauver’s Folly” History Is Examined At Natural Bridge Two Fort Sites Explored Ellen Graham Anderson Raymond P. Barnes Wylene P. Dial Vol. VI, No. 2: Winter 1970 Botetourt County 1770-1970 Here’s To Botetourt How the Mother County Began Fincastle-“More Than A County Seat” Early Craftsmen Mary Johnston, Writer of the Past Cherry Tree Bottom Fire Destroys Landmarks The Turnpike Through Botetourt Western Inhabitants-an “Incumbrance”? The Bells of Fincastle 14 Iron Furnaces of Botetourt An 18thCentury Spinet The Village of Daleville “Echo from the Hills” Historic Fincastle Inc. Botetourt Centennial, Botetourt A County Album Retrospect and Prophecy-1885 R. D. Stoner Frances McN. Lewis Roddy Moore Harry Fulwiler, Jr. Edmund P. Goodwin Clare White Anne McClenny Raymond Barnes Jacqueline Hundley Rader Vol. VII, No. 1: Summer 1970 The Great Flood of 1749 Roanoke County in the 1840’s A Misty Tour of Henry The Town of Newbern On Campus 70 Years Ago Woolen Mill, A Major Botetourt Industry Civil War Draft Problems in the Shenandoah Valley Hales Ford Classical School New Books on Old Themes Botetourt’s 200thBirthday Col. William Fleming Recalled High Bridge Church Is 200 9 0 ~ S7n dex Klaus Wust Maria Jane Gish Frantz Clare White Mary B. Kegley Alice I. Hohenberg Sarah Dinwiddie George West Diehl �Ancient Artifacts Acquired James McDowell’s Travels in 1828 Fire Protection Alleghany Turnpike, 7 Miles Long Where We Were in 1806 Walter K. Wood Vol. VII, No. 2: _ Gen. James Breckinridge, Frontier Man for All Seasons Botetourt’s Three Courthouses “A Disastrous Conflagration” “Fire Remedy” is 1,400 Years Old Roanoke’s 300thAnniversary Early Lighting Devices Montgomery Men in Mexico Rev. Peyton M. Lewis, Slave, Teacher, Preacher Bedford Saves an Old Church Floyd County in the 1890’s Katherine Kennedy McNulty R. D. Stoner Edmund P. Goodwin Lee Winborne Frank R. Levstik, Jr. Robert Goodykoontz Vol. VIII, No. 1: Winter 1972 The Past Is Right Here For the Archaeologist The 51stVirginia Infantry, Farmers Turned Soldiers Turner’s Creek Valley-“The land that time forgot” Log Buildings in the Valley of Virginia Mary Harvey Trigg, An Unusual Widow Old Letter Tells of Early Society The McDonalds of McDonalds Mill “Long Way Home” Is Successful A Visit To Wythe County New Books on Old Themes 19thCentury Crafts on Display Roanoke Historical Society Members Ivor Noel Hume James A. Davis Pedro T. Slone Royster Lyle, Jr. Pauline Edwards Lena Mac Gardner Sammons Mary B. Kegley Vol. VIII, No. 2: Summer 1972 Benjamin Deyerle, Builder of Fine Homes Journals, Maps Available Roanoke County Barns of the 19thCentury Old Paintings Recorded Col. George Plater Tayloe, A Builder of Hollins College Where the Brethren Settled Digging at Looney’s Ferry No. 1 Fire Station Is Celebrated The Remarkable Dr. Reid The Old Gish Ordinary Elizabeth Cheek Luci Shaw Kincanon Margaret Scott & Rachel Wilson Roger Sappington Howard A. MacCord, Sr. Raymond P. Barnes Vol. X, No. 1, c o n t’d SJndex ~ 9 1 �Poor, Poor Mountain “Valley” Added To Society Name A Visit to Bedford The General Has A New Office Rheumatic Recollections Lee Pendleton Elmer Smith Vol. IX , No. 1:1973-1974 Old Barns of Appalachia New Books on Old Themes Montane Virginia in the Revolution Soldiers, Patriots Honored in Fincastle Roanoke Valley Medicine Society Has New Downtown Gallery Recollections of Ballad Collecting Ephraim Vause Was Robbed William Preston, Frontier Public Servant Alexander-Withrow Building Cherry Tree Bottom, Crossroads of the Centuries Southview, Age 150, Replaced by Motel A Tour of the New River Country Two New Maps Henry Glassie, III Andrew P. Miller Warren Moorman, M.D. Fred Knoblock George Green Shackelford Royster Lyle, Jr. Patricia Givens Johnson Vol. IX , No. 2:1975 Government by Families in Botetourt County Indians Retreat From Virginians At Battle of Point Pleasant The Fincastle Resolutions: Southwest Virginia’s Commitment The Resolutions Who the 15 Signers Were Botetourt Publications Planned Settlement, Defense of the Frontier A Visit to Patrick County Journals Wanted Bleak Hill, A Handsome Farm House Farm Fruits of the 1800s “Noble Souls” of Bleak Hill Index of the Journal’s First Decade Maryland Border War Refugees Flee to the Roanoke Valley Sally A. Eads John G. Morgan Thad Tate Mary Kegley Emory L. Hamilton Anne Carter Lee Alice Saunders Susie M. Taylor Patricia Givens Johnson Vol. X, No. 1: 1977 The Sedon Journal The Colonial Church of Virginia A Visit to Old Augusta Floyd History Explored 9 2 ~ Dnctex W. L. Whitwell, Lee W. Winborne David L. Holmes �Roanoke Through 300 Years The Valley’s Beginnings From Big Lick to Roanoke Roanoke Was Alive in 1976 The Future: More People on Less Land Huntingdon Stands As City’s Oldest Fine Home Sculptor Honored World War I Veterans Franklin Folk Tales New Books With Old Themes George Kegley E. C. “Ted” Moomaw Robert A. Garland F. Meade Bailey Edmund P. Goodwin Frances Lewis, Anna Louise Haley Saunders Guerrant Vol. X, No. 2: 1978 Seeing Virginia in 1797 The Big Fort Cures From Mountain Herbs What They Owned in the 1840s Lexington Architecture The Washington Iron Works The National Register of Historic Places Bicentennial Plates Bringing an Old Pump to Life Tours to Botetourt and Chatham Louis Philippe Mary B. Kegley Earl Palmer Helen Beall Lewis Pamela Simpson John S. Salmon W. L. Whitwell, Lee W. Winborne Vol. XI, No. 1:1980 Clifton A. Woodrum, Congressman With A Flair Col. James P. Woods, Lawyer, Congressman John Hook: New London Merchant John Hook: Frontier Bookseller How We Began Historic Pump Registered What We Collect Historical Tours Spinning and Weaving In Montgomery County James E. Sargent Roy Hippert Warren Moorman, M.D. Felix Hargrett Edmund P. Goodwin Dorothy McCombs Vol. XI, No. 2: 1982 Centennial Issue 1882-1982 Roanoke History as recorded in 1912 Where We Were in 1864 When knights were bold A Jefferson Street stroll Roanoke’s first fire station How a railway clerk saw the new century Life on Highland Avenue in the early 1900s Horace Engle, a creative Roanoker Economic development in Southwest Virginia The Watts, a pioneer family W. L. Whitwell, Lee W. Winborne Paul Stonesifer Warren L. Moorman, M.D. Frances Lewis Edward Leos Harold W. Mann Helen R. Prillaman Vol. XIII, No. 1, cont’d 9 n d ex i 9 3 �The Barrens, a garden spot Merchants Organize How the star was turned on Roanoke’s elected officials Acorn to Oak, that’s Roanoke New books on old themes Helen R. Prillaman Edward C. (Ted) Moomaw Edward C. (Ted) Moomaw Dwight E. McQuilkin Vol. XII, No. 1:1984 Farmer’s Supply Transformed into Center in the Square Roanoke’s First Dairy was on Orange Avenue Vinton’s Beginnings How Dr. Hart Lost His Sight Dr. William Fleming Made House Calls Benjamin Keagy’s Home Dr. Landon Cabell Rives, Jr. The Back Creek Road Guerrant Family Lived at First Baptist Church Site Where the Bonsacks Settled Clare White Irma Moseley, Madeline Forbes W. H. Hart Warren Moorman Martin O. L. Spangler Lynn Dickerson II Saunders S. Guerrant Deedie D. Kagey Vol. XII, No. 2:1988 First County Courthouse Stood from 1841 to 1909 Fleming Backed Constitution Roanoke’s First Judges A Tale of Two Houses Norfolk and Western Archives at VPI Roanoke Catholic Churches Letters from School Salem Mills A Roanoke Visit in 1762 Roanoke Fast Becoming Known For Its Hay-Rides and Picnics Roanoke History in 1923 W. L. Whitwell & Lee Winborne Judge Jack Coulter Frances McNulty Lewis Glenn L. McMullen Anna Louise Haley Norwood Middleton Felix Hargrett Vol. XIII, No. 1:1989 Roanoke County and Valley: The Lessons of History Roanoke County Communities Started Between the Mountains The Early Economy of Roanoke County Old City Point “Rail Road” Was N&W Forerunner in 1838 Overlooked Buildings By the Side of the Road How Did Colleges Choose Locations in the 19thCentury? Roanoke County Schools’ Legacy 9 ^ S SJndex Marshall W. Fishwick Deedie Kagey Norwood Middleton Louis M. Newton W. L. Whitwell Mark Miller &Tony Thompson Bayes E. Wilson & N. J. Peters �Farming was the Backbone of Roanoke Area Growth Nationality and Religion How “A Religious Lot” Began Vol.XIII, No. 2:1996 Threading a Parkway Through the Blue Ridge Hotel Roanoke, “Large and Well Equipped” The Railroad Offices Totera Town Reconsidered Col. William Fleming’s Origins Old Speech Patterns Studied Cupboard Comes Home Kentland Farm, A New River Plantation Architecture of Kentland Making Pottery in Botetourt County Cultural Shock in Botetourt County Lowell Gobble, P.B. Douglas & Glenn Ramsey Rev. Guy A. Ritter Rev. Alpheus W. Potts David P. Hill Don Piedmont Thomas Klatka Clare White John Kern J. Daniel Pezzoni Kurt C. Russ Edward L. “Buck” Henson, Jr. Vol. XIV, No. 1: 1999 Note from the Director Roanoke’s Neighborhoods and Streets Santillane and Bellmont Updated: Henry Bowyer, not George Hancock, Built Santillane Bellmont; Land Ownership and Construction, 1768-1868 Gainsboro Neighborhood, 1890-1940 Gilmer Avenue, Northwest Jubal Early, Lee’s “Bad Old Man” Grave Reminders of the Past Across the Rockies in ’52 from Wythe County John Garry Built St. Andrew’s for $108,000 How Shaffers Crossing Got Its Name Maxims of Prominent Roanokers Thomas E. Low Beth Logan John Kern Erin Baratta Alice Roberts, Margaret Roberts Francis Amos, M.D. Darlene Richardson Vol. XIV,No. 2: 2001 Note from the Director Vice Presidential Candidate had Carvins Cove Summer Home Emma Comer, First Graduate of Roanoke City High School, 1894 Celebrating the Millennium in 1901 Mrs. Breckinridge’s Brewery Growing up and having fun in South Roanoke George Kegley David Bearr Donlan Piedmont Dorathy Piedmont !D ndex ~ 95 �Peyton Terry, Roanoke’s first millionaire Where the Toshes came from George Washington slept in Big Lick First President honored on 200thanniversary of his death Edgar A. Long Building recalls Christiansburg Institute’s Legacy Peggy Ballard Maupin Sherwood Anderson Rides through Southwest Virginia Big Lick’s First Post Office How do our gardens grow? Ships & Shipmates Sails on 50 Star Citizens Betty Low Clare White F. B. Kegley Scott Sarver Caroline Bott Ben Beagle Alice Hagan Donlan Piedmont Vol. XV, No. 1: 2002 Note from the Executive Director Railroads and their People The Virginia &Tennessee Railroad— 150 Years ago Working with Winston Link at the End of Steam Power The Turnpikes of Southwest Virginia The Harris Family Archives and “Ma Sue” Hall What do we leave behind? How Andrew Lewis drove Gov. Dunmore out of Virginia Who Named Salem? Regional Manuscript Guide completed Oliver Hill’s Home may become Human Rights Center What Victory May Mean 96 Louis M. Newton George Kegley Thomas H. Garver Kenneth W. Keller Kathleen Ingoldsby Anna Fariello Candy Daugherty John Long George Kegley Roy Baugherlll ��Jfyfat&eiim/ <&^H & tarical O F W E S T E R N V IR G IN IA C en ter in the Square, O ne M arket Square, SE R oanoke, VA 24011 Tel: 5 4 0 /3 4 2 -5 7 7 0 E m ail: history@ roanoke.infi.net W eb Site: w w w .history-m useum .org IS B N # : 0 -9 7 1 0 5 3 1 -2 -X � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia 2003 Volume 15, Number 2 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />The Legend of Benjamin Deyerle Revisited<br />Lest We Forget: A Vinton Landmark<br />The New River on Mid-Eighteenth Century Maps<br />The Craft Revival in Appalachia, 1896-1937<br />And The Mountains Sing with Joy: White Top Music<br />The Great Natural Bridge Hoax<br />Murder in Fincastle; Havoc at Hanging Rock<br />Growing Up with Roanoke: A Lively Adventure<br />A Horseback Ride on the Back Roads of Roanoke County<br />African American "Firsts"<br />Professor C.E. Kregloe's Roanoke Classical School Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_15_02_2003 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6362/JHSWV_16_01_2004.pdf 37a401aec76379adc9e5c99c416c0f91 PDF Text Text 7%cc&ettoi & T^i4t<vUc4i Of Western Virginia 2004 JOURNAL Volume Sixteen Number One �& iTiâtonical Society Of Western Virginia mwet (For the love of mountains inspires us) O ^ ic e t e James F. Douthat ........................................... President W. Tucker Lemon .................................. Vice-President David L. Lemon .............................................. Secretary John P. Bradshaw .......................................... Treasurer D. Kent C hrism an............................Executive Director Betty H undley........................Administrative Manager Soanct Sara Airheart Bruce Brenner C. Whitney Brown Jr. W. Jack Burrows Betty C. Craig Betty K. Dye Frank H. Ewald Scott A. Graeff William C. Hagan Gordon C. Hamilton David G. Helmer 0Dviectwi& Martha K. Hull Charles E. Hunter III Robert H. Kulp John C. Lanford Stanard F. Lanford Philip H. Lemon Laura B. Logan Edwin E. Lunsford C. Whitney Markley Thomas O. Maxfield III James G. Overholser J. David Robbins Alice B. Roberts Ronald E. Sink Ralph K. Smith Quinn D. Thomas Mary M. Utt Virginia T. Vinyard Dr. E. Wilson Watts Cranston Williams Jr. D inectote Sm enituo G eorge Kegley George Kegley Editor of the Journal Christina Koomen Smith Production, Editorial Asst. Barbara Lem on The Journal, Vol. 16, No. 1, chronicles the history of the Commonwealth west of the Blue Ridge. Published by the History Museum & Historical Society of Western Virginia (formerly the Roanoke Valley Historical Society), P.O. Box 1904, Roanoke, VA, 24008. Printed by Jamont Communications, Roanoke. The price for additional copies is $5 for mem­ bers, $10 for non-members. The Museum will be careful in handling unso­ licited materials, but cannot be responsible for their loss. �Table o f Contents 3 Note from the Executive Director 4 "No contract too large or too small" for C Markley and Son by Judith M. Baumgardner 12 They go quietly: Agricultural Change in Franklin County, Virginia by Charles D. Thompson, Jr. ; . ,M 21 My Memories of Carvins Cove - A Long, Peaceful Valley by Mary Louise Riley Harmon 32 African-Americans Have a Proud Ancestry by William B. Davis 36 42 Gainsboro and its Outstanding Black Citizens by Clarence Dunnaville, Jr. Wilderness Road Began in Scott County by Mary B. Kegley 44 OAR Flower Show in Roanoke, 1896 by Betty Low 48 Preston-Brown House, Old House Among Shopping Centers by Michael J. Pulke 51 £2 Searching for the Explorer John Peter Sating by Dan Kegley Grahamrs Forge Mill - Architectural Gem by Michael J. Pulice £5 John A. Morehead o f Salem by George Kegley 68 Mr.Jefferson's Neighbors •: ; by Gail Pond 09 Did the Buffalo Roam in Southwest Virginia? i::by G ^ fc e b iiy :; Court Day in Salem, Circus Day in Salem by Isaac Cannaday 75 Proclamation: "Salrovin!" by J. R. Hildebrand I Illustration: Alice Keaton walks along a lonely road in Carvins Cove. This issue of the Journal was made possible by a grant from The Foundation for Roanoke Valley, Stan and Elise Lanford Family Fund �New Acquisitions A rope bed, manufactured by Rich Brothers in Wytheville, about 1860, as seen in the recent Quilts 8< Coverlets exhibit. Eight medical books, signed by William Fleming, Scottish-born surgeon and Botetourt County lieutenant, who lived on Tinker Creek more than two centuries ago. A Congressional Medal of Honor awarded posthu­ mously to First Lt. Gary Lee Miller of Covington for his service as an Army platoon leader in Vietnam in 1969. 2 �Note from the Executive Director F | lhe Museum and Society is pleased to present this, the 31s* issue of the Journal, Volume Sixteen, Number One. Its publication marks the first sequential four annual issues since 1966-69; a testaJ L ment to our editor, whose dedication is exceeded only by his modesty. At our Center in the Square headquarters, the Museum & Society launched three exhibits for 2004: Putting the Matter to Rest: Quilts and Coverlets of Western Virginia; Evening Glamour, selections from the Museum's costume collection; and A Century of Fun: Toys in Western Virginia, 1840-1940. The Museum & Society's primary and secondary educational programming continued to grow. This was recognized by increased awards from both Roanoke City and Roanoke County to assist with costs of the "sold out" hands-on programs. Adult Education continues to be provided through our popular lec­ tures, outbound bus tours and a number of special events. Thanks to many volunteers, the Historic Crystal Spring Steam Pump completed its first season's being open (free of charge) to the public, gaining status as Virginia's first site designated as a land­ mark by the American Waterworks Association. In 2004, the Museum's exhibit, Movers and Makers: Doris Ulman's Portrait of the Appalachian Craft Revival, traveled to Galax, Cherokee, N.C. and Tazewell. Lastly, new items related to Western Virginia's history entered the collections and archives, as seen opposite. This far-ranging assortment includes an 1860 Rich Brothers of Wytheville-produced rope bed, a rare Congressional Medal of Honor awarded posthumously to Covington native Gary L. Miller related to the Vietnam conflict and a docu­ mented eight-volume work from the library of Colonial/Revolutionary War era leader Col. William Fleming M.D. January 2004 witnessed the opening of the O. Winston Link Museum. A critical success, the Link Museum has received positive press in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Baltimore Sun and Chicago Tribune. Paid visitation at year's end was 21,000. This combined with a successful gift shop operation means the Link Museum 2004 operations were "in the black." The Link Museum has estab­ lished an outreach education program with both Roanoke City and Roanoke County school and off­ site lectures were held in Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina. Four revolving exhibits were held in the Link Museum's south lobby, a photograph on Virginia's changing rural landscape, an exhibit on Hotel Roanoke, an exhibit on Raymond Loewy and most recently an exhibit of contemporary rail photography along the Norfolk Southern system.Recently, the Link Museum began special events programming on Dec. 4 with a seasonal model railroad exhibit and a visit by rail by Santa (over 350 attended). And in January, a 50-year commemoration of Link's first N&W series photograph took place. The Link Museum published "O. Winston Link, the Man and the Museum," a 47-page tribute. One happy result of these steps forward is an increase in individual level membership, which cur­ rently numbers 638. To those new members, welcome! To all our members, corporate supporters, event sponsors, granting agencies and volunteers, congratulations on the success you make possible, includ­ ing this Journal. Read and enjoy! Kent Chrisman Executive Director 3 �"No Contracts Too Large or Too Small" for C. Markley and Son by Judith M. Baumgardner S Christopher Markley, my grandfather, was born on Dec. 3, 1859, on a farm in Juniata County, near I Altoona, Pa. He moved to Roanoke in 1882. He and my father, S. Chester Markley, later formed V h ^ a contractor partnership, C. Markley and Son, which constructed the Norfolk & Western Railway general offices, the Mill Mountain incline, Crystal Spring pumping station and many buildings, bridges, water works, sewer systems and other municipal facilities in Virginia and North Carolina. "There are no contracts too large or too small to be undertaken by Mr. Markley and any contract undertaken by him will be completed according to plans and specifications," according to Jack & Jacobs' 1912 History o f Roanoke and Roanoke County. Having mercantile experience in Pennsylvania,Christopher Markley started in Roanoke at the age of 23, operating shoe and grocery stores until he worked his way up as a leading industrial contractor, constructing bridges, buildings, sanitary systems and dams. He became a millionaire, owning Florida orange groves, race horses, a Texas oil well, a rock quarry in North Carolina, Ohio real estate and several Roanoke County apple orchards. His oldest son, Chester Markley, studied at Roanoke College and Yale University before he followed his father as a skilled engineer and builder. Christopher Markley's grandfather, Joann Christopher One of the oval brass disks bearing the C. Merkle, was born in 1770 in Germany. He came through the Markley name, on Roanoke sidewalks today. Port of Philadelphia, settled in Conshocken, Pa. and died in 1851. His son, Samuel Markley, lived in Pennsylvania from 1829 to 1913. Samuel and Mary Jane Harman Markley had six sons and one daughter. After the death of Mary Jane Markley, her husband, Samuel, joined all of the children in moving to Roanoke at some time. William Markley married Mary Law and moved here in 1882 with Christopher but returned to Pennsylvania. Sarah (Sadie) married Charles Fleck and they had two sons, Chester and Harold. George Edgar Markley married Flora Hoge and they had two children, Raymond and Margaret. Hiram Hoover Markley never married. Samuel Harman Markley married Emma Gooch. Harry Markley traveled from Roanoke to California and later back to Pennsylvania. Christopher Markley married Mary Alice (Mollie) Beverlin in Altoona on May 4, 1885. They lived in Mrs. Rhoad's boarding house in Roanoke for awhile until he built a German Dutch style duplex at 526 Salem Avenue. Sometime in the 1890s, the famous architect, H. H. Huggins, designed a new house for Judith Markley Baumgardner researched and wrote a book, The Old Markley House, ca.1892. She graduated from Sullins Junior College and holds a fine arts degree from the former Richmond Professional Institute. She also provided the family photographs used here. �The old Norfolk & Western Railway General Office Building at the northwest corner of Jefferson Streeet and Shenandoah Avenue was under construction by C. Markley, contractor, about 1897. C. Markley was standing, second from right, at the main entrance. A block and tackle was used to lift the heavy granite blocks into place. Markley at 541 Salem Avenue—the first house in Roanoke to have running water. A large bathtub was specially ordered to accommodate Markley's height. By February 1893, when the first streetlights were installed in Roanoke, Markley's oldest son, Samuel Chester, was six years old; daughter Mildred was four and second daughter Ruth would be bom in June. A third daughter was born three years later. Sarah, the fourth daughter and fifth child, was born on Dec. 31, 1899, the last day of the century. Grandmother Markley had a half-sister, Annie Emfield, who came to Roanoke and married Claude M. Speese in 1901. I remember them very well. I loved going to visit them in their home on Avenham Avenue. Aunt Annie started a collection of demitasse cups and saucers for my twin sister and me which we treasure still. When he arrived in the new town, Christopher Markley operated a shoe store on Salem Avenue, known for a red boot sign out front, for four years. In his stock, he offered "Ladies, Gents, Misses and Children's Fine Shoes, Gaiters, Slippers and Gum Goods." My father used to talk about his father wear­ ing his wedding slippers he purchased from the store. The No. 1 Vigilant Steam Fire Company was organized in 1884 and Markley was a charter member. Members had to pay $2 a month in monthly dues. James McConnell, who had come from Altoona, Pa., to work as a foreman in the Roanoke Machine Works, later the N&W Shops, was chosen as chief of this first organized fire department. Grandfather's old metal fire helmet was kept by the family for many years. For 12 years, Markley ran a grocery store in the "Moomaw Block" of Salem Avenue, a building with a checker board front. The store supplied "a full, fresh and varied stock of fancy and select groceries and fresh in season fruits, fresh oysters, dressed fowls, celery and salt." 5 �As Roanoke began to grow rapidly, following the formation of the N&W Railway, the city needed new buildings, streets and sewers to improve sanitary conditions. This led Christopher Markley to sell his grocery to W. H. McGuire in 1892 and travel to Lancaster, Pa., where he rented the equipment he need­ ed to start his own construction company in Roanoke. His varied business interests rapidly expanded from shoes and groceries. An 1891-92 city directory listed Markley as treasurer of the new Landstown Land Co. In the same year he started in construction, C. Markley was president of Trader Loan Trust and Deposit Company, president of Duvall Engine Company, a director of Commercial National Bank, Emerald Land and Improvement Company and International Cigarette Machine Company and a receiv­ er for Bridgewater Carriage Company, and treasurer of Hyde Park Land Company. He was one of the directors of Roanoke Academy of Music and he char­ tered the Standard Investment Company. During the 1890s and well into the 1900s, Markley built much of downtown Roanoke streets and the sewer systems desperately needed. Brass oval disks bearing the Markley name remain on many streets today. In 1894, Markley was appointed munici­ pal contractor for the City of Roanoke. His construction plant, containing steam rollers, mixers, Christopher Markley Mary Alice Beverlin Markley crushers and other machinery, was the largest of its type in the 1859-1931 1864-1931 South. His contracts were mainly for sewer lines, streets, cement works and water works. His office was on the fifth floor of the old Terry Building, Roanoke's "first sky­ scraper" of eight stories. After the first Norfolk & Western Railway General Office Building, a wooden structure at North Jefferson Street and Shenandoah Avenue, burned in 1896, Markley's company was contracted to rebuild the offices. A photograph, dated about 1897, shows Christopher Markley and Joseph C. Nesbit standing on the unfinished second floor. The company lifted heavy granite blocks and steel beams into place with a block and tackle, according to my father. In 1904, Markley was contracted to cover Cedar Creek under Campbell Avenue, Southwest, after the original bidder was unable to complete the job. With steam-driven cement mixers, he put a large force of men to work. His derrick was the tallest in construction equipment at the time. Streetcar tracks were diverted temporarily. During construction, a horse used in the work slipped and fell into a deep trench. A strap was placed around the animal, a steel cable of the steam derrick was fastened and the order was given "to heave away." Each time the horse's feet touched the ground, the animal was frantic. A veteri­ narian had no solution until a bystander noticed that the steel cable was rubbing against the highly charged trolley wire overhead. The electric current ran through the horse when its feet touched the ground. The current would have been fatal for a man. After work was completed on Campbell Avenue, at least four new buildings filled gaps in the first block west of Jefferson Street. The most prominent was a six-story Watt, Rettew and Clay Building, later 6 �known as MacBain and Hyslip, then as MacBain and later as S. H. Heironimus. Miller & Rhoads built on the site and an office building now occupies that corner. Markley, his wife, Mollie, and their six children were longtime members of St. Mark's Lutheran Church. In 1894, his construction firm completed a stone church for his congregation, a stone structure standing today on the southeast corner of Church Avenue and Second Street, SW. When St. Mark's was unable to finish payment on its new church, the congregation swapped buildings with Greene Memorial Methodist, then worshiping in a red, brick building at the southwest corner of Campbell Avenue and Third Street, SW. In 1905, C. Markley contracted to build the Crystal Spring steam pumping station at the cor­ ner of McClanahan and Jefferson streets in South Roanoke. The Snow Steam Pump Works of Buffalo, N.Y., shipped two pumps by railroad and they were delivered by horse or oxen-drawn wagon and assembled on site. The brick pump house was built around it and the pumps operat­ ed by steam, generated by coal-fired boilers until an electrical system was installed in 1957. Fortunately, the old pumps and station were refurbished in 2003 and rededicated as an impor­ tant part of Roanoke Valley history. The Smithsonian Institution had become interested in the old pumps. Moving the pumps would have been a great loss to local history. My father took my twin sister, Susan, my younger brother, Christopher, and me to see the pumping station in the 1950s. The pumps were painted black and Grandfather Markley's initials were scratched on the paint but they are no longer visible. Aug. 4, 1910, marked the opening of the Mill Mountain incline railway, designed and built by Christopher and Chester Markley. "Hundreds of Roanokers ride in the cars to the summit of the mountain; nearly 1,500 passengers were handled Sunday; hotel was liberally patronized; line was C. Markley and wife, Mollie, with son, Chester, and busy all day long," reported the Roanoke daughters Mildred and Ruth, as a baby. (Photo by M.F. Landes, Roanoke, 1894 or 1895) Evening News. The cost of a round-trip ticket was 25 cents. A group of businessmen announced a plan to build the incline in 1909. C. Markley, vice president of the group, graded the roadbed and laid the track, manufactured by Roanoke Iron Co., according to Raymond Barnes' History o f the City o f Roanoke. Two counter-balanced cars ran along parallel tracks on the incline, alternately pulled up and lowered by steel cables. The Evening News of Aug.15,1910 described the operation: "After leaving the station at the foot of the mountain, the car begins its ascent on a moderate grade, but after it has gone a hundred yards or so its prow turns gradually upwards until it begins to look as if it contemplated a perpendicular ascent. The substantial character of the cars, the smooth roadbed and the big circle cable, together with the steady and easy motion, immediately convinces passengers that they are being taken care of so well that mis­ chance or discomfort are impossible...It takes four minutes to go from the bottom to the top of the moun- 7 �tain and the car moves at the same speed on the steepest point as when it leaves the shed on a compar­ atively easy grade..Those Roanokers who are behind the enterprise looked forward with deep interest to the opening day. They did not know nor could they anticipate how favorably the railroad would be received." "The incline motor was housed in a cement building at the top. I could still find the remains of the cement foundation of the motor house at the top of the mountain several years ago when I took my son to see it." In 1909, C. Markley and Judge J. W. Woods purchased the controlling interest in the Roanoke-Vinton Water Company. Markley, the manager, made great improvements. He planted bluegrass and graded all the land of the watershed, formerly farmland. To ensure a clean watershed, a total of over 1,300 acres of farm land was purchased. His son, Samuel Chester Markley, who had taken a special course at Yale University for work as a sanitary engineer, was appoint­ ed hydraulic engineer for the water company. The firm's watershed was a vase-like shape of land on top of the Blue Ridge mountains, east of Vinton.. The pure free­ stone (soft) water supplied the N&W shops, round­ house, a brewery, large factories and hundreds of homes, according to The History o f Roanoke County, by G. S. Jack, and History o f Roanoke City and o f the Norfolk and Western Railway, by E. R. Jacobs. The water was brought to the city through a 10-inch water main and extended over the business area and throughout the southeast and northwest sections of the city. A tunnel was chiseled through almost solid granite to permit water from Beaver Dam Lake, east of the original lake, on Stewart's Knob east of Vinton, to release 2.5 million gallons of water daily into Baker Cove Lake, increasing its size to about 27 acres. The N&W Railway alone used .5 million gallons daily. Water was furnished without charge to city buildings and drinking troughs installed in the downtown area for draft animals. Later, the RoanokeVinton Water Company was acquired by the old Roanoke Water Company and in 1939 it was purchased by the City of Roanoke, according to a Roanoke WorldNews column by Raymond Barnes, June 2,1962. Other construction projects of the Markley firm were the Boxley and Coulter buildings and Central YMCA in downtown Roanoke, Memorial Avenue and Walnut Avenue bridges, the Carvins Cove dam and the Vintoncau^ t a ^'9 at Sebring, R oanok e water reservoir. In Salem, they built the Lutheran Orphans Home of the South, now part of the East Roanoke College campus, and the old Comas Cigarette Machine Co. building at College Avenue and 4 “1 Street, later housing the Salem library, which was torn down in 1997. My father was president of that company from 1921 until he retired in 1956. Grandfather Markley donated his time and materials to build a Red Cross Canteen at the train depot where women in white uniforms waited for young soldiers on their way to fight in World War I. They gave them hot coffee, sandwiches, cigarettes and reading material for the trip to Norfolk. The Markley firm completed large contracts in Wilson, Goldsboro and High Point, North Carolina. 8 �The people of High Point were so impressed by his work and dedication that they named a park for him which remains today. Markley also had a large contract for crushing stone for the Virginian Railway. In 1906, the Markley family had moved to 1112 Commerce (now Second) Street, Southwest and the unusually long bathtub came too. Helen, the sixth child, was born in 1908. When it seemed to Mollie Markley that every time they moved she had another child, she announced that they were not going to move any more— six children were enough to rear. She and Grandfather Markley lived there until their deaths in 1931 and the house remained in the family until 1978. The house was purchased from Nellie Lefew, widow of Dr. Fredrich Lefew, who had been fatally stabbed by Charles R. Fishburne on a Sunday afternoon in 1904. Dr. Lefew died two weeks later and Fishburne was sentenced to serve five years in the state penitentiary. In 1923, Christopher Markley was pres­ ident of Harold Coal and Coke and he had an office at 202 South Jefferson Street. He 1112 Second (Commerce) Street SW, home of the Markley fami­ served as a trustee of the Lutheran ly from 1906 until 1978. orphanage in Salem and as a director of the Young Men's Christian Association, he was chairman of its building committee and contractor for construction of the YMCA at the northeast corner of Second Street and Church Avenue. He was a 32nc^ degree Mason and a knight templar at Kazim Temple. Undoubtedly there are many other accomplishments, organizations and services which I have not mentioned. I wish that I had known my grandfather but both of my grandparents died 11 years before I was born. Christopher Markley seems to have been a remarkable man of his time, a person of great char­ acter and highest integrity and stewardship toward his fellow man. Markley was so grieved by the death of his wife, Mollie, on Oct. 20,1931, that he died of a broken heart two weeks later on Nov. 2 at his home on Second Street. He was 71 and he had been a resi­ dent of Roanoke for 49 years. He was a pioneer and a cornerstone of Roanoke Valley's history. He died a millionaire, despite suffer­ ing great losses after the Great Depression of 1929. His funeral was conducted by Dr. J. Luther Elizabeth Woodbury Markley, Chester Markley, as a student at Sieber, pastor of St. Mark's wife of Chester Markley. Roanoke College in 1906. Lutheran Church where he had 9 �been a deacon for many years, and Dr. Charles J. Smith, president of Roanoke College. He is buried with his wife at Evergreen Cemetery. Samuel Chester Markley, Grandfather Markley's partner and my father, was born in Roanoke Aug. 24, 1887. He attended Roanoke City schools, he entered Roanoke College and graduated with a major in physics, chemistry and astronomy in 1909. He entered Yale University on a scholarship in the master of science program and graduated with first honors in 1911. As a junior partner of C. Markley and Son, he assisted in designing and building water­ works, sewers and sewage disposal plants, multi­ ple stage pumping plants, pavements, bridges, aqueducts and dams. In 1918, S. C. Markley was the supervising engineer for the construction of the U.S. Army Chemical Plant 4 at Saltville and a $13 million water purification plant with a dam on the North Fork of the Holston River, near Bristol. At the close of World War I, he opened his own office as a consulting sanitary engineer in Roanoke. In 1919, my father was employed as assistant to the president of Comas Cigarette Machine Co. in Salem and he was elected president two years later. When the company was organized in 1889, its first project was designing and building a machine which would make the tucked-end or Spanish form of cigarette. Manufacturing of feed­ ers overloaded the plant so the engineering firm of C. Markley and Son was engaged to design and build a new plant in 1916. Comas also made a line of cigarette-packing machines, automatic tobacco feeders and tobacco stemming machines developed by my father. That stemming machine was adopted by most of the larger tobacco com­ Chester Markley with his children, Betsy, Whitney and panies of the world. Priscilla. W hitney currently serves on the History When the Comas firm began in Salem, its Museum's board of directors. machinery was manufactured in Philadelphia. About 1910, the company purchased a building in Salem, increased its plant size and expanded until its markets extended to the west coast of South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand and practically every quarter of the globe. During World War II, the company designed the firing pin mechanism for atomic bombs and delivered it to Oak Ridge, Term. Comas produced other ammunition and outfitted battleships, receiving the ArmyNavy "E " award with three stars for its war production. Father was always very proud of this award. I remember the wonderful sounds of the belts and machines hanging from the ceiling when he would take us into the plant and turn on the equipment in the 1940s and 1950s. Father served as president until his retirement in 1956. All during his presidency of Comas, he prac­ ticed sanitary engineering, by consent of the directors, charging no fees as services rendered were a civic contribution. He kept a complete and extensive library on sanitary engineering, beginning with his school days until his death in 1972. He was appointed a delegate to the American Mining Congress by Gov. Harry Byrd. 10 �In 1927, my father and Dr. Charles J. Smith, Roanoke College president, purchased Virginia College in Roanoke from Mattie F. Harris and Gertrude Boatwright and my father was president. The college went under after the Great Depression of 1929 because wealthy businessmen could no longer afford to send their daugh­ ters to the junior college. My mother, Elizabeth Woodbury, had come across the country to head the speech and drama department at Virginia College, having earned her degree at the University of Virginia College, founded in 1893 in South Roanoke, was purchased by Nebraska. She thought Daddy was Chester Markley and Dr, Charles J. Smith in 1927. just being nice to her since she was so far from home and new to the area when he began asking her out. She would always ask one of her friends to go along. Finally, my father told her to stop inviting a friend to go with them because he was only interested in seeing her. They were married on Dec. 30,1927 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, her hometown, while my father was visiting during the Christmas holidays. They honeymooned in New York City and returned to Roanoke by train. My mother gave up teaching soon after. Together, they had seven children, all born in Roanoke. They were named Elizabeth (Betsy), Whitney, Priscilla, the twins Judith and Susan, and Christopher and his twin, Edmond, who died as an infant. We all lived in the old Markley home on Second Street, Southwest. The house was sold in 1978 after my mother's death. My father was director of the Roanoke County centennial celebration in 1938. He designed the origi­ nal carbon filtration plant for Carvins Cove, which opened in 1940. He was one of the founders of the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute in 1933 and later elected an honorary member for his distinguished and meritorious service to the indus­ try. He was president of Roanoke Rotary Club and the University Club and a member of Southwest Virginia Engineers Club and Virginia Manufacturers Association. In 1953, he was appointed to the Salem advisory committee on sewage disposal and he was active in negotiations for a contract for Roanoke City to treat Salem's sewage. He was appointed a member of Roanoke City Selective Service Board in 1956. On May 30, 1972, he died at the age of 84 of complications from pneumonia and heart failure. He is buried beside his wife and father in the Chester Markley at ease. Markley family plot at Evergreen Cemetery. Both my father and grandfather were asked to run for public office but they declined. They had a great respect and love for the Roanoke Valley and they worked for its betterment. Their work and energy contributed to the valley's economic growth and future. 11 �by Charles D. Thompson, Jr. D edication I dedicate this work to my great, great grandparents Samuel and Mary Ellen Ikenberry Brethren dairy farmers, as well as to their granddaughter, my Great Aunt Ethel Naff. Aunt Ethel, a retired dairy farmer m Boones Mill, Virginia, made contacts with her neighbors to help start this project and has supported me throughout my work. Acknowledgments This publication was made possible by grants from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy and The American Academy o f Religion. Special thanks for this booklet go to Bonnie Campbell and Jacky Woolsey, who designed it, Rob Amberg, who took some o f the photographs, Lissa Gotwals, who developed my pho­ tographs, Roddy Moore and Tom Rankin, who served as project advisors, and to the Center fo r Documentary Studies. This work would not have been possible without the Franklin County people who contributed their time and their thoughts. I am deeply grateful fo r all their support, open conversations, and, most o f all, their friendship. I hope that our work will yield positive results in the life o f the Franklin County agricultural community. I welcome questions and suggestions, particularly any advice for correcting problems in this publication. For any mistakes, 1 take fu ll responsibility. Charles D. Thompson, ]r., Curriculum and Education Director Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University cdthomps@duke.edu ~ 919-660-3657 Text and photographs copyright ©2002, Charlie Thompson, ]r. Photographs by Rob Amberg copyright ©2002. 12 Ed. Note: This document was originally published as a separate booklet in a different format. �Introduction T hey Go Quietly: Agricultural Change in Franklin County, Virginia grows out of a project focused on dairy farmers, and their silent exodus from their land in this Blue Ridge county. Both the issue of farm loss and the place itself are personally important to me. Three of my grandparents were raised on farms in the county. My father's parents farmed there all their lives. An aunt and uncle and several cousins have made their living as dairy people there. While agriculture is still among the largest employers in Franklin County, the farms I have known intimately are slowly passing to other uses besides farming. Some of my farming relatives have retired. Some have rented their farms to others. Some have lost their farms to foreclosure and then to development. Some died and were not replaced by succeeding generations. While the landscape still looks mostly agricultural to the passers-by, the people who made the farms thrive are slowly, and all too quietly, going away. Since the mid-1700s when George Washington and others helped establish forts in the territory to make European settlement possible, the land now called Franklin County has been primarily a farming community. The Scotch-Irish, German, and poor English yeoman farmers cleared plots from the virginforested mountains and foothills in the western two-thirds of the county, and the wealthier English planters, many of them slaveholders, dominated the rolling Piedmont lands to the east. (Franklin is where Booker T. Washington was born in a slave cabin.) Following Emancipation, many African Americans became sharecroppers and struggled for gen­ erations to buy their first acreage in the county. It is also where some twen­ ty miles west some of my Thompson ancestors planted corn in steep hol­ lows hoping to put shoes on their chil­ dren's feet. Somewhere between the poorest white settlements in the mountains and the plantations of the wealthy— both geographically and economical­ Restored 1800 Franklin County German homestead at the Blue ly—a yeoman class of farm families, Ridge Institute at Ferrum College, Ferrum, Va. (Charles Thompson photo) many of them of German ancestry, began buying and farming their own land, making healthy fields on the gently rolling slopes of the foothills. These farmers and their descen­ dants, along with the poor Black and White farmers who managed, often against great odds, to work their way to landownership, became the foundation of what we know today as family farm agriculture in the county. The plantations are gone. Land in Franklin County is simply unsuited to the large-scale agriculture of the coastal plain of Virginia and the Carolinas. Its small fields divided by numerous streams and mountains are most appropriate for operations that one family and a few employees can run. Larger operations mean driving miles between fields, a time-consuming and inefficient prospect. Still, Franklin County became one of the largest three dairy counties in the state. The other leading counties are in the Shenandoah Valley and are very different in soil types and terrain—much better farm­ land, objectively speaking. Franklin County is in some ways no better for dairy farming than Franklin's neighboring counties that today have only a few remaining dairies. Several factors help us understand the county's leading role in dairy farming: The county has remained mostly rural, with many employed in agriculture. Franklin County has a strong tradition of 13 �I prosperous family-sized farms that are grounded in the Old German Baptist Brethren and Church of the Brethren communities, faiths that have traditionally espoused a strong rural family and work ethic. The county has retained, until recent decades, a large number of affordable farms available to young people entering agriculture. Related to the previous fact, land speculation for non-agricultural purposes has, until recently, remained minimal. In addition, Franklin County is in close proximity to urban markets where milk is in demand. Roanoke, Virginia and Winston-Salem, North Carolina have imported significant amounts of the county's milk. Because of a rela­ tively large number of dairy farms in the county a strong dairy support net­ work has developed around it, includ­ ing seed dealers, feed distributors, milk parlor technicians, equipment sales outlets, extension agents who specialize in dairy management, full­ time hoof trimmers, large-animal vet­ erinarians, and others. Dairy tradi­ Allen Layman guides his cattle into the milkng barn at sunrise in Wirtz. (Rob Amberg photo) tionally paid well compared to other operations, in part because the indus­ try remained the domain of family farms with few factory-scale competitors. Finally, two dairy extension agents in Franklin County, E.C. Carson and Bowman Flora, began promoting dairy heavily in 1939 as World War II began. People increased their herds both for economic improvement and to help the war effort. After enjoying decades of moderate prosperity, today Franklin County dairy farmers and the busi­ nesses that support them are under increasing pressure. Many have quit. In the 1980s there were over 125 dairies in the county. Since then, three or more dairy operations per year have failed. Today, only 77 dairies remain in business. There is only one African-American dairy farmer in the county. Suburban areas have begun to sprout up on former farms, particularly from the direction of Roanoke. Smith Mountain Lake and related retirement and recreational development have increased land prices beyond farmers' reach in some areas. New mega-farms in the Midwest and West, along with new milk preservation and shipping technologies, have made cheap milk sales over long dis­ tances, even to Franklin County, a reality. Improved roads make com­ muting to jobs in other areas a realis­ tic proposition, and suburban devel- A dairy farmer bales hay in this field near Wirtz, Va.; for the last time. At the time of this photograph (Fall 2.001), lots for "countryside homes" had been sur­ veyed, and houses were already under construction. (Charles Thompson photo) M �opment easier. A proposed interstate promises more of the same. Local schools no longer teach dairy farming. Young people can scarcely imagine taking on the large debt required to purchase land, cattle, and equipment. With all these factors working against them, it is not hard to picture the county losing all its dairies. At the same time, there are a few bright spots on the landscape. Homestead Creamery, a new direct marketing business run by several members of the Old German Baptist Brethren faith, has begun making deliveries of its farm milk direct to consumer out­ lets, including stores in Roanoke. Other young farmers are trying creative financing ideas that require long-term rental agreements with retired farmers. Some sons and daughters are planning to work with parents. Many of the Brethren and others who could easily profit from selling out are holding on to their farms because they espouse a traditional rural lifestyle whose value, they believe, cannot be bought and sold for money. Many of those I interviewed seemed to believe preserving the dairy industry in Franklin County will require that others besides farmers help the cause. Other recommendations I heard included creative financing for farms and dependable dairy policies that ensure local production and distribution and restricting develop­ ment on some prime farmland, or buying development rights from farmers. Others suggest that neighbors could work with farmers on environmental and other issues, understanding that manure spreading, for example, though smelly, is a natural Dina Layman feeds young heifers process that is beneficial to soil. Buying from farmers who pro­ being raised as future milk cows. (Rob duce local milk is something we all can do. And the following Amberg photo) quotes from farmers themselves can help us understand and per­ haps help address the challenges dairy people face. Everyday It was one of the three oldest dairy farms in the county, when people had to take their milk by horse and wagon to Boone's Mill and put it on the train to send it to Roanoke. Of course we started out very, very small. We probably had fifteen cows. My daddy said you needed to have some money coming in every day and dairy was something that was making money every day. ^ —Mary Layman, retired dairy farmer When we went from milk cans to bulk tanks, the controversy was the large investment in tanks and trucks, transporting milk longer distances, and not having a local market. A lot of the small ones did go out of business, but I think it's fair to say that they were not forced out because of regulation, or anything other than job opportunity as people could go to Roanoke and Martinsville. Then as the dairies have become larger, they produce more milk than all of them produced back in the past. So there's still a lot of milk produced in the area, it's just produced by fewer farmers. —Galen Brubaker, retired dairy farmer When you get a conglomerate of maybe five corporate farms that are milking 20,000 cows each, that's 100,000 cows. That's a lot more cows than we have in Franklin County. If we don't watch out they're going to set the prices is what's going to happen. It won't be a monopoly as such, but they'll set their price. — Terry Austin, dairy farmer 15 �The government has got some good things that have helped the farmer, but when the government does something, it's for the big and small. There's nothing really that the small farmer can get that the big one can't get. It becomes a lot of chaos. Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be better to just to take out the government and let it drop. —David Bower, dairy farmer and co-owner o f Homestead Creamery If somebody had told me in 1992 when I had 126 dairies that I'd be in the upper 70's in the year 20 0 1 ,1 don't know if I would've bought the business or not. The cow numbers per dairy grew, but we haven't kept all the cows here. We don't have as many cows in Franklin with 77 dairies as we did back in '92 with 126, 128 farms. —Richard Jamison, milking machine distributor Raising Citizens The Old German Baptist Brethren tend to settle in groups, although "As far as holding what we got, important to who?" Scene from there's no rule to that. In Virginia, we the Jamison farm near Ferrum. (Charles Thompson photo) have four church districts, central places where we worship and go back and forth to regularly, three being in Franklin County, one being in Roanoke County. I think you would see in traditional religious circles lives based on family morals, with the climate of training our children to be good, honest citizens. That, we would all agree, makes rural environ­ ments prosper. We're not really in the business of raising milk, though we lose sight of that many times. We're in the business of raising citizens. We're trying to raise men and women that will make the world better instead of worse. I'd like to preserve it as long as I can, the rural dairy, family life; but at the same time it's probably a vanishing breed. We know that. Just prolong it as long as we can. — Billy Boone, Old German Baptist Brethren minister and farm equipment dealer You see a lot of marriages as a team working together in the business and you see a lot that don't. But I think if the women are out there working with the cows and the calves, that really take interest in those animals, you'll see a lot of tender care that helps. — David Bower [Non-farm kids] can just sleep to eleven o'clock and they're ready to go. Most likely on a farm you have chores to do before you can go somewhere. And it's few households that require the children to do something before they go do leisure activities. —David Matthews, dairy farmer WORK It doesn't make economic sense to try to buy land for six, seven, eight thousand dollars an acre and plant corn and make a hundred dollars an acre. — Bruce Layman, feed mill operator and former dairy farmer We had $220 left over on a forty-eight-cow dairy. I paid my loan, and I paid my feed bill, paid my 16 �electric bill and my phone bill, vet bill, all my bills, and I had $220 left. That's not much of a cushion. I mean a ton of feed at that time was $350. So, I didn't even have enough to buy one extra ton of feed at the end of the month. But all my bills were paid. — Bruce Layman We have fun on Sundays too, but Sunday we pretty much keep as a sacred day, and milk. You milk, but you don't go worrying about getting up hay or something. You do what you have to do and feed. Feeding and milking, that's it. — David Bower It's definitely a way of life, but you do get burned out sometimes. And when you get burned out you start dwelling on the negative. But I think there are a lot of jobs you make a lot more money at and have a lot less investment and things just as nice at home. I think the older I get the less I like milking on weekends, too. — Terry Austin We don't have any hired help. It's full-time for my husband and his partner. It's interesting, people's ideas of what farming is like. Some people find out that my husband and I have a farm and they say, "Oh, that is so much work." But my husband has had somebody say to him one time, "What else do you do? That's not a full-time job." I think he probably wanted to punch him. People's ideas of how farming is—they're pretty mixed up sometimes. —Rebecca Austin, dairy farmer N EIG H B O R S The family farm used to represent more of a community structure even among people who are not German Baptists. Fifty years ago it wasn't anything for all the farmers in this area to get together and thrash wheat, and then they'd go in and sit down and somebody would say the blessing. — Bruce Layman I think the people from Franklin County have a deep respect for farming because at one point in time in their family tree, they came from a farm. So when they see "fresh from our family farms," it means a whole lot more to them than somebody who doesn't really know. —Brandon Montgomery, dairy farmer and co-owner o f Homestead Creamery This is the only nation I'm aware of that has never had a food shortage, so we don't put much strength in being our own food producers. But you go to Europe, and almost all of those coun­ tries at some point have had a food shortage. They value their food. They put a value on maintaining it locally. I hope, and I guess I pray, that we'll never face a time that we have a food shortage. But I have felt for quite a few years that we will approach that time and basically because of a lack of interest and concern of the consuming public. — Galen Brubaker This is an ideal area because it's got a pretty view of the mountains, it's got a good climate, good people. Of course you Ethel Jamison Naff, b. 1904. (Rob Amberg photo) 17 �can tell I'm prejudiced. So people are going to continue to come down here from New Jersey, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C. All those people want a better place, a better quality living stan­ dard. —Galen Brubaker I know a lot of people complain about the way it smells out here. I think a lot of people want the country life, but they don't want what goes with it. —Terry Austin People in Transit Never seems to fail, wherever the best farmland is, that's where they want to grow the most indus­ try and houses. It's a lot easier to build houses on good land. —Allen Layman They can make a lot more money subdividing it than they can selling it as a farm, and they can't sell it for a farm anymore hardly. If they do, the person that's buying it is a hobby farmer. They're coming in, they've made their money elsewhere and they need a tax break. So they come in, buy a farm, and buy a tractor. That's everyman's dream in the world. They'll piddle around for a few years and then they say, maybe, this is not what I thought it would be. —Billy Kingery, real estate agent and former dairyman Interstate 73 will hasten what Smith Mountain Lake started many years ago, a long time before 1-73 was ever dreamed of. This will be the hastening of it. Is it good or bad? If we're going to make automobiles and people, we've got to have some­ where to put them. We're a transit people. We've got to have roads to travel on. The roads are going to take up farmland. —Billy Boone Maps of the proposed route of Interstate 73, a swath that will take farms and homes in Franklin County, displayed on a chalkboard in a dairy farmer's kitchen. (Charloes Thompson photo) As we get more urbanized, the cost of land gets higher. It's very hard for a young man to come up with assets to purchase property to farm and has to rent. He's just building up equity for the landown­ ers. It's really why a lot of people are getting out. —David Matthews, dairy farmer Heirs My father and his three brothers started this business. At that time there were probably five equip­ ment businesses in Rocky Mount and each community around us had the same thing. Gretna had a couple of farm equipment businesses. Moneta had one. Floyd had three or four. And now they're all gone, except there s two in Franklin County. People have tried to get into business and it's just not profitable enough or there's not enough business to keep them. It's gone. —Billy Boone If you take a farm family that s got four heirs and one of those chooses to be a farmer, and the other three decide they want the high dollars, there's no way he can live long enough to pay for it. There are farm programs that will guarantee a farm will be in agriculture from now on. That helps, but whether 18 �that's the solution I don't know. These decisions we make that are going to last forever, I'm a little skeptical of them, too. —Billy Boone He's an old retired farmer and he was selling some of his land to farmers at two-thousand dollars an acre. That's a high price, but one that you can farm and do all right. Well, the children found out about it and they had it fixed where he couldn't sell it. Power of Attorney, I guess. They sold it all for subdivisions and they got ten and twelve thousand dollars for it. —Franklin County dairy farmer Pretty good farmer, but his sons lost interest. And he said, I can sell out now. Keep my farm, [but] my sons are never going to come back here and farm. And if my sons don't take it, the growth around here is going to take it. I can't sell to anyone else and them make it. So he said, I'm just going to go work a forty-hour week. I don't have to do any management, and it'll take the weight off me, have a richer life. *fm-David Bower Some farms have been hand­ ed down from generation to generation. I've had plenty of opportunity, but none's been given me. We bought a farm about four years ago that was 70 acres. And I'm heavily indebted, I mean heavily indebted. I'm not ashamed to tell you how much. —Irwin Ward, the county's sole African American dairyman H O PE Farmers won't unite, and they can't come together, and the reason is they're too hard headed to work together. And the reason they're hard headed is that they've been taken advantage of so long in the marketplace. They got numb to people telling them they've got these theories about how they're going to help them make more money, but it usually ends up costing them. So that one's a dead end. That's when we decided to try to build our own milk facility and just do it small. It was really kind of ironic that everybody you talked to said, "Naw, ain't no way." Ain't no way for a small farm to make it unless you do a little something different, subsidize it with something. •—David Bower I think maybe September 11th brought everybody back to reality, back down to support local. —David Bower We've already lost one, two, three [dairies] this year that I can think of. Might be more than that. So, from what I'm seeing, in the next ten years we'll be down in the thirties. As far as holding what we got, important to who? Alien Layman continued on next -page 19 �In Europe, farm vacations are subsidized by the government. They send someone to do your work while you go on vacation. I think that's a pretty big thing. Our government doesn't consider the long­ term effects of all the farmers selling out or the end of small farming. —Rebecca Austin I feel that there is always going to be a need for the family farm. Whether I'm hoping just for the sake of hoping, I don't know. But what I'm saying is we're as practical and efficient as the big operations are. If we can find a way to pass it on to our posterity, if we do a few things to keep the farm in the family, I feel there are possibili­ ties. —Henry Jamison, dairy farmer Trevor Fox sits patiently during an afternoon milking at the Bowman dairy farm in Boones Mill. (Charles Thompson photo) Old farmhouse stands on a hill above the Piedmont-Clemens Mill. (George Kegley photo) The Piedmont-Clemens Mill, built about 1870 along Maggodee Creek, is an important struc­ ture in the German Baptist Brethren communi­ ty, although it has not been used for years. (George Kegley photo) 20 �M y Memories o f Carvin's Cove A Long Peaceful Valley , by Mary Louise Riley Harmon I am now 71 years of age and would like to write my little story of the valley called Carvin's Cove, where I spent my first 27 years. This valley is surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains, located in Botetourt County, Virginia. This is on the edge of north Roanoke County. We entered this valley by way of a dirt road leading up over a ridge past the falls, where now a dam is built for the Roanoke City water supply. I would like to describe the cove as a peaceful valley and a very beautiful valley, where more than 35 families lived. This was a long, narrow valley, that curved around into almost a horseshoe-shape valley. I often think of Joe Leslie, who visited my father once a year, when he returned to this valley for his annual fall visit. He was editor of the Clinch Valley News, in Tazewell County. He always said the Cove reminded him of Burkes Garden in Tazewell County, geographically surrounded by high mountains circling around, enclosing a quiet, peaceful valley. The Cove had one main creek, which in ages past, broke through the cliffs of Green Ridge in a narrow channel forming the falls. Carvin's Cove was named for a Virginia frontier settler. This information was found in an article in The Roanoke World-News, in October 1976, written by Carl Andrews: "Although William Carvin died 13 years before the Revolution, Carvin remains a commanding figure who deserves to be remembered during the Bicentennial in the Roanoke Valley Carvin was a pioneer set­ tler, noted Indian fighter and civil servant. He was a colorful figure on the frontier and his name is preMary Louise Riley Harmon moved from the cove in 1942 to a home on Courtland Road she shared with her sister, Celia. She worked for Easter Seals and the Red Cross and she married Pat Harmon from West Virginia. She wrote these recollections in 1986. She died on April 1, 2000, at the age o f 85. Above: Looking northeast from the top of Carvin's Cove Dam, showing part of land to be inundated, 1928. (Photo; courtesy of Salem Historical Society); 21 �served today in Carvin's Cove, Roanoke's main water supply. Not much is known about his ancestors, when they came to this country or even when he was born or where. The name is believed to be Welsh in origin and was spelled several different ways, principally by court clerks who jotted down what they thought they had heard. One record has the name, "Kervin." Another court entry ordering a road from his plantation in 1753 to William Bryan's plantation, Roan/oak in present Salem, spelled it "Carravan." William Carvin first appeared in history on March 19, 1746, when he was appointed a consta­ ble in the company of Capt. George Robinson in newly formed Augusta County. He was also designated overseer for a road being blazed from Orange County to the top of the Blue Ridge. Carvin is sometimes referred to as the Roanoke Valley's first settler. (This o r i g i nal grant for 150 acres along Carvin's Creek being dated July 25, 1746.) but it is known that Carvin's Creek waterfall, before the dam was constructed. Mark Evans was living near Big Lick in 1742. There is some reason to believe that land, now part of the Hollins College campus, was given to William Carvin by his father, Edward, who remains a shadowy figure in history. The creek then was called "Smithe," and the land hold­ ings, "Sulphur Springs tract." In 1763, we find his main holdings referred to as "Carvin's Meadow." He gradually added to this and the earlier grant. His father patented 174 acres on Roan/oak to him April 1, 1748, and he secured a grant of 341 acres on the creek at the cove from John Mills in 1763. Contrary to some opinions, the grist mill below the falls probably was built by James W. Riley in the early 1800s and not by Carvin. (It operated until around 1900.) (This could have been my great-grandfather. I was led to believe his name was John but none of the family really has that information.) "Apparently in his physical prime, Carvin began to accumulate his reputation as an Indian fighter in the French and Indian War (1754-1763), serving as a private in the authorized militia. First, there is the tale of how Carvin was attacked by two Indians in the woods where Hollins College now stands. Taking shelter behind a huge, wild apple tree, he noted that one foe was trying to slip around to get behind him. Raising his coonskin cap on the end of his rifle ramrod, he drew the fire of the other Indian. He promptly shot him, and then the story goes, either killed the first Indian in hand combat or shot him by quickly reloading. The tree is said to have lived until 1820, finally dying because souvenir hunters cut so many of its brandies to make walking sticks. The other story is equally spectacular. Pursued by Indians one day, he found himself trapped on the cliff above the falls of Carvin's Creek. Without hesitation, he leaped into the pool at the foot of the falls and escaped because none of his foes had the courage to follow. "Two historical footnotes: On Nov. 24,1926, the Roanoke Water Co. announced plans fqr a $700,000 dam at the falls to turn Carvin's Cove into a 6-billion-gallon reservoir, which was completed in 1928 by W. W. Boxley & Co., contractors. This is a lasting credit and monument to the skill and integrity of that firm. It was said this would yield a minimum of 15 million gallons of water daily in the driest years and in other times, considerably more. On March 22,1938, Roanoke freeholders voted 3 to 1 for a $5-million bond issue to pay for the condemned water company, which was acquired in 1942. By this time, all the families had moved from the valley and settled in other places." My father did not live to settle our estate. He died April 15, 1940. He loved his valley, the land he was 22 �bom and died on. Only one year of his life was spent elsewhere. That was when he and my mother were married on March 11,1902, and he went to Sullivan, Indiana, to work on his uncle's ranch. This uncle was John Leonard. My mother, sister and I moved from this valley, Dec. 10, 1942, to Williamson Road. My brother, Cecil, who always ran the farm after my father became disabled in 1921, remained on the farm until December 1943. He was living in my mother's and father's first home on the farm. This was a five-room cottage they had built on my Grandfather Henry Thomas Riley's place. They had moved in this cottage Dec. 19,1903.1 remember my mother saying it was the day my oldest brother, Ralph, was one year old. In the year that Cecil stayed, he tore our nine rooms and bath down and built him a five-room and bath cottage on Barrens Road, off of Peters Creek Road. He, Adrie and Cecil Jr. moved into their new home in December 1943. World War II was going on at this time and there was very little building, but he had gotten most of his lumber from the old home. In moving this day in December 1942 meant leaving Carvin's Cove, the valley where I was born and spent my childhood years. Leaving the mountains that surround our valley, leaving my church, Cove Alum Baptist, where I went to Sunday School and church, which I joined when I was 11 years old. This meant leaving the creek I was bap­ tized in. I also have memories of playing in this creek, wading, seeing those little sun perch and oftentimes just sitting and watching the little tadpoles. I have also watched this creek get out of its banks and flow over the land, when we would have heavy rains. This meant leaving the school I attended through seventh Cove Alum Baptist Church, 1942. grade, leaving the place where I had both happy and sad memories. But one thing in leaving this valley—I can still have those memories that I cher­ ish. I came from a family of six brothers: Ralph Layman Riley, my oldest brother, born Dec. 19,1902; Cecil Claude and Celia Anna (twins), born April 1, 1906; William Hunter, born June 7, 1908; infant twin boys, born Sept. 11, 1912.1 was born Jan. 27,1915. Ernest Preston Jr., was born June 10,1921. My mother and father came from large families. My father, Ernest Preston Riley, was born July 5, 1881, He had seven brothers and one sister, all bom in Carvin's Cove. John Henry was the oldest; Mary Ann, second oldest; James B, third; George Thomas, fourth; Charlie Lewis, fifth; my father, Ernest Preston, sixth; Letcher Lee, seventh; Grover Cleveland, eighth, and Robert Thurman, ninth. My mother was Cora Belle Layman, born July 19, 1879, at Walnut Hill, near Fincastle, on the Old Blacksburg Road. All of her brothers and sisters were born at this place. Wiley Vernon was the oldest; Elizabeth (Lizzie) Dr. George Braxton Taylor, Sunday afternoon pastor at Lankford, second; Alma, third; Anna Price, fourth; my mother, Cora Belle, Cove Alum Church for 30 fifth; John Beverly, sixth; Bessie Louise, seventh; Baker, eighth; Clarence years. Edward, ninth, and Frank, tenth. My grandfather, William Henry Layman, was born on this farm too. My grandmother, Mary Louise (Mollie) Jones, was bom in Nelson or Amherst County. 23 �My Grandfather and Grandmother Layman and family moved to Carvin's Cove in 1897 or 1898. My father and mother went together two years before they were married on March 11,1902. In two weeks after they were married, they left for Sullivan, Indiana to live on my father's Uncle John Leonard's farm. They did not stay quite one year. My parents never said they returned because they were homesick but I always suspected they were, for they both came from large and happy families. When my mother and father returned from Indiana, Ralph, my oldest brother, was six weeks old. My father got a job at the shops for a dollar a day but only worked a few weeks. My grandmother Frances Catherine Leonard Riley asked my father to come and help his father, Henry Thomas Riley, on the farm, and he did. My dad built a fiveroom cottage on the farm near my grandfather's house. My mother told me they moved into their new cottage the day Ralph was one year old (Dec. 19,1903). All the rest of us were born in this house. In 1921, my mother and dad saw a need for a larger house. Dad loved the farm. His moth­ er died March 24,1910. He and his father continued to farm. When my grandfather died Henry Thomas Riley (left) and Earnest Preston Riley hold four sturdy farm May 19,.< 1919, my father horses in the cove. bought the heirs out and con­ tinued to live there until his death April 15,1940. He loved this land. My dad was only 58 years of age when he died and he had done well for himself. He raised cattle, had a market garden and a lathe mill for a few years. He started his canning factory in 1915. For several years, he canned tomatoes and green beans. One year the apples did so well that he canned them. My father wanted our new home to stand where his father's home had been. He could not bear to see his old home torn away so he had his Uncle Jim Riley and Jim Gusler, who lived in the cove, to move this house back, probably 250 feet from where our new 9-room house was built in 1921. It was a beautiful building site, all the big, old trees were there and some are standing at this time, especially the big oak, probably 8 to 10 feet through. The shade of this old oak tree holds many memories. Some seem so very far away and others seem like yesterday. We were very proud of our home. It had 9 rooms and bath, large pantry, 2 big halls, a front porch all across the front, a large back porch and a large attic we used for storage. We moved in the fall of 1921. We were so thrilled that Grandma Layman came to live with us on Thanksgiving Day and two years later she was buried on Thanksgiving Day 1923. Dad had water put in our house. That was rare in those days for we did not have electricity so it had to be forced by air. We had a gasoline engine which pumped this tank full of air and that forced the water from our good "ole Poplar Spring," named for all the poplar trees that surround it. This was good, cold free-stone water. I could not have survived if I had not had a loving and caring family. I had a devoted mother and father that I would not have exchanged for any other. I have one loving and caring sister and four brothers that I would not have exchanged for any other. Not one ever turned me down. My mother and father had a lot 24 �A sawmill operated on the E.P. Riley farm in the 1940s. Henry Thomas Riley, a tough gentleman. of heartbreak in raising their family. My father started with arthritis when he was 38 and died at the age of 58. In 1922, my brother, Hunter, was found to be a diabetic at the age of 14. He lived to be 19. He was born June 7, 1908 and died March 16,1928. He had grown to be a handsome young man, over 6 feet tall, had a bright future and had already developed a good business head. He had taken care of my father s business. At the time of Hunter's death, my father was helpless in a wheelchair. The death was a shock to all the fam­ ily. Hunter got real sick one morning and died that night. The doctor said it was pneumonia. My parents never really got over his death. On July 25,1929, tragedy struck our family again. I was stricken with polio, as well as my sister, Celia. She was not paralyzed but I was paralyzed all over. It left me completely helpless. This polio epidemic hit Roanoke in July 1929. There were approximately 135 cases. The doctors were stunned. They knew very lit­ tle to do. I was not taken to a hospital. I had problems in breathing but there was no iron lung at that time, at least not in Roanoke. My mother had to have been a strong person to have taken care of my sister and me. I had to be turned on a sheet for over four months and I could only be propped up for a short while. After 4 months, the Junior Woman's Club of Roanoke employed two therapists from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., to come to Roanoke and give the polio victims therapy. I had never heard of therapy before. How well I remember her two visits a week. The therapist would come bouncing in, always smil­ ing, stand by the big, old woodstove to warm up before starting to give me therapy. My mother always stood by. She taught my mother how to give me therapy the other five days. My mother said she must be real brave to drive on a narrow dirt road back in the country. The therapist would always laugh and say, "Remember I am from Minnesota." I shall always be grateful to the Junior Woman's Club of Roanoke for bringing this therapist to help the polio victims. She started with my therapy in November and by spring she had me where I could be fitted with a back brace to hold me up and braces for both legs. My mother and sister both played a big part in getting me back on my feet. They would get me up on my crutches and hold to me and help me walk. To walk across the room was a big deal. I will never forget the first time my sister insisted I try going up stairs. We made going up by her helping me but I could not put my foot down to get back down the steps so she got Cecil and Ralph to carry me down. The next day she said, "We are going up the stairs again today." I cried but she helped me up and I got up enough courage to come back down. Those were trying days. I can still remember the thrill of my first car ride, after being in for almost a year. My brother, Ralph, had a Chrysler sports roadster with a rumble seat. With the top down and all that we could pack in, we took 25 �off down the road, leaving a cloud of dust behind. I was 14 when polio struck and that meant the end of my education. I had finished 7 ^ grade. In those days, nothing was done for handicapped people. Until President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in 1933, no one thought of doing anything for handicapped people. He was a polio victim himself. I like to think of my childhood as a happy time, especially up until age 14 when I was stricken with polio. My sis­ ter and I were the only cases of polio in our valley. Our parents had been very protective of us and would not let us go into Roanoke for fear we might come into contact with someone with polio. It really was a scary time when there were 135 to 150 cases of polio. That July in 1929 the weather was hot, we had a heat wave. It was a busy time of the year on the farm. My sister and I were milking 14 cows, bringing the milk to the springhouse, running it through a cream separator, feeding the milk to 12 or 15 calves and my mother churned the cream. Some weeks she made 60 pounds of butter and she had it all engaged. After having polio in the family, everyone was afraid to come around and it was hard to get help, so my father sold off the cows. My youngest brother, E. P. Riley Jr., was only 8 years old so he could not be of much help. My brother, Cecil, was running the farm since my father was in a wheelchair. This was the beginning of the canning season. The tomatoes were coming in. That meant Cecil had so much to do. He had to come in from the farm to help take care of my father. My mother had more than she could do, taking care of my sister and me. It just happened the week before that my Uncle Charlie Riley, Aunt Dora and their daughter, Naomi, had come to board with us for a few weeks, while Uncle Charlie was building their new home on Williamson Road. So Aunt Dora took over the cooking. A healthy strawberry patch flourished in the cove. My brother, Ralph, and his wife, Virginia, were at our home that summer too. They both worked in Roanoke, he as a pipefitter in the Norfolk and Western Railway shops and she at Thurman & Boone as a bookkeep­ er. The years of 1928,1929 and 1930 will be years no one in my family will ever forget. 1930 was a dry year and we were in a depression. All the crops were lost. Cecil was raising a market garden. That was part of our income. We had to sell the cattle because we had no hay, corn or wheat crop. The early 1930s were the depression years. I guess we were more fortunate than most. We did not lose our home and farm like a lot of people. We always had food to eat and did not have to beg for food or stand in lines for soup, like many thousands did. When plants and factories closed down and people walked the streets, no place to find work—those were hard times. I shall never forget the depression year when Franklin D. Roosevelt became president in 1933 and things began to turn around. This great man pulled this country out of the depression. He started the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Tennessee Valley Authority, National Recovery Administration (NRA), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Agricultural Adjustment Administration, Public Works Administration, Home Owners Loan Corporation, Farm Credit Administration, Social Security Board and also many other things. Roosevelt is the only president I have ever seen in person. I shall never forget, as a young girl I stood with my leg braces and my crutches under my arms and waited to see our president. I stood at the Jefferson Street railroad crossing and watched President Roosevelt get 26 �off a train and into a convertible automobile. The day was October 19,1934. He came to Salem to dedicate the Veterans Administration Hospital. What a great day that was! Everyone was out to see the president, cheering, shouting and waving. Some might have been crying with joy as the car drove by with him stand­ ing up and waving to the crowd. He wore braces on both legs, from polio. His son, James, was along with him. One of the things that is so vivid in my mind of what Roosevelt was doing is the CCC camps. This helped several needy families in Carvin's Cove. When he became president, millions of young Americans were unable to find work or continue their education. Many young men got their first job and learned a trade while serving with the depression years in a group known as the Civilian Conservation Corps. Every time you use a mountain trail or enjoy a national park or forest, you can thank the CCC. The enrollment period was in sixmonth terms. They were paid only $30 per month, $25 of which was sent to their families back home. I remember when the CCC road was built in the cove over from us, through Brushy Mountain and Green Ridge Mountain. They built roads, trails, fire lanes and fire lookout towers. Living under primitive conditions, thousands of CCC youth fought hundreds of vicious fires that covered vast areas. In these burned-over areas, the Corps planted countless billions of tree seedlings, which are the 50-year-old mature trees that fur­ nish the lumber for today's dream homes. The total list of A carload of Rileys and Laymans posed for a picture in 1919. work projects undertaken by the CCC would fill several books. They established wildlife refuges and game preserves, stocked lakes and streams with fish, built water reservoirs, dams and drainage canals, restored national monuments and historic sites. I believe it was in 1915 that my father started running a canning factory. He canned from 3,000 to 5,000 cases of tomatoes a year. For several years, he canned a couple thousand cases of green beans and one year he canned several hundred cases of apples. We don't usually think of work as being beautiful times but I can recall some beautiful times and some fun times at this canning factory. My father contracted with the neighboring farmers to buy their tomatoes and green bean crops. The busy months were July, August and September. I can recall the long days, standing and peeling tomatoes. Doing the beans was more fun for we could sit down to string and break the beans. Sometimes as many as 12 to 15 girls and boys were stringing beans. That was a lot of beans in one day. Oh, the fun we would have out under the big, old apple trees beside the factory! We had an hour for lunch. The factory workers brought a bag lunch. After lunch, some would stretch out on the grass and rest before going back for the long afternoon. The teenagers looked forward to making some extra money for a few weeks in the summer. They were not paid until the end of the canning season. You had a ticket, which when filled with clips, was $2.50. You received one clip for a bucket of peeled tomatoes and two clips for a bucket of prepared green beans. Celia did all the packing of the tomatoes and beans and Cecil did the capping of the cans. We hired a man to fire the boiler. When the steam got up in the boiler, he would blow the whistle and it was heard all over Carvin's Cove. The help knew it was time to come to work. 27 �After the end of the canning season, the work for Cecil and Celia was not over. It was time to get the thousands of cases labeled. And they really labeled those cans fast, like going through a machine. This they did by hand. They had this big table, that two people worked at. On each side of the table you had a trough that the can lay in, with a square tray on each side of the trough. This was to hold your paste. It was a home-made paste, made with flour and water and boiled for a few minutes. It took two or three weeks to get the labeling done. They often would race to see who could do the most in a day's time. They were about equal, as they were twins, always working together on the farm. My sister did a man's work. They had a helper to keep the cases fed and to carry them away sealed and stacked in the back of the factory until sold. My father had a brokerage firm that did the selling to the warehouses. He had his own private label print­ ed at Piedmont Label Co. in Bedford. It was a beautiful label—"Mountain View Farm - E. P. Riley Carvin's Cove - Hollins, Virginia." This canning factory gave the teenagers a chance to make some extra money. They were paid in the fall. The money they earned went mostly for their school clothing. The children who went to our two-room school usually dressed well and had good warm clothing. I never remember seeing any of the pupils with ragged clothes. I had some happy times at this two-room school, as well as some bad times. There was the time I knew I had not done very well on my tests or exams. I remember my first teacher, Ethel Baker, from Catawba. My second-year teacher was Mary Crawford, who went home sick one day and was never able to return. She had T.B. and died Four Rileys - Annie, Celia, Ava and Della - made up a crew picking a couple years later. Verna Peters beans and canning tomatoes for the cove cannery about 1923. came and finished her term. I remember the other teachers who taught me. They were Alpha Armentrout, Grace Dogan and Harry Lancaster, who was my teacher for three years. Other teachers at our school were Reginia Peery, Mary John Crawford, Della Vandergrift, Carmen Switzer, Rex Spigle, Ora Newsom, Belle Duvall, Gaysior Duvall, Bessie Gusler, Mattie Horn, Edith Riley, Myrtle Brumfield, Miss Ash, Celeste Carper, Carl Keith, Lonie Gusler, Alma Keeling, Mattie Sprinkel, Janie Lou Crumpacker and Clara Willis. Christmas time at our school was a special occasion. The day before the holiday vacation season start­ ed, we hurried through our lessons and the teachers would let us go to the woods and cut our own Christmas tree. We always had a big, beautiful cedar tree. We had fun decorating the tree and the windows. We would get a lot of spruce pine when we were in the woods and we put this up over the windows. The older boys would build the stage, as we always had a Christmas play and sang Christmas, carols. The night of our party, the school was packed. We exchanged gifts and the teachers always had candy and an orange for each pupil. When Valentine's Day came we always had a party. We would have a huge box to put the valentines in and we would start days before making our valentines. It would take a couple hours to give the valentines out. A lot of beautiful valentines—some were bought and very lacey, that I saved for years. Some were hand-made and very comical. At Easter time, we had our egg hunt. At Halloween, sometimes we had a party. That was the most fun! We could dress as we pleased. 28 �For several years, my mother boarded the school teachers. That was a lot of fun, for there were always all the boys and girls hanging around. We played a lot of cards. We popped corn galore. We had a big bas­ ket of apples for everyone to help themselves. Once in awhile when Mother had extra sugar we could make fudge candy. My youngest brother, E. P., could always make the best fudge. We had plenty of grape juice, for in those days we could not afford a soda for everyone. Those were the depression years. In the fall, we had plenty of cider. No one ever left our house without a treat of some kind. I often think of the summers when the melons were plentiful and how many watermelons and cantaloupes were cut on Sunday afternoons when all the visitors and family gathered together. Fall in the valley was a beautiful time, but a very busy time. After the canning season was over, there was the corn cutting and putting it into shocks to shuck at a later date. There were wagon-loads of pump­ kins to be gathered before frost and stored in the shed. We had to pick many bushels of apples. Then we made barrels of cider. My Grandmother Riley had this nice-size orchard set out several years before she died on March 24, 1910. This was five years before I was born. I remember my father telling how beauti­ ful the orchard was in full bloom. I have tried to think of the many different kinds of apples that were in this orchard. There must have been as many as 10 or 12 kinds. We had over 100 trees. After picking the apples and making the cider, it was time to make the apple butter. We had a 25-gallon copper kettle and we could make 16 to 18 gallons of apple butter at a time. That was hard work. My mother and Celia were experts on this job. The day before making apple butter, two or three people cut apples all day. The next morning at daybreak, you got the fire started and filled your kettle with apples and enough cider to get them cooking. You had this long wooden stirrer and you had to keep stirring all the time. You kept adding in apples as they cooked down and by late evening, it had cooked down and turned dark.Then you A label from E.P. Riley's cannery added your sugar and seasoning of cinnamon, cloves and advertised string beans, a prime product. allspice. We usually made two or three kettles. When the next fall rolled around, believe me, it was all gone—so were the damson preserves, sweet apple, tomato and strawberry preserves, blackberry and grape jelly. How mother did all these things sounds out of rea­ son. I often think of all the canning she would do. Celia picked the blackberries and the cherries and moth­ er canned dozens of these cans at a time. Then when winter came, we had all these good cherry and berry cobblers. Mother and Celia dried a lot of apples. We all liked fried apple pies. The teachers who boarded with us loved them too. As soon as the weather turned cold enough, sometime after Thanksgiving, it was time to butcher the hogs and prepare the meat. We usually butchered four hogs after they had been corn-fed for six weeks. That really made good meat. After Cecil and Celia trimmed the meat, they would take the trimmings and grind for sausage. My mother did the adding of sage, salt and pepper, then mixed it up good and we would have 75 or more pounds of delicious sausage. We would take the livers, hearts, lean scraps of meat, cook them and then grind them up and make liver pudding. With all the tenderloin, spareribs and backbones, we lived "high off the hog." We canned some of the meat. All the hams, shoulders and streaked meat were salted down in a big meat box in our smokehouse. By summer, these hams were cured and out of this world. I often think of the good gravy my mother made when she had fried ham. Once in awhile in the spring of the year, Mother would sell one of the hams and buy a keg of salt fish. In October or November when there was a pretty warm day, it was time to get the corn shucked and brought into the crib. I can still see this corn crib now. It was built with a peaked roof and the boards on the sides were an inch apart. That was so the air could pass through and the corn could season out. This was the feed for the six horses. The chickens ate corn also, but it had to be shelled corn. My job was to shell 29 �it. I was probably 10 or 11 years of age when I remember so well how scared I was, when I climbed into the crib to shell it. As I dropped the first ear of corn in the corn sheller, this little mouse would scamper out. I never seemed to get used to this mouse. It scared me every time. The days on the farm were very busy and my father believed in everyone working. There were six of us kids in the family and we started at an early age of doing the things we could do. I felt very proud that I could milk a cow at the age of six. I helped with the milking and feeding the cows before going to school and after getting home from school in the evenings, until I had polio. I can see my mother now, churning and printing the but­ ter. She used a wooden churn with an up and down dash for many years. Then my brother, Hunter, bought her a churn The entire student body of Carvin's Cove School turned out for a photo, about that you cranked. She could sit 1916. and churn. She had a onepound butter mold that turned out butter with a dandelion print. She never had any trouble getting rid of butter. McCray grocery on Melrose Avenue, N.W., took all the butter she did not have engaged. He also would buy our eggs, chick­ ens and some produce. In turn, we would buy our groceries from him. Christmas on the farm in Carvin's Cove was a very special time. We always had a big tree in our parlor. I like to picture in my mind the decorations on the tree. In the 1920s, Celia and Virginia (Ralph's wife) did the decorating. Virginia was working at Thurman and Boone and she would buy so many pretty orna­ ments, strings of small balls, all colors, lots of icicles and snow. With all the gifts around the tree, we could hardly wait to open them. Aunt Bess in California would send a big box of gifts. Aunt Lizzie in Ohio would send presents. Aunt Anna in West Virginia sent gifts too. I remember once she had some maple sugar candy in our package. She had made it from pure maple syrup that was tapped from their trees on their farm at Spruce Grove, West Virginia. We looked forward to getting packages in the mail. Then Aunt Eula and Uncle Clarence, Aunt Grace and Uncle John would bring us gifts. Mother started a week before Christmas, baking her cookies and doughnuts. We always had an abun­ dant supply of ginger cookies and sugar cookies. Then Celia would bake three or four cakes. One would be a fresh coconut cake. Mother always had a big ham. Our Christmas dinner was a big dinner. We always had a lot of company and that meant a lot of cooking. Mother always got fresh cranberries and made her own cranberry sauce. She always had dried peaches for Christmas and one of her main desserts was boiled custard with the cake. We had many different kinds of pies. She often made mincemeat and raisin pies. We always had plenty of oranges at Christmas. We were used to having lots of apples, so we would buy a 50or-100-pound bag of oranges. This was a treat. I often think of all the pies my mother made in her lifetime. I have seen her make six apple pies at a time. She would make delicious pumpkin pies, sweet potato pies, custard pies, cherry cobblers, berry cobblers and a stack of half-moon fried pies out of dried apples. Whatever my mother baked or cooked was out of this world. No wonder when the relatives came, they stayed for a week.at a time! In this valley were sad times as well as happy times. When there was sickness or a death, the relatives 30 �and neighbors were sad too. They came to your rescue. When death came, you were never taken to a funer­ al home and left. The body was embalmed and left at home. Your funeral was preached at home or taken to our little Cove Alum Baptist Church. We had three or four cemeteries in this valley. The Riley Cemetery was really the neighborhood cemetery. The Board, Ready and Pollard cemeteries were private. Senator John Worth Kern of Indiana was buried on his place on a little knoll out from "Kerncliff," his summer home. The Riley Cemetery was bought by my Grandfather Henry Thomas Riley from Charley Lipes in 1910 after my Grandmother Frances Catherine Riley died. There are probably around 75 people buried there. I have a lot of relatives in this cemetery on the hill. My great-grandmother Mary Magdalene Riley, who was bom in 1813, was buried there in October 1902. I wish I knew who the first person was that was buried there. It could have been some of the Engles, for Mrs. Lipe was an Engle or kin in some way. There are more Rileys buried in this cemetery than anyone else. I can't remember the names of everyone who was buried there. Dr. George Braxton Taylor preached at our little country church 30-some years. He was a well-educated man. He came to Hollins College as a Bible teacher and pastor of Enon Baptist Church. We were very for­ tunate to have him as our pastor of our little Cove Alum country church. He came at 3 o'clock Sunday after­ noon the first Sunday of every month and twice a month during the summer. He usually held a revival in September or October. Sometimes he would have a visiting minister to help him. I joined the church at one of these revivals when I was 11 years old. I believe it was Sept. 26, 1926 when I was baptized in Carvin's Creek on a Sunday afternoon. I believe there were 20-some baptized that afternoon. The scene of one of these baptizings was beauti­ ful. The banks along the sides of the streams were lined with the church congregation and spectators of all ages and sizes. It was a very quiet and sacred time. I like to remember those days. At this writing, I can only recall a small number still living who were baptized the same as I was. We had Sunday School at 10 o'clock every Sunday morning. My Uncle Jim Layman was superintendent of the Sunday School. When we needed something extra at the church, like songbooks or to make up money to help someone, we would have an ice cream supper. We baked cakes and pies to make up our money and had a good time too. I wish I could find my old joke book. I loved to find a good joke. I would clip it out and paste it in a book, but now I can't remember very many. One I can remember is: an old country preacher was telling his flock about King Solomon. After he had described the many palaces, he told them that Solomon had 1,000 wives and 1,000 concubines and fed them on ambrosia. At this point, one of the men remarked, "Never mind what he fed them! What did he eat?" The Carvin's Cove Dam W hen R oanoke needed water, they cam e to our valley so fair A nd sent their engineers to bu ild a great dam there. They surveyed the m ountain country for many, m any days, A nd strange m en w ere treading our quiet and peaceful w ays. T he pioneers o f the valley asleep on that quiet h ill crest, N ever dream ing o f the changes to the place they loved the best. They loved this m ountain valley and w e all love it too, B u t n ow our hom es and gardens m ust b e changed to a lake of blue. Som e day the calm deep w ater w ill cover all the land A nd on the shores the tall, d ark pines in a beautiful forest w ill stand. T h e deer w ill bound thru the dim green aisles and com e d ow n to the lake to drink A nd tall cranes w ad e along the shores w here lilies grow w hite and pink. — Naomia Riley w Mary Louise Riley Harmon Photos courtesy o f Mr. and Mrs. Richard Sowers and other members o f the Riley family. 31 �African-Americans Have a Proud Ancestry by William B. Davis t is good to be back home again. I grew up in Ebenezer Baptist Church. The building is different now. The area was called Kingstown and we were seven miles from Roanoke. Now, this is Roanoke. I remember well the many times I walked three miles down Peters Creek Road to catch the bus to Roanoke. The young people here today were spared the daily humiliation we had to go through riding in the back of the bus and having to drink water from a fountain marked "Colored" and having to go to a public toilet for "Colored Only." If we were hungry and had the money to buy a sandwich, we had to go to the back or the side of a restau­ rant to buy it. Then it was handed to us in a paper bag because we were not allowed to go inside and sit down like civilized people. I can assure you that we were just as civilized as anyone who was allowed to enjoy a meal inside the restaurant. As for riding the back of the bus, it was probably the safest place on the bus. You never heard of people in the back of the bus getting hurt in any head-on collision. Many things were said and done to us to make us ashamed of Africa and of being black. Back in the old days, if you wanted to put someone down, all you had to do was to call him "Black." Black was usually asso­ ciated with something negative or bad. If a black cat crossed your path, that was a sign of bad luck. If a white cat crossed your path, you never gave it a second thought. We were constantly reminded that we were considered to be less than other people. No matter how old a black man was, white people called him "boy" and any white child could call him by his first name. In the old western cowboy movies, the good guy always wore a white hat and the bad guy wore a black hat. The white kids I played with on weekends could walk to Southview School. The black kids had to get up an hour earlier and take a bus seven miles one way to Salem to attend high school. The white kids got new textbooks. The black kids got old used books. Life was not a picnic for the black kids. However, we survived. Society had built a box for us and we were expected to stay in that box. That was the place set aside for us and we were expected "to stay in our place." Well, many of us got out of that box. Instead of being content with what had been set aside for us, we had the nerve "to think outside the box." We became really "dangerous" when we started thinking that we could do anything a white man could do if given an equal opportunity to compete. During World War II, America had been told that black Americans could not be trained to fly airplanes. The famous Tuskegee Airmen proved that was wrong. The flew dozens of missions all over Europe during the war and still hold the record for not having lost a single bomber they escorted. Remember, too, that boxing was a sport where men really showed their manhood. Some white boxers did not want to fight a black boxer. Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali were two black men who thought outside the box. They declared that they would take on anybody who wanted to fight. The rest is history. It was a big deal in American baseball history when it was announced that a black baseball player was going to compete in the big leagues. Some white baseball players declared they would not play if that hap­ pened. When the call was made to "Play ball," a black player named Jackie Robinson stepped into the histo­ ry books. White basketball players wanted to keep their teams white. However, black players such as Michael Jordan, Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul Jabbar made a big difference in ticket sales. I William B. Davis, Roanoke County native and a retired diplomat who lives in Potomac, Md., gave this talk in a Black History program at Ebenezer Baptist Church on Feb. 28. He retired in 1988 as a senior foreign service officer with an equivalent rank of brigadier general after 28 years of service. He holds degrees from Rutgers and Boston universities, speaks four languages and has visited 60 countries. Before his diplomatic service, he was a federal narcotics agent. 32 �Of course, it was never a secret that golf was a white man's game. The only thing a black man could do was to carry the golf clubs for the white players. Then a young man named Tiger Woods showed up. He won everything in the competition as well as the right to wear the coveted jacket of Masters gold players. Tiger Woods never thought inside the box. I doubt he even knew where the box was. You are looking at a man who is proud of his African ancestry. Our ancestors came from a mighty conti­ nent. They were strong and survived the torturous journey in the deep, dark and dank cargo hold of slave ships that began delivering Africans on a hot August day in 1619 in Jamestown. They were forced to learn to speak English but were forbidden to learn to read and write it. In fact, it was against the law for anyone to teach a slave to read and write. Neither were they allowed to speak in their own native language. Contrary to what some history books have said, the slaves were definitely not happy to be in slavery. In fact, during the 300 years of slavery in America, there were over lions and uprising by slaves. Yes, our ancestors were survivors who came from a mighty continent. Let me tell you something about that continent. I lived there about 10 years. We have been fed on a steady diet of misin­ formation about Africa. Most of what we learned about Africa was negative. We were fooled by Tarzan movies showing tigers in what was supposed to have been Africa. The fact is that there are no tigers in Africa except in the zoo. Incidentally, I am told that the Tarzan movies were really filmed in northern Mexico, which is a long way from Africa. Africa is a mighty continent with precious metals, diamonds and gold, as well as oil that the rest of the world wants. Many Americans refer to Africa as "the Dark Continent." Frankly, the darkest thing about Africa is our own ignorance of it. To give you an idea of the size of Africa, let me point out that the distance from Dakar, Senegal, in West Africa, where I used to live, to Djibouti on the Red Sea in East Africa is greater than the distance from New York City to Rome, Italy. The distance from Tangier, Morocco, at the northern tip of Africa, to Capetown, South Africa, is farther than the distance from Roanoke to Moscow, Russia. In fact, you can put Western Europe, India, Japan, New Zealand and the 48 contiguous states of the U.S. all on the face of Africa at the same time and still have space left over. William B. Davis If you ever plan to visit an African country, try to learn as much as possible about that particular country and the customs and traditions of the people before you go over there. It will help you understand their way of life better and make your visit more enjoyable. Yes, our ancestors came from a mighty continent and we have every right to be proud of it. However, we have to be very careful here and acknowledge that all of us belong to more than one ancestral background. Some peo­ ple go for the "okey doke" and end up in a "trick bag." Let's face it, we have the greatest diversity of color of any group of people on earth. Our skin colors run the gamut from jet black to white on white. Nobody went around the country with a paint brush and a buck­ et of paint painting us different shades of color. We know precisely how we got this way. All of us had moth­ ers and fathers. What are we supposed to do? Acknowledge one and ignore the other? It always has been, and still is a fact that "it takes two to tango," regardless of economic or social circumstances. Watch out for the "trick bag"! Laws were passed in this country and particularly in Virginia that declared any person with "any quantum of Negro blood" was to be considered a Negro. Any such child was forced to be accepted in the black community. In no way was he expected to become a part of the white community. Some light-complexion blacks passed for white in order to get better jobs and live in better neighborhoods. Would it surprise you to learn that some Americans who think they are white are actually the descendants of blacks who "passed" three or four generations ago? 33 �Even today, if a white man marries a black woman and they have a son, biologically that son is 50% white and 50% black. However, society comes along with its box and says, "Jump in. This is the place where you belong." When the son becomes 16 and applies for a driver's license, he is asked to state his race. Biology says he is half white and half black but he is expected to choose "black" as his race. However, isn't he just as entitled to call himself "white'? Could he be charged with providing false infor­ mation on an official document if he said he is white? Biology says he is equally black and white. Sociology says he is black. Who wins? Sociology or biology? If you pick up an application for a Social Security card, question 5 has a space for "race / ethnic description." The instructions say, "check only one - voluntary." Now suppose this son who is 50/50 black and white looks black but marks the box for "white." What do you think the Social Security clerk is going to do as soon as he steps away from the counter? Do you believe you could get that clerk to say under oath that she has not received instructions to indicate her own judgement on the form when she reviews it? A person's Social Security number should have absolutely nothing to do with that person's race. The Social Security office claims that although the information is voluntary, "...it helps us prepare statistical reports on how Social Security programs affect people." Because I am in church, I won't characterize that silly statement. Well, why not mark an "H" on any form requesting racial information? I have done that. If the person reviewing the form wants to think the "H" stands for "Hebrew," so be it. When I put "H" on a form asking for designation of race, I mean "H" for HUMAN race. This country is obsessed with gathering information about racial differences. We ought to know by now that there are more similarities than differences between any two races. Maybe we should either celebrate our diversity or ignore our differences. Frankly, I think we should forget our differences and embrace each other as members of the human race. You already know that I am proud of my African heritage. I am also proud of my other mixed-up ances­ tral background as a human being who has benefited from all of my heritage. Throughout my lifetime, I have witnessed black people being referred to as Negro, Colored, Afro-American, African-American and a few other names I do not care to repeat. I also recall when we had to protest to get some newspapers to spell "Negro" with a capital "N." As ridiculous as that was, consider this. At one time in Roanoke, a black man's dog died and he wanted to bury his old companion in the pet cemetery. He was refused because the dog had belonged to a black man. The cemetery was for pets that had been owned by white people. Now that's quite a stretch. The cemetery manager was associating a dead dog with the race of its owner. It's too bad that the dog could not come back to life just long enough to take a bite out of that cemetery manager. The prejudice we suffered long ago as well as some suffered just yesterday is still based on ignorance. To remain ignorant when plenty of information is readily available is a violation of common sense. Let us enlighten ourselves and steer clear of the "trick bag." We proudly accept and use the term "AfricanAmerican." There is nothing wrong with taking pride in our heritage. But let us take care not to let it be used to undermine ourselves. Let me give you an example. When I travel anywhere in the world, I am recognized and respected as an American. However, as soon as I return to the United States and get off the airplane, I am identified as an "African-American." Now watch this carefully. There is a difference between describing someone and defining someone. If you want to describe me, there would be nothing wrong with saying that I am 5'9", weigh 250 pounds, have brown complexion, black hair, brown eyes and I am left-handed. On the other hand, if you said I am an "African-American," you would be defining me. When I talk about "Sam Jones" or any other individual, it does not occur to me to call him an "AfricanAmerican." His nationality is American. Frankly, I don't know or care whether his grandfather came from England, Switzerland, France or Cambodia. I never knew his grandfather. I only know Sam and consider him friendly or unfriendly, as the case may be. Why then is it considered necessary for someone,else to define me as a hyphenated American? Does the use of "African" and a hyphen in front of my nationality make me either better or worse than any other American? If it makes no difference, why bring it up in the first place? When we go around unnecessarily defining people, are we trying to send some type of signal that that per­ son is less than other Americans? What is the point? Let me give you another example of how society tries to put down any black American who has made a significant schievement. When Douglas Wilder was running for governor of the state of Virginia, it appeared that he had a good chance to win the election. I wrote to the Washington Post and asked that newspaper not to identify Mr. Wilder as "the grandson of a slave." For a rea- 34 �son you can figure out for yourself, newspapers love to include that information about a black person who has made a significant achievement. Now let's look at this from another perspective. History tells us that Australia was founded by prostitutes and criminals who had been sent there from England. I don't believe anyone here has ever seen any newspa­ per article about a living Australian official which mentions that he is the grandson of a prostitute or a crim­ inal. It doesn't matter one bit to me if that Australian's grandma was a prostitute. Do you honestly believe that a black American will do either a good job or a bad job because his grandfather was a slave? It is as much a put-down to a black American to say his grandfather was a slave as it would be to an Australian if some­ one mentions that his grandma was a prostitute. If that kind of information is not intended to help, it is, by default, intended to hurt. Such information is seldom neutral. Despite all the trials and tribulations we have encountered in this country, it is still the land where we were born. It is our home. Our black servicemen have fought and died for this country in every war. We helped to build this country. We contributed to its prosperity. We are celebrating black history because the traditional history books ignored our contributions. The father of black history, Dr. Carter G. Woodson, started this project as National Negro History Week 79 years ago in the year that I was bom. This project grew from a week of celebration to a month of celebration in the 1960s during the civil rights movement. If our traditional history books had reported black contribu­ tions fairly, it would not have been necessary to have this celebration. By omitting fair reporting on black achievements in American history, both black and white children have been culturally and academically deprived of valuable knowledge about our country. Dr. Woodson once said he hoped the time would come when we would no longer have a need for a celebration of our history. That time will come only when we are honestly and fairly reported in our history books. Meanwhile, what can be done to ensure a rightful place for blacks in American history? We can and do entrust the future of American society to our young people. Where do you start? You start by thinking out­ side the box and being courageous enough to make a difference. You can be a passive observer and let things happen or you can be an active participant and make things happen. There are many things you can do and only a few things that are impossible to do. Let me mention five impossibilities: It is impossible to lead where you don't go; to teach what you don't know; to give what you don't have; to share experiences you never had; and to return to where you have never been. Almost everything else is possible. I address these remarks especially to our young people. Set high expectations for yourselves. Keep in mind that no one rises to low expectations. Establish goals for your life and focus on those goals. Associate with people who share your goals. Remember, you can't soar with the eagles if you hang around a bunch of turykeys. As a diplomat, I learned that as long as I have two ears and only one mouth, it might be wise to listen twice as much as I talk. Listening is probably the most important part of communicating. We don't learn much with our mouths open. We stand a better chance of learning with our eyes and ears open. Continue thinking outside the box and don't repeat your mistakes. If you really want to get to the top, you must first get off your bottom. There is one special message I want to leave with you. If you don t remember anything else I have said today, please make sure you remember this fact. It is only seven words long: "Progress is not made by satisfied people." If you show me a man who is completely satisfied with what he already has and what he thinks he already knows, I will show you a complacent fool. Satisfaction leads to mediocrity and mediocrity leads to failure. We entrust the future to you young people. You have greater potential than any of us ever had 60 years ago. I challenge you to make your life better for your children than you ever had it for yourselves. And I leave you with these thoughts: Dare to be great, without arrogance. Demonstrate your skills, without vanity. And crown your achievements with humility. m 35 �Gainsboro and its Outstanding Black Citizens By Clarence Dunnaville, Jr. U nlike other Virginia cities, Roanoke did not exist prior to the Civil War. There were no great Civil War battles in the Roanoke Valley and there is no Civil War memorial or statue of generals on the court house lawn in Roanoke as in other parts of the state. Although prior to the end of the Civil War, there clearly were slaves in the Roanoke Valley communi­ ty, as there were throughout the state, Roanoke did not have a slave economy. The farms of Roanoke Valley were mostly small, due to the topography. Moreover, the attitude towards slavery in the western part of Virginia was different. Indeed, the state of West Virginia was formed when the western coun­ ties refused to join the Confederacy. Roanoke is in close proximity to West Virginia and its attitude toward slavery was reflective of the area. Origins of Roanoke The Gainsboro section of present Roanoke was the first organized village or town formed in the area. Gainsboro was formed in 1834 and was a predominantly white town. In 1834, the adjoining village of Old Lick was organized. Roanoke County was chartered in 1838. Dr. Reginald Shareef, in his pictorial history of Roanoke, reports that the 1860 census showed that slaves constituted approximately one-third of Roanoke County's population. Old Lick became Big Lick, chartered as a town in 1874 and changed its name to Roanoke in 1882. In 1884, the town of Roanoke became the city of Roanoke. Roanoke, being located along the route of the Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad, the predecessor of the Norfolk and Western, experienced rapid expansion during the last quarter of the 19* century. As a new, rapidly growing city, Roanoke became a boom town with saloons, bawdy houses and gambling dens. Early Racial conflict The people at the time were deeply divided by class and race. African-Americans constituted a third of all Roanoke residents during the last decade of the 19*^ century. Because of racial segregation, they were restricted to the area that had originally been the white town of Gainsboro. They established their own businesses and institutions and lived completely separate and apart from white Roanoke citizens. Henry (now First) Street and Gainsboro Road were the commercial district. In the early 1890s, racial conflict between the white and black citizens was fermented by an econom­ ic recession and turmoil caused by local conditions. In 1893, authorities refused to hand over a black man, who was accused of assault, to a white mob. This precipitated the worst lynch riots in Virginia his­ tory. By the time it ended, eight white residents had been killed by the local militia and the black man in the custody of the militia was lynched by the mob and then burned in front of a cheering mob of white This article is an edited version o f the talk given by Clarence Dunnaville Jr., at a meeting o f the History Museum and Historical Society o f Western Virginia on Feb. 25, 2004. Dunnaville, a Richmond lawyer and a native o f Roanoke, is a graduate o f Morgan State University and St.John's University Law School. He practiced in New York and New Jersey, was an assistant U. S. attorney for the Southern District o f New York, senior attorney in the AT&T Law Department and head o f the Interracial Council for Business Opportunities in New York. He helped found the Oliver Hill Foundation in Roanoke. 36 �people. Local authorities and business people responded with calls for increased law enforcement and a public relations campaign to rehabilitate the city's reputation. Over time, the city's reputation was restored. H ISTO RICA L SIG N IFICAN CE OF G A IN SBO R O TO B L A C K H ISTO R Y From an historical perspective, the Gainsboro section of Roanoke is perhaps the most significant. It became a black community prior to the turn of the century and was a vibrant, thriving area of the city. The historic Dumas Hotel and the office building in which Oliver White Hill opened his first office were located on Henry Street. The Hunton YMCA, the public library, Roberts' drugstore and many other his­ toric buildings were located in Gainsboro, as was Gainsboro School. The blocks of Gilmer Avenue from Jefferson Street west to Fifth Street are perhaps the most significant from an African-American historic perspective. Within these blocks resided Dr. Maynard Law, Mrs. Daisy Schley, C. C. Williams, Attorneys Wilmer Dillard, Reuben Lawson and Oliver White Hill, Dr. Edward Dudley, Ambassador Edward Dudley Jr., Dr. J. H. Roberts, Rufus Edwards and many other prominent African-Americans. The Roanoke Tribune newspaper was begun within these blocks and remained there until the founder's death, the law offices of Reuben Lawson and the Johnson Insurance Agency were located in this area. The Claytor Clinic and the Magic City Savings Society were all located within these few blocks. Moreover, at the corner of Fifth Street, the historic St. Paul Methodist Church is located. Dr. E. D. Downing constructed the historic Gilmer Avenue Apartments there. Within a single block of Gilmer Avenue between Fourth and Fifth Street, Oliver White Hill, Edward Dudley, Dr. J. H. Roberts and Rufus Edwards resided. R ELIG IO N Black citizens of Roanoke established many churches during the late 1 9 ^ and early 20™ centuries. The oldest African-American church, Mount Moriah Baptist, was established east of Roanoke prior to the end of slavery. In Gainsboro, First Baptist, High Street Baptist, Pilgrim Baptist, Hill Street Baptist and 37 �Fifth Avenue Presbyterian churches were all located close by. One of Roanoke's most prominent minis­ ters, the Rev. Lylburn Downing, served as pastor of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. He was the father of Doctors Lylburn Downing Jr., E. D. Downing and Gardner P. Downing and of Lewis K. Downing. Growth of the Railroad & Opportunities for Black Labor Growth of the Norfolk and Western Railway caused a significant migration of black people to Roanoke at the end of the 1 9 ^ and beginning of the 2 0 ^ century, seeking employment opportunities. Although the wages paid to black railroad workers were significantly less than the wages paid to white workers for comparable work and there was no opportunity for advancement, nevertheless, the wages paid to black railroad employees exceeded what they could earn in other available employment. It should be remembered that in the late 1 9 ^ and early 2 0 ^ century, black people were totally exclud­ ed from most areas of employment. However, the dirtiest, most dangerous and most difficult jobs were available, as were jobs serving white people. The railroad had these types of jobs and although employ­ ment discrimination existed, railroad jobs as trackmen, brakemen, firemen, dining car and Pullman car services were among the best jobs available to black citizens. There were also some low-level factory jobs and service jobs in the hotels and employment as servants for private families. Black workers were hard-working and thrifty and home ownership was high. They had great aspira­ tions and it is because of their aspirations that so many black people achieved the maximum success that was permitted in the segregated society. Although not permitted to be members of the white labor unions, black railroad employees were within the same bargaining unit as the white employees. The white union leaders, who represented the black employees as well as the white employees, did in fact act in ways inconsistent with the interest of the black employees. Rufus Edwards of Roanoke was a black brakeman for the Norfolk and Western Railway. He was sec­ retary of the black labor union and an early civil rights activist. He became a plaintiff in a landmark Supreme Court case in which Oliver White Hill represented him on the trial level. The Supreme Court decided that the white union officials were required to fairly represent the black members of the bargain­ ing unit. This was an important victory for black workers in Virginia and throughout America. It was because of the tenacity of Edwards, his associates, Hill and his colleagues that this result was achieved. Legal Constraints It must be remembered that there were only two Supreme Court cases decided in the 1 9 ^ century that severely limited the civil rights of black people. The Dred Scott case decided by the Supreme Court in 1847 held that black people have no rights which white people were bound to respect. Plessy v. Ferguson held that the United States Constitution permitted the "Jim Crow" doctrine of separate but equal. In practice, this doctrine legalized racial segregation but it did not require equality. The "Jim Crow" era lasted until the separate but equal doctrine was overturned by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education. This year is the 5 0 ^ anniversary of the Brown decision. I attended Gainsboro Elementary School, as did my father before me. It was a brick school with attrac­ tive architectural features of the era. It was a two-storied building which through my eyes as a child was quite large. I learned to read and write and do math there. My most memorable experience of Gainsboro School is the occasion when I, as a student in the second grade, brought matches to school and while playing with them in the classroom, struck a match and accidentally set papers in my desk on fire. My teacher, Miss Todd Williams, quickly extinguished the fire with her hands and then reported me to the principal, her sister, Miss Queen Williams. The principal immediately came into the room and gave the class a stern lecture on the dangers of playing with matches and then called me to the front of the class. After scolding me severely, she turned me on her knee and for what seemed like an eternity, spanked me 38 �before the entire class. She then reported me to my mother and when my father reached home, I received a severe beating with a switch taken from a tree. My teachers at Gainsboro School were well trained and truly devoted to developing young black chil­ dren who would become leaders of the community and nation. They were strict disciplinarians and excellent teachers. They provided me with a foundation which made it possible for me to be successful in life. Although the teachers were outstanding, they were also the victims of the segregated system and I remember distinctly that the textbooks we used were hand-me-downs from the white schools. The books were tattered and had markings on them which showed the names of the students from white schools that had used them before. Since all of the white people in town lived literally on the other side of the Norfolk and Western Railway tracks, black children had no contact whatsoever with white children growing up. Gainsboro School was more than 40 years old when I attended. There was no playground and the school was not well maintained. Information developed during the Civil Rights period established that schools in Roanoke, like in other parts of Virginia, while separate were not equal to the white schools. Yet the Roanoke school system produced outstanding black citizens who made history. H O U SIN G Housing was strictly segregated by race. Black people lived in Gainsboro and Northeast. The houses were generally well maintained. I do not believe there was a slum section. All of the homes had indoor plumbing and most people had cars. The streets of the black neighborhoods were clean and tree-lined. Lawns were manicured and most of the neighbors, like my mother, had a flower garden. In our large back yard, we had fruit trees and a grape arbor. Our block was typical and our house, while comfortable, was not grand. However, some black people lived in very large homes. There were restrictive covenants in many deeds that specifically provided that properties could not be sold to black citizens. This reprehensible practice was outlawed by the Supreme Court in litigation which Oliver Hill's law partner, Spottswood W. Robinson III, handled. My father worked as a laborer for the Norfolk & Western Railway. I recall him stating that white men were paid far more and that black men could never be promoted. He hated the segregated "Jim Crow" conditions and made me aware of the need for change at a very early age. As our family grew, my parents decided they needed more space. We moved west of K P 1 Street on Moorman Road. This home was formerly occupied by white people. At that time, "block busters" would move a black family into a block. This would cause the white people to panic and sell and that entire block would then become a black block. Negroes, as we were then called, were moving westward, block by block. Because of residential segregation, as black people we were allowed to live only in the neighborhoods where the white people would let us live. Historically, black people were not allowed to live west of m B Street. The Black Section was for many years from First Street to 1 0 ^ Street Northwest and from the rail­ road tracks to McDowell Avenue. In the early 1940s, the "block busters" became active and the black community expanded westward. Tenth Street had been the western most cutoff for black families for many years. There were beautiful large homes. In the 1940s, the "blockbusters," who were white real estate speculators, began convincing black people to buy west to 1 0 ^ Street at inflated prices and convincing white people to sell at rock bot­ tom prices because the neighborhood was changing, thus making huge profits and creating racial con­ flict. In fact, the urban decay of Northwest Roanoke is primarily due to the "block buster" and "white flight" of the 1940s. The "block busters," in conspiracy with the finance industry, sold houses at inflated 39 �prices with high interest to black buyers. We moved into our home west of 1CP1 Street. One night, a mob of white people in white gowns gath­ ered in front of our home and yelled and called us "Niggers" and threw a rock through our living room window. Daddy, who had been sleeping as we all had, arose and took his pistol from a locked drawer and loaded it. He then stood in our darkened living room with the pistol until the mob left, and then he walked around the house, armed with the pistol. We were all terrified but fortunately, no one was hurt. Shortly thereafter, a white mob gathered in the same block of Fairfax Avenue. This time, the mob, in addition to screaming epithets and throwing rocks, burned a cross on the lawn of the house. The black citizens shot one of the klansmen and killed him. The incident nearly caused a race riot. The black fam­ ily moved out of town and for a long time, that house was vacant. Prominent Black Professionals of the 20th Century Attorney A. J. Oliver was the first black lawyer to practice in Roanoke. His office was opened in the Gainsboro section before the turn of the century. Roanoke, probably more than any other city of its size, produced a number of prominent black civil rights lawyers involved in the court battles which led to the Brown decision. These sons of Roanoke were instrumental in bringing down the wall of segregation. Roanokers Oliver White Hill, Belford V. Lawson Jr. and Edward Dudley Jr. were all nationally promi­ nent lawyers who were involved in the struggle for civil rights. Reuben Lawson (not related to Belford Lawson) was not originally from Roanoke but he practiced in Roanoke and was engaged in the civil rights battle for equality. Oliver Hill and Belford Lawson began in the early 1930s to bring cases which reached the U.S. Supreme Court and they handled some of the most important cases in the civil rights era. Belford Lawson was a superb civil rights lawyer who handled a number of cases decided by the Supreme Court. One of his most important cases was decided by the court in 1937. That case, Negro Alliance v. Sanitary Grocery Co., Inc., involved picketing of supermarkets that refused to hire black clerks. Lawson and his colleagues were successful in the Supreme Court which held that Negroes were entitled to picket peace­ fully against employment discrimination. Oliver Hill is best known for his role as Virginia's trial attorney in Brown v. Board of Education However, he handled numerous other important cases, including Alston v. The School Board of Norfolk which resulted in equalizing the salaries of black teachers and white teachers in Virginia. In August 1999, President Bill Clinton presented Oliver Hill with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House. Reuben Lawson began his law practice with Hill's firm in Richmond. He moved to Roanoke and established his office on Gilmer Avenue. He handled a number of very important civil rights cases in Virginia, including the Roanoke school desegregation cases. Ambassador Edward Dudley Jr., four years younger than Hill, was Hill's next-door neighbor. Dudley graduated from St. John's University School of Law in New York and after becoming admitted to the bar, served as assistant attorney general for New York. He became an attorney for the NAACP, working with Thurgood Marshall and Oliver Hill on a number of civil rights cases. In 1948, while he was trying a case with Hill in Georgia, he received a call from President Truman, informing him that he had been appoint­ ed ambassador to Liberia. He was the first black ambassador appointed to any country. He later was bor­ ough president of Manhattan in New York City and for a number of years he served as the chief admin­ istrative judge of the Supreme Court of New York. (Editor's note: Ambassador Dudley, recognized nationally as a civil rights pioneer, died Feb. 8, 2005, in New York City at the age o f 93. Dudley used political tact to advance other black diplomats at a time when they were assigned to the "Negro Circuit" in Africa, according to a book by historian Michael Krenn. Dudley worked with the State Department to see staff members take positions in Europe. When he was an NAACP lawyer, he worked for blacks to be admitted to southern universities and for equal pay for black teachers.) It must be remembered that no black students were admitted to Virginia's law schools until a number 40 �of years after the decision in Brown v. Education. When I applied to the University of Virginia Law School, my application was rejected, stating that they did not accept Negro students. All of the black lawyers who practiced in Virginia prior to the 1960s had to obtain their legal education outside the state. Black medical doctors began to settle in Roanoke prior to the end of the 1 9 ^ century. Dr. John Henry Pinkard. Dr. Isaac Burrell, Dr. J. B. Claytor and Dr. Lylburn Downing opened their medical practices in Roanoke before or shortly after the turn of the 1 9 ^ century. Dr. Burrell also established a pharmacy in Roanoke which was the first black drug store in Southwest Virginia. Dr. Burrell died in 1914. At that time, a state of the art hospital for black citizens was planned. Dr. J. H. Roberts, Dr. J. B. Claytor and Dr. Lylburn Downing established the hospital in 1915 and named it Burrell Memorial in honor of Dr. Burrell. The hospital was initially located on Henry Street on property owned by Dr. Roberts. The hospital was moved to McDowell Avenue and a new building was constructed a few years after its opening. One of the important aspects of the hospital was the establish­ ment of a nurse training program which became fully accredited shortly after World War I. This was the first black nursing program in Southwest Virginia. Mrs. Daisy Schley, the first superintendent of nurses, protected the health of black Roanokers for many years. Mrs. Schley deserves a special place in Roanoke's black history because of her dedication. There were a substantial number of health professionals who served Roanoke's black community dur­ ing the period prior to World War II. Dr. Edward R. Dudley Sr., father of Edward R. Dudley Jr., was the first black dentist to practice in Roanoke. He opened his office in 1913. In 1915, Dr. Dudley organized and became president of the Magic City Building and Loan Association, the first black savings institution in the area. He was followed by Dr. W. A. Fears and Dr. L. E. Paxton. Dr. Elwood Downing and his brother, Dr. Gardner Downing, estab­ lished their dental practices after World War I. By 1927, at least 16 black medical doctors and dentists were practicing in Roanoke. Dr. J. B. Claytor had a large family and a number of his children entered the medical field. Three of his sons, Dr. F. W. Claytor, Dr. J. B. Claytor Jr., and Dr. Walter Claytor practiced in Roanoke. Dr. Harry Penn, who practiced dentistry in Gainsboro, was one of Roanoke's great leaders dur­ ing the period following World War II. He served on the School Board and was very active in promot­ ing employment. He established a factory in Roanoke and made many contributions as a black leader. Louis King Downing was a younger brother of Dr. Lylburn C. Downing. He was born in Roanoke in 1896 and he decided in his early years to become an engineer. He joined the faculty of Howard University as an engineering professor in 1924 and remained there until his retirement in 1964. In 1936, he was named dean of the School of Engineering and Architecture. Under his leadership, the school flourished and developed to the second largest school of the university, in spite of many obstacles. Downing was firm and unyielding in his convictions even though blacks were discriminated against and not well accepted in the field of engineering at the time. It was very important to train black students as engineers. He distinguished himself by his work with professional societies, his publications and his consulting work. The School of Engineering building at Howard is named the Lewis K. Downing Hall. William Bernard Robertson, a product of Gainsboro Elementary School and Addison High School, is one of Roanoke's most distinguished sons. Bill Robertson was the first African-American to serve as assistant to a governor of Virginia (Gov. Linwood Holton) and later served as a key official in the admin­ istrations of Presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush. He founded Camp Jaycee for the mentally handicapped in Bedford County and served as assistant to the Secretary of State for Africa. Among his many accom­ plishments, he is foremost an educator and diplomat. The Gainsboro section of Roanoke embodied a vibrant black community as the City of Roanoke was coming into its own at the turn of the 2 0 ^ century. M 41 �Wilderness Road Began in Scott Not in Roanoke or Montgomery County ; by Mary B. Kegley D id the Wilderness Road pass through Montgomery, Pulaski and Wythe counties? When was it constructed? Who marked the road? And where does it go? According to the K-35 historical marker describing Wytheville, the "old Wilderness Road to Cumberland Gap passed here."1 Therefore it must be true. There has long been a controversy about the location of the Wilderness Road. However, most people know it was Daniel Boone, who marked the path in far Southwest Virginia into Kentucky in 1775. The road did not come through Roanoke, Montgomery, Pulaski, Wythe, Smyth or Washington counties. It began in far Southwest Virginia at the Block House, which was located in present Scott County.2 The path then passed westward through Moccasin Gap, crossing the Clinch River and traveling over Powell Mountain and Waldens Ridge to the Cumberland Mountain and into Kentucky.3 How did the misunderstanding happen? It is not clear, but at least two early authors have written books called the Wilderness Road and described it as passing through the far southwest part of Virginia, then a wilderness.4 One author, Robert Kincaid, made it clear where the Wilderness Road was located but the captions under the photographs state the opposite.5 When the road was laid out, it mostly followed the Indian or buffalo trails which for centuries had marked the way. To go from the main road near Kingsport, Tenn. to Kentucky meant going through an almost uncharted path. In March 1775, Richard Henderson hired Daniel Boone and a crew of axemen to chop their way through the woods in what is now Scott, Russell and Lee counties to the Cumberland Gap and into Kentucky. This was the Wilderness Road. No wagon could pass over its rugged path for many years because it was a mere "trace," where one pack horse at a time was forced to follow. At one point along the trail, they had to cut their way through "about twenty miles, entirely covered with dead brush" and at another location they traveled through about "thirty miles of thick cane and reed."6 The wilderness road was truly a wilderness, a single-lane "highway," the path used by thousands of travelers who went into Kentucky before 1790. The population in Kentucky that year was 73,000 and by 1800 the number had risen to 220,000. Many of this number passed down the Valley of Virginia on the Great Road and then connected with the Wilderness Road. The road we call The Great Road or the Great Wagon Road came from Pennsylvania through the Shenandoah Valley and the Roanoke Valley. From Fort Chiswell (in present Wythe County) to what is now Tennessee, the Great Road was built by Colonel William Byrd in the 1760s during the French and Indian War in order to reach Fort Loudoun in Tennessee. Deeds pertaining to the early settlers in the Town of Newbern called the road the Great Road, the Main Street, High Street or simply the Highway.7 No property in any of the towns along the way to Tennessee ever referred to the road as the Wilderness Road. And the Wilderness Road was not in Pennsylvania. Sometimes the Great Road would locally be called Ingles Ferry Road or later the Rock Road or the This article first appeared in Volume Seventeen, Number One, 2004, o f the Journal o f the New River Historical Society, Newbern. Mary Kegley, a Wytheville lawyer, writer/researcher/genealogist, has written 25 books, more than 30 articles for historical journals and more than 100 newspaper articles. Her major works are three volumes o f Early Adventurers on the Western Waters and Wythe County Virginia, A Bicentennial History. 42 �Southwest Virginia Turnpike. The name for the road out of present Wytheville was the Great Road, which we now know as the Old Stage Road. This was the main road to Abingdon and Kentucky, until the Southwest Turnpike was built in the mid-1850s. There was another ferry road, known as Peppers Ferry Road, used by the early settlers. The western branch of Peppers Ferry Road begins in Montgomery County in present Christiansburg, on U.S. 460. A connecting road to William Preston's Smithfield was also called Peppers Ferry Road. The main branch extends through Pulaski County into Wythe County, north of Max Meadows, and from there into the present Town of Wytheville where it meets the Great Road or Ingles Ferry Road. It is interesting that there was no further mention of the ferry roads west of Wytheville. In early days, going west of Wytheville was done by traveling on the Stage Road, the main road to the west; or if going east, it was sometimes called the "Great Road to Richmond."8 The early taverns, mills and houses of Wythe County were marked on John Wood's map of this road in 1821.9 So why do people call the road by the name, Wilderness Road, and use the designation for their businesses and other entities, especially in what are now Montgomery, Pulaski and Wythe counties? And why do bike riders and authors refer to the road as the Wilderness Road, when their context is in Pennsylvania, the Valley of Virginia and in this part of Virginia?10 I suppose it sounds good in their advertising and perhaps they don't really care about accuracy. James Loewen, author of two books, Lies my Teacher Told Me and Lies Across A m e r i c a discovered that textbooks were full of inaccuracies and that the authors of historic monuments and sites often had false information. When asked to cor­ rect it, they refused, believing that it entertained the tourists the way it was. We all have cherished myths not to be disturbed by such as researchers and historians. Perhaps that is because the truth is not as exciting nor as interesting as the legend and myth. References 1. Margaret T. Peters, comp. A Guide to Virginia's Historical Markers, Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press, 1985. p. 66 2. Dr. William Allen Pusey, in his book, The Wilderness Road to Kentucky, New York, 1921, wrote "The Block House marked the beginning of the real Wilderness Road." See Footnote 2, p. 159, in Robert L. Kincaid. The Wilderness Road, 3rcl edition, Middlesboro, Kentucky: n.p. 1966, originally published in 1947 by Bobbs-Merrill Company in the American Trail series, here­ inafter Kincaid, The Wilderness Road 3. Thomas Speed, The Wilderness Road,A Description o f the Routes o f Travel, prepared for the Filson Club, repr. New York: Burt Franklin, 1971, pp. 17,18, hereinafter Speed, Wilderness Road 4. Speed, Wilderness Road; Kincaid, Wilderness Road 5. Kincaid, Wilderness Road, photos opposite pp. 25 and 169. On p. 100 and following, Kincaid describes Boone and his "trail blazers," who were building a "passable road through an unsettled wilderness." 6. Lyman C. Draper, ed. by Ted Franklin Belue, The Life o f Daniel Boone. Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, Stackpole Books, pp 335-336; Kincaid, Wilderness Road, pp. 100-101. Notice on pp. 160-166 that the wagon train of the Reverend Lewis Craig and his fellow travelers was en route to Kentucky in 1781. They were disappointed to learn that they had to abandon their wag­ ons at Fort Chiswell and transfer to pack horses because the Wilderness Road was not yet suitable for wagons. 7. Montgomery County Deed Book, E, pp. 169,171, 311; Book G, p. 241; see also Mary B. Kegley, "The Town of Newbern, " Journal o f the Roanoke Historical Society, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Summer 1970), p. 15-24. 8. Lewis Preston Summers, Annals o f Southwest Virginia, Kingsport, Tennessee, Kingsport Press, 1929, p. 827 9. The Wood map may be found at the Library of Virginia Archives. It has been printed in Mary B. Kegley, Wythe County, A Bicentennial History, Wytheville, Virginia, Wythe County Board of Supervisors, 1989, p. 50. 10. Many businesses and entities use the name. For example, Wilderness Road Truck Stop,, Wilderness Road World Trading Company, both in Wytheville, the Wilderness Road Regional Museum in Newbern, the Wilderness Road chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, in Wythe County; Fess Green, Wilderness Road Odyssey, Blacksburg, Virginia, Pocahontas Press, 2003. 11. James W. Loewen, Lies Across America, Circle the Wagons, Boys—It's Tourist Season, New York, New Press, 1999, pp. 89-90; Lies My Teacher Told Me, New York, New Press, 1995. 43 �19th Century Fund-Raising - DAR Flower Show in Roanoke, Nov. 10,1896 by Betty B. Low The last day of the Roanoke DAR Flower Show of 1896 nearly proved to be a disaster, when an unexpected gale all but tore the exposition tent from its moorings. But thanks to the chapter's quick thinking and resourcefulness, the event was quickly relocated and transformed into an impromptu musical program. The resulting benefit was a resounding success, passed down to later generations as an example of great resilience and devotion. "A large tent was erected at the S.E. corner o f Jefferson Street and Kirk Avneue to house a flower show. Just as the ladies arranged their pretty plants, a terrific storm came up and the tent all but collapsed." History o f the City o f Roanoke, Raymond R Barnes "...a laudable enterprise by a Virginia chapter." Mrs. Adlai E. Stevenson, President General, National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution, 1894-1896. Betty B. Low is a longtime volunteer at the History Museum library and an active member o f Margaret Lynn Lewis Chapter. DAR. Above: Sara Keeler (Betty Low's daughter) painted a watercolor of the 1896 flower show. 44 �F LOWER SHOW TO OPEN ON TUESDAY, declared the Friday Roanoke Times on Nov. 6, 1896. With this mild-sounding announcement, a small society of Roanoke women had committed them­ selves to a very ambitious undertaking for a late Fall week. The Margaret Lynn Lewis Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, needed the ways and means to carry out their projects of pro­ moting patriotism and education. Having been organized for two years, attending meetings and paying small dues, members of the chapter saw the need for more funds becoming apparent. The society had been organized by Lelia Smith Cocke after she married Lucian H. Cocke, son of Charles Lewis Cocke, the president of Hollins College, and came to Roanoke to live. Mrs. Cocke had written to her mother about the lack of social life in this small, but fast-growing railroad town. Her moth­ er, Mary Stuart Smith, wife of a University of Virginia professor, urged her to start a chapter of DAR, a fairly new organization which promoted patriotism and education, the prevailing sentiments of the American people in the 1890s.1 Following her mother's advice, Lelia Cocke invited her friends to her home on Feb. 15, 1894 for the purpose of organizing a DAR chapter. Among them were Agnes Palmer; neighbors Lila and Lulie Terry and their two married sisters, Martha Goodwin and Alice Jamison; Mary Tinsley Kindred, whose fami­ ly had lived at Elmwood before Peyton Terry bought the estate; Mary Ingles Lewis, descendant of Gen. Andrew Lewis, and others,^ 16 in all. A retired Roanoke teacher, Marie Antoinette Hambrick, a grand­ daughter of Patrick Henry, was made an honorary member of the chapter.3 After two years, the chapter was well-organized and the idea of a flower show looked promising to raise funds. The members agreed, and with plans complete, the announcement was made by the chap­ ter regent, Mrs. Lucian H. Cocke, that the Flower Show would be held Tuesday, Nov. 10, through Friday, Nov. 13., 1896. The news article that followed outlined an elaborate schedule. Opening night on Tuesday, the Machine Works Band would furnish the music, "aided by special artists who have consented to vary the programme with solos, vocal and instrumental. Talented elocutionists have also consented to give specimens of their skill during the week."4 The exhibition would continue through the week, closing on Friday night. The music would be of the popular order, "to entertain without requiring any effort or strained attention on the part of the listener."5 The hours would be from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., 3 to 5 p.m. and 7 to 10:30 p.m. Lunch and afternoon refreshments would be served, with an evening program which would be printed each day in the morn­ ing and afternoon papers. Entries for the exhibit were to be brought on Monday and Tuesday morning. Great care would be given by Patrick Foy6 and his assistants. A night watchman would be present at all times to guard the property. There would be 30 categories for judging of chrysanthemums, roses, geraniums, sweet pea blossoms, begonia, lilies and pansies. Prizes included $5 in gold for the best vase of 12 chrysanthemums with six varieties, donated gardening books, soap, roses and seeds from the W. Atlee Burpee Co. of Philadelphia, and $1 in gold for a child's best plants. There would be additional premiums for best ferns, palms, fuschia, cactus and prettiest hanging baskets. "In fact, any lady having a plant of any variety will do well to exhibit it," The Roanoke Times reported. A large tent was erected on Jefferson Street, just south of the Engine house (at the northeast comer of Jefferson Street and Kirk Avenue). The work of decorating progressed rapidly and successfully and the exhibits of those who were joining to make the show a great success were placed in position. Two notices in the "Localettes" section of the Sunday Roanoke Times had a connection to the Flower Show. Out-of-town dignitaries and guests for the show were expected to be staying at Hotel Roanoke and they would attend the german, given primarily for their entertainment. It seemed that all of Roanoke was lending support to the Flower Show. "Opening night was a grand success," reported the Times on Wednesday morning. Large crowds came to view the wonderful flowers and enjoy the musical program which was presented just as pub­ lished. "Everyone seemed to enjoy the occasion immensely. The Promenade concert was a most interest- 45 �ing feature of the show, as well as one of the most enjoyable," the newspaper said. Large crowds attended the Flower Show on Wednesday. The ladies were serv­ ing lunch. Tables were decorated and centerpieces were ornamented with pink clover, the emblem of the Margaret Lynn Lewis DAR Chapter.7 Members presided over tables of cut flowers for sale, especially to the men who were buy­ ing for the ladies they would be escorting to the german that night. "Today's admission, with lunch, will be thirty-five cents," was announced in the Times, fol­ lowed by the schedule for the evening performance: the Alleghany Institute Orchestra, with selected melodies, a vocal quartet, Butler and Armstrong in their laughable sketch, "Snowball Green and wife," Alleghany Institute Glee Club and a final orchestra selection.8 Attendance in the evening was not large, due to rain, but the awards were pre­ sented. The judges, Prof. Pleasants of Hollins, Col. Logan of Salem, C. S. Churchill and A. A. Stone of the city, announced the winners. Three of the award winners were Mrs. Thomas Lewis, five dollars in gold for her chrysanthemums, Miss Lottie Gale for the prettiest hanging basket and Master William Butler, one dollar for his best six plants. Shipments of flowers continued to arrive. They were of such excellent quality that two medals were struck and donated by E. S. Glass, Jeweler, to be given for the best displays of chrysanthemums and carnations. Among out-of-town visitors for the Flower Show was Mrs. W. R. Beale, repre­ senting Mrs. Adlai Stevenson, national president general of the DAR, desiring to express Mrs. Stevenson's interest in this laudable enterprise of a Virginia chap­ ter.9 Also, visiting were Mrs. Mary Stuart Smith, honorary state regent, represent­ ing Mrs. W. W. Henry, state regent, and Mrs. James Penn, regent of the Danville chapter, who came to extend friendly greetings. Many of the visitors stayed over for another day of the Flower Show. On Thursday, another shipment of flowers arrived from A. B. Davis and Son of Purcellville and Hobbie Piano Co. of Roanoke loaned a magnificent grand piano for the show. "It is really a superb instrument and greatly admired by everyone," said a newspaper report. The program for the evening featured the Park Street Band, selections alternating with a tenor solo by Lanier Gray, elocution by Miss Dickinson and a soprano solo by Miss Lila Beckley. One of the highlights of the week was the printed souvenir program, highly praised and described as Stone Printing Company's "masterpiece." Friday morning opened clear and crisp and the beautiful weather brought out a number of people to see the last day of the Flower Show. With a week of so much rainy weather, the ladies were glad to see a sunny day. The remaining flow­ ers were arranged and the tables had the whitest linens, readied for serving luncheon. But about 11 o'clock, the wind began to blow and a regular gale came up in the course of an hour. When it seemed the tent might blow down, everyone began working to remove the flowers to a place of safety. The wind lashed the tent until it was badly torn, damaged and finally lowered to the ground. When it was determined that the show could not be held, the ladies decided to move the benefit show to the Academy of Music on Salem Avenue. Considering the short notice, the show at the Academy was quite well attended. A very elab­ orate program was given by the Machine Works Band, followed by some old plantation songs by the Dixie Quartette, which were repeatedly encored. Miss Kindred Williams of Norfolk consented to stay until after the benefit and delight46 �ed the audience with a song, as did Miss Wright, accompanied by Miss Sue Read Fellows on the piano. Miss Dickinson of Richmond gave a recitation which received long and continued applause. The pro­ gram continued with solos, piano and violin music and recitations until its conclusion. In spite of mud, wind and rain, "all who were present were well repaid for the trouble and expense in going," the newspaper reported the next morning. The ladies said they were greatly indebted to Mr. Knepp and Mr. Mundy for furnishing carriages from their nearby livery stables to transport them to and from the Academy of Music. The Flower Show ended. EPILO G U E How well the DAR chapter was rewarded financially is not known. The records and minutes of the chapter, so carefully preserved for so long in a bank vault, were lost in the November 1985 flood. Soon after the Flower Show, the chapter took an interest in a project of moving the remains of Gen. Andrew Lewis and his son, Charles, from a long-neglected and abandoned gravesite in Salem to the East Hill Cemetery nearby. When that was accomplished, the Margaret Lynn Lewis DAR Chapter, named for Gen. Lewis's mother, proposed to erect a monument over the grave "which shall in some suitable manner commemorate the hero of the Battle of Point Pleasant."^ The chapter was again committed to a project that was finally completed in 1902 and stands today as evidence of the members' devotion to promot­ ing patriotism and education. Bibliography History o f the City o f Roanoke, Raymond R Barnes, Commonwealth Press, Radford, 1968 Margaret Lynn Lewis Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, records and minutes The Norfolk and Western Magazine, March 1940 The Roanoke Times, November 1896 The Salem Times-Register, April 9,1897 Notes 1. A wave of patriotism swept across the nation at this time, due to the Centennial celebrations, 100 years after the Declaration of Independence in 1776, victory in the Revolution in 1783, the signing of the Constitution in 1787, and Washington's presidency, 1789-1797. This was a time of remembrance and a desire to preserve memories for future genera­ tions. . 2. The other charter members were Sarah Carrington Lathrop Bransford, Agnes Alexander Jones Butler, Amelia C. Christian, Mary Marshall Daniel, Eleanor Mitchell Fry, Mary Stuart Gooch, Ida Martha Miller, Annie B. Shackelford, Ida Whittemore Soule, Sally Hunt Staples and Lucy Penn Warren. 3. Marie Hambrick was the daughter of Alexander Spottswood Henry and Paulina J. Cabell by Patrick Henry s second marriage to Dorothea Dandridge. Mrs. Hambrick died in 1900 and was buried in the City Cemetery. Her grave was marked twice by the chapter and by a new headstone by Patrick Henry High School in 1990. 4. Machine Works Band was started by an Englishman, G. F. Fraser, chief clerk of the Roanoke Machine Shops, in 1883. He was the director until he handed the baton to John Keeley in the 1890s. 5. The Roanoke Times, Friday, Nov. 6,1896 6. Patrick Foy was a close friend of Frederick Kimball, president of the Norfolk and Western Railway. He came to Roanoke in 1884 to supervixse the Roanoke Land & Improvement Company landscaping, including that of Hotel Roanoke. 7. John Lewis, the husband of Margaret Lynn Lewis, introduced the pink clover in Virginia, bringing the seed from his native Ireland. 8. The Alleghany Institute, a first-class high school for boys, opened in 1890. 9. The Roanoke Times, Thursday, Nov. 12,1896 10. The Salem Times-Register, April 8, 1897, reported that at the April 5 re-interment ceremony for Lewis and his son, Fannie R. Johnston gave a long, stirring speech which was presented word for word. She said, "It is the purpose of the Margaret Lynn Lewis chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution to erect, in the near future, a monument over the grave, which shall in some suitable manner commemorate the hero of Point Pleasant, whether in the form of a statue of mar­ ble or bronze, or merely an obelisk of granite." 47 �Preston-Brown House,an House Among Shopping Centers _______ by Michael J. Pulice S rchitectural and archival evidence shows that the Preston House in west Salem, an early I-form, Federal-Style mansion, was probably built about 1821 by or for John Johnson (or Johnston). It may be the earliest known surviving brick building in Roanoke County and is among the earli­ est brick buildings south or west of Fincastle. Tradition has it that the Preston House was built prior to 1790 for John Cole, a blacksmith, who owned 278 acres on the Roanoke River. But architectural and archival evidence does not support an 18™ centu­ ry date of construction. Davy Crockett, in his autobiography, recalled that he lodged "at the house of a Mr. John Cole on Roanoke" at the age of 12. Cole sold his land to John Johnson (or Johnston) for $10,000 in 1821 before moving to Missouri. The house, surrounded by a commercial area on the south side of Main Street, possesses many hall­ marks of the Federal-period high style, including Flemish bond brickwork, gauged brick jack arches over wall openings and fine interior woodwork. Yet its single-pile, central passageway plan and origi­ nal rear ell, exterior end chimneys and decorative brick cornices also make it highly characteristic of western Valley of Virginia domestic architecture. The Preston House has been listed on the Virginia Landmarks Register. Ownership was transferred from John Johns(t)on to William Johns(t)on in 1836 and he held it until his death in 1853. Three years later, his wife, Lucy, became the legal owner of the house and its immediate grounds while the land was portioned off to their children. In 1879, Lucy Johnson's land was sold to Charles I. Preston for $600. Preston died in 1894 and his widow, Mary Persinger Preston, retained own­ ership until she died in 1924 when the land again was parceled out to the Preston children. Claude Preston and Matilda Preston, children of Charles and Mary, lived in the house until 1946. Claude died and left the house to a sister, Mary Preston Clark, who bequeathed it to her daughter, Dr. Esther Clark Brown, present owner / occupant. Dr. Brown's husband was the late Ray Brown. The house and 2.96-acre grounds are on U.S. 11, a highway corridor following the historic Great Road through the southwestern Valley of Virginia into Tennessee, the area's busiest transportation route since prehistoric times. The house is set back from the street, near the middle of a narrow, elongated lot, ori­ ented perpendicular to the road. Dr. Brown owns both adjacent, vacant lots to the east and west, which serve as buffers between the historic home and encroaching development along Main Street. Railroad tracks define the property boundary to the south. There are no surviving historic structures associated with the Preston House but the potential for intact archaeological deposits on the property has not been investigated. Lost secondary resources include a brick kitchen and log smokehouse which stood near the house in the rear yard, as well as a very large corn crib that stood southwest of the house, now on the adjacent parcel. The dating of the building is based primarily on the presence of power-sawn timbers and floor boards throughout the house and the absence of hand-forged nails of any kind. New information may come to light but these two clues alone suggest construction after 1810 and more likely after 1815. Brick Michael J. Pulice, an architectural historian in the Roanoke Preservation Office o f the State Department o f Historic Resources, holds degrees from Radford University and Virginia Tech . 48 �dwellings, especially those of the large, two-story variety, were rare in western Virginia and exceeding­ ly rare southwest of Fincastle, before ca. 1820. In fact, corbelled brick cornices were rare throughout western Virginia until around the 1820s. Moreover, the chimneys all have stepped shoulders rather than sloped weatherings, also indicative of a 1 9 ^ century date. The interior woodwork suggests a late Federal, rather than early Federal period. Supporting evidence is provided in a paper by researcher Leah Spadaro at Hollins College, who found no change in tax assessment for the parcel from 1788 to 1821, but a value added of $2,200 on account of buildings, begin­ ning in 1822. This figure did not substantially increase until well into the 2 0 ^ century. When all avail­ able evidence is considered, it appears like­ ly that construction of the house was begun in 1821 and completed the following year. The Preston House is essentially an Ihouse with a two-story ell (originally a smaller, 1 1/2-story ell, enlarged in 1946). The house has a field stone foundation, Flemish bond brick walls on all sides, 5-bay façade, brick end chimneys on sides and rear and medium pitch side-gable roof. Many of the header bricks are glazed or heat-discolored to a gray-white color and a smaller percentage of stretchers are partial­ ly glazed. (Glazed brick on primary eleva­ tions are actually quite rare among surviv­ ing buildings in the area, especially after ca. 1830.) The brick joinery in general is fine, with Preston-Brown House has stood on West Main Street in narrow, penciled, beaded joints. Although Salem for more than a century and a half. not exceptionally well-formed, the bricks have proven durable. The mortar appears to be original and is in extraordinarily good condition throughout the structure. Just below the eave on the front and rear elevation is a decorative brick cor­ nice consisting of a three corbelled courses of bricks, with the middle course angled to form a mousetooth pattern. All three courses are painted white. On the rear elevation, the cornice is slightly different, with only the bottom corbelled course angled in moose-tooth fashion. Over the main entrance is a one-story pedimented portico constructed in the late 2 0 ^ century. (A 1978 photograph shows a different 1-bay, 1-story front porch and a 1946 photograph shows a Victorian-era 30bay front porch) The front door, with its diminutive brass knob, features five panels in a configuration of two wide, vertical rectangles in the top half, a narrow horizontal panel just below the knob and two square panels at the bottom. Above the door is a four-pane transom light. The window sashes are all pre-1947 single-pane replacements but all win­ dows retain their original wood surrounds and shutter hardware. The first floor windows have gauged brick jack arches. The shorter second floor win­ dows are overlaid by a course of sailor bricks. There are segmental-arched window openings at the basement level, one on each side of the front porch. In 1950, the one-room, 11 /2-story rear ell was enlarged to a two-room, twostory wing. With the exception of the roof, all of the existing original fabric was retained, including chimney, upstairs hearth and flooring. By this time, Sturdy rafters at the top of Preston-Brown House. the window sashes throughout the house had already been replaced. 49 �Interior The interior plan consists of a wide central hall flanked by single rooms on both the first and second floors and a kitchen area in the rear ell, accessed through a doorway in the west room, herein referred to as the "hall," the largest room of the house (besides the same-sized bed­ room above it). The hall fea­ tures less formal woodwork Commercial buildings, like an Italian restaurant (at right), a Go-Mart on the other side, and a Mongolian barbecue across the street, are crowding the Preston-Brown House. than the parlor across the hall, but nonetheless has a fine mantel and paneled wainscoting. The parlor features wainscoting of tall, vertical, recessed panels and discontinuous fluted ,, , , , bands on the chair rail. The uniquely styled Old photo shows the Preston-Brown House from the rear. , . , . ,. , , „ , , . parlor mantel is five feet tall and has two recessed panels separated by reeded pilasters and a continuous reeded band just below the mantel shelf. The firebox is lined with handmade brick and has not been altered from its original form. Off of the rear elevation of the main wing and the east ele­ vation of the ell is a former porch that is now enclosed. Ceiling height in the first floor rooms is 9 feet, 1 inch. Access to the second floor or main wing is gained by way of a relatively narrow winder stair in the back, right corner of the central hall. The stair rail and balusters are square and plain. Beneath the stair is a small, original closet with a strap-hinged door. Access to the second floor of the rear ell is gained via a boxed-in corner stair in the kitchen. These stairs are enclosed by a door with original hardware includ­ ing hand-forged strap hinges. The original cooking fireplace, mantel and chimney of the rear ell were preserved when the ell was enlarged. The mantel is as impressive as any other in the house. Beneath the original structure is a fully excavated, stone-lined basement in which hewn oak beams can be seen. The basement is accessed via a bulkhead entrance on the east side of the house. In the unfin­ ished attic are heavy sash-sawn rafters, each matching pair mortised and pegged together and inscribed with the customary Roman numerals. Bibliography Brown, Dr. Esther Clark. Personal communication, July 2004 Cole, Winifred Bryan, History o f the Bryan-Cole Family in America. Arnold, Missouri, published by the author, 1962 Spadaro, Leah. "Preston Place," unpublished paper Annotated photographs provided by Dr. Esther C. Brown 50 �Searching for the Explorer Johan Peter Saling __________ by Dan Kegley C ountless individuals' stories comprise the history of this country since the 15th century. However, the stories are only as durable and accessible as the records that contain them or the oral tradi­ tions that pass them through the generations. One of these rather fascinating stories in the dim corner of the Virginia experience is that of the Johan Peter Saling/John Howard expedition of 1742. It has been suggested that while Saling and Howard's adventures as early explorers of Virginia and Kentucky were well known during their lifetime and after, they were upstaged by a later pair of Virginians, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. After all, Lewis and Clark had the blessing and direc­ tive of their president, Thomas Jefferson, to find the best route to the Pacific Ocean from the Mississippi River. But before Lewis and Clark were born, Saling and Howard had explored lands east of the Mississippi when the river still formed Virginia's western boundary, and made, or at least Saling docu­ mented, a notable "discovery" almost at the journey's start: Natural Bridge near Glasgow. Today, the Lewis and Clark story is found in any U.S. history textbook, but not Howard and Saling's. Accounts of their story are found in scattered mentions in studies of early Virginia, and the memory of them is likewise fragmentary. The Howard/Saling story deserves preservation and restoration to some level of popular recognition. It has been heartening in the course of this project to learn the story is recalled and taught in West Virginia schools where, as we shall see, Saling is credited with a true discovery that set the course for that state's development and industrialization. More than the story of two men's explorations, Howard and Saling s is the story of early immigration to and settling of this country, self-reliance, political intrigue, and what can only be called adventure. There is also a more personal reason for the present compilation that concerns itself mainly with Johan Peter's story: he was my fifth-great grandfather, an easier way of saying my great-great-great-great-great grandfather. In these pages I attempt not an academic establishment of new historical or biographical knowledge about Johan Peter Saling, but rather a compilation of the scattered references to him that I have collect­ ed in what has been by no means exhaustive research. Scholarly research would require untold miles m travels and hours in archives in a search for original source material that may or may not exist. Where there are conflicting accounts, I have noted their differences, but can offer no original documentation of any. My goal here is to bring Johan Peter Saling out of the shadows. My hope is that someone will bring the light of historical and biographical scholarship to further illuminate this intriguing figure of early colonial history. Soon after the emigration from the Palatine region began, the seas were busy with the crossings of immigrant ships bound for the colonies. One of these ships, the brigantine (a two-masted ship) Pennsylvania Merchant of London, under the command of John Stedman, arrived m the port of Dan Kegley,general managerjeditor o f the Washington County News at Abingdon, writes about his greatgreat-great-great-great-grandfather, John Peter Saling. He is a part-time musician and amateur archaeologist. He has published research on raptor migration in the journal o f the Virginia Society o f Ornithology and an article in Bluegrass Unlimited magazine. 51 �Philadelphia on September 18,1733, bearing 187 palatines. These were presented to the lieutenant gov­ ernor and a number of magistrates as having satisfactorily pledged loyalty to Great Britain. The ship's list included the name, Johan Peter Saling. His name, like all others on his and all early ships bearing immigrants, and like names written for any purpose, was subject to the interpretation of the writer. Differing languages and dialects on the part of the speakers, differing levels of education on the part of the writers, and the lack of standardization of spelling of proper names until relatively late in history, all account for the variances found in the spellings of names in the records that survive. He signed an oath of allegiance to King George II as Johan Peter Saling, but the name appears else­ where as Johan Peter Sayling, John Peter Sailing, Sailings, and Sallee. His father (according to one geneal­ ogy) may have spelled their name Sallin. For the present purpose, and on the basis of his own signature, we shall call him Johan Peter Saling. There are many disagreeing accounts of Johan Peter Saling's birthplace and year, even about who his parents were. Genealogies variously put his birth in 1697 and 1719, and one specifically reports the day as April 2. And a history text has the year as 1719 but the date as March 31. If he was born in 1697, then he was 36 years old when he arrived in Philadelphia. If the year was 1719, he was 14. A fascinating entry in one of the World Wide Web's genealogy forums presents a different picture bearing some similarities to the other genealogies, and some important differences as well. Jana Shea introduced herself as "a descendant of Johann Peter Sailing (her spelling), through his daughter, Catharina Sailing, who married Henry Fuller," and then revealed her own finding about her ancestor. "I have that Johann Peter Sailing was born in 1700 in Reipertsweiler [near Struth], Alsace-Lorraine. He was the son of Franz S a ilin g of Struth. He married Anna Maria Vollmer on November 9, 1728 in Teiffenbach, Alsace-Lorraine [now part of France]. She was the daughter of George Michael Vollmer and his wife Anna Sabina Barbara. Johann Peter Sailing died in 1755 in Augusta Co.,VA. ... "The above information was found in the book, Pennsylvania German Pioneers, Vol I. by R.B. Strassburger. The information on J.P. Sailing was very detailed and had come from church registers in Germany." Saling appears to have registered 250 acres in the Conestoga Valley of Lancaster County, Penn. By 1742, he's in the Valley of Virginia. Here Saling became involved with the local militia and his name appears on the roster of Captain John McDowell's Company of Militia in 1742. This unit was involved in Rockbridge County's first battle with Native Americans. "The first white man to cast his wondering gaze upon the arch of Natural Bridge, as far as can be ascertained by existing records, was John Peter Sailings." With these words begins the first chapter of The Natural Bridge and Its Historical Surroundings, and with them we turn from considering Johan Peter Saling the immigrant, during the early Palatine exodus, to Johan Peter Saling the explorer of rivers and lakes from the Valley of Virginia to Mississippi. But the text continues into questionable assertions penned by Dr. John Peter Hale, who in "TransAllegheny Pioneers," has Saling exploring the valley "as early as 1730." This is three years before the records show him and his wife and two daughters arriving in Philadelphia, and a decade before they, now with two sons, move to what would become Glasgow, Va. Whether Saling was the first European to see the bridge is less certain than the possibility that it was he who first made written note of it. He kept notes of his travels, and although later confiscated by both French and British officials, these he recreated at the end of the trip for which he is best known. It was at the beginning of this journey that Saling recorded his impression and measurements of the bridge. In his reconstructed journal (later transcribed by Col. John Buchanan), we read: "On the 16th of March, 1742, we set off from my house and went to Cedar Creek, about five miles where there is Natural �Bridge over said Creek, reaching from the Hill on the one side to the Hill on the other. It is a solid Rock and is two hundred and three feet high, having a very Spacious arch, where the Water runs thro'... ." Dr. Richard Batman has raised the question about whether it is reasonable to think Saling, who lived for two years within six miles of the stone bridge, was seeing it then for only the first time. Other ques­ tions, too, surround the journey questions rising from differences between the accounts found in his­ tories, the family tradition, and in Saling's own journal. Robert J. Smith cites a 1927 reference supporting Saling as the bridge's first documentarian. Research on the early history of the bridge carried out by the corporate owners in the 1930s suggest that one of the earliest to see it was a John Peter Sailings, who arrived in the area around 1730. His diaries mention the bridge in 1742, the earliest documenta­ tion of Natural Bridge, and he may have seen the bridge as early as 1734. Chester A. Reeds in his 1927 book Natural Bridge and Its Environs wrote that the first recorded mention of the bridge was by Andrew Burnaby in 1759 who noted that it was 'a natural arch or bridge joining two high mountains, with a considerable river underneath.' However, Burnaby merely recorded it as a natural curiosity and did not visit it on his travels for fear of raiding Cherokees." th e ir Fairfax Harrison, whose "The Virginians from th e on the Ohio and the Mississippi in 1742" in the April 1922 Virginia Magazine of River. ““ History and Biography is perhaps the most C h a t 1 ....., , .............. I scholarly treatment of the subject (and is a reference frequently cited in subsequent histories), wrote in a footnote to Saling's ^ __ :: • * tM vmiCHiig : journal that his description of Natural Bridge "seems to be the earliest description of the Natural Bridge." In his journal's first paragraph Saling tells of his original diary and other papers being taken by the French during his captivity by them, and never given back. In Charles Town, Saling gave the British gov­ ernor a copy of his journal, and the governor refused to return it. After he returned home in 1745, Saling ai&l corapanksas jiisco v 1742 m h^re in ioring jilhctioii with The Great Kanawha Slyer at St. Albans. rewrote the journal once again and from memory. Shenandoah Valley historian William Couper wrote that "it was popular in times past to discredit Sailing's journal, but, with the passage of the years and the discovery in far places of corroborating evi­ dence, it has become a revealing document." Colonel John Buchanan thought so at the time, stopping at Saling's home and spending a day m 1745 copying it for his own use with the Woods River Company. Joshua Fry, who with Peter Jefferson drew the famous Fry and Jefferson map of 1751, was next, giving his copy the title "A Brief Account o f the Travels o f John Peter Salley A German who Lives in the County o f Augusta in Virginia." Fry s copy was sent to the Lords of Trade in England, according to Couper (Dr. Batman wrote that it accompanied a copy of Fry's map) and it is his transcription that we know today. Harrison wrote in a footnote about Fry's transcribing the journal, "Salley permitted others to copy his journal," and quotes R. G Thwaites' writing about Buchanan's diary, containing his copy of the journal, now residing in the Wisconsin Historical Society library. Harrison also wrote that Virginia botamst Dr. 53 �John Mitchell "made use of it in drawing that great map of 1755 on which the British government sub­ sequently placed so much reliance." Although later explorations would uphold the veracity of Saling's observations on the westward trek, "Salley's distances do not bear critical analysis. One can understand that they seemed greater to him than they do to a traveller in a Pullman car." Dr. Batman and Harrison set the stage for the travels with an account of John Howard, whose idea the expedition was. Howard had "appeared before the governor's Council and requested a commission to go Upon Discoveries on the Lakes and River Mississippi.' The Council, anxious to reaffirm its claim to the land west of the Shenandoah Valley, granted Howard the commission 'to Command men as shall be willing to Accompany him upon such Discoveries.'" But Howard (sometimes seen as Hayward) had second thoughts about the enormity of his proposed undertaking and put the matter off until 1742 when he asked Saling, John Poteet, and Charles Sinclair to accept the Council's offer of 10,000 acres of land to be divided among them and join Howard and his son Josiah, on the journey, chronicled in Saling's journal that begins: "It may be necessary before I enter upon the particular passage of my Travels, to inform my Reader that what they are to meet with in the following Narrative, is only what I retained in my Memory; For when we were taken by the French we were robbed of all our papers, that contained any writings that were relative to our Travels. "1740. In the year 1740,1 came from Pennsylvania to the part of Orange County now called Augusta; and settled in a fork of James River close under the Blue Ridge of Mountains of the West Side, where I now live. "1741 /1742 In the month of March, 1741/2, One John Howard came to my house, and told me, that he had received a commission from our Governor to travel to the westward Colony as far as the River Mississippi, in order to make discovery of the Country, and that as a reward for his Labour, he had the promise of an Order of the Council for Ten Thousand Acres of Land; and at the same time obliged him­ self to give equal shares of said Land to as such men as would go in Company with him to search the Country as above. Whereupon I and other two men, Vizt [John Poteet] and Charles Sinclair (his own son, Josiah Howard, having already joined with him) entered into a Covenant with him, binding ourselves to each other in a certain writing, and accordingly prepared for our Journey in an unlucky hour to me and my poor Family." Saling next wrote about the stone bridge, and continued with an account of the first leg of the jour­ ney: " ... we then proceeded as far as Mondongachate, now called Woods River, which is eighty-five Miles, where we killed five Buffaloes, and with their hides covered the Frame of a Boat which was so large as to carry all of our Company, and our provisions and Utensils, with which we passed down the said River two hundred and fifty-two miles as we supposed, and found it very Rocky, having a great many Falls therein, one of which we computed to be thirty feet perpendicular and all along surrounded with inac­ cessible Mountains, high precipices, which obliged us to leave said River. "We went then a southwest course by land eighty five Miles, where we came to a small River, and there we made a little Boat, which carried only two men and our provisions. The rest traveled by Land for two Days and then we came to a large River, where we enlarged our Barge, so as she carried all our company and whatever loading we had to put into her. "We supposed that we went down this river Two Hundred and Twenty Miles, and had a tolerable good passage; there being only two places, that were difficult by reason of Falls. Where we came to this River the Country is mountainous, but the further down the plainer in those mountains, we found great plenty of Coals, for which we named it Coal River. Where this River and Woods river meets the North Mountains end, and the Country appears very plain and is well water'd, there are plenty of Rivulets, clear Fountains and running Streams and very fertile Soil." 54 �Saling's journal is full of description of the topography and resources through which his party trav­ eled. But then the story changes: "We held on our passage down the River Mississippi, the second day of July, and about the nine o the Clock in the Morning, we went on Shore to cook our Breakfast. But we were suddenly surprised by a Company of Men, viz. to the Number of Ninety, Consisting of French men Negroes, & Indians, who took us prisoners and carried us to the Town of New Orleans, which was about one Hundred Leagues from us when we were taken, and after being examined upon Oath by the Governor, first separately one by One, and then All together, we were committed to close Prison, we not knowing then (nor even yet) how long they intended to confine us there. During our stay in Prison we had allowed us a pound and a half of Bread each Day, and Ten pound of pork p Month for each man. Which allowance was duly given to us for a space of Eighteen Months, and after that we had only one pound of Rice Bread and one pound of Rice for each man p Day, and one Quart of Bear's Oil for each man p Month, which allowance was con­ tinued untill I made my escape.... "After I had been confined in Prison above Two years, and all Expectation of being set at Liberty tail­ ing, I begun to think of making my Escape out of Prison, one of which I put mto Practice, which Succeeded in the following Manner. There was a certain French Man, who was born m that Country, and had some time before sold his Rice to the Spaniards for which he was put in Prison, and it Cost him six Hundred Pieces of Eight before he got clear. ... With this Miserable French Man, I became intimate & familiar, and as he was an active man, and knew the Country he promised, if I could help him off with his Irons, and we all got clear of the Prison, he could conduct us safe untill we were out of Danger, We got a small file from a Soldier wherewith to cut the Irons and on the 25 day of October, 1744, we put our Design in Practice. While the French man was very busie in the Dungeon in cutting the Irons, we were as industrious without in breaking the Door of the Dungeon, and Each of us finished our Jobb at one Instant of time, which had held us for about six hours; by three of the Clock m the Morning with the help of a Rope which I had provided beforehand, we let our Selves down over the Prison Walls, and made our Escape Two Miles from the town that night, we lay close for two days. When then removed from the place two miles from the Town that night, where we lay close for two days. We then removed to a place three miles from the Town, where one of the good old Fryers of which I spoke before, nour­ ished us four Days. On the Eighth Day after we made the Escape, we came to a Lake seven Leagues from the Town but by this Time we had got a Gun and some Ammunition, the next Day we shot two large Bulls, and with their Hides made us a boat, in which we passed the Lake in the Night. We tied the Shoulder Blades of the Bulls to small sticks, which served us for paddles and passed a point, where there were thirteen men lay in wait for us, but Thro' Mercy we escaped from them undiscovered. I On the nineteenth instant we left Fort Augustus and on the first of April we arrived at Char es Town, and waited on the Governor, who examined us Concerning our travels &c. and he detained us m Charles Town eighteen Days, and made us a present of eighteen pounds of then Money, which did no more than defray our Expences whilst in that Town. "I had delivered to the Governor a Copy of my Journal, which when I asked again he refused to give me but having obtained from him a Pass we went on board a small Vessel bound for Virginia. On the Thirteenth of April, the same Day about two of the Clock we were taken by the French m Cape Roman and kept Prisoners till 11 of the Clock the next Day, at which time the French after having robbed us of all the Provisions we had for our Voyage or Journey, put us into a Boat we being 12 men m Number an so left us to the Mercy of the Seas and Winds. On the fifteenth instant we arrived again at Charles Town and were examined before the Governor concerning our being taken by the French. We were now detained three Days before we could get another Pass from the Governor, we having destroyed the for­ mer, when we were taken by the French, and then were dismissed, being m a strange Place, far from Home, destitute of Friends, Cloathing, Money and Arms and in that deplorable Condition had been obliged to undertake a Journey of five Hundred Miles, but a Gentleman, who was Commander of 55 �Privateer, and then lay at Charles Town with whom we had discoursed several times, gave to each of us a Gun and a Sword, and would have given us Ammunition, but that he had but little. "On the Eighteenth Day of April, we left Charles Town, the second time, and traveled by Land, and on the seventeenth day of May, 1745 we arrived at my House, having been absent three years, Two Months and one Day, from my family, having in that time by the nicest Calculation I am able to make, travelled by land and water four thousand six hundred and six Miles since I left my House till I returned Home again." jt'k 'k ititicit'k The journal of Johan Peter Saling makes no mention of the time he is said in some accounts to have lived with Native Americans, even becoming adopted by "a squaw of Kaskaskias" as Oren Morton wrote. It mentions only passing through Indian country whose residents were "kind" and "hospitable." About Salings' journal, Fairfax Harrison wrote, "The early historians of western explorations general­ ly ignored this story, though some of them mentioned it only to scout it. Standing alone, stripped of the official reports which testified to its provenance, this paper was not convincing." In the French National Archives exists a copy of John Howard's letter from prison to England's King George II, whose intercession on their behalf as prisoners of the French he hoped to secure. According to historian William Couper, the Marquis Vaudreuil, successor to Governor Bienville on whose orders the English subjects were imprisoned on suspicion of spying against the French in advance of an English attack, took possession of the letter and sent it to France. Couper writes that Howard's "original appeal is now lost, but in time it may come to light, among the undigested records of the French regime in Louisiana." The urgency of the five explorers' situation is clear in Howard's letter, but if the prisoners knew the fate Bienville had in mind for them, he didn't communicate that knowledge. Howard wrote of the lack of evidence for the "weak suspicions" on which the French sentenced them to jail for three years. Guilty or not, Bienville wanted them prevented from going home, and planned to send them into slavery. Harrison, using "French transcripts recently acquired by the Library of Congress," wrote, "Finally, there is now confirmation from the French side" of Saling's account of imprisonment in New Orleans and the tension between the French and British over the interior of the continent. They show, according to Harrison, "In 1742, Le Moyne be Bienville, the 'father' of Louisiana, was at the end of his forty years of service on behalf of that colony...and was awaiting the arrival of a successor." The colony had been engaged in diplomatic talks with the Chocktaws and "a convoy returning down stream from Illinois, captured Howard, Salley and their companions on the Mississippi, about one hundred and twenty miles above Natchez. Bienville reported they had been sent on their perilous journey for the purpose of exploring the rivers flowing from Virginia into the Mississippi, and to reconnoiter the terrain looking to establishing a settlement, for the English pretend that their boundaries extend as far as the bank of the Mississippi. ... [I]t is important that these rash men shall not return home to bear witness of what they have learned among us. I shall send them to the fort at Natchitoches, whence I shall have them escorted to the mines of New Mexico." But Bienville wanted Vaudreuil to handle the matter, and when the Marquis arrived, he agreed with Bienville's idea that, sent out from Virginia as spies or not, the five travelers could take information about the French back to the British. Howard's letter, transcribed from French back to English, said in part: I continued my Journey until July the fourth, when we were arrested by seventy Frenchmen, who conducted us to a town called New Orleans, near the mouth of the Mississipy. There we were closely examined by the Governor and were grievously accused that our purpose had been to spy out the way for an army to come to destroy them and their country. Nothing appearing against us to support this 56 �charge, except weak suspicions, we hoped to be put at liberty, but on the contrary were condemned to three years in prison. And I verily believe that we will not be released until death has pity on us. To that fate we have indeed already been very near, partly by reason of the darkness of our dungeons and part­ ly by reason of the bad food given us. But God having pity has restored our strength. And yet up to this moment we have no hope for our deliverance except in the Wisdom and Charity of your Majesty, our lives being as a sacrifice in the hands of cruel men. "That your Royal Majesty and your blessed family may continue to enjoy the love of God, our Celestial father, by the merit of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ, and the Consolation of the Holy Ghost, is and continually shall be the prayers of your humble subjects whose names are subscribed. JOHN HAYWARD ( sic ), JOSIAS HAYWARD, my Son JOHN PATTEET, JOHN PETER SALLING CHARLES CINEKLER New Orleans, June 21, 1743. In consideration of our deplorable condition, we ask pardon for our bad writing." Vaudreuil wanted to send them to France but on December 29 of 1744, reported the escape of two pris­ oners. Saling was one, and a Creole named Baudran was the other. Howard "and one or two of them were shipped for France, but in the Voyage were taken by an English ship and carryed to London," wrote Harrison who noted "no evidence that Howard made any report in London nor of what became of him." Dr. Batman wrote that after he rewrote his journal, Saling "settled back into the routine life of the Shenandoah Valley. He rapidly began to accumulate western land, receiving a grant of 400 acres in 1746, and an additional 170 acres in 1748." Rockbridge County records show that in 1746, "Joseph Lapsley and John Peter Sailing sworn in as captains, Robert Renick as first lieutenant. Statements of losses by Indians certified to in case of Richard Woods, John Mathews, Henry Kirkham, Francis McCown, Joseph Lapsley, Isaac Anderson, John and James Walker.-Feb 19th James Huston and three other men presented for being vagrants, and hunting and burning the woods; on information given by John Peter Sailing, James Young, and John McCown. Huston fined three pounds for illegally killing three deer." Noted Morton, "That he was a man of force and consequence is manifest from his being commis­ sioned an officer of militia." Couper's writing provides further insight into Saling's life at home, noting his and his son George's involvement in building a road from "Edmondston's Mill to the Fork Meeting House. These are interest­ ing road terminals because roads of the period were at times described as 'our course to meeting, mill and market.'" The following year, 1754, finds the father and son "among the workers on the road from Campbell's School House (one of the early schools) to Renix's (Renick's) Road," in Couper's writing. S a lin g wrote his will on Christmas Day, 1754 and died early the next year. Couper wrote that the will "was proved in Staunton on March 19, 1755 (Augusta Co., WB. 2-92)," and Morton lists four horses, four sheep, and twenty-two hogs' in the will in which "the personality was appraised at $194.64." Perhaps no better close to this telling of Johan Peter Salings' story (and some of its variances) can be found than the last paragraph of Dr. Batman's writing. "Salley's account of the rich lands to the west and the assistance that he gave Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson in enabling them to draw an accurate map of the area west of the Shenandoah Valley proved invaluable to further expansion. Although Salley and the other members of the expedition did not receive the rewards they had envisioned when they set out on that March day in 1742, the five Virginians provided the first English exploration of the area that is now West Virginia and Kentucky, and their sto­ ries of the rich lands increased the pressure for expansion into the land west of the Blue Ridge 57 �Mountains." Searches for Johan Peter Saling on the World Wide Web are most fruitful when those searches are car­ ried out in context of his passage through what is now West Virginia. Numerous websites relating to his­ tory and industry of that state credit Saling and companion John Howard with the discovery of coal there. A sampling: A West Virginia University site carries these references in articles about the histories of Boone and Raleigh counties: "John Peter Salley was the first European to set foot in present-day Boone County. In 1742, he explored the county and is credited for discovering coal along the Coal River." And "John Peter Salley was the first Englishman to set foot in present Raleigh County. He explored the area in 1742." A Boone County site localizes the discovery: "Although Boone County was named for the great American frontiersman, it was another explorer, John Peter Salley, who had a more significant impact on what was to become Boone County. In 1742, while on an exploring trip, Salley and companions discov­ ered coal near the present day community of Peytona. The discovery of coal has played a vital role in fueling the steel mills and power plants of the United States, and remains the backbone of Boone County's economy." Coal is the focus of a Geocities website with this note: "In 1742, the explorer John Peter Sally discov­ ered coal near present day Racine in Boone County on his now infamous expedition. When he realized what large deposits of coal were to be found in the area, he named the river Coal River. It was several years before the industrialists would discover the value of coal, and initially settlement in the county was slow." From West Virginia Geologic and Economic Survey's website: "In 1742, John Peter Salley took an exploratory trip across the Allegheny Mountains and reported an outcropping of coal along a tributary of the Kanawha River. He and his companions named this tributary the Coal River, and his report became the first reference to coal in what is today West Virginia." References are also found on websites of West Virginia Office of Miners' Health, Safety and Training, the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, and at some histories of other fa m ilie s The St. Albans, W. Va., website lists on its home page the former names of the community, including "Coalsmouth," and the explanation in parentheses: (First white person to go through Coalsmouth was John Peter Salley as he traveled down the Coal River in 1742). A roadside historical landmark sign near Peytona reads: "COAL DISCOVERED - John Peter Salley (Sailing) and companions discovered coal near here in 1742 on their exploring trip from the Greenbrier River. They followed the Coal River to its junction with The Great Kanawha River at St. Albans." In per­ sonal correspondence, Larry Lodato said, "The marker is located on WV-3 at Peytona. 17 miles W. of Madison and 20 miles S. of Marmet." In fact, the marker was found in December, 2002, to stand adja­ cent to the Coal Miners' Memorial Bridge. ******** Carol Rose prescribed the following homework assignment for her eighth- grade West Virginia Studies class at Elkview Middle School, northeast of Charleston, and posted it on the school's website: HOMEWORK QUESTION FOR MONDAY NIGHT: READ ABOUT JOHN HOWARD AND JOHN PETER SALLING. MARK ON AN OUTLINE MAP THE ROUTES OF JOHN HOWARD AND JOHN PETER SALLING'S VOYAGE TO EXPLORE THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. REMEMBER, THEY BEGAN IN (W)VIRGINIA. WRITE WHETHER YOU THINK THIS WAS A GOOD ROUTE...EXPLAIN YOUR ANSWER. An inquiry to Rose about Sailing resources in the West Virginia history curriculum produced this response, with a list of references: "John Peter Sailing is taught in WV History classes, perhaps more so in this area (Kanawha/Boone Counties) because of his travels and interest in coal." 58 �The Sailing and Howard expedition was the inspiration for a 1946 novel, Wilderness Adventure, by Elizabeth Page. New York [and] Toronto: Rinehart & Company, Inc., 309p. A summary of the book reads: "Evidence that a young girl, Lisel Sailing, has been captured by Indians leads five men to brave the uncharted wilderness of mid-America in search of her. Departing from Williamsburg in 1742, the party ventures west to Kaskaskia, down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, and across the ocean to Europe before she is found." The author's note at the front of the book reads: "Unbelievably enough, only the character of Lisel Sailing and the romantic motive of which she is the center has been entirely invented....A complete dis­ cussion of the adventure as so recorded has been written by Fairfax Harrison and published in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography volume 30, pages 203-222." On its own merits and without literary embellishment, John Peter Saling's story is full of intrigue and adventure as well as context of interest to the historian of the American colonies and to the student of early explorations. It is a story worthy of scholarly research and retelling for both popular and academ­ ic audiences. References used in the full text from which this abbreviated version was excerpted. Books Kercheval, Samuel. A History o f the Valley o f Virginia. W.N. Grabill. Woodstock, Va. 1902. Mentions John Howard, but not Saling in its treatment of early European history of the valley. Batman, Dr. Richard. The Odyssey o f John Peter Salley. Virginia Cavalcade. Library of Virginia. Summer, Volume 31, No. 31, Summer 1981. The historian retells Saling's adventure with the benefit of modern perspective. Couper, William. History o f the Shenandoah Valley, Vol, 1. Lewis Historical Publishing Co., Inc. New York. 1952. Chapter XIX is devoted to and titled, "John Peter Sailing and Expansion Westward." Harrison, Fairfax. "The Virginians on the Ohio and the Mississippi in 1742." In Virginia Magazine o f History and Biography. Vol. 30. April, 1922. Goetzmann,William H. New Lands, New Men. Viking. New York. 1986. Briefly mentions Saling in its examination of exploration as a cultural process. Kegley, F.B. Kegley 's Virginia Frontier: The Beginning o f the Southwest, The Roanoke o f Colonial Days 1740-1783. Southwest Virginia Historical Society. Roanoke, Va. 1938 Kegley, Mary B. and F.B. Kegley. Early Adventures on the Western Waters, Volume 1: The New River o f Virginia in Pioneer Days 1745-1800. Green Publishers. Orange, Va. 1980. Kegley, Mary B. Wythe County, Virginia: A Bicentennial History. Walsworth Publishing Co., Inc. Marceline, Mo. 1989. Morton, Oren F. A History o f Rockbridge County Virginia. The McClure Co., Inc. Staunton, Va. 1920. Presents a biographical sketch of Saling from his settlement in Virginia through his adventures and return home and his death there a decade later. Claudine Pierson. Personal correspondence and translation of the French transcript of Howard's letter from prison. Saltville, Va. 2002. Sayers, Elizabeth Lemmon. Joan Tracy Armstrong, ed. Smyth County, Virginia, Volume 1: Pathfinders and Patriots, Prehistory to 1832. Walsworth Publishing Co., Inc. Marceline, Mo. 1983. Summers, Lewis Preston. History o f Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786, Washington County, 1777-1870. Regional Publishing Co., Baltimore 1971. Originally printed Richmond, 1903. Thompkins, Ed and J. Lee Davis. The Natural Bridge and its Historical Surroundings. Natural Bridge of Virginia, Inc. Natural Bridge, Va. 1939. A discussion of the bridge as discovery, commercial opportunity and source of inspiration. Wilson, Goodridge. Smyth County History and Traditions. Commonwealth Press, Inc., Radford. Va. Reprinted by Frank Detweiler, 1976. Websites with identified authors/compilers Crowther, Mary Nan. Charles Lee Dibrell. 1997. Online: http:/ / home.southwind.net/-^crowther/Dibrell/CLD.html R.K. Elliott. Samples -1801 1919 - Russell, VA, USA, Ballard Co., KY. Online, http:/ /users.aol.com/RKElliott/salling.htm Elmer Decker. Knox County Kentucky History. Online: http:/ / www.tcnet.net/ky/knox/decker.html Headley, Marilyn. Rockbridge County VA—Some Court Orders prior to 1778, the creation date of the county. From History of Rockbridge County, Virginia. Oren F. Morton, B. Lit. Staunton, Virginia. 1920. Online: 59 �http:/ / ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenw eb/va/rockbridge/courts/earord.txt Henderson, Archibald. Ph.D., D.C.L. The Conquest of the Old Southwest: The Romantic Story of the Early Pioneers into Virginia, The Carolinas, Tennessee, and Kentucky 1740-1790. The Century Co. New York. 1920. Online. http://sailor.gutenberg.org/etextOO/cnqswl0.txt Sweeping account of the settling of lands west of the eastern seaboard, including discussion of Daniel Boone and the pro­ posed State of Franklin. Horlacher, Gary. 18th Century German Emigration Research. Online, http:/ / www.horlacher.org/germany/articles/gerl700sem.htm Leo B. McDowell http:/ /members.tripod.com/leomcdowell/id37.htm Angela M. Ruley. First Native American Clash in Rockbridge. Online: http:/ / personal.rockbridge.net/historian/files/history/indianraidl.html Smith, Robert J. Natural Bridge of Virginia. Center for Private Conservation. 1988. Competitive Enterprise Institute. 1998. Online, http:/ / www.cei.org/gencon/025,01355.cfm Don Silvius. White Dove and the Virginia Caverns. Online, http://www.rootsweb.com/~vashenan/cem/whitdov.html. Websites with unidentified authors/compilers Boone County. Online. http://www.geocities.com/coalminermem/DGE.htm Boone County history. Online, http;/ / www.polsci.wvu.edu/wv/B o o n e/boohistory.html Bird Genealogy. Online, http:/ /members.aol.com/yoda348846/thebirds.html Boone County, West Virginia, http:/ / www.boonecountywv.org/history.php3 Chronicles of Oklahoma. Volume 16, No. 4. December, 1938 The Chickasaw Threat to French Control of the Mississippi in the 1740's http: / / digital.library.okstate.edu / Chronicles / v016 / vOl 6p465.html Early German Immigration. Online, http:/ /schools.guilford.kl2.nc.us/tpages/haupt/academics/page4.html Genealogy Sailings Family Genealogy Forum. Online, http: / / genforum.genealogy.com/salling/ Generation IV. Online. http:VyappaIachian_home.tripod.com/maj_john.htm James River Batteau Festival, a division of The Virginia Canals & Navigations Society Inc. Online: http://joww.batteau.org/histoiy5.html Palatines to America. Online, http:/ / www.palam.org/ Raleigh County History. Online. http:fVwww.polsci.wvu.edu/wv/Raleigh/ralhistory.html St. Albans, West Virginia. Online, http:/ / www.stalbanswv.com/businesses/St_Albans_Historical_Society/localhistory.asp Sailing: Descendants of Niclaus Sallin. Online: http://home.earthlink.net/i~oregongirl/genealogy/salling.htm Genealogy of Saling asserting his father was Nicklaus Sallin. Ship Lists. Online, http:/ / www.centralschwenkfelder.com/exile/ship_lists.htm Has photo of the oath to Great Britain that includes Johan Peter Saling's signature. The Palatines. Online. http://www.kingwoodcable.com/khelmer/Palatine.html. Introductory explanation the geopolitical history of the palatinate. West Virginia geology. Online, http: / / www.wvgs.wvnet.edu/www/geology/geoldvco.htm Why Did They Migrate? Online, http:/ / www.gamber.net/gamber/why.html. Discussion of the internal pressures resulting in the emigration of central-Germans to other countries in the early 1700s. Viewed but not cited: http:/./www.callwva.com/facts/dates.cfm http||/ diarysearch.com/ default.htm Note: Lists Saling's journal and literature in which it is found, describing it as "Journal and recollections (scattered entries and dates); exploration on the Ohio and Mississippi; with John Howard; capture by French, imprisonment in New Orleans; and escape," 1. In The Journals of Christopher Gist edited by W.M. Darlington. Pittsburgh, 1893, pp 253-260. 2. "The Virginians on the Ohio and the Mississippi" in Louisiana Hist. Quar. V, 1922, pp 323-332. http: / / www.gbl.indiana.edu / archives / dockett_317 / d317toc7.html h ttp ff/members.aol.com/jeff560/ wv-hist.html http: / / www.rootsweb.com/~varockin/wayland / CHAP3.htm http s /f home.southwind.net/~crowther/Dibrell/CLD.html http: / / www.state.wv.us / mhst / History.htm http://www.state.wv.us/mhst/wvcoalfacts.htm http: / / www.wvchamber.com/About%20WV / fun_facts.htm �Graham's Forge Mill - Architectural Gem by Michael J. Pulice ■ he Grahams Forge Mill, located on Reed Creek, east of Fort Chiswell in eastern Wythe County, is one of the outstanding late-19th-century architectural gems of southwestern Virginia. Although utilitarian in function, it is nevertheless a stunning site of rustic beauty - a five-story building with stone foundation, fading whitewash and weathered gray wood exterior. The mill has fading silver paint on the old tin roof slowly succumbing to rust; original windows and doors with stylish surrounds, proportionally correct dormers that complement its appearance; paneled frieze below broad eaves, and wonderful little cupola with star motif and decorative cresting. The mill and its complement of ancillaries possess almost complete architectural integrity, and many of the mill workings remain in place inside the structures. The present mill occupies the site of the for­ mer Graham's Forge with its furnace, iron rolling mill and nail factory, and the earlier Crockett Forge, which was established in 1796. The site is named for David Graham, who acquired the forge in 1826 and later left it to his son, Major David P. Graham. Graham's Forge Mill is a ca.1890 frame structure five stories tall and topped with a cupola. There is a ca. 1910-20 shed addition on the south elevation, an office addition from around the same time on the north elevation, and an early covered porch on the front. Situated around the mill are a number of other buildings, including a smokehouse, corncrib, grain storage facility, and two oven/kettles used for hog scalding. Behind the mill are the remains of the old milldam. Next to the mill property sits the ca.1870 Graham and Robinson Store, an attractive and well-pre­ served brick structure with a full-length porch across its front, and windows on both sides. Across Rt. 629 from the mill property and the store is the early-20th-century, frame, Gothic-styled Graham's Forge Methodist Church. The John W. Robinson House is located 3/10 of a mile south of the mill, well beyond the church, via a private road. It is a mid-19th-century, two-story, Y-plan Greek Revival/ Italianate brick structure with porches on three sides. The house is complemented by period outbuildings and breath­ taking surroundings. The ca. 1840 Major David Graham House is located a short distance further down Reed Creek. The foundation of the mill is constructed of dry-laid, roughly-cut, coursed limestone. The foundation on the rear and north side of the mill is about 9 feet tall. The rear elevation of the mill faces Reed Creek, although the mill wheel, now missing, was located on the north side. Above the stone foundation the structure is wood frame with weatherboard cladding. The roof is cov­ ered with standing seam sheet metal. A conveyor system runs from the front of the mill to the grain and storage facility, 34 feet to the east. There are three doors that span the front of the mill: the original double door centered on the front of the mill, another door entering into the south addition, and a door to the office addition at the north end of the covered porch. All doors throughout the mill are treated with ramped, pediment-like surrounds. There are a total of 29 windows on the mill, including one-over-one double-hung windows on each side of the cupola. Like the doors, all of the windows exhibit the same ramped, pediment-like surrounds. A star motif with faded red paint appears on the gable ends of the dormers and cupola. The height of the building is extended by an additional monitor story built on the flat deck roof of the fourth story. The monitor has a simple gable roof with a cupola on top. The cupola has a cross-gable roof with a finial, dec­ orative cresting on the ridges, and a late-19th-century Victorian-styled lightning rod. The main roof eaves extend out about two feet. On the front gable end of the monitor story, a stenM ichael). Pulice, architectural historian in the Roanoke Preservation Office o f the State Department of Historic Resources, holds degrees from Radford University and Virginia Tech. 61 �died sign appears on flush boards, which is now faded and only partially readable. Above the sign is a frieze made up of raised panels within contiguous recessed panels. The recessed areas are painted a contrasting lighter color than the framing, though all of the paint has faded with time. Interior The mill's first floor consists of an open room with rail-less open stringer of stairs in the back of the room. The second floor is also an open room with open stringer stair at the rear. Along the side walls are grain bins and chutes and assorted milling machinery. This arrangement con­ tinues on each floor until the fifth floor, which is long and narrow. Throughout the mill's interior are wide, unfinished pine floorboards and exposed framing with heavy, diagonally-braced corner posts. There are heavy support beams running through the center of the structure, under­ girding the floor joists. The floor joists also have diagonal cross-bracing between them. The interior walls of the south addition are lined with shelves. The office addition has an old wood stove. Four other structures, lined up in a row, Five-story Graham's Forge Mill has prime architectural features, are located approximately across from the front of the mill. Directly across from the mill is the grain and storage facility. The frame building, 37 feet wide and 40 feet long, is sheathed with board-and-batten and has a front-gabled, standing-seam metal roof with a seven-bay louvered monitor, small, four-sided, louvered cupola and a Victorian-styled lightning rod. The grain and storage facility includes several floors of bins and chutes like the mill, along with machinery. A sign found in the grain and storage facility reads, "INVINCIBLE Dustless Milling Separator manufactured by the invincible grain cleaner company Silver Creek, NY." The farthest struc­ ture to the north is the "smokehouse," constructed of balloon framing covered with vertical boards and a sheet metal roof. It is 14 feet wide and 16 feet long. Located inside of the smokehouse is a large ket­ tle used for hog scalding. ° Several feet west of the smokehouse are the identical contents of a no-longer- extant structure, includrng the kettle, with its oven-like fuel chamber with a 2-foot-wide opening below, and a squat brick chim­ ney. The base of the oven/kettle structure is 7 feet by 10 feet. South of this structure is a frame double­ pen corncrib, 24 feet by 40 feet, with a gable roof covering both pens and the 10-foot-wide breezewav in the center. J Finally, the workshop sits east of the grain and storage facility. The workshop is of vertical board con­ struction with a metal shed roof. It is 130 feet long by 48 feet wide, and has an 11-foot-wide opening for tractors and other heavy equipment on the north elevation. This cheaply constructed building is in ter­ minal condition and is expected to be taken down in the near future. However, the substantial remains of the mill dam spanning Reed Creek appear to be permanent enough, and certainly warrant further 62 �study in order to determine how and when the dam was built. Most of what can be seen of the dam above water is constructed of concrete. H IST O R Y OF G R A H A M 'S FO R G E M ILL Graham's Forge, an iron rolling mill, and a nail factory were built about 1828 and were rebuilt in 1856 with four refinery fires, and one hammer worked by water. That year it produced 161 tons of blooms and 23 tons of bar iron. The rolling mills and nail works reportedly had three heating furnaces, four trains of rolls, five nail machines and one hammer. The exact construction date of the first grist mill is not known, however it can be concluded that it was erected as early as the iron works, as a grist mill would be a nec­ essary adjunct to an extensive operation of this type.1 Brothers James and Andrew Crockett were among the earliest iron industry entrepreneurs in Wythe County.2 In the mid-1790s they purchased about 1,200 acres of land that extended from Reed Creek to Cedar Run in the vicinity of the present Graham's Forge area. In 1796 they had land surveyed on both sides of Reed Creek. Records show the Crockett iron­ works in operation as early as 1796.3 An 1801 Wythe County land book entry shows that Andrew and James Crockett acquired 10 acres of land on both sides of Reed Creek to include their iron works. In 1805, they received permission to build a dam across 1 the creek and build a forge. Today, the ca.1890 mill stands near the forge site, reportedly on the site of the Grain & M ILL Storage old iron rolling mill. Graham's Forge is said to have been located several yards down on the same side of the creek as the mill.4 Shop The forge became known as Graham's Forge after David Graham (1800-1870) purchased the property in 1830. Graham acquired much of the land in the Graham's Forge area, and became known as the "iron master of the county." The Graham family con­ tinued manufacturing iron products in Wythe County for the next 75 years.5 David Graham married Martha Peirce of Poplar G R A H A M S F O R G E M IL L Wythe County, Virginia Camp in 1835, and by 1850 Graham's real estate, December, 2004 totaling 5000 acres of improved land and 1,944 acres Drawing Not to Scale of unimproved land, was valued at $70,000. He was also the master of 29 slaves at that time. Graham's Site plan locates Mill's related buildings. main businesses were iron manufacturing, the pro­ duction of castings and bar iron, and a nail factory. He had over 130 employees, with labor costs averaging over $1600 a month. Production that year reached 650 tons of pig iron, 80 tons of castings, 170 tons of bar iron and 80 tons of nails.6 In 1860, David Graham's personal property was appraised at $55,800 and in 1863 he paid tax on 6,907 acres of land. At this time he was employing 50 men and his monthly labor costs totaled $800. By 1860, production had dropped to only 100 tons of bar iron, 160 tons of pig iron, 20 tons of nails, 350 tons of pig metal and 50 tons of castings.7 During the Civil War, Graham's Furnace was one of three furnaces in Wythe County providing iron for the Confederacy. Graham was also involved in mining iron ore for shipment to Richmond.8 David Graham's son, David Peirce Graham (1838-1898), was known as Squire Graham and later Major Graham. He was commissioned captain in the 51st Virginia Infantry in 1861. He fought for the [ 63 �Confederacy for three years, saw action in five major battles, and was promoted to the rank of major before being discharged for health reasons in 1864. After his return home from the war, he and his father continued to support the war effort by manufacturing "gun metal of the highest property" and shipping it to Tredegar Ironworks in Richmond.9 Major Graham's sister, Elizabeth, married John W. Robinson (b. 8/6/1837). After David Sr.'s death in 1870, Major Graham and Robinson became business partners who carried on and largely rebuilt their mining and manufacturing businesses. These enterprises included the development of natural resources, farming, a sawmill, a flour mill, and a general store. The market for iron, however, soon declined dra­ matically. By 1881, Graham & Robinson operated the only surviving forge in Wythe County.10 The existing flour mill was erected 1889-90, followed shortly by construction of the smokehouse and the grain and storage facility. The forge operated until 1916, when it was reportedly washed away by a flood. Iron products made at Graham's Furnace in later years included: oven lids, spider lids, camp ket­ tles, flatirons, andirons, pots, back plates, stove plates, kettles, iron water pipes, stoves, hobble weights, iron rails, giant kettles, miniature lard lamps, small ovens and lids, nails, as well as pillars. The flour mill served farmers and rural customers in eastern Wythe County by producing high quality wheat flour and corn meal for several decades. It remained in operation until 1934.11 The third owner of the Graham's Forge Mill property was magnate George L. Carter of Hillsville, who made his fortune in mining. He acquired the property and began making improvements in Max Meadows in the 1930s. One of his many projects was the straightening of Reed Creek. Carter leased many acres of land in the Max Meadows area and improved the value of his property. When he died his son released all the land in the area back to their original owners. ^ The mill has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places because of its importance to Wythe County s economy during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and its excellent representation of a rel­ atively large-scale milling operation in rural southwestern Virginia. The site is significant to the architec­ ture of the area, for it possesses unusually high artistic values, it exemplifies period construction tech­ niques, and because of the fine collection of structures associated with it, including the remains of the historic mill dam, as well as the smokehouse and comcrib. Notes 1. W.R. Chitwood M.D., "Mills-Barrett's Mill/Graham's Forge Part 2." Wythe County Historical Review, 222-255. 2. James S. Presgraves, Wythe County Chapters. Wytheville, VA: James S. Presgraves, 1972,105. 3. Mary B. Kegley, Glimpses of Wythe County, Virginia Vol. 2. Charleston, WV: Pictorial Histories Publishing Co., 1986, 55. ' 4. W.R. Chitwood M.D., Grain Mills and Iron Furnaces in Wythe County. Wythe County Historical Review No. 10 January 1976,2. 1 5. Kegley, 137-139. 6. 1850 U.S. Agricultural Census 7. 1860 U.S. Agricultural Census 8. "Major David Graham House," National Register nomination, Virginia Landmarks Commission 1984 9. Kegley, 137-139. 10. "Major David Graham House." 11. Kegley, 137-139. 12. Kegley, 137-139. Bibliography Chitwood, W.R. M.D. "Mills-Barrett's M ill/Graham's Forge Part 2." Wythe County Historical Review, 222-255. --------. Grain Mills and Iron Furnaces in Wythe County. Wythe County Historical Review No. 10 January, 1976. Kegley, Mary B. Glimpses of Wythe County, Virginia Vol. 2. Charleston, WV: Pictorial Histories Publishing Co., 1986. Pulice, Michael J. and Kimberly Bowen, "Grahams Forge Mill, Wythe County" National Register of Historic Places nomi­ nation, January, 2005. Presgraves, James S., Wythe County Chapters. Wytheville, VA: James S. Presgraves, 1972 1850,1860 U.S. Agricultural Census for Wythe County. "M ajor David Graham House" National Register nomination, Virginia Landmarks Commission, 1984. 64 �John A. Moreo f Salem; World Lutheran Leader, Helped Feed and Clothe Thousands A fter World War I by George Kegley D r. John Alfred Morehead, recognized as the best known and best loved Lutheran among 82 mil­ lion in the world in the 1930s, lived in Salem as a student and later as president of Roanoke College for a total of almost 20 years. When he died June 1, 1936, The Roanoke World-News wrote of his funeral at College Lutheran Church in Salem, "Native Virginia soil today held the remains of Dr. John Alfred Morehead, internationally known honorary president of 82 million Lutherans, friend of bishops and peasants, educator and minister, who died Monday night four hours after the funeral for his wife." He was buried at Sherwood Cemetery in Salem. Here was a man, born in Pulaski County and reared on a Wythe County farm, who left the presiden­ cy of Roanoke College in 1919 to work with Herbert Hoover in organizing distribution of food and cloth­ ing in more than a dozen European countries after World War I. He was the president of the executive committee of the Lutheran World Convention and executive director of the National Lutheran Council. Four nations—Denmark, Germany, Sweden and Finland—nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize but Morehead died before action could be taken on the award. Efforts were made to ask President Franklin Roosevelt to endorse the Nobel nomination. Morehead was born in Pulaski County in 1867 but his family moved to adjoining Wythe County where he spent his boyhood and youth on Sycamore Spring farm, north of Wytheville, formerly owned by his grandfather, Peter Yonce. His father, James W. Morehead, served in the Confederate army, was captured by Union forces in 1864 and remained in prison until the end of the war. All of his five sons graduated from Roanoke College, following an uncle, William B. Yonce of Wythe County, who taught at Roanoke for 36 years. Of the brothers, Wythe taught at Roanoke, Frank taught at Carnegie Institute of Technology, Elbert was a farmer in Catawba, Roanoke County, and Brown was a Wythe County farmer. John Alfred—known as Fred by his family—was a pastor, seminary/college president and internation­ al church administrator. Morehead has been largely overlooked and forgotten by most Lutherans today but he left large foot­ prints in the early 2 0 ^ century. Clifford Nelson wrote in Lutherans in North America, "More than anyone George Kegley, editor o f the Journal, is a Lutheran and a distant kinsman o f Morehead. 65 �else, he (Morehead) personified the 'growing consciousness among Lutherans that they constituted a world-wide fellowship.' His deep commitment to world Lutheranism and the critical needs of Lutherans outside of North America..gave..a strong international emphasis." In his humanitarian work, Morehead reported to the National Lutheran Council in 1921 that he had been personally ministering to the churches and the church people of France, Poland, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Rumania, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Italy, the free city of Danzig, Finland, Estonia, Latvia' Lithuania, Bulgaria, the Ukraine, Constantinople and through refugee pastors to Russia and the Republic of Georgia. Morehead developed a friendship with Herbert Hoover, then head of the American Relief forces as they both served mankind. Morehead arranged with Hoover for his Lutheran workers to go into Russia as an affiliated organization. In a biography, John A. Morehead,Who Created World Lutheranism, Dr. Samuel Trexler wrote that food and clothing were distributed under Morehead's direction to "impoverished refugees, who existed like flotsam and jetsam all over Europe." But food was eaten and clothes wore out so he looked for a new means of replenishing the stores. Morehead established funds which were given to farmers who would buy seed for new crops and occasionally a cow and a horse. Morehead estimated that many of the 5 million Lutherans in Russia at that time faced impending star­ vation. In Saratov, he found 2,500 refugees packed into unheated buildings where the temperature was 15 degrees below zero and people lived on bean and cabbage soup. Morehead's band of churchmen fed 15,000 children daily for two years. Under his direction, limited immediate relief and shipment of med­ ical supplies was arranged through the National Lutheran Council. But m July 1921, the strain of three years of "incessant labor for millions of his distressed fellow believ­ ers m Europe" led to Morehead's collapse and he was sent to a sanatorium in Germany where he recov­ ered after two months of rest. "His warm, sympathetic heart had made him suffer with the sick, naked, starvmg and persecuted Christians," Trexler wrote. Morehead's work "resulted in bringing new hope to untold masses of people." r An interview with Morehead in the March 15, 1930 Christian Herald magazine, by Tom S. Petty, under the headline, He is a Churchman of the World," told of the Lutheran's progression from "post-war worker with Herbert Hoover in famine-stricken Russia" to leadership of "what many believe to be the most significant movement in Protestantism today—world unity." Petty described his subject as "a tall man of 63, a big man with unruly gray hair as unparted as his ideal of a world congregation of Lutherans." After 4 million American Lutherans raised $8 million "to aid the destitute in all of Europe this contact of brotherly love created the Lutheran World Convention." More than 2,000 representatives of 40 coun­ tries met at Eisenach, Germany in 1923 to form this convention and Morehead was named chairman of the six-member executive committee appointed to continue the work. From the establishment of the world convention in 1923 until his death, "the interests of ecumenical Lutheranism were his (Morehead s) chief concern," according to The Lutheran magazine of June 11, 1936. At the second meet­ ing of the convention in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1929, Morehead was unanimously elected president, a post he held until 1935 when he was named honorary president. A letter to his sister, Fannie Fisher in Wytheville, from Copenhagen in July 1929, said, "Perhaps the papers have told you something about the second Lutheran World Convention.it was a success and has laid a good foundation for future cooperation among the Lutheran forces of the world." That body con­ tinues today as the Lutheran World Federation. In those days before overseas flight, Morehead made 38 crossings of the Atlantic by ship and then traveled all over Europe and into Russia by train. His wife, Nellie, seldom made the trips, remaining in New York City. In the Christian Herald interview, Pettey wrote that if he were to take an atlas or a globe, "touch it anywhere with a finger. You will find Dr. John A. Morehead working there." In The First Hundred Years o f Roanoke College, Dr. W. E. Eisenberg wrote that Morehead grew to man­ hood working on the family farm near Wytheville, attending a local school and worshiping at old St. John's Lutheran Church and preparing himself for college by much reading and home study. 66 �Morehead told the Christian Herald writer about his early home life: "I remember most thankfully a center table in the family living room. It was one of those tables found in so many Southern homes in those days, and it always was filled with the best papers, magazines and books. It was at this table that I learned the habit of reading and thinking." He came to Roanoke College in 1886, entering the sophomore class. He won first distinction each ses­ sion and graduated with the second honors of the class of 1889. He taught mathematics and natural sci­ ences at the college for year before traveling north to study theology at Mt.Airy Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia. He also studied philosophy at the nearby University of Pennsylvania. Ordained by the Lutheran Virginia Synod in 1892, Morehead served as pastor at Burkes Garden in Tazewell County for three years before accepting a call to a mission congregation, First English Lutheran in Richmond. During four years in Richmond, he helped establish the mission until he was called to become president and professor of systematic theology at Lutheran Southern Seminary at Columbia, S.C. His four years at the seminary included a year of theological study at the University of Leipzig, Germany. During his time at Roanoke, the endowment fund was more than doubled, the faculty enlarged and Wells-Yonce dormitories, the Commons, a gymnasium and Roselawn, the president's home, were constructed. The pattern set by a previous president, Dr. Julius Dreher, in financing the school through the collection of pri­ vate contributions to augment student fees and endowment receipts continued with conspicuous success, Eisenberg wrote. In 1935, Time magazine said Morehead was "...tall, handsome, white-haired. As president of Roanoke College, his persuasiveness in money-raising gave rise to a saying, 'No use going after money now. Morehead's just been through.'" However, the Elson history controversy of 1911 brought headaches for Morehead, who was a strong advocate of intellectu­ al freedom on college campuses. Judge W. W. Moffett of Salem, a Roanoke College trustee, condemned an Elson textbook because of its statements about slavery and other deep-seated Southern traditions. But Morehead held fast to academic freedom and won Dr. John Alfred Morehead the day, supported by the faculty. In the face of local and regional press criticism, Morehead stood his ground, although the contro­ versy reduced support for the college at the time. Eisenberg's history of the college commended "the courageous leadership" of Morehead. While he was leading Roanoke College, Morehead served as president of the United Lutheran Synod of the South, 1910-14, and he was a member of the ways and means committee for a national merger of Lutheran churches in New York City in 1917-18. He held honorary degrees from Roanoke and Gettysburg colleges, the University of Leipzig, Elizabeth University in Hungary and the University of the Sorbonne in Paris. He was awarded the German Red Cross and the Knighthood and Cross of the Order of Dannbrog by the king of Denmark and he was made a Knight of the Order of the White Rose in Finland. He and his wife, the former Nellie Virginia Fisher of Wytheville, had a daughter, Margaret Morehead Goin, and a grandson, John Morehead Goin, both of Los Angeles, Calif. Sources: Eisenberg, William E. Roanoke College, The First Hundred Years 1842-1942 Eisenberg, William E. The Lutheran Church in Virginia 1717-1962 Miller, Mark E "Dear Old Roanoke" A Sesquicentennial Portrait, 1842-1992 Trexler, Samuel, John A. Morehead Who Created World Lutheranism, 1938 Roanoke World-News, June 5,1936 67 �Mr. Jefferson's Neighbors W hen I spoke to the History Museum and Historical Society of Western Virginia in Roanoke in ecember, 2004, I shared stories illustrating the social and business relationships between Thomas Jefferson and his Bedford neighbors. One story describing a social occasion was published in a Lynchburg newspaper as having been taken from an old record written in 1878, long after the event had taken place. I have researched the possible author and I believe it was Margaret Anthony Cabell who heard the story from her sister, Mary. She relat­ ed the events of a gathering at the home of William Radford who lived in Bedford County near Jefferson. It must have been in either 1821 or 1822 during one of Martha Jefferson Randolph's visits to Poplar Forest with her father and daughters. Margaret Anthony Cabell would have been about 7 and her sister Mary would have been about 12 or 13. William Radford's home was on original Poplar Forest land that he had bought from Jefferson. He moved to the area about 1814 and his home was eventually called Woodbourne. He mar­ ried Elizabeth Moseley, the daughter of another neighbor, Anne Moseley, and he was President of Farmers' Bank in Lynchburg for forty years. Margaret Anthony Cabell recorded her memory of her sister's description of the party at Radford s in a diary which is now lost. However, a portion of it was printed in an early Lynchburg paper and gives us this story: Woodbourne, near Forest in Bedford County, home "One summer, in my childhood, when Mr. of the Radford family for more than two centuries. Jefferson had gone to 'The Forest' as was his wont to spend summer accompanied by his daughter and grandchildren, my parents and elder sister were invited, along with Judge D aniel... his wife and daughters and some other Lynchburg guests to attend a grand dinner party given to Mr. Jefferson by Mr. William Radford, a high-toned old Virginia gentleman 'who kept a brave old mansion at a bountiful old rate. Mrs. Daniel, bemg a lady of the old school, had instructed the young ladies to arise as soon as Mr. Jefferson entered the drawing-room and make a deep curtsy. A venerable man entered the room, and the young ladies arose and made a deep obeisance, not to Thomas Jefferson, but to Col. A., one of the neigh­ boring gentlemen, and they were so embarrassed that when the author of the Declaration of Independence really entered they gave him no salutation at all. I dare say Mr. Jefferson was much bet­ ter pleased as he was a very natural person and doubtless preferred a simple want of manner to the very artificial one then so laboriously taught in the dancing schools. "My sister confessed that her awe of Mr. Jefferson was much lessened by seeing him eat drink laugh and talk like ordinary mortals, partaking heartily of apple pie and sweet milk, a simple dessert set before him ..." The description of Jefferson behaving as an "ordinary mortal" truly describes his relationships with the people of Bedford. They were his friends and neighbors. Jefferson's granddaughter Ellen said that while the local gentlemen held Jefferson in high honor, they were also very much at ease with him. The Radford home today is occupied by a direct descendant of William Radford, Mrs. David Barrett (Anne Radford Barrett), daughter of the late Duval Radford.. —G a il P o n d , Collections Manager, Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest 68 �Did the Buffalo Roam in _________________________________________________ S by Gene Crotty T he "buffaloe" did roam over the Blue Ridge in Southwest Virginia. Proof is provided in the travel notes of early European explorers in the area who did record citing the native bison on numerous occasions. Therefore, these explorers and/or the Native Americans appropriately named several natural sites, such as rivers, streams, springs and gaps in the mountains with this likely title. An exami­ nation of maps of the southwest counties of Virginia will disclose more than one natural site by the name of "buffalo." The first recorded existence of buffalo over the Blue Ridge was by John Fontaine, a member of the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe excursion sponsored by Governor Alexander Spotswood in the fall of 1716. After passing through Swift Run Gap and into the Valley of Virginia, Fontaine recorded in his diary, "Bears, deer and turkey were abundant, and in the Valley the footprints of elk and buffalo were seen," according to Joseph Waddell's Annals o f Augusta County, 1726-1871, pp.18-19. "Buffalo roamed at will over these hills and valleys and in their migrations made a well-defined trail between Rockfish Gap in the Blue Ridge and Buffalo Gap in North Mountain by the present site of Staunton," Waddell said. The next recorded explorer to observe buffalo, closer to the Roanoke Valley, was Col. William Byrd, during his 1728 visit to the Teteras (Tetulos or Totera) Town on the Roanoke River. Col. Byrd reportedly killed a buffalo at a point southeast of the Blue Ridge Mountains, according to Lewis Preston Summers' Annals o f Southwest Virginia, p.10. In 1728, Byrd was surveying Southside Piedmont section for the divid­ ing line between Virginia and North Carolina. He reported the abundance of wild life observed in car­ rying out his job. He recorded observing "..wild geese, ducks, turkeys and passenger pigeons, along with wolves, wildcats, cougars, buffaloes and elk,"as reported in Franklin County Virginia 1786-1986, a Bicentennial History, by John and Emily Salmon. Early in the spring of 1736, an agent for Lord Fairfax visited the home of John Lewis, near Staunton in Augusta County. While hunting with Lewis's sons, Samuel and Andrew, the trio captured a fine buf­ falo calf which the agent escorted back to Williamsburg and presented to Governor ...Gooch, according to History o f the Early Settlement and Indian Wars o f Western Virginia, by Wills DeHass, p. 39. In 1740, John Peter Sailing took up a 400-acre homestead over the Blue Ridge at the Forks of the James (where the North or Maury River enters the James River). On March 16, Sailing and three other explor­ ers passed Natural Bridge on their journey to Woods (later New) River and shortly thereafter, Sailing recorded in his diary: "We killed five buffaloes, and with their hides covered the frame of a Boat; which was so large to carry all our Company, and all our provisions and Utensils," according to Roanoke County, WPA Writers Project, pp. 35-36. Dr Thomas Walker, on his 1749-1750 excursions to Southwest Virginia and onto "Kentucky Territory," said that he had stopped by William Calloway's store in New London, Bedford County, for supplies and afterward crossed over the Blue Ridge. On March 15, 1750, he recorded in his diary, "We went to the Gene Crotty, a Botetourt County historian, has written three books about Thomas Jefferson and another on the Lewis & Clark connection with Fincastle. (Editor 's note: Some archaeologists dispute the existence o f buffalo in this area because they say excavations have not produced evidence o f buffalo bones). 69 �great Lick on A Branch of the Staunton (Roanoke) River and bought Corn of Michael (Malcolm) Campbell (near Fort Lewis) for our horses. This lick had been one of the best places for Game in these parts and would have been of much greater advantage to the Inhabitants than it has been if the Hunters had not killed the Buffaloes for diversion, and Elks and Deer for their skins," Summers wrote in Annals o f Southwest Virginia,pp. 9-10. It is interesting to note that F. B. Kegley, in his Virginia Frontier, reported on p. 112 that William Callaway and two of his brothers came from Caroline County and settled in the New London area early in the 1740s on Buffalo Creek, a branch of Otter Creek. Farther on west, Dr. Thomas Walker wrote in his diary on May 2, 1750, "We kept down the (Cumberland) River. At the Mouth of a Creek that comes on the East side, there is a Lick, and I believe drere were a hundred buffaloes at it." Walker's last entry in his diary on July 13, 1750 read, "We killed m the journey 13 Buffaloes, 8 Elks, 53 Bears, 20 Deer, 4 wild Geese, about 150 Turkeys, besides small game. We could have killed three times as much meat, if we had wanted it." Summers, Annals o f Southwest Virginia, p. 26. J In the fall of 1750, another Virginian, Christopher Gist, set out to explore the western waters of the Mississippi River for the Ohio Company. When he arrived on the Little "Miamee" River, he observed 40 to 50 buffalos feeding at once. The next day, Gist killed "a fine barren Cow-Buffaloe and took out her tongue and a little of her best meat." It is interesting to note that this buffalo hunter considered the tongue of the animal to be a delicacy. Summers, Annals o f Southwest Virginia, p. 48. Streams and Rivers Named for Buffalo • Rockbridge County Buffalo Creek originates in the Short Hills and flows into the Maury River, which runs into the James River. • Amherst County Buffalo River originates north of the Town of Amherst and flows into the Tye River, then into the James River. • Botetourt County Buffalo Creek was the original name for Tinker Creek, a branch of the Roanoke River.. A small branch of Tinker Creek, originating at Troutville and entering Tinker Creek near Interstate 81, retains the buffalo name. • Floyd County—One of its highest mountains is called Buffalo Mountain. Buffalo Creek and Buffalo Bend Road are in western Rockbridge County. 70 �Court Day in Salem A s every one knows Salem has always been a very quiet town. It much prefers the good old j \ ways, and clings tenaciously to the traditions which look upon haste as undignified and -i- JLunseemly. Even sound seems to travel more slowly in Salem than elsewhere. Only once in its rather long history did it so far forget itself as to grow hustling and busy, and allow itself to be invad­ ed by modern noise and dash. That was during the late lamented boom. But bitterly has it rued its mistake, and so great has been the reaction that the Salem of to-day is as profoundly peaceful as in the calmest days or yore. There are still twelve days in the year, however, when the town rouses itself and signs of life become visible. These are the monthly court-days. On these stated occasions the town is invaded by the coun­ try population, which begins to pour in at an early hour in the morning and lingers till late in the afternoon. Some come on foot, a considerable number come in buggies or jerseys, but the majority come on horseback. Many are the motives that bring the crowd together. Some come in to buy and to sell, the jockeys come in to "swap," the lawyers come to attend to their cases in court, and dozens come, not because they have any business whatever, but because everybody else is here. Few things are more interesting than to lose one's self in the crowd and do a little observation on the quiet. Yonder on the corner is a broad-acred farmer with keen gray eyes just visible between bushy brows and populistic whiskers, declaring to his admiring neighbors that he "ain't seen nuthin' that peertens up land like this here Salem bone-meal." Beyond this group we see one of the Old Order Dunkard brethren approaching, his well-sprigged boot-heels clattering on the brick side-walk. Meeting an elect brother he greets him with a holy kiss, to facilitate which operation, the upper lip is always kept shaven. Court day comes as a great blessing to the Salem merchants who never fail on that date to do a thriving business. The provident farmer and his still more provident spouse bring in their but­ ter and eggs for exchange or sale, and with the proceeds lay in their month's supply of ;, dry goods and notions. We follow them into a Main Street store. After recovering from the shock caused by the announcement of the price, and after a long and pro­ foundly critical examination of the articles in question, they hesitatingly conclude that they will take a hat for Sammy and a pair of shoes for Mandy, where­ upon Sammy and Mandy, who are on their first visit to town, chuckle with unrestrained delight. Out in front of the courthouse green is the fakir tickling the crowd and taking in hardearned cash for bunion salve and for lightning rheumatism drops. Not far away on an invert­ ed goods box stands Salem's silver-tongued auctioneer offering several of the greatest barRoanoke College Student Isaac Cannaday produced these charming accounts o f life in Salem at the end o f the 19th Century. They were published in the college yearbook Roentgen Rays. Both articles and illustrations courtesy o f Salem Historical Society. 71 �gains every heard of. Farm machinery long years out of date, ante-bellum furniture with bedsteads not wholly untenanted, broken buggies, books—anything you please is there, and going at a sacrifice. And the good people come to the rescue and buy. Who can explain the fascination of an auction sale? What philosopher can read the rustic heart and tell why its possessor will stand in the rain and bid two prices for an article that he will never need, simply because it is being sold at public auction? The observer who has an eye for the ludicrous will not fail on court day to visit that part of Salem known as "Jockey Alley." It is here that business activity is always the greatest. Here are gathered in one promiscu­ ous array horses of all breeds, ages, sizes, colors, and degrees of decrepitude. The one thing that is entirely wanting is a good young animal in average health and possessed of the customary and proper organs and accomplishments. Yonder is a veteran that doubtless heard the roar of the artillery at Chancellorsville; here is another with the affliction of Bartimeus; here is a third the geography of whose sides is a system of parallel hills and valleys; while still another lifts his legs as if they had a door-spring attachment. The riders are scarcely less striking than the steeds they are riding; gaunt youths with slouch hats and formidable spurs fastened to the heaviest of high-top boots; middle-aged men with ill-groomed beards thrown out of proportion Sketch of an auctioneer at Salem's Court Days by a great quid of tobacco; old men who can tell you the was printed in the Roanoke College Roentgen history of every horse in the Alley, and who were dar­ Rays in 1898. ing traders before their eyes grew dim. All are out to­ day for business and that business is to "swap." Not a man in the Alley wants to buy and few of them would care particularly to sell. They are coming and going in a constant stream, always at full tile, the apparent spirit of the jades being secured by tight reining and a vigorous application of the spur. "Hello, Bill; how are yer?" we hear one say. "Hello, Gus, how 11 yer swap? They are out of their saddles in a flash. The work of examination begins at the mouth, which to the skilled jockey is an open book indicating the horse's age. His sight is tested by the simple expedient of holding one eye shut and making feigned blows at the other. Next comes the trial of the animal's wind. He is ridden at the top of his speed for two squares and comes back puffing like a bellows. "Will he work?" asks Bill. "Anywhar yer choose to hitch him" says Gus, "and blamed if I don t believe he an out-pull a yoke of oxens." The strength and endurance of the horse is in most cases supplemented by some choice profanity on the part of his owner, which for want of space we will here omit. The trade is finally consummated, either on even terms or by the giving of so much "boot." The latter seldom takes the form of cash, but is generally a well-worn watch, a saddle, or where the values are very close, a horn-handled pocket knife. While the scenes on the Alley are in the highest degree amusing, the strongest feeling that one car­ ries away is that of pity for the poor old beasts so poorly fed and cruelly handled. Salem has no S.P.C.A., although, if I mistake not, a kind-hearted Boston gentleman organized a mercy band in the College a few years ago. This band, I am told, was in a flourishing condition until a number of calves broke into the campus, whereupon the band suddenly went into pieces. It is to be hoped that some society with good staying qualities will undertake to reform the abuses on Jockey Alley. �Circus Day in Salem S alem has two periodic events of great importance—court day and circus day. The former comes once a month, the latter once about every two itself years. Court day brings with it a multitude of country people, a host of lawyers, and witnesses and a whole quota of jockeys and jockey nags. Circus day brings with it a multitude of country people, not the lawyers, but the witnesses and all classes and conditions of people. Attendance upon the one is optional, upon the other is compulsory. To miss court day is vile; to miss circus day is unpardonable. When a farmer comes to court he brings his horses with him; when he comes to a circus, he brings his family along. If you ask a Roanoke coun­ ty farmer why he goes to court, he will answer that he wants to swap horses; if you ask him why he goes to the circus, he will reply that the children want to see the elephant. On court day Huff roasts a bushel of peanuts, on circus day he roasts a barrel; on court day Huff sells in front of the courthouse, on circus day he sells at the tent. However court day may equal circus day in some things, in most things it is not comparable and certainly is not from a ludicrous standpoint. Court day makes you laugh; circus day will make you holler. If court day can be described in the Collegian, cir­ cus day ought to be portrayed in Puck. For every horse on court day there is a family on circus day, and for every jock­ ey on the former there is a courting couple on the latter. Circus day is original; it is novel. Search the world over and you'll not find its equal. It is a mixture of characters, races and conditions. It is a disproportionate mass of humanity. It is a combination of an experienced company of itinerants with an uncultured body of gazing rustics. It's hard to tell whether the circus An early circus parade in Salem was led by two camels and an elephant, is inside the tent or outside. advertising John M. Oakey Funeral Home and local stores. Who is the more ludicrous, the colored clown, or the country clodhopper? Who is more interesting, the snake charmer at the tent door, or the youth charmer on the street corner? The morning of circus day is the most interesting. At an early hour the country populace swarms in. Country people like to rise early, and by the time town folks, as a rule, have breakfasted the streets are crowded with the rural population. Everybody wants to see the parade. An anxious look of expecta­ tion is depicted on every countenance. The all-prevailing and never satisfactorily answered question is, "What time will the parade come along?" Some think it will pass at ten o'clock, others say eleven. Anyhow it will be from one to two hours late. Whoever heard of a parade being on time? It is not only like McCauley, sometimes late, but more like a wedding party, always late. The crowd becomes impa­ tient. "I wish that goldarned thing would come on," mutters a middle-aged farmer, who has already begun to censure himself for giving way to his children and coming to town, leaving his new-mown 73 �hay in the meadow. After considerable waiting and considerably more indications of impatience and disgust at the delay, the parade is seen slowly turning the corner of Main street a n d --------- avenue. On the impulse of the moment the crowd of small boys, both white and black, makes a bold dash for the approaching elephant. The older persons, with more judgment than impulse, resolve to hold their ground and see the parade just where they are. Aside from looking at the clowns and other animals there is real enjoyment and an unlimited amount of fun in watching the people. Never was a better opportunity afforded for character study. The student of sociology or politics always takes advantage ot a circus day to do a little observing. Across there on the sidewalk may be seen a countryman and his wife firmly stationed against the brick wall, while clinging close to them are their five children, two holding to their father's coat, three to their mother's dress; while all, per­ fectly oblivious of their immediate surroundings, are lost in wonderment at the splendor of the spectacle. One of the children, in a vain effort to get a better glimpse of the awe-inspiring sight, ventures to leave his mother's side for a peep. "Come back here, Bill," is the quick command of his father. "Ain't you got no better sense than to stand out thar in all them people? Some body'll tread on you. Come here." Bill quickly retreats behind his mother, knowing by expe­ rience that it pays to be on the safe side of his dad's wrath. Over yonder stands a rural couple, who, according to the country fash­ ion, have locked hands in the fear A rider did not spare the whip in a sketch of Jockey Alley in Salem, that during the rush they might be as shown in the 1898 edition of Roentgen Days, the Roanoke separated (an event, which, no doubt, College yearbook. they have already, by mutual agree­ ment, decided to prevent) and are clinging on to each other for dear life. The young fellow, always wanting to do the proper thing, has fortified himself with a bag of peanuts, from which he and his girl are leisurely eating, The first part of the parade by this time has reached the main body of the crowd, and the huge ele­ phant, an indispensable adjunct to a show, is already striking dismay into the hearts of the timid as he slowly moves his monstrous form along, striking dangerously to the right and left with his agile trunk. The parade over, the crowd (or at least a large part of it) betake themselves to the tent to explore the mysteries therein. And truly enough there is something mysterious about a circus tent. A small boy on the outside, with not enough change in his pocket to admit him, will, under the pressure of his insa­ tiable curiosity, give the well-earned wages of a month's labor only to get inside. An interesting thing at the tent is the talking machine usually stationed just outside on a platform for that purpose. He knows he's got only one tale to tell and he tells it without any regard, of course, to its veracity. So much for circus day in Salem. A lack of space forbids a further description and we fear that we have already tired our reader with our verbosity. By the time the next volume of "Roentgen Rays" is run off the press, no doubt the scenes of another circus day in Salem will have been reproduced. B 74 �/\/w V/ v V V' y V v/ y V \/y v v/ \/v \t \/ \/y v Proclamation! Hear Ye! Hear Ye! This Christmas Day, 1955 AN ORDINANCE hereby uniting the town of SALEM and the city of Roanoke and the town of VINTON, thereby creating the great city of “ SA L R O V IN ” WHEREAS, No vacant lands exist between the same, BE IT ORDAINED: WHEREAS, Since the Bryan family came to Salem in 1750 from Salem, N.J., they gave the town its name, and whereas, the town was incorporated on January 1, 1802, the Town Officials hereby and hereon agree to this happy consolidation. By: JAMES I. MOYER, Mayor Attest: W. FRANK CHAPMAN, Town Manager AND W H ER E A S, Since Roanoke City, named for Indian money, and chartered January 1, 1882, is suffering with growing pains, the offi­ cials of said City hereby and hereon agree to this most advantageous combine. By: R O B E R T W. W OODY, Mayor Attest: A R T H U R S. OW EN S, City Manager AND W H ER E A S, Mr. VINyard and Mr. PresTON met, shook hands and named V IN T O N , chartering same on March 17, 1884, the Officials of said town hereby agree. By: N ELSO N R . TH U RM AN , Mayor Attest: G U Y L . GEARHART, Town Manager A pproved: H . W ST A R K E Y Chairm an W E . C U N D IFF, V ice Chairm an Roanoke Counly Boaid o f Supervisors Approved: A pproved: PAUL B. M A TTH EW S, Sec’y H. C L E T U S BR O Y LES Roanoke County Planning City Engineer, Roanoke Commission J . R . H ILD EBRA N D Agent for Roanoke City Planning Commission W arning: T h e above is no reflection on anyone, living or dead, an d the pu blic is hereby n otified that this is only a C hristm as p ip e dream . ���cWisfo/ty l^Uusguw ô Çfctasto/ticai Society O F W E ST E R N V IRG IN IA Center in the Square, One Market Square, SE Roanoke, VA 24011 Tel: 540/342-5770 Email: history@roanoke.infi.net Web Site: www.history-museum.org ISB N #: 0-9710531-2-X � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia 2004 Volume 16, Number 1 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />No Contract Too Large or Too Small for C. Markley and Son<br />They Go Quietly: Agricultural Change in Franklin County<br />My Memories of Carvins Cove: A Long, Peaceful Valley<br />African Americans Have a Proud Ancestry<br />Gainsboro and Its Outstanding Black Citizens<br />Wilderness Road Began in Scott County<br />DAR Flower Show in Roanoke, 1896<br />Preston-Brown House: Old House Among Shopping Centers Searching for the ExplorerJohn Peter Saling<br />Graham's Forge Mill-Architectural Gem<br />John A. Morehead of Salem<br />Mr. Jefferson's Neighbors<br />Did the Buffalo Roam in Southwest Virginia?<br />Court Day in Salem, Circus Day in Salem<br />Proclamation: "Salrovin!" Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2004 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_16_01_2004 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6363/JHSWV_16_02_2005.pdf 46dad1bc3a88e295d0e46e1593ce7a3f PDF Text Text Society Of Western Virginia J Vol. XVI ournal No. 2 �it(Atony'TtùiàeuM&^¿(Atonical Of Western Virginia srntG i wiautium vtO'b ato^act (For the love of mountains inspires us) ö fä c c e w James F. Douthat ....... .......................... President W. Tucker Lemon ................................. Vice-President David L. Lemon ............................................ Secretary John P. Bradshaw ............. Treasurer D. Kent Chrisman ......................... Executive Director Betty Hundley......................... . Administrative Manager Som ct Sara Airheart Bruce Brenner C. Whitney Brown Jr. W. Jack Burrows Betty C. Craig Betty K. Dye Frank H. Ewald Scott A. Graeff William C. Hagan Gordon C. Hamilton David G. Helmer *Dinect<to& Martha K. Hull Charles E. Hunter III Robert H. Kulp John C. Lanford Stanard F. Lanford Philip H. Lemon Laura B. Logan Edwin E. Lunsford C. Whitney Markley Thomas O. Maxfield III James G. Overholser J. David Robbins Alice B. Roberts Ronald E. Sink Ralph K. Smith Quinn D. Thomas Mary M. Utt Virginia T. Vinyard Dr. E. Wilson Watts Cranston Williams Jr. VOiecto^ £menctu& George Kegley George Kegley Editor of the Journal Christina Koomen Smith Production, Editorial Asst. Barbara Lemon The Journal, Vol. 16, No. 2, chronicles the history of the Commonwealth west of the Blue Ridge. Published by the Historical Society of Western Virginia (formerly the Roanoke Historical Society), P.O. Box 1904, Roanoke, VA, 24008. Printed by Progress Press, Roanoke. The price for additional copies is $4 for members, $7 for non-members. The Museum will be careful in handling unsolicited materials, but cannot be responsible for their loss. �Tableo f Contents L2\ Note from fhe Executivi DilFctor M L ffhe ‘Progressive Reform’ Movement in Roanoke, Virginia, 1900-1912 byjtand Dotson 12 The Victorian Courtship of Miss Emma and Mr. Tinsley :byuavid W. C. Bearr % Mfe in 1905 ed. by .Cjeorge Keglyy 19 31 43 46 51 61 64 68 7Ì ll 84 Roanoke Families Built Many Roads from 1950 to 2005 by Stanard “Stan” Lanford § Bob Childress and His Six Rock Churches, by Dr. John Kern and Randle Brim The Early Presbyterians in the Roanoke Valley, 1749-1851 by John Hildebrand John Henry Pinkard and the African-American Banks of Roanoke by Michael E. Blankenship Civilian Conservation Corps Restored the Jefferson National Forest to Health by Loretta J. LeMay A History of Victory Stadium by Judge Jack B. Coulter The Lives of John, William, and John William McCauley , by Mary Elizabeth “Nona” McCauley Bush ' ^ ' Raymond Loewy’s 1949 Train Station by Bill Gieen ■ ; ' Fear on the Frontier in 18th Century Virginia by B. Scott Crawford How We Were a Century Ago: Roanoke Valley in 1906 Roanoke’s Streetcars Operated for 61 Years by'Jaines Dalmas; ^ Buffalo Mountain, Floyd County This issue of the Journal was made possible by a grant from The Foundation for Roanoke Valley, Stan and Elise Lanford Family Fund i �Note from the Executive Director r r n h e Historical Society of Western Virginia is pleased to present this, the 32nct issue o f the Journal, Volume Sixteen, Number Two. The Society continued to experience modest programmatic, budgetary, and membership growth during 2005. As a result, and following an intensive three-month special 2005 committee/board study, the institution was reorganized into component operating divisions, each with a guiding committee, budget, and assigned staff. Those operating divisions are: the Crystal Spring Steam Pump, the History Museum of Western Virginia, the O. Winston Link Museum, and Kegley Publications. Each remains fully a part of the re-christened Historical Society of Western Virginia, a name that the committee felt both harkened back to our original name, the Roanoke Historical Society, and best addressed our mission: “...to promote an interest in the broad spectrum of history with emphasis on that of western Virginia, to collect, preserve, interpret, and make available materials relating to that history; to sponsor research and publication in the field of regional history; and to provide educational serv­ ices to people and institutions throughout western Virginia.” Corner cupboard, early to mid-19th century, Bedford County. Donated by Christian Vinyard. 2 Highlights of 2005 included the exhibitions: Civil Rights Movement in Virginia, from the Virginia Historical Society; Evening Glamour, Everything but the Kitchen Sink, Images o f Roanoke Past, Working Out Her Destiny, from the Library of Virginia; and The Flood o f ’85. At the O. Winston Link Museum, exhibitions included the Norfolk Southern Calendar Show, a historic model train layout, and a series of rail images from the Society’s own permanent collection. The Link Museum also debuted two permanent exhibits, the Heritage Gallery, and the O. Winston Link Research Station, and expanded into an unused space of the Passenger Station trackside level. Both the Link Museum and the History Museum held active lecture series, with the History Museum holding nine, and the Link Museum debuting with six, as well as special events, ranging from the History Museum’s annual Fantasyland to the Link Museum’s now annual Santa By Rail. The Link Museum also gave over 25 outreach lectures to various community and civic groups. The 2005 agenda included bus tours to Albemarle County and the New River Valley, and a new Rail Heritage Day, founded in celebration of the 100th anniver­ sary of the Passenger Station, but now made an annual event. Having successfully managed a small private collection of O. Winston Link images as a traveling exhibition during its first year of operation, in 2005 the Link Museum acquired a sufficient number of images from the Link Estate to reach an original goal: the establish­ ment of an O. Winston Link Museum Traveling Exhibit. In its first year the exhibit was presented in Namur, Belgium, Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, and at Concord University in West Virginia. Through its operating divisions, the Society acquired several unusual and very significant additions to its collection in 2005, includ- �ing an unpublished (until now) O. Winston Link image, a large group of items with a long history of association with the Day, Wright, and Vinyard families of Roanoke County, a Bedford County comer cupboard, and an unusu­ ally well documented group of firefighting related objects (see accompanying photos). Lastly, bucking national and area trends and fully the result of tremendous volunteer efforts, the Society grew both from the perspective of active members and dedicated (endowed) fund sources. Individual/family mem­ berships rose from 638 to 695, and dedicated funds rose from $216,994.28 to $716, 409.67, almost all of which is due to the endowment component included with the O. Winston Link Museum campaign. The Society still oper­ ates on a razor-thin operating budget of less than $375,000.00. That covers the costs of two fully staffed museums, as well as all administrative costs of the Society. Despite placing a large amount of dedicated funding aside in 2005, the Society experienced a modest operating deficit. Please therefore consider an additional gift using the enclosed card. The staff and board are dedicated to conservative fiscal management and will use each dollar in the most care­ ful manner. To our members, corporate supporters, event sponsors, granting agencies, volunteers, and 50,000-plus attendees, thank you for your dedication and support. It is an honor to work with each of you. Kent Chrisman Executive Director New Acquisitions (Clockwise from bottom left) Before there were skateboards there was the Flexiflyer, like this one donated by Gail Oliver Palmer, which she used as a child in the early ’50s. Roanoke Fire Department artifacts include a portrait of L.E. Lookabill, circa 1890, published in the Roanoke Police Review of 1928. At age 18, Lookabill helped organize Roanoke’s second “Junior” Company; the color of the squad members’ helmets indicated position -- in the case of the helmet pictured, black indicated “president.” Also pictured are a Company president’s, belt, and a Fireman’s Service program. The Link Museum has acquired some seldom seen images Link shot in daylight, like the one above. 3 �The ‘ Progressive in R oanoke, R e fo rM | ovem 1griV9 0 0 -1 by Rand Dotson n the 1880s, no city in the South grew faster than the railroad hub of Roanoke, Virginia. Located in a valley of the Appalachian Mountains in the southwestern portion of the state, Roanoke had been the Town of Big Lick - a tobacco depot with about a thousand residents - until 1882, when a group of native businessmen used tax breaks, cash bonuses, and land grants to convince a Philadelphia investment firm to select the place as the junc­ tion, headquarters, and machine shops for its Norfolk & Western and Shenandoah Valley railroads. In the aftermath, skilled workers from the North and rural migrants from the Virginia countryside arrived in Roanoke by the thousands. By 1890, the “new” city of Roanoke had become the fifth largest municipality in Virginia. By 1900, the town was the state’s third biggest city and home to the largest locomotive manufacturing plant in the South.1Regional boosters, encouraged by the town’s seemingly spectacular rise from nowhere, declared it the “Magic City of the New South” and promised that Roanoke would soon become “the Atlanta of Virginia.” Conditions in Roanoke, however, were hardly magical. Corporate tax breaks given to secure the railroad left little funding for adequate municipal services or infrastructure improvements. New industries and workers’ housing went up in what had been cow pastures, and much of the town sprang up haphazardly with little attention to form or fimction. Roanoke’s business leaders, the men who successfully promoted the city to outside investors and industries, had an almost blind faith in economic development as a panacea for all the town’s problems. Their faith, however, failed to shape the city in the fashion they expected. As a result, by the turn of the century, the town still seemed more Big Lick than Roanoke. It was a city with numerous dirt streets, hundreds o f free-ranging cattle, a polluted farmer’s market, few enforced health regulations, a rowdy saloon and brothel district, overcrowded and dingy schools, and no public parks or library. I Roanoke s disordered and primitive conditions, which in the minds of businessmen threatened to retard additional economic development, eventually became an issue that they sought to remedy. They were not alone. The town s forces of “morality,” appalled by the city’s unruly saloons and thriving bordellos, moved to enact pro­ hibition and close down local brothels, while the wives and daughters of business leaders moved to ensure pure milk and food. Although these three groups usually had the same goals, much like “progressive reformers” else­ where m the nation, they did not always act in concert or agree with one another. They were, however, white, edu­ cated members of the town’s middle and upper classes, businessmen, professionals or their wives, and above all, willing to devote considerable energy to modifying their home in ways that recast it as a “progressive” metropolis. They shared a great deal in common with urban “reformers” throughout the nation - mainly because these pater­ nalistic Roanokers sought to impose their version of order on the chaos they perceived all around them.11 The first step in that process began when business leaders and elected officials eagerly endorsed disfran­ chising black and poor white residents - the main groups traditionally opposed to livestock and health restrictions. The city’s African-American voters - about 25 percent of potential ballots - had little real chance o f gaining access to political power on their own. In Roanoke, however, they joined newcomers from the North who also voted Rand Dotson, a Salem native, gave this paper at the Virginia Forum in Winchester in April 2006 It will be a chapterin hisforthcoming book, The Magic City of the New South: Class, Community and Reform in Roanoke,Virginia, 18821912. Dotson, a graduate o f Roanoke College, earned a master’s degree at Virginia Tech and a doctorate at Louisiana State University. He is acquisitions editorfor history and Southern studies at Louisiana State University Press. �A view looking south on Jefferson Street, about 1900. Terry Building is at left. (Historical Society of Western Virginia photo) 5 �Republican, which resulted in a politically divided City Council. The situation, the editors of The Roanoke Times complained, created “animosities that would not otherwise exist, destroying that feeling of fellowship and co-oper­ ation so necessary to the advancement and progress of our city.”111 Moreover, the paper argued, allowing blacks to vote had retarded business growth because investors were weary of establishing industries in a place where their fate would be “in the keeping of an illiterate element that knows not how to discharge the rights of suffrage.”lv The opportunity to eliminate Roanoke’s black Republican vote emerged in early 1900, when the state voted to hold a convention to modify its Reconstruction-era constitution in ways that would disfranchise African Americans and poor whites. Roanoke’s business leaders pushed hard for the convention, and 79 percent of local voters endorsed it.v When the state imposed the constitution in 1902, it disfranchised 80 percent of the city’s black voters along with a few hundred poor whites.vl Having removed a potentially dissenting voice from the ballot box, the city’s businessmen moved on to solve what they perceived as other “problems.”vu Although suffrage “reforms” pitted most whites against blacks, the city’s white community was deeply fractured over other issues. Roanoke’s middle and upper-class residents and elected officials had worked steadily to prescribe the behavior of newcomers from the countryside or African American inhabitants, passing laws, for example, that prohibited bathing in streams, damaging trees, putting up barbed wire fencing, and dumping slops into the streets.vul Although they eventually also outlawed cows from wandering unattended, most cattle owners ignored the law and let them roam freely. Manure from the animals dotted the city, attracting swarms of flies and the ire of its well-to-do residents, who lodged a constant stream of protests to officials about marauding cows hav­ ing eaten their shrubs or flowers and attacked their children. In 1902, upper-class residents convinced their representatives on City Council to hold a public vote on ban­ ning cattle within city limits. The local business community heralded the move, noting that cows roaming at large on Roanoke’s principal streets had become a civic embarrassment and threat to economic development.151 Cow owners held a vastly different opinion, and in a petition signed by hundreds of them, they informed City Council that banning cows would make it impossible for working men to supply their families with milk and butter.x At a subsequent pro-cow rally, speaker after speaker blasted the notion of banning cows, even by popular vote. Roanoke, one pro-cow politician told the crowd, was “not a town for people who wished to plant flower beds, to sit and watch them grow, with poodle dogs in their laps.”xl Businessmen responded with a promise from the general manager o f the N&W that Roanoke would never have a new depot as long as the city allowed cows to commit depredations on public property. They also formed an anti-cow club that issued campaign literature and provided free carriage rides to the polls.xu In the balloting that followed, however, those opposed to banning cows won by a single vote.51111 Businessmen and local papers loud­ ly disputed the results, and several months later, the N&W informed city leaders that if they unilaterally banned cows, the company would immediately construct a new $100,000 railroad depot. Much to the dismay of Roanoke’s working classes, Council eventually passed the ordinance.xlv The city’s forces of “morality” were much more interested in enacting prohibition than disfranchising blacks or banning cattle, and as a result, they stood largely on the sidelines during those “reforms.” To them, Roanoke’s longstanding reputation as a debauched, wide-open town, where saloons and brothels outnumbered churches and schools, was a much more significant problem. Local ministers and devout Christians were in the vanguard of the city’s prohibition crusade, but they also had widespread support from the wives and daughters of working-class males. The crusade to ban alcohol began in earnest in 1903, after ten local pastors organized The Roanoke AntiSaloon League and then successfully petitioned for a local option vote on prohibition.xv The city’s business com­ munity and most elected officials came out in force against the measure and quickly organized a well-funded anti­ prohibition campaign. According to them, prohibition would be a threat to Roanoke’s continued prosperity as well as a disaster'for its workers, who would have to become criminals in order to enjoy a beer after a hard day’s toil.xvl On Election Day, women and children affiliated with the Anti-Saloon League paraded in front of polling places with banners asking men to “Vote As God Would Have You.” Seventy percent of voters, however, cast ballots against the measure.xvn Over the next few years the League kept up its campaign and sought tangential measures to restrain alco- 6 �hoi sales. In the meantime, the Virginia Anti-Saloon League won a series of local option victories. Indeed, by 1908, “drys” had triumphed in most of Virginia’s towns and counties, eliminating about 1,000 of the state’s roughly 1,700 saloons. Roanoke County and four of the six counties surrounding Roanoke City had all enacted prohibition, as had all towns and cities in Southwest Virginia except Bristol.xvm In 1908, the city’s Anti-Saloon League successfully petitioned for another local option vote and convinced thousands of female residents to sign an appeal supporting prohibition. Roanoke’s business leaders, sensing the growing danger, responded by brokering a deal with bar owners that placed new restrictions on their operations and eliminated saloons deemed “objectionable.”xlx Although the prohibitionists this time won the ballot, Roanoke’s businessmen filed a lawsuit against the measure and convinced a judge to declare the election void because it had not been properly advertised. Over the next few years additional counties and towns nearby enacted prohibition and dozens of displaced bar owners and distillers relocated to Roanoke. The city’s Anti-Saloon League kept up its campaign but was repeat­ edly defeated by the local business community. Eventually it joined the Virginia Anti-Saloon League in focusing solely on enacting statewide prohibition as the ultimate means of “drying up” the town. As a result, Roanoke, a persistent thorn in the side of prohibitionists, did not go “dry” until 1916, when Virginia imposed prohibi­ tio n .^ Middle and upper-class women, the wives of the businessmen against prohibi­ tion, were largely silent on that issue. While they may have resented the saloon, prohibi­ tion seemed less important to them than pro­ tecting their children and homes. Like other “progressive” women, they used a definition of home that encompassed schools, play­ grounds, health regulations, and city beauti­ A horse-drawn wagon hauled dirt for the Anchor Co. foundation at fication; and they deemed these ‘domestic’ the southwest corner of First Street and Kirk Ave. (the present site issues as wholly within their female sphere of the Shenandoah Building) in 1910. (Historical Society o f Western Virginia photo) of authority. In 1906, dozens of them organ­ ized an Educational League to push for reforms in Roanoke public schools, all of which lacked proper ventilation, provided water out of a common buck­ et, and had dirt playgrounds.xxl Using their husbands as intermediaries, the Educational League eventually con­ vinced City Council to increase school spending to address these problems.™1 Many of the women involved in that campaign were also in the vanguard of the city’s pure milk and food movement, which sought ways to safeguard the town’s dairy supply. The women had a strong ally in Roanoke’s Mayor, Joel Cutchin, who although initially opposed to banning cows or inspecting milk, understood which way the wind was blowing and ordered local dairies inspected for cleanliness.™11 After these initial successes, several of the women behind the two campaigns met to discuss forming an umbrella organization to address all issues related to “matters pertaining to the good of the children of the city.”xxlv Shortly thereafter, they founded the Woman’s Civic Betterment Club of Roanoke. Its goals, they informed a local paper, included “gaining the co-operation of all loyal and progressive citizens to promote health and cleanliness and point to higher ideals.” The seventy-five initial members elected Sarah Johnson Cocke president, and in her subsequent acceptance speech, she pressed for a reform strategy that would be suggestive rather than active.xxv Although local papers claimed the women in the Club came from every section of the city, in reality almost all members resided in a couple white, upper-class neighborhoods. Almost all were married, and most were Roanoke natives whose husbands were prominent businessmen.™'1 The group’s first president, Sarah Johnson Cocke, moved to Roanoke from Atlanta in 1903, shortly after marrying a local lawyer. Before arriving in Roanoke, 7 �Sarah Johnson had been on the Woman’s Board for Atlanta’s 1895 Cotton States Exposition and the first treasurer of the Atlanta Woman’s Club. Her initial impression of Roanoke, she later recalled, was that it was like the younger sister of Atlanta. Its numerous problems, however, were also readily apparent. The city, she remembered, had “grown so rapidly that its busy citizens had, to a great extent, overlooked the inadequacies of village conditions to cope with the requirements of city necessities.”xxvn Once the Civic Betterment Club published its aims, Roanoke’s business community, newspaper editors and physicians lined up in support of the group and advised all residents to do likewise. The goals of the Club, the Roanoke Times proclaimed, belong “exclusively to the sphere of femininity and are the fundamental principles upon which the true home is constructed.”xxvin In another move to show its support, the paper gave the Club a column to publicize its goals. Mayor Joel Cutchin also heralded the Club’s emergence and became one of its most loyal supporters.xxlx In its first reform campaign, the Club sought health regulations for the local farmer’s market, which it proclaimed polluted with horse manure, rotting meat, and garbage. In an attempt to clean up the area, the women distributed guidelines to farmers detailing practices for cleanliness, including keeping themselves and their wagons clean, covering foodstuffs with oil paper, keeping dogs away, and refraining from spitting.xxx In keeping with its mantra of offering suggestions to city officials only after it had investigated a problem, the Club funded dozens of presentations by sanitary experts. At each of the lectures, business leaders and elected officials introduced the speakers and sat on the stage with the men while the women in the Club sat in the audience unacknowledged, entirely in keeping with their goal of “discrete suggestiveness.” Public opinion about the Civic Betterment Club, measured by the tone of letters to its newspaper column, varied from admiration to outright dis­ dain. Many of those who wrote in suggested that the Club get involved in issues clearly outside its realm of respon­ sibility, asking it to do something about dangerous railroad crossings and “negro loafers [and] bad boys.” The del­ uge of requests, according to the Club, was entirely foreign to its aims and desires, which it claimed were non-par­ tisan, discrete, and limited to the suggestive realm.50™ In order to mediate its dealings with the public, the women created a male advisory board composed of local business leaders. The men on the board, all of whom had wives in the Club, met about once a month to dis­ cuss its projects and offer advice. They also served as the male emissaries of the organization, handling contracts, soliciting donations, and working out the details of services provided by the experts it hired. Like other female “reform” groups in the South, the Civic Betterment Club benefited enormously from the backing of these business­ men. Indeed, with male approval, the women not only lessened the risks of public condemnation, in many ways they recreated the home by installing symbolic fathers as the protectors and benefactors of their organization.50™ 1 In 1907, the Club funded a lecture by John Nolen, an urban planner from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and rising star in the City Beautiful movement. Afterwards, it hired Nolen to draw comprehensive plans for improving Roanoke. When City Council declined an invitation by the Club to fund Nolen’s work, the women staged an elab­ orate Fall Festival to raise funds. According to Sarah Cocke, when Council turned them down, the Club decided that “it was no more expensive to build a beautiful city than it was to permit an ugly one.”50™ 11The festival attract­ ed thousands of visitors, most of whom patronized the dozens of elaborately decorated booths that served as its central feature. The Dixie Stall, for example, featured women in Civil War era hoopskirts baking biscuits in an elec­ tric oven decorated with dozens of Confederate flags. Other booths featured pure food demonstrations or displays of historical memorabilia from Asia and Europe.xxxlv The festival netted $5,000, which not only paid for John Nolen’s plan, but also funded its publication as Remodeling Roanoke. The plan, which came with a cost estimated at over a million dollars, called for widening downtown’s principal avenues, relocating all public buildings to a tree-lined central square in the heart of the city, developing a more rational arrangement of city streets, and creating a system of radial greenways and parks. According to Nolen, Roanoke had been blessed with numerous natural advantages but had developed so rapidly and in such chaotic fashion that it had simply gone from a village of 500 to a village of 35,000, or in his words, from Big Lick to Bigger Lick. As a result, he noted, the Roanoke of 1907 was “plain, common-place and in some localities, distinctly unsightly.” Although Nolen admitted that remedying these civic embarrassments would be expensive, he argued that the city’s lack of distinctive buildings made his plan more economically feasible since none of the structures standing in the way were worth preserving.50™^ 8 �Mayor Joel Cutchin pushed immediately for funding Nolen’s plan, but City Council debated the issue for a year before finally providing funding only for modest street and sewer improvements. While the Civic Betterment Club was disappointed, its members held tightly to a platform that precluded political involvement. As a result, according to Sarah Cocke, Nolen’s plan was “graciously received and safely deposited in the city’s archives.’,xxxvl Despite the setback, the Club remained active, albeit in a less public way. Indeed, its work behind the scenes with the aid of the Mayor contributed to the reorganization of the city’s Board of Health, the passage of a Pure Milk and Food Ordinance, and the creation of a public park and library.xxxvn Although the Club and its male supporters praised Mayor Cutchin for his efforts on their behalf, he was far less popular with Roanoke’s forces of “morality” for siding with the business community against prohibition. Moreover, because Cutchin believed the best way to regulate prostitution was simply to confine it to a particular area, he had repeatedly rebuffed their calls for a crackdown on the city’s brothels. In March 1911, however, those advocating a change in policy convinced a Grand Jury to indict him for gross negligence of duty for failing to close down the town’s “red light district” and on suspicion of being a frequent client himself.xxxvm The charges horrified members of the Civic Betterment Club, not only because of their close association with the Mayor, but also because they had invited him be the keynote speaker at the upcoming Virginia Federation of Woman’s Clubs convention they were hosting. Not long after Cutchin’s indictment, the Club informed him that “in view of existing circumstances” it had unanimously voted to “release” him from his promised address. The mayor, no doubt stung by the offer, canceled the city’s pre-convention clean-up day and publicly rebuked the women for deserting him.xxxlx After hearing lurid testimony from dozens of prostitutes, a jury later found Cutchin guilty and he eventu­ ally resigned from office.x^Although the Civic Betterment Club had up until then steered clear of morality issues, in the aftermath of the verdict it petitioned City Council for censorship of “immoral vaudeville, coarse jokes, and moving pictures giving needlessly criminal exhibition.”5^ ' When Council failed to act, the Club enlisted the sup­ port of the Chamber of Commerce and together they convinced theater owners it was in their best interest to abide by recommendations made by a jointly-staffed board of censorship.5^ '' In the years that followed, the Civic Betterment Club helped establish the city’s juvenile court system and Parent Teacher Association. During World War I, however, the Club became the Civics Division of the Chamber of Commerce, which shifted its focus solely to instilling patriotism in local children. After the war, the Civic Betterment Club became the Woman’s Club of Roanoke, a vastly less public organization, devoted primarily to civic art, domestic education, and gardening.5^ ''' Although progressive reform in Roanoke had a variety of goals, at its core it was a movement led by busi­ nessmen and their wives to modify their home in ways that would ensure continued economic modernization. Whether this involved disfranchising blacks and banning cattle or strengthening health codes and creating parks, the main goal was always to adjust Roanoke’s disordered environment in ways that made it more attractive to potential investors. Since enacting prohibition and ending prostitution were tangential to this goal, those issues fell outside the main currents of reform. Overall, progressive reform in Roanoke was extremely conservative in its out­ look - it did not advocate social justice or uplift, and never doubted the absolute suitability of Roanoke’s econom­ ic hierarchy or industrial order. Most of Roanoke’s reformers fit into what Dewy Grantham describes as a south­ ern progressive movement led by businessmen interested in creating a more orderly community through econom­ ic modernization and material progress. They also conform to William Link’s suggestion that southern progressivism was often paradoxical, impopular, hierarchical, undemocratic, racist, and paternalistic.x^'v In the context of ‘progressive reform’ in Virginia, Roanoke fits easily into the spectrum of reactions Raymond Pulley describes as a broad response to the disorder caused by the state’s post-Civil War business booms and underclass revolts - one of the worst of which was the cataclysmic Roanoke Riot of 1893. “Reform” in the Old Dominion, Pulley argues, was reactionary, conservative, anti-modem, and highly undemocratic. While Roanoke’s “progressives” may not have been quite as reactionary, they were certainly conservative in their outlook and unde­ mocratic in their methods, and they likewise enacted reforms they believed would forestall disorder and promote economic progress. (Notes follow) 9 �NOTES I This essay was presented at a panel on “reform” in Virginia at the first annual Virginia Forum conference, held in Winchester, Virginia, April 7-8, 2006. The author thanks his co-panelists, Ralph Mann and Christopher Curtis, and the session’s chair, Nelson Lankford, for his helpful comments on this paper. II Lawrence H. Larsen, The Rise o f the Urban South (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1985), 155, 157. *’* See, for example, Robert H. Wiebe, The Search fo r Order, 1877-1920 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1967), 111-132, 153-63; Richard Hofstader, The Age o f Reform: From Bryan to F. D. R. (New York: Vintage, 1955), 176-85, 216-18, Dewy W. Grantham, Southern Progressivism: The Reconciliation o f Progress and Tradition (Knoxville: University of Tennessee, 1983), xvi-xviii, 4-34, 158, 275-88; William A. Link, The Paradox o f Southern Progressivism, 1880-1930 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), xi-xiii. The terms “progressive” and “reform” are embedded with allusions to progress and betterment that are better left open to interpretation. Mainly, the terms denote changes enacted by upper class whites that may or may not have bettered the community or improved individuals’ lives. *v The Roanoke Times, 10 April 1900. v The Roanoke Times, 24 May 1900. V1 The Roanoke Times, 26 May; 7 June 1900. At the convention, delegates drafted a new constitution that restricted the vote to males who served in the Confederate or United States armies or navies during a time of war, to their sons, to men who had paid at least $1 in property taxes, to men who could read and explain any portion o f the new constitution, and to men unable to read who could explain any portion of the constitution read to them. All those who registered, except former Civil War soldiers, had to pay their poll taxes for the three previous years. These registration options, however, existed only in October 1902 and 1903. In 1904, those attempting to register had to meet all the above criteria plus prepay their poll taxes for the next three years and make a written application to vote, without assistance, in the presence o f a registrar. The Roanoke Times, 2 Oct 1902. VU1 For this same dynamic occurring in the rest o f the South, see Grantham Southern Progressivism, 10-34, 116-25; Link, Paradox o f Southern Progressivism, 70-85, 322; for the same dynamic in Virginia, see Raymond Pulley, Old Virginia Restored: An Interpretation o f the Progressive Impulse (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1968), 66-151. lx City o f Roanoke, Virginia, General Ordinances o f the City ofRoanoke, Together with other Ordinances and Contracts Affecting the Rights and Interests o f the City o f Roanoke (Roanoke: Bell Printing, 1884), 51 -52, 56-57, 70-71. x The Roanoke Times, 16 Sept 1902. x* The Roanoke Times, 24 Sept 1902. x'' The Roanoke Times, 25 Oct 1902. x’** The Roanoke Times, 29 Oct 1902. x’v The Roanoke Times, 5 Nov 1902. xv The Roanoke Times, 15, 16 July 1904. XV1 Virginia Anti-Saloon League, Temperance Handbook o f Virginia (Richmond: Anti-Saloon League o f Virginia, 1910), 17; The Roanoke Times, 22 Nov; 2 Dec 1903. xvii Yhe Roanoke Times, 8 Dec 1903. xvm j?or 0fficiai VOfe 0f 1,823 opposed to prohibition, 841 in favor o f prohibition, see, The Roanoke Times, 1 Jan 1905. XIX Virginia Anti-Saloon League, Temperance Handbook, 17-19; Allen W. Moger, Virginia: From Bourbonism to Byrd, 1870-1925 (Charlottesville: University Press o f Virginia, 1968), 297-305. xx “Agreement - between the undersigned Liquor dealers of the City of Roanoke, Va., in the one part, and the Business Men’s League of the City o f Roanoke of the other part,” in Edward L. Stone - Borderland Coal Company Papers, box 276, 1908 Anti-Saloon League file, Special Collections, Alderman Library, University o f Virginia. 10 �XX1 Moger, Virginia: From Bourbonism to Byrd, 308-313; Raymond Bames, A History o f Roanoke (Radford: Commonwealth Press, 1968), 536. xxii The Roanoke Times, 11 March 1906. jociii yjje Roanoke Times, 12 April; 9, 12, 18 May 1906. xx'v The Roanoke Times, 9, 10 Nov 1906 xxv The Roanoke Times, 22 Nov 1906. The Roanoke Times, 13 Dec 1906. xxvu w dman’s civic Betterment Club of Roanoke, Year Book o f the Woman’s Civic Betterment Club (Roanoke: Hammond Printing, 1910), 2, 7-11; demographics and husbands’ professions from city directories as well as Bames, A History o f Roanoke. xxvm Biographical information on Mrs. Lucian H. Cocke from The Roanoke Times, 29 Sept; 31 Oct 1903; 21 Jan 1944 (obituary); quote from Sarah Johnson Cocke, “From Hoopskirts to Airplanes,” 1-98, TMs (1933), Virginia Room-Roanoke City Public Library. Sarah Johnson Cocke later received national acclaim for her Bypaths in Dixie (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1911), a collection o f “negro folktales.” The Roanoke Times, 15 Dec 1906. xxx For examples, see Cutchin’s speeches to council in Roanoke City Council Minutes, 4 Feb 1907; 9 March 1908; 8 Feb, 10 Aug 1909; 6 June, 7 Nov, 17 Dec 1910, Clerk’s Office, Roanoke City Municipal Building. xxx' The Roanoke Times, 10 Feb 1907. xxx’’ See letters to WCBC in its column in The Roanoke Times, 10, 17, Feb; 3, 10, 24, 31, March; 7, 21 April; 12, 21 May; 2 June 1907. xxxm Male support o f female reform groups is discussed in James L. Leloudis, II, “School Reform in the New South: The Woman’s Association for the Betterment of Public School Houses in North Carolina, 1902-1919,” The Journal o f American History 69, no. 4 (March 1983): 889. xxxiv Samii Cocke, “The Woman’s Civic Betterment Club of Roanoke,” Virginia Realtor (Sept 1926): 36. xxxv gee coverage in The Roanoke Times, 13-26 Nov 1907; Festival Facts and Fancies, 12-23 Nov 1907, in Virginia Room, Roanoke City Public Library. xxxvl John Nolen, Remodeling Roanoke: Report to the Committee on Civic Improvement (Roanoke: Stone Printing, 1907), 10-11, 40. xxxvii Cocke, “Woman’s Civic Betterment Club,” 36. xxxvm city of Roanoke, Annual Report o f the Official Departments o f the City o f Roanoke fo r the Fiscal Year Ending December 31, 1910 (Roanoke: Stone Printing & Mfg. Co., 1911), 145-53; The (Roanoke) Evening World, 4 May 1912; Mrs. M. M. Caldwell, “Nationwide Work for Civic Betterment,” The American City 11, no. 6 (June 1912): 841-42. xxxix Cutchin’s March 29, 1911 indictment is reported in The (Roanoke) Evening World, 13 May 1911. x' The WCBC wrote Cutchin on April 22, 1911 to inform him of their decision, for this and the Mayor’s response, see The (Roanoke) Evening World, 6, 8,9, 10, 12 May 1911. x“ See coverage of the trial in The (Roanoke) Evening World, 15 May - 3 June 1911. After the trial, Cutchin appealed the verdict and refused to resign. In March 1912, however, Virginia’s Supreme Court rejected his appeal and Cutchin resigned from office. x™ The group began the campaign in November 1911; quote is from The (Roanoke) Evening World, 9 Jan 1912. xliii The (Roanoke) Evening World, 27 March 1912; see also listing o f fifteen WCBC members elected to the board o f censorship in ibid., 2 April 1912. xl'v History of the WCBC from George Raymond Stevens, An Economic and Social Survey o f Roanoke County vol. 15, no. 1 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1930) 118-19; Iva J. Geary, “The Woman’s Club o f Roanoke,” 1-2, TMs (1936), Federal Writers’ Project, District No. 5, Project No. 65-1700, WCBC file, Virginia Room, Roanoke City Public Library. 11 �The Victorian Courtship o f Miss Emma and Mr. Tinsley by David W. C. Bearr Mr. Tinsley, my relation to you makes life so much dearer to me ... / believe you would do all in your power to add to my pleasure [and] pray that God may prepare us fo r what He is preparing....1 -^ECC C.L. “Lipp” Tinsley Emma Comer oanoke was a boomtown in 1882 when Charles Lippitt Tinsley (1866-1941) arrived from Franklin County to clerk at Fishbume Bros. Co., a manufacturer of “Fine Virginia Smoking Tobacco.” He was a teenager and on his own, but armed with a strong work ethic, he believed “The Magic City,” where the Norfolk and Western Railway had recently headquartered, was the place to gain the experience and capital he needed to get ahead in business. In ten years he made partner and was vice president of the then reorganized tobacco firm, R. H. Fishbume & Co., Ltd., and with this accomplishment he turned his attention to courtship and the ultimate goal of marriage. With both of her parents deceased, Emma Carr Comer (1873-1953) lived with an older sister and brotherin-law, Anna and Charles Cook, in Vinton. Formerly a city resident, she remained a student at the Roanoke High School and sometimes she still worshiped at Greene Memorial Methodist Church. At both school and church she appreciated the fatherly attention of a family friend, Tipton Tinsley Fishbume-a school trustee, superintendent of the Methodist Sunday School, and one of Roanoke’s most prominent citizens. A decade earlier Fishbume persuad­ ed C. L. “Lipp” Tinsley to work for him at the tobacco company, and in 1892, he introduced his younger kinsman, a second cousin, to “a refined, yet wistful young lady at Greene Memorial.”11 A vintage black tin box, with red and gold accent lines, holds more than 400 sheets of the correspondence that Emma Comer and Lipp Tinsley exchanged during the four years they kept company, and these papers tell the story of a late Victorian courtship largely governed by a code of etiquette that mixed sentimentalism and morality. She greeted him in letters and in person as “Mr. Tinsley,” and he addressed her as “Miss Emma.” She finished her letters “Sincerely,” he wrote “Your tme friend,” and both concluded with a full-name signature. R David W. C. Bearr o f Westminster, Md., wrote about Emma Comer’s status as thefirst graduate o f Roanoke High School in the 2001 Journal and he has gleanedfrom Comer papers to write more about this early Roanoke family. He is the great-grandson o f Emma s brother, the Rev. Charles F. Comer. A veteran o f the public school and community college systems in Maryland, he teaches in the graduate department o f McDaniel College at Westminster. 12 �They avoided letter writing on Sunday (they reserved the Sabbath for rest and worship), but, whenever 24 hours separated them, they promised to write each other “just what I have been doing, have felt, have said, etc.” This pledge produced 12- and 14-page letters chock full of commentaries on people and places, as well as their dreams and disappointments. The predominant theme throughout their many letters was the couple’s concern over what she labeled her “blue spells,” when feelings of sadness and loneliness overwhelmed her. Their correspondence, even by Victorian standards, appears formal and reserved, occasionally humorous or sentimental, but rarely passionate. Emma said that his letters often caused her to search “my own heart,” but she conceded that he must read between the lines of her writing for evidence of her growing love and deep need for him.111 T he V in to n Y ears ...the noted physician, Dr. C. L. Tinsley, advises Miss Emma not to overdo, to think o f her needs, and to rest completely until she is well.lv - CLT In their proper society, Sunday afternoons brought gentleman callers to the homes of young ladies, and with a standing invitation Lipp Tinsley customarily rushed from Roanoke, after a mid-afternoon religious or civic meeting, and joined Emma and her sister’s family in Vinton. She recalled fondly one of the parlor gatherings: “We talked and giggled and joked ... popped com ... and -d o n ’t you tell- tapped our feet and tried to keep up with the fast tempo of the songs.” The surprise here is that only religious music was heard at the Cook household on the Sabbath, and when these lapses in manners occurred (ragging hymns and toe tapping) the older folks were surely out of earshot. Guests who stayed for supper joined the family for evening services at the Vinton Methodist Church.v Another mle of etiquette dictated that a gentleman could not call on a lady without her prior permission, and if it were not for the a.m. and p.m. rail service and trolley system that moved both mail and passengers between city and town, this point of etiquette might have squashed many last-minute plans for Emma and Lipp. She would hesitate at a sudden visit, but would acquiesce because he “always lifts my spir­ its.” And, sometimes the request served her inter­ ests too: “I will be real glad if you would call and bring your friend.” Her girlfriends from Salem and Roanoke were with her, and she could assure each gentleman “a pretty girl to talk to.”vl Public transportation was convenient, but its schedule could be unforgiving. If he missed the mail train Lipp paid a courier to take messages to Emma, but when the note carrier became enam­ ored with her, he teased that “if he were a little Lipp Tinsley on his bicycle. older I would be jealous and not allow him to con­ tinue.” On one severely cold day Lipp cycled to Vinton and his frigid look upon arrival triggered “the rumour all over town” that a frost-bitten ear had fallen off of his head. Emma feigned concern and needled him to “wrap your ear up well ... losing two would be doubly worse.”vii Even the honorable Mr. Tinsley occasionally ran afoul of the rules. After a prolonged evening visit he bare­ ly managed to jump aboard the last car back to the city. He wrote Emma that even if his return had been on foot it would have been a small inconvenience for the privilege of her company, but he also apologized for exceeding the time restraints of a polite visit. Another time he was on business in Vinton when he learned that she had taken ill, 13 �and he impulsively went to her side. Mr. Cook demanded an apology from Lipp for calling unannounced on his sis­ ter-in-law. _ , A courting couple was not intentionally left alone, but Anna Cook allowed her sister some liberty by per­ mitting Emma’s girlfriends instead of an older relative or married lady to escort them on outings. She and Lipp attended concerts at Virginia College and year-round events at “the local Methodist Churches we embrace,” St. Mark’s Lutheran, and First Presbyterian where they heard W. Creighton Campbell - the cleric credited with plac­ ing Roanoke on a “strong moral keel.” Their favorite warm-weather activity was a stroll in the city, and some of these walks involved a stop at Maury Bros. Portraits. Here the couple posed with her friends (chaperones) for the paper images that Lipp called “souvenirs.” For years they were the only pictures he had of Emma and him together since she did not allow a couple-only sitting until after their marriage IX Emma and Lipp saw each so often while she resided in Vinton that they could “gather no news to write.” They did correspond in August 1893 about her imminent return to school. He accused the school board of a “poor selection for the High School this session when they settled Company envelope from Lipp Tinsley’s correspondence with upon the old Carriage Factory” for classes. Emma Comer in 1895 and ’96. Emma’s “very indignant” classmates echoed his sentiment, but Emma was philosophical about the move necessitated by overcrowding at the Commerce Street School: “ ...the knowledge attained there will be just as valuable as if attained within college walls.” Her advoca­ cy probably also reflected some disappointment that she did not have the opportunity to follow my college alum­ nae sisters” to Hollins.x More significantly, in late August Emma felt quite “blue” and questioned whether she could return to school. She still experienced periods of grief over the early deaths of her parents and two other family members, and she wrote Lipp: “childhood memories of my losses have not softened and continue to bring tears to the eye and pain to the heart.” At times like these he attempted humor to break the spell: “as your eminent physician I prescribe total bed rest until you are no longer unwell.” Often she sought direction from her minister’s wife at Vinton, and Margaret Buchanan repeatedly advised her to keep “your overly analytical and questioning mind occupied with practical everyday things. Emma also asked her physician and former neighbor, Dr. Joseph A. Gale (later a founder of Lewis-Gale Hospital), “What must I do?” The particulars of this consultation are unknown, but Emma continued her studies and on May 25, 1894 was the first graduate of Roanoke City High School, then in its third year of operation^1 In July Emma was “in school” at Randolph-Macon Academy at Bedford, a Methodist institution that dur­ ing the regular academic session offered a boy’s preparatory program. Whether she attended a church or special summer school program is unclear, but while there she penned a note to Lipp that was as poignant as any she ever wrote: Life does seem so dark and dreary sometimes. But for the efficacy of prayer what would life be? I fully realize that the happiness of my life, largely depends on the course which I pursue. This is why I so often [say] that I am alone on the sea o f life, not knowing whether to direct my course.xu Emma’s vulnerability seemed only to bolster his desire to be with her, and upon receipt of this letter, he was on the next train to Bedford. 14 �W ord from Valley M ills Separation, to my mind, is a sure test o f one’s heart. It either tightens the chords o f affection or reverses them.xm - ECC In October 1895 Emma accepted a teaching position at a private school at West View in Augusta County, and she lived nearby with another sister and brother-in-law, Symanthia and W. E. Mays, at Valley Mills. Lipp protested the long-distance courtship and questioned why she undertook the difficult job of teaching. However, the time away made her homesick for “the mountain city” and made her heart grow fonder for the beau whom she “looked up to in every way.” She was proud of her effort in the classroom, but believed that “one would require the patience of Job to do this for very long.”xlv By November Emma and Lipp had “a plan,” and although they never used the word “engagement,” they were clearly on a course toward matrimony. She recounted for him a recent sermon in which her minister stressed that the time for marriage is “not until after one’s character is formed,” and she concluded “that no young person ever weighed a more serious thought.” He informed her of their Roanoke and Vinton contemporaries who were betrothed or recently married, and he gave his opinion on whether each lady had “settled” or had found the “love of her life.” Regarding a couple who was with child as they approached the altar, Lipp hoped that the man would be a more honorable husband than he was a suitor. Emma countered, “boys are tricky ... it lies with girls to exhibit propemess.”xv About this time a Tinsley cousin gave Lipp an 1861 family keepsake, Advice to a M arried Couple, and he and Emma studied the book published by the American Tract Society. They exchanged light-hearted banter over the idea of a Emma Comer ^ seated) posed ^ Upp Tins|ey a|ong wjth her wife s subordination to her husband. He girlfriends (chaperones), probably on a Sunday promenade, offered: “I will never disagree with you, will solicit your opinion on everything, and then make it mine.” W. E. Mays urged Emma to “secure all the promises ... in writing.” The biblical quote, “Ye husbands, give honor unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel,” (I Peter 3:7) supported Lipp’s already roman­ ticized vision that his devotion to Emma would bring her contentment and make him the ideal spouse.xvl Further advice put forward the belief that throughout the ages one of the most humiliating instances between a couple can occur when a “monopoly of affection” is demanded by either party. Despite their desire for “harmony and fair play” in their union, this circumstance proved problematic for Emma and Lipp even before their marriage. With his sisters and mother in Roanoke at Christmas, he promised Emma to come to Valley Mills on December 22 but he would have to be back in the city by the 24 . After he learned that she was teaching the days he planned to be with her, he postponed his trip until the following week. Emma had held her tongue, but with the new schedule she made clear to Lipp her angst. He wrote: “Miss Emma there is no one on earth that I had rather spend my holidays with than you,” but he felt compelled to stay with his family, too. A year’s end message con­ firmed his presence at Valley Mills on Christmas Day.xvn Soon “previous loyalties” again rocked the couple’s relationship. Emma fretted “every day over how [to] 15 �handle our plan,” apparently hesitant to commit to a firm date for the wedding, and as she did many times over the years when something weighed heavily on her mind, she decided to visit Margaret Buchanan who now lived in Covington. As she prepared for travel, Lipp encountered someone in Roanoke who knew about Emma’s melan­ choly ways, and he surmised that the talk came from “the long tongue” of the minister’s wife. In an uncharacteris­ tically aggressive step Lipp headed to Valley Mills and demanded of Emma to sever all ties with “Mother Buchanan.” She hoped he would forget the entire affair, but Lipp pressed that he had “no forgiveness for someone who may betray you.” A devastated Emma cancelled school and retired to her room.xvul No letter exists with further men­ tion of this conflict, perhaps the correspondence was destroyed, but Lipp had gleaned from the advice book that unresolved conflicts were like “the drip, drip, drip of water that cuts at rock greater than a violent storm.”xlx Young couples committed to each other, but separated by many miles, remained a part of the social scene. Etiquette required a young lady to have an escort at functions, and while Emma had gentlemen consorts in her neighborhood, Lipp also made it proper for several ladies in Roanoke to attend functions. The couple went out of their way to keep each other abreast of these arrangements, but always with a tongue-in-cheek attitude. She and her partner were croquet champions at one party, and on another night a young man serenad­ ed her on the guitar “as the sun drops behind the western hills.” And, she inquired of Lipp, “you... spent a jolly evening yourself?” When he filed a most fanciful scenario of his own nocturnal singing, she warned him that she was “possessed Honeymoon photo of Charles Lippitt and Emma Carr Tinsley ^y the Green-eyed Monster of Jealousy.’,xx made in Norfolk soon after their marriage on Sept. 29, 1896. Books and newspapers were daily com­ panions for Emma and Lipp and helped to fill the hours while they were apart. She was a fan of fiction from the popular serial dime novels about the Wild West to Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. Thinking that Lipp might be “too delusional” about marriage, she persuaded him to read the English novel with an eye to the author’s more sobering views on the matter. He sent her envelopes filled with clippings from the two dailies he read, and he forwarded to her under separate cover entire issues of the Methodist Advocate. He never tired o f theology and “figuring out how to best live” his life, and it was the religious journal that he “curl(ed) up with on a Sunday afternoon.” She looked in the tract for one more discussion on the meaning o f sanctification “always hoping for greater assurance that I will live as I should.” In a lighter vein, she asked Lipp if he saw the article about “saving the minister,” and she quipped: “If we follow the advice of the writer, we will never be at a loss for something to do.”xxl Mid-summer in 1896, the couple formally notified their families by mail of “our plan” to marry. Emma’s family questioned if her “frail condition” precluded a married life for her, but to the contrary, his family considered it quite suitable to match a nervous person with a sympathetic and quiet type. According to their wisdom “the excitable will be quieted by the gentleness of the other.,,xxu 16 �E pilogue Their long courtship concluded on September 29, 1896, when Emma Comer and C. L. Tinsley united in marriage at Staunton. The honeymoon itinerary included stops in Roanoke, Vinton, Lynchburg, and Norfolk to greet relatives and friends, and then they came back to “our Magic City” to set up housekeeping. Their only child and her namesake, Emma Comer Tinsley, was bom on November 13, 1897, and a few years later the family occu­ pied their new home that stood for half a century on the northwest comer of 13^ Street and Campbell Avenue, opposite West End United Methodist Church. C. L. Tinsley was recognized as a Roanoke Pioneer during the city’s 1934 Golden Jubilee Days. He was a 50-year member of the Osceola Lodge of the Knights of Pythias and a perennial steward in the Methodist Church, a member first at Greene Memorial and then at West End. For three decades, he was president and principal stock­ holder of the Tinsley Construction Co., Inc.-General Contractors. The secretary-treasurer of the business was E. C. Tinsley, either wife or daughter dependent upon which lady was present. Emma Tinsley dealt with intervals of depression the rest of her life. Her husband sought the intervention of an internationally renowned Philadephia neurologist, S. Weir Mitchell, to treat her. His diagnosis for Emma was neurasthenia, and his “rest cure” therapy included total rest, massage, electric stimulation and a high fat and high caloric diet. Treatment took place over a six-week period, at either a clinic or private retreat and during this time the patient was not allowed to contact her family, read, write or engage in any other activity that might be stress­ ful. Mitchell’s successors took a seemingly less pampered approach to her care and interestingly, some of their advice mirrored that offered to Emma during her courtship by Margaret Buchanan, the minister’s wife. After attending Hollins College and graduating from the University of Virginia, their daughter, Miss Emma Tinsley (1897-1981), taught science at Roanoke’s Lee Junior High School and then biology at Jefferson High S c h o o l.™ F ootnotes * Emma Comer, Letter to C.L. Tinsley (EC), 10 December 1895 11 Letterhead, R. H. Fishbume & Co., Ltd.; Millard Rewis, Jr., “Tipton Tinsley Fishbume,” His New Creation (nd), 47-50; Miss Emma Tinsley, personal notes (ET) “Manners,” Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, Vol. 2, 395-401: EC, 6 November 1895;__, 23 March 1896; C. L. Tinsley, Letter to Emma Comer (CT), 15 October 1895 iv ...., 27 June 1896 v Later the Vinton Church was renamed Thrasher Memorial after Paul and Sallie Thrasher, who held in their home about 1801 the first Methodist services in Vinton. Tinsley regularly attended meetings of the Rosebud Society (missionary organization), the Y.M.C.A., and the Knights of Pythias; ET v| EC, 18 September 1894, 4 March 1895; CT, 2 August 1895 vii EC, 10 December 1895; CT, 8 August 1893 ;_,1 6 November 1894, 20 December 1894; EC, 18 September 1894 lx CT, 22 July 1895; “Dr. W. Creighton Campbell, Twelve Largest Contributors to Building o f Roanoke,” The Roanoker Magazine, (web­ site: 1/31/2006). x CT, 8 August 1893; EC, 10 August 1893; ET notes. xl Margaret Buchanan, Letter to (Miss) Emma Tinsley, 23 January 1941; EC, 10 August 1893; Roanoke City High School diploma for Emma Carr Comer, 25 May 1894; ET notes xii EC, 16 July 1894 x iii _, 23 March 1896 x‘v __, 31 January 1896; 10 December 1895; 11 January 1896 xv__ , 31 January 1896, 29 June 18967; CT, 25 February 1896 XV1 Rev. James Bean, The Christian Minister is Affectionate Advice to a Married Couple (nd): 23, 39, 42; EC, 29 January 1896. xvii CT, 12 December 1895 xviii March 1896 xix EC, 3 September 1894; CT, 21 May 1896 XX_EC, 11 May 1896; 10 December, 1895 xx' CT, 11 January 1896, 4 February 1896; EC, 23 March 1896. 17 �xxn W. B. Tinsley, Letter to C. L. Tinsley, _ J u ly 1896: “The Old Suitability Rules,” loose papers titled “Victorian Courtship.” Emma was tentative about her marriage. In a 23 March 1896 letter she wrote: Emma’s wish: “I do trust, Mr. Tinsley, that you are not looking to a delu­ sive; future, but that all may be as real as you expect.” xxm ET; author’s family archives. Life in 1905 What a difference a century makes! Here are some of the U.S. statistics for the year 1905: • The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years. • Only 14% of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub. Only 8% of the homes had a telephone. • A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost 11 dollars. • There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S., and only 144 miles of paved roads. • The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 miles per hour. • Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California. • With a mere 1.4 million people, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union. • The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower! • The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year. A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year; a dentist $2,500 per year; a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year; and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year. • More than 95% of all births in the U.S. took place at home. • 90% of all U.S. doctors had no college education. Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as “substandard.” • Sugar cost four cents a pound; eggs were fourteen cents a dozen; coffee was fifteen cents a pound. • Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax or egg shampoo. • Five leading causes of death in the U.S. were: (1) pneumonia and influenza; (2) tuberculosis; (3) diarrhea; (4) heart disease; (5) stroke. • The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was only 30! • Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea hadn’t been invented yet. • There was no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. • Two out of every 10 U.S. adults couldn’t read or write. Only 6% of all Americans had graduat­ ed from high school. • Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local comer dragstores. Back then, a pharmacist said, “Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health.” • 18% of households in the U.S. had at least one full-time servant or domestic help. • There were about 230 reported murders in the entire U.S. TR Y TO IM AG IN E W HAT IT M A Y B E L IK E IN ANO TH ER 100 YEARS! CE d ito r’s note: These statistics were gleaned fro m several web sites.) 18 �by Stanarci "Stan" Lanforct A / \ fter working for over 50 years in the highway construction field, I have a great interest in recording the history of some of the interesting and energetic entrepreneurs who worked in the highway construction and JLallied businesses and in the stories about their companies. In many cases there is a strong family connec­ tion that led the men to become road builders. I will attempt to show the family connections and how these families often helped one another to succeed in a very competitive business. In some instances a strong personal friendship developed between contractors as they learned whom they could trust. These contractor friends often offered advice and “deals” to each other. In my writing I hope to give at least a snapshot of the many road-building companies which have located in the Roanoke area. One of the more interesting stories can be told about a New York native who started his construction career in Virginia well before the Civil War and later developed into one of the largest railroad contractors in the country. Through his wife’s relations, this railroad builder also had connections with a firm that is well known in the Roanoke Valley. Stanard “Stan ”Lanford retired as president o fLanford Brothers Co., a Roanoke County contractor, in 2004 after 50 years o f experience. He begins a two-part history o f road builders, many o f them family businesses, in the Roanoke Valley and western Virginia. Lanford, a civil engineering graduate o f the University o f Virginia, served in the Air Force before working in construction. Kenneth Lanford, his son, is the third-generation president to lead Lanford Brothers. 19 �Family R elationships and T ransportation C onstruction Transportation construction can be broken into several categories: water-borne, footpaths, wagon roads railroads, highways and airports. In colonial times, Virginians used their many coastal rivers and larger creeks to access their plantations for shipping tobacco and other goods in and out of the colony. Local landowners were charged with furnishing labor to construct and maintain the required wagon roads and paths needed by the com­ munity. At that time road construction was mostly a matter of clearing the trees, stumps, and underbrush to open up a trail and providing bridges and or ferries for adequate water crossings. Thus, many o f the farmers had some experience at road work. When the era of canal building started in Virginia in the early 1800s, there were no large construction com­ panies to build these projects. Canals along the James, Potomac and many smaller rivers were built to bypass the rapids and sections with low water. By the 1830s, railroads were being constructed in Virginia This canal building and railroad construction was contracted out to local entrepreneurs who thought they could organize the manpow­ er and equipment to accomplish the task. One of these early contractors was Claiboume Rice (usually known as “C.R.”) Mason. According to the 1850 census of Hanover County. C.R. Mason was bom in New York about 1810 and married Drusilla Boxley, bom m Louisa County. They had four children; three were sons who would eventually be partners with their father in construction work. C.R. Mason also owned 14 slaves, according to the 1850 census of slave inhabitants o f Virginia. His real estate was valued at $11,000. His occupation was shown as railroad superintendent. From other sources we know that Mason constructed the first section o f the Louisa Railroad from Doswell to Fredericks Hall by 1837. By 1839, the Louisa line had been extended to Gordonsville, making a nearly direct line to Richmond by connecting to the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad at Doswell. Railroad con­ struction was largely done with hand labor and horse-drawn carts at this time. Slave labor was probably the source of much of this manpower. The Louisa Railroad was changed to the Virginia Central Railroad by 1850 and ulti­ mately was to become part of the Chesapeake and Ohio after the Civil War. • rJhf b° ° k’ S° nS ° f Martha’ the History o f Mason and Hanger Company, states that C-.R. Mason ran the ouisa Railroad in its early days. That would explain his occupation of “railroad superintendent” in the 1850 cen­ sus. By the 1860 census Mason had moved to Augusta County and his wife, Dmsilla, not listed, had probably died Mason now had nine children, four sons and five daughters. The three oldest children, aged 20 18 and 16 were bom m Louisa County, indicating that he lived there from 1840 tol844. This is the time when the Louisa Railroad had been completed to Gordonsville and Mason was in charge. The next four children, aged 14 11 10 and 8 were bom m Hanover County, where he was located in the 1850 census. The two youngest children, ages 5 and 1 were bom in Augusta County. This would indicate that he had moved from Hanover to Augusta by 1855. 11 ddltl° nal ^ ab° Ut MaS° n “ thC 1860 CensUS tells us that he had $24>500 in real estate and a whopping $311,400 in personal property. This personal property included the value of his seven slaves in Augusta County and another 16 he had working m Alleghany County on his railroad construction projects that were complete only to Clifton Forge before the Civil War. The 1860 census o f slaves showed that he had two partnership projects using his own and rented slaves. The partnerships were named Mason and Cross and Mason and Johnson. Mason and Cross had 38 slaves employed, none owned by C.R. Mason. Mason and Johnson had 91 slaves working, including 14 owned by Mason. The partners that Mason had on these projects were probably the persons actually running the job on a full-time basis. Many contractors took a partner to help them complete a contract and dissolved the part­ nership at the completion of the project. Another firm named Ward and Rixey was using 55 slaves apparently for the construction of the Virginia Central railroad to Clifton Forge. The 1860 census states that Mason's occupation was “railroad and mail contractor.” With over $335 000 m land and personal property, he must have been one o f the wealthiest men in Augusta County at that time At 50 years of age he should have been ready to settle down and enjoy life, but that was not to be as America was about Title picture: A Sam Finley Co. asphalt truck, about 1925. 20 �1 ! > I I I to begin a terrible Civil War. Mason was to play an active role in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. He raised Company H of Augusta County men for the 52nd Virginia Regiment and went to war with that group. His ability to construct roads and bridges soon caught the eye of General Stonewall Jackson, and Mason was quickly placed on Jackson’s staff as a captain and head of his Pioneers (similar to the Corps of Engineers in today’s Army). Jackson fondly referred to Mason as his “bridge builder.” Mason built many bridges and roads for Jackson’s Army as it marched across much of Virginia. The company history tells us that C.R. Mason went back to railroad construction after the war. He was con­ tractor on the westward expansion of the Virginia Central through much of West Virginia and into Ohio. One record accomplished on this railroad was the placement of over a million cubic yards of dirt and rock in a rail­ road fill at Jerry’s Run in Alleghany County between 1867 and 1870. When Collis P. Huntington pur­ chased the old Virginia Central and renamed it the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, he continued to rely on Mason. He is reported to have said that Mason “pitched the first shovel full of dirt and drove the last spike in the C&O System.” C.R. Mason went on to expand his business to building much more than railroads as the company grew over the next 125 years. The company eventually took the name o f Mason and Stanard Lanford (right), a founder of R.B. Gay & Co., a predecessor of Hanger, building many projects, Lanford Brothers Co., stands by a steam shovel on a construction site in including work on the Radford the 1920s. Arsenal for the U. S. government during World War II. Many hundreds of Roanoke workers rode special trains to Radford and back each day to com­ plete the important project of furnishing ammunition for our troops in World War II. On the day President Franklin Roosevelt’s death was reported in The Roanoke Times, Mason and Hanger ran an advertisement seeking 800 car­ penters and 300 laborers in the help wanted ads. Mason and Hanger Company was sold to a larger corporation around 2000. Drusilla Boxley Mason, wife of C.R. Mason, had a nephew, Joseph Cluvarius Boxley, who had a daughter named Margaret Ellen Boxley. Margaret Boxley married Caius Marcellus Carpenter in 1848 and one of their chil­ dren was James Cluvarius Carpenter, usually referred to as Clivie. Clivie was bom in 1853 and died in Clifton Forge in 1910. Clivie went to work for C.R. Mason in 1870, constructing the Virginia Central Railroad, when he was 17 years old. In a short time he rose from water boy to cart driver to foreman. Six years later he returned to the family farm in Louisa County to live for the next few years before venturing to Richmond to work in the tobac­ co business. By 1886 he was ready to start building railroads again and entered a partnership with Mason. Their work proved to be a success and Clivie and C.R. continued to work together on railroad construction for about six years. Another Boxley cousin, William Wise Boxley, better known as “W.W.,” had been working for Clivie Carpenter and C.R. Mason through much of the 1880s. W.W. was bom on July 17, 1861 while the First Battle of Manassas was being fought. W.W. and Clivie Carpenter entered a partnership to build railroads about 1892 under 21 �the name of Carpenter and Boxley. Their first project was to build a railroad in North Carolina for the Southern Railway. By 1893 both Clivie and W.W. had moved to Clifton Forge, their base of operations in working for the C&O Railroad. Other names mentioned in the History o f W.W. Boxley Company as working for Carpenter and Boxley were other Boxley cousins, Willie Haley, Therit Towels (W.W.’s brother-in-law) and the Chisholm boys. The Haley and Chisholm names are connected with another railroad construction company started in the early 1900s under the name, Haley, Chisholm & Morris out of Charlottesville. W.W. Boxley located in the Roanoke area in 1912. He served as mayor of Roanoke from 1918 to 1922. The W. W. Boxley Company was a large builder of railroads and roads in Virginia and the eastern seaboard from 1900 to 1930. We will learn more about this firm later. It is apparent from all these family connections and so many of these workers starting from the farms of Louisa and surrounding counties that many of the young men in this part of Virginia wanted to try to improve their lot m life by working on construction projects where they earned a payday on a regular basis. Compare this to farm work where payday came when the crop was sold or timber harvested, which would mean a long wait before any cash was available. Many of the young men who saw that a cousin or uncle was able to become a successful con­ tractor having made the transition from farmer to contractor, thought they might be able to do the same. A n E xample from M y Family Now I want to share another story about a young farm boy in Virginia who had a vision that construction work could be his ticket out of subsistence farming into a better life for a family he hoped to have one day. In February 10, 1926 a young woman wrote a letter from the Boone County Coal Company in Sharpies, W.Va., where she worked, to her parents in Bowling Green, Ky. She described a young construction worker she met and fell in love with. She had announced her engagement to her parents and answered some ques­ tions they had raised. She described her fiancé as a “fine fellow and a perfect gentle­ man, has a good job, working for the Gilbert Construction Company, and makes $275/month. He is 22 years old (which is not quite true, as he was bom on February 14, 1906 and had not quite reached age 20 at this time) and is very much interested in a future. He has great plans and I am sure he will amount to something. He is going into the contracting business for himself with one of the men in this company now in a little A crew poses with an early road grader at Sharpels, West Virginia, in while.” -• The letter contained more per­ sonal information, but the interest­ ing remarks about the young man s plans to start his own business at an early age makes one wonder about his background to believe he could successfully start a business at such an early age. The young man was bom on a farm in Louisa County and had limited education. His mother had taught school before she married and probably home schooled this, her oldest child, as he did not enter the public school system until he was 10 years old. Before he was 15, he was working on construction projects in Parlett, Ohio and a year later in West Virginia. He was ambi- 22 �tious and before he was 18 years old he had become a steam shovel oper­ ator after having worked as a con­ struction laborer and fireman on a steam shovel. The steam shovel operator in the 1920s held an important posi­ tion in the excavating construction company’s ability to get its work accomplished. Most contracts for highway construction were and still are unit price contracts. The contrac­ tor bids on an estimated quantity of excavation to be moved, as well as other items such as lineal feet of pipe of various sizes to be laid and other items, each with its own unit price. Building new roads across John Lanford (right), a younger brother of Stanard Lanford, with a crew West Virginia required a large vol­ and a wagon beside an antiquated steam shovel in 1927. ume o f earth and rock to be removed. The invention of the steam shovel greatly increased the productivity of the company provided it had a good operator on the steam shovel. The shovels had many control levers and foot pedals that required excellent hand-eye coordination to obtain good pro­ duction rates for excavating the earth and rock to shape the new roadbed. The best operators could keep their steam shovels properly maintained so the machine could dig all day every day. The young man’s uncle was part of a newly formed (1923) Gilbert Construction Company and the young man was to become a full-time shovel runner on the project to build what is now known as Route 60 near Hawks Nest at Anstead, W.Va. The partners in the newly formed Gilbert Construction Company were Enrico Vecellio, Lit Coleman (uncle of the operator), and Dick Gay, who had the most education of the three partners having attended one-year post high school at Fork Union Military School. Gay and the shovel runner were to become partners in an offshoot of the Gilbert Construction Company in 1942. It took the shovel runner a while to do it, but he finally got his own company 16 years after he had promised his bride-to-be that he would do so in a few years. The Great Depression o f the 1930s certainly played a part in the delay. The young shovel operator’s name was Stanard Lanford and the young woman who wrote the letter was Betty Compton. They married in 1928 and they were my parents. The new business was called R.B. Gay and Company and was headquartered in Roanoke after 1946. This firm constructed highways and railroads in West Virginia, Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia from 1942 until 1953 when Gay withdrew from the part­ nership due to illness. In 1953, a new partnership was formed in Roanoke under the name Lanford and Slater that included Stanard Lanford, his two sons, Jack and Stan, and Ted Slater, a long time employee of Gilbert Construction Company. This company evolved into Lanford Brothers Company, Inc. in 1960 and is still operating today with third generation Ken Lanford as the president. Two other companies were offshoots of Gilbert Construction Company. One was the well-known firm of Vecellio and Grogan of Beckley, W.Va., and Palm Beach, Fla., founded in 1938, that is still in business today, oper­ ating under a third generation president. The second was L.S. Coleman Company of St. Albans, W.Va., that exist­ ed from 1942 until about 1983 when it shut down after the death of Lit Coleman and the retirement of his son, Jim Coleman. The opportunities were few for a young man who was raised on a small farm in Virginia to break away from the family farm, where cash was always scarce and paydays tended to come only when a crop or animal could 23 �be sold. However, the skills that many of these young men had, qualified them for construction work. They were used to working long hours, they usually had some experience with machinery, such as wagons, mowers and rakes and had knowledge about draft animals. When they had a role model, such as C.R. Mason, Lit Coleman or Enrico Vecellio, it was logical for the young person to think that he could become a road builder. I believe that is why the young shovel runner thought he would succeed by going into business for himself, with little capital or education, but with some natural abilities and a strong determination and work ethic. R oanoke Was a B ase for C ontractors, 1920-2000 After considering some of these family connections, we are now going to look at Roanoke as the final home for a large number of highway contractors in the period from 1920, a date when VDOT records are available on line to 1956 when the Interstate Highway Act was passed, until the end of the 20^* century. We have mentioned the W.W. Boxley Company that succeeded the Carpenter and Boxley partnership after the death of Clivie Carpenter in 1910. W.W. Boxley continued to build railroads, highways and bridges in Virginia and surrounding states until about 1932. By that date the company was crushing stone for railroad ballast, paving highways, and concrete con­ struction. Railroad construction slowed considerably due to the Great Depression and W.W. Boxley decided it was not ethical for his company to sell materials to con­ tractors and also bid against them to build the project. A list of projects worked on locally by W.W. Boxley Company, in addition to many miles of railroad construction, is impressive. The list includes Roanoke’s Memorial Bridge, Carvins Cove Dam, Route 11 in Botetourt County, Patrick Henry Hotel, Schulte United build­ ing on Campbell Avenue (old People’s Drug Store), McBain Workers prepare forms and subgrade for concrete pavement. building (old Miller & Rhoads), (Photo courtesy o f Virginia Department o f Transportation files) Sam’s building on the City Market and the Boxley Building. Boxley became a survivor by changing its focus from construction to furnishing crushed stone products; rip-rap and recently adding ready-mix concrete to the varieties of business. The organization is now named Boxley Materials Company and is headed by the fourth generation grandson, Abney Boxley III. As we look at the many construction companies that were operating from the Roanoke-Salem area in the past 60 years, we will try to give a brief history of their beginnings and why they closed and in several cases why they seem to have been very successful. A B rief D escription of the H ighway System in V irginia It may be helpful to briefly show the pattern of highway construction in the period from the close of World War II, a time when very little road construction took place due to the war, until the end of the 20th century. The U, S. Congress passed the Interstate Highway Bill in 1956, starting the largest transportation construction program ever known. During the period from 1946 to 1956, Virginia was slowly beginning to widen to four lanes many of 24 �the existing two-lane primary highways. When the State Highway Department took over the maintenance and construction of the counties’ second­ ary roads in 1932, 25,000 of the total 35,900 miles were not paved. They were just plain, old dirt roads, most impassable in wet weather. By 1990 the number of un-surfaced secondary roads had decreased to 137 of the total 45,485 miles in the secondary system. The primary and urban highway system had 9,632 miles in 1940 and by 1990 that number had increased to 18,398 miles that included 1,077 miles of Interstate highways. Vehicle registration had increased from 526,000 in 1940 to 4.985 million by 1990. Virginia’s population grew from 2.678 million in 1940 to over 7 million today. Our population has grown tremendously, but our transportation system has also increased to meet the expanding needs of our economy. We added over 17,000 miles of new Interstate, primary, urban and secondary miles to the Virginia system in the period from 1950 to the current year. Our state population increased by a factor of 2.3 times while our num­ ber of registered vehicles increased by almost 10 times. All of this indicates that a lot of highway construction took place in Virginia from about 1950 until 2000 while our state was enjoying a greater prosperity then ever before. Many young Virginians saw an opportunity and started their own business to help with all this construc­ tion. Quite a few were very successful, but some were not able to attain sufficient experience and capital to stay in business. I propose to record some of the companies that were working from the Roanoke region prior to 1956 and place particular emphasis on the period 1950 to 2000, telling of the successes and failures and some interesting details about how companies start up, grow and often disappear. How I Gathered Information As a method of trying to locate the contracting firms, based in the Roanoke region, that performed VDOT (Virginia Department of Transportation) construction, I looked at the Roanoke Business Directories from 1935 through 1970 at five-year intervals and at Roanoke telephone directories for the period from 1950 through 1970 at five-year intervals. After locating those firms that called themselves road contractors, I searched the minutes o f the Virginia Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) for each name. Other firms may have performed highway construction as a sub-contractor or even for VDOT, but the search failed to identify them. This could have been caused by poor quality of the typescripts and typos that made the search fail. I also used an extensive collection of the Virginia Road and Transportation Builders Association’s annual directory and monthly magazines to refresh my memory of the dates when certain events happened. In addition I have contacted many of the contractors who are still living for insight and information about the companies men­ tioned here. From the period of 1945 to 1970,1 found 56 companies that were listed as road, asphalt, excavating and grading, bridge, or railroad contractors. Of the 56 names found in this time period, only 30 were found to have had contracts with VDOT. I will give a short summary of the information I have on each company. I used the U.S. cen­ sus data to collect information on those contractors alive in 1930 and earlier. R oad B uilders of the R oanoke Valley As we look at the many construction companies that were operating from the Roanoke-Salem area in the past 60 years, we will try to give a brief history of their beginnings, the type of work they performed, why they closed and in several cases why they seem to have been very successful. Road building firms frequently are cate­ gorized by the type work they do, such as paving, excavating and grading, or bridge construction. For these three types of work, the larger companies tend to act as the prime or lead contractor on most VDOT projects because they usually involve the most expense in building a road. Generally, smaller contractors perform such specialty items as guard rail and sign installation, seeding and topsoil, incidental concrete work (curbs, gutters, sidewalks) and other combinations of various components of the 25 �work, such as welding or placing reinforcing steel. These firms are considered to be subcontractors for a certain phase of the job. Some road-building firms start out in this fashion and grow to the point they can handle many dif­ ferent phases of construction. Frequently, a large company will also be a sub-contactor to perform a large segment of the work, although another contractor will be the prime contractor because it is doing other items of work of even greater value. Recalling that Virginia had over 25,000 miles of unpaved roads in 1932 when the state accepted responsi­ bility for maintenance and construction for almost all of the roads, it is not surprising that many types of surfacing roads were developed in that decade. Liquid asphalt had the property to act as a cement to hold stone chips to the surface of crushed stone base for the roadway. A new product called asphalt concrete was developed in the 1920s. This was a mixture of stone, sand and hot liquid asphalt that was heat­ ed and mixed in a rotating drum, called an asphalt plant, to form asphalt concrete that could be placed on the road bed in thin (1- to 3-inch) layers, compacted with a steel wheel roller and thus have a very smooth, long lasting surface. Several firms which have devel­ oped into major players in the asphalt paving business were locat­ ed in Roanoke during the early 1930s. Sam Finley Inc. and Virginia Asphalt Paving Company were prominent early on in the paving business. Additional asphalt paving companies which have performed Using an old-time road planer to shape a road surface. (Photo courtesy of Virginia Department of Transportation files) VDOT contracts over the years while operating in the Roanoke area are Adams and Tate Construction Company, Adams Construction Company, S. R. Draper Paving, Lee Hy Paving Corporation, L.H. Sawyer Paving Company and John A. Hall and Company. Other companies do some asphalt paving, but the ones listed have the capability to mix and lay their own paving materials. William B. (Bill) Adams was bom in 1903 in Campion, Ga., the son of a house carpenter. In the 1930 cen­ sus, he was living in Atlanta in the household of his father. Bill Adams’ occupation was shown as a construction supervisor. He had attended Tech High School in Atlanta. In 1923, Adams went to work for the Sam Finley Company whose office was located near the Tech High School campus while Adams was a student there. He and his wife Martha had one child, a daughter, Betty. Martha’s father furnished aggregate to the Sam Finley Company in Columbus, Ga. Bill Adams and Martha moved 57 times in the first eight years of their marriage. He was employed as an asphalt paving worker spraying asphalt on the road and applying stone chips to make the surface. As indicated by the census, Adams was a supervisor by 1930. Finley had sent Adams to Roanoke in 1929 to unload and spread two railroad tank cars of asphalt. Bill Adams liked working in Virginia and asked Sam Finley to bid on some upcoming VDOT asphalt paving contracts. Having moved around so much, he was now ready to settle down and make Roanoke his home. With the help of some additional workers from Georgia, Adams was soon building Sam Finley Company into a major contractor for road paving in Virginia. Carter Tate was a 1930 Georgia Tech graduate civil engineer who came to Roanoke as Finley’s general superintendent in 1932, reporting to Bill Adams, Finley’s vice president and general manager in Virginia. Tate was a people person and was well liked by other employees. 26 �Other workers who joined Adams from Georgia were his wife’s brother, Robert E. “Bob” Duckworth Sr., Arthur Rutherford, father of M.W. “Buck” Rutherford, and John Martin. Local persons hired by the Finley organ­ ization in Roanoke were W.H. “Ham” Pettigrew, a VMI civil engineering graduate in 1933, Richard “Dick” Wellons, a summertime employee, and Gordon Mills, office manager and accountant for Finley’s Virginia business. These men would all be partners with Bill Adams in the future. W.H. “Ham” Pettigrew was hired in 1933 and worked in the field for a year before he was asked to find stone and sand sources for paving the streets in Colonial Williamsburg. Pettigrew did an excellent job of finding the proper sand and stone aggregates for the asphalt concrete and this was his strong point throughout his career. Pettigrew said that in 1940 when the government was starting the Radford Arsenal project, he saw Ralph E. Mills, a contractor for the government on this project, and Mills needed a lot of stone placed in the roads being construct­ ed throughout the arsenal. Pettigrew told him he was sure that Finley’s organization could help him and they got the job. The Finley company worked there throughout much of World War II. Each of these men who were working for Bill Adams at Sam Finley, Inc. had certain qualities and skills that led to superior performance on their work. Adams was apparently a very good judge of people’s abilities. By the end of World War II, Bill Adams was ready to move on to start his own company. Bill Adams and Carter Tate founded Adams and Tate Construction Company in 1946. The end of World War II brought hope to those people who considered themselves road builders. There was a great need for many miles of road to be constructed and paved at the close of the war. This company lasted until 1953 when Tate with­ drew due to some differences about their method of opening a new line of business. Tate went to work for an asphalt contractor based in Baltimore. He died in a car accident in 1954. Adams changed the name to Adams Construction Company and it operated as a partnership that ultimate­ ly included Bill Adams, Betty Adams (his daughter), Dick Wellons, Buck Rutherford, Ham Pettigrew, Bob Duckworth, Paul Rotenbury and Gordon Mills. Bill Adams passed away in 1982. Dick Wellons graduated from Virginia Tech in 1947 and was hired by Adams and Tate. He had worked for Sam Finley in the summer while a student and within two years Adams put Wellons in charge of their Roanoke private work operations. By 1973 Bill Adams retired and named Dick Wellons the president of Adams Construction Company. The firm greatly expanded its operations in this time period and acquired over 15 asphalt plants working more than 350 employees. Adams laid millions of tons of asphalt on Virginia highways as well as doing work in North Carolina and Florida. As the interstate highway system was being completed, the company was looking at new opportunities for projects to build. Under Wellons’ leadership, the company opened an asphalt plant in Florida. This did not work out and was closed in 1987. Dick Wellons was an industry leader and served as president of the Virginia Road Builders Association in 1978. Adams, while working for Sam Finley, Inc. was a charter member in the founding of the Virginia Road Builders Association in November 1943. This group was formed to lobby for better highways in Virginia. He was also instrumental in the founding of the Virginia Asphalt Association and served as its first president. The Asphalt Association is a technical group founded to improve the quality of asphalt concrete road surfaces. Adams was rec­ ognized by Ferrum College in 1970 when they named the new football stadium in his honor. Adams had been instrumental in raising the funds to pay for this new facility. Bill Adams was also one of the founders of Windsor Hills Methodist Church. He served on the boards of Ferrum College, the Methodist Orphanage Home in Richmond and many other charitable organizations. In 1985 the remaining partners sold the company to English Construction Company and Lanford Brothers Company. Adams Construction Company continues in business today under the ownership of English Construction Company. The firm is still one of the largest asphalt paving companies in Virginia as it continues to expand and acquire other firms. All of Bill Adams’ partners have now passed away except for Bob Duckworth, Sr. who is still living. Some other early leaders in the construction of asphalt-surfaced roads were a group of men who had worked for the oil companies that supplied the liquid asphalt or tar used in binding the rock chips to the crushed 27 �stone base. These men recognized the advantage of asphalt pavements and started Virginia Asphalt Paving Company located in Roanoke about 1938. The original partners were John T. “Jack” Cunningham, Jr. of Roanoke, Burton P. Short of Petersburg and Sterling L. “Buss” Williamson of Charlottesville. As time went by, each of these businessmen helped develop the paving market in their home regions. Williamson founded S. L. Williamson Co. in Charlottesville and is still in business today, operated by his son and granddaughter. Short’s firm, B.P. Short & Son, Inc., located in Petersburg, is also still operating with Short’s grandson as the CEO. Virginia Asphalt Paving, jointly owned by the partners mentioned here in the early years, was passed on to Jack Cunningham, Jr.’s sons, J.T. “Jack” III, and R.Q. “Bobby” Cunningham. After operating asphalt plants in Roanoke and other areas of the state for over 50 years, furnishing and laying millions of tons of road surface mate­ rial that included over 80 VDOT projects, the company was sold to English Construction Company and Jack and Stan Lanford in 1992 and merged into Adams Construction Company. Sam Finley had been a well-respected name for asphalt paving in Virginia since the middle 1920s. Finley is said to have invented the idea of mixing asphalt concrete and placing it on the road surface. The Commonwealth Transportation Board in 1932 voted to allow Finley to lay a short stretch of “Fin-Lay cold type” of pavement on U.S. R t.ll, known as Williamson Road. Finley started in Atlanta, and by 1927 he had a division working for VDOT on road paving projects. By 1931 he had offices in Roanoke and Bedford. W. B. “Bill” Adams was Finley’s Virginia manager. Sam Finley Inc. was a charter member in the Virginia Road Builders Association with Bill Adams as the company’s representative. Finley was a major player in the asphalt paving of highways in the Roanoke area as well many other parts of Virginia and other parts of the southeastern U.S. After World War II ended, the Hardaway Company of Columbus, Ga., acquired the company. Hardaway sold the paving business to Warren Brothers Company, Division of Ashland Oil, Inc, now called APAC, in 1965. Sam Finley, Inc. continued to operate under that name until 1981 when APAC decided to merge all their paving companies into one name in each state and thus we now have APAC Virginia at several locations in Virginia. The Roanoke business office was merged into other APAC offices in Chantilly, Richmond, and Norfolk in 1977. The manager of the Roanoke office when it closed was Robert T. Smith. Smith had obtained his job with Finley in 1933 through the help of his fellow Georgian, Carter Tate, co­ founder of Adams and Tate. Smith was driving a Tom’s peanut truck in 1933 and was servicing a small store at Eagle Rock. Carter Tate, a Finley employee, had stopped at this same store and knew Smith as a classmate from their college days at the University of Georgia. They met again that day and Carter asked Smith what he was doing driving a “peanut” truck. Smith replied that was the only job he could find, that he was making $5.00 a week and paying weekly room and board of $3. Tate offered Bob a job in Colonial Williamsburg, where Sam Finley Inc. had a contract to rebuild the streets. The job would pay 30 cents per hour and required working 60 hours per week, making his pay $18.00/week. Smith immediately accepted the offer. After a couple of weeks on the new job, Bill Adams, then the manager for Finley’s operations in Virginia, visited Smith at the job site and told him he was mak­ ing too much money. Smith was put on a salary of $12 per week. He went on to learn the asphalt paving business from the ground up for the next 10 years. Smith served in the Army Corp of Engineers during World War II. He was assigned to build airfields in Argentina. After the war he returned to Roanoke, seeking his job with Finley. Bill Adams and Carter Tate left Finley to start Adams and Tate Construction Company in 1946. Sam Finley had passed away in 1942. Smith went to Atlanta to see Sam Finley’s widow about a job managing Sam Finley Inc.’s Virginia operations and the Roanoke office. She gave him the job and he stayed until the Roanoke office was closed. Smith Worked his last years with John A. Hall and Company. He died in 1979. John A. Hall, son of a local attorney for the Virginian Railroad, entered the U.S. Marine Corps in World War II at the age of 17. He served in the South Pacific and saw combat. Upon the completion of his tour of duty he went to work, operating an asphalt plant for Nello L. Teer Company in Durham N.C. After about 10 years Hall returned to Roanoke to go into business for himself. He was awarded his first VDOT project in 1955 under the name John A. Hall & Co of Roanoke. Hall purchased an asphalt plant located near the Dixie Caverns exit on 1-81 and operated there for several years. In 1960 Hall paved the road from St. Paul to Dante in Wise County as a sub- 28 �The former Wiley N. Jackson Co. of Roanoke built the Gathright Dam in Alleghany and Bath counties in the 1970s with a joint venture partner, Roberson Fowler Co. �contractor to Lanford & Slater. In 1981, Hall had an auction sale and disposed of most of his construction and paving equipment. He continued to bid for several more years and subcontracted most of his work. He was award­ ed his last job by VDOT in 1992 and voluntarily closed his business. Wiley Jackson, Jimmy Turner and Gordon Penick formed Lee Hy Paving Corporation in 1957 to do asphalt paving. After operating out of Roanoke for a few years the company moved to Richmond under the ownership of Gordon Penick. They continue to do a lot of paving in the Richmond area, where Gordon Penick is still chairman of the board. Lonnie Sawyer started a new company in Salem to perform asphalt-paving work. This company first appeared in the Business Directory in 1970. VDOT’s records show that L.H. Sawyer Paving Company was award­ ed its first project in 1978. The company continues in business today, operated by Lonnie Sawyer’s son-in-law, Sam Carter, and longtime employee Stan Puckett. They bid infrequently on VDOT projects but do a lot of municipal and private paving jobs. This concludes the first installment of my work on the road contractors in the Roanoke region. The second installment that includes the excavating and grading contractors, bridge builders and specialty contractors, will appear in next year’s Journal. Note: The author appreciates hearing from anyone with correc­ tions to any of the information printed in this article. Brothers Jack (left) and Stan Lanford, retired partners in Lanford Brothers Co. S ources “A History of the Roads ofVirginia in the ‘The most convenient wayes.’” Prepared by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) Office of Public Affairs, in cooperation with the Virginia Transportation Research Council. Published by the Commonwealth ofVirginia, 1992 • . “A History of the W.W. Boxley Company.” Privately published by the W.W. Boxley Company; Ross and Jane Jeffries, Jr. are credited with the research. No date listed. Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) board minutes are located on the VDOT website for the years 1920 to present. Directory of the Virginia Road Builders Association, published annually by the VRBA Publishing Company in Richmond, Va. “Makers of America, Volume I,” by Prominent Historical and Biographical Writers, chapter on James Cluvius Carpenter, published by B. F. Johnson, Washington, D.C, in 1915 Roanoke-Salem Telephone Directories, 1950, 1955, 1960, 1962. Published by the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company of Virginia each year. Roanoke, Salem, Vinton City Directory, years 1935, 1940, 1945, 1950, 1955, 1960, 1965, 1970, published by the Hill Directory Co., Inc., Richmond, Va., each year stated. “Sons of Martha” by Dixon Merritt, published in New York City by Mason and Hanger Company, Inc. in 1928 The Baker Family of England and Central Virginia, by William Thompson Baker Sr. and published by Edwards Brothers, Inc., 1974 “The most convenient wayes... A Story of the Roads in Virginia,” text assembled and edited by Albert W. Coates, Virginia Department of Transportation, date published not stated, but must have been 1970 or later “The Story of C.R. Mason, An Early Virginia Contractor,” by John C. Lanford; published in the “Virginia Road Builder magazine, MarchApril 1978 edition. U.S. Census Data taken from photostatic copies o f the Census returns for various states and counties of the individuals researched Virginia Road Builder magazine, published at various times, copies numbered Volume XXI, Number 12 (1965) to Volume XXXVffi, Number 2 (1981), published by the VRBA Publishing Company, Richmond, Va. Interviews with Bill Branch, Wayne Hall, Bill McDowall, Dave Burroughs, Jack Burroughs, Jack Lanford, and Clyde Sissons. 30 �(fyulcOiedd and ¿U& S ix (fr/tciic/ieA Religious Patterns and Presbyterian W orship in the A ppalachian R egion, 1750-1950 by Dr. John Kern and Randle Brim he six rock-faced Presbyterian churches built by Robert W. Childress between the mid-1920s and the early 1950s are located in Floyd, Carroll, and Patrick counties of southwestern Virginia. The Childress churches are situated about in the center of the Appalachian region in the physiographic province of the Blue Ridge, as identified by cultural geographers Karl Raitz and Richard Ulack. Bordered to the southeast by the Piedmont and to the northwest by the Ridge and Valley, the Blue Ridge Province extends in a narrow band southwest from south-central Pennsylvania for 550 miles to northeast Georgia and contains the highest mountains and most spectacular scenery in the Appalachian region.1European-American settlement of the Blue Ridge began after the French and Indian War of the late 1750s and early 1760s. Mid- to late18th-century traffic on the Great Valley Road skirted the area now included in Floyd, Carroll, and Patrick counties to the northwest. Rantz and Ulack said the population in the study area of the Childress rock churches did not attain a density of six persons per square mile until around 1800. The study area received Scotch-Irish settlement from the mid-Atlantic, and English settlement from the West Chesapeake Tidewater. The initial Scotch-Irish settlement tended to be Presbyterian, while English settlement might be Methodist or Episcopal. By 1800, American Methodism had begun to expand in the region at the expense of the Presbyterian Church, and Baptists gained strength on the Piedmont. Both Methodists and Baptists benefited from the religious revivals that began around 1800 and continued through most of the 19th century. The Presbyterians insisted on an educated ministry, and a shortage of trained ministers in remote settlements contributed to a decline in the practice of the Presbyterian faith. Raitz and Ulack conclude that by the early 1900s only 6 percent of recorded church population in central and southern Appalachia was Presbyterian At that time Methodists made up 30 percent of church attendees; and Baptists constituted 40 percent of church membership. Raitz and Ulack found that by the mid-twentieth century Baptist Church membership predominated in Carroll and Patrick counties, whereas no religious group totaled over 25 percent of church membership in Floyd County.2 Presbyterians in America adhered to a system of federated congregations whose presbyters or elders gov­ erned through the local church session, the larger presbytery, the regional synod, and, by the time of American inde­ pendence, a national assembly. Religious historians Gaustad and Barlow conclude that “the combination made for a Presbyterian Church with a distinctly intellectual tenor. . . and a church tirelessly dedicated to higher education. They note that on the eve of the Revolution there were at least 30 Presbyterian churches in the Virginia Ridge and Valley Province just west of the Blue Ridge in Rockingham, Augusta, and Rockbridge counties, and they posit that the great majority of these Presbyterians on the Virginia frontier were patriots.3 Between the Revolution and the Civil War, Alice Felt Tyler in Freedom’s Ferment comments that the revivals and religious awakenings in the early 1800s encouraged settlers west of the Blue Ridge to take advantage of every opportunity for community life and welcomed missionaries. Presbyterians were in a good position to assume responsibility for missionary work because they were already established in the Scotch-Irish settlements in S Dr. John Kern, director o f the Roanoke Regional Preservation Office o f the State Department of Historic Resources since it opened in the late 1980s, holds degrees from Swarthmore College and a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin. Randle Brim, deputy zoning administrator of Randolph County, N.C., earned two bachelor s and a master s degree and served in the Air Force in Vietnam. He has researched and written a number o f articles on history-related top­ ics and he has planned several books. 31 �Photo of Buffalo Mountain in July 1956. (Courtesy of Floyd County Historical Society photograph archives) the Ridge and Valley. Tyler concludes, as did Gaustad and Barlow, that the Presbyterian churches “insisted on an educated clergy,. . endeavored to bring culture to the Western communities as rapidly as possible,.. . and consid­ ered missionary activity in the West a patriotic as well as a religious duty.” 4 Tyler observes that eventually Protestant sects west of the Blue Ridge seemed to succeed “in inverse ratio to their intellectual attainments and indirect ratio to their emotional appeal.” Hence, after the Civil War, Appalachian Presbyterians lost strength to Methodists with their relatively uncomplicated creed and to Baptists with their independent church organization and tendency to splinter into numerous groups: Hard- and Soft-Shell Baptists, and Primitive and Free-Will Baptists.5 The Presbyterian Church in America divided over the issue of slavery during the Civil War, as had the Methodists and Baptists during the 1840s. After the Civil War, Presbyterian Church factions reunited and national Presbyterian Church membership increased steadily from 700,000 in 1870 to 3,500,000 in 1950. These member­ ship figures show Presbyterians to be far more numerous in 1950 than the other two principal denominations of the 18th century, the Congregationalists and the Episcopalians. National Presbyterian Church membership in 1950, however, was less than 30 percent of Methodist membership and less than 20 percent of Baptist membership.6 John Edgerton, in Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement in the South, recounts several instances of Presbyterian pastors or missionaries from the rural South whose modest fam­ ily origins, subsequent education in Presbyterian seminaries, and socially active ministry in the Appalachian region parallel the career of Robert Childress.7 C h ild r ess a n d t h e R ock C hurches In the 65 years between Robert Childress’s birth in Patrick County and his death in 1956, he had received rudimentary education in The Hollow, Patrick County, attended a Methodist revival around 1910, subsequently met a recent graduate from Presbyterian Seminary, and by 1920 decided to become a seminary-trained Presbyterian 32 �minister. During his student years in seminary, Childress established a Presbyterian church in Mayberry, Patrick County. Upon graduation from seminary in 1926 he began his Presbyterian missionary work at Buffalo Mountain, missionary work that he continued for 30 years while founding churches and bringing his spiritual and socially active educational leadership to those who worshiped with him. Richard C. Davids, in The Man Who Moved a Mountain (1970), tells the story of Childress, “an over­ whelming, magnetic kind of man,” who established six rock-faced Presbyterian churches in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains of Floyd, Carroll, and Patrick counties from the mid-1920s to the early 1950s. The ministry of Bob Childress changed the lives of rural backcountry residents living in relative isolation in a mountainous no-man’sland along the borders of the three counties. When Childress died in 1956, he left a spiritual legacy of changed and awakened lives and a material lega­ cy of six rock-faced Presbyterian churches: Bluemont, Carroll and Patrick counties, built 1920, rock-faced 19451946; Mayberry, Patrick County, built 1925, rock-faced 1948; Buffalo Mountain, Floyd and Carroll counties, built of fieldstone in 1929; Slate Mountain, Floyd and Patrick counties, built of fieldstone in 1932, expanded in 1951; Dinwiddie, Carroll County, built of fieldstone in 1948; and Willis, Floyd County, built of fieldstone in 1954. Bluemont, Buffalo Mountain and Slate Mountain churches straddled county lines. All six of the Childress rock churches are still places of worship. Bluemont, Mayberry, Buffalo Mountain, Slate Mountain, and Dinwiddie con­ tinue to hold Presbyterian services and retain strong ties to Childress. In 1967 the Willis Church became Interfaith, then Full Gospel, and is now the home of Grace Baptist Church.8 Childress was bom January 19,1890, the third from the youngest of nine children raised in one-room cab­ ins. His father, Babe, came from Scotch-Irish ancestry and was of the third generation of Childresses to live in The Hollow in Patrick County. His “pure Irish” mother, Lum, experienced depression for a time after Bob’s birth. Hard drinking and unschooled, the Childress parents loved their children and kept a clean home, but they never owned land and had to move frequently following evictions for arrears in rent. Fourteen years Bob’s senior, Hasten as the oldest child assumed many responsibilities for raising the family. At the age of six, Bob Childress began attending Friends Mission School taught by Sally Marshbum, who was sent to The Hollow by Quakers at Guilford College in North Carolina. He never missed school or Sunday school and studied with Miss Marshbum until she married and moved away when Bob was 14. Childress drank and fought for the next six years until he attended a week-long Methodist revival, where he experienced, not rev­ elation, but a new peace. The next year at 21, he attended eighth grade again at Friends Mission School until he married Pearl Ayers, a fellow student. After the birth of a son, Conduff, and a daughter, Evelyn, he taught at Kimball elementary school and worked as a blacksmith until his wife, Pearl, died during the flu epidemic of World War I. At 29, he became a Patrick County deputy sheriff for two years before he resumed blacksmithing and married Lelia Montgomery. Following his second marriage, Bob Childress began attending “brush arbor” services, some of them head­ ed by Roy Smith, who had recently graduated from Presbyterian Seminary. Childress and Smith became fast friends, and in 1920 at age 30, now with four children, Childress decided to become an ordained Presbyterian min­ ister. His decision meant that he would have to attend and graduate from high school and college before attending seminary. It would take 11 years before he received his ordination as a minister. Bob crammed for entrance with Roy Smith and began high school at Friends Mission at the same time that his son, Conduff, entered first grade.9 At the Friends School Bob Childress advanced to 10th grade within a month and graduated from high school by the end of the school year in the spring of 1921. In June he received a letter of acceptance from Davidson College, and in September he and Lelia and the children moved to Davidson. A son Paul was bom to them in November. The following spring of 1922, professors at Davidson recommended that Childress proceed directly to seminary. After a summer of lay preaching and teaching around Mayberry in Patrick County, Childress and Roy Smith approached Union Theological Seminary in Richmond. Union Theological refused to admit Childress to the seminary but allowed him to attend classes. That fall of 1922 Lelia gave birth to a third son, Bill Joe. After a semester, Union Seminary recognized Childress as a student of high record and promise, offered him a scholarship 33 �Buffalo Mountain, in western Floyd County, today. and a rent-free house on campus, and gave him a $100 scholarship each year for his remaining time in seminary. During the summer of 1923 after his first year in seminary, Childress and family returned to Mayberry. There he built a two-room school and resumed preaching. They spent the next two summers in Mayberry, where the Presbyterian church was completed in 1925. During the final year in seminary, daughter Hattie was bom in frail health. A few days before graduation from seminary in June 1926, Childress accepted an offer from Peter Cunningham Clark of Montgomery Presbytery to establish a place of worship at “The Buffalo” or Buffalo Mountain, Floyd County. Clark described Buffalo Mountain as a dangerous, isolated place where men drank and shot at each other and where people were uneducated, without schools or Sunday school. Childress accepted Clark’s challenge and moved to Buffalo Mountain in the late spring of 1926.10 Childress and his family lived on the mountain, where he preached for three years at the Presbyterian Buffalo Mission School founded in 1923 by the Rev. Clark while Clark was superintendent of home missions for Montgomery Presbytery. When Childress led construction of Buffalo Mountain Church, built in 1929 from local field stone, he established the mother church of his ministry. During the Depression he supervised fieldstone con­ struction of Slate Mountain Church in 1932. After World War II, Childress directed rock-facing for Bluemont Church in 1946 and rock-facing for Mayberry Church in 1948. Under Childress’s leadership Dinwiddie Church was constructed of fieldstone in 1948. Finally, Willis Church was built of fieldstone in 1954, two years before Childress died of complications from a stroke suffered in 1951. During the remarkable 30 years of his ministry, Bob Childress provided education and spiritual and social leadership for people living in mral isolation in the Blue Ridge Mountains of the bordering Virginia counties of Floyd, Patrick, and Carroll. He helped feed and clothe the poor, comforted the indigent, and awakened lives. He helped secure improved transportation, such as roads and bridges financed by WPA funds during the Depression, used buses to bring people to church and Sunday school, and broadcast gospel music from loud speakers mounted on the towers of some of his rock-faced churches. Like “a wild horse in a field,” with incredible energy he brought high spirits and awakened excitement to the lives of those he touched.11 34 �Presbyterian churches were established but not prominent in the Blue Ridge Mountain counties when Childress began his pastorate there in the mid-1920s. The first Presbyterian church in Floyd County was founded in the Town of Floyd in 1850. A second church was recorded in Floyd County land records in 1897, and a third in 1910. By 1921, trustees of Abingdon Presbytery had purchased land in Floyd County for a church school. By that date, the Floyd County Index to Real Estate Conveyances listed four Presbyterian churches in the county, as opposed to 18 Primitive Baptist churches. Presbyterian churches in Carroll, Floyd, and Patrick counties were variously administered by Abingdon, Montgomery and Fincastle presbyteries. Childress’s initial ties were with Abingdon Presbytery, presently housed in Wytheville, and Montgomery Presbytery, whose records now reside at the Peaks Presbytery in Lynchburg. The Abingdon Presbytery in 1925 reported inadequate facilities for Home Mission work, saying that “many fields have no workers and organized churches stand vacant.” In 1933 the Abingdon Presbytery noted that churches in Bluemont and Dinwiddie subsequently served by Childress received the least funds from and paid the lowest amount to the presbytery, and that those churches stood in the presbytery’s “most needy, most difficult, and most neglected field.” Circuit Court deeds have not been located for all the Childress churches. Recent research has turned to personal interviews with church members and to examination of original session minutes of the individ­ ual churches’ records, which remain in possession of the individual congregations.12 The legacy of Childress and his six rock-faced churches survives in the rural mountainous region of south­ west Virginia half a century after his death in January 1956. Davids doubtless overemphasized the changes wrought by the Childress ministry in The Man Who Moved a Mountain. A 1974 article in the Patrick County Historical Society file for Mayberry Presbyterian Church quotes an old lady raised on The Buffalo as saying, “He [Richard Davids] writes like we were all savages before Bob Childress came.” The New Deal, the Works Progress Administration, and better roads and schools sponsored throughout Virginia by the Harry Byrd machine did much to counteract the rural isolation that the ministry of Bob Childress constantly challenged while he built his rock­ faced churches as the focus of faith-based communities and as rallying points for spiritual and educational outreach. But no political programs and machines could generate the personal energy and excitement of Childress s ministry. As Davids frequently recounted, Childress used humor and compassion and remarkable energy to bring people into his church circle of positive expectations and loving cafe. As is shown in interviews of those who knew Bob Childress and have remembered him for half a century since his death, he was revered for bringing out the best in people. He brought women into active leadership in his church. He brought children into church services by bus, and he encouraged children to receive higher education. He welcomed people to services with churchsteeple broadcasts of gospel music. He built his six rock-faced churches with the labor and socially active leader­ ship of church members who founded their faith in his ministry.13 S'uUaia 'Wtotutfam Bob Childress preached at Buffalo Mission School for three years after he arrived at the Buffalo commu­ nity in the spring of 1926 following his graduation from Union Seminary in Richmond. Childress kept a journal of his activities from Buffalo for three winter months, probably in 1928, at the request of Home Mission headquar­ ters. In one January week he had car trouble, got wood for the Mission School furnace, worked on his car, visited 13 homes, got snowbound, visited five homes on horseback, and conducted chapel, night services, and three Sunday services, but he couldn’t get to Slate Mountain. During the first week in March he conducted chapel, visited a bereaved family, held a song service, attend­ ed Hillsville court and had cases dismissed against four young men who had disturbed church service, attended a road meeting, made a night address, taught clas’s at Buffalo Mission, preached afterward at Meadows of Dan and Indian Valley, built a stage at Buffalo Mission School, held a cottage prayer service, got stuck in the mud, and took three people to doctors’ appointments in Floyd. The Hillsville court cases Childress asked to have dismissed may have been against young men who “rocked,” that is, threw rocks at the Mission School, breaking windows and threatening to come inside. Childress had visited fieldstone churches in Tennessee when Presbyterian church headquarters asked him to travel there to 35 �Buffalo Mountain Church tell the story of the mountain mis­ sions. Childress learned that the beautiful fieldstone churches in Tennessee were not expensive to build with donated manpower, and he may have thought it better to rockface the Buffalo church than to have a frame church “rocked” by young men who just didn’t behave. At any rate, after the Buffalo community first met to create a Presbyterian church and established session minutes in December 1927 with elders J. M. Sutphin, H. E. Branscome, and Bailey Goad, Childress called for the church to be built of fieldstone. The first session meeting for Buffalo Church took place at the Mission School on December 18, 1927. J. M. Sutphin was elected clerk, a position he held for more than thirty years. His first appointment was to approach the people in the Buffalo community who were members of Jacksonville Presbyterian Church in the Town of Floyd and to invite them to place their membership with Buffalo Church. At a Buffalo session meeting held at the Mission School on April 22, 1928, Bob Childress’s wife Lelia was “examined and admitted to the sealing ordinance of the Lord’s Supper.” Davids reports on construction of Buffalo Mountain Church during the summer of 1929. Childress secured a building loan from Elbert Weeks of the Willis bank. Buffalo elder Bailey Goad suggested building the church above the Mission School where men had congregated to drink and enjoy the view across the valley of the Buffalo. Men cut trees and skidded them to the church site with oxen. They sawed oak for beams and poplar for siding, dug out the basement, and laid the foundation. Childress announced a contest to bring the prettiest quartz stone, along with loads of fieldstone, for the church walls. Buffalo elder J. M. Sutphin supervised mortaring the stone into place. The congregation voted unanimously to change their name from Buffalo View to Buffalo Mountain Presbyterian Church and the new building was dedicated September 19, 1929. Childress began his pastorate there at the moth­ er church that lasted more than 20 years and accomplished the creation of five more rock-faced churches. S ta te “TKoufttaw Slate Mountain Presbyterian Church, five miles southeast of Buffalo Mountain, began as a mission of Buffalo Mountain Church. About 1930, Childress began holding services and Sunday school at a one-room school in the Slate community near Rock Castle Gap. In June 1932, Childress reported to the Buffalo Mountain session that he had baptized 14 people at Slate Mountain. Slate Mountain elder Ted Sutphin remembers building the field­ stone church in 1932. Members dug creek bed sand from Burks Fork, hand-screened the sand to eliminate the grav­ el, and shoveled the sand into trucks for delivery at the church site. Childress’s son Conduff hauled the fieldstone for the church by truck. The 18-inch-thick walls required a great deal of mortar. Beautiful crystal quartz rocks were placed on both sides of the front entrance to the church; one came from the family farm of Cecil Cock. In 1939 Slate Mountain Church organized as an independent Presbyterian church with Childress as pastor. Slate Mountain session minutes in November 19, 1939, recorded Sam Underwood, William Underwood, and Ted Sutphin as elders; Ron Belcher, Virgil Belcher, and Luther Wood as deacons; and Luther Wood as treasurer. At that first Slate Mountain session, Bob Childress requested and received permission to spend the entire Sunday school offering of $2.61 “for the benefit of the convicts as a token of sympathy on their behalf for Thanksgiving.” ,This Thanksgiving gift was for prisoners at the convict camp at Meadows of Dan, two and a half miles south of Slate 36 �Mountain Church. The gift of the whole church col­ lection came at the height of the Great Depression and the donation came all in coins. It was a big day when the first person put a dollar bill in the Slate Mountain collection plate. During World War II Slate Mountain Church sponsored two outpost Sunday schools: Mayberry, conducted by Luther Wood and enrolled 60 students; and Stamping Birches, which had 50 pupils. Slate Mountain Church must have grown in membership as well as outreach because session minutes for spring 1951 recommended construction of a three-room addi­ tion to the rear of the 1932 church building. Ted Sutphin borrowed $4,000 from Joseph Sowers of Floyd County Bank. Lendell Craig quit school at 16 to work on the Slate Mountain Church addition, which included the rear cross-gable wing and the bell tower. After two weeks of training from Fred Shelor, Craig cracked the fieldstone rocks so they could be mortared in place to form a flat exterior surface. Childress suf­ fered his first stroke in 1951 during the period of con­ struction on the addition to Slate Mountain Church. S(uemo*tt Bluemont Presbyterian, on the border between Slate Mountain Church Patrick and Carroll counties, was built in 1920 eight miles southwest of Buffalo Mountain and rock-faced in 1946 shortly after Childress assumed the pastorate there at the close of World War II. The Rev. Roy Smith, Childress’s mentor by 1919, preached the first Presbyterian ser­ mons near Bluemont at Pilot View and Rome schoolhouses beginning in 1915. In 1918 the Abingdon Presbytery promised $500 for a church building, provided that worshipers would raise an equal amount. The wood-frame Bluemont Church was ready for use in the spring of 1920, and the church was organized in September 1920 with G. E. Willis as elder and James A. Vass as deacon. Granville “Ernest” Willis owned the first automobile in the region and traveled to Presbytery sessions in southwest Virginia and to Richmond to represent Bluemont. Ernest Willis’s daughter Polly Willis, later Polly Willis Cock, and Vida Bowman taught Sunday school at Bluemont when Childress became pastor in 1945. Polly Cock remembers when Bob Childress approached her father, Elder Ernest Willis, about rock-facing Bluemont. Childress asked these Sunday school teachers to write letters to church members to solicit funds for the project. In September 1945 Childress wrote Polly Willis and Vida Bowman that he was beginning to receive pledges. The next month Childress thanked both women for their funding efforts to rock-face Bluemont, pledged $100 of his own to each of their subscription lists, and closed with the following: Please make it plain to those approached, that we expect to finish regardless of what they give but that you want them to have a part in it for their own sakes as well as for the cause. Let them also know that those who desire to work can work out their pledges and we expect to begin hauling stones within a few days, weeks at most. We will need a lot of helpers for that. Vida Bowman remembers that when her husband came home from World War II in December 1945, he began help­ ing haul fieldstones to Bluemont. He collected field rock from Ed Gardner s place. Cecil Cock, who married Polly 37 �Willis two years later, brought one of his favorite quartz rocks and still remembers its placement in the Bluemont stone facing. Bluemont Church received a scenic easement with the Blue Ridge Parkway in October 1937, which stip­ ulated that church buildings could not be erected or altered without Park Service consent and approval. Polly Willis Cock remembers that several times a park ranger would ask Childress to stop the alterations at Bluemont. Childress would tell the workers to stop, but then would have them resume as soon as the ranger Bluemont Church left. Polly remembers Childress say­ ing, “I don’t care what they say, we will finish rocking this church even if we have to work on it at midnight.” In disregard of the Park Service scenic easement, Bluemont Church was rock-faced in 1946 under the supervision of Sam Branscome, who had learned rock laying in Tennesee. During the 10 years of his pastorate at Bluemont, Childress installed a Delco Battery system that provid­ ed electric lights and public address system with outside speakers that broadcast music and church services for sev­ eral miles. He also employed perhaps the first use of church buses in the area to transport children to Sunday school and vacation Bible school. ‘TKatf&ervuf @/iuncA Mayberry Presbyterian Church in Patrick County was constructed six miles southeast of Buffalo Mountain as a wooden frame structure in 1925 when Bob Childress served as church pastor while a student at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond. Session minutes for Mayberry have not been located, and less information is available on the church, especially for the time when it was rock-faced with fieldstone in 1948. After his first year in seminary Bob Childress held Presbyterian services in an old Mayberry school where his mentor Rev. Roy Smith had preached a few times in the early 1920s. Childress presided over construction of a new school in Mayberry in 1924 and after his second year in seminary led construction of Mayberry Church. The small frame church was dedicated in July 1925. A workday photo in 1925 listed the Rev. R. W. Childress, as well as numerous Cockrans, Lights, Scotts, Spanglers, and Webbs. Materials recovered from the Mayberry Church cor­ nerstone in 1975 recorded a meeting at the new Mayberry School House in 1924, a meeting that marked the begin­ ning of Mayberry Church: “During the summer months much interest was shown in the Lord’s work, and in July, after a revival meeting ... conducted by R. W. Childress, a Seminary student, it was unanimously decided by the congregation that there must be a church building and a church organization in Mayberry.” The first officers of Mayberry Presbyterian Church were elders D. Burton Scott and Ernest Cochran, and deacons Wolford Spangler and Asa Spangler. Mr. Willard, a skilled carpenter, supervised local labor in building the church. Special thanks were given to Willard “for his faithful work and untiring efforts to make Mayberry Church the prettiest church in Patrick.” Davids and Brim mention Bob Childress’s special ministry to Josie Spangler at Mayberry Presbyterian Church. Josie Spangler lost most of her eyesight following the birth of her first child Margie and suffered an emo­ tional breakdown. When Childress found Josie bedridden, he drove her to a doctor in Mount Airy, learned that she could play a reed organ, and then encouraged her to play at church services. Josie Spangler traveled with Childress �thereafter, playing a portable organ carried by Childress at church servic­ es, while she recovered her spirits and health. Josie gave birth to two more children, Wallace in 1927 and Bernice in 1930. Though now totally blind, she was also reborn and insisted that her children attend Mayberry Presbyterian. As a child Wallace built fires in the church stove before servic­ es during the winter and aired out the church during the summer. When Mayberry Church was faced in stone in 1948, Wallace Spangler donated a clear quartz rock that had encased an insect. ^¿MwicUUe @AuncA D in w id d ie P resb y teria n Church, built in Carroll County of fieldstone in 1948, stands at the farMayberry Church thest distance, about 13 miles, north­ west of the mother church at Buffalo Mountain. When James “Arthur” Mitchell returned to Mitchell Crossroads after World War II, he sought to revive the Dinwiddie Presbyterian congregation that had languished for decades as the least funded and least active church body in the Abingdon Presbytery. Mitchell asked Richard Slate, then a young man plowing in a field, to “come back and help re-establish the church.” Mitchell also asked Dr. Goodridge Wilson of the Abingdon Presbytery to contact Bob Childress to hold services with the Dinwiddie congregation to revive the church. At the end of the first service Childress held in the old school building used by the Dinwiddie Presbyterians, he received a collection of $5.60. Richard Slate still remembers Childress’s immediate response and challenge: “That’s not enough money for me, let’s put it in a building fund.” Dinwiddie elder J.A. Mitchell then wrote a letter to Childress inviting him to come back as their pastor and help them build a church. As soon as Childress returned in May 1946, plans began to build a new church. Building committee members were J. R. Slate, chair; Miss Willie K. Mitchell, secretary; J.A. Mitchell, treasurer; and J.H. Wright and Richard P. Slate. Work on the church founda­ tion began in July 1946 without archi­ tects or plans. Childress and Slate laid out the building foundation footprint Dinwiddie Church by tape measuring and stepping it off. 39 �Most of the field rock came from Buffalo Mountain and was hauled in a World War II weapons carrier that Childress had purchased from army surplus. Granite shavings for mortar were hauled by the weapons carrier in 10 loads from Flat Rock Quarry near Mount Airy, North Carolina. When funds ran short, Childress brought Slate with him to meet with an owner of the Roanoke Times and drove her to the church site, asking her, “What do you think of the church building? Isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t it wonderful enough to have a roof?” The next day a truckload of shingles arrived at the church from an anonymous donor. Richard Slate remembers that Childress specifically directed interior construction of the fieldstone altar and pulpit, which remain unchanged today. The first service at the new Dinwiddie Church was held in September 1948. In 1953 Childress purchased an acre of adjoining property from Carroll County at a public auction in Hillsville for $2,000, a price far beyond the church’s budget. Childress paid for the purchase with a personal loan from the Bank of Floyd. Much of the information on Dinwiddie comes from an interview with Richard Slate, who has served as an elder at Dinwiddie for almost 60 years since his installation in 1947. 7(/tCCc^ Willis Church, built in 1954 in Floyd County five miles northeast of Buffalo Mountain, was the last of the rock-faced churches constructed under the spiritual leadership of Bob Childress, and the only one of the six church­ es constructed after Childress suffered his serious stroke in 1951. Willis Presbyterian Church traces its origins to meetings in the home of Troy Weeks, a prominent and respected leader in the Town of Willis who taught school and then became the town postmaster. For more than a year the Willis Presbyterian congrega­ tion worshiped as a mission of the Buffalo Mountain mother church. Willis Presbyterian Church began its history as an independent church in October 1939 with Elders Troy Weeks, Ephffom Weeks, and Henry Mayberry and 24 charter members. Troy Weeks served as clerk of the Willis Session until 1965, and as an active elder until 1981. From 1939 until 1953 Willis Presbyterian Church met in the Willis bank building, which had closed dur­ ing the Depression. In January 1953 the Willis congregation held a meet­ ing where they agreed to sell the bank Willis Church property to Blue Ridge Lodge, No. 4, of the International Order of Odd Fellows for $2,200. The meeting then resolved to use the money from the sale of the bank for construction of a new church building. At a Willis Church meeting in April 1953, the congregation agreed to buy a vacant lot in town and build a new church. In August 1953, the Willis building committee agreed to “build a wood building cased with granit [sic] stone.” The building committee would draw up plans for construction after looking at the few churches. In October 1953, Elder Troy Weeks reported that the building committee had contracted with Lyle Stanley to build the new church building. Stanley would do all woodwork and specified basement work for $2,250 with materials furnished by the congregation. Construction photographs show the wooden framing erected by Lyle Stanley and then covered with tarpa­ per and ready for field rock encasement. The fieldstone came from many places, including the Susan Quesenbetry farm, the J. W. Boones farm, and lands owned by the Weeks. Troy Weeks did the initial electrical wiring for the 40 �church and installed the chimes in the bell tower. Eventually, speakers on the Willis church bell tower broadcast gospel music Saturday evenings and Sundays played from 78-rpm records. Bob Childress’s failing health obligat­ ed him to resign his pastorate at Willis Church in September 1953, and his son, William “Bill Joe” Childress, then a second-year student at Columbia Union Theological Seminary, ushered the Willis congregation into the new Willis Presbyterian Church during the summer months of 1954. In July 1967 the Willis Presbyterian congregation changed its name to the Interfaith Church of Willis. Around 1990, the church name changed to Willis Full Gospel Church. That congregation vacated the Willis rock­ faced church by 2003, and Grace Baptist Church purchased the church from Peaks Presbytery, which retained first right of purchase, for $4,000. The 2003 transfer was facilitated by Bob Childress’s son Bryan, who was glad to see the Willis church remain in service. Endnotes 1. Karl Raitz and Richard Ulack, Appalachia, A Regional Geography, Land, People, and Development (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1984), chapters 1 and 2. 2. Ibid., chapters 3 and 4. 3. Edwin S. Gaustad and Philip L. Barlow, New H istorical Atlas o f Religion in America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 38-41. 4. Alice Felt Tyler, Freedom's Ferment: Phases o f American Social H istory from the Colonial Period to the Civil War (New York: Harper and Row, 1944), chapter 2. 5. Ibid. 6. Gaustad and Barlow, 131-138. 7. John Edgerton, Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights M ovement in the South (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995): A. Williams, 100-101; E. Smothers, 125; C. Williams, 78, 157-158, 289, 567. 8. Richard C. Davids, The Man Who M oved a Mountain (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970). Davids met Robert Childress in 1950 and subsequently interviewed him and his extended family and neighbors. The book has gone through 20 printings and has generated its own folklore. It now provides the basis for a dramatization, The Man Who Moved a Mountain, authored by Joseph Maiolo and Thomas Isbell. (Randle Brim has visited all six churches, has visited with descendants and neighbors of Robert Childress, and has interviewed current church elders and historians, including Stewart Childress, grandson o f Robert and pastor of two of the churches.) 9. The narrative in this and the two preceding paragraphs comes from Davids, The Man Who M oved a Mountain, Chapters 1-4. 10. Davids, The Man Who M oved a Mountain, Chapter 5, Hattie was the seventh Childress child, the youngest o f five boys and two girls. 11. Donald Nance, former archivist for Abingdon Presbytery in Wytheville, Virginia, called Buffalo Mountain the mother church; personal communication, August 2005. Childress broadcast gospel music played on 78-rpm records from Buffalo Mountain, Bluemont, Slate Mountain, Dinwiddie, and Willis churches; Richard Slate, elder of Dinwiddie Church and affiliated with Childress churches since 1947, likened Childress to “a wild horse in a field”; personal communication, September 2005, 12. Floyd County Circuit Court, Index to Real Estate Conveyance. Donald Nance explained the changing jurisdictions of Abingdon, Montgomery, Fincastle, and Peaks Presbyteries; personal communication, August 2005. Minutes of Abingdon Presbytery, 19251936, recorded the needy state of the Carroll County Presbyterian churches that would be served by Childress. 13. Newspaper clipping from the Mayberry Presbyterian Church file, Patrick County Historical Society, 1974; Bibliography Abingdon Presbytery, Wytheville, Virginia. Published minutes, 1916-1944. Brim, Randle. Simple Pleasures. Monthly publication of M ount Airy News, North Carolina. July 2004 Bluemont Presbyterian Church, 2-6. August 2004 Mayberry Presbyterian Church, 16-18, 22, 25. September 2004 Slate Mountain Presbyterian Church, 21, 24, 26-27, 30. October 2004 Dinwiddie Presbyterian Church, 5-8, 12,15. November 2004 Buffalo Mountain Presbyterian Church, 16-20. December 2004 Willis Rock Church, 2-4, 6, 8. January 2005 “Doing Good for Others,” 8. February 2005 “Squirrel Creek,” Part I, 8. March 2005 “Squirrel Creek,” Part II, 14. July 2005 The Play, “The Man Who Moved a Mountain,” pp. 17-18. Brim, Randle. April 2005, personal communication, Stuart, Virginia. September 2005, personal communication. 41 �September 2005, digital annotation o f articles in Simple Pleasures, July-December 2004. September 2005, digital images of session minutes for Bluemont, Slate Mountain, Dinwiddie, Buffalo Mountain, and Willis Churches. Carroll County, Commissioner o f Revenue, Tax Valuation Record. Hillsville, Virginia. Floyd County Circuit Court. Index to Real Estate Conveyances. Floyd, Virginia. Gaustad, Edwin S., and Philip L. Barlow, New H istorical Atlas o f Religion in America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Lackey, Stephen R., present pastor of Willis Rock Church, now Grace Baptist Church. Personal communication, November 2005. Nance, Donald, formerly with Abingdon Presbytery, Wytheville, Virginia. Personal communication, August 2005. Patrick County Flistorical Society, Stuart, Virginia. File on Mayberry Presbyterian Church. Raitz, Karl B., and Richard Ulack. Appalachia, A Regional Geography. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1984. Slate, Richard, elder of Dinwiddie Presbyterian Church since 1947. Personal communication, September 2005. Tyler, Alice Felt. Freedom s Ferment, Phases o f American Social H istory from the Colonial Period to the Civil War. New York: Harper and Row, 1944. Names o f Batte and Hallam Misspelled for Centuries outhwest Virginia historians have been writing for many years about Thomas Batts and Robert Fallam, eastern Virginians who may have been the first white men to see New River in 1671, but they were wrong. That was the accepted spelling used by Robert D. Stoner, F. B. Kegley, Mary Kegley and many others. The proper names of those early explorers were Thomas Batte and Robert Hallam, according to Sara Bearss, senior editor of the Dictionary of Virginia Biography, a publication of the Library of Virginia. In a talk at a History Forum in Winchester in April 2006, she explained the mistake: “The original journal of the pair’s expedition apparently no longer survives. In 1688, John Clayton (ca. 1656-1727) presented a copy, in which the principals’ surnames were misspelled, to the Royal Society in London; this led to their later misidentification in published accounts as Batts and Fallam. “The Henrico County clerk imitated Batte’s signature on May 9 and 16, 1692, in Henrico County Deeds, Wills, Etc. (1688-1697). His (Batte’s) father and brother clearly spelled their surname as Batte, in Charles City County Order Book (1655-1665). Abraham Wood to John Richards, Aug. 22, 1674, Shaftesbury Papers, clearly refers to the two as Batt and Hallom.” 42 �The Early Presbyterians in the Roanoke Valley, 1 7 4 9 -1 8 5 1 by John Hildebrand alem Presbyterian Church celebrated its 175™ anniversary on June 11, 2006, an occasion for all Roanoke Valley Presbyterians to reflect on their heritage, a heritage extending back over 250 years. The Reverend John Craig, a latter-day Paul and the first settled ordained Presbyterian minister in Colonial Virginia, brought Christianity to southwestern Virginia and planted the seeds of Presbyterianism in the Roanoke Valley in 1749 The first settlers in the Valley of Virginia were primarily Presbyterians who had roots in Ulster, Northern Ireland. They were part of the large movement of the Scotch-Irish people from Pennsylvania into Virginia in the 1730s. As these Presbyterians moved into the valleys formed by the Shenandoah, Upper James, Roanoke, New and Holston rivers, the young Presbyterian Church in America was hard pressed to minister to its spiritual needs with properly trained and ordained ministers. Donegal Presbytery, Lancaster Pennsylvania, in response to requests from the Presbyterians of North Mountain and the Borden Tract in present-day Rockbridge County, ordained John Craig on September 3,1740, and ordered him to supply these two congregations “one Sabbath in two months and as many week days as he can.” By December, 1740, John Craig had settled on Lewis Creek in Augusta County, ready to begin his wilderness ministry. John Craig was bom in County Antrim, Ireland, in 1709. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh and immigrated to America in 1734, settling in New Castle, Delaware. His best known pastorates were the Tinkling Spring Church at Fishersville, and the Augusta Stone Church, at Fort Defiance. He served Tinkling Spring until 1764 and Augusta Stone until his death in 1774. In addition to serving these two congregations as their regular pas­ tor, John Craig found time to minister to Presbyterians over a much larger and sparsely populated area, extending from Massanutten Mountain in Rockingham County, south to the Great Lick on the Roanoke River and then west to the headwaters of the Holston River in Wythe County. His parish also extended to Windy Cove on the Cowpasture River in Allegheny County and to Buck Mountain on the headwaters of the south fork of the Rivanna River, east of the Blue Ridge. In addition to the demands of horseback travel over long distances, Craig was con­ fronted with the dangers arising along the frontier from the French and Indian war. Within this larger area, John Craig visited many families and communities, baptizing their children and laying the foundation for at least 15 Presbyterian churches. On one such visit, the Reverend Mr. Craig stopped at the Great Lick, now Roanoke City, and on March 7, 1749, he baptized John Mason, son of John Mason, Thomas McNeal, son of Neal McNeal, and Mary Tosh, daugh­ ter of Thomas Tosh. Craig’s baptismal records mistakenly identified Mary Tosh’s father as Tasker Tosh, Thomas’s brother. In 1762, Hanover Presbytery asked Craig to supply one Sabbath at RoaOak and one at Catawba, likely in response to requests for supply pastors from the Presbyterians in these two areas. In the spring of 1768, Hanover Presbytery again asked Craig to visit and minister to the Presbyterians in southwest Virginia. The Presbytery’s request “ordered that supplies be appointed. Mr. Craig six Sabbaths at Craig’s Creek and Reed Creek, & places interjacent; & that Mr. Craig’s Congregation (Augusta Stone) may not thereby sustain too great a loss, the Presbytery appoint Messers. Black, Brown, and Cummings to supply it one Sabbath each.” S John Hildebrand o f Salem, a retired engineer and author o/Iron Horses in the Valley, also edited A Mennonite Journal, of his great-grandfather, Jacob R. Hildebrand ofAugusta County. H3 �Salem Presbyterian Church, 1928 photo. Craig s journey took him as far west as Reed Creek and the Holston River. At the Presbytery meeting at Tinkling Spring in the spring of 1769, Craig reported the organization of eight churches and the ordination of rep­ resentatives for each. His account of the trip described the name, location, representatives and the number of fam­ ilies in each church. The Presbytery’s Clerk was ordered to record Craig’s report in the Presbytery Book Today, there are three active Presbyterian congregations descended from the eight churches organized by Craig in 1768: New Dublin in Pulaski County, Sinking Spring, now the Fincastle Church, and New Antrim, now the Salem Church. The lineage of the Presbyterian Churches in the Roanoke Valley can be traced back through the Salem Church to the New Antrim Church. The Church was named for Craig’s home county in Ulster and served 43 Scotch-Irish families who had settled along the Roanoke River. It was the first church of any denomination in the area, and was located on the south side of the Salem Turnpike, immediately east of Peters Creek. The congrega­ tion’s first representatives, or elders, ordained by Reverend Craig in 1768, were William Bryan, Andrew Boyd, Robert Page, Neal McNeal, and Thomas Tosh. In 1769, a 36-acre tract for the church was surveyed for William Bryan, William Bryan, Jr., William Cowen and David Gass; it was described as being “on the east side of a small run at the foot of a pine ridge.” A further identification of the New Antrim tract is contained in the Botetourt County Surveyor’s book, Volume 1A, where the legal description of a survey of John Neely’s lands concludes: “contain­ ing 900 acres of land exclusive of the lot of land the said John Neely sold to the Presbyterian congregation on which Ebenezer Church stands.” The survey is dated April 3, 1807 William Bryan was the leader of the New Antrim Congregation. He was bom in Northern Ireland in 1685 or 1686. The date of his immigration to America is unknown, but he settled in Pennsylvania, where he married Margaret Watson. They moved to the Salem area in 1746, acquiring a farm in the area of present day Lake Spring and Salem High School. He is credited by many historians of giving present day-Salem its name. He died in 1786 and is buried in Salem’s West Hill cemetery. �F. B. Kegley, in his book, Kegley’s Virginia Frontier, identifies Bryan and his brother David as leaders in the “pioneer Presbyterian church on the Roanoke” and the “meeting place was at the site of the later Brick Church (Ebenezer) on the east side of Peters Creek on the old Salem-Lynchburg Road. The site is marked today by a small stone monument.” Kegley’s book also includes a map identifying the 36 acre tract as the “Presbyterian Meeting House Tract - 1767.” Another reference to the New Antrim Church is contained in Stoner’s A Seed-Bed o f the Republic, Early Botetourt. Page 361 reads, “Another church served by the Reverend Mr. Wallace ... was the Peter’s Creek Congregation of Presbyterians. This Church, in what is now Roanoke County, was located on Peter’s Creek east of Salem and was served by Rev. Mr. Wallace in 1781.” Stoner further reports that on April 8, 1781, William Bryan, Samuel Crawford and Thomas Poage, “Elders of the Peters Creek Congregation of Presbyterians ... Do hereby cer­ tify (to the Court o f Botetourt County) that the Rev. Caleb Wallace is a regular and orthodox Minister of our church and congregation, and as such we recommend him to be licensed to celebrate the Institution of Matrimony according to the rites of our chinch as directed in the late Act of Assembly declaring what shall be a lawful marriage.” Unfortunately, the name New Antrim did not survive. Although the name was used by Reverend Craig in his account of his 1768 mission and was recorded in the Hanover “Presbytery Book”, other references to the New Antrim congregation in the records of the Synod of Virginia, Hanover Presbytery and Lexington Presbytery are RoanOak or Peter’s Creek until 1802, when the name Ebenezer is used by Lexington Presbytery to designate the ”on the Roanoke-Peter’s Creek congregation.” The first pastor of the Ebenezer Church was the Reverend Robert Logan, who ministered to the Fincastle Presbyterian Church at the same time. The Ebenezer congregation remained active until 1831, when it joined with the Catawba Union Church to form the Salem Church. In 1851, the pastor of the Salem Church, Reverend Urias Powers and 25 members of the congregation left to form the Big Lick congregation, from which the Presbyterian Churches of Roanoke city are descended. Thus the descendant of that first Presbyterian congregation, known at different times as New Antrim, RoanOak, Peters Creek and Ebenezer, began the journey which would see the growth of the Presbyterian faith throughout the Roanoke Valley. From this early beginning, Roanoke Valley Presbyterians have been truly blessed. Paraphrasing the Psalmist, we “have a goodly heritage.” 45 �John Henry Pinkard and the African-American Banks o f Roanoke by M ichael E. Blankenship ver the years much has been written about Roanoke’s legendary African-American herbal doctor, John Henry Pinkard. In my investigation into his life I have found that much of the “information” previously disseminated was a mixture of fact and fiction concocted by him, like one of his medicines, during his own lifetime. It is with pleasure that I present this previously unexplored aspect of Dr. Pinkard’s career. Historic preservation has always been a personal goal. I have been fortunate to locate many one-of-a-kind items of great historic value, and gladly donated them to museums [including the Roanoke Historical Society] and libraries across the country for their preservation and use by future generations. It was with this mind-set that I entered the final home of Dr. Pinkard on Oct. 14, 1999. His old mansion on Franklin Road, near the southern city limits had housed White House Galleries, an art gallery and frame shop, for many years. On the night before Lowe’s was to take over the building, George and Libby Ferguson, who owned White House Galleries, invited me and my family to come and take anything we wanted from the attic. The house was scheduled for demolition and anything left would go down with the house. My parents love to go to flea markets and as they were scurrying about, taking old frames, framing mate­ rials and prints to their van, I was busy exploring for any evidence of Dr. Pinkard’s time of residence. Since Pinkard died in 1934 I had little hope of finding anything of interest. I had been in the attic several hours looking under and over piles of debris by the light of a single bulb, when I inserted my hand into a hollow “pocket” between the rafters around the edge of a dormer. I immediately felt paper and withdrew several business type journals. I didn’t know what I had but I knew it might be important. There were perhaps 20 “pockets” around the window and each contained business journals, old city directories, hymnals and an array of items, which I discovered belonged to Dr. Pinkard. In all, I found nearly 50 of Pinkard’s business journals, including the minute book of the Afro-American Bank which he and other prominent members of the African-American community started on August 1, 1921. Virginia at that point already had a history of African-Americans establishing banks for their own communities. One of the first Black-owned banks in America, the Savings Bank of the Grand Fountain United Order of the a Michael E. Blankenship is an amateur historian employed by Rockydale Quarries Corporation. He lives in Southwest Roanoke County. This article will be in his forthcoming book, John Henry Pinkard, African-American Legend of the Roanoke Valley. Above: Dr. John Henry Pinkard, circa 1925. (Photo courtesy of Gainsboro Library) 46 �Reformers, started in Richmond in 1888. Without a doubt, Pinkard had also heard of Maggie Lena Walker who helped found the St. Luke Penny Bank in Richmond in 1903, earning her the recognition of being the first female bank president in the United States. In the words of Mrs. Walker, “What has the white man done for you that you should trust his bank?” I think Pinkard, like Walker, also saw a Black-supported bank as a confrontational response to segregation, as she so accu­ rately stated, “The almighty dollar is the magic wand that knocks the bottom out of race prejudice.” In the year 1920, four Black-owned banks were operating in Richmond: Mechanics Savings Bank, Second Street Savings Bank, the Commercial Bank and Trust Company, as well as the St. Luke Penny Saving Bank. By 1921, Roanoke must have seemed ripe to have an AfricanAmerican bank of its own. Such a venture would encourage, support and facilitate economic empowerment o f the African- American community, which often experienced less than courteous treatment at white-owned establishments. The beginning of the bank is recorded in Roanoke City Charter Book 13, pages 155 and 156, September 13, 1921, where the certificate of incorporation is detailed. The capital stock of the corporation was between $25,000 and $50,000, divided into shares of $100 each. The officers were listed as: Dr. J. H. Pinkard, president; Dr. W. R. Brown, vice president; Rev. J. H. Robinson, secretary/treasurer. Other directors of the bank were listed as: B. F. Sherard and J. H. Brooks. The minute book of the Afro-American Bank, 44 handwritten pages in its entirety, is a fascinating part of Roanoke’s African-American history, capturing the excite­ ment, enthusiasm and pride of Roanoke area Blacks in creat­ ing a major institution owned and operated by themselves. Many are surprised to see the word “AfroAmerican” used at such an early date, thinking the word was an invention of the 1960s and 1970s during the first wave of the Black Pride Movement. Actually, by 1921 the word had been in use for several decades, having come into common usage during the 1890s. By 1892 the nationally prominent Afro-American Newspaper had been founded in Baltimore, Acorn Small Loan Co., Pinkard’s bank at 1019 Maryland. In 1895 a book appeared, entitled Afro-American Salem Ave. SW in Roanoke. Encyclopedia o f the Thoughts, Doings and Sayings o f a (Photo courtesy of Gainsboro Library. Photo by Race, compiled and arranged by James T. Haley {Nashville, Aufenger) Tenn.: Haley & Florida, 1895} in which the Rev. J. C. Embry, D.D. of Philadelphia espoused the usage of the word, claiming it to be “euphonious, beautiful, true.” He further states: “To Mrs. M. I. Lee, an honored foster-child of Wilberforce University, we owe the honor of intro­ ducing into our literature the only accurate, beautiful and classic title ever applied to our race.” Dr. Pinkard also obviously liked the sound of the word and all it conveyed. The first meeting of the Afro-American Bank was on August 1, 1921 in Roanoke. The initial gathering was chaired by Rev. J. H. Robinson acting as president pro tern. After a brief talk, it was moved and passed by those present that a “prominent organization” be formed. John H. Pinkard was elected president, with G. E. Moore as vice president, and J. H. Robinson as secretary and treasurer. William Craft bought the first share of stock. The second meeting was held at The Acorn, Dr. Pinkard’s drug store, on August 8,1921. The minutes indi­ cate an earnest desire to create a bank and those present were urged to spread the news about the fledgling project. At the third meeting, on August 26, 1921, G. E. Moore was replaced as vice president by Dr. W. R. Brown of Burrell Memorial Hospital. President Pinkard appointed a committee to assist in the selection of a board of direc­ tors. The organizational meetings continued on an almost weekly basis and each meeting included inspirational pep talks on the benefits and possibilities a bank would bring to the community. 47 �The “promoters” for the new bank were Chalmer B. Smith and Frank E. Swope, both white men, from South Carolina, and both relative newcomers to Roanoke. At the October 14, 1921 meeting they received an advance for their forthcoming promotional work. It is odd that the board of directors would hire white men to rep­ resent a totally African-American project, surely there were persons in the black community who were equally capable. In hindsight they may have wished they had hired someone from their own community because in a minute book entry for May 23, 1923 the bank is shown paying expenses involved in a lawsuit Smith and Swope had filed against the bank. Also at the October 14 meeting, a 25-member board of directors was appointed by Pinkard. When the newly appointed board began debating the location of a site for the bank, Pinkard brought the discussion to a halt by “stating to the Board of Directors that he would build them a building and equip it completely for a bank and furnish all necessary capital needed” which he would lease to the bank or sell to them at cost. O f course, “his gen­ erous offer was unanimously accepted by the Board of Directors.” The projected date for the start of business for the bank was projected at January 1, 1922. Mary A. Pinkard, Pinkard’s wife, was the first woman to purchase a share of stock in the bank but by December 1921 shares had also been sold to Mrs. Mary Wade, Mrs. Carrie Woods, Mrs. Maggie Meade, Mrs. Gracie Fisher, Mrs. Delilah McGeorge and Mrs. P. W. Poindexter. At $100 per share this was quite an investment for women of the 1920s. At the November 18 meeting the shareholders were “elated by the presence of Mr. Elwood of Altavista, Va., a successful white business man. He was presented to the body, and after relating several stories in a jovial way, he gave the Institution some timely and encouraging remarks. Mr. Elwood told us that friendship and busi­ ness could never go together.” He told the group to believe they could succeed. At the conclusion of this meeting, a group of 12 trustees was announced. In early December, Pinkard stated an important aspect of the proposed bank: “The U. S. money is known not by a man’s color, and so it will be with the Afro-American Bank in its dealing with the public.” At the last meeting of 1921, Dr. Pinkard announced that the bank’s safe had arrived and was “in the build­ ing.” Apparently the bank building had been erected between October 14 and December 30. Pinkard stated “the fixtures would be here by the time the bank had seasoned out.” The January 1, 1922 projected opening date for the bank came and passed without an opening in sight. At the first meeting of 1922, on January 6, a committee was appointed “to notify the stockholders to meet for a final election of directors and trustees.” Apparently the new committee had some questions about the record-keeping of the organization because they reported “that it was necessary for the books of the Secretary be gone over, and see how much stock has been sold.” On Feb. 10 the first meeting in the new bank building was held. Andrew Jackson Oliver, many times referred to as “Pinkard’s personal lawyer,” presided at all the meetings for February 1922. Pinkard was absent because of illness. It was apparent that some of the stockholders were already growing impatient. The minutes state: “it was decided that we do not return any subscriber’s portion of his money paid on stock, unless we first determine to abandon our purpose to establish a bank.” Weekly meetings were abandoned in March 1922, the next meeting was May 12, 1922. Little was accom­ plished at the meeting and another meeting was not held until August 18. Between the March and August meet­ ings a stunning event occurred which surprised all those dealing with African-American banks in Virginia. The Mechanics Savings Bank in Richmond, which had opened its doors on January 1, 1902, was closed in July 1922 by the state bank examiners. Following were allegations of banking irregularities and accusations that executives at the bank had made large withdrawals just prior to the bank’s closing. Only 40 percent of the depositors’ money was returned. For many who worked hard for their dollars, receiving only 40 cents on each dollar they had saved was devastating. This closure deeply affected the confidence of all investors and depositors in African-Americanowned banks in Virginia. The news could not have come at a worse time for Pinkard and supporters of the Afro-American Bank. At the August 18 meeting, which was more than a year after the initial meeting to start the bank, lawyer A. J. Oliver was the chairman. “In his remarks he showed, that among other reasons why the bank was not opened was that a permanent organization had first to be made in selection of regular officers, the making of bylaws, etc. He also stated that when sufficient stock was sold, in accordance with the state laws, a notice was to be sent to all stock­ holders to attend the meeting for election o f permanent officers.” A September 1 meeting was suggested for the election of permanent officers and the adoption of bylaws of the Afro-American Bank. A meeting was eventually held on Halloween night at 8 o’clock, but a majority of the stockholders was not 48 �present so no business could be transacted. However, a Finance Committee was appointed to handle “all matters regarding the future relations of the Bank.” The last meeting for 1922 was held on November 20. The Finance Committee reported “progress in the auditing of the books” and authorized “a new issue of stock certificates”. Two meetings were held in 1923, one on April 4 and the other May 23. The purpose of these meetings was to pay expenses incurred by the banking organization. On March 4, 1924 a special meeting was called to discuss whether the bank proposition should be dissolved or carried forward. All those present were granted an opportu­ nity to express their feeling and the minutes state “quite an inspiring talk was made by all of the members of the institu­ tion.” A motion prevailed by a vote of 8 to 16 to continue in the attempt to open the bank. This was the final business meeting for the Afro-American Bank. The attempt to create a bank sadly failed. Perhaps the group establishing the bank should have had more patience and learned from previous banking efforts. The famous African-American-owned St. Luke Penny Savings Bank of Richmond opened its doors on November 2, 1903 and its shares of capital stock were not completely sold until 1912. Yet that bank met great success in attracting customers and investors. Less than a year after the quiet collapse of the AfroAmerican Bank, John Pinkard still had his sights set on founding a bank for Roanoke’s Black community. A “Supplemental Certificate of Incorporation” was filed at the Roanoke City Courthouse on January 10, 1925 [Roanoke City Charter Book 15, page 8-10] to establish the Acorn Banking Company, Inc. The purpose of this venture, as described in the certificate, is slightly different than that set forth for the previous bank. This time there would be more involvement with “stocks, bonds and other securities,” money lending and real estate loans. The stock was also Neighbors Electric Co. occupies the former Acorn lowered to $25 per share. The names of the officers of the new corporation are Small Loan Co. building today. listed as: J. H. Pinkard, president; W. W. Hicks, vice presi­ (Photo courtesy of Mack Neighbors) dent; Chas. B. Mattox, secretary; M. A. [Mary A.] Pinkard, treasurer. C. Thompson is also listed as an additional direc­ tor. Perhaps Roanoke’s Black community had been soured on the idea of its own bank after the failure of the Afro-American because it appears that they were not supportive of the new Acorn Bank. In the Roanoke City Charter Book 15, pages 497-499, a Certificate for Amendment to the Charter, dated March 14, 1927, spells out the situation: “Whereas, upon consideration of the condition and operation of our corporation, we, the Board of Directors of Acorn Banking Co., Incorporated, consider it advisable to amend our present charter so as to discon­ tinue the banking business as such, and instead thereof our corporation to be authorized to engage in the business of making small loans...” The name of the newly formed corporation changed to the Acorn Small Loan Co., Inc. and was still under the leadership of Pinkard. A listing of the new officers included: John H. Pinkard, president; A. J. Oliver, secretary-manager; and M. A. [Mary A.] Pinkard, treasurer. The new list of directors included. W. R. Simms, J. W. Hicks, and Geo. E. Harrington. It is fortunate that one of the banking records is preserved in the Harrison Museum of African American History. The single page, dated May 11, 1929, is entitled NOTES WITH INTEREST DUE THEREON STILL IN NOTE FILE. The names of individuals and the amounts owed give a fascinating snapshot of the Acorn Small Loan Co. at that point in time: 49 �There was also one note listed left over from the Acorn Bank: P. R. Sawyer 39.74_______.51________40,31 Grand Totals $546.42 $108.21 $654.63 The complete financial picture of the bank was recorded at the bottom of the document: NOTES IN COLLECTOR’S HANDS, JAN. 17, 1929 Small Loan Company Notes $ 1359.43. Acorn Bank Notes 593.85 Total $1953.28 Collected on above Notes 236.75 To be collected $1716.53 Amount due on notes in hand 654.63 [See above] Due Loan Co., from all sources $2371.16 From this information we can see that, at least for a time, the Acorn Small Loan Company was actively engaged in business and making a profit. The fate of the Acorn Small Loan Co. was found in a letter dated November 1932 on a secretarial pad dis­ covered among the belongings of Dr. Pinkard, it reads: Department of Taxation Richmond, Va Honorable H.T. Leake, Auditor Dear Sir: I am in receipt of your letter of recent date enclosing blanks for Capital returns for the year 1931 showing the oper­ ations and capital holdings of Acorn Small Loan Incorporated. I beg to inform you that the above company no longer exist[s]. It went out of business during the year 1930, that being the last year for which it was licensed and the Department of Insurance & Brokers was duly notified o f the disolution [sic] of the company. Its entire capital, stock, etc. was taken over by Dr. John H. Pinkard of Roanoke, Va. during the month of August & September 1930; from that date the business formerly conducted by the above company closed, therefore it has no capital on which to report. So I am returning to you the blank marked “no capital to report.” Very truly yours, fAndrew J. Oliver] Formerly Sect. & Manager o f above company dis[s]olved. The new small loan company, as had the Acorn Bank, occupied a building erect­ ed by Pinkard at 1019 Salem Ave., SW, Roanoke. The building still stands on Salem Avenue and is now occupied by the Neighbors Electric Company. For many years the old bank building was occupied by Southwest Cleaners. S ources Much of the information on Maggie Lena Walker and the Richmond banks from: A Right Worthy Grand Mission, by Gertrude Woodruff Marlowe, 2003, Howard University Press, Washington, DC.] Suggested further reading about the African-American banks of Virginia: Race Man, the Rise and Fall o f the “Fighting Editor, ” by Ann Field Alexander, 2002, University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, Va. Pictured: Promotional token, front and back, from Acorn Banking Co. dated 1925. (Courtesy of Daniel Jones) 50 �Civilian Conservation Corps Restorea the Jefferson National Forest to Health by Loretta J. LeMay ithin or adjacent to the boundaries of the area designated as the Jefferson National Forest, beautiful wellwooded slopes, fish in the crystal clear streams, and deer in the forests abound. The barren, denuded slopes and silt-filled streams that existed prior to the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) years bore lit­ tle resemblance to what we see today. The efforts of predominantly urban young men restored the forests and the economies of local communi­ ties as East Coast urban inhabitants visit and share the enduring beauty and natural resources of our mountains. The Jefferson National Forest, an area bounded on the north and east by Rockbridge County, on the south by Washington County and on the west by Pine Mountain which is the Virginia boundary with Kentucky, provided a work place for the CCC. The CCC, a welfare/relief program existing from 1933 to 1942, brought thousands of young men into the Jefferson National Forest to work on forestry projects. The majority of these boys, aged 17-28, lived in urban areas of the United States. About 150 to 200 men worked on land reclamation projects while housed in camps located on private and federal lands. This article briefly explores some social and environmental aspects of the implementa­ tion of the CCC Program within the Jefferson National Forest. The CCC is accepted as the most successful, most popular, and earliest implemented of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs (Cavalho 1977, Salmond 1967). In fact, as early as his acceptance speech for his nomination as a presidential candidate, Roosevelt alluded to his plans for a program which would be of a conser­ vation nature and would employ a million men (Salmond 1967). The labor market in the grips of the Great Depression had very few jobs to offer to anyone, especially the unskilled youth of the nation when family men had a greater need for jobs. Salmond states that: “ ... of those between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four who were in the labor market, perhaps one in four were totally unemployed. A further 20 percent worked part-time only ... The government could no longer afford to ignore their plight.” (1977:3) Upon assuming office, Roosevelt moved quickly to implement a plan which would combat youthful unem­ ployment. In an address to Congress on March 21, 1933, Roosevelt recommended civilian employment on nation­ al forests. Youth employment programs appealed to Roosevelt for a number of reasons. It has been estimated that 250,000 youths, aged 1 8 - 25, were riding the rails, looking for work during the Depression Years (Salmond 1967). As the newly elected President of the United States, Roosevelt felt pressure to find meaningful work for the unem­ ployed youth which would not be competitive with the older segments of the labor force. Several factors: wage control, work on public lands only, and use of little or no mechanical labor ensured non-competitiveness with the older labor force. During the Congressional hearings authorizing the CCC, a snag was narrowly averted. The Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, through her testimony defused criticisms that the low wage of $30 per month would have a negative impact on the general wage level. Miss Perkins stated that the bill, a relief measure, could not be thought of as “providing real wage-producing employment.” She convinced Congress that such a low wage would not be exploitative since the men would be provided with food, housing, K Loretta "Lori” LeMay, a geography professor at Radford University, has interviewed CCC veterans in prepara­ tion for a book about their work in the Jefferson National Forest before World War II. A Vermont native, she holds mas­ ter ’s and doctoral degreesfrom Indiana University. She has taught at Indiana, New River Community College and Radford. She talked about the CCC at a Nov. 17, 2004, meeting o f the History Museum and Historical Society. 51 �and work clothes as well” (Salmond 1967:16). The control of wages, well below the current labor market, was pri­ mary to passage of legislation. Second was the confinement of projects to work on public lands or on soil reclamation projects on farm land. Roosevelt felt that the practices of non-mechanized labor would provide more work for more individuals (Salmond 1967). Our fledgling national forests provided employment opportunities. The bill passed easily with strong bipartisan leadership. On March 2 9 ^ Congress sent a bill to Roosevelt authorizing the Emergency Conservation Work Bill (E.C.W.), allowing him to formulate the framework for the Civilian Conservation Corps. Roosevelt quickly assembled an advisory council of representatives of the Departments of Labor, Interior, Agriculture and War (Salmond 1967, Cavalho 1977). He appointed Robert Fechner as director of E.C.W. Fechner formulated guidelines for the “establishment and operation of the CCC camps” (Cavalho 1977:3). Participation by the Department of Labor was impor­ tant. The Departments of Interior and Agriculture assumed responsibility for the supervision o f the enrollees during work projects. The War Department, through the Army, oversaw the welfare of the enrollees from induction through and including their camp life when not working. Roosevelt retained a strong interest in the pro­ gram and insisted that he personally check on the loca­ tion and scope of each of the camps. On April 5 ^ Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 6101 which set forth the structure of the E.C.W., more popularly known as the Civilian Conservation Corps (Cavalho 1977). Dissemination of information about the new program occurred rapidly. The Rockbridge County News of Lexington, Virginia carried a story on April 6th, reporting proposed locations of camps within western Virginia (Volume 49, 1933). With one exception, the guidelines and structure of the program remained unchanged until the termina­ tion of the program in 1942. In the program’s final workable form, the Army retained responsibility for and authority over the enrollees except for actual working hours instead of just until the enrollees arrived in camp. (Salmond 1967). Two other param­ eters of the program varied. Age of the enrollees fluc­ A Civilian Conservation Corps worker stacks planks. tuated but remained in the 17-28 year-range, with a (C C C photos by superintendent o f Jefferson National Forest; courtesy o f Nancy Wooldridge) few special exceptions. Secondly, the duration of enrollment varied from six months to two years. The Army, as representatives of the War Department, had the responsibility of all physical care of the enrollees. The Department of Labor delegated the selection of the enrollees to state agencies. The Forest Service, National Park Service, or Soil Erosion Service within the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior, selected and supervised work projects. No lack of projects existed. The National Forests of the eastern United States were the result of governmental purchase of abandoned lands. Millions of acres of land in the southern United States were considered worthless by owners and tax asses­ sors (Clark 1984). The Weeks Act authorized the purchase “of private lands ... cut over, burned over, and farmed 52 �o u t... mostly east of the Great Plains” (Bergoffen 1976:25). Before the end of the 1800s, the forests of the eastern United States had nearly ceased to exist. Forest had once covered 800,000,000 acres of the nation, but by 1933 over 87 percent of the virgin timber had been removed, leaving only 100,000,000 acres (Salmond 1967). Although left standing longer, the forests of Appalachia did not escape decimation. At the turn of the century, the eastern United States with the exceptions of Virginia and Texas, had been almost completely cleared of forest lands (Clark 1984). As the forest reserves of the eastern United States were depleted, the timber industry constructed narrow gauge railroads, using them to gain access to a largely untouched treasure trove of virgin mountain forests. Timber interests brought in whole towns of immigrant workers, set up sawmills and denuded the mountains of timber (Eller 1979). Quotes from the first forest ranger on the Clinch District, C.B. Clark, illustrate the attitudes of the timber interests: “A policy of cut out, bum out, and move out had been followed in the past” and “No one believed in growing another crop of timber, it would take too long. No one now living, would live long enough to harvest a crop (timber).” Areas supporting marketable [sic] stands were depleted or fast becoming so, before the onslaught of the timber scrounger of that day (1965:8). After the mountains had been clear cut, farmers tried to take advantage of the newly cleared land, plowing moun­ tain slopes. Poor, thin soils dominated as would be expected of land which had previously been forested with hard­ woods. Extreme slopes led to erosion after the forest had been removed and the land plowed. A common agricul­ tural practice to clear land for grazing included burning the mountains to remove shrubs and sedge grass. Removal of the ground cover continued and accelerated the erosion processes. Over 2 million acres of land in Virginia were labeled as either waste land or idle or fallow crop land. In addition to the unproductive land, fires in 1932 cleared nearly a million acres of forest. (Cavalho (1977). Ranger Van Alstine, the first Forest Service employee on the New Castle District, wrote a particularly vivid description of the area: In 1935 there were fewer than a dozen deer in Craig County. There were some turkey and bear. The Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company had one toll circuit from Salem to New Castle. Otherwise, it was the land of haywire telephone systems. The Appalachian Electric Power Company had a power line between Salem and New Castle. Only New Castle and E.M. Abbott had electricity. Route 311 was the only hard surfaced road, all the others were of dirt with frequent fords at creek crossings. With the exception of Sinking Creek and Meadow Creek Valleys most of the woodlands had been recently burned and were covered with dead trees and new brush growth. Each spring every sprig of sedge grass was burned. I have seen Meadow Creek and Sinking Creek black all the way to New River. The bottom lands flooded every time there was a heavy rain (Van Alstine 1962). Van Alstine’s words vividly paint a picture of conditions in Craig County. Timbering bared steep moun­ tain slopes. Secondary growth had been prevented by the annual burning practices leading to a loss of game and accelerated erosion. Larger game had been effectively eradicated with the loss of habitats. Much of the differences between Ranger Van Alstine’s description and present-day conditions may be attributed to the work of the CCC enrollees under the direction of Forest Service employees. The amount and results of labor of the CCC boys is difficult to calculate. Very little primary information exists concerning the activities of the CCC at a local level. At the Barbour’s Creek CCC Reunion in September of 1988, several of the informants mentioned that when the Captain’s cabin had been sold in the 1960s, many of the paper records, still in existence, had been destroyed. Outside of the National Archives, very few records of local work projects have survived. There are no records of the social impact other than a few letters sent to Robert 53 �A worker uses a drawknife to smooth and taper a plank, Fechner, director of the CCC Program. The only method of collecting the information about the effect on the people who worked in the CCC Program is through interviewing personally involved individuals. It must be admitted that the ages of the respon­ dents and the length of time which has elapsed since the existence of the CCC Program may have affected the memories of the informants. Charley Robertson (1988) clearly indicated his awareness of this when he said “After all this time our ‘recollectors’ don’t work as good as they used to.” An additional problem with this type of methodology is the fact that only data from individuals able to be located is included. The data base is limited because only a few of the individual members of the CCC settled and remained in the areas of their respective CCC camps. Serendipitous tips have led to successful detective work resulting in the location of individuals other than those living in prox­ imity to the old camp sites. Attendance at the Barbour’s Creek Reunion allowed contact with many individuals who otherwise could not have been located. This group has been meeting annually for the past five years, demonstrating their interest and sense of identification with events that occurred 50 years ago. All of the informants inter­ viewed during this research had vivid memories of their CCC days. Obviously much information has been omitted. But some memories which may have been colored by time are better than no memories at all. Records about the organizational aspects of the camps do exist. State and local agencies selected par- ticipants in the CCC. The guidelines for selection follow: As a single man, not less than 18 nor more than 25, whose family or relatives are dependent or potentially dependent, at a pay of $1.00 per day, by application or through the above mentioned agency (one designated by the commissioner of public welfare) in your county or city. As a person living in the vicinity of one of the camps, whose family is dependent or potentially so, as a seasoned laborer or experienced woodsman, or forestry service man, at a pay of $1.00 a day, through the National Forest, National Park or Virginia State Forest Service (National Archives and Records RG-35, Entry 100.) The selection criteria ensured the welfare aspects of the CCC program by effectively blocking the employ­ ment of any youth who did not have dependents, with the exception of veterans and local enrolled men (LEM). The provision remitting all except $8.00 per month gave relief to the families of the enrollees. None of the inform­ ants except Bill Campbell (1988) remembered that the sum to be sent home was $22.00. They all stated unequiv­ ocally that they had sent $25.00, keeping only $5.00 for themselves. Bill explained that in the early years of the program, the monthly remittance to families was $25.00 per month. This sum changed later to $22.00. Several of, those interviewed, however, did state that if you needed more money, some of it had a way of returning to camp 54 �(Thomas 1988, Martin and Baker 1988, Livesey and Bailey 1988.) On the local level, someone knowledgeable about the local community and appointed by the commission­ er of public welfare chose enrollees. Personnel were selected by someone who knew the individuals or their fam­ ilies. Martin (1988) remembers that a visiting nurse informed him about the program. Not all selections of enrollees were unbiased, however. Robertson (1988) recalled that the local storekeeper who was “something of a politician” determined those who were accepted for enrollment. He stated that he believed that he was accepted for enrollment because of a close friendship with the storekeeper’s son. Cavalho believes that “the opportunity for abuse by local patronage dispensers did exist” (1977:72.) The selection officers may also have been influenced by others. Captain Arnold, commanding officer of the Speedwell camp, stated in a report to Third Corps Army Headquarters that three “undesirables” had been rejected for enrollment due to his influence with the local welfare officer (National Archives and Records, RG 95). It is logical to assume that the process of influence might work in a reversed pattern. The networking which exists among kin in Appalachia can be seen to exist within the CCC Program. Moody’s (1988) father got him a job at Big Island. Vester Stamper was a project superintendent on the Jefferson and his brother Paul was a foreman, first for Vester, and later at the Barbour’s Creek Camp (Stamper 1988). Aubrey Coleman’s (1988) uncle, a blacksmith at Arnold’s Valley, arranged employment for Aubrey and four of his cousins at F-13 (Coleman 1988). Five classifications of enrollees existed: Juniors: The Department of Labor selects as juniors, young, unmarried men between the ages of 17 and 28, [The inclusive ages varied with the lower limit in the beginning of the program set at 18 and the upper limit at 25.] and requires them to make an allotment of not less than $22.00 a month to dependents. Cooks and Mess Stewards: Upon request of the corps area commander, the field agents of the Department of Labor select and certify a maximum of four men per company possessing suitable qualifications as cooks, and waive requirements pertaining to juniors as to age, marital status and allotment. Local Experienced Men: Men experienced in work in the woods may be selected free from restriction as to age, marital status or willingness to allot part of their pay, but they may not be employed outside the state in which they are resident. Veterans- These groups are selected by the Veteran’s Administration, and they are composed of individu­ als who have served the United States in certain wars. They are chosen without regard to age and marital status, but are required to allot three-fourths of their pay to dependents, providing they have dependents. Others: From time to time the Director of Emergency Conservation Work authorized the enrollment of small groups, such as forestry students and artists. (Harby 1938:37). Two of these categories, veterans and LEMs, are of particular interest when considering the impact of the CCC within the Jefferson National Forest. World War I veterans originally staffed the Arnold’s Valley camp. A great number of unemployed veter­ ans from World War I were agitated for governmental programs for economic assistance. Veterans known as Bonus Marchers marched on Washington in May 1933. The CCC was uppermost in Roosevelt’s mind at the time of the march leading to the inclusion of the veterans as forest workers under the CCC program. Two thousand of the 3,000 “Bonus Marchers” enrolled in the CCC program (Cavalho 1977). In the opinion of J.N. Jefferson (1988), project superintendent in charge of the construction of the Cave Mountain Lake Recreation area, the veterans were most valuable because of their age and previous experience. Although Jefferson did not denigrate the efforts of the younger enrollees, he stated that after the veterans were replaced by young boys from Pennsylvania, the work did not proceed as rapidly. The second category which was of utmost importance, considering the rural nature and lack of job oppor­ tunities in the location o f most of the camps, was local enrolled men (LEMs). A fear of rejection or negative response by local individuals was taken into consideration when the provision for employment of LEMs was included. A letter to President Roosevelt from the members of the Advisory Council, including Fechner, stated: “It is clearly impossible to import into forest regions non-residents even from within the same state, and have peace 55 �there unless local unemployed laborers, accustomed to making their living in the woods in that very place are given fair consideration as concerns their own means of livelihood.” (Salmond 1967:35) The employment of a few local people did not sufficiently pacify all of the local citizens. Resentment of the importation of outsiders existed. Some of the local people found it difficult to understand why outsiders were being given jobs when their young people were unemployed (Campbell 1988). Virginia’s quota for enrollment for the First Enrollment Period numbered 5,000 young men; 4,300 of these men were selected on the basis of population density. A letter from Arthur W. James, commissioner of public wel­ fare and chairman, State Emergency Relief Committee, set forth the guidelines for the selection of the LEMs. The remainder of the men, 700 in number, are to be selected in the vicinity of the camps by the National Forestry, National Parks and State Forestry authorities. ... The 700 men are not limited as to age or marital status, but they must be selected in the vicin­ ity of the camps and will receive the same pay, viz., $1.00 a day. These 700 are being selected in this manner in order to get sufficient laborers experienced in lumber and forestry work, and to take care of unemployment in the immediate vicinity of the camp for obvious reasons (National Archives and Records, RG-35, Entry 300). The employment of the LEMs also gave the project superintendents a few experienced laborers who were either familiar with the area and/or possessed a needed skill for the work projects. Jefferson (1988) recalled that stone masons were highly valued. Bailey and Livesey (1988) mentioned that a stone mason at Barbour’s Creek had worked on a stone church in Roanoke. Because of his expertise, this man was a crew leader. Jefferson (1988) also discussed the ‘log-hewer’ at Camp F-13, Arnold’s Valley, Rockbridge County. The man was particularly valued as he was able to supply the hewn and shaped logs for the rustic Took’ that was want­ ed. The value of skilled workers is easy to understand and is attested to by the fact that they were allowed some latitude in behavior. The log hewer got drunk each weekend and sometimes wasn’t “much good for work.” However, he was allowed to continue in his position. His value to the camp as well as his pride in his work is fur­ ther illustrated by the fact that he did not turn in his tools at the end of the work day as was customary. He retained possession of his axe and kept it under his bed (Jefferson 1988). The majority of the enrollees had few skills, if any, suitable to the work they needed to do. Bill Campbell worked with one crew one day, the other the next. He said that he might as well have had only one crew as the crew that he wasn’t with always managed to get lost. As crew leaders, the LEMs educated the urban enrollees in forest lore. Another job performed by LEMs was fire tower watch. Because of their familiarity with the local area, they were better suited to locate and direct responses to fires. Urban enrollees arrived in camp with no forest lore. The arrival on the Jefferson by the first Barbour’s Creek enrollees, primarily from urban Virginia, certainly surprised them. The enrollees had been told that they were going to Utah and were transported by train at night with the shades drawn. Imagine their surprise when they arrived in Craig County in mid-afternoon. From the impressions which are still vividly remembered, surprise may be too mild a word. The reactions of the original Barbour’s Creek enrollees may have been mild compared to the Black com­ pany from the Norfolk and Portsmouth area who found themselves in Speedwell in July 1937. Bill Campbell (1988), a timber cruise foreman for the Forest Service working crews out of Speedwell during this period, stated that these enrollees had never been in the woods. “They figured there was a lion behind every tree.” The compa­ ny arrived in camp late at night. One of the enrollees who got up early, explored the camp area, found a dog, and shoved it in the door of one of the barracks yelling, “LION! LION! He said those guys just went out every win­ dow and door” (Campbell 1988). The lack of forest experience notwithstanding, the enrollees restored the forest to health. The projects approved for the CCC had a two-fold purpose, a reconditioning of the environment through reforestation and ero­ sion control as well as economic relief through removal of a large segment of the population from the public labor 56 �force. The Emergency Conservation Work Act (1933) specified that the Corps would be active ... in the construction, maintenance and carrying out works of a public nature in connection with the reforestation of lands belonging to the United States or the several states which are suitable for timber production, the prevention of forest fires, floods and soil erosion, plant pests and disease control, the construction, maintenance or repair of paths, trails, and fire lanes in the national parks and national forests (ECW Act 1933). When questioned about selection of work projects, Vester Stamper (1988) and J.N. Jefferson (1988), both work project superintendents, stated that they knew what had to be done and selected projects. The following broad directive was issued July 1,1933 from the chief engineer to all regional foresters but decisions as to actual work performed were made at the local level. Character of work done will be restricted to that which will satisfy the forest needs for administra­ tion, protection, and utilization of the land and resources. Any road on the Forest Road and Trail system will qualify as necessary to the forest. High standard road construction is not approved. Work done will be of the truck-trail type. (National Archives and Records, RG-25, Circular E-1119) Local project superintendents, the state forester, and the regional forester selected work projects in Virginia. Jefferson (1988) obviously remembers with pride the road built in Sunset Field area on top of Apple Orchard Mountain: “It was constructed primarily with picks and shovels. We only had one old Forest Service bull­ dozer. I laid it out (surveyed and marked) just in front of the builders. It’s still there and hasn’t been moved.” Although widened and improved, the road remains in the same location as originally constructed. And later in the program after some mechanized equipment had been sent to the camps: “I located the road just before the tractors got there. Still the location is still there.” (Jefferson 1988) Another example of the ingenuity demonstrated by project superintendents with particular emphasis on the ‘plan as you go’ aspects of the job concerned the construction of a pump house at Cave Mountain Lake. So we got together and decided to build a pump house. We finally got it built out of stone. I saw it every day, of course, and we discussed features of it. In due time we got a letter from the chief’s office [director of the Forest Service] and they wanted the design plans. I had to tell them that we designed it step by step, possibly on the back of an envelope. We had a lot of leeway at that time. Now you have to get everything approved before [construction]. (Jefferson 1988) After the completion, Jefferson drew a design plan and sent it to the chief’s office. The special investigator checked on compliance of projects to guidelines. Although F-26, Norton, received top rating for camps in the district, Jefferson recalled that he was questioned for using enrollee labor to beautify the camp. Jefferson (1988) defended himself, saying that much of the work was done ‘after hours and weekends.’ Vester Stamper (1988) summed up his philosophy of his years as work project superintendent, saying “You had to have a lot of good luck and you had to have a little imagination and sense to go with it.” Vester had only a sixth grade education, but had worked for the Forest Service since 1929. He remained a superintendent through­ out the program, directing work projects at Damascus, Sugar Grove, and Wytheville. Although the job kept him “working 24 hours a day, there wasn’t any project I couldn’t try to do.” No one ran out of projects. If projects were finished or a sudden influx of enrollees occurred, he stated: “You can always rebuild roads.” His personal expertise and knowledge of the area gained from being a native were invaluable. Periodically, Vester went to Roanoke with other work superintendents where they met with the Forest Service superintendent to decide on work projects. Vester said, “I suggested more (for my area) than anyone, ’cuz, I was there.” 57 �Many of the immediate effects of the CCC program cannot be separated from the effects of the formation of the Jefferson National Forest as both occurred within the same time period. M.W. Wilson, undersecretary of the Department of Agriculture, devoted much of his address at the dedication of the Jefferson National Forest on July 1, 1937, to the results of the CCC program (Wilson 1937). Of the original 13 camps allocated to Virginia during the first enrollment period, seven camps were located and performed work projects on land which later became the Jefferson National Forest (Otis et al. 1986). In the early years of the program the forest which later came to be known as the Jefferson comprised parts of the George Washington, the Unaka, the Shenandoah, and the Mountain Lake Purchase. New land purchases as well as parts or all of the previously mentioned National Forests formed the Jefferson. In some instances, the purchase agents bought land just ahead of the CCC camps. George Nietzold (1988), a surveyor who worked with the purchase agents in Wise County in the Norton area, recalls that his crew worked just in advance of the boys of the CCC, surveying purchase units just before the CCC began working on the areas. In fact, the budgets of the E.C.W funded much of the land purchases for the Jefferson. Nearly eight mil­ lion acres of land purchased for National Forest reserves used CCC funds (Steen 1976). In two locations, near the towns of Pembroke and New Castle, the CCC began work projects on private lands and before the land purchases for the Jefferson National Forest were completed. When the purchase agree­ ments were finalized, both of these camps became Forest camps. The other five original camps were located on the Unaka National Forest and the George Washington National Forest on land which later was to be assigned to the Jefferson (Otis et al. 1986). The Rockbridge County News (May 1, 1937) reported the creation of the new National Forest: The new forest includes parts of 20 counties. It is generally mountainous area of forest land, much of which has been cut over. Under pro­ tection from fire and under management for sustained yield, the forest service said it could continue to grow the required supplies of for­ est products for important local industries and farm uses. It was said also to have value in protection of watersheds and for recreation. With a wooden mallet and a froe, a C C C worker splits a block of wood. 58 During the CCC years, the number of camps on the Jefferson ranged from two to eight with the aver­ age number remaining fairly constant at around five or six. In general, the number of camps on the Jefferson remained more constant and subject to less fluctuation than the total number of Virginia camps. Also interest­ ing to note is the fact that two of the remaining three camps at the termination of the program in Virginia were situated on the Jefferson. Bill Broadwine, ranger o f the New Castle District, commented that some of the land acquired for the Jefferson was land that no one wanted. The price paid for some of the land, less than a dollar an acre, seems to support this hypothesis (Austin 1988). The purchase of land which no one wanted allowed the employment of many young men who could not find �employment elsewhere. On the Jefferson National Forest, the E.C.W. seems to have accomplished the primary goals envisioned by President Roosevelt: the employment of unemployed youth of America and the rejuvenation of the nation’s forests without major disruption of local traditions and values. The work projects accomplished reclamation of the forest lands in a manner that encouraged natural succession of the native plant species through replanting and control to the natural enemies of forests: disease, forest fires, and humans. The chestnut trees that died as the result of dis­ ease were removed from the forests and used as telephone poles, firewood, and as a source of tannic acid. Eradication of gypsy moth and blister rust were other disease control programs. The bark of undesirable species, black gum and hickory, was girdled to allow the growth of marketable timber. A deer restocking program occurred at Barbour’s Creek (Campbell 1988). Many of the work projects were aimed at preventing forest fires and controlling the amount of forest burned when fires occurred. The construction of communication networks through roads and bridges, fire breaks, lookout towers and telephone lines allowed a quick response to fires. The local populace gained direct economic benefits from the sale of food and other commodities as well as the employment of LEMs and indirect benefits from the forest reclamation projects, especially road building and telephone lines. Roads and bridges provided immediate benefit to the local population living within and around the National Forest. A small part of the work done by the enrollees especially appreciated by the people who lived in the vicin­ ity of forestry camps is the construction, maintenance and improvement of roads. This service primarily to facili­ tate fire fighting and forest protection worked to the benefit of farmers who find the CCC constructed roads a boon (Gibson 1941). Another positive impact of the presence of the CCC on the Jefferson included the construction of telephone lines which linked fire warden homes to the district office providing convenience for the local people (Smith 1988). Although roads and telephones improved the quality of life of the local people who lived near the camps, probably the most important benefit was economic. The money spent for the support of the enrollees and the employment of LEMs contributed to the local economy. The enrollees spent their monthly allowance in the local economy buying personal items. On a national level, the benefits of the program were first and foremost the restoration of public forests. Perhaps of equal importance was the conservation education that all enrollees received. Through work projects and lectures, enrollees were educated in conservation practices. The benefits of training 200,000 young men every 12 to 15 months in conservation practices were realized by Swing in 1935. “In ten years a million young men would be educated conservationists” (Swing 1935). The impact of an increased awareness of man’s relationship to his environment is impossible to quantify. However, it is probably safe to say that the lands, forests, streams and wildlife benefited from conservation practices which were basic to the CCC program. Cavalho (1977) states: From the 1880s to 1933, fifty-three years of wasteful timber harvests did more to injure the Southern economy than ‘Grant, Sherman, and all the carpetbaggers put together.’ During the Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps exhibited the possibility and value of reforestation. Given the example of the CCC program, Virginia lumberman [sic] and paper companies began to follow State Forester F.C. Pederson’s advice concerning the desirability of reforestation and ero­ sion control which provided long-term planned lumbering, continued high yield, soil erosion con­ trol, revitalization of ‘fallow’ land and the preservation of wildlife habitat (Cavalho 1977:910). Often with hindsight, we determine that something that seems like a great idea at the time, doesn’t age well. Such sentiments certainly do not apply to the Civilian Conservation Corps program. Those of us who live near the former Jefferson National Forest benefit each day from the work of those untrained urban youth that Roosevelt employed to salvage our nation’s forests. 59 �The CCC program existedfrom 1933 to 1942 and the informants interviewed ranged in age from their 60s to 90s. Although the original design o f this project was concerned only with the impact o f one CCC camp, it was quickly realized that the age o f the informants made it necessary to expand the scope to include all o f the Jefferson National Forest area. The only repository o f this type o f information was rapidly being lost due to the increased age and deaths o f possible informants. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bergoffen, William; 100 Years of Federal Forestry. Washington,D.C. Forest Service, US Dept, of Agriculture. Cavalho, Joseph; 1977, Race. Relief, and Politics: The Civilian Conservation Corps in Virginia. Masters Thesis. Williamsburg, Virginia. College of William and Maty. Clark, Thomas A.; 1984, The Greening o f the South. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky. Eller, R.; “Land and Family: An historical view of preindustrial Appalachia.” Appalachian Journal, 8 (2): 83-110. Gibson, H.P.; 1941 Southern District: Civilian Conservation Corns. Richmond, Virginia: C.C.C. District Headquarters. National Archives and Records; 1933-42 Record Group 35, Civilian Conservation Corps, U.S. Forest Service. National Archives and Records; 1933-42 Record Group 95, Civilian Conservation Corp, Director’s Office. National Archives and Records; Record Group F-25, Circular E-1119. Otis, Allison et al.; 1986. The Forest Service and the Civilian Conservation Corps: 1933-42, Washington. D.C.: United States Department of Agriculture. Salmond, John; 1967, The Civilian Conservation Corps. 1933-42: A New Deal Case Study. Durham, North Carolina, Duke University. Steen, Harold K.; 1976, The U.S. Forest Service. A History. Seattle, Washington: The University of Washington Press. Swing, Raymond; 1935, “Take the Army out of the CCC.” The Nation. October 23, 1935; 141. (3668): 459-460. United States Congress; 1933, Emergency Conservation Work Act. Van Alstine, J.N.; 1962 Ranger Van’s Column, Unpublished manuscript. Wilson, M.W., Undersecretary; 1937 Address at Dedication of the Jefferson National Forest. Delivered at High Knob, Norton, Virginia. USDA. July i j 1937. Unpublished manuscript. INTERVIEWS Austin, “Pap” Frank; August 5, 1988 at New Castle, Virginia. Bailey, Harvell; September 17, 1988 at Craig Healing Springs, Virginia. Baker, Guy; August 19, 1988 at Speedwell, Virginia. Campbell, William; February 25, 1980, Taped interview on file at Forest Service Supervisor’s Office, Roanoke, Virginia. July 12, 1988 at Roanoke, Virginia. Coleman, Aubrey; August 3, 1988 at Arnold’s Valley, Virginia. Jefferson, J.N.; July 12, 1988, at Salem, Virginia. Project Superintendent. Livesay, A.W.; September 17,1988 at Craig Healing Springs, Virginia. Martin, Thomas; August 19, 1988 at Ripplemead, Virginia. Moody, Sam Jr.; July 25, 1988 at Arnold’s Valley, Virginia. Nietzold, George; August 19, 1988 at Blacksburg, Virginia. Robertson, Charley; August 19, 1988 at Pembroke, Virginia. Smith, Lewis; July 12, 1979. Taped interview on file at Forest Service Supervisor’s Office in Roanoke, Virginia. Stamper, Vester; August 8, 1988 at Damascus, Virginia. Project Superintendent. Thomas, James; August 11, 1988 at Speedwell, Virginia. NEWSPAPER Rockbridge County News. (Lexington, Virginia). April 1933-1941. 60 �A History o f Victory Stadium by Judge Jack B. Coulter A history of Victory Stadium, located for more than 60 years along Roanoke River near the foot of Mill I \ Mountain, begins with the early use of its site by two railroads, starting a century ago. However, with the X ^dem olition o f the stadium, that history ends this year. Years o f controversy over the issue of whether to demolish the stadium ended when a legal challenge to demolition was dropped after Norfolk Southern Railway released the City of Roanoke from a condition filed in court 65 years ago and renewed in 1975. The railway had said that it would be willing to release a deed covenant on the property at the right time, according to Roanoke City attorney Bill Hackworth, and this has now been done. W.J. Jenks, president of the Norfolk & Western Railway (predecessor to Norfolk Southern), wrote a letter on September 25, 1940, offering to give Maher Field to the City of Roanoke on the condition that the City “carry forward a well-rounded and carefully-planned development” and that the land should revert to the railroad if it was not used “for stadium, armory, park and recreational purposes.” That was to be the site of Victory Stadium. Maher Field, containing 30.15 acres along present Reserve Avenue, was purchased by the Virginia Holding Company, a subsidiary of the Norfolk & Western, on October 20, 1923 for $150,000. It was named Maher Field in honor of Nicholas D. Maher, N&W’s president from 1917 to 1927. The gift was subject to a $315,000 bond issue which passed by an appreciable margin of 3,661 to 958 on November 5, 1940, according to the Roanoke World-News of Nov. 5, 1940. The N&W, in a deed of gift executed March 15, 1941 (recorded in Deed Book 664, Page 54 of the City Clerk’s Office), expressly stated the condition: TO HAVE AND TO HOLD unto the City, upon the condition that said tract of land shall be used for stadium, armory, park and recreational purposes only. By a City Council resolution, the city agreed to “improve said tract to the end that it would be used for the said purposes that it would construct and thereafter maintain a stadium and armory.” The 30-acre site had been purchased on September 2, 1905, by the newly formed Virginian Railway as the site of its marshalling yards. Portions of the area were used for the Roanoke Fair, for traveling circuses and trot­ ting races. The Virginia Baseball League was formed in 1906 and for years Roanoke had a competitive team, the Roanoke Red Sox, using this site for home games. The prevailing emphasis for a new stadium emerged in the late 1930s because Lynchburg was seeking to bring the VPI-VMI football game to its new stadium. The VPI-VMI rivalry had begun in 1894 and was brought to Roanoke as a neutral site in 1896, Tech winning 24-0. By 1913 the game, known as the “Military Classic of the South,” became a permanent Thanksgiving Day fixture in Roanoke for the next 60 years. The commodious cov­ ered grandstand and bleachers fronting north to accommodate the game was erected in 1905, soon to become known as the “Splinter Bowl.” The Classic played to capacity crowds for the next 35 years at this stadium. The Splinter Bowl was razed after the 1940 football season and the big game was moved to Lynchburg in 1941. Two weeks later the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Despite severe wartime restrictions on materials and labor shortages, Roanoke’s new stadium was rushed to completion in time for the 1942 football season. Considerable money from the federal Works Progress Administration supplemented the city bond issue funds of $315,000. Judge Jack B. Coulter, retiredjudge o f Roanoke City Circuit Court, was a Jefferson High School tackle who played in the last game in the Splinter Bowl in 1940. He was coached by Willard Kiser. 61 �The annual VPI-VMI football game was one of the big events of the year during Victory Stadium’s heyday. (Photo courtesy of Historical Society of Western Virginia) I t M ight H ave B een W illard K iser S tadium On October 27, 1942, Roanoke City Council, imbued by the spirit of the war and its critical status, offi­ cially chose the name “Victory” for its new stadium while retaining permanently the name of “Maher Field” for the entire park in appreciation for the N&W gift. Prior to christening it “Victory,” however, there was considera­ tion given to naming it for Lt. Willard Kiser, one of the first Roanoke victims of the World War II, who was killed in the early Battle of Guadalcanal on July 6, 1942. Kiser had been an All State Tackle for Jefferson High School in 1936 and shortly thereafter organized and captained a pro football team known as the Roanoke Travelers. He was also a volunteer assistant coach for the Magicians’ 1940 team which incidentally played the last football game in the old Splinter Bowl. Several others from Roanoke died in the war before Kiser. The first were Benjamin Lee Brown and Cecil W. Haskins who were killed at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Naming the stadium after one person, however athletic Kiser was, was ultimately thought to be inappropriate as the dead from Roanoke in World War II would ultimately number 534. With 22,500 in attendance and the crowd swept by patriotic fervor, Victory Stadium was dedicated on Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 1942, ‘‘to the cause o f humanity and fo r the glory o f God fo r the complete and permanent victory o f America and her Allies. ” VPI, which had not won for five years, took the game 20-6, but it was anticlimactic to the cause and inspiration of the dedication. Lighting was added to the stadium on September 30, 1946, as night games became more popular. The Junior League of Roanoke inaugurated the Harvest Bowl between VPI and Virginia in 1957, an event which regret- 62 �View of the home stretch during a trotting race at the site of Victory Stadium. (Photo courtesy of Historical Society of Western Virginia) tably died for Roanoke, as did the Thanksgiving Game, some years later when a new regime took over at Tech and the Hokies built huge Lane Stadium. The last VMI-VPI game at Victory Stadium was played in 1971 with Tech winning 34-0. The last meeting between the longtime rivals came in 1984 when VPI trounced the Keydets 54-7 in Norfolk. After the loss of the “Military Classic,” the stadium was mainly used for high school football games, one­ time stock car racing and occasional music events and fundraising walks by nonprofit organizations. Soon after the death in 1994 of Bob “Guts” McLelland, a noted sports editor of the Roanoke World-News and a highly respected and devoted coach and leader of Roanoke’s Sandlot Football Program for 46 years, the field at Victory Stadium was given the name of “McLelland Field.” The water fountain at the south end of the stadium, measuring 70 feet in diameter and shooting water 40 to 60 feet in the air, was built at a cost of $60,000 from citizen donations and dedicated on Oct. 28, 1966. Any history of Victory Stadium from its inception and dedication on November 26, 1942, must begin, remain and end immortalized in its purpose and objective — to memorialize those fellow citizens of Roanoke who had paid and would soon surely pay the supreme sacrifice of saving our country and the world from the ravages of Nazi Germany and the brutal tyranny of Japanese aggression. At the Roanoke Valley War Memorial at Lee Plaza the inscription in stone, and in the hearts of those who will never forget, calls to mind the famous closing of Lt. Colonel John McCrae’s immortal poem, “In Flanders Field,” a sentiment now bittersweet in light of Victory Stadium’s demise: I f ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though Stadiums rise on other fields 63 �The Lives o f John, W illiam ana John William M cCauley by M ary Elizabeth "Nona" McCauley Bush As I look back at the lives of my great-grandfather, grandfather and father, all well-known McCauleys in Salem, I want to record where they came from: a Viking came down from Norway, settled in Scotland and started the McAulay clan in the Highlands. They descended from the Earls of Lennox and lived at Ardinaple, a turreted mansion near the Firth of Clyde. Dan Ollai, Fortress of Olla, is a picturesque ruin on the coast at Argyle. Later, an ancestor tried to help Bonnie Prince Charlie, a contender for the throne in England. They fought the English and were losing the battle so this McAulay had to escape Scotland or be killed. That’s when he escaped to Ireland. A descendant, Alexander McCauley, was bom in Ireland in 1717 and lived in Ulster Province, Antrim County, Ireland. He married Mary Pinkerton, daughter of wealthy parents, who objected to the marriage to the poorer Alexander, so they eloped to America in 1737. They had three children S | John, Charles and Mary. They arrived in Boston and spent three years there. There were Indian raids and Mary rode on her horse with her baby James in her arms to escape the Indians. Sister Mary was tied on to a horse behind them. They later moved to Hillsboro, New Hampshire and then to Merrimack, New Hampshire. J ohn J ameson M c Cauley Their son, James, who was bom in April, 1745, married Isabel Jameson, who emigrated from Ulster . County Ireland, from Scotland. Their son, John Jameson McCauley was bom February 8, 1785 in Hillsboro, New Hampshire. He was educated in public schools and attended one term at the Academy in Fryeburg, Maine, when the weather was bitter. He worked awhile at the family farm. He left in 1818 to seek his fortune in Southwest Virginia. He left Boston on a sailing ship bound for Norfolk. There was a big storm and the ship sank at sea. He managed to get to shore but lost all of his clothes and money in a trunk. He walked to Bedford County and sat on a log, exhausted. A woman passed him and asked how he was, because he looked so bad and he told her of his trip down by ship, its sinking and his walk there. She went home and told her husband about this nice young man and he came back with her and invited him to come live with them. Mr. and Mrs. Robert Campbell treated him like a son, bought him clothes and let him use their horse to get around and meet neighbors. He took charge of an “old field” school. He taught in Bedford County for a few years, then moved to Montgomery County and taught school in Christiansburg several more years. He married Cynthia Van Lear Robinson and moved to a farm his wife owned nearby. He was deputy sheriff in Montgomery County from 1828 to 1832. His wife died after the birth of their fourth child. Holding his little newborn baby, he said he didn’t know what would become of his four children without their mother. He hired ladies to look after them. John McCauley was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates from Montgomery County, where he served Mrs. Mary “Nona ” Bush is a retired school teacher and a Roanoke College graduate. She wrote a book about refugee children in her classes. 64 �until the close of the 1836-37 session. He rode in a stagecoach and one time on his horse to Richmond. John came to Roanoke County in January 1838. Salem and Montgomery and Botetourt counties and the vicinity around them were trying to form a new county - Roanoke. They elected McCauley to represent them in Richmond and secure legislation they had sought for 18 years. He was successful and on January 30, 1838, Roanoke County was created. In appreciation, they elected him as a sena­ tor in the General Assembly and he served from 1841 to 1853. John’s second marriage was to Susan Dingledine on December 24, 1835. She was the daughter of John Belthazer Dingledine and Susannah Firestone Hileman (Harvey Firestone, the Firestone Tire founder, was a cousin.) Susannah was a good wife and mother to his four children and then they had eight more children. The eldest was William McCauley. Susannah ran the farm while John was away tending to his political office and other business. She deserved a lot of credit for his success. They lived at a home on Susannah’s father’s property called Dingledine in what was then Botetourt County, where Lakeside was later located.. After he retired from public life and 12 years as a state senator, he was a contractor in building bridges. Two were across the Roanoke River. He also built the turnpike from Craig Creek across the mountains to the Sinking Creek Valley. He was a practical surveyor and an assistant engi­ neer with Col. James H. Piper and engineer and superintendent of the Southwest Virginia Turnpike. On the colonel’s death, John McCauley became superintendent of the turnpike until his death with a fever on September 3, 1864. He had integrity and a social temperament, made friends easily, was a fine conversationalist, an effective speaker, had a Scotch-Irish humor, and was handsome. He was a staunch Democrat of the Jeffersonian school. He introduced a bill in the General Assembly to charter Roanoke College and he became a trustee of the college. He admired Dr. David Bittle, the col­ lege’s president who went to him for advice. McCauley was an elder at College Lutheran Church in Salem. His wife died in 1891. They were both buried at East Hill Cemetery in Salem. W illiam M c Cauley William McCauley, a son of John and Susan McCauley, was bom July 17, 1837 in Montgomery County. The next year his parents moved to Dingledine, near Salem.. He was educated at the “old field school” near his home. He went with his father, John, the state senator, to Richmond and he became the first page in the General Assembly. He called himself “The Title Page” and attended four sessions. He went to Roanoke College and grad­ uated in 1859. He taught at a county school for one year. In June 1961, he became a sergeant of Infantry, called the “Dixie Greys,” under General Robert E. Lee for one year and then he served under Stonewall Jackson. He was wounded March 23,1862 at the battle of Kemstown and he became disabled for fighting. He was then an enrolling officer until 1863 when he was discharged upon an application of Dr. Bittle, and a special order by General Lee to teach at Roanoke College. In the fall of 1864 he again entered the army and served as a clerk of courts martial under General Jubal Early. He described his trips over the mountains on his horse in his war letters. He was elected clerk of the County and Circuit Courts of Roanoke County in 1865 and served until 1893. Then he was commissioner of accounts for Roanoke County and in 1897 was clerk of the Western District Federal Court. On November 16, 1865, he married Margaret Jane Shirey, daughter of Peter and Julia Shirey, who were charter members of College Lutheran Church and lived at the Elms on East Main Street in Salem, which the fam­ ily still calls “the Old Homeplace”. 65 �William served as trustee and clerk of the District and County School Board and he also served as a trustee of Roanoke College from 1867 to 1908. He wrote many articles of interest for newspapers and magazines. He had an extensive collection of historical material and data and was referred to as an authority in settling questions of local history. (He was known for never throwing away anything.) He wrote the History o f Roanoke County, Salem and Roanoke and Outstanding Citizens, a leather-bound volume published in 1902, which is rare today. It described how Roanoke County used to be, early life in the wilderness, Indian raids, and trails of westward travel. It described modes of living of early settlers, excerpts from old deeds and court rul­ ings. It also showed pictures and lives of outstanding citizens and told about Andrew Lewis. He wrote about an imaginary walk through Salem with Ira Jeter describing the town as it was in 1819. William McCauley served on the council, as deacon and elder and superintendent at the Sunday School at College Lutheran.. He was a lov­ ing family man and hospitable in entertaining friends and relatives. He and the former Margaret Shirey had 12 children and adopted two. Three sons—Ernest, Victor and William^—were Lutheran ministers. Victor was a missionary to India for 30 years. William McCauley died May 29,1908. A few grandchildren live in Salem today: Billy McCauley who wrote the history of the McCauleys, Dorothy McCauley Butler (Mrs. James), and Mary Elizabeth “Nona” McCauley Bush (Mrs. George W.). Dot lives in the old homeplace on East Main Street, Salem. A granddaughter, Mrs. Dorothy Bush Francisco (Mrs. Randy), and grandson George Francisco live in Salem, too. J ohn W illiam M c Cauley John William McCauley, ninth child of William and Margaret McCauley, was bom October 9, 1878 in Salem. He was educated at Roanoke College and ordained as a Lutheran pastor after attending Gettysburg Seminary. He studied at Johns Hopkins University and he received an honorary doctor of divinity degree at Roanoke College in 1936. He was a missionary for the Southwest Virginia Synod in 1917. He started Virginia Heights Lutheran Church in Roanoke, which later moved and changed its name to Christ Church. He worked as secretary general at Elizabeth College from 1918 until it burned down on December 22. 1921. He started a new church at Huntington, West Virginia earlier. He married Pearl Piper on April 14, 1906 at Lilly, Penn., where she lived. Her father, Martin Keffer Piper, was the overseer at Piper Coal Company. William and Pearl went to St. Paul’s Lutheran Church at Cumberland, Maryland to his first pastorate until 1908. Then they moved to Baltimore to a big, old church, Incarnation, from 1908 to 1910. Their son, William Piper McCauley, and older daughter, Margaret Belle McCauley, were bom there. Pearl became sick and they moved to a better climate in Cresson, Pa., near her parents.Then they moved to Salem into a new east wing on the “Old Homeplace” on Main Street that William had added. Their second daughter, Mary Elizabeth, was bom there on October 12, 1917. After the fire at Elizabeth College where he worked, they moved to Lutherville, Md., for five years and then they moved to Howard Park, Baltimore, Md., where he started Redeemer church and led in construction of a first unit and parsonage. They lived there from 1927 to 1940. While in Maryland, he taught a religion course at the Lutheran Deaconess Motherhouse in Baltimore. Their son, who attended Roanoke College, drowned in the Magothy River (known for its deep 19 holes) at a Sunday School picnic in 1929. Their daughter, Margaret, attended the University of North Carolina for two years. After attending Goucher College, she taught in Leaksville, NC. She married Overton Wilson Clayton, Jr, and lived in Charlotte until he died and she moved to Cary, N.C. until she died. Their youngest child, Mary 66 �Elizabeth “Nona” was married on June 11, 1938 and she and her husband, George, had three daughters, Dorothy, Diana and Deborah. She attended Roanoke College in her 40s. J. William took early retirement due to heart trouble. He and his wife, Pearl, traveled for two years for the Lutheran Church, selling pension plans to pastors and churches from Maine to Florida and he preached occasion­ ally at churches. Then they returned to Salem to retire. His brother, James, and his family were living in the east wing of the “Old Homeplace,” so they decided to take the old slave house behind the main house, clean it out, fumi­ gate and remodel it and live there. They loved their “little house in the garden.” During the Korean War, they decided to double it in size, in case their sons-in-law had to go to war and their families would live there. The fam­ ilies did not, but later they built a brick addition so they could be on one floor when they were older. After retirement, Dr. McCauley started two new churches in Roanoke. One was St. Paul’s-an old church that was not used anymore. He sold it to the highway department and built a new church around the comer on Peters Creek from Melrose Avenue. Unfortunately, Peters Creek flooded it and a new church was built next door. Later, it also flooded and was damaged by fire. So it was sold and St. Paul’s rebuilt on a hill farther up Peters Creek Road. When Dr. McCauley started the church anew, he got ministerial students at Roanoke College to help him. Then he was asked to have services at Kittingers Chapel on Mrs. Kittinger’s property in the Cave Spring area in 1948 - 1957. This church was called St. John’s in 1958. He was in a car accident that soon caused his death at 89 on August of 1968. Dr. McCauley wrote articles for “The Lutheran Magazine,” the “Upper Room” and other devotionals.. Elizabeth College alumnae asked him to write about their col­ lege, which he did in a booklet called Elizabeth College and Related Lutheran Schools Historical Sketches. The alumnae met every year at Roanoke College. They were a loyal bunch and adored Dr. McCauley. Besides William and Pearl’s children, there were seven grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. These are the generations of the McCauley family for many centuries. They all contributed to the world in their own way. References William McCauley’s The H istory o f Roanoke County, Salem, Roanoke City and Outstanding Citizens John: pp. 300 -r 307, William: pp. 341 —342 J.W. (Billy) McCauley’s Alexander M cCauley to Boston and Beyond John: p p .7 7 -8 2 , William: pp. 153 - 156, John William: pp. 191 - 196 Elizabeth College and Related Lutheran Schools —H istorical Sketches by J.W. McCauley D.D. Dates and churches about Dr. McCauley ffifrom Bishop James Mauney of the Virginia Synod Personal recollections of (Mrs. George W.) Mary Elizabeth “Nona” McCauley Bush (daughter and granddaughter of these McCauley subjects) 67 �Raymond Loewy"s 1 9 4 9 Train Station by B ill Green 'w - '▼'hat may be the Americas’ finest small train station was designed in 1949 by industrial designer Raymond % / * / Loewy for the Norfolk & Western Railroad. N&W officials were admirers of Loewy’s locomotive ▼ V designs for the Pennsylvania Railroad and the booming Norfolk & Western sought to create a showpiece station for Roanoke, its headquarters city. Both the existing 1907 brick structure and a local architect’s drawings of a blandly modem remodeling failed to express the company’s success and aspirations for the future. In contrast, Loewy and his office seamless­ ly melded disparate functions, site considerations, budget constraints and industrial and traditional materials in a manner that illustrates the differences between industrial design and architecture. Loewy had earned a reputation as a profit maker for his industrial customers, redesigning products to express the spirit of his dynamic age and appeal to the unvoiced aspirations of a diverse public. To further serve these customers, Loewy had established a division o f his firm for architecture, managed by William Snaith. Projects had so far been prototypes o f generic retail stores for International Harvester and Lucky groceries, buildings that would be built on multiple sites. Bill Green is associate professor in the Industrial Design Program at Virginia Tech, where he has taught since 1993. He is the co-designer o f the Avion automobile, which held the 1986 cross-country mileage record at 103 miles per gallon. He practiced industrial design at Bayliner Marine in Seattle and taught architecture for three years at the University o f California, Berkeley. 68 �The Roanoke station, however, offered Loewy the opportunity to build on a childhood dream. Long fasci­ nated by trains, he had considered it a fantasy fulfilled when his acquaintance with the head of the Pennsylvania Railroad led to the designing of the S-l, GG-1, and T-l locomotives in the 1930s. He had also worked on the interior of the Broadway Limited passenger cars with architect Paul Cret, who is considered one of America s top designers in the Modem Classical mode for his ability to retain the proportions, symmetry and material of classicism while rendering the aesthetics in minimalist details. The neo-classical Cret was the likely influence for the stripped classical” sandstone entry portico that replaced the station’s existing ionic “archeologically correct” one. In contrast, the Loewy firm gave the rear of the station, directly above the tracks, a dramatically different architectural approach. A light, abstract structure, perched on steel posts (pilotis) and brick piers and lit with hori­ zontal band windows, its character was entirely that of arch-modemist Le Corbusier. The reason probably lies in the fact that the architect who produced the working drawings was Allmon Fordice. Fordice was then a young New York modernist who may well have introduced Le Corbusier’s then radical ideas into the Loewy office. Although the classical facade, facing the grand old Hotel Roanoke, and the modem rear elevation, facing the dynamic trackside, each made architectural sense separately, an architect’s sense of unity and aesthetic inter­ connection would have prevented both approaches from being used on opposite sides of the same building, partic­ ularly one of relatively small size. But, lacking the architect’s self-imposed mles, Loewy and his office could take a bold step and accept that, in this instance, opposites could be united in a single structure. Unifying the front and back of the station was the Loewy office’s major addition, a wedge-shaped space that bisected the existing building and contained the stone eight-column entry portico and the curved ticket desk with its focal dome above. The large corrugated aluminum-clad waiting room hovered over the train tracks, and a huge window wall created a glowing, ter­ minal focal plane at the back of the waiting room. The Norfolk & Western passenger station in Virtually every major feature of the building lay within Roanoke as it looked before Raymond Loewy’s this new space, from the modem glass curtain wall at the entry “modern” redesign. doors behind the portico, to the long, train-like, aluminum(Photo courtesy o f Norfolk & Western Historical framed band windows overlooking (and echoing) similar win­ Photograph Collection archive at the Virginia dows on the trains below. The warm tan travertine marble and Tech Library.) tile and brown terrazzo floors (with darker gridded terrazzo squares to indicate nearby doors) contrasted with yellow plaster ceilings and the deep red and gold route map above the walnut ticket desk. This project exemplifies how a work of architecture can have the characteristics of a work of industrial design. In its careful and unique relationship with its specific geographic site, it is a work of architecture. In fact, “designed for and built on a unique site” is a good differentiating definition between architecture and industrial design (e. g: the difference between a site-built building and a mobile home). The station’s unique dichotomy between front and rear seems a good example of a designer from outside architecture solving an architectural prob­ lem through a lack of restricting dogma. From an industrial design perspective, the station’s pedestrian traffic flow from desk, to waiting room, to train was so smooth and seamless that it recalled a production line. Yet it was a humanized line, filled with engag­ ing events and beguiling materials all along the way. The interior space was strangely vehicle-like with its traininspired windows and metal siding, radiator-shaped exterior form, reversible escalators to load and unload trains and its flush, fluorescent lighting set into marble clad-structural I-beams supporting the 20-foot ceilings. Rail fan photographers (including the great O. Winston Link) gathered in the cafe at its undulating count­ er to watch America’s last steam railroad pass underneath. They spoke of feeling they were inside a giant camera, �focused on the trains themselves. The station was a building designed by an enthusiast, for enthusiasts. Loewy’s extensive renovation, completed in 1949, retained the brick structure and tile roof but replaced virtually every other feature of the building. From the beginning it was popular and welcomed countless visitors to this railroad town until the Norfolk & Western (now Norfolk Southern) ceased passenger operations on May 1, 1971.The station was then converted to railroad offices. First one, then two acoustical tile ceilings dropped the interior spaces to eight feet. Indoor/outdoor carpet covered the terrazzo floor. Plywood pseudo-pine paneling partitioned the spaces and covered windows and in some spots marble-patterned laminate even covered actual marble! Finally, in a move necessitated by new double-height freight cars, the over-track waiting room was cut back closer to the original structure. In 1993, Virginia Tech Prof. Scott Gartner and I began, with VPI students, to research and lecture on the history and significance of the sta­ tion. After numerous lectures, articles and televi­ sion appearances, the citizens of Roanoke and the Norfolk Southern Railroad rallied around the restoration of the town’s only building by a designer of international reputation. The Roanoke Valley Visitors Center agreed to occupy half the building and, as per their late founder’s request, the new O. Winston Link Museum of Railroad Photography would occupy the rest. One con­ course was set aside for a permanent exhibit on the work of Raymond Loewy. In 2004, an elaborate $6-million restoration brought the building back to “like new” condition. The building is now owned and managed by Roanoke’s unique Center in the Square museum group. With the reopening of the Station the les­ sons Raymond Loewy taught have returned to pro­ vide inspiration to a new generation of architects and industrial designers. October 31, 1949 70 �Fear on the Frontier in 18th Century Virginia Reflections o f Fear along Virginia s Western Waters by B. Scott Crawford f ■ toward the end of the French and Indian War, fought between 1754 and 1763, a band of 60 Amerindians (American Indians) “introduced themselves into the people’s houses under the mask of friendship” along 1 Virginia’s backcountry. Relying on surprise, the Amerindians killed the men in this frontier neighborhood and took the women and children prisoner. They then proceeded to advance along the frontier to the house of Archibald Clendenin, where other fron­ tier families had gathered for protection. Again under the pretense of friendship, the Amerindians took the fami­ lies by surprise and left all of the family members either dead or taken prisoner excepting Conrad Yolkom who alerted other families in the vicinity that the region was under attack. Following these surprise attacks on families living on Virginia’s western waters, a gruesome and disturb­ ing story unfolded. As John Stuart relates in his “Memoir of Indian Wars,” as the Amerindians began to march their prisoners, mostly women and children, back to their villages, Mrs. Clendenin, who had been previously whipped with her husband’s scalp, snuck away from her captors, leaving behind her child with another prisoner. Upon realizing that she was missing, an Amerindian stated that “he would soon bring the cow to her calf’ and took Clendenin’s child by its heels and “beat its brains out against a tree, throwing it down in the path, all marched over it, till its guts were all trampled out with the horses.” Clendenin then returned home, only to find her murdered and scalped husband lying in the yard near a fence holding one of their dead children in his arms. Such raids like the one Stuart describes in his memoir were quite common along Virginia’s western waters dur­ ing and following the French and Indian War. From 1754 through the American Revolution, reports of Amerindian raids along Virginia’s frontier gen­ erally described small bands of Amerindians inflicting gruesome atrocities on settlers. Typical was the publica­ tion of an extract from a letter in the May 3, 1764, edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette from Staunton in Augusta County, which reported that “The People of these Parts are very much alarmed at some late Incursions of the Indians in the Western Part of this County. On the 20th Instant [April 20th] a Number of them came to the House of one David Cloyd (a wealthy Planter, living on some of the Waters of James River, not far from Looney Ferry) and killed one of his Sons, tomahawked his Wife, plundered his House, and took away above Seven Hundred Pounds in Cash, besides sundry valuable Effects.” The extract went on to state that even though Mrs. Cloyd “was very much hacked and mangles [sic], is recovered, and says, the Number of Indians was ten.” Relying on small unit tactics, a band of only ten warriors raided the Cloyd home which was unguarded due to the fact that “Mr. Cloyd, and one of his Sons, were then in this Town, it being Court Time, and most of the Family from home.” The attack took the county by surprise as the extract from the letter reported It is B. Scott Crawford, social studies coordinatorfor Roanoke City schools, is a Blacksburg native who holds degrees in his­ toryfrom Radford and Old Dominion universities. Crawford spoke at a program, “A New Look at an Old War, a January, 2006 event o f the Historical Society o f Western Virginia and Blue Ridge Public Television, marking the 250th anniversary o f the start o f the French and Indian War. He taught for seven years and he has written about development of the frontier in the 18th century. 71 �Defeat of General Edward Braddock in the French and Indian War, in Virginia, in 1755. (Wood engraving in Ballou’s Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion, July 7, 1855. Source: Library o f Congress, via Internet) remarkable, that this House is a good Way within the Settlements, and yet the Enemy found Means to convey themselves undiscovered. But it is said that some other Families are missing, which it is supposed they carried off in their Return.” The Amerindians’ murdering Cloyd’s son and leaving behind a scalped woman, who was able to survive the attack, serves as a testament to the Amerindians’ attempt to instill fear throughout the region and wage psy­ chological warfare. This particular raid, however, was not entirely a success. Not only did Mrs. Cloyd survive the attack and provide some intelligence against the Amerindians, but the extract from the letter includes a post­ script that states “Just as I had finished writing this Account, there came Advice, that a Party of White men pur­ sued and came up with some of the Indians, killed one of them, and recovered One Hundred and Fifty Pounds of the Cash, all the heavy Baggage, and four Negroes, whom they had Prisoners.’” The historian Jane T. Merritt suggests that along the Pennsylvania frontier during the French and Indian War, Amerindians many times mutilated women’s and men’s bodies in order to send a clear message that whites along the frontier were not in any way safe living in the region. John Stuart’s description of Archibald Clendenin’s scalped body still clinging to his murdered son and the scalping of Mrs. Cloyd and her being left behind believed to be dead near Staunton suggests that similar mutilations occurred along Virginia’s frontier for similar reasons. By mutilating women’s bodies Amerindian warriors symbolically attacked the settlers’ ability to maintain life in the region, and by mutilating men’s bodies, warriors emasculated surviving frontier men by clearly revealing that ultimately no man could entirely guarantee that his family was safe.” Raiding Amerindian parties purposefully left mutilated bodies of men, women, and children in areas where survivors could easily discover them in order to make sure they received their message which the Amerindians intended to produce fear throughout the region. Such was the case in August, 1764, when the 72 �Pennsylvania Gazette reported that on a Wednesday following the spotting of two or three Amerindians near Fort Loudon “a Woman, named Cunningham, big with Child, was going from her own House, to one Justice McDowell, about two Miles below Loudoun, she was met with by the Savages, who murdered, scalped, and oth­ erwise most horribly abused her, ripping her Belly open, and taking out the Child, which they left lying beside her.” The report went on to state that another band of Amerindians had attacked a local schoolhouse and along with the school master, scalped nine of the children; all of the bodies were left behind in a manner that survivors could easily discover them. Amerindians intended such raids to send a clear message that settlers along the fron­ tier were always threatened to experience such a similar death and in turn, as the article reported, bring about a fear that “would occasion many of the Inhabitants to leave their Places.”111 Embracing such terrorist-style tactics and relying on the use of psychological warfare proved to be extremely successful.™ Amerindian raids caused Virginia’s frontier settlers to cower behind the walls of the many forts and fortified houses that dotted the frontier landscape. As eastern political and military leaders lamented, Amerindian raids also sent large numbers of settlers fleeing to more secure eastern counties or south to Moravian settlements. Typical was the case of the less than typical Mary Draper Ingles, who, upon returning to the New River Valley following her surviving the Draper’s Meadows Massacre, experiencing life as a captive among the Shawnee, and escaping from Shawnee captivity and then enduring a forty odd day journey through the wilder­ ness, took refuge in a small fort on the Roanoke River near present-day Shawsville with her husband and other neighboring families. Mary felt uneasy staying at Vause’s Fort, commanded by Captain Hogg, due in large part to news that “Indians was [sic] making Depredations on the frontiers,” and a feeling that Amerindians were in the immediate vicinity. Possibly recognizing the potential danger his family might face by staying at the fort, as even George Washington had noted upon touring Virginia’s frontier forts that Fort Vause was “in a much exposed gap,” and surely wanting to put his wife at ease, Mary’s husband, William Ingles, decided to move her and him­ self east to Bedford County, which was a more secure region. Only hours after the Ingles removed themselves from the fort and headed east, a combined force of French and Amerindians attacked the fort, and after a day­ long engagement the French and Amerindians set the fort on fire and either killed or captured all of its inhabi­ tants^ Mary Ingles ran the gauntlet of, both literally and metaphorically, the horrors associated with living along Virginia’s frontier during the French and Indian War. She experienced an Amerindian attack that left family and friends either dead or captured, she experienced life as a captive, she escaped and made her way back home, she took refuge in one of the many frontier forts, and she fled the frontier only to return when the region became more stable. Even though Mary Ingles was unique in that her experiences were so varied, she in many ways embodies the frontier experiences settlers underwent during this formative period. While many settlers were killed or were captured, the majority of Virginia’s frontier settlers at the very least turned to a neighborhood fort during periods when attack seemed likely or they temporarily, sometimes even permanently, abandoned the region and moved to an eastern county or further south. More importantly, like Mary Ingles, all frontier settlers in Virginia experienced the fear associated with the style of warfare Amerindians, particularly the Shawnee, waged against the region beginning with the outbreak of the French and Indian War in 1754. The Amerindians’ use of terrorist tactics even went so far as to affect the psyche of those in charge of providing some degree of protection over the frontier settlers. In a letter to Governor Dinwiddie in April, 1756, George Washington not only makes reference to the large numbers of settlers either residing in a fort or fleeing the region, he also eloquently and empathetically captures the frustration and fear settlers felt as Amerindian raids took their toll on the region’s inhabitants and on himself. In relating to Dinwiddie his thoughts about and reactions to a series of letters from settlers apparently pleading with him for relief, he asks Dinwiddie “But what can I do?” His perceptions about the crisis along the frontier led him to conclude that “unless vigorous measures are taken by the Assembly, and speedy assistance sent from below, the poor inhabitants that are now in forts, must unavoidably fall, while the remainder of the country are flying before the barbarous foe.” To Washington, the situation along the frontier was near a breaking point. Settlers were either seeking sanctuary in frontier forts or they were taking flight; Washington felt at a loss as to how to adequately help them. He even went so far as 73 �to state that “If bleeding, dying would glut their insatiate revenge, I would be a willing offering to savage fury, and die by inches to save a people!” He then later, after contemplating resigning his commission as “the murder of poor innocent babes and helpless families may be laid to my account here,” goes on to state that “The suppli­ cating tears of the women, and moving petitions from the men, melt me into such deadly sorrow, that I solemnly declare, if I know my own mind, I could offer myself a willing sacrifice to the butchering enemy, provided that would contribute to the people’s ease.” Two times in the letter Washington offers himself as a sacrifice to end the suffering along the frontier, and his reflections on his belief that ultimately he will be accountable for the deaths of innocent babies and defenseless families led him to flirt with resigning his commission. O f course, his language and his suggestions are only rhetorical, but his offering to in essence take his own life through volun­ tarily giving himself to the enemy at a time when suicide was rare suggests that Amerindian terrorist tactics and their use of psychological warfare were having a strong effect not just on the region’s settlers but that they also ultimately affected Washington’s psyche.vl While in the end the Amerindians raiding the frontier failed to achieve their political agenda, stopping English expansion into the region, their tactics did indeed have a clear impact on not only Virginia’s frontier settlers, but also on Virginia’s military high command. While fear became a part of Virginia’s backcountry’s inhabitants’ lives early on and influenced Virginia’s political and military leaders’ decisions, due in large part to the manner in which Amerindians waged war against the region, the emotion was nothing new to Virginia. Fear, possibly more than any other force, contributed to a British imperial policy that aimed at expanding Virginia’s land holdings into first the Shenandoah Valley and then into the Roanoke, New River, and Greenbrier Valleys. Fear, in essence, not only defined Virginia’s frontier settlers’ lives during and following the French and Indian War, it also in many ways was the agent that gave birth to the Virginia backcountry west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Warren R. Hofstra, in his work The Planting o f New Virginia, identifies three fears were at the root of English expansionist efforts into the Shenandoah Valley that in time facilitated expansion into the Roanoke, New River, and Greenbrier valleys. First, there was the very real fear of French encirclement. As the French expressed their own imperial desires by advancing down the Mississippi Valley, thus connecting Canada with Louisiana, and as they began to occupy the Ohio River Valley thus supporting their claim to the vast interior of North America stretching from the Mississippi to the Appalachians, they essentially left England’s claims in North America surrounded and drastically contained. With the French occupying this position in North America, the Board of Trade felt compelled to put forth their concerns to Governor Spotswood of Virginia Spotswood concurred that French expansion was indeed a threat to England’s North American colonies, especially as it was becoming evident that new passes in the mountains suggested that the Appalachian Mountains, the Blue Ridge Mountains specifically, were not as much of a natural barrier between the English and French as colonial offi­ cials had thought.vn A second fear supporting English westward expansion was the potential for wars with Amerindians or at the very least the threat of Amerindian raids into eastern Virginia. The previous wars in the Deep South with the Tuscarora and Yamasee had made this threat all too real and possible. Such wars could easily destabilize England’s colonies, so the Board felt the need to determine methods and strategies to insure that such wars and raids did not materialize. Governor Spotswood, among others, advised the Board that inter-colonial competition for trade with Amerindians had created the potential for future Amerindian wars; however, Spotswood and the Board did recognize that healthy trade relations with Amerindians could create a peaceful coexistence and decrease the likelihood for war. The Board needed to create a trade that encompassed all of the colonies, thus undermining competition between colonies, and it had to develop a means through which trade relations between Amerindians and the colonies would increase and strengthen. Westward expansion could facilitate such econom­ ic ties with Amerindians inhabiting the interior.VU1 A third and final fear supporting English westward expansion was the recognition that a certain internal threat existed in the colonies. Potential slave insurrections became a concern as England’s southern North American colonies began to import an increasingly larger number of slaves each year. By 1720, slaves outnum­ bered whites in South Carolina and Virginia was at least 15 years into its experiment with institutionalized slav- 74 �ery as a series of laws beginning in the 1680s and culminating in 1705 had turned slavery into a purely racist institution. This situation led Spotswood and other southern colonial governors to fear that as slavery grew so too did the potential for slave rebellion. This fear of internal rebellion, as well as the fear of French encirclement and Amerindian raids and possible war, came together to directly impact British imperial policy and to directly affect westward expansion in Virginia.lx Virginia’s backcountry became the focus of British expansionist efforts due to the Board of Trade’s and Virginia’s colonial government’s desire to protect the east from the various threats materializing in North America. While fear became the primary motivating factor behind the settlement of Virginia’s backcountry, and while expansion into the regions west of the Blue Ridge relieved some of eastern Virginia’s fears, this emotion in time directly affected the diverse ethnic groups inhabiting not only the Shenandoah Valley, but the Roanoke, the New River, and the Greenbrier Valleys as well. The primary fears, however, among settlers began to focus increasingly on Amerindian wars and raids rather than on the French and on the potential of slave insurrections. Slave insurrection was not a great concern among backcountry settlers due to the low number of slaves along the frontier, relative to eastern Virginia. When frontier settlers raised fears of the French, many times it was in rela­ tion to their alliances with Amerindian tribes that accompanied the French on raids along the frontier or that acted alone under French encouragement; the fear of the French was directly related to their relationship with the Amerindians. A July 1754 letter in the Preston Family Papers relates how between the tenth and twentieth of June “Sundry Companies o f . . . Indians” visited families living in Augusta County and “charged the People to remove off the Land otherwise it would be worse for them in a little time.” The writer, whose name is illegible, recognizes that the French were a threat, but only in that it was the French that “send them [Amerindians] out in Parties to savage amongst us.” The writer portrays the French as a threat through their association with their Amerindian allies. Similarly, James Smith’s narrative describing his capture by Amerindians at the beginning of the French and Indian War notes that “It may be said by some that the French were also engaged in this war. True, they were; yet I know it was the Indians that laid the plan, and with small assistance put it into execution.” Like the anonymous writer, Smith attributes the real danger and threat to the frontier as coming not from the French, but rather from their Amerindian allies.x While the French realistically offered a distinct threat to the region until 1763, settlers along the western waters generally considered the French as a more civilized enemy than the Amerindians, thus making the Amerindians the greater and more fearful overall threat. After a group of Amerindians captured James Smith along Pennsylvania’s frontier in 1755 as he was helping to build a road between Fort Loudon and Braddock s road, the Amerindians forced him to run between two lines of warriors and receive a severe beating. Reflecting on the event in 1799, Smith makes a point to note that it was a French doctor in Fort Duquesne that gave him medical assistance. Shortly thereafter Smith observed: “a small party [Amerindians] coming in with about a dozen prisoners, stripped naked, with their hands tied behind their backs, and their faces and part of their bodies blacked; these prisoners they burned to death on the bank of the Alleghany river, opposite to the fort. I stood on the fort wall until I beheld them begin to bum one of these men; they had him tied to a stake and kept touching him with firebrands, red-hot irons, &c, and he screamed in a most doleful manner; the Indians, in the mean time, yelling like infernal spirits.” To Smith, the French were a source of aid while the Amerindians were a source of pain at numerous levels.xl Just as Smith portrays the French as a civilized force and a source of comfort, John Stuart’s “Memoir of Indian Wars” also reveals Amerindians as the force frontier settlers feared most. Stuart relates how Amerindians supporting the French captured Andrew Lewis as he accompanied British Major Grant on a reconnaissance mis­ sion near Fort Duquesne early in the French and Indian War. Only due to French intervention were the Amerindians prevented from carrying out their desire to execute Lewis. The Amerindians then stripped Lewis, leaving him only wearing his shirt, before he was taken into the fort. In the fort, “with the tomahawk drawn over 75 �his head,” an elderly Amerindian attempted to grab his shirt, and only after a French officer intervened did Lewis escape a second time with his life. The French officer then took Lewis into his room and gave him a complete set of clothes. In Stuart’s narrative, the French Amerindian allies offered death, while the French offered both salvation and comfort.xu The morphing of fear from a tripartite division between the French, the Amerindians, and slaves, to a monolithic focus on Amerindians alone along Virginia’s frontier produced a force that at times seemed insur­ mountable to Virginia’s eastern political leaders and to the frontier’s political and military leaders. With Amerindian raids materializing in what settlers saw as a random, haphazard manner, with the possibility of a raid occurring at any time and in any place, settlers reacted in ways that were not always in line with local leaders’ ideals about frontier defense. One of the more frustrating effects Amerindian attacks had on the behavior of frontier settlers, in addition to their fleeing the region and their increasing habit of killing any Amerindians, whether friendly or not, that traveled through the region, was the propensity of settlers to spread rumors about Amerindian movements and raids. In the fall of 1755 George Washington wrote down an advertisement that had appeared around Winchester due to “An inconceivable Panick which prevailed amongst the people” along the frontier. The advertisement noted that “divers timorous persons run through the Country and alarm its inhabi­ tants by False Reports, of the Indians having attacked and destroyed the Country, even Winchester itself.” The article then went on to attempt to assure settlers that “the Indians who committed the late Cruelties . . . are returned Home,” and it proceeded to almost plead for “all my Countrymen, not to be alarmed on every false Report they may hear . . . but to keep to their Homes and take care of their Crops.” Just rumors of Amerindian raids, exaggerated to the degree of purporting that Amerindians had destroyed Winchester, caused enough settlers to leave the frontier that an advertisement had to appear in order to persuade settlers to either come back to their homes or, if they had not fled, remain in the county. As Washington observed in an October, 1755, letter to Governor Dinwiddie, “I believe, they [frontier settlers] are more encompassed by Fear than by the Enemy.”x^ Throughout the period the Virginia Gazette and the Pennsylvania Gazette many times aided with the per­ petuation of rumors as both papers reported stories not entirely factual. In September, 1764, the Pennsylvania Gazette reported that the author of a dispatch from Camp Loudon was “apprehensive that there are several small parties of the Enemy near our quarters.” This followed the dispatch’s report that in the vicinity Thomas Smith, “a Man of Veracity,” had viewed the bodies of John Miller and three members of his family “dead, scalped and mangled.” The Virginia Gazette reported in the spring of 1774, on the eve of the Point Pleasant expedition, that there was “the disagreeable Intelligence that a general Discontent appears among the Indian Nations; that the Cherokees and Shawanese have combined together; and that, in short, the Frontier Inhabitants are under the most dreadful Apprehensions from the ill Temper prevailing amongst those Barbarians.”xiv Such reports, based to some degree on hearsay and speculation, simply added to anxieties already evident along the frontier due directly to the Amerindians’ tactics as they raided frontier settlements. Fears that Amerindian raiding parties were in the vicinity, or that the Cherokee and Shawnee were forging an alliance and would attack the frontier at any moment, simply caused frontier families to panic and possibly act on that panic by spreading rumors or taking more dras­ tic actions. The rumors, just as much as the actual raids, adversely impacted settlers and led them to decide to leave the region or even attack friendly Amerindians traveling through the region. In one instance the rumor of Amerindian movements caused Washington to mobilize a small force to investigate, only to find “3 drunken Soldiers of the Light-Horse, carousing, firing their Pistols, and uttering the most unheard-of Imprecations;” there were no Amerindians, only obnoxious and loud drunken soldiers.xv Fear played a distinct and obvious role in affecting the lives of frontier settlers as they attempted to shape their lives along Virginia’s western waters. Fear, and as Washington suggested, possibly more than the enemy, caused frontier settlers to make decisions that directly impacted the way in which they carried out their lives. The fear settlers felt caused them to abandon their homes in order to take refuge in neighborhood forts or to even abandon their homes temporarily or permanently as families fled to more stable and secure locations less likely to be the target o f Amerindian raids. Fear even caused frontier men to forego their militia responsibilities and directly challenge their social superiors. Between 1754 and 1759, when he served as commander of the 76 �Virginia Regiment, George Washington continually complained to Governor Dinwiddie about the insubordination militiamen demonstrated and how many men outright refused to go on patrols or to garrison frontier forts. The fear that in their absence their homes and families would be attacked led many men along the frontier to choose “as they say to die, with their Wives and Familys.” Similarly, as one frontier captain informed Colonel Fairfax when ordered to, along with his men, report to Winchester, “that his Wife, Family and Com was at stake; so were those of his Soldiers; therefore it was not possible for him to come.”xvl In many ways fear, more so than the French and Amerindians that threatened the region during the French and Indian War, was the Virginia govern­ ment’s greatest enemy along the frontier. While Amerindian raids took their toll on human life and caused much human suffering, the fear such raids inspired produced more problems for the region. NOTES 1 John Stuart’s “Memoir o f Indian Wars and Other Occurrences,” as published in Collections o f the Virginia H istorical Society, v. 1; new series, v. 1-11 [Richmond: The Society, 1833-1892] 39-40. Stuart, “Memoir o f Indian Wars,” 39-40. i'i Pennsylvania Gazette, May 3, 1764, Item #33188. *v Pennsylvania Gazette, May 3, 1764, Item #33188. v Jane T. Merritt, A t the Crossroads: Indians & Empires on a M id-Atlantic Frontier, 1700-1763 (Chapel Hill: University o f North Carolina Press, 2003) 178-179; Stuart, “Memoir of Indian Wars,” 39; and Pennsylvania Gazette, May 3, 1764, Item #33188. v’ Matthew C. Ward, Breaking the Backcountry: The Seven Years ’ War in Virginia and Pennsylvania, 1754-1765 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003) 7-8; and Pennsylvania Gazette, August 9, 1764, Item #33906. According to Title 22 of the US Code, Section 2656f(d), “terrorism” involves “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.” Certain changes in the way in which Amerindians waged war along the frontier beginning with the French and Indian War brought about a style of warfare that clearly relates to this definition. Various eastern woodland tribes, such as the Shawnee and the Delaware, began to attack noncombat­ ants, mutilate bodies, and resort to various degrees of psychological warfare in order to directly affect British imperial policy. Since, for example, prior to the French and Indian War the Amerindian practice o f scalping had distinct spiritual elements tied to it and the belief among many eastern woodland Amerindians that bringing back the scalp of a woman or a child was an act of bravery, the fact that Amerindians consciously began to scalp and mutilate bodies in order to instill fear among frontier settlers and thus stem the tide of white expansion reflects the distinct possibility that the tactics Amerindians resorted to during and following the French and Indian War were more in line with terrorist tactics than previous complicated cultural forces. Since this paper explores the ways in which terrorism instilled fear among frontier settlers, I will not be examining, but do want to acknowledge, the ways in which whites used equally horrific tactics as they waged war against the Amerindians. Europeans did pay Amerindians for scalps they obtained from enemy bodies, they burned villages, and also mutilated Amerindian bodies. However, while Alden T. Vaughan argues that ‘T he seventeenth century had its share of barbarity on both sides o f the Atlantic,” in the sense that it was customary in England for criminals and enemies o f the state to be drawn and quartered and for their heads to be displayed on London Bridge, this was not “terrorist” in nature as such executions and muti­ lations were state sponsored and committed against those tried and convicted o f a crime. While such actions were definitely a means through which the government could “influence an audience,” such actions were more in line with totalitarianism than terrorism. See Alden T. Vaughn, New England Frontier: Puritans and Indians 1620-1675 (Boston: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc., 1965) 40-41. v*'i John Ingles, Escape from Indian Captivity: The Story ofM ary Draper Ingles and Son Thomas Ingles as told by John Ingles, Sr, eds. Roberta Ingles Steele and Andrew Lewis Ingles (Radford, 1969)19; Ellen Apperson Brown, “Portrait o f a Survivor: The Long and Eventful Life o f Mary Draper Ingles,” The Sm ithfield Review: Studies in the history o f the Region West o f the Blue Ridge, VII (2004): 58; Pennsylvania Gazette, July 29, 1756, Item #19771; George Washington, The Writings o f George Washington from the Original M anuscript Sources 1745-1799, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1931) v.l, page 490-499. While Washington was not a strong advocate for waging a defensive war along the backcountry, he submitted to Governor Dinwiddie a plan for the positioning and garrisoning o f a series o f frontier forts all along the Virginia frontier. This plan highlights Washington’s concerns that Fort Vause was in a precarious position. Out of 22 proposed forts and 1100 men to garrison the forts, Fort Vause was to have the third highest number o f troops for a garrison, with 150 men recommended to garrison the fort, accounting for 7.5% of the total forces allotted to garrison the frontier forts. Washington recommended that the largest garrison, 500 men, be located at the fort at Cockes on Patterson s Creek and that the second largest garrison, 250 men, be located at Dickerson’s on the Jackson River, accounting for 25% and 12.5% of the 77 �total forces recommended for garrison duty, respectively. The following table reflects the numbers of troops Washington recommended to garrison the remaining 19 forts and the percentage of the total force suggested to be detailed as a garrison per fort: Number of Men Washington Recommended for Garrison Duty Number of Forts %age of Total Force per Fort 20 3 1% per fort 30 1.5% 40 3 2% per fort 50 2 2.5% per fort 60 4 3% per fort 75 3 3.75% per fort 100 2 5% per fort 125 6.25% The forts with larger garrisons, with the exception of Fort Vause, were to be located further north near the Potomac River due to Washington’s concern that “invasion is most to be dreaded on this Quarter.” Washington believed that strategically, the more settled northern regions were in greater need o f defense from French and/or Amerindian attack. lx Washington, The Writings o f George Washington, v. 1, page 324-325; For information about cultural attitudes toward suicide, see Fred Anderson, A P eople’s Army: M assachusetts Soldiers and Society in the Seven Years’ War (Chapel Hill: The University o f North Carolina Press, 1984) 116; and Woody Holton, Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the M aking o f the American Revolution in Virginia (Chapel Hill: The University o f North Carolina Press, 1999) 43-44. Anderson notes that during the French and Indian War as New England militiamen and British Regulars inter-mixed the New Englanders noted strange behaviors among the British. Dueling and sui­ cide were two actions in which some British Regulars engaged that shocked New Englanders. Suicide, Anderson concludes, was at the very least rare among, or possibly unknown to, New Englanders. That suicides generally occurred as British soldiers awaited punishment, Anderson argues, reflects how harsh corporal punishment was in the British army. Holton, however, suggests that in the southern colonies suicide may have been more prominent than in New England but still rare. Holton examines the suicides o f three investors in the lead mines at Fort Chiswell in the New River Valley. The failed economic venture, among other factors, drove at least two of the men, and possibly the third partner, to suicide, suggesting that debt among the gentry was so overwhelming that some men found no choice but to take what was a dramatic step and end their lives. Holton points out that o f the other Virginia gentlemen who committed suicide in the eighteenth century almost all o f them were in financial trouble. In this light, Washington’s rhetorical examination o f sacrificing his life to protect the frontier settlers may have been to some degree in line with the mentality o f the eighteenth century Virginia gentry. In a sense, Washington was in debt to the frontier settlers as he owed them not finances but protection; their lives were dependent on his actions. His frustration at not being able to “pay” on this debt as Amerindians successfully raided the region and put the frontier into a state of panic might have been similar to the pressure the indebted gentry were under as their honor became the subject of scrutiny. While Washington never, most likely, actually intended to sacrifice his life in the manner he mentions, it is curious that such action falls in line with other • views among the Virginia gentry about suicide. x Warren R. Hofstra, The Planting o f New Virginia: Settlement and Landscape in the Shenandoah Valley (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 70-76. X1 Hofstra, Planting o f New Virginia, 76-77. xu See T.H. Breen and Stephen Innes, M yne Owne Ground: Race and Freedom on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, 1640-1676, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980). Breen and Innes suggest that slavery in Virginia did not fully become a racist institution until approximately 1705, with the passage o f a series o f laws clearly defining black laborers as slaves; however, the devolution toward a race-based slave sys­ tem began in the 1680s. Prior to 1705, even more so before the 1680s, the status of African slaves in Virginia was ambiguous, with many earning their freedom, similar to indentured servants, and going on to own land, own slaves, and successfully sue white landowners in court. Breen and Innes suggest that during the seventeenth century, owning land more than race defined an individual’s place in society. Also, Hofstra, Planting o f New Virginia, 77. xm See B. Scott Crawford, “Economic Interdependence Along a Colonial Frontier: Capitalism and the New River Valley, 1745-1789,” Masters Thesis, Old Dominion University, 1996, 31-33; and B. Scott Crawford, “The Transformation o f a Frontier Political Culture: Blacksburg’s Early Experience, 1745-1870, A Special Place fo r 200 Years: A H istory o f Blacksburg, Virginia, ed. Clara B. Cox (Roanoke: Progress Press, Inc., 1998) 142-143; Letter Dated July, 1754, Preston Family Papers, reel 2, Folder 135; and Samuel G. Drake, Indian Captivities or Life in the Wigwam; Being True Narratives o f Captives who have been carried away by the Indians, from the Frontier Settlements o f the United States, from the Earliest Period to the Present Time (Auburn: Derby and Miller, 1852) 184, 259. Slave owners in the New River Valley made up only, on average, approximately 10% of the taxable population between 1782 and 1790, with the aver­ age slave holder owning only 2.5 slaves. The largest slave holding estate in the New River Valley, William Preston, listed only 22 taxable slaves in 1790. Compared to eastern Virginia plantations, where by 1782 approximately 78% o f the households in Charles City, James City, and Warwick counties in eastern Virginia owned slaves with many estates owning numbers o f slaves in the hundreds, backcounhy plantations had relatively few slaves. 78 �x*v Drake, Indian Captivities, 180-181, 184. xv Stuart, “Memoir of Indian Wars,” 52. XV1 Washington, The Writings o f George Washington, v. 1, page 201, 208-209. For an examination of the extent to which rumors affected the South Carolina backcountry during the panic o f 1751, see Gregory Evans Dowd, “The Panic of 1751: The Significance o f Rumors on the South Carolina Cherokee Frontier,” The William and M ary Quarterly, 3r“ ser„ Vol. 53.3 (July 1996): 527-560. Dowd argues that along South Carolina’s backcountry extremely anxious situations emerged as rumors of possible Amerindian attacks surfaced. Reflecting a more modem strategic outlook, the Cherokee, like the Iroquois during the French and Indian War, many times used rumors to play on South Carolina’s backcountry settlers’ fears in order to advance their own agendas. As in Virginia, many times newspapers fueled rumors as they reported them along with “facts.” xvu Pennsylvania Gazette, September 13, 1764, Item #34166; Virginia Gazette, March 17, 1774, Purdie Dixon, page 2, column 2 xvm Washington, The Writings o f George Washington, v. 1, page 204. xlx Washington, The Writings o f George Washington, v. 1, page 200-201, 204. W.H. “Button” Carr of Floyd County held the reins for a yoke of oxen pulling the first wagon through the mud to reach Roanoke after the big snow of 1890, according to information on the back of this old photo treasured by the Conner family of Copper Hill. The oxen were named Buck and Bright and a Mr. Reed sat beside Carr. The other two men, said to have been from New York, were not identified. (Photo courtesy of the family o f W. Curtis and Golda M. Conner) 79 �How We Were a Century Ago: Roanoke Valley in 1 9 0 6 Editor s Note: This description o f Roanoke City and County comes from A Handbook of Virginia, Information for the Homeseeker and Investor, published by the State Department o f Agriculture and Immigration in 1906. R oanoke he city of Roanoke, situated on the great through line of the Norfolk and Western railroad, one hundred and ninety-nine miles by rail, west from Richmond, is the chief city of Southwest Virginia. It is in the county of Roanoke 907 feet above sea level, and being at the head of the Valley of Virginia has a good claim to be the gateway and the leading city of both these great natural divisions of Virginia. It is convenient by rail to both sections, the main line of Norfolk and Western running through the south­ west 151 miles to Bristol, Va., and north 239 miles through the Valley to the Potomac, thus reaching all the cities and larger towns of both, with which it maintains large and profitable business relations. The Norfolk and Western also places the city in direct communication with Lynchburg, 53 miles east, and Norfolk 257 miles; while another branch of the same trunk line carries Roanoke’s business south through the State to Winston-Salem, N. C., and southern points. The new Tidewater railroad now building from Deep Water, W. Va., to Norfolk, passes through Roanoke, and furnishes to the “Magic City,” as it is called, another great railroad from Chesapeake Bay to the Ohio river. It is a modem, up-to-date, well paved, well watered city, possessing all the conveniences to be furnished by electricity and water power. Its twenty-seven churches embrace every leading religious denomination, and have handsome and com­ modious houses of worship. There are also handsome city and railroad Y. M. C. A. buildings, an orphan asylum, and a home for the sick. The educational advantages of Roanoke (in character and extent) are not surpassed by any other town of its size in the State, attracting large patronage from other sections. Besides its splendid public school system, supplied with six handsome and commodious school buildings and equipped with every modem appliance, there is the Virginia College, a flourishing female institution; the Business College, and other schools of a private character. The enterprise, culture, educations and social advantages of Roanoke render it a most desirable and attrac­ tive residential town; and as a commercial metropolis, it ranks with the best of the inland towns of the State. Roanoke has many extensive and valuable industries, the most important of which are the Norfolk and Western machine shops, for the manufacture and repair of rolling stock, the largest and finest locomotives and passenger coaches. These shops now employ 2,300 men, an extensive addition being built, which will increase the working force to at least 3,800. The total number of men now employed in the Roanoke shops of the Norfolk and Western Railway Company, the extensive general offices and yards, including the trainmen and enginemen who have their homes in the city, is, according to the secretary of the Roanoke Chamber of Commerce, about 4,700, and the aggre­ gate amount of money paid to these employees monthly is $256,000. There are also employed by other industries in the city fully 1,500 men, with an average monthly pay roll of over $75,000 more. These figures do not include the employees of the various wholesale and retail mercantile houses nor the large force engaged now in construction of various kinds. Among the principal industries of the city which attract the attention of the interested visitor are the Stone Printing and Manufacturing Company, one of the largest plants of the kind in the South; Fishbume Smoking Tobacco Factory; West End Furnace; American Iron Company; a Pennsylvania Corporation; Roanoke Elevator and Milling Company, capacity 325 barrels of flour per day; Twin Furnaces of the Virginia Iron, Coal and Coke T 80 �‘A fine crop of forage consisting of cowpeas and millet — grown by Col. A.M. Bowman, Salem, Roanoke County.’ (Source: Virginia Department o f Agriculture) Company; Roanoke Cotton Mill, Virginia Brewing Company and Cold Storage Plant; Blue Ridge Overalls Company planing mills; knitting mill; sash, door and blind factories; Exchange Lumber Company; Virginia Lumber Manufacturing Company; Hammond Printing Works; fertilizer factory; barrel and stave factory; Rockhill Foundry and Machine Shops; Roanoke Boiler and Sheet Iron Repair Shop; candy factory, and one of the largest manufacturers and shippers of marble and granite monuments in the south; also the Roanoke Clay Manufacturing Company, near the city; the Randolph Market Company; Southern Chemical Fertilizer Company, and Virginia Bridge and Iron Company, the largest of the kind in the south. The department of commerce and labor at Washington reports that in 1900 Roanoke had 38 establishments employing a capital of $1,915,647. She had, in 1905, 54 establishments employing a capital of $2,656,626. Wage earners had increased 27 per cent, from 2,431 to 3,089, and wages 37 per cent, from $1,106,948 to $1,525963. The large, almost palatial, wholesale and retail stores and other handsome business houses and the numerous handsome banks and other public buildings, to say nothing of many beautiful, private residences, can not be specified in a work of this character. They are equal in style and appearance to those of our larger cities, and the pretty well appointed post office shows yearly a large increase of business. The hotel accommodations are exceptional. There are five comfortable and well equipped hotels, some of them luxurious in their appointments, which invite much travel and many large conventions and religious gatherings. The electric street car system is very complete and reaches beyond the corporate limits to Salem, six miles, and to Vinton two miles. Five million gallons daily of sparkling water gushes from a single spring, at the foot of Mill mountain, and is distributed all over the city. Sewerage is good, the air is pure, and climate as healthful as an altitude of 1,000 feet among the Blue Ridge mountains would be expected to furnish, while a very fertile adjacent country supplies an abundance of farm and dairy products, fruits, fowls and vegetables. With three such daily newspapers as the Times, Evening World, and Evening News, and a live Chamber of Commerce, to put all of Roanoke’s advantages before the public, and keep them there; and with its finances man­ aged and fostered by six excellent banks, with combined resources of $3,729,065 and net surplus of $384,571, it is 81 �not surprising that the city chartered in 1884 with a population of five thousand has forged constantly ahead. The immense dam, in course of construction by the Roanoke Water Power Company at a point on the Roanoke river, about four miles east of the city, is nearly completed. The height of this dam is 48 feet at the gates, giving a fall of water of 64 feet at the power house. It is estimated that about three thousand horse power can be generated at this plant, and the company is in position to furnish electrical power for manufacturing purposes, and will complete its lines to the city and be in readiness to furnish power and light for the residents of Roanoke by July 1st, 1906. The census of 1900 gave Roanoke a population of 21,495, the city census, taken in January 1904, showed 26,443 and it is estimated that the population May 1s , 1906, closely approximates, if it does not reach 30,000, over 700 dwellings having been erected in the two years of 1904-05. R oanoke C ounty his county, formed from Botetourt in 1838, is situated west of the Blue Ridge mountains in the famous Roanoke valley, 175 miles almost due west from Richmond. It is 20 miles long and about 15 miles wide and contains an area of 297 square miles. Altitude at Salem 1,096 feet. The surface is undulating, being divided into valleys and mountains, the latter principally on its boundaries. Soil alluvial, clay loam and limestone, very fer­ tile, especially the valleys. This is a splendid agricultural county, producing large crops of all the staple products—wheat, com oats, rye, hay, etc., This county has, in recent years, made great progress in fruit culture, all varieties of which known to this climate do well; such as apples, pears, peaches, plums, cherries, apricots, grapes and the smaller fruits. Vegetables also are grown to great extent and perfection, which, together with peaches, berries, etc., are put up in large quantities by the various canning establishments located in the county, and Botetourt county adjacent. The apple culture, especially, has created much interest in the county, and it is coming to be one of the foremost apple growing counties in the State, containing some of the largest orchards in the United States. Large shipments of apples are annually made to the markets of Europe direct from the orchards, yielding to the grower from $5,000 to $15,000 for the year’s crop. Tmcking is quite an important industry, and Roanoke City and the coal fields furnish excellent markets for this and other farm products. Grazing facilities in this county, in common with all others in this section of the State, are superior, espe­ cially in the blue grass section in the northern part. Cattle and sheep are raised extensively, and have direct and quick transportation via Shenandoah Valley railroad to the large markets, besides supplying the local demand in Roanoke and Salem. Most excellent transportation facilities are furnished by the different lines of the Norfolk and Western sys­ tem traversing the country which include the main line east and west-the Shenandoah valley division leading north­ east to the great cities of that section, and the Roanoke & Southern south through the tobacco counties of southern Piedmont and into North Carolina. The minerals of the county are iron, manganese, barites, marble, slate and limestone, the most valuable and important of which are its iron ores, magnetic and hematite, which are in great abundance, and of superior quality, and are being extensively developed and worked. There are several mineral springs in the county, of high reputa­ tion for their medicinal properties, the most important of which are the celebrated Roanoke Red Sulphur ■Springs, peculiarly adapted to consumptives. The most valuable varieties of timber are walnut, poplar, oak, chestnut, pine and hickory. The county is watered and drained principally by the Roanoke river and its numerous tributaries passing through the center of the county and flowing southeast, and to some extent by tributaries of the James running north. These streams furnish some very fine water powers, and are good fishing streams for bass and other vari­ eties. Trout are also found in the mountain streams. Manufactories consist of flour mills and sawmills, roller mill supplies, woolen mills, steam tannery, a fertilizer mill, foundry, and a number of canneries. The climate is an aver- T 82 �age temperature, health excellent, water very fine. Churches are numerous, and include all the principal evangeli­ cal denominations. Educational advantages are very superior. In addition to its excellent public school system, there are male and female colleges of a high order, notable Roanoke College located at Salem, and Hollins Institute locat­ ed six miles from the city of Roanoke in a most beautiful and picturesque section. Situated 1,200 feet above sea level, its climate is salubrious at all seasons and it enjoys the further advantage of having excellent sulphur water on the grounds. This school is conducted exclusively in the interest of the higher education of young ladies, and is thoroughly equipped at a cost of over $150,000. The mail facilities and telephone service of the county are excel­ lent, and good county roads, including a splendid macadamized road, extend through the whole length of the coun­ ty. The county is free from debt, and people are prosperous, and progress and advancement are apparent every­ where. Population of the county (independent of Roanoke City), census of 1900, 15,837. Increase (independent of Roanoke City) since the census of 1890, 1,895. The above is a good exhibit of growth in population, as part of the county has been annexed to Roanoke City since last census, and the population thereof included with that city in the recent census. Salem, the county seat, is situated near the center of the county, in the beautiful Roanoke valley through which flows the Roanoke river, and around which rise the Blue Ridge and Alleghany mountains. Lying 1,100 feet above the sea, it is deservedly noted for its salubrious and healthful climate, and is surpassed by no town in the State for beauty of situation, and the wide expanse, fertility and picturesque scenery of the surrounding country. It lies on the main line of the Norfolk & Western railroad, and is connected by an electric railway line with Roanoke, six miles distant. The streets are well paved and macadamized. The water is of exceptional abundance and quality, being supplied by several large springs owned by the town. Salem is noted not only for the intelligence and refine­ ment, but also for the high moral and religious tone of its population. Its eleven churches are well attended, repre­ sented by the Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Baptist, Episcopal and Catholic. Its educational advantages are of a very high order, it being the seat of Roanoke College, an institution for the education of males, widely known and justly celebrated as one of the leading colleges of the State; during its existence of a half a century, having attract­ ed students from almost half the States of the Union, and several foreign countries. The college buildings are spa­ cious, imposing brick structures; the grounds attractive with beautiful green sward and luxuriant growth of forest and ornamental tress. Its able corps of instructors, laboratory, extensive library, location, and excellent moral and religious influence of the community, render it as a most desirable school for the young men of our State. Other schools are the Salem Female Seminary, the Baptist Orphanage and the Lutheran Orphanage. These are compara­ tively young but growing institutions, in numbers and reputation. The graded schools (white and colored) rank among the first of the State for efficiency and good management. The town is supplied with excellent hotels, and three strong banks, two newspapers, and fraternal orders. There are a number of flourishing industries and enterprises at Salem, some of them very extensive, afford­ ing employment to considerable expert labor. The most prominent are the machine works, steam tannery, woolen mills, carriage and wagon works, brick works, roller flour mills, and ice factory. The population of Salem, census of 1900, was 3,412, and by the local school census of 1905, it is over 5,000. 83 �by Jam es E. Dalmas R oanoke had only existed as a city for five years when a local group of citizens formed a company known as the Roanoke Street Railway Company in 1887. After obtaining a charter, the company was awarded a franchise by the city in early 1888. While the charter authorized animal, cable or electric propulsion, the first line was powered by mules and operated over a short route centered in the city. In 1889 another local group absorbed the mule-car line and expanded the lines to the nearby towns of Vinton and Salem using steam dummy engines for motive power, keeping the mule-drawn cars on the city lines. By 1890 the mule lines began to expand. Starting in 1892, another local group reorganized the company with somewhat better capitalization and electrified the car lines, operating with a total of nine cars. The organization also absorbed the small electric company operating in Roanoke at that time. After bankruptcy in 1898 the company was reorganized and renamed the Roanoke Railway and Electric Company. The early 1900s saw rapid expansion of the system. New extensions and double tracking were among the tasks accomplished. A new car house and modem steam and hydro electric plants were added. Local ownership passed to a hold­ ing company. A number o f new cars were purchased and by the peak in about 1925 the company was operating about 50 cars over 33 miles of tracks. The peak of the street railways also marked the beginning of formal bus transportation when the Safety Motor Transit Company was organized to compete with the RR&E Co. The SMT Corp. was absorbed by the RR&E Co. in 1928. Nineteen-twenty-nine marked the beginning of the end of streetcars in Roanoke when two lines were abandoned. This abandonment was followed two years later by the abandonment of the Salem line. The early 1940s saw the abandonment of five more destinations leaving only two major lines. In July 1948 the two remaining lines were abandoned and the 18 remain­ ing passenger cars were sold for scrap. Transit in Roanoke was then handled by buses to 23 destinations. Even though the streetcar system existed for only 61 years, and some Roanokers lived to see the beginning and the end, the story of the well-managed company is compelling. The system affected virtually all of the citizens o f Roanoke. Since public transportation was the only way to rapidly travel throughout the city before the automobile, it was used by people from all walks of life, rich and poor; carrying more than 12 million passengers per year. James E. Dalmas, a Roanoke native who lives in Jarrettsville, Md., is the author o f an illustrated history, The Street Railways o f Roanoke 1887-1948, which will be published by the Historical Society o f Western Virginia in June. Dalmas attended Virginia Heights Elementary School, Jefferson High School and Virginia Tech. He is a retired electrical engineer and an authority on vintage street railways. «4 ��*%i4tony ‘Tttoteeum & ^¥iotoncccii Society OF WESTERN VIRGINIA Center in the Square, One Market Square, SE Roanoke, VA 24011 Tel: 540/342-5770 Email: info.hswv@cox.net Web Site: www.history-museum.org ISBN#: 0-9710531-7-0 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia 2005 Volume 16, Number 2 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />The Progressive Reform Movement in Roanoke, 1900-1912<br />The Victoria Courtship of Miss Emma and Mr. Tinsley<br />Life in 1905<br />Roanoke Families Built Many Roads from 1950-2005<br />Bob Childress and His Six Rock Churches<br />The Early Presbyterians in the Roanoke Valley, 1749-1851<br />John Henry Pinkard and the African American Banks of Roanoke Civilian Conservation Corps Restored the Jefferson National Forest to Health<br />A History of Victory Stadium<br />The Lives of John, William, and John William McCauley<br />Raymond Loewy's 1949 Train Station<br />Fear on the Frontier in 18th Century Virginia<br />How We Were a Century Ago: Roanoke Valley in 1906<br />Roanoke's Streetcars Operated for 61 Years Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2005 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_16_02_2005 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6364/JHSWV_17_01_2006.pdf 7c5cd0316f117f0d871af1762adbd3f2 PDF Text Text 2006-2007 J OURÌN AL Society Anniversary Edition �iT'¿¿tvUad S o ciety ‘TVe&tena rfwtO'i mO'(ttcuwi nab wtaaet (For the love of mountains inspires us) C ^cew David Helmer ................................................. President Stanard F. Lanford ................................... Vice-President Martha Hull .................................................... Secretary Ronald E. S in k ................................................... Treasurer D. Kent Chrisman .......................... Executive Director Carolyn Payne....................................Operations Manager SWW Edward W. Barnett Michael Bell C. Whitney Brown Jr. W. Jack Burrows Eugene Derryberry Frank H. Ewald William M. Hackworth William C. Hagan Gordon S. Hamilton *Dùiect<nà Charles E. Hunter III John C. Lanford Philip H. Lemon Laura B. Logan Edwin E. Lunsford Natalie Norris James G. Overholser J. David Robbins Alice B. Roberts Michael K. Smeltzer Becky Stephens Ann Stephenson Quinn D. Thomas Virginia T. Vinyard Dr. E. Wilson Watts Katherine Watts Edgar V. Wheeler O ie c to n à Sara Airheart David Burrows George Kegley George Kegley Editor of the Journal Christina Koomen Smith Production, Editorial Asst. Barbara Lemon Tom Maxfleld The Journal, Vol. 17, No. 1, chronicles the history of the Commonwealth west of the Blue Ridge. Published by the Historical Society of Western Virginia (formerly the Roanoke Historical Society), P.O. Box 1904, Roanoke, VA, 24008. Printed by Jamont Communications, Roanoke. The price for additional copies is $5 for members, $10 for non-members. The Museum will be careful in handling unso­ licited materials, but cannot be responsible for their loss. This issue o f the Journal was made possible by The Kegley Publication Fund The Foundation for Roanoke Valley Stan and Elise Lanford �Tabl e o f C o n t e n t s N o te F rom th e E x ecu tiv e D irector by D. Kent Chrisman H isto rica l S o ciety J o u rn a l is 43 by George Kegley R oan ok e C ounty & V alley: T he L esson s o f H istory by Dr. Marshall W. Fishwick T h e P a st is R igh t H ere fo r th e A rch a eo lo g ist by Ivor Noel Flume T h e G reat F lood by Klaus Wust S eein g V irgin ia in 1797 by Louis Philippe Epilogue: R oan ok e C ou nty in th e 1840s 78 by Maria Jane Gish Frantz R oan ok e’s F uture by Dr. F. Meade Bailey H ow th e M oth er C ou n ty B egan by R.D. Stoner F in ca stle: M ore T h an a C ou n ty S eat by Frances McNulty Lewis M ary J o h n sto n , W riter o f th e P ast by George Kegley V irg in ia ’s N eglected S old iers by James I: “Bud” Robertson B ig L ick H om e F ro n t by Mary S. Terry P eyton Terry: R o a n o k e’s F ir st M illio n a ire by Betty Low E arly C raftsm en by Roddy Moore O ld B arn s o f A p p alach ia by Henry Glassie III R oan ok e V alley’S E a r ly Ir o n M in es by Raymond Barnes T h e W atts, a P ion eer F am ily / T h e B arren s: A G ard en Spot by Helen R. Prillaman H otel R oanoke: A la rg e and w ell-eq u ip p ed h otel V ice P resid en tial C an d id ate had C arvin s C ove Su m m er H om e by George Kegley G ilm er A venu e, N o rth w est by Alice Roberts and Margaret Roberts A J efferso n S treet S tro ll a t th e T urn o f th e C en tu ry by Paul Stonesifer H en ry F ord and F rien d s on T our by George Kegley T h read in g a P ark w ay T h rou gh th e B lu e R id ge by David P. Hill 1 �Note From the Executive Director A /A 33rd issue of the Journal! The highlight of many of our supporters’ membership, this Journal also celebrates the Society’s 50th year o f collecting, interpreting, displaying and publishing the heritage of our -^.region. We enter our 50th year, yet again, fortunate to build on many years of past successes. Agendas were full for our two largest operating divisions, the O. Winston Link Museum and the History Museum of Western Virginia. Both facilities developed and/or hosted a number of exhibits in 2006. O. Winston Link negatives o f the N&W Series, sought for seven years, are being scanned and conserved at the Link Museum. Two recent acquisitions at the Society museum are a Rockbridge County 19th century ballot box, donated by Wilson Watts, whose father supen/ised its usage before mechanical voting started; and a Roanoke Soapbox Derby “draw” box, given by the Kulp/Thacker family who were active in the Derby. 2 The History Museum held five: Garden Party, Women’s Summer Fashions 1860-1960, Car Crazy at the Roanoke Drag Strip (developed by the Blue Ridge Institute), Carter Burgess, A Life of True Contentment (developed by the George C. Marshall Museum) and the paired exhibits, Wish You Were Here: Post Cards from the Blue Ridge/Riding the Lee Highway, also developed by the Blue Ridge Institute. Additionally, the Museum and Society hosted two outbound tours, visiting historic sites in Rocky Mount and Giles County and held 10 lectures. One of the History Museum’s lectures also served to debut the Society’s latest book, Jim Dalmas’ The Street Railways o f Roanoke, which sold through its initial 500-copy printing and is poised to sell through a second. Not to forget the “little people,” Fantasy land celebrated a 12th year at the History Museum and the Step into the Past hands-on edu­ cation program was well on its way to another sell­ out booking with local schools. At the O. Winston Link Museum, numerous physical improvements, along with continued pro­ grammatic growth, resulted in a second Gold Award as “Best Museum” by readers of the Roanoker. Several notable achievements included the completion of the Raymond Loewy Gallery and the acquisition of Winston Link’s N&W caboose. The Link Museum also hosted changing exhibits on Women Working on the Railroad, Passenger Service, the Norfolk Southern Calendar Show and an exhibit of the photographic work of Tommy Firebaugh. The Link Lecture Series expanded to a series of nine talks with ties to the Museum’s interpretation but ranging from best­ selling author Sharon McCrumb to Disney Corporation Senior Vice President Bob Lambert. Link special events included the 3rd annual “Santa by Rail,” “Celebration at the Station” and the new “Haunted Museum,” each event serving a crucial �role in audience expansion. Speaking of audience, potential visitors are now greeted by interstate signage and in 2006 they could read of the Link Museum in Southern Living magazine. Many museums and societies are completely run by staff. That is not the case with the Society or its museums. The array of activities cited above is available because staff can rely on a dedicated corps of volunteers, increasing offerings and quality. Lastly, the Virtual Museum Project, the much anticipated long-dreamt of Society-wide digitalization of our col­ lections began in 2006 with the purchase of appropriate hardware, software and the hiring of our first full-time Registrar, Carol Tuckwiller, to direct the project. Because of you, our members and supporters, our 50th year holds the promise of being our best. Thank you! D. Kent Chrisman Executive Director Historical Society Journal is 43 or 43 years, the Journal of this organization - Roanoke Historical Society, later Roanoke Valley Historical Society and now the Historical Society o f Western Virginia - has done its best work “to chronicle the past and present of that part of the state west of the Blue Ridge.” Ben Dulaney, public relations director o f the Norfolk & Wesstem Railway, edited the Journal from summer 1964 until his untimely death in 1968.1 followed F him as editor. . ,. . In that first issue 43 years ago, we began seeking and publishing manuscripts, documents, letters, diaries, biographies, histories of homes, churches, schools and companies, descriptions of taverns, mills, roads, farms and stores About the same time, we began to preserve and exhibit a wide variety of historical items - pictures, maps; records, deeds, books, newspapers, tools, clothing, flags and objects used in everyday life. These also provided sources for Journal articles. ? In this issue, marking the 50th anniversary of the Society, we have attempted to reprint a sampling of the diverse historical material we have published during the past 43 years. If not the best, they are indeed diverse. Selecting them was like choosing a favorite among your children. We did not have space for many excellent works Among the many fine writers of Journal articles who are not represented here are Clare White, Frances Lewis, W.L. “Tony” Whitwell, Lee Winboume, Norwood Middleton, Louis Newton, Don Piedmont, Mike Pulice, Judge Jack Coulter, Warren Moorman, Mary Kegley, J.R. Hildebrand, Frances Niederer, Patricia Johnson and Goodridge Wilson. Their good historical research may be found in back issues of Journals at the Historical Some of the most interesting articles not appearing here told of a 1753 pilgrimage, Fort Vause at Shawsville, Bent Mountain recollections, saddlebags and bank ledgers, the ancient Teays River, “Walled in by the Appalachians,” cigar manufacturing in Roanoke, Montgomery White Sulphur Springs, folk artist Lewis Miller, “vivid” Appalachian dialect, Cherry Tree Bottom, early lighting devices, log buildings, cures of mountain herbs, Roanoke hay rides and a hoax at Natural Bridge. fc I . Much appreciation is extended to Roger Pommerenke, who scanned the articles from old issues of the Journal, and to Christina Koomen Smith, who did her usual professional job of layout and design on this issue. George Kegley Editor 3 �Roanoke County ft Valley: The Lessons o f History by Dr. Marshall W. Fishwick ❖ first printed in Vol. 13 No. 1 (1989) ry to imagine how silent it was — this magnificent motley valley — not hundreds or thousands but millions of years ago. We still shoot the deer and recall the now-extinct buffalo, but how many know that dinosaurs once roamed these hills and perhaps enjoyed a tasty meal at the very spot at which you now s itB s a y , half a million years ago? You ask for proof? It was found by that greatest of Virginians in whose shadow we all stand: Thomas Jefferson. In compiling his Notes on Virginia, Jefferson discovered that arthritic dinosaurs bathed in Virginia’s mineral springs aeons before Homo sapiens did so. He actually discovered the bones o f a giant prehistoric sloth near what is now White Sulphur Springs, and promptly named the creature Megalonus Jeffersonii. Water, history, and life are all of a piece. How little we know of those endless days and nights ... not only before our time, but before the concept of time. The first lesson of history is humility. For those of us who spend our lives studying and writing history, one truth tops all others: how little we know about the past; and how hard it is to explain what we DO know. What are the “lessons of history”? History does not teach “lessons”; that is the task of historians. History doesn t demonstrate, prove, justify”; like Old Man River, it just keeps rolling along. Or coming closer to home — like the James, New, or Roanoke rivers, which we all know and love. We would like to know the facts-yet we know there are no “facts” in history. Rocks, stones, animals, books — but not FACTS. Facts are made-or drawn-by humans. What we call "facts" are conclusions drawn by the human mind ..., and often they turn out not to be true. “History,” said Voltaire, “is a pack of lies agreed upon.” Or is it “propaganda of the victorious?” In any case, we are not here to repeat the facts (real or assumed) of our Sesquicentennial. We must, in these few minutes, try to catch the mood and meaning of those recent years ... to show how the meaning of life dwells in this valley, in this soil... then ask how, contemplating this microcosm, we can glimpse the macrocosm. We are not the first humans who have loved this valley, and what has come to be known as Southwestern Virginia. The Archeological Society o f Virginia has found materials going back 8,000 years, to the Paleo period, then the Archaic period (to about 1000 B.C.), the Woodland period (to about 1500 A.D.) and the Contact period, covering the brief span when Europeans first came into contact with native Americans. The Shannon site, near my home in Blacksburg, is believed to have been repeatedly occupied more than 3,000 years ago, and later until 1670. Nearly 12,000 pieces o f pottery fragments have been gathered. The State Library has published the findings of Joseph L. Benthall, project archeologist, and I recommend it to you. For the white settlers this must have fulfilled Drayton's famous description o f the new Virginia colony — “earth's only paradise. Plants, game, trees o f all kinds abounded; and there was more space than Europeans could even conceive. Here men and women could work all day with their hands their only company, listening for the screech Dr. Marshall W. Fishwick was a professor o f humanities and communication studies at Virginia Techfrom 1976 until he retired in 2003. A Roanoke native, Fishwick earned degrees at the University o f Virginia and the University o f Wisconsin before he received a doctorate at Yale University. A prolific writer o f many articles and more than 25 books on a variety o f themes in history and American studies, Fishwick also taught at Washington and Fee, Yale, Temple and Lincoln universitites. Fishwick died in 2006. He gave this talk during Roanoke County's sesquicentennial (150th anniversary) in 1988. 4 �Aerial photo o f the Andrews orchards at the foot o f the north side o f Read Mountain in Roanoke County. (Underwood & Underwood photo, 1924) of a soaring bird or the sound water makes when it gushes over a ledge of limestone. Try to visualize the strong morning sunlight turning the Blue Ridge bluer than tropical waters. And the long lone­ ly nights, broken only by the wail of wolves and the plaints of whippoorwills; the stealthy and eyeless fear, creep­ ing through the floorboards, lapping at the cabin door; the silent prayer of sunlight to fill up the chinks in the wall and to warm cold aching bones. Perhaps they agreed with the Indians who said the Great Spirit brought the stars together here to sing for joy. Even the angels joined in, according to an old Indian saga: While the stars and angels were singing, there came a crashing sound, as of mountains falling, or o f thunder in the sky. As the stars and the angels stopped singing to look and to listen, a great rock in the mountain wall split and fell asunder; through the deep opening the waters of the lake began to pour out and to rush towards the sea. The first white settlers came in the 17th century. John Lederer reached the Shenandoah Valley in 1669, killing a six-foot rattlesnake and watching a wildcat kill a deer. He returned in 1670, was bitten by a spider, and passed off the stage o f history. Then came German Protestants, driven from Europe by Louis XIV, and a host o f sturdy set­ tlers who left their indelible stamp on the interlocking mountains and valleys in which ours rests. One splendid book summarizes what we know of that heroic period: F.B. Kegley’s Virginia Frontier; the Beginning o f the Southwest; the Roanoke o f Colonial Days, 1740-1783. In 1988 we celebrate not only the 150th anniversary of our valley, but the 50th anniversary of Kegley’s book. What a fine moment in time! Drawing from Kegley, and others, we can imagine what our county was like when it was the frontier. Men wore coats with broad backs, straight short skirts, and short breeches reaching to the knee. Stockings were drawn up under the kneeband and tied with a garter just below the knee. Shoes were of coarse leather; hats o f wool or fur had crowns about four inches high and broad brims. The women wore petticoats, “shortgowns,” and tight calico caps, except in summer when their feet, hands and arms were bare. They usually helped the men labor in the fields of rye, flax, oats, potatoes, grain and hay. Fine 5 �mowers and reapers, they also hoed, plowed, and did much heavy labor. These women not only kept house; they also helped make it. The bam, the finest building on the farm, was usually built before all else. The typical one-and-a-half story house had a large cellar, a chimney in the middle, a fireplace in one end, and a stove-room in the other. Invariably there was a long pine table with permanent benches attached to one side. On the upper floor were gamers for holding grain. The beds were filled with straw or chaff. Living wasn’t easy. From all indications most newcomers were sober, stem, and unadorned. As soon as their families were proper­ ly housed, they built churches to worship their God. The walls were thick enough to withstand attacks. Every spring saw some red blood on the white dogwood. With few large plantations and infrequent European contacts, life was hard and lonely. Mountain barriers blocked the way to the sea, and settlements were few and far between. Rye, oats, barley, com, and wheat were the chief crops. Only a few who raised cattle drove their herds north to Winchester or Philadelphia. On the horizon just beyond are the inexorable mountains, with a magic kind of majesty, a brooding sullen still­ ness. This has been hard country to conquer. West of the six valleys of Virginia is an ocean of leaves. There are elms with slim weeping tops; sturdier, plumper maples; gnarled, many-fingered oaks. Here and there a great pine pierces the horizon. From the first there has been a raw, Darwinian quality about the people who live here. Call up the hogs, pack the pony, line up the old lady and kids, spit on the fire, and start west! Only the hardiest survived. What has survived are folk tales and songs of those bygone days — for me, the most precious part of my Virginia heritage. Do you remember things like this, from your childhood — or did you hear words like this from grandpar­ ents’ lips? If a white pigeon settles on your chimney, or an owl screeches with a hoarse voice, calamity is near. You can never catch a weasel asleep. In dog days toads never open up their mouths. A spider is an old quilt, hung around your neck, cures ague. The white stripe on a donkey is the cross of Christ, impressed when He rode into Jerusalem. If you see a wolf before he sees you, you'll drop dead on the spot. Where the devil came out o f the swine's forefeet, there's a small hole. King Arthur was turned into a raven, and in the springtime he circles over Virginny. Raven once snow-white, a tattle-tale, now he is black. Robin plucked a thorn from Christ's temple, now his breast is red. And on the dogwood you can see the imprint made by the nails of the cross. We have these tales and songs because of men like A.K. Davis, my beloved English professor at the University o f Virginia. His Traditional Ballads o f Virginia is (like Kegley’s) another indispensable book, listing 650 versions of 51 songs, still echoed on home-made dulcimers (John Jacob Niles, Susan Reed) and store-bought guitars (Burl Ives, Willie Nelson). How many o f you know OF Joe Clark? You will not find him in the Roanoke Public Library, or the archives of Roanoke College. The Clarks had no chroniclers. No Ph.D. has studied their close-knit world; they left no documents to lure the literate. But old Joe, whose progeny stretched clear from Wigwam Ridge to somewhere over Bent Mountain, was a king-sized cockalo­ rum saver of souls: Old Joe Clark set out to preach He preached all over the plain. The highest text he ever took Was high low Jack and game. Old Joe Clark had a yaller cat She'd neither sing nor pray She stuck her head in the buttermilk jar And washed her sins away. 6 �With Joe the law of love did not prevail. Nor were all those who followed him distressed by it: Old Joe Clark killed a man Killed him with a knife. I'm damned glad he killed that man Now I'll have his wife. The song took hold and grew because it was a good song. In his Treasury o f American Folklore, B.A. Botkin lists verses heard in Cleveland County, Oklahoma. Back in Virginia new verses were contrived to meet new situa­ tions and times. Eventually book-learning came, and a school teacher appeared on the local scene. If this verse of “Old Joe Clark” is any indication, she was not treated in a way befitting Virginia Cavaliers: I wouldn't marry a school teacher I'll tell you the reason why; She blows her nose in yaller com bread And calls it pumpkin pie. Joe Clark is a single tree in the vast forest of American history. No one has ever bothered to examine and record full the story of his life and influence. Musing on his obscurity, as well as that of thousands like him, one wonders if there is not a lesson here for us. Instead of not seeing the forest for the trees, we have frequently missed the trees while admiring the forest. We have been too far removed from the landscape and the people to know the specific, unique, and local. Our concern has. been with size, spectacle, and generality; the glory and the tmth contained in the ordinary and immediate has eluded us. Ralph Waldo Emerson understood this danger when he advised us to discover the real meaning of America by examining “the meal in the firkin; the milk in the pan; the ballad in the street; the new of the boat; the glance of the eye; the form and gait of the body.” Walt Whitman insisted that a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels. His brilliant nineteenth century contemporary, Soren Kierkegaard, couched the same thoughts in more philosophic language. “Most systematizers stand in the same relation to their systems as the man who builds a great castle and lives in the adjoining bam.” Each of these three quotations is close to the earth; they deal with firkins, mice, and bams. Much twentieth cen­ tury scholarship, produced in urban areas and library stacks, is far removed from the earth which is the womb and hub of man’s existence. It is the earth alone, as A.C. Spectorsky reminds us in The Book o f the Earth, that man may touch, probe, pat, smell, work with-and upon which he lives, toils, and dreams. Culture and land surface are inter­ woven, and interact in countless directions. Basically, the United States is a two-billion-acre-farm on which all of us work and live. Roanoke County is one small segment of that vast farm. The story o f land use, pieced together and understood, furnishes a commentary on our nation more accurate than all the histories ever written. But only fragments of that commentary exist; and many of us do not know even them. We have favored the abstract over the earthy. Worse yet, we have insisted on explaining our culture from the top down, rather than from the bottom up. Very few of us have been willing or able to discover just how Americans have lived and thought, as individuals and members of communities, in specific eras and places. Let us, here in the Roanoke Valley, continue to record (even as did the Old Testament writers) details o f our families, our land, our churches and colleges. And let us train others who can make o f these items a grand mosaic which will add mean­ ing to minutiae. Then, and only then, can we give positive answers to the questions asked by America’s greatest poet, Walt Whitman: Who are you indeed who would talk or sing to America? Have you studied out the land, its idiom and men? Have you leam'd the physiology, phrenology, politics, geography, pride, freedom, friendship of the land? 7 �its substratums and objects? Are you faithful to things? Do you teach what the land and sea, the bodies of men, womanhood, amativeness, heroic angers teach? Are you really of the whole People? Have you vivified yourself from the maternity of these States? America and the world have changed beyond belief since Walt Whitman died almost a century ago. We have entered the Electronic Age, and become the leading world power. Now we have the pill, the tube, the bomb. America looks less like a Currier and Ives landscape than a Jackson Pollock abstraction. The prophetic words of William Butler Yeats echo in our ears: “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last / Slouches to Bethlehem to be bom?” Is there a lesson here? One thing history does teach is “This too shall pass.” Visionaries (like Yeats, Edgar Cayce, Arthur Clark, Herman Kahn) see Western civilization, which unified us with machines, giving way to a new one, in which we shall be unified in consciousness. Birth is a cry o f joy and a scream of pain; the environment that sustained us for a time is now crushing down and pushing us out. But death, too, is a scream of pain and a cry of joy, and so we cannot be certain that we are headed for one and not the other. Birth and death are ultimately confusing; to make sense of them we will have to make our peace with myth. We are on the threshold not only of a new myth, a new century, but a new millennium. Historians try to deci­ pher the past, but only a fool thinks he or she can read the future. We cannot tell what is out there beyond the year 2000. But we do know, as William I. Thompson says, that we are on the edge of history. The future is blowing wild­ ly in our faces, sometimes delighting, sometimes blinding us. Here, in this good college, this good town, this good valley, let us remind ourselves where we have been — so that we need not fear where we are going. How shall we use this land? How shall we honor our heritage, and those who first explored our valley? The answers are not easy and will change with time and circumstances. Even the meaning of “explore” changes. Some would attach it to a giant theme park to attract waves of tourists. When does “explore” slip into “exploitation?” Our heritage isn’t for sale. Once we were an uncertain chain of small settlements perched on the frontier, looking west to what was rightly called dark and bloody ground. We are still sparsely settled, close to nature. Seventeenth century Virginia cen­ tered around Jamestown, eighteenth century around Williamsburg, nineteenth century around Richmond. When Richmond became the capital of the Confederacy, no great battles occurred in our County ^ Roanoke had not even been incorporated. That gave us little space in the drum-and-bugle history books, which in the long run may have been a blessing. The War Between the States so transfixed and absorbed Virginia that for some it froze time, lead­ ing to that dread disease which historian Arnold Toynbee had labled “The Idolization of an Ephemeral Past.” How else to explain how Virginia, the cradle of democracy, came near to being its graveyard in the decades after Appomattox? The thunder o f galloping horses has given way to the roar of mighty missiles from horse wars to star wars. We move from Washington to Richmond in a few minutes by jet plane, a trip that consumed four bloody years of American warfare. We are a tiny comer of the global village: computerized, televised, terrorized by the fear of sud­ den death. This is still “dark and bloody ground.” A century ago the great historian, Thomas Carlyle, pondered all this and saw that the myths of the Old World had found new meaning in the new. “How beautiful,” he wrote, “to think of lean Virginians, tough as guttapercha, with most occult unsubduable fire in the belly, steering over the Blue Mountains, to annihilate the Jungle, and bring bacon for the posterity of Adam. There is no myth of Athene or Heracles equal to this fact.” Let me close with a local version of this same sentiment. Before preparing this talk, I had a visit with Julia Wilkins, who at 98 is the oldest resident of a nearby nursing home, Heritage Hall. Think of what her keen eyes have seen since her 19th century childhood. “Are you ready for the 21st century, Miss Julie?” “The 21st century?” she said in a firm voice. “Bring it on. We can handle it!” And so we can. �The Past is Right Here for the Archaeologist by Ivor Noel Hume ❖ first printed in Vol 8 No. 1 (1972) A rchaeology: a word to conjure with, a word to carry us on the wings o f imagination to far away places, into distant times, and into the presence, perhaps, of untold wealth. For most of us this is a vicarious, armchair JL \-experience — a trip to be taken without any unpleasant after-effects. Unhappily there are few real adventurers left among us. Thanks to the soporific saccharine o f television we have become a generation of watchers — watching other people play games, other people playing music, other people talking and other people fighting our wars. Of course you can argue that we are all adventurers at heart — if only there was somewhere left for us to prove it. It’s true. There are very few acres of this earth left unexplored by Western man. Even the Loch Ness monster can't hold out much longer, Only a very few of us will ever go forward into space, but a great many more can go back into the past — through archaeology. And you don't have to go to Egypt or to Greece to do it. The past is right here — your own American past. The distinguished archaeologist, Jaquetta Hawkes, has written that archaeology gives a people a “sense of hav­ ing roots,” and this is indisputably tme. It is why in Europe thousands of people from every walk of life give their vacations to working on their countries’ archaeological sites. They do it here in the United States too, from the Johnson White House downwards, and the shades of countless Indians must scratch their heads in wonder as they watch their trash and bones being treated with the respect that their living descendants are denied. Expeditions are sponsored by universities, sites are protected by government and state agencies, and from East to West across the land societies of amateur archaeologists devote themselves to the study o f the American Indian. But do these undeniably worthy efforts contribute to our sense of having roots? I think not. On the contrary, these are the roots o f a quite different tree, one which was cut down to make way for the plant­ ing of European seeds. The past which belongs to the vast majority o f the American people began in the Spanish, French, and English settlements in the New World. This is where the history books commence, for these were the seeds out of which the existing culture o f the United States has slowly grown. And it is the study and the presen­ tation of these beginnings which provide that “sense of having roots.” Slowly, much too slowly, there is a growing awareness that the remains o f this past have some meaning, some value. But the sound of the mechanical excavator is loud in the land, and from Florida to Hawaii hardly a day pass­ es without some portion o f your heritage being ground into dust beneath the wheels of progress. The carpet of the past is being rolled behind us as we advance into the future, and before long, when we look back over our shoul­ ders, we shall see nothing but the mirror image of ourselves. It has been estimated that within the next century the American population will have increased by eight hundred million and that the east coast will have become a vast concrete jungle stretching from Maine to Virginia. We are told that if we are to preserve our place in the world’s sun, we must devote all our efforts to pressing forward. The buildings that were put up in the 1880s or 1920s are tom down, regardless of their architectural merit, to make way for those of the 1970s:-¿5 which in turn will be scrapped regardless of merit — to make way for those Pertinent thoughts on the present state o f historical archaeology appearing here are excerpts from a talk given by Ivor Noel Hume, director o f the Department o f Archaeology at Colonial Williamsburg, at a jointm eeting o f the Roanoke Historical Society and the Roanoke chapter o f the Archeological Society o f Virginia on April 28, 1971. Bom in London, Hume has been an active archaeologist and prolific writer since 1949. He came to Williamsburg in 1957, 9 �of the 1990s. We are living in the age of the garbage grinder and the disposable everything. Nothing is allowed to survive long enough to become venerable with age because it first becomes obsolete — and that’s the dirtiest word you can utter in the 20th century. Obsolescence cannot be tolerated, not in buildings, not in art, not in thinking, and not in people. Throw them all on the scrap heap. They have to be young to be good, and if they are young they are good — which is why there’s no juvenile delinquency these days, only delinquent parents, delinquent homes, delinquent schools. Those homes and schools will be tom down and replaced by fine new antiseptic boxes, and because those boxes must be stacked higher and higher on top of one another, their foundations must go even deeper into the ground, destroying all traces o f what was there before. Thus we are ensuring that there will be little or nothing of our generation left for the archaeologists of A.D. 3000 to dig up. How short-sighted we are! There comes a time in the life of every nation when it can no longer put all its pride and enthusiasm into being young. It must then switch its approach to its own people, and to the world at large, saying that it still merits its place at the head of the table because of its wisdom bom of long experience. It is not too long a step from there to a reliance on the deference due to advanced age. Much is then made of tradition, pageantry, times remembered — in a word, history. This may not cut much ice among the world’s new giants, the young, virile nations intent on tak­ ing our place, but it may be all that we have left. Consequently, the amount of enthusiasm and support that we stim­ ulate today among the American people for the preservation of their historical past, may have a very real influence on how this nation thinks of itself in the centuries ahead. We are living in the age o f the garbage grinder and the disposable every­ thing. Nothing is allowed to survive long enough to become venerable with age because it first becomes obsolete - and that's the dirtiest word you can utter in the 20th century. On the national scene there is now a Society for Historical Archaeology which was founded in 1967. In England there is a comparable organization known as the Society for Post Medieval Archaeology whose members, both pro­ fessional and amateur, are working in fields that are o f immediate interest here in the eastern United States. In Canada much of its archaeological effort is devoted to work on historic sites such as the great reconstmction proj­ ects at Louisbourg which rivals Williamsburg in its scope and purpose. All over the world colonial sites of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries are being excavated and developed into cultural attractions for the education of the nations’ people and to attract the tourist dollar. The projects range from the exploration of the sunken city of Port Royal in Jamaica to a sixteenth-century Portuguese fort at Mombassa, Kenya. Here at home the catalog is equally broad and dramatic involving sites as varied as a Spanish mission in Arizona, the French and Indian War Fort Ligonier in Pennsylvania, 19th century privy sites in Alexandria, historical Fort Snelling in Minnesota, and the first settlement o f 1670 at Charleston, South Carolina, not to mention innumerable amateur projects of which little is heard. Here in Virginia our score is less satisfactory than it should be. As you may know, in 1966, the General Assembly unanimously recognized the need to protect or salvage the information from our many threatened historical sites, and it authorized the construction and operation o f the Virginia Research Center for Historical Archaeology which was to be built adjacent to the campus of the College o f William and Mary in Williamsburg. Unfortunately funds were not forthcoming, and in spite of keen efforts on the part of the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission under whose wing the Center would operate, nothing was achieved. Last year, however, Governor Holton appointed a new committee to turn the corpse over from time to time in the hope that some miracle might bring it to life, and I am happy to be able to tell you that temporary quarters have been made available within an existing facility — providing that the state will employ the skeleton staff needed to get the project going. In the years that we have been wrestling with this splendid but proverty stricken project my own views on archaeological preservation have matured in a manner that will doubtless cause many of my professional colleagues to turn to pot. 10 �Seventeenth century European trade goods found in an archaeological dig along the Roanoke River in South Salem were (from left) a trigger assembly, a rusty iron needle, and a piece o f brass. I am convinced, as I said earlier, that the future of our historical archaeological sites lies not so much in the hands of professionals but in those of dedicated amateurs. There will not and cannot be a sufficient number of permanent jobs in historical archaeology to provide enough trained professionals with a livelihood. Besides, the need for archaeological help is often immediate, and there may be no time to defer the saving of a site until funds can be found and a contract archaeologist hired. The battles must be fought at the local level and funded with amateur enthusiasm, volunteer labor, and a sense o f civic pride and patriotism, all in the service o f American history. And because we are talking of history, it is only proper that we should call on our Virginia historical societies and preservationist organizations to shoulder part of the responsibility for developing an awareness of the impor­ tance of archaeology’s potential contribution to historical, genealogical, and sociological studies. As for the hand­ ful o f professional archaeological historians, it is up to us to cease denigrating the amateur and indeed to help him, and her, and to foster the establishing of historical archaeological clubs under the aegis o f high school history departments, seeking cooperation from skin-diving clubs, from Boy Scouts, garden clubs, anyone with a will to learn and a desire to contribute. For much too long we have tried to treat every archaeological site like a piece of the Holy Grail to be protected until such time as competent professionals are available to fondle them. Meanwhile the sites are being destroyed by horny-handed land developers without yielding so much as a sentence or even a phrase to the history books. We have to recognize that this country’s archaeological heritage is a resource, money in the bank, and while we must conserve the gold, the nickels and dimes are there to be spent. We must therefore make the lesser sites available to the public, putting them to work as training grounds for students of all ages. I can think o f no better means o f get­ ting high school students interested in local history than by enabling them to dig it up and thus make history as well as read about it. 11 �The Great Flood o f 1749 by Klaus Wust ❖ first printed in Vol. 7 No. 1 (1970) T h ile the flood of 1969 will certainly remain one of the most trying events of recent history, the early pioW neers on the Roanoke and its tributaries had ample reason to remember the flood of 1749 for a long time. T Y Inundations were frequent in the western parts of Virginia but two German reports made independently from each other seem to indicate that an unusually ferocious flood occured shortly after midnight on August 25th, 1749. Two German itinerant preachers of the Moravian Brotherhood in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Leonhard Schnell and John Brandmuller, who passed through the area in November, 1749, recorde several details about the experi­ ences o f people during that fateful summer night. O f one family, Schnell wrote: “The man and his wife with their six children had climbed into a tree, which had fallen down halfway. There they spent the whole night.” The trav­ elers had great difficulties to obtain food because everywhere there was a shortage o f grain and bread. About two miles from James River a woman with whom they lodged related “that she and two of her children were lifted up by the water in the bed in which they slept and were carried about on the bed while asleep until they woke up.” The best report, however, is contained in a letter which Samuel Eckerlin, head of the Sabbatarian Dunker colony on New River, wrote to Alexander Mack, junior, in Germantown, Pennsylvania on September 23rd, 1749. Mack, who had lived on New River from 1745 until 1747, considered the letter newsworthy enough to pass it on to Christopher Sauer, publisher of the German newspaper in Germantown. It appeared in the Pennsylvanische Berichte on January 16, 1750. Sauer’s newspaper reported on the Dunker colony on New River from time to time. Only a few weeks after Eckerlin and some followers had set out for western Virginia, the Germantown paper car­ ried their story on October 16, 1745. Eckerlin frequently visited the Roanoke country. He was both a hunter and a doctor, apart from his religious activities as the spiritual leader o f a band of monks and married “householders” who pioneered the Dunkards Bottom and Sinking Creek areas. The place name “Mahanaim” was chosen by Eckerlin in 1745. It is o f biblical origin (Genesis 32:1-2) and means “Two Camps,” evidently indicating the separation of the monastic colony from the individual homesteads of the householders. Here is the full text of Eckerlin’s letter in English translation: Mahanaim on the New River in Virginia the 23rd of September (1749) Beloved Brother, Upon this occasion I want to report to you about the great inundations which occurred on the 25 th o f August, a little past midnight, on the Roanoke and the area northeast o f it. Our river as well as the Little River were also very high but nobody here suffered mentionable damage. On the Roanoke, however, and other nearby places there was much damage. At several spots entire hills were swept down and leveled and several tracts of bottom land, all inhabited, were filled with so much gravel and sand that they can no longer be lived on. This I have seen myself. Also houses and bams were carried away and with them a great deal o f the crop. The Roanoke was a mile wide at several places and the water rose to 15 feet above otherwise dry land. Since you are familiar with this area, I want to give you details about several places as follows: One mile below Tobias Breit a man and a child were drowned; a woman managed to save Klaus Wust, a German scholar, historian, traveler and interpreter; described his findings on the Roanoke River flood o f August. 1749 in a talk to the Society m Autumn, 1969. His text appears here. Wust, author o f The Virginia Germans and Folk Art in Stone — Southwest Virginia, lived at Edinburg in Shenandoah County until his death in 2000. 12 �mm *:*.'%'* 5 st west o f present-day Crossroads reek Road — named fo r P eter Kin* * ventualiy cross at far f of t . j nderwoodjk Underwood a herself on a tree; livestock was practically all drowned because the water rose so suddenly and right at midnight that none could have been driven away. The house of Henrich Braun with whom we stayed has been tom up. Clad in nothing but their shirts they got away with their children, the water reaching up to their arms. His three cows in the field were carried 3 miles downstream by the waters where they gained firm land alive. Peter Kinter and his wife found a horrible end. They were not yet asleep but had been drinking together, were in good cheer and thought o f no danger till the water suddenly rose up to the house and no more escape was possible. So they retreated to the attic. No sooner had they reached it than the water rose up to them. They placed boards on the collar beam and sat on them. When the water reached up to their arms and no more flight seemed possible, he lost heart and told his people: He believed that this was another deluge and the Last Judgment had come. He asked his wife to give him a kiss. As he grabbed her, both slid from the board and away with the waters. Those who were with them on the boards saw no more of them. Kassel’s wife and children and their old mother were in the house at the same time. They all sur­ vived up on the collar beam save for a small child whom Peter Kinter’s wife had on her lap. It drowned with them. After daybreak, the others found out that they had been carried with the upper part o f the house for a mile into some woods. They found a rope and tied it to a tree so that they would not be carried any further until the waters subsided or someone would come to their rescue. After a few days, Peter Kinter’s wife was found dead and naked, hanging on a tree with one arm. And several days later he was also found. But he had no more head and only one arm. Maybe some wild animal had already feasted on him. Thus the children of man pass away in their security. He who fears the Lord, is watchful. We live in a wicked and evil world the fruits and berries o f which are speedily ripening. But how hard it is not to be corrupted by it. And not to be frightened by the judgments which hurt and will hurt. The Lord may save our and all pious men’s Ark of Faith which, departing from 13 �the shores of vanity, plies the savage seas without casting anchor until it reaches the blessed land of eternity. With the Faith and the Hope in the compass and the magnet of eternal love it will reach the longed for haven of peace where all storms subside and all peril ends. My heartful longing may thus be part of the prayer of all Children of God awaiting His Salvation, all those who await His Salvation and who tire not, then it will happen and we shall rejoice and sing many a Halleluiah to the Lamb Who paid the price. Farewell, Samuel Eckerlin The letter is of particular local interest because its writer mentions four German families with whom the Sabbatarians were acquainted. Tobias Breit (Bright) and his brother, Erich Breit had settled on the North Fork of the Roanoke soon after 1740. Henrich Braun (Henry Brown) was one of the occupants of Browns Bottom between Cravens Creek and the Roanoke in east Salem and Roanoke County. His three brothers, Samuel, Daniel and David were also among the earliest settlers of this neighborhood. Peter Kinter (Kinder) lived on the other side of the Roanoke along Peters Creek. Kinder had arrived in Philadelphia from Germany in 1738 and located on Peters Creek well before 1744. After his tragic death, neigh­ bors appraised his personal belongings which were considerable for a man who had migrated to America only 11 years before. Besides his land, Kinder left 10 horses, 10 cows, sundry tools and a beaver hat S - all amounting to 100 pounds and 10 shillings -If to his surviving children, Christian, Sarah, Peter and Catherine. They were bound out by the church wardens. The “Kassel’s wife” mentioned by Eckerlin might have been the spouse of Jacob Cassel (Castle) who appears often as a hunter in Augusta County records and he might have been on one of his long hunt­ ing expeditions while his wife, children and mother stayed with the Kinder family. Samuel Eckerlin’s letter thus provides us with the clue to the ethnic origin of four families whose names were thoroughly anglicized in local records: Bright, Brown, Kinder and Castle. The last portion of his epistle gives some insight into the religious thinking of the Sabbatarians. For them, the outsiders were corrupted by the temptations of this world. A flood like that of August 25th, 1749 was taken as a sign from heaven. Little did Samuel Eckerlin dream that but a few years later several of the virtuous Sabbatarians would be killed by Indians and that two of his brothers would perish in French captivity. Another report on the Roanoke River flood of 1749 was handed down in the Journal of Dr. Thomas Walker of Albemarle County, who wrote of “a Fresh” which carried off houses, grain and fences. Dr. Walker, the explorer who is credited with naming Cumberland Gap, wrote on March 15, 1750 that the fresh occurred “last Summer” which would confirm the date. The account in his journal for March 15-16: We went to the Great Lick on a Branch of the Staunton & bought com of Michael Campbell for our Horses. This Lick has been one of the best places for Game in these parts and would have been if the Hunters had not killed the Buffaloes for diversion, and the Elks and Deer for their skins. This afternoon we got to the Staunton where the Houses of the inhabitants had been carried off with their grain and Fences by the Fresh last Summer, and lodged at James Robinson’s, the only place I could hear of where they had Com to spare, notwithstanding the land is such that an indus­ trious man might make 100 barrels a share in a seasonable year. We kept up the Staunton to William Englishe’s (Ingles). He lives on a small branch and was not much hurt by the Fresh. He has a Mill, which is the furthest back except one lately built by the Sect of people, who call themselves o f the Brotherhood of the Euphrates, and are commonly called the Duncards, who are the upper inhabitants of the New River, which is about 400 yards wide at this place. They live on the west side and we were obliged to swim our Horses over. There is no known reference to a Michael Campbell but Malcolm Campbell lived at the Great Lick and later owned a 400-acre tract containing much o f downtown Roanoke. A James Robinson lived north of Cloverdale in Botetourt County. William English or Ingles lived in the area between the present towns of Blacksburg and Christiansburg. �S e e in g Virgi nia in 17 5 7 by Louis Philippe Tbe l^ t h . We to o k o u r no o n meal a t a little tow n called K iz e d ’s to w n tw elve miles fro m F re y ’s. There is another road, to the right, from New Market to Staunton and a city called Harrison’sburg, capital of Rockingham county, about the same distance from Kized’s town. We dined at Hudson’s tavern and slept in Staunton at the General Washington Inn, proprietor Peter Heiskell, a Pennsylvania German. Excellent inn. Staunton’s environs are quite hilly. The town consists of about 300 houses or families, for each family has its own. Bad weather during the day. T he ib t h . T h e c o u n try still h illy. We begin t o glim pse th e n o rth e rn m ountains t o o u r rig h t. To our left rise others. Between the two ranges the land is varied, sometimes copses and groves, then smaller ranges cutting through the valleys, etc. We dined at David Steel’s house halfway to Lexington. This poor unfortu­ nate was captured by Parleton’s* corps, and after he had surrendered they fetched him two blows of the saber to the head, so he says, bashing out a piece of bone that his wife showed us. M. de Chastellux stayed with them on his way to and from the Natural Bridge. Steel told us funny stories. We reached Lexington late. It was full night and we had great trouble locating the ford across the north branch o f the James river; we even missed it; we even missed the road; and we were a long time finding it and then crossing another stream that lay beyond. The town is only half a mile from it. Weather less bad than the day before. Put up at the Red Lion, proprietor Hanna; nice people, but a beggarly inn. T be 17th. S to p o v e r T he 15th. O n e o f o u r horses b e in g lame, we d id a lm o st th e w h ole d a y ’s jo u r n e y o n fo o t. in L e xin g to n , [V irginia]. Country still mountainous, indifferently farmed and uninteresting. We made a halt at Captain Bartley’s inn, a real hovel. The master of the house is a decent sort and a jokester. He guided us to the Natural Bridge, about a mile and a half from his inn. This is a very unusual bridge. It spans Cedar creek, a very small stream. It is a tall mass o f rock which seems to have been hollowed out by the water’s steady action, perhaps like the rifts of the Rhone; and as the mass of rock is quite narrow, it would seem that the earth above and below the bridge either collapsed or was swept away by the stream and left the bridge suspended between two masses o f rock. Its height in the middle is 71 yards above the water. In that same spot the rocky arch is 50 feet thick. The gap at water level is 40 feet; above, the span is 30 yards. There is a path below the bridge by which one can stroll under the arch along the stream. This is tmly an exceptional sight, and though the region is scrubby, the bridge is surely picturesque. * Probably a slip o f the pen fo r Tarleton. These selections describe Southwest Virginia as seen in April 1797 by a future French king who traveled in America 33 years before he ascended to the throne. They are excerpted from the book Diary o f My Travels in America, Fouis Philippe, King o f France, 1830-1848, translated from the French by Stephen Becker. English Translation Copyright © 1977 by Dell Publishing Co. Inc. Originally published in French by Libraire Ernest Flammarion under the title, Journal de Mon Voyage d'Amerique. Copyright © 1976 by Flammarion. Reprinted by permission o f Delacorte Press. These selections were first printed in Vol. 10 No. 2 (1978). 15 �Otherwise it seems to me that a good sketch and a precise description should do the trick, and that it is not really worth a second trip. Captain Bartley gave me all those measurements. Today was very cold; it froze last night and snowed this morning, but the snow did not stick. T h e f? tb . A lm o s t all th e o a ks leafing, and co n s e q u e n tly th e fo re s ts tu rn in g g re e n . Yet in this respect there is considerable variation among the oaks. Some are altogether given, others are only budding, and for still others it might be January. This does not seem to depend on the exposure, for we find many examples proving the contrary; more probably it is due to the greater or lesser warmth of the ground. The soil here is full o f clay, mixed with more or less sand and good humus, and is consequently yellowish or reddish, never black like the rich soil of France. All the forests I have so far seen consist wholly of oaks and pines (in the mountains). Of course I except a scattering of other sorts. In leaving Captain Bartley’s we crossed Cedar creek, which drives a mill wheel. The closer we approached the James river, the sandier, and therefore less cultivated, the soil. We dined on the left bank of that river, at Padensburg, a town o f twenty souls, as they themselves boast. Their inn is fairly good. We crossed the river by ferry. The district is rather picturesque. It stretches along the James river’s course through the Blue Ridge Mountains. The landscape improves beyond the river and there are more people. About four miles along, the road forks. One fork leads to Fincastle, also called Botitourt, also called Munroe, and crosses the Kanhaway, which along this stretch is called New river, at Pepper’s ferry. That is the righthand fork. The other passes through a new town called Amsterdam and crosses the Kanhaway at English’s ferry. That is the better road. The two ferries have given their names to the two roads. Pepper’s road and English’s road. The latter is a bit longer, but better in all respects. We slept in Amsterdam at a good inn, proprietor Mr. Botts, 15 miles from Padensburg and five from Fincastle, which is twelve miles from the river. There is a road from Fincastle to English’s road. In Botts tavern we found ourselves among a large group o f travelers much like those Fielding describes. They were headed for Kentucky and uneasy about the latest massacre by the Indians. In their anxiety they wanted us to swell their number, but we ignored the plea, knowing only too well the miseries such a crowd could cause in the region’s tiny inns. Also, every man has his own way of traveling and travelers are mutually annoying; and aside from that, nothing is more boring than bored people who want to talk and have nothing to talk about. During thg three hours they made us wait, as usual, for a few slices o f fried ham and coffee with brown sugar, there were some who never shut up for a moment and others who never said a word but could not stop yawning, scratching, belching, etc. T h e 2 0 t h . In ste a d o f sallying fo r th a t dawn, as th e y had b o a s te d th e y w ould, o u r w ayfarers o n ly s ta rte d o u t a t J o ’clock, leaving the staff at the inn less than overwhelmed by their generosity, and having managed several disagreements with their host. We dined at the home of Mr. Coles, a Pennsylvania German. The countryside unimpressive except here and there. Greenery thick, and in the oak forests whole groves are all green. We crossed the river Raunoake six times and went to sleep at Colonel Lewis’s, two miles above Colonel Hancock. A pleasant and comfortable place. His house is charmingly set on a foothill of the Alleghanys and surrounded by lush meadows. In the old days there was a fort here (Voss’s fort) that was cap­ tured by the Indians. The 21st. O u r ro a d w e nt on ris in g g e n tly until we bad reache d th e summit o f th e bills called tb e A lleg hanys. I do not know their height above sea level; not great, I suspect, because they rise above the valley floors no higher than the hills around Paris, and the Blue Ridge Mountains are real mountains by compari­ son. To look at the Alleghanys one would never think they are one of the watersheds of this immense continent. Our own continent, though much smaller, has mountains so much more majestic; which brings us to the notion that perhaps the effect attributed to the trade winds is real, that the cumulative level of the sea along these coasts is higher than ours, that these waters, ebbing more reluctantly, are deeper and more widespread than on our con16 �Map shows some of the territory in present Wythe County that Louis Philippe might have explored in 1797. tinent, and that this laggard drainage prevents them from leaching off the soil and vegetable matter that still car­ pet the Alleghanys as most likely they used to carpet the Alps. The Alleghanys (in the region where I crossed them) are covered with oaks; one sees hardly any pines. The soil is dry and arid. It is no more than a stony sand, not cultivable. There are no great masses of rock to be seen, and if not for the river currents and even more the map, the traveler would never believe himself in one of the principal ranges of North America. They say that around Pittsburg the mountains are craggier and higher than around here; we shall see about that on the way back. Crossing the Alleghanys I saw evidence of the Americans’ ignorance, or laziness, about mapping their roads. The one we followed crossed over the tallest of the rounded hills, leaving vales left and right where it would have been far easier to cut a road because with the land over­ grown and no streams in the area, there would be no cliffs or swamps to hinder the work, just trees to fell, the same as on the crests. The only way I could make sense of this road was by assuming that the first travelers who blazed a trail across the Alleghanys were attracted to the highest ground by their impatience to see the land to the west, and that sheer laziness led the road builders to follow that trail and spare themselves the trouble of cutting a new one. 17 �The western slope of these mountains struck us as infinitely worse than the eastern. The soil is sandy and dry, the land is flatter, and the springs rarer. The vegetation is much less varied and flourishing than on the other slope. Here, not an oak in bud, where we had before seen whole forests greening; the haws and sloes have only just begun to green and are no further along than those in Maryland at the beginning of the month. We halted at a tiny village of about ten houses called Christians-burg, the seat of Montgomery County. It is nine miles from Colonel Lewis’s. Before continuing I should like to mention the notable height of men and girls on this side o f the Shenando Valley. It seems to be increasing still, for most of the young people seem taller than their elders. The countryside was about the same as far as the valley of the Big Kanhaway, which around here they call New river. The settlements here are few and squalid. From all I heard, they exist only along the road. The Big Kanhaway valley is better, though sparsely settled. It seems that fear of the Indians infected this area until the peace of ’94. There is no inn at English’s ferry. We dined two miles on the other side with some Irishmen who have given the name New Dublin to a shanty they’ve been living in for six years. We slept in the home of an old man named Carter who has just sold his house and his 700 acres for 400 pounds. U.S.* and who is shutting down his inn tomorrow. He is moving some twenty miles farther along on the Kanhaway. For some twenty miles the road runs within four or five miles o f that river. T h e 2 2 n d . We h a lte d a t P o rt C hisw el t o have a horse shod . To the left of the road there was a big fort tom down since the peace. Before and beyond the fort you cross Read creek. The soil still indifferent, though better than what we saw as we emerged from the Alleghanys. We dined at Marshall’s in Wythe, a village of ten or twelve houses, seat of the county of that name. A handsome house and a fine inn for the region. Pepper’s road meets the other road here. After dinner we weathered a terrible storm, and we spent the night with a German named Kattemring. T h e 2 2 n d . S till ro tte n w e a th e r a nd in d iffe re n t c o u n try , th e soil being gen eral ¿) f)e low an¡d sandy as it was e a st o f th e A lle g h a n ys. We ran into some emigrants from North Carolina on their way to Cumberland. They say that last year a prodigious number of emigrants left that state for the same settlement, which is already sizable. Kattemring was a Tory during the war. He was arrested and taken to Staunton, and they confiscated a mill built of stone that he had worked not far from his present home. He has only 200 acres of land left. We had dinner at Atkins’s, a good inn. His house is on the Holstein river. That night we slept at Colonel Campbell’s; we had met him the night before and he all but forced us to come home with him, assuring us that we would find no tolerable inn until five miles from Abingdon. He lives on the left bank o f the Holstein river, in a setting that would be lovely if the land were cleared; but, although he has six sons and several Negroes, he set­ tles for what he cleared when he first arrived. And yet he has 3,000 acres here. I do not know what he and his sons do all day, and because he seems a fine fellow I asked him point blank. He answered that because he owns property in other parts he is always on the go and never at home. I saw sugar maples on his property and again enjoyed the sight of their huge branches bowing earthward. I have often used their sugar in my coffee, which sweetening seems to me every bit as good as the other. It is impossible to estimate the yield of this product because it varies with the weather and with the trees themselves. It seems that America’s changeable climate is the most favorable for these trees, as the sap only flows at the end of December, when a warm day with a thaw follows a cold night. In this area are trees that yield up to 15 pounds of brown sugar. There are many such hereabouts. Wild grapevines are another American plant that must subtly alter our impression of the landscape and differentiate it from our own. They always grow about another tree, twining to its upper limbs, whence tendrils droop to the ground. They produce very tart grapes, edible only after a frost. Apparently their leaves unfold very late, for we saw only buds on the other slope of the Alleghanys, and on this side they are much as they were in January. * Sterling was still in use, along with dollars, as legal tender at the time. 18 �Roanoke County in the 1840s by Maria Jane Gish Frantz ❖ first printed in Vol. 7 No. 1 (1970) was bom in Roanoke County, Va. on October 28th, 1838, 8 miles from Salem, the County seat, one half mile from the little Village of Burlington, and 2 miles from Hollins, formerly Botetourt Springs. My father’s name was Christian Gish, my mother’s name was Elizabeth Houtz, daughter of John and Susan Klein Houtz. I am the youngest of 8 children, Hester, John Henry, Eliza Ann, James Rufus, Susan Frances, Sarah Catherin, Mary Elizabeth, Maria Jane (myself). I was in my 14th year when father sold his farm and moved to Woodford County, 111., where we lived on a farm one mile north of Roanoke, 111. Father lived to be in his 90th year, mother having died some years before. Both are buried in the Roanoke Cemetery together with brother, John Rufus, sister Susan and Elizabeth. Sister Hester, Eliza and Sarah having died in Virginia are buried on the old home place on a little hill in the west part of the orchard. I never knew either o f my grandparents on my father's side. (George Gish & Wife Susannah Stover). My brother John Gish was a very large man, and I remember they used to say he struck back to the Stover fam­ ily as they were all very large and fleshy men. My oldest sister, Hester, or Hettie as we always called her, married Jacob Smith. Eliza married Isaac Renn, Susan married John Woosa, Elizabeth married John McCauly. My husband was Henry Jackson Frantz. I am the last one living o f a family of 8. My father, Christian Gish, was one of 7 brothers, George, John, David, Jacob, Abraham and William Gish. He had 1 sister who married John Beckner. Uncle George lived near Roanoke, Va. (Vinton). Uncle Abraham lived near Salem, Uncle John once lived in Laporte, Indiana, then moved to Livingston County, Mo., where he died, his wife having died before in Indiana. At the time of his death his 12 children lived around him, so that he could visit them all in one day. He was near 90 when he died. Uncle David lived in South Bend, Ind. where his son, Pike, lives, as far as I know, but I think on a farm. Uncle Jacob lived in Lafayette, Ind. Uncle William Gish, lived in Leesburg, Ohio and we visited them on our way to 111. He was keeping a Hotel then, afterwards he moved to Atchinson, Kansas, where he died. He had 6 girls, no boys. His girls were Lucinda, Emma, Eliza, Susan, Phoebe or Rachel, I forget which, and Hattie. If those girls all married and changed their names we will never know who they are, as we never saw them after moving to 111. and we may be living among them and not know it. Neither did we hear from them after they moved to Kansas. Father (Christian Gish) was bom on August 12, 1792, and was a Soldier in the War of 1812. Was in Camp for 16 weeks but was never called out. Grandfather, (George Gish) hired a substitute for him and came and took him home. He received a Land Grant on land o f 40 acres in 111. This was Gov. land. He bought a thousand acres of Prarie land in 111. Father always lived at the same place while he lived in Va. that he bought and moved to when he and Mother were married. (1816). He cleared the most o f it himself, having hired hands to help. Mother always had a loom and spinning wheel, and made cloth to sell and help to pay off the hired hands. We raised Flax and had sheep to shear, I This account o f girlhood on a Roanoke Countyfarm before the Civil War was written by Maria Jane Gish Frantz in 1914. She died at the age o f 91 in 1929 at Enid, Okla. Her recollections were preserved by her grandson. EM. Heironimus o f Tulsa, Okla., and passed along to another relative, Mrs. Ola Gish Durr o f Roanoke, a mem­ ber o f the Society. Born in the year Roanoke County was form ed from Botetourt, the writer was the daughter o f Christian Gish, who moved from near Bonsack to what has been known as the R.L. Walrond home, near Burlington, north o f Roanoke. It now is owned by A.T. Loyd. About 1851, the Gishes moved to Roanoke, III a community named by families who moved from this area. In 1851, Maria married Henry Jackson Frantz, son o f Jacob and Eliza Petty Frantz, who had moved west from Roanoke County, They lived in Oklahoma and had 10 children, including a son, Frank Christian Frantz, who was a captain in the Rough Riders and the last territo­ rial governor o f Oklahoma in 1906. 19 �Wool to wash, pick and Spin. We children took delight in helping to wash the wool. We would all go out in a wagon to the creek, with the baskets, tubs and buckets, and as the water was warm we would each take a basket, put it half full of Wool, and wade into the creek where it was gravel bottom, and get into the baskets with our feet and tramp the wool until the water ran clean from the basket, then the wool was clean. We would walk out, drain the wool, and put it back into the sheets on the grass, fill the baskets and into the water again! This was great fun to us. Now, as I was the youngest, you may wonder who were the children that I speak of; my oldest sister (Hester) died and left three little girls, Lizzie, Sarah and Susan Smith. These, Mother took to raise, and they were always like sisters to me. Lizzie was older than me, Sarah about my age, and Susie younger. We lit­ tle girls had to pick wool in the hot summer days and how tired we would get sitting and picking wool. Some times we would slip out to play and Mother would have to call us in to finish our tasks, then we could play. The wool picking had to be done after school closed and before harvest came on. We little girls had to gather sheaves, and carry water to the harvest hands. The wheat was cut with Cradles, perhaps eight or ten Cradles going at the same time. As many rakers and as many men to bind up the sheaves. We had no reapers in those days. It kept my moth­ er and two older sisters busy cooking for so many hands. Then we milked from 6 to 8 cows and made butter for the market. We little girls did the churning down at the spring-house in summer in the early morning while it was cool. We had the old fashioned dash chum and two of us would get hold o f the dasher and sing: Come butter come, Come Butter Come, Peter's standing at the gate, Waiting for the butter cake, Come Butter come. We thought sure the butter would come quicker if we sang that song. I used to milk an old Cow named Cherry when I was too little to know the right side from the wrong. It was fun then, but when I got older it was not so funny; I remember how I used to chase the cows up, when I was older, and stand with my bare feet, in the warm place, of a dewey morning. Then away to the pasture with the cows. We lit­ tle girls had to take the cows to the pasture in the morning, then go for them in the evening. Sometimes we would have to go a long way to the farthest comer of the farm. Often we would find the cows at the bars, waiting to come home. We always had a Bell cow. If the cows would happen to be in the new pasture or over a hill (for it was hilly in Va.) we would have to listen for the bell. The cows would hurry home to get a cool drink of water from the big spring that ran through the springhouse, where we kept the milk and butter, and any thing else that needed to be kept cool in summer, the water being almost ice-cold in the summer, but seemed warm to the touch in winter. There were big shade trees all around the spring, where father and the hired men would always go for an hour’s rest after dinner in the summer time, either sitting or lying down on the grass, for we had a beautiful bluegrass yard. Many a time we took knives and dug up the plantain and danderlions or any other weed that would happen to come up, so that it looked like a green velvet yard. There was a sweet Briar Rose growing and vining over the west win­ dow of the sitting room in the dear old home. It seems to me I can smell its sweet fragrance yet, after 77 years! How well I remember every nook and cranny of the old house! The Loom house, the smoke house, the hen house, and the spring house, and the bubbling spring, whose waters never, never failed, and was a delight to those who came thirsty for a drink of its cooling waters. The horses too, how they would hurry to the trough on a hot summer day, to quench their thirst, then turn away and march back to the bam to be fed. We had a large bam where the front projected over like a wide porch, where the cattle would gather under to keep out of rain or snow. Besides there was always a large stack of straw in the barnyard after thrashing time, so that the cattle would have shelter from the cold on any side of it, as it was in the middle of the bam yard. What fun we children used to have gathering eggs by the dozens in the old bam or on the straw stack, in the hen house too; and what fun we had sliding down the straw stack, for it was nearly tall as the bam, but sloping down so that it was easy to climb up again, and in winter when snow covered the ground we would carry boards to the top of the hill in the orchard, and then get on the slide and down the hill we would go, then roll off in the snow, and the boards would go through under the fence into the barnyard. Then back again we would go. The children in town miss all the fun we children in the country had. I must not forget to tell of the Flax raising. When in bloom it waved like a blue sea and was very beautiful. When 20 �the bloom dropped it would soon begin to turn brown. And when the seed was ripe it was ready for the harvest. We would pull it up, tie it in bundles as large as your arm, and stick it with roots down and seeds up, in small stacks to dry. When dry it was hauled to the bam and the seed beat off and the stacks spread in smooth wind rows in the newly mown meadow where the grass was short, where the rain and the dew would fall on it until the stalks were rotted or brittle so they could be broken, then it was raked up and taken back to the bam, where Father would break it. I cannot describe a Flax break to you so you would understand it. Then we women folks would scrutch it, and mother would hackle it and it was ready for the spinning wheel. It looked like soft and beautiful gray hair as it was made into twists and hung up on the walls o f the loom house. Then came the spinning of the Flax by mother and the older girls. We children that were younger had to spin tow. Tow is the tangled part that is hackled out of the Flax on sharp pointed steel pins. This is made into coarse cloth, the flax into figured table linen, or plain cloth for sheets, pillow cases, towels, etc. We little girls had to pick wool in the hot summer days and how tired we would g e t sitting and picking wool. Some times we would slip out to play and Mother would have to call us in to finish our tasks... I used to fill quills for the weaver, and got very tired sometimes, but everybody had to work. My older sisters had to spin the wool in summer on a big wheel and they would sing and spin. I seem to hear them yet, and see them draw out the long woolen thread from the woolroll. That was after the wool had been picked to remove all the trash out of it and it had been sent to the Carding machine to be made into rolls. Then after the spinning came the wash­ ing again, then the coloring o f it into different colors, to be woven into woolen goods for our winter dresses, or plain blue brown or black for the men's wear, or left white for the blankets, or the colors were woven into beauti­ ful designs for bed spreads. There were many uses for it. The older sisters used to weave beautiful white figured counterpanes for the beds, or carpets for the floors, some which were made from the coarse part of Tow, and col­ ored different colors. Some were made from rags. I tell you all of this that the grandchildren may know how easy they have it now! All of our sewing was done by hand. We had no sewing machines then, nor cooking stoves. All the cooking was done over a fire place. Our kitchen fire place was half as wide as the kitchen. But we had a big clay oven in the yard where we did most of the bread or pie baking. Occasionally Mother would bake biscuits or custard pies in a dutch oven on the hearth, if needed between baking days, and our com pone (we never had any other sort in those days) was baked in the same Dutch oven on the hearth, putting coals of fire under and on top o f the oven. And how delicious it was-tSsmot hard cmsted or dried out like a cook stove makes it. I used to go to school at the old Green Ridge school house near a mile away and sit all day from sun up till sun down, on seats without any backs, but we never thought of getting tired. How we made the air ring with happy voices, and how we tried to get the last tag away as we ran to our homes in the evening. We never had kerosene lamps in those days, but had tallow candles, and we would bum pine knots in the fireplace to see to get our lessons with — it was much brighter. The girls used to spin too by the light o f the pine knots, I mean on the little Flax wheels. They never spun wool at night. Sometimes they would want to go and spend the evening with a neighbor girl, or girls. Then they would gather up their wheels and go and laugh and talk and spin and visit till bed time, then pick up their wheels and go home again, to be ready for the business next morning. Those were happy days. �H IST O R IC A L SO C IE T Y O F W E ST E R N V IR G IN IA P.O.Box 1904,CenterintheSquare,RoanokeVA 24008 Ph:(540)342-5770 Fx:(540)224-1256 www.history-museuxn.orgwww.linkmuseum.org e-mail: info.hswv@cox.net Dear Friend: Greetings from the Historical Society o f Western Virginia. Officers David G. Helmer President Stanard F. Lanford Vice President Ronald E. Sink Treasurer Enclosed with this letter is one o f the highlights o f our year, the 2006, Volume 17 Number 1 Journal. As described in the “Note from the Executive Director,” 2006-2007 was one o f the busiest and most successful periods in our 50 year history. We are pleased to relay that there is an equal amount in which to look forward to in 2007-2008. Martha K. Hull Secretary Board o f Directors Michael R. Bell C. Whitney Brown, Jr. W. Jackson Burrows Walter M. Dixon, Jr. William Dixon Frank H. Ewald William M. Hackworth William C. Hagan Gordon S. Hamilton Scott W. Hengerer Tonya R. Hengerer John C. Lanford Philip H. Lemon W. Tucker Lemon Laura B. Logan Edwin E. Lunsford George A. McLean, Jr. Natalie Norris James G. Overholser Joel W. Richert J. David Robbins Alice B. Roberts Rebecca B. Stephens Ann F. Stephenson Quinn D. Thomas Virginia T. Vinyard E. Wilson Watts Katherine Watts Edgar V. Wheeler The Society w ill begin a significant renovation of the History Museum this fall. The project, undertaken in four phases, w ill create 30% more usable public space for our visitors. The work w ill create an enhanced research library, expanded revolving galleries, an educational resource gallery for our younger visitors and a significant update o f the permanent gallery. The project is slated to conclude in spring o f 2009. The O. Winston Link Museum w ill present two exciting additions to its galleries over the next year. Using the actual equipment used by Winston Link to develop his N&W series images, the museum w ill unveil the new “darkroom exhibit,” where visitors can learn more about the processes and techniques Link used to develop his stunning photographs. Secondly, in order to better care for and organize the collection, the museum w ill be outfitted with an open storage system, making available the nearly 300 image collection on every museum visit. Operating with an eye towards efficiency, and with tremendous volunteer efforts, the Society’s facilities attract more than 50,000 visitors annually, and put on numerous specials events, lectures and programs in addition to the special projects mentioned above - all on a shoe-string budget. Your annual support o f the Society is essential to our provision these educational programs and services to the community. In light o f all that the Society has undertaken, we are asking for your financial assistance directed to either the annual ram paign or the Society’s operating endowment to help us ensure the continuation o f these and other activities, enjoyed by students, weekend guests, and foreign travelers alike for the next year, and many to come. Directors Emeriti Sara S. Airheart David H. Burrows George A. Kegley Barbara B. Lemon Thomas O. Maxfieid, III Please contribute today. Enclosed for your convenience are a donation form and a return envelope. Working together, we can achieve all of the above and maybe more. Sincerely, Executive Director ^ D. Kent Chrisman David G. Helmer President, Board o f Directors �How the Mother County Began by R.D. Stoner ♦ first printed in Vol. 6 No. 2 (1970) ow that Botetourt County is celebrating its bicentennial, members of the Roanoke Historical Society may be interested in reviewing the image of their mother county as it was in 1770. From Botetourt’s mother, Augusta County, it inherited a claim to all lands beginning at a point in the watershed of the Blue Ridge Mountains, east of present Lexington, and lying south and west of a line running approximately through the cen­ ter of present Rockbridge County, crossing a road between Warm and Hot Springs and continuing through the pres­ ent state o f West Virginia on the established course of N. 55° West, to the Ohio River some 30 miles north o f Point Pleasant, W.Va. Projecting this northwest division line, the boundary would roughly run through Columbus, Ohio, Fort Wayne, Ind., and cross Illinois north of Chicago into a small section of Wisconsin to the Mississippi River. The eastern boundary was the watershed of the Blue Ridge Mountain from a point east o f present Lexington to the Virginia-North Carolina line. Its southern border was an extension o f the Virginia-North Carolina boundary includ­ ing the present state of Kentucky. This immense territory became a part of the Royal Province of Virginia by the British victory won at Quebec in 1759 and ceded to England by France under the terms of the Treaty of Paris executed in 1763. Augusta County then being the westernmost county in Virginia, this land became its territory before it belonged to Botetourt. Later, with the exception of the present states of Kentucky and West Virginia, most of this was known as the Northwest Territory, and under the provisions of the Northwest Ordinances of 1787 its inhabitants could organize into states in the then new Republic when population justified such a move. From a few dozen families in the late 1730s, Southwest Augusta County had grown in population to the extent that their numbers were sufficient for its citizens to petition the House of Burgesses in 1767, and again in 1769, for a division o f the county. On January 31, 1770, an Act of Division was authorized, which divided Augusta into two counties and parishes. The infant was named Botetourt in honor of Norbome Berkeley, then governor and perhaps the most popular o f all the colonial governors of Virginia. Lord Botetourt was succeeded as governor by John Murray, Lord Dunmore, in 1771 and Botetourt’s county seat was named after the title o f his eldest son, Viscount Fincastle. At this time the majority of Botetourt’s citizens were Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, who so many decades before left Ireland, and after landing in the Atlantic coast ports had filtered down from Pennsylvania and Maryland into the Valley o f Virginia. However, many were from that territory adjacent to the rivers Seine and Rhine o f west­ ern Europe, as well as from England, Wales and Ireland proper. The Scotch-Irish had a tendency to move westward with the tide o f immigration, and the Germanic people of the Rhine Valley to stay once they had acquired good farming land. Many of the descendants of those early Germanic people are still citizens o f this County, along with some Scotch-Irish. If we examine the location of the settlers of this period, we find that in their preference for home sites they worked out the pattern o f a rough triangle. This triangle was located in the heart of the present boundary of Botetourt, and a concentration of population would be evident along its left line from Looney’s Mill Creek Ferry (now Buchanan) roughly following the present Lee Highway (U.S. Route 11) to the old Dr. Simmons’ place, and then would follow an old road southwesterly to Amsterdam. From this point, the right leg of the triangle would fol­ low the settlements across the water divided between the waters of the Roanoke River and Catawba Creek, follow­ ing northwardly the watershed of Catawba and Patterson creeks to the mouth of Craigs Creek at present Eagle Rock, with the base line o f the triangle meandering down the James River to Looney’s Ferry. Since most of this N Robert D. Stoner o f Fincastle, author o f the important Botetourt Coun ty history A Seedbed of the Republic, spent much o f his adult life collecting and writing history o f his native county. He had daily access to valuable records in his work as deputy clerk and later clerk o f Botetourt County Circuit Court from 1938 to 1960. He lived at Santillane, an early 19th century home on the outskirts o f Fincastle, until his death in 1980. �Botetourt County in 1770 (map byJ.R. Hildebrand) enabled the individual to take land in single small surveys, and made the homesteads more scattered than had been the case in Augusta and present Rockbridge counties where the Beverley and Borden grants covered so much of the counties and limited the homesteader to a definite area. The Botetourt pioneers of the 1770s were primarily involved in three undertakings. First: The protection of their lives and property. A company of Rangers could be called upon, but the primary defense against sudden Indian raids was that of the individual family with their long rifles, either in the defense of their log cabin or, when time allowed for the gathering of these settlers, in local forts. Three such forts available to them were Fort William a few miles west of Fincastle; Fort Fauquier at present Buchanan, and Paul’s Fort near the present Botetourt-Rockbridge county line. Second: The sustaining o f life by food and raiment. These frontier settlers were as independent in search of the necessities of life as they were in defending their lives and were as nearly economically independent as a people can be. They supplied their food either from the forest or the field, by their hands. Clothing they produced either from the furs of the wild animals in the forest or from the hides of animals raised; or wove their cloth from fibers raised by themselves, and built their houses with the trees of the forest. At this time, hemp was of great importance to England because of its use in shipping, providing ropes, cloth, use as bedding and as sails, and the short fibers (oakum) were used to caulk vessels. It was the cash crop 200 years ago for our people. Many years before the 1770s, the British Parliament had placed a bounty on hemp, and later the General Assembly of Virginia added its efforts to stimulate hemp planting by providing warehouses for its recep­ tion. Some of these warehouses were located here in present Botetourt County. Wheat closely followed hemp in production, along with flax, com, hay, oats, barley and beans, as well as all kinds of root crops. Horses, cattle and hogs were extensively raised and marketed in Philadelphia or other eastern cities, as well as Fort Pitt. 23 �The labor available to the settlers o f Botetourt County in this period falls into one o f five categories: First, and most important, the family unit, which usually consisted of many sons and daughters; next were slaves, indentured servants, apprentices and free labor. However, we must not overlook the most lucrative of all business in this peri­ od and the principal motive for the colonization of America: The acqusition of property and freedom from oppres­ sion. Certainly the hope to better themselves financially was the compelling motive that brought our pioneers across a perilous ocean to face a land inhabited by savages and which makes us, their descendants, also endure the fast pace of modem living in an over-crowded and physically sick terrain. The early deed books of this county show much activity in acquiring lands through importation rights, that is, the immigrant claim to 50 acres of free land if he could show he came o f his own free will and paid his transportation costs to America. The records show these transactions all the way from the 50-acre tracts to the original papers just located in the basement of the Clerk's Office for a grant of land containing 4,395 acres, lying in Botetourt County on the Ohio River, about three miles above the rapids at the Great Bend. Third: The construction of government and of shelter. The implementation of county government was m ainly the product o f the Royal Governor, the Council and the House of Burgesses through their appointees, the twelve justices of the peace. These justices were the outstanding men of the territory and a certain number of them had to be trained in law matters. They exercised the duties now held by the courts and the board of supervisors, and usu­ ally were the leaders in the local churches. However, the construction of dwellings, inns, roads and churches — other than that of the established Church of England — was the responsibility o f the average pioneer o f this date. At this period the tax lists describe his homes generally as “log house with clay chimney,” “frame dwelling house, brick chimney, four fire places,” “log dwelling house, shingled roof and clay chimney” and “frame dwelling house, one stone and one brick chimney.” The inns or ordinaries, in addition to caring for the travelers, drivers, merchants and others, were required to pro­ vide for the food and comfort of the horses and upon occasions for droves of cattle and hogs being driven to mar­ kets. From the early records, one would be justified in believing that any resident having a house large enough to provide one extra room for the care o f transients, procured a license to keep an “ordinary” in his home. A uniform schedule o f compensation for lodging and services was promulgated by the justices o f the peace in 1770. These tavern keepers were allowed to charge: For West India Rum, they may demand ten shillings per gallon. For rum made on this continent, two shillings and six pence per gallon. For Apple Brandy, four shillings per gallon. For Virginia strong malt beer bottled three months, seven pence half penny per bottle. For Bumbo with two gills Rum to the quart made with white sugar, one shilling and three pence. For a warm diet with small beer, nine pence For lodging in clean sheets, one in a bed, six pence; two in a bed, three pence, three farthings. If more than two, nothing. For stablage with plenty of hay or fodder, one night, seven pence, half penny. Usually, when a county was formed, a parish was created having the same geographical boundary. This proce­ dure was followed when Augusta County was divided, and the Botetourt Parish erected its established church build­ ing at Fincastle which is now used by the Presbyterians. The Botetourt territory contained such a high percentage of dissenting population that discord readily developed and church services for these dissenters were usually held in their own home. Botetourt County’s main road ran from Gilbert Campbell's Ford at Lexington to Cherry Tree Bottom on James River above Buchanan, then to Amsterdam where one division turned left, or south, following somewhat the pres®nt Route 220, and the other division continued up the Catawba Creek to Adam Harmon's on New River, where it became known as the Wilderness Road to Kentucky. The feeder or local roads were o f more daily concern to the early settlers than were the arterial roads, and our early records teem with petitions and orders concerning roads to the mill and the market. The establishment of these roads was only the first step and a constant vigil by the coun­ ty fathers was necessary to keep them in condition. Almost every grand jury indicted more than one overseer of a road for neglect of his duty in connection with it, and sometimes these roads were obstructed by the building of fences across them by irate landowners. �Fincastle: More Thana CountySeat by Frances McNulty Lewis ❖ first printed in Vol. 6 No. 2 (1970) or miles around the town of Fincastle there are pastures, grain fields and orchards, watered by creeks which flow either to the Roanoke River or to the James. On nearby hills overlooking the town are handsome homes, many of them built by early residents around the turn of the nineteenth century. Fincastle itself, built mostly o f mellow red brick and white clapboard, its churches and court house crowned with pointed steeples, seems the very picture of a peaceful country village. It was not always so. When the Scotch-Irish and German pioneers, during the early seventeen hundreds, began to push their way down from Pennsylvania to accomplish their immense work of settling the Great Valley, the land was a favorite Indian hunting ground. Every inch of soil claimed by the newcomers had to be fought for and defended, over and over, against the raids o f Iroquois, Cherokees, and especially the dread Shawnees, the mere mention of whose name “sent chills up the backbone o f every early settler.” (Robert D. Stoner, A Seed-Bed o f the Republic, p. 9) In spite of the dangers, pioneers continued to come in ever growing numbers. Scotch-Irish and German settlers were joined by Huguenots from France, Swiss dissenters, eastern Virginians of English descent, and others, to make their homes in the fertile hills of present-day Botetourt County. As new settlers poured in, the Indians were pushed back into Tennessee, “the Kentuck,” and beyond. The Virginia lands lying just west of the Blue Ridge gradually ceased to be raw frontier and became settled, prosperous territory. Fincastle was one of the first communities -H a sprawling area that included all of Kentucky, part of Ohio, most o f Indiana and Illinois, and stretched to the Mississippi River. The settlement at Miller's Mill, soon to be re-chris­ tened Fincastle, was chosen as the county seat. Plans for a court house and jail were made, and taxes levied to pay for them, although by order of the General Assembly Act creating the County, “the people situated on the waters of the Mississippi” were spared the tax because they were “very remote from their courthouse." (F.B. Kegley, K egley’s Virginia Frontier, p. 379) A village plan (still in existence) was drawn up, with the streets laid out just about as they go today. In an arti­ cle prepared for the Roanoke Historical Society, R.D. Stoner tells us about these streets: H “... over them have paraded the militia companies on their way to Point Pleasant, and to the Indian expeditions in the south and west, and to the Revolutionary army battlefields. Over them Bishop Asbury passed to exhort the villgers in the religion o f the day, and designed a plan for the first Methodist Church here. Over, them, Capt. Patrick Lockhart departed to escort the British prisoners captured at King's Mountain for imprisonment at Fincastle«^- this at the request of Governor Thomas Jefferson. In Fincastle are lodged the records by which George Washington’s representatives perfected before the County Justices his ownership of holdings now in West Virginia and Kentucky; and Thomas Jefferson his ownership o f Natural Bridge. “Lieutenants Meriwether Lewis and William Clark strolled along the streets of Fincastle =r- during visits here on furloughs from the French and Indian wars; and William Clark, after his return from the Lewis and Clark Expedition, deposited his books and records of the expedition at Santillane, the home o f his fiancee, Judith In 1970, Botetourt and its county seat, Fincastle, were celebrated by three national publications in articles writ­ ten by Frances McNulty Lewis. On Sunday, April 12, The New York Times Travel section ran an article titled, “Living With History In Spacious Fincastle. ”Antiques magazine used the heading, “Botetourt County, Virginia Begins Its Third Century,” and Southern Living titled its article, “The First 200Tears o f Fincastle. ” Both mag­ azine articles were in the April issue and all three used pictures. Mrs. Lewis, the wife oJ J.M.B. Lewis Jr, was a member o f the Society board and an accomplished writer o f regional history. 25 �Hancock, whom he married there shortly afterward. In this home, too, Patrick Henry visited his niece, Mrs. Henry Bowyer. “... And along these same streets of Fincastle, General James Breckinridge carried from the post office to his own office the plans drawn by Thomas Jefferson for The County Court House.” Fincastle was far more than just a county seat in those days; it was virtually a sub-capital of Virginia. Through it went the new settlers moving west, for it was the last place where adequate supplies could be purchased before the plunge into the wilderness. Though the territory it administered was steadily diminished in the next half-centu­ ry as new counties and whole new states were carved out of it, Joseph Martin's Gazeteer o f Virginia in 1835 could still describe Fincastle as a “flourishing and wealthy village” with four churches, several schools, and numerous shops and industries. In these early days, Botetourt County boasted prosperous iron mining and smelting activities; the many forges in the mountains are said to have brightened the sky at night. One of Fincastle's sons, Joseph Reid Anderson, went to Richmond in the 1840s where he developed and ran what was to become the only great foundry of the last days of the Confederacy, the Tredegar Iron Works. Iron from the Applachians, mostly supplied by his family and the Tayloes, went down the James River canal on bateaux, after being hauled from the furnaces by ox-cart. Another product which, like the iron, was known far and wide, was the beautiful “Fincastle pattern” of the Ammen family’s woolen mill, now museum material. During the Civil War, this mill manufactured yardage in quantity for the Confederate armies. An extensive operation, the milling enterprise embraced houses for employ­ ees, a saw mill, a grain mill, a hatter's shop, and a carding mill for the wool of the local families, who still wove a great deal at home. Copies of the Fincastle Weekly Advertiser, founded about 1800, one of the first newspapers to be published west of the Blue Ridge, are still preserved. Besides everyday happenings, from straying hogs to travelling circuses, the columns of the town’s early journals reflect the growth of political parties, the universal urge for freedom of reli­ gion, the determination to found schools, and a lively concern with national or international events, such as warn­ ings o f pirates off Tripoli, or the local mustering for the War of 1812. These were also the years when most of the buildings in and around Fincastle were erected. A few small hous­ es have been standing since before 1800, and many homes built during the early nineteenth century still survive. Names o f the present owners read almost like a record of taxpayers in the early days of the County for many of the former are descendants o f the latter, “still doing business” in Botetourt. People with the same names, in vari­ ous spellings, have populated western North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, and of course much o f the rest of the country. They are finding that Fincastle, with its old court house records and its venerable gravestones, is a goldmine for genealogical research. The third and present court house, remodelled in Greek Revival style in 1847 over an earlier Palladian adapta­ tion designed by Thomas Jefferson, raises its pointed steeple above Main Street. It stands on a little fenced green, surrounded by law offices, the old hotel and the three-story jail. The jail is a later structure, built in 1897; its hand­ some wrought iron ornamentation is said to have been inspired by the visitors from the deep south who summered here in the great days of the Virginia Springs. Incidentally, the “ferro-magnesian” water from the Fincastle spring used to be bottled and sold to those health-seekers who could not arrange to go and drink it at the source. It was advertised as chemically unique on the North American continent. Many were those who did come to drink from the healthful springs, however, Fincastle flourished briefly in the eighteen-eighties and nineties as a gay summer resort. O f great importance as a picture of community life is the record, found in many places, of the churches in Fincastle. Except for a few groups, the original members of each congregation M or their fathers -4- had come to this country with a memory o f some sort of ostracism, even persecution. Yet as soon as religious freedom became law in the new Commonwealth of Virginia, and the various little flocks could build their own meeting houses undis­ turbed, it was nearly always stated that said meeting houses would be open for worship to all denominations. The largest dissenting body of pre-Revolutionary days, the Presbyterians, in 1814 took over the neglected Church of England edifice in Fincastle, after petitioning the Legislature for the right to do so, and making clear that other denominations could hold services there. When the Episcopal Church was reactivated in 1839, after great effort by the few who had clung to it, Presbyterians were on its first vestry. 26 �Church steeples dot the terrain of Fincastle, as they have for more than two centuries. One is tempted to dwell on the absorbing histories o f these denominational groups. They included biographical eulogies of outstanding citizens, full of inspiration for us today, and many homely little family reminiscences of the brothers’ and sisters’ efforts to keep their churches going. For twenty-seven years a Methodist minister, the Rev. R.J. Miller, looked after the Lutherans because they had no pastor. The Rev. Robert Logan, founder o f several congregations and pastor of the Fincastle Presbyterians for thirty years, had to teach school to augment his pittance. One would also like to reproduce here some of the descriptions of the regulations and curricula of early Botetourt schools, the first being Botetourt Seminary, established by act of the Virginia Legislature in 1785, with a list of well-known citizens as trustees. Prospectuses of two of the classical academies, and a long list of students whose descendants we are likely to know —- or to be w may be found in Stoner’s A Seed-Bed o f the Republic, pages 473483. We can be proud that in 1778, long before free public schools were a reality in Virginia, an act provided that now “whereas, for want of a vestry ... the poor ... are likely to suffer” the county should tax itself for their upkeep; and it had already provided for educating the “poor and indigent” in the act authorizing that first seminary in 1785. Dr. D.L. Kinnear o f VPI, in an article in the Roanoke Times, February 4, 1962, speaks of this as the beginning of the idea that public schooling could be a tax supported work, rather than an ecclesiastical duty — the birth of state education in Virginia. Perhaps nowhere in the country, certainly nowhere in Virginia, can a still-living microcosm such as Fincastle and its environs be found. In one hour of strolling its narrow streets a visitor can experience in imagination the life o f pioneer days in the earliest West, of the Revolutionary War years, o f the generation which struggled to produce a strong Republic, o f industrial expansion when canals and then railroads were being built not far away — but not too close to change the character o f this old Virginia town. Then he can see, and hear described, reminders of the War Between the States, and of the lean Reconstmction years, and of the all-too-brief period, when Fincastle was renowned as one of Virginia's most popular “Springs.” 12 Fincastle, you see, does not need to be “restored,” as Colonial Williamsburg did. But before the bulldozers move any closer, as they are moving everywhere, its integrity must be saved for future generations of Americans. �ManyJohnston, Writero f the Past by George Kegley ❖ first printed in Vol. 6 No. 2 (1970) ~W~n 1900, the New York Times called her “one of the women of the hour.” The Baltimore American wrote of “the I Virginia authoress who has leapt into eminence at a single bound.” The New Orleans Daily States said her first JL book made her “a recognized fellow in the world of fiction.” And the Richmond Dispatch described her as “the quiet, retiring little genius whose talent has spread over two continents and made her rich and famous.” This was Mary Johnston, bom at Buchanan in Botetourt County on Nov. 21, 1870, and deceased at Warm Springs, Bath County, May 9, 1936. She was the author o f more than 25 novels, a play, short stories and poetry. Now seldom heard of, she wrote of the past at a time when romantic historical novels were in strong demand. Her first book, Prisoners o f Hope, a novel on Colonial Virginia, was written in 1898, after she had started with poetry. This was followed by To Have and To Hold, a 17th century Virginia romance, which sold 60,000 copies before it was published. Two months later, a Birmingham, Ala., writer said of Miss Johnston, “There has not been so great a demand for the works of any author since the days o f Harriet Beecher Stowe.” Mary Johnston “inherits talent,” the New Orleans newspaper said. She came from a prominent Virginia family who descended from Peter Johnston, a Scotchman who came to this country in 1727 and became a wealthy and influential planter. He was her paternal great-great-grandfa­ ther. His son, Charles, wrote an interesting account o f his capture by the Indians in 1790 and later established Botetourt Springs, the resort at what is now Hollins College, about 1820. (See the article, Edward William Johnston and Roanoke Female Seminary, Winter, 1969 Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society.) Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston was a grandson of Peter Johnston. John William Johnston, father of the novelist and a prominent lawyer, was bom at Pattonsburg, the old village across the river from Buchanan, in 1839. An artillery officer, rising to major in the Civil War, he returned to Botetourt and the practice of law. He married Elizabeth Alexander of Moorefield, W.Va., and they had four daughters — the writer was the oldest — and two sons. Maj. Johnston was president of the James River and Kanawha Canal Co. and president of the Buchanan and Clifton Forge, later the Richmond and Alleghany Railroad, vice president and general manager o f the Richmond and Danville Extension Co. and president o f the Georgia Pacific Railway, which became part o f the Southern Railway. While Johnston was head of the canal company, Gov. F.W.M. Holliday and a party of Richmond men came up the river on an inspection trip and the governor stayed at the Johnston home. Railroad and other business interests caused Maj. Johnston to move to Birmingham and later to New York. But he returned to Virginia and lived in Richmond from 1902 until his death in 1905. He is buried in Hollywood Cemetery there. Until she was 15, Miss Johnston lived at Buchanan in the family home on Low Street, across from the Community House and the Botetourt Hotel. The 12-room white brick and frame house built around 1860, was pur­ chased in 1969 by Webster E. Booze Jr., an automobile dealer, and he plans to replace the building with a showGeorge Kegley, a longtime resident o f Roanoke, is a director emeritus o f the History Museum, and editor o f the Journal since 1968, 28 �room for new cars. The Johnston house stands on land patented by George III to Col. John Buchanan in 1769 and later acquired by Andrew Boyd, a Botetourt pioneer. Maj. Johnston acquired the property from the Abraham J. Fort estate. Frail as a child, Miss Johnston was educated by her grandmother, an aunt and governesses in a small white build­ ing on the west side of her father’s home. Her only formal education was a brief stay at an Atlanta school. Although she was in Birmingham and New York from 1885 to 1902 when she returned with her family to Richmond, she spent most of her life in Virginia. In 1912, she and two sisters, Eloise and Elizabeth, built a home, Three Hills, at Warm Springs where she lived and wrote until her death 24 years later. During the depression, she said people stopped reading and buying books and her sister, Eloise, took in guests at the big house in the mountains. In addition to her literary career, Miss Johnston was a leader in the women’s suffrage movement and she was a pacifist during World War ¡11 She was a member of the Author’s League, the International Woman Suffrage Association, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Fellowship for Reconciliation, American Association for Labor Legislation, Woman’s Trades Union and the Consumer League. Following her “instantaneous success as an author,” a New York Times writer interviewed Miss Johnston at her Birmingham home in 1900. She found the novelist to be “extremely reticent” about her­ self and her work. Photographs “that have been widely copied reveal a wonderfully sweetfaced young woman, the graceful con­ tour of her features recalling some famous miniatures on ivory by the old masters.” At the age of 30, the Times said Miss Johnston is “not very tall and her figure is slender and fragile. She carries herself well and has that high-bred air that gives her a distinctive charm in any assembly. Her eyes are large and brown, with little flecks of gold. Her light-brown hair is soft and wavy, and she wears it simply. She dresses qui­ etly and fashionably. Her tastes are those of a charming woman, who although unconventional, respects every pro­ priety. She has traveled extensively in this country and abroad.” Her interest in the past obviously stemmed from her girlhood reading of “old-fashioned books in old-fashioned libraries.” The Times said that she came to be regarded as “an authority on colonial history. She seems to have lit­ erally absorbed that period of Virginia’s history that she uses as a background for her stories.” And critics were “unable to detect any fault in her minute descriptions o f the early Colonial customs and laws.” From her work on the Civil War period, she said, “I know war. I have lived with it, thinking of The Long Roll 29 �and Cease Firing (her two war-time novels) for four long years. I have fought it with the generals and the colonels and the majors and the captains but mostly with the rank and file. I know the feel of it and the smell of it and the taste o f it -4f and I hate it.” A friend, Arthur Goodrich, who visited at Three Hills, wrote of her work, “The tireless weeks she spent on the pike from Winchester to Staunton, absorbing merely locality material for The Long Roll, were just one indication o f many, of her artistic honesty. She made Virginia, from Colonial days to the Civil War, live with the accuracy of a historian added to the vivid humanity of a novelist.” The late Gen. Dwight Eisenhower said he studied military features of The Long Roll and Cease Firing in prepar­ ing for World War II campaigns. Metropolitan newspapers, exploring the background of this new, successful writer, also wrote of Buchanan. “Like others of its ilk, it was a leisurely, dignified, pleasant little town,” said the New Orleans Daily States. Until she was 10, the Daily States said, “there was no railroad within nine miles of the place (Buchanan), only a canal boat and an old red stagecoach connecting it with the outer world.” Miss Johnston always was close to nature. Goodrich said she “loved garden and hillside flowers, just as she loved plain, everyday people. She saw aristocracy in both.” And the newspapers said “it was her delight to roam over the lovely country about her home (at Buchanan). The town was so small, we are told, that a mile in any direc­ tion brought one into thick woods, to mountain streams or up upon the mountainside itself.” The Baltimore American of April 22, 1900, said of Buchanan during Mary Johnston’s girlhood from 1870 to 1885: “The struggling village — a portion of which, fired during the Civil War, lay still in ruins [-4 was walled in on either side by mountain ranges, whose aspect, changing with the alternations of the seasons' varying atmospher­ ic conditions, presented ever and anon fresh beauties for the eye to feast upon, and amply compensated for the hori­ zon which they excluded. At their feet, the James River, which further on must bear its part in the world's traffic, flowed lingeringly, as if loath to leave this quiet spot. The heterogenous population thus isolated, composed in part of those to the manor bom, and others who had drifted in on the tide of circumstances, had abundant room for the development of idiosyncrasies, and furnished interesting studies for the analytical mind ...” Her other works were Audrey, a 17th century Virginia romance; Sir Mortimer, an Elizabethan romance; Lewis Rand, a novel of Virginia in Jefferson’s day; Croatan, a story of the lost colony of Roanoke Island; 1492, a novel of Columbus voyages; The Great Valley, a Shenandoah Valley novel; Hagar, a study of the feminist movement. Later books included The Witch, The Fortunes o f Garin, The Wanderers, Pioneers o f the Old South, Foes, Michael Forth, The Slave Ship, Silver Cross, Sweet Rocket, The Exile, Hunting Shirt, Drury Randall and Miss Delicia Allen, her last, published in 1932. She was interested in the mystical and occult in her later works. Her one play, a five-act drama, “The Goddess of Reason,” featuring the performance of the distinguished actress, Julia Marlow, was considered a success, She wrote two long narrative poems, “Virginiana,” and “The James,” and a number of short stories for such magazines as Harpers and Ladies Home Journal. At the turn of the century, The Richmond Times told her story under the headline, “A Virginia Girl Whose Books Have Reached a Fabulous Sale.” A story from Birmingham, where she was living, called her “an international fig­ ure” who “receives letters from many parts of the world. Her personality, her past, her present and future are sub­ jects o f which the newspapers of the country are as eager as the publishers and public are for her books.” Sales of To Have and To Hold were approaching 200,000 “which will bring Miss Johnston $40,000.” The Richmond Dispatch called that novel “a distinct triumph in American literature.” A magazine of the time said Mary Johnston “wrote five years before anyone noticed her, but her second novel, To Have and To Hold, landed her plump in the lap of success.” When she died in 1936, a New York Times editorial said, “Mary Johnston’s own Virginia mountains and waters, her earlier Virginians created after deep historical studies, her sense o f chraacter and drama, gave quality and charm to her books.” The Times said, “The number of her works, not one of them scamped, testifies to her long, patient labor in spite of physical weakness. She has given pleasure to more than a generation.” She was buried beside her father at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond. �Virginia's Neglected Soldiers by Dr. James I. "Bud" Robertson Jr. ♦ first printed in Voi. 5 No. 1 (1968) hen war clouds obscured the sky in April, 1861, tens of thousands of Virginia’s sons flocked to the defense of their state. Few of these men and boys were motivated by any desire to perpetuate either the institution of slavery or the doctrine of states’ rights. They were going to war because “noble state pride and love of home” seemed to leave them no choice. Fauquier County s George Baylor echoed the sentiments of many future compatriots when he dramatically stated: “Now that the Old Dominion had taken her stand with her Southern sisters ... I felt it my duty to lay down the plow and the pruning hook and take up the sword and the bat­ tle-axe.” From every section of the state they came: hardy mountaineers from Virginia s western region, small-scale farm­ ers from the rolling country of the Piedmont, fishermen and planters from the Tidewater’s sandy flatlands. In all, perhaps as many as 100,000 Virginians served in the Confederate armies; and when the smoke drifted from the last battlefield of the Civil War, 14,974 of the Old Dominion’s sons lay dead. Wars change, but soldiers rarely do. While the Civil War was unquestionably history’s most transitional conflict — in terms of both strategy and tactics — the men in the ranks of North and South remained for the most part semieducated, simple, highly impressionable soldiers. No better proof of this exists than in the writings of the fighting men themselves, and no war ever produced a greater outpouring of letterwriting and diary-keeping than the con­ flict of the 1860s. “Johnny Rebs” and “Billy Yanks” were lonely men, with no diversions available to them in camp but to think of home and family, and to put such thoughts on paper. Moreover, in letters and diaries — and later in memoirs — the men could share with a loved one the experiences of army life. Confederate soldiers from Virginia were certainly no exception in this penchant for writing. Nor was semi-liter­ acy any deterrent to their correspondence. In June, 1862, a Pvt. W.W. Brown protested in a letter home: “Mother when you wright to me get somebody to wright that can wright a plain hand to read I Cold not read your letter to make sence of it it wrote so bad I have lumed to do my own wrading and writing and it is a grate help to me.” Virginians went to war with unbounded enthusiasm and optimism. Montgomery County’s James H. Langhome, a lieutenant in the 4th Virginia Infantry, wrote exuberantly during his first days as a soldier, “there is not a man in the Southern Army who does not in his heart believe that he can whip three Yankees, he would consider it beneath his manhood to count upon whipping a less number, in any sort of fight.” A few months later, Capt. Charles M. Blackford of the 2nd Virginia Cavalry informed his wife: “I am well, and I think this kind of life agrees with me, though I have not taken on any flesh. I weigh the same as I did when I left home — one hundred and twenty-five pounds — but all there is of me is bone and muscle, very tough and very active.” In the first days of the war, recruits were often anxious to have friends back home join them in the ranks. A young soldier in what became the 27th Virginia Infantry sent a message to his sister in May, 1861: “Tell Sally I want her to talk to John F. Hall and tell him to be a man & come down here & help us fight the Yankeys & If he returns home that she will marry him without fail I think that will entice him to come.” All too quickly, however, the excitement of army life vanished. Loneliness and homesickness took its place. Shortly after the battle of First Manassas, a Rockbridge County soldier wrote home: “I am affraid My letter this time will Be devoid of Interest or News it will Be in a great Measure like the life we are leading dull & Monotonous in the Extreme if Robinson Crusoe Suffered for want of Society we are Suffering for want of News or communi- W Former executive director o f the U.S. Civil War Centennial Commission, Dr. Jornes Robertson is the executive director o f the Virginia Center fo r Civil war studies at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. He has written numerous books and articles on the Civil War period, and in 1962 he received the Harry S. Truman Award as the nation ’s outstanding Civil War historian This article is an expansion o f an address delivered June 26, 1968, to the Roanoke Historical Society. 31 �cation with the outer world...” In the following year, a Giles County artilleryman moaned in a letter to his aunt: “I would be (glad) to see my bitterest enemy if he was from Giles. In fact, I would be glad to see a dog from home.” Romantic communiques kept many soldiers occupied in writing for hours on end. A Virginia infantryman from the Lexington area once evaluated the letters he had been receiving from a number of feminine acquaintances. “Most of my lady correspondents deal too Much in the little trivial affairs o f their own circle this may please the Small fish But wont do for Sharks or Soldiers, and vanity if Soldiers Life dont ease a Man of this Burden there is No hopes for him in this world.” On a more serious note, Lt. D.B. Baldwin, a Tazewell County member of the 23rd Virginia Battalion, wrote his wife Sallie: “I know I have read each of your letters half (a) dozen times. This might sound foolish to others, but to those who are linked together by ties so dear, and whose hearts beat for each other, only it is reality. ... I think o f you a great deal. Not an hour nor scarcely a moment passes that you are not remembered. There is a place in my memory ever fresh with the recollections of the many pleasant hours enjoyed with each other. I hope God will spare us to meet again and live as happy as we once did.” Accentuating the homesickness, and ever­ present to most Confederate soldiers, were the horrors of the civil war of which they were a part. Only those who have never par­ ticipated in battle become excited by it. The average Virginia Confederate soldier looked on mortal combat with uncertainty, dread and revulsion. An Amherst County private observed after his first engagement: “the balls whistled round and about us as thick as hail. It made one feel quite strange to heare them whistle so close to my head not noing but one might strike me at any moment.” Another member of the same regiment wrote a succinct summary o f the three-day holo­ caust at Gettysburg: “It was the most awful Battle that I have ever Bin (in) yet.” Lietuenant J.L. Doyle o f the celebrated Stonewall Brigade vividly described the thick of the fighting in the bloody 1864 bat­ tle at Spotsylvania: “The figures of men seen dimly through the smoke and fog seemed almost gigantic, while the woods were light­ ed by the flashing o f the guns and the Oliver Perry Rader, a Botetourt County foot soldier, died at the sparkling of the musketry. The din was Battle o f Five Forks, April 1, 1865. tremendous and increasing every instant, men in crowds with bleeding limbs and pale, pain-stricken faces were hurrying to the rear and, mingled with those, could be seen many unwounded who had escaped from the wreck of their commands.” Too often overlooked — by all but the soldiers themselves — was the carnage left on a battlefield. Private Robert Stiles of the Richmond Howitzers was among those assigned to help bury the dead at Gettysburg. Moving out onto the field with picks and shovels, Stiles wrote, “the sights and smells that assailed us were simply indescribable — corpses swollen to twice their original size, some of them actually burst asunder with the pressure o f foul gases and vapors... The odors were nauseating and so deadly that in a short time we all sickened and were lying with our mouths close to the ground, most of us vomiting profusely.” Modem generations can hardly conceive the hardships that were the daily lot of Virginia’s Confederate fighting men. After the first weeks of the long four-year struggle, the absence of the basic necessities of life was constant and paramount. Yet “Johnny Rebs” bore the adversities with incredible fortitude. 32 �Following the strenuous campaign around Yorktown in the spring of 1862, Confederate Gen. John B. Magruder reported: “It rained almost incessantly; the trenches were filled with water; the weather was exceedingly cold; no fires could be allowed; the artillery of the enemy played upon our men almost continuously day and night; the army subsisted on flour and salt meat, and that in reduced quantities, and yet no murmurs were heard patriotism made them indifferent to suffering, disease, and death.” Five months later, after Robert E. Lee’s army had returned to Virginia from the setback at Antietam Creek, Md., a Richmond newspaper editorialized: “Posterity will scarcely believe that the wonderful campaign which has just ended with its terrible marches and desperate battles, was made by men, one-fourth of whom were entirely bare­ footed, and one-half of whom were as ragged as scarecrows. We cease to wonder at the number of stragglers, when we hear how many among them were shoeless, with stone braises on their feet.” Late in 1863, Gen. Lee concluded his official report of the Mine Run Campaign by stating: “Nothing prevented my continuing in (the enemy’s) front but the destitute condition of the men, thousands of whom were barefooted, a great number partially shod, and nearly all without overcoats, blankets, or warm clothing. I think the sublimest sight of the war was the cheerfulness and alacrity exhibited in this army in the pursuit of the enemy under all the trials and privations to which it was exposed.” The loneliness and despair of army life naturally led to much complaining among Virginia soldiers. All of it was justified, and all of it was an age-old, natural expression by men in the ranks. While the soldiers continually found fault with officers, surgeons, chaplains, clothing, arms, equipment, few furloughs, filth, low pay, hard duty and alleged discrimination among units, their greatest condemnation was reserved for army rations. Confederate soldiers, wrote Pvt. William Jones of the 19th Virginia Infantry, were “all ways gramling a bout somthing to eat.” That the quantity of the rations was poor is evident in a March, 1864, letter from Jones to his wife. “I have bin living of nothing but Com bread for 7 days,” he stated, “and will not draw (more) for four days (to) Come and will not draw anny meet (during) the time ... I have felt quite week in the stomake.” That the quality of the rations issued was even poorer was substantiated by Jones, who wrote that a “pare Boile” cat “eat prisisily like a rabbit,” and Pvt. John R. Stafford, who commented on the meat the men received: “i will tell you what the Boyes Say A Bout the Beef Hear they Say when they go to Kill them it takes 2 to Hold them by the Hamo’s to Steadey them till they Shoot them & then they Say they Eat the Meet & Make Ring’s out of the Bones & combs out of the Homes & whip crackers out of the tales...” Small wonder that Southern soldiers often resorted to theft to obtain digestible food. As a Virginia soldier paro­ died after the war: “Man that is bom of a woman, and enlisteth in (Stonewall) Jackson’s army, is of few days and short rations. He cometh forth at reveille, is present also at retreat, and retireth apparently at taps. When, lo! he striketh a beeline for the nearest hen-roost, from which he taketh sundry chickens, and stealthily retumeth to his camp. He then maketh a savory dish therewith he feasteth himself and a chosen friend. But the Captain sleepeth, and knoweth not that his men are feasting.” The above quotations are but a sampling of how Virginians viewed life in the Confederate army. Yet a sampling is all that has so far come to light. The paucity of data available to scholars on the Old Dominion’s soldiers and units is as lamentable as it is incredible. This woeful neglect can be illustrated in the writings done to date on the 65 regiments and 10 battalions of infantry that Virginia contributed to the Southern cause. For 26 of those units, nothing whatsoever exists in print; for 32 others, no more than two small items have been published. In short, 58 of 76 Virginia infantry units have, in the past century, received little or no attention on the part of historians and writers. The scarcity of source material on Virginia’s artillery and cavalry components is even more glaring. As a native of Danville and member of the VPI faculty since September, 1967, this writer is earnestly attempt­ ing to call overdue attention to the heroism and sacrifices of Virginia’s soldiers of the 1860s. Our long-range proj­ ect at VPI is to prepare histories (in the form of master’s theses, graduate seminar papers, and scholarly articles) of every regiment, battalion and battery that represented the Old Dominion in the Civil War. Thirteen such studies are already underway, and all of the histories prepared may well serve as bases for a comprehensive study of Virginia’s pivotal role in the sectional straggle. Soldiers’ letters, diaries and reminiscences are the most necessary sources for such histories. Only through them can the historian discern the movements of units, the intricacies of marches and battles, and — more especially — the feelings of men caught in war. For that reason, we are appealing to everyone with such letters, journals and sim­ ilar works to loan them to us long enough to copy and digest. (Naturally, the Newman Library on the Blacksburg campus would be honored to become custodian for any Civil War manuscripts that persons might wish to deposit 33 �permanently.) To date, scores o f persons in southwest Virginia have responded to our plea and loaned letters and diaries in their possession. Such materials are treated with utmost care and returned promptly. Yet there can be no doubt but that hundreds, possible thousands, of other Virginians now possess such documents. These citizens can perform no greater service for American history in general, and Virginia history in particular, than in searching for such writ­ ings of yesteryear and in making them available to us who need them so desperately. Without these personal accounts, our efforts to perpetuate the deeds of our forefathers will fail. Speaking at Washington and Lee University in 1910, Capt. G.B. Strickler of the Stonewall Brigade expressed a dream. “Time will not suffice to tell in detail the story of the services bravely rendered, and sufferings cheerfully borne in battle, in bivouac, and upon the toilsome march — in summer's heat and dust, in winter’s cold, mud and snow. That story must some day be written by some pen inspired by truth and love. When it shall be truly written it will be a story o f which any ... land must be proud, for it will be a story of dauntless courage, of unselfish devo­ tion to duty, of suffering endured without a murmur, and death encountered without a qualm.” 18 Today, in the History Department at VPI, we are echoing Capt. Strickler’s dream with words that grace a num­ ber of Civil War monuments in VirginiaLord God of Hosts be with us yet, Lest we forget — lest we forget! NOTES 1. James I. Robertson Jr., THE STONEWALL BRIGADE (Baton Rouge, 1963), 10. 2. Of that number of fatalities, 6,947 Virginians succumbed to sickness and disease. William F. Fox, REGIMEN­ TAL LOSSES IN THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, 1861-1865 (Albany, N.Y.), 554. 3. Bell I. Wiley, THE LIFE OF JOHNNY REB (Indianapolis, 1943), 207. 4. James H. Langhome to mother, June 26, 1861, letter in the possession of David G. Langhome Jr., Blacksburg Va. 5. Charles M. Blackford, LETTERS FROM LEE'S ARMY (New York, 1947), 4849. 6. D.H. Fora to mother, May 25, 1861, letter in the writer’s possession. 7. Unknown soldier to “Cousin,” Aug. 9, 1861, letter in the writer’s possession; John D. McClaugherty (comp) THE HISTORY OF THE FAMILY McCLAUGHERTY (Dayton, O., n. d.), unpaged. 8. Unknown soldier to “Cousin,” Aug. 9, 1861, letter in the writer’s possession. 9. O.B. Baldwin to wife, June 13, 1862, letter in the possession of Mrs. D.W. Mason, Pearisburg, Va. 10. Joseph A. Higginbotham diary, entry of July 21, 1861, University of Virginia; William H. Jones to wife, July 13, 1863, W.H. Jones Papers, Duke University (cited hereafter as Jones Papers); J.L. Doyle diary, entry for May, 1864, Jed Hotchkiss Papers, Library of Congress. 11. Robert Stiles, FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT (New York, 1903), 219-20. 12. U. S. War Dept, (comp.), WAR OF THE REBELLION: A COMPILATION OF THE OFFICIAL RECORDS OF THE UNION AND CONFEDERATE ARMIES (Washington, 1880-1901), Ser. I, XI, pt. I, 408-9. Cited here­ after as OR. 13. Richmond DAILY DISPATCH, Oct. 9, 1862. (?) M OR, Ser. I, XXIX, pt. 1, 408. 15. William H. Jones to wife. Mar. 29, 1864, Jones Pacers, is IBID.; John R. Stafford to George T. Stafford, Feb. 28, 1863, letter in the possession of A. Clifton Stafford, Roanoke, Va (?) 17. Royall W. Figg, WHERE MEN ONLY DARE TO GO (Richmond, 1885), 64. Lt. John N. Lyle of the 4th Virginia Infantry asserted that the experienced soldier could beg water, food and shelter in one sentence; “Madam, can I get a drink o f water, I'm so hunqry 1 don't know where I'll sleep tonight.” William G. Bean, THE LIBERTY HALL VOLUNTEERS (Charlottesville, 1964), 74. 18. IBID, vii. �Big Lick Home Front: 1861-65 by Mary S. Terry ❖ first printed in Vol. 3 No. 1 (1966) y father and husband were Union men until after Lincoln’s call for troops, then there was only one thing to do, and that was to go with the State. We were raised with slavery, and thought it right, but we were not fighting for our slaves, but for our rights as we thought, and every true hearted woman wanted her husband, her brothers, her lover, her friends to do their duty bravely. Filled with hope and courage, feeling our cause to be just and right, we never thought defeat possible, that a few months would decide the trouble in our favor. And after the great victory gained by the Confederates at the Battle of Manassas, we thought there was little more to do — but experience soon proved the reverse. Our men were brave, there were none braver, but as time passed, the ranks of the volunteers were thinned by battle, sickness, and death. Their places must be filled by conscripts, the first call was from twenty to thirty years old, then to thirty-five, to forty, to forty-five and then to fifty. The older men were organized into Home Guards. I remember well when my father, Mr. Word, Mr. Ben Tinsly, Mr. Ferguson, Col. Tayloe and others from fifty upwards were hurried to Saltville to defend the Saltworks. We were dependent upon our home productions for the necessities as well as the luxuries of life — I ought not to say luxuries, for those who did not pass through the war can have no idea how plainly we lived. Each person in a family was allowed 2 lbs. of salt a month, it required careful management to make it last at that rate the year round. If we carelessly or extravagantly used it, we had to do without, for our neighbors were as badly off as our­ selves. The difficulty was, that salt had been so plentiful and cheap before the war that we could not make the ser­ vants realize the strict economy that was required. Our coffee soon gave out, or was hoarded for the very old, and the sick, and for special occasions. It seems almost impossible to realize now the different drinks we used, rye, wheat, chestnuts, sweet potatoes were all used in making coffee. Chestnuts and sweet potatoes, parboiled and baked, made a preparation somewhat like chocolate, but as these were obtainable only a certain portion of the year, we were compelled to use rye and wheat chiefly. The wheat and rye were prepared by first washing carefully, then scalding in boiling water, after which it was thoroughly dried and then parched like coffee. It was a healthful drink, very much like the Postum Cereal of later years. We used herb and root teas, camomile, boneset, balm, sage, rasp­ berry leaf, sassafras, etc., but all these being known for their medicinal qualities savored too much of medicine to be popular as a drink for the table; they were invaluable in their proper place. We had difficulty in obtaining wheat and rye at all times, so we cultivated temperance principles, and appreci­ ated pure, fresh water as a healthful and convenient table beverage. As time passed we could get only heavy, brown sugar used before the war for plantation and factory hands, and in curing hams and coming beef. At one time I was entirely without sugar, and company in the house, I couldn’t buy any, I was afraid to borrow, and consequently was doing without. One o f my neighbors learning of my destitution said she would ask her husband to let me have fifty pounds if I would not tell. Her husband was a tobacco manufacturer and had some barrels of sugar stored for that purpose, and she knew of it; were it known that I had bought sugar from him it would be almost impossible to keep any on hand for manufacturing purposes. I paid fifty cents a pound and was so thankful to get it. We used it only for tea and coffee, but while we could not afford sugar for cooking purposes, we were not without sweet desserts. Sorghum was raised in great quantities and used in a variety o f ways, in cakes, custards, pies, puddings, sauces, sweet pickles, and as a syrup for the table. In fact there was a kind of rivalry among housekeepers as to who could M Born Mary Susan Trout in December 1839, the author had been married for less than four years to Peyton Leftwich Terry when war broke out in 1861 .They lived at .Elmwood, then a country estate a mile from the vil­ lage o f Big Lick, now Elmwood Park in downtown Roanoke. She wrote this narrative in 1894 and lived through many more “wonderful changes ' until her death in May 1910. It has never been printed before in its entirety. Two o f Mrs. Terry’s grandchildren were members o f the Society: Mrs. Dirk A. Kuyk and Edmund P. Goodwin. 35 �make the best and greatest variety of good things from sorghum. What we had, we had to do with, for while the supplies were limited, the money with soldiers’ families was still more limited. My oldest daughter says she remembers Mama always had a nice print of butter on the table, but the rule was “you must not eat butter” unless we had an extra print. We had to keep prepared for company, and any­ one dropping in unexpectedly at lunch time would not have known the circumstances, besides we had a greater feeling of comfort and respectability when we could see a sufficiency. The most discouraging time I experienced was the Christmas before the surrender, we felt our cause was well nigh hopeless, we were discouraged, despondent, heartsick, almost destitute of clothing and provisions. For our Christmas dinner we had sorghum cakes, pumpkin custards made with sorghum, without eggs and a small piece of spare rib. I had filled my two little children’s stockings and small chairs with apples, walnuts, hickory nuts, sweet potatoes and sorghum candy. I did what I could to make them happy, for I dreaded what another Christmas might bring forth. Let no one think we complained of our deprivations, it was the growing conviction of the helplessness of our cause that was destroying our courage. Until the last months we gladly and hopefully endured hardships, we were cheerful and hospitable, always welcoming our guests to our table with its scanty fare, feeling that they knew we were giving our best. The social gatherings were called “starvation parties” and were apparently much enjoyed, taffy pullings were quite common. The refreshments would be walnuts, hickory nuts, apples, cider, sorghum cakes taffy and often sweet potatoes and Irish potatoes roasted. To have had all these at one time would have been inex­ cusable extravagance, what I have named would have been sufficient variety for at least three times. At one of the largest parties around here the refreshments were sweet and Irish potatoes roasted, served with butter and with cider and milk for a beverage. When my brother was home on furlough, I had some friends in one evening to be with him, and for refreshments we had brown sugar and sorghum cakes, blackberry wine and apples, another evening he and a cousin made cream out of snow, sorghum, and rich cream and all thought it delicious. The women o f the South were heroic, self-denying, never a murmur from those whose hearts were in the cause. We had only the usual amount o f clothing at the beginning of the war, we never thought of purchasing for the future, for we expected the war to last only a short while. Our bedding we divided with the hospitals in the begin­ ning of the war, sheets were needed, not only for the beds of the sick and wounded, but for bandages for the wound­ ed; so not only our clothes, but our bedding, our table linen, our china and kitchen utensils all became very scarce. For table linen we sewed two widths of Osnaburg cotton together, fringed the ends (to take away the sheet-like look). But for ourselves and families the question was no longer “what to wear and how to make it,” but “what can we get and how shall we pay for it.” But necessity has always been the mother of invention, and in this case the results were wonderful. The sheep were sheared, the wool washed, carded, spun, and dyed, and raw cotton bought by the bale, carded, spun and woven into beautiful cotton and linsy. This was all done in the homes — the factories were engaged in making clothes and blankets for the soldiers. They could not furnish a sufficient quantity, for we had few factories in the South, and as the machinery wore out we could not replace it. My stepmother excelled in making cloth, and kindly supplied my small family. We used red oak bark, cedar tops, sumac, walnut hulls and everything we could gather for coloring matter. I regret so much I did not save samples of our home productions to show my children and grandchildren. We had to exercise a good deal of ingenuity to keep supplied with buttons, it was impossible to buy them, so we used hard scraps of leather, pasteboard, and gourds cut into the right sizes and covered with the material of the dresses. Needles and pins were very precious and we could not get hooks and eyes. We knit woolen stockings in solid colors, stripes and checks, and stockings of fine spun cotton in railroad, shell and fence rail patterns. The rail­ road stockings were knit with a long, narrow leg, and when sufficiently long, every other stitch was dropped and raveled out. The stocking was perfectly straight and easily adjusted to the foot. I suppose they were named because of the speed with which they were made. We had great difficulty in keeping supplied with shoes. My children and all of my friends’ children went barefooted in the summer, their winter shoes were made of natural colored leather by the colored shoemakers on the farms, we used leather strings and were very thankful to be able to protect the feet. We had so few tanneries south, and the government took charge o f what we had; the soldiers must have shoes if possible to obtain them. I was almost barefooted one summer, Mr. Dillon (a white shoemaker) had made me promise after promise to make my shoes “next week,” and after patiently and persistently going each week, would be told that he had no leather, but would be sure to get some the “next week.” I had to walk a mile each time I went, and went each time 36 �with a hopeless feeling, but I could not afford to let him alone. I was in despair, for winter was coming on and I must have shoes. At last he made a pair for a lady who wore number sixes, and made them too small. He told me if I could wear them to take them, at that time I wore fours, but I took them thankfully and used them until they wore out. They were a comfort in one sense, and a terrible mortification in another, for our homewoven dresses would shrink when laundered and the shoes could not be concealed. I have told you about the difficulty of covering our feet, now I will tell you how we managed to cover our heads. We plaited wheat and rye straw, and sewed the braids into hats o f different styles and shapes according to the taste and skill o f the maker. They were dyed brown, drab or black, pressed into shape and varnished. We always man­ aged to get some kind of material for trimming, when ribbons failed we used old silk skirts for bands, bindings and rosettes, and friends would always divide their little store with each other. The prettiest hats were made of white shucks, cut into narrow strips and braided, then sewed into shape. My little girls had beautiful hats made by Miss Sowers. A cousin of mine married during the war had her bridal hat made of white shucks and trimmed with horsehair flowers. Mrs. London made the hat and trimmed it. For the wreath of flowers she obtained long hairs from the tails of different colored horses, and for white used the long fluffy hair of her little dog’s tail. The war was a necessity, for legislation could never have settled the sectional differences so effectually as has been done. Oh! how glad we were to get “store clothes” once more, and espe­ cially “store shoes.” They were so comfortable, and looked so pretty and neat that I no longer had a desire to hide my feet. With our rough shoes we did not even have blacking, except a poor substitute made of elderberries, lampblack and brown sugar which we used sparingly for Mary Trout Terry fear of injuring the leather. We had to use tallow with lard to soften the leather as well as to keep down the rusty look. Long cloaks called Beauregardes were another fashion improvised by necessity. We wore them in summer made o f light material, I had one made o f black silk from one of my wedding silks for summer wear. I remember well a bride who wanted to make a Beauregarde o f black silk, she asked the dressmaker to lend her pattern, which she very kindly did, but newspapers being scarce, the pattern was fully three feet shorter than it should have been. She neglected to tell her to lengthen it, thinking as a matter of course she would do so. She said to me, “Just imagine my surprise and dismay when I saw the bride at church with a short black silk sack instead of a long Beauregarde.” The Yankees made a raid through here about the middle o f the war, burned the depot and carried off all the sil­ ver, firearms, horses and cattle they could find, killing some o f the hogs that were too fat to drive. I remained at home that night with only my two small children and two young servants, I was afraid to undress, but we passed safely through the night, no one came to the house. The next morning my little daughter saw them at a neighbor’s on the opposite hill. I told her to look at the Yankees, she said, “Are they Yankees, why they look like men.” This reminds me o f a colored boy of my father’s, the servants found four Yankees hiding in an outhouse in extremely cold weather. My father made them come in the house and sit by the fire until they were comfortable, then gave them a good meal. While they were in the room the boy came in to bring wood, my father told the boy, “These are Yankees”; he stared at them in open-mouthed astonishment, then said, “I didn't know Yankees looked like folks, I alius thought they looked more like cows.” Another time a detachment of Yankees came galloping by my house to stop a train o f provisions, without halting they broke down two plank fences with their guns, and reached the depot just as the train was passing from sight. We felt so thankful they failed to reach the train, for our soldiers were fed 37 �with great difficulty, and those full cars would have furnished many nations, we knew too that the flour and meat had been taken from homes that could ill spare them. Mr. Ferguson, who owned a large tobacco factory on the way, made the servants roll out two barrels of brandy, knock the heads out and let the brandy waste. He was afraid that after their failure at the depot, on their return they might search the factory, find the brandy and get drunk and do a great deal of damage. It hurt the factory hands so much to see the good brandy wasting on the ground. I remember seeing old Uncle Jordon (one of Mr. Ferguson’s slaves) trying to get some, but it poured too fast. They went to Mr. Ferguson’s smokehouse and carried off nearly all of his meat. His wife sent the old colored woman to beg for some, she said to them, “What you reckon me and my chilluns going to eat if you take all dat meat, whar we going to git more from, no more meat around.” They laughed at her, but left part of it. Another neighbor packed hers in ash barrels leaving one piece in the house. When they searched her house they asked if that piece was all she had, she said, “Yes, except what is packed in ashes.” Her husband used to laugh at her about losing it “because she could not tell a lie.” We laughed so much at Mrs. Mitchell, who was very brave until the trial came. She boasted that she was not afraid of the Yankees, that she would tell them plainly what she thought of them, but when they came and one of the officers galloped up to the house where she was boarding, she went out to meet him, answered his questions very politely, ending by asking him, “Won't you have something more, Won't you have some water?” He replied “No, I thank you, the branch is out here.” My stepmother said she would not be afraid of them (we had heard such dreadful reports of the way the soldiers treated the women), but when they galloped into the bam lot and with their guns broke the slats of the com crib to let the com run out on the ground for their horses, she went to bed sick with the silver concealed in the bed under her. There was no pretense about her sickness, excitement and anxiety had really made her sick. I had some pieces of old silver from my husband’s grandfather, and a dozen table spoons that had been made out of a silver sword presented to Capt. Granville Leftwich, U.S.A. (my husband’s uncle) for an act of special brav­ ery in the Seminole War, I was very anxious to save them and put them and a revolver up the chimney. My little daughter saw me, and kept me very anxious by continually asserting, “I won't tell the Yankees where Mama hid her silver spoons.” I put what little bacon I had under the mattress of my bed and slept on it several nights. But all our hardships were as nothing compared to the terrible suspense and anxiety we endured when we know that battles were raging, the feeling that our dear ones might then be lying dead or seriously wounded on the bat­ tlefield; the two most trying times of suspense were the battle of Gettysburg and the seven days fighting around Richmond. I hope the severe experience of our late war will protect us from another Civil War. I am thankful that we are an almost isolated people, we have but two close neighbors, Canada and Mexico, and I feel sure that Great Britain after her experience of 1776 and 1812 will be content with our present friendly relations. Another trial that I omitted mentioning was the difficulty of getting medical attention, our physicians were need­ ed in the army, and in the hospitals, so that the number at home was very limited and they had great difficulty in obtaining medicine. There was a good deal of fever one summer, I was aching terribly and felt very much depressed. I was young and inexperienced, with two small children and two young servants, I know I could not get the proper attention necessary for recovering from fever. A kind neighbor with a good deal of experience in sick­ ness came to see me, she inquired into the matter. I told her I felt sure I was taking typhoid fever, she said she thought I was very bilious and needed blue-mass, that she would send me some and if I would take two pills I would be relieved. She sent me a piece about the size of a partridge egg, I made it into two pills and took them. I was so sick I thought the fever was developing rapidly and sent for Mrs. Ferguson (who had given me the blue-mass); she asked me how much I had taken, I told her all of it, she said, “No wonder you are sick, but I think you will be bet­ ter soon.” She was right and I have had a great respect for heroic treatment ever since, as well as a great respect for blue-mass. We used boneset, sage camomile, saffron, and sassafras as medical teas, and tansy, sassaparilla and May apple roots, wild cucumber and wild cherry bark were made into bitters, elecampane and mullein were made into syrups for coughs, also rich pine knots soaked in whiskey for the same. Bruised comfrey was used to dress wounds, sprains, dog bites, etc. Teas made from watermelon and pumpkin seed, from parsley roots had their special values. We could always get turpentine for plasters, and spirits of turpentine were used for different purposes. We raised our own mustard seed for plasters, and hops for poultices. Another trouble we had was the want of light to work by at night, for we southern women were certainly not 38 �idlers during the war. We could get no sperm or wax candles, electric lights were unheard of, our village was too small for gas works. Tallow was difficult to get for making candles, so we had to depend chiefly upon pine knots and wax tapers. We would economize time and light by knitting by firelight in the winter evenings, often several friends would meet together and pass the evening together knitting as rapidly as possible. We not only had our own families and servants to knit for, but our soldiers had to be provided also. We knit not only socks, but gloves and wristlets in numbers. We made a wax taper that was really a work of ingenuity, we first melted equal quantities o f rosin and beeswax in a skillet, then taking a piece of candlewick several yards long would pass it slowly through the melted wax, one person with a short forked stick would hold it down in the melt­ ed wax, while two others would slowly draw it back and forth until it was the right thickness. It was pliable enough to wrap around a high candlestick, yet stiff enough to stand upright as it was burned. My husband and only brother went as volunteers in the first company that left our county. My father was a man of means, had only two children, and he not only willingly consented but wanted both son and son-in-law to do their duty (as he expressed it). It was Henry’s second session at Roanoke College, he left college in April and the first of May left home as a soldier, he was only nineteen. They belonged to Co. 1, 28th Virginia Regiment, Philip St. George Cocke’s Brigade, Pickett’s Division. Their first officers were Capt. Mat. Deyerle, Maj. William Watts, Lieut. Col. Robert Allen, Col. Robert Preston, Brig. Gen. Philip St. George Cocke, Maj. Gen. Pickett. Dr. Edward Rives was surgeon, and Rev. Peter Tinsly, Chaplain. Rev. Peter Tinsly was known as the fighting parson, was always in the midst of the battles to care for the wounded. My father said he didn’t believe in substitutes, that sol­ diers who fought for money would not fight as those who fought from principle. But many of our substitutes were brave men and tme patriots, men who wanted to help their country, but being poor needed the substitute money for their families. Mr. Terry and Henry served the four years, Henry never missed a battle in which Pickett’s Division was engaged, was slightly wounded at the battles of Gettysburg and Malvern Hill, had one spell of typhoid fever while his com­ mand was in winter quarters. After he was taken ill, he was brought home. Both were taken prisoners April 6, at Sailor’s Creek, three days before the surrender. Henry was confined at Fort Johnson, Lake Erie, my husband at Point Lookout, Md. As the prisoners were released alphabetically, they were detained some time. Mr. Terry came home the 20th of June, but had stopped ten days with a friend in Baltimore to gain strength for the trip home. He had been very ill in prison, and as the soldiers were brought home, packed and jammed together in box cars, on open flats, etc. he knew he would not be able to bear the trip home. I must speak words o f praise for the slaves of the South during the war. They have a noble record for faithful service, while the husbands and fathers were in the army their families were entrusted to the care of the servants, often on country farms there would be no white person, except the mother and small children. It is no wonder that Southerners have a tender regard for the colored people that our Northern neighbors cannot understand. When the surrender had taken place and their emancipation proclaimed they hardly knew what to do, they could not well real­ ize their freedom without changing homes. Two colored blacksmiths had been hired by their master to Mr. Raines who had a blacksmith shop, they quit work and as it was impossible for the farmers to make good crops without them, their former master wrote to the Yankees who were in authority in Lynchburg for power to enable him to fill his contract with Mr. Raines. They sent thirty men here to spend the summer, and their first act was to tie these men up by their thumbs, this struck the oth­ ers with terror, so that there was little difficulty about making the crops. The Yankees decided the ex-slaves must fill the contracts made by their masters at the beginning of the year, and that they should have the wages for which they had been hired. In looking back I feel a great sympathy for them, and can well understand their restlessness, for we had no money to pay wages, or buy clothes until after the wheat crop was made. It was difficult for them to realize they were free, living in the same homes, without wages, scarce o f clothing, often their families scattered, some living one place, some in other places. When the time for payment came it was difficult to settle the wages, they had been hired for Confederate money, and although this was well nigh valueless the last year of the Confederacy, yet it had a big sound and the greenbacks, gold or silver in which their wages must be paid seemed so little in proportion to the number of dollars for which they had been hired. Money was so difficult to obtain, there was nothing to sell, and everything to buy, the cattle and hogs had been killed to feed the soldiers, the horses had been taken for the army, wearing apparel, bed and table linen almost worn out, table-ware broken, kitchen utensils worn and broken, all farming implements in the last stages of usefulness; 39 �it was more trying financially the year of the surrender than during the war. One of the Yankees came to my house to trade coffee, candles and laundry soap for milk and vegetables. At that time I didn’t feel that it was right to have any dealings with them, but I was desperately in need of U.S. postage stamps, I could not write to my husband or brother in prison without them. I told him I would give him anything to eat I had if he would get me some stamps, he said he had stamps, but no paper, so we exchanged. He seemed a nice, kind man, but I couldn’t bear to have him in my house, I felt like a traitor making friends with the enemy while my dear ones were still in prison. I have often felt when thinking over the terrible ordeal through which we passed, that I could not bear a like experience, but I know when our greatest trials come we are mercifully strength­ ened to bear them, but war is dreadful, especially Civil War, where all the suffering falls on one people. When passing through trying experiences of the war we never thought it possible if defeat should come, that we would live to thank God for it; yet it is so. The South rejoices today over the downfall of the Confederacy, and real­ izes that our defeat was not only a national blessing, but a special blessing to the South. The war was a necessity, for legislation could never have settled the sectional differences so effectually as has been done, and I do feel that the lives of our soldiers were sacrificed in vain. Each true hearted soldier slain in our war fills a patriot’s grave, and his memory deserves a grateful and loyal tribute from all Southerners. The greatest blessing to us was the abolish­ ment of slavery, we were raised believing the institution right, we thought it sanctioned by Divine law, as well as by the laws o f our State, and that the sad things resulting from it were great misfortune^, and not the necesssary results of the institution. Time was required for our old prejudices to pass away, but sectional differences are now unknown. Northern capital has developed our resources, and many northern people (among them real Yankees) are among our most intimate friends, and marriages frequently taking place between the extremes of the Union. One thing we are proud of is that we were overpowered by our own people, no foreign enemy has ever been able to gain a victory over us. Our war was a family affair and settled among ourselves, we required no foreign arbitration to bring us to terms. I was bom December 1839, and feel that I have lived through an eventful age. Among my first recollections of national events was the Mexican War, the first hairless dog and homed frog I ever saw were brought by the return­ ing soldiers. I delighted in listening to their descriptions o f the country and battles, and was familiar as a child with the details of the battles. I remember the excitement caused by the discovery of gold in California, and have heard many wonderful experiences from the Forty-Niners. I read and heard discussed the political arguments on the slav­ ery question, becoming more bitter as each new state or territory was admitted into the Union, and saw the bitter­ ness and strife increase between the contending until the Civil War was the result, the war ending with our defeat, our surrender and the emancipation of the slaves. I have seen suffrage given to the freedmen, and public schools established for white and colored children alike in the South, and I have seen former slaves elected to the state legislature and to Congress, my father and brother serving in the state legislature with them. I have seen railroads made through our state and cities and towns spring up as if by magic. I remember when there were only three houses where the city of Roanoke now is. My own coun­ try home with its yard and garden is now a city residence, and forms a square of eight acres in the central part of the city. I had always felt I would not willingly live in the city, but the city came to us and enclosed us in its cir­ cumference and now I would not willingly go to the country again. I was in New York very soon after the Elevated Railroad began running, and I saw there the first public exhibi­ tion of electric lights; two immense globes were in front o f St. Patrick’s Cathedral in which a large festival was being carried on every evening. In our state I have seen cellars of the earth opened and rich stores of coal brought forth by the quantity, and kerosene brought from the storehouses of the earth to make our light. I have seen the sewing machine, the telephone, the typewriter, the phonograph, the cigarette, all made and patented. I have seen the mowers, cradles, binders and rakers all turned into machinery; my father purchased the first mower and reaper that were brought to Roanoke County. I have seen the six horsepower threshing machine turned into steam thresh­ ers that measure and bag wheat and stack the straw. I have seen ice cream frozen by steam and butter churned by steam, and artificial ice made. I have seen chickens hatched by artificial heat, and hovered by artificial mothers. Truly, the fifty-four years of my life have been the time of wonderful changes in my country and if six more years be added to my life, I shall see the close of the nineteenth century, and the beginning of the twentieth. �Peyton Terry: Roanoke's First Millionaire by Betty Low ❖ first printed in Vol. 14 No. 2 (2001) hen Roanoke was chartered in 1882, Peyton Leftwich Terry was recognized as the wealthiest man in town. Terry was bom in Campbell County on February 2, 1835, the son of Stephen and Lucinda Leftwich Terry. From a family of successful merchants, he was educated in Appomattox County. He came to Big Lick Depot at the age o f 16 in 1851 and worked in a mercantile business. Big Lick Depot was little more than a cluster of 10 to 12 buildings around the Trout House, an old stagecoach stop owned by George Trout, located at the present site of the Crystal Tower Building (formerly Ponce de Leon Hotel). Trout willed the business to his son, John Trout, who enlarged the house and ran it for the convenience of passengers of the Virginia-Tennessee Railroad, who stopped at the depot across the tracks. A spring and a creek were in the yard o f the house. John Trout owned all o f the land from present Shaffers Crossing to the East End Shops, north to Orange Avenue and south to Franklin Road and Tazewell Avenue. Benjamin Tinsley owned the land south of the Trout property to the top of Mill Mountain, joining the McClanahans, who owned the mill, Crystal Spring and the land south of Roanoke River. George Tayloe was Tinsley's neighbor to the east. Terry worked in Big Lick four years before moving to Texas briefly. His short time there would prove benefi­ cial in the future. When he returned to Big Lick, he married Mary Shaver Trout, daughter of John and Eliza Shaver Trout, owners of the Trout House. He resumed his career as a merchant at a store on the northeast comer of Commerce (now Second Street S.W.), and the railroad. Peyton and Mary Trout Terry would become the parents of five daughters: Lila; Alice R, who married Samuel W. Jamison; Martha L. who married Thompson W. Goodwin; Annie B., who died June 14, 1883, and Lucinda. When the Civil War began, Peyton Terry was one of the first from Big Lick to enlist. He joined the Roanoke Greys, the company of Capt. Madison Deyerle, Jackson’s Division, Second Corps. They fought at Cold Harbor, Antietam, Gettysburg and Five Forks. Terry was never wounded in his four years of service but Capt. Deyerle was killed in 1862. However, the whole company was captured three days before Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox. They were sent to Point Lookout, Md., for six weeks. Returning home, Terry resumed his career as a respected businessman. He adhered to Gen. Lee’s philosophy and quickly became a community leader in reconstmction. In an account of the Big Lick home front during the war, Mrs. Terry related that Union Gen. David Hunter burned the Big Lick Depot and searched some homes, missing theirs, although it was near the depot. Mrs. Terry reported that she slept, fully clothed, with only her two babies and two young servants in the house. She had hidden the last of their bacon under her mattress and the family sil­ ver and Leftwich sword were hidden in the chimney. In 1868, Benjamin Tinsley sold his house and land to Peyton Terry and the Terry family moved to the house, known as Elmwood, located at a site on the hill in the park east o f the present Main Library. His land extended from Franklin Road east to the Tayloe property in present Southeast Roanoke and to the top of Mill Mountain. A lane passed through the property, leading to Crystal Spring and the mill. Terry paid less than $20,000 for this land. By 1874, the small community of Big Lick had a new, brick depot and a jail. Application for incorporation as a town of one square mile was sought and approved by the state. A survey included all land one-half mile from the depot in all directions, except for Jane Lewis’s land. The new town was named Big Lick and the street in front of Terry’s store became Commerce Street, running from the railroad south to Franklin Road. The town included W Betty Low, a long time volunteer in the History Museum library, prepared this paper fo r a meeting o f the Wednesday History Club on Jan. 15, 1997. 41 �Gainsboro on the north, where most of the houses were sold or rented to freed blacks. John Trout was elected mayor of Big Lick and Terry was a town councilman. Terry and his wife’s brother, Henry Trout, bought 96 acres of land from John Trout, northwest of Big Lick, and they opened a stockyard there. They raised and shipped cattle. Terry was considered an expert cattleman. Seven years after the town of Big Lick was incorporated, the community learned that the Shenandoah Valley Railroad was looking for a terminal location in the Big Lick area. John Moomaw, a Cloverdale orchardist, recog­ nized the advantage o f a north-south rail line for shipping apples to northern markets. Terry, Henry Trout and oth­ ers became interested and called a meeting to plan strategy to get the terminal in Big Lick at a point connected to the east-west Norfolk and Western Railroad. The coming of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad led to the growth of the town to a “Magic City” and helped establishTerry’s status as the wealthiest man in Roanoke. The Roanoke Land & Improvement Co., organized by the railroad, began buying land and building houses. The company paid Terry $125,000 for his 650-acre farm, leaving him 6.5 acres around his home, Elmwood. Terry was the only Roanoker asked to serve on the board of the development firm. Woodland Park, the eastern portion of the Terry farm, was developed for about 100 houses for rail­ road employees and the Terry Orchard, later known as Orchard Hill or Officials Hill, was made available for railroad officials. The company decided on the hilltop location for Hotel Roanoke and a site below for the passenger station. Roanoke Land & Improvement bought the McClanahan land, near the foot of Mill Mountain, including Crystal Spring and mill. Water was pumped to a tank in Woodland Park. Terry, with the wealth from the sale of his land, became the principal officer in the new Roanoke Gas Company and later he had the same role in the electric company, water company, the WinstonSalem rail line and a Salem- Vinton rail line. When Roanoke’s population reached 5,000, the town asked for and received a state charter to gain city status in 1884. Terry and Henry Trout, his brother-in-law, were members of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church. When a Peyton Leftwich Terry new church was proposed at a cost of $9,000 in 1882, they saw that the money was in place quick­ ly. Terry gave a stained glass window in memory of his daughter, Ann, who had died recently, and Trout gave a window in memory of his father, John. The church was replaced in the 1890s at the same location, Church Avenue and Commerce (present Second) Street. The Lutherans, facing financial problems, traded church buildings with Greene Memorial Methodist, then located in a red, brick church at Campbell Avenue and Roanoke (now Third) Street. Mrs. Terry and Mrs. Trout gave land for the City Cemetery on Tazewell Avenue. Terry sold his store on Commerce Street to C.R. Wertz and went into the wholesale business. On Jan. 5, 1885, Walter Huff who occupied a room over the Terry store, was undressed, preparing for a bath, when his oil lamp exploded, starting a fire which spread so rapidly he was fortunate to escape with an unscorched hide. Most of the store’s merchandise was cigars and manufactured tobacco which bystanders moved and then helped themselves to so liberally that sermons on the incident were preached the following Sunday. The city, seeing the necessity for fire protection, soon acquired a steam pump. Terry and his son-in-law, S.W. Jamison, husband of Alice Terry, founded Roanoke Trust, Loan and Safe Deposit �Company with powers of unusual latitude in the 1880s. The company enjoyed such prosperity (at least on paper) that it soon sought proper quarters befitting its dignity. On Sept. 26, 1890, announcement was made that a verita­ ble skycraper, seven stories in height, would be erected on the southeast comer of Campbell Avenue and Jefferson Street, housing three banks, each with a separate entrance. Two hydraulic elevators and offices were located above. (The new Ponce de Leon Hotel, near completion, had only six stories). First National Bank had an entrance on Campbell Avenue, Roanoke Trust on the curved comer of Campbell and Jefferson and the entrance from Jefferson led to a lobby and elevators. Some tenants eagerly moved in before the brown brick and stone building was com­ pleted. For years, the Terry Building (no other name was ever suggested) was the point of reference when giving directions to other parts o f the city. Activity in Roanoke was beyond description in 1890. The Academy of Music on Salem Avenue and Rockledge Inn on top o f Mill Mountain were started. In April, a tornado went through the town, caus­ ing $20,000 damage and killing two people. In the summer, the water line from Crystal Spring broke and many Roanokers had to carry water from cisterns. On Dec. 16, a light snow began to fall. First Baptist Church members were meeting to decide whether certain members should form a new church. Having decided, they created Calvary Baptist. But members had difficulty getting home from the meeting. At Elmwood that evening, the Terrys held a grand reception attended by most of Roanoke's society. When the party ended, the snow was so deep that many guests spent the night at a nearby hotel.At 2 o’clock in the morning, the whistle from the Machine Works began to blow a dis­ tress signal. Under the weight of two feet of snow, the roof of the blacksmith shop col­ lapsed and started a brief fire. By morning, three feet o f snow had fallen and flimsy build­ ings collapsed all over Roanoke. Efforts to dig out were hampered by an additional eight Peyton Terry with three daughters: (from left) Martha, Lila and inches on Christmas Eve. This memorable Lucinda, around 1887. (Photo courtesy o f Martha Hull) snow seemed to end the boom that had sus­ tained Roanoke for a decade. That same year, the Shenandoah Valley Railroad, in receivership, was auctioned to the Norfolk and Western. The boom only slowed because building continued in 1891 on the Terry Building, the Academy of Music and Rockledge Inn on Mill Mountain. The Terry family and young John Trout went to Europe. While they were away, a stone and chain wall was built around Elmwood, with an iron carriage gate bearing the name ELMWOOD above. A spring behind the home was enclosed to form a small lake. The year 1892 saw excitement in the city. Terry's Winston-Salem rail line was completed and opened for traffic. With the Academy o f Music, Rockledge Inn and the now famous Terry Building completed, the city had cause to celebrate its 10th anniversary, the Decennial. On June 16, the day selected, several thousand people came to hear a 200-voice chorus, the Machine Shop orchestra and speeches. The next day, a parade featured the Machine Shop marching band, VMI cadets, Civil War veterans and many floats. The units gathered at Elmwood and serenaded 43 �Mr. and Mrs.Terry before the parade began. One report said there were 40,000 people along the parade route. In 1893, the whole country was hit by a terrible recession. People began to default on loans and the banks’ only recourse was to take near-worthless property. On June 15, 1896, the Roanoke Trust, Loan and Safe Deposit Company, Terry’s bank, did not open its doors for business. Terry met with S.W. Jamison, his son-in-law, and other officers o f the bank behind closed doors in his office. When they emerged, Lucian Cocke, trustee, announced that the bank was bankrupt. Creditors hoped to collect 5 cents on the dollar but there' were no assets. At a hearing, it was decided that the bank officials were guilty of nothing more than bad judgment. Jamison, worth $100,000, and Terry, worth $645,000, made an effort to repay every creditor. The editor o f the newspaper wrote a letter of encouragement and the community stood together. After that, most o f the old crowd was no longer promi­ nent in community affairs and new names began to appear. Terry died on Sunday evening, Dec. 17, 1898, at the age of 63. A newspaper obituary stated: “He was a steadfast friend, a devoted and affectionate father and in his death the city loses one of her most public-spirited men. The reverses and losses that overtook him in the evening’s sunset of life may have has­ The Terry Building, comer o f Jefferson Street tened his death.” Terry was buried in the City Cemetery on and Campbell Avenue, site o f the 1926 Tazewell Avenue, as was his wife, who died May 7,1910. She Colonial Arms Building which would become had indicated that she planned to sell Elmwood to the city but the present-day 204 Jefferson. the decision was left to her heirs. The property was sold to the city for $150,000 and the house, Elmwood, was used for Roanoke’s first Public Library from 1921 to 1952. In the mid-1880s, the Terry family joined St. John’s Episcopal Church. The altar rail there is dedicated to “the glory of God and the memory o f P.L. Terry.” The National Exchange Bank purchased the Terry Building which was demolished and replaced with the Colonial-American Bank Building in 1927. It later was known as the Colonial Arms Building. Terry was so much a part of Roanoke and Roanoke was a part of him. In 1893, he and three other industrialists erected a monument in Woodland Park in Southeast Roanoke, bearing this inscription, “Erected 1893 by P.L. Terry, F.J. Kimball, S.W. Jamison and Joseph H. Sands as an Industrial Monument to Mark the Progress of the City of Roanoke, Chartered 1882.” Today, the monument stands on the southeast comer of Elmwood Park, where it was moved for Roanoke’s Centennial in 1982. Bibliography Echoes of Roanoke, Raymond P. Barnes, Roanoke World-News February 20,27,1960; June 10,1961; July 4,15,22,1961; January 13,20,1962; February 2,1963; May 30, 1964; August 31, 1968 Confederate Veterans III. Raymond P. Barnes, Roanoke World-News, July 22, 1961 A History of the City of Roanoke, Raymond P. Barnes, Commonwealth Press Inc., Radford, Va., 1968 Roanoke, 1740-1982, Clare White, Roanoke Valley Historical Society, Hickory Printing, 1982 Roanoke 100, a centennial edition of The Roanoke Times, April 1982 History of Roanoke County, Roanoke City and the Norfolk & Western Railway Company, George S. Jack and E. B. Jacobs, Stone Printing, 1912, page 172 �E a r lu d r a fts m e n b y R o d d y M o o re ❖ fir s t p rin te d in Vol. 6 No. 2 (1^70) ■ arly settlers of Botetourt County were almost entirely self-sufficient in such domestic arts as those of the blacksmith, cooper, cobbler, weaver, tailor and distiller. However, several of the ancient ■ crafts — the gunsmith, potter, silversmith and cabinet maker — required apprenticeship. These B specialists produced an assortment of utilitarian objects much needed by the hardworking farmers who were ill-equipped to create them at home. The long Kentucky rifle was the frontiersman’s principal possession. With it, he protected himself and his fam­ ily from the Indians who did not care to give up their land to white settlers. With his Kentucky rifle, the frontiers­ man killed the game which provided three-fourths or even all of the meat for his table as well as skins to sell or to trade for commodities he could not produce himself. Botetourt County had a large number o f skilled gunsmiths who produced quality rifles in both the 18th and 19th century. In the 18th century, Andrew Telford, Francis Graham, Robert Rowland, Alexander Simpson, George Wilson, William McFerran and George Peter-man were making and repairing rifles in this area. The best known gunsmiths were John Sites and John Painter. Sites operated a shop in Fincastle from 1808 until he left for Missouri in 1834. Painter had a shop at Haymakertown from the 1830s until his death in 1900. Among the letters in the Roanoke Historical Society’s collection of Preston papers is one written by David Rowland o f the Botetourt gunsmith family on March 2, 1810. He wrote: “I perceive by a Notice of the Executive of Virginia — that the time for receiving proposals for making Gun carriages will expire on the 10th of this month — my father is very anxious that I should enter into a contractBgto furnish a number of carriages J§-1 am willing to undertake to make the whole number that will be wanted or any other not less than twenty and obligate myself to furnish three every month.” The best known potter of this region undoubtedly was “Potter Pete” Obenchain, who was bom in Botetourt County in 1822. His occupation was listed as potter in the U.S. Census of 1850 and 1860. His shop on Mill Creek was wiped out by the flood of 1877, according to tradition. The only known signed piece o f Obenchain pottery existing today is a red glazed, redware jardiniere, signed Matthew Obenchain, 1867 on the bottom. Other potters known to have worked in Botetourt were Jesse Hinkle, Joel Noftsinger and Robert Fulwiler. who are believed to have apprenticed under and later worked with Peter Obenchain, the Trout pottery in Troutville and the Sprinkle pottery. Unfortunately, many local potters left their products unmarked so identifiable specimens of their craftsmanship are difficult to obtain. As frontier settlements developed into towns and cities, the people replaced the primitive creations o f the earli- 45 �Above: “Potter Pete” Obenchain and his wife, Matilda Shank Obenchain. Below: A piece of Obenchain pottery, signed ‘Matthew Obenchain’ on the bottom. 46 er period with far more elaborate household objects. By the middle of the 18th century, silversmiths, clockmakers, jewelers, cabinet mak­ ers and other highly skilled crafts­ men had started to move into the county. One o f the earliest silversmiths here was John Welch, who moved into Fincastle during the latter part of the 18th century. He started his apprenticeship to the trades of sil­ versmith and clockmaker in 1806 and by 1817 had become a journey­ man and had taken Charles Aunspaugh as apprentice. In 1821, Welch advertised for another apprentice and in August 1822, Aunspaugh informed the public he was setting up a clock and watch shop across the mountain at Liberty in Bedford County. One o f the few pieces of signed and dated 18th century Virginia fur­ niture is a desk bearing the names of the makers, George Sawyers and Thomas Murphey, and the date, 1797. They lived and worked in the Sweet Springs area of what was then Botetourt County. The style and lines of this Chippendale desk show that it was made by a highly skilled craftsman, rather than a country car­ penter. The handmade objects remaining today prove that there were skilled craftsmen living and working in Botetourt in the last two centuries. These products and the work of many o f her craftsmen, unknown or long forgotten, make up a rich store of Botetourt County cultural history. �Old Bams o f Appalachia text and sketches by Henry Classic III ❖ first printed in Vol. 9 No. 1 (1974) y the Bronze Age, horizontal log construction, which had its origin in the northern European Mesolithic, was employed commonly throughout northern and central Europe; it was most usually found on a rectan­ gular building S - house, stable, or granary 4S with the door in one gable end. During the late Bronze Age the log houses of central Europe and particularly Germany began developing away from the simple rectangular gable-door form, which was introduced from the Near East in the Neolithic, but it was preserved on various out­ buildings which were brought to America centuries later by the Pennsylvania Germans. Fig. 1 From this ancient rectangular construction unit — usually in the mountains called a “crib” or a “pen” and here consistently referred to as a crib — developed, partially in Europe and partially in America, most, if not all, o f the traditional bam types found today in the Southern Mountains. The fact that the bams of the Southern Mountains are traceable to the Bronze Age and beyond implies that the Southern Mountain culture, which could become a casualty of the war on poverty, is continuous not only with medieval but also with prehistoric Europe. The first bams of the Appalachian area were constructed of log after the Pennsylvania German fashion: the logs were frequently hewn and dovetailed at the comers; however, bams were often less carefully constructed than houses and the logs left in the round, un-chinked and saddle notched, (fig. 1) Although today in the mountains there are abundant examples of old log bams and com cribs are still occasionally constructed of log, dur­ ing the past thirty years the older log bams have, in many cases, been replaced by frame ones o f the same types. The rectangular log construction unit, still used in Europe as a granary, was easily adapted to the storage of maize and became the com crib found throughout the Southern Mountains, (fig. 2) The com crib is the same form as the Pennsylvania one-level out-build­ ing; that is, rectangular with a gable or lean-to roof and the door in one gable end, except that the com crib rarely has the forward pro­ jecting room so commonly found on mountain smoke and spring houses. Recently com cribs have been built in the traditional form of horizontal slats; a halftimbering practice which logically suc­ ceeded horizontal unchinked logs. Frequently the com crib has a shed for the storage of farm equip­ ment — “gear” or “plunder” — on one side if it has a lean-to roof (fig. 3) or, less commonly, on one or both sides if it has a gable roof. In the German areas o f Pennsylvania the com crib had anoth- B This study o f Appalachian barns first appeared in the Summer 1965 issue o f Mountain Life and Work magazine and is used here with the author s permission. He was the first Pennsylvania state folklorist and he served on the faculty o f Pennsylvania State University. The author o/'Patterns in the Material Folk Culture o f the Eastern United States, University o f Pennsylvania Press, 1969, Dr. Glassie also worked at the Indiana University Folklore Institute. 47 �Fig. 4 6 48 er built by its side with a runway between the two producing the drive-in com crib. (fig. 4) The com crib with gear shed of log or frame is found throughout the Southern Appalachian region; whereas, the drive-in com crib is found usually o f frame in south­ eastern Pennsylvania, central Maryland, and down the Valley of Virginia, and of log or frame in the mountains which surround the Valley. Neither the com crib with gear shed nor the drive-in com crib were originally designed for stabling and neither ever consti­ tutes the sole bam of a farm. As the settlers moved out of eastern Pennsylvania the great Pennsylvania bam (fig. 12) was found to be uneconomical for the frontier farm so sheds for stabling were added to the sides of the rectangular log construction unit producing the single-crib bam. (fig. 5) The single-crib bam is closely related to the com crib with gear shed but may be distinguished from it by function (the sheds of the bam are used for stabling, the shed attached to the com crib for the storage of farm equipment), by form (the crib of the bam is a more moderate rectangle than that of the com crib with gear shed — ca. 16' x 12' as opposed to ca. 14' x 5 'l i p and may even be square), and by the fact that the crib of the single-crib bam is usu­ ally divided into two levels: the lower utilized for com storage, the upper as a hay loft or “mow,” whereas, the crib of the com crib with gear loft has only one level. The single-crib bam could be eas­ ily varied for the needs o f individual farms and as a result of this flexibility and the fact that it is simple to constmct and houses the stock, hay, and com necessary for the operation of a small farm, it became common in the northern Alleghenies and along the Blue Ridge from Virginia to Alabama. Tobacco, the one cash crop for many mountain farmers, is most usually cured in a section o f a crib bam or in an abandoned log house. Occasionally special bams are constructed for tobacco cur­ ing which have the same floor plan as the com crib, although they are usually considerably larger and taller, (fig. 6) In the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountain areas of North Carolina and Tennessee, tobacco is air cured so the logs are left unchinked. From the southern Virginia and North Carolina Piedmont eastward, where tobacco is flue cured, the logs are “daubed with mud” and the bam, although similar in appearance to the rectangular moun­ tain one, may be built on a square floor plan with the door in the side as is consistent with English tradition. The simple Neolithic rectangular gable-door constmction unit, was, in medieval Europe, varied into a form o f stable found occa­ sionally o f stone in German Pennsylvania and Maryland and fre­ quently o f log or frame in the Southern Mountains, (fig. 7) The first level of the rectangular mountain stable is usually divided into three sections: two areas for stabling separated by a walkway which has access to the hay loft above. Each o f these three sections has a door o f equal size leading to the outside, but it did not achieve its standard form, three doors into the first level and one into the second level all on the same side, until it became commonly built of frame. Sheds may be added to the sides of the stable, making it �Fig. 7 Fig. 8 superficially similar to the single-crib bam. In Europe the log rectangle frequently had another one built side by side with it or facing it; the two were sep­ arated by a runway and joined by a common roof. This bam, the double-crib, was brought by the Germans to Pennsylvania where, although once common, it is now only rarely found. The double-crib bam is found through­ out the Southern Mountains in a variety of forms which seem to have resulted from three basic types. The least common o f the three, doublecrib bam type I, is composed of two rectangular cribs facing each other so that the doors open into the runway, (fig. 8) The rectangular cribs of the double-crib bam type II are built side by side so the doors open to the front, (fig. 9) It is in this second type that there is the greatest variation, for the cribs may be square as well as rectangular and the doors may open into the runway. In the third type of double-crib bam, which is most common at the southern end of the mountains, the cribs are built side by side, like those of the double-crib bam type II, but each crib is divided in half and has two doors opening into the mnway. (fig. 10) The first level o f all the types o f double-crib bam is most commonly used for stabling and the second level, usually reached from doors opening into the mnway, for hay storage. Although the double-crib bam is not commonly used for com stor­ age, frequently one crib will be used for stabling and the other for com storage, in which case that side used as a com crib is usually the smaller. The mountain double-crib bam may have large doors on the ends of the runway and a heavy threshing floor, as is usually the case in Pennsylvania, but more usually doors and threshing floor are absent In the general area of the Blue Ridge and particularly the Great Smokies o f North Carolina and Tennessee the log double-crib bam type II is found with a large frame loft overhanging in front and back or on all sides by means of the cantilever principle (fig. 11). In southeastern Kentucky similar bams may be found but there the loft is occa­ sionally translated into log. This type was probably not developed in the mountains, but rather was brought down the Alleghenies fromPennsylvania, where similar bams may be very rarely found, and is traceable to a medieval German peasant house — the umgebindehaus — in which the ground level was o f log for warmth and the upper level, usually of frame, overhung by means of the cantilever principle. In the great Pennsylvania bam 2 the lower level, which is used for stabling, is built into a hillside, and the upper level, which overhangs in the rear — the forebay -— and is reached by a ramp, is divided into three: two hay mows separated by a threshing floor (fig. 12). It was apparently developed in eastern Pennsylvania by building a log dou­ ble-crib bam type II on a hillside with a stone basement under it as bams were often built in England, Germany 49 �and particularly in Switzerland. As the forebay is not essential to a log double-crib bam on a stone basement, it is likely that it was contributed by the umgebindehaus. In Pennsylvania and Maryland the great Pennsylvania bam is most usually built o f stone, brick or frame on a stone basement and rarely of log on stone basement; in the Valley of Virginia, where it not only has a forebay but also a narrow overhang on the other three sides, and in the Alleghenies, where the forebay is usually sup­ ported by posts, it is most often built entirely of frame, although examples of log or frame on a stone basement may also be found. There is nothing in the Southern Appalachian region to compare with the celebrated hex signs of southeastern Pennsylvania; yet, the bams of the Valley o f Virginia are often painted white with green trim and green spheres on the doors or red with white trim and white stars or galloping horses on the doors. The great Pennsylvania bam is found commonly in the Valley of Virginia as far south as Roanoke County and very rarely as far south as northeastern Tennessee. Although not well suited to small mountain farms, the Pennsylvania bam, usually of small proportions, may be found in the mountains surrounding the Valley. The Southern Appalachian folk culture is characterized by more than the preservation of what is archaic in other areas, for traditionally based innovation is clearly reflected in the development of instrumental music and certain architectural forms which have achieved wide distribution. The four-crib bam, which was developed in southeast­ ern Tennessee by placing two type II or III double-crib bams end to end, is composed of four cribs, usually used for stabling, separated by runways running from gable to gable and from side to side (fig. 13). In the older form of the four-crib bam, which is limited to the general area of the Great Smokies, the cribs are rectangular, the doors may open into either runway and the runway which runs from side to side may be wider than that running from gable to gable. In the later and more sym­ metrical form of the four-crib bam, occasionally found in south­ eastern Kentucky, western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, through the Tennessee Valley and deeply into Alabama and Mississippi, the cribs are square, all doors open into the gable-togable mnway, and the runways are of equal width. The four-crib bam is often found with one runway boarded up leaving only the gable-to-gable runway open. The resultant form is that of the transverse-crib bam (fig. 14) which was probably developed in the eastern Tennessee Valley, as there both the oldest log examples of the transverse-crib bam and the four-crib bam, from which it developed, may be found. The transverse-crib bam could be conceivably related to the drive-in com crib; however, unlike it each crib of the transverse crib bam is divided into two or three units, entered from the runway, which are usually used for stabling, although one might be set aside for com storage. Like the four-crib bam, the transverse-crib bam has a hay loft and often has sheds on the sides, which are features absent in the drive-in com crib. The transverse-crib bam, like the Pennsylvania bam, was developed in America from the ancient German double-crib bam into the per­ fect bam for the area of its development. The Pennsylvania bam is ideally suited to the rich rolling limestone lands of eastern Pennsylvania, central Maryland, and the Valley of Virginia in its capacity to shelter large herds and store great quantities of hay. The transverse-crib bam is equally well suited to the more prosperous farms of the mountain val­ leys, for under its roof can be stabled a moderate herd and stored large amounts of com and hay. It has also been eas­ ily enlarged and adapted for use as a dairy bam as in east­ ern Tennessee where it often has large doors on the ends of the mnway. Although not commonly found of log outside Fig. 11 �o f its area of probable origin, built of frame it has spread recently north up the Blue Ridge, and at an early date it was carried throughout the Tennessee Valley from where it spread south into Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana; west into Arkansas; and north through Kentucky into Indiana and Illinois. Although it had parallels in Germany and Scotland, the type of bam which was brought from the East by the English never became common in the mountains. The English bam is composed of two stabling areas separated by a threshing floor on the ends of which are placed large doors (fig. 15). Its tripartite floor plan seems to indicate a relationship between it, the mountain stable and the double-crib bam; in fact, the examples found along the Virginia-West Virginia Fig. 15 border may be type II log double-crib bams translated into frame. In Germany this bam was built of stone or half-timber, in Scotland o f stone, and in England, New England, the tidewater South, and infrequently along the eastern slopes of the Virginia Blue Ridge, of board over frame. It is difficult to tell whether the English bams in the Valley of Virginia, which frequently have a slight ramp, are of English or German origin; the fact that they bear a greater outward similarity to those found in Ohio than they do to those found in eastern Virginia or New England might, however, indicate a German origin. Occasionally it may be built on a bank with a stone basement as a result of influence from the Pennsylvania bam, but it never has the distinctive forebay. Realizing that all the bams of the Southern Mountains, with the exception of the English bam, were either intro­ duced in final form by the Pennsylvania Germans or were developed from Pennsylvania German bams, the schol­ ar should not be surprised that for a great number o f Southern Mountain tales, some tunes, and for Southern Mountain dulcimers and pottery, the closest European parallels are found in those areas from which the Pennsylvania Germans came. Further, a realization that a comparison of existing buildings with archaeological data reveals that the bams of the Southern Mountains are direct outgrowths o f prehistoric antecedents may lead the scholar to imply prehistoric parallels for Southern Mountain tales or melodic scales. „ill NOTES 1. The information in this article was derived primarily from field research in the Southern Mountains and the areas which contributed to the mountain culture. The author is indebted to Prof. Fred Kniffen for reading an earlier form of this paper and making many useful suggestions, and for supplying the photographs from which figure 5 was drawn. 2. The Pennsylvania bam is one o f the few American folk architectural elements which is beginning to receive ade­ quate attention, see: Alfred L. Shoemaker, ed. The Pennsylvania Bam (Kutztown, Pa., 1959) and Charles H. Dombusch, Pennsylvania German Bams (Allentown, Pa., 1958). In Dombusch's useful classification the mountain stable is related to types A and C, the double-crib bam is type B, the English bam is type D, and the great Pennsylvania bam is types F-G. Type J, as a variation on type G, is common in the Valley of Virginia, where type E is very rarely found. Type H rarely crosses the Potomac, and types K and L were not carried south of Pennsylvania. The log double-crib with overhanging frame loft, although present in York and Adams counties, was not reported in either book. It is probably that type referred to as the log and frame bam in the Pennsylvania tax reports for 1798 (see Shoemaker et al. pp. 29, 91-96). 3. The Pennsylvania Germans came from the Rhenish Palatinate, Switzerland, Bohemia, Silesia, Moravia, Saxony, Hesse, Wurtemburg and Alsace. �Roanoke Valley’s Early Iron Mines by Raymond P. Barnes ❖ first printed in Vol. 3 No. 2 (1967) he extensive deposits of minerals stored by nature in the mountains of Virginia were, for the greater part, unexploited until after the War Between the States. The lead mines near Fort Chiswell enjoyed early devel­ opment, but the rich seams o f coal in Western Virginia were not tapped until the newly organized Norfolk and Western Railroad in 1882-85 extended lines into the mountainous regions. It must be emphasized that Virginians were not unaware of these mineral resources — they simply did not have the capital to exploit them, and this factor, taken in connection with the limited demand for coal in the Southland, left development unencour­ T aged until rail lines permitted an outlet. BHBM In the Roanoke-Botetourt area it was common knowledge that a superabundance of low grade brown hematite iron ore could be easily mined. Locally, the “Speedwell” furnace of Robert Harvey was in operation at present Starkey before the turn of the 19th century. The slag heap of the “Cloverdale” furnace is still in evidence just south of the overhead crossing of the railroad on Rt. 11. Additional charcoal-fired furnaces operated in other sections of Botetourt. I .. . . . When in 1881 it was announced that the Shenandoah Valley Railroad would connect at a point at or near the Town of Big Lick,” an issue of the Salem Times-Register carried an item that Maj. William Lewis (owner of Lone Oak” formerly standing off Franklin Road) and several associates were camping m the highlands near Big Lick, “to find out what these mountains were made of.” That Western Virginia had large deposits o f coal, iron and lead was well known long before these lodes were exploited. From early days the lead mines at Fort Chiswell were worked at a profit, for this much needed mineral, used principally for moulding bullets or securing window panes, has sold at a premium for many years. Many wagon loads of lead passed over the Blue Ridge on a now-abandoned road en route to Williamsburg or m later times to Richmond. , Western Virginia is rich in brown hematite ore deposits, but the iron content is low. Much o f this ore was smelt­ ed in small charcoal-fired furnaces. The famous “Speedwell Furnace” on Back Creek at Starkey produced a partic­ ularly fine iron until it was destroyed by flood around 1825 and never rebuilt. About halfway between Buchanan and Troutville there is a small settlement called Lithia. On the exact site of the old railroad depot, Joseph R. Anderson around 1854 operated a furnace he called “New Cloverdale.” Anderson and his successors mined over 200,000 tons o f ore off the adjoining property. Although the plant ceased to oper­ ate in 1874, the settlement continues in existence. In the Roanoke direction, the next iron mine was at a station called “Houston,’ named for an official of the Crozier Iron Furnace which operated for years in northeastern Roanoke on 9th Street at the railroad. Today anyone familiar with the appearance of hematite-bearing rock or soil can see abundant evidence of this mineral by a casual stroll in our surrounding mountains. The curious can watch excavations for drainage ditches or basements to see if a vein of this ore is uncovered and such lodes are often exposed. Unfortunately, the ore content is o f a low grade. M H u Ferdinand Rorer, early promoter and local capitalist, a man of vision, prospected m a more scientific manner. He uncovered on the west ridge of Mill Mountain substantial ore deposits. Mineral rights were secured and a charter for the Rorer Iron Company was granted January 15, 1883 (Charter Book 1, p. 72, Salem). A narrow gauge railroad was constructed, from the mine about half a mile north of present Rt. 220, just below Peakwood Drive. The roadbed ran east immediately in front of Piney Grove Church, then on a bee-line to where the Winston-Salem Division tracks were laid in the early nineties. The little road ran up to cross Colonial Avenue, Raymond P. Barnes, a lawyer and a Roanoke native, wrote the monumental A History o f the City of Roanoke, as well a s a series o f columns in The Roanoke World-News on local and regional history. He died in m 3 . 52 �then down the brow of the hill, northwestwardly to a railroad trestle spanning Murray’s Run. From here it paralleled the Roanoke River (over the same bed now occupied by the belt line tracks) to an ore wash. Still going west over a fill of such a sandy composition, contractors over the years since its abandonment carted it away for use in mixing concrete. The little road crossed the river just below the present Wasena Bridge, then via a deep cut paralleling Ferdinand Avenue, proceeded west to emerge at a point west of 10th Street S.W. It then ran in a north-westwardly direction over the hills down to the N&W’s West End Yards to a loading platform about 16th Street S.W. Rolling equipment consisted of a “dinkey” engine and about 15 cars o f the “dump” type. By this time the little road was ready for operation, a considerable tonnage of ore was mined, awaiting transportation. In early Roanoke, Mr. Rorer occasionally entertained guests by giving a picnic, the climax of which was a free ride in empty dump cars out to the mines and return. Crozier Furnace, an early and leading industry of the new town o f Roanoke, had a huge plant at 9th Street S.E., and the railroad but it did not utilize ore from the Rorer mines, but instead that shipped here from some western counties. The Rorer ore found a market at Ironton, Ohio. Rorer had financial reverses, and men including Samuel Coit, William Welch and a Mr. Body took over leadership of the con­ cern, until the Virginia Iron, Coal & Coke Company (organized originally at Pulaski) came into possession of the corporate prop­ erties. (Incidentally, VICC moved its home offices to Roanoke in 1908 and has been here since.) At the mine itself a nice little settlement grew, with small frame houses for workmen (some of which are still standing) plus the inevitable commissary. A post office was established, known as “Gale, Virginia.” Wages ran about a dollar a day for com­ mon labor but an application to secure such a humble job required references of good character. When the Roanoke & Southern Railroad (presently the Winston-Salem district of the N&W) was constructed in the early nineties, the narrow gauge line was abandoned west of the new railroad and the ore wash located on McClanahan Run (ofttimes called Ore Branch), which parallels the Winston-Salem line. Here there were facilities to load “washed” ore directly into freight cars. For some years local ore continued to be sold to plants at Ironton, Ohio. After the Virginia Iron, Coal & Coke Co. took over the mines, this corporation came into ownership of the old Crozier Furnace and smelted local ore there. In addition, VICC opened a new ore deposit lying east of the present Ogden store on Rt. 119 and extended the "dinkey line" to the new mines. A crossing was made at the lane on the north side of the store, now a hard-surfaced county road. The little line ran down the bottom of the east of Rt. 119 to the ore wash. The original Rorer mines became in the early 1900s a favorite objective o f Sunday walks, adventure trips by boys, and in the fall offered a bountiful crop of chinquapins which grew on the abundant bushes located around the abandoned diggings. A small colony of colored people took over the “Gale” settlement. When the apparent inexhaustible Mesabi deposits were opened near Lake Superior to produce high grade ore, the brown hematite of the local section could not compete, but the mines still operated on a limited scale. When World War I brought a new demand for iron from any source, our local mines enjoyed a burst of renewed popular­ ity. It is not recalled just when operations ceased or the narrow gauge tracks were removed, but it was probably in the early twenties. �The Watts| a Pioneer Family by Helen R. Prillaman ❖ first printed in Vol 11 No. 2 (1982) he Watts family has contributed more to the Williamson Road area than any other pioneer family if for no other reason, most of the land in the Williamson Road area was Watts land The Barrens. In 1789 William Watts, from Prince Edward County, purchased 400 acres in The Barrens from General James Breckinridge, who had inherited The Barrens from his father, Robert Breckinridge, to whom the original patent had been granted. William Watts’ family was prominent in state and local affairs. His brother, Colonel John Watts, was a hero of the Revolution and a charter member of the Society of Cincinnati. William, a lawyer, was a member of the Virginia Constitutional Convention in 1788. William Watts’ son, General Edward Watts, inherited the 400 acres o f land which his father had purchased. In 1811 he married Elizabeth Breckinridge, daughter of General James Breckinridge, thereby getting control of a very large plantation in The Barrens. General Edward Watts built Oaklands about 1820. All historical accounts tell us that Oaklands was not a great or beautiful home in comparison to some of the ele­ gant homes which had been built but it was a large, attractive and roomy house which was known for its charm and hospitality. Oaklands was so popular to the many friends and relatives of the Watts family that it was necessary to construct cottages on the grounds to accommodate them. It was said that Oaklands could easily have been taken for a small watering place in view of the warm atmosphere o f enjoyment experienced by all of the many guests. We also find many comments about Mrs. Edward Watts’ charm and gentleness and hospitable nature in addition to her business and executive abilities. General Edward Watts was truly a fine Virginia gentleman from all accounts and was known for his gracious­ ness and modesty. He served as Roanoke County's first commonwealth attorney from 1839 to 1845. His son, William, served in the same capacity from 1845 to 1854. General Edward Watts twice was a candidate for gover­ nor o f Virginia on the Whig ticket in 1834 and 1842. General Edward Watts died at Oaklands on August 9, 1859. His wife died in 1862. The couple had ten children. William Watts, the oldest surviving son, came into an estate o f over 1,150 acres — the Watts Mill was located on Evans Spring Branch in what is now Washington Park and the land extended beyond Hershberger Road. On October 8, 1850, William Watts married Mary Allen, who was the daughter of Justice John J. Allen of Beaverdam near Buchanan. Mrs. Watts lived only a few weeks following the birth of their only child, J. Allen T Watts. William Watts was 44 years old when the clouds of the War Between the States reached the Roanoke Valley. He immediately joined the Roanoke Grays and was promptly elected lieutenant. He won rapid promotions because of his gallantry and qualities o f leadership, advancing to colonel. When he returned home after the war he lost no time in trying to restore the economic and physical health of Virginia. He served in the Virginia legislature in 1875 and died at Oaklands on May 1, 1877. The local United Daughters o f the Confederacy — William Watts Chapter enshrines his memory and we also find a large picture of Colonel Watts hanging in the Courthouse at Salem, Virginia. We also want to mention that history reflects another contribution for Colonel William Watts which greatly ben­ efited the people of the Blue Ridge — before the war he served as a member of the State Constitutional Convention of 1850-1851 which finally broke the lock which had been held by Eastern Virginia over the Commonwealth. We have learned of another contribution of this great family: that needy farmers of Roanoke, Craig and Botetourt Accounts o f the Watts fam ily and the Barrens (page 56). the Peter H u ff home which stood at the site o f Valley View Mall, are used here with permission o f Miss Helen Prillaman, from her Williamson Road history, A Place Apart. A longtime resident o f Williamson Road, she was a service director fo r an insurance agency. 54 �Painting by Roanoke artist John Will Creasy shows the property known as The Barrens, and later as the Huff farm. The property is now the site o f Valley View Mall. (Courtesy o f Christina Koomen Smith) Counties would drive up to the huge Watts’ bam at will and help themselves to seed wheat and com. The practice was so common they didn’t even bother to get permission before loading up the seed. The famed Oaklands burned in 1897 — much to the sorrow of the many people who had shared many an enjoy­ able time there. The Watts family continued their service to the area and the Commonwealth. John Allen Watts, the only son of William and Mary Allen Watts, married Gertrude Lee, whose grandfather was a Justice of the State Court of Appeals. J. Allen Watts practiced law first in Salem, Then when the City of Roanoke was chartered in 1882, he moved his practice there. He served as counsel for the N&W Railway for 20 years and also served on the Roanoke City Council. In 1893 he was elected to the State Senate. His daughter, Jean, married Abram R Staples, who was a Senator, Attorney General and Justice of the Virginia Supreme Court. William, his son, married Ellen Catogni, daughter of Louis Catogni. Their son, William, the last male survivor of the direct line, lives in a house built near the famed Oaklands. It is interesting to find that the Watts home place has remained in the hands o f the original pioneer family for almost 200 years. Shortly after 1900 we find that families began moving into the Williamson Road area, buying acreage from 5 to 60, from Mrs. Gertrude Lee Watts, surviving wife of J. Allen Watts. When Interstate 581 was built into the City of Roanoke the Watts home place tract was intersected; the nature and need of the land changed. Round Hill School was built on a knoll overlooking the site of the famed Oaklands. The Watts Cemetery was moved a few years ago to Fairview. We must reflect on the many well-known and prominent people who were laid to rest there. �The Barrens: A Garden Spot by Helen R. Prillaman ❖ first printed in Voi 11 No. 2 (1982) etitia Gamble Watts, bom in 1829, was a daughter of General Edward Watts and Elizabeth Breckinridge Watts of Oaklands. She married Dr. Langdon Rives, a physician from Ohio, on January 22, 1850. The couple resided at Oaklands until 1861. When the War Between The States began, Dr. Rives offered his services to the South. He was an Army sur­ geon and was stationed in Richmond until his death from pneumonia on March 18, 1862. He was buried in the Watts Cemetery at Oaklands. (This cemetery was moved to Fairview a short while ago). On March 11, 1865 Mrs. Rives married Dr. Francis Sorrel whom she had known for some years. Dr. Sorrel was bom in Savannah, Georgia in 1827, graduated from Princeton and took his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He accepted a commission in the U.S. Army Medical Corps when he com­ pleted his studies in 1848. Working in the Army on the frontier was a difficult job and he resigned his commis­ sion in 1856. He toured Europe and after returning to this country he decided to go to the booming state of California. He served one term in the California legislature. There were many Southern sympathizers in California and when the War Between The States began he had lit­ tle trouble deciding where his sympathies lay. He returned to Richmond and offered his services to the Confederacy. In view o f his training and experience he was charged with erecting and maintenance of the general hospital in Richmond. He remained in this position until Richmond was evacuated in 1865; he returned to Oaklands and was there when the .news of the surrender came. General Edward Watts died in 1859 and while by partition, his eldest son, William, received the major part of the estate, Mrs. Sorrel received over 240 acres o f land as did her sister, Alice, who had married Justice William J. Robertson of Charlottesville. Shortly after the war ended, Dr. Sorrel and Letitia built a lovely two-story brick house on the land which she had inherited from General Watts. This house stood north of Oaklands and was called The Barrens. This land was truly the garden spot of the valley, producing lush crops, especially wheat. Dr. Sorrel and his wife lived at The Barrens until her death in 1900. J. Allen Watts (grandson of General Edward Watts), owner of Oaklands, moved into the City of Roanoke to be near his work. He rented Oaklands plantation to George and Peter C. Huff. It was while George Huff lived at Oaklands that it burned in 1897. Peter C. Huff lived in a cottage nearby. After Mrs. Sorrel died in 1900 The Barrens was sold to Peter C. Huff for the sum of $24,400 with a portion only being paid in cash. Actually The Barrens only brought $100 per acre — not counting the house. What an investment for Peter C. Huff! The Barrens — a beautiful house surrounded by beautiful and fertile land — was demolished in November 1981. This is the land that the Valley View Shopping Center hopes to put the big shop­ ping center on. What a shame, and how sad it is to see such a beautiful place disappear from the Valley and our L area. We find that Dr. Sorrel moved into Roanoke after his wife’s death and lived on Franklin Road. In 1901 m St. John’s Episcopal Church, he dedicated the beautiful stained glass memorial window overlooking the altar, “To the Glory of God and in memory of Letitia Gamble Sorrel.” Dr. Sorrel died in Washington, D.C., in 1916 and his body was returned to the Watts cemetery for burial. The Barrens, long known as the P.C. Huff home, was razed for the Valley View Mall shopping center in 1981. 56 �Hotel Roanoke A large and well equipped hotel otel Roanoke stood alone on a hill above the railroad in this 1890 photo, eight years after it opened. By invitation of H. Chipman, Esq.i the polite and attentive superintendent of the Roanoke Land and Improvement Company of this place, we, accompanied by him, visited and inspected this splendid hotel, which is now nearly ready to be opened to the public. The main building o f this hotel is 177 feet long by 73 feet in width, to which is added an annex 132 feet long by 48 feet wide, the whole containing about 100 rooms. Entering the BASEMENT on the left hand came the Barber shop, with bath rooms attached, all fully equipped and supplied with hot and cold water and finished up in handsome style. Adjacent to these rooms is a compartment in which is a Lebrant & McDowell hot air furnace of large capacity, with three coal rooms each 30 x 40 feet. On the right come the large finely finished bar rooms, in which we observed large fire places of pressed brick after the Queen Anne style, which is the style o f architecture of the entire building. Passing through the bar rooms, we reached four large and excellently ventilated store-rooms for keeping supplies, while still further to the right comes the apartment fitted up for a STEAM LAUNDRY This apartment contains a boiler of great capacity for use in washing and drying rooms lined with galvanized iron, together with many minor arrangements for complete effi­ ciency and prompt work. Lastly under this wing comes the BAKERY in which is a large brick oven, 6 x 6 feet inside measurement, with several smaller compartments adjacent for use in connection with the bakery, while an elevator runs from this apartment to the 3rd floor. All the different apartments in the basement are supplied with all necessary closets, etc. Ascending to the first floor and entering the south entrance fronting the union depot, we came to the OFFICE H Editor’s Note: This description o f the new Hotel Roanoke is printed verbatim from The Leader, published in Roanoke on October 28, 1882. This story was first printed in Vbl. 13 No, 2 (1996). 57 �Hotel Roanoke and environs in 1924. (Underwood & Underwood photo) of the hotel, handsomely finished in paneling and carved oak; the floor polished until it shone like a looking glass. The ceiling is also in highly polished wood, natural grain; the room is lighted by three elegant chandeliers o f eight lights each. It also has electric bell attachments to every room, a handsome gong and large fireplace of pressed brick, besides registers from the hot air furnace beneath. On the right, approaching the grand stairway, is the ... oiled woods, as is the office, equipped with handsome chandeliers and numerous conveniences. Passing beyond the stair­ way, we enter the grand DINING SALOON capable of seating two hundred guests, brilliantly lighted by six chan­ deliers of eight lights each. This room is finished up in the same style as the office and gentlemen's parlor and is extremely handsome. Adjoining the dining room is a spacious and fully equipped butler’s pantry, with electric and speaking tube connections with the various departments with which he has use. On the left hand side of this pantry is a store room fitted up with shelves and boxes for groceries etc. Next to this apartment comes the KITCHEN. This most important quarter is most admirably and completely equipped with all appliances and aids to the culinary art. A range of the largest size, manufactured by Bramhall, Deane & Co. o f Philadelphia, is located on one side of the room; it contains two fire boxes, three large ovens, an immense broiler and boiler of great size. There is also an apparatus for keeping meats, vegetables & c. [old style for “etc.” -ed.\ warm by means of hot water circulated ingeniously through pipes, in which the heat can be diminished or increased as pleased. Here we also noticed the coffee, tea and milk urns, large and handsome, with glass gauge attachments which indicate the amount in each vessel; these were also manufactured by Bramhall, Deane & Co. Just beyond are the dish compartments, contain­ ing 12 closets closed from floor to ceiling and fitted up with apparatus for warming dishes by steam. An elevator passes through this room also. Further beyond is a refrigerating apartment of the J.H. Ridgeway patent. This con­ tains two apartments with places for ice, each capable of holding something like a ton, and arranged with banks, shelves & c. for meats, butter, vegetables & c. Six beeves could be hung in either one of these apartments and kept indefinitely. At the extreme end of this wing is another storage room. Ascending the grand stairway ornamented with carved and polished oak and lighted by a ... strikingly arranged with paneling over hard finished plaster. Here, also, is a spacious pressed brick fireplace, besides registers from the hot air furnace below, and glass doors opening on the verandah. This floor contains nineteen sleeping apartments, all roomy, excellently ventilated, and furnished alternately in ash and ebony, the floors all carpeted, linen rooms and all possible conveniences provided throughout. A small ebony knob in each room needs but to be touched by 58 �the guest to ring the bell in the office. A back stairway also leads downward and upward. On the third floor is fif­ teen sleeping apartments, besides linen rooms & c., all elegantly furnished and carpeted, with electric call bell attachments and every possible convenience for guests. At the end of this floor is an apartment containing a large iron tank capable o f holding some 3,000 gallons which will be kept filled with water, pumped up by the machine works, to be used in case of fire. Passing through an open hallway, we enter the annex or wing of the main build­ ing, 132 feet long by 48 feet wide. This wing is surrounded on three sides by spacious verandahs at each floor from which the view o f the sur­ rounding country is almost enchanting. The basement of this part is at present in one large apartment the full size of the building, and which will probably be fitted up for a billiard saloon. The first and second floors have fourteen sleeping rooms each, and on the third floor are seven, besides numberless closets, linen rooms & c. This portion is also fitted up in the same style as the main build­ ing: electric call-bell attach­ ments, elegant chandeliers, and handsome , protected lights for the verandahs. The hotel and grounds are lighted by gas, and supplied with water from the famous McClanahan spring. The sys­ tem of drainage is extensive Hotel Roanoke /o^ in the 1950s' and most complete. Situated on a commanding eminence, there is ample fall to take off all waste matter, and keep the entire premises dry and sweet. The grounds — containing some six acres — are being enclosed and graded, and will be lighted by some twenty gas lamps. At each post in the surrounding fence will be planted a vine. Some five hundred trees have been ordered for planting on the grounds, which will be laid off and arranged by Mr. Hayes, landscape gardener, of Philadelphia, under the supervision o f H. Chipman, Esq. The entrance and driveway gates will be manufactured by the Cleveland Wrought Iron Fence Co. of Ohio. Taken in its entirety, this is one of the most commodious, well arranged and handsomely finished hotels we have ever seen outside o f a few of our largest cities. There is one feature, however, in which it cannot be equalled, and that is the MAGNIFICENT VIEW presented from the verandas and every window and door in the building. The view needs to be seen to be appreciated. We have neither the ability or space to depict it in words. On every hand the horizon is met by mountains of attractive outline, while the landscape intervening is beautiful and attractive. On the South, the hotel overlooks the union depot, the machine works, round houses, and a large portion of our pic­ turesque town; on the East we have the round houses, machine and car works, also besides the iron furnaces which loom up in the distance and another section of the town; on the North and West, an extended and varied landscape, while, as before said, mountains are seen on all sides. This cannot fail to become a most popular resort, and under the experienced management of the lessee, Mr. Mullin, will soon become famous with the traveling public and visitors to our growing city. The hotel has been built by the Roanoke Land and Improvement Company at a cost o f about sixty thousand dollars. �Vice Presidential Candidate had Carvins Cove Summer Home by George Kegley £ £ ♦ first printed in Vol. M No. 2 (2001) A / \ nation has lost a leader and a statesman,” said a Roanoke World-News editorial on Aug. 21, 1917, in a report on the funeral and burial of former U.S. Sen. John Worth Kem of Indiana at his summer home, X X-Kemcliffe, in Carvins Cove. The statesman who tramped over the hills around the cove also conferred with President Woodrow Wilson about World War I and received more than 6.4 million votes in a losing race for vice president in November 1908. Kem had been the unsuccessful candidate for vice president, the nation’s second highest office, less than nine years before his death. In the 1908 election, the Democratic ticket of William Jennings Bryan and John W. Kem lost to the winning Republican slate of William Howard Taft and James S. Sherman. The popular vote was much closer than the totals from the Electoral College. Taft and Sherman won 321 to 162 on the electoral count. However, the popular vote margin was much closer — Taft and Sherman had 7,679,006 popular votes to 6,409,106 for Bryan and Kem. After losing for vice president, Kem was elected to the Senate and served from 1911 to 1917. In a rapid rise to prominence, within two years after his election to the Senate, he was named chairman o f the controlling Democratic caucus, serving from 1913 to 1917, and as chairman of the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections. In 47 years in politics, Kem lost more elections than he won but he briefly held influence in high places in Washington. Almost forgotten today, Sen. Kem had several strong ties to the Roanoke Valley and Virginia. Bom in Alto, Ind. on Dec. 20, 1849, he died at 67 on Aug. 17, 1917. His great-great-grandfather Adam Kem came from Germany in the 1700s and settled near Winchester. The family left its name with Kemstown in Frederick County, Va. Jacob Harrison Kem, father of Sen. Kem and a great-grandson of Adam Kem, acquired land in Botetourt County and lived there before he moved west, became a physician and practiced in Indiana and Iowa. After the death of his first wife, Dr. Jacob Kem returned to Carvins Cove about 1870 and lived there and at nearby Daleville until his death in 1901. He and his wife Sen. John Kern on his way to the were buried in a family cemetery in Daleville and the remains eventually Capitol in Washington. (All photos were moved to Mount Union Cemetery at Haymakertown in Botetourt taken from The Life of John Worth County. Kern, by Claude G. Bowers) Sen. Kem built a large summer home, Kemcliffe, on a bluff overlooking the road into the cove soon after he was elected to the Senate. He often retreated there with his family and they entertained prominent guests from Washington. Among the guests was K em ’s friend and fellow Indianan, Vice President Thomas Marshall and his wife, who were royally entertained at Kemcliffe, at Hollins College and a major reception on Orchard Hill in Roanoke in 1914. Marshall was vice president under President Woodrow Wilson from George Kegley, a longtime resident o f Roanoke, is a director emeritus o f the History Museum, and editor o f the Journal since 1968. 60 �1913 to 1921. When Senator Kern died three years later at Asheville, N.C., while resting from a strenuous Southern speaking trip, he was buried at Kemcliffe but the body was moved to Indianapolis in 1929. This was about the time when the City of Roanoke was buying property in Carvins Cove before the dam was constructed and the lake filled. Another local tie came through his daughter, Julia, who married Dr. George B. Lawson of Roanoke on Christmas Day, 1913. She later said that was the only day the family was certain that her father would be home from the Senate. Through her father’s political connections, she knew five presidents: Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. She had four children, was a Mother of the Year, played a piano duet in the Governor’s Mansion in Richmond when she was almost 90 and was presi­ dent of the Thursday Morning Music Club. The Lawsons had four children but none are living today. George Jr. lived in Salem; Katherine was a writer/photographer in Paris and California; Judy lived in Norfolk and John, a pilot, died in World War II. The World-News editorial in 1917 had high praise for the former senator: One for whom over six million of his fellow men had cast their vote for the second highest office in their power to bestow; whom his own state had ever delighted to honor; who had for four years been the leader of his, the dominant party in the Senate; who had been through a great world cri­ sis (World War I); who had been the intimate friend and trusted counselor of the president; who had measured up to the full status of a man under every test which high office and trying times could apply to him, was laid to rest in the presence of a few friends and neighbors and with a bur­ ial service of a sweet and beautiful simplicity appropriate to the strength and gentleness of his exalted character. About 200 people attended the funeral. Dr. George Braxton Taylor, minister at Enon Baptist Church, Hollins, conducted the funeral at the summer home. Lucian H. Cocke, a Norfolk and Western Railway lawyer and a Roanoke friend, spoke of the senator’s life and serv­ ice, several Hollins College students sang and Joseph A. Turner, a Hollins official, closed the service with a prayer. Kem died of uremic poisoning at Asheville, N.C. He had traveled to Asheville a week earlier to recuperate after a speaking tour in the South under the auspices of the National Lincoln Chautauqua system. He spoke in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Kentucky. His last public speech was at Carrollton, Ky. on June 23. Before starting the tour, Kem had a conference with President Woodrow Wilson and brought a message from the President to the people urging them to be steadfast in the war situation, according to The Indianapolis News. The World-News editorial closed K em ’s career: “It was at sunset, above the waters of Carvins Creek, on one of the western foothills of Tinker Mountain that he was buried. There his father and grandfather had lived; there he himself had spent many of the years o f his early youth; there he had hoped to find an age of rest from his long life of generous and untiring service to his country, and there he sleeps today.” Claude Bowers, former secretary for Kem and later editor of the Ft. Wayne, Ind., Joumal-Gazeteer and the author of a 475-page biography of the senator, wrote, “Senator Kem sacrificed his life in the service of his coun­ try, and when the history of President Wilson’s administration is written and the inner facts are disclosed the great­ ness of the man will be established...No man ever served Indiana in the Senate more conscientiously, with greater constancy or with purer purposes.” In his biography, Bowers described how Araminta Kem, wife of the senator, designed Kemcliffe on a breezy, wooded knoll between two mountain ranges. He quotes an article from The Ladies Home Journal and The Indianapolis News, telling of a living room 40 feet long, a dining room with a big fireplace, a sitting room for the two Kem sons, Sunset porch, “where we eat supper and watch the sun go down behind the mountains, four sleep­ ing porches (and) dozens of little sanctuaries where one may write or read in pleasant or in tempestuous weather.” The big, rambling house had a lodge and Tree Top House in an oak tree, “a charming little house with a lookout tower in the trcetop.” _ • Juliet V. Ross, the Indiana writer who told of the summer house, said Araminta Kem “has for neighbors the cos­ mopolitan folks of Roanoke, the wonderful and noble people from the nearby college at Hollins and the plain, stur­ dy farmers of the cove.” Of the people who lived in the cove, who had to move out when the present lake filled, 61 �“their quaint homesteads cling to the feet of the mountain,” Ross wrote. In her article written about 85 years ago, she said, “Roanoke is the most progressive city in Virginia — a bustling modem city, with no distinct flavor of the old regime in its business life. All sorts of progressive people are there.” When the senator escaped from his busy governmental tasks, he was revived as he rode the four miles from Hollins, crossing the foot of Tinker Mountain, to Kemcliffe, according to Bowers’ biography. He came here “for rest and inspiration during the long dreary grind of his senatorial career.” Kern spent his time resting on the sleep­ ing porches, reading or tramping the hills, wearing the garb of a mountain climber and carrying a heavy cane as protection against snakes. Sometimes he carried an ax and a hatchet to help in clearing land. The Bowers biography said Kem “loved this home in the Blue Ridge, where he could relax, ramble at will over the hills, and sit in the evenings holding the hands of his boys.” Just three years before his death, the Kems and their guests, Vice President and Mrs. Thomas Marshall were central figures in a momentous social weekend at Kemcliffe and in Roanoke. The party enjoyed May Day festivities at Hollins College on Saturday and the follow­ ing day, guests enjoyed “a genuine, old-fashioned Virginia dinner” at Kemcliffe, Many people called in the afternoon to meet the Marshalls, the World-News report­ ed: “Much merriment was caused during the afternoon by the arrival o f a mountain couple, asking to see these distinguished guests, who proved to be Mrs. Lucian Cocke and Mr. Joseph Turner o f Hollins, whose clever disguises mystified the guests for a short time.” On Monday, the Vice President and his wife, accom­ panied by Araminta Kem, “motored to Roanoke” to Cockespur, the Orchard Hill home of the Lucian Cockes, for a reception for nearly 1,000 guests, on “one of the most notable days in the social history of the city.” Sen. Kem was called away from the festivities to Washington by urgent business. The newspaper account of the 1914 reception said the scene was “one of marked brilliancy and animation. With the handsome gowned women and their escorts, beautiful surroundings and music, it is an event that will long be remembered.” During “the serv­ ing of the delicious menu, animated conversation was Sen. John Kern holds his grandson, George B. enjoyed.” The reception ended a series of “delightful Lawson Jr., as his daughter, Julia Kern Lawson of entertainments” in honor of the Marshalls, who later left Roanoke, looks on. on the Memphis Special for Washington. Another report in Helen Prillaman’s Places Near the Mountains said Vice President Marshall spoke to the Men s Bible Class at the Cove Alum Baptist Church during a visit to Kemcliffe. The Indianapolis News had this evaluation of Kem in an editorial on Aug. 18, 1917: “... he was widely known as a man of friendly and kindly nature. Though a strong partisan, he had many admirers among Republicans. For many years, Mr. Kem had been prominent in politics. Twice his party’s candidate for Governor under conditions that made election impossible, and once its Candidate for Vice President when success was out of the question. Mr. Kem fought three losing battles in such a way as greatly to strengthen his hold on the people. As senator, he had the confidence and respect o f his colleagues who gladly accepted him as majority leader of the Senate. President Wilson had no more steadfast supporter in that body.” Kem attended the normal school at Kokomo, Ind., taught school and graduated from the law department of the University of Michigan in 1869. He practiced law in Kokomo, was an unsuccessful candidate for the state House �of Representatives, his first election cam­ paign, in 1870. He served as Kokomo city attorney, reporter of the Indiana Supreme Court, as a member of the State Senate, spe­ cial assistant U.S. district attorney and Indianapolis city solicitor. He lost two elec­ tions for governor before he ran on the Bryan ticket for Vice President. The New York Times reported that in 1853 the Kern family “moved to a farm in Iowa and there for ten years he led the life of a pioneer, for during that time, he never saw a railroad train.” The senator came to be known as “Uncle John Kern” and everybody who knew him had a kind word for him, according to The Indianapolis News. When the Senate heard o f his death on Saturday, Aug. 18, 1917, Sen. Harry S. New, the Republican who defeated Kern, made a motion, adopted by the Senate, calling for recess until Monday. John W Kem Jr., one of the senator’s two sons, placed a marker at his father's grave in Carvins Cove, bearing this inscription: “Here lies in Peace, the body o f John Worth Kem; Resting after the Labors of a Life Lived for the Welfare of the People.” Among the tributes after Sen. Kern’s death was this comment by William B. Wilson, secretary of labor under President Woodrow Wilson, in the Claude Bowers biography: “He belonged to a race of states­ men whose type and example was Abraham Lincoln. These unite simplicity and sincerity Top: Kerneliffe, Sen. John Kern’s summer home at Carvins Cove. with ability and power. They are rugged and Bottom: Sen. Kern with two grandsons at Kerncliffe. strong, like the hills, genial and fruitful like the prairies, and like all these qualities o f nature, honest. Throughout a long and distinguished public career which attained to eminence in the history o f his country, Senator Kem never wavered from his early ideals. Like all constructive men, he endeavored to adapt them to the necessities and requirements of a changing age, but he maintained them in their integrity to the last. They became part of the strong structure o f better things — better because John Worth Kem lived.” Sources The Life o f John Worth Kern, Claude G. Bowers. The Hollenbeck Press, Indianapolis, Ind., 1918 Biographical Directory of the United States Congress Places Near the Mountains, Helen R. Prillaman. Privately published. Roanoke, Va., 1985 The New York Times, Aug. 18, 1917 The Indianapolis News, Aug. 18, 1917 The Roanoke World-News, Aug. 21, 1917 63 �Gilmer A ven u I Northwest by Alice Roberts and Margaret Roberts ❖ first printed in Vol 14 No. 1 (1999) efore Orange Avenue replaced the Lynchburg Turnpike, Gilmer Avenue served as the main eastwest route through the city, north of Shenandoah Avenue. From 1887 to 1920, black community leaders and profes­ sionals had offices and homes in the northwest corridor. Offices and businesses were on Gainsboro Road, Henry Street and the first block of Gilmer. Homes were located on Gilmer, Patton and Wells avenues and High Street (now Loudon Avenue, west of Henry Street). Prior to 1900, the south side of Gilmer Avenue, Jefferson to Fifth Street, had been developed with homes on every lot. The north side for five blocks had only 21 houses and one church. Today, many o f the houses are over 100 years old. Black homes and businesses were in the surrounding area in the 1890s. An acceleration o f construction on the north side o f Gilmer took place from 1903 through 1907. The significant move of black residents to Gilmer Avenue occurred around 1910, with 1915 being the date o f first purchases in the 400 block. The black-owned Gilmer Apartments at 301 Gilmer had their first tenants in 1925. Blacks moved to Gilmer Avenue east o f Jefferson Street after 1927. The intersection o f Gilmer Avenue, Henry Street and Gainsboro Road was the professional and business hub. The Cosmopolitan Office Building on the northwest comer of Gilmer and Gainsboro was owned by local black stockholders. Its offices included physicians, dentists, attorneys, Richmond Beneficial Insurance, Magic City Building and Loan, Johnson and Reid Realtors and the Association of Colored Railway Trainmen. At various times, the first floor had a grocery, beauty parlor and a candy kitchen. On Gilmer Avenue, one block east and one block west of the Gainsboro Road/Henry Street intersection, were located a service station, barber shop, photographer, made-to-order bake shop and milliner. Prior to moving to B Alice Roberts is a retired medical librarian and her sister, Margaret Roberts, retired as a clinical dietician. Their fam ily has lived in the same house on Gilmer Avenue fo r 80 years. Their father, Dr. J.H. Roberts, was a co-founder o f Burrell Memorial Hospital. 64 �Henry Street, the Roanoke Tribune had its beginnings in 1939 in the first block of Gilmer. The first black under­ takers were located on Gilmer Avenue and Gainsboro Road. The Burrell Memorial Hospital opened in 1915 at 311 Henry Street. Its founders lived in the Gainsboro area, with two residing on Gilmer Avenue. The hospital moved to McDowell Avenue in 1921. The Gilmer community represented an educational, social and economic mix, with skilled and unskilled persons living side by side. Gilmer Avenue was always integrated. Until the mid-1940s, each block had a convenience/grocery store, owned and operated by whites, with the exception of a store owned by blacks in the 300 block. The own­ ers lived next door or above their business and were a part of community life. One family (non-grocery owner) lived in the 400 block from the turn of the century to their deaths in the 1930s. The church was the center and life of the community, spiritually and socially. It also was a source of informa­ tion and guidance regarding public, legal and social issues. Most residents were members of one of the following churches: First Baptist on Jefferson Street, High Street Baptist on High Street (now Centre Avenue, east of Henry Street), Ebenezer AME on Wells Avenue, St. Paul Methodist (which in 1915 moved from Henry Street to the cor­ ner of Gilmer and Fifth Street), Mt Zion AME on Gainsboro Road and Fifth Avenue Presbyterian on Patton Avenue. The Phyllis Wheatley (later Lula Williams) Branch of the YWCA had its beginnings in 1924 on Wells Avenue. From 1926 to 1928, the Y occupied buildings on Gilmer Avenue at the southwest comer of Henry Street and from 1929 to 1933 buildings on the southeast comer. (The Y moved back to Wells Avenue in 1934 and in 1939 moved to Second Street N.E., and later to Orange Avenue.) There was an emphasis on music in the homes, churches and schools. Several youths received instrumental instruction at the first Addison High School and later became members of the Aristocrats, a local orchestra. Some individuals received private lessons at home. The instructor would come by trolley from Salem and walk to the homes of pupils. One instructor had her studio in the Gilmer Apartments and one student of voice became an inter­ nationally known concert and opera tenor. The theater on Henry Street, later High Street, provided attractions—movies and stage— for the neighborhood. The Dumas Hotel on Henry Street was the location for meetings, dinners, wedding receptions and other social gath­ erings. In 1923, the movie “The House Behind the Cedars” was filmed in the 300 and 400 blocks of Gilmer Avenue by the black American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. The house at 401 Gilmer had a significant role in the movie. Gilmer Avenue is proud to claim as its residents an outstanding civil rights attorney, the first black U.S. ambas­ sador, an activist for the cause of railway trainmen and many others outstanding in the fields of education, law, medicine and dentistry. P r o m in e n t G il m e r R e s id e n t s Civil rights lawyer Oliver Hill lived at 401 Gilmer Avenue as a child. He became a lead counsel in the landmark public school desegregation case, Brown v. Board of Education, before the U. S. Supreme Court. Edward Dudley, who grew up at 405 Gilmer and became a lawyer, was appointed minister to Liberia by President Harry Truman in 1948. When the post was upgraded the next year, Dudley became the nation’s first black ambassador. He later was president of the Borough of Manhattan and a judge o f New York State Supreme Court. William Dupree, who became internationally recognized as a concert and opera tenor, took voice lessons on Gilmer Avenue. Among other residents of Gilmer were Samuel Medley, one of the earliest black physicians; Daisy Schley, a pio­ neer black city nurse; Sara Buckholtz, a nurse with the City Instructive Nurses Association, and Dr. J.H. Roberts, a founder of Burrell Memorial Hospital, Roanoke’s first black hospital. R.L. Edwards, an official of the National Association of Colored Railway Trainmen and a partner in Citizens Undertaking Establishment, lived on Gilmer. Also living there were Richard Williams, a chef for the Norfolk and Western Railway, and Alvin Coleman, superintendent of service at Hotel Roanoke. Lawyers and law officers also lived on Gilmer. Gustavus W. Crumpecker, a downtown lawyer, lived at 110 Gilmer. John W. Mills, a deputy U.S. marshal, resided at 210 Gilmer and Police Officer John Conrad lived at 326 Gilmer. Sources: Publications from the Roanoke Public Library, Virginia Room; Roanoke city directories, 1888-1940, and Sanborn Insurance Co., New York maps of Roanoke, 1889-1907. �A Jefferson Street Stroll a t the Turn o f the Century by Paul Stonesifer ❖ first printed in Vol. 11 No. 2 (1982) A citizen of Roanoke today may be interested in a glimpse of the business section of Jefferson Street about 75 years ago as I ask him or her to join me in a stroll. My starting point is a house at the northwest corX J L n e r of Elm Avenue and Jefferson, built by my father in 1890, the year I was bom. I walk down to Jefferson Street and turn left to begin this adventure. First, I glance across the street to the RL. Terry property, now Elmwood Park, surrounded by a very attractive stone wall extending along the east side of Jefferson from Bullitt Avenue to Elm Avenue. The first house next to my home was built by H.C. Macklin and after a brief occupancy by him was sold and rented to several families over the years. The new brick sidewalk was laid about this time, replacing a board walk used for years. The next house is difficult to describe architecturally. It was a double house, the first part was one and a half stories and it was attached to a two-story structure. Across the alley is the Green home, built some distance from the street by K.W. Green, a pioneer jeweler of Roanoke. The next house o f stone and brick was built and occupied by Dr. F.C. Tice, a pioneer doctor of the city. The next lot at the comer o f Day Avenue was vacant. At the northwest comer o f Day Avenue and Jefferson is a large frame house occupied by the Camp family for many years. The rest of the property down to Buillitt Avenue was vacant. A house was built at the comer o f Bullitt by Levi Witt. The next 150 or 200 feet, now the site of the Patrick Henry Hotel, was vacant. Being level, it made an excel­ lent playground. A baseball field was laid out and I remember seeing games there. On the southwest comer of F ranklin Road and Jefferson was a large brick house which went by the name o f the Rosenbaum home. I think it was built by Ed Rosenbaum. Across Franklin Road on the northwest comer was a vacant lot. However, a frame store building was built here in the early part o f this period. A marble cutting firm occupied a lot in this block but it was not in business very long. The next lots were vacant down to Luck Avenue. From Luck Avenue to Church Avenue was vacant, however, the Jefferson Theatre was built at the northwest comer around 1903. This block, now the site of Heironimus, was undeveloped for years and a deep hole was the remains o f the foundation of a skating rink, demolished by the big snow o f 1890. We now cross Church Avenue where Knepps Livery Stable occupied the comer property. This was the premier livery business of the city, where citizens rented space for their horses and where livery equipment was for hire. Knepps’ closed vehicles were largely used for weddings and dances. Next to Knepps was a small frame house occupied by a photographer. At the comer of Kirk Avenue, the Southern Express Co. built a substantial brick building which it occupied for years and it still stands. Across Kirk Avenue on the northwest comer the property was owned by the YMCA. This lot with a high fence was used for basketball, just coming into use then. The YMCA headquarters was in a frame building just west of the lot on Kirk Avenue. Next to the YMCA lot were three business buildings. The first was Vaughan Grocery Co., next was the Western Union Telegraph Co. and the Masonic Building was on the comer o f Campbell Avenue. The ground floor of this building was occu- Paul Stonesifer, who had one o f the keener minds o f Roanoke's older residents, diedat 92 on Sept, 30, ¡982. A form er vice president cmd trust officer o f First National Exchange Bank, he wrote this account o f a walk down Jefferson Streetfrom his home at the corner o f Elm Avenue in the early years o f this century. He joined the bank as a messenger in 1914 and he retired in 1956. 66 �pied first by Thomas and Bums and next by Meals and Burke, a men’s clothing store. At the northwest comer o f Campbell and Jefferson was the Southwest Virginia Trust Building. Adjacent to it was a small one-story structure about six feet from the sidewalk, partly occupied by Hiler's confectionery busi­ ness. The next building at the southwest comer of Jefferson and Salem Avenue was occupied first by Christian & Budwell, druggists and later by another dmg store, Van Lear Bros. Across Salem Avenue on the northwest comer was another dmg store, operated by T.W. Johnson and his uncle, J.C. Johnson. This was one of the oldest dmg businesses in the city. Next to it was a shoe store and then a one-story building occupied in the early years o f the century by the Busy Bee Restaurant, established by a Greek family. The next building, according to my memory was occupied by a retail hardware store. We now cross Jefferson Street and start southward on the east side. At the southeast comer of Jefferson and 67 �Norfolk Avenue is the building occupied by Barnes Drug Co. for many years. Next was a one-story building with several small shops, including a tailor. Another Greek family operated a restaurant in this block later. At the northeast comer o f Jefferson and Salem there was a three-story building and I believe the Didier Grocery was on the ground floor. Across Salem Avenue at the southeast comer was the City Hotel. In this building Milan began his tobacco business. When the building was demolished, the location was occupied by a pawn shop and next to it Mr. Milan created a modem building in which his sons continued their profitable tobacco business. The next property was occupied by Ryland and Rankin’s Jewelry store. In front was a large street clock which can now be seen in downtown Vinton. The next building was occupied by a shoe store owned by Mary Gray. Tailor & Payne’s’s haberdashery store was next and at the northeast comer o f Campbell and Jefferson E. Wile operated a men’s clothing business. Across Campbell Avenue at the comer we arrive at the Terry Building, Roanoke’s first skyscraper and largest office building. The First National Bank and the National Exchange Bank were on the ground floor. Next was the Vaughan Building. The Post Office occupied part of this building for a while. Then on the comer o f Kirk and Jefferson was an old landmark, the Fire House, o f stone construction with a bell tower. I remember the date, 1888, in large letters on the front. The Fire Department occupied these quarters until it was moved to its present location on East Church Avenue. The vacant lot between Kirk and Church was used for many events such as small traveling circuses, temporary structures for religious services and a very elaborate carnival one year. I believe the first building in this block was erected at the northeast comer o f Church and Jefferson by Edgar Nininger. Now we cross Church and see a one-story building on the southeast comer occupied by C.L. Saul Grocery. It had a canopy over the sidewalk. Saul later moved to a new building at the northwest comer of Jefferson and Franklin Road. Noble's Livery Stable was next to Saul’s and I remember so well the night the stable was destroyed by fire, with the loss of many horses. The next lot was vacant until the Boxley Building was Paul Stonesifer erected some years later. A.B. Hammond built a one-story structure on the southeast comer of Luck Avenue and Jefferson where he operated the Hammond Printing Co. for many years until his new five-story building was erected. The remainder of this block was vacant until a man known as “Cucumber” Lemon constmcted a very bizarre home often referred to as Lemon’s Folly on the northeast comer of Tazewell Avenue and Jefferson. On the southeast comer o f Tazewell and Jefferson, the lot remained vacant for years until the Elks Club was built about 1903,1 believe. It remained until the club moved to a location off Brambleton Avenue. Next to the Elks Club was the Gale property, a large parcel fronting about 200 feet on Jefferson with a depth of approximate­ ly 250 feet. Dr. S.S. Gale, pioneer physician in Roanoke, built his home here. I remember the hitching post in front o f the property and often saw his horse there awaiting a call from a patient. This brings us back to the Terry property, the present location o f the Public Library. Jefferson Street was not paved until later. The surface was rolled stone, full o f potholes. A single streetcar track traversed the center o f the street. 68 �Henry Ford fr Friends on Tour by George Kegley ❖ first printed in Vol. 3 No. 2 (1967) £ £ T I graveling in a big Packard, with two Fords along behind as baggage wagons, for all the world like two colts following a mare, the daddy of all the Fords slipped into town yesterday chaperoning such celebri-1- ties as Thomas Edison and Henry (sic) Firestone,” according to a front-page story in the Aug. 31, 1918 Roanoke Times. The celebrities — Ford, Edison, Harvey Firestone and John Burroughs, writer-naturalist — “had dinner at Hotel Roanoke and would have slipped out just as quietly had they not run short o f gasoline,” the newspaper said. The procession was stalled in front of the Red Cross canteen on Jefferson Street at Shenandoah Avenue while a supply of gas was obtained. This was one episode in a two-week camping trip by the “Four Vagabonds,” as they called themselves, through West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina. The itinerary of the circle tour from Pittsburgh south to Asheville and back and a number of pictures of the travelers are preserved in the Ford archives at Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Mich. Ford had been chosen as the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate from Michigan shortly before the trip but when questioned by a reporter in Roanoke he “did not appear to be concerned so much about his political chances good or bad.” The pioneer automobile manufactur- A caravan o f Model Ts (what else ?), led by Henry Ford and friends, er took no part in the campaign that fall traveled through Martinsville, Roanoke and on to Natural Bridge in but he lost by only a small margin. August 1918. As Outdoors Calling!, a recreation magazine, recently observed, family camping with its modem refinements, may have had its beginnings with the travels of the Vagabonds from 1914 until the 1920s. Burroughs, who had passed 80 when he made the Southern trip, died in 1921. And that summer, the remaining three took their wives and newly elected President Warren Harding and Mrs. Harding on a camping excursion in Pennsylvania and Maryland. In 1918, the party drove south by Elkins and on through brief stops at Hot Springs and White Sulphur Springs to “Camp Tuckahoe.” Breaking camp early on the morning of Aug. 24, they passed through Sweet Springs, lunched at Gap Mills and drove on through Narrows to “Camp Wolf Creek.” Perhaps impeded by bad roads, they drove only a short distance the next day, passing through Princeton, Bluefield and Oakvale to “Camp Tazewell.” From here, they went through Lebanon, Hansonville, Abingdon, Bristol and on into Tennessee. From the Grove Park Inn at Asheville, they returned by way of Winston-Salem. George Kegley, a longtime resident o f Roanoke, is a director emeritus o f the History Museum, and editor o f the Journal since 1968. 69 �“Four Vagabonds” Henry Ford (from left), Thomas Edison, naturalist John Burroughs and Harvey Firestone stopped by an old mill in Franklin County on a1918 camping trip across the Southeast. This may have been Hambrick’s Mill near Gogginsville, according to the late B.M. Phelps. Somewhere between Martinsville and Roanoke, they posed for a picture beside an abandoned mill. From the pic­ ture, B.M. Phelps o f Roanoke, a Franklin County native who has passed his 90th birthday, says they probably stopped at what once was Hambrick’s Mill, located on property now owned by Phelps on Blackwater River, near Gogginsville in F ranklin County. Phelps said the picture was not made at the mill at Boones Mill, which once was operated by his father. Ford reported that the road from Martinsville was “not as bad” as some he had encountered. Three miles per hour is the limit in some places “not so far away that boast of good roads,” he said. Driving up the Shenandoah Valley, the Vagabonds rested at Natural Bridge and spent the night at Castle Inn, between Lexington and Staunton. “Nineteen tolls were paid before we reached Winchester,” they wrote in their log. Even while driving through the mountains, Ford dressed in his business suit but at the camp site he would take off his coat, roll up his sleeves and pitch in with the work. The inventive genius of Edison, Ford and Firestone undoubtedly made this much more than an ordinary trip. They had separate tents for sleeping, ten feet square with mosquito flaps. Their 20-foot square dining tent contained a large circular table, nine feet across, which had a “lazy Susan” inset to pass food around. The table could be fold­ ed into a small portable package. One of their trucks was refrigerated to keep camping provisions. They carried new gasoline stoves but they pre­ ferred wood fires. And Ford built a portable electric plant to light Edison’s lamps which were stmng through every tent. Their outdoor living may have contributed to the longevity o f the Vagabonds. Ford, Edison and Burroughs all lived to the age of 84 and Firestone to 70. rar 70 �Threading a Parkway Through the Blue Ridge by David P. Hill ❖ first printed in Vol. 13 No. 2 (1996) ow the most visited national park, the Blue Ridge Parkway was popular from the beginning. A primary rea­ son for its early popularity was the parkway’s location near Washington. It provided an opportunity for the president and other top officials to see quality work of the Civilian Conservation Corps and other public relief agencies on the job. Secondly, at the time of its design a talented pool of designers who had worked in prestigious East Coast offices was in search of work wherever it could be found, and offered to the National Park Service not only a great deal of experience, but a new concept that a designed landscape could be a national park. Third, the Appalachian Region offered a palette of materials, legends and land uses that had become very popularized by the press in the 1920s, contributing to interest in the possibility o f a parkway through it. Most Americans do not care that the most visited park in the National Park Service was designed in the former Sunny side Awning Building on First Street in downtown Roanoke. The above circumstances certainly helped fuel the early interest in the parkway, but a six-decade tradition in creative planning and design excellence has furthered the success of our most popular park. This article describes some of the design decisions made in the Sunnyside building, and introduces some of the early techniques used in the design of the parkway. N David Hill is a landscape architect who lives in Roanoke. Now president ofH ill Studio, he interned fo r the Blue Ridge Parkway from 1982 to 1984. Hill Studio specializes in design fo r the Appalachian cultural landscape. 71 �To understand the early design of the parkway, first imagine the image of our region in the 1920s. The 1920s marked a decade significant for the closing of the American western frontier and the turn o f popular interest to the Southern Highlands as the last remnant of American pioneer iconography. For photographers and writers, the Southern Highlands became a source for the juxtaposition of pioneer lifestyles against spectacular natural scenery. This sudden interest in Appalachian culture had a gradual beginning. The popularity of novelists Thomas Wolfe and John Fox Jr. owed a debt to the preceding half-century of descrip­ tive documentary by itinerant ministers and reformist journalists, such as James Watt Raine, Horace Kephart and Frederick Law Olmsted. Railroads and good highways brought the Southern Highlands to within one day’s jour­ ney of the fast-developing northeast corridor. The Appalachian Trail Club, and the ever-popular springs such as the Homestead, Greenbrier and hundreds of others, brought a well-educated clientele to the region, and they document­ ed it to its fullest potential. William Barnhill worked on a short line train that linked Asheville to Mt. Mitchell, and in his spare time, pro­ duced photos of Appalachian cultural landscapes to market to tourists. His classic works present the pre-parkway Appalachian land. Prints by Barnhill and others fixed an image of Appalachia as a unique place. The images both attracted people to the region to get a glimpse of the last American frontier, and served as a tool for parkway design­ ers to design interpretive compositions. R oute S e l e c t io n One of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s strategies to end the Great Depression was to undertake public works projects that would employ multitudes. The Park Service, one of the primary agencies responsible for public works, had several large projects underway in 1933, including Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. There was great enthusiasm for this park, as it was the closest national park to Washington, D.C., and the metropolitan east­ ern seaboard. The Skyline Drive followed the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains from Front Royal to Jarmon Gap. In 1933, only a portion of the drive had been completed, but it led to the natural suggestion that the road be extend­ ed to Rockfish Gap and beyond the limits of Shenandoah National Park to connect with Great Smoky Mountains National Park. President Roosevelt authorized the Department of the Interior to investigate the possibility of such a road in late 1933. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes chose to hire outside consultants rather than use his own staff for planning studies. Gilmore Clarke and Jay Downer were the designers (landscape architect and engineer, respectively) responsible in large part for the Westchester County Park and Parkway System in New York and the Mount Vernon Memorial Highway in Virginia, some of the most successful parkway systems in the country. They agreed to serve as consultants, for $75 a day plus expenses, provided they could choose their own field supervisor: Stanley W. Abbott, a Cornell landscape architect, and the public relations officer for the Westchester County Park System. Abbott began work in January of 1934; he was the first person to go into the field equipped only with a truck and sketchy maps of the Southern Appalachians. Clarke and Downer resigned after Secretary Ickes suggested that they reduce their fee by two-thirds, leaving Abbott in near-total control of the parkway route reconnaissance. Working out of his Salem residence, Abbott realized that maps and plan drawings would mean little to his supe­ riors who were unfamiliar with the region and chose photographs to communicate route alternatives. His recon­ naissance report includes a written description of the region and a suggestion of the acreages necessary to create the parkway. The reports served as an initiation to field trips with Bureau of Public Roads engineers and Interior and Park Service officials. Abbott’s notes were gathered into reconnaissance reports, illustrated with photographs on which he drew the suggested roadway alignment. Abbott’s superiors in the Park Service and the Interior Department became involved in alignment judgments, as it was from the start a political issue within the region. Beginning at Shenandoah, there was no doubt that the north­ ern part of the parkway would be in Virginia. The states of North Carolina and Tennessee were in direct competi­ tion for the southern end of the parkway and offered various reasons for the route to go through each state. Tennessee argued that North Carolina was a “dry” state, and consequently would not treat its cosmopolitan guests from the northeast in a manner to which they were accustomed. North Carolina countered that it had superior scenery than Tennessee, which is more appropriately associated with the concept of a parkway. Getty Browning, a North Carolina right-of-way engineer, produced a 12-foot-long full-color plan and section of the proposed route 72 �I ( through his state to illustrate that the North Carolina alternative was so scenic it was irresistible, winning the final route selection in November 1934. Abbott’s training in Westchester is apparent very early in the design process; the Westchester parkways connect a series of preexisting recreation and natural areas, to give the impression o f a single large park. Abbott felt that a series o f small areas of natural interest interspersed with larger recreation areas were essential: “They are like beads on a string; the rare gems in the necklace.” In drawings produced between 1933 and 1936, when the name was finalized, the park­ way had various names and align­ ments. The Appalachian National Parkway was one, in which Abbott suggested the parkway driver experience the full breadth of the Appalachian landscape. He proposed that the road come down off the crest o f the Blue Ridge into the Great Valley of Virginia at Natural Bridge, in what he described as “the inter­ esting piece of music that fortissi­ mo mixed with a little pianissimo provides.” Unable to muster sup­ port for the Natural Bridge route, he later agreed that it would not have been the best alignment. The About 90 percent o f the workforce for the Blue Ridge Parkway came from the immediate area. Shenandoah-to-Great Smokies Parkway, or SGS Parkway, was a cumbersome working title used on many o f the earlier drawings. Finally, the Blue Ridge Parkway emerged as the official name in 1936. Although the Design Office of the parkway had maintained the “string o f beads” concept as a goal, the author­ izing legislation passed by Congress did not include provision for land purchase. The lands for the roadway were acquired by the states and given to the federal government; most of the recreation areas were acquired through pri­ vate donation. For example, Moses Cone and Julian Price parks were named after their donors, while Linville Falls was purchased for the National Park Service by John D. Rockefeller. Other recreation areas were obtained through the cooperation o f the National Forest Service and the Federal Resettlement Administration. When chestnut blight swept through the region around 1930, it removed a dominant forest tree species and a major source of forage for livestock, dealing a severe blow to the already marginal agriculture of the region. Resettlement Administration funds were used to purchase land in several devastated areas and convert them into recreation sites. A r c h it e c t u r a l , E n g in eer in g W o rk The early years of the parkway were productive, with landscape architects and other designers involved in an unprecedented range of activities. The parkway office became something of a design atelier, with people of diverse backgrounds working in historic preservation, new design and constmction, research into vernacular precedents and new engineering techniques, cultural interpretation, and even machine invention. Several personalities stand out in this assembly of talented people. Abbott was first given the title resident landscape architect. His skills in administration of people and projects made the parkway a reality. He did the great majority of the initial reconnais­ sance, supervised the alignment design, and still found time to draw details in the search for a vernacular building style. The first person he hired was Edward Abbuehl, an architect who had been one of his instructors at Cornell and who was by Abbott’s account something of a renaissance man. When Abbott left to design the Colonial 73 �Parkway in Williamsburg, Abbuehl became the resident landscape architect of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Gil Thurlow, a Harvard Eliot Fellow, interned for the parkway in 1936 and 1937, and later went on to become chair­ man of Landscape Architecture at N.C. State. Gary Everhardt began as an engineer on the parkway and worked his way to director of the National Park Service. He is currently parkway superintendent. Ted Pease, George Wickstead, Bob Alt, Bob Hall, Van Van Gelder, Malcolm Bird, A1 Bums, Art Beyer, Lynn Harriss and many other talented designers worked with the parkway at some point of their careers, and resided around the Roanoke Valley. Many had great individual contributions, which are now taken for granted as part of a great park. It was landscape architect Ken McCarter, for example, who suggested that Mabry Mill should not be removed, as was called for on the acquisitions plans, and successfully saw the restoration of the building and creation of the site. The educational backgrounds o f the park designers contributed greatly to the formation of a “Parkway style.” The 1920s Beaux-arts tradition required that students go out in the field and measure classical architecture before attempting to design neo-classical architecture. Presented with young designers trained in Beaux-arts methods and lacking a source of local classical architecture, Appalachian vernacular architecture filled the void. Abbott and staff architect Haussmann produced typical coffee shops and gas stations influenced by bams and cabins they saw around the Roanoke Valley. The log cabin, shake shingles, stone bam and gas pumps were designed to look like stone foundations. A coffee shop and gas station designed for the south end of Peaks o f Otter was converted to an interpretive cen­ ter. Using vernacular building precedents, Abbott and his staff architects explored several variations for structures appropriate within their emerging parkway style. During reconnaissance and afterwards, the parkway staff was always on the watch for local precedent for new constmction. The photographic archives have numerous examples by Abbuehl and others, with the landscape archi­ tect’s comments recorded for future reference. Stone masonry standards for bridges and architectural work are the translation of these precedents into guidelines for new stonework. The drawings feature precision of mortar joint detailing, and a difference in joint design on the inner and outer faces of sloped retaining walls. The detail was developed after studying stone fireplaces around the Roanoke region. It was further interpreted into new details. For example, stonelined gutters were standard early in the parkway's constmction, when hand labor was abundant and cheap. A consistently high standard of design and maintenance has been the parkway tradition, bringing elements which are often distracting on public highways into manicured foreground details within the Appalachian setting. The parkway staffs design in detail is filled with examples of the historic preservation and cultural interpretation. Signage has become one of its most widely recognized details. Staff landscape architects have devised numerous alphabets that are inscribed into work using the freehand router. White, gray and blue paint is specified within the routs of wood indigenous to the area. The white pine tree is featured on the parkway logo, and the mountaineer’s musket and powder hom are specified for interpretive signs. Many fences and gates were needed since the parkway was built in discontinuous sections through a largely agri­ cultural landscape. Some were designed for visitor control, some for livestock control, and some for purely aes­ thetic effect. Bill Hooper was the staff agronomist responsible for fences. Using designs derived from Blue Ridge precedents, he pioneered a program whereby the parkway provided materials to the agricultural lessees, who in 74 �return contracted to build the specified fences. Farmers’ implementation of the plans necessitated the unusual clar­ ity of these drawings. R ibbon T h ro u g h A B orrow ed L and The architectural palette developed by the parkway staff composed a unique model for design, which was used to help blend the road and park structures with its surroundings. However, creative land planning and design was essential for the parkway to become a success. If for no other reason, the parkway is unique for its shape^S 1/2 mile wide by 470 miles long. The “typical” national park shape is a large chunk of land, roughly square, in the cen­ ter of which the visitor is able to achieve a level of insulation from the outside world, by virtue of park service own­ ership o f the surrounding lands. By contrast, the parkway is part and parcel of its landscape. In very few places is the visitor removed from some outside influence and combined with the topographic situation of the roadway on the ridgetop. Happenings to the land just outside the border are frequently the focus of the view. Rough grading in Floyd County; note sweeping curve to position roadway through mature pine forest in background. “Paint your parkway with broad strokes,” Abbott encouraged his young designers. In retrospect, a sense of urgency in the design process is manifest in a sequential driving experience along the parkway without visible boundaries. With a palette of less than a dozen landscape techniques, coupled with the region’s topography, the broad strokes of the draftsmen created a 470-mile landscape orchestrated into a seemingly endless variety of spaces. Abbott was a reader and loved music. He created an uninterrupted orchestrated landscape. Abbott achieved a “cinematic view o f nature” (Wilson, 101) and of agriculture, based on the scale of private estates and expanded to a speed of 45 miles per hour. The bridges and tunnels were set as the consistent point of reference within a variety of spectacular natural scenery, agricultural fields, pastures, meadows, forests, and distant views orchestrated to the viewpoint and speed of the automobile. The parkway legislation required that land be acquired by the states and conveyed to the federal government. Much of the land in the Blue Ridge Mountains region had not been surveyed, so Abbott must have used diagram­ matic maps with a single line showing the proposed roadway. Parkway staff aligned the roadway onto parkway development plans. The right-of-way width varied, from about 200 feet at the narrowest to many times that when conditions demanded; on the average, about 125 acres per mile was acquired for the parkway. The acquisition maps were sent to the Federal Highway Administration which, in cooperation with the park service designed the engi­ neering and construction documents for the roadway itself. After the roadway was built, the park service prepared planting plans and land use plans which specify the landscape installation and maintenance requirements. Each of these sets o f drawings was done at a 1-inch-equals-100-feet scale, requiring several roomfuls of drawings for the 470-mile length of the parkway. The parkway was built in non-contiguous sections, with the earlier construction begun in areas without paved roads and in areas where the alignment was most likely to be maneuvered politically. The sections varied in length from 5 to 15 miles, so local contractors could participate in the construction. Work began on the North Carolina border in September o f 1935. Southwestern Virginia work followed, in Floyd, Patrick and Grayson counties. In 1935, the parkway was the first paved road in Floyd County. The broad-stroke efforts of the landscape architects’ drawings are reiterated in the work of the legal transfer of land. Land was acquired in two ways: fee simple and under a scenic easement. “Fee simple” is a legal term for out­ right purchase of the property and all rights to it. Although the park service had the authority to condemn, with rare exception Getty Browning and others such as Sam Weems (later superintendent of the parkway) negotiated with landowners to find an acceptable price for their land. The scenic easement was a concept borrowed from the Westchester Park system in which the landowners gave up certain rights to the use of their land in exchange for a monetary consideration, while maintaining all other rights of ownership. The conditions were usually that land would remain in agricultural use, with no changes that would affect its scenic quality, such as billboards, other com­ mercial structures, cutting of trees or shrubs, or building o f structures without prior approval. Property acquisition for the parkway often left a farmer with too little land to farm profitably. Since rural scenery was a goal o f the parkway, a policy of leasing land back to farmers was begun early in the parkway’s management. The leasing program blended well with scenic easements to sustain a rural image. Some existing conditions could not be moved, such as rural cemeteries. These were preserved and valued as visual reminders of an earlier settle- �ment era, tended by the families and local church congregations without manipulation by the parkway. The simple structuring of the scenic easement text in the deed was meant to remove the development rights on the property, while allowing the existing agricultural land use to proceed. Although the short-term use of the ease­ ments was beneficial to both parties, all have not been well-received over the years as land values have increased significantly. In some cases the grandchildren o f 1930s farmers are surprised to find they are not allowed to build a house on land that they thought was unencumbered. In some cases, the easements have also failed the parkway. When an easement was purchased to show a 200-year old tree, and someone unfamiliar with the concept of the easement cuts the tree, the resource is permanently lost although there is legal recourse. Nevertheless, the 193 s easements were an enlightened way to knit the parkway into a depressed agricultural landscape and many success­ ful easements still exist. Once design and construction were complete, the parkway land-use maps were prepared to guide maintenance efforts on the parkway, and in some cases as substitutes for the more detailed planting plans. Individual tree spec­ imens are located on the plans as reference points for maintenance. The final orchestration of the land is achieved through maintenance o f several generic landscape effects used on the parkway. Vistas were often of adjacent open agricultural land, but may also extend for miles at the higher ele­ vations. The canopy vista appears through a thin screen of tree trunks; this technique is rarely used, since it requires heavy maintenance of the shrub layer and is effective only at slower travel speeds. Shrub bays are planted and maintained exclusively with shrubs, intended to provide relief from the forest canopy. The dominant roadside con­ dition is the forest and regenerative forest, with multiple canopy layers so that one cannot see very far into lL ° P ei* woods are comparatively rare, as they require intensive maintenance to keep the shrub layer out. Open land is of several types: agricultural, ranging from field crops, pasture, hay field, to orchards; naturally maintained or mowed grasslands; and old pasture growing up with wildflowers but without significant tree and shrub plantings. Malcolm Bird took great care to orchestrate these land uses through every section he designed. He would vary the width and topography of the grassed shoulder so that one is almost never conscious of a cultivated right-of-way typical of other public roads. Ironically, the naturalistic appearance o f the parkway corridor requires much more intensive maintenance than a typical roadway. View from the parkway; adjacent land was leased back to farmers 76 �while more distant farmsteads were placed under scenic easement. The landscapes composed by the parkway designers show a reverence toward scenes of the 19th century Hudson River painters. A tradition of vistas holds true to the same rules of classical composition. In the foreground, rustic details frame the scene from below. In the middleground, the subject of the scene, there may be a farm scene or a meadow, and in the distance, wild forested mountains. The foreground may be controlled on park property, but the rest of the view is frequently “borrowed.” The farm scenes and the distant wooded mountains are not under con­ trol of the park, and if tastelessly developed, the park staff must wait years for trees to grow and screen the view. Signs frequently cue the visitor to the distant scenes, and parkway land use maps are the medium that blurs the distinction between what is in the park and what is immediately adjacent. The successful use of vernacular plant­ ing and building materials makes it almost impossible to find the boundary in many places. Labor for the planting, precise grading and roadside improvement was provided through the Works Progress Administration (WPA), Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), and, during World War II, conscientious objector labor camps. Abundant but unskilled labor facilitated a rustic style which was very appropriate to the parkway. Not only was the architecture and land planning successful, but the parkway is remarkable for the degree to which road engineering technology was and is embraced. For example, in 1934 when design on the parkway began, spiral transitional curves (curves of continuously changing radii) were new in highway design and were not wide­ ly used. Abbott molded the highway to the mountains, using spiral transition curves abundantly to create a “spacetime effect of being connected with the soil and ... of hovering just above it” (Giedion, 554). Used extensively on the parkway for the first time, spiral curves were used in the design of the interstate highway system. The rural separated-grade interchange was another technique used on the parkway, later employed on large highway systems. The innovative engineering tradition continued to the final link: Figg and Muller’s S-shaped Linn Cove Viaduct was constructed above the mountainside. The viaduct was a part of the final section to be completed on the North Carolina parkway and was dedicated in September of 1987, 52 years after the start of construction. This acclaimed structure has won numerous design recognitions, including the Presidential Design Award. Stanley Abbott had located the parkway alignment across the face o f Grandfather Mountain at Linn Cove, but technological and polit­ ical difficulties prevented property acquisition and roadway construction for decades. Figg and Muller International was retained for the technical design of the structure, erected by cantilevering precast segments between piers 180 feet apart, so as to minimize harm to the rare plant community below. Since its Depression-era beginning, there has not been a moment without some design or construction occurring on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Fifty-two years after construction began, the roadway has been completed. However, Abbott’s concept for the parkway is far from finished. Attention is now focused on building the beads o f the neck­ la ce— the recreational areas. Hemphill Knob near Asheville, Fisher’s Peak near Galax, and the Roanoke River Parkway are three currently in the design or construction process. Now headquartered in Asheville, the parkway has provided this nation with national park leadership and design excellence for almost sixty years. Many creative design solutions we see far away have some allegiance to this area. Pioneer-style architecture, routed interpretive signs, scenic easements, and spiral curves owe some footnote to the precedents set by Abbott’s Roanoke design atelier. Often the greatest works of landscape architecture are those unnoticed by the casual observer. It is hard to imagine that some of the most successful pastoral scenes o f the park­ way are not accidental, but very carefully planned from creative scenic easements to the details of the fences. The careful attention to detail derived from local precedent has contributed to the parkway’s emergence as America’s most visited national park. Note Some images used in this article are courtesy of the Blue Ridge Parkway archives, National Park Service, Asheville, N.C. Sources Everhardt, Gary, Personal Interview, 1988. Everhardt is superintendent of the Blue Ridge Parkway Giedion, Siegfried Space, Time, and Architecture, Harvard University Press, 1946, p. 554 Hill, David P. and Richard Johnson, The Blue Ridge Parkway, exhibition text for Harvard University, 1988 �Hill, David R, The Blue Ridge Parkway, exhibition text for National Building Museum, 1989 Hill, David R, Threading a Parkway through the Blue Ridge, travelling exhibition for Friends of the Blue ge Parkway, Inc. 1991 , D1 Hope, Robert A., Many personal interviews. Hope is the retired resident landscape architect for the Blue Ridge Parkway. Jolley Harley, The Blue Ridge Parkway, University of Tennessee Press, 1969 Jolley' Harley and William Bake, The Blue Ridge Parkway: The First 50 Years, Appalachian Consortium Press, Jolley, Harley, Painting with a Comet's Tail, Appalachian Consortium, 1987. Jolley, Harley, Many personal interviews. Dr. Jolley has served as historian for the Blue Ridge Parkway. Wilson, Richard Guy, The Machine Age, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1986, p. 101 Roanoke's Future: I More People on Less Land by Dr. F. Meade Bailey ❖ first printed in Vol. 10 No. 1 (1977) hen they put me in the position of being a pundit, I wondered how I would guess what would happen 100 years from now! We are barely 100 years old. To determine this, I decided that I would ask the ques­ tions: What are the political pressures, and what are the laws that are being made, and what are the eco­ nomic consequences, and then decide what is going to happen. First, I want to say that we are going to have a unified government. I don’t know how we are going to combine Roanoke, Salem and Vinton, but economically, it has to be done. , I . I One o f the things that you are always going to be asked is how big is Roanoke going to be. I plotted population history from Raymond Barnes’ book and made a chart. Roanoke’s population today is 106,000. The very rapid growth which has been talked about was phenomenal in the late 1800s. I suspect that what happened then is e same that is happening now. We put restrictions on the central part of the city and people don’t like them so they move out and build things to their own liking out in the suburbs. Then the city engulfs them and they are all back in the same boat again. Here we are in 1976 up to 106,000 people. I think that is a phenomenal curve because all o f the population predictors are always talking about population growing exceptionally and things running away W with themselves. I I MHH1 Except for the first three years, this has been a straight-line course and I suspect the conservatism of Virginia and the conservatism that is inherited in Roanoke will probably continue this process so that I have to say t at it will be a straight line in the future. When we get up to 2076 I say we are going to have 215,000 people. The ques­ tion is how will we be able to take care of that many people? I think there will be many changes that will take place which will allow us to do this. I drew a sketchy map show- For an April 21, 1976, meeting o f the 1900 Club, as part o f Roanoke’s 1976 Bicentennial celebration, Dr. F. Meade Bailey, an engineer at the Salem General Electric plant, looked into his crystal ball to see what the Roanoke Valley would look like in 2076.Here is an edited excerpt o f some o f his predictions. 78 �ing the present airport. We have expanded this airport, but I ’m sure that in 100 years we will have the regional air­ port with commuter buses going down 1-581 to downtown Roanoke where $45 million worth of buildings have been built. I think there won’t be any automobiles allowed here. The congestion will be impossible, but there are ways of handling this. Manhattan Island does with a fewer number of automobiles in the the first mile radius and this is what will happen here. You’ll probably commute in from Grandin Road or Vinton or from Tanglewood on a com­ muter bus. I keep saying commuter bus because there aren’t going to be any railroads, in the passenger sense. There will be railroads, of course, for freight. If we once get around to that kind of thinking, we don’t need all of those freight yards in the middle of Roanoke. I’m going to say that the freight yards are going to disappear and we can use that valuable land for other things. Spur lines will bring produce, passenger service will be a commuter bus, probably to the airport and we should be able, by that time, to solidify our transportation system so that it will be effective and efficient. There is not going to be any newspaper. I'm sure that's a terrible thing to say; but we're all going to walk around with some electronic thing and listen to the news. I f we can't listen to the news all the time, it's going to type it out on a little piece o f paper and we can read it from time to time. Now, what are you going to do down in downtown? You are going to have small personal transporters. I would say now the nearest thing to them is the fork-lift truck, but that’s a pretty heavy kind of thing, so let’s say a light­ weight golf cart. You will rent them there in order to get around. That is, if you are rich enough to do this. Remember that there is no evidence that inflation is going to stop so things are going to get expensive when you’ve got to see what you can do in terms of levels of cost of things. There will be transporters that you can rent, drive up to one store and leave it there, then rent another and drive to another place. These will be the vehicles for those who want to have transportation. For the rest of us, we’ll walk and we’ll get back to walking a quarter of a mile or half a mile or so to get around, but we won’t have the congestion of traffic that is certainly a part of the real problem. There is not going to be any newspaper. I ’m sure that’s a terrible thing to say, but we’re all going to walk around with some electronic thing and listen to the news. If we can’t listen to the news all the time, it’s going to type it out on a little piece of paper and we can read it from time to time. That is, the news — the daily things that are hap­ pening, things which are going to keep us up-to-date. There’s still a need for the want ads, big sales announcements and advertisements. These will come out as an advertisement sheet. Deadlines won’t be so serious, you can have it Tuesdays and if it doesn’t come out until Wednesday morning, why that’s all right. You’ll still know what the Thursday sales are going to be. But I think that our system of communication is going to evolve to the point where we have lots of personal communication in the sense of the news and in the sense of getting it immediately, not via the newspaper. Land values are going to go up, Mid most importantly, young families won’t be able to buy the lots. This is true in California today. You can just see it coming. I think we are going to stop having 100-foot lots. We are going to take the 100-foot lots in the Grandin Road area and the area just west of the downtown section. We’ll probably break them up into small groups and have small lots and put small houses on them. We’ll have to change the zon­ ing to do this. We’ll have to change the building codes so that we can use modem techniques of doing this. Perhaps there will be trailer courts of houses, built like houses, not like trailers. Anyhow, I think we will concentrate on small parcels of land with housing facilities on them, no large yards which we won’t be able to keep up. There will be communal services such as washing machines, small gardens and the like. This seems to be the trend which we will have here. If this takes place, then we are going to build up small 79 �communities which are self-sufficient. Tanglewood is already there. There will be a large number of condominiums and apartments and those types of things and we will be forced economically to have a large number of our population forced to live in rental facilities of that kind, probably of a smaller size than currently deemed necessary. We are going to see the evolvement of trailer courts into the small lot, smaller housing area and gradually have it grow back into the city so that we can utilize land facilities more effectively. Now, there are going to be some changes in rules and regulations. The banks and the political pressures tell young people that they can only afford to be outside the city. They will not give them loans for homes for proper­ ties inside the city to put their own effort in to build up, hence it runs down. There are other reasons for run-down areas, but that is one of the reasons there is no incentive to make young people turn to the city. Note that London, for example, is the other way. Some people are building up, buying older properties cheap and improving them. I think that is going to take place, and Roanoke is an ideal place for this kind o f thing to happen, to reconcentrate the city. Automobiles will be expensive, there will be only the small cars, probably with half the horsepower and we will not need any speed policemen because the cars won’t go fast enough. They can do other things, but we will of necessity have to make the whole environment more efficient and concentrate on our resources and our living accommodations. The river will be fixed up by then. There will be boating on it. A law will be passed so that you can have a canoe with a 100-watt motor, without a license. A license now costs more than the motor. We’ll get to the point where it will be a very useful recreation area and we’ll have overcome some of the ecology preservers. We absolutely have to have lower-cost housing to serve the young people. Inflation is going to get them so we are going to have to do it. In that connection, when we look at the crime problem, our productive capacity is going to be so great that tape recorders, dishes and chairs, cupboards and all the kind o f things that you use to live with are going to be relatively so cheap that everybody will have them and there’s going to be no point in stealing them. Stealing will be a problem for the well-to-do. There will be richer and richer people. Hunting Hills will become an armed camp. It will have a fence around it with guards. It will have private policemen simply because the city can­ not afford to have a large enough police force to take care of the situations which will take place. Probably we are going to have more school systems which teach people salable skills. We accept the business college where we teach people, mostly women, to type and do secretarial work and we look upon that as a very significant kind of contribution. We will have the same contributions for the other kind of things which will become absolutely essential: brick-laying, carpentry, machine shops, automobile mechanics and the like. We will raise the skills o f our people simply because economically we are going to do so. Colleges will shrink. We will certainly have a few big universities for specialized studies and broad educational background but we will have to face it, not everybody is going to be cut out for that. I think the community coliseum kind o f thing may become so expensive that people in the smaller communities such as Tanglewood and Vinton will develop their own amateur theater and they will have their own show house. There will be more group participation in this kind of thing. The big extravaganzas will then be exclusively a civic center feature. Question about agriculture, very important to this community now. There will probably be greenhouses and orchards. I understand you can write off a greenhouse in 2 1/2 years. This is phenomenal and economically that will make them grow. I look forward to it being a very wholesome community in which people are actually doing things and able to do things and economically possible for them to have a lot more personal living even though they are confined together and all 215,000 are channeled together in roughly the same amount o f area. Some people will look at this as being undesirable. We don’t have the large spacious areas, we don’t have the farms and the like to live on, but we can make communities which are fantastically pleasant to live in. We just won’t be here to do it. 80 ��H IS T O R IC A L SO C IE T Y O F W E S T E R N V IR G IN IA C enter in the Square, One M arket Square, SE Roanoke, VA 24011 Tel: 540/342-5770 Email: history@ roanoke.infi.net W eb Site: www.history-museum.org IS B N #: 09710531-8-9 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia 2006-2007 Volume 17, Number 1 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />Historical Society Journal is 43<br />Roanoke County and Valley: The Lessons of History<br />The Past is Right Here for the Archaeologist<br />The Great Flood<br />Seeing Virginia in 1797<br />Roanoke County in the 1840s<br />How the Mother County Began<br />Fincastle: More Than a County Seat<br />Mary Johnston: Writer of the Past<br />Virginia's Neglected Soldiers<br />Big Lick Home Front<br />Peyton Terry: Roanoke's First Millionaire<br />Early Craftsmen<br />Old Barns of Appalachia<br />Roanoke Valley's Early Iron Mines<br />The Watts: A Pioneer Family/The Barrens: A Garden Spot<br />Hotel Roanoke: A Large and Well-Equipped Hotel<br />Vice Presidential Candidate Had a Carvins Cove Summer Home Gilmer Avenue, Northwest<br />A Jefferson Street Stroll at the Turn of the Century<br />Henry Ford and Friends on Tour<br />Threading a Parkway through the Blue Ridge. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2006-2007 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_17_01_2006 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6365/JHSWV_17_02_2008.pdf c5daade753e50e4a6bccd4ac131ed508 PDF Text Text ì b h h h b ì Voi. X �iTiMontcai S ociety *7{Je4ten«t*l/Oiyinia, /4wt0'*i maatium m w ct (For the love of mountains inspires us) O ^ c c m W. Tucker Lem on................................................ President Stanard F. Lanford ................................... Vice President Katherine Watts ........................... Secretary Michael B e ll......................................................... Treasurer Jeanne Bollendorf Linda Steele........ Soand C. Whitney Brown Jr. Ben Chapman Walter M. Dixon Jr. Frank H. Ewald William M. Hackworth Gordon S. Hamilton Scott Hengerer Tonya Hengerer William E. Honeycutt Executive Director ..............Registrar *Dinect<n& Jim Humphrey John C. Lanford Philip H. Lemon Laura B. Logan Edwin E. Lunsford George A. McLean Jr. Natalie Norris James G. Overholser Joel W. Richert J. David Robbins Alice B. Roberts Rebecca B. Stephens Ann F. Stephenson Virginia T. Vinyard Nancy Warren Dr. E. Wilson Watts Edgar V. Wheeler *DOtect&i& £ m en tfu & Sara S. Airheart David H. Burrows George A. Kegley George Kegley Editor of the Journal C hristina K oom en Sm ith Production, Editorial Asst. Barbara B. Lemon Thomas 0. Maxfield III The Journal, Vol. XVII, No. 2, chronicles the history of the Commonwealth west of the Blue Ridge. Published by the Historical Society of Western Virginia (for­ merly the Roanoke Historical Society), P.O. Box 1904, Roanoke, VA, 24008. Printed by Progress Press, Roanoke. The price for additional copies is $5 for members, $ 10 for non-members. The Museum will be careful in handling unsolicited materials, but cannot be responsible for their loss. This issue of the Journal was made possible by The Kegley Publication Fund Stan and Elise Lanford �Table o f Contents 2 Note From the Executive Director by Jeanne Bollendorf If A Personal History of the Hotel Roanoke by Doreen Hamilton Fishwick 73 Dust-clad motorcars arrive in Roanoke in 1909! by Ge;orge Kegley 7£ Lincoln’s Virginia Roots by Dr. Philip C. Stone jg Col. J. Sinclair Brown: ‘Hard to beat’ by George Kegley 24 What is it about the Civil War? by S. Waite Rawls III 2J Images from the Old Belt edited by Christina Koomen Smith £2 Residential segregation in the City of Roanoke by Naomi Mattos The Prestons: A Southwest Virginia Dynasty by Malcolm W. Bryan III Virginians facing reality: The 1959 Perrow Commission by Judge George M. Cochran A Small Bag of Spices: Farming in Montgomery County by Tom Word Roanoke area family road builders - Part II by Stan Lanford 33 57 59 55 g2 32 Roanokes bear the same name by Mathew J. Bowyer gif. Support our History �Note From the Executive Director he 2008-2009 year has been an important transitional year for the Society. There has been a large-scale change in leadership and operations, as well as change in the look of the History Museum. I arrived in Roanoke in October of 2008 to accept the position of Executive Director for the Society and my mission is to shepherd the Society through this transition period to arrive on the other side with a stronger brand and broader influence throughout the Roanoke Valley. As a regional organization, my goal is to develop stronger partnerships with other cultural groups in the region and become a resource for those partners. I ’m very happy to be working with the Society and look forward to the many challenges that lie ahead. Anniversaries are often the catalyst for change within an organization and the Society is no exception. Our 50th anniversary set in motion a capital campaign to completely renovate the History Museum and thus far we have refurbished the administrative offices, created the Barbara Watts Education Gallery for on-site educational programming, and completed the library, now the Watts Library. Although bearing the same surname, these museum spaces are actually named for two different families. Dr. E. Wilson Watts is one of our hardest working volunteers and cares deeply about education. This space is named as a memorial to his late wife. The education gallery provides a separate space within the museum for school groups to learn about our region’s history by participating in several different programs 1 from Native American culture to frontier life to immigration. The library is named for Katherine Watts and her sisters in memory of their father, William Watts, whose support of the Society and our com­ munity is legendary. Katherine has been working tirelessly to pro­ mote our Virtual Collections project. The library is a fresh space that combines traditional and modem styles and serves as a research and media center. It is the headquarters for our Virtual Collections project. This project involves the digitization of the Society’s collections at both the Jeanne Bollendoli History Museum and the Link Museum. Volunteers and interns are currently digitizing the Society archives, which include all twodimensional collection items - maps, photographs, letters, and other documents. Ultimately, the Virtual Collections project will encompass some 6,000 additional three-dimensional objects. Along with the digitization project, we are performing a collections inventory this spring, which will help us establish best practices for caring for our col­ lections by determining our storage and conservation needs. The History Museum regularly presents a diverse offering of educational programs and fundraising events. Last fall, the Museum sponsored an overnight trip to Fredericksburg, and spring saw two more trips: an overnight to Abingdon and a day trip to tour the Rock Churches. In September, we premiered a large-scale exhibition on loan from the Blue Ridge Institute, titled “White Liquor, Blue Ridge Style.” More exhibitions of this caliber are being planned to provide a fresher take on history. Back by popular demand in December was Fantasyland, showcasing the nostalgic Christmas characters displayed at department stores from the 1940s to the 1970s. These characters are being refurbished and will look better than ever for the 2009 holiday season. In February, we hosted the third annual “History Is Served” brunch and silent auction at the Hotel Roanoke. This year’s speaker, Dr. James I. Robertson Jr., gave us new insights into the Civil War in Virginia. Not all of the Society’s activities take place on-site. I’ve already mentioned our bus tours, but we also host a monthly Speaker Series featuring regional historians and authors who present a vast array of topics. This year we T 2 �have learned about the Wilderness Migration route, former Mayor Noel C. Taylor, and the history of firefighting just to name a few. Kegley Publications accepts several book proposals each year and this year we have debuted publications about WDBJ Radio and Charles Johnston’s Indian Capture Narrative of 1823. We are very pleased that the WDBJ book has been nominated for a Library of Virginia award. Charles Johnston’s narrative is a collabora­ tive project with the Salem Historical Society and Historic Sandusky Foundation. The third publication of this fis­ cal year will be George S. Bernard’s Civil War Recollections, based upon a collection of letters in our archives. This publication, a partnership with U.Va. Press, will introduce new information about the Civil War that has not been previously published. Between the History Museum and the Link Museum, the Society has served many resi­ dents and visitors to our communi­ ty. Total attendance at both muse­ ums through January 2009 is 42,000; that number includes an astounding 4,500 students served through outreach. We are especially proud of the History Museum’s Founders Day and the Link Museum’s pho­ tography workshops. Founders Day, unveiled for the first time this year, includes students from Hurt Park Elementary School and James Breckinridge Middle School. Students at these schools are taking part in a series of cross­ curriculum projects that will end with a competition and award cer­ emony this spring. The purpose of Founders Day is to enable students to understand the history of their campus and foster school pride. After-school photography Volunteer Lowell Blankeship at work in the expanded Historical workshops offered by the Link Society library. Museum focus on under-served students, such as those attending Lucy Addison Middle School. These students are exposed to the art of photography, which allows them to express themselves independently and study their environment. Each semester-long program culminates in a student exhi­ bition. This year, the Link Museum has also produced high quality programs and fundraisers for the community. Each quarter brings a new photography exhibit featuring local and national artists. Photographers this year include Kevin Scanlon, Ted Rose, Eric Curry and George Warren. In the fall, the Link Museum started a new event called the Sustainability Dinner Series. The museum hosted three dinners serving local and organic food with guest speak­ ers discussing green practices in the rail industry. In December, Santa again visited the Link Museum by rail and in May, the annual Celebration at the Station provided another day of family fun. Most significantly, the Link Museum celebrated its fifth anniversary in January. We’re looking forward to the next year. Do drop in and see us! Jeanne M. Bollendorf Executive Director 3 �A Personal H istory o f th e Hotel Roanoke b y Doreen Hamilton Fishwick ne of my favorite subjects is the history of the Hotel Roanoke. Therefore, I ’d like to ask you to join me in a walk back through time to the year 1881, to a small hamlet called Big Lick - a terrible name but so called because the deer used to come down from the hills to lick the salt bogs, which were prevalent in this area. This hamlet was comprised of 669 people (fairly evenly divided between black and white) and 100 houses. Not houses as we think of today - for these had no running water and were built along dirt roads. In those days, there were many small railroads, some no more than 36 miles long and most in financial dif­ ficulty. Remember this was shortly after the Civil War. On February 10, an auction was held in Richmond to sell the Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad. A well-known Philadelphia private banking house, which incidentally owned the Shenandoah Valley Railroad, won the bid by offering $8,605,000 and immediately renamed it the Norfolk and Western Railroad. The citizens of Norfolk were apprehensive of this bid for they felt the railroad had fallen into hostile hands. When the new owners heard this, they sent a message to Norfolk that they need have no fear from a company whose name was Norfolk. In the spring of 1881, Big Lick began to hear rumors that the Shenandoah Valley Railroad was due to meet the new N&W somewhere between Lynchburg and Salem. As engineering parties began moving through the coun­ try, surveying lines, this little hamlet of less than 700 people collected $5,000, plus an acre of land, and offered it to the two railroads if they would join at Big Lick. How much this offer influenced the railroad’s Board of Directors is unclear. But Frederick Kimball, president of the Shenandoah Valley and a member of the Clark family bank in Philadelphia, remarked that the people of Big Lick were alive and at Big Lick they’d have friends. And so we arrive at the year 1882. The little hamlet began to burst at the seams. By June of 1882, the N&W, which would soon absorb the Shenandoah, had purchased large tracts of land and had erected 78 frame and 60 brick houses. Individuals on lots bought from the company erected two office buildings, 15 stores and seven houses - with plans for 62 more brick houses. By this time, 3,000 people, mostly men, were already in Big Lick; they were mainly builders and laborers. The population was expected to reach 5,000 within the year and an additional 10,000 shortly thereafter. Could this hamlet-tumed-town continue to be called Big Lick? The citizens wanted to name the town after Mr. Kimball, who was soon to become the president of N&W, but he declined the honor. So after much discussion, Big Lick became known as Roanoke (the Indian name for money). A town that now consisted of seven blacksmiths, eight and soon to become nine hotels, 12 saloons, 10 doctors and eight lawyers. She boasted of six churches, 268 dwellings and one jail! In those days, railroads always seemed to build grand hotels to house their passengers gN & W was no dif­ ferent and so Mr. Kimball selected a site in a wheat field on a hill north of the town and above the railroad tracks. The citizens were disappointed in the site and appointed Mayor Henry Trout to go and see Mr. Kimball and ask him not to put the Hotel and Depot on this site. The citizens were afraid it would draw trade off Franklin Road! We S Doreen Hamilton Fishwick was general manager o f Hotel Roanoke from 1986 until it closed in 1989 when Norfolk Southern Corp. gave the hotel to Virginia Tech. After a conference center was added and renovation completed, Virginia Tech reopened the hotel in 1995. Mrs. Fishwick presented this history in a talk at a brunch o f the Historical Society o f Western Virginia on Feb. 4, 2006, at the hotel. 4 �all know Mr. Kimball’s reply, for the hotel stands on the hill overlooking the railroad tracks. We have wonderful records of the building of this hotel. The design was to be in the Queen Anne style. It was to be 177 feet long by 73 feet wide. It wasn’t even completed before an annex 132 feet long by 43 feet wide was attached. The original building was to cost $45,000; however, when you added the annex of $12,000, the cost totaled $57,000. Although the prospectus said there would be 20 rooms, there were actually 34 guest rooms, plus 35 in the annex, for a total of 69 rooms. The specifications were elaborate. The work was to be performed in a true, perfect and thoroughly workmanlike manner.” Even down to the hardwood being furnished with Berry’s Hand Oil Finish. There were brass bolts for the inside doors and iron for all entrance doors. Speaking tubes - which you may or may not remember - were to run from the office to the kitchen and the servants’ rooms. The butler’s pantry was also equipped with speaking tube connections. The kitchen called for a seven-foot French oven with two fires, two additional ovens and a 36-inch wrought iron furnace. It had all the latest appliances and it took 12 floor-to-ceiling closets to not only store the china but they were also fitted with an apparatus to warm the plates. Even the privies - indoor bathrooms that were new to the citizenry - had specs including that the seats were to be 1 1/2 inches thick. These bathrooms were to connect to the first sewer line built in Roanoke, which ran from the hotel east to empty into Lick Run. As work was progressing, one million bricks were ordered, to be delivered at a rate of 40,000 per week at a cost of $8.50 per thousand. This seems like a tremendous number of bricks for what was essentially a frame build­ ing; however, history records that many were later used to build the additional company residences! The building was to be heated by hot air and supported by three large coal rooms. Sharing the basement was a barbershop, and a large bar room with fireplaces of pressed brick after the Queen Anne style. There was also a steam laundry and a bakery which boasted an 8-foot by 6-foot oven. Can you imagine the heat? The dining room was very handsome, seating 200 people under six chandeliers of eight lights each. This room, like the office and public areas, was finished in hand-rubbed and polished English walnut, carved oak, cher­ ry and ash. All guest rooms had cold and hot running water and most had zinc or porcelain bathtubs the first in Roanoke - where it was said that “one could bathe in a warm and private place.” A complicated system of bells 5 �was in each guest room, thereby permitting the guests to have direct contact with the bellboy, chambermaid and to request ice water. The guest room furniture was of Honduras mahogany. The elevator was a system of ropes and pulleys that ran from the basement to the third floor. And, last but not least, was the grand staircase with beautiful­ ly carved, polished oak and lighted by a handsome stained glass window. This, then, was the first Hotel Roanoke. The townspeople were told that 500 trees would grace the hill and the grounds would be lighted by two dozen gas lamps. This never happened and the grounds of this 10-acre site remained a fairly barren landscape. However, it was the view of the mountains from the wrap-around porches and the guest rooms that delighted the guests. The grand opening was held on Christmas Day 1882. It was an exciting day. For a new hotel in a commu­ nity whose rough edges had not yet been smoothed out, it must have been quite an experience! Christmas dinner on that opening day consisted of nine courses, including English plum pudding with brandy sauce. Sadly, the only thing missing from the menu was the price and history did not record it. From my experience, I know that no hotel makes money on its opening, so perhaps recording the price was not important. The opening did, however, identify this new hotel as a center of elegance and hospitality. It was the first link in a chain that bound the hotel and Roanokers together. The newcomers in town with the railroad and its associated activities needed a social life and so they looked to the hotel, where they organized the German Club and its first dance. As there were few young women in Roanoke at the time, young ladies from nearby counties were invited. History tells us that these ladies were accom­ panied by chaperones, came by rail on reduced rail tickets and were installed at the Hotel Roanoke, at the expense of the local bachelors! The music for the evening was provided by the Roanoke Machine Shops Orchestra. The account of that first dance is rather amusing particularly for those of us living in today’s world, as number 12 of the German’s bylaws, dated 1883, states, “Members shall not be allowed to go upon the 2nd floor of the hotel during the evening of the German, but must leave their partners at the 1st landing of the stairs, where they will be met by a maid espe­ cially appointed for that purpose.” I’m sure many hotel general managers would appreciate a similar rule today. That club, as we all know, is still in existence - 1 wonder if they’ve rewrit­ ten the 1883 bylaws? Fire burned much o f the hotel on July 1, 1898. The next years were busy and profitable, with many local organizations utilizing the hotel, as well as railroad passengers. In those days, people didn’t stay for one or two nights, but for much longer periods. It was said they stayed longer to enjoy the mountain air and get away from the summer heat - where on earth could they have come from to think Roanoke was cool in the summer! These travelers would be met by porters who would transport their luggage up the hill to the hotel. Once ensconced on the property, the guests could sit in rocking chairs on the wide wrap-around porch covered with Virginia Creeper and take in the view of the surrounding mountains. Things were going so well that in 1891, an expansion began to remodel the arm of the hotel facing west and to add new guest rooms. The book value in 1891 went from the original $45,000 to $125,000, which at the time was a significant investment. All went well until on July 1, 1898, a little after noon, a fire in the kitchen quickly spread through the frame construction. The Roanoke Times recalled the event in the 50th anniversary edition on November 30, 1936. It read as follows: “As the blaze soared and it was evident that the fire department was unable to control it, hundreds of men rushed in from the Roanoke Machine Works and assisted in Saving much of the furniture and carpets and 6 �destroying thousands of dollars worth of hotel equipment in their effort to save something from the flames. Beds, dressers, mattresses and other furniture, including china bowls and pitchers, with which many of the rooms were equipped, were hurled from the second and third floor windows, white carpets were wrenched from the floors and piled outside in the greatest confusion. Willing hands on the outside were ready to drag the furnishings to vantage points on the lawn to the south and west of the blazing building, all of which was practically destroyed, with the exception of the east wing. The roof of the west wing was burned and the interior gut­ ted. The lobby and office were disfigured by flames but the construction held intact.” A wonderful account of that day but ^ Hotel bedroom around the late teens, early ’20s. can you imagine the confusion - I ’m sure the helpers in their misguided zeal had no idea that when you throw furniture and china out of second and third floor windows it s going to break! However, there was a bright side —there were no recorded injuries and although at first it was thought the entire hotel would have to be rebuilt, that was not the case. She did have to close for a few months, but by October, it was business as usual.. During the next 83 years, the hotel was renovated and rebuilt a half-dozen times. Probably the most impor­ tant was in 1937 when the hotel was closed and rebuilt from the ground up at a cost of $1,050,000, excluding fur­ nishings. This major construction turned the hotel into what most of us remember prior to 1995. The porches were swept away, the entrance, in Tudor style, was moved to its present location. The designers created six floors and a penthouse, a new lobby and recep­ tion area, a 60-car garage, a large number of outdoor parking spaces, a new dining room, Pine Room, Palm Court, Oval Room and Ballroom. The guest rooms now totaled 310 and were equipped with movable telephones, which could be plugged in at four con­ venient locations, electric fans, P eacock Alley in 1943. closets which lighted automatical­ ly when one opened the door, and full-length mirrors. A combination shower and bathtub, running ice water and even a receptacle for discarding razor blades in the bathroom (remember this was 1937). There were also flower beds outside the dining room and a reflecting pool in front of the entrance. At this same time, the hotel became the first in the country to be air conditioned. A full-time air condition­ ing engineer was assigned to care for it. Incidentally, his credentials stated that he had taken a correspondence course in this new science. This new luxury was advertised, not as we know air conditioning today, but, and I quote, “so that visitors with allergies may find relief.” The new hotel reopened on September 15, 1938. As I mentioned earlier, it consisted of six floors, plus a 7 �penthouse. Now, who was going to be the first occupant of the penthouse? The story goes this way: Mr. WJ. Jenks, the then N&W President, and E.R. Johnson, a member of the board of directors and a community leader, both want­ ed the penthouse as their home. However, along came Mr. H.W. Shields, Vice President & General Manager of Pocahontas Coal - a subsidiary of N&W - who very diplomatically pointed out to these two gentlemen that both their wives loved to garden and the penthouse had no garden. He then mentioned that his wife had no interest in gardening, so by default, Mr. H.W. Shields and his family became the first occupants of the penthouse. A number of grand parties took place, which it is said matched the first German dance of a half-century before. We must remember that all of these improvements took place during the Great Depression. What must peo­ ple have thought? My late brother-in-law, Marshall Fishwick, remembered the hotel of that period this way: “In a time of scarcity, it meant abundance. In a time of drabness, it meant beauty. Hotel Roanoke, on a high hill, smacked of another world.” In 1945, the railroad announced another million-dollar face-lift, which involved enlarging the guest room inventory to 361 rooms. These new rooms were equipped with wall radios, offering four radio stations. In 1948, the big news concerned the installation of an entirely automatic tube ice machine that could pro­ duce in excess of five tons of shaved, cracked and cylindered ice every 24 hours —the lowly ice cube was no more at Hotel Roanoke. You might like to know that this machine was still in use in 1989! In 1955, to the tune of $1.2 million, a new wing was added. This included 56 additional guest rooms, bring­ ing the total to 417. This addition also included the Shenandoah Room, and a coffee shop replaced the Fountain Room. An effort to keep up with the times meant in 1962 a swimming pool of junior Olympic size was opened and in 1967 was enclosed with a retractable roof for year-round use. Beginning in 1963, roadside motels were beginning to crop up, which drew business away from what, up to this point, had been the only place to stay in the valley. So, once again, to keep up with the present-day trends, a new entrance was created on the northeast side, facing the Roanoke shops. The new canopy said, “Motor Inn.” And this new entrance was just steps away from where the guests could park their cars. It was very expensive to operate, for it needed its own reception desk, with three shifts each day. It turned out to be a failure and in a very short time went out of business. The entrance was closed and once again the property became one operation. During the 1970s, even though red ink was the color of the month, the Pickwick Club closed and the Windsor Room opened. The Whistle Stop Bar opened and the Terrace Lounge was created off the Regency Room. Keeping the hotel alive and vital was not only due to N&W and the various management teams, but to the dedicated employees, most of whom, from the earliest days spent their working lives serving the hotel and her vis­ itors with pride and courtesy. There were people like Chef Brown, who in 1940 created the hotel’s Peanut Soup; Billie and Alex, with­ out whom no wedding or convention could have been successful; and Mike, who for over 45 years opened the door 8 �for guests and supervised the bellmen. In the early days, employees were mostly black and how difficult it must have been for them to know that even black entertainers could not enter through the front door. Following their performance for the hotel guests, they would leave through the employee entrance to spend the night at the Hotel Dumas. Indeed, a sad blight on the history of our hotel. It was not until after the Civil Rights Act that in 1964 then-general manager Janet Jenkins welcomed Mahalia Jackson, the distinguished gospel singer, as the hotel’s first black guest. Incidentally, Mrs. Jenkins was one of only two female General Managers in the hotel’s long history® I’ll let you guess who the other one was! The hotel listed many VIPs who visited through the years. To name just a few, there was John D. Rockefeller, Amelia Earhart, Joe DiMaggio, and Lawrence Tibbett, the great Metropolitan Opera baritone, who stayed while performing at the Roanoke Academy of Music. Some years later, Van Clibum, who was practicing in his suite prior to a performance, left his bathtub running and water leaked through to the Regency Room - need­ less to say, he was long remembered. Jack Dempsey spent the night and upon departing is recorded to have said, “That sure is a fine hotel, one of the best in this part of the coun­ try.” Governors of Virginia have all stayed from time to time and even Senator John Warner brought his then wife, Elizabeth Taylor, to attend the Symphony Ball. Of course, we can’t for­ get the Miss Virginia Pageant. Beginning in 1955, through the efforts o f Margaret Baker, Elizabeth Bowles and the late Jack Smith, the pageant has always been a welcome piece of business during an otherwise slow summer period. I used to chuckle, watching the girls in bathing suits gathered around the pool outside the entrance for Chefs at work in the Hotel kitchen. a photo shoot. I’d look up at the N&W General Office Building and in every window the male employees were hanging out of the windows watching! By the 1970s, downtown hotels really began to suffer, especially in small cities. The passenger trains were no more - the motels were convenient for road travel and in many cities these lovely old properties were closing their doors. Although the Hotel Roanoke saw her occupancy drifting off to these motels, she still clung to a devot­ ed nucleus of patrons and dedicated business, but it wasn’t easy. Among those devoted patrons was a lady named Ava, who spent her summers and most Christmases at the hotel while visiting family. It was her “second home.” She loved it, as well as the dedicated and caring staff. tVhen she died, she requested that her ashes be scattered in the hotel’s lovely flower beds. So her family gave a luncheon at the hotel for her many friends, after which, as one guest told me, her friends stood on the hotel porch as her fam­ ily walked down to the flower beds and scattered her ashes. It’s a lovely story for this grand old lady’s history. Many guests have felt her charm and never wanted to leave. Then, perhaps the darkest cloud in her history fell on October 1, 1983. The employees went out on strike. The issue was wages and working conditions. Many Roanokers were annoyed that the hotel would let this happen - what these people didn’t know was that the declining occupancy coupled with more and more red ink, had caused management to reduce its full-time employees and to keep wage increases at a bare minimum. The hotel refused to budge and so did the union. Replacements were hired and the strike lasted for six months, ending after further 9 �negotiations in April 1984. The employees went through a hard winter but they loved the hotel. As an example of their respect for the railroad: my husband’s mother died during the strike and when he was leaving the hotel to attend her funeral, the strikers put down their placards, moved away from the entrance and stood silently as he rode out of the property. While they loved the hotel, they felt a strike was the only way to save their jobs. With both the employees and the hotel suffering from losses, it was not an easy situation. Finally, the employees returned to work and business seemed to go along as usual; however, more and more convention business began to look for state-of-the-art convention centers which the City of Roanoke did not provide and the hotel continued to lose revenue. When I assumed management of the hotel in January 1986,1 was certainly aware of the challenges that lay ahead. The work force was still shaken from the six-month strike. The hotel owed huge sums to Norfolk Southern Corp. that were loaned to her during the previous decade and business was at an all-time low. Was I crazy, you might ask? Well, I have always been a woman who liked a challenge. With an understand­ ing that past debts to Norfolk Southern would be forgiven, the staff and I began the process of healing old wounds, increasing business, going after smaller meetings and collecting outstand­ ing bills left unpaid for meals, par­ ties, meetings and so on. When speaking to one client regarding his unpaid tab, he said, “What’s the hurry, the railroad has plenty of dough.” My reply was, “You may be right, but your bill is with the Hotel Roanoke and we are not one and the same.” He did pay up! The guest rooms were in need of redecorating, and so we began to work on many levels. Business began to pick up and the employ­ ees’ old enthusiasm returned when we were able to successfully negoSnowy entrance, 1958. tiate a new union contract. Capital expenditures of more than $1 mil­ lion in 1987 and 1988 were fund­ ed totally from the hotel’s internally generated cash flow. These expenditures involved not only redecorating the guest rooms but also the Regency Dining Room, and installing a Lobby Bar - which turned out to be quite suc­ cessful. We had turned a comer - but, for how long? During this time, I addressed the Civic Center Commission regarding the critical situation developing with the convention business. These meetings were growing, which prompted the interest of many more exhibitors with no place for their exhibits. During 1987 and ’8 8 ,1 met with a number of meeting planners who stated that as much as they enjoyed the hotel, the city and the Civic Center, they would be unable to return without adequate conven­ tion and exhibit space. This meant the Hotel Roanoke would be limited as to the size of conventions we could go after and ultimately we would lose revenue. Although we made a concerted effort to hold on to these larger con­ ventions, we knew they would eventually have to find other cities. Meanwhile, back at the hotel, we knew we would soon have to face the need for a new heating and cool­ ing system. The steam for the hotel heating came through underground pipes from the railroad and even though we were paying for the steam, it was not adequate for our needs. 10 �Aerial view o f hotel and conference center (Photo courtesy of Hotel Roanoke) In the winter, I was always calling for more steam, I’m sure to the annoyance of whoever was on duty. We had estimated the cost of our own in-house system at between $32 million and $35 million and there was simply no way the hotel could generate such earnings and the railroad’s capital resources were needed elsewhere. Knowing that our long-range plans looked dim, John Fishwick, who loved the hotel, began to ponder a way to settle our dilemma and still save the old girl. Would Virginia Tech be interested in bringing some portion of its meetings or perhaps even an educational program to Roanoke? Would they entertain the idea of accepting the hotel as a gift? A new president was about to take over Virginia Tech —could he be interested? Thinking this might be the best solution, not only for the hotel but also for Roanoke, Mr. Fishwick approached Dave Caudill and asked him to find out if Virginia Tech would have an interest in the hotel. Of course, we all know the answer. Once my husband received the approval of Norfolk Southern, the wheels were set in motion. On July 26, 1989, in the hotel’s Pine Room, Norfolk Southern’s then President Arnold McKinnon announced that the Hotel Roanoke would close November 30,1989, and the hotel would be gifted to Virginia Tech. It was a day of mixed emotions - sorrow and uncertainty among the staff, and determination on the part of management to continue operating the hotel for the next four months with grace and dignity. There were countless to-do lists! Canceling all reservations and meetings scheduled after the closing, mak­ ing arrangements to dispose of the furnishings, assuring all guests over the next four months that business would continue as usual until November 30, and most importantly, conducting meetings with the staff. Many were third 11 �and fourth generations of hotel employees. Alex, Billy and Mike had been faithful employees for over 45 years. What would become of them? The union contract had no provision for closing. Most hotels, when closing, had paid the employees up to the last work-day, vacation pay and any sick days owed. In good faith, I felt this was not enough, but I could not offer money without negotiating with the union, or it would be considered an unfair labor practice. Another dilem­ ma! Arriving at a monetary package I felt was fair, and with the approval of Norfolk Southern as to the dollars involved, I met with the union, headed by Mr. Christian and Mr. Wade. With the assurances that the employees intended to see that the services offered at the hotel would continue to be of the highest quality right up until the last dinner was served and the last drink order was taken on November 30, the severance package was agreed to. On August 31, in a joint press conference, we announced a severance agreement in which the union stated, “As far as we know, this is *}(ote( ‘R o a n o k e (generaC ‘M a n a g e r s better than any severance offered to hotel employ­ ees in the United States.” This may have been an Carl Thursdon George Jacoby exaggeration; however, it was fair and honorable for the employees who over the years had become Fred Walker Fred Foster family. Having invited Roanokers to visit the S.K. Campbell Ken Wilkey hotel at least one more time, business, especially in the dining room, was thriving along with the disap­ pearance of “souvenirs.” By October, it was neces­ W.A. Dameron Janet Jenkins sary to order more china and silverware to contin­ ue for the next 60 days! J.D. Shaiffer F.M. Thomas How best to celebrate the closing of a hotel with 107 yeas of existence? Of course, with a Peter Kipp Kenneth Hyde black-tie closing banquet in the ballroom. We envi­ sioned an event conducted with dignity and George Denison Doreen Hamilton Fishwick steeped in traditional Hotel Roanoke graciousness that the community would long remember. The banquet, held on November 28 and limited by space to 600 invitees, suddenly became the hottest ticket in town! In addition to the “movers and shak­ ers” in the community, there were railroad executives, judges, former Governor Linwood Holton (a most delight­ ful guest over the years) and 30 invitations to the general public. People were invited to place their names in a fish bowl in the Regency Room and the winning names were drawn a week prior to the banquet. While these plans were being made, there was also the closing ceremony on November 30 to think about - including locking the door. I had no key! In 107 years, the hotel had never locked her doors, so a locksmith was contacted and in two days he handed me the key. Of the 14 general managers over 107 years, I was the only one to receive the key to the hotel - a bittersweet moment. Things sped along at such a pace that the employees had very little time to think about the future. Finally, after all the tears and hugs, the final hours had arrived. The flags were lowered and presented to the Roanoke Valley History Museum - Mayor Noel Taylor accepting the City Flag, Senator Granger Macfarlane the flag of the Commonwealth of Virginia and Congressman Jim Olin the flag of the United States of America. All those who had braved the cold weather were then invited inside for cider and cookies. At midnight, the door was locked for the first time in 107 years and the hill overlooking the railroad tracks was hushed and dark. At the closing banquet, I offered a toast and said, “To her glorious past, may she sleep well and may she awaken with all her charm of today, to face a bright and prosperous 21st century.” Today, I believe that toast and our hopes for her future have come true, for in 1995, the Hotel Roanoke reopened with a state-of-the-art convention center. She’s a lovely young lady and I hope that, perhaps, 107 years from now she will be able to record as illustrious a history of her life as the Grand Old Lady she replaced. ===, 12 �V u st-clad m o to rca rs' arrive in Roanoke in 19091 by George Kegley » he year 1909 - a century ago - was a very big year for new motor cars traveling through Roanoke. In July, scout cars came from New York seeking a route for a national highway to Atlanta and in October a caravan drove through from New York to Atlanta on a “memorable run for endurance merits.” A referee checked their points. The Roanoke Machine Works band played for the “endurance” travelers and receptions were staged at Hotel Roanoke and the Shenandoah and Elks clubs. When scout cars found an acceptable route, a big newspaper headline screamed, “ABUNDANT ASSURANCE OF A GREAT HIGHWAY.” As the first scout cars, a White Steamer and an Oldsmobile, drove through the Shenandoah Valley, the Roanoke Evening News reported: “All along the line, every man, woman and child showed an interest. Horses shied at the cars, cows dropped their cuds and some of the oldest residents said, WHITE 30 H.P. ‘Well, here comes one of them airships,’ for at times the cars really did appear to be flying.” This exciting traffic came only six years after the first car in Roanoke was reported­ ly driven by T.T. Fishbum, president of National Exchange Bank and uncle of J.B. Fishbum, banking and newspaper execu­ tive. A Roanoke party of eight automobiles drove to Buchanan to meet the scout cars and escort them to Hotel Roanoke where they were guests of Fred Foster. They were sponsored by the New York Herald and the A 1908 White Steamer, 30 horsepower, like the model Atlanta Journal. The Evening News told of which visited Roanoke the next year. the assignment in selecting a north-south highway route: “Several routes have been prospected but not one of them seems thus far to have been satisfactory. That the road through the Valley of Virginia will form a link in the proposed highway is taken as a foregone conclusion, and the only point to be determined now is as to where the road will go after it leaves the city of Staunton. The chances are largely in favor of the route coming to Roanoke and the principal problem is where shall the road be established from Roanoke South.” After the “best adapted route” is selected, the Roanoke Times said, “mileposts, at five-mile intervals, will be erected, indicating the course that is the best for all travelers to pursue, whether on horseback or in automobiles, or even afoot - inasmuch as all good roads lead to Roanoke, Roanoke will be one of the important points on the line, that is, if some of the road officials in different counties get busy and fix up the highways so that they will at George Kegley has edited the Journal since 1968. 13 �least reflect a little credit on their respective counties.” The first proposal was a route from Roanoke west to Tennessee. The local newspaper said if the route is selected from Roanoke west “through the beautiful Southwest - automobiles of the future will have, beginning with the Potomac River and extending to Bristol, as fair and lovely a country as could well be found in all the wide, wide world.” The scouts spent the night in Radford and apparently had easy going through Southwest Virginia but they found the highway “beyond Bristol in a desperate condition.” A Herald-Tribune representative said: “After 12 hours of the roughest plodding in their experience, the good roads scouts of the Herald and the Atlanta Journal arrived in Rogersville (Tenn.) this afternoon, tired, mud-stained and disgusted.” The powerful cars succeeded in traveling only 55 miles in one day through “quagmires - Many times all hands had to leap out in the mud up to their knees and help the White Steamer and the Oldsmobile through and at several places, the party prac­ tically had to rebuild the road before they could advance.” The cars used chains all day. Reporting on the “frightful con­ dition” of the Tennessee roads, the scouts declared that the highways in that section “are as bad as any in the country.” The Evening News announced that “it seems to be an accepted fact that the proposed auto­ mobile highway from New York to Atlanta by way of Roanoke, Bristol and Knoxville will have to be aban­ doned.” A week later,, the good roads Rort" o f im p ro v e m e n t is cpn cern p d - b u t tho cnuntieR tra v e rse d will be req u ired } people began to scout other routes from Roanoke south, traveling Headline in the Roanoke Evening News, July 26, 1909 through Bedford to Danville and through Rocky Mount and Martinsville. The best news came on July 26 when the Evening News, under a headline stating: “ABUNDANT ASSURANCE OF A GREAT HIGHWAY,” said the Roanoke scout cars found “most encouraging conditions” by way of Rocky Mount and Martinsville. The Herald announced “the Roanoke route as the one chosen for the National Road from North to South.” A convention was planned for Roanoke “in the near future.” But the North-South route did not come quickly. As roads gradually improved, construction of national highways began in 1925. Another highway event came three months later, in October 1909, when a caravan of motor ears came to town, half-way on a long trip from New York to Atlanta. The Evening News gave this description under the head­ line MOTOR CARS LEAVE FOR WINSTON-SALEM: “Resume their journey into the Southland after a delightful sojourn in Roanoke —dust-clad vehicles began whirling through Jefferson Street at 7 o’clock this morning. By 8 o’clock all the cars except the one used by the referee had left Roanoke far in the rear - will take dinner at Martinsville and reach the North Carolina city late this evening. After traveling 125.8 miles - Tourists express themselves as most appreciative of the cordiality and hos­ pitality of their entertainment in this city.”; The Roanoke Times said the visit came on a “Memorable day”: “Splendid entertainment provided for the big aggregation of tourists, after a long run from Staunton; Everyone made welcome and provided with splendid cheer all over city - Reception and other committees do good work and show visitors royal time - Ball player makes speech at Hotel Roanoke. “Principal among the visiting attractions was the indomitable Tyrus Cobb, the sturdy, but more or less bash­ ful outfielder of the Detroit Tigers, about whom men, women and children swarmed for an hour or more after his arrival.” 14 �Four White Steamers drove from New York to Buffalo in 1902. Similar models came to Roanoke in 1909. (Photo from Those Wonderful Old Automobiles, Bonanza Books, 1953) The party of 175 “automobile tourists” began arriving in the Magic City at about half past four o’clock on what was called a “memorable run for endurance merits.” They were met by the Machine Works Band and enter­ tained with an “ample supper” at Hotel Roanoke and receptions at the Shenandoah and Elks clubs. Mayor Joel Cutchin greeted the visitors. J.H. Marsteller, head of the arrangements committee, said he was so much pleased with the “splendid manner in which everything has turned out, that he feels like patting everyone on the back and saying that Roanoke is the best city on earth and the autoists about the best people on the globe.” Marsteller, head of the Marsteller Monument Works, then rode to Atlanta in a Roanoke car. C.E. Michael, presi­ dent of Virginia Bridge and Iron Co., said the travelers were “the most appreciative people I ever saw to be in such great number.” Other members of the arrangements committee were J.W. Hancock, T.W. Goodwin, O.A. Kerns, D.R Sirra and E.M. Funkhouser. After the hotel supper, Winthrop E. Starritt, a leader of the travelers, made this statement, according to the Times: “In peace and safety we have arrived at the half-way stage in the New York-Atlanta tour. Again, we have traveled under smiling skies as fair a land as the sun sees in all his journey around the globe. For almost two days we have journeyed through Virginia, the ‘Mother of Presidents,’ rich in historic associations, prolific in soldiers, scholars and statesmen. We have felt at home ever since we passed on yesterday morning that banner spanning the highway bearing the greeting, ‘Welcome to Old Virginia.’ “As the good roads cavalcade has progressed southward, our welcome has grown in warmth and enthusi­ asm. Crowds have thronged to the village street and country lane to view the novel procession. Schools have been dismissed and children in glad acclaim shouted, ‘go faster, go faster’; above the little country school houses, poor and meager as they seemed, floated the Stars and Stripes, emblem of a reunited country. “At Lexington, Mayor Walker and other prominent citizens extended the hospitality of the town. Colonel Pendleton of the famous Virginia Military Institute honored us by a special battalion drill which was a delight to witness. Thence we were conducted to the tomb of Robert E. Lee, one of the greatest soldiers of all time and whose name is inscribed high on the imperishable scroll of immortals. “I wish to compliment all contestants and to thank them for a strict and cheerful compliance with the rules of the road. Throughout the day there has been no inconsideration and repassing of competing cars.” Among the “dust-clad machines” were three White Steamers. m 15 �Lincoln's Virginia roots by Dr. Philip C. Stone A bout 30 years ago, during a conversation over coffee, Judge John Paul and I expressed regret that the Harrisonburg-Rockingham County community did not have any established activities to honor the signifx \_ ican t local connections with Abraham Lincoln’s family. As avid history students and admirers of Lincoln, we were particularly interested in those connections. I had an additional reason for being interested: my wife and I owned the farm on which Lincoln’s ancestors first settled when they came to the Shenandoah Valley. As a result of that chat, we agreed that the two of us and a couple of friends would meet at the Lincoln Family Cemetery on his birthday, Feb. 12, 1976. We gave no thought to the possibility of continuing this activity for three decades plus. In all these years at the cemetery ceremony, there has never been a good Lincoln day, as far as the weather. In fact, the weather has been truly “Lincolnesque!” Conditions have included deep snows, ice, rain, bit­ ter cold and heavy winds. The Lincoln Day weather appears to be so jinxed that even when the day starts out beautifully, by the 2 p.m. starting time nasty conditions always seem to take control. Notwithstanding the challenging winter weather, we often have substantial crowds, sometimes exceeding 100 people. Of course, there also was the year of the deep snow when Judge Paul and I were there alone. Having missed only one or two of the ceremonies, Judge Paul gets the award for the most faithful attendance. People who have attended through the years include members of the extended Lincoln family from across the country, Lincoln and Civil War scholars and relatives of distinguished Civil War personalities. Dozens of other Lincoln relatives and Lincoln scholars have carried on regular correspondence with me and are kept informed about each ceremony program. What are those Lincoln connections that lead us each year to this picturesque cemetery under such terri­ ble weather conditions? While there is no evidence that the 16th president actually visited this area, this Shenandoah Valley location is one of the most significant in the history of the Lincoln family. His great-grandparents, “Virginia John” and Rebeka Lincoln, lived more than 20 years in this community and were buried in the Lincoln Cemetery. His grandfather, Capt. Abraham Lincoln, a member of the Virginia Militia during the Revolutionary War, lived on Linville Creek near his parents for more than a dozen years. He and his wife, Bathsheba, a native of Dayton, had all five of their children, including the president’s father, Thomas, while living on Linville Creek Even after Capt. Abraham and his family moved to Kentucky in the early 1780s, his brothers and sisters remained in the area. Descendants of these siblings constitute the five generations of Lincolns buried in the fami­ ly cemetery where the ceremony is held (about six miles north of Harrisonburg). The last Lincoln family member was buried there in 1938. In addition to Lincoln graves, there are graves and headstones for the last two Lincoln slaves, Ned and Queen. The purposes of the annual ceremony are both to celebrate and better inform our community and others about the significant Lincoln connections in Rockingham County and also to remind ourselves of the signifi­ cance of Abraham Lincoln in American history. In addition to his roles as the savior of the Union, emancipator This is an edited version o f an article by Bridgewater College President Dr. Philip Stone in the HarrisonburgRockingham Historical Society newsletter. Stone, a Lincoln scholar and former president o f the society, has given two talks in Roanoke on the Lincoln connection to Virginia. More than 300 people braved 55-mile-perhour winds to celebrate the 200th anniversary o f Lincoln’s birth at the family cemetery on Feb. 12, 2009. 16 �and architect of the concept of national citizenship, his personal values and characteristics have enduring value for us all, not just for presidents and those in high public office. While serving in Congress in the 1840s, Lincoln wrote to a cousin in Rockingham County, asking for information about his family. He was very interested in his Virginia connections. Lincoln emancipated the slaves despite great opposition in the North as well as in the South, in spite of the fact that his own relatives were slave­ holders. Some of his cousins threatened to shoot the president if they ever met him because of his position on slavery. Lincoln never made any statement that was not negative about slavery. He said, “I don’t care who’s doing it, it is a curse.” ' Although many Americans did not agree with emancipation and did not want to continue fighting the war, Lincoln won re-election in 1864. That victory said a lot about how people felt abut the president. They believed in Lincoln, they trusted him. Lincoln kept his eye on the ball. He was patient, he was wise, he was an honest man. Capt. Abraham Lincoln and his wife set­ tled in Springfield, Ky., and he was killed in an Dr. Philip Stone conducts the annual ceremony at the Lincoln family cemetery Indian ambush, leaving just outside Harrisonburg. his son, Thomas, with no inheritance. Thomas Lincoln married Nancy Hanks and they had three children - Sarah, Thomas and Abraham, who was oom in 1809. The family moved to Indiana and later to Illinois, where Abraham grew to manhood and became a lawyer. He married Mary Todd, a case of a man marrying above his class. There was a great contrast between the Lincolns of Virginia, who were substantial land-owners who built large houses and owned slaves, and the western Lincolns, who lived a subsistence lifestyle. Two other men who deserve significant acknowledgment for their work on the history of the Lincoln family in Virginia were John T. Harris Jr., a local attorney and son of a congressman who was personally acquainted with Abraham Lincoln, and John W. Wayland, who published The Lincolns in Virginia, providing invaluable information about the history of the Lincoln family in our area. Wayland is owed so much for preserv­ ing the heritage, traditions and history of the entire Shenandoah Valley. Harris wrote an article for a national magazine, describing the Lincoln family connections in Rockingham County. At several of the cemetery programs I have quipped that it would be appropriate to honor such signifi­ cant connections with any past president, even if it were James Buchanan or Franklin Pierce. But, I have always added, it’s a lot more fun to honor connections with Abraham Lincoln! While the anniversary reminds us that this ceremony has taken place for many years, I have no intention to quit now. Even when I am no longer able to conduct the ceremony, there will be others who will step forward. Who knows, maybe even my own grandchildren. 17 �by George Kegley ol. J. Sinclair Brown, the only Roanoke Valley resident to serve as speaker of the House of Delegates in Virginia’s General Assembly, gave up a chance to run for governor in the 1930s in order to devote service as president of Virginia Bankers Association and continue his banking career in Salem. Brown, an influential figure in state government for a quarter-century, is remembered as one of the archi­ tects of the state highway system, starting when he was elected to the House in 1915. He served 20 years in the House, holding the important post of speaker for six years, from 1930 to 1936. Bom in Warm Springs in 1880 to the Rev. George Langhome Brown, a Presbyterian minister, and Margaret Anderson Brown, he attended public and private schools, including Burnsville Academy in Braxton County, W.Va. His father, George Brown, a Salem native, served in the Salem Flying Artillery during the Civil War and later attended Roanoke College. A family story relates that the Browns held prayers in three languages- the father read­ ing from a Hebrew Bible, a brother from the Greek, and Sinclair reading from the King James version. Sinclair Brown was said to be the fifth generation of his family who belonged to Salem Presbyterian Church. The younger Brown began teaching school for $25 a month for two years and worked as timekeeper and assistant manager in Chesapeake & Ohio Railway construction camps in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. By 1904, he planned to move to Oklahoma and open a hardware store but he stopped in Salem to leam the business from his uncle, Frank Brown, and never moved west. A shrewd businessman, Brown used to display the first dollar he made - a silver coin he earned while sweeping out a grocery store at Bridgewater for 25 cents a week. He ran the Salem hardware for six years, then served as president of Salem Retail Merchants Association and was co-owner of a contracting business. In 1913, Brown joined the board of Farmers National Bank of Salem and in 1922, while he was serving in the House of Delegates, a group of Salem businessmen offered him the post of president of the bank, starting at the top. He agreed and led the bank for 32 years, then continued as board chairman from 1954 until 1962. Selfdescribed as “a cornfield banker,” Brown once expressed his philosophy to the Salem Times-Register: “..if it works, then the theory behind it must be correct. I maintain that the same basic principles of sound business management apply to the operation of a bank as to any other institution.” He later rose to president of Virginia Bankers Association and vice president of American Bankers Association. Among many recognitions, Brown held a title he did not earn. Gov. E. Lee Trinkle gave him a commission in the Virginia militia and the title of “colonel” in 1922. In 1910, Brown and his wife, the former Jane Lewis Johnston of Salem moved “to the country” and built a house, “Poplar Hill,” above Lee Highway, next to present-day Brandon Oaks Retirement Community in south- B George Kegley has edited the Journal since 1968. �west Roanoke. His granddaughter, Lucy Ellett, lives there with her husband, Frank Ellett, today. Lucy Ellett recalls that her grandfather once reminisced that when he drove his horse and buggy across the bridge over the railroad leaving Salem that he would be home in an hour. This farm near the Roanoke River, between Roanoke and Salem, was part of what was once known as Brown’s Bottom, owned by the Brown family for almost 200 years. Brown entered politics with a tough victory in the Democratic primary for a House seat. He and his wife toured the county, helping shock com and bunch onions, riding with farmers to market and standing in kitchens and bams during a “political appren­ ticeship,” according to the TimesRegister. But once elected, he was unopposed for 16 years in the House. Remarkably, during Brown’s 20 years in the General Assembly, no bill for which he was a patron was defeated but he admitted to several close calls. He was elected at a signifi­ cant time with two new state sena­ tors: Harry Byrd, later to become governor and longtime political chief, and A. Willis Robertson, both future U.S. senators. In 1916, the new trio served on a joint committee that prepared the master plan for Virginia’s first road system of more than 4,000 miles. Brown was named chairman of the House roads com­ mittee and his influence in improv­ ing Roanoke County roads was so strong that one legislator remarked, “I hear they are going to enlarge Roanoke County, Sinclair.” “Why?” Brown asked. “In order to make room for all of those new roads,” the legislator replied. When they started work, the longest stretch of paved road in the state was the Valley Pike, running less than 100 miles from Staunton to Winchester. Toll roads were com­ Speaker Brown stands between former Gov. Harry Byrd (left) and monplace and many localities could Gov. John Pollard. not be reached by car. “Our objec­ tive,” Brown said, “was to get a highway into every county seat in the state.” The legislators also had to resist communities’ pressure to get the first roads in their area, a movement which led to a state highway bond referendum in five years. Brown supported Byrd’s successful opposition to a bond issue. Byrd’s conservative approach of “pay as you go” was popular. Brown’s first highway experience was a public subscription campaign to build the Lee Highway by his farm, Melville Carico wrote later in The Roanoke Times. This was a three-way program, supported by convict labor, an appropriation from the county board of supervisors and public subscription. Brown helped raise the pub­ lic share of $27,000. His home was in a rural area and “the only lights you could see from our house were those of the convict camp at Mud Lick Creek,” he said. 19 �Col. J. Sinclair Brown, speaker o f the the welcoming party for Rear Admiral South Pole. Others in the photo were Thomas Byrd, and Maj. Gen. John A. 20 House o f Delegates (top, center) was a prominent member of Richard Byrd (left) when he returned to New York City from the Gov. John Pollard (top hat), brothers former Gov. Harry Byrd and Lejeune (upper left), commandant o f Virginia Military Institute. �The Roanoke Times called Brown the co-father of the state highway system and the father of the state budget. When he was first elected in 1915, the state had no specified budget. As Brown put it, “In the old days, the fellow with the longest pole got the persimmons.” Gov. Westmoreland Davis named Brown to the Governor’s Advisory Board and he helped set up the state’s first budget. He became chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee and his financial influence in 1924 led to passage of the appropriations bill without debate or amendment for the first time. He was also chairman of a joint commission to study the tuberculosis prob­ lem. Brown’s service in the legislature drew high marks from many people. Douglas Southall Freeman, editor of the Richmond News-Leader, said of Brown: “In the councils of the General Assembly, his was steadfastly the voice of courage, of moderation and of sound judgment.” As a result of his close study of legislation, a Roanoke newspaper said that when a House delegate wanted to know the provisions of a bill, he was told to “ask Brown.” He was described as a businessman who believed in running the state government as a business. In 1935, when Brown announced that he would not be a candidate for re-election to the House, the Richmond News-Leader said he had the right to retire temporarily from public office when his business interests or personal inclinations dictate but his decision “is causing very general distress in Virginia.” The newspaper asked him to reconsider because “he is desperately needed. He is wor­ thy of any of the highest offices in Virginia.” He did not seek re-election but there was consider­ able talk of drafting him for the race for governor in 1936. Brown did not comment publicly and he did not run. He said he had announced his decision to leave the House “and I have seen no reason to alter it.” However, in 1945 he was commissioned as a member of the Virginia Constitutional Convention and he was unanimously elected president. And in 1956 he confessed, “I’m still interested in politics.” He did serve on the State Commission on Game and Inland Fisheries, as chairman of the State Board of Education and on a group named to evaluate the State Alcoholic Beverage Commission after his legislative experience. His public service was under five governors. Brown’s interests and activities extended beyond banking and the General Assembly. He was an accom­ plished hunter and marksman, winning first place in a target shoot at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y., as a youth of 20 in 1901. A Salem friend once threw a half-dol­ lar in the air and Brown shot it in half. He once calculated that he had killed 81 wild turkeys and 11 deer with friends at an Amelia County hunt club. Brown held many Roanoke Valley civic posts and he was recognized for 50 years as an ordained elder at Salem Presbyterian Church. Brown was a longtime chair­ Brown, the hunter, holds a trophy. man of the County School Trustee Electoral Board. In the 1920s, he was president of the Farmers Mutual Fire Insurance Co. and vice president of the State Association of Mutual Fire Insurance Associations. He led the county savings bond programs during both World Wars I and II and he was director of the Roanoke County-Salem-Vinton Defense Council in World War II. He was a trustee of Roanoke College and president of Salem Kiwanis Club, an officer in the Chamber of Commerce and a member of a number of fraternal organizations. In 1949, he became the only living person in the state to have a bridge named for him when the Lee Highway bridge in Salem was named the J. Sinclair Brown Bridge. Later, the library at Virginia Western 21 �Community College was named the Brown Library for him. After his death, the Roanoke World-News said, “Assuredly, he must be rated among the valley’s first citizens of the 20th century.” When the House of Delegates noted his death in January 1965, Speaker E. Blackburn Moore described Brown as one of the fairest and finest men he ever knew. When the Farmers National Bank marked its 75th anniversary in 1946, the Times Register printed pages about Brown. As House speaker, he was a member of the official Virginia Committee representing the state at the inauguration of President Franklin Roosevelt. He and his wife attended a reception at the Pan American Union in Washington honoring state governors. He was a member of a welcoming committee to greet Rear Admiral Richard Byrd when he landed in New York from a first trip to the Antarctic. With other members of a state commission, Brown received a French medal for his role in a Yorktown Exposition. After his three terms as House speaker, the Times Register quoted a poem about his service from an unnamed Richmond newspaper: H ard to B eat Him Though you perambulate the town Both east and west, both up and down, You ’ll fin d no match fo r Sinclair Brown. We have ourself searched everywhere To pick a fellow to Sinclair; We ’ve given up in deep despair. About him all the virtues throng His head is clear, his legs are long. He merits well both praise and song. Join with us, brethren, as we sing, Let every heart its tribute bring, Let every bell go ting-a-ling. A royal roos ter o f renown, We place upon his dome this crown. Salute the king - J. Sinclair Brown. Brown stands by an old church sign, near his home on Lee Highway. The church has been removed. (Roanoke Times photo) After a full life, John Sinclair Brown died at the age of 84 on Jan. 15, 1965. He was buried at East Hill Cemetery in Salem. He and his wife had two children. James S. Brown was in charge of two farms - the Lee Highway homeplace and another on Old McVitty Road where Lewis-Gale Hospital is located today. A daughter, Lucy Johnston Brown, married William Scott Russell, a Fredericksburg native who was vice president of Rish Equipment Co. in Salem. The Russells had two children: Lucy Ellett and Dr. William S. Russell Jr., a retired neu­ rologist, who lives with his wife, Carol, in Marathon, Fla. The doctor and his wife have three children: Mary Scott Russell and William S. Russell III, who live in Florida, and John E. Russell, Philadelphia, and three grandchildren. The Elletts have two children: Russ Ellett, Roanoke, and Katherine S. Gillespie, Charlotte, N.C., and four grand­ children. SOURCES Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Volume 2, Library of Virginia The Roanoke Times, Dec. 9, 1956 The Times Register, May 24, 1946 Family papers 22 �I n addition to the service of Col. J. Sinclair Brown of Roanoke County as Virginia House of Delegates speaker from 1930 to 1936, these men from Southwest Virginia have presided over the House: Peter Johnston Jr. from Prince Edward County served in the House as speaker from 1805-07, and as a judge, but later moved to Abingdon. He was a brother of Charles Johnston, who was captured by Indians and owned a hotel at Botetourt Springs, now Hollins University. Peter Johnston was the father of Confederate Gen. Joseph Johnston. George Washington Hopkins, speaker from 1850-52, served in the House from Russell and Washington counties, as a Congressman for 12 years, as a judge and min­ ister to Portugal. Hugh White Sheffey, speaker from 1863-65, was a native of Wytheville but he served in the House and Senate from Augusta County. Henry Clay Alien, speaker from 1877-79, was a Botetourt County native who represent­ ed Shenandoah County in the House and later was district attorney and a judge. Isaac Chapman Fowler, speaker from 1881-83, was a native of Tazewell County who represented Washington County in the House and served as mayor of Bristol and clerk of the U S', District Court at Abingdon. Edward Watts Saunders speaker from 1899-1901, served in the House from Franklin County and in Congress and as a State Supreme Court judge. Edwin Piper Cox, 1914-1916, was a Bland County native who served in the House from Richmond and later was a judge. Harry Rutherford Houston, speaker from 1916-20, was a Botetourt County native who served in the House from Elizabeth City County. Thomas B. Stanley speaker from 1942-46, represented his native Henry County in the House, served in Congress and as governor. Source; Speakers and Clerks of the Virginia House of Delegates, 1976 23 �W hat is it ab o u t th e Civil War by 5. Waite Rawls HI f ■ ^he Civil War, the War Between the States, the War of Southern Independence, the War of Northern Aggression, the War of the Rebellion, the Second Revolutionary War - What is it about that conflict A which captures our intellect and our emotions still today? We don’t even know what to call it. There have been more books written about the Civil War than any other subject, except Christianity. Since it ended 143 years ago, on average, there has been one book published every day - and they’re coming out now at the rate of three a day. There are more books about Abraham Lincoln than any other person, except Jesus Christ. Eight million people per year visit the battlefields, and one of the largest member organizations in the country - the Civil War Preservation Trust, 80,000 strong - is devoted to saving those battlefields from developers and urban sprawl. It is the only area of history that is showing increases in popularity and we’re still three years away from the sesquicentennial, the 150th anniver­ sary of the war. It is a distinctive part of American history that captures the imagination of foreigners. In September and October of this past year, more visitors came to the Museum of the Confederacy from England than from any state in the U.S., other than Virginia. Normally, California is our top state, followed by New York, Pennsylvania and Florida. Last year, 10 Confederate re-enactors showed up from Stuttgart, Germany, complaining that you couldn’t find any­ one in Germany who wanted to be a Yankee. And the most enjoyable two S. Waite Rawls III hours that I have spent on my job was with Margaret Thatcher, who was coming to Richmond to make a speech and wanted to drop by. One of the best Civil War publications is a quarterly magazine, published in French by the Confederate Military History Society of Belgium. And what is it about us Virginians? There’s a well-known disease among Civil War buffs known as “V.D.” It’s called “Virginia Disease.” So much of the Civil War was here - 60 percent of all battles were fought here - that we think we know more about it than anyone. Or do we actually know less because we think it all happened here? We furnished more troops, more generals and more manufactured goods than any other state. We suffered more devastation and economic loss than anywhere else in the history of America. We have all heard of Phil Sheridan’s boast that a crow would need to carry its own provender to cross the Shenandoah Valley. He could have said the same thing about the areas around Culpeper or Fredericksburg or Petersburg. Gettysburg was a big deal, but its casualties were less than half of those in Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County. And the two-mile radius around Cold Harbor and Gaines Mill in Hanover County is the bloodiest spot in America, not Sharpsburg. Perhaps we Virginians are that way because the Confederate armies were led by so many Virginians that S. Waite Rawls III, president and chief executive officer o f the Museum o f the Confederacy in Richmond, gave this talk fo r a Feb. 3, 2008, brunch o f the Historical Society o f Western Virginia at Hotel Roanoke. 24 �the other states often complained. Not only Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, but J.E.B. Stuart, Joe Johnston, Albert Sidney Johnston, Jubal Early, Dick Ewell, A.P. Hill, Fitz Lee, Rooney Lee, William Pendleton, James Kemper, Robert Rodes, George Pickett, and my favorite, Little Billy Mahone. Perhaps we are that way because Virginia was the most important state in the Union at the time of the way, having furnished seven of the 16 U.S. presidents. There was no question that Richmond would be the Capitol of the Confederacy as soon as Virginia seceded. Yes, what is it about that war? More Americans ¡¡8 1 6 2 0 ,0 0 0 - in the Civil War than in all other conflicts in our history added togeth­ er. Let’s look further at that number so that you can appreciate the magnitude. At the beginning of the war, there were about 9 million people living in the South | 5 million white people, 3.5 million enslaved black people and 400,000 free black people. Of the 5 million whites, about 1 million were men of military age - 17 to 50. Of the million, 950,000 served in the army - virtually the entire population - and 260,000 of them died. Another quarter million were maimed - the biggest item in the 1866 state of Mississippi budget was for artificial limbs. Looking at these proportions and applying them to today’s popu­ lation, that would be 9 million war deaths. In Iraq, we The Virginia General Assembly have slightly over 3,000 war deaths in five years. During the Civil War, it would have been 3,000 every 12 hours has created a commission for four years. to plan the state s What is it about that war? . Most of those men volunteered and until the end commemoration o f the when desertion became the Confederate Army’s biggest enemy, they stayed, starved and fought. Civil War's sesquicentennial. They thought it was their duty - their personal A national kickoff event honor required their sacrifice. I have read thousands of diaries and letters, which are far more interesting than will take place at the memoirs, and the words of the participants - from Harper 's Ferry, W.Va., the greatest general to the most humble private - are simply inspiring. on June 25, 2009. When the bugles blew and the drums rolled, they marched shoulder to shoulder across open fields into the For more information, visit teeth of cannons spewing canister - 50 and 60 and 70 www. virginiacivilwar. org. percent casualties were not uncommon in certain regi­ ments. And they all knew each other. We all know the story of the Bedford Boys*- notable today because of the high level of casualties among friends and neighbors. That was the rule during the Civil War, not the exception. When Pickett’s Division made its famous charge, there were 65 VMI men holding officer’s ranks in the front of their lines. Thirteen of the 15 regimental commanders were VMI men and 11 fell in the charge, including two sets of roommates. (Sorry to talk about VMI men in front of at least some Hokies. At least Tech was started by John Lane, a VMI man and Confederate colonel, after whom your stadium was named.) What is it about that war? . . „ We love to talk about the brilliance of the founding fathers but the Civil War is a testament to the fact that they didn’t get it right. They did settle one big issue - we were no longer British colonies. But they couldn t figure out what to do about state sovereignty and they couldn’t figure out slavery. Their pledge of allegiance to the flag could have ended with “one nation, under God, divisible, with liberty and justice for some. It took our Civil War, our internal conflict, to create a union and to advance the cause of personal liberty. The Civil War defined us all today, whether our ancestors were here to greet John Smith at Jamestown, fought for or against the Confederacy or recently immigrated. How many of you have seen the advertisement on PBS7 A Japanese-American speaks about the importance of watching the Ken Bums Civil War senes. He says that he was never a true American until he understood the Civil War. I am a proud member of the Sons of 25 �Confederate Veterans, but I don’t pretend to own the story of America because I have ancestors who arrived at Jamestown in 1608 or who fought in the 41st Virginia, the 13th Virginia Cavalry, the 23rd North Carolina and the 44th North Carolina. I am pleased to share the heritage of the American story with a citizen whose great­ grandfather fought a civil war in Ireland or Africa or Afghanistan.. Yet, what is it about that war? Today, a lot of people would rather sweep it under the rug than discuss it, particularly in schools and governments. Today, the names of Lee and Jackson and Davis are being removed from schools or roads or bridges or Boy Scout Councils. Today, in the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOLs), Robert E. Lee is mentioned twice and Jackson and Stuart not at all. Let me tell you what it is about that war. When I was a kid, the Confederacy and the Confederates were synonymous with honor and duty and sacrifice and patriotism. Today, they are not - to many, they are synony­ mous with slavery and racism. They are politically incorrect. They are the electric third rail of history. Teachers are afraid to teach about the Confederacy. Students are afraid to learn about the Confederacy. And corporations and foundation donors are afraid to support the study of American history and culture and humanity if the subject matter is the Confederacy. Many would sweep the Confederacy under the rug. But there’s a problem. It won’t stay there. And, if people like us don’t deal with it, the stage is left to 21st century ideo­ logues who would try to demonize all Confederates or to deify them all. I don’t know what any o f you can or will do about this, but let me tell you what we are doing at the Museum of the Confederacy. If we are to know anything of who we are, what we stand for and where we might be going as a nation, we need to understand who we were and why we disagreed so vehemently and so violently in the 1860s. We need to understand why a quarter of the South’s white population would think that their sense of duty and patriotism could call for their ultimate sacrifice. The Museum of the Confederacy exists to contribute to that understanding. Its artifacts - the real things used by the real people - tell the story of a very human conflict. Its exhibits and programs do not “celebrate” the Confederacy. They allow us to get closer to an understanding - warts and all - of those people who defined us. The women who suddenly found themselves in charge of farms and plantations, the free and enslaved AfricanAmericans who powered the Southern economy and contributed to both the Southern and Northern war efforts and the men who lined up shoulder to shoulder to cross a field ablaze with gunfire because they thought it was their duty g all come under scrutiny at the Museum of the Confederacy. We think it is important to know the complexity of American history. We think it is important to under­ stand that different people can draw different meanings from the same facts. So we don’t shy away from contro­ versy. Certainly, it makes me uncomfortable to hear someone announce their hatred for the Confederate flag. It probably makes them uncomfortable to hear me announce my respect for it. But I doubt if either of us has an exclusive claim on the truth. So a trip to the Museum of the Confederacy should not be a pilgrimage to a shrine to the Confederacy. It should be an opportunity to deepen your understanding of the Confederacy no matter where you started - well-informed, ill-informed or not informed. Real education does not shy from controversy, nor does it pretend to have the only answer. And real education is what we are all about. If we are going to shoulder that responsibility, we need to expand so that we can reach more people. We have recently announced our intentions to open new museums not branches or satellites, but full-fledged muse­ ums - in Appomattox, in Chancellorsville and inside the moat of Fort Monroe. We know that we can get three or four times the number of artifacts into the public’s view; and we think we can attract four or five times the num­ ber of people to see them. We think we can make a difference in the public’s understanding of the Confederacy. And we think that will make all of us better Americans for the 21st century. If you believe in anything I said, we would be pleased to have you as a member of the Museum of the Confederacy. 26 �Images from the O ld B e lt edited by Christina Koomen Smith Well, it’s b u ilt th e homes, it's paid th e bills, it ’s e d u ca te d th e children. M y da d was a to b a c c o grow er, my g ra nd ad b e fo re me. ... "Tobacco is e v e ryth in g to us. if we d o n ’t p la n t th a t cro p , som eone will. A n d we Know we grow to b a c c o th a t is co n sid ­ ered num ber one in th e w o rld . Ed. note: Excerpts have been selected to be reflective of the the images, and are not necessarily literal representations. Roanoke cultural geographer Jim Crawford is the writer and p ro ­ ducer o f the acclaim ed documentary “Down in the Old Belt: Voices From the Tobacco South, ‘ which has aired on Blue Ridge Public Television, am ong other broadcasts, Crawford holds bach­ elor ’s and m aster s degrees fro m Virginia Tech and has taught at VT and at H ollins University. The fd m was commended as “an outstanding documentary o f the history and culture o f tobacco in a Senate Joint Resolution approved by the Virginia General Assembly. The Virgina Foundation fo r the Humanities supported the documentary with a grant and the H istorical Society o f Western Virginia was the fisc a l sponsor fo r grant applications. 27 �M y m other came from a fa rm in g fam ily o f six b o ys and six g irls, th a t were d e p e n d e n t on th e farm all th e way from th e ir fo o d source to th e ir incom e. You see how th e fam ily p u lle d to g e th e r so c lo s e ly ju s t fo r s u r­ vival. —C larence B ry a n t III to b a c c o fa rm e r In th o s e dans we w o rked th e to b a c c o w ith mules, and mu firs t jo b , I guess, was hand­ in g leaves, because th a t’s w h at little c h il­ dren co u ld do , p u t th re e o r fo u r leaves to a b u nd le and hand it to som ebody to s trin g it. —Lucy C onner to b a c c o fa rm e r �M o st all o f th e la b o r on th e farm th e n was fam ily. I mean, it was n o t m igrant la b o r, it was do ne w ith fam ilies and p e o p le w ho lived on th e farm , th e share­ cro p p e rs. A n d so th a t was a system th a t I have w atched in my lifetim e alm ost all b u t disap pe ar. - C h arles H aw kins to b a c c o fa n n e r Tobacco changed a lo t a fte r th e a llo tm e nt came o u t. We made it by te n d in g th a t little allo tm e nt.T h e crop s and th e garden and s tu ff like th a t m eant as much to us as to b a c c o d id th e n . M oney — to b a c c o was th e money cro p . — T a lb e rt C allands to b a c c o fa rm e r 29 �In th e ’ 30 s we were p o sin g fo r th e N ational "Tobacco Pestival in S o u th B o sto n . ... I was 16 when it s ta rte d . ... I lo o k a t th e o ld p ic­ tu re s o f how many is gone, and very few o f us are le ft. I love th e p u b lic ity — isn’t th a t aw ful? —Louise Patterson Slayton Virginia's L a d y N icotine We raised o u r cows, hogs, c h ick­ ens, vegetables, we canned a lo t o f b e rrie s. ... [W ]e d id n ’t have no deep freezers o r P rigidaires o r n o th in g like th a t a t th a t tim e. S o th e y canned w h a t th use A n d we lived g o o d . —T a lb e rt C allands to b a c c o fa rm e r 30 �When I s ta rte d w o rkin g w ith to b a c c o I d id n ’t have an ythin g, m e man came and ta lk e d to me a b o u t fa rm in g ... O n e row fo r him and one row fo r me. I s ta rt­ ed o u tju s t like th a t. — Willie T h o m p so n to b a c c o fa rm e r In th is day and tim e when a farm is sold, it is so rare th a t a person like m yself o r a n o th e r fa rm e r can go and buy th a t land. T he land is b ro ­ ken up. It will never be farm ed again, by anyone. T h a t is gone. S o y o u change y o u r landscape, th e b e a u ty th a t p e o p le ta lk a b o u t when th e y drive th ro u g h S o uthside and th e ro llin g hills and say “O h , isn H th a t p re tty ? ” Well, y o u b e tte r lo o k w hile y o u can, because I d o n ’t know how much lo ng er it will be here. C larence 5 r y a n t III to b a c c o fa rm e r 31 �R esidential segregation in th e City o f Roanoke by Naomi A. M ottos n the summer of 2005,1 gave a talk entitled “Residential Segregation in Roanoke City: Residential Segregation Ordinances and their Effect on the Gainsboro Community from 1911-1917” at the Gainsboro Library. The talk was about research I completed through my summer internship with the Roanoke Regional Preservation Office. This article is a condensed version of my library talk and explains the why and how of my research, the history of residential segregation laws in the City of Roanoke, and how these laws affected both the black and white commu­ nities. An in-depth examination of Gilmer Avenue NW illustrates the effect of the laws and their lasting impres­ sions long after the Supreme Court decision of 1917, which made residential segregation laws unconstitutional.1 In the beginning of the summer I was given a task to research four houses on the 400 block of Gilmer Avenue NW (401,405,411, and 415). The main purpose of this assignment was to record the history of four promi­ nent families in the black community of Roanoke. When given the topic, my supervisor and director of the Roanoke Historic Preservation Office, Dr. John Kern, made the observation that on this particular block of Gilmer Avenue an abrupt racial demographic shift occurred between 1914 and 1915. Before 1915, the entire 400 block was white. A year later, the 400 block was predominantly black. My research quickly turned into trying to find the cause of such a drastic change in this short span of time. After speaking with a colleague, the topic of residential segrega­ tion laws and how they were implemented in Richmond became a likely candidate as the cause for the change in the racial makeup of the 400 block of Gilmer. Come to find out, Roanoke adopted such laws as well. As a result of this new information, I set out on a quest to find out all I could about the history of residential segregation laws and how they were adopted and implemented within the City of Roanoke. I used many resources to research Roanoke residential segregation laws. I found the old Roanoke City Directories in the Virginia Room of the Roanoke Library full of relevant information. Not only do they have the address of the head of household but also his/her occupation and spouse. The directories also have a cross-refer­ ence so you can look up an address and gather information about a block including its racial makeup, because dur­ ing this time period, directories specified whether a resident or business was white or colored owned. To gain proof of the land being transferred from white to black residents, I used the Roanoke Circuit Court Land Records. To find the actual laws implemented, I reviewed Common Council (know as the City Council of today) Ordinances and minutes from council meetings. I also reviewed various newspapers and law journals including the Roanoke Times, Roanoke Tribune, Richmond Planet, New York Age, and the Virginia Law Review, to name a few. I Naomi Mattos was a 2005 summer intern fo r the Roanoke Regional Preservation Office (RRPO) in Roanoke. A recent graduate from the College o f William and Mary, Mattos received herBBA (Marketing) and BA in Black Studies in May 2005. She was assigned to the Gainsboro Documentation Project by her supervisor and direc­ tor o f the RRPO, Dr. John Kern. Originally, the assignment was to research four houses on the 400 block o f Gilmer Avenue NW, in Roanoke; however, while exploring possible causes fo r the racial demographic shiftfrom white to black residents in 1915 on the 400 block o f Gilmer, the topic o f residential segregation laws became the focus o f her research. Since not a lot is written on both the black community in Roanoke and the City’s res­ idential segregation ordinances, most o f the paper is based on primary research. Mattos would like to thank: Dr. John Kern and the Roanoke Regional Preservation Office, Ann Field Alexander, Ed Barnett, Shelia Hartman, Alice and Margaret Roberts, Ekoko Omadeke, the Virginia Room o f the Roanoke Library, the Roanoke Courthouse Law Library, the Gainsboro Library, and the Library o f Virginia. 32 �Of the four prominent homes in the 400 block of Gilmer Avenue NW, the Oliver Hill house is at right. Next are the Edward Dudley home, the Dr. J.H. Roberts home, and Rufus Edwards home. The historical context of the time period is rooted in the post-Reconstruction era. Between the years of 1890 and 1910, blacks were systematically disenfranchised due to new Jim Crow legislation. State constitutions instituted grandfather clauses and implemented poll taxes to inhibit black voting. At the advent of such laws, a majority of the black population lost their right to vote; thus limiting the power of blacks to determine their polit­ ical destiny. American society also subjected blacks to social segregation. Then, the landmark Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson of 1896 occurred and the phrase “separate but equal” had legislative backing. This decision allowed for segregation of passengers on trains and was later extended to city streetcars. The decision also allowed states to segregate institutions such as hospitals, jails and city establishments from places of employment to eater­ ies and water fountains. A f r ic a n A m e r ic a n s m ig r a t e d f r o m f a r m s t o c it ie s During this time, there was an influx of African Americans migrating from rural communities into the urban centers of cities in search of labor opportunities. For example, Roanoke saw a huge growth of black citizens because of the Norfolk & Western Railway. Because the rate of blacks coming into the city was increasing at a faster rate than the colored sections into which they moved could expand, overcrowding within these colored com­ munities often occurred. The social conditions of colored sections not only included instances of overcrowding but also included poor living conditions due to city officials’ lack of help to remedy the poor sanitary conditions and poor police protection. . Also, around this time some blacks were becoming economically self-sufficient. Blacks with the means to do so were moving out of the colored sections into better housing arrangements which resulted in blacks moving into white neighborhoods. Due to this perceived encroachment, the white community felt threatened and a heated 33 �discourse ensued. This discourse included discussions of lost property value of white neighborhoods and the dete­ rioration of the moral fiber within white blocks. To remedy this situation, cities began to implement residential seg­ regation laws.2 . . .. Within the U.S., these laws were adopted in both the southern and western regions, including cities such as Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and St. Louis, Missouri. Although my focus is on the segregation laws implement­ ed in Roanoke, I am going to first give the background of two cities’ adaptation of the law to illustrate the law’s evolution. Those two cities include Baltimore, Maryland, and Richmond, Virginia. Baltimore, Maryland, was the first city to adopt and implement a residential segregation law in 1910. The purpose of the law was to maintain “peace, health, good government and welfare of the city.”3 The law forbade black residents to move into a majority white block and vice versa for white residents. Under this law mixed blocks, or blocks that had more than one or more of both black and white residents, remained mixed. New neighborhoods were designated on a first-come first-served basis, meaning the first to move in (black or white) would decide the racial makeup of the neighborhood.4 A year later, Richmond, Virginia, adopted a residential segregation law in 1911. They considered their law an updated and more legally sound version of the Baltimore ordinance. Like Baltimore’s ordinance, blacks could not live in predominantly white neighborhoods and vice versa; however, unlike Baltimore, the black people of Richmond could own land in a predominantly white neighborhood. The catch, however, was that although black residents could own land on a predominantly white block, they could not actually use or inhabit the land they owned in the white neighborhood. This provision of the law led to a lot of confusing situations. For example, a white Methodist church sold its church to a black Baptist congregation. The transfer of land created uproar within the white community because the entrance of the church opened up into a white neighborhood; however, the rest of the church was situated in a predominantly black community. To actually use the church the black congregation had to build and use a side entrance. This action seemed to appease the white citizens, but after the first service, it was reported that the pastors and deacon of the black congregation allegedly used the front entrance and were sub­ sequently arrested and fined.5Due to the confusing nature of the law this situation happened more than once with­ in the city of Richmond. Between 1911 and 1917, Roanoke City also enacted residential segregation ordinances similar to those passed in Baltimore, Maryland; and Richmond, Virginia. The first segregation law was Ordinance 2470 passed by the Common Council on May 8, 1911. The purpose of this law was “to secure for white and colored people respec­ tively the separate location of residence for each race.” Like the other ordinances of this time, this ordinance for­ bade black residents to reside on predominantly white blocks. Also according to this law, it was unlawful for a white person to inhabit or conduct a place of business on, in between, or adjacent to a predominantly black block and vice versa. Furthermore, the law also contained a provision that allowed for white and black servants and/or employees to live on the block where they were employed and the law did not affect already established neighbor­ hoods or public assemblies.6 A year later, on March 12, 1912, an important act was passed by the Commonwealth of Virginia. This act granted the municipalities of Virginia the right to divide their cities into “segregation districts ; thus, constructing a map detailing where white and colored citizens could live. In response to the passing of this act the City of Roanoke began drafting its own segregation map. C o m m o n C o u n c il d r a f t e d s e g r e g a t io n m a p On March 8, 1913, the Roanoke Times reported that the Common Council was drafting a segregation map and a corresponding ordinance.7The council formed the Special Committee of Segregation to perform the task, and during a council meeting the 1912 Act passed by the General Assembly was discussed. Within the minutes of this meeting, it was recorded that two Northeast black residents voiced objections to the adoption of the 1912 Act and subsequent map. The council decided to table the discussion until the next Common Council meeting. During the next council meeting, Ordinance 2947 was adopted on March 12, 1913. This ordinance adopted the 1912 Act passed by the General Assembly of Virginia and allowed for the City of Roanoke to be divided into segregation districts.9/; VAA :>■> ! ,/.v j / v:;:' Two years later on February 8, 1915, the Common Council passed Ordinance 3605, which endorsed a seg- 34 �Description of Segregation Districts superimposed by author, based on written descriptions in City of^ Roanoke Segregation Ordinance 3605, 1915. Source: Charles E. Moore. “Map o f Greater Roanoke (New York: McAlpine-Kay Co., 1918). regation map drafted by the Special Committee of Segregation. The map divided Roanoke into five segregation dis­ tricts. Segregation Districts 1 through 4 were designated as colored and Segregation District 5 (which was all the land not covered within the first four districts) was white. Segregation District 1 was the biggest of the districts covering a good part of the Northwest and Northeast sections of Roanoke. Segregation District 2 was located directly south of the first district in the Northwest section. Segregation District 3 was in the Southwest section just below the Norfolk & Western Railway tracks. And Segregation District 4 was the smallest district and located in the Northeast section.10 *;• I H H ... The 1915 segregation map affected both the white and black communities, specifically within Gilmer Avenue NW. To white citizens, Gilmer Avenue was seen as the only “bone of contention” when discussing the seg­ regation map of 1915. White citizens of Roanoke wanted to keep the avenue for the white community because Gilmer Avenue NW was seen as the only exit Northwest white citizens had to Northeast and the business section without going through a black section.11However, the argument that Gilmer Avenue NW should stay white had no legal standing and was inevitable. The reason being that according to the law it was unlawful for a white person to inhabit or conduct a place of business on, in between, or adjacent to a predominantly black block and vice versa. Gilmer Avenue NW, more specifically the 100 to the 400 blocks, was situated directly in between Segregation Districts 1 and 2, making that section of Gilmer Avenue NW automatically, in theory, a black block. Because of the location of Gilmer Avenue NW it became part of a “changing neighborhood.” Between 1910 and 1915, black 35 �households increased from one to 66 out of 91 households total (nine of which were vacant). The block that witnessed the most dramatic change was the 400 block of Gilmer Avenue NW. Before 1915, the entire 400 block of Gilmer contained white residents. After 1915, only three out of 22 houses contained white residents. This 400 block can be seen as a sort of cross section of the strong, self-determined, and self-sufficient black community of Roanoke. The family histories of four houses, 401, 405, 411, and 415, on the 400 block of Gilmer are an illustration of how the black society of Roanoke succeeded in preserving a strong positive identity. O l iv e r H i l l l iv e d w it h P e n t e c o s t f a m il y The Pentecost family lived in 401 Gilmer Avenue NW. Bradford and Lelia Pentecost moved from their pre­ vious residence at 39 Gilmer Avenue NW shortly after buying the land on April 21, 1915.12 Described as a mildmannered, even-tempered man, Bradford Pentecost was a chef on the Norfolk & Western Railway dining car. Lelia Pentecost worked out of her home and took in boarders - one of which was the famous civil rights attorney, Oliver W. Hill, Sr. one of the last surviving members of the Brown v. Board of Education case of 1954. Hill grew up in Roanoke with the Pentecosts until 1923 when he traveled to Washington, D.C., to finish his education. Hill’s moth­ er and stepfather also lived in Roanoke for a time but had to move to Hot Springs in Bath County to make a liv­ ing. Since the better schools were in Roanoke, Hill’s mother allowed for him to stay with the Pentecosts. The Pentecosts were wonderful role models of strong African Americans, teaching Hill self-respect and the determina­ tion to succeed in life. After completing his law degree at Howard University and passing the bar in 1934, Hill returned to Roanoke and the Pentecost household to start his law practice from 1934 to 1936.13 The Dudley family resided at 405 Gilmer. Dr. Edward R. Dudley was the first black dentist in Roanoke, starting his practice in 1911 at 29 Gilmer Avenue NW which doubled as his residence until moving into 405 Gilmer in 1915. Not only was Dudley the first black dentist of Roanoke but also he organized the Magic City Building and Loan Association, which was the first black lending institution in 1915. In 1919, he opened the Ideal Pharmacy Incorporated along with two other owners, Drs. Roberts and Claytor. Dudley was also involved in the community. He was elected treasurer of the NAACP in 1918 when the local Roanoke chapter was first established. Dudley was a member of the Magic City Medical Society, which was a society of the black medical practitioners of Roanoke. Dudley was also elected treasurer of the Negro Business League for Roanoke in 1919. Dudley had four sons. Among them was the recently deceased eldest son, Edward R. Dudley Jr., who served as the U.S. Ambassador to Liberia from 1948 to 1953 and served on the New York State Supreme Court from 1964 to 1985. At 411 Gilmer Avenue NW was the house of the Roberts family. Dr. J.H. Roberts and his wife, Alice Barnette, had two daughters, Alice and Margaret. Roberts received his B.S. and M.D. degrees from Howard University. Dr. Roberts was the co-founder, vice president, and secretary of Burrell Memorial Hospital, the famous black hospital that served the community for many years. He was a member of the Magic City Medical Society and one of three owners of the Ideal Pharmacy which opened at 439 Gainsboro Avenue NW in 1919. Roberts was also on the planning committee of the first black YMCA, the William A. Hunton YMCA, in 1928. The Edwards family lived at 415 Gilmer Avenue NW. Rufus and Josephine Edwards had seven children four sons and three daughters. Rufus Edwards was a brakeman for the Norfolk & Western Railway. In 1939, he was the co-founder and grand secretary-treasurer for the Association of Colored Railway Trainmen and Locomotive Firemen Local Chapter 35. The Association worked for fair and equal treatment of colored railroad workers. Edwards was also involved with Citizens Undertaking Establishment Incorporated, which was a local, affordable funeral service. The above family histories were just a sample of how, despite the inhumane treatment and laws they faced, the blacks of Roanoke still maintained a strong black community. The residential laws that were endured by black society came to an end with the Supreme Court ruling in 1917. The case, Buchanan v. Warley, declared residential segregation ordinances unconstitutional in 1917. This decision was the result from a test case challenging the segregation law in Louisville, Kentucky, presented by the NAACP legal counsel. This Supreme Court decision was the first big victory achieved by the NAACP. The Supreme Court ruled that the law violated the 14th Amendment which prevents state interference with property rights except by due process of law. Even though this decision was seen as a victory for the black community, the decision did not overturn Plessy v. Ferguson; therefore, it did not end racial discrimination and segregation. 36 �Modern Homes for Colored Twelve modem jtouJl bungalow typmf tenie Siel w ater b u t i i end i S with bath, gas. electric lights i mà eeweragiL' ’ All m offered for the firmi time to color«! people. - - -T h k -p ro p erty located fu Northern it S w th » | dee# In) bounded by Rutherford Avene«» Third Street» Ha t risen and Conunonwedth Arem«» Good streets and * grapelithfe sid* wallssf ceoTinieiitty located market»' •hop*» end at! M teti of fntereet in M r dtp* fie street car la w needed.. * * * Only high class colored people will he offered the*«' _ p rv p « rtk tf and te.sad u attractl?« terms will |n w adn These properties will he handled n d u m iljr Vy j W i i f t w and Bewling SIS South Jeffarson Si met and 9* R. M i magIIFirst National Bank Building. | : || _ C. H. BRADY. Owner " Because of this fact, the effects of the past residential segregation laws were still evident in cities such as Roanoke long after the 1917 decision declaring them unconstitutional. ‘ C o l o r e d c it iz e n s ’ p r o t e s t s e g r e g a t io n For example, an article in the New York Age titled “Colored Citizens of Roanoke, Va. Effectively Protest Against a Movement to Start Segregation” reported that at a council meeting in 1921, councilmen wanted to dis­ cuss a possible resolution that would ask the white citizens to refrain from selling land in white neighborhoods to black citizens, employing the same arguments used to rationalize the past residential segregation laws. Any viola­ tion of this understanding was to be “regarded as in violent conflict with the characteristic customs of our splendid citizenship.” At this meeting a group of black community leaders, which included Drs. Dudley and Roberts, opposed such a resolution, citing the 1917 Supreme Court decision declaring such acts unconstitutional. The oppo­ sition of the black community was so strong that the resolution was not even brought up for discussion.14 37 �The lasting impression left from the segregation laws is also illustrated through an advertisement in the Roanoke Times entitled “Modem Homes for Colored People.” The advertisement highlighted 12 modem small homes in the Northeast section. The homes were described as “close in; bounded by Rutherford Ave, 3rd St.; Harrison and Commonwealth Ave.,” are being offered only to “high class colored people.” The white real estate office handling the houses was Glasgow and Bowling located at 213 S. Jefferson Street and S.R. Mason located in the First National Bank Building.15 The property offered for sale to black residents was outside of the black Segregation District 1 as established in the Ordinance 3605. Thus, racially segregated housing in Roanoke contin­ ued to be sold after the Supreme Court decision against residential segregation ordinances in 1917 and after the withdrawal of the proposed Roanoke City segregation resolution of 1921. It is evident that racial discrimination and segregation still remained long after the 1917 Supreme Court decision. The above examples illustrate residential segregation taking on different forms. Whether the form takes on the appearance of a resolution passed by the City Council, real estate offices advertising for racially specific housing, or a covenant enacted by homeowners associations, the end result is the same - racial segregation. Such injustices would not be remedied legally until the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of 1954 and not actual­ ly taken into effect until much later beginning with the Civil Rights Acts of 1964. Thus history continues to teach that although the legislation can be in place to remedy the wrongs of society, the social reality takes a while to mir­ ror the well-intentioned legislation. N otes 1 A Copy of the full report titled “Segregation by Custom vs. Segregation by Law: Residential Segregation Ordinances and their effects on the City of Roanoke, 1910-1917,” can be found at the Gainsboro Library and the Virginia Room in the Roanoke Library. Both libraries are located in Roanoke, Virginia. 2 Roger Rice, “Residential Segregation by Law, 1910-1917,” The Journal of Southern History 34, no. 2 (May 1968): 180. 3 “Police Power - Segregation of Races,” Virginia Law Review 1 (1913-1914): 333 4 S.S. Field, “The Constitutionality of Segregation Ordinances,” Virginia Law Review 5, no. 2 (November 1917): 83-84. 5 Ann Field Alexander, Race Man: The Rise and Fall o f the ‘Fighting Editor’John Mitchell Jr. (University of Virginia Press, 2002), 175-177'. 6 “Ordinance 2470,” Book 2, Ordinances and Joint Resolutions, Common Council and Board of Aldermen (Aug. 28, 1908-March 10, 1913) (Roanoke City Council, Virginia: 8 May 1911) 7 “Segregation Map Now Being Drawn,” Roanoke Times. 8 March 1913, 1. 8 Common Council Minutes (Roanoke City Council, Virginia: 8 March 1913), 441. 9 “Ordinance 2497,” Book 3, Ordinances and Joint Resolutions, Common Council and Board of Aldermen (March 10, 1913-July 9, 1917). (Roanoke City Council, Virginia: 12 March 1913) 10 “Ordinance 3605,” Book 3, Ordinances and Joint Resolutions, Common Council and Board of Aldermen (March 10, 1913-July 9, 1917). (Roanoke City Council, Virginia: 8 February 1915) 11 “Segregation Lines Fixed by Council,” Roanoke Times. 9 February 1915. 12 City Tax Map of 401 Gilmer Avenue NW 13 Oliver W. Hill, Sr. The Big Bang: Brown v. Board o f Education and Beyond. (Four-G Publishers: Florida, 2000). 14 “Colored Citizens of Roanoke, Va. Effectively Protest Against a Movement to Start Segregation,” New York Age, 1921. 15 “Modem Homes for Colored People,” Roanoke Times, 11 April 1922. M 38 �Thp P re s to n s ~ A Southwest Virginia Dynasty by Malcolm W. Bryan III T o h n Preston, founder of the Virginia family of that name, was bom at Newtown-Limavady (County Donegal) I in Northern Ireland. John’s date of birth has not survived. His wife, nee Elizabeth Patton, was bom 25 December 1700. Elizabeth was socially superior to Preston, according to their granddaughter, Letitia Preston Floyd. She reported that they met in the following manner: Elizabeth, crossing the river Shannon in a boat, was much attract­ ed to the beauty and deportment of a young man whose name was John Preston. On inquiry he was found to be a ship-carpenter. Nothing daunt­ ed by his humble fortunes, an understanding took place, and Miss Patton consented to a runaway match. The marriage took place in Ireland and four of their six children were bom in the old country. Colonel James Patton, brother of Elizabeth Preston, brother-in-law of John Preston and holder of mercantile interests in Virginia, convinced John to come to America. Preston was promised 4,000 acres of land in Orange County, some of which later became Augusta County. The land was part of an agreement between James Patton and Colonel William Beverley, who was attempting to develop land in western Virginia. Beverley wrote the following note to Patton on 8 August 1737: “I should be very glad if you could import families enough to take the whole off from our hands at a reasonable price and tho’ the order men­ No portrait of Col. William Preston tions families from Pensilvania yet families from Ireland will do as well.” has ever been located but a John and Elizabeth (Patton) Preston had six children. Most of painting of his wife, Susannah them became persons of immense importance to Virginia and this nation. Preston, hangs at their home, The oldest child, Letitia, married Robert Breckinridge, as his second wife. Smithfield. However, the publish­ Their children became potent in the political world, particularly in ers of Kegley’s Virginia Frontier Kentucky. Margaret, the next in line, married John Brown, Princeton used this profile of Preston, with graduate, Presbyterian minister and founder of Augusta Academy, fore­ no identified source, to accompa­ runner of Washington & Lee University. William Preston, the eldest son, ny a photo of his wife’s portrait.. was a man of enormous importance to the history of Southwest Virginia. Ann, the fourth child, the last bom in Ireland, married Francis Smith, early Botetourt justice and one of the founders of Fincastle. Mary Preston mar- Malcolm Bryan, a Roanoke native and descendant o f Robert and Letitia Breckinridge (William Prestons sis­ ter) attended the farmer Richmond Professional Institute and is a retired small business owner. He has writ­ ten many historical articles, including an unpublished biography o f his ancestor, Timothy Matlock He is a member o f the Mayflower Society, Sons o f the American Revolution, Magna Charta Barons and The Jamestowne Society. The Fincastle Resolutions chapter o f the Sons o f the American Revolution has announced plans to place a monument in memory o f Col. William Preston on the grounds o f his former Greenfield Plantation, now a Botetourt County office and industrial park. 39 �Greenfield, Botetourt County home o f William Preston from 1759 until he moved his family to Smithfield 15 years later. The house burned in 1959. tied John Howard, a pioneer settler of what is now the Commonwealth of Kentucky. James, the sixth child of John and Elizabeth Preston, died young. William Preston probably deserves more credit than any other member of the family for his remarkable prominence. His parents’ success in America was not a foregone conclusion. They were encouraged by Elizabeth’s uncle, James Patton, to immigrate to America in 1738. William Preston’s future was indeed in jeopardy when his father died circa 1747-1748. James Patton immediately came to William’s support after his father died. He placed William under the tutelage of the Reverend John Craig of Tinkling Spring Presbyterian Church in Augusta County. Although relative­ ly young, Preston was too old to begin a classical education. He learned history, mathematics and penmanship under Craig. This allowed him to become James Patton’s private secretary. In that position he learned to interact with the Indians. Patton was a strident taskmaster, insisting that his nephew keep accurate records at all times. This diligence continued for the rest of his life and has been of great benefit to historians of Southwest Virginia. His writings are the only records which remain in some cases. His sweeping understanding of Native Americans played a great part in his actions for the rest of his life. He was able to negotiate and sometimes become friends with Cherokee Indian leaders. Preston also had the abili­ ty to fight them when negotiations failed or circumstances required armed intervention. James Patton was killed by an Indian raiding party at Draper’s Meadows (Blacksburg) in July 1755. The site of his death is now part of the Virginia Tech campus. In a circumstance which undoubtedly saved his life, William Preston had been sent by his uncle to a German family on Sinking Creek to recruit harvest hands. Had he been with Patton and the others, no doubt the 16 Shawnees in the raiding party would have counted Preston among 40 �their victims and the nation would have been dealt a serious blow. Mary Draper Ingles, whose miraculous escape has been written about many times, was taken prisoner in this same raid. . William Preston was one of the trustees in the act of incorporating the town of Staunton in 1761. Earlier in that same year he had purchased the nucleus of his plantation, Greenfield, from Stephen Renfro. Preston s offi­ cial duties were so numerous and varied that it becomes difficult to enumerate his many positions. Due to his uncle’s influence, Preston was hired as clerk of the Vestry of Augusta County in 1750 before his 21st birthday. The next day he acquired 334 acres in Beverley Manor and another 365 acres on Lewis Creek, thus beginning a life­ long occupation of buying and selling land. Preston’s military career also began at an early age. On 14 July 1755, he was commissioned captain of a compa­ ny of rangers. As such, he served immediately under the gov­ ernor and finally under Major Andrew Lewis. In the winter his party and others marched against the Shawnees in the Sandy Creek expedition. This foray was in retaliation for the raid which killed Patton. Ultimately they were unable to locate the Indians. Sandy Creek was a complete disaster for Preston and the other commanders. Nearly frozen, without food and facing many desertions, they were forced to return home. In 1756, Preston accompanied George Washington from Augusta Court House to Looney’s Ferry (Buchanan) in Washington’s survey of the western frontier. Preston and his men were stationed in several of the forts which protected the populace from the Indians in the years 1757 and 1758. He became colonel and commander of the militia in Augusta County in 1763. William Preston served in the House of. Burgesses representing Augusta County from 1766 to 1769. When Botetourt County was formed on 22 December 1769, Preston was commissioned colonel of its militia. He was also named one of its coroners. William Preston’s important duties continued during Susanna Smith Preston, wife of Colonel the short life of Fincastle County. He served on the William Preston. (Source: Kegley’s Virginia Committee of Safety and when it was reorganized in October Frontier) 1775, he became chairman. He was one of 15 signers of the Fincastle Resolutions in 1775. He was also commissioned lieutenant and commander-in-chief of the militia of Fincastle County. ^ American Revolution, William Preston continued with his varied duties. During this period he faced three enemies: the Indians who were still active in the area; the Tories who were plentiful even near Smithfield, which was now his home; and, of course, the third enemy - the British Army. He faced them all with the skill he had learned over his life. He addressed the Shawnees in 1778 in an attempt to alleviate their hostility. In 1779 he held a meeting with his neighbors at his home in order to oppose the possibility of a Tory insurrection. Early in 1781, when an invasion of Virginia loomed, Preston called out troops without waiting for permission from Governor Thomas Jefferson. He and his troops took part in the Battle of Guilford Courthouse m North Carolina. Jefferson was grateful and commended him for his course of action with the following words: P . “I am obliged to you for the Narrative of your proceedings to the Southward. It was certainly not only jus­ tifiable but laudable and even indispensably necessary that you should have proceeded as you did to oppose the public Enemy without orders from Government which it would have been fatal to have awaited. William Preston became ill on 28 June 1783, while attending a muster of the Montgomery County militia. It was a warm day and Preston had spent several hours at the reviewing field about three miles from Smithfieid. He died about midnight at the home of General Evan Shelby who lived nearby. His daughter, Letitia Preston Floyd, 41 �wrote this description of her father: “Colonel Preston was above the ordinary height of man - five feet eleven inches. He was large, inclined to corpulency; was ruddy, had fair hair and hazel eyes. His manners were easy and graceful. He had a well-cultivat­ ed intellect and a fine taste for poetry. I remember reading several beautiful productions of his, addressed to my mother, in praise of her domestic virtues.” When one considers political dynasties from Virginia, he or she is apt to think of aristocratic Tidewater families, such as the Lee family, the many Benjamin Harrisons or other clans of eastern Virginia. Beginning with their arrival in Virginia in 1632, the first five Benjamin Harrisons were elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses. This began the longest unbroken line of politicians in American history. John Adams was quoted as saying the fam­ ily of Lee has more merit in it than any other family. St. George Tucker also established a political dynasty when he left Bermuda in 1771 to attend the College of William and Mary. The Tucker family, descended from a Norman yeoman who crossed the Channel with William the Conqueror, ultimately pro­ duced five United States congressmen and a wealth of educators, jurists and men of let­ ters. Causing a nightmare for genealogists, the Tucker clan was steadfast in sticking to their family names. There were three St. George Tuckers, five Henry St. George Tuckers, four Nathaniel Beverley Tuckers and six Beverley Tuckers. Additionally, there were female Beverley Tuckers and one Henry Tucker on the distaff side. The Southwest Virginia Preston dynasty began in February 1759, when William Preston purchased 191 acres from Stephen Renfro, in what is now Botetourt County. He moved his family to what would become Greenfield about three years after the pur­ chase. The Greenfield acreage increased to 1,590 by 1765. In its early years the home was no more than a blockhouse or fort, sur­ rounded by a stockade. Preston did not spend the remainder of Gov. John Floyd, son-in-law o f William Preston, was elect­ his life at Greenfield. In 1773 he purchased ed governor in 1830. His son, John Floyd, also served as over 500 acres at Draper’s Meadows (now governor. (Courtesy of the Library of Virginia) Blacksburg) and established Smithfield. His wife and children moved there in March 1774.The beautifully restored home stands today near the Virginia Tech campus. Some time later William Preston convinced his sister and her husband, Robert Breckinridge, to settle in Botetourt County. Their home was a short distance from Greenfield, located in the general area of Tinker Mountain. The exact date of the Breckinridge move has not been determined, but it is a fact that James Breckinridge was bom in Botetourt County on 7 March 1763. His older brother, John, was bom on 2 December 1760, in Augusta County. The move occurred between the births of the two sons, consequently not long after the Preston family came to the area. A book authored by Stephen Hess, titled America’s Political Dynasties, was published in 1966. This dependable volume has included one Southwest Virginia dynasty. The addition of the Breckinridge family in the �Hess book questions the old Virginia adage: Gentlemen and clams end at the fall line. In a surprising departure from the norm, this family did not have its beginnings in the aristocracy of Tidewater Virginia, but arose in the sparse­ ly-settled mountains of western Virginia. While preparing his manuscript, Stephen Hess evidently was not aware that the Breckinridge and Preston families were one and the same. This omission of the Prestons (as a dynasty) in his work detracts greatly from the inventory of accomplishments of the Breckinridge family. There is little doubt that both the Breckinridge and Preston families owe their remarkable accomplishments in subsequent generations to William Preston’s industry in obtaining a respectable library, with books obtained from both England and the larger American cities. These publications were placed in his then-backwoods planta­ tion. This admirable collection enabled him to start a school for his children and those of his sister, both male and female. Preston’s daughter, Letitia Preston Floyd, wrote the following words in her memoir: “It was always a rule with Colonel Preston to require every young man who was employed in his survey­ or’s office to teach school six months at least, thereby finding out his temper, diligence, habits and trustworthiness. Mr. Breckenridge’s, Smith’s children, and my brothers and sisters constituted Floyd’s school.” Preston hired John Floyd as his tutor when the school was established. His daughter, Letitia Preston, mar­ ried Floyd’s son. The following letter was written by William Preston to the Reverend John Brown from Greenfield on 27 July 1763: “Our situation at present is very different from what it was when we had the pleasure of your company. All the valleys of Roanoke River and the waters of the Mississippi are depopulated, except Captain English and a few families on the New River who have built a fort, among whom are Mr. Thompson and his family. They intend to make a stand till some assistance be sent them. Seventy-five of the Bedford militia went out in order to pursue the enemy, but I hear the officers and part of the men are gone home, and the rest are gone to Reed Creek to help James Davies and two or three families that dare not venture to travel. I have built a little fort in which eighty-seven per­ sons, twenty of whom bear arms. We are in a pretty good position for defense, and, with the aid of God, are deter­ mined to make a stand. In five or six other places in this part of the country they have fallen into the same method and with the same resolution. How long we may keep them is uncertain. No enemy has appeared as yet. Their guns are frequently heard and their footing observed, which makes us believe they may pay us a visit. My two sisters are here and all in good health. We bear our misfortunes so far with (fortitude) and are in great hopes of being relieved. I have a thousand things - Captain William Christian can’t wait. I give you joy.” This letter is revealing in a number of ways. It presents a graphic example of the desperate situation faced by the inhabitants in western Virginia before the Revolution. If the fort had not offered protection for those 87 per­ sons, the Commonwealth of Virginia might be a different place today. While only one of Preston’s children was alive at the time of this incident, three of Letitia Breckinridge’s children were at the Greenfield fort. John, who became attorney general of the United States, was a toddler at the time and his brother James was an infant. Had William Preston been killed the loss to the country would have been disastrous. He and his wife had 12 children. Many of them made significant contributions to the state and the nation. Their names were: • Elizabeth Preston, b. 31 May 1762, married William Strother Madison. • William, died at age 29 of smallpox contracted in Revolutionary service. • John Preston, b. 2 May 1764, married first Mary Radford, second Elza Ann (Carrington) Mayo. John served under his father at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse. He was elected to me Virginia House of Delegates in 1783. He later served in the Virginia Senate (1792-1799). He was a trustee in the act establishing Christiansburg. He was appoint­ ed treasurer of the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1809 and continued in that capacity until 1819. The town of Prestonburg, Kentucky is named in his honor. • Francis Preston, b. 2 August 1765, married Sarah Buchanan Campbell, daughter of General William and Elizabeth 43 �Smithfield, Preston’s home from 1774 until his death in 1782, is located adjacent to the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg. (Henry) Campbell. He attended the College of William and Mary and studied law under George Wythe. Francis represented Montgomery County in the Virginia House of Delegates, 1788 and 1789. It is interesting to note the building which now houses the Martha Washington Inn in Abingdon, was the Francis Preston Home. • Sarah Preston, b. 3 May 1767 at Greenfield. Sarah married James McDowell, son of James and Elizabeth McDowell. James was justice of Rockbridge County and represented that county in the House of Delegates in 1795. He was a trustee of Washington College (now Washington & Lee University) from 1796 until his death in 1841. He served in the Virginia militia throughout his active years and was offered General James Breckinridge’s command at his death. He declined due to old age. • Ann Preston, bom 12 February 1769. Anne died at Greenfield at age 13. • William Preston, b. Greenfield 5 September 1770. William married Caroline Hancock, daughter of George and Margaret (Strother) Hancock of Fincastle. Fotheringay, which exists today near Elliston, was the home of the Hancock family. It has long been maintained that the home Santillane, near Fincastle, was built by George Hancock. This is yet to be proven. This William Preston spent many of his younger years in military service, first in the militia as first comet, later ensign and finally captain in the United States Army. He spent a number of years in military service, some of it in the War of 1812. In 1814, the family moved to Kentucky and occupied land which he had inherited from his father and which is now a part of Louisville. In 1815, he was elected a director of the Louisville Branch of the Bank of Kentucky. �• Susanna Preston, b. 7 October 1772 at Greenfield. She married Nathaniel Hart, son of Nathaniel and Sarah (Simpson) Hart. As was the case of almost all Preston men of his generation and the husbands of their sisters, Nathaniel Hart was an Indian fighter. He took part in the Battle of Fallen Timbers. During the War of 1812 he made two trips to Philadelphia for the Bank of Kentucky, transporting large amounts of gold to Kentucky to finance war measures. • James Patton Preston, b. 21 June 1774 at Smithfield. James was the first of William and Susanna’s children to be bom in that home. He mar­ ried Ann Barraud Taylor, daughter of Judge Robert and Sarah Curie (Barraud) Taylor. James became deputy surveyor of Montgomery County in 1793. The following year he entered William and Mary. Later, he was a planter at Smithfield. In 1798, he was named a trustee in the Act establishing the Town of Blacksburg. He served in the Virginia Senate from 1801 to 1804. In 1808, he was a presidential elector. From 1810 to 1812 he served in the Virginia House of Delegates from Montgomery County. Preston, fol­ lowing the family propensity for military service, was wounded in the thigh in 1813 at the battle of Chrysler’s Field in Canada. This crippled him for life. After serving in the House once more in 1816 he was elected by the House as governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia on 10 December 1816. He was again elected in 1817, 1818 and 1819. During his 1819 administration, the University of Virginia was established and Preston County (now Kentucky) was created in his honor in the same year. James Patton Preston spent his later years serving under President Monroe as one of the Indian com­ missioners dealing with the Creek Indians in Florida. His final duty was as postmaster of Richmond. Gov. James Patton Preston, son of William Preston, was governor o f Virginia 1816-1819. (Courtesy of the Library of Virginia) • Mary Preston, b. 29 September 1776 at Smithfield. She married John Lewis, son of William and Ann (Montgomery) Lewis. Lewis served in the Ninth Virginia Regiment of the Continental Line as ensign and later sec­ ond lieutenant. He was later detached under General Daniel Morgan and joined General Horatio Gates in the expe­ dition up the Hudson River to engage General Burgoyne. Lewis settled at Sweet Springs. He built Brick House, the first building of its kind in Monroe County (now West Virginia). • Letitia Preston, b. 29 September 1779 at Smithfield. She married John Floyd, son of John and Jane (Buchanan) Floyd. Floyd studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and served as surgeon during the War of 1812. He represented Montgomery County in the Virginia House of Delegates. He later served in the United States Congress. He is given credit for first proposing the occupation and territorial organization of the Oregon Territory. On 9 January 1830, he was elected governor of Virginia. • Thomas Lewis Preston, b. 19 August 1781 at Smithfield. Thomas attended Rockbridge Academy, Washington College and the College of William and Mary. He was expelled from William and Mary for acting as second for James Breckinridge in a duel. He read law in Richmond in 1804. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates for Rockbridge County from 1806 to 1811. He was trustee for Ann Smith Academy in Rockbridge County. 45 �• Margaret Brown Preston, b. 23 February 1784 at Smithfield. She married John Preston, son of Robert and Margaret (Rhea) Preston. John graduated from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1799. He studied law under St. George Tucker at the College of William and Mary in 1801-02. His home was at Walnut Grove in Washington County. The children of Letitia Preston and Robert Breckinridge were also prominent in both Virginia and nation­ al politics. • William Breckinridge served in the American Revolution as an express rider. He divided his time between Virginia and Kentucky. He had no political aspirations. • John Breckinridge, b. 2 December 1760, near Staunton. He married Mary Hopkins Cabell, daughter of Colonel Joseph Cabell and Mary (Hopkins) Cabell. John Breckinridge was educated at Augusta Academy and the College of William and Mary. While yet a student he was elected to the House of Delegates by the voters of Botetourt County. While still residing in Virginia, John was elected to the United States Congress, but moved to Kentucky in 1792 and did not take his seat. John was appointed by the governor of Kentucky as attorney general of that state in 1795. He represented Fayette County in the Kentucky House of Representatives and was elected Speaker in 1799. He was elected to the United States Senate in 1801, but resigned in 1805 to become attorney general of the United States. Serving in Thomas Jefferson’s administration, John Breckinridge played an important role in opening the West and in the Louisiana Purchase negotiations. He also worked with Jefferson on the Kentucky Resolutions. John was bom in Augusta County, but grew up in Botetourt County. • James Breckinridge, b. 7 March 1763 in Botetourt County, married Ann Selden, daughter of Colonel Cary and Elizabeth (Jennings) Selden of Buckroe, in Hampton. James served under his uncle, Colonel William Preston, at Guilford Courthouse during the Revolution. He was elected to several terms in the Virginia House of Delegates, both before and after being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served from 1809 to 1817. He was commissioned brigadier general of the Virginia militia on 1 February 1809. James Breckinridge attended the Afton Mountain meeting, 1 August 1818, where a site was selected for the University of Virginia. He served on its Board of Visitors until 1827 when he was unable to attend due to failing health. James was the only member of his family who did not migrate to Kentucky. He built the home, Grove Hill, which was a showplace in Botetourt County until it burned in 1909. • Elizabeth Breckinridge married Samuel Meredith, son of Samuel and Jane (Henry) Meredith. They moved to Fayette County, Kentucky, in 1790 and established the plantation, Winton. • Preston Breckinridge was b. 17 March 1770. He married Elizabeth Trigg, daughter of Stephen and Mary (Christian) Trigg from Bedford County. This family also settled in Fayette County, Kentucky. Note: In this article the spelling of the name Breckenridge or Breckinridge varies. The descendants of John and James Breckinridge use the “i” spelling; those of others generally use the “e.” It is thought that the spelling change was instituted to avoid confusion in the land transactions which were constantly made by most of the men of the family. Space requirements eliminate the possibility of a complete biography of the Preston and Breckinridge descendants. Their accomplishments were many and varied. A comprehensive study and cataloging of their serv­ ices in the political, educational and military areas is quite revealing and covers a substantial portion of the nation. Some of the national attainments are noted below, along with a number of governorships in several states. G o v e r n o r s o f V ir g in ia • James Patton Preston (1774-1843) was the fourth son of William and Susanna Smith Preston. The General 46 �Assembly elected him governor of the Commonwealth in 1816. He was again elected in 1817 and 1818. He served the three years allowed by law. • John Floyd (1779-1852) was the husband of Letitia Preston Floyd, sixth daughter of William and Susanna Smith Preston. He was elected governor of the Commonwealth in 1830. He was reelected in 1831 for a three-year term. • James McDowell (1795-1851) was the only son of James and Sarah (Preston) McDowell. He served as governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia for three years, beginning 1 January 1843. Sarah Preston was the second daugh­ ter of William and Susanna Smith Preston. • John Buchanan Floyd (1806-1863) was the eldest son of John and Letitia Preston Floyd. He served as governor of the Commonwealth for three years beginning 1 January 1849. G o v e r n o r s o f O t h e r St a t e s • George Madison (1763- 1816) married Jane Smith Preston, second daughter of Francis and Ann Smith Preston. Madison was elected governor of Kentucky in 1816 but died two months afterward. • Benjamin Howard ( -1814) was the only son of John and Mary (Preston) Howard. James Madison appointed him governor of the District of Louisiana in 1810. This was later renamed the Territory of Missouri. Howard remained as governor until 1813. • John B. Weller (1812-1875) married Susan McDowell Taylor, daughter of Susan Preston McDowell Taylor and William Taylor. Weller was governor of California from 1858 to 1860. He later served as minister to Mexico. • Benjamin Gratz Brown (1826-1885) son of Mason Brown and Margaretta Mason Brown, was elected governor of Missouri in 1871. He was a candidate for vice president of the United States with Horace Greeley in 1872. U n it e d S t a t e s Se n a t o r s • James Brown (1766-1835), son of Margaret Preston Brown, served as United States senator from Louisiana from 1813 to 1823. He later served as minister to France. • John Breckinridge (1760-1806) was the son of Letitia Preston Breckinridge. He was elected to the United States Senate in 1801. He resigned in 1805 to become attorney general of the United States. Breckinridge was prominent in effecting the Louisiana Purchase. He worked with Thomas Jefferson in promoting the Kentucky Resolutions. • John Brown (1757-1837), second son of John Brown and Margaret Preston, became United States senator when Kentucky was admitted to the union in 1792. He served until 1805. He was president pro tempore of the Senate in 1803-1804. • John Cabell Breckinridge (1821-1875), grandson of John Breckinridge, was James Buchanan’s vice president prior to the Civil War. He was elected to the United States Senate when his term as vice president expired in 1861. After an unsuccessful campaign as southern presidential candidate against Abraham Lincoln, Breckinridge fought for any compromise which would save the Union. After Fort Sumter, he joined the Confederacy and was declared a traitor. Although he had little military experience he fought successfully in both theatres as a major general. In 1865, Jefferson Davis made him secretary of war of the Confederate States. • Benjamin Gratz Brown (1826-1885), great-grandson of John Brown and Margaret Preston, served as United States Senator from Missouri from 1863-1869. He was candidate for vice president in 1872. His running mate was Horace Greeley. 47 �• William Campbell Preston (1794-1860), eldest son of Francis and Sarah Buchanan Campbell Preston, was elect­ ed to the United States Senate in 1833 from South Carolina. He was re-elected in 1837, but resigned in a conflict with the South Carolina Legislature. • Wade Hampton III (1818-1902) was married to Margaret Frances Preston, youngest child of Francis and Sarah Buchanan Campbell Preston. He served two terms in the United States Senate, from 1879 to 1891. His service to the Confederacy is well known. He also served as governor of South Carolina from 1876 to 1879 and as commis­ sioner of Pacific Railways from 1893 to 1897. • John B. Weller (1812-1875) was the spouse of Susan McDowell, granddaughter of James and Sarah Preston McDowell. He served in the United States Senate from 1852 to 1857. He was governor of California 1858-1860. • Thomas Hart Benton (1782-1858) was elected to the United States Senate in 1820. He served there with distinc­ tion for 36 years. An advocate for the opening of the west he was also a distinguished author. He was married to Elizabeth Preston McDowell, sister of Susan McDowell Weller noted above. • John Charles Fremont (1813-1890) was a member of the Senate briefly in 1850-51. He was married to Jessie Ann Benton, daughter of Thomas Hart and Elizabeth Preston McDowell Benton, named above. He was a noted explor­ er of the western American states. He served as major general in the Union Army during the Civil War. It is noted that Jessie Ann Benton was active in Fremont’s affairs during much of his career. • Randall Lee Gibson (1832-1892) was the son of Louisiana Breckinridge Hart and Tobias Gibson, one of the lead­ ing cotton planters in Louisiana. Gibson rose to the rank of brigadier general in the Confederate Army. After serv­ ing in the House of Representatives he was elected United States senator from 1883 until his death. He was an advi­ sor to Paul Tulane in establishing Tulane University. • Johnson Newlin Camden, Jr. (1865-1942) married Susan Preston Hart, daughter of William Preston Hart and Rebecca Caman Tevis. Educated at Virginia Military Institute, Columbia University and University of Virginia, Camden was United States senator from Kentucky in 1914 and 1915. • John W. Johnston (1818-1889) was the husband of Nickette Buchanan Floyd Johnston. When Virginia was read­ mitted to the Union in 1869 he was elected to a two-year term in the United States Senate. He was re-elected for two full terms and served until 1883. • Francis Preston Blair (1821-1875) was the son of Francis Preston Blair and Eliza Violet Gist. Blair was described as an “unyielding unionist.” He took part in both the Mexican War and the Civil War. He was appointed attorney general of New Mexico when it was taken from Mexico. He was chosen by the Missouri Legislature as United States senator in 1868. M e m b e r s o f t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s H o u s e o f R e p r e s e n t a t iv e s • John Breckinridge, 3rd Congress • James Breckinridge, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th Congress • John Brown, 1st and 2nd Congress • Francis Preston, 3rd and 4th Congress • John Floyd, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th Congress 48 �• Benjamin Howard,! 10th and Congress 11th • Peter Buell Porter, lltn and 12th Congress • John Cabell Breckinridge, 22nd and 23rd Congress • William Campbell Preston Breckinridge, 49th, 50th, 51st, 52nd arid 53rd Congress • Charles C. Johnston, 22nd Congress • William Taylor, 28th and 29th Congress • John B. Weller, 26th, 27th, 28th Congress • Francis Thomas, 22nd, 23rd 24th, 25th, 26th, 27th 28th, 29th and 30th Congress • William Preston, 32nd and 33rd Congress • William Franklin Draper, 53rd and 54th Congress • Randall Lee Gibson, 44th, 45th, 46th and 47th Congress • William Ballard Preston, 13th Congress • Peter Johnston Otey, 54th, 55th, 56th and 57th Congress • Francis Preston Blair Jr., 35th, 36th, 37th and 38th Congress Cover of William Preston biography, by Patricia Johnson. • Carter Henry Harrison, 44th and 45th Congress • Thomas Francis Marshall, 27th congress • Clifton Rodes Breckinridge, 51st, 52nd and 53rd Congress • James Douglas Breckinridge, 17th Congress Among the many members of the Preston family who performed important federal duties, there were two secretaries of war, one secretary of the navy, one U.S. consul and one consul general. Along with these, five served as foreign ministers, one as postmaster general. John C. Breckinridge was vice president of the United States under James Buchanan. Twenty-three have served in the House of Delegates or Virginia Senate. One hundred forty-seven family 49 �members wore the gray uniform during the Civil War. There were two members of the Confederate Congress and one treasurer of the Confederacy. John C. Breckinridge was Confederate secretary of war when the conflict ended. Fourteen members of the family served in the Union Army. Kentucky has had 13 Preston legislators in its state government. California has had one legislator. Louisiana, Tennessee, New York and Wisconsin Territory, and the Republic of Texas all had Preston family mem­ bers in their governments. There was also an attorney general of New Mexico. In the field of education the Preston/Breckinridge family was notable. Twenty-five were college professors, 37 served as college trustees or board members. There were five college presidents and two founders. The area of law was the most prominent profession in the family. One hundred-eight attorneys are cited in the biographies of the fourth and fifth generations of the family. There were 16 judges, 43 doctors, 17 ministers, mostly Presbyterian. Eleven corporation presidents were discovered, along with four railroad presidents and a commissioner of Pacific railroads. There were 10 newspaper publishers. The celebrated Blair House in Washington, D. C. is named for Francis Preston Blair, second son of James and Elizabeth (Smith) Blair. Blair was editor of The Globe, a Washington newspaper which was powerful in the Jackson and Van Buren administrations. Blair was the grandson of Ann Preston Smith, sister of William Preston. The beginnings of many of the institutions of higher learning in Virginia and elsewhere were greatly assist­ ed by the Preston family. It is evident that the Commonwealth of Virginia has been blessed by their contributions: • Washington & Lee University: In 1774, the Reverend John Brown established a grammar school near his home in Augusta County. Brown was trustee from 1776 to 1782. It moved to Lexington as Augusta Academy. It ultimate­ ly became Washington & Lee University. • Virginia Military Institute: John Thomas Lewis Preston, grandson of William Preston, wrote a series of newspa­ per articles in 1835, advocating the arsenal at Lexington be converted into a school which could pursue academic and military studies and also serve as guards. In 1836, the Virginia Legislature passed the acts establishing the school. J.T.L. Preston and Francis H. Smith were the only professors at VMI from 1839 to 1842. • Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University: Robert Taylor Preston, grandson of William, was named trustee incorporating Preston & Olin Institute in 1854. The Methodist institution eventually became Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University and today it is Virginia Tech.. Preston & Olin Institute was named for Robert Taylor Preston’s older brother, William Ballard Preston, who was also one of the first trustees. • University of Virginia: James Breckinridge, nephew of William Preston, was present with Thomas Jefferson and others at the 1 August 1818 Rockfish Gap meeting which chose Charlottesville as the permanent site for the University of Virginia. Breckinridge also served on the first board of visitors and remained a member until his death. • Tulane University: William Preston Johnson, grandson of William Preston, was president of Louisiana State University in 1880. He was appointed by the Tulane Education Fund to take charge and establish Tulane University. Randal Lee Gibson, a great-grandson, also advised philanthropist Paul Tulane and was president of its board of administrators. • Transylvania University: John Breckinridge, nephew of William Preston, was a member of the original board of Transylvania Seminary located at Lexington, Kentucky, the first English-speaking institution of higher learning west of the mountains. Many Breckinridges and Prestons attended this institution. • Emory & Henry College: Maria Thornton Carter Preston married John Montgomery Preston who, in 1840, was named trustee in the act establishing Abingdon Female Academy. He was one of the early supporters and largest contributors to Emory & Henry College. 50 �Few people made a greater impact on this nation than William Preston. The history of Southwest Virginia is often overshadowed by that of the more numerous and more publicized neighbors who lived to the east of the mountains. The so-called Tuckahoes of eastern Virginia have their Lees, Tylers, Harrisons, Tuckers and many more. It must be remembered, however, that the Blue Ridge and Allegheny mountains have their McDowells, Lewises, Browns, Floyds, Marshalls, Randolphs, Carringtons, Campbells and Hamptons (along with many others) all con­ nected to the Breckinridge and Preston families. The words of John Breckinridge when he learned of his uncle’s death sum up the worth of William Preston’s life. No one was more devastated when the news reached him than his nephew. These are John’s words to his mother: “Yesterday I received the news of uncle’s death the most melancholy that I have ever yet heard. If the repeated marks of his tenderness & affection & the constant exertion of every fatherly & friendly office instituted him to the respect, love & Gratitude of anyone, I think it could not be more justly due to him than anyone than myself. This shock I have been for some time preparing myself to receive, & after all my fortitude, find the sepa­ ration almost insupportable. The subject is really too gloomy to think seriously on. To be thus deprived of one, in whom all our affections, were placed, & in whom I fear dyed the greatest Honour, & ornament our family will ever hereafter see is truly a melancholy circumstance. His value & worth we will now know by the want of him.” John Breckinridge more than likely would have agreed the most lasting and positive effect William Preston had on the nation was his commitment to education. From Greenfield and continuing to Smithfield, the small school which directed his family to higher education allowed generations of his descendants to be leaders of the Commonwealth of Virginia and the country as a whole. R eferences Hess, Stephen, America’s Political Dynasties; Garden City, NY 1966. Dorman, John Frederick, The Prestons of Smithfield and Greenfield, Louisville, Kentucky, 1982. Robertson, Mason Gordon, M.D.: Personal Letter. 22 April 1998. Johnson, Patricia Givens, William Preston and the Allegheny Patriots, Blacksburg, Virginia 1976. Jane Bryan Wilson, “The Preston Family,” treatise delivered before the General James Breckinridge Chapter, DAR, September 2006. �Virginians facing reality ~ The 1959 Perrow Commission by Judge George M. Cochran y friend, Kossen Gregory of Roanoke, and I are surviving members of the 1959 Perrow Commission appointed by Governor J. Lindsay Almond Jr., February 5, 1959, to recommend measures to solve the crisis in the Public Free School System of Virginia. We feel that our service on the Perrow Commission and thereafter in actively supporting in the General Assembly the legislation recommended by the majority of the Commission was the most difficult and important of our legislative years. We also feel that the leadership role of the late State Senator Mosby G. Perrow Jr., as chairman of the Commission, has never been adequately recognized or appreciated. I am using the Report of the Commission, dated March 31, 1959, Concurring Statements, Dissenting Report, various newspaper clippings, especially from The Roanoke Times, and the fading memories of Kossen Gregory and myself to give a reasonably accurate general description of the five-year period (1954-1959) that we believe was the most difficult for Virginia in the 20th century. I have also had the benefit of discussion that Kossen Gregory has had with Melville Carico, now retired, then an active political reporter for The Roanoke Times, who covered the report of the Perrow Commission and the 1959 Special Session of the General Assembly that acted on the legislation recommended by the Commission. The Supreme Court of the United States, on May 17, 1954, in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 US 483, struck down the State constitutional provisions and laws requiring racial separation of children in public schools. This decision, though unanimous, shocked the majority of the people of Virginia. I know of no member of the General Assembly of Virginia who ever voiced approval of the opinion. Some of us who began our legislative serv­ ice in 1948 were veterans of World War II. We had introduced legislation providing for elimination of the “Jim Crow” laws and the Poll Tax as inappropriate restrictions on black citizens. Having recently served in a war which all Americans helped to win, we favored these concessions. We felt that voluntary action of this kind would pro­ mote racial harmony and might lead to greater cooperation between the races and less pressure to integrate the pub­ lic schools at a later date. Whether this theory had any merit will never be known because the proposed legislation was never approved in Virginia. Governor Thomas B. Stanley appointed in August 1954 a commission of 32 members of the Senate and House of Delegates, chaired by Senator Garland Gray, to consider the Brown case and to make such recommenda­ tions for Virginia as might be appropriate. Chief counsel for the Commission was David J. Mays, a distinguished lawyer. The Commission reported to the Governor in November 1955, recommending a plan of pupil assignment that may not have been approved by the Federal courts, and a tuition grant program to assist students wishing to attend private (segregated) schools. The tuition grant proposal required amendment to the Virginia Constitution and this was promptly accomplished. The amendment was approved by the General Assembly and then by the voters of Virginia in a special election. I had an opportunity to discuss briefly with David Mays the recommendations of the Gray Commssion. They were, he said, the absolute maximum that could be drawn from Brown. He had informally reported this to M Judge George M. Cochran o f Staunton served in the House o f Delegates, 1948-1966, and in the State Senate, 1966-1969. He was president o f the Virginia Bar Association and a member o f the Constitutional Revision Commission in 1966-1969. He served as a justice on the Virginia Supreme Court, 1969-1987. Kossen Gregory, a longtime Roanoke lawyer, was a member o f the House o f Delegates in 1954-1963. He was chair­ man o f the House Welfare Committee 52 �Senator Harry F. Byrd Sr., in Washington and the Senator had said that integration of the public schools could not be permitted to happen but could offer no reasonable alternative. ‘ M a s s iv e r e s is t a n c e ’ w a s a r a l l y in g c r y f o r m a n y The term “massive resistance,” refusal to permit any integration, was attributed to Senator Byrd and with such influential support it became a rallying cry for thousands of people throughout the South. The intellectual leader of this movement, or lack of movement, was James J. Kilpatrick, the fiery editor of The Richmond News Leader, who began to write powerful editorials espousing the doctrine of “interposition,” under which a state would interpose its sovereignty against the tyranny of the national government. The General Assembly of Virginia approved a resolution expressing this principle. Some doubtful members felt that this revival of John C. Calhoun’s old theory that appeared to have been defeated by the Civil War could be no more successful at this later date. The Gray Commission had recommended a pupil assignment plan designed to continue for the most part racial segregation in the public schools and a tuition grant program for those unwilling to send their chil­ dren to integrated schools. When it became clear that no one could guarantee that there would be absolutely no school integration under the Gray Commission plan, sentiment quickly changed in the attitude of the political leaders of Virginia. Governor Stanley, who had been a business executive and not a lawyer, declined to approve the Gray Commission report. Senator Garland Gray, chairman of the Commission, repudiated its recommendations, followed by other Commission members. The Commission had been heavily weighted in favor of the Southside areas where the black population was larger than elsewhere in the state. Those who rejected the recommendations, made after more than a year of deliberating, became some of the most fervent leaders of the massive resistance movement. In Washington, D. C., the massive resistance theme appeared to be strongly promoted by Senator Harry F. Byrd Sr., Congressman and former Governor William M. Tuck, and Congressman Watkins Abbott. In Richmond, the strongest voices were those of Attorney General J. Lindsay Almond Jr., and Senator Mills Godwin. In 1956, legislation was approved in special session that would close any public school integrated by federal order. The following year, Attorney General Almond announced that he would run for governor. This announcement took at least one prospective candidate by surprise. Senator Garland Gray, a successful business executive and a longtime leader of the Conservative bloc of the Senate, had wanted to be governor. He was close to Senator Byrd Sr., but he had not acted fast enough. Many people had committed themselves to Almond. I remember receiving a call from J. Randolph “Bunny” Tucker Jr., an able member of the Richmond dele­ gation in the House of Delegates. He was soliciting support for Almond. “He is a good lawyer,” said Bunny, “and smart enough to know that if the massive resistance laws are invalidated, some integration will follow.” I agreed to support him. Not long afterwards, Senator Gray’s son-in-law, Thomas Tullidge of Staunton, called on me to sound me out on Gray’s prospects if he ran for governor. Since Senator Gray had headed the Commision which made a recommendation of pupil assignment and tuition grants and then repudiated the recommendation, I suggest­ ed that Gray’s indecision would be hard to explain or overcome. 53 �Lindsay Almond went on to win the governorship, beating Senator Ted Dalton, the Republican candidate, who had almost defeated Governor Stanley four years earlier. Dalton proposed local pupil assignment and Almond, a fire-eating Southern Fourth of July orator, overwhelmed him with massive resistance purple prose. The year 1958 opened with Lindsay Almond as governor and former Senator Albertis Harrison Jr. as attor­ ney general. The governor gave a typically militant message to the regular session of the General Assembly. He had included in the Appropriation Act an appropriation of $3,000,000 or a sum sufficient to pay tuition grants of $250 for each student withdrawing from the public school system to go to a private school. The new attorney general began a series of uphill fights in the federal courts to sustain the massive resist­ ance laws. He later told me that it was a sad experience for a lawyer to enter a federal court knowing he was almost certain to lose. Gov. L i n d s a y A l m o n d m a d e t h e c o v e r o f T im e m a g a z in e In September 1958, my wife and I were in Rome on our first trip to Europe, scheduled to feature in Paris the dedication of a plaque in memory of Woodrow Wilson, given by the people of Virginia to the people of France. We passed a newsstand and saw, to our amazement, a copy of Time magazine with Lindsay Almond’s face adorn­ ing the front page. There he was, in full battle mode, white hair scattered over his face, holding the line on mas­ sive resistance. The massive resistance laws came under attack in the fall of 1958 in the federal courts when six public schools in Norfolk, two in Charlottesville and one in Warren County were closed under Virginia law because they were ordered integrated by federal courts. A three-judge Federal Special Court heard Norfolk petitions objecting to the school closing. In the meantime, a petition was filed by the attorney general of Virginia against the state comp­ troller requesting entry of a writ of mandamus after determining the validity of several massive resistance laws. Decisions in both cases were announced on the same date, the Federal decision after the state one. The Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia (now the Supreme Court of Virginia) decided, on a 5 to 2 vote, that the writ of mandamus be denied. The majority opinion written by Chief Justice Eggleston held that Section 141 of the Virginia Constitution, validated by Brown v. Board of Education, was independent of Section 129, requiring the state to maintain an efficient system of public free schools throughout the state. Thus the laws under consideration violated Section 129 “in that they remove from the public school system any schools in which peo­ ple of the two races are mixed, and make no provision for their support and maintenance as a part of the system.” The court, however, found no constitutional objection to the prescribed provisions for making tuition grants and left the matter to the discretion of the General Assembly. (Harrison v Day, 200 VA. 439 [1959]) On the same date, January 19, 1959, the Federal Special Court decided that the Virginia school-closing law violated petitioners’ rights under the United States Constitution. Governor Almond’s initial reaction to the unfavorable court decisions was to make an appeal by radio and television to Virginians to stand firm with him because “we’ve only begun to fight.” A few days later, he called the General Assembly into special session to consider the crisis. This would be the third special session called within three years. In addressing the special session, the governor was more realistic in his more thoughtful consideration of the court decisions. He acknowledged that he was now powerless to block the entry of most Negro students into some Virginia schools the next week. This admission enraged diehard segregationists who preferred for him to lock the schools or surround them with state police. I remember one Southside delegate on the floor of the House call­ ing the governor a “traitor” to Virginia for his capitulation. This eloquence enabled him to run successfully for the Senate where he served for many years. The governor proposed three stopgap measures that were duly approved. One repealed the mandatory schools attendance law. Another activated the tuition grant program by approving grants of $250 each and appro­ priating $3,000,000 or a sum sufficient to finance the grants. The third provided more severe penalties for making false reports of bombs to public buildings. The governor announced that he would appoint a commission of members of the General Assembly to study the public school problems and make recommendations. On February 5, 1959, the governor appointed such a commission to be headed by State Senator Mosby G. Perrow Jr., Lynchburg, as chairman, to make recommenda- 54 �tions to him by March 31, 1959. Four members were appointed M e m b e r s o f t h e P e r r o w C o m m is s io n for each of the ten Congressional districts in the state.. Mosby G. Perrow Jr., Harry B. Davis, An executive committee, Chairman Vice Chairman consisting of one member from each Congressional district was 1st Congressional District 6th Congressional District appointed, as follows: Delegates Howard W. Adams Earl A. Fitzpatrick Davis, Roberts, Pollard, Moore Russell M. Carneal Kossen Gregory and Cochran, and Senators Harry B. Davis Fitzpatrick, Godwin, Hagood, Mosby G. Perrow Jr. Button and Fenwick. W. Marvin Minter H. Ray Webber An able lawyer and for­ mer member of the House of 2nd Congressional District 7th Congressional District Delegates, W.R. Broaddus Jr., of Edward :L. Breeden Jr. Curry Carter Martinsville, was named counsel W.T. Leary George M. Cochran to the committee. He was assisted William J. Moody Lawrence H. Hoover by C.F. Hicks, Walter E. Rogers James W. Roberts Robert Whitehead and Henry T. Wickham. After extensive hearings 3rd Congressional District 8th Congressional District and discussions, a majority report Fitzgerald Bemiss Robert Y. Button was signed by 35 of the 40 mem­ Fred G. Pollard Robert R. Gwathmey III bers of the Commission. This Edward E. Willey Edward G. McCue Jr. report recommended a bill to Joseph G. Williams Jr. W. Tayloe Murphy require the State Board of Education to adopt rules and reg­ 4th Congressional District 9th Congressional District ulations for the use of local John H. Daniel M.M. Long school boards in making initial Mills E. Godwin Jr. placement of pupils in the public Garnett S. Moore schools, and creating a State Garland Gray Vernon C.Smith Placement Board of Appeals to Joseph C. Hutcheson Harry C, Stuart review the placement of pupils, with appeals to the state courts. 5th Congressional District 10th Congressional District The report further recom­ J.D. Hagood John A.K.Donovan mended a bill to provide for S. Floyd Landreth Charles R. Fenwick “local option” in dealing with C. Stuart Wheatley Jr, C. Harrison Mann Jr. compulsory attendance and a bill Hunt M. Whitehead James M. Thomson to provide for each child a mini­ mum scholarship (tuition grant) of $250. Drafts of bills to carry out the recommendations were included in an appendix. The report further recommended repeal of various sections of the Code. Several qualifying or explanatory statements were filed by members of the majority. A dissenting report was filed by Godwin, Wheatley, Thompson, Hagood, Hutcheson, Cameal, Daniel, McCue and Gray. This recom­ mended removal of the mandatory provisions of the Virginia Constitution requiring the establishment and mainte­ nance of an efficient free public school system throughout Virginia in order to continue massive resistance. Some of us in the majority believed that many dissenters knew the majority position was correct but voted against it for political protection in re-election campaigns. On March 31, 1959, the Special Session of the General Assembly, in recess since February 2, 1959, recon­ vened to act on the Report of the Commission on Education (the Perrow Commission) filed that day with the gov­ ernor. The atmosphere in the Capitol was tense. Many of us who were preparing to sponsor or support the legisla- 55 �tion proposed in the majority report did not underestimate the difficulties. We firmly believed, however, that this was the most important session of the General Assembly since Reconstruction days after the Civil War. And sev­ eral of us, brought by the governor from relative obscurity during the depths of massive resistance to active partic­ ipation in the effort to face reality welcomed the opportunity to make an affirmative impact. K o s s e n G r e g o r y p r o p o s e d ‘F r e e d o m o f C h o ic e ’ Thus, Kossen Gregory felt that a short affirmative slogan would be helpful in promoting the Perrow Commission program. He proposed calling it the “Freedom of Choice” plan and this happy upbeat label was enthu­ siastically adopted as the motto for the crucial contest. Although the governor strongly backed it, passage of the legislative package recommended by the Perrow C o m m is sion was far from certain. The dis­ senters, who preferred to continue massive resistance, had substantial support in the Senate and House. Composition of commit­ tees was important. In both bodies, massive resisters in substantial numbers were mem­ bers of key committees. Moreover, in the Senate of 40 members, two, counted on to support the Perrow legislation, were absent. One, Stuart B. Carter of Botetourt, was in Richmond but ill. The other, Robert Baldwin of Norfolk, was absent without explanation. Baldwin was a man of courtly appearance and manners, popular in Norfolk, re-elected without effort, and admired in the General Assembly in Senate and House. Upon inquiry, I was told that the senator had gone to visit his daughter who was living in Italy. Later, it was suggested that he might be suf­ fering from cancer and did not have long to live. This rumor was subsequently found to be incorrect. A sad ending to a political career - he failed to report for duty when it counted most. Mosby Perrow took charge of the cam­ paign in the Senate to pass the legislative pro­ gram recommended by the Perrow Commission. He was assisted by Senator Fenwick and the other senators who served on the Commission, including Senator Kossen Gregory Edward L. Breeden Jr., of Norfolk, a master of parliamentary procedure. The opposition was led by Senator Godwin, assisted by Senator Gray and other dissenters. The commanding figure of Mills Godwin, however, was the magnet that attract­ ed the defiant support of the massive resisters in and out of the General Assembly. On the House side, Harry B. Davis, vice chairman of the Commission and chairman of the House Education Committee, led, assisted by Pollard, Gregory, Cochran and others from the Perrow Commission. C. Stuart Wheatley, a Danville lawyer and a dissenter on the Perrow Commission, led the opposition, quietly support­ ed by the Speaker of the House, E. Blackburn Moore. Representatives from white Citizens Councils and other anti-integration groups made their wishes known 56 �for continued massive resistance. It was a tense time. There was even a report, never verified, that a shot may have been fired at the governor as he walked from the Executive Mansion to the Capitol. But there had been a consid­ erable change in public opinion, especially in the business community, since the massive resistance laws had been invalidated in January 1959, by both Virginia and federal courts. The so-called anti-Perrow Commission bloc in the special session of the General Assembly filed a resolu­ tion calling for a constitutional amendment to rewrite Section 129 to free the General Assembly from having to appropriate funds for public schools. The bloc also expressed opposition to the pupil assignment bill proposed by the Perrow Commision and to passage of any kind of compulsory attendance law. The key recommendation of the Perrow Commission was the pupil assignment plan and, of course, it was bitterly opposed by the dissenters and their allies in the special session. Duplicate bills, one filed in the Senate, the other in the House, were designed to enact the pupil assignment plan into law. The bills were referred to the Education Committees df Senate and House, respectively, for action. A day or two before the House Education Committee was to vote on the legislation, Hunt Whitehead, a member of the Perrow Commission (he had filed a qualifying statement) and a member of the Education Committee, spoke to me in confidence. He knew the bill was in the best interests of Virginia, he said. But he was in an impossible political situation. His people in Pittsylvania County were violently opposed to integration of the public schools. A man was standing on the street in Chatham, waiting to see how he voted on the pupil assignment bill. If he voted for it, he would never return to the General Assembly. Knowing how close this might be on the Committee, I could only sympathize with Hunt and tell him to make the best decision he could under the circum­ stances. On April 13, 1959, the vote was taken in committee on my motion to approve. It passed by one vote and Hunt Whitehead cast the winning vote. As he had anticipated, he never was re-elected to the General Assembly. Without using his name, I have often cited this as an act of political courage that was crucial but never rewarded. I am glad to record my eternal admiration for a statesman with the heart of a lion. On the following day, April 14, the Senate Education Committee, after a public hearing, defeated on a voice vote the Senate pupil assignment bill. The next day, after four hours of debate, the House approved the House bill reported from the Education Committee, 54 to 45, leading to final passage, 54 to 46, which came without difficul­ ty. This action brought the approved House bill to the Senate for final disposition. The problem was the anti-Perrow Commssion majority on the Senate Education Committee. The parliamentary device used to permit a full vote on the pupil assignment bill was to resolve the Senate into a Committee of the Whole, with Senator Breeding presiding. This was accomplished in dramatic fashion when Senator Stuart B. Carter was wheeled into the Senate chambers on a stretcher to cast the 20th favorable vote. The total vote was 20 to 19 (Baldwin absent) with Senator Curry Carter, who had signed the majority report of the Perrow Commission, voting against the motion. Then, on April 20, on the same 20 to 19 vote, the local pupil assign­ ment bill was approved. Earlier on that date, the House defeated the Wheatley resolution calling for an amendment to the Virginia Constitution. Sa v in g V i r g in ia ’ s p u b l ic s c h o o l s b y a ‘ t i n y m a r g in ’ Various other non-controversial legislation recommended by the Perrow Commission was duly approved, including, for instance, provision for reinstating compulsory attendance laws on a local-option basis. Those of us who served on the Perrow Commission and helped put the program into law felt the satisfaction of having done something worthwhile for the Commonwealth. We felt that we had saved the public school system of Virginia by a tiny margin. The “Freedom of Choice” plan had prevailed. We were confident that continuation of the policy of massive resistance would have brought chaos to Virginia and would have permanently damaged the reputation of the state. We believed that the proposal to submit to the electorate a constitutional amendment to eliminate the requirement of funding for the public school system was only a delaying tactic. The majority of voters doubtless would have rejected the proposed amendment but the contest itself would have led to a continuation of bitter animosity. Reckless, indeed, was the independent action of Prince Edward County in closing its public schools for five years, 1959-1964, by declining to appropriate local funds for public schools until a federal court intervened. Only recently, 50 years after Brown v Board of Education, has official action been taken to recognize and provide 57 �some compensation for the pain and suffering caused to victims of the closing of public schools between 1954 and 1964. In the 2005 session of the General Assembly, the Brown v Board of Education Scholarship Program and Fund was established (Code 30-231.1-10) to provide educational opportunities for persons who were unable to begin or continue their education because of public school closings in Norfolk, Charlottesville, Warren County or Prince Edward County between 1954 and 1964. O f this fund of $2,050,000, the sum of $1,000,000 was contributed by a Virginia philanthropist. Scholarships are presently being awarded to qualified applicants. We admired Mosby Perrow, a genial giant, a conservative senator who generally would have been tempera­ mentally close to the massive resisters but who was determined to save the public schools. He stayed in close association with the governor and planned the strategy for overcoming practical problems. Through his political skill and personality, he converted a group of rugged individuals into an effective Wn/Bm legislative team. His political fate followed that of other prophets - he was defeated in the 1963 election. As for Governor Almond, after he decid­ ed to appoint the Perrow Commission, he never wavered in supporting the work of the Commission. The days of purple oratory were over. He worked day and night to pro­ mote the legislative program recommended by the Commission. I specifically suggested that he call, among other executives, Stuart Saunders, president of the Norfolk & Western Railway, and ask him to organize the statewide business executives who would suffer from abolition of the public school sys­ tem. He promptly agreed and acted at once. The governor was a pitiful figure at this time. The political leaders of Virginia remained committed to the repudiated doc­ trine of massive resistance. He was left alone in the Mansion with his devoted wife, Josephine, and he was happy to have some of Mosby Perrow us eager Perrow Commission members come to him, even late at night, to plan ways and means of advancing the remedial program. As Bunny Tucker had told me months earlier, Almond was a good enough lawyer to know, when Virginia and federal courts invalidated the massive resistance laws, that the end of massive resistance must be recognized. For thus facing reality, his reputation suffered - but the Commonwealth benefited from the return to the rule of law. 1jbrllfipR 58 liis p ll �A Small Bag o f Spices ~ Farming in Montgomery Co by Tom Word y father died in 1954 when I was 15. He was a country lawyer and a farmer. Each day after office hours when I was a small boy, he drove the three miles to his 133-acre farm south of Christiansburg. I opened the gates so we could inspect his 20 Hereford cows and 60 grade Hampshire ewes. He’d drive fearlessly across the steep rocky pastures to find the stock; we’d count them and look for newborns or birthing mothers in distress. He took boundless pleasure from this stewardship. Worry often furrowed his brow as he drove out of town, but by the time our bluegrass pastures came into view, his expression would be relaxed, his eyes twinkling beneath bushy eyebrows and behind bifocals. On Sundays we’d have a companion, Mr. Charlie Atkinson, N&W trainman and shrewd farmer, whose near-town acres pastured my Shetland pony, Dixie. We’d inspect his herd first, headed by a retired show bull named Ferdinand who let me sit on his back as he stood under a tree swatting flies with his tail. We’d bring salt and pour out little piles on a hilltop cowpath. Then I’d be ordered to call, “Soo calf, soo! . . . coo sheep, coo!” I d chant as my father and Mr. Atkinson smiled in amusement. The stock would come thundering. My father was a died-in-the-wool agrarian, and he stamped me one. My father’s solo law practice was typical for the time and place, but how he became a lawyer is a remarkable story of determination and self-reliance. His practice was grounded in real estate, estate, and personal tax work. The tax work was grueling, preparing returns for farmers, merchants, and wage earners, many for a $5 fee. “Partnership is an instrument of the devil, and seven is not our lucky number,” he’d often say with rueful conviction. He had good reason to think so, his history reveals. My first job at age 10 was sweeping out my father’s law office after school and burning his waste paper to assure confidentiality. If my father were not in his office, he’d be across the street in the clerk’s office search­ ing a title. I’d often find him with tracing paper and a compass, checking the accuracy of a deed description for a farmer seeking a Federal Land Bank loan to build a milking parlor. My father loved the mystery of a title search. He built a solid reputation for accuracy and punctuality. In 1950, Esso (now Exxon Mobil) hired him to search title and negotiate petroleum-drilling leases on much of the county. Two wildcat wells went down through Merrimac Mountain where the Confederacy had mined its iron­ smelting coal. Sadly, they proved dry holes, but the project led to my father’s best year as a lawyer —he cleared $10,000, his life’s financial ambition, he told us as he carved the Christmas turkey. It was the only mention of his income I ever heard. When I turned 12 in the summer of 1950, my father was 54 years old. My sisters, Mary Ann and Harriet, who’d been valedictorians at Christiansburg High, were off at grad school and college. My parents were engrossed in plans to build a house on the farm, a dream they’d long held but postponed because of the war. The site was high on a hill with views of five counties (Giles, Roanoke, Floyd, Pulaski, and our Montgomery). But my father’s health was precarious. He’d suffered a heart attack a few years before, and he lived with a chronic skin ailment caused by poor circulation. Despite his health problems, my father was always upbeat. His utterances were punctuated with humor K Tom Word is a Richmond lawyer. 59 �self-deprecating, gently teasing, or aimed to skewer someone pompous. His favorite poet was Ogden Nash, with whom he shared a bemused outlook on life. He gave everyone a nickname - mine was Beelzebub, Mary Ann’s Oscar, and Harriet’s McGillicuddy. On my 12th birthday, my father retired our ancient draft mares Maud and Bird and bought a John Deere MT - on condition that the dealer teach me to operate it. The dealer owed us a favor. In 1934 my grandfather Harry had given him Seed & Fertilizer Company, a business he’d started in 1919. The business was not profitable but came debt free, for my grand­ father remained saddled with its $10,400 of debt, partly endorsed by my father. The donee brilliant­ ly converted the failed business to a John Deere dealership, still prospering today. As plans for the modest farm­ house progressed, excitement grew in the family. For its walls and chimneys, my father bought the limestone ruins of Fort McDonald, an 18th Century Indian fighting fort in the Ellett For a Christmas dinner 1950, Jack Word carved a turkey; Mary Valley. He hired a Spanish stone Word sat opposite. Other family members (from left) were Tommy, mason employed at Virginia Tech Harriet, Mary Ann, and Ethel Privett (Mary’s mother). to cut and lay the stone on week­ ends. In 1952, we moved to the farm. But for my father, the dream would be short lived - he died from injuries sustained in a car crash in February 1954. X-rays revealed a large tumor in a lung. Had he not died of his injuries, he’d have died soon and painfully of lung cancer. Like most men of his generation, he was a heavy smoker. After my father’s death, my mother and I continued to farm, just the way my father had. High school classmates helped me make hay. Mr. Harris, a retired dairy farm manager who’d bought a small place near us, served as my mentor as we traded our labor and machinery use. I pursued college as a day student at Virginia Tech, meanwhile continuing to farm. Only after my second year of law school in 1960, when I’d decided to prac­ tice in Richmond, did we sell the cattle and sheep and rent the farmland to a neighbor. I would take nothing for my farming experience, for it taught me more about life than college and law school. My mother lived on the farm with my sister Mary Ann to the end of her long life in 1999. Plans now are for Mary Ann’s sons, Nigel and Jack, reared on the farm, to move with their families to the hill where the farmhouse stands. (Mary Ann became a lawyer in Montgomery County in 1984, 50 years after our father, also by reading law. She practices in Christiansburg where she recently retired as Commissioner of Accounts. She limits her practice now to serving as a court-appointed special advocate for children.) I reflect often on my short years with my father. They were magic years filled with boyhood joy. I won­ der about my father’s life before I knew him. With clues from family lore and the records of Montgomery County’s clerk’s office, his story emerges. **** Among the rituals of my boyhood was visiting farmers on Thanksgiving morning. Thanksgiving was hog killing day in our county. By then it was cool enough to avoid flies and meat spoilage, but not so cold as to make 60 �Jack Word and his Model T. the work uncomfortable. Families were gathered for the holiday, creating a work force. As we approached a farm, we’d see smoke rising from wood fires beneath steaming barrels of water. Into the barrels slain shoats would be dipped to loosen their hair. Then the shoats would be scraped and cut into hams, bacon sides, fat back, shoulders, roasts, spare ribs, tenderloins and jowls. The trimmings would become sausage or be rendered for lard. The organs and innards would go into washtubs for souse and chitterlings. For each of the farmers, my father brought a gift —a small bag containing packages of sage, thyme, and red and black pepper. We’d deliver the spices and talk briefly with the farmer and his family, all busy at assigned tasks. Then we’d be off to the next farm. The week after Thanksgiving, packages of fresh sausage would arrive at my father’s office. Through the New Year holiday, we would enjoy fresh sausage, seasoned light or hot with my father’s spices. How my father came to give spices to farmers at Thanksgiving provided the opening clue to his story. My father was the fourth of five sons of Harry McClanahan Word and Mary Scott Charlton. They were bom in 1865, Harry in Roanoke, Mary Scott in Wythe County. They were married in 1890, and my father was bom in 1897. Harry was then a farmer and livestock dealer. A 1915 family photo shows a smiling and petite Mary and six serious men, including my father, moviestar handsome at six feet tall and 170 pounds, with broad shoulders, an aquiline nose and piercing, slightly hood­ ed eyes. That was the year he finished high school and embarked on his first business venture —a livery stable bought in partnership with his father and a family friend. Its business was ferrying passengers by buggy between 61 �the drummer hotel on the town square and the train depot two miles away. Henry Ford’s Model T promptly sunk it, and on May 1, 1917, its assets were auctioned from the courthouse steps for the benefit of creditors. But it is not as a failed business that the livery is remembered - rather as the venue of a tragedy. In his spare time at the livery, my father trained a colt to do circus tricks - kneel, dance, and, as a finale, rear and balance on its hind legs. The signal for the finale was a wave of my father’s handkerchief. An oaf who’d seen my father put the colt through its routine walked into the stable where the colt munched hay in its stall. He waived his handkerchief. The colt reared obediently and struck the crown of its head on a joist. It died instantly. My father never ceased to mourn the colt or to curse his stupidity for missing the danger his signal entailed. Soon after, my father was drafted for service in World War I. He applied for officer candidate school, and was sent to Fort Zachary Taylor in Kentucky. He completed OCS at the top of his class just in time for the armistice. His army photo in profile shows a handsome young man with a slight smile, his long straight nose the dominant feature (he looks much like Eddie Hinshelwood, his great grandson who inherited his love of horses). He returned from service to Christiansburg in 1919, to the opportunity of a lifetime. Colonel Sidney Sheltman, the county’s most prominent citizen, invited him to be managing partner of a 777-acre farm at the headwaters of the Roanoke River. The farm economy was at its zenith - cattle were bringing $9 a hundred weight, farmland $69 an acre national average, $200 an acre in the mid-west. The partners bought the Walters farm for $30 an acre, $1,000 down, the rest over five years. What a deal! As a boy, my father had drovered stock for his father on horseback, aided by Border collies. In fact, he was named for one. His nickname Jack came from a favorite stock dog that died the week of his birth. He loved horses and dogs and was adept at training them and at managing livestock. I can picture him now, riding horse­ back across the 777 creek-side acres beneath Paris Mountain, feasting his eyes on fat grazing cattle. Then came 1920. The bottom fell out of the farm economy. Cattle dropped to $4.50 and would bottom at $2.50 in 1932. In 1923, Sidney Sheltman died of influenza, the scourge brought from Europe by the doughboys. His estate - including the 777-acre farm - went into receivership. Only the $1,000 down payment had been paid to Walters. Sheltman’s estate was hopelessly insolvent, his many holdings virtually worthless. His widow and daughter were left penniless; his creditors got cents on the dollar - and that after waiting years. A hotel, sawmills, timber, town lots, and farmland went begging. (The cruel devaluation and illiquidity of land in the county is starkly illustrated by an 840-acre tract Sheltman owned on Pilot Mountain. It was sold at auction by his receiver in 1923. Harry Word bought it for 310 per acre, 100 an acre down and the rest over three years. He sold it to my father in 1932 for 500 an acre. My father sold it to a stranger in 1942 for $1 an acre.) Sheltman’s financial wounds to the Word family were not limited to my father. Also in 1919, Sheltman bought Harry’s 250-acre farm east of town for $48 an acre« half on credit, of course. It was resold in the receivership to sons of an old cattle-trading partner of Harry’s, also on credit. Harry was not fully paid until 1938. In 1925, my father had moved to Birmingham, Alabama, to sell life insurance. There he met my mother, four years younger, petite and pretty, and teaching music in public school. She’d attended Birmingham Southern to earn a teaching certificate. She’d had her share of hard luck too - her father, a railroad station agent at Calera Junction, Alabama, had died of tuberculosis when she was 12, leaving her mother with four young children. The family had moved to Birmingham where, with her two sisters, my maternal grandmother operated a boarding house for schoolteachers. My father boarded in the neighborhood with a friend of my grandmother. Through this connection, he met my mother. They soon married and moved to Bradenton, Florida. My father’s 1925 and 1926 income tax returns survive. He made almost $3,000 in 1925 and almost $4,000 in 1926, when he paid $3.75 in federal tax. Then the Florida land bubble burst. (Even while selling life insurance in Florida, my father could not resist an agrarian play. He bought two railcars of yearling ewes and shipped them north to Harry to fatten on bluegrass. But alas, they were seized and destroyed in South Carolina by animal health officials in a hoof-andmouth disease scare. They were not insured.) By 1929, my parents’ Florida dreams were in shambles. But the year of the stock market crash brought them some joy - their first child, Mary Ann, arrived February 5. She was bom in Birmingham where my mother had gone to be with her mother while my father struggled back in Christiansburg to salvage his father’s failing seed and fertilizer business. Harry had started it with the proceeds of his farm sale to Sidney Sheltman. While the 1920s roared for industrial America, the farming economy never recovered from its 1920 drop. Soon both 62 �Mabry’s Copper Valley Store. economies were mired in the Great Depression. (My mother proposed naming their firstborn Anita Duval after an illustrious forebear in her family. My father countered, “How about Ineeda De Cash?” They compromised on Mary Anita, my mother’s name.) In 1927, Walters bought his 777-acre farm back from Sheltman’s receiver for $12,000. Walters released my father on the partnership debt - probably he judged my father a bloodless turnip. In a note to the court, my father endorsed Walters’ buy-back offer, saying it was “far more than the property would bring at auction.” I imagine my parents’ predicament at the start of the 30s - living in a rented apartment, no job, a new baby, saddled with Harry’s crumbling business laden with debt. Then in 1931, their luck changed - Sidney Johnson, clerk of Montgomery’s circuit court, died. The circuit court judge would appoint his successor for the term expiring in 1936. My father secured the appointment. How much pay? “Between $700 and $1,200 for the year 1931,” according to the 1930 Virginia Acts of Assembly. The county board of supervisors set the exact amount, after the Byrd Machine’s powerful compensation board set the range. A fourth of what my father had earned selling insurance in 1926, but a paycheck. How had my father, then age 34, secured the post of clerk? Again Sidney Sheltman’s ghost appears. The Colonel had been county Democratic Party chairman until relinquishing it to become town postmaster in 1919. Harry succeeded him as chairman. This could not have hurt. My father found the clerk’s office in shambles. After Roosevelt’s election in 1932, he secured a New Deal grant to modernize. The deed and will books were re-indexed and rebound, and duplicates sent to the state archives in Richmond. Although he had only a high-school education, my father “read law” at night while serv­ ing as clerk. In 1933, on July 4, Harriet arrived. In 1934, my father passed the bar exam. This would be his anchor when luck again turned against him. In 1936, my father stood for election as clerk on the ticket with fellow Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, seeking his second term as president. While Roosevelt was hugely popular nationally, not so in Montgomery. His repeal of Prohibition had angered Baptists, bootleggers, and Republicans. My father and Roosevelt were defeated 63 �by the county’s voters, though it didn’t hurt Roosevelt. And .so my father again found himself unemployed in the depths of the Depression. My mother was dev­ astated. But my father had his law license and hung out his shingle. Like everyone else, he struggled through the remaining Depression years until the war finally brought a small measure of prosperity. In 1934, my grandfather had given up on the seed and fertilizer business, literally giving it away. In 1941, my father assumed the last $3,400 of its debt in buying Harry’s small farm on the Riner Road. Later that year, Harry died; my grandmother Mary followed him in 1946. Their trip through the first half of the 20th Century had been a rough one, as it had been for most Americans. My father’s one bid for elective office brought defeat, but in the long run, the defeat proved a blessing. Had he won, he would not have practiced law, which he enjoyed almost as much as his farm. During his 1936 campaign for clerk, my father had driven about the county visiting the farmers he’d known since childhood to ask for their votes. He sensed strong anti-Democrat sentiment. But he knew one remote and unlikely comer of the county where he felt he might gamer a few votes. The farm community of Copper Valley lay in the far southwest, on the Little River straddling the Floyd County line. Floyd had been a Republican stronghold since Civil War days, the birthplace of the moonshine industry and later of NASCAR, whose drivers and car builders made or hauled whiskey for day jobs. Floyd became a sanctuary for deserters from both armies during the Civil War; pacifist Dunkards harbored refugees in gray or blue. General Lee sent Colonel John S. Wise with a regiment to root out the deserters and punish their protectors, but the stubborn Dunkards and Floyd’s steep wooded mountains and laurel-clad hollows defeated Wise’s effort. My father felt he could gamer votes in the Montgomery County part of Copper Valley because it was the lair of the Mabry clan. Shortly after becoming clerk in 1931, my father had stopped at Fred Mabry’s Copper Valley filling station for gas and a Coca-Cola. “How are you, Fred,” he’d asked his old high-school classmate. “Not good, Jack. I can’t feed my family.” That’s when my father noticed Mabry had a woodworking shop in the back, with a few sticks of primi­ tive furniture and a coffin in inventory. “What if I could get you a contract to make pauper coffins for the county?” my father asked. Fred Mabry’s face lit up. “That would be great, Jack.” As clerk, my father served as minute-taker for the board of supervisors and recalled they’d recently ordered coffins from an Ohio maker. It would be a logical thing in these tough times to keep the business local. At its next meeting, the board authorized the purchase of coffins from Mabry. So that’s why my father believed Fred Mabry would be a source of votes. He found Mabry hard at work on a coffin in the back of the store. Taking a Coke from the red icebox, my father asked, “How are you making it, Fred?” “Very well, Jack. And I thank you for getting me the contract with the county.” “I’m glad it worked out, Fred. I hope you will ask your family and your Montgomery County neighbors to vote for me for clerk next month.” Mabry paused, then looked my father in the eye and said: “Jack, I’ve knowed you all my life and you’ve been a good friend. But I ’d cut off my arm before I ’d vote for a damn Democrat.” In shock, my father put a nickel for the Coke beside Mabry’s cash register and walked out to his Model A. The trip back to town was a long one. My father lost his bid for clerk. But when he hung out his shingle to practice law, the farmers whose votes had defeated him for clerk were his potential clients. Thanksgiving came soon after Election Day. That’s when my father first delivered his sausage-spice gifts to let his farmer friends know he held no grudges for their votes against him. He kept up the gifts at Thanksgiving the rest of his life in appreciation for their patronage. 64 �R oanoke a rea fa m ily ro a d bu ild ers ~ P art II by Stan Lanford efore we continué with Part II of our history of Roanoke families who were highway contractors in the midand early 20th century, a few corrections should be made to Part I in the 2006 Journal. Jack Kite, a friend who was raised bn a farm in Orange County, sent information in a letter about some of the people written about in Part I: : B “In the 1920s and ’30s we lived in a rented house on Main Street in Orange during the winters, since the dirt road from near Montpelier or from Somerset to my grandfather’s farm became impassible. The rest of the year we lived on the farm where my mother looked after my grandfather. My father was a clerk in Crafton & Sparks men’s clothing store. Marcellus (“Cell”) Crafton had a drinking problem and was forced to sell his interest in the store and my father bought him out. Mr. Tom Sparks retired in the early ’40s and my father bought him out. The farm was sold in 1944 after my grandfather’s death and my parents bought a house in Orange. I went into the Air Corps in 1943 and really never returned to Orange. “Two of my first cousins were Marion and Beale Wilhoit. Their father owned the Dodge-Plymouth deal­ ership in Charlottesville. In the mid ’30s, Finley (Sam Finley Inc.) had a water-bound macadam job on Rt. 250 from Charlottesville south towards Richmond on which Bob Smith was the superintendent. The Wilhoits also rented rooms to ‘Overnight Guests’ as the sign said and Bob rented a room there. Marion and Bob ended up marrying In 1947, Beale, Marion’s younger brother, asked Bob for a job and I tagged along. “My wife Ann and Jack Hall dated in high school at Jefferson and she confirms that Jack went into the Marines from Jefferson and never went to VMI. What his connection with Bob or Marion was, I have no idea, but Bob gave him a job as timekeeper the summer of ’47 when he was at Tech. Jack knew someone at W & L who arranged for the three of us to rent rooms at the Kappa Sigma house. I found out years later that Wiley Jackson, Bob Smith, and I think Jimmy Turner, all had interests in John A. Hall Co. In the fall of 1949, Finley got two sand asphalt jobs in eastern North Carolina, on either side of the Pamlico River. I was superintendent on the north bank job and Oscar Lloyd on the south side. Jack was Oscar’s timekeeper. After that I worked at various jobs in Virginia and North Carolina and didn’t get back to Roanoke until the fall of 1957. Consequently I kind of lost track of Jack, but obviously he couldn’t have gone into business for himself until the early 1950s.” Jack Kite, who worked for Sam Finley for over 40 years, offered several corrections in the Sam Finley Company and Adams Construction portions: Paul Rotenberry’s name was not spelled correctly. The date that Hardaway Contracting Company sold Sam Finley Company to APAC was 1970 and the Roanoke office of Sam Finley closed in March 1973. Bob Smith worked on the Alcan Highway from Washington State to Alaska during his time in the Corps of Engineers as well as building an airfield in Recife, Brazil (not Argentina). Bob Smith died in 1975. Kite also offered corrections to the events in John A. Hall’s life. Hall worked for Sam Finley Company for the first time in 1947 during summer while attending Virginia Tech for part of the year. **** Stanard “Stan” Lanford, vice president o f the Society, has written a second part in a series on Roanoke area family road builders. He retired as president o f Lanford Brothers, a Roanoke County contractor, after 50 years o f experience. The first installment o f this story appeared in the 2006 issue o f the Journal. 65 �Lanford Brothers worked with Sam Finley and Oman Construction on a parallel bridge over the rail­ road tracks in the 460 corridor just west o f Bluefield. (Virginia Road Builder magazine, Vol. XXIII, No. 18, Sept. 25, 1967) The second part of our history describes many of the early excavating, bridge, and a few specialty contrac­ tors who have operated from the Roanoke region over the years. One of the older firms was Albert (pronounced All-bert) Brothers Company. The three Albert brothers, raised on a farm near Shawsville, were looking for a bet­ ter way to make a living. They were living adjacent to the Vaughan family. J.L. Vaughan had done work as a con­ tractor in the coalfields of Virginia, starting around 1900. Charlie Albert was bom in 1877 and in 1900 was working on his father’s farm as a laborer. “Mr. Charlie” and his two brothers, Lewis and Archie, founded Albert Brothers Company after 1920, when J.L Vaughan had got­ ten in financial difficulty. In his 1918 World War I draft registration, Charles Allen Albert was living on a farm in Shawsville, and he was shown as a farmer and a construction manager for Vaughan Construction Company. Brother Archer was working in Dary, West Virginia as a foreman for Vaughan Construction Company in 1918. Lewis was living in Roanoke in 1920 and was employed by the railroad as a yard clerk. Their new company was awarded a Virginia Department of Highways project in 1921 to build 12 miles of road from Jackson’s Ferry to Hillsville in Wythe and Carroll counties. I was told that Archer Albert was not involved in the construction projects. Brother Lewis died in 1940 and ended his participation in the company. Early on, Charlie Albert hired Bill Beasley to be his shovel operator, and he was a stockholder in the company by virtue of having some of his wages paid in company stock when the company did not have enough cash to cover its pay­ roll. Albert Brothers built the first of a number of projects in Virginia and North Carolina. In the late 1920s, 66 �Albert had a highway project in Avery County, North Carolina. Apparently there were some very good men near this job site who had the potential to be excellent construction workers. Two that he hired on this job were Bob Buchanan and Dave Abernathy, and both of these men became key employees. The survey party chief for the North Carolina job was Link (Lincoln) Missimer, who joined the Albert Brothers firm and became a shareholder and ultimately the next president after Charlie Albert passed away. Albert Brothers had moved from Shawsville to Salem by 1930. Albert was living in Salem on High Street in a house he owned, valued at $18,000 when the federal census was taken on April 3-4, 1930. He listed his occupation as rail­ road contractor. Link Missimer was living in Floyd County, Ky., in 1930 where he was working as superintendent on road construction. In the 1939 Roanoke Directory, Chas. A. Albert is listed as a road contractor, and president of Albert Brothers Company, Bank of Salem and Sherwood Burial Park. In the 1930s, Albert Brothers built over 20 miles of road bed on the Skyline Drive in Virginia and later sev­ eral projects for the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina and Virginia. Albert Brothers completed the building of the last stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway from south of the Peaks of Otter to U.S. 460 near Montvale about 1950. In the 1940s and ’50s, they constructed many miles of primary routes along U.S. 11 and 460. This includ­ ed a project on Route 11 from Dublin to Pulaski. On this job there was a large amount of seeding to be done under the contract and Link Missimer made a deal with Albert Brothers superintendent Clyde Sisson to do the seeding work as a subcontractor. Prior to this project, seeding was generally not a part of Department of Highways con­ tracts. After Link Missimer passed away in 1974, his son, Charles, took over the management of the company. The firm went bankrupt on a contract to build the U.S. 220 bypass around Martinsville in 1975. The bid price was too low for the firm to be able to complete this job. The bonding company took all the assets of the corporation to help offset their losses in paying another contractor for completing this project. Philip L. Baird of Roanoke apparently bid Department of Highways projects as an individual from 1927 to 1947 when he completed his last project. I could not find any other information on this firm. Jim Bennett founded Bennett Construction Co. Inc. I think he worked for McDowall and Wood before starting his own business. Bennett was awarded his first VDOT project in 1952 to construct a bridge over the Southern Railway. His last project awarded by VDOT was in 1966. Jim also built a lot of concrete box culverts as a subcontractor on interstate and primary road projects. Jim sold his company to Wiley N. Jackson Company around 1972. E.F. (Fred) Blankenship was bom in 1901 in Virginia and in the 1930 census was working as a bridge con­ struction foreman in Caswell County, N.C. He may have worked with T.A. Loving Company from North Carolina before coming back to Salem. E.F. Blankenship Company was awarded its first project by VDOT in September 1948. This company built many bridges for the next 37 years. When Fred Blankenship Sr. passed away in 1981, control of his company went to his son Fred Jr. and as happened frequently, the second generation could not achieve a successful transfer of ownership. Fred Blankenship Jr. was the low bidder to rebuild the 1-81 and Rt. 311 intersection for the Salem exit in 1983. The work was bid at such a low price that the contractor could not complete the project. In June of 1986, the bonding company took the assets of the defaulting company to help pay the extra cost of completing the project. Fred Blankenship Sr. had a nephew, Les Blankenship, who had worked with the E.F. Blankenship Company and decided by 1979 to set up his own outfit, B & F Company located in Rocky Mount. Les maintained a small bridge crew and worked on VDOT projects from 1979 to 1992 when his company disappeared from the list of pre-qualified bidders. Claude McAlister was bom in 1905 and raised on a farm in Ringgold, Catoosa County, Ga. In the 1930 census Claude McAlister (frequently called “Mr. Mac”) was boarding in a household in Davidson County, Tenn.,. and his occupation was foreman on highway construction. At one time in his life Mr. Mac worked for Chandler Brothers, one of the early railroad and highway contracting companies located in Virgilina. He met his wife near Nashville and they had one daughter, Betty, who married Bill Branch from west Tennessee after they met at a church function in 1950. These family connections led to the founding of one of the largest construction compa­ nies in Virginia. Mr. Mac formed a partnership with Ralph E. Mills of Frankfort, Ky., and Salem to strip mine for coal in �Kentucky. By 1952, the coal business was not doing well and they decided to bid on a VDOT project on Rt. 460 near Raven in Tazewell County. The firm of Mills and McAlister, the low bidder, completed this project in 1953 and then bid a project on the West Virginia Turnpike just north of the Bluestone River Gorge. After the successful completion of the turnpike project Mills and McAlister did not have any highway work for several years. Mills and McAlister hired a new Georgia Tech civil engineering graduate from Salem named William Robertson as project engineer on this job. During this time when few contracts were available to bid, Mr. Mac had determined to try to set up his own company and had moved to Roanoke. He was awarded several small private jobs and in the fall of 1955 he asked his son-in-law, Bill Branch, a Georgia Tech engineering graduate, to leave his job in Georgia work­ ing in a cable manufacturing plant and move to Roanoke to help him expand his new business. As soon as they got a job large enough to need the equipment that Mr. Mac owned jointly with Mills, they approached Mills about rent­ ing the equipment. Instead of a rental deal, Mills offered a “buy or sell” deal. In this instance, Mills placed a value on the equipment and set a low price (to buy or sell) for the equip­ ment. If his partner would not want to risk his cash, Mills could buy it at the price he had set. Mr. Mac had saved his money and had money in the bank and accepted the low price for the equipment and bought it from Mills. Mills told Mr. Mac and Bill Branch that they had just made the best deal of their lives. He then offered to finance the purchase price over several years allowing the new company to conserve cash to use for working capital. McAlister Construction built several jobs for private parties and graded some school sites. By 1957, it was awarded its first VDOT project in southwest Virginia. VDOT records show that McAlister Construction was award­ ed 12 projects between 1957 and 1965. One of these projects was in Washington County on the Kings Mill Pike. Lanford and Slater, later to become Lanford Brothers Company, got its first bridge building experience in 1957 when it sub-contracted the small bridges and box culverts on this project. Early on, the partners realized that a corporation would be a better form for the construction business then a partnership and set up a new corporation in Roanoke known as Branch and Associates. Branch and Associates’ first VDOT project was awarded in 1965. Bill Branch purchased Mr. Mac’s interest in Branch and Associates and McAlister Construction Company at this time. Mr. Mac subsequently had a stroke and was never in good health again for the rest of his life. He passed away in 1972. Branch and Associates continued to bid on highway projects even as it expanded its construction activity into constructing buildings and acquired a local mechanical contractor. By 1988 Branch and Associates had split to form Branch Highways for the purpose of highway construction and Branch and Associates for building construc­ tion. Both divisions are still active in the business of constructing roads and buildings. Branch Highways acquired the E.V. Williams Company in Norfolk in 1996. This firm is a major road building company in eastern Virginia. Former Roanoker Tom Partridge is the current president of E.V. Williams Company. Branch Highways was one of the first companies in Roanoke to inaugurate a 100 percent Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) that gives shares of the company’s stock to the employees as part of their retirement plan. ESOPs allow the owners of company stock to have a market to sell their stock. A portion of the capital of the com­ pany is placed in an ESOP Trust where it can be used to purchase the original owners’ shares and/or newly issued stock. Each employee who has worked for a certain period of time (usually one year) is allocated a block of com­ pany stock based on a formula in the ESOP plan. The formula usually considers the annual earnings of each indi­ vidual stockholder as a percentage of the sum of all the stockholders’ earnings as a means to allocate to each stock­ holder his or her portion of that year’s contribution to the ESOP Trust. Bill Branch was able to successfully change the management in his company from a family business to an employee-owned business. He also was able to do real estate deals in the Roanoke Valley by buying “hills and holes,” hauling dirt from the hills to level the holes. Bill’s ability to get his managers to learn all they could about each job they were bidding and then paying attention to the daily profit or loss on each job undertaken has led to many profitable projects for his firms. Bill’s cousin, Ralph Shivers, who had a background in accounting, followed Bill as president of Branch and Associates by 1988. Shivers was also a leader in the Virginia Road and Transportation Builders Association (VRTBA), moving through the chairs to become president in 1990. When Shivers retired in 2002, Jim Harrison, a longtime Branch employee and head of the building corporation (Branch and Associates), took over as president of both companies. In 2006, Will Karbach was named president of Branch Highways Inc. Bill has a son, Mike Branch, who also worked at Branch Highways. Mike was an estimator and vice pres- 68 �■■ ■■■■>' '■ 1 -q •*” w twPlifW THfr*1t'n Sam Finley erected an asphalt plant at W. W. Boxley Co. ’s Pounding Mill quarry near Bluefield. (Virginia Road Builder magazine, Volume XXIII, No. 18, Sept. 25, 1967) ident for business development before he left the company in 2004 to work with his dad in the real estate business. Mike also was elected president of the VRTBA in 1999 and served subsequently on the Joint Highway Cooperative Committee. Bill Branch has been active in several organizations such as Young Life, Habitat for Humanity and the Rescue Mission that offer help and hope to the homeless. Other contributions not noticed very often are his real estate deals that have helped bring better jobs and economic development to our area. A prime example is the prop­ erty where the ITT Night Vision factory is located on Plantation Road in Roanoke County. Branch provided this property to ITT, as well as an additional warehouse space. One of the oldest companies in the Roanoke valley is the firm of W.W. Boxley and Company. This firm’s history as a railroad contractor dates back to the early 1890s and continued for over 30 years when it became pro­ ficient at furnishing crushed stone for railroad ballast, building roads and use in asphalt paving and Portland cement concrete. VDOT’s records show that Boxley was active in constructing roads from 1922 to 1925. Another family connection was that Harold G. Robertson and his brother, Frank D. Robertson, both worked for Boxley Brothers, located in Salem in 1910. These Boxleys were cousins of W.W. Boxley and his brother and their children in Roanoke. When Harold Robertson filled out his draft card information on June 1, 1917, he gave his occupation as timekeeper and store clerk for Boxley Brothers and he was living and working at Whitesville, W.Va., on a railroad construction project. Harold Robertson was ultimately to become a lawyer (he did not enjoy construction work) and finally president of the Liberty Trust Bank and then president of the newly formed Colonial-American National Bank in Roanoke. Harold’s brother, Frank Robertson, left Boxley Brothers about the end of World War I and was involved in the founding of several construction companies. An interesting note found in the minutes of the November 1921 meeting of Virginia’s Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) authorized W.W. Boxley of Roanoke to “advance $30,000 for construction work on 69 �Wiley N. Jackson Co. works on a stretch of U. S. 460 in Buchanan County. (Virginia Road Builder mag­ azine, Vol. XXIII, No. 18, Sept. 25, 1967) the Lynchburg Rustburg Road.” In the 1920s, many businessmen and local governments were advancing funds to VDOT in an attempt to get roads constructed in their area of the state. As late as 1940, Boxley was listed in the Roanoke Business Directory as a railroad contractor. Today, Boxley continues as a major supplier of building con­ struction materials in Virginia, using the name of Boxley Materials Company. The current president is fourth gen­ eration Abney Boxley III. Draper and Company is another family road building firm from Roanoke that was active in the 1920s. Shirley Draper, founder of the S.R. Draper Paving Company still in business today, told Jack Lanford that his dad was in business building streets around 1925. The 1935 and 1940 Business Directories show Shirley R., W. Linwood, Walter W., and William B. Draper as general contractors. Draper Construction Company is in the direc­ tory from 1950 to 1970 under the headings of general, excavating, or road contractor. I cannot find any records of Draper Construction ever receiving any VDOT projects. Louis Hartman and Howard Selander started H & S Construction Company in Roanoke in the early 1960s. The firm made its first successful bid with VDOT in March 1963 on an urban job in Hopewell. About this same time Adams Construction Company was rebuilding Peters Creek Road near Orange Avenue and H & S was doing the curb and gutter work as a sub-contractor to Adams. H & S was trying out a new machine to extrude concrete curb and gutter near Melrose Avenue and also placing curb and gutter by handsetting the forms and placing the con­ crete. On that day, Louis Hartman said the machine was not doing well and he thought he would stick with the handset forming method. Eventually he did buy a machine to do this type of work. This company has done the majority of sidewalk and curb and gutter work for the City of Roanoke for over 40 years. They have specialized in incidental concrete work over the years and have been very successful. They continue to bid small bridges, box culverts and miscellaneous items as well as curb and gutter and sidewalks. Bill 70 �Gee Jr. and his brother Jeff now operate the company. M. (Maxwell) S. Hudgins was bom in Winchester, Ky., in 1881. By 1900 his family had moved to Atlanta and he had attended Georgia Tech and was working for the railroad as a civil engineer. In 1918, he was living in Pulaski and working as an engineer and construction superintendent for Harrison Engineering and Construction Company on a job in McDowell County, W.Va. After serving as the town engineer for Pulaski, he decided that he wanted to start his own construction business. In the earliest record I can find, Hudgins received a contract with VDOT in May 1925. The contract value was $26,180 and the description of the work was not furnished. In 1926 Hudgins was awarded a contract in Floyd County to build bridges over West Fork, Little River and Dodd’s Creek. His last VDOT project was the entrance road to the Viscose Plant in Pulaski, bid in 1945. The company operated under the name of M.S. Hudgins and Company, Roanoke, until his death in 1960. According to Chick Pace, grandson of M.S. Hudgins, the company was not treated fairly by VDOT in the late ’30s so it finally decided not to bid any more VDOT projects. Max Hudgins had a son, Joe, and a daughter, Mary. She married Claude Pace Jr. and they were the parents ° f E-C. “Chick” Pace III. Joe Hudgins and Claude Pace Jr. bought the company from Max Hudgins in 1956 after working with Hudgins for a number of years. The company’s name was changed to Hudgins and Pace in 1960 and this firm was primarily involved in laying water and sewer lines and other construc­ tion. In 1976, Chick Pace bought the company from his father and uncle and changed the name to E.C. Pace and Company. Chick is selling the company to his son, Mark, who is the current president. This firm is still active in the Roanoke Valley, across Virginia and North Carolina, installing drainage, water and sewer lines. This is one of the few business­ es in the Roanoke Valley that has successfully managed to stay in operation through the fourth generation. In 1932, a banker in Washington County asked Adams Construction is shown paving a section o f U.S. 460 leading to Wiley N. Jackson to take over Short Gap. (Virginia Road Builder magazine, Vol. XXIII, No. 18, Sept. 25, 1967) and complete a road construc­ tion project that one of the bank’s customers was not able to complete. Jackson was a lumber dealer living in Meadowview, as shown in the 1930 U.S. census. By 1932, times were hard in the Great Depression and he was selling watermelons for a nickel each. Jackson thought road construction was better then selling lumber, watermelons or working on a farm as his father had done. From this humble beginning, the Wiley N. Jackson Company was founded and grew to be one of the largest construction companies in Virginia. VDOT records show that W.N. Jackson, Meadowview, was awarded his first contract in January 1935. By 1936, the company was working on a VDOT project in Bristol, and had relocated to Roanoke at the urging of anoth­ er contractor, Jack Cunningham, co-founder of Virginia Asphalt Paving Company. By 1946, the company had changed its name to Wiley N. Jackson Company and was building much larger projects such as the Orange Avenue (U.S. Route 460) job through the city of Roanoke. In 1938, a young Pennsylvania man came to Virginia Tech to attend college. He met Jackson’s daughter, Betty, while at Tech and they were married after he graduated. The young man was Dave Burrows, whose family �operated a hardware store in Pennsylvania. Dave went to work for Jackson in 1946 after serving four years in the Army. Within a few years, Dave was the president of the company. Because of the additional work the company was doing, Dave soon needed another engineer to help manage some of their projects. Curtis Lucado, from Roanoke, a 1955 VMI civil engineering graduate, was hired and ultimately earned the job of president of the Jackson Company. In 1954, Jackson wanted to expand his work territory and went to Florida to find new work and to be able to bring in more income in the wintertime. His first low bid was to build a sewer interceptor in Miami. This job was successful, so they bid on some new bridgework near Hollywood, on the Florida Turnpike. When he had com­ pleted this work in Florida and was ready to return to Roanoke, his job superintendent said he liked Florida and wanted to stay and work year-round. Jackson decided the company should stay in Florida. With the beginning of the new interstate construction in the late 1950s, the Jackson Company was expanding rapidly across Virginia and in Florida. In 1969, the Jackson Company joined forces with Moore Brothers Company of Verona, Augusta County, to jointly bid over $20.4 million to build the first “mixing bowl project” on Interstate 95 in Fairfax County near the Pentagon. At the time it was the largest single highway contract ever awarded in Virginia. This project was com­ pleted on time and profitably. When the adjoining project was advertised for bids, Jackson and Moore added a paving company, Warren Brothers (later known as APAC-VA, and now a part of Old Castle Inc.) and an excavating firm known as TalbottMarks Company to help construct this huge job. This project carried 1-95 (now 1-395) on to the 14th Street Bridge over the Potomac River into Washington. The second contract was valued at over $33 million and again was the largest contract ever let in Virginia. Several large projects, including roadwork, subways, and very large bridges were completed successfully. This group branched into building stations for the Washington Metro system and after losing money in a couple of jobs, the joint venture was disbanded. Dave’s sons, Dave Jr., Jack Burrows, and son-in-law, Bob Burleson, also became part of the management team in the ’60s. The latter two men were Virginia Tech graduates and Dave Jr. received his degree at the University of Florida. Each brought management skills the company needed to grow and expand. Dave Jr. was in charge of the Florida work until he died in a tragic accident. Jack went to Memphis, Tenn., to manage a large bridge project in 1977. Jack recalls that Curtis Lucado was the mentor for many of the Jackson Company’s managers. Burleson was overseeing the office administration and setting up the company’s cost control system on computers. In 1982, the company acquired an asphalt business in Florida under Burleson’s leadership as the company was expanding its Florida operations. Even as the company continued to build many bridges and road projects throughout the southeastern United States, Jackson had expanded into dam construction with projects constructing a gated spillway for the John W. Flanagan Reservoir near Haysi in Dickenson County. They worked with Robertson-Fowler Company to con­ struct the large earth and rock-fill dam for Lake Moomaw near Covington. Another large dam project was success­ fully completed by a joint venture between Jackson and the J.F. Allen Company of Clarksburg, W.Va.. This proj­ ect was the Stonewall Jackson Dam, located near Roanoke, W.Va. The Jackson Company decided to close down its operation in 1987. Some of the company stockholders and managers became dissatisfied with the risk/reward ratio in the construction business. A final factor came when the firm could not purchase adequate liability insurance at a reasonable cost for the work it was doing. At this time the casualty insurance companies had an aversion to writing policies for companies that constructed large bridges. Wiley N. Jackson Company was working on such structures in Florida as the Sunshine Parkway Bridge in Tampa. Not finding an adequate liability insurance plan to protect the company, the owners decided to close it down and sell the assets. Most of their equipment was sold at auctions in Florida and Virginia. English Construction Company hired some of the Jackson employees who lived in Virginia. Curtis Lucado went on to be the executive vice president of the Williams Company of Baltimore, Md., for several years before he retired. Wiley Jackson was a very generous man. He and his family have donated much to the Roanoke Valley. The Jackson Company built Wiley Drive along the Roanoke River in the 1960s for the City of Roanoke at little or no cost to the city. Jackson supported Ferrum College and other worthy causes in addition to helping several other road contractors get started. Among these were Jim Bennett, Paul Slusher, Jack Hall and Leonard Hill. Jackson also sup­ ported the industry by holding the position of president of the Virginia Road Builders Association in 1951. He also 72 �Robertson, Fowler and Co.’s big scrapers are working on U.S. 460 at the top o f Brush Mountain north­ west o f Blacksburg. (Virginia Road Builder magazine, Volume XXIII, No. 11, June 12, 1967) encouraged Dave Burrows to be active in the industry associations. Dave Burrows is an acknowledged leader of the transportation construction industry, serving as president of the Virginia Road Builders Association in 1962, and in 1981 Dave became the first Virginia-based contractor ever to be the chairman of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association. Dave and his family fund­ ed the David H. Burrows Professor of Construction Engineering and Management at Virginia Tech and have sup­ ported many other Virginia Tech and other worthwhile causes in the Roanoke area. Clarence Wood and William D. McDowall started the firm of McDowall and Wood in 1937. McDowall married Wood’s sister, Ruth, in 1924. Wood was living in Roanoke and his occupation in the 1930 census was shown as an engineer for the railroad. In the 1920 census, Wood was living in Roanoke and listed as a foreman on concrete work. McDowall was working as a buyer for a wholesale grocer and living at Keystone, W.Va., in 1930 and had some cash to invest. With McDowall acting as his financial partner, Wood started bidding construction projects, building small concrete structures, light grading and placing pipe. McDowall and Wood bid jointly with M.S. Hudgins on a project to construct a bridge over the N & W in south Norfolk in July 1937. That was the first record of McDowall and Wood being a prime contractor for VDOT. The firm had survived the shortage of work during World War II by doing maintenance jobs for Roanoke, Salem, and the railroad. After World War II, the firm was low bidder on several bridge projects in Virginia. By the 73 �early 1950s, William McDowall’s son, Doug, was working with Clarence Wood. The company was successful in getting quite a few bridge contracts through the 1950s until the interstate construction program began. Wayne Hall came to work with McDowall and Wood in 1961 after working for about four years with VDOT as an inspector. His first job with VDOT was a steep mountain road-grading project in Patrick County, where Lanford & Slater was the prime contractor. Wayne stayed with McDowall and Wood for almost 30 years. He was a vice president and general superintendent when McDowall and Wood closed down. Wayne worked the rest of his career helping Branch Highways set up a bridge division. The firm’s ownership moved to the second generation when Doug McDowall and his mother purchased stock owned by Clarence Wood in 1963. McDowall and Wood built over 60 projects in Virginia from 1937 to about 1990. They were constructing the bridges on the U.S. 29 bypass of Amherst in 1969 when Hurricane Camille dumped over 30 inches of rain on the area. Their bridge project over a small stream was completely underwater from the flooding that occurred. Bill McDowall, Doug’s son, joined the company around 1974 and by 1981 was listed as an engineer for the company. Bill remembers that one of the hardest jobs they had was building a series of bridges on 1-95 in Prince William County during the early 1960s. This was the first large project for the company. Another challenge was the Hale’s Ford Bridge over Smith Mountain Lake. This bridge had piers about 90 feet tall. Tall bridges and deep water were problems that McDowall and Wood was not afraid to tackle. McDowall and Wood built two bridges over Claytor Lake. One was on a secondary road leading to Boy Scout Camp Powatan and the other was rebuilding the 1-81 bridge over the New River and Claytor Lake in 198586. These difficult jobs were in deep water and they used barges, a specialty for McDowall and Wood, to access part of the work. The firm purchased the new structural steel for the 1-81 project from Roanoke Iron and Bridge Works Inc (RIBW). RIBW was having some financial problems, but managed to fabricate and deliver the steel. Doug McDowall told me he was concerned that RIBW had not paid the steel company that supplied the steel to the fabricator and sought legal assistance from the courts to avoid the liability for the cost of the steel. The money to pay for the steel was put in an escrow account by McDowall and Wood. A federal law (Miller Act) places liability for any material furnished for a highway construction project on the prime contractor who is on the project. Also, the contractor is required to furnish a payment and performance bond for the value of the contract. If a steel manufacturer furnishes the steel to a fabricator such as Roanoke Iron and Bridge Works and is not paid for the steel by RIBW, the contractor will have to pay the steel manufacturer. When RIB W had not paid Bethlehem Steel for the raw material, Bethlehem came to McDowall and Wood seeking payment. Fortunately, the escrow account and the interest it had earned was enough to pay most of the final bill for the steel. McDowall and Wood’s last job was in Suffolk. Wayne Hall was tired of traveling and told Doug this was his last job that he would try to manage so far from Roanoke. As the job progressed, Doug decided to sell the busi­ ness, as his health was not good. They sold the business to English Construction Company of Altavista in 1990. Doug McDowall passed away in 2004. Doug was a respected leader in the highway construction industry. He served a term as president of the Virginia Road and Transportation Builders Association in 1970. He was an original organizer and long-time chair of the Joint Highway Cooperative Committee, consisting of ad-hoc members for about five years and in the mid1960s permanent members were appointed by the VRTBA Board and the top management at VDOT. This commit­ tee attempted to resolve issues regarding specification changes and construction-related problems for the industry. Doug followed Roanoke’s Bill Adams and a contractor from Norfolk as chair of this group, and held the job for more than 10 years. Doug was called on to fill another term as president of the VRTBA in 1984 when the incom­ ing officer was not able to perform due to a serious illness. In 1971, a young native of Roanoke and 1970 Virginia Tech graduate came to work for McDowall and Wood. He was Barry Bryant and he wanted to build things. His father, Wallace “Dick” Bryant, had a small grad­ ing outfit in Roanoke and Barry was a truck driver before he was 16 years old. After working for over 12 years as an engineer and superintendent with Doug McDowall, Barry came home one day and announced that he “was doing all the work, and the company was making all the money.” This idea has occurred to many young construc­ tion workers and so Barry started Bryant Contracting Inc. located in Salem. McDowall and Wood rented Barry the equipment for the first couple of jobs he had for his new company. Bryant Contracting got its first contracts build­ �ing bridges. After a couple of years working out of Salem on jobs located far from his office, Barry had decided to move his company to an area where he could live close to the jobs he was building. He chose Toano, a small town just west of Williamsburg, because it would allow him to seek work in the Richmond and Tidewater areas. His first job with VDOT was in 1984. As Bryant Contracting has grown, it has taken on a wide variety of large and small jobs, working for VDOT, federal and local governments and private entities. Following the example of Doug McDowall, Barry joined the VRTBAby 1987. Barry was interested in sup­ porting his chosen industry and by 1995 had been elected as a director of the VRTBA and moved to the president’s chair in 2000. Another young engineer who got some early experience with McDowall and Wood was Wade Douthat. Wade received his engineering degree from VMI in 1957 and went on to MIT for his master’s degree in engineer­ ing. He then served three years in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. After working with McDowall and Wood for a short time he started his own firm, Alleghany Construction Company, in 1961. Alleghany does road and bridge construction for VDOT, but also diversified into other areas of work such as construction in the coal fields of south­ west Virginia and construction of concrete dams, industrial site work, landfills and historic renovations. In 2006, Alleghany was presented the Ecological Excellence Award for the Robinson River Restoration Project. Wade Douthat is currently the chairman of the board and his two sons, Andy and John, are in place to continue the com­ pany’s operations in the future. Roanoke Iron and Bridge Works was an important structural steel supplier that was operating in Roanoke as early as 1923 when it was awarded a project by VDOT. At this time it was a common practice to fabricate and erect the bridge by the same company. RIBW had a large fabricating shop along the Roanoke River just east of the Walnut Avenue Bridge. By 1970, they had opened a much larger facility at Troutville and seemed to be moving into the future very well. As the interstate highways were completed many steel fabricating companies fell on hard times and went out of business by bankruptcy or merger. RIBW was forced into bankruptcy in 1986. The bankrupt­ cy court sold the fabricating plant in Troutville and the jail business was purchased and continued by the John Hancock Company of Salem. Another bridge company was founded in Roanoke in 1895 as the Virginia Bridge and Iron Company (VBI). The following information is from a document “Historic American Engineering Report, Clarkton Bridge (Bridge no. 6902),” prepared by Louis Berger and Associates Inc.: “By 1904, VBI was the largest steel fabricating compa­ ny in the south, with a capacity of 12,000 tons annually. The company’s product line consisted of bridges, turnta­ bles, warehouse factory building, and general structural iron and steel work. The company employed 175 men in the shops and 150 men in the erecting department. The plant covered 10.5 acres and included a bridge shop 300 feet by 80 feet, a large girder shop, and several small buildings. The principals of VBI at the time: W.E. Robertson, President, C E. Michael, Secretary; T.T. Fishbum, Treasurer; and C.E. Hamlin, Contracting Engineer.” VBI continued to grow and opened new facilities in many southern states. In 1934, VBI was acquired by the Tennessee Coal, Iron, and Railroad Company, the largest producer of steel in the south. In 1952, VBI merged into the American Bridge Company, a subsidiary of US Steel and the largest bridge company in the United States at that time. The American Bridge office and shop in Roanoke, until it closed in 1965, was located on the proper­ ty now serving as the Roanoke Valley’s trash transfer station, just off Orange Avenue. VDOT’s records indicate that by 1932 VBI had constructed 65 truss bridges in the state of Virginia. Pace Construction Company of Roanoke was awarded its first contract by VDOT in 1921 and the last one in 1931. Gordon Pace was listed as a general contractor in the Roanoke City directory for many years. Gordon Pace was an uncle to Chick Pace but there was no connection to their businesses. Rockydale Quarries has been a supplier of agricultural lime and crushed aggregates for construction since the 1920s. I did not find that Rockydale ever had a construction contract with VDOT. I did find an interesting item in the minutes of the CTB meeting of September 1928: “Senator Holman Willis appeared before the Commission in regard to sale of the Rockydale Stone Quarry. He made three propositions to the State: first, that the State pay $10,000 cash and $8,000 per year for eight years, for all the equipment, machinery, except the land would go back to the company after the State had finished with the quarry; second, that if the Commission pays cash on the above proposition that the $64,000 be discounted; and third, the flat cash price for everything, land included, would be $100,000. He submitted a statement showing his value of equipment on hand and the value of the real estate, 75 �S. F. Lanford Sr., worked on a channel change excavation project in West Virginia in 1928. amounting to a total of $117,150.10.” The Commission voted not to accept any of these offers. Gordon Willis Sr. told me that the business was in poor condition at that time. Today, Rockydale is a major supplier of lime and aggregates from quarries at three locations in the west­ ern part of Virginia. The Willis family is recognized as leaders in many philanthropic efforts in the Roanoke Valley, especially those having to do with education. Gordon Willis Sr. served on the state Board for Community Colleges. There was another connection between the Willis family, who founded and continue to operate Rockydale Quarries, and the Robertson family mentioned earlier. Frank R Robertson was the father of former U.S. Senator A. Willis, Frank D., Harold G. and Churchill J. Robertson and was married to Josephine Willis from the family of Larkin Willis of Culpeper and Orange counties. Larkin had 24 children and they have a multitude of cousins in Virginia. Rockydale’s Gordon Willis had a cousin also named Gordon Willis who owned and operated Culpeper Stone Company in Culpeper for many years. Both men were well known and respected in the road building indus­ try. The company now called Lanford Brothers had its beginnings from a partnership between Enrico Vecellio and Lit Coleman that was formed in 1923 to build roads in West Virginia. The name of that organization was Gilbert Construction Company. Gilbert survived the Great Depression and with the beginning of World War II and high corporate income taxes, the corporation was dissolved into a series of partnerships. One of the partnerships was named R.B. Gay & Company. The partners were Dick Gay, Stanard Lanford and Lit Coleman (Stanard’s uncle). By 1946, R.B. Gay & Co. had moved to Roanoke and was working primarily on railroad construction. Gay had health problems and in 1953 sold the company to Stanard Lanford Sr., his son John C. (Jack) Lanford and Ted Slater and the name was changed to Lanford and Slater. Stanard (Stan) Lanford Jr., author of this article, became a partner in 1955. Lanford and Slater’s first project was a joint venture with three other companies to build a two-mile seg­ ment of the West Virginia Turnpike in 1953. This contract was bid in at about a million dollars and due to a large earth slide the final contract totaled $1,350,000. The company was awarded its first project for VDOT in the spring of 1954 to construct a secondary road in Bath County. After the death of Stanard Lanford in 1955, his interest in Lanford and Slater was purchased by Jack and 76 �Stan Lanford. By 1960, Slater wanted to leave the company and Jack and Stan chartered Lanford Brothers Company (LBC). LBC was changing from a grading and excavating business to a company that built bridges and box culverts. For the next 20 years they built literally hundreds of box culverts and quite a few small to medium­ sized bridges. In the 1980s, the markets were changing and LBC began to obtain more projects to rehabilitate and repair bridges. In 1984, Lanford Brothers started the process to become an employee-owned business, generally referred to as an Employee Stock Ownership Plan or ESOP company. Over the last 20 years the ESOP has purchased 100 percent of the company stock and all employees who have worked for the company for a full year are now stock­ holders in the company. At least several other well-known local construction companies are ESOP companies: Branch Highways, Branch and Associates, and New River Electrical Corporation. LBC currently has over 200 employees and specializes in roadway and bridge rehabilitation, patching and repairs. The company works in surrounding states as well as for some municipalities and private companies. The company officers in Lanford Brothers have held many positions of leadership in the construction industry such as the Virginia Road and Transportation Builders Association, now known as the Virginia Transportation Construction Association (VTCA). Jack and Stan Lanford both served as president of the VRTBA as has company vice president A1 Soltis. Jack and Stan are the only brothers ever to serve as chairman of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA), Jack in 1991 and Stan in 1999. ARTBA is a national association representing over 5,000 transportation-related companies. Ralph E. Mills, bom in Lexington, Ky., started contracting in Kentucky by 1917 when he listed road con­ tractor as his occupation on his World War I draft registration. He acquired his first work in Virginia on the Skyline Drive in 1932 near Luray. The Mills firm built about 20 miles of the Skyline Drive from Thornton Gap to Big Meadows Mills by the end of 1934. The Norfolk and Western Railway awarded a contract to Mills to build the freight classification yard in Roanoke, said to be the largest in America in 1960. This company was awarded its first of many VDOT projects in 1936. Mills was listed in the Roanoke city directory as having an office located on 10th Street Extension in Roanoke and a residence on Grandin Road in 1939. By 1940, the Mills Company was listed in the city directory as having an office in Salem, although his home office remained in Frankfurt, Ky. In 1940, Mills was helping prepare the site for the Radford Arsenal and worked on this project for most of the time during World War II. He also built a large portion of the water distri­ bution system from the Carvins Cove treatment plant to downtown Roanoke. Mills was the contractor on the $8 million cement factory owned by Lone Star Cement near Daleville in 1951. The Salem office stayed open after Ralph Mills Company and several rock quarries in Tennessee were merged in 1957 to form Vulcan Materials Company, a major national stone supplier still in business today. Chester Fraim ran the Mills Company office in Salem until it was closed. Ralph Mills was a major contractor from 1932 to 1960. The Mills Company was involved in a joint ven­ ture to build U.S. Air Force bases in Africa and other foreign countries after World War II. Mills also built many miles of turnpikes and major roadways and airports. His last major project for VDOT was building a seven-mile stretch of U.S. 220 from Boones Mill south toward Rocky Mount. Vulcan made the decision in 1960 to cease con­ struction activities and concentrate on being a crushed stone supplier. Ralph Mills set up a foundation in 1940 to help poor young men get college engineering training. Mills had a reputation for helping out other contractors who were in trouble. Mills died in 1991 at age 96 at his farm in Kentucky. Ralph Mills daughter Katherine married Robert T. (Bob) Main. In 1939, Bob Main and his wife were liv­ ing in Roanoke; Bob was working as a superintendent for the Mills Company and his wife as a stenographer. By 1946 Bob Main had set up his own firm, Robert T. Main Company in Salem. He was awarded work by VDOT in 1947 through 1959. The last job he worked as a contractor was the grading and excavating of 1-66 in Prince William County. This project had a large percentage of solid rock and many shallow cuts. The rock was extremely hard and cut the tires of the hauling equipment, increasing costs considerably. The shallow cuts made the rock difficult to blast, also adding to his cost. The bonding company had to step in and finish the job for Main. He operated for a period of time at various jobs including attempting to crush stone in Central America and barge it back to the USA. Robert T. Main Company did not bid any more highway jobs and eventually ceased to operate. Bob Main passed away in 1989. 77 �F.C. Sammons Co. (later Robertson-Fowler Company) equipment dug out St. Mary’s Tunnel on the Skyline Drive in 1935. Another Mills employee was William H. “Willie” Robertson. Willie was raised in Salem and went to Hampden-Sydney College, thinking he wanted to be a doctor. By the time he was taking his third life science course he decided that civil engineering would be a better career. After finishing Hampden-Sydney, Willie went to Georgia Tech and earned a civil engineering degree. He obtained a job as field engineer with Ralph Mills and Claude McAlister, working a large excavating contract on the West Virginia Turnpike in 1953. Willie’s father was Harold Robertson, president of Colonial American National Bank in Roanoke. One of Willie’s uncles was Frank Robertson, who was the co-founder of Sammons-Robertson, Robertson-Henry, and Robertson-Fowler companies. Another uncle was A. Willis Robertson, U.S. senator from Virginia for many years. Willie has a brother, Frank, who has worked his career for the Morrison-Knutson Company, one of the larger civil works constructors in the U.S. at one time. Construction seems to run in the blood of many families. After Mills got out of the construction business in 1960, Willie Robertson decided to start his own compa­ ny called Robertson Construction Company in the spring of 1961. His first VDOT award came in 1961 to construct a bridge in Henry County, and the last work awarded to Robertson was in 1995. Willie sold his business to English Construction Company where he continues to work as a trouble-shooter and consultant. The well-known local firm of Robertson-Fowler Company sprang from Frank Robertson (Willie’s uncle) and Forest C. Sammons’ firm, the Sammons-Robertson Company, incorporated in 1926 in Huntington, W.Va.. By 1940, the name had changed to Robertson-Henry Co. Robertson-Fowler Company was incorporated in West Virginia in 1947. M.O. “Buck” Fowler was Frank Robertson’s partner in this company. Buck was bom in Randolph County, W.Va., near the Rich Mountain Civil War battlefield, in 1902. In the 1930 census for Randolph County, he was still living with his parents and was working as an ironworker in con­ struction. Buck had worked with Sammons-Robertson for many years in states as far away as Maine. By 1952, Buck Fowler was working on VDOT projects bid by Robertson-Henry Company to re-build U.S. Route 11 north of Lexington. By 1957, Robertson-Fowler Company was operating out of Buchanan, and bidding VDOT projects in its 78 �own name. This may be the year that Buck Fowler purchased the interest of Frank Robertson in the RobertsonFowler Company. Buck continued to manage his company until he was nearly 80 years old. Under the management of Buck Fowler, the company built over 70 projects for VDOT, including a large number o f interstate highways in the ’60s and ’70s. They also entered into a joint venture with Wiley N. Jackson to construct the Gathright Dam in Alleghany County. Buck managed and worked his way to become a well-known and respected contractor and builder in Virginia. Buck’s sons continue to operate the company today, although they have changed their type of work from new construction to successfully performing contract maintenance for VDOT in the Salem District. Another contractor who started in the mid ’40s was Pioneer Construction Company, founded by Robert “Bob” Churchill. Pioneer was awarded its first job for VDOT in 1947. His last job for VDOT was for the grading, excavating and stone base on 1-81, constructing the Harrisonburg bypass. Bob planned to windrow the rock in the center of the roadway and use a traveling crusher, which he was trying to invent, to crush the rock into a usable for the road base material. He could never perfect the process and eventually the bonding company had to finish the project. Bob Churchill was able to bring another new idea to Roanoke as he started a business called Port-O-John, renting portable toilets to a variety of groups, including the highway construction contractors. Prior to this time, portable toilets had not been available for outdoors events. Highway contractors generally did not have good san­ itary facilities for their employees until the 1960s and later. Paul Slusher was raised on a farm south of the town of Floyd. One of his contemporaries said, “Paul walked out of Floyd County barefoot with no money in his pocket.” Nevertheless, he found employment in the road build­ ing industry. Slusher was awarded his first VDOT project in 1952. By 1956 he had a connection with Virginia Stone and Construction Company of Roanoke. He had moved to Roanoke. In the winter of 1956, Slusher went to Jacksonville, Fla., and worked as a subcontractor with Wiley N. Jackson Company. This job turned out well for him and by 1962 Slusher bid jointly with Sam Finley Inc and Lanford Brothers Company to construct the first section of 1-64 in western Virginia, located at Low Moor in Alleghany County. At the same time, Slusher had a contract in Florida to build about 15 miles of Interstate 1-4 through a swamp from Daytona Beach west toward Orlando. This job was very difficult to build as there was no access to this work from any crossroads. Slusher had a job he did not know how to build and could not complete his work. The bonding company had to take over the project and finish it. Meanwhile, the 1-64 project Slusher had in Virginia was doing very well. He was taking money from his good job in Virginia and using it to try to stave off bankruptcy in Florida. By doing this, he was not able to pay his bills for materials, equipment and supplies on the 1-64 project. Finley and Lanford had to complete the work on I64 for Slusher and pay off his debts on the Virginia work. This cost was a great burden on the joint venture part­ ners and especially for the Lanford Brothers as they were undercapitalized and it took several years for them to pay off their share of the cost to complete Slusher s work. Lanford Brothers learned a valuable lesson from this proj­ ect about the dangers of joint ventures and the necessity of knowing who you should take as a partner on a job. After failing to complete his Florida project, Slusher moved to Wise County, and worked in the coalfields, eventually setting up a coal tipple for loading coal on the railroad. Slusher bid a few jobs for VDOT under the name Alleghany Stone and Construction Corporation from 1967 to 1970. Having been in trouble with the bonding company earlier, he had difficulty getting bonds. Paul Slusher died in 1990. In 1950, the Brown family of Roanoke owned the remnants of the Virginia Iron, Coal & Coke Company (VICC) that existed from the 1800s through the middle 1960s. VICC had extensive land mineral operations throughout western Virginia including Roanoke County at various times. The library archives at Radford University contain a large number of VICC documents. One file states that VICC owned Virginia Stone and Construction Corp. from 1957 to 1961 when the construction company was sold to Louis Tufano. VDOT records show that Virginia Stone and Construction was awarded only three projects while owned by VICC. The largest of the jobs was the first section of 1-66 built in Virginia in Fauquier County near Paris. Virginia Stone and Construction had a claim against VDOT on this project that took several years to settle. Tufano entered troubled financial times in 1962-1967 and did not receive any VDOT prime contracts while he owned the company, which apparently ended up bankrupt. Joe Thomas and his brothers, Lewis and Frank, started Thomas Brothers Inc. in Salem by 1955. The firm’s 79 �name was listed in the Roanoke-Salem telephone book for 1955-56. Frank was killed in an accident when he was operating a crawler loader in the early days of the company. Lewis Thomas later started Salem Ready Mix that remains in business today. Joe Thomas continued grading school sites, shopping centers and a lot of private site grading work. In 1974, Thomas Brothers had been awarded its first project by VDOT. They picked up a few more VDOT projects over the years, but private, commercial and municipal site work seemed to suit them better. Thomas Brothers continues to work today even though ownership changed in 2000 when English Construction Company acquired the company. Joe Thomas Jr. continues to manage the company. Harry Turner was in business in Salem as a building contractor by 1940. Harry and his brothers, Curtis and Morris, were raised in Franklin County. During World War II, they started working on coal stripping projects in Southwest Virginia. By 1953, the brothers had founded Turner Brothers Contractors located in Salem and called themselves road contractors. This firm was very successful in the grading business. For over 20 years they bid on road jobs and seemed to have a knack for making the tough jobs appear easy to complete. When Turner Brothers built U.S. 60 from 1-81 east to Buena Vista most of the bidding contractors thought the project would have a high percentage of rock to excavate. Turner Brothers moved a large power shovel to the job, but never used it as the cuts were all dirt and shale and could be moved with scrapers. Little or no drilling or blasting was required. Before the firm decided to close down its business, Harry Turner left his brothers and bought a small bank in Lexington, but found the government’s regulations on banks to be too stifling, so he sold it. VDOT awarded at least 22 projects to Turner Brothers from 1953 to 1977. This firm had a reputation for high quality work and finished most projects promptly. Curtis and Morris were excellent mechanics and they took great care of their equipment. They were the only contractors I knew who regularly washed, waxed and polished the paint on their construction equipment. This paid off very well when they called Forke Brothers Auctioneers to dispose of their equipment. All the machinery looked very much like new and brought outstanding prices. James M. “Jimmy” Turner was the founder of J.M. Turner & Company in 1939 when he started as a small residential contractor. Turner became a well-known building contractor after World War II when he expanded into commercial and industrial projects. Around 1959, Turner expanded to include road construction on the new inter­ state system. He completed over 25 projects for VDOT, most of them on the interstate and primary routes. Jimmy had help with his highway division from Bill Boyd and Bill Talbott. The company performed both grading and bridge construction. The first VDOT job was awarded in 1959 and the last job in 1976. Jimmy passed away in 1978 and his son, Jay Turner, currently is chairman of the board of the company. It continues to construct a variety of building projects in the Roanoke area. In the 1960s, Carter Machinery Company invited a small group of contractors to a supper meeting at the then popular Archie’s Restaurant. When the waitress took our order, Turner’s vice president Bill Boyd said he want­ ed his steak raw. The waitress said he surely wanted it seared on the outside, but he said that he only ate his steak raw. He got his steak raw and ate it all. When I asked him about this, he told me he had found the chef always picked the very best and most tender steak he had when it was to be served without cooking. Bill Boyd was a strong-willed person who was used to getting his way. He had many battles with the VDOT engineers, but did not win all of them. “Vecellio is a name as common in Italy as Jones or Smith in America” was a statement made to me by David Vecellio Jr. when I asked him if his family was any kin to the Leo Vecellio family in Beckley, W.Va., or the Oscar Vecellio family in Princeton, W.Va. Many Italian stonemasons and other workers immigrated to the U.S. for better job opportunities. In the early years of the twentieth century many of our bridges were being made with stone masonry. David Vecellio Sr. built quite a few bridges on the Blue Ridge Parkway, all of which had stone masonry facing at all the exposed surfaces. By 1951 Dave’s company, Vecellio Construction Company, had been awarded its first VDOT job. Dave’s last job was the Blue Ridge Parkway bridge across Virginia Route 116. As the project was nearing completion in 1974, Dave was setting kerosene flares as road markers at dusk one evening and he was struck and killed by an automobile. David Vecellio Jr. took over and operated the company for a number of years as Vecellio and Associates before he shut the operation down and went to work for another contractor. Vecellio and Associates was awarded at least 10 projects by VDOT from 1969 to 1976. The firm of Sisson and Ryan was founded in 1953 by Clyde Sisson who had worked for several different contractors as an equipment operator and a job superintendent and his friend and neighbor White Ryan, both of 80 �whom were raised and still lived in Shawsville. Clyde Sisson had an opportunity to seed a highway grading job on Route 11 in Pulaski County in 1953. His early days on a farm convinced him he could do this seeding work and he enlisted White Ryan as a business and financial partner. Their first prime contract was to construct waterlines for the town of Shawsville. When the interstate highways construction program started in 1956 they realized that there would be a lot of seeding and top soil work to be done on the many contracts to be let in Virginia. They were certainly one of the leading specialty contractors for the next 20 years in seeding and top soiling work. By the late sixties the compa­ ny was providing road Construction, landscaping, asphalt paving and installation of sewer and water lines. They opened a rock quarry on property located adjacent to Route 11 at the foot of Christiansburg Mountain and began to discontinue their other lines of work to concentrate on the production of crushed stone for concrete, asphalt and road bases purposes. The Sisson and Ryan families continue to work together operating the quarry and meeting the needs of their many customers. So u r c e s • A History of the Roads of Virginia in ‘the most convenient wayes. Prepared by the Virginia Department of Transportation’s Office of Public Affairs in cooperation with the Virginia Transportation Research Council. Published by the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1992 • “A History of the W.W. Boxley Company,” privately published by the W.W. Boxley Company; Ross and Jane Jeffries Jr. are credited with much of the research. No date listed. • Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) board minutes are located on the VDOT website for the years 1920 to present. • Directory of the Virginia Road Builders Association,” published annually by the VRBA Publishing Company in Richmond. • “Makers of America,” Volume I, by Prominent Historical and Biographical Writers, Chapter on James Cluvius Carpenter, published by B.F. Johnson, Washington, D.C., in 1915. • Roanoke-Salem Telephone Directories, 1950, 1955, 1960, 1962. Published by the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company of Virginia each year. • Roanoke, Salem, Vinton City Directories, 1935, 1940, 1945, 1950, 1955, 1960, 1965, 1970. Published by the Hill Directory Co. Inc., Richmond. • “Sons of Martha,” by Dixon Merritt, published in New York City by Mason and Hanger Company Inc. in 1928. • “The Baker Family of England and Central Virginia,” by William Thompson Baker Sr. and published by Edwards Brothers Inc. 1974. • “The most convenient wayes - A Story of the Roads in Virginia.” Text assembled and edited by Albert W. Coates, Virginia Department of Transportation, date published not stated, but must have been 1970 or later. • “The Story of C.R. Mason, An Early Virginia Contractor,” by John C. Lanford, published in the Virginia Road Builder mag­ azine March-April 1978 edition. • U.S. Census data taken from photostatic copies of the Census Returns for various states and counties of the individuals being researched. • Virginia Road Builder magazine published at various times, copies numbered Volume XXI, Number 12 (1965) to Volume XXXVIII, Number 2 (1981), published by the VRBA Publishing Company, Richmond. • Interviews with Bill Branch, Wayne Hall, Bill McDowall, Dave Burrows, Jack Burrows, Jack Lanford, E.C. “Chick” Pace, and Clyde Sisson. • E-mail correspondence with Jack Kite, former Sam Finley employee, who furnished corrections to the original published ver­ sion. M 81 �Thirty-two Roanokes bear th e sam e name by Mathew J. Bowyer ettlers from Roanoke, Virginia, have traveled across this nation to found 32 communities or places, giving them the nam e o f their hometown, and five are still in existence. S The first Roanoke, nam ed long before our part o f the w orld was settled, was Roanoke Island, N.C., started by Sir W alter Raleigh.in 1585. The w ord “Roanoke” comes from the Indian term for shell money, o f course. This Roanoke post office research led to m any sources - publications and organizations like L inn’s Stamp N ews and the A uthor’s Guild. The Am erican Philatelic Society m entioned this project and several people responded to the search for other Roanokes. In all, 27 Roanoke post offices have been discontinued. In 1971, six Roanoke post offices were operating in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, West Virginia and Texas. (Roanoke, W.Va., closed in 1998.) Some people said Roanoke, W Va., was settled by Roanoke, Va., settlers who were lost. The place nam e still exists locally but residents receive their mail at W alkersville, W.Va. Roanoke, 111 ! was settled in 1847 by people who came from our Roanoke County. They found virgin soil and picturesque home settings. Roanoke Park in Seattle is a wooded area developed by D avid Denny, who came from our Roanoke. The city o f Seattle purchased the park at a sheriff’s sale in 1896. In N orth Carolina, rapids, falls and bridges draw their nam e from the river. The Roanoke River becom es the Staunton River below the Smith M ountain Dam and then reverts to Roanoke down about the state line. The Roanoke, Texas, post office was established under the nam e o f Elizabeth in 1870. W hen the railroad cam e through in 1881, it was located three miles away so Elizabeth was abandoned and the new station was called Roanoke by a railroad w orker who came from the Virginia Roanoke. Roanoke, Ala., was settled in 1832 in w hat was once Creek Indian Territory. The A labam a General A ssem bly nam ed the county Randolph for John Randolph o f Virginia, whose plantation is on the Roanoke River some 150 miles downstream. The A labam a tow n was once know n as High Pine. Roanoke, La., once called Esterly, was established as a post office in 1895. The nam e was changed to Roanoke by two brothers, G.W. and J.M. Booze, in honor o f their Virginia home, a planta­ tion near Springwood. Roanoke, Indiana, was nam ed by a riverboat captain who operated river locks, a highly respect­ ed position. He was originally from Roanoke, Va. Mathew J. Bowyer, is a retired Postal Service supervisor who once worked at Dulles International Airport Mail Facility. A Covington native and a Roanoke resident, he is the author o f a survey ofpostal history and other manuscripts and is working on a book about the Roanoke River. �Roanoke, N.Y., in Genesee County once was know n as Orangeburg. Maj. John Ganson from Virginia m oved to New York in 1834 and changed the nam e to Roanoke in honor o f John Randolph o f Roanoke. The post office was closed in 1888 and mail w ent to LeRoy. Today, mail for the village o f Roanoke, N.Y., comes through the Stafford post office. Two Roanokes in Randolph and H oward coun­ ties, M issouri - actually one tow n in two counties Wm were founded in 1829 in honor o f John Randolph. “Its very name, its high-class citizenry, its natural surround­ ings, its location on a much traveled stage road, adver­ tised it widely and caused other m ost excellent families to com e and occupy the territory contiguous to it,” according to a M issouri history. A com puter search found an advertisement, “Welcome to Roanoke,” from the United Kingdom - in Grange Hill Industrial Estate, Bratton Fleming, Barnstaple, Devon - a m aker o f model steam and diesel train engines. It was given the nam e because the owners recognized Roanoke, Va., to be “the w orld’s leader in railroading.” A n executive o f the model railroad firm wrote, “We nam ed our com pany Roanoke after the Roanoke locomotive workshops at Roanoke, Virginia as w e are N orfolk & Western fans and consider these to be the Rolls Royce o f locomotives.” A Roanoke reporter, on assignm ent in Cleveland, Ohio, m any years ago, happened to see a Roanoke office building, tucked away on a busy down­ town square. Other discontinued Roanoke post offices: Georgia, two; Kansas, Kentucky, M issouri, New M exico, South Carolina and South Dakota, one each. Two current N orth Carolina post offices have variant Roanoke names. Falls o f Roanoke was estab­ lished in 1815 and Roanoke Rapids in 1895. Both are on the Roanoke River in Halifax County. Map of Chesapeake Bay to Cape Lookout, N.C., by John White, circa 1584, depicts location o f first Roanoke Colony. (Source: Wikipedia) �Support our History Spring 2009 Dear Friends: Although these are difficult financial times, there are many exciting programs and exhibitions at the History Museum of Western Virginia and the O. Winston Link Museum. We have completed the Watts Library and the new Education Gallery and are hard at work on the Virtual Museum digitization project. “White Liquor - Blue Ridge Style” is on exhibit until September 2009 at the History Museum, and “Ted Rose - The Artist's Early Photography” was at the Link Museum until April. The latest endeavor from Kegley Publications is a reprint of A Narrative o f the Incidents Attending the Capture, Detention, and Ransom of Charles Johnston (1827). This book, believed to be the first book ever published about a Roanoke Valley resident, has been printed in partnership with the Salem Historical Society and Historic Sandusky Foundation. Unfortunately, as we strive to produce meaningful and educational programs, we are faced with significant finan­ cial obstacles. We are challenged to sustain our day-to-day operations without funding from the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the economic crisis has dramatically reduced grant funding for museums across the state. Because you are a longtime friend of the Society, we are reaching out to you for your financial assistance to see us through this difficult period. With your annual support, you can help preserve the investment we have made in promoting the rich heritage of this region. Your support will not only sustain our achievements to date, but will also allow us to contin­ ue to expand our rotating exhibits, educational programs and publications. Please, help us by contributing to this timely appeal. Sincerely, Jeanne M. Bollendorf Executive Director YES, I want to support the Society’s efforts towards improved historical education, exhibits, publications and preservation with the following gift: $ _______________ Name: ____________________________________________________________ Address: ______________________________________________________________ Phone:_________________________ E-mail:__________________________________________ § I will fulfill my/our gift with (check one): __ An enclosed check (payable to Historical Society of Western Virginia) A Credit Card Payment: (circle one) Visa MasterCard American Express O Card Number:_________________________________________Exp. Date:______ ;/______/______ U. Signature:_________________________________________________________ Additional Items (check all that apply): <3 ____My/our employer will match my gift (Please provide paperwork to process) ___ _ I would like my/our name to be acknowledged in printed materials as: I would like my/our gift to be recognized as a memorial or tribute to a loved one as noted: Please mail this form with payment to: The Historical Society of Western Virginia, P.O. Box 1904, Roanoke, VA 24008 Thank you for your support! 84 ��� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia 2008 Volume 17, Number 2 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />A Personal History of the Hotel Roanoke<br />Dust-Clad Motorcars Arrive in Roanoke in 1909<br />Lincoln's Virginia Roots<br />Colonel J. Sinclair Brown: Hard to Beat<br />What is it about the Civil War?<br />Images from the Old Belt<br />Residential Segregation in the City of Roanoke<br />The Prestons: A Southwest Virginia Dynasty<br />Virginians Facing Reality: The 1959 Perrow Commission<br />A Small Bag of Spices: Farming in Montgomery County<br />Roanoke Area Family Road Builders, Part II<br />32 Roanokes Bear the Same Name Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_17_02_2008 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6366/JHSWV_18_01_2009.pdf c8ccee67b9e244374006475abcd8cc5d PDF Text Text iTìAtonical S o ciety oí ‘Ti/eàtem vOiqùtia, 2009 VOI. X V III No. 1 �réiàt& ticcii Society^éVcét&ut^1/¿fisima fie n a i wMMtiuvK km m avet (For the love o f mountains inspires us) O fjfa e n A W. Tucker L e m o n ..................................................... President Katherine Watts ................................ ........ . Vice President Dr. Nancy W arren.......................................................Secretary Michael B e ll................................................ Treasurer Jeanne B ollendorf.................................... Executive Director Alison Stone Blanton W. Jackson “Jack” Burrows Ben Chapman Walter M. Dixon Jr. Frank H. Ewald William M. Hackworth Scott Hengerer Tonya R. Hengerer William E. Honeycutt Jim Humphrey John C. Lanford Philip H. Lemon Laura B. Logan Edwin E. Lunsford George A. McLean Jr. Natalie Norris James G. Overholser J. David Robbins Alice B. Roberts Rebecca B. Stephens Kevin Sullivan Dr. E. Wilson Watts *Dinecto>i&Sntenitu Sara S. Airheart David H. Burrows George A. Kegley George Kegley Editor o f the Journal C hristina K oom en Sm ith Production, Editorial Asst. Barbara B. Lemon Thomas O. Maxfield III Edgar V. Wheeler The Journal, Vol. XVIII, No. 1, chronicles the history of the Commonwealth west of the Blue Ridge. Published by the Historical Society of Western Virginia (for­ merly the Roanoke Historical Society), P.O. Box 1904, Roanoke, VA, 24008. The price for additional copies is $5 for members, $10 for non-members. The Society welcomes unsolicited material but submissions cannot be returned and the Society is not responsible for damage or loss. On the cover: Elks Home Farm (See story, page 43) This issue of the Journal was made possible by The Kegley Publication Fund �Purgatory Mountain (See story, page 17) 3 N ote F rom the Executive D irector by Jeanne Bollendorf A New W ay o f Looking a t O ld Things by Linda Steele £ T he C areer o f H enry H. Fow ler by Roy C. Smith IY Col. Jo h n Sm ith: U nsung H ero of V irginia’s Colonial F ro n tier by Gordon Aronhime O ld C ounty C ourthouse is 100 Years Old by John Long 34 16th C en tu ry Spanish Invasions of Southw est Virginia by Jim Glanville 43 The Elks N ational Home by I. Daniel Pezzom 52 Salem ’s E ast H ill N orth: A C em etery in the Shadows by John Long 50 T hree O th er W illiam Flem ings ed. by George Kegley 60 F rom In d ian Slavery to Freedom by Mary Kegley £y E arly B edford O rdinaries by June Goode 70 W earing H and-M e-Downs in th e 1920s by Helen Abbott Looney Y2 S u p p o rt o u r H istory �The Electric Parlor movie theater was operated by H.L. Rockhill at 12 Campbell Ave. SW in 1908-1909. Admission was 5 cents to see “Baby Gladys and Master Hiatt.” (Photo from History Museum o f Western Virginia) 2 �N ote From th e Executive D irecto r his past year, 2009, was a transitional one for the Historical Society, and as we enter 2010 we are poised to take on even more challenges in the next two years. The staff has spent a great deal o f effort reviewing programming and designing new events to keep up with our changing cul­ ture. By fall o f this year, the History Museum will open in a temporary location to accommodate the renovations taking place at Center in the Square. Our collections have already been moved into tempo­ rary storage and, surprisingly, the new location has made the collections inventory much easier. Although the O. Winston Link Museum will continue normal operations, the History Museum will scale down on-site operations and focus on outreach and future planning. There will continue to be changes ahead, some temproary, some not, and we certainly appreciate your patience as we work through the upheaval. The light at the end o f the tunnel is the anticipated rebirth not only o f Center in the Square, but the History Museum as well. Indeed, there are dramatic renovations ahead for the gal­ leries and displays in the museum, and we welcome your contributions to our continued fundraising efforts. An integral part o f our outreach includes technology. Over the coming months, there will be updates to the look and content o f our website, we have joined the social net­ working craze and are now on Facebook, and o f course, we are still working tirelessly on the Virtual Collections proj­ ects. The digitization o f the Historical Society’s collections at both the History Museum and the Link Museum is an important aspect o f our outrach. The benefits o f putting this information on the Internet are that we can design multiple Jeanne Bollendoli perpetual exhibitions that don’t require physcial space; our employees can easily access documents or artifacts that will be used for exhibition, education and research; and researchers and hobbyists from all over the world can connect to our organization and leam about us or become members. Although the Virtual Collections can be accessed from home, we welcome anyone to visit our Virtual Collections Manager, Linda Steele, in the Watts Library to leam how to access and use the online database. Indeed, Linda has created a wonderful set o f guidelines for learning to use the Virtual Collections called “A New Way o f Looking at Old Things.” These instructions will be posted on our website at www.history-museum.org and we encourage all interested parties to view Linda’s tutorial. T We look forward to seeing you. Do drop in! Jeanne M. Bollendorf Executive Director 3 �A New Wayo f Looking a t Old Thin Virtual project a t Historical Society brings the past into the Twenty-first Century by Linda Steele father wrote a letter to his son, who was a student at University of Virginia. He was concerned about his child. Was student life leading the young man astray? Was he studying enough? Was he drinking too much? Was he spending too freely? The letter was written on September 23, 1839, from Gen. Edward Watts, living on his plantation “Oaklands,” in Big Lick, Virginia, to his son William, who was an undergraduate at the University. It was handwritten in ink, using a quill pen, on a single sheet of paper, folded, then folded again to make its own mailing envelope, and sealed with red wax. The pleasure of seeing and reading the wise and witty letter is now available to anyone with an Internet connection through the Historical Society of Western Virginia’s Virtual Project. A portion is excerpted below: The Institution [University o f Virginia] was never a favourite with me, I do not believe it is a place where ripe scholarship and sound learning are to be acquired and the dissipation and irregularities acknowledged to exist among the students are sufficient to fill with apprehension all Parents who regard the morals and habits of their sons... Your life has heretofore been a retired and rather secluded one and has given you little opportunity of mingling with the young and gay. It has engenderd a diffidence which may put you in danger, in other words the fear of being esteemd singular may render it difficult to utter that most important word no and to refuse the solicitations o f those who have a singular pleasure in making others as worthless as themselves. To withdraw oneself from all society is one thing, to engage in disorderly pleasures and demoralizing pursuits is another. Neither is prudent or proper. Your own taste and good sense will I trust indicate to you the proper course. I have written to Mr Gwathmey to-day to place $200 to your credit in the Bank of Virginia for which you can check as you want it. I shall take care to supply you with whatever is required for your respectability and comfort, and beyond that I am fully persuaded you have no wish to go. In another example, the same father, Edward Watts, complained to his elder son, James Breckinridge Watts, who was a student at the University of Virginia in 1832, P. S. How much farther back do you intend to carry your handwriting? I assure you it is as much as I or I imagine any one else can do to read it now and if you lean it a little more you might as well write Hebrew. I earnestly recommend it to you to correct the procedure before it is too late. There was moreover a little bad grammar & one word misspeltin your last, E.W. 4 �Unfortunately, the offend­ ing letter from son James has not been found. We do have other letters from him, howev­ er. One letter was sent from James to his brother William in 1842, in which James discuss­ es the inscrutability of women. Another surviving letter from James looks more complicated. It is Catalog Number 2007.32.048, shown in Figure 1. The horizontal lines were written by James. The vertical lines were written by James’s sister, Elizabeth Breckinridge (Watts) Preston, who had recently married Thomas Lewis Preston, and moved to Abingdon, Virginia. They were Screen capture illustrates how archived materials are accessed via writing to their brother William the Virtual Collections. at “Oaklands,” in 1842. It is left to the reader to decide whether in the ten years since his father’s letter to him, during which time James had finished his education and become a practicing lawyer, he had heeded Edward’s advice on writing. The story of sister Elizabeth “Lizzie” Watts, the first bride at “Oaklands,” as well as portraits of Edward Watts and William Watts can be seen in the Virtual Project, which includes catalogues of photographs, books, and objects in addition to archival documents. An illustrated tutorial, showing how to use many features of the Virtual Project online, will soon be posted at the Society’s website www.history-museum.org. I ndex to J ournal A rticles N ow A vailable On lin e The Society’s website www.history-museum.org contains an index to all articles ever published in the Society’s Journal, now called Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia. The index was prepared by William M. Hackworth, Chair of the Publications Committee. To access the index from the web pages, click “Now on Sale: HSWV's 2008 Journal” at the bottom of the right-hand column and then click on the “Journals Index” link from the Publications page; or click on “Journals Index” in the drop-down menu under the Publications tab in the top menu; or simply enter http://www.historymuseum.org/html/joumals_index.html into the address bar of your browser and press [Enter], Next, scroll to the bottom of the page and follow the instructions to download the Journals Index. Within the index, you can use the find feature [Ctrl] + [F] to quickly search by keyword for authors or titles. m . ■ m Mr:.' gg ' “P « ■ Tf, >«£1. • jra:ij Linda Steele is Registrar o f the Historical Society o f Western Virginia. She is also Manager o f the Virtual Projects at the History Museum and the O. Winston Link Museum. A Roanoke native, Linda is a lifelong lover o f local history. She may he reached at the Society offices in Center in the Square by phone at (540) 224-1207 or by e-mail at registrar.hswv@cox.net. 5 �Business, Government and the Constitution in theMOth .v% Century ~ S c £ - 1 ^ ii I Rr ^ ’¿ ji « » s F'W Æ Æ ,.m ¡mux s r a » M "& i fe . 'Æ W zPkW : » M „ K * * - * i p t e w r y H : F o w le r by Roy C Smith am delighted to have been asked to contribute some thoughts on the important § - but tangled and complex — relationship between business and government in the United States, and to do this in the context of the life of one of Roanoke College’s most distinguished graduates, Henry Fowler—my late father-in-law, business part­ ner and friend—whose 100th birthday would have occurred two weeks ago. Henry Fowler was in all respects a man of his century, a man of business, of government and of the Constitution during times when these were all greatly challenged. He played a part in many of the great events of his lifetime, including efforts to dispel the Great Depression, World War II and management of the post-war economic recov­ ery that vastly extended American prosperity and helped to shape the country into being what it is today. He was bom at home in Roanoke at 1327 Patterson Avenue, the adored only child of a middle-aged couple, Mac and Bertha Fowler, both of whom were bom just after the Civil War. Mac was a locomotive engineer for the Norfolk & Western Railway and Bertha was a proud Daughter of the Confederacy, who kept a large portrait of Robert E. Lee in her bedroom until she died. Henry attended public schools in Roanoke and went on to Roanoke College, from which he graduated in 1929. He was a member of Pi Kappa Phi fraternity and the man voted most likely to succeed. He learned early in life that there was a great deal more to the world beyond Roanoke, but he knew his ticket to seeing it had to be paid for by doing well in school. He did and received a full scholarship to Yale Law School as his reward. The world into which young Henry was bom had changed a lot by the time he arrived at Yale. When he was but 3, the U.S. Supreme Court in a landmark mling declared that the Standard Oil Company, America’s largest cor­ poration, was in violation of anti-trust laws and had to be broken up. This was one of the court’s most important rulings in which the Constitution was interpreted to allow for the public interest in certain cases to have precedence over long-protected property rights. I This talk was given as the Constitution Day lecture at Roanoke College on Sept. 19, 2008, by Roy C. Smith, son-in-law o f Henry Fowler. He is professor o f entrepreneurship andfinance, international business and pro­ fessional responsibility at New York University. He is a graduate o f the U.S. Naval Academy and he holds a master s degree from Harvard University. 6 �When he was 5, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, permitting the passage of a new income tax law with rates beginning at 1% and rising to 7% for taxpayers with income in excess of the then princely sum of $500,000. When he was 10, America was exploding in a bubble of prosperity, brought on by great advances in industry and commerce—a time of a New Economy, propelled by technologies such as electric power, the automobile, radio, refrigeration, moving pictures and other marvels. But all of this came to an end following the stock market crash of October 29, 1929, just four months after Henry graduated from Roanoke College. But he didn’t have to worry— at least not right away—he was going to be locked up for the next three years in law school, where, as he put it, “I really slaved away just to keep from disgracing myself.” He needn’t have worried, or perhaps because he did, he made the Law Review and was invited to stay on for another year to obtain a doctorate in Constitutional Law, an invitation he readily accepted because he hadn’t been able to land a job. No wonder, between 1929 and 1932, U. S. Gross Domestic Product fell 25%. Unemployment soared to terrifying levels, reach­ ing 25% of the work force in 1933. Prices and wages plunged by as much as 50%. But almost worse than all this, borrowers who could­ n’t pay off bank loans began to The Fowler home on Patterson Avenue. default on them. Farmers, small businessmen and big businesses too, went into default. Depositors, needing to rely on their savings to make up for their loss of income and worried about the defaults, began to withdraw money from the banks and soon there were “runs’ on the banks all over the country. By early 1931, more than 1,000 banks had failed, precipitating a national panic. In all, more than 9,000 banks failed in the 1930s and $140 billion in deposits (worth more than $1 trillion in today’s money) were lost. Without their savings, many American families were plunged into poverty. The Great Depression was a seminal event of the 20th Century. It was global in context—countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America suffered from it equally as badly as America—and the economic suffering it engendered quickly passed into the political arena where it upset established governments and encouraged their replacement by more radical, stronger regimes. A frenzied National Socialist Party rose to power in Germany and militarists took over in Japan. The rise of these parties and the corresponding weakness of ineffective socialist governments in Britain and France let loose the forces that brought on World War II. The causes of the Great Depression have been debated by theorists ever since it began. The “monetarists” (who are known as the champions of the free market as the most efficient mechanism for economic management) claim that it was the excessive and imprudent growth of the money supply in the 1920s that caused the problems. This created the financial bubble that was burst by the Crash. Others claimed then that corporate greed and excessive speculation were the root causes of the Depression and that these vindicated the ideas of Karl Marx, who asserted that the entire system of market capitalism was bank­ rupt and would soon collapse. The system, Marx believed, was essentially exploitative of labor and would neces­ sarily reach a point when the vastly more numerous working classes would revolt and impose an anticapitalist, or 7 �Communist, system instead. There was another idea being circulated then by English economist John Maynard Keynes which became the subject of his great work, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, which was published in 1936. Keynes held that governments had the obligation and the capability to manage their economies so as to achieve full employment, and this could be done by fiscal means rather than by relying only on changes in interest rates. Governments, in other words, should raise and spend money during difficult times, and withdraw money from the economy during prosperous, overheated ones. The spending would have the effects of creating new jobs that would give unemployed people an income which would help to counter inflationary forces while paying down government debts to leave plenty of bor­ rowing capacity for the next cycle. All of these powerful new ideas were in hot circu­ lation at Yale in the early 1930s, where students, facul­ ty and visiting intellectuals discussed the affairs of the day, knowing that there was little in their legal, govern­ ment or economics textbooks to explain what to do about the current economic crisis. And of course they discussed the presidential election of 1932, in which President Herbert Hoover was opposed by the 50-yearold governor of New York State, Franklin Roosevelt, who had won the nomination of his party with an opti­ mistic and confident (though vague) promise to change things and set the economy right once he came to office. Hoover, a successful conservative Republican businessman who took office in 1929, seven months before the Crash, endeavored to set some Keynesian projects into action, but the extraordinary speed at which the economy deteriorated overwhelmed them and — as the man in charge — he became hugely unpopular. You can appreciate how today’s graduating college students might feel themselves to be in shoes similar to those of Henry Fowler in the early 1930s. In the end, Roosevelt won 42 of the 48 states and huge majorities for his party in both houses of Congress, in one of America’s biggest presidential landslides. Roosevelt would take office in March of 1933, but soon after his election, “brain trusts” were recruited and formed in many of America’s leading universities for service in the new administration that was believed surely to bring about great changes. While he was at Yale, Henry Fowler absorbed all the rhetoric, theory and excitement that abounds at great uni­ versities during times of great upheaval. In addition, he absorbed a new nickname, one that would last for the rest of his life. Henry came to be known as “Joe,” a shorting of “Gentleman Joe,” a figure of the day similar to the “Joe College” of my time in school. Joe was pleased with the nickname—it represented a long, but successful intellec­ tual and social journey from the remote Blue Ridge Mountains to the elitist corridors of Yale, where he came into close contact with many of the movers and shakers of the New Deal when it was still on the drawing boards. After completing his doctorate, Joe joined a well-known Washington law firm, Covington and Burling, which was led then by Dean Atchison, whom Roosevelt appointed undersecretary of the Treasury in 1933, and who later became secretary of state in the Truman administration. Joe sought an interview there and soon had an offer which he happily accepted, expecting to be at the center of action. A year later, the 26-year-old Joe Fowler was appointed an associate general counsel of the Tennessee Valley Authority, which though only just created by the Roosevelt Administration, was deep into the effort to defend itself against a make-or-break lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law that authorized it. The job was excit­ ing and challenging and Joe accepted it right away, though it meant that he would have to move from the center of action of the New Deal to the comparative backwater of Knoxville, Tennessee. The move proved to be a blessing 8 �in many ways to the young lawyer; among those was the opportunity to meet Trudye Hathcote of Amory, Mississippi, who was working at TVA and would become his wife of 63 years. The creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority was one of the most monumental undertakings of the Roosevelt era. It appeared within the first 100 days of the administration when the President and the various brain trusts were overflowing with energy and ideas. Roosevelt was never an ideologue—he didn’t know or much care what a mon­ etarist was, nor had he then ever heard of John Maynard Keynes, He was a pragmatist in search of large govern­ ment programs that would provide jobs and get the economy back to normal as soon as possible. The inventory of such New Deal projects soon became huge and sounded like an alphabet soup: the CCC, the RFAA, the AAA, the NIRA, WPA and others were rapidly created in classic Keynesian fashion to initiate a slew of public works proj­ ects that would stimulate the economy into recovery. But these new agencies were strongly opposed by conservatives, who believed that they exceeded the powers granted in the Constitution, and who sought to have them declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, which complied by overturning the National Industrial Recovery Act in 1935 and a variety of other New Deal efforts. Roosevelt, fearing that the nine sitting judges (the “nine old men” as he called them) would sink his whole effort to restart the economy, attempted to increase the number of judges appointed to the court, so as to pack it with a majority of his own choosing. The effort was hugely controversial and didn’t succeed. Roosevelt would have to live with the judges who were there, and reshape his programs and legislation accordingly. Thus the administration prepared for a great battle with the Supreme Court over TVA. TVA was the brainchild of the President himself. He was concerned about the extent to which the electric power industry, predominantly owned by the private sector, had become a pawn in the financial speculation of the 1920s leading to the formation of highly leveraged utility holding companies that went bust after the Crash. The govern­ ment had allowed these large concerns to be formed because it decided that the enormous capital cost associated with power generation and transmission could better be met through a system of authorized and regulated region­ al monopolies. But the sorry state of the industry in 1932 frightened the public and became an issue in the election. Roosevelt frequently asserted his support for measures to protect the “sovereignty” of the federal government to control national power resources. At the same time, he became aware of the extremely poor condition of the resi­ dents of the Tennessee Valley which covered all of the state of Tennessee, parts of Alabama, Mississippi and Kentucky and smaller parts of Georgia, North Carolina and of Southwest Virginia, reaching up to Christiansburg, not far from here. Even by Depression standards, those who lived in this area were especially poor — with an average annual income of less than $650, and unhealthy 30% were affected by malaria. Much of the valley had no electric power at all. TVA was designed to modernize and economically develop the region and to do so under a new fed­ erally chartered corporation, the first of its kind, that would provide the resources to combat all the human and eco­ nomic problems of the region. It would provide electricity generation, navigation improvements, flood control, fer­ tilizer manufacturing and build roads, bridges, dams and electric transmission lines to make it all possible. It was a vast undertaking, passed by Congress in May of 1933, within only two months of Roosevelt’s inaugu­ ration; a year later Joe Fowler was on his way to Knoxville. By December of 1935, a lawsuit filed by investors in the Alabama Power Company asserted that the establishment of TVA by the government was unconstitutional. The suit was masterminded by Wendell Wilkie, the general counsel of Commonwealth and Southern Corporation, the largest U. S. electric utility holding company, and Franklin Roosevelt’s unsuccessful opponent in the 1940 presi­ dential election. A second blessing to fall on Joe Fowler in his appointment to the TVA was the opportunity to work closely with an extraordinary manJ John Lord O’Brian, a very experienced government lawyer who was the TVA’s general coun­ sel and Joe’s boss and mentor. O’Brian was appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt to serve as U.S. attorney for the Western District of New York. Unusually, he continued to serve in this position through the administrations of Presidents William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson. In 1929, President Herbert Hoover appointed O’Brian to serve as head of the Anti-Trust Division where he was responsible for arguing more than 15 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. O’Brian, a Republican, was in his early 60s when he arrived at TVA. Joe increasingly gained the confidence of O’Brian who included him in the deliberations over the arguments and tactics for the case. The case against the TVA was based on the assertion that the Constitution did not empow­ er the federal government to establish a government-controlled corporation that would function as a low-cost 9 �11 ì. s is êS B È Above: Henry Fowler as a schoolboy. Right: Fowler (right) with another government official. Below: Fowler compares notes with President Lyndon Johnson. 10 �Treasury Secretary Fowler and Stuart Saunders, Roanoke College Trustees Chairman and Norfolk & Western Railway President, hold the first dollar bill with Fowler’s signature. Henry Fowler spoke at Roanoke College in 1985 and U.N. Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick listened. 11 �monopoly in competition with existing private sector enterprises. O’Brian and his team argued that the dams and power facilities in question were constructed in reliance upon the Interstate Commerce and National Defense clauses of the Constitution which explicitly provided these powers to the federal government. The electricity was sold across state borders in aid of developing interstate commerce, and the navigational and other improvements in the region were necessary, among other reasons, for national defense. This was one of the fust times such arguments had been made in a Supreme Court case, but the TVA team believed they could sell them to the judges. What gnarly old group of conservatives could possibly be against inter­ state commerce and national defense? One of the judges was, but the other eight voted to uphold TVA when their decision was announced in February of 1936. It was a huge victory for the Roosevelt A d m in istratio n The TVA is still in business today, after 75 years of providing power and infrastructure to one of the country’s poorest regions, which is no longer so poor. Joe was promoted by O’Brian to assistant general counsel in 1939 but late that year, at 31, he was recruited by Senator Robert M. Lafollette Jr., to serve as general counsel of a subcommittee of the Senate Committee of Education and Labor that was investigating violations of free speech and the civil rights of labor. Unexpectedly for a Republican, Lafollette was an ardent supporter of organized labor and his subcommittee was to investigate the industrial espionage, infiltration, physical intimidation and other techniques used by large employers to prevent workers from organizing. Lafollette’s efforts, however, were overtaken by the gathering storms that burst into World War II with the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939 and subsequent events that led to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941. In Januaiy 1942, President Roosevelt issued an executive order establishing a War Production Board to exer­ cise general direction of war procurement and production. This was to be the arm of government on which the armed forces would have to rely in order to prosecute the war. It was charged with determining the policies, pro­ cedures and methods of the Federal government in purchasing, contracting and construction of all war material, armaments and equipment and also any industrial conversion, requisitioning or plant expansion that should be nec­ essary. The first order of the Board was to halt all commercial automobile production within the United States. This was a very powerful body indeed. The War Production Board, along with an Office of Price Controls and a system of rationing the use of food, raw materials and just about everything else, would control all of the economic and industrial exertions that the country had to put forth in order to defend itself and wage war against opponents in Europe and Pacific. This was the largest concentration of economic power ever to exist in the history of the coun­ try, and it was protected by the National Defense powers of the Constitution. John Lord O’Brian was appointed general counsel of the Board at the outset and he recalled his able and trustworthy protégé, Joe Fowler, then 33, to assist him. It was certainly a massive undertaking, much bigger than the TVA. The United States had to equip and supply more than 5 million members of the armed services and millions more who were serving in the forces of Great Britain and Russia. The U. S. was indeed the arsenal of democracy at this time, because it alone was able to organize, procure materials and manufacture the endless supply of munitions and weaponry needed: more than 600,000 aircraft, 2,000 ships, a million artillery pieces, 4 million machine guns, 3 million trucks and more than 300,000 tanks. All of this, plus a continuous supply of food, clothing and ammunition for the troops, was indeed produced during the relatively short three years and nine months that represented the duration of the war for the U. S. The War Production Board handled it all. It worked with the country’s most important leaders of industry and labor; with its suppliers of oil, iron ore, rubber, chemicals and everything else that the production schedules required. Numerous standing and ad hoc committees of industrial executives and Board staff members were organ­ ized to get things going. And everything that happened did so under a directive, contract or court order prepared by the legal department. Joe and his colleagues were hugely busy and right in the middle of things, Joe’s weak eye­ sight had caused him to be exempted from the draft when it was first imposed, and by the time the standards had been relaxed to let in those who could see with glasses, he was declared to be too important to the war effort to be drafted. Many of Joe’s life-long friendships with important men from all segments of society were formed during these few years. When the war ended, Joe felt he had made enough of a name for himself to justify taking the risk of forming his own small law firm, Fowler, Leva. Hawes and Symington, to continue to represent in Washington a number of 12 �the large corporations he had worked with during the war. The law firm was a success and for the first time in his life, Joe was earning a substantial income. But Joe’s time in private practice would prove to be continuously inter­ rupted by returns to government service. Soon after the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, Joe was recruited back to duty as director of Defense Mobilization by President Harry Truman. This body was nowhere near as potent or as important as the War Production Board, but it performed a similar task and Joe Fowler was its chief executive. The task of the Defense Mobilization Office, however, was more difficult in some respects because the Korean War did not involve nation­ al mobilization. The civilian economy went on as usual, without rationing or price controls or government inter­ vention, but still the needs of the armed forces had to be met. This meant long efforts to appeal for voluntary coop­ eration and a more gentle and persuasive use of government authority to get things done. These were different les­ sons, but invaluable ones for the 42-year-old director. So was the experience of serving as a member of the President’s cabinet and of the National Security Council, which surely marked Joe Fowler as a man on the rise. T rum an was succeeded in 1953 by Dwight Eisenhower, and Joe returned to his law firm, where he was to remain for a decade. During World War II, Joe and his family had located in Alexandria and Joe became active in Democratic Party affairs in Northern Virginia, twice being elected as a delegate to to the national Democratic presidential conventions. The leader of the Democratic Party in Virginia since the 1920s was Senator Harry Byrd, who was a fierce opponent of civil rights. He authored the “Southern Manifesto” which southern politicians signed to demonstrate their opposition to integration of black students with whites in the public schools, and orchestrated a program of massive Henry Fowler (far right) was appointed deputy secretary of the resistance in Virginia to school Treasury under President Kennedy. Stuart Saunders, Chairman of integration, which culminated in the Roanoke College Board of Trustees is at left. Next are Treasury the closing of many of the state’s Secretary Douglas Dillon; President Kennedy; and Henry Ford II. public schools in 1957. Though a Virginian with traditional views (and no personal experience of racial integration) Joe Fowler participated in vigorous efforts in Northern Virginia to overturn the Byrd organization’s actions. In 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected president of the U.S. He decided to include a Republican in his cabinet. Douglas Dillon, a Kennedy friend who had served as an undersecretary of State in the Eisenhower administration, was appointed secretary of the Treasury. Kennedy’s advisors, however, wanted to be sure that there was a safe pair of hands on whom the Democrats could rely just underneath Dillon, and proposed Joe Fowler, then in his early 50s, for the job of deputy secretary. Kennedy agreed and the offer was made and accepted. However, when Senator Byrd, then chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, heard of the appointment, he called Kennedy to object. “Here’s a man from my state, that I’ve never met but who has opposed me in Virginia and you want to put him in the Treasury,’’ he said. “By senatorial courtesy, if I oppose the appointment, no one on the Senate Finance Committee will vote to confirm him. Better send him around to see me, but don’t count your chickens just yet.” Joe went to see him and told him that he too was bom in Virginia and had supported and voted for him for many years, but on the issue of school integration, they didn’t agree. Joe said he believed that America had to be ruled by the law and the Constitution, and that the Supreme Court had made integration the law of the land. Byrd, 13 �whose massive resistance effort was a spent force by then, acknowledged the point and said he would vote to con­ firm him. Byrd was known as a very difficult man to charm, but Joe did so and went on to serve in Kennedy’s Treasury. Joe’s years as deputy secretary of the Treasury were very eventful. Neither he nor Secretary Dillon were expe­ rienced in the mysteries of governmental finance but the country faced serious economic issues—a growing bal­ ance of payments deficit that was putting pressure on U.S. gold reserves as foreign central banks exchanged accu­ mulated dollar holdings for gold, and a sluggish economy inherited from the Eisenhower years that Kennedy had promised “to get going again.” In July of 1963, the president approved an executive order proposed by the Treasury to impose an “Interest Equalization Tax” on foreigners borrowing in U.S. capital markets and transmitting the pro­ ceeds overseas. Soon afterwards, the president authorized additional controls that would require U.S. companies making investments abroad to secure the funds overseas rather than export them. Both of these measures were unpopular and controversial, but they did contribute to reducing the balance of payments deficit. In the summer and fall of 1963, Joe especially was involved in preparing Congress for Kennedy’s plan to lower income taxes significantly as an incentive to economic growth. Joe, who already knew and had befriended many of the key committee chairmen in the House and Senate, was the point man for this effort. The proposed tax cut would equal about 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), the largest tax cut in American history at the time. The top marginal tax rate applied to individuals would drop from an extraordinary 91 percent to 70 percent and the lowest rate would be set at 14 percent. This effort consumed most of Joe Fowler’s time until November 1963 when President Kennedy was shot and killed by an assassin. The event completely traumatized the country and the government. Most of the senior cabi­ net officials were on an airplane headed for talks in Japan. As deputy Treasury secretary, Joe was called in by President Lyndon Johnson for a series of emergency meetings with the National Security Council and to brief the former vice president on all of Kennedy’s pending economic plans and forthcoming operations. In early 1964, after his first State of the Union address urging Congress to support Kennedy’s plan, President Johnson was able to enact the Kennedy-Johnson tax cut, which substantially stimulated economic growth during the following five years, cre­ ating what some economists at the time called a “Golden Age” during which the longest uninterrupted period of economic growth in American history occurred. This record was only exceeded (but just barely so) in the 1990s in the Clinton years. The Kennedy-Johnson tax cut was used by the incoming Reagan administration almost 20 years later as a template for a similar tax cut. After the tax cut was signed into law, Joe advised President Johnson that he wanted to return to private life. However, a year later, when Douglas Dillon retired, Johnson called Joe and asked him to return as Treasury secre­ tary. Joe did not need a lot of urging. He was thrilled to have received the offer and accepted it promptly. Returning to the Treasury in 1965, Joe faced considerable economic challenges. The country had landed ground troops in Vietnam and that war, which was escalating rapidly, had to be financed. The balance of payments prob­ lem had worsened, threatening the strength and the future of the U.S. dollar as the world’s principal reserve cur­ rency, and inflation—encouraged by the recent tax cut and the expanding costs of the war effort—began to rise ominously, from 1 percent in 1960 to 1.6 percent in 1965, from which it would double in the following year. Joe would devote the next three years to reducing the federal fiscal and balance of payments deficits, to strengthening the dollar and protecting the world financial system. Economic policy then was controlled by a triad of Fowler at Treasury, William McChesney Martin at the Federal Reserve and Gardner Ackley and Arthur Okun, who were successive chairmen of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers. Their policy conclusions had to be sold to the president and to the senior Congressional committee chairmen in order to become reality. This selling job was Fowler’s task, but he participated in the poli­ cy decisions, which were considered classic Keynesian moves at the time. The tax cut stim u lu s of 1964 was fol­ lowed by a restraining tax increase, or “surcharge” in 1968. These fiscal moves were thought to demonstrate how government policy, thoughtfully prepared and executed, could constitute the most enlightened form of economic governance ever applied. Subsequent economists and historians have questioned this conclusion, but acknowledge that the fiscal moves made in 1964 and 1968 were directionally correct and the economic results that followed were both positive and what was intended. That alone was a big stride forward in the art of managing complex national economies. In any event, Joe Fowler was probably the only man in American history successful to sell both a tax cut and an increase M �As deputy Treasury secretary, Fowler (at LBJ’s right, closest to podium) was called in by President Lyndon Johnson for a series of emergency meetings with the National Security Council and to brief the former vice president on Kennedy’s pending economic plans and forthcoming operations. to the same people within a four-year period, and then to leave office with a slight fiscal surplus. Joe had other missions while in the Treasury: the resolution of the continuing balance of payments problem which he helped mitigate by the introduction into the international monetary system of Special Drawing Rights, or “paper gold.” Joe toughened the rules affecting the transfer of dollars abroad; he negotiated tough “balance of payments off­ set agreements” with Germany and Japan, making those countries pay for most of the cost of U.S. troops stationed there. He devised and implanted numerous credit support facilities to maintain the currency ratios with Britain and some other countries, and was involved with trying to assist them when their currencies came under attack. He accomplished a lot for a Treasury secretary in just a few years. Joe resigned from the Treasury in November 1968 and at 60 became a partner of Goldman, Sachs & Co., a New York investment bank headed by an old colleague at the War Production Board, Sidney Weinberg, who died about six months later. Joe was designated chairman of Goldman, Sachs International Corp., and for the next six years devoted himself principally to helping the firm develop its international business. There he became a mentor to Robert Rubin, whose interest in politics led him to become a future Treasury secretary. He was also a director of several major American corporations, including Norfolk and Western Railway, TWA and Coming Glass and served as chairman of the board of Roanoke College and as a board member or trustee of the Atlantic Council, the B ro o k in gs Institute, the Funds of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia and other non-profit organizations. Henry Fowler was a Big Government Man. He was a participant in many of America’s most significant moments in a century filled with them. He served his country at a time when vast amounts of power were ceded to the government, which it used responsibly and effectively. This power had to be defended against repeated consti- 15 �Lady Bird Johnson, wife of President Lyndon Johnson, holds a replica of the 1965 Time magazine cover showing Henry Fowler as Man of the Year. tutional challenges. Fowler learned to believe in free markets and open economies, and strongly opposed commu­ nism and various national forms of socialism. But he also believed that government had an obligation to respond to political forces and to intervene in economic affairs in the best interest of all citizens, though such intervention must be clearly necessary, competent, fair and to the greatest extent possible, bipartisan. He believed in the singular importance of American power and its benign projection around the world, but also that world peace and economic development critically depended on the cooperation and participation of foreign states and leaders and that such cooperation would necessarily involve considerable give and take. Above all, he believed in the American constitutional system of law and democracy—a system that had served and guided the country so well during a century of great struggle and difficulty in economics, war and civil rights. American democracy, weathered as it had been by the tumultuous Twentieth Century, had provided the vessel for its people to enjoy the fruits of civilization and prosperity such as no other society in the history of man had ever before achieved. Joe Fowler died a few days into the new century, in January 2000, believing that his efforts had contributed to the achievement of this ideal and he was content. 16 �Colonel John Smith ~ Unsung hero o f Virginia's Colonial fro n tier First owner o f downtown Roanoke by Gordon Aronhime PART ONE e have it on the best authority imaginable that Colonel John Smith was bom in the y e a r, 1701, for this is stated in court sixty-five years after the event, (i) Where he was bom is another matter. A secondary work not noted for scholarship states boldly that he was bom in England of English parents and moved to Ireland before coming to America, but when one need not document it is not necessary to be accurate for paper never protests. Where he may have been bom is not known to this compiler of data on the illustrious subject, but, again from a sworn statement in court, we know he did live in Ireland and sailed from there to America, landing in Philadelphia. He had with him on this voyage his wife, Margaret, and their five sons, listed in order of age from oldest to youngest - Abraham, Henry, Daniel, John and Joseph.(ii) The importation order does not state the date of arrival, but it is likely that the date was about 1730-32. The secondary work referred to above tells of the exploits of John Smith in another County of Virginia prior to his coming to the West, but again let it be said that paper is not concerned with what is written on it and whether one John Smith may not be mistaken for another, this being the two most common names in the cate­ gories. So, wherever John Smith and his wife Margaret with their five boys may have first lived, they were cer­ tainly in what is today Augusta County, Virginia before the year 1738. The importation order was issued by Orange County in late June of 1740 but it must be recalled that all orders for Augusta County between its cre­ ation in 1738 and its organization of 9 December 1745 were issued by Orange County, (iii) At least one son appears to have been bom to the couple between their arrival in America and the year 1741 when the records seem to catch up with them, and his name must have been Patrick. In Augusta County proper, three more chil­ dren were bom and they were baptized at the Tinkling Spring church —David on 19 July 1741, Jonathan on 22 July 1744, and Louvisa or Louisa, the only daughter apparently, on 6 October 1745. A son, James was bom after the Smiths moved to what is now Botetourt County not too long after the birth of their daughter, (iv) Thus, it will be seen that there were nine sons, James apparently the last child, and the one daughter who became the wife of Rees Bowen, later killed at King’s Mountain Battle. Shortly after his arrival on the frontier, about 1738, John Smith, with five other partners including the noted Colonel James Patton, who assumed control of the venture, buying out all partners save Smith and Zachariah Lewis, were granted a patent for 100,000 acres on the waters of the James and Roanoke Rivers. These were lands on the far ends of the earth then and this appears to be perhaps the first blanket grant that could be sur- W This article was published in the Augusta Historical Bulletin o f the Augusta County Historical Society, Volume 14, Number 1, Spring 1978. Gordon Aronhime (1911-1983) was born in Roanoke and lived most o f his life in Bristol where he was a writer/photographer fo r the Bristol Herald Courier and a local historian and author. He wrote a series o f historical articles on early settlement in Southwest Virginia and East Tennessee. He earned undergraduate and graduate degrees at East Tennessee State University. A collection o f his articles and historical papers is in the Archives o f Appalachia at East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, Tenn. �veyed piecemeal and not in one huge tract, such as the Beverley Manor. Smith was put in charge of selling and surveying the land and was to receive for this, in addition to his sixth part of the profits, ten percent for his work. He got nothing and many years later, in May, 1767, filed a bill for a suit which came to Augusta County Court for judgment in November, 1770 when Colonel Smith was 69 years old. He remained in that work for ten years, (v) One of the most interesting things to speculate about on Colonel Smith is where he lived in the early years. He did not live in either Borden’s Grant or in Beverley Manor but seems to have lived just north and slightly west of the latter. He owned several tracts but dates of land patents, as is well known to anyone studying frontier land situations, are not accurate indications of dates of settlement. As indicated above, he did not live, as did many of his friends and associates, in Beverley Manor or the Borden Grant, but seems to have lived just above the northwest edge of the former. The matter is further complicated by the fact that John Smith Jr., his son, had deeds for lands that were only separable from the Colonel’s own by later transactions long after John Jr. was killed. For Colonel Smith, one tract and probably the site of his home, was on the south fork of the north river of Shenandoah, adjacent to the line of Colonel James Wood’s property. This was patented to John Smith (17011783) on 25 June 1747 and he sold it to Silas Hart on 5 June 1749, with Margaret Smith signing a release for her dower interest in the land.(vi) That this was his actual residence is supported by a petition of 1749 which requests that the inhabitants of the south fork of the south branches of “Pattomuck” who “are very discommoded for want of a road to market and to court on occasion, but especially to market.” The petition further states that the petitioners “have found a very good way for a road: B e g in n in g at John Patton s and over the mountain to Captain John Smith’s.” They beg for a bridle road to court. Among the signers of this petition are Colonel John Smith, his sons Abraham, Darnel, Henry and John Jr., which indicates that the family lived in a cluster, as was customary in that day. (viz) John Jr. had purchased his land from that same Silas Hart who bought the elder Smith’s land in 1749.(vzz7) John, Jr. willed this land to his nephew John, son of Daniel Smith as indicated in Note viii above. The elder John Smith also had a tract of land on Moffet’s Branch of Cathey’s River which had been patented to him on 10 February 1748 and which he sold to William Matthews, a weaver, on 28 November 1749. But it is very unlikely that he lived on the land on Moffett’s Branch, but instead occupied the land he first mortgaged and then sold to Silas Hart.fzx) The conditions that give this as fact are many. First, the land sold to Silas Hart would have to be the one mentioned as his home in the 1749 petition. Then, John Smith is witness to various deeds in Augusta County dated 8 February, 18 and 19 June, \lA6.(x) He is also mentioned in a suit found in County Court Judgments for what is shown as February, 1745 but is really 1746, for in the years prior to 1752, English colonists, like Englishmen world over, used the old calendar which changed year on 25 March instead of the 1st of January. This is the second listed suits after the County Court Judgments of Augusta began and it comes to the court again in both April and June of 1746 when the suit is reversed and the plaintiff and defendant swap positions. In this double suit, the two principals are Colonel Smith and George Breckenridge, and Captain Smith’s neighbor was Robert Breckenridge, brother of George.(xz)) This suit for non-performance stems from 1742. On 25 February 1746 (the real date), a man named Alexander Brownlee of Donigall, Lancaster County, Pa., brought suit ag ain st Colonel John Smith over his having failed to make good the title for 400 acres of land on a branch of North River. The bond for this was dated 9June 1739, proving that Colonel Smith was in the area of the Hart land then and active in disposal of tracts of land. The suit refers to him as John Smith of Orange County, and such he was since Augusta had not then been organized, (xii) On 27 February 1749 (really 1750), along with Colonels James Patton and John Buchanan, Smith was one of the vestrymen to receive the deed for 200 acres in Beverly Manor for the Glebe, (xiii) As noted above, Colonel Smith acted as agent for Colonel Patton and the others in the attempt to dispose of the 100,000 acres that had been granted them on branches of the James and Roanoke Rivers. To better protect those interests, no doubt, Colonel Smith moved about this time to a location on the James River where he was to live for the over thirty years that remained of his life. This move was of great importance, for it led to Colonel Smith s captivity, it led also to the marriage of his only daughter, and it led to the circumstance mentioned at the outset of this monograph which gave us the actual date of birth of this great man of the frontier. His decision to move also indicates his connection with the sale of lands already referred to. Prior to his move to the James, Colonel Smith made what seems to have been the first of his encounters with credit that were to complicate his 18 �Early map identifies a 400-acre tract once owned by Col. John Smith in the area of what is now Campbell and Church Avenues in downtown Roanoke. (Map by J.R. Hildebrand) life so terribly later on. On 1 January 1746, he gave a note to Patrick Dowell for £1 which he promised to pay on order or demand to William Hughes and, in due time, the claim was presented, (xiv) Some have contended that Colonel Smith first moved to the site of Roanoke. This is undoubtedly mistaken, though he did indeed own a tract of 400 acres in what is today the central part of Roanoke City. He sold this land, listed as “The Great Lick” to Malcolm Campbell on 21 November \159.(xv) The earliest known acquisition of land on the James was for 500 acres on 16 March 1748 in the forks adjacent to Joseph Walker and James Mills on Cedar Creek (this is the creek that flows through Natural Bridge).(xvz) The same reference lists another survey “adjacent to his former survey in the forks of 390 acres” which was surveyed on 20 March 1751. This gave the owner a total of 890 acres on the James and he took up two more tracts, one of 120 acres and another of 75 acres, the first on the north side and the second on the south side of the James. These two were surveyed on the 30th and 13th of June 1753.(xvz'z) Like most men of his day, Colonel Smith acquired more land than he could manage. As one present-day his­ tory student remarked, “those people used land like we do money and sometimes as foolishly. On 28 November 1751, he bought the first of two tracts from Colonel James Patton on Craig’s Creek, buying the second tract on 17 May 1753. The first was for 195 acres and the second for 213 acres. These lands were to figure, along with the surveyed land already mentioned in tragic importance fifteen years later, as will be seen. The 408 acres on Craig’s Creek were located near the mouth of that stream.(xviii) So, before 1750, Colonel Smith, then still a cap­ tain, settled on and near the site of the present town of Buchanan, Virginia. His neighbors were distinguished and figured largely in his later life. To the west lived the Looneys —a family not badly named, if one considers the drunken rages of the elder Looney and the subsequent family legal tangles, as will be shown since Colonel Smith 19 �figured largely in these. The Looneys lived at the mouth of Looney’s Mill Creek, where they kept both a mill and a ferry. One, Henry, lived on an island in the river there. To the east lived one of the best known, if not one of the most distinguished, men of the frontier of that day, Colonel John Buchanan, son-in-law of Colonel Patton. Colonel Buchanan was a man who did many things and did them all very badly. Even his many surveys, made between 1745-1750, were called into question as to legality since he was never certified as an authorized surveyOT.(xix) Up the river a short distance there lived a family that were to have a lasting influence on the fame of Colonel John Smith. This was the large, energetic, and influential family of John and Lily Bowen, whose son, Rees, was to marry the only Smith daughter. The first years on the James at the site of Buchanan were peaceful and quiet and maybe the finest John Smith was to ever enjoy and certainly the most harmonious of his long life. During this interval, he was surety with Robert Looney for Elizabeth, widow of George Barber/xcJ On 15 November 1752, he qualified as both a “major of the foot and as Coroner.’Yxxz) It is very likely that he really was only a deputy coroner and it should be definitely understood that a “major of the foot” is an infantry major as opposed to a “major of the horse,” or cav­ alry major. He served as a witness to a deed on Craig’s Creek on 21 November I753.(xxii) As noted above, the month of June, 1753 gave him two tracts of land on the James adjacent to his two surveys totaling 890 acres. After witnessing the above cited deed in November, 1753, the records are silent about Colonel Smith except for one transaction. This deals with his neighbors, the Looneys. In either 1753 or 1754 - ten years later when he became the star witness in the numerous lawsuits that arose from this drunken act of old Robert Looney, Colonel Smith could not be sure which was the correct year - he was sent for by his neighbors, the Looney family. Old Robert had a numerous family of grown and married sons and, in either 1753 or 1754, his son Absolom agreed to come back home to live, he made an agreement with a couple of his other sons, Daniel and Peter. Robert claimed later he had been drunk when this agreement was made and that Daniel’s title to his brother Absolom was no good. This dispute gave rise to a brace of suits over this land which had been laid off by Colonels John Smith and John Buchanan, the nearest neighbors. The suits became increasingly vehement, as will be noted in chronological order, (xxiii) About the time of the events at the Looney household that later gave rise to the suits, the peaceful years came to an end for Colonel Smith and the French and Indian War broke in full fury. PART TWO: T he T ragic Y ears (1755-1770) S ection A: T he War Y ears (1755-1763) From 1755 to 1763, Colonel Smith was struck repeatedly by severe tragedy even though he may not have felt the severity of these years since they were tempered by the excitement of war which has always exhilarated men and caused them to submerge their personal tragedy to the excitement of the fray. We first hear of them in this period from the correspondence of Governor Dinwiddie. The Governor wrote that a company of forty men was to be raised by Captain Smith. Note that although Smith had already been appointed a major of infantry, he served as a captain until his capture in 1756. This letter of the Governor was written in early August and on the eleventh of that same month and year, 1755, Dinwiddie wrote Major John Smith (he so addressed the letter) in which he stated “Colonel Patton had my positive orders to appoint you commander of the company of rangers raised in your county, how he came not to obey it, I know not, however, you may raise forty men which, with the company commanded by Captain (William) Preston and a company from Luneburg (County) of fifty men that have orders to march immediately to your assistance, I conceive will be sufficient to scour the woods of the enemy and encourage your people to return to their plantations, and then I think you will not want the militia.” Of course, Colonel Patton had been killed by the Indians the 30th of July before, or nearly two weeks before these letters had been written and at a distance of more than sixty miles to the west of where Colonel Smith lived. At the same time, he wrote to Major Andrew Lewis, appointed County Lieutenant in the place of Colonel Patton later on, that “Captain Preston and Captain Smith are to be at no place.” This meant they were not to be garrisoned, but to serve as “rangers.”(7) But the principal letter of this time is from Governor Dinwiddie to Captains Smith and Preston jointly, dated 15 December 1755. In this, he mentions that the Cherokees have offered 130 men to aid on an expedition to the enemy (that is, the Shawnees) and suggests the organization of an expedition under the command of Captain 20 �John Smith. He points out that Captain Smith has already been sent seventy barrels of com, which would be more than enough for such a campaign. (2,) However, this did not materialize, but instead turned into another expedition which stood out as the first of Captain Smith’s many misfortunes. The expedition that did come about was called The Sandy Creek Expedition and it is one of the most tragic campaigns of the history of the Virginia Frontier. Companies were commanded by Captains Hogg, Smith, Woodson, Preston, and others on this unfortunate expedition. In the correspondence, Captains Smith and Woodson are spoken of as being “old woodsmen.” The troops were to meet at Dunkard’s Bottom, near the pres­ ent site of Radford, with Major Andrew Lewis to be in command. There is an account of this for those who want to read of a tragic campaign that was badly planned, executed even worse, with no enemy to fight other than starvation, stupidity, and meaningless action. This is contained in the Journal of William Preston, a captain on the campaign. They went by way of what was then called the Bear Garden and into what is still called Burke’s Garden. In 1756, the latter had been emptied of all settlers and the troops dug potatoes left by the hastily depart­ ed settlers. They then crossed Tazewell County as it is today and continued down Sandy Creek. By March 10th, most of the men had deserted. Only a decimated remnant of the group that started off so proudly came back.(3) Over two years later, on 23 September 1748, Captain Smith had to defend his good name against the charge of desertion that had been lodged against him during his captivity in Canada. He was cleared of this and all his pay was restored by the House of Burgesses in 1758.(4) The next adventure was the greatest ordeal of Colonel Smith’s life. On his return from the Sandy Creek Expedition, Colonel Smith, as instructed, took some of his soldiers to Vause’s Fort. This was a private fort newly built by Ephraim Vause and was the westernmost and southernmost of all the frontier forts. The fort was located just to the west of the present village of Shawsville, Virginia and just south of present U.S. 11. It enclosed the home of Ephraim Vause. The events that led to and included the capture of Fort Vause are superbly documented. Over a week before the attack on Fort Vause, the Indians, with French command, began a reconnaissance of the section. The details are furnished in a letter written by Colonel William Preston to an unknown correspon­ dent, an autograph draft of which Preston kept and which is in the great Draper manuscript collection in Madison, Wisconsin. Colonel Preston wrote that on 16th June a small party of Indians appeared at Fort Vause but there were only four or five men in the fort so they could not come out to attack the Indians. The savages then captured a settler at about two miles from the Fort and took him prisoner to a camp in a mountain gap west of the New River. They detained him three days and questioned him very carefully since one of the Indian spoke English. The settler was told that they had decided to destroy both the forts of Preston and Vause. No attack was made right away. Instead, on the 19th, they brought the prisoner to Evan Neill’s home where they proceeded to kill three hogs for their group and to wash their tomahawks. While they engaged in this activity, the prisoner grabbed a horse and a gun and escaped. He came to the home of William Preston and gave his testimony under oath. Meanwhile, on the 22nd, Preston had discharged his company in conformity with the Governor’s orders. Shortly after this, he received an express (that is a special messenger) from Captain John Smith that the Indians had appeared at Fort Vause and that he was afraid of being attacked and his garrison consisted of only eight or ten men. Preston was unable to comply with this appeal for aid since he had just dismissed his company. But, alarmed at the seriousness of the situation and the isolated position of those forted at Vause s, he began to gather volunteers and on the 25th had gathered 18 of his own men and 29 other militiamen of the area and set off toward Fort Vause. It should be remembered that Colonel Preston was not then married and we are not sure of where he lived. Some have suggested that he lived on Buffalo Creek at the home that came later to be known as Greenfield and this is probably correct. This home is located northwest of present-day Roanoke and would have been about 60 miles from Fort Vause. About three in the afternoon, he was within three or four miles of Vause’s when the group met a servant of Vause. This man told them that he had been about two miles from the fort when he heard it was being attacked by a large number of Indians. Six men with him at the time were armed and hastened toward the fort. The militiamen outstriped the servant who, when he neared the fort, saw the six firing at the Indians, so he watched the fray. The fort had been attacked by what he described as “a large number of Indians” about ten that morning. The account continued that the “Indians sett the fort on Fire & some Cabbins joining it, and that the house where Captain Smith with Vause’s Family were in was not burned until 4 in the afternoon. The next morning they went to the place and saw “the houses, Fort, etc. in ashes and about one hour before we met the 21 �servant man he had been among the Ruins & see (sic!) part of a Human Body which had been burned, & it is generally Believed that all the men in the Fort —but seven in number-“ (this refers to the armed militiamen, not the civilians there) “were killed and burned, there is 24 persons killed and missing.” Major Andrew Lewis wrote to Governor Dinwiddie soon after the event that “Captain Vause has been a very great Sufferer by the late unhap­ py affair, his Wife & two Daughters, his Fort, raised at his own expense, and Bam and the other buildings on h is Plantation Burned to Ashes and above eighty heads of Cattle & horses killed and carried away.(5) In the holocaust of the surrender of the Fort on 25 June 1756, Captain Vause was not the only sufferer. Everyone in the fort was either killed or captured. A few escaped and some went into Canada in captivity and died there. Captain Smith’s family were major sufferers. His son, John Jr., a lieutenant under him, was brought before him and brutally murdered before his eyes. His other son, Joseph, a soldier, was taken into captivity with Captain Smith, and Joseph died there. A few months earlier, in March, on the New River, another son, Patrick, was killed by the Indians. (6) Among the prisoners in Fort Vause, in addition to the Vauses and Smiths, there was Peter Looney, a soldier, son of Smith’s neighbor, old Robert Looney. Though taken prisoner, Peter escaped, but the event shortened his life, for he died before November, 1760, leaving a widow, Margaret who later married James McCain. It is interesting that Jonathan Smith, brother of Louvisa Smith Bowen, was guardian of this Peter Looney’s young son, Peter, Jr. (7) Captain John Smith was not fortunate enough to have escaped. Instead, he was to begin one of the most amazing episodes in his long and extremely interesting life, as will be seen. To use his very words in his Memorial to the House of Burgesses on 3 April 1758, he had been in Fort Vause, or “Vauss”, as he put it, “with a small party, was attacked by the enemy, which, after having defended it till he had but three men left, he was at length obliged to surrender.” He went on to relate in this same Memorial how “the Enemy then most inhumanly murdered his eldest son” (he really meant the elder of the two sons who were with him in the fort - Joseph, the other, being younger than John, the slain son) “before his face, and carried h im prisoner to the Shawnese Towns and French Forts, and from thence to Quebec...” He told further how he was there “put on board a Cartel ship and carried to England.”(S) It might be noted that a “Cartel ship” was one which was used between warring nations, under a flag of truce, to transfer prisoners from one nation to another. This definition of the word “car­ tel” is today found more in dictionaries than in the mouths of men, but it is quite correct. His memorial continued to relate his interesting experiences. Again to quote: “That while he was in England he had the honor to be introduced to Mr. Secretary Pitt, to whom he communicated his observations, who highly approved his scheme, and recommended him to Lord Loudon to encourage and promote such an enterprise.” The observations he referred to in this statement were that he had carefully noted the Indian Towns and the French forts on the way to Quebec and he believed he could lead “a small party of men, about 800,.. .if properly con­ ducted... (could) easily destroy those Indian Towns and perhaps some of the French Forts.” Mr. Secretary Pitt referred to above was the true, if not the actual, Prime Minister of England of the time, though he then held only the post of Secretary of State and was not created Prime Minister until ten years later. (9) The Earl of Loudon was “that pompous windbag,” as a noted American Historian has called him, who was responsible for the military failures in America and Britain, he then serving as the commander of British forces in North America. (70) The Memorial further stated that “he has lost three sons and a great part of his fortune in the service of his country, and that being still ready and zealous for his Majesty’s Service, and well acquainted with the route necessary to be taken to distress the Enemy in those parts, he humbly offers himself to undertake such an Expedition if it could be approved of.”(77) Although the expedition was never implemented, the Memorial did accomplish something, for Smith was soon made a full Colonel in Augusta, to which county, of course, he had returned. By the same order, William Preston was made a Major, the order being dated 17 November 1758.(72) The next day after his Memorial he presented the House of Burgesses with a claim in which he stated that “in the year 1755 he was appointed Captain of a company of rangers and continued in the service until he was made a prisoner in 1756; and that he expended large sums of his own money in purchasing provisions and other necessaries for his company, but being taken prisoner, had no opportunity of applying to have his accounts settled until this time. (73) Eight days after this, the House issued its response: “The committee to whom this petition was referred reported that the said John Smith was appointed a Captain of a company of Rangers by commission bearing date of 25th of May 1756, and taken prisoner the 25th of June following at Vause’s Fort, that he had several of his 22 �own guns there, which were made use of in defence of the fort, an horse employed in going to mill, a mare which he rode thither a few days before, and several other things, all which were taken by the enemy in the reduction of the fort and that he has but lately returned from his captivity.” They concluded that he ought to be allowed the sum of £15, 10 shillings, at the rate of ten shillings a day for his pay as Captain for the date of com­ mission to the date of capture. They further allowed him the sum of £100 for his material things used in the defense of the fort and “as a reward for his bravery in the defence thereof.’/ / / ) In the 1758 Journals of the House of Burgesses, John Smith was allowed 13 shillings as pay for service as major, £12 shillings, 6 pence for a horse “impressed and killed and hire of another horse.” They appropriated £576, 18 shillings to Gabriel Jones, a noted area attorney, and Dr. Thomas Walker for a company’s muster roll under Captain John Smith ending on 25 June 1756. To Captain Smith, they allowed £20, 15 shillings for “the balance of his pay and his son’s pay as lieu­ tenant of the same company.” For his account of “provisions and horse hire, and for enlisting soldiers,” they paid Smith £199 and he also received another £75 which was listed simply as “for provisions.’’’(15) One interesting sidelight on Colonel Smith’s capture and the subsequent distress of his family is that Margaret, his wife, was awarded £20 for the relief of herself and her minor children. It should not be forgotten that while the Colonel was in captivity, Margaret still had at home three minor children - Jonathan, 14, Louvisa, 13, and James, then only a small child. This money was appropriated by the legislature in May, 1757 but was not paid until 12 January 1758 when William Preston, to whom it was paid for Margaret Smith, rode over with his sister Mary to deliver the money. This payment, like others was duly noted in a very full little notebook he kept for this purpose in 1756-1759 and which has fortunately been preserved in the great Draper collection in Wisconsin. The signature of Mrs. Smith is a boldly written one reading “Margaret (sic!) Smith.’/ / 6) The most vital and interesting fact revealed by the Journals of the House of Burgesses is in their payment to Captain John Smith, not acted on until 1763, for his pay as a prisoner// 7) The amount appropriated by the House was £83, 13 shillings, 9 pence. This, even to the fraction of a day indicates that the Colonel was a prisoner for 158 days. From this, one can see that apparently Colonel Smith remained a prisoner until either the 9th or 10th of December in 1756. This would undoubtedly represent the day he was sent on the “Cartel” ship from Quebec and not the date of his arrival in England. If, however, the date of cessation of captivity was the arrival in England, he must have been put on shipboard in Quebec in early November and not early December. The arrival in England would ordinarily have been a month after the embarkment from Canada. Thus, it was probably in January, 1758 that he met William Pitt The Elder. It should be carefully noted that Colonel Smith, unlike most prisoners of the period - for all were harshly treated-did not spend his time in self-pity, but carefully made notes of the extent of die garrisons in the forts and Indian Towns to which he had been taken. These were quite useful to the British later. The will of his son, John, who had been so inhumanly killed, as he had put it, before his very eyes at Fort Vause, was dated 22 January 1756 and probated on 18 August 1756 while Colonel Smith was in captivity. Colonel Smith is not mentioned in his son’s will. (18) The will was difficult to probate, for the witnesses except for one, had been captured by the enemy or killed but the court decided they knew the signatures of the witness­ es and the testator well enough and although held over for a further court, it was probated. The son s estate con­ sisted largely of the tract of land mentioned earlier in this monograph which John, Jr. had bought from Silas Hart. He willed this land to his nephew, the son named John of his brother Daniel Smith. Aside from this tract, the bulk of the estate was in horses. The date of the appraisement was 16 June 1151.(19) During the captivity of Colonel Smith, the county court appointed a conservator for his estate. The noted merchant Israel Christian, father of Colonel William Christian and father-in-law of Colonel William Fleming, was so designated by an order of the Augusta court of 18 November 1757. It is interesting that the court quite correctly and naturally first appointed Abraham, Captain Smith’s eldest son, to administer the estate while his father was “a prisoner in the French Dominions” and when he refused to comply, they then appointed Israel C h ristian , who, as the court noted, was a creditor, to administer the estate in the absence of John Smith. On that same day, Christian gave bond with Charles Campbell (father of Colonel William) and Abraham Smith as secunties/20) It should not be considered that Abraham Smith had acted arbitrarily for he was then much engaged in the defense of the frontiers and did not live quite near enough to his parents at that time. Earlier, on 17 June 1757, he had not appeared though he was one of the executors, when his brother John’s will was presented in court for probate, though he did send a message he would not be able to serve. On 17 November 1757, only a 23 �day before he refused to serve as administrator of his father’s estate during the captivity, he appeared in court and renounced any rights or claims to the estate of his brother under the terms of the will. Also, as noted, he served as security for Captain Christian to administer the estate of his father during the period of capture. These were stringent times and one could do only so much with justice to the tasks involved. (27) That Israel Christian, a merchant, would have been a creditor of John Smith’s during his captivity is easily explained by Colonel Smith’s own statement already given above in this monograph in his Memorial to the House of Burgesses and its reply by committee that he had indeed spent his own money and extended his own credit in the purchase of sup­ plies for his troops. (22) The time of Colonel Smith’s return from captivity is not known. One may only make a shrewd guess from the few facts that relate to the events of the period. Colonel Preston paid Margaret Smith her £20 subsistence money during the captivity of her husband on 12 January 1758. It is not likely that Colonel Smith had then returned or the money would have been either paid to him or at least he would have signed as witness instead of Colonel Preston’s sister, Mary, who was the actual witness to the payment. We know from the records of the House of Burgesses that John Smith began presenting his petitions and memorials on 3 April 1758, so he must have returned to his home on the James River about late February or early March of 1758. Certainly the date had thus to be between 12 January and 3 April 1758.(23) On 28 June 1758, he paid to the estate of Peter Moser mon­ eys which were owed for “provender” and for “Patterole” (patrol).(24) But by far the most important event n the year 1758, other than his numerous petitions and the memorial to the House of Burgesses which gives so much badly needed information on the captivity, trip to England, and the timing thereof, is the order of the Augusta court of 17 November 1758 which qualifies him as a Colonel of the militia, making William Preston a major at the same time.(25) This monograph, to be consistent, has usually spoken of John Smith as Colonel, but from this point forward the designation is both correct and authorized. Then on 20 November 1758, only three days after becoming Colonel Smith, he had restored to him a lost honor of great consequence on the frontier. He had been, since its organization in 1745, one of the few vestrymen selected by the Parish of Augusta. On his capture, he was supplanted as vestryman of Augusta at a meeting of 23 November 1756 in which “James Archer was elected to succeed Colonel Patton deceased” and “John Matthews, Jr. elected vestryman vice Major John Smith.” But, on 20 November 1758, the Parish unanimously elected him to succeed Thomas Gordon, referring to him as Colonel John Smith. (2d) Colonel Smith appears only six times in the existing records of the year 1759. On 8 May 1759 he and Colonel John Buchanan verified the records of the flour that had been given out and weighed at Fort Fauquier, the high-sounding name given the little fort built at Looney’s Ferry adjacent to Col. Smith and Col. Buchanan. The record of their certification of it on that day in May was preserved by Colonel Preston and is in the great Draper Collections.(27) It is not a matter of record where Colonels Smith and Buchanan may have been on 27 June 1759, but there exists a letter by Colonel William Preston who states that “in the absence of both Colonels Smith and Buchanan, he (Preston) orders” the drafting of men in that part of the Calf Pasture (a section of that area) where the most trouble from the Indians then existed.(25) On 21 November 1759, John and Margaret Smith sold their 400 acre tract on Goose Creek at the Great Lick (now the site of downtown Roanoke City) to Malcolm Campbell, whose land was adjacent to this tract and who entertained Dr. Thomas Walker on his trip through there in early 1750.(29) Then, on 26 and 27 November 1759, Colonel Smith was present at the meetings of the Augusta Parish as a vestryman. (30) These were his last such appearances as a vestryman and his last documented appearance on the historical scene before the complicated year of 1760. The first event of any consequence in the fateful year of 1760 was neither military nor military-related. Instead, on 13 March 1760, accompanied by his wife Margaret, their son Jonathan, and most probably their young daughter, then 15, Louvisa, and along with Peter Looney who had been a sergeant in the ill-fated company at the capture of Fort Vause, and Colonel John Buchanan, he went the approximately 25 miles up river to the home of John and Lillie Bowen. The Bowens lived on the north side of the river about halfway between present day Clifton Forge and Eagle Rock, approximately on the site which was well known in recent times as the loca­ tion of the Locust Bottom Church, a Presbyterian church that served the area between 1782 and 1887. The pur­ pose for this small cavalcade of distinguished people was to attend the Bowens in the serious illness of the elder John Bowen. How the Smiths, Buchanans, and Bowens became such close friends when their homes lay so far 2H �Col. John Smith and his family lived here along the James River at the foot of Purgatory Mountain, near present-day Buchanan, for 30 years in the 18th century. Looney’s Ferry, which was crossed by thousands of people heading west, was just out of the picture to the left. (George Kegley photo) apart is not of record, but since all three men were prominent and well off, it is natural that they should have sought each other's company. Also, since Fort Fauquier lay adjacent to the lands of Colonel Smith and had been built by Colonel Buchanan on the Looney property, it is very likely that the Bowens might have repaired there in the times of stress and Indian attack. It is well known that Louvisa, only daughter known by record of the John Smiths, married Rees Bowen, son of John and Lillie Bowen. We are not sure when the marriage occurred, but as will be noted below, it seems to have occurred about 1762, or three years after the event now under considera­ tion. While they were there, the group, except for Louvisa, signed the will of John Bowen.(37) In a few days they returned to their homes downstream. The major event in the life of Colonel Smith in 1760 was his return to active duty. Though a Colonel of the militia, he resumed the rank of Captain, at 59, of enlisted troops (that is, regulars, not militia). The occasion for this return to active duty was the formation of an expedition against the Cherokees. This is the campaign some­ times called Byrd's Cherokee Expedition, though Colonel William Byrd III only commanded it briefly, soon retu rn in g to Westover and his new bride, the former Anna Willing. The expedition was then commanded by Lt. Col. Adam Stephen, who was to become a major general in the Revolutionary army, who was a physician, and who laid out the town of Martinsburg, West Virginia later on. Col. Stephen, then a major general, was dismissed from the service by Washington for drunkenness at the Battle of Brandywine (no pun intended!). Colonel Smith did not lead a company on the expedition, but instead commanded a company first forted temporarily at Fort Lewis and then permanently garrisoned at Fort Frederick at Dunkard's Bottom on the New River above presentday Radford. It had been at Fort Frederick that the troops had met for the ill-fated Sandy Creek Expedition m 1756 and when Colonel Smith came there in 1760 he was again to meet with tragedy, though this time on a financial and not human level. Many years later, when in his eightieth year, Colonel Smith stated in open court in 25 �Botetourt County on 10 March 1780, that "he served as a Captain of a company of new lines in the year 1760 under the command of Colonel Byrd on the Expedition against the Cherokees and was legally disbanded ..."(32) In the month of August, 1760, he was with his company at Fort Lewis, located in the western edge of what is today the town of Salem, Virginia. During the month he spent at Fort Lewis, there arose a suit later on which employed Colonel Smith as a key witness. Two merchants had come there from Bedford County following the troops and Smith testified in court later on that he had been witness to an agreement between them — Joseph Ray and William Chandler -ft that the former was to have been supplied by the latter with £100 worth of goods to be sold later on at Dunkard's Bottom. However, as Smith testified "at ye breaking up of ye campaign under Col. Byrd, then carrying on against ye Cherokees" Ray had applied to Colonel Smith and Peter Looney (who was again serving under his old neighbor as he had at Fort Vause in 1756) to become his securities for this mer­ chandise and they agreed, but the delivery of the goods never took place. The deposition said also that "Ray might have disposed of a large quantity of goods to advantage on that campaign."(33) It is in connection with this suit, later on in 1766, that we have the assurance of the Augusta County Court that Colonel Smith was bom in 1701 .(34) While at Fort Frederick in Dunkard's Bottom that September, Colonel, or Captain Smith, as he was ranked for that action, did just as he had done at Fort Vause. His troops needed supplies and clothing. He purchased both. When his cash was exhausted, he used his own credit to supply all that was needed rather than see his sol­ diers suffer. For his patriotism — one secondary writer has called him the Robert Morris of the Frontier — he got thrown in jail for debt later on. Several suits arose over this action of Colonel Smith and since there were ample witnesses and the defendant did not deny that he had promised to pay, he had no defense. On 28 August 1764, John Hamilton brought suit for this debt.(35) Earlier—in November 1764, to be exact—a former soldier named John Kenny sued Colonel Smith for his pay as a soldier for four months under Colonel Smith's command. It is interesting that the pay for this soldier in 1760 had been £4 for four months of service.(36) These suits are interesting in the attempt to solve the puzzle of how long Captain Smith served at the time of the Cherokee Expedition, for the records of that campaign are very sketchy. He seems to have been back at his home in 1761, although the Virginia Regiment in which he had served was not disbanded officially until February 1762.(37) Colonel Smith appears twice in the 1761 records, first on 6 May and then again on 19 May 1761. On the earlier date, he was witness to a deed that involved Colonel John Buchanan, his neighbor. Other witnesses to that deed were David and John Looney. He then appeared in court at Staunton with Colonel Buchanan on 19 May 1761, with his son Jonathan, too, was to testify to his signature on the will of John Bowen, who had died sometime between this date and the original will date of 13 Mar 1760.(38) There is also a receipt of this time, though the dating is obscure, for 861 pounds of beef which was listed as "for use of my company and the Cherokee Indians" but which some say dates as far back as the ill-fated Sandy Creek Expedition because of the presence of the Cherokees, but which is far more likely to have referred to the coming of the Cherokees, after the conclusion of Byrd's Expedition to Fort Frederick on the way to Williamsburg. At any rate, there is another date in 1762 which is quite certain and this is the mortgage of two slaves and 600 acres of land on Craig's Creek adjoining the lands of Colonel James Patton to William Bowyer, a merchant of Staunton, for £100. This mortgage was paid off on 18 November 1161.(39) Back in 1763, Smith was witness to a deed dated 4 February 1763 from John Thompson to Henry Ferguson for 109 acres on Glade Creek. Along with Colonel Smith, the witnesses were a distinguished group that included Robert Breckenridge and the Colonels William Preston and John Buchanan. (40) Although the mortgage noted above to William Bowyer was the first, it was not the last in this troubled period of Colonel Smith's anguish over financial problems. On 9 April 1763, he mortgaged to his son Abraham for £36 a tract of 100 acres on the James River adjacent to the land of Robert Looney. It is interesting that the instrument of the mortgage reads that the mortgage is to be for five hundred years!(41) With this mortgage, the years of the French and Indian War close for Colonel Smith. One very interesting and significant event took place about this time, though the actual date is not in the offi­ cial records of the era. This was the marriage of his daughter (probably his only daughter) to Rees Bowen. Marriage records were not kept in those days, so one can only reconstruct the date from speculation. But, on 15 November 1762, Lillie Bowen, acting as executrix of her husband's estate, conveyed to Rees Bowen, their son, a tract of 230 acres on Glade Creek of Roanoke River for the sum of £20.(42) This land must have been located 26 �near the present town of Vinton just to the northeast of Roanoke City. There is every indication, though no proof that Rees, who is supposed to have been bom in Maryland in, or about, 1742, moved there at this time.(43) Certainly he was definitely living there on 13 February 1765, for his 238 acre tract was processioned at that time, as shown in the Augusta County Parish Book, which has been preserved. (44) By 1762, Louvisa, or Louisa, was seventeen, for it was noted above that she had been baptized at the Tinkling Spring Church on 6 October 1745. Long after the Rees Bowens had moved to the Clinch, in 1774, they sold this land to Thomas Blanton. The deed is interesting for it proves that Louvisa, like her mother, could do what few women and not a great many men on the frontier could — write her own name. (¥5) PART TWO: T he T ragic Y ears (1755-1770) S ection B: P ost-War T ragedy The first post-war months were quite peaceful for Colonel Smith. He was now permanently at home, approaching 63 years of age, and was giving his attention to fanning. It is curious that this man, so prominent on the frontier, such an u n su n g hero, never sought public office, never belonged to the County Court (though whether this was by his choice or from never having been invited is not known), nor did he seek anything other than that by which he could serve his fellow man. Unlike Colonels Preston and Buchanan, his friends, Colonel Smith never sought to aggrandize himself in his service to his country. Instead, he almost bankrupted himself each time he served. The secondary writer referred to at the beginning of this monograph made a striking remark about Colonel Smith when he called him the Robert Morris of the frontier. It is not badly said. On 21 March 1764, he was security with David Looney for John Griffith, administrator of the estate of Morris Griffith. (7) The Looneys also figured largely in the activity of Colonel Smith during 1764, for in August he gave a deposition concerning land problems among members of that family. These, as noted above, had arisen in 1753 or 1754 and Colonel Smith gave a long and full deposition of the original pact made in his own pres­ ence. These suits continued in the courts for almost two years. (2) Colonel Smith, along with Colonel Buchanan, figured as a witness in these transactions when they had occurred and was again an important witness in the many suits that arose therefrom. On 28 August 1764, John Hamilton, a merchant, brought a writ against Colonel Smith that was ultimately to result in the jailing for debt of Colonel Smith. This was referred to above as having taken place in the September 1760 encampment at Dunkard's Bottom. The long overdue bill of the merchant was presented in court with impeccable witnesses, and payment was demanded immediately. The Colonel frankly acknowledged his debt and his inability to meet it. For this frankness, he received imprisonment. The interesting question here is when he was imprisoned and for how long. Undoubtedly the jailing had been in the county seat, Staunton. The date can only be reconstructed from events and speculation on events enacted over two hundred years ago on a rough frontier hamed by Indians and Nature in an era when paper was scarce, those who could write even scarcer and those who could read even fewer. It is likely that Smith was only impris­ oned for a few months, at most, and possibly only for a few weeks, since he had many powerful friends, at least two influential sons (Daniel and Abraham) and the in-laws of his only daughter, the Bowens, were people of means and of rising note in the area. Colonel Smith must have been jailed for debt in early September 1765. He served as security for Isabella, widow of Abraham Biss on 21 May 1765, something he could not have done in prison.(4) On 31 May 1765, Robert Breckinridge wrote his k in sm an , Colonel William Preston from the Breckinridge home in Staunton and asked that Preston send his compliments "to Captain Smith and his family." He would not have done this had the Colonel then been in jail for debt, which Breckinridge, in Staunton, would of course have known.(5) Also, the Looney suits, so prominent in the period, were held in court in May 1765 and Colonel Smith testified freely at them in a long and interesting deposition. (6) Likewise, in a suit which in abstracted form does not specify time of filing or otherwise, but which seems to have been in the summer, and which was not actually presented in court until 1773, testimony is given that George, son of Jonathan, and Jonathan Smith were in William Crow's store in Staunton and the Colonel told them each to get a suit of clothes and charge it to him. This was in 1765, presumably, as indicated, in the sum­ mer. Crow gladly accommodated, for he [had] a scheme to defraud Colonel Smith. This came about later when 27 �the Colonel was in prison. Crow came to him and suggested that if he would convey to Crow two tracts of land on Craig's Creek, the merchant would satisfy all the indebtedness and free him from jail. As Colonel Smith testi­ fied in court later, he executed the bond to Crow to pay off his debts, but Crow, who did pay off the debts, sold his bond to McCall and Company who later got judgment on Colonel Smith. In other words, Crow got the land for nothing and Colonel Smith, unaware of the fraud at the time, had to bring suit in 1771-1773 to recover.(7) In connection with this suit, on 16 October 1765, Colonel Smith deeded to William and Thomas Crow two tracts of land on Craig's Creek, one of 195 and the other of 213 acres.(8) In order to have recorded this deed, Colonel Smith had to have been out of jail in mid-October, which leads one to speculate that his stay had been brief. Later, in 1767 and 1768, the Crows mortgaged these tracts to merchants from Leeds, Yorkshire and Richmond. (9) Though out of prison, Colonel Smith was not out of debt, for he still had the debt that Crow had assigned to McCall and Company, though unaware of it at the time. On 10 July 1766, he made an important land entry at the mouth of Purgatory Creek. This is just across the James from the Town of Buchanan as it exists today and where the old U. S. 11 highway bridge crossed the River James a quarter century ago in 1950. It was on this 400 acre tract that the village of Pattonsburg was later built. He sold this tract to Margaret Patton Buchanan, widow of Colonel John who had died in 1769, in the year 1710.(10) In November, 1766, there arose the suit of Ray vs. Chandler, already fully covered in the text above and which concerned the sale but non-delivery of goods at Fort Frederick back in 1760. Colonel Smith was one of the principal witnesses and, as twice stated previously, it was in connection with the deposition he gave in this suit that we have the certification of the date of his birth. (77) Colonel Smith made over to his son Jonathan some of his slaves for the sum of £90 on 28 February 1767. It is interesting that one of the witnesses to this transaction was William, brother of Rees Bowen. (12) In May of that year, Colonel Smith brought suit first against the executors of Colonel James Patton to try to recover the monies due him for his work in the Roanoke-James rivers grant, even though the suit did not come to judgment until November 1770.(13) On 13 August 1767, he served as a witness along with his distinguished friends, the brothers-in-law William Christian and William Fleming (the latter had married the sister of the former) in a deed from Joshua McCormick to Israel, the father of Colonel William Christian. (14) It was on the 18th of November of 1767 that William Bowyer surrendered the mortgage to Colonel Smith referred to above.(75) Another of those due bills for purchases was presented in November 1768 by William English. This contained an “I promise to pay unto William Ingles or Cumpaney” (sic) signed by John Smith and endorsed “Col. Smith to William English — Bill.”(7d) This suit stemmed from indebtedness made on 25 September 1761, so it was probably not for soldier’s pay or gear. Presumably this was settled amicably and easily. It is only, save for one other act, that we hear of Colonel Smith in his 68th year by this suit. The Colonel made another trip up the James River as he had in 1760 to witness the will of John Bowen. This time it was for John Bowen, Jr., a brother of Rees. Joseph Looney was another witness and one of the executors was William Bowen, brother of the testator. However, the Colonel did not go to Staunton to prove the will when it was probated on 17 August. (17) Again, in 1769, Colonel Smith served as witness to wills. This time it was for two of his important neigh­ bors. On 25 June, he witnessed the last will of his friend and neighbor, Colonel John Buchanan, son-in-law of Smith’s former land partner, Col. James Patton. Oddly enough, this will was not recorded until 23 February 1818, though it was admitted to probate and the executors gave proper security on 16 August 1769. On that same day in August, Colonel Smith, with his son Jonathan, and with George Skillem, was appointed an appraiser for estimating the worth of the property and goods of Colonel Buchanan on the James River. Other men were appointed to appraise the Colonel’s belongings on Reed Creek and on New River. (77?) The other will he wit­ nessed was for his drunken old friend and neighbor, Robert Looney. This will, dated 19 September 1769, was not probated until 1770 and was so done in Botetourt County. (79) With these actions, we come to the end of the dif­ ficult years of the life of Colonel Smith. The remaining thirteen years of his life were spent in relative peace in the new county of Botetourt, struck off at the end of 1769. PART THREE: T he F inal Y ears (1770-1783) Only 1770, of the remaining years of Colonel Smith’s life is amply documented. In that year, first of the new 28 �Roanoke at its founding, more than a century after John Smith sold his downtown property. county, within whose borders Colonel Smith’s home now lay, he is first heard of on 12 June 1770. On that date it was ordered that a group “view the several ways proposed for roads — by Mrs. Buchanan's (widow of Col. John), William Crow's (former Staunton merchant and now in business at Looney’s Ferry), John Smith’s and William Rowland’s ... on the north side of the river to the court house...”(7) On 14 August 1770, he journeyed to Fincastle, new county seat, to prove the will of Looney.(2) Then, almost immediately, on 16 August, he went to Staunton to record three chattel mortgage sales, two by him and one by his wife, Margaret. Why these are recorded in Augusta is not clear, but they may have been arranged prior to the formation of Botetourt and simply recorded later in Staunton. At any rate, on 16 August, Margaret, wife of John Smith for “£12 and divers good reasons” sold horses and crops to Samuel McCutcheon, Sr., while on the 17th John sold, for £3.10.10, cows to James and Samuel Clark, with William McCutcheon, Jr. as witness. Also on the 17th, Smith sold cows and hors­ es for £27 to James Clark, Jr. (3) It may have been that this money was essential to meet the debt owed William English mentioned above. On 24 September 1770, Colonel Smith sold to his son, James, for £100, a tract of 100 acres on the south side of the James River. (4) This is the first mention of James Smith in the official records and would indicate that the probable date of his birth had been about 1750. In November, the Augusta County Court ruled on the suit, bill filed in May 1767, concerning the Colonel’s claim for payment from the group granted the 100,000 acres on the James and Roanoke Rivers in 1741.(5) Colonel Smith appears in the records only twice in 1771 and not at all in 1772. At an unspecified time in 1771, he began the action against McCall and Company to recover the equity he had been swindled of by William Crow. This, already mentioned above, did not come to settlement until 1773.(6) On 14 August 1771 there is a duplication of the deed made to Malcolm Campbell for the 400 acres of land comprising the Big Lick, now the site of Roanoke City.(7) In May 1773, his suit against McCall and Company was settled in Augusta Court.(§) On 16 December 1773, he had the pleasure of receiving a warrant from Lord Dunmore, last of the Virginia colonial governors, for 3,000 acres of land for having served “as a captain of the two new levies in Fincastle County.”(9) On 15 March 1774, he assigned one thousand acres of this warrant to George Skillem, his signature witnessed by William Crow (his old enemy), Joseph Looney, and his son, James Smith. On 9 August, he assigned another thousand of this to James, his youngest child. His son, Jonathan, and his friend, George Skillem witnessed this.(10) But the long life of Colonel Smith was winding down. On 15 February 1775, he was exempted from paying any levies (i.e. taxes) to the County for the future.(77) Before he wrote his will, however, he did one more serv- 29 �ice for his community. On 11 February 1778, John Smith, John Compton, and John Mills were ordered to “view the shore on William Anderson’s side of James and report to the court the most convenient landing place for a ferry from Crow's land.”(72j William Anderson had married the widow of Col. John Buchanan and lived at the Buchanan home on the north side of the river. As explained, William Crow had bought the old Looney homeplace and ran a ferry there. Colonel Smith wrote his will on 26 April 1779. As might be expected, it is a vigorous, sensible, no foolish­ ness instrument. Some of the provisions are unexpected, however. Except for providing for his wife, Margaret during the remainder of her life, he left everything to his son, James, the youngest child, including the final thou­ sand acres of the Dunmore warrant. (13) Though they lived nearby, Abraham, David and Jonathan, as well as equally distant Daniel and Louvisa were ignored. Though he wrote his will in early 1779, he did not die that year as some secondary writers have alleged. He made two court appearances in 1780, one on 9 March and the sec­ ond on 13 April. The first was to ask that he be allowed the land warrant due his dead son, Joseph.(77,) The last was to ask for the same thing for his own services.(75j At the time, he was 79! On 19 October 1782, Andrew Boyd, a son-in-law of Col. Buchanan who lived near Col. Smith, wrote to William Preston about a suit of theirs and said in his letter that “Colonel John Smith would make a good witness for us, but he is a very ancient man.”(76) This proves that Colonel Smith was alive near the end of October 1782, but he had died by early 1783 for his will was presented by George Skillem, the executor for probate on 13 March 1783. Since only one witness could then be found, it was not until 8 May that the will was accepted for probate by the court.(7 7) Of the nine sons, three, as noted — Joseph, Patrick (if that were his name!), and John — were killed by the Indians in 1756. Daniel became prominent in Rockingham County and Abraham in his own county of BotetourtAugusta. David was the least consequential of the nine and Jonathan merely better off financially than David. Henry disappears from the records before his father’s death. Louvisa, as well known, married Rees Bowen and lived out her years at Maiden Spring in Tazewell County. James, the youngest, became a Captain in the Revolution serving with William Campbell on the expedition to the New River against the Tories in 1779 and being present at the surrender at Yorktown in 1781. Margaret survived her husband, but probably not for long, as she must have been very old at the time of his death in 1783. N otes on Part O ne i. Aug. Co., Va. Order Book One, p. 350, 20 Nov 1766, Plaintiff vs. Wm. Chandler, defendant: “The Plaintiffs attorney offered in Evidence the Deposition of John Smith which was objected to by the .. .defendant alledging that the said John Smith was able to attend in person, but the said objection was overruled by the Court they being of the opinion... that he (John Smith) is of the age of sixty-five years and lives at the distance of sixty miles from the court house that he is still able to attend in person but that is is unnecessary...” ii. Orange County, Va., OB 2 205, 26 June 1740 iii. Aug. Co., Va. OB 1, p 1,9 December 1745 iv. See note 2, supra: Howard M. Wilson, The Tinkling Springs, McClure, Va, 1954, p. 481, Draper Mss. 1 QQ 83; Journals of the House of Burgesses for 3 April 1758, the Memorial of John Smith. v. Aug. Co., Court Judgments, Nov. 1770-A; Will of Col. James Patton, Aug. Co., Va. Will Book 2, pp. 131 ff. vi. Aug. Co., Va. Deed Book 2, p. 250 vii. Original papers and petitions filed with the County Court of Augusta for year 1749 viii. Aug. Co., Va. DB 7, 341, 343, DB 20, 371; WB 2, 155 ix. Mortgage dated 28 May 1748 in Aug. Co., VA. DB 2, 50. Sale in Note 8 supra x. Aug. Co., Va. DB 1, pp. 12, 102, and 120 xi. Aug. C., Court Judgments for dates indicated. xii. Suit finally brought in Aug. Co. Court Judgments of May, 1750 - A xiii. Aug. Co., Va. DB 2, 505 xiv. Aug. C., Court Judgments, September, 1747 xv. Aug. Co., Va. DB 8, 238 xvi. Aug. Co., Va. Survey Book One, p. 50-B xvii. Ibid., pp. 66-A and 66-B 30 �xviii. Aug. Co., Va. DB 5, pp. 303 and 490 xix. Ltr. Col. Edmond Pendleton to Wm. Preston, 1 Nov 1781, Draper Mss. 5 QQ 99 xx. Aug. Co., Va. WB 2, 155 xxi. Aug. Co., Va. DB 6, 223 xxii. Aug. Co., Va. DB 5, 490 xxiii. ACCJ (Aug. Co., Court Judgments), May, 1765-C, Looney vs Looney; Original Papers and petitions filed with Aug. County Court, August, 1764-B N otes on Part T wo 1. Various letters from the Governor found in Volume II “the Official Records of Robert Dinwiddie, 1715- 1758, 2 vols., Va. Hist. Soc., R.A. Brock, ed., Richmond 1883-1884. Letters are not listed separately since they are identified by date. 2. Draper Mss. 1 QQ 90 3. Draper Mss. 1 QQ 94; 96-123; 126-128 4. Draper Mss. 1 QQ 134-135 5. Draper Mss. 1 QQ 131-133 6. Draper Mss. 1 QQ 83 ff; Memorial of Captain John Smith in Journals of House of Burgesses, dated 3 April 1758 7. Aug. Co., Va. WB 2, 42,WB 3, 55, WB 4, 94; Bot. Co., Va. Orders for 9 March 1780 as listed in Summers’ Annals, pp. 309 and 313; Aug. Co. OB 11, 349: and Draper Mss. 1 QQ 83 ff. 8. Journals of the House of Burgesses, 3 April 1758 (p. 499 in printed version) 9. William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708-1778), also known as “The Great Commoner,” the father of Wm. Pitt the Younger, acted as Prime Minister in 1756-1758, though the actual post was held by the Dukes of Newcastle and Devonshire. Pitt’s actual rank when seen by Col. Smith was Secretary of State. Though he did not receive the status official­ ly until 1766, he acted as Prime Minister then. 10. John Campbell (1705-1782), 4th Earl of Loudon, was given command in America in 1756 and removed in December 1757. Ray Allen Billington was the eminent historian who called him a “pompous windbag”, an epithet more complimentary than that bestowed on the Earl by most. 11. See note 8, supra, and Draper Mss. 1 QQ 83 ff. Sons were Patrick, John and Joseph. 12. Aug. Co., Va. OB 6 223 13. Journals for the House of burgesses for 4 April 1758 14. Ibid, 12 April 1758 (P. 505 in printed version) 15. Journals for House of Burgesses for 1758, various entries 16. Journals for the House of Burgesses for 1757; Draper Mss. 6 QQ 140 17. Journal for the House of Burgesses for 1763 18. Aug. Co., Va. WB 3, 155 19. Aug. Co., Va. WB 2, 194 20. Aug. Co., Va. OB 6, 51 and WB 2, 220 21. Aug. Co., Va. OB 5, 371; OB 6,43 and 51 22. See Notes 8,13,14, and 15 in this section of the monograph 23. Notes 16, 8,11 above 24. Aug. Co., Va. WB 3, 28 25. Aug. Co., Va. OB 6, 223 26. Aug. Co., Va. Vestry Book, pp. 186 and 233 27. Draper Mss. 2 QQ 20 28. Draper Mss. 3 QQ 138 29. Aug. Co., Va. DB 9, 238 30. Aug. Co., Va. Vestry Book, pp. 263 and 264 31. Aug. Co., Va. WB 3, 24 32. Bot. Co., Va. OB for 10 March 1780 33. Various suits, ACCJ, October, 1765-B and D; November, 1766 34. Aug. Co., Va. OB 10, 350 35. ACCJ, John Hamilton vs. Co. John Smith, Aug., 1765 36. ACCJ, Kenny vs. Smith, November, 1762-A 37. Hening's Statutes, Vol. 7, pp. 489-493 38. Aug. Co., Va. DB 1, 357; DB 9, 277; WB 3, 24 39. Aug. Co., Va. DB 10, 405; DB 14, p. 100 31 �40. ACCJ, Bingamin vs. Smith, May, 1763-B 41. Aug. Co., Va. DB 11, 149 42. Aug. Co., Va. DB 11, 42 43. Draper's King's Mountain and its Heroes, all editions, p. 406 44. Aug. Co., Va. Vestry Book, page 382 45. Bot. Co., Va., DB 2, 39 N otes on Part T wo, Section B 1. Aug. Co., Va., WB 3, 220 2. ACCJ for August, 1764, May, 1765-C; and Aug. 1764 - C and B 3. ACCJ for August, 1765 4. Aug. Co., Va., WB 3, 394 5. Draper Mss. 2 QQ 94 6. ACCJ, May, 1765-C, Looney vs. Looney 7. ACCJ, May, 1773-A, Col. John Smith vs. McCaul (sic) and Co., Chancery, 1771. Note that “McCaul & Co” is Alexander Me Call & Co., merchants from eastern Va. 8. Aug. Co., Va. DB 12, 392 9. Aug. Co., Va. DB 14, 303; DB 15, 246 10. Chancery suit, Augusta Superior Chancery Court, Boyd vs. Matthews, OB 152, NS 53 11. See first note in this monograph; ACCJ, Ray vs. Chandler, Nov., 1766-B 12. Aug. Co., Va. DB 14, 229 13. Note 5, part one of monograph 14. Aug. Co., Va. DB 13, 493 15. See Note 39, part two, section A, above 16. ACCJ, Wm. Ingles vs. Smith, May, 1768 17. Aug. Co, Va. WB3, 136 18. Aug. Co, Va. WB 12, 375; WB 4, 233; OB 13, 322 19. Bot. Co, Va. WB1, p. 3 N otes on Part T hree 1. Summers: Annals of Southwest Virginia, Kingsport, 1929, p. 85. This reference hereinafter given simply as “Annals” and will be used in lieu of the original Order or Will or Deed books for convenience of the reader. The printed volume being simply copied from the original and published. 2. Bot. Co, Va. WB A, p. 4 3. Aug. Co, Va. DB 16, pp. 438, 439, and 498, in that order as in the text. 4. Bot. Co, Va, DB 1, 190 5. See note 5 at beginning of monograph 6. See note 7, part two, section B, above 7. Armais, 543, and note 15 first part of monograph 8. Note 6 immediately above 9. Pp. 2-3, Warrants issued by Lord Dunmore, bound in with Plat Book A, Montgomery Co, Va. (Really Fincastle) Also on Microfilm Reel 33, Mont. Co., Va. as issued by the Virginia State Archives in their counties series. 10. Same reference as previous note 11. Armais, 240 12. Annals, 266 13. Will Book A, p. 180, Botetourt County, Va. 14. Armais, 309 15. Annals, 314-315 16. Draper Mss. 5 QQ 111 17. Armais, 369 and 372 32 �Old County Courthouse is 100 Years Old by John Long pril 1st, 1910, was a red-letter day in the history of Salem and Roanoke County, a X \_day that, a full century later, still impacts our memory of the local past. It was on that day that the second Roanoke County Courthouse in Salem was dedicated, with fitting tributes paid to those early leaders who laid the foundation for a remarkable community. The first county courthouse had been built in 1845 on the same site, designed by William C. Williams, a hotel-keeper by trade but a notable builder on the side. It remained in use for 75 years, but by 1909 was in poor repair. Workers trying to tear out a wall discovered such decay that the county decided the most economical response would be to tear down the old structure and build a new one. A contract was given to H.H. Huggins, a Roanoke architect, to design a new one. His proposal, with a three-story ionic portico and prominent dome topped by a majestic eagle, met with enthusiastic acclaim. It was built, at the exorbitant cost of $50,000, over the next year. A few offices had already moved in before the dedication took place. On April 1st, 1910, Judge W.W. Moffett called the court into session, then immediately set the day aside for the reading of historical material suitable for the occasion. No one knows who decided to turn the event into a celebration of the local past, but it may well have been Moffett himself, an avid history buff. Over the next several hours, more than twenty biogra­ phies of local settlers, military heroes, court officers and other notables were read, until the lateness of the hour necessitated postponing the last few. General Andrew Lewis, Congressman Robert Craig, State Senator John McCauley, two sets of brothers (Deyerles and Griffins) with stellar military records, and many others were among those honored. The transcripts of those speeches still form an important source for local history and biog­ raphy. Twenty-year-old attorney John R Saul Jr., later a prominent barrister in the very building he was dedicating, gave the primary oration, calling for the courts to “go from her imbued with the idea of divinity of justice and its true relation to mankind; resolute to honor it and give it our sincere fidelity.” Noted Roanoke College English professor F.V.N. Painter penned a dedicatory ode for the occasion, which also called for the courts in the new building to adjudicate cases fairly. A few months later, a monument to the Confederate soldiers of Roanoke County was dedicated on the front lawn of the courthouse. A clock was also placed in the dome. Moffett, with his keen sense of history, had also arranged to have a series of portraits of local heroes made for the courthouse. Those oak-framed portraits still grace the walls of the new county court offices and various library branches. The 1910 Roanoke County Courthouse remained in use until 1985, when a larger, more modem building was contracted to the east, adjacent to the new county jail. Soon after, the retired courthouse was sold to Roanoke College. Today, the structure, one of the few in Salem listed on the national Register of Historic Places, is known as Francis T. West Hall, named for a Martinsville businessman. It houses three academic departments and more than a dozen classrooms, including those used by the history department. The old edifice, bom in a celebration of the past, continues to educate the future. 51 A John Long; executive director o f the Salem Historical Society* teaches history at his alma mater, Roanoke College. 33 �16th Century Spanish Invasions o f Southwest V irginia by Jim Glanville INTRODUCTION panish entradas (invasions) into Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia (Holstonia) are documented to have occurred in 1541 and 1567. They predate the foundation of Jamestown by decades and are significant for Virginia history — not just for regional history. The first entrada gave us the earliest two persons we can name who set foot within the boundary of the future state of Virginia. The second entrada produced the first ever recorded battle in Virginia, gave us the first named town in Virginia, the first woman(7) bom in Virginia that we can name, and the earliest recorded marriage between a Christian soldier and an American Indian woman. This article summarizes the events of the past twenty-five years that have allowed us to tell the story of six­ teenth-century Spanish conquistadors in Southwest Virginia and the consequences of their arrival for the American Indians who inhabited the region. It describes and discusses the key publications about the story. The intent of the article is not to rehearse the actual story, but rather to tell how the story developed and cite the relevant references. Only during the past two or three years has the story achieved widespread recognition in popular magazines and newspapers.(2) in a Virginia history text book.fi) and in the online Library of Virginia state chronology.(4) Unthinking persons assert that history is fixed and unchanging. However, the discovery of new evidence reg­ ularly causes history to be rewritten. With the present story, the recent, new, history-changing evidence has come from three directions: 1. Archeological confirmation of the Spanish presence at Morganton, N.C., in the mid-six­ teenth century, at the Berry site. 2. Reconsideration of the Spanish archival records documenting the entradas, and the finding and translation in 1994 of an archival document written by a participant in the second entrada who was seeking a pension from the Spanish king. 3. Recent studies in American Indian artifact collections by this author that offer direct evidence for the presence of the large American Indian populations — in the right place at the right time — that the Spanish documents say were attacked in 1567. The article begins with a brief description of the Mississippianf5) American Indians who lived in the region before the arrival of Europeans in the New World. It then moves on to a description of the Berry site and its story and connects that site to the de Soto entrada and the many-year studies of the de Soto entrada's route by Charles Hudson and his collaborators. Next, a brief summary is given of what the Spaniards did in Holstonia. The article concludes by discussing the collapse of American Indian societies in the region and the possible removal of some members of those societies to Sauratown in present-day Stokes County, N.C. S M ississippian A merican Indians in S outhwest V irginia B efore 1492 Virginia historiansfb) and archeologists(7) (as first pointed out to me by Southwest Virginians Glenn Williams and Lawrence Richardsonfá)) have long failed to acknowledge the existence of large settled Mississippian(9) Jim Glanville o f Blacksburg, a retired chemistry professor turned historian, is a native o f London, England. He attended the Royal College o f Science and earned a doctorate at the University o f Maryland. He came to Roanoke in 1969, taught chemistry at Virginia Western Community College and worked as vice president o f Wen-Don Chemical Corp. He was director o f general chemistry at Virginia Tech from 1986 until his retire­ ment in 2004. Copyright Jim Glanville 2009 34 �Figure 1 (left): A 2-inch diameter Saltville style gorget with a unique center hole. It was recovered at the Chilhowie High School site in Smyth County circa 1757 by Kelly Berry. Photographed by the author at the Rankin Museum in Ellerbe, N.C., in 2006. Figure 2 (right): A rare 3" diameter star style gorget said to be from a site in Holstonia in Tennessee. From a private Smyth County collection. Star style gorgets seem to be uniquely Holstonian in charac­ ter. Photographed by the author in 2005. Both images are published here for the first time. All rights reserved. American Indian populations in Holstonia. In large part, this neglect resulted from the dearth of formal archeolog­ ical studies in the region. However, while unrecognized and unacknowledged by almost all professional archeologists.fi 0) Mississippian traits in the region are demonstrated by an abundance of what I have called “improper” archaeological evidence. (11) Most spectacular among the artifacts known through improper archeology are the highly artistic and distinctive engraved marine shell gorgets that shed light on the material culture of those popu­ lations and their links to people elsewhere in the Southeast. (12) Two hitherto unpublished engraved gorgets are shown in Figures 1 and 2. A plausible thesis as to why historians failed to recognize these people perhaps lies in the terms of the 1744 Treaty of Lancaster(7J) between the State of Virginia and the Six Nations. One matter the treaty addressed was the travel routes of Iroquois warriors from the New York region up and down the Great Warrior Trail (roughly today’s Route 11/Interstate 81) to make wax(14) on the Cherokees. The region had already by 1744 been long depopulat­ ed as the result of European diseases. Thus, the notion of western Virginia as a place passed-through but not livedin lies deep in the collective Virginia subconscious. Neither the warriors nor the colonists knew about the thousands of burials from hundreds of years earlier that lay along the travel routes. The life of the Mississippian Indians of Holstonia can perhaps be visualized best through two works of fiction that describe nearby contemporaneous people.(75) My own contribution to understanding them was presented in a paper I read in Richmond in 2007.(76) In summary, we can report that from 1200-1600 A.D., Native Americans in the Holston River valleys maintained a cultured society with abundant material goods; they achieved large and set­ tled populations with unclear political arrangements; they exploited a wide range of foods including maize, beans, squashes, fish and game; they exchanged salt, copper, and shell, via trade networks; however, they did not build significant mounds.(7 7) By 1450 A.D., they had become a people with a unique and distinctive cultural iconography. The quality and diversity of their shell gorgets are of the first rank and their tribal affiliation was Yuchi.(7$) Their culture was one 35 �of the many variants of the broader civilization that is conventionally labeled as Mississippian. It was their fate to have their societies destroyed by conquistadors and the European diseases they brought. T he B erry Site at M organton, N.C., and Spanish D ocuments Part of the charm of this story is the manner in which the archeological and archival evidence combine to enable its telling. At least three elements combined between 1982 and 1994 to bring the story of the Spanish inva­ sion of Virginia into focus: 1. The discovery and interpretation of the Berry site; 2. Publication of a detailed study of the documents of the Juan Pardo entrada; and, 3. The finding and translation of an eye witness account of a battle and its aftermath by a Spaniard who had been in Virginia in 1567. From these modest beginnings grew a minor revolution in Virginia history — a revolution that has shifted the earliest documented events in the state from Tidewater to Appalachia. The first element in the minor revolution came from North Carolina archeology. About 1982, near Morganton, N.C., the North Carolina archeologist David Moore visited a “14-year-old kid” who “thought he had some Etowah pottery.” The “kid” was Robin Beck who had been surface hunting on the farm of his aunt and uncle, James and Patsy Berry, about eight miles north of town. Not long after, Beck identified Spanish artifacts from the site and in the summer of 1986 excavations were undertaken at the Berry farm and the nearby McDowell site. (19) The second element in the minor revolution was the publication in 1990 by Charles Hudson of an analysis of the Juan Pardo entrada accompanied by definitive translations (by Paul Hoffman) of the related documents.(20) This book was an out­ growth of the lifetime work on Southeast American Indians by Charles Hudson.(27) and his collabo­ rators, and in particular of Hudson’s obsession with the route taken by the conquistador Hernando de Soto.(22) Pardo traveled from the South Carolina coast to eastern Tennessee and in part retraced de Soto’s steps. The retraced route included the Berry site — at a place known as Joara to the Indians and Fort St. Juan to the Figure 3: Sixteenth century Spanish routes in the Southeast. Spanish. The gray line represents the approximate route of the de Soto A third element in the minor revo­ entrada of 1539-1542. In the spring of 1541, two explorers or lution was the translation (but not pub­ marauders from this expedition entered the future Lee County in lication; it remains to this day unpub­ the westernmost part of present-day Virginia. The dotted line lished) in 1994 by John Worth of the represents the approximate route of the Pardo entrada. In 1567 1584 account of the pension-seeking an armed detachment from the Pardo expedition led by request of Domingo de León who Hernando Moyano marched north from Fort St. Juan into pres­ fought in Virginia in 1567.(23) The de ent-day Smyth County, Virginia. León account proved to be very signif- 36 �icant as it enabled the somewhat disjointed accounts of the Pardo expedition to be reinterpreted and fitted togeth­ er in a new and comprehensive way. Robin Beck, by now fourteen years older and an archeology graduate student, pulled these three elements together and presented them as a coherent story to an archeological conference in Knoxville in November 1995.(24) Beck told in his presentation that in 1567 conquistadors had attacked the fixture town of Saltville — for the very first time using documentary evidence to put Europeans on the ground in the future Virginia. Fortuitously, Roanoke-based archeologist Tom Klatka attended this Knoxville conference and was in the audi­ ence for Beck’s presentation. After Klatka returned home, he contacted Lawrence Richardson in Smyth County, knowing that Richardson was working on a manuscript based on the thesis that the American Indians of Holstonia had been Yuchi. Richardson was galvanized by what Klatka told him and promptly wrote to Beck. Richardson in his letter told Beck of his conclusion that Saltville had been a Yuchi town and asked Beck for copies of John Worth’s Domingo de León translation and other documents.(25) The following year, in a 1997 issue of Southeastern Archaeology maga­ zine, (26) Beck published the formal paper corresponding to his Knoxville presentation and wrote about the -M Spanish attack that had occurred in 1567 at the fixture site of the town of Saltville located on the South [sx'c] Fork of the Holston River. Saltville is actually on the North Fork and Beck’s misstatement has subsequently con­ fused a number of readers of his 1997 paper. Berry site excavations have now been going on for almost 25 years and IN JUNE 1540 THE FIRST EUROPEANS EVER TO STEP many formal and informal reports of ON VIRGINIA SOIL PASSED THIS WAY, WHEN THEY the ongoing studies have been pub­ ENTERED THE POWELL VALLEY IN THE VICINITY OF lished. An accoxmt of the history of the PHOEBE BUTT. JUAN DE VILLALOBOS FROM SEVILLE site can be viewed at the Warren AND FRANCISCO DE SILVERA FROM GALICIA, TWO Wilson College web pages.(27) The "CHRISTIAN GENTLEMEN," WHO CAME NORTH TO site’s excavators published a detailed EXPLORE THE LAND AND SEARCH FOR GOLD WERE formal accoxmt of their findings at the SENT BY HERNANDO DE SOTO FROM HIS BASE NEAR site and their analysis of its signifi­ cance in 2006.(25) At the Berry site DANDRIDGE, TENNESSEE. THEY CAME 67 YEARS are the remains of a large American BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF JAMESTOWN. Indian town (perhaps one of the largest such towns in North America) that was occupied from 1400-1600 Figure 4. A conjectural historical marker describing the first doc­ A.D. and where Spanish soldiers built umented event and named persons in Virginia history. a small fort and lived for eighteen months in 1566-67. The Spanish fort was burned in perhaps 1568. The conclusion is inescapable that the Berry site is indeed Fort St. Juan, built by members of the Pardo expe­ dition at the Indian town of Joara, and described in sixteenth century Spanish documents. One logical outcome of this conclusion has been the rewriting of Virginia history. I KA 1540 LEE COUÑTY-WHERE VIRGINIA HISTORY BEGAN T he Spanish In H olstonia The story of early Spanish period of North American history has been described in a fine, popular manner in a well-illustrated article by Joe Judge.(29) Judge’s article includes the story of the early Spanish Jesxxit martyrs who 37 �died on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay in 1510,(30) but not the earlier Spanish military involvement in west­ ern Virginia. Paul Hoffman is the prin­ cipal academic student of the early Spanish period. (31) The routes of the entradas that resulted in Spaniards being earlier in western Virginia are shown in Figure 3, which derives from my 2004 review article(32j describing the sixteenth-century conquistadors in Southwest Virginia. The conclusions of that article are briefly summarized and updated in this section. THE FIRST-EVER RECORDED BATTLE ON In that 2004 review article I con­ VIRGINIA SOIL OCCURRED IN MAY 1567 NEAR cluded from my reading of the de Soto THE SITE OF PRESENT DAY NORTHWOOD documents that members of the de HIGH SCHOOL A MARAUDING PARTY OF Soto party were in the future Lee SPANIARDS AND NATIVE AMERICAN ALLIES County in 1541. That conclusion had LED BY ALFEREZ HERNANDO MOYANO CAME been anticipated by seventy years by OVER THE MOUNTAINS FROM THEIR BASE Nathan Brisco, an amateur Smyth NEAR MORGANTON, NC, AND ATTACKED County archeologist and historian, PALISADED FORTIFICATIONS AT THIS SITE. who is almost unknown to Virginia MORE THAN 1000 NATIVE AMERICANS WERE history. Brisco wrote: “Although it is REPORTED KILLED AND 50 HUTS BURNED. probable that De Soto reached here in 1540, it is not until the later part of the 17th century that we find specific Figure 5. A conjectural historical marker describing the first doc­ mention of this section in the journals umented battle in Virginia history. of the explorers.”f34j The conse­ quences of the de Soto expedition for Virginia are summarized in the conjectural historical marker shown in Figure 4. A brief summary of the consequences of the Pardo entrada tells that in 1567, Juan Pardo detached Hernando Moyano, with about 20 men at Fort St. Juan in modern-day Morganton. While there, Moyano received a threat from a “Chisca chief’ saying that the chief would come and eat Moyano and his dog. In consequence, Moyano preemp­ tively marched north with Indian allies and attacked Indian towns. He found no gold. Moyano’s attack was described in a pension petition, seventeen years later, by Domingo de Leon who was present during the attack on Saltville, and wrote about it. Afterwards, the American Indian woman Luisa Menendez from Saltville married Juan Ribas and thirty years later twice testified about her birthplace where salt was made by a “method using fire.” Moyano’s attack and the Luisa Menendez story are summarized in the conjectural historical markers shown in Figures 5 and 6. The Cherokee scholar Raymond Evans has written that “The control of large salt springs near the present Saltville, Virginia and a knowledge of working copper gave the Yuchis in the Chisca area a tremendous economic advantage in dealing with their neighbors.” Evans added that: “[the Spanish soldier] Ribas had married a Yuchi woman who had been captured in southwestern Virginia by Sergeant Moyano. The woman had the Christian name Luisa Menendez.’Y35j In a significant development since my 2004 article, Charles Hudson has changed his mind to accept that Moyano’s attack occurred in Holstonia, rather than farther south as he originally believed. Hudson wrote: “...the Chiscas [Yuchi] were located on the Holston River or its tributaries,” rather than “.. .on the upper Nolichucky as I previously t h o u g h t . I n an end note in the same publication the excavators of the Berry site reinforced that con­ clusion that the Berry site is “.. .the First European settlement in what is now the interior of the United States. Taking a shot at English Virginia and Walter Raleigh, the Berry site excavators have recently taken to calling Fort THE FIRST BATTLE OF SALTVILLE 38 �St. Juan “the first Lost Colony.”(3#J So doing is not necessarily particularly good history, but it’s great public rela­ tions. T he C ollapse and D eparture of the M ississippian P eople of H olstonia In the wake of the de Soto and Pardo/Moyano entradas the American Indian populations of Holstonia shrunk as a result of disease and departure. Eventually the region became emptied of people. This empty region was what was found by the first English-speakers who arrived in Holstonia beginning around 1735. Sadly, we cannot detail what caused depopulation because neither history nor archeology offer any direct evidence. What has been welldocumented is that depopulation was widespread in the Southeast in the years after the Spanish were in the region(39) and that these reduced populations of Southwest Virginia relocated.(¥0,) The evidence of improper archeology suggests that at least some of the American Indians of Southwest Virginia moved to Stokes County, N.C., in the wake of the Moyano attack.(41) C onclusions The principal conclusion of this article is that a powerful case has been made that the documentary history of Virginia begins in the Appalachian region of the state, not in the Tidewater region as traditional history asserts. This principal conclusion is supported by documentary evidence but not by direct archeological evi­ dence. It is always possible that a site in Southwest Virginia will produce A NATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN, WHOSE INDIAN Spanish artifacts, but none has yet NAME IS UNKNOWN, WAS BORN NEAR THIS SPOT been found.(42) However, such an IN SALTVILLE CIRCA 1545. SHE MARRIED A absence is not surprising, first the SPANISH SOLDIER ABOUT 1568 AND MOVED WITH Spanish presence in Virginia was at HIM TO THE ATLANTIC COAST. IN 1600 SHE best ephemeral, and second the dig­ TESTIFIED ABOUT HER BIRTHPLACE AT AN gers of the prime sites in the region INQUIRY IN ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA. THE FIRST were persons without formal archeo­ RECORDED PRINCESS OF VIRGINIA, HER logical training, unlikely to recognize HUSBAND TESTIFIED AT THE SAME INQUIRY THAT or record any of the Spanish artifacts SHE HAD BEEN A CHIEFTAINESS IN HER NATIVE that have been evident to the profes­ LAND. sional excavators of the Berry site. An additional conclusion is that recent studies by the author demon­ strate that pre-Columbian Southwest Figure 6. A conjectural historical marker describing the first doc­ Virginia was the home to large settled umented woman in Virginia history. populations of Americans Indians whose tribal affiliation was Yuchi. This conclusion adds plausibility to the Spanish documentary accounts of the Moyano attack. BIRTH PLACE OF LUISA MENENDEZ A cknowledgments Thanks first to Lawrence Richardson who unbeknownst to this author knew about this story two decades before the author did. Thanks to Hugh Campbell for his ongoing support. Thanks, as always, to the staff of the interlibrary loan office at Newman Library. Thanks to the staff of Newman Library Special Collections. Thanks to George 39 �Kegley for suggesting that I write this article. Special thanks to Professor Paul Hoffman who read and criticized an earlier draft of this article; the mistakes and errors that remain are solely the responsibility of the author. Last, but not least, particular thanks to Deena Flinchum for her strong and continuing support. E nd N otes 1 The first Virginian we can name is very probably Paquiquineo (aka Don Luis de Velcaso) who slew the Jesuit mission­ aries on the shore of the Chesapeake Bay in 1570.1have concluded that the most probable birth year for Paquiquineo is 1544 and that the most probable birth year for Luis Menendez is 1553. For Paquiquineo see Clifford Merle Lewis and Albert J. Loomie, The Spanish Jesuit Mission in Virginia 1570-1572 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1953). Francis Luca, "Re-Interpreting the Role of the Cultural Broker in the Conquest of La Florida, 1513-1600," (on line at http://www.kislakformdation.org/prize/199901.html). Paul E. Hoffman, A New Andalucía and a Way to the Orient. The American Southeast During the Sixteenth Century, reprint edition with a new introduction (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2004. Daniel K. Richter, "Tsenacommacah and the Atlantic World," (pp. 29-65 in Peter C. Mancall, ed., The Atlantic World and Virginia, 1550-1624. Chapel Hill: Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, by the University of North Carolina Press, 2007). See also the older, novelistic treatment by James Branch Cabell, The First Gentleman of America: A Comedy of Conquest (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1942). 2. Lawler, Andrew. "Spain Makes a Stand: After More Than 400 Years a Fort Built by Conquistadors Has Finally Been Found," (Smithsonian, 36:12: 33-34,2006. Constance E. Richards, "Contact and Conflict: Spain's attempt to establish a 16thcentury fort in what is now North Carolina seems to have started well and then ended disastrously. A site at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains could solve the mystery of what happened and why" (American Archaeology, 12(1): 12-18, 2008). Suzannah Smith Miles, "The Price of Gold," np WNC [Western North Carolina] Magazine, http://www.wncmagazine.com/feature/history_feature/thejprice_of_gold, January 2009). Marion T. Blackburn, "Spain's Appalachian Outpost: Failed ambitions for a North American empire," (Archaeology, 62(4): 38-43, 2009). See also Jim. Glanville "Virginia Before Pocahontas (Washington Post, 19 April, 2005, p. A18) and most recently, Ralph Berrier Jr., "The slaughter at Saltville: In 1567, Spanish soldiers killed hundreds of American Indians in Southwest Virginia, a story few knew until a retired professor uncovered it, (Roanoke Times, Sunday, September 20, 2009, page 1, "Extra" section). 3. Wallenstein, Peter. Cradle of America: Four Centuries of Virginia History. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007. 4. Library of Virginia, "Virginia Memory Chronology" http://www.virginiamemory.com/reading_room/chronology_by_period. 5. Mississippian is a poorly defined term used by archeologists to described the American Indian societies that occupied the Mississippi river watershed and the Deep South in the period 800-1600 AD. They were generally mound builders, relied on maize-based sustenance, had social ranks, engaged in ceremonial activities, produced highly artistic objects with iconic designs from marine shell, copper, pottery, etc., and engaged in long distance trade and exchange. A useful introduction to Mississippian civilization by a historian can be found in the early chapters of R. S. Cotterill’s The Southern Indians. The Story of the Civilized Tribes before Removal (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1954). There is a huge archeological litera­ ture about Mississippian civilization, some of it very opaque. See for example "Parsing Mississippian Chiefdoms," Chapter 4 in Timothy R. Pauketat’s Chiefdoms and Other Archaeological Delusions (Lanham: AltaMira Press, 2007). 6. Pendleton, William Cecil. History of Tazewell County and Southwest Virginia: 1748-1920 (Richmond: W. C. Hill Printing Company, 1920) pp. 30-31 and Lewis Preston Summers, History of Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786, Washington County, 1777-1870 (Richmond: J. L. Hill printing Company, 1903) pp. 24-25. 7. Prominent Virginia archeologist the late Howard MacCord was adamantly opposed to the notion of large settled Mississippian American Indian Populations in Southwest Virginia. Author's interviews with Glenn Williams, Abingdon, Va., 17 March 2004, and Lawrence Richardson 18 March 2004, Saltville, Va. Around 1982, Richardson heard Howard MacCord say about the Indians of the region that "we don't know who they were, we don't know where they came from, we don't know how long they were here, when they left, and where they went to." Hearing that statement led Richardson on a twenty-year quest for the Yuchi Indians (Lawrence Richardson, The Yuchi Indians, Unpublished manuscript, 2004, copy in author's file). 8. Lawrence Richardson has lived for many years in Adwolfe in Smyth County. Now retired, he was a dairy farmer by vocation and an historian and archaeologist by avocation. He was one of the excavators of the Fox archeological site in Smyth County in 1974. In the author's opinion, he is by far the most important living amateur archeologist of the region and the only one who has understood its significance. 9. Virginia archeologists conventionally call the Mississippian Period the Late Woodland Period and have been reluctant to concede that Mississippian people lived in Southwest Virginia. That situation is finally changing. 10. To my knowledge, the only professional archeologists who have commented on the richness of the Mississippian arti- 40 �facts recovered over the years in Southwest Virginia are Mike Barber and Gene Barfield. See: Michael B. Barber, "Saltville and Environs: The Woodland period," pp. 39-50 in Eugene B. Barfield and Michael B. Barber, eds. Upland Archeology in the East: Symposium Number Five, (Richmond, Virginia: Archeological Society of Virginia, 1996). In this article Barber describes Saltville as the center of a "salt powered chiefdom." Barber at the time of this writing is the State Archeologist of Virginia. 11. Glanville, Jim. "Improper Archeology, 'Fabulous Saltville,' and the Ancient History of Southwest Virginia." The Smithfield Review, Volume IX, pages 55-100, 2005. 12. Glanville, Jim. "The Space Farms Museum Collection of Southwest Virginia Artifacts," (Quarterly Bulletin of the Archeological Society of Virginia, 62(1): 7-30, 2007) and "Richard G. Slattery and the History of Archeology in Southwest Virginia" (Quarterly Bulletin of the Archeological Society of Virginia, 62(2): 86-106,2007). 13. Robinson, W. Stitt, Early American Indian Documents: Treaties and Laws, 1607-1789. Washington, D.C.: University Publications of America, 1983. 14. One objective of these so-called "mourning" wars was to take captives who could be adopted by the New York tribes to replenish those tribes' ever depleting populations. Tribal adoption was a common practice; even Europeans would occasion­ ally be adopted. 15. Hudson, Charles, M. Conversations with the High Priest of Coosa (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003) and A. Gwynn Henderson, Kentuckians Before Boone (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992). 16. Glanville, Jim. Unknown Holstonia: Southwest Virginia Before the Settling of Jamestown. Paper presented at the Virginia Forum, Library of Virginia, Richmond. Saturday April 14, 2007. Self published. On line at www.holstonia.net. 17. Mound building is usually considered a cultural characteristic of Mississippian people. Holstonian Mississippians did not build mounds and that is one reason that they have been overlooked. 18. Lawrence Richardson (unpublished manuscript, see above) was the first person to make the Yuchi association with Holstonia. I believe this association is correct, but the detailed arguments lie beyond the scope of the present paper. 19. Beck, Robin A., Jr. The Burke Phase: Late Prehistoric Settlements in the Upper Catawba River Valley, North Carolina (Master’s thesis, Department of Anthropology, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, 1997), pp. iv-v, and David G. Moore Late Prehistoric and Early Historic Period Aboriginal Settlement in the Catawba, Valley, North Carolina (Doctoral thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1999) pp. v-viii. 20. Hudson, Charles, M. The Juan Pardo Expeditions: Exploration of the Carolinas and Tennessee, 1566-1568. With Documents Relating to the Pardo Expeditions Transcribed, Translated, and Annotated by Paul E. Hoffman. Washington, D.C: The Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990. 21. A few of Hudson's many works include: The Southeastern Indians (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1976); editor, Black Drink: A Native American Tea (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1979), with Roy S. Dickens, and Roy C. Craven, Of Sky and Earth: Art of the Early Southeastern Indians (Atlanta: High Museum of Art and the Georgia. Dept, of Archives and History, 1982), Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun; Hernando de Soto and the South's Ancient Chiefdoms (University of Georgia Press: Athens and London, 1997), with Robbie Ethridge, eds., The Transformation of the Southeastern Indians, 1540-1760 (Jackson: The University of Mississippi Press, 2002), etc. 22. Hudson, Charles. "The Hernando de Soto Expedition," pp. 74-103 in Charles Hudson and Carmen Chaves Tesser, eds., The Forgotten Centuries: Indians and Europeans in the American South, 1521-1704 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994), "The Historical Significance of the Soto Route," pp. 313-328 in Patricia Galloway, ed., The Hernando De Soto Expedition: History, Historiography, and "Discovery" in the Southeast (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997), etc. 23. Worth, John E. "Recollections of the Juan Pardo Expeditions: The 1584 Domingo de León Account." Manuscript on file, Fembank Museum of Natural History, Atlanta, 1994. Unpublished. Personal communication, copy in author's files. 24. Beck, Robin A. "From Joarato Chiaha: Spanish Exploration of the Appalachian Summit Area, 1540-1568." Paper pre­ sented at the 52nd Southeastern Archaeological Conference, Knoxville, Tennessee, November 1995. 25. Richardson, Lawrence. Letter written from Marion, Virginia, to Robin Beck, 8 February 1996. It tells that Tom Klatka was in the audience when Beck presented his "From Joara to Chiaha" paper at the Knoxville conference and that Richardson had learned from Klatka about Beck's presentation. Richardson says that he is elated to learn that the Chiscas were living in Saltville in 1567 and comments that they are the Yuchi. Richardson asked for copies of John Worth's translation of the de León account and other Spanish archival documents and enclosed a $25 check for Beck's copying expenses, adding that if for any reason Beck found himself unable to do this favor then Beck should "keep the check and treat yourself to a dinner." Beck in fact replied, but later Richardson misplaced Beck's reply and cannot now find it. Copy of Richardson's letter in author's file. Used with permission. 26. Beck, Robin A., Jr. "From Joara to Chiaha: Spanish Exploration of the Appalachian Summit Area, 1540-1568." Southeastern Archaeology 16(2): 162-169,1997. 27. http://www.warren-wilson.edu/~arch/berrysite. 28. Beck, Robin A., Jr., David G. Moore, and Christopher B. Rodning. "Identifying Fort San Juan: a Sixteenth-Century Spanish Occupation at the Berry Site, North Carolina." Southeastern Archaeology, 25(1): 65-77, 2006. 41 �29. Judge, Joseph. "Exploring Our Forgotten Century." National Geographic Magazine, 173(3): 331-363. March 1988 issue. 30. Lewis, Clifford Merle, S. J., and Albert J. Loomie. S. J. The Spanish Jesuit Mission in Virginia 1570-1572. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1953. 31. Hoffman, Paul E. Spain and the Roanoke Voyages. Raleigh: North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, 1987; Florida's Frontiers. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002; "Spanish and French Exploration and Colonization." In Boles, John B. ed., A Companion to the America South. Oxford (UK): Blackwell Publishers 2002; A New Andalucía and a Way to the Orient: The American Southeast During the Sixteenth Century, reprint edition with a new introduction, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2004. 32. Glanville, Jim. "Conquistadors at Saltville in 1567? A Review of the Archeological and Documentary Evidence." Smithfield Review, VIII: 70-108, 2004. 33. Clayton Lawrence A. Vernon James Knight, Jr., and Edward Moore. The de Soto Chronicles: the Expedition of Hernando de Soto to North America in 1539-1543.2 Volumes. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1993. These two volumes contain all known records of the entrada of Hernando de Soto and his army through North America. 34. Brisco, Nathan. "Archeological Notes On Smyth County, part 4 [of six]." Marion Democrat, Tuesday June 26,1933. 35. Evans, Raymond. "Prehistoric Metal Workers in the Eastern United States." Published on line at www.itslt.org/prehistoric_metal_workers.doc. 36. Hudson, Charles, M. The Juan Pardo Expeditions: Exploration of the Carolinas and Tennessee, 1566-1568. With Documents Relating to the Pardo Expeditions Transcribed, translated, and annotated by Paul E. Hoffman. Reprinted edition Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2006 (originally, Washington, DC: The Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990). New foreword by Charles Hudson pp. ix-x. 37. Moore, David G., Robin A. Beck, Jr., and Christopher B. Rodning. "Afterword: Pardo, Joara, and Fort San Juan Revisited." Pp. 343-349 in Hudson, Charles, M. The Juan Pardo Expeditions: Exploration of the Carolinas and Tennessee, 1566-1568. With Documents Relating to the Pardo Expeditions Transcribed, Translated, and Annotated by Paul E. Hoffman. Reprint edition. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, 2006 (originally, Washington, DC: The Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990). 38. http//:www.unctv.org/exploringNC/episode405.html. 39. Dobyns, Henry F. Their Number Became Thinned: Native American Population Dynamics in Eastern North America. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1983. Ann F. Ramenofsky and Patricia Galloway, "Disease and the Soto Entrada," pp. 259-282 in Patricia Galloway, ed., The Hernando De Soto Expedition: History, Historiography, and "Discovery" in the Southeast. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997. 40. Smith, Marvin T. Archaeology of Aboriginal Culture Change in the Interior Southeast. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1987 and "Aboriginal Population Movements in the Early Historic Period Interior Southeast." Pp. 43-56, in Powhatan's Mantle: Indians in the Colonial Southeast, (revised and expanded edition) Peter Wood, Gregory Waselkov, and Thomas Hatley, eds. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006. 41. Glanville, Jim. Unknown Holstonia. See note 16. 42. The author has been vigilant about pursuing hints of the existence of Spanish artifacts in Holstonia, but to date die only promising object turned out to be of African origin and dated three centuries later than the conquistadors. See: Jim Glanville, "The Blade from Glade" (The Smithfield Review, Volume X: 33-37, 2006). 42 �An aerial view of the Elks National Home in 1924 by Underwood & Underwood. he Elks National Home never fails to impress a first-time visitor. Stucco gate pillars mark the entry to the grounds off of leafy Ashland Avenue in Bedford, Virginia, and as one travels down the winding drive the Elks Home comes into view. A main building fronted by a classical portico anchors the complex, which extends to left and right as a series of dormitories, or cottages as the Elks call them, linked by a continuous arcade over 800 feet in length. (7,) The Elks Home has its origins far from Bedford, and under unlikely circumstances. The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE) was the brainchild of a young English comic singer and dancer named Charles A.S. Vivian, who left his native England in 1867 to further his career in New York. According to one account, “Vivian’s charming wit and personality quickly endeared him to a close-knit group of actors and entertainers in the city.” The friends enjoyed food and spirits but found themselves inconvenienced by New York’s blue laws, which shut down their favorite watering holes on Sundays, the one day of the week entertainers had off. To get around the restrictions and to manage the growing size of the gatherings, Vivian suggested the creation T Dan Pezzoni, an architectural historian and preservation consultant with Landmark Preservation Associates in Lexington, formerly worked in the Roanoke Regional Preservation Office o f the State Department o f Historic Resources. He is the author, editor or co-editor o f eight county architectural histories published or in production. His History and Architecture of Lee County, North Carolina (1995) received an Award o f Merit from the American Association o f State and Local History. He has prepared National Register o f Historic Places nominations fo r over 100 historic districts and individual properties in seven states. 43 �Hotel Bedford in a photograph taken at the Elks National Home dedication on May 21, 1903. (Elks National Home Collection) of an informal organization, the Jolly Corks. Shortly before Christmas 1867, a member of the group died, leaving his family without financial support. This misfortune prompted the group to reorganize as a benevolent society for the aid of its members and their families. At a meeting on February 16, 1868, the Jolly Corks adopted the name, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks—the mascot said to have been inspired by a stuffed elk’s head in New York’s Bamum Museum. The organization grew slowly during its first decade of existence but by 1900 the B.P.O.E. had achieved a national presence with 75,000 members in 600 subordinate lodges.(2,) At the Grand Lodge session of 1898 the Elks resolved to “establish a home for the aged and needy members of the order.” A search for a suitable location concluded in 1902 with the purchase of the Hotel Bedford on the west­ ern outskirts of Bedford. The rambling Queen Anne style hotel was constructed in 1890 at the height of the devel­ opment boom that Bedford, Roanoke, and other cities and towns of western Virginia experienced during the 1880s and early 1890s. The original owner, the Bedford City Land and Improvement Company, built the hotel as the centerpiece of a large residential addition to Bedford, with a circular drive known as Crescent Avenue around the hotel, radiating streets, and hundreds of building lots. The scheme was poorly timed; the regional development bubble burst by the end of 1893 and few if any lots were built upon. The hotel passed through several owners before it was purchased by the Elks. The Hotel Bedford probably appealed to the Elks for a number of reasons, chief among them its availability while the Elks were searching for a facility of the requisite size. Also, Bedford possessed good railroad connections, and the hotel stood just uphill from the location of the Norfolk and Western station at the time. What a period promotional brochure touted as 44 �Bedford’s “delightful and healthful climate” was undoubtedly an added inducement in an era of unhealthy cities, malarial lowlands, and an absence of air conditioning. The Hotel Bedford was a sophisticated building, the work of an accomplished although as yet unidentified architect. The 200-foot-long three-story building had many of the hallmarks of the Queen Anne style, the style of choice for the grand railroad and resort hotels of the era. Above a stone first story rose a wood-shingled second level and an attic story that bristled with turrets, dormers, and elaborate brick chimneys. The dominant feature was a five-story observation tower of gradated cylindrical form. The rounded form was repeated by a comer veranda gazebo with columns and latticework. In a photograph taken at the Home’s dedication on May 21, 1903, the hotel appears to be in good condition. By 1909, however, the Elks leadership had decided the building was inadequate. “As elegant as the former hotel was,” wrote one historian, “it lacked the modem conveniences and safety consid­ ered necessary to a properly run establishment for older gentlemen.” Various committees considered options such as remodeling or moving to a new location, but in 1911 it was decided to replace the hotel with a new facility on the same site. By March 1912 the Chicago architectural firm, Ottenheimer Stem and Reichert, was selected to develop conceptual plans for the new Horne.(4) The work of demolishing the hotel began in 1913 and the residents were moved to temporary lodgings in the Jeter Institute, a former college building located a short distance to the east. Salt Lake City contractor Patrick J. Moran headed construction of the new facility, which was dedicated on July 8, 1916, with Governor Henry C. Stuart as the featured speaker. Another event of note occurred in 1920 when President Elect Warren Harding — an Elk — was invited to visit the Home by an old acquaintance who lived there. Harding had lunch at the Home and addressed a crowd out front of what the New York Times called an “imposing, white-pillared building set down among the Blue Ridge Mountains.” The Home was estimated to have “100 or more” residents at the time. In 1921 the resident population was 135 and three years later it was \1A.(5) The building that so impressed the New York Times was a prototype of the retirement homes that would become more common in America during the second half of the 20th century. Its architect, the firm of Ottenheimer Stem and Reichert, had a wellestablished working relationship with the Elks hierarchy in Chicago, one of the cap­ itals of Elkdom. (An architect at the firm during the period was Rudolph Schindler, who would become one of the leading modernist architects of the 20th century, but whether Schindler was involved in the design of the Elks Home is unknown.) The blue print room in the basement of the Home’s Administration Building preserves drawings and specifica­ tions that include what appear to be the Ottenheimer firm’s earliest conceptual designs, dated March 1912. The form and basic interior layout of the Administration Building, the chief building and architectural focal point of the complex, were determined at the outset. The monumental portico, for example, was ultimately built with only minor departures from the 1912 design, such as the substitution of a clock for a terra-cotta cartouche in the pedi­ ment. Otherwise the 1912 Administration Building design had a stronger Mediterranean character and more elab­ orate detail than the final version. Art Nouveau influence is seen in some details, such as the sinuous ogee surround of the doors to the building’s dining room balcony. As the Ottenheimer design evolved, more reserved classical elements were substituted for the overtly Mediterranean features. The Mediterranean-Baroque-Art Nouveau flavor was preserved, however, in forms and finishes such as Spanish tile roofs, stucco walls, and the elliptical vaulting of the dining room. Later buildings con­ structed in the 1920s and 1930s perpetuated the Mediterranean theme. An Elks promotional publication from about 1940 described the Home as “a beautiful structure, most effectively combining classic and Spanish mission fea­ tures of architecture.’Yd) Site planning also evolved during the period. An early Ottenheimer site plan shows the Administration Building with essentially its present form but situated closer to the intersection of Ashland Avenue and College Street, near the former hotel location. The concept of the dormitory ranges had been established, but rather than having the present crescent arrangement the ranges and main building defined three sides of a large rectangular space open on the south side. A section drawing shows that the enclosed space had a rolling, valley-like topography with the main building and dormitories overlooking it from higher ground. A driveway approached from the rear, entered the rec­ tangular space through an arched underpass, and curved around to an elevated forecourt in front of the Administration Building portico. �Administration Building with Elk statue. Adding to the drama of topography and approach was to be an intermittent stream that flowed southward to a pond at the foot of the hill, near the Norfolk and Western Railway station. Instead of this picturesque arrangement the complex was shifted northward so that the elevated hotel site became — presumably with extensive regrading — a level and spacious lawn. Rather than coming from the rear the driveway approached at an angle from the front. The new location sloped on the north side rather than the south side so that the views from the dormitory rooms were directed to the farmland and mountains to the north.(7j Both the original and final designs of the Elks Home featured ranges of buildings connected by arcades and focused on a central porticoed main building, an arrangement that calls to mind the plan of the Lawn at the University of Virginia. The solution of incorporating the arcades or connecting elements into the fronts of the orig­ inal six cottages also evokes the University of Virginia plan, specifically the form of pavilions such as Pavilion VII. These similarities seem too strong to be coincidental and suggest the architects involved with the project were inspired by Jefferson’s campus. Other aspects of the Home’s plan derive from functional and constructional logic. The concept of multiple dor­ mitories, rather than a single large consolidated building, allowed for incremental construction according to need and finances—a method put into practice with the construction of a seventh dormitory, now known as Cottage A, in 1923. The multi-building approach may also have been motivated by health and safety concerns. Multiple small­ er buildings permitted resident rooms to have ample light and natural ventilation, and, in addition to the masonry and stucco construction, helped limit the threat of devastating fire. Earlier, the Elks leadership had worried about fire when the Home was housed in the mostly frame Hotel Bedford.(S) Circulation was solved by the arcaded walkways. Period accounts emphasized the fact that the floors of the arcades were on the same level as the communal spaces of the main building, an important consideration since many of the residents used canes or crutches. It may be that shifting the buildings to the most level part of the site 46 �Administration Building dining room. during the design development phase reflected in part the need for one-level circulation. The openness of the arcades is consistent with the premium placed on fresh outdoor air for respiratory health, a feature of the sanitari­ ums and summer resorts of the era. The south-facing orientation of the arcades made them suitable for sunning by elderly residents. The arcades also provided shaded outdoor sitting areas during warm weather.(9) The Elks Home continued to expand in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The growth was fortuitous when nation­ al events in the 1930s increased the number of elderly members who needed care. The depression precipitated by the stock market crash of 1929 strained the ability of aid agencies nationwide to assist the elderly. The Elks Home addressed the crisis among its membership by providing for over 400 residents, the largest enrollment in the histo­ ry of the institution, and the building campaign of the era created the additional space to house the influx. Since the increase in capacity began with the construction of Cottage A in 1923 and Cottage H in 1926, it is likely the Elks leadership was responding to the demographics of its organization, as the wave of members who joined in the late nineteenth century reached retirement age, rather than anticipating the economic downturn of the 1930s. The Home’s population peaked somewhere over 412 residents in 1934 and slowly declined to about 300 by 1940. Social Security, which went into effect in 1935, probably eased the pressure. Cottage H, built to designs by the New York architectural firm of Clinton and Russell in 1926, inaugurated a second range of buildings behind the 1916 complex. Cottage H has a courtyard form with a two-tier arcade that links the two ends of the U. Like the 1916 arcades the Cottage H arcade has a southern orientation for the comfort of residents. Lynchburg architects Clark and Crowe replicated the courtyard form with the construction of Cottage I, built next to Cottage H in 1930-31, and linked to it by a two-tier arcade. A power house and laundry were also constructed as a part of the back range, in 1926-27, and the Fred Harper Theatre was added in 1938. The theater was built behind the arcade that links cottages H and I, in essence creating a third courtyard. (70) Two talented artists have left their mark on the Elks Home. The bronze Elk that stands in front of the Administration Building was cast to a design by Ohio-born artist Eli Harvey (1860-1957). Harvey was known for his animal art, which included ornaments for the lion house at the New York Zoological Park and the brown bear that is the mascot of Brown University. In 1904 the Elks leadership commissioned Harvey to produce a sculpture 47 �Cottage and its arcade. of an elk. The Elks Home elk was cast by the Gorham Manufacturing Company of Providence, Rhode Island, apparently the source for many of the Elks statues around the country. An artist of a different sort was resident Tom Sidonia, whose colorful career included stints as a tightrope per­ former and as an artist for the Bamum and Bailey Circus. Sidonia painted four of the six murals in the Ad m in istratio n Building dining room, including a picture of a wounded World War I soldier being assisted by a comrade and a Saint Bernard dog to illustrate the Elks virtue of “Brotherly Love,” and one of a Patriot soldier at picket duty in the snow to illustrate “Fidelity.” Sidonia’s 1942 library mural, titled “On the Eve of Discovery,” depicts Christopher Columbus’s 1492 fleet on the high seas. His mural in the recreation room shows a wagon train and pioneers. Tom Sidonia also took on projects in the community, painting murals in Greens Drug Store m Bedford, and he also illustrated a 1942 scrapbook, presented to a retiring Home employee, that survives m the Elks Home collections.(77,) Over the years various commentators have recorded their impressions of the Elks Home. In 1931 Ralph Hagan, a former chairman of the Board of Grand Trustees, remarked to the Elks’ national convention, “You have an admin­ istration building there which contains a large sun parlor, for the guests, and a billiard hall and card room, library, and the general offices. You have then 11 other buildings known as ‘Base Units’ [the cottages] housing about 40 guests each, and in each one of these units, every three or four doors, you have showers and baths . . . We have many features there to entertain our guests, such as a ninehole golf course, a fishing pond and a croquet green. Hagan also commented on the Home farm, noting that a large percentage of the property’s 123 acres were under cultivation. “I am happy to say that this year we have had large crops and are going to be able to take care of our 48 �dairy herd, and raise many commodities for the table.” The Home farm remains an important part of the complex, although it is no longer used for agriculture. Its dominant building is a three-level dairy bam of frame and stuccoed masonry construction. Its gambrel roof enclos­ es a capacious hay mow—in which hangs part of the hay fork apparatus—and two glazed tile block silos rise on one end. The basementlevel cow stalls were aired by an ingenious set of ventilation shafts and openings. Ralph Hagan concluded his account by stating, “The Home was founded as a home, in all that that word implies, for wor­ thy, aged, and indigent Elks. The welfare of our Brothers in their declining days is a solemn obligation.”^ , ) In an Elks promotional booklet published in the mid-20th century, possibly ca. 1940, Mildred Masters provid­ ed a detailed account of daily life at the Home and the functions of its various buildings. Masters was among the first to emphasize the resort-like character of the Home, now a major component of its program, while she acknowl­ edged the necessarily relaxed pace of the activities. “This magnificent resort is a top-notch residential club . . . Some of the guests are playing a round of golf on the nine-hole course stretching out across the front lawns; oth­ ers are resting on the benches and swings under the big trees, and many are nodding contentedly as they sit in the warm sunshine on the front veranda.” Masters referred to the lobby as the “main lounge . .cheerfully decorated with growing plants . . . a fine place to congregate.” The Administration Building basement contained “dining and rest rooms for the help, as well as the tailor’s shop, carpenter’s shop and clothing rooms.” In the library, “Every morning one of the men reads aloud to all those whose eyesight is not quite up to the fine newspaper print.” The hospital contained “laboratory appa­ ratus, physio-therapy machinery, and X-ray equipment” as well as a “special dining room, with a diet kitchen” for residents in the wards. A venerable aspect of life at the Home is the Elks National Home Lodge, housed in a lodge room on the second floor of the Administration Building. According to Home Lodge historian Gilbert Fitzgerald, entertainment during the early years featured “musical sessions and variety shows, billiards, cribbage, pinochle and other recreation room tournaments. Sometimes people came from Bedford, Roanoke and Lynchburg to assist.’YI3) The Home opened its doors to younger guests during World War II. In the early phases of the war the Elks lead­ ership offered members who lived in American territories that were or were thought to be at risk, such as Hawaii, the Canal Zone, and Puerto Rico, the opportunity to send their children to the Home where they would be board­ ed for free during the hostilities. Eight Puerto Rican boys were housed in Cottage I, among them present resident Sheridan Besosa, who remembers swimming in the pool formerly located in the garden and attending movies in the Fred Harper Theatre. Besosa recalls the formality of meals in the dining room, which were served by waiters wearing white coats and black ties. Other guests of the Home during the war were four Royal Navy sailors whose boat was being repaired at the Norfolk shipyards.(14) Important in the yearly doings of the Home is the Christmas Display. During the hotel years the Superintendent’s wife managed floral decorations in the dining room, and lodges around the country sent boxes of cigars and other presents to the residents. In 1953 the Home began to decorate with electric lights along the roof line and a sleigh and reindeer out front. The new approach was the inspiration of George H. Buck, the Home’s maintenance engineer, who added features through the 1950s. Buck was assisted by Tom Sidonia and local sign painter D. H. Pinion. “By 1955, large crowds were coming from Bedford and the surrounding areas to view the displays,” writes the Home’s executive director, Dr. Ronald L. Plamondon. A “complete rearrangement” was made in 1965 when reli­ gious scenes illustrating the Christmas story in sequence were added. The display garnered national attention. During the 1972 illumination over 22,000 vehicles drove through the grounds to view the “yule-time brightening.” In 2004 an estimated 100,000 people in 27,000 vehicles viewed the display. (15) The decline in membership that had begun by 1940 has continued into the 21st century, although recent changes in the Home’s program will likely result in future increases. From 235 residents in 1975 the Home’s pop­ ulation had decreased to 117 residents in November 2007. (The present licensing capacity is 230 residents.) One important recent development was the decision in 1995 to admit women to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, reflected in the admission of female Elks members and Elk couples to the Home beginning in 1999. “You can imagine,” writes Elks Home Director of Admissions Nellie Martin, “that the addition of women as residents made many of the ‘old time’ residents apprehensive, but it has proven to be one of the most beneficial changes of all. The ladies are a positive influence on all aspects of life at the Home and they are taking an active part in the Home and 49 �Elks Home Farm. Home Lodge activities.” The indigence requirement was dropped in the second half of the 20th century and members with financial means have been encouraged to apply to the Home. Many residents remain participants in the activities of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, which today numbers over a million members in over 2,000 lodges, mak­ ing it the largest fraternal organization in the nation. The Elks continue their tradition of philanthropy, contributing to health-related causes and scholarships (the Elks rank second only to the federal government in the awarding of grants to students). At present the Elks National Home is studying options for converting additional rooms to the “independent style of living” that was introduced by renovations in the 1980s and given added impetus by the admission of women in 1999. The Home was recently listed in the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register, and rehabilitation tax credits are being considered for future rehabilitation work. The changes of recent years will help ensure that the Home remains a vital part of the Elks organization. (16) E nd N otes 1. This article is adapted from J. Daniel Pezzoni, “Elks National Home” (National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, 2007). A number of individuals assisted the preparation and review of the National Register nomination, foremost among them the Elks Home administrative staff: Executive Director Dr. Ronald L. Plamondon; Controller Kim J. Snow; Director of Admissions and Marketing Counselor, Nellie Martin; and Security Guard Barry Schubert. Assistance was also pro­ vided by Home resident Sheridan Besosa, City of Bedford Commissioner of Revenue Valerie N. Wilson, architectural histori­ an Betty Gereau, and John R. Kem, Michael Pulice, Jean McRae, Kelly Spradley-Kurowski, and Marc Wagner of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Contemporary photographs used in the article were taken by Dan Pezzoni in 2007. 50 �2. “BPO Elks—How it began and how it grew;” “The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.” 3. The Elks National Home Program; “From Bedford Hotel,” 3; Bedford City Land and Improvement Company plat; Bedford County Deed Book 83, 26; Bedford County grantee indexes; Viemeister, Historical Diary of Bedford, 37-38. 4. The Elks National Home Program, 1, 3, 25, 41; “From Bedford Hotel,” 3,12. 5. “From Bedford Hotel,” 12; Bedford Bulletin, September 16, 23, 30,1915; New York Times, December 6, 1920; Hagan remarks on Elks National Home. 6. Ottenheimer Stem and Reichert drawings; “Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.” 7. Ottenheimer Stem and Reichert drawings. 8. Elks Magazine, July 1938; Hagan remarks on Elks National Home. 9. Elks Magazine, March 1928. 10. Wells and Dalton. The Virginia Architects, 87-88, 90; Clinton and Russell drawings; Chambers, Lynchburg, 432. 11. Nellie Martin and Betty Gereau personal communication; Clinton County Historical Society Museum website; Smithsonian Institution Research Information System website. 12 Hagan remarks on Elks National Home. 13. Masters, “The Elks’ National Home;” Fitzgerald, “A History: The Elks National Home Lodge.” 14. Sheridan Besosa personal communication; Viemeister, Historical Diary of Bedford, 73. 15. Gaenger, “Christmas at the National Elks’ Home;” Jackson, “Elks Home Engineer Retires;” “History of the Elks National Home Christmas Display;” Plamondon, “Welcome to the Elks National Home!” 16. Personal communication with Kim Snow; Elks Magazine (June 1975), 27; Martin, “First Hundred Years,” 1-2; Plamondon, “Welcome to the Elks National Home!” B ibliography The Bedford Bulletin. Bedford, Va. Bedford County deed and grantee index records. Bedford County Courthouse, Bedford, Va. “The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.” Promotional booklet (ca. 1950s) in Elks National Home Collection. “BPO Elks—How it began and how it grew.” The Massachusetts Elk News. Undated clipping in Elks National Home Collection. Chambers, S. Allen, Jr. Lynchburg, An Architectural History. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1981. Clinton and Russell drawings in Elks National Home Collection (Blue Print Room). Clinton County Historical Society Museum website (www.clintoncormtyhistory.org). The Elks Magazine. Elks National Home Collection. Bedford, Va. The Elks National Home Program Diamond Jubilee 1903-1978. Ca. 1978. Fitzgerald, Gilbert I. “A History: The Elks National Home Lodge.” Typescript (1964) in Elks National Home Collection. “From Bedford Hotel. . . To the Elks National Home.” The Bedford Connection (October-December 1994). Gaenger, F. W. “Christmas at the National Elks’ Home.” The Elks-Antler 14:7 (January 1909): 275. Hagan, Ralph. Remarks on Elks National Home. Excerpt from printed material (ca. 1931) in Elks National Home Collection. “History of the Elks National Home Christmas Display.” Typescript (n.d) in Elks National Home Collection. Jackson, Nancy. “Elks Home Engineer Retires.” The Bedford Bulletin-Democrat, January 11, 1973. Martin, Nellie. “The First Hundred Years, 1903-2003.” In Elks National Home 1903-2003 100th Anniversary. Ca. 2003. Masters, Mildred. “The Elks’ National Home.” Article in brochure (ca. 1940?) in Elks National Home Collection. The New York Times. Ottenheimer Stem and Reichert drawings in Elks National Home Collection (Blue Print Room). Pezzoni, J. Daniel. “Elks National Home.” National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, 2007. Plamondon, Ronald L. “Welcome to the Elks National Home!” Brochure (ca. 2005) in Elks National Home Collection. Smithsonian Institution Research Information System website (http://siris-artinventories.si.edu/). Underwood and Underwood. Album of aerial photographs of Lynchburg and environs, 1924. At Jones Memorial Library, Lynchburg, Va. Viemeister, Peter. Historical Diary o fBedford, Virginia. Bedford, Va.: Hamilton’s, 1986. Wells, John E., and Robert E. Dalton. The Virginia Architects, 1835-1955. Richmond, Va.: New South Architectural Press, 1997. 51 �Salem 's East Hill North: A cem etery in th e shadow s by John Long n a hot July afternoon in 1869, the residents of Salem, Virginia, white and black, gathered on a hillside east of town. Their purpose was to pay tribute to a well-known African American Salemite, George Washington Thomas. The deceased was only thirty-three but had left quite a mark in a short life. The local paper affectionately described Thomas as “a highly respectable colored citizen...esteemed by all who knew him.” No record of the eulogies survives, but surely his neighbors would have praised his industry, affability, and popularity with both races. His white friends, a substantial number of whom were present, may have remarked on the support Thomas showed them during the recent Civil War, and how he used his new franchise to vote an “out and out Conservative ticket”—referring to the pro-Confederate Democrats of the Reconstruction era. His fellow black citizens would have remembered him for other attributes, no doubt, and they may have whispered about the suspicions of murder, a charge that the local white physicians had dismissed when they ruled the cause of death as a natural “congestion of the lungs.”(7) The cemetery in which they prepared to lay their neighbor was only a few months old, and perhaps Thomas was the first to be interred there. At the end of the services, perhaps Thomas’s African-American friends left a rough stone marker or some form of “grave good” as a remembrance. But soon the grave was marked by a more lastin g tribute, an upright stone marker “erected by the white people of Salem.. .in honor of an honest, industri­ ous colored man.” That stone, featuring two hands shaking under the epitaph “Peace to his ashes,” still stands today, the oldest marker in East Hill Cemetery North, Salem’s primary African-American burial ground for gen­ erations.^ 0 For much of its history, East Hill North (hereafter EHN) has attracted little positive attention. Ignored by many, though off of Main Street only a few blocks away from downtown Salem, EHN was neglected and over­ grown for long periods of time. Vandals have desecrated grave markers, others have disappeared or been dis­ placed by time and neglect. Records of those buried there, if accurate ones were ever kept, have mostly vanished. Only in recent years has any effort been made to preserve the cemetery and memorialize those who lie there. This report is the product of the latest such effort, and represents the most complete accounting of the history of and burials in EHN ever compiled. It cannot be considered a complete one, however, nor a finished product. Further research already has and will continue to uncover names of burials in EHN, and both the Salem Historical Society and the Salem City Manager’s Office plan to maintain an evolvable and correctable database of names. East Hill Cemetery traces its origin to an 1868 land auction. Nathaniel Burwell, one of the valley’s largest land- (and slave-) holders, had died two years previous, and his heirs were selling off parts of his estate to the south and east of the town of Salem (then a community only a few blocks long and deep). Some of the land south of town was purchased by former slaves of Burwell, and became the genesis of the Water Street Community, Salem’s main African-American neighborhood for the next century. But another two-acre tract north of the m ain road, just to the east of the town, was purchased by a wealthy white farmer and businessman, 52 �Graves in East Hill North Cemetery are marked by a variety of stones. Bernard Pitzer, for $11 an acre. According to a newspaper account of the day, Pitzer immediately granted the land “to the colored people for a burying ground.’YJ,) The reason for Pitzer’s benevolence was never explained. A former slave owner, perhaps he felt a noblesseoblige responsibility to the black community to provide them a resting place. Whatever the reason, the cemetery was put to use at least within the next year, as the aforementioned George W. Thomas was interred there in 1869. If there are older burials, no records or evidence survive today. Nor can we know if the ground was already in use as a burial place prior to Pitzer’s purchase, as some have suspected. The deed between the Burwell estate and Pitzer, however, was not recorded until 1871,(4) leading to some contusion as to the date of EHN’s founding. A landscaped sign at the entrance, now behind the memorial wall, bears the date 1871, though 1868 is the better attested founding date. It is interesting to note that the larger East Hill Cemetery for whites across Main Street was established in 1869, though some burials date from the Civil War. EHN is, then, the older of the two as an active public burial place. Little of the early history of East Hill North survives. The graveyard appears on an 1883 map as “African Cemetery” and an 1891 map as “Colored Cemetery,” but almost no other documentary evidence has been found.(5,) Other than extant gravestones, there are no burial records prior to the 1890s. Thus, we have to look to other similar cemeteries to make assumptions about the history of EHN. Perhaps no organization in the U.S. has done more work in preserving African American cemeteries than the Chicora Foundation of Columbia, S.C. On its webpage, Chicora lists several answers to the question “what makes African American cemeteries different?” The conclusions, based on extensive research, certainly apply in several points to EHN. The italicized comments after each feature describe the extent to which EHN reflects that point. (75) 53 �• These cemeteries typically have very long use—meaning that they have many more burials than immedi­ ately meets the eye (we “see” only the most recent burials, many others have been filled in and are no longer easily recognizable). This certainly describes EHN, with nearly 800 known burials in 2 acres, and untold num­ bers unknown. In a phone conversation with Chicora, a representative added that the tradition in black cemeter­ ies was fo r no one to be turned away and the space never consideredfilled. • They are m aintained differently—being cleaned up only yearly or only when a new burial is interred (often resulting in cleaning up only the access and burial site). Consequently, the look “abandoned” to Anglo eyes. This was certainly true o f EHN in the past, though less so now under city maintenance. • Graves are often marked differently—because of both tradition and poverty many graves were marked using “living” memorials, such as bulb plantings, cedar trees, and yucca plants. Other graves were marked using impermanent markers, such as wood planks or stakes. And some graves were marked with unconventional items, such as iron pipes or even sections of railroad iron. EHN features many historic plantings, and almost certainly featured such impermanent markers as described here, though few survive. Fieldstone markers are obvious, and some examples o f bricks or building block can be found. . Traditionally graves often had grave goods—items ranging from bottles to shells. These funerary objects, while on the surface of graves, are not abandoned. Those discovering these objects have no right of ownership and can’t confer a right of ownership to others—they were intended to remain with the deceased. Removing these objects is the same as looting a grave. Perhaps this has been true o f EHN, but there is no ready evidence, physical or documentary, o f such today. • These graveyards are typically not deeded or otherwise identified or recorded as cemeteries. Since most of these locations go back to slavery and have “always” been associated with the Black community, there has been no feeling that any legal deed or paperwork was necessary. They are rarely shown on maps and almost never appear on plats from antebellum days. True o f EHN to a degree. While it dates to post-slavery period, adminis­ tration seems to have been always left to the black community o f Salem. But that community has never held a clear title to the property, and today it is not on the property rolls o f the City o f Salem with an owner o f record. It has historically appeared on property maps, however, and has always been recognized as a cemetery. • Even urban graveyards for African Americans remain different from adjacent white cemeteries. There is a strong tradition of mutual aid and cooperation. Burial associations and fraternal organizations both played major roles in more urban African American communities. Though we cannot know the extent to which fraternal organ­ izations acted in this part, the Citizen’s League, black churches, and earlier civic groups have certainly taken responsibility fo r EHN. Not until 1936 do we get any evidence of the caretaking efforts of EHN by the local community. In August of that year the African-American community planned a benefit concert to “make several much-needed repairs, including grading the driveways, “some grubbing and weeding,” and adding a retaining wall at the main entrance, which at that time seemed to be the Monroe Street opening.^ Interestingly, the newspaper account also mentions that an application had been made to the WPA and PWA for funds to pay for the repairs, but that since there was no “satisfactorily cleared” title to the land even then, the government would not grant any money. (8) A second benefit was held the following September 28, raising $7.00.(9) A letter of thanks for the benefit was signed by William R. Wilson, a local music teacher, who was secretary for the “Trustees of Colored Cemetery,” indicating an organized group to oversee the administration of the graveyard. The following year, in November 1937, a local African American Boy Scout troop under the direction of George Bowles, sponsored another fundraising drive to “put the local Colored Cemetery in proper condition.” Once again William Wilson headed the drive, with the assistance of Henry Hill, longtime bell-ringer at Roanoke College. A newspaper story noted that prior fundraising efforts (presumably those of 1936) had achieved some repairs, but others were still needed.(7 0) No specific accounting of what work was accomplished survives, but it is clear that even in the midst of the Great Depression, Salem’s African American community made preservation of their historic burial place a priority. Oral history also provides some clues of the cemetery’s past. Henry Bellinger, today a resident of Odenton, 54 �MD, grew up in Salem’s Government Hill neighborhood, an area, once predominant­ ly black, behind East Hill North and Longwood Park. Bellinger well recalls watching gravedigger Paul Pate open graves in the 1940s and 50s, an activity that always caught the attention of neigh­ borhood boys. He adds that frequently wooden remains of coffins and even human bones could be seen, evidence of the tradition of reusing burial sites in black cemeteries (see Chicora point number 1 above). When a funeral was held, he often joined the mourning party, and so wit­ nessed many burials in EHN.(7i) Bellinger also recalls his grandfather’s role in marking graves. Edward Morrison crafted concrete gravestones for local fam­ ilies who could not afford a commercially produced marker. The stones were molded in the front yard of the Morrison home on Monroe Avenue.(72) Many of Morrison’s stones are still evident in EHN, though the inscriptions have often eroded past the point of readability. The gravediggers of a small town fill an unusual but necessary niche. Though no one desires his services, all eventually require them. Very often in the south, the arduous labor was performed by AfricanAmericans. At least three gravediggers of the East Hill Cemeteries have been identi­ George Washington Thomas stone features hands shaking fied. Richard Gholston served the Salem and “Peace to his ashes” epitaph. community as gravedigger for nearly three decades as an employee of undertaker John M. Oakey. Oakey credited him with interring nearly 600 bodies in both East Hill cemeteries, and his obitu­ ary noted that Gholston “almost made East Hill” through his efforts at beautification. In tribute to his lengthy service, Gholston was buried in the white section of East Hill, in the plot of Oakey’s own family His grave marker displays a pick and shovel above a heartfelt inscription penned by Oakey. Gholston seems to be the first African American buried in the white cemetery, unknowingly crossing an important color barrier generations before the Civil Rights movement began in earnest. Later, the role of gravedigger was filled by one George Leftwich (died 1911). His burial record at Oakey’s lists his residence as the cemetery, perhaps indicating the there was a caretaker’s shed at that time. Finally, Paul Pate handled the necessary duty in the mid-20th Century. A WWI veteran, Pate would one day himself be laid to rest in EHN. In more recent years, of course, the task of grave-digging has fallen to professional representatives of funeral homes or vault services, typically using mechanized earth-moving equipment. By the mid-20th century, burials in EHN were becoming less frequent and the condition of the cemetery was again suffering. In the early 20th century, an African American cemetery known successively as Midway, Lincoln, and Williams Memorial opened between Roanoke city and Salem. (72) As the use of Williams grew, 55 �EHN saw fewer and fewer burials. It seems that EHN became more of a pauper graveyard for families who could not afford to buy a plot in Williams, which was considered a more prestigious cemetery. Soon the grave­ yard was again overgrown and neglected. In 1963, an African American civic group named the Citizen’s League of Salem was formed for the purpose of encouraging good citizenship, civic participation, and active voting within the black community. Local pastors Enos Glaspie and C J. Smith (of Salem’s Shiloh and First Baptist Churches, respectively) were among the founders, and within a few years they were joined on the board by local resident John H. Billy Branson, who still serves as an officer of the group. Among their other priorities, the Citizen’s League sometime later, apparent­ ly in the 1970s, took an interest in the maintenance of East Hill North. (74) Working with local churches, the Citizen’s League hired a caretaker to provide mowing and other services, but the ongoing needs soon proved too expensive. ■ _ , . In 1974, a local veteran, Charles Ballentine, visited EHN to try to record the names of veterans buried there. He found the cemetery “a briar patch” and decided better maintenance was in order. Salem’s African American community determined to take their case to City Council. On June 10, 1974, Ballentine, the Reverend James Braxton (of First Baptist Church and a member of the Citizen’s League) and other black Salemites appeared before City Council to petition for the local government to take over maintenance of EHN. Braxton reported that they had recently spent $1000 in cleaning up the property, but could not continue to give the cemetery the attention it deserved. Council requested city manager William Paxton to prepare a report on the projected costs.(75) At a subsequent meeting, Paxton reported that clean-up and repair of the cemetery would cost $3000, and continued maintenance after that $2000 annually. Council then approved the motion to assume custodial mainte­ nance of EHN.(7 <5) Apparently at that time the city government asked the Citizen’s League to assume or continue administration of the cemetery, a task it still performs today. (7 7) City care kept the cemetery grounds in presenta­ ble shape, and various improvements were made through the years. In 1989 the road through the cemetery was paved, and an entry sign (with the aforementioned error in the date) situated in an attractive flower bed was added. (18) Such laudable custodianship has not, however, prevented further vandalism of the already threatened site. (79) . „ „ As the administrators of EHN, the Citizen’s League grants permission for burials m the cemetery. But well aware that the available space is full, and probably overfull, the League typically only grants permission if the deceased has family already buried there.(20) As a result, there are few burials in EHN today, but it remains an Another task the Citizen’s League took on was compiling the first list of burials in East Hill North. This list of 214 names was produced, according to Branson, “a long time ago,” but the document gives no clue as^° * e date of compilation or the sources of the information. (21) Apparently a survey of existing gravestones and the memories of the black community were the main sources. The completed list, the only one until recent years, proved an important source in researching the cemetery, but was not without problems. Some names were mis­ spelled or duplicated, and many hundreds were missing. The list was not alphabetized and included few dates. Still, the value of the Citizen’s League’s list cannot be ignored, and provided a starting point for the more exhaustive project described below. . . , About 2003 Branson, as head of the Citizen’s League, conceived the idea of a memorial in East Hill North listing the names of those known to be buried there, most of whom lie in unmarked graves. The above-mentioned Citizen League’s list would be the main source of the names. With a basic concept in mind, Branson approached the City of Salem and the Salem Historical Society to explore the feasibility of such a project. Both entities were receptive to the effort to pay tribute to these forgotten citizens of Salem. However, all agreed that as many names as possible should be identified, since the Citizen League’s existing list was obviously only partial. Conducting the necessary research was a task adopted by Roanoke College history major R. J. Warren of Covington.. As a project for the college’s Summer Scholar program in 2006, Warren worked with his advisor Dr. John Selby (then a member of the Salem Historical Society board of directors), Branson, and the Salem Museum to compile as many names as possible. Warren’s research began with the obvious sources: the Citizen League s list and observable grave markers. 56 �WmmMm Memorial wall was dedicated at East Hill North Cemetery in Salem in 2006. He also made an effort to record any oral history of local residents who may recall a certain person buried there (it should be noted that such information was accepted at face value—no particular effort was made to verify such recollections). But the most fruitful source of information turned out to be funeral registers at John M. Oakey’s and Sons in Salem. Established in business in 1866, Oakey’s provided services to both the black and white communities in the 19th and 20th centuries. Their records go back to 1893 and include detailed information on burial place, interment date, and often even a cause of death. Warren’s methodology for the Oakey’s registers was to scan the burial records for interments in East Hill North—usually called East Hill Colored or some variation. Since there were about 300 names known prior to searching the Oakey’s records, it was believed another hundred or so may be found. Instead, Warren uncovered evidence of more than 500 additional burials in the two-acre cemetery. It should be noted that the nearly 800 names ultimately compiled by Warren’s research cannot be considered a definitive list. Oakey’s records begin only in 1893, while the cemetery was in use since at least 1869. Furthermore, the registers obviously include only those buried by Oakey’s establishment. Other funeral homes were active in Salem, including an African American firm operated by the Hofflar family, the records of which are not extant. It seems reasonable to assume that as many as 1000 people are buried in EHN, in keeping with the tradition mentioned in the Chicora point number 1 (above) that black cemeteries were never considered full .(22) While Warren’s research proceeded, Branson’s plan for a memorial continued to take shape. The original idea of a simple brick column with an inscribed aluminum plaque evolved, with help of the City of Salem, into a grander vision. Local architect Robert Frye was hired by the city to design a memorial wall, fitted with brass plaques, to serve as the entrance to the cemetery from Main Street, via a parking lot that now serves the adjacent park, tennis courts, and the Salem Museum. Frye’s plan called for a curved stone wall with a sitting wall. The stone would match that of a retaining wall to the larger East Hill Cemetery across Main Street. Stonemason Frank “Jimmy” Francisco was hired to construct the wall.(23) Although the city agreed to pay for the wall’s construction, the Citizen’s League needed to raise the money to pay for the memorial plaques listing the names. Over the next year enough was raised from the local commu- 57 �nity to cover the costs, and the memorial wall was dedicated with a fitting ceremony on August 26, 2006.(24) Since the townsfolk gathered to eulogize George Washington Thomas in 1869, similar scenes have played out on the hillside east of Salem hundreds of times. Former slaves, leaders of the freed community, pastors, teachers, laborers, unidentified paupers, unnamed infants, all were laid to rest under the shade trees of East Hill North. Due to neglect, much of that history was subsequently lost, but greater attention has helped and will con­ tinue to help bring some of the forgotten past of the cemetery back from the shadows. N otes 1. This account of the funeral is taken from Thomas’ obituary in the Roanoke Times (Salem weekly paper), 10 July, 1869. Copy in the Virginia Room of the Roanoke Public Library. 2. Some have theorized that the two hands represent the two races joining in mutual amity. Perhaps that was intended by the donors of the marker, but it should be noted that this design was a standard offering of the Gaddis gravestone compa­ ny of Lynchburg, and appears on other stones in both East Hill Cemeteries. The foil inscription reads “Peace to his ashes. This stone erected by the white people of Salem, VA in honor of George Washington Thomas, died July 7th, 1869, aged 33 years. An honored, industrious Colored man who in the days of Virginia’s greatest trial was willing to join hands with his white neighbors in the bond of mutual friendship and sympathy.” 3. Roanoke Times, June 13, 1868. 4. Roanoke County Deed Book H, page 473. 5. Gray’s New Map of Salem, 1883, and Baist’s Map of Salem and Vicinity, 1891. 6 Chicora Foundation, “African American Cemeteries,” 2003. Found on http://www.chicora.org/african_american_cemeteries.htm, accessed January 23, 2007. 7. “Colored Citizens Plan Program for Cemetery Benefit,” Salem Times-Register, August 7, 1936. Earlier plat maps show a road or path from the southwest comer of the cemetery to Main Street, just to the west of the current Salem Museum. That was perhaps the main entrance in the 19th Centuiy. 8. Ibid. 9. “Salem Colored News: Letter of Thanks” by William R. Wilson, Salem Times-Register, October 9, 1936. 10. “Colored Cemetery Drive to be Made,” , Salem Times-Register, October 29, 1937. 11. Conversation with Henry R. Bellinger, May 4, 2001. 12. Ibid. 13. Roanoke County Graveyards through 1920 (Roanoke, VA: Roanoke Valley Historical Society, 1986), 245 14. Conversation with Billy Branson, June 7th, 2007. Records of the Citizen’s League are limited, and no exact accounting of when such decisions were made, why, and by whom seems to exist. 15. “Council Approves Fair Housing Plan,” Salem Times-Register, June 13,1974. 16. “No Action on Commission Matter,” Salem Times-Register, July 11, 1974. 17. Conversation with Billy Branson, June 7th, 2007. Mr. Branson’s memory is not clear on whether the Citizen’s League was already acting in an administrative capacity at this point, or if they took over that task at this time. The Citizen’s League has also in the past contributed resources to preservation of the Cain Cemetery in West Salem, another African American burial ground. 18. Handwritten notes by Norwood C. Middleton in his research file on cemeteries, in possession of the Salem Museum. These notes were presumably taken by him while he observed the process over the course of about three weeks. Some have theorized that the road construction obliterated some graves in East Hill North, a reasonable assumption given the poor records and many unmarked graves. 19. See, for instance, “Old Cemetery Vandalized,” Salem Times-Register, September 21, 1989. 20. Conversation with Billy Branson, June 7th, 2007. 21. Ibid. Again, there seems to be no record concerning the details of the creation of this crucial source of information. The omission from the list of Thomas Glenn, a World War I veteran who died in 1976 and who was well known in the com­ munity, may indicate its compilation prior to that date. 22. Chicora Foundation, “African American Cemeteries,” 2003. Found on http://www.chicora.org/african_american_cemeteries.htm, accessed January 23, 2007. 23. “Historic Cemetery Getting a Facelift,” Salem Times-Register, Oct. 27, 2005. 24. It should be noted that a few names had to be deleted from the plaques for space considerations, and other names have been uncovered since the plaques were cast. The evolvable list kept by the Salem Historical Society should be consid­ ered the most up-to-date record for researchers, with the obvious caveat that many names will never be known. 58 �Three other William Flemings ur William Fleming, who lived on Tinker Creek in Botetourt County (present-day northeast Roanoke), was one of four men bearing that name in the 18th and 19th centuries. The others were all lawyers who served in Congress ■ ❖ William Fleming of Cumberland, County, Va., bom 1736, served in the Continental Congress in 1779-81; served on the State Supreme Court for 35 years; was president of the court in 1809; and died in office in 1824 at his country home in Chesterfield County. A photo of his painting once was mistakenly published in Cavalcade magazine with an article about William Fleming of Botetourt County (of whom there is no known image). ❖ William Fleming of Liberty County, Ga., bom in 1803, served in Congress in 1879, also was judge of county superior court, and died in 1886. ❖ William Fleming of Richmond County, Ga., born in 1856, was a school superintendent, speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives, and served in Congress from 1897-1903. William Fleming of Botetourt was bom in Scotland on Feb. 18, 1728, and moved from Staunton to Tinker Creek in 1767. A surgeon, he also was Botetourt County lieutenant, county justice, commander of Botetourt forces in the Battle of Point Pleasant, state senator, and acting governor, as senior member of the state Council in June 1781 He died in 1795. Source: Biographical Directory o f the American Congress 1774-1927, U. S. Government Printing Office, 1928 59 �From Indian slavery to freedom by Mary Kegley achel Findlay won two lawsuits 47 years apart and both of them set her free. The first was in the General Court at Williamsburg on 4 May 1773 when she and her daughter Judy, brother Samuel, and Grandmother Chance, “Indian plaintiffs,” were declared “to be free and not slaves.” They were awarded £5. The second was in Powhatan County at the May term of 1820, giving Rachel and 42 descendants their right to freedom from John Draper Sr., and his family of Wythe County.(1) Indian slavery was practiced in all of the colonies at some time in their history. Indians, taken in war, could be killed or sold into slavery. Often they were kidnapped and perhaps served as guides, interpreters, field hands or house servants. They could also be used as barter for such things as munitions, rum and woolens. South Carolina was involved more than other colonies and over a longer period of time. Over the years laws of colonial Virginia were written and rewritten and freedom cases were heard in the highest court to settle the procedures and reconfirm the laws.(2) The first court decision tied Rachel to the time in Virginia when Indian slavery was no longer legal. About 1712 her grandmother, Chance, and an Indian boy named James were captured by Henry Clay and his partner, Peter Womack, Indian traders, and brought into what is now Powhatan County, from one of the Southern Indian Nations, possibly from the Choctaw, Chickasaw or Catawba tribe. In August 1712 the children were taken to the court by Henry Clay to have their ages adjudged. Chance was believed to be bom about 1706 and James about 1704.(3,) After 1691 (some authorities say 1705) the Virginia law mled that the custom of holding Indians as slaves was no longer acceptable. Clay and his family continued to ignore the law. (4) There are records of other persons of Indian extraction suing in the General Court in Williamsburg beginning about 1772 in a “multitude of cases,” called freedom suits. In many of these cases parole evidence was allowed, taking the facts of the cases back many years. According to Hening, “thousands of descendants” were deprived of their freedom, an injustice corrected many years later when they or their descendants brought suit. (5) The remnants of one such case were found tucked into a rare book purchased by the Library of V irg in ia in 1988. The volume was owned by the library of the Council of Colonial Virginia, the members of which were also the judges who decided such cases. Much later, John Brown, Clerk of the General Court, made a copy of the original judgment which was dated 2 May 1772. The General Court, held in Williamsburg, heard the case of Robin, Hannah, Daniel, Cuffie, Isham, Moses, Peter, Judy, Autry, Silvia, Davy and Ned against John Hardiway for trespass, assault and battery and false imprisonment, and declared that they were free and not slaves and assessed their damages at one shilling. (6) One of the General Court lawyers was Thomas Jefferson, early in his practice in Williamsburg. He left his record of the detailed arguments of the counsel on both sides when the case was being heard. His abstracts were published after his death. His preservation of the case and Brown’s copy of the result give a picture otherwise impossible to imagine as the General Court's records were burned in a fire in Richmond in April 1865. (7) It is probable that Chance and her family heard of these cases. It is also likely that she had several children, but the two who are concerned with this story of Indian slavery are Nann (or Nan) the mother of Rachel and Sam, and Judy, mother of Hannah. Rachel was bom about 1754, probably in what is now Powhatan County, and may be the Rachel listed with Hannah, and Sam among the mulatto slaves mentioned in Henry Clay’s inventory R Mary B. Kegley, Wythe County historian and genealogist,is the author o f more than 50 books, including a series o/Western Waters histories and Wythe County, 1789-1990. She gave a lecture on the story o f Rachel Findlay’s slavery fo r the Historical Society in 2007. This article appeared in the Journal of the AfroAmerican Historical and Genealogical Society, Vol. 22, No. I 60 �taken in 1760. Nan was apparent­ ly a victim of poison and died when Rachel was about six months old and was therefore not involved in the freedom suit. Nan's sister, Judy, is mentioned below/#! Following Henry Clay’s death in 1760, the slaves were divided among his widow, some of the grandchildren and his four sons according to the terms of his will. When it seemed inevitable that Rachel and the others would win their suit in Williamsburg, the Clay family sent Rachel, now age 19, and her daughter Judy, age six, to the frontier of Virginia with Mitchell Clay, the grandson of the Indian trader, Henry Clay. The purpose was so she would not know she had won her free­ dom. They settled on the Clover Bottom of the Bluestone River, a branch of the New River, in the present county of Mercer County, West Virginia, in 111?,.(9) The following year John Draper and Mitchell Clay made an agreement that Draper would forego any claim to land Clay was using on New River in return for the two women, Rachel and Juda, as he called Judy. A bill of sale was signed warranting that they were Negro slaves, and the transfer was made. Mitchell Clay did not mention their Indian her­ itage/./01 Draper came from a notable frontier family and his name was prominent in the early history of Cover of the novel Free in Chains, about Rachel Findlay, written by the New River. He was the broth­ Mary B. Kegley, 2002. er of Mary Draper Ingles and the husband of Bettie Robinson Draper who were captured by the Shawnee Indians on 30 July 1755, from their homes at Drapers Meadow, now known as Blacksburg, in Montgomery County. His mother and a son were among those killed. Although his sister walked back home from captivity on the Ohio River shortly after her abduction, his wife spent six years in the Indian nation. Upon her return the couple chose a location at the foot of Teak Knob in what is now Pulaski County for their new home. Today the mountain, valley and the town nearby a bear the name of Draper. It was here that Rachel Findlay and most of her children and grandchildren would live m slavery.(II) 61 �Meanwhile, in Henry County, Hannah Finley (also noted as Fender), a first cousin of Rachel Findlay, brought her freedom case against one Mr. Marr. The jury awarded a verdict in her favor and 40 shillings in dam­ ages in August 1788, many years before Rachel’s case was brought in Wythe County. According to the evidence, Hannah was the granddaughter of two Indian children brought by Henry Clay, the elder, from the Indian nation in 1712. Testimony in her case taken in 1786 indicated that the elder Clay gave to his son, Henry, the younger, a mulatto, or Indian girl by the name of Judy, who was Hannah’s mother of this case. The grandmother was named Chance, the same person who was Rachel’s grandmother. Used in this case for Hannah’s benefit was the same record that would be used in Rachel’s case years later. It was a copy of the written document from the General Court in Williamsburg dated 4 May 1773.(72) According to the depositions, Mary Clay, the widow of Henry n v mm Clay, then aged 85 years, declared that her husband had brought in three Indians, two of whom he kept, a boy and a girl. He named B e ing a woman in the girl Chance. According to Mary she understood that her hus­ band had purchased them from a white man and it was “as far slavery and w ith o u t beyond Carolina as it was to it,” and that the Indians were Chuctaws [Choctaws]. On this trip, Henry Clay was gone 18 financial means, th e months from home. These statements were made in a case in which Ned, Lucy, Silvia, Bristol, Chance, another Ned, Frank, Peter, Sam, Rachell and her children, (also descendants of law allow ed Rachel Chance, Rachel’s grandmother) filed against Charles Clay, Millie Clay, Thomas Clay and Richard Newman. Another witness, John to b rin g h e r case in Clay, believed that Henry Clay told him that the Indians were either Chickasaws or Choctaws and their names were James and form a pauperis, Chance, and they were bought of other Indians. It is clear that Hannah of Henry County was a granddaughter of Chance, the th a t is as a pauper. same as Rachel Findlay. (75) Twenty-five years later, in 1813, Rachel Findlay brought suit She d id n o t have to again for her freedom from Indian slavery, this time in the Wythe County Court against John Draper, Sr. She claimed that she was w o rry a b o u t costs the granddaughter of an Indian woman named Chance and although she had been kept in slavery upwards of her 60 years, she realized that if she did not act now, being “old and very and expenses, and infirm” and knowing that her “living cannot be much longer,” her 30 or 40 descendants would have little chance of proving their fu rth e rm o re an case in the court. Their liberty depended upon her bringing a suc­ cessful lawsuit against her master, John Draper, Sr. (14) a tto rn e y was to be Suits for freedom had specific rules and regulations like any other. In Rachel’s case she sued for trespass, assault and battery, a p p o in te d fo r her and false imprisonment. She stated that she had been assaulted by Draper and detained in slavery “against the peace and dignity of a t no charge. the Commonwealth.”(75) Being a woman in slavery and without financial means, the law allowed her to bring her case in forma pauperis, that is as a pauper. She did not have to worry about costs and expenses, and furthermore an attorney was to be appointed for her at no charge// 6) Granville Henderson, a Wythe County attorney, who two years later would marry the daughter of General Alexander Smyth, was selected and filed the required papers on 10 June 1813. Rachel was taken into protective custody by the sheriff awaiting the appear­ ance of John Draper before the court. He was required to post a $500-bond promising he would not “beat or mis­ use” Rachel, and would allow her to obtain her evidence without interference. The bond was dated 11 August 1813.(77) On 10 November 1813 the court granted Rachel permission to go to the eastern part of the state to “take testimony to prove she is of Indian extraction and a free woman.’/ / / ) 62 �In 0rder t0 win her case Racliel had t0 Prove through her maternal line that she was descended from an Indian who was brought into Virginia after 1691 when the law clearly stated that no Indian could be held in slav­ ery Because she originally came from Powhatan County, Virginia, this “large yellow woman” traveled there ndmg a man’s saddle,” to gather her evidence. In addition to several depositions which give us the story there was a copy of a record from the General Court “held in Williamsburg 4th May 1773.” The document showed that Chance Samuel, Rachel and her child, Indian plaintiffs, sued Thomas Clay and on that date were declared “to be free and not slaves.”(79) Testimony of George Radford of Powhatan County showed that the Clay family had held several slaves of Indian extraction but that all who remained in the county had recovered their freedom by “regular suits at law.” This included Rachel’s brother, Samuel Findlay, mentioned above. The story that Rachel was conveyed out of the county was well known among the neighbors and was understood to be a way “to prevent her from the opportunity of obtammg her freedom.” John Langsdon's testimony was similar. Fanny (Frances) Langsdon remembered Rachel, her mother, Nan, and her grandmother, Chance, “who was taken from the Indian nation ” which she identified as the Catawba Nation. Other witnesses named Rachel's mother as Judy. As noted previously the Indian Nation was said to be other than Catawba.(20) In 1814 at the house of John Dean in Powhatan County, Rachel obtained the deposition of Edward Moseley, ccordmg to Moseley, Rachel had the appearance of a being of Indian extraction, and came to the house with a free man of colour” named James Findley who was said to be her cousin. Other relatives named were slaves called James and Bess (who were brother and sister), and the four children of Bess who had obtained their free­ dom in Powhatan County in 1788 and 1790, and were of the same Indian extraction as Rachel. No exact relationship was stated, but it seemed likely that they were cousins, if cousin James was the same one who was brother to Bess. These other cases were used to help prove Rachel was entitled to her freedom.(27) After gathering her evidence Rachel appeared before the justices of the court of Wythe County in March 1815 requesting to have her trial set in the county court before the “Gentlemen Justices.” The court refused, and as her documents recite, due to “unjust and oppressive restrictions imposed by the county court.” She was more specffic^statmg that John Draper, Jr., intermarried with the sister of Captain Joseph Crockett and that it would be difficult to procure a court of justices that were no way related to said Draper.” Crockett was one of the justices on the court at that time. As a result, Rachel’s attorney requested and received a writ of certiorari for the purpose a, rem?Vmg 1116 CaSe t0 1116 SuPerior Court of Law, because of the unnecessary delays. Judge Peter Johnston of bingdon signed the request on 22 March 1815. But the case was continued and continued, and as we shall see for five more years.(22) Rachel’s daughter Judy or Juda also began her case in Wythe County in 1813 and in August of that year Henley Chapman was appointed as her attorney. He was from a prominent family of Giles County and began his kiw practice m Wythe County and Montgomery County in 1801. Entering politics he served as senator in the General Assembly and was the Giles County representative at the Virginia Convention of 1829-1830, and his portrait appears in the painting of that group done by George Catlin.(23) Juda brought the suit on behalf of her­ self, Locky, Rhoda, Sam and Abram, all of whom were detained in slaveiy by Draper. They too had the protec­ tion of the sheriff until Draper posted his penalty bond in the amount of $1,000 on 25 September 1813.(24) Rachel’s case was eventually transferred to Powhatan County, probably because many of her witnesses were elderly and unable to travel to Wythe County, a distance of more than 200 miles. At the May Term of Court in 1820, Rachel won her freedom suit and was awarded one penny by the Powhatan County jury.(25) In Montgomery County, Polly, another daughter of Rachel, brought suit for herself and two of her children, Sally and Maria. Based on Rachel’s case, the court found them to be free on 1 August 1820 and determined their amages at one cent. Polly’s other children were Lucy, Lockey, Rachel and Harvey, and they were also included m the court's decision.(26) o-,Based on gpj decisioii in Rachel's case, Judy (Juda) and her family also obtained their freedom on 9 August 1820. On the same day in Wythe County, Tom and Robbin, “people of colour” who had been permitted to sue t err master John Draper, Jr., for trespass, assault and false imprisonment were found to be free. The jury recited t at they were the children of Rachel Findlay who had obtained her freedom in the May Court in Powhatan County, and that Juda was the same person sold into slavery in 1774 by Mitchell Clay.(27) The recovery of the freedom of Rachel’s extended family affected not only the elder John Draper but also the younger John Draper, 63 �and as will be noted below, Ally Draper, his sister. (28) In 1821 John Draper, Sr., filed suit against the executors and their securities of the estate of Mitchell Clay, then deceased. (29^) At the time Rachel and her children and grandchildren received their freedom, John Draper stated that of the 44 (later changed to 42) persons who were Rachel’s descendants he owned eight as his own property, and the remainder, except for a few held by Henry Patton, were in possession of his children by way of advancement. The Draper children were not named in the suit, but further research revealed that the elder Draper by two wives had sons, George, John, Jr., Silas, and James, and five daughters, Mary, wife of David Love, Elizabeth, wife of Joseph Montgomery, Rhoda, wife of Thomas Huey (Hughey), Nancy, wife of Samuel Patton, and Ally Draper, who probably never married.(30) Draper declared in his suit that Mitchell Clay knew that Rachel and Juda were of Indian extraction and not Negroes, and had committed a fraud upon him by selling them as Negro slaves. Clay’s estate was sued for reim­ bursement of the value of those 42 persons at the time they obtained their freedom. The persons the elder Draper had in his personal possession were Rachel, Juda, Locky, Lucinda, Charlotte, Rhoda, Sam, and Abraham. (31) Before the case was decided, John Draper, Sr., had died, and the suit was carried on by his son, John Draper, Jr., and grandson, Joseph Draper, a Wythe County attorney, who later served as Senator in the Virginia General Assembly and as Representative in Congress. There was testimony given by James Sayers and Thomas Huey as to the value of the Finleys. Because Rachel was old she was not given any value but the others ranged from $200 to $500. The average price as it turned out was $275. The award to Draper could have been as high as $11,550.00 based on these figures, but in 1828 the court awarded only $1,228.31 plus interest from the 26th of May 1812. According to Johnston in his book, Middle New River Settlements, the Draper suit brought against Clay's executors and their securities, resulted “in the bankrupting of Captain William Smith and the estate of Colonel George N. Pearis, who were the sureties of the executors of Clay.’Y32) Although many of the names of the 42 persons who were freed are known, there are still some missing names in spite of extensive research in the Wythe, Montgomery and Pulaski County records. With the exception of Polly and her children who lived with the Henry Patton family in present Pulaski County, the others were liv­ ing with the elder Draper or his children. However, some of the married children left the area, perhaps taking some of the descendants of Rachel with them or selling them at some unknown location. Of these families, Mary and David Love moved to Tennessee, and the Montgomerys and Hueys (also Hugheys) to Park County, Indiana. (33) Milly, daughter of Juda, and her infant child, Harvey, and Anna, daughter of Juda and her infant children, Malinda, Eliza, Randal and Franklin, obtained their freedom on 13 March 1822 from Ally Draper, daughter of the elder Draper. Immediately following the decision, the clerk added these names to the register of “free persons of colour:” Milly, Harvey, Anna, Malinda, Eliza, Randal, John, Lucinda, Abraham, Sam, Charlotte, and Rhoda, but with no surnames mentioned. On 13 July 1824, Malinda, Eliza, Randal, John and Sam, children of Anna, and Lucinda, a child of Locky, “free persons of colour” were to be bound out by the overseers of the poor, as appren­ tices. None of them had surnames listed, although all claimed to be Rachel Findlay’s descendants.(34) Jenny or Jane Findley, another daughter of Rachel Findlay, also obtained her freedom, not in Virginia, but in Madison County, Alabama. According to the testimony of Sarah Foster, taken in Franklin County, Tennessee, Jenny was bom in Virginia about 1795 and was known to Foster in Wythe County. She knew that she had been living in Alabama for many years. Foster also knew that Rachel had obtained her freedom as a result of the case against John Draper. In the Madison County Deed Book evidence from the cases held in Wythe and Powhatan counties, Virginia, was filed in Alabama, with the latest date of April 30, 1835. When and how Jenny arrived there is not known at this time. Sometime before 1830 Jenny was apparently declared to be a free person of color as the census of that year showed that she was head of the household, age 24-36, and had living with her one female slave age 10-24.(35) In subsequent decades the names of many free persons of color named Findlay or Findly appear in local records of Wythe and Pulaski counties. They were often described as “copper colored.” According to Linda Killen’s book, These People Lived in a Pleasant Valley, A History o f Slaves and Freedmen in Nineteenth Century, Pulaski County, Virginia, most of the Finleys (all spellings) had disappeared from the area by 1860.(36) They were probably descendants of Rachel. Rachel Findlay was one of many who obtained freedom in Virginia because of Indian heritage. Although she 64 �was freed from Indian slavery with other members of her family in 1773, the Clays were determined that her Indian heritage and her right to freedom would be kept a secret. As a result, when she and her daughter Judy were sold to Draper, they were described as Negro slaves. Rachel spent 47 additional years in slavery, ’as her’ children and grandchildren were given as advancements to the Draper children. Seven of those years Rachel waited for the courts of Wythe and Powhatan counties to free her and her children. The trail to family freedom began with Rachel Fmdlay and took a lifetime to accomplish in spite of great difficulties. Although there were 42 descendants at the end of the freedom trail, only a few have been documented by name. N otes cr, }' Th®bil' ofsale dated APril 28>1774>was found in Ae Wythe County Chanceiy case, Draper vs. Clay et al, 1828-39SC, hereafter Draper vs. Clay and Rachel, a woman of colour vs. John Draper, 1818-01-SC hereafter Rachel vs. Draper Because the case was transferred to Powhatan County many of the case papers can also be found in Chanceiy Box 12 May _ , 12 uBarb1T o ? eXer’ The Enslavement ofthe American Indian, Monroe, New York: Library Research Associates Publishers, 1982, pp 90-92; 237-239; Amy Ellen Friedland, Indian Slavery in Proprietary South Carolina, Masters Thesis Emory University, M.A., 1975, pp. 4, 7; William Robert Snell, Indian Slavery in Colonial South Carolina 1671-1795 a dissertatron Umversity of Alabama, PhD, 1972, pp. 16,25, 76; see also, Almon Wheeler Lauber, Indian Slavery in Colonial Present Limits ofthe United States, hereafter Lauber, Indian Slavery, Columbia University, NY, 1913, pp. loj-lo/, 312-314. 3. Henrico County Court Orders 1710-1714, p. 161. 4. Lauber, Indian Slavery, pp. 312-313 footnote discusses the acts and noted that it was not until 1806 that it was dis­ covered *at the Act 0f 1705 was a repetition of the Act of 1691; Peter Womack is mentioned in the deposition of Frances Langsdon March 22, 1816, Rachel vs. Draper. 5. Helen Tunnicliff Catterall, Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery and the Negro, hereafter, Catterall, Judicial Cases, Vol. 1, New York, Octagon Books, Inc. 1968, p. 64, footnotes 89, 91. 6. Records of the General Court, Record Group 104, Accession Number 33,700, Library of Virginia. Thanks to Brent 1after; Hardaway is also mentioned in Catteral, Judicial Cases, p. 91. I Jefferson, Reports of Cases Determined in the General Court of Virginia, from 1730 to 1740; and from 1768 to 1762 Charlottesville, VA, 1829, pp. 109-123. 8' Ba(* el vs- DraPer’ Powhatan County Chancery, Box 12, 1820, the deposition of Susanna Sayers, May 5, 1817 dis­ cusses Rachel's mother and the suspected poisoning. Others called her mother Judy, but I believe that it was Nan. Inventory ofthe estate of the late deceased Henry Clay, Senior, who died in 1760 lists 26 slaves who were to be divided among his wife and children under the terms ofthe will. Chesterfield County Will Book 1, pp. 350a-353; 544-546; also recorded in Will Book 2, pp. 244-247. 9. Will of Henry Clay as recorded in Chesterfield County Will Book 1, 1749-1763, pp. 544-546; David E. Johnston History ofthe Middle New River Settlements, hereafter Johnston, Middle New River, p. 397, states Clay was living on the Bluestone Creek, Clover Bottom, then Fincastle County, "now" Mercer County, West Virginia. 10. Draper vs. Clay; Johnston, Middle New River, p. 397 stated that the Clay land had obtained as an assignee of Lieutenant John Draper a tract of 800 acres on the Bluestone Creek, Clover Bottom, then Fincastle County, "now" Mercer County, West Virginia. He mentioned the Negro woman and her daughter without naming them. 11 Mary B. Kegley, Early Adventurers on the Western Waters, Vol. 2, pp. 379-382 has information regarding the Draper family. 6 12. Peggy Carswell Peacock, "Choctaws in Virginia in 1712!, an Adventure 'Beyond Carolina'" The Virginia Genealogist, Vol, 29, Number 1 (January-March 1985), pp. 3-8. This article is based on the Henry County case Fender Vs Man; see also, Henry County Loose Papers, determined cases 1788-1790, folder 66, Libraiy of Virginia, Archives. 14. Rachel vs.Draper, deposition of Rachel. 15. Code of Virginia, 1849, Chapter CVI, "of suits for freedom," pp. 464-465. [Probably in earlier editions but this was the one available to me], 16. Ibid. 17. Rachel vs. Draper; Marriage Book 1, p. 48. I m G I B- Kegley’ Abstracts of Court Orders of Wythe County, Virginia, 1811-1820, Vol. 2, pp. 33, dated November 10, 1813, and page 44, dated August 11, 1814 when she specifically named those persons she was going to depose in 65 �Powhatan County. 19. In Rachel vs. Draper she was physically described by several witnesses and one mentioned that she rode a man's saddle. The Williamsburg document was entered into evidence; see also footnote 3 above. 20. Rachel vs. Draper. 21. Deposition of Edward Moseley, Rachel vs. Draper; see also, Powhatan Order Book 1, pp. 187, 242 where it is stated that James Fendley, an Indian, and Bess, and Indian had leave to sue Elijah Clay for their liberty. Dated February 21, 1782; see also Powhatan Deed Book 3, p. 442 where James Fendley purchased two acres on the Buckingham Road below the house where said Fendly now lives in 1807 and Deed Book 6, p. 218, 1815 where he sells the same land. 22. Rachel vs. Draper. It is my understanding that there is a portrait of Peter Johnson in the Courthouse in Abingdon. 23. Wythe County Case, Juda vs. Draper, 1820; Kegley, Early Adventurers,Vol. 4, pp. 94-96. 24. Juda vs. Draper 25. Powhatan Chancery, Rachel vs. John Draper, File Box 12, May 1820. 26. Montgomery County Order Book 20, pp. 66, 68, 111, 151,195, 221; Book 21, pp. 9, 42,79, 95, 96. 27. Mary B. Kegley, Abstracts of Court Orders of Wythe County, Virginia, 1811-1820, Vol. 2, pp. 127, 128. 28. Kegley, Early Adventurers..., Vol. 2, p. 380 notes that there were unnamed daughters of John Draper, Sr.; Samuel Patton and, wife vs. Joseph Draper's Execs.., hereafter Patton vs. Draper's Execs. Wythe County Chancery case 1844-13-CC gives further details about the family. 29. Draper vs. Clay et al, Wythe County Chancery Case 1828-39 SC 30. Kegley, Early Adventurers, Vol. 2, pp. 380; Patton vs. Draper's Execs also names many of Draper's children. 31. Draper vs. Clay et al. 32. Ibid.; Johnston, Middle New River, 397; Patton vs.Draper's Execs., answer of the executors, Robert and John T. Sayers reveal that Joseph Draper was involved in the cases in Wythe as well as Powhatan and filed a list of his legal expens­ es as an exhibit in the case; see also, Mary B. Kegley, Early Adventurers in the Town of Evansham, Vol. 4, pp. 110-113 for more information and a picture of Joseph Draper. 33. David B. Trimble, Montgomery and James of Southwest Virginia, Austin, Texas, 1992, p. 377; Hughey family infor­ mation from descendant, Pat Knutson. 34. Kegley, Abstracts of Court Orders of Wythe County, Virginia, 1821-1830, Vol. 3, pp. 21, 57. 35. Madison County Deed Book P, p. 270 and following. Madison County, Alabama, Census of 1830, p. 103. 36. Linda Killen, These People Lived in a Pleasant Valley, A History of Slaves and Freedmen in Nineteenth Century Pulaski County, Virginia (Radford: Radford University, 1996), pp. 31-33. See also, Witness Book No. 2, County Court, Pulaski County which includes the Register of Free Blacks (1851-1864), filed at the Wilderness Road Regional Museum. Each free person is numbered. For example see No. 2, Russell Birdwell Findly, No. 5, Jane Findly, and second number 4, Sally Floyd Findly among several others. 66 �manes by June Goode A monE colonial records, the word, “ordinary,” was commonly used to designate a tavern or an inn. At some xX .point by the mid-1800s, “tavern” became the more common term, replacing the name, “ordinary.” Ordinaries were for the most part kept in private homes across the county. With primitive roads and much wilderness, some early ordinaries ma not have provided beds or meals, in which case travelers were expected to supply these for themselves. Around an ordinary, wagons might pull up to prepare their own meals over camp fires, while horses and oxen were fed grain purchased at the ordinary. Frequently, these families drove with herds of cows, pigs, sheep or even geese. These were driven into a fenced area to feed and stay until morning. One person slept in the wagon, while the others carried their bedding into the ordinary to sleep on the floor if there was no room left in the beds. (Old Roads o f Bedford County, by Nora Carter) Each ordinary keeper was required to pay a license fee which was good from May of one year until May of the following year. If the license began after the month of May, charges were prorated for the remaining months. Ordinary keepers were required to be persons of honesty, probity, as well as persons of good behavior, not addicted to drunkenness or gaming. If liquor was served, the ordinary had to have another license to retail ardent spirits. Taverns, on the other hand, usually were on the main roads and offered a tap room, parlor and d in in g room with bedrooms above. Those for men were generally separated from those for women. Taprooms were well stocked and noisy. A House of Private Entertainment” was another place to accommodate travelers in a private home. These were not as frequently used as ordinaries or taverns. The keeper had to have a license to keep a House of Private Entertainment and also a license to retail spirits. It appears optional whether spirits were provided here. Webster s American Dictionary of the English Language defines a tavern as a house of en terta in m en t of travelers as well as the sale of liquors if licensed for that purpose. Entries in the court order books at the courthouse denote approval of an ordinary as “a useful house of entertainment.” Bedford County, formed in 1754 from Lunenburg County, was a vast wilderness, with few settlements and fewer ordinaries. The largest village of consequence in this area was New London, the county seat. There were people living in different parts of Bedford County, even before New London was chartered as a town m 1761. Many were from the east and north, traveling south and west, who were encouraged to settle the western lands. The large county called Bedford included what in 1782 became Campbell County, Franklin County and Bedford County. Northeast Bedford County was bordered by the Fluvanna (now the James River). One of the earliest ordinaries in Bedford County was kept by John Thompson at the foot of Long Mountain, in or near New London. He opened his first ordinary in 1754 and maintained it until 1762. He did not keep it again until 1778 and 1780. In other years, 1768, 1771 and 1781, William Thompson kept the ordinary. In 1781, the records show that “Jack, a negro slave, the property of Thomas Jefferson, was charged with breaking into John Thompson’s mill and still house and stealing whisky.” (Bedford Deed Book 323) In 1780, Andrew Thompson was licensed to keep the ordinary for one year at his house. It is probable that these’were all family members. This activity must have been a pleasurable one for the ordinary keepers because so many generations This article first appeared in the Fall 2008 issue o f the Bedford Museum News. June Goode is a veteran Bedford research historian. 67 �seemed to keep it going until it became a tradition among families. Another early tavern keeper was John Otey in the Town of Liberty. Otey came to Bedford about 1779-71, before the Revolution, during which he served as a captain. Otey was a man of large stature, commanding pres­ ence and one of moral firmness, yet a humble Christian who opened his home as an ordinary. With the exception of Armistead, the youngest son, his children were men of powerful physical strength, activity and bravery. They occupied positions of service and confidence among the people who lived in the village of Liberty. Until 1970, an old brick home known as the Otey House, stood on Washington Street, facing the back parking lot of the Methodist Church. It has been said that this house was John Otey’s home. We know that he is buried not far away in the Otey cemetery on Otey Street. John Otey Sr. died in 1807, the father of seven children. (Hopkins of Virginia, p. 104) To own and keep an ordinary in colonial times was to render a valu­ able service to the community, but with Otey it was only one of his many acts of benevolence. In 1784, John Otey opened his first ordinary and kept it until 1789 at which time his son, Isaac, kept the ordinary in 1786 and 1787. James kept one in 1798 and 1799; Walter kept one in 1800-1810 and Armistead kept an ordinary from 1813 to 1820. This appears to have been a family affair. The records state “the ordinary was at his house” with each of these keepers, so it may not have changed addresses, although each may have have owned the origi­ nal house at different times. There is also a possibility that the house may have become a communal one shared by all family members and used for this specific purpose. John Otey owned five lots in the Town of Liberty To own and keep an ordinary in colonial times was to render a in 1784. (Deed Book W: 116) valuable service to the community. While most residents of Liberty purchased one lot in the new town in 1782, William Holley and John Otey each purchased several lots. Holley, who purchased 13 lots in town, must have found this to be a good business for “he kept an ordinary at his own house” in 1780, before Liberty became a town and continued in 1802, with some exceptions. In 1784, he kept his ordinary at the house of Joseph Fuqua, who lived in what is now called Bell Town but he was back in town with his ordinary by 1785. John Hewitt and William Lowry, both of whom lived between Little Otter and Big Otter near Bramblett’s Road (now Rt. 460) were commissioned by the County Court to build a bridge over Little Otter River in November 1812. The bridge was completed, inspected and accepted in 1813. Stephen Hewitt, a brother of John Hewitt, was one of the commissioners to approve the bridge and in 1820 �(OB 17. 787) to let a contract for keeping the bridge in good repair and fit for public use. In July 1820 the bridge over Little Otter on the main road was open to bidders. Stephen Hewitt was the lowest bidder at $125 for seven years under a bond of $500. (Deed Book 16:338) Stephen Hewitt kept an ordinary nearby from 1810 to i838 when he died. His wife, Nancy, contmued to keep the ordinary periodically until 1843. Stephen Hewitt probably lived between Big Otter and Little Rivers, very close to the highway, if not on it, as was customary for most ordinaries. J Amon Updike was bom in New Jersey in 1749, the son of John Updike, a tailor. The family moved to Loudon County where Amon married Hannah Harris, a Quaker. He next migrated to Bedford County where he was a farmer and an innkeeper on his Crab Orchard Creek farm. After he had been here some time, he went back to Loudon County to visit his family and returned home with his half-brother, Rufus. When they got to the James H H B they foundtheferry boat gone from Lynch’s Ferry, with no means of crossing the river but to ord. Rufus turned to go back home, but Amon caught him by the arm and his horse by the bridle and dragged him over. Amon lived in the quiet community of Lone Gum. It has been said that he entertained many of the old 7ieV72 73)ary her06S Wth Wh°m ^ ^ ^ P°PUlar and intimate- {The VirSinia Updikes, by Robert Craig, pps. In 1815, Amon Updike opened his first House of Private Entertainment at his house in the county and con­ tinued to operate there until 1827. Hannah, his wife, kept it from 1829, when Amon died, until 1835. The follow­ ing year, Eady (Edith) Updike opened a House of Private Entertainment and kept it until 1846. Milly Updike kept the house again from 1847 until 1855. It is interesting to note that in 1848 Milly produced a sheriff’s receipt tor the tax imposed by law before leave was granted for her to keep the house at her home in the county. In all this family kept accommodations going from 1815 through 1890. Even though Amon Updike did not keep an ordinary, he did keep a storehouse and in 1890 he applied for a license to retail ardent spirits from the storehouse. You will find it interesting to read the requirements placed upon liquor retailers: “License was granted to Amon T. Updike on his application to sell retail liquors only in quantities of up to five gallons at any time to any one individual, i.e. wine, ardent spirits, malt liquors or any mixture thereof, alco­ holic bitters or fruits preserved in ardent spirits at his house at Lone Gum in the county. Liquors may not be drunk in the house or cartilage (surrounding) where sold. Liquors shall be delivered to the purchaser in bottles jugs demijohns or other vessels removed from place of purchase. License begins June 26, 1891 and expires April 30, 1892. The court is satisfied that the applicant is a fit person and the place of business is suitable con­ venient and appropriate. Also, that the specific tax required by law has been paid to the proper officer The applicant executed a bond required by law with good security, payable to the Commonwealth of Virginia in penalty of $500 conditioned according to law.” (OB47:88) Robert St. Clair also kept an ordinary in the town of Liberty from 1790 to 1794. He was a Quaker patriot who furnished supplies to the army. He lived in Liberty and was appointed surveyor by the county. Another early ordinary was located at a small settlement on Goose Creek. In that neighborhood lived Isham lalbot who erected a grist mill on Goose Creek in 1767. He kept an ordinary at his house from 1767 to 1770. In 1782 Isham Talbot sold his plantation to James Buford, who sold it two years later to William Scott, who kept an ordmary there in 1785 and continued to operate the mill on Goose Creek. In 1793, Scott sold a 10-acre tract to William Vannerson at the top of the hill on the left side of the west-bound lane of present Rt. 460, just before Mt Zion Church. On this site was the location of Vannerson’s store. In 1795, William Powell kept an ordinary at Vannerson’s house. Vannerson sold the tract in 1796 to William Hopkins Otey and moved into the Upper Goose Creek Valley (Beford Villages, Vol. 3, pps. 6, 7). The town of Liberty began to grow rapidly and soon had a number of ordinaries available, as did the county, this was a way to learn news of the state and beyond from travelers, to meet new people with new ideas and earn the latest fashions. In Bedford County, it was a popular business and/or pastime. �W earing hand-me-downs in th e 1920s by Helen Abbott Looney had a short conversation with my parents one time about their life during the Depression so I am lucky to know a little from their first-hand experience as children. Their experiences were very different; not because one had any more money than the other but because there was such a difference between country life and city fife. Daddy was bom in 1917 in Craig County. Mama was bom in 1920 and spent her early years in Roanoke City. Mama’s family had a very hard time before, during and after the Great Depression. Her stepfather was a painter but jobs were few and far between at that time when very few businesses and no individual had money to buy paint or to hire a painter. Her mother worked all her life in a sewing factory so she must have taken in some laundry and sewing jobs during the Depression when she had small children and couldn’t work outside the home. Being only about 10 at the time, Mama didn’t remember going hungry but she was little and didn’t eat much anyway. Mama’s job was to go down to the railroad with her brothers and sisters to pick up bits of coal from the tracks to bum in their cook stove. They didn’t have any other stove for heat. They also got wooden crates from the store next door to bust up for fire wood. On very rare occasions her mother gave her a few pennies to go to the store to buy a piece of candy or a drink, which had to be divided five ways and shared with her brothers and sisters. There were no other treats. No presents for birthdays or Christmas from her parents. They didn’t have it to give. They maybe got an orange or candy cane from the church or school, The only toy she ever got for Christmas was a tiny pink doll from the Salvation Army. Mama always had the highest regard for the Salvation Army because it was the only charity group she could ever remember helping people. They gave food and clothes. Mostly good “hand-me-downs” which in turn were handed down to their next smaller sibling. They also wore hand-me-down shoes until they were so worn out they had to put cardboard in them to cover the holes in the soles. Mama remembered one time she had to stay home from school because she had no shoes to wear. She was a veiy good student and hated to miss. Her teacher must have liked her because she found a good pair of “handme-downs” somewhere and gave them to her so she could come back to school. The only positive experience she had back then was going to school. She enjoyed learning and it was the only thing she had to feel good about. To the contrary, my daddy said he had a wonderful childhood and Depression made no difference that he ever noticed. His home had been in the family for generations so there were no payments to make. His father was a photographer and a door-to-door salesman. That work was hurt by the Depression but they still lived well off the land the way all country people did. They had a garden, chickens, a couple of hogs and a cow for milk. His father fished, trapped and hunted small game. (There were only a few deer in the whole county back then.) They had sweets made by his mother from things they found, like nuts, berries and apples. His father made a special box to catch a honey bee which he took to the woods and turned loose to watch which way it flew so he could find its hive in a “honey tree.” They marked their name on the honey tree and no one else in the neighbor­ hood would take honey from it. How’s that for honesty and integrity? Daddy’s life was probably a little better than that of average poor people because his neighbors for miles within walking distance were all relatives who helped each other. They had community food harvesting, such as making apple butter, molasses and syrup. The neighbors also helped each other with the children. Mothers sent their children out in the m o rn in g and didn’t have to worry about them until dark. The older kids looked after the younger ones.. They and all the cousins got together to swim or play every day when the weather allowed. When it was time for lunch they went to whichev- I Helen Looney is president o f Craig County Historical Society and the founder o f the organization in 1980. This article first appeared in the Summer 2009 issue o f Our Proud Heritage, the newsletter o f Craig County Historical Society. 70 �er home was closest and all were welcomed to eat. (When you have 10 or 12 kids of your own to feed a few more don t matter.) Daddy’s home was like a resort in the summer when his uncles came back to vacation at their homeplaces. One was a doctor, two were lawyers, one owned a lumber company and one was a famous evangelist equal to Billy Graham today. All had started out preaching. They didn’t pay to stay but they brought needed supplies that came m handy all year. They also left games such as marbles, checkers, chess and playing cards. They all gave each other books for Christmas presents. They were a very close, happy family. 1 / d°n’1 1*111* my daddy was affected by the Depression at all but Mama surely was. Daddy graduated from high school and always had a good job or two.. Mama quit school at 16 and went to work in a sewing factory. She worked in a few sewing factories, at Radford Arsenal and retired from General Electric. She always worked on a job to make sure that we never had to wear “hand-me-downs” and she worked like a dog at home gardenmg and canning so that we would always have food even if there came another Depression. Not that any­ one ever thought there would ever be another Depression in the United States of America. Well, we may not be in a total bankrupt “depres­ sion but we are most certainly up to our ears in financial “disaster.” And in a way, it is worse for us in 2009. We aren’t on the point of cardboard in our shoes yet but we have a lot more material things bought on credit to lose than the average family had in 1929. Only rich people had money in the bank or investments in the stock market back then. Now, most everyone had investments in IRAs, 401-ks, mutual funds and other retirement savings tied in with banks and the stock market. Yoimger people have time to see the economy and their investments get better. Those who have at least a high school educa­ tion to be able to get a good job will be all right in time. Life will never be the same for old people.. Older folks who worked all their life to save for a comfort­ able retirement have lost thousands upon thousands of dollars and they don’t have enough time left in their life to recover, as younger people do. Old peo­ ple are lucky in that they get a Social Security check every month, which is one good thing that the gov­ ernment learned from the last Depression. But when Luther Abbott, 6, fishing in Craig’s Creek about one dies before the other, the remaining spouse won’t 1923. (Photo courtesy of Helen Looney, his draw enough Social Security to buy food, let alone daughter) pay the bills. And many still have big payments like house and car because they were lured into debt by a false sense of security, having all that money in savings to cover the debt. Greed caused them to buy on credit rather than using their savings. They thought they could buy and pay off, and still have their savings. Greed from trying to have their cake and eat it too,” got in the way of good, sound, financial judgment. Greed! Greed top to bottom. All wanting more, bigger and better, at higher prices. m a t goes up has to come down, usually in the form of a fall. And the fall into this financial disaster started crumbling at the top with bad management and lack of ethics, crossing over into plain stealing! The only thing we little folks can do is leam from it for the future, and never, ever fret or worry over material things. You can’t take anything with you when you die, so our relationship with others is all that matters. Everything else will work out in time. 71 �S u p p o rt o u r H istory April 2010 Dear Friends: Many of you remember that the Historical Society began a Capital Campaign on our 50th anniversary. What you may not know is that we have one more phase to finish. Now that we have completed the Watts Library and the Education Gallery, we are hard at work raising funds to renovate the exhibition galleries at the History Museum of Western Virginia. This final phase is scheduled to be completed congruently with Center in the Square’s building renovations. Unfortunately, as we strive to produce meaningful programs and exhibitions as well as raise capital funds, we are faced with significant financial obstacles. We are challenged to sustain the History Museum’s day-to-day operations during temporary relocation and renovations at Center in the Square. As a longtime friend of the Historical Society, we are reaching out to you for your financial assistance to help us complete our renovations. With your support, you can help preserve the investment we have made in promoting the rich heritage of this region. Please, help us by contributing to our Capital Campaign today. Sincerely, Jeanne M. Bollendorf Executive Director YES, I want to support the Society’s renovation efforts with the following gift: □ $50 □ $100 □ $250 □ $500 □ Other: $ _______________ Name:_________________________________________________________________________ (as to be listed in print) Address: ______________________________________________________________________ GiftWorm Phone:________________________ E-mail:________________________________________ I will fulfill my/our gift with (check one): □ An enclosed check (payable to Historical Society of Western Virginia) □ A Credit Card Payment: (circle one) Visa MasterCard American Express Card Number:________________________________________ Exp. Date:______ /______/______ Signature:______________________________________________________________________ _ Additional Items (check all that apply): □ My/our employer will match my gift (Please provide paperwork to process) □ I would like my/our gift to be recognized as a memorial or tribute to a loved one as noted: Mail form with payment to: Historical Society of Western Virginia, P.O. Box 1904, Roanoke, VA 24008 Thank yo u fo r y o u r support! 72 ��HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WESTERN VIRGINIA � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia 2009 Volume 18, Number 1 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include:<br />A New Way of Looking at Old Things<br />The Career of Henry H. Fowler<br />Col. John Smith: Unsung Hero of Virginia's Colonial Frontier<br />Old County Courthouse is 100 Years Old<br />16th Century Spanish Invasions of Southwest Virginia<br />The Elks National Home<br />Salem's East Hill North: A Cemetery in the Shadows<br />Three Other William Flemings<br />From Indian Slavery to Freedom<br />Early Bedford Ordinaries<br />Wearing Hand-Me-Downs in the 1920s Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_18_01_2009 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6367/JHSWV_19_02_2010.pdf cabb87ef640a18104bd3df66c120fcac PDF Text Text lT¿4ton¿ca&Society 'Western*l/ùiyi*Ua �*iT¿¿toniceli S ociety‘T'Oeotentt^Oinytnca, nt<wtium <tO'& ato^uct (For thè love o f mountains inspires us) O ^ù cen à Katherine Watts .... .......................... Natalie N o rris................ , .................. Dr. Nancy W arren..... ....................... Michael B e l l............... ...................... Jeanne Bollendoti S W W Alison Stone Blanton Ben Chapman William M. Hackworth Rev. Nelson Harris David G. Ilelmer Scott Hengerer ....... President Vice President ........ Secretary ........Treasurer Executive Director o l * D v ie c fo n & J. David Robbins Alice B. Roberts Rebecca Stephens Kevin Sullivan Linda Thornton William E. Honeycutt Jim Humphrey Dr. John Kern W. Tucker Lemon George A. McLean Gwen Mason * D (n ecto n & Sara S. Airheart David H. Burrows George A. Kegley George Kegley Editor o f the Journal Christina Kqomen Production, Editorial Asst. S m e n itU Barbara B. Lemon Philip H. Lemon Edgar V. Wheeler The Journal, Vol. XIX, No. 2,.chronicles the history of the Commonwealth west of the Blue Ridge. Published by the Historical Society of Western Virginia (for­ merly the Roanoke Historical Society), P.O. Box 1904, Roanoke, VA, 24008. The price for additional copies is $5 for members, $10 for non-members. The Society welcomes unsolicited material but submissions cannot be returned and the Society is not responsible for damage or loss. On the cover: Lewis Miller’s sketch of the Courthouse Square in Christiansburg in 1831 (See story, page 12) This issue of the Journal was made possible by The Kegley Publications Fund �Table o f Contents 2 Note From the Executive Director by Jeanne Bollendorf Society Premieres Two Books 4 Defining and Dating Log Buildings in Southwest Virginia 12 Lewis Miller: Folk Artist and Chronicler of the 19th Century 25 30 34 by Michael J. Pulice by Su Clauson-Wicker Roanoke’s Social Life in 1912 ~ The Diary of Nina Quinn by Dorathy Piedmont Blue Ridge Parkway ~ A Graceful Mountain Drive by Peter Givens A Parkway Picnic Saves a Waterfall by Peter Givens 36 49 54 57 59 63 65 Oliver White Hill: Civil Rights Attorney in Roanoke and Throughout Virginia by John Kern Traugott Bromme’s 1848 Virginia Travel Guide Introduction and Translation by Richard J. Bland Tobacco in Old Virginia Letters by Stan Lanford The Great Bedford Fire o f 1884 by Travis Witt Hokie Stone: Virginia Tech’s Spirited Old Rock by Clara B. Cox Robert McClelland: Mayor of Two Cities by John Long Riding a Bull Across the Roanoke River by Ruth Dickerson 67 Wythe County’s Social Disasters: Divorces 72 A Tribute To Our Editor by Mary B. Kegley 118UH? Above: detail from Lewis Miller’s “Fishing at New River. ” Story, page 12. P ublic L ib re n . V irg in ia Room �Note From th e Executive Director f ■ ^he year 2010 has been a busy year for the Historical Society, and as we enter 2011 we are taking on even more projects. Beginning in January, the staff and board o f directors will be participat-1 - ing in strategic planning. As we begin renovations at the History Museum o f Western Virginia and complete Phase IV o f our capital campaign, we want to set a course o f action for the next five years. We will be reviewing all o f our operations to see how we can sustain our steady growth and con­ tinue to be a good investment o f your contributions. Although we had planned to relocate the History Museum last fall, our new date is June 2011. This move will be temporary, about 18 months, and the History Museum will maintain as many programs as possible, along with a special exhibition called Hometown Stars. Our tem­ porary location will be the Shenandoah Hotel building (the former Twist & Turns location) at Campbell Avenue and Williamson Road. The collection inventory has progressed steadily with the help o f some very dedicated interns and volunteers; we have been able to discover some wonderful gems that will be incorporated into the new galleries. There will continue to be changes ahead, some temporary, some not, and we certainly appreciate your patience as we work through them. There are dramatic renovations ahead for the gal­ leries and displays in the History Museum, and we wel­ come your contributions to our continued fundraising efforts. An integral part o f our outreach includes technology. Over the coming months, there will be updates to the look Jeanne Bollendorf and content o f our website. We have joined the social net­ working culture and are now on Facebook. We are working tirelessly on the Virtual Collections project. The digitization o f the Historical Society’s collections at both the History Museum and the Link Museum is an important aspect o f our outreach. The benefits o f putting this information on the Internet are that we can design multiple perpetual exhibitions that don’t require physical space; our employees can easily access documents or artifacts that will be used for exhibition, education and research; and researchers and hobbyists from all over the world can connect to our organization and learn about us or become members. We are looking forward to seeing you. Do drop in! Jeanne M. B ollendorf Executive D irector 2 �Society Premieres Two Books In addition to our Journal, each year the Historical Society publishes books through Kegley Publications and in 2011 we are premiering two new publications. Both books are accompanied by spe­ cial exhibitions at the O. Winston Link Museum and the History Museum o f Western Virginia. Then & Now: Roanoke Valley (with Arcadia Publishing) is a pictorial look at Roanoke’s past compared with images o f Roanoke as it looks today, with a foreword about photographer George C. Davis. This book was generously sponsored by the Wachovia Foundation. Harold McLeod and the Rev. Nelson Harris co-authored the book and McLeod served as photographer for the modern-day images. The historic photographs used in the book, predominantly by George C. Davis, come from the collections o f the Historical Society of Western Virginia, the Virginia Room, and the collection o f Frank Ewald. After more than a century o f development, this region has undergone dramatic change and the book serves as a chronicle o f those changes. Edward B eyer’s Travels Through America: An A rtist’s View (with Blackwell Press) is a special edition o f a never-before-published manuscript with an introduction and numerous illustrations o f the artist’s work. Edward Beyer was a German artist who lived and traveled in the United States in the 1840s and 1850s. He made drawings o f many o f the springs o f Virginia, especially in the rural western part o f the Commonwealth, in exchange for free board and $50. Beyer also supervised the printing o f his Album o f Virginia, produced for sale to subscribers in Virginia in 1856. After personally delivering his Album o f Virginia to his AN A R T I S T ’S V IE W Richmond subscribers in 1857, he created a “Panorama o f American Views,” a cyclorama o f scenes from his travels, which was exhibited to the German public, accompanied by a narration and exhibited in Meissen, Munich, and Hamburg. Although the paintings o f the cyclorama have been lost or destroyed, the original narrative survives as published in German. The Historical Society acquired the rights to the only English translation and has reprinted the narrative with an introduction to the artist and his work, written by George A. McLean, Jr. The book contains many illustrations o f Beyer’s paintings and litho­ graphs from his travels, some never published. Edw ard Beyer’s Travels Through America 3 �Defining and Dating Log Buildings in Southwest Virginia by M ichael J. Balice ~w T'irginia is home to some of the nation’s earliest and purest forms of log buildings, since the technology was \ / likely introduced first to the mid-Atlantic states, primarily Pennsylvania and Maryland, by Germanic immiV grants in the 17th century. As huge waves of Scots-Irish immigrants also arrived, beginning about 1717, they quickly embraced log construction because it was well suited to the frontier; thus it spread with the flow of mainly Scots-Irish and German migration to the south and southwest via the Great Valley of Virginia. The first log buildings in Virginia might not have been erected until the western lands were opened up for set­ tlement around 1730, since the English colonists, who arrived earlier, favored post-and-beam and/or masonry con­ struction. It appears unlikely that any log buildings from the first half of the 18th century survive in Virginia, and examples built before the last quarter of the 18th century are extremely rare, especially in southwestern Virginia, here defined as the area south and west of Augusta County. Log buildings represent a simple but historically important form of construction, a product of once-common knowledge that has become obsolete, and a number of the best and least-altered examples are lost annually. The author has researched log construction for many years and has documented countless log buildings, forming the basis of this article. In order to promote awareness and appreciation, as well as heighten understanding among read­ ers, the major variations and common nomenclature for log structures and their components, as well as some important aspects to consider, are discussed in a concise format. H ewn L ogs This article focuses on early, hewn-log construction, as opposed to round-log construction, which was rare before the 20th century. Though round logs came into use in Southside tobacco bams in the late 19th century, most early tobacco bams and virtually all other types of bams had hewn logs. Hewing consisted of removing sufficient wood to create a relatively flat surface. For the vast majority of buildings, logs were hewn on both sides, but were not worked on the top or bottom, leaving rounded surfaces, often with bark still attached. However, the bottom and top logs within a structure, referred to as the sill and top plate, respectively, are often hewn on four sides. In some cases, outbuildings situated close to a house were carefully built of dovetail-notched logs that were hewn on four sides, or squared. Squared logs fit tightly together, eliminating the need for chinking and daubing. [Fig. 1] The tools commonly used in hewing include a typical felling axe and a foot adze. In many cases, especially in the 18th and early 19th centuries, a broad axe was also used. Vertical notches were cut at intervals along the sides of a log with a felling axe, the bulk of the wood between the notches was removed with an axe such as a broad axe, and the log was finished with a foot adze. The adze removed smaller amounts of wood, and in the hands of a skilled worker, would leave a flat and fairly smooth finish. L og P ens A log pen may be defined as a single, four-walled unit of logs notched together at the comers. Individual pens were usually connected indirectly, joined together using different methods in order to enlarge a building. The man­ ner in which two or more pens are joined is a chief defining feature, such as how pens are physically connected, Mike Pulice has been a professional in the cultural resources field fo r 20 years as an archaeologist, and as an architectural historian fo r the Western Regional Office o f the Virginia Department o f Historic Resources fo r the past 10 years. He can be reached at michael.pulice@dhr.virginia.gov. 4 �and their orientation and spatial relationship to each other. Even if the logs are hidden by exterior cladding, individual pens can usu­ ally be discerned. Examples of two or more log pens actually notched together as one are not unheard of, but seem to have been extremely rare. Also uncommon are examples of two M l pens built years apart, abutted and connected together, such as the Yeatts House in Pittsylvania County [Fig. 2], and the Howbert House in Roanoke County, demol­ ished in 1999. [Fig. 3] Inside, the rooms were connected by walk­ through openings. C ommon L og H ouse C onfigurations Single-pens are the most com­ mon log houses. They can be 1story, 1 1/2-story, or two full sto­ ries in height. A 1 1/2-story house has three or four logs above the level of the upper floor, where the floor joists are notched into the outer wall and are visible from the exterior. A person cannot stand at M l height upstairs unless standing p/g 7 7 /7/s striking smokehouse in Pulaski County has half-dovetailaway from the eaves, near the cennotched logs that are beautifully hewn on four sides to fit tightly ter of the room. Virtually all sintogether, eliminating the need for chinking and daubing. Similar gle-pen houses have (or had) an examples with sawn, rather than hewn logs, are referred to as plank exterior chimney on one end of the buildings. [All photos by the author, 2005-2009, except where noted.] building, or on both ends if the pen is divided into two rooms. Twostory pens usually have fireplaces on both floors; 1 1/2-story examples sometimes do as well. Dogtrot log structures consist of two pens built separately with an open space between them, all under one roof. They were once very common and may not yet be terribly rare, but they are hard to discover because the open space in the middle, called a dogtrot, is almost always framed-in and covered with weatherboards or some such cladding. Dogtrot houses have two chimneys — one at each exterior end. [Fig. 4] Saddlebag houses are fairly similar to dogtrots, but were perhaps even more common. Instead of an open space between them, two log pens are built on each side of a single, typically massive chimney, with fireplaces in both sides. This arrangement saved the labor of building another chimney and allowed for windows in the end walls. [Figs. 5a and 5b] C orner N otching The types of comer notches employed in log pens varied between builders and perhaps cultural groups early on, and some were favored in limited geographical areas. However, notches are generally not indicative of any spe5 �Fig 2. The Yeatts House in Pittsylvania County consists o f two onestory log pens, built circa 1818 and circa 1830, simply abutted to each other, with a walk-through passage inside - a rare configura­ tion. Fig. 3. The Howbert House, a substantial, two-story structure demol­ ished in 1999, stood near the intersection o f Salem Turnpike and Peters Creek Road in Roanoke. The smaller, V-notched pen (left) was added to the larger, full-dovetail-notched pen using two 8’’x 8” corner posts abutted to the original structure. The front- and rear-wall logs o f the added pen were then mortised into the corner posts. (Photo credit: Anne Beckett) 6 rifle time period. In most areas of southwestern Virginia, the V-notch is predominant among survivals built throughout the late 18th and 19th centuries. [Figs. 2, 4, 6b, 8a.] It is a relatively simple notch to cut with hatchet and chisel. The second most common cor­ ner notch in southwestern Virginia, the half-dovetail, was the over­ whelming first choice of builders in some areas. [Fig. 1.] The half-dovetail was a simplified version of the full-dovetail, which is used in a wide variety of woodwork types, especially furniture. The full dove­ tail might have been more common in the 18th century than other notch­ es, but it does not follow that fulldovetail-notched buildings are nec­ essarily older than those with other types of notching. Square notching is much less common throughout western Virginia. Although conventionally thought to have been popularized much later, it became common in the Piedmont region, that includes Bedford, Franklin, Henry and Pittsylvania counties, by the early 19th century. More a lap joint than a true notch, the logs are usually pegged together at the comers, tradi­ tionally with a piece of black locust called a trunnel. C hinking and D aubing Though today the word chink­ ing is commonly used to mean both chinking and daubing, chinking con­ sisted of sawn or split pieces of wood, or sometimes stones, wedged between two logs. [Figs. 6a and 6b] It served as filler and backing for daubing, which was mud, often mixed with a binder such as live­ stock hair and/or a quantity of slaked (hydrated) lime. Because the chinking was tightly wedged into place, it also added to overall struc­ tural stability and reduced move- �ment and vibration. A heavy coat of whitewash, made with lime, was usually applied to the outer surface of the daubing as a protectant and consolidant. L og H ouse Interiors Few log pens were divided into separate rooms, but virtually all had an accessible attic space for sleeping or storage. Whitewash, made with slaked lime, was the most typical wall and ceiling treatment in modest log houses, even after the Civil War. It was applied directly to the exposed logs. Many log and frame houses built before 1850 had verti­ cal, beaded boards on the walls and similar boards on the ceiling. Higher-status log houses were more likely to have plaster walls and ceil­ Fig. 4. Ivy C liff servant quarters (ca. 1840-50) in Bedford County, pro­ vide a good example o f a one-story, dogtrot house with squareings, especially those built later. notched logs. Many log houses originally had exterior ladders or stairs to the sec­ ond floor, since floor space inside was an issue. There are two common types of stairs found inside log houses, both of which required minimal floor space. The hybrid “ladder-stair” was commonly found in modest log houses built before the Civil War. The comer stair, usually “boxed” by a wall with a door, was the most common type found in log houses. [Figs. 7a and 7b] N on-residential L og Structures Virtually all types of vernacular buildings in southwestern Virginia were routinely built of logs, including courthouses, churches, schools and mills. Domestic outbuildings built of logs, such as smokehouses, springhouses and granaries, were very common. Large bams became common in southwestern Virginia only after about 1830, but the vast majority of them were built of hewn logs until well after the Civil War. Countless log bams survived well intact until the decline of small-scale agriculture in Virginia during the late 20th century, when many were left vacant and neglected. Undoubtedly, agricultural structures, followed by domestic outbuildings, stand the greatest threats today. P referred T ree S pecies for L og B uildings In Southwest and Southside Virginia, like many other places, the overwhelmingly preferred species used in log construction was white oak, prized for its strength, decay resistance, relatively light weight and availability. Other commonly used trees include red oak or other oak species, American chestnut, yellow poplar and southern yellow pine. Old-growth pine and poplar trees grew straight and tall with few limbs, and were decay resistant and suffi­ ciently strong; thus logs of these species can still be found in good condition. D ating C lues In most any type of historic structure, nails (and other metal fasteners) and saw marks are often strongly relied upon for help in establishing the date of construction. For example, structures in which rosehead or other handwrought iron nails are predominant were likely built prior to about 1815. The presence of machine-cut iron nails (with square heads), together with the absence of round-headed wire nails, probably indicates construction dating to the 1815 to 1895 period. Small pieces of wood were sawn by hand, or after about 1800, by water-powered 7 �Figs. 5a and 5b. The Stein House in Botetourt County (ca. 18251830), photographed prior to, and during disassembly. The house was removed to an unknown location in the county. It was an excel­ lent example o f a two-story, V-notched, saddlebag house. Note the fireplace in the exposed side o f the chimney. sawmill with a straight, vertical blade. Radial saw marks generally indicate a post-1830s date. Very often, however, original nails and saw marks are not found in log structures because nails and saws were not needed to build them. If the original floors have been replaced, nail dating is usually not an option. Saw marks may not exist, since floor joists and roof rafters could be hewn rather than sawn, and floor­ boards were planed, leaving no saw marks. Most large, heavy, wood mem­ bers were hewn, rather than sawn, through the 1850s. Nevertheless, other potentially helpful dating clues may still exist, including the presence of hand-planed wooden interior features, such as floor joists and interior wall boards, which often have beaded edges created with a beading plane. [Fig. 8] Hand planing left a smooth, but somewhat uneven surface that is usually visi­ ble with angled lighting and easily detectable by hand. Sometimes plas­ ter came as a later improvement, but at times it is clearly part of the orig­ inal construction. Hand-planing quickly fell out of favor when the steam-powered machine plane became common around 1840. About the same time, lath (nailed strips of wood onto which plaster is applied) became much cheaper due to the increasing presence of steam powered, portable mill saws. Thus, plaster ceilings became more com­ mon, and bead-edged floor joists would not have been seen in any case. Before 1840, most lath was split, or riven into pieces by hand, and is easily differentiated from sawn lath. D endrochronology (tree­ ring dating) Log buildings, especially when their original architectural features 8 �Figs. 6a and 6b. Two-story log houses, both built between 1830 and 1850, with wood chinking in the left (Craig County) example, and cobblestone chinking in the right (Scott County) example. The daubing has weathered away. and finishes have been removed or replaced, can be very difficult to date with reasonable accuracy. Dendrochronology (dendro for short), is the only effective absolute dating tool for log structures. However, it is usually costly, both monetarily and in terms of impact to the logs. The sampling procedure, requiring the extrac­ tion of a minimum number of either core samples or entire cross sections of logs, may not impair structural strength, but can impact the appearance of logs and the character of a building. Dendrochronology was developed by foresters as a method for studying annual growing seasons according to tree species. It involves the precise measuring of intervals between growth rings, and comparing the measurements with those from other logs and trees. The tree-ring chronologies used for comparison come from decades of data collected by forest ecologists, climatologists, and others, now compiled in the International Tree Ring Data Bank. By pinpointing not only the year, but the season in which a log was felled, the method can provide accurate con­ struction dates of buildings. At times, dendro can be worthwhile for research purposes, but the practice should be discouraged for intact, standing structures, especially if intended for the mere purposes of satisfying one’s curiosity. Use of the dating clues described above might obviate the need for dendro. Sampling strategies are very important and should not be taken lightly. Moreover, given the hardness of centuries-old logs, the work tends to be difficult and painfully laborious. Each sample must include the outer layer of wood, just beneath the bark, and must have a minimum of 80 growth rings. T he D ecline of L og C onstruction In much of western Virginia, building with logs remained the most common form of construction until the 1850s. By then, mill-sawn lumber had become widely available and more affordable; yet hewn log construction 9 �continued in rural areas until around the turn of the 20th century. During the interim, the quality of log crafts­ manship declined gradually, but noticeably. Log homes came to be viewed as rustic, and owners surely felt stigmatized to some degree. They were then more likely to clad their homes with exterior siding so they would not be conspicuous among new frame houses. As a sac­ rificial envelope, wood siding proved effective in protecting and preserving many log houses to this day. Nevertheless, the number of survivals has diminished alarmingly in the past several decades. T hreats A gainst L og B uilding P reservation Fig. 8. Hand-planed, beaded floor boards, nailed to hand-planed, People have forgotten how to beaded joists, which suggest a pre-1840 construction date. repair, or even maintain log build­ ings. Poor maintenance leads to drainage issues and decay from the ground up, and damaged logs at or near the base of a structure are very diffi­ cult to replace. Examples of well-constructed log houses in terminal or near terminal condition are easily spotted in southwestern Virginia, to say nothing of the thousands of deteriorating log tobacco bams across Southside. Where neglect and deterioration have not destroyed log buildings, there are other foes to be reckoned with, one of which, ironically, is “restoration.” Often it is better described as adaptive re-use, in which little regard is given to historical accuracy. Because of the difficulty of replacing damaged logs, attempts to restore log buildings very often involve disassembly and reassembly of the entire structure, which is not a task for novices. On the contrary, such a project is normally fraught with unforeseen pitfalls that require good skills and innovative solutions. Once log buildings are “restored” in this way, their historic value is inevitably compromised. Another aggressive adversary of log building preservation is the business of salvaging of logs for resale, often in the lucrative form of sawn, specialty lumber. Owners of highly visible, vacant or under-utilized log buildings are frequently approached by profiteers scouting for such finds. Log bams are often targeted for their thousands of board feet with few instances of nails. In many cases, owners have few alternatives and are unaware of their build­ ing’s intrinsic value. C onclusion Hewn log buildings are relics of the bygone era of truly vernacular building construction. They are emblemat­ ic of the settlement and early growth of the United States, and iconic reminders of the independent spirit of the pio­ neers. Yet in the flesh, they are ephemeral, generally underappreciated and spottily documented. The reader is encouraged to investigate and document them before a calamity happens; and to make the records available to oth­ ers by filing them with local historical societies and the state archives at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Opposite: Figs. 7a and 7b. A ladder stair in a circa 1840 house, Botetourt County (top), and a boxed-in corner stair in Pittsylvania County (bottom). 10 ��Lewis Miller 9 Folk Artist and Chronicler o f the 19th Century by Su Clauson-W icker -y ewis Miller was not a native of Virginia, but perhaps partly because he saw everything with fresh eyes the artist was fascinated by the scenery and culture of Montgomery County and its surroundings. He created * estimated 170-200 sketches of the South during his fifteen documented trips to Virginia between 1851 and his death in 1882.(1) During his Virginia stays, Miller and his Christiansburg relatives would drive through the countryside in a horse-drawn buggy, stopping at caves, villages and overlooks. He came to adopt Chri stiansburg as the home of his senior years, moving there permanently in the mid-18 7 0 s .O v e r five decades and an aggregated twenty years, Miller delineated every place he visited in Virginia in a number of sketchbooks. Their subjects vary from portraits to landscapes to a slave auction and a snake-killing expedition. Although no evidence exists that Miller ever received formal artistic training, he displayed a natural talent for capturing the quirks, personality and dynamics of a person or place. Miller’s position in the annals of American art, however, is not based solely upon his artistic skills, but upon his scope and pictorial accuracy in chronicling the life of rural people in the nineteenth century. “Historians for many years to come will be deeply indebted to this highly observant Pennsylvania German carpenter whose work establishes for him, beyond a doubt, a position as one of America’s greatest folk artists,” observed Donald Shelley, executive director of Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in his introduction to “Lewis Miller, Sketches and Chronicles.”^ Miller kept a lifelong pictorial diary, accompanied by text in English, German, Latin or a combination of languages, commenting about everything he saw, momentous or triv­ ial. Miller had a zest for details, a curious spirit, and the insight of the true reporter. His drawings include a num­ ber of major historical events, such as George Washington’s funeral procession, General Lafayette arriving in York, Pennsylvania, and the capture of Jefferson Davis disguised in his wife’s clothing, all of which Miller prob­ ably did not witness. More often, though, he captured the small details of everyday life: the “Franklin” lightning rod on the Christiansburg courthouse, the spear used for gigging fish in 1827, the way apple butter kettles were shaped. The majority of Miller’s original works are held in Pennsylania’s York County Heritage Trust, the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond, and the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center in Colonial Williamsburg. A few are still in private hands; in fact, a Lewis Miller sketchbook was sold on eBay as late as 2004. The Montgomery Museum and Lewis Miller Regional Art Center in Christiansburg is fortunate to have two original Miller sketches, “Rock of My Salvation” and “Monument in Memory of Dr. Martin Luther,” and an original valentine painstakingly designed and decorated by the artist on lined tablet paper. The extensive scope of Miller’s work is unmatched by any other American folk artist. He was a journeyman carpenter for at least thirty years, according to a self-portrait, “Lewis Miller Carpenter working at the Trade for Thirty Years.”(4,) He labored on most, if not all, of the major public structures in York, Pennsylvania, during Su Clauson-Wicker is a freelance 'writer in Blacksburg. She is the author o f West Virginia: Off the Beaten Path and Inn to Inn: Walking Guide for Virginia and West Virginia Her career includes a decade as editor o f Virginia Tech Magazine, as well as positions in television, radio, medical pubic relations and child welfare. This article first appeared in Virginia’s Montgomery County, published by the Montgomery Museum and Lewis Miller Regional Art Center in 2009. The text and Lewis Miller sketches are used by permission o f the Montgomery Museum and Lewis Miller Regional Art Center, Christiansburg. 12 �those years. He also displayed great ability as a sculptor of wood. The most outstanding example is a woodcarv­ ing from the doorway of his parents’ home, a pediment crowned with human heads, animals and birds in crisp pseudo-medieval style. A mantelpiece and a few other examples of carved architectural woodwork by Miller have also been found/5) Miller’s other talents were a sense of music, poetry, religion and philosophy, probably inculcated by a classical education under his father. L ewis M iller: H is L ife Bom in York, Pennsylvania, in 1796, Lewis Miller was the tenth and youngest child of Pennsylvania Germans John Ludwig Miller (1747-1822) and Eva Katharina Rothenberger (1750-1839), of Heidelberg, Baden. His par­ ents set out for the New World in 1771, soon after their marriage. Sailing first from Rotterdam to England and then from Cowes to Philadelphia aboard the ship “Minerva,” they spent their first years in Philadelphia/6) com­ peting for work with many other immigrants who came to the United States in search of prosperity. After relocating to Montgomery County, Pennsyslvania, about 1780, the couple moved to York between 1784 and 1787, where they spent the rest of their lives. Lewis’s father became schoolmas­ ter of the German Lutheran Parochial School/7) probably as a result of his superior education in Germany. Ludwig, who had been educated at the secondary school founded by Christian humanist theologian Philipp Melanchthon in Nuremberg, received a thorough literary and classical training; however, Lewis wrote that his father also served an apprenticeship to learn the “making of china to set on tables.”(8) The classical education of the father was passed on to the son, who completed schooling in the parochial log schoolhouse under the senior Miller. One Lewis Miller painting shows his father teaching with a little boy, probably Miller, off to the side drawing with pen on paper. Throughout the years, Miller did not shy away from placing himself in his pictures, sometimes as an onlooker and occasionally as the central figure. His sketches often seemed to serve as a detailed, visual diary of his existence. After graduation, Miller was apprenticed to an Daguerreotype o f Lewis Miller, dating to c. 1845. elder brother John to learn the “art and mystery” of (Montgomery Museum and Lewis M iller Regional home carpentering.(9) At this time, York was fast A rt Center) becoming a bustling community with several thou­ sand residents, six churches and the political activity of a county seat. Although Miller had many private cus­ tomers, his name appeared often in orders for payment issued by the York County Commissioners for carpentry work on buildings and building desks, ballot boxes and other items/./0) All along, Miller was sketching, recording the people and events around him, drawing on sketchpads, lined newspaper and handbills. His thousands of images were his journal. He depicted people from all walks of life and different social classes and showed many of them at their jobs: the farmer, the pharmacist, the lawyer, the potter, the candy maker. He drew the tools they used, explained their skills and recorded their interactions with customers, a treasure of information for the study of early American life. An 1809 drawing of Miller’s may be the first ever depiction of a Christmas tre e ///) More than any artist of the period, Miller showed how rural peo­ ple lived, what they did and what they valued. Even if he could have afforded a camera, it is doubtful that Miller would have used one. His art came partially from his imagination, capturing simultaneous antics and scenes he 13 �Cut paper valentine with verse and watercolor sketches made by Lewis M iller in 1857. (Montgomery Museum) knew only from hearsay. He often did this with humor, showing a couple’s bed dropping through the floor, a market master seizing short-weight butter from a vendor and prostitutes jumping over the back fence as men pulled down their brothel. All told, Lewis Miller’s “pictorial diary” contains nearly 2,000 drawings, depicting everyday scenes as well as dramatic events. He compiled at least 200 portraits, mostly of York residents.(72j His drawings are annotated in black or brown ink, in his own handwriting, sometimes scrawling across the page and crowding close to the drawings. Many times he placed multiple pictures on one piece of paper. Sometimes he would go back years later to add detail and color. His memory appeared to remain sharp until the end of his life. “They are true sketches,” he wrote as an old man. “I myself being there upon the places and Spot.”(13) Despite the humorous element exhibited in some of his pictures, Miller’s art also revealed his serious side, �usually in the annotations. His somber all-is-vanity outlook, influenced by the religious outlook of the time, revealed itself even in the handmade valentine held by the Montgomery Museum and Lewis Miller Regional Art Center: “When true hearts be wither’d And fond ones are flown. Oh! Who would inhabit this world Alone\”(14) In his “History of War” notebook, he gloats over the “miserable ends” of “heathenish Kings, Emperors and Generals, and all publick officers.” He wrote: “[T]hat the people of this world should go to destruction is their own fault, like the children of Israel, for God in Heaven sees over good and bad and puts an end to all.”(75) Miller could have packed reams of notebooks with subjects from his hometown of York, but he was filled with a greater curiosity. After the death of his parents, Miller took every opportunity to travel to New York City, Princeton, N.J., and Virginia to visit brothers, sisters and nephews who had moved away. In 1840-41, he toured England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Austria and Prussia. For part of his European sojourn, he had two hometown companions, Henry Hertzog and Alexander Small, but he also went alone on a walking tour of western Europe, visiting museums, art galleries, markets and churches.(75) Along the way he penned comments and drawings of what he saw, from the Crystal Palace in London to the bridges and buildings in Heidelberg near his ancestors’ homeland. Most of the scenes he drew are accurate replicas of what stands in that spot today; he seemed too filled with awe to make the sorts of commentaries and witty asides that he made in his sketches of York County. Miller returned to Pennsylvania in the fall of 1841 and resumed his activity as carpenter in York, but with new interest in Europe’s past, which he termed “ancient history.” His “History of War” sketchbook includes the deaths of kings and the War of 1812; later Miller added images of the American Civil War. He finished the bulk of it in 1851,(77) and then, while the Civil War raged in the South, sketched his idea of paradise, New York’s Central Park in the winter of 1864. His fifty-six detailed drawings became the “Guide to Central Park.”(75) Miller seemed to have returned home from Europe with a sense of wanderlust. In 1847, he sold his home for $1,000, according to the York County Deed Books.(19) Upon his retirement from carpentry in 1857, Miller sold his boyhood home on South Duke Street for $1,800.(26)) It is not known exactly where he stayed after he dis­ pensed with the house, although he spent long periods of time visiting relatives in Virginia before the onset of the Civil War. During all or part of the 1870s until his death in 1882, he lived mostly in Christiansburg, Virginia, at first with his niece, Emmeline Miller Craig. (21) M iller’s C hristiansburg Y ears Miller made the first of his fifteen documented trips to Virginia in 1831, to visit his brother Joseph (17841842), a practicing physician in Christiansburg.(22) His brother John, from whom he had learned carpentering, had moved to Rockingham County, Virginia, as well. (23) During his extended stay in Christiansburg, Lewis Miller seemed to have developed strong ties with his brother Joseph’s children: Emmeline A. (1813-1892), Amanda M. (1815-1874), Mary (1818-1873), and Charles (1819-1893). Sketches, poems, letters, valentines and other tokens of affection sent over the years make it clear that he doted on his three nieces and his nephew. Charles was his most frequent traveling companion on trips through the Virginia countryside.(27) Lewis spent much of his time wandering alone or with young people, probably because they had the time. Lewis also spent much time with Charles Edie, the son of his niece Amanda Miller Edie, the second wife of Dr. Joseph Spears Edie. The young boy and Miller went on riding jaunts into the countryside, particularly to Salt Pond at a period when it was probably a pond. (25) Miller increased his visits to his sister-in-law, Matilda Charlton Miller (1786-1854), and her children, follow­ ing Joseph’s death. (26) He was close to other nieces and nephews as well. The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller collec­ tion includes a folded drawing Miller created for Jane Edie (who became his great-step-niece after his niece Amanda Miller married Janie’s father, Dr. Edie, in 1832 or 1833).(27) The pen-and-ink drawing, embellished with flowers and glued-on panels, seemed styled like a valentine and reads, “Let thy mind, love, be at ease; love, love is here.” The drawing was probably made for Edie several years before her marriage to Captain John Crow 15 �Wade on September 18, 1850, and was sold to the collection by Jane Edie’s great-granddaughter Jane Crush Brown and her husband Donald of Christiansburg.(28) A later Miller sketch of Lewis and his grown nephew shows a “little Lewis” in the drawing of “The Old Federal Spring, Christiansburg,” suggesting Charles Miller may have named a son after his favored uncle. Charles Miller graduated from Washington College (now Washington & Lee University) in Lexington, Virginia, in 1846 and studied at Princeton’s Union Seminary, where Lewis Miller visited him several times.(29) Charles Miller returned to Virginia to serve as a Presbyterian home missionary in rugged Giles County (1849-51) and as pastor of the Kimberlin Church in Giles County (1853-62). He also a taught at Montgomery Academy in AWitvcJ-: ( >Vx Civ'W)VV^v-vx-4^V 1Vi• • \i--ter CO \%$Q TL Chritiansburg; later in his career he was pastor of the White House Church near Radford, Virginia. (30) Charles was pictured in numerous Lewis Miller drawings, often riding next to his uncle. While he was in Christiansburg, Séti Miller also spent a great deal of time on the grounds of Montgomery Female Academy, sketching the lawn and the young women. His relationship to these young women is not known, but he did several sketches of a “Miss Mary.” His “Orbus Pictus” draw­ ings, created around 1849, include many generalized drawings of love­ ly young women; sometimes a first name appears in the idealized, sen­ timental, or occasionally self-mock­ ing verses accompanying the sketches. But many more are dedi­ cated to nameless female friends referenced only by pronouns or first names, such as “Grace, Marcia, Jane, Caroline..”(37) Another drawing, “Mary’s IJf-VVXX W ■Awxs cr\«. Homecoming” circa 1856, comes closer to giving away the secrets of an older Lewis Miller’s heart. The man depicted, looking much like M ay 15, 1856 watercolor sketch o f the Female Academ y in Lewis Miller himself, appears near Christiansburg. (Montgomery Museum) tears at the sight of the young woman returning on her horse, and The identity of this “Miss Mary:” has not been has written on the lower margin: “of all the rest, I love thee best, pinned down, but she may have been Mary M. Ingles of Montgomery County, Virginia. On the reverse side of the drawing are her name and a Miss Fanny Ingles.(32) This drawing descended through the family of greatniece Jane Edie Wade to Jane and Donald Brown of Christiansburg. More often though, Miller referred to his beloved or beloveds as simply “a female friend,” usually in such adoring and lofty terms that one is surprised by his lifelong bachelorhood, unless his expectations were overly idealistic. In a page of sketches of trees, flowers and women, Miller writes longingly: y j & i i ’S �“I love to see a female friend who looks as if she thought who on her household will Attend, and do what e’er She Ought, O Could I Such a female Find: Such beautiful one For a wife I spend my days in peace.”(33) In the 1870s, Lewis Miller moved to Christiansburg to live at Hans Meadows, the Craig family farm, with his widowed niece Emmeline, whose son John Craig Jr. had been killed in the Civil War Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863. By 1880 at least, Miller was boarding with Mongtomery County farmer Chester Charlton and his wife, Kate (perhaps relatives of his deceased sister-in-law), according to the 1880 census.(34) It is not clear how Miller supported himself at this time and whether the Charltons expected remuneration. Miller may have been indigent, but according to receipts from the York Savings Institution and York County Bank, Miller did own bank stocks earlier in his retirement. In a letter from Miller’s friend, Samuel Small of York, dated March 24, 1881, Small writes: “The German books came to my hand. I sent them to the College. Professor reports that they cannot be any use to them in the school. Should you like to have Some of your friends here have any of them as a remembrance. I will give to them! Sending you a Check for fifteen dollars.”(35) Miller apparently was interested in getting a college to use one of his sketchbooks, probably a book by his poet friend Henry Fisher, “S Alt Marik-Haus. Un Die Alte; Zeite.” that Miller had filled in 1880 with color sketches of York’s past. Miller received occasional financial assis­ tance from Small, an affluent entrepreneur and one of the founders of York Hospital and the Children’s Home of York. The artist also received some funding from a York friend, John Hay, as well as his successful greatnephew George Billmeyer.(36) On February 27, 1882, impoverished, lonely and ill, Miller wrote to Billmeyer requesting financial assis­ tance. In touching gratitude for the fifteen dollars Billmeyer sent, Miller created more than 200 portraits of citizens from York. (3 7) His ability to remember and depict those peo­ ple whom he hadn’t seen in decades with visually distinguishing characteristics was evidence of Miller’s mental acuity. Miller’s physical health, though, continued to decline in his eighty-seventh year, and on August 17, 1882, he wrote: “[M]y health is failing every day, weakly and in want of strength, but the Lord has kept me So I can help myself in doing to dress and keep clean from dirt...give my Respects to all friends that “A Picture in Montgomery County, Virginia. ” (Montgomery know me, Please send me an Answer and Museum) soon...I am in need of help.”(33) 17 �Ij ‘W t v j i s . ^CvV^S^,. 1,JJLl. Visi, Miller died September 15, 1882, and was buried near his brother in the Craig family cemetery on a knoll near Hans Meadows in Christiansburg. The graveyard, uphill from the Christiansburg Livestock Market on Park Street, was vandalized repeatedly and weeds overtook the monuments. Gravestones were used as campfire benches, and Lewis Miller’s headstone was shattered. (39) In the 1990s, money was raised to erect a new, permanent marker. Unfortunately, vandalism still plagued the cemetery in 2007. L ewis M iller’s V irginia A rtwork Miller grew up amid York, Pennsylvania’s rounded hills and Pennsylvania-German culture, which he documented well. During his Virginia stays, he was fascinated by the landscape, archi­ tecture and culture. He and his Christiansburg rel­ atives planned outings to scenic spots far and near, stopping to allow the artist to sketch. On one such jaunt, Miller sketched and captioned “A visit to Elliott’s Creek. A wild stream foamaing and dash­ ing against the rocks.’Y^Oj In another sketch, he portrayed himselfwalking along the roadbed of the unfinished Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, and wrote, “Branches of the high mountain stretch down to die road, and as huge blue masses of “The New Residence of Rev. Charles A. Miller, build (sic) 1856. | (Montgomery Museum) ¡ S B H § 1 summits ofwhich 316fre‘ ¡ 3 1 dlvided by “ c!efts; S°metanes 38 undulating chains of hills whose side are over­ grown with wood.”(41) The structures of Virginia also impressed the Pennsylvania carpenter, whether small, orderly farmhouses or pillared manors. Shortly after 1856, Miller sketched the commanding new home of his nephew Rev. Charles Miller and penned: “The stately homes of Virginia, how beautiful they stand. o’er all the pleasant land. The deer across their green swards bound, through shad and sunny gleam. And the birds glide past them with the sound of some rejoicing stream. The Building stands on high ground, A beautiful and extensive view of town and surrounding heights.”(V2j The folk artist couldn’t seem to stay reverent for long without a wild streak of humor bursting into the work. One sketch extols Virginia in rather lofty terms over many lines, but at the bottom of the page, Miller dropped in a bit of early American humor: “Why is a tobacco chewer like a goose in a Dutch oven?” “Because he’s always on the spit.” A �sketch on that page shows maple sugar making in Virginia, with sap being boiled in a kettle over a wood fire.(43) Some of Miller’s most popular drawings show public buildings as they stood in the nineteenth century and depict the life of the community going on around them. The 1831 sketch Lewis Miller made of the Montgomery County Courthouse reveals a lively public square on which vendors market their wares, boys bounce balls, wagons mire in the muddy street, and a man is led to court by another with a rifle. To the north, the sketch shows a )!(S$ m pump for the public well William Pepper and Ansiel Snow had dug a few years previously. A sketch of Christiansburg’s Temperance Hall shows two couples in front of the hall, juxta­ posed by a rowdy pair who seemed to be los­ ing both their balance and their bottle. “The kindest and the happiest pair will find occa­ sion to forbear, and something every day; they live to pity and perhaps forgive,” he writes in one section, with a commentary on the effects of whiskey in another. Also, in downtown Christiansburg in 1856, Miller sketches the hotel with a stagecoach out front, and writes: “Lift your dress as you cross the Street. And show your dainty little feet; your steps are light, your eye is gay. No fairer lady greets the day.”(44) Mm! I 1 £ “*m il r Vw 'NV No lady lifting her skirt is pictured; instead, the sole woman in the drawing, an African-American, has her hands too full of Watercolor sketch o f Christiansburg’s Courthouse Square work for any dress-lifting, and with large drawn in 1831. (Montgomery Museum) buckets on her arms, her step is not likely light. One wonders if Miller is purposely being ironic. In several of his Virginia drawings, Miller focuses on the lives of slaves, although not always with the eyes of an abolitionist. On the title page of his “Sketchbook of Landscapes in the State of Virginia” he shows slaves hoe­ ing in fields, wide distances separating them from the well-dressed Caucasians on the other side of the page, although the huge fish in one slave’s hand suggests that the living is good for all. In his drawing of a race horse being attended by African-American slaves, Miller comments: “Change but the hateful term — slave — and they were a contended and a happy race, happier far than the laboring chaps of poor in this country. A comfortable hut, which might, without exaggeration, be termed a cottage; a piece of ground to each, poultry; fed, clothed, and medical attendance gratis, and moreover, a whole holiday on Saturday to be permitted to sell their produce on the markets. Compare this with the free states of the labourer, [sic] and tell me which is the happier man of the two — the slave as he was, or the pauper as he is.” (45) 19 �Miller’s feelings of ambivalence about slavery become apparent in examining other sketchbook drawings, par­ ticularly two. In an 1853 drawing, “Slave Trader, Sold to Tennessee,” white drivers herd a slave cofile southward out of Staunton, Virginia, to Tennessee. In another, “Miss Fillis and Child, and Bill, sold at Publick sale,” Miller gives names and deeply revealing facial expressions to these human beings sold for $800 in downtown Christiansburg. The details in both sketches show a subtle understanding of the trauma slaves experienced. About the Civil War, Miller said less, probably because he had family and friends on both sides of the battle lines. His sketch of Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin visit­ ing York’s Camp Scott on May 11, 1861, has this patriotic note scrawled on the margin: “Not another week should pass over our heads without the capture of Gen. [Joseph] Johnson and his men in the rebel State of Virginia.”(4<5) Perhaps it was war’s destruc­ tion that he feared most, dreading the inevitable loss of life, including that of his great-nephew, John Craig Jr., for whom he created a memorial drawing. “In services which he rendered to his State, in the very crisis of the war Like a Swift reeling meteor, a fast-flying cloud,.” Miller wrote.(47) Although Miller used a wide variety of materials and an assortment of recycled papers (freight bills, advertising, railroad timetables, etc.) over some 70 years, he maintained a surprising consistency and homogeneity as well. He started out with a more controlled, stylized technique and grad­ ually adopted a broader style involving more brush and less pen work.(48) Always frugal of paper, he often created multiple drawings on one sheet, and while some paintings show extreme attention to detail, others appear to be unpolished, waiting for the artist to fill in elements and color. His watercolor palette Watercolor sketch o f the New River in Montgomery consisted of about eight colors, from the dark County entitled “Scene in Virginia, July 6th, 1856.” brown and black used in his notes through (Montgomery Museum) sepia to brilliant Vermillion, greens, rich blue, and canary yellow. At the bottom of one page, he wrote a little advertisement for his own methods: “Are you going to paint? Then use Lew Miller’s Black Dush (tasche) is like Indian ink — a chemical paint ” (49) In addition to his adopted hometown of Christiansburg, Miller created drawings of many other communities around Virginia, including Blacksburg, Mount Vernon, Lexington, Richmond, Salem, Wytheville, Lynchburg, Fredericksburg, Pulaski (which he called “Poleske”) County, and Upshur County in what is now West Virginia. “[C]ould write more about Scenes in the Country, and always find something new to communicate,” he wrote above a sketch of the construction of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad through Montgomery County, Virginia.(50) The Blue Ridge Region he once described thusly: “The country is the scene which supplies us with the loveliest images, this state was where God placed Adam when in Paradise.”(57) The Virginia Historical Society has possession of Miller’s “Virginia Sketchbook,” an album of 114 watercolor drawings depicting scenes from his 1856-57 journeys in Prince Edward , Pulaski, Montgomery, Giles, Roanoke, 20 �Wythe and Upshur counties. Occasional pages are dated as late as 1869 and 1871. Twelve of these scenes were earlier reproduced and sold as reproductions by the F.A.R. Gallery, New York, in 1951 .(52) These Virginia sketchbook-diaries contain romantic scenes of rural life. They also reveal Miller’s study of botanical and zoolog­ ical subjects , which took up almost one-third of his “Sketchbook of Landscapes in the State of Virgina.” Miller continued this interest during the Civil War years and documented the flora and fauna of New York City in his 1864 guide to Central Park. Two more of Miller’s Virginia sketchbooks are held in the collection of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Fold Art Center in Williamsburg, Virginia. These include “Landscapes in the State of Virginia, 1853-1872,” a volume of forty-nine sheets of drawings that was given to the Abby Alrdrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center in the late 1970s.(53) Others of the sixteen Lewis Miller sketchbooks that have so far been found are at the Henry Ford Museum and in collections of the York and Virginia historical societies. A number of the drawings were sold or donated by Christiansburg residents who felt an obligation to make Miller’s work available to the public as part of a secure, well-main­ tained collection. Jane Crush Brown had inherited a Miller drawing, as well as a fancy handmade card “Uncle Lewis” had created for her great-grandmother, Jane Harriet Edie (1826-1912) of Christiansburg. Edie became Lewis Miller’s step-great-niece after her father, Dr. Joseph Edie, married Miller’s niece, Amanda Miller. Brown’s Miller draw­ ing, “Mary’s Homecoming,” depicted a man closely resembling Lewis Miller with a young woman presumed to be Mary M. Ingles (a descendant of the Mary Draper Ingles who was held captive by Shawnees in 1755) of Radford, Virginia. Brown sold both of these items to Colonial Williamsburg’s Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center in 1981.(54) In the 1957 history book he compiled, Brown’s father, Judge Charles Wade Crush “Fishing at New River,” by Lewis Miller, undated. (1893-1970; grandson of Jane Edie Wade), (Montgomery Museum) stated that he had once owned a Lewis Miller sketchbook but “this book was filched from the author, but was found and purchased from an art dealer in NY by the Virginia Historical Society.”(55) In an earlier book, “Montgomery County, Virginia; The First Hundred Years,” Crush mentioned that a Miller sketch­ book was then owned by a Christiansburg resident, Eva Sue Rosseau. (5<5) She was the daughter of Mary Matilda Edie Figgett (1836-1923), and a second cousin of Judge Crush, as well as a granddaughter of Lewis Miller’s niece, Amanda Edie. (5 7) Rosseau apparently later moved to Williamsburg, Virginia, where she had the works photographed by a Williamsburg photographer Thomas L. Williams in 1949 or 1950, before she sold the sketchbook to Harry Shaw Newman at the Old Print Shop gallery in New York in 1951 .(58) Rosseau gave permission to Williams to make additional print copies from his negatives. Williams sold prints to Miller collector George Hay Kain of York, Pennsylvania, in June 1953.(59) Thomas Williams’ daughter, Karen Laufeer, and her husband, George, sold an 21 �1857 Lewis Miller valentine to the Montgomery Museum. She later donated her father’s negatives of Rosseau’s Miller sketchbook to the museum. (60) Twelve of the original drawings were restored, reproduced and sold as facsimiles by F. A. R. Gallery in New York in 1951/077 In 1953, the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond purchased the sketchbook from F.A.R. Gallery./>2) Betty Stuart Goldsmith Halberstadt and her husband, Jon Halberstadt of Christiansburg, were motivated to ensure that their Miller prints were available to the public. Betty “Stuart” Halberstadt’s mother, Betty Beale Stuart had been a close friend of Mary “Sherwood” Flagg (1884-1973), a great-great-niece of Lewis Miller. Flagg was also the granddaughter of Miller’s niece, Emmeline Miller Craig, at whose home Miller may have died. Flagg, who never married, had inherited the Hans Meadow home and a collection of Miller’s sketches from her aunt, Mary Taylor (1841-1929)/63) “As Sherwood got older, she was concerned about what would become of the Lewis Miller art. Miller had become quite well-known posthumously, and she suspected individuals would be seeking the drawings for their collections,” Jon Halberstadt said. “She didn’t want them to be split up and sold piecemeal to private collectors. She wanted to make sure the public would be able to see these works.” Before her death in 1973, Flagg told Stuart Halberstadt’s mother to take the box of Lewis Miller drawings and “do the right thing.” When Stuart Halberstadt’s mother died four years later, the Halberstadts inherited the draw­ ings and the responsibility that went with them.(64) In 1991, they contacted curator Barbara Luck of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center and contributed thirty-one Lewis Miller sketches and related objects, such as photographs/b5) In 2003, they donated six more items. “We know we did the right thing,” Halberstadt said. “Money isn’t everything.”/ / ) Colonial Williamsburg began acquiring Miller works as early as 1978, mostly from the Kain family, descen­ dants of Miller’s York friend and occasional benefactor, John Hay. The Hay-Kahn family received much of Miller’s work and has been instrumental in the preservation of Miller’s work through both the Rockefeller Folk Art Center and the Virginia Historical Society. In 1978, Mr. and Mrs. Richard H. Kain donated sixty-three sheets comprising Miller’s “Sketchbook of Landscapes in the State of Virginia,” and Mr. and Mrs. William H. Kain donated sixty-three sheets comprising most of Miller’s “Orbis Pictus.” In 1980, the William Kains contributed one of Miller’s bound travel journals. Lewis Miller did not come into fame until at least seventy years after his death. In the late 1930s, when the public kindled an interest in Pennsylvania German art and crafts, historians recognized Miller’s work and in the 1950s, art historians recognized it. He was included in the Dictionary of American Artists in 1957. and his work appeared in lull-color reproductions in American Heritage and Life Magazine in 1955. The carpenter who died in poverty now holds a prime place in the story of American folk art. M ontgomery M useum & L ewis M iller R egional A rt C enter Montgomery Museum and Lewis Miller Regional Art Center is housed in the former manse of the Christiansburg Presbyterian Church at 300 S. Pepper Street, Christiansburg. Lewis Miller likely visited this home after it was built in 1852. The museum acquired the property in 1983 and opened satellite branches in Riner and Shawsville in 2007. The Riner facility is located in a log cabin to the left of the high school, and the Shawsville branch is located in the Meadowbrook Center adjacent to the library. Montgomery Museum also handles the care and maintenance of Craig Cemetery, where Lewis Miler is buried, behind the Christiansburg Livestock Market off Park Street. Montgomery Museum and Lewis Miller Regional Art Center holds two original Miller sketches: a religious drawing done in 1880 and a sketch of Martin Luther’s monument in Witttenburg, Germany, made during his European travels in 1841. The museum’s permanent collection also contains an original valentine dated 1857 and a daguerreotype of the artist in his middle years. The museum also has possession of numerous reproductions, articles and artifacts from the life of Lewis Miller. In addition to its permanent exhibits on Lewis Miller, Elliston-bom Walter Biggs, and Montgomery County history, the museum hosts a series of changing exhibits featuring artifacts from the region. Art shows spotlighting local artists are housed in the second floor art gallery and change every two months. The museum also houses a library of historical and genealogical texts for use by researchers. The Museum Store sells Lewis Miller prints and gifts, as well as historical and regional books. 22 �N otes 1. Beatrice Rumford, ed.,American Folk Paintings, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center Series, (New York:Little, Brown & Co., 1988), p. 134; hereafter cited as Rumford.. 2. Donald Shelley, “Lewis Miller,” American Folk Painters of Three Centuries, ed. Jean Lipman and Tom Armstrong: (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1980); p. 127; hereafter cited as Shelley, American Folk Painters.. 3. Donald Shelley, Lewis Miller: Sketches and Chronicles: Reflections of a Nineteenth Century Pennsylvania German Folk Artist,ed. Robert P. Turner (York, Pa.: Historical Society of York County, 1966), p. ii; hereafter cited as Shelley, Lewis Miller. 4. Shelley, Lewis Miller, p. 100. 5. Shelley, American Folk Painters, p. 128. 6. Shelley, Lewis Miller, p. xvi. 7. Ibid. 8. Preston and Eleanor Barba, “Lewis Miller, Pennsylvania German Folk Artist,” The Pennsylvania German Folklore Society, vol. 4 (Allentown, PA; Schlechter’s. 1030), P. 10; hereafter cited as Barba. 9. Shelley, Lewis Miller, p. xvi. 10. Lori Myers, “Lewis Miller,” Central Pennsylvania Magazine, Dec. 2002, p. 24, hereafter cited as Myers. 11. Ibid. p. 23. 12. Ibid. 13. Lewis Miller sketches, “The Primitive and the Park,” American Heritage, Pet. 1955, vol.6, no. 6, p. 52. 14. Lewis Miller valentine owned by MM. 15. Lewis Miller, “Ludoviscus Miller’s Historia of War—A General History of War,” in sketchbook journal, 1851, held by York County (PA) Heritage Trust. 16. Barba, p. 11. 17. Shelley, American Folk Painters, p. 126. 18. Lewis Miller sketches, “The Primitive and the Park,” p. 52. 19. Myers, p. 52. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid. p. 24. 22. Rumford, P. 134. 23. Ibid. p. 147. 24. Ibid. p. 134. 25. John Nicolay, “Lewis Miller: Artist,” Mountainside, vol. 1, no. 2, 1980, p. 8. 26. Rumford, p. 134. 27. Ibid, p. 139. 28. Ibid. 29. Harry Rinker and Richard M. Kain, “Lewis Miller’s Sketchbook: A Record of Rural Life,” Antiques Magazine, Feb. ’81, p. 397. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid., p. 140-141. 32. Ibid., p. 151. 33. Ibid. p. 142. 34. Rumford, p. 134. 35. Samuel Small, personal correspondence to Lewis Miller, March 24, 1881, MM. 36. Myers, p. 26. 37. Rumford, p. 134. 38. Barba, p. 12. 39. Nicolay, p. 10. 40. Lewis Miller, aketch, “Visit to Elliott Creek,” Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Williamsburg, Va. 23 �41. Lewis Miller, sketch, “Virginia & Tennessee Railroad through Montgomery County, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Williamsburg, Va. 42. Lewis Miller sketch,, “New Residence, Rev. Charles Miller, VHS 43. Carol McCabe, “The World of Lewis Miller,” Early American Life ,August 1985, p. 67. 44. Lewis Miller sketch, “Hotel at Center Square,” Christiansburg, VHS 45. Lewis Miller sketch, “Racehorse for Sportsman,” VHS 46. Lewis Miller sketch, The Pennsylvania German Folklore Society.York County (PA) Heritage Trust 47. Lewis Miller sketch, “In Memory of John Craig, John Craig Jr. Killed at Chancellorsville,” VHS. 48. Shelley, Lewis Miller, p. xxi. 49. Barba, p. 13. 50. McCabe, p., 67. 51. Kanode, Hans Meadow, p.16/ 52. Shelley, American Folk Painter, p. 167. 53. Barbara Luck, curator at Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, interview, July 11, 2007. 54. Ibid. 55. Crush, P. 63. 56. Charles Wade Crush and E. T. Ingmire, Montgomery County. Virginia, The First Hundred Years (Athens, Ga.: Iberian Publishing Co., 1940. 57. Kanode, p. 77. 58. Thomas Williams’ statement of ownership of Lewis Miller sketch negatives, undated property of MM. 59. Thomas Williams, correspondence with G. H. Kain, property of MM. 60. Bob Poff interview, June 25, 2007 61. Shelley, American Folk Painters, p. ' 17. 62. Ibid. 63. Kanode, Hans Meadow, p. 23 64. Jon Halberstadt interview, July 10, 2007. 65. Barbara Luck interview. 66. Halberstadt interview. 24 �Roanoke's Social Life in 1912 ~ 9 IfJJU V by D orathy Piedm ont n the summer of 1912, a young lady began a diary that was to carry her through her senior year at Roanoke High School and into her life after graduation. Her name was Nina Quinn, oldest of the Quinns who lived on Allison Avenue. Following are excerpts from her observations and adventures. She begins: I Sun. July 16 While we were at dinner, Mrs. Frank Brown phoned asking Mamma and Clem to go for an automobile ride!! [in their EMF Franklin.. .a kind invitation since Nina’s brother had a crippling spinal condition] ... Leo Henebry wants me to go to the park [Highland] with him tomorrow night, but I can’t so I’m going to go to the Jefferson tomorrow aft. with him. Mon. July 17 Helped today and read a little. Leo came for me about 4 o’clock. We took a box and I felt horribly conspicuous. I asked him to dinner.of course he accepted. Tues. July 18 Read a good book today. Went downtown this afternoon. Wed. July 19 Mamma and Papa are going up north for a week. Aunt Rose is going to stay with us at night and I’m to keep house. Fri. July 21 I’ve been sewing today a good deal. I read a little too. Made a dandy fruit salad this afternoon and some mayonnaise dressing. Went to moving pictures with ‘S.’ Herbert and Earle were here nearly all evening when we got back... Genevieve’s coming home tomorrow night. w Dorathy Brown Piedmont, a native o f Roanoke and a graduate o f Hollins College, has written about her childhood and tier father in previous issues o f the Journal. Nina Quinn was a relative. 25 �Sat. July 22 Mamma and I were very busy getting things straightened up preparatory to Genevieve’s coming home. Tonight, Herbert and S. and Clem and I went down to meet her. The train is due at 12:18 and it didn’t come to 12:35. She looks fine and had a splendid time while away. [Genevieve, Nina’s next-oldest sister, had been sent to Convent school in Pennsylvania because of her many talents. Ultimately she put those talents into practice with Miss Gen’s Kindergarten.] Sun. July 23 Genevieve and I went to late Mass and were late getting there. Tonight, Mamma and Dad took the kids and went out. Herbert and S. came up. Also Edith brought Mr. Britt over. Mon. July 24 Genevieve and Herbert Nave have had a scrap.. .He came over and told me all about it... S. and I went for a walk and then to Dalby’s. [Dalby’s was the ice cream parlor downtown.] Tues. July 26 We’ve all worked like (crazy) today getting Mamma ready to go tomorrow night. She had her lavender dress to finish and a great many little things to do. Tonight Genevieve and I stayed home and helped her. Wed. July 26 There was some rushing done today, believe me. There was just an endless number of little things that had to be done.. .and then there was the darned old ironing to do because Essie chose to be sick and there was no one to be found. The train Mamma and Papa took left at 5:25. Aunt Rose doesn’t come until late in the evening and I have complete charge of the kids and house. Thurs July 27 It’s been cold and rainy all day. The kids were good and played indoors. Fru. July 28 I wanted to finish a dress I was making so that I could wear it downtown this afternoon. I worked until I was nearly daft.. .the kids demand so much waiting on... I’m never going to get married. Sun. July 30 I had a perfectly scrumptious dinner today. I made, with Clem’s kind assistance, the best chocolate ice cream this a.m. Aunt Rose came over to dinner. The kids behave a little better when she’s at the table. Mon. July 31 Genevieve and Edith and I took the kids up in the park this a.m. S. came over and we read a story in the Ladies Home Journal. He swung the kids too, ...then he had the audacity to invite himself to dinner. The only thing we had for dinner was some Campbell’s vegetable soup. Tonight is the last night I’ll have to put the kids to bed. Mamma and Dad are coming home tomorrow. I got a postcard from them from Atlantic City this a.m. Tues. Aug. 1 The morning’s mail brought me a postal from Aunt Cleo [Aunt Cleo Shoffner was her maternal aunt who was close to her age and a frequent companion], saying that if possible I was to come to Ocean View Thurs. I was in a blue frenzy for fear Mamma and Papa wouldn’t come home and make it that I couldn’t get away. They were due on the Memphis Special if they came and Clem went to meet them... Mamma looks fine and so does Dad. They report having had a splendid time. They say I may go on Thursday if I can get ready by that time. Daddy ordered my Pullman passes and other passes at once. [Dad worked for the railroad.] 26 �Wed. Aug. 2 I worked my head nearly off today. Mamma made me a love of a lingerie hat. Thurs. Aug. 3 This has been the busiest of birthdays ever. I’m nineteen today but I haven’t had time to realize. I got a dear pair of white canvas shoes... Daddy helped me pack after supper. S. and Mamma and Daddy went to the train with me. We walked up and down the platform until the train was ready to start. It left at 12:18.1 did hate to say goodbye ever so badly but I’m crazy to see the ocean. Fri. Aug. 4 Arrived in Norfolk at 8:00 a.m. promptly. Aunt Cleo met me at the train. We went to Linn’s for breakfast and then did some shopping before we went out to the View. It’s about a half-hour car ride from Norfolk to Ocean View and it’s simply delightful. At first glimpse of the ocean I couldn’t distinguish it from the horizon. It’s grand. It’s wonderful... There is a perfectly lovely crowd at the cottage. The name of the cottage is Diggs and it’s the most popular cottage along the line. It began raining soon after we got there... I was immediately intro­ duced to everyone. On account of the weather we all had to stay indoors... Nearly everyone plays or sings and consequently it’s very pleasant for all. Tonight after dinner we went up to the View. It’s just about a block from the cottage and the car runs right past the door. Professor Hamed, our music teacher, is here. He’s simply splen­ did. I danced a good deal tonight. Professor Hamed is a splendid dancer. Sat. Aug. 5 After breakfast, Aunt Cleo and I went up to the View to meet cousin Maude. She had just come. We started back to the cottage about 11 o’clock so we could go in bathing. The crowd always goes in at 11:00 a.m.and four in the afternoon. We had no end of fun getting into our bathing suits and sizing ourselves up. My suit is peacock blue mohair trimmed with soutache braid. I had a blue rubber cap, too. Maude’s was blue and Aunt Cleo’s also with a red rubber cap. It was my first bath in the ocean and it was simply gorgeous. [She then relates her adventures with the waves and learning to float. She also talks about a growing vacation flirtation.]... My hair was soaking wet and I sat out on the roof with Miss Tinsley and Miss Wooten and dried it. After dinner, we all got ready and went up to the View. [She and her gentleman decided to have a good time by themselves.] First we went on the circle swings and then we got claret limeades and then we went down and did the Leap the Dips. It was lovely moonlight and the air was delightful. We sat on the cottage porch and talked until 11:30. Sun. Aug. 6 [Descriptions of a new arrival] After lunch we all went into the parlour and everybody sang. [She says a reluctant farewell to her vacation flirtation.] Mon. Aug. 7 It’s been beautiful today.: Tues. Aug. 8 [A new arrival is paying attention to her.] He’s a traveling man. I mean to say he travels for the Crawford Shoe Co., Lynchburg. He bores me dreadfully with his talk. He persists in telling me what exquisite hair I have and how pretty I am. He really is old enough to know better. I think I’ll freeze him tomorrow. Wed. Aug. 9 Today’s been awfully hot. I have about a million and three more freckles on my face than I had when I came down here... Tonight we had to content ourselves with staying at the cottage and playing cards, singing and talk­ ing for it rained very hard. 27 �Nina Quinn McGinnis and her daughters, Jane and Bootie. Thurs. Aug. 10 My last day. Goodness how I wish I could have stayed. [She stays overnight in the Edgewater section of Norfolk at the home of Maude’s Aunt and Uncle, the Duffys, and is safely got to the train for an uneventful trip home.] Fri. Sept. 1 [Back home] The boys wanted to take us for a boat ride but were afraid to ask Mamma. She had a grouch on. We mustered up the nerve and asked her. As Aunt Annie was there she said yes,... So we girls skidooed upstairs and changed our dresses which were lawns for ginghams and went... We promised faithfully to be back by 5:30. It didn’t take long for the boys to get the boat out of the boat house and we were soon sailing happily on the river. S. and I rowing and Herbert and Genevieve watching out for obstacles. Well, we butted into about nineteen tree stumps and every time Herbert and Genevieve would yell so hard I nearly dropped the oar. Then Herbert fussed every time I happened to accidentally splash him. Finally, he decided to take off his shoes and stockings. He had on a beautiful pair of dark blue hose and I accidentally dropped some more water into his shoes and wet his socks which were in his shoes. He was awfully agreeable about it so to pacify him we had to let him smoke a cigarette, though S. said it wasn’t good for him. Before we knew it we had drifted under Walnut Street Bridge and it’s next to impossible to get back after you get on that part of the river... for it’s very swift and an awful lot of rocks and rapids. We didn’t know all this until afterwards, however, and thought we were having an awfully swift joy ride when - bump - we banged into a monstrous rock. If the boat hadn’t been made of steel it would have smashed to pieces. Herb got excited and jumped out on the rock and as soon as the boat got dislodged we went shooting down some vicious looking rapids. I knew what was coming and shut my eyes. We shot down a big rapid and the boat lodged against a big rock and a lot of water came in on us. We looked up the river at Herb who was calmly sitting on a rock in the middle of the river, smoking a cigarette. Wet and scared as I was, I near­ ly died laughing at him. S. bawled at him to come... help us out of the river. Herb rolled up his pants and waded down to where we were... Then we girls had to be got out of the boat somehow... S. rolled up his trousers and 28 �left on his shoes and socks. He looked like a lank Highland Laddie. He took me in his arms there in full view of Walnut Street Bridge and carried me to the bank... Herb insisted on carrying Genevieve... of course as soon as the weight was out of the boat it took it upon itself to go dashing down the river. S. set me down on the bank and went after it. Fortunately it was caught in some debris and held... Then the boys had to drag the boat quite a dis­ tance through barbwire fences... to get it back to the boat house. Thanks to the wind and sun our clothes were almost dry by the time we got home and Mamma wasn’t one bit wiser. The boys are coming up tonight but Papa announced that he and Mamma and Aunt Annie were going up the Incline and that we girls were going to have the exalted pleasure of taking the babies to the moving picture show. Sun. S ep t 3 My time is pretty much up for fun. School opens Tues. and I could yell with rage. Tues. S ep t 5 I got up earlier this a.m. than I have in a long time on account of school. The new French teacher is a bird.. .He’s from Harvard and has a classy close-cropped mustache. He wears a perfectly violent Persian tie with pink roses and a green background. His suit’s a greenish gray and he wears bright yellow shoes... [She speaks of her fierce English tech, Miss Critz, and of taking Math, History, French and Latin, and laments her lack of time to attend to “Dear Little Diary.”] At Christmas ‘she’ got a lovely evening coat.. .champagne, trimmed in black braid and black velvet buttons and lined in pale blue satin. I got a sweet little blue messaline evening dress, too (and gifts from various gentlemen friends) During March, we had a play for the benefit of the piano fund. Mrs. Frank Brown turned up [to coach them] and we had only two weeks to get ready. In one act I was a Suffragette and in another a Greek Goddess. It was heaps of fun. [She then describes graduation and a final dance on the mountain at which Class Beauty, Miss Emma Hester, did the “Turkey Trot” with the Zoology Professor.and then the band struck up “Everybody’s Doin’ It.”] [Life after Roanoke High School found Nina excited to be in Normal School preparing to be a teacher.] They gave it in charge of Mr. Fitzpatrick out at Park Street School and there are seventeen girls -B all old school chums of mine. We have two textbooks — Psychology and History of Education. [Entries in “Dear Little Diary” soon came to a close and so too does our glimpse into the world of 1912. but we leave enduringly grateful for the descriptive powers of young Nina Quinn.] EPILOGUE Despite the depth of her friendship with S., Nina became Mrs. Thomas (Mac) McGinnis. Genevieve, as previous­ ly noted, ran Miss Gen’s Kindergarten. Brother Clem became a CPA and the “Kids” grew up to be: Joe, with the telephone company in New Jersey; Gertrude (Bun) taught for a time at Crystal Spring School and became Mrs. Henry Thomas; and Donald, who entered the military. ‘S.’ was Dr. Norbom (Snooks) Muir, an orthodontist. He never married but “Dear Little Diary” was found among his possessions. 29 �Blue Ridge Parkway ~ A Graceful Mountain Drive by P eter Givens n tourism circles these days, a lot of folks are talking about the idea of “heritage corridors,” a term that by its very nature suggests “connectedness,” the linking of towns and communities, along with the stories and envi­ ronments connecting those places. Heritage corridors are defined as settled landscapes and places where the land has shaped traditions and the cultural values of the people who live there. This is the basic definition of such places. For those of us who live here in the Blue Ridge or Appalachian region, it is almost impossible to read those words without thinking of the Blue Ridge Parkway. A settled landscape... a place that has shaped the lives of residents... a land reflecting the culture of the people... protecting a wide variety of resources and traditions. These are phrases that fit the Parkway like a glove. I This is the text o f a talk given by Peter Givens as part o f the 75th anniversary observance o f the Parkway at a meeting o f the Historical Society o f Western Virginia in April 2010. Givens, an interpretive ranger, has worked on the Blue Ridge Parkway fo r 20 years. A North Carolina native, he is a graduate o f Lenoir-Rhyne College. 30 �Former planners and superintendents spoke of “integrating the Parkway into the local scene of the highlands” and indicated that the relationship of this park to the region was the “most critical factor” for the future planning and management. The Parkway’s “one reason for existence,” according to its original landscape architect Stanley W. Abbott, was to reveal “the native American countryside.” What better way to reveal the countryside of the Appalachians... or the variety... or the “connectedness”. .. or the heritage of the people... than with a graceful mountain parkway? It began as an idea... a concept in the minds of Depression-era politicians. This type of project, they rea­ soned, could provide public-service jobs for many of the nation’s unemployed. At the same time, it would be a link between the two eastern national parks, Virginia’s Shenandoah and the Great Smokies of North Carolina and Tennessee. The route was decided and the process began - to carve out of this rugged part of the Southern Appalachians a roadH a parkway —down the Blue Ridge. The survey crews blazed a trail that sometimes led to cabins in remote coves - rocky hillsides where families eked out an existence from the land. In other areas, they found nicer homes, productive farms, even hotels and resorts. Patience, an infinite amount of patience, was necessary in order to deal with many landowners who were reluctant to sell. For most, however, the source of income from their land was welcomed. Jobs were scarce and jobs were hard to come by - much of this rocky land was too poor for much good anyway. One particular man, bom and bred in the mountains, commented that he had won­ dered all of his life what this land was good for. “And now I’ve found out,” he said. “Its good fer a road.” September 1935 came and the first rocks were blasted from the mountainside near the North Carolina-Virginia state line. Survey parties led the way far into the mountains and soon began to realize the size of the task at hand. For many of these areas, there were not even current maps available. Interviews with locals often were the deter­ mining factor in where the center line would be laid. Foremost in the minds of construction crews was creating as little “scar” as possible. The Parkway was to “lay easy on the land” and, in order for that to be accomplished, great care was taken to blend the new roadway into its natural surroundings. Progress was steady until the early 1940s when work was diverted by the coming of World War II. After the war, work resumed through the late 1950s and early ’60s. Finally, the only “missing link” was a section around Grandfather Mountain, North Carolina. In order to preserve the fragile environment on the steep slopes of Grandfather, a unique and award-winning design - the Linn Cove Viaduct - fulfilled the purpose. Part of the impact of the Blue Ridge Parkway on our region is the magnificent Way this strip of land protects our natural and cultural regional heritage. When the Parkway was just an idea - before a shovel full of dirt had been turned or one rock carefully placed at a bridge or culvert - an important factor was already established: It would naturally run along the mountains, aligned north to south. This alignment in many ways determines the diversity of the park and the multitude of heritage stories that are interpreted here today. So much of America’s cultural and natural history follows an east-west path. Settlement patterns, the lay of the mountains, river drainage patterns, and our tendency as a country in our formative years to “look west,” all con­ tribute to this Parkway slicing through and across a multitude of stories associated with the natural and cultural heritage of our region and our nation. Simply because of this north-south orientation, the Blue Ridge Parkway becomes a corridor of protection that captures vignettes of a wide variety of America’s great stories. A few exam­ ples will illustrate this. Think of Daniel Boone and Thomas Jefferson, living in the Piedmont of Virginia and North Carolina, but spending much of their lives looking and dreaming westward. Boone’s many ventures west took him across this corridor that we know as the Parkway. Jefferson spent time at a Rockfish Gap tavern with a group of selected friends discussing his plan for a university. In his only published book, “Notes on the State of Virginia,” he detailed much of his natural and cultural observations and curiosities on the Blue Ridge, directly referencing the Peaks of Otter. During the American Revolution and the War Between the States, the east-west migration of troops through mountain passes played a significant role. The Overmountain Men from Upper East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia crossed the Blue Ridge headed for a significant battle at Kings Mountain late in the American Revolution. General George Stoneman’s raid through Western North Carolina left earthworks that can still be 31 �seen at Deep Gap, and troops crossed the Blue Ridge near the Peaks of Otter, maneuvering around Lynchburg, considered a major strategic location. Frederick Jackson Turner’s “Frontier Hypothesis,” though dated, influences our understanding and interpreta­ tion of early Blue Ridge settlement. When Turner speaks of “innovation, adaptation, and invention” characteriz­ ing each new frontier settlement, along with the continuous pattern of venturing west to “begin over again,” there is at least some relevance to the stories we tell and preserve about early Blue Ridge settlement patterns. The stories of natural history in the Blue Ridge are just as important, and sometimes even follow the same east-west pattern. Mountain passes provide a convenient crossing for a variety of wildlife. “Water gaps” where the James, Roanoke, Linville, Swannanoa, and French Broad cross the park provide a wealth of cultural and nat­ ural history stories and resources protected for the visiting public along the Blue Ridge Parkway. In the area of natural history, the Parkway is widely known, having 1,600 types of identified vascular plants, fifty rare or endangered plants, and a number of rare or endangered animals. Twelve types of mature deciduous forests exist in the park, along with Canadian vegetation types at higher elevations. One-hundred-ten miles of streams and thirteen lakes also dot the landscape. Heath balds and mountain bogs offer unique areas of resource management and interpretive opportunities. This variety of natural features is tied most closely to elevation with ranges from about 600-6,000 feet, but the north-south orientation spanning 500 miles is also a significant factor in creating one of the most diverse units of the National Park System. We could just as easily discuss the linking of areas where music and crafts dominate the story. The history of the early European settlers in the Blue Ridge is perhaps best told by their performing arts rather than by their material arts. Along the Parkway corridor, we also find the tremendous heritage of traditional string band music. The thread that ties all of these together into a “singularly neat package” is the Blue Ridge Parkway. The early designers and planners had at least some sense of this as they patiently and consistently went about the business of designing variety into the park design. Follow a mountain stream, climb up on the slope of a hill­ side pasture, dip into the open bottomlands, highlight a historic building or landscape, or historic canal lock, and back into the woodlands. Linking these experiences was foremost in their minds. What this variety and “connectedness” means to us today, I think, is reminding us of the necessity of thinking regionally and broadly in the management of this place. We find ourselves on the Parkway working with a multi­ tude of groups, agencies, and organizations, each with an interest in their story that surfaces on the Parkway. Our “partners” are as varied as our resources and the stories that go along with them. From the Eastern Band of the Cherokee to the Appalachian Trail Conference, from the tourism folks in Floyd and Patrick County to the restaurant owners in Laurel Fork, North Carolina, multiple resources bring to the forefront multiple partners with the park. These partners represent communities, and when you link hundreds of communities in 29 counties by way of a long, linear park, you have created a heritage corridor that impacts an entire region. As this National Park Service site fulfills its mandate to “preserve and protect for the enjoyment of future gen­ erations,” it is both natural and necessary for park managers now and in the future to think in terms of heritage corridors. Working with a variety of communities, professional disciplines, universities, or protection-oriented organizations, there is no better place than the Blue Ridge Parkway to care for and interpret these widely diverse stories that are ours to cherish. America’s landscape, however, is forever changing and a cross-country drive or a quick look around your hometown will confirm that. In “Our Vanishing Landscape,” Eric Sloane describes an America that used to be: “The pattern of our early landscape... had the mellowness and dignity of well seasoned wood. Close at hand there were lanes with vaulting canopies of trees and among them were houses with personalities like human beings. At a distance, it was all like a patchwork quilt of farm plots sewn together with a rough back stitching of stone fences.” Traveling down the Appalachians on the Blue Ridge Parkway... out beyond “the edge”... visitors see a land­ scape that has changed considerably since the first shovel of dirt was turned creating this national park. This is, of course, especially true in highly populated areas like Roanoke and Asheville. All of these changes affect the park experience of 20 million visitors each year. “The growing changes rung on the landscape of today,” Eric Sloane continues, “are the Americana of tomorrow.” What happens to this place makes a difference. Those of us who live “on the edge” - in those 29 counties and 32 �hundreds of communities and thou­ sands of neighborhoods - find that there is a pride, an enjoyment, and a responsibility that comes with 1 that. I make no apologies when I say I am proud of the Blue Ridge Parkway. I didn’t grow up in this area, but as I have told people in the past, I got here just as soon as I could. This pride that most people have is important. It helps, first of H aM I m M iiia g B all, in protecting the Parkway. It is one of those important collective feelings that we share with each other that, I believe, add to our sense of community. ■m There is, secondly, an enjoyment The Peaks o f Otter’s Abbott Lake displays the austere beauty o f to living “on the edge” of the the Parkway in winter. (Christina Koomen photo) Parkway. And no wonder! We have 87,000 acres of protected land, 110 miles of streams, 13 lakes, 100 his­ toric structures. And this doesn’t even take into account the intangible things like cool air, vistas, and just the serenity of the place. Everyone, it seems, loves the Parkway. Personally, I enjoy the trout streams where those lit­ tle native brook trout are still alive and well. I enjoy the grassy hills down around Rocky Knob on crisp October days. It’s a wonderful place to get away from whatever you need to get away from - for enjoyment. But in addition to pride and enjoyment, there comes a certain degree of responsibility associated with “living on the edge” of the most visited NPS area. As I mentioned earlier, there are over 5,000 adjacent landowners, 29 counties, six congressional districts. One of the themes that you will often hear from us as we speak to communities and organizations is “you’re impor­ tant to the Parkway and the Parkway is important to you.” This place cannot stay the way we know it for another 75 years without community and regional help, and the communities and region will not continue to be what they are without a well maintained, cared for, protected Parkway corridor. There is a mutual responsibility involved. I once heard someone say that “too many places we see in America today look like too many places we see in America today.” I didn’t understand it at first, but I began to think about inner cities, interstates, subdivisions... all of which very often look the same no matter where you are in America. But national parks aren’t like that - S they are places where people can have “unique experiences, remarkable experiences, experiences unattainable elsewhere.” Aldo Leopold in the 1930s and’40s said: “We abuse the land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see the land as a community to which we belong we may begin to use it with love and respect.” Keeping parks like that involves community support, especially in a place with so many communities and so many neighbors. Living on “the edge” of the Parkway does generate pride... it is an enjoyable experience... but most of all, to keep it like we want it, we must recognize the responsibility we have in our communities to do all we can to ensure that our children and our children’s children have a Blue Ridge Parkway to enjoy like we do. iii 33 �A P arkw au P icn ic S aves a W a te rfa ll n the formative days o f Blue Ridge Parkway planning, decisions were made on a regular basis having to do with alignment o f the road or the purchase o f property. These decisions were often politically charged and very public in nature. One o f the most fascinating and important, however, took place in the early 1950s over a picnic lunch under the shade o f hem­ lock trees on the banks o f the Linville River in western North Carolina. Longtime Parkway Superintendent Sam Weems o f Roanoke received a call from former National Park Service Director Horace Albright, advising him that John D. Rockefeller and his son David wanted to visit the Parkway. “Would you set up the trip and see to it that he’s taken care of?” Albright asked. Immediately, Linville Falls came to mind. Timber companies were already beginning to work in this privately owned area and the National Park Service wanted to keep the upper falls as part o f the Parkway. The price tag was too high, however, unless someone with the finances came to the rescue. Mr. Rockefeller’s interest in the Parkway and his upcoming Sam Weems, Parkway superintendent in Roanoke from 1944 to 1966. visit “nudged my thinking a little bit” Weems recalled in an interview decades later. With orders to keep the visit as secret as possible, Mr. Weems made reservations at the Hotel Roanoke under an assumed name. The superintendent and the Parkway’s Chief Ranger Mac Dale headed south with their important guests the following day. At Doughton Park, Weems had arranged to pick up a huge picnic lunch provided by the con­ cessionaire “complete with linens and the whole works” Weems recalled. Arriving at Linville Falls, the superintendent casually mentioned a “real nice place down here where we can have lunch.” Under a huge hemlock tree on the river bank, Weems began his pitch and encouraged Rockefeller to walk down to the falls. Unfortunately Mr. Rockefeller told him that, under doc­ tors’ orders, he could not walk that far. N ot to be defeated, Weems took David Rockefeller fur­ ther down the way and the young boy came back excited, telling his father about the beautiful falls and the wonderful wildflowers he had seen. I 34 �The picnic spot had been pre­ arranged within earshot of the sawmills and Weems and Dale made sure that Mr. Rockefeller could hear them and understand the impact that timbering this Philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr. area could have. Mr. Rockefeller expressed an interest, inquired about the price, and the superin­ tendent whipped out all o f the maps and documentation he had been able to gather prior to the trip. “Put it in my briefcase, David,” Mr. Rockefeller told his son, and that ended the conver­ sation. A month later, Sam Weems Picturesque lower Linville Falls recalled, he got another call say­ ing that Mr. Rockefeller had promised to “pick up the tab” on the Linville Falls property if the price could be negotiated down to an agreed amount. A trip to visit the owner was next on Weems’ agenda and after a number o f meetings and discussions, the deal was made. Weems could proudly announce that he had Linville Falls and could give Mr. Rockefeller $5,000 back in change! N ot all o f the decisions about the Parkway’s route and land base are as interesting and color­ ful, but this was, without question, one o f the most important from those days. ~ Peter Givens 35 �Oliver White Hill ~ Civil Rights Attorney in Roanoke ana Throughout Virginia by John Kern humanitarian, and political activities I have been part o f a large team o f lawyers and activists dedicated to creating a more just and humane society. I Oliver Hill, Autobiography, 2000(7) This paper focuses on Oliver Hill’s education and career in Roanoke, with additional discussion of his Howard University Law School training and his civil rights legal practice in Virginia from the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s. P rologue My research suggests that civil rights advocates who opposed Jim Crow racial discrimination achieved pro­ gressive reforms when they received collective support from black communities with positive racial identity and black institutions that supported civil rights activism.(2) Oliver Hill, Virginia’s foremost civil rights attorney, received community support and mentoring from 1913 to 1923 while raised as a school child in the historically black neighborhood of Gainsboro in Roanoke. Hill received black peer support and gained awareness of Jim Crow inequities while he attended Howard University from 1927 to 1930. When Hill attended Howard Law School from 1930 to 1933 he gained exposure to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP),(3) and received progressive legal training which focused on judicial redress for the Jim Crow Supreme Court decisions, especially Plessy v. Ferguson (1896),that sanctioned racial discrimination against blacks. When Hill returned to Roanoke to practice law from 1934 into 1936, he again received black community support, helped organize the Virginia State Conference of NAACP chapters, and began documenting the unequal facilities of black schools around Roanoke. Near the end of the Depression, Hill resumed his law practice in Richmond in 1939. There he acted as attor­ ney for the Joint Committee of the NAACP and the black Virginia Teachers Association, and argued the Alston case with appeals to federal courts to obtain equal salaries for black public school teachers. After World War II, Hill returned to his Richmond law practice and by 1950, in concert with NAACP legal staff, turned from suits for equalization of black teacher salaries and black school facilities to litigation directed to the abolition of public school segregation. (4) Accordingly, in April 1951 Hill met in Farmville with black students, parents, and community leaders, obtained their approval, and began the case of Davis v. School Board of Prince Edward County. This Virginia Opposite: Early photo o f Oliver Hill, the lawyer. John Kern recently retired as a historian and director o f the Western Regional Office o f the Department o f Historic Resources in Roanoke. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College and a doctorate from the University o f Wisconsin. 36 �WËÊÊÊÈ. �school desegregation case became part of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case which in 1954 finally overturned six decades of Supreme Court “separate but equal” decisions that sanctioned Jim Crow discrimina­ tion. E arly Y ears: R ichmond, 1907 - 1913; R oanoke, 1913 - 1923 Oliver White Hill was bom May 1, 1907, in Richmond, to eighteen-year-old Olivia Lewis White and William Henry White, Jr. Hill’s father left his wife and son shortly after Oliver’s birth. Olivia then worked as a maid at the Homestead hotel in Hot Springs, while her grandmother raised Oliver in Richmond. Olivia married Homestead bellhop Joseph C. Hill shortly before the newlyweds visited Richmond for a family funeral in 1913. Oliver Hill’s relationship with his mother and stepfather “jelled instantly,” and the family of three moved to R oanoke.^ When Hill, mother Olivia, and stepfather Joseph Hill arrived in Roanoke in 1913, they found housing at 39 Gilmer Avenue Northwest in a new industrial city founded 31 years before as headquarters for the Norfolk & Western Railway. By 1910 Roanoke ranked as the third largest city in Virginia with a population of 35,000 inhabitants, including 8,000 blacks who lived in a largely segregated neighborhood located primarily north of the N&W main tracks. Roanoke’s segregated black neighborhood expanded rapidly at the time of the Hill family’s arrival in 1913 because the city’s black population increased almost 40 % between 1900 and 1910. In reaction to the expansion of black settlement and in step with Jim Crow era statutory discrimination, Roanoke City passed a segregation ordinance in 1911, and Gilmer Avenue became what Oliver Hill later called a “changing neighbor­ hood” while he lived there as a school child.(6) Upon their arrival in Roanoke in 1913, the Hill family resided in a home headed by Bradford Pentecost, a head chef recruited to upgrade the N&W dining car service, and his wife Lelia Pentecost. No blacks lived on Gilmer Avenue west of Henry or First Street before 1910, but by 1912 the Pentecosts had black neighbors living in houses at 21, 29, 30, 31, 33, 43, and 35 Gilmer, including five N&W employees, one or two laborers, an insur­ ance salesman, a shoe salesman, and dentists Edward Dudley and J.B. Claytor. By 1913 blacks lived in nine of the 10 homes on the 100 block of Gilmer, where occupants included laborers, a laundress, a janitor, a driver, and C.C. Williams, the owner of Williams and Evans Funeral home. All told by the end of 1914, the four Gilmer Avenue blocks west of Henry Street included 49 homes occupied by blacks and 20 homes occupied by whites. The biggest residential change occurred in 1915 when the Pentecosts, the Dudleys, and 15 other black households occupied 17 of the 22 homes on the formerly all-white 400 block of Gilmer Avenue.(7) The Hill family lived with the Pentecosts at 39 Gilmer for two years and Hill’s stepfather operated a pool hall, but by the time the Pentecosts moved to their new home on Gilmer, Hill’s parents decided to return to Hot Springs in Bath County. Since Bath County had only one-room schools for blacks, Olivia Hill permitted her son to remain in Roanoke where he could receive a better education. For the next eight years Hill lived with the Pentecosts on Gilmer. The Pentecosts became his mentors. Heads of households and their families in this block became his immediate neighbors: Dentist Edward Dudley at 405; Dr. J.H. Roberts at 411; N&W brakeman and Railway Trainmen union organizer Rufus Edwards at 415.(8) The Gainsboro neighborhood became Hill’s extended black community of social and cultural support. Hill admired Mrs. Pentecost as a “marvelous person,” a proud woman who never worked outside her home. She refused to permit white salesmen to enter the house unless they asked for “Mrs. Pentecost” and removed their hats before they stepped inside the front door. Because these white salesmen “treated Mrs. Pentecost with the respect they accorded white female customers,” Hill said he “developed personal esteem and expected white folks to treat me like they did one another.” Hill remembered close family relationships at his home as an “only child” during the years from 1915 to 1923. He played cards with the Pentecosts, and became a good player with a feel for different card games. Sometimes Hill filled in for Mrs. Pentecost’s whist club for women, and noted that the women made no class distinctions, though members of the club included wives of doctors and railroad workers, teachers, a nurse and a domestic. He knew that Mrs. Pentecost always expected him to finish college. They remained close friends until Mrs. Pentecost’s death in 1943. Hill said he was glad that she lived until she knew that he and NAACP associ­ ates won the Alston case, the suit that gained equal salaries for black teachers in Virginia and helped lay the legal 38 �The house at 401 Gilmer Ave. in Roanoke is where young Oliver Hill lived with Bradford and Lelia Pentecost for several years in the early 1900s in order to attend R oanoke’s schools, after his parents returned to Bath County. At the time, the 400 block o f Gilmer was hom e to a number o f prominent African American families. foundation for dismantling state and national segregation policies. (9) A mischievous student, “always into devilment,” Hill respected and learned from strong teachers. He shot marbles, played basketball and football in school, played sandlot baseball, and played tennis at a vacant lot on Third Avenue. He played as a walk-on in an Oscar Micheaux race film, “House Behind the Cedars”; the Pentecosts invested in the film, and Micheaux shot a scene with Hill walking through a lawn party staged in the Pentecosts’ front yard. Hill worked in an ice cream parlor, carried lunch to a black barber who worked down­ town, sold newspapers, shined shoes, delivered blocks of ice, and helped Mrs. Pentecost grow and harvest pars­ ley in her back yard for the N&W dining car service.(10) Hill said that white boys chased him when he sold newspapers in white neighborhoods, and he remembered black retaliation if white boys came into his neighborhood. The best place for Hill to sell newspapers on Sunday mornings was in white neighborhoods. Hill said that if white boys came along, “They would cuff me, and if we caught them in our neighborhood we would cuff them, too.... They let us know they didn’t care anything about us and we let them know we didn’t care anything about them. This was one of the unfortunate results of racial segregation.*’(11) Hill remembered Pentecost as the quiet head of household at 401 Gilmer when he was at home from his job as an N&W dining car chef, a man who read several national newspapers and enjoyed listening to records of the famous black comedian Bert Williams. Once, when Hill bragged that he won a fight against other black boys, a fight staged by white men, Pentecost told him, “You just played the fool to the white man.” Another time when 39 �Pentecost returned home from a railroad run and learned that white men at a distillery had threatened Oliver with castration, Pentecost was “mad as hell,” and took Oliver back to the distillery the next day. No whites were there, so no confrontation occurred, but Oliver must have felt protected. Hill wrote that he never forgot the incident, and he finished the first “Early Years” chapter of his autobiography with this narration of threatened abuse and offered protection. (12) E ducation in Washington, D.C: 1923 -1 9 3 3 In 1923, Hill rejoined his mother and stepfather who had moved from Hot Springs to Washington, D.C. During summers between high school years at Dunbar, he worked at summer resorts in central Pennsylvania and in the Massachusetts Berkshires. There Hill learned how to gamble at cards and how to protect himself from card sharks. (73) Hill always knew he would attend college. When he began his undergraduate study at Howard University in Washington, D.C., in 1927, Hill did not consider himself an outstanding student, and never became close to his professors until the end of his third year of college when his decision to go to law school made him buckle down to his studies. When he was in his second year at Howard, Hill’s stepfather’s brother died in Washington, D.C. Sam Hill had a “sundown practice” in law where he helped black clients with wills and property transactions. Natalie, Sam Hill’s widow, was friends with Oliver Hill and gave him some of her husband’s law books and a 1924 United States Code Annotated. When Hill began to read the annotated Constitution, he learned that “originally the Constitution didn’t include Negroes, whether free or slave in any positive fashion.” He learned that blacks were only regarded as three-fifths of a person for determining representation in the House of Representatives and that slaveholders received constitutionally guaranteed federal support for capture and return of escaped slaves. Hill’s study of his step-uncle’s law books made him determined to go to law school, because he realized that the Constitution and Supreme Court rulings made it impossible to protect black rights threatened by lynchings and by Plessy v. Ferguson rulings that sanctioned Jim Crow segregation. Hill studied Latin to meet Howard require­ ments for graduation, and entered Howard Law School in September 1930.(74) Tall, broad shouldered, forceful, and convivial with allies, Hill entered Howard Law School determined to fight segregation. Others at Howard shared his concerns for progressive education and use of the law to improve black civil rights. Howard’s first black president, Mordecai Johnson, appointed in 1926, focused his administra­ tion on making Howard an institution “dedicated to the betterment of the Negro.” In the late 1920s, when Mordecai Johnson recognized the need to improve the Howard Law School so its graduates could protect black civil rights and overthrow Jim Crow Supreme Court decisions, he sought the advice of Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. Brandeis told Johnson that black attorneys seldom presented meritorious arguments to the high court and that the Howard Law School needed a complete overhaul: “You’ve got to get yourself a real faculty out there or you’re always going to have a fifth-rate law school. And it’s got to be full-time and a day school.” Johnson acted on the advice of Brandeis and appointed Charles Houston as dean of the Howard Law School in July 1929. Houston, a 34-year-old black attorney in Washington, D.C., and a grad­ uate with honors from Harvard Law School, accepted the appointment and took action to convert the Howard Law School to a full-time day program staffed with top-caliber black law professors.(75J When Oliver Hill and Thurgood Marshall entered Howard Law School in 1930 they were members of the school’s first full-time, day-school, three-year law program. Hill said he and Marshall called Houston “iron pants,” taught as a “tough disciplinarian.. ..He kept hammering at us all those years that, as lawyers, we had to be social engineers or else we were parasites.” Thurgood Marshall said Houston was “hard crust.. ..He used to tell us doctors could bury their mistakes but lawyers couldn’t. And he’d drive home to us that we would be compet­ ing not only with white lawyers but really well-trained white lawyers, so there just wasn’t any point in crying in our beer about being Negroes.” Marshall and Hill accepted Houston’s challenge. They went to law classes in the morning, ate soul food for a quarter at one of Father Devine’s restaurants, and then worked together researching cases until about 4:30 p.m. Hill said he knew Marshall studied more than he did, but “this disciplined school schedule and sense of shared purpose kept us very close.” In 1933 Marshall graduated first in the class and Hill graduated second. Kluger, a great scholar of Brown v. Board of Education, wrote that by the time Marshall and Hill graduated, they and felw �low law students knew their rights under the Constitution, and knew they had to prepare technically competent cases to get the courts to change. By then “Howard Law School became a living laboratory where civil rights law was invented by team work.”(16) R oanoke Law P ractice: 1934 -1 9 3 6 Hill learned that he passed the Virginia bar exam in February 1934. While in law school, Hill met Beresenia “Bemie” Walker and they married in September 1934. Bemie remained in Washington, D.C., to teach in the D.C. public schools, and Hill returned to Roanoke in 1934 to open a law practice. He lived again with the Pentecosts at 401 Gilmer, and his wife came down from D.C. to visit on weekends.(7 7) Hill opened his law practice in the two-story brick Brooks Building at 40 Centre Avenue on the southeast cor­ ner of Centre and Henry Street in the heart of Roanoke’s black commercial district. A.F. Brooks ranked as the principal black commercial property owner in Gainsboro during the 1910s and 1920s. The Brooks Building adjoined the Hampton Theatre, built by Brooks at the end of World War I, and was a block south of the Strand Theatre on Henry Street. The Strand, built by Brooks in 1923, served as headquarters for the Oscar Micheaux Film Corporation from 1923 through 1925.(18) The Brooks Building housed professional offices above a first-floor drugstore. Dentist E.D. Downing and physician L.C. Downing occupied second-floor offices in the front of the Brooks building that faced Centre Avenue. Physician W.R. Brown, dentist Gardiner Downing, and attorney J. Henry Claytor occupied second-floor offices in the rear of the building. Hill had a chair and a desk in the reception area of the rear offices, and Hill used attorney Claytor’s cluttered office on the rare occasions when he had a client. (19) Begun in the middle of the Depression, Hill’s law practice in Roanoke provided him with experience, but little income. Because his criminal practice consisted mostly of pro bono representation of criminal defendants, Hill looked for creative ways to earn money. He filed wage assignments with the N&W personnel office to forestall garnishment. He collected a few unpaid debts for black professionals, without much success. He visited jails and prisoners or their families paid him small fees to petition judges for early release. Hill even made some money by typing chain letters/20) In 1935, Hill borrowed the Pentecosts’car to drive to Wytheville to investigate an incident that threatened to end with a lynching because a black man was charged with shooting a white local deputy sheriff. Hill learned of the incident from a concerned black man in Wytheville who called the NAACP in New York and was referred to Hill in Roanoke. After meeting in Wytheville with the black informant and a white family who offered anonymous assistance by discussing public officials and prominent whites in the community, Hill agreed to represent the defendant. Though courtroom evidence indicated that the deputy sheriff instigated the conflict that ended in the shooting, the jury convicted the defendant who was sentenced to four years in the penitentiary. In discussing the case at the end of his life, Hill said that he often received valuable information from whites “who wanted to do right, but did not feel they could afford to go public.” After the trial and sentencing, the presiding judge helped Hill obtain an early release for the defendant. (2 7j While in Roanoke, Hill worked with Charles Houston, who had left Howard Law School by 1935 and became special counsel to the NAACP charged with directing new activities to obtain equal educational opportunities for blacks in the South. Houston hired Thurgood Marshall as his assistant for the NAACP educational program. By the mid-1950s, Hill’s law practice made him Virginia’s principal player on the NAACP team organized to com­ bat racism, and Hill worked with NAACP leadership to organize the Virginia State Conference of NAACP branches in Virginia in 1935. To obtain evidence in support of NAACP litigation for equal education while he worked in Roanoke, Hill traveled around Roanoke County and photographed the exteriors and interiors of black one-room schools to document their inferiority to Roanoke County schools for white children. (22) Richmond Law P ractice and C ivil R ights: 1939 -1 9 5 4 In June 1936, Oliver Hill left Roanoke and returned to Washington, D.C. where he could be with his wife Bemie as she continued her work as a school teacher. Hill and high school and college friend William Whitehead decided to organize an un-segregated labor union of waiters and cooks working in Washington hotels, clubs, and restaurants, but their efforts failed without support from the C.I.O. Hill took jobs as a waiter on Seaboard and m �Costal railroads. The railroads offered full-time employment but Hill said he refused the offers because as he said, he was a lawyer “in between engagements.”^-^ In May 1939 Hill resumed his law practice in Virginia by opening a Richmond law office on the second floor of a house at 117 East Hill Street. Hill soon became legal counsel for a Joint Committee of representatives of the black Virginia Teachers Association and the Virginia NAACP State Conference that he helped organize in 1935. Upon his arrival in Richmond, Hill worked as the only Virginia attorney who addressed black public school teachers’ salaries. On Sundays, Hill and Dr. Jesse Tinsley, president of the Virginia NAACP Conference, visited black churches in outlying counties. They gained support for salary equalization, but Hill had no success when he negotiated with county school officials to obtain equal salaries for black teachers. Hill traveled around the state on his own during the week to drum up black community support for salary equalization, and told his audiences that after the NAACP introduced the salary issue, they would launch a broad-based challenge against unequal and segregated public schools. Hill’s fight for black teacher salary equal­ ization in Virginia culminated with the Alston case.(24) A lston v. S chool B oard of N orfolk: 1939 - 1943 The Alston ruling followed Thurgood Marshall’s appointment to head the New York NAACP office in 1938, and his subsequent decision to institute a federal District Court appeal of a Maryland county school board suit that failed to win equal pay for black teachers. In November 1939, the Federal District Court Gaines opinion ruled that unequal salaries for black teachers in Maryland “violated the supreme law of the land.” Now the NAACP had legal precedent for salary equalization in Virginia. (25) In the fall of 1939, the black Norfolk Teachers Association sought equal pay for Melvin Alston, a teacher at Norfolk’s Booker T. Washington High School who received an annual salary of $921, compared to $1,200 for white teachers in Norfolk with comparable experience and duties. Marshall and Hill agreed to file a class action suit in Federal District Court. The case received a hearing in February 1940 when District Court Judge Luther Way ruled against Alston and the NAACP. Marshall, Hill and the rest of the NAACP legal team decided to appeal the case to the Federal Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Hill offered to ask for a special session so the Appeals Court could review the case before the end of the school year and almost certain termination of Alston’s teaching contract. After the Court ruled in favor of Alston in June 1940, the Norfolk School board appealed the case to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court refused to take the case in November 1940, and Alston became the federal ruling that provided precedent for salary equalization. (26) After the Appeals Court reversed Alston, Federal District Court Judge Luther Way told the disputants, the Norfolk School Board and Hill representing the NAACP, “You all go out and settle this thing.” A subsequent consent decree called for the School Board to equalize teacher pay within three years. Thereafter, Hill successful­ ly argued for equal pay with school boards in Newport News, Norfolk and Sussex counties, Chesterfield and Richmond. (2 7J After serving overseas as an enlisted man in an Army regiment during the last two years of World War II, Hill returned to his law practice in Richmond where Spottswood Robinson had joined the firm. During the late 1940s Hill and Robinson filed scores of suits against Virginia school boards to secure equal transportation (adequate school buses), and equal school facilities for black students. Hill and Robinson won some advances for equal transportation, but they had no success when they argued for equal school facilities.(2S) In 1950, however, civil rights tactics changed, when Oliver Hill and the Virginia civil rights team accepted Thurgood Marshall’s new NAACP national policy that called for a move away from equalization and instead advocated suits that argued directly for an end to school segregation. Hill recounted a positive response when he explained the new policy to hundreds assembled at a black church in Dinwiddie County. “There was this old man in the back wearing overalls and he gets up after hearing us out - he looked like he didn’t know beans from Adam - and he says, ‘Mr. Hill I’ve heard you, and all I want to say is that we’ve known all along that you can’t do it this way, a piece at a time, and we’ve just been waiting for leaders to tell us we had to go all the way.’” Now civil rights activists found black community support for suits in Virginia, Washington, D.C., Delaware, South Carolina and Kansas that led to Brown v. Board of Education, the decision on May 17, 1954, that ended the Supreme Court doctrine of separate but equal.(29) 42 �D avis v. C ounty S chool B oard of P rince E dward C ounty, V irginia: 1951 -1 9 5 2 Davis, the Virginia lawsuit that became one of the five cases combined in Brown v. Board of Education, began with a phone call to Hill’s law office at about 5:00 p.m. Monday April 23, 1951, from Barbara Johns, a 16-yearold junior at the black Robert Moton High School in Prince Edward County. Johns’ phone call to Hill marked the end of a day of protest that she directed, events that initiated Virginia’s most important civil rights case of the 20th century. The Moton school student strike began just before 11 a.m. on April 23 after Moton principal Boyd Jones received a prearranged phone call that lined him out of school. Johns then sent notes to all class rooms that announced an assembly at the school auditorium. After 450 students and teachers reached the auditorium, Johns asked the teachers to leave, and then called for a school strike until black stu­ dents were treated equally and had a decent high school instead of their present inadequate facility. Johns and a student strike committee asked the students to remain at school that day while the strike committee met with the white Prince Edward County superintendent of schools. Moton principal Boyd Jones returned to school, but did not intervene to halt the strike. After Prince Edward County School Superintendent T.J. Mcllwain declined to meet with Johns and her strike committee, the committee met that afternoon with the Rev. Francis Griffin, pastor of the black First Baptist Church in Farmville, a church within walking distance of Moton School. Griffin, who had organized the Prince Edward County NAACP chapter, gave the strike commit­ tee contact information for Oliver Hill as the NAACP special counsel for the Southeastern region of the United States. Late that afternoon, Barbara Johns called Hill at his law office in Richmond. (30) During the phone call, Johns told Hill about the deplorable conditions at Moton School, and made her case so strongly that Hill chose not to terminate the discussion on the telephone. On Wednesday morning, April 25, Hill, Robinson and another NAACP associate met the striking students in Farmville at Rev. Griffin’s church. Though Hill planned to tell the students to go back to school, Hill said he and his partners A portrait o f Barbara Johns, a principal in the Prince “found these students had such fine morale and Edward County school segregation case, hangs in the were so well disciplined that we didn’t have the State Capitol in Richmond today. heart to break their spirit.” Hill told the students that the NAACP now sought to challenge segregation directly. He asked the students to talk to their parents and if their parents agreed to support them in a suit to declare racial public school segregation unconstitutional, he and his colleagues would take the case. The Moton students and parents met with Hill and associates at Rev. Griffin’s church that Wednesday evening. The parents agreed to stand behind the students in the new course of action against segrega­ tion. 43 �Two weeks later, Hill and Robinson held a county-wide meeting for black students and parents at Rev. Griffin’s church, where the overwhelming majority of those in attendance voted to seek an end to segregation. By May 23, 1951, Robinson filed a suit in the Federal Courthouse in Richmond on behalf of 117 Moton students who petitioned that the state law in Virginia requiring school segregation be declared unconstitutional. The case, Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, took its name from 14-year-old Barbara Davis, the daughter of a Prince Edward County farmer, and the first name on the list of plaintiff petitioners. Thus Davis became one of the five cases heard in Brown v. Board of Education. As Hill said, the NAACP did not pick the case; Prince Edward County students and parents picked the NAACP to take the case.(31) A special three-judge Federal District Court convened in Richmond in February 1952 to hear Davis v. Prince Edward County School Board. State attorneys for the defendants headed by Justin Moore argued that school seg­ regation was not discriminatory and therefore not illegal. Hill, as lead NAACP attorney for the plaintiffs, put for­ mer Moton principal Boyd Jones on the stand to describe the overcrowding at Moton where three tar-paper shacks housed the overflow of students who made up half of the Moton student body. Jones discussed his inabili­ ty to obtain better facilities and better equipment from the Prince Edward County School Board during his four years as principal. NAACP expert witnesses testified that segregated schools for blacks led to restricted curricu­ lum, humiliation and lack of self-respect for the students, charges denied by Justin Moore. When Moore maintained that one of the primary purposes of the NAACP “has been to foment and stir up and foment critical situations that will call critical attention to this racial problem,” Hill replied, “I challenge Mr. Moore to state any place where the NAACP has been reported.. .to foment anything. We unquestionably are try­ ing to break up segregation.” Moore countered, “You yourself were reported in the Richmond press... as urging the people in Richmond to create these situations that focus on differences in race treatment, and you know you were.” Hill replied, “I did say —and I say it now —that I urged people to exert themselves to carry on their rights 2- whatever their rights were, under the law, they should press for them.”(32) The five-day trial closed with a summation for the defendants by Lindsay Almond, former Virginia attorney general and subsequent governor of Virginia. Almond said Virginia might resort to massive violation of the law if the Court were to void school segregation; that the Prince Edward conflict was fomented by agitation and propa­ ganda from the NAACP; and that it was up to the legislature and not the courts to determine discriminatory prac­ tice. Hill countered the argument that segregation is a legislative matter, “People...know as well as I do that the Congress cannot express its will on questions involving civil rights because the Senators of this State and other Southern states will refuse to permit Congress to express its sentiments.” As for segregation itself, speaking for the NAACP Hill said, “We want an opportunity to develop in the busi­ ness and commerce of this nation. In other words, we want an opportunity to develop our talents, whatever they may be, in whatever fields of endeavor there are existing in this country.. ..I submit that in this segregated schools system, you do not have that opportunity.”(33) So Davis closed for the defendants with charges of NAACP propaganda and threats of massive violation of the law in response to court-ordered desegregation, countered by Hill’s assertion that segregation had to be chal­ lenged by the courts, and that segregation violated the plaintiffs’ opportunity to gain equal civil rights under the law. The Federal District Court was not persuaded by the arguments of the plaintiffs. The court’s decision found in school segregation “No harm or hurt to either race.” Hill and the NAACP did not agree. The next year, Davis would go on to the Supreme Court as part of Brown v. Board of Education. (34) B rown v. B oard of Education: 1953 - 1954 Near the end of his life, Hill discussed NAACP anti-segregation strategy. “We knew we had to educate the people and the courts including the Supreme Court. We didn’t expect any positive action until we got to the Supreme Court. We planned to get to the Supreme Court by choosing good cases. We didn’t want another Plessy v. Ferguson decision.” Hill’s work with NAACP lawyers and strategists, and his civil rights advocacy in Davis contributed to a landmark judicial reversal of Plessy v. Ferguson with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. (35) After the initial hearing of Brown concluded in the spring of 1953, the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Fred Vinson requested a re-argument of the case. Vinson died in September 1953 and re-argument began December 7, 1953, under newly appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren. At the re-argument, attorneys for the 44 % �defense John Davis and Justin Moore maintained that segregation provided for equal education, and had nothing to do with the practice of segregation. Thurgood Marshall argued as chief counsel for the NAACP that whites had imposed segregation on blacks since Emancipation. Marshall concluded that the only way for the Court to uphold segregation was “to find that for some reason Negroes are inferior to all other human beings.... Now is the time we submit, that the Court should make it clear that that is not what our Constitution stands for.” The Court adjourned the re-argument on December 9, 1953.(36) Warren addressed the other justices of the Court at their Saturday morning conference on December 12, 1953, three days after the Court adjourned the Brown re-argument. Though he made no reference to Marshall’s closing argument, Warren told the other justices that the doctrine of “separate but equal” rested on the concept of the inferiority of the Negro race. Therefore, Warren told the justices that the segregation of Negro chil­ dren had to be ended. Warren said he wanted to unite the Court on Brown with a single unanimous decision. Warren drafted a short readable opinion and circulated it among the justices with subsequent revisions until it received final approval at a conference of the jus­ tices five months later on May 15, 1954. On May 17, 1954, Warren read the opinion which closed, “We conclude unanimously that in the field of public education the doc­ trine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facili­ ties are inherently unequal.”(371 Oliver Hill, as he neared his centennial birthday. Hill, who had not participated in the Brown re-argument, learned of the Court’s decision in the early afternoon on May 17, 1954, while driving in Richmond. A bulletin came over his car radio saying the Supreme Court was announcing its decision on school segregation. “Chief Justice Warren started talking. I turned the car around and hightailed it back to the office. I ran upstairs yelling ‘Turn on the radio, turn on the radio.’ Soon there was much hurrahing in our office as we were celebrating. We did no more work that day.” Brown v. Board of Education vindicated Hill’s twenty years of work with the NAACP as a civil rights attorney in Roanoke and throughout Virginia. Plessy v. Ferguson was no longer the segregationist law of the land.(38) E pilogue Of course, school segregation did not end with Warren’s announcement of the Brown v. Board of Education decision on May 17, 1954. Though he applauded the Brown decision that overruled Plessy v. Ferguson, Hill decried the Supreme Court Brown II decision, delivered in May 1955, the decision that instructed Federal District Courts to implement school desegregation with “all deliberate speed.” Believing that justice delayed is justice denied, Hill addressed the Virginia General Assembly in November 1955 to oppose, without success, pending state legislation intended to obstruct school desegregation. Hill appealed to the Federal Fourth District Court when Prince Edward County kept its schools open, but segregated. Hill obtained Federal District Court orders to desegregate Charlottesville and Warren County schools. When Governor Lindsay Almond closed those schools, Hill successfully supported suits that challenged this action as unconstitutional. Hill worked with the NAACP to challenge the constitutionality of Massive Resistance statutes enacted by the Virginia General Assembly, laws that outlawed NAACP activities taken to oppose desegregation. Eventually, by around 1970, Virginia public schools were desegregated. Near the end of his long life, Hill maintained that “Over forty years 45 �after Brown and over thirty years after enactment of the Civil Rights Acts, we still do not have a level playing field regarding employment, education, business, social or political opportunities.”^ ^ Yet despite his recognition of the survival of racial inequities at the end of his life, Hill never expressed bitter­ ness in his pursuit of a more just and humane society. The personal self-esteem and expectation of equal treat­ ment that Hill gained while living with the Pentecosts in Roanoke remained with him the rest of his life. Widowed and blind when he spoke in Roanoke in his nineties, with serene and total recall, Hill recounted his childhood memories of the supportive community life of Gainsboro, and the positive expectations of Gainsboro residents. (40) At Howard University Law School Hill and Marshall shared their primary school devilment and respect for strong teachers. As members of rival fraternities, Hill said he and Marshall worked things out together and pretty much ran their law school class. Hill and Marshall stud­ ied together during their law school years. Hill said Marshall always had some lie to tell, but managed to get a lot done when nobody was watching/4/j As members of Howard’s first professional law school class, Hill and Marshall gained exposure to the NAACP legal team and Hill deferred to Marshall’s subsequent leadership of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Hill’s decades of work with the NAACP gave him humility and commitment as a participating member of a disciplined organization charged with the overthrow of segregation. In his practical and direct approach as lead counsel for the plaintiffs in Davis v. Prince Edward County, Hill called for blacks to press for their rights under the law to attain equal opportunities in all fields. Hill did not voice Marshall’s argument in Brown v. Board of Education, repeated in Chief Justice Warren’s opinion, Oliver Hill (on walker) and Clarence Dunnavllle, that whites imposed segregation on blacks because of white belief in the racial inferiority of blacks. a friend, in front o f 401 Gilmer Ave., Hill’s Throughout his life Hill contemplated the injustices of boyhood home. segregation. As a student he resented the inequity of school facilities. Elected in 1948 as the first black to serve on the Richmond City Council since enactment of the Virginia Constitution of 1902, Hill recognized that his segregated education did not provide him with training in technical fields such as business, finance, and pub­ lic administration, knowledge familiar to white council members. At the end of his life, Hill observed that he had never attended school with a white child.(42) In the conclusion of his Autobiography published in 2000 when he was ninety three, Hill reflected on his life­ time dedication to make society more just and humane. He remembered, “I [saw] the way things were when I was a kid. Later I thought that I could do something about segregation, and many of us joined together and made a difference.”f4ij E nd N otes 1. Oliver W. Hill, The Autobiography of Oliver W. Hill, Sr., edited by Jonathon K. Stubbs, FOUR-G Publishers, Winter Park, FL, 2000, vii, hereafter cited as Hill, Autobiography. 2. John Kern, “Jim Crow in Henry County, Virginia,” paper presented at the Virginia Forum, April 16, 2010; archived in the Virginia Room of the Main Roanoke City Library, Roanoke, Virginia. C. Vann Woodward, The 46 �Strange Career of Jim Crow, Oxford University Press, 1955, revised 1957, 1966, 1974, provides the classic dis­ cussion of segregation statutes that lent the sanction of law to racial ostracism of blacks in America from the 1870s down to 1954. 3. Formed in 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, NAACP, sought to pro­ tect civil rights and racial justice, and reached its peak membership at the end of World War II. 4. Doxey A. Wilkerson, “The Negro School Movement in Virginia: From Equalization to Integration,” Journal of Negro Education, XXIX, 1960, 17-29. 5. Oliver Hill said his mother, the daughter of a white student at the Medical College of Virginia, “looked as white as a white person.” Hill’s paternal grandfather William Henry White, Sr., founded the black Mount Carmel Baptist Church in Richmond, and his paternal grandmother Kate Garnet White was a friend of Maggie Walker, Richmond’s foremost black supporter of women’s suffrage, women’s fraternal orders, and head of St. Luke’s Penny Savings Bank. Hill, Autobiography, 11, 5. 6. U. S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Census: Negro Population 1790-1915 Government Printing Office, Washington D.C., 1918, 774. Sixteenth Census of the United States. Population 1942, Virginia, Table 2, 1100. Erin Baratta, “Gainsboro Historic Context,” 1992; archived in the Virginia Room of the Main Roanoke City Library, Roanoke, Virginia; also published in History Museum & Historical Society of Western Virginia Journal, 1999, 40-50. Naomi Mattos, “Residential Segregation in the City of Roanoke, 2005,” archived in the Virginia Room of the Main Roanoke City Library, Roanoke, Virginia; also published in History Museum & Historical Society of Western Virginia Journal, 2008, 32-38. Hill mentioned the U.S. Supreme Court decision Buchanan v. Worley, 1917, that ruled against residential segregation, but he decried the decision because it did not challenge the “separate but equal” Supreme Court ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) that sanctioned Jim Crow racial discrimination. Hill, Autobiography, xix. 7. Mattos, “Residential Segregation,” Virginia Room, 11-13. Alice Roberts and Margaret Roberts, “Gilmer Avenue, Northwest,” History Museum & Historical Society of Western Virginia Journal, 1999, 51-52. Hill, Autobiography, 12. 8. Hill, Autobiography, 14-15. All four houses, 401, 405, 411, and 415 are still standing on Gilmer Ave., NW. See Mattos, “Residential Segregation,” and Alice and Margaret Roberts, “Gilmer Avenue, Northwest,” for addi­ tional historical information on the families living at 405, 411, and 415 Gilmer Ave, NW. 9. Hill, Autobiography, 12-17, 34-35. 10. Hill, Autobiography, 17-28. Oscar Micheaux, the principal producer of black “race films” in America between World War I and World War II, directed several films in Roanoke from 1922 to 1925, John Kern “Oscar Micheaux, ‘Race Films,’ and the Strand Theatre,” Notes on Virginia, 2006, 59-62. 11. Hill, Autobiography, 21-22. 12. Hill, Autobiography, 33-35. The story of Hill as the last boy left standing in the fight, commanded by white men, against other black boys, and the narration of Mr. Pentecost’s critical response does not appear in his Autobiography, but was narrated by Hill in one of two memorable talks I heard him deliver in Roanoke around 1990. Though in his nineties and blind, Hill spoke with complete and animated command of his memories of blacks living with positive self esteem in the Gainsboro neighborhood of Roanoke around World War I. 13. Hill, Autobiography, 36-53. 14. Hill, Autobiography, 71-72. 15. Richard Kluger, Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle for Equality, Vintage Books, New York, 1975, 125-127. Hill, Autobiography, 76-78. 16. Kluger, Simple Justice, 127-128. Hill, Autobiography, 78-80. Engaged in friendly and studious rivalry while in law school, Hill and Marshall remained fast friends for the remainder of their lives. 17. Though Oliver Hill took the bar exam in Richmond in December 1933, he did not learn that he passed until February 1934 because the State Bar examiners mailed the notice to Hill’s given residence at 401 Gilmer in Roanoke, and Mrs. Pentecost had to find a lawyer to provide receipts as evidence of Hill’s payment of the state poll tax (instituted by the Virginia Constitution of 1902) for the past three years. Hill, Autobiography, 88-90. Hill did not mention in his Autobiography that Mr. Pentecost must have died while Hill lived at 401 Gilmer in the mid-1930s: the 1935 Hill’s Roanoke City Directory listed both Mr. and Mrs. Pentecost in residence at 401 Gilmer; however, the 1936 Directory only listed Mrs. Pentecost. 47 �18. Hill, Autobiography, 90. Hill’s Roanoke City Directory, 1935, Hill Directory Company, Richmond, Virginia, Vol. 23, 522. “Insurance Map of Roanoke, Virginia,” Sanborn Map Company, New York, 1919, revised 1933, 46. Kem, “Oscar Micheaux” 60-61. 19. Hills Roanoke City Directory, 1935, 522. Hill, Autobiography, 90. 20. Hill, Autobiography, 93, 99. 21. Hill, Autobiography, 95-97. 22. Hill, Autobiography, 97-98, 99. 23. Hill, Autobiography, 99-100. 24. Hill, Autobiography, 101-104. 25. Kluger, Simple Justice, 214-215. 26. Kluger, Simple Justice, 215-216; Hill, Autobiography, 122-130; Wilkerson, “The Negro School Movement in Virginia,” 261. 27. Hill, Autobiography, 132-133. 28. In Henry County, Virginia between 1940 and 1950, following Alston, black teachers’ salaries attained pari­ ty with white teachers’ salaries. But throughout the decade the total value of black school facilities remained unchanged at 25% of the total value of white school facilities. Kem, “Jim Crow in Henry County;” Kem, “Henry County-Martinsville Historic Context,” paper archived in the Virginia Room of the Main Roanoke City Library, Roanoke, Virginia, and in the Bassett Historical Center, Bassett, Virginia, 2010. 29. Kluger, Simple Justice, 471-475. 30. Hill Autobiography, 148-149. Kluger, 461-470. 31. In June 1951, Moton principal Boyd Jones was fired by the Prince Edward County School Board for his failure to stop the student strike. The parents of strike team leaders who were not self-employed were fired from their jobs. For her safety, Barbara Johns was sent to Montgomery, Alabama, where her uncle and noted civil rights advocate Vernon Johns was pastor of Dexter Baptist Church, a pastorate that Martin Luther King, Jr. accepted in 1954. Hill, Autobiography, 150-151, 160. Prince Edward County closed all public schools in 1959 rather than desegregate them; the reopening of Prince Edward schools under Federal District Court order in 1964 marked the end of Massive Resistance in Virginia. Kluger, 474-479. George Gilliam, producer of Massive Resistance, a Public Television Documentary, 2000; personal communication June 8, 2010. 32. Kluger, 485-497. 33. Kluger, 505-506. 34. Kluger, 506-507. 35. Hill Autobiography, 153-159. 36. Kluger, 613-616; 667-678. 37. Kluger, 700-708. 38. Hill, Autobiography, 167. 39. Hill, Autobiography, 170-182. 4 0 .1 heard Oliver Hill speak with good nature and clear memory about his childhood years in Gainsboro: in the late 1990s at Roanoke’s Virginia Museum of Transportation; and shortly after 2000 in the fellowship hall of Roanoke’s High Street Baptist Church. 41. Kluger, 180. 42. Hill, Autobiography, 187-188. 43. Hill, Autobiography, 330. 48 �Traugott Bromme's 1848 Virginia Travel Guide In tro d u ctio n and Translation by Richard L Bland n the early 1800s economic and political problems brought many Europeans to the United States. A large number came from Germany. Among them was Traugott Bromme, who in fact was more of a traveler than an immigrant. Bromme quickly saw a chance for making a profit from this movement of peoples by writing guide books for Germans entering the United States. Between 1840 and 1866, he wrote and published several editions. His guides included information on many regions of the Western Hemisphere, covering all the states east of the Mississippi. Simon Traugott Bromme was bom on December 3, 1802, in Anger, near Leipzig, in what would later become Germany. (1) His father was apparently a well-to-do estate owner and Gerichtsschoffe, a legal assistant to the court. Traugott, who had at least four siblings, was orphaned at the age of five. He grew up witnessing, among other pivotal events of the era, Napoleon’s troops marching to Russia in 1812. In 1817, he attended a class at a Leipzig bookshop that would eventually lead him into the book business. He did not immediately become a writer or publisher; instead, he spent three years studying and traveling, even find­ ing adventure. In April 1821, Bromme emigrated to the United States and studied medicine. After this he is sup­ posed to have served as a doctor in the “Columbian service” and also spent time in a Haitian jail.(2) Bromme’s writing career began in 1824. In June of that year, he returned to Saxony, settling in Dresden where he became a partner in the Walther’schen Hoffbuchhandlung, which his brother-in-law, the book dealer Johann Gottlieb Wagner, had purchased in the same year. In 1833, Bromme again traveled to the United States, this time to Baltimore (where he possibly had relatives), and took up a partnership in the publishing house of Scheld and Company.(G) While in Baltimore he published travel guides, producing eight titles between 1834 and 1837. He appears to have returned to Germany by about 1840, settling in Stuttgart. One thing that Bromme learned in his travels between Germany and America was that many immigrants to America arrived with no job prospects and were unable to speak English, the dominant language. He also would have seen that many of the people who were looking for a new start in life were Germans. These émigrés needed information that would let them know what to expect. In response, Bromme wrote a travel guide for German emigrants that became relatively popular. It was enti­ tled “Traugott Bromme’s Hand- und Reisebuch fur Auswanderer nach den Vereinigten Staaten von NordAmerika, Texas, Ober- und Unter-Canada, Neu-Braunschweig, Neu-Schottland, Santo Thomas in Guatemala und den Mosquitokilsten” [Traugott Bromme’s Hand- and Travel-Book for Emigrants to the United States of North America, Texas, Upper and Lower Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Saint Thomas in Guatemala and the Mosquito Coast].(4) Bromme’s travel guide indicates that he did substantial research on the various states using the maps of Henry Schenck Tanner and others.^ It contains over 550 pages divided into two main parts. In the first, Bromme gives a general overview of the United States, including thumbnail sketches of most of the states, territories, or countries that an emigrant was likely to enter in North America. He devotes more attention to those places he considers most likely to benefit an I Dr, Richard L. Bland is an archaeologist for the Museum o f Natural and Cultural History at the University o f Oregon. His interests focus primarily on the prehistory o f Northeast Asia and the history ofRussianAmericans in Alaska. His interest in Traugott Bromme arose because Russian-American history occupies roughly the same time period as that o f Bromme. �immigrant—for example, the state of Virginia, which is described in about four pages. Bromme devoted much less space to locales he considered inhospitable to immigrants. For example, “The Territory of Missouri and the Oregon Territory” received less than half a page, and Bromme told his readers that for “settlement, this recom­ mendation still comes too early . . . in the two here-named Indian territories with the wild inhabitants of the same.”(6) In the second part of his book, Bromme deals with the problem of who should and should not emigrate; he discusses the various trades and professions most in demand in the region, about one hundred in all. Bromme touts his book “as the most crucial and accurate purveyor of information on the conditions of the Western World, insofar as emigrants might be interested.”^ Bromme obviously traveled some in the United States and perhaps in other countries of the Western Hemisphere, but it is equally obvious that it was not possible for him to have visited all the places he described in his “Hand- und Reisebuch.” His travel guide is rather formulaic with regard to the information provided for each state. He gives the general geography, economy, industry, some vital statistics, and so on, generally devot­ ing two to four pages to each state. His information appears to have been gleaned from other sources. Historian Klaus Dieter Hein-Mooren, in his study of German travel guides, says of Bromme: “His writings were not scien­ tific works but rather generally intelligible, popular representations. He also sweepingly declined to name his sources and to state whether his workmanship was only translations of foreign-language works.”(^) According to Joseph Sabin, who in 1869 published a massive catalog of books related to America, Bromme produced at least twenty-three titles, all of them concerned with geography. Some were multiple volumes, and some were supplements to the works of others, such as those of Alexander von Humboldt, a famous naturalist and e x p lo re r.J u s t as Bromme’s use of sources is uncertain, it is also questionable whether Bromme was actu­ ally associated in any way with von Humboldt. Hein-Mooren believes it is more likely that he, or his publisher, was simply using von Humboldt’s name to increase sales.(10) Bromme did not intend that all his books be used solely as guides. For example, in 1842 he published the sec­ ond volume of his two-volume set “Gemälde von Nord-Amerika” (Portrait of North America)///) As is apparent in the full title, these volumes were intended not only as travel guides but as entertaining instruction as well. In 1866, Bromme’s 8th and final edition of the “Hand- und Reisebuch” was published posthumously. With regard to the number of books he produced describing this country, Bromme might be one of America’s most forgotten authors.(72j T he State o f V irginia Virginia, the first land in North America entered by the British, and visited in the year 1584 by Walter Raleigh, spreads between 36° 30' and 40° 43' north latitude and between 1° 40' east and 6° 20 ' west longitude.(13) It is bordered on the north by Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland, on the east by Maryland and the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by North Carolina and Tenessee, and on the west by Kentucky and Ohio. It extends from north to south 220 miles and from east to west 370 miles, embracing an area of 67,300 ? miles or 43,072,000 acres.(14) The form of the land is extremely varied; the entire eastern part, up to 100 or 130 miles inland, is sandy and swampy. In the middle it is mountainous, with many fertile valleys, and in the west hilly. The valleys in the old mountain ranges are narrow and fertile; in the upland, toward the South Mountains, the soil is thin and light; however, where the secondary formations prevail it is very good. In the ore-bearing moun­ tains there are beautiful fertile valleys; the remaining part of this area is rocky and broken. They stretch up to the sulphur springs on the ridge of the Alleghanys, where they come together with the great sedimentary deposits in the west, whose ground as far as the Ohio is similar to that of Pennsylvania, and for the most part is now devot­ ed to meadows. The hill ranges that cut through the land from the northeast to the southwest are known by the names South Mountains, Blue Ridge, North Mountains, Jackson’s Mountains, Alleghany Ridge, and Laurel Hills. Virginia offers various natural wonders in caves, among which the “Blowing Cave” is most notable—having hot springs, bogs containing hydrogen gas, and the natural stone bridge—in Rockbridge County. The shore along the Atlantic Ocean and Chesapeake Bay is extremely broken by wide river mouths that open into them. The Chesapeake Bay breaks through the northeastern part of the state, between the sandy promonto50 �ries of Charles and Henry, where it is 12 miles wide. Virginia is not particularly rich in natural bays. Currituck Bay opens up in the southeast on the border of North Carolina but is insignificant and not over 8 feet deep. Hampton Road is a bay formed by the James and, since it can hold the largest warships, the most significant in the state. The lack of natural harbors and bays is compensated for by the many rivers that flow through the state, and their broad mouths; the most important of these are the Potowmac, the Shenandoah, the Rappahannock, Mattapony, Pamunky, York, James, Rivannah, Appomatox, Elizabeth, Nottoway, Meherrin, Staunton, Ohio, Sandy, Great and Little Kenhawa, Monongahela, and Cheat. Floods have covered everywhere in this state with the water-laid deposits, and breaks on the primordial rocks, which in all the streams flowing toward the east or southeast form waterfalls, a hindrance to navigation. The climate is, as cannot be otherwise in such a large land, very diverse. In the lower regions summer is hot and unhealthy, and winter mild. In the uplands and between the mountain ranges the air is clean and the weather pleasant. In the west the climate is moderate. Winter begins in December and ends in February; snow rarely remains on the ground several days. Rain showers are frequent but never last long. Agriculture has made no special progress in Virginia, although the state was one of the first into which European culture was brought. The greatest hindrance indeed lay in the earlier wide-spread plantation system and slavery, both of which at present meanwhile move more into the background and give way to a more practical agriculture. The most important branch of agriculture conducted in east Virginia is tobacco cultivation, which was introduced in 1621 and until 10 to 12 years ago made up the wealth of the land. The common yield per acre, which is planted with 5,000 to 6,000 plants, amounts to about 1,000 pounds of tobacco, a worth of 100 to 250 dollars, depending on how the price stands. On a ten-year average the state exports 80,000 to 90,000 hogsheads at 1,000 pounds each. Following tobacco agriculture is com, which is spread over all of east Virginia and pro­ duces a yield of 20 to 50 bushels per acre. In west Virginia wheat is the chief crop; 15 rye, barley, oats, buck­ wheat, and peas are also grown in quantity; rice is grown in the vicinity of the Dismal Swamp, where it flourish­ es excellently. Hemp prospers quite well, especially in the river bottoms and between the mountains; cotton in the vicinity of Roanocke; sesame or benne, and castor plants are frequently grown and the oil extracted. Potatoes grow well and deliver from 100 to 200 bushels per acre; cucurbits of various types, artichokes, watermelons, asparagus, onions, beets, and cabbage are harvested with every planting. Fruit flourishes well; apples and peach­ es are the most common, but pears, cherries, plums, nectarines, apricots, almonds, pomegranate, etc. also grow. Various kinds of nuts and edible acoms, sweet chestnuts, and mulberries are found in all the forests. The growth of grass in west Virginia and the mountains is luxurious. On the sand flats of the east the heat destroys the green of the meadows, and the swampy lowlands produce nothing but nettles, reeds, and rushes. Horse breeding is given great attention; cattle raising in the east is extremely lackadaisical. In the west, how­ ever, it is all the more carefully conducted, and a quantity of fattened cattle are brought from there to the east and sheep raising has recently taken a sharp upswing; swine are grown in astonishing numbers, since their mainte­ nance costs almost nothing, and they find the best feed in the forests and fruit gardens. The fowl are predomi­ nantly turkeys and guineas; bee keeping however is carried out only as a forest culture. Over three-fourths of the land is still covered with forest; in the eastern lowlands are predominantly found the white spruce, cypress, evergreen, oak and the Virginia juniper tree, which in the sandy plains reaches a height of 40 to 45 feet. In the mountains and the western parts of the state are magnolia, balsam fir, ash, maple, five kinds of nut trees, twelve species of oak, birch, linden, beech, etc. Regarding minerals, gold can be found on and in the James, Rappahannock, and Appomatox; lead at Austinville; copper on the James; iron, marble, limestone, and fluorite in almost all parts of the land. Ten miles west of Richmond is a rich coal deposit, which is 20 to 25 miles long and 10 miles wide and enclosed by old mountains. The manufactories of the state are still insignificant, and serve primarily household needs. Among the more significant factories and manufacturing plants are 41 woolen mills, 47 fulling mills, 22 cotton mills with 42,262 spindles, 42 blast furnaces, 52 foundries, 11 gold smelters, 5 lead smelters, 12 paper mills, a large number of tobacco manufactories, 660 tanneries, 4 glass plants, 33 pottery plants, 1,454 distillers, 5 breweries, 764 flour mills and 50 book printers. The trade in natural products is considerable; the chief exports are tobacco and flour, com, wood, animals, turpentine, salt pork, fattened cattle and coal. In 1845 the total export amounted to 4,873,211 dollars, the import to 583,277 dollars. 52 �The chief origin of the inhabitants—of whom Virginia at present counts 1,259,647, among which are 53,695 free Coloreds and 514,502 slaves—are the descendants of the first English settlers. Little by little Scots, Irish and Germans have been added; the last two form at least a third of the entire white population. The religious parties that have the most members are in the east the Episcopalians with 65 churches and the Baptists with 437; in the west the Presbyterians with 120 ministers and the Methodists with 170; the Germans in the mountains are all Lutherans. Churches are not found in all districts, but wandering preachers of all sects trav­ el the land. By comparison schools have been erected in all communities, there is a university in Charlotteville and colleges at Williamsburg, Lexington, Boydton, and in Prince Edward; academies number 382 in the state, elementary schools 1,561, with 35,331 students. Public installations completed and in use are the Dismal Swamp Canal, which connects Chesapeake Bay with Albemarle Sound and stretches 23 miles from Deep Creek to Joyce’s Creek; the Alexandria Canal, which we have already mentioned with regard to the District of Columbia; the James River and Kanawha Canal, which goes from Richmond 175 miles to Buchanan; the Richmond-Frederiksburg-Potowmac Railroad, which stretches 75 miles to Aquia Creek; the Louisa branch of the same, 25 miles from Richmond, which goes 49 miles to Gordonsville; the Richmond-Petersburgh Railroad 23 miles in length; the Petersburgh-Roanoke Railroad, which runs 59 miles to Weldon; Greensville Railroad, which stretches from near Hicks 18 miles to Gaston, N.C.; the City Point Railroad, which goes from City Point on the James, 12 miles to Petersburgh; the Chesterfield Railroad, which leads 13? miles from the coal mines to Richmond; the Portsmouth-Roanoke Railroad, 8 miles in length, which ends in Weldon, N.C., and the Winchester and Potowmac Railroad, which runs 32 miles from Harper’s Ferry to Winchester. The government of the state is formed under the title of general assembly: the senate is elected every four years, and the representatives and governor are elected every year. The latter can be elected only three times in succession. The state of Virginia falls into four districts and 120 counties, 67 in east Virginia and 53 in west Virginia. As in the more northern states, one looks in vain for large cities; Richmond and Petersburgh have come up only in recent years and have for the most part brick houses. The dwellings of the distinguished planters are for the most part constructed of stone or brick, large and well built. The smaller planters in contrast live in log houses, which have sprung up all over west Virginia. The most important cities of the land are Richmond, capital of the state, at 37° 30' north latitude, on the James, the lower part of which has rapids, with the suburb of Rocketts, with a capital, 1 council house, 6 church­ es, 1 synagogue, 2 market houses, 3 banks, 1 state arsenal, 2 prisons, 1,697 houses, and 22,456 inhabitants, whose income comes from trade, industry, and agriculture. Petersburgh, on the Appomatox at 37° 15' north lati­ tude, the principal market place for tobacco, and the three communities of Petersburgh, Blandford, and Pockahontas include 981 houses, 6 churches, 1 council house, 2 banks, several tobacco warehouses, many mills in the neighborhood, and 11,386 inhabitants. Norfolk, at 36° 53' north latitude on a peninsula at the mouth of the Elizabeth, is the most important trade city in the state; after the fire, was regularly and well rebuilt, with 1,200 houses and about 15,200 inhabitants. Frederiksburgh, on the south side of the Rappahannok, has 600 houses, among which are 1 council house, 5 churches, 2 banks, several tobacco warehouses, 1 academy, and 6,913 inhab­ itants; Wheeling, on the Ohio, is the most significant trade city in the west, with its 640 houses and 7,885 inhabi­ tants. Charlotteville, a half mile from the Rivanna, is a university city. Williamsburgh, earlier capital of the state, contains 350 houses and William and Mary College. Yorktown, with 1,800 inhabitants; Suffolk, on the Nansemond; Bermuda Hundred on both sides of the Appomatox, with City Point on the James; Linchburg, at the falls of the James; and Danville on the Dan are small communities which however carry out respectable trade. N otes 1. At that time the region consisted of small independent states that would later unify as the country of Germany. 2. According to James Grant Wilson and John Fiske, Bromine “settled in the United States in 1820, and after52 �ward traveled extensively in Texas and Mexico, became surgeon on a Columbian war-schooner cruising in the West Indies, and was detained for a year as a prisoner in Hayti” (Wilson and Fiske, eds., Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography (New York, 1888), 1:384). Historian Klaus Dieter Hein-Mooren’s research indicates that Bromme came to the United States in 1821, studied medicine (although he does not say where), later became a doctor in the “Colombian service,” and spent some time in Haiti, returning to Saxony in 1824 (Hein-Mooren, ‘“ Gediegene Schriften für Auswanderer’: Bromme, Buchner und die Auswandererliteratur” [‘“ Dependable Publications for Emigrants’: Bromme, Buchner and the Emigrant Literature”] Buchhandelsgeschichte 15: B45-B46, 2001). 3. Hein-Mooren, “Gediegene,” B45-B47. 4. The fifth edition of Bromme’s Hand- und Reisebuch, which is used in this document, was published in Bayreuth, Germany, 1848. 5. Henry Tanner created numerous maps in the early 1800s. As a result, it is difficult to say with certainty which ones Bromme used. For those interested, Tanner’s maps can be viewed online at, for example, http://www.davidrumsey.com/maps2784.html. Regarding his maps, Bromme wrote the following work: Post-, Kanal- und Eisenbahn-Karte der Vereinigten Staaten von Nord-Amerika: nach Smith, Tanner, Mitchel und den Berichten des General-Postamts, bearb. von Traugott Bromme [Postal, Canal, and Railroad Maps of the United States of North America: After Smith, Tanner, Mitchel, and Reports of the General Post Office, elaborated by Traugott Bromme] (Stuttgart, Germany, 1850). 6. Bromme, Hand- und Reisebuch, 186-89, 225-26. 7. Ibid., v. 8. Hein-Mooren, “Gediegene,” B48. This and other quotations from Hein-Mooren’s article are translations from the German provided by the author. 9. Joseph Sabin, Dictionary of Books Related to America (New York, 1869), 2:516-18. 10. Hein-Mooren, “Gediegene,” B45. Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt (1769-1859) was a German explorer, scientist, and natural philosopher who conducted expeditions to Cuba and Central and South America. His great­ est work was the five-volume Kosmos (1845-62). Bromme is credited with working on the illustrations in Kosmos by some scholars of the era (Sabin, Dictionary of Books, 2:516); this, however, is questionable. 11. Traugott Bromme, Gemälde von Nord-Amerika in allen Beziehungen von der Entdeckung an bis auf die neueste Zeit—-Eine pittoreske Geographie für Alle, welche unterhaltende Belehrung suchen und ein Umfassendes Reise-Handbuch für Jene, welche in diesem Lande wander wollen [Portrait of North America in All Connections from the Discovery to the Most Recent Time—A Picturesque Geography for Everyone Who Seeks Entertaining Instruction, and a Comprehensive Traveler’s Handbook for Anyone Who Wants to Travel in this Land] (Stuttgart, Germany, 1842). 12.1 have left Bromme’s spellings, errors, and omissions as they are in the original, trying not to intrude upon the author. However, I have at times changed his punctuation and syntax in order to bring the text somewhat more in line with modem idiomatic English. I have also broken the text into several paragraphs—only two in the original. I would like to thank the Staatsbibliotek in Berlin for helpfully providing materials and Nan Coppock for editorial assistance. 13. Bromme separates east and west longitude, that is, forms a prime meridian, at the present longitude of 77° west. Simply stated, this is because I T west longitude mns through the nation's capital, Washington, D.C. 14. The small square following the number of miles is Bromme’s way of indicating square miles. 15. West Virginia did not become a state until 15 years after this publication. 53 �Tobacco in Old Virginia Letters by Stan Lanford he Historical Society of Western Virginia has a large collection of personal letters in its archives. Within the past two years, the Society’s volunteers have been reading these letters and entering the names of per­ sons, subject matter and place names into an online index. Many of the letters contain information about the writer’s family and friends. Frequently, there is other information that is of interest to researchers on such topics as politics, education, business, transportation, crops, weather conditions and slavery. Among the Breckinridge family letters located in the Society’s archives (Accession No.1967.51), several let­ ters have information about tobacco, including: preparing the beds, as well as planting, harvesting and selling the crop that sustained so much of Virginia’s economy during the Colonial period, continuing through the Civil War, and to a declining extent during the past 50 years. Because these letters in the Breckinridge collection are pri­ mary sources for most of the information in this article, it may be worthwhile to give some background informa­ tion on the people who wrote frequently about tobacco. William Wirt Gilmer was the son of Peachy R. Gilmer and Mary House Gilmer who lived in Henry, Bedford and Albemarle counties for most of their lives. William had a sister, Emma Walker Gilmer, who married Cary Breckinridge in 1827, and they lived near Fincastle, Botetourt County, in a home they called “Catawba.” This marriage is the reason a portion of the Gilmer family letters is included in the Breckinridge collection. The University of Virginia Library holds additional Gilmer family papers. William Gilmer was bom September 26, 1804, in the home of his grandfather, George Gilmer, that was called “Pen Park,” in Albemarle County. William was the bachelor son in charge of the family farms and was some­ times called “the Wit of Albemarle.” He managed the family’s property at “Bremo” in Fluvanna County (often referred to in the letters as “Flu”), and at “Leigh” in Albemarle County (located near present-day Ivy, a few miles west of Charlottesville). His mother, Mary Gilmer, also wrote about some aspects of raising and marketing tobacco. In a letter dated June 27, 1831, from Ivy Creek, William Gilmer wrote to his sister, Emma, about the tobacco crop from the previous year, which was sold in Lynchburg. “The price was rather better then last year, but still low” as it averaged slightly over $5.00 per hundredweight or 5 cents per pound. He also reported that the house that his parents were building (to be called Leigh), was near completion. In an early letter in the collection, dated September 5, 1777 (Accession No.1969.51.14), a tobacco trader wrote to inform Col. William Preston in Botetourt County that he had found the price of tobacco to be less than he had offered Preston, and he named a price of 16 pounds/8 shillings per hundredweight as the actual market price in Page County. The broker claimed that he would lose over 37 English pounds on the tobacco that he bought from Preston, but said he would accept the loss if Preston desired. This is indicative of the problems that farmers and brokers in interior Virginia experienced in determining the best price for their crop. In many cases tobacco was the only cash crop for a Virginia farmer. Most farmers in the 1800’s grew a large portion of the food and materials they required for their own suste­ nance. Certain items had to be purchased, such as sugar, salt, coffee, spices, pottery, dishes and farm implements which required cash. The main cash crop in Virginia was tobacco. Although grain crops, and the flour and meal derived from that grain were also grown for sale at local markets, by far the largest producer of cash for the colo- T Stan Lanford, a volunteer in the virtual collections o f the Historical Society o f Western Virginia virtual library, is a former vice president and board member. He retired as president o f Lanford Brothers, a Roanoke construction company. 54 �nial fanner was tobacco, which had to be sent to market at a port from which the tobacco was shipped to England. After the American Revolution, tobacco could be shipped to other countries. This was known as the “cash crop”. The cash was received once a year, after the crop had been harvested and cured by the farmer, put into hogsheads (sometimes abbreviated as hds.), graded by state inspectors and delivered to a marketplace. If it was sold through a broker, the farmer might get some of his cash at the time of sale, but the cost of freight, inspection fees, tolls and the broker’s commission were deducted from the gross sale price. In a letter from Mary Gilmer to Emma Breckinridge, dated April 12, 1841, William Gilmer added a postscript to Mr. B[reckinridge] about the tobacco crop they expected to plant that year. He wrote, “We shall have 101,000 hills of tobacco & go for 30 to 35,000 cut here, from in Flu, half new land, go for 20,000 cut.” These remarks show that the farmer expected to harvest 30 to 35 stalks for each 100 tobacco plants planted. The following para­ graphs indicate the results for the 1841 crop. In a letter dated October 3, 1841, William wrote about his tobacco “Thank God we have saved all our tobacco & it is a long way the finest crop I ever saw. Oliver [Gilmer, one of the slaves at “Leigh”] has cured it all by my order, most of it while I was flat on my back. Poor fellow, he has been 19 days and nights in the tobacco houses without quitting. He gets a night’s rest tonight & at it again tomorrow. We have 34,000 [mature harvestable plants] at home and 20,000 I think in Flu. I have not been able to go there since they cut any. It was the finest crop ever grown when I went down 3 weeks since. “We cut tobacco from 8 o’clock to two & had my coat off. It began raining at two. I got wet as did all the hands & Overseer. We were out until 10 o’clock in a smart rain. Hands, I and Overseer were 18 [total number working]. Nine were taken down, Overseer and Dilly died. Polly is getting better as are all the others. Old Grace is dead. The stage is coming.” [It’s time to mail this letter.] William added a note to his mother’s letter of December 24, 1841, on page three: “Our tobacco house turned out 12,500 [plants or pounds? Or plats?] I calculated it at 13[000]. The crop will average 31,000 smartly. [Probably the number of plants that survived to harvest.] Tell Mr. B. it is the most beautiful crop I ever saw and weighs like lead. We have burnt over 1000 yards of Plant Land and will go at [it] as soon as the ground gets dry again.” It was customary to plant the tobacco seed beds in ground that had been burnt over, to kill any insects or diseases that would attack the tobacco plants. The farmer saved seed each year for the next year’s crop, and planted the seed in beds early in the spring, to be transplanted later into hills in the tobacco field. In a letter dated February 9, 1842, Mary Gilmer wrote to Emma Breckinridge about the last year’s tobacco crop: “We have sent off 12 hds. [hogsheads] tobacco from Leigh, have 4 more turned out, & have not done strip­ ping by near 2 more, 4 hds. No. 1 [graded] in boxes shall make here 22 hds. and 12 at Flu. We go for 40 this crop.” Mary hoped they could increase their harvest from 34 to 40 hogsheads in 1842. These remarks indicate how important it was to the farmer that his crop be harvested and handled properly in order to get a good quality tobacco. Few harvests would have caused the death and illness of so many workers, and it was a terrible price to pay. According to the same letter, William himself had been near death for several weeks, but was recovering. From the publication, Statistics of manufacturing of tobacco and of its Commercial Distribution, US Census Office, 1880, published by Business and Economics, 1884, we find the following data. In 1840 the United States exported 119,481 hogsheads of tobacco with a value of $9,883,957 for an average price of $82.72 per hogshead. The weight of tobacco exported was not recorded until after 1865. The size of the hogshead varied over the years, and the weight of a hogshead of tobacco varied from 600 to over 1,000 pounds. The time period was from 1777, when the colonies acquired the freedom to ship to countries other then England, through 1880. Before the American Revolution, the British colonies were required to sell all of their agricultural products to the mother country. After exports ceased being reported in pounds (British currency), tobacco sold in a price range from 15.4 cents in 1866 to 8.5 cents by 1882. The price could vary each year depending on the size of the crop that could be har­ vested, cured and sold. During all this time, the United States was the leading exporter of tobacco in the world. Most was exported to England, France, Belgium and Holland. While we do not have a source for the price per pound of tobacco in Virginia during the 1840s, we can estimate the price by assuming the hogshead in 1840 weighed about 750 pounds. Converting the average hogshead price of $82.72, and dividing by 750 pounds, gives 55 �a value of about 11 cents per pound. From a business letter dated May 7, 1842, concerning 27 barrels of flour shipped from Fincastle to Richmond, we found that the freight cost was 15.6% of the value, while cooperage, storage and inspection fees were 2.4%, and the commission for the agent handling the transaction was 2.5%, for a total of 20.4%. Assuming that tobacco had about the same costs, the sale price of tobacco was diminished by about 20% by the aforesaid fees. To apply this to the Gilmer’s crop raised in 1841 and sold in 1842, we estimate the 34 hogsheads of tobacco raised and sold at their two plantations, after paying the 20% cost, could have netted about $3,060. Tobacco today sells for about 85 cents per pound, and the 1841 crop would have brought about $22,000 at today’s price. The 1840 census for Albemarle County counts Mary Gilmer and her family (a total of six persons, plus 44 slaves). Their living came from the cash delivered by the tobacco crop, and from food and material raised on their land. Two children, John and Mary Peachy, were in boarding schools with fairly high expenses. Letters in the winter of 1841 suggested that Mary Gilmer probably could not afford to send them both to school the next year. The James River Canal was completed to Lynchburg by 1840, and a portion of the canal was located on land purchased from the Gilmer plantation in Fluvanna. This greatly facilitated the movement of tobacco and other goods to Richmond, where ocean-going vessels could come up James River and goods could be transferred to ships bound for England. In a letter dated February 26, 1842, Mary Gilmer wrote to her daughter Emma about the hard work that William was doing on the plantation in Fluvanna County. In preparation for the new season, the overseer “manured” the tobacco fields along the banks between the James and Hardware Rivers. Each day the hands applied the manure at the rate of 200 single-horse cart loads per acre. They used two one-horse carts to take the manure from the stable to the tobacco beds. On these beds the overseer expected to plant 125,000 individual tobacco plants. She commented that this overseer did not need a whip to discipline the slaves. Several of these letters mention the adding of livestock manure to the tobacco beds as fertilizer to improve the soil that grew the tobacco. Growing tobacco used the nutrients in the soil at a fast pace. Tobacco farmers were adding new fields every few years until they learned the value of adding manure and/or fertilizer to help replace the nutrients that the growing tobacco took from the soil. For the tobacco-growing farmers in Virginia this cycle of preparing the land, planting the seed beds, trans­ planting the young plants to crop land, and carefully tending the growing plants, continued year after year. They needed to remove the weeds, kill the insects eating the leaves and remove any diseased stalks to prevent contam­ ination of the rest of the crop. These farmers had no chemical sprays to kill insects and disease. As with all crops, a late frost, too much or too little rain, or a wet harvest time could greatly affect the crop. If the crop was poor, most of these farmers had little cash reserves to carry them another year until the next crop could be sold. We hope this article will give an idea about some of the information that can be found in the old letters in our Digital Library. Many letters are now online, and eventually we shall have the entire Breckinridge collection, with letters from about 1759 to the early 20th century, online for easy access by everyone. Our Digital Library is another way to bring history alive for more people. Sources "The Domestic Encyclopaedia Vol 1," by A. F. M. Willich. Amazon: The Domestic Encyclopaedia. In addition to the cited letters and booklets in this article, I interviewed Doug CundifF, a Franklin County native who was reared on a farm where tobacco was grown each year, to get a better understanding of the vari­ ous operations the farmer had to complete for a successful harvest. 56 �The Great Bedford Fire o f 1884 by Travis W itt f | ^he dry breeze blew steadily as the regular evening visits of the horse-drawn cart traversed the bridge span­ ning the Norfolk and Western Railway. Both were directed towards Main Street; unusual for one, with - L timely regularity for the other. The Indian summer lasted well into October and sparse rain showers accompanied the breezier conditions. As the last worker provided the citizens of Liberty with a reminder that extra sleep the evening before a Sabbath would be welcome. But it was not to be a night of extra sleep for the residents of Liberty; nor a peaceful Sabbath for Bedford’s county seat in 1884. At approximately 2 a.m. on Sunday, October 12, 1884, the great fire that destroyed much of the village of Liberty began. Although there remains some uncertainty as to the cause of the conflagration, there was no ambiguity as to the location of the initial spark - a business on the east side of North Bridge Street adja­ cent to the bridge. The wood-framed storefronts and second-story living quarters were soon engulfed by the wind-encouraged blaze. The flames jumped Depot Street before crossing Bridge Street and consumed businesses and living quar­ ters on both sides of the thoroughfare. Cries of “Fire” pierced the early morning silence before the sounds of the inferno diminished the pleas for help. Fortunately, those initial cries awakened all in the path of the blaze and no one perished. Within minutes, a bucket brigade was formed, bringing water from the cistern behind the courthouse. All in the line were strongly aware that their efforts were too little. The breeze blew the smoking embers, leaving no buildings untouched as the blaze intensified, quickly approaching the intersection of Bridge and Main. The smoke was thick as the fire made the night sky explode with light seen for miles. A telegram was sent to Lynchburg but their services would not arrive until late that tragic Sunday morning. A sense of hopelessness engulfed the citizens as the flames devoured the structures in its path. Many must have believed the entire town would succumb. Yet the width of Main Street hindered the flames from crossing the thoroughfare and destroying the southern portion of Liberty. Prayers and a decision for the widest street to be Main at Liberty’s formation more than 100 years earlier protected other businesses. Traveling west on Main Street, there were no buildings on the right side except for a structure that cornered the street. The comer building was destroyed and the flame ceased any westerly movement. While the flames were hindered in their south and west direction, buildings still providing fuel remained on the northern face of East Main. The opera house and the courthouse were soon to be within reach. Quick think­ ing by several saved both buildings. The bucket brigade was redirected to cover the western side of the opera house with water. An abandoned building stood between the fire and now soaked theater. A keg of powder was brought to the building and charges were placed within the unsightly structure. Once an all-clear was sounded, the building was destroyed by an explosion. Its timber, now lying on the ground and beginning to bum, was not high enough for the flames to extend eastward to two of the prominent buildings still standing on the morning of October 12, 1884. As the sun rose that fateful morning, smoke still billowed from the smoldering buildings. No lives were lost, yet little tangible property was saved. Some merchandise from the stores was piled haphazardly in the street, where saving the items had been the goal before the smoke and heat were too overwhelming to return again to storefront retrieving. Even the rescued items were damaged beyond use from the secondary effects of the inferno. This article first appeared in Museum News, a publication o f the Bedford Museum and Genealogical Library. �Some cried, their tears leaving streaks on soot-covered faces. Some hugged while others were dazed and speechless, dutifully walking through the streets now pilfered with charred planks and damaged goods. The horse-drawn cart and driver had to alter their traversing through the streets, yet stopped regularly to accomplish his responsibilities and comfort his friends. His concern for his community was felt as blisters pained the hands that had worked diligently to pull water from the well behind the court of law. The search for loved ones continued through the morning as regular church-goers, some aware only as their mode of transportation brought them close enough to the overpowering release from the smoldering buildings, fully experienced by God’s provision of fire. None of the churches in Liberty were destroyed; yet their lives were readjusted that morning. Serving congregants and friends proved to be of more value than a sermon about the tri­ umph out of tragedy. The time for that message would be at the evening meeting after the fire was extinguished and the magnitude was fully known. The churches were full that evening, many counting their blessings, thanking God for his protective hand on life and limb; and searching for a pastoral proclamation that this catastrophe was not God’s wrath being expressed to the guilty but a strong reminder of God’s faithfulness to protect and shelter his flock as a mother hen covers her chicks. Only in future personal moments would any understanding of how God used this difficul­ ty to bring a greater desire to know Him and serve others be conveyed. On Tuesday, October 14, 1884, the Lynchburg paper reported that some believed the fire was purposely start­ ed; an over-abundant aroma of kerosene was noticed the evening before the fire. The lamp lighter was asked if he had spilled any of the lamp oil while lighting the street lights that evening. He was unaware of any significant spill. Others noticed the smell but not the lamp lighter, for those accustomed to certain smells tend to be oblivi­ ous of degrees of intensity. Although no one was ever charged with arson, the activities and inclinations of some who had “internally justifiable” reasons to torch an individual business or the community of Liberty remain a question only of reflective speculation. Buildings were reconstructed; brick would provide greater structure and more flame-retardant material. Even with the new buildings, community leaders were convinced that preventative measures were needed forthwith. Ten months later, in August 1885, a mountain reservoir was completed, pipe was laid from the lake and fire hydrants were conveniently situated along the streets. In addition, fire equipment was purchased that could send a spout of water forty feet upward, adequately reaching the tallest buildings standing in Liberty. Tragedy can bring demise or restoration. In the minds of some, it brought both. Progress created the need for a volunteer fire department. Drastic change afforded different buildings, increased responsibilities and modified lifestyles. Reliving the fire brought daytime worries and sleepless nights. The progress of the town after the fire may have been so transformational that six years later, leaving both tragedy in the ashes and America’s triumph in the Revolution behind, Bedford became the replacement name for Liberty, Virginia. 58 �Burruss Hall is a classic example o f the merging o f Hokie Stone with neo-Gothic architecture at Virginia Tech. It is the most recognizable building on the Virginia Tech campus. (Photo © by William E. Cox ) H n k iP Çf/M lP- Virginia Tech's n t/f U c j l U f / c . spiritea OM Rock by C lara B. Cox an a rock have spirit? Some would argue that Hokie Stone contributes to — perhaps even serves as a foundation o f — Hokie Spirit. The native limestone, mined at Virginia Tech’s own quarry, has defined the campus scene for more than a hun­ dred years. The rocks have become so integral to the aura of Virginia Tech that the university’s board of visitors has passed a resolution requiring that all new buildings and expansion projects within the academic core and life science precincts of the campus use Hokie Stone as the predominant material on building facades. C Clara Cox retired in July as director o f publications at Virginia Tech after 35 years in editing, writing, man­ agement and public relations responsibilities. A graduate o f Radford University, she holds a master’s degree from Virginia Tech. She has written or editedfive books and was named the university’s Outstanding Leader in 2003. (Reprinted with permission from Virginia Tech Magazine. The author has made some modifications to the article, which originally appeared in the Spring 2010 issue o f the magazine.) 59 �Torgersen Hall (left) is joined with Newman Library by the Torgersen Bridge. The hall is clad with 2,700 tons o f Hokie Stone. (Photo © by William E. Cox) H istory of its use Campus use of these limestone slabs dates back to the late 1800s. It was then that alumni donated money to construct a building on campus for the YMCA, which advised and counseled students and provided them with social activities. The cornerstone was laid on June 20, 1899, and the $20,729 building served as Y headquarters until 1937. Richmond architect W.F. West designed the facility, known today as the Performing Arts Building. West pro­ duced a Romanesque-inspired design clad in rough limestone, which proved to be popular with President John McBryde (1891-1907) and his faculty, who called the material “our native limestone.” In 1905, the first building was erected that reflected the university’s prevailing neo-Gothic architectural style. Plans for the Chapel, which later became the college library, called for a brick exterior, but difficulty in securing the bricks led builders to use easily accessible limestone instead. By then, Tech had located limestone deposits on campus — in the area of today’s Derring and Cowgill Halls — where it quarried dark gray stone, called “black limestone.” Another native-limestone-clad building, Price Hall, was completed in 1907. Still, most buildings were brick and reflected styles of the Victorian era. McBryde’s successor, Joseph D. Eggleston (1913-1919), compared them to “poverty stricken textile mills” and convinced the board of visitors to hire the architectural firm Cameal and Johnston to develop a plan for campus structures based on the Gothic style of architecture prevalent at European universities. The first resulting building, the McBryde Building of Mechanic Arts, completed in 1917 and razed in 1966, was constructed of native limestone and became the prototype for numerous buildings that followed, including Burruss Hall. Today, the Inn at Virginia Tech and the Holtzman Alumni Center are among the newer Hokie Stone buildings on campus that provide modem interpretations of the classic architectural style. �Hokie Stone was used on the fagade o f the Virginia Tech-Carilion School o f Medicine in Roanoke. (Photo by Christina Koomen) F ormation and transformation Some 300 million years old, Hokie Stone is unique to the Appalachian region of Virginia, Tennessee, and Alabama. Technically a Chepultepec and Kingsport Formation dolomite, which is rich in calcium and magne­ sium, this sedimentary rock began to emerge at the end of the Paleozoic Age, when continental drift forced the coastal plains of Africa and North America to collide, creating wrinkled layers of faults and folds. As natural forces pushed these layers near the earth’s surface, they formed the stone so popular in the Hokie Nation. The rock’s varied colors — yellows, grays, browns, blacks, and maroons, among others — were created by different conditions present when the stone was formed. Pinkish tones found in older dolomites resulted from arid, desert-like climates, while darker gray and black stones reflect their creation in swampy and wetter condi­ tions. Several sites for the limestone exist in the Blacksburg region. In 1975, the Virginia Tech Foundation pur­ chased a 38-acre quarry that had been in operation since 1958; adding 10 more acres in 2007. Located within the Blacksburg town limits, the quarry provides 80 percent of the Hokie Stones used on new campus buildings. To get variations in color, the university purchases the remaining 20 percent from a farm in Montgomery County. Workers at the quarry use a relatively quiet explosive to fracture the shelf-like formation. They employ other processes that eventually break the stones into the approximately 2-foot-by-l-foot size most commonly used for cutting and for carving the outer face to the desired level of surface relief. Each stonemason uses hammers and chisels to accomplish the last steps by hand, shaping, smoothing, and dressing about a ton of stones per day to final dimensions. The university recently purchased equipment to slice the stone into brick-like depths, reducing the bulk and the cost — of cladding a building. The new Visitor and Admissions Center, now under construction near the Inn 61 �Virginia Tech’s April 16 Memorial, located across Drillfield Drive from Burruss Hall, honors the 32 lives lost in two campus shootings on April 16, 2007. Each victim is represented by one Hokie Stone, which is engraved with the victim’s name. (Photo by John McCormick) at Virginia Tech off Prices Fork Road, will be the first campus building to incorporate this technique. The quarry produces about 55 tons of Hokie Stone per week, about 2,600 tons per year. Each ton will cover approximately 35 square feet on a building. Typical campus buildings use about 1,500 tons of stone, or more than 82,000 individual stones. A n emblem of spirit In late afternoon or early morning on bright, cloudless days, sunlight striking campus buildings appears to give the Hokie Stones an inner glow. The soft, muted colors stand in stark contrast to the mental image of a hard, grey stone building, visually bringing the buildings to life. That visual image remains in the memory, long after one leaves campus and the stones often become synonymous with thoughts of Virginia Tech. For the university’s football team, Hokie Stone has become a lucky talisman and a symbol of achievement. The last thing each football player does before entering Worsham Field is stroke a Hokie Stone embedded over the Lane Stadium doorway. Beside the stone are the words: “For those who have passed, for those to come, reach for excellence.” The limestone’s prevalence in the mindset of the Hokie Nation was reiterated in 2007 when Hokies United placed a block of Hokie Stone in a memorial for each student and faculty member killed on April 16. That memorial inspired the permanent memorial, which includes 32 Hokie Stones, each engraved with the name of one who died that day. “With our native limestone as the base, we have etched their names into the foundation of this great university,” said the late Zenobia Hikes, vice president of Student Affairs, at the dedication ceremony. Hokie Stone, the heart of campus construction, has become the manifestation of Virginia Tech’s resilience and spirit. �Robert McClelland: Mayor o f Two Cities by John Long he Roanoke Valley is home to two independ­ ent cities — Roanoke and Salem. Both have been governed for many years by a town or city council presided over by a mayor or equivalent officer. Many men (no women yet) have served in that capacity for the two communities through the years. This may give rise to a question: has anyone served as chief executive of both Salem and Roanoke? It sounds improbable to the modem resi­ dent of the Valley, but in fact, the fascinating Robert McClelland (1834-1896) is the one man who can claim the distinction of leading both civic govern­ ments, and his impact on both communities is unde­ niable. Bom in either Belfast or Ballyclaire, Ireland, about 1834, McClelland came to the United States at the age of 18, perhaps in response to the great Irish Potato Famine of 1845-52. Initially he settled in Ohio and was employed as a teacher, but a few years later moved to Charleston, Va. (later W.Va.) and then to Salem, where he worked as a clerk. But his business career was interrupted by the War Between the States. It is clear that like most men of his generation, McClelland served in the war, but exactly what he did is a little less certain. His obituRobert McClelland ary claims that he served in the 13th Virginia Regiment under Colonel George Patton (who was the grandfather of the celebrated WWII general of the same name). However, Patton commanded the 22nd Virginia, not the 13th, and indeed a Robert McClelland served in that unit. Further, the obituary also claims that McClelland at the end of the war served in the Commissary Department in Richmond, where he was responsible for evacuating the last wagonloads of supplies from the Confederate capital, a bold stroke that kept Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in the fight, for a few more days at least. However, if he was the Robert McClelland in the 22nd, his service record indicates he was in a POW camp in West Virginia in April 1865, not in Richmond in charge of a supply depot. There does not seem to be an easy way to harmonize the various discrepancies in his service record. Confederate records being notoriously incom- T John Long, executive director o f Salem Historical Society, also teaches history at Roanoke College and writes a column fo r The Roanoke Times. 63 �plete and imprecise at the end of the War, perhaps it is best to defer to the obituary written at the end of his col­ orful life. His post-war biography becomes clearer. After the war he relocated to Chattanooga, but seemed to have been drawn back to our valley by an affair of the heart. In 1868 he returned to marry his beloved, Mary Coles of Bent Mountain. They would be blessed with one daughter. Gifted with a financial mind, McClelland became a prosperous businessman, running a livery stable, a mer­ cantile, and working with a tobacco firm. He also got into real estate along the way - McClelland Street in Salem bears silent testimony to his role in developing the town during its fabled Great Land Boom of the 1880s. McClelland was also involved in local politics. He was elected to Salem Town Council in 1872, and served for about eight months as the president of the Council - the equivalent of the modem office of mayor. But his bent was toward finances, and he apparently liked to keep books; so after acting as mayor he spent the next four­ teen years as treasurer for the Town of Salem. His political career in Salem came to an abrupt end in 1886 when he was suddenly voted out of office in favor of a band of newcomers headed by William Younger. His political defeat was the result, according to local leg­ end, of a bit of political subterfuge, a story told fifty years later by the Salem Times-Register. McClelland was a member of a local faction of Democrats led by then-mayor Robert Logan. Salem being a Democratic town, they apparently looked on the election of 1886 with little concern. But in fact, a cadre of Republicans headed by pharmacist and councilman Younger, tobacconist J. Albert Finke, undertaker John M. Oakey, and newspaperman Charles M. Webber, had secretly plotted a coup. In those days, there were no filing requirements for candidates and no standardized ballot in local elections. Candidates typically had their own ballot printed and distributed it to supporters; on election day the voter turned it in at the poll. Thus it would be possible for a slate of candidates to run a stealth campaign. Younger’s Republican faction did just that, utilizing especially the support for the GOP amongst African American voters (the suppression of black votes so well known in the 20th Century was not yet the mie). It was all perfectly legal, though there were hazards to the tactic. The story is told of one illiterate voter who accidentally voted a sales order for nails at the ballot box, and turned in his ballot at the hardware store. Election day finally arrived, and in the evening officials gathered to tally the ballots. One of the first unfolded was an unexpected Younger ballot. “Here’s something new to me!” exclaimed the judge. “I guess you’ll find a good many more like it before you are through,” wryly responded a Younger supporter. In the end, Younger carried the day over Logan by a vote of 241 to 81 and was elected mayor of Salem. McClelland was also defeated, a blow which he accepted with customary grace. Years later Younger would be a pallbearer at his funeral, so apparently there were no hard feelings. But with no further ties to Salem, and seeing the growing city of Roanoke as a lucrative market for his real estate business, McClelland moved there. And there he thrived. A few years later, he was appointed to finish out an unexpired term on Roanoke’s City Council. He stood for election in 1892 and was given a full term in his own right. Given his fiduciary talents, it’s no surprise he soon took over the duties of head of the municipal finance committee. He served so capably that only four years later he was elected mayor of the City of Roanoke. Unfortunately, his term was not to be long and was to end in tragedy. On November 3, 1896, McClelland was strolling through downtown Roanoke on his way to the bank to deposit his church’s offering from the previous Sunday. (A dedicated Christian, he served as treasurer of First Presbyterian Church in Roanoke. He had acted in a similar capacity at Salem Presbyterian before his move to Roanoke) Seemingly deep in thought over some­ thing, he suddenly and inexplicably turned and stepped in front of a passing streetcar. Horrified witnesses mshed to his aid, and the injured mayor was taken to the nearby offices of Drs. Lewis and Gale. But nothing could be done. He died later in the day, and both communities that he had called home mourned his loss. Robert McClelland was buried in East Hill Cemetery in Salem, where his wife Mary would join him in 1917. Today, many people pass his grave in the Center Circle, not far from that of General Andrew Lewis. But too few know the story of this man who helped build two cities into the great communities they became. 6H �Riding a Bull Across the Roanoke River by Ruth Dickerson y name is Ruth Dickerson and I am a resident of Bedford County, Virginia. I was bom April 8, 1922, in Bedford County at a place near McKee’s Ford, which is upstream from Rutrough Road and across the Roanoke River from the location where the Explore Park bateaux are usually tied up. My dad was part Cherokee and his dad was what we called “thoroughbred” Cherokee, or 100% full blooded. My granddad died at McKee’s Ford. He was crossing the river in January and the boat turned over. He was able to get to the shore, but he died on the bank due to the cold. When I was only 11 months old, my mother moved us across the river and downstream to the house at the end of Rutrough Road (formerly called Trading Post Road) which became known as the Dickerson House. I had a sister, Gracie, and a brother, Samuel Winford. My brother later died in a fire at Roanoke Iron & Bridge where he worked. My mother raised us pretty much on her own, which was really tough in those times. We raised most of our own food with a large garden. We kept chickens, pigs and cows, along with a bull and some horses. As a child I worked the cows and often had to round them up and herd them home, sometimes in my bare feet and sometimes after dark. I recall sometimes waiting for a bolt of lightning to see which way to go home with the cows. I raised a bull myself and used to ride the bull like a horse to round up the cattle. One time I even rode the bull across the Roanoke River, but my mother got quite upset about that, so I quit. I walked to school over at Coopers Cove using a trail over the mountain. I had to cross a log bridge across Back Creek every day to get to school. One winter day I fell off the log and got soaking wet. I had to walk all the way to school wet and cold. I only went to school until the third grade. In that year I caught the whooping Ruth Dickerson cough and my teacher sent me home. When I got home, my mom marched me right back to school and told the teacher I should stay in school and that if the teacher sent me home, I would not be back. The teacher sent me home and my mother never sent me back to school again. In those days you could get away with that. My mother had help from her family and from neighbors, especially if we had problems. It was a very tightknit community and people looked out for each other then. I was baptized in Back Creek as a child. I used to swim in the river all the time. In later years, I saw tubers floating down the river. Now there are kayakers and canoeists quite often. M This account and the photo were arranged by Bill Tanger, president o f Friends o f the Roanoke River, fo r a river project. Ms. Dickerson lives on Shady Run Road with her grandson Steve Meeks. 65 �My first car was a 1937 Ford. I worked all my life, starting at the Vincent Wheeler Laundromat for 10 years, then Armour Company as an egg inspector for five years, then Singer Furniture as a woodworking machine oper­ ator for 24 years and finally at Elizabeth Arden for 14 years. So I worked full-time for over 53 years as well as working part time during some other years. Rutrough Road was always a gathering place, even in the 1930s. On the weekends, many people came down to the river to drink and party. There would be lots of cars lining the roadside. Sometimes there were so many cars parked there we could not get the horse and buggy out to the road. The road had a good deal of traffic in the 1930s and 1940s. There were many horses and wagons and also trucks. Many carried wheat, some hay and com. Just across the road, about 100 feet from our house on Back Creek, there was a mill and store. The mill ground com for meal. Some of the millwheels are likely in the bottom of Back Creek from when the mill burned down. Rutrough Road went down and forded the river and up the other side into Bedford County. Mostly horses and buggies crossed the river, but also trucks. The river used to be much less wide and much shallower. Also the banks were not as steep. You could walk across the river by stepping on stones and never get wet. Over time the river got deeper and wider, even before the lake backed up the water. Flood waters reached up to the house twice. During one flood my brother took people across the river in the high water. We had use of a homemade wooden boat and paddles. It was a very dangerous thing to do with big logs floating down the river during the flood. My mother was 90 years old when the 1985 flood hit us. The water came right up to the porch and my mother was so scared she lost her mind. She was never herself again. I had two daughters and married my childhood sweetheart, Henry Myers, in 1995. Unfortunately he died two years later of a burst heart. The Flying Squadron ^^% a p a b le of doing 90 miles an hour on any motorcycle, but don’t let them catch you trying to imiI tate them. One of the features of the department which has demonstrated its immense value since its installation six years ago. Officers George G. Hurd, George P. Kefauver and Charles I. Schwinger form the squad. The men serve all summonses, answer all emergency calls and assist in the investigation of all classes of crimi­ nal work. One or more of the men are on duty at all hours. The men each work a 12-hour shift each day and when necessary are often called on from two to eight hours extra service. A call is heard through the signal system and immediately an officer of this squad is off on the trail. They are the chief protection of the residential section of the city, owing to the fact that at the present time the department does not consist of sufficient members to keep roundsmen on short enough beats for the adequate patrolling of all beats. The service is most efficient and is the pride of Major Moore (Edward R. Moore, chief of police). It frequently happens that a call is sent in from the outskirts of the city and before the astonished citizen can further investigate the case he looks out and sees a brown clothed figure grabbing the culprit. “How did you get here so soon?” is the usual question asked on the arrival of the “Flyer.” “It’s our busi­ ness to Hurry” is the reply. ~ History o f the Roanoke Police Department, 1916 66 �W ythe County's Social Disasters... Divorces by M ary B. Kegley ost Southern men and women regarded divorce as a “personal, familial, and social disaster.” Many were left “with deep psychic scars,” as a result of using the law to end a difficult or even a disastrous marriage. It was the only way to cope with an often impossible and embarrassing situation. It was a necessary evil. (1) But how to do it? When the new country became independent, the government adopted the Common Law of England, but did not adopt their church laws. As a result there was confusion on how to handle divorces. Virginia’s culture opposed it. There was no code section that told the lawyers, legislators or individuals how it was to be done.(2) It was a harsh legal system. The General Assembly began considering cases in 1786 and between that time and 1827, a total of 41 years, 268 petitions were sent to the General Assembly asking for a divorce. Some had been re-filed three or four times. The assembly approved only 42 divorce bills; only 23 women and 19 men received a divorce in all of Virginia.^ Twenty-five of these were a vinculo matrimonii or final divorces. Others were from bed and board or amensa et thorn, that is a legal separation. What was the alternative? Western migration! (4) Or as we sometimes call them: “Irish divorces.” The Irish moved to England and began a new family because they did not believe in divorce. In the Wythe County Legislative Petitions filed in the Library of Virginia (and now on microfilm), there were five women and one man who filed petitions. Three of the petitioners were successful. Nevertheless, from these documents we learn a lot about family life in the early days. Often relatives do not want to talk about it, even today. In order to file a petition, notice was given to the other spouse that a petition would be sent to the legislature; it often appeared in the local newspapers. Three readings in the house of the General Assembly began the process. The petitions were then sent to a committee and in the nineteenth century to the Committee on Courts of Justice. If three readings were successful in the House, the petition was sent to the Senate and then if the legisla­ ture agreed, the petition for divorce was granted and a bill was drawn up to that effect. (5) The legislature often questioned whether they had authority to grant a divorce, but in the 1840s changes began and there were too many cases taking up their time. By 1851, at the time the new State Constitution passed, the Assembly was sure they did not want to have anything more to do with such petitions. In fact, in 1851 they were forbidden to grant divorces\(6) Now what to do? The next step was to file in the Circuit Court in the county where the couple last resided together. The case was classified as a chancery case and papers were filed in a special place with other chancery cases. Divorce was only one of many kinds of such cases. The important papers are the actual suit papers, but occasionally these are missing or have been destroyed. Some information however, will appear in the Chancery Order Books giving the basic information. When the notation in the order book stated that the case had been “stricken from the docket” it usually gave the result and the case was ended. M L egislative P etitions of W ythe C ounty (7) These are the brave souls who filed petitions in the General Assembly: Sally Carter v. Thompson Carter Elizabeth Kimberlin v. Martin Kimberlin Elizabeth Stuart v. Charles Stuart Mary B. Kegley is a Wytheville historian, author o f more than 50 books, a genealogist and a lawyer. 67 �Elizabeth Grainger v. William Grainger Elizabeth Lynch v. James Lynch Leonard G. Bailey v. Hannah Bailey Thompson Carter obtained the marriage bond on October 19, 1809, and he and Sarah or Sally, the daughter of Nathanial Frisbie, were married on October 26.(8) They lived together three years and they had two children, not named. She requested that the legislature restore to her “the rights and priviledge of a single woman” and that she be allowed to acquire property. Among those who gave depositions were Nathaniel Frisbie, Alexander Porter, George Oury, John Evans, Catherine Thornburg, William New and John Ginkins [Jenkins], Her husband was described as “improvident, given to intoxication and idleness,” and in 1813 he abandoned her and took her back to her father’s. He was described as an “idle drinking man” or a “lazy, lying drinking man.” There was no mention of adultery or any other legal reason to obtain a divorce. Her petition was rejected.(9) The good news is that many years later divorce papers were filed in Hawkins County, Tennessee, and Sally Carter obtained a divorce. Copies of these papers were filed in a Wythe County Chancery suit when Sally inher­ ited property from her father. (70) She was unable to control the property as a married women and her husband threatened to interfere. She requested that she be returned to the status of a fem e sole, a single woman. Testimony showed her husband was a “worthless dissipated man, who spent his time about still houses, grog shops and houses of ill fame.” On the fourth Monday in December 1826, the Hawkins County Court granted the divorce. The first of the women named Elizabeth who applied for a divorce from Wythe County was Elizabeth Kimberlin [Kimberling], the only child of Daniel Sponsler. She complained that her husband Martin Kimberlin [Jr.] attempted to assassinate her father by shooting him. He was tried and acquitted, because “there was a want of clear proof, having done it in the night.” Her husband moved to Kentucky and there was convicted of being a horse thief, and was confined to the penitentiary for two years. Also, Martin had married another woman. Her divorce was granted on December 13, 1808.(7/) Elizabeth Stuart (also Steward), the second woman named Elizabeth to file a petition, was married by the Reverend John Stanger under the name of Bezy Ingledove on November 26, 1801, although she claimed it was in the fall of 1802.(12) They had four children and three of them were living with her at the time she filed her petition in the Assembly. None of the children were named. In June 1810, her husband “coolly and deliberately” left her in an advanced stage of pregnancy and went to Kentucky. Witnesses testified that she had been beaten often by her husband. The letters sent back home by Charles suggested that if she traveled 200 miles west with the children he would take her back. But she also received news that he was intending to marry another woman. Elizabeth noted that by law she was only allowed to contract for necessaries of life but wanted to acquire property and not be subject to pay her husband’s debts. The petition was rejected on December 11, 1812, and she did not obtain a divorce. Elizabeth Grainger, the third woman named Elizabeth, filed her petition against her husband William. They were married September 12, 1816, where she used the name Betsey Stoneman. They had one female child, not named, and at the time of the petition they were living with her parents, the John Stonemans//3) She described her husband as a “stage coach driver,” who “captivated her young heart.” She was in her 16th year. He drank excessively, beat her, and left the state. She heard later that he was married to a woman in Maryland who was still living. She wished to be removed from “her present disagreeable and distressing situa­ tion” and was “bold enough to appeal to this honourable body for relief.” Her petition was rejected on December 19, 1820.(77) Elizabeth Lynch also filed a petition with the General Assembly against her husband, James Lynch, stating she had married him on June 1, 1816.(75/ She claimed that he left her in August the following year and had married Phebe Duncan of Russell County in 1817. They left for Kentucky or North Carolina and she had not heard from him in two years. She had inherited property from her father Daniel Sponsler and wanted lull control of it. The petition was filed on December 15, 1829, and was held to be reasonable on December 22. The bill was drawn and she obtained her divorce//6) It appears that Elizabeth Sponsler had been married and divorced twice. Her first husband was Martin Kimberling 68 �mentioned above. Leonard Bailey filed his petition in 1845 against Hannah S. Bailey, his wife, claiming that they had been mar­ ried on October 1, 1840. She was the daughter of Elmer and Elinor Gilbert and the Reverend David Fleming of the Methodist E. Church performed the ceremony.(17) She had left for parts unknowii to live her life in “notori­ ous prostitution.” More than seventy citizens of the county signed a document claiming Leonard was a good and worthy citizen and his case “requires justice.” Written community support was often done so that the petitioner would have a better chance with the legislature where they hoped the distinguished members of the House and Senate would sympathize with the man. In addition, in this case, seven local ministers, C.D. Smith, Wm. Hicks, J.C. Walker, C.N. Charlton, David Fleming, Absalom Fisher and Casper Yost, signed their own document stating Bailey had been a respectable member of the church for several years. On January 10, 1846, an Act of the General Assembly was passed which dissolved the marriage and “all right, interest of Hannah Bailey, his wife, in his real or personal property was to cease.(18) On October 29, 1851, Leonard G. Bailey was married by R.C. Graham to Johanna Cassell. (19) At this time period when women got married all of their property became the property of the husband and the two became one.. .the man! A married woman could not legally own any property in her own name. If she was single, a widow or divorcee she could. Some of these women inherited property from their fathers and if not divorced, it became the property of the husband. None of these cases named their children; none of these petitioners told exactly where the other party moved to; a few mentioned their maiden name; a few mentioned the date of the marriage; only three of the six got a divorce; later Sally Carter got her divorce in Tennessee after she moved and established residency there. From these few petitions a picture of abandonment, cruelty, drunkenness, criminal acts, and adultery emerge. Why some cases failed in their request is not known but merely hearing about the marriage of their mate to someone else probably was not strong enough evidence to grant the divorce; and cruelty alone was not usually enough for the marriage to be terminated. D ivorce C ases in Chancery In order to obtain a divorce in the local court certain chancery procedures were required. To begin the suit a bill of complaint was filed and an answer was sometimes made by the defendant, who with the witnesses was summoned to appear. Sometimes exhibits, such as a marriage license might be included in the case papers. If the defendant lived out of state, a notice was placed in the local paper and a copy was usually in the file. When the judge signed the final decree or order, the case was “stricken from the docket,” and this order entered into the Chancery Order Books. There were two kinds of divorce: from “bed and board” (a mensa et thorn), where the parties were legally separated but could not remarry. The second kind was to be free from the chains of matrimony (a vinculo matri­ monii) when the parties usually could remarry. Some of the Wythe County judges decided that they could not, especially if one of the parties was at fault. Occasionally, a maiden name was returned to the woman; rarely chil­ dren’s names were given; sometimes the word enceinte was used when the woman was pregnant; and the legal term ex parte was used when a decision was made without the other party being present. When women received their divorce the case often used the term fem e sole, in other words a single woman, who could now make con­ tracts for herself, who could handle her own affairs, something she could not do when married; there were a few exceptions. In Wythe County there were more than 120 individuals who filed for divorces between 1851 and 1886. Sixty percent of the cases were brought by men, the remainder by the women. In the Wythe County chancery cases the reasons for filing for a divorce were varied. They included adultery, abandonment and desertion. Often cruelty, drunkenness and violent passions were mentioned. Some women were charged with being “fussy and quarrelsome and disagreeable” causing the home to be more of a “torment than a comfort.’Y20j One man described his wife as being “of a boisterous and termagant character” and a witness claimed that her temper was “pretty rappid.” Another claimed his wife as “turbulent, refractory and perverse.” One man claimed that he “lived a life of pain and misery.’”(21) If adultery was involved, some women were described as “being too thick with other men,” or “a common strumpet,” “playing the harlot,” or being a “perfect or common prostitute.”("22^) One woman claimed she would 69 �“not be bound to any man, and that she intended to lie down a mistress and get up a mistress.”(2?) Two cases specifically mentioned the “the disreputable place of whoredom called Frog Level” believed to be on Spring Street in Wytheville, where houses of ill-fame were located/24) Because adultery was recognized as a valid reason to request a divorce, many of the cases involved such behavior. For example, one man was accused of eloping with a woman of “bad fame,” and one wife formed an “undue attachment” for the U.S. deputy mar­ shal, and eloped with him to Bristol/25) Violence was often mentioned in divorce cases. One man explained why he left his wife. She had “unmerci­ fully” beaten him “over the head with a chair and a rolling pin.”(26) One struck her husband “on the head with a bucket and cut him with a knife.’''(2 7) The women sometimes complained of the violence of their husbands. One woman stated her husband, in a “fit of unprovoked rage,” had tried to kill her, and that her life was “pandemoni­ um,” and that he was full of “wicked passion.’/2?) Another had her life threatened and had been kicked and knocked down with his fists, so that “her body was as blue as if dyed with indigo.”(29) Probably among the most painful physical attacks was the case in Rocky Mount, Virginia, when the bride on her wedding night poured a “quantity of molten lead” into her husband’s ear. Within the week, her husband began the divorce proceed­ ings/.?^ On a few occasions, divorces were filed because the husband was guilty of a felony or was in the penitentiary. All of these divorces were granted/.?/) In one particular divorce case, the local newspaper had the headlines on March 31, 1875: “A Citizen Elopes with a Neighbor’s Wife - They go West.” The woman was 24 with black hair and eyes and “is said to be very pretty.” The man left a wife and seven children behind, was about 45 years old with “dark hair (slightly grey) and whiskers (dyed).” The husband reported that he was unaware of the problem and believed, because he had provided her with necessaries and some luxuries of life, he was “gliding down the stream of time without appar­ ently a ripple on the surface of his domestic felicity.”(32) Flowery language in at least two of the divorce cases may be attributed to the attorneys drafting the papers, with the possibility of some additions from the person filing the complaint. One husband noted that he and his wife were “gliding over the sea of matrimonial life with nothing to disturb their peace and tranquility” when the Methodist Circuit Rider preacher appeared on the scene. The husband came upon him kissing his wife, but could not decide if it was a “kiss of inspiration or a holy kiss.” He believed that the kiss “seemed to arouse the latent passion within the breast” of his wife, who had a “partiality for the society of other men.” She frequently left his house and was absent for hours and sometimes even days. He concluded that his wife was “leading an adulterous life with various and sundry men.” The climax was reached by her eloping with another man and spending time in Scott County, near Moccasin Gap. The court granted the divorce to the husband, giving him custody of the two children and decreed that the ex-wife “shall not marry again.’/??) The second case was presented by a young and inexperienced man who was divorcing his “first love.” He was unfamiliar with the world and its “tortuous paths” and was “illy prepared to buffet its adverse waves.” After removing his wife and their place of residence to a new location in order to preserve the marriage, he found that “his troubles still beset him and followed in his retreat and here again, the fell destroyer of happiness invades the sanctity of his home and those rose-colored days of bliss which were wont, in early marriage to linger so gently and tenderly about orator’s then peaceful abode, were done and darkness fell from the wings of night upon him.” He concluded that the sun had “set upon his happiness at a time when it should have been shining in the noonday splendor of the glory of their married life.” His wife left their home and eventually settled in West Virginia with another man. He was granted a divorce and was given permission to remarry, “he being without fault.’/? /) On January 1, 1878, at age 23, he married a fifteen-year old girl.(35) This small sample of divorces in Wythe County was similar to the complaints filed in the state generally, either by legislative petition or in the Chancery Courts. The circumstances of the marital shipwreck calling for a divorce caused one man to report “great mortification and shame,” another “shame and mortification,” another “mortification and surprise,” and still another “great mortification.’/?^) In Southwest Virginia, as elsewhere, divorce was a social disaster. 70 �N otes 1. Thomas E. Buckley, S.J., The Great Catastrophe of My Life (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina, 2002), 7, 8. 2. Ibid., 267. 3. Ibid., 14, 16, 17, 23. 4. Ibid., 33. 5. Ibid., 23-24. 6. Ibid., 42, 44-45. 7. Microfilm: Virginia General Assembly Legislative Petitions, Record Group 78, Reels 205 (1792-1839) and 206(1840-1863). 8. Beverly Repass Hoch and Mary B. Kegley, Wythe County Virginia, Marriages 1790-1853 (Wytheville, VA: The Wythe County Genealogical and Historical Association, 2002), 22, 102. 9. The petition was rejected on November 18, 1816; Mary B. Kegley, Divorces of Wythe County, Virginia, 1816-1886 (Wytheville, VA: Kegley Books, 2004), 3-5. 10. Wythe County Chancery 1832-37, David Pierce v. Wm. Thornburg. 11. Kegley, Divorces, 5-6; the petition was found to be reasonable on December 13, 1808; see also divorce of Elizabeth Lynch where she states her father is Daniel Sponsler. 12. Hoch and Kegley, Marriages, 11; Kegley, Divorces, 6-7. 13. Hoch and Kegley, Marriages, 27; Kegley, Divorces, 7-8. 14. Kegley, Divorces, 8. 15. Hoch and Kegley, Marriages, 27. Daniel Lockett filed his list of marriages on December 28, 1816, but he gave no individual dates of marriages. Elizabeth was identified as Betsy Sponsler. It appears this was the same Betsy who divorced Martin Kimberling. See above. 16. Kegley, Divorces, 8. 17. Hoch and Kegley, Marriages, 69, 119. 18. Kegley, Divorces , 8-9. 19. Hoch and Kegley, Marriages, 89, 141. 20. Kegley, Divorces, 71 21. Ibid. 49, 62-63. 22. Kegley, Divorces, 33, 40, 64, 81, 88, 93. 23. Ibid., 38. 24. Ibid., 61, 72, 73. 25. Ibid., 59, 67. 26. Ibid., 65. 27. Ibid., 64. 28. Ibid, 41. 29. Ibid., 78. 30. Buckley, The Great Catastrophe, 209. 31. Kegley, Divorces, 83, 87, 96. 32. Ibid, 56. 33. Ibid., 54. 34. Ibid., 67. 35. Janie Dillon and Mary B. Kegley, Wythe County, Virginia, Marriages 1867-1880 (Wytheville, VA: The Wythe County Genealogical and Historical Association, 2007), 103. 36. Ibid., 66, 71,72, 88. 71 �A Tribute to Our Editor his Journal has been published since 1964. Ben Bane Dulaney edited the Journal from its first issue until his death November 2, 1967. George Kegley (president of the Society 1963-66) was appointed to succeed him, and George has continued to serve as its indefatigable editor ever since. He has authored at least a dozen bylined articles in the Journal and numerous notes, and probably has authored most of the many nonbylined articles which have appeared in the Journal over the years. (See the Society’s website for an index of all articles published in the Journal.) George is currently an emeritus member of the Society’s Board, and continues to organize and schedule the Society’s monthly lecture series, and its twice-annual bus tours of historic areas, both of which he has been doing since the 1960s. George was instrumental in creating and funding the Society’s Kegley Fund (which helps finance the Society’s publications), and has been very active in recruiting authors and developing works to be published by the Society. A complete outline of George’s volunteer activities and contributions to our community, in additoin to his work with the Society, would take pages. Roanoke City Council honored him as Citizen of the Year in 2002, and his alma mater, Roanoke College (he was Class of 1949), awarded him the College Medal in 1985 and an hon­ orary Doctorate of Humane Letters in 2001 (so, it’s Doctor Kegley!). He was cited for his civic contributions at Emory & Henry College’s Charter Day convocation in 2002. George’s volunteer service has included stints as president of the Roanoke College Alumni Association, vice­ chair of the State Library Board, president of the Rescue Mission, and service on the boards of such organiza­ tions as the Pastoral Counseling Center of Roanoke Valley, Western Virginia Land Trust (he writes for their newsletter, too), the Brandon Oaks Advisory Board, Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation (he chairs the Endangered Sites committee), Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation, the community board of Roanoke Refugee and Immigration Services, the advisory board of the Transitional Living Center, and service on the Roanoke Valley Community Relations Committee, the City Manager’s Community Relations Task Force, and with the Preservation Alliance of Virginia, Literacy Volunteers of Roanoke Valley, and the Roanoke Arts Commission. He volunteers for Meals on Wheels and began donating blood to the Red Cross in 1950. He helped plan the 125th anniversary celebration for the City. He has authored numerous book reviews for the Roanoke Times. George has undertaken many different roles with his church, St. Mark’s Lutheran Church (including a long stint as adult Sunday School teacher and work with its food pantry) and other Lutheran organizations, and he edited the Virginia Lutheran Synod Quarterly, a news magazine distributed to every Lutheran church in Virginia. His for­ mer colleague at the Roanoke Times (where George worked his entire career until “retiring” in 1993), Ben Beagle, said of George, “One thing you have to say about George, he’s a real Christian gentleman.” The Society is much indebted to George for his long-term editorship of this Journal and for his many other contributions to the Society, and takes this opportunity to thank him for his many years of service. I —Publications Committee The Journal was originally called the Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society. On February 15, 1972, the Society changed its name to the Roanoke Valley Historical Society, and the Journal accordingly changed its name thereafter to the Journal o f the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. In 1997, the Society again changed its name, to the History Museum and Historical Society of Western Virginia, and the Journal became the Journal of the History Museum and Historical Society of Western Virginia with publication o f the 1999 Journal. With publication of the 2006-2007 issue, the Journal became the Journal of the Historical Society o f Western Virginia, reflecting another change in the name of the Society. 72 ��HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WESTERN VIRGINIA ISBN 978-0-9816251-2-6 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia 2010 Volume 19, Number 2 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />Defining and Dating Log Buildings in Southwest Virginia <br />Lewis Miller: Folk Artist and Chronicler of the 19th Century Roanoke's Social Life in 1912: The Diary of Nina Quinn <br />Blue Ridge Parkway: A Graceful Mountain Drive <br />A Parkway Picnic Saves a Waterfall<br />Oliver White Hill: Civil Rights Attorney in Roanoke and Throughout Virginia<br />Traugott Bromme's 1848 Virginia Travel Guide<br />Tobacco in Old Virginia Letters<br />The Great Bedford Fire of 1884<br />Hokie Stone: Virginia Tech's Spirited Old Rock<br />Robert McClelland: Mayor of Two Cities<br />Riding a Bull Across the Roanoke River<br />Wythe County's Social Disasters: Divorces Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_19_02_2010 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6368/JHSWV_20_01_2011.pdf 99f9d905cd2566f8cf32f594c9a7d1f0 PDF Text Text iI *I mm 20 '¡U. î �0r¥éàtonical S ociety “TVeátenu *{/ùiyittta. Amor montium nos movet (F o r the lo v e o f m o u n ta in s in s p ire s us) Katherine Watts........................... President Natalie Norris...................... Vice President Dr. Nancy Warren......................... Secretary Elizabeth K. Hammond............... Treasurer Jeanne Bollendorf...........Executive Director S fc sv id Alison Stone Blanton Ben Chapman Rev. Nelson Harris David G. Helmer Scott Hengerer ^ c n e c to n & William E. Honeycutt Jim Humphrey Dr. John Kern George A. “Al” McLean Gwen Mason 0D ü ie c to n ¿ Sara S. Airheart Barbara B. Lemon David H. Burrows George Kegley Editor o f the Journal Christina Koomen Production, Editorial Assistant S m J. David Robbins Alice B. Roberts Kevin Sullivan Linda Thornton e ttiti Philip H. Lemon George A. Kegley Edgar V. Wheeler The Journal, Vol. XX, No. 1, chronicles the history o f the Commonwealth west o f the Blue Ridge. It is published by the Historical Society o f Western Virginia (formerly the Roanoke Historical Society), P. O. Box 1904, Roanoke, Va. 24008. The price for additional copies is $5 for mem­ bers and $10 for others. The Society welcomes unsolicited material but submissions cannot be returned and the Soci­ ety cannot be responsible for damage or loss. �fraye 4 D ire c to r’s M essage fraye 5 A C a ll fo r C ivil W a r P a p e rs fraye 6 A n In te rv ie w w ith C a r te r B u rg ess by George Kegley fraye 3 t W h e re W as T o te ra Tow n? A R eview by Jim G la n v ille and Ryan M ays fraye 4 4 S.H . M cV itty ’s C ollectio n o f P re s id e n tia l S ig n a tu re s by W alter D ixo n fraye 5 0 S.H . M cV itty: In d u s tria lis t, P h ila n th ro p is t, C o lle c to r fraye 5 1 T h e L a te , G re a t C a ttle B attle by Beth M acy fraye 5 4 T h e Tw o M ich a e l K in sers by M a ry B. Kegley 57 G oose C re e k : A L a s tin g R eso u rc e fo r B e d fo rd C o u n ty by M a ry C o llie r fraye 5 9 P a tie n c e , P e rsisten c e a n d P re s e rv a tio n : T h e V alley R a ilro a d B rid g e o v e r G ish B ra n c h in S alem by John H ild e b ra n d fraye 6 3 B la c k s b u rg F o u n d a tio n T akes O w n e rsh ip o f S m ith field fraye 6 4 T h e R iv e r w ith Tw o N am es: R o a n o k e /S ta u n to n by Kenneth E. Crouch fraye 7 2 C h ris tm a s E ve on th e N o rfo lk & W e ste rn in R u r a l R e tre a t by D a v id R. Stephenson fraye 7 4 S u p p o rt O u r H is to ry •3 • �^ c n e c fo 't ’à , Society is Busy with Renovations, Capital Campaign 2011 was a busy year for the Historical Society, and as we enter 2012 we are deeply involved in completing renovations at the History Museum and planning for the future. Currently the staff and board o f directors are 75 percent finished with strategic planning and should have some exciting new developments by June. As we continue renovations at the History Museum o f Western Virginia and complete the final phase o f our capital campaign, we want to set a course o f action for the next three years, and will be reviewing all o f our operations to see how we can sustain our steady growth and continue to be a good investment of your contributions. In June 2011 we relocated the History Museum to '■Property o f H istory M useum o f Western Virginia Hotel Shenandoah. This move will be temporary, through 2012, and the History Museum has maintained many programs, along with two special exhibitions called Home­ town Stars and Hometown Heroes. We could not have made the move without the help of some very dedicated interns and volunteers, and soon we will be moving col­ lections out o f temporary storage and back into Center on Church. There continue to be changes ahead, along with many new faces among the staff, and we certainly appreci­ ate your patience as we work through these exciting times. There are dramatic renovations ahead for the galleries and displays in the History Museum, and we welcome your contributions to our continued fundraising efforts. An integral part o f our outreach includes technol­ ogy. There is a new website for the History Museum — www.vahistotymuseum.org — and many o f our publica­ tions are now available for purchase online; we have joined the social networking culture and are now on Facebook; and o f course, we are still working tirelessly on the Virtual Collections project. In the coming months you can expect to see another new website — an independent web pres­ ence for the Historical Society that will provide more A recent acquisition of the Historical Society’s detailed information about Kegley Publications. Virtual Library is this 1925 photo of Mary Grace We looking forward to seeing you. Do drop in! Trout and her sister, Elizabeth Trout, standing Jeanne M. Bollendorf Executive D irector •4• on McAfee Knob, a scenic peak on the Appa­ lachian Trail in northern Roanoke County. The sisters married Roanoke brothers. Mary Grace married Marvin Lemon and Elizabeth married Glenn Lemon. The photographer was their father, Philip H. Trout. �%% ■ |K 0 3 3 | .//„^ n . U i . c f y L j / ? w 2 « / y X e ^ p / >S. ¿y-M" &>»&>y<?\yr-'/w^v • '/ ^ s p i , . . fry / ______ mmm/« cj— «**$% -j ■ //e J -d C c ' S J ^ ^ 'r t//a ^ /ijc B M O f/J ^ 4mmm..-M&>1-----M i? 3S ..^ ¿ . »I -(sjif r ■«)'¡¡¿»Jr j II t'V^-1“’2°V): ('1*13*®*#''^ ^4 Callfo r Civil War Papers For 2012, the Historical Society o f Western Virginia plans to publish an issue o f the Jour­ nal devoted solely to the Civil War during this 150th anniversary o f that famous conflict which left a lasting impact on the north and the south. We invite local and regional writers and historians to submit papers related to any facet o f that important war. We are especially interested in the impact o f the war on local and regional families, farms, companies, churches and any activities during the war years o f 1861-1865. We invite papers o f not more than five to 10 pages, preferably submitted by email to georgekegley@ verizon.net. Related illustrations, sent as jpegs, will be helpful. George Kegley Editor, Journal o f the H istorical Society o f Western Virginia �s4a ^fttew ieca cuit& &sin£en ‘S ctnye&j by George Kegley Carter Burgess wore many hats Carter Lane Burgess held more high-ranking industrial, military and government positions than any other Roanoker. Born on Fifth Street SW, in 1916, he traveled the world in important posts until he came home in retirement in the 1980s and died in 2002 at the age of 85. After graduation from Virginia Military Institute as a second lieutenant in 1939, he worked as an aide to Gen. Dwight D. Eisen­ hower and rose to the rank of colonel. As ad­ n ■ ministrative secretary of the Allies’ Casablanca •-*i<- I ! Conference in 1943, he made ail of the ar­ \ rangements for that historic meeting of Winston ^ Churchill, Joseph Stalin and President Franklin Roosevelt. He was in charge of planning for the organizational conference of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945. Burgess worked in administration and the For­ eign Service in the State Department and he later served as assistant secretary of defense for manpower, personnel and reserve forces. In the Defense Department, he played a lead­ y ing role in integrating the armed forces in 1945. He was decorated by the United States, Great Britain, France, Belgium and Tunisia during his long service overseas. He assisted the president of the Uni­ versity of South Carolina with expansion and modernization and held an honorary doctor of laws degree from that institution. In more than 30 years of executive service in international business, Burgess was chief executive of Trans World Airlines, Ameri­ can Machine & Foundry and the subsidiary op­ Carter Burgess, in retirement (From fam ily scrap­ erations of American Airlines and he held a high book, courtesy o f Jane Kelly) position at General Aniline Film Corp. He served on the board of Ford Motor Co. for 25 years and also was a corporate director of American Airlines, J.P. Morgan Bank, SmithKIine Beechum Corp. and the former Roanoke Electric Steel Corp. In what Fortune magazine called “an extraordinarily diverse background,” he also had worked at the former Stone Printing Co. in Roanoke and in the insurance and chemical industries. When Burgess left his Defense Department post to serve as president of Trans World Airlines at the age of 40, he became the youngest president of a major airline on record. The Kansas City Star said he was known as the “Boy Wonder” around the Pentagon and he was recognized for his aptitude for hard work, extending to weekends at his desk. la mm mm i m 6 O m �Burgess later served as U.S. ambassador to Argentina, founding chairman of the National Corporation for Housing Partnerships and chairman and president of the Foreign Policy Association. He raised $50 million for the housing organization. He married the former May Gardner Smith, who died in 1990. She was the daughter of former Norfolk and Western Railway president R. H. Smith and his wife, Mary W ysor Smith, of Roanoke The Burgesses lived in 18 homes during his wide-ranging service. They had five daughters, including Jane Kelly of Salem, and a son. *** IN TER V IEW GK: We’re going to talk about Carter’s beginnings in Roanoke and some o f the things he did when he left Roanoke. Carter, what’s your earliest memory o f what happened around here? You grew up over on Fifth Street, didn’t you? Where were you bom? BURGESS: I was bom on December 31, 1916, in a home at 1404 Park Street, which is now known as Fifth Street SW. G K : Your father worked for Railway Express, didn’t he? BURGESS: That’s correct. I’m sure that wasn’t the name when he started. My daddy was the 82nd student at the Miller School in Ivy. It was a school founded by the Miller brothers, who were poorly educated, in Albemarle County. They were the bastard sons of Ms. Miller, a single lady. The British talked her into letting a couple of their soldiers have the empty beds in her home Burgess home on Fifth (formerly Park) Street SW, Roanoke (Photo by because they weren’t building George Kegley) any barracks back then. One of the soldiers got the affection­ ate best o f Ms. Miller and gave her two sons, and they came to life as the Miller brothers. They became leading merchants o f hemp and tobacco in the Shockoe area o f Richmond, and they decided, after the Civil War, to take their sizeable fortune and put it into a foundation to found the Miller School in Ivy, for Georgs Kegley interviewed Carter Burgess on March 1, 2002, at his home on Hemlock Lane in South Roa­ noke. Edited by Joellen K. Bland, George C. Marshall Foundation, August 2002. Kegley is distantly related to Burgess. Both came from a Wythe County heritage. Jane Kelly o f Salem, daughter o f Carter Burgess, provided photos and information about her father. •7 * �the purpose o f educating the orphans o f Civil War soldiers from Albemarle County. G K : What was your father’s first name? BURGESS: Joseph Hilleary. He was bom in Charlottesville, but he came to Roanoke with the Express Company. He had been in Alexandria and Petersburg. He had a short torn- in Charlotte, and spent quite a few years in Lynchburg. He was promoted to route agent in Roanoke, which was a minor official job o f running the station for the Norfolk and Western Railway. Most o f the agents that he had, their routes — the express routes — were also the Norfolk and Western agents in big towns. He was with them for 53 years. He retired at the Hotel Roanoke. GK: Where did you go to school? BURGESS: I went first to Highland Park School, over on Park Street, then I went to Lee Junior, which is now where the federal courthouse is. I spent my last two years at Jefferson High School and graduated in the class o f 1935.1 went to VMI from there. GK: How was VMI when you were there? BURGESS: I hope we thought it was tough. O f course, everybody got the message that it was a lot easier then than it had been four years previ­ ously. But VMI is basically one of the secrets o f whatever success I have had in life. I got a very close shave at VMI. Pinky Burress was the com­ mandant. I think he later became a major general and commanded the 101st Division. He was from Salem and had one brother that had all this heavy equipment, Charlie Burress. Withers was his [Pinky’s] first name — Withers A. Burress. He was my first commandant. [John A.] Lejeune was the superintendent when I entered VMI. He was at the end o f his age trail when I entered and he only stayed one whole year after I got there. He had an injury on the parade ground and that pretty much closed him down. He was succeeded by Charles Evans Kilboume, who was a Congressional VMI graduate Carter Burgess, commissioned second lieutenMedal o f Honor winner. ant (Family scrapbook, courtesy o f Jane Kelly) Pinky got to be commandant in ’35, and I went back as a third classman in the fall o f ’3 6 .1 w asn’t aware o f it, and I don’t think anybody else was terribly aware o f it, but the state legislature that year, ’36, in the first part o f their session, passed a law that made it a criminal indictment for a state student to haze another state student in a state school. Pinky Burress, o f course, was quite aware that he was the new comman­ dant with that new piece o f legislation, and he decided to make me the first example o f the new state 8 �hazing law. It was true that I had a private from Florida come to my doorway at what we called tattoo. Then I guess he had a 30-minute rest period at 9:00 to 9:30, where you could visit around and share your study thoughts with your lower classmen. I had this guy around to tell him that he had misbehaved badly in the drill squad that day and I made him stand on his toes. I didn’t touch him. Fortunately, I didn’t touch him, but from the time he got out o f there a half-hour later, every other cadet in my class had been in that evening, and at breakfast there was a lot o f conversation. He had a twin brother in the Corps, and I think he wrote an anonymous letter to Pinky Burress. That’s the way I got caught. My dad came to see me and told the General that he hoped he would follow the philosophy o f Mr. A.C. Needles, when he was president o f the Norfolk and Western Railroad. He said there was a bad wreck where one train ran into the rear o f another, and two days later somebody asked Mr. Needles what he was going to do about the engineer that had this wreck. Mr. Needles said he goes back on the payroll tomorrow because he had a good record. W hat’s the use o f a good record if it doesn’t stand you in good stead when you have trouble? I always thought that I’d rather be tried by a VMI court rather than a criminal court. G K : Because you had a good record? BURGESS: I had a good record in high school and in VMI, up to that point, and that’s what saved me. O f course, I got busted. I was a corporal, one o f the lowest ranks o f corporals at VMI at that time, and I got reduced to the grade of private. I got the maximum number o f demerits and put under arrest for four months in my room. I couldn’t go anywhere. But you know, Pinky Burress — I think his conscience preyed on him. At make-over — that’s the time in your year of service that they re-rank the corps — where I had been the 73rd corporal in the fall of ’36, Pinky Burress made me the 31st corporal in the Corps o f ’37, and gave me higher rank and a soldier’s sword in my second class year. That’s the sense o f VMI. I met my wife, May Gardner Smith, on Mill Moun­ tain in the summer o f ’37, just as I was starting to be a second classman. I don’t know who brought her to the top of Mill Mountain that afternoon or for the evening dance, but I know who brought her down. GK: That was a dance up there at the Rockledge Inn? BURGESS: It was the only place. The Rockledge Tnn was fast disappearing because o f the roads, but that Portrait o f May Gardner Smith Burgess road they put in at the last saved it for a while. You know (Family scrapbook, courtesy o f Jane Kelly) that zig-zag road? It started down there where Mr. Whitesell’s house was. I guess the Henritzes had their house half-way up the mountain. That’s a little VMI story and, of course, General George Marshall comes on the scene. I took my last training at Fort Meade in 1939. General Marshall was deputy chief of staff o f the United States Army. He came out one day when we were at Fort Meade just to see our class taking rifle training and tactical movements. That’s the first time I saw General Marshall. Then when I got called to war, October 1, 1941, to report from Fort Meade to Fort Myer, I was assigned to the 730th Military Police Battalion. Why, I don’t know. I was an infantryman, and a fairly high-ranking infantryman in my class at VMI, and I had no antago­ nistic marks against my infantryship. Unbeknownst to me at the time, General Marshall had decided that the MPs ought to stop worrying about traffic and arresting soldiers for too much whiskey and the wrong •9 * �part o f life. He had ordered the MPs to set up special training programs to create intelligence, knowl­ edge, and action among the infantry GIs to make them alert and aware that the enemy might be search­ ing, through them, for certain inventory and movement questions, anything that was antagonistic to victory. Having been trained in fraud and broad investigations in Boston and New York right after VMI, I was selected because that was on my job resume. G K : Who were you working for in the fraud investigations? BURGESS: Liberty Mutual Insurance. I quit at the end o f the early part o f 1940.1 was starv­ ing to death in New York. I was making $110 a month, but paying $60 a month for rent. I got so sick and tired o f cottage cheese that I didn’t know what to do! I came back home and went to work for Stone Printing. Old Franklin Moore had been a VMI man, and you know what he did with me? Every morn­ ing, he never got to work on time. He always got to work somewhere around 11:00.1 had the little desk at the front o f the office and he’d always come in and reach in his pocket and slam his change down on my desk. H e’d say, Carter, will you go across to H.C. Bames, or whatever that drug company was over there, and get me a package o f Beechnut Chewing Tobacco? I said to myself, Brother, VMI certainly taught you how to handle a difficult job. (Laughter) G K : You weren’t too long at Stone? BURGESS: I went in the early part o f ’40, or ’41, and went to Fort Myer on October 1, ’4 1 .1 was married to May Gardner Smith on November 8th. Exactly one month later, there was Pearl Harbor, and I walked guard duty that whole night. I had all the buildings that had the very secret code equip­ ment in them. It was my job to keep the Japanese out. I didn’t even know what a Japanese looked like. But that’s the story. May Gardner and I were living in a little apartment in Arlington and we decided on that particular Sunday, December 7th, to take a tourist’s tour o f Washington. We decided to take the car and make a very steady tour o f Washington. It was on Pearl Harbor Day, but we didn’t know it was Pearl Harbor Day. I didn’t know there was a Pearl Harbor until 5:00 that afternoon. We came up Wisconsin Avenue to Massachusetts Avenue and turned right, and we were going down the hill and through the diplomatic offices and quarters. I didn’t know anything about that, and we crossed the bridge at Rock Creek Park and immediately on our left is the Japanese Embassy. I didn’t know it was the Japanese Embassy or any­ thing about it, but in the front yard was the biggest bonfire I ’d ever seen in my life. The next morning, after we got all the bad news, there was a picture taken by The Washington Post o f the Japanese burning up all their codes and files right there in the front yard. G K : That was history in the making. BURGESS: It was. And then — and this will wind up most o f the VMI portion — one day I got my guard tour; I had some guards on Key Bridge and Memorial Bridge and along... you see, we didn’t have the Pentagon then. G K : What rank were you then? BURGESS: Still a second lieutenant. I was housed during the war period in the barracks, so I guarded this area for about a week and a half. One day, around noontime, Colonel John called me to his office. I walked in and John said, “Burgess, do you know what you’ve done to this outfit?” I said, “No, sir. He said, General Marshall was going across the Memorial Bridge today and he stopped his car and spoke to your soldier. He called out, ‘For God’s sake, tell Burgess to get shoes shined today!” ’ I knew I was back in the VMI family then. About all you did at VMI was get your shoes shined. Then I had another interesting thing. One morning at Fort Myer, I brought my guard team back at 6:00 in the morning. We were staying in these buildings with the pot-bellied stoves. I just didn’t feel like going to sleep with a pot-bellied stove by my bed, so I went up on the hill to the 703rd MP mailbox and picked up what few pieces o f mail I had. I started back downhill, passed the headquarters building where the roof window went right up to the top, and this officer, first lieutenant, said, “Hey, • 10 • �you, soldier!” So I said, “Yes, sir?” “Come over to the window.” I went over. He said, “You have a good uniform on post?” I said, “I do, sir. It’s just been cleaned.” Well, he said, “You go down and put that new uniform on and shave. Shave good and put the uniform on and be back here in 20 minutes.” I said, “I can’t, sir, Mr. Adjutant. I ’ve got to take my guard team back.” He said, “We’ll take care o f your guard team, but you be up here when I just told you.” Guess what that was? They took us to the Federal Reserve Building, which was the handsomest building on Constitution, and that was the first meeting between Mr. Churchill and Mr. Roosevelt. I never got back to the MPs. That’s when I met Beedle Smith [Walter Bedell Smith, called Beedle] and I stayed home the whole war. Beedle Smith was chief o f staff to General Eisenhower, no, he was to Marshall. What he had me do when he became Chief o f Staff, and afterwards [was to be] secretary o f the General Staff. That’s where I finally got my ultimate job and my ultimate rank, which was secretary o f the General Staff and full colonel. They got me out o f over­ seas duty about a month before victory, because I was the only guy they could find in the military record that had ever carried out active duty in an international conference, so it was continuous. Marshall asked Eisenhower and Beedle if I could be relieved to take over the international administration o f the conference in San Francisco. G K : The United Nations? BURGESS: Yes. I was the deputy international secretary o f the United Na­ tions. You know who the head man was, don’t you? Alger Hiss. I came back to the State Department. Jimmy Byrnes was secretary o f state, and I got all the top Col. Burgess mans the phone. (Courtesy o f George C. secret messages before they were sent up Marshall Foundation, Lexington, Va.) to him. That’s when I found out that Hiss was under suspicion of communism. Hiss came to me, after we all got back to Washington, and wanted me to go to New York with him and be his right-hand man as the permanent representative to the United Nations. GK: What was his office? What was his position? BURGESS: At the time I was working for him in San Francisco, he was just running the confer­ ence. He was secretary. GK: O f the U.N. Commission? BURGESS: No. He was with the State Department. He was the highest-ranking civilian. He was not a confirmation. He wasn’t a political appointee. He was just a civil servant. He later got caught, and about the time I knew he was going to get caught, he asked me to go to New York to be his number-two man and what was then the United States permanent secretary to the United Nations. I saved my life on that one, and I met the finest man I ’ve ever known in my life, Donald Russell, Spartanburg, South Caro11 �lina, who became a federal judge in the fourth circuit. GK: He was a senator at the time, wasn’t he? BURGESS: He was later. He was a protege — I don’t know whether Jimmy Byrnes was Don­ ald’s protege or vice versa — but Russell was an extremely brilliant guy. The reason Byrnes got him before the war was because Russell’s little law firm in Lancaster, South Carolina, was beating Jimmy Byrnes’s big law firm over in Spartanburg, and Jimmy just went out and made him an immediate part­ ner and brought him into the firm. Jimmy went on to the Senate and then he became a Supreme Court Justice. Roosevelt asked him to please step off the Court and become his economic czar. Jimmy Byrnes was in the White House with Donald Russell as his right-hand man. He was the chief referee. He had the War Production Board and he had this and that, but Byrnes was the last court o f claim before Roosevelt made some o f the big decisions. If Byrnes made the decision, Roosevelt dealt with it. If there was total disagreement, then he was the only one that would get back into the act. G K : I think I ’ve heard you tell the story. Why was San Francisco chosen for the U.N. Confer­ ence? BURGESS: Hotels. They had wonderful hotels and they were all over the place. The second reason, they had probably the best printing facility in the United States for languages. We had to deal with five languages at the United Nations — not Japanese and German, but Chinese, French, Spanish, Saudi Arabia, Arabic, I guess, is the proper word. That was the reason for San Francisco and it worked out well, because it would have been lost in New York. GK: That was in ’45? BURGESS: April ’4 5 .1 was the first man there and the last man home. I went out in early April. I got back from Europe at the end o f March, went to the State Department and got my papers, and went west. I came back on V-J Day in Washington, which was in August. G K : We skipped over a lot of time in the war here. Tell us some o f the things you did during World War II, back at the beginning. When did you start out? BURGESS: I started out as a second lieutenant in the 703rd MP Battalion at Fort Myer, and then I became the adjutant o f the Combined Joint Chiefs o f Staff and the Combined Chiefs o f Staff. Then I got moved from the Federal Reserve Building to a building on Constitution, next door to the Federal Reserve, which was the Public Health Building. That’s where the offices were. They took that building eventually and made it into the most miraculous War Room that you’ve ever seen. You could go into that room and just stand there and tell where the Marines were — some o f them — and you could tell where the enemy was. If w e’d had a room going like that [in 2001], we might have anticipated some aggravation over September 11th. It was the Public Health Building. It’s still there, right across the street from the Munitions Building. Probably the most interesting thing I did at the Combined Chiefs o f Staff in Washington was the big issue before this operation which got started around the first o f February. As much as he could, Roosevelt would be up at Hyde Park, if he could get a free weekend. GK: He went up on the train? BURGESS: I guess so, but, o f course, he was flying at that time, a lot. He got to North Africa, I believe in ’42, by air. But what happened is, Churchill and Roosevelt or Marshall, I believe it was Churchill or Marshall, were not in agreement as to where the war was to start. The main job before the Joint Chiefs o f Staff and the Combined Chiefs o f Staff in that spring and summer o f ’42 was to deter­ mine where were we going to do the first battle. Marshall thought we ought to go straight to Europe, and Churchill wanted to take a detour by way o f North Africa. They finally hashed it out and I was called up there. They supplied a private airplane to fly me up to Hyde Park with the final documents from the Combined Chiefs o f Staff for Roosevelt’s final approval to go to North Africa first. I was the guy that carried the message to God, so to speak. You know how you hate to admit to your own countrymen that it was a better idea, but I think it was best that we had that delay and had our first battle in North Africa, Hi �rather than get pushed back in a Dunkirk type o f action. We at least got ourselves trained. GK: We didn’t lose as many lives? BURGESS: No, we didn’t, and it was decentralized. GK: Did Roosevelt agree? BURGESS: Oh, sure. I guess Marshall had called him up and said, “You now have my agree­ ment to go this way,” and we took the formal papers up there to him. They were sitting out on the front porch at Hyde Park on a nice bright, sunny Saturday afternoon, and everybody was having a good drink. On the way back, we had to land somewhere out on Long Island before we could get back. GK: Did you have much conversation with him? BURGESS: Not Roosevelt. We always said hello, but I ’d seen Roosevelt when he came here to dedicate that Veterans’ thing, and I waved to him. He had a private car when he was leaving town and I should have said, “Sir, you’re going to be seeing a lot o f me.” (Laughter) No, he was pretty well surrounded. You know he was lame and couldn’t walk at ease, and I ’m the only guy on the military side that was permitted to be in the room when he was picked up and taken from this chair to that chair. There was a Secret Service guy who knew how to do it comfort­ ably. Mr. Roosevelt always had a smile, but he never asked me which way I thought we should go into battle. I saw him quite a bit in the presence o f Churchill when they were both living in side-byside houses at the Casablanca Conference. GK: They got to be close Col. C.L Burgess (left) with C api G.W. Butler in the field (Cour­ friends, didn’t they? tesy o f George C. Marshall Foundation, Lexington, Va.) BURGESS: Oh, sure. You know why Beedle Smith was cho­ sen to be Eisenhower’s chief o f staff? Beedle Smith was the small ordnance fire expert. [Lt. Gen. Walter Bedell “Beedle” Smith later was ambassador to Russia, director o f the Central Intelligence Agency and undersecretary o f state.] He wrote all the manuals and training routines for small ordnance, and he was a senior officer at Fort Benning when Marshall was commandant there. He became sort o f a protege of George Marshall, and when Marshall finally got asked to come to Washington, he took Beedle Smith with him as secretary o f the general staff. Ike was in what they called a Louisiana maneuver at the end of ’40, and Kruger, who was the commander o f those little exercises, thought Eisenhower was a complete genius. Kruger told Marshall that he thought General Eisenhower was the best field commander that he had run into. The guy who headed Operations Division in Washington at the Munitions Building was a VMI guy named Leonard T. Gerow. Eisenhower was asked by Marshall, after Pearl Harbor, to come to Washington and take Gerow’s place. O f course, Eisenhower wasn’t there very long because o f Pearl Harbor. When Eisenhower went overseas in the mid-part o f ’42, to get ready for whatever decision was made, guess who Marshall urged him to take as chief o f staff? Beedle Smith. Why? Because Eisenhower •1 3 • �and Marshall had never served a day together in their whole military history, so he told Eisenhower, “If you want to know what and how much these Germans are thinking, get Beedle.” That’s the way Beedle got into that part o f the war. O f course, Beedle was the first ambassador to Russia. G K : You worked for him? BURGESS: Not then. I was with the State Department, working for Colonel Russell by that time. Beedle came back in the late summer o f ’45, and asked me to go to lunch with him. I said, “Gen­ eral, what are you going to do?” He said, “Well, I ’m going to go into the Park Service. Mr. Ickes wants me to run the Park Service.” I said, “You sure that’s what you want to do?” He said, “You got anything better to suggest?” I said, “How about a U.S. ambassadorship? You get a nice home, you have servants. You’ve got the brains for that.” I went back and told Russell that he [Smith] would be amenable to an appointment to a good active embassy. He [Russell] immediately went up to see Byrnes and Byrnes said, “God, that’s great!” But he didn’t have a place to send him right that minute. That afternoon, Averell Harriman resigned his ambassadorship to Russia, and Beedle got it. G K : That was fortunate timing, wasn’t it? You had a lot to do with Yalta, didn’t you? BURGESS: No. Yalta was really the power conference. It was an offspring, but I never got to Yalta. My only connection with the power conference was around late December ’44. That’s the place where they decided on Eisenhower to come back to Europe to run the European phase. Eisenhower’s British right-hand man was Jimmy Gault; I wasn’t taking care o f Churchill on that particular trip. Gault was. When this decision was made, Gault immediately made plans to go to Europe to re-receive Eisen­ hower. I got into the position with Churchill and I had him in Tunis and took him up to the Taylor Villa in Marrakesh. The Taylor Villa at Marrakesh is one o f the more interesting stories o f the war. G K : Marrakesh? Where is that? BURGESS: That’s in Morocco, just south o f Casablanca. It has no shoreline. The French For­ eign Legion used it as a rest and recreation area. The Taylor Villa was the most magnificent home that has ever been built in the Sahara Desert region. Beautiful sand. It was built by the riches o f the Taylor family who were notable railroad tycoons on the west coast. When the war came along and our military was so common in North Africa, the Taylor family made an offer to the United States government that the Taylor Villa would be operated by the United States Army, where the military meetings would be held, and for recreation purposes, with one understanding: it would never be used by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. GK: They didn’t like him? BURGESS: And it wasn’t. Those fellows agreed to let the Army have it on that condition, and that s where w e’d park people like [Secretary o f War Henry] Stimson. This is where we parked the prime minister because we could get Churchill down from there and he could paint in the afternoon in the courtyard. Before the war, Marrakesh was the prime minister’s favorite painting place, and he would go to the Mamunya Hotel in Marrakesh. All the apartments had little porches. It was a nice apartment and he would paint the Atlas Mountains, which were the dividing line between North Africa and the Sahara Desert. He spent a lot o f time there before the Second World War. G K : What were some of the things you did for Churchill? BURGESS: I ’d get the security guard and the best chefs we could put our hands on for him. One night, Eisenhower had dinner with him at the residence. I was in charge o f the visit. I had a very able lieutenant on duty to supervise the movements. Eisenhower called me up the next morning and said, “Burgess, who was in charge o f that dinner at the Churchill residence last night?” I said, “I was, Gen­ eral.” He said, “That’s the worst meal I ’ve ever found in the field in my life.” I said, “Well, I ’m sorry, General. He said, I know there’s a WAC [Woman’s Army Corps] chef here in town, and you ought to get hold o f her.” She was a chef in charge o f the mess halls, so we got her. But I got hold o f that Jewish lieutenant I had in charge and I said, “Lieutenant, what in the hell happened over there last night?” He • 14• �said, “Major, the Prime M inister’s aide came and ordered dinner at 8:10 for 18 people. The dinner was served at 1:30 in the morning. It wasn’t for 18 people. It was for 36 people.” I said, “What was one of the main courses you served?” He said, “Jell-O.” I said, “Well, that’s where you made your mistake. Don’t you know Jell-0 melts?” (Laughter) That’s the kind o f story from out in the middle o f the desert. G K : They didn’t serve it until 1:30 in the morning? BURGESS: Churchill would smoke and drink — big cigars and a ca­ rafe o f rum. You never knew when you were going to eat with Churchill. GK: So, it was the Casablanca Conference. I had it wrong. BURGESS: I was their Casa­ blanca man. GK: You helped make the ar­ rangements? BURGESS: I made the whole thing happen. I was it. That’s what got me loads o f commendations. It far exceeded anything else I did at that particular time. It gave me an identity Army Gen. Dwight Eisenhower pins medal on Col. Carter on the employment sheet. It had been a Burgess (Courtesy o f George C. Marshall Foundation, Lex­ successful point on my resume. ington, Va.) G K : That was about ’43? ’44? BURGESS: Early ’43. GK: How long did it last? BURGESS: Only about two weeks. The most interesting thing about that conference to me was that the DC-4 had just become an airplane in the Air Corps. It wasn’t the Air Force then. That plane had its passenger hull parallel to the ground. It didn’t sit on its tail when it came in, it was parallel. That meant that we had to have a suitable ramp to take Mr. Roosevelt off that plane and put him back. Inci­ dentally, that plane did not land at Marrakesh. He didn’t stay at the Taylor Villa. We had to figure out how to make it so that the Germans wouldn’t have any anticipation that Roosevelt was coming in on that plane. The problem was this hull parallel to the ground. You couldn’t pull him off the airplane and you had no elevators on that thing. We had to build a three-part rig o f a slanted staircase so we could roll his swivel-cart thing. I had to have that ramp made in three different geographical places in North Africa, and brought to Casablanca the day o f his arrival. We had just enough time to test it to make certain that it would actually work. That’s part o f the procedure that we went through to avoid German Intelligence. Too bad we didn’t do something like that on September 11th. GK: Isn’t it! How long before did you have to go over to set this thing up? BURGESS: I spent about two weeks. I was the guy that sent the first five WACs to work. I re• 15 • �ceived five senior WACs. G K : What was their job? BURGESS: I eventually got them secretarial jobs. One o f them became Beedle Smith’s secre­ tary then, but politically, she damn near beat that guy that was the permanent U.S. senator from Rhode Island. She almost beat him, but didn’t quite. It was Ruth Briggs. There was a gal that worked for Intelli­ gence. One or two o f them were secretaries. One o f them was in Eisenhower’s outfit. Then we took them all up to Casablanca and used them in secretarial duty and let them do the paperwork for the conference. If you’ve ever been in a world conference — have some ditto machines and electric typewriters. G K : Was that covered by the media? BURGESS: Oh, sure. GK: I ’ve forgotten if there were any pictures. BURGESS: I’m not sure whether Cronkite was there or not. He was overseas quite a lot then. GK: Apparently that wasn’t a big thing. BURGESS: I don’t think so. In fact, a general’s name — I can’t give it to you, the guy who was Eisenhower’s chief media man — I know he was up there with us. GK: You just had to see that everything ran well. BURGESS: My whole experience with conferences, starting with that one, meant that you had to have language capabilities. You had to have machinery that operated all night. Everything was done at night. It was an immense amount o f paperwork dealing with recommendations and solutions, and who’d get this job and who’d get that job. It was an immense amount o f detail and you had to be going just as hard at it at 4:00 in the morning as you did at 4:00 in the afternoon. One o f the most interesting jobs I had at the United Nations — to leave Casablanca a minute — one o f the main jobs I had to organize in Casablanca... was [Gen. George] Marshall. They got me to do Marshall several times. Every now and then it would pop up on CBS. G K : What about language at Casablanca? BURGESS: I ’m talking about language related to the United Nations. When I got that thing started, I had to put together a language commission o f people who had undeniable expertise and com­ petence in one language to another language. I had to have that all commissioned — an assemblage of about 14 people who could be arranged and supervised by the genius o f all geniuses o f that kind o f peo­ ple, who was to verify that there was nothing in French that negated something in English, or that there w asn’t something in English that negated something in Arabic or Chinese. There had to be guarantees. One o f the nastiest little fights during this took place in Algiers, but we had a great language expert in Georgetown named Leon Dostier. He was a lieutenant colonel in the military and a professor at George­ town. Churchill ate his ass a lot. In a session one day between Churchill and deGaulle — Churchill knew enough French that he could disagree with a translation and it scared the heck out o f me when he said that about Leon — it was about the imperfection o f his interpretation. The point I want to make here is that there is always a place for some person that knows how to talk somebody else’s language on translations, contracts, and negotiations. Some o f that in business too, not as much now, but some o f it. G K : In the jobs you had, you weren’t terribly close to the dirty work o f fighting, were you? BURGESS: No. G K : Very important, high level? BURGESS: Nothing was safe in London. I worked in a building that had a bomb land right be­ side it that could have taken the lives o f a hell o f a lot o f people. That bomb did not explode, so we were on a terrible alert for 10 days until they got that bomb decharged. I didn’t shoot anybody and nobody shot me, but I had a roommate, Temple Moore’s brother, who succeeded in eventually going overseas. He was at our villa on the north side o f Algiers one Sunday and the Germans flew a flight, and one o f those planes got hit by antiaircraft fire. This God-damned German was landing his plane and he just let • 16 • �all his guns loose and shot Temple Moore’s brother’s foot in half. That’s the kind o f exposure we had. GK: He was from Roanoke? BURGESS: No, they were from Richmond. We lost some great people. [Leslie] Howard, the movie actor — he was on a plane with one o f the very senior British generals. He had worked a lot with us. GK: You were in air-raids? BURGESS: All the time. When they landed, they all believed just like that guy on these damn September 11th trips. They figured, gee, I got nowhere to go — bomb and die at the end o f doing it. They couldn’t get out o f the airplane and land. This September 11th thing — you can thank God that you and I will miss the long-term aftermath o f this. G K : Terrible, terrible. You were working mainly for Beedle Smith? BURGESS: Beedle Smith had almost everything to do with my call to the governmental side. He also had a big part to play in my business side. Beedle Smith was a guy that was in demand both militarily and corporately. Everybody thought he was a very bright guy. If he didn’t know what the an­ swer was, he knew the person that might have the answer somewhere. GK: What was your first civilian job after the war? BURGESS: My first civilian job was assistant to the president o f Trans-World Airlines. I was selected to be the right-hand man to Jack Frye, who was one o f the guys that built TWA and, along with [Howard] Hughes later on, was the inventor of pressurization, which made it so that you and I can travel so comfortably in an airplane at high altitudes. I worked for Mr. Frye for a year and a half, when he was the head o f TWA, but he and Hughes fell out over an unbreakable understanding, and that was that no­ body was to be on the TWA board unless he was mutually acceptable to both Hughes and Frye. Hughes decided that he wanted to get his father’s old-time finance man, Noah Dietrich, to be on the board o f TWA in ’46, because TWA had just gotten its full ratings o f international routes. GK: Hughes had control then? BURGESS: He had control in terms o f stock ownership — 74 percent, or something like that. Hughes wanted Noah Dietrich on the board, and if there was anybody in America that Jack Frye didn’t want to see one more minute in life, it was Noah Dietrich. They parted ways and then Frye took me to General Aniline Film (GAF), which was one o f the government holding companies. Its ownership during World War II was in question as to whether it was a Swiss company or a German company. The United States government took the position that it was a German company, so the Department o f Justice had to decide on its management, its board o f directors, and the president. I stayed there for about five years. GK: What was your job then? BURGESS: Director o f administration. They were getting ready to make me president o f all of their photographic companies, including Ansco. That was in New York, but we had operations pretty much all over the country. Frye was there. G K : He was the president? BURGESS: He was the president and I was his director o f administration. We got in all kinds o f Congressional investigations, and one o f the more interesting jobs at that time in my life was when I managed the company’s position versus the government’s, the Senate’s investigations. And we won! Nobody got fired. (Laughter) Nixon was one o f the strong cats in those days. I did that, and then my next job was when I went to the University o f South Carolina. I was Mr. Russell’s right-hand man at the University and we really put that place back together again. GK: Was that administration? BURGESS: He called me the assistant president, but I never referred to it that way. I was assis­ tant to the president. Then — this is a little ugly part o f the story — when Eisenhower became president • 17 • �in ’52, Beedle was named deputy secretary o f state under John Foster Dulles. Beedle talked to John Fos­ ter Dulles and said I should be brought into the State Department as undersecretary o f state for adminis­ tration, security and all that sort o f thing. Mr. Eisenhower promptly agreed and sent my papers forward to the Senate Foreign Services Committee or Foreign Relations Committee, to be undersecretary o f state for administration, to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Mr.... he ran the Oakland Press in California. Senator... GK: Knowland? BURGESS: Knowland. He was from Oakland. He sent the papers back to Eisenhower, saying that I was persona nongrata. He was one o f these Republicans on the double alert about communists in the government. G K : One under every bed. BURGESS: Yes, under every bed. He was sure that I had been working with Dean Acheson and that I had caught the disease. Eisenhower called me up and said he wanted to tell me about this break­ down by Knowland. I said, “Mr. President, you don’t want to have a fight over me at this point in time about that damned issue. Just let me withdraw and if, at a less sensitive time in the future, I can serve you in some useful way, then I ’m ready.” Ike said, “Hell, I ’m going to bring you into the White House and get this place organized the way you had it organized in Europe and North Africa.” So I went and had an office in the White House. In fact, Sherman Adams, who used to come to work there every morn­ ing at 6:00, wanted the portrait painter to put another half-yard on the painting, and I ’d take over about 7 :0 0 .1 had a pretty fascinating presentation o f how we should do this thing when they had it all illus­ trated with charts. The final presentation was to take place at Camp David in what was the president’s office up there, and I went up and had everything in great shape. We had the best charts you’ve ever seen and fixed so that you didn’t see any movement in the back o f the screen. I finished and answered all the questions and suggested that everybody go out on the lawn and have a Coca Cola or something. Charlie Wilson, secretary o f defense, came over and said, “Carter, I had experience o f some o f your work when you did the phone system in the Pentagon a year ago. Will you come and be my assistant secretary o f defense?” I told him about this William Knowland thing, and he said, “Well, if I ’m willing to have the fight, are you willing to have the fight?” I said, “You’d better add the president to that group.” (Laugh­ ter) He went over to see Ike and Ike said, “By God, that’s the best answer I ’ve ever heard yet.” Beedle Smith came over and said, “What the hell’s going on over here?” Ike said, “We finally got Carter Bur- / said, ‘Mr. President, you don’t want to have a fight over me at this point in tim e... Just let me withdraw and if, at a less sensi­ tive time in the future, I can serve you in some useful way, then I ’m ready. ’Ike said, ‘H ell, I ’m going to bring you into the White House and get this place organized the way you had it organized in Europe and North Africa . ' •1 8 > �gess to take over this problem” — the Supreme Court had just made the decision on the minorities, the blacks. Equal treatment. Eisenhower said, “Two qualities that Carter Burgess has, he’s a southerner and secondly, he likes black people. I want him to go ahead and get the letter o f the law carried out, and I want it to be done in good spirit and good friendship.” I think I did a hell o f a job, because [Colin] Pow­ ell got to be chairman o f the Joint Chiefs o f Staff. GK: You can’t take credit for that, can you? That was a little later. BURGESS: No, I was just kidding. I think we set the policies... GK: Right. You set a trend... a pattern, maybe. BURGESS: The first thing I did when I became assistant secretary o f defense was have General B.O. Davis, the only black general in World War II, for lunch. His son became a lieutenant general in the Air Force, and he was the guy that ran the program for Nixon to see if we couldn’t stop this business o f hijacking. No, I didn’t have anything to do with Powell, but I had some interesting times over that black issue. I had a hotline. There weren’t many assistants in those days. I had a hotline, both in my office and in my home. If anybody saw anything that was going be injurious to the improvement o f the minority amalgamation, they were to call me and tell me what it was, and report it to their commanding officer the next day. I get a call one night from a Strategic Air Force base in Mississippi. They had an SAC lieutenant in town and linked up with a white girl. The white girl had the car and she was the driver. She’s bring­ ing him back to the SAC base and the sheriff arrests them. The black guy wasn’t driving, and when they made them get out of the car and give their license and everything, the sheriff says to the black lieuten­ ant, “Get in the car and take it over to the side o f the road.” He does it and the sheriff arrests him just in that period o f time for driving under the influence o f whiskey. The guy gets me on the phone, whoever was in charge of the base at that hour in Mississippi, and I said, “I ’m going to tell you what to do, Colo­ nel,” or whoever it was. “You get an SAC airplane and get this black officer on that plane, and you fly anywhere from Ohio north — anywhere above — comfortably ahead o f the Mason-Dixon Line, but no closer south than the state o f Ohio.” So they did that. About four days later, Secretary o f Defense Wilson says, “Get Burgess in here.” When I got to his office, his secretary gave me a heads up. Senator [John] Stennis was in the office, secretary o f the Air Force. She said, “I think they’ve got you on something that happened in Mississippi.” I said, “You got a clean piece o f paper, Ms. McDonald?” I wrote my resigna­ tion and I didn’t say why. I just said for personal reasons, just something to give to the secretary, and I folded it and put it in my pocket. I went into the office and Charlie Wilson said, “The secretary o f the Air Force has been up all night, and Senator Stennis has called in and said he wanted the Air Force to return that black officer to Mississippi.” I said, “Mr. Secretary, I think that’s an unhappy phone call that you’ve had. I acted in your name the other night and I assumed that the reason you had me on this job was to take the right action in a number o f situations. You don’t have to worry about my position on this thing. I ’ll let you take the position since I took yours - one for you, you can take one for me now.” He said, “I think we ought to agree, but since it’s Senator Stennis...” [Stennis was the godfather o f the military.] He was the No. 1 in this country and I liked him. I said, “Mr. Secretary, as I said, I regret you doing that. There was no reason for it. Here’s my resignation.” He just looked at everybody in the room and said, “I ’m going with Carter Burgess.” So, I won that one. They wanted to bring that poor bastard back to Mississippi and arrest him. It was just as simple as that. GK: Your job was to integrate the military. BURGESS: Yes, integrate it, and also create an occasion, sometimes, when the blacks won. They got a pretty good reputation for not winning too many in the past. But Senator Stennis never — we had a cold relationship for a while. He felt bad, but so did I. G K : This would have been early in about ’52 or ’53? BURGESS: No, I went to the Pentagon in ’54. This would be around late ’56. • 19 • �G K : Were you there very long? BURGESS: Over three years. G K : This was after General Aniline Film? BURGESS: Before it. I left the Pentagon to be president o f GAF. When I left the Pentagon, this job that I had just been describing... the board wanted me to become president. Everything was fine until Hughes got back in the act. GK: You were president o f TWA for a little while, weren’t you? BURGESS: For over a year. I just got fed up with Hughes. He and I never had a fight on the phone or anything like that. G K : You never met him, did you? BURGESS: Never met him, but I talked to him thousands o f times on the telephone and — well that’s an exaggeration. GK: Tell me that story about him calling you in the middle o f the night and what happened. BURGESS: May Gardner [Burgess’s wife] and I had been out in Queens for a TWA mechanics’ dance, and we got home about 1:00. Dean Burgess was upstairs and said, “Daddy, daddy, Mr. Hughes has to talk with you on the telephone. He couldn’t reach you.” I said, “Well, it’s urgent. T hanks very much.” I walked upstairs and called a guy named Bill Gray. He was a Mormon. Hughes never had anybody working for him unless he was a Mormon. I called him. You never called Hughes back. You always called the guy that was his chief o f staff or whatever you want to call it. I got Bill Gray on the phone and he said, “Well, the boss wants to talk to you right away.” I said, “Bill, please go in and tell Mr. Hughes that I sleep with my wife, and this call will be all over the neighborhood tomorrow. If it’s all the same with him, why doesn’t he get in touch with me at the office. He can get hold o f me after 7:00 in the morning.” I never got a midnight call from him again. (Laughter) I sent him... you know, I quit. He didn’t fire me. He told me on the phone, “You’re just awful to be doing this. I don’t have anybody to replace you.” I said — I called him Howard then — “Howard, you got the best man in the world to take my place.” He said, “Who could it possibly be?” I said, “You.” (Laughter) He said, “You smart guy?” I said, “No, you want to get into the act, so do it.” He sent me a check for $100,000.1 didn’t cash it. I endorsed it back to him. I said, “I quit, you didn’t.” He re-endorsed it Howard R. Hughes. G K : Where did you go from there? BURGESS: I went to the American Machine and Foundry in Pittsburgh. Beedle Smith was the vice chairman, and Mr. Morehead Patterson, whom I had known at the State Department, was on the commission that I was staff director of. I was secretary o f administration. This was a commission chaired by Walter Richton He was then president o f Brown and America’s number one diplomatic histo­ rian. Beedle Smith told him, “You’re going to need a staff director, so get Carter Burgess.” G K : For most o f these jobs you stayed in New York, didn’t you? BURGESS: My family did. May Gardner and I moved to South Carolina. When I was in the Pentagon we were in McLean. With a job I had right after the war, we lived on the comer o f New Hamp­ shire and 22nd Street. That was a rough part o f Arlington. If you could find an empty piece o f real estate in Washington right after World War II, it was a tough job. G K : I can imagine. AMF, that was a big company. BURGESS: That was a big company. It was a Fortune 500 company. My predecessor, Morehead Patterson, had invented the automatic bowling business. AMF had had a genuinely long-term history. It made all the tobacco equipment in this country — packaging, rolling, cover-tipping. They also made the kind that took the rough tobacco and created it in a form that made cigarettes and cigars. AMF was the inventor o f the only automatic cigar maker. It also was the only maker o f the automatic donut machine. Anytime I wanted to make a financial presentation, I would always take the automatic donut machine and it would work. That would convince everybody that we knew something about mechanics. •20• �G K : These jobs, the heads o f these big corporations, were largely administrative skills, working with people? BURGESS: That’s it. GK: Working in management to see that they got their jobs done. That was your job? BURGESS: Yes. It was also my job to see that the right things were financed. The firms that would go this way, I wouldn’t agree to go that way. We kept our group o f friends by not going into self­ competition with customers. G K : Was that at all unusual to have short tenure? As head o f several o f these places, you weren’t there very long. I know for good reason, but is that unusual in the business world? BURGESS: It’s best to work your way up. Take R.H. Smith [father-in-law o f Burgess], one o f my lead examples and one o f the finest men I ever met. He started at the bottom. You know how he got started at the bottom? He went to Princeton. I ’m going to tell you something that I hope damn few people know, but he went to VMI for three weeks. GK: Did he really? Where did he grow up? BURGESS: He grew up on a ranch in Colorado. GK: Went to VMI. He just didn’t like the military? BURGESS: I would guess that he said, “To hell with this.” I never went through his record. GK: He never told you? He didn’t talk about it? BURGESS: No. I was going into the army October 1, 1941, and I had to get to Washington. I had to be there on a Monday, October 1. May Gardner agreed to go up with me, and she was going to stay with her aunt who lived in an apartment at the comer o f Massachusetts and Wisconsin. We got to town and I checked in at the Hotel Washington. We went up on the train, and I got a cab and took her up to her aunt’s place. Then I went back to pick her up at about 6:00 for dinner, and I met her aunt. Her aunt, Ms. Clark, said, “Carter, where did you go to school?” I said, “I went to VMI.” She said, “Well, Bob went there for three weeks.” GK: That’s the first you knew about it? BURGESS: That’s the first I’d ever heard o f it, and worse than that, it was the first May Gardner had ever heard o f it. GK: Oh, really? His daughter [May Gardner Smith Burgess] didn’t know about it? BURGESS: No. She came home that Monday and telephoned the next day and said, “I asked Daddy about going to VMI, and he said to me, ‘We’ll have no more conversation about that.’” GK: (Laughter) And that was it. That was civil engineering at Princeton, wasn’t it? BURGESS: He was a genius. He taught before he graduated. You know how he got the job at Norfolk & Western, don’t you? His roommate was Mr. Maher, M.B. M aher’s son. He was president of the railroad, and Maher had a butler on his car who later was Mr. Smith’s butler on his car, and his name was Carter. (Laughter) I never knew who was being called. Then I fell out with a couple o f directors at AMF. Talking about what guys do with short-term jobs, I had been with AMF for over 10 years at this particular point and, at times, I want to do things that people find too unusual to consider. Having been in the Pentagon and several o f the higher levels o f overseas battling and so on, I was very disturbed about Viet Nam. We [AMF] were building most o f the 500- and 750-pound bombs. We were building them in York, Pennsylvania, and in Brooklyn. I think the 750 was the most popular size. In any event, we did a hell o f a job on these. My biggest job in the world was when I ran the missile program at AMF. We did all the launching equipment for the Titan and the Atlas missiles and installing them. The Atlas was parallel to handling the missile. The Titan missile was elevated 180 feet below the surface up to ground surface. Two 130-ton-apiece doors were planted underneath the missile, so that it would have a solid place to fire from. In those days, scientists wouldn’t let you blast it from 160 feet down because they thought the result o f an explosion would misdirect the missile. We got the contract. I told Mr. Pat•21 • �terson, “You go back and be the president, I ’m going to Western. We’re off budget and off schedule. The Air Force is ready to tell us to vacate. If you finally get orders to vacate, you w on’t have any more prob­ lems with me.” I said, I ’ll think it over. The best thing to do, I thought, was to live in a trailer on the site with some o f the guys that were running this thing. There was practically no excuse to go where there might be a hotel or motel to stay in. That’s performance. We brought those missiles in on time and below budget, and got decorations and all kinds o f stuff G K : You left being the president to run the missile program? BURGESS: Right. I mean I wasn’t in my office, but I was still president. During the time I was there, Mr. Patterson took over in my absence. G K : He had been president? BURGESS: H e’d been president. He had about 65 very unusual patents. He was a lawyer — Morehead Patterson. His mother was a Morehead. In any event, that job on the missiles is what got us doing jobs on the bombs. We didn’t have to put in any kind o f study and we had met the military’s price. We were building these things, and upon its success, with no complaints about delivery, I wanted to renegotiate before the Viet Nam victory. In other words, go to the government and say, “This is what our record is. Do you want to negotiate now, and if you say we owe you this or owe you that, w e’ll negotiate a settlement.” Do you know that that damned board wouldn’t let me do that? All the people that went to jail after World War II, you know, the renegotiations took place after the peace was signed. I wanted to renegotiate before the peace was signed. G K : For what? To get a better deal for the company? BURGESS: A better deal for the government. It would have been a very useful thing for the Pentagon and they very much wanted me to do it. It would have been a very useful thing to show that since they weren’t winning very much, this would be a sign o f some help. G K : They wouldn’t let you do it. That’s when you moved on. BURGESS: Later on, I had a couple o f guys write me and say that it was the biggest mistake they ever made, and I think it was. It would have been an ingenious thing to do. I did that, and then after AMF, I ran the Foreign Policy Association. Then my wife came down with Alzheimer’s. That created a need for me to get back here, and that’s when you took me over. As I ’ve told you once, if you’d taken me over earlier, I ’d have been president o f the United States. G K : (Laughter) Indeed. Now, you didn’t mention the one thing in there about American Airlines. Did you do something there? BURGESS: As soon as Mr. Hughes and I parted and I sent his check back to him, C.R. Smith was having some enmity between two very senior people at American Airlines. GK: Was he president or chairman? BURGESS: He was the founding chairman. He had been president. He was a major general in the Air Force Reserves, the Air Corps Reserves, and one o f the finest friends I’ve ever had. He and I both had somewhat comical senses o f humor. He was a remarkable guy. He called everybody “dear.” I said, “C.R., why do you call all these men ‘dear’?” He said, “Well, I write them, ‘Dear,’ why can’t I say it?” G K : He tried to get you at American, but you didn’t go. BURGESS: He tried to get me at American a year after I left TWA, to be the president, and I said, “C.R., I can’t do that. Beedle Smith has always had an interest in me. I ’m just gonna go through with it. About three days later, he said, “Carter, since you won’t take the presidency, will you become a director?” I said, “I sure will.” At one time, I did work there when I was laid off, because I ran that hotel division for a while. G K : Hotel division? BURGESS: Hotels and catering, and gift shops and airport management. Even then we were making people go through machines that read knives. •22« �GK: What we left out was this — how long were you the U.S. ambassador to Argentina? BURGESS: Not long. I went in ’68, flew back in ’69. GK: That was right before the Foreign Policy Association? BURGESS: I ’ll simplify that by saying that [President Lyndon] Johnson hired me and [President Richard] Nixon fired me. That was one of the best jobs I ever had, and I would have loved to stay an­ other two or three years. G K : Did Nixon have somebody else he wanted to put in there? BURGESS: I always thought that Nixon wanted to keep me, because in the Eisenhower years, I was probably the most friendly confirmed Senate candidate for him. Nixon wasn’t like Ike. Ike didn t like Nixon. You remember somebody said one time during one o f the campaigns, “W hat’s Mr. Nixon done?” Ike said, “Give me three weeks and I ’ll think o f something.” I went through special care on Nixon, to keep him briefed. Charlie Wilson was a hot shot at General Motors, but he did not like to make speeches. He didn’t like to go to the Business Council and tell all the right stories, so I was his spokes­ man. If he had something to do in Virginia, he’d send me. But where were we? GK: We were talking about Argentina and Nixon. BURGESS: I thought Nixon wanted to keep me. The guy that wanted to make damn sure I got let out of there was Rogers. I beat the hell out o f Bill Rogers when I was assistant secretary for defense. I took a very strong stance on the National Guard. I said, “We’re paying them, so I think we ought to get them to do what we want them to do.” That’s the same way I feel about VMI. Mr. Rogers totally dis­ agreed with my position. G K : What was he doing then? BURGESS: Bill Rogers was the deputy attorney general. Herbert Brownell was the attorney general, and I called for Mr. Brownell and Mr. Rogers to hear me out. I think the general counsel was Vance Craig at the Pentagon. I went down there and put on a presentation as to why I thought the Pen­ tagon and the Defense Department were right, and Brownell sided with me. The reason I think he did is because he knew that Eisenhower personally got me to take that job. In any event, by the time I get to be continued or not continued in Argentina, Rogers was secretary o f state and he had every right in the world to disagree with my appointment. He and I got to be good friends later on GK: What you said about the Guard — we pay them and they ought to do what you tell them to do. What was his position? Why did he oppose? BURGESS: H e’s a politician. He didn’t want anything to be construed against states’ rights. G K : What was the Argentina job? BURGESS: Johnson and C.R. Smith were the ones that cooked this job up for me because C.R. knew that I was parting — and Johnson liked me. One time, when he was Senate leader, when Eisen­ hower was president, Johnson was a big shot in the Senate. He was over one day in the Oval Office and Ike was having a military presentation put on there. I was the head of the presentation. Johnson asked the president if he could ask me a question, and the president said, “By all means, Mr. Leader. Johnson says to me, “How in the hell are you getting those charts to stick together and move them and they don’t move? I don’t understand how you’re doing that.” I said, “Mr. Leader, it’s very simple. It’s galvanized chicken-house tin.” G K : He appreciated that, I guess. BURGESS: He appreciated that. I framed it that way too. Magnetized, galvanized tin. I thought Johnson always had an eye out for me. He wanted me to be the head o f the CIA and I just turned him down flat. I said, “Mr. President, no.” He said, “Why did you turn me down?” I said, “Mr. President, I don’t know a damn thing about intelligence. I don’t have the background you want. John McComb would be great for that job. One o f the great things about John McComb being the head o f the CIA is that he can afford it. I can’t.” •2 3 • �Carter Burgess talks with President Gerald Ford at a Business Council meeting. (Family scrapbook, courtesy o f Jane Kelly) GK: What did you do as ambassador in Argentina? BURGESS: One o f the main reasons that Johnson and Smith agreed on my going to Argentina was that Argentina was suffering a bad trade imbalance with the United States. Everybody else had a favorable trade balance. They had hoof and mouth disease problems in Argentina. The borders were cov­ ered with hoof and mouth disease problems. I had a couple o f ideas on solving that and I think a couple that we put into effect lowered the loss o f beef cattle. The main thing that I tried to do was get Argentina back to having a good balance sheet in diplomacy and international banking. We had a brilliant econom­ ic minister, an Argentinean guy, and we got it back in the good neighborhood. I told them they had to stop using a grade o f leather on ladies’ purses. That was the worst metal work I ’ve ever seen in my life. I said, “You’ve got to get the quality o f your metal ornamentation in comparable shape to the nature of your leather.” We did things like that. O f course, if Humphrey had won that fall, I ’d have been there for a full two years. G K : That has a history, doesn’t it? (Pointing to a piece o f art) BURGESS: I said, “Stedman [Oakey, a Roanoke interior decorator], why in the hell can’t you work it so that May Gardner and I can go to New York and get some Chinese antiques?” He sent me to a great big store at the comer o f 23rd and Fifth Avenue. May Gardner was with me and she didn’t find a damned thing that set her on fire. As we were going out o f the store, I looked up through the hollow part • 24• �o f the store and this damned thing was hanging on the wall. It was hanging up there at about the third floor. I said, “I don’t know what that is, but take us back up there to look at it.” That’s what we bought. You know what we paid for that damned thing? $800. The people who have been in here to appraise it say it’s an unbelievable price. GK: What was the housing thing? Nixon named you to it? BURGESS: I was the founding chairman o f the National Housing Partnership. We were financed by businesses and unions. I had to raise $50 million. G K : Did you do it? BURGESS: I did it, and I can’t give you the exact figure right now. I ’d be glad to call up and find out, but I think that unit has built over 300,000 really modem houses. GK: It’s still going? BURGESS: Yes, but I don’t think anybody ever hears about it. I just don’t understand why my friend, Lloyd Tucker, has let the publicity die on this because I think what they should have done is m arrythis up with Habitat for Housing (sic) [Humanity], It makes money. It pays good salaries. G K : You say it was financed through banks and unions? BURGESS: No, businesses and unions. General Electric, big unions like the AFL-CIO. We raised $50 million between those two years. To get in business, the government had to make sure that the legislation for subsidy was somewhat favorable to our being approved in that part o f the picture. That was a very interesting job. NHP got a lot o f praise. It was tied into Fannie Mae, too. GK: There was government money in it? BURGESS: Oh, sure — not to the unit itself, but to the person liening or buying the home. He had to get something to make up whatever the differential was, but the housing itself was built out o f the capital finance of the company, which was the financing of it. GK: It could have been compatible with Habitat, couldn’t it? BURGESS: Oh, sure. Had I been there, I would have given an endowment to the Habitat to help them with their administrative side. You’ve always got to have somebody there to get some papers and, in fact, I think that’s what’s wrong with American kids today. There’s too much money being spent on administration. The Habitat — I ’ve just never understood, with Jimmy Carter being sort o f the president o f Habitat... and with Nixon and Johnson. Henry Kaiser was the head corporate guy on this. He created the Housing Partnership. Kaiser is the guy who found me to do the chairmanship. Nobody quite saw where the income was going to come out of — the salary. But he had a lot to do with me in Argentina, and so did his head man in Argentina. Kaiser ran one o f the best automobile factories in Argentina. G K : All your corporate contacts helped a lot. BURGESS: Oh, sure. Old Nixon got a lot o f letters about me, but I guess Rogers was his prob­ lem. GK: The foreign policy thing — it didn’t take a lot o f time, did it? BURGESS: It took a lot o f time. I did some traveling and some speech making, but I had to go out and raise money. That’s what takes time. We had all kinds o f ways o f trying to make that interesting. The Foreign Policy Association [FPA] is a rare historic organization. It got started as a result o f the fears that many people had at the end o f World War I that our country was going to go back to isolationism. You know who were the co-signers to the FPA’s revised charter in 1926? John Foster Dulles, an old pal o f Roosevelt’s. It was interesting for those two people to find the same tent. GK: These boards that you said you were on, American Airlines and Ford Motors? BURGESS: Yes, and I was on Smith-Kline. At other times I was in and out on boards. I got brought back by General Aniline Film later in my career, once they began things with the government. G K : Did that take much time, board service? Going to the meetings? BURGESS: Sure. At Ford, you left mid-afternoon — through Dearborn, and the evening ses­ �sions, dinner, breakfast the next morning, board meetings that lasted until 1:00 to 2:00 the next day. Smith-Kline was usually the better part o f a day, once a month. I was also on Roanoke Electric Steel. Incidentally, Wyndham Robertson, who’s the namesake o f this media library at Hollins, she caught on to me, because she happened to be on a commission that Bob Claytor asked me to run. Bob Claytor asked me, “Will you head the commission to select the next president [of Hollins]?” I said, “Bob, there’s one thing I want to get straight with you. I fire, I don’t hire.” GK: I expect you enjoyed being on boards, having been on the other side. BURGESS: Yes. Well, that’s an action that came earlier in my life. You know, when you get elected to be a director o f J.R Morgan Bank before you’re 40, then you’re doing pretty good. G K : You did that before you were 40? BURGESS: Yes, sir. I was still in my 30s when I worked for TWA. G K : J.R Morgan. I ’d forgotten about that. BURGESS: I went on that board after I became president o f TWA. I went down to see Henri­ etta Sanders at the Whitney and I said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I accepted your invitation to the Morgan board, and I want to tell the young lady at TWA here that I thought you all ought to give me the opportu­ nity to resign now rather than later.” They said, “Absolutely, you’re not going to resign now.” I stayed on that board. I was on there — it was ’56 that I went on the Morgan board and I retired around ’85 or ’86. G K : That and Ford were probably your biggest boards, weren’t they? BURGESS: I went on Ford in ’62 and retired in ’87. G K : Weren’t they probably the most important? BURGESS: I think Smith-Kline was important, not dramatic or a damned old company, but they had invented a medicine called Tagamet, probably one o f the most successful medicines in my lifetime. It had to do with keeping your stomach in good shape. G K : Was it J.P. Morgan Bank? BURGESS: It was then. Later, quite a bit after I was on the board, it merged with Guaranty and became Morgan-Guaranty G K : Morgan-Guaranty Trust? BURGESS: I don’t know whether they left the word Trust in there. They probably did, but it w asn’t Morgan Trust before. It was Guaranty Trust when they merged, but it was J.P. Morgan before. G K : J.P. Morgan Bank, when you were there? BURGESS: Yes. The Morgan survived in the first place with this latest merger with Chase. G K : Have any trouble keeping up with going to all these meetings? BURGESS: I just went there. When I hear about all this crap down at Enron, boy, do I say to myself, Burgess, how in the hell can any group o f people be as ignorant as that bunch was? G K : It doesn’t seem possible, does it? BURGESS: How in the hell did an outfit like Arthur Anderson let this crap go on wholesale? Didn t that ring a gigantic bell somewhere? You hire this profession just like you hire lawyers. You want honest people. The whole profession hangs on honesty. Sometimes you want it to be brilliant honesty, but this business o f taking partnerships and having them cover up bankruptcy, or deficits or whatever the hell it is —- 1 don’t understand it. But I would have understood it if I was there. I raised hell with the public auditors at Morgan one day. I said, One o f you hot-shots took me to the bank vault the other day to see some new piece o f equipment, and everybody had their coats hung in the vault room., Who in the hell is so dumb as to let somebody do that? ’ You don’t ever want to put an empty pocket in a vault room. It s like the top-secret code room. You can’t let somebody come in and take their coat off in a topsecret code room in wartime, because you never know what’s going to come out on just one little slip of paper. It s like this guy in the Secret Service, or one o f these FBI guys who was giving all this paper to the Russians. • 26 • �How in the hell could we have the destruction o f two o f the tallest buildings in class and cost — and the Pentagon — and not have any pre­ suspicion or pre-evidence that some­ thing bad was about to happen? I ’ve never seen anybody do anything about this outfit that’s up here at Fort Meade, Maryland. It was built to invade phone calls, to invade transmissions, ques­ tionable transmissions o f international monies. I always thought they could intercept any phone call they wanted to intercept. It’s a billion dollar operation, but nobody has even mentioned them. GK: Is it military? BURGESS: No, I think it’s just an independent. I think it’s probably tied in somewhere with the CIA. No, I don’t think it’s run by the military, but it was a communications system that was supposed to have had access to anything that we want to have access to. G K : Too many people were asleep at the switch, weren’t they? This is going down as a much, much bigger thing in that vein than Pearl Harbor, isn’t it? Carter Burgess (right) and Henry Ford II leave 10 Downing BURGESS: To me it’s a hell of Street offices o f English Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher a lot more dangerous than Pearl Harbor. in London, England. Burgess served on the Ford Motor Co. You know what happened at Pearl Har­ board for 25 years. (Courtesy o f George C. Marshall Founda­ bor. Marshall sent a message that morn­ tion, Lexington, Va.) ing to [Lt. Gen. Walter] Short about some suspicion he had about something happening. He sent it over the Army’s top-secret code-book, that night or early the next morning, except that the damned machinery wasn’t working or the message would have been sent that way. They had to decide. Someone in the Adjutant General’s Department sent it in a higher code via Western Union in Ho­ nolulu. It got to Honolulu, but there were no delivery boys on duty that day. Marshall was chief o f staff. G K : Warning them that something was going to happen? BURGESS: Yes, sir. Warning them that something was going to happen. GK: No delivery boy? BURGESS: No delivery boy. But Marshall, the next morning, took that whole communications system and put it under his own office, and that’s where it was when I was an assistant to Eisenhower. GK: It goes back to the old adage about the battle being lost because o f the horse and the rider and the nail in the shoe, doesn’t it? BURGESS: Right. O f course, w e’ve had some other little mishaps. The Battle o f the Bulge was a good one. 27 �Carter Burgess relaxed at his South Roanoke desk after a long career o f military, government and corporate service. (Family scrapbook, courtesy o f Jane Kelly) 28 �GK: Maybe you mentioned it and I didn’t catch it. What were you doing at the State Depart­ ment? BURGESS: I was the right-hand man to the assistant secretary o f the Foreign Services Adminis­ tration. My first boss was secretary o f state and my immediate supervisor was the Assistant Secretary o f State Julius Holmes. They both got elected out by Mr. Truman. I ’ll have to go back a little bit. In 1944, when Roosevelt had to make some decision about what his political destiny was going to be in terms o f the vice president, he didn’t want Wallace as vice president. Jimmy Byrnes had come off the Supreme Court at his request and he had been a very successful manager o f the economy, the direction o f the economy. Roosevelt didn’t want the military getting far too much and the general economy, the general people, getting far too little. I’ve always understood it that Mr. Byrnes achieved a sensible balance. He did that job well and had been a very popular secretary o f state. While he was secretary o f state, there was no fellow senator who arrived on the Senate scene that had more respect for Jimmy Byrnes than Harry Truman. Byrnes taught him how to be a senator. In ’44, Roosevelt asked Jimmy Byrnes if he would join him and be the vice president. Some o f the young cats in there w eren’t too happy about that idea, and I think probably the key one was a lawyer — he was from St. Louis. Together, they talked Roosevelt out o f taking Byrnes as the vice president. Why? Because Byrnes was an ex-Catholic. He left the Catholic Church and became an Episcopalian, and they thought that was politically dangerous. Mr. Roosevelt had to ask him to step aside and he named Truman, and the way Truman equaled out Byrnes was when he got to be president, he replaced Stennis with Jimmy Byrnes. That’s where Donald Russell came in. Now comes the interesting part o f the story. Mr. Truman, after he appointed Jimmy Byrnes and all the other cats were replaced, a very vital concern at the White House was that Mr. Byrnes was act­ ing like the president o f the United States instead o f Truman. He was always saying that he did this, and he did that, and never mentioned that the president asked him to do this or the president would sign this order, and the word got around: “For Christ’s sake, get rid o f Byrnes.” That’s when General Marshall became secretary o f state, I think. Now, Byrnes was free and gone and hadn’t made up his mind about what he was going to do yet, but he went out and made some speeches. One o f them was at Washington and Lee, where everybody interpreted it as being critical o f what Truman was doing — aid and welfare. Jimmy made a speech over there and Truman got hold o f the speech. He wrote Byrnes a little note down in South Carolina, criticizing him on his speech and added his own inference in this thing by signing the letter “Et Tu Brutus.” This all got printed up. I’ve got the whole damned thing somewhere here. Byrnes wrote him back and told him that he thought it was his job to say what he thinks legitimate and appropri­ ate on serious matters. He ended his little pique with an “as you well know, I don’t consider you Caesar.” GK: What was your title there at State? BURGESS: I was just an assistant to secretary o f state. That’s back before I went to South Caro­ lina. I was assistant to the assistant secretary o f state. When Russell was president o f the university and I went down there, I guess I was his assistant. He and I never got into the title thing. If he was introducing me to somebody, he’d always say, and I don’t know why he did this, but he’d always say “the assistant president.” Russell was a gigantic friend o f mine. He wrote a letter about me to somebody, and he wrote a gigantic letter. GK: It’s hard to look back over all these many jobs. W hat’s the best job you’ve had? BURGESS: The one I liked the most in terms o f structure and people and the chance to do some good and thoughtful work was being an ambassador. I think it’s the greatest damn job in the world. The best job I ever had was being ambassador to Argentina. I felt like I did my best and enjoyed it the best. The Argentines — you know, there is 98 percent literacy in Argentina. They even have educated cows there. (Laughter) It was such a high mix o f Spaniards and Germans and Italians. Argentina is an example o f living in some class and dignity. It’s too bad that they’ve had a lot o f political problems. I didn’t sense •2 9 �m udi o f that while I was there. They were getting better at it, but the guy who was president there — he was a hell o f a nice guy. H e’s young. He trained at West Point. He made a mistake one day, right after 1 left in saying out in public that he was looking forward to continuing to be president o f Argentina for another 25 years. I don’t know, but he might not have made 10 weeks. GK: What was the toughest job? BURGESS: I guess my last two years at AMF was the toughest job. GK: When you had your differences with the board? BURGESS: Morehead Patterson had stayed just as a director by that time and had stopped being chairman, but was director, 100 percent. I went there, I guess, in ’58, and I think he died in ’61. GK: You had the knowledge and the skills to get through these complications. L , BURGESS: I ’ve tried to be useful and sincerely meaningful in my life, and made the effort to be thoughtful. G K : Not everybody does that BURGESS: Henry Ford was a useful guy in that department and I learned a lot from him. He had sort o f a jet-set playboy habit, but I don’t know o f anybody that was more insistent on being on time or appointments and trips. He was a genius at that. He was bright. When he took hold o f that company m late, I guess, ’44, early ’45, he had to be taken out o f the Navy to do it because the old man, Henry Ford II, was out o f the picture. He had some bum he had brought in there — I can’t think o f his name right now. He had to get Henry back on the scene to put that company back into full business. G K : He was the grandson of the founder? BURGESS: I guess his father’s name was Edsel. He had a son named Edsel, Henry did, but r! m ? eiuy the second’s brother>it’s his son that’s now the boss. Bill Ford. I ’m going out there on March 13th to attend a retirement dinner for one o f the older boys. G K : You still keep in touch with them? BURGESS: Yes. G K : As the years stack up, it’s kind o f tough to give up associations with these folks, isn’t it? BURGESS: I ’m cutting back though. You know, it’s sad, but it’s damned hard for me to get out of a chair nowadays. G K . You ve got some mileage there. Think o f all the rest who didn’t make it to 85. BURGESS: I ’d like to be back on the tennis court, too. G K : You did some o f that in your time, didn’t you? BURGESS: I just gave it up a couple o f years ago. I fell once in a while — or twice. G K : Overall, you’ve had pretty good health though, haven’t you? BURGESS: George, I ’m moving in danger now. I have prostate cancer. I ’ve had it for a number ° l H i l i f t a " T 8 Calkd Lupr0” assigned *° me by Nelson Te**“e- Do you t o ™ what they cost a shot? $3,200.1 get four to six o f them a year. G K : Does that hold the PSA down? BURGESS: Evidently. I get by every examination. • 30• �‘Tßti& ie *Wa& Pfoten#, *7o4wt? by Jim G lanville and Ryan Mays INTRODUCTION n this article the authors summarize and assess the many writings that attempt to answer the question “Where was Totera town?” Totera town (with various spellings [1 ]) was the place where the Tutelo (also with various spellings) Indians were encountered by the Virginian explorers Thomas Batte and Robert Hallam /2/ on the 9th (the 20th new style) o f September, 1671. (Ed. Note: E arly his­ torians spelled the names as Batts and Fallam, but later research has called them Batte and Hallam. This article uses both spellings, depending on the sources.) That Totera town was somewhere in today’s southwestern Virginia is accepted by all writers. However, as we will see, many different specific loca­ tions have been proposed and we summarize them in Table 1. (See page 43) The difficulty faced in answering the question as to the location o f Totera town was well-stated over 100 years ago by the pioneer ethnologist James Mooney: I The tribes between the mountains and the sea were o f but small importance politically; no sustained mission work was ever attempted among them, and there were but few literary men to take an interest in them. War, pestilence, whisky and systematic slave hunts had nearly exterminated the aboriginal occupants o f the Carolinas before anybody had thought them of sufficient importance to ask who they were, how they lived, or what were their beliefs and opinions/37 Danville writer John Brubaker added in 1973: The primary difficulties encountered in dealing with the story o f the American Indians — finding them idealized as noble savages or rejected as uncivilized heathens...are magnified in Southside Virginia and the Carolina Piedmont because the natives were removed by the Europeans before they could make a real impression on the conqueror’s mind. Substantial records o f contact with the Indians by whites in this general area cover a span o f less than 60 years. The Indians did not speak for themselves, so Europeans’ accounts, as reinforced by limited 20th Century archaeological discoveries, are the sole sources o f information./^/ Jim Glanville o f Blacksburg, a retired chemistry professor at Virginia Tech and Virginia Western Commu­ nity College, has done extensive research and writing about early Spanish exploration and other subjects in Southwest Virginia. Ryan Mays, a staff biologist at Virginia Tech, is a student o f early settlement o f Southwest Virginia, using primary documents. •31 • �Figure 1. “Indian Relics from Totera Town’’ as pictured in F.B. Kegley’s well-known book.[5] It is difficult to be certain, but the object on the lower far right appears to be a marine shell gorget—such objects are known from the Roanoke vicinity, and one o f us (JG) has seen and photographed an engraved speci­ men in the Smithsonian collection in Suitland, Maryland. Shell was a valued, durable material in prehis­ toric American Indian cultures and one that endures archeologically. The sum o f the evidence for the location o f Totera town is the journal kept by Robert Hallam in 1671, the account o f the journey o f Gabriel Arthur in 1673 as described in a letter written by Abraham Wood in 1674, and the limited archeological studies o f southwest Virginia. D o c u m e n t a r y e v id e n c e f o r t h e l o c a t io n o f t o t e r a t o w n Documentary evidence for the site o f Totera town comes from the period 1670-1674. The first European known to be in the vicinity o f the town was John Lederer and Lederer’s notes o f his travels in 1670 are the earliest written record o f southwestern Virginia. Robert Hallam (in the journal he kept o f his explorations with Thomas Batte in 1671) speaks specifically o f being at Totera town twice in Sep­ tember that year. A letter from Abraham Wood to John Richards England in 1674, which reported the ex­ plorations made for Wood by Gabriel Arthur and James Needham, tells incidentally that A rthur’s friend, the king o f the Tomahitans, passed along by “Totero” on his way to visit Wood at Fort Henry (modem day Petersburg, Virginia). Jo h n L ederer The first European whom history records as a possible visitor to Totera town was John Lederer, a German, bom around 1644, who arrived in Virginia about 1669. For unclear reasons he was selected to prospect for an overland route to the “East India Sea,” a project which had become important to Gov•3 2 • �emor William Berkeley. Lederer made three “marches” to the west. Sir William Talbot, the secretary of the colony of Maryland, translated Lederer’s travel notes from Latin to English, and published them in London in 1612.[6] Exactly where Lederer went remains speculative. Maps showing the many proposed routes that he might have taken on his marches have been published by the historian Alan Briceland./77 The most westerly of the proposed routes/#7 places Lederer in the Roanoke Valley in May o f 1670. The best evidence that Lederer (via Talbot) provides comes from the map (Figure 2) that was published by Talbot that shows western Virginia extending to the Blue Ridge M ountains./^/ On Lederer’s map, the town named “Nahissan” has been identified by Hale/707 as a town o f the Tutelos. So while Lederer tells us nothing specifically, the location o f Totera town is probably somewhere on Talbot’s map. Thomas Batte and Robert Hallam Thomas Batte and Robert Hallam were at Totera town. They set out from Fort Henry on 1 Sep­ tember 1671 carrying a commission from Abraham Wood “in order to the discovery o f the South Sea and explicitly to test “the Ebbing and flowing o f ye water behind the Mountains” in the expectation that this would indicate an approach to the Pacific Ocean — Virginians had a poor understanding o f North American geography at this time. Robert Hallam kept a journal o f the trip which is presumed lost. How­ ever, there were at least four near-contemporary copies made,/77 / two o f which have been frequently published in the literature: one by Daniel Coxe which he sent to the government in England in 1687, the other by Reverend John Clayton which was sent by him to the Royal Society in London and read there in 1688. The Coxe transcription o f Hallam’s journal was copied in London around 1850 by agents o f the New York state government who had been commissioned to obtain in England documents relevant to the early history o f New York and the Coxe transcription was published as a printed version by the state o f New York in 1853/727 The Clayton transcription o f Hallam’s journal was copied in London by David Bushnell in 1906 and published by him shortly later with his annotations and a discussion o f the differ­ ences between it and the New York printed version o f the Coxe transcription/73/ At about this same time the Canadian author Agnes Laut read the Clayton transcription in London and made a copy along with some notes. Then, in 1912 Clarence Alvord and Lee Bidgood reprinted the Bushnell version o f the Hallam journal, reviewed Laut’s copy and her notes, made their own comparisons o f the versions, and published/74/ what remains to the present day the definitive compendium o f sources on early Virginian westward exploration, as it included a comparison o f the Clayton and Coxe versions along with reprint copies o f many o f the other documents relevant to the expedition o f Batte and Hallam. Here’s the description o f the arrival at Totera town in the full Hallam journal entry dated 9 September 1671 in the Clayton version taken from Alvord and Bidgood with a Coxe version difference (cited in Alvord and Bidgood’s footnotes) included herein in brackets: Sept. 9. We were stirring with the Sun and travelled west and after a little riding came again to the Supany River where it was very narrow, and ascended the second mountain which wound up west and by south with several springs and fallings, after which we came to a steep descent at the foot whereof was a lovely descending Valley about six miles over with curious small risings... [New York Colonial Documents: read in the hiatus “sometimes indifferent good way, their course etc.” ]. Our course over it was southwest. After we were over that, we came to a very steep descent, at the foot whereof stood the Tetera Town in a very rich swamp between a branch and the main River o f Roanoke circled about with mountains. We got thither about three o f the clock after we had travelled twenty-five miles. Here we were exceedingly civilly entertain’d. •33 • �Figure 2. The map published in London by William Talbot in 1672 showing the marches o f John Lederer. It is uncertain as to precisely what modern territory this 1672 map corresponds to, but broadly speaking it shows western Virginia. Note that the direction north is to the right and west is upward. The scale o f the map is roughly 300 miles from left to right, i.e. from south to north. Totera town would prob­ ably have been somewhere on this map. Obviously, it requires considerable interpretation to convert Hallam’s journal entries such as the one above to actual lines of routes on a map. Many writers have speculated about the route to the moun­ tains taken by Batte and Hallam and about the location o f Totera town, beginning with John Mitchell in 1755.[1 5 ] Archeologist Carl Miller drew a map o f the route in 1957,[16] as did historian Alan Briceland in 1989./7 7] Roanoke area archeologist Tom Klatka has summed up as follows the difficulties in inter­ preting the route o f Batte and Hallam: Fallam’s journal is an intensively studied, yet problematic, document relating to western j Virginia’s early history. Although various interpretations o f the route taken by the Batts and Fallam expedition have been advanced, no consensus has emerged. This lack o f consensus stems from the recognition that Fallam’s brief journal o f the expedition contains little detail in its descriptions o f distance traveled, direction taken, or terrain traversed.[1 8 ] • 34• �The King of the Tomahitans James Needham and Gabriel Arthur with accompanying Indians and horses were sent westward by Abraham Wood in April 1673 and, after a false start, again on 25 June 1673 as part o f Wood’s ongo­ ing campaign to open the western Indian trade from his base at Fort Henry. Wood told their tale in a let­ ter to England written in August 1674 .[19] These explorers soon fell in with a group o f Tomahitan/20/ Indians who apparently offered to escort the Englishmen to “ye Tomahitans towne,” probably in today s east Tennessee ./^ /] On the way there Needham was killed by one o f the accompanying Fort Henry Indians and Arthur began an epic solo year during which he underwent many hardships and undertook long-distance journeys with the Tomahitans that covered hundreds, maybe thousands o f miles. Indians were great foot travelers. After many adventures, Arthur eventually returned to Fort Henry on the 18th o f June 1674. A month later the king o f the Tomahitans arrived at Fort Henry. Abraham Wood recorded in his letter to England that the route that the king took to Fort Henry “was along by Totero under the foot o f the mountains, until they met with James river and there made a canoe o f bark and came down the river to the Manikins. From thence to Powetan by land, and across the neck and on the 20th o f July at night arrived at my house and gave certain relation how Mr. James Needham came by his death. This brief reference to Totera town adds a little more geographic information to its possible location in the 1670s: at the foot o f mountains as stated, and south o f the James River as can be inferred because o f the Tomahitan king’s town probable location in east Tennessee. The Tutelo Indians Roanokers have traditionally considered their city to have been home to the Tutelo Indians at the time that the first English-speaking explorers arrived at its location. That conclusion is probably correct, though it does not necessarily mean that Roanoke was Totera town. Here is the description o f the Tutelo people in the period 1607-1740 taken from Raymond J. DeMallie’s article “Tutelo and Neighboring Groups” in the conventionally regarded-as-highly-authoritative, and relatively recent, Smithsonian-pub­ lished Handbook o f North American Indians o f 2004: The Tutelo and their neighbors were poorly documented in the written record o f European explorers and settlers. Never very populous, they were rapidly decimated by European diseases, alcohol introduced by European traders, and warfare — particularly by Iroquois attacks. It was a period o f dislocation and continual social and cultural change. Most o f the survivors o f these groups came together and ultimately sought the protection o f their former enemies, the Iroquois. [ 22] The American Indian neighbors o f the Tutelo included the Monyton Indians o f present-day southern West Virginia, the Monacan Indians o f central Virginia, and the Saponi Indians o f southside Virginia. ., . Figure 3 is a much-modified version o f a small portion DeMallie’s map titled Locations o f the Tutelo and neighboring groups, with dates o f known occupancy” taken from page 287 o f DeMallie’s article. Totera town was probably located near the place labeled “Tutelo 1650-1674.” The place labeled “Tutelo 1676” is near present-day Clarksville, Virginia, on the Occaneechi trading path where the Tutelos were (probably) attacked that year there by forces commanded by Nathaniel Bacon./237 The place labeled “Tutelo 1701” is where a party o f Tutelo Indians was encountered on the Yadkin River by the traveler John Lawson in January o f that year .[24] After 1701 the Tutelo wandered for many years before being finally absorbed at the end o f the nineteenth century into the Cayuga tribe in Canada. •35« �tually, site “8” is at the big horseshoe bend on the New River, about five miles from downtown Radford labeled by us “Rf. ” In our modifications, “S” is the approximate location o f Salem and “Ro” is the ap­ proximate location o f Roanoke. The scale o f the map as shown is approximately 300 miles west to east and approximately 200 miles north to south. T h e l o c a t io n o f t o t e r a t o w n r e v ie w e d In this section we review in more-or-less chronological order the statements o f the various writ­ ers who have speculated about the location o f Totera town. The narrative in this section is then sum­ marized at the end of the section in Table 1, using selected quotations. We have restricted the entries in this section to ones that are more-or-less independent judgments about Totera town’s location and have omitted references that are merely restatements o f one o f those already included here. Obviously Hallam himself in the journal gives the first statement o f Totera Town’s location when he wrote in 1671: “After we were over that [the Supany River], we came to a very steep descent, at the foot whereof stood the Tetera Town in a very rich swamp between a branch and the main River o f Roa­ noke circled about with mountains.” This comes from the journal entry o f 9 September which is quoted in full above. The earliest suggestion o f the site o f Totera town on a map comes from Hale in 1883/267 At the end o f his long essay about the Tutelo Indians and their peregrinations he shows the path o f Tutelo Indi­ an migrations between 1671 and 1780. Hale places the starting point o f this path on the north side o f the Roanoke River not far from its headwaters. The earliest statement that we have found telling a specific • 36 • �modem place as the location of the town is “probably near the site o f Salem in Roanoke County.” This quotation comes from an 1893 book[27] which reproduces the journals o f the frontiersman Christopher Gist (1706-1759) and in the context o f a discussion o f the Hallam journal. In 1894 the pioneer ethnolo­ gist James Mooney wrote o f Totera Town’s location: “The site was probably about the present state line southwest of Stuart, in Patrick County, Virginia, or possibly within the limits o f North Carolina. [2 8 ] Alvord and Bidgood, in their discussion o f Hallam’s journal (in their important work on the early explo­ rations o f western Virginia) concluded that Totero town was in the Roanoke Valley and “ .. .not far from the modem city of Roanoke.”/29y F. B. Kegley in his 1938 book Kegley’s Virginia Frontier wrote: Some writers place this [Totera] town on the flat land south o f present Salem, others on the south side o f the Blue Ridge. Taking the journal [Fallam’s] at what it says we are favoring the route up the east side o f Staunton River coming into the trail followed by the first road from Philadelphia through Virginia to the Yadkin Valley in North Carolina. In all probability this town was situated between Tinker Creek and the main Branch o f Roanoke Rwer.[30] However, notwithstanding the above statement, Kegley in his book also published a map that shows what purports to be the exact site o f Totera town; a detail from that map is reproduced in Figure 4. The map shows the earliest land grants in Roanoke City and the depiction o f Totera town seems inciden­ tal. Kegley acknowledges in his introduction “Mr. J.R. Hildebrand and Miss Elizabeth W. Wilkins for their faithfulness and skill in the preparation o f the maps.” We have no idea if it was Kegley or one o f the map makers who chose this precise location for Totera town, nor on what evidence it was chosen. John Swanton, writing in 1943, implied that Totera town was in the Roanoke Valley rather than in the New River Valley when he wrote “ .. .before coming to New River and the ‘Moneton’ oldfields, Batts and Fallam visited the Totera or Tetera to w n ” [3 1 ] Richard Morton in 1960 in his well-known, two-volume work on the history o f colonial Virginia wrote “Following the Staunton River, they [Batte and Hallam] reached the Roanoke Valley (where the name o f the Staunton River is changed to Roa­ noke). Here lived a group o f friendly Indians in Totero Town, near the modem city o f Roanoke.”/3 2 / Raymond Barnes in his History o f Roanoke wrote “One o f the most interesting things about this particu­ lar tract lying on a great bend o f the Roanoke is that the Indian Village Totero Town lay about where the Viscose Corporation built its plant in 1916.” [3 3 ] The Viscose Corporation plant closed in 1958 and the great bend that Bames mentions is today the site of the Roanoke Industrial Center at GPS coordinates 37.253774, -7 9.921247.,[34] The University o f Virginia historian Alan Briceland has written extensively about the early explorations in western Virginia and has written more times about the location o f Totera town than any other author. His writings include his 1987 book Westwardfrom Virginia,[3 5 ] a 1991 essay in a book about preindustrial Appalachia,[3 6 ] and a second essay in a book about North American exploration. [3 7 ] Because o f Briceland’s status as the most comprehensive analyst o f western Virginia exploration we quote from his book at some length: Having reached the crest, Hallam recorded, “we came to a steep descent at the foot whereof was a lovely descending Valley about six Miles over, with curious small risings. ...Our course over it was South West.” West o f Blacksburg and Christiansburg, midway between the two, is Price Mountain. North and south o f Price Mountain are valleys broken by several little intermittent ridges. The two valleys descend steadily for six miles before finally dropping sharply into the New River. Batte and Hallam probably crossed the northern valley. •37* �Figure 4. Map showing Totera town. This is a detail taken from “Map Showing the Original Land Grants o f the Roanoke and Vinton Community"published in 1938 by F.B. Kegley in his book, "Virginia Frontier," between pp. 522-523. The grey-shaded (by us) region on Goose Creek (an early name for the Roanoke River hereabouts) is at the intersection o f present-day Sixth Avenue and Morrill Avenue SE in Roanoke at GPS coordinates 37.259405, -79.931315. Hallam recorded that at the west end o f the valley “we came to a very steep descent at the foot whereof stood the Tatera Town in a very rich swamp between a branch o f the main River o f Roanoke, circled about with Mountains.” At the west end o f the northern valley the United States Army Radford Arsenal is set around a huge horseshoe bend in the New River. A steep descent leads down to the river. The swamp is no longer there, but there are several small, swampy areas along the New River south o f Radford. Mountains surround the location on all sides. From Shawsville to Radford is a little over twenty miles. Hallam recorded a distance o f twenty-five miles. The only discrepancy between Hallam’s description o f Totero and the geographic setting at Radford is the name o f the river. The river is not the Roanoke but the New. It should be remembered, however, that Hallam had a very limited knowledge o f the region’s geography and o f its river systems. He could see that the river flows toward the mountains. But it would have been difficult for him to believe that this river could pass through the mountains to their west side. (Briceland 1987: 139-140) • 38• �Later in his book (on page 185) Briceland writes o f “...the Totero Village at present-day Radford.” In his 1991 essay Briceland expresses the same opinions as he does in the quotation cited above. In his 1997 essay, he writes o f “[T]he village o f the Totero or Tutelo Indians, ‘circled about with M oun­ tains,’ at present-day Radford.” It is not clear to us from our reading o f his work if he intends to place Totera town on the horseshoe bend in the New River at the present-day arsenal location or at downtown Radford. The horseshoe bend is about five miles north o f downtown Radford. In the mid-1990s archeologists began to speculate about the site o f Totera town. In 1995 the Roanoke-based archeologist Tom Klatka wrote: Using historical and archaeological information to determine conclusively the location of Totera Town is a difficult if not impossible task. With our current level o f knowledge, the majority of contemporary scholars believe that the Batts and Fallam expedition o f 1671 passed through the Roanoke Valley, and that Totera Town was located along the Roanoke River. Albeit inconclusive, the best evidence for Totera Town’s location in the Roanoke Valley is at the Graham-White and Thomas-Sawyer sites in Salem.[3 8 ] The many-year “Dean” o f Virginia archeology, the late Howard MacCord, wrote in 1996: “The Tutelo had lived along the Dan River, although their Contact period villages have not yet been identified. One group seems to have moved westward and lived at Totera town in 1671, in the Roanoke-Salem area or near Radford. The others moved eastward to the Meherrin River, where they lived at several sites for short episodes, finally merging with the Saponi at Fort Christanna.”/3 9 / MacCord added in 2001: Historical references to a 1671 Totera Town have not yet been corroborated through archeology. Some historians place the town in the vicinity o f Roanoke or Salem, but to date, no suitable site has been found in that area. European items found at the Graham-White and the Thomas-Sawyer sites date to the first half o f the seventeenth century and cannot date as late as 1671, because o f the lack o f late-seventeenth century trade goods. Briceland (1987) puts Totera Town on New River, probably on the Radford Arsenal reservation. To date, only limited archeological work has been done there, and no site with quantities o f European goods has been found. Totera Town remains “lost ” [4 0 ] The third archeological assessment o f the location o f the site o f Totera town came in 1977 from two archeologists working at the time[4 1 ] for the Forest Service o f the United States Department o f Agriculture, Michael Barber and Eugene Barfield. They wrote: The recovery o f the snaphaunce rifle part from the Graham-White site is indicative o f the acquisition o f highly desirable English goods within the Valley. It may be that more such goods were desired but appropriation was prohibited by distance. Although the absolute ethnicity of the peoples o f the Roanoke Valley is difficult to establish, a strong case can be made that they were o f the Siouan-speaking Tutelo tribe. As related by the diary o f the Batts and Fallam expedition in 1671, the town o f Totero o f the Tutelo Indians was visited near the end of the journey. Whether in the Roanoke Valley or along the New River in Radford, the Tutelo tribal group was located in proximity to the Roanoke Valley. If one accepts that the Tutelo were the occupants o f the Salem sites, a portion o f that group reported moved to the juncture o f the Staunton and the Dan Rivers in the late seventeenth century and to the headwaters o f the Yadkin by \1 0 \.[4 2 ] •59« �The North Carolina archeologist R.P. Stephen Davis, Jr. favors the Roanoke Valley over the New River Valley as the site o f Totera town. He wrote o f “[A] Totero, or Tutelo, village further up river, prob­ ably in the vicinity o f Roanoke,” and on an accompanying map placed the highlight showing the loca­ tion o f the Tutelo on the Roanoke River, not the New.[4 3 ] In closing we note that the definitive, modem study o f the Tutelo Indians in the Smithsonianpublished Handbook o f the American Indians by Raymond J. DeMallie places Totera town at the Trigg site on the New River in downtown Radford (see Figure 3). DeMallie specifically states in a footnote “Totero (1671, 1674); placed at the Trigg site.” [4 4 ] As far as we can ascertain DeMallie is the only author to identify the Trigg site as Totera town. | I The narrative in this section is summarized in Table 1. O U R CONCLUSION: WHERE WAS TOTERA TOWN? Based on our above review, and absent the discovery o f some hitherto unknown documentary evidence or some remarkable new archeological find, our answer to the question is easy. Totera town was doubtless in southwest Virginia and likely within 15 miles o f the present path o f Interstate 81 cor­ ridor somewhere between Pulaski and Buchanan. Plausible specific locations for Totera town include downtown Radford, the nearby horseshoe bend o f the New River, or somewhere along the Roanoke River in either the City o f Salem or the City of Roanoke. Acknowledgments We thank Michelle Baby ok and David Lenk who got us started on this project. Our thanks to the staff o f the Interlibrary Loan office and the professional research staff at Newman Library at Virginia Tech. Thanks to our editor George Kegley. Author JG as ever thanks his wife Deena Flinchum. Endnotes 1. The alternate spelling “Totero” is common and there are other variant spellings, particularly in the early documents. 2. These names have traditionally been written as Batts and Fallam and we use those spellings in this article for the purpose o f making citations. For their correction see George Kegley: “Names o f Batte and Hallam Misspelled for Centuries.” Journal o f the History Museum and Historical Society o f Western Virginia, XVI: 42,2005. A definitive article laying out the spelling issues is under preparation by one o f us (RM). 3. James Mooney. The Siouan Tribes o f the East (Bureau o f American Ethnology, Bulletin 22). Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1894. The quote comes from page 6. On line at http://www.archive.org/details/siouantribeseasOOmoongoog. Mooney in this long essay writes o f the “Monacan confederacy” o f people and includes in this category the “Monacan proper” along with the Saponi and Tutelo. As “collateral tribes” he lists the Mahoc, Nuntaneuck or Nuntaly, Mohetan, and the Meipontsky or Meipousky. Hererafter cited as Mooney, Siouian Tribes. 4. John H. Brubaker, III. “History and Culture o f the Indians o f the Danville Area, Virginia.” Quarterly Bulletin o f the Ar­ cheological Society o f Virginia. Volume 28(1): 41-47,1973. This little-known article is well worth reading. 5. Frederick Bittle Kegley. Kegley’s Virginia Frontier, the beginning o f the southwest, the Roanoke o f colonial days. Roa­ noke: Southwest Virginia Historical Society, 1938, page 13. Hereafter cited as Kegley’s Virginia Frontier. 6. William Talbot, collector and translator. The Discoveries o f John Lederer, In three several marches from Virginia to the West o f Carolina, And other parts o f the Continent. Begun in March 1669, and ended in September 1670. Together with A General Map o f the whole Territory which he traversed. Collected and Translated out o f Latin from his Discourse and Writings.London: Samuel Heyrick, 1672. On line at http://rla.unc.edu/Archives/accounts/Lederer/Lederer.html. 7. Alan V. Briceland, Westward from Virginia: The Exploration o f the Virginia Frontier, 1650-1710. Charlottesville: The Uni •4 0 M Q �Table 1: Suggested Locations for Totera Town Citations for the authors listed in the left had column are in the accompanying discussion. Hallam’s Journal, 1671 “[A]t the foot whereof stood the Tetera Town in a very rich swamp between a branch and the main River of Roanoke circled about with mountains.” Hale 1883, map on page 47. In a map showing the path of Tutelo Indian migrations between 1671 and 1780, Hale places the starting point on the north side of the Roanoke River not far from its headwaters. To our knowl­ edge this is the earliest map to hint at the town’s location. Darlington 1893, page 18. In his book about Christopher Gist, when discussing the Hallam journal Darlington adds the parenthetical comment that Totera Town was “probably near the site of Salem in Roanoke County.” This is the earliest reference to a modem place as the location of the town. Mooney 1894, page 35. “The site was probably about the present state line southwest of Stuart, in Patrick County, Vir­ ginia, or possibly within the limits of North Carolina.” Alvord and Bidgood 1912, page 72. “...not far from the modem city of Roanoke.” Kegley 1938, footnote page 11. “fTJhe Totera town, the exact location of which cannot be determined.... In all probability this town [Totero] was situated between Tinker Creek and the main Branch of Roanoke River.” Kegley 1938, map page 522. Shows “Totera Town” at the location of the intersection of present-day Sixth Avenue and Mor­ rill Avenue SE in Roanoke. Swanton 1943, page 58. “[Bjefore coming to the New River and the ‘Mohetan’ oldfields, Batts and Fallam visited the Totera or Totera town” Morton 1960, page 203. “Here lived a group of friendly Indians in Totero Town, near the modem city of Roanoke.” Barnes 1968, page 20. On the bend of the Roanoke River where the Roanoke Industrial Center presently is situated at the foot of Mill Mountain in Roanoke City. Briceland 1987, pages 139-140 and 185. Totera town was likely “At the west end of the northern valley the United States Army Radford Arsenal is set around a huge horseshoe bend in the New River.” and “.. .the Totero Village at present-day Radford’” Briceland 1991, page 31. “The only discrepancy between Fallam’s description of Totera and the geographic setting at Radford is the name of the river.” (Repeating what he had written in 1987:140.) Briceland 1997, page 290. “at present-day Radford.” Klatka 1995, page 26. “Using historical and archaeological information to determine conclusively the location of Totera Town is a difficult, if not impossible task. With our current level of knowledge, the majority of contemporary scholars believe that the Batts and Fallam expedition of 1671 passed through the Roanoke Valley, and that Totera Town was located along the Roanoke River. Albeit inconclusive, the best evidence for Totera Town’s location in the Roanoke Valley is at the Graham-White and Thomas-Sawyer sites in Salem.” MacCord 1996, page 72. “Totera Town in 1671, in the Roanoke-Salem area or near Radford.” Barber & Barfield 1997, page 146. “Whether in the Roanoke Valley or along the New River in Radford, the Tutelo tribal group was located in proximity to the Roanoke Valley.” MacCord 2001, page 22. “Totera Town ‘remains lost.” Davis 2002, text page 149, map figure 5. “[A] Totero, or Tutelo, village further up river, probably in the vicinity of Roanoke. On the map the Tutelo are placed on the Roanoke River, not the New. DeMallie 2004, footnote page 286 and map page 287. “Totero (1671,1674; placed at the Trigg site)’’ 41 �versity o f Virginia Press, 1987. Maps on pp. 104-107. Hereafter cited as Briceland, Westward from Virginia. 8. By Dieter Cunz in 1942. Briceland, Westward from Virginia, p. 214. 9. A high resolution copy o f Talbot’s map o f Lederer’s three marches is on line at http://rla.unc.edu/Archives/accounts/Lederer/Image 13 .gif. 10. Horatio Hale. “The Tutelo Tribe and Language.” Proceedings o f the American Philosophical Society, 21(114): 1-47,1883. On line at http://www.archive.org/details/cihm_04399. Hereafter cited as Hale, Tutelo Tribe. 11. Coauthor Mays has examined all four o f these original, handwritten copies o f Hallam’s lost journal, as well as other relevant primary documents from archives in Great Britain. His in-progress article reviewing the Batte and Hallam surnames will also include, for the first time, a complete study o f the four journal transcripts and related documents. 12. Robert Fallam. “The Journal & Relation o f a New Discovery made behind the Apuleian Mountains to the West o f Virgin­ ia.” Pp. 193-197 in Documents Relative to the Colonial History o f the State o f New York, Volume 3. Eds., John R. Brodhead, Berthold Femow, and Edmund B. O’ Callaghan. Albany: Weed, Parsons and Company Printers, 1853. On line at http://books. google.com/books?id=YmtAAAAAcAAJ. 13. David I. Bushnell, Jr. “Virginia from Early Records. [Annotated transcription o f the Clayton version o f the jour­ nal o f Robert Hallam].” American Anthropologist, New Series, 9(1): 31-44, 1907. On line at http://books.google.com/ books?id=AIFOAAAAIAAJ. 14. Robert Fallam. “Journal,” pp. 183-193 in Clarence Walworth Alvord and Lee Bidgood. The First Explorations o f the Trans-Alleghany Region by the Virginians 1650-1674. Cleveland, Ohio: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1912. On line at: http://books.google.com/books?id=49-eAAAAIAAJ. Hereafter cited as Alvord and Bidgood, First Explorations. 15. John Mitchell. “Remarks on the Journal o f Batts and Fallam in their Discovery o f the Western Parts o f Virginia in 1671 [About 1755].” Appendix C pp. 231-240 in Berthold Femow, The Ohio Valley in Colonial Days. Albany, NY: Joel Munsell’s Sons, 1890. 16. Carl F. Miller. “Réévaluation o f the Eastern Siouan Problem, with particular emphasis on the Virginia branches - the Occaneechi, Saponi and the Tutelo.” Pp. 115-212 in Anthropological Papers 49-56 (Bulletin 164 US Bureau o f Ethnology), 1957. Map on page 178. 17. Briceland, Westward from Virginia, the map is on page 134. 18. Thomas Klatka. “Totera Town Reconsidered.” Journal o f the Roanoke Valley Historical Society, 13(2): 23-29,1996. Hereafter cited as Klatka, “Totera Town Reconsidered.” 19. Abraham Wood. “The Travels o f James Needham and Gabriel Arthur through Virginia, North Carolina, and Beyond, 1673-1674, contained in a letter from Abraham Wood to John Richards, August 22,1674” edited by R. P. Stephen Davis, Jr., Southern Indian Studies 39: 31-55, 1990. On line at http://rla.imc.edu/Archives/accounts/Needham/NeedhamEdited.html. 20. Also spelled by Abraham Wood (version Alvord and Bidgood) as the Tomahittans, Tomahaitans, Tomahittns, and the Tomahitons. 21. Robert Rankin, personal communication 2009. Many authors have speculated as to the location o f the Tomahitan town, Rankin has reviewed the speculations. 22. Raymond J. DeMalli, “Tutelo and Neighboring Groups.” Pp. 286-300 in William C. Sturtevant, General Editor. Hand­ book o f North American Indians Volume 14 Southeast. Raymond D. Fogelson Volume Editor, Jason Baird Jackson Associate Volume Editor. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 2004. The quote comes from p. 288. Hereafter cited as DeMallie, Tutelo and Neighbors. 23. DeMallie, Tutelo and Neighbors, p. 292. 24. John Lawson. A New Voyage to Carolina. Ed., & with an introduction & notes by Hugh Talmage Lefler. Chapel Hill: University o f North Carolina Press, 1967, page 53. 25. In addition to adding the locations o f Salem and Roanoke, our modifications have been principally to eliminate many o f the details not relevant to our topic here, and to increase the size o f the labels for easier reading. 26. Hale, Tutelo Tribe, page 47. 27. William N. Darlington, Christopher Gist’s Journals with Historical, Geographical and Ethnological Notes and Biogra­ phies o f his Contemporaries. Pittsburgh: J. R. Weldin and Company, 1893. 28. Mooney, Siouian Tribes, page 35. 29. Alvord and Bidgood, First Explorations, page 72. 30. Kegley’s Virginia Frontier, page 11. 31. JohnR. Swanton. “Siouan Tribes and the OhioValley.” American Anthropologist, 45(1): 49-66, 1943. 32. Richard L. Morton. Colonial Virginia (2 volumes). Chapel Hill: University o f North Carolina Press (Published for the Virginia Historical Society), 1960. Volume 1 page 203. 33. Raymond P. Barnes. A History o f Roanoke. Roanoke: Commonwealth Press, 1968. Page 20. 34. The Roanoke Industrial Center web site at http://www.roanokeindudustrialcenter.com shows an excellent map o f the pres­ ent state o f this property. �35. Briceland, Westward from Virginia. 36. Alan V. Briceland. “Batts and Fallam Explore the Backbone o f the Continent,” pp. 23-36 in Appalachian Frontiers: Settle­ ment, Society, and Development in the Preindustrial Era, Robert D. Mitchell, ed.. Lexington: University Press o f Kentucky, 1991. 37. Alan V. Briceland. “British Exploration o f the United States Interior,” pp. 269-327 (essay) and 419-423 (notes) in John Logan Allen, ed., North American Exploration: A Continent Defined (North American Exploration, Volume 2). Lincoln: University o f Nebraska Press, 1997. 38. Klatka, “ToteraTown Reconsidered.” 39. Howard A. MacCord, Sr. “Prehistoric Territoriality in Virginia.” North Carolina Archaeology (formerly Southern Indian Studies), 45: 57-77,1996. 40. Howard A MacCord,. Sr. “Dan River Culture and Its Expansion West o f the Blue Ridge.” Quarterly Bulletin o f the Ar­ cheological Society o f Virginia, 56(1): 18-25,2001. 41. At the time o f present writing Barber is the State Archeologist o f Virginia and Eugene Barfield is retired. 42. Michael B. Barber and Eugene B. Barfield. “Native Americans on the Virginia Frontier in the Seventeenth Century,” pp. 134-158 in Michael J. Puglisi, ed., Diversity and Accommodation: Essays on the Cultural Composition o f the Virginia Fron­ tier. Knoxville: The University o f Tennessee Press: 1997. Page 136. 43. R. P. Stephen Davis, Jr. “The Cultural Landscape o f the North Carolina Piedmont at Contact,” pp. 135-156 in Robbie Ethridge and Charles Hudson, eds., The Transformation o f the Southeastern Indians, 1540-1760. Jackson: The University o f Mississippi Press, 2002. 44. DeMallie, Tutelo and Neighbors, p. 286. Lake area development isn ’t new idea Since at least 1818, an area near today’s The Waterfront development has been eyed by entrepreneurs, The Town o f Lawrence was proposed there 187 years ago. A hundred lots were to be offered for sale in Lawrence, the proposed seat o f a new county to be carved from Franklin, Bedford and Pittsylvania counties. The new county plan didn’t materialize but the area was at M erriman’s Run on the Staunton River, south of Hale’s Ford. Edwin Price sought to develop Lawrence. Researcher Virginia Greer Williams found that more than 40 lots were sold in 1818 at prices between $150 and $200. Names o f the buyers are familiar: Booth, Callaway, Cundiff, Dillon, Early, Ferguson, Hancock, Holland, Leftwich, Saunders, The “town” is now under Smith Mountain Lake. Whether these purchasers were ever able to live on their lots has not been discovered. (From The Times o f Franklin, a publication o f the Franklin County H istorical Society, Before & A fter 1786, June 2005) •43 • �Ridgewood Farm, S. H. McVitty’s home for almost 50 years. (Photo by George Kegley) S .& . ‘T M c't/cttcf’d,& oliecU < u t ^ n e& td eo U a i Scy*totune& by Walter D ixon n February 1968, my first visit to the McVitty Ridgewood Farm mansion house in Salem was overwhelming. The high-ceiling home itself was stunning, with terra cotta tiles, fountains, flowers everywhere, decorated with European collections and medieval artifacts: coats o f mail, lances and pikes, crossbows, ancestral portraits, dark and heavy period furniture. As a young bank trust officer, newly arrived in the Roanoke Valley, I was dazzled by such splendor. Alice C. McVitty, recent widow o f Samuel Herbert McVitty - Salem industrialist, connoisseur and collector extraordinaire - appeared in the hall to welcome me. Thus began my long friendship with a most gracious and delightful lady. Mr. McVitty’s collections, at least those not already given away during his long lifetime, were to go to various colleges and universities. Mrs. McVitty was amply provided for in the will, and she soon bought a smaller home on High Street in Salem, much more suited to her taste and lifestyle. I Walter Dixon is a form er board member o f the Historical Society o f Western Virginia. �Before moving, she offered to Edward, Mr. McVitty’s son by his first wife, and to Edward’s wife any personal property that Mr. McVitty had brought into Ridgewood. They protested that they were interested only in the two portraits that were already in their possession. Mrs. McVitty made the same offer to their daughter Lucy W. McVitty, who took a few articles o f minor value. To her new High Street home Mrs. McVitty moved things she and her husband had bought during their marriage, as well as other items that had not been left to the schools. Alice McVitty died on July 25, 1989, at the age o f 87. For the last 20 years o f her life, I had helped manage her financial affairs; and several years before her death, she asked me to serve as execu­ tor and trustee o f her estate. Although not some­ thing I normally did, I readily agreed, provided that she also would appoint an attorney as co-executor to take care o f legal matters. Joe Logan, a friend bom and raised in Salem and now practicing law in the Valley, agreed to serve. In her will, Mrs. McVitty again offered to Mr. McVitty’s granddaughter Lucy any and all tan­ gible personal property, brought by her from Ridge­ wood, that Lucy might desire for her own personal use. Any such items that Lucy did not choose for personal use, the executors were to sell and add the proceeds to the estate residue. Lucy recently had bought a second home in Vermont and was preparing to furnish it, so she came to Salem and selected some furnishings that had been at Ridgewood. Joe and I had the personal Walter Dixon reads an historic document from the property appraised, and we hired Mrs. Gloria Balander to dispose o f what remained after Lucy had McVitty collection. (Photo by Sissy Kegley) made her selections. Meanwhile, in going through Mrs. McVitty’s desk, we found a small receipt stub from Farmers National Bank in Salem, dated 1969, for rental o f a safety deposit box. On the receipt Mrs. McVitty had written the words “presidential signatures.” As often as she and I had discussed her financial affairs, she had never mentioned anything about this collection. (George Kegley told me recently that, during a visit with Mr. McVitty a year or two prior to his death in 1967, he had been told o f some presidential signa­ tures, but that Mr. McVitty was vague about details.) A call to the bank confirmed that Mrs. McVitty had no safe deposit box in that bank and no ac­ counts of any kind. They gave me the name o f a long-retired bank officer who they thought might have been in charge o f the safe deposit area in 1969. We contacted this gentleman, and he recalled that Mrs. McVitty indeed had had a safe deposit box that he understood contained a McVitty collection o f some nature, but that Mrs. McVitty had gotten at odds with the bank and had closed all her accounts, including the safe deposit box. We had already surveyed other likely banks in the area for McVitty accounts and found no evidence o f the collection. Mrs. McVitty was a very generous lady, so I thought she might have given away the collection during her lifetime. Nevertheless, we asked Mrs. Balander to be on the lookout for it as she went through the home. A few days later, as she was finishing up, Mrs. Balander called, saying that she had just found a hand-made leather scrapbook, embossed in gold with the words “Letters o f the Presidents o f the United States,” in the bottom of a trunk in the attic. Here were the letters! They had probably lain in the dry �attic trunk ever since Mrs. McVitty had retrieved them from Farmers National 20 years earlier. With great anticipation, Joe and I M a r c h 13, j 1964 went through them in my office. They were in chronological order, beginning with George Washington through Richard B««r Id». MeVitty; Nixon, each president’s material separated by stiff dividers. In most instances, there 1 u a oorry you would aot accept the card was a personal handwritten letter signed m y secretary seat to you, : i. ax ihe n a t by the president; and for a few, there were y out previous lette» ar r i vcscl it was im - ■" possible for .me to dictate a personal two or more autographed items. William le tte r. McKinley’s note o f August 31, 1896, was the first to be typewritten and then signed, ■Am/ y o u MX.i w ell under stan d, if I took timi to a n sw e r p e r s on a ll v eno re than the v ery as were all the others thereafter. im portant m a il th at a r r iv e s am ong the There was evidence that most o f t h ir ty - fiv i tbousann .p ieces we b éve been the early letters had been purchased from r e c e iv in g each w eek in the W hite H ou se firms that specialized in valuable auto­ I w ould h ave litt le tim e to attend to the a ffa ir s o f sta te . graphs, although several probably were gifts. Beginning with Franklin D. Roos­ M y best regards.. evelt, Mr. McVitty wrote to each president requesting a personal letter and signature. S in c e re ly , The presidents responded with sharply varying degrees o f graciousness. rv> LBJ replied testily, sending only a curt note signed by his secretary Juanita •»»4 p t r Roberts. Mr. McVitty wrote back to Presi­ S. H Wi'V.uv dent Johnson saying that his autograph WrnmmWmM r F collection had letters from all the presi­ dents and contained a valuable handwritten letter from George Washington, as well as Copy o f Lyndon Johnson letter (Photo by Sissy Kegley) a very gracious note from his predecessor President Kennedy. He sent copies o f these letters to LBJ, saying that it would be embarrassing to him and to the President to have only a signature from Ms. Roberts. Johnson responded with a signed note, sarcastically upbraiding Mr. McVitty for wasting his valuable time when he had such important affairs o f state to attend to. Not all were signatures during their terms as president. For instance, William Henry Harrison was president for only 32 days in 1841, having contracted a cold on inauguration day, which developed into pneumonia. “Old Tippecanoe’s” letter was written in 1812, when he was serving as commander o f the North Western army in Indiana, fighting Indians. Mr. McVitty’s Harrison letter, though highly inter­ esting, was much less valuable than one o f the scarce few signed during his presidency. There also were notes and correspondence included with some letters. In the “Tippecanoe” letter cited above, Mr. McVitty had hand-written a note, dated April 4, 1952, stating that he had received it as a gift from Alice and Mary Izard, when they discovered that Harrison’s was the only autograph lacking in his collection. O f course, Mr. McVitty did not live to see Nixon elected president. However, he wrote a note o f condolence to Nixon shortly after he lost the 1960 election to Jack Kennedy. In it he congratulated IH K writ.o 46 |U;>'c>C): �Nixon on “the record o f your Popular Vote,” suggesting that the law should be changed to elect our presidents by popular vote, not in the Electoral College. He also noted that “the campaign as conducted by Kennedy was patterned after Khrushchev’s procedure o f promising free countries a virtual paradise if they would join the Communist Party.” In reply, he received a most gracious response signed “Dick Nixon,” which stated, in part: “A message o f congratulations after winning an election is o f course always appreciated although not unexpected. But nothing could have meant more to us than to receive such a warm and thoughtful message after losing.” O f special note was his Washington letter, undated, and addressed to the brothers o f the Grand (Masonic) Lodge o f Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, thanking them for their good wishes. The last para­ graph is particularly noteworthy in light o f speculation regarding Washington’s spiritual beliefs: “Permit me to reciprocate your prayers for my temporal happiness, and to supplicate that we may all meet there­ after in that eternal temple, whose builder is the great architect o f the Universe.” It was written on apparently very old paper attached to fine linen. However, there was some question as to its authen­ ticity: The Grand Lodge itself claimed to have the original. Included with the letter was a note from Mr. McVitty, dated 1964, that reads: “Mr. Callahan wrote a book about 1940, mentioning both, but I have had my copy much longer than 1940.” Many o f the other letters made highly interesting reading, especially those from Jefferson, Lincoln, and Grant. Mr. McVitty had more than one autograph from each. O f course, the letters now seemed to belong to Lucy McVitty, if she wanted them for her personal use. However, she said that she was not interested in having them. I suggested to co-executor Joe Logan that possibly she could take them and give them to our History Museum o f Western Virginia and thereby claim an income tax deduction. However, Joe rightly pointed out that such action was not consistent with Mrs. McVitty’s desire, as stated in her will, that anything Lucy took had to be only for her personal use. If Lucy did not want to keep them, we were directed to sell them and add the sale proceeds to the estate residue. We so informed Lucy, and she again declined to take them for her personal use. We therefore contacted Sotheby’s Books and Manuscripts Department in New York, asking them to appraise the letters and possibly to sell them at auction. I spoke to Mary-Jo Kline, head o f the depart­ ment, and described them as best I could. In particular I mentioned the questionable Washington letter. She was familiar with the letter and told me that the original was in the Grand Lodge o f the Masons in Philadelphia. I said that Mr. McVitty claimed that he owned the original. Mary-Jo asked, “W hat’s the color o f the ink?” I responded, “Black.” She then replied that ink made at the time the letter was written always aged as brown and that our letter had to be a copy, and therefore was valueless. However, she was interested in appraising the collection and possibly auctioning the letters in the spring of 1990. We made an appointment for her to come to Roanoke to view them personally On a cold December day in 1989, Mary-Jo Kline and I spent what was for me a fascinating day in my office going over all the letters. After looking at the Washington letter, she again told me it was of no interest or value. �Copy o f Abraham Lincoln signature (Photo by Sissy Kegley) The longest and most interesting o f the Jefferson letters, she said, was written by his great nephew but signed by Jefferson. She laid side by side the three James Madison letters to compare the penmanship. Two o f them, she told me, were written by the president, but the third was the work o f President Madison’s cousin, also named James Madison, who was then president o f William and Mary College. The handwriting o f the cousin’s letter was obviously not the same as that o f President Madison. Mary-Jo had comments on all the letters, but she was particularly interested in Abraham Lin­ coln’s letter to Major General George McClellan, written October 7, 1862, just days before he relieved McClellan o f command o f the Army o f the Potomac. Lincoln scholars were unaware o f the existence of this letter. Lincoln’s patience with McClellan obviously was wearing thin. McClellan had done a superb job o f organizing and training the Union armies, but he never lived up to his promise as a field general. On October 6, 1862, Lincoln had ordered McClellan to launch a new offensive across the Potomac. The McVitty letter responds to a request from McClellan written just before or just after the day McClellan had received the order to attack across the Potomac. Lincoln responded October 7: “You wish to see your family, and I wish to oblige you. It might be left to your own discretion - certainly so, if Mrs. McC. could meet you here at Washington.” A week later, when McClellan still had done nothing toward an attack, Lincoln asked: “Are you 48 �/ / ■, „ y _ / 01 1 t v e t S § g É |l ^ » |S ® I *%$/ iv £ : M jg , , ft I „tw***. B H f e f i n , ■ . ■ *>- /u^«C7 Mi^Vy?* m I AlÊé iof 0*1*1 j i M •*<*■} J ^ . * -.fB mm Á-t'A***^* 1 I ¡|§§ J r 6 n Jfá V *!> Sotheby’s catalog listing the McVitty presidential signature collection (Photo by Sissy Kegley) Copy o f John Adams signature (Photo by Sissy Kegley) not overcautious when you assume that you cannot do what the enemy is constantly doing?” And on November 7, General McClellan was relieved o f his command. Now he would easily find time for his family, for he never again served in the field. Mary-Jo receipted for the letters and took them with her to New York. The 46 separate letters were to be auctioned in 27 different lots, less valuable ones combined with those more valuable, to as­ sure best price for all items. For example, the William and Mary James Madison letter was sold along with another o f President James Madison. The sale took place on May 22, 1990, and was highly suc­ cessful, bringing more than twice the total appraised value. The prize was taken by the Lincoln note to McClellan, which went for several multiples o f Sotheby’s estimate. Several weeks after the sale, Mary-Jo called to tell me the net sale proceeds, after all expenses. I asked, “What must I do with the George Washington letter?” She replied immediately, “Into the trash can!” Hmmm. Just maybe....... *** Closing note: The two gracious notes from Nixon and Kennedy were combined for sale with the sarcastic letter from LBJ. Sotheby’s noted that Mr. McVitty apparently never was aware that the latter had been signed by an aide, probably Bruce Thomas, an assistant skilled in imitating Johnson’s signa­ ture. 49 �S .^ t. i7ftc*(/Cttef>: *)neUc&facatiat, ^ o U ecto fi amuel Herbert McVitty left a legacy of philanthropy during his 65 years in Salem where he directed his family’s Leas & McVitty Inc., a company once producing leather soles and belting at tanneries in Salem, Pearisburg and Buena Vista. Born in Philadelphia in 1880, he came to Salem in 1902 after graduating from Princeton University. S.H. McVitty died at 86 on Easter Sunday, March 28,1967, while on a cruise aboard the liner Queen Elizabeth, in the Mediterranean Sea. About 1918, McVitty and his first wife, Lucy, built Ridgewood Farm, a 20-room mansion located on a hill above McVitty Road, named for him later. The manor house, now divided into apartments, is on an 84-acre tract converted from gardens and a chestnut orchard to a shopping center, condominiums and townhouses. The tanneries were located in Virginia by the Philadelphia McVitty family because of the once plentiful supply of chestnut and hemlock trees which furnished bark for tannin, used to process cattle hides into leather. In a 1911 photo album, McVitty wrote that the tanneries annually furnished 9 million pounds of leather, enough to cover 15 square miles. The Salem tannery once employed 300 people. Competition from imported leather and synthetics forced the company to close and an auction was held in Septem­ ber 1973. McVitty was a benefactor of Roanoke and Hollins colleges and many Roa­ noke Valley causes. He was a trustee of Roanoke College. In 1932, Lucy McVitty helped found Mercy House as a home for unwed mothers, the poor and elderly. This evolved into McVitty House and Richfield Retirement Com­ munity today. After his death, a Salem Times-Register editorial said McVitty “was a man of sensitive social consciousness who believed in sharing his means and his talents for the benefit of his fellow man... The public does S.H. McVitty (Photo courtesy o f Roanoke not know the extent of Mr. McVitty’s generous gifts to humanitarian, educa­ tion and civic causes...because he did not wish his good works called to College archives) attention.” He “set an example as the custodian of private wealth, for he had a keenly developed awareness of the responsibility of wealth toward the community and state in which he lived.” McVitty was a consummate collector of rare books, such as a 15th century Book of Hours from France and a 10th century book of sacred Buddhist writings. In addition to his signatures of presidents, he had collections of stamps, coins, guns and Benjamin Franklin memorabilia. He once donated early cross­ bows to the Roanoke Historical Society, a forerunner of the Historical Society of Western Virginia. He gave Roanoke College a book with a fine example of fore-edge painting -- an artist took a bound volume, with edges fanned out at an angle, and painted a watercolor miniature on the margins of the exposed pages. McVitty, an active tennis player until he was 81, had the first indoor clay tennis court, built in 1924. The Ridgewood Tennis Club, started among his friends, continues today. When he died, McVitty was sur­ vived by his third wife, Alice Clark St. Clair McVitty, and a son, Edward McVitty. S Sources Salem Times-Register, March 30, 1967; Roanoke Times, September 23, 1973; The Roanoker, May 1984 50 �.date,tyiewt b a ttle by Beth M acy undreds o f people crowded Roanoke City Council chambers. They held private strategy meet­ ings. Officials don’t give a hoot about history or tradition, they complained. Put the question to the populace, they urged. The council finally did just that. When the ballots were tallied, it came down to a single vote. It sounds a bit like the recent Victory Stadium brouhaha, but it’s not. It’s a summary o f events that unfold­ ed 100 years ago this week. Headline writers called it “The Cow Question.” During Roanoke’s rough-and-tumble beginnings, loose cows meandered frequently in and out o f the civic consciousness. Over more than two decades, it grew to become one o f the city’s sharpest growing pains. One o f the longest-running debates in city history, The Cow Question was so fiery — and at times comical — that newspapers in Richmond and New York followed it. It seems a homeowner awoke one morning to find his prized geraniums trampled and his roses chomped to a stub. Dismayed by the sight — not to mention the smell o f the bovine calling card — he demanded the city take action. Another citizen, filming that a neighbor’s cow had destroyed his potato patch and Marechal Nell roses, complained in an Oct. 2, 1902, letter to The Roanoke Times that “the man who turns his cow loose to depredate is interfering with my rights.” It was a time when Williamson Road and Raleigh Court were the sticks, not the suburbs, and you couldn’t motor the minivan to Kroger when your kid drained the milk jug dry. Even the milkman was considered too newfangled: Roanokers weren’t sure they trusted the qual­ ity o f his milk — or, as one cow owner exclaimed, “I would rather buy from my next-door neighbor than to buy from someone I know not.” Instead, families kept cows. While many in the anti-free-range camp could afford to have some­ body walk their cattle out to the South Roanoke hinterlands to graze for the day, most Roanokers let their cows roam free. And roam they did. They befouled city streets, caved in the wooden sidewalks and slept willynilly on downtown thoroughfares after dark — causing many a saloon-hopper to stumble on his way home. (Imagine tripping over a cow on your way out o f the Metro Restaurant.) In one 1899 incident, a cow wandered into a Campbell Avenue plumbing store and refused to budge. Efforts to oust Bessie only agitated her until she got so scared she climbed the steps to the second floor. A crowd gathered. Lawyers and city employees left the courthouse to gawk, guests o f the Ponce de Leon Hotel crossed the street and those who remained opened their windows, according to an account in Raymond Barnes’ History o f the City o f Roanoke. Someone finally thought to corral her with stove­ pipes and grates, at which point she was lassoed and pulled down the stairs. Anti-cow activists built their case on such incidents. Cows feeding on garbage and sewage water H Beth Macy is a veteran Roanoke Times reporter. Belinda Harris, Roanoke Times researcher, contributed to this report. (Copyright 2003 The Roanoke Times) 51 �produced unsafe milk, they argued, trotting out a doctor who certified that 20 percent o f the city’s ty­ phoid fever cases were caused by such impure milk. Even Norfolk & Western Railway weighed in on the debate, refusing to build a new depot for a “cow town” that still allowed livestock to run at large. It was a public relations nightmare for the fledgling city o f 25,000, which regularly drew national media comparisons to boomtowns o f the Wild West. The local media had a field day with The Cow Question, casting it as a battle o f rich vs. poor. The first time Councilman Blair Antrim proposed his ordinance to ban roaming cows, in 1902, the pro-cow camp called it “class legislation,” and claimed it would hurt the needy, especially widows and orphans. “Does Mr. Antrim or anyone else suppose that I would vote to impose a hardship on my neighbor by forcing him to hire a boy...and pay pasturage on a cow?” one cow owner asked in a letter to the edi­ tor. “We will watch the councilmen who vote for this ordinance and when his head pops up again for office will relegate him to a seat way back where he can sit serenely and live on milk at 32 cents per gal­ lon.” After months o f wrangling, council passed the issue on to the voters. Antrim threw up his hands, saying it was up to the residents to “declare whether Roanoke was so unprogressive, so rural in its incli­ nations, that it has yet” to write the ban into the city code. On Nov. 5, 1902, the front page blared: “Cow Wins By One Vote.” It was a squeaker, with 953 citizens voting for the ordinance and 954 against. Four times more voters came to the polls for The Cow Question than would turn out for the next presidential election. The cows continued, unfettered. Antrim demanded a recount. He brought in sworn affidavits by three ordinance opponents who admitted — bragged, e v e n H th a t they lived in Roanoke County, not the city, and had therefore been ineligible to vote. Council tabled the issue, hoping to settle the citizenry down. •5 2 �The following August, Antrim managed to push the ordinance back onto council’s agenda. This time, a majority o f council was on his side. On Aug. 13, 1903, the newspaper reported: “City Daddies Decide to Exclude Cattle From Streets January 1st.” The pro-cow contingent was furious. On a vacant lot between First and Second streets, 700 resi­ dents gathered to protest. Councilman G.W. Crumpecker, who’d voted against the ban, said: “What right do we have to hear the sentiment o f the people and then trample upon it?” On Aug. 18, Mayor Joel Cutchin refused to sign the ordinance — in effect vetoing it and extend­ ing the cows’ free rein. (That would be like Mayor Ralph Smith overturning council’s approval o f the new stadium plan, Grandin Theatre support, civic center improvements.) But the anti-cow people were bulldogs. The following July, citing public health considerations and a change in public opinion, Antrim proposed the ordinance again, just two months before a newly elected council was to take office. “Let the ordinance stand,” Mayor Cutchin harumphed as he signed the legislation. “For the new Council will doubtlessly approve it.” (Ten years later, Cutchin was impeached for failing to rid the city o f its red-light district — and for partaking o f the attractions there.) Passage o f the anti-cow ordinance was resented by many cow owners, who continued to meet under the resplendent name o f “The Independent Order o f Freeman Organized.” But before the month was out, the city was up in arms over another critter issue. A Bedford County farmer had brought a long, mean-looking, wormlike creature to the Roanoke City Market, where he exhibited it as a “cabbage snake.” Word o f the reptile’s viciousness spread, more snake sightings were reported, and soon cabbage farmers were feeling the economic sting. The Cabbage Question was eventually put to rest when some­ one thought to send a specimen to Virginia Tech (then V.P.I.), where it was identified as a mere worm, damaging to cabbage but harmless to men. Proper sprays were counseled and the scare gradually died — though for years, Barnes reported, Roanokers continued to prepare cabbage by pulling it apart carefully, leaf by leaf. In a welcome break from the Victory Stadium issue, modern-day city attorney Bill Hackworth was only too happy to look up the old cow ordinance for The Roanoke Times. It turns out that Section 6-6 o f the city code, prohibiting livestock from running at large, is still very much on the books. Hackworth noted that very few such “quaint” ordinances still exist, though he did point out his personal favorite, Section 24-98, which makes it against the law to give animals tobacco in city parks. The last time a wandering cow hit the local news was in 1998, when a Blue Hills Golf Club duffer drove his tee shot out o f bounds — only to have the ball ricochet off a cow and bounce back into play. The cow happened to be grazing on the neighboring property o f George and Louise Kegley. Louise Kegley happens to be the granddaughter o f former Roanoke Times publisher J.B. Fishbum, who in 1903 lived on 13th Street Southwest, where he just happened to have kept a family cow. Decades later, she recalled, her grandfather “was still complaining” about the city making him tie up his cow. 53 �*7c(Aa ‘T ftcc/u zei by M ary B. K egley n the early days o f settlement in Southwest Virginia two Michael Kinsers established themselves in two different areas. The earliest one came from Pennsylvania with his parents about 1771 to what is now the western part o f Wythe County, and the other came from Rockingham County and purchased land on Tom’s Creek near Blacksburg about 1803/77 Because Wythe County was part o f Montgomery County for many years prior to 1790 the records o f the two Kinser men have been intermingled and have caused some confusion for those re­ searching the Kinser family. The researcher looking for information often discovers that there are two (sometimes as many as three or four) men in the records with the same name. Analysis o f the findings, including county for­ mation, family information, and with close attention to dates, often reveals that they are two different people. That is the case here. The name itself has many different spellings including Kintzer, Kincer, Keenzer, Kinser and Kinzer. The Montgomery County family, for the most part, kept the Kinzer spelling but this one soon disappeared from the Wythe County records. Although the spellings Kinder and Gunder have been also suggested as alternate spellings for Kinser, these two names, Kinder and Gunder, and other strange spell­ ings, belong to the Kinder fam ily./// Michael o f Wythe County was one o f 10 children o f Jacob Kinser o f Pennsylvania. He and many members o f his family settled near Crockett in the western end o f Wythe County. Because o f lawsuits recently discovered and research in Pennsylvania on this particular family, the records are numerous and all are not pertinent to this article. However, the service records, wounds and actions in the war are well documented for Michael, a Revolutionary War soldier o f Wythe County. On September 11, 1780, he was listed on the Chesterfield Register, enlisting in the army. His age was given as 22, his height 5 feet 4 inches, and he reportedly had dark hair, black eyes and a fair complexion. His occupation was a planter. His birthplace was Pennsylvania./// Michael of Rockingham and Montgomery counties owned several tracts o f land, operated mills and stills and had a carding machine to process wool. These designations help to identify him as a miller. His land was located on Tom’s Creek near Blacksburg. This Michael had a wife Hester (sometimes Esther )[4 ] and children John, Katherine, Phillip, Michael Jr., Elizabeth, Susanna, George, Christian and Ja­ cob. His will was signed on May 5, and probated a few months later in August 1826. The elder Michael was buried in the Broce Cemetery in Montgomery County, near Blacksburg. Several o f the marriages of his children are recorded at the courthouse in Christiansburg. Many o f the family records and a family Bible can be found in the special collections at Virginia Tech .[5 ] On March 29, 1786, about four years before Wythe County was formed, the Montgomery County Court ordered that Michael Kinser (of Wythe County in 1790), “a pensioner have a certificate that he is an object o f charity and ought to receive the same.” Proof o f his service in the war was presented to the I Mary Kegley o f Wytheville is the author o f more than 50 books on regional history and genealogy. (Copyright 2011) �court on May 24 when he proved by the oath o f Samuel Sadler that he was wounded at Camden and that he belonged to Captain “Besitlys” [Bentley’s] Company o f the Regiment and that the wounds he re­ ceived were in the “service” of the United States. Kinser was so disabled that he was excused from per­ sonally attending court because it would be “too burdensome.” Thomas Huff, the surgeon, was ordered to examine his wounds and report to the Governor. It was certified to the court that Michael Kinser, age 27, late a private in the 1st Virginia Regiment, was paid 40 shillings a month. He was disabled by wounds which occasioned the loss o f all fingers o f the right hand except the forefinger. He was allowed a pension o f £12 yearly by January 1, 1786. Signed by Edmund Randolph, April 28, 1 7 8 7 /6 / Michael Kinser o f Wythe County filed a petition in the General Assembly in 1806 claiming that he was called to perform the duties o f a soldier for the term o f eighteen months, and while in service in the company o f Captain Bentley and in the Regiment o f Colonel Harris, he was at the second Battle o f Camden. There he was “cut to pieces and taken prisoner by the enemy.” While a prisoner he was “plun­ dered by the British soldiers o f his money and a Tobacco note which had been given to him on the part o f the Government o f Virginia, in consideration o f his services.” He lost the “evidence o f the debt” and stated that although he had a pension o f 40 shillings annually “yet it is a very inadequate compensation for five sword cuts on his head, the disability o f his left arm and one o f the fingers on his left hand and the entire loss of three of the fingers on the right hand.” He added that he was the father o f nine children, and further “begs leave to state that being wholly illiterate the proper mode o f proceeding relative to his claim was long unknown to him.” He prayed for “such relief as his case requires.”/7y On April 4, 1788, Michael Kinser appeared personally in the Montgomery County Court and “exhibited his certificate” which was compared with the pensioners’ list and he was found to be entitled to a pension. The sheriff was ordered to pay him the sum o f £24 and his certificate was recorded .[8 ] In further statements made later by his widow, Elizabeth, it was noted that her husband served under General Greene and in 1780 marched south and was engaged at the Battle o f Camden where he lost his fingers. His left arm was also disabled. He received a pension as did his widow, a resident of Wythe County. Michael Kinser married on September 4, 1783, after his return from the war, to Eliza­ beth whose maiden name has not been determined. The Reverend Peter Srader (probably intended for Shrader) performed the service. Michael died in November 1823 according to his widow’s statement. On June 10, 1844, Elizabeth reported that she was 78 years, 11 months and 21 days old. She died on Febru­ ary 22, 1848, leaving three children, Anna, Peter and Esther [Jonas]. Lewis D. Crenshaw was appointed to collect arrears in her pension and on February 10, 1849, collected $37.33/97 Michael Kinser o f Wythe signed his will in April 1819. It was probated on December 10, 1822 (not 1823 as Elizabeth stated). He left all land purchased from Jacob King and George Kinser to his son Peter. All other land was devised to his sons Christian and David. He named five daughters, Barbara Moyers, Anna Hillenberg, Elizabeth Moyers, Mary Kinsler, and Esther. His friend, John Stanger, was the executor. Jacob Hilton and Robert Mills were witnesses to the will .[10] By comparing the will o f Michael o f Toms Creek with this one which lists the five daughters, and three sons, it becomes apparent that there were two Michael Kinsers. The widow, Elizabeth Kinser, o f Wythe County signed her will in 1837 and it was probated in March 1848. She named her daughter, Esther Jonas, who was to receive a tract o f land o f 32 or 33 acres, adjoining the Loyal Company survey made for Jacob Kinser. Esther was also to have all o f the house­ hold and kitchen furniture. Elizabeth left a “horse beast” to her grandson, David Kinser Jr., who was then under age 21. She did not name all o f the children. Her friends, Parker A. Wright, and son-in-law, Jacob Jonas, were to act as executors/77] Some o f the records o f the children o f Michael and Elizabeth Kinser appear in the Wythe County marriage and land records. The name is still well known in the area. When the records are analyzed we find that Michael o f Montgomery County was still in Rock �ingham County at least as late as 1789 when their son John was baptized. He first appears in the Mont­ gomery County records about 1803, so if he served in the Revolutionary War his records would probably refer to Rockingham or some other county where he might have lived at the time o f the war. The second proof o f soldier Michael being from Wythe County is made clear by the fact that when he filed his petition to the Virginia Assembly in 1806 it came from Wythe County, not Montgom­ ery County. There is no evidence that Michael o f Toms Creek moved to Wythe County. One very helpful proof shows that the widow, Elizabeth Kinser o f Wythe County, also had a pension and it states she was from Wythe and the widow o f the soldier Michael. The widow o f Michael o f Montgom­ ery was named Hester or Esther. The names o f the wives and, in each case the children, were important clues and helped confirm that Michael o f Wythe was wounded at the Battle o f Camden during the war and that he was a pensioner. Endnotes 1. Montgomery County Deed Book D, 11. A recent article from the Montgomery New Messenger o f 1976 published in the Journal o f the N ew River Historical Society, vol. 23, no. 1 (2011), 8-10, states Michael bought land in 1754 from James Pat­ ton. It is true that James Patton once owned the land, but he died in 1755. The deed was dated 1803. The article also men­ tioned Captain Doak’s Company, which was a Fincastle County militia unit comprised o f men who lived in what is now the west end o f Wythe County. The county Augusta and the date 1742 are in error. 2. The News Messenger article suggested the names Gunder and Kinder belonged to the Kinsers when in fact they belong to the Kinder family. One o f the other strange spellings is Gunter. See Mary B. Kegley, Early Adventurers on the Western Waters, vol. 5 (Wytheville, VA: Kegley Books, 2004) for sketches o f the Kinder and Kinser families. 3. Mary B. Kegley and F.B. Kegley, Early Adventurers on the Western Waters, vol. 1 (Orange, VA: Green Publishers, 1980) 131; see also, Kegley, Early Adventurers,vol. 5,330-339. 4. Other researchers state that Esther’s maiden name was Zanger/Songer/Sanger and that they were married in 1788. Their son John (Johannes) was baptized 10 April 1789 at Friedens Reformed and Lutheran Church in Rockingham County. (Cour­ tesy o f William T. Buchanan Jr.) 5. Montgomery County Will Book 4,233; Kegley and Kegley, Early Adventurers, v o l.l, 233-234. 6. Montgomery County Orders o f Court; Montgomery County Deed Book 2, 504; Kegley and Kegley, Early Adventurers, vol. 1, 128, 129; Lewis Preston Summers, Annals o f Southwest Virginia (Kingsport: Kingsport Press, 1929), 812, 822 states he was granted a certificate for his pension on April 25, 1786, and produced his pension certificate to the court on April 4, 1788. See also, Montgomery County Order Book 1 ,4 ,2 7 2 . See also Mary B. Kegley, Revolutionary War Pension Applica­ tions (Wytheville, VA: Kegley Books, 1997) 197-198. 7. Wythe County Legislative Petition, September 9,1806. 8. Montgomery County Order Book, 4, 99, 313. 9. Widow’s Pension Application, W8001, National Archives; Alycon Trubey Pierce, Selected Final Pension Payment Vouch­ ers, 1818-1864, vol. 1 and vol. 2 (Athens, GA: Iberian Publishing Company, 1996), 327; Mary B. Kegley, Abstracts o f Court Orders o f Wythe County, 1841-1852, vol. 5 (Wytheville, VA: Kegley Books, 2000), 48, 114 where it shows that on June 10, 1844, Elizabeth the widow o f Michael filed her declaration and on January 9, 1849, where it states she died February 22, 1848, and names her three surviving children. 10. Wythe County Will Book 3,23. 11. Wythe County Will Book 6, 596. 56 �oo&e & tee& : s4 .da& Urty fë&ounce ¿on ^ed^onct & otcutfy by M ary C ollier oose Creek is truly a Bedford County resource. The north and south forks are bom in the Blue Ridge Mountains, just below and to the east o f the ridge crest that defines the boundary between Bedford and Botetourt counties. The forks develop rapidly from over a hundred drain­ ages that descend from the Blue Ridge, McFalls, Campbells, Taylors and Porter mountains onto the Goose Creek Valley floor. G This article is part o f a book, G o o s e C r e e k , A C o r r i d o r Creek, Bedford County, photo by Ries Collier) o f B e d f o rd C o u n ty H is to ry , by Mary Collier. (Goose 57 �At the valley’s southeastern comer, these two forks merge and the main body o f the creek begins its passage, coursing southeast, until the fully developed waters exit the county near Huddleston to join the Roanoke (Staunton) River and flow to the sea. The frontier farmers who settled Virginia’s piedmont in the 18th century quickly recognized Goose Creek’s value for both irrigation and milling. For almost two centuries, the creek waters were used to power a corridor o f mills. At first, these were grist mills and as the county developed, sawmills and carding machines were added. The most active mill sites included Coffer’s on the north fork, Bu­ ford’s on the south fork and on the main body o f the creek, Wilkerson’s, Buford’s, Dickerson’s and Joppa. Names long associated with the corridor include Luck, Otey, Huddleston, Overstreet, Goggin, Nance and Bays. Goose Creek was also an integral support to the iron ore mining industry boom o f the late 19th century in western Bedford County. Today’s village o f Villamont was formerly called Ironville, and a network o f underground mines crossed below the Goose Creek Valley farmland to the north o f that community. Material extracted from the mines was first washed in the creek before being shipped by rail to manufacturing centers. Washing removed the waste and exposed the ore, but this operation caused difficulties for millers downstream. The waste washed from the ore silted the millponds and mill owners filed suits seeking compensation for damages from the mining companies. A third enterprise that developed along the banks o f the creek was the Virginian Railway line, a brilliantly engineered and equipped rail project designed to efficiently move coal from the mountainous Deepwater, West Virginia, to a shipping port at Sewell’s Point in Tidewater Virginia. The track fol­ lowed Goose Creek from Stone Mountain to the creek’s mouth at Leesville and the creek supplied the water necessary to fill the tenders of the great steam engines. The line opened in 1909 and provided both freight and passenger service. Business activities other than milling and farming have been concentrated on the south fork, at the western edge o f the county and in the area immediately surrounding Huddleston, at the county’s eastern development. The creek flows for many miles between hillsides that rise up abruptly to 800 feet on each bank. This feature has resulted in the banks being left in a natural state and has thereby pro­ tected flora and fauna. The woods are home to white-tailed deer, fox and opossum and the creek is home to muskrat, otter and beaver. Eastern phoebes nest in the cavities o f rock outcroppings along the creek, eagles nest on the tall snags and kingfishers chatter noisily as they swoop down for a meal. The steep banks are filled with cascades o f white-flowered mountain laurel and wild yellow, red and orange flame azaleas hang over the edge o f the stream. It is no wonder the mill site on Goose Creek at the center o f the county was named Joppa. In its origin, the word “Joppa” meant “beauty.” As quiet as the creek normally appears, it can also be a torrent o f destructive force when swollen by rains to flood stage. Mills and bridges are the most vulnerable due to their necessary proximity to the water. The southern sector o f the county is also the most vulnerable because the volume o f water contin­ ues to increase as it rushes from the mountains through the piedmont. In the major floods o f 1926 and 1987, both Haden’s Bridge and Huddleston Bridge were swept away. Today’s Smith Mountain Lake Parkway crossing at Huddleston stands high above Goose Creek waters below and appears unlikely to follow its predecessors downstream. •58 > �“P aU ettce, 'Pen&<ate#tce, a n d T^re^ewatcrut: ~76e *l/allety IRcttln&zd 'S’ticCye o w i (faA ‘S 'uzttc/t ¿ft S a lem by John H ildebran d This sto ry is d ed ica ted to D orothy Jennings, self-appointed curator o f the Gish Branch Bridge. H er hom e on N orth M ill R o a d adjoins the site o f the bridge a n d f o r many y e a rs she m onitored its g ra d ­ ual deterioration, sharing with the w riter her hope that one day the bridge w ou ld be repaired. That day a rriv e d a n d her hope realized. he history of any civilization is reflected in part by the buildings its people create over a given period o f time. Likewise, an insight into the history o f the Roanoke Valley between the mid 18th century and the early 20th century is provided by the remaining buildings and structures con­ structed during that period. These buildings and structures are historically and architecturally significant. Local historians Whitwell, Winbome, Pulice, Long and the late Lon Savage among others, have written and published excellent articles and books identifying and cataloging many o f these structures, some of which no longer exist. For those which remain, it is crucial that every effort be made for their preservation so the Val­ ley’s future generations will have the same insight into their heritage that today’s generations now enjoy. To emphasize this imperative, the Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation annually publishes a list of the historical and architecturally significant structures worthy o f preservation but endangered by devel­ opment or neglect. The Foundation hopes that awareness o f these situations will lead to individual or collective efforts which preserve these endangered structures. This then is the story o f one such effort, the collaborative endeavor organized by the Salem Historical Society to repair and preserve the Valley Railroad Bridge over the Gish Branch in Salem. The bridge was on the Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation’s 2004 list o f endangered structures. It is located south o f North Mill Road on the property o f the Mel Wheeler Incorporated organization, headed by Leonard Wheeler, president. After the bridge was placed on the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register o f Historic Places, it was repaired by the City o f Salem. The bridge is constructed o f dark gray limestone masonry, forming a 15-foot diameter arch sup­ ported by vertical side walls. Built in 1873, it is approximately 105 feet long, a part o f the Valley Rail­ road, a failed project intended to connect the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad at Salem to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad system at Harrisonburg. Gish Branch had gradually undermined the foundation o f the T John Hildebrand, Salem historian, is the author o f Iron Horses in the Valley, a history o f the construction o f two railroads in the southern Shenandoah Valley, The Life and Times of John Brown Baldwin and A Mennonite Journal. (Gish Branch Bridge in Salem photo by John Hildebrand) 59 �Gish Branch Bridge bridge’s northeast wingwall and a portion o f the east wall o f the arch proper. Unless repaired, this condi­ tion would eventually have caused the wingwall and arch wall to fail. The construction o f the Valley Railroad in Roanoke County was one section o f a larger project awarded to the Mason Syndicate in May 20, 1873, for the construction o f a railroad from Staunton to Salem. The Mason Syndicate was a railroad construction firm formed in the early 1850s by Claiboume Rice Mason, one o f the extraordinary men o f that period. Bom about 1810, he had no formal education. His firm, now Mason and Hanger, remains active to this day and is one o f the nation’s oldest general contracting organizations. One o f the most challenging projects built by M ason’s firm was the 19-mile crossing o f the Blue Ridge at Rockfish Gap for the Virginia Central Railroad. The project featured the 1,300-foot Blue Ridge Tunnel. Under the direction o f Claudius Crozet, the Gap was tunneled simultaneously from each end by M ason’s team, at that time a daring and unusual engineering feat. Mason divided the Staunton-Salem project into six sections, personally directing the first section south from Staunton. The remaining five sections were assigned to men who had worked together on projects far more difficult than the StauntonSalem section. The Gish Branch Bridge was part o f the 14-mile section assigned to Thomas K. Menifee. The Salem section began at the Botetourt County line and proceeded through north Roanoke County to a connection to the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad at Salem. Like Mason, Menifee was a self-made man without a formal education. He was bom in 1833 or 1834 and his father died when he was 11. He went to work for a railroad contractor as a cart driver. By age 16 he had become a superin• 60• �tendent for that company and in 1858 was sent to Brazil as superintendent o f the company’s railroad construction project for the Brazilian government. In 1861 the Confederate government appointed Menifee superintendent o f the iron mines in Botetourt County. Following the war, he returned to railroad construction, working with Mason on the Cumberland and Tennessee railroad and the Chesapeake and Ohio extension from Covington to Hun­ tington, West Virginia. Menifee and the other members o f the Mason Syndicate began work on their assigned sections immediately on award o f the contract by the Valley Railroad’s chief engineer. By late November 1874, Menifee had made excellent progress. The roadbed had been brought to grade from the Botetourt county line to where it crossed present-day Thompson Memorial Drive. Masonry drainage structures and bridges for the completed portions o f the roadbed had been completed at all but the major stream crossings, Carvin, Peters and Mason Creeks. It was at this time that the Valley Railroad’s officers were forced to suspend work. The company was insolvent, a victim o f the September 1873 financial panic and resulting nationwide depression. The work between Salem and Lexington was abandoned. Today there are few remaining evidences o f Menifee’s work. Many o f the completed masonry arches, drainage structures and roadbed were destroyed by development and the widening o f Route 117 between Interstate 581 and Williamson Road, U.S. Route 11. The Gish Branch Bridge, the largest o f the three remaining Valley Railroad arch structures located in Salem and Roanoke County, is an important part o f Salem and the Roanoke Valley’s railroad heritage. The bridge is also a reminder o f the effort by the people o f Roanoke County who partnered with their fellow citizens in Staunton, Lexington, and Rockbridge and Botetourt counties to build a railroad which would assist in the economic recovery of their communities from the devastation o f the Civil War. The Salem Historical Society believed it imperative that a special effort be made to prevent the bridge from falling into complete disrepair. The Society appointed the writer to organize the preservation effort. Discussions with Salem City Manager Kevin Boggess and Assistant City Manager Jay Taliaferro resulted in the city agreeing to support the project, provided the Gish Branch Bridge was placed on the National Register o f Historic Places. Michael J. Pulice, architectural historian for the Roanoke Regional Office o f the Virginia Department o f Historic Resources (DHR), reviewed the history o f the structure, surveyed its physical condition and agreed to assist the Society in nominating the bridge for the national and state registers o f historic places. Concurrently, Herm Reavis, a local radio personality, obtained per­ mission from Leonard Wheeler, owner of the bridge, for the Society to proceed with the nomination. By June 2008, the Society had prepared and submitted to Pulice the DHR Property Information Form, describing the architectural and historical significance o f the bridge, accompanied by photographs and maps. This information was for the DHR’s preliminary consideration o f the bridge’s eligibility for nomination. The Society’s application was reviewed and edited by Pulice and submitted to the DHR Richmond office for review by its Evaluation Committee. In late August, Pulice told the Society that the Evaluation Committee had given its application a high rating, in effect making the bridge eligible for nomination to the state and national registers. The DHR officially advised Wheeler o f the bridge’s eligibility on November 21, 2008. Included was its rec­ ommendation that the Society proceed with the preparation o f a nomination to place the bridge on the • 61 • �National Register o f Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register. The official nomination for the Gish Branch Bridge was prepared by Pulice, submitted to the De­ partment o f Interior, National Park Service, and approved by that office on June 25, 2009. On August 21, 2009, the DHR notified Pulice, Wheeler and the Society that the Valley Railroad Bridge over the Gish Branch had been placed on the National Register o f Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Regis­ ter, effective August 12, 2009. With the registration process completed, the Society and the City o f Salem moved immediately to begin repairs to the bridge. By the end o f August permission had been granted by Wheeler to access the site through the Newman Drive entrance to the WSLC radio antenna farm. Michael Tyler, the city’s director o f public works, and his staff determined that the best way to stabilize the undermined founda­ tion walls was to pump concrete into the voids beneath the foundation walls created by the flow in Gish Branch. Water flow was diverted to the west side o f the bridge to provide a dry working space for the construction o f forms and access for the concrete pumping equipment. By early September 2009 the re­ pairs were complete. The undermined spaces had been filled with a dark colored concrete to blend with the color o f the bridge’s walls and arch roof, forms and equipment removed and the site restored to its original condition. The deterioration of the structure had been reversed and its possible failure averted. The Valley Railroad Bridge over the Gish Branch was preserved, its architectural and histori­ cal significance recognized and recorded on the National Register o f Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register. It stands as a tribute to the people o f Staunton, Lexington, and Rockbridge, Bote­ tourt and Roanoke counties who organized and committed their financial resources to the success o f the Valley Railroad and to the engineers, contractors and workmen committed to its construction. Theirs was not a failed enterprise but a worthy example o f a willingness to undertake a daunting task during the dif­ ficult times following the Civil War. The Gish Branch Bridge also provides a unique insight into railroad planning, design and con­ struction practices o f the late 19th century. The accompanying sketches illustrate railroad construction o f that era. Many workers, aided by horses and mules, were required; most were Irish immigrants and freed African American slaves using construction techniques dating to the days when Caesar’s legions were constructing roads, viaducts and aqueducts across the Roman Empire. The preservation o f the Valley Railroad Bridge over the Gish Branch in Salem was the result of the collective efforts o f Leonard Wheeler, the City o f Salem and the Salem Historical Society. It was a job well done, one to be appreciated by the Roanoke Valley’s preservationists and historians. • 62 • �'p o iw d a tc& tt *7<z&e<i Oum&tAAcfz S ttu ttyceC cC fter more than a half-century, Preservation Virginia (formerly the Association for the A Preservation of Virginia Antiquities) has transferred ownership of Smithfield, the 1774 home of William Preston at Blacksburg, to the local Smithfield-Preston Foundation. This comes with Preservation Virginia’s change in philosophy from ownership of historic sites to ensuring that sites and structures are preserved for future generations. Beginning in 1961, the late Janie Preston Boulware Lamb, a fifth-generation descendant of William and Susanna Preston, donated the Smithfield House, outbuildings and surrounding 12 acres of land to APVA, now Preservation Virginia. The historic property adjoins the Virginia Tech campus. As part of the distinguished heritage, Historic Smithfield News, the quarterly newsletter of Historic Smithfield Plantation, printed this statement about the Preston family: G ubernatorial F amily Descendants of William and Susanna Preston created a legacy of gubernatorial achievements that is unmatched. In Virginia, three descendants served as governor and three other descendants as first ladies of Virginia. James Patton Preston (1774-1843), the eighth child of William and Susanna Preston, was the 20th governor of Virginia. The gubernatorial story, however, goes well beyond his ac­ complishment. In addition to James Patton Preston, Letitia Preston, the tenth child, married John Floyd, who became the 25th governor of Virginia. Granddaughter Susanna Smith Preston married James McDowell, who became the 29th governor of Virginia. Granddaughter Sarah Buchanan Preston married John Buchanan Floyd, who became the 31st governor of Virginia. An interesting aside is that John Buchanan Floyd was born at Smithfield, the son of John and Letitia Preston Floyd. The gubernatorial connections also continued beyond Virginia. First ladies of Maryland and South Carolina, as well as a governor of Missouri, can also be found in the first three gen­ erations of the Preston family. This aspect of the Preston family will continue to be researched and published in the years ahead. •63 �TR.iven o o ftá ‘lev*'7tam e& : g¡Rk< kZ (to& e/S ta c c a to s by Kenneth E. Crouch n 1757, when John Lynch established his ferry on the James River it became an important shipping and trading place for citizens farther to the southwest in what was later to become Franklin County. These distant settlers in order to reach the Lynch ferry had to cross a stream whose history was as equally important, a stream that is unique in history because o f its dual Roanoke/Staunton name. The old trade road was later to become known as the Lynchburg-Rocky Mount Turnpike and its course followed Route 122 north from Rocky Mount, crossing the river at Hale’s Ford through present Moneta. Some traders followed the turnpike route which today is Route 731 or another route, present Route 24, eastward where these roads later joined. After that junction, they traveled roughly present Route 711 where it intersected with Route 460 at New London Academy and on into the new village. These travelers had stops along the route to rest teams and one camp became well known be­ cause of the bawdy camp that was located on the route. Through the years, this bawdy camp was dis­ cussed, in due time a post office was established, just east o f the present Route 122-24 intersection, and given the name, Body Camp. It is the Roanoke/Staunton River that has a rich history o f its own from its beginning or origin in the mountains o f Montgomery County and terminating near Mackeys, North Carolina, as it enters the Albemarle Sound o f the Atlantic Ocean. The Roanoke River begins with the merger o f its north and south forks near Elliston. Some refer to that junction as near Lafayette, just west o f the Montgomery-Roanoke County line. The north fork o f the river has its headwaters in the western end o f Catawba Valley in Craig County between Catawba, Paris and Brush mountains. The south fork o f the river has its headwaters in Floyd and Montgomery counties. Back Creek in Roanoke County enters the Roanoke River near the Bedford-Franklin-Roanoke County lines and it is from this point that the stream has the official dual name o f Roanoke (Staunton) River. The Board o f Geographic Names o f the Department o f Interior at its meeting June 11, 1959, so established this dual name. The board’s decision regarding the name reads: “Roanoke River: stream formed by the junction o f its North Fork and South Fork, in Montgomery County, Virginia, and flowing generally southward, across Virginia and North Carolina, to Albemarle Sound; it is often locally called Staunton River in the section extending upstream from the reservoir impounded by the John H. Kerr Dam to about the mouth o f Back Creek where the Bedford, Franklin and Roanoke county boundaries join; for this section o f the stream the name Staunton River may be used parenthetically after decision name if desired; North Carolina and Virginia; 35 56’ 20” N., 76 41’ 45” w.” I The late Kenneth E. Crouch, a Bedford newspaperman and historian, wrote this paper fo r a history class at Central Community College in Lynchburg, in 1985. 64 �The journal o f the German physician John Lederer, who came into this section o f Virginia in 1670, lists the stream as the Rorenock. Lederer was with a party that came from the present area o f Richmond up the James River to what is now Lynchburg and Amherst County, turned south and journeyed south to the Saponi Indian village located between Otter and Staunton rivers near present Altavista. Lederer is the first white man, on record, to enter what is presently Bedford and Campbell counties. His diaries, in Latin, as to the Saponi Indian village read, “..scituate upon a branch o f the Shawan, alias Rorenock River.” The following year (1671) Thomas Batts, Thomas Woods and Robert Fallam (Batte and Hallam, according to later research) came from Fort Henry, near the present city o f Petersburg, to the vicinity of what is now Brookneal and followed the stream on its westward course then as far west as present Narrows and the discovery o f New River. In their journey they thus came into what is now Bedford County at the gap o f Smith’s Mountain, passing through the county as they followed the stream westward. In 1698, Col.Cadwallader Jones drew up a map of the area and designated the stream Occoneechee River, giving it the name o f the Occoneechee Indian tribe who had their village on an island in the stream near present Clarksville. The Occoneechee tribe was one o f the most cultured tribes in Virginia. They are thought to have fortified the river bluffs around 1250 and dominated the area until colonial forces stormed their settlement, killing their chief, Rossechee, in 1676. The site of the Occoneechee settlements is now the area of Occoneechee State Park in Mecklenburg County and Staunton River State Park in Halifax County, both on the land o f John H. Kerr (or Buggs Island) Lake. The 1750 map o f “ . . .the inhabited part o f Virginia...” by Peter Jefferson and Joshua Frye, pub­ lished in London, England, in 1751 and regarded as the first official map o f Virginia, gives no name for the stream west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. At that time, the area was part o f Lunenburg County, that county having been formed in 1746. Their map shows from the gap o f Smith’s Mountain to the Blue Ridge Moun­ tains it is designated “Staunton;” from Smith’s Mountain east it is designated as “Smith’s’ or “Staunton” River. The same map shows the Little Roanoke River north o f the “Occoneachy Island” settlement. • 65 • �The map where the river passes through the gorge at the present Bedford-Franklin-Pittsylvania county boundaries receives its name, “Smith’s Mountain” from the brothers Daniel and Gideon Smith who had land entries in the area (then Halifax County) in 1740. Very little is known o f the brothers, Gideon Smith having died about 1755. The designation, Roanoke, is derived from the Indian tribe that was situated on the northwest­ ern end o f Roanoke Island in present North Carolina, the seat o f this tribe being named Roanoac. This section became famous as the site o f The Lost Colony where Sir Walter Raleigh attempted to establish an English settlement in the 1585-1587 period. It was on this island in the “ .. .citie o f Raleigh in Vir­ ginia. ..” on Aug. 18, 1587, that Ananias and Eleanor White Dare had a daughter whom they christened Virginia—the first white child bom in America. On Aug. 13 o f that same year, on Raleigh’s orders, the Indian Chief Manteo was baptized and created Lord o f Roanoke. The present City o f Roanoke dates its lineage to a village on Evans Mill Creek called Big Lick due to nearby salt marshes. In 1839, it was laid off as the town o f Gainesborough. In 1852, another vil­ lage came into form ation, that was also known as Big Lick with Gainesborough being known as Old Lick. In 1882, the name changed to the present Roanoke. Roanoke County was formed in 1838 from Botetourt and Montgomery counties. The Staunton designation for the river derives from the establishment o f the Virginia-North Carolina boundary and the commissioner’s designating names as they progressed in their survey. The term,’’Staunton,” is derived from Lady Rebecca Staunton Gooch, wife o f Sir William Gooch o f Virginia. Governor Gooch named a group o f commissioners to run the boundary line. One o f the commissioners was Col. William Byrd. The name, “Staunton,” was applied to the river when the commissioners came upon it, Colonel Byrd so designating it in honor o f the wife o f the Virginia governor. Colonel Byrd kept a diary o f their progress, titled “Histories of the Dividing Line betwixt Virginia and North Carolina.” His entry for Oct. 10, 1728, reads “ .. .We call’d this South Branch o f Roanoke the Dan, as I had call’d the North Branch before.” Lady Rebecca Staunton Gooch was bom in 1690, the daughter o f William Staunton o f Hampton, Middlesex, England (now part of the London borough o f Richmond upon Thames). Sir William Gooch was bom Oct. 21, 1681, in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England, and bore the position o f lieutenant gover­ nor o f Virginia, 1727-1740 and 1741-1749. He died Dec. 17, 1751, and was buried in the east wall o f the north chancel aisle o f St. Nicholas Parish Church in Great Yarmouth. A tablet to the memory o f Sir William Gooch, surmounted with military emblems, was placed on the wall o f St. Nicholas Church. Unfortunately this tablet was destroyed when the church was bombed in World War II. This memorial tablet lists his wife as Mrs. R. Staunton. In Palmers Periustration, the in­ scription states that Sir William Gooch married Mrs. R. Staunton but farther down the page in the same book, his wife is referred to as Rebecca, daughter o f William Staunton, which would make her Miss R. Staunton, o f course. Goochland County, formed in 1727 and 1728 from Henrico County, was named in honor of Sir William Gooch and the city o f Staunton in the Shenandoah Valley was named in honor of Lady Rebecca Staunton Gooch. Donald J. Orth, executive secretary, domestic geographic names o f the U. S. Board on Geo­ graphic Names, stated, “To my knowledge, the Roanoke River/Staunton River decision o f the Board on Geographic Names is the only case where two names were officially recognized for the same part o f a stream. I am not sure o f this, but it is the only one that I or the staff can remember. Short o f going through about 100,000 decisions, we have to rely on our memories. There are, o f course, cases where the same stream or body o f water changes its name after crossing a state line. The Chattahoochie River be­ comes the Appalachicola River in Floria and Tramperos Creek in New Mexico becomes Punta de Agua Creek when it flows into Texas. There are others.” 66 • �Communities, individuals and events, along with place names along the stream add color to the historic stream. Just after the merger of Back Creek into the Roanoke River, the first community in Bedford County is Hardy, which is at the extreme upper end o f Smith Mountain Lake. Hardy was named for Robert Hardy, who bought 528 acres where the village now stands, in 1803. He laid off a town and in 1818 sold lots which were recorded as being in the town o f Hardyville. According to legend, perhaps the most famous person to visit, or live briefly in the community, was Frank James, who with his broth­ er, Jesse, was famous in their days. Older residents tell o f James, under another name, having wintered there, probably in the 1870s when the fame o f the James gang was still nationwide. The explanation offered is that the brothers and friends found it prudent to disband for a time, to scatter and spend a little time in distant parts of the country under assumed names. He is said to have spent the winter on the farm o f James G. Kasey, who in the late 1860s and early 1879s was sheriff and treasurer o f Bedford County. The Kasey farm is on a bluff just above Bay Roc marina on the lake. Goodview, next community on the lake, going east, derived its name from the good view from that area. The community o f Moneta was settled in 1880 with the post office established in 1886. John A. Thaxton was the first postmaster and his wife, Mrs. Mildred Frances Board Thaxton, suggested “Mo­ neta” as the name for the new community, derived from the Indian name, “Moneton.” South o f Moneta on the old Rocky Mount-Lynchburg Turnpike (now Route 122) was the Hale’s Ford settlement on the river at the Bedford-Franklin County line. The present bridge over the lake, opened in 1962, is a 1,035-foot span, 137 feet above the old normal water level o f the stream. Nicholas Hale Jr. and his son, Nicholas Hale III, had large holdings along the river and the ford over the river and Hale’s Old Mill Creek, nearby, took their name from this father and son. The earliest Bedford County deed for the Hales was in 1758. By marriage, the Hale family is related to the Claiborne family which has played a part in the political life o f the eastern United States since the late 1700s. Nathaniel Herbert Claiborne was bom in Sussex County in 1777 and lived at his estate, Claibrooke, near present Route 220, north o f Rocky Mount. He served in the House o f Delegates in 1809-1812, in the State Senate from 1821 to 1825 and in the House o f Representatives in Washington from 1825 to 1837. He was a brother o f W. C. C. Claiborne, who served in the House o f Representa­ tives, as governor o f the Territory o f Mississippi, governor o f the Territory o f the Orleans, governor o f Louisiana and served in the U. S. Senate. Nathaniel H. Claiborne died near Rocky Mount in 1859 and is buried at his Clalibome estate. Descendants o f the Claiborne family now serving in Congress are Rep. Corinne (Lindy) Boggs o f Louisiana, (widow o f Rep. T. Hale Boggs) and Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island. About a mile below Hale’s Ford is the Powell farm, now owned by Dr. Warren Moorman o f Sa­ lem. This was the farm o f Llewlyn H. Powell, a former treasurer o f Franklin County. The slaves owned by the Powell family assumed the Powell name when they were set free. Adam Clayton Powell Sr. was bom on this farm on May 5, 1865 and his father is buried in a plot behind the Powell/Moorman home. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., was bom in 1908 in New Haven, Conn., and served in Congress from 1945 to 1971 from New York State. He died in 1972 in Miami, Fla., and his ashes were scattered over Bimini Island in the Bahamas, which was his home in his last years. A few miles north o f the Powell/Moorman farm is the birthplace o f Booker T. Washington, black educator. He was bom April 5, 1856, on the plantation o f James and Elizabeth Burroughs. His mother was Jane Ferguson. After slaves were set free, the family went to Malden, West Va., where he worked in the mines. He was educated at Hampton and founded Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Ala., in 1881. He died Nov. 14, 1915, in Tuskegee and he was buried on the campus o f the school he founded. In 1957, his birthplace was established by the Department o f Interior as Booker T. Washington National Monument. James Burroughs is buried on a knoll above the visitor center at the monument; his wife is buried some 20 miles away, northeast o f Body Camp, near the old turnpike. Route 122, running from Big Island on •67* �Back Creek (right) flows into the Roanoke (Staunton) River below the former Explore Park at the intersection of Roanoke, Franklin and Bedford counties. At this point, the Roanoke River becomes the Staunton River. (Photo by George Kegley) the James River across Bedford and Franklin counties to Rocky Mount, is designated the Booker T. Washington Memorial Highway. Downstream on the Bedford County side o f the lake was located Ivy Cliffs, the Saunders home, which is now under water.This was the home o f Daniel Green and Frances Boone Leftwich Saunders, who had previously lived across the river in Pittsylvania County. While living in Pittsylvania, a son, W. Boone, was bom Sept. 12, 1878. While he was a small child, his parents moved to the Ivy Cliff estate where he spent his childhood. He resided in Gillette, Wyo., and was engaged in lumber business in Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska. He was active in the Democratic party and served in the Wyoming House o f Representatives and State Senate, where he was president and served as acting governor. He was on a committee o f three members o f the Wyoming legislature appointed to inform Mrs. Nellie Taylor, elected governor in 1924, that the House was organized and ready to meet and hear her message. Mrs. Ross replied to the committee, “You are making history. The first committee to notify the first woman governor.” Saunders died Aug. 23, 1968 in Gillette, Wyo., and was buried in that city. A neighboring farm to Ivy Cliffs was The Big House, known as the Cunningham-Saunders farm. Among those buried in the family cemetery, now in the Smith Mountain Lake State Park, is James Goob Saunders and his wife, Mattie Dudley Saunders. J. Goob Saunders was a Confederate veteran o f the War Between the States and a Franklin County surveyor. In 1883, when the Northern Pacific Railroad was built through the Dakota Territory, he moved his family to that section, homesteading in Dickinson County. He was deputy U.S, surveyor for government lands in Dakota Territory and surveyed the bound­ ary that separated what later (1889) became North Dakota and South Dakota. He served as clerk o f Stark County, N. Dak., from 1897 until his retirement in 1913. He was bom July 26, 1841 and died Oct. 15, 1914. In the gap o f Smith’s Mountain is the dam creating Smith Mountain Lake, the largest lake within the state. The idea o f a dam in the gap dates to 1924 and it reached reality with its completion in 1966. The dam in the gorge is 227 feet high, 816 feet long, 2 feet thick at the base and 10 feet thick at the top. It has a 500-mile shore line and covers 20,000 acres. Smith Mountain Lake State Park, on the Bedford County side o f the lake, was opened in 1983. It covers 1,227 acres with a 16-mile shore line. 68 �Just below the gap was located the Saponi Indian village, with the chief’s residence at Pintakoe, near present Leesville. It was through this gap on Sept. 1, 1671 that Capt. Abraham (Abram) Wood led an exhibition o f four white men— Thomas Batts, Thomas Woods, Robert Fallam and John Weason— their guide, Chief Perecute, an Appomattox Indian, and seven other Indians into the wilderness, which resulted in their discovery o f New River (later research discovered the names were Thomas Batte and Robert Hallam). The last community in Bedford County in the lower lake area is Huddleston. In desiring to honor the man for whom it was named, his name was misspelled. The village on Goode Creek was first known as Claytor and it grew with the construction o f the Virginian Railway (later acquired by the Norfolk and Western Railway, now the Norfolk Southern Railway). A post office was opened Aug. 28, 1909, known as Updike, with David Updike as postmaster. The community name was changed Feb. 24, 1910, to Hud­ dleston to honor Henry Huttleston Rogers, builder o f the Virginian Railway. The Virginian Railway had the distinction o f being the only relatively large railroad ever con­ structed via the personal means o f one man. Rogers built a fortune with the Standard Oil Co., in oil pro­ duction, transportation, copper, gas, railroad and banking interests. With the coal developments in West Virginia, he became interested in a rail line from the coal fields to the seacoast and from this came the old Virginia Railroad Co. The Deepwater Railway Co. was entered in West Virginia court records Jan. 25, 1898; in 1902 the charter was amended to go to the Virginia state line. On. Feb. 13, 1904, the Tide­ water Railway Co. was chartered in Virginia. The Deepwater and Tidewater lines were merged March 8, 1907, becoming the Virginian Railway Co. Thus Rogers’ dream o f a rail line 443 miles from from Deepwater, W. Va., through Southside Virginia to Sewell’s Point at Norfolk became a reality. The first passenger service on the Virginian line from Roanoke to Norfolk began July 1, 1909, and the last passenger service on the line was on Jan. 29, 1956. On Dec. 1, 1959, the Virginian line was merged into the Norfolk and Western Railway System. Henry H. Rogers, the founder, was bom Jan. 29, 1840 in Mattapoisett, Mass., son o f Rowland and Mary Eldridge Huttleston Rogers, being a descendant o f Thomas Rogers, one o f the 101 passengers on the Mayflower. He was twice married. His first wife, who died in 1894, was Abbie Palmer Gifford, the mother o f his five children. In 1896, he married Mrs. Emelie Augusta Randel Hart. He did not live to see passenger service put into operation on his railroad although he was through the area on an inspection trip April 5, 1909. As he was preparing to go to his office on May 19, 1909, he suffered a heart attack at his New York City home and died. He is buried in Riverside Cemetery in Fairhaven, Mass. The eastern-most Campbell County community on the river is Leesville. The village near the junction o f Goose Creek into the river derives its name from John Lee, who bought land in 1793 from Capt. Jacobus Early and in 1818 laid o ff lots for building a town. It is just upstream from the village that the Leesville Lake dam was built, completed in 1964. The dam is 90 feet from the riverbed, 920 feet in length, with an area of approximately 3,400 acres and a 100-mile shoreline. The waters o f Leesville Lake back up to the base o f the Smith Mountain Lake dam. Between 1845 and 1848, efforts were attempted in the Virginia General Assembly to create a new county to be named Staunton, with Leesville as the county seat. This county was to be composed o f sections of Bedford, Campbell and Pittsylvania counties in that area. In the 1845-1846 session o f the House o f Delegates, a petition from the Committee o f Propositions and Grievances presented a report on the petition which in its conclusion read, “that the prayer o f said petitioners be rejected for failure to comply with the requisites of the law in relation to the formation o f new counties.” In the 1847-1848 session, the matter was again brought before the House o f Delegates. Del. James Lanier o f Pittsylvania County remonstrating against the formation o f a new county. Del. William P. Burwell o f Bedford County also presented a memorial from citizens of Bedford County remonstrating against the formation o f a new county. At the Feb. 3, 1848 session, on motion o f Del. Lanier, it was ordered that the Committee o f • 69 • �Propositions and Grievances be discharged from the petition o f the citizens o f the three counties for the formation o f a new county and the issue was laid on the table. The Southern Railway operated a line that passed through the present site o f Altavista and it was the construction o f the Virginian Railway that started the growth o f the community. The Lane Brothers Co. in 1905 was awarded a contract for a section in Bedford and Campbell counties. Noting the Virgin­ ian would cross the north-south Southern line, they purchased land in the area and began the develop­ ment o f Lane Siding, which was later changed to Altavista because o f the high view. Across the river, south o f Altavista, was the settlement known as Staunton River Valley, which was developed by John I. Hurt and the name was later changed to Hurt to honor his family. Farther downstream in Campbell County is the Long Island community whose name comes from an island in the river. Near the Halifax and Charlotte County lines is Brookneal, situated between Falling and Staunton rivers. Its name is derived from the intermarriage o f the Brooks and Neal families in the area. A major engagement o f the Civil War was fought June 25, 1864 at the railroad bridge over the Staunton River near Wylliesburg in Charlotte County. The bridge was held by a body o f Confederate reserves and veterans from Charlotte, Halifax and Mecklenburg counties against Union cavalry forces raiding to destroy railroads. The names “Roanoke” and “Staunton” vary in use, especially in Charlotte County. One particu­ lar instance is the two churches on Route 678, about two miles apart. They are Roanoke Presbyterian Church, established in 1848, and Staunton River Baptist Church, established in 1893. The land they are on is regarded as once having been part o f the vast Staunton Hill estate o f the Bruce family Red Hill, the estate and burial place o f the statesman, Patrick Henry, is just east o f Brookneal. Another o f his estates was Seven Islands, across the river from Brookneal in Halifax County. Henry was bom in 1736 in Hanover County and was a delegate from Virginia to the Continental Congress in 1774-1776. He had served in the House o f Burgesses in 1765, as Virginia governor twice, 17761-1779 and 1784-1786, and in 1794 declined appointments to the U.S. Senate as well as secretary o f state, chief justice o f the U.S. Supreme Court and minister to France. In 1799, he was elected to the State Senate but he did not take his seat. He moved to Red Hill in 1796 and died there on June 6, 1799. The Bmce family estate, Staunton Hill, a replica o f the Bruce ancestral castle in Scotland, was one o f the largest estates in Virginia and the home o f state, national and international leaders. It sits on a bluff above the river, east o f Brookneal. The mansion was built in the early 1800s by Charles Bruce on lands he had received from his father, James Bmce. William Cabell Brace, a son o f Charles Bmce, was bom at Staunton Hill on March 12, 1860, and was educated in Nelson County, the University of Virginia, the College o f William and Mary and the University o f Maryland Law School in Baltimore. He served in the Maryland State Senate in 1894-1896 and the U.S. Senate from Maryland in 1923-1929. He died May 9, 1946, in Ruxton, Md., and is buried in St. Thomas Episcopal Church Cemetery in Garrison, Md. His son, David K. E. Bmce, was one o f the nation’s most distinguished diplomats. David Bmce was bom Feb. 12, 1898, in Baltimore and was educated at Princeton University and the University of Virginia. After service in the Army in World War I, he studied at the University o f Maryland, entering public life in 1924. He was a member o f the Maryland House o f Delegates in 1924-1926. He was assis­ tant secretary o f Commerce in 1947-1948, ambassador to France in 1949-1952, undersecretary o f state in 1952-1953, ambassador to West Germany inl957-1959, ambassador to Great Britain in 1961-1969, representative to the Vietnam peace talks in Paris in 1970-1971, liaison office to the People’s Republic o f China in 1973-1974, and ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 19711976. David Bmce was a member o f the Virginia House o f Delegates, representing Charlotte County, in 1940-1942. He was awarded the Medal o f Freedom by President Gerald Ford. He suffered a heart attack • 70 • �and died Dec. 5, 1977, in Washington and is buried there. His son, David S. Bruce, owns and resides at Staunton Hill. Downstream was the Roanoke estate o f John Randolph, another national political figure. He was bom in Prince George County in 1773 and educated in Orange County, the College o f William and Mary, College o f New Jersey (now Princeton University), and Columbia College in New York City. He served in the House o f Representatives at various times, 1799-1813, 1815-1817, 1819-1825, when he resigned after he was appointed to the U. S. Senate, and again in the House, 1827-1829. He also served in the U.S. Senate from March 4, 1833, until his death two months later in Philadelphia. He was buried on his Roanoke plantation and later reinterred in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond. As the stream enters the John H. Kerr (Buggs Island) reservoir, the last community on the river in Virginia is Clarksville, named for Clark Royster, who was a land owner in the area when Clarksville was founded in 1818. The John H. Kerr Dam, often referred to as Buggs Island reservoir and lake because o f the 169acre island just downstream from the dam, is in Mecklenburg County as the stream enters North Caro­ lina. Construction on the dam began in 1946 and was completed in 1953. The lake covers 50,000 acres, extends 39 miles upstream and has a 800-mile shoreline. It was named for John H. Kerr o f Warrenton, N.C., who was active in the construction efforts. Kerr, who lived from 1873 to 1958, served in the House o f Representatives from North Carolina from 1923 to 1953. As the river enters North Carolina, the Roanoke name is resumed and the water o f the reservoir is known as Lake Gaston as the stream approaches Roanoke Rapids. Bibliography R u t h H . E a r l y . C a m p b e l l C h r o n i c l e s a n d F a m i l y S k e t c h e s , L y n c h b u r g , V a ., J .P . B e l l C o . , 1 9 2 7 D i a n e P o p e k , T r a c k s a l o n g t h e S t a u n t o n , A l t a v i s t a , V a ., A l t a v i s t a P r i n t i n g C o ., A l t a v i s t a , V a ., 1 9 8 4 B a r r y M a c k in to s h , B o o k e r T . W a s h in g to n , W a s h in g to n , D .C ., U .S . D e p a r tm e n t o f th e I n te r io r , 1 9 7 2 P h i l i p L . S c r u g g s , T h e H i s t o r y o f L y n c h b u r g , V i r g i n i a , 1 7 8 6 - 1 9 4 6 , L y n c h b u r g , V a ., J .P . B e l l C o . , 1 9 7 2 H e r m a n G i n t h e r , C a p t a i n S t a u n t o n ’s R i v e r , R i c h m o n d , V a . , T h e D i e t z P r e s s , 1 9 6 8 H is to r ic a l C o m m itte e o f th e B ic e n te n n ia l C o m m is s io n o f C a m p b e ll C o u n ty , V irg in ia , L e s t it b e F o r g o tte n , A S c r a p b o o k o f C a m p b e l l C o u n t y , V ir g i n i a , A l t a v i s t a , V a ., A l t a v i s t a P r i n t i n g C o ., 1 9 7 6 W illia m B y rd , H is to rie s o f th e D iv id in g L in e b e tw ix t V irg in ia a n d N o r th C a ro lin a , N e w Y o r k , N .Y ., D o v e r P u b l i ­ c a tio n s , I n c ., 1 9 6 7 , ( w ith in tr o d u c tio n a n d n o te s b y W illia m K . B o y d ) M a u d C a r t e r C l e m e n t , F r o n t i e r s A l o n g t h e U p p e r R o a n o k e R i v e r , 1 7 4 0 - 1 7 7 6 , L y n c h b u r g , V a ., J .P . B e l l C o . , 1 9 6 4 E . G r i f f i t h D o d s o n , T h e G e n e r a l A s s e m b l y o f t h e C o m m o n w e a l t h o f V ir g in i a , 1 9 4 0 - 1 9 6 0 , R i c h m o n d , V a ., s t a t e p u b lic a tio n , 1 9 6 1 L u l a J e t e r P a r k e r , T h e H i s t o r y o f B e d f o r d C o u n t y , V i r g i n i a , B e d f o r d , V a ., T h e B e d f o r d D e m o c r a t , 1 9 5 4 Newspapers: T h e B e d fo rd D e m o c ra t (la te r T h e B e d fo rd B u lle tin -D e m o c ra t, n o w T h e B e d fo rd B u lle tin ), B e d fo rd , V a. T h e R o a n o k e T im e s (n o w T h e R o a n o k e T im e s & W o rld -N e w s ), R o a n o k e , V a. Other sources: S ta te H is to r ic a l M a r k e r s o f V irg in ia , S ta te D e p a r tm e n t o f C o n s e r v a tio n a n d D e v e lo p m e n t, 6 th e d itio n , 1 9 4 8 B io g r a p h ic a l D ir e c to r y o f th e A m e r ic a n C o n g r e s s , 1 7 7 4 - 1 9 7 1 , U .S . G o v e r n m e n t P r in tin g O ffic e J o u rn a l o f th e H o u s e o f D e le g a te s o f V irg in ia S e s s io n o f 1 8 4 7 -1 8 4 8 J o u rn a l o f th e H o u s e o f D e le g a te s o f V irg in ia S e s s io n o f 1 8 4 5 -1 8 4 6 W a te r R e s o u r c e s D e v e lo p m e n t in N o r t h C a r o lin a 1 9 8 1 , U .S . A r m y C o r p s o f E n g in e e r s • 71 • �t&e 'Ttonfai& ‘Tfleatenn, cn 7R.unal by D avid R. Stephenson Winston Link was busy during the days surrounding Christmas 1957. The clock was running O out for steam on the Bristol line passenger trains and the last runs through that part o f Virginia were scheduled for Dec. 31. Link did not have a lot o f time to spare for photos or recordings. On Dec. 18, he was in Rural Retreat, recording Train 17. No photos were taken. From Dec. 19 through Dec. 23, Link was in Max Meadows and took lots o f pictures but he didn’t make any recordings. On Dec. 24, Link started by recording Train 46 at Wytheville and Train 42 at Max Meadows. Late Christmas Eve, he worked his way south to catch the chimes o f Grace Lutheran Church in Rural Retreat. The recording at Rural Retreat wasn’t to his liking. He noted, “Auto sounds should come out. N ot good for anything.” Still, Link must have heard and seen something worth remembering, because on Dec. 26 he was back in Rural Retreat and took four pictures. (In his numbering system these were photographs NW 1628-1631). He concentrated on the photo setup , and no recordings were made. He posed Dallas Newman and his daughter, Elizabeth, on the station platform and photographed westbound Train 17. He requested a slow order past the station for eastbound Train 42, with lots o f white steam and smoke. Engineer W.W. Rickey, fireman Doug Wohlford and Class J603 delivered on that re­ quest; Link captured it all! The photo published here for the first time, may be the most visually dramatic o f all Link’s photos at Rural Retreat. Better yet, Mr. Wohlford is clearly visible in the cab window. However, Link was still not satisfied. He had one more idea in mind before he had to move on to other locations. There were only five days left. Link returned to Rural Retreat on Dec. 27 with a plan to put all the pieces together: chimes, train and people. There were seven artists at work that night: Link (cameras), Roy Zider (recorder), Mrs. J.E. Dodson (chimes), J.L. Akers (lantern), C.H. Hartshock (the passenger who got off the train) and the crew on Class J 603. Those combined forces gave us what is likely the most memorable steam railroad recording ever made. D avid R. Stephenson, a retired engineer who worked on railroad cases fo r the Interstate Commerce Commis­ sion, is a devoted railroad history follower who lives at Reston and often works with the Norfolk and Western Railway Historical Society in Roanoke. He wrote this article about fam ed railroad photographer O. Winston Link, fo r the society’s publication, The Arrow. 72 �Train 17, the Birmingham Special, was racing away from the depot at Rural Retreat on Dec. 27, 1957, when O. Winston Link took this famous picture. (Photo courtesy o f O. Winston Link Museum) But wait a minute. This recording has always been “9:39 p.m. on Christmas Eve 1957 in Rural Retreat, Virginia” in the liner notes for all versions o f The Fading Giant, yet it was made three days later. Did Link try to put one over on us? I don’t think so. Okay, so it w asn’t recorded on Christmas Eve; that’s a matter o f history in Link’s own handwrit­ ing. But the recording is much more than just a day on the calendar. Link’s “Christmas Eve in Rural Retreat” is what he wanted us to remember: carols from the nearby church, the distant whistle and ap­ proach o f The Pelican, and the wonderfully long departure as 603 continues into the night. The sounds are transcendent. It’s really Christmas Eve anywhere we want it to be. The recording doesn’t need a location or a date or a time. Listen and you’re there. 73 �S u feftw t öcct May 2012 Dear Friends, We hope that you have enjoyed this edition of the Historical Society of Western Virginia’s Journal. As you may know, this work is supported by the Kegley Publication Fund, which was established in 2003 in memory of F.B. Kegley of Wythe County, author o f Kegley’s Virginia Frontier. This fund now provides support to the Historical Society to promote regional history publications about Western Virginia. Over the years, the Kegley Publication Fund has provided the Historical Society with start-up capital to produce and sell for profit books and other board-approved manuscripts such as O. Winston Link: The Man and the Museum, Notable Women West of the Blue Ridge 1850-1950, and Nineteenth-Century Brick Architecture in the Roanoke Valley and Beyond: Discovering the True Legacy of the Deyerle Builders, by Michael Pulice. The earnings from sales are then re-invested into the Fund. We would appreciate your financial support of this important work. Please consider mak­ ing a contribution to the Kegley Publication Fund today. Sincerely, Jeanne M. Bollendorf Executive Director • 74• �'ityi&twc&zl S o ciety “TOectenu ‘Vinytttca, YES, I want to support the Society’s Kegley Publications Fund with the following gift: ___$50 ___$100 ___$250 ___$500 Other: $ ___________________ Name________________________________________________________________ (as to be listed in print) Address___________________________________________________________________________ Phone/Email___________________________________________________________________ _ I will fulfill my/our gift with: ___An enclosed check (make payable to the Historical Society of Western Virginia) ___A Credit Card Payment: Card Number_______________________________________________________________________ Exp. 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Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia 2011 Volume 20, Number 1 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include:<br />An Interview with Carter Burgess<br />Where was Totera Town? A Review<br />S.H. McVitty's Collection of Presidential Signatures<br />S.H. McVitty: Industrialist, Philanthropist, Collector<br />The Late, Great Cattle Battle<br />The Two Michael Kinsers<br />Goose Creek: A Lasting Resource for Bedford County<br />Patience, Persistence, and Preservation: The Valley Railroad Bridge Over Gish Branch in Salem<br />The River with Two Names: Roanoke/Staunton<br />Christmas Eve on the Norfolk &amp; Western in Rural Retreat Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_20_01_2011 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6369/JHSWV_20_02_2012.pdf bfe0111ce55e03bdec87b9a572c22c85 PDF Text Text i V U . 2 0 T U . �*i¥iâtonicat S o ciety ‘Ti/edena *Vt Amor montium nos movet (For the love o f mountains inspires us) Katherine W atts............................ President Natalie N orris........................... Vice President Dr. Nancy W arren............................... Secretary Elizabeth K. H am m ond...... . Treasurer . Jeanne Bollendorf..............Executive Director ■ i m mmSSSBSB Alison Stone Blanton Ben Chapman Wilburn Dibling Jr. Louise Forsyth Rev. Nelson Harris David G. Helmer Scott Hengerer William E. Honeycutt Jim Humphrey Dr. John Kern & O ie c to n & Sara S. Airheart Barbara B. Lemon David H. Burrows George Kegley Editor o f the Journal Christina Koomen Production, Editorial Assistant George A. “Al” McLean Gwen Mason Tommy Moore Charles Price Linda Thornton S * t& U U Philip H. Lemon George A. Kegley Edgar V. Wheeler The Journal, Vol. XX, No. 2, chronicles the history o f the Commonwealth west o f the Blue Ridge. It is published by the Historical Society o f Western Virginia (formerly the Roanoke Historical Society), P. O. Box 1904, Roanoke, Va. 24008. The price for additional copies is $5 for members and $10 for others. The Society welcomes unsolicited ma­ terial but submissions cannot be returned and the Society cannot be responsible for damage or loss. �1 frcuye 5 fKzye 6 Director’s Message The New Day at Appomattox by D r. James I. “B ud” Robertson Jr. fazye 10 1 fioye 12 Rare Lee letter tells of ‘thinning ranks’ George S. Bernard on the causes of the Civil War by John Selby o-£ & d a t e a t e I fazye 12 1 An ‘army of many colors’ trains near Salem in 1863 by Nelson Harris fauye 3 7 Hollins Institute prepares for ‘a new civilization’ in 1864 by Nelson Harris ^ E 1 Slaves mustered as soldiers in 1865 a by Nelson Harris jf ^ B Women at war by Elizabeth R. Varon 111 1 fiayv 4 2 ‘I wish this war was over’: Mollie Terry’s letters i i & ‘To the fatal field of Appomattox’: A history of the Salem Flying Artillery i ¡1 A ‘demonstration’ at Hanging Rock by John Long by Clive Rice The Battle of Cloyd’s Mountain: A railroad, salt works and lead mine by Jessee Ring 1 I fuuye 71 Saltville during the Civil War by Roger Allison, Jim Glanville and Harry Haynes e9*cU*tuecl o*t next fiatye On the cover: An advance o f the Army o f the Potomac, sketched by Alfred R. Waud. •3 �$6 Wythe Grays: Harpers Ferry and beyond c a n t ’d 97 , by M ark D. Baldwin, D.O., and Stephen A. Smoot, B.A., M.A., PhD, 102 Confederate, Union sisters deplore war by Mary B. Kegley Union officer, future president, forced to retreat in Giles by George A. “A l” McLean 105 ¿aye. 109 ‘Cleaning up’ the Confederacy: Frank Smith Reader’s 1864 Civil War diary Three Wythe County soldiers with different fates by George Kegley 112 Support Our History This daguerreotype o f Pvt. William R. Bryant is in the History Museum’s collections. Bryant, who came from the Big Lick area, enlisted in Company I, 28th Virginia Infantry, serving under Col. William Watts. He lost his right leg in battle at Petersburg in April 1865. 4 �^Dcncctm 4 ‘THeá&zye - Society plans two Civil War exhibits 2012 marks the second year o f the five-year commemoration o f the 150th Anniversary (Sesquicentennial) o f the American Civil War in Virginia. What is the Sesquicentennial? The General Assem bly created a special commission to honor and commemorate this important anniversary. The goals o f the commission are to create a traveling exhibition (“An American Turning Point”), host signature conferences and educational programs, encourage battlefield preservation, and work with municipalities to coordinate statewide commemoration efforts. The Historical Society is chairing a regional committee includ­ ing groups from Roanoke County, Franklin County, Botetourt County and Floyd County to create interesting events and market those events throughout this five-year anniversary. Due to renovations at the History Museum, the signature project for us in 2012 is this special-edition Civil War Journal. Inside you’ll discover some classic articles alongside new research. 2013 w ill be a big year for events in Roanoke with multiple Civil War themed events and two important exhibitions at the History Museum and the O. Winston Link Museum. “An American Turning Point,” curated by the Virginia Historical Society, w ill open at the History Museum in June. This amazing exhibition tells the story o f the battleffont and the home front during this tumultuous period in Virginia. “State o f the Union” by Gregg Segal w ill also open in June, at the O. Winston Link Museum. This photography exhibition highlights the importance o f Civil War battlefield preservation by contrasting historic sites with commercial development. An integral part o f our outreach includes technology and last year w e launched a new website for the History Museum: www.vahistorymuseum.org. This year w e are launching a new website for the Historical Society — www.westemvahistory.org — and many o f our publications are now available for purchase online. We have joined the social net­ working culture and are now on Facebook. And o f course, w e are still working tirelessly on the Virtual Collections project. We are looking forward to seeing you in May when the History Museum once again opens its doors in the spectacularly refurbished Center in the Square — do drop in! Jeanne M. Bollendorf Executive Director •5 • �Sign at the Museum o f the Confederacy-Appomattox. (Linda Lipscomb photo courtesy o f the museum) by Dr. Jam es I. “B ud” Robertson Jr. Probably no name in all of Civil War history is more familiar than Appomattox. Here it all ended; here it all began. Here, on Palm Sunday, 1865, two gentlemen basically declared: “In the name o f God, this is enough. America’s bloodiest war came to an end. Simultaneously, at Appomattox the union o f states at last became reality. Modem America — the nation in which we live — came to pass. Thus, Appomattox is more a birthplace than a cemetery. We meet together today for several reasons. First, of course, is to unveil a monument to a legacy bequeathed to us on these grounds by men of another age. We gather here as well to dedicate a memo­ rial to those who gave of themselves for the simple aim of making freedom and union one and the same Most obviously have we come here to open a museum that for ages will remind not merely us, but the world, that patriotism is an inherited necessity in any country. The fighting on these grounds in the spring o f 1865 was minimal, but the feelings are timeess. Virginia was one vast graveyard as the two opposing armies converged on the courthouse. Union Dr. James I. Bud”Robertson Jr., a leading Civil War author/teacher, gave these remarks at the dedication o f the Museum o f the Confederacy-Appomattox on March 31, 2012. They are used with permission o f the Museum o f the Confederacy Magazine and the author. Robertson, author o f two dozen books on the Civil War, is Alumni Distinguished Professor Emeritus o f Virginia Tech. 6 �forces were swirling around Robert E. Lee’s ever-weakening columns. On April 7, Chaplain Hallock Armstrong o f the 50th Pennsylvania wrote his wife: “We are picking up Rebs every hour. They are thicker than squirrels in the woods and make as little resistance.... They are dirty, crestfallen, haggard, and nearly starved. Our boys ... are very kind to them.... They have few garments to throw away. Their destitution is pitiful. Many are bare footed.” A Confederate across the way recalled o f the same period: “During the last days o f the retreat, attack came from every quarter, and the days and nights alike were spent in marching and fighting. There was not opportunity for sleep, and of food there was none. Suspense, despair, exposure, famine and want o f sleep caused men whose weak bodies could not sustain their dauntless souls to lie down on the road­ side to await the coming o f death” from exhaustion. After the surrender, Lt. David Champion o f the 14th Georgia stated: “To some it was a sad occa­ sion and to others a joyous one. Some [soldiers] wept like children, some cursed, and some were joyful that the inevitable had at last occurred. After the surrender o f our guns, the Yankees came over to our camps, mixing and talking freely with us.... Not at any time after th a t... did I hear a single discourteous remark made to a Confederate.” So it ended; so it began. The Civil War produced the nation we know and love. O f course, the healing process would take time. Yet it was a healing process, not an ongoing bitterness that saps the very life out o f a struggling country. Much o f the brotherhood you and I have came from the soldiers who shared that war and, in doing so, came to realize that underneath the strong passions o f the time, they were all Americans. Johnny Rebs never apologized for what they had done, and Billy Yanks never asked them to do so. The unity o f North and South today, after a war that consumed as many as three-quarters o f a million people, borders on a miracle. It has never occurred before, and not likely ever to happen again. That is why Appomattox, and this museum, looms large in the Republic’s conscience. Today a nationwide spotlight gleams on this section o f Virginia and the historic jewel that is being unveiled. We welcome this exhibition hall and what assets it brings to the central piedmont. A number o f facts under­ score its importance, as well as the inescapable value o f the time it honors. Virginia was the principal battlefield o f the Civil War. The Confederacy existed only as long as the state lived. Some 2,100 engagements took place inside Virginia’s borders. It lost a third o f its territo­ ry at the start. The remainder suffered more man-made destruction than has befallen any other sector o f the Western Hemisphere. One-fifth of all Confederate soldiers were Virginians. More than 30,000 sons o f the Old Dominion perished in that four-year struggle. Asking Virginians to forget those tragic facts is a request that lies between imbecility and insan­ ity. The past is the past. It is what we do with the past that matters. Several choices are possible. The first is to try and forget history. Yet turning one’s back on the past is suicidal. A good history student knows that any nation which forgets where it has been has no idea where it is going. The 3,000year chronicle o f man is firm on that principle. Secondly, one can choose to interpret the past according to individual feelings. Take the War o f 1812, as an example. The Americans think they won it. The Canadians know they won it. The British never heard of it. Similarly, from the Civil War came an end to slavery. From that war came the Emancipation Proclamation. We are talking about the same thing, but from two different directions. A more popular mishandling of history is to twist the facts to suit the present. Its followers pursue a number o f avenues: once-popular “political correctness” or the use o f “faction” — a new word meaning a work that is partly fact, partly fiction, with only the author knowing one from the other in the text. Such approaches are history’s greatest dangers. You cannot change the unchangeable. Distorting the past dishonors everyone involved. • 7• �Gens. Lee and Grant at the surrender. (Allen Austin photo courtesy o f the museum) Too many folks look at the past through the lenses o f the present and, blessed by 150 years of 20/20 hindsight, have the answer to all problems. That is dishonest behavior. Common sense should tell us all that if a real United States had existed in 1860, civil war would not have come. The all-powerful, all-inclusive federal government that now watches over every action except the inertia o f its own Con­ gress was a creation o f that war, not a factor when it began. The final alternative on what to do with the past is to remember it, to recognize both its warts and its beauty spots, and to use history for what it has always been: the greatest teacher we will ever have. Harry Truman, who stands among the five greatest o f American presidents, put it succinctly: “The great­ est news we can receive is the history we do not know.” Tourism remains one o f Virginia’s principal industries. Why should it not be so? We have more history than any other state. The first representative government met at Jamestown a year before the Massachu­ setts settlers had even spotted land. Central Virginia has long stood in the shadows o f Civil War history. No string o f major engage­ ments is here to attract notice. No interstate highway courses across Virginia’s belly and encourages sightseeing. Only a sprinkling o f Civil War sites has existed to draw tourists from afar. That is no longer the case, thanks to what is happening here today. For decades the Museum o f the Confederacy has evolved into one o f the nation’s leading Civil War depositories. The volume and depth o f its memorabilia is unmatched in Southern history. Yet the White House o f the Confederacy and its attendant archives in downtown Richmond dwelled for years in what might be called “respectful obscurity.” Fifty years ago, such a building as you see before you was not even a dream. A young graduate student visiting the museum went to the entrance o f the White House, which stood alone at the end o f Clay Street. In a cubby hole just to the left o f the front door reigned Miss India Thomas, a charming, •<9* �ageless matron who presided over a home in which the floor o f every room sagged from encased relics and bric-a-brac that would have made a flea-market manager salivate. A dozen items were jammed in space where one would have been comfortable. The researcher in those days went to the White House basement. There, in semi-darkness, were crowded shelves o f books, boxes stacked in the floor, card files o f every size lined against the wall, and unlabeled folders lying atop everything. There another spinster, Miss Eleanor Brockenbrough, oversaw the treasures. She did so with the vigilance o f Catherine the Great. If Miss Eleanor liked you, hours could be spent digesting incredibly rich collections. If Miss Eleanor did not like you... well seeing the catacomb was an unforgettable experience. What a shame those two devoted servants and treasured friends cannot be here today to witness a beautiful dividend from their years o f devoted service. We owe them much. We give them our collective thanks. Today — and for generations to come — what you see here is a collective effort by thousands of people contributing in scores o f different ways. To name them all is impossible, for this was truly team­ work on a gigantic scale. Even those in the principal roles are too many to mention. Yet Waite Rawls (president o f the Museum o f the Confederacy) must be recognized. He has given unwavering leadership to the Museum o f the Confederacy in often tumultuous times. Every American o f every age owes him a debt o f gratitude. And this building would not be here in Appomattox without the strong and steady sup­ port o f the William E. Jamerson family. They have been the Rock o f Gibraltar from beginning to end. To them, who have been genuine friends for many years, I express publicly my heartfelt humility that they wished to name part o f the facilities for my family. It is an honor I will forever cherish. In its 122-year history, the Museum o f the Confederacy has been established as the primary de­ pository for Confederate memorabilia ranging from uniforms and flags to belt buckles and camp equip­ ment. It also has a research library and photographic file that no serious student o f Southern history can overlook. As from the beginning, the museum’s holdings far exceed its physical capacity for displaying them all. Now the museum opens its first extension. It is a state-of-the-art structure with over 300 artifacts (some never before seen by the public), as well as audio-visual mechanics, classroom, temporary exhib­ its, gift shop and a security system o f equal quality with the contents it guards. This is a major addition to the present and future in central Virginia. It makes history easier for even the slowest learner. Reading about the past, o f course, is educational; watching things on a televi­ sion screen can occasionally have worthiness. But when one can see history in a glass case, hear words o f emotion emanate from relics o f yesteryear, or perhaps touch the past on an exhibit table, all o f one’s senses become involved in an unforgettable way. We can verily relive the Civil War and its lessons be­ cause a museum like this brings it so meaningfully alive. A half-century ago, Arkansas Sen. William Fulbright visited the Mother State and commented: “The air in Virginia is charged with reminders that the earth does not belong to the living alone; and the past does not come into being and then say farewell forever.” Virginians, the senator added with a twinge of envy, possess “a mystic sense o f a continuing contract between generations.” Here stands such a contract. Visit it often. Absorb its teachings. A survivor o f the Civil War ob­ served just before his death: “I do not despair o f the future. The march o f Providence is so slow, and our desires so im patient... The life o f humanity is so long, and that o f the individual so brief, that we often see only the ebb o f the advancing wave, and are thus discouraged.” We must not be, he added. “It is his­ tory that teaches us to hope.” The speaker was Robert E. Lee. Welcome to the Museum of the Confederacy at Appomattox. • 9• �fR e v te * & ee C e tte * te d & ‘t f c t u ttttfy Editor s Note: The text o f this 1863 letterfrom Gen. Robert E. Lee to his brother, Carter Lee o f Powhatan County, is published herefo r thefirst time. The letter is used with the permission o f the late Sen. William B. Hopkins o f Roanoke, a great-grandson o f Carter Lee. The original letter is in the possession o f another Lee descendant who lives in Florida. O a m p | jo o d j 2 4 M a y I M y d e a r b r o th e r ( g a rte r, 1 have b u t a fe w m om ents in w hich t o e x p re s s my th a n k s f o r y o u r k in d le tte r o f th e 2 i st. | u n ite w ith y o u in m o u rn in g a t th e d e a th o f G e n . J a c k s o n . A n y v ic to ry w o u ld b e d e a r t o us a t such a p ric e . S t i l l | am g r a te fu l t o A l mig h ty G ° d f o r ha vin g g ive n us such a man w h o se exam ple is le ft us a n d w h o se s p ir it | t r u s t w ill b e d iffu s e d o v e r th e w h o le C o n fe d e r a c y a n d will ra ise in th e arm y m any t o s u p p ly his p la ce . W h o can fill it, | d o n o t know . b u t he is a t re s t e n jo y in g th e re w a rd o f d u ty w ell d o n e . W o have s till t o s tru g g le on, o u r la b o u r re n d e re d m ore severe, m ore o n e r­ o u s b y his d e p a rtu re . | v e ry much re g re t th a t th e y u i'e t o f y o u r n e ig h b o rh o o d s h o u ld have be e n d is tu rb e d b y th e f o o ts te p s o f th e enem y. H e has fo r e v e r b ecom e s o n u m erous in c o m p a ris o n w ith o u rs e lv e s t h a t he seem s a b le t o g o a n yw h e re . ]n th e la s t b a ttle he e x c e e d e d us m ore th a n th re e t o o n e . A n excess o f o v e r o n e h u n d re d th o u s a n d men is fe a rfu l o d d s . G an n o t o u r g o o d c itiz e n s g e t b a c k t o us o u r s tra g g le rs a n d d a s ta rd s . O u r n o b le w o u n d e d re tu rn as s o o n as th e y can craw l. S orne on o n e le g a n d som e w ith o n e arm. b u t th e y com e t o d o w h a t th e y can. O u r ra n k s a re c o n s ta n tly th in n in g b y b a ttle a n d d ise a se a n d we g e t no re c ru its . Y o u c a n ju d g e th e r e fo r e o f th e p r o s p e c t o f d is p o s in g o f H o o k e r 's arm y as y o u p ro p o s e . | am re jo ic e d t o h e a r t h a t y o u a re all s o w ell a n d t h a t y o u b e a r y o u r p riv a tio n s s o b ra ve ly. | am s o rry th a t my little n e p h e w h a d t o d is p e n s e w ith his p e a s a n d s tra w b e rrie s o n his b irth d a y . T h e y will b e m ade up t o him | h o p e . b u t i f he m eets w ith no g r e a te r d is a p p o in tm e n ts he will d o well. J~ell all th e b o y s t o g e t th e ir h o e s a n d g o t o th e c o rn fie ld s — L a b o u r is th e th in g t o make s o ld ie rs . T h e y th e n will b e a b le t o d o th e ir s h a re w hen th e y b ecom e men. M is s M ild r e d m ust n o t g o in th e c o rn fie ld . S h e m ust g o in th e g a rd e n a n d live w ith th e v io le ts , th e lilies a n d th e ro se s. G iv e much love t o S 15 S u z y — te ll h e r t h a t she m u st g iv e me h e r p io u s p ra y e rs a n d th e p ra y e rs o f h e r h o u s e h o ld , b u t f o r a m e rc ifu l G o d we c o u ld d o n o th in g . H e is o u r o n ly a s s u ra n ce o f v ic to ry . T h in k o f th e h o s ts a g a in s t us — th e ir n u m e ro u s a p p o in tm e n ts a n d v a s t e q u ip m e n t in e ve ry co n c e iv a b le way. b u t f o r his b e in g o n o u r sid e , we m ust have fa ile d in e ve ry b a ttle , b u t as lo n g as he is f o r us j f e a r n o o d d s a g a in s t us. T r u l y y o u r b ro th e r, R -E , L e e C - C - L ee L s y s . •10» �11 �(fe&iye S. ^&uwict t6 e cact&ed t&e (^¿oii ‘Ti/an by John Selby eorge S. Bernard was an amateur historian. He was also a well-regarded lawyer in Petersburg, a former politi­ cian, a newspaper editor, a four-year veteran o f the Civil War, the son o f a respected judge, a book editor and a popular speaker on Civil War topics, especially to his beloved group of Confederate veterans, the A.P. Hill Camp o f Petersburg. Bom in Petersburg in 1837, Bernard had been educated in local schools, then sent off to the University o f Virginia, where he earned a bachelor’s degree and a law degree in the 1850s. He had briefly practiced law in his hometown before the war began, but when it did, he promptly joined up, serving four years in the 12th Virginia Volunteer Infantry company. A reli­ able and dutiful soldier, Bernard never rose above the rank o f sergeant, though with his education, sociability, intelligence and strong character he must have been asked to consider promotion on several occasions. He always insisted that others were better suited to command than he. W hen the war ended he returned to a devastated commu­ nity, where his prospects had declined since the war. He taught and worked at the Petersburg Express to make ends meet, but eventually his law practice revived to the point where it could sustain him. He would practice law in Petersburg for the next 47 years, still going to work at age 76 when he died in 1912. George S. Bernard For most o f that time he was a lead counsel for the Norfolk and Western Railroad Company. He served one term in the House o f Delegates, and two terms as commonwealth’s attorney for Petersburg. Like a small number o f Con­ federate veterans in Virginia, Bernard followed the political path o f his former commander, William Mahone, moving from Conservative to Readjuster to Republican between 1868 and 1888. His special cause became civil service reform, and he published a number o f articles on that topic in the 1880s. By 1888, however, his interest in politics had waned and his new interest in the war had blossomed. [ 1] G John Selby is the John R. Turbyfill Professor o f History at Roanoke College, the author o f “Virginians at War: The Civil War Experiences o f Seven Young Confederates ” and one o f three editors o f “Civil War Talks: Further Reminiscences o f George Bernard & His Fellow Virginians. ” 12 �Bernard was a founding member o f the A.P. Hill Camp o f Confederate veterans formed in Petersburg in December 1887. Turning his considerable energies away from politics and towards the study o f the war, Bernard gave numerous addresses to the members over the next 25 years, organized and managed the camp library, helped arrange for speakers to visit and newspapers to cover their talks, assisted in reunions o f Union and Confederate soldiers and pulled together a number o f speech­ es, letters and reports into a well-received book published locally in 1892, “War Talks o f Confeder­ ate Veterans” (still a useful source for students o f the war, especially those studying the Battle o f the Crater). He continued to collect speeches and correspondence on the war, going so far as to prepare a draft copy o f another book o f reminiscences that was never published (until 2012). He also used his wartime diary as the framework for a narrative history o f the war (from his perspective), which also was unpublished (until 2012). [2] By the late 1890s he was a sought-after speaker on the war, travel­ ing regionally to listen to battle stories and give talks on the war. In an age when there were no professional historians, only writers on history, Bernard slowly carved out a local reputation as an authority on the Civil War. While he gave numerous addresses on battles, campaigns, personalities and incidents in the war, in 1906 and 1907 he took a break from analysing the soldiers’ war to examining a more controversial issue, the causes o f the war. In two long addresses before his camp, one in December, the other in March, he walked his listeners through a de­ tailed history o f slavery, sectional differences and the role o f various events in the coming o f the war. Like any good historian, he announced his thesis straight away, not saving it for the conclusion in the breathless style o f a mystery. In the second sentence he spoke on the evening o f Friday, De­ cember 7, 1906, he told his audience, “That slavery was the paramount or leading cause o f difference between the people of the two sections o f the Union that culminated in the clash o f arms during that period o f four years cannot be doubted.” [2] He then proceeded to give his listeners a history o f slav­ ery from ancient times to the present, using an article from American Cyclopedia (1879 edition) as one o f his main sources. He concentrated on the 19th century, o f course, discussing the various views o f the slave trade, Supreme Court decisions, and the British role in the slave trade and its abolition. On Tuesday, December 11, the newspaper printed the remaining 27 paragraphs o f his speech. Here he made some arguments that must have pleased his audience. He posited that Virginia “and other states” would have followed the lead o f Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island and New Jersey in providing for gradual emancipation o f slaves, except that the “invention in 1793 o f Eli W hitney’s cotton gin made slavery very profitable in the Southern States and this fact was a most potential factor in checking the growing anti-slavery sentiment o f the country.” He then noted that a bill to emanci­ pate slave children was introduced into the Virginia House o f Delegates in 1832 (never passed), and provided a long quotation from Del. John Brown who argued that Virginia’s efforts to restrict slavery in colonial times were thwarted by the crown, and that in total, slavery was “forced upon us by a train o f events that could not be controlled.” [4] Bernard continued with this line o f reasoning by quoting from Virginia Sen. R.M.T. H unter’s speech to the Breckinridge Democratic State convention in 1860. Hunter said, “When I first entered the Federal councils, which was at the commencement o f Mr. Van Buren’s administration ... the Southern men themselves, with but few exceptions, admitted slavery to be a moral evil, and palliated and excused it upon the plea o f necessity.” Just 20 years later, though, white Southerners argued that “it is best for both that the inferior should be subject to the superior.” [5] W hat had happened? Ber­ nard devoted the rest o f his address to answering that question. In the next section o f his speech, Bernard carefully covered the Missouri Compromise o f 1820, showing how it seemed to satisfy the politicians on both sides. Using sources such as James G. Blaine’s “Twenty Years in Congress,” Thomas Hart Benton’s “Thirty Years View” and J.L.M. Curry’s “The South,” Bernard had prominent politicians explain how and why the Missouri Compromise worked. [6] •1 3 • �W hat Bernard strove to do would be completely familiar to modem historians. He set out his argument, gave a brief chronology o f what had happened, then used the works o f others to provide both expert and contemporary views on his subject. Even his topic, the role o f slavery in the coming o f the war, was not that unusual in the South o f his era. W hat was unusual was the emphasis he placed on the importance o f slavery as a cause o f the war. In his award-winning book, “Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory,” Yale historian David Blight argues that “no argument in the Lost Cause formula became more an article o f faith than the disclaimer against slavery as the cause o f the war.” [7] For Bernard, this was simply not tme. N ot only had the South embraced slavery (though fighting it, to a certain degree, up to the late 1830s), but slavery was the “param ount... cause o f differ­ ence between the people o f the two sections” that ultimately led to war. Still, the morality and con­ stitutionality o f slavery would be equally important issues to Bernard, and how he approached those could either reassure or unsettle his audience. Bernard delivered the second half o f his long address to the camp on Friday, March 1, 1907. That evening he methodically described a well-known series o f events that were linked in the his­ tory o f sectional disagreement: William Lloyd Garrison’s founding o f the Liberator, the rise o f the abolitionists, the Nat Turner rebellion, the Wilmot proviso, the Compromise o f 1850, the publica­ tion o f “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” the impact o f the Kansas-Nebraska Act o f 1854, the formation o f the Republican Party, the danger inherent in Hinton Rowan H elper’s “Impending Crisis,” the effect o f John Brown’s raid on Southern fears, secession and the final straw, Lincoln’s call for states to provide troops to put down the rebellion. For this long section he used some new sources: D.H. M ontgomery’s “American History,” Percy Greg’s “History o f the United States,” John William Jones’s “A School History o f the United States,” James Schouler’s “History o f the United States” (found in the W orld’s Best Histories series), and Edward Pollard’s “Southern History o f the War.” [8] Each book, with the exception o f M ontgomery’s, had a pro-Southern bias, so if his listeners were familiar with the authors, they would be reassured. Montgomery, however, was a different story. For example, in describing the alleged connection between Garrison’s Liberator and the Nat Turner rebellion in Virginia, he wrote that “many Southern people believed that Mr. Garrison’s object was j t is s a fe t o s a y t h a t t h e r e w a s n o t a m a n in t h e c o u n t r y , fr o m W a s h in g t o n t o H a m ilt o n o n t h e o n e s id e t o ( j e o r g e ( ^ J in t o n a n d ( j e o r g e f\/|a s o n o n t h e o t h e r , w h o r e c o g n iz e d t h e n e w s y s te m a s a n y t h in g h u t a n e x p e r im e n t e n t e r e d in t o h y t h e S t a t e s , a n d fr o m w h ic h e a c h a n d e v e ru .‘S t a t e — a r ig h t w h ic h w a s iiice ly t o b e e x e r c is e d . 14 e a c e a b iy t o w ith d r a w �to stir up the negroes to rise and murder their masters. There was not a grain o f truth in the belief, but it spread at the South and powerfully increased the excitement.” [9] Bernard did not challenge this assertion o f M ontgomery’s; instead, he cited it, then moved on to the next topic, the influence o f Garrison in the North. After that, he discussed the “gag rule” in Congress, the handling o f abolition­ ist literature in the mail, and the lack o f enforcement o f the fugitive slave clause in the Constitution. He finished this section o f his discussion with a lengthy quotation from Henry Cabot Lodge, senator from Massachusetts, who wrote in his biography o f Daniel Webster, “It is safe to say that there was not a man in the country, from Washington to Hamilton on the one side to George Clinton and George Mason on the other, who recognized the new system as anything but an experiment entered into by the States, and from which each and every State had the right peaceably to withdraw — a right which was likely to be exercised.” [10] Bernard had used Lodge’s judgment to foreshadow the last section o f his long speech, the sec­ tion that would ultimately reassure his audience. With such a lengthy address to publish, the newspa­ per again split the speech into two, the last half being published on Tuesday, M arch 26, 1907. Quoting at length from the two Congressmen, Blaine and Benton, Bernard charted the history o f the Wilmot proviso and the Compromise o f 1850. O f the latter, Bernard asserted that “the equilibrium in the Senate, was lost by the admission o f California, never afterwards to be restored, the free states now numbering sixteen and the slave states fifteen. The South was the loser in the compromise as in that o f 1820.” [11] Bernard then discussed the disunion convention o f 1850 (it failed), Calhoun’s “guaranteed equilibrium” solution, and the impact o f “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (1852). He wrote, “ [it] was read by hundreds o f thousands who got their ideas o f southern slavery from its exaggerated and altogether unfair presentation o f the subject. Probably no work o f fiction ever exerted so great an influence upon public opinion.” [12] This argument fell in line with what other Southerners were arguing at the time, though Bernard never delved into the daily life o f slaves, as some o f his contemporaries did. The true turning point for Bernard was the platform o f the new Republican Party in the presi­ dential election o f 1856. It specifically stated that “the Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign power o f the territories o f the United States for their government, and that in the exercise o f this pow­ er it is both the right and the duty o f Congress to prohibit in the territories the twin relics o f barbarism — Polygamy and Slavery.” As interpreted by Southern states, it became a “fixed belief that if the new party should elect its nominees, the slaveholding states owed it to themselves in that event to protect their interests by withdrawing from the Union.” He then cited four politicians, Rep. Keitt and Sen. Butler of South Carolina, Gov. Wise o f Virginia and Sen. Iverson o f Georgia, who said the same thing, in a more colorful way (Keitt: “if Fremont is elected, ADHERENCE TO THE UNION IS TREASON TO LIBERTY”). [13] Now the stage had been set for the final act. Though the Republicans lost the election o f 1856, the battle lines had been drawn. Bernard wrote o f the “failure” o f the non-intervention principle in the territories (commonly called “popular sovereignty” today), the rising anger in the North over the Dred Scott decision o f 1857, and that the “utterances” o f the “great leaders o f the Republican Party left no room for doubt as [to] the hostile purposes o f this party.” More fuel was added when 68 Republican congressmen endorsed Hinton H elper’s book in 1859, which recommended that slaveholders be made ineligible for office and business with them be severed. With the John Brown raid coming that same year, even though it was the work o f “a few abolition fanatics,” it “moved the whole South as noth­ ing before had done.” Bernard wrote that “in the North there was widespread approval o f what John Brown had done” (citing no author or evidence for this assertion, which has not been borne out by modem studies). [14] • 15 • �Then came the election o f 1860, and the victory o f Lincoln and the Republican Party. But how to explain the reluctance o f Virginia to secede with its Southern sisters? “W hilst the right to dissolve the Union was not questioned, its expediency was, and accordingly those who favored secession upon the contingency o f the Republican success constituted but a small minority.” As proof o f this argument, Virginia sent a delegation to Washington in February to “save the Union,” but “her e f­ forts were futile.” (Bernard also noted that a convention assembled in February was “largely Union in sentiment,” although he did not mention that this very convention voted to stay in the Union.) [15] So what was the tipping point? Not the firing on Fort Sumter, but Lincoln’s subsequent characteriza­ tion o f that act as “rebellious,” and his call for the states to provide 75,000 volunteers to suppress this insurrection. This was too much for Virginia. Bernard wrote, “The people were indignant. Although they were devotedly attached to the Union the very suggestion that the action o f their Southern sisters was an unlawful combination, a rebellion, and they were called upon to aid in suppressing it, was offen­ sive to them, believing, as they always had done, that there could be no lawful coercion o f a sovereign state.” Drawing on one o f the first o f hundreds o f books to articulate this point, Edward Pollard’s “Southern History o f the War,” Bernard quoted Pollard, “The Virginia resolutions o f ’98 and ’99 had for 60 years constituted the textbook o f the State rights politicians o f the South. The doctrine o f state sovereignty was therein vindicated and maintained, and the right and duty o f States, suffering griev­ ances from unjust and unconstitutional Federal legislation, to judge o f the wrongs, as well as o f the mode and measure o f redress, were made clear.” Proof o f this sentiment came from the strong re­ sponse o f Virginia against President Jackson’s throttling o f nullification in 1832, when a “majority” o f the legislature “indicated their recognition o f the right o f a State to secede from the Union,” according to Pollard. [16] So why did Virginia vote to secede on April 17, 1861? Bernard wrote, “it was the assertion o f the rights o f the States that was the principle involved in the great struggle, rights which, to judge by their public speeches and the platforms o f their political parties, those who came into power on the 4th o f March, 1861, would not have respected.” So while “slavery ... was the disturbing element that precipitated secession and the war that followed,” Virginia had left the Union because it could and felt it should. [17] After two lengthy speeches, involving dozens o f long quotations, intricate constitutional argu­ ments, and literally hours o f political history, Bernard had both departed from the orthodoxy o f his day, and yet finished the speech on the premise that almost all white Southerners in the early 20th cen­ tury could agree on: by straying from the constitutional agreements on slavery, the North had pushed its anti-slavery agenda on the South, and when Southern states tried to leave in peace, the North would not let it. It was an argument made by John Calhoun in the 1840s, by Jefferson Davis in 1861, and by hundreds o f other Southern spokesmen before and after the war. By challenging some o f the cherished beliefs o f his time, Bernard was going out on a limb, potentially risking the loss o f some o f his diligently accumulated audience. By placing slavery as the main cause o f the war his voice became practically Northern at the time, though a couple well-known politicians o f the day, John W. Daniel o f Virginia and John H. Reagan o f Texas, also called slavery the “prime cause o f the conflict,” according to historian Gaines Foster. [18] At the same time, he held the same view o f the impact o f the prewar events as his fellow Southern writers, and his careful use o f a number o f pro-Southern “experts” bolstered his defense o f the South. His conclusion, that the North pushed the South to the edge, and that the South had the right to secede, did not differ from the domi­ nant argument o f his fellow Confederate veterans and their children, and ultimately would have reas­ sured his audience that he had not become too radical. Indeed, his camp members elected him com­ mander in 1909, and asked him to deliver the main address at the 1911 unveiling o f a tablet made to • 16 • �honor the Confederate soldiers who had died at the Battle o f the Crater. George S. Bernard, reformer and intellectual, could argue that slavery was the main cause o f the Civil War. But George S. Bernard, proud son o f Petersburg, respected Confederate veteran, and leader o f the veterans who resided in Petersburg, could go no further than that in challenging some o f the beliefs o f his fellow Southerners. As he told his audience at the beautiful Blandford Church that warm August day, the reason thousands died was that they “fought and died in defense o f their rights, their homes, and their firesides.” [19] N O TES 1. Biographical details culled from a more detailed picture portrayed in Hampton Newsome, John Horn, and John G. Selby, eds, “Civil War Talks: Further Reminiscence of George S. Bernard and His Fellow Veterans,” (Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2012), xix - xxv. 2. Original papers for the second book are now housed in the History Museum of Western Virginia in Roanoke, Virginia. The Museum also digitized the entire Bernard collection. 3. Petersburg Daily Index-Appeal, December 9, 1906, p. 1. Half of Bernard’s first speech was published in the Sunday edi­ tion of the newspaper; the other half appeared in the Tuesday edition. 4. Petersburg Daily Index-Appeal, December 11, 1906. 5. Ibid. 6. Bernard quoted extensively from the memoirs of two well-known 19th century politicians, the Democrat Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri and the Republican James G. Blaine of Maine. Their works were: “James G. Blaine, Twenty Years in Congress,” (1884 and 1886), and Thomas Hart Benton, “Thirty Years View,” (1854 and 1856). Curry wrote several works on the South, though none was specifically titled The South (though that is the title Bernard used). Most likely he refers to “Legal Justification of the South in Secession,” (1899). 7. David W. Blight, “Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory” (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001), 282. 8. Harriet Beecher Stowe, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (1852); Hinton Rowan Helper, “The Impending Crisis of the South” (1857); David H. Montgomery, “The Student’s American History” (1899); Percy Greg, “History of the United States” (1887 and 1892); J. William Jones, “School History of the United States” (1896); James Schouler, “History of the United States” (1904); Edward Pollard, “Southern History of the War” (1863 - 1867, published in four volumes). Montgomery wrote four textbooks on American history, each having American History as part of its title. Without possession of each book, it is hard to say which of the four Bernard cited. Given that each was a textbook for school children, it is assumed that the information in each was largely the same. J. William Jones is more widely known as one of the first Lee biogra­ phers, and the author of the famous work on revivalism in Army of Northern Virginia, “Christ in the Camp” (1886). 9. Petersburg Daily-Index Appeal, March 24, 1907. 10. Ibid. Lodge’s biography of Webster was entitled “Daniel Webster” (1883). 11. Petersburg Daily-Index Appeal, March 26, 1907. 12. Ibid. 13.Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid. 18. Gaines M. Foster, “Ghosts of the Confederacy: Defeat, the Lost Cause, and the Emergence of the New South, 1865 to 1913,” (New York and Oxford: Oxford University press, 1987), 119. 19. Petersburg Daily-Index Appeal, August 1, 1911. 17 �s4 tt evu n y (nattycolons | & uztft&tteanSaiemt*t f $63 by Nelson Harris n the first wintry weeks o f 1863, hundreds o f men encamped just two miles outside Salem in an event unnoted by local historians. Most were green, young enlistees from counties in present-day West Virginia, while a few were battle-hardened veterans o f the Civil W ar’s first full year. Gathering on the Zirkle farmstead two miles west o f Salem, they were without uniforms, standard arms and horses but unyielding in zeal and spirit to enter the war in readiness, [i] For the first several weeks in January and February, these men drilled, trained, outfitted and organized into two regiments — the 16th and 17th Virginia Cavalries. While most o f Salem’s sons had already enlisted in various regiments months earlier and were long travelled, the Salem community pro­ vided the needed hospitality and send-off for these sons o f other communities, the names o f which many in Salem had probably never heard. They were from places called Sissonville, Millpoint, Gross Lick and Gauley Bridge, small towns tucked in the mountain valleys o f Wood, Monroe and Mercer counties of what became West Virginia on June 20, 1863. In early January, these farmers, blacksmiths, merchants and millwrights congregated on the outskirts o f Salem to be mustered into service as Confederate cav­ alry. Among the groups o f Confederates arriving at Salem was the 107-member “French’s Battalion” named after the leader, Col. William Henderson French. Col. French, a former delegate in the Virginia legislature, was nearly 50 years old at the start o f the war. His battalion had already tasted battle, having existed for six months. There was the “Harrison Cavalry” composed o f men from Harrison County, who had organized at a Methodist Church at Jesse’s Run and had been raiding Union territory in Ohio. Onehundred-thirteen men calling themselves the “Night Hawk Rangers” also arrived, proudly carrying a silk flag made by certain ladies in Greenbrier County. Embroidered on the silk were the words “Liberty or Death. Home guard units from the newly formed, Union-affiliated state o f West Virginia arrived sympa­ thetic to the Southern campaign. Independent cavalries and other bands o f men converged to be enlisted and officially mustered. All total, the men numbered nearly 1,600. Pvt. Addison Smith later recalled the day he and his unit marched into Salem: “The appearance we made marching along the streets of the city was very imposing and grand, for we were like an army o f many colors: some armed with shot guns, some with long muskets, besides other guns o f all descrip­ tions and kinds, with no uniforms, but all had on just what we left home with. I had a homespun jacket. Had snuffle bits for our horses and we nearly all had citizen saddles, and all the time we thought we were making a grand display ... our intentions were good and beneath all our bad uniforms beat as true a hearts as ever went to war.” [ii] Given the amount o f men and supplies having now arrived outside Salem, the first order o f busi- I Nelson Harris is a board member o f the Historical Society o f Western Virginia, an author and the minister at Virginia Heights Baptist Church in Roanoke. He is also an adjunctfaculty member o f Virginia Western Community College and a former mayor o f Roanoke. • 18 • �ness was to set up camp to house and feed what for all intents and purposes amounted to a small town. Under the able command o f Col. William French, Camp Zirkle was established. Col. French, however, was housed in more comfortable environs. He, his wife and their children occupied five rooms at a hotel in Salem. Pvt. James Hodam, writing in a personal journal in 1901, described the camp and its activities: Camp Zirkle was constructed on strictly military principles. A guard o f eigh­ teen men was detailed every day for camp duty being two hours on and four hours off. There were six posts one on each side o f the camp, one at the quartermaster’s department and one at the commissary department. The different companies were quartered in cabins and tents, fitted so as to be comfortable, and built facing along each companies [sic] street, or parade ground. We were generally kept busy at something through the day. The roll was called at six o ’clock, guard mounting at seven o ’clock and sick call at eight. From nine till noon was drilling and maneuvering by battallion. In afternoon, dinner and two hours company drill and sabere [sic] exercises. When not on duty, our time was occupied as we pleased. Some read, some wrote letters, sang, slept, and many played cards. At six o ’clock again roll call and at nine tapps [sic] all lights were out and all good soldiers were supposed to be in bed. We only drew rations for two meals a day, so if we had nothing left from dinner we had no supper. Our rations consisted for each man sick or well one pound o f flour or com meal, one pound o f beef or a third o f a pound o f bacon and a little salt, rice, sugar, and tobacco was issued oc­ casionally. Sassafras tea took the place o f coffee which we never seen except when captured it from the enemy. Camp Zirkle was laid out in a square and the huts and tents o f our regiment including officers quarters, a church, guard house, commissary and quartermaster building made quite a village, (see drawing on page 21) With camp now established, Col. French’s next major obligation was to have the men officially mustered into service. On January 15, the 16th Virginia Cavalry was officially recognized by Richmond, but Col. French was encountering bureaucratic problems with muster rolls submitted for the 17th Vir­ ginia Cavalry. Thanks to Col. French’s intervention, the 17th was officially mustered into Confederate service on January 28. In the midst o f awaiting official recognition, the men o f Camp Zirkle were called upon to protect the Washington Salt Works in Smyth County. The men were hurried into boxcars at Salem and trans­ ported via the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad into southwestern Virginia. Arriving at the salt works, the men found the Federals had not yet arrived. Remaining in Smyth County several days and seeing no sign o f Union troops, the Camp Zirkle contingent returned by rail to Salem. In camp for only two weeks, the men of the newly mustered 16th and 17th Virginia Cavalries were again called into deep southwestern Virginia. This time, Federal troops were threatening Bristol. Travelling by rail, the Camp Zirkle troops arrived, camped unmolested for five days in freezing February weather and returned to Salem. The return trip to Salem was rather eventful. The train derailed. James Hodam wrote: “When we were a short distance from Salem and about midnight while we were asleep and probably the engineer also, the General (Hodam’s nickname for the train engine) someway got off the track and ran into a ditch and laid over on his side. Seven cars left the track. Some went into the ditch but did not turn over. No soldiers were hurt, except bruises but the engineer and one of the firemen were killed.” The camp was not unlike any other military camp in that the men were plagued often with bad • 19• �food, disease, cold and fatigue. A hint o f Camp Zirkle’s difficulties was communicated in a letter o f Feb­ ruary 20 that Lt. Joseph A. Wilson o f the 14th Virginia Cavaliy wrote to Henry H. Hamilton in Augusta County. “Hen we have had a large time here lately about rotten beef. The Old General has two men ap­ pointed to inspect every piece o f beef.... The health o f the company is very good now and I believe the small pox has vanished away not to return again at least I hope so.” [iii] In the spring, tensions began to mount between the soldiers and the townsfolk o f Salem. After all, the men in camp easily outnumbered those living in Salem, and as the men remained in camp there was a continuing need for the resources o f Salem. One such occasion was the visit a Confederate of­ ficer and surgeon made to Roanoke College. The incident was recalled by the college’s president, Dr. David Bittle. According to Bittle, they were looking for accommodations for a new hospital. Some men at Camp Zirkle were sick, and some had already died. With the advice o f a trusted college trustee, John McCauley, Bittle took the train to Richmond. Soliciting the assistance o f southwest Virginia’s Confeder­ ate Congressman Waller Staples, Bittle was able to contact the surgeon-general o f the Confederate army about the matter o f retaining the campus o f Roanoke College for solely academic pursuits. According to Bittle, the surgeon-general replied: By no means would I permit a college to be broken up for such a purpose. If we succeed in establishing the Confederacy, we want intelligent men to control it, and if there is any locality in which a college can exist in these times, it must be protected.” Ironically, as Bittle was engaging the Confederacy’s surgeon-general on the matter, Confederate soldiers were being quartered in the college’s buildings. Professor William Yonce, who had just con­ cluded the funeral service for a former student killed in the war, rushed back to the campus and indeed found the college occupied. Doors had been broken open with the butts o f guns. Furthermore, they had burned the students’ wood, broken locks, ransacked some rooms, and carried off the students’ bed cloth­ ing. Through the formidable efforts of Yonce, the soldiers managed to lodge only for a night. Bittle was rather gracious in his recollection, claiming, “It seems that the officer, under whose order this was done, had received an incorrect report o f the feelings o f the Faculty in reference to having the college used as a hospital. In retrospect, the damage done to the treasury o f the college far surpassed any physical damage the buildings may have sustained. Yonce, also the college treasurer, had to provide nearly 100 students with wood, locks and bed clothing, all o f which emptied the treasury, [iv] The men of Camp Zirkle remained in the Salem vicinity only a few more weeks until they were ordered to move up the Shenandoah Valley. Before heading north, Pvt. Charles Kelly penned a one-page letter to his brother, John, on March 13. He wryly stated his post address as “Camp Comfort near Sa­ lem.” Kelly wrote about his pay and the movements o f some o f the men. The weather was “verry cold” and snow “shoe mouth deep” had fallen in the southwestern part o f the state. With those necessary facts reported, Kelly concluded, “nothing more at present.” On March 17, John Snider o f the 14th Virginia wrote his sister, Kittie, in Augusta County. Re­ garding Camp Zirkle, Snider reported: We have had some very rough wether, last sabeth night was very rough, I never heard heavier thunder nor seen sharper thunder in my life. It rained very hard til midnight and then got very cold. I was corpel o f the guard that night. They is still some snow here yet. The roads is awful bad. We are getting along very well. We have good quarters and plenty to eat now. It was for one weak that we did not get no meet only what we bought. Our mess bought one side o f bacon and it cost us four dollars and thirty cts apiece. It was seventy five cts a pound. We have the half of it yet and the side that Jacob Anderson brought with him. We are getting plenty o f beef a gain. It is dried b e e f... it is about right to make good stake ... We get plenty sugar and rice but we don’t use the rice. I wish I had the chance to send it home ... You had better come out to our singing some night and you will hear something that • 20• �CAMP ZIRKLE LAYOUT Quarter master Post No. 4 North Side Company F X X X X X X Company K X X X X X X Company I X X X X X X Company H X X X X X X Company G X X X X X X Company E X X X X X X Church Commissary PARADE GROUND Drill Area Headquarters Guard House Company D X X X X X X Company C X X X X X X Company B X X X X X X Company A X X X X Officers’ Quarters Post No. 2 South Side 21 �is worth listening a t ... We have preaching every sabeth in camp. I think our chaplin is a fine man. His name is Crook ... I would very much like to send my old boots and shirt home. Tell mother I would like for her to make me a saddle blanket if she can ... I remain your brother till death so good by to all and may God bless and watch over you all is my sincier prayer, [v] Camp Zirkle was dismantled in mid-March and the 14th, 16th and 17th Virginia Cavalries rode off to war for good. Some o f the men at Camp Zirkle, however, never saw a day o f battle. They succumbed to the other enemy disease. Typhoid, pneumonia, measles, malaria and other illnesses plagued the regiment. Nearly 50 men died in the camp, and many were interred at East Hill Cemetery. Chaplain Samuel Sheppard o f the 16th Cavalry was asked to write the parents o f Isaiah Crabtree who had died at Salem o f typhoid. The chaplain wrote simply: “Spiritual prospects when he deceased this life might have been good.” When the trains pulled out o f Salem carrying the last cadre o f men from Camp Zirkle no one knew what awaited them. Yet, history records that these husbands, fathers and sons would do battle on the soil o f five states. They would fight at Gettysburg, defend the Shenandoah Valley, witness the burn­ ing o f Chambersburg, and be present with Lee at his surrender in Appomattox. Most notably, many of the Camp Zirkle men returned to Salem in July o f 1864 and participated in the Battle o f Hanging Rock under the command o f Gen. John McCausland. This return trip proved to be a final one for Pvt. George Kale o f the 17th Cavalry who was killed near Salem on July 11. Kale had enlisted in the Confederate army two years earlier in his home county o f Mercer, West Virginia. He had almost died o f disease in the summer o f 1863 but pulled through. Kale’s body was not returned to his family. He was simply too far from home. The following morning, Pvt. Kale was interred in East Hill Cemetery in Salem alongside the other men o f the 17th who had succumbed to disease at Camp Zirkle some 16 months earlier. Nearly 1,200 men had encamped on the Zirkle farm. They came from differing counties and backgrounds and would meet varied fates, but for three months in 1863 all were a part o f a camp on the outskirts o f Salem. M ountain murder leads to a Salem hanging As the war dragged on, persons fell on desperate times. Men began to desert their regiments, often roaming the mountains and roadways, robbing and stealing to stay alive and escape Confederates looking for them. Desertion was punishable by death, and the Confederate army became increasingly prone to apply that punishment. In short, Virginians began to turn on one another. One such incident oc­ curred on Bent Mountain. On Sunday, November 3, 1862, Col. John R. Peyton, in search o f a deserter, was ambushed by Union loyalists. Loyalty to the Union was a growing movement in neighboring Floyd and Montgom­ ery counties. In fact, Union sympathy was so strong that President Jefferson Davis had the counties referenced by name in a memo to him from his Secretary o f War. Peyton’s family purchased a coffin from Elijah Poage at Cave Spring and Poage recorded their story: “J.R. Peyton was shot in the breast and killed dead ... near the top o f Bent Mountain ... near to the lower end o f Hodge’s field and dragged about 80 yards down the mountain and left to the mercies o f his friends. Died at age 65 years. Received payment in full on the above account through the hands o f John Ferguson, Jr., from Howard Peyton o f Montgomery County.” [vi] The killing o f Peyton by Union loyalists prompted an angry letter from Copper Hill resident Tazewell Price to Virginia Gov. John Letcher. Price wrote that Peyton was shot dead from his horse in the middle o f the day and further claimed that the home o f a witness to the ambush had been torched presumably by the same band o f men that had killed Peyton. Price begged Letcher for protection o f the •22» �citizenry by a “force sufficient to scour the mountain” in order to put a stop to “robbery, theft and at­ tempts to murder various citizens.” Price further asserted the home guard was not sufficient to search out and arrest the “traitors” and thus Floyd County citizens were “alarmed to such an extent that they don’t believe their lives are safe.” [vii] Tried for the crime of killing Peyton was James Edward Stover. Stover was convicted by a Salem jury on June 17, 1863, with a sentence o f death by hanging. Two months later, on August 14, Stover’s sentence was carried out. “Main Street east o f the courthouse was lined with a somber crowd o f people who fell in behind a wagon, surrounded by 12 armed guards and bearing Stover seated on his coffin, as it moved up the hill. In a thick grove o f trees across the road from today’s Oakey Field, Stover died.” [viiij On the day Stover was hung, Lewis Stover obtained from Elijah Poage the coffin needed for burial just as Peyton’s family had done 10 months earlier. The death o f Stover outside Salem was to be the last public hanging in Roanoke County, fix] W ar takes toll on R oanoke C ollege In August, Dr. David Bittle, Roanoke College president, delivered a report to the Lutheran Synod as to the current state o f the college. The message was pure Bittle, being both factual but optimistic. It read in part as follows: A great many o f our former students — young men o f talents and promise — are no more. They have been killed in battle or died in hospitals. They held posi­ tions o f honor and are endeared in the country’s memory. We had 100 pupils in con­ nection with the college’s last session... We are dependent mainly upon young men disabled from military service and boys under 18 for our patronage. Yet we shall try to keep the institution in progress. The pecuniary interests o f the college have greatly improved, and by the cooperation o f the brethren and friends o f the institu­ tion, it can, in a short time, become entirely relieved o f its liabilities. C ollege student company organized With Federal troops moving throughout Virginia, a company o f students from Roanoke College was organized for special service in September. The company was led by Capt. George W. Holland and Lts. Arthur Parkhouse, George A. Halbert and C.W. Nowlin. D eyerle writes from A labama Ballard Deyerle, a lieutenant with Company K, 54th Virginia Infantry, commonly known as the “Roanoke Guards,” wrote to his brother in the early fall from Alabama about the most recent activities o f the Roanoke Guards. Camp Near Courtland Lauderdale Co., Ala. October 11, 1863 Dear Brother, We have just returned to Dixie after a circuit around Rosecrans’ army. To begin at the beginning, we started from Cleveland, Term., and advanced upon Charleston, driving the enemy from the town. At that place we were joined by Gen. Wheeler with four divisions o f cavalry, twelve thousand men with artillery. We then moved northward, and crossed the Tennessee River near the mouth o f the Hiwassa River. •2 3 • �From there we moved toward McMinnville, and on the round we captured a train o f 500 wagons and 1000 prisoners. We surprised the Yankees at McMinnville, and after a sharp little engagement, captured the town and garrison, consisting o f 500 men. At that place I supplied myself with a pair o f blue pants, a pair o f boots, a very fine pair o f patent leather gaiters, a hat, and a beautiful sword; also a Yankee can­ teen filled with fine brandy. We then marched to Murfreesboro and commanded the town to surrender; but the Yankee commandant told Gen. Wheeler to come and take it. He (Gen. Wheeler) thinking “discretion the better part o f valor,” concluded he would not; therefore he contented himself with tearing up the railroad to Fosterville. We then moved to Shelbyville, ran the Yankees out, and destroyed about $500.00 worth o f property. On the road from Shelbyville to Pulaski the Yankees, about 1500 strong, attacked our rear, and stampeded Scott’s Brigade. They (Scott’s men) came rushing through our ranks, scattering everything right and left. We wheeled our cannon around in the road, and as the enemy came within 180 yards, we fired two loads o f cannister into their ranks, and checked them until our Brigade could form. The enemy then ran up seven pieces o f artillery, and opened one o f the most ter­ rible fires upon our two little popguns that I ever heard. They were firing only two hundred yards, with shells and cannister. This unequal contest was kept up about fifteen minutes; when we fell back about a quarter o f a mile. Here the Yankees again charged, but were held in check by our popguns, until the Yankees brought up their cannon, then the fight was kept up for eleven miles; when at Farmington we came up with the main body o f Gen. W heeler’s forces; where we succeeded in checking the enemy for the day. Our division lost 600 men in the fight, over one-third o f the number from Hodge’s Brigade. We lost only one man wounded and a horse killed from the Battery; but I cannot say how it happened, for it was the hottest place that I was ever in, or ever want to be again. We had U.S. regulars to fight, and you may know what it was. They annoyed our rear from Pulaski to Tennessee River, but made no direct attack, and we crossed over without molestation. They are now on the opposite side of the river with 3,000 infantry and 7,000 cavalry, with 18 pieces o f artillery, but I think will hardly dare to cross. The pickets kept up a continued fire across the river. 1 think I can appreciate the name o f this state; for we did not rest for more than three hours at a time from the time we left Georgia until we came here. This is a beautiful country, but we are about to starve. I have not had anything to eat for 48 hours, but when I do get something I will make it bounce. The Yankees are a very provident people, and supply our Rebel cavalry with good clothing, if it was only the right color. I lost all my clothing and need money. Dr. Wade is going home, and if you can find him send $150.00 by him. I despair o f ever hearing from home. My last letter home was August 9th. Excuse this letter. I slept on my arm about a week ago, and the back o f my hand is completely para­ lyzed. I am afraid it will be permanent. Enclosed you will find a Catholic badge which was taken from the neck o f a dead Yankee at McMinnville. Bob Logan sends respects. Your devoted brother, Ballard P. Deyerle [x] �E scaped U nion prisoners plan attack on S alem The Civil War, as with all major experiences, is full o f plans never carried forward. One such example involves a number o f Union soldiers held as prisoners in Danville, who being starved with little hope o f exchange, sought to break out and make a raid upon Salem. The story is told by Cpl. J.F. Hill of the 89th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, a captive o f the battle o f Chickamauga. Originally taken to Richmond, Hill and other prisoners were transferred to a Confederate “tobacco prison” in Danville in mid-Novem­ ber. On the morning o f November 14, Hill and others began discussing a breakout scheme. Accord-* ing to Hill, the plan involved “bursting open all three o f our prison doors, overpowering the guards, capturing the towns, destroy the railroad bridges across Dan River, cut the telegraph ... and speed for the mountains.” Hill believed the plan achievable given there were over 1,000 Union prisoners being guarded by about 100 Confederate guards. Should the escape succeed, the plan broadened to divide the Union prisoners into three groups, each with an assigned task o f disrupting the Danville community, and with a final detail o f arming 75 to 100 men. The armed men “were to start off to the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad to cut the telegraph and destroy the track by burning some bridges at or near Salem, in Roanoke County.” Hill estimated the men could reach Salem in 12 hours. That night Hill and others began approaching their fellow prisoners about the escape. After talking with several hundred, only 60 agreed to participate. Undeterred, the escape was put into motion albeit much diminished in its goals and plans as originally conceived. “After dark,” Hill wrote, “we went to work and cut a hole through the fence ... It was not work o f more than a half an hour, and all was ready; but we waited so as let the people in town settle down. About half after seven o ’clock they commenced going out in small squads o f three and four men.” Thirty minutes later Hill, accompanied by Sgt. Solo­ mon Stookey and Cpl. Henry Thompson, both of the 89th Ohio, slipped unnoticed through the hole. In a pouring rain, Hill, Stookey and Thompson made for the banks o f the Dan River. Stopping briefly to eat from a persimmon tree, the three moved in a northwesterly direction. Four miles ouside o f Danville, the trio collapsed exhausted. After a few hours rest, they managed to cross the Dan River at dawn, using an abandoned canoe. Not wanting to travel in daylight, they again rested in cold, damp woods. By the morning o f November 16, Hill recalled, “We had lost all energy to push forward.” Starved, cold and fatigued, the three moved on and were fortunate to come upon the cabin o f a Mrs. Corban. Explaining their situation, the woman invited the men in to eat and by fireside they feasted on stewed chicken, butter, cabbage, combread and coffee. Corban, a Union sympathizer, led the three into the woods where two more Union soldiers were hiding. Luck was indeed gracing Hill and his men. The group o f five were provided directions to another Union sympathizer, a Mr. Yates. Moving north, the men came upon Yates’ home and were well received. As they were eating under Yates’ roof, three more men approached. To H ill’s surprise, the three were a part o f the contingent that had escaped the same night as he from the Danville prison. Yates was able to update Hill on the success o f the break­ out, saying that 60 had managed to get out but six were recently captured. Warning the men o f pursuing Confederates, Yates shuffled Hill, Stookey and Thompson into nearby woods for the day. Giving them one last meal, the men moved on along a trail o f known Union sympathizers who would give them shel­ ter and food. On November 18, they enjoyed the hospitality of a widow, Mrs. Smith; on the 19th it was a farmer named Carder; and by nightfall o f the 19th, a Mrs. Reynolds took them in. By Friday, November 20, the trio, guided by Hill, found themselves 15 miles outside o f Rocky Mount in Franklin County. On Saturday, the men crested a mountain and viewed Salem. Warned that the area was “watched day and night to catch Rebel deserters,” Hill’s group eased through the wooded valley. According to Hill not only was the vicinity o f Salem well watched, it was also “one o f the hottest nests o f secession in the whole valley.” On Sunday, November 21, Hill and his men spent the day in the woods outside Salem. H ill’s •25* �diary described the scene. “As soon as it was light enough we fell back about half a mile and found a house in which we had a very welcome breakfast sat before us, by a good old Quakeress, who appeared as if she could not do enough for us. After eating and thanking the good woman, we made for the top o f Salem mountain, which we reached after a two hour’s walk ... We slept some through the day but always kept one out on guard while the other two would sleep. From our refuge we could see around for miles. It was a beautiful sight; we could see directly down into the rebel town o f Salem, and could see the people promenading the streets. Little dreamt they that they were watched by Yankees; but as for us, we felt secure, for I felt Providence had a hand in our escape.” One can only imagine the totality o f H ill’s thoughts as he viewed Salem from a distant knoll. Just a few days earlier Hill had envisioned a 100-man militia bearing down upon the town, destroying rail­ road track and igniting bridges. On that Sunday afternoon as Hill took in the beauty o f the scenic moun­ tains and ridges and watched the bustling along Salem’s streets, he was in the company o f only two men. Before sundown, Hill, Stookey and Thompson resumed their trek north, and again Hill recorded their movements through the Roanoke Valley. “Our course led about ten miles up the (Catawba) valley. This was also very fertile; and in traveling along the road we had to pass near some very fine houses. All these we endeavored to avoid by taking across some fields. And as a general thing we never went near a house, but what a dozen dogs would come baying out after us, and they would keep up their yelping as far as we could hear ... That night a man chased us for nearly two miles with his dogs. We would have stood and given battle, but we did not want to leave any tracks behind. We crossed another small moun­ tain known as the Catawba, and came into Craig Valley.” In Craig County, Hill’s group linked up with Confederate deserters, ate at the home o f a Mrs. Brillhart, journeyed through Sinking Creek valley, crossed the mountains, and traveled via Johnson’s Valley. By midnight of November 26, Hill, Stookey and Thompson were in the Greenbrier Valley of West Virginia. After four more days of travel, Hill and his friends reached Union forces at Charleston and gained passes through Union lines. All told the “great escape” took 16 days, covered 250 miles, and involved being sheltered at 22 houses o f Union sympathizers. H ill’s victory, however, came not as he had originally intended — a raid into Salem — but in simply surviving to tell the tale, [xi] C raig C ounty wedding interrupted by advancing F ederals While Salem and Roanoke County had benefited greatly from the Virginia and Tennessee Rail­ road, the railroad also made the county a target for Federal forces. It was serving as a vital communica­ tion and supply link between the eastern and western theaters o f war for the Confederates. Union Brig. Gen. William W. Averell had amassed an army 2,500 strong composed o f West Virginians, Ohioans and Pennsylvanians. In the late fall o f 1863, Averell began a 200-mile trek over the mountains and valleys of West Virginia to move on Salem with a mission to destroy as much track as possible o f the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. Averell had managed to move out o f West Virginia and into Virginia, unmolested by Confederate forces. In fact, the Confederate military leaders operating in western Virginia at that time quickly realized they could not stop Averell from reaching Salem, so they opted to cut off his retreat. This decision left the unsuspecting Salem defenseless. In Averell’s approach to Salem there was an incident the night before his advance upon Salem that is worth noting. It is particularly poignant for its rendering o f the human drama and sadness so much a part o f the Civil War. The story was poetically told by Quartermaster E.F. Seaman o f the 2nd West Virginia Infantry many years after the war. In our march over the mountains between Sweet Springs and New Castle I was in the advance guard. It was one o f the darkest nights I ever saw. Almost the only light we could see was the sparks made by our horses’ feet striking the rocks. When near the top o f a mountain we suddenly saw a light in a window a very short • 26 • �distance ahead and soon afterward heard the sound o f music and the shuffling o f feet in the dance. One of our scouts, who was dressed in the Confederate uniform, came galloping back and said, ‘Boys, there’s some fun ahead. The rebs are hav­ ing a big dance in that cabin. The other scouts and myself went in and had a good time shaking the foot with those pretty girls. They are daises I tell you.’ Waiting a few moments till all the command came up, we quietly advanced, and soon had the house completely surrounded. I was in command o f the squad, and soon as we were sure o f everything I went forward to the door and ordered the crowd to surrender. You never saw a company more completely thunderstruck. About twenty Johnnies, as soon as they could collect their wits, were compelled to release their fair partners and yield themselves up to less agreeable company. ‘Fall in line’ was the command to the prisoners. All obeyed except one tall, finely formed young man, who stood unmoved, with his hand resting lightly on the shoulder o f a chubby maiden in white. The young thing clung closer to him with modest trustfulness, betraying no sign o f fear for the sudden and rude disturbance o f her joy. She was by far the calmer o f the two and was acting like a little heroine. The small left hand crept a little closer about his neck, and she said with a pleading sorrowfulness that thrilled my whole being: ‘We have just been married, sir, and you are not going to take George away from me now, are you?’ Trained by the discipline o f war, I was compelled to subdue what I felt and try to make the best o f the situation. I told her as gently as I could that war was a sad thing and that as soldiers there was nothing left for us but to do our duty, but as men we deeply sympathized with her. I assured her that her young husband, as our prisoner, should be treated with every kindness and that, doubtless, within a few months he would be exchanged and be with her again. As the young man pressed his fair-haired bride to his bosom that new love which, in its sweetness and its purity is the same as it has always been since time began, became too strong to be longer confined. It welled up from a full heart, and, bursting its bounds, gave vent in a torrent o f convulsive sobs. A silence had fallen upon us all, and I saw many o f the weather-stained men draw their sleeves quickly across their faces. Somehow I felt like it would be inhuman to speak a word. In a few moments she gained some com­ mand over herself and, unloosing her arms, raised her tear-stained face to his. He clasped her suddenly and kissed her three times passionately. ‘Good-bye, George, good-bye,’ she said. ‘God bless you.’ Her eyes followed him to the door as we moved out. Poor thing. That was her last sight o f him on the earth. He was acciden­ tally drowned while crossing Jackson river. In the summer o f 1884,1 went to Sweet Springs and while there got a buggy and drove over that mountain. By making inquiries I was able to find out that the bride of 20 years ago was still living, and after some search, discovered her and had the pleasure o f a short conversation with her. She never suspected, o f course, that I knew her story for 20 years had changed me as you may imagine too much to make any recognition possible. She had remained true to her first love and refused all of­ fers of a second marriage. Representing myself as a stranger, from common topics I led the talk as easily as I could back to the war. She conversed very pleasantly till that subject was mentioned, when her manner became more quiet, and her gaze drifted from near objects to the long, blue horizon down the mountain, as if strained to see something lost. I soon left and have never seen her since, [xii] �A verell invades S alem On the 15th o f December, Averell’s troops were at N ew castle in neighboring Craig County. Exhausted, hungry and cold, the command pressed forward, being led on to Salem by a Union sympa­ thizer, Fincastle resident William Paxton, who had agreed to help Averell. At dawn, a scouting party sent out by Averell, composed o f men from Company B o f the 2nd West Virginia, reported a brief skirmish with some men from Salem, about four miles outside the town. The engagement involved Sgt. Oliver Bower o f the 2nd West Virginia who, upon encountering four men from Salem, convinced them he was a part o f a nearby Confederate force. As the conversation lengthened, other men with Bower arrived, and the Federal sergeant drew his pistol and demanded the surrender o f the four citizens o f Roanoke County. Reportedly, shots were quickly fired and a brief melee ensued. When all was settled, Bower and his men were unharmed, but the four from Salem had been overtaken. One was dead, one was wounded, and the other two surrendered, [xiii] Lying dead on the road from Salem to New Castle was Thomas Chapman, a 26-year-old graduate o f Roanoke College and the son o f Henry and Nancy Chapman. He owned a small hotel in Salem. Two differing stories arose as to the cause o f the skirmish and Chapman’s death. An article in the Lynchburg Daily Virgin­ §g?Wm ian reported, “On Tuesday night (December 15th), several o f the citizens went out as scouts, one o f them, Mr. Thomas Chapman, was ordered to surrender and not dismounting as quickly as they wished, was shot dead on the spot.” Averell, n I however, claimed that Chapman declined to surrender and was, therefore, killed, [xiv] Whatever the truth o f the matter, the skirmish awakened Salem to the approaching Federáis. Sgt. Bower and his men took their three captives back to Averell, and the captives told Averell that Fitzhugh Lee’s cavalry division was moving down from Charlottesville to intercept him. Averell, deciding to believe the information, moved quickly. He sent ahead scouts, armed with repeating rifles and mounted upon fleet horses. “About four miles from Salem, Averell made his final lunge. With 350 men and a pair o f three-inch guns, he sped forward and at 10 a.m. they dashed into Salem.” [xv] Averell and his men would spend the next six hours looting and burning Salem and destroying track o f the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. Union Brig. Gen. William W. Averell Prior to their arrival, however, the quartermaster at Salem tried to save the army supplies at his commissary. The quartermaster, Maj. J.C. Green, had received a midnight telegram from Dublin warning him o f the Federáis’ position. Unfortunately for Green, the supplies were scattered in warehouses, stores, mills and stables all over town and the depot was nearly a mile outside o f town. The Lynchburg Virginian stated, “Immediately all hands went to work, and by daylight all o f the stores were at the depot, awaiting the train to take them to Lynchburg.” By dawn o f the 16th, Averell was advancing and Salem residents scrambled to prepare themselves, thronging the streets and crying, “the Yankees are coming!” [xvi] At the appearance o f the Federáis, panic ensued. The first stop for Averell’s men was the post office, where they broke open the door and cut the telegraph wire and then proceeded to the rail depot, now piled high with supplies for a train that never arrived. The Lynchburg Virginian reported the scene: Sure enough, two of [Averell’s] advance guard came charging up the main street, and the main body following soon after, four abreast and pistols in hand, lili M l 1 i l l illlill® 28 �cocked, ready to fire. Everyone in the street took to their heels, and wagons, horses, and every living thing joined in the general stampede, except the ladies, whose curi­ osity exceeded their fear, and a few gentlemen who were in their houses. The depot was crowded with ladies and gentlemen and a number o f students who were waiting for the usual train to leave for their homes. [Averell] then set fire to the government building, containing a large quantity o f com, bacon and other stores — also breaking open all o f the trunks at the depot house, destroying the con­ tents, and setting fire to the buildings at the depot and tearing up track for two miles or more. Then forming themselves in three lines of battle, they placed their batteries on the brow o f the hill commanding the railroad, and awaited the approach o f the train. As soon as its smoke became visible, they fired three rounds on it, and the train backed up immediately without any injury to it. Proceeding to Pfizer and Martin’s Mill (located across from the depot on the bank of the river) they burned it to the ground, destroying an immense quantity of flour and wheat, only allowing the miller to remove three or four barrels. They also burned several bridges on the railway; Mr. Snyder’s bam, containing tallow and oil in large quantities; Chapman’s bam, used as a government stable; and destroyed all grain in the other stable occupied by the government, and would have burned that, but for the interposition of Mr. Thomas Hough, a citizen o f the place. They opened many stores, and destroyed and carried away all o f the goods in them. They entered the bank, but as all the money had been removed, they content­ ed themselves with strewing the paper about, and even took the bed clothes o f one o f the officers o f the bank, who slept there; they then went to the jail, released all the prisoners and among the number, two o f their own men, who had been captured by the enrolling officer the night before. They took all o f the citizens as prisoner whom they found running, and also Capt. Poiteaux, Assistant Quartermaster of this place. Several o f our soldiers, home on furlough, were also taken in attempting to make their escape. They took all o f the government horses, and also many belonging to citizens and farmers, and burned the wagons to which they were attached. Many servants, both male and female, went with them, and a white man by the name o f Hearns and his wife, also. They staid in the village until about five o’clock in the afternoon, when they heard that Fitzhugh Lee and Imboden were in persuit of them, so they immedi­ ately left, taking with them all the prisoners they had captured. They camped about six miles from here that night, and as it rained in torrents all night, they found the waters high and the roads difficult to travel, so they released all the prisoners ex­ cept those belonging to the army ... Before they left their campground on Thursday morning, they shot about fifty horses ... [xvii] By that Wednesday afternoon, Salem was torched. As one historian described it, “the whole was a mass o f roaring flames, with dense, black smoke billowing up, filling the sky and covering the town with a thick, dark canopy.” [xviii] Capt. Jacob Rife, riding with Averell, wrote that the citizens o f Salem “gave us a wide berth,” and then tongue-in-cheek observed, “I do not remember that one came out to welcome us, and I am sure no banquet was spread for our hungry command, [xix] A member o f the 5th West Virginia described the Salem raid succinctly: “We entered Salem about noon and immediately began the work of destruction. The column moved to the right and left, •29* �burning the mills, depot, railroad bridges, tracks and culverts for several miles each way. A general stam­ pede was in progress among the citizens and such confederate soldiers as were there.” [xx] “The only happy faces we saw,” said Capt. Rife, “were the blacks who were permitted to carry away food from the burning buildings, and who were exulting at the great reduction in the cost o f flour. It was very dear in the morning but cheap now.” The arrival o f Federal forces provided an opportunity for some nearby slaves to gain freedom. Reportedly, about 25 slaves attached themselves to the Union command, [xxi] Averell’s men had accomplished their mission in destroying adequate amounts o f track o f the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. Not being thwarted by the strength o f the track, Union soldiers built several bonfires, heating the track, and then bending it around trees and telegraph poles. The damage to buildings was enormous, but perhaps most discouraging was the looting and burning o f the supplies so thoroughly and hurriedly amassed by Maj. Green and Salem citizens during the night. According to a report filed by Averell, the stores found by him at the depot and destroyed or carried off were as follows: 2,000 barrels o f flour, 10,000 bushels o f wheat, 100,000 bushels o f shelled com, 50,000 bushels of oats, 2,000 barrels o f meat, several cords o f leather, 1,000 sacks o f salt, 31 boxes o f clothing, 20 bales of cotton, a large amount o f harnesses, shoes, saddles, equipment, tools, oil, tar and various other stores and 100 wagons. Averell also reported destroying some 16 miles o f railroad track. [xxii] Confederate reports of losses were smaller than that stated by Averell. The discrepancy could be that Averell included in his totals the loss o f private property in addition to the government supplies found at the depot, or Averell could simply have been a braggart. In any case, Capt. James Wade, assis­ tant commissary o f subsistence at Salem, reported the loss o f the following supplies: 50,000 pounds of salted pork, 143 barrels of flour, 150 bushels o f wheat, 130 bushels o f com, 2,400 pounds o f rice, 1,900 pounds of sugar, 225 pounds o f candles, 70 pounds o f soap, 21 barrels o f lard, 1,350 empty sacks and an undetermined number o f empty flour barrels, [xxiii] Wade calculated the loss to total $107,537.57. Fortunately for the citizens o f Salem, Averell had commanded his troops to leave untouched per­ sonal property insomuch as they were not storing government supplies. Consequently, no private homes were burned or looted, though a significant number o f municipal structures were. Additionally, several stores along Main Street in Salem were looted and the bank was vandalized. In addition to rail track, Federal soldiers also destroyed two prominent bridges: one spanned 75 feet across the Roanoke River at M ason’s Creek and the other was nearly 150 feet long, near Joseph Deyerle’s farm, [xxiv] While Salem was being raided, there were reports o f Union sympathy witnessed by Averell’s men. Some years after the war, Capt. Rife recalled a young woman stopping one o f his artillerists on the road just outside o f Salem and asking if the Union flag might be unfurled for her. Thinking she might insult the flag, the young soldier hesitated, then granted her request. The young man told Rife, “I can never forget her look as she eagerly and passionately folded it to her bosom as a mother would her longlost child,” and with tear-filled eyes gave thanks for being allowed to see the banner for the first time “in years.” [xxv] Further, a newspaper in Wheeling, West Virginia, reported a few months after the raid that an elderly lady in Salem also paid honor to the Union banner. “When they took the old flag down from the university,” she is claimed to have stated (apparently referring to Roanoke College’s removal o f the Union flag during secession), “I can’t describe the distress that I felt; and I felt much worse when they put the new flag in its place; but now that you have come, the old flag looks as bright and beautiful as ever.” [xxvij How true or correct these stories were, no one knows, but the historical record does demon­ strate there were numerous acts o f Union sympathy within the county during the war. It should also be noted that Averell’s main guide in and out o f Salem was a man named Hall, a Confederate deserter who, prior to the war, drove the stage coach between Salem and Sweet Springs. •30* �The dynamics o f the Salem raid were impacted by miscalculations on both sides. The Chapman scouting party, the first to encounter Averell, tried to convince Averell that Lee was in pursuit out of Charlottesville. Averell believed the story and hastened his entrance into Salem. One can only wonder if the ruse had not been tried, Averell may have camped longer, delayed his Salem raid, and thus unwit­ tingly allowed the train from Lynchburg to arrive and carry away the supplies at the depot. On Averell’s side was the failure to capture or at least disable the train as it approached the depot. This apparently was due in part to a young, anxious cadet, Lt. John Meigs, who had been ordered by Averell to find a good position from which one o f the 3-inch guns could fire directly into the train as it arrived. The gun, under Cpl. A.G. Osborne, was set up just in time, but Meigs ordered it fired too soon. Osborne later gave an account o f the incident. “I put in a percussion shell as soon as I heard the train coming and had made up my mind to disable the engine, if possible, and was waiting until I could get a good view when Lt. Meigs rushed up and asked me why I did not fire. I told him I was waiting for a better view so that I could put a shell into the machinery or boiler o f the engine so as to disable it; but he ordered me to fire, when I could not see anything but about two feet o f the top o f the smokestack. O f course I had to obey orders, and the result was no damage to anything but the smokestack.” [xxvii] The train slowed, while Osborne reloaded, but was past them when they were ready. Nonethe­ less, Osborne ordered a shell fired into one of the cars, where it blew out the opposite side. The engine then immediately put its wheels in reverse, as Osborne’s crew prepared for one more shot. Osborne fired and missed, and the train rounded a curve and disappeared. By mid-afternoon Averell’s forces had left Salem and were moving back into Craig County. A West Virginia soldier described the afternoon’s events. “When the work o f destruction was complete, the command prepared to retrace their steps ... returning through the North Mountain on the New Castle road. Not knowing the perils of the homeward march, we camped at Mason’s Creek, about six miles from Salem. It rained and snowed incessantly during the night, but the weary and overworked soldiers slept soundly until 5 o ’clock the next morning, when the bugle called them from their slumber to renew the march. The Fourteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry led the advance. Craig s Creek was reached about noon.” [xxviii] The early morning bugle call by Averell to advance his men may have been due to intelligence provided by a resident o f Craig County. While camped along Mason’s Creek, a scouting party was dis­ patched at 3 a.m. to ride to New Castle to see the local doctor, a Union sympathizer, and obtain informa­ tion relative to Confederate movements. The physician encouraged the Federal scouts to move out o f the county as quickly as possible, as some Confederate soldiers had arrived in New Castle that same night. Before Averell’s men left their encampment at Mason’s Creek, on the farm o f Mrs. Smith, the general had to deal with certain prisoners captured in Salem the day before. During the course o f the Sa­ lem raid, Averell’s men had netted about 40 citizens trying to escape, including some Roanoke College students. The students were part o f a home guard unit who had been allowed to remain at the college in exchange for pledging to defend the community against any aggression by the enemy. Averell gathered his prisoners before him, and an 1875 issue o f the Roanoke Collegian tells the rest o f the story. “Averell had the students gathered before him and then asked each one where he was from. All answered with some trepidation. ‘Now boys,’ says he, tell me candidly what do you think o f the Con­ federacy?’ The boys by this time feeling a little more patriotic, when they saw General Averell was not angry with them, answered promptly, ‘We think it is doing very well. O now, boys, you know it is most played out,’ he continued. ‘You all go to your books and study your best. And then he gave the command, ‘Let all these boys off.’” The students and citizens were promptly released and began their walk back to Salem. Two “captives” chose not to go, a Mr. and Mrs. Hearns, who were Union sympa­ thizers. [xxix] One final note on the Salem raid is the casualty count. Almost all historians have reported that •31 • �there was only a single casualty during Averell’s movements in and around Salem and that being Thomas Chapman, the man shot off his horse in the encounter with Averell’s scouts. However, the correspondent for The Richmond Examiner noted one other casualty — the killing o f a slave. “The enemy carried along with them all the able-bodied negroes they came upon, but did not come across many, as they fled to the mountains on their approach. At Salem they killed one negro because he would not receive a carbine, mount a horse and follow them. They armed and mounted all they took and employed them in guarding prisoners and as guides.” Thus, two, not one, citizens lost their lives in Averell’s Salem raid, [xxx] “I SUPPOSE YOU HAVE HEARD...” News o f the Salem raid by Averell swept through western Virginia. The fact that Averell had been able to cross into Virginia, destroy railroad track, bum much o f Salem and never be significantly engaged by Confederate forces, shattered the security felt by many citizens in the Roanoke and New River valleys. Such sentiment was expressed by Mollie Black o f Blacksburg in a letter to her husband, Dr. Harvey Black, dated December 18: My dear husband, I suppose you have heard o f the raid into Salem. There has been the greatest excitement here for two days. Last night we all slept in our clothes, expecting the Yankees in every moment. I think the hard rain Providence sent kept them back as the creek was so much swollen they could not cross. The last news is they have crossed Craigs Creek. I hope Imboden may bag them, or Gen. Echols. He is at Sweet Springs. Col. McCauslin is at Fort Harris on the Gap Mountain; the latter might have caught them if he had gone up Sinking Creek last night, but he had been on the march for two days and his men were broken down. I have a poor opinion o f all this Western army. We hear various estimates o f the damage done in Salem, but all exaggerated very much. I expect it will be a month before the (train) cars ran ... If the cowardly Yankees get away safely, we may expect them back at any time. The children were very much frightened ... [xxxi] R oanoke C ollege corrects the record On December 23, The Richmond Examiner carried a small but significant note o f news, entitled “Roanoke College Ransacked.” The article, referring to the Salem raid, was based upon reports o f Roa­ noke College students who had arrived in Richmond on the 22nd and began spreading reports about the Yankees. “They (the students) came to replenish their wardrobe o f winter clothing, the Yankees, on the occasion o f their late raid there, having despoiled them o f everything like an overcoat or comfortable outside garment. They ransacked the college building ...” trumpeted the Examiner. The college students perhaps exaggerated the story in effort to gain sympathy and to impress, but Roanoke College officials were not amused. In an effort to squash any further rumors about damage to the college, William Mc­ Cauley, a trustee, immediately wired a response to the Examiner that appeared in the next day’s issue. There is an article in your last issue, under the heading ‘Roanoke College Ran­ sacked,’ which, unless corrected in some o f its particulars, may prove detrimental to the interests o f said college. It represents the Yankees, in their raid upon Salem, as having ransacked the college building, and as having broken open and rifled the tranks o f a number o f the students. Not to palliate the conduct o f the Yankees, but to give a correct statement o f the matter, which is due the interests o f the college, I shall •32• �say that they did not enter the college building, nor molest, in the least, anything on the premises. Upon being informed by Dr. Bittle, the President, who was present, o f the character o f the building, no effort was made to enter it, or disturb anything pertaining to it. Before any intimation had been received o f the approach o f the enemy, permis­ sion had been granted several o f the students to leave their homes on the morning o f the raid. Hoping that they would get off on the morning train, before the arrival of the Yankees, they had their trunks sent to the depot, as the sequel proved, only to be pillaged and destroyed, for no train made its appearance, and the Yankees came down on our quiet little village 4like a wolf on the fold’ and devoted to destruction everything found in the vicinity o f the depot. The property of the students, which had been left in the college, remained in perfect security. The statement in regard to the capture of several students is true, but in some particulars requires modification. Six were captured, and, in connection with a num­ ber of the citizens, were marched from town about seven miles to the first camping place o f the enemy and held in custody until the following morning, when they were released and permitted to trudge their way back again to the town. As far as I observed, for it was my fate, no special indignity was offered to the students beyond the ‘durance vi’e’ to which they were subjected and the ‘no rations’ on which they were compelled to subsist. These six would doubtless have not been arrested had they not been discovered in the act o f making their escape from town. Those who remained in the college building, or in the town, were unmolested. Everything in and around the college building remains in status quo, and the exercises o f the institution will be resumed after the usual interval for the holidays on the 1st o f January, [xxxii] McCauley’s letter was indeed important. Roanoke College was entrusted with care o f young students, functioning more as a preparatory school than a college, given those over 18 were all in military service. Thus any story real or perceived that portrayed the college as damaged or unsafe would raise the anxiety levels o f parents and contributors to the severe detriment of the college. S alem raid leads to criticism of military The fallout of the Salem raid was not pleasant for the Confederate military. The Richmond Exam­ iner, in a report shortly after the raid, questioned Averell’s ability to move unhampered from West Virginia into'Roanoke County. “It is a little singular that, with all the warnings the Government has had, from the repeated demonstrations o f Averell and other Yankee commanders that he should have been permitted to march from Beverly to Salem, a distance o f nearly two hundred miles, without material interruption. From the day he left Beverly until he reached Salem abundance of time was given for a sufficient force to have been gathered to resist his advance. If we had an energetic commander in that department he would never been allowed to defeat General Echols at Greenbrier bridge, [xxxiii] The Richmond Sentinel in its edition o f December 28 placed the blame for Averell’s move upon Salem on the home guard. The home guard, a unit of townspeople, had been directed to barricade the road by which the enemy were advancing, which might have been done so effectually in the mountain passes and gorges, even a few miles from the town as to have delayed them for hours, lamented the Richmond correspondent. Instead, the home guard “proved a disgraceful failure. There had been no blockading, nor scouting, and “the enemy permitted to dash in without notice or the slightest impedi­ ment and capture the place with all the stock and supplies.” [xxxiv] •33 • �C onfederate forces find abandoned slaves, one frozen Confederate forces under the command o f Gen. Fitzhugh Lee, in pursuit o f Averell’s men, report­ ed finding many o f the slaves who had left Salem with the Union forces abandoned. Hungry, tired, cold and exhausted, most o f the slaves were returned to the town. A newspaper reporter described the situa­ tion following a visit to Salem several days after the Averell raid. “A number o f negroes and horses, sto­ len from this place, have been recovered and have already been returned here under guard. The negroes seem but too happy to have been captured, say the experiment is entirely satisfactory, and, if they can be forgiven, it shall never be repeated. They say that several o f their number were shot for expressing their desire and determination o f turning back. One o f their comrades was given a quart o f whiskey and made drunk and abandoned. He was found dead on the road from the effects o f the liquor and the cold.” [xxxv] N orthern press trumpets A verell’s raid While Confederate officials sought to downplay the success o f Averell, noting that most o f the destruction would be repaired within a few weeks, The New York Times gave Averell front page cover­ age. “Brilliant Exploits o f Gen. Averell” read the headline in the December 24 edition. Underneath were teasing statements declaring, “The Virginia and Tennessee Railroad Destroyed,” “Great Destruction of Rebel Stores,” and “Extraordinary Labors o f the Troops.” What followed was not a news report but a verbatim reprint of Gen. Averell’s report to Maj. Gen. Halleck. On December 25, The Times again gave Averell front-page play under the banner “Rebel Ac­ counts o f Averell’s Great Raid.” The paper simply reprinted in part mail received from the Richmond, Virginia, newspapers recounting the movements o f the Federal forces. The Northern news journal, Harper’s Weekly, made the Averell raid its cover story for the Janu­ ary 16, 1864, edition. A sketch on the front depicted Averell’s men returning from the raid in a driving rain while crossing a swollen creek. In brief but triumphant text, the Weekly reported that the raid upon the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad “is one o f the most hazardous, important, and successful raids since the commencement o f the war.” All o f this publicity led to an inflated reputation for Averell. The stealth and victory o f his Salem raid was a boost to Averell’s military stature. One o f many examples was the opinion offered by Moses Hall, a lieutenant colonel o f the West Virginia volunteers, who heard from Confederate deserters and refugees coming into West Virginia that “General Averell is a terror to them; more so than Stonewall Jackson was to us. A rumor o f his approach is equal to death to them.” [xxxvi] West Virginia newspapers began referring to Averell as “that dashing and gallant officer.” As for Gen. Averell himself, the Salem raid was an example o f “a novel expeditionary force” at its best. In his memoirs, many years after the war, Averell recollected the Salem raid and its “stupendous effects” — penetrating enemy territory, destroying a section and several bridges o f the railroad, disrupt­ ing the winter supply line o f Gen. James Longstreet, and drawing away the enemy in an endeavor to pursue him and his men. [xxxvii] NOTES i. This section comes largely from research the author did that appeared later as an article, “Rebel Soldiers Trained Here,” Historic Salem, the Salem Historical Society, Fall 2001, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 1, 10-11. ii. Harris, Nelson. The 17th Virginia Cavalry. Lynchburg, VA: H.E. Howard, Inc., 1994. iii. “Joseph Alfred Wilson to H.H. Hamilton, February 20,1863.” Virginia Center for Digital History, The University of Vir­ ginia. Valley of the Shadow Project. 1997. •3 4 » �Voñ' Y i n . —iSfo¡ S 6 rj f NEW YORK, SÁTOEDAY, JA NUA RY 16, 1864 ' KiítCTíd! á trw ijng .»©■Act f-0Cot%y«w. l a rfco Vonr Igíft. l y Harper ¿t. Ürwhfnvtn ti»y Ui-rfc’s oiV.^í el :1k »irtrjet ..Cwrt fer tlio Southw^ Di’,trio of Sftw Tori:. ' X - ~ s ' ______ * /; ' M ' "" r ^ « l mm mmm t* WmmÊÊÊÊÊÊMM m BSBS» i « £ !' m&mBÉmm Wmm mm ÀtÈÒILJG’S■«&ïÔ,*4ïte-inttvÄgb.3 �iv. Eisenberg, William E. “The First One Hundred Years of Roanoke College, 1842-1942.” Salem, VA: Trustees of Roanoke College, 1942. Pp. 96-97 v. “John Snider to Kittie J. Snider, March 17,1863.” Virginia Center for Digital History, The University of Virginia. The Val­ ley of the Shadow Project, 1997. vi. Harris, Nelson. “Journal of Elijah Poage, 1859-1866.” Roanoke, VA: Privately Published, 1991, p. 29. vii. Dotson, Paul R., Jr., “Desertion and Unionism in Floyd County, Virginia, 1861-1865.” The Smithfield Review, Volume II, 1998, p. 98-99. viii. Middleton, Norwood C. “Salem: A Virginia Chronicle.” Salem, VA: Salem Historical Society, 1986. P. 83. ix. Harris, Journal, p. 36. x. “Letter from Ballard Deyerle to his brother” as contained in Dedication of New Courthouse Order Book (pp. 109-111), Roanoke County Circuit Court, 1910. xi. Hill, J. F. “To and From Libby Prison.” The Scioto (OH) Gazette. January 26,1864 (Part 1); February 2,1864 (Part 2); and February 9,1864 (Part 3). xii. Reader, Francis Smith. “History of the Fifth West Virginia Cavalry.” New Brighton, PA: Daily News, 1890. Pp. 223-224. xiii. Collins, Darrell. “General William Averell’s Salem Raid.” Shippensburg, PA: Burd Street Press, 1998. p. 51. xiv. Middleton, Norwood C. “Salem: A Virginia Chronicle.” Salem, VA: Salem Historical Society. P. 86. xv. Collins, p. 52. xvi. Collins, p. 53; Middleton, p. 86. xvii. Lynchburg Virginian, December 22, 1863. xviii. Collins, p. 60. xix. Collins, p. 56. xx. Reader, p. 225. xxi. Collins, p. 61. xxii. Middleton, p. 89. xxiii. Ibid., p. 90. xxiv. Collins, pp. 62-63. xxv. Collins, p. 56. xxvi. Ibid. xxvii. Collins, p. 58. xxviii. Reader, p. 225-226. xxix. Middleton, p. 91; Collins, p. 61. xxx. The Richmond Examiner, December 19,1863. xxxi. McMullen, Glenn. “The Civil War Letters of Dr. Harvey Black.” Baltimore: Butternut and Blue, 1995. p. 77. xxxii. The Richmond Exmainer, December 24,1863. xxxiii. The Richmond Examiner, December 17,1863. xxxiv. “Averill’s Raid.” The Richmond Sentinel, December 28, 1863. xxxv. Ibid. xxxvi. Averell, William Woods. “Ten Years in the Saddle.” San Rafael, CA: Presidio Press, 1978, p. 394. xxxvii. Ibid. 36 �'I n s titu te ft ‘a, new- ccuiii/f&ttott ’ itt t %64 by Nelson Harris rofessor Edward Joynes, o f William and Mary College in Williamsburg, had been temporarily fulfilling teaching duties at Hollins Institute. Impressed by the fortitude and dedication o f the Institute’s efforts, especially during the war, Joynes sought to propel the Institute forward through articulating the need to prepare young Southern ladies for the vocation o f teaching. On August 20, Joynes composed a lengthy epistle to board o f trustees chairman George Tayloe, in a step to solicit sup­ port. Joynes’ letter was awash in Southern loyalism and a naive optimism. His correspondence read, in part, as follows: We stand indeed on a new threshold of a new civilization ... A little while hence, and, God helping, they will stand erect, a bruised and shattered remnant, it is true, but yet a people and a nation, clothed with a blood-bought independence and endowed with the rights and responsibility o f liberty and self-government. Through the sacrifices and the victories, the agonies and the glories, the trials and the tri­ umphs o f this great war, they will have won for themselves a place and a name among the nations of the earth and laid the foundations of their own national char­ acter; and beneath the inspirations o f this great struggle ■ .fTT^ under the influence o f its discipline and sufferings — by the light of its prolonged teachings, they will begin to make their own career, and to work out their own civilization and destiny in the world ... It is already manifest. The war itself, in a word, will be the basis upon which the distinctive civilization o f this people will be founded hereafter ... Its ex­ periences, recollections, and traditions; the impulses, the energies, the passions and aspirations it has called into being will be impressed with controlling force upon every mind, and will inspire the thoughts and sentiments, the literature and ambition o f the present and future generations with ever increasing influence. An immense impulse will have been given to the intellectual as well as physical energies o f the people. In turn like these the people and State shall appreciate the importance o f education ... To our cost have we realized to what extent, under the name o f equal­ ity and liberty, the Delilah o f this false Union had already shorn us o f our strength. Not only had it well-nigh robbed us o f all the elements o f political, industrial, and commercial independence, until it deemed us powerless in its grasp; but with a still more subtle invasion, our artful ‘brethren’ o f the North had sapped the foundations o f our education and our literature by the emissaries o f their schools, and the publi­ cation o f their press, and had these influences not been happily arrested, they would in the end have undermined our opinions, our politics, our institutions themselves, rendering their dominion complete, and revolution for us impossible, [i] P In this spirited fervor, Joynes asked the trustees to consider establishing a new department for the sole purpose o f educating Southern ladies to teach in homes and schools for the purpose o f elevating, •37* �preserving and advancing the ideals of this “new civilization,” the American South. Two days later, on August 22, the trustees met and Joynes’ letter was shared and positively em­ braced. The trustees voted to “cordially approve the views and recommendations” outlined in Joynes’ document. To move the matter forward, the trustees decided upon a six-person committee (three trustees and three faculty) to develop specific steps the Institute should take to achieve the goal o f training young women to be teachers. This committee provided a report on September 5, and suggested a number o f steps. Among the recommendations were to create an endowment for scholarships, students must be Vir­ ginians, after graduation all such teachers must agree to serve three o f their first five professional years teaching in Confederate states, and the new department would be named “The Normal Department of Hollins Institute.” Thus, the new program was launched. Enthusiasm for the endeavor ran high, so much that Joynes’ epistle, the trustees’ resolution o f support, and a letter from Superintendent Charles Lewis Cocke all appeared in the opening pages o f the Institute’s 1864 catalogue. Cocke declared in the “Announcement” section o f the catalogue: If we would maintain and perpetuate those lovely characteristics which distin­ guish Southern society and Southern homes from all others on earth; if we would not allow the stranger and foreigner to supplant us in our birth-right and introduce customs and innovations which we neither love nor admire, then we must provide the home circle, the neighborhood school, and those too o f higher grade, with teach­ ers possessed, not merely o f intellect and learning but o f those lovely domestic and social virtues which have ever adorned the ladies o f the South. How many young ladies o f our State — young ladies o f high social position and noble qualities of mind and o f heart — robbed by a vindictive and unscrupulous enemy o f all exter­ nal means o f support, would most cheerfully and gladly avail themselves o f the privileges here proposed, and by their efforts an influence in after years, transmit to coming generations the principles o f social life, the civilization and the refinements, which their fathers, their brothers and their friends have so heroically fallen to de­ fend and preserve? [ii] Within just a few years, nearly half o f Hollins’ young ladies would be enrolled in the “Normal Depart­ ment.” NOTES i. Catalogue of Hollins Institute, 1864 Session (Hollins University Archives, Document J-l). ii. Ibid. •3 8 �S taves muàteneeC &otcUen& eu Î %65 by Nelson Harris ith Confederate forces dwindling in number due to desertion, illness and the general toll of four years o f war, the Commonwealth o f Virginia put out a call for slaveholders to relinquish their slaves for service in the Confederate military. In mid-March, several large slave owners in Roanoke County responded. The Richmond Dispatch recorded the actions o f certain men o f Roanoke County. “Liberal Gift o f Colored Troops” was the headline, with the newspaper reporting the following: “The liberal action o f a meeting o f farmers in Roanoke County, Virginia, in offering to emancipate such o f their slaves as will volunteer in the army, has been mentioned. We append the form o f the pledge and the names o f the sign­ ers.” According to The Dispatch, the pledge was as follows: “We whose names are hereunto sub­ scribed mutually pledge ourselves to emancipate such of our negro men, between the ages o f eighteen and forty-five, as will volunteer as soldiers in the Confederate service, promising them that they shall be permitted to return to their homes, and that proper provision will be made for them and their families when the war is over.” The Richmond newspaper listed the names o f those from Roanoke County who had signed the pledge and committed slaves to the Confederate army. These men were B. Pitzer, John Smith, G.W. Shanks, T.B. Evans, J.W. Johnston, J.C. Deyerle, C.W. Burwell, G.M. Pitzer, F.J. Chapman, J.K. Pitzer, David S. Read, G.B. Board, J.M. Trout, A.J. Deyerle, Hirman Hansbrough, H.A. Edmundson, James Wade, R.B. Moorman, S.G. Wood, William W. Uttz, Giles Barnette, A.E. Huff and A.R. McCorkle. [i] W B ittle, books and the fall of R ichmond Dr. David Bittle, Roanoke College president, who had struggled to keep the college afloat fi­ nancially and classes open during the war, now needed books. Over the past several months, Bittle had managed to save nearly $1,000 in Confederate currency to pay some debts incurred by his institution. Unfortunately, the creditors had balked at accepting Confederate money, correctly perceiving that the demise o f the Confederacy was imminent. Bittle, however, believed the money was certainly valued in Richmond, so he made plans to travel to Richmond by train and buy books for the college s library. On the morning o f April 5, Bittle rose early, dressed and walked to the Salem depot. Approach­ ing the telegraph office, Col. Charlton Morgan o f that office informed Bittle that Richmond had fallen. Bittle later recalled, “I came to the depot, satchel in hand, on my way to buy books in Richmond for the College library, when I heard news o f the fall o f Richmond. This money perished on my hands. T he surrender of S alem Learning o f the fall o f Richmond, leading residents of Salem planned to surrender their town to the next advancing Federal force. This decision was most likely in response to a desire to protect Salem from looting and burning by Federal troops than a strong conviction to return to the Union. The opportunity for surrender arrived quickly. The 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry, under the com­ mand o f Maj. William Wagner, had been operating east o f Christiansburg during early April. Need­ ing to move further east, the 15th Pennsylvania arrived in Jacksonville, Floyd County, on April 4. The community surrendered, being represented by a local attorney and physician. The 15th paused briefly •59* �outside Jacksonville and prepared for a raid. By 5:30 a.m., however, the 15th was en route toward Bent Mountain. Marching in a pouring rain and for nearly 20 hours, they finally encamped atop Bent Moun­ tain in the early hours o f Tuesday, April 5. By noon, Company B under Capt. George W. Hildebrand was headed down the mountain and into the Back Creek section o f Roanoke County. By 2 p.m., Company B was on the outskirts o f Salem, [ii] Knowing o f Company B ’s advance, three o f Salem’s citizens prepared to surrender the town. Dr. David Bittle, president o f Roanoke College, the Rev. Samuel Register o f the Methodist Church and Dr. John Alexander, physician, would present the surrender. Affixing a small white flag made from a pocket handkerchief atop a 10-foot pole, the three men in the company o f 40 others left Salem along the west­ ern pike for the train depot. As Dr. Bittle recorded later, “It was a solemn time for Salem and Roanoke County.” The college had been deserted the day before when Capt. W.G. Holland had taken the college students by train to Lynchburg for potential Confederate military action. Thus, only women and small children, perched on porches, witnessed the occasion. Bittle wrote, “All things were as silent and awful as when the stars fell in 1832.” [Hi] As the men walked through Salem, the silence was broken by the youthful enthusiasm o f the young boys following behind Bittle, Register and Alexander. “The Yankees! The Yankees!” the boys were reported as shouting and soon they had run ahead o f the distinguished trio. They had walked not a hundred yards until they met up with Capt. Hildebrand and Company B. As Bittle recalled the scene, Rev. Register was elected to speak, Alexander held the flag, and the Roanoke College president stood i nearby. After a brief ceremony, Salem had officially surrendered. Hildebrand is reported to have re­ sponded graciously. “Gentlemen, your town and college shall be protected. No one shall be molested either in person or property.” To enforce his promise, Hildebrand ordered Pvt. David Clark, a student at Jefferson College in Ohio, to escort Bittle back to the college. On the return through Salem, Bittle walked and Clark rode on his horse. Noting some onlookers, Bittle tried to make light o f the occasion. “See ladies, I have taken one prisoner.” Reportedly, the ladies did not laugh. One can only wonder as to how Federal troops viewed these formal acts o f surrender by towns along their march. George Neil, who was with the 15th Pennsylvanians when Liberty (Bedford) surren­ dered in an identical manner to Salem, stated, “This was a fashionable and proper manner o f surrender­ ing cities several centuries ago, but these formalities just now do not make any particular impression on us except the humorous side o f them ... the ostentatious display o f a white flag by the town officials made no difference to us, while it probably made them feel the importance o f their civic position.” [iv] Capt. Hildebrand and other officers ate supper and spent the night at the Salem Hotel, while the remainder o f the 15th Pennsylvania spent the night on the outskirts o f Salem and rode off promptly the next morning, where later that day they would receive a flag o f truce from the town o f Liberty in Bed­ ford County. One observer at the officers’ dinner at the Salem Hotel stated that they met Dr. George Ter­ rill, a well-known county physician and justice o f the peace. Why Dr. Terrill met with the Union officers, or what conversation occurred, history does not record. Just as Hildebrand had promised, the Pennsylva-’ nians left the town o f Salem untouched, [v] Before leaving the Roanoke Valley, however, the Pennsylvanians, numbering about 230 men, did take an opportunity to destroy some railroad track. The event was recalled by George Neil, o f Company D, who wrote: Passing through Salem and nearing Big Lick we learned that a trainload of provisions was about leaving that point for the rebel army and we tried to capture it, but the clatter o f our horses hoofs as we charged through the town gave a warn­ ing to the train crew and they started too soon for us to intercept them. Horseflesh cannot equal the steam engine for strength and endurance and, while we had some • 40• �hope at first, the train gradually pulled away and escaped. It was some consolation to bum the railroad bridge over the Roanoke River and to feel that our enemy would not use that track for some time to come. To make up for our loss we captured a small station at Coners Springs, an express car filled with tobacco and provisions, and, after taking as much as we needed, gave the balance to the negroes, who were always our friends and naturally gravitated to us, then burned the car. [vi] One other member o f the 15th Pennsylvania provided some additional detail in his recollections o f his company’s visit to Roanoke County. “After dinner (on April 5) we started to join the column; found that it had fed and marching on had captured a wagon train o f 8 wagons laden with hay. I stopped with my Company to bum it. Overtook the column again at Big Lick Bridge at 9 P.M. Major Wagner burned the bridge. Then moved on.” [vii] In summarizing the 15th Pennsylvania’s activities in the Roanoke Valley o f April 4 and 5, Maj. William Wagner submitted the following detailed report to his commanding officer, Lt. Col. Charles Betts: I moved with my command from your camp near Jacksonville (Floyd), Va., at 6 o ’clock p.m., to operate on the Virginia & East Tennessee Railroad, east o f Salem; marched across Bent Mountain over a most wretched road and reached Salem at 2 o ’clock p.m., o f the 5th. The place had been evacuated by the enemy six hours and all public stores removed; moving on toward Big Lick, I found a destroyed six of the enemy’s wagons, loaded with forage, which they had abandoned on the road; passed Big Lick Station, from which a train hurriedly took its departure but five minutes previous, carrying away all the public stores; reached the railroad bridge across Tinker’s Creek at 7 o ’clock p.m., fired the structure and immediately moved on down the road to Buford’s Station (Montvale), at which place I went into camp at 3 o ’clock a.m. o f the 6th. All the government stores at Bonsack’s Station, which I had passed, had been moved the previous evening, [viii] Salem raided by M ichigan C avalry Just a few days after the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry left, a company o f Federal troops with the 10th Michigan Cavalry came into the Roanoke Valley. This cavalry had been operating in tandem with the Pennsylvanians for several months. On April 5, the day Salem surrendered, the Michigan Cavalry had been at Christiansburg, where they destroyed an estimated 100 miles o f track o f the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. They were attached to a force under the command o f Gen. George Stoneman, who had orders to destroy railroads and military supplies o f the enemy along his line o f march. The Michigan cavalry were now en route to North Carolina, when they rode into Salem on April 10. According to the official report o f the 10th Michigan, they destroyed six railroad bridges in and around Salem. Upon leav­ ing Salem, the Michigan Cavalry headed toward High Point and Salisbury, North Carolina, [ix] Unlike the Pennsylvanians, the Michigan troops were not as kind in leaving personal belong­ ings unmolested. As one Roanoke College professor remembered, “Yankees from a Michigan company arrived, robbed and plundered everything o f value.” According to the professor’s recollections, two officers with the 10th Michigan ate supper with the college’s president, Dr. David Bittle. Bittle always used hospitality and any other means to protect his campus. The story goes that as the Michigan officers and Bittle ate dinner, a private holding the officers’ horses asked one o f Bittle’s servants if there was any gold or silver in the house. Reportedly, the servant replied that Bittle “was a preacher and therefore had none.” [x] 41 �R oanoke C ollege boys come home Professor George Holland o f Roanoke College had on April 2 led his company o f college stu­ dents to Lynchburg. Going by rail, their intended purpose was to link up with the Confederate army near Appomattox. As with earlier outings, the college unit did not see battle as Gen. Lee surrendered prior to their arrival. Consequently, Holland proceeded to lead his students back to Salem. The return trip, how­ ever, was long remembered by one soldier involved because o f a singular event: At Beaufort’s, on the east o f the mountain, these irrepressible young soldiers found two large dirt cars standing on the (rail) track. The proposition to push these heavy cars up to the top o f the mountain and ride down on the other side met with instant approval. Well do I remember my feelings, as we prepared to get into these cars, for the uncertain ride down the steep grade. It was night and dark. Whether the enemy had been before us and destroyed the track, whether there were any obstructions on the track was unknown, and by those boys unthought of. Discipline was gone; orders were useless; only one was given and that was that their Captain (Holland) should say who should go in the first car. There were no brakes to the cars. The students were divided into two equal parties; into the first were put those who were either better prepared to die, or who could best be spared by their parents and friends; and into the second the rest, who were ordered to remain on the top o f the mountain until they felt sure the first car had safely made, what their Captain believed, was a dangerous descent. Getting into the foremost car, the order was given to let go; down we went with increasing velocity, the other car coming closely behind ours. Wild, hilarious boys those were, and utterly regardless o f the danger that their Captain felt was imminent and real. But the cars kept the track and the ride was completed without accident, [xi] The return o f the Roanoke College students back to Salem was, after the midnight rail ride, un­ eventful. For them and the rest o f Virginia, the war was over. H otchkiss finds S alem key to transportation Maj. Jedediah Hotchkiss, famous map-maker in the Confederate Engineer Corps, knew and took advantage o f Salem as a transportation hub during the last days o f the war as did many Confederates. Hotchkiss possessed critical maps used by Gens. Jubal Early and Lee as they navigated the railroads, valleys and towns o f southwestern Virginia. Knowing Salem was relatively safe compared to surround­ ing locations, Hotchkiss sought safety there. “On March 2 2 ,1 took my maps, etc, which I had shipped from Waynesborough to Richmond on the train that escaped March 2, via Petersburg, to Lynchburg, so as to get back in the Valley by way o f Salem. General Early left Lynchburg for Abingdon to look after affairs in Southwestern Virginia On March 23, I went to Salem and secured transportation, by wagon, and took my maps to Lexington and continued to Staunton ...,” reported Hotchkiss. His maps and his efforts to protect them would be valuable for only a few short weeks. With Lee’s surrender, Hotchkiss now sought to preserve his maps for posterity, and again Salem was key. The Army having thus surrendered or disbanded, in company with some other officers, I went back to Salem, whither I had again sent my maps. Having secured wagon transportation for these I took them to Lexington by April 16, where I left them concealed and then took my way homeward to Churchville, which I reached on April 18.” To finish the story o f Hotchkiss’s maps, the Confederate en­ gineer sent them to Early, who had headed to Mexico, addressing them to Early’s Mexican alias, “John Anderson.” Early commenced to write his war memoirs in Cuba and Canada using Hotchkiss’s maps, [xii] • 42 • �P ost-war life With the Civil War officially over, the residents o f Roanoke County faced many challenges as they tried to resume the business and routines that had governed their daily affairs prior to the War. Some had fared well and the transition was made almost seamless. Others, however, were not as fortu­ nate. Q.M. Ward o f Big Lick wrote his business partner, Oscar Weisiger, on several occasions dur­ ing the spring. The war had taken its toll on his mercantile business. In a letter to Weisiger on May 16, Ward shared his belief that they had “fallen to rise no more.” Weisiger responded in a letter dated May 29 wherein he outlined a course of action for him and Ward. “In relation to our Northern indebtedness I think it can be settled for 20 or 25% and I would very much like to see you and have a talk with you on this subject. I think if we can raise 10 or 12,000 dollars, we can pay our whole debt and the sooner some arrangement is made the better.” Weisiger based his calculations upon reports from other merchants in Richmond who had recently returned from the North. Too poor to travel, Weisiger nonetheless tried to encourage Ward through correspondence. “I do not know what your views o f business are for the future, whether you will embark in the mercantile business again or not, but as for myself I must get to doing something ... I feel like going to work with renewed effort and regain what is lost.” According to the let­ ter, Ward and Weisiger were indebted to several northern creditors including O.R. Tweedy & Company o f New York and W. Lovejoy & Company o f Boston, [xHi] NOTES i. The Richmond Dispatch, March 27, 1865. ii. Information about the movements of Company B comes from portions of a diary of Captain Will Colton of the 15th Penn­ sylvania Cavalry that were printed in Suzanne Colton Wilson’s book, “Column South,” published in 1960, pp. 280-282. iii. Actually the year was 1833 when a magnificent meteor shower occurred across the continental United States. The event was so startling that many later confessed they thought the world was coming to an end. iv. Neil, p. 530. v. The Roanoke Collegian. September 1875, Vol. II, No. I, p. 2. vi. Neil, George. “With the First Battalion to Lynchburg.” “History of the Fifteenth Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry.” Charles Kirk, editor. Philadelphia: Society of the Fifteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry, 1906. Pp. 529-530. vii. Column South, p. 281. viii. History of the Fifteenth Pennsylvania, p. 696. ix. Wilson, Goodridge. “Yankee Cavalry Raided Southwest in War’s Closing Days.” Roanoke Times, April 9, 1961. Thomas Van Home. “Life of Major General George H. Thomas.” Privately published, 1882. P. 392. Chris Hartley. “War’s Last Cav­ alry Raid.” “America’s Civil War.” May 1998. Throwbridge. “History of the 10th Michigan Cavalry.” x. The Roanoke Collegian. September 1875, Vol. 11, No. 1, p. 2. xi. Memorial Book to Rev. George W. Holland. Newberry, SC: Newberry College, 1895. P. 65. xii. Jedediah Hotchkiss Papers, Library of Congress (Also reprinted in Supplement to Official Records, Volume 7, pp. 742744). xiii. Oscar F. Weisiger Letter, May 29, 1865 (Manuscript #00285). Archives, Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Virginia; www.vmi.edu/archives/manuscripts/ms0285.html. 43 �by Elizabeth R. Varón W hat do women have to do with the origins of the Civil War? Growing up in Virginia in the 1970s, I often heard this answer: nothing. Hrama MU?h !*as Changed sj nce then. A new generation o f scholars has rediscovered the Civil War as a J a m a in which women, and gender tensions, figure prominently. Thanks to new research into diaries letters, newspapers and state and local records, we now know that women were on the front lines o f the I?™ ” isa Sjaduate ofSwarthmore College and holds a doctoratefrom Yale University She tausht at Wellesley College and Temple University before shejoined the University ofVirginia h i s ^ Z l ^ H e r T Z rYork k F im e s on Feb. 1, 2011, is used with the permission ^ o *f the * author 77W -/Ä5ft' " ™New S ^ York PTimes. u s h e d in m ee lZ New Times and The 44 �literary and rhetorical war over slavery long before the shooting war began. They were integral to the slave resistance and flight that destabilized the border between North and South. And they were recruited by both secessionists and Unionists to join a partisan army, with each side claiming that the “ladies,” with their reputation for moral purity, had chosen it over its rivals. So what do women have to do with the origins o f the war? The answer is: everything. Some o f the women most involved in these political developments are well known to scholars and the general public. But countless others are still obscure. For example, we all know about Harriet Beecher Stowe’s contribution, with her best-selling 1852 novel, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” to the antislavery cause. But how many Americans know that Stowe’s book escalated a long-standing literary war over slavery? “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” not only inflamed the proslavery press in the North, but it also prompted a concerted response from white Southern women writers like Mary Eastman and Louisa McCord, who countered Stowe with their own rose-colored fantasies about the purported gentility and harmony of plantation life. Works like Eastman’s “Aunt Phillis’s Cabin: or Southern Life As It Is,” published the same year as Stowe’s book, were widely hailed in the proslavery press, and are the literary antecedents to that most enduring volley in the ongoing literary war over slavery, Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 revival o f the plantation-fiction genre, “Gone with the Wind.” We all know the name of Harriet Tubman, and recognize her role in leading the Underground Railroad in the 1850s. She was a remarkable, heroic individual. But she was not alone; new work in the historical record permits us to recover the names and stories o f scores o f female fugitives from slavery and o f female Underground Railroad operatives, white and black, Northern and Southern, who fought their own campaign along the border o f the free and slave states. Their stories may be forgotten today, but they were national news back then. When the slave Jane Johnson was rescued from her master (a prominent Southern politician) by the Underground Railroad in Philadelphia in 1855, her case became a national cause celebre. To the antislavery press, she represented the slave’s natural yearning for freedom and the courage and dignity o f enslaved women. To the proslav­ ery press, she represented the faithlessness o f Northerners, who, in defiance o f the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, refused to act as slave catchers. Moreover, gender tensions over competing definitions o f family and womanly comportment worked to escalate the sectional conflict. Attacks on the manhood and womanhood o f one’s political op­ ponents — the charge that they were not “true” men and women — were a staple o f antebellum politics, and such attacks, which became more pointed in the 1850s, greatly eroded the trust between the North and South. Indeed, by the eve o f war, many Northerners and Southerners had come to believe that the gender conventions o f the two regions were antagonistic and incompatible. Defenders o f slavery and “Southern rights” charged that Northern society, with its bent for social reform, was fundamentally hostile to the hierarchical, patriarchal social order o f the slave South. As the proslavery Richmond Enquirer put it in 1856, in a typical accusation, antislavery Northerners who supported the new Republican party threatened all of the pillars o f traditional society: they were “at war with religion, female virtue, private property and distinctions o f race.” Gender politics made it into Congress as well. In 1856, Preston Brooks, a representative from South Carolina, savagely beat Sen. Charles Sumner on the floor o f the Senate with a cane after Sumner Opposite: A 19th century steel engraving depicts Barbara Frietchie’s defiance o f Rebel troops as she waved the Union flag when Stonewall Jackson and his men were passing through Frederick, Maryland. This print was published in 1878 in the book “Our Country, Vol. III.” (Source: iStockPhoto; photo by M. Poe) • 45• �insulted the “honor” of the South with a speech on slavery in Kansas. On its face, this seems the perfect illustration o f the maxim that politics was a man’s world. But when put in its context, the incident illus­ trates how gender aspersions and images o f women were central to the slavery debates. Sumner’s speech had dubbed the forcible incursions by Southern settlers in the West, and their bid to establish a proslav­ ery regime, as the “rape o f a virgin territory.” Such sexualized imagery fueled the abolitionist critique o f Southern men as rapacious and uncivilized, and o f Southern society as saturated by violence against women. The “bully Brooks,” the Northern press charged, had “disgraced the name o f man”; “there is no chivalry in a brute,” as a Boston newspaper put it, succinctly. Proslavery forces who rallied around Brooks, by contrast, claimed that Sumner’s defenseless capitulation to Brooks’s blows proved that Northern men were weak and submissive, slave-like in their subservience. This fueled the proslavery critique o f the North as a world turned upside down, in which “strong-minded” abolitionist women and radical free blacks had raised the specter o f social equality and effected the erosion o f the patriarchal family and o f male authority. Even as they imputed gender transgressions to their opponents, antebellum politicians routinely called on women to join the ranks of political parties and movements. O f course, women could not yet vote; nonetheless, elite and middle-class women — to whom Victorian culture ascribed a penchant for piety and virtue — had a distinct role to play in electoral politics, both in influencing and mobilizing male voters and in lending an aura of moral sanctity to political causes. It is no wonder then that during the secession crisis, champions d t Union and o f Southern nation­ alism alike claimed the “ladies” were on their side. During the election campaign o f 1860 and the sub­ sequent secession convention debates in the South, women attended speeches, rallies and processions; contributed their own polemics to the partisan press; and, fortunately for historians, left a treasure trove o f firsthand accounts of the deepening crisis. These accounts — letters, diaries, memoirs, poems and stories — furnish moving and astute analyses o f the agonies o f secession. S uch sources are the most powerful argument for recognizing the centrality o f women to the story of the w ar’s causes. For example, there is no more chilling account o f how it felt to be a Southern Unionist in the midst o f secession fever than that o f Elizabeth Van Lew o f Richmond, Virginia. Van Lew was a native-born white Southerner, but one who harbored a loathing for slavery and a belief that her state, as the mother o f the Union, should represent moderation and compromise. As she watched a secessionist procession snake through the streets o f Richmond in the wake o f Virginia’s vote to join the Confederacy, she knew the time for compromise had passed. “Such a sight!” Van Lew wrote. “The multitude, the mob, the whooping, the tin-pan music, and the fierceness o f a surging, swelling revolution. This I witnessed. I thought o f France and as the procession passed, I fell upon my knees under the angry heavens, clasped my hands and prayed, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’” For Van Lew, secession was a kind o f collective madness that had descended on the South. She chose to stay in Richmond during the war, although she could put her political principles on the line as the leading Union spy in the Confederacy. Her Richmond home was the nerve center o f an elaborate interracial espionage ring that funneled critical information to Grant’s army. Like Harriet Beecher Stowe and Harriet Tubman, Van Lew was remarkable — but not anoma­ lous. The nation’s archives and attics contain the stories o f countless other such women, who offer eloquent testimony on the w ar’s causes and meaning. The challenge that remains for scholars working in this field to popularize the notion, among general readers and some skeptics in the ranks o f academic historians, that women and gender were central, not merely tangential, to the story o f the sectional alienation and strife. The stakes are high: the better we understand how women figured in antebellum politics, the better w e’ll understand the war• 46 • �time relationship between home front and battlefront and the tangled process by which Americans have defined patriotism and citizenship ever since. SOURCES Stephen W. Berry, “All that Makes a Man: Love and Ambition in the Civil War South” Stephanie M.H. Camp, “Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South” Thavolia Glymph, “Out of the House of Bondage: The Transformation of the Plantation Household” Amy Greenberg, “Manifest Manhood and the Antebellum Empire” Kristen Tegtmeier Oertel, “Bleeding Borders: Race, Gender and Violence in Pre-Civil War Kansas” Michael D. Pierson, “Free Hearts and Homes: Gender and American Antislavery Politics” Nina Silber, “Gender and the Sectional Conflict.” Women “Firing upon Our Soldiers” A front-page story in The New York Times told of a cavalry raid on Wytheville on July 26,1863, designed to destroy the railroad and the telegraph system. The headlines stated: “Our Loss Seventy-eight Killed, Wounded and Missing; The Women Firing upon Our Soldiers.” A report from Union Brig. Gen. E.P. Scammon said, “We were fired on from houses, public and private, by the citizens, even by the women.” Scammon said the Union men “cut the railroad at Wytheville and destroyed two pieces of artillery.” The 872 Union soldiers were led by Col. John Toland, who was one of the first casualties of the raid. The invading army was confronted by “murderous” fire from the local militia, men too old for service, young boys and some Confederate forces but they were outnumbered. After an hour-long battle, the Union squads set fire to several homes and public buildings. They pillaged the town into the night and then withdrew northward. The Confederate casualties numbered seven killed and 86 old men and boys captured but released the next day. •4 7 • �W t ovcäA tfa b o v w i E ditor’s Note: This undated note (below) with no signature was saved with letters written from Mary Susan “Mollie ” Trout Terry to her hus­ band, Peyton Terry, while he was stationed with the 28th Virginia Regi­ ment near Richmond during the Civil War. The note was written by one o f the Terrys’daughters. It contains background information pertinent to the contents o f the letters. Peyton Terry later was a prominent business­ man in Big Lick and early Roanoke. The note and the letters are part o f a collection from the Goodwin and Terry fam ilies that were donated to the History Museum o f Western Virginia by Thompson Goodwin, a great-grandson o f Peyton and Mary Susan “Mollie ” Trout Terry. His generous gift o f the letters is gratefully acknowledged. A ll rights belong to the History Museum o f Western Virginia, without restriction. The note and the follow ing two letters and notes were transcribed by Charlotte Porterfield, a volunteer at the Historical Society s Virtual Museum. Mary Susan “Mollie” Terry M y f a t h e r w e n t a s a v o lu n t e e r in M a y . i 86 in t h e f i r s t c o m p a n y t o le a v e o u r c o u n ty . j~ ie b e lo n g e d t o G ° - l - 2 8 ” V a - R e g im e n t. ~ R h e ir f i r s t o f f ic e r s w e re G a p t . M a t . D e y e r le , M a j- W i§ fe m W a t t s , L ie u t . G ° I A l i e n , C o l R o b e r t R r e s to n , R h illip G t G e o r g e R o c k e ’s R x ig a d e , R i c k e t t s R e v is io n . M y f a t h e r s e rv e d w it h o u t in te r m is s io n d u r in g t h e e n tir e w a r e s c c e p tin g a p a r t o f t h e f i g h t a r o u n d R ic h m o n d w h e n h e w a s a w a y o n s ic k le a v e , j jis R e g im e n t w a s t h e s e c o n d t o re a c h M a n a s s a s J u n c t io n , t h e “ 1 8 & 2 8 ” r e a c h in g t h e r e a b o u t t h e s a m e tim e , ¡n t h e f a ll o f 56 1 G e n . R ju n t o n ’s R e g im e n t w a s a d d e d , a n d a f t e r G e n . G o e k e ’s d e a th h e [ R iu n t o n ] b e c a m e R ) r ig a d e G e n e r a l. / \ f t e r s e r v in g t o t h e e n d o f t h e w a r h e w a s ta k e n p r is o n e r a t G a y lo r d s G r e e k t h r e e d a y s b e f o r e Peyton Terry t h e s u r r e n d e r , c o n fin e d a t R o in t L o o k o u t , M d . R ]e w a s re le a s e d in a lp h a b e t ic o r d e r a n d r e a c h e d h o m e J u n e 2 0 , 1 865. R je s e rv e d a s o r d in a n c e s e r je a n t a n d w a s in [b la n k ] R e v . R e te r ~ R in s ly w a s G b a p la in o f t h e 2 S th \J a . R e g im e n t 48 �5 > g L >ck, V a - J a n u a r y 1 1 , 1 &6-\ M y D e a r IJ u s b a n d , Y o u r s o f th e p th cam e t o h a n d to d a y . ] have n o t re c e iv e d y o u r le tte r b y M r R e e d , o r th e p a p e rs e ith e r. | d o n o t k n o w i f he is a t hom e o r n o t. W e a re v e ry well, n o th in g new s tirrin g in th e n e ig h b o rh o o d t h a t 1 k n o w o f, e x c e p t m arrying. R_mmiline R itz e rw a s m a rrie d la s t w e e k t o k~apt~T~om pkins, o n e o f G en J e n k in ’s s ta ff, a n d miss R ru d e n c e G re e n w o o d w as m arried t o D r . VViagO) a n d miss M a r g a r e t M use t o M r W r ig h t fro m R )e d fo rd . G a N’e a y lo r is t o be m a rrie d t o m orrow . D e n r y is g o in g t o th e w e d d i ng T h e s u b s titu te men a n d th e e xe m p ts a re b e in g exam ined now , it seem s t o h u rt th e fe e lin g s o f som e o f them a g o o d d e a l t o have t o g o in service. /^ \u n t [ i ’a 'nnah a n d M r G rlsri e all new m a rrie d p e o p le , som came h e re la s t R rid a y m o rn in g a n d le f t th is m orning, th e y a re like j u s t as happLj as p o s s ib le , it seem s rig h t s tra n g e t o see h e r so fa m ilia r w ith a g e n tle m a n. ( J n c le J a c o b has b e e n p ro m is e d t o b e e x e m p te d , if he will fin is h all th e w h e a t he m akes & all his mill fu rn is h e s a t g o v e rn m e n t p ric e , w hich he v e ry g la d ly a g re e d t o d o . R a sa y s th e re is no f ig h t in J a c o b b u t D a v y will m ake a g o o d s o ld ie r, a u n t R |a n n a h sa ys she d o e s n o t b e lie ve he w o u ld f ig h t i f he w as in th e arm y. w ro te t o uou a b o u t /Y g g y ’s hire, she is h ire d t o G a m R a rish in G a le m f o r j?0 d o l lars. L e e h a d a le t t e r fro m his w ife la s t w e e k she s a id h e r M rs th o u g h t th a t o n e re a s o n w h y he w as n o t p e rm itte d t o v is it h e r w as o n a c c o u n t o f th e e x p e n sive n e ss o f th e tr ip a n d th a t she w o u ld h e lp t o p a y e x p e n se s. | g o t a lo n g ve ry well w ith G a r a h a n d L a c y , f o r them t o b e o f th e m a te ria l th e y are. | am g la d t h a t ] d id n ’t g e t L a c y h ire d o u t. ] have h a d a g r e a t d e a l o f c o m p a n y in th e la s t th re e w e e ks a n d it w o u ld b e rig h t in c o n v e n ie n t t o have o n ly o n e se rva n t. M a m ade me a p re s e n t o f a nice m o usseline [m o u sseline, a fa b r ic ] d re s s t o d a y , a g o o d d e a l n ic e r th a n th e o n e | b o u g h t fro m R )ro w n * a n d it d id n ’t c o s t s o much. G a p t G is h s e n t R je n ry an e x te n s io n o f his fu rlo u g h f o r te n d a y s lo n g e r, f o r th e p u rp o s e o f re c ru itin g his co m p a n y, ie w ith th e s u b s titu te men. R ily a n d A l y ta lk a b o u t y o u v e ry o fte n , f \ \ y s a ys th e n e x t tim e she :le g o e s t o G r a n d M a ’s she is g o in g t o lo o k in D r- M e c h e l’s s a d d le b a g s a n d g e t h e r o n e little b r o th e r o u t. M e c h e l is b o a rd in g a t R a ’s now. R ju s b a n d , ¡jo in e d th e c h u rc h y e s te rd a y , O how | w ish e d t h a t y o u w e re th e re b y my sid e , t h a t we c o u ld a tte m p t t o le a d a new life to g e th e r, a p u re r life , b u t o n e in w hich j fe e l t h a t new b e g in n e rs have a g r e a t d e a l t o e n c o u n te r, fro m th e e ffe c ts o f o ld h a b its a n d te m p e r, my d e a r h u s b a n d how m uch ) w ish th a t | c o u ld see u o u a n d co n v e rs e wi th l h ave so m uch t h a t ) fe e l t h a t | c o u ld sa y t o y o u . * Note: Brown was likely the Brown house/store, which was movedfrom a location on East Main Street in Salem to Longwood Park and is now the home o f the Salem Museum. m m �b i g L i c k A p r i l ? th 1 8 6 4M y b e a r ) jusoanci, ) w o u ld have w ritte n t o y o u s o o n e r, b u t th o u g h t it b e s t t o w a it u n til | h e a rd fro m y o u , w hich | d id to d a y . \fy e a re ve ry well th e c h ild re n a re im p ro v in g som e in m anners sin ce y o u le ft, 1 have h a d t o k e e p them in th e h o u s e m o stly sin ce y o u le ft, on a c c o u n t o f th e w e a th e r a n d th e y m ade e n o u g h n o ise t o d is tr a c t on e , it is a c o n s id e ra b le re lie f w hen th e y g o t o b e d . H a v e n ’t we h a d n ice w e a th e r sin ce y o u le f t , ] am a fra id | shall lo se my s e e d s th a t a re in th e g ro u n d . ~f~he e x c ite m e n t a b o u t ta x e s has p r e tty well w o rn o ff, M r L e rg u s o n ’s s p e c u la tio n ta x was e ig h t th o u s a n d e ig h t h u n d re d . H e h ad t o b o rro w a g o o d d e a l o f m oney b u t was fo r tu n a te e n o u g h t o g e t it w ith o u t p a y in g a prem ium o n it. R )r. M e c h e l's ta x e s a lto g e th e r w ere e ig h te e n h u n d re d d o lla rs , fiv e h u n d re d o f it was o n his p ra c tic e . | haven’t h e a rd fro m uncle A in h e a r t’s. j d o n ’t kn o w w h a t M r ( L ravd 'o rc! has t o d o a b o u t g o in g t o th e arm y, b u t s u p p o s e he e ith e r has t o g o o r h asn 't h e a rd fro m his p a p e rs he to ld them a t M rs P e tty jo h n ’s la s t J ~ h u rs d a y ni g h t t h a t he w a n te d all th e y o u n g p e o p le t o com e t o his h o u se t o a p o ta to e ro a s tin g b e fo re he had t o g o t o th e arm y. ] w e n t t o h e a r th e f ju n k a r d s p re a c h th e S unday a ft e r y o u le f t a nd t o p i ne ( j r o v e y e s te rd a y . R )r I J it t le is t o p re a c h a t th e O ave n e x t R rid a y . ¿)ara)n (J h ild re s s a n d | w e re g o in g t o b a lem to d a y , if it h a d n ’t ra in e d , | can g e t a fir s tr a te s ifte r f o r $ 15- | w a n t t o g e t s o le a tth e r [s o le le a th e r] f o r o u r sh oes, | am g o in g as s o o n as | can. | s o ld y o u r s trip e d p a n ts f o r $ 18, th is m o rn in g | am g o in g t o see how little m oney | can d o w ith th is summer, a n d g e t a lo n g c le ve rly. ( J n c le f je y e r le s e n t me tw o b a rre ls o f f lo u r la s t b a tu rd a y , ] will tr y t o make them d o u n til th e new com es in, he s e n t M a a b a g o f ry e a n d to ld h e r t o d iv id e it b e tw e e n u s , ) d o n ’t th in k th e re is m ore th a n a b u s h e l o f it a lto g e th e r, | haven’t s e n t f o r mine y e t, it has be e n so ra in y to d a y . M y little p ig s a re d o in g v e ry welly | p u t them in th e c a rria g e h o u se th e d a y a fte r y o u le ft, th e y w e re a b o u t to d ro w n in th e pen, th e y a re ru n n in g in th e y a rd now, have ta k e n up w ith th e h o g s a n d d o n ’t tr y t o g o o u t o f th e y a rd . ] s h o u ld n o t have th o u g h t o f ru n n in g f o r a lie u te n a n c y in 0 ° JR, as lo n g as | h ad an h o n o ra b le p o s t w ith o u t d a n g e r a nd all th e a d v a n ta g ­ es y o u r ’s has. | f y o u run, | h o p e y o u may b e b e a te n , J o h n J3e rs in g e r is a t hom e we h a d a le tte r fro m H e n r y to d a y , he is ve ry well, | haven’t h e a rd a w o rd fro m uncle J a c o b o r b avy sin ce y o u le ft, d o n ’t k n o w w h a t th e y a re d o in mgl g b u t s ujpp< p p o s e thley, e q are a t hom e o r | w o u ld have h e a rd o f it. ) h e a rd fro m M rs P re s to n la s t w e e k she w as w o rse , th a n w hen we w ere th e re , M ° H ie s e n t me w o rd sh e w as co m in g u p s o o n , 5 a ll'e T a lia f e r r o came u p & s ta id all d a y, th e d a y a f t e r y o u le ft, & M ary a n d ( J e o r g e R a g y o n O u n d a y n ig h t a n d M r s ( jr o s v e n o r M o n d a y n ig h t, a nd sin ce th e n | have b e e n rig h t lonesom e. | d o wish th is w a r was o v e r a n d we c o u ld live to g e th e r in p e a c e o n c e m ore, th e c h ild re n s a id | m ust w rite u ou a le tte r f o r them , | will w rite it a n o th e r tim e L ily s a y s te ll y o u she can say h e r p ra y e rs b y h e rs e lf now a n d kn o w s all h e r le tte rs b u t fo u r. A l i c e can s a y th re e lines o f h e r p ra y e r a n d all th e le tte rs in ( J h ris tia n O b s e r v e r . | can g e t them t o s tu d y m uch b e t t e r in b a d w e a th e r, w hen th e y ca n ’t g e t o u t t o p la y . M rs R a in e s has a b o y a w e e k o ld & it has s e t A l ,ce a lm o st crazy f o r a little b ru d d e r [b r o th e r] b o th kis s e d me f o r JO U to n ig h t, g o o d n ig h t my ow n d e a r h u sb a n d . i rom q o u r w ire M o llie 50 �Research on some o f the people named in these letters resulted in this information: Dr. David F. Bittle co-founded the Virginia Institute as a Lutheran Preparatory School for boys in Au­ gusta County in 1842. In 1847, the school moved to Salem and in 1853 it was chartered as Roanoke College. Bittle, Roanoke College’s first president, led the school through the lean years o f the Civil War. Under his administration the number of students at the school increased from 38 to 171 and the faculty increased from four to seven. Three buildings — Main, Miller and Trout halls — were constructed. A fourth building, Bittle Memorial Hall, was planned. Dr. Bittle died suddenly in 1876. The Pettyjohns are mentioned in the 1870 Federal Census: Mary Pettyjohn, 33, whose profession was keeping house Archer Pettyjohn (husband) — merchant Children: Betty, Amanda, Mary A (all attending school) Also in the household were Henry and Harriet Toliver, servants (Black) The Airharts are mentioned in the 1870 Federal Census: Mary C. Airhard, 27 — keeping house John W. Airhard, 30 (husband) — farmer Children: Fanny, Andrew, Ann (all at home) Martha Jordan, domestic servant Samuel Ferguson Melinda Hayes Ferguson (wife) Child: Eliza Jane Ferguson Stephen Peyton Terry and Mary Susan “Mollie” Trout were married in 1857. Lila May Elizabeth Terry was bom in January 1859. Alice Peyton Terry was bom in September 1860. Peyton Terry enlisted in the Confederate army in May 1861. After the war, the couple had three more children: Martha Leftwich Terry, bom 1867; Anne, bom 1870; and Lucinda, bom 1873. The two eldest children, bom before the war, are mentioned often in M ollie’s letters to her husband. •51 • �^ tà e f a ta i fa e id /4 ¿¿atony <*£ th e Salem - s fefeam atfo% f 4 'pl/IntctCesuf by John Long oanoke County sent into the fray o f the Civil War more than a thousand men, most serving in units o f the 28th, 42nd and 54th Virginia Infantry Companies. Boys barely old enough to shave and men who were already grandfathers shouldered arms and local men fought in virtu­ ally every m ajor engagement o f the war. But no unit o f local boys could claim as colorful a history as the Salem Flying Artillery (SFA). The record o f the SFA spans the history o f the war itself, from the prewar crisis to the bitter end at Appomattox, where the SFA played a surprisingly active role. The unit was organized January 1860 in Salem by Abraham Hupp, a local tinsmith and civic leader, in response to the growing sectional conflict that seemed certain to lead to war. Hupp first drilled his unit on the Roanoke County Courthouse green the following December. As evidenced by the name he chose, Hupp in­ tended his men to comprise a light artillery unit. Light (or flying) artilleries were intended to be rapidly mobile and quickly respond to changing battlefield conditions, at least more quickly than the units with the heavier guns. Such a battery came, by 1862, to be composed o f four to six guns, with the lower number being most com­ mon. The organization o f such a unit would include one captain (Hupp, initially), one 1st lieutenant, two 2nd lieutenants, several non-commissioned officers and up to 125 privates. In addition, a light artillery would require 50 to 60 or more horses. As the war progressed, muster­ ing a full complement o f men and animals would prove increasingly difficult, as would the problem o f feeding both, [i] Such hardship was still in the future, however, when the boys o f the SFA were mustered into the Con­ federate army on May 14, 1861. Hupp’s men proudly marched out o f town, with orders to proceed to a training camp near Lynchburg. Albin Magee, a small boy in 1861, Abraham Hupp R John Long, executive director o f Salem Historical Society, also teaches history at Roanoke College and writes a column fo r the Roanoke Times. 52 �Nut -4 N later wrote, “Well do I remember the Cival War when the Salem Artilary marched o u t... it was a no­ table day, and my father (Peter Magee) was one o f them. [In] red shirts, grey caps and pants they went out with a smile and proud step; but they returned with a limp and down in spirits, ragged and dirty with no clothes worthy o f mention. They had served for a cause they did not understand, but they did it bravely.” [ii] Peter Magee, an Irish Catholic harness maker from Salem who was nearly 40, was only one soldier who made the SFA a surprisingly diverse unit. One man was bom in Prussia, at least two oth­ ers in England, and a Jewish soldier named Henry Gintzenberger was also in the ranks. [Hi] Perhaps most surprisingly, an African American drummer named Jacob Jones seems to have enlisted, at least for a few months. By the end o f 1861 he had been released from duty, presumably due to his race, [iv] Interestingly, the Richmond Dispatch later noted the presence in the ranks o f an unnamed “veteran o f 1812,” who would have been in his late 60s at the youngest, [v] Despite H upp’s intentions for his company, the SFA did not begin the war as an artillery unit, flying or otherwise. Instead, Hupp’s men found themselves folded into the 9th Virginia Infantry upon their arrival at Lynch­ burg. Hupp took the unusual step o f writing to Gen. Robert E. Lee him self to complain about the situation; the next day he sent a telegram, which would arrive more quickly, asking Lee to disregard the letter and forgive such a breach o f military etiquette — captains don’t tell generals how to run a war. Not until the war was more than a year old did the SFA earn at least part o f its name. Transferred to the Norfolk area, the unit was stationed at Craney’s Island as a coastal battery -B- perhaps better than infantry, but still a far cry from a “flying” artillery, [vi] In the spring o f ’62, when Norfolk was evacuated, H upp’s men were transferred to Richmond and in the major reorganization o f the Confederate army o f that year, became part o f the 1st Regiment, Virginia Artillery. [vii] While an improveCharles Beale Griffin ment in title, by July Hupp’s Battery still had only two 12-pound boat howitzers — with no ammunition, [viii] So obviously under-equipped, during M cClelland’s Peninsula Campaign the SFA could only remain in reserve near Richmond, seeing no action — no doubt to the disappointment o f the boys and the relief of their mothers. Only later, in September’s campaign into Maryland, did the SFA “see the elephant” o f battle for the first time near Williamsport. In ensuing months, the SFA would again be engaged in the significant battles o f Fredericks­ burg and Chancellorsville, but their losses were comparatively slight. Indeed, like most Civil War units on both sides, the SFA suffered more from the raging microbes o f disease than the flying bullets o f battle. One casualty o f disease was Capt. Abraham Hupp himself. Ailing for some time, he took an extended leave o f absence and returned to Salem, where he died in September 1863 o f cancer. In his absence, Lt. Charles Beale Griffin took over acting command o f the SFA, and was promoted to cap­ tain upon H upp’s death. Henceforth, the unit often appears in official records as Griffin’s Battery. •5 3 • �A t the crucial battle o f Gettysburg in July 1863, many men from the Roanoke Valley would be engaged — members o f the 28th Virginia Infantry would be in the thick o f Pickett’s Charge. However, the SFA played a comparatively minor role. On July 2, the SFA was held in reserve and saw no action, but the next day two o f the battery’s four guns were brought forward and fired on enemy positions. On the 4th, the guns o f the SFA were in position but happened not to be engaged. By the end o f July 4, it was clear that Lee’s forces had been defeated, and they began their bitter withdrawal. It was this retreat that proved more costly to the SFA than the battle, as cavalry raids by the men o f Gen. George A. Custer harassed the Confederates. The SFA and their companion batteries suffered the loss o f much o f their supplies and baggage, meaning painful shortages were on the horizon. [ix] An oft-overlooked marker exists at the Gettysburg battle­ field commemorating the role o f the SFA. Tucked in an obscure comer, bent and msted, the marker recounts a brief history o f the unit’s role. Still calling the unit H upp’s Battery although Griffin was actually in command, the sign credits the SFA with expending 154 rounds o f ammunition at Gettysburg but suffering no casualties (though six men were captured during the retreat). After Gettysburg, the unit returned to Virginia and winter camp. No doubt many o f the men, who more than two years ago thought they were enlisting for a few short months o f glory, longed to return home. In a letter to his father, Pvt. William Edward Brown confessed that he was “for anything to stop the war with all the rights of the South on a sound footing.” [x] Brow n’s letter also touched on another developing crisis o f the Confederacy: desertion. A con­ stant problem for the Confederate army, desertion worsened as the tide o f the war turned against the south. For the SFA, it seemed to be a relatively rare occurrence — but not unknown: Last Saturday on the march to M oreton’s Ford ... Thompson and Key de­ serted. Captain Griffin had been expecting something o f this sort and rode along the battery several times to see if they were with us; the last time he did this he discovered their absence and immediately sent two mounted men after them but they could not find them. Monday a letter was received from Mrs. Key, which was read by the officers. She seemed entirely ignorant o f the affair and spoke o f the difficulty o f getting wood for the winter. Tuesday Mrs. Thompson’s letter was received saying: She had sold all her property, had the money and was ready to start whenever he said the word. Some persons thought that Key had persuaded Thompson to desert, but it would appear from this that it was the opposite. I do not think they will be caught, but if they are they will stand a good chance o f be­ ing shot as they deserted in face o f a fight, [xi] • 54 • �Records o f the SFA indeed indicate that George Thompson and Daniel Key (or Kay) “de­ serted to the enemy” on September 22, 1863, but their fate remains unknown, [xii] Nathaniel Burwell Johnston, a recent enlistee in the SFA, recalls in a postwar memoir that during the following winter the entire command was “ordered to witness the execution, by shooting, o f a man convicted o f deser­ tion. Not a very pleasant experience, but a necessity o f military life.” [xiii] W hether that deserter was either Thompson or Key, or even a member o f the SFA at all, is impossible to say. The winter o f 1863-64 was relatively quiet for the SFA, taking part in only minor actions. They would experience more intense combat in May o f 1864 at Spotsylvania Courthouse and Cold Harbor; however the SFA missed the Battle o f the Wilderness due to lack o f horses. The rest of 1864 and first part o f 1865 would be spent in the line in defense o f Petersburg and Richmond. The most significant action the SFA faced in this was the Battle o f Chaffin’s Farm in late September 1864. Union forces, now under Grant’s command, made a concerted effort to break the Confederate lines on the James River near Forts Harrison and Gilmore. Thousands o f Union men sur­ prised the unsuspecting Rebels, overrunning Harrison and pushing the lines back significantly. Briefly it appeared that the long-standing Union goal o f taking the Confederate capítol was at hand. However, Rebel artillery batteries, including the SFA, were rushed into position to rebuff the attack. In fierce fighting the rest o f the day, Griffin’s Battery and others from the 1st Virginia Artillery rained unrelent­ ing fire on the attackers, eventually forcing them to retire. “On the 29th o f September, 1864, a force o f 2500 Confederates resisted and held at bay 18,000 Federáis,” boasted Nathaniel Johnston, “to which achievement there are not many parallels in war­ fare.” The SFA gave journeyman service that day, firing over 1,000 rounds, having three o f their four guns disabled, but losing only one man killed. Four o f the unit’s horses were also lost — precious commodities which would be increasingly difficult to replace, [xiv] The rest o f the winter and the spring o f 1865 found the SFA in the defense line east o f Rich­ mond, seeing only minor engagements. It was likely during this time period that an incident occurred involving Peter Magee, as re­ corded many years later by his son, local historian Albin Magee. His father was on guard duty along a road leading out of Richmond with orders to allow no one to pass without the proper password. An approaching party turned out to be President Jefferson Davis and his staff. Magee demanded the pass­ word, which Davis did not have and insisted he did not need. “The gun went to Father’s shoulder and he said ‘if you advance, I fire.’ The president look[ed] at him and said T will have you court-martialed for this!” ’ and returned to Richmond. Magee concludes, “Now who do you think acted the soldier, the President or Father? Military men would condemn the President and if told Gen. Lee [he] would have praised the soldier.” [xv] These quiet months came to an end on April 2, 1865, when Grant finally broke the Confederate lines around Petersburg. Richmond could not hold long, and Lee ordered the evacuation o f the capítol. After the evacuation o f Richmond, Griffin’s Battery followed their beloved Gen. Lee westward, hoping to link up with Johnston’s army in North Carolina and continue the fight. Hopelessly outnum­ bered, outgunned, undersupplied and continually harassed by Grant’s forces, the Army o f Northern Virginia trudged forward. The difficult retreat from Richmond must have been particularly arduous for the SFA. Virtu­ ally without rations, the men must have stumbled along the long march in a daze. Nathaniel Burwell Johnston’s memoir relates that the few horses they had left, just as fatigued as the men, were not up to pulling the battery’s guns over roads reduced to quagmires, [xvi] Indeed, two guns seemed to have been abandoned during the long retreat, though later retrieved before falling into enemy hands, [xvii] Despite these challenges, continue they did, and they arrived at Appomattox prepared to carry on the fight. • 55 • �Harper’s Weekly sketch o f Gen. Lee’s army firing its last gun at Appomattox. It was in the w ar’s last chapter, at Appomattox, that the SFA played its most celebrated — and debated — role. N ear the courthouse, the SFA was stationed on the lawn o f the Peers House, the far left o f the Confederate lines, attempting to hold the Union lines at bay. Most likely unbeknownst to Griffin’s men, Gens. Lee and Grant were meeting just a few hundred yards up the road at the McLean House to discuss the surrender o f the Army o f Northern Virginia. The situation at Appomattox was chaotic to say the least, and a clear picture o f what happened on that eventful day will never be satisfactorily reconstructed. Nevertheless, an intriguing claim to fame o f the SFA has been preserved: according to the m en’s memories and at least some contempo­ rary sources, they fired the last artillery shot o f Lee’s Army o f Northern Virginia. Nathaniel Johnston’s memoir recounts that the SFA on Sunday, April 9, 1865, had opened fire on enemy positions a thousand yards away, rapidly expending the last o f their depleted stock o f am­ munition. In the midst o f the firing he heard the Union forces erupt in cheers, which he at first thought presaged a charge. Instead, it was soon announced that Lee had surrendered and all batteries were to cease fire. Being the last battery on the left o f the line, they had received the cease-fire order last. Johnston records that Gen. John B. Gordon stated in the farewell address to his men that Griffin’s Bat­ tery had fired “the last guns from the Army o f Northern Virginia that day.” [xviii] Another tradition, preserved on a state historical marker outside o f East Hill Cemetery in 56 • �Salem, records that Gun No. 3 o f the SFA had loaded their piece and were prepared to fire when word o f the surrender was passed down. Presumably because it was unsafe to leave the gun loaded, they elected to fire one last shot at their former enemy, [xix] It should be noted that other units made similar claims after the war, and it can never be prov­ en beyond a doubt which claim is accurate. However, the SFA could proudly point to contemporane­ ous sources to bolster their assertion. In addition to Gordon’s quote above, Gen. D.H. Hill published an article in 1869 in a magazine titled “The Land We Love.” In it he wrote: On the ever memorable 9th o f April, 1865, the Salem Flying Artillery (Com­ pany A), commanded by Capt. Charles Beale Griffin, was placed in position on the extreme left ... an order from General Gordon was given to cease firing ... the whole army had surrendered. The hoarse sound o f the cannon had died away in every part o f the line except this, the extreme left, which was soon silenced, and with it the last gun o f the Army o f Northern Virginia, [xx] In November 1865, H arper’s Weekly printed an account o f the action from the Union perspec­ tive. Col. Jenyns Battersby o f the 1st New York Cavalry clearly stated that the last shot originated from the yard o f “Mr. Pears House.” Although he does not identify the unit involved, this was the position o f the SFA. An accomplished artist, Battersby also published several sketches from Appomat­ tox, including one o f the last shot fired from the easily recognizable Peers House, [xxi] While none o f this proves beyond dispute that Griffin’s men fired that notable last shot, it does lend credence to their claim — with the proviso that the unarguable facts will never be known. After four years o f brave service and incredible hardship, the men o f the SFA were civilians again. Fortunately for them, their trek home was a relatively short one, compared to the veterans o f out-of-state units. Returning to Salem, the boys who were now men did their best to pick up the pieces o f their lives. And they did, with many SFA veterans becoming leaders o f the Salem community. Lt. Henry Blair became a respected judge. Samuel Nowlin served as Salem’s mayor. Simon Carson Wells became a legendary professor at Roanoke College. Samuel Griffin, though with the SFA for only a short time, became a respected attorney. Two veterans served as sheriffs o f Roanoke County: John Ev­ ans and George Zirkle. Capt. Charles Griffin became a prominent physician. William Edward Brown became a successful Salem merchant; his brother George a Presbyterian minister. Nathaniel Johnston established a successful cotton and oil business in Richmond. Like thousands o f men across the reunited nation, the men o f the Salem Flying Artillery had had their experience o f war. Peace was now their mission — a mission to put the past behind and resolutely press forward into an uncertain future, resolving their old animosities without forgetting the valor o f their service and those who did not return. That they accomplished this new mission is the true legacy o f the SFA, and o f their comrades in arms on both sides o f the battlefield. NOTES i. Richard Nicholas and Joseph Servis: “Powhatan, Salem and Courtney Henrico Artillery,” (Lynchburg, VA: H.E. How­ ard, 1997), 1-2. ii. Handwritten family history by Albin Magee, in collection of Salem Museum (n.d.). iii. Ibid, 214-225. iv. Ervin L. Jordan: “Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia,” (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1995), 219. Jones’ service record indicates he was from Salem and enlisted with the 9th Virginia Infantry, of which the SFA was a part at the time. v. Nicholas and Servis, 16. Though no record exists to help identify this veteran of the War of 1812, a good candidate •57« �might be James C. Huff, the jailer of Roanoke County, whose son Albert was in the SFA. If it were Huff, it’s interesting to note that he spent much of the War of 1812 on Craney Island, defending Norfolk from the British; the same island his son would soon be protecting from Union incursion. vi. In fact, the SFA would never truly be a “flying” artillery, which would have required all of its personnel to be mounted. vii. This unit was later re-designated 1st Battalion, Virginia Artillery, a more accurate label for its size. It was often also termed Brown’s and then Hardaway’s Battalion after the two commanding officers. viii. Nicholas and Servis, 17. ix. Ibid, 50-54. x. William Edward Brown to Joshua Brown, Salem, VA, Sept. 25, 1863. Original letter in collection of the Salem Museum. xi. Ibid. xii. Nicholas and Servis, 220, 224. Interestingly, both men were gardeners by profession, perhaps explaining their connec­ tion. Thompson was bom in England, and possibly had little attachment to the southern cause. xiii. Nathaniel Burwell Johnston, “Civil War Reminiscences of Nathaniel Burwell Johnston” (typescript copy by J. Ambler Johnston in the collection of the Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, VA), 5. Johnston was a relative of Confederate generals Joseph Johnston and Robert E. Lee. Lee’s mother’s sister was Johnston’s grandmother. xiv. Nicholas and Servis, 84. The soldier killed was a Pvt. Jones from Alabama. Not long before, the survivors of the deci­ mated Jeff Davis Artillery of Alabama had been folded into Griffin’s Battery. xv. Handwritten family history by Albin Magee, in collection of Salem Museum (n.d.). xvi. Johnston, “Civil War Reminiscences,” 9. xvii. Nicholas and Servis, 90. xviii. Johnston, “Civil War Reminiscences,” 10. xix. The roadside marker commemorates Sgt. James Walton of Salem, who is credited with having fired “ONE of the last shots” at Appomattox, as the sergeant of Gun No. 3. Nathaniel Johnston also served at that artillery piece. The source of this tradition — that Walton fired the gun after surrender merely to clear it — is difficult to ascertain. Most records, includ­ ing Johnston’s memoir, simply state that Griffin’s Battery continued firing until ordered to stop. However, the detail of firing a last shot to clear the gun is certainly plausible. It has also been occasionally stated that the SFA also fired the first shots of the war at the battle of Bethel in 1861. This is a misconception. By Appomattox, the SFA was in the 1st Battalion, Virginia Artillery, with the Richmond How­ itzers, who were at Bethel and arguably did initiate the conflict with an artillery barrage. However, the SFA was not part of that unit at the time and was not at that opening battle. So the 1st Battalion could claim to have fired the first AND last artillery of the war, but the SFA could not. xx. Quoted in William McCauley, “History of Roanoke County, Salem, Roanoke City, Virginia, and Representative Citi­ zens, 1734-1900,” (Chicago: Biographical Publishing Co., 1902), 87. The quote which titles this article is also from Hill’s magazine and is quoted by McCauley. xxi. Harper’s Weekly, voi. IX, no. 462, Nov. 4, 1865. Battersby’s sketch seems to have been reversed in the printing pro­ cess; otherwise he portrayed the SFA firing in the wrong direction. Battersby also includes the detail that he retrieved from the yard of the Peers House the ramrod used by the last gun. Postwar documents also indicate that Charles Griffin kept as a souvenir the sight of Gun Number 3, while James Walton kept the friction primer. The whereabouts of such relics today is unknown, but the fact that they were collected gives evidence that the men of the SFA — and even the opponent across the line — believed at the time that they had witnessed history. 58 �by Clive Rice fter the failure o f Union Gen. David Hunter to take Lynchburg on June 17-18, 1864, he retreated through Liberty (present Bedford) toward Salem on the Lynchburg-Salem Turnpike. At Buford’s Gap, the cavalry o f Union Brig. Gen. William Averell withstood a rear guard attack, while Union Brig. Gen. Alfred Duffie received orders to destroy the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad and anything o f use to the Confederates in the direction o f Salem. At Bonsack, they burned the woolen mill o f Jacob Bonsack, cut tele­ graph lines, burned the depot and searched houses for food. Federal soldiers moved on to Big Lick and ransacked 30 houses and outbuildings. According to Mary Trout Terry’s account, they pressed Clack Camp­ bell for beef and Isham Ferguson, owner o f the only tobacco factory, poured out his two remaining barrels o f brandy rather than see it fall into enemy hands. Duffle’s forces reached Salem at 2 a.m. on June 21 and burned the depot. Duffle’s troops were ordered to head the army’s wagon train and secure the way up Catawba Mountain. Ambulances, equip­ ment, supply wagons, artillery and muni­ tions wagons left Salem, along M ason’s Creek toward the gap at Hanging Rock where the Confederates managed one last lick. About 9 a.m., Gen. Hunter re­ ported, “the enemy made a demonstration against our rear guard.” Confederate Brig. Gen. John McCausland’s cavalry, riding A Statue of a Confederate soldier at the Hanging Rock mon­ ument off Route 311 near Salem is inscribed “In honor of George Morgan Jones, Citizen, Soldier, Philanthropist. ” Clive Rice is a leader in the Roanoke Civil War Roundtable and an authority on the war. 59 �A plaque marking the Hanging Rock battlefield site bears a photo o f Gen. JubaI Early. along Green Ridge toward the foot o f Fort Lewis Mountain, had only a brief time to inflict damage as the rest o f Hunter’s army was close behind. William Starke o f the 34th Massachusetts Brigade left a report, saying that while his forces were advancing, McCausland’s cavalry suddenly dashed upon the wagon train and artillery. “Wheels were knocked off guns and wagons, trunions broken, limbers tipped over and pushed over the bank into Ma­ son s Creek, Starke said. Horses ran off or were killed or taken captive with the prisoners. Caissons and munition wagons were set afire, causing explosions and death. Union artillery men tried to defend their pieces and were shot down for their efforts. Gen. Hunter wrote in his report, While attention was directed to the rear o f the column, a detachment o f the enemy’s cavalry fell upon the artillery en route — They were presently driven off by our cavalry.” The cavalry came from the 2nd Division under Union Brig. Gen. William Averell, who forced Gen. McCausland to leave Hanging Rock. Federal troops occupied the gap at Hanging Rock throughout the day and held back any threat from Confederate cavalry, thus enabling the rest o f Hunter’s columns to complete their escape into West Virginia. The havoc at Hanging Rock had netted the Confederates 10 pieces o f artillery, horses, prisoners and plunder. The Official Virginia Civil War Battlefield Guide said, “The engagement at Hanging Rock cost the Federals about a hundred prisoners, while the Confederates suffered few if any casualties.” • 60 • �H attie ^mmSSSk‘Tft&cctttaca: s4 ’uziln&act, ¿ a it wwt&o, aact Cead m ine by Jessee Ring In the spring of 1864, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant wanted to launch attacks on “all fronts” of the Confederacy. One such front, al­ beit a more minor one, was in Southwest Virginia. The Virginia and Tennessee Railroad (V&T) went from Lynchburg, Virginia, to Bristol, Virginia/ Tennessee. Along the way, it served a salt mine in Saltville, Virginia, and a lead mine near Wytheville, Vir­ ginia. Both of these commodities, salt and lead, were vital to the Confederacy’s war effort. Salt was need­ ed to preserve food for the soldiers, and the Saltville mine was one o f only two in the entire Confederacy. Lead from the Wytheville mine was vital to the Tredegar Iron Works foundry in Richmond that produced cannons, ammunitions and related items. The V&T also had important use for Confederate troop move­ ments. The V&T crossed the New River at Radford, Virginia, as the Norfolk Southern Railway does today. There was, and still is, a long bridge (780 feet) spanning the river between Fairlawn (on the Dublin side) and Central Depot (now Radford). The New River is wide at that point, over 200 yards, but not very deep. The railroad bridge design made use of tall stone and concrete piers on which rested a wooden trestle su­ perstructure. Picture A (page 62) shows the “newer” bridge in 1886, only 22 years after the events reviewed herein. Picture B (page 63) shows the same location today, the old stone piers still being in place, but not used, like some ghosts from the past. The modem bridge alongside the old piers is in use now, showing that this very old railroad route has persisted. This long railroad bridge was the weak point in the supply link that brought these essential salt and lead commodities to the Confederacy. If the link was to be broken by the Federals, this bridge would be the place to do it. Railroad tracks could be tom up, but they were relatively easy to replace. In order for this method o f cutting the railroad (tearing up tracks) to be effective, tracks over an extended distance would have to be pulled up, which would take a long time and expose the raiders to potential enemy attacks all along the way that would be difficult to defend against. But the bridge presented an opportunity. If a properly equipped raiding party could get to it, it could be quickly destroyed, and the raiders would then move on. The great advantage o f this plan is that building a new bridge on a scale of this one would be difficult and time consuming and maybe even impossible for the Confederates at this point in the war. Thus, the bridge became the target o f the Federals. Jessee Ring, a Giles County native, is a retired corporate executive, vineyard owner, newspaper columnist and political/social commentator who lives in Pulaski County. He has a special interest in Civil War history. 61 �Picture A: An 1886 photo shows a steam locomotive approaching the New River bridge at Radford. T he main players The Federal army conducting the raid into Southwest Virginia was commanded by Gen. George Crook (September 8 ,1 8 2 ® March 21,1890). Crook was bom on a farm near Dayton, Ohio. He attended West Point, graduating in 1852 near the bottom o f his class. The military was his one and only career. Initially, from 1852 to 1861, he served in California. When the Civil War broke out, Crook accepted a com­ mission as colonel o f Ohio’s 36th Regiment and led it on duty in western Virginia. Promotion to the rank of brigadier general came on September 7,1862. Crook served in the Maryland Campaign and saw action at South Mountain and Antietam. The Confederate army that met the Federáis at the foot o f Cloyd’s Mountain was under the com­ mand o f Gen. Albert G. Jenkins. Albert Galatin Jenkins was bom on Nov. 10, 1830, to a wealthy plantation owner in what was then Virginia but is now West Virginia. After graduating from Harvard Law School, he established a practice in Charleston, then-Virginia. In addition to his law practice, Jenkins became active in politics and was elected to Congress twice. With the outbreak o f the war, Jenkins resigned from Congress and raised a company o f mounted rangers that became the 8th Virginia Cavalry in the Confederate army. He served at Gettysburg where he was wounded. After recovering, Jenkins raised a large cavalry force for service in western Virgin­ ia which led to his appointment as Commander o f the Department o f Western Virginia with headquarters at Dublin. Gen. Jenkins was mortally wounded in the Battle o f Cloyd’s Mountain. After Gen. Jenkins was wounded during the battle, command o f the Confederate army devolved to Col. John McCausland. John McCausland was bom in St. Louis, Missouri, on Sept. 13,1863, the son o f Irish immigrants. Orphaned at a young age, he went to live with relatives in western Virginia (now West Virginia) McCaus­ land graduated from Virginia Military Institute (VMI) and the University o f Virginia, becoming an assistant professor at VMI. After the start o f the war, he was commissioned as a colonel and placed in command of the 36th Virginia Infantry. McCausland served under Gen. John B. Floyd and Gen. Albert Sydney John­ ston. He fought at Fort Donelson but escaped before the Confederates surrendered. After Cloyd’s Moun• 62 • �Picture B: Piers from the 19th century railroad bridge over the New River at Radford. tain, he was promoted to brigadier general, served in the Shenandoah Valley under Gen. Jubal Early, and then joined the Army o f Northern Virginia under Gen. Robert E. Lee. McCausland was present at Appo­ mattox, but again escaped before the surrender, although he disbanded his unit shortly thereafter. C rook’s orders Gen. Grant met with Crook personally to explain what was to be done about the Virginia and Ten­ nessee railroad bridge near Dublin, and what Crook was to do thereafter. Crook was given orders by Grant to take his force of about 6,500 troops and associated artillery and supply wagons from near Charleston, West Virginia, on a raid into southwest Virginia targeting the V&T railroad bridge over the New River at Radford. His mission was to destroy the bridge. Simultaneously, Union Gen. Franz Sigel was to enter the Shenandoah Valley from the north, take Staunton, and go on south to Lynchburg. After destroying the bridge, Crook was to march east to Lynchburg and join up with Sigel. There they were to set up a permanent base o f operations, in Lee’s rear, which would be extremely valuable to Grant. T he route of the F ederal army to the V& T bridge over N ew R iver Gen. Crook left the Kanawha River above Charleston on May 2,1864. His route to Dublin and the V&T railroad bridge over the New River was by way of Fayetteville, Raleigh Court House, Princ­ eton, Rocky Gap, Poplar Hill-Shannon’s Bridge, and then over Cloyd’s Mountain to Back Creek where he engaged the Confederates. After the battle, Crook went on to Dublin and the banks o f the New River at the bridge. T he C onfederate army waiting at B ack C reek In response to Union Gen. Sigel’s movements toward the Shenandoah Valley, the Confederates moved 4,000 troops from Southwest Virginia north to the Shenandoah Valley. That left only about 4,600 63 �Battlefield today showing Back Creek and the hill behind it where Union troops met the Confederates. Confederate troops for the entire Southwest Virginia and southern West Virginia. After Crook’s movement south through West Virginia became apparent, Jenkins started assembling an army to stop him. A Confederate brigade that had been placed at Princeton was ordered to Dublin to be sent north by train. Jenkins stopped this, after the men had already gotten on the train, and sent them toward Cloyd’s Mountain. Jenkins did likewise with some artillery that had also been ordered to be put on the train for the Shenandoah Valley. Jenkins then assembled what other troops were available locally, and he called out the home guard. All in all, Jenkins was able to pull together 2,400 troops and 10 pieces o f artillery. T he battle The battle took place on the morning o f May 9,1864, on ground on both sides o f where Route 100 currently crosses Back Creek at the eastern base o f Cloyd’s Mountain about four miles west o f Dublin. As stated previously, Gen. George Crook was in command o f the Union Army. Future president Col. Ruther­ ford B. Hayes served under Crook in this campaign, and future president Lt. William McKinley was also in this army. The Confederates were led by Gen. Albert Jenkins, with Col. McCausland being second in com­ mand. The main action lasted for about an hour and a half; the fighting was fierce and at times hand-tohand. Union Gen. Crook personally led his troops on the field o f battle, as did Confederate Gen. Jenkins. The Confederates had put up fortification on the east side o f Back Creek. This meant that the Fed­ erate would have to advance over an open field 300 yards wide after coming through the gap in Cloyd’s Mountain, cross Back Creek (which Hayes described as a “ditch”), and then move uphill in order to get to the Confederates. Crook knew the Confederates expected him to attack their center that faced Cloyd’s Mountain, along the Pulaski-Giles Turnpike (now Route 100). This was where the Confederates had put up some breastworks made o f fence rails and had their artillery in place. Crook decided to do the unexpected. He • 64 • �sent some troops on a flanking movement around to his left (the Confederate right) with orders to attack and charge once in place. He put his remaining forces in place in the center, under the command o f Col. Hayes, with orders to charge as soon as they heard gunfire from the flanking movement. This m eant that the first attack on the Confederates would come on their right flank followed by an attack on the center and left. It was a good plan. Once the attack on the Confederate right commenced, Crook and Hayes and the rest o f the Union troops charged across the field toward the Confederate center and left, as planned, in the face o f artillery fire. Then they crossed Back Creek and made their way up a wooded hill to the Confederate breastworks. Here the fighting was the most intense, and at one point, by some accounts, it appeared that the Confeder­ ates might prevail. But the combination o f a flanking attack on the Confederate right closely followed with a bigger attack on the center, along with superior numbers, sealed the outcome; the Confederates were routed. Gen. Jenkins was severely wounded during the battle. He put Col. McCausland in command and was taken to a field hospital that had been set up at the Guthrie house where his arm was amputated. He died a few days later. One o f the Confederate soldiers in the battle, Henry C. Carpenter, wrote a letter to his sister de­ scribing his eyewitness experiences that day: Camp N ear new river Bridge M ay 20th 1864 M y Dear Sister I will embrace the present opportunity to write you a few lines as I expect you would like to hear from us Bro John Ed and my self are all well I have much nuse to write you but have not time to write much know we had the hardest fight last Monday our Reg ever was in we fought them at the foot o f Cloyds Mountain our Reg Composed our right wing they massed five Reg against us they Charged our regment with three reg and held two back in reserve we repulsed them three times the third time we repulsed them we Charged them and drove them back to their reserve and when their reserve come we had to fall back our loss was 180 the yankeys loss was 400 killed and wonded the 45th loss was very heavy as they dun the most o f the fighting the yankeys Completely ruined the Country as they went there is a great many killed that you are acquainted with but I have not time to mention them know the nuse from the East is good this morning Breckinridge has whipted Segle at Stan­ ton Buregard has whipted Burnsides at Peters Burg and Lee is still whipping Grant at Richmond Lees official report says he has killed and wonded one hundred thousand since the fight Commenced well I will Close give my love to all the family from your affectionate Brother HC Carpenter Another letter from a participant in the battle was from a captain in this same 45th Virginia Infantry Regiment, James S. Peery o f Tazewell. He wrote to this fiancé, Miss M aria Witten: I suppose you have written to me long since, but your letter did not come to hand, on account o f the Yankees. N o doubt you have heard o f our late defeat near Dublin which I am sorry to say was a very bad one. Our regiment left Saltville last Sunday w eek about dark for Dublin about 7 o ’clock on the morning, marched out to the battlefield near Mr. Cloyd’s about four miles from Dublin, and placed in line o f battle. We had not remained long until we saw the Yankee bayonets glittering on the top o f Cloyd’s mountain. We soon made us a kind o f fortification out o f some rails, which gave us a little 65 �protection. We remained in this position I suppose about an hour when they engaged our whole line with an overwhelming force. We fought them until they came up in 20 yards o f our line. Finding we could not stand, [we] retreated back to a little hill, where we remained but a short time. From there a great many o f our m en scattered in every direction. A fter w e were completely routed they charged upon us with their cavalry but fortunately about 500 o f Gen. M organ’s m en came to our assistance from Saltville. They placed themselves in ambush and repulsed their cavalry with great slaugh­ ter, but as soon as their infantry came up our m en were compelled to fall back. On the other side, Col. Hayes recorded the battle this way in his diary: M ay 8. Sunday — Rocky Gap to Poplar Hill (Shannon’s), twenty-four miles. — —Ten from Giles; ten and one-half from Dublin. Rebels probably ahead o f us getting ready. M ay 9. — Battle o f Cloyd’s Mountain, or as the Rebs call it “Cloyd Farm.” Lasted one hour and a half. The Twenty-third and Twenty-sixth, under the immedi­ ate direction o f General Crook, charged across a meadow three hundred yards wide, sprang into a ditch and up a steep wooded hill to Rebel breastworks, carried them quickly but with heavy loss. Captain Hunter killed. Lieutenant Seaman ditto. A bbott’s left arm shattered. Rice a flesh wound. Eighteen killed outright; about one hundred wounded — many mortally. This in [the] Twenty-third. [The] Thirty-sixth less, as the Twenty-third led the column. The Confederates retreated to Dublin, took what supplies they could from the ample stores there, crossed the N ew River using the railroad bridge for the troops and the bridge upstream at Ingles Farm for the cavalry and artillery. All o f this took until midnight. They then burned the bridge at Ingles Farm (to keep the Federáis from getting to their rear) and took up positions with their artillery on the east side o f N ew River at the railroad bridge near Central Depot (now Radford), knowing the Federáis would be there the next day on the other side (the Dublin side) to try to destroy the bridge. Hayes had very little to say about the Federáis’ movement from the battlefield to Dublin: “M ay 9. - continued - Entered Dublin Depot, ten and a h alf miles, about 6:30 p.m. A fine victory. Took some prisoners, about three hundred, [and] five pieces o f artillery, many stores, etc., etc. A fine country; plenty o f forage. M y loss, two hundred and fifty [men].” On Tuesday morning, M ay 10, the Federáis showed up and there was an artillery duel that had little effect on either side. The Confederates contested the Federáis for about two hours via sharpshooters and the artillery, but then ran out o f ammunition and retreated to Christiansburg. The Federáis set the wooden superstructure o f the bridge on fire and it burned completely in what was apparently a spectacular sight. However, the Federáis failed to bring explosives with them, so they were unable to do anything to the tall stone bridge piers. The piers remained standing and unharmed, even though the wooden part o f the bridge was completely destroyed. Federal troops stood on a bluff beside the river to observe the spectacle, cheering and making merry the whole while. The total casualties, not counting prisoners o f war, were 688 Federáis out o f about 6,500 and 538 Confederates out o f about 2,400. That comes out to an 11 percent loss for the Federáis and 22 percent for the Confederates. T he F ederals leave A fter completing the destruction o f the railroad bridge, Gen. Crook had instructions to march east • 66 • �Route o f old road follow ed b y Union troops from R ocky Gap to P o pla r H ill (7.3 m iles north o f P o pla r H ill on Route 42). and join forces with Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel who was to be driving south through the Shenandoah to take Staunton and Lynchburg. But Crook decided not to do that. He was deep in enemy territory and seems to have become concerned about being attacked by a large Confederate force after the Battle o f the Wilder­ ness, which left L ee’s army intact and in place northeast o f Charlottesville. Crook had also not heard any­ thing about Sigel’s progress in the Shenandoah Valley, so Crook w asn’t sure that Sigel was actually there. Crook decided to go back into the safety o f West Virginia, apparently to wait for further orders. On the afternoon and night o f M ay 10, after burning the bridge superstructure and with the Confed­ erate defenses no longer a threat (having retreated to Christiansburg), Crook crossed the N ew River at Pep­ p er’s Ferry by fording and ferrying, heading toward Blacksburg and Salt Pond Mountain (Mountain Lake is on top o f this mountain). He chose this more difficult marching route, rather than simply going back over Cloyd’s M ountain to Poplar Hill and on through the easy route to “the narrows” o f N ew River at the pres­ ent town o f Narrows in Giles County. Then he could have just followed the river north from there all the way back to Charleston, an easy march. He didn’t take this easy marching route no doubt because his army would be extremely vulnerable as it went through the narrows. A t the narrows, two steep mountains on either side o f New River come right down to the banks o f the river in an ancient geological formation. Getting any army through this would require the soldiers to m arch virtually in single file, making them easy prey to an opposing force that could easily hide in the woods on the sides o f the mountains. So Crook chose to go over Salt Pond Mountain instead. It was a good decision, as there were 800 (some reports say 1,500) Confederates under the command o f Col. William L. “M udwall” Jackson waiting at Narrows. On Wednesday, M ay 11, the Federals reached Blacksburg, going through w hat Hayes called “a finely cultivated country” on the way from N ew River. The Confederates were unable to do anything o f significance against the Federals as they returned to West Virginia. Col. Jackson got word o f Crook’s route and moved his troops from Narrows to Newport (also in Giles County). Jackson attacked the Federals there, but Hayes dismissed them as “a poor force that lit out rapidly.” On Thursday, the Federals were crossing Salt Pond Mountain. The march over this mountain was • 67 • �described by all as horrible — constant heavy rain and deep mud. Hayes recorded it in his diary as one o f the worst o f his experience. The soldiers slept on soaked, muddy ground without blankets. The Federáis crossed Peters Mountain and were in Monroe County, West Virginia, on Friday, M ay 13. By M ay 19, they were back behind their own lines at M eadow B luff in Greenbrier County, West Vir­ ginia. C hristopher C leburn Capt. Christopher S. Cleburn, brother o f Confederate Maj. Gen. Patrick R. Cleburn, was part o f the Kentucky cavalry forces that arrived, very late, from Saltville as the Confederates were retreating. These forces perform ed a rear guard action for the retreating Confederates that allowed M cCausland to get his remaining men, artillery and some supplies across the N ew River before the Federáis could arrive in Dub­ lin. Cleburn participated in a counter-attack on the pursuing Federáis during this rear guard action and was fatally wounded. He requested that he be buried where he fell rather than being sent back to Kentucky. His grave is located at Cleburn Wayside alongside Route 100 between Back Creek and Dublin. P resbyterian minister Rev. W illiam P. Hickman was the pastor o f Dublin or Belspring Presbyterian Church (reports dif­ fer) during the course o f the events described in this article. On Sunday, M ay 8,1864, while Gen. Jenkins was frantically assembling as many troops as he could, including the home guard, word o f the Federal arm y’s approach reached various towns and farms near Dublin. Rev. Hickman exhorted men in his con­ gregation to join the effort, and he him self left the pulpit to offer his services. Rev. Hickman joined the ranks o f the regular army and fought in the battle where he was seriously wounded. After the battle, Union soldiers were transporting Federal and Confederate wounded alike to the field hospitals. They came across Rev. Hickman, but he was dressed in civilian clothes, not in a military uniform, so he was regarded as a “bushwhacker,” an illegal soldier, that is, and they let him lie. He lay on the field until the next morning w hen members o f his congregation came and m oved him to a neighbor’s house where he later died. R utherford B. H ayes Rutherford Birchard Hayes was a moderately successful lawyer in Cincinnati, Ohio, before the war. He joined the Union cause when the members o f his social club formed a military company. The Ohio governor appointed him a major and regimental judge-advocate. Hayes took part in some 50 engagements during the war, was wounded several times, and ultimately became a m ajor general o f volunteers. He was elected to Congress while still on active duty in the army in the field, serving from 1865 to 1867. Hayes was then elected governor o f Ohio three times. In 1876, he was the Republican nominee for president. He emerged the winner in a highly contested election that was finally decided by a commission set up by Congress to review disputed election results in several states. Hayes served one term as president before retiring to philanthropic work. H enry C. C arpenter Henry Carpenter, from the W hite Gate area o f Giles County, enlisted in the 45th Virginia Infantry Regiment (Company H) on April 4,1862. He was a volunteer. Two o f his brothers also served in the 45th. Pvt. Henry Carpenter saw action in various battles and skirmishes in Southwest Virginia, southern West Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley, Lynchburg, and with Confederate Gen. Jubal Early’s attempted attack on Washington in June o f 1864 (which was shortly after Cloyd’s Mountain). Pvt. Carpenter wrote a series o f letters to his sister, Elizabeth, whom he called Liz or Liza, during his service in the Confederate army. The letters are unedited, unfiltered, and uncensored in any way, in con• 68 • �C loyd’s M ountain g rave site o f Capt. C hristopher Cleburn. trast with many letters from soldiers to home in later wars. Through these letters, we see the Civil War as it was experienced first-hand by an ordinary Confederate foot soldier, along with his thoughts and feelings on the events o f the war, the arm y’s leaders, and the family back home. The letter he wrote telling about his participation in the Battle o f Cloyd’s M ountain is covered previously in this article. Pvt. C arpenter’s last letter, dated July 19,1864, from Berryville, Virginia, is o f a notably different tone than the previous ones. Those former letters to sister Liza, despite various hardships and setbacks that Henry had endured, were consistently upbeat and optimistic. They showed a strong sense o f duty and re­ solve. This last letter shows battle fatigue and extreme weariness; Carpenter seems to question his ability to go on. The letter also has a sense o f fatalism in it as Carpenter thanks God for sparing his life thus far. By this time, both o f Henry Carpenter’s brothers had been captured and were in a Yankee prison somewhere. In his last letter, Henry actually suggested that he might be better off if he was with them, a startling senti­ ment. Pvt. Henry C. Carpenter, 45th Virginia Infantry, CSA, died while still in active military service on October 6,1864, at Woodstock, Virginia. His beloved sister Liza received a very poignant letter from a family friend, also in the Confederate army and who was apparently with Henry when he died, informing her o f her brother’s death. Although the specific events leading up to Henry’s death are not recounted in the letter, it does say that he was delirious prior to passing away. The letter also says that a lock o f her brother’s hair and his Testament will be sent to “Miss Lizzie.” Henry C. Carpenter was a distant relative o f the writer o f this article. U nknown female soldier On M ay 10 as the Federáis were getting into position at the west end (Dublin side) o f the bridge and the artillery duel was in progress, Col. Hayes told some o f his m en to take cover in some depressions in the ground. Hayes previously had his cavalry dismount so they w ouldn’t be easy targets for the Confed­ erate sharpshooters. Hayes himself, though, was still in the saddle. W hen he told them to take cover, all complied except for one, who had a bit o f a verbal exchange with Hayes. This particular soldier wanted Hayes to dismount and take cover also, as he had told the rest o f them to do. Before the issue could be resolved, an exploding Confederate artillery shell killed the soldier. • 69 • �The regimental surgeon saw the fallen soldier and noticed that the body somehow seemed differ­ ent from all the others he had seen. Upon closer examination, he discovered that the dead soldier was a woman, a shocking revelation at the time. It was later learned that Confederate sympathizers had killed her parents, which motivated her to disguise herself as a m an and join the Union army in order to seek revenge. A ssessment Gen. Crook soundly defeated a hastily assembled army that was a little more than a third the size o f his while he was on the way to his main target, the railroad bridge. Crook’s prim ary goal was to destroy the railroad bridge; that was the whole point o f the raid. But the bridge was not destroyed, at least not completely. Crook destroyed some o f the bridge, but not all o f it. The wooden superstructure was reduced to ashes, but the most important part, the stone piers, was left intact due to poor planning on the part o f the Federáis, who, as indicated previously, neglected to bring explosives with them. There was nothing they could do to take down the tall stone and concrete piers, so these key components o f the bridge were left standing. After the Federáis had gone back into West Virginia, the bridge superstructure was rebuilt in a mat­ ter o f weeks. The railroad was back in operation by early June. It remained in operation until April 6,1865, three days before Lee surrendered, when Union troops disabled a number o f the bridge trusses. E pilogue The Battle o f Cloyd’s Mountain was one small conflict on one afternoon in a w ar that went on for four years — over 1,200 casualties on one afternoon in a four-year war. This particular battle is now largely forgotten. The battlefield is all private property today, consisting o f houses and farms. There are few physical reminders o f the conflict that occurred here; one could drive right through the battlefield and never know it, except for the state historical markers and the lonely gravesite o f Capt. Christopher Clebum. REFERENCES 1. “Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes,” compiled by Charles Richard Williams, The John Chapman Gray Collec­ tion established by the Class of 1913, Harvard Law School. 2. “The Battle of Cloyd’s Mountain - The Virginia and Tennessee Railroad Raid- April 29-May 19,1864,” Howard R. McMa­ nus, printed by H.E. Howard, Inc. Lynchburg, Virginia, 1989 3. Jessee B. Ring’s personal copy of Henry Carpenter’s Civil War letters. 4. “Carpenter, Henry C. (d. 1864); Letters, 1862-64” - Special Collections Department, University Libraries, Virginia Tech 5. “Battle of Cloyd’s Farm” - Series of newspaper articles by Lloyd Matthews published in the Southwest Times starting May 2, 1993. 6. Virginia Civil War Trails marker (“New River Bridge, Attack on the Virginia and Tennessee”) in Bisset Park, Radford, Vir­ ginia. 7. Virginia Department of Highways Historical Marker KE 5 at Clebum Wayside on Route 100 between Cloyd’s Mountain and Dublin. 8. Virginia Department of Highways Historical Marker K 38 on Route 100 just west of the summit of Cloyd’s Mountain. 9. Tombstone of Christopher Clebum at Clebum Wayside on Route 100 between Back Creek and Dublin, Virginia. 10. “A History of the Middle New River Settlements and Contiguous Territories,” David E Johnson, Standard Ptc. And Pub. Co., Huntington, W.Va., 1906. 11. “The United States Army Invades The New River Valley, May 1864,” Patricia Givens Johnson, Walpa Publishing, Blacks­ burg, Va., 1986 12. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Second Edition, Columbia University Press, Momingside Heights, New York, 1950. 13. Giles County Historical Society Quarterly Newsletter, Winter, 2010 14. “The Civil War Narrative - Red River to Appomattox,” Shelby Foote, Vintage Books, New York, 1986 15. www.johnsmilitaryhistory.com/cloyds • 70 • �S a itvd ie cUvUtty tfe by Roger Allison, Jim Glanville and H arry Haynes o issue o f the H istorical Society o f Western Virginia Journal devoted to the 150th anniversary o f the Civil War w ould be complete w ithout a discussion o f the role o f Saltville during that conflict and the production o f dry salt by the m ethod o f boiling down the brine that was pum ped from the tow n’s wells. The brine wells o f Saltville were the source o f two-thirds o f the salt consum ed by the Confederate States o f A m erica during the War. Ella L onn’s 80-year-old book, “Salt as a Factor in the Confederacy,” [1 ] opens w ith the striking, but perhaps apocryphal, account o f a form er Confederate officer speaking after the w ar in the northern salt-producing center o f Syracuse, N ew York, and saying, “ ... you northerners w hipped us southerners ... because you had salt.” That same them e has been taken up in the very recent book “Starving the South: How the N orth w on the Civil War” by A ndrew Smith, [2 ] in which he writes o f a southern “Salt Fam ­ ine.” A t the time o f the Civil War, Southerners annually consumed about 450 m illion pounds (9 m il­ lion bushels) o f salt, m ore than any other nation in the world. Salt’s single m ost im portant use was to preserve m eat and fish; in a tim e o f pre-refrigeration, salt was invaluable as a preservative. Salt use peaked annually in the fall w hen anim als were slaughtered in preparation for the coming winter. Live­ stock, such as cattle, mules, horses and pigs, also needed salt, and it was required for tanning leather and other com m ercial purposes. The N orthern blockade o f the Confederacy initiated in 1861 by Lt. Gen. W infield Scott’s “A na­ conda Plan” largely elim inated southern salt-making by solar evaporation along its Atlantic and G ulf coasts and in the lower M ississippi River. This action left the Confederacy increasingly reliant on inland salt sources. [3 ] The important K anaw ha salt works were lost to the Confederacy after the September 1861 Battle o f C am ifex Ferry near present day Summersville, West Virginia, and the salt works at Goose Creek in Clay County in eastern K entucky were destroyed in October 1862. In M arch o f 1862, w ith the w ar alm ost a year old, the adjutant and inspector general o f Alabam a wrote to the C onfederacy’s quartermaster-general: “The salt question is hourly increasing in m agnitude and importance. The people o f the Confederate States require full 6,000,000 bushels at the lowest cal­ culation ... [s]alt is in very great dem and here, and every artifice and fraud is resorted to by speculators both in this State and Georgia.” [4 ] The shortage o f salt was a direct result o f the U nion blockade o f the Confederacy which was described by an aide in a m emorandum early in the second year o f the w ar to President Jefferson Davis: The policy o f the N orthern leaders in the w ar for the subjugation o f the South­ ern people has been to take our chief sea-coast cities, so as to cut o ff all supplies from foreign countries, get possession o f the border States o f Kentucky, M issouri, and Tennessee, w hich are the great grain-growing States, properly belonging to the N Roger Allison is a longtime Saltville resident, a journalist, co-owner o f the Saltville Progress weekly newspa­ per, and a many-year student o f the town’s history. Jim Glanville is a retired chemist who lives in Blacksburg and writes and speaks frequently about the history and archeology o f Southwest Virginia. Harry Haynes is the manager o f the Museum o f the Middle Appalachians in Saltville andfrequently interprets the Civil War there. 71 �Figure 1. The m odem town o f Saltville view ed from the overlook on Route 107, the Chilhowie to Saltville R oad (also called the R.B. W orthy Boulevard). The wellfields area is the open region in the lo w er le ft o f the image. The present-day Saltville business district is a t the right. The loca­ tion o f the overlook is show n on the map in Figure 9; at the left-hand edge o f the m ap the direction o f view is approxim ately due west. (Picture: Jim Glanville, D ecem ­ b e r 2006) Figure 2. No C ivil W ar era photographs o f Saltville are know n to exist. This im age from 1893 was taken about 1 m ile west o f the p re se n t dow ntow n area looking to the northeast. It show s the soon-to-be-devel­ oped Saltville well-fields and the railroad line running from the lo w e r right corner o f the picture to the m iddle o f its le ft edge, where the p a rtly dem olished Tennessee furnace can be seen. The overlook (from where the picture in Figure 1 was taken) was bu ilt 71 years la te r (in 1964) on the side o f the h ill in the fa r distance. (Picture 212-8, P hillips-P erry Collection; courtesy the M useum o f the Middle A p­ palachians) Confederacy; cut the railway connections betw een Virginia and the cotton States, and cut the cotton region in two divisions by getting M l possession o f the M is­ sissippi river; by getting possession o f the sea-coast cities on the one side and the principal grain-growing region on the other; by separating the cotton region o f the Confederacy from Virginia and cutting it into two separate divisions; by command­ ing com pletely the M ississippi River, they expected to starve the people into sub­ jection, or crush out one division after another by the great advantage they would possess in concentrating heavy forces upon any given section or division. The lull brought upon the people o f the Confederate States by their great success during the first six m onths o f the contest has enabled their persevering enem y to h alf succeed in their w ell-laid schemes for the complete subjugation o f the Southern people. The late victories o f the Confederate forces, and the repulses which the N orthern troops have m et w ith lately, have stirred up the N orthern G overnm ent and people to such exertions as will in their opinion complete our subjugation at no distant day. The object o f first m agnitude, under existing circumstances, upon our part, is to get pos­ session o f W estern Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. [ 5 ] • 72• �Late in the war, after three years o f more-or-less undisturbed operations at Saltville, northern forces finally attacked the tow n and on their second try in December 1864 significantly damaged the salt works. Views o f Saltville as it looks today and as it looked in 1893 are shown in Figures 1 and 2. A principal cause o f the salt shortage in the Confederacy, and hence o f the effectiveness o f the blockade, was that the southern states had in the pre-w ar years developed a strong dependence on imported salt. This dependence had been noted and described in an 1860 book by the French geologist Raym ond Thornassy. In a chapter titled “The Question o f Indigenous Salt, and the Importance o f this Commodity to the US,” Thom assy observed rather flamboyantly: “To captivate a child a taste o f sugar suffices: well, im­ ported salt seems similarly to captivate the Unites States, particularly the southern states.” To back up this contention with statistics he noted that southerners imported over 3 million bushels o f salt in sacks from Liverpool (made in the nearby county o f Cheshire by boiling brine), along with a quarter-million bushels o f sea salt from the Caribbean, into the Port o f N ew Orleans during the 12-month period from July 1855 to June 1856. However, the large amount o f importation from Liverpool was not due to any particular southern taste for Cheshire salt, it m erely reflected the rather mundane commercial reality that otherwise empty, returning cotton-carrying vessels could be sent back to America using salt as ballast and thus with cost-free transportation. [6 ] S alt- making by brine boiling The process used to make salt at Saltville was to boil its brine with the heat from wood fires. Brine is sodium chloride (NaCl) dissolved in water — an aqueous solution o f common salt. In Saltville, wells dug in suitable places (such as on the well-fields) fill naturally with strong, high purity brine. W hen this brine is heated, its w ater — but not its salt — boils away, and solid, crystalline salt precipitates from the liquid as seen in Figure 3. In 1857 the Saltville salt works was visited by two writers and a sketch artist from H arper’s N ew M onthly M agazine. The report o f that visit and the sketches are available for online viewing. [7 ] That visit has left us with a well-known, wonderful verbal and pictorial record o f what Saltville’s production facilities looked like only four years before the commencement o f the Civil War. The English traveler Edward King visited Saltville in 1874 accompanied by the sketch artist J. Wells Champney. Cham pney’s sketch o f salt making is shown in Figure 4. [8 ] Old salt kettles once used to boil brine are still found in and around Saltville, 150 years after the Civil War. The specimen pictured in Figures 5 and 6 is in the yard o f a private home near Saltville. This kettle is noteworthy because it bears its m aker’s foundry m ark and is the only kettle presently known to be so marked. Figure 7 shows the locations o f the salt furnace complexes in Saltville during the Civil War. To meet peak salt demand during the war, some furnaces were also operated 8'A miles from Saltville at Glade Spring where the Saltville rail spur joined the main line o f the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. The brine for these furnaces was shipped by rail from Saltville. Figure 8 shows the Scott furnace which was located on the site o f today’s Saltville g o lf course, not far from downtown. A nnual rates of salt production at Saltville during the 19 th century M any authors have discussed 19th century salt production at Saltville. Aggregating their data allows us to build up a picture o f the annual rate o f salt production, as summarized in Table 1 (page 78). Among these authors are Charles Lanman [9 ]\ Henry Darwin Rogers, a geologist commissioned by the State o f Virginia to evaluate the mineral resources o f Saltville [10]\ an anonymous author quoting the Richmond Enquirer [11]; the English traveler Edward King, mentioned above [12]\ the book by the his­ torian o f Smyth County, Goodridge W ilson [13]\ the address by the student o f local history, Judge Walter Henderson Robertson [1 4 ]\ a hard-to-find essay written by the Marion, Virginia, native Cecil Greer •73* �Figure 3. Reenactment o f the making o f salt from brine in a large metal kettle. A pierced ladle dips the salt crys­ tals that have deposited from the brine as the water has boiled away. (Picture: Jim Glanville, Saltville, September 2004) Figure 4. Another interior view o f the Salt Works is provided by this original sketch by J. Wells Champney. Hot combustion gases from burning wood in the furnace through brick conduits below the iron kettles. Note that the nearer kettles are producing less steam than those in the distance. The fur­ nace gas cooled as it passed forward down the kettle row and so the farthest kettles got the most heat and were the most pro­ ductive. Open lattice baskets (seen in the foreground) allowed excess brine to drain and be recycled to the kettles. (Taken from page 571 in Edward King’s “The Southern States o f North America: A Record of Journeys in .... ”) w hile a senior-year undergraduate student at the University o f Virginia [1 5 ]; and, m ost importantly, a valuable scholarly m onograph about Saltville’s salt trade w ritten during the 1990s by W ill Sarvis [16]. U seful statistics about the amount o f salt m aking at Saltville also come in the form o f answers to a list o f questions sent in letters written by Alexander M cCall and Thomas L. Preston about a dozen years prior to the beginning o f the Civil W ar and transm itted in 1848 to the president o f w hat was then called the Lynchburg and Tennessee railroad. [1 7 ] By 1848, considerable commercial interest had de­ veloped in constructing a railroad to link Lynchburg to Bristol and beyond into Tennessee w ith one o f its uses being to haul salt. As mentioned above, this railroad duly opened and reached Bristol in October 1856. The 8'/2-mile railroad spur north to Saltville branching from the m ain line at Glade Spring was com pleted earlier the same year. [1 8 ] The railroad w ent first to Saltville, to generate revenue from haul­ ing salt and plaster, w ith the construction o f the m ain passenger line to Bristol coming only after the spur was completed. [1 9 ] A lexander M cCall wrote in his answers that two-thirds o f Saltville’s annual production o f 200,000 bushels o f salt was shipped by wagon and the rem ainder by flat boats to the Tennessee River. H e noted that the entire U.S. dem and for salt was 2 million bushels, revealing that in 1848 Saltville met ju st 10 percent o f the national requirement. M cCall noted the expense involved in hauling wood, and judged that three cords o f hard w ood w ould m ake 100 bushels “in a furnace under good trim .” From this inform ation w e deduce that roughly 2 pounds o f wood were needed to m ake a pound o f salt, or equiva• 74 • �Figures 5 and 6. A salt kettle. The foundry m ark on the right below reads “ Forest City Foundry, A ugusta GA. ” (Pictures: H arry Haynes, n e a r Saltville, O ctober 2012) lently 2 tons o f wood were needed to make a ton o f salt (see Table 1). Thomas L. Pres­ ton estimated that annual salt production was alm ost twice as great as did M cCall, noted that a bushel o f salt at Saltville was taken to weigh 50 pounds, and that 4.6 bushels m ade a 230-pound sack o f salt. The discrepant values given by M cCall and Preston are unexplained. In Virginia, a barrel o f salt was defined by law as 5 bushels. Table 1 reveals that salt production at Saltville grew steadily through the middle part o f the 19th century, reached a mighty climax following an exceedingly rapid, 10-fold increase during the Civil War, and fell back to earlier levels after the w ar’s conclusion. Production o f salt for sale as salt ended in 1907 w hen the M athieson Alkali Company (which had opened in 1895) switched the brine entirely from salt m aking to use for the manufacture o f chemical substances such as the alkali sodium carbonate. D aily life in S altville during the C ivil W ar From the beginning o f the Civil War, in A pril 1861, it was more than three years until the w ar actually came to Saltville. During the early part o f the war, the salt-making capacity o f the town was increased by the build­ ing o f m ore furnaces and the adding o f more kettles. A fter that build-up, Saltville functioned for m any months as a busy industrial town, remote from the war, w ith daily life focusing around the railroad. In 1864, w ith daily salt production running around 300 tons a day, a daily train (Figure 9) was needed to transport the salt from Saltville. [ 2 2 ] Securing adequate railroad transportation, both to bring w ood and take out salt, presented complex problem s during much o f the war, and led to difficult relations between Virginia and the other Confederate states. [2 3 ] Salt production was a labor intensive business. W riting in 1875, Edward King said that 2,000 m en w orked at Saltville during the war. Several hundred horse-drawn wagon team s and much m anual labor was needed to handle and bring the tons o f w ood needed to the furnaces and pack and load the outgoing salt onto railroad cars. Large furnaces with a hundred or more kettles, operating 24 hours a day, 75 �Figure 7. M ap show ing downtown Saltville and the m ain locations o f the salt furnace com plexes during the Civil War. A b out 60 furnaces were in operation during the war. S alt furnace com plexes I, II, III and IV la y close to the railroad line, with com plexes III an d IV ju s t to the north o f the present-day well-fields area. The S cott furnace com plex a t V was on the present-day g o lf course. Furnace com ­ p le x VI w as ju s t w est o f today’s dow n­ town area. The rive r furnaces at location VII, which had been idle p rio r to the beginning o f the war, were brought back into service when the w a r started. Figure 8. The S cott Furnace seen in 1893. Furnaces were long, shed-like buildings with a large chim ney a t one end. This facility fired 440 kettles in two double furnaces and supplied the Con­ federate States A rm y with salt. (PhillipsP e rry Collection, picture a42, courtesy the M useum o f the M iddle Appalachians) w ould have needed as m uch as 4 tons o f fuel w ood every day. Inside the furnace sheds, m any workers w ere needed to move from kettle to kettle, dipping out the salt crystals as they form ed during the process o f brine evaporation and transferring them to the bushel baskets. B ased on his detailed analysis o f post-w ar legal records, [2 4 ] co-author Allison concludes that there w ere at least 37 salt-producing companies operating an estim ated 2,800 kettles. The exact num ber o f furnaces operating during the w ar is impossible to determine — possibly about 60. A llison’s investi­ gations also show that some salt pans were operated during the war. Salt pans w ere gigantic kettles (they could be 6 to 20 feet in size) and were common in Europe. [2 5 ] The traveler, librarian and government official Charles Lanm an visited Saltville in June 1848 and described the m anner in w hich Saltville brine was obtained. H e tells that brine was raised by the pow er o f horses from three artesian wells dug out to a depth o f 225 feet and that 25 team s o f horses were constantly working to bring wood to the furnace. [2 6 ] W ooden pipes were used to convey the brine from the w ells to the furnaces. A t this pre-railroad date, Lanm an noted one or two dozen flat boats being filled w ith salt in readiness for the annual one-way trip down the N orth Fork o f the H olston R iver to Kingsport w hen the river rose w ith its spring freshet, or spring “tide” as it was locally called. A general discussion o f the production and transportation o f brine has been provided by Zola Deutsch, w ho w orked at Salt­ ville in the 20th century. [2 7] We have no intim ate record o f w hat life was like in Saltville during its tim e o f m axim um salt production in 1862-1864. However, we do have both a personal description from Booker T. Washing- • 76 • �Figure 9. The 4-4-0 w ood-burning steam locom otive Texas seen in a p a rk in Atlanta, circa 1910. This locom otive p a id m any visits to Saltville during the Civil War. She was the principal Confederate lo co­ m otive in the “G reat Locom otive C hase” o f 1862. The Texas chased the G eneral that had been stolen b y Union raiders a t Kennesaw, Georgia, and driven north by them to within 20 m iles o f Chattanooga before running ou t o f fuel. This action was m em orialized in the 1926 B u ster Keaton silent film titled “The G eneral.” Later, she carried G eorgia w ood to Saltville and returned hom e with salt. R enam ed Cincinnati in 1880, she continued in service until 1901. (Picture: D igital Library o f Georgia, used with perm ission) [ 21] ton o f w hat daily life was like at the K anaw ha County salt works and a scholarly analysis o f the use o f enslaved labor at those works from historian John Stealey. [2 8 ] The Kanawha salt works boiled brine using the heat from coal-fired furnaces. They were located on the Kanawha River about five miles south o f today’s Charleston, West Virginia. Booker T. W ashington’s stepfather escaped from enslavem ent in Franklin County, Virginia, during the w ar and followed Union soldiers to find refuge at the K anaw ha salt works. A fter the war, in 1865, the stepfather called for Booker T. W ashington and his m other to jo in him and they m oved to the salt works, where the then 9-year-old W ashington worked for a time. In his 1901 autobiography “Up From Slavery” [2 9 ] W ashington described life at the K anaw ha salt works as follows: Finally we reached our destination — a little town called M alden, which is about five miles from Charleston the present capital o f the state. A t that tim e salt­ mining was the great industry in that part o f West Virginia, and the little town o f M alden was right in the m idst o f the salt furnaces. M y stepfather had already secured a jo b at a salt-furnace, and he had also secured a little cabin for us to live in. O ur new house was no better than the one we had left on the old plantation in Virginia. In fact, in one respect it was worse. Notwithstanding the poor condition o f our plantation cabin, we were at all times sure o f pure air. Our new hom e was in the m idst o f a cluster o f cabins crowded closely together, and as there were no sanitary 77* �TABLE 1 — Annual Salt Production* at Saltville for Selected Years Year 1830 1848 1848 1848 1854 1858 1864 1867 1874 1882 Bushels 75,000 730,000 200,000 350,000 300,000 300,000 4,000,000 400,000 110,000 440,000 Tons 2,000 18,000 5,000 9,000 7,500 7,500 100,000 10,000 3,000 11,000 Citation: Author, date: page Rogers, 1854: 3. Charles Lanman, 1849: 158. Alexander McCall, 1849: 3. T.L. Preston, 1849: 3. Rogers, 1854: 3. DeBow, 1858, 369. King, 1875: 571, Sarvis, 1998: 23 Sarvis, 1998: 23. King, 1875: 571. Ogle, 2009, 24. Notes to Table 1 *These round num ber values should be regarded only as approximations. N ote the w idely discordant production figures stated for the year 1848. A bushel is a dry m easure m easuring about VA cubic feet and w eighing 50 pounds. A sack o f salt is approximately 4'A bushels. A furnace “in good trim ” required about 2 tons o f w ood to make a ton o f salt. Typically, 20-25 gallons o f saturated brine w ould have been needed to m ake a bushel o f salt. [ 20] regulations, the filth about the cabins was often intolerable. Some o f our neighbours w ere coloured people, and some were the poorest and m ost ignorant and degraded w hite people. It was a m otley mixture. Drinking, gambling, quarrels, fights, and shockingly immoral practices were frequent. A ll who lived in the little tow n were in one w ay or another connected w ith the salt business. Though I was a m ere child, m y stepfather put me and m y brother at w ork in one o f the furnaces. Often I began w ork as early as four o ’clock in the morning. The first thing I ever learned in the w ay o f book knowledge was while working in his salt-furnace. Each salt-packer had his barrels m arked w ith a certain number. The num ber allotted to m y stepfather was “ 18.” A t the close o f the day’s w ork the boss o f the packers would come around and put “ 18” on each o f our barrels, and I soon learned to recognize that figure w herever I saw it, and after a while got to the point where I could make that figure, though I knew nothing about any other figures or letters. Describing the workers at the Kanawha salt works, Stealey writes: Saltmakers employed slaves in all phases o f the m anufacturing process and in all subsidiary activities necessary to support a salt furnace. The heart o f the fac­ tory was the furnace w ith the ... brine w ater pum ped by steam engines from nearby wells.... N ecessary subsidiary activities for support o f the process were m aintenance • 78 • �and general labor, coal-mining (in earlier times, wood-cutting), blacksmithing, coopering (making barrels) and cooking. M ost tasks perform ed by hired and com­ pany-ow ned slaves were routine, but some required a high degree o f skill. In one com pletely integrated salt furnace operation that did not contract for coal and barrel deliveries, 23 to 33 slaves w ere re q u ire d .... In 1854, James Cowey, a m anager o f two salt furnaces, deposed that o f 64 laborers under his control, 58 were s la v e s.... Testifying in a deposition in 1853, a veteran salt m aker estimated the employment o f hands at two salt furnaces: fourteen coal diggers, five wheelers (wheeled coal from interior o f m ine to mouth), four haulers (hauled coal by team on railroad tram ­ way from mine m outh to furnace), three kettle-tenders, one or two “cat-hole” clean­ ers (cleaned coal ash repository), six engineers (ran steam engines to pum p brine from well and through wooden pipes to evaporation pan), two salt-lifters and w heel­ ers (lifted salt from pan after evaporation and wheeled product to packing shed), seven “jim arounds” and packers (“jim arounds” were general laborers and firemen and packers placed salt into barrels for shipment), two blacksmiths, one “negro m an sort o f m anager,” and one cook. To attain optimum production capabilities and re­ turn on plant investment, saltmakers ran their furnaces 24 hours per day and, if they chose to incur the risk o f arrest and overproduction, seven days per week. W hile not being literal descriptions o f daily life at Saltville during the Civil War, the preceding quotations from W ashington and Stealey are illuminating and suggestive. There is at present insufficient data to assess w hat fraction o f the wartim e w ork force at Saltville consisted o f enslaved workers. Starobin in his analysis o f southern industrial slavery does not specifi­ cally m ention Saltville (though he does show one o f the H arper’s M agazine sketches made there), and notes that while m any southern industries used slaves exclusively, some had racially integrated w ork forces. [3 0 ] John Stealey, in his careful study o f slavery in the Kanawha salt industry, estim ated that o f the 1,500 slaves there in 1850 about 1,200 were male and 300 were female and that some o f the salt m anufacturing facilities w ere racially integrated. T he impressment of the S alt W orks W ith salt a scarce commodity, and Saltville being its principal supplier for m ost o f the war, the Virginia governor and the Virginia General A ssem bly paid close attention to the matters o f salt produc­ tion and transportation. Salt w orkers w ere exem pted from m ilitary service to the Confederacy w ithin a few weeks o f the outbreak o f war. [3 1 ] A n act regulating “the production, distribution and sale o f Salt in this Com m onwealth” passed the assembly on O ctober 1, 1862. [3 2 ] During the first two years o f the w ar the privately owned salt-making companies perform ed very badly. The A ssem bly’s Joint Committee on Salt reported late deliveries o f an inferior product at a high price: “ ... throughout the year 1862 and the first h alf o f 1863 — the absolute suffering o f m an and beast for w ant o f salt — the repeated failures to obtain it from the owners o f the salt works under county con­ tracts and contracts by the governor, failures in point o f quantity, quality and tim e o f delivery, as w ell as the inordinate price com m anded in the m arket by a m ost inferior article...” [3 3 ] In spring 1862, Gov. John Letcher received broad authority to regulate Virginia’s natural resourc­ es, including, o f course, salt. A salt shortage that prevented adequate m eat preservation in the fall o f the year had the potential to cripple the Confederate army. Letcher visited Saltville in A ugust and on his return to Richm ond reconvened the assem bly which granted him further w ide-ranging powers. Now, the governor could legally take any action he deem ed necessary to increase salt production and get it deliv- • 79 • �ered where it was needed. Letcher tried various methods to achieve these ends, but hesitated to go too far, [3 4 ] despite the fact that some observers were publicly advocating that the state buy the salt works outright. [3 5 ] Letcher and V irginia’s slowness in taking direct action to secure the Saltville salt supply can be largely attributed to a deep philosophical respect for private property and a concom itant reluctance to condem n private property. The assembly was a conservative body. In the end, however, and w ith the prodding o f a new governor, Virginia finally asserted its right o f eminent domain, and justified by rea­ sons o f a tim e o f w ar and Saltville being the site o f the state’s only available salt wells. L etcher’s successor as governor, W illiam “Extra Billy” Smith, took office in January 1864 and finally convinced the General Assembly to authorize him to impress salt wells, fiimaces and other private property. [3 6 ] The “ACT to authorize the Im pressm ent o f certain Salt Wells, Furnaces and other Property” was passed on M arch 8, 1864, and operations in Saltville w ere soon taken over by the stateappointed superintendent o f salt works. [3 7 ] B y the sum m er o f 1864 the salt situation had been m uch improved, “ ... and now on the other hand find that the people and the markets are so fully supplied w ith a sound merchantable article, that despite a depreciated currency and fabulous prices for all other articles o f hum an consumption, salt alone is quoted in the price lists as ‘dull’ and ‘flat’ and ‘cheap,’ they will find in this, the highest vindica­ tion o f their legislative policy and p roof that they have been fortunate in the selection o f their agents to carry out that policy.” [3 8 ] The full story o f the debates in the assembly in Richm ond over the impressm ent o f the salt works lies beyond our scope here. However it is an interesting story and one that has never been told. B rief military history of S altville during the C ivil W ar [3 9 ] Southwest Virginia rem ained largely uninvolved m ilitarily in the Civil War until the fourth year o f the war. As late as the w inter o f 1863-64, the presence o f Gen. James Longstreet’s Confederate A rm y Corps in upper east Tennessee cast a protective shadow over the salt works. [4 0 ] W illiam M arvel ob­ served that even in 1864 “ ... [djespite the excitem ent o f periodic raids and the shortage or expense o f certain necessities, life in the southwestern counties still rem ained relatively norm al for a countryside at war.” [4 1 ] V irginia’s railroad network, which was the m ost extensive in all o f the Confederacy, con­ tinued operating w ell in the region, w ith the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, connecting Knoxville to Lynchburg, rem aining unmolested. The protection from Tennessee held until April 1864, when Longstreet shipped his force north and east along the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad to jo in Robert E. L ee’s force facing the A rm y o f the Potom ac. Seeking to offer some continuing protection to the region, President Jefferson Davis appointed the popular battlefield com m ander John Cabell Breckenridge o f Kentucky to command in w estern Vir­ ginia. Southwest Virginia finally became a target in the spring o f 1864, w hen new ly prom oted overall com m ander o f the U nion forces Gen. Ulysses G rant planned offensive action in every theater o f w ar east o f the M ississippi River. Gen. George Crook w ould attack w estern Virginia from W est Virginia, while from K entucky southw est Virginia would be attacked by troops under the command o f Gen. Stephen Burbridge. [4 2 ] The Saltville branch o f the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad had been com pleted only eight years earlier in 1856. It is possible to speculate that lacking rail transportation for salt, fighting the “Southern Cause” m ight not even have been possible five to six years before 1861. A fter three years o f relative qui­ et, [4 3 ] the first m ajor fighting in southwestern Virginia took place during U nion Gen. George C rook’s N ew River Valley Cam paign w ith an action at C loyd’s M ountain in M ontgom ery County on M ay 9, 1864. [4 4 ] On M ay 10, 1864, a force under Union Gen. W illiam Averell fought Confederates at Cove M ountain in W ythe County on his w ay to link up w ith Crook. A verell’s force burned the N ew River •80» �bridge at Radford the following day, but inflicted only m oderate damage; it was quickly repaired and back in operation only five w eeks later. These actions were only partial fulfillment o f G rant’s intention to starve the Confederacy o f its resources by disabling the railroad in the Valley and Ridge Province by means o f the destruction o f the N ew R iver bridge. The geologist Robert W hisonant has nicely described the fundam ental facts o f geology and topography that influenced and controlled the m ilitary operations in 1864 in southwestern Virginia. [4 5 ] The two battles at Saltville occurred later in 1864. In the first Battle o f Saltville in October, Union troops led by Brig. Gen. Stephen G. Burbridge undertook a campaign against the salt works from K entucky in late September. His force was com posed o f about 5,200 m en and included the A frican American 5th U.S. Colored Cavalry. B urbidge’s route to Saltville via the rugged Levisa Fork o f the Big Sandy River was challenging. Overall organization o f the defense o f Saltville, in the hands o f Gen. John Echols, gathered the forces for the defense o f the salt works, while on the ground command in Saltville was held by Gen. A lfred E. Jackson, who it is said was derisively called “M udwall” by his own men, a sobriquet he apparently earned by his ineptness com pared to his more famous cousin, Stonewall Jackson (W illiam Davis, 1971). The battle began at about 11 a.m. on the morning o f Sunday, O ctober 2, with command o f the 2,500 defenders now in the hands o f Confederate Gen. John Williams who had arrived less than two hours earlier w ith 1,700 o f those defenders via the railroad. By m aking good use o f their excellent Enfield rifles, and w ith the advantage o f being on readily defensible terrain, the Confederate forces decisively rebuffed Burbridge’s attack. A dm itting failure, Burbridge withdrew his forces in the late afternoon. Historians count the first Battle o f Saltville as a victory for the South. The first Battle o f Saltville is notorious because o f an atrocity, the extent o f w hich has been the subject o f a long-running dispute among historians. On the morning o f October 3, 1864, witnesses saw Confederate soldiers kill captured Union soldiers w ho had been left wounded on the battlefield. The dispute has been exacerbated because among the m en killed were black Union soldiers o f the 5th U.S. Colored Cavalry regiment. A recent, balanced summary o f w hat has come to be called “the Saltville M assacre” was provided by Brian M cK night in 2009 and can be read online. [4 6 ] A m ong earlier works that discuss the atrocity are two articles, a book and a useful website. [4 7 ] Adding to the controversy •81 • �are the actions at Saltville o f the infamous Confederate guerilla fighter Champ Ferguson [4 8 ] who was responsible for several o f the killings on October 3 and on October 7 for the cold-blooded killing o f a wounded U nion officer at the hospital at nearby Em ory and H enry College. The second B attle o f Saltville occurred in December 1864. Gen. George Stoneman began the campaign from Knoxville on the 10th and assembled a force o f 5,500 in upper east Tennessee. Four days later he was in A bingdon and the following day at Glade Spring. Stoneman sent about h alf his force under the com m and o f Brig. A lvan Gillem up the valley to attack the railroad and its depots before returning to jo in the attack on the salt works. Gillem fought an engagem ent at M arion on the 17th and 18th against defenders com m anded by John C. Breckenridge who fell back towards Saltville but failed to reach it w hen they w ere blocked by Union troops and turned across rugged country in the direction o f N orth Carolina. The second battle for Saltville began on the 20th o f D ecem ber when 500 defenders un­ der Col. Robert Preston faced impossible odds with the approach o f two Federal columns, respectively under Burbridge and Gillem, w hich overwhelmed the tow n’s defenses. Preston evacuated the tow n late in the day leaving it in U nion hands. On the following day, the U nion troops burned 300 buildings, took sledge ham m ers to m asonry structures and salt kettles, and filled the salt wells with debris. However, notw ithstanding this m ayhem , by M arch 1865 at least some o f the salt w ells and furnaces were back in operation, as was the railroad. However, L ee’s surrender to Grant at Appom attox on A pril 9, 1865, ren­ dered m oot the operation o f the Confederate salt works. S altville today Saltville salt production continues today under very different circumstances from the 19th cen­ tury. Today, in a collaborative business venture, United Salt Corporation operates a salt-dissolving facil­ ity pum ping down w ater underground to depths o f as much as 7,000 feet and pum ping up the resulting brine. D ry salt for sale is made by evaporating that brine in a m odem , chemically engineered evapora­ tion facility. The deep underground cavities formed by salt removal are used by Spectra Energy Corpora­ tion to store natural gas. Spectra builds up the gas reserves during the w arm er m onths so as to be able to deliver gas w hen needed in winter. [4 9 ] The rails o f the old railroad spur from Glade Spring to Saltville were taken up a few years ago and the rail bed converted to a recreational trail. [5 0 ] The past decade has seen a resurgence o f interest in Saltville as a battleground. In 2001, the Civil W ar Preservation Trust (now the Civil War Trust) purchased 107 acres o f land at the center o f the scene o f fighting during the first Battle o f Saltville. In 2007 this land was deeded to the Town o f Saltville with the easem ent being granted to the Virginia Outdoors Trust. Professors C liff Boyd and Robert W hisonant (retired) o f Radford University have led preservation-directed projects funded by the A m erican Battle­ field Protection Program o f the U.S. National Park Service. These efforts have yielded GPS mapping, studies to identify battlefield features, a conservation plan, a notew orthy listing in 2009 in the N ational Register o f Historic Places, and a listing on the Virginia Landmarks Register, also in 2009. Currently underw ay is the developm ent o f a virtual battlefield tour that will focus on four ele­ ments o f Saltville’s Civil W ar history: the salt works and the spike in production and infrastructure fueled by the C onfederacy’s need for salt; the two battles in 1864; the w ell-preserved fortifications built by Confederate engineers on the prominences surrounding the Saltville valley; and the execution o f wounded African-A m erican cavalry troops and other Union soldiers after the first battle o f Saltville. M em ories o f the Civil War rem ain vividly alive in Saltville. They have becom e a valuable tourist attraction. • 82• �ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We thank the Interlibrary Loan office and the professional research staff o f Newm an Library at Virginia Tech. A uthor JG as ever thanks his wife D eena Flinchum. A uthor HH thanks his wife Melinda. REFERENCES 1. Ella Lonn, “Salt as a Factor in the Confederacy.” New York: W. Neale, 1933, p. 13. 2. Andrew F. Smith, “Starving the South: How the North won the Civil War.” New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2011. See also this author’s “Did Hunger Defeat the Confederacy?” North & South 13(1): 40-64 (May) 2011, online at http://andrewfsmith. com/wp-content/themes/wooden-mannequin/pdi/HungerArticle.pdf, accessed 8 November 2011. 3. Brendan Wolfe, “Anaconda Plan,” Encyclopedia Virginia. Ed., Brendan Wolfe, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities 9 May. 2011. Online at http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Anaconda_Plan, accessed 8 November 2012. 4. George Goldthwaite, Adjutant and Inspector General, Alabama. “Letter to General Duff C. Green, Quartermaster-General, at Mobile, from Montgomery, Ala., March 20, 1862.” “The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies: Series 4, vol. 1, Part 1 (Blockade Runners),” p. 1010. Online at http://ehistory.osu.edu/ osu/sources/recordview.cfm?content=/127/1010, accessed 10 November 2012. 5. J. W. Gladney, “Memorandum to President Jefferson Davis.” Richmond, Virginia August 6,1862. “The War of the Rebel­ lion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies: Series 4, vol. 2, Part 1 (Blockade Run­ ners),” pp. 39-40. Online at http://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/sources/recordView.cfm?Content=128/0039, accessed 10 November 2012 . 6. Raymond Thomassy, “Géologie Pratique de la Louisiane. Nouvelle-Orléans: Chez l’auteur,” (Paris: Lacrois et Baudry), 1860,187-190. Online at books.google.com/books?id=iMoQAAAAIAAJ. Accessed 9 November 2012. 7. Anthony Broadacre and Bob Larkin (pseudonyms) with sketches by David English Henderson, “A Winter in the South,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, volume 15, June to November, 1857. The Saltville material is on page 433 and pages 446450. Online at http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1865/january/saltville-virginia.htm, accessed 7 Novem­ ber 2012. 8. Edward King, “The Southern States of North America: A Record of Journeys in Louisiana, Texas, the Indian Territory, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia^ West Virginia and Maryland.” London: Blackie & Son, 1875. Online at ,http://books.google.com/books?id=rJoOAAAAIAAJ, accessed 12 November 2012. The sketch of brine boiling at Saltville is on p. 571. 9. Charles Lanman, “Letters from the Alleghany Mountains.” New York: Putnam, 1849. Online at books.google.com/ books?id=HCYUAAAAYAAJ. Accessed 11 November 2012. Salt making at Saltville is described in “Letter XX, The Name­ less Valley of Virginia, June 1848,” pp. 157-165. Lanman states on page 158 that a bushel of salt is 50 pounds at Saltville and “not fifty-six as in the north.” 10. Henry Darwin Rogers, “Report [to Governor John B. Floyd] on the salt and gypsum of the Preston Salt Valley of the Holston River, Virginia.” Boston: Printed by Thurston, Torry, and Emerson, 1854. Online transcription at: http://www. ls.net/~newriver/va/saltgyps.htm, accessed 11 November 2012. 11. No Stated Author. “Salt Resources of Virginia.” DeBow’s Review of Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial Prog­ ress and Resources (New Orleans, Louisiana) September, 1858,25(3): 361-363. Online at http://books.google.com/ books?id=siQKAAAALAAJ, accessed 9 November 2012. 12. Edward King, “The Southern States of North America....” 13. Goodridge A. Wilson Jr. “Smyth County History and Traditions. Marion: Centennial Celebration Smyth County, VA, 1932.” Facsimile reprint, published 1998 by Heritage Books, Bowie, Maryland. Pp. 192-197 describes the history of the salt works. Pp. 235-260 is a chapter titled “The War Between the States.” 14. Walter H. Robertson, “Saltville: Address Delivered Before the Historical Society of Washington County on March 14, 1942.” Historical Society of Washington County, Virginia Bulletin, Series I Number 8, March 1948, pp. 1-32. 15. Cecil R. Greer, “Saltville and Salt Mining Operations During the Civil War,” The Annual Collection of Essays in History published by the History Club, University of Virginia. Charlottesville, VA 1957, pp. 66-79. 16. Will Sarvis, “The Salt Trade of Nineteenth Century, Saltville, Virginia.” Will Sarvis. Columbia, Mo. Published by the author, 1998. 17. Alexander McCall and Thomas L Preston. Valuable and interesting letters from Doctor Alexander M’Call, and Thomas L. Preston, Esq., giving an account of the salt and plaster trade, etc. of southwestern Virginia, and of the Tennessee railroads, •83 • �&c.: and tables shewing the population, value of property, and business of Lynchburg, &c. (Richmond: The Lynch­ burg and Tennessee Railroad Company, printed by Shepherd and Colin), 1849. Online at http://books.google.com/ books?id=mugzAQAAMAAJ. Accessed 9 November 2012. 18. Kenneth W. Noe, “Southwest Virginia’s Railroad: Modernization and the Sectional Crisis in the Civil War Era,” (Tusca­ loosa: University of Alabama Press), 1994, pp. 29-30. 19. Roger A. Allison files. 20. The frequently quoted value of 18 gallons of Saltville brine to make a 50-pound bushel of salt was apparently cited first by McCall, 1849, as 18-20 gallons per bushel of salt. Even using the 50 pound bushel (and not the 56 pound bushel) this range is low. Using modem data, the value range of 20-25 gallons per pound of salt is more realistic (Lanman says 20 gallons per bushel), with the lower number of 20 only being approached under extremely well-managed boiling operations. 21. For the Great Railroad Chase see: William Pittenger, “Daring and Suffering: A History of the Great Railroad Adventure,” (Philadelphia, J.W. Daughaday) 1864 and online at http://archive.org/details/daringandsufferOOpittgoog. Gordon L. Rottman, “The Most Daring Raid of the Civil War: The Great Locomotive Chase,” (New York: Rosen Publishers) 2011. Movie: The General (Buster Keaton Productions and Joseph M. Schenck Productions) 1926; viewable online at http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v= 1b24wqhyOZo. 22. William M.E. Rachal, “Salt the South could not savor: plenty of it was produced at Saltville, but distributing it was a problem not easily solved.” Virginia Cavalcade, 3: 4-7,1953. 23. Lonn, “Virginia and Interstate Relations,” in Salt as a Factor, 137-159. 24. Roger A. Allison files. Analysis of Stuart, Buchanan & Co. vs. N. K. White et al: An appeal from the Circuit Court of Wythe to the District Court of Appeals at Abingdon, (Abingdon: Printed at the Virginian Office), 1867. 25. Robert P. Multhauf, “Neptune’s Gift: A History of Common Salt,” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press) 1978, pp. 84-88. See also en.www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openjpan_salt_making. 26. Charles Lanman, Letters from the Alleghany Mountains. 27. Zola G. Deutsch, “Brine Wells and Pipelines,” in Dale W. Kaufmann, ed. Sodium Chloride: The Production and Proper­ ties of Salt and Brine. New York: American Chemical Society and Reinhold Publishing Co. 1960, pp. 142-185. 28. John Edward, Stealey, III, “Slavery and the Western Virginia Salt Industry,” Journal of Negro History 59: 105-131,1974. 29. Booker T. Washington, “Up From Slavery: An Autobiography.” New York: Dover Thrift Editions, 1995. Original edition Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1901, pp. 12-13. 30. Robert S. Starobin, “Industrial Slavery in the Old South,” (New York: Oxford University Press) 1970. Discussion of racial integration at industrial facilities pp. 137 ff. 31. Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Virginia, passed in 1861, (Richmond: William F. Ritchie, public printer) 1861. Online at http://archive.org/details/actsofgeneralasOOvirg, accessed 22 November 2012. Exemption was passed at the Convention of Virginia in Secret Session May 1. 32. Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Virginia, passed at called session, 1862, (Richmond, William F. Ritchie, public printer, 1862. Online at http://archive.org/details/actsofgeneralassvirginia, accessed 22 November 2012. 33. “Report of the Joint Committee on Salt, February 22,1984.” Journal of the Senate of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1863. Appendix document XVI. Richmond: James E. Goode, 1863. Online at http://books.google.com/ books?id=dKOOAQAAMAAJ, accessed 11/21/2012. 34. Brian D. McKnight, “Contested Borderland: The Civil War in Appalachian Kentucky And Virginia,” (Lexington: Uni­ versity Press of Kentucky) 2006, 121. Letcher explained his reasons for not immediately impressing the salt works in: John Letcher, “Message from the Governor to the Gentlemen of the Senate and House, 7 January 1863,” Journal of the House of Delegates of the State of Virginia for the Called session of 1862 (Richmond: William F. Ritchie, Public printer) 1863. Online at http://archive.Org/stream/joumalhousel8621863#page/n433/mode/2up. Notes in the files of co-author Allison hint that Governor Letcher fought to keep the Commonwealth from taking over the Salt Works because his cousin Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart was the mother of W. Alexander Stuart, one of the owners of the works. She was also the mother of J. E. B Stuart. She lived in Saltville with her son Alexander throughout the war and was buried there in 1884. 35. A Citizen of the Southwest [sic], “Salt for the People.” The Daily Dispatch, Richmond. January 28,1862. Richmond Dis­ patch. Accessed 16 November 2012, online at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper, accessed 16 November 2012. 36. Alvin A. Fahmer, “William ‘Extra Billy’ Smith, Governor of Virginia 1864-1865: A Pillar of the Confederacy,” The Vir­ ginia Magazine of History and Biography, 74(1): 68-87. 37. Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Virginia, passed at session of 1863-4, (Richmond, William F. Ritchie, public printer) 1864. Online at http://archive.org/details/actsofgeneralassOOinvirg, accessed 22 November 2012. 38. Report of the Joint Committee on Salt, February 22,1984. 39. In addition to those previously cited, books about Saltville’s military history include Gary G. Walker, “War in Southwest Virginia 1861-65,” (Roanoke: Published by the author) 1985; Richard R. Duncan, “Lee’s Endangered Left: The Civil War in Western Virginia,” (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press) 1998; William C. Davis and James I. Robertson, “Vir84 �ginia at War: 1862,” (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2007; and Michael K. Shaffer, “Washington County Virginia in the Civil War,” (Charleston, SC: The History Press) 2012. Articles that discuss the military aspects of the war include four by Robert C. Whisonant, “Geology and the Civil War in Southwestern Virginia: The Smyth County Salt Works.” Virginia Minerals, 42(3): 21-30,1996; “Geology and the Civil War in Southwestern Virginia: Union Raiders in the New River Valley 1864;” Virginia Minerals. 43(4): 29-40, November 1997; “Geology and the Civil War in Southwestern Virginia- Iron Industry in the New-River-Cripple Creek District of Southwestern Virginia,” Virginia Minerals, 44: 26-35,1998; and “Mineral Fights B - Civil War Battles for Southwestern Virginia’s Lead and Salt,” The Smithfield Review, 2: 77-90, 1998. Online military histories include Daniel O’Connell’s “Salt, Lead and the fight for Southwest Virginia,” online at http://www.brettschulte.net/ CWBlog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/saltville.doc, accessed 7 November 2012 and Matthew D. Parker’s “Salt, Saltville and the American Civil War,” online at http://thomaslegion.net/saltsaltvilleandtheamericancivilwar.html, accessed 7 November 2012. Also of interest is Allen Mesch’s “Civil War Journeys: Saltville, VA., Part 1,” online at http://www.civil-war-joumeys. org/saltville_va_I.htm, accessed 8 November 2012, which shows some high-resolution pictures of Saltvile and its interpretive Civil War markers. A narrative of the battles, citations, and a map are found in The National Park Service Nomination Form for the National Register of Historic Places for Saltville Battlefields Historic District-1295-5001, online at http://www.dhr. virginia.gov/registers/Coimties/Smyth/295-5001_Saltville_Battlefields_2009_NR_FINAL.pdf, accessed 2 November 2012. 40. Joseph M Duracinsky, (in an on line Power Point presentation based on the work of Robert Whisonant accessed 5 No­ vember 2012) “Geology and the Civil War in Southwestern Virginia: Union Raiders in the New River Valley, May 1864,” online at http://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/umrcourses/ge342/geo%20and%20civil%20war%20in%20virginia.pdf, posits that “Up to this point in the Civil War, there wasn’t much fighting in the Valley and Ridge because virtually no one wanted to deal with crossing the complex terrain.” 41. Marvel, “Battles for Saltville,” 126. 42. Marvel, “Battles for Saltville,” 78-79. 43. The only significant military action to take place southwest Virginia during the first three years of the war was a cavalry raid from West Virginia by a 900-strong force commanded by John T. Toland. The objectives of the raid were the railroad, the salt works, and the Wythe County lead mines. On 18 July 1863 this force was repulsed at Wytheville with Toland being killed and none of the raid’s objectives accomplished. 44. See Jessee Ring, “The Battle of Cloyd’s Mountain: A railroad, salt works, and lead mine,” in this issue of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Journal. 45. Robert C. Whisonant, “Geology and the Civil War in Southwestern Virginia: Union Raiders in the New River Valley 1864,” Virginia Minerals 43(4): 29-40,1997. 46. Brian D. McKnight, “The Winnowing Of Saltville: Remembering a Civil War Atrocity,” Journal for the Liberal Arts and Sciences 14(1): 33-51, 2009. Online a twww.oak.edu/~oakedu/assets/ck/files/JLAS_FA09_4a.pdf, accessed 2 November 2012 . 47. William C. Davis, “Massacre at Saltville,” Civil War Times Illustrated 9: 4-5, (February) 1971; William Marvel, “The Battle of Saltville: Massacre or Myth?” Blue and Gray Magazine, August 1991, pp. 10-19 and 46-50. Thomas D. Mays, “The Saltville Massacre,” (Abilene: McWhiney Foundation Press) 1998; and David E. Brown. “Was There a Massacre in Saltville in 1864?” online at http://mywebpages.comcast.net/~5thuscc/massacr.htm. Accessed 2 November 2012. 48. Thurman Sensing, “Champ Ferguson: Confederate Guerilla,” (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press), 1942. Brian D. McKnight, “Confederate Outlaw: Champ Ferguson and the Civil War in Appalachia,” (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univer­ sity Press), 2011. 49. Roger Allison, “Spectra Energy, United Salt give boost to local economy,” Saltville Progress, Thursday 14 May 2009, pp. B5 and B8. 50. D.W. Ogle, “The Salt Trail Guide: Saltville,” Self published, 2009. A booklet. 85 �0 0 b yM a rk D. Baldwin, D.O., a n d Stephen A. Smoot, B .A ./M .A ., PhD. n the afterm ath o f John B row n’s failed raid on Harpers Ferry on O ctober 16, 1859, the South, and especially Virginia, saw its w orst fears realized: an armed slave revolt led by white abolitionists. Unlike N at Turner’s Rebellion o f 1831, this raid was organized and financed by Northern whites w ith both free blacks and at least one escaped slave taking an active part in the insurrection. Local m ilitia and townspeople held John Brown and his m en until a force o f M arines led by Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee m ade an assault on the engine house capturing, wounding and killing m any o f B row n’s men. Shortly after order was restored, rumors abounded as to plans for another raid or raids to continue his m ission o f insur­ rection, and to free Brown and the surviving prisoners. Drawing on a contem porary analogy, this event had a sim ilar effect in Vir­ ginia as did the attacks o f 11 September 2001 on America. Vir­ ginia Gov. H enry A. Wise (Figure 1) im m ediately called up the available m ilitias and over the next m onth new m ilitia units were being form ed throughout Virginia. [1 ] One o f these units, the W ythe Grays, from W ytheville, Virginia, was form ed in N ovem ­ ber 1859 and saw duty in both Harpers Ferry and Charles Town,*1 Figure 1. Gov. Henry A. Wise Virginia (now West Virginia). This paper examines the formation (Library of Congress) and history o f the Wythe Grays who w ould later becom e part o f the legendary “ Stonewall Brigade.” In response to the crisis, a m eeting was held on 22 N ovem ber 1859 at the courthouse in W ytheville to organize a m ilitia company for the possibility o f duty at Harpers Ferry. [2 ] Prior to this there were several m ilitia regiments which were a holdover from the old B eat or Common M ilitia that dated to the Federal M ilitia A ct o f 1792. [3 ] These included the 35th and 36th Regiments, w hich Maj. Joseph F. K ent (Figure 2) was a m em ber o f the 35th. [4 ] W illiam H. Cook Esq. proposed the name “W ythe Rifle Guards” and this name was adapted. [5 ] M aj. K ent was elected as captain, w ith W illiam Terry 1st lieutenant (Figure 3), and Joseph H urt as 2nd lieutenant. [6 ] I The authors wish to express their sincere thanks to Mary B. Kegley, Bev Repass-Hoch, John M. Johnson, Cathy Carlson Reynolds o f Wytheville, and Professor Joan Cashin from Ohio State University, Department o f History, fo r their valuable assistance on this project. This article first appeared in the Wythe County Histori­ cal Review, No. 72, Winter 2008-2009. It is used with the permission o f the authors and the Wythe County Historical Society. 86 �The uniform was o f the style o f other m ilitia units o f the day. [7 ] A gray single-breasted frock coat w ith 13 buttons bearing the seal o f Virginia and trousers o f either gray or light blue made up the uniform. To this was added a raised collar w ith gold braid and light blue on the cuffs, designating it an infantry unit. W hite crossed w ebbing m et in the center w ith a breast plate and a white web belt for a cartridge box and bayonet completed the uniform (Figure 4). A tall Shako hat o f the M exican w ar era had a small black plum e and the initials “W G ” above the visor (Figure 5). [8 ] Shortly after organizing, 58 m en would enlist; their ranks would grow to betw een 71 to 74 m en and officers, depending upon the source. [9 ] All ranks o f society were represented; at least seven lawyers and several physicians were in the company. [1 0 ] The youngest m em ber was W illiam Thomas Baldwin (Figure 4) who was less than a m onth from his 15th birthday. [11] Over the next w eek the new recruits were beginning to leam the rudim ents o f sol­ diering and drill. M uch o f the tow n’s efforts were directed toward getting the m en ready for duty. A second company o f older m en was organized, in case o f a local attack, and was nam ed the “Wythe Sil­ ver G rays.” They w ould be commanded by Capt. Ben Rush Floyd. [ 12] Only two m en had uniforms and no one had weapons or car­ Figure 2. Joseph F. Kent tridge boxes. On the day o f John B row n’s execution, 2 D ecem ber (Courtesy W. Randolph Chitwood 1859, the Grays were ordered to duty at Harpers Ferry and Charles Photograph Collection, Kegley Town. [1 3 ] They w ired back to Richmond as to their needs for Room, Wytheville Community material and other items for their uniforms. These supplies arrived College Library; used with permis­ by train the next evening. For the next several days there was a sion) flurry o f sizing and sewing. Local tailors from the dry goods store o f W illiam and Robert Gibboney along w ith many o f the wom en o f the tow n w orked m any long hours making sure all o f the m en were uniformed. [1 4 ] Although Brown was now dead, four o f his co-conspirators were scheduled to hang in the next few weeks. These included Edwin Coppoc and John Cook, both white, along w ith Shields Green and John Copeland, both black (Figures 6-9). Units were arriving on an almost daily basis to guard the prisoners and to defend the towns in case o f another attack. On 8 December, the Grays left home by train for Richmond on the first part o f their journey to Harpers Ferry. [1 5 ] In Rich­ m ond they were received by Gov. Wise. First thanking them for their service, he also cautioned them to expect the hardships o f a soldier’s life. He further assured them that they w ould be w ell fed w ith beef, pork, cabbage and beans. Sgt. W illiam H. Cook replied to the governor for the company. A fter m eeting the governor, they were issued weapons, blankets and overcoats. [1 6 ] They departed Figure 3. William Terry Richm ond by boat, sailing past M ount Vernon, W ashington, D.C., (Courtesy Mary B. Kegley Photo­ graph Collection, Kegley Room, and finally arriving to a w arm reception at Harpers Ferry. [1 7 ] They Wytheville Community College were given a tour o f the arm ory where the final assault took place Library; used with permission) by the Marines. [1 8 ] Afterwards, they were m arched to their quar87 �ters at St. John’s Episcopal Church that sat on a hill overlook­ ing Harpers Ferry. [1 9 ] It was about this tim e the “Wythe Rifle G uards” becam e the “W ythe Grays.” Their commander was Col. Charles Stewart (or Stuart) and under the overall command o f Gen. W illiam B. Taliaferro. [2 0 ] A detail was sent five miles north o f the Potomac into M aryland and quartered in a log schoolhouse. W illiam Baldwin was a part o f this group. [2 1 ] The m en were on edge as rumors o f planned attacks ran through the camps. A num ber o f the m en w rote final letters to their loved ones to be delivered after their death in a pitched battle. Very few expected to see hom e again. [ 2 2 ] The m en settled into a routine o f drill and guard duty. One night one o f the Grays nam ed R.K. Sherer heard a rustling and following orders called “halt” several times. Receiving no an­ swer, he fired at the sound. The noise o f the gun awoke his com­ rades w ho quickly assem bled for battle. It was then discovered that Sherer had fired into a flock o f sheep. For this he received considerable ribbing from the men. [2 3 ] A fter several days they were reunited w ith the main body in Harpers Ferry. The following day they were m arched 12 miles to Charles Town where they were convinced they w ould see a fight. W hen they arrived they were quartered in the Pres­ byterian Church; however, the rumors continued. [2 4 ] Their guards were strengthened. One night a m an nam ed Charles N eigh­ bors shot a cow, causing m uch consternation to the men. On another night another m em ber shot a hog, convinced it was a m an crawling on his hands and knees. [2 5 ] Aside from these hum orous episodes, the tension rem ained quite high among all o f the men. On the evening o f 15 December, the day before the execution o f Coppoc, Cook, Green and Copeland, the guard was strength­ ened in anticipation o f trouble. Coppoc and C ook m anaged to free themselves from their manacles and dig through the cell w all in an attempt to escape. Once outside they climbed up the scaffold and jum ped over the outer w all (Figure 10). [2 6 ] A m em ber o f B ow en’s Clarke Guards was w alking his guard post when he heard a sound. Raising his rifle he fired in the direction o f the sound, quickly alerting the rest o f the guard. [2 7 ] Coppoc and C ook’s very brief freedom ended w ith their recapture and they were put back into manacles and placed in a different cell. One o f the W ythe Grays, nam ed John W. Brown, was brought into the jail about 4:30 a.m. and observed Coppoc and C ook in a bed and Green and Copeland Figure 5. Le a n d e r W inton C ooper in bed on the floor; all four appeared to be sleeping soundly. [2 8 ] (C ourtesy o f the M ary B. Keg ley Over the night six to eight inches o f snow had fallen; cold greet­ P hotograph Collection, Kegley ed the troops as they assem bled and m arched tow ard their positions Room, W ytheville C om m unity Col­ around the scaffold. The W ythe Grays were positioned to the left lege Library, and Carl M usser; and rear o f the structure. [2 9 ] A fter several hours’ chilly w ait in for­ used with perm ission) mation, Shields Green and John Copeland, the two black prisoners, • 88• �Figure 6. Edwin Coppoc (Library o f Congress) Figure 7. John Cook (Library o f Congress) Figure 8. Shields Green (Library o f Congress) Figure 9. John Copeland (Library o f Congress) came out o f the courthouse under guard and clim bed up on a wagon and took their seats on their coffins. U nder escort they were brought to the base o f the scaffold and then ascended it unaided. Reaching the top their arms were pinioned, ankles tied together, and a noose and hoods placed over their heads. [3 0 ] Sgt. W illiam H. C ook o f the Grays was in charge o f the guard that day. He was on the scaffold to make sure everything was running according to plan. W hat he observed upset him as he had never witnessed a “fellow being die a violent death.” Although he was tem pted to detail someone else for this duty, Cook stayed at his post because “I thought o f our wom en and children at home, and o f w hat fate 89 �B rick w au ll T it hat U gh. mmjD 1* D p h w » w if m w n• r a 0 , t 4 .... .. d -J a a 4L Jailer'» dw elling. w t* w — W 1 A Main «treet, I---------------------------- — I Figure 10. Charles Town Jail; R ichard J. Hinton, “John Brow n and H is M en" (New York: F unk a n d Wagnalls, 1894), 342. A : M ain Entrance B: Space between walls, A vis’s house and the ja il building C: P oint o f w all (upper right) which Cook and Coppoc reached on the night o f their attem pt to escape D: Ja il yard; cell doors (ddddd) E: Reception room F: C ell occupied b y Brow n a n d Stevens (with cot outlines), afterw ards b y the la tter a n d H azlett G: Cell o f Green and Copeland H: Cell o f Coppoc and Cook I: Cell first occupied b y A lbert Hazlett; win­ dow s (wwwww) w ould have been had these fiends had succeeded in their plans, and I hardened m y heart and saw them die the death their own evil deeds had brought upon them .” [3 1 ] Once everything was in place a signal was given and the sheriff cut the rope holding the plat­ form w ith an ax and the two dropped with a loud crash. Green appeared to have died instantly, as there w as little m ovem ent o f his body. Copeland struggled for sometime before succumbing. A fter a period o f tim e their bodies were cut down, examined by physician, then placed in their coffins, and returned to the courthouse. [3 2 ] Between noon and 1 p.m. the scene was repeated w ith Edw in Coppoc and John Cook going to their deaths. Once this was completed, the troops were brought to attention and m arched back to their posts. The tw o other prisoners, A lbert H azlett and A aron Stevens, w ould face execution in M arch 1860. [3 3 ] Now that the crisis had passed, the units were receiving orders to return home. Several days after the fo u r’s execution, the Grays received their orders to return home. [3 4 ] Departing Harpers Ferry by boat they spent a day and night in W ashington, D.C., where they w ere review ed and received at the W hite House by President James Buchanan and John Floyd, Secre­ tary o f War, and fellow Virginian. [3 5 ] A fter leaving W ashington they travelled to Richm ond where they w ere again received by Gov. Henry A. Wise. The governor thanked them for their “gallant and quick response to his call.” A fter two days in Richm ond they finally boarded a train for W ytheville. [3 6 ] O n the m orning o f 24 D ecem ber 1859 the train pulled into the depot from where they departed 16 days before to a warm reception for the returning “heroes.” [3 7 ] Several days before some o f the citizens arranged for a dinner to be held in their honor. The proprietor o f the W ytheville Hotel offered the use o f their hall and w ould provide the food. A committee was form ed to plan the event; it included Capt. Robert Gibboney, W illiam A. Stuart, Col. Robert Sayers Jr., Dr. James G ibboney and S.S. Crock­ ett. [3 8 ] A t 8 p.m. the W ythe Grays assembled at the courthouse along w ith officers o f the occasion, invited guests and citizens. The company was assem bled and brought to attention then were m arched to the W ytheville Hotel. They were dismissed to the dinner that awaited them. N o expense was spared as the m eal included beef, mutton, pork roast, turkey, chicken, ham, oysters, potatoes in various forms, veg­ etables, breads, sweets and plenty o f libations. [3 9 ] 90 �A series o f toasts were offered to George W ashington, to the Constitution o f the United States, to the president o f the United States and his cabinet, to the governor o f Virginia, to Virginia, the m other o f all states, to the flag o f the U nited States, to the A rm y and the N avy o f the United States, to Sic Semper Tyrranis (the motto o f Virginia), to wom en and w om en’s rights. [4 0 ] Once the toasts were finished, Capt. Ben R ush Floyd gave the address followed by m ore toasts to the returning company. [4 1 ] Afterward, young W illiam T. Baldwin made his w ay back to the home o f his uncle W illiam Gibboney where he lived. For the first tim e in days he took his proud uniform off, sleeping soundly for hours. The Wythe Grays continued to meet and train. On 22 February 1860 a ball was held at the Franklin Hotel for the Grays and their guests (Figure 11). [4 2 ] 1st Sgt. Charles A. H aller returned home from Richm ond about the first part o f A pril w ith the m en’s pay for their services from the State o f Virginia. Capt. Kent received $85.67, 1st Lt. Terry $73.33, 2nd Lt. Hunt $69.00, 1st Sgt. $61.67, 2nd, 3rd and 4th sergeants $52.57 each, corporals $40.67 each, and privates $34.67. [4 3 ] Sgt. W illiam H. Cook, who had been on the scaffold for the execution, was horri­ fied by w hat he had seen at Charles Town. The scene was “so terrible” it left him haunted by memories “so dark.” [4 4 ] Cook decided that he w ould not touch any o f the m oney he was paid for his service. With the m oney he purchased a silver flagon and cups w ith an inscription o f how they were purchased (Figure 12). It is inscribed, “Bought w ith m y pay for services at Charles­ town [Charles Town], Virginia, Decem ber 1859, W illiam H. Cook, W ythe County, Virginia.” [4 5 ] In the afterm ath o f John B row n’s Raid and execution, the sectional tensions between N orth and South only worsened. Some members o f the U nited States Congress were arm ed and Figure 11. A n invitation to a p a rty fo r the Wythe threats o f violence perm eated their halls. [4 6 ] G rays fo r 22 February 1860. (Edith Bolling Birth­ place Foundation, Wytheville, Virginia, courtesy Bev The W ythe Grays and other units continued Repass-Hoch) to train for a w ar that appeared to be looming. Local patrols were sent out in case o f a surprise invasion. The election o f 1860 saw four m en vying for the W hite House and to chart the nation through a perilous period. Republican A braham Lincoln did not favor abolition, but did support no further expansion o f slavery. D em ocrat Stephen Douglas favored things as they were. John C. Breckenridge o f K entucky and the current vice president felt he best represented the interests o f the South, and John Bell hoped to be the compromise candidate. Even before the election, several states threatened to secede if Lincoln was elected. W ith Lincoln’s election South Carolina made good on its threat, seceding in D ecem ber 1860. She was followed by M ississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, N orth Carolina, Arkan91 �sas and Texas over the next few months forming the new Confederate States o f America. The border states o f M issouri, Kentucky, M aryland and Delaware were still in doubt as to which direction they w ould go. Virginia rem ained divided as to her intentions. From the Shenandoah Valley east, secession was favored w hile w est o f the Valley to the Ohio River the sentim ent favored staying in the Union. O n 14 January 1861, the Wythe Grays were given perm ission to use the Chancery Hall in the courthouse for drill and w eapons storage. [4 7 ] The court ordered that $4,000 be allocated for weapons for m ilitary use. Joseph Kent, W illiam H. Cook and John C. Graham were appointed to purchase them. [4 8 ] Bonds to pay for these w ere issued by the Clerk under seal o f the court. The ranks o f the Grays were growing. [4 9 ] On 12 April 1861, the Confederate forces fired on Ft. Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, harbor. The w ar had begun. Virginia continued to be divided on secession. Several days later President Lincoln issued a call to the rem aining states to m uster 75,000 m en for the Union. [5 0 ] Gov. John Letcher o f Virginia and m any o f the legislators w ere offended at being asked to raise troops to attack fellow southerners. They quickly passed articles o f secession to be submitted for a popular vote; Virginia w ould jo in the Confederacy. In W ytheville the news electrified the populace. The W ythe Grays were ready on short notice to take the field. W illiam T. Baldwin, now 16 years old, had recently been prom oted to corporal. [5 1 ] As he packed for war, W illiam took a fam ily sword and placed it in his belt, hoping to do its m em ory honor. The sword was brought from Ireland by his grandmother, M argaret Kyle Gibboney. She had inherited it from her father, Sir Figure 12. Silver flagon o f Sgt. William H. W illiam Em m et Kyle, who was knighted for his service Cook. (Courtesy Mary B. Kegley, Wytheville, in Ireland by King George III. It had been placed over Virginia) the m antle in the hom e o f her son, W illiam Gibboney. W illiam Baldwin lived w ith him. [5 2 ] O n 17 A pril the Wythe Grays took their oath to Virginia and the Confederacy. [5 3 ] Capt. K ent was their com m ander w ith W illiam Terry serving as the 1st lieutenant. K ent w ould soon be prom oted to m ajor on 11 M ay 1861. [5 4 ] Terry would be prom oted to captain and assume command o f the Grays on 13 M ay 1861. [5 5 ] They arrived in Richmond on 25 A pril to becom e one o f the first Virginia Regiments mustered. [5 6 ] As 10 companies w ould arrive, they were designated as a regim ent and given their num ­ ber. The W ythe Grays became Company A o f the 4th Virginia Infantry. The Fort Lewis Volunteers from M ontgom ery County would become Com pany B; the Pulaski Guards from Pulaski County, Company C; the Smyth Blues from Smyth County, Com pany D; the M ontgom ery Highlanders from M ontgomery County, Com pany E; the Grayson Dare Devils from G rayson County, Company F; the M ontgom ery Fencibles from M ontgom ery County, Company G; the Rockbridge Grays from Rockbridge County, Com pany H; the Liberty Hall Volunteers from Rockbridge, Company I; and the Rockbridge Rifles from Rockbridge County. [5 7 ] The events at Harpers Ferry in 1859 had established some experienced m ilitia units in Virginia and so a large and semi-experienced force was ready early in the war. W hile in Richm ond they were housed at the Hermitage Training Grounds w hich had previously been the fairgrounds. [5 8 ] The m en were drilled five to six times a day w ith a late afternoon parade each •92 • �day. Cadets from VM I served as drillmasters. [5 9 ] Soon the toll o f drill and duty took its effects on the men, their equipm ent and clothing. Their smart uniform s w ould soon be threadbare. Food consisted o f tough beef, hard bread and sometimes bacon. The perceived glory o f soldiering was now m eeting the hard realities o f camp life. However, this was ju st the beginning o f the harsh course they w ould face over the next four years. On 10 M ay they were transferred to Alexandria, Virginia, and then to Harpers Ferry to join other regiments to be part o f a new brigade. [6 0 ] A lthough they initially left in clean train cars, the last part o f the journey by rail was in hog cars. [6 1 ] They m arched the last 18 miles in hot and humid weather. [6 2 ] A t Harpers Ferry they joined other regiments to form the 1st Virginia Brigade, com manded by a former artillery instructor from Virginia M ilitary Institute, Col. Thomas J. Jackson. Besides the 4th, the Brigade consisted o f the 2nd Virginia, the 5th Vir­ ginia, the 27th Virginia, and later, the 33rd Virginia. M ost o f the members o f the regiments hailed from the Shenandoah Valley. As a professional soldier, Jackson generally looked down on the ill-trained m ilitia units. [6 3 ] Serving under Jackson gave them a further rigid introduction to m ilitary life. On 23 M ay 1861 Virgin­ ians voted on the proposition o f secession; it passed by an overwhelm ing majority. [6 4 ] In Wythe County, the measure passed by a vote o f 1,168 to 1 in favor o f secession. [6 5 ] Hours were spent in drill, battle preparations, maneuvers and inspection all under the w atchful eyes o f Jackson and his V M I drillmasters. Their schedule consisted o f Reveille at 5 a.m.; Squad Drill at 5:30 a.m.; 6 a.m. Sick Call and Breakfast; 7 a.m. First Guard Mount; 7:30 a.m. Guard M ount; 8 a.m. Squad Drill; 10:30 a.m. Camp Drill; 1 p.m. Dinner; 3 p.m. Camp Drill; and at 6 p.m. Dress Parade. [6 6 ] Food Figure 13. William H. Bolling (Courtesy Bev was m eager at best; soon shortages o f clothing and Repass-Hoch Collection, Wytheville, Virginia) other items arose. The m en had few tents and had to fend for them selves in bad weather. Disease began to be a m ajor enemy. Soon pneumonia, dysentery, ty­ phoid fever, m easles and other illnesses took their toll. [6 7 ] Col. Jackson realized that Harpers Ferry was almost impossible to hold in case o f an attack. He asked Gen. Joseph Johnston for perm ission to move deeper into Virginia and to a more defensible loca­ tion. Shortly afterwards, the brigade was m oved to near Winchester, Virginia, to continue their training and preparation. On 1 July, the 4th received its official recognition and acceptance into the service o f the Confederacy. [6 8 ] On 15 July, the 1st Brigade received its official recognition by the Confederacy. [6 9 ] By now Jackson had turned these regiments into a toughened force ready for battle. Word came to move eastward tow ard the Blue Ridge M ountains on 18 July. Soon the columns w ould be on a hot and dusty road w ith no idea w hat would come next. The N orthern A rm y had begun to advance south o f W ashington in an attempt to secure the rail junction at M anassas. Confederate Gen. Joseph Johnston com m anded the Valley forces and they made a forced m arch to aid the small force at M anassas. W ith little sleep Jackson’s regiments boarded trains at Piedm ont arriving on the afternoon o f 20 July. [7 0 ] 93 �O n the following m orning the Brigade formed up at 4:30 a.m. taking their place behind Henry H ouse Hill. The 2nd, 33rd and 5th were in front while the 4th and 27th were in reserve. [7 1 ] Later in the m orning on M athew s Hill, in front o f Henry House Hill, the Confederate lines began to collapse w ith the overwhelm ing U nion attack. Some Confederate units were attired in blue while at least one Union unit wore gray. [7 2 ] This led to considerable confusions as to who were friends and who w ere the enemy. The 1st Brigade now took its place w ith the 4th in the center o f Jackson’s line. Cpl. W illiam Baldwin drew his fam ily sword in preparation. Facing the Virginians w ere two batteries o f U nion cannons o f five and six artillery pieces, respectively. A back and forth pitched battle com m enced w ith the guns being captured, freed and recaptured several times. Gen. Bernard Bee, upon seeing the brigade hold its ground rem arked famously, “There stands Jackson like a stone wall, rally behind the Virginians.” Shortly after saying this, he was m ortally wounded. A round 3:30 p.m. a counter-charge w ith bayonet, led by the 4th and the 27th and other fresh regi­ ments, attacked the U nion front and flank. This attack led to the collapse o f the Federal line. During the see-saw battle W illiam Baldwin dropped the sword and had no tim e to retrieve it. Sensing victory, the Confederates m ade a final charge routing the Federal forces that soon clogged the roads back to Wash­ ington. W illiam Baldwin never saw the sword again. [7 3 ] The first victory w as a costly one; the 4th Virginia sustained 31 dead and 100 wounded. [7 4 ] In­ cluded in this toll w ere their regimental comm ander Col. James F. Preston and Lt. Col. Lewis T. M oore, both severely w ounded and later forced to retire. Form er m edical student Leander W inton Cooper (Figure 5) wrote before the battle, “I f I have to die I will try and sell m y life as dearly as possible.” [7 5 ] Cooper w ould be among the Wythe Grays killed at M anassas. Grays also killed included: N icholas D. Oglesby, Jam es L. Pattison, James M. N eff and Thom as J. Kavenaugh. Samuel Crockett w ould die o f his w ounds less than a m onth later. [7 6 ] The W ythe Grays would go on to fight in 53 more engagements for the A rm y o f N orthern Vir­ ginia. M aj. Joseph F. K ent would resign on 31 January 1862 to take command o f the Hom e G uard in W ytheville. [7 7 ] Capt. W illiam Terry w ould be prom oted to m ajor on 22 A pril 1861 and later he would assume com m and o f the 4th on 11 September 1863 w ith the rank o f colonel. On 5 M ay 1864 he would be prom oted to brigadier general and would be the final com m ander o f the Stonewall Brigade up to A p­ pom attox in A pril 1865. He would survive despite multiple serious wounds. [7 8 ] Sgt. W illiam H. Cook w ould enlist as a sergeant w ith the Grays on 17 April 1861, but would be prom oted as a captain in the 51st Virginia 19 July 1861. [7 9 ] W illiam T. Baldwin would be prom oted to sergeant on 17 April 1862 and was transferred to the 51st Virginia in July 1862. [8 0 ] He would subsequently becom e a part o f the new ly form ed 23rd Virgin­ ia Battalion. [8 1 ] In September 1863 he w ould be prom oted to captain only to be captured in N ovem ber 1863 and taken to Cam p Chase, Ohio. [8 2 ] W hile being transferred to Ft. Delaware in M arch o f 1864, Baldwin w ith two o f his compatriots from the W ythe Grays, Edwin C. H aller and W allace Sehom (who w ould jo in Company A on 11 M arch 1862), w ould escape in Gallipolis, Ohio, and eventually m ake their w ay back to Virginia in June 1864 to rejoin the army. [8 3 ] Capt. Baldwin would go on to serve on the staff o f Gen. John C. Breckenridge, later on the staff o f his cousin, Gen. John M cCausland, and helped raise a company o f hom e guard be­ fore the w ar ended. [8 4 ] By A pril 1865 only four m en o f that company w ould be present to surrender. [8 5 ] Losses from deaths in battle, disease, capture, desertions and transfers had left the gallant com pany barely a hollow shell o f itself. From their humble beginnings at Harpers Ferry and Charles Town in 1859, the Wythe Grays w ould becom e a legendary unit in the A rm y o f N orthern Virginia. 94 �NOTES 1. Virginia Secretary of the Commonwealth, Executive journal volumes, Executive Journal of Virginia Governor Henry A. Wise, entry of Monday 17 October 1859, p. 209, Accession 35185, Miscellaneous Reel 4221,, State government records col­ lection, The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia 23219. 2. Mary B. Kegley, “Wythe County, Virginia, A Bicentennial History,” (Wytheville, Virginia: Wythe County Board of Super­ visors, 1989), 185. 3. Ron Field, “The Confederate Army 1864-65” (4) Virginia and Arkansas (New York: Osprey 2006), 4. 4. Field, Confederate Army, 4-5, Kegley, Bicentennial, 185. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. Field, Confederate Army, p. 4, Kegley, Bicentennial, 188. 8. Kegley, Bicentennial, 188. 9. Wytheville Times, 3 December 1859 and 24 December 1959. 10. Wytheville Times, 24 December 1859. 11. Captain William Thomas Baldwin, John Brown Raid, Wythe Grays Were There-Fifteen Are Now Living, Roanoke Times, Sunday March 1907, undated clipping. However, reference is made to the death of Judge John Fulton who died in January 1907. 12. Wytheville Times, 10 December 1859. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. John W. Brown letter to the Wytheville Times, 10 December 1859. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid. 19. Baldwin, Roanoke Times. 20. J.W. Brown, letter, 10 December 1859, The New York Times, 1 March 1898. 21. Baldwin, Roanoke Times. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid. 24. John W. Brown, letter to the Wytheville Times, 16 December 1859. 25. Baldwin, Roanoke Times. 26. Oswald Garrison Villard, “John Brown 1800-1859 A Biography Fifty Years After,” (New York: Houghton Mifflin Com­ pany, 1910), 572. 27. Brown, Wytheville Times, 10 December 1959. 28. Ibid. 29. Baldwin, Roanoke Times. Note: This is the only source that mentions snow on the morning of the four men’s execution. 30. David S. Reynolds, John Brown, Abolitionist, (Vintage Books, New York, 2005), 415. 31. Kegley, Bicentennial, 186-87. 32. Reynolds, John Brown, 415. 33. Ibid, 459. 34. Baldwin, Roanoke Times. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid. 37. Wytheville Times, 31 December 1859. 38. Ibid. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid 42. Invitation for the Party, courtesy, Bev Repass-Hoch of Wytheville, Virginia. 43. Wytheville Times, 7 April 1860. 44. Kegley, Bicentennial, 186-87. 45. Ibid. 46. Stephen B. Oates, “To Purge This Land With Blood,” (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984), 359-60. 47. Kegley, Bicentennial, 187. 48. Ibid. 95 �49. Ibid. 50. William C. Davis, “Battle at Bull Run,” (New York: Doubleday, 1977), 4. 51. William Thomas Baldwin, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of Virginia, 4th Virginia Infantry, FHL microfilm 1,489,079 Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah 52. William Thomas Baldwin, Early Memories of My Grandmother, an undated and unpublished poem, compiled by Eliza­ beth Downs, Waterman Stoergel, 1990. Robert Hudson Lear, Thomas Gibboney and Margaret Kyle of Wythe County Virginia and Three Generations of the Descendants, compiled for the Second Reunion of Descendants August 1991. 53. Baldwin, Service Record. 54. James I. Robertson, “4th Virginia Infantry,” (Lynchburg, VA: H.E. Howard, 1988), 59. 55. Ibid, 76. 56. Leander Winton Cooper, letter to his brother, R. T. Cooper 9 May 1861, Courtesy Carl V. Musser. 57. Robertson, 4th Virginia, 4. 58. Cooper letter. 59. James I. Robertson, “Stonewall Jackson, The Man, The Soldier, The Legend,” (New York: Macmillan, 1997), 224. 60. Cooper Letter. 61. Robertson, 4th Virginia, 2. 62. Ibid. 63. Robertson, Stonewall Jackson, 226. 64. Ibid, 236. 65. http://www.newrivemotes.com/va/vasecesh.htm, accessed 20 May 2008. 66. Davis, Bull Run, 21. 67. Ibid. 68. Ibid, 4. 69. Ibid. 70. Ibid, 5. 71. Ibid. 72. Davis, Bull Run, 186. 73. Baldwin poem. 74. Robertson, 4th Virginia, 7. 75. Cooper letter. 76. Richmond Dispatch, 2 August 1861, also Robertson, 4th Virginia, 37-83 Roster of the 4th Virginia. 77. Robertson, 4th Virginia, 59. 78. Ibid, 76. 79. Robertson, 4th Virginia, 45. 80. Service Record of William Thomas Baldwin 81. Letter from Denison Butler Baldwin to his wife Sallie Barnes Baldwin, 6 November 1862, Baldwin Family Letters, MS2008-033, Special Collections, University Libraries, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, used with permission. 82. William Thomas Baldwin, The Capture and Escape from Prison of Captain William Thomas Baldwin, unpublished manu­ script, circa 1905,1, in possession of the author. 83. Ibid 84. Roanoke Times, obituary of William Thomas Baldwin August 1913. 85. Robertson, 4th Virginia, 34. 96 �our McKee sisters, two in Wythe County, and two in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, communi­ cated back and forth with hundreds o f letters over an extended period (1836-1880s). During the Civil War they found themselves on opposite sides and living with restrictions and wartime regu­ lations. Letters were intermittent and rarely ever mentioned the war. Philosophy and God’s will were the predominant themes early in the war. In the later years the problem was getting mail from North to South or South to North to members o f their family. Jane McKee was married to Gordon Cloyd Kent, a wealthy Wythe County widower, in 1850, and her sister Mary was married in 1854 to Dr. Robert Crockett, a local Wythe County physician, also a widower. [1] In each case the sisters had known many o f the Kents and Crocketts during their resi­ dence in the county seat when they were called upon to look after their invalid unmarried uncle, Adam McKee, beginning in 1836. Following his death in 1842, they remained in the area, having inherited his mercantile establishment on the main street o f Wytheville. [2] One o f the sisters in Pennsylvania, Eliza McKee, never married but wrote regularly and re­ ceived letters from Jane and Mary and occasionally visited Wythe County. The fourth sister, Nancy, was married to William Scott and had an extended family often mentioned in the letters and through the consideration and thoughtfulness o f her descendants preserved more than 1,000 letters, many o f them from Wythe County. [3] Over the years Jane and Mary made arrangements to be accompanied to Pennsylvania to visit family, and to the Hot, Warm and Sulphur springs in Virginia. They traveled by steamboat and stage coach, but always chaperoned or accompanied by other persons, usually male members o f the family or community. When the rail line was completed from Lynchburg to Bristol they vacationed in New York City, in Albany, Buffalo and Niagara and also visited such cities as Washington, Pittsburgh, Lynchburg and Richmond. [4] In 1850 before the war began, Gordon Kent had 50 Negro slaves, owned 2,600 acres o f the fin­ est land in the county, raised crops and animals and was considered a successful farmer. His land was along Reed Creek, between Max Meadows and Wytheville. [5] The slaves were often mentioned in Jane’s letters, telling o f their progress in housekeeping, or o f caring for her young son, Joe. She report­ ed the birth o f N oah’s child named after his deceased master, Adam McKee, and later reported Noah’s death. When they were visiting in Pennsylvania it was advised that they would not discuss slavery as it might upset Gordon Kent. Jane remarked that it was often the master who lost sleep regarding his slaves. [6] As early as April 2, 1861, [7] Mary Crockett wrote to her sister Eliza who was visiting their brother, George, in Youngstown, Ohio, making some comments on the subject o f politics. She reported “[we are] quite calm here ... Our household is almost unanimous for the Union; the Dr. (Dr. Robert Crockett, her husband) is strong and I do hope the Lord will over rule all for good and above all, that our hands may not be steeped in each other’s blood.” She added that Virginia’s “noblest men are now F Mary B. Kegley o f Wytheville, author o f more than 50 books, located these letters in Beaver Area Heritage Museum in Beaver, Pa. She is working on a book about the collection. •9 7 �in Richmond in Convention and some o f the grandest efforts are there made to save the Union.” Crock­ ett represented Wythe County in the General Assembly in the 1860s. [8] A few days later she wrote again [9] to sister Eliza giving additional information. The D octor’s strong Union principles “have made his numerous friends anxious for him to become a candidate” for Congress or the State Legislature. The convention “opposed secession two to one” and she added, “if the administration would just appreciate the effort o f Virginia, I think Civil War might be avoided.” She continued her correspondence on May 21, 1861, [10] writing this time to her sister Nancy Scott in Beaver, Pennsylvania. She again noted that “in this sector all are for Union.” Her husband had “battled for this in all the conventions and he has been sent by his party to most o f them and his feel­ ings have been & are still so deeply interested that it causes him many a sleepless hour.” Mary had deep concern for the country exclaiming, “What is to become o f our beloved land prosperous and blessed.” Again, she called on the Lord to “look upon us and avert the threatened evil.” She knew that if engaged in an “evil war” brother and kindred would be “engaged against each other in bloody conflict. There are extremists at the North and in the South.” About the same time Jane Kent also wrote to her sister Nancy Scott, giving an extensive de­ scription o f slavery on the Kent plantation in Wythe County and her views o f slavery in general. [11] On this day she was sitting alone with no other white person in the house except her 10-year-old son, Joe. Her husband, Gordon, was in town. The overseer was two or three miles away, and there were “upwards o f fifty Negroes on the plantation.” Some were about the house, others at their homes and in various places. As for neighbors, none o f them lived nearer than a mile and all have about the same number. She and her son often stayed at night “with none but the black ones. Always some o f them stay in the house with us & should anything happen Uncle Ned or some o f the boys who stay near the house would be the first we would go to. Such a thought or feeling o f fear o f them has never entered my mind. In no instance have I ever known them to perpetrate o f their own accord a wicked or malicious deed. In almost every instance it is at the instigation or through the mediation o f some wicked white person.” She went on to explain that they are not “closely confined” and have “free intercourse with each other for miles around and sometimes make visits o f hundreds o f miles to some o f their friends by railroad or other conveyance. They are as a class faithful and true.” She mentioned “traveling abolition­ ists ... inciting them to murder, rob, bum & run away.” She classified them as “fanatics who think they are doing G od’s service by putting a torch to your dwelling or a knife to your throat. This is a shrieking horde that New England is now sending down to invade and murder us.” Among her other remarks, she thought that some o f those up North “believe and educate their children to believe that slave holders are monsters and that it is a system o f cruelties & oppression from beginning to end. They pick out the worst features o f it & instances o f the greatest cruelties forgetting the thousands o f instances of kindness & affection which are daily manifested in these relationships.” She specifically recognized that “in their sickness & affliction we are as one family. We are with them by day & oft-times by night. We afford them all the means in our power to comfort them both tempo­ rally and spiritually & often administer to them with our own hands when there is no necessity only that we feel like it & it may be a comfort to them. We are with those who smooth their dying pillow & see their last breath & many many genuine tears o f heartfelt sorrow are shed over their graves. Few in such case are so mercenary as merely to regret their pecuniary loss.” Jane also reported that Joseph Kent was at Harpers Ferry, as an officer. And 14 o f Gordon’s nephews and two o f Dr. Robert Crockett’s sons were also in the service. There were “something like twenty thousand troops” that had passed along the railroad just a short distance from her home. She knew that these things involved the lives and “happiness o f all who are near & dear to me in both sec­ tions.” •9 8 �I Nannie McKee, age about 10 or 11, had been living with the Crocketts for several years and was going to school in Wytheville. She was a niece o f Mary and Jane and the daughter o f their brother George and his wife, Mary. She wrote to her parents who lived in Ohio on February 8, 1862, [12] telling them she was well and happy and inquiring about her siblings. She enclosed “five cents to pay United States postage.” Following the receipt o f the letter from her daughter, the mother, Mary, wrote to her sister-in-law Nancy Scott and sent Nannie’s letter as an enclosure. The mother explained that “all letters must come and go unsealed and be read at different points.” Nannie’s letter was mailed in Wytheville, but after that was at “old Point Comfort, where I suppose it was read and the Confederate stamp taken off and the United States stamp put on.” She lamented that Nannie could not come home and how she worried about not hearing from her for such a long time. She was “denied the privilege o f either hearing from or writing to her.” On November 24, 1863, [13] a letter between sisters o f Pennsylvania, Mary and Maria Scott, also explained how communication had continued in spite o f wartime regulations. Mary Crockett’s let­ ter written in Wytheville to her cousin Samuel Rea in Pittsburgh was actually mailed in Gettysburg and sent through by a Mrs. Roedel, “the m inister’s wife at Wythe,” who was visiting her parents who were very sick. She offered to carry any letter “if she could get it through” and if she could not she promised to “deliver the contents verbally.” The Rev. William Roedel (1829-1865) from Lebanon, Pennsylvania, was ordained in 1850 and served as pastor at St. John’s Lutheran Church and as principal o f the Wytheville Female College, beginning in 1856. He was highly praised for his many talents but his life ended abruptly when he was accidentally shot by his brother-in-law, David Forney, while on a hunting trip. He was buried at St. John’s Cemetery where his stone was erected by Forney. [14] *99 • �Eliza McKee had visited with Mrs. Roedel and wrote in December 1863 [15] to her sister Nan­ cy Scott about her visit when she gave new insight into the feelings o f those both North and South. She also added information about the care o f prisoners in the aftermath o f the Battle o f Wytheville which took place in July 1863. Mrs. Roedel was planning to visit her mother who was ill. Her husband had accompanied her as far as Woodstock, Virginia, and from there came to the lines o f the enemy at Martinsburg. There she was met by her brother who brought her the sad news that her mother had “been removed by Death five weeks before.” Mrs. Roedel proceeded to Gettysburg to visit with her father. Eliza also had to report the death o f Joseph Crockett, a surgeon and son o f Dr. Robert Crockett, o f Wytheville, who was killed at Cold Harbor. His body was brought home for burial. She added that Dr. Crockett was a “Union man for a long time and voted against Secession in the Charleston Conven­ tion.” She thought some o f the people “are very uncharitable in not allowing the Southern people to be influenced by the things that surround them just as we are here.” She knew this made the two Sections “view things differently.” Two o f Eliza’s letters had reached Mary Crockett under “a flag o f truce” and Mrs. Roedel re­ ported that “she wept for joy to just hear that we were in the land o f the living. None but those who feel and love their relatives can realize the sad separation from them.” Mary Crockett had one wounded man carried into their house after the raid on Wytheville and Mrs. Roedel, two. Dr. Crockett dressed their wounds and nursed them for 10 days when they were taken to Richmond. Two o f them were from Brownsville, Fayette County, Pennsylvania. Up North they often heard o f the cruel treatment o f the wounded and sick prisoners and the people believed it. On M arch 30, 1864, [16] Josephine Roedel, then in Baltimore, wrote to Eliza McKee offering another opportunity to communicate with the Wythe County sisters as she expected to get a pass from the Secretary o f War and travel south within a week. She had not heard from anyone at home since December. She closed her letter “Oh that this cruel war was over.” On June 5, 1864, [17] Mrs. Roedel was still in Baltimore. Her brother (brother-in-law?) notified Eliza that it was likely that she would remain there until “Grant opens the way for her.” She had a pass “but they will not let her through the lines.” She had heard from Mr. Roedel several times and he was begging her to come home. The letters also came under a “flag o f truce.” She was considering going home by way o f “New Bum if our boats would take her, but I presume as long as Butler is operating in that direction she will not get down.” Gordon and Jane Kent were mentioned in a Confederate diary on May 12, 1864, a few days after the Battle o f the Cove in Wythe County. Col. Alston, 2nd Brigade, under Col. Giltner, proceeded from Wythe to Max Meadows, “traveling on this nice turnpike.” The Confederate army established their headquarters in Max Meadows, not far from the Kent home. “The Col., Staff, Couriers, Jenkin’s squad under Schoolfield and everybody was invited to a big dinner at Mr. Gordon Kent’s.” His wife (noted as being from Pennsylvania) “dispensed the magnificent hospitality o f the mansion and table. I have not seen such a dinner for many a weary, hungry day.” [18] Almost a year later, a nephew, Robert McKee, o f Alexandria, Virginia, wrote to Eliza in Beaver, Pennsylvania, on April 27, 1865, [19] suggesting that Jane and Mary in Wythe County must have had a hard time as it was reported that “General Stoneman had a battle at Max Meadows.” He felt sure Gor­ don Kent had “his share o f destruction.” As so often happened, reports were exaggerated and there was no battle at Max Meadows, but in December 1864, on the so-called Stoneman’s Raid his men destroyed the depot at Max Meadows and a railroad bridge between Wytheville and Max Meadows. [20] Robert reported that no pass was required to go to Richmond or Petersburg but as late as July 8, 1865, the mail was not yet open to Wytheville, even though the war was over. Eliza McKee reported at this time that she had received a letter from her sister, Mary Crockett, and it was carried by Mr. Roedel. 100 �[21] The letter came to Eliza by way o f Baltimore and Roedel promised to deliver any they might wish to send from Pennsylvania. This glimpse o f politics, religion and home life during the war was openly recorded in these few family letters. The 1860s meant physical separation and great concern about the welfare o f each member o f the McKee family when mail was restricted and travel limited. Through the kindness o f the Roedels, with their Pennsylvania connections, a few letters were passed back and forth between Vir­ ginia and Pennsylvania. But as one o f them stated, “none but those who feel and love their relatives can realize the sad separation from them.” Jane Kent had specific views regarding slavery with “upwards o f fifty” on the premises. She gave an unusual personal account o f her feelings. Mary Crockett revealed that her husband was a “Union man.” For wealthy women who had traveled extensively before the war, their lives were re­ stricted to home during those years. When the war was over, the McKee women resumed their travels to Pennsylvania and to the springs o f Virginia and continued to connect with family members with their many letters. NOTES 1. Wythe County marriage records show Jane married Gordon Kent on April 9, 1850 and Mary married Robert Crockett on July 10, 1854. 2. For a sketch of Adam McKee, see Mary B. Kegley, “Early Adventurers in the Town of Evansham,” (Wytheville, VA: Kegley Books, 1998), 227-232. 3. The Scott Family Collection is held by the Beaver Area Heritage Museum, Beaver, Pennsylvania. 4. Dozens of letters between the parties were written before the war. It is from this group that their extensive travels were documented. 5. On one of her visits to the Kents, Eliza McKee described in detail the plantation and its activities. Letter, April 19, 1853 (#2007.20.85s). For further information about the Kents, see Mary B. Kegley, “Early Adventurers on the Western Waters,” Vol. 3, Part 2 (Wytheville, VA: Kegley Books, 1995), 686 - 695. 6. Many of Jane’s early letters mention slaves by name. 7. #2007.02.860b. 8. For more information about Dr. Robert Crockett, see Mary B. Kegley, “Early Adventurers in the Town of Evansham,” (Wytheville, VA: Kegley Books, 1998), 98-102. 9. Letter #2007.02.86cf. 10. Letter #2007.02.88.ele2. 11. Letter, May 21,1861 (#3). 12. Letter #5 and #6. 13. Letter #2007.02.88cl. 14. F.B. Kegley and Mary B. Kegley, “St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, Wythe County, Virginia, Its Pastors and Their Records, 1800-1924,” (Wytheville, VA: privately printed, 1961),69-70. 15. Letter #169. 16. Letter #19. 17. Letter #200. 18. William C. Davis and Meredith L. Swentor, eds., “Bluegrass Confederate, The Headquarters Diary of Edward O. Guerrant,” (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1999), 437. 19. Letter #2007.02.89bk. 20. Mary B. Kegley, “Wythe County Bicentennial History,” (Wytheville, VA: Board of Supervisors, 1989), 200. 21. Letter #2007.02.90a. �T itU to t o fa c e n , fa tccte facedt&nefoeat C*t (fciec by George A. “A l” McLean y spring o f 1862, Union troops occupied almost all o f what is now West Virginia. The Northern­ ers were as far south as Raleigh Courthouse (now Beckley, West Virginia), placing them within striking distance o f the vital Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. Stationed at Raleigh Courthouse was the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, commanded by future president Rutherford B. Hayes. Among the men o f the 23rd was commissary sergeant William B. McKinley. The 23rd Ohio was one o f the most remarkable regiments o f the war. Although the regiment had an honorable war record, its fame came from the accomplishments o f its men after the war. In addi­ tion to two future presidents, the regiment would produce six generals, an associate justice o f the United States Supreme Court, a United States senator, two governors, two lieutenant governors and four con­ gressmen. In late April, Hayes and his men had marched south to the Flat Top Mountain area. Hayes or­ dered one company forward to capture Capt. Richard Foley, the leader o f a Southern militia group known as the Flat Top Copperheads. The company was ambushed in an area known as Clark’s Hollow. Six miles away, Hayes heard the fighting and rushed his regiment to the rescue. The Confederates were dispersed and the aggressive Hayes pursued them to the town o f Princeton (now West Virginia). When they arrived at Princeton, the Northerners found the town engulfed in flames. Confederate area com­ mander Col. Walter Jenifer had ordered a general retreat and the town burned. Soon after arriving in Princeton, Hayes began to receive excellent intelligence from contrabands (escaped slaves) that the retreating Confederates had abandoned an area o f Giles County, Virginia, known as the Narrows. There two mountains fall precipitously on both sides o f the New River creating a narrow defile and an excellent defensive position. Almost immediately, Hayes began to bombard his commander, Col. Eliakim Scammon, with pleas for permission to move south into Giles County. The fussy Col. Scammon was slow to give Hayes permission to move. Probably without permission, on May 6, Hayes ordered Maj. James Comly to take three companies and a detachment o f cavalry into Giles County to capture the Narrows and if possible the county seat o f Pearisburg (often called Giles Court House). Comly and his men had marched through the undefended Narrows to Pearisburg and surprised a small number o f Confederates who were trying to remove a large amount o f supplies stored at the Presbyterian Church that had been left behind by retreat­ ing Southerners. The next day Hayes and the rest o f the regiment marched to Pearisburg. The Confederates were well aware that the enemy was now within 20 miles o f the railroad. Gen. Henry Heth, commander o f the area’s Southern forces, was desperately trying to cobble together an army to stop the Federals. After the retreat from Princeton, the 45th Virginia Infantry was located at Shannons about 11 miles south o f Pearisburg. Gen. Heth left his headquarters in Lewisburg (now West B George A. “A l” McLean, a board member o f the Historical Society o f Western Virginia, is the author o f “A Skirmish at Pearisburg” and a Giles County native. 102 �Virginia) for Shannons, bringing with him the 22nd Virginia Infantry and three artillery batteries. Heth also gathered another artillery battery, some militiamen and parts o f the 36th Virginia Infantry com­ manded by Gen. John McCausland. There is no accurate figure o f the number o f Confederates at the battle but it was probably 2,000 men with five artillery pieces. Hayes and several o f his men became enamored with the natural beauty o f Giles County. Hayes found “Giles Court House a neat pretty village with a most magnificent surrounding country.” He also found the local citizens to be “polite and educated seecesh people.” For the Federáis oc cupying Pearisburg the captured commissary supplies were a bonanza, leading one soldier to write that the occupation was “the biggest picnic we have had since enlistment.” The townspeople enjoyed listening to the regimental band and when the band played Dixie the locals would “wave aprons and kerchiefs” out their window. Across from the Presbyterian Church was the elegant brick home o f Dr. Harvey Johnston and his nearby medical office. Tradition holds that Hayes set up his headquarters in the doctor’s office. The Johnston home and medical office are now part o f the Giles County Historical Museum complex. Hayes soon realized that the Confederates gathering at Shannons far outnumbered the Federáis, and had artillery while Hayes had none. Hayes began to send to his commander Col. Scammon desperate re­ quests for reinforcements. When none came, Hayes would write Rutherford B. Hayes “Shameful! Who is to blame?” What Hayes did not know was Stonewall Jackson had brought his Valley Campaign to western Virginia and on May 8, he defeated Federáis at McDowell (present Highland County). The defeat caused a Union panic and Hayes’ superiors were ordered to halt all ad­ vances. Hayes was left stranded in Giles without reinforcements. A day later on May 9, Gen. Heth began his attack at 10 o ’clock at night. Confederates marched all night until they met Union pickets three miles south o f Pearisburg at about 4 o ’clock in the morning. 103 �The attack did not begin until after sunrise and by that time the Federáis had set up a defensive line on a ridge south o f the town. The Confederates opened with their artillery and began a charge screaming the rebel yell. Hayes only had 600 men and no artillery. Since it was obvious that the Federáis would be out­ flanked, Hayes began a retreat to the Narrows. The Union soldiers and the pursuing Confederates came down Main Street marching through the town on the “double quick.” Unable to take the commissary supplies, Federáis set fire to the Presbyterian Church. The church and its contents were saved by the local ladies forming a bucket brigade. During the retreat the Federáis would form firing lines attempting to slow the Confederates. The reenactment o f this battle (scheduled for June 10, 2012) was held along a road used in the retreat. When Hayes reached the Narrows, he used the tight confines to prevent Confederates from form­ ing a line longer than the Federáis. There Confederate Col. George S. Patton, grandfather and namesake o f the World War II general, was shot in the stomach. Normally such a wound was fatal, but Patton was saved because the bullet bounced off a gold piece in his vest pocket. The Federáis held the Confederates for two hours until the Confederates carried two mountain howitzers across the river on bateaux — long narrow boats used to transport goods on the river. As soon as the Confederates began firing into the enemy flank, the Federáis were again forced to retreat. Heth halted the attack and he established a camp aptly named Camp Success, where W olf Creek flows into New River. The Federáis retreated to an area known as Adairs, the location o f Bell Point, the home of 17-year-old Ellen Adair. She would write in her diary that the Yankees were in her yard and “eating like wolves.” At Adairs, Union reinforcements finally arrived. Col. Scammon had convinced his superiors to let him reinforce Hayes. The next day, the Federáis moved to a better defensive position located at what is now Glen Lyn, Virginia. Until May 17, there would be frequent skirmishes between the sides. For Union soldiers, the largest problem was the lack o f supplies. Soldiers named the camp “Camp Starva­ tion” and “Camp Scarce o f Crackers.” Only one Union and one Confederate death can be confirmed. The lack of casualties was probably due to the nature o f the battle as a rear guard action and that both sides were fighting with out-of-date, short-range smooth-bore guns. On M ay 16, Confederates attacked Princeton from the west and the next day all Union forces were withdrawn to Flat Top Mountain. Hayes, McKinley and the 23rd would again travel through Giles County as part o f Gen. George Crook’s 1864 raid on the railroad. 104 �ccfe' t& e & o«t£ectertae< t Editor s Note: Excerpts from Frank Smith R eader’s 1864 Civil War diary are used with the perm ission o f Special Collections, Leyburn Library, Washington and Lee University. The diary was given to the library in 1881. Reader, born in 1842 at New Brighton, Pa., was a private in the West Virginia 5th Cavalry Regim ent o f the Union Army. The complete diary covers the Battle o f New Market, H unter s Raid, the burning o f Virginia M ilitary Institute and the march across the mountain toward Lynchburg. ty c c n e ta t. Still in camp. Our scouting parties occasionally bring in some rebels. We are reduced to half rations to day. 1/2 bl. o f flour, do. o f meat, a very little o f coffee, sugar & salt make up our daily food. We had a Sergt. & 12 men capt’d on picket yesterday. Gen’ls. Crook & Averell are to meet us at Stanton. We will have enough force to hold our own then. We are in for it. fcate 2d. 59 Marched to Harrisonburg to day thro’ dust and rain which rendered marching very uncomfortable. We came across our wounded here, who are in fine spirits and almost shouted with joy to see us. They have been treated well. Our advance had a skirmish with Imboden causing him to beat a hasty retreat. It is said we will have a knock down tomorrow. The guerrillas fired on our train to day. No casualties. We are twenty five miles from Stanton. tyci*te 3d. Lay in camp. The principal business has been in confiscating tobacco etc. The Rebels are about 8 miles from us in front, and I suppose we will have a fight tomorrow. Everything is in good order for a Va. muss and w e’ll give Imbdenn a trial o f abolition skill. Have some rebel prisoners. News scarce and cant tell what is going on outside o f our own little circle. All quiet etc. 4. Marched one mile beyond Port Republic on the road from that place to Stanton, distance, 13 mis. We passed over the old Cross Keys battle ground and it looks as natural as if were at home. Had to pontoon the river. The move rather astonishes all o f us, we expecting to go direct to Stanton. flcCHe 5. Marched 2 miles this morning when we were met by the enemy. A fierce Cavy. charge took place and our boys run them. In a short time the battle opened in earnest we drving for a while until at last victory seemed in their favor by they getting behind breatworks they had built. The Genl. sent a Brig, o f Inf. around on their right flank and in short time they had them whipped we capturing 1000 prisoners. Their 59 loss in all was over 2000. Ours is between 5 & 700. We stopped for the night at Piedmont 8 miles from Port Republic. I have never seen such a well conducted fight since I have been in the service. Several charges were made by the Cav. and Inf. Every time but once they were successful. The General led us around in some very hot places. Maj. Genl. Stahel was slightly. The rebel Brig. Genl. W.E. Jones Comdg this Dept, was killed and fell into our hands. We have captured 50 officers. Several • 105• �Colonels and Majors are taken. Their dead are frightfully mangled, some o f them being tom all to pieces with shells and their flesh on fire caused from it. fo u te 6t&. Again took up the line o f march and got into Staunton about two oclock amid the waving o f flags and the playing o f bands. Some union sentiment was manifested and boquets were thrown to us. This is a fine place o f it is said, 3000 inhabitants. We are the first yankees ever here and it is almost worth a fel­ lows life to gain such a victory and follow it up as we have. Gen Hunter is adored by his troops now. He showed the finest generalship that ever has been shown in this valley. We have captured 3 cannon 1700 stands o f arms and 1100 prisoners. Our loss is from men theirs in killed and wounded. Averell & Crook are near us. tyctKC 7t&. Have been paroling wounded rebel prisoners all day. Three o f us paroled about 500. Our force left town to day and we three were left in it. While we were paroling the rebels were in town and it was only by the merest chance that we were not captured. Capt. Bier ADC. and Andy Johnson, clerk and I were the three. I dislike very much this business o f paroling. Two o f our boys were captured while we were in town. Excepting this we have not been disturbed by rebels since we captured the city. We are having gay times. We will be reinforced by from 10 to 15000 men tomorrow and then we will have a better time. We will make our mark in this country before we leave it. tyctKC 1 All quiet. Lay in camp to day. Generals Crook and Averell joined us with their Divisions to day, swelling our force to from 20000 to 25000 men. We will put things thro’ now. We are tearing the R.R. in every direction and have it pretty well tom up. Rebels mute. flcttte All quiet. Our boys have been busy all day tearing up the railroad, blowing up tunnels & burning bridg­ es. We are cleaning up the Southern Confederacy as we go along. Private property is respected but pub­ lic property all goes up. WeTl do our share o f damage to this bogus affair this campaign. The command is in good order and ready for the march tomorrow. tycate tOt&. Marched 18 miles S.W. course to day to Midway passing thro’ Greenville 5 miles from Midway. An old lady was giving us some lectures &c. as we passed her house, Our command is marching in four parallel columns, each Div. a different road. It is fine marching, only a little dusty. Find no union people along this route. We have had no interruption yet. tytitte 1 tt6March 18 miles S. by S.W. course to day, to Lexington Va. One mile from town the bridge was burnt over the river and we had a very severe skirmish losing 4 men. At this place is the Va. Mil. Institute which we will bum. Stonewall Jackson was buried here. We got all kinds o f trophies in the academy. There are some cannon here used in the revolutionary war. •106» �tycitte 12(6. Lay in camp to day burning up public works &a. We burnt some fine buildings, among others the resi­ dence o f Gov. Letcher. Stonewall Jackson’s remains are in the Cemetery at this place. I got an order to day to report to my Regt. in the rear for the purpose o f being mustered out o f the service. There are some o f the most extensive libraries here that I ever saw. I have procured some very good works. The cadets who attended the Military Academy here lived in style. fatMC 13t&. Fine day. Genl. Duffie let Cavy. Div. who left us at Staunton joined us to day, having tom up 5 miles o f the R.R. between Lynchburg & Charlottesville, captured 70 prisoners, 700 horses and burnt 300 wagons he captured from the Rebels. Genl. Crook with his 2d Inf. Div. captured 5 pieces o f Artillery and 5 canal 65 boats to day. Our boys are doing the work up for them. We have destroyed all public property that we can get at. The troops are in excellent condition and anxious to finish the grand work they have com­ menced. The enemy have got into our rear already and we can’t send the train wagons back now, as was intended Averell’s 2d Cav. Div has advanced 15 miles on the Buckhannon road. We are taking with us 4 pieces o f Artillery trophies from the French; also a bronze statue o f Washington. PtlK6 14. Marched thro a stifling dust to Buchanan 24 miles to day. Nothing new on the route. Passed within three miles o f the Natural bridge but couldn’t go to see it. I would have liked much to see it. The rebels burnt the bridge across the James at this place which has caused us some inconvenience. The rebels have ceased bothering us and we are having peacable times. Buchanan is a small place and o f no account in a military point o f view. tycote 15t&. Marched S. by S.W. 17 miles to day, camping in the valley at the foot o f the Peaks o f Otter and near the rail-road. We came over the Blue Ridge and a rougher road could not be imagined. From the side o f the mountain one o f the most magnificent views is presented to sight that I ever saw. As far as the eye can reach a fine undulating country is seen. The Peaks o f Otter is the finest sight for mountain scenery. One o f the Peaks is 4260 ft. high and from the top a far more lovely view is seen than from the side o f the Mt. tyutte 16t&. Very hot, dusty etc. Marched thro. Liberty and 5 miles on the road toward Lynchburg, 8 miles for the days march. Our time has been occupied in tearing up the Va. and Tenn. R.R. which passes here. There has been some skirmishing in front to day and tomorrow I think there will be a heavy fight. We are only 20 miles from Lynchburg and it will be a big thing if we can capture the city. We have rained the R.R. for theme. fkiKe 17t£. A wagon train going to the rear to day I saddled up my old Rozinante and am on my way back with them. I fear we may make a sorry trip o f it as we only have 11/2 Regts. o f Militia guarding it. We marched 17 miles to day, 175 to go yet. We are travelling over a new road to any o f us. We are the first Yankees that have ever been seen in this part o f the country. • 107• �Marched 2 miles beyond Fincastle on the Sweet Springs road today, coming 19 miles for the day. Came over Blue Ridge through Buford’s Gap, a very rough & bad road. The people all along this route have never seen the Yanks before and some o f them are very much frightened. fotMC t$t& . Marched 14 miles to day camping at Mrs. Scotto one mile from the base o f Mountain. The four o f us who were sent back from Genl. Hunter’s Hd Qrs. with 3 others are acting as scouts. We march about 3 miles in advance o f the column, get all the good things to eat and make a few rebels skedaddle occasion­ ally. We scared some citizens half to death to day. We are going very slow and I fear we may get into trouble yet. We all hope for the best though. fu tte 2 0 . Marched 18 miles to Sweet Springs over two mountains to day. It was rough enough for any mountain climber. We have routed some Rebels on the way. The Red Sweet Springs is in sight o f Camp. They are both beautiful but o f not much note at present. We are seeing all the sights this trip that are to be seen in Va. All quiet, the militia sound. 2 fa t. Marched to White Sulphur Springs, 17 miles today. Came over the Alleghanies. Had a great deal o f sport in front. It is somewhat dangerous to take the lead 5 & 6 miles, but we have fun. Had a gay time getting our supper this evening. A lot o f the Militia were going to whip us out o f it but they didn’t try it. Our train was fired into this morning, a few horses tumbled over, no one hurt. These 100 days Militia are a great set o f lads. I have never seen soldiers yet who are inclined to pilfer as these thieves are. Some of them ought to be shot for it an a warning to the others. tyctttc 2 2d. So ends the Raid. fcttte. 23d. Came out o f the Mts. this morning & started to White Sulphur, got part o f the way and started up An­ thony Creek after our train. Foolishly we marched in the open road and when we got to Alvon we were gobbled up. There are 13 o f us together and as we were cut off in every direction we concluded to sur­ render. We are in the hands o f Gentlemen. What will be our fate is now to determine. 24. Were marched under guard to Calihan’s Station, 16 miles to day. Our guards seem to fear that the Yan­ kees will pounce on them. 25t&. Marched to Covington to day 5 miles where we are in jail. We got 1/4 lb. o f bread in one day & I think it short eating. I guess we will have to go South. •108» �7kiee ‘20<ft6e (^ouetty4otcUen& cvit& c U ^ e n e ttt fa tte n by George Kegley hree o f my great-grandfathers left their Wythe County farms to join the Confederate army in the Civil War — two were captured by Union forces and one came home and the other didn’t. The third was wounded in Tennessee, came home and later returned to service. Both o f the captured men left home in October 1864 — just six months before the surrender. On the same day, June 20, 1865, one died in prison and the other was released, more than two months after the end o f the war. Both o f their homes remain occupied in Wythe County, 150 years after the war. William Kegley, 43, was serving in Company K, 15th Virginia Infantry, when he was captured at the Battle o f Five Forks, near Petersburg, and taken by boat from City Point (Hopewell today) to a prison at Harts Island, Long Island Sound, N.Y. He died in the prison camp, apparently o f an illness, and he was buried at Cypress Hills Cemetery, Brooklyn. John Peter Sharitz, 38, joined Company K, 1st Virginia Infantry, and served at Camp Lee, serving in the defense o f Richmond until he was captured William and Ally Kegley at Farmville on April 6, 1865, just three days before the surren­ der, and held at Point Lookout, Maryland. After he was released on June 20, 1865, he came home, worked as a surveyor and a farmer and as justice of the peace for more than 20 years. He lived in Wythe County until his death at 79. Rufus Umbarger entered military service soon after his 40th birthday in 1862, serving in the 21st and 25th Cavalry Regiments. He was wounded and declared unfit for duty at Regtown, Tennessee, on October 1, 1863, but his name was back on the roll the next year. Kegley was called into service despite a petition to Confederate President Jefferson Davis, signed by 24 o f his neighbors, who said his work as a blacksmith and his service with his threshing machine was valuable to the community. He lived at the foot o f Queen’s Knob, a few miles north o f Wytheville. T George Kegley, a Wythe County native, is editor o f the Journal. 109 • �The petition said, “He is the only person in our neighborhood who is possessed o f a thrashing machine and we as farmers are deprived o f the use o f it. By calling him any how, there will not only be without a Smith, but will be put to a great inconvenience in getting our grain ready for market. For these reasons we pray that your Excellency will exempt said Kegley from Military Service under power vested in you by law.” He left a succinct one-sentence description o f his fate in a leather-bound journal passed down through his family for a century and a half. Several pages o f the journal were cut out, perhaps mailed home. He wrote: “I was takin at five forks and got on the boat at sitey poin then to harts ilent.” Kegley and his wife, Ally, had nine children — three sons and six daughters. In his will, he gave his wife control o f the farm until the children came o f age. Each child was to have a colt o f his own. His oldest son, John George, was killed in the Civil War at the age o f 19, on September 3, 1864. When Wil­ liam Kegley left home, one daughter was less than 2 years old and another was bom a week before he died. William Kegley was one o f 14 children o f Martin and Mary Myers Kegley. His son, Stephen Alexander Kegley, was the father o f five sons and four daughters, including my father, Estel S. Kegley, Wythe County. His brother, Daniel Kegley, served in the Con­ federate army and moved to what is now West Vir­ ginia, serving as postmaster o f Kegley, a village near Princeton, named for him. Two nephews o f William Kegley — John J. and Levi Kegley — also were Con­ federate soldiers. John J. Kegley died in the Battle of Cloyd’s Mountain in Pulaski County on May 9,1864, at age 18. Sharitz was held as prisoner until he was re­ leased on June 20, 1865, the same day William Kegley John Peter Sharitz, from “Early Adventurers on died, according to published reports in Wythe County. the Western Waters, ” by Mary B. Kegley He served as a justice when a Wythe County court de­ clined to act on an order from the governor for Home Guards to defend Southwest Virginia against enemy invasion. While Sharitz was at Point Lookout, his uncle, Gordon Repass, a Wythe County farmer con­ scripted by the Confederate army in the fall o f 1864, also was imprisoned at the same place. While he was there, Repass wrote home, “I am very weak and don’t expect to gain much strength with the rations we now draw..I get so hungry some days that I don’t know what to do..but my Only hope is to trust in God.” Shortly afterward on May 10, 1865, Sharitz sent this sad note to Anna Sharitz Repass, his fa­ ther’s sister: “My Dear Aunt, It becomes my sad & Painful duty to let you know o f the death o f Uncle Gordon. He breathed his last on the 3rd o f this month at the prison hospital. I was not permitted to visit him though I made frequent applications ... he died o f Chronic Diarrhea..Your affectionate nephew, J.P. Sharitz.” During the war, at least 340 Wythe County men served time in federal prisons and 97 o f them died there, according to “Wythe County in the Civil War,” by Beverly Repass Hoch. Sharitz married Clementina Hudson and they had three sons and three daughters. He lived on a 110 �■■ farm west o f Wytheville where two o f his great-grandsons live today. His daughter, Alice Virginia, married the Rev. James A. Brown and their daughter, Ruth Ella, was my mother. Rufus Umbarger, my father’s grandfather, was mar­ ried twice, fathered 13 children, served in the war and died before he was 48. According to a family story, he received a horse from the army as bounty when he was wounded but the animal was stolen while he was on his way home so he had to walk the rest o f the way. In his second term o f ser­ vice, he again received a horse and brought it home to work on his 260-acre farm along Reed Creek, near Wytheville. In the late 1990s, Umbarger had an estimated 1,500 descen­ dants. Rufus Umbarger A REMEMBRANCE OF SLAVERY? This basement window at Monterey, the 1845 home of George and Louise Kegley in northeast Roanoke, is secured by wooden bars which may have been installed more than a century and a half ago to restrain slaves. Tax records show the presence o f slaves on that farm before the Civil War. •Ill • ���HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF W ESTERN VIRGINIA PUBLICATIONS ISBN' 976r0-9816251-5^7; 0-9816251-5-0 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia 2012 Volume 20, Number 2 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include:<br />The New Day at Appomattox<br />Rare Lee Letter Tells of "Thinning Ranks"<br />George S. Bernard on the Causes of the Civil War<br />An Army of Many Colors Trains in Salem in 1863<br />Hollins Institute Prepares for a New Civilization in 1864<br />Slaves Mustered as Soldiers in 1865<br />Women at War<br />'I Wish This War Was Over': Mollie Terry's Letters<br />To the Fatal Field of Appomattox: A History of the Salem Flying Artillery<br />A Demonstration at Hanging Rock<br />The Battle of Cloyd's Mountain: A Railroad, Salt Works, and Lead Mine<br />Saltville During the Civil War<br />Wythe Grays: Harpers Ferry and Beyond<br />Confederate, Union Sisters Deplore War<br />Union Officer, Furture President Forced to Retreat in Giles<br />Cleaning Up the Confederacy: Frank Smith Reader's 1864 Civil War Diary<br />Three Wythe County Soldiers with Different Fates Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_20_02_2012 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6370/JHSWV_21_01_2013.pdf ea50eb6ab6bf63a3bd1e2cd42c89d4b1 PDF Text Text �“rtyiAt& U cai S o c ie ty o£ 'W eet& w ^V in ^id iz Amor montium nos movet (For the love o f mountains inspires us) Bill Honeycutt.................................. President Natalie Norris......................... Vice President Tommy Moore........................... Secretary Scott Clarke..................Treasurer Alison Stone Blanton John P. Bradshaw Jay R. Brenner Ben Chapman Scott Clarke Wilburn “Wil” Dibling Jr. Louise Forsyth Gordon Hamilton Rev. Nelson Harris David G. Helmer William E. “Bill” Honeycutt Jim Humphrey 'D c n e c to n à Sara S. Airheart George A. Kegley George Kegley Editor o f the Journal Christina Koomen Production, Editorial Assistant S w Tommy Moore Natalie Norris Dr. Norma Jean Peters Charles Price F. Anderson Stone Katherine Watts e r t it t Barbara B. Lemon Edgar V. Wheeler The Journal, Vol. XXI, No. |g chronicles the history o f the Commonwealth west o f the Blue Ridge. It is published by the Historical Society o f Western Virginia (formerly the Roanoke Historical Society), P. O. Box 1904, Roanoke, Va. 24008. The price for additional copies is $5 for members and $10 for others. The Society welcomes unsolicited ma­ terial but submissions cannot be returned and the Society cannot be responsible for damage or loss. �fci&Ceftoye 4 President’s Message fxzye 6 Two Roads Diverged: Architectural History and Historic Preservation in the 21st Century (Z o a te a to 52 by Linda Miller 55 by Michael J. Pulice pzfc 12 ‘Cotton to silk’: An oral history Roanoke College and its ‘advantages’ for Salem The Grove: More than a presidential residence by Clara Cox fauye 52 by Al Holland Timeline of Roanoke Regional Airport (Woodrum Field) by Nelson Harris 20 How Lyman Draper saved history fuzfc 66 by George Kegley fnz<?e 23 by Mary Kegley Down on the Market by Bob Garland fuzye 30 fraye 72 Furniture and aviation history reside in forgotten facility on Kessler Mill Rd. by Michael J. Pulice fiacre 37 fuzye 76 I remember ‘From angry words’: A Bent Mountain tragedy by John Long Proposed extension of the National Lewis & Clark Historic Trail by Peggy Crosson by Goldie Damewood Garman flaye 46 Another look at the Fincastle Resolutions ‘A once-vibrant community’: New panels tell of Gainsboro history by Alison Blanton and Evie Slone 24 Help Us Preserve Our History O n th e cover: B edford C ounty dairy barn, circa 1930. See “Two R oads D iverged” b y Mike Pulice, page 6 o f the Journal. �"P n ed cd eH td Historical Society repays loan fo r exhibit space f | 'the Historical Society o f Western Virginia ended 2013 in a very positive manner. In a press confer­ ence in December, we announced that our bank loan for renovation o f the History Museum and A for new exhibition space had been paid in full. I ’m sure that those who have visited our Migrations at the Crossroads o f History exhibit will agree that we have a world-class exhibit that tells a very interesting story about our part o f Virginia. For those who haven’t had a chance to visit, the exhibit is an exciting experience for the whole family. Also open until mid-2014 at our museum on the third floor o f Center in the Square is An Am erican Turning Point; The Civil War in Virginia, a traveling exhibit developed by the Virginia Historical Society, specifically designed to commemorate the 150th Anniversary o f the American Civil War. If you haven’t visited, come and see An Am erican Turning Point while it is here. On January 10, the Society’s Virtual Museum sponsored a fundraising dinner at the Shenandoah Club, where a specialist from Bonhams International Auction House gave an interesting talk on dog paintings and another specialist conducted a live auction. This was fol­ lowed on Saturday by an appraisal event, which was open to the public. For the appraisal day, Bonhams sent six experts, knowledgeable in dif­ ferent specialties, from its New York office to conduct the oral valua­ tions. Categories included paintings, jewelry, books and prints, furniture and decorative arts, Chinese and Japanese art. Over a marathon sevenhour period, more than 200 individual items were appraised. The format was similar to Antiques Roadshow, the popular television program on which Bonhams personnel make frequent appearances. The appraisal event was held in Watts Library. Paintings, large and small, were the most popular items. Among other interesting pieces were a silver ladle made by Paul Revere’s brother, Chinese root sculptures, a mourning painting, and a first edition o f Peter Rabbit. Visitors were glad to learn interesting details about their possessions as well as obtain estimates o f market value. 2014 marks the 10th anniversary o f the O. Winston Link Museum and there was a two-day celebration o f reaching this milepost. Events included opening o f two new exhibits, a night photo shoot with N&W 1218 from the Virginia Museum o f Transportation, and railfan tours o f Roanoke’s Norfolk Southern facilities. On January 24 we opened Link: Commercial - a collection o f O. Winston Link’s commercial photography and an exhibition featuring concept sketches o f some o f Raymond Loewy’s Bill Honeycutt, the Society’s new president, is a southwest Virginia native and mechanical engineering graduate o f Virginia Tech, and he holds a master s in business administration from Lynchburg College. He worked in the Norfolk and Western Motive Power and Norfolk Southern Mechanical departments. Since early retirement, he’s served as a consultantfo r the railroad industry and volunteered at Virginia Museum o f Transportation, its Fire Up 611 Committee and the Rescue Mission. . 4. �most famous designs. Be sure and stop by and see these most interesting exhibits. On February 23, H istory is Served, our annual brunch at Hotel Roanoke, featured Wallace Gusler, who worked at Colonial Williamsburg from 1963 to 2004 and became their master gunsmith. Gusler is an expert on back-country living and frontier life. A new exhibit, The Virginia Dulcimer: 200 Years o f Bowing, Strumming and Picking, developed by the Blue Ridge Institute at Ferrum College, will open at the museum in June. The exhibit was fea­ tured in the July/August issue o f Antiques magazine. Our monthly Kegley Lecture Series held at Christ Lutheran Church and our monthly First Thurs­ day Lunchbox Lecture Series held at the History Museum will continue in 2014. Don’t miss the opportu­ nity to hear the varied and interesting talks about our area. Both the History Museum and the O. Winston Link Museum look forward to seeing you in 2014. Be sure and visit www.vahistorymuseum.org and www.lmkmuseum.org for an update on events and programs. Both websites also have links to the Virtual Museum and Collections. Bill Honeycutt Board President ROANOKE ■ WATEN WORKS R0MN0KË •O U’ ViKUtniH pl#m or y1 ÂÀ ' Ms>Ar Am. "‘V~V ^A>iiV(Ah fliirf Wirf ’\ ■I ScsonJ The H istorical S ociety o f W estern Virginia was chosen one o f the recipients o f Virginia’s Top Ten Endangered Artifacts aw ards in 2013 b y a program o f the Virginia A ssociation o f M useum s. The S o cie ty’s 1888 Roanoke C ity W ater W orks m ap w as a w inning entry fo r its historic significance and endangered condition. The com petition calls attention to the need fo r preservation and conservation o f objects in m useum collections. Efforts are underw ay to obtain funds for restoration o f the m ap. The map show s O ld Lick and Roanoke M achine W orks (predecessor o f the E a st E n d S hops) and a nearby race course. 5 �0 0 0 rf'ie Á c te c to via í 'ftytatontf cutcL 'ityc&fo'Uc ^'te&enuatcoit ttt t6e 2 Í4 t &e*ttovuf by M ichael J. Pulice T hough the roots o f the preservation movement in America began much earlier, the movement’s greatest boost came in 1966 with the passage o f the National Historic Preservation Act, which J L created the National Register and State Historic Preservation Offices. The preservation movement has grown immeasurably since then, and become more effective at saving old buildings from destruction and keeping them in service. Preservation has facilitated revitalization, enhanced quality o f life in com­ munities and bolstered tourism opportunities. However, as the field has evolved, it has become less an academic model and more o f an eco­ nomic development tool. Early interests in recording and interpreting old buildings, and the study of broad architectural themes have seemingly fallen out o f fashion, despite the fact that there is much left to be documented and studied within a finite period o f time. While no one would argue we should move away from efforts to protect buildings in the physical realm, many important but undocumented build­ ings beyond our tenuous protective reach are lost annually, particularly in rural areas, and their losses seem to go largely unnoticed. It is abundantly clear that at the intersection o f the change in emphasis among preservationists, groups of important, under-studied resources are diminishing. A return to a more balanced, holistic ap­ proach, with renewed interest in fully understanding our built heritage, will produce greater, more last­ ing accomplishments for the preservation movement in the 21st century. Consider the dairy industry in Virginia, which virtually died out roughly 30 years ago. [Fig. 1] Fairfax and Henrico were the two leading dairy producing counties in the commonwealth, yet now there are but one or two historic dairy bams in use in those counties. Because most extant dairy bams are of 20th century origin, they have often been overlooked as culturally significant resources, and the opportu­ nity to fully understand them and their historic context has, to some extent, been lost. Before the 1960s, the study o f historical sites was basically limited to details o f the lives o f rich white men. This problem was exposed and values changed accordingly; however, when we look at a historic building, we still talk mostly about who lived there or activities that took place there. Yet when the stories of how the buildings were constructed, by whom, according to what traditions, with what designs, materials, and methods, the picture becomes immensely more interesting. These stories provide the sense o f close personal association with buildings, which helps build positive sentiment towards them, and thereby support for their preservation. This is the text o f a talk Mike Pulice gave at the Preservation Virginia Conference in Roanoke in October 2013. He has worked in the cultural resourcesfield fo r more than 20 years, first as an archeologist and then as an architectural historian fo r the Western Regional Office o f the Virginia Department o f Historic Re­ sources. • 6 • �Fig. 1. The Cataw ba H ospital dairy farm com plex in Roanoke County dates to about 1930. In fact, it is the very existence o f old buildings that often prompts us to uncover the forgotten past; not only those stories associated with the buildings, but many related aspects o f history as well. For example, much o f the history o f Roanoke has been revealed by studies leading to the establishment o f the city’s many historic districts. National Register nominations provide historical background and assessments made readily available to the public. Once buildings are lost, however, countless fascinating stories are unlikely to be uncovered and will never be retold. S h o r t c o m in g s in C u r r e n t D o c u m e n t a t io n o f H is t o r ic S it e s Despite the best efforts o f countless contributors over many years, much o f the current body of information, especially for rural areas, is vastly incomplete, skewed, and outdated. Most data have come from government-funded and compliance surveys consisting o f a few exterior photos and a brief de­ scription o f each building or site. Government programs continue to add data an n u ally, but funding for survey has greatly diminished since the early years, while persisting conditions instead call for increased funding. Undoubtedly, photography and written documentation will ultimately be the most lasting forms o f preservation. Despite efforts to maintain the physical presence o f buildings, sadly, they are ultimately ephemeral. All will eventually disappear from the landscape, even those that we hold in the highest regard. However, photographs, especially those in digital form, are already being made electronically available all over the world, and through duplication are liable to survive much, much longer. Buildings in the physical realm, such as the iconic double-crib log bams o f western Virginia, are being lost at a pace that few people grasp. [Figs. 2 and 3] A simple change in agricultural practices •7 * �accounts for the loss o f most log bams: since the 1990s, virtually all cattle farmers have replaced the traditional rectangular hay bales with much larger round bales. While the rectangular bales were often stored in old log bams, the round bales cannot fit and therefore farmers no longer have use for the bams. The unfortunate reality is that farmers generally cannot afford to maintain buildings that they cannot put to good use. Even if they could, large bams can be difficult to repair and there are few con­ tractors around who will work on them. The survivors among these rapidly diminishing resources must be documented within the next several years if they ever will be, and the photos and written descriptions may be all we will have to remember them by. One might ask if the preservation field is reacting to the rate o f loss with an appropriate sense of urgency. We tend to think of economic development and other economic conditions such as poverty as the only catalysts o f historic resource loss, but cultural and demographic trends are also responsible for vacancy, long-term neglect and ultimate destruction. The aging of rural America is a trend that deeply affects us, particularly in western Virginia. As elder folks pass away, buildings are left vacant and neglected. Adult children move away from home, leaving no one to care for the family farm, for example. In the short span o f a few years, neglected build­ ings can become uninhabitable. Commercial buildings on small-town main streets become vacant for lack o f business. Property values suffer. Meanwhile, unknown numbers o f historic resource casualties have resulted from fires and weather events such as floods, tornados, hurricanes and even earthquakes. [Figs. 8 and 9] The central point o f this essay is that a proactive approach to documentation is equally as cru­ cial as a reactive response. In any case, we do not seem to have a mechanism by which we can mobilize quickly to document a property once its impending doom becomes known; therefore, we must rely upon proactive work to ensure all is not lost. Perhaps significant losses should be tracked in some formal way. Although it might seem de­ moralizing, loss statistics can be a useful tool for building positive public sentiment and participation in preservation efforts. We can always use more fodder to bolster the persuasiveness o f our message. 8 �Figs. 4 and 5. Then and now : the form er Lincoln Theatre (left) on H enry Street, once a hub o f the African-Am erican com m unity’s social life, is now the Claude M oore Education Com plex o f the R oa­ noke H igh er Education Center, which uses it for culinary arts instruction and event space. A daptive reuse keeps historic structures in inventory, but som etim es the cultural context is lost. E c o n o m ic V a l u e s v s . C u l t u r a l V a l u e s o f P r e s e r v a t io n Though building rehabilitation and restoration are commonly seen as the main goals o f preserva­ tion, they are generally not “pure” forms o f preservation. Undoubtedly, a documentation-only approach would leave a great deal to be desired, but photographs provide an honest portrayal and therefore are arguably a “pure” form o f preservation. Appropriately sensitive rehabilitation maintains historic charac­ ter, but tends to leave behind a building’s cultural associations, which can then be completely forgotten. [Figs. 4 and 5] Extensive revitalization efforts in neighborhoods can result in gentrification, which goes further by forcing out one socio-economic class o f residents and bringing in another, thereby stripping away even the most recent cultural associations. Adaptive re-use is one type o f rehab that may actually involve anti-preservation changes, yet adaptive re-use projects are often celebrated, and rightly so because a building still stands, albeit in altered condition, sterilized from its past cultural associations. Restoration is only slightly different in �this regard. It effectively strips away years of patina, creating a partially artificial view o f the building as it once was, at a specified point in its history. If all this is true, then clearly it is not prudent to concentrate on bricks-andmortar preservation to the exclusion o f the proactive documentation approach. T h e V a l u e o f A r c h it e c t u r a l H is t o r y E x p e r t is e t o t h e F ie l d o f P r e s e r v a t io n Figs. 6 and 7. A tobacco barn docum entation project in Southside helps develop new experts in this area o f preservation b y giving them hands-on experience in the field. F ie ld work is one o f several priorities for the future health o f the preservation movem ent. (Im ages courtesy o f Sonja Ingram ) 10 Most would agree that one cannot de­ velop expertise without hands-on experience and personal study. Book learning alone is not sufficient. A valid argument may be made that first-hand knowledge o f building design, construction and usage is still important to the field o f preservation. Only years o f in-depth study, with comparative analysis sufficient to “connect the dots,” can lead to broad under­ standing o f the historical built environment. �Figs. 8 and 9. B asil Talbert’s Stagecoach Inn (left) and Hutton Place show the effects o f a 2011 tornado in W ashington County. Natural disasters o f all kinds pose additional threats to the preservation o f signifi­ cant structures. Expertise then continually enhances the gathering o f data by enabling recognition o f similarities, dispari­ ties, and any significant, unusual features o f the subjects being recorded. An unusual and exciting ongoing project consists o f the documentation o f hundreds o f tobaccorelated structures (namely bams and pack houses) in Southside Virginia, a project with great merits that has already made significant contributions to our body o f historical knowledge. [Figs. 6 and 7] Though not formally trained as architectural historians, the project leaders are fast becoming the authorities on tobacco structures through their personal experiences in the field, conducting the thematic survey proj­ ect. With rare exceptions such as this in mind, it is readily apparent that the field is not actively training and producing enough new experts with an appropriately diverse array o f specialties. L o o k in g F o r w a r d a s P r e s e r v a t io n A d v o c a t e s , A c t iv is t s , a n d P r a c t ic io n e r s First and foremost, more conversation is needed within the field. We carry on our work without really discussing our goals and strategies. In order to do that effectively, we must continue to build and maintain an active preservation community with a sense o f identity. The Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation is to be acknowledged for its continuing efforts and growing success toward this goal, but it should be recognized that the organization needs greater support and participation. Second, we need to continue educating ourselves about the historic architecture we are fortunate to have all around us, but also make active efforts to promote documentation and study, and place field­ work among our higher priorities. We should broaden the conventional definition o f architectural survey to include more analysis and theory, and strongly encourage publication o f studies. We should find ways to help fund post-graduate fellowships for the study o f Virginia architectural history. We must work together to help open doors for architectural surveyors because property owners are often distrustful and unwilling to allow access to their homes and buildings, requiring effective outreach aimed at correcting any misconceptions or negative views. Lastly, we need to work harder to reach children at an early age and engage them with the full array of stories that historic sites and buildings can tell, so that they can feel a sense o f association and pride, and will join us in our mission when they are old enough. •11 • �by A l H olland ~W 'W' T e ll, I was bom in 1916.1 was the fourth child in that family and my father, Gus Holland, was % /% / on the railroad then, where he stayed on through. And when I realized what he was doing, he t T was a blacksmith. I guess I was around seven, eight years old then and I could see him com­ ing with his lunch bucket. He walked to work. He never bought an automobile. I never lived in a rented house because he bought the house and he walked to work every day. When they found out he was skillful, they made him a blacksmith. I can’t say how much money he was making at that time. Nevertheless, I was bom in ’16. The next boy was bom in ’19, and then there was 10 o f us altogether. We lived on what he made and we lived on Eighth Avenue Northwest. We walked to school. We walked to church, which the church then was old High Street Baptist Church. He made sure that we got our shoes ready on Saturday and get out o f there on Sunday morning and walk to the old High Street Baptist Church for Sunday school. He was a stickler for time. He was a great man, and I really appreci­ ated him. H e’s been dead now about thirty-something years. Blacksmiths — they had a building and built drive shafts for the engines. Anything that had to be made, the blacksmith had to make it, so drive shafts and wheels and so forth. So he was a blacksmith on [the railroad]. I went to work for the railroad, Norfolk & Western, in 1938. We just had come out o f the Depression because President Hoover was the president in 1928, Roosevelt defeated him in ’32. That’s when he started making movements to get us out o f that. He started raising us from the bottom up, see. He put in a WPA and a few o f them would go down in Gainsboro behind the Catholic Church down that road there, you’ll see a big wall, the WPA built that wall back there in the ’30s and it’s still there. They raised it up so it would cut down on the flooding. My daddy always had a job in the Depression. He wasn’t making $200 million a year, but he took care o f us. In other words, you could get a loaf o f bread for a nickel or a dime. You didn’t buy potatoes by the pound, you bought them by the gallon; you got them for maybe 15 cents for a gallon o f potatoes. Anything was down to that 38 cents an hour I was making. He made a little more than I did, because I was a janitor, but he was already on the railroad. My brother, Cyril, worked at the railroad for a while, he was the second oldest. He worked after he came out o f the military. He was injured down in New Orleans and he got disability, got him out of the military. It was during the war when he was hurt, so he worked for a while but by him getting the dis­ ability, he was here then. Then he went on the railroad a while. And when the war was over he went into business for himself. There was five o f us boys in the military at one time. The railroad was the best job I could get because the steel mill w asn’t paying as much as the rail­ road was then and there w asn’t any other outfit paying as much as the rail for labor, because that’s what I This is an edited version ofpart o f an interview by Sheree Scarborough withAlphonzo “A l” Holland at his Roanoke home on Feb. 15, 2013. Holland, who is 97, workedfor the Norfolk & Western Railway fo r 46 years. This is part o f an oral history project, “Cotton to Silk, ” to be published in early summer by History Press fo r the Historical Society o f Western Virginia. Scarborough, who lives in Floyd, is an experienced oral history researcher. 12 �would be getting is a laboring job. I went with the railroad. I stayed with the railroad, and I went to work at the freight station for a few years, both ’41, ’4 2 ,1 think it was, I worked at the freight station, still with the railroad. Then in ’4 3 ,1 was called to the military. I had two children then. They were drafting people 18 to 45, and I was in that category, so I had to go. During World War II, I left here on the 23rd day o f February going to New Cumberland, Penn­ sylvania. That was 1943 when I went up there. It was a cold, good morning up there when we got our outfits and so forth. We had to stay inside because it was too cold to go outside. So I came down and I went to Fort Belvoir with this outfit o f engineers, combat engineers. I stayed there until they moved us out o f there. Basic training was one o f the things that we went through. We had to learn how to build bridges and learn how to breach a minefield, so we learned both o f those sk ills . When I was working on the D-Day War Memorial (long after the war), I started with General [William B.] Rosson. He was talking about the 29th [Infantry Division], going over to the invasion of June 6. But, anyway, so I said to General Rosson when he was talking about the 29th invasion, I told him, I said, “Well, you know we didn’t have anybody in the 29th like me.” He said, “What?” I said, “No, we were in a segregated army. It was segre­ gated all the way through.” I said, “But they didn’t cross there by themselves, because it takes eight men behind the line to keep men fighting on the line.” You’ve got transportation, you’ve got clothes, you’ve got food, and all that, ammunitions, and so forth. So the Negroes, as we said, or blacks, were in the service outfits at that time. I was with the 38th Division. They didn’t declare the war ended until 1945.1 was in the Philippines at that time. The inva­ sion o f the Philippines was Jan. 9, 1945. They had run General MacArthur out o f there and so he had gone down into Port Moresby in Australia. He came back and invaded the Philippines to get the Japanese to surrender, so when they went out o f there, they left Manila in a blazing inferno. But we built it back. I didn’t get back home until 1946.1 don’t have any things to say that’s not healthy for this great country o f ours. When they desegregated the army — Tru­ man did that. I was back here, so I was back at work A I Holland, a 4 6 -year railroad man. when we hit Korea, had me being in basic combat, they called me back again. I went to Fort Gordon in Georgia. I stayed down there. Eighteen months I was down there, Fort Gordon, Georgia, training. I trained some o f the fellows that were going into Viet­ nam at the time. I joined the 80th Division here in the reserves after I came back from Fort Gordon, Georgia, and then I stayed with them until 1976. That’s when I retired from the reserves, in 1976. We were slated to go into Vietnam, but President Nixon called it off. I was a corporal, but when I came out, I was a ser­ geant first class. My first job with the railroad was cleaning in the General Office Building. At that time there was a cuspidor at every desk. I had to clean those cuspidors, make sure the desk and everything was clean. As soon as Stuart Saunders came in as president, he said, “Get those cuspidors out o f this building, •13 • �throw them in the trash can.” That’s one thing he did. He made it clear that he didn’t want those cuspi­ dors in that building. It was an unthinkable situation, but o f course we had some gloves we could have used. But we needed the job. My kids needed the food, so I had to work somewhere. I stayed in there working until we desegregated the Army, then we started getting raises. I built a home, at that time I think it was 62 cents an hour I was making then. That’s when I ’m back from the military. I built a house on 62 cents an hour. Eugene Brown was the contractor and he built that house for me that’s standing there today on Staunton Avenue, a cinder block stucco, $9,500. My notes were $40 a month. I walked to work. I hadn’t bought a car yet because I couldn’t afford a house and a car at the same time. That’s why I ’m saying from “cotton to silk.” We took what we could get, and we made a life for ourselves. Our children went to school. Her [referring to his wife Sarah] granddaddy worked on the railroad. He sent her mother to Wilberforce College and she came back as a teacher. (She’s my second wife.) So you can’t say we took the money and just squandered it. We made cotton, but we took that cot­ ton and made silk. That’s where I got the idea that we took cotton and made silk. To see what they did with what little they were making, and you see, w e’ve got men coming down meeting with us, they’re engineers, conductors, firemen, those jobs are open to them. We had to take what we had down here because we weren’t going to get those jobs. But I lived to see them get it. So the silk is what we did for our children and then also for the next generation — those men coming on the railroad. They didn’t have to come in and clean cuspidors; they went through training and got hired as engineers and got to move to conductors.. After cleaning I moved to the freight station, that was an upgrade. See, I was a freight handler then, before the war. I was a freight handler before I went. See, because when they hit Pearl Harbor more jobs opened up. But then they continued the draft, and they got me in the draft, see, in 1943. So I had to leave the freight station. If we got back, our job was supposed to be there for us, which it was. So altogether I worked 46 years on the railroad. When I came back, all that time the freight handler job was there, open, so then I started moving. We got more movement and transportation. See, a lot o f times we were just trucking with two wheels, but then they got motorized, moving the freight up and down the platform, it was motorized, moving from car to car, so we got away from the truck, we weren’t doing too much with the truck. They re­ loaded, we came to the next level, put it in, and so we started cutting out the freight. I had to go down to the passenger station and load the mail on the passenger train because they were cutting out the freight, closing down the freight house. Then when I got moved out of that, then I had to go back to janitor. Well, there were men that were still working at the freight station who had more seniority than I did. So they pulled me out of there, and when you lose your job, they would have to find you another job. I went back to the General Office Building and the janitors, but all the cuspidors were gone then. The Wabash Agreement was if you lost your job they had to find you a job. But whatever job they found for you on the railroad, you had to take that job. Then I go back to the janitor [position]. But they moved up from the 38 cents. It was higher; it was at $1.75 an hour in the 1950s. I went back to cleaning. Then they needed security, so I bid on the security and it was a high paying job. Then segrega­ tion was going out, and you could bid. I had enough seniority, so I started bidding on the clerks’jobs in the 1960s. After the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, we moved up and now I worked as a clerk. I stayed in that clerk position until it opened up a little more. A1 Mayo was the chief clerk who was in charge o f Pricing and Marketing. I was in the mailroom then and so when we had what you call the freight cars, the ones hauling all the wheat, they had to be in a special car, it had to be a special time. So when the job came available for clerk, he said, “It’s a good job, Holland, you can bid on it.” So it came through, I had the job in Pricing and Marketing. So we •14 • �moved down where the old passenger station was then. So I got this as a head clerk in there. I did that job. When I was in the Army Reserves, each summer, I had to go back to summer camp. So I had to go to two weeks down to summer camp; when I came back, I was at home on a Sunday morning and the telephone rang and he said, “While you were gone, we decided that you needed to be the assistant chief clerk. My pay then was I was on salary. So I worked there for about two years straig h t^ then I kept moving up. When I retired from down there, I was the assistant manager in tariff compilations. I was the assistant chief clerk and I retired from that. I worked my way up. I tell youngsters now: “Don’t think that you can jump up and play basket­ ball or play football. It s just a matter of time that that will run out. Put something up here [pointing to head], [Pointing to photographs] My wife’s son is up there. Yeah, standing with that young girl over there, with that bowtie on. I ’ve been married to her [Sarah] now 34 years. Her son, Tom Pettigrew, calls me Daddy. He played for the Los Angeles Rams and he got injured. I think he was there about 18 months and he got injured, but he came out o f Eastern University. H e’s in food service now. He doesn’t have to dig ditches. He got a good job. I tell these youngsters, “Don’t think you’re going to play basket­ ball and when you get hurt they re going to ship you out.” Get an education, get something up here that you can be then. Yeah, I was locked in those positions at the railroad but when Civil Rights came through, they had to break that, so every time a job came, I bid into it. In the meantime, while I was in this reserve unit, w e’d meet on weekends. I was in supplies. Captain Robinson came to me and he said, “Sergeant Holland?” I said, “Yes, sir.” “You’re the presi­ dent o f the NAACP.” I said, “Yes, I am.” He said, “Well, you can help me. We’re going to camp and w e’ve got to have minority contributions on the training when we get to South Carolina this summer. I believe you can really help me get this put together. I want you to give the class to the officers.” I gave it to them. I gave all the contributions that helped build America: Garrett Morgan and the electric light; Charles Drew and blood plasma; George Washington Carver and the peanut and the sweet potato. So when they got through with it, Major Hawkins said, “Get him out o f the supply room and get him in training.” • 15• �I found out about those contributions by reading these things. Just like when Abraham Lincoln came in as president, he said, “Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers came forth to this coun­ try,” and built this country, and said, “that all men are created by their creator and are endowed with certain inalienable rights. Among them, life, liberty, and the pursuit o f happiness.” That split this country at that particular time. He said, “Now we stand at war, a civil war. This country and no other country cannot stand such an endeavor.” So they started fighting. They had a Negro outfit that came out o f Boston and joined with the regular army, and they pushed straight on through until they broke down Jeff Davis. Then they put the army in the South to make sure. Blanche Bruce was the first Negro senator out o f Mississippi. Ruth­ erford B. Hayes was going to run for president. He told them if they voted for him, he would take the troops out o f the South. He said, “If you vote for me, I ’ll take the troops out o f the South.” He went into the presidency with one vote. Don’t let anybody tell you that your vote doesn’t count, because that one vote put him in the presidency. He was true to his word. He took the troops out o f the South, and that’s when the Ku Klux Klan came into it. This was a black history class to the Reserves. They gave me a correspondence course out of New York University, so I was taking those correspondence courses and sending them back. You have to continue reading things and keep going with it. You never outgrow your need to leam. I was president o f the Roanoke NAACP chapter for nine years in the 1960s. I went to Selma. [William] Wilson was the president, and I was vice president at that time, and we went to Selma. They said, “You mean the president and the vice president?” I said, “I guess we just had more nerve than we had sense, I guess.” Martin Luther King was marching then. We lost men in that time, but we kept push­ ing until we got it done. Here in Roanoke, Reuben Lawson challenged the school board to break down segregation in the school system here. I think it was a reverend at the First Baptist Church, his two children were first to go — Reverend [E.L.] Green’s children went in first. He was over at First Baptist Church. And then Reverend [Raymond] Wilkinson’s children were next to go in. We got desegregation through the school system here. We had a tough time moving that because when [J. Lindsay] Almond was governor, he said there w asn’t any Negroes going into schools in Southside, and so they closed up schools over there. I was president then, when they closed those schools over there in Southside. We went over there and we sat down, because those children couldn’t go to any school. They closed up the schools, and some o f the kids had to come out and go to school someplace else. Some o f the whites got caught in that also be­ cause they didn’t have the money to leave. Finally we got it down to where we got segregation moved out o f the state. Roanoke didn’t have this same thing that they had some o f these other places, down in those other cities. They would rather give than to have the place tom up. At that time, I was president o f the NAACR We went down to Miller & Rhoads, a tea room there, and we talked with the manager. Some­ times when you go talk to people, you can get more done than using your fists. He said, “Sure.” He set us a place and we sat down and we had lunch there. Reverend [Frederick G.] Sampson was my pastor then at High Street. Reverend Sampson, Dr. Law, Wilson, we were the ones who went in there. We left there, and we went down to Kress; we couldn’t eat in Rress’s at that time. We talked with them. They pulled that out and Woolworth’s with them. We stayed down on Campbell Avenue [in Roa­ noke]. We pulled a sign down in the station over there. See, they had two waiting rooms over there when you got off the train. We desegregated Roanoke without any incidents. So sometimes when you talk to people you can get things done. Reverend Sampson made a statement and said that Roanoke had what was known as “stand-up integration” at that particular time. You could go anywhere in any store as long as you stood 16 �up, you got what you wanted. But now it’s real. The vice president of personnel called me and said, “Mr. Holland, I know you’re in the NAACP now, and I know w e’ve got some diehards on this railroad.” He said, “If you need any help o f any kind, you come here.” Well, that’s when we started getting raises. We wanted to go into the union but they gave us an auxiliary. Reverend [Carl] Tinsley will tell you that because he worked with the union a lot. But then finally we got into the main union. Then I went out o f the union because I got a class. I got a class five. Well, you see, we were down there at the freight station and we had our dinnertime, it was a whole hour, so we ate our lunch and a fellow by the name o f Ira Womack, he was very gifted at singing. He started working and singing with us, and so we started singing as the Twilight Singers. We had about 15 men; we were on the freight station. We went by churches, went to the YMCA, we raised money for the YMCA just singing. We did great things out there just singing; and then w e’d sing a lot o f times down there for things happening at the freight station. We were different from the N&W singers. We were just strictly from the Freight Station. That was the Twilight Singers, so we did great things around in this community. We sang at the YMCA on several occasions, sang at a lot o f churches, and we went down in Franklin County and sang gospel mu­ sic. I was the lead singer, a tenor. We stopped singing when they closed the freight station but I was still singing in my church choir. See, where w e’re meeting [with the African American N&W Heritage Celebration Group], w e’re meeting at the freight station. When they closed it down, they gave that building to the Museum o f Transportation. That building was turned over to them. They’ve been working on it since; they’re bringing in airplanes and decorating it. Well, that’s where the exhibit is. And the engines, the 1200 and the 600 were given to the city, but the city put them right there where people could see it. The old freight station came from Park [Fifth, Southwest] Street to Second Street, straight through. It was built in 1918. When they stopped having the transportation breakdown, then it started taking carloads for freight. That cut the jobs out, see, there wasn’t anybody unloading then. You used to get furniture cars coming out o f Bassett, Martinsville, and w e’d unload them over there. But then they closed down the freight station. So it sits on the side and like Nelson Hardware, they set them outside, and then they get somebody to unload it. So that’s how we started doing things. My first wife was living, so we went all the way to Cincinnati to see Jackie Robinson play. We went up and watched him play and the train didn’t cost me anything; free passes. If memory serves me correctly, I think I put $50 or $60 in my pocket and we went on all the way up to Cincinnati, caught the bus, ate in the station, went to the ballgame, came back, and had about $15 or $20 in my pocket when I got back. That’s just how down to earth things were then. The trains were segregated then, you had to ride in the front end, when you got to Bluefield, you could switch going up. You could go in the front end and go in the dining car from there. The funny thing is, the way the world goes, even in segregated times — you’re going to see pic­ tures up on that wall [at the museum]. There’s a baseball team on there. They had two roundhouses: one at Sixteenth Street and one up where it is now. But you’ll see that picture because I ’ve got the picture o f those baseball players, the N&W Stars sitting on the wall in the den. If you could play baseball, Roy Gable, the superintendent would hire you, and he didn’t put them in harm’s way where they’d be lifting anything. He had them wiping down engines and so forth, those were his children, because he loved his baseball and he was the superintendent at the Sixteenth Street roundhouse. H e’d follow those baseball players anywhere, if they were playing anywhere, he was gone. That’s what my daddy was in. He was the blacksmith in Sixteenth Street [roundhouse] at that time. When they had picnics they’d have excursions. They’d run an excursion train to some particular base for the whites, and come right back and run one for the colored. That happened the last time we 17 • �went — I was a little boy running around at that time — when we had our excursion to Pulaski. Mom packed the basket and we got on the train from Roanoke to Pulaski. If they would run the excursion for the whites, they would run one for the Negroes. We went up to Pulaski and that ball club, and they’d probably go up there and play ball on the field, while we were up there. We’d have a good time. You were segregated, but you weren’t segregated because they did the same for them. I played ball with the Roanoke Cardinals, a semi-pro team. We played against guys like the Homestead Grays, the Pittsburgh Pirates, and the Kansas City Monarchs. Those were the Negro Leagues. They’d come through here traveling, barnstorming going into Cuba for winter baseball. We didn’t have a stadium like they’ve got up at Salem now. We played in Maher Field. They tore down the stadium over there before they built the [new] stadium. We worked at least eight hours a day, played baseball, sang and went to church. Just did it. We’d go to Norfolk on the weekends and come back and play baseball. I remember we went to Greensboro for the Cardinals. It said, “We will give $100 guaranteed.” Jim Jones was the manager, and he took the $100 guarantee. We got there that night, at Greensboro, and that stadium was filled up. At that time we were driving our automobiles and w e’d get some guys, they’d drive us down to the game. We got the $100. We had a good time. Chatter Slims was manager for us then, and he had a store over in Gainsboro. We’d meet there and talk it over, next game, so forth, but we had fun. There w asn’t any tearing up things and beating down. We did wholesome recreation. It bothers me to see what’s going on in this town. It really bothers me to see what’s going on — guys shooting up schools and fighting the president because he wants to get rid o f those AK 47s off the streets. He should get them out. Nobody needs those kinds o f weapons. I have three children. I have a boy and two girls. My boy’s a brick contractor. The funny thing is I was going to be a lawyer. I was going to be a lawyer, but I didn’t make it, so I went to the railroad. I went to Hampton Institute about 19 months. It’s Hampton College now, but anyway, I went there. I came back. I didn’t go back. But, anyway, what I started'to say about my kids was when my son, A1 Holland Jr., finished [Lucy] Addison, I said, “H e’s going to be a lawyer.” I missed it. But so he finished up school. He was an outstanding basketball player. He went to Virginia State. I said to him, “Junior, w hat’re you going to take up?” He said, “Dad, I ’m going to be a brick mason.” I said, “You mean to tell me here’s my buddy who is teaching brick mason and you decided you wanted to be a brick mason?” He said, “Well, that’s what I decided to be other than playing basketball.” He was in industrial management, that’s what he took up. He can do electrical work, lay brick, do concrete work, he can put up rows o f houses, he got the whole shebang. My oldest daughter, Carrieoma Brooks, was a payroll supervisor at the Veterans Hospital, and my other daughter, Maryann Cummings, did commercial work, selling stuff over the telephone. That is my two daughters. It’s a funny thing how this happened. Junior, my son, has five chil­ dren. Lucretia went to Ohio State. She is a lawyer down in Charlotte, North Carolina. So that lawyer got into my family anyway. It’s a funny thing how things come around. She’s a lawyer, and that’s my son’s daughter. He didn’t [get there], but his daughter’s a lawyer. I saw some lawyers in town, At that time, the courthouse was segregated. Lawyer Reed was a lawyer and Lawyer Hobbs was a lawyer. These are Negro lawyers. But, anyway, they were practicing law, and they were dressed. I would see them and I would say, “I want to be a lawyer.” They were based up on Henry Street. I was striving to be a lawyer. So but you see, they couldn’t practice law for whites, but for Negroes. I didn’t make it through Hampton Institute. I had to come get some more money. I was there on a basketball scholarship. The coach said, “Some o f you boys have to go back and bring some money. We’ve got other kids w e’ve got to take care of.” So they asked me what I was doing and I said, “I was milking cows and slopping pigs.” They had a farm down there. [Laughter] I said, “I was milking pigs.” J B �I came back, and I was trying to make some money. I got married, so I couldn’t go back, and then the kids started coming, two kids coming. My son and my oldest daughter — Maryann wasn’t bom until 1947. But, anyway, I don’t have any remorse about not being it, because I think I made great strides with what I had to work with, from cotton to silk. Well, I ’ve had a great life. My mother — at that time, there weren’t any washing machines — she brought us up on washing boards. We had chickens in the backyard and we never went hungry because we could raise chickens and we had eggs. Daddy had a lot on the other side, two doors up the street, he’d plowed it every summer, cabbage, beans, squash, cucumbers. He put all that in that lot, tomatoes, all we didn’t use, Mama canned. When it got cold, she always had that food back in that closet there. She just opened up a can o f string beans or opened a can o f soup. There were half-gallon jugs. Nobody was ever hungry. At that time, we had stoves in every room. You could get coal for six dollars a ton. By him being on the railroad, when they’d take those crossties out, he’d get those crossties, bring them here. H e’d get somebody to haul them here with a wagon. He had a crosscut saw and cut those crossties into stove length, split them open. They had a lot o f wooden boxcars then. When they scrapped boxcars, he’d get wood for kindling. We’d have to cut that kindling, put it on the back porch, cut that wood up on the back porch. Bring the coal up from the coalhouse. It was down on the alley. Bring that coal on the back porch. I ’ll never forget, James and I were out there doing something. It was on a Wednesday because he went to prayer meeting — and we didn’t cut any kindling — so he came in from the prayer meeting. He went upstairs and we were in the bed. He went in there and looked at that wood box out on the back porch. “Alphonzo?” “Yes, Papa.” “I don’t see any wood in that wood box.” “Well, I was going to cut it in the morning.” “Oh, you’re not going to cut it in the morning. You’re going to get up and cut it now. And don’t turn that light on the back porch, you cut that wood.” [Laughter] I didn’t let that happen anymore. You were scared to say anything to him. He wasn’t mean, but he meant what he said. I ’m not saying this to be funny, I see on television, these young girls having babies, and let­ ting some joker come in and they’re saying, “my fiancé,” and the fiancé comes and abuses the children. That’s how a lot o f them are getting in all that stuff up there. I hope we can get a better way o f training the children. We’ve got schools and they’re trying to get the school skills, but some o f the kids are not making it through college, they get there and come back. I was scoutmaster at High Street for about 50 years. We were segregated. We had scout troops over at Pilgrim, over at First Baptist, Hill Street, and High Street. I never thought I’d hear what I ’ve heard about scouting. Because we were there all this time to train young men, to get them ready for things. Well, see, the family was what made the country. We didn’t have everything maybe we wanted, but there’s a difference in wants and needs. But we had what we needed for that particular time. After I sold that house, I bought one over on Grayson [Avenue], sitting on a hill out there. After my first wife died, I married Sarah, and she had this house, so I sold that one. Somebody called up, and she said, “Well, I ’ve still got the castle over here that you built.” The house I built over there, that $9,500 house, at 624 Staunton Avenue. You couldn’t build it for that now. The railroad is family. See, Norfolk & Western made this town. If you could get a job on the Norfolk & Western, at that time, you were home free. You had it made because my daddy went from labor to blacksmith. Look at that showcase, there’s a hammer in there [at the Transportation Museum]. M y daddy made that for my oldest brother in 1908. It’s in that glass case there. And it was just family. You got a pass to go where you want to go, but you rode in the front end o f the train. Somebody said we were segregated. I said, “Yeah, we get to town ahead o f the white people.” We get into town before the white people get there. We were in the front end o f the train. • 19• �^.tÿ v p u u t ^ n a fc e n ,S o w e d by George K egley yman Copeland Draper, a small man from New York State with a passion for history, traveled hundreds o f miles across Virginia and neighboring states in the mid-1800s, collecting valuable papers o f such prominent pioneer leaders as William Fleming, William Preston and even Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson. Draper gathered papers from the families o f these frontiersmen and took them to Madison, Wiscon­ sin, where they are prized and studied by scholars at the State Historical Society o f Wisconsin today. Thou­ sands o f pages o f the papers, known as the Draper Manuscripts, are available on microfilm for research at many libraries. Traveling from a temporary home at Baltimore, Draper made nine major trips from 1844 to 1852, in Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. Among many letters he wrote in search o f papers is one addressed to Charles Campbell o f Petersburg, saying “I hope, in due time, to aid, indirectly, in rendering ample justice to some o f the gallant sons o f Virginia, more particularly those who figured prominently west o f the Blue Ridge.” In another letter to Campbell, published in the W illiam & M a ry Q u arterly in January 1946, Draper tells o f an early trip through the Roanoke Valley: “In 1844, when p a s s in g down the Valley of Va., I took occasion to visit Col. Lewis (Andrew Lewis Jr.) at his residence on Bent Mountain — but found him in a situation which rendered him unfit to commu­ nicate any reliable information. A year or two before he had been thrown from a horse & injured inwardly in the head, from wh. he never recovered. He was a noble specimen of a gentleman o f the olden time — then about 86 years of age, but active in his movements & possessing a generous, ruddy healthy coun­ tenance. I am gratified that his recollections o f the pt. Pleasant battle were put on paper before his misfor­ tune.” (The recollections would have come from Lewis’s father, Gen. Andrew Lewis, who played a leading role at Point Pleasant and died in 1781.) In his travels, Draper once spent weeks in Abingdon with former Gov. David Campbell, copying the papers o f his ancestors and records from the Battle o f King’s Mountain in the Revolution. While other historians were working in libraries and record offices in Europe, “Draper was wander­ ing through the West on his quest... often footsore and weary, disappointed or disheartened. Frequently he would reach a goal only to find the pioneer he sought was dead; often to find the papers he eagerly hoped to acquire had been carelessly destroyed or devoured by fire,” according to Louise Phelps Kellogg, a promi­ nent historian and writer in Wisconsin. An article on the manuscripts in Essays in Western H isto ry reported that Draper traveled over 60,000 miles, “meeting with hundreds of curious adventures and hairbreadth escapes by means of runaway horses, frightful storms, swollen streams, overturned stages, snagged steamboats, extremities of hunger and the like, yet never injured nor allowing any untoward circumstance to thwart the particular mission at the time in view.” William B. Hesseltine, a Virginia native who taught history at the University o f Wisconsin-Madison, said Draper “built a great collection of papers, the first significant collection o f personal, non-official George Kegley is editor o f the Journal. • 20• �materials in A m erica... [he was a] hero-worshiper and patriot, who in his own favorite expression, ‘rescued from oblivion’ the ‘hardy adventures’ o f countless heroes o f the Southwest and sang the praises o f the pio­ neers.” The collector had “a remarkable persuasiveness in gathering his material,” he added. The scope o f Draper’s work is enormous. Sometimes copying by hand, he left “a collection of nearly 500 volumes of records in a potpourri o f formats and dates,” according to “Guide to the Draper Manuscripts,” a 464-page book with an index o f almost 200 pages, compiled by Josephine L. Harper for the Wisconsin Society. In 1875, Draper said his collections were “the systematic result o f over 40 years’ labors and 60,000 miles o f joumeyings.” The collection includes 65 volumes o f George Rogers Clark Papers, 32 volumes o f Daniel Boone Papers, six vol­ umes o f William Preston Papers and 16 volumes o f Virginia Papers, according to William Luebke, reference librarian at the Library o f Virginia. Some historians have complained that Draper was a raider, taking valuable material out o f state. But the majority o f scholars commend his work, saying that he saved primary sources which might have been discarded if he had not col­ lected them. In a 1922 article for the Wisconsin M agazine o f H isto­ ry , Louise Kellogg wrote that Draper “ransacked memories ... [and] from their hiding places, old letters and documents were brought forth and pressed into his hands ... These half-forgotten, neglected papers would most of them soon have perished had not this knight errant of historic adventure passed by that way.” She said Draper seldom met rebuff in his quest: “... friendly faces greeted him and kindly hearts entertained him in Lym an C. D raper portrait from “K in g ’s M ountain and its H eroes: H istory o f the the rich homes o f planters or the rude homes o f the poor.” Battle o f K ing’s M ountain.” Hesseltine, in an article for the Jo u rn a l o f Southern H isto ry in February 1953, wrote, “People gave him (Draper) papers. He did not steal them. He did not bor­ row them without intention o f returning them. He owned the papers — and sometimes he owned them by right of purchase ... He appealed to old men and to their descendants to give him information and their let­ ters and papers in order that he might set the record straight. It was an appeal to pride, and even to vanity, and dozens of people turned their papers over to him.” An example o f early correspondence saved by Draper, indexed in the “Guide to the Draper Manu­ scripts”, is a letter from Anne Christian, who once lived at Cloverdale in Botetourt County, to her husband, Col. William Christian, telling him o f harassment by Indian marauders she and her Kentucky neighbors experienced in the spring o f 1786. Her letter ended, “God bless you and protect you safe from harm.” Christian was killed by a party of Indians less than a month later. Among other papers collected by Draper and listed in the Guide are three letters from George Rog­ ers Clark to William Fleming, more than 20 official and personal letters from Jefferson to Clark, Draper’s correspondence with the families o f John Floyd, James Patton and William Preston, and a letter from Caleb Wallace, formerly o f Botetourt, to Fleming, discussing Clark’s Wabash campaign. Draper collected copies o f pension applications from Revolutionary War veterans who had served in western Virginia and Valley Forge; original manuscripts o f Thomas Madison, longtime surveyor in Bo­ tetourt County; letters to Fleming in 1767 about a scheme for land settlement near the junction o f the Ohio and Mississippi rivers; and an 1801 letter by James Monroe about the Virginia-Tennessee boundary line. 21 �D raper is remembered in Wisconsin for his work in reorganizing the State Historical Society and serving as its secretary from 1854 to 1886. In his first year as secretary, he wrote with his own hand 1,833 letters, according to Louise Kellogg. Soon after the papers were deposited in Wisconsin, historians, scholars and genealogists began to glean the information. In his research for his “Winning the West,” Theodore Roosevelt spent an afternoon with the Draper Manuscripts, and the Daughters o f the American Revolution (DAR) admitted members on the basis of these papers, Hesseltine reported. Who was this man who left his mark in American history? Lyman Draper, bom in Lockport, New York, in 1815, attended a village school, worked on the family farm and clerked in local shops, according to the Guide. Only 5 feet, 1 inch tall, he was “ill-suited for rough sports and heavy physical labor” so he so u g h t adventure in books and stories from the Revolution and the War o f 1812. With the help o f a cousin, he attended Granville College in Ohio for two years but left to work on a newspaper and as a land agent in Mississippi and later as a canal clerk in Buffalo, New York. Louise Kellogg described him as “a singularly quiet m an a lm o st a recluse in habit, modest and unpretentious in manner, with no capacity for self-adver­ tisement, but with unmeasured ability for hard work and a self-sacrificing determination to render service both [to] the past and to posterity.” While working, he read history and planned a book o f sketches o f pioneer lives. Peter Remsen, his cousin, financed his historic research and collection travels until Remsen’s death nine years later. He then moved to the Wisconsin Historical Society post. Draper, a Democrat and a Baptist, was married twice. Despite almost universal praise for his collecting skill, as an “indefatigable collector who preserved whatever he gathered, a truly unique and significant collection resulted,” according to Hesseltine, however, Draper was labeled as a procrastinator for his failure to publish. He collected materials with a promise to write stories o f pioneers but his only published history was an 1881, 612-page book, “Kings Mountain and Its Heroes.” He promised descendants “to acclaim the memories o f their heroic ancestors,” but he did not write books based on the papers. His health “would never permit him to work on them,” Hesseltine said. Louise Kellogg said Draper’s “standard of thoroughness paralyzed his p e n ... [He] was not a literary genius; he lost himself in the abundance o f his material; he had no sense of historical proportion, no appreciation o f the relative value o f fact.” Yet, “as a pioneer collector, he stands unrivaled... he has left an enduring legacy,” according to Kellogg. After he suffered a stroke, he died at Madison, Wisconsin, on Aug. 26,1891. SOURCES “Guide to the Draper Manuscripts,” by Josephine L. Harper. Madison: State Historical Society o f Wisconsin, 1983 The Journal o f Southern History, Vol. 19 ,No. l,F eb . 1953 “Lyman Draper and the South,” by William B. Hesseltine, The Wisconsin Magazine o f History, Vol. V, No. 3, March 1922 “The Services and Collections o f Lyman Copeland Draper,” by Louise Phelps Kellogg. State Historical Society o f Wisconsin Virginia Magazine o f History and Biography, Vol. 6, No. 4, October 1953 “The Historical Fraternity: Correspondence o f Historians Grigsby, Henry and Draper,” edited by William B. Hesseltine and Larry Gara William & Mary Quarterly, January, 1946, “Correspondence Between Charles Campbell and Lyman C. Draper” •22« �* D > o tv m , o tt t& e ‘T H tv i& e t by Robert Allen Garland hope to give you a brief history o f the City Market area which is so important to the city, given that there has been considerable work on the market area for the last two years, especially on the main Mar­ ket Building and a complete renovation o f this building, Center in the Square, which we are presently in, and other changes are still to be made. These thoughts and observations were made when I was a young lad of 6 until I was a teenager o f 16.1 remembered I had given a speech in 1992 to a civic club which I had en­ titled “Down on the Market.” After searching my files I finally located it. You most probably would ask me why I would be qualified to speak on that subject. In 1915, my father, Walter B. Garland, and my mother moved to Roanoke from his native town of Buchanan, a scant 30 miles away, to live with his sister who ran a boarding house which is now the site o f the Patrick Henry Hotel. Daddy found a job as a “soda jerk” behind the soda fountain of Clore’s Drug Store at the northeast comer of what is now Campbell Avenue SE and William- The writer, Bob Garland, with his wife, Frances, on son Road, which in 1915 was Randolph Street. their 70th w edding anniversary, Oct. 2, 2013. He later bought a half-interest in the store and around 1920 bought out Dr. Clore, thus becoming the sole owner o f Garland’s Drug Store, 132 E. Camp­ bell Ave. The store was one block down from the Market Square. The building is still there and is very much the same as it was then. My most vivid recollections o f the market area start in the early 1930s and extend into the wartime years of the 1940s. The drug store o f that era was the meeting place where people could gather at little expense, exchange gossip, carry on a courtship, or simply watch the world go by. It is probably the closest this country ever came to the European cafe or coffee house. For 5 cents one could buy a “Coke” made from scratch with one ounce o f Coca-Cola syrup, a scoop of ice and five ounces o f carbonated water directly from a soda arm. You could get a freshly made limeade for 10 cents, and a milk-shake for the same, unless you wanted Horlick’s Malted Milk added, which was 5 cents extra. Other popular drinks in those days were the Cherry Smash and Hire’s Root Beer. All these drinks were prepared on request while the customer waited. There were no machines or premixed drinks as you have today, and on hot summer days, with no air conditioning in any of the offices or stores, business was often very brisk. The market area in the 1930s was a bustling mecca of activity. Practically all grocery shopping, particularly for meat and produce, was done there. The first floor o f the Market Building itself housed, I I Robert A. “Bob ” Garland, longtime Roanoke pharmacist, vice mayor and City Council member, gave this talkfo r the First Thursday lunch series o f the Historical Society o f Western Virginia on July 2, 2013. 23 �R oanoke’s M arket Square has alw ays been busy. The M cG uire Building — C enter in the Square today — is at right. would estimate, 10 or 15 independent butchers who had stalls on each side o f the building. However, one butcher, A.R. Minton, a future Roanoke mayor, had his butcher shop on the comer of Campbell Avenue and Wall Street. On the outside o f the Market Building there were numerous stalls where vendors would sell mostly fresh vegetables and fruits, homemade honey, and other delicacies. Also, many farmers lined up their trucks, with the backside facing the curb, and sold their goods from there. Since most o f the shopping was done on Fridays and Saturdays, in the warm months a number of these farmers would sleep in the back of their trucks to be ready for the early morning business. On the third floor of the Market Building there was a basketball court with spectator seats, used for the various city leagues, as well as for some high school games and the Gold Medal Tournament. I wit­ nessed many exciting games there. The 100 block o f East Campbell, the block down from the City Market, was a very interesting block of businesses. On the north side of the block, on the comer, was another chug store, Humphries and Webber. They, too, had a soda fountain, but the store specialized in all kinds o f garden and flower seeds. They stored these in a beautiful wooden fixture, each drawer labeled with its contents. They also stocked a complete line o f patent medicines and trusses — a support used in the case of a hernia, a condition com- •24 • �mon to men. If one were to ask for a “truss” in a modem pharmacy, I doubt if the clerk, or even the phar­ macist, would know what was wanted. Next door was the Army and Navy store operated first by Mr. Halpem and later by his son “Poachie” and his sister. They sold clothing, overalls, boots, shoes, etc. Next door to them was Oscar Graves General Store. Today, that store would be an antique lover’s dream. I remember the fixtures were all o f wood. There were barrels o f merchandise on the floor. “Penny candy” — it really sold for 1 cent — was displayed in a glass case, and you were waited on from behind it. Mr. Graves stocked all kinds of groceries, gloves, barrels o f pickle, fat-back and anything a farmer might need. He had an especially large selection o f chewing tobacco, which most farmers used, which came in slabs packed in wooden boxes. He had a tobacco cutter to slice the tobacco as he sold it. We had the same instrument at my father’s drag store. Farther down the block was Sam’s Army Store, run by the Shapiro family, who left that location in 1932 to move to First Street SE and is still there today but owned by a different family. In the middle o f that block was another grocer, L.I. Booth. He and his wife operated this typical “Mom and Pop” store and did it very well. My parents were regular customers of Mr. Booth’s store, buy­ ing most of their staples from him. I remember going to that store with my mother, having a list o f all her needs. She handed it to Mr. Booth, and he went throughout the store getting each item off the shelf, and then completed the transaction by charging it to our account and bagging it. He would then give me a small bag of penny candy. Imagine that kind of service today! In those days, the 100 block of East Campbell would be considered the furniture mart of the city. It included some o f Roanoke’s most prominent business names. There were at least six o f these. The Appalachian Power Company moved to the building across the street from my father’s store in the early 1930s after it was vacated by the street car company who used it as a waiting room. This helped my father’s business. My brother “Dickie,” who also worked at the drag store, met his future wife, Eloise Turnbull, while she was working with Appalachian. She still lives in the family home on Belleville Road that the Garland family moved into in 1925 when I was 2 years old. In the 1930s my father installed a slot machine in the front part of the drag store. It took nick­ els and paid off just as the ones do now in casinos. They were very popular, and customers would gather around, waiting in line to play it. Even though these machines were illegal, they were allowed to operate. I have been told that a member o f City Council had these slot machines in his cigar and confectionery store with a soda fountain, and consequently the police were reluctant to enforce the law, thus enabling the other merchants to also operate. However, on occasion, to let everyone know that “the law” still existed, the po­ lice would raid those businesses and fine the owners for possession of these gambling devices. My father was a victim of one of these raids. Another longtime business in that block o f Campbell Avenue was “The Big Four Barber Shop.” Since all o f them were customers o f the drag store, my hair was cut by a Mr. Jones until I went off to college. During an infantile paralysis epidemic (now called polio) in the mid-’30s, my parents forbade us from mingling in crowds, or going to the drag store, or even playing with other children because o f the fear o f this disease. The Salk vaccine was not discovered until 1955. On at least one occasion during an epidemic, I can remember my barber, Mr. Jones, traveling to our home in Raleigh Court and cutting my hair in the bathroom. The barber shop stayed open until 11 p.m. on Saturday nights and would do a brisk business up until that hour. The price was 25 cents for a haircut, and no tip was given or expected. In addition, they had a shoe-shine stand, and you could receive an expert shine for only 10 cents. When the bootblack was finished with the shine, he would take a whisk broom and brash your clothes as an extra service. There were many unique businesses in that area in the 1930s. On the west side of Randolph Street was Belmont Shoe Hospital. Mr. Richard Smith owned and operated this well-run establishment. This expert cobbler did quality work, and during the Depression did a brisk business. In those days, it was com­ mon practice to have your shoes redone after wearing out the soles or heels. •25* �On the east side o f Randolph Street (present Williamson Road SE) going up the hill was a building owned by Mr. Jacob Brenner, who operated the Roanoke Scrap Iron and Metal Company. He was a fine gentleman in every respect, and very aristocratic looking. He had a rather wide mustache and in the winter months wore a Homburg hat which gave him a very distinguished look. The Brenner family is well known in Roanoke for its civic and philanthropic activities. The family later owned and operated Cycle Systems. Going up Randolph Street, there was John Hansbrough’s shop where he made horse harnesses, bridles, collars, saddles and other equipment for farm animals. The last shop on the right just before cross­ ing the Randolph Street Bridge was Dulaney’s Bicycle Shop. I was more familiar with this shop than the others because my brother and I both owned bicycles, and we would frequent that shop often as they did an excellent job in repairing our bikes. “Fats” Summers owned and operated a single-chair barber shop that faced Campbell Avenue. He lived in the back o f the shop. As his nickname indicated, he was grossly overweight. Unfortunately, he would go on frequent drinking binges where he would really get down and out, until he was picked up by the police and taken to jail to dry out. There were no detoxification centers or halfway houses here during that era. Diagonally across the street from the drug store was the N&W Salvage Warehouse where they sold damaged goods resulting in the transportation by the railroad. During the Depression years the hoboes and derelicts would gather there behind the warehouse. They would come to the drug store, buy a pint o f rub­ bing alcohol for 19 cents or a can of Stemo and then go back and share it among themselves. Frequently the police would appear with the “Black Maria” paddywagon and haul them away. That land is now the location o f the Firestone Tire Company. Cigarette smoking was a national craze in the 1930s, promoted by the tobacco companies as glamorous, fashionable, and even healthy. The brands used catchy advertising slogans to attract smokers: Camels — “I’d walk a mile for a Camel”; Lucky Strike used the abbreviation L.S.M.F.T., meaning “Lucky Strike means fine tobacco”; Chesterfields bragged “They satisfy”; Philip Morris told us that their cigarettes were “recognized by eminent medical authorities”; but Old Gold had the most ridiculous o f a l l B “Not a cough in a car load.” At my father’s drug store, we sold two packs (40 cigarettes) for 25 cents. That is ap­ proximately the price o f one cigarette today. In the 1930s the market area had its share o f people with various problems. If there were homo­ sexuals or transvestites on the market then, either I was not aware o f it or I did not understand their role. I have no recollection o f either. In those days, some o f those poor unfortunate people were referred to in less sophisticated terms. Then, they were called drunks and dope fiends, not alcoholics or drug addicts as they do today. Because o f what we sold, these street people were frequent customers at my father’s drug store. Paregoric [defined by W ebster’s New Collegiate Dictionary as “camphorated tincture o f opium used esp. to relieve pain ” -Ed.] could be purchased 2 ounces for 25 cents without a prescription, because it did have some legitimate uses. There were a number o f these addicts who were well known throughout the market area. Several o f these lost souls stand out in my memory. One of the most pitiful and pathetic human speci­ mens that I have ever encountered was a woman whom I knew only as “Aunt Maria.” That was not her real name, but was derived from the fact that she chewed tobacco, the brand name being “Black Maria.” In addition to the chewing tobacco, she also used “Tube Rose” snuff. Aunt Maria must have been in her late 70s or early 80s. She was very stooped, one o f her eyes was completely gone and shut, and she was tooth­ less. She was nothing but skin and bones, weighing not more than 75 pounds. She was addicted to Parego­ ric, and would go up on the market and beg or sell pencils until she got enough to buy her fix.There was also Bessie Lambert and John Parrish, both o f whom were dope fiends addicted to Paregoric. They were always seen together. Bessie, too, was a small pitiable figure, and John was a humpback always in need of a bath. They pushed an old two-wheeled cart around town, collecting various junk, then taking it to Jake Brenner’s junk yard to get enough money for food and Paregoric. • 26 • �A n interior view o f G arland’s D rug store N o. 8 located at 15 South Jefferson Street in Roanoke, circa 1952. W alter B. Garland, the ow ner o f the business, is seated on a stool at the left. The gentlem an standing behind the counter o f the soda fountain is W allace Eades, drug clerk. To his left are M ickey Spencer, Alberta Ferguson, and Hilda G reen (left to right). The building housing the drug store was de­ m olished later that decade to make w ay for the viaduct which brought traffic directly to Jefferson Street from what is now W illiam son Road. The story o f the market would not be complete without some mention o f the hotels in that area. The two that immediately come to my mind are the Shenandoah — later the Earle — and the Randolph, and there were others on Salem Avenue. The Shenandoah faced Salem Avenue, just as the Earle did later, and extended through to Campbell Avenue over my father’s drug store. That building still stands and is essentially the same as it was then. Originally, the Shenandoah was a businessman’s hotel and was consid­ ered respectable. However, as time went on, it attracted many prostitutes and their clients, and became known more or less as a whorehouse. The Randolph was a much smaller hotel with several floors located on the left after you pass Salem Avenue and before you cross the bridge. It was known essentially as a house o f ill repute. Many of the women were good customers o f the drug store, and they would buy many of their needs from us, espe­ cially the products known today as feminine hygiene, which consisted o f douche bags, disinfectants and douche powders. I remember one o f these ladies o f the night in particular. She was very pretty but was deaf and dumb. I have often wondered whatever happened to that girl. In the evening, bellhops (always black) from the hotels would make a purchase from the drug store, which a clerk would get from one certain drawer in the back o f the store. Until I became of-age, •27* �this one drawer was “forbidden” and off limits to me, though I did not really know the reason until much later. I remember male customers (never female) coming into the store and, in whispered tones, saying something to the clerk or to my father. The clerk would then go to that drawer, take something out, place it in the palm o f the hand o f the customer, then ring up the sale on the cash register. I am sure at some point when no one was looking and my curiosity had gotten the best o f me, I peeped in that drawer. In today’s drug store, the items in that drawer, prophylactics, are openly displayed. This would have been unthink­ able, as well as considered unethical, even up into the 1970s. Although universally known as condoms now, the term was never used in the 1930s, to my recollection. Customers usually referred to them as “rub­ bers.” Other names that were frequently used were safetys, raincoats, or pros. I remember one particular brand that my father stocked was “The Three Little Pigs,” a rather appropriate name as three sold for 25 cents. Although sexually transmitted diseases were prevalent then, there was little said or written about them. Syphilis and gonorrhea were the most feared. O f course there was no AIDS and I don’t even re­ member the term “herpes” being used until much later. There was one product that we sold, called “Dough Boy” — named after the soldiers in World War I — a mercury (mercurous chloride) type o f ointment also sold from the forbidden drawer. This was applied by the male before and after an encounter, supposedly to protect him from those diseases. Floods in the market area were quite common, particularly in the summer m o n ths During heavy rains, the downtown streets would become flooded. The water would back up into all the businesses along Campbell Avenue, and Daddy’s store was no exception. Much damage was done. I can remember one such summer flood, mainly because a picture was taken by a newspaper photographer, showing me along with other members o f my family with mops and brooms in front o f the drug store. I am sure that was the first time my picture ever appeared in the newspaper. I found that clipping in a photograph album after my parents had passed away. I guess some o f my fondest memories of the market area are o f the Rialto Theatre — also known as the Shooting Gallery. In those days, you didn’t go to a movie, but you went to a “picture show.” Practi­ cally every week, we would go to see our favorite cowboy stars — Buck Jones, Ken Maynard, “Hoot” Gibson and others. Afterwards, we would walk down past “Diamonds,” which was a confectionery with a soda fountain, a pool room and a duck pin bowling alley in the back, past Nelson Hardware and Bob’s Shoe Store to get to the Roanoke Weiner Stand. There we would order a hot dog with everything on it and a bottle o f “Coke” for 10 cents. We thought that was really living. As I think o f that little comer drug store o f ours, Christmas time was the most memorable. The gifts my father offered were simple and inexpensive, most below five dollars. People seemed to appreci­ ate those small gifts then, moreso than the elaborate items they have today. I remember the store and the window decorations to entice the passersby to come in. I remember the farmers as they displayed their Christmas wares from the back o f their trucks or from the sidewalk stalls: the beautiful wreaths, the mistletoe, holly and the red poinsettias, all at unbelievably low prices compared to today. Many came to sell Christmas trees. One o f these farmers I remember distinctly; he was a real character. His name was Mr. Lane. He would bring a truck-load o f Christmas trees from Buchanan where he had grown the trees and set them up on a vacant lot behind the Appalachian building. In between customers, he would warm his hands over an open fire, usually a huge oil drum. At night, he would bring his daily receipts, probably less than 50 dollars, to the drug store, and Daddy would put it in the safe. I never saw him without a large wad of chewing tobacco with the juice running down each side o f his mouth. One can re-live much o f Roanoke’s history, indeed, America’s history, in knowing and understand­ ing the activities o f the market area. As I reminisce about those times and recall my treasured memories of that unique area, I am reminded of a passage attributed to Ivanna Chamberlain. She wrote, “Oh memory, turn back the leaves o f your book; on the pages o f childhood, permit us to look.” •28» �Nestle Brook, a Northwest landmark, faces demolition Nestle Brook, a c. 1850 landmark at the northwest comer o f Salem Turnpike and 24th Street NW in Roanoke, is facing demolition by its new owner, Goodwill Industries. Although its headquarters adjoins the house, once owned by the late William H. Horton, Goodwill has report­ ed no use for the site. A small but significant brick building at the rear o f the big house will be saved. It may have been an office at one time. Nestle Brook is one o f only two surviving antebellum houses in the Roanoke Valley with the distinction o f having chimneys built entirely within its outer walls, according to Mike Pulice, Salem architectural historian for the State Department o f Historic Resources. The other building is the Williams-Brown House, home o f the Salem History Museum. Pulice said Nestle Brook’s high quality brickwork and other characteristics suggest that J.C. Deyerle, a prolific brick mason in Salem, was the builder. The home, rental property for a long time, was occupied by Horton’s widow, Susie Hor­ ton, who lived there until she died at the age o f 101 in 1970. It has been vacant and in disrepair for years. Horton bought the house and 164 acres o f land in Northwest Roanoke in 1901 and lived there until his death in 1941. Andrew”Andy” Roberts, a recent owner, was a nephew o f the late Natalie Foster Lemon Ross, who with her sister inherited the house from the Hortons. The Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation recently gave the seller and the buyer Bulldozer Awards for loss o f a landmark structure. In the 1800s, the building was called the Melrose Inn. Daniel Yates, a previous owner, had plans for a lake and driving course for carriage horses there. The lake was not built but a track operated at the site o f Forest Park School nearby. Horton, a successful Roanoke businessman, operated a livery stable at First Street and Kirk Avenue in downtown Roanoke. In 1909, he replaced the stable with a two-story commercial building which has been renovated. The Preservation Foundation gave the owners o f that build­ ing an award for adaptive reuse. — E d . • 29• �Fig. 1. The form er Th aden -Jordan Furniture Plant on K e ssler M ill R oad in Salem . fccutitune <z*teCs4viotto*t Pedicle ttt 0po*iyatte«t *p<zciicttf rut ‘T C & teten ‘T J C tii by M ichael J. Pulice any travelers on Kessler Mill Road in Salem probably wonder what the unusual arched-roof industrial building resembling an airplane hangar, just north o f East Main Street, was origi­ nally used for. [Fig. 1] The business for which the facility was erected disappeared so long ago that it seems nobody remembers it. The current owner, who has held the property for many years, had no knowledge o f who built the facility or for what purpose until recently contacted by the author. The former Thaden-Jordan Furniture Plant was erected in 1946. Plans to build the plant were announced in the Roanoke World-News on January 31, 1946, and a February 1, 1946, Roanoke Times article, “Furniture Plant Plans Announced,” noted that construction was planned to be complete in early spring o f that year. An innovative building for its time, the plans called for “a new plant o f original design” with “about 25,000 square feet o f floor space,” and “three rows o f working areas provided by 50-foot, clear-span, parabolic arches, which will be manufactured o f molded wood laminations by the Thaden Engineering Co. o f Roanoke.” The building, as it was constructed and still stands today, is a close approximation o f the design rendering published in the Roanoke World-News article. [Fig. 2] M Mike Pulice once worked as an archaeologist but he has been an architectural historian fo r the Western Regional Office o f the Virginia Department o f Historic Resources fo r more than 13 years. •30 • �NEW FU R N IT U R E . PLANT—Now under construction, the p lan t above will be operated by a new ly-or­ ganized concern, th e T haden-Jordan Furniture Co rp., details of which were announced today. T he plant, to be situated o i\ a site at Lakeside, will contain ab ou t 25,000 square feet of working space on one floor and is scheduled for com pletion in early spring. Supporting arches are of molded plywood lam ina­ tions. Inset photographs are of the firm ’s principal officials—le ft to right, Herbert V. Thaden, president; Donald L'. Jordan, vice president1; and E. Sigurd Joh n son , secretary and production manager. Fig. 2. N ew spaper clipping from the article “Thaden -Jordan is Capitalized at $250,000, ” Roanoke W orld-N ew s, Ja n u a ry 31, 1946. Thaden-Jordan Furniture Company was the manufacturer o f a nationally (and perhaps interna­ tionally) distributed line o f molded-plywood household furniture, particularly dinette and breakfastroom suites, but also chairs, tables, case goods, church pews, television cabinets, glass cloth laminates, timber arches, and caskets. (1) The Roanoke City Directory lists the Thaden-Jordan Furniture Corpora­ tion as a “wholesaler o f molded plywood furniture,” from 1946 to 1952. [Fig. 3] Former military aviator, aircraft designer and engineer, Herbert Von Thaden (1896-1969), was the president o f the company and Donald Lewis Jordan (1896-1979), who made plywood products for the military during WWII, was vice president. Jordan had been an executive with Johnson-Carper Furni­ ture Company o f Roanoke since its inception in 1928. (2) Both men had expertise in manufacturing and designing with new wood products such as plywood and glue-laminated timbers. Although their furniture was innovative in design and construction, Thaden-Jordan’s products apparently were not well marketed and failed to sell in adequate volumes. By the end o f 1952, the plant 31 �Fig. 3. A dinette buffet table m anufactured at the Fig. 4. Dinette furniture m anufactured at the Thaden Th aden -Jordan P lant in Salem betw een 1946 Jordan Plant in Salem during the late 1940s. and 1951. and the company were defunct due to financial setbacks. The plant was soon sold to a new owner who enlarged it by adding the sprawling, flat-roofed, nondescript warehouse wing to the north. Yet the com­ pany’s story did not come to an abrupt end in 1952 and is far more interesting than most would suspect. Moreover, their products are now considered to be rare and potentially valuable collectibles. D e s ig n I n f l u e n c e s Thaden- Jordan furniture pieces were heavily influenced by the International School o f Design. Between 1930 and 1960, molded plywood furniture played an important role in the development o f the International Modernist movement. Many o f the movement’s most famous names, such as Aalto, Sum­ ner, Breuer, Eames, Miller and Molino worked with the manufactured wood material. (3) Art historian Tran Turner wrote in 1998 about a particular set o f Thaden-designed dining room table and chairs “constructed o f wide interconnected planes o f birch plywood,” which, he asserted, re­ vealed “Thaden’s interest for creating a balance between mass, volume, and what he considered a neces­ sary functional flexibility for the body and visual flexibility for the eye.” (4) [Fig. 4] T h a d e n ’ s E x p e r im e n t a l R e c l in in g C h a ir In 1947 Thaden-Jordan made a small number of unique, high-back reclining chairs made o f birch plywood, designed by Thaden and quite possibly inspired by an airplane propeller. The experimental design is considered on par with, if not superior to, other acclaimed modernist chair designs produced by the International Movement. One o f the few known surviving examples o f the chair is in the permanent collection o f the Minneapolis Institute for the Arts. (5) According to Turner, Thaden’s concept for this particular molded plywood chair stands alone as an example o f modernist furniture. It belongs to the singular vision o f Herbert Von Thaden, who was not trained as an architect, artist, or furniture designer, and it far surpasses most designs for molded plywood as a material before and after its arrival. Its three-dimensionality and sculptural implications are unri­ valed, even when compared to the Eameses, Aalto, and Breuer. (6) The world renowned Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rheim, Germany, the “City o f Chairs,” ranks Thaden’s chair among its “ 100 masterpieces,” one o f 12 masterpieces designed between 1941 and 1950. The masterpieces are displayed in a virtual exhibit on the museum’s website. (7) • 32• �Place of exhibition: Gallery steel Berger Pfädlistr. 4 Total height 2.20 m Scale 2:1 Replica: D. Neumann. Metal construction, Weil am Rhein Sponsor: Gallery steel Berger Situated at: 05.04.2000 Photo: B.-G.Maier/2000 Original:Vitra Design Museum Fig. 5. A segm ent from the W eil am Rheim , Germ any, “C hairs in the C ity” web page (2013). Since 2000, a large-scale model o f Thaden’s experimental high-back chair design has been one o f 20 chairs displayed in public squares throughout the City o f Weil am Rheim. (8) [Fig. 5] T h a d en P er so n a l B a c k g r o u n d Earlier in his career, long before the Thaden-Jordan Furniture business venture, Herbert Thaden designed the U.S. Army’s first all-metal airplanes, the T l, T2, and others. In 1928 he married the famous aviator, or “aviatrix” as they were then called, Louise McPhetridge Thaden (1905-1979). The Thadens moved to New Jersey in 1930 after General Motors bought his Thaden Metal Airplane Company, found­ ed in 1927, which became Pittsburgh Metal Aircraft Company in 1929. Before merging with Fokker Aircraft, the company manufactured the Thaden T-4, nicknamed the Tin Goslin, which Louise flew in at least one race, in 1931. About 1941, the couple settled in Roanoke to raise two children, Bill and Patri­ cia, and founded Thaden Engineering Company. (9) Thaden Engineering designed and manufactured defense-related equipment for the military dur­ ing WWII, earning two U.S. Navy “E” Awards. (10) Also during World War II, Herbert Thaden acted as technical sales representative for Johnson-Carper Furniture Company o f Roanoke, where he may have met Donald Jordan for the first time, as well as for Lane Cedar Chest Corporation o f Altavista, Virginia. ( 11) Louise M. Thaden is an important historical figure who was a celebrated heroine during her many pioneering years o f aviation, beginning in 1927. [Fig. 6] The list o f her accomplishments as one o f very few women in the field o f aviation is extremely impressive. A peer and close friend o f Amelia Earhart, Louise was highly skilled, tenacious and daring. The Bentonville, Arkansas, native’s life is chroni­ cled in her fascinating autobiography, “High, Wide, and Frightened,” first published in 1938 and updated by her in 1973. Her aviation feats include setting.the first official altitude record for women in the U.S. •33 • �(20,260 feet) in 1928; the women’s record for solo duration (more than 22 hours); and the record for speed (156 mph) in 1929. She was the only woman ever to hold all three records simultaneously. She won the first National Women’s Air Derby, flying from Santa Monica to Cleveland in 1929; set the record for fueling duration (196 hours in the air) in 1932; and won k / the Bendix Transcontinental Air Race in 1936. She was inducted into the National Aviation Hall o f Fame in 1999. uL^SiH MP PPM E f l B S u ^ ( 12) In 1955, a few years after Thaden-Jordan Furniture Company folded, the Thadens removed to High Point, North Carolina, where Herbert founded the Thaden I ; sup • Molding Corporation and continued the Thaden Engi­ neering Company. (13) Though Louise had little involve­ ment in Thaden-Jordan Furniture, she became a partner Fig. 6. Louise M. Thaden in h e r prim e as a in Thaden Engineering and continued to run the company record-setting aviator. as the sole owner for 10 years after Herbert’s death in 1969. (14) Donald Jordan had by then returned his focus toward the Johnson-Carper Furniture Company, becoming chairman o f the board and eventually a nationally respected leader in the manufacturing (par­ ticularly furniture-related) industries. He was chairman o f the National Association o f Manufacturers, a leading industry organization. His life was chronicled by biographer Edward W. Rushton in his book, “Donald Lewis Jordan: An Industrial Odyssey” (1975). N o t e s o n t h e F u r n it u r e P l a n t S t r u c t u r e s The plant is comprised o f parallel, arch-roofed sections or vaults. The three 150-foot-long vaults served for manufacturing, and the one-third-length (50x50-foot) vault on the south end served as of­ fice space. Constructed o f wood framing, the structures are strengthened on each end by diagonal board sheathing clad with painted aluminum panels. The only 90-degree vertical exterior walls are those on the (east and west) ends o f the vaults. The rest o f the building exterior consists o f rounded, asphalt-shingled roof. The three upper bays at each end, curved at the top, are filled with numerous small glass blocks in a grid pattern, which provide much-needed light to the interior o f the building. A view o f the plant interior reveals that it was constructed as planned, with large open areas provided by the dear-span glue-laminate-wood “gluelam” arches, and concrete floors. [Fig. 7] Only the middle vault has a second floor — a storage area that runs the entire length o f the vault. The floor is suspended from the roof arches by hundreds o f steel cables spaced intermittently throughout the single large room. [Fig. 8] The flooring consists o f the same 3xl-inch boards that are used throughout the plant as ceiling/roof sheathing. The interior of the office section at the south end o f the plant is divided into two floors and has been completely modified since the Thaden-Jordan Company days with the addi­ tion o f modem drywall and drop ceilings. Though not depicted in the pre-construction 1946 newspaper drawing, the main entrance on the south side o f the office has a curvilinear plywood canopy and gluelam supports that indicate it was part o f the plant’s original construction. There is also a nearly identical, but smaller vaulted building directly behind (east of) the three 150-foot-long vaults. This building is depict­ ed in the 1946 newspaper drawing. • 34• �Fig. 7. Interior view o f one o f the form er Th aden -Jordan P lant’s work areas. Fig. 8. Interior view o f the m iddle tube, second floor, o f the form er Thaden-Jordan Plant. 35 �ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Special thanks to former Historical Museum o f Western Virginia administrative assistant Roy Baugher III, who provided valuable research materials; and to the owner o f the former Thaden-Jordan Plant, Richard Bishop, who provided access to the buildings. ENDNOTES 1. Herbert von Thaden resume, circa 1969. 2. Couper, 446. 3. Turner, 51. 4. Turner, 52. 5. Turner, 52. 6. Turner, 52. 7. Vitra Design Museum website: www.design-museum.de/de/sammlung/100-masterpieces.html 8. City o f Weil am Rhein “Chairs in the City” webpage: http://www.w-wt.de/tourismus_englisch/stadt_der_stuehle/stadt_der_stuehle.html 9. By the 1950s the Thaden family resided at 601 Camilla Ave. SE. fh e Roanoke City Directory lists the office o f Thaden Engineering at their home address, but the company maintained a facility at 3346 Shenandoah Ave. and a laboratory at 2231 Patterson Ave. 10. Louise Thaden autobiography, 153. 11. Herbert von Thaden resume. 12. Louise Thaden autobiography. 13. Herbert von Thaden resume. 14. Son William “Bill” Thaden died in New Hampshire in 2012. Growing up in Roanoke he attended Crystal Spring Elemen­ tary School, Lee Junior and Jefferson High. He was a great athlete who accepted a football scholarship to Georgia Tech in the 1950s, and played on the National Championship team o f 1952 under coach Bobby Dodd. Bill Thaden obituary, published in the Roanoke Times July 8,2012. B ib l io g r a p h ic a l R e s o u r c e s Couper, William, “History o f the Shenandoah Valley,” Vol. 3, 1952: 444—447. Turner, Tran. “Thaden-Jordan Furniture.” Echoes, Spring 1998, Volume 6, No. 4. Full copy o f magazine, with color photos o f T-H furniture pieces, in Historical Society o f Western Virginia archives, Roanoke. “Thaden-Jordan is Capitalized at $250,000.” Roanoke World-News, January 31, 1946. The article features images o f the yet-to-be constructed plant, as well as images o f Thaden, Jordan and the plant’s secretary and production manager, E. Sigurd Johnson. “Furniture Plant Plans Announced.” Roanoke Times, February 1, 1946. Resume o f Herbert von Thaden, 1916 through 1969. Roanoke City Directory 1946-1956. Thaden, Louise M. “High, Wide, and Frightened,” an autobiography first published in 1938. Prologue and Epilogue added by the author in 1973. 2004 University o f Arkansas reprint features foreword by modern-day aviator Peggy Wagstaff. Vitra Design Museum website: www.design-museum.de/de/sammlung/100-masterpieces.html Weil am Rhein “Chairs in the City” web page: http://www.w-wt.de/tourismus_englisch/stadt_der_stuehle/stuehle_in_der_stadt.html Thaden Chair page: http://www.w-wt.de/tourismus/stuhlstadtplan/stuehle/verstellbarer_sessel.html •36« �0 by Goldie D am ewood Garmon — Goldie Cornelia Damewood — was bom in a log house that stood on the farm owned by my Damewood grandparents, George and Sarah, who had moved to Virginia from West Virginia early in the 1900s. They bought the farm from the Brattons, a black family who had been close neighbors to my Garman grandparents. My mama said that she and a sister played with the Bratton children and they called Mrs. Bratton “black mammy.” She once made my mama a cake for her birthday. My dad, Nathan, was a teenager when they moved here from West Virginia and went to the same school as my mom, Gertrude. They also went to the same church. Shiloh was the name o f the school as well as the church. T h e E lopem ent Nathan and Gertrude had been meeting secretly for some time. Her dad, who was very strict about the girls dating, and he didn’t like Nathan, made it very difficult for them, so they planned to elope. The most unlikely time for an elopement was this cold Christmas Eve when they were more than 20 miles from the train and had to travel by horse and buggy over dirt roads. This eve, the school had their Christmas tree and program, which began early, because this is one time the kids had to be in bed early. Everyone was walking to the schoolhouse. Nathan and Gertrude planned to leave by horse and buggy as soon as the family was in bed. The Damewood home was just about a mile over a hill from the Garmans. Nathan would leave the horse tied to the fence in the lane near the main road. He would meet her in the field. His dad knew about their plans and secretly followed him to the place where the horse and buggy waited so he could watch the horse in case her dad found out and caused trouble. There might even be some shooting. Once they were in the buggy, they had to go only a short distance to the Narrows Road (Sandy Ridge Road now) which led to the Creek Road (now Blacksburg Road), then they traveled east to Rt. 311 and on across Catawba Mountain to Salem. By the time they reached the mountain it was snowing and continued to snow all the way to Salem. They left the horse and buggy at a livery stable, located just across the street from the jail. They walked in a couple inches o f snow to the train depot, near the river, which was at least seven blocks from Main Street. They had to run the last block or so when they heard the train coming. Her feet were cold and wet when they caught the midnight train to Bristol where they were married on Dec. 25, 1909. He was 23, she was 19. Her dad was so mad he forbid them ever come to his house again. So they never visited, my mama said, when I was bom Oct. 25, 1910; my grandma Garman heard about it from neighbors (there were no telephones) and walked across the hill to the Damewood home to see me. Not long after that, Goldie Damewood Garman was 101 when she died on Nov. 12, 2011. She wrote these recollections in her 80s: “My memoirs are written fo r my children and grandchildren, going as fa r back as I can remember, along with things that my parents told me, so that they may know what it was like seventy-five or more years ago to live with no modem conveniences as are here today. ” She lived in the Catawba Valley o f Roanoke County. •37* �they all attended Shiloh Church and it was there that Grand-dad Garman invited my parents to stop in for dinner. After that, they all got along and several years later (my aunt told me) when my grand-dad had more sons-in-law, Nathan was his favorite one. M ove to C uster P lace Sometime during the year 1911, my parents moved to J.A. Custer’s place. He had a general store and also a mill to grind grain, powered by a power wheel. The house that we lived in and also the stream that supplied the water to run the mill were on the Newport Road (then known as the Back Road) near the intersection o f the road leading to Millers’ Cove. Dragon’s Tooth was in sight. My dad was to run the huckster wagon for Mr. Custer, which was very important for the success o f the store. March 12, 1912, my sister Cleo was bom here. Later that same year, my dad and Cleo had small­ pox. They got it from Mr. Custer. They thought a disgruntled customer sent the disease to him in a letter. He had written to this family in Craig County about their overdue bill. They had smallpox at the time, so when they answered Mr. Custer’s letter, they had smeared the paper with pus from their sores (this story leaked out afterwards). A doctor came and vaccinated us and no one else got sick. Cleo had only a few pimples on her but Mr. Custer and my dad were very sick. They said they suffered much with their feet, especially the soles of the feet where the skin was thick and they soaked their feet in whiskey. Then when Cleo was nine months old, my mama got typhoid fever. The Garman grandparents took Cleo; my dad hired one o f M ama’s cousins to help out. They said she couldn’t cook and I didn’t like her at all. Mama said it was cold weather and I would be crying and she would let me get in bed with her to get warm and take a nap. Fortunately, I survived and didn’t get sick. The doctor came about every other day. The Garman grandparents kept Cleo until Mama recovered and was strong enough to take care o f the two o f us. Cleo was afraid o f Mama and Papa when they brought her back home. It was probably a year after that something happened that I do remember very well. The old, fa­ miliar, blue enameled coffee pot was on the little heater stove in the living room. My mama was sweep­ ing the floor. I was sitting on the floor playing with toys when Mama accidentally knocked the hot coffee pot over, spilling on one o f my legs. I was wearing long, black stockings (the heavy Bear brand). Mama said when she took the stocking off, the skin o f my leg came off too. The doctor came two or three times a week to dress my leg, which was sore for months. I can remember trying to hide when I saw him com­ ing and I ’d cry too, it hurt so bad. The doctor would bring me a stick o f candy. Once, I remember a red apple. M y leg was bandaged from just below the knee to the ankle. The deepest bum was near the knee; the scar remains to this day. I am not sure o f the doctor’s name. I think he came up from Catawba. I do know that doctors made house calls back then. They traveled by horseback. I can remember some names, Doctors Short, Pack and Sibold, who at different times lived at McDonald’s Mill in Montgomery County. T he W ater W heel I remember the big wheel that ran the mill. I liked to see the water splashing down from it. There was much noise when the mill was running. I liked to peep inside if I ’d be going to the store. Two men working in there would be covered with white dust. Sometimes, Mama would send me to get a bar o f washing (laundry) soap. It was Octagon, a brown colored soap, octagon shape. On one such trip, a neighbor, who was also at the store, led me back home and told my mama she’d better not send me there alone for he saw me pulling on the tails o f horses that customers had tied to the fence. I liked horses and was never afraid o f them. Papa had a young horse, training for the buggy. Trixie was in pasture at Grandpa Damewood’s most o f the time. But sometimes he was kept at the •38 • �Custer place. I remember getting scolded for rubbing Trixie’s legs to get mud off after they’d been somewhere in the buggy. T he H u c k ster W a g o n Papa drove the huck­ ster for Mr. Custer, which was a covered wagon, pulled by a team o f mules, Jim and Punch. He was gone from home three nights a week. Sometimes Mama would take Cleo and me to the Custer house, which was up on a hill from ours, so that we could watch for Papa to come back from Roanoke. He always started The Garm an fam ily gathered to celebrate the 100th birthday o f out early in the morning (I think G oldie D am ew ood Garm an (center) In 2010. it was on Mondays). He went west on the Back Road (Newport) until he got to the Narrows (Sandy Ridge), picking up such things as butter, eggs, cured meat, chickens or whatever people had to sell. The Narrows took him to the Creek Road (Blacksburg) where he traveled on to Montgomery County to Dry Run Road that led back to the Back Road. By then, it would be getting dark. He would spend the night at an Alls family. They’d take care o f him for the night, feeding the mules, and Miss Louisa always had a warm supper waiting. Start­ ing out early the next day, he would travel east, stopping at the Custer store only long enough to pick up the order o f things (supplies) for the store. Then on to the city market in Roanoke. By then, it is after dark. H e’d unhitch the mules from the wagon, tying them behind it, where he’d feed and water them. He slept in the wagon. The next day, he’d sell the stuff he’d picked up on the city market, then pick up sup­ plies to carry back to the store. (Night time again.) The next day, he may have a few more items to pick up before starting home. It was on this evening that we liked to watch for him to come. He would “park” the wagon in front o f the store until it could be unloaded. It contained boxes, maybe dried peaches or prunes; sacks, maybe beans and sugar, tin cans o f food, maybe a bolt or two o f cotton cloth, a keg o f nails, or even shoes and socks. He would unhitch the mules and take them to the bam. Sometimes he’d let me ride on a mule to the bam. H e’d be riding the other. Harness on the mules. I had the harness to hold on to. I heard talk about “Freight Sales.” It seems that Mr. Custer liked to go to the train station for the sale of damaged or unclaimed shipments. I do know that Papa got Mama a new Crown sewing machine at one o f the sales. The metal frame had a break in it. Somebody wired two pieces o f metal on sides o f the break and it was as good as new. My mama did a lot o f sewing on that machine for years as we were growing up. Papa got Mama a new Beckwith organ like the sewing machine which was ran by foot treadle; the organ too had to be pumped by foot treadle to force air into the bellows. I had a blue-gray kitten named Bluzie. I think it came from the Damewood grandparents. Bluzie disappeared. We searched high and low but didn’t find her. The organ was across one comer o f the living room. After several days, Mama was noticing a bad odor. She moved the organ and behind it was my Bluzie, dead. That was my first experience with death. On January 29, 1915, Papa’s younger brother, McKinley, still living at home, died o f typhoid fe•39» �ver. Then April 3, Grandpa George died also o f typhoid. Soon after, we moved in with Grandma Damewood. I ’ve heard her complain about Nathan coming in there and burning bed things: quilts, pillows and mattresses, just about everything that had been used on sick beds. She thought much o f it could have been washed. Mattresses were straw-filled ticks, sheets and pillow cases, as well as towels and all white clothes were boiled in a big iron pot every time they were washed. Grandma was good to us and we all got along quite well. It was like having two mamas. Going back to the time we moved in with Grandma Damewood, Grand-dad Garman moved all o f our possessions in a wagon pulled by a team o f horses, which included a bed, a dresser, a rocking chair, M ama’s organ and sewing machine and a few straight-back chairs. We followed the wagon in a buggy, up the dirt road and over the hill. I got real scared, seeing the chairs, which were tied on top o f the load, wobbling. It looked like they would fall off as the wagon went over bumps and deep ruts. I was worried about our little rocking chairs. Mine was brown and Cleo’s was white. June 5, 1916, we had another sister, Avis, a surprise to Cleo and me. In the fall o f 1916,1 started to school. This was the first year o f school in the new schoolhouse that was built about half-mile from the old schoolhouse that my parents had attended. I had to go up a hill, through the woods until I came in sight o f my uncle Festus Damewood’s house. There I would get with my cousin, Mary, to go the rest o f the way, which was about two miles altogether. One o f my parents or grandma would go with me until I could see my uncle’s house. My papa carried me on his back sometimes when there was snow. School was never closed in those days. O f course, the teacher, who boarded in the neighborhood, had to walk to the schoolhouse too. Travel was done by horseback, buggy or wagon. My grandma and daddy each owned a buggy but o f the team o f horses, only one of them was gentle enough to pull the buggy. His name was Trixie. The other horse, a mare, was named Tez. Sometimes, she would like to run, but my dad could control her when hitched to the wagon. I remember one time on Christmas Day, w e’d planned to go to Uncle Emmet Craft’s for dinner. There was about a foot o f snow had fallen the night before. Daddy hitched the team to a big sled and the whole family went, including grandma. The sled had been made by grandpa and was used quite often in winter. Kerosene lamps and lanterns were necessities and wood-buming stoves were used for cooking and heating. We carried drinking water from a spring which was a hundred yards from the house. Two water buckets on a shelf near the cooking stove needed to be refilled several times a day. In extremely cold weather those water buckets would freeze up during the night. Fire was not kept going during the night-time unless there was sickness in the family or some other reason to be up in the night. We were warm and comfortable as long as we were in bed with home-made quilts piled on. Our parents rose early, starting fires in the kitchen stove and living room and when they called out, “Breakfast is ready” meant for everyone to get up and come to the table. I think “wash day” was the most dreaded day o f the week, when we had to carry so much wa­ ter, heat it on the kitchen stove in a tub. And, yes, children carried water too. We had smaller buckets, usually a gallon size. In summer time, we did the family washing at the stream which flowed below the spring. A large iron pot was used for heating the water and boiling the white things — sheets, towels, un­ derwear; everything that didn’t fade. Mama was in charge but “we” did what we could, like carrying the washed clothes back to the clothes line in the yard, to hang up to dry. Grandma usually fixed the noon­ day meal on that day. I remember looking forward to her fried biscuits. We had cows to milk and we, like most farm families, learned to milk cows at an early age. The milk was put in crocks and set in the water which flowed through the springhouse. The cream, which came up on top o f the milk, was skimmed off the next day if we wanted sweet cream (for cereal, desserts or to whip for pies) or left to sour to chum into butter. We churned butter about once a week. The milk that was kept until it soured was used to make cottage cheese or bread. The surplus was fed to the hogs. 40 �The hogs’ diet (usually three o f them raised for meat) was varied indeed. The pigs, after taken from their mother (at 8 weeks) were fed milk, which was plentiful. Later they got kitchen garbage, dropped apples, potato peelings, etc., after they were penned. When we pulled the weeds from the vegetable garden the hogs got their “greens.” We even saved dishwater, which may contain some fried scraps, to mix wheat middlings for the hogs. If soap had been used it was lye soap and that was thought to be good for hogs. In fact, some folks would add a small amount of lye, to “sweeten the swill.” But I can assure you that not very much food scraps got to our hogs because Papa always kept two old hound dogs. For them, my mama or grandma would bake a pone o f combread, sometimes adding meat skins or scraps. My first try at cooking was for the dogs. I learned to make combread first. I am not real sure about the year but sometime in the ’teens we got a telephone, about two dozen homes on a party line. We could hear all the rings but each one had their special, like two longs and a short or two shorts and a long, etc. Ours was a long — two shorts and a long. The telephone was battery-powered. Children were not allowed to eavesdrop; the reason given was because it would run the batteries down. They would last about four months. But it was plain to see that on certain rings, the grown-ups like to keep up with the neighborhood news. Two o f M ama’s brothers, Lucian and Leo Garman, were in France during World War 1.1 remem­ ber one “bad news” telephone call (1918) telling us o f the death o f Lucian. He was on the way to the front lines o f battle when he got pneumonia and died in a hospital in France. Leo survived and got back home. Both my grandmothers Garman and Gatewood received medals for knitting socks for servicemen in World War I. The Red Cross furnished the yam and volunteers knitted. They also knitted a few sleeve­ less sweaters, as did my mama. My sister and I followed Papa a lot to get to ride in the wagon or ride on the horses to the branch to get water or to the bam to be fed after work. In the fall, after com had been cut and husked, Papa was hauling the fodder from the cornfield to where the cows were fed. He let Cleo and me ride on the load w o o d -b u rn in g s to v e s w e re u s e d f o r c o o k in g a n d h e a tin g . W e c a r rie d d rin k in g rom w a te r from a s p r in g w hich w a s a h u n d r e d y a r d s fro m th e h o u s e . ~j"”w o w a te r b u c k e ts o n a s h e lf n e a r t h e c o o k in g s to v e n e e d e d t o b e refilled s e v e ra l tim es a d a y . |n e x tre m e ly c o ld w e a th e r t h o s e w a te r b u c k e ts w o u ld f r e e z e u p d u rin g th e n ig h t, f d r e w a s n o t k e p t g o in g d u rin g th e n ig h t-tim e u n le s s th e r e w a s s ic k n e s s in t h e fam ily o r s o m e o t h e r r e a s o n t o b e u p in t h e n ig h t. VVee w e re on. Our p a r e n t s r o s e e a rly , s t a r t i n g f i r e s in th e k itc h e n s to v e a n d a n d w h en th e y c a lle d o u t, living ro o m r e a k f a s t is r e a d y ” m e a n t f o r e v e r y o n e t o g e t u p a n d c o m e t o t h e ta b le . 41 �o f fodder. He had already stopped the team when we stood up and began jumping around. I fell off and broke my right arm. The doctor was called at McDonald’s Mill, which was eight miles or so away. The doctor rode a horse to come set my arm, which was swelling by then. In the meantime, Mama had called our nearest neighbor, Mrs. Deeds, who came before the doctor got there, bringing a cigar box. Papa cut that box into strips, about an inch wide and that was used for splints bandaged on my arm after the doc­ tor and Papa pulled it back into place. Those splints stayed for six weeks until my arm healed. Oct. 11, 1920, we had another sister, Coralie. Us kids slept upstairs and that morning when we were called to breakfast, there was Mrs. Molly Lawson and Grandma was getting breakfast on the table. Papa greeted us with “just look what Mrs. Lawson brought us.” There was Mama in bed with a baby. Cousin Maude Peters came to our house and stayed until Mama was up and around. She did most o f the work, washing, etc. and Grandma did the cooking. Cleo and I were in school. Avis was just past 4 years. No boys in the family did not mean no chores for us. Just like all farm families, children learned at an early age to help, like carrying water and firewood, milking cows, feeding chickens and pigs. Grain crops, such as com and wheat, were necessary, as well as vegetable gardens. All o f which required a lot o f preparation and hard work. Com crop, for instance, was tilled for three times before maturity, the first time when it was only a few inches high. At that time, the plow would often pile the dirt so high around the plant it would be covered. By the time I was 10 years old I was following Papa and the plow, un­ covering, by hand, the little com. The second time it was plowed was the time also to thin out plants to about two feet apart, or sometimes replant. Life on the farm did not change much (nor improve) over the years when we were growing up. Here I am going to skip a few years, inserting a poem which was written by my youngest sister, Cor­ alie, after she was away from there. She was only 10 when I got married and left home, but she too had worked with our dad before she was grown. T he E nd of the R ow By Coralie D am ewood Gant I used to ride upon the horse that pulled my daddy’s plow. As my mind goes back to childhood, I can almost see him now. Out early in the morning, carefully plowing row by row, To kill the weeds and loose the soil so ears o f com would grow. As I rode upon that patient horse, The world I did survey, Cattle grazing on the hill, some lying in the shade. Butterflies go sailing by, searching for the flowers, Grasshoppers jumping in the air, I ’d watch by the hour. As the morning past, the sun grew hot, The horse just seemed to know We’d stop and rest ’neath the shade o f a tree That stood at the end o f the row. The years have flown so quickly by, Life’s sun is sinking low And I know somewhere God waits for me In the shade at the end o f the row. • 42» �Our home was just about the end o f the road, about a mile north o f the main road (Newport), only one family on the road before getting to ours. They were Joshua and Tibatha Dees. Two families lived farther on toward Brush Mountain but the road had two or three gates to go through before getting there. The little valley beyond us was called Possum Hollow. A cornfield along 785 Hwy was typical o f early times when com was cut by hand. In addition to a vegetable garden, every family had a big potato patch; potatoes and beans were the principal food staples. Any farmer who didn’t raise enough of these to feed the family all winter was called “lazy.” Not many folks had a cellar for stor­ ing potatoes or apples, but we, like many, buried them in pits. My dad would prepare two in the garden after the things had been harvested. By digging the pits, lining the in­ sides with straw before putting in the apples in one, potatoes in the other, straw was put over them, then a layer o f dirt. Boards placed overall made the “roof.” Under one board would be an opening so that we could reach in to get out potatoes, even when there was snow. To keep dried, shelled beans from getting bugs, they were heated in the oven before storing. To keep some to plant next season, they were put in jars with a rag soaked with kerosene or turpentine or mothballs (a small rag). Mama canned fruit, anything that was available — pears, peaches, apples, grapes, also pickles, cucum­ bers, beets, and made kraut and chow-chow from cabbage. We picked blackberries and dewberries, also cherries to can. If the men-folk found time, they may go to the mountain and pick huckleberries. Because o f the danger o f snakes, children were not sent there to pick huckleberries but we did go to the open fields with Mama to pick dewberries which were more plentiful. In the winter-times, we wore long, knitted underwear, which was usually put on when school be­ gan, or soon thereafter. With long, black stockings and high-top shoes, the “long-johns” were not visible. Then came the time when teen-age girls didn’t like the idea o f long underwear. Then it was bloomers that came to the knees, with elastic at the bottom. They were worn with a top undershirt or vest. In win­ ter, it was two pairs of bloomers, whites for underneath and the favorite black sateen over them. Some well-to-do and more uppish bought the knitted underwear which was knee-length. They seemed to look down on us black bloomer girls but we were the ones who could climb trees, skin a cat, play rough and tumble and were labeled “tomboy.” The long, Black Bear brand stockings stayed around for many years. 43 �Even the country general stores carried them in all sizes. Shiloh schoolhouse was on top o f the ridge in the woods. There was only cleared area close to the building itself. A road passed near the schoolhouse. Wild grapevines were numerous and seemed to climb to the tops o f big trees. We had a couple favorites, where the bigger boys at school had cut the vines near the ground. Those who were brave enough to grab on to the grapevines had a thrilling ride out over a rock cliff. Someone at the base would give the ones on the vine a shove, then catch them on the return. Luckily we never had any bad falls. We played ball sometimes at recess; girls and boys played together. The worst accidents on the playground were from our “merry-go-round,” a long plank fastened on top o f a stump by a large spike in the center. After a few had been spun off that thing, the breath knocked out o f them, the teacher made the boys take it down. It was powered by someone running and pushing it. School was never closed in those days, come rain, sleet or snow. O f course, the teacher walked there, same as the children and had to start a fire in the heater stove. The big stove had a tin jacket around it and often on rainy days that jacket would be covered with coats, sweaters and even socks to dry out before the end o f the day. The teacher boarded at the Grisso home. Also, the little man who cut the wood for the school, Jim Baugh, made his home at the Grissos’. It was in sight o f the schoolhouse but probably a mile by foot. The county school superintendent, Roland Cook, visited the school occasionally. He drove a Ford roadster. If he came during recess, he could be seen coming by the Grisso home, which gave the boys time to put a rail or something across the road, forcing him to stop. When he was leaving, some­ times the boys would hold the car from behind. Mr. Cook would just sit there smiling until they’d let him go. The county superintendent had other one-room schools in Catawba to visit also. The Starkey and Narrows on 785 and Gravel Hill, besides Shiloh. He always conducted a class while he was there. We all dreaded that and some kids were scared to death. He also prepared the seventh grade exams at the end o f the school year and was often present when they were being given. We received diplomas at finishing the seventh grade. I received one in 1925. In the mid-’20s, patrons had requested eighth grade to be added to Shiloh. The school board agreed to supply the extra teacher when the patrons agreed to build the extra room to the school. My grand-dad Garman, who owned a sawmill, saved the rough lumber for the new building. After that we had two teachers and the eighth grade until the consolidation o f the county schools in ’29-’30. U n c l e F e s t ie ’s S n o w B u st e r My Uncle Festie Damewood built a sort o f snow plow that he called a “snow buster.” It was a triangle-shaped, horse-drawn contraption, with a seat mounted near the middle. He used it after snow had fallen to make paths around the house and bam so they could get around to do the usual chores. He would also come toward our house as fences would allow, clearing a path for us. He would even run “that thing” to the schoolhouse. It was so funny looking that we got a thrill just to see him riding it, especially when it would flip over if it hit a rock or something. We’ve seen Uncle Festie take a tumble in the snow more than once and heard him holler, “Whoa Jolly.” Horses were such an important, necessary part o f living. They all had names and were known by folks in the neighborhood as part o f a family. Our horses were Tez and Trixie. My uncle Festie’s were Jack and Jolly. Our close neighbors, the Deeds, had Prince and Lightfoot. Byrd Hall had Scott and Pete and a pony, Essie, that pulled the buggy. My uncle Emmet Craft had Beaut and Charlie. An elderly cou­ ple, John and Lillie Garman, kept one horse, Maude, to work the garden. The Ross Alls family had an •44 • �old horse, George, for gardening and was also gentle for girls to ride. My grand-dad Garman had more horses than most families. There was Barney, Rocky, Billy, Dandy and Ginger, also a team o f mules, Jack and Logan. S h il o h C h u r c h As far back as I can remember, we attended Shiloh Church, traveling by buggy. After we moved in with Grandma Damewood, some o f the family, sometimes all o f us, walked across the hills to Shi­ loh. My parents had a buggy, also Grandma owned one, but only one horse was gentle enough to pull a buggy. Two grown-ups and two children could ride. Very few families owned a car. It was in the early ’20s that my dad bought the first car, a Model T Ford. It cost between $700 and $800, without any extras, only a hand tire pump and a can o f inner tube patches and glue. You could get the same car for under $1,000, with accessories such as a box o f tools mounted on the running board, a spare tire and isinglass snap-on curtains and tire chains. The en­ gine started by turning a crank. The self-starter came later. By this time, the church yard was filled with about half-and-half o f cars and horse-drawn buggies. Shiloh was built in 1858, a one-room building with a balcony or slave gallery which had its own entrance from the outside. A big wood stove sat in the center o f the room, on one side o f the aisle. Men sat on one side o f the aisle and women sat on the other. I did not know back then that Shiloh was a union church. Most o f the people who worshipped there were Methodist. On the fourth Sunday of each month the Brethren preached there, after we had Sunday School at 10 a.m. The first Methodist preacher that I can remember was L.M. Nalls, 1916 to 1921. He lived in Sa­ lem. He travelled by horse and buggy. Very often he came to the neighborhood on Saturday and stayed all night. Once, I remember he came to our house and my dad was plowing (digging) out potatoes. We were all picking them up and Rev. Nalls helped. On the fourth Sunday, the Brethren preacher usually came from the Roanoke area. When they couldn’t come, the “stand-in” came from the neighboring church, Johnsonville, which was about 5-plus miles from Shiloh. I must admit that many o f the younger folks did not enjoy hearing him. He would pace back and forth in the pulpit,-pounding his fist and wiping sweat from his face. The pulpit was two steps high and sometimes we expected him to fall, though he never did. My mama had told us o f a preacher in her younger days who did fall from that pulpit, injuring a big wart on his hand, that the blood scared the kids so bad they thought he would die. We had a few minutes intermission between Sunday School and preaching. Sometimes the young folks walked to the nearby spring or just stand around in the church yard, “secretly” hoping the substi­ tute preacher (who was most o f the time) late arriving wouldn’t come at all. At the last minute, here he comes riding a lame horse, whipping the poor thing with a switch. •45 • �p*uM t 0 o w vh ù , t 6 e c f n e d & ite c t to- cteadùf oveofuMà,’: /4 "Seat ‘TH&cuftattt tnayecty, t% 7 % by John D. Long r T ^ T"oodrum rose with the axe still in his hands ^ 1 / 1 / and again advanced upon Huff, who drew a T T derringer pistol and fired upon him, the ball taking effect in the abdomen near the navel, inflicting a mortal wound from which Woodrum after suffering great pain died in about 32 hours.. Thus reported a local newspaper 136 years ago on a notable Roanoke County tragedy, an event nearly forgotten today. It was a story o f a friendship gone horribly wrong, a tragic tale o f alcohol and gunplay and untimely death. The ugly episode involved two prominent families o f the Bent Mountain community o f Roanoke County, and perhaps reveals something in microcosm o f the rural mountain cul­ ture that existed in that day. Bent Mountain in 1878 was a tight-knit rural community built primarily on the cultivation of apple orchards. Explored and settled, according to legend, in the mid-18th century, the best known early pioneer was Col. Andrew Lewis, son o f the Revolutionary War general o f the same name. It was only after the Civil War that Bent Mountain began to develop into more than an isolated wilderness community. This transformation was due primarily to one man: Jordan Woodrum. Bom in 1822 in Mercer County (now West Virginia), Woodrum studied law and practiced as an attorney in Fincastle before coming to Salem in 1854. In his new home, Woodrum founded a newspaper, the Salem Weekly Register, and published it for three years before selling it to other parties. During the Civil War, he briefly served in the Confederate Army, but being nearly 40 and the father o f several children, he was soon sent home. Woodrum was assigned the task o f furnishing supplies to the army and overseeing the Roanoke County poorhouse. After the war, Woodrum had the visionary idea that the remote Bent Mountain area could be, with concerted effort, made a thriving orchard region. He moved there and began the laborious process John Long, executive director o f the Salem Museum, teaches history at Roanoke College and writes a column fo r the Roanoke Times. 46 �o f clearing land and planting fruit trees, especially apple trees o f the pippin variety. Later, Woodrum would relocate to the Air Point area o f the mountain and operate a second orchard. The WPA history of Roanoke County commented that Woodrum had started “the growing o f apples on Bent Mountain while his neighbors shook their head and spoke discouraging words. Like all successful pioneers, however, Woodrum soon had reason to know that imitation is the sincerest flattery.” Indeed, apple orchards, as well as other agricultural products such as cabbage and tobacco, formed the bedrock o f local economy. It was Woodrum’s eldest son, Byron, who figures most prominently in the 1878 tragedy. Bom about 1847, Byron grew into a man o f prominence in Roanoke County, involved in several business concerns in addition to his in­ volvement in the family orchards. For a while in the early 1870s he seemed to have lived in Salem, where he operated a tobacco manufactory. But by 1878, he was back on the mountain and operating another new tobacco business in partnership with a close friend, one John Huff. W h a t transpired that autumn between the two men is preserved only in an article found in the Conservative and Monitor, a short-lived Salem weekly. Only a few Roanoke County papers from the 1870s survive by happenstance, and a rare issue of the Conservative, dated September 26, 1878, is housed in the collection o f the Salem Museum, containing the account headlined “Fatal Jordan W oodrum Shooting o f a Young Man.” (C ou rte sy o f Ja ck and Before examining the fatal dispute between Byron Woodrum and his Ja c o b s’ “H istory o f friend it is worth establishing some context. Bent Mountain in 1878 was a Roanoke C ounty”) remote comer of Roanoke County, far removed from the more “urbanized” centers o f Salem and Big Lick (themselves only small towns at the time). As such, Bent Mountain would have been considered by many a different culture; a wild place astraddle the more cosmopolitan world o f the valley and the rough-edged, isolated mountain communities beyond. And as such, we may look at the unfortunate altercation as an example o f the endemic violence that historically plagued such mountain communities. The south in general and the mountain folk in particular were widely considered to be overly aggressive, a judgment shared today by many historians o f the period. For instance, John Hope Franklin commented that “violence was inextricably woven into the most fundamental aspects o f life in the south and constituted an important phase of the total experience o f the people.” Bertram Wyatt-Brown con­ cluded that interpersonal violence represented “an ethic o f honor [which] suffused the Old South.” This ethic, he said, often played itself out in the form o f the duel, but need not have done so — a sudden fight, as was the case on Bent Mountain in 1878, could also constitute the requisite “public recognition o f a man’s claim to power.” In short, a man o f the mountains would be less a man if he allowed another man an unanswered insult or challenge. Richard Davids, in his biography o f famous mountain preacher and church builder Bob Chil­ dress, describes the violence o f mountaineer culture this way: “ [Mountain people] lived at war with one another. They stilled whiskey and drank and fought and stabbed — and shot each other with Owlshead pistols. Shot only folks they knew well — their enemies, their friends, and their kinsfolk. It was said that one man would sometimes shoot another at a frolic and then dance in his victim’s blood. Curiously, a man might kill another and then feel remorse and take a gun to anyone who spoke ill o f the deceased at his funeral. If they lacked knives or guns they fought with jagged, skull-crushing rocks. Killing was a habit o f generations. To argue was womanish. A boy didn’t become a man until he came to discard words with actions.” 47 �The more remote the community, the more removed from “citified” standards o f law and order and societal expectations, the more such violent encounters might be found, it seems. Other modem scholars have justifiably argued that this stereotype o f alcohol-soaked violence fits popular notions o f “hillbilly” mountain culture more than reality. After all, the vast majority o f residents o f mountain communities would live and die in quiet anonymity with no incidents o f violence worthy o f note. But there is no denying that violent encounters were far from unknown in these places, and that one turned disastrously fatal on Bent Mountain in 1878. The origins o f this particular encounter are unknown today and were unknown at the time. The Conservative reporter recounted that on September 18, 1878, a Wednesday evening Byron Woodrum and his colleague John H uff experienced some “misunderstanding” that spiraled out o f control. The two were not known to have been antagonistic before; in fact the paper noted that “if they had ever previ­ ously disagreed it was unknown to their friends; in fact, their relations to each other during this whole period were those o f the most intimate friendship.” No one ever found out the original cause o f the argu­ ment, but the paper was quick to put the blame on one influence: alcohol. “... In an evil hour when both were under the influence o f the demon, strong drink ... the ‘destroyer o f millions’ add[ed] another victim to the long list o f the slain,” the paper melodramatically reported. At dusk an acquaintance o f both men, J.W. Shelor, chanced by H uff’s mercantile, which he oper­ ated in addition to the tobacco partnership with Woodrum. He found the two men arguing, but at first he “hardly knew whether they were quarrelling or jesting,” the paper reported. Shelor nonetheless grew concerned, for he tried to pry Woodrum out o f a situation that was beginning to appear volatile, directing him out o f the store to calm down. H uff locked the door behind them, probably thinking the confronta­ tion at an end. It was the first o f several times that the disagreement could have ended, and in fact was believed to have ended, short of fatal violence. But the intoxicated Woodrum, described as a “man o f high spirit,” would not relent, and forced him self back into the store by another door. “Come in,” stated Huff, perhaps sardonically, and the two men “grappled each other and began a scuffle.” In the mêlée, one o f the two (probably Huff, who was armed) made a threat involving firearms, whereupon the frightened Shelor left the store and called for help from a passerby, Giles Tyree. While Shelor was out o f the store for those few moments, H uff apparently struck Woodrum with a pistol, opening a gash behind his ear which bled profusely. When Shelor returned with Tyree, Huff (described as “the soberer o f the two”) requested they disarm Woodrum, who apparently was threatening H uff with a small penknife. Shelor and Tyree did so and again led Woodrum from the store. A danger­ ous situation seemed again to have been averted, thought all involved — except Woodrum, who had no intention o f letting go o f his anger. Thinking all was now well, Huff retreated to his nearby cookhouse, where an unnamed AfricanAmerican employee had prepared his dinner. As he ate, H uff was suddenly surprised by the reappear­ ance o f Woodrum, this time carrying an axe he had picked up somewhere outside. Woodrum made two drunken swings at his business partner, shouting that he’d “show you whose blood you shed” (appar­ ently a reference to the gash inflicted in the earlier altercation). H uff attempted to seize the axe, and the two fell out o f the cookhouse door as they struggled. Meanwhile, H uff’s cook had run for help. She found Shelor and Tyree still nearby, and led them back to H uff’s store. By then H uff seemed to have overpowered Woodrum, and the two neighbors ap­ parently assumed him to be the aggressor. They dragged H uff off o f Woodrum, once again thinking they had ended the scuffle. However, what they had inadvertently done was free Woodrum, the real aggressor, to renew his attack on Huff, who was now constrained by two other men. While Shelor and Tyree held Huff, Woo­ drum grabbed the axe and charged his former friend. Huff, panicking, drew a derringer pistol from his •48 • �pocket and fired, hitting Woodrum in the abdomen. It would prove a fatal wound within 32 hours. Instant remorse flooded Huff, according to the unnamed Conservative reporter. He helped to carry the wounded man back to his store, where he was laid upon a bed. Soon H uff’s parents, Robert and Mary, rushed to the scene, and offered to move Woodrum to their house. However, it was judged too dangerous to move him. Someone must have been sent to inform Jordan Woodrum, and others were sent in opposite directions to bring back a doctor. There being apparently no physician on Bent Mountain at that time, word was sent to both Dr. M.T. Greer in Floyd and Dr. Joseph Gale o f Cave Spring, hoping one would arrive in time. (Gale was one o f the founders o f Lewis-Gale Hospital.) Both doctors indeed arrived eventually to treat Woodrum, but the delays o f communication and travel in those days meant there was little the doctors could do. Huff, the report said, “was greatly affected and fell upon Woodrum, wept bitterly, and earnestly besought his forgiveness.” For his part, Woodrum, though not beforehand a “religiously inclined young man,” seemed to have experienced a deathbed conversion: “... before he died he entertained the hope that his sins were pardoned, and it is said he met death with great composure and resignation, bidding his friends to meet him in heaven.” So in the end there may have been a reconciliation between the two old friends who were briefly mortal enemies. Woodrum’s body was taken to his father’s home and he was buried there, though the location of that cemetery seems now to have been lost in the shadows o f history. While the community mourned and no doubt gossiped about the incident, there was a legal mat­ ter to consider. A man was dead, and perhaps a crime had been committed. Bent Mountain in 1878 was a long way from the county seat in Salem, and so from the more formalized machinery o f law and order found in a larger town. Therefore the duty o f investigating the incident fell to the local justice o f the peace, Joseph R. King. Confederate war hero and a descendant o f General Andrew Lewis, “Squire” King was widely respected in the mountaintop community. An able farmer, it was said that he returned home from the Civil War and “to take up the battle of life on the farm and repair what had been lost through four years’ conflict.” He served as justice o f the peace for the last 30 years o f his life, a tenure that suggests his stat­ ure on the mountain. . 49. �Acting as coroner, detective and prosecuting attorney in one, King interviewed witnesses, exam­ ined the body, and in short order summoned a jury to render his verdict: H uff had acted in self defense. There would be no arrest or prosecution, and the Woodrum family apparently would seek no retribution. This is why there are no court records to elucidate the case, and only the obscure newspaper account survives to tell the tale. The modem follower o f this old story may find this an unsatisfactory resolution. But in the context of the day, King’s verdict made perfect sense — even apparently to the deceased’s family. These young men were the product o f a culture in which violence was, to some degree, an acceptable means o f resolving disputes. That their argument turned tragically violent was distressing and undesired, but in no way out o f the ordinary. Stories akin to the sad end o f Byron Woodrum would be told many times in many different places throughout the isolated communities o f the Appalachians. The Woodrum family would remain prominent in Roanoke County for generations afterwards. A nephew o f Byron would be Clifton Woodrum, the congressman for whom Roanoke’s airport would later be named, and another generation would see Clifton “Chip” Woodrum serve in the Virginia House of Delegates. Though the details o f Byron’s untimely death would be seemingly lost over time, his name would reappear in future generations to memorialize the ill-fated young man. As for Huff, if there was any stigma attached to his actions that September night, it did not seem to have lasted long. He remained a successful businessman and farmer on the mountain the rest o f his days, living until 1917. He seemed to have never married. In a 1912 history o f Roanoke County which included a section on Bent Mountain, Huff is listed among the leading citizens. His glowing biogra­ phy attested to his stature as one o f Bent Mountain’s “most progressive farmers and fruit growers.” No mention is made o f the tragedy that claimed the life o f his friend years before, nor would we expect it to have been brought up. The same book also lists Jordan Woodrum, who had died in 1901, and justice Joseph King, who had died in 1892, as two other men who had built the community atop the mountain. If anyone whispered behind H uff’s back about the shooting, if any o f the Woodrums harbored re­ sentment toward the Huffs, if any ill-will plagued the community over the terrible incident, history does not speak o f it. Over time, the differences between a remote mountain community like Bent Mountain and a less isolated town like Salem would begin to fade. Better roads and transportation, more effective law enforcement, greater economic ties, and a unified popular culture spread by such technology as film and radio began the homogenization o f American society. Within a generation o f Byron Woodrum’s death, the people o f Bent Mountain and the peoples o f the valley were vastly less different than they had been before. Violence, o f course, did not disappear. But the culture which instinctively resorted to violence as a means o f conflict resolution developed other approaches to disagreements. Had Byron Woodrum and John H uff begun their argument a few years later, a much different outcome may have resulted. Jo h n Jackson H u ff (C o u rte sy o f Ja ck and Ja c o b s ’ “H istory o f Roanoke C ou nty”) 50 �'Z tyia t& U c Sm ittyieict¿uM t might be a stretch to say that if it weren’t for Historic Smithfield Plantation there would be no Vir­ ginia Tech. But the serendipity o f Col. William Preston choosing this comer o f the nascent Montgom­ ery County to build a family estate on the eve o f the American Revolution cannot be denied. Preston was a staunch advocate o f education, insisting that even his daughters be given schooling at a time when female education was hardly considered compulsory. Historical Society member Malcolm Bryan wrote o f Preston in the 2008 edition o f the Jo u rn a l: “There is little doubt that both the Breckin­ ridge and Preston families owe their remarkable accomplishments in subsequent generations to William Preston’s industry in obtaining a respectable library, with books obtained from both England and the larger American cities. These publications were placed in his then-backwoods plantation. This admirable collection enabled him to start a school for his children and those o f his sister, both male and female.” After Preston died in 1783, the plantation passed to his widow Susanna Smith Preston, who lived there for another 40 years, and continued his legacy o f education for the family. The es­ tate then passed to James Patton Preston, the first o f William and Susanna’s children to be bom at Smithfield, and who would go on to be governor o f the Commonwealth from 1816-1819. Upon James’ death in 1843, Smithfield went to his son William Ballard Preston, who served in the 13th Congress. The Preston and Olin Institute, a Methodist academy founded in Blacksburg in the 1850s, was named for William Ballard Preston, one o f its first trustees. When the IF YOU GO... academy fell on hard times, it was reorga­ Historic Smithfield is located adjacent to the nized in 1872 for the purpose o f forming the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, just off state’s first land-grant institution under the Duckpond Drive, and is open April through the recently enacted Morrill Act, and was re­ first week of December. named Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College, which eventually became Virginia Hours: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Tech. An additional purchase secured the Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sunday, 1-5 p.m. nearby house known as Solitude along with Closed W ednesdays 250 more acres o f land. Solitude had been Admission: the home o f Col. Robert Taylor Preston, an­ Adults $8* (*AAA members take $1 off) other one o f the original trustees o f Preston Seniors $7 (60 and over) and Olin Institute and William Ballard Pres­ Students $5 (13 through college, with I.D.) ton’s younger brother. Solitude still stands, Children $3 (5-12) overlooking the duckpond on the western Some group rates available edge o f the Virginia Tech campus, and is still used by the university. — C K http://www.smithfieldplantation.org/ I 51 �by L in d a A n gle M ille r M odem colleges like to tout their monetary contribution to the local economy. Currently, Roanoke College boasts its impact on the Valley at a little over $100,000,000. Interestingly, the 19th century was no different. From its early days, Roanoke College was cognizant o f its “advantages” for Salem and vice versa. When the Virginia Collegiate Institute, which became Roanoke College in 1853, moved to Salem, local builders benefitted greatly, erecting four brick structures and two frame buildings in the first 30 years, plus numerous nearby faculty houses. Area farmers and tradesmen supplied food, candles and oil for lighting, wood and coal for heating, and other supplies. A mid-1880s publication estimates the college’s annual contribution to the Valley’s well-being at $40,000 to $50,000, about $1.2 million in today’s dollars. But “impact” goes far beyond additional money in governmental coffers and citizens’ pockets. There is also an abstract impact that is more difficult to assess. Certainly, merely having the college in one’s town was a source o f pride and status, especially considering that a college education — even a year or two — was reserved for the very few. It said something positive about Salem and helped attract new residents and investors. In a town whose population approximated 600 in 1860, 1,600 in 1876, and reached 3,200 by 1890, it goes without saying that faculty were respected leaders o f the community. Co-founder and Virginia Collegiate Institute principal Christopher Baughman helped organize Salem’s Lutheran Church in 1852. He and, later, co-founder and president David F. Bittle pastored the church in addition to their numerous college duties. Other faculty members preached to various Lutheran congregations, sometimes doing duty at more than one church on any given Sunday. During the Civil War, President Bittle was one o f three leaders selected to surrender the town to the Yankees. In 1884, after two years o f feverish building in the newly founded city o f Roanoke, Salem es­ tablished a Citizens’ Executive Committee to promote the advantages o f its own community, largely targeting northern investors. Articulating their mission and focus at the first meeting was Roanoke’s third president, Julius Daniel Dreher, class o f 1871. Although a South Carolinian, Dreher had developed a host o f northern contacts, having spent much time there, knowing that at the time, generous donors for the college were more readily found in the north than in the south. The committee — whose executive secretary was Roanoke’s assistant professor o f ancient languages, John Crabtree ’72 (later superinten­ dent o f the Lutheran Children’s Home) — produced a 68-page booklet, touting the beauty o f Salem, celebrating nearby mineral springs (Hot, Warm, Healing, Sulphur — Red, Yellow and White — and Chalybeate), and offering free land for the establishment o f specific industries. Among the advantages o f Salem, Roanoke College figured prominently. This is adaptedfrom an article Linda Angle Miller, archivist o f Roanoke College, wrote fo r Issue Two, 2013, o/Roanoke College Magazine. 52 �Th is print o f an 1856 painting b y m athem atics professor H en ry O sborne show s the anticipated front range o f buildings o f the Roanoke College cam pus. (U se d with the perm ission o f Roanoke College Magazine,) The cultural enrichment brought by Roanoke College is immeasurable. Even the student body represented a host o f states and countries. While most were Virginians and North Carolinians, even the deep South, and, occasionally, such faraway places as Florida, Michigan, Connecticut, Louisiana and California sent their sons to Salem. Internationally, Roanoke educated students from the Choctaw and Oneida nations, Mexico, Japan, Korea, China and other countries. These students broadened the world view o f the college and the community as they learned English, attended churches and socials, gave speeches about their countries and their people, and wrote articles for The Collegian. Conversely, as alumni, they acted as cultural ambassadors for the college and the United States when they returned home. Townsfolk were invited to many college events, often held in Salem’s Town Hall. Debates, ora­ torical contests, plays, musicales and even the three- to four-day-long Commencement activities were open to guests. Consuls and ministers, governmental dignitaries and prominent speakers — religious and secular — graced the college and Salem’s parlors. One cannot ignore the impact o f the college through the eyes o f Salem’s women. Its arrival offered women more opportunities to supplement the family income, primarily by doing their normal tasks as homemakers. They cooked for the boys, took in student boarders and laundered and sewed their clothes. Some students even lived with faculty members, especially the younger prepara­ tory school boys. And, imagine the delight o f the young ladies o f Salem as year after year the town was •53 • �Roanoke C ollege today. blessed with a fine group o f husbandly prospects — and good prospects, too, as they were to become a part o f the educated leaders in their communities. No wonder college events in the Town Hall were wellattended by these young women. At one point, the faculty issued a plea in Salem’s Times-Register for the girls to stop strolling around the campus perimeter, as they were a distraction to the boys who should be focused on their studies. Although Roanoke was officially all male until 1930, some girls benefited from its hallowed halls. In 1862, local girls attended the college during two sessions, since all the college men had gone to war. Beginning in the late 1880s, the Board o f Trustees permitted a few girls each year to take the same subjects as the boys, albeit separately. Generally, these girls were daughters o f faculty, the board or prominent townsfolk. Called “special students,” they did the same work as the boys, but they were not permitted to declaim or speak in chapel, and they received a certificate, not a degree (although a B.A. was awarded retroactively in 1930). Finally, the quality and impact of a college can be seen in the stature o f its alumni. Roanoke’s influence was felt through those alumni who became leaders in education, medicine, law, finance, ag­ riculture and religion. Eleven between 1855 and 1903 became college presidents. Three — James A.B. Scherer ’90, Rufus B. Peery ’90 and Charles L. Brown ’95 — were the first Lutheran missionaries to Japan. John Lupton ’82 was co-founder o f Coca Cola Bottling Company. James Bonsack developed the cigarette rolling machine. And what would Virginia be without William A.R. Goodwin ’89, the dreamer who envisioned Colonial Williamsburg, and who, in the 1930s, convinced John D. Rockefeller to fund its development? All in all, it is incredibly impressive for a small southern college in the 19th century! •54 • �ty io v e : TH & ie tJuztt a, fc s i& U c te titta t by Clara B. Cox ong past are the days when sheep grazed on the lawn and ducks flew through the hallways o f The Grove, Virginia Tech’s presidential residence. Now the stately 1 J two-story brick house, which was completed in 1902, is more likely to host elegant dinners for visiting dignitaries, receptions honoring outstanding faculty and students, or luncheons recognizing regional economic leaders — although the occasional bird does make its way inside. The university celebrates such a gem among its buildings because o f the efforts o f John M. McBryde, its president from 1891 to 1907, who persuaded the board o f visitors in the late 1800s to build the 15,147-square-foot mansion. By that time, the forward-thinking administrator had already crafted inno­ vative plans and proceeded to change the certificate-granting, industrial-type school, known as Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College, into a degree-granting college, spurring the Virginia General As­ sembly to add “and Polytechnic Institute” to the name in 1896. McBryde and his son, also named John, developed trappings to reflect the college’s new identity, among them a seal, a motto, and a coat o f arms. The Grove became one o f those trappings, an elegant home for the president that spoke volumes about the college’s emerging status in higher education. McBryde was the first president given nearly free rein in planning the physical footprint o f Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VPI), the popular nickname for the college. During his tenure, V PI’s first native-limestone-clad, neo-Gothic-style building, known as the Chapel, was constructed on the site where Newman Library stands today. However, it was one o f McBryde’s successors, Joseph D. Egg­ leston Jr., president from 1913 to 1919, who fully embraced the neo-Gothic style o f architecture that made the visual statement that VPI was a real college. Eggleston also holds the distinction o f using sheep to “mow” the lawn o f the presidential residence. The Chapel, destroyed by fire in 1953, and The Grove are among the most impressive o f the 67 buildings constructed during McBryde’s presidency. The Grove survived an attempt to convert it into a residence hall and nearly two decades as an office building, a period when it slid into disrepair. For­ tunately, a first lady sparked the renovation that returned The Grove to its original use as the home of Virginia Tech’s presidents. Clara B. Cox, who retired in 2010 as director ofpublications at Virginia Tech, wrote this article fo r the Summer 2013 issue o f Virginia Tech Magazine. A complete history o f The Grove, and recipes served in the elegant home, is available in the award-winning book “The Grove: Recipes and History o f Virginia Tech s Presidential Residence, ” edited and written by Cox. Book sales support an endowmentfo r the university’s Employees ’Spouse and Dependent Scholarship Program. •55* �The G rove as it appeared in a 1902 photo (left), and in a contem porary photo b y Jim Stroup. Both photos are from the S pe cial Collection, U niversity Libraries, Virginia Tech. T h e G r o v e ’s E a r l y Y e a r s In 1899, McBryde suggested that the board o f visitors convert the house where he was living — Tech’s first presidents’ home, now part o f Henderson Hall — into an infirmary and build a new presiden­ tial residence. Board members concurred with his recommendations, resolving that the proposed house “be o f brick and in such plans as the president and executive committee may adopt.” They selected the Southern Colonial Revival style o f architecture for the house, whose dominant portico, according to Charles E. Brownell et al. in The Making o f Virginia Architecture, “signaled the fact that a person of importance dwelled there.” After McBryde retired in 1907, four presidents and a non-president lived in the residence, originally named the “President’s Home in the Grove,” before a major renovation commenced. One of those four, Julian A. Burruss, president from 1919 to 1945, suggested that the house be converted into a dormitory for women. Although the board o f visitors approved a motion to undertake the conversion and to erect a new executive residence, nothing came o f the board’s action, perhaps because the first female students, who matriculated that same month H S ep tem b er 1921 — either lived with their families in Blacksburg or had found housing in private homes. When the last o f those four presidents, John R. Hutcheson, became too ill in 1947 to continue in office, the board o f visitors named him chancellor, a first for the institution. In another unprecedented move, the board allowed Hutcheson to continue occupying the presidential home as his residence. He lived there for two more years, while the new president, Walter S. Newman, who had begun working at VPI in 1946, remained in housing assigned to him on Faculty Row, a street o f on-campus residences provided for faculty and administrators. The first major renovation to the house that McBryde built commenced in 1949 after Hutcheson had vacated the house. It was completed in 1951, adding two more years to Newman’s residency in the Holden House on Faculty Row. His wife, LizOtey (the spelling used by her family), played a major role in the renovation and said later that the additions o f bathrooms and closets to bedrooms were her pri­ mary achievements in remodeling the house. Newman, perhaps more than his predecessors, was aware that entertaining could benefit the col­ lege, telling the board o f visitors, “The administration has recognized the need for the college to partici• 56 • �pate to a greater extent in providing entertainment for visiting dignitaries and organizations.” The board authorized an annual expenditure o f $ 1,000 for official college entertaining, which was usually held in the presidential residence. T h e G r o v e B e c o m e s a n O f f ic e B u il d in g Following Newman’s retirement, his successor, T. Marshall Hahn Jr., lived in the president’s home for nine years before building and moving into a house off campus. When Hahn left the univer­ sity in 1974 to accept a position with Georgia-Pacific, the company’s foundation purchased the house and donated it to the Virginia Tech Foundation. Hahn’s successor, William E. Lavery, lived in the Hahn House throughout his 1975-87 administration. After Hahn moved off campus, the former presidential residence began a marked decline. Re­ modeled in 1972 to serve as an office building, the once glorious venue where presidents had feted governors, actors, and other dignitaries acquired the inauspicious name “Building 274.” In 1983, when the first office occupants had vacated the building, an administrator inspecting the space was met by a duck flying down the stairway, through the reception hall, and into a room that had originally served as the front parlor. Work began shortly thereafter to prepare the building for other offices. Meanwhile, the ever-increasing entertaining began creating problems for Peggy Lavery, wife o f President Lavery, and she successfully recommended renovating the house and returning it to its original purpose. Her husband resigned before the renovation was completed, however, making Lavery the only president since 1902 not to live in The Grove. S a v in g T h e G r o v e The $1.2 million renovation updated and restored the presidential residence, which was officially named “The Grove” during the work. The first resident after the completion o f the renovation was James D. McComas, president from 1988 to 1994. Promising that The Grove would be used as the “front door” to the university, McComas and his wife, Adele, opened the mansion to numerous guests, entertaining more than 10,000 people there during the first year alone. Two more presidents have lived in The Grove since McComas, and a major mechanical renova­ tion and extensive maintenance work were completed before the current president, Charles W. Steger Jr., and his wife, Janet, moved in. Like their predecessors, the Stegers entertain a wide variety o f guests. Thanks to their hospitality and the cordiality o f all first families who have lived in the presiden­ tial residence, The Grove has served Virginia Tech well, establishing a gracious tradition o f hospitality and standing proudly as the face o f the university. That tradition is expected to continue when a new president, Timothy D. Sands, and his family move into the historic structure after he assumes office in June 2014. •57* �*7 tm e U « te fë e y io tta C r fO tfr o n t ( ‘W o& cO tciM t, by M arshall M. Harris Ed. Note: This tim eline was developed by M arshall M. Harris, in connection with the upcoming book, “Aviation in Roanoke, ” that he co-authored with Nelson Harris. The tim eline chronicles the growth o f aviation in the Roanoke Valley and the development o f Roanoke’s airport. The chronology includes cer­ tain national events to provide context and points o f reference. M arshall M. H arris is the son o f the late M arshall L. Harris, m anager o f the airport. August 14,1901: Controversial, first manned, powered, controlled flight o f heavier-than-air craft in United States by Gustave Whitehead, Connecticut. December 17,1903: Wright Brothers’ manned, powered and controlled flight o f heavier-than-air craft j n Kitty Hawk, N.C. - most famous o f initial flights and recognized as the first o f its type in the United States. December 29,1903: Dr. A.A. Cannaday purchases 410 acres in north Roanoke County that will eventu­ ally become the site for Roanoke’s Municipal Airport. September 22,1910: Eugene Ely, a pilot for the Glenn H. Curtiss Company, flies a Curtiss aeroplane at the Great Roanoke Fair. April 6 , 1917: United States enters World War I. November 11,1918: World War I ends. 1927: Roanoke Mayor Charles D. Fox invites experts from Langley Field in Virginia to assist Roanoke in the initial development of an “aviation field.” Earlier consideration had been given to a site near the Veterans Administration Hospital, west o f Roanoke; that site was rejected. May 20-21,1927: Charles Lindbergh pilots single-engine Ryan in first recorded solo flight from New York to Paris, France (approximately 3,600 miles). ■ n Marshall M. Harris, a Roanoke College graduate and a commercial real estate agent in Roanoke, is a son o f the late Marshall L. Harris, longtime airport manager. 58 �is s r A big prop plane stopped for an event at the old W oodrum F ie ld hangar. 1928- 1930: Between 1928 and 1930, the Virginia Department o f Highways (VDH) assumed responsibil­ ity for all major roads around the new “airport.” VDH also graded the first runway at the airport. February 2,1929: Upon the recommendation o f the Federal Department o f Commerce, the City o f Roanoke leases a 136-acre site known as the Dr. A.A. Cannaday Farm in North Roanoke County for five years. The annual lease was $2,500. October 29,1929: Black Tuesday - start o f the Great Depression in the United States. 1929- 1930: Access road to the airport is built and field grading is begun. July 1» 1930: The unnamed airport is leased to Frank Reynolds and Clayton Lemon, two businessmen, who construct the first hangar (83’ x 100’). Runways evolved from grass fields to dirt. 1933: Ludington Airlines serves Roanoke on New York to Nashville route. Often, these stops were scheduled as much for fuel as for business. Ludington Airlines was purchased by Eastern Airlines and service to Roanoke was cancelled. •59 • �July 2,1934: The City o f Roanoke buys the initial 136 acres, plus additional land —a total o f about 320 acres - from the Cannaday family for $70,000. The airport becomes known as “Cannaday Field.” 1934: A year o f growing pains for the airport. American Airlines refuses airmail service to Roanoke, claiming that the airport is in poor shape. Improvements are made and American Airlines lands an inau­ gural flight for airmail service to Roanoke and Southwest Virginia. 1935: The Works Progress Administration (WPA), a New Deal agency, begins work at the airport that will continue into the 1940s. The first U.S. government weather station in Roanoke is staffed. January 10,1936: American Airlines inaugurates its passenger service in Roanoke. January 1,1937: After six years o f private operation by businessmen, the airport becomes municipally owned and operated by the City o f Roanoke. American Airlines moves flights to Lynchburg until im­ provements can be made to the runways and other facilities. The airport gets its first paved runway and the first airport manager, Robert J. “Bob” Dunahoe, is hired. 1938: Hangar #2 (66’ x 100’) is constructed o f dismantled hangars from Ft. Eustis. The original hangar was purchased from Lemon & Reynolds for a terminal building. Virginia Airmotive builds a 60 x 60 shop for its operations. 1938: Eastern Air Lines initiates service to Roanoke. From 1938 until October 1941, Eastern Airlines was the only airline serving Roanoke because American Airlines had suspended service to Roanoke. 1938: The Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) was created by the U.S. Government under the Civil Aeronautics Act. 1939: The Acorn Flying Club was established by Gene Sweeney, J. Gordon Holt, Houston Ferguson and C.C. Thomas. Their first aircraft was a Taylorcraft, purchased at a cost o f $1,650. 1940: The Roanoke area was credited with having 312 licensed pilots and 21 privately owned aircraft. Both numbers exceeded the totals for any other airport in Virginia at that time. 1940: Rep. Clifton A. Woodrum, accompanied by Col. Arthur Wilson, inspected the airport to determine its suitability for a national defense project. 1940: Roanoke’s municipal airport becomes a national defense project, thereby making it eligible for federal funds. Roanoke receives $313,315 through the Roanoke WPA headquarters for development of airport infrastructure; City o f Roanoke contributes $60,000 to the projects. March 29,1941: United States enters World War II in Europe. October 13,1941: Roanoke’s airport is officially dedicated and named Woodrum Field, in honor o f Congressman Woodrum. A crowd o f 15,000 attends the ceremony. 1941: Plans are made to provide a runway lighting system, and an administration building. • 60 • �D ecem ber 7,1941: Japan bombs American military installations in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. D ecem ber 15,1941: American Airlines restores both passenger and mail service to Roanoke, based on improvements made to the airport as a national defense project. January 8,1942: Woodrum Field begins operating under Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) rules. 1942: Bams and silos, remnants from the Cannaday farm, are removed to make room for a third runway. September 1,1942: Penn-Central Airlines initiates Army-Navy cadet pilot training in Roanoke. 1943: The first tower is built for air-traffic control. The “nose-in” hangar is constructed on the north ramp. 1943: Due to the training o f Army and Navy pilots at Woodrum Field, the total number o f official “operations” (273,624) at the airport exceeded the totals for LaGuardia (New York), Philadelphia and Washington National airports combined. 1943: Woodrum Field is the only municipally owned airport in the United States to cover operating, maintenance and capital improvement costs and show as much as a $15,000 profit. January 1,1945: Marshall L. Harris becomes manager ofW oodrum Field; Bob Dunahoe is employed by theFAA. November 15,1945: Penn-Central Airlines leaves Roanoke. May 8,1945: Germany surrenders, ending World War II in Europe. A ugust 15,1945: Japan surrenders, ending World War II in the Pacific. 1947: The first jet aircraft in Roanoke, a Lockheed F-80 piloted by Captain Charles P. Barnett, lands at Woodmm Field. 1947: The Yellow Cab Company o f Roanoke begins the Airport Limousine Service to Woodrum Field, providing transportation from homes, hotels and businesses to the airport. 1947: Night flights at Woodrum Field were initiated after marker beacons were installed on mountains around Roanoke. The initial night flight, by American Airlines, was cancelled due to bad weather. April 1,1948: Piedmont Airlines begins regular passenger service to Woodrum Field with a twin-engine Douglas DC-3. 1949: Approval granted for a new Administration/Terminal Building at Woodrum Field, estimated to cost $320,000. N ovem ber 1949: The Roy C. Kinsey Sign Company o f Roanoke lays out on a ramp at Woodrum Field • 61 • �A n historic aerial photo from the early days o f aviation in Roanoke. O ld biplanes are parked at what was then the term inal. the “star face” o f what will become the Mill Mountain Star. These pieces were assembled prior to instal­ lation o f the sign for its lighting on Thanksgiving Eve. June 1950: The United States enters the Korean War. Fall 1950: Construction by B.F. Parrott Company o f Roanoke begins on the new Administration/Terminal approved in 1949. June 10,1951: A “time capsule” (history cell) is buried at the terminal building. 1953: Roanoke City pursues State and Federal money to purchase land for extension o f Runway 23. The land being pursued is 57 acres from the Bushong family at a price o f $700 per acre. M ay 15,1953: New Administration/Terminal building completed and dedicated at Woodrum Field. Final cost: $465,170.38. July 1953: North Korea surrenders, ending the Korean War. 1954: One o f the first TYOR (omni-directional radar) stations in the eastern U.S. placed into service. • 62 • �1958: The Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) is created under The Federal Aviation Act. M ay 16,1959: Celebration is held in honor o f 30-year history for the City o f Roanoke’s Woodrum Field airport. 1959: Air travel begins to grow rapidly. Plans made to pave a 1,700-foot runway at Woodrum Field. July 1960: The 14th Annual All-Woman Transcontinental Air Race includes Roanoke as one o f its re­ quired stops. 1962: With approval from the Civil Aeronautics Board, American Airlines discontinues service to Roa­ noke. Radar is installed at Woodrum Field. 1964 (approx.): Piedmont Airlines constructs a large maintenance and service hangar for its exclusive use in the north ramp area. M arch 16,1965: A TWA Boeing 727 “Star Stream” lands in Roanoke on a training flight from New York to Florida, the first commercial jet and largest to date to land in Roanoke. N ovem ber 1966: Piedmont Airlines opens routes through Roanoke to New York. 1966: City o f Roanoke publishes long-range plans for the future o f Woodrum Field. J a n u a ry 1967: Piedmont Airlines places Boeing 727 jet aircraft into service in Roanoke. D ecem ber 1967: Runway 33 Instrument Landing System installed. Spring 1968: Piedmont Airlines places Boeing 737 jet aircraft into service at Woodrum Field. Ju n e 1970: Emery Air Freight begins freight service operation at Woodrum Field with a twin-turboprop Skytruck. 1971-1975: Multi-Regional Air Transportation Systems S tu d y ! no changes were made. M ay 1974: Marshall L. Harris retires as manager; Robert C. Poole becomes airport manager. Septem ber 1974: Dedication o f remodeled main terminal, originally opened in 1953. O ctober 1977: Runway 5 Instrument Landing System installed. M ay 1979: Celebration is held in honor o f 50-year history for City o f Roanoke’s Woodrum Field. 1983: Name change from Roanoke Municipal Airport/Woodrum Field to Roanoke Regional Airport/ Woodrum Field to reflect regional service. 1983: Noise Measurement Study at Roanoke Municipal Airport. Conclusion - airplanes and jets make noise! •63 • �1984: A busy year for Roanoke Regional Airport - a new public relations program for the airport was announced; a new carrier, Comair, initiated flights; and contracts were let for expansion o f long-term parking, among other improvements. UPS begins contracted air freight service. 1985: The Regional Airport Advisory Committee voted to endorse a proposed new terminal at the air­ port projected to cost $20,000,000. Local governments are lobbied to help support this expansion finan­ cially. 1986: The City o f Roanoke and Roanoke County agree to create a regional commission to operate the airport. The initial Commission members are: Robert Herbert (city) - Chairman; Lee Garrett (county) - f t Vice Chairman; Joel Schlanger (city) - Treasurer; Bob Johnson (county); and Kit Kiser (city). 1986: The new Airport Commission becomes very active, seeking funding for the newly planned termi­ nal and other improvements to the airport. In 1986 there were significant increases in passenger board­ ings and air cargo. July 13,1987: Ownership o f the airport is transferred to the Roanoke Regional Airport Commission. A contract is signed with J.M. Turner and Company for construction o f the new terminal. The new termi­ nal, designed by Delta Associates, Richmond, and Odell Associates, Charlotte, N.C., will encompass 96,000 gross square feet. The estimated cost to construct is $27,000,000. 1988: UPS begins jet air freight service with a Boeing 757. 1989: A search is initiated to find an executive director for the airport; Jacqueline L. Shuck is hired. Ad­ ditional airline service is sought. September 8,1989: The new terminal becomes operational with a gala opening, co-sponsored by the Commission and the Arts Council o f the Blue Ridge. The terminal opens for business on September 13, 1989. 1990: The year sees another large increase in business at the airport as new, lower air fares are offered, and shuttle service from the parking lots is added. August 2,1990, to February 28,1991: Operation Desert Storm in Kuwait and Iraq. July 1991: Robert C. Poole retires as manager; Jacqueline L. Shuck, executive director o f the Roanoke Regional Airport Commission since 1989, adds airport management to her duties. 1991: Security at Roanoke Regional Airport is tightened due to war in the Persian Gulf. Eastern Airlines leaves the Roanoke market and a new microwave landing system is tested which allows pilots to make curved approaches to landings. 1993: The “Roanoke Phantom” poses as an air traffic controller and causes significant confusion. Ar­ rested, the guilty party receives 10 years in prison. 1993: Smoking in the terminal is banned. The airport’s fire-fighting capability is increased with the �purchase o f a $250,000 Oshkosh TB1500 truck, specifically designed for fighting aircraft fires. A new air freight facility is planned, due to the increase in air freight. 1994: Planning begins for a new 100-foot-tall control tower to provide a 360-degree view o f the airport. 1994: FedEx begins air freight service to the airport, flying Boeing 727s. September 11, 2001: The airport is placed under tight security due to the hijacked airline crashes into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. 2001: Approval is granted for the new control tower. US Airways discontinues full-size jet service from Roanoke. 2002: Construction begins on the new (and current) control tower. November 24, 2004: The time capsule (history cell) buried in 1951 is excavated. Items inside were badly deteriorated and insignificant. December 2004: The new (and current) control tower is commissioned and dedicated. A new T-hangar is built. June 2005: Demolition o f the Administrative/Terminal building dedicated in 1953 is completed by Alan L. Amos Inc. o f Roanoke. July 7,2005: Roanoke Regional Airport purchases the city-owned fire station on Aviation Drive for $771,663. A new city-owned station is built on Williamson Road. 2006-2008: New hangars are built for general aviation use. 2013: A $4,100,000 renovation o f the present terminal facility is completed, the first such major reno­ vation work since the facility was dedicated in 1989. Roanoke Regional Airport receives a very favor­ able “connectivity” rating for Non-Hub Airports in the Airport Connectivity Quality Index compiled by researchers William Swelbar and Michael Wittman for Massachusetts Institute o f Technology. April 2013: Roanoke Regional Airport places its new fire and emergency services facility into use. January 1,2014: The airport is renamed Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport, aka Woodrum Field, in order to recognize the economic impact o f the Blacksburg area upon the region served by the airport. • 65 • �C oa& a t t& e * p tK c a & tC e by M ary Kegley here are several questions about the Fincastle Resolutions, dated January 20, 1775, in Fincastle (now Wythe) County, which will remain unanswered for several reasons. The most obvious one is the lack of, or incomplete, original records. In spite o f that, the significance o f the document and the 15 men associated with it, has been written about on many occasions with different interpretations. This article, however, will consider some other matters, most o f them not mentioned elsewhere. The first matter to be considered is the legal issue concerning time and place, and the second is the uniqueness o f these resolutions. T L e g a l Q u e s t i o n s o f T im e a n d P l a c e By comparing what other counties in Virginia and elsewhere did to support the Continental Con­ gress it might be concluded that Fincastle might do the same or at least something similar at this critical time. At least two legal points come to mind. First, believing that this meeting held a priority on any agenda, it would be logical that a specific date would be chosen and the notice given in advance, not only to the members who would be specifi­ cally selected to serve on the committee, but also to the other Fincastle Freeholders particularly. Looking at Westmoreland County in 1766, for example, their freeholders “assembled on due Notice, at the Court­ house o f the said County.” Augusta County in their published version indicates that “after due notice,” they proceeded with the meeting. In Pittsylvania County, it states that they were “duly summoned.” The Fincastle document did say that the land owners or freeholders o f this huge county were present and the address was “unanimously agreed to by the people o f the county.” This meeting was not a private, secretive act promoted by the military men, civic or political leaders, or the justices o f the county. This was a public document requested to be sent to the Virginia representatives at the Continen­ tal Congress in Philadelphia and was to be passed on to Williamsburg for publication when completed. There is no doubt that word spread throughout the populated areas o f the county and, as was the custom, notices were probably posted at the courthouse door, the mills, taverns, and at any other sig­ nificant public place. People traveling carried letters, the local news and schedules o f upcoming events. O f course we have no proof o f notice for the Fincastle County meeting in January 1775 and we have no record o f how many men showed up at the meeting, but common sense tells us that travel plans had to be part o f the days prior to the meeting. And they had to know what day to meet at the courthouse. For example, the men that we know were present and named to the County Committee came from a variety o f locations and because travel was by horseback, it was a long and tedious trip for every­ one, especially in winter. William Russell and Daniel Smith probably came from the Clinch River settle­ ments o f present Russell County, Evan Shelby from the present Bristol area, Rev. Charles Cummings from present Abingdon, and William Edmondson from the South Fork o f the Holston River in present Washington County, each o f them requiring at least three or four days to arrive at the courthouse. Wil­ liam Preston’s home was in present Blacksburg, easily a 65-mile trip, taking at least two to three days. Mary Kegley, Wytheville historian, hopes to publish her 60th book in 2014. • 66 • �r iN C A S X & S C O U N T Y SC A L B Ml M IU B S HIM TUCKV nii-rm M0MT60MBRY mt-nvr WASHINGTON m#-nit The courthouse fo r the vast area o f Fincastle County, extending to present W isconsin from 1772-1777, was in present W ythe County. The late J.R . H ildebrand drew the map. William Ingles was at the New River near present Radford; the Campbells (William and Arthur) o f pres­ ent Smyth County, and Stephen Trigg and William Christian o f present Pulaski County were closer but it would still take more than one day and perhaps as much as two days to reach their destination. Thomas Madison, James McGavock and John Montgomery were within an easy day’s ride to the courthouse, liv­ ing within the boundaries o f present Wythe County. The second legal point is that the custom long before the meeting o f January 20, 1775, was to meet at the Fincastle County Courthouse located at the lead mines on New River to conduct the le­ gal business of the county. Beginning in January 1773, and again in March, May, July, September and November, the justices carried out their business, each time taking two days to complete their work. In May 1774, a two-day session was held for the county with a brief session on August 2, 1774, making a total o f eight meetings in those two years. No location is mentioned in the record, but the custom was to conduct county business at the courthouse. The officers o f the Court, many o f them involved with the local militia, were preparing for their march to Point Pleasant in the summer o f 1774 and the battle there took place on October 10. No court sessions were recorded during this time in Fincastle County. The militia were said to have returned home in November. On December 6, 1774, a special called-court was held with five justices on the bench: Wil•67 • �liam Ingles, Stephen Trigg, Walter Crockett, John Montgomery and James McGavock. They heard the case o f a Negro slave belonging to William Campbell, Gent., who was charged for attempting to kill his master. The court decided he was not guilty. No other business was carried out on that day. After January 20, 1775, six additional meetings were held that year and two in 1776 before the county was dissolved. To conduct legal business, the custom was, and still is, to meet at the courthouse, not at any local tavern, and there does not appear to be any reason why the meeting o f January 20, 1775, would be held at any other location. Some counties, such as Westmoreland, Augusta, Fairfax and Pittsylvania, mentioned in their documents that they met at the courthouse. It is true that the Fincastle County record did not spe­ cifically state where the meeting was held, but none o f the earlier sessions gave a location either. The courthouse for Fincastle County was located at the lead mines, now Austinville, on land belonging to William Byrd III, and on the second day o f court in 1773, the location was criticized, there being no spring, being scarce o f timber, with very little pasture, and “entirely off the leading road.” In spite o f efforts to change the location to M cCall’s, east o f present Wytheville, the courthouse remained at this inconvenient site until the county was abolished and the new counties o f Montgomery, Washington and Kentucky were formed in 1777. It has been stated by historian Jim Glanville that Preston and Johnson suggested that the meeting on January 20, 1775, took place at Fort Chiswell (a place owned by James McGavock since the 1770s), located on the Great Road, and where there was food and drink available. It is true that McGavock’s ordinary was noted for these supplies, but it should be noted incidentally that the ordinary was separate from the fort, i f Fort Chiswell was the location for the first meeting, there is no doubt the record would be found in McGavock’s family papers, or family members would have added it to their traditions. Less­ er details o f McGavock’s life and times have been noted. Although there may have been a place to eat and drink at McGavock’s, this first meeting was a new legal matter and each o f the freeholders, justices, military men and litigants were used to meeting at the courthouse at the lead mines. It appears there is no reason to suggest any other location than the courthouse, even if the location was inconvenient. Glan­ ville seems convinced that historians, other than the ones he mentioned, are “probably wrong” about the location where this meeting took place. His evidence, and his mistake in quoting Johnson (see footnote), does not convince me. W hat no one else seems to have discovered or mentioned is that the regular meetings o f the Fincastle County Court at the lead mines continued to be held, as mentioned above, with six additional meetings in 1775 and two in 1776. Each session had justices on the bench, usually five and most o f them members mentioned in the resolutions. At these meetings cases were being heard, road surveyors and viewers were being appointed, deeds were recorded and estates were being administered. In addition, bonds were being posted for “good behavior” toward the King, indicating the beginning o f the Tory problem in Southwest Virginia. In the meantime, many o f the same gentlemen were also acting as members o f the Committee o f Safety as recorded by Richard Barksdale Harwell, for “The Committees o f Safety o f Westmoreland and Fincastle.” Their activity was recorded in March, July, October and November o f 1775, and January, February, April and June o f 1776. Their concerns were totally different than the routine activities taking place at the courthouse. The committee addressed Lord Gov. John Murray, Earl o f Dunmore, first prais­ ing and thanking him for his service, and second denouncing his removal o f the gunpowder from the magazine. In October they noted that William Christian was now in the regular army and Stephen Trigg became chairman in his place and signed the complimentary words praising Christian’s services and wishing him future success. On November 8, 1775, William Preston became chairman at the meeting held at “Mr. James McGavock’s.” On this occasion orders from the Convention asked that a census o f citizens be taken and appointments were made for the ones who were to carry out this request. On a more serious request from 68 �the president o f the Committee o f Safety, Edmund Pendleton, tons o f lead were requested and persons were designated to produce and transport the lead to eastern Virginia. Payments for prior services at Point Pleasant were considered. A few days later on November 27, also at McGavock’s, in the presence o f a dozen committeemen, Ephraim Dunlap, Gent., was appointed commissary for Fincastle County for the company of men stationed there. In 1776 there were five meetings, one in January, two in February, one in April (held at New Dublin) and one in June (held at Fort Chiswell). Fourteen members with William Preston as chairman conducted the first meeting who dealt with militia requirements and reports o f those who were “for the King.” Lead, powder and salt were also on the agenda. In the sessions following, new appointments to the militia were recorded and payments were made for transportation o f salt from Williamsburg to the frontier and for shipments o f lead to the east. Those who had an “unfriendly disposition” to the Ameri­ can cause were ordered to be apprehended, and the trial o f Jacob Kettering [Catron] was set with a total o f 30 well-armed men ordered to be in attendance. At the last meeting, James McGavock was recom­ mended as commisary for one hundred men to be raised in the county. In the law, the customs associated with particular activities were always relevant. Without notice they were often held to be illegal or invalid. And the courthouse location for an important meeting was also a custom carried out in other counties and even if not stated for Fincastle County, it could be as­ sumed to be similar to other counties. In any event, the custom was for legal business to be heard at the courthouse at the lead mines, not at any particular tavern, even if the site was more suitable to travelers. U n iq u e n e s s o f t h e R e s o l u t io n s By reading some o f the other resolutions or resolves, it became apparent that the document for Fincastle County was unique in several ways. It did not mention the Boston Tea Party, taxes without representation, banning o f imports and exports, or the Stamp Act, as some o f the others did. They made no suggestions for the fixture and there was no mention made o f independence. They did pay their re­ spects to Governor Dunmore; they did apologize for being late in providing their resolutions, explained by the fact that their leaders were actively engaged in the expedition to Point Pleasant, generally known as Dunmore’s War. Others were on the home front, dealing with supplies o f lead, flour, flints and com and the building o f forts along the western frontier. Because others in Virginia had filed their resolutions in 1774, Fincastle certainly was not the first to declare anything, their meeting being dated January 20, 1775. At the Fincastle meeting, following the choice o f the 15-man committee as stated in the resolu­ tions, there was no mention o f the men “withdrawing” to work on a draft o f their proposal as referred to in the Fort Gower documents. 7/"they in fact did withdraw to work on the draft o f the document, it is not mentioned. I f they did not withdraw, then they were fully prepared to present their resolutions at the meeting, which were “unanimously agreed to” by the “people o f the county.” Two additional major reasons indicate the uniqueness o f the Fincastle Resolutions: First, by actual count there were eight references to liberty or liberties, and second, they mentioned religion or re­ ligious rights three times. In doing so, they referenced crossing the “Atlantick,” leaving their native land “where rights and liberties were denied,” the Protestant religion and their situation in western Virginia where they or their ancestors had dealt with the “uncultivated wilderness,” many “nations o f savages,” and where they were surrounded by mountains. Only Augusta County had similar geographic difficul­ ties. Historically and legally at this time in Virginia, there was no freedom o f religion and numer­ ous non-members o f the Church o f England were punished for their beliefs. However there was an exception, and that was for the early settlers who chose land west o f the Blue Ridge. It was settled by 69• �Protestants who preferred Presbyterianism, many o f them “o f the persuasion with the Church o f Scot­ land” who had settled in Northern Ireland. In the 1730s, Governor William Gooch o f Virginia promised religious leaders o f the Pennsylvania Synod that “no interruption shall be given to any minister o f your profession.” This marked the beginning o f religious freedom for the settlers west o f the mountains. Al­ though each county was required to have a vestry representing the Church o f England, when the vestry was elected in 1746 in Augusta County, a curious result ensued. The vestry was led by James Patton o f Northern Ireland who was joined by eleven others o f a similar persuasion. Possibly only one was a member o f the Church o f England. Patton later saw to it that his nephew, William Preston, was secretary to the vestry. The gentlemen o f Fincastle made it clear in their resolutions that unless measures were taken so they could enjoy “free exercise o f religion as Protestants and our liberties” and if the “enemies attempt to dragoon us they would never surrender except at expense o f our lives.” The suggestion that they would live or die for liberty was a common theme. For example, Pitt­ sylvania County suggested that all inhabitants would defend liberties and properties at the risk o f their lives. In Augusta County they believed liberty was a “gift o f Heaven,” and suggested that they would join others to “secure and perpetuate ancient, just and legal rights” o f the colony. In Botetourt County their words were more practical, offering to give their “gun, tomahawks and lives” for the preservation o f liberty. The Fort Gower Resolves suggested that their love o f liberty outweighed every consideration “at the expense o f life and everything dear and valuable.” In Westmoreland County, as early as 1766, the committee suggested that if any attempt should be made on liberty or property they would at the “utmost risk o f our Lives and Fortunes” work to restore liberty and protect the citizens in the enjoyment o f prop­ erty. The Fincastle Resolutions may have said it best as they concluded that if an attempt was made to “reduce us to a state o f slavery,” they declared “that we are deliberately and resolutely determined never to surrender their privileges, but at the expense o f our lives.” They then added that in “these unpolished sentiments o f liberty and loyalty, and in them we are resolved to live or die.” It has been suggested that orator Patrick Henry might have picked up on these words o f “liberty or death,” from his connection to the men o f the committee o f Fincastle County. Three o f his sisters were married to three o f the men on the committee, William Campbell, William Christian and Thomas Madison. Following Campbell’s death the widow married another member, William Russell. Not only did these men have family connections but William Christian’s sister was the wife o f member Stephen Trigg. However, there is no record o f this connection being influential, and in fact the words spoken by Henry were never committed to paper and the wording o f the speech was invented more than 30 years after March 23, 1775. It was added to a book by William Wirt based on St. George Tucker’s recollec­ tions, not recorded notes. We will never know exactly what Henry said unless we want to believe that memories 30 years after the fact were accurate. It appears that liberty or death was an alternative men­ tioned by several committees in different parts o f the colony and as far back as 1766 when Westmore­ land County expressed similar beliefs. In this article the consideration o f legal questions and the uniqueness o f the Fincastle Resolutions bring attention to some unusual points rarely mentioned elsewhere in the discussion o f life and liberty on the frontier of Virginia in 1775. • 70 • �FOOTNOTES 1. Jim Glanville, “The Fincastle Resolutions,” “The Smithfield Review,” vol. xiv, 2010. Glanville lists several publications in Endnotes 1 and 2, p.108. 2. Ibid., pp. 103, 104; Richard Barksdale Harwell, “The Committees o f Safety o f Westmoreland and Fincastle.” Richmond: The Virginia State Library, pp. 27, 37 and others. 3. Ibid., p. 101. 4. For a list o f these men and their general locations at this time, see Glanville, “Resolutions,” pp. 92-94. 5. Lewis Preston Summers, “Annals o f Southwest Virginia, 1769-1800.” Abingdon: privately published, 1929, pp. 588-651 records in the 63 printed pages, those present and the business conducted. 6. Goldthwaites and Louise Phelps Kellogg, eds., “Documentary History o f Dunmore’s War.” Madison, Wisconsin: Wiscon­ sin Historical Society, 1905, pp. 342-344. 7. Summers, Annals, p. 635; 635-651. 8. Glanville, “Fincastle Resolutions,” 103,104; “Fairfax Resolutions,” Historical Society o f Fairfax County, Virginia, Inc., Vol. 11 (1971), pp. 13-19; the on-line resources refer to them as “Fairfax Resolves,” see among others, http://www.constitution.org/bcp/fairfax_res.htm, accessed July 21, 2013. 9. Summers, Annals, p. 596. 10. Glanville, “Fincastle Resolutions,” p. 95. Glanville misquoted Johnson giving page 121 o f her book as his reference. This page reveals a discussion o f the location o f the courthouse being unsuitable and not centrally located. See page 160 where she stated that they met “in their log court house at the Lead Mines on New River.” 11. The records noted in Summers, Annals, mentioned Feb. 7, March 7, May 2, June 6, August 1, and November 7. In 1776 there were two meetings, one on April 2, and the other on September 3, both designated as being held at the Courthouse. See pages 635, 639, 641, 641, 643, 645,647. 12. Harwell, The Committees, pp. 64-95. 13. Ibid., pp. 64-68. 14. Ibid., pp. 68-74. 15. Ibid., pp. 75- 95. 16. These two words are synonymous and some o f the contemporary documents use one word, some the other. The meaning is the same. 17. Glanville, “Fincastle Resolutions,” lists the Virginia counties with the dates o f their meetings. See Lists 1 and 2, pp.74-75, 77. 18. Ibid. p. 107. 19. The resolutions are available in several published sources including Glanville, “Fipcastle Resolutions,” pages 101-103; Summers, Annals, pp. 673-675; Richard Barksdale Harwell, “The Committees o f Safety o f Westmoreland and Fincastle,” pp.61-64. 20. Glanville, “Fincastle Resolutions,” pp. 104-105; 102. 21. Howard McKnight Wilson, “The Tinkling Spring Headwater o f Freedom.” Fishersville, Virginia: The Tinkling Spring and Hermitage Presbyterian Churches, 1954, pp. 43-45. 22. Wilson, Tinkling Spring, pp. 114-115; Patricia Givens Johnson, “James Patton and the Appalachian Colonists.” Verona, Virginia: McClure Printing Company, 1973, pp. 31-33. Johnson claims only four o f the twelve vestrymen were Church o f England men and the rest were Presbyterians. 23. Glanville, “Fincastle Resolutions,” pp. 103,105,106, 107-108; Harwell, Committees, pp. 100-101. 24. Ray Raphael, “Founding Myths.” New York: The New Press, 2004, pp. 147-150. 71 �‘P nofiteeci extett&crutt6 e ¿dew te & 'K a titM a i ^¿A ton ic * 7 'itui by Peggy W Crosson A study is underway for a proposed eastward expansion in Virginia o f the famous Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail, generally following U.S. Rt. 11 from Cumberland Gap through southJL \ w e s t and central Virginia to Augusta County. This is one o f 23 proposed major trail segments being studied by the National Park Service. The economic impact and popularity o f tourism led Congress to direct a National Historic Land­ marks theme study revision be conducted to identify, evaluate and make recommendations about eastern legacy historic sites and other resources in the east that were connected to Meriwether Lewis and William Clark before and after their expedition. After Congress approved funding for the study, a workshop was held at Natural Bridge in 2012 to solicit comment on preliminary study corridors for verification o f a historic route, to review the overall study area, to learn about criteria for trails and to explore possible route options. Since that public workshop, a Lewis & Clark East­ ern Legacy Trail commemorative disk from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) was in­ stalled on the grounds o f the Botetourt County courthouse, signifying the county as a Lewis & Clark community. This was the first Eastern Legacy Trail disk installed in the state. A Lewis & Clark commemorative disk honoring the expedition was placed at Monticello earlier. This disk, placed at the Botetourt C ounty Representatives o f Botetourt, Rockbridge, Augusta courthouse, was installed under the and Albemarle counties are participating in a Lewis & N ational Geodetic S u rve y o f the National Clark regional committee operating under the Mountain O ceanic and Atm ospheric Adm inistration to Valley Preservation Alliance Inc., a new regional organi­ mark a particular occasion. zation. The committee has generated a series o f Eastern Legacy Trail projects to keep the initiative alive and in the forefront o f the public. Examples o f these projects are incorporating eastern legacy trail history in middle school Standards o f Learning (SOL) in Botetourt County middle schools, installing a legacy trail disk on the grounds o f the old Rockbridge County courthouse in Lexington, planning in Augusta County to explore a partnership with the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) to document the Lewis & Clark Scots-Irish heritage in the Shenandoah Valley, and providing support and assistance to Albemarle County in efforts to open a Lewis & Clark Exploratory Center. Peggy W Crosson is chair o f the Lewis & Clark Legacy Trail Project and Regional Committee o f Mountain Valley Preservation Alliance Inc. • 72 • �The regional committee has been invited by the National Park Service to participate in the initial scoping review o f the proposed Lewis & Clark Eastern Legacy Trail Special Resource Study, a first step in the process to finalize the study for submittal to Congress by the end o f this year, subject to change. Organization o f a major national historic trail route by smaller trail segments is important for both historical and management reasons if and when the proposed Lewis & Clark trail extension is ap­ proved. The 23 major trail segments have sub-segments. One includes Botetourt, Rockbridge, Augusta and Albemarle counties. Trail routes in these sub-segments may deviate. Other major segments in the state cover historic travel corridors between Charlottesville, Richmond, Washington, D.C., and portions o f Northern Virginia, including Winchester. T r a il S t u d y I n f l u e n c e d b y E x p l o r e r s ’ D o c u m e n t s The four-county arrangement for study was influenced in large part by documentation that both explorers were connected to and traveled frequently through these counties before and after the expedi­ tion. In his William Clark Memorandum Book 1809, Clark details his travels from St. Louis to Wash­ ington, D.C., via Kentucky and Virginia, a trip that occurred after the sudden and sad death o f Meriweth­ er Lewis. Stopovers in southwest Virginia included “Tazewell C .H .... Clinch Mountain ... North Fork o f Holston ... Abbington ... Wyth ... Christiansburg and Fotheringay, and New Salem where he stayed with ‘Mr. Lewis,’ and noted ... ‘very cold, stayed all night, his children have hopping cough.’” Clark then traveled to Fincastle (Botetourt) to the home o f his new wife’s father, Col. George Hancock, a trip which he described as “21 miles, set out after early breakfast, very cold, began to snow, arrived at Col. Hancocks at dark, great joy.” He continued through Rockbridge County, staying at McConkey’s Tavern, Shields Tavern and the home o f Col. and Mrs. McDowell, then on to Greenville in Augusta County and to Albemarle County, stopping by the M ark’s residence in Ivy, home o f Meriwether Lewis’ mother. His next stop was at Monticello, home o f Thomas Jefferson, where he noted, “saw Mr. Jefferson. Invited to stay at his house all night. Spoke o f Gov. Lewis.” While Clark’s well-documented travel journal does not always specifically pinpoint the exact route he used when leaving Botetourt County for his trip to Rockbridge, Augusta and Albemarle, his very detailed notes along his travel route provide specific information in a “historic connect-the-dots” manner that significantly narrows the range o f exact paths to one or two routes for that time period. The fact is, there were multiple routes the explorers could have taken that depended on a variety o f factors at the time, such as their departure location, planned personal and business-related stops, final destination, time o f the year and weather. To single out one route to be designated an extended or continuation o f the Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail is a tedious process, requiring much research and yielding results that meet the criteria established by the National Trails System Act. T h e B o t e t o u r t C o n n e c t io n : T h e n a n d N o w The history o f both Lewis and Clark in Botetourt County involves a variety o f personal connec­ tions in addition to Clark’s marriage to Judith Hancock in 1808. In 1798, Lewis and Clark both served in the Army with William Preston Jr. (Billy) o f the historic Botetourt home “Greenfield,” and subsequently became friends. In fact, Billy pledged the required $150 security bond for the Clark/Hancock marriage license. Upon their return from the Expedition, the citizens o f Botetourt County gave the men a welcome address with Clark giving the citizens his own address in response. Other examples include Lewis’ visits and fascination with Letitia Breckinridge o f Fincastle, the Clarks’ frequent visits to Fincastle after their marriage, Clark’s second marriage after Judith’s death at age 28 to another Fincastle female, Harriet Kennerly, first cousin o f Judith, and the visit o f Nicolas • 73 • �Eastern Legacy Special Resource Study for the Potential Extension of Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail National Park Service Midwest Regional Office . Division of Planning and Special Studies 4. Roanoke, Virginia to Cumberland Gap Regional View: Preliminary Study Corridors - MULTIPLE TRAIL ROUTES ' Whita Sulphur Springs Clark Route: S«pt 21 - Doc 19,1809 A corridor roughly follow ing Interstate 81 and Route 11, then bearing w est in the vicinity o f R oute 58, com prises m uch o f the potential Lew is and Clark heritage trail in southw est Virginia. Biddle o f Philadelphia to Fincastle to help Clark write the Expedition journals. The visits o f both explorers to, from and through Botetourt County have identified a corridor that includes both Rt. 630 and Springwood Road as a possible extension o f the Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail. A second possible corridor extends from Fincastle to the Kanawha River following the historic Kanawha Trail (U.S. Rt. 60 today) through Virginia and West Virginia to the Ohio River. As a result, this study and possible outcome has inspired a strong community interest in the proposed eastern extension trail project. H ist o r y a n d B a c k g r o u n d The Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail became a reality in 1978 when Congress passed the National Parks & Recreation Act that amended the National Trails System Act o f 1968. Since then, thou­ sands o f visitors worldwide have traveled the trail wholly or partially to try and relive the experiences of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and the Corps o f Discovery. The existing trail begins in Wood River, Illinois, and extends west for approximately 3,700 miles to the Pacific Ocean in Oregon. It commemorates the determination and courage o f the diversified group o f about 30 men who spent almost three years between 1804 and 1806 exploring and studying the vast, unsettled Louisiana Territory the United States purchased from France. The popularity o f the Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail has boosted tourism and yielded a positive economic impact on many American communities along the westward trail. Studies show that • 74• �Americans alone spend approximately $525 billion in travel a year, and that between 2005 and 2011, outdoor recreation has consistently grown annually by 5 percent. It is not surprising then that in 2004, Congress directed that a National Historic Landmarks “theme study revision” be conducted to identify, evaluate, and make recommendations about Eastern Legacy historic sites and other resources that were connected to Lewis and/or Clark both before and after the Expedition in the Eastern United States. However, generating new tourism dollars in the east was not the only reason for the growing interest in continuing the Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail. About 10 years prior, author Stephen Ambrose published “Undaunted Comage,” focusing on the Expedition’s leader, Meriwether Lewis, and giving attention to his eastern heritage, as well as to the personal lives and connections o f both explor­ ers to Virginia and to other eastern states. Since then, the book continues to be popular. “Undaunted Comage” and other subsequent like publications galvanized the need for better understanding the whole framework around the two explorers’ lives, not just the Expedition itself, but their experiences and relationships before and after as well. In 2008, The National Park Service was directed by Congress to conduct a “Special Resomce Study” to assess the suitability and feasibility o f adding Eastern Legacy sites and possible route segments to the existing Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail. C r i t e r i a f o r N a t io n a l H is t o r ic T r a il D e s ig n a t io n As outlined in the National Trails System Act, a trail must meet the following three requirements to qualify as a national historic trail. (A) It must be a trail or route established by historic use and must be historically significant as a result o f that use ... A designated trail should generally accmately follow the historic route, but may deviate somewhat on occasion o f necessity to avoid difficult routing through subsequent development, or to provide some route variations offering a more pleasmable recreational experience. Such deviations shall be noted on site. (B) It must be o f national significance with respect to any o f several broad facets o f American history, such as trade and commerce, exploration, migration and settlement, or military campaigns. To qualify as nationally significant, historic use o f the trail must have had a far reaching effect on broad patterns o f American culture. Trails significant in the history o f Native Americans may be included. (C) It must have significant potential for public recreational use or histori­ cal interest based on historic interpretation and appreciation. The potential for such use is generally greater along roadless segments developed as historic trails and at historic sites associated with the trail. The presence o f recreation potential not related to historic appreciation is not sufficient justification for designation under this category. S p e c ia l R e s o u r c e S t u d y I m p l e m e n t a t io n The National Trails System Act places local communities in the driver’s seat with regard to plan­ ning, developing, maintaining, and managing national trails throughout the nation. The Special Resource Study being conducted by the National Park Service therefore encourages a partnership arrangement with local communities interested in exploring the possibility o f participating in a Lewis & Clark Na­ tional Historic Trail experience. It will assess the feasibility o f such a potential trail extension based on the potential viability o f likely partners and will engage the public and stakeholders for input regarding potential historic sites and route segments. Funding for the Special Resource Study was appropriated in 2009-2010, and soon after, the National Park Service began holding a series o f public workshops. On March 3 and 4, 2012, the Virginia Public Workshop was held at Natural Bridge. 75 �Inform ational panels about G ainsboro are now installed in the sculpture plaza on W ells A venue. U OM ce-(AC& K% *t£ c o m m u v titty ’ 'Ttecv fnz«tei& te ii by Alison Blanton and Evie Slone n February, in celebration o f Black History Month, the Gainsborough Southwest Community Organization unveiled seven interpretive panels describing the history of Gainsboro and Northeast and Northwest Roanoke at a dedication event at the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center. The panels, whose text is presented here, were installed in the Wells Avenue Plaza across from the Hotel. I In conjunction with the dedication o f the Historic Gainsborough Walk Interpretive Pan­ els, the neighborhood organization hosted a reception and a panel o f guest speakers dis­ cussing the Tuskegee Airmen from Roanoke and others from the Valley who influenced the advancement o f civil rights locally and nationally. Evie Slone and Alison Blanton o f H ill Studio in Roanoke, also with the Roanoke Valley Preservation Foun­ dation, along with Patrick Hughes, Hill Studio, retired teacher Charlene Graves and Margaret and Alice Roberts from the Gainsborough Southwest Community Organization, andformer History Museum o f West­ ern Virginia director Kent Chrisman provided research fo r the Gainsboro information panels. 76 �FROM FRONTIER TO URBAN COMMUNITY... A GAINSBORO PRELUDE Gainaborough to BigLick to Roanoke The early settlement of Roanoke started along the Big Lick, a Urge salt marsh that attracted animals and hunters to the Roanoke Valley.The earliest roads through the valley followed Native American and buffalotrails.Later,Scots-IrishandGerman settlers traveled from the north along the H H H H H GreatWagon Road, whichconnected tothe ", Carolina Road to thesouth at Big Lick, and ,,J!2E7í.홫¡«i y Z ij. continuedwest toward.theWildernessRoad w k s m«—ru*r. in far Southwest Virginia. Early settlement near the Intersection of present-day Williamson Road and Orange Avenueincludedamill, tavern,storeandpostoffice.By 1835, theTown of Gainesborough was formally chartered on 68 acres and named after Major KempGaines, who had helped develop the community. With the coming of theVirginiaand Tennessee Railroad to the valley in 1852, a depot was built about a half mile south of the Town of Gainesborough, near the current Shenandoah Avenue and Second Street. The railroad named the new community Big Lick after the nearby postal station, and Gainesborough became known as Old Lick. The name Gainesborough remained in tax records, eventually shortened to Gainsboroughand, later, Gainsboro in the 1970s. The Big Lickdepot and tracks were destroyed in the Civil War, but community rebuilt and prospered in the following years. In 1874, K jSS lffi' new town of Big lick was chartered along the railroad tracks, onesquare-mile town which incorporated the original town of Gainesborough to the north. While the area surrounding the depot | H I developed with businesses OaUfc n-n*. Sn «a * w and factories, Old Lick/ S I ZuoUfh waZ Gainesborough grew with -"fx'«au. <«>.•.*.iuab 1». w .. Ironically, the end of segregation helped hasten the loss of many longestablishedblackinstitutions.Withaccessnolongerrestricted,many African-Americans chose to live and do business in otherareas. Today, neighborhoodorganizations worktopreservethe heritageof Gainesborough and tell thestoryof thisvibrant area. Gainsboro and Henry StreetarelistedontheNational Registerof Historic Places and theVirginia Landmarks Register to honor of the significant cultural and architectural heritage of the neighborhood. F r o m F r o n t i e r t o U r b a n C o m m u n it y ... A G a in s b o r o P r e l u d e Gainesborough to Big Lick to Roanoke The early settlement of Roanoke started along the Big Lick, a large salt marsh that attracted animals and hunters to the Roanoke Valley. The earliest roads through the valley followed Native American and buffalo trails. Later, Scots-Irish and German settlers traveled from the north along the Great Wagon Road, which connected to the Carolina Road to the south at Big Lick, and continued west toward the Wilderness Road in far Southwest Virginia. Early settlement near the intersection of present-day Williamson Road and Orange Avenue included a mill, tavern, store and post office. By 1835, the Town of Gainesborough was formally chartered on 68 acres and named after Major Kemp Gaines, who had helped develop the community. With the coming of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad to the valley in 1852, a depot was built about a half mile south of the Town of Gainesborough, near the current Shenandoah Avenue and Second Street. The railroad named the new community Big Lick after the nearby postal station, and Gainesborough became known as Old Lick. The name Gainesborough remained in tax records, eventually shortened to Gainsborough and, later, Gainsboro in the 1970s. The Big Lick depot and tracks were destroyed in the Civil War, but the community rebuilt and prospered in the following years. In 1874, the new town of Big Lick was chartered along the railroad tracks, a one-square-mile town which incorporated the original town of Gainesborough to the north. While the area surrounding the depot developed with businesses and factories, Old Lick/Gainesborough grew with an influx of newly-freed blacks seeking job opportunities with the railroad. The Shenandoah Valley Railroad line arrived in 1881, and Big Lick was incorporated as Roanoke the following year, home of the new Norfolk & Western Railway headquarters. Mixed Neighborhood to African-American Community As Roanoke grew, its neighborhoods were referenced by quadrants, with Jefferson Street being the central divide between “Northeast” and “Northwest.” At the turn of the century, the area was racially, socially and economically mixed. By the 1920s, the area was a self-sufficient, prominent African-American neighborhood with many black professionals and businesses located in commercial hubs on Gainsboro Road, Henry Street, and the first block of Gilmer Avenue. Surrounded by residential development, churches, and civic establishments that extended both to the west and the east, the neighborhood was prosperous and active in social, cultural and educa­ tional crusades of the times. Many black leaders - lawyers, doctors, teachers, diplomats - made indelible marks on civil rights and the lives of African-Americans, both in Roanoke and in the nation. Impacts o f Urban Redevelopment At the end of the 1950s, there were two significant blows to the local economy: the closure of the American Viscose Plant and layoffs from the Norfolk & Western Railway. These two operations had been the top employers continued on next page • 77* �Prelude, continued of residents of Northeast and Northwest. With the neighborhood declining and urban renewal funds as a potential solution, the area was targeted for redevelopment starting in the 1950s. What followed would disrupt the fabric of the community and further displace many of its residents and businesses. Large portions of Northeast were cleared and the landscape flattened to make way for the new interstate corridor, a civic center, and large industrial parks. By the 1990s, 1,600 homes, more than 200 businesses, and 24 churches had been removed. Street realign­ ments altered the shape of the neighborhood, including the realignment of 2nd Street, Wells Avenue and Gainsboro Road. The once-vibrant African-American commercial core on Henry Street and Gainsboro Road was gone, and much of the residential neighborhood was replaced with large tracts of land offered for new development. Ironically, the end of segregation helped hasten the loss of many long-established black institutions. With access no longer restricted, many African-Americans chose to live and do business in other areas. Today, neighborhood organizations work to preserve the heritage of Gainesborough and tell the story of this vibrant area. Gainsboro and Henry Street are listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register to honor of the significant cultural and architectural heritage of the neighborhood. A O n c e - V i b r a n t A f r i c a n - A m e r i c a n C o m m u n it y Older than the new City of Roanoke developing to its south, Gainesborough (“Old Lick”) was growing as a racially-diverse neighborhood that was the center of the African-American community by the 1890s. Businesses serving the community were located on Gainsboro Road, from Gilmer Avenue north to Rutherford Avenue, and along First Street (later Henry Street) north of the railroad tracks. Doctors, lawyers, ministers, educators, indus­ trial laborers (mostly at the railroad), domestic workers, and self-employed residents lived together as a cohesive community where residents looked after one another. A Once-Vibrant African-American Community By the early 1920s, the neighborhood became a self-sustaining African-American community. Strong churches, schools, social institutions, and professional and commercial services developed to serve the growing black popula­ tion, otherwise denied services in the segregated South. Consequently, skilled black leaders emerged to become locally and nationally influ­ ential in social, civic and business affairs. From the early 1900s through the 1960s, there was a vibrant business district and various social activities for the black community on Henry Street and Gains­ boro Road. The area bustled with restaurants, hotels, and a theater; insurance companies, law offices, financial institutions, and medical offices/pharmacies; barbershops, undertakers, tailors, dry cleaners, and a shoemaker; as well as many other businesses. The weekly Roanoke Tribune was first published in 1939 from Gilmer Avenue. Ten black-owned grocery stores operated throughout the neighborhood, but there were also white-owned grocery stores, including one now restored at the comer of Gilmer Avenue and Jefferson Street. 78 �M il e s t o n e s in E d u c a t io n Milestones in ed J C A T I O N The first known school in the area for AfricanAmericans was the 1872 Old Lick Colored School, located in a modest log building on Diamond Hill, where the Civic Center now stands. Other schools for blacks included the Gainsboro School (at Gainsboro Road and Ruth­ landmarksRegister. erford Avenue) and the Gregory School operat­ ing in Northeast through the early 20th century. In 1916, the Roanoke School Board authorized the construction of the Harrison School, which opened the following year on Harrison Avenue. It was the first school in Southwest Virginia to offer a secondary education for blacks. The first known school in the area for African-Americans was the 1872 Old Lick Colored School, . located in a modest log building on Diamond Hill, where the Civic Center now stands. Other schools for blacks included the Gainsboro School (at Gainsboro Road and Rutherford Avenue) and the Gregory School operating in Northeast through the early 20th ceiitury.In 1916, the Roanoke School Board authorized the construction o f the- H arrison School, which opened the following year on Harrison Avenue. It was the first school in Southwest Virginia to oiler a secondary education for Following a petition from black the first principal of the H arrison School, which D D D 9 E 3 D leaders, the Gainsboro branch grew to become the largest black school in Virginia. ,*lc Roanoke library system Addison served on the Library Committee and was openedinl921.intheOddFellows instrumental in convincing the Roanoke Library B jS S B Q Building on Gainsboro Road; it BoardtoopcnalibrarybranchonGainsboroRoad. W m S S E m w M w IS M S was one of only four black libraries She was vice president of the Burrell Memorial jU B S S ttB in the South at the time. Twenty Hospital Association and the Sunday School years later, a new library facility s u p e r i n te n d e n t t«cyam »*(Ufii °Pened on Patton Avenue, on o f Fifth Avenue «"S-t-M**«*«v* land acquired from St. Andrew’s P r e s b y t e r i a n Catholic Church. This historic Church. In 1928, ku* n~jur library still serves the community a new high school and is listed on the National for blacks was - 9 «• Q Q n Q B S a S S f f l g n Register of Historic Places and the built and named in Virginia honor of Addison; m interchange. IE i^ p S E 5 5 S E fli Following a petition from black leaders, the Gainsboro branch of the Roanoke library system opened in 1921 in the Odd Fellows Building on Gainsboro Road; it was one of only four black libraries in the South at the time. Twenty years later, a new library facility opened on Patton Avenue, on land acquired from St. Andrew’s Catholic Church. This historic library still serves the community and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register. Lucy Addison came to Roanoke from Northern Virginia in 1887 and taught in Roanoke City Schools for forty years. She was the first principal of the Harrison School, which grew to become the largest black school in Vir­ ginia. Addison served on the Library Committee and was instrumental in convincing the Roanoke Library Board to open a library branch on Gainsboro Road. She was vice president of the Burrell Memorial Hospital Associa­ tion and the Sunday School superintendent of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. In 1928, a new high school for blacks was built and named in honor of Addison; the building still stands northwest of the 1-581 and Orange Avenue interchange. THE INFLUENCE OF CHURCHES IN GAINSBORO In addition lo religious activities, the chinches in Northeast and Northwest were instrumental in providing community leadership, >deducation, and information on public and social issues. By nine blackchurches in the area, and manymore would follow. Fourof the earliest churches arestill active in the community. The BigUckColored BaptistChurchwasestablished in 1867,developing utof Biblestudyclasses forblackresidents taught by Dr. CharlesCocke, founder of HoDins College. Later known as the First Baptist Church also served on the library committee, the Burrell Memorial Hospital Association board, and was Vice President of theNegroOrganizationSocietyof Virginia, a grassroots organization that promoted Americans during the lim Craw era. He founded, edited and published The Church News, the only blacknewspaper in Southwest Virginia at the time. In 1982, the church built a new sanctuary; the old churchwaslistedontbeNationa!RegisterofHistoric Places until Itwas destroyedbytire in 1995. SL Paul Methodist Church moved in the early 1880s to a churchon the comer of Henryand High Streets,in a building thatwas once hometo Greene Memorial Methodist Church (which had relocated to downtown).After 35 years on HenryStreet, the churchmovedtoitscurrentlocationon FifthStreet, T h e I n f l u e n c e o f C h u r c h e s in G a in s b o r o In addition to religious activities, the churches in Northeast and Northwest were instrumental in providing com­ munity leadership, childhood education, and information on public and social issues. By 1900, there were nine black churches in the area, and many more would follow. Four of the earliest churches are still active in the com­ munity. The Big Lick Colored Baptist Church was established in 1867, developing out of Bible study classes for black residents taught by Dr. Charles Cocke, founder of Hollins College. Later known as the First Baptist Church (Colcontinued on next page • 79 �Churches, continued ored), the congregation bought a lot and built a new structure in 1898. The Roanoke Times reported that the new building “impresses the visitor as being the handsomest colored church in the city.” One of the longest-serving ministers of the church was Reverend A.L. James. Pastor for over thirty years, James also served on the library committee, the Burrell Memorial Hospital Assocation Board, and was Vice President of the Negro Oganization Society of Virginia, a grassroots organization that promoted community self-improvement for African-Americans during the Jim Crow era. He founded, edited and published The Church News, the only black newspaper in South­ west Virginia at the time. In 1982, the church built a new sanctuary; the old church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places until it was destroyed by fire in 1995. St. Paul Methodist Church moved in the early 1880s to a church on the comer of Henry and High Streets, in a building that was once home to Greene Memorial Methodist Church (which had relocated to downtown). After 35 years on Henry Street, the church moved to its current location on Fifth Street, in the former St. James Method­ ist Episcopal Church. The entire congregation celebrated the move in a procession from the old church to their new one. Like many church ministers of the day, St. Paul’s Reverend D.W. Harth served in many capacities, including as prin­ cipal of the Gainsboro School and as a practicing attorney. The original Fifth Avenue Pres­ byterian Church (constructed in 1898) featured a stained-glass window dedicated to Confederate General Stonewall Jackson. The window was designed in 1906 by Reverend Lylbum Downing, the church pastor; it honors Jackson’s legacy of teaching Sunday school to blacks, including Downing’s parents, in Lexington, Virginia. When the original church burned Fifth A ven ue P resbyterian Church today in the 1950s, the congregation built a new church at the same location (Patton Avenue, which was formerly Fifth Avenue). The window was salvaged from the burned structure and is the centerpiece of the new sanctuary. Reverend Downing served as the pastor of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church for over forty years, until his death in 1937. He was a probation officer, supervisor of a home for delin­ quent youths, served on the Library Committee and was a member of various social organizations. For twenty years, he was the only black member of the Roanoke Republican Committee. Park Street Baptist was established in 1892 by five members who met in a building on Park Street (now Fifth Street). Four years later, the congregation built a new structure at the comer of McDowell and Peach Road, and changed the name of the church to Hill Street Baptist. The church was remodeled and expanded in the mid-1900s, but was later demolished during urban renewal efforts of the 1970s. In 1980, the congregation built a new church in the neighborhood on Madison Avenue, where they continue to worship. • 80• �H e a l t h C a r e a n d M e d ic in e Segregation in the early 20th century kept black doctors and nurses from working in the white hospitals of Roa­ noke, and black citizens were denied treatment in these facilities. By 1914, a committee of doctors led by Isaac Burrell and including J.B. Claytor Sr., J.S. Cooper, S.F. Williman, L.C. Downing, and J.H. Roberts was working to establish a hospital to serve the region’s black residents. Later that year, Dr. Burrell became gravely ill, but was denied medical service in Roanoke’s white hospital. Burrell had to travel to Washington, DC, for treatment; he made the trip on a cot in the baggage car of a train, but died following surgery. The remaining group of doc­ tors purchased a building at 311 Henry Street and renovated it to meet hospital standards. Named in memory of their colleague, Burrell Memorial Hospital opened in 1915, with ten beds and modem equipment in a minor and major operating room. Soon outgrowing the building, Burrell Hospital relocated to the for­ mer Allegheny Institute on McDowell Avenue in 1921. A new four-story facility was built in the 1950s; the building remains, but no longer serves as a hospital. H ealth Care and Medicine Segregation in the early 20th century kept black doctors and nurses from working in the w hite hospitals of Roanoke, and black citizens were denied treatm ent in these facilities. By 1914, a committee o f doctors led by Isaac Burrell and including J.B. Claytor Sr., J.S. Cooper, S.F. Williman, LC. Downing, and J.H. Roberts was working toestablishahospitaltoservetheregion's black residents. Later that year, Dr. Burrell became gravely ill, but was denied medical service in Roanoke’s white hospital. Burrell had to travel to Washington, DC, for treatmen t; he made the trip oh à cot ili thè baggage car of a train, but died following surgery. The n*fim remaining group o f doctors purchased (ur) 01 a building at 311 Henry Street and renovated it to meet hospital standards, inti* is Named in memory probation officer and helped organize the Magic o f their colleague, City Building and Loan Association, the first black Burrell Memorial savings institution in the area. Hospital opened in I n 1907, Dr. John B. Claytor Sr. established his 1915, with ten beds and medical practice on Gainsboro Road. He modem equipment in ^influenced medical care and community life in a minor and major Roanoke for overforty years. In 1947, he and operating room. Soon built the Claytor Memorial Clinic outgrowing the building honor of his deceased wife, Roberta, who Burrell Hospital relocated ¡ w - ** “ wanted her . to the former Allegheny " is?.»husband ’ Institute on McDowell sons to practice Avenue in 1921. A new four-story facility - together. The was buiit in the 1950s; the building Clinic was one of remains, but no longer serves as a the earliest, hospital. practices i In 1913, the first black dentist in Roanoke, Dr. Edward R. Dudley, located his office on Gilmer Avenue. His talents re not limited to dentistry. He served as city.Thel still stands, but oft damaged by ~ fire in 1995. In 1913, the first black dentist in Roanoke, Dr. Edward R. Dudley, located his office on Gilmer Avenue. His talents were not limited to dentistry. He served as a probation officer and helped organize the Magic City Building and Loan Association, the first black savings institution in the area. In 1907, Dr. John B. Claytor Sr. established his medical practice on Gainsboro Road. He influenced medical care and community life in Roanoke for over forty years. In 1947, he and his family built the Claytor Memorial Clinic in honor of his deceased wife, Roberta, who wanted her husband and sons to practice together. The Clinic was one of the earliest group practices in the city. The building still stands, but was damaged by fire in 1995. S o c ia l a n d C u l t u r a l L if e Social organizations and activities unified the community and boosted black leaders’ influence. The Roanoke Chapter of the NAACP was founded in 1916. Other organizations included the Freemasons, the Association of Colored Railway Trainmen and Locomotive Firemen (and its Ladies Auxiliary), Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, the Magic City Medical Society, and the Magic City Literary and Political Club. Women were also active, forming the Magic City Business Club in 1937, and establishing garden clubs dedicated to improving private properties, civic grounds, and public streets. In addition, there were branches of the YMCA and YWCA on Wells Avenue. Henry Street developed as the entertainment hub from 1900 to 1960. A central gathering place was the Strand Theatre. Built in 1923 as a cinema and small performance venue, it was later the Lincoln Theater, then the Ebony Club. Major black performers of the era, including Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Fats Waller, Ethel Waters, Cab Calloway, Lionel Hampton, Fats Domino, Dizzy Gillespie and the Harlem Globetrotters, gave their shows in the City’s bigger segregated venues (such as the Star City Auditorium, Hotel Roanoke, and the American Legion Auditorium), but were excluded from staying in whites-only lodging. This brought them back to Henry Street continued on next page •81 �So c ia l a n d C ultu ra l Life Social organizations and activities unified the community and boosted black leaders* influence. The Roanoke Chapter of the NAACP was founded in 1916. Other organizations included the Freemasons, the Association of Colored Railway Trainmen and Locomotive Firemen (and its Ladies Auxiliary), Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, the Magic City Medical Society, and the Magic City Literary and Political Club. Women were also active, forming the Magic City Business Club in 1937, and establishing garden clubs dedicated to improving private properties, civic grounds, and public streets. In addition, there I were branches of the YMCA and YWCA on Wells Avenue. T he black chapter o f the E lks o f the World, at their lodge < Wells A venue, circa 1930. Henry Street developed the entertainment 1 hub from 1900 to 1960. A central gathering place was the Strand Theatre. Built in 1923 as a cinema and small performance venue, it was later the Lincoln Theater, then the Ebony Club. Major black performers of the era, including Duke Ellington, rhe Lincoln Theater in t h e l m o ? Count Basie, Fats Waller, Ethel Waters, Cab Calloway, Lionel Hampton, Fats Domino, Dizzy Gillespie and the Harlem Globetrotters, gave their shows in the City’s bigger segregated venues (such as the Star City Auditorium, Hotel Roanoke, “The Ebony Club htul a greut tleul o f entertainment going on during the late 5 0 ’s u n d early 60’s. D uring those days there icus no a ir conditioning, ju st big floor fa n s to cool the building down. The side doors teere u ho whore you could f in d me a nd m v friends. We had no m oneyto buy a ticket, so w e made our w ay to the side door a nd watched theshotv. Sometimes a doorm an would run ns away, but we would always come back. The people inside would be dancing a nd w iping sweat. You could feel the heat coming through the open door. B ut no one p a id the heal no m ind. The m usic was good, the drinks were great, a nd the party was liiie; seemed like they danced all n ight." David Ramey, Sr., recidihighis memories of the Ebony ('.lub ns a child. From llic..T-imcfiJind life on IIn tiy Street and the American Legion Auditorium), but were excluded from staying in whites-only lodging. This brought them back to Henry Street hotels. Band members frequently held D u ke E llington at jam sessions and parties the D um as H otel in the 1950s after hours, often with residents in attendance. Oscar Micheaux, one of the nation’s first AfricanAmerican film producers and distributors, established a corporate office and the Congo Film Company in the Strand Theatre in the 1920s. He produced at least six films from this location. His 1921 movie, The House Behind the Cedars, featured local actors and scenes in the neighborhood, including a garden party shot in the 400 block of Gilmer Avenue. Unfortunately, no print of the film survives. A marker on Henry Street highlights the Strand Theatre and the work of Oscar Micheaux. Social, continued hotels. Band members frequently held jam sessions and parties after hours, often with residents in attendance. Os­ car Micheaux, one of the nation’s first African-American film producers and distributors, established a corporate office and the Congo Film Company in the Strand Theatre in the 1920s. He produced at least six films from this location. His 1921 movie, “The House Behind the Cedars,” featured local actors and scenes in the neighborhood, including a garden party shot in the 400 block of Gilmer Avenue. Unfortunately, no print of the film survives. A marker on Henry Street highlights the Strand Theatre and the work of Oscar Micheaux. C i v i l R i g h t s T r a il b l a z e r s Some of the most significant contributions made by Northeast and Northwest residents were in the advancement of civil rights. A J. Oliver was a 19th century pioneer in law and the first black attorney in Roanoke. Bom during the Civil War, he began his legal career in West Virginia as one of the first black attorneys in the state, passing the bar in 1887. After relocating to Roanoke in 1889, he quickly established himself as a community leader, often preaching at St. Paul Methodist Church and joining the Freemasons and Odd Fellows. Oliver spent his life advancing civil rights in Virginia. In 1900, he was a delegate to the Virginia Conference of Colored Men Convention in Charlottesville that met to petition the white men of the state for racial equality and justice, especially in education. Two years later, he led a group of black Roanoke citizens objecting to the school board’s use of only white teachers in black schools. Bom in 1901 and raised in Northeast Roanoke, Belford Lawson Jr. was a key national civil rights attorney. As a lawyer in Washington, D.C., he cofounded the New Negro Alliance, which actively challenged discrimination by organizing protests against retail stores to demand employment for black workers. In the 1938 case New Negro Alliance v. Sanitary Grocery Company, Lawson became the first African-American to argue and win a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, securing the right of the Alliance to picket. He later served on the defense team in a second Supreme Court case, Henderson v. Southern Railway Company, which successfully challenged discrimi­ natory seating policies. In his later life, Lawson served on the NAACP Executive Board and as General President •82 �Trailblazers, continued of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. He was also the first black man to address the Democratic National Convention in 1956. Attorney Reuben Lawson was a decisive legal figure in Virginia’s civil rights landscape. He argued the case Ingram v. Virginia in 1946, which addressed the exclusion of blacks as jurors in state cases. He served as an at­ torney for the NAACP, arguing several school desegregation cases in Southwest Virginia in the 1950s and 1960s. He built the Lawson Law Building, which remains on Gilmer Avenue. Oliver White Hill was a civil rights lawyer who grew up in the house at 401 Gilmer Avenue, which still stands. During his legal career he fought the “separate but equal” policies of the segregated South and argued more than 75 segregation cases in the State of Virginia. In the 1940s, his legal accomplishments included successful court cases ordering equal pay for teachers. In 1954, he served as the trial lawyer for Davis v. Prince Edward County School Board, one of five U.S. Supreme Court cases included in Brown v. Board of Education, ending segrega­ tion in public schools. He also represented Rufus Edwards, a Gilmer neighbor, in a Supreme Court case that required white union officials to represent black union members as part of their bargaining unit. He was active in civil rights as an attorney until his death at 100 years of age. C iv il r ig h t s t ra ilbla zer s Edward R. Dudley was the son of Roanoke’s first black dentist and grew up at 405 Gilmer Avenue. After achieving his law degree in 1941, he served as assistant Attorney General in New York. In 1943, he joined the legal staff of the NAACP fighting for blacks to be admitted to Southern universities, equal pay for black teachers, and an end to discrimination in public transportation. In 1948, President Truman appointed him as America’s first black ambassador, to the country of Liberia. Later, he was a justice on the Domestic Relations Court for New York City, president of the Manhattan Borough, and a member of the New York City Council, before becoming a justice on the New York State Supreme Court. The neighborhood also produced four pilots of the “Tuskegee Airmen,” a distinguished group of black airmen during World War II. Before the 1940s, black service members were banned from skilled training and service as pilots. Civil rights groups and the black press pushed for changes, leading to the War Department training a select group of nearly 1,000 black men at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama. The men joined four all-black squadrons, becoming the first African-Americans to fly combat aircraft. During the War, the Tuskegee Airmen, also known as the “Red Tails,” achieved one of the lowest loss records in escorting bombers and won more than 850 medals. LeRoi Williams, his brother Eugene Williams, Ralph Claytor and Theodore Wilson were pilots with the Tuskegee Airmen, proving themselves to be as skilled and brave as their white counterparts. Though the Air­ men proved their worth as military pilots, they were still forced to operate in segregated units and did not fight alongside their white countrymen. 83 �'ityetfe eta, fm eaenue,¿¿atony Dear Friends of History, Here is another cornucopia of local and regional history in the form of Volume 21, No. 1, of our annual Society Journal. Here you read about men and women and the events in their lives through more than two centuries in western Virginia. You read recollections of early times on Roanoke’s city market, the work and play of a Catawba Valley farm family during Depression years, trends in architectural history, the interest­ ing railroad career of A1 Holland, the location of the 1775 Fincastle Resolutions, the passion of Lyman Draper for collecting early, valuable manuscripts, a Salem maker of modernist furniture, a sad shooting on Bent Mountain, and a new program to mark the Virginia travels of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. These diverse articles are placed on your reading desk by the Historical Society, as well as providing fascinating exhibits, lectures, school projects, collections, publication of regional histories, our virtual library and history tours, made possible through the work of many people — volunteers and staff. They require time and money. A new book, “Cotton to Silk,” preserv­ ing the oral history of black Norfolk and Western Railway employees who worked their way up from the bottom, will be published with the help of a foundation grant this spring. This Journal appears through the generosity of one donor. Corporate or individual spon­ sors are welcomed; in fact they are essential, to continue offering quality articles on the rich his­ tory we are trying to preserve for our members, their children and future generations, as well as the public. Please consider contributing to the Kegley Publication Fund, honoring my uncle who wrote a frontier history, to sponsor a Journal. Thank you. George Kegley, Editor Journal o f the Historical Society of Western Virginia •84 • �'i^tato'U cai S o ciety o£ “TVeeteut ‘V inyittia Y E S , I want to support the Society’s Kegley Publication Fund with the following gift: ___ $50 ___ $100 ___ $250 ___ $500 Other: $ _____________________ Name _____________________________________________________________________________________ (as to be listed in print) Address___________________________________________________________________________________ Phone/Email______________ ______________________________________________________________ _ I will fulfill my/our gift with: ___ An enclosed check (make payable to Historical Society of Western Virginia) ___ A credit card payment Card Number_______________________________________________________________________________ Exp. Date_____________________________________ Signature____________________________________________________________________________ _ _ _ _ Additional Items: __My/our employer will match my gift (please provide paperwork to process) _ I would like my/our gift to be recognized as a memorial or tribute to a loved one as noted here: (as to be listed in print) Please remove this page and send, along with donation, to: Historical Society of W estern Virginia P.O. Box 1904 Roanoke, VA 24008 tfo tc ¿ W t C fO U K M fr fU V tt! ���PUBLICATIONS ISBN: 978-0-9816251-6-4 $10:00 0-9816zt>i -t>-9 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia 2013 Volume 21, Number 1 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include:<br />Two Roads Diverged: Architectural History and Historic Preservation in the 21st Century<br />Cotton to Silk: An Oral History<br />How Lyman Draper Saved History<br />Down on the Market<br />Furniture and Aviation History Reside in Fogotten Facility on Kessler Mill Road<br />From Angry Words: A Bent Mountain Tragedy<br />Roanoke College and Its Advantages for Salem<br />The Grove: More than a Presidential Residence<br />Timeline of Roanoke Regional Airport<br />Another Look at the Fincastle Resolutions<br />Proposed Extension of the National Lewis and Clark Historic Trail<br />A Once Vibrant Communty: New Panels Tell of Gainsboro History Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_21_01_2013 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6371/JHSWV_21_02_2014.pdf 2ffcdb0c1beb83388dba55beb4346007 PDF Text Text ^¥¿atonic<zt S o c ie ty o¿ ‘W ect& ia *l/ùifci*ia. ¡|g ¡ U 2 Î 20 í 4 T U . 2 �'t^ictonicai S o ciety o£ ‘W ectenti *l/inyc*Uet, Amor montium nos movet (For the love o f mountains inspires us) Natalie Norris.................... . Acting President, Vice President Tommy Moore ..................... .............. .............Secretary Jerry Bradley, CPA.................................. Treasurer Director of Administration ..... . SW W Alison Stone Blanton John P. Bradshaw Ben Chapman Wilburn “Will” Dibling Jr. Helen S. Franks Sara S. Airheart George A. Kegley Edgar V. Wheeler Editor o f the Journal Christina Koomen Production, Editorial Assistant 'D inectow , Gordon Hamilton Rev. Nelson Harris Scott Hengerer William E. “Bill” Honeycutt Jim Humphrey ^tnectonà, S m e ttiti George Kegley Kim Clyrner Dr. Norma Jean Peters Charles Price F. Anderson Stone Katherine Watts ‘T ftem tniam Barbara Lemon David Helmer The Journal, Vol. XXI, No. 2, chronicles the history Of the Commonwealth west o f the Blue Ridge. It is published by the Historical Society o f Western Virginia (formerly the Roanoke Historical Society), P. O. Box 1904, Roanoke, Va. 24008. The price for additional copies is $5 for members and $10 fbr others. The Society Welcomes unsolicited ma­ terial but submissions cannot be returned and the. Society cannot be responsible for damage or loss. 8 �These four coin silver spoons made by John Welch (ca. 1790-1827) o f Fincastle, a Great Road artisan o f the early 19th century, were acquired with funds provided by the Roanoke Committee of the National Society of the Colonial Dames o f America in the Commonwealth o f Virginia. They are in the Fiddle pattern, with shoulders. The monogram appears to be l/VSC. Coin silver means the alloy is set at the same standard as that used for minting dollar coins in the United States at the time, 900 parts silver per 1,000, or 90 percent pure silver. The History Museum is delighted to have such a fine example o f locally made silver, and expresses its gratitude to the Colonial Dames for their donation. jp f fi. 4 Growing Up in Roanoke in the 1920s to 1930s • by Helen Fitzpatrick fi. 4 4 The Jacob Persinger Family in “Backcountry Virginia” • by Walter Dixon fi. 9 O. Winston Link’s 100th Birthday Party fi. 5 4 Living on the Edge of the Blue Ridge Parkway • by Peter Givens fi. 70 Bedford Barns • by Dan Pezzoni 5 2 Rebuilding Mabry Mill, a Southern Appalachian Icon • by Jack Betts fi. 22 Frances Benjamin Johnston, Renowned Photographer, and the George Trout Farm in NW Roanoke • by Mike Pulice fi. 2 2 Runaway Slaves: Mindset of Negroes, 1861-1865 • by Matthew Woods fi. 3 6 Many Presidents have visited Roanoke Valley • by Sandra Brown Kelly fi. 4 2 Michelle Obama has Henry County Slavery Roots fi. 64 The American Chestnut Trade in the Blue Ridge of Southwestern Virginia • by Ralph H. Lutts fi. 69 Charles Schaeffer: Freedmen’s Rights, Education,Worship in Christians­ burg and Southwest Virginia, 1866-1899 • by Dr. John Kern fi. 77 Help Us Preserve Our History On the cover: Carter family cabin ca.1908, built by Christopher Persinger ca. 1773. See Walter Dixon’s “The Jacob Persinger Family in ‘Backcounty Virginia.’” 3 �ty u w v íu c y u fe c u fé & a u o & e c u t& e 1920*1 U f9 3 0 ¿ by Helen Fitzpatrick little Boy Scout was reporting on his good deed for the day. He said, “I helped an old lady across the street but it was very hard.” The scoutmaster queried, “Why was it so hard?” The little Scout answered, “She didn’t want to go.” I really didn’t want to come down here to the History Museum today but when George Kegley called, I knew I had to, because he has done so much for this museum and for our community, so here I am and there you are. I hope you don’t stop listening before I stop talking. I was bom in 1923 in the old Lewis-Gale hospital, now a park­ ing lot next to the studio o f WSLS-TV. My home was in Northwest in a suburb called Grove Park. This area was developed by Elmore D. Heins, a German who with another German, Heini Scholz, owned all the theaters in town, a very lucrative business. His home is now The Hermitage, a Methodist retirement home. It was really in the country then and we were surrounded by alfalfa fields. A man we called Bubba came from Fincastle to mow the fields now and then. The following day he would return to rake them and next he would arrive with pitchforks and a friend to make the hay into hay­ stacks. We were crazy about Bubba because he would let us ride on his horse for a few minutes each day. The haystacks delighted us too, because they smelled so good and we almost mined them, playing hide and seek and “old dead mule.” One special memory I have is o f afternoon naps. On certain days, Helen Fitzpatrick I would be on my bed and I would hear a horse clippity-clopping up the street (our streets were asphalted by then). I knew who it was and rushed downstairs and out the door to greet Liz Parrott, who was a good friend o f M other’s and who came to visit her often. She would swing me up onto the saddle and ride me around the block. Then she returned, dismounted and came in to have tea and a visit with Mama. Liz had ridden from her father’s farm, which is now the Veterans Administration Hospital. Mr. Parrott’s home is the present administrator’s home. We walked to school each day, came home for lunch and went back the five blocks to Forest Park School. Bev [her late husband, Judge Beverly Fitzpatrick Sr.] carried my books to school most morn­ ings. We didn’t have book bags then but what made Buddy [brother Broaddus Jr.] and me feel special was that Daddy made us a new pencil box each Christmas and that was so much more than many o f our friends received. There was only cursive writing in school. We were rehearsed in the Locker Writing System and we had no idea how to print. A Helen Fitzpatrick, matriarch o f an active Roanoke family, gave this reminiscence in the First Thursday series o f the Historical Society o f Western Virginia on May 1, 2014. •4 • �Jarrett-Chewning Company was a dealer o f Studebaker automobiles and White motor trucks. Broaddus Chewning (the author’s father) is in the center, leaning against the automo­ bile and wearing a straw hat. The favorite games in Grove Park were played on the street, because there was little traffic. Almost everyone had skates or scooters and we played tag and a hockey o f sorts. The boys used broom­ sticks and the hockey puck was a tin can. Those cans were the size o f golf balls and solid as a rock when the games ended. Another form o f entertainment was for us to attend Sunday school and church, twice on Sun­ day and again on Wednesday nights. Only six denominations were prevalent in Roanoke then: Baptist, Catholic, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Methodist and Lutheran. If there were fundamental groups, we were not aware o f them. We attended strange things like Walkathons and the Billy Sunday meetings at the American Legion Hall. I can remember gathering around our first radio as a family to listen to Amos and Andy, with lots o f static in the background. We went to Saturday movies (the Rialto, the Roanoke, the Jefferson and the American theaters) and there was a Safety Club meeting each Saturday at the newly opened Grandin Theatre, attended by a huge crowd o f children from all over town. To get into a movie, you had to have 10 cents, a nickel for a candy bar and you had it made. The Judge [the late Beverly Fitzpatrick Sr.] remembered belonging to a Scout troop at Greene Memorial Methodist Church. When he left home, his mama gave him 15 cents: 5 for the bus and 10 for a hot dog and Coke at the Texas Tavern after the troop meeting. I don’t know how he got home! Air conditioning was unknown in those days and so was automatic heating. Daddy used to get up in the morning before the rest of us to stoke the furnace and build a fire in the little water heater that gave us warm water for our baths. There were no washing machines, no dryers or dishwashers. We had no refrigerators but we did have an ice box. The ice man came once or twice a week to put a big hunk of ice into the left side o f it and the food went on the right. My brother and I used to chip pieces off o f the hunk to hold in our mouths and it was a treat. There were no grocery stores near us, no national food chains as there are now. The nearest store was about 3 miles away, down Melrose Avenue, called Carter’s Grocery Store. Mother would call in •5 • �her order (no dial phones yet) and a grand old black man named Louis would bring the food to the back door, place it on the kitchen table and leave. There were no locked doors at that time and we never took a key out o f a car when we parked it. To augment that, a produce truck would drive by often and wives would come out o f the houses to select vegetables and fruits, which were weighed on a swinging scale at the back o f the truck. A milk­ man came twice a week, bringing milk, cream, cottage cheese and butter. Our dairy was Garst Brothers. Our favorite trucks, however, were the ice cream ones. The driver would ring bells and I seem to recall that he had a little song he played on an amplifier so we would be sure not to miss him. All the kids would rush out o f their homes with small change to purchase a popsicle. That was special! Street cars were the main mode o f transpor­ tation. One ran at the foot o f our hill and proceeded to Salem, I think. They ran all over Roanoke, and when we moved to South Roanoke in 19501 re­ member one coming up Jefferson Street to 26th, then over to Rosalind Avenue, right on 27th, crossed Wycliffe, left on 26th and back to Jefferson to return downtown. Conductors had to reverse the seats at the end o f each run. The seats were wicker, with brass handles on top. If you were headed for Salem, you’d be facing that way. When you went back to Roanoke, you would face in that direction. I always sympathized with those conductors. The boys used to delight in putting pennies on the trolley rails. A flat penny was like a trophy. They also bedeviled the conductor by disengaging the electric pole. The poor man would have to leave the car to put the pole back on the wire again. By this time, the boys had disappeared, o f course. Helen Sheahan Chewning (the author’s mother), During the Depression, many hobos used in period costume, riding on a float in a parade in to come to the house, asking for food. Shaffer’s Roanoke, circa 1925. Crossing was fairly close to us and we figured they had come to Roanoke on trains, looking for a job. Mother never turned one away. I also recall Daddy checking on us, as we did our homework. “Keep your lights on when you need them,” he would say, “but cut them off as soon as you are finished study­ ing. People don’t buy cars during Depressions,” he would explain. Downtown was so different then. You could walk down Campbell Avenue and Jefferson Street and speak to everyone you met by name. There were several “ 10-cent stores”: Woolworth’s, Kress, Grant’s and McClellan’s. They were full o f cosmetics, jewelry and ceramics, plus about anything else that anyone might want. Most o f the articles were made in Japan, not China. We had some fine department stores. McBain’s, Heironimus, Pugh’s and Thurman & Boone were the largest. They carried quality merchandise. When you made a purchase they wrote it on a pad, folded the paper and put it in a canister. This, they inserted in a pneumatic tube which whisked it through many pipes to the upstairs offices. You could hear those tubes rattling back down to the clerk’s desk. It was fascinating. No ladies went to town (or to church) without wearing dresses, hats, gloves, hose and heels. • 6 • �Victory Stadium on Thanksgiving Day, circa 1950. The stadium is packed with spectators attending the annual VPI-VMI football game, dubbed “The Military Classic of the South.” Virginia Military Institute cadets are in formation on the football field to honor the Virginia Polytechnic Institute’s Corps o f Cadets, seated in the stands at right. The VPI band is in formation on the north end of the field (left), while play­ ers warm up on the sidelines. The silos of Roanoke City Mills can be seen in the background. And no ladies ever wore slacks! Fashion shows were quite popular and they raised money for charitable causes. Another thing — when a new neighbor moved close to you, it was customary to go and call on him or her. You left your engraved card on their hall table, which held a plate for that purpose. Then, the new person was expected to “return the call.” That was a great way to get to know people who lived nearby. When I was a teenager, World War II began and America began to change. Every citizen was given a dated stamp book which allowed you to purchase things. Almost everything was rationed! Sugar, butter, meat, gasoline, cigarettes, whiskey, et cetera. Bev was a student at Washington and Lee and he traded his whiskey stamps to his friends for gas stamps, enabling him to come see me at Hollins. Mother was chairman o f the Red Cross Motor Corps and, o f course, I belonged too. We wore nifty uniforms and would be alerted when trains or planes o f wounded soldiers were due here. We would meet them, go on the cars and planes with those dear boys, trying to cheer them and give them some comfort. We took sandwiches, cookies and cold drinks to them, which were deeply appreciated. Our USO parlor was located in the train station so that servicemen would come up there to relax and have some refreshment. Some o f us met at the Red Cross headquarters during the week to knit socks and hats 7 �for the men and to roll bandages. Daddy and I were “block wardens.” Due to the proximity o f the rail yards, Roanoke had been told we were a bombing target. So after dark each night, Papa and I would roam the neighborhood, searching for any pinpoint o f light that might be shining out o f a house. Beverly Fitzpatrick with Helen Chewning Inspired by local aviatrix Martha Anne Woodrum, Helen took up flying. 8 Y o u must know by now that I married that little boy who used to carry my books to school. He was home on leave from the Navy when the announce­ ment came that the European war had ended. That VE Day was one I will ever remember. We rushed down to Jefferson Street to celebrate with throngs o f people, who made a solid wall across the avenue. People were laughing, crying, dancing, hugging and most were arm in arm. It was such a joyful occasion. Another great celebration Roanoke enjoyed oc­ curred each Thanksgiving. Crowds would line Jefferson Street to watch the VMI and VPI cadets leave the train at the station and march smartly out to Victory Stadium, bands and all. The bleachers there were crammed with fans who came to see the two military schools play football. Many notables attended the game: Council members, governors, and I even remember sitting be­ hind General and Mrs. George Marshall one year. The nice thing was that these celebrities would switch sides at halftime so they wouldn’t show favoritism. One more story you may enjoy: While I was working in the newsroom at the paper I decided to learn to fly. Friends thought I was crazy, but I admired Martha Anne Woodrum a lot; she encouraged me. The night after I soloed, some neighbors entertained me at dinner. Everyone was asking why I would attempt such a thing. I replied that I thought air travel was a thing of the future. I ’ll never forget what one man said. “You don’t really believe that ordinary people will be flying in airplanes, do you?” “I do,” I said. And look at what has happened. I have been privileged to see a great deal o f the world and I have always returned, being grateful to live in Roanoke. I am blessed to live here and so are you! �O. Winston Link, recognized as a leading railroad photographer, also took indus­ trial and commercial photos, like this one o f Interstate 81 construction at Newbern, Pulaski County, in 1959. O . Winston Link’s 100th Birthday Party new exhibit, “The First Century of O. Winston Link,” opened last fall at the Link Museum and it was the highlight of a 100th birthday party for the noted railway photographer at the Roanoke museum on Dec. 14. From more than 2,000 images, Ellen Arnold, a longtime volunteer at the museum, selected commercial and industrial photographs that have never been exhibited, as well as photos from his personal life, including one of his granddaughter, Annie. A photo shows Link’s self-portrait while working on his first commercial project in Louisiana in 1937. Because his initials were OWL, a portrait has him posing with an owl. For a panoramic image of a switcher locomotive at Shaffers Crossing in Roanoke, he shot the train by sections and pasted them together; He placed cables across the Maury River near Buena Vista to hang lights and take a photo of a locomotive passing a dam. Link was celebrated for his creative work from 1937 until retirement in 1983. He died in 2001 at the age of 86. Peppermint stick ice cream, Link’s favorite, was served at the birthday party. B 9 �^ e d fe ic t S<j by J. Daniel Pezzoni ay “farm” to someone and they are likely to picture a bam. The bam is the iconic building type of the American farm landscape, yet changes in agricultural practices and land use have placed many older bams at risk, in western Virginia as much as other areas o f the country. Recognition o f this fact inspired the Bedford Historical Society to launch the Bedford County Farm Survey in 2013, a docu­ mentation o f over 700 farms and thousands o f farm buildings. Known as the “Bedford Bam Survey” for short, and undertaken by the author, an architectural historian with Landmark Preservation Associates in Lexington, the project was funded in part by the Virginia Department o f Historic Resources during a second phase in 2013-14. The survey generated a wealth o f information on the county’s historic farm buildings, ranging from crude log comcribs to archi­ tecturally sophisticated dairy bams to specialized facilities for canning tomatoes and packing apples, as well as many other common (and uncommon) farm building types. What were Bedford County’s first farm buildings like? The simple answer is: we don’t know. Settlement o f the area that would become Bedford County in 1753 began in earnest in the first half o f the 18th century as agriculturalists of largely English and African derivation moved into the area from more established areas in Piedmont and Tidewater Virginia (with a few settlers from other regions), but no farm buildings from this early period are known to survive. In fact, no farm building from the 1700s was positively identified by the survey, although it is possible a few are tucked away in remote comers of the county (the survey concentrated on properties visible from public roads; many less accessible farms were not included). But we can deduce something about Bedford’s early farm building stock. In its society, economy and culture the county was like others further east, and in those areas farm buildings were typically frame structures o f simple gable-roofed form, with weatherboard siding and wood shingle roofs. Frame construction was the normative building technology o f colonial Virginia, and wood was an abundant building material. In fact, standing timber was over-abundant, a hindrance to pioneer agricultural. The first step in the establishment o f a Bedford farm would have been land clearance, a back-breaking chore typically carried out by a slave workforce under the supervision o f the farm owner or his overseer. But there was a shortcut. Farmers often planted their crops in “deadenings,” groves o f dead trees killed by “girdling,” the removal o f a strip o f the life-giving outer woody layers. The leafless branches allowed sufficient light to reach the ground for the plants to grow. Fire was also employed in a version of slash-and-bum agricul­ ture which enhanced, at least in the short term, soil nutrients. With its charred, dead forests early Bedford would have been no beauty spot, but the point was to maximize agricultural profits with a minimum of effort, not aesthetics. A glimpse o f the county’s early farm building stock is provided by the records o f the Mutual As- S Dan Pezzoni is an architectural historian who formerly worked in the Roanoke Regional Preservation Of­ fice o f the State Department o f Historic Resources. He has written or edited eight county architectural his­ tories and he has prepared National Register o f Historic Places nominations for over 100 historic districts and individual properties in seven states. • 10 • �The iconic American bam: the County Farm Bam (1936), located on the former county poor farm near Bedford, has the gambrel roof and red-painted siding typical of the the larger early-20th-century barns. surance Society o f Virginia, an insurance company active in the rural parts o f the county during the first two decades o f the 19th century. O f the 10 or so bams described in the company’s “declarations” (appli­ cations for coverage) for the period 1802 through 1818, all were wooden buildings with wood-covered roofs. The wooden construction of the bams was either log or frame and the wood roof coverings meant the buildings were wood shingled or may have had clapboard or board-and-weight pole roofs. Most o f the bams described in the Mutual Assurance Society records for Bedford County were one story high. Two were described as two stories, possibly an indication they were o f the type known as the bank bam form. As the name suggests, a bank bam was built into a bank so that both its upper and lower levels were directly accessible from the ground. The upper level contained a haymow (hay loft) and, typically, a central drive-in bay and threshing floor. The lower level contained animal stalls. Bank bams are traced to German-speaking lands in Europe and were introduced to Virginia by Germans who primarily settled west o f the Blue Ridge. Surviving bank bams in the county are o f three basic types, all relatively rare. The frue bank bams, those having full lower levels, appear to date mostly to the 20th century and may owe more to promotion o f the form in the agricultural press than to vernacular transmission. Examples include bank bams on the Camer-Croft Farm at Kelso Mill and the Nance Farm in the Moneta vicinity. The second type might be called false bank bams. These have lower levels but they are not a full 11 �story in height and did not function for housing livestock. Instead the purpose appears to have been to raise the haymow floor off the ground to protect the hay from damp. The premier example o f the form is the 19th century bam at Parkdale Farm near Sedalia. This large bam, constructed o f pegged mortise-andtenon heavy timbers and possibly antebellum in date, is also notable for the wrought-nailed construction o f its double-leaf drive-through doors, representing either a late use o f the nail type, manufacture o f the nails on the farm, or recycling o f doors from an earlier bam. The ca. 1900 bam on the Jennings Farm near Kelso Mill also has haymow floors lifted off grade. The third bank bam type might be called a half bank bam. An example o f the form is the frame bam on the Blair Farm near Chamblissburg which was probably built in the early decades o f the 20th century although it reuses hewn timbers from an earlier building (possibly a bam). Not only does the Blair bam have a half bank form, its design is split-level; the south end, to the left o f the center drivethrough, has lower-level animal stalls the upper portions o f which rise several feet above the drivethrough floor, whereas the north end is level with the drive-through. The Blair bam is also notable for various provisions for the care of the animals housed in the lower level such as an engaged porch-like drive-through in front of the stalls; latticed openings on the front o f the stalls to facilitate ventilation; and openings at the back o f the stalls above the center drive-through floor through which hay from the mow was easily forked to the animals below. The haymow may be considered the functional nucleus o f the county’s bams, and because o f its utility apart from the sheltering and feeding o f livestock it often exists in isolation as a hay bam. Many hay bams are constructed o f log, a material and construction technique ideally suited to hay storage. The slender young-growth trees that could be used to build hay bams were less valuable and presumably more plentiful than larger, older trees during the early 20th century, the period from which most o f the county’s log hay bams appear to survive. The gaps between logs provided ample air flow to the loosely piled hay. One o f the oldest bams identified in the survey, that on the Elliott Farm at Reba, which appears to date to the 1880s although it may have older fabric, has as its core a stoutly constructed v-notched log haymow that perches high on a boulder and rubble foundation. The frame stock shed that attaches to its side is constructed with cut nails and, although it may have been built at the same time as the log por­ tion, reads as secondary. Over time the Elliott bam was enlarged by two additional frame sections to cre­ ate a linear four-part composition. The barn’s location on the heavily wooded flanks o f the Blue Ridge, relatively far from the railroads that served Bedford County in the late 19th century and in an area where tanbark production and the creation o f new arable ground through the practice o f “deadening” were still occurring, probably accounts for the relatively large logs used in the barn’s construction. The log “crib” o f the standard log hay bam could be doubled to form the “double-crib bam” of Appalachian fame. Presumably many double-crib log bams were built in Bedford County in historic times; however, the windshield documentation and prior and recent survey efforts have identified only two. One was surveyed by architectural historian Anne Carter Lee in the Rocky Branch/Joppa Mill vicinity in 1975. Lee noted that the two-level barn’s lower level was very low, more like a raised base­ ment, the configuration noted in the partial bank bams described above. The second documented double­ crib log bam is located on the Key-Shackford Farm north o f Bedford. Ownership history, nail chronolo­ gy, and other features suggest the Key-Shackford bam may date to the 1910s, possibly the 1920s. Sheds on two sides protected many o f the saddle-notched logs, which are in almost pristine condition, but exposed sides have experienced deterioration which current owners Joy and Andrew Watkins are repair­ ing. The basic functional division o f the bank bam with animals below and hay above character­ ized the large non-bank bams constructed throughout the county in the first half o f the 20th century. These multipurpose bams were promoted during the period by the agricultural press, plan services, state •72* �agricultural authorities and the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College (Vir­ ginia Tech) in Blacksburg. The form reflected the interest in scientific farming methods, efficiency and labor-saving technology that characterized the Victorian and Progressive periods. Closely associated with the newly introduced multipurpose bam form, also known as the loft bam type, was the popularity o f the gam­ brel roof form. The doublesloped gable roof came to be replaced by the four-sloped gambrel form in new loft bam The double-crib log barn on the Key-Shackford Farm probably dates to construction during the period the 1910s or 1920s but is representative of earlier log barns. 1900 to 1950. The gambrel bam roof form in its modem incarnation was spread by the adoption o f the mechanized hay carrier after the Civil War. The carrier used a hay fork, typically in the form o f a pincer-like grappling mecha­ nism, to lift loose hay from a wagon parked in the barn’s drive-through or outside one end and drop it into the hay­ mow, thereby bypassing the hard work of pitching by pitch fork. In 1867 Iowa inventor William Louden patented what became the preferred system.. Louden’s carrier “elevates the hay perpendicularly any height,” the inventor wrote in period advertising copy, “then A hayfork outside a Bedford County barn. conveys it horizontally to the back of the longest mow and returns the Fork back to the load without a single effort o f the Pitcher.” Hay fork systems like Louden’s worked best in haymows that were free o f obstruction from the crossbeams o f old-fashioned heavy timber construction. The old construction methods were becoming less tenable as mechanized lumbering gradually reduced the availability o f large timbers. The solution, perfected in the Midwest and gradually 13 �The brick horse barn at Savenac is an early local example o f the gambrel-roofed form. adopted in east coast areas like Bedford County, was the development o f roof forms constructed from lighter members that dispensed with crossbeams and were in their later iterations self-supporting. Among the county’s early gambrel-roofed multipurpose bams is the horse bam at Savenac south o f Bed­ ford, which may have been built in the 1910s when horse raiser Dean Starks acquired the property. The bam is representative o f transitional gambrel forms. The roof is supported by a row o f heavy posts at the breakpoints and the posts in turn are reinforced by cross-braces that tie in to the floor structure and wall plates. Starks’ English nationality may in part explain the roof form as well as other features such as the barn’s handsome brick construction and a basement level that may have served to enhance ventilation o f the space above. The 1936 County Farm Bam, or “Red Bam” as it is generally known, located at Falling Creek Park, has a self-supporting gambrel roof modeled on the light-framing advances o f the early 20th centu­ ry. It has been suggested the bam was built from a Sears, Roebuck kit and it does share general features with published examples o f Sears bams, as well as specific features such as the shed ventilation dormers that project from the roof; however, an exact exterior match has not been established. Other bam kit sup­ pliers such as the Gordon-Van Tine Company, the Aladdin Company and the Louden Machinery Com­ pany were active during the era and may be the source. For example, the Aladdin Company is believed to have supplied components for the Woolfolk Bam, built in 1940-41 and visible from U.S. 460 on the south side o f Bedford. A bam with a gambrel roof similar to that which covers the County Farm Bam was built at Triple Hills Farm near Stewartsville in 1944-45. According to family tradition, farm owner C.W. Spra­ dlin had trouble finding a bam builder who could build the kind o f bam he wanted until he found a 23-year-old carpenter named Marvin Saunders who was up to the task. The barn’s virtually self-support­ ing gambrel roof is even more economical o f lumber than the County Farm Bam roof, although the area •1 4 • �spanned appears to be narrower. The tradition about the barn’s construction suggests the advanced roof forms were still relatively unknown to county bam builders as late as the 1940s. The epitome o f the self-supporting form was the so-called Gothic Arch roof popular from the 1910s through the 1950s. The Gothic Arch roof, which has the curved and pointed profile o f the Gothic lancet arch, is represented in the survey by the roof on the 1947 cinder block dairy bam at the afore­ mentioned Parkdale Farm. Gothic bam roofs and roofs with continuous curves typically utilized thin wood sections that were bent, layered in multiple plies, and glued and/or nailed together to create curved rafters. The technique was first publicized in 1916 and by the 1930s was widely adopted by progressive farmers. The barrel-vaulted bentwood-rafter haymow o f the ca. 1950 bam at Groveland near Perrowville is a representative example of the form. The county’s multipurpose bams tend to be the farm buildings where various technological advances are most often found. Principal among these, at least in number, are hay carriers, and most sur­ viving examples utilize grappling-type hay forks. A clue to the presence or former presence o f a hay fork system is provided by the hay bonnets or hoods that project from the roof peaks o f many frame and ma­ sonry bams. Generally hay bonnets have a small triangular or wedge form sufficient only to shelter the boom that supports the short extension o f the hay fork track outside the bam; however, the 1920s Sprad­ lin Bam near Stewartsville, a small frame hay and stock bam, features a full strut-supported extension o f the gable roof which in addition to protecting the hay fork rail may have served to shelter a hay wagon parked below during off-loading. A multipurpose bam that utilized the old-fashioned hand-pitched hay loading method is the small, early 20th-century stock and hay bam on the Jeter Farm near Chamblissburg where the hay was loaded into the mow from a wagon or truck parked in the drive-in bay beside the mow. Similar in operation to hay carriers are litter carriers, a somewhat euphemistic term for contrap­ tions used to transport soiled straw litter from bams. In Bedford County these are typically associated with the milking parlor sections of dairy bams. Examples include the Hurt Bam north o f Bedford, which preserves a trolley-mounted carrier that runs along a suspended track down the center o f the parlor and The Hurt Barn, one of the county’s more sophisticated early dairy barns, features a metal silo, a rear entry alcove for emptying a litter carrier, and a privy for farm workers. • 15 • �dumps out the back o f the bam through double-leaf doors, and the 1927 bam on the Wright Farm, also north o f Bedford, which no longer has its carrier but retains the mounts for the track and double-leaf back doors with a notch through which the track projected. A device o f somewhat mysterious function survives in the early 20th century bam on the Ar­ rington Farm near Peaksville. A pulley system mounted over the west entry to the center drive-through has a long framed board with, at each end, drum-like pulleys or shafts with toothed iron gears. Accord­ ing to local tradition the apparatus was associated with a hay carrier system but how the system oper­ ated is not recalled. Also possibly associated with a non-standard hay carrier system is the large wooden drum pulley that projects from the front o f the ca. 1900 horse bam at Rothsay Farm in Forest. Architec­ tural historian Travis McDonald notes the existence o f a similar wheel mechanism in the 1856 granary at nearby Poplar Forest. The Rothsay horse bam also features a cantilevered shed-roofed projection that may have housed an engine: an exhaust pipe that projects through the roof may have vented former ma­ chinery and a pair o f cast iron mounts just inside the wing’s entry may have provided stabilization. The rise o f commercial dairying in the county in the early twentieth century and the implementa­ tion of stringent health and hygiene requirements concerning the handling and purity o f dairy products fostered the constmction o f sophisticated dairy buildings. Representative o f the county’s better-equipped early dairy bams is the aforementioned 1927 bam on the Wright Farm. The bam has an unusual form with a gambrel-roofed haymow wing and gabled milk room wing that branch off a main gambrel-roofed axis containing the milking parlor. (A milking parlor is a stanchion-lined space used for milking the cow herd; a milk room is a wing or separate or semi-detached building for processing the milk.) The bam is reminiscent in several respects to the model dairy bam constructed at Virginia Tech in 1899 according to plans by Roanoke architect Henry H. Huggins, notably the presence o f multiple wings at different levels, although Elmo Wright, the barn’s original owner, might have been inspired by any one of the many bam plans available from published sources and plan services. By housing the milk room in a separate wing a degree o f separation from the unhygienic milking parlor was achieved and the milk room wing’s concrete floors and wainscots further enhanced hygiene. The milk room was equipped with brine coolers, a vat for cooling the milk cans with an overhead hoist beam for lifting them out, a boiler that supplied hot water for washing implements, and a metal-lined vault for implement stor­ age visible on the exterior as a small shed-roofed extension on the end o f the wing. In the early 1950s a separate cinder block milking parlor and milk room were built to the side o f the 1927 bam. Concrete construction, painted on the interior, was favored as a method for controlling bacteria. The new milk­ ing arrangement on the Wright Farm reflected an important postwar shift in the industry: the adoption of refrigerated bulk tanks for the keeping o f milk in place o f individual cans and the piping o f milk from mechanized milkers attached to the cows’ udders directly to the tank to minimize handling. At its peak in the mid-1940s the Wright Farm’s milking parlor accommodated a herd o f 86 cows at a single milking. Larger still was the herd at nearby Redlands farm which numbered as many as 300 to 400 head. The milking parlor at Redlands, which may be contemporaneous with the one on the Wright Farm, shares with it specialized features such as a milk house wing replete with boiler and cooler and an additional engine room wing with two motors intact. The milking parlor proper is spanned by a roof with a complicated structure o f scissor trusses and tension rods. Frame dairy bams and milking parlors were built as late as the mid-1940s, for example the broad gable-roofed milking parlor built on the Markham Farm about 1946, which at the time was one o f the first specialized dairy buildings in its Kelso Mill Road area. But for the most part post-war dairy build­ ings were constructed o f cinder block. Milk house arrangements were varied both before the war and after. Semi-detached milk houses connected to their milking parlors or dairy bams by covered breezeways are represented by the 1936 County Farm Bam and the ca. 1950 dairy bam (later converted to a horse bam) on the Blair Farm. Milk houses constructed as separate single-purpose buildings appear on 16 �a number o f farms. The construction o f separate or semi-detached milk houses responded to the desire of regulators for milk houses that were “free from contaminating surroundings,” meaning the filth o f the milking parlor. The iconic image of the American bam often includes a silo but in Virginia as well as nation­ wide silos are relative latecomers to the farm landscape. Silage — com or other feed that is partially fermented to produce acids that inhibit bacterial growth — enabled farmers to store quantities o f feed for periods of poor or unavailable pasturage, as during droughts and snowy weather, which in turn enabled farmers to expand the size o f their dairy herds. European agriculturalists experimented with the making of silage in the 1870s and the first American silos were apparently built in the mid-1870s. The practice quickly caught on, prompting the U.S. Department o f Agriculture to publish a report on ensilage in 1882. Silos from the years around 1880 were in the form o f trenches or covered pits but by the end o f the 1880s above-ground tower-type silos were being built in increasing numbers. Many of the early upright silos were square/rectangular or octagonal in floor plan but when it was realized that rot M e ic o n ic im age o f th e /A m e ric a n b a rn o fte n in c lu d e s a silo.... M a n y o f th e e a rly u p r ig h t s ilo s w e re s q u a r e /r e c ta n g u la r o r o c ta g o n a l in f lo o r p la n b u t w hen it w as re a liz e d t h a t r o t w as m o re lik e ly t o o c c u r in th e c o rn ers o>ft p o lily g o n a l s ilo s b u ild e rs s w itc h e d t o th e n o w ~ s ta n d a rd c irc u la r fo rm was more likely to occur in the comers of polygonal silos builders switched to the now-standard circular form. The first Bedford County silos, which date to the early 20th century, were apparently constructed of wooden staves. Only one surviving example o f a wooden stave silo was documented by the survey, the silo attached to the 1939 dairy bam on the Tanner Farm near Big Island. The Tanner silo was disas­ sembled at another farm and reassembled on the Tanner property with a rectangular metal-sided enclo­ sure to protect the staves from the elements. Wood construction gradually gave way to more durable materials. The attractive stone and poured concrete silo on the Arrington Farm was built by brothers Harry, Onyx, Morris and Joseph Ar­ rington in the mid-1930s when the four were boys or young men. The bam attached to the Arrington silo is now gone. Charles Ervin Woolfolk also built a stone silo in the 1930s at his farm just outside Bedford. Concrete was the most popular silo material in the county. Early examples, such as the silo at­ tached to the ca. 1935 bam on the Simmons Farm near Chamblissburg, were poured in forms; however, most surviving historic-period concrete silos were built from prefabricated concrete staves that slotted together and were held in place by steel tension rings. The example on the Cridlin Farm near Goode was 17 �The McDaniel Tobacco Barn, believed to date to 1851-52, is one o f the county’s oldest surviving farm buildings. built with components (the concrete staves or perhaps only the domical metal roof) manufactured by the Marietta Silos company o f Marietta, Ohio, as indicated by the metal logo on its weathervane. Brick was also occasionally used in silo construction as demonstrated by the ca. 1946 silo on the Markham Farm and the ca. 1945 silo at Triple Hills Farm. A material especially well suited to silage­ making owing to its impervious vitrified surface was terra-cotta tile block. The ca. 1920s Chappelle Bam northwest o f Bedford has a silo constructed o f “vitrified hollow clay tile” manufactured by the National Fire Proofing Company (NATCO) of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as a plaque inside the silo attests. NATCO also produced tile block for the construction o f the ca. 1920s silos, recently tom down, on the farm at the nearby Elks National Home in Bedford. The company advertised its silo as “the silo that lasts for generations.” A tile block silo also serves the horse bam at Savenac and like the bam it may date to the 1910s. The Hurt Bam north o f Bedford, which appears to date to the 1920s or 1930s, has a silo con­ structed o f riveted steel plates, some o f which bear traces o f the stenciled name o f the manufacturer, the E.W. Ross Company o f Springfield, Ohio. Bedford County’s dominant agricultural specialization for the first century and a half o f settle­ ment was tobacco cultivation, and tobacco bams for the curing o f tobacco, generally referred to as “to­ bacco houses” in Virginia’s early history, were probably essential features o f Bedford County’s earliest farms, though the popular colonial-era sun-curing method o f drying the harvested leaf did not require curing bams. The county’s earliest tobacco bams may have been frame, gradually giving way to log construction by the end o f the 18th century, a trend noted by historian Ronald L. Giese in research on the county’s historic tobacco bams conducted for Poplar Forest. Most o f the county’s surviving tobacco bams, which appear to date predominately to the first half o f the 20th century, are log, a material that when chinked and daubed made an air-tight enclosure ideal for the two forms o f curing prevalent in the county, fire curing and flue curing. Fire curing, the more 18 • �common o f the two techniques locally, involved the lighting o f small fires on the floor o f the bam which both heated and smoked the leaves suspended overhead from poles known as tier poles. Fire curing had come into use in tobacco-growing regions o f the East by 1786 and was common by 1800. Flue curing, introduced by agricultural innovators in the early 19th century and in Bedford County dominant in the county’s southern tip, was a modification o f fire curing that removed the fire to stone fireboxes at the front comers o f the bam and conducted the heat through flues that snaked across the bam floor to exhaust their heat and smoke beside the front entry. Flue curing heated the leaves without smoking them and it greatly reduced the threat o f catching the bam and its contents on fire from stray sparks. Both fire-cure and flue-cure bams have tall forms to maximize exposure of the leaves to rising heat. The basic concept may have been borrowed from smokehouses which worked on the same principle. The county’s oldest known tobacco bam, the McDaniel Tobacco Bam near Perrowville, is be­ lieved to date to 1851-52 and stands on what was at the time the farm o f Albert McDaniel. The 1850s date seems probable given the specificity o f the oral tradition and also the cut nails visible in the door jamb. The relatively large v-notched log bam, which measures approximately 21.5 feet to a side, has the tall profile o f the tobacco bam form and its stone foundation lacks fireboxes, confirming it as a fire-cure bam. Smoke residues on some o f the lower tier poles and walls o f the bam provide evidence o f the fires used to cure the leaf. Although flue curing was not as common in the county at large, flue-cure bams appear to survive in disproportionately greater numbers compared to fire-cure bams, although some fire-cure bams may be masquerading as hay bams. Flue-cure bams, when they occur, are often found in groupings o f two or more. The Martin Farm on Falling Creek Road has three surviving flue-cure bams o f an original five tobacco bams (the other two were fire-cure bams). Most or all o f the log bams were built in the 1920s. Current co-owner o f the farm, Alvin M. Martin, notes that flue-cure bams could be easily converted to fire curing by the simple expedient o f opening the flues on the interior. Depressions in the ground near two o f the bams mark spots where mud was dug for use in daubing the gaps between the logs, routine maintenance necessary to keep the bams air-tight. The Martin Farm lacked a common feature o f Piedmont Virginia tobacco farms: an ordering pit, a semi-subterranean space where the cured leaves were hung to be “placed in order,” that is, exposed to ambient moisture from the earth that made them supple enough to handle without crumbling. Instead, the Martin family flooded the floors o f their tobacco bams with water or sprinkled the leaves with a watering can while the leaves hung from the tier poles. An ordering pit survives on another southern Bedford County farm, the Jones Farm near Smith Mountain Lake State Park. A partially excavated cellar under a pack house or “stripping house” where the cured tobacco was prepared for shipment is outfitted with cmde dimensional-lumber racks on which the cured leaf was placed in order. The log tobacco bam on the Turner Farm near Graves Store, originally a flue-cure bam, has a shed-roofed log wing where the cured leaf was apparently prepared after curing. The wing has tier poles as in the bam and a low door­ like opening through which the cured leaves were passed through to its interior. The county preserves a diversity o f other specialized farm building types. The survey document­ ed numerous examples o f com cribs, granaries and chicken houses. Buildings with a hybrid agriculturalprocessing function include tomato canneries and apple packing houses. The introduction o f large-scale commercial tomato cultivation to the county in the early 20th century necessitated facilities for process­ ing the crop and preparing it for shipment to market. Any bam or other building large enough to house the workers and machinery during the brief summer canning season would do but many producers constructed purpose-built canneries. Typically these were long one-story buildings that reflected the assembly-line nature o f the production process which began with receiving and continued on to scalding, peeling, canning, boiling the cans, labeling, boxing and shipping. 19 �The Peters Tomato Cannery in Moneta has the barn-like form and construction o f the county’s formerly numerous early 20th century tomato canneries. Representative o f the early canneries is the one on the Arrington-Gross Farm near Peaksville which was apparently built before 1918. The cannery was built not only to facilitate the canning pro­ cess but for the comfort o f the workers who during the Gross family’s ownership were adults and older children in the Gross family. The end o f the building that sheltered the hot work o f scalding and boiling is slatted to encourage air flow (the slats are now covered with metal sheathing). The more enclosed ver­ tical-board-sided end was used to store the boxes o f cans until they were picked up by trucks for ship­ ment. An essential feature o f the cannery, one shared by many others, was its location beside a creek, in this instance Stony Creek. The creek supplied water to the operation and was used to wash away the peelings. The Arrington-Gross cannery also had an office in a shed wing (now removed) that projected from a comer. Apple growing was not as extensive an agricultural specialization as tomato growing and can­ ning but it nevertheless made a mark on the county’s architectural landscape. An early example o f applerelated buildings was the log apple bam W.C. Hatcher built ca. 1916 on his Twin Oaks Farm. A surviv­ ing log apple bam on the Johnson-Dooley Farm, high on the slopes o f Campbell Mountain near Peaks o f Otter, was fashioned out o f logs from a tobacco bam at some date prior to 1966. Another building as­ sociated with apple growing is the apple picker’s cabin on the Watson Farm near the Bedford Reservoir, a small one-room board-and-batten bunk house, perhaps dating to the 1920s-1950s period, which retains crude built-in bunk beds. More imposing than the apple bams and picker cabins were the packing houses associated with the larger orchards. Among the oldest o f these is the packing house at Hunting Creek Farm near Sedalia 20 �Apple grading machinery in the Logwood Apple Packing House (1955), located on Wheats Valley Road in the heart of Bedford orchard country. which was probably built in the 1920s. The large two-story building, sided with weatherboards and set on poured concrete and stone foundations, has something o f the appearance o f a large bam o f the era though inside the difference is immediately apparent. The complicated conveyor-belt apparatus used for grading the apples extends the length o f the main space. Slatted slides, apparently for feeding boxes to the packers who worked by the belts, connect to the second floor where the boxes were stored. The Hunting Creek operation ranked among the county’s top four apple growers in 1949. At the smaller end o f the size spectrum is the Yoder Apple Packing House, also near Sedalia, which has interesting origins. Its builder in the late 1940s was Jacob Johnson Yoder who fought in the Battle o f the Bulge during World War II. Upon his return to the states he decided apple growing on a Bedford County mountainside was the quiet life he needed after the horrors o f combat. His pole-built packing house, though cmdely constructed compared to the other examples, nevertheless shares the same functional division o f a lower level for grading operations and an upper level for box storage. Many people helped make the Bedford Bam Survey possible, but the driving force was Bedford preservationist Betty Gereau. Gereau was not content to let the work sit on a shelf and made public outreach an important aspect of the project. One initiative involved working with county middle school students to produce pastel drawings of local bams for the 2014 “Bams o f Bedford” calendar. The project was featured at the Bedford County Agricultural Economic Development Advisory Board Expo held in March 2014 and has also been covered in the Bedford Bulletin and the Lynchburg Business Magazine. These efforts raised public awareness o f the county’s historic bams and will hopefully encourage preser­ vation o f these important buildings types. 21 �0?'ta#tce& yoútt& fott, 'tetuMwtett ftÁot&yruzfeA&i, cm d tfte tyeonye fnaut 'p c v u tt, in 'H o ’ttfa v e & t fé tk z v to & e by M ichael Pulice rances Benjamin Johnston was a groundbreaking photographer about whom much has been written. Thousands o f her images of historical sites, primarily in the Southern and Mid- Atlantic states, are among her important legacy. Bom in Grafton, West Virginia, in 1864, her professional career in photography endured more than a halfcentury, almost until her death in 1952. She became known nationally during the 1890s as one o f the first “photojoumalists” and the first female press photographer, and later for her photographic portraits o f dignitaries, including Presidents Cleveland, Harrison, McKinley, Roosevelt and Taft, taken at her studio in Washington, D.C. Her images frequently appeared in newspapers and magazines, but others, mostly those from her later career, were taken for archival rather than commercial purposes, and today are held by such repositories as the Library o f Congress and the University o f North Carolina Libraries. One o f her earliest and best-known documentary works is an Fig. 1. Renowned photog­ extensive collection o f photographs taken 1899-1900 at the Hampton rapher Frances Benjamin Institute for African Americans in Hampton, Virginia. After moving Johnston, circa 1950. [Library of Congress] to New York around 1910, Johnston partnered for several years with Mattie Edwards Hewitt to specialize in architectural photography, and began to concentrate on photographing gardens and estates throughout the U.S. and Europe. [Fig. 1] Beginning about 1925, amid growing interest in historic preservation and documenting historic structures inspired by the ongoing restoration o f Colonial Williamsburg, Johnston resumed her photogra­ phy of historic Virginia landmarks. Beginning in 1933, she was funded by a series o f seven grants from the Carnegie Corporation to document colonial buildings in nine southern states. Although she clearly sought out colonial-era buildings, many o f her subjects were built much later, into the mid-19th century. Johnston’s architectural photography was compiled in a number of books including Henry I. Brock’s “Colonial Churches in Virginia, ...Photographic Studies by Frances Benjamin Johnston” (Rich­ mond: Dale Press, 1930); and “Early Architecture o f North Carolina: A Pictorial Survey by Frances F Mike Pulice is the Western Region architectural historian for the Virginia Department o f Historic Re­ sources. For further reading about historic brick architecture in the Roanoke Valley, see the author’s book “Nineteenth-Century Brick Architecture in the Roanoke Valley and Beyond: Discovering the True Legacies o f the Deyerle Builders ” (History Museum o f Western Virginia, 2011). 22 �Fig. 2. The George Trout House — original c. 1830 main block (right) and added c. 1840 front wing (left). [Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection. Library of Congress.] Benjamin Johnston, with an Architectural History” by Thomas T. Waterman (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1941, 1947). In 1945, she received an honorary membership into the American In­ stitute o f Architects for her “notable achievement in recording photographically the early architecture of the United States,” and she later donated most o f her materials to the Library o f Congress, creating the Carnegie Survey of the Architecture o f the South, covering more than 1,700 sites in over 7,000 photo­ graphs; 2,910 of her images taken in Virginia are available online at the Library o f Congress website. (1) In her photographic surveys Johnston gave wide coverage to eastern Virginia, where most o f the state’s colonial-era buildings are located. However, her work concentrated on only a few o f the most es­ teemed landmarks of the Blue Ridge and Piedmont, and apparently she made no forays to the far south­ western reaches of the Virginia. In 1930, within the City o f Roanoke, Johnston took two photos o f the Horton House, aka. Nestle Brook (demolished in 2014), seven images o f George Tayloe’s Buena Vista, and seven o f “Trouts Farm,” discussed below. [Fig. 2] In Roanoke County the same year, she took three portraits o f the Bushong House (previously the David Deyerle House) and one o f an unknown brick house near Salem. [Note: A log house mistakenly labeled “log farm house, Hollins vie.” was actually in present-day Botetourt County — the Bryan McDonald Sr. House, demolished ca. 2008.] In 1934, in Botetourt County, John­ ston captured a few photos o f the 18th-century Bryan McDonald Sr. and Bryan McDonald Jr. houses, and the farm called Greenfield, which had been associated with Colonel William Preston in the 1760s. In Bedford County in 1935, she took a few shots each o f Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest, the Federal23 �style house and Civil War landmark known as Sandusky, and a plantation house called Welboume. Johnston’s westernmost site in Virginia is the splendid early 19th-century house known as Fotheringay, near Elliston in eastern Montgomery County, o f which eight excellent photos taken in 1935 have been preserved. In the Chatham vicinity o f Pittsylvania County in 1930, she captured a few o f the most noteworthy houses including the Moses House, better known as Little Cherrystone, as well as the prestigious Dan’s Hill, Oak Hill and Berry Hill plantation houses near Danville. Although cursory in detail and geographical coverage, Johnston’s work represents the seminal documentary survey of historic architecture in Southwest Virginia. No such efforts had been undertaken previously, though the more extensive Works Progress Administration (WPA) Virginia Historical Inven­ tory would soon follow, in 1936-1938. Though Johnston’s photographs o f each site were few in number, most o f her architectural photographs were o f exceptional quality for their time, particularly those taken after 1933 with Carnegie funding. Her skill as a photographer is evident, but it was an obvious, deep appreciation for her subjects that guided her practice. Clearly she selected her camera placements and angles carefully, deftly han­ dling the challenges o f natural lighting, capturing large and small details others would have considered unimportant. Furthermore, secondary buildings such as kitchens and smokehouses, virtually ignored by the Virginia Historical Inventory, were often included in Johnston’s photographic surveys. Early images o f outbuildings are quite rare and therefore o f great value to historians. Fortunately Johnston’s photos are beautifully preserved and have been scanned at high resolution, allowing the small details to be brought into focus. G eorge T rout F arm O f considerable interest are Johnston’s afore­ mentioned photos o f “Trouts Farm,” once owned by George Trout. The brick house and outbuildings located on the waters o f Peters Creek and the Roanoke River, now in the City o f Roanoke, were destroyed by around 1970. Fortunately they were documented in Frances Johnston’s 1930 photos and by a few sentences in the Historic American Building Survey In­ ventory o f 1958, which noted the slave quarters and meathouse were located east o f the main house, and provided the following ownership history: “John Neely was a large land holder in the county, later sold to George Trout o f the well-known Trout family. Neelys and Trouts Fig. 3. Current map o f former George Trout Farm were among the first families in the Roanoke location near the C' ^ o f Roanoke western limits. area. Currently owned by E.E. Engleman.” The Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission survey o f 1968 offered a few photos and the following back­ ground: “The George Trout House was built circa 1830 by George Trout after the land was purchased from Dr. John Neely in the 1820’s. The property is now owned (since 1962) by Concrete Ready Mixed Corporation.” (2) [Fig. 3] While the census never recorded a middle name or initial for George Trout, family genealogies found online record his middle name as Nathan and his birthplace as Timberville, Rockingham County, Virginia. He was bom in January, 1782, and died in Roanoke County in June, 1850. He is said to have 24 �served in the War o f 1812 and moved to Bote­ tourt about 1816, where he purchased the 250acre farm at the mouth o f Peters Creek. George Trout does indeed appear in the 1820 and 1830 federal census as a resident of Botetourt County (Roanoke County was carved out o f Botetourt in 1838). Within his household were five daugh­ ters, three sons, and one slave—a male less than 24 years old. The 1840 census identifies Trout as a farmer by profession, between 50 and 59 years of age. His eight children remained at home with their mother, Mary, who was between 40 and 49 years old. The three boys were engaged in farm­ ing. By 1850, Trout’s real estate was assessed at $19,000. Though now 68 years old, he and sons Jacob, 22, and David, 20, continued farming. Mary was 59 years old and only daughter Han­ nah, 17, remained at home. B uilding D escriptions Johnston’s 1930 photos o f the Trout Farm show a dilapidated, likely vacant house and three roughly contemporaneous brick outbuildings— a two-story secondary dwelling, a meathouse, and a one-story, probable kitchen/quarters. Main House The two-story brick main house had an unusual plan owing to the circa 1840 addition Fig. 4. (top) The George Trout House— rear view of of a two-story brick wing extending forward original c. 1830 two-story main block and one-story from the original Flemish bond façade, and rear wing. a one-story rear wing or ell, likely part o f the Fig. 5. (above) The George Trout House— alternate original c.1830 construction. Gauged brick jack rear view of original c. 1830 two-story main block and one-story rear wing. Part of the meathouse is visible arches spanning the first-story windows and to the right. [Both images: Frances Benjamin John­ Flemish bond brickwork appear on the front of ston Collection. Library of Congress.] the main block and the west (side) elevation o f the main block and rear wing, while the rear and east (side) elevations have no jack arches and are laid in common bond with three- and five-course intervals. The added two-story front wing is laid in four-course common bond at consistent intervals. All three parts o f the house had matching molded brick cornices (later painted white) and slate-shingled roofs. Porches wrapping around from the central main block to the front and rear wings appear to have been early twentieth-century design and construction. The front porch was two stories in height with a second-floor walkout, the rear porch only one story, with a shed roof. Sheltered by the porches were four entrances, including the second-floor front walkout. Each o f the entrances had a lighted transom and a handsome faux-grained six-panel door. Barred window/vent openings indicate the presence o f a full basement beneath the central main block and the rear wing. [Figs. 4, 5] 25 �Fig. 6. The George Trout Farm — c. 7840 two-story secondary dwelling was situated southeast o f the main house. The top o f the meathouse is visible to the left. [Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission survey, 1968.] Outbuildings All three domestic outbuildings seen in the photographs also had brick walls and molded brick cornices matching those o f the main house. The two-story secondary dwelling may have held domes­ tic work spaces downstairs and slave quarters upstairs. It appears to have had a two-over-two-room plan and had chimneys on both ends so that all rooms were heated. Unlike the other buildings on the property, the brick walls were laid in an uncommon Flemish variant bond. [Fig. 6] The meathouse and kitchen/quarters had wooden shake roofs. The meathouse stood directly behind the secondary dwelling, and had a steeply pitched front-gable roof. Like the added front wing o f the main house, the meathouse walls were neatly laid in common bond with consistent four-course intervals, which suggests the two buildings might have been constructed about the same time, by the same brickmasons (quite possibly Deyerle family members or their slaves). [Fig. 7] The kitchen/quarters had a side-gable roof, walls laid in common bond (two- and four-course intervals), an exterior chimney on one end and a window in the opposite end, and two front doors (likely indicating a two-room interior plan). [Fig. 8] Unfortunately, the Trout Farm is one instance in which Johnston may not have been granted full access, for she did not photograph any significant interior spaces. Two 1968 photos o f the interior are the only ones known to exist. [Fig. 9] The Trout House was architecturally significant as a well-appointed Federal-style residence built circa 1830. The interior featured finely crafted woodwork, much o f it skillfully painted with decorative faux wood graining. The house and contemporary attendant buildings comprised four excellent ex­ amples o f domestic building types and period brick masonry with fashionable molded brick cornices, all highly characteristic o f the Valley o f Virginia. 26 �Fig. 7. The George Trout Farm — c. 1840 meathouse was situated east of the main house. [Frances Benja­ min Johnston Collection. Library of Congress.] Fig. 9. The George Trout House — one of the two existing interior photos of the main house. [Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission survey, 1968.] END NOTES 1. http://www.loc.gov/collections/carnegie-survey-architecture-of-the-south/ about-this-collection/ See also Frances Benjamin Johnston Biographical Overview and Chronology, Prints and Photographs Reading Room, Library of Congress online: http://www. loc.gov/rr/print/coll/fbj chron.html See also the Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection, 1935-1938. University of North Carolina Library: http://www2. lib.unc.edu/ncc/pcoll/inv/P0006/P0006. html 2. The 1958 HABSI and 1968 Vir­ ginia Historic Landmarks Commission surveys are held at the Virginia Depart­ ment of Historic Resources archives, Richmond. Fig. 8. The George Trout Farm — c. 1830 probable kitchen/quarters were situated south of the main house. [Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection. Library o f Congress.] 27 �S ù z(A e& : ‘TJtcvid&et 'Heynaea, 1861-1865 by Matthew Woods ither they deny the Negro’s humanity and feel no cause to mea­ E sure his actions against civilized norms; or they protect them­ selves from their guilt in the Negro’s condition and from their fear that their cooks might poison them, or that their nursemaids might strangle their infant charges, or that their field hands might do them violence, by attributing to them a superhuman capacity for love, kindliness and forgive­ ness. Nor does this in any way contradict their stereotyped conviction that all Negroes (meaning those with whom they have no contact) are given to the most animal behavior.” — Ralph Ellison (1) F r o m the start o f the 17th century, Negroes were transported to America and sold into slavery. (2) Be­ cause o f their resentment to these oppressive conditions, some tried to escape captivity by running away when they thought they could. Even though most slaves found running away very daunting because o f the fear o f repercussions if they were caught, the desire for freedom drove them to look for the perfect opportunity to escape. The Civil War provided the key distraction they needed. Slaves saw the advancing Union soldiers as their saviors. Benjamin Quarles quotes John H. Ransdell, a Louisiana planter, witness­ ing the coming o f Union troops on the plantation he was overseeing and the slave’s reaction to them: (3) “The arrival o f the advance o f the Yankees alone turned the Negro crazy. For the space of a week they had a perfect jubilee. Every morning I could see beeves being driven up from the woods to the quarters — and the number they killed o f them, to say nothing o f sheep and hogs, it is impossible to tell. The hogs are mostly yours....” Many slaves knew the war was not being fought with the intention o f freeing them, but they did see the opportunity they were looking for to escape. Though the Fédérais did not realize it at first, the slaves and the Union had more in common than one could imagine: both desired the destruction o f the Confederacy. Matthew Woods wrote this article as a senior thesis at Ferrum College in 2011. He taught world history at Bassett High Schoolfor three years and earned a master’s degree at Virginia Tech. He is assistant principal at Woodrow Wilson Middle School and a member o f Ferrum’s alumni board. 28 �The Civil War, 1861-1865, between the slave-holding Confederate states o f the South and the industrializing Union states o f the North, affected the lives o f the slaves in two significant ways. First, many slaves in Confederate territory viewed the war as an opportunity to run away toward Union lines. Second, the slaves who did not run away found their relationships with their owners changed due to the war. Historians tend to focus on the fact that slavery was simply abolished as a result o f the Civil War but seem to have forgotten about the effects the war had on the mindset o f Negroes who ran away and the ones that stayed behind. If we can learn about their struggle through those long four years, then we can hope to understand their mindset in regard to freedom. The Underground Railroad, for example, was one o f the earliest forms o f running away (and one o f the most successful). It consisted o f numerous stations along its path where the runaway slaves could stay and gain information on where to proceed to next. (4) The “conductors” on the path served as guides to insure safe passage as well. (5) Though the journey was long, many slaves sang spiritual hymns to encourage each other along the way: Bending knees a-aching, Body racked with pain, I wished I was a child o f God, I ’d get home by and by (6) If slaves had contact with people in the North, however, and did not want to take such a risky passage on the Underground Railroad, they could pass as free by the acquisition o f “free papers.” Free papers were used by Negroes to show they had gained legal freedom. These papers usually detailed “the name, age, color, height and form o f the free man” that they were describing. (7) Since more than one man or woman could fit the same general description, many would use the free papers to impersonate one another and escape to the North. Though these examples refer to slaves getting many miles away from their oppressors, some on bigger plantations found easier ways to deal with their conditions. Unbeknownst to many people, slaves would take turns hiding out in the woods during the day and return to the plantation home right before nightfall. (8) The beauty of this was that many owners o f large plantations did not know every single one o f their slaves well enough to tell if one was missing or not. Though some slaves would participate in hiding out for a few hours, few dared to run away completely because o f the fear and uncertainty they faced in life on their own. Slave owners by this time period encouraged their slaves to breed to make more children so that they would not have to purchase slaves and assume the risk o f importing them from Africa. As one former slave stated, true “African” Negroes were a hassle for overseers: “Marse Dave wasn’t mean like some. Sometimes de slaves run away to de woods and iffen they don’t cotch ’em fust they finally gits hengry and comes home, and then they gits a hidin’. Some niggers ju s’ come from Africa and old Marse has to watch ’em close, ’cause they is de ones that mostly runs away to de woods.” (9) By the time o f the Civil War however, most slaves had been bom in captivity in the United States. Albert Jones, for example, was seemingly on his deathbed when interviewed by Thelma Dunston of the Federal Writer’s Project, and at age 96, he recalled being “bom in Souf Hampton county.” (10) Ties to home and family seem to be the biggest reasons why so few slaves decided to run away. People always seem to ponder why so many slaves chose not to run away, but fail to consider the disadvantages and challenges that awaited them in an unfamiliar place. The concept o f a “runaway slave” in the United States can be traced back to slavery’s beginning in this country. Some o f the earliest signs o f slave resentment towards their masters can be seen in their behavioral patterns. Slaves were often described as “unfaithful, unreliable, lazy and vicious.” Many • 29• �whites recognized such behavior as an indication that slaves were becoming fed up with their lives of degrading servitude. (11) The open “day-to-day resistance” o f slaves was also alarming to slave owners, who knew that the slaves understood that they would face punishment if caught for their transgressions. These acts o f resistance were never fully documented; however, some o f the results o f such actions were known to have been broken farm equipment, damaged boats, ruined clothing and anything else the slave could do to show growing dissatisfaction with captivity. (12) Many white northerners, like Reverend Samuel J. May, tried warning their southern counterparts that such seemingly minor resistance was only the beginning and that a “large opportunity” was on the horizon for slaves to make their escape: “The slaves are men. They have within them that inextinguishable thirst for freedom, which is bom in man. They are already writhing in their shackles. They will, one day, throw them off with vindictive violence, if we do not unloose them.” (13) This warning, however, seems to have fallen on deaf ears since slavery still remained a staple of the southern economy. The speech, nevertheless, is significant because it introduced the commonly used phrase “runaway slave” in reference to Negroes who attempted to escape. Runaway slaves ranged from “young and old, black and mulatto, healthy and infirm.. .male and female.” (14) Although the number o f slaves who ran away rose as the Civil War approached, the profile o f runaway slaves stayed consistent for more than 60 years. To make the assumption that slaves only began to ran away during the Civil War would be false, but it is certain that a larger number o f slaves risked their lives to escape servitude during this time period. (15) In the brief clipping below, a South Carolina planter named E.M. Royall posted a $25 reward in the Charleston Mercury for a slave who ran away from him. Reading the description enables one to see the trouble that historians have had in finding characteristics that make mnaway slaves stand out from other slaves: TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS REWARD — Ran away from the subscriber’s plantation, in Christ Church Parish, his Negro Man TONEY. Said fellow is about 5 feet 6 inches in height; stoutly built, is very black, has a broad, full face, black eyes, and when he laughs, shows a very white set o f teeth. The above reward will be paid for his apprehension and delivery to the Work House in Charleston, or to the subscriber on his place. (16) From vague descriptions like this, runaway slaves seemed indistinguishable from the slaves who choose to remain in servitude. This is not the case, however, because most runaway slaves displayed distinctive behavorial problems before they fled. One would tend to think that a vast amount o f slaves ran away, but in actuality it was only a mi­ nority. (17) For example, imagine yourself on a plane with a bomb that will explode in about 10 seconds and there is only one parachute left. The dilemma you face is that your family is also on the plane, but you are the only one who can successfully wear the parachute. Now here is the real question: Do you save yourself, leaving your family to face the unknown, or do you stay and stick it out with them? This question was one slaves dealt with on a routine basis; should they leave or should they stay. The need to stay by their loved ones was the main reason why many slaves did not run away. (18) Slaves who ran away successfully usually faced the fear that their family members might be punished for their transgres­ sion. Successful escapee Nathan McKinney found out upon his escape that his wife had been jailed and his child had been reclaimed by his owner. In a desperate attempt to free his family, McKinney wrote a letter to the federal commander in Louisiana asking for his help: Neworleans [La.] F e b t h 2 1863 kin Sire I wash to state to you this morning the hole mattor I am in truble and like Jacob o f old and Can not let the go untill you Comford me My wife and felloservant 30 �This scene from a 19th century slave hunt in Dismal Swamp was painted by Thomas Moran. (Courtesy o f the Virginia Historical Society) was orded to go yeenkis and they left and went sence that they hav taken them and put them in prison taken the mother from hire Suckling Child put the mother in and taken the Child home I and my wife and felloservant am not willing to go Back we had Rented a house and living in it 20 Days then taken if you please Sire gave me a premiai to gat my wife out of Prison and my things out off his house the no 262 Cannai St mrs George Ruleff Reseadents your most obodent Servent Problems such as this made slaves think twice about running away, but with Union forces realiz­ ing the help Negroes could provide in repairing the Union, northerners gradually changed their attitudes towards helping them. The attack on Fort Sumter on April 12,1861, can be seen not only as the beginning o f the Civil War, but also as the “opportunity” that slaves were looking for. (19) With constant fighting raging be­ tween Union and Confederate forces, the number o f white men on plantations dwindled as the need for more troops increased. Slaves soon realized they vastly outnumbered the whites who remained at home and took advantage of the opportunity to plan escapes. They went about escaping in different ways than their predecessors did. Numerous cases involving assassination attempts on slave owners and desertion o f plantations upon the Yankees’ arrival were all common during this era. (20) Many slaves felt that if they offered some sort o f “sacrifice” to the Union, they would be allowed to enter Union territory and freedom. A young South Carolina slave named Robert Smalls was notorious for his daring escape, dur­ ing which he stole a gunboat and gave it to the Union navy as a gift: One spring night in 1862, when the white officers were sleeping ashore at their homes in Charleston, Smalls smuggled his wife, his children, his sister-in-law, and his brother’s wife and child aboard at midnight. He fired the boiler, hoisted the Confederate flag and •31 • �just before dawn steamed out to the open sea. There he hauled down the Confederate col­ ors and hoisted a white flag o f truce as he came within sight o f the blockade vessels o f the United States Navy... Congress voted Smalls a sizable sum o f money for his contraband and Lincoln signed the appropriation. (21) Instead o f slaves following the irrational impulse o f “running away towards freedom,” they used well-thought out strategies like this one not only to escape but also to further cripple the Confederacy. With the issuance o f the Emancipation Proclamation on “midnight o f the last day o f 1862,” the Union formally recognized Negro people as being equals. (22) This was done, however, as a military ploy to further weaken the Confederacy. Union forces used slaves’ willingness to join their ranks to re­ plenish their manpower. (23) Negroes however, saw this as their opportunity to prove themselves to the Union. Famous black abolitionist Frederick Douglass argued that the Negro as a soldier would help lay the foundation for Negroes to become equal citizens as well: “Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters, U.S.; let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, and there is no power on earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship in the United States.” (24) It is estimated that at least 38,000 Negro soldiers died trying to repair the Republic and to end the tyranny o f slavery. (25) Though the Union forces and the Negroes were fighting for different purposes, they found common ground in their fight against the Confederacy. Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters. — Ephesians 6:5 Though some Negroes wanted nothing more than to escape as soon as possible, some were more than willing to wait until the war was over to gain their freedom. (26) Nannie Bradfield o f Uniontown, Alabama, laughed at the question o f being happy at the possibility o f gaining her freedom: “What I keer ’bout bein’ free? Didn’t old Marster give us plenty good sompin to eat and clo’s to wear? I stayed on de plantation ’till I mah’ied. My old Miss give me a brown dress and hat. Well dat dress put me in de country, if you mahie in brown you’ll live in de country.” (27) Another unnamed slave in South Carolina also stressed the distaste fellow slaves he knew had in being “free” : “De slaves, where I lived, knowed after de war dat they had abundance o f dat somethin’ called freedom, what they could not, wear, and sleep in. Yes, sir, they soon found out dat freedom ain’t nothin’, ‘less you is got somethin’ to live on and a place to call home. Dis livin’ on liberty is lak young folks livin’ on love after they gits married. It just don’t work. No, sir, it las’ so long and not a bit longer. Don’t tell me! It sho’ don’t hold good when you has to work, or when you gits hongry.” (28) The refusal o f some slaves to express joy at gaining freedom is difficult to comprehend for those o f us who enjoy our daily freedoms to say and do whatever we would like as long as it does not harm or offend anyone else. Depending on where the slave was located, he or she may have been living very comfortably compared to others and did not want to join in the fighting. When slaves heard o f their upcoming liberation from slavery, many wondered what it would be like. Charlie Davenport, like many other slaves, responded with enthusiasm at the news o f his possible freedom: •3 2 • �“I was right smart bit by de freedom bug for awhile. It sounded pow’ful nice to be tol’: ‘You can th ’ow dat hoe down an’ go fishin’ whensoever de notion strikes you. A n’ you can roam ’roun’ at night an’ court gals ju s ’ as you please. Aint no marster gwine a-say to you, ‘Charlie, you’s got to be back when de clock strikes nine.’ I was fool ’nough to b ’lieve all dat kin’ o ’ stuff.” (29) After much thought however, Charlie, like other slaves, became scared o f the uncertainty they would face when freed. (30) Slaves who wanted to remain in their “familiar surroundings” found it extremely difficult to maintain the trust of their masters due to the strong suspicions o f rebellion to which they had been subject during the war. Nervous slave masters began moving their slaves from plantation to plantation in an attempt to avoid the Yankees, even if the slaves proclaimed their loyalty to their masters. (31) No matter what the slaves would say, the slave owners, at the end o f the day, viewed them as “property” and wanted to keep them at all costs. Although slavery was considered a “south­ ern thing,” it is an unfair assumption to label every southerner as a slave owner, or state that every northerner wanted Negroes to be free. Slavery, at its core, was an economic institution set up to make money, and anything else at­ tributed to the institution was added on to it and nonessential. (32) Slave owners during the war started to realize that slavery was coming to an end, and that the days o f “whips and shackles” had long passed. New alternatives sprang up to keep slaves obedient. Masters turned to offering wages to “secure the services o f the Slaves” and to keep them from running away. (33) Though these arrangements worked for awhile, all they did was buy time before the Union crushed the life out o f the institution o f slavery in the United States In comparing the mindsets o f Negroes who ran away and Negroes who stayed in captivity, it is presumptuous to think that they were dif­ ferent just because o f their circumstances. The two groups had different ideologies and perspec­ tives o f freedom. But to say that one group was right and the other wrong is absurd. The totality o f a Negro’s life determined his mindset. Being a slave can be viewed as the most dehumanizing affliction in the world. An ex-slave named Georgina Giwbs recalled a story that her father told her which sums up the evil destructiveness slavery can cause upon a human being and how it can dramatically shatter someone’s psyche: “My father told me ders wuz once a mastah who sold a slave woman and her son. Many years after dis, de woman married. One day when she wuz washing her husband’s back she seen a scar on his back. De woman ’membered de scar. It wuz de scar her mastah had put on her son. ’Course dey didn’t stay married, but de woman wouldn’t ever let her son leave her.” (34) •33 • �Though this example is extremely graphic (and rare in its nature), it underlines the evil that slav­ ery infuses and how it can ruin relationships and lives. Having to serve someone all day and do what they say while ignoring your own needs must have been difficult. Try to imagine how the slaves during this time felt. One cannot find it hard to imagine why numerous slaves ran away during the Civil War or to recognize the issues they faced while trying to escape their captivity. The fears that crowded the slaves’ minds and the uncertanity always present in their daily lives must have been a scary realization to them. Will it be possible for anyone to ever be able to really understand the sincere desire for freedom that the slaves really sought after? Will we ever be able to capture in words the pain that their bodies felt from the extreme heat and the sharp thorns that ripped their flesh while at the same time they were being mistaken for the common stereotype “they all look alike?” The slaves ran as fast as they could or stayed behind and waited for the golden opportunity to get relief from the oppressor and to seek out any means o f escape into a free world. Sometimes I feel discouraged, And think my work’s in vain. — African American spiritual END NOTES 1. Leon F. Litwack quoted Ralph Ellison in “Been in the Storm so Long” (New York: Alfred A. Knopf Inc.), p. 3, from El­ lison’s Shadow and Act (New York, 1964), p. 92 2. Langston Hughes and others explore some of the ways slaves were brought to North America, but concludes that the south­ erners’ agricultural economy was the main reason for the Negro’s subsequent enslavement. “A Pictorial History of Blackamericans” (Canada: General Publishing Company Limited, 1973), p.1-11 3. Ransdell was in charge of Governor Moore’s plantation in Louisiana, and sent a letter to him detailing what was transpir­ ing. Benjamin Quarles, “The Negro in the Civil War” (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1969), p. 55 4. See pictures and maps of various routes taken on the Underground Railroad and pictures of some famous conductors in “A Pictorial History of Blackamericans,” p. 130-132; The “Railroad” started mostly in the upper Southern states (VA, MD, and KY) and helped slaves escape to New York, Pennsylvania, and even Canada. For an estimate of numbers on how many slaves possibly ran away between 1830-1860 see Gary C. Walker, “Slavery and the coming War” (Roanoke: A & W Enterprise, 1996), p. 150-151 5. “A Pictorial History of Blackamericans,” p.129-130 6. As quoted from Ervin L. Jordan Jr’s “Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia” (Charlottesville: Uni­ versity Press of Virginia), p.31: “Caroline County slaves, in one of their favorite hymns, sang of freedom.” 7. Michael Meyer narrates Frederick Douglass’ recollection of the exhilarating tale of how he escaped slavery by posing as a sailor using another Negro’s free papers. Free papers had to be renewed frequently and Negroes were charged a fee for this. Frederick Douglass, “The Narrative and Selected Writings” (Canada: Random House, Inc., 1984), p. 176-181 8. The Federal Writers Project, “Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slaves in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves,” Washington, D.C., http://www.loc.gov/library/libarch-digital.html, Slaves give random sporadic accounts o f slaves’ resentment towards their condition throughout the entire collection o f interviews. Volume XVII, p. 8 9. Quoted from the interview of Clinte Lewis in “Slave Narratives: A Folk History,” Volume XVI, p.2 10. “Slave Narratives: A Folk History,” Volume XVII, p. 42 11. Leon F. Litwack, “Been in the Storm so Long” (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.); The Federal Writers Project, “Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slaves in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves,” Washington, D.C., http:// www.loc.gov/library/libarch-digital.html 12. John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger, “Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation” (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 2-4; Herbert Aptheker also discusses various methods of resistances including (but not limited to) sabotage, faking illness, strikes, and self-mutilation, “American Negro Slave Revolts” (New York: Columbia University Press), p. MO142 13. Reverend Samuel J. May delivered this speech on July 3, 1831, quoted in Herbert Aptheker’s “American Negro Slave Revolts” (New York: Columbia University Press), p. 49 34 �14. The typical range of runaway slave descriptions are collected in Franklin, “Runaway Slaves,” p. 210-211 15. Table 1.3 on p. 15 in James H. Brewer’s “The Confederate Negro” (Durham: Duke University Press, 1969) shows the loss of slaves from VA in 1861-1863, and also breaks it down by the county totals and corporation totals. 16. Excerpt was published in the Charleston Mercury in November 1857, “Runaway Slaves,” p. 209 17. A vast majority o f slaves accepted their roles; only a fraction attempted to run away. Most ran because they had broken the master’s rules or laws or simply wanted to be reunited with their families. Walker, “Slavery and the Coming War,” p. 149 18. Franklin, “Runaway Slaves,” p. 50-52; view Volume X V I20-24,48-62, 190-193, and XVII 7-11, 44-46 of “Slave Narra­ tives: A Folk History o f Slaves” 19. “A Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States,” Section IV: The Civil War; many of the slave testi­ monials refer to the starting o f the war and the ideas of freedom it sparked in their minds, “Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slaves,” Volume XVI, p. 5, XVII, p. 1, 3, 42-43 20. Individual acts of property damage and assassination attempts by fire, knife, gun, clubs, axe or poison were so common that numbering the events would he nearly impossible. “American Negro Slave Revolts,” p. 143; ex-slave Charles Crawley refers to slaves killing owners when they got mistreated: “You know, some slaves who were treated bad; some of dem had started gittin’ together an’ killin’ de white folks when dey carried dem out to de field to work.” “Slave Narratives: A Folk His­ tory,” Volume XSHI, p. 10 21. See Slaves Deliver a Prize of War in “A Pictorial History of Blackamericans,” p. 166-167 22. Page 476 of Aptheker’s “A Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States” talks about the eve of the Emancipation Proclamation when Negro people and friends held parties in Boston, according to Frederick Douglass; the document was excerpted by Aptheker from “Life and Times of Frederick Douglass,” written by himself (N.Y., Pathway Press), p. 387-389 23. Military manpower quotas were becoming hard to meet, so less than four weeks after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, Secretary of War Stanton allowed Governor John A. Andrew of Massachusetts to enlist Negroes to serve. Quarles, “The Negro in the Civil War,” p. 184; Charles Grandy was a Civil War veteran and ex-slave who talked about his willingness to serve without pay just to avoid being a slave again, “Slave Narratives: A Folk History, Volume XVH, p. 22, also p. 42-43 tells of ex-slave war veteran, Albert Jones, who goes into detail about his enlistment into the Union Army and some of his daily tasks. 24. George L. Steams was supervisor of enlistments and sought the assistance of well-known Negro leaders to help him recruit troops. These leaders targeted specific homes, public meeting places, and barbershops to recruit young Negro males. Quarles, “The Negro in the Civil War,” p. 184 25. “A Pictorial History of Blackamericans,” p. 182 26. “Slave Narratives: A Folk History,” Volume XVI, p.2, Clinte Lewis talks about the fact he had numerous chances to run away during the war, but stayed and even remained on the plantation after he was freed because the owners were kind to him during slavery. Also refer to Volumes I and XVII to see various other examples of slaves doing the same thing. It’s of great importance that I stress the fact that the majority of the slaves who said they were treated fairly were in upper-southern states, and not in the lower states like Mississippi and Alabama where slaves were routinely treated worse. 27. Not only does Mrs. Bradfield talk about her attitude towards freedom, but she also talked about the kindness of her mas­ ters and how lucky she was compared to other slaves. “Slave Narratives: A Folk History,” Volume I, p. 45 28. Litwack, “Been in the Storm so Long,” p. 328; “Slave Narratives: A Folk History,” South Carolina Narrative (Part 1) 5-6, 29. Litwack, “Been in the Storm so Long,” p. 329-330 30. Charlie revised his expectations because he said he couldn’t comprehend the term “freedom.” Litwack, “Been in the Storm so Long,” p. 329-330 31. “Running the negroes” was practiced in the South but waned during the end of 1862 because of Union campaigns in the South. The youngest and most “productive” slaves were taken with or moved by their masters deeper south so that Union forces could not free them. Usually, the old and maimed slaves were left for the Yankees. Bell Irvin Wiley, “Southern Ne­ groes 1861-1865” (New Haven: Yale University Press), p. 4-6 32. In slave economics, slave owners would buy labor; so in essence, labor became part of the capital. Walker, “Slavery and the coming War,” p. 11 33. Ira Berlin, “Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation 1861-1867,” Series I, Volume I: “The Destruction of Slavery,” p. 264-265 34. “Slave Narratives: A Folk History,” Volume XVII, p. 16 • 35 • �‘T Jtavuf, 'P 'ie& tdeaùi fa v e vc&ctect *l/<zMey by Sandra Brown Kelly itting U.S. presidents have come to visit the Roanoke Valley by horse, train, car and plane, the mode of travel more linked to the prog­ ress of transportation than to any personal choice. Thirteen of them visited, beginning with George Washington, and if you throw in some who visited before or after being in office, and include some vice presidents, the total rises appreciably. The Roanoke Times on July 13, 2012, reported that 11 sitting presidents had visited the Roanoke Valley. The Salem Museum in “A Guide to Historic Salem, Summer 2000,” credited 10 presidents with having visited Salem, including some not on the Times’ list. No doubt there are oth­ ers as Woodrow Wilson should have, considering his wife Edith Bolling was from Wytheville. What information does exist offers rich details about the ways of life in various times and also brings up that ever lingering, much touted rivalry — real or imagined — between Roanoke and Salem. Mention of the rivalry emerged during the most lavish visit o f a sitting president, Franklin President Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited the D. Roosevelt’s trip to the Valley on Oct. 19,1934. Roanoke Valley in 1934 to dedicate the Veterans Roosevelt, who served from 1933-1945, came to Administration Hospital. dedicate the Veterans Administration Hospital in Salem. According to Norwood C. Middleton’s “Salem: A Virginia Chronicle,” Salem really fancied up along the planned route for the motorcade from the train station in Roanoke to the Salem dedication site. Accord­ ing to Middleton, plantings in the median along Boulevard Street “were groomed and curbing installed.” Federal dollars also helped pay for a widening and paving o f a portion of Eighth Street (312-313). When the President and his dignitaries arrived around 4 p.m., some 40,000 people waited at the hos­ pital site, but such enthusiasm did not offset a Salem newspaper’s editorial that “deplored” the fact that in his dedication speech Roosevelt gave no “mention of Salem, even as a joint host with Roanoke” (312, 313). Still, it was quite a party. Various accounts, including information accompanying a photo of the event on the Historical Society of Western Virginia’s Digital Museum site, put full attendance for the event at 85,000 people. The Roanoke museum account also noted that the president arrived in town on a “private seven-car S Sandra Brown Kelly is a graduate o f Virginia Western Community College and holds bachelor’s and master ’s degrees from Hollins University. She retired in 1999 after more than 30 years as a reporter and editorfor the Roanoke Times and now serves as adjunctfaculty at Virginia Western and operates SBK Inc., writing and editing. 36 �train” and then rode in a “Packard Phaeton” to Salem. Roanoke’s History Museum has a photo of the train menu for the day, which included offerings o f shrimp, oysters, tenderloin of trout, roast beef, chicken, cold Virginia Smithfield ham and steamed fig pudding, for $1.25. The earliest link to a president (or president-to-be) visiting the area is 1756, before Salem was founded in 1802 and chartered as a town in Botetourt County in 1806, and well before the existence of Roa­ noke, chartered as Big Lick in 1874 and as the town o f Roanoke in 1882. George Washington, who became president in 1789, traveled in the area while an officer in the colonial army on an inspection tour of frontier forts when he was only 24. He stopped overnight at what became Big Lick on Oct. 13,1756, lodging at the home of Widow Evans, according to “Kegley’s Virginia Frontier.” That likely was Rhoda Evans, widow of Daniel Evans, who operated a mill near present Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital. His bill was 3 shil­ lings, according to his expense account. (242) Thomas Jefferson traveled from Poplar Forest, his Bedford County home, across the mountain at the Peaks of Otter to visit the spa at Warm Springs but no documentation o f a Roanoke Valley visit has been found, according to Gene Crotty, a Botetourt County historian. Crotty said Falling Spring, near Covington, was the farthest western point in the travels of Jefferson, the man responsible for the huge Louisiana Pur­ chase of western lands. Plenty is known of Andrew Jackson’s experiences in the area, however. He visited before he became president and while he was in office, traveling between the capital and his Tennessee home, the Hermitage. None of his visits were official though. One letter that Jackson wrote to a Fincastle lawyer was penned at a Salem “tavern, the Mermaid.” “Salem: A Virginia Chronicle” notes the letter was dated July 2,1807, and wasn’t mailed until July 7, “which could underscore the irregularity of stage service.” Middleton’s book also shares the contents of a letter Jackson wrote in 1834, five years after he became president, explaining he had been delayed in getting to Abingdon because of “rain & intolerable bad roads...” and a “severe attack of bilious collick that detained me three days at Doctor Johnstons [cq] near Salem.” He was again at the doctor’s house in 1936 when he wrote his son, Andrew Jackson Jr., that “in the Streets of Salum [cq]” his carriage “broke a swingle tree and the foreaxes” (Middleton, 36-42). C ame F irst as S oldiers Two men who became president, Rutherford B. Hayes and William McKinley, were first in the area as part of the Union Army at the Battle of Hanging Rock (Salem) in June 1864. Both later returned while president. According to Middleton, Hayes visited four months into his presidency, in 1877, as part of a “19-day goodwill tour” of five states. According to a description credited to The Fincastle Herald newspaper, Hayes “lifted his silk hat, and got ready to make a speech,” but no one in the crowd acknowledged him because they had not seen it. Finally, a student greeted him, and Hayes said “good morning,” and after a silent period asked, “What county is Salem in?” When answers came back “Roanoke,” Hayes asked the audience if this is the Roanoke River and eventually introduced Secretary of State William M. Evarts. The Roanoke College magazine, The Roanoke Collegian, quoted the president as saying: “1 recollect passing through here once before, but under less favorable circumstances,” a reference to having been at Hanging Rock where he was a colonel in charge of the First Brigade of the 23rd Ohio Infantry. He made no speech and the train moved on (130-131). In between Hayes and McKinley, the area got a quick visit from President Benjamin Harrison. The Benjamin Harrison Presidential Website notes that railroads greatly expanded presidential visits and goes on to detail President Harrison’s transcontinental trek through 19 states in spring 1891. The trip included a stop in Roanoke on April 14,1891, where Harrison supposedly said a few words. The visit by President Harrison was recorded in The Roanoke Times of April 15,1891, in a lengthy story that describes many individual encounters between the chief executive and citizens of the city. As the train pulled into Union Station and came to a stop, the President received a “hearty cheer,” then onlookers • 37 • �began to press in to shake hands with him. Then calls came for the President to provide a speech, which he did at length. The President told the crowd he was glad to be in the state of his father and congratulated those attending on the vigorous level of economic development he had observed in Virginia. The President’s party included John Wanamaker, the retail titan who was planning a store for Roanoke. According to the newspaper story, two young Norfolk and Western messenger boys had climbed to the top of the rail station, where they gained his attention after some effort when one of them tipped the brim of his hat. The President looked up, the story says, and took their hands (“The Jaunt Through Virginia”). Harrison was president from 1889-1893. M cK inley D rew T housands N ine years later, according to Raymond P. Barnes’ “History o f the City of Roanoke,” President William McKinley’s train stopped briefly on April 29, 1901, at Union Station in Roanoke and drew crowds that made the streets look like “those during the carnival,” a surprise for an area with Democratic leanings in politics, the account states. Barnes offers this account: “Redman and Machine Works bands were on hand to add to the clamor. Men and women fought like maniacs to shake his hand, trampling on children in their mad rush.” Oddly enough, there was no official on hand to greet McKinley, the account states. McKinley was traveling in his private railcar, “Olympia,” which Barnes quotes a reporter as describing as a “handsome affair.” The President was barely into his second term, and that same Roanoke citizens offered an enthusiastic year he was fatally wounded by an assassin, Leon Czolgreeting to President McKinley and Party gosz, during a visit to Buffalo, New York (359). when he visited the Star City. [Copyright 1901 by Underwood and Underwood.] L avish W elcome for V ice P resident O n October 23,1907, Theodore Roosevelt arrived by train in Roanoke with no plans reported for the train to make a stop. Stop it did, when the station platform and the rail yard were flooded with people wanting to see the President. Roosevelt stood on the rear platform of the train as it came to a stop. He was return­ ing to Washington after a big hunting trip to Mississippi. The president of the Roanoke Chamber of Com­ merce had telegraphed Roosevelt and asked him to describe in his speech here “how he killed the bear.” The Roanoke Times story of April 24 described his voice as somewhat hoarse, but that did not prevent him from applauding the material prosperity represented by Virginia’s agriculture and manufacturing plants. As for the bear, he said he didn’t have the time to talk about it, but he was reported as delighted at the reception given him by the citizens and dignitaries of Roanoke (“Mr. Roosevelt Visits Roanoke”). Outside o f Franklin Roosevelt’s visit to the area, the area’s most social encounter came with Woodrow Wilson’s vice president. According to the Historical Society of Western Virginia, on May 4,1914, Vice President Thomas R. Marshall visited the Roanoke Valley along with his wife. The couple was lavishly entertained at “Cocke-Spur,” the home o f Lucian Hayward Cocke and Sarah (Johnson) Hagan Cocke. The event was reported in the May 5, 1914, issue o f The Roanoke Times and photographs o f the event are in a scrapbook in the archives o f the History Museum of Western Virginia. The Marshalls stayed at Kern Cliff, the summer home o f U.S. Senator and Mrs. John W. Kern of Indiana; the home was in the Carvins Cove area. (Cocke-Spur) Kern was an unsuccessful vice presidential candidate in 1908. 38 �Chronologically, the next visit associated with a president came when then Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan came to Salem’s General Electric Plant in 1957 on a public relations tour for the “GE Theatre” TV program he hosted. His visit was documented in an article compiled for The Roanoker magazine by the Historical Society of Western Virginia (Historical Society of Western Virginia. “One Year in Roanoke: 1957”). The next presidential visit came from Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969), who spoke upon arrival at the now RoanokeVice presidents came to Roanoke too. Here are guests at CockeBlacksburg Regional Airport on May 23, 1964, and introduced “the Spur, the Orchard Hill home o f Lucian and Sarah Hagan Cocke before a May 4, 1914, reception for Vice President Thomas R. and senior Senator from Virginia, my Lois Marshall. From left, front: Mattie Cocke, Lois Marshall, Araold longtime friend, Harry Byrd.” minta Kern and C. Francis Cocke. Standing, from left: Col. Alfred Johnson then mentioned he and B. Williams, Mary Stuart Cocke Goodwin, Harry St. George Tucker, his group would “have a chance to Frances Mingea, Lucian H. Cocke, Vice President Thomas Mar­ come by the fence and say hello to shall and Sarah Hagan Cocke. you.” On March 31,1976, a campaigning Jimmy Carter visited Roanoke for a short talk at what was then the Roanoke Civic Center and meetings with the editorial staff of The Roanoke Times and World-News newspapers, and leaders from the African American community. A newspaper article on the visit quotes the Rev. Charles T. Green, a former president of the Roanoke NAACP, as saying Carter made a “favorable impression” on some 15 leaders who were at that meeting. Carter returned on Sept. 23 after his election to campaign for Henry Howell. Another Carter visit came on Sept 24, 1977, when Carter flew from Andrews Air Force Base to Roanoke, according to “The Daily Diary of President Jimmy Carter.” He was met by Henry E. Howell Jr., Democratic candidate for governor o f Virginia; also in the welcoming committee was Roanoke Mayor Noel C. Taylor. He then traveled to the Roanoke Civic Center (now Berglund Center) where he viewed a portrait done by Lenore Holsveig. He was gone by 3:42 p.m., heading to a similar event in Norfolk. C ame B efore B eing E lected On Nov. 4,1960, John F. Kennedy campaigned in Roanoke and was interviewed by then WDBJ-radio news director Forrest (“Frosty”) Landon. The interview was captured on film by WDBJ-TV, which quoted Landon as noticing: “And that was showing on the right hand of Kennedy, a band-aid [cq] that obviously was there to protect what was left of his hand after a long arduous campaign.” The New York Times News Service reported that Kennedy, who arrived on his private plane, The Caroline, had to be rescued from a telephone booth where he was calling his brother, Robert. A woman gave him “a silvery set of good luck horseshoes,” read the New York Times news account. The Richmond Times-Dispatch noted Kennedy drew up to 25,000 people. An account of Kennedy’s visit in “Television News of the Civil Rights Era 1950-1970” points out: • 39 • �“The theme of Kennedy’s speech was straightforward: ‘Virginia should not vote Republican.’ Kennedy said Virginia is the home of Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic Party, and thus, it could not afford to elect Richard Nixon as President of the United States.” Two times during Kennedy’s talk, aircraft noise was really loud. The first time it happened, Kennedy said, “Goodbye, Dick,” referring to Nixon leaving. The second noise occasion prompted: “There are more Republicans leaving town today than ever.” N ixon V isited S everal T imes Richard Nixon visited the Valley multiple times, twice before becoming president and once during his term, Oct. 28, 1969. On that visit, President Nixon spoke at 7:48 p.m. at what was then Woodrum Airport in Roa­ noke and later at the then Salem-Roanoke Valley Civic Center, (now Salem Civic Center) on behalf of the gubernatorial campaign of Roanoke resident Linwood Holton. Nixon noted that “coming back to this state and to this city and to this part of this state is a very heartwarming thing for me. I only wish that my wife could be here with me. She was with me on all the previous occasions, but for the last two days she has been down in bed with the flu bug. But she sends her very best and knows that the ‘Ladies for Lin’ are going to come through for Holton. Finally, as I will say a little later at the rally downtown, generally a President does not find it possible to go into all o f the contests and all of the campaigns that he would like to. This is the first time that I have made an appearance since becoming President of the United States in behalf of a candidate. And I am proud that it is in behalf of Lin H olton....” Later at the Salem-Roanoke Valley Civic Center, Nixon made no mistake about where he was - un­ like Roosevelt when he came to the VA hospital dedication. Nixon said: “I know I am in Salem, incidentally, and not in Roanoke. I can assure you that it is a great honor to be here, to have this wonderful welcome, to remember the time that I was here in 1960 with one of the largest — according to Dick Poflf, the largest — political crowd that had ever been gathered in this part o f the state, either before or since.” (Poff, who died in 2011, was a native of Radford and as a congressman represented a Western Virginia district that included Roanoke.) Nixon was also in Roanoke on Sept. 15,1960, while he was vice president. The Chicago Tribune re­ ported a crowd of 14,000 greeted him at Victory Stadium (the city’s former football stadium) where actress Helen Hayes described Nixon as a “crusader against atheistic communism ... and a band played ‘Dixie’ as Nixon and his wife appeared on the platform.” (Edwards) Certainly, too, Nixon was a shadow in the background in Roanoke on July 19,1974, when then Vice President Gerald Ford campaigned here with Congressman M. Caldwell Butler. At a press conference, Ford said, “I will not predicate my appearance or attendance in a Congressional District because a person votes for or against the President. I respect the independent views o f any congressman, including this one.” (Nightly News 7-20-1974) At the time, Butler was a first-term Republican representative who announced on July 25, 1974, that he would vote to impeach Nixon and “wept after he voted” on July 27, according to Butler’s obituary in the New York Times. (Martin) President Nixon resigned on Aug. 9,1974, and Ford became president. F light S topovers for B ushes Neither Bush officially visited the Roanoke Valley, but George H.W. passed through. According to The Ro­ anoke Times’ July 13, 2012, article, Bush flew into the Roanoke airport in May 1990, on his way to speak at Liberty University in Lynchburg. His son had a similar habit of just passing through, according to that article by Mason Adams. George W. Bush came to the Roanoke airport on June 6,2001, on his way to the dedication of the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford. He was back on April 17,2002, enroute to speak at •4 0 • I I �Virginia Military Institute, and on April 17, 2007, came into the Valley on his way to speak at Virginia Tech, which had suffered the loss of more than 30 students from a gunman’s rampage on April 16. (Adams) P resident O bama L atest V isitor President Barack Obama filled the downtown City Market area when he spoke July 13,2012, at Roanoke Fire Station #1. “Hello, Roanoke! It is good to be back in Roanoke! Good to be back in Virginia. Back in the Star City,” he told the crowd. Obama had campaigned in Roanoke on Oct. 17, 2008. (Office of the Press Secretary) Obama’s 2008 visit drew 8,000-plus to the Roanoke Civic Center, according to The Roanoke Times. The candidate also visited the Total Elegance Salon on Jefferson Street. The newspaper reported that his visit represented the “first time a major party candidate has visited Roanoke during the general election since Sen. John F. Kennedy made a stop at the Roanoke Regional Airport on Nov. 4, 1960, during his race against then-Vice President Richard Nixon.” (Adams and Johnson) WORKS CITED - Adams, Mason. “Roanoke Readies for Obama’s visit.” The Roanoke Times. July 13,2012. A1 NewsBank. - Adams, Mason and Johnson, Rob. “Obama Makes Pitch to S.W. Virginia.” The Roanoke Times. October 18, 2008. NewsBank. - Barnes, Raymond P. “History of the City of Roanoke.” Commonwealth Press: Radford. 1968. 359. - Benjamin Harrison Presidential Website, Indianapolis, Indiana; www.presidentbenjaminharrison.org. - Cocke-Spur. Scrapbook. Digital Collection. History Museum of Western Virginia. - “The Daily Diary of President Jimmy Carter.” Jimmy Carter Presidential Library & Museum, Georgia State University, and the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.gov/. - Edwards, Willard. “Nixon Lashes Kennedy as a Tool of Labor.” Chicago Daily Tribune. Part 1, Page 3:9.16.1969. Chicago Daily Tribune Online Archives. - A Guide to Historic Salem, Summer 2000. Vol. 6:2 — Summer 2000. Salem History Museum Online. - Historical Society of Western Virginia. “One Year in Roanoke: 1957.” 1.1.2012. The Roanoker. - Kennedy, John F. “Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy, Airport Rally, Roanoke, VA,” November 4, 1960. Online by Ger­ hard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=60402. - Kegley, F.B.: “Kegley’s Virginia Frontier,” The Southwest Virginia Historical Society, Roanoke, Va. 1938. - Kennedy, John F. “Excerpts of Remarks by Senator John F. Kennedy, Airport Rally, Roanoke, VA (Advance Release Text),” November 4,1960. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency. ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=60401. - “The Jaunt Through Virginia.” The Roanoke Times. April 16,1891. Page 1. - Johnson, Lyndon B: “Remarks Upon Arrival at the Airport, Roanoke, Virginia,” May 23,1964. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=26263. - Martin, Douglas. “M Caldwell Butler, a Key Vote Against Nixon, Dies at 89.” July 29, 2014. The New York Times Online Archives. - Middleton, Norwood C. “Salem: A Virginia Chronicle.” Salem Historical Society Inc., Salem, Va. 1986. - Nightly News 7-20-1974. NBC News, NBC University Archives. 7.20.74. http://www.nbcimiversalarchives.com/nbcuni/ clip/5112499756_007.do). - Office of the Press Secretary. “Remarks by the President at a Campaign Event in Roanoke, Virginia.” The White House. 7.13.2012. www.WhiteHouse.gov. - Nixon, Richard: “Remarks at Roanoke, Virginia,” October 28,1969. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2291. - “Mr. Roosevelt Visits Roanoke.” The Roanoke Times. October 24,1907. Page 1. - “Television News of the Civil Rights Era 1950-1970.” William G. Thomas, III and Rector and Board of Visitors, University of Virginia. 2005. http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/civilrightstv/. Special thanks to the Virginia Room, Roanoke City Public Library. 41 �‘T ttc c fa tie ö b zm ti fau l ß o tu ttty ¿¿ax/enxf wwfo irst Lady Michelle Obama’s great-great-great-grandparents, Peter Jumper Sr. and Dolly Jumper, lived in Henry County where they were free before the Civil War, but their daughter-in-law, Eliza Wade, wife o f Peter Jumper Jr. and great-great-grandmother o f the First Lady, was a slave. Mrs. Obama’s ancestry and information about the Jumpers is explored in “American Tapestry: The Story o f the Black, White and Mixed Ancestors o f Michelle Obama” by Rachel L. Swams, a re­ porter for the New York Times for almost 20 years. The book was published by Amistad, an imprint o f HarperCollins Publishers in 2012. An excerpt from the book follows: F It was that hunger for freedom that drew Dolly and Peter Jumper, Mrs. Obama’s greatgreat-great-grandparents to the courthouse in Henry County, Virginia, in 1866. Dolly and Peter had been free before the war, but the North’s victory opened the doors to a kind of liberty they had never known. So on a winter day in February 1866, they joined hundreds of other African American couples in front of the two-story brick building. There were former slaves and people whose families had been free for generations, elderly couples with salt-andpepper hair, and young lovers brimming with the giddiness of first-found romance. They were lining up because federal officials were legal­ izing the marriages of African Americans for the very first time. Dolly and Peter had lived together for thirty-five years by then. She was about fifty-three and he was about sixty-six. They may have been hobbled by arthritis, with graying hair and aching limbs, but they were determined to imbue their relationship with the formal recognition of the state. (Although as free people they had the right to marry even before the war, some free African Americans chose to cohabitate rather than to invite unwelcome attention from the white authorities responsible for handling marriage licenses.) So the Jumpers took their turn amid the crowds. And when their moment came, they stood before a federal official who took up pen and paper and wrote down their names and ages, adding those of their children as well, and the year that they had first lived together as husband and wife. By the time the registration was through, 603 couples— 12 of whom were free before the war—had enshrined their relationships in that courthouse, and Dolly and Peter were able to savor freedom’s fullness in a way they never could before. They had never lived as slaves .but they had been denied many of the basic rights that whites took for granted. For them, freedom meant finally receiving official acknowledgement of the precious and invisible bonds of their family, formal recognition as This is an excerptfrom pp.289-91 (910 words) from “American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White and Mixed Ancestors of Michelle Obama” by Rachel L. Swams. Copyright © 2012 by Rachel L. Swams. Reprint­ ed by permission o f HarperCollins Publishers. Image: iStock Photo •4 2 • �a committed couple and devoted parents. No eyewitness accounts have emerged of that day in Henry County, but similar scenes played out across the country as African Americans wept and rejoiced as they turned up by the thousands to enshrine their relationships under the cloak of law. “I praise God for this day!” one black sol­ dier declared after learning that Virginia would recognize the relationships between slaves. “I have long been praying for it.” White missionaries and army officers, who had assumed that slavery had destroyed family ties among African Americans, watched with astonishment at the outpouring of enthusiasm for the institution of marriage. In one Mississippi military camp alone, a chaplain mar­ ried 119 black couples in a single ceremony. “One of the most touching features of our work was the eagerness with which colored men and women availed themselves of the opportunities offered them to legalize unions already formed, some of which had been in existence for a long time.” Former slaves, then, were not the only African Americans who benefited from Emancipation. Blacks who had been free before the war—many of whom had experience working for wages, some education and some means—were particularly well poised to seize the widening opportuni­ ties opening up for African Americans as they began taking their seats in county commissions, in state legislatures, and in Congress. This group accounted for only about 11 percent of the black population in 1860, but they would occupy a far larger share of political positions. Between 1869 and 1900, at least 10 of the 22 blacks who served in Congress had been free before the Civil War. In Virginia, where the Jumpers lived, 43 of the 102 blacks who held state office were free before Emancipation. The Jumpers and the Motens were illiterate and never became part of the African American elite. But when slavery ended both families had some money on hand and some experience negotiating with whites for wages. Nelson Moten, who had escaped to freedom in the Civil War, had managed to acquire personal possessions worth $200 by the time he was in his forties. Which made him one of the more prosperous black men in his rural community of Villa Ridge, Illinois. His daughter, Phoebe, would learn to read and write and would carry the family line to Chicago. In Virginia, Dolly and Peter Jumper, who were bom free, could afford the help of a young woman who cooked for them as they settled into old age. Their son, Peter Jr., would exemplify the social changes rapidly transforming the postslave society. When it came time to marry, he picked a bride who had been bom in servitude, bridging the long-standing divide between those who had been slaves and those who were bom free. Yet even as the Jumpers and the Motens saw the world change in ways they could never have imagined before the Civil War, they still fell short o f fulfilling the dream held so dearly by most African Americans. They never earned enough h money to buy any land. Nelson Moten and Peter Jumper Sr. would both die as sharecroppers. Mary Moten died in Villa Ridge, Illinois and Nelson probably died there too, though no record of his death has survived. It appears that the Jumpers spent their last days amid the green hills of southern Virginia, the state where they were bom free. Their final resting place has yet to be found. According to “American Tapestry,” the genealogy o f Michelle Obama is as follows: Her mother is Marian Shields, daughter o f Rebecca Jumper/Coleman and Purnell Shields. Rebecca Jumper/Coleman was the daughter o f Eliza Tinsley and Jim Jumper. Jumper was the son o f Peter Jumper Jr. and Eliza Wade. Peter Jumper Jr. was the son o f Peter Jumper Sr. and Dolly Jumper. Mrs. Obama descended from the Moten family through her father, Fraser Robinson III, according to the book. 43 �' ‘S ac&cauvt&uf *Vinyttttci ’ by Walter Dixon n 2006, two friends and I bought a mountain farm in western Virginia, with extensive hayfields, I clear streams, upland pastures and forests o f century-old timber. Known locally as “The Carters,” (1) it had remained in the same Persinger family for well over 200 years. Posted at the entrance was a sign designating the property a “Bicentennial Farm.” There was a farmhouse — in serious disrepair — perched on the edge o f a cliff above a small river with the Rich Patch Mountains beyond. Clustered nearby were various outbuildings: a large dark bam, a granary and smokehouse, and several other structures o f ill-defined usage. The homeplace and surrounding acreage were part o f a 110-acre King’s grant to one James Williams, dated 1772 , lying on Potts Creek in Augusta County (now Alleghany), Virginia. (2) In 1777 Williams sold the property to Jacob Persinger, (3) a 61-year-old Swiss-German immi­ grant, who divided the land between his two sons, Christopher and Jacob Jr. (4) Over the years both sons and their descendants bought more land and continued farming operations on neighboring tracts. “The Carters” sparked our interest in Jacob Persinger, the original purchaser, who in 1750 brought the Persinger name to Virginia. He lived during a tumultuous time in American history. About the time Jacob arrived in Pennsylvania, German and Swiss-German immigrants from Pennsylvania, followed by the Scotch-Irish, had begun moving out o f the colony into Virginia through the Shenandoah Valley in search o f new lands for settlement. During the next few years the trickle o f migrants became a stream, alarming the Indians o f the Ohio River valley and their French allies. As the number o f new settlements increased, a clash became inevitable; and from 1753 to 1764, violent conflict — beginning with the French and Indian War, followed by the Cherokee War, and ending with Pontiac’s rebellion — disrupted settlement and temporarily depopulated large portions o f the Shenandoah Valley. France’s bid for empire was halted in 1760 with its surrender at Montreal. The Revolutionary period followed, and independence was assured in 1781 with the Continental Army victorious over the British at Yorktown, ushering in the National period o f the United States o f America. As a young man leaving his native land to seek his fortune in a new, untamed land, Jacob Pers­ inger was a risk taker. Chastened by tragedy in middle age, he lived his later years generously and con­ servatively, as you would expect from a prudent Switzer. Following is his biography, as best we can reconstruct it from court house records, historical reports, and personal letters and reflections. Walter Dixon is a student o f history and a retired investment banker. . 44. �Home built by Jacob Persinger Jr., ca. 1778. JA C O B PERD SH EN G ER (5) T he I mmigrant Jaco b Persinger arrived at the port of Philadelphia 29 May 1735 aboard the English Ship Mercury, originating from Rotterdam. He was 19 years old, unmarried and had left his home in Zumikon, a small farming village near Zurich, eight months earlier with a large colony o f Swiss emigrants. They were heading for America and the so-called “Carolina Island.” At that time emigration was considered a crime in Switzerland and was punishable as such. It was equivalent to desertion, a deliberate shirking o f one’s obvious duty to the Fatherland. The loss of sturdy hands meant fewer for arms and trade, fewer soldiers. Beginning in November 1734, increasingly severe edicts forbidding emigration were published; property sales by emigrants were prohibited, and agents distributing literature encouraging emigration were punishable. Zurich was especially energetic in denouncing and penalizing emigration. (6) It was a time o f severe economic distress in Switzerland, and conditions were unbearable for the underclasses, with no hope o f improvement. Many had lost their fathers in the wars fought by the great powers, which often pitted Swiss mercenaries against each other. (7) 45 �We don’t know the exact circumstances resulting in Jacob’s decision to emigrate, but economic hardship and lack o f hope for improvement probably were most significant. His parents may have died and his prospects appeared dismal. Also, we can be reasonably assured that religious persecution was not a consideration. The German Reform church — Jacob’s church — was quite strong in northern Switzer­ land. The group o f nearly 200 country folk departed Zurich 4 October 1734, having endured much pressure from the city fathers to abandon their plan. “Many thousands saw them depart with great pity for them, especially because they were undertaking so thoughtlessly, with wife and child, but poorly provided for, the dangerous journey of 300 hours in cold, rain and wind, now, when the days are getting shorter.” (8) The group traveled on the Rhine by river boat, through harsh weather and dangerous condi­ tions, to Rotterdam. In Rotterdam their leader, Rev. Maurice Goetschy, for personal reasons o f his own, changed their destination from Carolina to Pennsylvania. (9) From Holland they sailed to the Isle of Wight where they took on provisions for the long voyage to America. After storms and delays, and much discomfort, the group, now 143 persons, arrived in Pennsylvania four months later. (10) Traveling as a Swiss colony, Jacob and the others likely made their way from the ship to the German-speaking settlement near Goshenhoppen Reformed Church northwest o f Philadelphia. His ulti­ mate destination was the Tulpehocken River Valley in the Blue Mountain foothills near Reading. Jacob married Rebecca soon after his arrival. Their first child, Anna Maria, was bom ca. 1736, and first son, Abraham, the following year. Other children came along fairly quickly: Phillip 1739, Jo­ hann Christian 1741, (11) Catherine 1745, Jacob Jr., 1749, all bom in Pennsylvania; Paul 1751, and three younger unnamed children were all bom in Virginia. (12) Around 1749 Jacob Persinger packed up his young family and trekked south through the Shenan­ doah Valley on the Great Road to where it crossed James River at modern-day Buchanan. He then picked up a trail to the west, his destination being the Greenbrier River Valley in (West) Virginia. Jacob probably was attracted to this region by the Greenbrier Land Company which in 1749 had been granted 100,000 acres, on condition that it settle one family for each thousand acres. Andrew Lewis was the agent and surveyor. (13) Jacob bought a 185-acre tract on Spring Lick Creek, which flowed into the Greenbrier River. He likely lived there with his family and worked the land prior to acquiring it in 1751 from the original owner, an orphan named Christopher Landers. (14) T he P ersinger F amily in A ugusta C ounty B y 1753 about 50 families had settled along the creek tributaries o f the Greenbrier Valley. However, sporadic incursions by Indians had begun. British General Edward Braddock arrived in 1754 with a large army, and hope was running high that the General would settle the score once and for all with the French and provide protection from the Indians. In the event, on 9 June 1755, as Braddock and his army approached Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh), the French and their Indian allies attacked. The British soldiers were unable to defend themselves against the hit-and-run Indian tactics; Braddock suffered a disastrous defeat and was killed. The sole surviving colonel, Thomas Dunbar, led the demoralized army in retreat all the way back to Philadelphia into winter quarters, even though it was only July. Thus, the Virginia and Pennsylvania frontiers were laid open and unprotected. Indian tribes allied with the French descended on isolated plantations with violence and blood­ shed. In Augusta a full scale Indian attack on the Greenbrier rocked the area. More than two dozen set­ tlers were killed or captured and taken to Shawnee towns across the Ohio River. Jacob and most others fled east from their Greenbrier farms to more settled and secure regions o f Virginia. • 46 • �Virginia Backcountry during Indian Wars 1743-1765. Jacob thought they had found safety in the tiny community o f Hooks Mill in what is now Allegh­ any County. (15) He found work operating a grist mill located at the head o f Roaring Run, a picturesque mountain stream that tumbles eastward down the mountain to join Craig Creek. Indian troubles con­ tinued in other areas o f the Virginia backcountry, but the Persingers’ mountain home seemed relatively secure. However, the Indians struck unexpectedly near Roaring Run. Beginning on 11 September 1756, and continuing for four days, more than 200 Shawnee and Delaware Indians attacked settlers’ homesteads, “committing Outrages every minute, Killing Horses and Cattle, and burning the Houses of poor P eople....” (16) The Persinger farm did not escape the violence. According to one account, a war party o f about 20 Delawares crossed the Jackson River near Covington and camped for the night near Low Moor. The next day they arrived at the Persinger farm. It was late summer, mid-September 1756. They attacked during the day when Jacob and his three older sons — Abraham, Phillip and Christian — were away. Jacob’s wife Rebecca and two younger sons, Jacob Jr. and Paul, were taken prisoner. The three young­ est Persinger children — infants or toddlers — were too young to make the arduous trip across the Ohio River to the Indian towns, and so were killed on the spot. (17) The raiders likely looted and burned the house, killed livestock, and quickly fled with their captives. A search party picked up their trail for a while, but down in the valley around Paint Bank the trail went cold. (18) Jacob Jr. (about 6 years old) was adopted by an Indian mother and raised as her own. (19) Paul was said to have died; Rebecca was never again heard from. One can hardly imagine Jacob’s anguish when he and his sons returned to their decimated Hooks Mill home. Only his three older sons and their sister Catherine had escaped the massacre. A sorrowful • 47 • �Jacob then must have arranged for Christian, who was too young for military service, and Catherine to live with Swiss families in the large German-speaking settlement at the base o f Peaked (pronounced Peak-ed) Mountain (Massanutten) near Harrisonburg in Augusta. Jacob and the older boys Abraham and Phillip joined Captain John Dickinson’s ranger company o f the Virginia Regiment which during 1757 was operating in the Greenbrier valley and north o f the James River. Tragically, that same year both Abraham and Phillip were killed. (20) Now at age 42, Jacob in about a year’s time had lost his wife Rebecca and seven o f his nine children. As soon as he was able, he joined Christian and Catherine at Peaked Mountain, where he lived for the next 12 years. After the fall of Fort Duquesne in late 1758, the Northern Indians lost faith in the possibility o f a French victory, and raids on the frontier lessened. However, the formerly friendly Cherokees in the south were now fomenting trouble. The area o f conflict shifted to the Southside Virginia frontier — Bedford and Halifax counties — from the Shenandoah Valley and continued until 1760. From May 1758, Augusta County records indicate that Jacob was welcomed as a substantial citi­ zen by the Peaked Mountain Swiss Germans. He no doubt already knew many o f the settlers from earlier acquaintance in Pennsylvania, and he took a prominent part in community affairs. During the next 10 years Jacob’s name appears frequently in various activities pertaining to wills and estates and other legal matters. He did his duty in maintaining roads in his area; and he served as an elder in the German Reformed Church. Jacob posted bond in August 1760 as administrator o f his son Phillip’s estate. What the assets were was not reported, but in February 1761 an appraisment was presented to the court. (21) While not fully documented, Phillip may have married Eve Marie Kummerlin. That family’s ge­ nealogy records indicate that Phillip Persinger was the father o f her son, Henry Persinger, who was bom ca. 1758, (22) after Phillip had been killed. In 1760 Jacob married again. (23) Catherine Pence was the widow o f Jacob Pence o f the large and well-established Pence family in the Peaked Mountain area. At the time o f their marriage, Cath­ erine’s two youngest children, John age 11 and Barbara age 12, were adopted by Jacob Persinger. (His two living children married their step-siblings: daughter Catherine married John Pence in 1763; son Christian — anglicized to Christopher — married Barbara Pence in 1768.) (24) Also in 1762 Jacob bought his first property in the area, a 125-acre tract on Cub Run. The fol­ lowing year he was granted a patent on 130 acres located near the base o f Peaked Mountain where he lived for the next several years, adding two adjacent tracts in 1764. He sold his original 125-acre tract and settled on his 600-plus-acre plantation on the Keezeltown Road, just below Peale’s Cross Road, a few miles southeast o f Harrisonburg. The Augusta County Order Book 10 states that Jacob and several others became naturalized citi­ zens in October 1765. They also were qualified as justices. (25) T he S trange S tory of J acob P ersinger J r . A t the conclusion o f Pontiac’s rebellion in November 1764, the Shawnees reluctantly agreed to give up their white prisoners, including children bom o f white women. Many longtime adult captives had to be forced to leave what they considered their homes and Indian families. A contemporary account stated, “...The Shawnese were obliged to bind several o f their prisoners and force them along to the camp; and some women who had been delivered up, afterwards found means to escape and run back to the Indian town... Some, who could not make their escape, clung to their savage acquaintance at parting, and con­ tinued many days in bitter lamentations, even refusing sustenance.” (26) In late 1764, there was a release of Indian prisoners at the head o f the James River near present•48» �day Iron Gate, where the Cowpasture and Jackson Rivers come together. Jacob Persinger, and probably his wife Catherine, were there on the off-chance that Jacob Jr. might be among the captives. Unclaimed at day’s end was a tall white “Indian” boy about 15 or 16 years old, which would have been about Jacob Jr.’s age at that time. Jacob took the lad into his family and adopted him, giving him Jacob Jr.’s name. (27) The white “Indian” boy resisted leaving his Shawnee mother and Indian family. During the pris­ oner exchange process he escaped several times and returned to his Shawnee mother. Each time, how­ ever, the tribe returned him to the white settlement, fearful o f violating the treaty. Finally, young Jacob decided to remain with his new white family and not trouble the Shawnees further. Jacob Jr.’s life was difficult with the Persinger family. They spoke only German and he only the Shawnee language. He got on poorly at school, to which he always carried his tomahawk, knife, bow and arrows. After three months he refused to attend fur­ ther. Jacob Jr. spent most o f his time in the woods where he felt at home, hunting and trapping animals for their pelts. Only gradually did he adjust to settler society. Throughout his life Jacob Jr. claimed that as a 5-year-old he was playing at his father’s mill in Penn­ sylvania when he was stolen by the Indians. He said that his last name was Godfrey but was never able to confirm this. Whatever in his heart he believed, Jacob treated the young man as his long lost son, Jacob Jr. (28) A few years after adopting Jacob Jr., Jacob resolved to leave his Peaked Mountain farm and relo­ cate in the newly forming Botetourt County. By 1770, he had bought a small farm on McMurray’s Creek, (29) a branch o f the Cowpasture River, had relocated there, and was selling his Peaked Mountain farm. We can only speculate as to his motivation to remove from an estab­ lished, comfortable community o f German-speakers to what was still backcountry Virginia, until only recently fraught with Indian troubles. The happiness o f his “reincarnated” son, Jacob Jr., may have had much to do with it. Jacob Jr. was This painting depicts Col. Henry Bouquet, much more at home in the mountains and forests than in and English army officer, receiving English civilization, and he had little in common with the culture captives from Native Americans at the end o f the French and Indian War, 1764. [Source: of the settled German-speakers at Peaked Mountain. Ohiohistory.org] Botetourt County records show that during the next several years Jacob acquired several other tracts in the county, but he sold them all not long after their purchase, apparently each at a profit. Also, he prob­ ably had in mind providing for his two sons. Daughter Catherine Pence and her husband John were well settled now near Harrisonburg; and Christopher in 1768 had married Barbara Pence. Several years later Christopher bought a 145-acre farm on the North River o f the Shenandoah. Jacob Jr. must have moved to Botetourt with his parents because in September 1775 he enlisted in the Army o f the Revolution from Botetourt and served as a corporal under Captain Mathew Arbuckle. Jacob Jr. saw no combat; and there is no record o f military service prior to the Revolutionary War. (30) Initially, Jacob Jr. went to the Greenbrier area and from there marched to Fort Pitt (formerly Fort • 49 • �Carter family cabin ca. 1908. Marjorie Carter McCarthy is at far right, sitting. She died in 2005. The cabin was built by Christopher Persinger ca. 1773. Dr. and Mrs. Carter’s home. Duquesne) in Pennsylvania to obtain supplies. From Pennsylvania he marched to Fort Randolph, located at Point Pleasant on the Ohio River, and was discharged November 1776. From Point Pleasant Jacob Jr. returned to his parents’ home in Botetourt. In his 1833 pension application, he declared that he had seen no combat. (31) Other than Jacob Jr.’s service early in the War, no other Persingers were in the army. However, Jacob (probably Jr.) and Christopher provided services and supplies. Both registered locally for recruit­ ment in the army in i782, as required. (32) S ettling on P otts C reek, V irginia O n 8 December 1777, Jacob Persinger bought 110 acres, 8 miles southwest o f the town o f Covington on Potts Creek, from James Williams o f Montgomery County who had patented the tract in 1772. Jacob’s intention was to divide the property between his two sons, Jacob Jr. and Christopher, who was still on his own farm on North River o f the Shenandoah. For convenience the entire tract initially was deeded to Jacob Jr. (In 1798 Jacob Jr. deeded his brother Christopher his portion o f the Potts Creek land, where Christopher and his family had been living.) Jacob built a wigwam on his land; and in 1778 he married Mary Kimberlin and took her to her new “home.” Living in a wigwam and sleeping on bear skins was not quite to his new bride’s liking, so Jacob Jr. built a proper bed and traded his bear skins for blankets. He also began construction o f a proper log 50 �home, which with additions is still standing today. Christopher joined his brother on Potts Creek a year or so later and built a cabin where the present Cart­ ers farmhouse now stands. He sold his North River farm in Rockingham in 1781. Courthouse records beginning in the early 1780s show the brothers paying land taxes on their respective Potts Creek tracts. T he D eath of J acob P ersinger S r . Jacob Persinger Sr. was about 72 when he died in 1788 or 1789, just about the time George Washington took the oath o f office for his first Presidential term. In April 1789 Christopher and the widow Catherine were sum­ moned to appear at the June Court to declare whether they would administer Jacob’s estate. (He had no will.) Jacob and Catherine had lived for nearly 20 years on McMurry’s Creek, a branch o f Cowpasture River, on the small tract Jacob bought in 1770. The appraisment bill o f the estate (33) tells much about how he lived his life. The total recorded inventory Dr. Carter in white suit and hat. House in background was remodeled around cabin value was £200.2s.6d., but some amounts are suspect. ca. 1913. Doc Carter died in 1947 at age 84. Notes due from neighbors totaled over £138., He was a country doctor for Potts Creek for mostly from Gasper Faught, whose serial notes for £10. more than 50 years. each came due 1787-1798. Indications are Faught may have either died or removed from the county; if so, the notes probably had no value. Faught was either German or Swiss, as was Joseph Ensminger, another neighbor who was past due on two £7 notes. Jacob was no doubt the typical thrifty Switzer; but he also had profited from his real estate transactions in both Massanutten and western Augusta. He likely stuck close to his Swiss Ger­ man roots: the only books in his library were in “Dutch Print.” Farm animals were few. He had one horse, a black mare about 9 years old with “one very old saddle bridle & blind halter”; one cow with calf; two steers; a yearling “heffer”; eight sheep, including three lambs; and three small hogs. Also included in the inventory was a spinning wheel, which with the sheep indicates that they made their own clothes. (He had some old “wearing cloaths” valued at 12s.) There was only one bed and furniture and modest personal items, mostly kitchen utensils, includ­ ing one skinner and one flesh fork. No other furniture is listed. Cultivation o f flax, spinning linen thread and weaving were typical Swiss farm activities to pro­ vide money for items they could not grow — sugar, salt. There were two entries in the inventory regard­ ing flax — hackles and breaks — and it’s likely that Jacob and Catherine were both proficient in linen weaving. (Sail cloth was made from flax or hemp; one o f the fields at the Carters farm was known as the “hemp field.”) Christopher Persinger presented a bill for £6.Is. for wintering stock. Otherwise, there were no debts or charges against the estate. There were no slaves. 51 �J acob and C hristopher, B riefly Jacob Jr., continued hunting, but he also was a successful farmer, and over the years he bought additional acreage. His will was writ­ ten 3 July 1840, and probated in May 1841. Jacob Jr. was around 92 when he died, leaving a moderately large estate to his children. (34) In 1802, Christopher drowned when his horse lay down during high water in Potts Creek. His body was not recovered for three days. (35) Christopher had 13 children. Moses bought out his siblings and maintained the farm. One o f Moses’ grandchildren, Clarissa (Clara), inherited the property which in the 1890s became known as “The Carters.” Grave o f Jacob Persinger Jr., 1749-1841, in Persinger Family Cemetery. END NOTES 1. 09 Sep 1896 Dr. Benjamin Lewis Carter married Clarissa Susan Persinger, who had inherited at her father’s death 194 acres of what came to be known as “The Carters.” From time to time Dr. and Mrs. Carter bought additional adjoining acreage. 2. Virginia Land Office Records, Patent Book 40, p, 277,microfilm reel 39, Archival and Information Services Division, Library o f Virginia. 3. Persinger in records is spelled variously: Bertschinger, Perdschenger; and later Passenger, Pessinger, and other close combi­ nations. 4. Botetourt County Deed Book 2: 361, Circuit Clerk’s Office Fincastle, Va.; (2) Virginia Land Office Records, Grant Book G, pg. 197, microfilm reel 48, Archival and Information Services Division, Library of Virginia. 5. The phonetic name written on the ship’s passenger log. 6. Albert Bernhardt Faust, A.B. PhD, Lists o f Swiss Emigrants in the Eighteenth Century to the American Colonies, Volume I, Zurich, 1734-1744, Preface iii. from the Archives of Switzerland, Published by the National Genealogical Society, Gaius M. Brumbaugh, Managing Editor, Washington D.C., 1920, printed by The New Era Printing Co., Lancaster, PA. 7. Ibid. 8. William John Hinke, Ph.D., D.D., A History of the Goshenhoppen Reformed Charge, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania (1727-1819), Part XXIX of a Narrative and Critical History prepared at the request of The Pennsylvania-German Society, Lancaster, 1920,98. The list of emigrants in Goetschy’s Colony on page 100 includes Jacob Bertschinger, from Zummikon, traveling alone. 9. Pennsylvania and the two Carolinas were the two most popular destinations for Swiss immigrants at this time. 10. John Henry Goetschy, letter to Zurich, July 23,1735, describing the voyage, History of Goshenhoppen, Pennsylvania-Ger­ man Society, 108-10. 11. John Christian (Christopher) Persinger was bom 8 January 1741 in Berks County Pennsylvania, as reported by his father in the Christ (Little Tulpehocken) Church records; baptism was July 11,1742). A woman named Anna Maria Persinger married in 1743 and did not migrate to Virginia with the family. She is assumed to have been a daughter. There also was a man named John Persinger in the Botetourt County records. His relationship, if any, to Jacob has not been documented. 12. Birth dates and order of birth are estimates, except for Christian. 13. Otis K. Rice, introduction to Memoir of Indian Wars, and other Occurrences; By the late Colonel Stuart, of Greenbrier. Presented to the Virginia Historical and Philosophical Society, By Chas. A. Stuart, o f Augusta, son of the narrator. Parsons, West Virginia, reprinted by McClain Printing Company, 1971), 1. 14. Jacob’s son Christopher stated in a 1797 deposition that they had “made an improvement” to the land prior to 1751, when it was surveyed. Lyman Chalkley, Chronicles of the Scotch-Irish Settlement in Virginia: Extracted from the Original Court Re­ cords of Augusta County, 1745-1800,3 vols. (1912; reprint, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1999), 3-513. 15. Robert Meade Snyder, A Selective History o f the Persingers of Alleghany County, independent study University ofVirginia, • 52• �Charlottesville, May 1993,4. 16. Pennsylvania Gazette, Oct 7,1756 (Box 215, Toner Collection). As cited in The Effects of the French and Indian War on Civilian life in the Frontier Counties of Virginia 1754-1763, Chester Raymond Young, dissertation Vanderbilt University, June 1969, as published by Virginia Genealogical Society, Richmond, 2009. 17. Chalkley, 2:511. Entries in “The Preston Register” in the Draper mss for Sep 13-14 state that “3 Parsinger children at Jackson River, killed” and “Mrs. Parsinger and 2 children, at Jackson River, prisoners” Also, A Centennial History of Alleghany County Virginia, Oren F. Morton, B.Lit., J. K. Ruebush Company, Dayton, Virginia, 1923, reprinted C. J. Carrier Company, Harrisonburg, Virginia,1986. 18. Snyder, 7-8. A tradition in the family is that Rebecca for a while marked the trail with pieces of her dress. 19. Joseph Persinger, The Life of Jacob Persinger.. .Who was Taken by the Shawnee Indians when an infant; with a short ac­ count of the Indian Troubles in Missouri; and a Sketch of the Adventures of the Author, Sturgeon, Missouri: Printed for the Author by Moody & M’Michael, 1861,1-6. 20. Lewis Preston Summers, Annals of Southwest Virginia 1769-1800 (Reprint: Johnson City, Tennessee, The Overmountain Press, 1992), 303. Also Lloyd DeWitt Bockstruck, Virginia’s Colonial Soldiers, 1988 (3d printing, Baltimore, Genealogical Pub­ lishing Company, Inc.,1998),pp. 246-7. The State of Virginia honored the Royal Proclamation of 1763 awarding bounty lands to those who served in the Virginia Regiment (but not militia) in the French and Indian War. In Feb 1780 Jacob had certified his and his two deceased sons’ service and was awarded warrants for fifty acres for himself, for Abraham, and for Phillip. He reported that they were in Captain Dickinson’s ranger unit in 1757 and that both sons were underage. The land for bounty was located in Kentucky, for which he had no use, so he sold (assigned) the warrants to Thomas Madison. 21. Augusta County Will Book2:404,20 Aug 1760; Will B ook3:9,17Feb 1761. 22. Henry Persinger appears in Botetourt County records with his wife Greselda, or Grizzy. He has some modest contact with the Persinger family. Family researchers in the early 20th century name Henry as a son of Jacob, but this lacks evidence and seems to be only an assumption. Henry’s military service pension, which began in 1833, shows his age as 74, indicating that he was bom around 1758-9, which of course was several years after the Shawnees captured Jacob’s wife Rebecca. It therefore seems more likely that Henry was Phillip’s son, as indicated in the Kummerlin genealogy. While Jacob married again in 1762, there is no indication that he had children by his second wife. 23. Augusta/Rockingham County Pence Family Group Sheets, The Children of Jacob Pence; compiled by Richard A. Pence; http://www.pipeline.eom/~richardpence/gensuml.htm#jacobl 24. Chalkley, 1:87. John Pence married Catherine after Jacob threatened him with a suit for breach of promise. While their first child, bom the month after their marriage, died young, the marriage apparently was a success: they went on to have eleven more. 25. Augusta County Order Book 10:8 26. Ward, Breaking the Backcountry, 250, n99, 305. citing William Smith, A Brief State of the Province of Pennsylvania. Lon­ don: R, Griffiths, 1755,29. 27. Mary Evelyn Harlow Carpenter, wife of Joseph H. Carpenter, History of The Carpenters o f ‘Fort Carpenter,’ 1746-1949 quoting an address of Judge Alexander Persinger, son of Jacob Persinger, Jr., to the Boone County Missouri County Court, 05 Sep 1860. 28. Joseph Persinger, The Life of Jacob Persinger.. .Who was Taken by the Shawnee Indians when an infant; with a short ac­ count of the Indian Troubles in Missouri; and a Sketch of the Adventures of the Author, Sturgeon, Missouri: Printed for the Author by Moody & M ’Michael, 1861,1-6. 29. Botetourt County Deed Book 2:22. Indenture dated 22 Jan 1770 between William McMurry, grantor, and Jacob Pers­ inger, grantee, both parties of Botetourt County, 20 acres (may have been 40 acres), on a branch o f the Cowpasture River called McMurrys Creek... (Land tax records in Botetourt always showed 40 acres, but there is no record of how, or whether, Persinger acquired the additional acreage. May have been an error in the deed.) 30. Pension application of Jacob Persinger [Jr]: S30019, Transcribed and annotated by C. Leon Harris, Alleghany County Court November Term 1833, dated 18 Nov 1833. He stated his age as 84 and that he was bom in Pennsylvania 19 Jan 1749. He re­ lated his service and added that he was in no engagement with the Enemy. 31. Ibid. 32. Robert D. Stoner, A Seed-bed of the Republic, Second Edition, Kingsport Press, Kingsport, TN, 1962,126,143. 33. Botetourt County, Virginia, Deed Book A, pp. 272-277. 34. Snyder, 17-18,21-25. 35. Mother Nutt’s History in the R. L. Persinger Collection, cited by Snyder, p 14. 36. Alleghany Circuit Court, August Term 1893.Partition of lands plat, Lee Persinger, deed. In 1896 Clara married Dr. Benja­ min L. Carter. They lived in the log house built by her great-grandfather Christopher ca. 1772, which was modified to its present dimensions ca. 1912. 53 �¿dcvivtfy o*t t&e ed ye t e 6 ^>icte R .id ye P ’ an&UMUf 1 by Peter Givens hen I pick up my highway maps o f Virginia or North Carolina, the Blue Ridge Parkway is easy to locate. It’s that long, thin, blue line over on the left-hand side, beginning at Shenan­ doah National Park and meandering down the mountains. The line takes a sharp, westward turn just past Mt. Pisgah, and crosses the Cherokee Indian Reservation into the Smokies. It isn’t hard to locate, and from this perspective, it looks relatively simple. On the ground, however, and especially as we grapple with issues o f protection and conservation, the complexities become all too apparent. The Parkway is, after all, a piece o f prime mountaintop real estate that just happens to touch boundaries with two states, 29 counties, seven U. S. Congressional districts, two state parks and four national forests. To complicate matters further, 5,000 individual tracts o f land border the Parkw aysome o f them may belong to you. Every decision concerning this property must take into consideration the impact on each neighbor — perhaps even getting their input. It isn’t an easy task and increasingly we find ourselves in this national park talking about partners and coalitions and agreements and understand­ ings with neighbors. What do we learn about this place from looking at the map? It is long, linear, multiple communi­ ties and lots o f sites to see. One thing we didn’t mention, which the map just happens to demonstrate, is the knife-sharp edge on the boundary. And those o f us along the boundary or close to the boundary are in this together, just by the fact that we are living “on the edge” o f this national park. Let’s review a little o f our history and take at look at the founders’ vision and idea for this long, linear park that would become what we sometimes call today “America’s favorite drive.” Hugging the crest o f the world’s oldest mountain range and winding through the coves and forest slopes that make up much o f Southern Appalachia is the Blue Ridge Parkway. A 469-mile winding, landscaped, recreational road, specifically designed for the ride-a-while and stop-a-while vacation. An opportunity to leave the hectic pace o f traffic jams and freeway speeds behind. Almost 20 million visitors did just that last year, making the Parkway the most heavily traveled unit o f the National Park System. It began as an idea, a concept in the minds o f Depression-era politicians. This type o f project, they reasoned, could provide public service jobs for many o f the nation’s unemployed. At the same time, it would be a link between the two eastern national parks, Virginia’s Shenandoah and the Great Smokies o f North Carolina and Tennessee. The route was decided and the process began: to carve out o f this rug­ ged part o f the Southern Appalachians, a road — a parkway — down the Blue Ridge. The Southern mountains in the Depression-ridden 1930s were home to rugged German and Scotts-Irish. The survey crews blazed a trail that sometimes led to cabins in remote coves — rocky hill­ sides where families eked out an existence from the land. In other areas, they found nicer homes, pro­ ductive farms, even hotels and resorts. Patience, “an infinite amount o f patience,” was necessary in order W Peter Givens, who retired in December 2014 as an interpretive specialist on the Blue Ridge Parkway, gave this talk in the First Thursday series o f the Historical Society on Nov. 6, 2014. He is teaching history at Vir­ ginia Western Community College. •5 4 • �The Craggy Dome overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway, Milepost 364, elevation 5,640 feet. to deal with many landowners who were reluctant to sell. For most, however, the source o f income from their land was welcomed. Jobs were scarce and jobs were hard to come by — much o f this rocky land was too poor for much good anyway. One particular man, bom and bred in the mountains, commented that he had wondered all o f his life what this land was good for. “And now I ’ve found out,” he said, “it’s good fer a road.” September 1935 came and construction began. The first rocks were blasted from the mountain­ side near the North Carolina/Virginia state line. Survey parties led the way far into the mountains and soon began to realize the size of the task at hand. For many o f these areas, there were not even current maps available. Interviews with locals often were the determining factor in where the center line would be laid. These crews braved “all manner o f weather, snakes, chiggers... and frostbite,” their final work being called in some circles “absolutely heroic.” Many mountain roads were little more than mts and could not accommodate the equipment needed for construction. Foremost in the minds o f construction crews was creating as little “scar” as possible. The Parkway was to “lay easy on the land” and, in order for that to be accomplished, great care was taken to blend the new roadway into its natural surroundings. Progress was steady until the early 1940s when work was diverted by the coming o f Word War II. After the war, work resumed through the late ’50s and early ’60s. Finally, the only “missing link” was a section around Grandfather Mountain, North Carolina. In order to preserve the fragile environment on the steep slopes o f Grandfather, a unique design was conceived. The Linn Cove Viaduct, award-winning •55 • �and spectacular in design, fulfilled the purpose. This 1,200-foot “suspended” section o f Parkway offers spectacular views o f the Johns River Gorge. Today, then, the Parkway is complete, providing 469 miles o f leisurely driving — no traffic lights, no advertisements and uninterrupted recreation. It’s hard to forget a visit to this special place. Maybe it’s because o f the leisurely pace or perhaps because o f the variety o f resources: mountains, woodlands, flowers, wildlife, the people — all o f these things tend to stamp an impression on your mind. Like all national parks, this one is set aside to preserve a story and to leave it undisturbed — unchanged — in its unique state for generations to admire and enjoy. This was the original plan — the original dream. America’s landscape, however, is forever changing and that’s where “the edge” comes in. A cross-country drive or a quick look around your hometown will confirm that. In “Our Vanishing Land­ scape,” Eric Sloane describes an America that used to be: “The pattern o f our early landscape... had the mellowness and dignity of well-seasoned wood. Close at hand there were lanes with vaulting canopies o f trees and among them were houses with personalities like human beings. At a distance, it was all like a patchwork quilt o f farm plots sewn together with a rough back stitching o f stone fences.” Traveling down the Appalachians on the Blue Ridge Parkway — out beyond “the edge” — visi­ tors see a landscape that has changed considerably since the first shovel o f dirt was turned, creating this national park. This is, o f course, especially true in highly populated areas like Roanoke and Asheville. All o f these changes affect the park experience o f 20 million visitors each year. “The growing changes rung on the landscape o f today,” Eric Sloane continues, “are the Americana o f tomorrow.” These changes that Eric Sloane talks about, these changes in our communities and our neigh­ borhoods, these changes taking place along the knife-edged boundary o f the Blue Ridge Parkway are significant. What happens to this place makes a difference. And going back to our original theme, those o f us who live “on the edge” — in those 29 counties and hundreds o f communities and thousands o f neighborhoods — find that there is a pride, an enjoy­ ment, and a responsibility that comes with that. I make no apologies when I say “I am proud o f the Blue Ridge Parkway.” I didn’t grow up in this area, but as I have told people in the past, I got here just as soon as I could. I ’m proud o f this place as I have been o f the other National Park Service sites where I ’ve been employed in my career. But the Parkway is special and I imagine that most o f you whose lives have intertwined with the Parkway know what I ’m talking about and feel much the same way. Growing up in the Carolina foothills, we would often pack a picnic and head up on the Park­ way. I have a photograph at home o f me on the Parkway about 1960 at Pounding Mill Overlook. I could see Grandfather Mountain from my mother’s kitchen window and I walked home from school looking toward the Blue Ridge in the west. I never knew I ’d be working here one day. I watch people bring their out-of-town guests to see a sunrise or hike to a special waterfall — having a shared experience and a shared memory. It is a special place — one to be proud of. This sense o f pride is important. It helps, first o f all, in protecting the Parkway. It is one o f those important collective feelings that we share with each other that, I believe, add to our sense o f commu­ nity. There are many places in western Virginia like that; the Parkway is just one o f them. There is, secondly, an enjoyment to living “on the edge” o f the Parkway. And no wonder! We have 87,000 acres o f protected land, 1,200 types o f plants, 25 rare and endangered species, 110 miles o f streams, 13 lakes, 100 historic structures. And this doesn’t even take into account the intangible things like cool air, vistas and just the serenity o f the place. Everyone, it seems, loves the Parkway. Personally, I enjoy the trout streams where those little native brook trout are still alive and well. I enjoy the grassy hills down around Rocky Knob on crisp October days. It’s a wonderful place to get away from whatever • 56 • �you need to get away from — for enjoyment. But in addition to pride and enjoyment, there comes a certain degree o f responsibility associated with “living on the edge” o f the most-visited National Park Service area. As I mentioned earlier, there are 5,000 adjacent landowners, 29 counties, six congressional districts. A park map reminds us how long and how narrow this place really is. To many visitors, it is little more than a platform to climb up on and look off of, into your towns, your backyards and into your region — far beyond the boundaries that we have control of. One o f the themes that you will often hear from us as we speak to communities and organizations is “you’re important to the Parkway and the Parkway is important to you.” This place cannot stay the way we know it without community and regional help, and the communities and region will not continue to be what they are without a wellmaintained, cared-for, protected Parkway corridor. There is a mutual responsibility involved. A former Parkway superintendent said that this park’s “relationship to the region through which it passes is perhaps the most critical factor in guiding and directing future planning.” This suggests part­ nerships. The Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation, the Friends o f the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Blue Ridge Land Conservancy, Explore Park — the list goes on and on. We’re beginning to find opportunities to work with realtors to develop land adjacent to the park in a way that maintains the visual qualities that make this place so special. We’re beginning to see neigh­ bors building split rail fences and rock-lined drainage ditches that mirror the park’s efforts. Progressive ideas like “open space” and “greenways” are being designed in such a way as to enhance the visual scene from the park, and these things help maintain this entire region that is so special to those o f us who live here and to those who visit, spending almost a billion dollars each year according to Universitybased studies. I heard someone say that “too many places we see in America today look like too many places we see in America today.” I didn’t understand it at first, but I began to think about inner cities, inter­ states, subdivisions — all o f which very often look the same no matter where you are in America. But national parks aren’t like that — they are places where people can have “unique experiences, remarkable experiences, experiences unattainable elsewhere.” Aldo Leopold in the 1940s said, “We abuse the land because we regard it as a commodity be­ longing to us. When we see the land as a community to which we belong we may begin to use it with love and respect.” Keeping parks like that involves community support, especially in a place with so many commu­ nities and so many neighbors. Living on “the edge” o f the Parkway does generate pride. It is an enjoy­ able experience, but most o f all, to keep it like we want it, we must recognize the responsibility we have in our communities to do all we can to ensure that our children and our children’s children have a Blue Ridge Parkway to enjoy like we do. •57* �^e& u ticU fty ‘Tttaifauf, ‘ % cit, 7 Saut& eK tt rffifa U a e fc a tt / 4 by Jack Betts C hapter 1: T he C hallenge lue Ridge Parkway historians make a pretty good case that the old mill near Milepost 176 is one o f America’s cultural treasures. It has become an icon for the American country mill — weath­ ered board-and-batten siding, stone-lined drains and flumes gathering water from seeps and trick­ les and creeks across the gently sloping land, converging to provide the rushing water power that turns a big wooden waterwheel and drives a grist mill, a sawmill, lathes and other tools, even a sash saw o f the kind once used to build window parts. And it’s gorgeous, particularly in the fall when the maples are in full-bum color, reflected against a lovely little pond where ducks paddle back and forth as the waterwheel creaks and groans and splashes fresh, clear mountain water about the stony foundation o f the mill. The image o f this mill has adorned postcards sold in other states. “Greetings from Iowa,” notes one o f them. Another says, “Greetings from Connecticut.” It looks just like what you’d find in some rural New England hamlet. But it’s not. It’s in Virginia, near the little crossroads o f Meadows o f Dan. It’s Mabry Mill, a reconstruction o f a century-old mill built by Edwin Boston Mabry, known to some as E.B. and to others as Ed, whose family owned land near the border o f Floyd and Patrick coun­ ties as long ago as the 1780s. More than a century later, Ed Mabry had a water-powered lathe that he used to make chairs, according to an online history by the Blue Ridge Parkway: B “Later he worked as a blacksmith in the coal fields o f West Virginia. In 1903 he returned to Floyd County and soon began construction o f the mill. It was first a blacksmith and wheelwright shop, then became a sawmill. By 1905 it was in operation as a gristmill. By 1910 the front part o f the mill was completed and included a lathe for turning out wheel hubs, a tongue and groove lathe, a planer and a jig-saw. “Between 1905 and 1914 he bought adjacent tracts o f land, mostly for the purpose o f acquiring more water power. Those who knew Ed Mabry thought well o f him and have described him as peaceable, easy-going, honest, hard working, a Primitive Baptist and a Republican. Whatever he needed he tried to make himself including most o f the furniture in his home. He didn’t travel much, but when he did it was either on foot or in his onehorse Concord wagon. Today the Mabry Mill is one o f the most popular attractions on the entire Blue Ridge Parkway.” Jack Betts, a Washington correspondentfor the Roanoke Times, Norfolk and Greensboro newspapers and associate editor o f the Charlotte Observerfor almost 40 years, moved with his wife to Meadows ofDan. His observations about Mabry Mill are from a blog written before work on the mill began early in 2014. It was completed last July. More chapters about Mabry Mill, with photos, as well as additional entries oh other sub­ jects, can be found at his Rocky Knob Blog at http://www.rockyknobblog.blogspoi.com/. •5 8 • �Mabry Mill is one o f America’s cultural treasures. (Photos by Jack Betts, Rocky Knob Writery LLC) The mill has, o f course, been rebuilt a number o f times. Even using the most weather-resistant of natural woods, the hard winters and long summers take their toll, and every 15 or 20 years the old mill needs body work and a good worming-out o f the silted-over p o n d .... [T]he pond had filled up with silt and other things that have slid down the hillside and rolled in on the creek. You could, I ’m told, walk across the pond without getting wet much above the knees — if you didn’t first go neck-deep in the silty mud that fishermen call pluff. And that’s not all: the waterwheel is in bad shape. The buckets on the wheel — the compartments that water from the flume pours into and forces the wheel to turn with an increasing amount o f power as the flow of the water increases — have weathered away in some places. So the National Park Service has to do periodic maintenance on its buildings and its landscape, at a time when Congress seems in no mood to provide adequate funds for personnel or sufficient main­ tenance to keep the national jewels in good shape. More than a year ago, the Blue Ridge Parkway asked the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation — a private group that raises money and helps support the Parkway in a variety o f ways — for help. The Foundation (whose board o f trustees I serve on) agreed to provide funding for rebuilding the waterwheel; early this year the Foundation also agreed to provide funding for dredging the pond. (The Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation’s website is at www.brpfoundation.org.) Dredging work began in foul weather last week [mid-March 2014] and ended successfully on Fri­ day, but that’s another story. Stay tuned for more on the restoration work o f the waterwheel and dredging of the millpond. And don’t be confused by anything you read in the newspapers about the waterwheel being shipped off to Asheville; the work will be done on-site starting this week, Parkway officials say. It’s all taking a lot o f ingenuity, scavaging for suitable materials and making the best use o f re­ sources that indicates that the kind o f engineering skill that built Mabry Mill the first time a century ago has not entirely disappeared, thank goodness. •59« �C hapter 2: T he D redging I f you passed by Mabry Mill in the past couple o f weeks, you might have noticed a curious run o f big black pipe around the shoreline [March 2014], It was the first lick at solving a problem o f a badly silted millpond at one o f the most photographed sites along the Parkway — maybe one o f the most photo­ graphed in the East. Mabry M ill’s unique site is a marvel o f engineering — but it’s susceptible to weather. It sits, just a few feet off the Blue Ridge Parkway, in the perfect spot to collect the accumulated weight o f water seeping out o f the earth, o f springs that flow out o f little folds in the terrain and o f happily running creeks throughout the woods covering the slopes o f this part o f the Blue Ridge Mountains. Ed Mabry used these waters to power the big waterwheel on his mill, first built in 1910, and the National Park Ser­ vice has used his mill to illustrate how there was plenty o f power to manufacture things in the days long before power was defined as electrical. But one o f water power’s disadvantages is that along with the water that comes flowing down watersheds and hills and stone-lined drains and wooden flumes is that there’s a lot o f silt, a lot o f leaves, a lot o f sticks and other natural things that can clog up a millpond and even, eventually, the flumes them­ selves. That’s just one o f the problems the Blue Ridge Parkway encountered in its plans to rebuild part o f this attraction on the scenic roadway. It is one o f the most popular sites to visit — there’s a terrific seasonal restaurant run by Parkway concessionaires, as well as fascinating glimpses o f 18th and 19th century life when the mill’s waterwheel is rumbling away, the blacksmith shop rings with the songs of the smith’s hammers and tongs, and the paddles in the applesauce and molasses cookers are working their magic. But the mill hasn’t run much in awhile because the wheel is in bad shape and the flumes have been clogged and even the pond didn’t look as good as it usually does. Thanks to weeks o f effort by Parkway employees and the dredging skills o f Larry Hampton, a Blue Ridge Parkway retiree who has his own excavating business (and who worked on the last waterwheel reconstruction two decades ago), the millpond is back to its 8 1/2 feet depth again, and crews are digging out nearly 2-foot depths of muddy compacted leaves from the flumes near the mill. The much bigger job was removing tons o f silt from the pond — and doing so in a way that didn’t cause damage to habitat or to the inhabitants o f the productive creeks downstream, including trout and bog turtles. The big black pipe was put in to divert a creek that feeds the millpond, so that the creek below the pond would continue to run clean and free. The Parkway, with the financial support o f the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation, rented a big power­ ful Diesel pump to siphon off the millpond’s water after the creek water was diverted through the pipe, under the Parkway and down into the creek flowing westward. That pump would shoot a cannon stream o f water downhill — and workers had to be careful to contain it within a haybale-lined silt fence to avoid putting clouds o f silt into the water. The pumping job was complicated by the fact that it’s been wet lately, and water would trickle back into the pond overnight. And then there was the problem o f how to get a huge excavator into the pond, keep it from sinking with a 21st century version o f the old “corduroy roads” paved with tree trunks, and how to keep big dump trucks that would haul off the silt from sinking axle-deep into the soft banks o f the m illpond.... The muck from the pond was trucked a couple o f thousand feet away to an open field above where Mabry Mill workers park. Allen Lawson, the Blue Ridge Parkway facility manager and supervi­ sor o f the project, says workers in the past have found plenty o f pocket change that visitors have thrown • 60 • �Jack Trivett cuts a white oak board to make a replacement part for Mabry Mill’s century-old water wheel. All the restoration work was done on-site. into the pond after making a wish. Every time it rained on a pile o f the silt, it revealed a few more quar­ ters and dimes — not enough to put a dent in the cost o f the project, but interesting to see what comes up. Miraculously, at least to me, was the fact that the pond not only was excavated to its new depth within a week, but the landscape was also cleaned up — the pipes removed, the logs used to keep the excavator from sinking were extracted, the rockway that gave dump trucks access removed — and the banks reseeded and covered with straw while new grass starts to grow back sometime this spring. It was an amazing thing to see. C hapter 3: T he W ood W hen you’re rebuilding what may be the most famous mill in the National Park Service system, you don’t just run down to Lowe’s or Home Depot to get some 1x12s and 6x6s and a box o f galvanized nails. For one thing, the kinds o f wood you need and the dimensions you need them in won’t be found even in most specialty lumberyards, where custom cuts can be arranged at a price that would raise the remaining hair on the frazzled heads o f accountants at government agencies such as the U.S. Department of the Interior or development officers at private, nonprofit groups dedicated to taking up the slack in parks across the country. Fortunately for this project, the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation, which pro•61 �vides a broad array o f services, programs, funding and other support for the Parkway, committed to rais­ ing $65,000 to pay for the restoration project. The job includes dredging the millpond, reconstructing the waterwheel and repairing the damaged and clogged log flumes that collect the water to turn the wheel. And one of the things that is particularly hard to find is the expertise to do this sort o f historic preservation work. True, there are amazing craftsmen and women across the country with phenomenal skills in the workshop and in the field. But how often do you need to restore a waterwheel with com­ plicated cast iron parts attached to custom-cut wooden pieces, first designed more than a century ago, remade during World War II, and occasionally redone in the decades since then? The last time the water­ wheel at Mabry Mill was rebuilt was nearly two decades ago: 1995. Back then, the Historic Preservation Shop at Sandy Flats near the Cone Manor in Blowing Rock, N.C., had six people working there, includ­ ing Larry Hampton, now retired from the Park Service, who did the dredging work a couple weeks ago at Mabry Mill pond. These days, due to budget cuts imposed by Washington, the staff o f the Historic Preservation Shop is down to two: Steve Marmie and Jack Trivett. When they began planning how they would re­ store the waterwheel, they knew finding the right woods in the sizes they needed would be a big prob­ lem. At Mabry Mill, they knew they would need hemlock in certain dimensions to repair the log flumes that bring water to the wheel. But only one thing would do for the buckets and backing boards and face boards and other components o f the wheel: “White oak — that’s all we use,” Marmie said one cold win­ ter morning ... as he showed me around the shop. Other kinds o f oak are tough, but none is as weather resistent and none is as close-grained, and as watertight, as white oak. Nor as hard to find. Trivett called all the lumberyards he knew about in search o f white oak 15 inches wide. None had exactly what he needed, but he found a supplier in Spartanburg, South Carolina, that could supply some o f the oak for the buckets on the waterwheel — basically two pieces in different dimensions, with differing angles o f joints, that would be set into grooves on the basic structure o f the existing waterwheel. Over the winter they fabricated the new bucket parts at the Sandy Flats shop, and sawed out new curved facing pieces. To get the width o f those curves just right, they fashioned two different woodwork­ ing jigs to cut the inner and outer curves on bandsaws. They caught one break: the main axle, the spokes and the outer band o f the wheel were in good shape. All were of white oak, and the Parkway workers would not have to replace those. But some o f the heavy blocks holding up the wheel on the pond side o f the mill were clearly deteriorating and would have to be replaced. Somehow Marmie and Trivett would have to find huge blocks o f white oak, but that was another problem. Where in the world do you find huge dimensions o f white oak to hold the massive weight o f a waterwheel that will be under stress, pressure and weight from hundreds o f pounds o f water cascading over the wheel while driving wide belts and iron gears and huge grinding stones and circular saw blades and lumber carriages? And how do you move it, shape it and deliver it? C hapter 4: T he T ree T h e National Park Service and its Blue Ridge Parkway staff faced a big problem when it came time to rebuild the waterwheel at Mabry Mill, one o f the most popular stops on the Parkway and, some believe, one o f the most photographed spots in America’s park system: finding a big source o f big timber. Not only did the Parkway need a certain kind o f rot-resistant, tough wood, but it needed it in big dimensions — 15-inch wide planks and big square balks o f lumber strong enough to hold up the heavy wheel during its endless poundings and stress when the mill is in operation. �White oak was the answer, but where would they find it? As it turned out, by the side o f the road. “I called four or five sawmills that I knew personally, and none o f them could do it. They couldn’t stop their production runs to do it,” recalls Jack Trivett, a specialist at the Historic Preservation Shop near the Cone Manor outside Blowing Rock, North Carolina. But Trivett remembered a huge 75-foot white oak that had fallen just off the Parkway in the E.B. Jeffress Park, about 100 miles down the Parkway from Mabry Mill. It was an enormous tree, a blown-over giant still anchored to its root system but pitched down a steep 50-degree slope. It would be dangerous to get out, and Park Service officials were reluctant to try it out o f safety concerns. But the tree held the kind of timber the Parkway needed to restore the waterwheel and other elements at Mabry Mill — and it wouldn’t put additional strain on the Parkway budget to harvest some o f it. The tree, after all, was still in good shape, but if the Parkway didn’t take any o f it for the restoration, the tree eventually would deteriorate. “I knew about this tree,” Trivett said. “It was down a couple o f years but still in good shape. The wood was still Jack Trivett (left) and Steve Marmie fit one o f the newly wet, and that was what we were after.” Getting sections o f the trunk out fabricated parts onto the waterwheel. The replacement wood came from a fallen tree estimated to be 400 to 500 years old. would require a lot o f power. The crew chained a big backhoe to a big BRP truck to provide the traction, and Parkway employees sawed out sections to drag back up to the road and load on a truck. The Parkway brought in its arborist, Plant Ecologist Chris Ulrey, for advice on deal­ ing with how to retrieve the tree. Ulrey said he took a look at a cross-section to determine its age, and a surprise emerged. “This was a very slow-growing tree with tight growth rings,” he said. He gauged a section o f those rings and made a calculation: The tree was roughly 400 to 500 years old — “Not less than 400, and possibly older than 500,” he said. If the tree was more than 500 years old, it meant that this white oak could have been a seedling when Christopher Columbus first came to the New World. The tree had been growing all that time, and now was about to provide the big timber for Mabry M ill’s waterwheel. • 63 • �t&e y4enencccut @6e4t#ut£ *7'iade ¿a t&e &Cue ^ ¿dye Soutfaue&t&ut *V<& by Ralph H. Lutts his article focuses on the trade in American chestnuts during the period o f 1900-1930 in the five Virginia Blue Ridge counties located southwest o f Roanoke: Franklin, Floyd, Patrick, Carroll and Grayson. Floyd, Carroll and Grayson counties are part o f the core region o f Appalachia as defined by John Alexander Williams. (1) The Blue Ridge portions o f Franklin and Patrick counties are topo­ graphically and culturally similar to the other three. During that time, the economy o f this region was based largely on agriculture, although Grayson County also was involved in a timber boom in the first decades o f the century. For mountain folk, chestnuts were more than a source o f food for themselves. The nuts also fattened their hogs, which foraged freely throughout the local forest. In addition, the chestnuts were a source o f income. They were sold at the local general store, or exchanged for merchandise or store credit. Each autumn, many children exchanged nuts for shoes, clothes and schoolbooks. What did the storekeeper do with all these nuts? Trying to sell them to local customers was like bringing coals to Newcastle. Chestnuts were abundant and free for the taking, so why would anyone pay money for them? Herein lies a tale. In the southern Appalachian mountains, chestnuts had little or no cash value until it was possible to ship them to areas outside the chestnut’s range. The nuts acquired cash value as the transportation system improved. Southwestern Virginia’s Blue Ridge counties depended largely on the railroad to ship theirs, although some surely were shipped by wagons before the railroad arrived. With improvements in transportation, the trade in chestnuts grew. The price that people received for nuts was high when the season began and declined later in the autumn as nuts flooded the market. One Patrick County resident recalled that the stores initially paid 10 cents a pound and the price decreased to 2 cents as the market filled with nuts. Another recalled the price began as 5 or 6 cents, de­ clining to 2 or 3 cents. Still another recalled that chestnuts T Ralph H. Lutts is a retired member o f the faculty at Goddard College, Plainfield, Vermont, where he coordi­ nates an M.A. concentration in interdisciplinary environmental studies. He is author o f “The Nature Fakers: Wildlife, Science & Sentiment” (University Press o f Virginia, 2001) and editor o f “The Wild Animal Story” (Temple University Press, 1998). He lives in Meadows o f Dan, Virginia. This article is reprinted with permission from the Journal o f the American Chestnut Foundation. It is adapted from Ralph H. Lutts, 2004, “Manna from God: The American Chestnut Trade in Southwestern Virginia. ” Environmental History 9(3):497-525. �Two workers rest on huge chestnut logs. were worth as much by the bushel as com. A 1909 store accounts book shows that customers received 2 or 3 cents per pound at the beginning o f October. (2) Not all people traded their nuts at the local store. Some acted as dealers, hauling their nuts to a railroad station and shipping them to a wholesale house on their own. Others dealt with hucksters, ped­ dlers who accepted chestnuts and other goods in exchange for merchandise. In southwestern Virginia and elsewhere, when people brought nuts to a store, they had three op­ tions for compensation. They could receive cash, exchange them for merchandise, or have the value of the nuts credited to their store account to pay off past or future debts. If they received cash, they were usually paid in cardboard or metal tokens called “due bills,” or the amount received was written on a slip of paper called “scrip.” These were good only for exchange at the issuing store, so customers actu­ ally received store credit, rather than cash. If a store owner had a good reputation for trustworthiness, the store’s due bills and scrip might be exchanged in transactions among local people before they were eventually cashed in at the store. In effect, each country store minted its own money. (3) Once merchants received chestnuts, they had to ship them to a market outside their region. They bagged the nuts in cloth sacks and hauled them to the railroad station. This was not an easy trip. Al­ though roads in the region had improved by the early 20th century, they were still dirt roads and travel often was difficult. Most Blue Ridge communities did not see a paved road until the arrival o f the Blue • 65 * �TABLE 1 CHESTNUTS SHIPPED, MAYBERRY GENERAL STORE, PATRICK COUNTY, VIRGINIA Year Bags Pounds Estimated Value Destination (Number of Shipments) 1914 229 9,156 $451.00 New York City (7) Baltimore (2) Richmond (2) Norfolk, VA (1) 1915 138 6,560 $421.00 New York City (4) Baltimore (3) Philadelphia (1) TOTAL 367 15,716 $872.00 Ridge Parkway in the 1930s, after the chestnut trade had died. James D. Hopkins, a Patrick County storeowner, would haul 2,000 pounds o f nuts at a time to the railroad station in his horse-drawn wagon. Alternatively, if a supplier brought goods to a store, the merchant might ship the nuts back to town in the supplier’s otherwise empty wagon. The scale of the chestnut trade is difficult to determine. Published accounts differ. The 1914 Virginia Department of Agriculture publication placed the statewide annual value o f the nut crop at $200,000. At a return o f 10 cents a pound, this amounted to 2,000,000 pounds o f nuts. (4) On the other hand, a Virginia Writers Project history o f Floyd County placed the value o f that county’s annual nut harvest alone at $100,000 (1,000,000 pounds). A 1937 University o f Virginia economic study o f Patrick County stated that “Patrick’s chestnut crop, at one time, was a greater source o f revenue than cattle.” The author did not mention a dollar value, but he did note that after a 20-year decline in the size o f the herd, the “7,143 cattle reported in 1930 were valued at $336,260. Dairy products sold totaled $52,164.” That was the equivalent o f over 520,000 pounds o f nuts. (5) The 1914 figure of $200,000 for the annual statewide value o f the chestnut harvest may be an underestimate, or more likely the trade grew signifi­ cantly in the years following 1914. Country store record books provide much more accurate information, but they are difficult to find, especially day books. Records o f hucksters’ business and personal shipments are virtually nonexis­ tent. There are, though, other clues. A set o f Mayberry General Store shipping receipts from the South­ ern Express Company provide revealing details o f the trade o f one business. The store, which is located in the Patrick County Blue Ridge community o f Mayberry, near the border o f Floyd and Carroll coun­ ties, shipped its nuts through Stuart. As Table 1 shows, the store shipped at least 9,156 pounds o f nuts in 1914, and another 6,560 pounds in 1915, with a total estimated wholesale value o f $872, or about 6 cents per pound. This store sometimes actually realized 9 to 11 cents per pound. (6) Although some nuts went to wholesalers in Richmond and Norfolk, Virginia, most went to Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York City. The local trade in chestnuts linked even the poorest folks, who seldom if ever used cash, to the national economy despite the often-encountered myth that these mountain people lived in isolation. The roasted chestnuts sold by vendors on the streets o f New York, or stuffed into turkeys in urban and • 66 • �TABLE 2 NUT PRODUCTION 1900 Mise. Nuts Trees Bushels 1910 All Nuts Trees Pounds 1930 Nuts Bearing Age Trees Grayson Co. Carroll Co. Patrick Co. 64 224 310 305 164 153 21 16 333 216 128 5,550 5,578 64,931 15,423 159,852 2,061 48,791 13,032 81,260 Pecans 6 Pecans 3 Walnuts 1 Pecans 8 Chestnuts 35 Other Nuts 15 Pecans 11 314 30 260* Floyd Co. Franklin Co. Pounds *Includes 170 pounds of chestnuts suburban areas throughout the northeast, may have been gathered by poor children and adults in the Blue Ridge o f southwest Virginia. Shipments from Stuart moved on the Danville & Western (D&W) railroad, which reached Pat­ rick County, Virginia, in 1884. The narrow-gauge track began in Danville and extended westward to its terminus in Stuart, the county seat. Affectionately called the “Dick & Willie” by county residents, the D&W was upgraded to standard gauge by 1903. The arrival o f the D&W expanded economic opportuni­ ties for the county and especially for the chestnut trade. The son o f a stationmaster recalled that the best money his father made was from shipping chestnuts. He also was an express agent and earned commis­ sions on the shipments. The nuts were shipped at the higher rate for perishables. “His express commis­ sions,” his son recalled, “were just fantastic.” His father told him that, “during the harvest time o f chest­ nuts you could hardly find a place to put the bags o f chestnuts down, because everyone was a chestnut dealer, just about. They harvested the chestnuts and brought them and shipped them to the big cities.” (7) The chestnut trade was not necessarily small; in some areas it was a large industry. The U.S. Ag­ riculture Census figures for 1910 show that Grayson, Carroll, Patrick, Floyd and Franklin counties pro­ duced 360,384 pounds o f nuts (Table 2). This amounted to 43 percent o f the entire production o f all nuts in Virginia that year. It is quite likely that the trade grew rapidly between 1910 and 1920 to something approaching 500,000 to 1,000,000 pounds a year in Patrick, the most productive o f these five counties. It was a boom and bust trade that accelerated sharply with the arrival o f the railroad and ended just as sud­ denly with the death o f the trees. • 67 • �REFERENCES 1. Williams, J.A. 2002. Appalachia: A History. University o f North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill. 2. Josie G. Thomas interview, Patrick County Project, Special Collection, Newman Library, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA (hereafter cited as “PCP”), Tape 1, Side 2, 154/91; Helms interviwe, PCP, -/175; Robert Samuel and Sally Slate interview, PCP, Tape 3, Side 1,200/166. (Tape locator numbers on the left indicate location noted in PCP index. The numbers on the right indicate where I found it on my recorder.) Cockram Store Accounts Book: 30 lbs ac­ cepted vor $0.90 credit, Sept. 30, 1909; 64 lbs accepted for $1.28 credit, 2 October 1909, Patrick County Historical Society, Stuart, VA. 3. See Joseph E. Morse, Virginia’s Country Stores: A Quiet Passing (Manassas, VA: E.M. Press, 1996), 13-25, photo of due bills on 14. See Eliot Wigginton and Margie Bennett, eds., “The General Store,” Foxfire 9 (New York: Doubleday/Anchor 1986), 83-206. 4. Ten cents per pound is a rough estimate of the resale value of the nuts to the general store owner before the costs of ship­ ping and the wholesaler’s commission are deducted. (See note 6 for the source o f this figure.) My intention is to use a some­ what high resale value to generate a conservative estimate of the quantity o f nuts traded. 5. Gravatt, “The Chestnut Blight in Virginia” (Virginia Department of Agriculture and Immigration; January 1, 1914), 13; Gertrude Blair, “Brief History of Floyd County,” Virginia Writer’s Project, typescript, Montgomeiy-Floyd Regional Library, Floyd, VA, 5; Maynard Calvin Conner and William K. Bing, An Economic and Social Survey of Patrick County, University’ o f Virginia Record Extension Series, 11 (January 1937): 69, 66. Butter accounted for most o f the dairy products sold. 6. Southern Express Company shipping receipts (bills of lading) for chestnuts from Mayberry General Store, courtesy of Coy Lee Yeatts and Dale Yeatts, Meadows of Dan, VA. These records recently were transferred to the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University o f Virginia, Charlottesville, VA. The Yeatts operate the Mayberry Trading Post, Patrick County, VA, successor of Mayberry General Store. Note that these are loose receipts found in a drawer and the gaps ’ in shipping dates suggest that this may be an incomplete record of shipments. The value shown on the receipts represent the estimated resale income to the store. Statements from a New York wholesaler, Parker & Allison, indicate that eight bags sold for a total o f $36.16 and nine bags for $34.50. With an average weight per bag in 1914 and 1915 (see Table 1) o f 42.8 lbs, the merchant received about $0.11 and $0.09 per pound, respectively. (After the expense o f shipping and commissions were deducted, Mayberry General Store received $27.92 and $21.83, or $0.08 and $0.06 per lb for these shipments.) Statements from Parker & Allison Wholesale Commission Merchants dated 9 October and 28 October, Mayberry General Store, courtesy o f Coy Lee and Dale Yeatts, Meadows of Dan, VA. No year was noted, but these lots correspond with the store’s shipments of 20 September and 21 October 1915. A 1907 letter from a Philadelphia wholesaler to a resident of Pennick, VA, complained o f the failing crop in the northeast and promises $11.00-$15.00 per bushel of chestnuts. E.R. Redfield & Co. to J.S. Elliott, 30 September 1907, Bedford County Historical Society Museum, Bedford, VA. 7. History o f Patrick County, Virginia (Stuart, VA: Patrick County Historical Society, 1999), 359 (note photo o f the wagons at the railroad station on the same page); “Railroads in Patrick County,” in Patrick County, Virginia, Heritage Book, Vol. I: 1791-1999 (Patrick County Heritage Book Committee, n.d.), 4-6. Store customer accounts books from the late nineteenth century, including one from Mayberry General Store, do not indicate the presence o f a trade in chestnuts. W. Curtis Carter in­ terview, PCP, Tape 1, Side 1,436/329; Carter, statement made at Reynolds Homestead Continuing Education Center Patrick Co., 13 May 2003. • 68• �by Dr. John Kern n March 15, 1867, local Freedmen’s Bureau agent Charles Schaeffer, headquartered in Christiansburg, Montgomery County, provided the Freedmen’s Bureau with a detailed canvass of potential Montgomery County voters for Virginia’s Constitutional Convention election, sched­ uled for October 22, 1867. He identified the political allegiances o f enfranchised whites: former Confed­ erates, Conservatives sympathetic with the rebellion; and Union men, Republicans who favored ffeedmen’s suffrage. Schaeffer also canvassed ffeedmen, who invariably sought their rights o f suffrage. Schaeffer’s working alliances with the whites he canvassed helped him protect civil justice for ffeedmen while he served as Bureau agent. His work with ffeedmen also pro­ vided them with opportunity for education and worship in Mont­ gomery County and southwest Virginia, until his death in 1899. Bom in 1830 into a prosperous family in Germantown/Philadelphia, Schaeffer became a devout Baptist in 1850, and fought for the Union in the Civil War. Wounded at Antietam and Gettysburg, he joined the Veteran Reserve Corps in 1864. [Fig. 1] In 1866 Schaeffer accepted appointment with the Freedmen’s Bureau in Christiansburg, about six miles east o f the New River. Schaeffer protected ffeedmen’s rights in southwest Virginia until his employment with the Freedmen’s Bureau ended in 1869. After 1869 Schaeffer remained in the field, and until 1895 directed freedmen’s education in Christiansburg, where he sponsored and then pastored " " i ’' '4 ^ freedmen’s worship until his death in 1899. (1) When Schaeffer arrived at Christiansburg Depot on the Vir- Fig. 1. 1st Lt. Charles S. Schaefginia and Tennessee Railroad in May 1866, he found himself south fef ca. 1863 of the mid-point o f the Valley o f Virginia, drained primarily by the New River. There fertile bottom and tributary lands supported cash crops o f com and grain, grown by slaves who counted for 20 percent o f Montgomery County’s popula­ tion in 1860, half the statewide percentage o f slaves in Virginia on the eve o f the Civil War. (2) O Dr. John Kern gave this paper fo r the Virginia Forum in March 2014. He retired as historian in the Roanoke Regional Preservation Office o f the State Department o f Historic Resources. He holds degreesfrom Swarthmore College and the University o f Wisconsin. • 69* �Fig. 2. Freedmen’s Bureau agent prevents a Constitutional Convention election riot. [Eric Foner, “Re­ construction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877,” 1988, p. 195] F reedmen ’s R ights The first year o f Schaeffer’s monthly reports to the Freedmen’s Bureau recorded his success in secur­ ing poorhouse shelter for Montgomery County’s most indigent and homeless formers slaves. When white planters worked their freedmen without written contracts and refused to pay fair wages, Schaeffer required both parties to appear at his headquarters, and reported that he could usually arrange for sat­ isfactory settlement. Schaeffer also protected some freedmen from violence and prosecution by former owners. (3) Schaeffer helped protect ffeedmen’s rights o f suffrage and political representation after Con­ gress passed the Military Reconstruction Act, over President Andrew Johnson’s veto, at the beginning o f March 1867. By the provisions o f Radical Reconstruction, each Confederate state was to hold a consti­ tutional convention, to write a new constitution that provided freedmen with equal rights o f suffrage. If a majority o f registered voters approved the constitution, and ratified the Fourteenth Amendment that guaranteed such rights, the state would be readmitted to the Union. Virginia became Military District No. 1, headed by General John Schofield, who quickly estab­ lished voting districts, largely defined by county boundaries, and chose October 22, 1867, as the day for the Constitutional Convention elections. At Schofield’s request on March 4, 1867, Virginia Freedmen’s Bureau commander General O. Brown directed local Bureau agents to canvass and register voters. (4) Within a week o f instruction from Gen. Brown, Schaeffer provided the Bureau with detailed information on 32 potential voters for the Constitutional Convention election to be held in Montgom• 70 • �ery County. With the precision o f Obama’s inner sanctum o f election strategists, Schaeffer organized his information by profession, support for issues, and national political allegiance. The first category he presented was for whites, in sympathy with the rebellion, known as Conservatives, but men o f “the first respectability.” John Francis, Montgomery County sheriff, was a Douglas Democrat, and a captain in the Confederate service; William Ragan, Montgomery County deputy sheriff, was also a Douglas Democrat, and a captain in the Confederacy. Schaeffer’s next category was for the “most popular Union men in the county, those loyal to the Union in the war, and now connected with the Loyal League.” These men were national Republicans who supported ffeedmen’s suffrage. Among the Union men, Adam Flanagan was a Breckenridge Demo­ crat and current Christiansburg justice o f the peace, who served as a private in the Confederacy, and then “deserted into the Union lines.” Schaeffer’s final category was for “intelligent...freedmen...in whom both races have confidence.” Minnis Headen was a blacksmith in Christiansburg who could “read, write, and cipher...one o f the best colored men in the state.” Richard Taylor was a preacher and farmer in Blacks­ burg, who “cannot read or write, but is quite intelligent.” Schaeffer’s concise and positive characteriza­ tion of the men in the Conservative and Republican factions suggests that he could work amicably with most o f the Montgomery county leaders he discussed. (5) Schaeffer’s canvassing comments on Montgomery County Union Men and the Loyal League, referred to political rallies organized by white Republicans to gain ffeedmen’s votes for the Constitu­ tional Convention. Freedmen would presumably gain the right to vote by alliance with white Republi­ cans against former Confederates. Pro-Confederacy whites reacted with violence against freedmen who attended the Union League rallies. From May through September 1867, Schaeffer’s monthly Bureau reports told o f threats by “AntiUnion Elements” against freedmen who attended Republican Union League meetings. One planter drove “Freedmen off his land” for joining the Union League, and “severely whipped” two children whose father had joined the League. Schaeffer, as military commissioner, awarded damages to the threatened freedmen, and released the planter on $500 bond, but still the planter refused to allow any Union League man on his land. The month before the Constitutional Convention election, Schaeffer reported that despite such threats, “Politically the Colored Men are almost a unit in sustaining the National Republi­ can nominee for the State Convention.” Hence the Union League mobilized a ffeedmen’s community of political and civil rights awareness in Montgomery County. (6) On the day o f the Constitutional Convention election, Schaeffer reported that “a disturbance oc­ curred between white and colored at Christiansburg that for a short time had the appearance o f a gen­ eral riot, but was promptly suppressed by the power invested in me as Military Commissioner, and the energetic action o f Sheriff Francis and Deputy Ragan who discharged their duties faithfully.” [Fig. 2] Thanks to Schaeffer’s work canvassing pro-Union whites, thanks to support he received from local law enforcement officers, and thanks to votes from freedmen strengthened by his protection o f their rights, Montgomery was the only county west of the Blue Ridge in the Valley o f Virginia that elected a Repub­ lican delegate, Christiansburg Justice o f the Peace Adam Flanagan, to the Constitutional Convention. (7) Schaeffer acted bravely to challenge planters who threatened freedmen, and whites who rioted against black suffrage. He never reported any personal threats or misgivings to the Bureau. In Janu­ ary 1868 Schaeffer acknowledged the “malice and hatred o f many whites toward the Freed-people, and those engaged in laboring for their welfare, yet there are some who would cooperate with us, if they could.” Then he reflected with pride on the accomplishments o f the former slaves under his jurisdiction. “The freedmen themselves are steadily advancing in intelligence, sobriety and good deportment — de­ siring to live in peace with all men, if suffered to do so, and endeavoring to secure by their labor an hon­ est livelihood.” (8) Schaeffer probably received more support from local authorities, and encountered less hostil• 71 • �Fig. 3. Christiansburg Church and School, 1868 [Charles Harrison, “Charles S. Schaeffer,” 1900, p. 118] ity from unreconstructed whites in southwest Virginia, because freedmen comprised 20 percent o f the population around Christiansburg, while blacks counted for between 46 to 59 percent o f the population in the Deep South, where Freedmen’s Bureau agents encountered the most violent racial antagonism and the least support from local authorities. Eric Foner’s “Reconstruction” remarks that perhaps the greatest failing o f the Freedmen’s Bureau was that it never comprehended the depths o f racial antagonism in the postwar South. Schaeffer encountered less o f this antagonism west o f the Blue Ridge in Virginia, where planters represented a smaller portion o f the population, and exercised less influence over local authori­ ties. (9) F reedmen ’s E ducation and W orship O n October 8, 1867, two weeks before the Christiansburg election riot, Schaeffer purchased four acres o f land near Christiansburg depot for about $200. A year later he deeded half an acre o f that land, which included, a “House built for freedmen’s School and Church purposes,” to trustees o f Christiansburg Afri­ can Baptist Church, headed by Minnis Headen, and pastored by Richard Taylor, from 1869 until he died in 1879. Schaeffer’s deed o f that land to Christiansburg African Baptist Church trustees for school and church purposes sustained his commitment to freedmen’s education and worship until his death 30 years later. Schaeffer’s first Freedmen’s Bureau report stated that freedmen’s schools were badly needed in his sub-district, and that he had only discovered one Sabbath school. (10) Two Philadelphia-based benevolent organizations supported Schaeffer’s four decades of work for • 72 • �Fig. 4. First Baptist Church o f Christiansburg, 1885 [Harrison, “Schaeffer,” p. 266] freedmen’s education and worship in southwest Virginia. The Friends Freedmen’s Association, originally known as the Friends Association o f Philadelphia for the Relief o f Colored Freedmen, shared Schaef­ fer’s conviction that ex-slaves demonstrated deep capacity and commitment for learning. The Friends Freedmen’s Association gave Schaeffer school supplies for Christiansburg School, [Fig. 3] begun by 1868, and financed construction o f Christiansburg Institute, completed in 1888. Philadelphia Tenth Bap­ tist Church, Schaeffer’s mother church, licensed him to preach in 1869, and praised his Sabbath school ministry. Tenth Baptist Pastors Spencer Kennard and A.J. Rowland gave Schaeffer spiritual counsel throughout his service in Southwest Virginia, and funded construction o f First Baptist Church o f Chris­ tiansburg, completed in 1885. [Fig. 4] Both First Baptist Church o f Christiansburg and Christiansburg Institute were constructed on land purchased by Schaeffer in 1873, and donated to church and school trustees in 1885. (11) [Fig. 5] Sabbath schools provided a bridge between the two benevolent organizations and Schaeffer’s dedication to freedmen’s worship and education. Friends Freedmen’s Association board member James Rhoads asked Schaeffer how he combined education for freedmen with teaching knowledge o f the Scriptures. Because Quakers declined to proselytize in their work with freedmen, and never declared any denominational criteria for supporting their teachers, Freedmen’s Association Quakers, and Schaeffer as a devout Baptist, shared a common cause in the education o f freedmen, without concern for their doctri• 73 • �nal differences in faith. Tenth Baptist and Schaeffer shared a common denominational faith and Schaef­ fer’s marriage in 1872 to Ada Smart, who prior to their marriage served as principal o f the Tenth Baptist primary department Sunday school, certainly sustained his interest in Sabbath schools and Baptist scrip­ tural instruction for freedmen. (12) Albert Raboteau’s “Slave Religion” discusses slave preachers such as Richard Taylor, who began an itinerant ministry in Montgomery County well before the Civil War, and became the pastor o f Christiansburg African Baptist Church in 1869. Raboteau writes that slave preachers had a remarkable ability to cite Scripture, narratives and doctrine with correctness and power. Freedmen who could not read held scripture in reverence, and flocked to schools established after Emancipation. Schaeffer’s 1867 canvass for the Constitutional Convention election reported that Richard Taylor could not read or write. By 1870 when Richard Taylor, 65, his wife Nancy, 55, and daughter, Mary, 18, lived with Schaeffer, the manuscript census recorded that Robert and Nancy could read, and Mary could read and write. In 1868 only one trustee o f Christiansburg African Baptist Church, Minnis Headen, could read and write, and only two o f the other nine trustees could read. By 1885 all nine First Baptist Church trustees could read, and four could read and write. These comments on the increasing literacy o f the Christiansburg Church trustees and pastor document the positive interaction between education and worship in the freedmen’s community o f Christiansburg, located south of the mid-region o f the Valley o f Virginia. (13) In a unique way Charles Schaeffer served as a cultural member o f the Christiansburg commu• 74 • �Fig. 6. Charles Schaeffer (with white beard, middle o f front row) met with First Baptist Church officers, ca. 1895. [Photo courtesy o f Tammi Franklin, associate minister, Schaeffer Memorial Baptist Church] nity o f freedmen. He protected freedmen’s rights while serving as a local Freemen’s Bureau agent from 1866 to 1869. He donated the land and led the campaign to build the freedmen’s schools and churches in Christiansburg, and he preached to freedmen at First Baptist Church for the last two decades o f his life. [Fig. 6] His political courage and concise communication with the Freedmen’s Bureau, and with local authorities, enabled freedmen to vote for the Constitutional Convention. That community o f enfran­ chised freedmen sustained their rights o f suffrage until they were restricted by provisions o f the Virginia Constitution o f 1902. Schaeffer’s biographer in the first chapter o f “The Story o f a Consecrated Life, Commemorative of Rev. Charles S. Schaeffer” wrote: “Freed people required special treatment, educational and other­ wise. Poor, dependent, improvident, ignorant, the degraded victims o f a gigantic national crime, they could not be reached and helped by ordinary methods. To lift them up, one must stoop to their level.” Schaeffer never believed this Jim Crow message o f racial subordination. Schaeffer always believed in freedmen’s capacities for education and self advancement, and dedicated his life in Christiansburg and Southwest Virginia to the right o f the freedmen to secure by their labor an honest livelihood. (14) • 75 • �CITATIONS 1. Charles H. Harrison, The Story o f a Consecrated Life: Commemorative of Rev. Charles S. Schaeffer, Brevet-Captain US V, J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1900; hereafter cited as C. H., Schaeffer, 89-104. The diary no longer survives 2. John Kern, “African-American History in Southwest Virginia, 1790 to 1900,” Florida Memorial College Academic Re­ view, Vol. 3, 1994, 37-42. 3. Linda Killen, editor, Freedmen’s Bureau, The Reports of Charles S. Schaeffer from the Virginia Counties of Montgomery, Giles, Pulaski, and Roanoke, 1867-1868, Belspring, Virginia, no date, typed transcriptions of Schaeffer’s monthly reports to the Freedmen’s Bureau Assistant Commissioners for Virginia, hereafter cited as Schaeffer Freedmen’s Bureau Reports: July 25,1866; Aug. 25, 1866; Sept. 25, 1866; Dec. 25,1866; Feb. 25,1867; May 25,1867. 4. Richard Lowe, Republicans and Reconstruction in Virginia, 1856-1870. University o f Virginia Press, Charlottesville, Vir­ ginia, 1991,97-101,122-125. 5. Schaeffer Freedmen’s Bureau Reports: March 15,1867; Sept.25,1866. In September 1866, Schaeffer compiled a complete “Marriage Register” for Montgomery County freedmen that recorded 324 married couples, and 751 children. The marriage register included information on place o f birth, occupation, location o f last owner, and commencement of cohabitation. Therefore, Schaeffer had data that enabled him to compile in a week’s time his political canvass of 32 key registrants for the Constitutional Convention. Schaeffer’s canvass for Virginia’s Constitutional Convention election also shows that he well comprehended the complexity of national parties and presidential candidates for the elections o f 1860 and 1864, as discussed by Eric Foner, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2010,132144, 296-311. 6. Schaeffer Freedmen’s Bureau Reports: May 31, 1867; Aug. 25, 1867; Sept. 25,1867. Eric Foner, Reconstruction: Amer­ ica’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, 283-288, discusses freedmen communities of political awareness mobilized by the Union League. 7. Schaeffer Freedmen’s Bureau Reports: Oct, 27,1867; Lowe, Republicans and Reconstruction in Virginia, 126-128. 8. Schaeffer Freedmen’s Bureau Reports: Jan.31, 1868. 9. Eric Foner, Reconstruction, 170. James D. Anderson, The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1988, 41, Table 2.1, shows the number and percent o f blacks in Total Population of South­ ern States, from 1870 to 1930. 10. Montgomery County Circuit Court, Christiansburg, Virginia, Deed Book R, 444; Deed Book S, 12-13. Schaeffer Freed­ men’s Bureau Reports, June 25, 1866. Schaeffer’s land purchase staked his claim to permanent residence in Christiansburg. The 1870 manuscript census for Christiansburg Township, Montgomery County, Virginia, lists him as head o f household, and owner of real estate valued at $1,500. 11. Report o f the Executive Board of the Friends Association of Philadelphia, April 18,1864. Friends Freedmen’s Records. Friends Historical Library o f Swarthmore College; hereafter cited as Friends Freedmen’s Records. C. H., Schaeffer, 157-161, 210,254, 257. 12. Friends Freedmen’s Records, April 13, 1869. Robert Butchart, Schooling the Freed People: Teaching,Learning,and the Struggle for Black Freedom, University o f North Carolina Press, 2010, 87. C. H., Schaeffer, 226-227. 13. Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion, The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South, Oxford University Press, 2004, 231-239. 14. C.H., Schaeffer, 11; Harrison was married to a sister of Ada Smart Schaeffer; Montgomery County Circuit Court, Chris­ tiansburg, Virginia, Will Book 13, 363. James D. Anderson, The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935, University of North Carolina Press, 1988, 37,40-44, 52, 58, 73-77, 80-95, discusses the racial prejudice and consequent subordination supported by southern planters and politicians and some northern industrialists and philanthropists, and doubtless others, which gained its widest acceptance after Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Compromise Speech in 1895. The rationale for the subordination was that slaves were so mistreated that they and their descendents were not ready for or entitled to receive equal treatment: civil rights, employment opportunities, education, and so on. 76 �^ eijh u& fineoenoe oun ¿¿atony Please consider contributing to the Historical Society’s Kegley Publication Fund to help us continue publishing articles about the history of the Roanoke Valley and Western Virginia. 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Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia 2014 Volume 21, Number 2 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include:<br />Growing Up in Roanoke in the 1920s to 1930s<br />O. Winston Link's 100th Birthday Party<br />Bedford Barns<br />Frances Benjamin Johnston, Renowned Photographer, and the George Trout Farm in NW Roanoke<br />Runaway Slaves: Mindset of Negroes, 1861-1865<br />Many Presidents Have Visited the Roanoke Valley<br />Michelle Obama Has Henry County Slavery Roots<br />The Jacob Persinger Family in Backcountry Virginia<br />Living on the Edge of the Blue Ridge Parkway<br />Rebuilding Mabry Mill, A Southern Appalachian Icon<br />The American Chestnut Trade in the Blue Ridge of Southwestern Virginia<br />Charles Schaeffer: Freedmen’s Rights, Education,Worship in Christiansburg and Southwest Virginia, 1866-1899 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_21_02_2014 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6372/JHSWV_22_01_2015.pdf 8ba23d53d0dee92dad294e0c5431a3e8 PDF Text Text �‘fty ia tö 'iic a i S o c ie ty o£ K /eetenn 'V in y ttu ti Amor montium nos movet (For the love o f mountains inspires us) Ofótcenà, Nelson H a rris ............ ........................President W ilburn D ib lin g ........ ................Vice President Tom m y M o o re ........... ........................ Secretary Ashley F io re ............... ........................ Treasurer Kim C ly m e r............... ........ Executive D irector ^Oiectonà, SW W John P. Bradshaw Helen S. Franks Gordon Hamilton Scott Hengerer Sandra Brown Kelly George “Al” McLean Delta Pelgrim Dr. Norma Jean Peters ‘D cnecto'ui S yen ite Sara S. Airheart George A. Kegley Edgar V. Wheeler George Kegley Editor o f the Journal Christina Koomen Production, Editorial Assistant Charles Price F. Anderson Stone Stephen Warren Donald Wilson ‘T Jtemo'titzm Betty Dye Clive Rice The Journal, Vol. XXII, No. 1, chronicles the history of the Commonwealth west o f the Blue Ridge. It is published by the Historical Society o f Western Virginia, P. O. Box 1904, Roanoke, Va. 24008. The price for additional cop­ ies is $5 for members and $10 for others. The Society welcomes unsolicited material but submissions cannot be returned and the Society cannot be responsible for damage or loss..... WT mM R oanoke C ity' PuDiic —for c?r> «Sr SaBO TS® Virginia Room �f.. 4 Message From the President fr. 6 Roanoke Jews: A History by S ig D avidson fr. t 6 Crossing Roanoke Valley in Chains and Handcuffs by G eorge K egley ft. 2 2 Old Chapel Church is 247 Years Old by Dr. J. F rancis Am os ft-. 3 3 Long Stained Glass Window is Coming to the Link Museum by George K egley ft. 3 4 Roanoke’s First Flight by N elson H arris ft. 3 6 Natural Bridge, a Landmark for the Ages by George K egley and C hristina Koom en ft. 4 2 Col. William Preston and Greenfield Revisited by George K egley ft. 46 Stephen Austin, Virginia-born, was “Father of Texas” by M ary B. K egley ft. 5 4 Rev. Richard Jones, Activist, Orator, Founder of Black First Baptist Church, 1882-1904 by Dr. John K ern ft. 6 2 Last Run of the Virginian Electrics by L ouis M. N ew ton fi. 70 Verifying a Slave Community at Kentland by Sam uel R. Cook a n d Thomas K latka On the cover: “Natural Bridge,” 1808 engraving by J.C. Stadler, after William Roberts; image sourced from the Monticello website. For more about Natural Bridge, see page 36. �7%eäd<zye 'P'uwk t&e ^ne&cdeett n behalf of the board o f directors and the staff of the Historical Society of B Western Virginia, we are privileged to share with you this present edition o f the society’s Journal. As the primary historical society for our region, we seek to celebrate and preserve the history o f Western Virginia through ex­ hibits, tours, special events, digital resources, archives, research and pub­ lications. The Journal has always been a primary benefit o f membership in our society, as articles reflect a wide range of historical interests in our region. In this issue, various authors share about Jewish history in downtown Roanoke, slave coffles along the Great Road, a Colonial-era Franklin County church, and the first airplane flight to occur in Roanoke, plus much more. As always we are indebted to our longtime editor, George Kegley, for his enthusiasm and commitment in producing our Journal. In addition, Christina Koomen continues to do excellent layout work. This year is exciting and promising for your historical society. We are in the preliminary phase o f crafting a permanent and interactive children’s exhibit that will help our History Muse­ um complement the other family-oriented activities occurring regularly at Center In the Square. This summer, we will install a wonderfully designed stained glass window at the O. Winston Link gift shop depicting the famed Norfolk &Western J 611 steam locomotive. Current and fu­ ture exhibits will focus on Appalachian artisans, “Trains Around the World,” Roanoke weddings and a touring exhibit from the Library of Virginia. To make yesterday available today requires volunteers, donors and corporate citizens. To all those who partner with us, we thank you and hope you enjoy this edition of the Journal. — .4. Nelson Harris �ROANOKE, VIRGINIA I Only three decades have f passed since waving fields of wheat composed th e land­ scape herein pictured as tow­ ering business buildings, busy work shops, beautiful homes, imposing churches, excellent schools and pretty p a r k s - a transformation wonderful, befitting the nicknam e of “Magic City”; a growth steady and sturdy, aptly defining “Acorn to Oak—Watch Roanoke!” as lis? Kimball Mémorial Fountain Issued under the Auspices of the Chamber b f Commerce These photos are a sampling from an early album o f the Roanoke Chamber o f Commerce, prepared by Hammond Printing Co. They were presented to the Society from the estate o f Josephine Johnstone Slemp o f Wytheville. They were apparently photographed about 1910-1912, a growth period for Roanoke, then known as the Magic City. The 40-page album, which measures a pocket-sized 4 by 6 inches, contains dozens of images o f businesses, churches, homes and landscapes from around the Roanoke Valley. Pictured are (top to bottom, left to right) the introduction page, the Virgina Bridge & Iron plant and N&W shops; Jefferson Street; the old race course at Victory Stadium; three of Roanoke’s early hospitals (Roanoke Memorial, Lewis-Gale and Jefferson Surgical Hospital); Crystal Spring Park; and Elmwood Park. �Ç eu& : / 4 *i¥tât< vuf by S ig D avidson remember it w e ll... We have a wonderful tradition. And w e’ve got to follow up on it. I think the real place to start is when Big Lick became Roanoke. And at that time there was a publi­ cation by the state listing various merchants in the state and it listed four shops that were owned by Jewish people in what had been Big Lick and was now Roanoke. One is a shoe store, two clothing stores and a dry goods store; at le a st... one o f those stores was owned by a man named Ike Bacharach, who lived in a place called Gish’s Mill, which is now Vinton, Virginia. And he used to ride a little trolley from Gish’s Mill to Roanoke where he had his stores. I The E arly Y ears In 1889 it was publicized there were at least 18 Jewish families in Roanoke. And in 1889 they decided to have a place o f worship which became Temple Emanuel. Now most o f these Jews were from Germany and were Reform Jews. They were classic Reform Jews where they felt that most o f their service should be conducted in the language o f the country they were living in, rather than in Hebrew. And I think that was the case with the first Temple Emanuel. From the time o f the revolution, there were quite a few Jews living in the U.S. But from the revolution until almost 75 Sigmund “Sig" Davidson years later there were very few Jews coming to America. Most o f them were from Germany or from England. Most o f them were classic Reform Jews. In 1881, a czar was assassinated in Russia and the czar who took his place tried to blame the Jews for his assassination. He decreed at least one third o f the Jews would be forced to leave the countries they controlled, one third would be killed and one third would be forced to give up their Judaism. This caused a great exodus o f Jews in what is now Russia or the Baltic States or central Europe. And many o f those Jews first came to New York City; in fact, so many o f them remained in New York that the powers that be o f the Jewish community there decided that there should be another port o f entry for Jews to come and they opened the port o f Galves­ ton, Texas. Most o f the Jewish people who came to Roanoke evidently came from Baltimore. Baltimore was a place where a lot o f the early tailoring industry in the United States was, and still some firms still started in Baltimore ... that’s clothing firms. And a lot o f these people that were tailors who were in Baltimore starting coming down the Shenandoah Valley into this area. Most o f them came 10 or 15 years after they first came to America to Baltimore or New York. This is an edited transcript o f a video interview with Sig Davidson, longtime clothing merchant and com­ munity leader in Roanoke, presented on Feb. 3, 2011. The program was arranged by Amy Morris o f Phila­ delphia, form erly o f Roanoke. Most o f the photos are screen-capturedfrom the video courtesy o f Melissa Kegley. 6 1 I �So there were gradually Jews coming into this area in the 1890s and the early 1900s. The Rosenberg family came originally; before Roanoke they were in Lynchburg. They came in 1889. They were also part o f the original temple group. And in 1904 when the Jews decided to have Beth Israel, to form what is now Beth Israel, still some of them remained members o f Temple Emanuel. But most of them became members o f Beth Israel Synagogue. They were a very large family. And had a store that was located on Salem Avenue. But also had an entrance to Campbell Avenue. My grandfather, Simon Silverman, came to Roanoke in 1889 and was one o f the founding members o f Temple Emanuel. Mr. Bacharach was also one o f those founders. In 1894 Mr. Bacharach, who was also involved in real estate and I understand made quite a bit o f money in real estate because so many people were moving to Roanoke to work for the Norfolk and Western railway — he donated land that is now where our present cemetery is located In 1904 certain members o f the Roanoke Jewish simon Silverman, Sig’s grandfather community decided they wanted to be more orthodox in their religion, so Beth Israel was formed in that year. Beth Israel bought a piece o f property on the comer o f Third Street SW, Roanoke Street and Franklin Road. And they remained there until 1928 when the present Beth Israel was built. And o f course it has been maintained in that location ever since. Temple Emanuel purchased a piece o f property which was located on Franklin Road between Elm Avenue and Day Avenue. Where, as I recall as a child, my father and I would go to services at Beth Israel on a Friday night and then after services we would go down to where the temple was and pick up my mother and my sister and w e’d all go into the American Theater in downtown Roanoke to see a movie following ser­ vices. Because so many o f the Jews that wanted to be near Beth Israel, so they would not have to ride on the Sabbath, lived on Washington in Old Southwest and on Marshall Avenue, in one block there were probably at least 30, between 20 and 30 Jewish families living there, including the Masinter family. Milcha Masinter was the cantor, the melamid, the teacher and the shochet for Beth Israel. I remember him coming in and killing a chicken in my backyard. I don’t exactly remember what the date was, but it had to be in the 1920s. Morris Masinter in the 1920s and 1930s was probably the outstanding member o f the Jewish community. Morris served in WWI in the infantry, but in WWII he was head o f the draft board. Jake Brenner, who originally came from Latvia, had a horse and buggy and used to travel up and down the area buying and selling junk. And he started a scrap iron place at the comer o f Campbell and Williamson Road. A lot o f the Jewish people had stores on Salem Avenue. There were half a dozen Jewish-owned shops, one right after another. They had to have their shops open before the N&W employees went to work, in case they needed some clothing, and then the weekends when the farmers would come in, they would stay open until after the farmers sold their wares and were ready to leave, then they would come shopping late at night on Saturday night. I might comment that my grandfather, Simon Silverman, opened his store on Salem Avenue. And o f course he brought his family which consisted o f his wife, and his father and mother-in-law, and • 7* �I think they are the oldest, first people to be buried in our cemetery, I ’m not sure, and o f course they had four daughters at the time, one o f which was my mother. He had a store on Salem Avenue and the fam­ ily lived over the store, which is very interesting. Now, Larry [Davisdon, Sig’s son] is living over David­ sons. So what goes around comes around. Most o f the Jewish stores in the early years were on Salem Avenue. They included clothing stores, there were jewelry stores. Morris Harrison had a jewelry store there for years. And for a while after he died, it was owned by another person still under the name o f Harrisons. After that, Jerome Barr moved into that location and operated Barr Brothers and was there for many years. Charlie Rosenberg, one o f the Rosenberg brothers, operated a soda shop or a cigar shop where they used to post all o f the baseball scores on the windows and people would watch the baseball scores there. In those early days in the 1890s and in the 1900s there was also a little soda shop where they sold ice cream and sodas. That was operated by Dan Moss. That was a place for a lot o f Jewish people to gather on weekends. Members o f both houses o f worship. Most o f these shops that were located on Salem Avenue moved into the market area about the time o f World War I. There was a Mr. Izzie Kahn who came to Roanoke to work for N&W as a tailor. People asked him why he was making the clothing for the N&W. Conductors would ask him if he would make them suits. So he started the clothing business known as I. Kahn and they remained in business until they had a fire in the early 1950s Morris Masinter Irving Saks had originally started his business in the American Theater building on the west side o f Jefferson Street. He moved over to Smartwear-Irving Saks, which actually got national fame and acclamation because it was such a very lovely store. Following World War I, a lot o f the Jewish-owned stores moved into other locations, both on the Market where Sam’s, the Shapiro family, started in 1916,1 believe, and Jake Halperin, whose son, Poachie Halperin, had the Army-Navy Store — o f course that was eventually bought out by Sam’s. Fox’s Bargain Store — Issie Fox came from Russia and he started the store, Fox Bargain store, which is on the market. Fink’s Jewelers came to Roanoke. Nathan Fink served in World War I and came to Roanoke in the middle o f 1920 and opened Fink’s jewelry store. O f course that stayed in downtown Roanoke and moved to its present location out on Route 419. There were two Foreman brothers who had a ladies’ shop, the family had a ladies’ shop on Jefferson Street for many years. They also opened up a theater in the early 1900s and that theater remained open until 1911 or 1912, at which point the American Theater had opened and was much larger and much greater competition, so they stopped that in the 1950s, up until the end o f the 1960s when all the shopping centers came here. Downtown Roanoke, as far as clothing was concerned, especially ladies clothing, was mostly Jewish. I mean there was Foreman’s, Spiegels, there were two Spiegels. There was one, a fashion Spiegels. You’d come in, Sam Spiegel would put you down on the sofa, bring the merchandise out for you. Then there was Joe Spiegel on the comer o f Campbell and First Street, two stories or three stories. He sold to every teacher in to w n ,... Then there was another little shop, for a while it was a shoe store on the comer o f Jefferson and Kirk Avenue, right across Kirk Avenue where the theater was. Joe Goldstein had the family shoe store there. And then when he sold his business or whatever happened to it, Nat 8 �This photo was taken contemporaneously with the grand opening o f the SmartwearIrving Saks store at 210-212 S. Jefferson Street on April 19, 1948. The image features bridal fashions in the bridal salon. (Photo courtesy History Museum o f Western Virginia) Spiegel, who was the third Spiegel, had the Natalie shop there. There were at least eight or nine or more ladies’ clothing stores on Jefferson Street, owned by Jewish people. And I remember in the 1950s, as a merchant, on a busy Saturday, you needed a machete to get through the crowds on Campbell Avenue and Jefferson Street. Then the shopping centers came, different story. T he Cemetery The fence divided Temple and Synagogue.... Actually the cemetery was owned by the member­ ship o f Temple Emanuel until 1912, at which point the membership o f BI [Beth Israel] bought the piece o f property they have their plots on now. The fence was right between that natural dividing line. But the fence is no longer there, because when I was on the board o f Temple Emanuel I insisted and finally got them to remove that fence and I don’t think there should be a fence between the two. I think if anybody objected to it, it was me. Because my father’s father, Samuel Davidson, who died in 1936, is buried in BI, as he was a member o f BI, and my father. In fact, I ’m a child o f mixed marriage, because my family has belonged to both congregations almost all my life. W orld War I Incidentally, there were actually 12 members o f the Jewish community that served in World War I. Izzie Kahn was in the Air Force, believe it or not, in World War 1.1 don’t know if he flew or not, but he was in the Air Force. There were two members o f the Jewish community, one a Mr. Sam Halperin and the other Mr. Harry Thames, who were in the infantry and their division served with the British in northern France, and were exposed to gas, to poison gas, and they suffered through their lives as a result o f that. Morris Masinter also served in the infantry in World War I, as did Ruby Rosenberg, I think. The rest o f the Jewish participants from the Roanoke community in World War I were in the Navy. A nti-S emitism in R oanoke There was a good bit o f anti-Semitism in the community in the 1920s and 1930s. Now one o f my personal experiences which really brought that out was the fact that there were a lot o f areas where Jews were not allowed to buy or build property. O f course this eventually disappeared but in the 1920s and 1930s this was very prevalent. 9 �There were also signs, and I never saw the signs, but I ’m told they existed on two o f the public swimming areas in the city o f Roanoke that said “no Jews, niggers or dogs allowed.” I never saw them. My aunt, my m other’s sister, had a little country home out on Peters Creek. She had 10 acres there with a little bungalow and a screened-in porch where 15 people could sleep there. And a lot o f us went there and spent the summer out there. I went out when school was over and was out there all summer until it was time I started chasing girls. I remember that my aunt had put a dam across Peters Creek so there was a little swimming place. It was 5 or 6 feet deep. If you were careful you could dive into it. And there used to be on weekends maybe 30 or 40 carloads o f Jewish people who came out there to swim because they didn’t feel like they were allowed to come out to those places in downtown Roanoke. Arthur Taubman Taking C are of O ur O wn One o f the things that was very important before the war, that I think people should know: Arthur Taubman was a very wonderful person. He had brought his business here, Advance Stores, in 1932. His first location was on Jefferson Street, the 500 block on the west side o f the street, before the war. And there were Jews trying to leave Germany. In order for them to come to the U.S., our Immigration Department required that there be someone here to be responsible, to say they were relatives and they would be responsible for them. Arthur took it on himself to guarantee, I don’t know what the number was, somewhere between 30 and 75, I’ve heard both numbers o f people, who were refugees from Germany coming to this country. And it was a fact that he was asked by the immigration authorities, “Are all these people your relatives?” and he said anybody in that kind o f trouble is a relative so he was responsible. W orld War II I will say in World War II there were 101 members o f the Jewish community who participated in the armed services. Several o f the doctors ... Dr. Andy Shapiro spent a lot o f time in London in the hospitals there, even before the American troops were there, taking care o f the people that were killed by the German bombings o f England and he stayed there even after World War II was over. There were four Jewish men, one Paul Fox, who was shot down in the Air Force, Sanford Thames, Irving Myers and Harry Ofsa were all in the Air Force and then crashed. I think all three o f those were in crashes in the United States. A fter the War After the war, a lot o f people in the community got together. I think the leadership both finan­ cially and in direction were Arthur Taubman and Ned Schlossberg who formed what was known as the Green Hills Country Club [west o f Salem]. Now that was basically a wonderful swimming place but it was also a place for social events. We used to have a lot o f dances there on the weekends. And we played a lot of athletics. There was a wonderful softball team, which was led by Poachie Halperin and Artie Levin, and we played volleyball. We had a tennis court. We had a lot o f social events. In fact a few nights w e’d get so boisterous w e’d even do a little skinny dipping. There was a lot o f fellowship and we really enjoyed it. Until things started changing. There wasn’t anti-Semitism. It disappeared. We could still live in most places in Roanoke and a lot o f com• 10 • �munities where condominiums were built and they had their own swimming places. And about that time, Smith Mountain Lake was formed so people started building homes up there. So the need for Green Hills sort o f disappeared. The money that was left when the property was sold ... I will say has been used to set up a foundation. And that foundation has been a support every year for the joint religious school. The Roanoke Country Club and the Hidden Valley Country Club did not allow Jewish members. I think Hunting Hills actually solicited them and that has always been a place where a lot o f Jewish people have joined and become very active. Supporting the State of Israel There was a man here soliciting funds for the state o f Israel. So they declared it a state and the Arab countries say, “Oh no, w e’re going to wipe Israel out.” There’s a man here trying to get money to support Israel. My aunt, my Uncle Sol Silverman, my mother’s brother, who worked for my father until he died, but she was at this meeting and she was from a family that was very little conscious o f her Judaism, but for some reason she was at this meeting. And she said to this man, “My brother, his name is David Miller, had been the football coach at John Marshall High School in Richmond and then the football coach o f the freshman class at VMI, and then gone into the Air Force as a procurement officer, and after the war he stayed in France buying and selling all the military equipment still in Europe.” And so she said to this man, “Contact my brother, David Miller,” and sure enough, he was able to get x-number, I don’t know how many, French war planes to be the Air Force o f the state o f Israel in the war for independence in 1948. There was an article, there was a book written about it, called “Mrs. Silverman’s Airplanes.” So it’s a great story and it actually happened. He was able to get an air force. I don’t know how many it was, 20 or 30 whatever planes, but they needed it. What they did, the Six-Day War, they did that so beautifully, it made all Jews proud o f themselves. I think that’s one thing. But I think most ethnic groups, whether they are religiously ethnic or they are Italian, Korean whatever — once they come to a country, immigrate, they want to be assimilated. They want to work to make people to love them. But somewhere down the line that’s what happened to our Jewish communi­ ties. We said, “Hey, wait a minute, we have a wonderful tradition. And w e’ve got to follow up on it.” And I think that’s what happened then. Promoting J ewish L ife In the 1970s, late ’70s, maybe the ’80s, I ’m not sure, but the powers that be with UJA [United Jewish Appeal] decided there should be a special drive. I forgot what they wanted it for, and it was to take over for three years, but in addition to the annual United Jewish Appeal drive — and originally I was opposed to it because I said we ought to do it at the same time; I said why have two different drives because there’s a shortage o f m an p o w er® well no ... the powers that be said, “Let’s do it.” At the time RJCC was in effect, Joe Penn was the president. We raised more money that year than I think we ever had raised. The Roanoke Jewish Community Council [RJCC] originally was sort o f an ad hoc organization. It was started prior to the formation o f the state o f Israel. I think Arthur Taubman was probably the man who originally started raising money here for first people who were leaving Germany and then going to the State o f Israel. If there were charitable needs here for the Jewish community, it took care o f those. And I will say the community did carry on a drive for Israel every year from the year the state o f Israel was formed until, well, it is still carried on. But for a while it was just “We gotta do it? We’ll do it.” And I think in 1971 the president o f RJCC was actually formulated and there was a president and officers. And I will say it still functions and mainly because o f the efforts o f Richard Kurshan. I think he is an unsung hero. He has done an awful lot of work over the years and I ’m not sure it’s ever been recognized. •11 • �When I was chairman o f the Temple Religious School, and this was two or three years after Green Hills was formed, maybe even 10 years, let me see ... it was in the early 1950s, I got a call from our rabbi. He said both houses o f worship had scheduled their Sunday School picnics to be at Green Hills at the same time. He said you have to call their Sunday School chairman and tell them to change the date. Well, I asked him, I won’t repeat it, “Rabbi are you out o f y o u r___ mind? Really.” And he said, “Yes, you have to do it.” And I said, “ I ’ll be damned if I will.” And they went together and both were there at Green Hills where they should’ve been all along. I don’t think they see each other as much as they should, now. R ussian Resettlement to R oanoke Now let’s talk about bringing the Russians in. Joe Penn again was the chairman o f RJCC that year, and he got together several o f us, and there’s some interesting stories. Agnes Heller and I were given the job o f finding these people jobs. Now there were four o f them who came: Stan and Luba Zelikovich, and the Shapiros. Got her a job at Lazarus because it was known that she made Russian dresses for brides. We made arrangements for them to live on Grandin Road. She did a wonderful job. Luba’s job in Russia had been working with the government. If there was a building project her job was to determine how much bricks, how much steel, all this stuff, how much labor was needed and she was to allocate all that. So I took her to see Sam Lionberger at Lionberger, I took her to see Bill Branch at Branch and Company. She clammed up. She couldn’t speak English then. She could speak and understand English, but she pretended she couldn’t. She wanted to be a hairdresser. But she never told me that. So I took her to about eight different places. Finally she said that’s what I want to be ... and she did that for years. Stan was no problem. He went to work right away as an accountant and has done a wonderful job. H e’s a great guy, a wonderful guy. Demi, this is a funny story too. We got Natasha Petersen, who taught Russian at Patrick Henry High School, to work with them to teach them English and Natasha was wonderful. She was very help­ ful at teaching them English. Natasha’s son was friendly with Demi. So we tried to find Demi a job in photography. That’s what he had done. But he really wanted to be a truck driver. Agnes Heller and I had the job o f getting them a place to work and o f course we were lucky to find them a place to live there. Morton made them part o f the community. Socialized with them and all. And o f course you know there are about 40 former Russians o f that group living here now. But Morton came in sort o f after we got them here. Morton had been wonderful in staying with them. B ’nai B ’rith B ’nai B ’rith athletic achievement award was originally the brain child o f two men who left the community soon after they conceived the idea. One was Stuart Felton and one was Howard Walpert. My peer group. I ’m not sure if they are still alive or not. But it was their idea to form the B ’nai B ’rith athletic achievement award. And that has been carried on and has been a wonderful PR thing for the community. It gives, it approaches all the various local schools and gets them to send participants and then the person who receives the award is given a scholarship from the B ’nai B ’rith Foundation. Bob Kaplan and Larry Davidson and I ’m sure a couple others see that it takes place every year. They have to go to the various schools and make the presentation and get them to send in their people for the awards. And there are scholarships given each year. In most cases, the scholarships are accepted. A lot o f cases the persons that win the scholarship are so bright they receive other scholarships. AZA J ewish Y outh G roup There was a Jewish youth group called AZA. This consisted o f maybe 25 guys from 15 to 21. Basically that’s how Harriet and I got married, really. Because first I went down to Winston-Salem • 12 • �through AZA. In 1939, Bemie Natkin and I went down there for a tennis tournament. And I slept in the attic o f a guy’s home. And they showed me a picture of, she was a sophomore then, o f the high school year book, they said this is the girl we wanted to get you a date with, but she’s away at camp. I fell in love with that picture. Now two years later, we in AZA had, as part o f B ’nai B ’rith, had fifth district basketball teams and oratorial/debating teams. The winners o f the sections o f the fifth district were to meet in Roanoke. I was the chairman o f the convention we had where the three winners met. We Roanoke and Winston-Salem chapters played basketball to warm them up in the old Market building, Harriet was one of the girls who came up with the boys. She spent the night at Mildred Jean Halperin’s house on Marshall Avenue. So she and Mildred Jean got to become good buddies. Then in April o f 1942 she came up to visit with Mildred Jean and we had our first date. April 3rd, 1942. And I kept her out until six in the morning. But nothing happened. But then we got married on January 8th, 1944. I ’m a slow worker, it took me a while. Harriet Cohen, who later married Sig Davidson B lackballed The Shenandoah Club. Arthur Taubman was the first, the first Jew to be asked to join the Shenan­ doah Club. He was a real community citizen. He was one o f the people to get North Cross School started. But he was the first person, the first Jew to be asked to join the Shenandoah Club, and he was refused. Then his son, Nick Taubman, who had just served on city council and was asked to be a mem­ ber, was refused. So those people who wanted Jewish people in there, and that included Bill Hubard who has passed away, Jay Turner, Bob Fishbum and Warner Dalhouse ... Maury Strauss and I were put up as members and we were blackballed. Charles Lunsford said we want Jewish members in the Shenandoah Club. In fact I think there are Jewish members now. In fact, one o f the reasons why Jay Turner was so gung ho on getting Maury and I as members o f Shenandoah Club, he was out at the Roanoke Country Club and he grew up side by side in Raleigh Court with Eric Heiner and he brought Eric Heiner out to the Country Club to play tennis ... and there was an announcement over the loud speaker system to get him to come to the office and tell him that he couldn’t have Eric Heiner playing tennis out there. You know, it is typical what has happened in this country. Now I remember as a kid there were five movie houses downtown, and this was up until after World War II. There was only one ... the Roa­ noke Theater, which is no longer in existence, this was on Campbell Avenue, if you were black, you had to go not to the second balcony, but to the third balcony to see the movie. That was the only place in downtown Roanoke where a black person could go to the movies. Now that was after World War II. We took it for granted. J ewish Support for the R oanoke Valley It’s interesting to note that some o f the local community charitable organizations were started by Jewish people. The Greenvale Nursery which is in existence today was started by a group o f members of the temple, a ladies group, Pan Philian. Also, two Jewish doctors, Dr. Jerome Natt and Dr. Abe Jacobson, are responsible for Mental Health America Roanoke Valley, the technical name, which is in existence today and is a United Way agency. •13 �When the community opened up, there were a lot o f members of the Jewish community who have served on various organizations. For instance, Arthur Taubman was on the board o f First National Exchange Bank, on the board o f trustees. When that became Dominion Bank, his son, Nick Taubman, served on that board o f trustees. Nick also served one or a couple years on Roanoke City Council. And Maury Strauss is serving now I think as a member on the board o f Valley Bank. I think he’s one o f the originals on that. Mar­ Temple Emanuel (Photo by George Kegley) cus Kaplan served on the board of Colonial-American Bank. I served on the board o f First Federal Savings and Loan, which is no longer in existence. Also, I served on the board o f trustees o f Roanoke College, as president o f Literacy Volunteers and president o f Big Brothers Little Brothers o f Roanoke. There were two librarians. One was Ruth Lipnik, a member o f the Jewish community, a librarian at the Roanoke County Library on 419, and Sarah Rubush, who was not Jewish, a wonderful lady, a librarian at the Williamson Road Library. They were the ladies who originally got Literacy Volunteers o f America started in the community. And I think Ruth should be recognized for that. They did an awful lot o f work. “T he B est M an I C ould F ind ” I think I was the first person to hire a black person to be a sales person in downtown Roanoke. I ’m not sure about that, but I think that was the case with Reggie Davis in 1966. Reggie was shopping with me. He was a young guy but he was in charge o f the stock room for John Norman’s which at the time was two blocks up the street. And there were young guys who would come in there and they’d say, send Reggie down, I need him to help me make a selection. But because he was black they were afraid to put him on the floor as a salesman. And there was a man that worked for my father named Mike Moss who was one hell o f a sales­ man. He really was a fantastic salesman. He started working for my dad in 1950 and in 1966 he died and I had to replace him. And so I called Reggie who had been buying his gloves from me. Always dressed beautifully. I asked him to be a salesman in my store. Well, it was one o f the smartest things I ever did. He was always the number two or number one salesman on the floor the whole time he was there. Just always a gentleman, people loved him. And I had one lady whose husband was a very good customer. He didn’t say anything, but she came up to me and said, “Did the NAACP force you to hire him?” I said “no”and I meant it, he’s the best man I could find. He really was. It was one o f the smartest things I ever did. G rowing up J ewish in R oanoke In my own experience, o f course, I went to Sunday School at Beth Israel. I was Bar Mitzvahed at Beth Israel. I had to make a deal with the rabbi and my father that I could come to leam Hebrew at Beth Israel because I was going to Lee Junior High School, which is no longer there, where the Poff build­ ing is, come home, this is during football season you know. I was Bar Mitzvahed in January so I was 14 �learning Hebrew from September until January. I never learned it very well there, but anyway, I was also playing sandlot football for the Highland Park Red Devils so I said if I can come home from Lee Junior, put on my football uniform, go to Beth Israel, take my Hebrew lessons and then go on to High­ land Park to practice football, I’ll do it. But I gotta go in my football uniform because I don’t have time to go back home and change into my uniform. So that was the deal. I went to heder in a fooball uniform and learned my He­ brew. I don’t think I read it very well. I did much better the last time I was Bar Beth Israel Synagogue (Photo by George Kegley) Mitzvahed. I said, “Rabbi, when I’m 83, which is you know, three score and 10 plus 13, you’re gonna Bar Mitzvah me again.” Mutzie Fox and Herbert Kupple, whose father had a store on Salem Avenue, Mutzie lived on Washington Avenue and so did the Kupples. And the Honeymans lived on Washington Avenue. That was a big Jewish area, but not as big as Marshall Avenue. The three o f us were in the same grade. I had a funny experience when I was playing football for Jefferson High. I was on the B team. It seems they eliminated the eighth grade, so I didn’t go through the eighth grade. The guys before me went through the eighth grade and then the ninth grade so two classes graduated together. There were 1,700 kids in my graduating class. So when I was playing football, I was a guard. There were six guys, guards, who were supposed to graduate the year before, who came back. So I was on the B team. Now one day, we were practicing up in Highland Park, there was a great big guy, I played guard and he played tackle, right be­ side me. He must’ve weighed 250 pounds, big guy, and I must’ve weighed about 135 at the time, maybe 140. Anyway, there was a guy by the name o f Nackley, a Syrian boy on the team ... and this guy sitting next to me said what is Nackley, is he a Jew or something? I said he’s not Jewish. He said how do you know? I said cuz I ’m Jewish. And this guy jumped back a foot, and he was twice as big as me, I guess, he’d say where are your horns? That was my experience. Sig ’s Reflections: “I B elieve in L ove...” Well, I believe in love. It’s what it’s all about. And I’m a lucky guy in that respect. You know, as far as I ’m concerned, believe me I ’m proud I am a Jew, I wouldn’t want to be anything else. We’ve come a long way. We’ve still got a long way to go, but w e’ve come a long way. Simon Silverman, the man I ’m named after — I’ll tell you my mother, because o f the nursery rhyme, “Simple Simon Met a Pie Man,” decided not to name me Simon, named me Sigmund. I’ve never forgiven her. • 15 • �'fR .oavto& e *V<zMety in a tu l *i¥< ztfdcoc^& by G eorge K egley n the early 1800s, many bands o f slaves, known as coffles, walked along the Great Road through the Roanoke Valley, handcuffed and in chains, traveling from Virginia to slave auctions and cotton fields in the South. This major movement o f slaves has been overlooked by most regional historians until several books described the process in the last decade. Scattered reports told o f coffles o f slaves walking 25 miles a day for a couple o f months, led by traders on horseback or in carriages, sleeping in haystacks or anywhere they could rest. The shift o f thousands o f slaves from the Upper South to the Lower South, a trip o f more than 1,000 miles, was an issue o f supply and demand. Virginia had a surplus o f slaves after some tobacco fields were exhausted, and the invention o f the cotton gin in 1793 led to a cotton boom and a great demand for slave labor in Georgia, Alabama and Louisiana. Interviews o f former slaves at Starkey in Roanoke County, Lynchburg and Danville, a sketch by folklore artist Lewis Miller o f a coffle near Staunton, and eyewitness accounts o f coffles crossing New River at Radford and passing Abingdon provide proof o f heavy slave traffic through Southwest Virginia in the 1830s to 1840s. A November 2015 Smithsonian magazine article under the heading “Slavery’s Trail of Tears” tells o f “Retracing America’s forgotten migration — the journey o f a million AfricanAmericans from the Tobacco South to the Cotton South.” Many coffles followed the Great Road west into Tennessee and eventually to slave markets in Mississippi and New Orleans, a 1,000-mile-plus trip, while other slaves walked along a southern route through North Carolina. Some were placed aboard ships, a more expensive trip, or rode trains in later years. Vivid descriptions o f slave migration were researched by Steven Deyle in “Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life”: After purchase, the most common means of transporting slaves south was by overland coffle. As a rule, slave coffles consisted of 30 to 40 individuals, although they some­ times numbered in the hundreds. In southwestern Virginia, the Englishman George Featherstonhaugh came across a coffle driven by John Armfield that had 300 slaves and nine wagons for supplies. A former slave in that state likewise remembered seeing them “come in lines reachin’ as far as you kin see.” The men were usually handcuffed in pairs and fastened to a long chain that connected each pair. The women and children either walked or rode in a wagon, and the white drivers, carrying guns and whips, rode on horseback at each end of the coffle. The trip normally took seven to eight weeks marching at around twenty to twenty-five miles per day. Generally, they camped in the woods and the fields. As one woman who was forced to march from Richmond to Ma­ con, Georgia, recalled: “Late in the even’s we stretched the tents and cooked super and spread out blankets an’ slept. Then after breakfast ’bout sunup, we start travelin’ again.” I George Kegley is editor o f the Journal. • 16 • �Lewis Miller, premier Appalachian folklore artist, drew this sketch o f “a company o f slaves” walking from Staunton to Tennessee about 1853. The sketch is from Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Richard M. Kain in memory o f George Hay Kain. At times they spent the night at farmhouses and other accommodations along the way. As one Kentucky man remembered: One night a gang o f slaves were driven up to my father’s house at dusk. The slave dealer wanted to put them in the bam for the night, but father was afraid o f fire and would not allow it. We had a big haystack outdoors, and all the slaves, men, women and children were chained together and slept on the haystack that night. Some o f the women had babies in their arms. A Virginia man recalled staying at a tavern in western Virginia when “a drove o f 50 or 60 ne­ groes stopped at the same place that night.” They usually camped out, he said, but as it was excessively •1 7 • �muddy, they were permitted to come into the house where they all slept on the floor. Another Virginia man said he saw four different droves o f slaves in a single day. Slave coffles, with their long string o f chained and shackled men and some women and children, herded by men with whips and guns, made a strange and disturbing sight, Steven Deyle wrote in “Carry Me Back.” Many slave traders “tried to mitigate this fact by forcing their captives to sing or engage in other acts o f merriment.” In another account o f the 1834 travels o f George Featherstonhaugh, a government geologist, re­ corded in “Virginia’s Montgomery County,” he described the crossing o f New River by a slave caravan at Ingles Ferry, west o f Radford. At New River, he said, he came upon A camp o f Negro slave drivers... they had about 300 slaves with them, who had bivouacked the preceding night in chains in the woods. Having forded the river in a flat-bottomed boat, we drew up on the road (and watched the crossing o f the slaves); first a man on horseback selected a shallow place in the ford for the male slaves; then followed a wagon and four horses attended by another man on horseback. The other wagons contained the children and some that were lame, while the scows or flatboats, crossed the women and some o f the people belonging to the caravan. In a 1938 interview for a Negro Studies Project printed in a book, “Weevils in the Wheat,” Baily Cunningham, an ex-slave who lived at Starkey, recalled life on a Bedford County plantation. All the field hands our master did not need on the plantation were sold (hired out) to the tobacco factories at Lynchburg. The stray slaves wandering about were taken up by the ‘traders’ and held until he had about a hundred then they were sold and taken to the southern cotton fields. They were chained together. A chain fastened to the arm o f each one and they went afoot to North Carolina, South Carolina to Georgia driven by their new master. In a 1937 interview recorded in “Weevils in the Wheat,” Lorenzo Ivy o f Danville said: Dey sol’ slaves heah an everywhere. I’ve seen droves o f Negroes brought in heah on foot goin’ Souf to be sol’, Each one had an old tow sack on his back w if everythin’ he’s got in it. Over de hills dey come in lines reachin’ as far as you kin see. Dey walk in double lines chained together in twos. Dey walk ’em heah to de railroad an’ ship ’em Souf lak cattle. Truly, son, de haf has never been told. For a book whose title is based on that quote, “The H alf Has Never Been Told, Slavery and the Making o f American Capitalism,” Edward Baptist writes: ...once buyers bought, no wonder they bolted fetters on men and ran links o f iron through padlocks. Men could march together carrying their chains. But there was no way they could all run together. There was no way they could leap off a boat and swim to shore, no way thirty-three men hauling one thousand pounds o f iron could hide silent in the woods. The coffle chains enabled Georgia-men to turn feet against hearts, to make enslaved people work directly against their own love o f self, children, spouses; o f the world, of freedom and hope. Baptist told o f the confinement o f Charles Ball with 32 other men and 19 women for a march to Georgia. A blacksmith took two bands o f iron and bolted them around Ball’s wrist, with a short chain linked to the manacle o f the next man on the neck chain. 18 �A public slave auction of “Miss Fillis & Child and Bill, ” as sketched by Lewis Miller, folk artist, in 1853. The sketch is from the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Gift o f Dr. and Mrs. Rich­ ard M. Kain in memory o f George Hay Kain. The two o f them would have to walk in step and next to each other. Ball was now be­ coming one moving part o f something called a ‘coffle,’ an African term derived from the Arabic word cafila: a chained slave caravan. An early study o f the slave trade, “Slave Trading in the Old South,” by Frederic Bancroft in 1931, contains a reference to an unnamed Virginia historian, who wrote in 1847: Hardly a day passes in which large companies (of slaves) may not be seen traversing the roads o f Virginia on their way to the Southern frontier. In a talk about 19th century folk artist Lewis Miller for the Rockbridge Historical Society, Bar­ bara R. Luck, curator at the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center in Williamsburg, said M iller’s sketches depicted the plight o f slaves in Augusta and Montgomery counties, “...the mass o f slaves being sold and the distance o f their move were among the factors that apparently awakened M iller’s sensitiv­ ity to the broader implications o f slavery.” Luck’s talk was recorded in Volume X, “Proceedings o f the Rockbridge Historical Society.” The band — or “company” as he described it — was being gang-walked from Staunton to Tennessee. M iller’s proclamation o f astonishment at this sight is not surprising. After all, slavery has been abolished in his home state o f Pennsylvania by the 1780s. But in Virginia, especially at mid-century, gang marches were a fairly com.jg . �mon sight for there was a definite surplus o f slaves prior to the Civil War. Slaves to be sold into the lower South were dispatched to urban centers, biding there at assembly depots until a sufficient number had accumulated to make their gang drivers’ trip a profitable one. Stirred by the trauma inevitably occasioned by such a move as this, Miller penned a slave’s bittersweet comment about his sketch: A rise! A rise! A n d w eep no more. D ry up yo u r tears, w e sh a ll p a rt no more. Come, Rose, w e go to Tennessee, that happy shore. To o ld Virginia, never, never return. William Waller, an Amherst County plantation owner, described his long journey southward with a coffle o f slaves in letters sent home to his wife, Sarah. In the letters, saved at the Virginia Historical Society, he wrote from a stop 6 miles west o f Abingdon on Oct. 4, 1847. “No accident o f any kind has happened to me and we have been favored with delightful weather...We are able to manage twenty-five miles a day. The negroes continue in fine spirit. It appears all are happy.” Waller does not report whether the “happy” slaves are in handcuffs and chains. However, he does write that this was “a trip that under any other consideration would be intoler­ able. I have already seen and felt enough to make me loath the vocation o f slavery.” He gave no details o f what he had seen. As a result o f advances in agriculture and industry, the demand for slaves “soared by nearly 25 percent in a short period o f time” in the early 19th century, according to “Black Saga, the African-Amer­ ican Experience.” Slaves were exported from Virginia at a rate o f 8,500 annually between 1790 and 1830 as more than 260,000 were moved to the Cotton Belt. That book quotes the editor o f the Wheeling Virginia Times in 1836: We have heard intelligent men estimate the number o f slaves exported from Virginia within the last 12 months at 120,000 — each slave averaging at least $600, making an aggregate o f $72,000,000. O f the number o f exported, not more than one-third have been sold (the others have been carried by their owners, who have removed) which would leave in the state the sum o f $24,000,000 arising from the sale o f slaves. Charles M. Christian, author o f “Black Saga,” reminds readers that the phrase, “sold down the river,” comes from slavery. ...slaves from the older areas o f the South could be sold to masters in the Newer areas o f the Cotton Belt, especially along the Mississippi River. Life in these areas was considered exceptionally harsh, as new planters attempted to make great profits from the labor o f their slaves. “The American Slave Coast” by Ned Sublette and Constance Sublette tells more about the prac­ tice o f transporting slaves in coffles: Southern children grew up seeing coffles approach in a cloud o f dust. ...the people trudging to Mississippi...were not Africans. They were African Americans, bom into slavery and raised with their eventual sale in mind. Force-marched through wilder­ ness at a pace o f twenty or twenty-five miles a day, for five weeks or more, from can’t see to can’t see, in blazing sun or cold rain, crossing unbridged rivers, occasionally dropping dead in their tracks, hundreds o f thousands o f laborers transported them­ selves down south at gunpoint, where they and all their descendants could expect to be prisoners for life. 20 �Charles Ball, a slave who walked from Maryland to South Carolina, recalled in “The American Slave Coast”: The women were merely tied together with a rope, about the size o f a bed cord, which was tied like a halter round the neck o f each; but the men...were very differently caparisoned. A strong iron collar was closely fitted by means o f a padlock round each of our necks. A chain o f iron, about a hundred feet in length, was passed through the hasp o f each padlock, except at the two ends, where the hasps o f the padlocks passed through a link o f the chain. In addition to this, we were handcuffed in pairs, with iron staples and bolts, with a short chain, about a foot long, uniting the handcuffs and their wearers in pairs. In the Smithsonian magazine article, Edward Ball wrote that “forced resettlement” o f about a million enslaved people from Virginia, Maryland and Kentucky to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama in the 50 years before the Civil War was “20 times larger than Andrew Jackson’s ‘Indian removal’ o f the 1850s, which gave rise to the original Trail o f Tears as it drove tribes o f Native Americans out o f Geor­ gia, Mississippi and Alabama.” This movement o f slaves was greater than the immigration o f Jews from Europe in the 19th century and the wagon train-migration to the West, Ball said. SOURCES “Carry Me Back, The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life,” Steven Deyle, Oxford University Press, 2005, by permission of Oxford University Press, USA. “Black Saga, a Chronology,” Charles M. Christian, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1995. Proceedings, Volume X, 1980-89, edited by Larry I. Bland, Rockbridge Histori­ cal Society, 1990. “Slave Trading in the Old South,” Frederic Bancroft, Frederick Ungar Publish­ ing Co., 1931. Smithsonian magazine, Smithsonian Institution, November 2015 “The American Slave Coast,” Ned and Constance Sublette, Lawrence Hill Books, 2016. “The Half Has Never Been Told, Slavery and the Making of American Capital­ ism,” Edward E. Baptist, Basic Books, 2014. “The Negro in Virginia,” compiled by workers of the Virginia Writers’ Proj­ ect of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Virginia, John F. Blair, Publisher, 1994. “Virginia’s Montgomery County,” Mary Elizabeth Lindon, editor, Montgomery Museum and Lewis Miller Regional Art Center, 2009. “Weevils in the Wheat, Interviews with Virginia Ex-Slaves,” compiled and ed­ ited by Charles L. Perdue, Thomas E. Barden and Robert K. Phillips, 1976. Dr. Francis Amos, Rocky Mount historian, owns this slave cane, believed to be made o f a rare African wood and used by James Standifer Waid, 1812-1887, on his plantation near Sydnorsville. Family legend said Waid used the cane to go out and “check on the slaves.” 21 �The restored 1769 Old Chapel Church stands in eastern Franklin County. O íd , O íd by Dr. J. F rancis Am os he history o f Old Chapel Church, 1769, in Franklin County goes back to 1753 after Antrim Parish o f the new Halifax County was formed. It was customary to attend the social and technical needs o f the new county besides caring for the spiritual needs. The Parish cared for the needy and or­ phans, processioned land every four years (refreshed individual landowners’ borders), monitored morals along with the courts and looked after the needs o f the county. They established “Chappels o f Ease” to provide closer accessibility to worship centers provided by the Parish. The first settlers to actually occupy the present Franklin County area came in around the early 1740s. Halifax County was made up o f present Franklin County south o f Blackwater River, Henry, Patrick, Pittsylvania as well as present Halifax counties. At that time there were 624 tithables in Antrim Parish. T Dr. J. Francis Amos, a retired Rocky Mount physician, is a prominent Franklin County historian. He was chairman o f the county’s bicentennial celebration in 1985. •22« �Restoration scene at Old Chapel Church. Notes with this photograph say, “Reproduction 18th century nails used for cypress beaded weatherboards.” (Allphotos by Dr. J. Francis Amos) John Pigg in 1741 took up land in Lunenburg County opposite the south branch o f the Staunton River (now called Pigg River). The south fork o f this river was already known as Snow Creek. At the time Snow Creek “Chappel” was erected in 1753, chapels were usually log structures o f a size approxi­ mating 20 by 24 feet. From this, ministers would preach but more commonly on Sundays a reader, ap­ pointed by the vestry, would read services from the Book o f Common Prayer o f the Church o f England, the official Church o f Virginia as decreed by the House o f Burgesses in accordance with the dictates o f England. Regardless o f one’s religious preference, tithables were required to pay taxes or tithes annually to the Church of England (Anglican Church). The rate set annually for each tithe was set by the vestry by dividing the expenses o f the Parish by the number o f tithables — for 1753 this was 20 pounds o f tobacco/tithable but at times that might have been 40 pounds/tithable. The conversion rate was approximately 160 pounds o f tobacco/English pound currency. The area was a tobacco-raising economy settled by the English along with slaves who moved westward from the Tidewater. A tithable was anyone over 16, white or black, except white women unless they had a business. One was required to attend Anglican services at least once every four Sundays, but this was infrequently enforced on the frontier. Prior to the erection o f the chapel on Snow Creek, services by readers were held at the John Kerby home on Pigg River, several miles east, and at Thomas Hall’s home on Chestnut Creek, several miles west. The new chapel was to be built between Snow Creek and Chestnut Creek and by July of 1753 services were held here on Poplar Branch o f Snow Creek by the Rev. James Foulis. The Snow Creek Chapel is thought to have stood on the eminence between the present entrance •23 • �to the church and the church itself. This accounts for the fact that the church is located slightly downhill from the highest point on the lot since in 1769 it was ordered that the church be built near the chapel which was already standing on the lot. Before the church was built, in 1769, Lewis Morgan o f Chestnut Creek was ordered to “tend Snow Creek Chappel” when Rev. James Stevenson preached there and read other Sundays at William Heards and at Potter’s Creek Schoolhouse (the Potter’s Creek is east o f the present Pittsylvania County line just east o f Pigg River). If eking out a living after arduous work to clear a new plantation was not enough, the French and Indian War o f the mid-1750s forced them to be constantly on guard against French-instigated Shawnee Indian atrocities in the area from tribes on the Ohio. John Kirby, living near the chapel at the mouth o f Snow Creek on Pigg River, lost a daughter who was scalped at his spring. To add insult to injury, the Cherokee War following the French and Indian War found the locals banding together to protect them­ selves and their property from marauding, supposedly friendly Cherokees who had been hired to help defend Virginia from the Shawnees to the North. The Cherokees became disaffected at not being paid immediately for their services and returned to their homeland in North Carolina or East Tennessee in small bands o f 15 to 20, pillaging homes, steal­ ing horses, abusing, killing or kidnapping residents along the way. One group o f local militia and citi­ zens caught up with a group o f Cherokees one mile above the mouth o f Pigg River, below Smith Moun­ tain. After negotiations failed, a pitched battle ensued in which William Hall was killed, three Indians were killed, scalped and thrown in Staunton River. Multiple horses loaded with plunder were retrieved. Likewise another incident in the area occurred near present Kemp’s Ford Road at Union Hall in 1758, near Standifer’s Branch where James Standifer’s home had been robbed and his neighbor Byrd’s wife taken prisoner but managed to escape. The Indians were caught up with across Blackwater by about 40 local men, and 19 horses loaded with plunder were recovered along with a French scalping knife. At least one Indian was known to have been killed, possibly more. At least some o f these early defenders o f the region, first against Indians and later the British, were most likely buried in the burial ground o f the chapel dating back to 1753. Today this is to the left o f the entrance to Old Chapel Church but many o f the fieldstones have been removed. Before the first minister, Rev. Foulis, resigned in 1759, there had been some difficulties. In July 1759 Rev. Foulis was in court, having been assaulted by Thomas Finny, a prominent planter and com­ municant who was also facing charges o f issuing four oaths (a frequent offense brought by the church) and was fined. In July 1760 Rev. Foulis was again in court, but this time as the defendant for appearing drunk and profanely swearing four oaths; he too was fined. He was replaced by Rev. Alex Gordon and thereafter by young James Stevenson o f Williamsburg in February 1769, but not before taking a leave of absence of three months to go to London to be ordained. Stevenson was present at the July 1769 vestry meeting for the new county o f Pittsylvania (Cam­ den Parish was established in 1767 with 938 white and 316 slave tithables) when it was ordered that “a church be built near where the Chapel stands on Snow Creek.. .the size to be 24 x 32 feet, a frame house with a clapboard roof, a plank floor, with a pulpit and desk, two doors and five windows in it, 12 feet in the pitch, with a small table and benches in it.” Hugh Innes and William Witcher, both living nearby and members o f the vestry, were to “let to the lowest bidder the building ordered to be built near Snow Creek Chapel.” Innes was o f the wellknown Innes family o f Williamsburg, a lawyer, large landowner o f more than 3,000 acres in present Franklin County alone and a member o f the House o f Burgesses. Witcher would become well-known during the Revolution as a member of the Pittsylvania Committee o f Safety and captain/colonel o f the local militia which he led out in 1776 and 1777 to fight the Cherokees in East Tennessee and in 1780 to South Carolina and North Carolina to fight the British. He fought Cornwallis at Guilford Courthouse (present Greensboro) in 1781. • 24 • �In January 1770, Robert Bowman and Bryant Nowlin, both living in present western Pittsylvania County, were paid in part 3,760 pounds o f tobacco for building Snow Creek Church and in November 1770 Robert Bowman was paid 1,880 pounds for finishing the church at Snow Creek. Interestingly, at the same time John Wimbush, assignee o f Bryant Nowlin, was paid 4,660 pounds for finishing another church at Friers’ Creek. It appears Nowlin was more interested in building churches than in finish­ ing them. Nowlin was a grandson o f an Irish immigrant to Goochland County in 1700, and the son o f “James the Carpenter” who was a well-known, outstanding carpenter in the area o f present Pittsylvania County. Nowlin was bom in 1740, owned several pieces o f property, one being on Potter’s Creek in 1766 just east o f here — not the Potter’s Creek north o f here and across Route 890 (which was originally called Flat Creek from the 1740s to 1770s). He was a soldier in the Revolution, had 15 children, did well for himself and served after 1800 as an overseer o f the poor for Pittsylvania when the vestry was dis­ solved. He died in 1810 in Chatham, Pittsylvania County. Bowman, his partner, also lived in Pittsylvania County on Pigg River between Frying Pan Creek and Snow Creek, and served in the Pittsylvania Militia during the Cherokee Expedition under Capt. Joseph Martin (for whom Martinsville is named). He was killed six years later by Indians in 1776 in Powell’s Valley o f Southwestern Virginia between Owen’s Station and M artin’s Station along with another who died before reaching Martin’s Station. In March 1771, Rev. Lewis Gwilliam became a minister. He was appointed a member o f the Pittsylvania Committee o f Safety, the patriotic group leading the war effort. However, he was found to be a Tory and his appointment was short-lived. When he first came as minister, no Glebe House (parson­ age) was available, so he boarded with John Pigg, whose allegiance was later questioned also when he appeared in court for continuing to drink tea after the Boston Tea Party. Rev. Gwilliam was hauled into court more than once to “show cause why he a native o f Great Britain called Scotland did not depart the state in pursuit o f the Act of the Assembly” which allowed him to do so — many clergymen did so. Samuel Calland, the wealthy merchant for whom Callands (Old Pittsylvania Courthouse) was named, likewise was called to court at the same time for the same reason. Calland also brought charges o f debt against Rev. Gwilliam at the same court. The vestry minutes o f February 1776 show numerous requests to not include Gwilliam’s salary in the new budget. He was known to have unsavory conduct so as to bring shame to himself and his calling. As late as 1779 the vestry paid 10 pounds to him for building a spring house while living at the Glebe which was erected in 1773. He continued to argue issues o f compensation from his old employment. The Glebe lands o f more than 500 acres were bought in 1772 near present Callands. The land usually was rented to provide additional income for the Parish. Samuel Calland had been assigned by Benjamin Potter, sexton o f Old Chapel Church, 1771 to 1778, to serve in his place as sexton from 1773 to 1776. Calland in 1773 was paid extra to set up benches under the shade o f the trees when a large meeting was expected. The early vestry o f Camden Parish included several notables: John Pigg for whom Pigg River was named in 1741; Hugh Innes, wealthy Scotsman, planter and lawyer, captain o f the militia, member o f the House o f Burgesses and close neighbor to the church; Capt./Col. William Witcher, also living near the church, a member of the Committee o f Safety who led out troops on the Cherokee Expedition in 1776 and 1777, to Stono Inlet, South Carolina, in 1779, in 1780 to assist Gen. Greene at Hillsboro, North Carolina, and fought at Guilford Courthouse in 1781; and John Donelson, surveyor, proprietor o f the Bloomery Ironworks, established in 1773 in present Rocky Mount (predecessor to the Washington Iron Works) and co-founder of Nashville, Tennessee, in 1779 by taking a flatboat expedition o f settlers from Southwest Virginia via the Holston, Tennessee, Ohio and Cumberland rivers to do so. It was there his daughter, Rachel, met and married Andrew Jackson, later president o f the United States. Worship at Old Chapel Church was typically Anglican in a structure befitting a frontier church. Men and women sat separately on pews with a thick 16-inch seat and a two-splat back which faced the 25 �Rare post and beam construction at Old Chapel Church. The pulpit and reader’s desk are reconstructed. pulpit. In the back on benches sat slaves and free blacks. The pulpit was raised on the north wall (to the left on entering) with a reader’s desk below and in front o f the pulpit. The communion table was at the east end with the chancel door nearby on the south wall H jtypically a Virginia 18th century construc­ tion. A baptismal bowl/stand may have stood near the left side o f the pulpit. This plan o f the Virginia Anglican church changed little from the 1608 church inside the James­ town Fort where John Rolfe married Pocahontas in the colonial period. In addition, the Old Chapel Church reflects the traditional English box framing construction o f early English architecture similar to that o f the Jamestown Church with exposed post and beam construction that is unique and rarely seen today. Here this was never ceiled or covered with planks until after the early 20th century. The two origi­ nal tie beams in the ceiling show chamfered edges and lamb’s tongue-notched ends which reveal early decorative details. Pit-sawn oak major posts and supports along with poplar studs between are evident. The guttered comer posts that allow the comer to be fully at right angles indicates “state o f the art” con­ struction here on the frontier in 1769. This was only introduced in Williamsburg in the 1750s. The Anglican Church was founded by King Henry VIII when the Catholic Pope refused to grant him a divorce from Catherine o f Aragon. Despite the split, the Anglican Church maintained a close resem­ blance to Catholicism in theology: maintaining hierarchical clergy, formal devotions, passive listening and believing in enlightenment o f reason and salvation by upright moral living as well. The order o f ser­ vice in the Anglican Church started with the clerk or reader at the desk reading prayers from the Book of Common Prayer of the Church o f England. Psalms might be interspersed but hymns were not commonly sung in Anglican Churches until the late 18th or early 19th century. Next, the litany, prayers and peti­ tions o f the congregation were offered. About four times yearly communion or sacrament was offered, but for most Sundays preparation for the sermon was given. Lastly, the sermon o f about 20 minutes was delivered from the raised pulpit on the side wall by the minister followed by benediction and final rites. Before and after church service was a time o f socializing. Friends, family and the minister might be invited for dinner at 2 p.m.; the less affluent enjoyed an afternoon o f rest or communal chores with • 26 • �neighbors. Slaves enjoyed the day off except for their usual chores and they were usually permitted to attend church if they so desired; domestic help more frequently attended than laborers who preferred fishing, gardening or cabin repair. In 1776,40 percent o f Virginia’s population was black. Blacks were more attracted to outdoor traveling preachers such as Baptist or Methodist than the established church. Their message o f God’s equal love, deliverance from persecution and salvation by faith in the grace o f God through Jesus Christ was well received but frequently reformulated by the slaves to a blend o f Christianity and West African religion. The first congregational assembly o f blacks was established in 1758 on William Byrd Ill’s plan­ tation in Lunenburg County. This did not become commonplace until after the Civil War. Some supporters o f the Church o f England emerged as outspoken Loyalists or Tories during the Revolutionary struggle, causing many to view all Anglicans as Tories. There was a general aversion to anything English. Local impact was such that John Donelson resigned from the vestry in 1778 and Wil­ liam Witcher and Reuben Payne in 1779. Communicants flocked to other Protestant churches in droves. After 1778 there is no mention o f services at Old Chapel in the Anglican vestry minutes. A tradition preserved in the Davidson family is that the Old Chapel Church o f 1769 was called “the King’s House” because it was owned by the King o f England and it was here that taxes were paid. Also preserved is a belief that ammunition was stored here by the British during the Revolution. Al­ though this is unconfirmed, and even doubtful with Capt. Witcher living nearby, there appears to have been lots o f Tory sentiment in the region. John Pigg was called to court for Tory sentiments o f drinking tea after the Boston Tea Party; Samuel Calland, sexton o f the Old Chapel in the mid 1770s, was in court for Tory sentiments multiple times; and Rev. Lewis Gwilliam, the Parish minister, was a known Tory and questioned why he did not return to England. Thomas Jefferson mentions in a letter that a Tory insurrection in October 1780 was averted in Pittsylvania County when the lead perpetrators were arrested in bed three days before the planned event. Who and what took place will probably never be known but it is understandable that the patriots o f the area probably at least held suspect covert activity at this British-owned property during the war. In February 1785 the vestry o f Camden subscribed to be “conformable to the Doctrine, Disci­ pline and Worship o f the Protestant Episcopal Church.” By 1786 there was formal disestablishment of the Anglican Church in America. Thereafter, the vestry became overseers o f the poor to administer its usual care for the needy for the county. So devastating was this on the Anglican/Episcopal Church that as late as 1840 “there were only eight communicants and they are all females in the three counties of Pittsylvania, Franklin and Henry.” By 1789 the Baptists were using the Old Chapel Church known as the Pigg River and Snow Creek Church (Chapel) with 60 members. Baptists had been on Snow Creek by 1771. The Separate Baptists flourished at this time. Originating in England and Holland as dissenters in the early 1600s, they came to Connecticut in the 1600s, then were popularized by the Great Awakening in the early 1700s. Under the influence o f Daniel Marshall and Shubal Steams, the Southern ministry took roots. Steams moved temporarily to Winchester from Connecticut in 1754, then came down the Great Wagon Road and the Carolina Road through our area to establish the Sandy Creek Association o f Separate Baptists in Randolph County, N.C., in 1755. Separate Baptists preached strong, embellished exhorta­ tions, rattled the rafters with “Amen,” “Glory” and “Amazing Grace” with shouting as one felt led and preached the new birth. They became known as “New Lights.” There was a cultural disjunction between the gentry and lower orders. These “ignorant enthusi­ asts” were looked down on with contempt and ridicule by the aristocratic elite. Baptists were whipped and imprisoned and in particular were persecuted by Anglicans as dissenters, even though they still paid their annual Parish levy to the Anglican Church. In 1771 Pastor Waller in Caroline County was accosted in the pulpit by the Parish minister and the sheriff. The butt end o f a horsewhip was rammed down his •2 7 • �throat by the Anglican minister while preaching. He was taken out by the sheriff who beat his head in the ground and laid 20 lashes on his back. The pastor returned to the pulpit and continued preaching. The Regular and Particular Baptists had more orderly and dignified services. In five years be­ tween 1769 and 1774, Sandy Creek had established 47 churches with a membership o f more than 4,000. The Baptists suffered great persecution in North Carolina under Gov. William Tryon and this resulted in a scattering o f Baptists to Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee. They again flourished and this eventually resulted in the Southern Baptist Convention o f 1845, now the largest Protestant body in the U.S. with more than 16 million members. The Rev. Samuel Harris o f Pittsylvania County was instrumental in Baptist growth in Virginia. Virginia Baptists have a proud heritage in their battle for religious freedom. Many were persecuted, jailed and whipped for their anti-Anglican beliefs. Benjamin Potter, sexton o f Old Chapel Church from 1771 to 1778, became a Regular Baptist o f Pittsylvania County before, during and after the Revolu­ tion while keeping up his Parish levy at Old Chapel. He was whipped and imprisoned for doing so. His grandson records seeing the scars on his back and records that he said he was never happier than preach­ ing from prison. He was particularly proud that no Regular Baptist was known to be a Tory. Baptists’ direct influence on Thomas Jefferson, on James Madison, the father o f the Constitution, and Patrick Henry, whose defended imprisoned Baptist preachers, collectively resulted in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in 1786. This served as the model for the Constitution’s First Amendment o f the Bill o f Rights sponsored by Madison, which guaranteed religious freedom to Americans. There appears to have been a Baptist congregation in 1771 on Snow Creek at the same time as the Anglican Old Chapel Church. This church became a Separate Baptist by 1773 and a member o f the Strawberry Association in 1776. The Strawberry Association was the result o f the ministry o f Rev. Sam­ uel Harris o f Strawberry Plantation in Pittsylvania County, east o f Old Chapel. He was highly respected, a member o f the House o f Burgesses, active regionally in the French and Indian War, was converted, persecuted and dedicated much of his assets to the Baptist faith. He was the most distinguished Baptist minister in Virginia when he died in 1799, having preached and planted churches throughout Virginia and the South. He was closely associated with the Sandy Creek Baptists, had much to do with their growth and most likely influenced the Baptist congregation on Snow Creek, not that far from his Straw­ berry home. The early Baptist Church on Snow Creek probably stood southwest o f Old Chapel near Crabtree Forks o f Snow Creek. It is probably referred to in a 1796 deed as “on the road that leads by the old meeting house that stands on William Robertson’s land.” There were apparent defections in the local Anglican Church by the mid-1770s. Nathan Hall in 1772 was clerk o f the Horsepasture Chapel and as late as 1774 an Anglican reader appointed by the ves­ try. He is recognized as establishing Pigg River Baptist Church in Franklin County in 1773. The Baptist congregation on Snow Creek appears to have moved to the Old Chapel Church by 1789, and is referred to as Pigg River and Snow Creek (Chapel) with 60 members. In 1790 it had 56-58 members according to two different sources. Robert Semple in his “History o f the Baptists in Virginia” reported in 1810 the Pigg River and Snow Creek church “is in good standing and attended by Elder John Ashworth who left Sandy Creek Church o f the Meherrin Association with a party and came to Franklin County.” About 1823 there was a split in the Baptist denomination: those advocating missions became Mis­ sionary Baptists and those anti-missions, the Primitive or Hardshell Baptists. The Primitive Baptists believed their theology was closer to the original theology, hence Primitive. That theology appears to have evolved in Georgia in the early 1800s. Primitive Baptists were strongly Calvinist. In their belief, predestination was paramount but they differed in their beliefs. Missionaries were not necessary since it was predestined who would be saved, ministers were called by God and needed no further theological training other than self-study, Sunday Schools were unnecessary for children since home teaching was sufficient, and no musical instruments were allowed — only a capella singing was appropriate. 28 �The Snow Creek and Pigg River Church (Old Chapel Church) was organized as a Primitive Bap­ tist Church in 1823. They bought 2.6 acres o f land, on which the Old Chapel Church stood, from Thom­ as Ramsey Jr. in 1824 — a small part o f the 200-acre plot Ramsey bought in 1793 from his father-in-law William Young, who owned hundreds o f acres behind the church. He had accumulated this since 1769. Young sold one tract o f more than 1,100 acres in 1778 and another 600 in 1804 but retained the right to set up a distillery on Poplar Branch. The 2.6-acre tract was much smaller than the original chapel plot, the deed of which has never been found in Halifax County records. Local tradition says it was 7 acres. The larger plot is obvious since part of the 1753 burying ground is off premises o f the 1824 plot. The original burying ground is located to the left o f the present entrance, in the pines and under the present road. Two fieldstone headstones are present in the pines — those graves to the left o f the driveway no longer have fieldstone markers although old pictures show several large stones there. Their identity is known only to God. The original spring which is walled with stone is behind the church and off premises. Many initials are carved on the capstone. A new spring was developed in 1824 above the present outdoor preacher’s stand and has been reconstructed like the original 1753 spring, walled with stone. The ancient roadbed which serves as the southwest border o f the lot is believed to be that o f the Pigg River Road petitioned for in July 1753, the same time as the first mention o f services on Poplar Branch here in July 1753. This road crossed northern Pittsylvania County, probably intersecting the road petitioned for in March 1753 from the mouth o f Snow Creek, referred to as the the Snow Creek Road (possibly the Museville-Sago road today) to Hickey’s Road. Hickey’s Road is approximately today’s Route 57 with its closest point at Callands. John Hickey’s Road was the supply route in the 1740s from Petersburg for Hickey’s store near present Stanleytown. The Pigg River Road came by Old Chapel Church, crossed the Truevine Road at Dickerson, skirted the end of Chestnut Mountain, and crossed Chestnut Hill on Doe Run, and ran to southern Rocky Mount through the Iron Works property. The original 1753 request was then requested to be extended in 1754 to the top o f the Blue Ridge, probably through the Dug Spur Gap into present Floyd County. This was most likely referred to as the Chiswell Road (now Wythe County) intersecting the Carolina Road in 1769 near the Carolina Springs Chapel. This provided a major east-west route through Franklin County. Old Chapel became a familiar landmark along the road: in 1768, “crosses the road [Pigg River Road]... extending toward the Chapel”; in 1793, “road leading to the Baptist Meeting House.” As had the Anglican Church before them, the Primitive Baptists o f Old Chapel Church ad­ dressed the spiritual needs o f both whites and blacks. Both slaves and free blacks were members o f the Old Chapel Church. A.J. Reeves, now 101, recalls his father speaking o f this. This tradition is also handed down in the black Witcher family, two o f the oldest families in the area o f Old Chapel. Accord­ ing to the last resident minister of Old Chapel Church, Elder O.K. Tench, who served for more than 50 years as pastor o f four churches which rotated services, there were never more than 25 members o f the congregation here. The minutes address disciplinary actions for blacks and whites as early as 1825. Black woman Nancy was accused o f putting away her husband, living with another man and getting pregnant to the “destrip” o f the church. She was excommunicated. Isom, a black man, property o f Nathaniel Newbill, was in and out of the church from 1825 to 1828 for intoxication, fighting, false accusation and disorderly conduct on several occasions before being permanently dismissed. One person was dismissed for steal­ ing a handkerchief. At one time a white woman was investigated but charges were dismissed for killing a hog found wandering in the road two days after the drover had passed. The question was should she have kept this hog until the unknown drover passed through again. The Old Danville Turnpike, which passes just south o f the church, was a main thoroughfare for drovers with herds o f cattle, sheep, pigs and turkeys from north o f Floyd County and Southwest Virginia 29 �Dr. Francis Amos stands next to a sign for the Old Chapel Church. to markets in Danville. The church was never very wealthy. In 1825, 25 cents was contributed to the treasury, making 93 cents o f which 50 cents was spent for a quart o f wine and another 25 cents for the same leaving 10 cents in the treasury. The issue o f missions again surfaced in 1831 but was soundly defeated. The church building it­ self remained in its original state except for a replaced and lowered tin roof, replaced floor and enlarged windows until the 1950s. Under Elder O.K. Tench’s pastorate in the 1950s, bathrooms were added, the pulpit extension to the east end added, the exterior preacher’s stand and picnic shelter built, an outside baptistry created, underpinning replaced, pews replaced and other changes made. The last member o f Old Chapel Church, Henry Clay Brown, died in 2012 at the age o f 98. Membership in the Pigg River Association had dropped. The 2013 minutes showed 12 o f the 16 church­ es had a membership o f only six or less. The Old Chapel Church was placed on the market in 2011. After no interested party or organiza­ tion could be found to attempt to preserve and restore the old church, my wife and I bought the property, 242 years old at the time. Volunteers have made the restoration possible with no restoration or govern­ mental grants. Only private funds have been used. Restoration was guided from the onset by Carl Lounsbury, senior architectural historian o f Colo­ nial Williamsburg and the foremost national authority on colonial churches o f America, and Willie Gra­ ham, curator o f architecture at Colonial Williamsburg. They along with intern Pam Kendrick spent two days documenting and authenticating the church from the onset. Their recommendations and detailed plans have guided us in the restoration. The Old Chapel Church was identified in 1950 by the late T. Keister Greer, a prominent at­ torney in Rocky Mount and Southern California as well as a well-known local historian. This was the result o f a follow-up on his 1946 thesis, “Genesis o f a Virginia Frontier, The Origins o f Franklin County, 30 �Carl Lounsbury (left), architectural historian, Pam Kendrick, intern, and Willie Graham, architecture curator, all of Colonial Williamsburg, hold wood samples from Old Chapel Church. Virginia, 1740-1785,” which was done while a student at the University o f Virginia. The discovery was announced in The Roanoke Times at that time. The specifications ordered in 1769 were basically unchanged at that time. Interviews with the Davidson family recalled their forefathers referring to the old church as “the King’s House,” owned by the King and to whom taxes were paid. By 2011, accelerated deterioration had set in. The north wall was bulging, the roof sagging and the ceiling was propped up. Soon after acquisition, Carl Kirk started renovation efforts and his brother, Gerald Kirk, joined him shortly thereafter. Together they have been involved in every aspect o f the restoration from the be­ ginning, including developing innovative techniques for certain restoration projects. This has amounted to four years and hundreds o f hours of hard volunteer work. Soon third-generation master carpenter Kevin Hunt o f the prestigious Hunt Brothers Construction Co. Inc., volunteered his services every Satur­ day for years in securing and preserving the structural integrity o f the church, repairing and reconstruct­ ing other elements as needed. He has directed the carpentry work for the restoration from the beginning. Rick Frye, well-known for his masterful craftsmanship, volunteered his services in making 18th century windows in their entirety, made moldings as needed and constructed the pulpit and desk to 18th century specifications. Rick was no newcomer to restoration — he helped outfit the ships at Jamestown many years ago. Jerry and Perry Adcock likewise have provided the know-how and manpower to do extensive carpentry work o f sheathing and weatherboarding the church as well as reconstructing the “necessary house” or “Johnny House” along with Hunt and the Kirks. The Adcock brothers have done electrical, plumbing and extensive repair work throughout the building. The willingness and dedication o f this primary team o f “The Super Six“ volunteers to undertake this project for the sake o f preserva­ tion o f this important local landmark is impressive and speaks highly o f their love for Franklin County 31 �and its history. It is hoped that their dedication will long be appreciated. Major contributors have aided our efforts significantly. Thanks to Johnnie Ferguson o f Ferguson Land and Lumber for structural elements, Johnnie Preston o f A.H. Preston & Sons Plumbing & Electri­ cal for plumbing, Ricky Thomason o f Turner Ready Mix for providing concrete, and Ed Friel o f Blue Ridge Mountain Cabinets for cabinetry. In addition a multitude o f individual contributors made contri­ butions o f time and materials, both large and small, but o f great significance. Church groups such as the Bethlehem Methodist Church o f Moneta, the Rocky Mount Methodist Church and Youth Group as well as the Smith Mountain Lions Club have made major contributions. Thank you one and all for your time, ingenuity, interest and hard work. Prior to the Revolution, there were well over a hundred frame Church o f England churches in Virginia. Now there are only four known. Old Chapel Church is one o f these. Another is St. John’s Church in Richmond where Patrick Henry gave his “Give me liberty or give me death” speech. Two others are near Richmond, in Hanover and Buckingham counties. It is impressive that after 245 years, this original exposed frame structure exists and is architecturally sound. It is preserved today as it would have looked in the 18th and early 19th centuries. It is the oldest documented frame structure in the 27 counties o f southwestern Virginia, according to Mike Pulice, architectural historian with the Virginia Department o f Historic Resources. It is the third-oldest building west o f a line from Augusta County (Staunton) to Danville. The other two are stone structures: Timber Ridge Presbyterian Church, 1758, o f Rockbridge County; and the Bryan McDonald House, 1766, in Botetourt County. In August 2012, Lounsbury, colonial church architectural historian and senior architectural his­ torian o f Colonial Williamsburg, said o f Old Chapel, “It is truly remarkable to be able to add such a rare building type to the architectural record o f colonial Virginia.” We appreciate the tremendous guidance and support provided by the Colonial Williamsburg team. In addition, we appreciate the more recent ongoing consultative liaison provided by Travis Mc­ Donald, director o f architectural restoration at Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest, as well as that o f A1 Chambers, well-known author and nationally known architectural historian in Lynchburg. We have been more than blessed by all their expertise and advice; any errors are ours, not theirs. Thank you all. Old Chapel Church is not only a monument to early church architecture on Virginia’s frontier but more significantly it is a monument to our Christian faith and the Christian principles on which this na­ tion was founded: “One nation under God” and “In God we trust.” We have overcome our challenge o f religious dissidence. The Revolution begat an evangelical revolt which enshrined religious pluralism which we enjoy today but take for granted. That evolutionary history is herein inherent in the history o f this historic church. On behalf o f all our loyal volunteers and contributors we hope Old Chapel Church will be a reminder o f our Christian heritage and its important role in the making o f America — and more importantly, that it be honored and appreciated. Our hope is that it will rekindle our sense o f duty to God and country and that this will be perpetuated for genera­ tions to come. Let us never forget the strong faith o f our ancestors. Herein is evidence that collectively the faith in God embodied in the congregation o f this ancient church helped establish the freedom and foundations o f our nation. May this church always be a monument to God, a symbol o f our religious heritage and an ongoing commitment to recognize and appreciate the important role God has played in the making o f America. God bless America. The 1769 Old Chapel Church and grounds will be available for weddings, reunions and semi­ nars by calling 540-483-0687. •32 • �*& <M y S ta in e d , tyC ate, cù, & o m ittÿ to- t& e ^ ¿ *t& ‘THtt&eccm by George K egley A 45-foot stained glass window commemorating the work of photographer O. Winston Link will be installed in June in the gift shop of the O. Winston Link Museum. The 20-panel window, two A V years in the making, was designed and produced by Phil Godenschwager, a craftsman working at Randolph, Vermont. The window was donated by Polly Carter, in memory of her husband, Jim Carter, who worked in the Norfolk Southern Railway Engineering Department. He died in 2010. As a replacement for the present trackside window, this will have several panels illustrating “two titan-like steam locomotives at full throttle,” according to The Herald newspaper of Randolph. The window also will have several Roanoke scenes and a tribute to the late David Helmer, a strong advo­ cate for Link Museum. A public dedication of the window is scheduled for June 11. In the window, the Vermont newspaper said, “Link is portrayed, at the center, looking directly at the viewer, massive batteries of flash equipment ready for his next photograph. In the right side of the middle section, a man and woman stand looking out toward the trains, waiting for them to pass.” Since Link often placed people in his photographs and this couple was featured in one, Godenschwager “acknowledges this element is a quiet nod to the benefactor,” Polly Carter. The window contains more than 400 pieces of glass, each kiln-fired to 1,250 degrees, the newspaper said. Most of the laborious painting and firing has been completed and the leading and framing will start soon. The window will be black and white, like most of Link’s work. The designer is using milk-white and clear glass. “The white glass is re­ served for clouds and the clear glass, painted with black pigment, is fired three times to produce the im­ ages, properly shaded, with additional, final black detailing for depth.” The artist said he will personally transport the window to Roanoke and install it himself. He will bring extra glass and tools, if needed. Godenschwager, a 1971 design graduate of Ohio University, designed packaging for Proctor and Gamble, worked on patterns for a Vermont wood stove manufacturer, headed the stained glass shop for a salvage company, studied stained glass painting on the West Coast, served as creative director for a mechanization firm and then founded Atlantic Art Glass and Design. One of his major projects was a 30-foot-tall animated clock used by the FAO Schwartz toy store in New York City for 20 years. In his extensive career, he earned a master’s in fine arts degree from Vermont College of Fine Art, taught archi­ tectural design and worked on theme park installations in China. “The versatile artist also has completed scores of paintings, architectural renovations and stained glass installations for individual, corporate and government clients,” the newspaper said. The Link Museum is a unit of the Historical Society of Western Virginia. 33 �7 R .<kz*to& e 'p in & t 0? tiy 6 t by Nelson Harris ome thought it would never happen. For weeks promoters o f the Great Roanoke Fair o f 1910 had been advertising the appearance o f a Curtiss Aeroplane at the fairgrounds as a centerpiece for Roa­ noke’s most celebrated annual event. The Great Roanoke Fair had started in 1902 and occurred every fall with exhibits, balloon rides, excursions, horse racing and craft shows. The fair o f 1910 was billed to exceed all previous events. Some 300 horses participated in track events, and there were exhibitions o f cattle, domestic arts, sheep, swine, poultry, farm machinery, canned goods and needlework. The Norfolk & Western and Virginian railways had special trains to serve the fair for those attending from central and southwestern Virginia. The fair also boasted “scores o f censored sideshows,” and gambling was prohibited. There were premi­ ums and purses totaling $20,000 ($480,000 in today’s dollars). Fair association president James Woods, however, considered the flight o f a Curtiss Aeroplane to be the main attraction. Roanokers had never witnessed a powered, heavier-than-air flight before. There had been hot air balloon rides in the past, but not the presence o f an aeroplane. In fact, there had been only one such flight in Virginia, and that was made by Orville Wright at Langley in 1909. An aeroplane had tried to fly at the state fair in Richmond in the summer o f 1910 but never got off the ground, much to the disap­ pointment o f fair organizers who had to explain to those in attendance why their tickets were not to be refunded! Thus, to have an aeroplane fly across the fairgrounds in Roanoke was historic. The pilot was Eugene Ely, 24, o f the Curtiss Aeroplane Company. Ely had flown elsewhere in exhibitions, most recently in Iowa at its state fair. His plane was loaded on a train there and shipped to Roanoke. (Early planes were disassembled, transported and then re-assembled by the pilots.) Ely and his flying machine arrived in Roanoke by train on Sept. 21, the second day o f the fair. Attendance set a record as spectators anticipated Ely’s flight. Some even paid an additional 15 cents just to see Ely’s machine in its temporarily erected garage near the fairground gates. Ely surveyed the fairgrounds that morning, specifically the lay o f land within the horse-racing track. Ely quickly became concerned that his machine needed 100 linear feet o f running space to rise four feet. To clear the buildings, fence and wires at the end o f the track, he would need 300 feet o f ground. The ground pro­ vided to him, confined within the race track, was not enough. Only under exceptional conditions could he lift his machine into the air. (A Curtiss advance man had assured fair organizers the track’s infield was sufficient.) Nonetheless, Ely told fair organizers he would try to fly at 2 pm. Crowds thronged the track area. Ely and his machine managed to get lift but only to 10 feet and over a space o f 100 yards. Ely had to drop the plane fearing he would flip the plane on the fairground’s fence. Unbeknownst to spectators, Ely had tried to convince fair officials that he would have better flying conditions if he could take off from a surrounding hillside, but they had insisted he fly within the fairgrounds’ perimeters. This proved to be a mistake. The machine needed 400 more running feet than it had. S Nelson Harris is president o f the Historical Society o f Western Virginia, pastor o f the Heights Church, author o f several Roanoke histories andformer Roanoke mayor. 34 �AEROPLANE A T THE i EIGHTH ANNUAL EXHIBITION OF THE Great Roanoke Fair 20 tO 23 INCLUSIVE Tree Attractions in Addition to Superb Day and: Night Displays ofFireworks Mon than Three HundredRaceHone*toperttdpate in TrackEvents. LargoExhibits of Horse«, Cattle, 7am and Dairy products, Domestic Arts,. Horticulture, . Poultry, weep, Swine, Machinery, Needlework, etc. Scores of Censored Side Shows and Open Air Amusements. Ho Gambling/ Ho Whips, Badmted Bates and Special TrainsonNorfolk&Westernsad VirginianRailways,farthe Accommodation of Fair Visitors. Tor PremiumLists, Programs and other Information, address '. LOUISA. 8CH0LZ, Secretary, Roanoke, Va. Ijifs and Nights P. W oods, President $20,000 In Premiums and Purses Louis A . Scholz, Secretary, Roanoke, Va,. Roanoke newspaper advertisement o f first aeroplane flight at Roanoke fair in 1910. The Roanoke Times took to task fair organizers for trying to dictate to Ely where he should fly when they knew nothing about his machine, a flying apparatus they described “has about as many whims and moods and notions as an unusually pretty girl o f eighteen who has been spoiled and petted all her life.” Ely noted the gentle hills o f South Roanoke and told officials that if he could lift off from those heights he was confident Roanokers would witness their first flight of an aeroplane. Fair promoters quickly acquiesced to Ely’s request and told spectators that Ely would fly the next day. At 5:40 p.m. on Sept. 22, Eugene Ely and his Curtiss machine took off from a hill in South Roanoke just northeast o f Virginia College as thousands watched from the fairgrounds. Ely was earlier concerned about wind gusts coming from the slopes o f Mill Mountain, but by 5 p.m. a tethered balloon at the fairgrounds 400 feet in the air held perfectly still. Ely, eyeing the balloon from South Roanoke, got his chance and announced he would fly. Forty minutes later, Ely moved down the slope and gradually ascended in a northwesterly direction, crossed the Roanoke River west o f the fairgrounds, and then turned and came over the grounds, descending safely in the center o f the infield. “Thousands shrieked with delight when the flying machine hove in sight and every movement was watched with intense interest,” reported the Times. The day Ely flew was “Old Soldiers Day” at the fair, and Civil War veterans, both Union and Confederate, had been admitted for free. One can only imagine their thoughts as the aged men watched a man take flight. Ely had flown a half-mile and into Roanoke history. Fair organizers hoped to have Ely return the following year, but the young aviator died tragically on his 25th birthday in 1911 when his Curtiss aeroplane failed to pull out o f a dive at an exhibition in Macon, Georgia. 35 �“Natural Bridge, Virginia,” by David Johnson, 1860. Unlike so many images of the Bridge, this work depicts a distant view o f the famous rock formation. rlo tu ria t ¿ W t&e / 4 ae& he Natural Bridge, a Rockbridge County natural wonder drawing travelers for centuries, made front-page news last year with plans for investors to turn it over to the common­ wealth for a state park. Dr. Jurretta Heckscher, a Library o f Congress reference specialist for early American history, has assembled a remarkable collection o f paintings, sketches, prints, artifacts and all kinds o f illustrations o f the Bridge. Heckscher, a longtime collector o f Bridge memorabilia, presented her work for the Rockbridge County Historical Society at Natural Bridge Hotel on Sept. 20, 2015. She has been an advocate for preservation o f the bridge and author o f a monograph on its narrative and visual histories. She also helped the Rockbridge historical group assemble an exhibit on the Bridge. Her collection is considered “an index o f the Bridge’s international status as a natural icon and tourist attraction,” according to the Lexington society. The Bridge, lending its name to the county, has been a significant Shenandoah Valley historic and geologic landmark since the days when it was surveyed by George Washington and owned by Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson wrote about his travels from Poplar Forest, his Bedford County home, across the Peaks o f Otter to the Bridge. He called it “the most sublime o f Nature’s works.” Here is a sample o f the works in Heckscher’s collection. T 36 �“Natural Bridge,” 1808 engraving by J.C. Stadler, after William Roberts; image sourced from the Monticello website, https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/natural-bridge. At the time this engraving was done, Natural Bridge was owned by Thomas Jefferson, who called it “the most sublime o f Nature’s works. ” He purcahsed the property in 1774, but only made a few more trips there over the years. It was sold in 1833 in the settlement o f Jefferson’s estate, some seven years after he died. • 37 * �In a work that takes another unusual vantage point, this painting, “View from the top o f Natural Bridge,” by Joshua Shaw, c. 1818, depicts a person looking over the edge of the rocky span. Joshua Shaw also painted this more traditional view in 1818, titled simply “Natural Bridge. ” �Natural Bridge, albumen photograph, 1880s. Personal collection o f Jurretta Jordan Heckscher. According to the Library o f Congress website, “Albumen prints were the most common type of photographic print made during the nineteenth century. They are characterized by a smooth, shiny surface, which is the result o f a coating of egg whites (albumen). The color can vary a great deal depending upon the treatment given during processing, but most often it is purplishbrown. I Natural Bridge, study for an unknown painting by William Thornton, before 1828. Note the small figure, bottom center. 39 �“Peaceable Kingdom o f the Branch, ” by Edward Hicks, oil on canvas, between 1826 and 1830. Starting in 1820, Hicks painted a series o f 61 works o f various settings based on this theological theme. (Source: Wikipedia) “Geometrical Plan of the Natural Bridge,” engraving from: Vol. 2 o f “François Jean, Marquis de Chastellux, Travels in North-America, in the Years 1780, 1781, and 1782” (2 vols., London: G.G.J. and J. Robinson, 1787). This work is the English translation o f the original. Rare Book & Special Collections Division, Library of Congress. 40 �“Natural Bridge, Virginia - J.D. Woodward, ” steel engraving o f a work by J.D. Woodward, published in the vol. 7, no. 4 (March 1874) issue of The Aldine and set interlocking with the text o f an article on “Views in Virginia. ” “Ponte Naturale di Roccia nella Virginia” (Naturai Bridge o f Rock in Virginia), illustration by an unidentified artist published in Milan in 1839 (date unconfirmed) in the periodical Cosmorama Pittorico. The scope o f Heckscher’s collection underscores Natural Bridge’s appeal to artists from all over the world. “Natural Bridge,” watercolor by an unknown American or English artist, probably early 19th century. As with some other works in the collection, the artist here took a very stylized approach to the subject. “Under the Natural Bridge, ” wood engraving by J.A. Bogert after a drawing by Harry Fenn. From: Vol. 1 o f William Cullen Bryant, ed., Picturesque America, or, The Land We Live In: A Delineation by Pen and Pencil of the Mountains, Rivers, Lakes, Forests, Water-falls, Shores, Canons, Valleys, Cities, and Other Picturesque Features of Our Country... (2 vols. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1872-74). 41 �Greenfield, as pictured in R.D. Stoner’s “A Seed-Bed of the Republic.” u te f ____________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ by George K egley r T P 'I h e controversial move o f two slave cabins and construction o f a stone memorial have called at­ tention to Col. William Preston o f Greenfield, recognized as Botetourt County’s most prominent -1 - citizen through its almost two and a half centuries. Preston, who lived from 1729 tol783, was a pioneer political and military leader in Botetourt, Fincastle and Montgomery counties. Despite pleas from many county residents and preservationists, Botetourt officials moved the mid-1800s slave cabin and kitchen to another site near the Greenfield Education and Training Center, while the Fincastle Resolutions Chapter o f Sons o f the American Revolution is constructing the memo­ rial to Preston at the Center. County officials placed the buildings at a designated historic area on a knoll above U.S. Rt. 220, near the entrance to the industrial park, once part o f Preston’s plantation o f 2,175 acres. County supervisors destroyed the integrity o f the 180-year-old slave buildings to make space for a shell building designed to attract industry. Preservation activists and many Botetourt residents raised money, wrote letters and held meetings to apply pressure on the supervisors but the move went on. George Kegley is editor o f the Journal. •4 2 • �Slave cabin at Greenfield, prior to its relocation. (Virginia Department o f Historic Resources photo) Greenfield was occupied by the Preston family about 1762, eight years before Botetourt became a county. Although they moved to Smithfield in Blacksburg in 1774, the Greenfield site remained in the Preston family for more than two centuries. The house burned in 1959 and Botetourt County acquired much of the plantation in the 1990s. The Prestons were arguably Southwest Virginia’s most prominent and powerful family from the m id-18th century until after the Civil War, noted Mike Pulice, architectural historian for the State Department o f Historic Resources, in the nomination o f the slave buildings for the National Register of Historic Places. Before the move o f the slave buildings, Pulice said the county’s biggest mistake when the indus­ trial park was created in the 1990s was “the selection o f arguably the most significant historic acreage in the county for industrial development. No solid plans were made for the Greenfield log buildings or for preservation o f other known historic cultural resources on the acreage,” he said, so the buildings and sites “were left neglected, undervalued and unappreciated, virtually abandoned for many years.” Pulice said the two buildings are “vastly important, architecturally and historically, because of the individual forms o f each structure and because o f their connection to Virginia antebellum history, most notably the institution o f slavery.” When moved, “their historical significance [will be] diminished to some degree.” Log houses and bams were seen in Botetourt County as late as the 1990s but they are “being lost at an alarming rate. Log buildings are highly symbolic o f our ancestors and our region, but today precious few really well-preserved, unmodified examples remain.” The Greenfield buildings have long been publicly owned, he said, but the public has never had a chance to benefit from visiting and learning about them. Thirty slaves lived and worked at Greenfield in the 1840s, according to U.S. Cen­ sus figures. •43 • �Edward Preston, a direct descendant o f the colonel, recalls boyhood visits to Greenfield in summer and holidays from his native Ohio. He shakes his head about the move o f the slave buildings. “There must be a good reason for it but I haven’t heard it,” he said. Preston, who has a Roanoke con­ struction business, inherited two parlor chairs from Greenfield. On those visits as a boy to the big house in the 1950s, Greenfield was a very social place and Preston played with his cousins. He recalls picnics and big parties where guests dressed in white. They had a party there the night before the fire. The family had a boxing ring down by the creek where the Prestons and neighboring Hopkins men squared off. All o f the women had .22 pistols by their bedside in early days, he recalled. His grandfather John Preston, who worked for Standard Oil, built a home on a Preston tract behind the industrial park and “Uncle Frank used to drive his Cadillac from there across to Greenfield.” Edward’s Aunt Jane Preston lives there and has a conservation easement on her land and Edward plans to move there eventually. He continues the family’s long herirelationships and people, not on things.” Two o f his three children live in the Roanoke Valley. William Preston, bom in North Ireland, was influenced by his uncle, James Patton, major Southwest Virginia developer, and he was appointed deputy surveyor in Augusta County at the age o f 21. He served under George Washingi ton in inspecting frontier forts, as H an officer in the Revolution and in the Virginia House o f Burgesses for six years. He was a member o f the Augusta County Court and sheriff and led treaty talks with Edward Preston holds parlor chairs from Greenfield. Shawnee and Delaware Indians. In Botetourt County, he was justice o f the peace, militia colonel and surveyor. As a member o f the short­ lived Fincastle County o f Safety, he signed the Fincastle Resolutions near present Austinville in 1775. Described by historians as “the watchdog o f the frontier,” he had a major role in finding Tories during the Revolution. Preston married Susanna Smith o f Hanover County and six o f their 12 children were bom at Greenfield. He established “a little capital o f the community” there, according to frontier historian F.B. Kegley. When Preston moved, he had established a plantation o f 2,175 acres in Botetourt. Although Preston and his family lived at Smithfield in Montgomery County for the last nine years o f his life, he “kept a close interest in Greenfield” and in his will he gave his wife the choice o f living at either home. She stayed at Smithfield and his son, John, inherited Greenfield. When he died in 1783, Preston was the wealthiest man in Montgomery County, leaving an estate o f 7,000 acres o f land, 34 slaves, 36 horses and 86 cattle, according to Pulice’s research. A school was taught at Smithfield and Preston had a library of 273 volumes, according to “Virginia’s Montgomery County,” edited by Mary Elizabeth Lindon. A look at the family’s famous legacy is in Patricia Givens Johnson’s 1976 book, “William Pres­ ton and the Allegheny Patriots.” Among the Preston descendants, direct or by marriage: three Virginia . 44. �•» governors — James Patton Preston, John Floyd and his son, John Buchanan Floyd; John Breckenridge, a nephew, speaker o f the House o f Representatives; John Preston, Virginia treasurer, state senator and general; Francis Preston, member o f Congress; William Ballard Preston, secretary o f the Navy; William Preston, minister to Spain; and writer Ellen Glasgow. Another modem connection to the Preston family is the Eastern Legacy Lewis and Clark Trail project o f the National Park Service. The trail is marking routes taken by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark from 1803 to 1813. The connection is the friendship o f William Preston Jr. and William Clark. The trail is planned to refer to Greenfield Plantation; Smithfield at Blacksburg; Fotheringay, Montgomery County home o f Col. George Hancock, Clark’s father-in-in-law; and other related Southwest Virginia sites. Preston memorial model, prepared by Hill Studio, Roanoke The Preston Memorial is located adjacent to the east end of the Greenfield Education and Training Center. (Photo by Christina Koomen) 45 �Stefe&evi rfu&Uet, /V&tyt9Uar6ofut', by M ary B. Kegley ythe County, Virginia, and Texas continue to recognize and honor Stephen Fuller Austin, who was bom in what is now Austinville in Wythe County on November 3, 1793, more than 223 years ago. A recent meeting o f the Wythe County Genealogical and Historical Association was held in the new meeting room named in honor o f Austin. His portrait hangs on the wall together with other photos and an 1837 map o f Texas. Donations pertaining to Austin, his sister and her descendants, and his par­ ents recently sparked a renewed interest in this Wythe County native who became so important in Texas, long before it became part o f the United States. This article is based on research and the presentation at the program about Stephen Austin and his family. In 1997, under the leadership o f the late Thomas A. Bralley Jr., the Wythe County Austin Monu­ ment Committee, with the assistance o f the local Board o f Supervisors, the Sons and Daughters o f the Republic o f Texas, the Descendants o f the 300 and the Descendants o f the Austin-Bryan-Perry Family Association, successfully erected the monument in Austinville, complete with poles for the flags o f the United States and Texas. In 2006, in Angleton, Texas, the county seat o f Brazoria County, a giant statue o f Austin, known as the “Father o f Texas” was created by David Adickes, noted for his large statues. It stands 70 feet tall on a 6-foot base. Stephen F. Austin was the son o f Moses and Maria (Mary) Brown Austin. The exact location of his birth in Austinville is not known although several log cabins were suggested to those o f us on the committee who put up the monument to Stephen in 1997. The background o f the Austins was in Connecticut but Moses and his brother, Stephen, later were merchants in Philadelphia. Moses moved on to Richmond, where he established a business on Cary Street to manufacture shot. We don’t know the method he used, but there is no mention o f a shot tower there and it was too early for the one on the New River in Wythe County. It has been suggested that he might have used a mold or possibly the wooden box method used by Col. Henry Bouquet. That involved taking a round wooden box with a lid and coating the inside with chalk and then pouring molten lead into the box and closing it with the lid. Then it was shaken “violently” so that the metal would be agi­ tated and forced against all parts of the box. As it cooled it formed granules o f various sizes. It was in Richmond where Moses no doubt heard that the lead mines in Wythe County were for lease, and he persuaded his brother, Stephen, to form a partnership. They leased the mines in 1789 for 10 years and Moses was living at the mines that year. His brother, Stephen, remained in Philadelphia, re­ cruiting miners to work in Wythe County. In 1792, the Austin brothers purchased the lead mines and the following year Stephen F. was bom. At this time, the Austins built houses, shops for a blacksmith and a hatter shop, stores, mills, furnaces, and we suspect, but cannot prove, that Moses might have had a nicer W Mary B. Kegley ofWytheville has written more than 50 books on regional history. She is president o f the Wythe County Genealogical and Historical Association. • 46 • �house than a log cabin built for his family. They advertised for 50 to 60 men to work the mines, and at this time many families came from England, such as the Jacksons, Knipes, Waltons and others. Many came from Westmoreland County. Because o f the expansion at the mines, and with businesses at Lynchburg and Philadelphia, the Austins found it necessary to borrow money. They also sold an interest in the mines to raise some o f the funds. Their markets were in New York, Connecticut and Kentucky. In spite o f the debt, Moses contin­ ued to buy land and expand. Things did not improve. Brother Stephen went to England to try to sell the mines and upon arrival was arrested and put in debtors’ prison for a debt o f $4,000 he owed there. After two years and an arrangement to pay the debt, Stephen was allowed to leave but there was no sale for the mines. And Moses continued to buy land in Wythe County. It seemed that every time he borrowed money he bought land, had more expenses and went into more debt. In the beginning, he had persuaded the Virginia government to put a tax on imported lead which helped his business in Virginia. When this tariff was removed it was a great financial blow. In 1796, Moses heard about the lead mines in Missouri, so he and Josiah Bell left Wythe County in the winter o f that year and traveled by way of Anderson’s Block House in Scott County, along the Wilderness Road through Lee County and over the Cumberland Gap, and into Kentucky. One night on the trip he stayed with 17 people in a log cabin about 12 feet square. The snow was heavy, few roadways were marked beyond Kentucky, and there was extreme cold. Portrait o f Stephen Austin Beyond Vincennes, Indiana, and into Illinois, they found no road, no food, no settlement and for four or five days he and Bell and three other men were lost in a winter storm. The men fully expected to die in a snow bank. The worst part was they had no gun with them, and therefore could not kill game, or their animals, for food. But they made it! After negotiating with the Spanish for mines in Missouri, and asking for 70,000 acres, Moses returned to Wythe County by way o f Nashville and Knoxville. He and Bell had traveled 2,000 miles in three months and nine days. When he returned he waited for word that he had received a grant o f land and prepared to move his family to Missouri, sending some o f the workers and tools ahead o f his mov­ ing there. He received approval from the Spanish government for only 4,250 acres. James Austin, a cousin, became superintendent o f the mines and first postmaster o f the place called Austinville on April 1,1798. Moses began to sell off land holdings, and terminated partnerships. On June 8, 1798, Moses, his wife, Stephen F., not quite 5 years o f age, his sister Emily, two years younger, Moses Bates and his wife (she was a sister to Moses Austin) and sons, slaves and workers for the mines set out, 40 in all, with nine loaded wagons and a coach and four. Some returned to Austinville. Although the road over the Cum­ berland Gap was now open for wagons, Moses went through what is now West Virginia and at Morris’s boat yard, near Charleston, he purchased a flat boat and for three months the group was on the water­ ways o f the Ohio and the Mississippi. On Sept. 7, they arrived at Kaskaskia, a location in present Illinois •4 7 • �south o f St. Louis, Missouri, where 14 people now live (2010 Census). Three had drowned en route and o f the 17 on board, only two could walk ashore. It took them 12 days to recover before reaching their final destination. In a short time, Moses was successfully mining lead in the vicinity o f present Washington County, Missouri. He was making use o f the new technical ideas to process the lead he heard about and used in Wythe County. This meant building a reverberatory furnace and using a new technique to wash the ore. He was very successful, founded the town o f Potosi, and set up shipping places on the Mississippi, several miles away. Lead mining continues in that part o f Missouri today. Some authors describe Moses as ambitious, ego­ tistical and domineering. I summarize Moses this way: He was adventuresome, he was always in debt, and he always wanted to expand his horizons, geographically and technically. I often saw the same characteristics in the son Stephen. And I thought that Moses and his associates were not too smart to travel in the wilderness in the winter without a gun in the 1790s. Little is known about Stephen F.’s early childhood, but when he was 11 years old Moses sent him to New England. His father put him on a boat and sent him a thousand miles away to get an education. He was enrolled in Bacon Academy in Connecticut with a Mr. Adams as his teacher. After months o f not hearing from his father, a letter finally came to his hands. Stephen was expecting news o f home, his sister Emily, his brother James Elijah Brown (known as Brown, bom 1803 in Missouri) and his parents, but the letter instead told him to remember that the “present is to lay the foundation for your future great­ ness.” Stephen spent more than three years in the New England school and then, after a brief visit at home, he was sent to Lexington, Kentucky, to continue his educa­ tion, so he could become a “gentleman.” He returned home at age 16 1/2, his education incomplete. His father was leaving for a trip to the east and son Stephen F. was to be in charge o f the family store in Missouri. Statue o f Stephen F. Austin Stephen was described as soft-spoken, sometimes depressed, but he had deep ideas o f family pride and responsibility. The Austins must always lead and never follow was the family motto. Physically Stephen was 5’8” tall, with small hands and feet, dark curly hair, hazel eyes and a “graceful figure.” In 1814, at age 21, he was serving in the legislature in Missouri. In the meantime, his mother, sister Emily and brother Brown traveled to Philadelphia, New Jer­ sey, Connecticut and New York. Brown was entered into school in Connecticut and Emily in New York, following her four-year stay in a boarding school in Lexington, Kentucky. Mary then visited relatives, beginning the winter o f 1811-1812, and she was in the east when the War o f 1812 began. After staying away from home for about two years, she borrowed money and returned home, although she had expect• 48 • �ed her son, Stephen, to pay her bills; but there was no money to assist her. Financial matters continued to deteriorate for the Austins. Moses had helped to establish a bank in St. Louis, and he was one o f the first to borrow money from that bank. In 1819, the year o f a great American depression, the bank did not survive and Moses was once again in “financial ruin.” He mort­ gaged his elegant mansion known as Durham Hall and eventually sold the mines and signed all o f his property over to the sheriff in order to escape debtors’ prison. He was sued in court by many o f his credi­ tors and he owed much money. In the meantime, Stephen F. had moved south to Arkansas where his father joined him for a short time, having quit the mining business forever. About this time Stephen became a judge on the First Judicial District in Arkansas. In 1820, Moses travelled to San Antonio, the Texas capital at the time, to promote his plan for settlement o f 300 families in the Spanish province o f Texas. After meeting with the governor and being ordered to leave, Moses accidentally met Baron de Bastrop, who persuaded the governor to let Moses stay and develop his plan that he and Stephen had worked on for many months. Stephen left Arkansas for New Orleans where he was to study law. Moses and his friends seemed to have bad luck when traveling. On his return to Missouri in 1821, he found that the raw winter weather and journeying in the wet with no clothing except what he had on, and no food and no means o f obtaining any, was a very serious problem. Guns were stolen by one Kirkham who also took their horses and provisions, leaving Moses and his party stranded. They existed for eight days o f misery, living on roots and berries. Moses developed a cold that turned into pneumonia. En route to Missouri, he had to stop several times as his health deteriorated. He was weak from his ordeal but returned safely to Missouri with plans to settle his business affairs, gather supplies and the settlers and return to Texas. When he arrived home in March he seemed to be gradually improving, but his condition worsened and on June 10, 1821, he died with his wife, Mary (Maria), by his side. His final request was that Stephen should undertake the settlement o f the 300 pioneers as permis­ sion had been granted by the Spanish government to proceed. Not only did Stephen undertake that mis­ sion, but he also was determined to pay all o f the debts owed by his father. He spent his lifetime doing just that. Moses and his wife Mary (Maria) are buried at Potosi and have a suitable marker near an early Presbyterian Church. Knowing that his father was ill and had received permission to bring settlers to Texas, Stephen, now 27, left New Orleans and at once began to advertise for settlers. He promised them “the most liberal privileges,” and newspapers as far away as Frankfort, Kentucky, carried the story. He contacted friends and encouraged them to join him. He promised “300 Catholic American families o f good character and industrious habits.” Each family would receive 320 acres o f farm land fronting on the Colorado River with 640 acres o f grazing land farther back. The head o f the family would receive 200 acres for his wife and 100 for each child and 50 for each slave. Stephen began to tour the area and between Nacodoches and San Antonio; he and his party trekked through the wilderness o f Texas, a distance o f about 300 miles, a trip that took three weeks. Continuing to the Colorado and Brazos rivers, and exploring much o f the land very suitable for settle­ ment, he gave a favorable report to the governor. He apparently anticipated income o f $48,000 from the 300 settlers with surveyors’ and other fees to come out o f this amount, but his financial scheme did not develop as expected. On his first visit to beautiful Mexico City, a distance o f 1,000 miles, Stephen learned to speak and write Spanish. He intended to stay a few months and ended up staying there a few days short o f a year! He was successful in confirming the contract made by his father with the Spanish government. Because he was gone such a long time, the people in Texas thought he was dead. Newspapers reported he had drowned, while another reported he was shot and killed, another said lost at sea and still •4 9 • �another said he was killed by Indians. When he returned he had his individual grant approved and he had extraordinary powers. He was supreme judge; commander-in-chief o f the militia; law-maker for the colony, and had power to admit immigrants or to exclude them. Most o f these powers Austin retained for seven years. By 1823, Austin had issued 272 land titles and settlement began on the Colorado River. By 1824 most o f the 300 families had arrived. He applied for the right to bring in 300 more families and this number was eventually increased to 500. In all, he had a total o f five contracts, the last in 1831. Through his efforts, 1,540 land grant titles were issued to some 5,000 people. Between 1824 and 1834, the great­ est decade in Texas history was created by Stephen F. Austin. However, in 1830 the Mexican law called for a program to colonize Texas with native Mexicans as well as Swiss and Germans; no more Anglo-Americans and no more slaves were allowed in. Immi­ gration was frozen. When this condition changed, thousands o f people were at the gates ready to settle in Texas. On his second visit to Mexico City, Stephen F. was imprisoned for more than two years, finally being able to leave without any indictment against him. He was promoting statehood for Texas. One o f his friends was Father Muldoon, an Irish Catholic priest. One o f the requirements for settlement in Texas was that the settler be a Catholic or would become one, and not only have good char­ acter but be willing to support and defend the King o f Spain. At first there was no priest to marry people or baptize the children in the church. Many did not care about that and did not object to a civil marriage ceremony. However, when Father Muldoon appeared on the scene he married those who wanted the recognition o f the church and he baptized the children, but he was not a strict priest and he and Stephen often had dinners with plenty o f conversation and drinks. It was noticeable in reading the available resources that Stephen and his family were welltravelled. Stephen F. had been bom in Virginia, lived in Missouri, went to school in Connecticut and Kentucky, then moved to Arkansas, then New Orleans, and visited various places in Texas. He had been to Mexico City twice. His mother, sister and her family also traveled extensively and were gone for extended periods o f time. How did they travel? Although information is not always reported, many times they were on steamboats on the rivers o f Texas, or on boats out o f New Orleans on the Mississippi, or in the G ulf o f Mexico. Sometimes they were taking the stage coach, and later they traveled by tram. When celebrations took place, Stephen F. was dancing and having fun. His letters seem to indi­ cate an affection for his cousin, Mary Halley, but she did not live in the new settlements o f Texas, and although they visited each other their worlds were too far apart to make an arrangement permanent. Ste­ phen F. never married, and although his brother Brown married and had one son, Stephen Austin Jr., the child died at age 9, so there were no descendants o f Moses Austin with the name Austin. It was Emily’s descendants through her two marriages, first to Bryan and second to Perry, that we know much about the Austin family. Stephen built no home for himself but considered sister Emily’s home at Peach Point a place where he would be welcome and where he had small quarters and his office. It was first settled in 1832. And it was here that he was originally buried. In 1910 his remains were moved to Austin. His portrait is in the capitol and as I discovered so were many portraits o f governors o f Texas done by Wythe Countian William Henry Huddle, a noted portrait artist. Long after Stephen F. had died and while Emily’s descendants were living at Peach Point on the Brazos River (west o f the present city o f Houston), they suffered severe damage to the property. Hur­ ricanes, floods and other storms o f 1886, 1900 (the famous Galveston storm where it was estimated between 6,000 and 12,000 people died), and other storms in 1909, 1913 and 1915 destroyed most o f the large 12-room house, all outbuildings and crops o f sugar cane and cotton, and left standing only two rooms where Stephen F. had his books, desks and such. In 1948 the two rooms were restored by Stephen •5 0 • �É ^||* A giant statue o f Stephen Austin stands in Texas. 51 �Perry Sr., and his daughter, Emily’s descendants. They located a mahogany canopy bed that had been transported from Connecticut across the country to Missouri and on to Texas. It had 250 pieces and it took 2 1/2 years to restore it. There were no pieces missing. It had 40 yards o f turkey-red calico for the canopy. A new house was built in 1949. The destruction of the property was so great that the owners, following one o f those storms, had to mortgage their land and eventually the property was lost to the bank. When one o f the children heard about that he bought the place back and in addition he bought some adjoining land, which in later years gave the family a substantial income as it had a gas well on the property. One noticeable feature of Stephen’s life in Texas, Mexico, New Orleans and elsewhere was o f the number o f times he was sick and at death’s door, or “insensible i n m .......... . and at the point o f death.” His brother Brown died of I STEPHEN FUUJER AUSTIN SO & Jg s*« Spili (WAPtVTJROTO yellow fever in New Orleans, and about the time Stephen p AUSTIN, WAS BOKN IN THIS i I COMMUNITY ON NOVEMBER 3.. 5793. heard the news he was stricken with “chronic malarial HtS FATHER. AND UNCLE . . feSsteS® Ampteesfiiivreo feiSADs IfflHBS m B M M 1789S fever” which plagued him all his life. He was in bed for a month. In 1831 Stephen spent 45 days with a fever and in bed. All his plans were on hold. He was stricken with cholera when on a trip to Matamoros and when he reached Mexico City in 1833, his symptoms o f cholera i^BRCAMÉ KNOWN :AS "FATHER returned, and for these bouts o f this deadly disease he was given calomel, a mercury-based often-used medicine at the time, which had worsened his condition. It was poi­ son. In Mexico City Austin believed that 18,000 people had died o f this cholera epidemic and back home sev­ eral o f his relatives and friends had died o f the disease. During this disastrous outbreak, thousands o f people left Texas to avoid the dangers o f illness. On a trip to Nash­ ville he had the flu, and in 1836, he got a cold which Stephen F. Austin marker at Austinville, his developed into pneumonia and took his life on Dec. 27, birthplace in eastern Wythe County. 1836, at age 43. Stephen F.’s accomplishments are many: author o f the first book published in Texas, a translation o f the laws, “Law, Order and Contracts on Colonization”; paid off his father’s debts and his own; settled 5,000 families in Texas; mapped and surveyed much o f Texas; fixed the land system; established the official post office department in 1835; created the Texas Rangers the same year; was in the legislature and ran for president against Sam Houston and lost, but became the first secretary o f state in the Republic of Texas. He traveled extensively, was well educated, learned Spanish, had great patience, especially deal­ ing with political figures o f the time, and although never married he was attentive to his sister’s children and other family members who joined him in Texas. Texas was explored, colonized and subject to insurrection, revolution, invasion and indepen­ dence and existed as a Republic for several years and finally became part o f the United States in 1845. Many o f these events came about because o f Moses and Stephen F. Austin and their settlers from United States. Records show they came from places like Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, as well as Missouri, New York and Connecticut. O f course they endured military battles, were molested by millions o f mosquitoes and many serious illnesses and Stephen F. suffered many hardships. • 52• �He was a courageous statesmen and self-sacrificing leader, and heads the list o f Texas heroes. A college was named for him and the present capital o f Texas was named for him. He is remem­ bered in the capitol where his statue stands near his friend and fellow Virginian, Sam Houston from Rockbridge County. A monument stands at Austinville to remember and honor him. And Texas has not forgotten him with the giant-sized statue in Brazoria County. In addition to the Austinville monument, the Wythe County Board o f Supervisors, on Sept. 13, 2007, passed a resolution establishing a “sister county” relationship between Brazoria County and Wythe County. The document was signed by Wythe B. (Bucky) Sharitz, the chairman o f the board. A copy was forwarded to Brazoria County. On Sept. 24, 2007, their proclamation gave the details o f his life, with 11 “Whereases” and noting that it was Sam Houston who claimed at Austin’s funeral that he was the “Fa­ ther o f Texas.” In 2008, a proclamation from Brazoria County, honoring Austin on his birthday, Nov. 3, as “Father o f Texas Day,” was presented by Cecil and Seawillow Jackson to Sharitz. Since this article was submitted for publication, Wythe County citizens, led by Jeremey Farley, the information officer for the county, have met to assist in restoring and updating the monument at Aus­ tinville. Local residents have cleaned up the site, new flags have been arranged for, and the Boy Scouts of the region have volunteered to assist with repairing the wall and replanting the gardens this summer. Signs have been placed on the Interstate to direct visitors to the site, and a kiosk will eventually be add­ ed to the location in order for visitors to leam o f this famous citizen. In addition, within a short distance, Austinville also brags on a massive monument where the Fincastle County courthouse stood and where the names o f the signers o f the Fincastle Resolutions are listed. Their document o f Jan. 20,1775, among the last to be sent to the Continental Congress, was concerned with liberty and religious freedom, special admirable qualities they were willing to give their lives for. Although he was known as the “Father o f Texas,” we also want to remember Stephen F. Aus­ tin as a Virginia-born entrepreneur who in his short life became an “Empressario” in Texas and who is remembered regularly by the citizens o f Wythe County. BIBLIOGRAPHY Cantrell, Gregg. “Stephen F. Austin, Empresario of Texas.” New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999. Garrison, George P., ed. “A Memorandum of M. Austin’s Journey from the Lead Mines in the County of Wythe in the State of Virginia to the Lead Mines in the Province of Louisiana West of the Mississippi, 1796-1797.” The American Historical Review, Vol. 5 (October 1899), 518-542. Gracy, David B., II. “Moses Austin, His Life.” San Antonio, TX: Trinity University Press, 1987. Jones, Marie Beth. “Peach Point Plantation the first 150 years.” Waco, Texas: Texian Press, 1982. Kegley, Mary B. “Early Adventurers on the Western Waters. The New River of Virginia in Pioneer Days, 1745-1805, Vol. 3.” Wytheville, VA: Kegley Books, 1995. Kegley, Mary B. “Wythe County, Virginia, A Bicentennial History.” Marceline, Missouri: Walsworth Publishing Company for the Wythe County Board of Supervisors, 1989. Ray, Worth S. “Austin Colony Pioneers.” Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co. Inc., reprint, 1995. Williams, Villamae, ed. “Stephen F. Austin’s Register o f Families.” Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co. Inc., 1984. Statues o f Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin. “Proceedings on the occasion of the reception and acceptance from the State of Texas of the Statues of Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin.” Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1905. • 53 • �TReu-. TRcc/tasid Ç<we&, /ictcvid t, O n a tw i, 0p < u c*td & i ‘S ù zc - 0p ù tà £ fë a fe tc â t & tu v ic & , î %% 2 - î $ 0 4 by Dr. John Kern om a slave in 1853, the Rev. Richard R. Jones came to Roanoke in 1882 to head what became Roanoke’s black First Baptist Church. In 1900, his race pride ministry and church discipline led his congregation to com­ plete the largest black church in Virginia’s largest city west o f Richmond. (1) After dedication o f the new church in 1900, Rev. Jones turned his attention to protection o f black civil rights o f suffrage, threatened by the Virginia Constitutional Con­ vention scheduled to convene in June 1901. When Rev. Jones defended black voting rights in a letter to the Roanoke Times published in March 1901, he warned that God is just and always avenges injustice. Within three months, the Roanoke Times attacked Rev. Jones as a dangerous leader o f discontented blacks. The Roanoke Times also published a letter from black business leaders who charged Rev. Jones with dis­ ruption o f “essential hospitality between the races.” Black business leaders also condemned Rev. Jones for his deplor­ able assertion that white men o f the South were not proper Rev. Richard R. Jones examples to be held up to his race to teach them virtue. For Rev. Jones, by May and June o f 1901, on the eve o f the Vir­ ginia Constitutional Convention, the strange career o f Jim Crow focused on restriction of black suffrage, voiced racial prejudice, and incited violence that would force Rev. Jones and his wife, Lelia, into permanent exile from Roanoke and Virginia in 1904.(2) A biographical sketch published in the Baptist Gazetteer o f Western Pennsylvania provides most o f the information known about the early life o f Richard Jones. R.R. Jones was bom a slave in 1853 to William and Millie Jones, who were owned by Matthew Pedigue o f Botetourt County, Virginia. After Emancipation, at the age o f 20, while in West Virginia, Richard Jones experienced a religious conversion and a call to preach the Christian gospel. Upon his return to Virginia, Jones was baptized by the white Rev. Albert Lowery near Bunker B Dr. John Kern, retired historian at the Roanoke Regional Preservation Office o f the Virginia Department o f Historic Resources, holds degrees from Swarthmore College and the University o f Wisconsin. •5 4 • �Roanoke’s First Baptist Church on North Jefferson Street was dedicated in 1900. The Parish Hall (left) was completed during the pastorate o f the Rev. A.L. James, 1910-1958. Hill in Bedford County. Previously unschooled, Richard Jones entered public school in Bedford County, soon learned to read and write, and received private instruction in theology and the classics. Once edu­ cated, Jones received license to preach from Bunker Hill Baptist Church in Bedford County. Rev. Jones remained in Bedford County to pastor Western Light Baptist Church and Piney Grove Baptist Church and to found Mt. Olive Baptist Church. He then built Clover Hill Baptist Church in adjoining Botetourt County and preached there for three years. Following these years o f service to rural churches, in 1882 he accepted a call to pastor the congregation o f what became black First Baptist Church in Roanoke City, Virginia. (3) Two years after his arrival in Roanoke, 30-year-old Rev. Richard Jones traveled back to Bedford to marry 20-year-old Lelia Leftwich in April 1884. Richard’s parents, William and Mildred Jones, at­ tended the ceremony, as did Lelia’s mother, Amanda Leftwich. Richard and Lelia’s marriage survived the terror o f Jim Crow attacks on First Baptist Church and their home in Roanoke in 1904 and their forced exile in Washington, D.C. •5 5 • �The rural setting o f Roanoke County changed rapidly soon after Rev. Jones arrived there in 1882 to serve Big Lick Baptist Church in a village o f perhaps 700 inhabitants. The Norfolk & Western Rail­ road also reached Roanoke County in 1882, and the county’s agricultural landscape changed abruptly after Norfolk & Western officials first demanded the name change from Big Lick to Roanoke and then established their railroad headquarters in the new town. Roanoke soon became a steel-rail-era industrial center, as whites and blacks moved from surrounding counties such as Bedford and Botetourt to work in the Norfolk & Western machine shops and foundries. Roanoke’s largely segregated black population remained constant at about 25 percent o f the city’s total population, which grew to about 5,000 in 1884, to 16,000 in 1890, and to 21,500 by 1900. (5) Rev. Jones’s congregation in Big Lick increased with the population o f Roanoke City. The first city directory for Roanoke in 1887 listed Rev. Jones as pastor o f First Baptist Church, colored, on Gainsboro Road a few blocks north and west o f the Norfolk & Western shops. Rev. Jones built a church addition and a parsonage at Big Lick, now First Baptist Church, but he and his congregation would soon realize that they needed a larger church. (6) In the early 1890s, Rev. Jones, as a principal leader o f Roanoke’s black community, sometimes joined cause with influential blacks and whites in Roanoke on public issues o f mutual concern. Early in 1891, Rev. Jones presided over a meeting o f blacks at High Street Baptist Church to oppose a city issue o f municipal bonds that Jones said would not benefit Roanoke’s largely segregated black community. A.J. Oliver, Roanoke’s first black attorney, served as recording secretary for the bond meeting. In separate comments, the white president o f Roanoke’s National Exchange Bank, T.T. Fishbume*, also opposed the bond issue because he said past bond allocations had not been distributed equitably among city wards. In 1893, Rev. Jones prayed at the opening o f a prohibition meeting in the Old Opera House, where white Pastor William Campbell o f First Presbyterian Church also spoke about the public dangers o f dissipation from alcohol in Roanoke. Though local elections passed the bond issue in 1891 and defeated the prohibition option in 1893, Rev. Jones found support from influential whites on both matters o f public concern. By 1901, however, common causes o f shared concern no longer united any white leaders in support with Rev. Jones when he spoke to defend the interests o f his black parishio­ ners and community. (7) First Baptist Church records beginning in 1892 document the strength o f Rev. Jones’s ministry and his discipline o f church m em b ersh ip .^ Rev. Jones provided his congregation with spiritual leader­ ship gained from his call to preach the gospel and from his private instruction in theology and the clas­ sics. He provided his congregation with social and cultural leadership, demonstrated by his rise from slavery to a man called to the Lord, a man who attained education and social standing as a pastor by leading a series o f small rural churches, and then headed a growing congregation in Roanoke City. Rev. Jones’s spiritual ministry and his discipline o f church members gave his parishioners at First Baptist Church pride in membership. First Baptist Church members knew that they worshiped in the good faith o f their pastor and that they embraced the promise o f salvation by living in the good standing of the church required by his ministry. Records of monthly First Baptist Church business meetings from 1892 to 1900 document how Rev. Jones and his designated church leaders used membership in First Baptist Church and threats o f ex­ clusion from membership to correct wayward behavior, and later to secure the support and funding need­ ed to build their new church, dedicated in 1900. Business meeting minutes record the power Rev. Jones wielded by threats to expel parishioners from church membership, first for behavior deemed immoral, and then for failure to donate church dues and provide support for construction o f the new church. A short, strongly built black man o f resolute purpose, Rev. Jones stood in full pastoral power as moderator o f a church business meeting in 1892, when Brother Andrew Green appeared before the meet­ ing and was excluded from church membership because he spoke disrespectfully about the pastor and • 56 • �could not prove his charges. In 1895 Brother Moses Gravely was excluded from church membership for playing a game o f ball. Other church members suffered loss o f church membership for bad language and bad behavior such as adultery, drunkenness and dancing. Rev. Jones and the First Baptist Church business committee exercised discretionary disciplinary power by restoring church membership to those who expressed sorrow for their misbehavior and prom­ ised to mend their ways. Church business meetings could provide compassion as well as disciplinary punishment. In 1895 three business committee members met with Brother Johnson, found him in very bad condition, and spent $9.60 on a suit o f clothes he needed, for which he returned many thanks.fPj Albert Raboteau’s important study, Slave Religion: The “Invincible Institution” in the Antebel­ lum South, discusses precedents for the exercise o f church discipline wielded by Rev. Jones and his church leaders. Raboteau writes that in some antebellum Baptist churches with white and black mem­ bers, committees o f black members were organized to oversee the gospel order o f their brothers and sisters according to the moral precepts o f the Bible. The committees met on a monthly basis to review black applicants for church membership and to hear testimony of members charged with breaches o f church discipline. Monthly meeting minutes recorded disputes between church brothers and sisters and reported on un-Christian conduct. Those accused could answer the charges against them. The committee withdrew the hand o f Christian fellow­ ship from the unrepentant, while those who promised to mend their ways were readmitted to the church. Raboteau writes that the context o f this disciplined “watch care” gave black church members experience in church governance and laid the foundation for freedmen to build their own independent churches after Emancipation. (10) Church discipline, initiated in mixed-race churches during slavery, as explained by Raboteau, increasingly focused on churches separated by race after Emancipation. As blacks sought to establish their own churches where they could worship free from oversight by whites, black pastors such as Rev. Jones used church discipline to increase their influence over the faith and practice of their congregations. While Rev. Jones exercised his use o f church governance during the late 1890s to build the largest black congregation in Roanoke, he also began to extend his influence as a leader o f Roanoke’s black commu­ nity, a spokesperson for black cultural pride, black education and black political rights o f suffrage. (11) By 1897 Rev. Jones used the authority o f church discipline to lay the foundation for finance and construction o f Roanoke’s new First Baptist Church. Disruptive members suffered loss o f church mem­ bership if they criticized plans for construction or failed to pay their allotted dues for building the new church. From 1897 to 1900, Rev. Jones used First Baptist business meetings to record plans and secure support for construction o f the new church. In March 1897, the business meeting approved the purchase o f a lot for the new church on the northeast comer o f Jefferson Street and Gilmer Avenue. At the next business meeting in April, members resolved to appoint a building committee. This committee o f eight members approved plans for church construction as presented by Rev. Jones. Rev. Jones directed his campaign for the new church from the pulpit. He gave church members a week to approve building and architectural plans for the church. Then, after a majority o f church members decided to build the new church and approved building and design plans, members who continued to oppose church construction would be excluded immediately from church membership. Church trustees would be removed at once if they opposed construction, and new church members would not be accepted unless they supported construction o f the church. Rev. Jones and the building committee would direct construction and receive and pay receipts and costs, with meetings held after a week’s notice from the pulpit. Thus, after initial approval, church members had no recourse if they opposed plans for church construction and design. Attempts would be made to give work on church construction to church members and other blacks if Rev. Jones and the building committee decided that such labor would be in the best interest o f the church. •5 7 • �Witness the following signatures and seals. /I tSPOlM ^ (Ÿ f à j --------- ( SEAL) (SEAL) (SEAIi) y ^ i5 ArïcHfc. j L y . T T Z L » ^ . --------------- is«:*« L o Y w r y $ A c -d M (SEA!,) ► •I 1--^ ' (SEAL) Deed of trust for construction o f First Baptist Church, filed in Roanoke City Hustings Court, Nov. 28, 1898, witnessed by the Rev. R.R. Jones. Six of the seven trustees did not sign their names. After 1897, church discipline focused on fundraising. Members failing to provide funds to finance construction o f the new church would “be called in question personally.” Rev. Jones and the building committee established building charges called “due rolls.” The building committee read the due rolls on a regular basis and compiled lists for exclusion from church membership for all those who failed to pay their dues for the new building. (12) While church discipline ensured member support and funding for building the new church, Rev. Jones and First Baptist trustees also attended to securing legal title, city building permits and bank loans necessary for church construction. A First Baptist business meeting in September 1897 authorized church trustees to “settle the lot matter at once” ; four days later First Baptist trustees went to Roanoke City Corporation Court and recorded the deed for their new church lot on the comer o f Jefferson and Gilmer. In April 1898, First Baptist church received a building permit from the Roanoke City engineer to erect the new church, described as a two-story brick church with stone foundation and slate roof.( 13) In November 1898, First Baptist tmstees secured one o f a series o f loans for church construction from Lynchburg Trust and Savings Bank. (14) Rev. Jones also received church approval to secure key services from white professionals in the Roanoke community who provided essential legal advice and design assistance needed to ensure suc­ cessful completion o f the new First Baptist Church. In December 1897, the building committee autho­ rized Rev. Jones to consult white attorney E.W. Robertson, who would serve as general counsel during the period o f church constmction. In 1898 Rev. Jones received church permission to employ white architect H.H. Huggins to design and supervise construction o f the new church. (15) Rev. Jones also solicited funds for church constmction from white leaders in Roanoke, publi­ cized their donations, and announced his subsequently ill-advised expectations o f future support from Roanoke City whites. Early in 1898, the Roanoke Times printed the names o f some 50 whites who donated a total o f about $100 to Rev. Jones for the new church. Under the heading HE IS THANKFUL, the Roanoke Times printed the names o f white donors and the amounts o f their donations. The article • 58» �published Rev. Jones’s expectations for future donations — “I want $800 or $1,000 from white people” — and recorded his misplaced confidence in Southern white generosity: “Mr. Editor, I told the people in Orange, N.J., a few summers ago that the Southern white people were more liberal than Northern white people to my race. I shall prove it before this year is out if we \\\e.” (16) In the spring o f 1900, as work on the new First Baptist Church neared completion, the business committee resolved to occupy the building on the first Sunday in May, followed by a week o f evening programs. On Tuesday, May trl 1900, the Roanoke Times printed a favorable architectural review o f the new church and announced opening ceremonies that would celebrate its completion: The Congregation of the First Colored Baptist Church has announced that it will move into its new building on North Jefferson Street on Sunday morning. The new church is a handsome building and has been completed after a long and hard struggle on the part of the First Church members. It is most creditable in every respect and immediately impresses the visitor as being the handsomest colored church in the city. Rev. R.R. Jones is the pastor and J.K. Trent the clerk o f the church.... An elaborate programme has been arranged for the opening. On Sunday morning the pastor will preach. In the afternoon there will be a sermon by Rev. W.W. Brown. At 8 in the evening the pastor will give a history o f the work. There will be preaching each night during the week following, up to Friday when the commencement exercise of the Independent School will take place .(17) This Roanoke Times notice on the opening o f the new First Baptist Church marked the high point o f white press coverage o f the work and accomplishments o f Rev. Jones. After successful construction and dedication o f the new First Baptist Church, Rev. Jones refo­ cused his efforts on public criticism o f Virginia’s intended restriction o f black suffrage. On March 3, 1901, the Roanoke Times published a strong letter from Rev. Jones that opposed the pending Virginia Constitutional Convention because o f its announced intent to disenfranchise black voters. Two and a half months later, the Times responded with articles and editorial comments that charged Rev. Jones with disruptive criticism o f white authority, criticism expressed by an influential member o f the white City School Board, and criticism by “progressive Negroes” who advocated cooperation with their influential white friends. Headlined SPEAKS FOR HIS RACE, Rev. Jones’s letter to the Roanoke Times defended black voting rights, which he correctly saw as threatened by Virginia’s Constitutional Convention, scheduled to convene in Richmond in June 1901.(18) Rev. Jones knew that delegates to the convention intended to limit black suffrage, and he stated his moral opposition to disenfranchisement in his letter to the Times. The man who sought to deprive black Virginians o f their rights must not read the Bible, because that blessed book teaches him to do unto others as he would have others do unto him. Moreover, the Bible teaches us that the measures meted to others will be meted out to us. Rev. Jones warned, in language resonant with Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, that there is a God who is just, and though He waits long before He avenges, yet He always avenges, and always will. Rev. Jones closed his letter against the dis­ enfranchisement o f blacks by the Virginia Constitutional Convention with statements that marked him as a spokesman for race pride. “We know that we are a great people because we are the talk o f the nations. Go where you will, even to the shows and theaters, and concerts, and if the negro is not there in person or by proxy, the whole thing is a dead note. And since there is something about the negro all races love to imitate, why seek to kill him, why not elevate him and make him a worthy citizen?” Jones signed his letter to the Times, “Yours for my race.” (19) Two and a half months after Rev. Jones condemned the objectives o f the Virginia Constitutional Convention, the Roanoke Times responded on May 26, 1901, with a four-story attack headlined NEGRO •5 9 * �PREACHER TALKS OF BLOOD. The Times printed two stories by adversaries o f Rev. Jones: one H.E. Barnett, the black spokesman for the negro Rescue League, the other T.T. Fishbume, a white member of the Roanoke City School Board. The Times also printed two letters by Rev. Jones, which he addressed in private correspondence to the Rescue League and the School Board. The Times’s publication o f Jones s letters, intended only for delivery to the Rescue League and the School Board, enabled the paper to at­ tack Jones as a dangerous leader o f discontented blacks. The TALKS OF BLOOD coverage opened with an editorial paragraph that praised the enlight­ ened and educated negroes in Roanoke who supported the Rescue League efforts to uplift the colored race. The Times then charged that Rev. Jones exercised “hoodoo influences” over his followers so they would oppose the worthy objectives o f the Rescue League. The editorial paragraph closed, That Jones is a stuffed prophet and a bigoted and hopelessly benighted ignoramus is amply testified by what follows here.’Y20) The Roanoke Times condemnation o f Rev. Jones began with the address o f Prof. Barnett, an exemplary negro who commands “the respect and esteem o f the white people. The speech, given a short time ago” by H.E. Barnett, principal o f Gainsboro Elementary, one o f Roanoke’s two black el­ ementary schools, stated that the negro Rescue League sought to call black mothers back to their duty to their children. The children of black mothers should not value dress above character. Barnett said that many-black daughters were brought to ruin by spending too much money on clothes and that most black parents were not as concerned as whites when their daughters lost their virtue. When disgraced black daughters converted and joined the church, their conversions seemed in the minds o f some to atone for their loss o f purity or chastity. (21) The Times’s second story on May 26, 1901, reprinted the private letter Rev. Jones wrote to the president o f the Rescue League after he first learned o f Barnett’s address. Jones told the league to with­ draw his honorary membership for several reasons. Jones opposed the doctrine that a fallen woman could not be reclaimed, “which is against the teachings o f the New Testament and the doctrine held by my church.” Jones argued that Christ taught those without sin to cast the first stone. Nor did he think southern whites were more virtuous than southern blacks. In a statement not intended for publication in the Roanoke Times, Jones stated, “My race is compelled to work for an honest living in the kitchen and as nurses for white people, and they destroy every good looking woman of my race because they can’t go into courts and cry out rape.” Jones continued, “When I go into courts and see the Judge with his concubine, and the congressman renting houses in Washington for their w om en.... I don t want such examples for my people.” Certainly the Rescue League members knew that they placed Rev. Jones’s life in jeopardy when they provided his letter, intended only for them, to the Roanoke Times for publication. (22) . After their reprint of Jones’s letter to the Rescue League, the same May 26, 1901, issue o f the Roanoke Times reprinted a letter from Jones written to the Roanoke City School Board. Jones’s let­ ter asked the School Board to replace the city’s two black elementary school principals with white principals. Jones had already expressed his opposition to Principal Barnett’s explanation o f the negro Rescue League program for black moral reform. Jones’s letter to the School Board explained that he also opposed the other black school principal, J. Riley Dungee at Gregory Elementary, because Dungee contributed to a conflict within the Roanoke community o f black churches. Jones notified the School Board that, in April 1901, he learned that Principal Dungee said “unbecoming things about the Virginia Seminary.” Jones noted that Dungee’s comments countered efforts by Roanoke’s black Baptists who were then working to raise funds for the Lynchburg Seminary. Founded by the black Virginia Baptist State Convention, the Virginia Seminary in Lynchburg was headed by president Gregory Hayes, who advocated race pride and opposed restriction o f black suffrage. Rev. Jones anticipated opposition to the Virginia Seminary by principal Dungee, and warned the School Board that if they did not replace black • 60 • �principals, “there will be blood shed in this city before things are settled.” But, despite the newspaper headline, “Jones TALKS OF BLOOD,” Jones’s letter to the School Board referred to bloodshed that would be between rival black congregations in Gainsboro, not between blacks and whites in Roanoke. Jones neither wrote the “bloodshed letter” to the Times nor intended it for publication. (23) The May 26, 1901, Roanoke Times article closed its condemnation o f the blood-talking Rev. Jones by printing the rebuttal to Jones’s letter to the School Board written by T.T. Fishbume, a promi­ nent banker and member o f the white Roanoke City School Board. Fishbume wrote the Times that he had received Jones’s letter a few days before. Fishbume, who began his service on the Roanoke City School Board in 1892, said that he decided to publish Jones’s letter and his rebuttal because Jones had opposed the appointment and criticized the conduct o f every colored principal since Fishbume began his service on the School Board. Fishbume added that Jones continually led opposition to School Board de­ cisions with public meetings, petitions, and formal charges against the board. Fishbume thought it would not be wise to appoint white principals for the black schools, and he wondered if Rev. Jones would ac­ cept turning his congregation over to a white pastor. Fishbume ended his letter with an appeal to colored people o f Roanoke to get rid o f their disturbers and enemies, remembering that the best people o f all races and religions will sustain them. Ironically, the TALKS OF BLOOD coverage from the Roanoke Times provides first-hand ac­ counts o f Rev. Jones’s spiritual leadership o f his First Baptist Church and his cultural leadership o f Roa­ noke’s black community. His ministry did not look to whites for moral leadership. His church accepted converts who reclaimed their lives in keeping with the New Testament. His community leadership con­ stantly demanded that white leaders provide what he judged to be the best possible public school educa­ tion for black students. By 1901, the white Jim Crow prejudice that led to the Virginia Constitutional Convention o f 1901-1902 also divided the community o f black leadership in Roanoke. The Roanoke Times ended the weeklong press campaign against Rev. Jones on June 2, 1901, with publication o f a letter headlined “REV. JONES CONDEMNED. Colored Businessmen Deny Statements Made by Him.” Twenty men, who called themselves the progressive moral and intellectual negroes o f Roanoke, men who asserted their belief in discretion and conservatism, signed the condemnation o f Rev. Jones. The 20 men recog­ nized the weak and uncertain financial condition o f their people, and they resolved that only by coopera­ tion with influential white friends could they gain elevation in the financial world. Therefore, these pro­ gressive negroes criticized Rev. Jones for his opposition to white authority and for “inciting the masses against the classes.” They condemned Jones’s denunciation o f the Rescue League because o f his deplor­ able assertion that white men o f the South were not proper examples to be held up to his race to teach them virtue. They condemned the efforts o f Rev. Jones to have Roanoke’s two black principals replaced by white principals as a criminal and vicious challenge o f white authority. They regarded Jones’s warn­ ing o f bloodshed in his letter to the School Board as a menace to the good and peace o f society between blacks and whites that was required for black advancement. They applauded the manly actions o f School Board member T.T. Fishbume in exposing the evil and disruptive designs o f Rev. Jones, and they closed their letter with a resolution of disfavor toward any public men, whether preacher such as Rev. Jones, teacher or other person, whose action was calculated to dismpt essential hospitality between the races. The progressive negroes also condemned Rev. W.W. Brown, who preached the year before at the dedica­ tion o f Rev. Jones’s new First Baptist Church. The progressives wrote to express their dismay when Rev. Brown told his congregation to “boycott two o f our professional men,” probably attorney A.J. Oliver and Dr. I.D. Burrell, because they refused to denounce Principal Dungee’s criticism o f the Virginia Seminary in Lynchburg. (24) Controversy over the Virginia Seminary in Lynchburg intensified in 1899 when opponents o f the Lynchburg Seminary created a new General Association o f Colored Baptists o f Virginia, which spon• 61 • �sored a new Virginia Union University in Richmond that would provide education based on accommo­ dation o f white authority. Rumors circulated that the Virginia Seminary in Lynchburg would become a secondary school, subordinate to Virginia Union University, and that president Hayes would be demoted to service as a secondary school principal. In fact, the Virginia Baptist State Convention remained independent from the General Association o f Colored Baptists o f Virginia, and retained control o f the Virginia Seminary in Lynchburg, which continued its advocacy o f race pride. But the outcome o f the dis­ pute in 1901 was still uncertain. Rev. Jones and Rev. Brown fought to support the Virginia Seminary and its advocacy o f race pride and protection for black suffrage, and opposed the Virginia Union University curriculum o f accommodation with influential whites. (25) By 1901 different strategies and different social demeanors separated Rev. Jones’s advocacy o f | race pride and criticism o f the abuses o f white authority from the more conciliatory posture o f Roanoke s 20 conservative negro progressives who called for racial harmony. As the strange career o f Jim Crow in Virginia escalated to diminish black suffrage, black leadership in Roanoke divided into two factions. In 1891 Rev. Jones and black attorney A.J. Oliver joined forces in support o f prohibition. By 1901, on the eve o f the Virginia Constitutional Convention, A.J. Oliver and his fellow negro professionals supported the material progress o f their people, progress that they resolved could be best advanced by discretion and accommodation with their white friends in the city. In 1901, Rev. Jones led black Roanoke Baptists who championed race pride and opposition to white imposition of restrictions on black civil rights. Criticized in 1901 by the Roanoke Times, the Roanoke School Board and black Roanoke profes­ sionals, Rev. Jones rebounded confidently two years later in May 1903, when he announced in the Roa­ noke Times that First Baptist Church would host the Virginia Baptist State Convention, the convention that supported the Virginia Seminary in Lynchburg and its race pride agenda, for four days from May 13 to May 16, 1903. Rev. Jones wrote that the convention o f more than 200 delegates would include “some o f the most learned men in the race.” Perhaps remembering their collaboration on prohibition a decade earlier, Rev. Jones cordially invited white pastors o f the city to attend the meetings. Rev. Jones did not extend his invitation to black pastors o f other denominations in the city .(26) Two Sundays after the Virginia Baptist State Convention held in Roanoke at First Baptist, Rev. Jones announced from the pulpit that he had received a call to serve another church. However, at the next church business meeting on June 5, 1903, Rev. Jones told those assembled that, after careful con­ sideration, he decided to remain with their Roanoke First Baptist Church “as we both give each other satisfaction.” After Rev. Jones retired from the meeting, church trustees spoke o f Jones’s valued service to their church, and voted to transfer ownership o f the First Baptist parsonage to Rev. Jones in thanks for his decision to remain with their congregation. (2 7) Rev. Jones’s dedicated service with First Baptist Church in Roanoke ended abruptly in February 1904. On Sunday, Jan. 31,1904, the Roanoke Times ran a boldface-headlined story about a black man’s assault on a white woman and her infant daughter in Roanoke: SHOCKING TRAGEDY IN HEART OF CITY A Defenseless Woman and Her Helpless Baby Girl Are Most Brutally Assaulted by Burly Negro Man in Their Home on Henry Street and Left for Dead in Own Blood The following news story reported that before noon on Saturday, Jan. 30, 1904, a tall black negro entered the home o f George Shields in downtown Roanoke, wounded Mrs. Alice Shields and her 3-yearold daughter Mildred, stole clothes and a gold watch, and fled the house before Mr. Shields returned home at noon for lunch. Rumors o f the attack spread, and by 8 o ’clock that evening a mob o f nearly • 62 • �1,000 men assembled in front o f the city jail, determined to wreak vengeance against the Shields assail­ ant. Mayor Joel Cutchin stood in front o f the jail and told the mob that no arrest had been made. When Roanoke Hustings Court Judge John Woods joined Mayor Cutchin and told the crowd they must not break the law and stain the honor o f the city,(28) one in the crowd threw a beer bottle at his head. Finally, a committee chosen by the mob received access to the jail. After the committee emerged from the jail and announced that the assailant was not there, the mob dispersed around 10:30 that night. (29) An editorial appeared in the Roanoke Times on the same day, Jan. 31, as the story o f the Shock­ ing Tragedy. Titled A FRIGHTFUL CRIME, the editorial sensationalized the assault by raising the specter o f rape, and the attack on Alice Shields now became an “infamous ravishment o f brutal lechery.” The editorial argued against lynching the rapist, but advocated white concern for the heart o f the negro problem: Negroes should not be educated to believe that they are as good as whites. The public school system as presently conducted abnormally stimulated the negro’s mentality and made him think he was as good as the white man. “Our brother in black should be made to understand that he is not as good as the white man, and can never be, and never will be — that his is the status of an inferior race.” Instead, negroes should elevate their moral race standards, look down on the negro criminal class, and accept the lot society assigns them. The editorial closed with poisonous warning o f Jim Crow racism: “The new issue o f darkies is being bred with a source o f never ending unrest and peril to the white people o f the country. When will the folly o f this course be recognized? — in the name o f our white womanhood, we ask, when will it be abandoned?”(3fy The Roanoke Times printed a petition in the next issue o f the paper, on Feb. 2, 1904, that sus­ tained the contagion o f fear surrounding the Shields assault. The petition called for signatures so the Virginia General Assembly would enact legislation to provide the death penalty or penitentiary confine­ ment for “any person guilty o f knowingly harboring, or aiding, or abetting any man who is charged ei­ ther by indictment, or through public rumor, with committing the crime o f rape.” In the Times coverage, entitled SIGN THE PETITION, the paper called for General Assembly enactment o f the petition because it would bring the rapist more swiftly to justice. The press called for citizens to endorse the petition by signing it in overwhelming numbers. “Surely our white people will not hesitate; how will it be with the colored population?”^ 1) The next night, Feb. 3, Jim Crow threats o f violence drove Rev. Jones out of Roanoke. The Roanoke Times reported that R.R. Jones, pastor o f First Baptist Church, made “cowardly remarks in connection with the Shields affair.... Mutterings o f the people became ominous o f serious trouble. Talk of another lynching was everywhere heard, and at 8 o’clock a mob numbering nearly 1,200 people had assembled near the Henry Street bridge.” The mob crossed the bridge, reached Jones’s church, looking for Jones, and not finding him there, marched on his home, where a woman told them he was not in the neighborhood. The mob “still in deadly earnest,” returned to the city jail, and then dispersed.(32) Rev. Jones provided his own accounts o f the mob attacks on his church and home when he wrote the Roanoke City Council from his exile in Washington, D.C., on July 26, 1904, to request financial compensation for the loss o f his parsonage on Hart Avenue and his ministry at First Baptist Church. Jones wrote city fathers: “On the night o f Feb. 3rd a mob o f men and boys came to my church, broke up a prayer meeting, and then came to my house, number 17 Hart Ave., N.E., for the purpose o f taking my life or doing me bodily harm.” Jones wrote that he notified city authorities about the mob threats by 7 p.m., the mob assembled at Henry Street bridge at 8 p.m., but “not a single policeman came to offer me any protection.” Jones in his letter to City Council also reported a second terrifying attack on his house, still occupied by his wife, Lelia, six weeks after his forced departure: “March the 24 a mob went to my house, broke open the door, and gave my wife 12 hours to leave the city, and from half past 12 at night to 12 next day, not a police• 63 • �man came to her rescu e.... She came away March 25th and telegraphed me from Lynchburg o f her coming to Washington, D.C.”(33) The Roanoke Times never published an account o f the midnight raid on March 24, 1904, that forced Lelia Jones to flee from Roanoke and join her husband in Washington, D.C. Two weeks after the attack, under the innocuous heading “Public Opinion, W hat Others Think and Say,” the Times reprinted news o f the assault against Lelia Jones from the Richmond Planet, the black paper published by John Mitchell Jr., who championed black civil rights and fought against lynching of blacks. In the reprint, Mitchell reported the attack on the Jones residence in the present tense: “A mob o f white m e n .... A mob of masked fiends break into his house, scare his lone wife into hysterics and then order her to leave the city.” In the Richmond Planet reprint, Mitchell then advised Rev. Jones to return to Roanoke, make ar­ rangements with a colored funeral director, select a casket and a burial plot, arm himself with a “good repeating shotgun, one repeating rifle, and one long Colt revolver, together with a copy o f the Holy Bible,” enter the front gate o f his residence, and “await developments.”(34j ’ The Roanoke Times reprinted M itchell’s advice to Rev. Jones as additional evidence that Rev. Jones could never be permitted re-entry to Roanoke because his ministry represented a dangerous threat to law and order in Roanoke. In a two-column editorial that immediately preceded the reprint o f Mitch­ ell’s advice to Jones, the Roanoke Times referred to “the notorious R.R. Jones, a negro preacher who was recently expelled from the city by a righteous public sentiment.” The editorial repeated the warn­ ing the Times made in connection with the Shields assault, that mistaken education o f the negro made him a menace to the safety o f society by stimulating his mentality while neglecting the improvement of moral forces in his character. If the negro is not educated to work along practical lines as a member o f an inferior and serving class, his education will bear woeful fruits. The false education and challenges o f white authority prompted by Mitchell’s advice from the Richmond Planet could inflame negroes such as Rev. Jones to dangerous acts o f violence. The Roanoke Times and conservative or progressive blacks first charged Rev. Jones with disruption o f necessary social stability and law and order in Roanoke in 1901 after he challenged the Virginia Constitutional Convention for its Jim Crow intent to diminish black suffrage. Now, in connection with the Shields assault, the Roanoke Times charged that Mitchell’s advice to Rev. Jones meant that “civilization ought to be shot from the muzzle o f a repeating rifle and ... the negroes should commence the lead-pumping process.” The vehemence o f the April 7,1904, Times editorial made it inconceivable that Rev. Jones would ever be permitted safe to return and reestablish his ministry in Roanoke. (35) . _ u Never granted safe return to Roanoke, Rev. Jones could no longer lead First Baptist Church as a minister o f spiritual salvation and an advocate o f black cultural pride, educational opportunity and equal rights o f suffrage. The strength o f his race pride ministry made him the target o f Jim Crow prejudice, and mob violence that forced him and then his wife, Lelia, to leave Roanoke and their native state of Virginia. Blessed by the ministry o f his thirst for righteousness, he was persecuted for the aggressive conduct o f his pastorate o f righteousness.(36) What C. Vann Woodward called “the Jim Crow Capitulation to Racism drove Rev. and Lelia Jones out o f the South. So dark were the Jim Crow charges against Rev. Jones for his disruptive influence over blacks, especially in association with sensational reports o f the Shields assault, and so frightening was the mob violence that drove Rev. and Lelia Jones into exile, that Roanoke First Baptist Church records never made reference to the forced departure o f their pastor. In 1942, J.K. Trent, still First Baptist Clerk, and church historian, wrote simply, “Under the matchless leadership o f the sainted and lamented Rev. R.R. Jones, and with unmistakable evidence o f divine approval and guidance, the church moved forward ... Rev. Jones resigned in 1904.”(37) • 64 • �E pilogue After two years of exile in Washington, D.C., Richard and Lelia Jones moved to Homestead, Pennsylva­ nia, across the Monongahela River from Pittsburgh. There Rev. Jones pastored the black Clark Memorial Baptist Church until his death in 1921. Blacks counted for about 5 percent of the population in Monon­ gahela, and by 1910 Eastern European immigrants outnumbered black residents by a ratio of more than three to one. The Eastern European immigrants bore the brunt of public prejudice in Homestead, preju­ dice that whites directed against blacks in Roanoke. The Homestead Daily Messenger welcomed the ar­ rival of Rev. Jones, supported him in his claims for compensation from Roanoke City after mob violence forced his exile, and printed favorable accounts of his ministry in Homestead. When Rev. Jones died, his obituary recognized him as a great pulpit orator and an active pastor for the betterment of his community.(38) Fourteen-year-old Oliver Hill and his mentor, Lelia Pentecost, traveled by train from Roanoke to Homestead in June 1921 to attend the funeral of Rev. Jones, so that Mrs. Pentecost could honor Rev. Jones for his race pride ministry/.?9) (* Ed. N ote: L a ter generations o f the F ishburn fa m ily dropped the “e ”fro m the spelling o f the nam e.) ENDNOTES 1. U.S. Department of Commerce, Sixteenth Census, 1904, Population, Virginia (Washington, D.C.), vol. 1, table 2, 1100. 2. Roanoke Times, 3 March 1901, and 26 May, 2 June 1901; 31 Jan. 1904 and 2 ,4 Feb. 1904. 3. Baptist Gazetteer of Western Pennsylvania, (n.d.), transcribed by Zella L. Cole, Church Secretary, Clark Memorial Baptist Church, Homestead, Pa., 26 May 2010. Census records verify some of this biographical information on Rev. Jones from the Baptist Gazetteer: In 1850 a Matthew Pettigrew owned sixteen slaves in Botetourt County, Virginia (U.S. Census Bureau, Seventh Census, 1850, Botetourt County, Va., Western District, 116; Schedule 2, Slave Inhabitants 1850, Botetourt County, Va., Western District, 13). In 1870 William Jones, sixty years old, and wife Millie Jones, forty years old, the parents of Rich­ ard Jones, headed a black household in Liberty Township, Bedford County, Virginia; their household did not include their son Richard, who presumably still resided in West Virginia (U.S. Census Bureau, Ninth Census, 1870, Bedford County, Va., Lib­ erty Township, 144). The 1860 census lists an Albert Lowry as a white farmer in his fifties who lived in Bedford County and owned personal property valued at $4,200, probably including his slaves (U.S. Census Bureau, Eighth Census, 1860, Bedford County, Va., Northern District, Liberty Post Office, 59). 4. The Bureau of Vital Statistics for Marriages for Bedford County, Virginia, recorded the marriage of minister R.R. Jones, thirty years old, and widowed, to Lelia Lefitwich, twenty years old; both were black (microfilm; Bureau of Vital Statistics, Marriage Register, Bedford County, Va., #50, 8 Apr. 1884, Virginia Room, Roanoke City Public Library). Rev. Jones was widowed at the time of his marriage to Lelia Leftwich. The 1880 Bedford County Census listed Richard Jones and his wife Sarah; both were black, and both could read and write (U.S. Census Bureau, Tenth Census, 1880, Bedford County, Va., Cor­ poration of Liberty, 46). The 1900 Roanoke City Census listed both Richard and Lelia Jones; both were black, and both could read and write (U.S. Census Bureau, Twelfth Census, 1900, Roanoke City, Va., 63). 5. County Boundaries and Census for Black and White Population in Roanoke City, Kern Archives, Virginia Room, Roanoke City Main Public Library. U.S. Department of Commerce, Sixteenth Census, 1904, Population, Virginia. 6. Arleen Ollie, African American History in Roanoke City: A Compilation of Records (Roanoke, 2003), unpaginated. 7. Rand Dotson, Roanoke, Virginia, 1882—1912: Magic City of the New South (Knoxville, 2007), 42-43,130—3 2 .1 am indebted to Dotson for his exhaustive research in the Roanoke Times from the early 1890s to 1912. My discussion that fol­ lows on the Roanoke Times and Rev. Jones suggests the value of additional study and examination of the historic context of race relations in Roanoke City to understand the influence exercised by Rev. Jones as a leader and defender of the rights of Roanoke’s black community at the turn of the twentieth century. 8. In 1993, First Baptist Church historian Geneva Hale discovered, inside the then vacant First Baptist Church dedicated in 1900, original handwritten church records from the early 1890s to the 1940s. In 1990 I prepared the historic context for a National Register Nomination for the church built in 1900. Unfortunately, the church burned in 1995, and the nominated church has been removed from the National Register. In 1982 the congregation vacated the church built in 1900 for a church one block to the south on the west side of Jefferson Street. The present First Baptist Church, located at 310 Jefferson Street, is the only black church that remains in the predominantly black Gainsboro Historic District, as listed in the National Regis­ ter of Historic Places in 2005. (First Baptist Church Records, 310 Jefferson Street, Roanoke, Virginia; photocopies in Kern • 65 • �Archives, Virginia Room, Roanoke Public Library.) 9. First Baptist Church Records; Kern Archives. 10. Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South (Oxford, 1978,2004), 174-81, 367. Raboteau comments, “Church minute records constitute a genre of evidence not yet fully exploited by historians of slav­ ery (367),” and I would add, by historians of postbellum black Baptist church worship. 11. William E. Montgomery, Under Their Own Vine and Fig Tree: The African-American Church in the South (Baton Rouge, 1993), 99, 244-45. Montgomery writes that southern blacks after the Civil War withdrew from formerly white and black churches in massive numbers. In Virginia over 80 percent of black church members were Baptists, and their churches initially provided practically the only advocacy for black education, and later for black cultural pride, political independence, and self-reliance 12. First Baptist Church Records; Kern Archives. Five decades later, J.K. Trent, still clerk of First Baptist Church, reported that Rev. Jones’s drive to complete the new church caused some strife among his parishioners. Some disgruntled members withdrew from the church. A number of them returned, while others never came back (J.K. Trent, Brief History of the First Baptist Church [First Baptist Church, Roanoke, 1942]; photocopy in Kem Archives). 13. In 1942 First Baptist clerk J.K. Trent wrote that “outsiders” (whites) tried to stop construction work on the church, but the white contractor told them they would have to take their case to civil court, because First Baptist had received a building permit for the site from Roanoke City (Trent, Brief History of First Baptist Church). 14. First Baptist Church Records; Kem Archives. Ten different trustees served First Baptist in 1897 and 1898: Roanoke City Directories identify all ten as laborers; four worked for Norfolk & Western; one worked for Roanoke City. First Baptist clerk Joseph Trent, who recorded all church minutes, worked as an N&W porter in 1895 (Sholes’ Directory of the City of Roanoke, 15 Aug. 1895,225). The loans were recorded in Roanoke City Hustings Court, 28 Nov. 1898. 15. H.H. Huggins was Roanoke’s only architect in 1898 (Directory of the City of Roanoke, 15 Nov. 1898,155, 204). 16. Roanoke Times clipping, 1898, no day and month, First Baptist Church Records. 17. Roanoke Times, 1 May 1900. Rev. W.W. Brown of Roanoke’s High Street Baptist Church supported the black pride ministry of Rev. Jones in 1901. 18 For information on reduction of black civil rights by southern state legislatures from the 1890s to 1910, see C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (1955; New York, 1974). For information on black disenfranchisement by the Virginia Constitution of 1902, see Ann Alexander, Race Man: The Rise and Fall of the “Fighting Editor,’ John Mitchell Jr. (Charlottesville, 2002), chap. 8. Carter Glass, the principal operative for the Virginia Constitutional Convention adopted in 1902, confidently predicted that its suffrage provisions would eliminate four-fifths of negro voters. Black challenges to the disenfranchisement in the Richmond Federal Circuit Court were dismissed in 1902, and the Supreme Court decision Jones v. Montague sustained the dismissal in 1904. In 1948 Oliver Hill was the first black elected to Richmond City Council, for a single term, since adoption of the 1902 Virginia Constitution (Oliver W. Hill Sr., The Big Bang and Beyond: Brown v. Board of Education and Beyond [Winter Park, 2000], xviii, 226-36). 19. Roanoke Times, 3 Mar. 1901. 20. Roanoke Times, 26 May 1901. 21. A report edited by W.E.B. Du Bois in 1898 provides some historic context for H.E. Barnett’s negro Rescue League ad­ dress, which called for moral reforms among American negroes. The Du Bois study of American negro efforts for their own social betterment discussed benevolence organizations, which traditionally have “reform and rescue work as their immediate objects,” and he commended “the efforts o f the better class Negroes to rescue and uplift the unfortunate and the vicious” (W. E. Burghardt Du Bois, ed., Some Efforts o f American Negroes for Their Own Social Betterment [Atlanta, 1898], 28, 5). Both Du Bois and H.E. Barnett called for negro reforms of the ignorant and immoral of their race at the same time that white race prejudice supported Jim Crow legislation that diminished black civil rights. Around 1900 some aspiring blacks responded to white Jim Crow racism with their own expression of black class prejudice. See Kwame Anthony Appiah, “Battling with Du Bois,’’New York Review of Books, 22 Dec., 2011, 81-95. 22 It was never safe for a black pastor to accuse whites of rape. Vernon Johns, a black pastor of legendary brilliance and controversy, was fired after he preached a sermon, “When the Rapist is White,” at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Mont­ gomery, Alabama, to be replaced by Martin Luther King Jr. Vernon Johns’s niece, Barbara Johns, led the Moton School student strike in 1951 that resulted in Davis v. Prince Edward County, Virginia, one of the five cases consolidated in Brown v. Board of Education. Barbara Johns called Oliver Hill the day of the strike, and Hill became Virginia’s lead NAACP attorney in the landmark school desegregation case. Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters, America in the King Years, 1954-1963 (New York, 1988) 19-25; Oliver Hill, Brown v. Board of Education, 148-167. 23. Ann Alexander, Race Man, Chapter 9, discusses the Virginia Seminary, headed by President Hayes, and supported by the Virginia Baptist State Convention, with its advocacy of race pride and black rights of suffrage. 24. The most prominent of the twenty black businessmen who condemned Rev. Jones on 2 June 1901 were A.J. Oliver, Roa­ noke’s first black attorney and a member of St. Paul’s Methodist Episcopal Church; I.D. Burrell, doctor, founder of Burrell • 66 • �Drag Store, president of Magic City Medical Society, and a member of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church; and A.F. Brooks, a mail carrier who became the principal black owner o f commercial property on and near Henry Street, and also a member of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian. None o f First Baptist trustees were professionals (see endnote 14). These facts suggest that there were economic and social differences between black denominations in Roanoke. Black Baptists were wage earners and sup­ ported Rev. Jones’s ministry of race pride and black pride. Some black Methodists and Presbyterians worked as profession­ als, probably earned higher incomes than most black Baptists, and supported amicable relations with whites. Information on Oliver, Burrell and Brooks comes from A.P. Caldwell, ed., History of the American Negro: Virginia Edition (Atlanta, 1921), 449,485, 304; rare book in Virginia Room, Roanoke Public Library. 25. Alexander, Race Man, Chapter 9, also discusses the General Association of Colored Baptists of Virginia, which support­ ed cooperation with white authority and supported the Virginia Union University in Richmond. Howard Rabinowitz, in Race Relations in the Urban South: 1865-1890 (Urbana, 1980), chap. 9, states that by 1900 different black churches in the urban South furnished both the most militant and the most accommodationist black leadership. 26. Roanoke Times, no date; clipping from First Baptist Church Records. The dates of May 13 to May 16,1903, for the Bap­ tist State Convention come from First Baptist Church Records. 27. First Baptist Church Records, and Kern Archives. Deed transfer of the parsonage recorded in Roanoke City Circuit Court Deed Book, Vol. 1, 146, 356. 28. See Ann Alexander’s award-winning article, ‘“ Like an Evil Wind,’ The Roanoke Riot of 1893 and the Lynching of Thomas Smith,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 100 (1993): 173-206. Alexander documents that the lynching of Thomas Smith, Roanoke’s last, was condemned by Roanoke judges, one white pastor, and industrial leaders as a lawless threat to white society, a disgrace to the city, and bad for business. The white pastor was William Campbell o f First Presbyte­ rian Church, who joined Rev. Jones in support of the local option municipal vote for prohibition in 1893. 29. Roanoke Times, 31 Jan. 1904. 30. Roanoke Times, 31 Jan. 1904. A sea change occurred in Roanoke Times press coverage of Rev. Jones between 1900 and 1904. John Wood published the paper in 1900 when it printed favorable notice of Rev. Jones and the dedication of First Bap­ tist Church. W.E. Addison published the Times in 1904 when the paper charged that the public school education for blacks championed by Rev. Jones educated negroes to believe they were as good as whites, and hence placed white womanhood at peril. (Walsh’s Roanoke, Virginia, City Directory for 1900 [Roanoke, 1900], 423; Walsh’s Roanoke, Virginia, City Directory for 1904-5 [Charleston, S.C., 1904], 397). 31. Roanoke Times, 2 Feb. 1904. 32. Roanoke Times, 4 Feb. 1904. 33. Rev. R.R. Jones to Roanoke City Council, 26 July 1904, Washington, D.C.; photocopy, Virginia Room, Roanoke Main Public Library. As she fled, Lelia Jones sold their home on Hart Avenue for $875, cash they used for subsistence during their exile in Washington, D.C. Roanoke City Circuit Court, Deed Book, Vol. 1, 153, 199. 34. Roanoke Times, 6 Apr. 1904, reprint of the March 24, 1904, attacks on the Jones residence in Roanoke, from the Rich­ mond Planet, published by John Mitchell. 35. Roanoke Times editorial, 6 Apr. 1904. 36. Rev. Edward Burton, pastor of Sweet Union Baptist Church of Roanoke for 50 years, read several drafts of this essay on Rev. Jones. He commented on Rev. Jones’s aggressive ministry and likened it to the Black Theology that immediately fol­ lowed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Rev. Burton interview, 6 Sept. 2012; 11 May 2015 in Roanoke, Virginia. 37. J.K. Trent, Brief History of First Baptist Church, 1942. First Baptist Church Records, and Kern Archives. 38. Rev. Jones was buried in Pittsburgh’s black Homewood Cemetery. Lelia Jones remained in the Jones’s home at 134 East Thirteenth Avenue in Homestead until her death in 1934, when she was buried beside her husband. John Kern, Rev. Jones in Homestead, Pennsylvania, unpublished paper, Kern Archive. 39. Oliver Hill, Brown v. Board of Education, 31-32. Hill remembered that he went to a playground in Homestead and played with white kids from Eastern Europe called “hunkies.” He had a fine time playing with these associates, but it was his only experience with white folks outside of a work environment. John Kern, “Oliver White Hill, Civil Rights Attorney in Roanoke and Virginia,” Journal, Historical Society of Western Virginia, Vol. XIX, No. 2,36-48. 67 �¿oat o i t6e *l/cnyi*Ua«t by Louis M. N ew ton he last westbound run of former Virginian Railway electric motive power occurred on Friday, June 29, 1962, when three EL-C units handled time freight No. 71 from Roanoke to Elmore. T As Radford Division trainmaster, I rode on the trip along with Ben Dulaney from N&W’s Public Relations Department and Robert B. Sears, a Roanoke Times reporter. According to my notes, we left South Roanoke Yard at 11 a.m. with a light train of 10 loads and 82 empties, 3,009 tons, behind EL-C units 249, 232 and 237, handled by New River Engineer White. I reported that “...we did fine while we were running but were plagued with delays meeting other (eastbound) trains.” For example, we waited at Salem for a coal train off the Whitethome District to enter the connec­ tion track to the North Yard. At Kumis we went through the passing siding around some track work, then took siding at Fagg and waited for another coal train. With a light train, the three EL-Cs easily climbed the mountain, passed through Merrimac Tunnel and descended the long grade to Whitethome, where we met another coal train. The scenic ride alongside the New River was uneventful to Celco, where we met our eastbound counterpart, No. 72. At Narrows, we passed the source of energy for the electrics, the former Virginian power plant, which, after many years of faithful service, would be permanently idled that night. At Glen Lyn, we sailed across the New River on a long, high deck-truss bridge that through the years was the subject of many photographs. A shorter bridge across East River marked our entrance into West Virginia. After moving through Hales Gap Tunnel, we passed Kellysville and entered New River Division territory. Another long climb to Oney Gap Tunnel brought us into Princeton, where we arrived at 4.22 p.m. Messrs. Dulaney, Sears and I detrained at Princeton, got a taxicab to Bluefield and returned to Roa­ noke. No. 71 continued on its ran to Elmore Yard, where it completed the last westbound run of former Virginian electrics. As I recall, an article by Mr. Sears describing the trip appeared in the Roanoke Times a day or so later. The former Virginian employees, particularly the engine crews, loved their company’s electric motive power, especially the EL-Cs. They “dug in” with heavy tonnage on the grades, ran smoothly on the flatlands and were clean and comfortable to operate. Following the N&W merger, however, the electrics were at a disadvantage because on west­ bound trips they had to buck heavy eastbound traffic in the electrified territory on the Whitethome Dis­ trict. In addition, by 1962 the power plant and transmission facilities were beginning to show their age. At any rate, the electrified Virginian was a great show while it lasted. Louis M. Newton, longtime Norfolk & Western Railway manager, retired from Norfolk Southern Railway in 1988 as assistant vice presidentfo r transportation planning. He wrote this article fo r The Arrow, a publica­ tion o f the Norfolk and Western Historical Society. • 68 • �A Virginian Railway electric locomotive is shown at work at Princeton, West Virginia, on July 29, 1958. V ir g in ia n R a il w a y s t a t io n c o m e s b a c k t o l if e T h e Virginian Railway passenger station is coming back to life this summer 15 years after a fire nearly destroyed the building and 60 years after the last passenger train left the station. To finance the construction, the Roanoke chapter of the National Railway Historical Society has led a nearly $2 million restoration effort, funded by a variety of grants from the Virginia Department of Transportation, City of Roanoke and historic rehabilitation tax credits. The restored station will house offices and exhibits on the half-century history of the Virginian in the former baggage and express building and the larger passenger station building will be leased. A breezeway connects the two buildings. The tile roof was replaced with new tiles from the original manufacturer. The last work was repairs to the stucco and half-timbering of dormers, as well as chimneys, windows and doors. The exterior trim will be painted standard Virginian Railway orange. Terrazzo floors, plaster walls and ceilings were replaced. The Virginian Railway began in 1907 and the Roanoke station was built two years later. The Virginian merged into the Norfolk & Western Railway in 1959. 69 �*l/ení¿yt*ty a, S ta v e i?Ce#ttia*td by Sam uel R. C ook and Thomas K latka ne of the most appealing aspects of applied anthropology and history for those who take it seriously is that it offers — and often requires — a space where divergent currents within and beyond the broader disciplines can converge in creative ways. This article focuses on a project that has drawn inspiration from recent dialogues in cultural anthropology — three in particular — and meshing these with partnerships in other subfields — notably, archaeology. From a theoretical standpoint, we are inspired by the spate of recent studies concerning the anthropology of place (e.g., Feld and Basso, 1996). Yet while studies concerning the cultural meanings engrained in specific places and landscapes are revealing, conveying the relevance of such meanings to a larger audience remains a challenge. Thus, our methodology draws from current dialogues concerning ethnographic authority — particularly the ever emergent field of collaborative ethnography (Lassiter, 2005) — and the spirited dialogue concerning transforming applied anthropology into a truly public anthropology, or one that addresses, first and foremost, various public agendas rather than placing the O discipline first//) . . I I . . , The project we describe here entails an effort to merge community voices with archaeological research to negotiate across tacitly strained relations between a state agency in this case a university — and communities connected, but no longer having complete access, to land now owned and managed by that agency. The immediate goal of the project we describe was to identify, verify and commemorate the site of a cemetery for the enslaved community that once lived on Virginia Tech’s Kentland Farm, the university’s premier agricultural research facility. r . The long-term goal, however, is to nurture a relationship between the university, various faculty and students, and local communities that preserves the farm as a place of invaluable existential signifi­ cance to the latter while bolstering the visibility and innovations of Virginia Tech’s College of Agricul­ ture and Life Sciences. C ontext of T ime and P lace Kentland Farm is situated along the banks of the New River in Southwest Virginia, some 9 miles from the university campus. Its documented record of human activity extends back at least 10,000 years to the Early Archaic Period when groups of Native Americans occupied the high bluffs that then consti­ tuted the banks of the river. A continuous connection to this place over thousands of years culminated in a more intensive use of the land in the Late Woodland Period. Beginning around 900 CE, large towns Samuel R. Cook is associate professor in the Department o f Sociology at Virginia Tech, where he serves as director o f American Indian Studies and coordinator fo r the Anthropology major. Email: sacook2@vt.edu Thomas Klatka is regional archaeologistfo r the Western Regional Office o f the Virginia Department o f Historic Resources. Email: tom.klatka@dhr.virginia.goV • 70 • �were first founded on the fertile alluvial plain where a diversity of plants was grown. This started a legacy of more than 1,000 years of unbroken agricultural use of the land that continues today. European American settlement on the land occurred by the mid-18th century when both Jacob and Adam Harmon built houses and cleared fields. They were soon followed by other Germans whose artisanship left an enduring mark in the area. (2) However, the farm’s most salient historical legacy is based on the fact that it was part of the largest antebellum plantation system in southwest Virginia. James Randall Kent, the proprietor of Kentland Plantation, had the dubious distinction of being the largest slave owner in the region. Together with his daughter Elizabeth, who lived at Kentland and operated her own plantation across the river, the Kent family enslaved nearly 250 people by 1860.(3) Hence, reclaiming the history of those who were held against their will to build and sustain that planta­ tion became our first priority in brokering university-community relations. While the farm changed hands numerous times after the American Civil War, much of it was held by Kent family descendants until the 1980s. Up to that point, however, the farm remained a focal point of community activity, if not employment. Local coal miners leased or sharecropped on tracts during seasons of slow coal production, while others worked full-time tending the horses and cattle of propri­ etors. Notably, many who worked on the farm were descended from slaves of the plantation who formed a community called Wake Forest, three miles from the farm. Ironically, the memory of their contribution and presence on the farm and former plantation was nearly lost until the collaborative efforts surround­ ing the project described here emerged in 2003. In 1988, Virginia Tech purchased the greater part of what is now Kentland Farm to serve as the College of Agriculture’s research station. Unwittingly, the university alienated many in nearby commu­ nities who had always taken it for granted that they could cross the land to visit relatives, hunt along the hedgerows and forests on the back of the farm and fish from the river bank, lease tracts for supplemental gardens, or simply ride horses in the open pastures. The university however, had to consider liabilities and installed gates on all points of entry while prohibiting recreational activities. While it was not the intention of the farm manager or those establishing experimental plots on the 3,000-acre farm, people in surrounding communities felt alienated by the sudden lack of access to the land. In 2003, a group of faculty from Virginia Tech’s Appalachian studies program (Samuel Cook), Virginia Tech’s Library Special Collections, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and represen­ tatives from the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (Thomas Klatka) met to discuss ideas for revitalizing and managing the farm’s historic district (which includes a brick manor house and ancillary structures, a mill, numerous farm structures, antebellum cemeteries for the Kent family and the enslaved community, landscape features and archaeological sites)/¥) The most important outcome of this first meeting was a realization that community intellectuals who had a vested interest in the farm had to be involved at every step. Thereafter, the Kentland Historic Revitalization Committee was formed, includ­ ing representatives from the above listed departments and agencies, and representatives from local communities surrounding the farm. While local historians were included among some of the community representatives, many were natives who had worked on the farm in some capacity, or were lineal descen­ dants of both planters and slaves. Including these co-intellectuals was a vital step in rekindling positive ties with neighboring communities since their inclusion implied (although university representatives made it explicit that they believed) that community-based knowledge was as legitimate as any ideas produced from within the academy. The challenge, however, lay in the fact that College of Agriculture representatives were con­ cerned about how historic restorations and interpretive initiatives might impact regular farm operations. Hence, our long-term goal was — and remains — to establish a historic interpretive plan that 1) dove­ tails with regular farm operations while enhancing and bolstering an awareness of agricultural history, thereby complementing contemporary agricultural innovations, and 2) encourages community involve• 71 • �ment on the farm as stewards of historic resources, thereby ameliorating tensions between those native to the area and the university, while confirming the cultural relevance of the land to local communities. B olstering C ommunity Support Revitalizing Kentland Farm’s historic district was not a new idea. Many people from within and beyond the university had discussed it over the years, but none had the resources or time to commit to such a project. Involving community members as stewards and interpreters offered the possibility of a sustainable program that would not require an enormous or immediate fiduciary commitment from the university. The challenge lay in making the place seem truly accessible to the wide spectrum of individu­ als living in the area, and not just those descended from the plantation’s antebellum proprietors. Collaborative ethnography is, ideally, an endeavor that both acknowledges people in communi­ ties with which anthropologists work as co-intellectuals, and does not forsake community agendas for the sake of academic prestige. As we describe later, as descendants of Kentland slaves became more deeply involved in the project, researchers from the university and state Department of Historic Re­ sources faded more and more into the background until the former reclaimed, in a sense, a renewed stewardship of their history. Meanwhile, working with the descendants of Kentland slaves was the logi­ cal first step since their history had been obscured by local writers, and yet, the nearby community of Wake Forest had endured as a close-knit group of families predominantly descended from those slaves. The impact of slaves on that plantation was, in fact, formidable. Not only did slaves engage m most of the labor involved in constructing the palatial brick manor house (labor that included hand-casting brick from native clay, quarrying foundation stone and cutting timber into lumber), but some of the structures,, including the smokehouse, appear to be based on West African architectural norms (rounded to avoid comers) (5) Kentland slaves also sustained massive cattle drives in antebellum years, and provided a significant amount of labor for public works in local counties. Ironically, their tangible record has been nearly erased from the land — notably, the slave cemetery. Our committee decided that locating and commemorating the slave cemetery was a top priority precisely because the slaves of Kentland were the farthest from being the elites of record, and yet the plantation — and many postbellum farm operations — could not have been sustained without their la­ bor. Likewise, many Wake Forest residents worked on the farm long after the Civil War and maintained close ties to that place. Those ties are what ultimately led to our success in confirming the site of the slave cemetery. Traditional H istory and A rchaeology At some point in the past 30 years, one of the previous owners of the farm pushed away the limestone markers that are said to have marked slave graves. Nonetheless, awareness of the cemetery remained fixed in community knowledge. Oral histories from Wake Forest families and other community residents placed the slave cemetery on top of a prominent ridge north of the plantation house. Their accounts described graves marked by roughly shaped stones amid grass and trees enclosed by a fence. Bordering the west side of the cemetery was the intersection of two fence lines that divided the rolling terrain of the farm and controlled the movement of livestock. Although local knowledge of the cemetery was apparent, some authors of Kentland’s history, and some university representatives familiar with the farm, remained unconvinced because the ridge surface no longer shows physical evidence of a cemetery. Trees and grave markers had been pushed away and fences dismantled. For many years, crops of hay covered the ridge and hid the cemetery. Local historian Jimmie L. Price drew a map of the cemetery based on recollections of Frank Ban­ nister, a late Wake Forest resident, (d) (Figure 1) Alex Jones and the late Oscar Sherman, who served on the committee until his death in 2004, were among other Wake Forest residents who expressed knowl• 72 * �Figure 1. Jimmie Price drew a working sketch o f Kentland farm, based on recollections o f Frank Bannister, a former slave on the plantation. edge of the cemetery. In their youth, they saw the cemetery and learned its history from grandparents who were enslaved at Kentland in the 19th century. E.O. Sheppard also remembered mowing grass in the cemetery more than 60 years ago when his family worked Kentland’s fields as tenant farmers. All these men placed the cemetery on the same ridge top, but in slightly different locations. Two remem­ bered the cemetery at the southern edge of the ridge, while the other two pointed to an area on the north side. Guided by these accounts, and other oral histories collected from local residents, our search be­ came more focused. The next step in confirming the cemetery location involved study of 20th-century aerial pho­ tographs and quadrangle maps. A series of aerial photographs taken between 1953 and 1982 provided supporting evidence. Photographic scales prohibit visual identification of a small cemetery, but the photographs clearly depict a small grove of trees conspicuous in the cleared agricultural fields on the ridge. The intersection of two agricultural fence lines along the western side of the grove is also visible in the photographs. Although the fence lines no longer exist, their location and orientation matched those depicted on the 1998 photo-revised edition of the local quadrangle map. (7) This information supported the histories which placed the cemetery on the south part of the ridge. Final confirmation of the cemetery required archaeological investigation. • 73 • �State legislation mandated university consent before archaeological investigations could take place at Kentland. Moreover, we felt the consent and support of the Wake Forest community was also a prerequisite. An archaeological study of the cemetery was proposed and discussed during a series of meetings with representatives of the university and Wake Forest. After careful consideration, the Wake Forest community decided to support the cemetery investigations under the conditions that buried hu­ man remains would not be disturbed and disruption of the cemetery landscape would be minimized. With a signed petition of support, Wake Forest requested archaeological investigations of the cemetery and the university agreed. Guided by the oral testimony of Wake Forest members, and encouraged by evidence in historic photographs and maps, our search for the Kentland cemetery focused on the elevated terrain of a ridge northeast of the plantation house. Since the ground surface no longer holds evidence of a cemetery, archaeological excavation was necessary to find subsurface evidence of graves. Subsurface excavation methods relied on exploratory trenches oriented in a north-to-south direction to increase the likelihood of intersecting evidence of grave shafts which were commonly oriented west to east. This nonintrusive method allowed us to verify the location of the slave cemetery by identifying the tops of grave shafts without disturbing the buried human remains and minimizing disturbance to the cemetery surface. Oral histories isolated two potential areas on the ridge, so two exploratory trenches were placed in each area. Assisted by university students, members of the Kentland Revitalization Committee care­ fully monitored the mechanical removal of approximately one foot of dark topsoil from each of four trenches. Following removal of most topsoil, the bottoms of each trench were smoothed with hand tools and the yellowish subsoil was carefully inspected for soil changes indicative of grave shafts. Exploratory trenches in the northern area of the ridge uncovered evidence of an agricultural field — a layer of plowed soil, evidence of previous fence posts and “scars” left in the subsoil by the tips of plowshares. There was no evidence of any burial or cemetery. However, both trenches in the southern part of the ridge contained evidence of graves and wooden posts for the fence enclosure. This area cor­ responded to the location of the small grove of trees depicted on the aerial photographs. The grave shafts were easily recognized as bands or rectangular areas of dark, mixed soil offset against the lighter, yel­ lowish subsoil. At this point, the Kentland Revitalization Committee informed the Wake Forest community and the university administration that the cemetery location had been confirmed. Members of the Wake For­ est community immediately gathered at the cemetery to witness the graves of their ancestors and reaf­ firm the link between their lives and the lives of their ancestors. This emotional reunion of generations bonded by a shared Christian faith was commemorated through a reflective and solemn prayer service. Afterward, the university administration announced its respect for this sacred place and its decision to protect it from any possibility of future disturbance. University administrators also approached Wake Forest and the Kentland Revitalization Com­ mittee to request a continuation of archaeological investigations because information regarding the size and boundaries of the cemetery would facilitate and enhance long-term protection of the cemetery. The committee met with the Wake Forest community and reviewed possible courses of action ranging from no further work to full documentation of the entire cemetery. During community meetings the members of Wake Forest reached a consensus decision to support additional investigations of the cemetery, but limited additional excavation to the level necessary for a confident estimate of cemetery boundaries. Additional trenches were excavated the following year until we could determine the cemetery boundar­ ies as measuring 82 by 105 feet (Figure 2). The university agreed to protect the cemetery along with a surrounding buffer of land. It is important to note that until the initial excavation exposed the grave shafts, Wake Forest residents’ endorsement of the project, although uniform, was seemingly reserved. Perhaps the tangible • 74 • �evidence connecting com­ munity tradition to the present catalyzed a new and enthu­ siastic movement. Immedi­ ately following the excavation, Howard and Jean Eaves became Wake Forest’s representatives on the Historic Revitalization Committee and spearheaded efforts to raise funds for a monument. Subsequently, they encouraged us to investigate the nearby site of slave quarters, and they developed a commu­ nity museum housed in the old Wake Forest Holiness Church. Their efforts helped to con­ solidate and inspire genealogi­ cal, archival and ethnographic research by community mem­ bers and descendants that had earlier taken place on an inde­ pendent and piecemeal basis. Significantly, the Eaves have mobilized their community to reclaim stewardship of the sites most relevant to descendants of enslaved people on the former plantation, and to document and reconstruct the history of their ancestors beyond the plantation. C onclusion On a damp, overcast Saturday in April, a crowd of Figure 2. A map o f grave shaft identifications during the first some 80 Wake Forest residents Kentland slave cemetery survey in 2004. andvtheir families living in other areas gathered on Kentland Farm to commemorate the newly placed cemetery monument. (Figure 3) Also present were invited residents of surrounding communities, Virginia Tech faculty and students, and state officials. Organized by How­ ard and Jean Eaves, this event was more than a memorial ceremony. In many ways, it represented an inversion of a power dynamic that had historically existed between Virginia Tech and local communities in that their local knowledge determined explicitly the course of research and related activities in that space. The focal point of the ceremony was the Wake Forest community as they dedicated a memorial marker that affirmed the connection to their ancestors and to the land. It was placed on low ground at the bottom of the ridge that holds the cemetery, an area easily accessible by the elderly and infirm. Follow75 �Figure 3. Elders o f the Wake Forest community gathered to commemorate a cemetery monument. ing a series of invocations by ministers from local African American churches — nearly all of whom had an ancestral connection to Wake Forest — Elder Arnold Jones delivered a prayer of dedication. There ensued a most amazing event: the dark clouds that promised to produce torrential rains all day opened momentarily and a sunbeam fell directly on the spot of the ceremony. Whether an act of God or a natural phenomenon, that event became a defining moment in the local tradition of university-community relations. In this article we illustrate the use of contemporary anthropological theory and the methodologi­ cal tenets of collaborative ethnography to successfully move archaeology and history out of academia into a position that permits a positive and direct contribution to our contemporary world. “Sense of place” remains a useful concept to explicate how and why cultural meanings connect a community of people to a particular place, while simultaneously broadening an understanding of why the connection to place can be important in any attempt to attain resolution of strained relations between groups of people. A central tenet of collaborative ethnography is the working together of interested people from both the non-academic and academic communities. It is particularly important to position all participat­ ing voices into dialogue as valid and necessary perspectives needed to create meaningful negotiation and approach successful resolution of complex public agendas. In the example provided in this article, it was vital for the Wake Forest community to approve the project and to increasingly control decision making, from the initial stages of project planning to the extent of archaeological investigation, the interpretation of findings and interaction with the university. Of the methods cultural anthropologists can use to learn about cultural groups, direct observa­ tion and active participation are sometimes used to open a dialogue, or dialectic, in which information • 76• �flows back and forth between researcher and subject. Perhaps because historians and archaeologists are temporally displaced from their subjects, they have traditionally undervalued oral tradition and local knowledge of descendant communities as valid sources of information to learn about the past. While the development of true “public history” and “public archaeology” are alleviating this misperception, it is not yet common for historians and archaeologists to engage descendant communities as active and authoritative agents in collaborative research and interpretation. As the collaborative research with the Wake Forest people developed, our role increasingly di­ minished. We step into an advisory role when invited and provide any requested assistance, but commu­ nity members are increasingly engaged in the interpretation of their own genealogical, ethnographic and historic research. Their documentation and interpretation of the lives of their ancestors increases their community knowledge and enables them to reclaim their history as a legacy for future generations. We hope the research centered at Kentland plantation and farm will inspire similar collaborative approaches between local communities and local institutions, whether educational or governmental, to resolve miscommunication and alleviate strained relations that may develop as everyone involved seeks to improve the quality of local life while remembering and understanding the important legacy left by our ancestors. ENDNOTES 1. Steven Field and Keith Basso, editors, Senses of Place, School of American Research Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1996. Luke Eric Lassiter, The Chicago Guide to Collaborative Ethnography, University of Chicago Press, 2005. 2. Patricia Givens Johnson, Kentland at Whitethome, Virginia Tech’s Agricultural Farm and Families that owned it, Har­ mans, Buchanans, Triggs, Cloyds, Kents, Cowans, Bells, Adams, Blacksburg, Walpa Publishing, 1995. 3. United States Census Manuscripts, Population, Eighth Census, Manuscript Schedule, Montgomery County, Virginia, 1860, microfilm. James Randall Kent also owned land and enslaved other people in nearby Giles County and Pulaski County. 4. The historic district encompasses 350 acres with contributing resources that include 14 archaeological sites, nine build­ ings, and one structure. John Kern, Daniel Pezzoni, C. Clifford Boyd, Randolph Turner, “Kentland Farm Historic and Archae­ ological District,” National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, National Park Service, Washington, D.C., 1990. Thomas Klatka, “Kentland Farm Historic and Archaeological District (Amendment and Boundary Adjustment),” National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, National Park Service, Washington, D.C., 2006. 5. Leland Ferguson, Uncommon Ground: Archaeology and Early African America, 1650-1800 (Washington D.C.: Smithson­ ian Institution, 1992), 41-44; Merrick Posnansky, “West Africanist Reflections on African-American Archaeology,” in I, Too, Am America: Archaeological Studies of African-American Life, ed. Theresa A. Singleton, Charlottesville, VA: The Univer­ sity Press of Virginia, 1999, 21-37. 6. The remarkable accuracy of Price’s map is made evident by comparing the map to historic photographs, aerial photo­ graphs, quadrangle maps and landscape features visible on the Kentland’s ground surface. Jimmie L. Price graciously pro­ vided us with a copy of his map. 7. Regional aerial photographs are curated, and available for viewing, at the Christiansburg Service Center of the Natural Re­ sources Conservation Service, United States Department of Agriculture. The 1998 photo-revised edition of the Radford North quadrangle map was printed by the United States Geological Survey. Contemporary and historical quadrangle maps can be viewed online by accessing the U.S.G.S. website (http://www.usgs.gov/) and using the Maps, Imagery and Publications tab. 77 ���PUBLICATIONS ISBN# 978-0-692-71429-4 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia 2015 Volume 22, Number 1 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include: <br />Roanoke Jews: A History<br />Crossing Roanoke Valley in Chains and Handcuffs<br />Old Chapel Church is 247 Years Old<br />Long Stained Glass Window is Coming to the Link Museum<br />Roanoke's First Flight<br />Natural Bridge, A Landmark for the Ages<br />Col. William Preston and Greenfield Revisited<br />Stephen Austin, Virginia Born, was "Father of Texas"<br />REv. Richard Jones, Activist, Orator, Founder of Black First Baptist Church, 1882-1904<br />Last Run of the Virginian Electrics<br />Verifying a Slave Community at Kentland Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_22_01_2015 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6373/JHSWV_22_02_2016.pdf d745e81acd54aed4652fed5ceabb55be PDF Text Text ^ ¥icton icat S o c ie ty o£ 'ZVecteruv *V&iyi*u<z y y « t M 2016-2017 c t r t & i * ) tt t f a e ¿ ¿ ¿ e tc : 6 | Virginia’s western counties played a key role in the expansion o f colonial America 2 2 | Proposed Poplar Forest parkway designed to enhance both access and the visitor experience 4 1 | Black churches were influential in the movement for integration in the Star City 6% | Remembering some of Southwest Virginia’s WWI veterans at the 100th anniversary /4»uC nunc. 22 I 2 �'ítyiátonicaí S o ciety ‘W eat&in 'Vvtytttiei Amor montium nos movet (For the love o f mountains inspires us) ô^iceno, Stephen Warren ................................ President Jim H um phrey............... ....... ..........Vice President Sandra Brown Kelly................... ...... ...... Secretary Ashley Fiore............ ........... .................. . Treasurer Ashley Webb Lynsey Allie ..........................................„Curator ...... Museum Manager 2 W W EdArmentrout Will Dibling Gordon Hamilton Bill Irvin David Lemon ^ O ie c to n o , Charlie Logan George “Al” McLean Natalie Norris Gary Phillips Bob Schwabik F. Anderson Stone Katherine Watts Donald Wilson ‘Deflettono, Smentii Sara S. Airheart George A. Kegley Edgar V. Wheeler George Kegley Editor o f the Journal, Christina Koomen Production, Editorial Assistant ' The Journal, Vol. XXII, No. 2, chronicles the history o f the Commonwealth west o f the Blue Ridge. It is published by the Historical Society o f Western Virginia, P.O. Box 1904, Roanoke, Va. 24008. The price for additional copies is $5 for members and $10 for others. The Society welcomes un­ solicited material but submissions cannot be returned and the Society cannot be responsible for damage or loss. �4 | Message From the President 6 | Virginia’s Western Counties and the Making o f America by Jim Glanville 22 | A New Road to be Opened: The Poplar Forest Parkway by Jack Gary 36 | Recalling Poplar Forest after Mr. Jefferson by Cranston Williams 41 Segregated Souls in the Star City by John Wiley 52 The Photographs of George Newton Wertz, 1852-1926 by Richard Morgan 55 Exchange Bank In New Building The Roanoke Times, March 1913 60 | The Virginian Station and the Restoration by James Cosby and Skip Salmon 62 | City Hall is 101! Courtesy o f the City o f Roanoke 64 Seven Hills o f Rockbridge by George K egley 67 Franklin County Business in 1883 The Times o f Franklin, August 2016 62 | * 73 | Remembering World War I Veterans by George K egley Help Us Preserve Our History On the cover: ROTO Company A on the Virginia Tech Drillfield in 1918. 3 �W elcome to our latest annual Journal - a compendium o f research and history from the Roa­ noke Valley region and Western Virginia. Despite what many have called a “terribly challenging year,” I consider it my good fortune to have served as your society’s president for 2016-17. We can credit a strong board o f directors, and a highly motivated leadership team for meeting the great difficulties o f 2016. We can also credit our long-stand­ ing members and financial supporters who stood by us and made contributions when it mattered the most. In looking back, we can all take a bit o f the credit for helping to “save history!” We now know that many other historical societies in the United States have gone through similar chal­ lenges: diminished funding, changes in demographics, and declining trends in membership among younger audiences. What seems to bind us together in Western Virginia is a determination to make our history relevant again —even in these difficult times. We are seeking to preserve the history o f a region we deeply love, and to preserve our collective story for generations to come. So... despite the challenges o f 2 016,1 can honestly say that being president o f this society has been my unoffical “dream job” outside o f my normal full-time work. Since my “real job” is situated nearby, I have been able to drive over to the museum frequently to meet with volunteers and staff. One perk I enjoy is being able to preview any new changes to the galleries, as well as meeting the visitors to the musuem. As happened one day early this summer, I was looking over the newly installed Soapbox Derby ex­ hibit in our Trackside Gallery (facingpage, bottom right). A retired couple was visiting the museum on their way from Montclair, New Jersey, to their new home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I struck up a conversation and found that the man had just retired from a New York advertising agency. He told me how impressed he was with our museum, and was especially drawn to our Raymond Loewy exhibit on industrial design. He then complimented us on how we presented the material in our various galleries. “For example, the way you present these Link images draws me in,” he said, pointing to a wall in the the adjacent gallery. “I have a chance to spend time with each item, and before I know it, I ’m drawn into the story. I really like that.” “You w on’t believe this,” he added, “but w e’ve spent much more time here today than we expected!” That unsolicited feedback was welcome news to this board member! After a year o f hard work by so many o f us, it was terrific to hear that we had succeeded in creating a single-destination museum that presents our diverse history in a pleasing way. On behalf o f all o f us here at the Historical Society o f Western Virginia, I personally want to thank you for helping us save history for another generation! StefcÂeK- ‘TfJcwtett, �.. .<z á¿ttyíercte4£¿tta£¿(Ht wuc&euMt... § 5 �'V & iyttutz 4a n d t£ e ‘Ti/edtenn ‘TttafU /im & U c a by Jim Glanville Introduction: The Triumph of Anglo-America e live today in a world dominated by Anglo-America. How did this situation come about? In his book “The Cousins’ Wars — Religion, Politics, & the Triumph o f Anglo-America,”(2) Kevin Phillips asks the question: “How did Anglo-America evolve over a mere three hundred years from a small Tudor kingdom into a global community with such a hegemonic grip on the world today, while no other European power — Spain, France, Germany, or Russia — did?” The Cousins’ Wars o f Phillips’ title were two English-speaking civil wars and an Englishspeaking revolution: the English Civil War (1642-1651), the American Revolution (1775-1781), and the American Civil War (1861-1865). Phillips argues that through these wars Britons and Americans ham­ mered out competing religious, ethnic and social alliances to seize first place among the world’s nations and bring about the triumph o f Anglo-America in the years that followed. O f course, the triumph o f Anglo-America was not just dependent on three wars. It had a myriad o f causes, going far beyond these wars, and at least as far back as Anglo-Saxon England. Some causes resulted from the unique characteristics o f Anglo-American culture, religion and politics and some were simply lucky accidents o f history. For example, one lucky accident can be counted as the outcome o f the French and Indian War (1755-1761) and the subsequent Treaty o f Paris (1763), that lay the whole North American continent open to British assimilation. Had things worked out differently, we could easily live today in western Virginia speaking French or Spanish. We can identify many fields o f human activity in which the Anglo-American triumph is mani­ fested. Politically, it is manifested by the constitutions o f modem states. Most constitutions are written o f fundamental principles about how a government must operate. England made a written constitution in 1653 during the period o f the short-lived Cromwellian republic that ended in 1661 with the restora­ tion o f Charles II to the throne. (3) The great American republic was bom in 1788 with the ratification o f the United States Constitution. Today, about 200 nations have written constitutions, all derived from the U.S. C onstitu tio n .^ Today, about one human in four (about 1.9 out o f 7.5 billion humans) speaks English, with about one in every five o f those being a native English speaker. English in the modem world is the language o f science and the language o f banking and commerce. All computer languages are written in English. Journalism is an Anglo-American invention. (5) In an op-ed article in the Roanoke Times in 2012 the author wrote: “The history o f eastern Vir- W Jim Glanville o f Blacksburg, a retired chemistry professor at Virginia Tech and Virginia Western Community College, has done extensive research and writing on settlement in Southwest Virginia. (Copyright ©Jim Glanville 2017. All rights reserved.) • 6 • �ginia is perhaps most significant for the history o f the state. However, it is the history o f western Virginia that is most significant for the history o f America.”^ It is the purpose o f this article to argue that one significant factor in the demonstrated triumph o f Anglo-America has been the historic process o f the formation o f American counties, and that o f particu­ lar significance has been the formation o f western Virginia counties and their many descendant counties. The English County System from William I to Elizabeth I This section describes the English county system prior to the settlement o f Virginia at Jamestown in 1607. The process o f county formation began over 900 years ago in Norman England and with modifi­ cation became the fundamental framework for most o f the United States’ local government via transmis­ sion through Virginia. Arguably, the Norman Conquest beginning in 1066 was the single most important event in English history: It happened when a self-aggrandizing Norman French duke named William invaded and conquered Anglo-Saxon England, that was at that time the most powerful kingdom in Christendom. He became King Wil­ liam 1.(8) The Norman government system proved to be exceedingly efficient and Anglo-Saxon England was soon organized into a series of counties, with each having a local lord sheriff as William’s personal representative. In 1085, William commissioned the preparation o f the Domesday Book. This famous document cataloged the land holdings and other assets in the thirty-nine Norman counties. The Domesday Book became the basis on which most o f the Anglo-Saxon land was transferred to Norman ownership. In 1089, at his castle at Old Sarum near Salisbury in the county o f Wiltshire, King Wil­ liam accepted the fealty o f his nobles and cer­ emonially accepted the Domesday Book written during the preceding four years. By accepting and endorsing the detailed land ownership Rgure I I o f lhe 3g œ unlies o f recorded m the Domesday Book, William reguEngland (7) larized the almost total revolution in English land holding that the Conquest brought about. Henceforward, recorded land ownership became central to power and authority in the English state and its spin-offs. The elements o f William’s county government system remain with us in Anglo-America today .(9) From the 12th to the 16th centuries English county government evolved. Figure 1 shows the 39 traditional English counties. During the settling o f Virginia, the names o f many o f these English coun­ ties were adopted for the newly created Virginia counties and about a dozen counties, such as Bedford, Essex, Lancaster, and Middlesex share names. 7 �The exact number and the boundaries o f the English counties have changed many times over the passage o f nine centuries. Modem England has an area o f 50,346 square miles, which for thirty-nine original counties averages about 1,300 square miles o f area for each .(10) From Norman England to the present-day, there are two particularly obvious historical paral­ lels that have endured over the centuries. The first is the office o f the sheriff that has lasted for 950 years, though with changing responsibilities. (Author’s note: My Norman supposed ancestor Ranulf de Glanville was at various times during the reign o f Henry II the sheriff o f five different English counties, including Yorkshire and Lancashire. He was also the chief justice o f England in the 12th century. See Figure 2.) The second parallel is the recording o f land. Thus, the lands records o f the Domesday Book closely match in concept the GIS (geographic information systems) o f today’s Virginia county governments. (7/) By the time o f Queen Elizabeth I (lived 1533-1603, reigned 1558-1603), English local gov­ ernment administered through the county system and based on land holding had become particularly effective in balancing the needs o f county govern­ ments with the needs o f the central government in London. Here’s how the historian Lacey Baldwin Smith summarized that balance: In no other kingdom in Europe was royal authority so effective ... in Elizabeth’s England .. .the crown [was] able to rule with the confidence and cooperation o f the landed and governing classes. The system worked because Gloriana [Queen Elizabeth] and her Council sensed the threefold secret o f political success: 1. the importance o f maintaining respect for government and o f encouraging the habit o f obedience among leaders o f society as well as the multitude; 2. the guiding through parliament o f legisla­ tion agreeable to the ears o f MPs [members o f Parliament] who often turned into JPs [justices o f the peace] when they went back to their shires [counties]; and 3. the binding Figure 2. Cover o f later edition o f “Records o f the o f the financial and social aspirations o f the Anglo-Norman House o f Glanville from A.D. 1050 ruling elite to the throne by the judicious to 1880. ”(12) distribution o f court, county, church, and military patronage. (13) In the English counties, it was men serving as justices o f the peace who principally shouldered the responsibility for local government and supervised the local court system. Most ordinary Britons paid little heed to the grand schemes o f the government in London. Important to ordinary Britons were the local aristocrats, landed gentlemen, and Anglican clergymen who had been commissioned as their county justices o f the peace. JPs were unpaid, but had high status and exercised significant local power through the county courts. Among other responsibilities, justices o f the peace oversaw parish affairs, 8 �decided the tax required for the parish poor and for highways, and could indict officials such as church wardens, overseers o f the poor, surveyors o f highways and constables for failing to carry out their duties. (14) Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603 and Jamestown was settled in 1607. The Englishmen who cre­ ated Virginia were blessed by their experiences o f a good local government system at home. They did not have any literal intent to replicate English local government in the New World, but it was what they knew. With that background, and ongoing input from England, the Virginia county system grew and evolved in Virginia. The Growth of the Virginia County System It is convenient and commonplace to think about American history as a sequence o f state mak­ ing, beginning with the thirteen original states at the conclusion o f the Revolution and continuing until 1959 with the admission o f Alaska and Hawaii to the Union. However, in many ways it was the process o f county formation that was more fundamental to the making o f America, and in particular it was Vir­ ginia counties that played a major role in the making o f America Virginia’s western counties played a key role in the expansion o f colonial America before the Revolution, and the ongoing process o f county formation during the period 1791-1846 provided the fun­ damental framework for the growth of America. Local government in the United States today continues to be dominated by its county governments. Two old but still useful works that describe the evolution o f the Virginia county system are those by Morgan Robinson (1916) and Martha Hiden (1957).(75) The much more modem and very ambitious Atlas of Historical County Boundaries attempts to show all the historic boundaries o f every county in the United States.(7 6) However, certainly so far as the Virginia counties are concerned, this atlas must be used with caution. The present author has published an article demonstrating one error in the Virginia atlas and is aware o f others. (17) For the casual student o f Virginia history, animated maps o f Virginia county formation are very instructive. For example, there is an interactive map o f the history o f the formation o f Virginia’s counties online.(75) This interactive project shows 134 still-image county maps o f Virginia (and present-day West Virginia) for every few years beginning in 1617 and ending in 1995. Each map can be examined individ­ ually, or the whole series can be examined one map at a time or even viewed as a continuous animation. Table 1 (see next page) shows in selected years the count o f Virginia counties and adds for each o f the selected years some commentary relevant to this article about the counties. In general, the num­ ber o f Virginia's counties grew in two ways: ] | By forming large counties in previously unoccupied and unclaimed land at the edge o f the colony (or later the state); and 2. By subdividing existing counties. The modem Commonwealth o f Virginia is composed o f 95 counties and 38 independent cities that are considered county-equivalents for census purposes.(79) Modem West Virginia has 55 counties and no independent cities; West Virginia consisted o f 50 counties at its time o f separation from Virginia in 1861. (20) The development o f Virginia’s system o f local county government out o f the Elizabethan-period English county system has been exceedingly well studied and described by the historian Warren Bill­ ings. Billings’ work appears in multiple articles and books, but in particular in a 1974 article, and in a 1975 edited book o f Virginia documentary history that was reissued in a slightly retitled, revised, and expanded edition in 2007 to coincide with the quadricentennial o f the founding o f Jamestown. (22) Bill­ ings’ writings are extremely helpful to anyone wishing to understand the precise manner in which this English aspect o f Anglo-America became transmuted into the American part o f Anglo-America. As Virginia evolved, its counties adopted variant methods o f government from the counties in 9 �Table 1: Count of Virginia Counties in Selected Years with Annotations Year 1617 1634 1660 1677 1700 1734 1738 1766 1769 1772 # 4 8 14 17 22 33 35 56 57 58 1776 1781 1800 2017 60 67 79 133 Annotation Loose geographic designations by the Jamestown settlers rather than counties Traditionally given as the formation year of Virginia’s eight original counties Counties at beginning of the second term of office of Governor William Berkeley Counties at end of the second term of office of Governor William Berkeley Counties existing at the end of the 17th century Counties existing at the time of the formation of Orange County The creation of Augusta and Frederick counties added two counties this year Creation of Piedmont, Southside, and fill-in counties leaving Augusta untouched Creation of Botetourt County by subdivision of Augusta County Creation of Fincastle County by subdivision of Botetourt County and creation of D unm ore^f) Fincastle County converted to Kentucky, Montgomery and Washington counties End of the American Revolution Counties existing at the end of the 18th century Virginia’s 95 counties and 38 independent cities; an additional 55 counties in West Virginia England. Virginia’s local courts systems developed significantly different methods, with English local courts being largely concerned with criminal matters, whereas Virginia courts handled both civil and criminal matters. Furthermore, Virginia justices o f the peace exercised legislative and executive func­ tions within their jurisdictions that English justices o f the peace never did .(23) Here are some key points derived from Billings’ writings: The creation o f Virginia’s county court system o f local government in 1634 by the General Assembly divided the functions and powers o f government between the newly formed county jurisdictions and those in Jamestown. Each county was governed by a court composed o f justices o f the peace, a sheriff, a clerk, and several lesser officials such as bailiffs. The functions o f the justices o f the peace were similar to those o f their counterparts in England. Over the following three decades, this division o f powers enlarged as the courts’ competence in local matters expanded, while the General Assembly assumed a more purely legislative function. The presence o f county government meant that deeds and indentures could be arbitrated, as could be land and property disputes, and any other matters that required minor legal attention. Explaining why Virginians kept needing new counties, Billings writes: Courts usually met in a presiding justice’s front hall, because there were few pur­ pose-built courthouses before the end o f the [17th] century. No matter the court’s location, the distance a litigant had to go in order to file a lawsuit, register a land deed, or have a will probated was a matter o f concern. Given the vagaries o f travel, journeys o f more than a day posed extreme hardships for any colonist whose af­ fairs required legal remedies. Therefore, as soon as a sufficient number o f colonists had seated in a remote area in a county, they petitioned the General Assembly to divide the existing county into two smaller ones. If the assembly concurred with the petitioners’ demands, it ordered the partition, and the governor, with the council’s advice, appointed officers for the new county. (24) As they began to be built in the 18th century, Virginia’s county courthouses became schools for lawyers. This schooling later provided the necessary training and background for the Virginians to take a leading role in the American constitutional republic. W.S. Long noted that the Virginia planter class lived • 10• �in the luxury that slavery afforded, reveled in well-stocked libraries and studied government with pas­ sion until they governed instinctively. Thus, Long writes: “In Virginia, plain little courthouses became the arenas o f giant contests over simple points at law and the halls o f her Legislature rang unceasingly with resistless reasoning which flowed in a strange and fiery eloquence.”(25,) The daily operations o f modem-day courts in Virginia’s counties and cities, while much altered and modernized over the years, still bear a strong imprint o f 17th century England. In both England and Virginia the office o f justice o f the peace has largely become the magistracy, with the minor exception that at least one Virginia marriage officiant even today advertises himself as a justice o f the peace. (26) Governor Spotswood and the Early Shenandoah Valley Counties It was not until 1716 that the worldly and energetic Governor Alexander Spotswood (1676-1740) turned Virginians’ attention to the vast continent that lay awaiting them west beyond the Blue Ridge. That year, Spotswood organized a great trip to the Shenandoah Valley now known colloquially as the journey o f the Knights o f the Golden Horseshoe. It gets its name because he later gave a commemora­ tive horseshoe-shaped gold pin to the men who went with him. Spotswood was Virginia lieutenant gov­ ernor (under the absentee, nominal governorship o f Edward Hamilton, Earl o f Orkney) from 1710-1722. Spotswood’s party consisted o f about a dozen leading Virginia gentry and their servants, some soldiers, four Indians, and 74 horses. After crossing through Swift Run Gap they reached the Shenan­ doah river about 10 miles east o f Harrisonburg, named it the “Euphrates.” On its banks they drank many toasts to the English royal family, and fired off an excessive number o f volleys o f firearms. We know a good deal about Spotswood’s trip thanks to the Huguenot diarist who went on it and recorded his obser­ vations. (2 7) The horseshoe trip was inspired by Spotswood’s recognition o f the Virginians’ ignorance o f their back country and his fear o f the French establishing control over the Ohio River valley. In a 1718 letter, Spotswood wrote to the Board o f Trade in London saying: I have often regretted that after so many Years as these Countrys have been Seated, no Attempts have been made to discover the Sources o f Our Rivers, nor to Establish­ ing Correspondence w ’th those Nations o f Indians to ye Westw’d o f Us, even after the certain Knowledge o f the Progress made by French in Surrounding us w ’th their Settlements. (28) In 1720, with the formation o f Spotsylvania County (named after Governor Spotswood), Vir­ ginia for the first time had land that approached the Blue Ridge mountains. The preamble to the act that formed Spotsylvania read: “That the frontiers towards the high mountains are exposed to danger from the Indians, and the late settlements o f the French to the westward o f the said mountains,” and so the As­ sembly is going to create new counties to oppose those dangers. (29) After relinquishing his lieutenant governorship, Spotswood married in England and then spent the last tWo decades o f his life at Germanna in Spotsylvania County where he established iron furnaces and imported German workers to operate them. Then, following up on Spotswood’s leadership, the Virginians made their “great land grab” with the establishment o f Orange County (in 1734), shown in Figure 3, and its rapid and almost complete conversion into Augusta County (created in 1738 but did not hold its first court until 1745), shown in Figure 4. The act for the creation o f Orange County in the eighth year o f the reign o f King George II be­ gins with the preamble: “WHEREAS great numbers o f people have settled themselves o f late, upon the rivers o f Sherrando, Cohongoruton, and Opeckon, and the branches thereof, on the north-west side o f the •11 • �Figure 3. Orange County as created in 1734. The term “utmost lim its o f Virginia” in the act creating Orange County is imprecise. Historians generally have interpreted the term to mean the east bank o f the Mississippi River. Figure 4. Augusta County as created in 1738 along with Frederick County. Orange County remained at Augusta’s eastern edge, but greatly diminished in size. (Images by the author) Blue ridge o f mountains, whereby the strength o f this colony, and its security upon the frontiers, and his majesty’s revenue o f quit-rents, are like to be much increased and augmented: For giving encouragement to such as shall think fit to settle there. Be it enacted . . (30) What was enacted for Orange county read: WHEREAS divers inconveniences attend the upper inhabitants o f Spotsylvania county, by reason o f the great distance from the court-house, and other places, usually appointed for public meetings, Be it therefore enacted, by the Lieutenant-Governor, Council and Burgesses, o f this present General Assembly, and it is hereby enacted, by the authority o f the same, That from and immediately after the first day o f Janu­ ary, now next ensuing, the said county o f Spotsylvania be divided, by the dividing line, between the parish o f St. George, and the parish o f St. Mark; and that that part o f the said county, which is now the parish o f St. George, remain, and be called, and known by the name o f Spotsylvania county; and all that territory o f land, adjoining to, and above the said line, bounden southerly, by the line o f Hanover county, northerly, by the grant o f the Lord Fairfax, and westerly, by the utmost limits o f Virginia, be thenceforth erected into one distinct county, and be called and known by the name o f the county o f Orange. Orange County was named for the Dutch stadtholder (hereditary head o f state) William o f Or­ ange who became William III o f England who along with his wife is well-known in Virginia for the Col­ lege o f William and Mary. Augusta was named for Princess Augusta Frederica (1737-1813), the mother o f King George III. The creation o f Augusta County in 1738 (31) is usually attributed to the increasing number o f western settlers needing more, and more convenient, local government. The first clause o f the enabling act for Augusta County read: “Whereas great numbers o f people have settled themselves o f late, upon the rivers o f Sherrando, Cohongoruton, and Opeckon, and the branches thereof, on the north-west side o f the Blue ridge o f mountains, whereby the strength o f this colony, and its security upon the frontiers, and his majesty’s revenue o f quit-rents, are like to be much increased and augmented: For giving encourage• 12 • �ment to such as shall think fit to settle there, the following inducements [listed in the act] are enacted.” Geographically, the act defined Augusta as: “That all that territory and tract o f land, at present deemed to be part o f the county o f Orange, lying on the north west side o f the top o f the said mountains [the Blue Ridge], extending from thence northerly, westerly, and southerly, beyond the said mountains, to the utmost limits o f Virginia, be separated from the rest o f the said county, and erected into two dis­ tinct counties and parishes; to be divided by a line to be run from the head spring o f Hedgman river, to the head spring o f the river Potowmack.” The second county was Frederick as shown on Figure 4. Augusta residents continued to use Orange County courthouse for their business until 1745 when the first Augusta courthouse was established at Beverley’s Mill Place in present-day Staunton.(32j See Figure 5 for a list o f the first Augusta County officials. After 1745, the Augusta County courthouse became a very busy place. A recent article about civil litigation in the county during the years 1745-1755 tells that there were a documented 1,376 small-claims lawsuits during that decade, with James Patton be­ ing involved in 43 percent o f them. This THE FIRST OFFICIALS OF AUGUSTA COUNTY, article describes the quite efficient work­ IK DECEMBER 9 ,1 7 4 5 . JOHN LEW IS, PRESIDING JU ST IC E . ings o f law and government in a frontier GABRIEL JO N E S , THE KING’S ATTORNEY. Virginia county immediately after the JO H N MADISON, CLERK OF COURT. THOMAS LEW IS, COLONIAL SURVEYOR. great Virginia land grab.(33) JA M E S PA T T ON, HIGH SHERIFF. The historian Turk McCleskey has WILLIAM BEVERLEY, written that the creation o f a politically DONOR OF SIT E F OR COURT HOUSE. € t «jrcciie«? A y ik * flevrr/ey JK u io r C hm vpiev * stable Virginia “ .. .the Augusta settle­ o f jt h t HwcyArfer’y» f t h e AHfrtoan J ment represents one o f the most ingenious 1901. frontier policies in British North America, for it ensured that Virginia’s periphery was as stable as its core.” (34) Men on the Virginia frontier wanted stable and reli­ Figure 5. The 1901 Daughters o f the American Revolution able county government for the principal plaque on the wall inside Augusta courthouse citing the reason that such a government guaranteed earliest officials o f Augusta County. (Image by the author) their right to acquire, hold and sell land. V Robert Beverly, James Patton and the Opening of Western Virginia The men who would open western Virginia arrived at about the time o f the creation o f Augusta County. Figure 5 shows the names o f some o f them at the time o f Augusta’s first court sitting in 1745. John Lewis was the chief justice. Gabriel Jones was the King’s attorney. John Madison was the clerk of the court. Thomas Lewis (John’s son) was the first Augusta County surveyor. James Patton was a justice o f the pedce and the county’s first high sheriff. All o f these men would become prominent in the opening o f western Virginia along with many others, such as the explorer and land agent Thomas Walker, James Patton’s son-in-law John Buchanan, James Patton’s nephew William Preston, two brothers o f Augusta county’s first surveyor Andrew and William Lewis, and Alexander Breckinridge. James Patton came to Virginia to stay in 1740. He brought with him his sister Elizabeth, her husband John Preston, and their son, William Preston. The families settled on Beverley Manor. Wil­ liam Beverley (whose father had been a Knight o f the Golden Horseshoe) was awarded an adjacent 118,941-acre tract (called Beverley Manor) around modern-day Staunton. Beverley gave Patton a share o f the Beverley Manor tract, which was also called the Irish tract because o f the Irish settlers that Pat13 �ton encouraged to come there. For a decade earlier, Patton had worked as a ship’s captain in the transatlantic trade between Beverley’s dock at Tappahannock in Essex County and ports in Ireland and Scotland. It was through this trading (and likely smuggling) connection that Bever­ ley came to know and trust Patton. Through this Beverley connection, when the time came, Patton became a great western Virginia land owner and speculator. Along with his coauthor, this author has described these events in considerable depth. (35) Figure 6. The James Patton mannequin looking out Life on the early Virginia frontier revolved at the Shenandoah Valley on display in the Ulster around the business o f land. For example, Wil­ American Folk Park in Omagh, County Derry/Lonliam Preston went to work for Thomas Lewis donderry. (Picture by Diane Hoover, 2002) as a deputy surveyor while Preston was still a teenager. In 1745 James Patton got his own socalled “Great Grant” o f land. It was for 100,000 acres to be taken up piecemeal along a corridor between today’s Montgomery County and Kingsport. Patton boasted that he was the first man ever to own land on the western waters, meaning land drained by rivers that eventually flowed to the G ulf o f Mexico.(3<5) The only known image o f James Patton, in the form o f a mannequin at a museum in Northern Ireland, is shown in Figure 6. James Patton died in an Indian massacre at Drapers Meadows in Blacksburg in the summer o f 1755, leaving a wife and two daughters but no sons. Patton’s death was one o f the early events o f the French and Indian War. Figure 7 shows the brass plaque that records his demise. With his uncle James Patton’s death, William Preston at the age o f 26 took over his uncle’s land business and became a deputy surveyor o f Augusta County. From the time that his uncle died and for the rest o f his life, William Preston became deeply and completely involved in western Virginia land ownership, land surveying, land speculation and leadership roles in first Augusts County and then its many successor counties until the year o f his death in 1783. Preston is thus a central figure in the development o f Anglo-America as manifested by the counties of western Virginia. This author’s article “William Preston the Surveyor” views Preston’s life through the prism o f Virginia’s vast stock o f western land and Preston’s land-related activities.(37) In addition to this author’s writings about William Preston, he knows o f four extended works about Preston, the first o f which has remained unknown until he discovered it in late 201 6.(38) The only known likeness o f William Preston is shown in Figure 8. This image was at one point in the office o f F.B. Kegley, and comes from page 235 o f his book .(39) However, neither the authenticity o f the portrait nor its provenance are known, according to someone who knew Kegley .(40) William Preston’s spectacularly successful three-decade career has been largely neglected by conventional Virginia history .(41) For example, until recently he was entirely missing from the online Encyclopedia Vir­ Figure 8. The only known ginia, and is presently found solely as the recipient o f a June 15, 1780, let­ image attributed to William ter from Governor Thomas Jefferson published in Founders Online at the Preston, 1729-1783. U.S. National Archives. William Preston is embarrassingly absent from the 14 �Figure 7. The Daughters o f the Ameri­ can Revolution marker recording the death o f James Patton is located about midway between the Smithfield Planta­ tion and the Virginia Tech Duck Pond. The text reads: “To Colonel James Pat­ ton and pioneers who lost their lives in the Drapers Meadow Massacre, July — 1755. Erected by the Allegheny Chap­ ter D.A. R., Blacksburg, 1938.” (Author’s picture) 2002 book “Bound Away: Virginia and the Westward Movement,” coauthored by historian David Hack­ ed Fischer and published by the Virginia Historical Society.(42) Fischer also totally missed Preston in his earlier book “Albion’s Seed,” in which Fischer devoted 178 pages to emigrants to western Virginia in a section titled “Borderlands to the Backcountry.” (¥3) In this section o f “Albion’s Seed,” Fischer com­ mitted the hard-to-believe sin o f misplacing Staunton from the Shenandoah Valley to the Rappahannock River. Latter-day critics have strongly challenged “Albion’s Seed” on multiple grounds. For example, in 2007, Rodger Cunningham wrote: “Sixteen years ago we Appalachian scholars thought we had D.H. Fischer sewed up, and in fact ‘Albion’s Seed’ did disappear from the radar screen for most o f the inter­ vening time. But now, thanks to the blogosphere and Amazon.com, it’s been raised from the grave in the Grand Récit o f Hillbilly Depravity.”(44) Why did the British government allow the great Virginia land grab o f Orange and Augusta coun­ ties shown in Figures 3 and 4 to happen? It was allowed because o f what historians call the policy of salutary neglect. This British policy turned a blind eye to the enforcement o f parliamentary laws passed to keep American colonies obedient to England. In particular, the administration o f Prime Minister Rob­ ert Walpole did not enforce the Navigation Acts that were intended to regulate American trade. In Lon­ don, the Board o f Trade, which was the British agency for regulating the colonies, adopted a decidedly relaxed attitude and the colonial governors were allowed a free hand. In effect, England left the colonists to govern themselves — and they soon began to do it quite well. A significant step along the path to American independence and evidence o f salutary neglect oc­ curred in 1754 with the Albany Congress. Under the inspired leadership o f Benjamin Franklin, commis­ sioners from seven o f the thirteen colonies met in Congress in Albany, New York, to consider a “plan of union.” The Congress showed perhaps the first glimmerings o f what the colonies might achieve if they acted in concert. A decade later, the ending o f the policy o f salutary neglect became a large contributing factor that led to cooperation among the colonies and to the American Revolutionary War.(45) New Western Counties Delayed by the French and Indian War and the 1763 Proclamation For the American colonies and particularly for western counties in Virginia, two important defin­ ing events o f the m id-18th century were the French and Indian War (the North American part o f the Seven Years War) and the 1763 Royal Proclamation. Augusta County had been created in 1738. It was •75» ■ �not until 1769 when Virginia had been swept up in a revolutionary fervor, before a new western Virgin­ ian county was created. The two defining events help explain why it took 31 years to create a successor county to Augusta. The French and Indian War (which was part o f a worldwide clash between the British and French empires) was called the first World War by no less an Anglo-American luminary than Winston Churchill. (46) It began in western Pennsylvania at Fort Necessity on July 3, 1754, when George Washington be­ gan a fight with the French .(47) From the perspective o f this article, the significance o f the war was the many-year chaos it caused on the Virginia frontier as the French and Indians contested the British for the Ohio Country. The literature o f the war is extensive. (45) During the French and Indian War, William Preston served as a ranger and builder o f frontier forts. The October 7,1763, Royal Proc­ lamation o f King George 111(49) was intended to provide a management plan for the newly acquired British North American empire in the wake o f the 1763 Treaty o f Paris that concluded the war. The proclamation intended to create ad­ ministrative regions in North America by which Britain could organize and control its newly acquired half a billion acres o f territory to the north, west, and south o f its thirteen American colonies. It is easy to forget just how conse­ quential the year 1763 was for the future Anglo-America. As a result o f the 1763 Figure 9. The Proclamation Line o f 1763 ran along the eastern continental divide separating the headwaters o f the treaty, Canada and the entire present-day United States east o f the Mississippi came rivers that: 1. went to the Atlantic Ocean; and 2. went to under British control. “At the Treaty of the Gulf o f Mexico via the Mississippi River. Paris, the French and Indian War ended, and King George III gained clear title to more territory than had ever been exchanged in any other war before or since.”(50) From the point o f view o f western Virginia, the key language o f the 1763 proclamation reads: “ [No] Governor or Commander in Chief in any o f our Colonies ... [shall] grant Warrants o f Survey, or pass Patents for any Lands beyond the Heads or Sources o f any o f the Rivers which fall into the Atlan­ tic Ocean from the West and North W est....” I.e. land holding beyond the eastern continental divide (shown in Figure 9) was forbidden. The Proclamation o f 1763 had a sharp effect on the land companies that were competing for land to sell to private buyers in western Virginia and to Virginia’s west .(51) The early Augusta land specu­ lators had been involved in land companies. For example, James Patton was a member o f the Wood’s River Company, formed around 1746. Thomas Lee o f Virginia’s northern neck created the Ohio Com­ pany in 1747. The 1748 Loyal Company had John Lewis, Thomas Walker, Joshua Fry and Peter Jeffer­ son as principals. In 1751 John Robinson formed the Greenbrier Company to market his 100,000 acres o f land in what is now southern West Virginia; John Lewis and his son, Andrew, made surveys for the Greenbrier Company. Later, after the French and Indian War and despite the Proclamation Line, wealthy men on both sides o f the Atlantic maneuvered to participate in syndicates such as the Indiana, Missis- 16 �sippi, Transylvania and Vandalia Companies. The history o f these land companies is closely connected to the growth o f Virginia’s counties because o f the need to title land through the courthouses. (52) While the “big” people participated in the land companies after the war in their attempts to profit from land fever, the “little” people simply headed west, ignoring King George. The situation has been well explained by the office o f the Historian o f the U.S. State Department: (53) The British won vast territory in North America after the Seven Years’ War, but with it came numerous problems o f how to govern it. British officials were unable to bal­ ance the interests o f colonists and Indians, and these conflicts led to colonial dissat­ isfaction with imperial rule and ultimately to the causes o f the American Revolution. ... With the official end o f the war, Anglo-American colonists began to pour over the Appalachian Mountains in search o f land. Many o f these settlers had no official claim to the land as local Indians had made no land cessions, and in many cases, the land was claimed by private land companies. The Virginia elite had invested heav­ ily in these companies in an attempt to diversify their holdings outside o f the volatile tobacco market and thus had an interest in pressing the British Government to address ensuing tensions. The settlement o f the lands west o f the Appalachians brought inevitable tension and conflict between settlers and indigenous peoples. British military officials at­ tempted to halt settlement but eager settlers and land speculators ignored their direc­ tives. With the military unwilling to forcibly remove settlers from the lands, AngloAmerican colonists continued to migrate west and lay claim to these lands. The Revolutionary Movement in Virginia and the Creation of Botetourt County The great British victory over the French in North America in 1763 created a British North American empire. Only a brief 12 years elapsed before the Revolution began in Massachusetts in April 1775 that led to the British loss o f much o f that same North American empire. Those intervening 12 years saw an amazing change in attitudes towards the king and parliament among colonial Americans. The historical literature about the origins o f the Revolutionary War is o f course enormous and covers events such as the Sugars Act (1764), the Stamp Act (1765), the Townshend Revenue Acts (1767), the Boston massacre (1770), Boston Tea Party (1773) and the Intolerable Acts (1774-1775). Amongst this extensive literature, Woody Holton has argued that Virginia’s deteriorating relations with the American Indians o f Ohio provided Virginians’ impetus for revolution.(54) Harry Ward provided a good summary o f the causes of the American Revolution in his 1999 book. (55) An enlightening dis­ cussion o f the revolutionary movement in Virginia and the forces that caused the creation o f Botetourt County comes from the historian Marc Egnal who places the expansionists in the counties o f Virginia’s Northern Neck and the nonexpansionists in the lower James River watershed: Between 1763 and 1776 Virginia’s expansionists led the resistance to Britain, while the nonexpansionists proved to be reluctant patriots. The outlook that had guided the expansionists before 1763 shaped the party’s response to British measures and to the closely associated problems o f the postwar depression. As a result o f their strong desire to control the upper Ohio Valley, these factionalists had become willing to take firm steps to assert the colony’s rights. Moreover, their involvement with the west had strengthened their belief in America’s cornucopian future, a faith that would be evident during the 1760s and 1770s. By contrast, the nonexpansionists were more in­ clined to weigh the costs o f tackling such formidable enemies as the Indians, French, or British. Farther removed from the Ohio Valley than were the Northern Neckers, •77* �Figure 10. The original Botetourt County was created in 1769 from the lower and western half of Au­ gusta County. these men had been less enticed during the 1740s and 1750s by the rewards o f bold action and continued to evince the same attitudes in the conflict with Britain. The activities o f the two factions after 1763 were focused by three major episodes: the Stamp Act crisis, the nonimportation association against the Townshend Acts, and the events from the Boston Tea Party to Independence. (56) In his 1980 paper, Egnal concludes: This interpretation of the origins o f the Revolution argues that an expansionist out­ look, rather than the grievances o f the disenfranchised or Whig ideas, guided the patriots. This expansionist ideology was bom o f self-interest and was well formed by 1763. In Virginia these attitudes emerged from the pressing need o f the planters living near the Potomac River and along the Blue Ridge Mountains to deal with the encroachments o f the French and Indians. Such a world-view, as voiced by men like George Washington, Richard Henry Lee, and George Mason, had at its center the willingness to take bold steps to promote a prosperous, sovereign America. The out­ look encompassed a belief in the richness o f the trans montane west and an abiding concern for the health o f the colonial economy. More generally, this paradigm sug­ gests that in every colony the leaders o f the struggle against Britain were motivated not by disembodied fears but by their vision o f America’s bountiful future. In May 1769 growing revolutionary sentiment among Virginians and their resentment o f British taxes was expressed in the secret “Resolves o f the House o f Burgesses.” These four resolves maintained • 18 • �that: 1. “That the sole Right o f imposing Taxes on the Inhabitants o f this his Majesty’s Colony and Domin­ ion o f Virginia, is now, and ever hath been, legally and constitutionally vested in the House o f Burgesses”; 2. “[I]t is the undoubted Privilege o f the Inhabitants o f this Colony, to petition their Sovereign for Redress o f Griev­ ances”; 3. That trials o f Virginians be held in Virginia and not in England; and 4. That “any Person residing in America, suspected o f any Crime whatsoever, [will be tried by] the ancient and long established Course o f Proceeding.”^ 7) In November 1769 the General Assembly cre­ ated Botetourt County by setting off about half o f the 31-year-old Augusta County as a newly created county. See Figure 7 for a map o f the new county. One imagines that the creation o f Botetourt in 1769 was an act o f defi­ ance comparable the Virginia Resolves o f May o f that year. William Preston became the surveyor o f Bote­ tourt County in 1769; he had moved to the Greenfield plantation in the county nine years earlier in 1760 in Figure 11. Map showing the territory o f Que­ anticipation o f Botetourt becoming separate from Au­ bec created by the Quebec Act o f 1774.(59) gusta. Although the creation o f Botetourt County has not traditionally been considered to be a revolutionary action by historians, seen in the light o f this article it can now be so considered. Part o f the 1769 language creating Botetourt County reads: Whereas many inconveniencies attend the inhabitants o f the county and parish o f Au­ gusta, by reason o f the great extent thereof, and the said inhabitants have petitioned this general assembly that the said county and parish may be divided: Be it therefore enacted, by the Governor, Council, and Burgesses, o f this present General Assembly, and it is hereby enacted, by the authority o f the same, That from and after the thirtyfirst day o f January next ensuing, the said county and parish o f Augusta be divided into two counties and parishes, [the new part be] called and known by the name o f Botetourt; and that all the other part thereof, which is on the north side o f the said line, shall be one other distinct county and parish, and retain the name o f Augusta. While the Virginians were dividing Augusta County as shown in Figure 10, the British had markedly different ideas about the political geography o f western Virginia. The map in Figure 11 shows the newly expanded region o f British Quebec extending far down into the Virginia back country. For the Virginians, it was arguably the Quebec Act that became the final straw in determining they would join the Revolution. The Historian o f the U.S. State Department writes: “The Quebec Act angered the Virginia elite, since most o f the western lands they claimed were now officially part o f Quebec or in the Indian reserve. The act, which was passed at the same time as legislation placing Massachusetts under crown control, also fueled resentment among Calvinist New Englanders, who saw in its autocratic, proCatholic provisions further evidence o f an imperial conspiracy against colonial liberties.’Y5S,) 19 �Figure 12. Fincastle County was created in 1772 from the lower half o f Botetourt County. Figure 13. Fincastle County was abolished in 1776 and divided into three new counties: Kentucky, Montgomery, and Washington. The Rush of Western Counties after Botetourt With the dam broken by the formation o f Botetourt County in 1769, the creation o f further western Virginia counties quickly followed. Thus, in 1772 Botetourt County itself was divided, with the lower portion o f Botetourt being taken to create the short-lived Fincastle County. (60) This division is shown in Figure 12. Around 1773, William Preston moved from his Greenfield plantation in Botetourt County to the Smithfield plantation in Fincastle County as Fincastle’s surveyor, where he held that office for four years. Part o f the 1772 language creating Fincastle County reads: Whereas it is represented to this present general assembly, by the inhabitants and settlers on the waters o f Holston and New River, in the county o f Botetourt, that they labour under great inconveniencies, by reason o f the extent o f the said county, and their remote situation from the courthouse: Be it therefore enacted, by the Governor, Council, and Burgesses, o f this present General Assembly, and it is hereby enacted, by the authority of the same, That from and after the first day o f December next, the said counties, that is to say, all that part o f the said county, within a line, to run up the east side o f New River to the mouth o f Culbertson’s creek, thence a direct line to the Catawba road, where it crosses the dividing ridge, between the north fork o f Roanoke and the waters o f New River, thence with the top o f the ridge to the bent where it turns eastwardly, thence a south course, crossing Little River, to the top o f the Blue Ridge o f mountains, shall be established as one distinct county, and called and known by the name o f Fincastle; and all that other part thereof, which lies to the east and north east o f the said line, shall be one other distinct county, and retain the name o f Botetourt. Just four years after its creation, in 1776, Fincastle County was abolished by being replaced by the three new counties o f Kentucky, Montgomery, and Washington. (61) In 1776 the Revolutionary War was on, American independence had been declared, and the names o f two o f the three new counties were taken from American patriots: George Washington for one, and Richard Montgomery for a second. Montgomery (1738-1775) was an Irish-born soldier who was killed fighting as a major-general in the 20 �continental army during a failed attempt by the American colonies to invade Canada. The three counties that replaced Fincastle are shown in Figure 13. Part o f the 1776 language abolishing Fincastle County reads: Whereas, from the great extent o f the county o f Fincastle, many inconveniencies at­ tend the more distant inhabitants thereof, on account o f their remote situation from the courthouse o f the said county, and many o f the said inhabitants have petitioned this present general assembly for a division o f the same: Fincastle county divided and Kentucky, Washington, and Montgomery formed; and Fincastle become extinct. William Preston remained at the Smithfield plantation when that part o f Fincastle County was converted to Montgomery County. Preston was the surveyor o f Montgomery County from 1776 until his death in 1783. Virginia’s final fling at gaining a big western county was Illinois County. This high point of Virginia’s western county formation was reached on July 4, 1778, when during his northwest campaign General George Rogers Clark claimed Illinois for Virginia, in territory that was nominally part o f Que­ bec under the terms o f the 1774 Quebec Act. In October, the Virginia General Assembly adopted “An Act for establishing the county o f Illinois.” As created, Illinois County was contiguous with the coun­ ties o f Augusta and Botetourt and the enabling act specifically stated that the western border o f Illinois County was the Mississippi River. (62) Kentucky County, Virginia, eventually became the state o f Kentucky and thus two states, Ken­ tucky and Illinois, began their lives as Virginia counties. The avidity o f Virginians in seeking western land happened during the rule o f George III and continued under the leadership o f George Washington. By the time o f the Revolutionary War, ordinary men and women could plainly see the promise o f the west. Here is a quote from the final royal governor o f Virginia, Lord Dunmore, writing to the Board o f Trade about the wanderlust o f the settlers: But My Lord I have learnt from experience that the established authority o f any gov­ ernment in America, and the policy o f government at home, are both insufficient to restrain the Americans; and that they do and will remove as their avidity and restless­ ness incite them. They acquire no attachment to place. But wandering about seems engrafted in their nature; and it is a weakness incident to it, that they should for ever imagine the lands further off are still better than those upon which they are already settled. (63) New States and Counties in the Young American Republic Already by 1770, the rutted wagon road traversing southwest Virginia was the most heavily trav­ eled route in all America. In the decades following independence, hundreds o f thousands o f Virginians moved westward to newly created states, carrying with them their culture and their political institutions and creating new court houses modeled on the Virginia system. This movement shaped America. Argu­ ably, William Preston was the most significant single person in making the thoroughfare possible. In terms o f the numbers, in 1781 at the end o f the American Revolution Virginia had 67 counties and at the end o f the 18th century in 1800 it had 79. After the Revolution had been won, representatives o f the original thirteen states met in Philadel­ phia to negotiate the arrangements for a United States and make the necessary compromises needed to create a constitution. It is all too easy today to overlook what an incredible miracle it was for the original states to eventually agree on the language o f the Constitution and to get that Constitution ratified. Many states other than Virginia made claims to western lands and much negotiation was required to develop •21 • �the land concessions o f the original thirteen states to the about-to-be-created federal government. Virginia’s land ces­ sion was enormous, and consisted o f most o f the original Orange County. (65) In the decades following the ratifica­ tion o f the Constitution in 1787, hundreds o f thousands o f Virginians moved west­ ward to newly created states carrying with them their culture and their court­ houses. This movement built America. As shown in Figure 14, by 1803, three new states (Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee) all contiguous to Virginia had come into existence. By 1845, eight new states (Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama) further from Virginia had come into existence. All o f these new states benefited from the export o f the Virginians’ cultural legacy through their laws and political institutions, and especially in their methods o f county government and land titling. Modem America has 3,007 counties.(66) As shown by the shaded region in Figure 15, about 1,000 o f those counties are quite literally on land originally encompassed by the original 1734 Orange County. Perhaps another thousand counties in the eastern half o f the nation were created under the influ­ ence o f Virginia’s cultural legacy and its system o f county government. Those additional 1,000 coun­ ties are located in states such as Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri and Kansas which all have county court houses that follow the Virginia tradition. The existence o f these counties and their courthouses is why this author has termed western Virginia a “Thoroughfare o f Nation Building.” O f all Virginians, it was William Preston who played a central role in creating this thoroughfare. Discussion Virginia history is traditionally told from a Tidewater perspective. Virginia Tech historian Peter Wallenstein has written, in a paper that deserves to be widely read and titled “The Grinch That Stole Southern History,” that southern history has been “hijacked too long” by white men from eastern Vir­ ginia. He posits that the entire South can perhaps recapture its history by taking a perspective from the mountains west o f the Blue Ridge, while simultaneously allowing the plantation country view to reduce to life siz e.(67) Wallenstein’s view (which has much influenced the present author) is that the “rhetoric o f south­ ern history, the language o f southern politicians and southern historians alike, has, as a rule, implied that white people in the low country had a franchise on the appellation “southerners,” and by catering to “white men living in the Piedmont or the Tidewater,” write their history to leave out many people and thereby distort what was going on. As an antidote, Wallenstein proposes that we view southern history instead from Mount Rogers, the highest point in Virginia, Clingmans Dome, the highest in Tennessee, or Mount Mitchell, the highest peak in North Carolina. Each is on or west o f the Blue Ridge and on or near the Appalachian Trail; each is more than a mile above sea level. With such a view, the South can be seen from a mountain perspective somewhere west o f the Blue Ridge. 22 �Figure 15. Modern-day coun­ ties that were in the original territory o f the 1734 Orange County, Virginia. In this context, southwest Virginia can be seen for what it was: the gateway for one o f America’s most important internal migrations and the key geographic link in the process o f nation-building dur­ ing the early years o f the Republic. Indeed, as Wallenstein has pointed out, the region played that role at a time when many doubted a republican form o f government could effectively administer such a vast extent o f territory. This author has emphasized here that the counties o f western Virginia were the vehicle and mod­ el for the transmission o f Anglo-American culture to much o f the rest o f the nation. One can conclude that William Preston literally shaped America through his work as a surveyor while he metaphorically shaped America through his personal leadership and the family dynasty he founded. William Preston’s life stands as a paradigm o f the Ulster American heritage in America. The Virginia system o f county government as exemplified by the life of William Preston built an American empire that led eventually to the triumph o f Anglo-America as a dominant force in the modem world. Postscript In 1812 the Anglo-American cousins reprised the Revolutionary War in a conflict that ended with British defeat at New Orleans by an army led by future U.S. President Andrew Jackson. From then on, through most o f the 19th century, relations moderated between the cousins and they largely went thenown ways, with the Americans fighting a Civil War and undergoing reconstruction, while the British retained Canada and built an empire in South Africa, India and elsewhere around the world. By the end o f the 19th century, it had become clear that the social and political objectives o f the cousins were converging. They now shared democratic ideals and institutions that counterbalanced the rising autocracies in Europe, and took note o f their common history. This was a time o f rapprochement •23 • �in Anglo-America, during which the cousins achieved cordiality and a largely shared foreign policy. Then, in the 20th century, America serving as the arsenal o f democracy, enabled allied European powers, with Britain at their lead, to twice win World Wars in 1914-1918 for the British and 1917-18 for the Americans, and 1939-45 for the British and 1941-45 for the Americans. It is hardly putting it too strongly to say that in both these wars the Americans saved their British cousins. After the second World War, the Anglo-American cousins shared an interest in institutions such as the North American Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United Nations (UN). By the end o f the 20th century, Anglo-America had achieved the dominant status described in the opening section o f this article. History will record where Anglo-America goes in the 21st century and beyond. Acknowledgments Thanks to Brent Tarter, Warren Billings and Luther Brice who read and criticized earlier drafts o f this article. The misinterpretations, mistakes and errors that remain here are solely the responsibility o f the author. Thanks to George Kegley for encouraging the author to convert what began as an after-dinner talk into a formal written article. Thanks to the staff o f the interlibrary loan office at Virginia Tech’s Newman Library for excellent service and for their desktop delivery service. Thanks to Newman Library for providing access to online materials and databases. Thanks to Kasey Campbell for ongoing helpful discussions. Last, but not least, particular thanks to my wife, Deena Flinchum, for her strong and con­ tinuing support. Endnotes 1. First presented on November 18, 2016 in Fincastle, Virginia, as a talk with the title “William Preston and the Making of America” at the 10th Founders Day dinner of the Botetourt County Historical Society celebrating the 50th anniversary o f the Society. Talk on line at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJUYMlLELbE. 2. Phillips, Kevin. The Cousins’ WarsB- Religion, Politics, & the Triumph o f Anglo-America. New York: Basic Books, 1999. See also Phillips’s videotaped lecture about this book made on May 7, 2001 at The Gilder Lehrman Institute, New York City, and on line at http://vimeo.com/26060564. 3. The Cromwellian Constitution was called the “The Instrument o f Government” and dated January 2,1654. It consisted of 42 clauses and 4,500 words. It is on line at www.olivercromwell.org/protectorate/protectorate_5.html. Accessed April 2017. Like the later American Constitution, the Instrument o f Government provided for rule without a king. 4. Wormuth, Francis D. The Origins of Modem Constitutionalism. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949. Wolfrum, Rudiger and Rainer Grote. Constitutions of the Countries of the World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. 5. “The most spoken languages.” Accessed January 2017. https://www.statista.com/statistics/266808/the-most-spoken-languages-worldwide/. Adam Huttner-Koros. “The Hidden Bias o f Science’s Universal Language.” Atlantic Magazine, August 21, 2015. Lawrence H. Summers. “The 21st Century Education.” New York Times, January 22,2012. Alfred Thompson. Why Are All Programming Languages in English?” Microsoft Blog, accessed January 2017. https://blogs.msdnmicrosoft.com/. Jean K. Chalaby. “Journalism as an Anglo-American Invention.” European Journal o f Communication, September 1,1996. 6. Glanville, Jim. “Western Virginia Shaped America.” Roanoke Times, Thursday September 13,2012,15. 7. Creative commons license. Image at https://upload.wikimedia.Org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/EnglandTraditionalBlank.png. 8. Morris, Marc. The Norman Conquest. New York: Pegasus Books, distributed by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2013. 9. Garnett, George. “Conquered England, 1066-1215.” In The Oxford Illustrated History o f Medieval England Nigel Saul, editor, 61-101. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. See also Stephen Baxter, Domesday a Documentary, directed by Anrea Illescas, BBC 2010 and on line at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrwUpjK_4sk. 10. For comparison, modem Virginia has an area o f 42,775 square miles and contains 95 counties and 38 independent cities. 11. The author has acquired considerable familiarity with the electronic land tax records o f Monroe County, West Virginia in connection with studies o f the burial site of Virginia Governor John Floyd and his wife Letitia Preston Floyd. 12. Glanville-Richards, William. Records o f the Anglo-Norman House of Glanville from A.D. 1050 to 1880. London: Mitch­ ell and Hughes, 1882. 13. Smith, Lacey Baldwin. This Realm o f England 1399 to 1688. Boston: D. C. Heath and Company, 1966. The quote comes from page 171. 24 �14. Willcox, William B., and Walter L. Amstein, The Age o f Aristocracy: 1688-1820, sixth ed. Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath and Company, 1992. This paragraph draws heavily from pp. 83-84. 15. Robinson, Morgan P. “Virginia Counties,” Bulletin o f the Virginia State Library 9 (1916): 1-283. Hiden, Martha W. How Justice Grew: Virginia Counties Mi-An Abstract of their Formation. Williamsburg: The Virginia 350th Anniversary Celebra­ tion Corporation, 1957. 16. Long, John H. ed., Atlas o f Historical County Boundaries. Chicago: The Newberry Library, 2010. The historical Virginia county boundaries file is at http://publications.newberry.org/ahcbp/downloads/states.html as Va_Historical_Counties.pdf. Ac­ cessed April 2017. 17. Glanville, Jim. “The Siting of Smithfield in Relation to the Fincastle/Botetourt County Line,” Smithfield Review 15 (2011): 95-100. 18. On line at https://www.mapofiis.org/virginia/. Accessed January 2017. The Virginia maps shown here are made with the computer program Animap Plus 3.0, and used at this web site by permission of the Goldbug Company. 19. List of Counties in Virginia. Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_counties_in_Virginia. 20. List o f Counties in West Virginia. Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_counties_in_West_Virginia. 21. Dunmore County (named for the then Governor) was renamed Shenandoah County six years after its formation. 22. Billings, Warren M. “The Growth of Political Institutions in Virginia, 1634 to 1676.” The William and Mary Quarterly, 31(2) (1974): 225-242. Billings, Warren M., ed. The Old Dominion in the Seventeenth Century: A Documentary History of Virginia, 1606-1689. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press (Published for the Omohundro Institute o f Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia), 1975. Billings, Warren M., ed. The Old Dominion in the Seventeenth Century: A Documentary History o f Virginia, 1606-1700. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press (Published for the Omohundro Institute o f Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia), revised, retitled, and expanded edition 2007. See also Porter, Albert Ogden. County Government in Virginia, A Legislative History, 1607-1904. New York: Colum­ bia University Press, 1947. 23. Billings, Warren M., and Brent Tarter, eds., “Esteemed Bookes of Lawe” and the Legal Culture of Early Virginia. Charlot­ tesville: University of Virginia Press, 2017. 24. Billings, 2007, 87. 25. W.S. Long. “James Barbour.” In John P. Branch Historical Papers o f Randolph-Macon College, 4 (1914), 34-64. The quote comes from page 44. 26. Glanville, Jim. “The Long History o f Justices o f the Peace.” Christiansburg News-Messenger, Wednesday 20 April 2016, 4-5. 27. Alexander, Edward P., ed. The Journal o f John Fontaine: An Irish Huguenot Son in Spain and Virginia, 1710-1719. Wil­ liamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1972. For a biography o f Spotswood see Richard L. Morton. Colonial Virginia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960 (Published for the Virginia Historical Society), volume 1 pp. 1-408, volume 2 pp. 409-883. Chapters 1-8 (pp. 409-485) in volume 2 are about Spotswood. Morton’s biography derives mainly from Dodson, Leonidas. Alexander Spotswood: Governor o f Colonial Virginia 1710-1722. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1932. 28. Spotswood, Alexander. Letter to the Board o f Trade August 14,1718, in The Official Letters of Alexander Spotswood, Lieutenant-governor o f the Colony of Virginia, 1710-1722: Now First Printed from the Manuscript in the Collections of the Virginia Historical Society, vol. 2, ed. Robert Alonzo Brock. Richmond: Virginia Historical Society, 1882, 295. 29. “An Act for Erecting the Counties of Spotsylvania and Brunswick.” Passed by the General Assembly in Williamsburg, November 1720. In The Statutes at Large: being a collection of all the laws o f Virginia, 1711-1736, volume 4, p. 77-79. Wil­ liam Waller Hening, ed. Charlottesville: Jamestown Foundation and the University ofVirginia 1969, [1823]. Also transcribed by Freddie L. Spradlin at www.vagenweb.org/hening/vol04-04.htm. Accessed January 2017. For a recent biography of Hen­ ing see: Hening, R. Neil. “A Handbook for All: William Waller Hening’s The New Virginia Justice,” pp. 179-194 in Warren M. Billings, and Brent Tarter, eds., “Esteemed Bookes of Lawe” and the Legal Culture of Early Virginia. Charlottesville: University ofVirginia Press, 2017. 30. “An Act for dividing Spotsylvania County.” Passed at the General Assembly in Williamsburg, August 1734. In Hening The Statutes at Large. At www.vagenweb.org/hening/vol04-23.htm. Accessed January 2017. 31. “An Act, for Erecting two new Counties [Augusta and Frederick], and Parishes; and granting certain encouragements to the Inhabitants thereof.” Passed at the General Assembly in Williamsburg, November 1738. In Hening The Statutes at Large. At www.vagenweb.org/hening/vol05-05.htm. Accessed January 2017. 32. Sorrels, Nancy. “History of Augusta County, VA.” On line at www.augusta.va.us/about-augusta-county/welcome/history. Accessed January 2017. 33. Tinni Sen, Turk McCleskey, and Atin Basuchoudhary, “When Good Little Debts Went Bad: Civil Litigation on the Vir­ ginia Frontier, 1745-1755.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 46, no. 1 (2015): 60-89. 34. McCleskey, Turk. “Rich Land, Poor Prospects: Real Estate and the Formation of a Social Elite in Augusta County, Vir- 25 �ginia, 1738-1770.” The Virginia Magazine o f History and Biography 98 (1990): 449-486. 35. Glanville Jim, and Ryan Mays. “William Beverly, James Patton, and the Settling of the Shenandoah Valley.” Essex County Museum and Historical Society Bulletin, 55 (2010): 1-5. Glanville Jim, and Ryan Mays. “The Mysterious Origins of James Patton. Part 1.” Smithfield Review, 15 (2011): 35-64. 36. The author lives in Blacksburg, Virginia, on a piece o f James Patton’s Great Grant land that was originally sold in 1755 by Patton to William Leppard. 37. Glanville, Jim. “William Preston the Surveyor and the Great Virginia Land Grab.” Smithfield Review, 17 (2013): 43-74. 38. Eisenlohr, David O. “The Career o f William Preston,” MS Thesis, The Rice Institute, Houston, Texas, June, 1950. Tuttle, Bruce, D. “Colonel William Preston, 1729-1783.” MS thesis, Virginia Tech 1971. Johnson, Patricia Givens. William Preston and the Allegheny Patriots. Blacksburg, Virginia: Walpa Publishing, 1976. Osborn, Richard Charles, “William Preston of Virginia, 1727-1783: The Making of a Frontier Elite.” Ph.D. Diss. University of Maryland, College Park, 1990, electronically reprinted piecemeal in the Journal of Backcountry Studies 2(2): 2007, 3(1): 2007, and 3(2): 2008. 39. Kegley, Frederick B. Kegley’s Virginia Frontier, the beginning o f the southwest, the Roanoke of colonial days. Roanoke: Southwest Virginia Historical Society, 1938. 40. Kegley, Mary. Email message to the author June 2009. 41. Glanville, Jim. “The Neglected William Preston,” Roanoke Times, Friday August 8,2014, 7. This article includes the es­ timate that Preston’s inventoried net worth in modem terms, principally consisting o f slaves and land, amounted to a remark­ able $70 million and wrote: “Why [is William Preston] so neglected? There is no single answer. The traditional prejudice of Virginia historians against the western part of the state and Preston’s early death are two factors. Among Scotch-Irish histori­ ans, he is perhaps overlooked because his success story does not fit their fightin’ and feuding stereotype.” 42. Fischer, David H., and James C. Kelly. Bound Away: Virginia and the Westward Movement. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2000. 43. Fischer, David H. Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. 44. Cunningham, Rodger. “Jane Smiley’s Divell Theorie.” Appalachian Heritage. 35 (2007): 65-71. The cited quote comes from page 70. 45. Beaumont, Andrew D. M. Colonial America and the Earl of Halifax, 1748-1761. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015, 137-150. “This book examines the governance o f British America in the period prior to the American Revolution. ... Con­ fronted by the Seven Years’ War, Halifax saw his plans and followers dissipate in the face of global conflict, the results of which established British America, and also sowed the seeds o f its eventual destruction in 1776.” Quote from publisher’s de­ scription o f the book. See also Hofstra, Warren R. “‘The Extention of His Majesties Dominions’: The Virginia Back Country and the Reconfiguration of Imperial Frontiers.” The Journal of American History, 84 (1998), 1281-1312. 46. Churchill, Winston S. The Great Republic: A History of America. New York: Random House, 1999. Chapter 5 devoted to the Seven Years War is titled “The First ‘World War.’” 47. Washington, George. The Journal o f Major George Washington: An Account o f his first official mission, made as an emissary from the Governor of Virginia to the Commandant of the French Forces on the Ohio, October 1753 - January 1754. Williamsburg, Virginia: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1959. 48. Anderson, Fred. The Crucible o f War: The Seven Years’War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766, New York: Vintage Books, 2001. Ward, Matthew. Breaking The Backcountry: Seven Years War in Virginia and Pennsylva­ nia 1754-1765. Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 2003. For many links the French and Indian War see Rickard, John. “Seven Years War (1756-1763),” in Military History Encyclopedia on the Web (24 October 2000). http://www.historyofwar. org/articles/wars_sevenyears.html. Accessed January 2017. 49. King George III. October 7, 1763, “By the King: A Proclamation.” Printed copy from 1765 at: http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/014001/fl/e008293577-v6.jpg._ Discussion, transcription and map at http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/ related/proc63.html. Both accessed January 2017. 50. Brown, Richard H., and Paul E. Cohen. Revolution: Mapping the Road to American Independence 1755-1783. New York; London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2015. 51. Del Papa, M. Eugene. “The Royal Proclamation of 1763: Its effect Upon the Virginia Land Companies.” Virginia Maga­ zine of History and Biography, 83 (1975): 406-411. 52. Bailey, Kenneth P. The Ohio Company o f Virginia and the Westward Movement, 1748-1792: A chapter in the history of the colonial frontier. Glendale, California: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1939. Friedenberg, Daniel M. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Land: The Plunder o f Early America. New York: Prometheus Books, 1992 (map o f land companies on page 110). Dunaway, Wilma A. The First American Frontier: Transition to Capitalism in Southern Appalachia, 1700-1860. Chapel HillUniversity of North Carolina Press, 1996. 53. Randolph, Stephen. Director, U. S. State Department Office of the Historian. “Proclamation Line of 1763, Quebec Act of 1774 and Westward Expansion.” On line at http://history.state.gov/milestones/1750-1775/ProclamationLinel763. Not dated; accessed January 2017. 26 �54. Holton, Woody. “The Ohio Indians and the Coming of the American Revolution in Virginia.” The Journal of Southern History, 60 (1994): 53-478. See also Woody Holton, Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves & the Making of the Ameri­ can Revolution in Virginia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press (Published for the Omohundro Institute o f Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia), 1999. 55. Ward, Harry M. The War for Independence and the Transformation o f American Society. London: UCL Press, 1999. 56. Egnal, Marc. “The Origins of the Revolution in Virginia: A Reinterpretation.” The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Se­ ries, 37 (1980): 401-428, the quote bridges pp. 416-417. See also Egnal, Marc. A Mighty Empire: The Origins of the Ameri­ can Revolution. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988. Second edition 2010 with unchanged text but a newly added preface. 57. The text of the Resolves o f 1769 is on line at http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/the-virginia-resolvesof-1769/ and a facsimile o f a published copy o f the Resolves is at http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/media_player7mets_ filename=evr3808mets.xml. Both accessed January 2017. 58. Randolph, “Proclamation Line o f 1763, Quebec Act o f 1774 and Westward Expansion.” 59. Chung, Connie, Hyun Ji Noh, and Jisoo Rim. Web site “The American Revolution, Period 2.” On line at https://hyunji47. wikispaces.com/file/view/quebecactl774_map.gif. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 License. 60. “An act for dividing the county o f Botetourt into two distinct counties.” Passed at the General Assembly in Williamsburg, February 1772. In Hening The Statutes at large. At www.vagenweb.org/hening/vol08-29.htm. Accessed January 2017. 61. “An act for dividing the county o f Fincastle into three distinct counties, and the parish o f Botetourt into four distinct parishes.” Passed at the General Assembly in Williamsburg, October 1776. In Hening The Statutes at large. At www.http:// vagenweb.org/hening/vol09-12.htm. Accessed January 2017. 62. Long, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries, in the downloadable file Va_Historical_Counties.pdf at page 321 out of 923 pages. See also: John Floyd and Neal O. Hammon, John Floyd: The Life and Letters of a Frontier Surveyor. Louisville, Ky.: Butler Books, 2013. Floyd acted as the supply agent for Clark’s northwest campaign and they exchanged letters. 63. Murray, John (Lord Dunmore). “Affairs in Virginia: The Indian Expedition,” Dunmore’s official report to Lord Dart­ mouth, December 1774. Reuben Gold Thwaites and Louise Phelps Kellogg, eds., Documentary History of Dunmore’s War. Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society, 1905, 268-395, quote at page 371. 64. Glanville, Jim. “Southwest Virginia: A Thoroughfare of Nation-Building.” Smithfield Review, 16 (2012): 77-124. 65. Grymes, Charlie. Virginia Places web site. “Virginia’s Cession o f the Northwest Territory.” http://www.virginiaplaces. org/boundaries/cessions.html. See also: No stated author. “Editorial Note: The Virginia Cession of Territory Northwest of the Ohio,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified December 28,2016, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-06-02-0419-0001. “Editorial Note: The Virginia Cession o f Territory Northwest of the Ohio,” Founders Online, Na­ tional Archives, last modified December 28,2016, http://foimders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-06-02-0419-0001.” Both accessed January 2017. 66. The Wikipedia estimate. 67. Wallenstein, Peter. “The Grinch That Stole Southern History: Anthem for an Appalachian Perspective.” The Smithfield Review, 4 (2000): 67-82. �/ê rtccut e 6e Ofr e tte d : *76e "P o frù vi 'pone& t P ‘ an& co& ef By Jack Gary Introduction homas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest, located in Bedford County, Virginia, was the third president’s plantation and private retreat. Jefferson received the property in 1773 as an inheritance from his father-in-law, John Wayles, and ran the 5,000-acre plantation as an absentee landowner during his many years o f public service. Using enslaved labor under the supervision o f white overseers the Poplar Forest plantation grew tobacco and wheat as the primary cash crops. In 1781 Jefferson came to Poplar Forest while evading capture by the British. While on the property he took the opportunity to begin writing the bulk o f his only published book, “Notes on the State o f Virginia.” During his presidency Jefferson began to consider building a house at Poplar Forest for use as a retreat during his retirement. In 1806, construction began on an octagonal brick structure near the center o f the plantation (Figure 1). Taking architectural cues from his favorite architect, Andrea Palladio, Jef­ ferson designed the house as a two-story structure sunken into the top o f a hill. By 1809, just in time for his retirement from the presidency, the house was finished enough for Jefferson to begin living in it. Over the next 14 years Jefferson travelled regularly to Poplar Forest, visiting several times a year and staying for a few weeks at a time. Here he found a place to get away from the pressures o f a lifetime o f public service and the social obligations o f Monticello. After 1816 he began to bring two o f his grand­ daughters with him on his trips to spend some private time with them. He also took side trips to nearby attractions such as Natural Bridge (which he owned) and the Peaks o f Otter (which he climbed twice at the age o f 72). After Thomas Jefferson’s death in 1826, the plantation and retreat house were given to Francis Eppes, Jefferson’s grandson. Finding it difficult to raise tobacco in the worn-out soils o f the plantation, Eppes sold the property and house to William Cobbs in 1828. Cobbs moved his own enslaved laborers onto the property and continued to grow wheat and tobacco on the plantation. In 1840, Cobbs’ daughter, Emma, married Edward Hutter, who soon assumed the role o f plantation manager. After emancipation, Hutter continued to run the farm utilizing African-American tenant farmers. By the early 20th century the property was in the ownership o f Edward’s son Christian Hutter who moved his family into Lynchburg while using Jefferson’s retreat house as a summer home. In 1946 the James Watts family purchased the property and occupied the house while running the property as a dairy farm. By the 1970s and early 1980s the majority o f the original Poplar Forest plantation had been sold for residential and commercial development. In 1983 the nonprofit Corporation for Jefferson’s Pop­ lar Forest was formed in order to purchase the retreat house and 50 acres o f land directly around it. Since that time the corporation has been able to acquire 617 acres o f the original plantation. The T Jack Gary is director o f archaeology and landscapes at Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest. •28• �Ipljlgg mStm [3 1 m l 1 ■is §1 «Pi Figure 1: The Poplar Forest retreat house. corporation has also worked towards restoring the retreat house to the original Jefferson-era appearance and has established a full-time ongoing archaeology department to conduct research on the lives o f the many different people who have occupied this important property. Today Poplar Forest is open to visi­ tors seven days a week for guided tours o f the house and grounds. Due to the development that has occurred around Poplar Forest, visitors’ access to the site can often be confusing. To alleviate the challenges o f finding this National Historic Landmark, Poplar Forest has designed a new entrance that will connect the main visitor area around Jefferson’s retreat house with a major Lynchburg thoroughfare known as Enterprise Drive. Referred to as the Poplar Forest Parkway, this new entrance road will bring visitors across 2.2 miles o f the original plantation before arriving near the retreat house (Figure 2). The Poplar Forest park­ way was designed to not only provide more convenient visitor access to the historic site and museum, but to also provide new interpretive opportunities that highlight aspects o f the plantation and natural his­ tory found on the property. The parkway itself was designed to lie lightly on the land, taking advantage o f the topography, vegetation and history o f the property to choreograph the visitor’s experience. The curves, design, speed and physical appearance o f the road itself take their cues from other parkway tradi­ tions, most notably the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Natchez Trace. A trail system will also complement the parkway, taking advantage o f the new corridor opened through the property to give visitors access to areas o f the original plantation for both educational and recreational purposes. Thomas Jefferson himself had planned to build a new road near this corridor, labeling on a map “new road to be opened to Lynchburg.” Along the course o f the new parkway and • 29• �Overlook Trailhead Parkway Trailhead 10-Acre Square Poplar Forest House Poplar Forest Parkway Figure 2: Conceptual plan drawing o f the Poplar Forest Parkway. the trail system will be interpretive signage and waysides that will interpret the people and landscapes o f this property from prehistoric occupation through the 20th century, with Thomas Jefferson and the enslaved people o f Poplar Forest receiving the primary focus. The route o f the parkway and trail system was designed by Rieley and Associates, a landscape architecture firm based in Charlottesville. The design was informed by historical research and a thorough survey o f archaeological resources along the route o f the road itself. This archaeological research has allowed Poplar Forest to create a corridor through which the road will run that is sensitive to the preser­ vation o f historic resources but that has also uncovered new information about the history o f this prop­ erty. The results o f the archaeological excavations are discussed in more detail below with several sites discovered during the project highlighted. Results o f the Archaeological Survey Between December 2014 and the Spring o f 2017, Poplar Forest’s Department o f Archaeology and Landscapes excavated over 4,000 shovel test pits covering the course o f the 2.2-mile-long parkway (Figure 3). Shovel test pits are small circular holes dug by hand on a grid pattern and all o f the soil is passed through a screen to capture any artifacts. Concentrations o f artifacts indicate an archaeological site. A total o f 29 sites were discovered along the route o f the road. Many o f the sites discovered were prehistoric encampments, places where Virginia Indians lived while hunting game in the uplands or procuring stone for tool manufacture. While these archaeological sites have been extensively disturbed by plowing and erosion, some o f the stone tools that remain provide dates for when people lived on this • 30• �Figure 4: Le Croy point (6500 BC 5700 BC) Figure 5: Carraway point (1200 AD 1700 AD) [A]rc h a e o lo g ic a l research h a s a llo w e d f o p la r o r e s t t o c r e a te a c o r r id o r th r o u g h w h ic h th e ro a d w ill ru n t h a t is s e n s itiv e t o th e p r e s e r v a tio n o f h is to r ic re s o u rc e s b u t t h a t h a s a ls o u n c o v e re d new in fo r m a tio n a b o u t th e h is to r y o f Figure 3: A Poplar Forest archaeologist digging a shovel test pit. th is p r o p e r t y . land. The oldest artifact found during the project was a quartz LeCroy-style projectile point (Figure 4). Often referred to as “arrowheads,” most points were actually fastened to the ends o f spears or darts that would have been thrown by hand. LeCroy points date from 6500 BC to 5700 BC, a time period when human populations began to increase as the climate became warmer. Another site discovered during the project dates much later, and may be associated with some o f the last Virginia Indians to live on what would become Poplar Forest. The Carraway point seen here dates from between 1200 AD and 1700 AD (Figure 5). One o f the archaeological sites discovered during the Parkway Survey has yielded some fascinat­ ing information about the natural and cultural history o f Poplar Forest over a century before Jefferson ever saw this property. A site referred to as Site 37 is located at the base o f a steep slope along the banks o f a creek called Machine Branch. Erosion from upslope had washed sediment over top o f earlier lay­ ers o f soil, sealing them in place. In one o f these layers the archaeologists found the intact remains o f burned logs and twigs that appear to have come from fallen trees (Figure 6). Burned wood, particularly small twigs, offers an excellent chance at getting precise carbon dates that can tell us when this burning episode happened and perhaps yield clues as to how and why it hap­ pened. Several samples o f charcoal were sent to PaleoResearch Institute in Golden, Colorado, in order to obtain a carbon date and identify the wood. In the three samples sent, chestnut, red oak and white oak were present. The carbon date that came back places this burning episode sometime around 1630 AD to 1640 AD. The possible reasons for this could be that a forest fire swept through the area burning off the trees and vegetation on the slope above the creek, thereby increasing erosion. There may also be the possibility that the burning episode was the result o f Virginia Indians clearing small areas o f forest in •3 1 • �Figure 6: The re­ mains o f a burned tree found at Site 37 order to plant crops. Either possibility reminds us that the Poplar Forest landscape is ever changing, even long before Jefferson’s ownership. This project has also allowed Poplar Forest’s ar­ chaeologists to investigate some o f the original features o f Jefferson’s plantation, including McDaniel’s, Upper, Middle, Lower and Ridge Field, all names given by Jef­ ferson to fields that once grew tobacco, com and wheat. Utilizing historic maps of the property, some written in Jefferson’s own hand, the archaeologists were able to locate the depressions that still remain along the edges o f these fields where several o f the plantation’s original roads used to m n (Figure 7). Sections o f the road that led from Jefferson’s house to his threshing bam and eventu­ ally on to Lynchburg were discovered remarkably intact. In the future these road traces may be ideal walking trails, allowing visitors to follow the routes Jefferson and his enslaved laborers used to move across the property. Another task associated with this project was to dig a little deeper into the site o f the Prize Bam, the facility where enslaved workers packed tobacco into barrels for shipment to market. Two summer research interns spent nine weeks pulling together information about the bam, which is located on several historic maps, and excavated over 160 shovel test pits and three larger excavation units to try and pinpoint this important plan­ tation structure. Making the task somewhat difficult was 32 Figure 7: The road trace for the road that led from Jefferson’s retreat house to his threshing barn is still visible. �Figure 9: Students and Poplar Forest archaeologists excavating the site of an ante­ bellum period slave quarter. tation structure. Making the task somewhat difficult was the fact that the bam was dismantled in 1847, possibly with much o f its hardware salvaged for re-use, leaving behind few artifacts. The results o f the interns’ excavations in conjunction with archaeological findings from the mid-1990s, however, located a small concentration o f early architectural material that has allowed us to confirm the location o f the Prize Bam. With its location known, the site can be preserved, studied and interpreted into the future. Two new historical sites were located in a section o f the property Jefferson referred to as the Curtilage, the 61-acre fenced-in space that surrounded the retreat house. The discovery o f these sites was cause for re-routing the road to avoid damaging them. One o f the sites is located on a flat knoll above the Tomahawk Creek and is believed to be the remains o f a bam or outbuilding dating to the late 19th century. Artifacts such as nails, wrought iron chain, horseshoes and a pintle for a large door or gate hinge all speak to a utilitarian function for the site. A small amount o f household debris was found at this site, such as stoneware crockery, a marble and even the closure to a woman’s corset (Figure 8). The number o f Figure 8: A woman’s these types o f artifacts, however, does not suggest anybody was living at this corset closure site for any length o f time. The artifacts help to date the site to the mid-1800s and the structure was likely tom down by the end o f the 19th century or very early 20th century. The other site is located near an extant bam constructed in 1856. This site contained large quan­ tities o f domestic debris such as ceramics, bottle glass, fragments o f an iron skillet, keys to padlocks and other household objects (Figure 9). These artifacts date primarily to the second quarter o f the 19th 33 �century and indicate that a house once stood here. Also recovered in the excavations were fragments o f daub, the hardened clay that was used to line wooden chimneys and fill the cracks o f log cabins. Based on the dates o f the artifacts and the indication that this structure was likely o f log construction, we believe that this site contains the remains of a slave cabin dating to the Cobbs and Hutter ownership o f the property and was probably abandoned or demolished prior to emancipa­ tion. Preserving and interpreting the places where enslaved people lived and worked is an important part o f Poplar Forest’s mission. As such we have routed the new parkway around this site to ensure that we will be able to properly excavate, understand and interpret this space to our visitors in the future. Reconstructing the Environmental History o f Poplar Forest Through Dendrochronology One o f the most attractive aspects o f Poplar Forest’s new parkway will be the choreography o f driving through different landscapes. The view will be ever-changing as visitors wind their way through open Figure 10: Dr. Daniel Druckenbrod takes a core from a fields reminiscent o f the historic plantation tulip poplar tree that dates to the late 1800s. before descending into the deep shade o f a stand o f towering tulip poplar trees (Figure 10). Sections o f woods will recall the land­ scape as it may have looked when the first enslaved laborers began clearing hundreds-of-years-old hard­ wood trees to create fields. Other sections provide a graphic representation o f what those fields looked like after decades o f intensive farming and abandonment, covered with cedars that will slowly give way to the young tulip poplar saplings growing beneath them. These forests, much like the rest o f the historic property, have stories to tell, some o f them surprising. During the course o f the archaeological survey for the new parkway, 10 stands o f trees were selected along the route o f the new road to be examined. Dr. Daniel Druckenbrod o f Rider University was contracted to study these sections o f forest, determining their age and species composition. By using dendrochronology, the scientific study o f tree rings, we can discover the exact year a tree began to grow. We can also see major weather events such as droughts and damaging frosts. Dr. Druckenbrod also examined some historic timbers that had been used to rebuild the retreat house after it was partially de­ stroyed by fire in 1845. The results o f this work discovered that all stages o f forest composition exist on the property, from woods established as recently as the year 2000 to intact stands o f oak and tulip poplar that began growing around 1890. 34 �The most surprising find, how­ ever, was that some o f the oldest trees on the property are also some o f the smallest. Several blackgum trees (Nyssa sylvatica ) dating to the 1810s and 1820s were found mixed with a younger stand o f trees. These blackgums began growing during Jefferson’s lifetime, escaping the axe during logging episodes. Their survival over the past two centuries is most likely due to the fact that they are undesirable as fuel or for building. Dr. Druckenbrod’s work also re­ vealed that a tulip poplar northeast o f the house began growing in 1806, the same year Jefferson began constructing the retreat house (Figure 11). It is still unclear whether the tree was planted or began to grow up naturally and was left to become part of the ornamental landscape around Jefferson’s house. The examination o f the house tim­ bers revealed another fascinating story, one o f a natural catastrophe. Several o f the timbers came from trees that began growing in the 1740s and were harvested in 1845. The tree rings on some timbers for the year 1774 are almost nonexistent, recording a year with no growth. Turning to Jefferson’s own records on May 5, 1774, he noted that a severe frost killed almost everything including spring crops, fruit and even large saplings. As a result, he observed that “the leaves o f the trees were entirely killed,” and the effects were felt “thro the whole country and the neighboring colonies.” More than just a road, the Poplar Forest Parkway has allowed Poplar Forest to continue examining the natural and historic resources on this property. When opened to visitors it will provide a new way to expe­ rience the plantation landscape and learn about the historical significance o f the many different people who have called this place home. Figure 11: Tulip poplar tree dating to 1806. Q n e o f th e m o s t a t tr a c t iv e a s p e c ts o f r o p la r o r e s t ’s new p a rk w a y w ill b e t h e c h o r e o g r a p h y o f d r iv in g th r o u g h d if f e r e n t la n d s c a p e s . h e vie w w ill b e e v e r-c h a n g in g a s v is ito r s w in d t h e ir w a y t h r o u g h o p e n fie ld s re m in is c e n t o f th e h is to r ic p la n ta tio n [.] �by Cranston Williams fter reading this presentation, I hope that you will better understand Thomas Jefferson’s Retreat Poplar Forest, a treasure for the nation, located in Bedford County, near Forest. My remarks will cover 1) my involvement with Poplar Forest, 2) the reason Jefferson built his retreat along with its unique construction and plantation features, 3) its deterioration through only three families who lived there, 4) its rescue in 1984 and 5) the 33-year subsequent research and investigation leading up to future restoration expectations. This property and the Poplar Forest home stayed in Thomas Jefferson’s family for about 50 years. In 1823, Francis Eppes, Jefferson’s nephew, inherited it and then Jefferson died in 1826. Since Eppes and his brother were not interested in keeping it, Eppes sold 1,075 acres to William Cobbs, my maternal great-great-grandfather. His daughter married Edward Sixtus Hutter o f the U.S. Navy and hence my Hutter family ownership began. The Hutter family owned Poplar Forest for 118 years, until 1946, when my m other’s father sold it to Jim Owen Watts. The Watts family lived there 34 years and made it a year-round home with only 50 acres remaining o f the 1,075 that he bought. He sold land to pay off his bad habits o f gambling and women. It was in 1984 that the present corporation bought 50 acres and the home from a North Carolina doctor who wanted to save it from real estate developments. He wanted the home to be preserved. It was first opened to the public in 1986. Over 650 acres is now owned by the corporation, including the golf course to the west Enough o f the background and some history. I was bom in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and lived there until 1939 when my family moved to Scarsdale, New York. My mother was Caroline Hutter, one o f 10 Hutter children, whose father owned Poplar Forest. My father was from middle Georgia. There­ fore, I spent seven to 10 days each summer in Georgia and the balance at Poplar Forest during the 1920s, ’30s and early ’40s. I want to emphasize that Poplar Forest was JUST my grandmother’s and grandfa­ ther’s home. Yet, Poplar Forest provided no special or historical meaning for me during my summers except for the part I learned about Gen. Hunter’s Civil War raid on Lynchburg in June 1864. We had cattle, chickens, pea hens and peacocks roaming around with horses and pigs. The Hutter family also used this property only in the summertime, as it had little inside plumb­ ing, with only fireplaces for heat on cool nights, and electricity in the kitchen during my latter years. There was no air conditioning. As I told Russia’s Mikhail Gorbachev during his mid-1990s visit there, I spent more time at Jef­ ferson’s Poplar Forest than Jefferson. It was due to my 18 summers that I spent there prior to my two- a Cranston Williams, a retired Times-World Corp. executive, told o f his boyhood days at Poplar Forest in a Roanoke talk. �year service in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Simply stated, Poplar Forest is one o f Jefferson’s most perfect architectural works. It was a per­ sonal house and summer residence that he built for himself. It was a villa retreat that blended the “built” and “natural” environments. Monticello, begun when he was 36 and completed 40 years later, was a monument to Jefferson. And yet, Poplar Forest remains one o f his most unknown works. After a 27-year detailed and rigorous investigation by a team o f archeologists, architects, architectural historians, con­ servationists, researchers and advisers, it is being meticulously deciphered. Jefferson visited this property for the first time in 1773 and did return a third time when forced by the British to flee Charlottesville in 1781 before Poplar Forest was built. While in his second term as president, in 1804 and after many years o f dreaming and sketching ideas of various retreats, Jefferson began plans for the site. He based his plans upon his own interpreta­ tion but modified them to suit his own taste o f the French Palladian style. It represents the best example of a villa, an ornamental house and garden within an agricultural center, meant to give pleasure. In 1980, this Virginia and National Historic Landmark, with the same prominence as Mt. Vernon and Monticello, became an endangered property. No longer inhabited, it began to deteriorate rapidly. It was put up for sale and the Corporation for Jefferson’s Poplar Forest was formed to purchase the home and surviving 50 acres from a North Carolina neurosurgeon. There was a sense o f urgency. History was vanishing rapidly. The property was under siege from housing developments and a nine-hole golf course had already been built. After that overview, let’s look at the house, its design and plantation. Jefferson had originally designed his octagonal house facing north, the culmination o f his lifelong love o f math and geometry, as a dwelling place for Eppes and Jefferson’s youngest daughter, Maria, at Pantops in Charlottesville. Ma­ ria’s death in 1804 brought an end to the project at Pantops. But not to the house which, altered to suit Jefferson’s needs, was begun two years later at Poplar Forest. It was named for the tulip poplar tree. This famous Palladian-style country villa design was in part borrowed from William Kent, who described such an octagonal dwelling in his 1737 book, “Designs o f Indigo Jones.” The bulk o f Palladi­ an style architecture includes porticoes, pediments, columns, tall windows and balanced wings. Jefferson had a fancy for the eight-sided shape with one o f his rooms at Monticello being eight-sided. Jefferson believed, as architects would prove many years later, that this floor plan used space economically and allowed maximum light and air flow. By 1790, the residential and administrative core o f the property was an area known as “the Old Plantation.” It contained at minimum an overseer’s house, bam and an adjoining slave quarter that housed some 35 enslaved laborers. While the overseer’s house and bam lay outside o f the modem Poplar Forest property, archaeologists have investigated the adjoining circa 1770s to 1780s quarter site. Archaeologists have also studied a later slave quarter dating from circa 1790 to 1812 at the edge o f the Old Plantation. It was near this area that Jefferson began construction o f his house. Jefferson broke new ground when he placed the foundation for Poplar Forest in 1806. He was 63. This was during his second presidential term and at the same time, he was designing and building the University of Virginia. This was the first octagonal structure in the New World. Construction took six years. He traveled from the White House to personally help his Irish brick mason lay the foundation and upon retirement from the presidency in 1809 he began visiting the site on a regular basis. His volumi­ nous correspondence contains some 1,500 letters to and from workmen overseeing its construction. By 1813, he had enclosed a 61-acre site surrounding the house, known as the “curtilage.” This area most likely contained his kitchen garden, orchards and the buildings needed to support him while in residence. The basic design consisted o f a cubical central dining room. This room was illuminated by a large 20-foot-high skylight and was surrounded by four equal-size elongated octagonal 14-foot rooms •5 7 * �that opened up on this central room. The north room was divided into two by a hall to the front door. The south room served as a parlor or drawing room with floor-length windows. To the east and west off the central room were the main bedrooms. Each had its fireplace and complement o f windows. Projections on the east and west sides o f the house held narrow spiraling staircases to the lower floor. How Jefferson used the lower is not totally clear, except for the excavated wine cellar. The main floor contained roughly 2,000 square feet. Like the main house, the stationary brick privies are octagonal shaped, have hand-crafted cornices and small fan-shaped windows that match the house. Though he continued to tinker with plantings and details almost until his death, Jefferson consid­ ered the house “done” by 1812, when he was 69. He was soon making regular and prolonged visits three or four times a year, often staying as long as two weeks. He died in 1826 at 84. What happened during the Cobbs-Hutter family ownership? It is easy to see how Jefferson’s floor plan would not suit a normal household but only a private family retreat. It was not designed for groups o f people, usual entertaining or servant circulation. After an 1845 fire, the Hutters rebuilt the house with Greek Revival alterations changing an aesthetically designed villa into a practically altered farmhouse. During reconstruction, major features o f the house were changed. The elevations were altered, the central room skylight and balustrade were omitted, the new cornice was not Jeffersonian and the pediment on the south portico was not restored. Dormer windows were inserted into the new roof. A nar­ row stairway to a newly created attic lowered the central room’s ceiling to 12 feet. A stairway was built from the central room to the lower level. All these have been reconstructed to Jefferson’s original design. At the same time, the ornamental landscape faded into a farmyard setting. Discoveries are constantly being made since 1984 when preservation interests began. Frequent reference to Poplar Forest is in Jefferson’s garden, farm and account books as well as correspondence showing the loving care that went into the building o f his second residence, just 90 miles away from his beloved Monticello. High-tech equipment such as ground-penetrating radar drawn on a sled across the yard has been used to try to predict what was there before. Architects have used aerial infrared photography to detect underground foundations and other features that Jefferson may have built. We know that he had a blacksmith shop and stable but we have no idea where they were located. He wrote in 1814 that he was adding a wing o f offices “in the manner o f those at Monticello with a terraced roof.” Excavations by archaelogists at the wing o f offices to the east o f the main house have revealed the original kitchen yard from which a number o f artifacts from Jefferson’s time have been removed. They then found the number o f rooms and their dimensions. The wing consisted o f four rooms. The room closest to the house was cold storage area. Nextdoor was the kitchen. In the 1990 winter, the third and fourth rooms were excavated, revealing the rest o f the w ing’s layout. The third room, also heated by a fireplace, was the cook’s room. A smokehouse was the last room in the wing. The huge boxwoods that decorate the entrance were probably planted by a later owner because Jefferson confessed dislike for boxwoods. They have now been excavated and the vehicle drive exca­ vated. What about artifacts? A walk through the archaelogical lab is a walk into another world. On trays, one can see colorful fragments o f ceramics, pieces o f glass, rusted nails, padlocks, buttons, thim­ bles and utensils. Archaeologists have unearthed such Jefferson-era items as a bone-handled fork, dyed green to look like jade, a stoneware teapot fragment, a gilded brass mantle clock foot and an iron padlock with brass key cover. A ceramic milk pan, iron pot handles and tops are items found that belonged in Jeffer­ son’s wing o f offices. • 38• �There is a new architectural lab building with a meeting room and an administration upper floor. This lab chemically treats mortars and plasters so as to analyze and understand how and when the inte­ rior was changed. They are matching mortar and sand for exterior renovations and ingredients for plas­ ter. What can you see in the house? Tours gain a new dimension. Plastered walls are on all the main level rooms, except the east bedroom called the Grandchildren’s Bedroom. There the brick interior walls are exposed to see 19th century construction. Jefferson’s alcove bed is in the west bedroom. Samples of the cornices, entablatures and friezes to be used in the dining room and parlor are shown. Other items are an original Jefferson table, copies of his “stick chair,” siesta chair and many exhibits and artifacts found on the property. Visiting the Office Wing is most inspiring. You may be awe-struck with the central space, the dining room, a perfect cube lit by the skylight. The retreat supplies a soaring two-story space in what appears, from the house’s front, to be a single-story house. Check out the 15 fireplaces with only four chimneys and why the fireplace in the central room caused two fires. What about new developments and what can be seen? Visitors are able to walk the grounds with a hand-held device that provides audio and visual information at 20 points o f interest by GPS. The first stage o f architectural restoration and historic production o f interior trim. Eight volunteers have more than 20 years o f service, and more than three-quarters o f the volunteers have over five years o f service. Jefferson’s complete mahogany dining room table was returned to Poplar Forest in the fall of 2009. An ornamental plant nursery was located. The east wing was completed in 2009. The visitor center was expanded by one-third, including restrooms and a registration area. Jefferson’s curtilage fence, surrounding the retreat’s 61-acre core containing the house, ornamen­ tal grounds, orchards, garden and support buildings, was reconstructed. A double-row allee o f trees was planted on both east and west sides o f the home, with the east wing between them to restore the sym­ metry in a unique rendition o f a five-part Palladian villa. A Jefferson re-enactor from Williamsburg is a frequent guest here for public and private events. Jefferson’s plant nurseries were discovered and similar plants and trees were planted. Future goals: Archeologists and historians have made significant headway in the investigative phase o f Poplar Forest’s restoration. The extensive 33-year discoveries are exciting because o f the insight they provide about the previously little known facts o f Jefferson’s life. An indoor privy idea that he had found in France was discovered. The restoration team continues to make wonderful progress with broad public support for abso­ lute physical accuracy. No compromise! They are not taking any shortcuts. Let us now go back to the 1920s, ’30, ’40s and ’50s. I have many fond memories with some interesting tales and events to relate. Some o f the more interesting ones may recall similar tales o f life on a farm. First, I want to emphasize that Poplar Forest was JUST MY GRANDMOTHER’S AND GRANDFATHER’S HOME. Jefferson gave us the waffle and provided the knowledge about the “eatability” o f the “love apple” or “forbidden fruit” called the tomato. Yet, Poplar Forest provided no special or historical meaning for me during my summers, except for the part it played during Gen. Hunter s raid on Lynchburg in June 1864, during the Civil War. My memories: Poplar Forest had oil lamps, no electricity; there was one bathroom with a tub, basin and toilet on the first floor, one toilet and basin in the basement; a water tower on the east mound provided gravity-fed running water in the house for the 1-1/2 baths and kitchen. An existing wall was between the house and mound, by the 19th century kitchen and smokehouse, as well as now non-existent ice and chicken houses. The dirt-covered swimming pool in the southeast comer o f the south lawn was •3 9 * �put in by the Watts family. Chamber pots were in the rooms at night; the necessary houses behind the mounds were in daily use. Wood stoves for cooking in the kitchen were replaced by electric stoves in the 1940s. Cast metal irons were for pressing sheets, clothing, curtains, table cloths and napkins that were heated on the kitchen stove. Many aunts, uncles and some cousins came from Lynchburg for almost every supper and Sunday lunch — a free meal. They also brought the newspaper and news o f the day. No radios or TVs then, no electricity. Croquet was played every evening under the northwest tulip poplars after a prompt 6 p.m. sup­ per. No card playing or other games were allowed on Sunday by my grandfather. Everyone took an afternoon nap after a 1 p.m. lunch. They had to have a Coca-Cola at approximately 3:30 p.m. I was the provider o f these Cokes until I started to work on the farm. Yes, I had to collect the money from each user, to be taken to the store to buy the next day’s supply, to keep track o f the 5-cent deposits for each bottle and to have them cold for the next day. If I didn’t collect the money or the bottles, I lost money. Most weekday nights I had two suppers, one with the family and the second with the farm man­ ager and his wife and children. They had great “soul food.” Then it was off to a local store for his beer, my ice cream and conversation with all the other area people. I did the driving without a license after I was about 12 years old. In the 1930s drought, 55-gallon drums on horse-drawn wagons were used to water the boxwoods at the entrance circle to the house. Those days seem like only a few years ago. They still remain as one o f my most vivid remembrances. Other memories are o f killing a groundhog with a baseball bat by the now non-existent ice house with the help o f one o f the dogs one Sunday afternoon. Also recalled was riding a bull bareback in the barnyard. Or catching a turtle in the creek at the bottom o f the entrance road down near the old swim­ ming hole. Mother was so scared that the turtle would bite me and not let go until it thundered. I was carrying it with my arm almost over my head. I was cruel to the work horses by riding them bare-back and making them run through the woods after rains on the wet, slick, Bedford County red clay. They slid and fell sometimes. Neither o f us was ever hurt.! Afer working the manure spreader one morning, I was not allowed by my mother to eat lunch with the family. You may ask if Jefferson haunted the house? “When a door would slam without reason, w e’d always say, ‘Come in, Mr. Jefferson,’” said Mrs. Giles, Mr. Watts’ sister. Visit Poplar Forest and see if you can hear Mr. Jefferson. • 40• �Seyneyatect S ouCj cet t6e Start Noel C. Taylor, black churches and the civil rights movement in Roanoke by John Wiley n November o f 1949, residents o f Roanoke peered towards the night’s sky, at the top o f Mill Moun­ tain, and witnessed a remarkable sight. The Roanoke Valley Chamber o f Commerce and the Roanoke Merchants Association had joined forces to purchase and erect the world’s largest man-made star, illuminated with neon lig h ts //; Gone forever was the nickname o f “Magic City,” which had been given to Roanoke in light o f its remarkably fast-paced growth in the first few decades o f its existence. In its place, Roanoke would become known as the “Star City o f the South.” This giant star might be widely interpreted for its symbolical significance, but as Arleen Ollie has said, it “would represent a model place to be.” (2) However, as Roanoke’s white and black residents gazed at the glow o f the illuminated star on that fall evening, they did so apart from one another in segregated regions o f the city. During this time period, the Civil Rights Movement was in its infancy stage, and it is very unlikely that Roanoke’s residents would have expected the significant changes that were about to occur within the city. In 1949, African Americans were legally required to sit in the back o f public transportation vehicles and were altogether prohibited from many public venues, though in less than a few decades, a black mayor would be leading Roanoke. One o f the most prolific leaders in all o f Roanoke’s history was that black mayor, Noel C. Tay­ lor, who was a pastor first and a politician second, though he was well respected for both roles. Indeed, black churches provided the platform and the necessary networks for the Civil Rights Movement to find success in Roanoke. Although the city’s African American citizens did not accomplish every goal, both Taylor and the black churches o f Roanoke provided the main thrust for achieving definitive results on behalf o f the Civil Rights Movement in the Star City. I Historiographical Context Compared to other cities, Roanoke is not tremendously old, having been founded in the 1880s. (3) Many works of local history have likewise tended to focus on years prior to World War II, and thus have preceded the Civil Rights Movement. Some authors, however, have written about Roanoke’s history since the 1940s, and occasionally alluded to the city’s black citizens. Still, others have made excellent contributions in compiling historical works on Roanoke’s African American population, such as Reginald Shareef’s “The Roanoke Valley’s African American Heritage” and Arleen Ollie’s “Afri­ can American History in Roanoke City.’Y4) Still, both Shareef and Ollie, as well as most other related John Wiley, a graduate o f Piedmont International University, earned master’s degrees from Piedmont and Adams State University. He teaches social studies at Roanoke Valley Christian School. •41 • �works, provide very basic historical information on the history o f black churches, such as the names o f their pastors, details on their buildings, and a few other historical points o f interest. In general, not much attention has specifically been given to the Civil Rights Movement in Roanoke, nor have scholars made great attempts to view the phenomenon from the perspective o f black churches in particular. Further­ more, historians have not sufficiently focused their attention on one o f the most important people in Roanoke’s history, Noel C. Taylor, the first black mayor o f Roanoke City, a prominent Baptist minister for decades, and a powerful figure in Roanoke’s own Civil Rights Movement. By looking to Roanoke’s black churches, and to Noel C. Taylor in particular, one can arrive at the heart, the very soul, o f the Civil Rights Movement in the Star City. Background o f Noel C. Taylor Noel C. Taylor was bom at the home o f his parents on July 15,1924, in a Bedford County com­ munity called Olive Branch, located near M oneta/5j Taylor was often called “Calvin” in his younger years, which was simply his middle name, though in a biblical analogy, he explained, “I feel a bit like David, the shepherd boy. He made his way from the sheepfold to the palace. He was able to leave in order to lead the nation. There was nothing wrong with my being the barefoot boy from Bedford, my heri­ tage, but you have to make your way toward a destination.’Yd) Despite growing up in the Jim Crow South, where churches and schools were segregated, Taylor recollected from his childhood, “most of growing up centered around church activities or farm work. Then there was family pride and status in a community in which everybody, black and white, really needed one another for survival and to accom­ plish the tasks o f daily living.”(7) He also mentioned that he never encountered any racial hostility until he moved into an urban setting. (8) According to Taylor, his parents and his childhood church impacted his life more than anything else, and even by the end o f his life, Taylor never “met anybody who had better religion than [his] mother.”(P) Though a small congregation, the Olive Branch Church, under the long-winded but talented preacher, Rev. J.D. Walker, was composed of a lively and persistent group o f churchgoers. “They prayed over a person until he got religion,” Taylor said.(7 0) Taylor’s spiritual up­ Rev. Noel C. Taylor, mayor bringing played a major role in his life, even though he did not plan to o f Roanoke 1975-1992, and pursue Christian ministry as a vocation. The seemingly tranquil com­ pastor o f High Street Baptist Church, Roanoke, 1961-1999. munity also shielded him from truths he would later realize that had (Photo courtesy of Sabrina major consequences on how African Americans were treated in the Taylor Law, his daughter) country he dearly loved. Taylor served for over two years in the Army during World War II with an all black unit, though all white commanding officers, which is when he came to the realization that segregation was a planned system, and not merely “just the way things were.”(77) Upon returning back to Virginia, Taylor earned his bachelor’s degree in commerce from Bluefield State College, though he went on to become a teacher, and then a principal. (12) During his tenure as principal, Taylor was invited by a Bedford pastor to speak at the church’s “youth day.” After hearing Taylor speak, Rev. S.S. Dutton proclaimed, “This man is going to preach.”(73) When he was battling an unremitting physical ailment, Taylor prayed, “Lord, if you will just take this discomfort from me, I will preach. All o f a sud­ den,” Taylor assured, “the pain just left. W pjy. Taylor, therefore, quickly prepared himself for a change in •4 2 • �careers. After serving for a year as a circuit preacher in rural congregations, he accepted a full-time position at First Baptist Church in Clifton Forge. (15) His next ministry, last­ ing from 1958 to 1961, was in Norfolk, a city in chaos, and right in the middle o f the Civil Rights Movement. (16) Not long after Taylor arrived in Norfolk, Massive Resis­ tance leaders helped to approve local efforts that closed local public schools, so as to defy the desegregation ruling from Brown v. Board o f E ducation// 7) While civil rights activists attempted to fight back and get the schools to reopen, it was there in Norfolk that Taylor made his first substantial attempt to get involved with the Civil Rights Move­ ment. He worked with other local ministers Olive Branch Baptist Church, where Rev. Taylor worwho attempted to desegregate area restaushiped as he grew up. rants, and even participated in a sit-in .(18) With tensions still high in Norfolk, yet positive signs appearing on the horizon, Taylor had been given the persuasive opportunity to move to Roanoke, and serve as pastor o f High Street Baptist Church, an offer that he accepted.(7fy Taylor’s childhood and young adulthood had prepared him, sometimes un­ knowingly, to face new obstacles as a minister and a proponent for black civil rights in a new city. The Civil Rights Movement in Roanoke Before Taylor’s Arrival Although Taylor greatly impacted the Civil Rights Movement not long after his arrival in Roa­ noke, it would be incorrect to assume that he was the first person to attempt to provoke positive change for African American communities in the Star City. While World War II was still being fought, Roa­ noke’s residents, specifically its pastors, had convened for the Roanoke Ministers Conference and called for action to be made that would benefit race relations. One motion was accepted to permit black Sunday schools teachers to attend their conferences and meetings o f the National Christian Mission. An article from The Roanoke Times further stated: Following the formal business session, representatives from the Northwest sec­ tion spoke briefly on present conditions in that section following the disturbance between members o f the white and colored races. Representatives o f the Interracial committee o f the YWCA, the ministers and other interested citizens discussed the need for a better understanding between different race groups and some o f the causes. With such sugges­ tions as requests o f the ministers in the affected sections to devote sermon subjects to better racial understanding, the placing o f race relations study on the programs o f young peoples’ groups in the various denominations in the city, and personal opportunities to help the situation, the group agreed that although such objectives would help, more concrete action was needed at this time. Following further discussion, a motion was made and passed unanimously that the president and the Rev. Harris M. Findlay be directed to present to council at the earliest possible date a request that a commission be appointed to investigate the “housing facilities o f Roanoke city with special attention being given to race tension being created by present methods o f housing.”(2/) •43 • �It would be a long time until considerable results could be seen in race relations, but the fact that Roanoke’s ministers desired to lead the way in the 1940s towards racial harmony provides evidence that religious leaders had the potential to shape the city’s culture. Close to a decade before Rosa Parks helped ignite change in Montgomery, Alabama, by refusing to move from her seat on a city bus by the demand o f the driver, a woman named Margie Jumper com­ mitted a similar act by not moving from her seat in a Roanoke streetcar when pressed to do so. She later said, “I felt like I had the right to sit anywhere anyone else d i d ” (22) Jumper pleaded guilty to her charge o f violating a city ordinance, was handed a small fine, but most telling o f all is that this incident was soon forgotten. (23) Some may wonder why the actions o f Rosa Parks yielded immediate action, while Jum per’s deeds seemed to provoke virtually no change. However, as Danielle L. McGuire once noted about Rosa Parks, “For more than a decade her work with the NAACP, the Brotherhood o f Sleeping Car Porters, and other groups placed her at the center o f Montgomery’s black freedom struggle. Her deci­ sion to keep her seat on December 1, 1955, was less a mystery than a moment.” (24) Jumper, on the other hand, did not share the same context as Parks, having made her public statement before Brown v. Board o f Education rather than after, nor did Jumper have the same experience and network o f associates that were heavily involved in the Civil Rights Movement. Nevertheless, Jumper can rightly be given the title o f “Roanoke’s Rosa Parks” for her courage to stand up to racial inequality. Desegregating Roanoke At the time the ruling for Brown v. Board o f Education was made, Roanoke’s public places, including schools and churches, were thoroughly segregated, and had been for decades. Roanoke’s response to Brown was not as extreme as other cities in Virginia, such as Norfolk, but it was nonetheless very gradu­ al. Steven F. Lawson explained in “Running for Freedom,” “Virginia passed anti-barratry legislation aimed at hinder­ ing the NAACP from initiating or sponsoring lawsuits against segregation.”^ , ) These laws, part o f the “Stanley Plan,” added an extra layer o f protection for those fight­ ing for Massive Resistance. Nevertheless, Roanoke’s black residents fought back, including many black church leaders. A Roanoke Times article in 1960 included the complaints o f several parents, who argued that Roanoke possessed “the responsibility to reorganize the school system so that chil­ dren o f school age attending and entitled to attend public schools would not be denied admission to any school or be assigned to a particular school solely because o f rac e.” (26) For these parents, it was not so much that black schools were inherently worse, nor did they argue for integration simply for the sake o f racial assimilation. Rather, parents believed they had the constitutional freedom to be able to send their children to a school o f their choosing, and not be denied entrance because o f the color o f their skin. One o f the concerned parents, with two children that he desired to send to a local white school, was Rev. R.R. Wilkinson, who was both the pastor o f Hill Street Baptist Church and president o f the Ro­ anoke chapter for the NAACP/27) For Wilkinson, and other black pastors in Roanoke, ministry meant not just preaching to and caring for souls in one congregation, but also being involved in the social and political matters o f the city. By 1963, in NAACP v. Button, the Supreme Court made the following rul­ ing: • 44 • �We reverse the judgment o f the Virginia Supreme Court o f Appeals. We hold that the activities of the NAACP, its affiliates and legal staff shown on this record are modes of expression and association protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments which Virginia may not prohibit, under its power to regulate the legal profession, as improper solicitation o f legal business violative o f Chapter 33 and the Canons o f Professional Ethics .(28) With this Supreme Court ruling, those in favor o f desegregation gained a legal victory. Neverthe­ less, Roanoke’s schools would very gradually be integrated and encounter numerous difficulties. Rev. Taylor moved to Roanoke in 1961, right in the middle o f the desegregation battle that was taking place in the Star City. Looking back on what unfolded in Roanoke, Taylor, the former elementary school teacher and principal, stated, “I believe we should have started as a pilot project in the first grade in Roanoke.”(29) Far from being radical, Taylor often proposed solutions, first as a pastor, but later add­ ing the roles o f city councilman and then mayor, that would seek the unity o f the people o f Roanoke, rather than place one side fiercely against another. Perhaps it was his experiences from his family farm that provided practical reminders o f how change rarely occurs overnight. Rather, the sowing and reaping principle took time and hard work, but certainly it could not be confused with sluggishness. Rev. Edward Burton, vice president for the Roanoke chapter o f the NAACP, said, “For some­ thing you know is going to happen and you can’t stop, it’s much better to negotiate a plan, and that plan took time.”(30) While other Roanoke leaders may not have agreed with the gradualist approach to school inte­ gration, as Taylor explained his philosophy, “I can lead by inspiring people to do great things. I’ve had members say I ’m not mean enough. I’m too easy going but I always felt you could win if you could love. I can relate. I can give them a sense o f pride and belonging.”(31) Yet, even with slow but steady integration in Roanoke’s public schools, there were complexi­ ties. Speaking o f her schooling before Brown, local resident Peggy Sue Mason remarked, “There was no such thing as integration then. And we did fine, and sometimes I think when they integrated the schools they messed them up. Because after they integrated them they left us out o f a lot o f things, a lot of things.”(32) However, as fellow Roanoker, Gardner William Smith, clarified, “at the time, people did want schools to be integrated.” He also added: In the separate schools it was not equal, and I think the movement helped focus on those types o f unbalances, and other issues and pushed things along. There were some rever­ ends here that were primary leaders in Roanoke and Salem. They combed [sic] me with their ideas on how to move things along. And I’ll tell you they helped things, not any­ thing culturally, but socially. And I think the movement helped bring those pieces together.(33) So, whether one leaned towards the more immediate method for change, as manifested in Rev. Wilkinson o f Hill Street Baptist Church, or towards the views o f Rev. Taylor o f High Street Baptist Church, it is clear that black churches were influential in the movement for integration. Consequently, several formerly all-black schools had to close down due to readjustment o f school districts as well as fewer pupils, and by 1973, Roanoke’s schools were fully desegregated.(34) Schools, however, were not the only institutions that would be forever changed by desegregation. Clare White helpfully summarized, “Roanoke was never subjected to the racial violence that scarred • 45• �some parts o f the nation, and the credit for the peaceful handling o f a difficult situation goes to a com­ mittee o f twelve prominent blacks and whites who worked quietly, and secretly, toward that end.” She commented further, “In a display o f mutual tolerance, six volunteers from the Negro community and six from the white worked together over a period o f several years to implement the desegregation they knew was obligatory.”(35) However, a 1967 article from The Roanoke Times shared the thoughts o f one worried resident, who said, “Something’s going to happen here. Some o f the kids are already talking rioting. Roanoke’s getting hot.”(36) Meanwhile, the biracial committee, along with countless Roanoke residents, including several black church leaders, had pressed forward to desegregate other public institutions. Taylor ex­ plained how many o f these efforts were put into action: Our protest was different than in other places. We used the media as our method. We would call a mass meeting, say an open housing, at one o f the black churches. We’d have several different speakers making brief presentations to the people to explain what we were about, why we thought it should come to pass. We did the same thing regarding jobs and food service. We wanted to bring the attention o f the community to what we thought were the existing evils: people being denied what we thought were their Constitutional rights. And the media covered these meetings.(37) According to Taylor, “Use o f mass meetings with speakers and mass media got the message to the citizens. It pricked the conscience o f the community. We learned how to really listen to one another, to respect each other’s point o f view. Out o f each other’s perspective and wholesome dialogue we tried to determine what is the common good.”(33) In this atmosphere o f openness, black churches helped usher in change so that unawareness could be replaced by understanding. Having connected much o f Roanoke’s black residents by mass media methods, using churches as meeting places and dispensers o f information, the foundation had been set to implement steps towards desegregating the city’s institutions. Taylor described the intricate planning that had been made for de­ segregating Roanoke’s food services: The commission was convinced o f the need to desegregate the restaurants. They called restaurant owners all over town. A number o f them said they did not care to discrimi­ nate but they didn’t want to start serving blacks and lose their trade. If it were done as a community they would go along. So the commission contacted enough who consented to make it effective. One day at 12 noon we decided it was supposed to happen. We set a time. We showed up at the main places around town and we were served in the restau­ rants. It was a city-wide movement.(39) This plan was mightily effective, but its success was largely due in part to the careful prepara­ tion o f Roanoke’s civil rights leaders. A news report from 1971, on the other hand, described some o f the frustrations that Rev. Taylor experienced, regarding the arrest o f four black young people, while serving as a city councilman: “Mr. Taylor said he found it strange that only black students were arrested even though the incidents were termed ‘interracial’ at the time. He said it destroys the credibility o f blacks like himself who are trying to work within the system to better the conditions o f their brothers, and that arrests o f this sort can cause further polarization o f blacks and whites.”(40) Taylor, therefore, believed that working “within the system” would yield the most fruitful results, though Taylor’s gradualist ap­ proach did not prohibit him making proper criticisms o f the system either. Whereas Roanoke’s black churches helped guide the way in the Civil Rights Movement, its white churches seemed to generally play an accommodating role, though somewhat passive. Rev. Tay­ lor had been elected president to the Roanoke Ministers’ Conference in 1967, and a year later, Martin • 46 • �Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Following this tragedy, Taylor called Pastor Charles Fuller o f First Baptist Church in Roanoke, a white congrega­ tion, saying, “I hate to ask you this, but I have an idea to bring the blacks and whites together for worship and the largest building in the inner city is your church. I am calling to ask if I can use it .” (41) Rev. Fuller was completely in favor o f helping Rev. Taylor, and the request was granted. This feat of solidarity, however, did not settle well with some o f First Baptist’s church members. Though a church split did not take place, some threatened to leave while others complained to lead­ Rev. Taylor served at High Street Baptist Church for 38 years. e r s h i p / ^ Taylor later recalled a story about a white pastor who went beyond what most were willing to do in the Civil Rights Movement: “Jim Allison, [a] white Presbyterian pas­ tor, was one who felt that he needed to be involved although he hadn’t realized what a really big issue integration would be. He was deeply involved and he came to the mass meeting in Northwest Roanoke to see if something couldn’t be done when a young black boy was murdered in Mississippi. He was the only white brother there. Indeed, from a Roanoke Times article in 1991, a journalist recorded, “Churches are one o f the last bastions o f segregation in the city, [Noel] Taylor said. But that is beginning to change as blacks and whites focus more on their religious commitment than on racial issues, he said. ‘Churches are now working together more.’” (44) The Star City’s churches were not only divided by race, as segregated souls, but also in the ways they participated in the Civil Rights Movement. Roanoke’s religious leaders were wise to take note o f the importance o f raising up young lead­ ers in the Civil Rights Movement, which started with churches themselves, and in the homes o f these young people. Rev. Edward T. Burton said in 1977, “O f the nine denominations represented by the black church in Roanoke, the Baptist church has the largest membership. This is due largely to young people following the religious preference o f their parents.”(45) All denominations, Protestant and Catholic, however, knew that they needed to be involved in the Civil Rights Movement if they wanted to maintain a presence in their communities. The historian of St. Gerard’s Catholic Church recorded: [Cooperation] o f blacks and whites in establishing St. Gerard’s Mission, and in building the church on Orange Avenue, fostered a core o f rapport that was needed in the trying times o f the fifties and sixties. The disagreements and alienation that accompanied the drive for public housing and the peaceful solution o f the problem paved the way for han­ dling other problems. Establishing Our Lady o f Perpetual Help as a joint venture o f black and white, and non-segregated seating there, helped break down racial barriers.(46) In order to retain the youth, some churches introduced change. As an article with the pastor o f the historically black First Baptist Church, Rev. Kenneth Wright, detailed: The youth have contributed to the church as well as drawn from it, Wright said. The 47 �liturgy was once conservative, traditional, and ‘it was discovered that this wasn t meeting the needs o f individual spirituality.’ But as at Loudon Avenue Christian, and St. Gerard s, things are changing, the youth have brought their contemporary music to the services and it has mingled with the traditional to yield what Wright calls ‘a beautiful diversity. (47) These young people gradually became more integrated with their white neighbors and class­ mates, and became one o f the generations that helped vote in Noel C. Taylor as mayor for four terms. Some o f their communities, however, were forever changed by what was known as urban renewal. Bulldozing Communities In 1954, the same year as the Brown v. Board o f Education ruling, Roanoke’s leaders began discussing plans for “slum clearance,” otherwise known as the less derogatory phrase o f urban re­ newal.” These debates revolved around plans for demolishing several homes, businesses, and churches in exchange for the building o f an ambitious architectural project, the Roanoke Civic Center. Geographi­ cally, the sites that would be razed for “urban renewal,” for the Roanoke Civic Center and other projects, were almost always in black neighborhoods.(48) Mary Bishop summarized the details: They tore down 1,600 black-owned homes, some o f the city’s most historic schools, two dozen churches, and more than 200 small businesses owned by black, Greek, and Lebanese immigrants. On the seized land, totaling 395 acres, Roanoke built the Roanoke Civic Center, the main post office, white-owned industries, hotels, fast food restaurants, and businesses.’’( 49) According to Reginald Shareef, “Gainsboro remained the center for black business activity in the Roanoke Valley until the urban renewal programs o f the 1960s and 1970s.”( 50) The writers o f the document “Black Community Observations Over the Past Forty (40) Years in the City o f Roanoke” concurred: Even as severe as the loss of jobs was by the closing o f the Silk Mill (The American Viscose Plant) was to Blacks, without debate, the worst offender will be the “Urban Renewal” programs as they guided money and people out o f the Black neighborhoods. These neighborhoods, consisting o f working home owners were destroyed by the “Urban Renewal” program. In addition, there was a loss o f private and successful Black busi­ nesses which were operated by “ma and pa .” (51) The same writers noted an even more dramatic loss to the cultural fabric o f the black community o f Roanoke: “Not to be overlooked is the indebtedness o f Black churches which were forced to rebuild — this has resulted in a community which is church poor. As homes and churches were eliminated in the Black neighborhoods, their schools were removed and closed which drained Blacks o f role models.”(52) If there was one thing most damaging to the progress and later results o f the Civil Rights Movement in Roanoke, it was the urban renewal projects. Conclusion Historians o f the Civil Rights Movement have tended to overlook the example set in Roanoke. Perhaps this has been due to its relatively small size, in area and population, but the fact that Roanoke was considerably calmer, having avoided riots and other escalations, may have also contributed. Yet, these calm responses should not be confused with idle behavior. Roanoke s black churches not only con­ nected people with one another for mobilization, but they also provided a source o f strength and hope. Although Noel C. Taylor was employed by both his church and his city, one o f his remarks he made in The Roanoke Times offers an important perspective. He said that his church believed his politi• 48 • �cal work “was part o f High Street’s ministry to the whole city.’Y55) In a similar way, it would seem that the black churches o f Roanoke understood the Civil Rights Movement as a ministry to the whole city as well. Taylor, throughout his busy life in Roanoke, was an optimist and reconciler. Despite the numerous challenges that resulted from desegregating schools and the upheaval o f black c o m m u n itie s due to urban renewal projects, progress was made in many areas. Wages have slowly increased, as have workplace opportunities.(54) Places that originally barred the entrance o f blacks have now welcomed them. One of the highest achievements for African Americans, which seems to have at least partially resulted from the Civil Rights Movement in Roanoke, was in the election o f Rev. Taylor to the offices o f city councilman and mayor. The way that Taylor perceived his role as mayor provides a helpful understanding regarding his acceptability and personal character: The day I got here I knew who I was and I knew what my job was supposed to be. I knew I was here to be Mayor to all o f Roanoke. It mattered not: North, East, South or West. It has never bothered me and I feel comfortable and I feel happy whoever they are and whatever my task is as Mayor for the City o f Roanoke. I ’m glad that the Lord has fixed it. Nobody can change that. There’s not enough black power to make me not serve where I’m needed in the majority community and there’s not enough power in the majority com­ munity to make me not do what I ought to do for the minority and it’s all because o f the man who has all the power standing above it all and directing/J5j Overall, the story o f the Civil Rights Movement in Roanoke is inextricably linked to the work o f leaders and laypeople from the city’s black churches. Their courage and sacrifices forever changed Roa­ noke. As residents today look up to Mill Mountain and observe the illuminated star, they can consider that while Roanoke is still far from perfect, it has been nudged a little closer to becoming an ideal city as the result o f those involved in the Civil Rights Movement in the Star City. Endnotes 1. Clare White, Roanoke: 1740-1982 (Roanoke: Roanoke Valley Historical Society, 1982), 110. 2. Arleen Ollie. “Roanoke Public Library Oral History Initiative.” Retrieved from the Harrison Museum of African American Culture. 3. For one of the finest treatments on Roanoke’s origins, see Rand Dotson, Magic City o f the New South: Roanoke, Virginia, 1882-1912 (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2007). 4. Reginald Shareef, The Roanoke Valley’s African American Heritage (Virginia Beach: The Donning Company/Publishers, 1996); Arleen Ollie, African American History in Roanoke City: A Compilation of Records (Roanoke: Arleen Ollie, 2003). 5. Adelaide Fisher, “Who Did You Say Was in Charge?: Biography o f the Rev. Dr. Noel C. Taylor, Mayor, City o f Roanoke, Virginia.” Unpublished typed manuscript. (Salem: Roanoke College Library, 1990), 15. 6. Ibid., 18. 7. Ibid., 15,21. 8. Ibid., 48. 9. Ibid., 28,51. 10. Ibid., 41. 11. Ibid., 53. 12. Ibid., 55, 58, 61. 13. Ibid., 61. 14. Ibid., 63. 15. Ibid., 75-76. 16. Ibid., 80. 17. James T. Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and its Troubled Legacy (New York: Oxford 49 �University Press, 2001), 99. 18. Fisher, “Who Did You Say Was in Charge?,” 80-81. 19. Ibid., 82. 20. “Racial Commission Also Advocates Housing Plan,” Roanoke Times (September 22,1944). 21. Ibid. 22. Shanna Flowers, “Prelude to Justice,” The Roanoke Times (October 26,2005). 23. Ibid. 24. Danielle L. McGuire, At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance—A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010), 78. 25. Steven F. Lawson, Running for Freedom: Civil Rights and black Politics in America Since 1941 (Malden: Wiley Blackwell, 2015), 52. 26. “30 Negroes Ask Entry in Three Roanoke Schools” The Roanoke Times (May 26,1960). 27. Ibid. 28. NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415 (1963), 370-371. 29. Fisher, “Who Did You Say Was in Charge?,” 155. 30. Sheila Ellis, “Roanoke’s School Integration: ‘I Tried to Look Like Everyone Else’” The Roanoke Times (May 28, 2011). 31. Fisher, “Who Did You Say Was in Charge?,” 114. 32. Peggy Sue Mason, “Roanoke Public Library Oral History Initiative.” Retrieved from the Harrison Museum o f African American Culture. 33. Gardner William Smith, “Roanoke Public Library Oral History Initiative.” Retrieved from the Harrison Museum o f Afri­ can American Culture. 34. Shareef, The Roanoke Valley’s African American Heritage, 14. 35. White, Roanoke: 1740-1982,114. 36. Margie Fisher, “Housing Protestors Deny Troublemaking Charge,” The Roanoke Times, (March 15,1968). 37. Fisher, “Who Did You Say Was in Charge?,” 167-168. 38. Ibid., 175. 39. Ibid., 168. 40. Peggy Bier, “4 Arrests in Disorder Irk Blacks,” World News (December 7,1971). 41. Fred Anderson, Across the Years: A History of the First Baptist Church of Roanoke, Virginia, 1875-2000 (Roanoke: First Baptist Church of Roanoke, Virginia, 2000), 197. 42. Ibid., 197-198. 43. Fisher, “Who Did You Say Was in Charge?,” 184. 44. Joel Turner, “Race Relations Improved, Taylor Says” Roanoke Times & World-News (November 24,1991). 45. “Baptist Biggest Black Denomination” The Roanoke Times, 1977. The day and month were not recorded in this article found in the Virginia Room (Roanoke Public Library). 46. Anna Louise Haley, The Saint Gerard Story (Roanoke: Anna Louise Haley, 1981), 19. 47. “Black Church Maintains Its Role,” The Roanoke Times, 1975. The day and month were not recorded in this article found in the Virginia Room (Roanoke Public Library). 48. White, Roanoke: 1740-1982,115-117. 49. Mary Bishop, “Racial Remapping: How City Leaders Bulldozed Black Neighborhoods” Local Quarterly Issue #2: Roa­ noke, VA (June 2013), 43. 50. Shareef, The Roanoke Valley’s African American Heritage, 153. 51. Walter S. Claytor, et. al., comp., “Black Community Observations Over the Past Forty (40) Years in the City o f Roanoke.” Virginia Room, 1992. 1. 52. Ibid. 53. “Black Church Maintains Its Role,” The Roanoke Times, 1975. The day and month were not recorded in this article found in the Virginia Room (Roanoke Public Library). 54. Bishop, “Racial Remapping,” 45. However, Bishop also notes that considerable inequality, on average, between races in areas such as unemployment the frequency of foreclosures, still exists. 55. Fisher, “Who Did You Say Was in Charge?,” 195. 50 �Bibliography “30 Negroes Ask Entry in Three Roanoke Schools” The Roanoke Times (May 26,1960). Anderson, Fred. Across the Years: A History of the First Baptist Church o f Roanoke, Virginia, 1875-2000. Roanoke: First Baptist Church of Roanoke, Virginia, 2000. “Baptist Biggest Black Denomination” The Roanoke Times, 1977. The day and month were not recorded in this article found in the Virginia Room (Roanoke Public Library). “Black Church Maintains Its Role,” The Roanoke Times, 1975. The day and month were not recorded in this article found in the Virginia Room (Roanoke Public Library). Bier, Peggy. “4 Arrests in Disorder Irk Blacks,” World News (December 7,1971). Bishop, Mary. “Racial Remapping: How City Leaders Bulldozed Black Neighborhoods” Local Quarterly Issue #2: Roanoke, VA (June 2013). Claytor, Walter S., Evelyn D. Bethel, Virginia J. Board, Helen E. Davis, and George H. R. Heller, comp. “Black Community Observations Over the Past Forty (40) Years in the City o f Roanoke.” Virginia Room, 1992. Dotson, Rand. Magic City of the New South: Roanoke, Virginia, 1882-1912. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2007. Ellis, Sheila. “Roanoke’s School Integration: ‘I Tried to Look Like Everyone Else’” The Roanoke Times (May 28, 2011). Fisher, Adelaide. “Who Did You Say Was in Charge?: Biography of the Reverend Dr. Noel C. Taylor, Mayor, City of Roanoke, Virginia.” Unpublished typed manuscript. Salem: Roanoke College Library, 1990. Fisher, Margie. “Housing Protestors Deny Troublemaking Charge,” The Roanoke Times, (March 15, 1968). Flowers, Shanna. “Prelude to Justice,” The Roanoke Times (October 26,2005). Haley, Anna Louise. The Saint Gerard Story. Roanoke: Anna Louise Haley, 1981. Turner, Joel. “Race Relations Improved, Taylor Says” Roanoke Times & World-News (November 24, 1991). Lawson, Steven F. Running for Freedom: Civil Rights and black Politics in America Since 1941. Malden: Wiley Blackwell, 2015. Mason, Peggy Sue. “Roanoke Public Library Oral History Initiative.” Retrieved from the Harrison Museum of African American Culture. Mcguire, Danielle L. At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance—A New History o f the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415 (1963). Ollie, Arleen. African American History in Roanoke City: A Compilation of Records. Roanoke: Arleen Ollie, 2003. —. “Roanoke Public Library Oral History Initiative.” Retrieved from the Harrison Museum o f African American Culture. Patterson, James T. Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and its Troubled Legacy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. “Racial Commission Also Advocates Housing Plan,” Roanoke Times (September 22, 1944). Shareef, Reginald. The Roanoke Valley’s African American Heritage. Virginia Beach: The Donning Company/Publishers, 1996. Smith, Gardner William. “Roanoke Public Library Oral History Initiative.” Retrieved from the Harrison Museum o f African American Culture. White, Clare. Roanoke: 1740-1982. Roanoke: Roanoke Valley Historical Society, 1982. 51 �(ÿeonye 'K ew fott *Went%, î % 5 2 -Î * 9 2 6 by Richard Morgan ne o f the earliest and most prolific photographers in Wash­ ington County was George Newton Wertz, who has been little recognized despite the many pictures that have sur­ vived, bearing his name. His prominence first came to the attention o f Jane Oakes o f the Historical Society, who has spent many years digitizing and preserving images o f Washington County and South­ west Virginia. This article provides an introduction to the man and his works while the Society plans an exhibition o f his photographs where many more can be put on public display. A sampling o f his work is presented here. When Wertz was bom, photography was still in its early stages. It had been invented in France by Louis-Jaques-Mand Daguerre, who gave his first exhibit in 1839. The new art came to the United States not long afterwards and an advertisement for a daguerrotypist appeared in The Democrat as early as 1852 though that might not have been the first. Wertz was bom in Cave Spring, Roanoke County, on May o f that same year, the son o f Noah Frantz Wertz and Catherine Persinger Wertz. At that time, photographs had to be taken in well-lighted studios, with skylights, where the posers had to remain still for several minutes because the process required very long exposures. Sometimes the subjects o f photographs were locked in a brace so they would not move. In 1853, what were known as tintype photos appeared, although they were actually made o f iron. During the O G. N. Wertz September 1871 Editor ’s Note: This article is reprintedfrom the Bulletin, Series II, No. 54, 2017, o f the Historical Society o f Washington County Virginia, with permission o f that organization. (A notation on the photo at the top o f this page reads “Roanoke City, from Mill Mountain. ”) 52 �cowtnpt trb» e***ir w*o -fltyiuu; D ¥ WA jC QU; H.Flecker, Salem, Vjl, -= T t s n K E B ^ (JAtLEEY, /; .v T .l l S £IZ X > G > X !, ---- ¡S ill----------- o r F t c K. AI.L KINDS O P PICTPItKS TO ORDER. VIRGINIA. P hotographs, Ferrotypes <fcP orcelain s C O V »T,V S TM f O X I t \ > { ) , A n aw o rtm e n t o f fine Album»* Stereoscopes a n d Stereoscopic Views, tvo mmirvv ARTOPTS FAm y ( H it ’PAsstEb* P IC TU R E S , Coto { t f t f t f t r r r r o t t/ ¡> r* m n l .1 m b r o ti/jH 'it t o t i l r t cairt #l*c to l i f t e r « ' ) in OH. liiilfs Ink u r A 'ster u ilu i icttoa, 4<nl w irtnntisl to s ir e uti< & aloN . -Doa't M s l{ th<u < t (¡m i betw iisulll u i i t o'clock. American Civil War, many outdoor photographs were taken although they still required long exposures. In later years, the process improved to the point that shorter times were required to capture an image. In 1870, when he was 18 years old, Wertz attended classes at a photographic studio in Roanoke. Shortly thereafter, he became a traveling photographer using a studio in a railroad boxcar known as a Skylight Car. The railroad would put the boxcar on a siding in towns and people went to the studio for the novelty of having pictures made o f themselves and their family members. Advertisements show him to have been in Pearisburg in 1872 and in Christiansburg during 1874-1875. By 1875 he had arrived in Abingdon where he opened a permanent studio. There he remained active for more than 50 years. In 1879,Wertz married Lillie Burch, the daughter o f the manager o f the Colonnade Hotel where he had been living. They had a daughter, Kate May, in 1880. Unfortunately, Lillie died in 1882 and was buried in a family plot in Sinking Spring Cemetery. The quantity o f surviving works by Wertz demonstrates his popularity among the residents of Abingdon and surrounding communities, while the quality can be easily seen by a viewer today. The earliest surviving images show mostly adult family members, but his business seems to have rapidly expanded when he started capturing images o f children. •5 5 « �He also took pictures o f businesses, churches and the community. When biplanes came to town after World War I, he used the opportunity to take his camera to the sky and record views o f Abingdon from the air. Wertz also took several pictures o f Abingdon from Fruit Hill and assembled them as a pan­ orama o f the town in 1915. Wertz married again in 1887 to Garnett Fuller o f Abingdon and the 1890 census indicated they lived on Valley Street where the family may have lived for some time. The couple had a daughter, Geor­ gia G. Wertz, who was bom in 1889. Among many other subjects, Wertz photographed his daughters at his studio on Main Street, next to the Episcopal Church. His daughter, Georgia, unfortunately died in 1910 o f child birth at the age o f 21. Her daughter, Christy, then became a favorite o f his. In June 1924, Wertz suffered a massive stroke and never took another picture. Six months later, on December 27, fire destroyed his studio and all his photographic plates and negatives were lost. The fire spread to the adjoining St. Thomas Episopal Church which burned to the ground and all its early records were lost. The photographer died on April 24, 1926. Although Wertz’s first wife, Lil­ lie Burch, is buried with an elaborate headstone in a large family plot in Sinking Spring Cemetery, his grave and that o f his second wife, who died in 1929, are unmarked although their obituaries and death certificates indicate they too were interred in Sinking Spring Cemetery, In addition, there is no evidence where their daughter, Georgia, is bur­ ied. Wertz took hundreds if not thousands o f photographs over a long period o f time. O f these, over a hundred have been identified and preserved in digital format by the Historical Society o f Washington County. Many more may be in private collections. They can be easily identified because he stamped each with his logo: G.N. Wertz Photographic Studio Abingdon. The Historical Society would appreciate people searching for additional photographs and bringing them to the Society so that they may be copied and preserved for future generations. References Irvine B. Wells, Women o f Summer (2010); personal conversation with Wells, October 29, 2016 “Interview with Christy Wells,” Washington County News, March 5,1970 Mead Campbell, “George Newton Wertz Photographer, HSWC. Publication No 45 (2008), [pp. 9-11] Charles H. Carson “Many Remember Gallery in Abingdon,” Journal Virginian, June 29, 1961 U.S. Census, 1890-1920 Correspondence with Montgomery Museum, Christiansburg “The Women o f Summer” is largely a work o f fiction, but the author states the information about Wertz’s daughter, Georgia, is fact. 54 �Exchange Bank In New Building Handsomest and Most Modem Structure of Its Kind in the South onday will mark a new era in the his­ tory o f the National Exchange Bank, which then will occupy its magnificent new home on the southwest comer o f Jefferson Street and Campbell Avenue. The building is one o f which all Roanoke is justly proud and is an everlasting monument to the strength o f the in­ stitution and the business ability and foresight o f its management. It is by far the handsomest, most modem and best equipped banking house in the South. Constant comment is made o f the build­ ing and frequently it is styled a perfect example of architecture. The officers and directors did not rush matters when they were formulating plans for their new home. After a thorough investigation the directors voted unanimously to erect a building exclusively for the conduct o f the bank’s business. In so doing they secured what is conceded the most valuable building site in the hub o f Roa­ noke’s business center. The directors voted against the erection o f an office building since they were o f the opinion that the time necessarily devoted to tenants could be utilized to a better advantage in meeting the demands o f the bank’s customers. Complete, the building has forty or more rooms used exclusively by the bank and not a single office will be rented. The property on which the bank stands covers an area o f 50 by 160 feet and this together with the completed building represents an outlay o f about $200,000. The directors first purchased the lot and then took up the matter o f the erection o f a new home. A consulting architect was con­ M sulted to prepare preliminary plans and these were submitted to the board. Later, plans were submit­ ted on a competitive basis and architects from New York, Baltimore, Washington, Richmond, Norfolk and Roanoke competed. The successful competi­ tors were Messrs. Wyatt and Nolting o f Baltimore. Wyatt and Nolting are architects o f national repu­ tation. They have made the plans and supervised the construction o f some o f the largest buildings in the North. The same firm designed the magnifi­ cent five-million-dollar court house in Baltimore. When the plans were completed, the contract for construction was awarded to Thompson, Starrett & Co. o f Pittsburgh, Pa., one o f the leading construc­ tion firms in the country. This firm is building the Woolworth Building in New York and many oth­ ers. Ground was broken for the foundation o f the new building May 1st, 1912. TH E BUILDING The building has frontage o f fifty feet on Jef­ ferson Street and runs back on Campbell Avenue one hundred feet. The structure is fire proof, wood work having been eliminated. It is an amazing structure and is made more impressive by its sim­ plicity. It is o f the ionic style o f architecture, built o f Georgia white marble, with a base o f Mount Airy granite.The effect is exquisitely carried out with six solid marble ionic columns, forty feet in height on the Campbell Avenue side and four on the front. On the north side are five large windows and these are covered with iron grilles but not of sufficient density to interfere with the lighting. There are two entrances, one on Jefferson Street, Editor s note: This account o f the opening o f National Exchange Bank is printed verbatim from The Roanoke Times o f March 3, 1913. •5 5 * �The former First National Exchange Bank building has been offered for sale by its owner, Wells Fargo Bank. The building is vacant. main entrance, and one from Campbell Avenue side. The building stands over fifty feet high, the banking room having the same pitch. TH E BANKING ROOM On entering from Jefferson Steet, one is struck with the simple elegance o f the commodious banking room. The president’s office is on the right and adjoining this is an ante-room. The president’s rooms are finished in Italian mahogany, its furnishing being o f the same wood. The office is equipped with a private vault. On the left o f the main entrance is the office o f the vice president, finished in the same style as that o f the president. On this side o f the building is a ladies waiting room, comfortably arranged, and opposite this is the “ladies window.” Every convenience is provided for the comfort o f woman patrons. The “ladies window” is exclusively for their use in transacting business with the bank. In the banking room proper are fourteen tellers’ windows, each teller being provided with a separate compartment as well as a savings department windows and others. On the right side o f the room, near the entrance, are the offices o f the cashier and the assistant cashier. The partitions separat­ ing the main lobby from the tellers’ compartments are o f Italian statuary and Pavonanze marble and the 56 �windows are o f bronze grille work. To the center o f the lobby stand two magnificent check desks, made of French Caen stone. Besides the light obtained from the large windows on the north side o f the build­ ing, additional light is given from a huge art glass light in the center o f the ceiling. The walls are devoid o f decorative color, being o f Caen stone, in keeping with the architecture and finish. Just inside the main entrance are two solid Italian marble columns supporting a mezzanine floor. The floor o f the hanking room is in gray and green French marble. The electric lighting is done by the indirect system in the main banking room, eight large chandeliers o f Oriental glass and opal glass being suspended from the ceiling. The gate in the rear o f the banking room, which opens into the employees’ departments, is operated by an electric lock. Just behind this is located the principal vault. This gigantic strong box is held by a qua­ druple time lock in addition to two o f the latest improved combination locks. The vault is equipped with a score o f lock and safety deposit boxes and is one o f the nine different vaults in the building, the door weighing over twenty-three thousand pounds. LAMSON’S PNEUMATIC TUBE SYSTEM O f the many devices found in the modem equipment o f the building, one which will be o f inestimable value to the bank is Lamson’s pneumatic tube system, which has been installed throughout the entire building. The system is similar to that used in large department stores and will enable employees o f the bank to send papers, change, etc., from one part o f the building to another within a few seconds, thereby saving much time and delay. A private branch telephone exchange with the intercommunicating also has been installed, there being more than thirty telephones in the building, in addition to speaking tubes, press buttons, burglar alarms, etc. T H E DIRECTORS ROOM What is considered as distinctly the handsomest feature o f the building is the directors’ room, which occupies the mezzanine floor over the main entrance. The room is spacious and has an unusual pitch. It is finished in English oak panels which run half-way to the ceiling, the remainder o f the walls being of French Caen stone. Standing in the center o f the room is a massive directors’ table o f silver grey English oak with chairs to match and twenty directors can be comfortably seated at this table. Suspended over the table is a handsome chandelier finished in Verde antique bronze. The room is accessible by electric elevator on one side and stair case on the other. On the other side o f the room and adjoining it are consultation rooms, while on the other side a bed room, shower bath and lavatory for the use o f directors is furnished. Adjoining this is an office which has been ar­ ranged for use by any o f the vice presidents. D IN IN G ROOM FOR EMPLOYEES In the rear o f the building are three mezzanine floors. The first contains another vault for the storage o f money, books, etc., a stationery room and a library for the use o f employees. On the second mezzanine floor is found a bed room with private bath for the use o f employees and on the same floor one o f the greatest innovations to be found in a Southern bank are the dining rooms for employees and officers, where they will be served dinner free o f cost. The dining rooms are finished in oak and attractively furnished. The kitchen, butler’s pantry, refrigerator, store room, servants’ and janitors’ quarters are located on the floor above. With one or two exceptions, the National Exchange Bank is the first financial institution in the South to inaugurate free dining service for its employees. •5 7 * �IN T H E BASEMENT In the basement may be found many interesting features. Five vaults are here located, containing deposit compartments for the storage o f family valuables, being designated particularly for keeping articles o f great value for persons absent from home. Individual lockers have been installed here for the use o f employees, as well as shower baths, lavatories, etc. In this connection it might be mentioned that shower baths at various points in the building are provided for use by officers, employees and servants. The basement is exceptionally dry and in the center is a room forty feet square, which at this time is not utilized but is reserved for future use. All machinery incident to the operation o f the pneumatic tube system is located in the basement. Here too is seen a wonderful bit o f machinery, a plant which furnished the building with pure air. The air is pumped into the plant and filtered through cloths and thus purified before being sent into the banking room. This is in addition to a regular system o f ventilation. The building is equipped with a vacuum cleaning plant, also in the basement. Throughout the building are sanitary drinking fountains. The water is chilled but does not come in contact with ice. Another modem mechanical device is an automatic pump designed to carry off water or sewer­ age, should the necessity arise. Under the compolite floor is a layer o f tile and should water rise it would be carried directly to the pump which automatically will be put into operation. The building is heated by twin boilers and in addition to those is a hot water heater which supplies water for the baths and kitchen. A small gymnasium for the employees o f the bank is being installed in the basement. This is the first bank in the South to put in arrangements for physical recreation for its employees. While the gym­ nasium will not be large, it will be equipped with all the necessary appliances. BUILDING FIREPROOF The building is absolutely fireproof. But two desks in the entire building are o f wood. The flooring used is o f four styles: marble, compolite, cork and terrazo. Although fireproof, the building is equipped with stand pipes and two-inch hose to be used in the case o f incipient fire. Three elevators, an electric, one operated by water and a hand elevator are installed. The building, which is complete in every detail, not only is an ornament to the city but will be pointed out with pride by Roanokers to visitors as a distinct example o f the progressiveness o f Roa­ noke’s leading businessmen. BANK’S EARLY HISTORY The National Exchange Bank is twenty-four years old next May, having been organized May 7, 1889. In those twenty-four years it has grown from a small bank to one o f the most important in the State. T.T. Fishbume, now chairman o f the board, was the first president and J.B. Fishbum, now president, was vice president and cashier. They are the two original officers o f the bank. When the bank was organized it had a capitalization o f $100,000. Today, the capital, surplus and profits amount to more than $750,000. On November 9, 1910, the day the site for the new building was purchased, the deposits amounted to $2,200,000. Yesterday when the bank began to move into its new quarters, the deposits amounted to over $3,000,000, an increase o f nearly a million dollars in a little over two years. This is a record o f which few banks in this section can boast. The total assets o f the bank are over four million dollars. In twenty-four years o f its existence, the National Exchange Bank has had three homes and the new building makes four. When the bank was started in 1889 it occupied a store room on Salem Avenue, in the rear o f the lot on which the First National Bank now stands. In July 1890, the bank was moved to more commodi­ ous quarters in the Bear building on the southeast comer o f Salem Avenue and Jefferson Street. The business o f the bank made rapid strides between that time and 1899 when there was a re• 58• �moval to the Terry building. Being cramped for room, the bank took in additional office space two years ago, occupying the office across the hall in the Terry building vacated by the First National Bank. The National Exchange Bank made rapid strides from the beginning. In 1905 it took over the business o f the Century Banking and Safe Deposit Company and a year later it absorbed the Peoples National Bank. OFFICERS OF T H E BANK The officers o f the bank are; T.T. Fishbume, chair­ man o f the board; J.B. Fishbum, president; Lucian H. Cocke and Edward L. Stone, vice presidents; E.B. Spencer, cashier; T.L. Engleby and A.H. Dud­ ley, assistant cashiers; and C.W. Beerbower, auditor. Directors: J.B. Andrews, W.K. Andrews, James C. Cassell, L.H. Cocke, J.B. Fishbum, T.T. Fishbume, F.E. Foster, T.W. Goodwin, L.E. John­ son, Joseph Keys, A.E. King, W.H. Lewis, I. J. Meals, John H. Newton, S.B. Pace, E.B. Spencer, W.C. Stephenson, Edward L. Stone, F.B. Thomas, J.L. Vaughan, J.R. Weaver, E. Wile and James P. Woods. READY FOR BUSINESS MONDAY Saturday afternoon, a large force o f men were engaged in moving the books, papers, etc. from the Terry building into the new bank across the street, and Monday morning at 9 o ’clock the bank will be ready to handle all business in the new quarters. Last Thursday the building was formally thrown open to the public for inspection. However, the public is invited to look over the building at any time. The Terry building, which was vacated and owned by the bank, was sold recently to a syndicate o f Roanoke businessmen for $350,000. This has been carried on the books o f the bank at $100,000. f, ®s Editor’s note: The former Terry building, Roa­ noke’s first “skyscraper, ” stood at the present site o f Hometown Bank, across Jefferson Street from the National Exchange Bank building which this 1913 newspaper article describes. T h e d ir e c t o r s v o te d a g a in s t th e e r e c tio n o f an o f f ic e b u ild in g s in c e th e y w ere o f th e o p in io n t h a t th e tim e n e c e s s a rily d e v o te d t o te n a n ts c o u Id b e u tiliz e d t o a b e t t e r a d v a n ta g e in m e e tin g th e d e m a n d s o f th e b a n k ’s c u s to m e rs . 59 �f e *l/O iytttta*t S ta tio n and t e 6 6 by James Cosby and Skip Salmon he Virginian Station was built in Roanoke in 1909 and opened in 1910 as the crown jew el o f sta­ tions on the Virginian Railway which stretched from Deepwater, West Virginia, near Charleston, to Norfolk, Virginia. Financed and built by Henry Huttleston Rogers, it competed with the Nor­ folk and Western, Chesapeake and Ohio and other railroads for the coal traffic fueling the American and foreign economies at the height o f the Industrial Revolution. Built in the 20th century, the Virginian had a more favorable grade than its 19th century competitors. After the heyday o f train travel in the 1920s, by the 1940s the Roanoke station served four passenger trains daily, two east- and two west-bound. Railroad passen­ ger traffic nationwide declined after World War II as the travelling public turned to airlines and automobiles. Pas­ senger service through Roanoke on the Virginian ended in 1956. The Virginian was merged into the Norfolk and | Western in 1959. The passenger station was ultimately leased to feed and seed store tenants. It tragically burned on January 29, 2001, and was substantially destroyed. By early March, Ken Miller, president o f the Roa­ The Virginian Station in 1910. noke chapter o f the National Railway Historical Society, and Alison Blanton, president o f the Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation, led their organizations to form an informal partnership to restore the Virginian Station, which is on the National Register o f Historic Places. Under sponsorship o f the City o f Roanoke, appropriations and grants were obtained through the office o f Congressman Bob Goodlatte, Virginia Department o f Transporta­ tion and the Envimmental Protection Agency which, with more than 20% matching funds, enabled the restoration to proceed. Phase I restoration was begun and completed in 2012. That involved removal o f the substantial asbestos and lead con­ tamination, stabilization o f the building and replacement o f the tile roof destroyed by the fire. The replacement tile came from the Ludowici Company in Ohio, who had provided the original in 1910. It is in the same style and a similar color as the original. Phase II was completed in 2016. It comprised completion Twelve days after the fire. (Photo o f the interior including wiring and HVAC, parking, landscapby James Cosby) T Cosby and Salmon are leaders o f the Roanoke chapter o f the National Railway Historical Society and the sta­ tion restoration committee. 60 �The Virginian Station after completion o f restoration. ing and the Virginian monuments. Chapter historian Ken Miller and architect Barry Rakes determined the original paint scheme from historical documents and paint chips from the window frames and sills. Miller even had the paint formula from a century ago. All window frames and some doors were removed before the restoration, stored in a trailer on premises, re-finished and reinstalled. Even the mop sink in the women’s room and the urinal in the men’s room are “historic originals” over 100 years old. The terrazzo floor was damaged in the fire but was restored to a modern-day beauty. The chapter’s mechanical department restored and installed the operating signal light outside. Chapter members also recovered the large “Virginian” tablet monument when the Virginian’s Narrows power plant was demolished some 45 years ago. Many people have contributed to this beautiful restoration o f a railroad station. As a superb grant writer, Alison Blanton raised more money than all others combined. The architects were Barry Rakes, Spectrum Design and Hill Studio; the general contractor was G & H Contracting; counsel, Gentry Locke; and accountant, Budd and Company. Construction banks were Valley Bank and Carter Bank and Trust. The smaller baggage and express building will be used by the chapter as its principal office with a display area for artifacts and exhibits from and about the Virginian Railway and its employees. The larger passenger station building will be leased to a tenant yet to be determined. Editor s Note: The station welcom ed the public to a re-opening ceremony in November 2016. • 61 • �& tC f CA Î O Î ! Courtesy o f the City o f Roanoke he City o f Roanoke was founded in 1882 and the first Municipal Building, a three-story Victorian structure, was opened in 1887. By the early 1900s, the city government required more space so in 1907, a site for a new building was selected and purchased. That site is the location for the present building. Plans were drawn in 1913 and on October 27, 1914, ground was broken for a new building. The building was designed by the Roanoke architectural firm o f Frye and Chesterman and it was constructed by King Lumber Co. o f Charlottesville. Work was completed and the building was opened in late March 1916. Since no ceremony had been held to lay the cornerstone, the city decided to hold a large festive celebration to dedicate the facility. Although city aldermen in March had authorized expenditure o f $150 to cover the cost o f a celebration, the official opening was on July 4,1916. So the building was formally dedicated on July 4, with a parade that included 5,000 marchers and a crowd estimated at 50,000 spec­ tators lining the streets to the city auditorium where speeches and singing were heard. James A. Bear, T Some o f this information was gleanedfrom a Historic American Building Survey. 62 �chairman o f the Public Property Committee which oversaw the construction, presented the building’s key to Mayor Charles N. Broun. Confederate soldiers were the first honored guests to tour the facility and thousands followed throughout the day. Roanoke’s “courthouse” building, as it was called, is a neoclassical revival structure, typical o f federal and local government construction found in the early part o f the 20th century. With three-story, Ionic and Corinthian columns and pilasters and terra cotta cornices, this building achieved the effect of grandeur and majesty desired by the city. A newspaper critic called it “modem and pretentious ... a striking example o f its stability, progressiveness and prosperity.” Total construction cost o f the original facility was $218,900. The original building was planned in the following manner: The first floor housed the Police Department, along with the Police Court, dormitory and detention area and the trial and issuing-justice area. The second (or main) floor contained the mayor’s office, city clerk, Health Department, solicitor, engineer, treasurer and collector, and commissioner o f revenue. The third floor housed the council cham­ ber, commonwealth’s attorney, corporation courtroom, law and chancery court, grand jury room and clerk o f courts. The jail was located on the two upper floors o f the building, providing 34 rooms for male inmates, six cells for females. 34 additional cells for male inmates on the fifth floor and a kitchen on the fourth floor. Four years after the jail opened, four inmates escaped by sawing through the bars. The jail equipment supplier had not provided case and steel as specified. For 100 years, the Municipal Building has been a center o f municipal business and civic activi­ ties. In 1970, construction o f the adjacent Municipal Building “annex” was completed and that structure was opened. At that time, most municipal services, excluding judiciary-related offices, were moved. In 1982, construction work began to completely renovate all five floors o f the original building to primar­ ily accommodate the needs o f the city’s Social Services program. Prior to that renovation, space for the program was housed in various properties, leased throughout the downtown area. It was with this projct that the former main entrance from Campbell Avenue was closed in order to provide administrative of­ fice space. The cost o f that renovation project was approximately $2.3 million. In 2009, the former “Sears Town” shopping center located on Williamson Road was renovated and expanded to accommodate the growing needs o f the Social Services Department and a short time later, the City Health Department. The space freed up in what was now referred to as the Municipal North Building was then renovated to better accommodate the administrative needs o f Juvenile Court services, the registrar’s office, purchasing, human resources, Parks and Recreation and other sundry departments and offices. The recent effort in 2016 to reopen the former main entrance from Campbell Avenue has entailed the remodeling o f the original city council chambers on the third floor. That space will now be used for employee training and larger meetings. It also required the relocation o f a small group within payroll and the relocation o f Human Resources and the “lead-safe” program staff. One o f the factors that led to the city’s pursuing this initiative was the condition o f the orna­ mental plaster found on the walls and ceiling o f the original lobby. Those surfaces were found to be in incredibly good condition, given that walls had been furred out with new gypsum wall board, new walls constructed and lay-in ceilings installed with the previous renovation efforts. City staff were able to make repairs to major portions o f the crown mold and to a lesser degree the decorative portions found in the ceiling coffers. New tile flooring was laid over the existing floor, the walls were repainted, the alu­ minum doors and glazed window units added in the 1980s were removed and replaced with new wood doors resembling those found in the original building, and new LED lighting installed. The reopening o f the grand entrance on Campbell Avenue was celebrated with a ceremony that heralded the building’s 100th anniversary. • 63 • �* 7 6 e S even 'itycCCd ^oe/bfaudye by George K egley even fine brick homes were built in the early 1800s by three inter-related families — Grigsby, Greenlee and Welch — on estates in the Buffalo Creek/Natural Bridge area o f southern Rock­ bridge County. They are Fancy Hill, Hickory Hill, Liberty Hill, Herring Hall (formerly known as Clover Hill), Marlbrook (formerly known as Cherry Hill), Rose Hill and Fruit Hill. A bus tour o f the Historical Society o f Western Virginia visited five o f the seven mansions in October 2016. Two historians, writing about Natural Bridge and its surroundings in 1939, likened the old homes to the seven hills o f Rome. “ [I]t might be suggested that Rockbridge County has a counterpart in the seven ‘H ills’ o f the Welch-Grigsby-Greenlee clan,” according to Edmund R Tompkins and J. Lee Davis in “The Natural Bridge and its Historical Surroundings.” They said the homes were “connected rather intimately in former days by a thread o f romance, marriage or blood relationship.... All o f them are o f dignified, rather stately architecture and curiously enough every single one o f them has a name ending in ‘H ill.’” (Two o f the “Hills” were later renamed.) S George Kegley is editor o f the Journal. (Editor s note: The tour d id not visit Fruit H ill and Rose Hill. Pictured above is Fancy Hill.) 64 �“Soldier John” Grigsby, a captain in the Revolutionary War, built Fruit Hill and lived there until his death in 1796. His son, Elisha Grigsby, married Elizabeth Porter and they lived nearby at Rose Hill. Fancy Hill was the home o f Sally Grigsby, a daughter o f “Soldier John,” who lived there with her hus­ band, Thomas Welch. Hannah Grigsby, daughter o f Elisha, and her husband, David Greenlee, lived at Clover Hill, later called Herring Hall. Eliza Grigsby, younger sister o f Hannah, married Thomas Welch Jr., son o f Thomas Welch Sr., and they made their home at Liberty Hill. Captain Reuben Grigsby, a son o f “Soldier John,” and his wife, Verlinda, made their home at Hickory Hill. David Greenlee Sr., uncle o f Clover Hill David, married Jane White and lived at Cherry Hill, now known as Marlbrook. Fancy Hill Fancy Hill, one o f the finest o f the seven, is an imposing eight-bay Federal style mansion, started in 1821 and added onto in 1831. Built for Thomas Welch II and his wife, Sarah Grigsby, it is located on the Great Road (also called Valley Road,) off Interstate 81 today. In early days it was a dwelling, a stagecoach stop, tavern and a boarding school for boys. A 1934 owner planned to replace it with a Cape Cod home but he was persuaded to renovate it instead. A former Colonial Williamsburg carpenter did the work. Gerald and Genie Vaughn have lived here since 1985. Fruit Hill Fruit Hill, the Federal home o f “Soldier John” Grigsby, is recognized for its excellent detailing, especially on a parlor mantel. Grigsby lived there until his death in 1796. His burial was the first in the cemetery at Falling Spring Presbyterian. Grigsby served in the Revolution with Lawrence Washington, brother o f George Washington. In 1783, a French marquis who fought in the Revolution with Washing­ ton and Lafayette visited Fruit Hill. Kurt Russ, present owner, has an extensive collection o f pie safes and pottery. Herring Hall Clover Hill, now called Herring Hall, was the manor house o f a 600-acre plantation, probably built by John Greenlee, who bought the land in 1771 and built the home about 1812. It was later oc­ cupied by his son, David Greenlee, and his wife, Hannah Ingram Grigsby, and their 12 children. The Herring family bought the home in 1901 and changed the name to Herring Hall. The “handsome, late Federal style main house is complemented by a six-sided smokehouse,” according to Dan Pezzoni’s “Ar­ chitecture o f Historic Rockbridge.” Catherine and Frances Herring operated an inn and restaurant there from 1926 to 1970. Anne Herring reopened the bed and breakfast in 2008 and continues today. Hickory Hill Hickory Hill, the 1823-24 home of Reuben Grigsby, has a Federal parlor mantel, circular stair­ way, three integrated chimneys and Doric columns with Greek Revival influence. Grigsby, a community leader, was a militia captain, sheriff, member o f the House o f Delegates, trustee o f Washington College and treasurer o f his church. A daughter, Mary Ann, married Robert McCormick, son o f the McCormick reaper family. In the 1920s, a McCormick descendant bought the place. A large bam features heavy tim­ ber construction. A row o f posts rise to a mortise and tenon joint at massive cross beams. Don Hasfurther lives there today. Liberty Hill Liberty Hill is an 1836 Federal/Greek Revival mansion built for Thomas Welch III and his wife, Eliza Grigsby Welch. The home is recognized for a series o f ornate carved mantels and a wealth o f or• 65 • �namental woodwork. Marbled stair risers, a large kitchen and a small wine cellar are other features. The home is owned by Ken Taylor o f Charlottesville. Marlbrook Marlbrook, built as Cherry Hill in the 1790s, was the Georgian home o f David Greenlee and his mother, pioneer settler Mary McDowell Greenlee, who lived to 102 and was believed to be the first white woman in the county. The house, recognized for its architecturally refined interior, has paneled chimney facings and mantels. A log spring house, bam and tenant house are nearby. The property has had a number o f owners and now is held by John C. Malone o f Colorado, believed to be the largest landowner in the nation. Rose Hill Rose Hill, the 1820 home o f Elisha Grigsby, son o f “Soldier John,” is a home o f Carolyn Glenn, who operates it as rental property. The bricks for the classic two-over-two style farm home were made on the place. Elisha Grigsby’s daughters, Hanna, lived at Clover Hill, and Eliza lived at Liberty Hill. This estate adjoins Fruit Hill. A family cemetery is nearby on the 360-acre farm. The tour also included additional points o f interest. Buffalo Forge Near the Seven Hills is Buffalo Forge, once a famous iron manufacturing business whose records were used by historian Charles Dew for a popular 1994 history, “Bond o f Iron: Master and Slave at Buf­ falo Forge.” Here as many as 100 slaves produced iron for William Weaver in the early 1800s. He sold to Confederate arsenals during the Civil War but the business closed in 1868. His 1,500-acre plantation produced com and tobacco. Mount Pleasant, manor house for the forge, dates from 1819. The home is still owned by the Brady family, descendants o f Weaver. Falling Spring Presbyterian Church The congregation o f Falling Spring Presbyterian Church, one o f many Scotch-Irish Presbyterian churches in Rockbridge and Augusta counties, was formed abut 1748 in a log structure. They worshiped in a stone building from 1794 until the present building was dedicated in 1864. The church was named for a small waterfall off nearby Buffalo Creek. John Craig, an Augusta County pioneer who ministered to as many as 28 frontier congregations in the mid-18th century, conducted baptisms here. After services by several itinerant pastors, James McConnel, a recent graduate o f Nassau Hall (later Princeton University), was the first resident minister in 1755. Kenneth Chorle is the pastor now. • 66 • �?natt ito 0 6 1 %Z 3 w riter signing his Aug. 9 contribution to the Richmond Dispatch as “Aram inta” notes: “The farm ers o f Franklin, like those of Henry, cultivate tobacco chiefly, which is o f a superior kind. It is bright and is used prim arily fo r wrappers and til­ lers fo r high grades o f manufactured tobacco. In the county, there are fifteen tobacco factories which will w ork on an average fifty hands each. The am ount o f w heat and corn raised is small, but there is to be found in the county some o f the finest tim ber in the State, and at present there are several persons engaged largely in the lum ber business. The population o f the county is 20,000 — whites, 18,000; colored, 8,000. ■ Monday, Aug. 6, was court-day at Rocky Mount. A t an early hour in the morning, people could be seen coming into the village from every direction — on horseback, in buggies and som e in ox-carts. About mid-day, several hundred had assembled. Here and there the country auctioneer was selling either horses or cheap dry goods, w hile at the hotels, in the largest and best rooms, were m et the enterprising commercial travelers with sam ples o f goods laid out offering inducem ents to the county merchant. They were here from Baltimore, Richmond and Lynchburg and represented dry goods, notions, grocery, hardware and drug houses. I am told that Lynchburg drums the county very closely and has the bulk o f the trade. In and around the courthouse I observed groups o f men, som e o f them white and some black, in earnest conversation discussing the politics o f the day. I was told that they w ere principally Coalition-Republicans. A fter adjournm ent o f the County Court, they held their convention and nominated W illiam L. Powell for senator — his opponent was Judge Thom as B. Claiborne, the Mahonite judge o f the county — and W addy T. James (ex-State senator) for the House o f Delegates. There was considerable feeling on the part o f Jam es’s friends, w ho claimed that he ought to have been re-nominated for the State Senate. The nomination was first to John O. Poindexter, who was elected sheriff last spring, but he would not accept. A t that tim e he claimed to be a Dem ocrat and but for that fact would not, it is said, have been elected. The Democrats pronounce it a weak ticket, and claim that they will carry the county som e 300 to 500 majority. The Demo­ crats will hold a prim ary on August 25 in the different m agisterial districts to elect del­ egates to a convention that will meet Septem ber 3 (court day) at Rocky Mount to nomi­ nate a senator and a m em ber o f the House o f Delegates. There has been no rain in this section since June 20 and the tobacco is suffering very much. (This report comes from The Times o f Franklin, August 2016, a publication o f the Franklin County Historical Society.) • 67 • �^ .em em fierU tty ‘W onlot ‘ZOast *) *Vetenóut& n this centennial year o f World War I, Daniel Newcomb, a graduate student at Virginia Tech and now a history teacher, has been working on a digital project exploring the lives o f Roanoke Valley and Virginia Tech veterans o f that war. Newcomb gathered oral histories from family members at the Virginia Room o f the Roanoke Public Library and that information is online. “Roanoke Valley in the Great War” is the title o f the project seeking information on more than 3,000 veterans. Likely sources o f information are draft cards, the VPI yearbook, census records, birth, marriage and death records, and genealogies. Newcomb and his associates focused much o f their work on the estimated 1,000 students from Virginia Tech who were in military service between April 1917 and November 1918. They were among the first soldiers to arrive in France in the summer o f 1918. VPI men fought in all three major American offensives on the Western Front in France — the Aisne-Mame, St. Mihiel and the Meuse Argonne. Since the American Expeditionary Forces took a leading role, these three offensives brought an end to World War I. Veterans who had served in France formed a Virginia Tech Overseas Club. Information on World War I veterans is available online from Virginia War Commission at https ://www. virginiawwiandwwii.org/. Pictured above is ROTC Company A on the Virginia Tech Drillfield in 1918. A sampling o f bio­ graphic information about Virginia Tech veterans follows. George K egley I �‘W iito M t VPI Class of 1913 November 17,1891 - November 30,1951 After the war ended, Clifford Hubbard returned home to Forest, Virginia, and resumed farming. He married in 1921 and when his second son was bom he named his son Samuel, after his brother who had died during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. *7eii A ocvmw VPI Class of 1916 November 13,1893 - May 9,1979 Immediately after the war, Charles Lawson trained fellow Marines at the Quantico Marine Corps Base. Upon being discharged on January 30,1919, Lawson returned to civilian life as a sales engineer with a company in Pennsylvania. Lawson married Marion L. Cundiff and raised one daughter. ’W atfoa 'TttaruiAaii Stoty& cvM tji VPI Class o f 1917 June 21,1894 - April 7,1982 Walton Ellingsworth returned to the United States and married Margaret Parker, with whom he had a son in 1920. Ellingsworth moved to Alabama where he worked as a civil engineer. 69 �£ & tie “D aviti (faeyonty VPI Class of 1923 October 18,1897 - January 6,1972 Earle Gregory enrolled in VPI after the war and graduated in 1923. He studied electrical engineering. Gregory was twice elected class president and president o f the Corps o f Cadets. He retired as the administrative assistant to the Tuscaloosa Hospital’s Chief o f Staff. fa m e a ‘20<zq*te VPI Class of 1915 May 7,1890 - October 11,1918 James France was killed by German shellfire while fighting in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. He was 28 years old. VPI Class of 1917 April 12,1895 - December 4,1947 Leonard Gaines recovered from his wound and returned to the United States. After recovering, Gaines found work as a land appraiser. He married Anna Marion Brand, and raised two sons. 70 �0p < n u ictm & i f it . VPI Class of 1912 September 11,1892 - September 18,1972 John Faulconer married Sylvia Domche and moved to Southern Pines, North Carolina, where he died at the age o f 80. VPI Class of 1913 January 29,1893 - February 8,1955 Withrow Legge returned to his home in Winchester, Virginia, and became a teacher. He married Katrina Baumgardner and had a son, Withrow Legge Jr. tyo/wi j4lextutcL&i VPI Class of 1916 March 9,1893 - June 11,1945 John Tebbs returned to the United States and continued to serve in the Marine Corps, during which time he rose to the rank o f Major. While in the Marine Corps Tebbs was sent to Haiti in 1922, and then to China in 1934. When he died in 1945, he was survived by his wife, Lillian. • 71 • ��*f¥eifr fneAenve otvt ¿U&tonty Please consider contributing to the Historical Society’s Kegley Publication Fund to help us continue publishing articles about the history of the Roanoke Valley and Western Virginia. YES, I want to support the Society’s Kegley Publication Fund with the following gift: ___$50 ___$100 ___ $250 ___$500 Other: $ ____________________ Name ______________________________________________________________________________ (as to be listed in print) Address_______________________________________________________________________________ Phone/Email____________________________________________________________________________ I will fulfill my/our gift with: ___An enclosed check (make payable to Historical Society of Western Virginia) ___A credit card payment Card Number___________________________________________________________________________ Exp. 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Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia 2016 Volume 22, Number 2 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include:<br />Virginia's Western Counties and the Making of America<br />A New Road to be Opened: The Poplar Forest Parkway<br />Recalling Poplar Forest After Mr. Jefferson<br />Segregated Souls in the Star City<br />The Photographs of George Newton Wertz, 1852-1926<br />Exchange Bank in New Building<br />The Virginian Station and the Restoration<br />City Hall is 101!<br />Seven Hills of Rockbridge<br />Franklin County Business in 1883<br />Remembering World War I Veterans Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-2017 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_22_02_2016 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6374/JHSWV_23_01_2018.pdf c429cb03958a74b4479abcfc523901ad PDF Text Text ^ ¿atonicai Society 'Wect&Kt *V&tyi*Ua, H ttu & ¿ te tte : %| The Humiliation of Lord Botetourt t6 | “Sunday Trouble on Back Creek” 24 | The Legacies of “Juneteenth” | The Courtroom and a Confederate Monument 4$ /4(td tit&te... V ¡s§ H m 2 3 n * . / �^¿âùvUcal Society o¿ ‘Ti/ectentt Amor montium nos movet (For the love o f mountains inspires us) George “AT M cLean..................................President Ed A rm entrout................................. Vice President Sandra Brown Kelly............. Secretary Bill Irv in ..................................................... Treasurer Ashley Webb .............. ..................................Curator Lynsey A llie.............................. Museum Manager ^ > < w tc L Susan Amos Will Dibling Gordon Hamilton Ed Holt Col. Lewis “Bud” Ingles Jeffries David Lemon Charlie Logan Natalie Norris ^ ¿ n e c to n á , Gary Phillips F. Anderson Stone Donald Wilson S m e n c ti Sara S. Airheart George A. Kegley Edgar V. Wheeler George Kegley Editor o f the Journal Christina Koomen Production, Editorial Assistant The Journal, Vol. XXIII, No. 1, chronicles the history o f the Commonwealth west o f the Blue Ridge. It is published by the Historical Society o f Western Virginia, P.O. Box 1904, Roanoke, Va. 24008. The price for additional copies is $10 for members and $15 for others. The Society welcomes unsolicited material but submissions cannot be returned and the Society cannot be responsible for damage or loss. (On the cover: An image from last autumn’s exhibit “Unseen Link.”) �t7<z&te 4 | Message From the President 6 | Armistice Ended “Greatest War in History” a Century Ago by G eorge K egley 2 | The Humiliation of Lord Botetourt by Jon K ukla 14 | Roanoke Cotton Mills by A shley Webb 16 | “Sunday Trouble on Back Creek” by N elson H arris 24 | The Legacies of “Juneteenth” 150 Years Running by E ric W ilson 30 | Bob Angell: An Early Mover and Shaker in Roanoke by G eorge K egley 32 | Groundhog Club Members “Told Anything But the Truth” 34 | Villamont, Virginia by B ruce B. H arper 32 | The Yuchi Indians of Southwest Virginia and Their 1857 Roll by Jim G lanville 42 | The Courtroom and a Confederate Monument by Dr. Josh H ow ard 54 | Early Wythe County Schools by M ary K egley 52 | Bedford Soldiers in the Revolution courtesy o f B ill H ackw orth 60 | History Meets Geography at the Eastern Continental Divide by H eather D. Brow ning 3 �0? n & m t& e ’P 'le & c d e v tt "V ^ ~Telcome to the 2018 Journal o f the Historical Society o f Western Virginia. This year is the 1 / I / 60th anniversary of the Society. Over the years the Society has had several names and several T T locations. Now the History Museum, the Link Museum, our archives and our library are all consolidated under one roof in the old Norfolk and Western passenger station. Our year begins July 1st and is off to a great start. Our first Betty Norris Memorial Lecture was a success, attracting an audience o f nearly 100. Margaret Edds spoke on her book, “We Face the Dawn,” the story of attorneys Spots wood Robinson and Roanoke’s Oliver Hill and their work for the civil rights movement. On October 11th, we had our annual History is Served dinner. We used to have the dinner in February, but we moved it to the fall to avoid bad weather. Ironically, the dinner was the day o f the hor­ rendous flash flooding from the remnants o f Hurricane Michael. Former CEO o f the Norfolk Southern Railway, David Goode, was our speaker, and despite the weather the dinner was a resounding success. A special thank-you needs to go out to co-chairs Natalie Norris and Sandra Kelly and to staffers Ashley Webb and Lynsey Allie for all the work they did to make the dinner possible. Our museum has been privileged to feature the works o f the renowned photographer Lewis Hines and works o f O. Winston Link which have not previously been displayed. The Hines exhibit was supplemented by our staff with a display o f photographs by Lewis Hines showing child laborers at a Roanoke Cotton Mill which was in the Norwich area o f the city. This year’s Journal features a variety o f articles covering different times and different places in our area and beyond. Richmond historian Jon Kukla describes how the misinterpretation o f poorly worded instructions made Royal Governor Lord Botetourt a sympathetic figure for Virginians. Past president o f the Society Nelson Harris writes o f attempts by a group o f Mormons to settle in the Poages Mill area in the 1890s. Other articles deal with World War I, the Society’s Norwich exhibit and Bob Angell, an early Roanoke mover and shaker who also was a leader in the Groundhog Club, and an article by Jim Glanville which discusses early native Americans in Southwest Virginia. There is material on the Villamont area, early Wythe County schools, Bedford County men who served in the Revolution and a corrupt judge in Alleghany County. This is the 54th year o f the publication o f the Journal. One man, George Kegley, is responsible for its outstanding quality. George became editor in 1968. Yes, that year was 1968 and yes, that is 50 years. Not only has he edited the Journal, he has also contributed numerous articles to the publication. For 17 years, George has been helped by Christina Koomen who expertly does the layout work, giving the Journal its professional look. One of the first things I did as your new president was to make a proposal, which was unani­ mously passed by the board, that the archives be named the George and Louise Kegley Archives. Louise Kegley was a founding member o f the board o f directors o f the Society. It was an honor well deserved. For 60 years the Society has worked to preserve and promote the history o f this area. With your help we will continue to do so into the future. tye&iye “s 4 i ” .4. 'Pne&tde«tt �t & c c o lie c tc a # t& Although O. Winston Link’s nighttime photographs o f the Norfolk & Western steam trains are perhaps his best known, his images covered a great deal more ground. On this page are two photos from the exhibit titled “Unseen Link” which was on display last fall. It was a showcase o f Link’s work along the Canadian Pacific and Long Island Railroads, a glimpse into some o f his commercial enterprises, and sweeping vistas o f N ew York, Canada and Louisiana. 5 �THE ROANOKE TIMES wiu un? m »STTmÌD BOAMOKK. VA. MOXDAT I O I M X Q VOTI1BII I*, t * I • PEACE ON EARH ARMISTICE SIGNED AT MIDNIGHT-GUNS SILENCED AT 6 0 T U am W ashington, No*. 11.—T he world w ar will end th a room ­ ing »1 6 o'clock W aahington tim e,II o'clock Paris tim e. The H I *■, . n i m j | r 'lT V A V armistice m signed by the German repreeentatiwee a t midtP l X s A l l l A l d L i I J v f night. This announcement w as m ade by the State Depart-i T U V /'C D M A W C M P fl? J? < nMnt ^ °'Uock tW* mornmg. W A R R E IG N S I n £ XjCJilnAPI MMjlrlnLt SnUutlcMtU 5»ln P*«» ol IM Ctwm POKx. S«»t "Ufa, Ltn tt» »«mW*.' an t« i mt "aarwis««-—«wj Pmon suiw mi w«eO«l—a«» M> asm ■d insms Oiwr GERMAN EMPIRE IS AFLAME WTIU fA RED REVOLUTION Xixi announcement was made verbally by an official of the State Department in this form: ... , , __ . . . . . , __ “The arm istice has been signed. It was signed at five o’clock a. m. Paris tim e and hostifitie* wiD cease a t eleven o’clock this morning, Pari* tim e.” Th e term* o f the arauaticr, H v u announced, w ill no t b e m ade public M ilitary m en bar«, b n w t or, r e ta r d it aa certain th a t they in- LARGER CITIES OF NATION ARE • until later. CAUGHT IN THE GREAT UPRISING dude: People Who For a Gcncrcti*« Mm in n Mi t r w ti m i H r '$ Four Yean Ha Pliant IflatrunwnU ha Raregiao 9m Earth Have Spoken a hear Ward md 9m £J OWQtrmtrry la He Wan REVOLT, FAMINE AND ANARCHT STALK IN COUNTRIES THAT K NAGED WORLDi beat a tissrku M s i Aeseetwar fs lk e a i H ill« W M a a fA n e l § Immediate retirement of die Ge rman military forces from France, Bel*: SSws T*km Os g»»r y a rn — l« B Tssk Umj ** to lM » W •aidtars and We*katas’* Osmfli at Oslefu aaA; (rum and Alsace Lorraine. rnaM wt Decida la D a d d s a E«f«MI»—>Dsasral lu tt* Ordwr U u » P ssslsl« Osetrat Vnpli is Is s WtiU D*«l*»»d—1 s t « « ' OssasU» Occrayy **Uw»y n w c* ry .M g erta tad Twrt*y. t i t n l * y Disarm ing a n d deroobiltxatiam o f the G erm an arm ies ■tetUas la Ut» Satiri ta tu b W DUlrlriOwnssoy. M J U * ftf O * WorU O ccupation by th e A llied a a d A m erican forcea o f soda d r s f tk point» Diatik Trestin O uN ct in G erm an y as will m a l a im poestU e a r wu w i l o f b oririHtiee *" OffTsss p»splr foe • p —i tb t Üst « M M sal « r, a ms * » « " *«*>*re/T* D elivery of p a rt o f th e G e rm a n h ig h aaaa fleet a n d a c ertain num ber o f (mTW w ti of ttolr lord, for «oro (lass Seer ; ** *“ •Mai ,',7,' "tw «t'«i»tim k «• m sm ti]w b m a rim i to th e A llied a n d A m e ric a n naval forcea. aoseta le v«r*atos Um w«i4d bow ^>k«a s a /4 > tm ta ttc e S c td e e C 'f f y c & f o n t y " a , “ ty te a te & t > 2V < w ß to to v te p by George K egley F | thousands o f Roanokers left their jobs to join in a long parade from the Norfolk & Western Rail­ way shops up Jefferson Street to celebrate the end o f “the greatest war in history” on Nov. 11, 1918 — a century ago. The railway shops’ whistle blew, horns sounded and flags waved in the excitement. Large newspaper headlines screamed: PEACE ON EARTH! in The Roanoke Times, and GREATEST WAR INHISTORY ENDED! in The World-News. Other headlines: “EVERYTHING FOR WHICH AMERICA FOUGHT IS NOW ACCOMPLISHED” — WILSON ; GERMANY YIELDS TO TERMS LAID DOWN BY CHAMPIONS OF FREEDOM AND H UM ANITY; THOUSANDS JOIN IN VICTORY OVER HUN ; ALL OUTSTANDING DRAFT CALLS CANCELLED TODAY! This was a time for celebration. Businesses and schools closed for a parade and The Times pub­ lished an Extra paper to mark the occasion. Mayor W.W. Boxley issued a proclamation, calling all citi­ zens to meet at Elmwood Park for a service o f “praise and thanksgiving to God” for the armistice signed by the Germans, defeated by Allied forces. When the parade reached the Municipal Building, the Kaiser, head o f the German government, was hanged in effigy while the crowd cheered. George Kegley is editor o f the Journal. 6 �The Roanoke World News estimated that from 5,000 to 10,000 people “took part in the gigantic procession, which formed near the Norfolk & West­ ern shops and swept up Jefferson Street.. .Thousands o f flags of all sizes were carried and men and women had seized every­ thing they could find to make a noise with. The big Norfolk & Western band, near the head o f the parade, was practically |W«H8,«aa drowned out by the cheering and noises o f all sorts. “The workers carried a circular saw on a pole and workers beat against it with iron rods while dozens o f others carried carbide cans which were used as drums.” An article about the m ayor’s “peace service” described the scene as follows: “Perhaps the most impressive and largely attended religious service in the history o f the city was held yesterday afternoon at Elmwood Park where thousands assembled in a prayer and thanksgiving service for the great victory which assures the liberty of mankind for generations.” The Rev. Otis Meade o f Christ Episcopal Church, and president o f Roanoke Ministers Conference, presided. C IM E IM S S Vice Mayor R.EL Angell reportedly declared, “Only those who have been true and loyal to the Nation have the right now to rejoice in this GREATEST EVEN hour o f triumph.” Newspaper accounts continued: “As did old Liberty Bell in 11AEEJSTORT 1776, so did the chimes o f Greene Memorial Methodist Church at 11 o’clock this morning when Prof. W.E. Burdett played ‘Praise God Great Parade M om Mott All olf Day-4tayorPraelaiffl»Hfllk from whom all blessings flow.’ The crowd was joyous but orderly. Boy day and Hour t tP r a * « **1 Scouts were detailed to help police the streets. The United Lutheran p r a i» — Lutheran Synod o f the South, meeting at St. M ark’s Lutheran Church on Camp­ Suspends to bell Avenue, caught the spirit o f the day and adjourned to join in the parade. Dr. M.G.G. Scherer, president o f the Synod, and the Rev. J. Luther Sieber, pastor o f St. M ark’s, carried flags in the parade.” The World-News reported that a woman shouted “God has brought peace out o f confusion” as she went through the newspaper building rejoicing with everybody. The people o f Salem celebrated as well. And in Vinton, the parents o f sons who have been fighting in France were on the streets shortly after daylight, singing the Doxology. 7 �^ c 4 x * tiic < z tc o * t * & < n ct ‘S a te to u n t How a misinterpretation o f poorly worded instructions made a royal governor a sympathetic figure to Virginians by Jon K ukla fine Gentleman is dead,” crusty old Landon Carter lamented to his diary in Oc­ tober 1770, when news o f the death o f Norbome Berkeley, Baron de Botetourt, reached Carter’s plantation in Virginia’s Northern Neck. Even to the skeptical eye o f the former member o f the House o f Burgesses, the deceased governor had been “truely Noble in his Public character.” ■ Many things contributed to Botetourt’s popularity. He was a baron, a charming bachelor, a dili­ gent businessman, a friend o f George III and o f the Earl o f Bute — and the first full governor to take up residence in the Colony since 1708, when absentee royal appointees had begun sending lieutenants in their stead. Despite the raging dispute over the Townshend Acts o f 1767, the most recent o f Great Brit­ ain’s efforts to impose taxes on the American Colonies, Botetourt won a special place in Virginia hearts, whether those o f the gentlemen o f his Council with whom he often dined or o f the Williamsburg belles who entertained him with an impromptu serenade by lamplight. Between his triumphant arrival as governor in October 1768 and his death in the Governor’s Palace two years later, Botetourt improved the administration o f justice by pruning deadwood from the county courts and reappointing only justices o f the peace with good records o f attendance. A patron o f education, he joined students at the College o f William & Mary for morning prayers, established the Botetourt Medal for scholastic achievement and served as rector o f the college. No Virginia governor was more greatly honored. The General Assembly named Berkeley and Botetourt counties in his honor, along with a town in Gloucester County and three Anglican parishes (Berkeley in Spotsylvania County, Botetourt in Botetourt County and Norbome in Frederick County). It also commissioned the marble statue o f Botetourt that is displayed at the Earl Gregg Swem Library at William & Mary. Seldom noticed in accounts o f Virginia’s admiration for Botetourt, however, was his public humiliation — just a few months before his death — by the very king and ministers he had been sent to serve. As a member o f Parliament, Botetourt had vigorously supported the Stamp Act o f 1765. He had come to Virginia bearing secret instructions from George III (whose initials are visible on the original document) directing him to challenge the constitutional principles that Virginians had been expressing with increasing unanimity and confidence. The king wanted Botetourt to dissolve the General Assembly, call new elections and then somehow charm the House o f Burgesses into reversing course, endorsing the This article by Jon Kukla is from the Spring issue o f “Trends & Tradition, ” a publication o f the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Kukla, a Richmond historian who has spoken to the Society twice, is the author o f books about Patrick Henry, the Louisiana Purchase and “Mr. Jefferson’s Women. ” He is working on a book about the Stamp Act Rebellion o f1764-1766. 8 �Image o f Lord Botetourt from The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. (Museum purchase) Declaratory Act o f 1766 that gave Great Britain taxing power in America and recognizing Parliament’s authority “to bind all & every part o f Our Empire in all Cases whatsoever.” To accomplish this miracle, George III encouraged Botetourt to talk “separately and personally” with influential Virginians, as the king sometimes did with his own ministers, and persuade them “to disclaim the erroneous and dangerous Principles which they appear to have adopted.” Lord Hillsborough, a new member o f the king’s cabinet, had gone so far as to imagine that the planters o f the Old Dominion might be enticed into abandoning the other Colonies if they were granted 9 �an exemption from the Townshend Duties because they already provided permanent salaries for Vir­ ginia’s crown-appointed governor, judges and other royal officials (an ostensible purpose o f the duties). But George III, who had witnessed Virginia’s many petitions, dismissed Hillsborough’s proposal. “The conduct o f the Virginians was so offensive,” the king advised his cabinet, that “altering the Revenue Act in their favour ... would not be proper.” As the discussion continued, however, George III agreed with Hillsborough’s desire to send Virginia a full-fledged resident governor for the first time in six decades. Hillsborough promptly em­ barrassed the king with his ham-fisted dismissal o f the absentee governor, Gen. Jeffrey Amherst, who had been appointed to the sinecure 20 years earlier as a reward for his service in the French and Indian War. Nevertheless, Hillsborough’s choice o f Botetourt was an appealing element o f an ambitious plan to divide the Colonies. The announcement o f Botetourt’s appointment at a July 1768 cabinet meeting coincided with a decision to deploy four army regiments to Boston. As part of Hillsborough’s plan to isolate the northern port cities from their southern allies, Boston got an iron fist and Williamsburg a silk glove. This despite Hillsborough’s private opinion that Virginia was “in a much worse state, than even the colony o f Massachusetts Bay” — or the observant gadfly and Whig politician Horace Walpole’s opinion that the Old Dominion had both “the best heads and the principal boutes-f eux,” or incendiaries, in North America. In their effort to drive a wedge between America’s oldest and most prominent Colonies, George III and his ministers dispatched in October and November 1768 two regiments from Halifax and two more from Ireland to Boston Harbor — where they expected the presence o f more than 1,000 British troops would also intimidate New York and Philadelphia. In stark contrast, when the warship Rippon anchored at Yorktown on Wednesday, Oct. 26, Botetourt disembarked not with companies o f armed red­ coats but with his servants, his baggage and an impressive carriage, a gift o f the Duke o f Cumberland, “gilded in every part” and emblazoned with the Virginia coat o f arms. Then the Rippon hoisted sail for Boston to collect and carry the unpopular Gov. Francis Bernard back to England. A groom o f the royal bedchamber since George Ill’s accession in 1760, Botetourt had spoken against repealing the Stamp Act and was regarded as a protégé o f the king’s controversial mentor, the Earl of Bute. Despite Botetourt’s “great affability” and attention to business, a senior Colonial agent warned that “the Virginians will not find him so great a friend to American liberty as they could wish.” Botetourt’s historic dissolution o f the House o f Burgesses in 1769 and the resultant creation o f Vir­ ginia’s non-importation association at the Raleigh Tavern remain dramatic scenes in the classic “Story o f a Patriot” shown at Colonial Williamsburg’s Visitor Center. Throughout the final year o f Botetourt’s life, however, Virginia’s intractable clash with Great Britain trapped him in events that embarrassed his friends in England while enhancing his reputation and popularity in Virginia. After the former burgesses initiated their non-importation association at the Raleigh Tavern, George III and his ministers began to confront the many failures o f the late Charles Townshend’s tax plan. Unlike the Stamp Act, which was imposed on a single item — printed paper — Townshend’s duties were collected on a list o f imported commodities such as glass, paper, paint and tea. As a result, Ameri­ can boycotts hurt English merchants and their employees — and for all the fuss, only the tax on tea had actually been generating any revenue. With the growing success of American non-importation associations, British policymakers felt increasing pressure to repeal most o f the Townshend Duties. Hillsborough now complained that the Townshend Duties were “so anti-commercial that he wished [they] had never existed.” Nevertheless, George III and his advisers were reluctant to correct their blunder unless the Americans gave up, as Lord North put it, “the false apprehension o f their rights.” By a contentious vote o f 5-4, the cabinet agreed to repeal all the Townshend Duties except the tax on tea, which George III regarded as a token o f British authority and which Townshend’s successor, �J will b e c o n t e n t t o b e d e c la r e d infamous^ if ] d o n o t t o th e la s t j~1our o f my L i f e ... e x e rt every f * o w e rw itb w bicb ] e ith e r am o r e v e r shall b e le g a lly invested^ in o r d e r t o o b ta in a n d m aintain f o r th e ( C o n t in e n t of Am erica t h a t v5 a ^ i5faction w hich ] have b e e n a u th o riz e d t o p ro m ise th is f^ay^ b y th e ( ^ o n fid e n tia S e r v a n t s o f o u r ( g r a c io u s Q overejgn*^ ---- ¡ \jo r b o r n e £)erlceieL), £ ) a r o n d e £ ) o t e t o u r t Lord Frederick North, cherished as the only duty that collected significant revenue. In a related deci­ sion that would inadvertently undermine Botetourt, the cabinet agreed not to impose any new taxes on the Colonies and to express their goodwill toward America through a “soothing” letter to the Colonial governors. Transatlantic communication in the age o f sail was precarious and slow. At best, an exchange o f letters between Virginia and London took two months, and some didn’t make it at all, but the physi­ cal delivery o f correspondence was only part o f the challenge. The fates o f business deals, marriages, wars and empires depended on clear and effective writing. Bad writing could trip things up — as it soon would for the king and his cabinet and their diligent governor in Virginia. The task o f drafting a soothing letter describing the cabinet’s contentious decision fell to Secre­ tary Hillsborough, a policy hardliner, who wrote it hastily and dispatched it to the Colonial governors on May 13 without consulting anyone else in the cabinet. Ostensibly meant to help the governors explain away seditious “Insinuations” about British policy, Hillsborough’s poorly written letter gave Botetourt the impression that Virginia’s protests and boycott had been successful. The letter emphasized two as­ surances that seemed to acquiesce in the constitutional arguments Virginians had been making for years. First, the present administration would not “lay any further Taxes upon America for the purpose o f rais­ ing a Revenue.” Second, the ministry intended “in the next Session o f Parliament to take off the Duties upon Glass, Paper & Colours” because Townshend had enacted them “contrary to the true principles o f •11 • �Commerce” — by which Hillsborough meant that they were hurting British artisans, manufacturers and merchants by raising prices and discouraging sales in America. Hillsborough apparently thought his letter affirmed Parliament’s legislative authority over the Colonies, but that passage was so poorly written that it made little sense. By referring to “the true prin­ ciples o f Commerce” as the rationale for repealing the Townshend Duties, Hillsborough echoed the lan­ guage that the British merchants had employed to help Parliament avoid a divisive constitutional debate about taxation and representation with the Colonists. The effect was that his letter completely evaded the critical constitutional issues at the core o f the American dispute. Even more destructive, however, was his complete silence about the duty on imported tea. Strict­ ly speaking, retaining the existing duty on tea did not contradict the promise not to levy new or “further” taxes for revenue. Nevertheless, Hillsborough’s silence proved disastrous for Botetourt because virtually all the participants in that transatlantic debate over the Townshend Acts used the phrase “duties on glass, paper, colors, etc.” as a reference to all the Townshend Duties. In effect, “etc.” included tea. So the text o f Hillsborough’s letter conveyed the ministry’s in­ tended retention o f the tax on tea in two ways: first, by not mentioning tea at all, and second, by omitting “etc.” from the list o f duties slated for repeal. The weakly stated message could easily be misunderstood — and it was. When Botetourt opened Hillsborough’s letter in August, he seriously misread these ambiguities and immediately convened his Council for advice about calling elections for a new assembly. Thinking that he was acting in accord with Hillsborough’s intentions, Botetourt told his Council that the king and his ministers aimed at “a repeal o f all the American revenue acts.” When the assembly met in November, Botetourt quoted passages from Hillsborough’s letter in his speech welcoming the councilors and burgesses, exulting in the promises that “his M ajesty’s present Administration” would never levy further taxes upon America for revenue and would remove the du­ ties on glass, paper and pigments at the next session o f Parliament. The governor eagerly suggested that a decade o f constitutional strife between Britain and Virginia was over. Nothing could have made him happier, Botetourt confided to his sister, than “to do some good in this distracted age.” Botetourt also highlighted the auspicious significance o f Hillsborough’s announcement by ad­ dressing what he thought was the only caveat in the earl’s letter. “His M ajesty’s present Administration are not immortal,” Botetourt acknowledged, but the governor staked his personal honor and his personal acquaintance with the king’s character as proof that future administrations would keep Hillsborough’s promises. “It is my firm Opinion that the Plan ... will never be departed from,” Botetourt proclaimed. “I will be content to be declared infamous, if I do not to the last Hour o f my Life ... exert every Power with which I either am or ever shall be legally invested, in order to obtain and maintain for the Continent o f America that Satisfaction which I have been authorized to promise this Day, by the Confi­ dential Servants o f our Gracious Sovereign.” Finally, as if this hyperbole were not remarkable enough, Botetourt closed with the astonishing declaration, based on his own “certain Knowledge,” that George III “would rather part with his Crown than preserve it by Deceit.” Not surprisingly, after years o f dispute the burgesses responded to Botetourt’s “very kind and affectionate Speech” with delight, but his remarks provoked indignation in London. Secretary Hillsbor­ ough reprimanded the governor for presuming “to committ the King” to any future policy. Reactions in Parliament were less kind. From the gallery o f the House o f Commons, Virginia merchant William Lee reported to his brother Richard Henry Lee that Col. Isaac Barré and Edmund Burke (more interested at that moment in attacking the ministry than altering American policies) “made everybody laugh ... for near an hour with their Comments on Lord Botetourt.” In the House o f Lords, the Duke o f Richmond called for Botetourt’s impeachment. • 12• �| irst p ro p o se d in the f~jouse o f £>urgesses in 17 6 7 3 L )o te to u rt (bounty was created in 1/ / O from /\u g u s ta (b o u n ty , ~]~Tie county is named fo r ¡\jorborne L)erkeleu, f) a r o n de L)otetourt, more commonly known as L o r d f^ o teto u rt ( l 71 5 -1 7 7 0 ), who was a p o p u la rg o v e rn o r o f the V irg in ia ( L ° L n y from 17^5 to 177®j when he died suddenly while in office. — W ik ip e d ia e n try Botetourt was “astonished” when Hillsborough’s reprimand reached him in April. “I do not understand,” he protested. He had followed orders and explained the administration’s intentions in lan­ guage “strictly confined ... to their own words” ! Now his chief patron seemed to be protecting himself by crucifying his governor — when the sad truth was that Hillsborough’s instructions had been so poorly written that Botetourt, even in retrospect, thought he had followed them to the letter. Unaware o f George I ll’s personal enthusiasm for stem measures against the Americans, Botetourt pointedly sidestepped Hillsborough and begged the king’s pardon, “upon my Knees,” for having proclaimed “His Majesty’s Aversion to the arts o f Deceit.” The transatlantic tempest over Hillsborough’s letter and Botetourt’s speech shredded the gov­ ernor’s credibility. Virginia leaders continued to treat him with dignity and friendship out o f personal affection, civility and a touch o f pity, but it was obvious that Botetourt no longer had any clout in the ongoing dispute with Parliament — and without perceived influence in London no Colonial governor had ever survived in Virginia. Power in the Colony increasingly shifted to the legislature and the asso­ ciation. Botetourt might keep up appearances, but he divulged his tenuous situation to the councilors and burgesses when he hinted that only time would reveal “to what extent I may be able to serve you.” If anything, sympathy for Botetourt’s plight enhanced his personal popularity among Virginians in the months before his unexpected death on Oct. 15. Imperial reactions to his speech underscored the rift between the Colonies and Parliament and completely undermined Botetourt’s political credibility. Virginians felt compassion for Botetourt as a fellow victim o f corrupt ministers, and they never forgot the personal virtues and friendship o f the “noble Lord, who made the real Happiness o f this Colony the Object o f his most ardent Wishes.” Botetourt had been sent to Virginia “to be the Agent o f a dirty tyran­ nic Ministry,” Landon Carter wrote, “but his virtues resisted such an employment and he became the instrument o f a dawning happiness.” •13 • �^fW m nf^jLiauiinsu'fjaiSi l^ o o u u tiie ( Z o tfo a ¡'iniBMCTMPW'imwRiBTg fnaBi. 70C c6C & Lewis Wickes Hine, Norwich, and the Fight Against Child Labor by A shley Webb n 1911, photographer Lewis Wickes Hine (1874-1940) traveled through Virginia in search o f evi­ dence o f child labor. In Roanoke’s Norwich community he found the Cotton Mills, in Lynchburg the West End Shoe Factory, and in Danville the Cigarette Factory. The photographs in this collection that was exhibited at the Museum this fall reflect the images Hine took during his brief time in Roanoke. Norwich, one o f Roanoke’s 49 neighborhoods, is situated along the south bank o f the Roanoke River, northwest o f Memorial Bridge, and was named after the Norwich Lock Company, which set up business in the area after moving from Connecticut. Settled as early as 1825, “Turkey Bottom,” as it was originally known, became the site o f Roanoke’s industrialization in the 1880s. Factories and housing for laborers, along with a school and a grocery store, created the self-contained community. By the 1890s, though, many o f the factories had closed, and Norwich families became destitute. In 1901, Edward I Ashley Webb, curator o f collections and exhibitions fo r the Society, is an anthropology and history graduate ofLongwood University. She also holds a m aster’s degree in museum studies from Bournemouth University in England. She has worked with several museums in the Commonwealth, and teaches museum studies at Virginia Tech. • 14 • �This page: Ronald Webb and Frank Robinson, Doffers, 1911 Doffers cleared the m achines o f full bobbins or spools o f thread and replaced the ma­ chine with empty ones. They often worked barefoot to make the climb to higher spools easier and faster. Doffers had to be nimble; one wrong step meant losing a limb In the moving machines. Frank, the younger o f the two boys, was 7 years old, and both doffed and swept for the Mills. His father was a supervisor for the card room at the Mills. Facing page: Mamie Witt, A Spinner, 1911 Mamie Witt runs one side in the Roanoke Cotton Mills. She is 12 years old and helps support an able-bodied, dependent father. (Photos courtesy o f the Library of Congress) Stone, J.B. Fishbum and a New York financier purchased the old Norwich lock works, which had closed in 1895, and converted it into the Roanoke Cotton Mills. They created row housing on the same property for its laborers, and employed women and children on the grounds that it was a philanthropic investment for the benefit o f the impoverished Norwich community. By 1911, when Lewis Hine traveled the east coast for the National Child Labor Committee, at least 30 children were employed by the Roanoke Cot­ ton Mills, some as young as 7 years old. They worked 12- to 14-hour days, six days a week. Many never received formal education. Child labor in the Roanoke Cotton Mills continued into the 1930s, but men took over jobs once reserved for women and children during the Depression. Eventually, the Roanoke Cotton Mills became the Morice Twine Mill, and while the mill building was razed in the 1960s, the laborers’ row houses remain. They, along with Lewis Hine’s photographs, serve as reminders o f Roanoke’s connection to the national fight against child labor. • 15 • �“S u n d a y ^ in o u M e o n ^<% e& & t e d i” Protestant Resistance to Mormonism in Southwest Roanoke County, 1887-1895 by N elson H arris n late nineteenth-century Roanoke County, friction occasionally developed among and between religious groups, usually around mutual use o f chapels and sometimes over doctrinal matters. Noth­ ing stirred the religious passions o f southwest Roanoke County more, however, than the arrival o f Mormon missionaries in 1887. The purpose here is not to evaluate Mormon doctrines but to document the fevered, sustained opposition to Mormons’ arrival and early presence in southwest Roanoke County by Protestant clergy, local newspapers and others. The anti-Mormon Salem Times-Register spilled much ink in covering, if not heightening, the controversy. In their Nov. 25, 1887, edition, the newspaper offered the following: “It is stated upon good authority that several Mormon elders are at work in the Back Creek section o f this county, trying to se­ cure converts to their deplorable faith. Their meetings, we learn, are tolerably well attended, and among some they have made favorable impressions. If the people o f Back Creek were to issue to these emissar­ ies o f the worst blot upon the United States their just desert, they would give these elders a coat o f tar and feathers and start them journeying elsewhere.” A few weeks later in the Dec. 16 edition, the Salem Times-Register reported an assault on a Mor­ mon missionary near Raleigh, North Carolina, where J.M. Hillard “nearly beat to death” the Mormon. The editor o f the Salem newspaper added a final sentence: “We need a few such men as Mr. Hillard in this county.” The presence o f Mormon missionaries in the fall o f 1887 was the result o f Joe Lavinder, a resi­ dent o f the Haran section, who returned from a Franklin County trip and reported that he had heard the preaching o f Mormon missionaries. William Griffin Ferguson wanted to hear these missionaries, so he gave Lavinder one o f his best roan mares to bring the missionaries to Back Creek. The first meeting was held at Ferguson’s farm located at the current intersection o f Martins Creek Road and Route 221. That first meeting was attended by a crowd o f curious men with many returning the following night, along with their wives.(1) The interest in hearing the Mormon elders caused deep angst among the Protestant clergy in the Back Creek section as indicated in a report o f a Baptist meeting at the Ferguson school house where Rev. J.G. Councill had concluded a sermon on the evening o f Dec. 26, 1887. He denounced the Mormon faith, and at the conclusion o f his remarks a Mormon in attendance asked if he could rebut what had been said. He was granted permission to do so and apparently a spirited debate ensued. A week later came a letter the Salem Times-Register published in its Jan. 13, 1888, edition from I Nelson Harris, pastor ofH eights Community Church, is a form er mayor o f Roanoke, form er president o f the Historical Society o f Western Virginia and the author o f a dozen local histories. 16 �The Ferguson family members were early supporters o f the Mormons. (Photo courtesy o f the Virginia Room, Roanoke Public Library) Councill o f the Laurel Ridge (Missionary) Baptist Church. The editor titled the piece “The Troublesome Mormons, The M ischief They Are Creating on Back Creek.” R.R. Reynolds, a Mormon convert, offered a Scripture-based defense o f the Mormons that was published in the Salem newspaper a few weeks later, prompting the editors to counter with their own Scripture-quoting rebuttal. By the spring o f 1888, Mor­ mon activity in Back Creek was at the center o f Back Creek news. Other newspapers, including those in Roanoke, began covering the Mormon presence in Back Creek. Regardless o f the efforts o f Protestant clergy, the Mormon missionaries were making an impact. The first convert in the Back Creek community was Zulah Ann Gladden, who was baptized on Jan. 23, 1888. William Griffin Ferguson was baptized on May 1, 1888, and Margaret Rachel Owens Ferguson on Aug. 26, 1888. The Church o f Jesus Christ o f Latter-Day Saints meetings in the area were first held in members’ homes or in the schoolhouse on Twelve O ’Clock Knob Road. An 1888 notice in the Salem Times-Register indicated that a Mormon Sunday School was started at the Mountain View School house in the spring o f that year. As membership increased, William Harrison Ferguson cleared a section o f land near his home so outdoor meetings could be held in the summer. (2) On June 17,1888, a large audience estimated to have been between 1,000 and 1,200 persons turned out to hear a Brethren minister, the Rev. D.C. Moomaw, preach a sermon, “Mormonism: Past, Present and Future,” at Kittinger Chapel in an effort to dissuade Mormon conversions. Other speakers included A.S. Beckner and Dr. Luther Fox from Roanoke College in Salem. The entire front page o f the Salem Times-Register for July 13, 1888, was dedicated to printing in full the speech Moomaw delivered at Kittinger Chapel. Moomaw was an ardent opponent o f the Mormons, having first published a diatribe against the religious group in the Fincastle Herald in 1881 where he called them a “nuisance” and a • 17 • �threat to the “morality o f society, the chastity o f our women and the sanctity o f the marriage relation.” According to Moomaw the event at Kittinger Chapel was as follows: “The day opened beauti­ fully, and from Franklin, Floyd, and Roanoke counties, Salem and Roanoke city the multitudes came, all inspired with one common impulse, that o f hearing more about the religion o f Mormonism than the Mormon preachers, who have infested that neighborhood, were willing to tell them. The arrangements for the accommodation o f the congrega­ tion were all that could have been expected, thanks to the faithful servic­ es o f Messrs. Turner, Beckner, Kittinger, Henry, and others. A delightful breeze kept the temperature at a comfortable figure, and a more devoted, interested, and decorous audience never honored a religious meeting. The discourse was necessarily lengthy, the various and complex features o f the Mormon system would require patient and exhaustive examina­ tion to be clearly comprehended by the masses o f the people; and though nearly four hours were consumed in uncovering the iniquities o f the sys­ tem, at least two hours more were necessary to have finished the work, even in a condensed style. The people present, by their patient attention to the service, helped much to make it pleasant and light, and entitles them to my lasting gratitude and love. Special thanks are cheerfully ac­ corded to Prof. A.S. Beckner for his invaluable aid in reading extracts Dr. Luther Fox, Roanoke from the various authors consulted on the subject o f the discourse dur­ College professor, who ing its delivery. Without it I would scarcely have been able to preserve spoke against the Back my voice unbroken. Dr. Fox, o f Roanoke College, is accorded merited Creek Mormons in the late thanks for furnishing supplies o f books from the college library needed 1800s. (Photo courtesy of for the occasion. While the labor o f collecting and classifying the ma­ the Virginia Room, Roanoke terials for the discourse was arduous and the expenditure o f vital force Public Library) in its utterance was exhaustive, I shall have frequent occasion in the future to refer to it with sincere pleasure. It was a visit in accord with the wishes o f the good people o f the county and with the claims o f morality and true religion, and evidently approved o f God.” f3j Despite the efforts o f Moomaw and some faculty from Lutheran-affiliated Roanoke College, the Mormon missionaries and their converts continued to gain adherents. (4) In that same year, however, Mormons were denied employment as public school teachers in southwest Roanoke County due to local opposition. (5) Eventually, the passions turned violent. The Salem newspaper reported in August 1889, “We learn that a couple o f Mormon elders were stopping at the house o f a Mr. Burnett, near Cave Spring, several nights ago, and that some o f the citizens o f that section called on them with the intention o f treat­ ing them to a coating o f tar and feathers, but the elders begged so mercifully that the infuriated crowd desisted from their purpose and the Mormons left early the next morning.” The next month the “White Caps” became involved. An organization akin to the Ku Klux Klan, White Caps were organizations o f white farmers who, mostly in the South, targeted Northern merchants, blacks, unwed mothers and others whom they felt undermined the community’s values. They operated outside the local justice system and used threats, arson, whipping and other brutalities to elicit confor­ mity. The Roanoke chapter, claiming 300 members, had published a notice in the Sept. 20, 1889, edition o f the Salem Times-Register threatening harm to the missionaries if they did not leave the county. These and other threats led to Mormon missionaries leaving the Back Creek area for a few years.(6) “To the Mormons o f Back Creek, Roanoke county, Va., their members and sympathizers: We have, been informed by the good citizens o f this community that you are engaged in the nefarious work • 18• �A group o f Mormon members, dressed up for worship. (Photo courtesy o f the Virginia Room, Roanoke Public Library) o f preaching bigamy to our young males and females, and have actually converted some of them to be­ lief in this most horrible and damnable o f all religions, as we conceive it, that was ever preached or prac­ ticed on this or any other continent. We have been appealed to by the good citizens o f this community for assistance to rid the community o f your party and as according to our by-laws, we must give timely warning; we, therefore, notify you, both leaders and sympathizers, that you must leave this county at once, or desist from your nefarious work. If this command is not complied with, our entire organization, now numbering something over 300 strong, will be called out and you and your entire party marched beyond the limits o f this county with punishment as in the judgment o f the Grand Commander may be best suited to your case. May God bless you and aid you to direct your minds into a better channel and a different line of thought, is the sincere wish and prayer o f The White Caps. By order of the Grand Com­ mander, per Secretary.” The late Roy W. Ferguson, a devout Mormon, wrote, “Mobs with stockings over their faces searched homes looking for missionaries. They threatened to bum homes and businesses o f those inter­ ested in the church. One member stuffed two missionaries into a large barrel, placed the barrel on his wagon, and drove his horses and wagon out o f the area in order to save the missionaries.”(7) News o f Mormon activity subsided in the local papers, but within a few years that changed. On Jan. 23,1895, the Salem Times-Register announced “Mormons Among Us Again.” In typical editorial slant, the paper reported: “From reliable sources we learn that several Mormon emissaries are again at work among the people in the Back Creek section o f this county, and that their doctrines are received with favor by some of the people in that neighborhood. It will be remembered that a number o f Mormons spent some time in H �that section a few years ago, and made several converts to their doctrines, but that they left just in time to escape the consequences o f a reception from indignant people from various points in the county.” When Mormon missionaries returned to Back Creek, they found their church had taken root. In mid-July o f 1896, for example, the Mormons held a weekend conference at Mt. View Church, and the Salem newspaper reported some 200 in attendance. At that meeting, Thomas Maury o f Salem went and took a photograph o f some 35 Mormon elders who had come from around the state. The Salem TimesRegister stated, “Everything passed off in a very orderly manner.” But there continued to be harassment from some.(3) The July 3, 1896, edition o f the Salem Times Register contained an article entitled “Sunday Trouble on Back Creek” that described a Mormon gathering and confrontation with a Protestant min­ ister, probably typical o f the interactions that had occurred and were occurring. “For some time past an aged minister named Daniel H. McPherson, representing the Christian Church, has been preaching a se­ ries o f sermons at Mt. View church, this county, and in that same section several Mormon elders are also disseminating their doctrine, in which, we are sorry to say, they have met with some encouragement. Last Sunday evening a rupture occurred between the Mormons and Elder McPherson, which might have resulted seriously, and which will, at least, result in the arrest o f several parties concerned. From a state­ ment o f the matter furnished by Messrs. J.W. and E.L. McCray, well known citizens o f this county, it seems that Mr. McPherson had an appointment for prayer meeting at the church on Sunday evening, but that the Mormon elders took charge o f the church earlier, and were preaching when he arrived. He went in to listen to them, and when Elder Thomas announced some o f his Mormon doctrine, Mr. McPherson turned his face to the portion o f the church occupied by the ladies and smiled. He was severely repri­ manded by Thomas, and vehemently declared that Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were gods, and de­ fied Mr. McPherson to dispute it. At this Mr. McPherson’s anger rose to boiling heat, and he denounced the statement as false, declaring that Joseph Smith, held up as a god by the Mormons, was shot by a mob while jumping out o f a jail window, where he had been confined for counterfeiting money and thieving. At this point Mr. P. was struck at by Samuel Grice, and forcibly ejected from the building by James Ow­ ens, Creed Harris and Mr. Neighbors, the latter also making an assault upon him. Mormon Elder Thomas came to his assistance at this juncture, and later he was pulled into the house again and compelled to lis­ ten to a tirade o f abuse, and then denied the use o f the building for his future appointments. Mr. McPher­ son Tuesday had warrants issued for the arrest o f the parties concerned, and there is no telling where the trouble will end. Mr. McPherson told a Times-Register man while in Salem on Tuesday that he was on the detective force in Washington when Garfield was shot by Guiteau, and that he had previously been shot at by the assassin when watching his maneuvers. He is evidently a man o f grit, and says he intends to preach against Mormonism, Joseph Smith and his dirty principles to the uttermost, and don’t intend to be bull-dozed.” The above was also reprinted verbatim in the Roanoke Daily Times a few days later. Elder M. Thomas o f the Mormon faith, writing from Haran, responded two days later in a letter published in the Times-Register that offered his version o f the event. “Will you kindly allow me to correct a few statements which have recently appeared iu your paper. In a recent issue o f the Times-Register there appeared what purports to be an account o f ‘Sunday trouble on Back creek,’ under the caption o f ‘Mormonism Denounced.’ That truth may shine, and its light be seen, I submit this letter. The facts in the case are these: On the Sunday mentioned (June 27) with other o f my brethren I repaired to the Mt. View church to fill an appointment previously given out. The time o f meeting was 3 p.m. In the course o f remarks which I made, I referred to Joseph Smith as a prophet. Mr. McPherson, who was in attendance at the services, at this juncture laughed. I repeated my former statement. Mr. McPherson then very boisterously denounced Joseph Smith as an impostor, at which I told him to keep his peace. Again he raised his voice and continued his demonstrations o f anger. 20 �Mr. Samuel Grice, who was sitting on the same bench as Mr. McPherson, requested him (McPherson) to be quiet or go outside. Similar requests were made by Messrs. Creed Harris, W.H. Ferguson and James Owens. Mr. McPherson maintained his right to speak at that time and place regardless o f my requests for him to keep his peace. At this point Mr. James Owens took Mr. McPherson by the arm and led him to the door. I hurriedly followed, demanded peace, and saved Mr. McPherson from what might have terminat­ ed in a sound thrashing for him. I asked him to return into the house and to assure him protection, seated him in the pulpit. After our services were over, I requested the congregation to remain seated and listen to what Mr. McPherson had to say. Now, Mr. Editor, allow me to tell you and your readers what was ‘not’ done. I was the speaker on the occasion referred to, and at no time on that day or at any time before or since did I ever say that Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were Gods, or place them equal in author­ ity with Jesus Christ; any statement to the contrary is an unqualified I falsehood — in plain English — a lie. A challenge was offered to Mr. McPherson or any other to refute the statement I made regarding Jo­ seph Smith being a prophet, and even if such challenge were offered, Mr. McPherson knew, as he after­ wards acknowledged to me, that the time o f another’s services was not the hour to defend his position. I say nothing but the common decency which should be manifested in a place o f public worship, especial­ ly by one who claims to be a minister, a follower o f the meek and lowly Jesus. Neither Mr. Owens nor any other person forcibly ejected Mr. McPherson. No one struck at him, positively no one. Your infor­ mants were not in attendance at the service afore mentioned, and their statement o f something o f which they knew absolutely nothing would be the last to be considered in any court o f justice; why then should the press be made the receptacle for the ipse dixits o f such witnesses? Mr. McPherson was given full op­ portunity to air his mind and to ease himself o f his vituperations, and we protected him in that right. That individual had the right, as has every man on earth, to his personal opinion and private beliefs. It is an article o f the faith o f the so-called ‘M ormon’ people to protect all men in their right, which is a proposi­ tion that may be well considered by many who take such delight in decrying the Mormons. The consti­ tution o f the United States guarantees liberty o f religious worship. This, too, was a proposition which Mr. McPherson seemed entirely ignorant of. But, Mr. Editor, no man has the right to force his views, his abuse, or insolence upon any creature, for it is contrary to right, and certainly in violent opposition to the genius o f our country. Mr. McPherson said to me before leaving the church, on the day mentioned, as he thanked me for protecting him: ‘We’ll let this matter drop,’ (he had previously threatened to have war­ rants issued against certain parties in the church), later he had Mr. Owens and Mr. W. Neighbors arrested for assault and battery. A t the trial (on Thursday last), before Justice Miller, his own testimony was con­ flicting, while the evidence o f his own witnesses was corroborative o f that o f that o f the defense. Messrs Owens and Neighbors were acquitted. In view o f the evidence there could have been no other decision rendered. Mr. McPherson was then served with a warrant by Constable Blackwell charging him with disturbing public worship. This warrant was issued by Mr. James Owens and I was not cognizant o f it, and being opposed to litigation, exercised my power to have the matter taken out o f court. Mr. McPher­ son, however, was found guilty as charged. McPherson himself was the first one to propose leaving the county, if the case against him was dropped. Later Justice Miller remitted the fine and costs, and advised him to go away. The Mormons had nothing to do with the matter from start to finish, other than my be­ ing called as a witness for the defense in the case against Owens and Neighbors. In connection with this matter there appeared a special from Salem in the Roanoke Daily Times, inferring that ‘Justice Miller was intimidated.’ I never saw Mr. Miller but once (then during the trial); he has not authorized me to act in his defense; I am in no sense his sponsor, but I wish to say this on my own responsibility: That the inference that Mr. Miller was in any wise whatever untrue to his trust as a magistrate and conservator of the peace, is a base and malicious slander. Those who uttered it are either terribly ignorant or intensely vicious; they may take their choice. It has been my pleasure to have traveled in nearly every county in this State. I have met many hundreds o f the best people in the State, and I count them my friends. I have •21 • �The first Latter-Day Saints chapel was built in the Back Creek section in 1897. found them to be generous, hospitable and willing to hear both sides o f the question before acquiescing or condemning. I have reason to believe the honorable people I consider none other o f this community are not unlike the other true Virginians whom I am proud to call my friends. To them is this letter pre­ sented. I have not one scintilla o f animosity in my heart against Mr. McPherson or any other who sees fit to take issue with me on my religious convictions as to whether they are right or wrong is not the question at issue. Yet I restrain a feeling o f sorrow for any person whose whitening hairs should be his badge o f honor, his honesty, his love o f truth, who will so far forget him self as to lose sight o f the truth, and allow his lips to utter words which carry blight only to his own soul. Can it be that such are ‘with themselves at war? Forget the show o f love to other men! ’ I thank you for the space you have allowed in making this statement.” Eventually, news o f Mormon activity in Back Creek subsided. The congregation grew, with a few from Back Creek going to Utah. A permanent church was built in 1897/91 While the persecution that occurred in Back Creek o f the early Mormons is not a pleasant history, it was reflective o f what many Mormon missionaries had to endure across the nation, especially in the South, for their faith. Dr. Patrick Q. Mason o f the University o f Notre Dame has published one o f the few academic studies o f anti-Mormon sentiment and violence in the Post-bellum South. (10) Mason examined in depth two anti-Mormon case studies: the 1879 murder o f Mormon missionary Joseph Standing in Georgia and the 1884 “massacre” at Cane Creek, Tennessee. The author asserts that anti-Mormon violence was rooted in a toxic mix of vigilantism and religious fervor. Earlier in the nation’s history, Jews and Catho­ lics had been subjected to similar treatment. While anti-Mormon fervor was not exclusively a Southern phenomenon, Mason does point out that Southerners were more hostile, as he cites a study documenting 336 cases o f violence against Mormons in the last quarter o f the nineteenth century in the former Con­ federacy. Twenty-four o f those were in Virginia between 1876 and 1900/77j “The frequency and inten• 22 • �sity o f violence was a distinguishing characteristic o f southern anti-Mormonism in this period.. .By the mid 1880s, virtually every segment o f southern society — politicians, law enforcement officers, clergy­ men, the press, women’s organizations, the business community, and ordinary farmers — had mobilized against the Mormon ‘threat.’”(72) The reason for such anti-Mormon passions was complex but, according to Mason, primarily root­ ed in the early idea o f “celestial marriage” (plural marriage) espoused by Mormon leaders. “Most south­ erners admitted Mormons’ right to believe whatever they wanted but ferociously attacked the idea, the practice o f plural marriage.”(7 3) Protestant clergy and newspaper editors depicted Mormon missionaries and elders as “seducers” seeking to carry off wives and daughters. “Anxious rhetoric about the Mormon seducer paralleled in many ways the contemporary hyperbolic fear that southern white men displayed to­ ward the mythical ‘black beast rapist’.. .It also reflected late nineteenth-century cultural ideals in which protection o f innocent and helpless white women represented a central defining point o f southern manhood.” (77) This salacious undertone o f seduction and sexual prowess was a definite component o f the sermons, articles and speeches prevalent in southwest Roanoke County during this period. The leadership of the Church o f Jesus Christ o f Latter-Day Saints publicly repudiated plural mar­ riage in 1890 and it was banned outright by federal law in 1904. This coincided with a marked decline in anti-Mormon violence and passions in both Roanoke County and throughout the South. Interestingly, the subject o f anti-Mormon sentiment and violence in the South is a neglected topic in both national and local histories. As Mason wrote, “Historians o f the late nineteenth-century South have only skimmed the LDS experience.” Yet, the primary source material is readily available. Mason speculates that the neglect was and is due Mormons being such a small religious minority at the time and many early converts moving to Utah. As Mormons have become increasingly involved and accepted in American culture — perhaps most notable in this regard was Mitt Romney, a devout Mormon, being the Republican nominee for President in 2012 — the earlier and troubled history o f their acceptance is fertile soil for exploring the historical and salient notions o f religious liberty, cultural identity, gender norms and the legal regulation o f domestic affairs. ENDNOTES 1. Harris, Nelson. “A History o f Back Creek: Bent Mountain, Poages Mill, Cave Spring and Starkey.” Mount Pleasant, SC: The History Press, 2018. P. 93. 2. Ibid, p. 93. 3. Salem Times-Register, July 13, 1888. 4. Dr. Luther Fox was Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy at Roanoke College during this period, having been ap­ pointed to the faculty in 1881. He was also a Lutheran pastor. 5. Salem Times-Register, September 21, 1888. 6. Harris, p. 81. 7. Ibid., p. 82. 8. Ibid., p. 82. 9. Ibid., p. 94. 10. Mason, Patrick Q. The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2011. 11. Mason, p. 129. 12. Ibid., pp. 13-14. 13. Ibid., p. 15. 14. Ibid., p. 15. •23 • �“ ty c a te te e * tt6 ” Î 5 0 'fyeana fëututittÿ by E ric Wilson ver the course o f the past year, the Rockbridge Historical Society has taken cues from the cal­ endar to publish a series o f articles and media posts that reflect on a run o f different holidays. In spotlighting these communal traditions, we have an opportunity — as history often and usefully provides — to think about our present communities and values. And we can also appreciate more fully how our communities and commemorations have evolved across time. We can consider how they have varied across a range o f local, national, sometimes inter­ national contexts. Among those w e’ve recently explored: Lee-Jackson Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day; May Day; International Women’s Day; Memorial Day; Flag Day; Armistice/Veterans Day; Hanukkah, Christmas and other ethnic or religious holidays that have come with four centuries o f immigration to Rockbridge, to Virginia, and to the United States. This essay’s journey into “Juneteenth” will take a more sustained run at the origins, commemora­ tive traditions and currency o f this holiday that continues to grow across the country, within our state’s distinct history, and here within our county. O In 2015, on the 150th anniversary o f Juneteenth at Booker T. Washington National Monument, Living History Guild volunteers interpreted the day that Washington famously recounts in his memoir, “Up From Slavery,” his foundational boyhood memory when a Union officer arrived to read the Eman­ cipation Proclamation at the Burroughs plantation in Franklin County. As Washington later noted, the day’s sudden change brought new freedoms and new challenges to the enslaved community who had labored and lived there. The 2015 anniversary featured speakers, gospel music, demonstrations o f traditional crafts and historic foodways, a spirited, collective commemoration o f the wholesale release o f approximately 4 million people of African descent from the bonds o f slavery. More particularly, living history re-en­ actments that day brought to dramatic life the very moment when freedom came to the enslaved men, women and children at the Burroughs Plantation where Booker T. Washington was bom. Washington remembered the great day of emancipation, vividly and personally. He said his mother was “standing by my side, leaned over and kissed her children while tears o f joy ran down her cheeks. She explained to us what it all meant, that this was the day which she had been so long praying for, but fearing that she would never live to see.” Eric Wilson is executive director o f Rockbridge Historical Society, in Lexington, and director fo r history fo r the Virginia Association o f Museums. This essay was originally publishedfor RHS on June 19, 2018, to commemorate “Juneteenth, ” the holiday honoring the emancipation o f the Confederacy’s last slaves in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865. •2 4 • �In 2015, on the 150th anniversary ofJuneteenth at Booker T. Washington National Monument, Living History Guild volunteers interpreted the day that Washington famously recounts in his memoir, “Up From Slavery.” Mid-June now annually witnesses a run o f commemorations surrounding Juneteenth — some­ times known as Emancipation Day — the holiday broadly celebrating the end o f American slavery. Though community calendars vary in the observance, the holiday has conventionally centered on June 19, when the last Confederate slaves were finally freed in Galveston, Texas, in 1865. There, Gen. Rob­ ert Granger finally read General Orders No. 3, noting that “in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, ‘all slaves are free.’” (For a fuller accounting, see: https://www.nytimes. com/1865/07/07/archives/from-texas-important-orders-by-general-granger-surrender-of-senator.html.) That terminal landmark, June 19, arrived two and a half months after Gen. Robert E. Lee surren­ dered the Army o f Northern Virginia to Gen. Ulysses Grant, with President Abraham Lincoln assassinat­ ed just days later. Notably, the most common date for such celebrations has not turned to Jan. 1, the date that Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation took nominal effect, over a full two and a half years before in 1863. Given the Executive Order’s restrictions as a “war powers” act, the full abolition o f slavery would not take broad, legal effect until the Thirteenth Amendment had been passed by Congress on Jan. 31, 1865, and ratified by the states in December o f that year (Mississippi only ratified it in 1995). Crucial as these executive and legislative steps were, Lincoln’s Proclamation was not a single­ stroke act, as conventional memory and classroom lessons tend to simplify. Rather, it served as a wartime measure that only freed slaves in territories that had come under the control of Union forces. Hence, the rolling wave o f “practical liberation” that gradually ground its way through the battlefields, in various and shifting directions, before finally concluding in Texas. More uniquely, Congress finally passed the Compensated Emancipation Act on April 16, 1862, formally abolishing slavery in the District o f Columbia and compensating owners $300 for each freed • 25 * �person (the freed men and women, themselves, received no compensation). Accordingly, the District of Columbia now recognizes April 16 as “Emancipation Day,” a full civic holiday in the District, with clo­ sure o f local government offices (unlike most political observances o f Juneteenth) and a range o f events programmed across the capital. KxaasooM oca Across the Potomac, Virginia is now one o f 45 states that have officially passed some kind o f for­ mal measure recognizing Juneteenth. Though specific dates o f observance vary among states, the Com­ monwealth o f Virginia officially designates “Juneteenth Freedom Day” as the third Saturday in June, rather than fixing on the consensus o f June 19, or highlighting the unique circumstances o f April 9, the state’s effective date o f emancipation, effected by the surrender at Appomattox. It should also be noted, however, that in the late 19th century, Richmond’s black community often celebrated Emancipation Days twice a year: on both Jan. 1 and April 3, the date when U.S. Colored Troops led the Union Army into Richmond to liberate the city, thus emancipating the enslaved people still resident there. Passed in 2007 to coincide with the 400th anniversary o f the first English settlers establishing Jamestown, the full Virginia General Assembly Resolution on Juneteenth can be read at http://www/njclc.com/resolutiom.htm. While acknowledging the state’s democratic traditions and ideals, the document also explicitly anchors its importance in the long legacies o f enslavement and racism that have persisted and evolved from the first importation o f indentured Africans to Jamestown in 1619, extended in the “stain and legacy o f slavery” o f 250 years o f bondage through a Civil War. Most hopefully — if still tactfully and somewhat vaguely — our commonwealth now seeks an exceptional role in looking ahead to common purpose: “Virginia will again be set apart as a national leader in seeking to bridge a difficult past and complicated present to attain a harmonious and prosper­ ous future and the commemoration of Juneteenth offers an occasion to remember the bonds o f our unity and common destiny.” One leader in the Old Dominion’s long and complicated social histories and political traditions was Thomas Jefferson, whose achievements in voicing liberty but failures to help end slavery are jointly noted in Item #5 o f the state’s Juneteenth resolution. Fittingly, Monticello’s own Juneteenth observances were held this year on June 16, the month’s third Saturday, as the state Jefferson once governed has of­ ficially prescribed. As part o f Monticello’s celebrations, a multiracial gathering o f over 300 descendants o f the peo­ ple Jefferson enslaved joined together on the steps o f his West Lawn, bringing to new life the iconic im­ age gracing the the back o f our nickel. This year, Monticello timed a number o f major events to advance the spirit and heritage o f Juneteenth. In a meaningful tie to Jefferson’s “Declaration o f Independence” and his ideals o f liberty, Monticello’s Juneteenth celebrations additionally featured the rare display o f an original copy o f the Emancipation Proclamation, loaned for the occasion by historical philanthropist Da­ vid Rubenstein. Most lastingly, the statewide commemorations that day included the grand (re)-opening o f the South Wing on the Monticello plantation, more fully interpreting the story o f the enslaved com­ munity, including Sally Hemings and her children. And in even broader, digital reach, the international attention brought further opportunity to frontline their growing community-based project, “Getting Word: African-American Families o f Monticello” (explore https://www.monticello.org/getting-word). As “Getting Word” evolves into a multimedia website and repository, it also models the type o f archival and oral history projects that are vital to historical organizations. Indeed, this type o f familybased crowdsourcing holds particular importance to local history groups, summoning the range o f all ancestors, neighbors and institutions that have shaped our everyday experiences, whether in Rockbridge County or elsewhere. • 26 • �Overall, this creative clustering o f events isn’t envisioned as a one-off day o f programming, synced to the nationwide observance o f a growing Juneteenth tradition. Rather, it’s another aspect in Monticello’s signal commitment to include more diverse voices, archival documents and archaeological evidence, while still advancing and contextualizing the multiple narratives that illuminate Jefferson’s life: his free and enslaved families, his presidency and plantation, and legacies o f democracy and human inquiry at large. «DoasocsMoca Rockbridge histories, programs and exhibits similarly hold the capacity to foster collective con­ versations, while candidly addressing cultural controversies. By focusing on community histories, we have the vital opportunity to connect and counterpoint some o f the more traditional icons o f recorded histories, with the everyday lives of the range o f citizens w ho’ve lived in our area: across class, gender, race, era. (I’ve written a related article on these issues for the Virginia Association o f Museums, with particular focus on Civil War Memory: https://www.vamuseums.org/blogpost/1155695/237512/TheNexus-of-Crisis-Conversations-in-Controversies.) Here in Rockbridge, we can not only look to the broader legacies o f slavery and freedom, but can also take the opportunity to consider how wartime emancipation may have played out on our familiar streets and terrain. In June o f 1864, 18,000 U.S. Army troops led by Gen. David Hunter were campaigning through the Valley in pursuit of Confederate troops led by Gen. John McCausland. A Confederate stand at the Maury River failed to stop the shelling o f VMI by Union artillery positioned just north o f Lexington. On June 11, retreating Confederates burned the bridge over the North River (now, the Maury River) and began to move south. On June 12, Hunter ordered VMI barracks burned, reckoning it as a military target; and buildings and materials were looted at neighboring Washington College (now Washington & Lee University). The town o f Lexington was largely spared physical damage, though some residents had fled, a number o f them taking their slaves for fear o f the harder edge o f war and the property losses in­ volved. After occupying the town, Union forces would depart toward Lynchburg on June 14. This would be the only large-scale military action that would be fought in Rockbridge during the war. The Rockbridge Historical Society has published two rich accounts o f Hunter’s raid, one in a chapter of Charles Bodie’s county history, “Remarkable Rockbridge,” with a fuller accounting in Rich­ ard Halseth’s “Three Days in Lexington: The Uninvited Visitors o f June 1864” (Rockbridge Historical Society Proceedings Vol. XII). For all their well-noted records, however, neither has identified any sources noting a public dec­ laration o f emancipation in the area, along the lines that would follow a year later in Texas. For me, it s a fascinating gap, one o f history’s “telling silences,” inviting us to newly imagine the scene. What did emancipation look like in Lexington? It may be that no such order was formally read by Union officers here. Though it’s important to recognize, in that context, that Gen. David Hunter’s “infamous” nickname, Black Dave, was not mere­ ly some melodramatic moniker. Strikingly, h e’d actually earned the name earlier in the war by indepen­ dently emancipating black slaves in three states (no less strikingly, Lincoln rescinded Hunter s orders, as they pre-empted his own executive Proclamation, and delicate political negotiations with Congress). It may also be possible that some announcement did occur in the streets of Lexington, yet was not seen o f immediate or prime concern in contemporary accounts o f the direct and dramatic arrival of war. Margaret Junkin Preston and Cornelia McDonald wrote diaries and letters that sketch vivid portraits o f this period and have been excerpted and published in accessible formats over the years. Yet neither recount such official proceedings, during the admitted clamor and chaos o f war that June, and the sudden mm �new order that came with it. It would be remarkable, indeed, to uncover some new archival source illuminating that mo­ ment o f local freedom, that foundational historical turn, bom from those few days o f conquest. What an opportunity, to hear those voices at the crossroads o f historic time, and familiar place: whether speak­ ing in an official register or replying in vernacular tone; whether articulating the various responses o f the liberators, or those vocally resisting the new order. How would Lexington and Rockbridge look, in that critical moment, related to other small Virginia or Southern communities in similar circumstances? At present, that’s a half-sketched but important chapter in Rockbridge history that we haven’t yet fully chronicled. What we do know is that some slaves — as throughout the South — were already freeing them­ selves. Individually and in small groups, men and women were emancipating themselves by running away, the promise o f Union lines in Virginia’s many campaigns offering a new star to follow. The following advertisement was placed in the Lexington Gazette on May 13, 1863, only months after Lincoln’s Proclamation, over a year before the Union Army occupied Lexington, and still two years before the w ar’s end and full abolition. RANAW AY riR O Jl the subscriber at Riienavists Fur■* nace. Rockbridge county. Vs., on Sun­ day night, the 3d of M»y, three negro men. ail of whom were lately bought in Richmond. vte: - S a n d i, from Cinuhprland CSt . N C..25 jr* o f age 5 f t 6 inch. high. tall, dark w am saw colnf. and bright ■crojniwiaitc#.— Bryant, from Pitt Co.. N (*.. 22 yesra old, 5 it. 104 in>*h high, scar on root of fore-fin­ ger. on right hand dark mulatto color Jer­ ry, bom Cumberland. Co.. N. 0 , 2 1 years of age, 5 It. 84 in high, ginger bread color. I will give $200 each for them if caught sifd puj fn**ny jail so that 1 can get them <?s $250 for each of ihetu delivered at my Fitenace. S E J,CRDAK* May 13. 1863—tl . ; Advertisement offering reward for return o f three runaway slaves: Sandy, Bryant and Jerry. A ll three men had been recently purchased by Rockbridge industrialist Samuel Jordan, presumably to work at his Buena Vista Furnace Works, duly noted. (Lexington Gazette, 1863) The “subscriber,” Samuel Jordan, owned the Buena Vista Furnace Works, one o f the County’s important industrial complexes; the manufactory was also a point o f focus in Rockbridge Historical Society’s recent June program on the histories o f the surrounding South River area (https ://rockbridgehistory.org/events-2/). Like many forges and furnaces in the region, Jordan’s operation would supply key resources for the Confederate war effort, often shipped to the factories at Richmond’s Tredegar Iron Works. Jordan’s emerging manufacturing enterprise was an operation that relied on a mix o f free and slave labor. Whatever happened to Sandy, Bryant and Jerry, “lately bought from Richmond,” other slaves owned by Jordan would have been emancipated a year later when Hunter’s troops occupied Lex­ ington and destroyed the Buena Vista Furnace Works in the process. In these comparative lights, Rockbridge would see different pathways to freedom and to citizen­ ship before, during and after the Civil War. And for some, the next steps would prove tragic, by turns. As detailed in David Coffey’s revealing article, “Reconstruction and Redemption in Lexington” (also in Rockbridge Historical Society Proceedings, Vol.XII), the wake o f the war in Lexington brought some uneasy accommodations in local race relations, along with new opportunities for freedwomen and men. But within a few years, threats o f violence — not to mention the 1869 lynching o f Jesse Edwards, a freedman w ho’d been held in the Rockbridge County jail, accused o f the murder o f a white girl, Susan Margaret Hite — would sorely temper the spirit o f liberation that Juneteenth seeks to honor and deliver anew. • 28• �“Iron Hand,” ca. 1860. R H S Collections. Found in South River district near old Buena Vista Furnace Works (destroyed in 1864), thought to be cast from the hand o f an enslaved or free black worker, based on labor patterns o f the time. In 2019, R H S will loan the artifact to the American Civil War Museum in Richmond for the exhibits in Grand Re-Opening, requested by their curatorial staff for its arresting visual form, and capacity to interpret industrial slavery. Over the years, Juneteenth hasn’t enjoyed broad, frequent public celebration in our area’s local events or programs. But family gatherings, churches, alumni groups and, increasingly, social media have provided means to connect generations, both within and beyond Buena Vista, Lexington and Rock­ bridge. Some o f us have joined festivities in larger areas in the region: Roanoke, Staunton, Charlottes­ ville or the broad annual draw at the Booker T. Washington National Monument. But in thinking about how traditions emerge and evolve over time, I ’ll close by turning from the Juneteenth holiday more specifically, to communal memory more generally. Some questions to reflect on: sen What would new festive traditions look like in our community? Or newly revised ones? sn Who do we rely on to help bring those collective acts into reality, into meaningful ritual? so What can we, individually, bring to the table, through our own traditions, families, values? so Where have we come from? Where do we go from here? And who are we going with? For our part, we hope that the Rockbridge Historical Society and organizations like ours can play some role in continuing to provide perspective on how these patterns have played out locally, over the arc o f time. And we hope that Rockbridge Historical Society will continue to serve as a repository for the pictures and memorabilia, the artifacts, documnts and stories that can help preseve your memories, your witness, for generatoins to follow. • 29 • �^oS s4*tyeCi: /4 tt S& ttty ‘TK&v&t <mct S tu z & e n t t t ^ < n z rto 6 e by G eorge K egley R obert Henderson “Bob” Angell, a Franklin County native who lived from 1868 to 1933, left his mark as a leading businessman in early Roanoke but h e’s almost forgotten today. He had a long list o f accomplishments. Angell was the founder o f Shenandoah Life Insurance Co., a principal owner o f Central Manu­ facturing Co., president o f Colonial Bank & Trust Co. and the Chamber o f Commerce, leader o f Roa­ noke Iron Co., Republican member o f the House o f Delegates and Roanoke City Council, owner o f one o f the first hotels on Campbell Avenue, organizer o f the Merchants Association and president o f the Groundhog Club o f America in Roanoke. (See story on page 32.) A history o f the first 50 years o f Shenandoah Life described Angell as “a classic example o f pull yourself up by your own boot­ straps.” Bom near Callaway in Franklin County, he ran away from home at 16 because his father could not afford his education. He worked for a Cave Spring farmer for $13 a month, went to school and worked as a school janitor in Salem until he found a job as a brick mason in Roanoke for $1.50 a day. Angell then worked in a lumber yard where he took an interest in business, rising to yard manager. Angell turned to manufacturing building materials in the firm H uff & Angell but he soon bought out his partner and in 1892 he established Central Manufacturing Co. on the site o f the present Coca-Cola plant on Shenandoah Avenue. A small structure with a Bob Angell round turret from Central Manufacturing days stood there until it was razed several years ago. Central Manufacturing was a wholesale and retail dealer in lime, lumber, cement and plaster, employing 75 people or more in the early 1900s. He had a similar plant in Lynch­ burg. As an organizer o f the Chamber o f Commerce and Merchants Association, Angell helped many emerging businesses in early days. He had a hand in bringing the Norwich Lock Co., Virginian Railway George Kegley is editor o f the Journal. • 30 • �and American Viscose Corp. to Roanoke. He built many houses in Roanoke and Covington and helped organize Roanoke Hardware and Brand Shoe Co. and served as state fuel officer during World War I in 1918. “He was intimately associated with the early prosperity o f Roanoke,” according to a nomination o f a Campbell Avenue building for the National Register o f Historic Places. He built His Home Hotel on Campbell Avenue and it later had many names and many owners: Central Hotel, Windsor, Raleigh, Smith’s, Karkenny’s and Lilly’s Raleigh Hotel. As state Republican chairman, Angell reportedly went fishing with President Herbert Hoover at his Blue Ridge mountain retreat, northwest o f Charlottesville. His humor was important when he served as president o f Ground­ hog Club o f America No. 1. When Angell died in 1933, a newspaper account said “he probably had more irons in the fire than any man in Roanoke. He was a friend to everyone, rich or poor, and he could meet everyone on common ground.” He was survived by his wife, Mary Barlow Angell; four sons, Robert H. Jr., Frank, Joseph and Hughes “Jubal”; and a daughter, Mrs. Stafford Crowley. A brief biographic sketch in Jack & Jacobs’ 1912 “History o f Roanoke City and County had this to say about Angell: “Much o f his valuable time was taken in matters o f civic interest and on sever­ al occasions when he felt that the circumstances justified it, he personally bore the expenses necessary to be incurred in securing for Roanoke industries and enterprises which would redound to the common good. “Socially, Mr. Angell is a Mason o f high degree, being a member o f Accaa Temple, AAOK of the M ystic Shrine, a Red Man, an Elk, a Pythian, an Odd Fellow, Mystic Chain, Eagles and the Shenan­ doah Club and religiously he is a Baptist.” •3 1 • �ty to u a d & o y & C cc6 “ t o ie t a t u ft f c t t y & u t t& e t n u t k everal thousand men once gathered in downtown Roanoke every Feb. 2 to tell stories and have fun at the annual gathering o f Groundhog Club o f America No. 1. This began a century ago on Jan. 5, 1917, when a gang o f the Franklin County Club met at the assembly room o f the Masonic Temple and decided to organize a Groundhog Club. The most outrageous stories were told, according to historian Raymond Barnes. Industry executive Bob Angell and Joe Chitwood, assistant district attorney, were “frequently the target o f jests and much o f the bucolic w it was directed at those bom in Franklin County,” Bames said. “The crowd appeared to enjoy these skirmishes so much, someone came up with the idea that public meetings be held on Groundhog Day, Feb. 2.” One suggested requirement for membership: “Anyone who wore shoes before 10 years old is barred.” A member was indicted for “wearing shoes on his first visit to Roanoke.” A motto: “You could tell anything on anybody, just so it’s not the truth.” Angell was elected president and Chitwood was vice president. Prominent citizens sat on a platform behind a live groundhog displayed under a sign proclaiming “His Hogship.” The citizens were charged with offenses and the victims laughed as loudly as their accusers. The main purpose o f the club was to ridicule prominent people, said Saunders Guerrant, who was an active member o f the 1900 Club, whose members were bom in 1900. The 1900 veterans were ushers at Groundhog Club meetings. Frank Angell, B ob’s son and a later club president, said the organization was primarily a fellowship club since it did a lot to make Roanokers more politically aware, because politicians and political hopefuls were introduced and soundly roasted at the meetings. Frank Angell said they would offer $5 to any kid who could bring in a groundhog for the annual celebration. They had four groundhogs in 1927. Although the club was for men only, news o f its good times spread around town and one woman, dressed as a man, sneaked in but the men barred the rest. Madam Fifi, a female impersonator dressed in scanty clothing, was escorted and guarded at one meeting. They had a liars’ contest and music by the N&W String Band and Freddie Lee’s orches­ tra in later years. A t first, smokes and drinks were passed around, even in Prohibition times, but the club was dry by 1954. Guerrant described the scene as “raucous and corny but it was fun.” The Roanoke Times said the 1928 meeting was the largest meeting o f men ever held in •3 2 • �Roanoke. “Hundreds stood occupying every comer and niche. Others found roosting places in the steel girders above the balcony, on the stairways and in the windows. A groundswell o f abandon swept with amazing force over the crowd to destroy every vestige o f workday worry and care.” As many as 6,500 were reported in the Groundhog Club meetings some years. But when Angell, its only president in early days, died in 1933, the club lost its mo­ mentum. They met in 1935 and then stopped. But a revival was promoted in 1949 and 3,000 men assembled. They met and raised money for the Heart Fund and the March o f Dimes and even gained a spot on the National Broadcasting Co.’s “Today” show in 1955. The club had moved from the Masonic Temple to the American Legion Auditorium but it burned in late 1957 and the Groundhog Club burned down too, as one veteran member said. SOURCES Raymond Barnes, Roanoke World-News, Feb. 5,1966 Mike Ives, Roanoke World-News, Feb. 2, 1976 Dwayne Yancey, Roanoke Times, Feb. 1, 1986 •33 • �v c i i n m r u t t , ‘ V o u p i t u c i by B ruce B. H arper A pplicable to a lot of small towns and wide spots along the N&W is the proverbial “don’t blink or Z A you’ll miss it.” But some of those spots were happening places in the past. One of those is Villamont, X A partw ay between the top of the grade at Blue Ridge and Montvale to the east. When U.S. 460 was re­ aligned and widened to four lanes, this town was bypassed and is now mainly known by the green “Villamont” sign and the Villamont Presbyterian Church. This “wide spot” has had at least five names applied to it, the last courtesy of the railroad, fulfilling the request of some investors looking to build up the area. It at one time was known as Peel Brook, then as Bu­ ford s Gap (with nearby Montvale also known as Bufords). The area became k n ow n as Ridgemont before the turn of the Nineteenth Century. It owed its existence to the Ironville Mine, which was opened in 1879. This operation, and other later ones, mined Blue Ridge hematite ore. The Dewey Mine, operated by the Virginia Iron, Coal and Coke Com­ pany, was northeast of the Ironville Mine and extensively worked. Ore from the Ironville Mine was moved by wagon while a “.. .narrow-gauge railway some three miles long connects the mine with the tipple near Montvale.”(7; In association with the mining activity in the area, the N&W established a station called Ironville. It 1897 it was referenced as the nearest station serving the Ridgemont Cement & Manufacturing Co., which op­ erated a stone quarry and iron mine. The quarry produced 50,000 tons of “limestone, building, and macadam stone.” The iron mines produced 10,000 tons of “red specular and limonite ores.”(2) In 1902 the U.S. Postal Service changed the name of the Ridgemont post office to Ironville, matching that office name with the railroad location. That same year the N&W replaced a 25,000-gallon water tank with a 50,000-gallon tank. This was an important location on the railroad — the end of double track on the eastern side of the Blue Ridge grade. In the 1904 Annual Report, it was stated that “Interlocking and signaling appa­ ratus were installed or improved at Ironville,” and other locations. A year later, the Annual Report stated, “The extension of second track eastward from Ironville to Forest, 29 miles, is in progress on reduced grades.” A second 50,000-gallon water tank was added there in 1907, along with more interlocking and signal equipment. There were problems with that installation, though, when the signal tower burned to the ground. The Evening News (Roanoke) reported the fire in its Saturday, June 1, 1907, ed itio n .^ The tower and equipment were rebuilt and the following year, a power house for the interlocking and block signal plant was constructed. The village received a boost of sorts in 1907 with the opening of the Ironville Sanatorium For Tuber­ culosis. This facility, which was widely advertised, promoted itself and location: Bruce B. Harper, who works in university relations at Virginia Tech, has a long interest in freight and pas­ senger trains. He watched them from his boyhood home near Pittsburgh and he delved into the history o f the Norfolk & Western as a student and later employee o f Virginia Tech. His research took him into the N&W archives. This article was published in Vol. 34, No. 1, o f The Arrow, the Norfolk & Western Historical Society Magazine. •34 • �A caboose crewman waves at the operator in U S Tower at Villamont. The tower underwent some modifications over the years. (Photo courtesy o f Ken Miller) “In the Blue Ridge, on Norfolk & Western Railway, 12 Miles East of Roanoke. Elevation, 1,400 Feet. “An eleemosynary institution, furnishing incipient cases with the modem hygienic-dietetic treatment at cost or less, according to means of patient and institution. Maximum rate, $10 per week, all essentials in­ cluded. “Camp or shack sites, dispensary treatment, supervision and other facilities for an economic mainte­ nance free to all ambulant applicants.”^ The area came under notice from local and outside investors, who in 1912 asked L.E. Johnson, presi­ dent of the N&W, to consider changing the name of its station to something more pleasing and conducive to attracting new residents. I.R. Longsworth, president and general manager of the Virginia-Elk Valley Associated Orchards, wrote to Johnson from Lima, Ohio, to ask that the railroad change the name of its station from Ironville to Villamont. In his April 23, 1912, letter, Longsworth wrote: “A number of Ohio capitalists with myself and some Virginia gentlemen, have invested quite largely in Virginia fruit producing properties. Amongst these we have bought a large acreage at Ironville, Bedford County, Virginia, and are planting the same to fruit and improving the property quite materially. “We are desir­ ous to have the name of the station changed from Ironville to Villamont. We are laying out a block of villa sites north of the railroad, on the hillside, very beautifully located, and already a number of Ohio parties have taken bungalow sites therein and no doubt several buildings will be erected during the coming summer. The name Ironville is not compatible with a fruit producing station. “There is a limestone quarry on the property and a mill used formerly for crushing and grinding ce­ ment. The interested parties have in view the development of a limestone crushing and grinding plant, the product to be utilized for agricultural purposes if the lime content is of high enough grade. • 35• �A HOME AT VILLAMONT FOR YOU $250 BUYS A SMALL FARM S-tt«»«* tnm a* «oai oftv» $50 BUYS'A VILLA' SltE A beautiful community of small farms ajid summer homes only 13 miles from Roanoke, on main line of Norfolk and Western railroad. Get s villa .site and join our Summer comp colony this year. <*~ mft,«7 Tn---*' *" And let us explain the many at* tractions of this beauty spot. We con give you the names of other Roa­ noke people who have bought and are delighted with their purchases. We will arrange oo you can see the property and meet our people, and then, j f W u like it, you can join witlv us In a home at Villamont. If you ore not pleased in every way there is no obligation on your part. What $250.00 Will Do At Villamont 1» , t y It will buy one of these little five-acre farms, an<l you con pay for it w e r e 18 I O U l" in small imitallment» of $5 or'SlO per month. Our community is growI . ing rapidly and new home®are going up continually. We have our L ittle H om e Community Store, Glub House. Hotel and Civic Centre. A consider­ able number of Roanoke's best people already have purchased summer l i V i l J a m A n f k°mea !°r farms at Villamont. and several have'built and are living * 11le t I I I O il l there now. Why pay. high rents in the d ty when you can build and — :-----i; ------------------.live at ViUiwnont for less than half the coat in Roanoke? Sunday Afternoon Well Spent Our big seven-passenger car meets No. 4, the Norfolk and Western-noon train,'at Blue Ridge, on Sundays, and takes passengers from there to Villamont, one mile distant.,without charge. Why not come down and sue us some Sunday soon? Bring your family and your picnic-lunch, if you choose, and'en joy a real outing in the glorious outdoor environment of Villamont beautiful. O l l l C»««H | Our Wayside Inn iss.a^n v st t a n . Our Wayside Inn. with its scenic environ­ ment. in the famous historic {Buford) Gap, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, draws many visit­ ors from afar and nearby cities for a cool rest in the lap of Mother Nature, The Blue Ridge Springs resort, frequented by guests from many States, is only one mile from Villamont, and connected by rail arid auto roatL" "Both, with other contemplated attractions, will in­ crease the interest a t Villamont. Don’t Fail to Visit Our Summer Camp This Season Come in and let us explain about our villa sites at $50 each and up; then, if satisfied, after personal inspection, get one of them* and join our summer colony in a delightful outing for your­ self and family. * •*?’. * ", * ./ ■ *^v,' •If you don't want to be bothered with meals, you can get them at our Wayside. Inn at small cost, and wo can furnish tent for your family a t slight rental cost by the week or seasop. You Owe it to-Yourself and Family to Give Them a vacation at VQlatnont This Summer. WHY?—Because they own their own homes and live with their children in the happy outdoor life, their own gardens, orchsrds,-chick<m8,. bees, good neighbors, store, club-house, Wayside ' Inn, best social conditions, and ^1 that goes to make life" worth living. VILLAMONT COMMUNITY, InctS? Gale Building 1 31-2 5k>uth Jefferson Street ■Roanoke, Virginia VllJUMONTeTHE HAPfcY COMMUNITY OF CONTENTED OUTDOOR PEOPLE This advertisement appeared in The World News on May 31, 1919, enticing readers with land prices at Villamont. The line at the very bottom in many ways defines the advertising of the era. (Image courtesy of Bruce Harper collection) �“Will not your Company meet the wishes of our people and promulgate the change of station name as desired?”^ Johnson passed the letter and request on to N.D. Maher, second vice-president and general manager of the railroad, stating, “Will you be kind enough to let me have your recommendations? Personally I think we should comply with their request.” Maher replied on May 2, “I have arranged to change the name of Ironville station to Villamont, to take effect as soon as everybody is notified.” The next day, Johnson notified Longsworth by letter, “In reply to your favor of April 23rd, I beg to advise that it will be our pleasure to comply with your request to change the name of Ironville to Villamont. This will be done and made effective as soon as everybody can be notified.” In that brief exchange, Ironville was transformed into Villamont. It took a few years before the change of name of Ironville to Villamont was accepted. In the 1919 edi­ tion of the Report of the Secretary of the Commonwealth, there was a listing for the Villamont Land Co. Inc., later changed to the Villamont Community Inc. The name finally showed up in the 1922 edition of the United States Official Postal Guide. In N&W terms, Villamont was the end (or beginning) of the triple-track that crossed the top of the Blue Ridge grade. Helper engines that were added to eastbound trains at Boaz cut off at Villamont, then phoned the dispatcher for instructions. The location wasn’t without excitement (beyond daily steam operations). On February 11, 1907, The Evening News reported the derailment of a double-header in Ironville: “At 11:56 a.m. Saturday an extra eastbound double-header was derailed at Ironville, about 15 miles east of this city, the two engines and three loaded cars leaving the track. “One of the engines was turned on one side and the second partly turned. The number of engines are 767 and 803. No one was killed or injured. It took about five hours to clear the track, No. 3 being delayed one hour and fifteen minutes.”^ Several years later tower operators witnessed an unauthorized passenger, as reported by The Evening News on March 7, 1910.(7) Villamont never did see the growth its promoters expected. In 1916 the N&W promoted it in its “Industrial and Shippers Guide” as a place “.. .being developed into a small country home place, especially suited to those seeking a mountain country home for summer.” It never had an actual station, but only merited a shelter shed. In the 1920s a short section of U.S. 460 was built just to the north of the village, bypassing a curvy section of road that dropped into the village then climbed back out of the hollow as it continued to the east. It lost its importance to the railroad as diesels replaced steam engines, then as heavy eastbound trains were routed over the water-level Virginian tracks after the merger. Today, the sanatorium is gone, the iron mines are no more, and traces of the railroad infrastructure are not easy to find. But it is easy to stand next to the tracks on Depot Road on the south side of the tracks, and imagine all the activity at this “wide spot” in the road. ENDNOTES 1. Mineral Resources of Virginia, Thomas Leonard Watson, Ray Smith Bassler, Heinrich Ries, Roy Jay Holden, Virginia. Jamestown Exposition Commission, J.R Bell Company, printers and binders, 1907 — Jamestown, Virginia, pp. 471-472 2. The Mine, Quarry and Metallurgical Record of the United States, Canada and Mexico: Mine and Quarry News Bureau, The Bureau, 1897 — Mineral industries, pg. 645 3. The (Roanoke) Evening News, Volume 15, Number 130, Saturday, June 1, 1907, pg 3 4. Virginia Medical Semi-monthly, Volume 14, L.B. Edwards, 1910, advertisement, pg. 17 5. Letter from correspondence files 6. The Evening News, Volume 15, Number 36, 11 February 1907, pg. 3 7. The Evening News, Volume 21, Number 55, 7 March 1910, pg. 1 • 37 * �7 < £ e "ty c tc & t * )(tc U a tt& *Voiyt*U<z a tu t *7&ecri t% 5 7 1Ro£6 (?) by Jim G lanville here is extensive archeological and historical evidence for the presence o f the Yuchi American In­ dian people in Virginia’s Smyth and Washington counties in the 16th century. This article adds the documentary evidence o f an 1857 intertribal roll held by the Remnant Yuchi Nation o f Kingsport, Tennessee. With tribal permission, the roll is published here for the first time. The article argues for an end to the long Virginia neglect o f its Yuchi heritage. Oral tradition preserved by Woktela(2j tells us that the Yuchi (alternatively Euchee) American Indian people originated at Cahokia on the Mississippi River near present-day St. Louis, reached west­ ern Tennessee by the 14th century, and eastern Tennessee by the 15th. The Spanish de Soto expedition encountered them in Southwest Virginia in 1541, as again did the Pardo expedition in 1567. By 1717, the small Yuchi tribe with its unique language had lost out in the English-promoted Indian slaving wars and had been scattered to many places throughout the Southeast. The Trail o f Tears in 1838-39 took most Yuchis west to Oklahoma as part o f the Creek Confed­ eracy a loose coalition o f diverse Indian towns in the South. Despite this removal, remnant Yuchi groups remained in Appalachia and the U.S. Southeast. In Appalachia the Yuchi became the leaders o f a post-removal coalescent Indian movement, as demonstrated by the intertribal roll made in Carter Coun­ ty, Tennessee, in 1857 and curated by the Remnant Yuchi Nation in Kingsport. This roll, that is described and pictured here, is new and convincing evidence o f the historic role o f the Yuchi people in Virginia. For many years the roll was held in Floyd County, Virginia. Today, five centuries after European contact, the federally recognized western Yuchi in Oklaho­ ma are a minority group under the jurisdiction o f the Creek Nation. The eastern Remnant Yuchi Nation continues to fight for Tennessee state tribal recognition, although it has abandoned efforts to become recognized in Virginia. When Europeans contacted them in southwest Virginia, the Yuchi were a Mississippian people. The term Mississippian characterizes the American Indian societies that occupied the Mississippi River watershed and the Deep South during the years 800-1,600 AD. Mississippian peoples generally were platform mound builders, relied on maize-based sustenance, had social ranks and a complex political organization, engaged in ceremonial activities, and produced highly artistic objects with iconic de­ signs from marine shell, copper and pottery. They also engaged in long-distance trade and exchange. In southwest Virginia caves substituted for mounds as Indian ceremonial and religious sites. Mississippian peoples produced a rich and abundant archeological record throughout their territory. That record is very well known — except in Virginia. The archeological record o f southwest Virginia divides into “proper archeology” and “improper archeology.” Proper archeology is that done by professionals and any amateurs that they supervise. ^ Jim Glanville o f Blacksburg has done extensive research and writing on settlement in Southwest Virginia. He form erly taught chemistry at Virginia Western Community College and Virginia Tech. •38• �Improper archeology has principally been grave robbing to obtain Indian relics to collect or to sell, al­ though some unsupervised amateurs have excavated to study long-lost Indian cultures and donated their finds to museums. The Yuchi Indians left a fabulous archeological record in Virginia’s Smyth and Washington coun­ ties. That record comes principally from two kinds o f places: large village sites along the three main riv­ ers o f the two counties, the North, Middle and South forks o f the Holston river, and the caves that occur abundantly in their karst landscape. This record is almost entirely undocumented by professional arche­ ologists and the Mississippian archeological record o f Smyth and Washington counties is found almost entirely in private collections and the publications o f relic collectors, where that record has been studied for more than a decade by the author. (3) In consequence, the Yuchi Indians are unknown to the vast majority o f Virginians, who believe that American Indian culture in Virginia stops at Amherst County with the Monacan Nation. Just as the author’s article last year about the triumph o f Anglo-America stressed the significance of western Virginia for the development o f America, so the present article stresses the significance o f western Virginia for its role in Indian culture. Sadly, the Virginia obsession with its eastern history con­ tinues to obscure the dominant role ofV irginia’s western history. (4) INDIAN RECOGNITION IN VIRGINIA January 2018 will forever stand as a landmark month in the history o f Virginia American Indians. That month President Donald Trump signed legislation creating six new federally recognized Virginia tribes — the Nansemond, Chickahominy, Eastern Chickahominy, Upper Mattaponi, Rappahannock and Monacan — in addition to the Pamunkey Indian tribe that obtained federal recognition in 2016. There are also four Commonwealth o f Virginia-only recognized tribes — the Cheroenka Nottoway, Nottoway, Mattaponi and Patomeck. Collectively, these 11 politically recognized tribes have an enrolled member­ ship o f about 6,000 individuals. Ten of the tribes are based in Tidewater, in the watersheds o f the Rap­ pahannock, York and James rivers. The 11th, the Monacan tribe, is situated near Lynchburg in central V irg in ia.^ It is 300 miles from Lynchburg to Virginia’s Cumberland Gap. Thus there is a vast area o f west­ ern and southwestern Virginia devoid o f any recognized tribes. Ironically, as is recounted in this article, the earliest Virginia tribes we can document in the historic record come from the western part o f Virgin­ ia. These tribes were encountered by Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century. Contrary to the popular view that Virginia began at Jamestown, it in fact began in the farthest western end o f the present-day state in Lee County. (6) The first two Europeans to set foot in the presentday state o f Virginia in 1541 were the Spaniards Juan de Villalobos (from Seville) and Francisco de Sil­ vern (from Galicia) who were marauders from the de Soto expedition. (7) Twenty-six years later, in April 1567, Hernando Moyano de Morales led a detachment o f Juan Pardo’s soldiers northwards from Fort San Juan at Joara (present-day Morganton, North Carolina), and attacked an Indian village at Saltville that the Spanish called Maniatique. ( S, 9) Thus the Spanish encountered the Yuchi Indians in Appalachia in 1541 and 1567. The Yuchi are a small group o f Native American people who are today, as they were in the past, widely dispersed throughout the United States. Today, the principal Yuchi population resides in Okla­ homa, with minor populations scattered throughout Appalachia and the Southeast. A unique character­ istic o f the Yuchi people is their distinctive isolate language. Woktela, the Yuchi historian and language student, strongly asserts that “tanasi,” meaning meeting o f the waters in Yuchi, gave Tennessee its name. Linguists such as Mary Linn judge that the Yuchi language separated from all other languages more than 6,000 years ago. (10) The uniqueness o f their language gives the Yuchi historical distinctiveness. Today, only a handful o f native speakers of the unique Yuchi isolate language are still alive in Oklahoma. An • 39 • �Figure 1. The Yuchi shown on the U.S. National Atlas. (Detail; public domain) older member o f the Remnant Yuchi Nation remembers that his grandmother, who lived in Gate City (in Virginia about 6 miles north of Kingsport), spoke some Yuchi. No living Virginia Indians are native language speakers. The Monacan people o f central Virginia spoke an extinct Siouan language while the Tidewater tribes spoke extinct Algonquian languages. Figures 1 and 2 are two noteworthy maps among many that show the Yuchi. Figure 1 shows a de­ tail from a generalized map o f Indian cultural areas with the Yuchi displayed along the Tennessee River and stretching into Virginia. Generalized maps such as this one cannot be taken too seriously; map lines o f territorial demarcation are an Anglo-American concept unrecognized by Indians, and no map such as this can adequately represent five or six centuries o f voluntary Indian population movement and settler forced relocation. For our purposes, the map simply legitimizes that the Yuchi play a role in the history o f southwest Virginia. (11) Incidentally, the Monacan, the westernmost o f the modern-day federally rec­ ognized Virginia tribes, appear on the very eastern edge o f Figure 1. M odem historical scholarship has only recently turned its attention to the Yuchi, and principally through the efforts o f Jason Baird Jackson. (12) Modem scholarship places the Yuchi in northeast Ten­ nessee and southwest Virginia. Figure 2 is a sketch map that follows a map published in 2012 by Brett Riggs and John E. Worth. (73) The Yuchi and the Chisca were either the same people or closely related peoples who spoke the same language. The distinction between them involves the interpretation o f some obscure 16th-century Spanish documents. The author is o f the opinion that the distinction between the Chisca and the Yuchi made by some authors is a distinction without a significant difference. In any event, these two maps and others secure the Yuchi claim to a place in southwest Virginia history. It is reprehensible that the small Yuchi tribe that played such a significant role in early Virginia history is so obscure and neglected today. THE ARCHEOLOGY OF SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA The only extended study of the regional archeology o f southwest Virginia is the nearly 50-yearold Smithsonian Institution survey conducted by C.G. Holland.(14) He wrote: “It is rare to find a site in southwest Virginia that has not been systematically searched by nearby collectors.” (Holland 1970, p. 37) Indeed, it is impossible to grasp the extensive Mississippian quality o f the region where the presentday remnant Yuchi people live without taking account o f the enormous amount o f improper archeology that has been carried out there. (15) •40• �Figure 2. The 16th century Yuchi in presentday Tennessee and Virginia according to modern scholarship. (Map by author; the town of Chiaha is discussed in endnote 8) Holland described the extent of this improper archeology in 1970 on page viii o f his preface: In contrast to the professionals, the local collectors are a potent group in southwest Virginia archeology and I am indebted to some o f them for much help. (16) On the other hand, they have been a most destructive force. About 40 years ago one o f a family o f several brothers began to dig at night in open sites and to enter caves for artifacts. Through the following years this man with single-minded determination dug in nearly all the open, pottery-bearing sites and caves within a large radius o f Saltville [a town that bridges Smyth and Washington Counties]. The artifacts sought were mainly pipes, ear ornaments, shell pendants and similar objects that were highly prized and sold well. Others o f the family took up this activity and the pattern spread to embrace many people in their town and sur­ rounding community. It is estimated that 40 to 50 people are now engaged in this destructive digging between Tazewell and Washington Counties. In contrast, proper archeology in Smyth and Washington counties has been relatively modest in extent and never directed at studying Mississippian culture in the region. A 25-year survey o f work by amateur archeologists in Washington County notes the prior disturbance o f many o f their studied sites by relic hunters and gives no hint o f the rich Mississippian culture o f the region. (17) A rare glimpse o f Mississippian Virginia from the perspective o f proper archeology comes from a 1996 article by two archeologists that labels the Saltville-Chilhowie region o f Smyth County a “salt powered chiefdom.”(7á?j These authors observed that the prehistory o f Saltville is “one o f the most fascinating developments within Native American cultures within the Commonwealth.” They noted that a site in Chilhowie yielded artifacts showing Mississippian influence, and decided that the use o f the salt resource spurred the development o f high cultural level in the region. They concluded: “Due to the perishable nature o f the salt resource and the destruction by modem development and/or looting o f the majority o f archaeological sites relating to it, direct evidence for the mining, manufacturing, and trading of salt from Saltville is difficult to obtain. Through an examination o f collateral evidence, however, it would appear that such activities did occur in the Saltville Valley with far reaching implications for the social organization o f Southwest Virginia ....” •41 • �Figure 3. A Saltville style gorget. Labeled “Smyth Co. Va, Chillhowie [sic] school, Kelly Barry [sic].” (In a private collection; author’s 2007 picture) The author has argued that the vast amounts o f broken pottery found up and down the valley o f the Middle Fork o f the Holston River constitute evidence that salt brine from Saltville was transported by river to places with ample available wood and there boiled down to yield solid salt.(79) In 1997, professional archeologists reported that o f 37 known Indian burial caves in Virginia (34 o f which are in Smyth and Washington Counties) . .only three remain relatively undisturbed by loot­ ers” and that the looting o f these sites is so extensive and is continuing.”^ ) Dick Slattery reported to the author that after the “father o f plains archeology” Waldo Wedel was lowered into a cave near Salt­ ville, Wedel told him that the Indians had “filled that cave” and that there were “wagon loads o f bones down there.”(27) In 1957, the new Chilhowie High School venue was the location o f an Indian grave site digging frenzy. When earth moving commenced an Indian grave field containing more than a hundred burials was quickly uncovered and within days “hundreds o f amateurs had pockmarked the field with hasty and careless diggings. Our knowledge of these 1957 events comes only from newspaper reports.(22) This site produced the gorget (throat ornament) pictured in Figure 3 which the author photographed in a pri­ vate museum in 2007. Artistically engraved marine shell gorgets and finely made, polished stone pipes are characteristic of Mississippian Smyth and Washington counties and have been found there in abun­ dance over the years either as grave goods or as cave finds. Almost all o f these items are held privately by relic collectors. The Mississippian art objects called gorgets that are made from the outher shell o f saltwater conch shells were studied by Jon Muller in Saltville in 1964, when he met and interviewed local collec­ tors and photographed their engraved gorgets. This pioneer study o f styles o f gorget engraving through­ out the Mississippian world became his 1966 Ph.D. dissertation.(23) Muller saw and photographed about 30 gorgets from Smyth and Washington counties and named the engraved rattlesnake design of a particular type o f gorget (such as the one in Figure 3) the “Saltville Style.” In 1996, M uller’s photo­ graphs were incorporated into a book about gorgets published by the Peabody Museum. (24) The West •42 • �■■■1 Figure 4. Large stone pipe 7 inches high * 1 0 inches long. Said to be in the Robey Maiden collec­ tion circa 1965. (From print given to the author in 2005 by the late Tom Totten of Saltville) Virginia archeologist Darla Hoffman reviewed Virginia and West Virginia gorgets in 2001(25) and the present author reviewed Saltville-style gorgets in 2010 .(26) The author has visited many relic collectors in their homes and at their shows and taken many photographs o f shell gorgets and stone pipes. Presentday Virginia archeologists are generally uninterested in these gorgets and mostly unaware o f the pipes. The best account o f stone pipes from Chilhowie in Smyth County and the Cornelius farm site in Washington County is in a book aimed at the Indian relic collecting community. (2 7) This book pictures many fine pipe specimens. Figure 4 shows a stone pipe said to have been in the Robey Maiden collection and said to have come from a cave near the Madam Russell Church in Saltville. Maiden was one o f the family o f brothers mentioned by Holland as quoted above. On a note o f caution, the evidence provided by pipes in private collections must be used judiciously because pipes are fairly easily reproduced and so fakes are an evidentiary problem. Modem reproduction gorgets are also known, but they apparently require more skill to make than pipes. The author is annoyed and frustrated that neither Virginia historians nor Virginia archaeologists pay much attention to the Mississippian history o f Smyth and Washington counties. He expressed his frustration in a book review published in 2012 in a magazine for relic collectors. In the review he expressed himself troubled by the efforts o f professional archaeologists to control the nature o f archaeo­ logical evidence by declaring objects held in private collections to be “looted” and unprovenanced and thereby inappropriate or improper for analysis and study and wrote that the “ ...transformation o f Indi­ ana Jones into the thought police is bizarre and absurd.” More importantly, this assertion o f prohibition against certain artifacts amounts to an act o f cultural genocide against the Yuchi. As Woktela has written, by declaring its artifacts unacceptable “[i]t remains the last act o f genocide to write a culture out o f his­ tory.” This section concludes with an anecdote. A decade ago a Smyth County grave robber (29) who much admired the culture o f the Indians he was digging up complained to the author that he was dis­ turbed by their cultural practice o f burying their dead beneath their dwellings. A couple o f years later, during a meeting with Yuchi elders in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, the author was told o f the Oklahoma Yuchi former practice o f burying their dead under their houses, a practice he later found recorded in the literature.(30) It was this Sapulpa meeting that created for him a visceral belief in the reality o f the Virginia Yuchi — more real than his already long-held cold academic belief. • 43 * �THE 1857 YUCHI ROLL Although referred to here as the Yuchi roll because it is held by the Remnant Yuchi Nation (as it apparently has been for the past 161 years), the roll is actually an intertribal roll. The roll is pictured in Figures 5 and 6. The roll’s inscription names six tribes having members listed in the roll and calls the listed families “the Appalachian people.” The roll is 12 pages long, begins with an inscription and then lists 49 headof-household names and names a total o f about 300 individuals. It must have been a brave act for remnant American Indians in the East to declare themselves an intertribal people less than 20 years after Indian removal on the Trail o f Tears. The roll is IOV2 inches long and 6% inches wide. Its leather cover and inside pages are held with twine which is punctured through the leather and pages, and secured with abalone shell discs or buttons (Figure 6). At one time the front cover was beaded, but over the years this work has been lost and all that remains are the needle holes. The roll is kept in a secret location, and stored in a handmade canvas envelope inside a metal case, along with protective gemstones and herbs. Remnant Yuchi oral history suggests that the writer o f this document was a man named Vest, who identified as a Pamunkey Indian, although nothing else is known about him. Figure 5. C hief Lee Vest and the Remnant Here is a transcription o f the remarkable inscrip­ Yuchi Roll. tion that is the frontispiece o f the roll (Figure 7): March 21, 1857 On this day that Creator has brough[t] [and] seen fit that we come together as the Appa­ lachian People. We come from many tribes, the Monacan, Saponi, Yuchi, Tutelo, Chero­ kee, Shawnee, but now we gather as one. We ask Creator to protect and deliver us from the dark evil that tracks us. The reader can decide for him- or herself who or what is the “dark evil” tracking the “Appala­ chian People.” By legally controlling who is or is not defined as an Indian, historic Indian tribal rolls play a huge role in the life and political status o f American Indians in the 21st century. The 566 federally rec­ ognized tribal nations set their own individual criteria for who is a member and how a person goes about enrolling in a tribe. The most common requirement for someone to newly enroll in a tribe is to prove a direct line o f descent from a person named on the tribe’s base roll, with other typical requirements being tribal blood quantum, tribal residency, or continued contact with the tribe. Under U.S. law, being able to decide who belongs to their tribe is an essential element o f what makes tribes sovereign entities. Be­ cause o f federal benefits granted to enrolled Indians, struggles to decide who legally qualifies as a Native American are notoriously vicious.(31) . 44. �The federal government considers the Oklahoma Yuchi to be part o f the Muscogee (Creek) Indian Nation and Yuchi is one of the official languages o f that Nation. The only Yuchi roll o f which the author is aware, precedent to the one pictured here, comes from the 1832/1833 Creek census that is called the Parsons and Abbott Roll, after the names o f the men who made it during a town-to-town tour o f the Creek Confederacy. The roll contains the names o f all the heads o f households of the individual Creek towns. The Euchee Town census lists 106 names of Yuchi family heads located beside the Chattahoochee River at present-day Fort Benning, Georgia .(32) The story o f the remnant Yuchi roll comes from oral history. At the age o f 4-5 years old, around the time o f the end of World War II, Chief Lee Vest first saw the 1857 roll on a shelf in a covered, bucket-like container in his grandfather’s (William Arthur Vest) home in Floyd County, Virginia. (33) Chief Vest surmises that the roll at one time must have been in the possession of his great-grandfather Edgar Floyd Vest Figure 6. Front cover o f the Remnant (1853-1937), about whom little is known. Vest family tradition Yuchi roll book. holds that the roll has always been in the family’s possession. The chief’s grandfather died in 1977 at the age o f 94 in Roa­ »**■ *'■ « * • ' * * noke, Virginia, and his empty home in nearby Floyd County was subsequently vandalized. After that, the roll with great luck was salvaged and moved to Tennessee, where it has since ml remained, and became a sacred possession o f the Remnant Yuchi Nation. Chief Vest writes o f the vandalizing: “ [sjome¿AM** one had been there and the contents o f the home were littered , .■-In *¡T • cJ ■T "" gl all over the place. Family pictures, clothing, household items, several pieces o f antique furniture, etc., had been taken. I began to pick up the family pictures and other items. In the rubbish Up I also found the Roll Book and several other historic tribal Li. pieces.” Prior to 2007, the Remnant Yuchi Nation was called the # *44*ISE Appalachian Confederated Tribe. In 2007, the name Remnant 'AtYuchi Nation seemed to offer better promise o f Tennessee state tribal recognition, and so the name was changed. However, the name Appalachian Confederated Tribe much better reflects Figure 7. The inscription on the first what the inscription in the roll shows, that six tribes o f people page o f the Remnant Yuchi roll book. in Holstonia came together and confederated in 1857 as one people, so as to be united in strength, and named themselves the “Appalachian People.”(34) Chief Vest has noted that Virginia law once encouraged Indians to deny their heritage and that the now-notorious 1924 Virginia Racial Integrity Act required that Virginia Indians be classified as “colored” on birth and marriage certificates, and threatened doctors and midwives with jail for noncom­ pliance. The result, he said, was “paper genocide.” Thus it was that his Monacan forefathers were hiding out in the rugged terrain along the isolated border country o f Floyd and Montgomery Counties in Vir­ ginia. In the 1930s, many Floyd County pregnant Indian mothers traveled to Beckley, West Virginia, to HHH m 45 �give birth in a place where they could obtain birth certificates that identified them as Indian and escape the strictures o f a Virginia society that . .prohibited them from graduating high school, voting and even owning land.” Chief Vest him self was bom in Beckley for these reasons. IN CONCLUSION The 1857 roll is documentary evidence o f a post-removal 19th-century presence o f an organized Yuchi-led group at the Virginia-Tennessee border. The principal conclusion o f this article is that Virginians should acknowledge their Yuchi people, past and present. Sadly, to date, failures o f Virginia history and archeology have produced a situation where an entire culture is largely ignored. Virginia historians should devote more attention to the period o f Virginia history when Virginia was Florida and Spanish. Virginia archeologists should embrace im­ proper archeology, for surely the point o f archeology is to tell about the culture and lifestyles o f van­ ished people who can speak for themselves principally through their burial objects. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks to David Fuerst, David “Woktela” Hackett and Chief Lee Vest for invaluable guidance and commentary. T h anks to Tom Totten for salvaging the picture o f the Robey Maiden pipe. Thanks to Harry Haynes for acquainting the author with the Virginia Mississippian culture. Thanks to Tony and Tonia Adams for much information about the culture o f Indian relic collectors. Thanks to Kathryn Beattie for newspaper clippings about the 1957 Chilhowie events. Thanks to the many private relic collectors whom the author has visited and to Charlie Burnette in particular. ENDNOTES 1. An abbreviated version o f this article was presented on March 11,2017, at the Appalachian Studies Association annual meeting in Blacksburg, Virginia, with the title “The Yuchi Indians of Appalachia. The author uses the term Holstonia to designate the general region of the watershed o f the upper Holston River in Tennessee and its tributary three forks in Virginia. The author is an adopted member o f the Remnant Yuchi Nation. 2. Yuchi oral tradition is the specialty o f David Hackett o f Oak Ridge, Tennessee, who goes by the Yuchi name “Woktela,” or “keeper o f the record.” He maintains the website www.yuchi.org. 3. Notable among relic collectors publications is the 11-volume series collectively titled Who’s Who in Indian Relics pub­ lished irregularly from 1980 to 2017. It shows many pictures of southwest Virginia artifacts with their contemporary owners. It has never been cited in any professional archeological article. 4. Wallenstein, Peter. “The Grinch That Stole Southern History: Anthem for an Appalachian Perspective.” The Smithfield Review, IV: 67-82, 2000. Wallenstein’s article frames an alternative way o f viewing the history o f the South, one that'empha­ sizes the decisive role played by Appalachia at various points in the past. 5. Glanville, Jim. “Recognition for more of Virginia’s tribes,” Newport News Daily Press, 25 February 2018. The op-ed argues that the American Indians o f western Virginia and the early history of western Virginia deserve much more study. 6. Glanville, Jim. “ 16th Century Spanish Invasions o f Southwest Virginia.” Historical Society of Western Virginia Journal, XVH(l): 34-42,2009. 7. Glanville, Jim. “Conquistadors at Saltville in 1567 Revisited.” Smithfield Review, 18: 97-134, 2014. 8. Beck, Robin A., Jr., “From Joara to Chiaha: Spanish Exploration of the Appalachian Summit Area, 1540-1568,” Southeast­ ern Archaeology 16(2) 162-169, (1997). Chiaha was at present-day Dandridge, Tennessee. Woktela the Yuchi historian com­ mented: “Chiaha, as Yuchi Chief Sam Brown has noted means ‘People o f the Eye’ in Yuchi—or Goose-eyed People. Whether they were Yuchi or Koasati is uncertain to me, but they were a part of the Yuchi alliance in the region.” 9. Glanville, Jim. “Conquistadors at Saltville in 1567? A Review of the Archeological and Documentary Evidence.” T. Smithfield Review, VII: 70-108, 2004. 10. Linn, Mary S. Deep Time and Genetic Relationships: Yuchi Linguistic History Revisited. Pp. 1-32 in J. B. Jackson, ed. Yuchi Indian Histories Before the Removal Era, Lincoln: University o f Nebraska Press, 2012. 11. Sturtevant, William C. “Early Indian tribes, culture areas, and linguistic stocks.” A map part o f the National Atlas o f the United States o f America, Department o f the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA 22092, 1991. Online at the Library • 46 • �of Congress at https://lccn.loc.gov/95682185. Accessed June 2018. Figure 1 shows a detail from this map centered on south­ west Virginia. 12. Jackson, Jason Baird. Yuchi Ceremonial Ground Life: Performance. Meaning, and Tradition in a Contemporary American Indian Community. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press (2003). Yuchi Indian Histories Before the Removal Era. Lincoln: University o f Nebraska Press, editor, (2012). 13. Worth, John E. “Enigmatic Origins: On the Yuchi o f the Contact Era.” Pp. 33-42 in J. B. Jackson, ed. Yuchi Indian His­ tories Before the Removal Era. Lincoln: University o f Nebraska Press, 2012. Figure 2 follows “MAP 1” on page 38 o f that essay. 14. Holland, C. G. An Archeological Survey of Southwest Virginia. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1970. Online at http://www.sil.si.edu/SmithsonianContributions/Anthropology/pdf_lo/SCtA-0012.pdf. Accessed June 2018. 15. Glanville, Jim. “Improper Archeology, ‘Fabulous Saltville,’ and the Ancient History of Southwest Virginia.” The Smithfield Review, EX, 55-100, 2005. 16. The present author is likewise indebted to some o f them for much help. 17. Bartlett, Charles S. Jr., ed. Archeology in Washington County, Virginia. Commemorating 25 Years, 1972-1997. Abingdon, Virginia: Archeological Society of Virginia, Wolf Hills Chapter, 1997. 18. Barber, Michael B. and Eugene B. Barfield. “The Late Woodland Period in the Environs of Saltville: A Case for Petty Chiefdom Development?” Journal o f Middle Atlantic Archaeology, 16,117-132,2000. As o f this writing, Barber is the Vir­ ginia State Archeologist. Barfield died in 2016. 19. Glanville, Jim. “Brine Transport and Woodland Salt Making in Southwestern Virginia: An Hypothesis.” Paper presented at the Eastern States Archeological Federation Meeting. Williamsburg, Virginia, 12 November 2005. 20. Barber, Michael B., and David A. Hubbard, Jr. Overview o f the Human Use of Caves in Virginia: A 10,500 Year History. Journal of Cave and Karst Studies, 59, 132-136,1997 and Virginia Burial Caves: An Inventory of a Desecrated Resource. Journal of Cave and Karst Studies, vol. 59, 154-159,1997. 21. Glanville, Jim. “Richard G. Slattery and the History o f Archeology in Southwest Virginia.” Quarterly Bulletin of the Archeological Society of Virginia, 62(2): 86-106,2007. 22. Riley, John S. “Ancient Indian Village Uncovered at Site of New Chilhowie School,” Bristol Herald-Courier, Sunday November 17, 1957. 23. Muller, Jon David. An Experimental Theory o f Stylistic Analysis. Ph.D. Thesis, Harvard University, Department of Anthropology, August 1966. Online at http://rla.unc.edu/Archives/LMSfiles/Mullerl966/. Accessed June 2018. Also personal communication. 24. Brain, J. P., and Phillips, P. Shell Gorgets: Styles of the Late Prehistoric and Protohistoric Southeast. Cambridge: Pea body Museum Press, 1996. 25. Hoffman, Darla S. Late Woodland Engraved Marine Shell Gorgets from Virginia, West Virginia, and Beyond. Quarterly Bulletin of the Archeological Society of Virginia, 56(2): 68-76,2001. 26. Glanville, Jim. “Engraved Marine Shell Gorgets: A Review.” Prehistoric American, 44(2), 3-13,2010. 27. Hart, Gordon. Hart’s Prehistoric Pipe Rack, Volume #2. Huntington, IN: Hart Publishers, Inc., 1999. Pipes from Chilhow­ ie are on pp. 111-119. The Cornelius farm pipes are on pp. 144-153. 28. Glanville, Jim. “A Review of Finders Keepers: A Tale of Archaeological Plunder and Obsession by Craig Childs (New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2010).” Central States Archaeological Journal, 56(1): 45-46, 2012. 29. This now dead informant need not be named here. He was very helpful to the author in the beginning days of his study, submitting to a lengthy interview. 30. Speck, Frank G. “Ethnology ofthe Yuchi Indians.” Anthropological Publications o f the University Museum 1(1): 1-154. University o f Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1909. On page 98 Speck notes: “When burial was beneath the floor ... the occupa­ tion o f the house was not interrupted.” 31. What are Tribal Membership Requirements? US Department ofthe Interior. Online at https://www.doi.gov/tribes/enrollment. Accessed June 2018. Brooke Jarvis, “Who Decides Who Counts as Native American?” New York Times Magazine, 18 January 2017. 32. Census of Creek Indians Taken by Parsons and Abbott In 1832. Microfilm T-275 at The National Archives at Atlanta. Online at https://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/parsons-abbott-roll.htm. Accessed July 2018. 33. Chief Lee Vest has spoken to the author about the roll many times over the years and recently supplied written answers to a list o f the author’s written questions. 34. Fischer, Jessica. “Appalachian Confederated Tribes seeking to Preserve Their Ancestors’ Way of Life.” Kingsport Times News, Sunday, January 29, 2006. Online at https://web.archive.org/web/20060213080423/http://www.timesnews.net/communityArticle.dna?_StoryED=3594252. Accessed July 2018. �How a judge helped build Jim Crow in Alleghany County by Dr. Josh H ow ard INTRODUCTION leghany County was a place struggling with its local identity during the Gilded Age. Attempting o find a balance between Southern-style honor and Northern-style industry, ultimately the area bund neither. Speaking at a public ceremony in 1911, George A. Revercomb, a local lawyer and former Virginia State Senator, delivered these lines: “There is no officer under our law clothed with more power or has placed on him more respon­ sibility than the judge o f a court. He is required to pass upon the most sacred rights o f the people, and not infrequently holds in his power the life or liberty o f a human being. Virginia has always been noted for her honest and able judiciary. She has given to the bench o f this State and nation some o f the ablest jurists in the world.” Despite appearing as a general platitude on law, Revercomb was making a direct reference to a single judge, George Kimbrough Anderson o f Alleghany County. During the previous two decades, An­ derson was at the center o f a series o f visible public events in Alleghany County from 1890 to 1911 — seven deaths, five related trials, a baseball club and a Confederate monument. By tracing one m an’s role in each, a greater view o f the dominant regional identity operating within Alleghany County comes into sight. Alleghany County, like many others in the industrializing Appalachian South, grew rapidly during the 1880s. That type o f change brought newcomers to the area, primarily western European immigrants, African-Americans and white Northerners, the vast majority o f whom arrived in the area looking for work or riches in the rapidly growing rail industry spurred forward by the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Railway Company. Locals met these newcomers with a combination o f disdain, distrust and occasional violence. Competition can breed resentment, after all. By the early 1890s, state and local leaders attempted to rein in this sentiment not because o f any concern for public wellness, but because if the public perceived Alleghany County (or one o f its two cit­ ies, Clifton Forge and Covington) to be a dangerous place, then investors would simply avoid the area. This worry became especially urgent with the 1893 depression that drove many mountain counties into economic crisis and threatened both region and state. Alleghany County leaders hoped to build on the recent growth o f the C&O by building an economically diverse boomtown and they also recognized the county had no hope if the area’s reputation, specifically Clifton Forge’s, continually worsened. Dr. Josh Howard is a public historian with Passel H istorical Consultants. His work has appeared in the Journal o f Sport History, American Journal o f Legal History, and the Virginia Magazine o f History and Bi­ ography. He earned a Ph.D. from Middle Tennessee State University. He can be reached atjosh@ passelhc. com. (All illustrations courtesy o f Dr. Josh Howard) •4 8 • �O f all local events occurring in this time period, the two most infamous occurred in Clifton Forge. The brutal lynching in 1891 o f three AfricanAmerican men resulted in the calling o f the National Guard and directly led to state action to prevent such events from occurring again. Just five years later, a C&O railroad conductor murdered Henry Parsons, the owner o f Natural Bridge and well-known railroad magnate, in broad daylight within the city’s pre­ mier hotel. The failure o f the state to render a guilty verdict by acquitting the killer by reason o f “self-de­ fense o f reputation” outraged progressives through­ out the state and signified to many that Alleghany County remained a place with a legal system stuck firmly within the mores o f the Old South. Central to all o f these incidents was defense attorney, county judge and later circuit court judge George K. Anderson. The rise o f Judge Anderson helps to unravel the complexities operating in local identity where white men in Appalachian Virginia chose to pursue a social order defined by Jim Crow and the New South rather than industrial-economic growth. Following Anderson’s career high points helps unpack the complex social environments in industrializing and rapidly growing small cities in the rural Appalachian South. (1) Anderson, bom to the east in Louisa County, in 1860, read law at the offices o f a local lawyer before his admission to the bar at 21 years old. He then served as commonwealth’s attorney o f his home county for a few years before moving to Clifton Forge in the late 1880s to establish his own independent law office. It was at this of­ fice that his stock grew as a prominent local figure. COLONEL PARSONS Before Anderson ascended to the judgeship, he served as a defense lawyer in a murder case, one that grew in stature to be perhaps the largest media event the town had seen. In short, C&O conductor and Clifton Forge resident Thomas Goodman walked into a hotel lobby and shot dead Colonel Henry Parsons, the well-known owner o f Natural Bridge, Union veteran and a regular fixture amongst Allegha­ ny County’s business leaders. There was no question as to the murder — Goodman turned himself in im­ mediately and newspapers believed he would go to prison in short order. The newspapers were right at first. Even with Anderson as the local representative o f Goodman’s three-person defense team, a trial in Alleghany County found Goodman guilty o f second-degree murder and he was sentenced to 18 years in prison, the harshest sentence for such a crime. The majority o f western Virginia newspapers reporting on this case were outraged at the sentence delivered upon Goodman, feeling that such a maximum sentence was simply too harsh for an upstanding working man like Goodman. Public sentiment was clearly not aligned with that o f the jury as 10 o f 12 jurors initially voted for the death penalty. (2,) Goodman’s legal team appealed the verdict and received a retrial on a technicality and a change of venue to Albemarle County, a more favorable venue. The victim o f the crime, Henry Parsons, was a known ally o f Republicans and the Readjuster movement; the Albemarle County court judge, William McLaughlin, was an ex-Confederate opposed politically to Republicans who occasionally bucked mod­ em legal practice in favor o f clearing “honorable” working-class white men o f wrongdoing. Anderson • 49• �Col. Henry Parsons Thomas Goodman and the rest o f the defense team mounted a new legal strategy where they sought to prove that Good­ m an’s slaying o f Parsons was justified by reasons o f “self-defense o f reputation.” No case o f physical self-defense could be built, so the defense team argued Parsons had denigrated Goodman’s character to such a degree that Goodman’s only recourse was to kill the man. Even though such an “honor defense” had fallen out o f favor long ago in Virginia, the new defense approach worked. Goodman walked free. O f the second trial, the editor from the Clifton Forge Review wrote: “The great principle o f right and justice was tried: the right to defend person and reputation...he who holds honor and his fair name and that o f his family above life and liberty is an ornament to society and not capable o f criminal act.” The acquittal transformed Goodman from murderer into hero, a defender o f honorable society. The suc­ cessful appeal undermined the rulings o f the Alleghany County court which sought proper justice and to present Clifton Forge as a stable, lawful economic destination. The appeal also caused the Alleghany County judge, a respected man in his 20s, to retire completely from law and enter the priesthood. Riding high on his public acclaim, Anderson became the next judge o f Alleghany County, a position he would hold for seven years before being elected as circuit court judge o f the same area. Anderson also understood how to channel his judicial power into social capital. Exemplifying this behavior was his role as one o f many boosters and occasional umpire for the local baseball club that focused as much on “gentlemanly” behavior on and off the field as actually winning games. The Cliftons, as the local club team called themselves, served as the growing town’s primary representatives throughout the region. Wherever the Cliftons went, so too did dozens o f fans and with those players and fans went the reputation o f Clifton Forge. The local newspaper placed great emphasis upon the on- and off-field behavior o f the Cliftons. Sometimes game reports had more space dedicated to the players’ ac­ tions at the picnics and game festivities than the game action itself. Local and club leaders also recruited players within city borders as a method o f “proving” to other locales just how rehabilitated local men had become by the mid-1890s. The hope was this club could enhance the town’s reputation so outside • 50 • �investors would focus more on these “gentlemanly” young men than the violence caused by, likely, those very same men. Either way, it didn’t work. Perhaps the reputation o f Clifton Forge grew regionally, but the economic boom fueled by railroad expansion never came to the town as expected. AFRICAN-AMERICAN DEFENDANTS Clifton Forge hoped to gamer a positive reputation regionally, so another way local leaders garnered support was to gleefully embrace Jim Crow laws alongside the rest o f Virginia, the South and the nation as a whole. Jim Crow laws were a type o f law that effectively codified racism beginning in the 1880s, and created a separate social and legal system for African-Americans. To be certain, this system was not one based in equality. African-Americans were discriminated against, robbed from and targeted with violence on a daily basis — and it was all legal under Jim Crow. The gross ascent o f Jim Crow was slow coming, though, and took a generation to develop. Continually declining equality under the law in Alleghany County was not lost on African-American Virginians. The Richmond Planet, the state’s largest African-American newspaper at the time, regularly published stories on injustices facing African-Americans and moments when white defendants escaped punishment for a crime that would have likely resulted in execution had the perpetrator been a black man. Most strikingly, the Richmond Planet reported on a story from just outside o f Clifton Forge where a young woman, supported by her mother’s testimony, accused her father o f sexual assault. Angry neighbors nearly lynched the man before the police took him into custody. A few weeks later, the two women recanted their accusations and the man walked free. Episodes like that symbolically shouted that white men rose above the justice system just as often as black men were ground beneath it. Judge Anderson was a local leader who could have pushed back but instead embraced the violence o f Jim Crow racism. There was likely a chance that he could have agreed to such a position — he was part o f the legal system that over­ saw an overall decline in Virginia lynchings, after all — yet he ultimately ushered in an Alleghany County legal system where black men, many innocent, faced sham trials and state executions in lieu o f brutal public lynchings. Such a charge hardly mattered for black men if the end result was essentially the same. Guiding Anderson’s worldview was his belief that “outsiders” (a synonym for “criminals”) were fundamentally different from town residents, the irony o f course that some town residents had lived in the area for less than a year and Anderson him self had only arrived to the area less than a de­ cade earlier. Almost always, black men received the moniker of “outsider” no matter their hometown. A disturbing pattern o f sham trials involving AfricanAmerican male defendants emerged in Judge Anderson’s court the year he took the bench. In 1896, Henry Magruder stood in Henry Magruder his court accused o f assault on a white woman, having barely escaped a lynch mob. Curiously, Magruder was also accused of murdering a teenage African-American girl, but Anderson chose to hold this charge in abeyance for no clear reason. It was during this trial Anderson revealed himself to be downright hostile to the rights of African-Americans. He refused African-American witness testimonies and failed to recognize Magruder’s counsel. Most telling, though, was his highly unusual jury instruction that even though Magruder had not been charged with rape, the jury could find Magruder guilty o f the crime if they felt the prosecu­ �tion provided enough proof in their assault case. Surprising no one, the jury found Magruder guilty and Anderson sentenced him to death by hanging. The state executed Magruder on June 19, 1896. Similar cases played out every few years in Judge Anderson’s courtroom. In 1904, Robert Bowles, a black C&O employee, shot and killed one o f his white coworkers. Bowles claimed selfdefense, claiming the coworker had taken offense at receiving instruction from a black man and moved toward him threateningly with a coal pick. A coal pick was indeed found next to the body o f the white coworker. In 1909, Aurelius Christian found himself accused without evidence by a white mob o f sexual assault and murder. Both went on trial before Judge Anderson, both were found guilty o f murder, and both executed by the state in spite o f inconsistencies in the prosecution’s case. Thus, at least two sepa­ rate legal systems created by Judge Anderson existed within Alleghany County by 1910 and both local African-Americans and business investors knew it. When charged with capital offenses, black men and white men experienced radically different treatment under the law. This legal inequality did not have to be stated openly — it was communicated publicly and clearly for all to see and experience. CONFEDERATE MONUMENT AND CONCLUSION Given Anderson’s embrace o f Jim Crow, it should come as no surprise that Anderson was also a dedicated believer in the Lost Cause o f the Confederacy. There is no question the primary cause o f the Civil War was slavery. The Confederacy’s secession argument hinged entirely upon justifying race-based slavery as a social, cultural and economic necessity, but in the aftermath o f war, the phrase “Lost Cause” emerged in Southern discourse when remembering the war and pre-war era. The Lost Cause is an in­ vented phrase (that persists to this day) that spawned an ideological movement that sought to reinterpret the Confederate cause in the Civil War as an honorable yet ultimately doomed fight to retain the socalled Southern way o f life. Most important to proponents o f the Lost Cause is to minimize the impor­ tance o f slavery in terms of motivation for war, the economy, its brutality and its lasting effect on Ameri­ can life. Women drove the Lost Cause narrative by and large, specifically heritage organizations like the United Daughters o f the Confederacy (UDC) that came to the forefront in the late 1800s and early 1900s as aging Confederate veterans were dying. One o f the UDC’s favorite projects was to erect dozens o f Confederate monuments throughout the South at county courthouses. The objective was multi-faceted. Commemoration o f the Confederate dead was a motivation for some, but the primary meaning was to symbolically repatriate the recipient o f such as a monument to the Confederacy. It is no coincidence then that Anderson, as perhaps the most powerful man in the county, gra­ ciously accepted a monument donation from the UDC to be dedicated on Sept. 15, 1911. The UDC approached the county with a proposal to donate a Confederate soldier’s monument to be placed in front o f the newly constructed county courthouse, obviously the symbolic center o f local civic life. In addition to accepting the donation, Judge Anderson also acted as the master o f ceremonies for the simultaneous dedication ceremony o f both the monument and the courthouse. Hundreds o f locals attended the pag­ eantry. A primary attraction was a performance o f 300 young girls decked out in Confederacy-inspired outfits who were arranged to form a Confederate battle flag while singing “Dixie.” In addition, multiple bands performed tunes associated with the Confederacy, veterans o f the Stonewall Brigade appeared, and the colors o f the Confederacy were placed on full display. A minister who himself was a Confeder­ ate veteran opened the ceremony with a prayer, which certainly set the symbolic tone for the event. The final event before the monument’s unveiling was a speech by Judge Anderson. A transcript has not survived, but the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported Anderson’s “masterly address... praised the soldiers of the South and their loyalty to the South. His address was often interrupted by loud applause.”(3) The subtext o f “loyalty to the South” was a phrase typically deployed in reference to those who supported secession and thus slavery. This was no simple monument to the Confederate dead. With Judge Anderson as the master o f ceremonies, the connection between Confederate Lost Cause memory 52 �and Judge Anderson’s oppression courtroom was clear and undeniable. This “able jurist” embraced this monument for what it stood for — Jim Crow, oppression, and injustice. Returning to George Revercomb’s remarks at the 1911 public ceremony, which was in fact the dual courthousemonument dedication, he had a few more words to say about the justice system. “In the years to come others will take our places in the administration o f public affairs and almost ev­ erything may change as time changes,” Revercomb remarked, before continuing, “but there is one thing that will never change — the eternal principle o f right and justice between man and man.”(¥) After analyzing Judge Anderson’s career, it is fair to say Revercomb’s observations were correct in one way: the scales o f justice had changed in Alleghany County just as society had in the previous few decades. However, Revercomb was dead wrong with this second statement. In Judge Anderson’s court, the “principle o f right and justice be­ tween man and man” had evaporated steadily over time. What remained was the injustices found in Jim Crow and o f South­ ern honor, systems that would dominate the area for decades to come. These values, not heritage or honoring the dead, are what came to be embedded within the Alleghany Confederate monument on that afternoon in 1911. That monument stands outside of the Alleghany County courthouse and jail, as o f this writing 107 years later, and it means the same today as it meant then. Such a legacy is worth remembering and is worth knowing. But it is hardly worth commemorating. Confederate monument in Covington ENDNOTES 1. A range of quality scholars have written about these topics in similar places during similar times, but most, such as Rand Dotson’s work on Roanoke, Virginia, or William Wheeler’s on Knoxville, Tennessee, focused their attention on larger cities while others gloss over this particular region of western Virginia. 2. For more on the Goodman trial, see Josh Howard, “Defending Person and Reputation: Efforts to End Extralegal Violence in Western Virginia, 1890-1900,” American Journal of Legal History, Vol. 58, no. 2 (2018): 167-187. 3. “Courthouse will be Dedicated,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, 11 Sept. 1911. “Confederate Monument Unveiled,” Rich­ mond Times-Dispatch, 16 Sept. 1911. 4. “Confederate Monument Unveiled,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, 16 Sept. 1911. 53 �S a n it y * 2 0 ty t6 e & by M a ry B. Kegley t is well known that many of the early well-educated pastors of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches also taught schools for the local German children. In Wythe County, the Reverend John Stanger, the founder of the Zion Lutheran Church, the Reverend George Daniel Flohr and Reformed preacher Jacob Repass who were associated with St. John’s church were among the early teachers. Bom locally, the Reverend James A. Brown (1815-1900) was a “pioneer Lutheran pastor throughout Southwest Virginia,” and a leader in at least four educational institutions. Eager for higher learning, he walked to Gettysburg at age 20 to attend Gettysburg Seminary. Fol­ lowing his ordination in 1843, he served Lutheran churches through Southwest Virginia for more than 50 years. His first school was Bald Hill, a local Wythe County school not far from his residence. Later, he was associated with Wytheville Female College, Roanoke College and Marion College. But it was a rare occasion when a student was named, or his progress in school was noted by any of these church leaders.(7) Two days before the town o f Wytheville was named Evansham in 1792, the Virginia Legislature established what was known as the Wythe Academy in the town. It stood in the middle o f Church Street between the Baptist and Presbyterian churches and appears to have served the town until the school was burned by vandals sometime about 1808. There was no list o f pupils or teachers mentioned, al­ though the names of the financial supporters were named. (2) One of the most interesting early teachers was brought to Wy­ theville at the suggestion o f General Alexander Smyth. Julia Ann Rev. Jam es A. Brown, who was Hieronymous, later Tevis, came to town in 1819 and set up her school also the grandfather o f Journal on Main Street. She was hired to teach the Smyth children and others editor George Kegley. who had subscribed as patrons for her services. A noted teacher and author, she wrote of her life in the classroom and often described situations with students as long as she remained in town. In addition to the usual classes she added Draw­ ing, French and Piano, and because there was no church in town she often gave religious instruction to her students on the Sabbath.(3) Although law and medicine were studied in town under the direction of local lawyers and doctors, there are only a few details. General Alexander Smyth, a noted attorney, apparently was interested in high­ er education for young men who wanted to pursue a career in the law. The custom generally was to study with a practicing attorney and pass any examinations that might be given by the judges of the local area. In the summer o f 1866, Andrew S. Fulton advertised the opening o f a law school in Wytheville, but its history is unknown. However, Fulton studied law with Judge Baldwin in Staunton, and in Wythe served as com­ monwealth’s attorney, and later was in Congress. He was elected judge o f the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit in I Mary Kegley, Wytheville attorney, has written more than 50 books. • 54 • �#-/'ßpSCC ß#y~.ZUiZün 4^/L***-'€£/toUn, ^ £*f**yxffftAj>U+n *£/*+£’S**"*^” j / ¿/£i{ disrru**£ &&/-# ./ä*A Jtp\ £LsVti»{.aX- iüb»<u4n* lyjjlffil m J^ j L i '^Q^£.M iffiSfi /s Jesd’$&*u/**0ismn*Zf*Q0 J!3yk /s- ¿¿e. a{¿t -f£j>. ßit>ij /^¡t jM Äjr.+-£-t\ /!'+< /2 .Ün4tjÜy..|^J, <*£, *¿0, !•' /J <CJf.tJ&~4fr* / ay A* 55 fS-UiLx> 4% p% C*L&-*<' y£-'-_•>ÄAj< $ A-tbtjZk« . £ ¿/X r. ¿f+^%r*+JL9w\& - Ä^jaf '71.WX Ä O-¡¿K*<- "7 ä^v /K3/ ^ >Sir 1 George Hudson, School Commissioner, requested that Samuel Dilman, teacher, be paid by the Treasurer o f the School Commissioners on April 21, 1831. Jacob Hanshew (deceased) was the father o f the two Hanshew children and Martin Kimberlin was father o f Solomon. (From original collection o f School Records, Wythe County) 'jt^^*■-* &^ 2l,— <«rt^■ct'/Tn j $?„ s« Ä* //tTj &£-&&*•• %»**Ä~aSi $¿&iwi j^umJA, Ä^Si- »A»*j^uvpji^Kujti-*» ¿A q J/gjfykU. >*3/, 1852 and held that position for 17 years. As for those interested in medicine, the rumor was that a medical school was formed about 1820 by Dr. Jacob Haller, Dr. Robert Gibboney and Captain John R Nye. Some of the Nyes and Hallers were students. These private schools were only a few in the Wythe County area, where later there were schools for young men and a separate school for the young women. And by 1870 there were free schools for everyone. From the Plumer College to the Wytheville Community College the available records are found in more than 20 pages in the “Bicentennial History.”^ It is clear that the wealthier families provided education for their children, but until 1870 there were no so-called public schools. In the meantime, there was a sys­ tem set up by the Virginia Assembly to provide an education for the indigent of the community. It is from these records that we can name teachers, students, parents, guardians and the age of hundreds of the pupils. In addition, we know what books they were using and how well each student was progressing. These early school records of Wythe County are available through the records o f the School Commis­ sioners and the Overseers of the Poor, 1830-1861. Part o f the role of these county officials was to see that the poor children were in school, teachers were paid, and apprentices, if ordered by the court, were to be put in school as part o f their contract. In addition, the Overseers of the Poor were responsible for approval of the “master” for the children who were ordered by the court to learn a trade. For years it was not known exactly how the system worked in Wythe County because there were not many records available. About 1995, some of these school and apprenticeship records were published, followed in 2000 by a separate book about school records of 1849-1861.(15) From these records it was learned that the overseers were generally elected to serve three years and that the School Commissioners were appointed, usually for one year. The treasurer o f the School Com­ missioners was documented separately. The funding for the payment of the teachers o f the poor children was allotted to each county from the Literary Fund of Virginia. Annual reports were required to be made to • 55 • �the General Assembly. As noted by James P. Preston, president o f the Literary Fund, “Thousands o f poor children will receive advantages o f instruction, who but for the beneficent influence o f the Literary Fund, would have been doomed to grope out their lives in a state o f utter darkness and ignorance.” When the act was passed in 1818, Wythe County was allocated $579.52 out of a total of $45,000.(7) Several years before the Wythe County records begin, there were a few reports in the Auditor’s Ac­ counts at the Library o f Virginia beginning in 1823. J.P. Mathews, clerk to the Board o f Wythe County, reported that there were 30 schools established in Wythe County with 100 o f the 200 poor children in attendance. The sum expended for tuition and books was $617.29. By 1830 the report showed that there were still 30 schools but the number of poor children had increased to 300, with only 120 o f them at­ tending school. The following year, 226 of the 300 poor were attending 31 schools. In 1833 there were six School Commissioners, with 28 schools, 250 poor children and 168 o f them in school. There were no locations mentioned for any o f the schools; however, the teacher was certainly in the neighborhood o f the school where classes were held. According to the report of Major D.G. Repass in 1860, he stated that up until 1830 there was no provision for the education o f the “indigent children.” After this time, all who were unable to pay tuition could obtain the benefit o f the Literary Fund. By 1861 there were 954 indigent children in school in Wythe County and the average length o f the session was 38 days. Between 1861 and 1870 there are no records to be found, but this is to be expected during war time and Reconstruction which followed. (S) In order for the teachers to be paid, each one filed their report, some quarterly, some semi-annually, with required details. Each child was named, with his parents or guardian, the age o f the student and how many days he attended. The subjects taught included geography, history, orthography (handwriting) as well as reading, writing, spelling and arithmetic. Some of the books used included the “Testament,” the “New York Reader,” “The English Reader,” “Murray’s Grammar,” “Roman History,” “Life o f Columbus,” “Luther’s Small Catechism,” “Pike’s Arithmetic” and “Webster’s Spelling Book.” Depending on the year, each teacher was paid at the rate o f three and one-half to five cents per child per day. In 1848 there were 44 common schools with about 600 children entitled to the benefits o f the fund, and included 182 males and 156 females.fP) Each individual report gave the name of the School Commissioner, the name o f the teacher, as well as the names of the students. During some o f the time period 1830-1861, the information came from schools in what are now Bland County (formed 1861), Pulaski (formed 1839), Carroll (formed 1842), as these counties had not yet been formed or named. The majority o f the teachers were men but between 1832 and 1850 there were 30 women with recognizable names such as Muncy, Fullen, Haines, Gose, Shannon, The Single Rule o f Three was an arithmetic rule o f proportion. This sample is traced from the original in the Rev. Jam es A. Brown’s records. (Courtesy o f the Kegley family) • 56 * �Foster, Sharitz, Umberger, Brown, Hoge, Andrews and Earhart.(70) The surviving apprenticeship bonds (1820-1878) for Wythe County began in 1820 but 65 of the 149 documents were dated in the 1830s. The age of each child was given, the specific trade to be undertaken and whether “reading, writing and arithmetic (including the Rule o f Three)” was to be included. No Negro or free child o f color was allowed the privilege o f school. At the end o f the term, usually 18 for girls and 21 for boys, they were given some specific item, such as a sum o f $12 (the most common payment), a suit o f clothes valued at $30, “a genteel suit of broad­ cloth clothes and/or $21 in cash,” or perhaps “a horse and saddle.” The terms varied with the contract, but school ranged from four to 12 months. (11) Some of the trades available for the young men included farming (the most popular), blacksmithing, cabinetmaking and tailoring. The major occupation selected for the girls was spinning, weaving and knitting, sometimes referred to as a “spinster.” Other variations included “sewing, knitting and house­ work,” cooking and how to be a “house maid.”(72) The requirements for the master as well as the appren­ tice were given in detail in most of the contracts that were printed documents where the names and dates were filled in on the form. The handwritten ones were less detailed. (13) Although the more than a thousand published records provide us with the names of hundreds o f poor children we can only imagine how some students must have learned to chop the wood, while others must have learned to make the fire each day at the school house. And some knew how to carry the water bucket from the nearby spring while special ones were allowed to erase the blackboard. Attending school in rural areas meant walking, or trudging through snow drifts, fighting wind and thunder storms. And surely there was no transportation as all were expected to walk to school. It was a case o f determination to obtain the basics of an education, even if it was only for a short time each year. Just looking at some o f the books, it was noticeable that Geography, Roman History and religious subjects were among the special topics used by the Wythe County schools. The records provide special insight into the system designed to assist the poor children, who otherwise would be “doomed to grope out their lives in a state o f utter darkness and ignorance.” ENDNOTES 1. Beverly Repass Hoch, From Ziefen to Sally Run: Swiss Pioneer Jacob Repass (1737-1814) on the American Frontier (Al­ buquerque, NM: Jacob Repass Memorial Fund, 1993), pp. 47-60; George Kegley, “Rev. James A. Brown 1815-1900, Pioneer Pastor, Educator, Farmer,” The Wythe County Historical Review, Number 78, Winter 2011-2012, pp. 7-9. 2. Mary B. Kegley, Early Adventurers in the Town o f Evansham the County Seat of Wythe County, Virginia, 1790-1839, Wytheville, VA: Kegley Books, 1998), Vol. 4 of Early Adventurers Series, pp. 29-32. 3. Ibid, 31-32; Mrs. Julia A. Tevis, Sixty Years in a School-Room (Cincinnati: Western Methodist Book Concern, 1878), pp. 161-194. 4. Kegley, Early Adventurers... Vol. 4, pp. 32-33; Mary B. Kegley, Wythe County Bicentennial History, 1989, pp. 135-143. 5. Kegley, Bicentennial History, pp. 138-163. 6. Mary B. Kegley, The Lost Children of Wythe County, Virginia, 1790-1878, Poor School Children, Orphans and Appren­ tices from County Records (Wytheville, VA: Kegley Books, 1995); Mary B. Kegley, Abstracts of School Records of Wythe County, Virginia, 1849-1861, Wytheville, VA: Kegley Books, 2000): 7. Kegley, Lost Children, pp. ii-iii 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid, p. 1 10. Ibid, p. 4; the illustration above reveals that the school was somewhere in what is now Bland County, where Hudson and the Hanshews lived. 11. Ibid. p. 173 12. Ibid. p. 173 13. Ibid.pp.174-174 •57« �Sed¿w ut SaídcenA ¿a túe Ed. N ote: B ill H ackw orth, a fo rm er Society board member, w as researching o ld new spapers when he fo u n d this article about B edford soldiers in the Am erican R evolution in the Weekly A lta California, San Francisco, Sept. 9, 1871. The article originally appeared in the Lynchburg Republican. R ovolntionnry Heroes—Original I>ocu~m o n ts oF 1 7 0 7 . P r c a th i I.Taclit>urf IttpBMIfaa; c hav© seen th e original lis t ©t th e survivor« o f ay a W co m p an y o f B edford solrticra w h o fon glit in th o as revo lu tio n a ry w ar, « « a , w ho. upon th e threatening a ttitu d e o f F ra n c e ,in th e .e a rly part o f Adam»* ad m in ­ ea istration , tendered th e ir services to G en . W ash in gns tou, thon ju s t ap poin ted Com m ander-in-Chief o f th e cl, A m erican arm ies. T h e l i s t is w ritte n in th e p e c u l­ t»t ia r pen m an sh ip o f tlio peri oil, and th e paper has ie . been g re a tly d iscolored b y tinte, h u t th e nam es aro v e r y le g ib le , an d w ill be fa m ilia r to m « « y o f o u r «li­ readers in Bedford an d th e a d jo in in g cou n ties. Ac­ com p an yin g th e lis t Of nam es Is th e o rigin al d raft te« of th e com p an y's address to G cu . IN ashingtoa, w rit­ •«, ten b y th e C ap tain , and w h ich Is s o in te restin g a s ms an in dication o f tho sp ir it w h ic h anim ated our grand­ Tho w ; fathers. th a t w o p u b lish them both v e r b a tim . origin als aro in th e possession o f a geutletuan in th is or c ity . ¡C.1 ••A lis t com posin g a co m p a n y o f o ld revolu tion ary 2* heroes o f m ounted in fan try, c a lle d Si!v« r G rays •AVm. N ich o ls, drum m er : Jam o» S. K asey. lifer. Sam uel H ancock, captain; IV*». J . W alker, D aniel :rn Pegratn, John M cCabe, Jantes F lo u rn o y, C h a r t s cat H ill, W illiam Baker. Josep h D ickinson. Solom on ftli lfa n ly , Ambroso llu ck e r, B en jam in B lau k eu sh ip , S tep h en H olland, U v l Squ ires, W illia m lla e k w o rth . ÍIW Sam uel B ather. Edward H ancock, W illia m D ickinson, Nob om i ah D o w ell, J u liu s Saunders, W righ t B o n d , J o h n H ubbard, John T u rn er, D avid H u ghes, Jona­ th an D a k in , Isaac Cuudlff, M onlecai M organ. M or. gan M organ, L c tr it Arthur, C h ristop h er H oley, >S T h o m as P ayn e, W in. M artin, George F e a m , Jo h n he W alden, T h o m a s S tew art. A c h ille s T in s le y , T h o m a s ad O verstreet, Sam uel B la c k , John P o lla n l, Janies T u r ­ in ner. A dm iro Turner,- Ig u stiu s M itc h e ll. Robert Wodily co ek , S te p h en Preston. C h arles N elm s, T erry W hite. in- John M itc h e ll, J o h n Hose, C harles N «bn«y. Meson no M allow, John N ich o ls, John Sw eeney, T ho». P o lla rd , 1» Jacob Shepard, E lija h M itc h e ll, John M eConuaha, th Y iu cen t Jo rilan, W illia m A rth u r. Jolm H aden, S am ­ o f u e l F ie ld s, H enry D a v is . D ru ry H o lla n d , Josh u a rts N oble. D avid Crenshaw . R obert V a u gh n . Jo h n v e s t, ter John Patterson, Edw ard T in s le y , Jam es A d d am e." . el­ T h e fo llo w in g is th e address to G en. W ashington : ms «•Wo cannot expresa th e satisfaction wo feel in rgenealogybaik.com/doc/newspapers/ima9e(,v2%3A111FCE188ACE0978%40G83NEWS'15188FE4190e0810%4Q2404680-151882E34B809C70%... 2/S •55« �WeeklyAltaCaliforniaarticie £ a. ja t n ot ,row .vliero Mmltlis I, a n d ro atul ,tprox?gton ; iVlieat tli rebw n lltli o f p a rtly O a ts, ity o f » eortiot at ty 25, thout . 23— 0 lias it th e , We iToung V lb; to fo r 1 th a t lo th o i f th o annot ijttry. >so i | l *ed b y order apan. rec-n, . Is in rad i s tcrate ith a bests . Tho reel). T it o a tlir r io b - your acceptance of th e appointm ent # f ConiiMM»|crIn-Chief of tlio armies o f tbo U nited States. Tno tincejuivocal m anner in w liich you. give your appro­ bation to the w ise and prudent measure» o f our President, atlbnlB n s m ost pleasing sensations. When %vo reflect upon th e ab»m!*tit testim ony you have given of your uniform attachm ent to the liber­ ties of our com m on country, your no impeachable in ­ tegrity, and tho consum m ate w isdom yon have disin tho council and in tho field, wo cotisM it v<iur decision as am ounting to a volum e o f human testim ony. Wo confide lu your patriot ism to such a degree as not to have th e least hesitation in believ­ ing that if you saw a violation o f our rights you would bo the first to sound the alarm to your fello w citizens. _ __ *.\Vo not only rejoice lu your crceptance o f the ch ief com m and, as it confirms u s in tho rectitude of our government and the Justice o f our cause, but as it g ives us c hopeful presage o i final anti com plete victor*, w hen w e recollect your having conducted <»ur arm ies to victory. *»d ou r country by the late revolution, to independence and peace, w hich wo cannot d o w ithout liv e ly affection and gratitude. \\V bnvc no doubt that a gracious Providence. .which lias hitherto watched ever these* United States, w ith a parental care, w ill once more glv»» you tho happyuess to sec your dealrw upon your enem ies. The sword o f the I.ord and of W ashington, aided by the united force o f Con fed,*rated America w ill drive those haughty legions w hich in Kuropo have tramon a ll rig id , hunmn ami d ivin e, should they dnro to trvad American ground, ashamed from our sh o res. . . . „Perm it us, dear « en era l, on th is occasion to ten­ der vou, as our C o m m a nder-ln-Chlvf. w hen called, our B4*rvict*s as soldiers. and h i assured sir, that \v*o w ill, In these capantk'tf. with the greatest- prompti­ tude, cooperate w ith you In recom m ending and en­ forcing obedience to tlio laws of th e Union, in sup­ pressing any Insurrection w hich m ay arise, or lu chastising o u r foreign fees who shut! have the pre­ sum ption to invade us. -M a y the «0,1 of Armies s t ill continue to preserve vour invaluable life to s-.o a happy termination of onr present political com m otions; may tbo evening of vour days 1h- peaceful mid serene. and when *-*. sh a ll nleaso to remove you from scenes of distm tingntalsed usefulness boUsv, may He *vali yen to a seat of glory above." Tire R ig h t o f W o m en to V o to* ,3A111FCE188ACE0378%40GB3NEWS-15188FE41908D810%4024I>468CM51882EMB8D9C70%. https^/www.genealogybankxom/cioc/newspapefs/image/v2% �t& e S o r t e n t i & o < it t v t e * t t a i * D c v id e by H eather D. Brow ning I n September, the Town o f Blacksburg and the Blacksburg Museum & Cultural Foundation, recognizing the significance o f the Eastern Continental Divide, emphasized with a painted blue line where it JL.crosses South Main Street near Sunset Boulevard. Signs are also posted nearby to identify the divide and explain its significance to local and national histories. The Eastern Continental Divide is the geographical feature that separates the Atlantic Seaboard and G ulf of Mexico watersheds. In the middle part o f the Atlantic Seaboard states, it runs roughly along the ridges o f the Alleghany Plateau and the Appalachian Mountains from Pennsylvania to Georgia, where it flattens until it reaches the tip o f Florida. The divide separates waters flowing to the Atlantic Ocean from those flowing to the G ulf o f Mexico. It is an important feature o f Blacksburg for geological and historical reasons. Geologically, waters from the north part o f Blacksburg flow to the G ulf o f Mexico. Stroubles Creek, Tom’s Creek, the springs on Clay Street and Draper Road and the waters from the Virginia Tech Duck Pond all flow to the G ulf o f Mexico. Many o f these streams and springs have been covered but some are still visible. The spring on Clay Street near Wharton Street, called Spout Spring, was once the main source o f water for Blacksburg. It can be seen in several places, including beside the Main Street Inn on South Main Street. Waters that flow from south Blacksburg, such as from the pond in front o f First and Main, form one branch of the Roanoke River and flow through the Ellet Valley to the Atlantic Ocean through Albemarle Sound. There are many places in Blacksburg where one can actually stand on the Eastern Continental Divide and pour water that flows east and west. It is possible to see the general outline o f the Eastern Continental Divide from the town golf course. The Eastern Continental Divide is also an important historic landmark in Blacksburg. The Drap­ er’s Meadow Massacre in 1755 is considered by some as one o f the first incidents that resulted in the French and Indian War, also called the Seven Year’s War in Europe. The origin o f the Draper’s Meadow settlement occupied much o f the watershed o f Stroubles and Tom’s Creeks but was abandoned after some settlers were killed or taken prisoner in the massacre. Mary Draper Ingles was the most famous o f these prisoners. Following the Treaty o f Paris in 1763 which settled the French and Indian War, King George III proclaimed that all o f the lands to the east o f the divide were for the English to settle, whereas the lands to the west were reserved for Native Americans. Thus, the divide was also called the Proclama­ tion Line and was quickly ignored by future settlers who considered it their natural right to move west. For 20 or so years, Blacksburg was a gateway to the west for settlers who came up the Alleghany Pla­ teau on what is now Harding Avenue and Roanoke Street. It is noteworthy that William Preston built his mansion Smithfield to the west o f the Proclama­ tion Line in open defiance of King George III. Among other provocations, the proclamation restrictions Heather D. Browning is community relations manager fo r the Town o f Blacksburg. Used with permission. • 60 • �A blue stripe across South Main Street in Blacksburg now marks the approximate location of where the Eastern Continental Divide passes through the town. (Photo courtesy Town o f Blacksburg) contributed to the growing demands to be free from English domination that began to emerge just three years later in the 1766 Leedstown Resolves and, then, 10 years later in the Declaration o f Independence. Virginians were leaders in separating from England, and the historic legacy o f Blacksburg is to have been important in the movement seeking independence. T ext o f th e 5 u n 5 e t £ )o u !e v a rd M a in S t r e e t , n ear here, c ro s s e s a bareltj p e rce p tib le ridge line. ~{ his line divides w ater flo w in g e a s t to tb e /A tla n tic O c e a n , via tb e ¡Roanoke R iv e r basin, from w ater flo w in g w est to tb e ( j u l f o f M e x ic o , via tb e I\{ew, (R)hio, and M is s is s ip p i Rivers. ]n O c t o b e r 1/6j>, bq R o q a i Rreclam ation, R in g (j e o r g e ]|| fo rb a d e N/kginians to settle w est o f this line. V 'k g i nians co n s id e re d tb e tak in g up o f w estern land as tb eir natural right. S h u t t in g o f f a c c e s s to this land was a p ro v o ca tio n th a t a cce le ra te d tbe b uild in g momentum in V irg in ia f o r tb e com ing /Am erican R ev olu tion . • 61 * �ü ��PUBLICATIONS ISBN# 978-0-9710531-2-0 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia 2018 Volume 23, Number 1 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include:<br />Armistice Ended "Greatest War in History" a Century Ago<br />The Humilitation of Lord Botetourt<br />Roanoke Cotton Mills<br />Sunday Trouble on Back Creek<br />The Legacies of Junteenth 150 Years Running<br />Bob Angell: An Early Mover and Shaker in Roanoke<br />Groundhog Club Members "Told Anything But the Truth"<br />Villamont, Virginia<br />The Yuchi Indians of Southwest Virginia and Their 1857 Roll<br />The Courtroom and a Confederate Monument<br />Early Wythe County Schools<br />Bedford Soldiers in the Revolution<br />History Meets Geography at the Eastern Continental Divide Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6375/JHSWV_23_02_2019.pdf df0b1c94456d6a693f4c32f924187b1b PDF Text Text ^icto n ica i Society W & t A c b ¿ & & cte: tO | The Virginia Brewing Company: Roanoke’s First Brewery 40 | Scouting Milestone: First Camp Powhatan Nearly Lost to Time 66 j Highest Per Capita: Bedford and D-Day ftttcC w ane... W ok 2 3 “7 U . 2 ‘T'Oeatentt /l/inyi«U#, �^t&ùrUcal Society o¿ ‘Wect&ut *Vùtyi»U4, Amor montium nos movet (For the love o f mountains inspires us) OfáCcena, Anderson Stone...................................................President Edmund A rm entrout................................. Vice President Sandra Brown Kelly............................................. Secretary William Irv in .......................................................Treasurer Ashley W ebb........................... ..............................Curator Lynsey A llie........................................Museum Manager Susan Amos Carol Fralin Ed Holt Col. Lewis “Bud” Ingles Jeffries David Lemon Charlie Logan George “Al” McLean Natalie Norris ^ ¿ n e c to n b Gary Phillips Stephanie Scordas Donald Wilson S y e n ite Sara S. Airheart ♦ George A. Kegley Gordon Hamilton ♦ Edgar V. Wheeler George Kegley Editor of the Journal Christina Koomen Production, Editorial Assistant The Journal, Vol. XXIII, No. 2, chronicles the history o f the Commonwealth west o f the Blue Ridge. It is published by the Historical Society of Western Virginia, P.O. Box 1904, Roanoke, Va. 24008. The price for additional copies is $10 for members and $15 for others. The Society welcomes unsolicited material but submissions cannot be returned and the Society cannot be responsible for damage or loss. (On the cover: Virginia Brew ing in its heyday.) �4 I Message From the President 6 I How the Mother County Began by R.D. Stoner 9 I 2019 Commemoration Showcased 400 Years of Virginia History by the American Evolution sta ff JO The Virginia Brewing Company: Roanoke’s First Brewery by William M. Hackworth 20 Trees Provide Clues to Construction of Greenfield Kitchen and Slave Quarters by Michael Pulice 24 Trouts, Father and Son, Were Early Mayors by George Kegley 27 From the Front Porch to the Front Lines, Rural Virginia in a Threshold of Change -- The Making of the Movies by Melinda Bollar Wagner 34 40,000 People Hear President Roosevelt in Salem by A. C heff 40 Scouting Milestone: First Camp Powhatan Nearly Lost to Time by Stephen C. Warren 50 Bottom Creek Gorge: Its People by Genevieve Craighead Henderson 52 Century Club Takes a River Trip by George Kegley 62 Lee Chapel at a Crossroads by R. D avid Cox 66 Highest Per Capita: Bedford and D-Day by John D. Long 7J Parallels Between the English and American Revolutions by Jim Glanville 72 Historians Robertson, Glanville, Dixon die by Journal sta ff 3 �w te to a fe W (A c 'P ’te & td e ttt elcome to the 2019-2020 Journal o f the Historical Society o f Western Virginia. The past year has been a very busy one as the Board, our volunteers, and our excellent staff have worked hard to present great exhibits and programs that tell the history o f our region and its many exceptional citizens. This year we are leading the celebration o f the 250th history o f Botetourt County. First proposed in the Virginia House o f Burgesses in 1767, Botetourt County was created in 1770 from Augusta County. The county is named for Norbome Berkeley, Baron de Botetourt, more commonly known as Lord Botetourt (1718-1770). He was a popular governor o f the Virginia Colony from 1768 to 1770, when he died suddenly while in office. In the 1770s, when Virginia claimed most o f the Northwest Territory, which would later form all or part o f six states, the land was initially divided between Botetourt and Augusta counties. The territory that would eventually become the state o f Kentucky was quickly removed from Botetourt and became Fincastle County in 1772 and then Kentucky County in 1776. Montgomery County was formed in 1777 from Fincastle County. Botetourt County then included Roanoke County (formed in 1838) and part o f Craig County (formed in 1851). Our planned exhibit, “250 Years o f Delight: Botetourt County History Through Its Decorative Arts,” involves Botetourt County residents and artisans, and the Botetourt County Historical Society. Items will be on loan from several museums. As part o f the exhibit, HSWV reprinted its Winter 1970 Journal, which featured a history o f Botetourt County. We cannot celebrate our history without honoring the founders o f the HSWV: Frances Logan Lewis, Edmund and Louise Goodwin, J.R. Hildebrand, Arthur Ellett, Ann Kyle, Jean Showalter, Lee Winbome, Clare White and George and Louise Kegley, and Sara Airhart. Also, thanks to all our terrific volunteers who make preserving and telling our history possible. A Special Note: We will honor George Kegley’s 50 years o f helping preserve and tell our history at a special “History is Served” dinner at Hotel Roanoke on Sept. 10, 2020. We look forward to a capacity crowd for this special occasion! F. A nderson Stone President .4. �t& e co iC ectoottb Clockwise from right: Collection o f the late Robert Garland, including pharmacy ephemera and various items from Garland’s Drugstore. Gift o f the Garland family. Daguerreotype of a young girl, c. 1857. Gift of Janet Lampman. History of Roanoke Police Department, printed by Union Printing in 1915. The book recounts the history of the police department from its inception in the 1880s up to 1915, with photographs and biographies o f officers, as well as descriptions of distinct cases. Transfer from the Lynchburg Museum System on behalf of William G. Inge. Pastel portrait o f Lucinda Selina “Cinnie” Moomaw Gibbons. Painted by her brother, William C. Moomaw, in 1891, shortly before Cinnie’s marriage to William Gibbons in 1892. The Historical Society has Cinnie’s wedding dress in its permanent collection. Gift o f Bill and Sarah Gibbons Kohler in memory o f Ann Drew Gibbons. Pullman Facts, printed in 1929-30, and illustrated by Chicago artist Louis Paeth. The booklets were “freebies” given to passengers and described every aspect o f what the company did to offer their service to the public - an illustrated “behind the scenes” story in 12 chapters. Gift o f Sara Airhead. �y ro a * t& e m o tfe n c & u tttc f & ey<z*t by R.D. Stoner ow that Botetourt County is celebrating its bicentennial, members o f the Roanoke Historical Society may be interested in reviewing the image o f their mother county as it was in 1770. From Botetourt’s mother, Augusta, it inherited a claim to all lands beginning at a point in the watershed o f the Blue Ridge Mountains, east o f present Lexington, and lying south and west o f a line running approximately through the center o f present Rockbridge County, crossing a road between Warm and Hot Springs and continuing through the present state o f West Virginia, on the established course o f N. 55 West, to the Ohio River, some 30 miles north o f Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Projecting this northwest division line, the boundary would roughly run through Columbus, Ohio, Fort Wayne, Indi­ ana, and cross Illinois north o f Chicago into a small section o f Wisconsin to the Mississippi River. The eastern boundary line was the watershed o f the Blue Ridge Mountains from a point east o f present Lex­ ington to the Virginia-North Carolina line. Its southern border was an extension o f the Virginia-North Carolina boundary including the present state o f Kentucky. This immense territory became a part o f the Royal Province o f Virginia by the British victory won at Quebec in 1759 and ceded to England by France under the terms o f the Treaty o f Paris executed in 1763. Augusta County then being the westernmost county in Virginia, this land became its territory before it belonged to Botetourt. Later, with the exception o f the present states o f Kentucky and West Virginia, most o f this was known as the Northwest Territory and under the provisions o f the Northwest Ordinances o f 1787 its inhabitants could organize into states in the then-new Republic when population justified such a move. From a few dozen families in the late 1730s, Southwest Augusta County had grown in popula­ tion to the extent that their numbers were sufficient for its citizens to petition the House o f Burgesses in 1787, and again in 1789, for a division o f the county. On Jan. 21, 1770, an Act o f Division was autho­ rized, which divided Augusta into two counties and parishes. The infant was named Botetourt in honor o f Norbome Berkeley, then-governor and perhaps the most popular o f all the colonial governors of Virginia. Lord Botetourt was succeeded as governor by John Murray, Lord Dunmore, in 1881, and Bote­ tourt’s county seat was named after the title o f his eldest son, Viscount Fincastle. A t this time, the majority o f Botetourt’s citizens were Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, who so many decades before left Ireland and after landing in the Atlantic coast ports had filtered down from Penn­ sylvania and Maryland into the Valley o f Virginia. However, many were from that territory adjacent to the rivers Seine and Rhine o f western Europe, as well as from England, Wales and Ireland proper. The Scotch-Irish had a tendency to move westward with the tide o f immigration and the Germanic people of the Rhine Valley to stay once they had acquired good farming land. Many o f the descendants o f those early Germanic people are still citizens o f this county, along with some Scotch-Irish. N This article first appeared in Volume Six, Number Two, o f the Journal, a special edition marking the bicen­ tennial o f Botetourt County in 1970. R.D. Stoner, longtime clerk o f court, was the author o f “Seedbed o f the Republic, ” a definitive history o f the county. Botetourt County is observing its 250th anniversary in 2020. • 6• �If we examine the location o f the settlers o f this period, we find that in their preference for home sites they worked out the pattern o f a rough triangle. This triangle was located in the heart o f the present boundary o f Botetourt and a concentration o f population would be evident along its left line from Loo­ ney’s Mill Creek Ferry (now Buchanan) roughly following the present Lee Highway (U.S. Route 11) to the old Dr. Simmons place and then would follow an old road southwesterly to Amsterdam. From this point, the right leg o f the triangle would follow the settlements across the water divided between the waters o f the Roanoke River and Craig Creek, following northwesterly the water­ shed o f Catawba and Patterson creeks to the mouth o f Craig Creek at present Eagle Rock, with the base­ line o f the triangle meandering down the James River to Looney’s Ferry. Since most o f this region was open for settlement to individuals by the government, rather than by sale to large land companies, this enabled the individual to take land in single small surveys and made the homesteads more scattered than had been the case in Augusta and present Rockbridge counties, where the Beverley and Borden grants covered so much o f the counties and limited the homesteader to a definite area. The Botetourt pioneers o f the 1770s were primarily involved in three undertakings. First: The protection o f their lives and property. A company o f Rangers could be called upon, but the primary defense against sudden Indian raids was that o f the individual family with their long rifles, either in the defense o f their log cabins or, when time allowed for the gathering o f these settlers, in local forts. Three such forts available to them were Fort William, a few miles west o f Fincastle; Fort Fauquier at present Buchanan; and Paul’s Fort near the present Botetourt-Rockbridge county line. Second: The sustaining o f life by food and raiment. These frontier settlers were as independent in search o f the necessities o f life as they were in de­ fending their lives, and were as nearly economically independent as a people can be. They supplied their food either from the forest or the field, by their hands. Clothing they produced either from the furs o f the wild animals in the forest or from the hides o f animals raised, or wove their cloth from fibers raised by themselves and built their houses with the trees o f the forest. At this time, hemp was o f great importance to England because o f its use in shipping, providing ropes, cloth, use as bedding and as sails, and the short fibers (oakum) were used to caulk vessels. It was the cash crop 200 years ago for our people. Many years before the 1770s, the British Parliament had placed a bounty on hemp, and later the General Assembly o f Virginia added its efforts to stimulate hemp planting by providing warehouses for its reception. Some o f these warehouses were located here in present Botetourt County. Wheat closely followed hemp in production, along with flax, com, hay, oats, barley and beans, as well as all kinds o f root crops. Horses, cattle and hogs were extensively raised and marketed in Philadelphia or other eastern cities, as well as Fort Pitt. The labor available to the settlers of Botetourt County in this period falls into one o f five categories: First, and most important, the family unit, which usually consisted o f many sons and daughters; next were slaves, indentured servants, apprentices and free labor. However, we must not overlook the most lucrative o f all business in this period and the princi­ pal motive for the colonization o f America: The acquisition o f property and freedom from oppression. Certainly the hope to better themselves financially was the compelling motive that brought our pioneers across a perilous ocean to face a land inhabited by savages and which makes us, their descendants, also endure the fast pace o f modem living in an overcrowded and physically sick terrain. The early deed books o f this county show much activity in acquiring lands through importation rights - that is, the immigrant claim to 50 acres o f free land if he could show he came o f his own free will and paid his transportation costs to America. The records show these transactions all the way from the 50-acre tracts to the original papers just located in the clerk’s office for a grant o f land containing 4,395 acres, lying in Botetourt County on the Ohio River, about 3 miles above the rapids at the Great Bend. •7• �Third: The construction o f government and o f shelter. The implementation o f county government was mainly the product o f the Royal Governor, the Council and the House o f Burgesses through their appointees, the 12 justices o f the peace. These justices were the outstanding men o f the territory and a certain number o f them had to be trained in law matters. They exercised the duties now held by the courts and the board o f supervisors and usually were the lead­ ers in the local churches. However, the construction o f dwellings, inns, roads and churches - other than that o f the established Church o f England —was the responsibility o f the average pioneer o f this date. At this period, the tax lists describe his homes generally as a “log house with clay chimney,” “frame dwell­ ing house, brick chimney, four fire places,” “log dwelling house, shingled roof and clay chimney” and frame dwelling house, one stone and one brick chimney.” The inn or ordinaries, in addition to caring for the travelers, drivers, merchants and others, were required to provide for the food and comfort o f the horses and upon occasion for droves o f cattle and hogs being driven to markets. From the early records, one would be justified in believing that any resi­ dent having a house large enough to provide one extra room for the care o f transients, procured a license to keep an ordinary” in his home. A uniform schedule o f compensation for lodging and services was promulgated by the justices o f the peace in 1770. These tavern keepers were allowed to charge: For West India Rum, they may demand 10 shillings per gallon; For rum made on this continent, 2 shillings and 6 pence per gallon; For Virginia strong malt beer bottled three months, 7 pence, half penny per bottle; For Bumbo with two gills o f rum to the quart made with white sugar, 1 shilling and 3 pence; For a warm diet with small beer, 9 pence; For lodging in clean sheets, one in a bed 6 pence, two in a bed 3 pence, 3 farthings, if more than two, nothing; For stablage with plenty o f hay or fodder, one night, 7 pence, halfpenny. Usually, when a county was formed, a parish was created having the same geographical bound­ ary. This procedure was followed when Augusta County was divided and the Botetourt parish erected its established church building at Fincastle which is now used by the Presbyterians. The Botetourt territory contained such a high percentage o f dissenting population that discord readily developed and church services for these dissenters were usually held in their own home. Botetourt County’s main road ran from Gilbert Campbell’s Ford at Lexington to Cherry Tree Bottom on the James River above Buchanan, then to Amsterdam where the division turned left, or south, following somewhat the present Route 220, and the other division continued up the Catawba Creek to Adam Harmon’s on New River, where it became known as the Wilderness Road* to Kentucky. The feeder or local roads were o f more daily concern to the early settlers than were the arterial roads, and our early records teem with petitions and orders concerning roads to the mill and the market. The establishment o f these roads was only the first step and a constant vigil by the county fathers was necessary to keep them in condition. Almost every grand jury indicted more than one overseer o f a road for neglect o f his duty in connection with it, and sometimes these roads were obstructed by the building offences across by irate landowners. ( Editor s note. Stoner s statem ent about the Wilderness Road has been disproved by later research by M ary K egley ofW ytheville, who confirmed that the Wilderness Road title was used only by settlers trav­ eling w estfrom Scott County to Cumberland Gap.) •8• �2 0 î *9 ß o rtu p tetu o n a tcM t äA ow ca& ect 4 0 0 (fean& 4/inytvUa, faatony by the American Evolution s ta ff irginia’s “2019 Commemoration, American Evolution,” showcased pivotal 1619 Virginia events that set America on a course toward the ideals o f democracy, diversity and opportunity. These 1619 Virginia events include the first representative legislative assembly in the New World, the arrival o f the first Africans to English North America, the recruitment o f Eng­ lish women in significant numbers, the first official English Thanksgiving and the entrepreneurial and innovative spirit of the Virginia Colony. In December, 2019 Commemoration, American Evolution, concluded its commemora­ tive year, which established national and international awareness o f Virginia’s vital role in the creation o f the United States and reinforced the commonwealth’s leadership in education, tourism and economic development. Over these 12 months, American Evolution engaged with more than 350 Virginia institutions and national partners to convene more than 20 signature events, legacy projects, educational initiatives, performances, exhibitions and statewide community programs showcasing significant historical events that occurred 400 years ago in 1619 Virginia. The commemoration signature events brought emerging leaders from all over the world together to discuss global democracy and engaged college and high school students in innova­ tive pitch and story competitions. Exhibitions in 2019 honored the women o f early Virginia, the determination o f African Americans, and African American art. Newly commissioned dance and musical concerts thrilled audiences. And the commemorative year ended with a statewide festival featuring more than 40 events honoring the founding cultures o f Virginia through events showcas­ ing customs, cultures and cuisines. The 2019 Commemoration has generated tangible results and laid the foundation for a legacy that will last well beyond the commemorative year. More than 2 million individuals participated in 2019 Commemoration, American Evolution events, exhibitions and programs. The commemoration’s educational programming reached more than 14,000 Virginia students and educators. Anyone who missed the 2019 commemorative year events can still engage in American Evolution legacy projects, which include the Virginia History Trails, Virginia Women’s Monu­ ment, Pocahontas Reframed Storytellers Film Festival, Dance Theater o f Harlem’s Passage, Vir­ ginia to America videos series, educational resources and the Fort Monroe Visitor and Education Center. For more information about American Evolution, visit: https://www.americanevolution2019.com/ and check out the 2019 Commemoration blog for insights and anecdotes from participants and partners discussing the lasting impact o f the 2019 Commemoration, American Evolution. .p . �*t/cnyiftta, 1<<Kz*to&e4. *p(n4t ^ 'te c v e n ty by William M. Hackworth '&■ “i& 'tefaeafatty. <z*u£ ¿ea ftfl ytttituy, a u d faut& t&e no&ea, into- ¿tailed c£ee& i, (He 4juvt6ie Cttfo d ea l etfeb a*td &et& tHe ¿law- t&tuyue evayyitta. ” The Roanoke Times, June 21, 1890 he Roanoke Valley has seen a proliferation o f new craft breweries in recent years (22 as o f this writing), along with tasting rooms for out-of-the-region breweries. And with the opening o f Bal­ last Point’s brewery in Botetourt County and the possible opening o f a Deschutes brewery in Roanoke as well, the region has become a mecca for beer lovers - and not for the first time! Before Prohibition in 1916 ended production, the Virginia Brewing Co.’s plant on Wise Avenue in Roa­ noke produced beer, notably a German-style Pilsner-type lager, that the company distributed throughout Virginia, and in West Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, Ohio and Tennes­ see. (EN, Sept. 4, 1906. See footnote at end for the abbreviations used for the citations in this article.) The Virginia Brewing Co. was formed in December 1889 at a time when the “Magic City” o f Roanoke was growing at a pace faster than any other Southern American city, as wonderfully document­ ed in Rand Dotson’s book, “Roanoke Virginia 1882-1912: Magic City o f the New South” (University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, 2007). Roanoke’s population grew from 912 in 1882 to 24,354 in 1892. (Barnes, p. 273.) As breathlessly reported in the Roanoke Daily Times: T “And now a brewery is to be started here! Every day adds to the industrial interests o f Roanoke, either directly or pro­ spectively, and as time passes changes are wrought which seem more like freaks o f fantasy than the realization o f deep-laid plans. At one time a bridge factory is constructed, then another furnace is added, and while this is going on business blocks and residences are rising from the earth with marvelous rapidity. One industry is followed by another. It is now proposed to add to Roanoke’s industries a Brewing company... The brewery will give employment to about thirty men, and in connection with it will be a cooper shop for the manufacture o f barrels and kegs. As reasons for locating a brewery here the prospectus mentions the following facts: There is B ill Hackworth is a retired city attorney fo r the City o f Roanoke who has had a lifelong fascination with history and genealogy. He joined his first historical society at age 13. He was inspired to research this article after reading Rand D otson’s book “Roanoke Virginia 1882-1912: Magic City o f the New South, ’’ about Roanoke’s boomtown days. He is a form er member o f the board o f the Historical Society o f Western Virginia and chaired its Publications Committee. He grew up in a fam ily o f teetotalers but has learned to appreciate the wonders o f a fin e brew. (Photos fo r this article courtesy o f the author.) • 10 • �Virginia B rew ing in its heyday. only one brewery in the state - at Alexandria [Robert Portner’s Tivoli Brewery, which had a capacity of one hundred thousand barrels annually; it had a depot in Roanoke where beer shipped from Alexandria was bottled.] —and Roanoke is the center o f a radius in which there is not a single brewery. The best o f water for beer m a king can be obtained here...” (RDT, Nov. 13, 1889.) The original mover in the effort to establish a brewery was Herman C. Crueger, who had organized the first building and loan association and several other companies in Roanoke. (TRT, Sept. 29, 1891.) The promoters o f the brewery and its initial subscribers to $50,000 in stock were described as being among the most reliable and energetic businessmen in Roanoke. (RDT, Nov. 13,1889.) They included Herman Crueger, A. Roth, James R. Schick, M.M. Rogers, W.F. Penn, and George Gravatt Jr. (Barnes, p. 191.) A substantial portion o f the initial stock subscriptions was from areas remote from Roanoke, however. (RDT, Dec. 29, 1889.) At the same time, promoters from Philadelphia were in Roanoke proposing an­ other brewery in the Hyde Park addition in the then-western suburbs o f the city. (RDT, Nov. 23, 1889.) This enterprise never came to fruition. Much o f the eventual success o f the.Virginia Brewing Co. was due to the stewardship o f general manager Louis Augustus Scholz, “a young man not 30 years o f age [bom Nov. 28, 1862], and a graduate Master Brewer after serving the usual apprenticeship in his native town o f Freiburg, Germany [Freiburg im Breisgau Stadkreis, Baden-Württemberg]. After arriving in the United States in March 1882, he enlarged his experience by working in breweries all over the United States. (Barnes, p. 192.) Advertis•11 • �ing for the brewery claimed that Scholz had “worked in breweries in Cincinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Omaha, Seattle and San Francisco. In the latter town he superintended the first brewing in its history and secured the first-prize medal from the Mechanical Institute. His next field o f operation was Baltimore.” (TRT, Sept. 29, 1891, p. 6.) (This may have been a bit o f puffery on the part o f the brewery. According to BeerHistory.com, the Adam Schuppert Brewery at Stockton and Jackson streets in San Francisco be­ came California’s first brewery in 1849; San Francisco had 350 bars by 1852!) In addition to serving as general manager and later president o f the brewery, Scholz became a leading businessman in Roanoke, becoming involved with the Consolidated Ice Co. (which by 1904 had a monopoly on the manufacture o f ice in Roanoke), Scholz Extract and Manufacturing Co., Cooper Silica & Glass Co., Virginia Fruit Conserving Corp. and Scholz-Weaver Catawba Stone Co., among others, in addition to being a charter member o f the local Elks Club and secretary o f the Roanoke Industrial and Agricultural Association. He and his brother Henry were among those who in 1906 formed the Roanoke Market Co. to build the Ran­ dolph Street Market House. (Barnes, 424). He even wrote a play, “The Iron King,” which was produced by local talent in 1906. (Barnes, p. 427). T he B rewery Scholz arrived in Roanoke from Baltimore early in January 1890 and immediately set in motion plans to erect the brewery, with an initial capacity o f 150 barrels o f beer daily. It was located just south o f the Machine Works on Railroad and Wise avenues between 12th and 14th streets. (Dotson, p. 174). Tracks from the Norfolk & Western Railroad were quickly laid. The brewery had its own electric light plant (which also supplied light to other nearby establishments), its own ice-making plant (some o f the ice was sold throughout Roanoke), and an ice house containing 10 vats, each holding 400 gallons, and 40 casks, with a capacity o f 40-50 gallons each. (RDT, Feb. 12, 1890; TRT, June 21, 1890.) The grand opening o f the brewery was held Aug. 19, 1890. The public was invited, and attendees were offered glasses o f lager beer. (Barnes, p. 192.) When first put on the market, the brewery‘s entire stock o f 250 kegs o f Pilsner was sold out by mid-day. (Dotson, p. 175.) The brewery’s products quickly supplanted the other beers that were being sold in Roanoke’s saloons. An article in The Roanoke Times, June 21, 1890, described the brewery’s beer making process: “In the second story o f the building is an immense copper cauldron, holding over a hundred barrels, and here the malt after being ground is mixed with water and boiled until the mass has reached the required temperature. Then the hops are mixed in and white foam spreads itself over the surface. The boiling mass has to be carefully watched and tended to or it may run over. Much depends on the qual­ ity o f the hops and the chemical properties o f the water. The stronger the beer the more hops are required. The boiling is continued until the hops have yielded their bitter and arimatre [sic] principles, and then the liquor is drawn off, cooled by being run over pipes filled with cold air, and finds its way to the huge vats in the cellar. *** In the cellars were great vats filled with beer in process o f fermentation. Thick cauliflower like heads of froth had fortified in the beer. The process o f cooling is a most important one, for if it is not done with great rapidity, the sugar in the beer becomes partly converted into acrtie [sic] and the task o f the product made un­ pleasant. Sixty days, at least, must elapse before the beer is ready for the market, and it is better if kept longer.” • 12 • �ft» ffrkÈ«. -. Farri-Ü*h Wn4 Ssii» . T he V irg in ia B re w in g Is, 210 Salii»Ah BxmJjiar a, «h», * u„r rrftO** A ¿IH EST :üiës% iGkwin i r a it r 418 flak' ** f t p*»*»k. A Xtai ■iSsWBMI fâ-'wt*1 C om pany »I lfc«af«.An»1*i«py '■Éi-dÇSwiàfT.ÇWb.f S M tp tt IMF T 4M tiri HE pw*»«. 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Sferri*! Ittrtsrwt« M I VUm*. A n advertisem ent from the R o a n o k e C ity D irectory in 1902. By November 1890, the brewery was shipping 75 dozen bottles o f beer a day outside Roanoke and supplying local dealers with about 20 barrels a day. Beer was sold by the barrel, half barrel, keg or bottle. The company initially had two beer wagons and one ice wagon and employed 35 men. (TRT, Nov. 13, 1890.) (It purchased its first trucks in 1910.) It opened a branch bottling works in Salem in 1891. (TRT, July 1, 1891.) By late 1891, the brewery had a capacity o f 25,000 barrels o f beer annually and had distributorships in Salem, Lynchburg, Shenandoah, Staunton, Pocahontas and Winston, North Carolina. (TRT, Sept. 29, 1891, June 1892.) It had orders for beer from faraway places such as England, and Vera Cruz, New Mexico. In 1896, the brewery produced 158,400 bottles o f Pilsner (often spelled as “Pilsener” in the company’s ads; the name is taken from the Czech city o f Pilsen); in 1905, it produced 3,196,454 bottles o f it. (EN, Feb. 14, 1906.) Production hit 5 million bottles per year by 1912 and the brewery employed 100. At one point, a shortage o f bottles threatened the supply o f beer from the brew­ ery. As reported in the Evening News (Roanoke), Sept. 4, 1906, p .l: “ROANOKE FEELING THE BOTTLE FAMINE That the paucity o f beer bottles that has prevailed throughout the country for the past several weeks is being keenly felt in Roanoke is an undeniable fact... One out-of-town customer o f the Virginia Brewing Company wrote yesterday that he could furnish the brewery with a car-load o f empty ink bottles o f different sizes if they could be used.... ‘I care very little for the bottle,’ wrote the patron, ‘but I •1 3 • �do care a great deal for my Pilsener. I want my Pilsener, even if you have to put it in ink bottles’.” The brewery had received 141,000 bottles in the spring o f 1906 but had exhausted the stock, which led a brewery official to promise that there would be a new glass factory in Roanoke by the next spring. (EN, Sept. 4, 1906, p. 1.) Henry and Louis Scholz and three others had purchased 14,000 acres lying along Catawba Mountain. On April 21, 1906, they announced that one o f the finest “glass sand” deposits in the world had been found there. A railroad was built to haul the sand to Salem, where the Cooper Silica Glass Co. erected a $50,000 plant to employ more than 100 workers. It opened Sept. 9, 1907. (Barnes, p. 460.) In 1910 the brewery doubled the size o f its bottling department, increasing capacity to 4,000 dozen bottles daily. (EN, Oct. 31, 1910.) Pictures o f many o f the bottles used by the brewery can be found on­ line at http://brucemobley.com/beerbottlelibrary/va/roanoke/virginia.htm. (Today, memorabilia such as bottles and advertising materials o f the Virginia Brewing Co. are highly sought after by collectors.) Saloons The brewery found a thirsty market in Roanoke (nationally, the per capita consumption o f beer had risen to 20 gallons by 1906, about what it is today). Around 1901, the brewery even opened some o f its own saloons in southwest Virginia. “Roanoke’s barroom quarter, like most saloon districts, was an exclusive­ ly male territory where cursing, smoking and chewing tobacco, drunkenness, fighting, and general row­ diness were the norm, and into which no ‘respectable’ Victorian female would dare venture.” (Dotson, p. 86.) Saloons had to obtain licenses from an Excise Board in order to operate in Roanoke. In 1891, the board granted 43 saloon licenses and denied licenses for eight others. (TRT, May 3, 1891.) The saloons bore names such as the Rustic, Wilmeth’s Barroom, Morton’s, Conway’s, Poteet’s & Company, King’s, Arcadia, Capitol, Raleigh Café, Morning Star, M artin’s, Stag, Dutch Kitchen, Klondyke, Monticello, the Palm, the Panama, Union, Diamond & Moses and White Elephant. Forty-six licenses were granted in the city in 1914. An establishment called the Wayside Inn was constructed across the street from the brewery at the same time the brewery was constructed; it conveniently served German meals and beer. The inn was purchased in 1892 by Henry Scholz, brother o f Louis, after the wife o f the then-proprietor tricked her husband out o f $2,000 and fled Roanoke with a boyfriend. (TRT, Sept. 13, 1892.) Scholz opened a popular German-style beer garden at the inn in 1894, managed by another brother, Fritz. An ad in The Roanoke Times, July 12, 1894, p. 4, touted the establishment: “Way-Side Inn, Fritz Scholz, Prop. GERMAN BEER GARDEN Newly Arranged and F itted Up With Pavilions. Double Bowling Alley. Electric Lights. Private Parties Especially Taken care of. H O T AND COLD LUNCHES. H ot Sour Tongue a Specialty. F ull line o f Fine Wines, Liquors and Cigars. Virginia Brewing Com pany’s C elebrated Lager Beer on draught. Private hallfo r rentfo r meetings or dances. Wefurnish fa m ily par­ ties with private dining rooms. P. S . - O n Saturday afternoons, after 2 o ’clock, we serve hot free lunch. Come and see us. The cars leave the Terry Building on even hours and every fo rty minutes 2, 2:40, 3:20, etc. ” The Concordia was another saloon operated by the Scholz brothers. Originally managed by . 14 . �Henry Scholz, it was sold to brother Richard Scholz in 1905. An ad in The Roanoke Times, Dec. 25, 1897, p. 3, described it thusly: “THE CONCORDIA The Concordia Saloon, No. 10 Salem avenue, H enry Scholz, proprietor, is one o f the m ost orderly and popular resorts in the city and is fir st class in all its arrangements. Its patrons are gentlemanly and w ell behaved, and the best o f im ported and domestic wines and liquors are dispensed there. Fresh foam ing beer is kept constantly on hand by the automatic pum p and nice German lunches and good things to eat are furnished at all hours; while the cigars and tobaccos are o f the best im ported and domestic brands. Indeed, fo r all things needed to refresh the inner man it is the place to go. ” B rewery A dvertising Even before the brewery’s first beer was ready for the market, its employees organized a baseball team to promote the brewery. The local newspaper reported about the team that “ [ajfter they are in practice a match game will be played with the Roanokes. The brewery nine will place a keg o f beer on the third base and every man on their side that gets around it will be allowed to take a glass. The opposing club will be debarred the privilege o f ‘wetting their whistles’.” (RDT, May 3, 1890.) The brewery team played other local teams such as the Southeast Roanoke nine and the Sailor Boys. The brewery advertised its bock beer with a team o f four goats hitched to a small wagon. (RDT, Mar. 8, 1896, p. 5.) An “exquisitely painted wagon” with the slogan “SOUTHERN PROGRESS” in­ scribed over its canopy touted the brewery’s products. (ST-R, June 25, 1897.) (The slogan also appeared on some of the brewery’s bottles.) The brewery stressed in its advertising that its beer was pure, healthy, and was recommended by physicians. An ad for its Wuerzburger beer stated: “Its nourishing qualities cannot be Excelled as a Tonic for Nursing Mothers or Convalescents. Highly recommended by Physicians for its nutritious qualities.” (TRT, Dec. 24, 1891.) Other ads assured the public that “ [n]o poisonous ingredients allowed by the management.” (TRT, June 18, 1892, p. 13.) In response to claims by the Anti-Saloon League that all beer contained “poisons” and “impurities,” the brewery ran extensive ads offering a $1,000 reward to any person who could prove that it used com grits or glucose in its beer. (EN, Oct. 31, 1905.) The brewery widely advertised an article that appeared in the United States Health Bulletin which pronounced its beer as being “free from adulteration” and to be one o f the few beers known to be “o f as high and honest a grade as it is possible to produce.” (EN, July 5, 1904.) After the brewery’s Pilsner was awarded a gold medal at the Jamestown Exhibition in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1907, it added a Jamestown gold medal to its advertising. (EN, Nov. 5, 1907.) The brewery advertised Wild Cherry Phosphate, one o f its nonalcoholic products, as a tonic (RT, July 11, 1894, p. 4): “WILD CHERRY PHOSPHATE Powerful N ervine and Tonic. Will regulate all disorders o f the system, purifying the blood, strengthening weak lungs and building up debilitated constitutions. It is a certain cure fo r Fever, Ague, Liver Complaints, Sick Headache, Piles, Nervous Prostration, General D ebility and Depression. Non-Alcoholic. The Virginia Brewing Company Soda and M ineral Water Bottling Department. ” �F ires On March 8, 1892 a fire destroyed the newly constructed brewery house with its contents, including ma­ chinery and a large store o f malt and hops. Fortunately, the company’s supply o f beer was not lost. (TRT, Mar. 9, 1892.) The company had insurance that covered the loss, so plans were immediately announced to build a new brew house o f a fireproof design in the same location. “By the spring o f 1892, a new brick brew house, capable o f turning out twenty-five thousand kegs per year, was in operation, and the firm built a larger ice plant, installed an electric generator, opened a bottling works, and constructed dozens o f company homes to rent to its employees.” (Dotson, p. 176.) On Nov. 7, 1892, the Alert Fire Company No. 4 o f unpaid volunteers was organized to protect the brewery and the expanding southeast quadrant o f Roanoke. The firehouse was located at 1219 Wise Ave. SE, directly across the street from the brew­ ery. (Fleitz, p. 14.) (The company was disbanded on Feb. 28, 1903, after its members resigned because they could not afford to fight fires and ruin their clothing. Barnes, p. 380.) The brewery’s beer storage building completely burned on Dec. 23, 1897, destroying between 1,500 and 2,000 barrels o f beer. (TRT, Dec. 24, 1897.) In 1904 the brewery constructed a new brew house, which was claimed to be “absolutely fireproof.” (EN, May 24, 1904.) The brewery’s storage building burned again in February 1910, causing $10,000 in damages. (AG, Feb. 22, 1910.) It was rebuilt and enlarged. T he B eer W ar The following, anonymous article appeared on page 3 o f the July 7, 1891, edition o f The Roanoke Times: “THE VIRGINIA BREWERY An Attack on This Valuable Home Enterprise The Anheuser-Busch Brewing Company, o f St. Louis, Mo., are about to in­ augurate a stubborn and persistent fight against the Virginia Brewery, a Roanoke Enterprise, for the purpose o f crippling it and eventually destroying it. The first attack upon the Virginia Brewery will come in the shape o f reduction in the price o f Annheuser-Busch [sic] beer from $9 to $4 a barrel, a dead loss to these people, which fact should be sufficient to condemn the principle that actu­ ates them. The Annheuser-Busch [sic] Brewing Company rely upon their many millions o f capital to cripple and destroy the Virginia Brewery, an infant industry, built up and owned in great part by Roanoke people... The Virginia Brewing Company disburses every month in Roanoke between $7,000 and $8,000...” Five days later, agents o f Anheuser-Busch responded in the paper with a letter addressed to the citizens o f Roanoke, maintaining that the July 7 article was “entirely without foundation” and accusing the Virginia Brewing Co. o f violating an agreement that it allegedly had with Anheuser-Busch for them both to sell their beers at the same price. The letter refers to the local beer as “cooked and steamed stuff” and the brewery as a “wailing, puny, infant home industry.” Anheuser-Busch wagered from $1,000 to $5,000 that its beers were better than those o f the Virginia Brewing Co. (TRT, July 12, 1891.) Brew­ ery manager Louis Scholz responded in a letter denying that he had ever made any agreement with Anheuser-Busch to regulate the price o f beer. (TRT, July 14, 1891.) In the end, Anheuser-Busch was not successful in damaging the Virginia Brewing Co.’s business and raised its price per barrel so as not to undercut the local brewery. • 16 • �T he B rewery’s P roducts Over the course o f its existence, the brewery produced a variety o f beer and other beverages. The brew­ ery advertised that it produced a [Kaiser] Export Beer for shipping, a Pilsner-type lager for the general trade (including an “ 1892 Roanoke Decennial Lager”), and a dark Wuerzburger Ale for family use as a tonic. (TRT, July 5, 1892.) Each spring it put out a “Famous Bock” beer (bock is a German-style lager, typically stronger than a regular lager), and at Christmastime a special beer called Holiday Beer was released. It also produced a “Dublin porter” (porters are a dark ale). (RDT, April 4, 1896.) After national Prohibition took effect in 1919, the brewery tried selling a nonalcoholic malt. Among the other beverages produced by the brewery were the Wild Cherry Phosphate tonic (see the ad above), Orange Cider, Champagne Cider and a soft drink called Kola Nerva. It also bottled a “fa­ mous” Etna Lithia water and Crystal Rock mineral water. T he A nti-S aloon and T emperance M ovement Though anti-alcohol laws and the temperance movement can be traced back to Colonial days in Amer­ ica, the formation o f the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in 1874 and the Anti-Saloon League in 1893 kicked the movement into high gear nationally. The Virginia branch o f the Anti-Saloon League was formed in 1901 with the goal o f closing saloons and dismantling the liquor industry. (Graves, pp. 24-25.) (Woman’s Christian Temperance Union member Carrie Nation did her famous hatchet job on the Carey Hotel in Wichita, Kansas, in 1900.) In 1897, Roanoke officials were taken to task by the Rev. Ira W. Kimmel for not enforcing liquor laws. He presented evidence to a gathering at Fourth Avenue Christian Church that two saloons had been violating the law. He alleged that “on Sunday, June 27th, the saloon at the brewery, known as the ‘Wayside Inn’, was running wide open all day long. They ran open house, sold all kinds o f liquor you wanted, played poker and ran just as if law and police force were not in existence...” (TRT, July 13, 1897, p. 1.) The very next day, the paper reported that Gus Wagner, proprietor o f the Wayside Inn, confessed judg­ ment in Police Court to selling liquor on Sunday and was fined $20. (TRT, July 13, 1897, p. 8.) A Roanoke judge ordered a special election under the local option law set for Dec. 31, 1903, after a petition was filed by the Anti-Saloon League with 543 signatures. “Wets” (those favoring the sale o f alcoholic beverages) were victorious 1,825-841. “Apparently the wets hired every available livery in the county and city to get voters to the polls.” (Barnes, pp. 392-394.) Another local-option election was held in the city on Dec. 30, 1908, and the “drys” won 1,135-1,045. The Virginia Brewing Co. circulated a flyer before the election noting the investment that the company had made in Roanoke. (EN, Jan. 4, 1909.) On March 30, 1909, the dry victory was ruled void because no proper notices were posted, illegal votes were accepted, and some legal votes were rejected. So many saloon keepers who were put out o f business in “dry” counties were opening business in Roanoke that the license fee for saloons was dou­ bled to $1,000. (Barnes, pp. 455-458.) The Evening News (Roanoke) reported on Sept. 29, 1909: “LOCAL OPTION CONTEST TAKES PLACE TOMORROW The second local option election to be held in Roanoke within less than a year’s time will take place tom orrow... An impartial observer would undoubtedly be convinced that the balance o f chance is in favor o f the anti-saloon element, and he would base his opinion principally upon the fact that it was victorious in the last election... the Roanoke branch o f the Anti-Saloon League is working with enthusiasm... Tonight a great torchlight procession, in which it is said at least two thousand persons will take part, will mark the closing hours o f the campaign...” 17 �Louis Scholz argued to the public that a “dry” vote would “virtually annihilate his company and put a lot o f Roanokers out o f work. This time, the “wets” won by 69 votes out o f 3, 219 votes cast. (HR, Oct. 22, 1909.) A referendum was held in Virginia in September 1914, on the question o f prohibiting alcohol in the Commonwealth - the “drys” carried the day with 94,251 votes as opposed to the “wets” with 63,886. Statewide prohibition took effect Oct. 31, 1916, three years before national prohibition took effect. The Virginia law had a curious provision in that it prohibited the sale o f alcohol but allowed every house­ holder to obtain from outside the state one quart o f liquor, three gallons o f beer or one gallon o f wine a month. (Dabney, p. 462.) By 1916, 23 states had gone “dry.” Former Historical Society president Nel­ son Harris has written an amusing article, “The Day Roanoke Went Dry,” in which he reports that “[t] he last night before Virginia Prohibition took effect was Halloween, and it made for the wildest party in Roanoke history,” as Roanokers and others celebrated like it was Mardi Gras, drinking the saloons dry and carting home all o f the alcohol that they could buy. (Norfolk & Western even paid its employees two days early so they could purchase alcohol before ‘The Drought’ took effect.)” (The Roanoker, Jan./Feb. 2019, pp. 14-15.) “Why, then, did Roanoke vote dry? On the surface the alcohol businesses would appear to be a natural source o f anti-prohibition votes. Roanoke, in south­ western Virginia, was the state’s third largest city and a major railroad hub for the region. It had long had a reputation o f being full o f saloons and brothels that catered to railway workers passing through town. Besides the local brewery and bottlers, the city also housed several large mail order whiskey retailers, includ­ ing the Casper Company, which bragged that it was the ‘largest mail order whis­ key concern in the world.’ As the surrounding towns and counties went dry one by one, Roanoke became the main local provider for anyone in the region who wanted a legal drink... [One reason the city voted dry:] In 1914 the city’s population had fewer im­ migrants and more Protestant Christians from dry denominations than many o f Virginia’s other cities. Few o f its residents, slightly more than 5%, were either non-native bom white or had at least one immigrant parent.” (Mark Benbow, “The Old Dominion goes dry: Prohibition in Virginia,” Journal o f the Brewery History Society, Brewery History Number 138, pp. 41-42, found at http://www.breweryhistory.com/joumal/archive/13 8/Bendow.pdf) (For the fascinating story o f John Casper and the Casper Company, see the online blog article “John L. Casper: W hiskey’s Wandering Pitchman,” at http://pre-prowhiskeymen.blogspot.com/2011/06/ john-l-casper-whiskeys-wandering.html. The Casper Company boasted in its ads that “[o]ur plant in Ro­ anoke, Virginia, covers fourteen acres making us the largest mail order whiskey concern in the world.”) With the coming o f national Prohibition by the enactment o f the Eighteenth Amendment and its implementation via the Volstead Act, effective Jan. 16, 1920, thousands o f otherwise law-abiding citi­ zens began violating the law. (See the article “Officers Down: Mayhem in Roanoke Virginia” about the eight Roanoke City, Roanoke County and Salem law enforcement officers who lost their lives in the line o f duty while enforcing prohibition laws. Discover History & Heritage, 20th Century, published by The Roanoke Times, May 2017, pp. 58-65.) O f course, with Prohibition, the Virginia Brewing Co. ceased business. In 1921, the brewery property was sold to the Roanoke Chero-Cola Co. for $41,000. (WN, July 1, 1921.) • 18 • �The later fate o f the brewery has been succinctly chronicled by Rand Dotson in a footnote in his book “Roanoke Virginia 1882-1912: Magic City o f the New South, pp. 291-292, fn 79: “In 1924, a local fruit cannery purchased the VBC brew house to use as a storage facility. Four years later, in 1928, a varnish manufacturer bought the structure. In 1933, when prohibition had ended, Louis Scholz revived the Virginia Brewing Company. His brother Henry had died by then, and in the spring o f 1936, only months before the new beer - ‘Scholz Pilsner’ - was slated to hit the market, Lou­ is Scholz passed away too. Scholz’ heirs sold the VBC shortly thereafter, and from 1936 to 1954, another beer manufacturer operated the plant. [Apparently, quality suffered during this time and relations with tavern owners became strained, ac­ cording to one account, which noted that ‘[rjumors spread that the brewery used potato skins for starch.’ (Graves, p. 28.)] In 1954, S.B. Huff, a longtime Roanoke and former local policeman, rented the brewery, once again revived the Virginia Brewing Company name, and began production o f ‘Old Virginia’ beer. The brew­ ery changed hands again in 1958, with the Mountain Brewing Company o f North Carolina taking over operations and brewing its trademark ‘Dixie’ beer [it was cleverly marketed, ‘including a spot where a Southern colonel tells an aide who had spotted some Yankees to ‘hush up and drink your beer.’ (Graves, p. 29)]. The following year, however, the company closed its Roanoke branch, and in 1964, the owners o f the Scholzes’ 1893 brewhouse had it tom down to make way for industrial development. The VBC’s bottling plant next door survived, and in the early 1980s was being used by a janitor supply company. For the VBC’s post-Prohibition history, see The Roanoke Times & World News, 17 Oct. 1982; Bames, ‘History o f Roanoke,’ 630, 687, 763.” Happily for today’s consumers o f alcoholic beverages, the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed effective Dec. 5, 1933. A bbreviations used for the citations in this article AG - Alexandria Gazette Bames —Bames, Raymond R, “A History of Roanoke” (Commonwealth Press Inc., Radford, 1968) Benbow, Mark, “The Old Dominion goes dry: prohibition in Virginia,” Journal o f the Brewery History Society found online at http://www.breweryhistory.com/joumal/archive/138/Bendow.pdf Dabney, Virginius, “Virginia: The New Dominion” (Doubleday & Company Inc., Garden City, New York, 1971) EN —Evening News (Roanoke) Fleitz - Fleitz, Rhett, “Firefighting in Roanoke” (Commonwealth Press Inc., Radford, 2006) Graves, Lee, “Virginia Beer: A Guide from Colonial Days to Craft’s Golden Age” (University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, 2018) H R l Highland Recorder (Monterey) RDT - Roanoke Daily Times ST-R —Salem Times-Register TRT - The Roanoke Times WN - World News (Roanoke) •19» �fftee& ftuHAcde clued to- comtnuctcou <U tyieeu^celd- 6 itc 6ett a tu i ¿Cave auantend by M ichael Pulice he one-story, two-room log building at Greenfield has traditionally been called a slave quarters, although it was, for a time during the 20th century, the home o f the farm manager. The building’s original location, form, construction and lack o f embellishments strongly support the slave quar­ ters tradition, as did archaeologists’ identification and excavation o f a sub-floor pit in the east room in January 2016. Used to hide or store objects o f personal value, sub-floor pits within dwellings are a well-known phenomenon to researchers o f slave culture, especially in the southeastern states. The Greenfield archae­ ological investigations o f 2016 were aimed at readying the quarters building and the nearby two-story log kitchen building for relocation from their original foundations to a new site within the designated Greenfield Preservation Area, a distance o f some 3,500 feet (2/3 mile). Although removed to a new location, the buildings were placed with precisely the same distance and spatial relationship to each other that they had originally. Archaeology around the buildings and beneath the floors inside the buildings produced artifact assemblages consistent with the supposed func­ tions and time periods o f the buildings. With few reliable physical dating clues and virtually no written historical documentation available, both buildings were thought to have been constructed by the 1840s when they were listed on the National Register o f Historic Places in 2010; but what if the estimates were incorrect? Though seemingly improbable, future revelations o f post-1865 construction dates would mean that previous interpretations were inaccurate, and enslaved people could not have been associated with the buildings. Ultimately, it was important to know, if possible, how to accurately interpret the two buildings if they are to be opened to the public for educational purposes in the future, as planned. The only absolute dating tool available to researchers o f historic buildings for which construction records do not exist is called dendrochronology or more specifically, dendroarchaeology, though often simply shortened to “dendro.” The science o f dendrochronology was developed for use in the science o f forest ecology and related fields dealing with trees. The broader field o f tree-ring science has many uses, among them developing chronologies based on the differences in tree growth from one season or year to the next. Ecologists use the chronologies to study the differences between growth o f individual species and stands o f trees across geographical areas with different growing conditions. Tree-ring scientists have developed an international tree-ring database into which chronologies o f trees and stands o f trees are entered. The data base facilitates the dating o f tree rings according to location and species by providing measurements o f the thickness o f each annular ring in a tree’s trunk. T M ichael Pulice, architectural historian fo r the state Department o f Historic Resources, describes the dendroarcheology method o f dating the slave structures at Greenfield, Col. William Preston’s home site in Botetourt County. (Photos fo r this article courtesy o f the author.) •2 0 • �G reenfield slave quarters (shown) a n d kitchen have been m oved to a n ew G reenfield Preservation Area. Because trees grow by adding light colored wood early in the growing season and darker colored wood late in the growing season, the rings o f each season and year are clearly discemable under a micro­ scope, and lab equipment has been developed to assist with the measurements and entering the data into a computer program. Currently, not all species are well represented in the data base. For example, in the mid-Atlantic states, oaks are generally well represented, while pines and poplars are not. The Greenfield buildings are comprised o f oak (mostly white oak), yellow-poplar and southern yellow pine logs, yet only the oak logs are datable. In the summer o f 2016, after the two buildings had each been braced, loaded onto flat-bed trail­ ers, moved and set upon new foundations within the Greenfield Preservation Area, I approached Carolyn Copenheaver, a forest ecologist and professor o f forestry at Virginia Tech, to propose a partnership to complete a dendrochronology project that would result in accurate construction dates for the buildings. I had worked on a couple o f similar projects with her previously, but I knew that she had little time for dating buildings. Only occasionally could she assist, and only if a statistically sufficient number o f wood samples were provided to her in usable condition. My timing was good, because Dr. Copenheaver was starting a new term with a class o f graduate students who could possibly be interested in such a project. She invited me to speak to the class, and I was able to pique the interest o f the international group o f young students who would provide the labor •21 • �P ictu re d with som e tree sam p les are (seated) M ike P u lic e a n d Dr. Carolyn C o p e n h e a v e r along with (standing, from left) N ath an iel Law rence, H en g Wan, B en Poling, Ergin C ankaya an d C h a n ce Raso. o f further preparing the wood samples, measuring the tree rings, data entry, cross-dating and further analysis. I received permission from Botetourt County to extract a limited number o f samples —just enough to complete the study —then I enlisted the help o f local contractor A1 Anderson, whose firm, Timber Works o f Interest, had done the necessary stabilization work on the two buildings before they could be moved, and directed the overall relocation project. Dr. Copenheaver helped me obtain a highly specialized wood-coring drill bit called an archaeological borer, and Mr. Anderson supplied a portable generator, drill and compressed air tank and helped me identify suitable oak logs in each structure. Suit­ able logs must have an intact outer layer o f wood (beneath the bark) and have a minimum o f 80 growth rings between the outer layer and the center core. Mr. Anderson and I worked together to extract cores from about 25 different logs, eight to nine each from the kitchen and the quarters building’s two separately built log pens. The cores are round, a bit thicker than a pencil, and about six inches long. The work was strenuous because the logs have become extremely dense and hard over the one and a half centuries since the trees were felled and hewn. During our work it was necessary to continuously blow compressed air into the hole while coring to keep wood particles from igniting and burning the core being extracted. Some o f the cores came out in several pieces due to bio-deterioration within the log. A few but not all o f the broken cores could still be used. The core samples were supplemented by one-inch-thick cross-sections or slices Mr. Anderson sawed from logs that were necessarily removed from the lower walls o f the buildings. Those logs were badly compromised by decay and needed to be replaced before •2 2 • �the buildings could be moved. The replacements were local hewn logs from the antebellum period, but in much better condition. Sawn samples are often important to supplement core samples because they hold together better and the tree rings can be easier to measure. Once obtained, all o f the samples had to be carefully sanded, using graduating grit sizes, to the smoothest finish possible, clearly revealing every annual ring and the growing seasons within each annual ring. Dr. Copenheaver and her students completed the study during the fall semester o f 2016, and the project participants collaborated to co-author an academic paper and seek publication in a peer-reviewed science journal. The article, published in the journal Ecoscience, focuses on the valuable ecological information derived from the tree rings of the buildings’ logs; but the felling dates o f the logs, cited in the article, provide the construction dates o f the two buildings. The kitchen was very likely built in 1845 because most of the logs in the building were felled in 1844 and the latest in early 1845. The lifespan o f the oldest tree began in 1701, but others began as late as 1752. The quarters building incor­ porated a few logs that were felled be­ tween the fall o f 1864 and spring o f 1865, strongly suggesting that the building was erected only shortly before slave hold­ ing was forcibly ended by federal troops beginning in April 1865. Regardless o f the outcome of the war, the owners o f Greenfield had a grow­ G reenfield kitchen ing on-site population o f slaves/former slaves for whom they needed to provide shelter. The ages o f the enslaved population at Greenfield recorded in the 1860 census shows that several young families were growing, and therefore more housing was needed. As freed slaves who had been separated from their families while in bondage moved around to find and reunite with their families, they found work and shelter at some farms and plantations that needed their labor and welcomed them. The fact that there were more African Americans living at Greenfield in 1870 than there had been in 1860 suggests that some were welcomed (or perhaps compelled) to stay and work at Greenfield. The Slave Schedules o f the U.S. Census show that in 1860, Greenfield owner William M. Radford had 35 slaves ranging in age from 6 months to 63 years. Fifteen o f his slaves were 16 years or younger; thus, the surviving slave quarters building, constructed in late 1864 or early 1865, was likely to accommodate the growing population. In the 1870 census, William M. Radford remained the head o f the household at Greenfield, where the census records identified eight separate households, totaling 41 former slaves, who continued to live there. It is likely that two or more o f these family groups resided in the surviving quarters building. C itation Carolyn A. Copenheaver, Michael J. Pulice, Nathaniel J.W. Lawrence, Chance H. Raso, Ergin C. Cankaya, Heng Wan, & Benjamin T. Poling (2017): “Dendroarchaeology reveals influence o f early-European settlement on forest disturbance re­ gimes in the Appalachian Mountains, USA,” Ecoscience. •2 3 • �f a t t e n , ( Z c ttt m m , e v e r te e a n ity m c u fo n & by George Kegley J ohn Trout and his son, Henry Trout, early farmers on land west o f Big Lick, both were elected may­ ors —John o f Big Lick, and Henry one o f the first mayors o f Roanoke. John Trout, bom in Rockingham County on Feb. 13, 1813, moved with his parents, George and Polly Trout, to what was then Botetourt County in 1818. George Trout bought a 253-acre farm just east o f the Veterans Administration Hospital site in 1853. Later, he bought the William Stover property near Big Lick. This contained a tavern widely known as the Trout House, later the site o f the Ponce de Leon Hotel. He improved and added to the house and lived there. During the Civil War, soldiers were entertained there and teams transported sick soldiers and bodies from the railroad to homes at no charge, according to Jack’s and Jacobs’ 1912 histories (see sources). John Trout was described as “open-handed and to the needy his purse was as open as his heart. He was essentially a man o f deeds, not words.” John Trout was a delegate to the General Assembly, twice a council member and mayor o f Big Lick from its incorporation in 1874 until shortly before his death in 1882. He was assessor o f the revenue and justice o f the peace in Roanoke County and president o f the board o f Roanoke College. He was senior partner in Turner, Trout & Co., a tobacco dealer, and an organizer o f the Bank o f Virginia. Trout married twice, first to a daughter o f Henry Shaver. They were the parents o f Henry Trout and Mary S. Trout, who married Pey­ ton L. Terry, another prominent Roanoker. Both John and Henry Trout H en ry Trout were founders o f St. M ark’s Lutheran Church. John Trout’s estate in­ cluded nine slaves, 11 horses, two carriages, 36 cattle, 11 sheep and 50 hogs. He and his daughter, Mary Terry, had burial plots in the City Cemetery on Blue Ridge Road (now Tazewell Avenue). Henry Trout grew up on his father’s farm and was attending Roanoke College when he left to join the Confederate army as a member o f Company I, 28th Virginia Infantry, Pickett’s Division. Serving as a lieutenant in the Battle o f Gettysburg, he was wounded twice and taken prisoner by the Union army. After his release at the end o f the war, he returned to the farm. As a delegate and later senator in the General Assembly, he sponsored legislation chartering Big Lick in 1874 and the town o f Roanoke in 1882. He was treasurer o f the Exhibition o f Livestock from Virginia and Surrounding States. Henry Trout had investment in the West End Land Co. and the Crystal Spring Land Co., which bought 837 acres from the McClanahan family for factory sites, according to Raymond Barnes’ “History o f the City o f Roanoke.” During hard times o f 1893, Trout helped distribute food and clothing to the poor and unemployed. While on council, he asked that his $200 salary be elimi­ nated because o f financial problems in 1894. George Kegley is editor o f the Journal. (Photo o f Henry Troutfrom E.B. Jacobs ’ ‘‘History o f Roanoke City, i •2 4 • �When the First National Bank was organized in 1882, Henry Trout was “called from the plow to take charge” as president o f the bank, according to Jack and Jacobs. He served almost 36 years until his death in 1918. He also was president o f Roanoke Gas and Water Co. and Peoples Perpetual Building and Loan Association. His home was at the southwest comer o f present Sixth Street and Campbell Avenue SW. When Trout died on April 16, 1918, all o f the stores in the city closed for an hour during his funeral, “so deeply was his death lamented,” Bames reported. R ecollections of H enry S. T rout (Reprintedfrom Barnes ’ “History o f the City ofRoanoke ”) John Trout, living on a farm near Shaffer’s Crossing, purchased the Stover farm in 1838 and came into possession o f a considerable portion o f the downtown section o f Roanoke. On April 21, 1913 (Evening World), Henry S. Trout, his son, wrote some reminiscences o f his youth. The Trout House (site o f present Ponce de Leon Hotel) was a building o f stone, about two stories high with an attic and a shingle roof. The shingles were fastened on with wrought iron nails made in a blacksmith shop. The house was about 100 years old when it was demolished. In the yard near the house was a big bold spring. In the rear o f the house stood a large bam (comer o f alley and Campbell Avenue). In this bam, religious services were held every now and then by Dunkards, Mr. Stover being o f that faith. It was quite a custom in those days to hold their meetings in bams at various places, there being but few churches o f that denomination built. Old Lick, or Gains­ borough when my father was young, was a good little town in those days and consisted o f three or four stores, two hotels, a blacksmith shop, a post office, etc. Big Lick was the largest o f the salt marshes around here. It lay along Campbell Avenue in the neighborhood o f Henry Street where that section o f the town now lies and extended quite a distance down to where the Roanoke machine shops (N&W Shops) was afterwards built. There was another salt marsh east o f the Bridge Works. Deer were frequently killed where the Terry Building now stands (southeast comer o f Campbell and Jefferson). In dry weather when the water would dry up in places the ground would become white with salt. Evidently, the country was a great hunting ground for the Indians. I can recall when I was a boy, that while plowing in the fields o f my father’s farm, I would upturn a great many Indian arrowhead and occasionally would come across a tomahawk. During the war when salt became very scarce, my father endeavored to bore into the marsh, the place he bored being just south o f present Salem Avenue near Jefferson Street. After going down about 75 feet, he abandoned the project as he did not have the proper machinery for boring. The country surrounding the marshes was fine farming land and some o f as pretty fields o f com and wheat as I have ever seen grew where the Hotel Roanoke and the N&W General Office Buildings stand. There was a great deal o f woodland interspersed among the farm land and in Roanoke today there are standing many o f the noble trees that helped to form in those days tracts o f magnificent timberland. In my younger days, before and up to the Civil War, we had no free or public schools. The neighbors would join together and hire a teacher who would live around amongst his patrons, I suppose to save a board bill. School took in around 8:00 a.m. and by common agreement let out by 5:00 p.m., with an hour for lunch or recess. Our books were W ebster’s Blue Back Speller. Walker’s Dictionary and Pike’s Arithmetic. When a scholar could get through that authentic work by the single rule o f three, he prided him self upon having pretty well. (Mr. Trout described the circuses he witnessed as a boy, too, little flea-bittten affairs that traveled in two or three wagons and had no tent but simply a canvas enclosure.) Passengers travelled on horseback or in the stage coaches. Hogs and cattle were driven on foot. •2 5 * �Many are the times I have witnessed droves o f hogs driven along Commerce Street. Shortly after the Mexican War, I recall having seen returning soldiers pass in stage coaches and little thought at the time that one day I would carry a gun. On the first day o f April and o f October o f each year the people o f the community held a “mus­ ter.” The two days were favorites o f the county people and all able-bodied men were enrolled with their proper officers, captains, majors, etc. and this kept up until the Civil War began. The first church built in “New Town” was the Lutheran Church (site o f the present High Street Baptist Church). Then the Presbyterian Church moved over (1876). The oldest house in the city today, I think, is the house on Shenandoah Avenue, West, built by Samuel P. Holt, the year after the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad came and afterwards owned by Dr. Kent. (Mr. Trout was mistaken as the Trout House, Elmwood, Lone Oak, etc. were present. He was evi­ dently referring to houses built after the coming o f the railroad in 1852.) The Virginia and Tennessee Railroad was built largely with slave labor and as blasting powder was the only explosive and the drilling done by hand was slow. The first locomotive burned wood and if a green log was put in the fire box the train was late. The engine could pull two or three passenger coaches and very few freight cars. John A. Sowers was the first agent here, also express agent and postmaster. He was very fond o f fishing and his duties were not too arduous. The Roanoke River was full o f fish. It was said that shad were caught in the river but I never saw any. With the coming o f the railroad some store keepers o f old Gainsborough moved over to Big Lick Depot. In the Civil War, Roanoke County sent more men to war than she had votes. No one thought that it would last long. The local boys carried knives about 18 inches long, made in local blacksmith shops. During the war, the depot station was burned and the old box car served as a station until another could be built. Where the Times building is located (on Commerce Street), Turner Brothers sunk a well and the surveys were made so that all lots cornered on the well. S ources “History of the City o f Roanoke,” Raymond Barnes, Commonwealth Press, 1968 “History o f Roanoke County,” George S. Jack, Stone Printing Co., 1912 “History of Roanoke City” and “History o f the Norfolk and Western Railway Co.,” E.B. Jacobs, Stone Printing Co., 1912 26 �'pn/wK t&e 'P'UMt P “oncA- to tAe *?>uMt ¿£i*teo, 7 R .ttn a f * l/O iy i« U a , c * t — *7&e- *7 t&e by M elinda Bollar Wagner list o f World War II movies says there are 4,893. With these 39 added, there are 4,932 movies about World War II. A These movies are a product o f the “Roots with Wings: Floyd County Place-Based Edu­ cation Oral History Project.” That project is an outreach o f the Floyd County Center at the Old Church Gallery, in partnership with Floyd County High School and Radford University. The “roots” part is con­ nections — making relationships, making connections — among people in the community. The “wings” part is the technology that the students learn. Students learn how to conduct interviews, record using audio and video equipment, transcribe, archive, find themselves in the interviews and make movies. We have al60-page project manual that the students use. It includes our instructions on ethics and how to do all o f these skills. We have a mentors manual for the Radford University mentor. Five age groups come together in the Roots with Wings team: Floyd County High School students, Radford Uni­ versity student mentors, Floyd County High School teachers, Floyd Story Center community volunteers and resident elders. That mix o f ages prompted one student to say at the end o f the semester, “I learned that people of all ages can really work together to create a really cool project.” One o f the motivations for this project is research that shows resilience is a major factor in lead­ ing a satisfying life. Resilience is the ability to bounce back. It’s the ability to figure out a way out or a way through, to adapt, to improvise. And research has shown that a way to foster resilience is for young people to hear about the experiences o f elders in their own community. In other words, if you plant firm roots in the soil where you’re from, you have a better chance o f surviving, growing, flourishing wher­ ever in the world you find yourself. So when you watch the movie, think about what the students learned about coping, resilience and survival. This is “From the Front Porch to the Front Lines.” So along with their war experiences, the elders told us about growing up in Floyd County. They told about their childhoods and fights with their siblings and how they met their sweethearts and how they got married. So you’ll hear about the front porch in the movies but in this talk I’m going to concentrate on the “to the front lines” part — the war experiences, sharing just a few things from the interview transcriptions. When America entered World War II after Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the oldest o f the This talk by Melinda Bollar Wagner, Ph.D., presented in several venues, tells o f an oral history project, sponsored by the Virginia Foundation fo r the Humanities, by Floyd County High School students interview­ ing veterans o f World War II. Wagner is professor emeritus o f anthropology and Appalachian studies at Radford University. •2 7 • �O rlan d Ph illip s w as interview ed b y A le x Williams, R ad ford University student. (All photos for this article are b y Kathleen Ingoldsby.) veterans we interviewed was 28, the youngest was 11. Several went to war right after high school gradu­ ation. At least one was drafted when he was a junior in high school. Robert Bugg said he was 18 after basic training and “They told us, ‘According to Roosevelt, you’re not supposed to ship overseas until you’re 19 years old. If any o f you fellows is under 19 years old, you can write to a lawyer or you can see the President or whatever you want to do. You might as well make up your mind and go.’” William Hayden was 17 when he was on a tanker that transported fuel for airplanes. The first ship he was on came out o f New York and he helped steer that ship. Some o f our youngest interview­ ees were in their early 20s when they served post-war. As you hear about the interviews and watch the student-made movies, think about what the students were hearing about what these men and women were doing when they were the same age as the high school and college kids who are listening to them. Whenever the veterans told o f dangers and discomforts, the students learned coping, they learned resilience, they learned survival. Lois Slusher said her husband, Ed Slusher, a military police, was standing at his guard post for 10 days in January 1943. Where he was was Casablanca, in French Morocco. MPs stood guard there, 24 hours a day with no idea who they were guarding. That was the Casablanca Conference where U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met to plan the Allied Euro­ pean strategy for the upcoming phase of World War II, Jan. 14-24, 1943. For the generals to carry out these strategies, they needed trained soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen. So the dangers and discomforts the veterans told about began with training. Roger Shortt said the time in training camp w asn’t easy: 20-mile hikes with a field pack and rifle. “Some o f them didn’t • 28 • �make it and they had a truck come along and pick them up. But I was used to it. I worked on the farm and I didn’t mind it.” By the way, Roger Shortt’s father had to handle the family farm by him self after all five o f his sons were drafted. More than one o f the veterans said they thought they handled the physical aspects better than their urban buddies because they were used to hard work on the farm. But the mental and emotional as­ pects were a different story. It started early for Bernard Cox. When he was inducted into the Army at age 18, he was sent to Fort Meade, Maryland, and Fort McClellan, Alabama. “Well, a little ol’ young thing like me, it scared me to death! Eighteen years old and somebody squalling at you. This old sergeant knowed we was scared to death. They’d holler at you, squall at you. Well, I finally got used to that.” And there were punishments. Clarence Goad and Sammie Phillips said if you did anything “out o f the ordinary,” you would have to pull extra guard duty or mess duty — washing pots and pans, clean­ ing up the mess hall. “It didn’t take long to find out that you had to walk the line,” they said. McCrey Shortt got into trouble only once. It had to do with cigarette sales. He had to dig a 6x6-foot pit. It took all night to dig it. Then he had to fill it back in. On the other hand, the Floyd County boys sometimes got by with not following orders. Some­ times they used their common sense, instead o f following orders; they got by with it. That started early for Marvin Nolen. He was in the Navy and had to learn to swim. As a test, a man overboard drill was mandatory. “We were supposed to put our whites on. Had to go up in a tower, I guess about 30 feet or more, and then jum p down into 14 feet o f water. I thought I ’d just balk on that! We never jumped that thing!” They talked their superior officer into letting them hang their wet uniforms in the dry house as if they had been in the water. Once they were trained, the men were shipped to the battlefields. They were seasick on the trips overseas to their posts. Arlie Thompson said New Jersey to France took 14 days. He was seasick 13 days. In Europe, Arlie Thompson was a company runner — “crawled and run across France, Germany and Austria” — delivering messages between platoons. All six boys in Arlie Thompson’s family were in service. O f course, the strict military discipline continued after training. Arlie Thompson said General Patton said “you’re gonna cross the river in the morning at 5:00 if you have to make bridges out o f your dog tags.” And Bernard Cox said, “The Germans were as scared o f Patton as we were.” They were homesick. Letters from home were important. They were a way o f coping. A1 Kelley said in the letters from home, “It was what they were doing back here and their crops growing good and the neighborhood gossip ... And things about the horses and the cattle and my cats and animals.” But William Hayden said when you received mail from home you might get a stack postmarked six months to a year ago. Lucille Nolen said Edward Nolen did not receive half o f the [letters] she sent him. Letters to home were censored, Charles Robert Smith said. They would arrive with so much blacked out that you could hardly read them. But the letters were connections to home. Things were changing for women’s work back home. Virgie Quesenberry shared that while her husband, Harless “Red,” was in Germany building bridges, back home they had to use ration stamps to purchase gas and sugar. Lois Slusher worked at the Radford Arsenal and Lucille Nolen worked at the shirt factory. Back in that day, the women always wore dresses to work. One time, the truck the women rode to work at the shirt factory “ran into a big snow drift.” And the women had to walk home, about 4 miles. They stopped at Tom Agee’s store and bought pairs o f overalls to wear over their dresses. In June and on into August 1944, Allied troops landed on a 50-mile stretch o f beach on the Nor­ mandy coast o f France. Code names for the beaches included Omaha and Utah; 156,000 Allied forces landed there. The invasion was one o f the largest amphibious assaults in history. Charles Robert Smith and Willard Dulaney were on Utah Beach. From what we were told in the interviews, Smith was one o f the biggest to not exactly follow orders. He said, “Well, when we landed on Utah on a landing craft, • 29» �we had my armored car and four Jeeps and we had a second lieutenant who rode out with me on my armored car. And this lieutenant wouldn’t let us pull out o f the water. He said, ‘This water is too deep... Wait until the tide goes out, then w e’ll drive in ... ’ Well, the Russian outfit went on and they drove out. We sat there for two hours. I said, ‘I can drive out through that water.’ He said, ‘You might can but you w on’t.’ I said, ‘Yes, I w ill.’ I told that lieutenant, ‘stay on there and take care o f the boat. We’re going on.’ I started my motor and I went across there and the jeeps followed me. And the lieutenant come out with me, too.” In Europe, it was cold. McCrey Shortt said that to warm up food, they put their canteens on a truck motor. Harold Spence had guard duty in the North Atlantic. Guard duty was walking around a supply hub, 12 hours on and 12 hours off. “It was one cold place. In them days we didn’t have any insulated coats.” That insulated clothing was missing was corroborated by Bernard Cox. He was near the Rhine River. “One time we was wet, went in wet snow all day. Just had on ordinary shoes and thin socks. That’s all enlisted people had. The officers had insulated this and insulated that and they had good warm clothes. But us little devils didn’t have too good a stuff to wear. It w asn’t warm. Our feet was wet when nighttime come. We had to dig a foxhole to sleep in, just big enough for two people.” Bernard and his buddy in the foxhole figured out a way to use each other’s bodies to keep their wet feet from getting frostbit. “If we hadn’t, w e’d have been frostbitten. We’d have had bad feet. But we got by. That worked for me and him. That’s what we done.” Another time, Charles Robert Smith used his common sense. He was driving an armored car in Belgium. They came upon a minefield that the Germans had planted. Germans could drive through. They knew where the mines were. There were American pilots in small planes who could fly close to the ground. The pilots would shout to the men what to do. “So this pilot said, ‘Do not go through. Turn around and go back.’ Well, it was level on both sides o f the road there. And we were in this armored car with wheels high enough that I could just stick my head out and look straight down at the ground. And I said, ‘I can go through there.’ So I went on through and just twisted around easy and I went through it. That pilot landed his plane and he come down and jumped on me. He said, ‘You shouldn’t have done that... I told you not to, why did you do it?’ And I said, ‘Right here, they planted them mines in the field on both sides o f the road where it’s level and they want us to get out o f the road and get in the field and that’s when we would have got blowed up.’ So the pilot said, ‘Well, it looks like to me like you’re smarter than I am. I believe you’re right.’” That’s Europe, but the war also raged in the Pacific Ocean. Lawrence Wood became an airplane mechanic in Panama and kept meticulous records o f “everything an airplane had to have done to it to keep it in operation,” to keep it flying. Generally, crews worked on planes. But due to some circumstanc­ es with new planes, he was left working on his plane by himself. “So the line officer asked me when the plane would be ready. And he didn’t like my answer o f two to three days. ‘It had better be ready tomor­ row,’ the officer said. So I said, ‘Well, do you know what you can do with the plane if you think I ’m going to have it ready tomorrow?’ And he asked me and I told him. The line officer wanted to have me court-martialed but the engineering officer came to my rescue. Then I had a talk with the line officer a time or two over a beer and we got things straightened out.” Sammie Phillips was on amphibious vehicles that transported troops from their ships onto islands in the Pacific. The first action he saw was Sept. 15-Nov. 25, 1944, the Battle o f Peleliu. Peleliu is a small island in the Pacific Ocean, south o f the Philippines. U.S. marines and soldiers were sent to capture an airstrip there. O f about 28,000 marines and infantry troops, a full 40 percent died or were wounded. During the war, Ralph Yopp moved under the right-hand barrel o f Number 4 [a 16-inch gun mount] on the US S Maryland. His crew stayed there so much they even cooked and ate their food in the turret. From that vantage point, Ralph Yopp experienced the Battle o f Leyte G ulf in the Philippines from Oct. 23-26, 1944. This is generally considered to be the largest naval battle o f World War II and, 30 �M c C ra y Shortt w as interview ed b y Luke M oran a n d M ich a e l Osborne, F lo y d C ounty High S ch o o l students. by some criteria, the largest naval battle in history. This was the first battle when the Japanese used organized kamikaze attacks. The USS Maryland was hit by those attacks. When Mr. Yopp came for his interview, he brought a piece o f those Japanese planes. Ralph Yopp told about a seaplane that the USS Maryland carried that lost one of the pontoons that kept its wings balanced. To get the seaplane back on board the Maryland with the crane, the radio man got out on the wing to weigh it down. “And so we brought it in with no problem. But it’s just that you have to do things where and when you have to do it. And that was one o f them.” Arthur Conner told about serving in Burma in the Southeast Asia theater — another area o f the world attacked by this World War. The Burma Road was a supply route from Burma to Southwestern China — 717 miles through rough mountain country. When Mr. Conner left for war, cars were still pretty rare so he had hardly driven and didn’t have a driver’s license. At the end o f his training, “They said anybody that wanted to get their driver’s license, you go down to the motor pool and they’ll teach you how to drive in three days and give you a driver’s license. So, I said, ‘Oh yes, that’s for me. I want to go.’ The first day it was ‘This is the steering wheel, this is the brake and this is the horn and what­ ever.’ And then the next day, they went through a little bit more about it. And the third and last day, they said, ‘You pull that truck down there and back it up.’ And, ‘Here’s your driver’s license.’” Then he went overseas. “ ’Everyone that has a driver’s license, come over here. That truck down there is yours.’ It was a big 10-wheeler with 18 drums o f gas on the truck. ‘You take that truck and go down to the ammunition depot and they’re going to hook a trailer behind it.’ So they put a trailer behind that big 10-wheeler and there I went over the Burma Road. And I think when I went through one little village, I took part o f it with me.” Lowell Booth rode an elephant to string telephone lines across a swamp in India, stringing the wires on palm trees. In Europe, the cold was a damaging force. But in the Pacific, the tropical heat and humidity were a problem. Orland Phillips and many o f the other guys in the tropics got athlete’s foot. The medics treated them to no avail. Using common sense again, Orland decided to go barefoot, which, o f course, was against protocol — and cured himself. Sammie Phillips had some trouble in the tropics too. He almost got into trouble when he was in charge o f food storage and inventory. There happened to •31 • �Arthur C o n n e r w as interview ed b y A aron Tsang, F lo y d C ounty H igh S ch o o l student. be 110 pounds o f sugar. And remember, this is the tropics and something began to smell. And it kind o f smelled like alcohol. So Sammie was suspected o f having a side business. But it became clear what was happening and then he was in the clear. Some o f our veterans were at the front and in the battles made famous by their ferocity. Robert Bugg was at the Battle o f the Bulge. After D-Day in Normandy, France, June 6, 1944, the Allied officers, including Americans, predicted a quick end to the war. But for more than a month, as 1944 turned into 1945 (December and January), came the last major Nazi offensive in the war. This was the Battle o f the Bulge — so-called because of the bulge the Nazi forces made in the Allied lines. Early on the misty winter morning o f Dec. 16, 1944, more than 300,000 German troops and nearly 1,000 tanks tried to drive to the coast and split the Allied armies. The German troops struck in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium, a 75-mile stretch o f dense woods and few roads. British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill praised the American troops. “This is undoubtedly the greatest American battle o f the war and will, I believe, be regarded as an ever-famous American victory.” Burnett Marshall played a part in that battle, building a bridge over the Meuse River which the German army had wanted to capture. Bernard Cox was in the Battle o f the Bulge. He was injured hauling shells and mortars and received the Purple Heart medal in the year 2000! Back to the Pacific. Iwo Jima is an island south o f Japan, about 570 miles from the Japanese coast. The American military wanted to use Iwo Jima as an air base. But Iwo Jima was defended by about 23,000 Japanese army and navy troops. The Japanese were dug into an elaborate network o f caves and tunnels that were difficult to find. Preparations for the battle included 6,800 tons o f bombs and 22,000 shells, some o f which Robert Nester delivered from his ship, the USS Wrangell. Then the Ameri­ can marines attacked. From the deck o f his ship, Robert Nester witnessed marines raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima — a scene immortalized in a photo and in statues. May 8, 1945, was VE Day: Victory in Europe. Arlie Thompson recalled the reception American soldiers got when they would liberate a German town. The people who had been incarcerated would “shake your hand. They would kiss your hand. They would bow to you. They were so glad to see you.” But the war w asn’t over — Japan fought on in the Pacific. Troy Smith saw Hiroshima after the atomic bomb had been dropped on Aug. 6, 1945. Mr. Smith was on the Japanese island o f Okinawa 32 �when the Japanese surrender was being signed on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on Sept. 2, 1945. P ost-W ar At the announcement o f the w ar’s end, there was whooping and hollering and shooting rifles in the air. George Shelor was stationed near Nuremberg after the war, where the Nuremberg trials were held in 1945-1946. German officials were tried for war crimes. Japan was occupied by Allied troops from 19451952. Sunny Bemardine signed on as a USO dancer to entertain those troops. That was after she had gone to work as a welder during the war — and caught her hair on fire. The dangers o f military life didn’t end with the end o f the war. Clarence Goad was injured post­ war during field maneuvers training and spent a year in hospitals. What did you get at the end o f the war? Harold Spence received $15.20 to go home on, from Fort Eustis, near Newport News, by bus and train to Norfolk, to Richmond, to Roanoke and by bus to Floyd and Willis. Troy Smith described having to adjust to civilian life after two and a half years o f being told what to do and where to go. At first, he would go out and almost forget he now had to pay his own way. “You weren’t used to paying for anything, and when you’d go anywhere, why sometimes you’d almost forget to pay for your stuff.” And when they came home to Floyd County, some described a feeling o f relief, “a sense that the future was beginning to look brighter.” “Times were looking up at the end o f the war,” Maurice Slusher said. Once back home, they used the skills they had learned —coping, resilience, survival and practical skills too. Marvin Nelson had never driven a car before going into the Navy and ended up steering a ship headed to China. Catherine Pauley said that her father, Posey G. Vaughn, learned a lot about electricity and wired the family homes when he came back. McCrey Shortt learned about equipment and explo­ sives and that helped him to start his own excavating business. Orland Phillips worked as a machinist during the war. He and his crew used trucks under tarps as machine sheds. After the war he went on the road locally with portable equipment. Then as interstate highway construction began, he worked on bridges. For Lowell Booth, military life gave him opportunities to travel and exposed him to other cul­ tures. Military life made him more organized as a teacher. Arthur Conner said you learned “how to get along with different people... There were all kinds o f people —country folks and city folks. Some of them educated and some not so educated. And all together, you learned how to get along.” A theme throughout the interviews was the horrors o f war. Obviously, this war to stop the Nazi regime was a just and necessary war. But no one glorified war. All spoke o f the horrors o f war. Robert Nester said, “People should know. War is hell.” All o f the people we heard from spoke o f their time and their deeds with humility. We saw a large number o f medals. We had to ask the veterans to bring them. Arlie Thompson summed up the pluses and minuses, the pros and cons: “I didn’t want to go in the service, but you couldn’t buy the experience that I had then. I wouldn’t take nothing for that experi­ ence. But I wouldn’t give a penny for any more.” •33 • �4 0 ,0 0 0 fteeftie 6e*vt ’Pneetdeat fê&a&weit ta Soient by A, C h eff riday, Oct. 19, 1934, was a big day for the Norfolk & Western family, the people o f Roanoke and Salem, their neighbors —and for me. For that was the day President Franklin D. Roosevelt came down into Virginia to dedicate Roanoke’s new Veterans’ Hospital. I ’ll never forget that historic occasion. As a “reporter” in the presidential party, I watched the events attentively from a fortunate van­ tage point. When I awoke in the morning o f Oct. 1 9 ,1 was in a Pullman car parked in the Washington Union Station. I had come to the nation’s capital on an assignment which assumed such awesome proportions. The assignment was a day’s journey with the President o f the United States. I had written a letter to my old friend, Col. E.W. Starling (the President’s travel man) asking him for permission to join the presidential party. I recalled his cordial reply: “It will be a pleasure to have you.” I had breakfast with E.L. Repass, general passenger agent, who had come to Washington to go back on the special train as the Norfolk & Western’s traffic representative. We talked with C.W. Nick­ less, freight and passenger agent, who knows the “ins and outs” o f presidential traveling. He showed us the “diagrams” o f the various notables who would be passengers and relayed a few last-minute requests that had come from the White House in connection with the trip. Long before the train’s scheduled departure, we were walking up and down the platform o f the Union Station’s lower level, looking over the six-car special. Aside from presenting a bright, clean ap­ pearance, this train didn’t seem to have marked differences from any other. But somehow, there was something about it —an atmosphere that suggested the unusual. For very soon these ordinary cars, with ordinary wheels, sides, roofs and windows, would be transformed into conveyances that would take precedence over every other train in the land. While this train would be moving, other trains would stand still; bridges, grade crossings and tracks would be patrolled by vigilant men. While the train was on the road, railroad management would do everything in their power to ensure its safety, comfort to its passengers and an expedited movement. The President’s private car, the “Robert Peary,” was parked on a separate track. With Mr. Nicklesss’s help, I inspected it from end to end. While not overly luxurious, a glance revealed that it was built for comfort and convenience. In the rear was the observation lounge, with big, wide windows and deepcushioned chair - an excellent place to sit and watch the passing scenery. (And Mr. Roosevelt took full advantage o f this lounge too. He spent most o f his time here while en route during the day.) Forward from the observation lounge, I found a series o f compartments, each tastefully equipped with comfortable furnishings, One o f the compartments, however, was a little more elaborate than the others. It contained a real bed, a wardrobe, dresser and chair! This, I learned, would be the President’s bedroom where he would spend the night en route to Williamsburg after his visit to Roanoke. A djoining F This is an edited version o f an article by A. Cheff, a sta ff writer fo r the Norfolk and Western Magazine in November 1934. • 34 • �The presidential special train arriving at the Roanoke Passenger Station. (All photos accompanying this article are by N&W staff photographers, and are reprinted from the November 1934 Norfolk and Western Magazine.) Mr. Roosevelt’s compartment was a bathroom that was a model o f compactness and utility. A spacious dining room artistically arranged with rugs, tapestries and a table in the center was next. The kitchen was filled with utensils and equipment needed for preparing meals. On this trip, how­ ever, the kitchen would not be used since all o f the food for the presidential party would be furnished from a Norfolk & Western dining car. In addition to the “Robert Peary,” there were five other cars in the presidential special: a six-com­ partment, three-drawing-room sleeping car and a Southern Railway combined baggage coach next to the locomotive. Press representatives, photographers and others would occupy the car immediately behind mine while the distinguished guests would be in the car next to the “Robert Peary.” The train was scheduled to leave Washington promptly at 9:30 a.m., but it would wait for the President if he happened to be late! A crowd had begun to gather around the gateway to the station platform, men in uniform were walking about (some were Southern Railway special agents) and the air was already becoming charged with that hush of expectancy that hangs about when the arrival o f an important personage is expected. A big green Southern Railway locomotive had pulled into the station. Some Southern Railway roundhouse men had evidently given it “the works” for it surely looked spick and span. This was the engine that would pull us to Monroe where the train would be taken over by our own railroad. Official-looking automobiles were driving up beside the “Robert Peary” and distinguishedlooking people were alighting from them. Among these I recognized were Senator Carter Glass, Admiral and Mrs. Cary T. Grayson and Postmaster General James A. Farley, all o f whom were to accompany Mr. Roosevelt on his trip to Roanoke. And then, unheralded and suddenly, an open-top White House automobile, carrying in its back seat the President o f the United States, swept up to the platform. There was no cheering but the crowd • 35• �instantly focused its attention upon the man who very humanly and very cordially nodded and smiled his greetings to those about him. Few words were spoken. In a moment, the President had boarded his private car and the train was ready to pull out o f the station. It was “all aboard” for Roanoke. Slowly the train pulled away from the crowd, under the station and the city streets and out into the countryside. Once outside Washington, the train began to pick up speed and from then on it proceed­ ed at a fair clip. Only one stop was made between the capital and Monroe —at Waybum, where the “iron horse” received an additional supply o f water. As soon as the train halted, Secret Ser­ vice men and railway special agents got off and stood guard until the journey was resumed. At Manassas, Calverton, Orange and Charlottesville, the train slowed down while passing through the town limits. At these places and other points large crowds had come out to watch the special go by. The weather was ideal. Early morning clouds had given way to sunshine and there was ev­ ery indication that Mr. Roosevelt’s excursion into the Old Dominion would be a fair-weather one. Aboard the train there was plenty o f action. Newspaper men had received advance copies o f the Presi­ dent’s dedication address and there was much discussion going on as to the interpretation o f some o f its passages. Many o f the press men were preparing stories for afternoon papers. Typewriters were clicking in compartments. Photographers were discussing pictures they would take and how they would send them back to their offices by the quickest possible route. Pullman Conductor J J . Fitzgibbon and Division Passenger Agent W.C. Spencer, Southern Rail­ way, were checking in the passengers. Western Union and Postal Telegraph men were hurrying back and forth with press message blanks, preparing other telegrams to be put off at the first stop. Southern oper­ ating men were talking about the engineer who was handling the train - Herbert C. Lynn had been in the service for 48 years without a scratch against his record. The time which elapsed between our departure from Washington and the arrival o f noon literally took wings and flew. The next thing I heard was the call for lunch. The appearance o f the dining car was perfect. On every table there were beautiful roses, the linen was spotless, the silverware shone brightly. The new interior decorations o f the car made its appearance infinitely more cheerful. As the guests were seated, they were handed attractive souvenir menus containing on the front cover a view o f the main building o f the Veterans Hospital. On the inside pages was listed a tempting assortment o f food. The President’s lunch would be served in his private car at 1 o ’clock. The food was carried by Harry Lucas, the Chief Executive’s personal waiter, who has worked for four presidents and has traveled across the continent with them three times. Here is what the President and his guests ordered for lunch: Shrimp cocktails, bisque o f oysters, cold Virginia ham, relishes consisting o f olives, pickles, celery, tenderloin o f trout, fried spring chicken, green peas, asparagus, O ’Brien potatoes, fruit salad, fig pudding, the usual assortment o f bread and cof­ fee, all o f which was prepared in approved N&W style. There were many compliments about the food and the service. It was learned that Mr. Roosevelt personally praised its excellence. As we were rapidly nearing Monroe, the country through which we were traveling had become more mountainous and the scenery was beautiful with the colorful leaves and the brilliant sunshine. An­ other touch o f beauty was added to the scene as we passed Sweet Briar, the station which serves Sweet Briar College. Here the train slowed down and suddenly we were aware o f a long line o f pretty girls, waving and cheering at the tops o f their lungs. They were Sweet Briar College students who had come out to greet the President and Senator Glass. The train was on time and we pulled into Monroe promptly at 1:45 p.m. It was a thrilling sight to see those two big Norfolk & Western engines, Nos. 502 and 504, back up and couple to the presiden­ tial special. The engineers, J.H. Richardson and R.T. Leonard, how capable they appeared in their cabs as they smoothly handled their big machines. The special train did not remain long at Monroe after the • 36 • �Norfolk & Western enginemen entering the private car to be greeted by President Roosevelt. Norfolk & Western locomotives had been coupled. Smoothly gliding away from the terminal, we soon rode into the outskirts o f Lynchburg and in a few minutes we stopped again to pick up Governor George C. Peery, Senator Harry F. Byrd and Congressman Clifton A. Woodrum, who were to accompany the President to Roanoke. A large crowd o f spectators had assembled at the Kemper Street station and the President made a platform appearance to greet his well-wishers. All along the way to Roanoke, I could see groups o f people standing here and there, waving and looking intently at the train as we passed along. At the stations, larger groups were gathered and at Bed­ ford the entire population o f the Elks National Home was out on the front lawn waving flags and cheer­ ing. The sight o f these venerable men who had come out to greet the Chief Executive must have been an inspiring one for him. As we passed along, I caught an occasional glimpse o f the many precautions our railroad had taken to safeguard the movement o f the presidential special. Section men were on duty at every highway crossing, including overhead bridges and underpasses, to prevent the possibility o f a crossing accident. Train movement on other tracks was practically at a standstill and I knew that special parties o f signal maintainers and section foremen had preceded our train to make sure the switches, frogs and other track conditions were safe for the President’s train. Living up to its reputation for “Precision Transportation,” our railroad operated the special over our line throughout the trip on time. It was exactly 3:30 p.m. when the train halted at the Roanoke Pas­ senger Station. An immense crowd swarmed around the Jefferson Street crossing to see the nation’s leader emerge from the train. In every window o f the General Office Building I could see the faces of employees who were trying to catch a glimpse o f the President. Across the street, the roofs and windows o f nearby buildings were crowded. But through it all, order reigned supreme; although National Guards­ men were on duty, no attempts were made to break through the lines. Secret Service men and officers in uniform were coming and going in and out o f the car. Colonel E.W. Starling, the President’s chief travel man, was giving directions. Here came the welcoming com­ mittee, composed o f Mayor Sydney F. Small o f Roanoke, Mayor W.R. Cross o f Salem, ex-Govemor and 37 �At the dedication ceremony, as the president arose to deliver his address. Mrs. E. Lee Trinkle and others. The President was greeted by the four men in the engine crew —Engi­ neers J.H. Richardson and R.T. Leonard and Firemen C.W. Davis and B.D. Mann. The President greeted them cordially. While necks craned, people stood on tiptoe as the President emerged from his car. It was the sig­ nal for cameras to click, soldiers to come to attention and for the people standing about to make way for him. In a moment he was in the big open-top White House automobile with Governor Peery, Congress­ man Woodrum and Mayor Small with him. Preceded by a pilot car and motorcycle police, he was on his way through Roanoke to the hospi­ tal grounds. Roanoke gave President Roosevelt a real welcome that day. Many thousands o f people lined the streets o f the Magic City on that glorious afternoon. From the passenger station well beyond Raleigh Court, on both sides o f the street, there were solid lines o f humanity. Bands were playing, school children were waving flags and cheering, people were exclaiming. A general spirit o f enthusiasm pervaded the scene. The presidential party moved swiftly through the city and down the Lee Highway to Salem where more thousands o f people were waiting to greet the Chief Executive. Then passing through the streets o f Salem, the caravan gradually circled back and down the boulevard to the Veterans Hospital grounds. As it entered the reservation, a 21-gun salute boomed out while the cadet band o f the Virginia Polytechnic Institute grouped in front o f the speakers stand, struck up a patriotic air, “Stars and Stripes Forever.” Long since has the dedication program become history: the invocation by the Reverend Nolan Harmon, pastor o f Greene Memorial Methodist Church, Roanoke, the opening remarks by Mr. Woodrum, the talk by General Hines, the presentation o f the President by Governor Peery and the President’s •38• �The president arriving at Salem Passenger Station just prior to his departure. He is shown here with Governor Perry and Congressman Woodrum talking to Col. Marion S. Battle, who was in charge of the traffic arrangements for the dedication ceremonies. timely and important address. The crowd o f 40,000 people, many o f whom had been waiting to see and hear the President for many hours, were well repaid for their presence. It was an inspiring and a colorful occasion which will live long in the memory o f those who were there. The new Veterans Administration Hospital, dedicated by the President, is the latest addition to the neuropsychiatric institutions established by the federal government since the World War. Providing beds for a total o f 471 patients, the hospital is located 2 miles west o f the Roanoke city limits on a mag­ nificent site, which includes an area o f 441 acres in 16 buildings, constructed along the lines o f the late 17th and early 18th century Virginia Colonial architecture, and will provide the most modem facilities for caring for the needs o f disabled veterans. After the benediction by the Reverend Father James Gilsenan, pastor o f Our Lady o f Nazareth, Roanoke, the long caravan o f automobiles took the President to the Norfolk & Westerm passenger sta­ tion in Salem where the special train left promptly at 6 o ’clock for its return movement to Petersburg, where it would be turned over to the Atlantic Coast Line Railway. •39» �S c o u tin g , m iie & to u c : P o w h a ta n tteanCcp Coat to tim e by Stephen C. Warren n July 28, 1919, Boy Scouts o f the Roanoke Council in Virginia opened their first session of the first Camp Powhatan. This event had been largely forgotten, save for two Scouters: my­ self and fellow historian W. Scott Smith. This article commemorates the 100th anniversary o f the first week o f camp, and tells many o f the forgotten stories o f how it came to be. My own introduction to “first Powhatan” was in the 1990s, through a brochure written by long­ time Scouter B. Gary Richardson. In commemorating the 50th year o f Scouting, Richardson wrote a brief history o f our camp reservation. He described how our very first camp was situated at the conflu­ ence o f three streams in the George Washington National Forest, within a few miles o f the second camp. Unfortunately, he suggested that it had been lost to time. In 2000, when the successor Blue Ridge Mountains Council raised its 1975 “time capsule” at present-day Camp Powhatan in Pulaski County, it unveiled several oral histories which gave accounts o f first Powhatan. One o f those documents contained a two-page memoir, “Memories o f Old Camp Powhatan,” by Orren S. Clark, a self-described “Old Timer and Scouter from way back when.” Clark recalled both first Powhatan, and the second Powhatan, which were located in close proximity to Natural Bridge Station in Rockbridge County. Clark was a high school student who was very active in Boy Scouts. He was asked by the coun­ cil s camp committee chairman, Garrett Gooch, to drive his Cadillac touring car “on an inspection o f the proposed Boy Scout camp near Natural Bridge Station.” Others in the car included council executive D-D. Withers and two other committee members. After their site visit, Clark drove them back to Roa­ noke and the conversation took up the question o f what to call this new camp. Clark suggested the name “Powhatan,” as he had recently played the part o f Chief Powhatan in a school drama. The committee liked it, and the name stuck. O Stephen C. Warren is a Roanoke native and lifelong Scouter. In 2004, he wrote “A Segregation-Era History o f H istorically Black Boy Scout Troops in the Roanoke, Virginia Area. ” This new article commemorating the 100th anniversary o f Camp Powhatan will be included in a more extensive chronicle o f the Roanoke Council, Boy Scouts o f America. He is a past president o f the Historical Society o f Western Virginia, and is currently vice president o f the Norfolk & Western Historical Society. • 40• �Stephen Warren (from left), W. Scott Smith, Jacob Montague, Daniel Montague, Arvid Englund, Micah Englund and Bill Irvin at the site of First Camp Powhatan, Sulphur Spring Trailhead, Jefferson National Forest. Facing page: A panoramic photograph of the site of First Powhatan as it appears today. (Photos and archival newspaper clippings courtesy of the author.) When Smith was writing “A History o f Tutelo Lodge” (2015), he reviewed the Orren Clark memoir with great interest. We’ve since spent several years discussing this little-known reference about first Powhatan, and he found several period newspaper accounts o f first Powhatan in the course o f writ­ ing his book. He visited the area and found the three streams coming together, but he wasn’t sure how the camp might be laid out. So he set it aside for a few years. In June 2018, he reminded me that the “centennial o f the first camp” was soon upon us. We finally made the trip to Elk Creek together on Jan. 4, 2 0 1 9 .1 brought my Orren Clark article, and he brought an annotated topographic map and newspaper clippings. We stood in the freezing rain for several hours, on the same craggy road which had plagued those first campers many years ago. We both agreed that it was the right place, but we still had a lot o f questions about how the camp was laid out. We returned to Roanoke and made the announcement o f our site visit on social media, where a group o f Scouters share our interest in the council’s history. A suggestion was made to conduct a field trip in the early spring, just before the leaves emerge. It would certainly help to get more opinions, and we were excited to begin sharing this location with a new generation o f Scouts who had never even heard o f a “first camp.” On April 3, 2019, seven adults made that journey: myself, Scott Smith, Bill Irvin, Daniel Mon­ tague and his son Jacob, Micah Englund and Arvid Englund. I presented each member with a set of copies o f period newspaper articles. Smith provided copies o f his annotated field maps. We all made a thorough site walk-through and determined that the first camp o f 1919 was situated a few more paces beyond the confluence o f streams, which now served as the entrance to camp, but more likely was the area where the aquatics activities were held. For an hour or more, we sat in our folding chairs and read •4 1 • �aloud from these first-hand accounts. The stories began to come alive again, as we followed the coun­ cil’s events through winter, spring and early summer. We listened to each week’s account in “The World News” o f activities and highlights from that first year o f camp. The following article helps to share these stories, and to explain the development and operations o f “first Powhatan” which operated from 1919 until 1921. F irst P owhatan The idea o f Boy Scouting came to America from England in 1909, following the success o f Lord Baden Powell’s publication “Scouting for Boys.” The Boy Scouts o f America became incorporated in February 1910, and a national office was established soon thereafter. It would be years until a formal hierarchy o f local councils could emerge, so the Scouting movement spread in grassroots fashion, with local troops being chartered directly with the national office. The very first troop in Roanoke was Troop 1, chartered in March 1910 by First Presbyterian Church. This large group o f Scouts, under the leadership o f Bruce Buford, was already meeting as part o f a national Presby­ terian outdoor program for boys called “The Covenanters.” Other churches, and the local YMCA, soon formed Scout troops. At least four more troops were formed in Roanoke and Salem during this first year. By the time the Roanoke Council o f the Boy Scouts o f America was organized in August 1915, local troops had already demonstrated success in staging large, inter-troop outdoor activities including hikes, camping trips and eve­ ning campfires. As early as June 1911, the Roanoke WorldNews reported “five companies o f Boy Scouts in Roanoke, and the one in Salem, planned to camp out for ten days near Bennett’s Springs, about six miles north o f Salem.” In 1912, troops from Salem and Roanoke journeyed by train to a tent camp at “Island Ford” in the Shenandoah Valley. Beginning in 1913, Troop 1 held the first o f many weeklong camps at Hardy’s Ford along the Roanoke River. That same summer, Roanoke troops 2, 3 and 4 held a weeklong outdoor camp at Ripley Springs near New Castle. The Roanoke Council formed as a corporate body in 1915, but it only had one paid executive, Douglas “D.D.” Withers. The council relied on the volunteer leadership o f the business community, and especially the fathers o f HAniiok«''* HeaJit K itr o tit» . !>. f>, Scouts who were already active. A camp committee was Wither«» talk* It OTtr frith IMli formed and began to provide much-needed oversight for Beard« noted Scoot. i a council-wide summer camp program. The first signifi­ cant outpost occurred in late summer 1918, as 75 boys from Roanoke troops came together for a two-week camp along Jennings Creek in Arcadia. Soon after this, council leaders realized that a more permanent campsite would be advantageous, one which could undergo improvements from year to year. By mid-winter, the camp committee (comprised o f Gar­ rett Gooch Jr., J.W. Hancock, W.L. Powell, W.N. “Bill” Hobbie, E.T. McNamera, C.T. Jones and M.E. Bolinger) had targeted the area north o f Arcadia known as the Belfast section o f the national forest. On •4 2 • �mMatixafOridy April 29, 1919, the council announced it had selected a site for its permanent summer camp along the upper Elk Creek, pending approval o f the Forest Service. The World-News wrote: “Some of these committeemen, with expert advisors on sanitation, landscapes, etc. have been combing the vales o f likely interest hereabout for some weeks, starting with the first rise o f sap, in search o f the right place for a camp that can be developed into what the Roanoke Council o f Scouts needs and the boys deserve. Last week, the entire committee, along with Dr. W. Browaley Foster, city health officer, and Representative James R Woods, went to the place finally chosen for a concluding survey. They came back satisfied that they had found the right spot.” The location o f this new camp was at the trailhead o f Sulphur Springs Hollow, described as being at the “crow’s foot” or confluence o f three streams forming Elk Creek. This first site was just a mile or so past the site o f the Belfast Trail and the Devil’s Marbleyard. They anticipated using from 10-15 acres o f ground on the east fork, as follows: “East fork fo rm s a crow’s foot at the point chosen and it is the intention to secure from the Department o f Interior a lease for such o f the ground as lies between the two outer toes of the crow’s foot and have the main camp straddle the middle toe, the stream forming the latter appendage offering excellent opportunity for bathing facilities, sanitary arrangements, etc. That the lease can be consummated without delay or hitch, the Scout authorities have been assured.” At this time, the council reported serving 325 Scouts in the Roanoke area. The initial plan was to operate a four-week program during the entire month o f August, and Scouts could attend from one to four weeks, “as suits their circumstances.” Planning continued at a fast pace for the next few months, “so that no time may be lost when the land is taken over.” The exact date o f approval for the use o f the Forest Service land is unknown, but it did not take long. By June, the World- News reported that registrations for camp were being taken and the camp •4 3 • �committee had sent Dr. Rowbotham o f the YMCA’s Camp Corps to procure enough surplus Army tents to run the Scout camp r.< 1 T I T « n o i K i J J*r**Nl*ftt ****..#*-<-. «*•*•.. «««..è*..*.** . » . J* ¥1. Vltffattkln, 1 this first year. Rowbotham traveled to Iftrmt Vi*;-# ***«. *****+■»■•* *• * . tir» W, I t I*#** *r ! Jiff on flj Vi c i y f «»tanti t *•*.*:* *■*■#.■»*»!»*♦«V#é i*r. W , II, I**»#*## I ViUfti Vital rrtttié««à» - . Poauh vie# Pr*#4d*«i »>,, t ,y y,t*%yirtierM ai I1 Camp Wadsworth in Spartanburg, South tV w w e w |f. in. H u rt I Carolina, and “through his activities the Comm i»*!«** r . . . *%„ -, W Hm.lt h I ¥ C n w ftlM iliiif r **«»«* „,»*«.,»** ♦ .* # * ..* * * , f& it, J#*ttwtm Scouts have been able to secure needed S o rfrltu ry #ti«i JEa* , ...... . » t>, IÀ W it Her» j m i:*t T»»in » i t A f i o m c i T t «> T H U i r i i s r i t u K r <h b » tentage and other equipment from the J o h n W o o lr o ttf, W liu ti* !* , V. f H a ir * . If.. W, X H ttf. Lmwi W rtl, t!«!* J. f t JfcfcRafoit, T , W - fiplntitp* Army Depot, and this material is now on P m i a tir , W . U P 'w r t i , If. I t C - II. «p####,,. W. H. J Powsrtfl, J, A lto n f la t rj|#r, I t P w # 01 $, p jg Cnrnt}«|L If, W,. I X«Mr*r, fltit, W . A t A. W a tla r A. T. # . I its way to Roanoke.” Additionally, “a Boy w in , K \ VV# 1 »on, io M fik j . w , Haitc-oite, I t 2^## tjTH»* &Tb«rt _1 Vrfllt, J. M. Jam#»,on* 0 . W„ J 1 Scout past fifty years o f age who refuses to give name, address or admit his age” ROANOKE SCOUTS IN TH E OPEN had generously financed this purchase “so that funds that otherwise would have gone into absolute necessities o f the first camp may now be used for development pur­ poses.” Reports in the newspaper indicat­ ed a regular work detail was traveling to the campsite under the direction o f Scout Executive D.D. Withers. In one article, it was reported that “a party o f about twenty older scouts will go to camp June 23 to construct a dam and make a pool, which will be ample for swimming and water sports.” The well-known construction contractor Chris Markley “recently visited the site to make a survey for the pool, and has drawn the plans for specifications.” There were other indications o f proposed camp life by this time, as the waterproof “squad tents” had been procured and inspected, along with enough Army mess kits from which each Scout would eat. Unlike today’s camp model where entire troops register and attend summer camp, the first years o f Camp Powhatan used a “provisional troop” concept. Withers was the designated camp direc­ tor, and would be assisted by the Scout masters in taking care o f the boys. Great attention was given to reassuring parents that their boys would be kept safe. One news report ended with a promise that “every feature o f camp is being carefully planned, and nothing will be left undone which would add to the pleasure, welfare, health, or safety o f those who attend.” Preparations for camp were “virtually completed” by July 23 as Withers reported through the World-News. Rain had interfered with the final work excursion, as they had hoped to finish the dam across the creek. Undaunted, Withers wrote, “the pool and the camp in general are in good shape and need only the finishing touches which the campers themselves will put on upon their arrival.” (With­ ers later described, at the end o f camp, the full extent o f the finished dam which actually did not take long to complete: “The boys created their own swimming pool by building a fifty-foot dam across the east fork o f Elk Creek, making a pool 50x130 feet. The boys also went to work and made a ‘spring board’ and provided other swimming facilities.”) It was also formally announced in July that the Scout committee had named this site “Camp Powhatan,” which was explained in greater detail many years later by Orren Clark, an older Scout Roanoke Council Boy Scout» of America m m �who was a part o f the first camp’s formation: “My first brush with Camp Powhatan, which it later was to be called, was in the spring o f 1919 when I was pressed into service to drive Garrett Gooch’s Cadillac touring car on an inspection o f the proposed Boy Scout camp near Natural Bridge Station, Virginia. “My passengers on the trip were members o f the Camp Committee —Mr. (John W.) Cure, D.D. Withers, and Bill Hobbie. We crossed the James River near Green­ lee and followed a country road to a farm house across Elk Creek from what was later to be called ‘2nd Powhatan.’ We continued on up along East Elk Creek on a logging road for about a half mile, until we struck a sharp rock hidden in the grass in the middle o f the road. This effectively brought us to an abrupt stop with a split oil pan. D.D. Withers grabbed a coffee pot, the only container we had, to catch the oil pouring from the crack in the pan. It was lucky he did, as we were miles from any garage. “We continued on foot about two miles to the proposed camp site where three creeks came together. We found an old abandoned log cabin on the site which was later to be used as a storehouse. It was a beautiful location nestled down in the wilds with mountains surrounding on all sides. “On our return trip by nursing our salvaged oil supply and buying a gallon o f oil from a garage near Natural Bridge, we managed to slip and slide over muddy roads back to Roanoke. When the question came up for a name for the camp, I suggested ‘Powhatan’ as I had recently played the part o f Chief Powhatan in a class play in high school. The committee liked it, so it was so named.” Registrations for the first summer session were slow to materialize, with only 27 Scouts signed up by July 24. A work crew arrived at camp on July 24 to put up tents and make final preparations. The announcement was made that a lifesaving corps was being organized among the older boys under the direction o f First Class Scout John Cure. “Those who qualify for the corps will be given a bathing suit bearing the monogram C.P.” It was also reported that “the suits will be green and the monograms o f yel­ low, the official colors o f the camp.” The newspaper stated that W ithers’ brother, John, had recently returned from France after serving in the American Expeditionary Forces, and would attend camp as a leader. Scout Master W.B. Mays of Troop 23 was named Officer o f the Day for the first day o f the first week o f camp. It would be his duty “to see that the set program is started on time and carried out fully.” On July 28, the World- News reported that “Camp Powhatan is Open Today.” It was apparently not well-organized in terms o f transporting this group o f boys from Roanoke, as the newspaper noted that “many o f the boys who could not leave the city today will go down later.” Orren Clark was among the 21 Scouts who first arrived. “The camp will be thoroughly democratic,” the article continued. “Each tent will accommodate eight scouts, who form a patrol and elect their leader. Three tents will form a troop, which will be under a scout master and assistant. These, with the other leaders, will compose the Council, which will manage the affairs o f the camp. The Scout Law will be the law o f the camp.” The opportunities o f a weeklong outdoor program included aquatics, woodcraft, camp skills, hiking, sports (e.g., baseball and volleyball) and rank advancement. The daily schedule was highly regi- •45» �mented, yet flexible enough for groups o f boys to take hikes out o f camp for several hours at a time, or overnight. The World-News listed the daily schedule as follows: 7:00 - Reveille. 7:05 - Getting Up Exercises. 7:10 - Morning Dip. 7:30 - Breakfast. After breakfast, tents and blankets are to be aired and cleaned as per orders for the day. 8:15- Scout Law Study. 8:30 - Scoutcraft Instruction, practice and contests. Officer o f the day makes his inspection during this period and awards the pennant. 11:15 - M orning Swim and Swimming Instruction. 12:15 - Dinner. Afternoon Rest Period until 2:00. 2:00 - Afternoon Fun - Games, Hikes, Contests, etc. 4:00 - Afternoon Swim. 5:30 - Retreat Ceremony and Reports. 6:00 - Supper. 7:00 - Campus Games. 8:30 - Camp Fire Programs. 9:45 - Call to Quarters. 10:00 - Taps. The first week o f camp went well, according to a favorable news report on Sunday, Aug. 3. The newspaper wrote o f 38 Scouts completing the week, but registrations for subsequent weeks were flag­ ging because Director Withers practically begged for more kids to attend at the last minute. He an­ nounced to the newspaper that Scouts “may come on to the camp and register after their arrival.” One factor that might have discouraged registrations was the daunting trek from the Norfolk & Western train station to the remote camp which was nestled deep in the national forest. Withers tried to assure the Scouts’ families that “the trail to camp from Natural Bridge Station is well marked, and that the Scouts can find it without difficulty, and will not need the services o f a guide.” However, in a subsequent news article, Withers gave the exact directions to camp, and they were not very amenable by today’s stan­ dards: “Take the train to Natural Bridge Station. Camp is six miles from the station. Fol­ low the sign boards. A short cut saves a mile. Jitneys may be secured at the sta­ tion, which will take you within a mile and a half o f camp. Trains at present leave Roanoke daily at 12:40 and 6:25 pm. It is probable that auto trucks will be used to take parties to camp on certain days. On the opening day o f each period baggage will be transferred from the station to camp free o f charge. At all other times the camper must arrange about his baggage.” That a youngster would board a train in Roanoke with his week’s kit, and disembark at Natu­ ral Bridge Station without a guide - for a 6-mile hike to camp - seems quite remarkable to readers a hundred years hence. The journey was summed up in one sentence in a personal account by Scoutmaster B.K. “Barney” Haley. “First Powhatan,” he wrote, “was a rugged tent camp, and all supplies had to be • 46 • �carried in, or hauled by wagon, as they only had a rough mountain road with several streams to ford.” An untold number o f boys showed up for the second week, and the newspaper gave a full ac­ count o f “activities going at full blast, with a regular routine established.” Withers and his adult staff promoted several boys to leadership roles to help with the daily operations, and were “put in charge o f several phases of the camp work.” This included opening and operating the camp canteen and leading program activities. The older Scouts were also given the chance to take long overnight hikes, as they would trek across the mountains to the Peaks o f Otter and return the next day. On Friday, it was reported that “a party o f the scouts hiked to a nearby peak called Piney Mountain. Here they had dinner, and after dinner journeyed about six miles along a trail on the crest o f the Blue Ridge Mountains. Huckle­ berries were plentiful and formed a good portion o f the diet o f the hikers.” The evening campfires, especially the program on Friday evening, quickly became a popu­ lar feature o f Camp Powhatan that first summer. During those first weeks, older Scouts known as “the Bachelor Seven” had been appointed as guides for the younger Scouts, and were put in charge o f the Friday night camp­ fire. JjQt e r m s o f C & m p food ‘"’t V B A l i i * I ’#” —-TB i* A t t l l i f T i " * it? Ye n 1 TUf l l lb In 1 * ’ lU * t C o n liU o n , U a n , O i J t f l y .U fdD K rii, Kte, the World-News stated that “Wednesday and Sunday din­ ners vie with each other for quantity and tempting quality. Last Wednesday, the menu consisted o f fried chicken with rice and gravy and hot biscuits, with huckleberry pie as dessert.” Wohlford Barksdale was the cook that week, “and the boys say they are satisfied.” Lodging at camp was composed o f “eight sleeping tents, a cooking tent, a tent for the director, a tent for the cook, and a recreation tent which has been dubbed ‘Buzzards’ Roost.’” There was a “library of twenty volumes o f story and nature reference books, along with a reading room equipped with writing tables, stationery, ink and other paraphernalia” for sending letters home. The camp was said to “receive and dispatch mail daily.” At the end o f the second week, members o f the council’s executive committee made the journey to Camp Powhatan. Several of them had boys in camp that week. “The visitors were much pleased with the appearance o f the camp,” wrote the World-News, “and the happy, healthy condition in which they found the boys. The sanitary arrangement o f the camp is good, and there is an abundance o f wholesome, well-cooked food, and a spring of pure mountain water which was tested at the beginning o f the season by the Roanoke Health Department.” The men stayed the night in camp, and the following morning conducted the day’s inspection “with the boys in formation in front o f their tents.” It was customary for a pennant to be awarded to “the tent found in the best orderly condition, and which had complied most perfectly with all scout rules.” No mention o f the third week was made in the World-News, but a large article appeared at the end o f the fourth week, along with four photographs o f camp life. (Unfortunately, these photos appear �very difficult to make out in the high-contrast microfilm o f old newspapers.) Camp Powhatan was said to be unusually full o f activity” in this last week o f the first season. Withers wrote a full account o f the week, and the World-News ran it verbatim. He described a “round robin baseball league between the Panthers and the Devil Dogs” with games being played each day after dinner. Aquatics was also popular, as “the campers have taken an exceptional interest in this form o f sport, and have lived up to their original motto, ‘Every camper a swimmer.’” A swim meet was held on Tuesday “to determine the scouts entitled to the monogrammed bathing suits offered to those who qualify for the Swimming Training Corps.” (O f note to artifact collectors, the color o f the monogram by the fourth week had changed from yellow to orange, as the official camp colors were now green and orange.) The close o f this first year also brought accolades to the council staging a multi-week summer camp at a fixed site which could be improved upon in subsequent years. Financially, the program was a success as they realized the five dollars each boy paid for board was also enough to cover most o f the expenses that first year. The biggest chal­ lenge seemed to be the steep, rocky road leading into the site, which left the camp detached from any needed amenities, and impassable for most automobiles o f the day. While the road would be re-graded two years later, the decision was ultimately made in 1922 to move the camp downstream to the Belfast trailhead for better access. In a noble declaration at the closing o f this first season, director Withers wrote how Camp Pow­ hatan was already full o f tradition: Although Camp Powhatan has passed but one season, its history is already rich with traditions and stories which will be handed down to future campers by whom it may be imitated. The story o f how the stampede that followed the sighting o f a ghost at the old cabin made the trail to the swimming pool, will be told and retold with many and increasing details as campers o f other years come and go. Incidents connected with the founding o f the camp and the adoption o f its customs will live in the lives o f the campers, to be told to their brothers and friends and re-lived by coming scouts.” Sadly, as the years rolled into decades, these stories o f the first camp were not widely “handed down,” and were mostly forgotten as attention shifted to the new camp (1922-1949), and then to its suc­ cessor camp (1950-present). Were it not for just a few brief recollections by old-time Scouters, discov­ ered after being tucked away in a time capsule for 25 years, this posthumous account - and a rediscov­ ery o f the first camp —might not have happened. In a much more significant tribute, the entire outdoor program o f today’s Blue Ridge Mountains Council can trace its direct lineage to these inspired men and boys o f Roanoke who not only envisioned a first summer camp, but actually built it in the middle o f a dense, thicketed “crows foot” in the Jefferson • 48• �National Forest. From these three small streams, w e’ve seen where a mighty river has flowed through several generations o f youth. Today’s Scout reservation in Pulaski County, serves thousands o f youth each season, and provides a diverse range o f outdoor adventure which is guided by one sole purpose: to build strong minds, bodies and character -- just as the Boy Scouts o f the Roanoke Council set out to do a hundred years ago at first Powhatan. E pilogue This first site served the council for three years before it was dis­ mantled and left behind. By all appearances, the land has returned to its original state with the excep­ tion o f an improved gravel road and a new bridge over Elk Creek. The infamous 50-foot dam across the creek was removed by the Scouts as they moved to second Powhatan. Its traces were washed away long ago. The abandoned log cabin and its foundation have also been erased. There is no evidence o f a baseball diamond, nor a large, open area where several big Army tents were placed. New growth seems to have View ot Seme s i Ut* Test* Piteli t4 Amia the Metinla.li» FjMrt»«**. fully reclaimed the forest over these past 100 years. Unfortunately for local historians, there seems to be a complete lack o f extant photography o f first Powhatan. At least, no photos or negatives have turned up yet. Not at the newspaper (which was long ago absorbed by the Roanoke Times); not at the local Scout council (which was succeeded by the Blue Ridge Mountains Council); and not with the public at large. However, there may be a trove o f unrecognized negatives or prints which turns up one day. One news article suggested the Scouts should learn how to “use their Kodaks” before coming to camp, so they could take plenty o f pictures. In another article, director Withers was said to have taken a photograph o f the winning patrol who won each week’s coveted “Tent Inspection Pennant.” So we know there were photographs. For now, w e’re fortunate to renew the oral tradition o f first Powhatan, thanks to newspaper articles and other source documents. A new generation o f Scouts will come to know o f the rugged tent camp which operated from 1919 to 1921, and will hear the stories its Scouts told long ago. Hopefully, on a quiet night, if they listen closely enough, today’s Scouts might just hear the mournful wail o f the ghost o f that old log cabin —and remember how the trail to the swimming pool was etched by those startled young boys o f the Roanoke Council. As I end many a good story, “If it isn’t true, it ought to be.” •49» �bottom & tee& (fotye — ctd feeafrte by G enevieve C raighead H enderson wish to state how pleased I am that the Nature Conservancy has purchased the property now known as Bottom Creek Gorge and that others are able now to take tours and appreciate the beauty o f the area and its unique characteristics. I appreciate the work that has been done to the family cemetery, to the road and to establishing the various walking trails and overlook at the falls. However, I must admit that I become very disturbed when I read newspaper and magazine ar­ ticles and brochures which imply that it has been many, many years since anyone lived on the property and that, even back then, those residents were “hermits” or “deserters.” This is a misconception. As a native o f the area and as the great-great-granddaughter o f one o f the very earliest property owners o f that area, I feel I have an obligation to my ancestors to share information about the families who called this area their home so that those persons associated with the Conservancy and visitors may be better informed. This is my purpose for compiling this notebook. Move back in history with me to learn o f the people who called this part o f Montgomery County “home.” Residents o f the area have also stood at the top o f the mountainside and looked across Bottom Creek Gorge at the beautiful waterfall. Noah Hall did on summer days as he, with his horse or his hoe, worked out a small com patch or a few rows o f green beans on the hillside opposite the falls and prob­ ably wished for a cool dip in the rushing waters far below. You are not the first to feel the spring breeze or crisp fall wind in a mountain meadow —it was the same breeze or wind that was there when years ago a young boy or girl was walking to the little school or was sent to bring in the cows in the evening or take the horses to another pasture. Many o f us have also gazed at the log structures (and now the remains) o f Aunt Annie Collins’ home or Uncle Lee K ing’s home and recalled pleasant memories o f them and their families. Many times Amos Craighead took his grandchildren to the Funk Cemetery, and paused for a time to share stories o f the family mem­ bers and neighbors buried there and to point out the graves o f some o f them. Maude Hall King probably stood by the iron fence and gate surrounding the Hall cemetery where her parents are buried and told her grandson and granddaughter about their ancestors. As you stand by the edge o f Bottom Creek and watch the clear mountain water rushing by, and try to see the endangered species o f fish, remember that you are not the first to do so. Bottom Creek boys did this many years ago, some even catching rainbow trout to be cooked by their mothers for supper. When fishing season opened, may o f these same boys stood along the banks o f the creek and watched city slickers in their hip waders and fancy fishing equipment pull fish after fish from the dark, green pools o f water along the creek. Sometimes, the girls got to go fishing too, but with a string on a pole and a safety pin! Lucky was the young boy who found a real fishing line and hook that had gotten tangled in the brush along the edge o f the creek and left behind by a fisherman with more money than patience. Even more lucky was he when he slipped back to the creek after dark, along paths around the boulders only familiar to the local I Genevieve Craighead Henderson grew up in Bottom Creek Gorge. After a long career with Shenandoah Life Insurance Co., she lives in retirement in Roanoke County. (All photos fo r this article were provided by the author.) 50 �Hay-making at Simpson’s on the road to Bottom Creek Gorge. Nannie Poff, Ruth Simpson and a mule in the 1920s. residents, and threw this new line and hook (and a juicy worm dug along the path to the creek) into the “big kettle” or “little kettle” where the really big fish had been hiding all day. As you visit the area, take a few extra minutes and feel its history. It is a history o f strong, selfsufficient, hard-working men and women. They looked out for each other, as many had strong family ties with each other. Many also had strong religious beliefs and “knew from whence their blessings came.” Many were living and farming on the same land that their parents had farmed. Yes, they were mountain people and they were doing what they knew best to do —to grub out a living on the moun­ tainsides of Montgomery County. They may have loved the area, or hated it, but at that it was providing their livelihood. Those o f us who lived there as children with our parents remember the good times and love to go back to “touch our roots.” The Craighead ancestors, so I have been told, came to the United States from the craggy, rocky areas in Ireland. Perhaps that is why many o f the residents of this Montgomery County area by that name, or who were related to Craigheads, chose this particular rocky mountain area for their homes. At one time, this small comer o f Montgomery County, located at the end of Bottom Creek Road, was home to many families —some have said as many as 20 to 30 families had lived there at one time. The little community had its own school, Funk’s Mountain. Jerry Craighead had a grocery store in the front o f his residence, a short distance from the current entrance to the Conservancy property. Peter Craighead operated a blacksmith shop at the foot o f the hill below his home. There was a road which came down the hill from the Funk house, by a tenant house, and crossed the creek near the Peter Craighead house, which made it very convenient for persons in the area to travel just a short distance to the blacksmith shop. Clinton Craighead had a grist mill for grinding com meal. There was also a small grocery store at the W.H. Funk home. In earlier years, the people o f this area • 51 • �Noah Poff helped identify the persons in this picture, with assistance from Mrs. Ocie Craighead and Mrs. Virginia Funk Kreger. They provided names (and paraphrased comments). All those pictured were students or area residents of the original Funk’s Mountain School. First row: Sarah Funk (or possibly her sister Ruby); Alfred Hall; Lula Funk; Gay King; three of Paris Hall’s daughters (or possibly King children); Ocie Craighead; Nannie Poff; [unknown]; [unknown]; and May Hall holding probably her sister Sarah. S e co n d row: Dollie Funk; Irving Craighead; Vena Hall; Oakey Hall; Noah Poff; Sherman Poff; Irving King; Clinton Craighead; Hubert Manning; Linden Craighead; Willie Poff; and the teacher (possibly Ora Jewell from Shawsville). Third row: Houston Manning with baby; his wife Mary Manning (she was perhaps a Poff); lla Poff; Oscar Manning; Virginia Funk (possibly); Omar Manning; Roxie Manning; Claude Manning; Ziff Funk; Tonsie Poff; Berta King. could purchase apples and pears from R. Woods Hall and pork from Peter O. King. The main grocery store which served the area, when I was a child, was owned by Oakley King, a son o f Peter and Maggie King, and was located near the Oakley King home, farther around the Bottom Creek loop. The dying o f the older residents, jobs in the city, World War II, the automobile, education, a desire that the lives o f their children be better than theirs - for all o f these reasons the number o f fami­ lies living in the area began to decrease. Only a short section o f the road leading into this property was maintained by the highway department and that maintenance usually involved grading once a year with a road grader. When it snowed, the residents had to open the road with horses and a homemade wooden snow plow, or stay at home until the snow melted. It was difficult to work at public works and fight mud and snow on the road for several months each winter and spring. With the improvement o f the economy following the Great Depression o f 1929 and the early 1930s, many people from the Bottom Creek area found jobs or returned to jobs in Roanoke, especially at the railroad and the silk mill. Gradually, young families found homes in other areas which were more • 52 • �convenient to their places o f work. The last families to actually reside in this area probably left in the early to mid-1950s. Amos Craighead moved to live with a son at Blue Ridge. After Annie Collins’ chil­ dren were all grown and her youngest daughter married, she moved from the area. Bob Hall stayed at his home until he had to be admitted to the hospital and died shortly thereafter. He was probably the last o f the original families to leave the area comprising the Nature Conservancy land. A considerable amount o f the land in this area had been owned originally by William Craighead, who was known as “Grandpap Billy” Craighead. The 1850 census lists him as age 45, with a wife Susan (Susannah Maxey) and eight children. Old records show that William Craighead had slaves. Also, in late years, the blacks would work for Levi Funk on the land which he farmed and live in tenant houses on his property. This accounts for a number o f blacks having been buried in a section o f the Funk Cemetery. There was an old wagon road which led off the main road through this area and was used for a shortcut to Shawsville and Christiansburg. The road began in the curve beyond the Maxey place, the tract o f land that was purchased from the Amos Craighead estate for use as a Boy Scout camp in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The road snaked its way down the mountain, passed the Beckner house and came out in the Alleghany Springs area o f Montgom­ ery, near Camp Kiwaniana, a camp owned by the Roanoke Kiwanis Foundation and used by Girl Scouts in the 1940s and 1950s. On the left side o f the road as one traveled down the Norwood Moran is standing beside Aunt Annie Collins home. mountain was a large rock which jutted out from the mountainside. Area blacks held their worship services at that location. Since there were no seats or shelter o f any sort, persons traveling down the road would see the blacks “stand­ ing on the side o f the mountain” for their services and that particular mountain has always been known (and named) as the place for these meetings. Another story passed down over the generations was that a black family lived in an old log house on the Maxey property. The house was very open and was really more like a bam than a dwelling. One cold wintry night, long logs had been placed in the fireplace, with the ends o f the logs sticking out o f the door. It was the intent that the logs would be pushed into the fireplace as they burned and the door would then be closed. However, sometime during the night all o f the occupants fell asleep, the logs were not fed into the fire as the fire died down and went out, and the door to the bitter cold remained open. All the occupants were found frozen to death the next day. The aforementioned road down the mountain to Shawsville (or to “down on the river” as peo­ ple of the area referred to the foot of the mountain) was used for many purposes. It was a shortcut to Shawsville, where many o f the people had to shop for 53 �Harvest time at a barn between Bottom Creek Road and Patterson. Man on steam engine (right) was probably William Stump, known for his work. things that could not be purchased in the neighborhood stores. Some residents walked that route to Christiansburg to pay real estate taxes or to handle other legal affairs at the courthouse. Young couples traveled down the mountain road on their way to Christiansburg to obtain marriage licenses, especially when they were “running away to get married.” Loads o f tanbark and crossties cut down from deep in Poor Mountain or other Bottom Creek mountainsides were hauled down the wagon road by oxen to Shawsville or Christiansburg, as tanbark and crossties provided much needed income. Records show that many o f the Craigheads and Funks were sawmillers and they hauled their lumber by wagon over this road. Old census records also list the oc­ cupation o f one area resident who worked at another resident’s sawmill as “engineer.” He ran the steam engine that generated the power for running the sawmill. A number o f marriages involved Bottom Creek natives and Alleghany Springs natives, so this wagon road was used for courting and later for visiting the families left behind. Even as late as the 1940s and early 1950s, several Bottom Creek boys traveled to Alleghany Springs to find their wives, but better roads and the automobile had replaced the horse and buggy and the old wagon road. Another shortcut to Shawsville was a walking path through the R. Woods Hall property. The best route to Shawsville, but a long route for these people, went down the mountain near the Angle property (now King property). It was a rough and very steep road, but it could be traveled by automobile and was a favorite route for Clinton Craighead when he took his family to visit his brother Linden and his family, even though with each trip his family feared the car was going to roll over the side o f the mountain and •5 4 • �not be found for days. The side o f the car that was close to the steep drop-off was not the choice seat! One looks at a waterfall, a mountaintop, a beaver dam, a towering pine or a wildflower and sees beauty. In addition to the natural splendor o f the area, many o f us who spent some o f our childhood there saw the beauty of the people who called this area home and we feel their love and also their sorrow. I recall the stories passed down from one generation to the next o f the happy times these families shared and o f their times o f sorrow. I share (and relive) the joys when a little one is bom into the family and I can feel the sorrow associated with the death o f children, parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and neighbors, especially in a rural neighborhood where you really know your neighbors. I can still feel the excitement and hear the noisy clanging o f the big threshing machine in the field across from the cemetery as Uncle Pete threshed buckwheat for Mr. Funk and I can hear the splashing and squeals o f delight o f the neighborhood kids on a hot summer day at the old swimming hole below Bottom Creek Church. It’s Saturday afternoon again and I can smell freshly ground commeal as my daddy grinds com for his family and his neighbors. I can taste M ama’s molasses cookies which she is taking out o f the oven o f the old wood stove just as we pop in the back door after school. I ’m 5 years old again and can taste M ama’s homemade fruitcake which she had carefully wrapped in a white cloth after pouring over the cake some o f the homemade foxgrape wine that Jerry Craighead had given her. I can hear the calls o f many whippoorwills as our family sits on the porch after supper in the summertime. I can feel how hard the wind blew and chilled me to the very bone as I walked home from the school bus stop on a cold wintry day. And I can still hear the happy whistle (from a Sons o f the Pio­ neers tune) o f a soldier who is returning to his family at the end o f World War II, as he walks along the road to Aunt Annie Collins’ home (now the Johnson Trail). Those o f us who lived in this area appreciated its beauty also, but most o f all we appreciated its people, for they made it our home and gave us precious memories. No one ever loved the Bottom Creek area more than Kenneth B. Mullins, grandson o f Amos and Edith Craighead. He lived with his grandparents and uncle and aunt, Clinton and Ruth Craighead, when he was a small boy. Later, he spent holidays and summer vacations on Bottom Creek. K enneth M ullins, Sept. 4, 1929-A p ril 23, 1986 To K enneth: —the air w as fresh er —the fo o d ta sted better —the sky w as bluer —the sunshine was brighter —the snow w as alw ays deeper —it w as a g reat p la ce fo r a boy to build a cabin —it was alw ays his home. L ittle B rown C hurch When anyone who has ever lived on Bottom Creek hears the words o f that old familiar song (“Oh, come to the church in the w ildwood...”), it brings back sweet memories o f the little church on Bottom Creek. The doors to the church at the entrance to the Nature Conservancy property have long been closed but for many years it was the church o f many o f the residents o f this section o f Montgomery County and others living in the Bottom Creek section o f Roanoke County. When my parents were young, the church was used by various denominations, with one hold­ ing service one Sunday and another holding service the following week. But regardless o f which church group was holding the service, many o f the same persons would be present for each. Revivals and gospel 55 �meetings were looked for­ ward to and an all-day meet­ ing and singing and dinner on the grounds would be very special events. The little church was an unpainted, wooden struc­ ture for many years and was later covered with siding. At one time, it stood among tall pine and oak trees. Lots o f times, an acorn would fall on the tin roof in the middle o f a prayer and this always brought giggles from the little boys. The building was only one room, with criss­ crossed wires and light tan curtains that could be drawn to separate the building into classrooms for Sunday School and Bible School. One o f the ladies living nearby always assumed the responsibility for cleaning the building, filling the lamps with kerosene, trimming the wick and washing the soot off the lamps from the previous service. And a man who lived nearby would see that there was some firewood for the little potbelly stove and would come to the church a little ahead o f everyone else and have a fire going to warm up the building in winter months. My grandmother, Mrs. Rena Shaver Woods Craighead, cleaned the church when she lived nearby. F unk’s M ountain S chool For a number o f years, Montgomery County operated a small one-room school for this remote section o f the county. The school was located on the right-hand side o f the road leading to the Walter Manning homeplace. The Conservancy’s brochure shows the road as Loop Trail. The school was located on Loop Trail, just a short distance from the beginning o f Johnson Trail. As with all other small country schools o f that period, there was an outdoor toilet, the building was heated with a wood stove and water had to be carried from a neighbor’s spring. Mary Anne Craighead advised me that her mother taught at the school and they have a picture o f her with one o f the students. Often the teacher boarded with local families. One teacher who was special to my family was Miss Mabel Conner, whose family lived “down on the river” (Alleghany Springs). Miss Conner would stay with us during the week and then walk down the mountain on Friday afternoon. Quite often, some o f the school children would walk with her, at least part o f the way, so she would not have to travel alone. On Sunday afternoon, her brother would walk with her back up the mountain. It must have been a challenge for a young teacher to control a number o f highly spirited students, some as big or bigger than the teacher! And there was always some young man in the community who was sweet on the school teacher. As small as the school was, the teacher and students would put together programs and invite the parents (and the whole neighborhood). Even though the books on the wall shelves that made up the school library were few in number and had been read over and over by many o f the children, those few books gave the students a look at the world outside o f Funk’s Mountain on which to build their dreams. • 56 �A number o f the stu­ dents had to help with spring and fall chores on the farms and could attend school only in the winter months or on rainy days. Some had to miss school to stay home with younger brothers and sisters when mothers had to help in the fields. And some students just found good excuses to miss school! My brother, Donald, was more interested in finding out what made a motor run or why it wouldn’t run or tinkering with my dad on a sawmill than he was with what he could learn at Recess time at Funk’s Mountain School. (Ocie Craighead is the first school. student on the left on the back row.) Students who finished all o f the grades being taught at Funk’s Mountain would have to transfer to Bent Mountain for high school and Roanoke County would pick up the education o f those students for Montgomery County. Many would end their educa­ tion at the end o f grade school or stay in school and repeat classes for a year or so before quitting school. As more families moved from the area and the students decreased in number, Montgomery County and Roanoke County entered into an agreement whereby Roanoke County would assume educational responsibilities for the students o f the area. There were mixed feelings with the closing o f the school. Some families were anxious for their children to go to Bent Mountain and have better educational op­ portunities. Some worried about the distance involved with sending small children all the way to Bent Mountain. All were concerned over the loss o f the little school which had been so much a part o f the community. After the school was closed, Mr. Jim Poff purchased the building and used the lumber in building a three-story building near his home. All traces o f the little school disappeared at the time the Conser­ vancy tore down the Walter Manning (later Jim Poff) house and adjacent buildings. Only the stories and memories and possibly a few snapshots o f the little school remain, along with memories o f a first kiss behind the school or a love letter passed from a little country boy to a little country girl when the teacher was not looking. Whenever we had a big snow as children, Grandpa Amos Craighead could remind us that it wasn’t much o f a snow when compared to the storm that came when he was in his mid-teens —the big storm o f 1890. Grandpa said that he was about as old as he was when he was telling us about the storm, that when he held his arms out straight from his shoulders, the snow came up under his arm pits. He told us that when his mother and a sister went to the spring to get water the morning after the snow stopped so they could make coffee for breakfast, the snow was so deep they could not find the spring. He also told us they had to go in and out o f windows because the snow was so deep the doors would not open. •57• �&etttunty &Cci& <z K iw i tnifc by G eorge K egley n A pril and M ay 1913, som e 15 m em bers and friends o f the C entury Club o f R oanoke, a gathering o f the m ost prom inent m en in tow n, rode a train to Cincinnati, a steam er dow n the river to M em phis and another train back hom e in a significant outing. Edw ard L. Stone, one o f the leaders, called it “a delightful trip down the Ohio and M ississippi rivers.” A journal o f the excursion w as printed afterward. The C entury Club w as com prised o f the directors o f the C entury B anking and Safe D eposit Com pany w hich consolidated w ith the N ational E xchange Bank. A fter another m erger and a series o f banking transactions, Wells Fargo B ank is the result. In a facetious requirem ent, the club ruled that eligible m em bers m ust be “a century old in either years or experience.” O ne historian described the club as “an elite social and com m ercial booster organization.” A s they started out, this b it o f doggerel w as “left on board Car 100 by T.W. G oodw in” (note the nam es o f the participants): I H ere’s to a ll aboard Captain, crew, and p a rty! They can d rink like a Fish, Crow like a Cocke, R o ll like a Stone, A n d blow a p erfec t Gale, B efore they can se t sail; Then they can hunt in the Woods, Run as the D o ’ran, B e strong as the Buck, L ive in a C assell B u ilt in N ew ton — Should they go as fa r as L ew isianna So ’H o fo r Captain Johnson. A 1914 history o f the club explained its m em bership this way: “Those m em bers who enjoy the festal fel­ low ship o f the club and w ho w ere not directors o f the C entury C om pany have attained the m ature age o f experi­ ence in building the N orfolk & W estern R ailw ay from a single track spur to a double track line or in converting the village o f B ig L ick into the City o f R oanoke.” M ore than one “enjoy a healthy credit balance.” M em bers had lofty ideals, labeled as “Club O bjects.” A m ong them were: ♦ To talk R oanoke first, Virginia second, A m erica third and the rest o f the w orld w hen convenient; ♦ To reduce the cost o f living and especially the cost o f running autom obiles; ♦ To take plenty o f exercise, w orking eight hours, resting eight and eight for pleasure; ♦ To m eet their friends w ith a sm ile and their enem ies w ith tw o sm iles so as to m ake them friends; ♦ To w o rk to prom ote pure elections, clean governm ent and a beautiful Roanoke. B ack to the outing. They w ere led by Lucius E. Johnson, N & W president, know n here as “L ord H igh A dm iral.” W hen they reached Cincinnati, they played golf, took in a m atinee at K eith’s, enjoyed a hotel luncheon, a “very elaborate dinner party” hosted by J.B. Fishbum , and som e w ent to the theater to see M argaret Ilington in George K egley is editor o f the Journal. 58 �The party at Memphis, with part of the reception committee. (Photos from the river trip are reproduced from a booklet titled “An Outing of the Century Club of Roanoke, Virginia Accompanied by Some Friends,” 1913.) “K indling.” Johnson announced that he w ould call on som e m em ber o f the party for a short talk at each lunch or din ner. In his talk, railw ay general attorney Lucian Cocke recalled that residents in extended B otetourt County on the w aters o f the Ohio and M ississippi rivers w ere exem pt from paying taxes for a jail in Fincastle because the B otetourt C ounty court recognized that those areas w ill need a ja il o f their ow n at some time. Cocke also put in a w ord for his room m ate, Col. Jam es P. W oods, w ho selected the upper berth. C onsidering W oods’ berth and size, Cocke said he w as “apt to get in closer com panionship w ith him w hen it breaks through and he com es crashing down into m y berth.” (The outing report does not tell us i f that break occurred.) Traveling on the steam er F red H all, they tied up at M adison, Indiana, for the night and m int juleps w ere served. Toasts w ere offered, including this one to E dw ard Stone: “H ere’s to our very own, I f he is a rolling Stone; His own load tote Even when riding on a boat. ” A nother toast w ent to Jam es C. C assell, form er railroad executive: “H ere’s to your beer, whoever its maker May your bier ne ’er be served by an undertaker. ” N ext stop w as Louisville, w here they w ere greeted by local railroad officials, w ho gave them a ride around the city, a visit to Churchill D ow ns, a country club lunch, g o lf m atch and a baseball gam e betw een L ou­ isville and M ilwaukee. From Louisville, they rode on to Stevensport and Addison, Kentucky, for an evening o f poker. A picture o f m en decked out w ith hats, coast and ties bears the caption, “M orning gossip around one o f the round tables.” 59 �A t H enderson, Kentucky, they had m int juleps in loving cups, barbecue at the Elks Club, a greeting by the mayor, follow ed by an evening o f card gam es, w riting letters, chatting or looking about the town. F or a Sunday luncheon, Col. W oods read the 25th Psalm and offered a prayer. W hen the boat stopped at Cairo, Illinois, J.B. Fishbum w as called for a talk at din n er. He referred to a passage in Luke 1: 64, stating: “and his m outh w as opened im m ediately and his tongue loosed.” H e said that verse probably fit him . Fishbum then told a story about a young m an w ho took his sw eetheart to a ball. A s they danced, he noticed w hat he thought w as a raveling sticking our o f her A snap of the party aboard the Fred Hall. sleeve. H e tugged at it and kept at it as they danced until he had finished winding. N ext m orning, the girl told her m other that a funny thing happened after the dance. W hen she got ready for bed, she found that her union suit had disappeared. Reflecting on the outing, Fishbum said, “W hat m ore could a m an w ant than to have his b est friends and neighbors w ith him on such a trip — especially his old friends?” B elow N ew M adrid, M issouri, a problem arose on the F red H all w hen the flues started leaking and they had to go ashore to dum p the fires. A fter some work, the engineer w as able to get the flues in condition and they traveled on to C am thersville w here fires w ere dum ped and the boiler w as pu t in first-class condition. They m oved on, m aking about 55 m iles to D aniel’s Point, A rkansas, for the night. Since each m an on the list for speeches had done his duty, there w as no talk that night. W hen they reached M em ­ phis on Thursday, M ay 8, “A dm iral” Johnson com plim ented the m en at a closing luncheon: “It is w ith the greatest pleasure that I am able to put on record that during the entire nine days th at w e have been on this trip, there has no t been a disagree­ able thing done or w ord uttered by any m an in this party that offense could b e taken at in connection w ith our loved ones at hom e.” T hey gave Morning gossip around one of the round tables. him a loving cup and boarded the M em phis Special at 8 o ’clock. T hey stopped in C hatta­ nooga for a b rie f guided autom obile tour o f M issionary R idge and Chickam auga Park. On Friday, M ay 9, they left on Train 42 at 11 a.m ., arriving at Roanoke shortly after m idnight. This trip w as a forerunner to the long series o f R oanoke B ooster C lub trips, starting tw o years later in 1915 and continuing in M ay 2019, 104 years later. 60 �Century Club Charter Members Top, center: ♦ Edward L. Stone, president, Stone Printing & Manufacturing Co. Second row, left, right: ♦ Lucian H. Cocke, general attorney, N&W Railway, first mayor of Roanoke ♦ Thompson W. Goodwin, Southwest Virginia Trust Company Third row, center: ♦ Lucius E. Johnson, president, N&W Railway Fourth row, left, light: ♦ William H. Lewis, superintendent, motive power, N&W Railway ♦ Junius B. Fishburn, president, National Exchange Bank Fifth row, center: ♦ Frank A. Hill Sixth row, left, right: ♦ James C. Cassell, former assistant to president of N&W Railway, railway supply contractor ♦ F.E. Foster Bottom, center: ♦ E. Wile Other members & friends (not pictured) ♦ R.A. Buckner, superintendent, Southern Express Co. ♦ Joseph I. Doran, general counsel, N&W Railway ♦ W.H. Hayes, superintendent, commissary department, N&W Railway ♦ C.E. Michael, president, Virginia Bridge & Iron Co. ♦ J.B. Newton, president, Virginia Iron, Coal & Coke Co. ♦ Richard P. Royer, secretary to president, N&W Railway ♦ Dr. J.D. Willis, physician ♦ A.C. Needles, general manager, N&W Railway ♦ Col. James P. Woods, lawyer �„ d e e ( f y a f t e i a t a c n o te n o a d b by R. D a vid C ox(l) ast year the W ashington and Lee chapel turned 150. It nearly didn’t m ake it. A century ago, the univer­ sity tried to replace R obert E. L ee’s creation w ith a monstrosity. E Some background. A fter A ppom attox, Lee w ondered w hat to do w ith his life. A deeply religious person, he concluded that since G od had not intended the South to win, he needed to help restore the unity o f the nation and the prosperity o f the South. In A ugust 1865 he decided he could best do that as president o f the then-devastated W ashington C ollege, guiding the young in reconciling the country, restoring the south, and fostering perm anent peace. (2) Taking com m and o f the college in September, he proved him self to be a visionary and successful educa­ tor. To the classical curriculum o f ancient languages and culture, he added business, civil engineering, m ining, m odem languages and history, even English, w hich students could take by elective. H e incorporated a law school, and sought program s in journalism and agriculture, all aim ing to prepare young m en for active participation in the m odem w orld by m eeting the dow n-to-earth needs o f a region scorched by war. That first year, the faculty dou­ bled and student enrollm ent tripled w hen m any a Southern college couldn’t even open. B y 1868, his had becom e the second-largest academ ic institution in the South. H e also proposed a chapel. W hy a chapel? From its Presbyterian roots, W ashington College always ex­ pected students and faculty to attend daily services. Lee w as Episcopalian, but agreed that education engaged the soul as w ell as the brain. The South, the nation needed people o f expertise in their chosen field, and, no less, o f character. B ut those new num bers outgrew the old chapel room. So that June 1866, Lee proposed a building w here the w hole college com m unity could learn and pray together. W hat Lee wanted, faculty and trustees approved. Since hiring a real architect cost too m uch, they looked to local resources — and found them right next door. T hom as H oom es W illiam son o f the Virginia M ilitary Institute, an early teacher o f architecture in the country, w rote a textbook on it. A nother V M I engineering professor shared an interest in architecture, nam ely L ee’s son, Custis. Three Episcopalians, tw o Lees plus W illiam son, designed a chapel for a Presbyterian school. C ustis brought another advantage to the group: he owned a book. Fifteen years earlier, the Sm ithsonian Institution had rather scandalized the country w ith its N orm an/R om anesque architecture, a radical departure from the Federal style o f classical colum ns and pedim ents. The congressm an who oversaw the project, R obert Owen, justified the style’s virtues in a volum e, “H ints on Public A rchitecture,” that contained plenty o f illustrations. So, in the venerable tradition o f am ateur designers (like Thom as Jefferson) drawing inspiration from books, the Lexingtonians m odeled their chapel on a tow er o f the Smithsonian. (3) W hen Lee died in 1870, the college dictated that his basem ent office be kept precisely as he left it, and asked that he be interred in the m ain room nearby. M rs. Lee appointed E dw ard Valentine to create a statue w hich, as m ore Lees kept being buried there, m ade an extension prudent: a cham ber for the statue upstairs, and a fam ily m ausoleum downstairs. The addition w as finally dedicated in 1883. Tourists flocked to it as a shrine to the w ar hero. The univer­ sity used it m ore for functions o f all sorts. Yet it lacked the m oney or interest to keep up the place — w hich vintage L exingtonians soon called a “sorry old building.” Then H enry Louis Sm ith really got going. Sm ith left the presidency o f D avidson for W & L in 1912 w ith big aims for the school that soared, like enrollm ent, after W orld W ar I. This essay is based on a paper by D avid Cox, PhD ., history professor at Southern Virginia University, Buena Vista, fo r the Virginia Forum atLongwood University in May 2019. • 62 • �Sketch for an enlarged Lee Chapel, opposed by many. (Photo courtesy of the author.) Smith dream ed o f a coherent cam pus; and nothing in his day said “college” like red brick and w hite col­ um ns. W hat he cam e to consider a Victorian eyesore o f a chapel ju st didn’t m atch the perfect im age o f the colon­ nade. H e w anted a coherent student body, too, but lacked space to gather the academ ic com m unity under one roof. Lee solved the very sam e challenge w ith his chapel; but all those new students couldn’t fit into it. And that m ight have been ju st as well, for the chapel had becom e a veritable tinderbox that could explode any tim e a visitor w alked in w ith a lighted cigarette. Those visitors, too, increased in number. Am ericans in their new M odel Ts began exploring their past. L ee’s chapel w as on m any a tourist’s list, and Smith saw the chapel as a draw for the college. B ut the university had no plan to w elcom e them . B y 1919 Smith arranged for the U nited D aughters o f the Confederacy in Virginia to provide a custodian to act as caretaker and guide. Suddenly, the UDC had a stake and a voice in the chapel’s future. To Smith, Lee w as the draw, not the building. “It is G eneral L ee’s Tomb, not the chapel, w hich is and will ever be ‘The South’s m ost sacred shrine.’” ^ Such a shrine deserved a far w orthier edifice to honor General Lee, the w ar hero —not the college president. Such grand plans all needed money. From w hom ? W ho better than his new partners, the U nited Daughters o f the Confederacy? In 1919 Sm ith presented to the national UDC convention an overall scheme that included “the renovation and enlargem ent o f the Lee M em orial C hapel.” H e asked for $100,000. The UDC agreed, w ithout ever seeing a sketch o f w hat he h ad in m in d /5 j H ad they done so, they w ould have realized he m eant m uch m ore than “renovation and enlargem ent.” Privately, Smith decided that “ [t]o provide a w orthy setting for the Lee statue [and] an auditorium adequate to the • 63 • �needs o f the university ... an alm ost com plete dem olition o f the present structure w ill be necessary” (b) - retain­ ing only w hat Sm ith defined as the “ shrine” : statue chamber, m ausoleum , office. F or years he had w orked w ith the university architect, the alum nus B enjam in C ourtland Flournoy, who in 1914 had designed the gym nasium . F or the chapel, Flournoy proposed “a building o f the Pantheon type w ith a circular auditorium 82 feet in diam eter.” The recum bent statue could be seen “from every point in the auditorium ” w hich itself could seat 1,000 people. One design follow ed another, Flournoy m odifying, adjusting, m agnifying, alw ays in neoclassical style that added colum ns instead o f the dated, hated tower. (7) In 1921 Sm ith cam e a little m ore clean w ith the U DC; he dropped the w ord “renovation” and stressed the term “enlargem ent.” H e challenged U D C to “recognize General L ee’s U niversity ... as peculiarly belonging to the w hole South” and thus w orthy o f support, especially for “this great m em orial m ovem ent, the enlargem ent o f the chapel” to “continue the w ork for w hich G eneral Lee erected it,” to safeguard it from fire, and to m ake it “m ore w orthy o f his nam e and fam e.” H e publicly prom ised the effort w ould change “as little as possible,” not touching the office, statue cham ber, and m ausoleum . Led by its president, M rs. Livingston Schuyler, the UDC convention approved the concept w ith overw helm ing enthusiasm . (8) B ack in Lexington, rum ors spread that Sm ith’s public statem ents didn’t m atch his private goals. On the first day o f 1922, a local U D C m em ber, Elizabeth W hite, invited A nn N orvell Otey Scott, w ho oversaw the UDC custodianship o f the chapel, to discuss the matter. That led to a m eeting o f the Lexington U D C chapter w hich agreed to send letters o f concern to M rs. Schuyler, the university trustee John W. D avis (later the 1924 Dem ocratic nom inee for president), and M rs. R obert E. Lee III w hose husband w as a trustee. N othing happened. M eanw hile F lournoy’s creative ju ices k ept flowing, i f only for leadership’s eyes. As the local U D C ’s private efforts availed nothing, a local editor and alum nus, M atthew Paxton, w ent public. O n June 29, 1922, he editorialized, “The [Rockbridge] C ounty N ew s has felt deep resentm ent at the pro­ posed dem olition o f Lee m em orial chapel; for that is w hat is m eant.’Y9J Suddenly floodgates opened. R esponses poured forth, all negative. On July 21, the reinvigorated Lexington U D C m et at the hom e o f M rs. B essie D avis to fom ent m utiny. T hey started w riting U D C chapters around the nation, and proposed resolutions o f opposition for the next V irginia state U D C m eeting in October. W eeks later, Sm ith counterattacked in tw o articles. H e m inim ized L ee’s role in creating the chapel but stressed L ee’s purposes, and the unanim ous support he thought he had. Paxton printed both articles, then printed his rejoinder and all the letters denouncing Sm ith’s idea. In October, despite pleas o f Sm ith and W illiam A nderson, the form er C onfederate officer and state attor­ ney general w ho headed the trustees, the Virginia U DC convention rejected the idea, bu t in N ovem ber Sm ith and President-G eneral Schuyler got the national UDC to hold firm. B ut m om entum h ad shifted. Sm ith began conceding “that m any o f G eneral L ee’s m ost devoted adm ir­ ers, especially in Virginia, h ad learned thru long years to revere the Lee Chapel as a sacred m em ento.” On M arch 26, 1923, trustees announced that the building “will rem ain unaltered. This definite and final decision ... ends a controversy affecting the w hole Southland.” E xcept it didn’t, not judging from C ourtland’s plan subm itted even before the trustees voted. H is ideas, approved by the notable architect R alph A dam s Cram and the national fine arts com m ission, attached virtually an entire new building onto the old chapel, w ith a grandiose exterior: hardly “unaltered.” A university publication dubbed this “The Final Solution o f the Lee Chapel Problem ” : “a plan for enlarging the Lee C hapel by addition instead o f by reconstruction, thus leaving the present chapel substantially unchanged.” A nother follow ed in April. On Oct. 14, The N ew York Tim es headlined C ourtland’s July rendition as the “ South’s Long D ream o f M em orial to L ee N ears R ealization.” Sm ith declared in the article, “We should all rejoice together that a problem so perplex­ ing, and on w hich there w as honest difference o f opinion, should be so successfully solved.” T he chapel’s defenders arose in predictable anger: “Lee Chapel —A dd to it N othing M ore.” M arietta M innegerode A ndrew s, daughter o f L ee’s w artim e pastor and a leading architectural preservationist, advised an auditorium separate from the old chapel. A Lynchburg alum nus and his w ife solicited protests from every alum ­ nus, journalist, politician and celebrity they could think of. One o f them , the B ritish playw right John Drinkwater, responded th at “ [a] building like the Lee chapel has really becom e the property o f the A m erican race, and w hat­ ever you or I or anyone m ight think o f the fitness o f the building or otherw ise, it really ought to be beyond our pow er to touch it.” A s C hristm as 1923 approached, one new spaper after another editorialized against it.(70) • 64 * �On Lee’s birthday, Jan. 19, 1924, Smith and Anderson met their Appomattox. John Davis drew up articles of surrender. “[I]n the opinion of the board [of trustees] it is inexpedient to proceed with the plans heretofore pro­ posed and discussed in relation to the Lee Chapel.”(7/,) The need for an auditorium remained. So, even as the trustees were caving, Flournoy produced an idea for one that featured a gigantic statue of Lee. It went nowhere. Smith brought the chapel to a crossroads —then could go no further. Why not? For one thing, he wasn’t transparent about his plans, and, in the combination of his secrecy and mixed messages, came across as manipulative. He failed to involve everyone. He did not ignore women, for he relied on UDC hierarchy, but he did not include those who were in his own backyard, suggesting not so much outright sexism as rather a delusion of power, appealing to the high and mighty while taking others for granted. Yet those whom Smith and his allies dis­ missed as a “little group of willful women” assisted by an “ultra-conservative” editor showed what power a small determined group can have. Despite the heady days of the 19th Amendment, these women were by no means progressive; they used their power to hold onto the past, ironically against efforts to honor the past by magnifying and glorifying it: they simply wanted to conserve it. Yet, as if to prove one cannot remain at a crossroads, even conserving it had its effects. For one, the crisis redefined the link between the chapel and Lee, not just the “shrine” as Smith defined it in so limited a way, but the entire building. As well, coming at the height of the Lost Cause mythology, the controversy intensified the link with the Confederacy. The museum that was bom as a result exhibited Confederate memorabilia. Within a decade, battle flags took up an 85-year residence. Yet the debate over the chapel also intensified, as Drinkwater implied, Lee’s connection with the entire nation. Along with relics of the South, the museum in those years after World War I displayed artifacts from all American conflicts. Moreover, at a time when Douglas Southall Freeman was receiving a Pulitzer Prize for his biography, a sense was growing of Lee as an American hero. In 1961 the Department of the Interior designated it as a national historic landmark, signifying the wider significance of Lee’s chapel. The controversy also impelled the university to take greater care of the chapel. Though by the early 1960s it again needed desperate help, resulting in a thorough renovation then and constant upkeep since, it stands today in better shape than ever. Now, the chapel seems to stand at another crossroads, Confederate flags removed, Lee a contentious fig­ ure, his chapel’s place like his own being questioned at the university. But that is a story to explore a decade from now. F ootnotes 1. Adapted from a lecture o f the same title given at the Virginia Forum, Longwood University, March 15,2019, the theme of the forum being “Crossroads.” The lecture— and this essay—derive from R. David Cox, Lee Chapel at 150 (Buena Vista, VA: Mariner Media, 2018). 2. See Cox, The Religious Life of Robert E. Lee (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2017), ch. 18 (pp. 197-210). 3. Cox, Lee Chapel at 150, 21-33. Robert Dale Owen, Hints on Public Architecture, Containing, Among Other Illustrations, Views and Plans of the Smithsonian Institution (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1849). 4. Q. in G. Watson James, “The Lee Chapel Controversy,” Sons o f the Revolution I, no. 4 (October 1922), 4. 5. WLU, University Summer Bulletin XIX, no. 14 (August 1920), 11. 6. B.C. Flournoy to Smith, Washington, D. C. (Washington and Lee University, James G. Leybum Library, Special Collec­ tions and Archives, Lexington, Virginia [afterward WLU SC], Drawer 16). 7. Ibid. For plans, see WLU SC, Prints and Photographs Collection. 8. United Daughters o f the Confederacy, Minutes of the Twenty-Eighth Annual Convention, St. Louis, MO, November 8-12, 1921 (Jackson, TN: McClowat-Mercer, [1921]), 95-96, 224-225. 9. “The Tomb o f Lee and a Protest,” Rockbridge County News, June 29, 1922. 10. Marietta M. Andrews, “Lee Chapel—Add To It Nothing More,” Rockbridge County News, April 12,1923; John Drinkwater to Mary de C. B. Moore, New York, November 7,1923 (University ofVirginia, Albert and Shirley Small Special Col­ lections Library, Charlottesville: Maurice Moore Papers). 11. WLU Trustee Minutes, January 19, 1924 (WLU SC). 65 �r tc y  e & t fa & i c a f t if a : 'S e d ^ o n r i < % * td by John D. Long s is well-known in western Virginia, the National D-Day Memorial sits high atop a hill in Bedford, on a site specifically chosen for a special distinction: the small community is reputed to have suffered the highest per capita losses in the nation on D-Day, June 6, 1944. While on the surface this sounds like a simple asser­ tion, for Bedford to make such a claim is a deceptively complicated statement. Is it true? Can we know in absolute terms if Bedford’s sacrifice was indeed the most severe in the U.S.? This essay will examine the question, and delineate how unexpectedly complex the issue actually is.(l) “The B edford B oys” Bedford’s role in World War II is most associated with the local members of Company A, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division —the so-called Bedford Boys.(2) This prewar National Guard Unit had deep roots in the community and in Virginia history (the 116th traces its origin to colonial days). Like the rest of the Virginia National Guard, Company A was called up into regular army service for a pe­ riod of 12 months in February 1941, while the nation was still at peace. Reporting to Camp Meade, Maryland, the company spent months in training and on maneuvers; in December 1941, of course, news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s subsequent entry into the war meant that Company A would not be going home after a year. In September 1942, Company A and the rest of the 29th Division shipped to England to begin training for the inevitable Cross-Channel Invasion. The term “the Bedford Boys” as a reference to local soldiers in Company A dates at least to the 1920s.(3) However, the term is now best associated with Alex Kershaw’s bestselling 2003 history “The Bedford Boys: One American Town’s Ultimate D-Day Sacrifice.” This book did perhaps more than any other factor to raise international awareness of the losses suffered by Bedford on June 6, 1944. While Company A had drilled in Bedford and many local residents were Benjamin Hubbard (left), members of the unit, not all Company A personnel were residents of that county. Company F of the 116th, who As the war progressed, this became even more the case. Understandably, the died on D-Day, had connec­ United States Army had to expand enormously to fight the war, and enlistees and tions to both Bedford and draftees from across the nation were folded into existing units. Company A soon Roanoke counties. Capt. Taylor Fellers of had men from dozens of states on its roster. Bedford was Commander of Perhaps because of the exceptional training Company A received in Eng­ Company A on D-Day. land, the unit was chosen to be one of the first to land in the invasion of Norman­ dy, along a stretch of coast that was code-named Omaha Beach. As such, Captain Taylor Fellers’ men landed amidst unrelenting German defensive fire and were decimated in their attempt to cross the beach. Likely within minutes, 19 men from Bedford County were killed: Leslie Abbott, Wallace Carter, John Clifton, Frank Draper, Taylor Fellers, Nick Gillaspie, Bedford Hoback, Raymond Hoback, Clifton Lee, Earl Parker, Jack Powers, John Reynolds, Weldon Rosazza, John Schenk, Raymond Stevens, Gordon White Jr., John Wilkes, Elmere Wright and Grant Yopp. In addition, another man with Bedford roots, Benjamin Hubbard, fell nearby serv­ ing with Company F of the 116th, bringing the total Bedford sacrifices on D-Day to 20 men. Hubbard’s example is illustrative of the difficulties of identifying wartime fatalities by their hometown. For John D. Long is director o f education at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford. 66 �Some members of Company A, 116th Infantry, Virginia National Guard, in the summer of 1940. (Photos courtesy National D-Day Memorial.) many years only the 19 from Company A were recognized as Bedford Boys and Hubbard was excluded, perhaps because his residence prior to WWII seemed to be close to the borderline between Bedford and Roanoke counties. Indeed, at a memorial ceremony (dubbed the “Vinton Victory Rally”) on Sept. 3, 1945, the town of Vinton in Roa­ noke County claimed Hubbard as one of its own. (4) In recent years, however, the National D-Day Memorial and Bedford County have used the number 20 instead of 19 in speaking of the community’s losses on D-Day. Highest per Capita? That level of loss —either 19 or 20 ~ has often been cited as the highest per capita losses of any American ~ per­ haps even Allied —community on D-Day itself. Such verbiage was used to explain the choice of Bedford as the site for the National D-Day Memorial, and has been part of many media stories and marketing materials ever since. But the claim is not indisputable, and has often been challenged. In 2008, researcher George Salaita pub­ lished a monograph in the Journal of Military History titled “Embellishing Omaha Beach.’Y5) In it, Salaita praised the tragic valor of Company A but took to task historians who overemphasized the losses from the town of Bedford. Following especially the analysis in James Morrison’s “Bedford Goes to War,” Salaita asserted (accurately) that “more of the casualties came from the county of that same name, not the town [of Bedford].” He then highlighted well-known historians who have overstated the case of Bedford’s losses, including such luminaries as Cornelius Ryan, Stephen Ambrose, Martin Gilbert and Gerald Astor/d) Salaita’s short article refocused the issue for many historians. For instance, British historian Anthony Beevor, in his excellent 2009 history titled “D-Day: The Battle for Normandy,” made the following startling claim in a footnote on page 112: “A myth has arisen that most of the dead from Company A came from the town of Bedford, Virginia. In fact, only six came from Bedford, and there were just twenty-four from the whole of Bedford County serving in the Company on 6 June.” Beevor’s statement, and the numbers it contains, are difficult to parse. However, he seems to have followed Salaita in making a sharp distinction between the town of Bedford and the larger county. It is certainly true that “most of the dead from Company A” did NOT come from Bedford, either the town or the county. Some 106 men from Company A fell on D-Day, only 19 of whom were from Bedford. Hometowns from at least 27 states were represented in the losses from that single unit. If such a popular “myth” indeed arose (and Beevor gives no example or any indication of how prevalent such a myth might be), it was a misunderstanding of the available facts and published histories. Further, it is certain that more than 24 Bedford soldiers were in Company A on D-Day. That exact number also varies by source, but the best evidence is that 38 “Bedford Boys” were part of the initial invasion, although some support troops did not 67 �arrive on the beach until after June 6 and others were delayed some days when their landing craft sunk. (71 So do those 20 fatalities from Bedford constitute the highest per capita losses of any community on D-Day, as asserted by the Memorial and many others? The most honest answer must be that no one knows. There has never been (and probably can never be) an exhaustive, irrefutable study of the hometowns of the more than 2,500 known American D-Day fatalities. (2?) Nonetheless, Bedford does indeed have a strong claim to the distinction. What is a H ometown? On the surface, it would seem an easy proposition to determine how many people from a single place died on a cer­ tain day. But in fact, it is a much more difficult task than it seems.(9) For a man who was bom, raised, worked and lived his entire life in a single community, it is no matter of dispute what his hometown would be. But for others, the question is far from certain. By World War II, the population of the United States had become highly mobile. Furthermore, many Americans during the Depression were forced to leave their places of origin to find work. Others might be associat­ ed with two (or more) localities and even states. Imagine a man bom in Virginia, raised in Maryland, enlisted from North Carolina, and buried in a family cemetery in Georgia. What state —not to mention what community ~ can claim him as its own? anni W ARBOB! BHJfOfiO. JUL^'ào. I<rn 11 • 1 " More complicated for the fatalities from P aper Collection J i *4 Killed In Actio* IT r tln ru io yY» , Ju J u ly 2 6 j Bedford Men Bedford was the issue of town versus county. In Invasion Day Brings Deep And Women Virginia, a town (as opposed to an independent Sorrow To Bedford Home Serving Many Men Reported Ix>st city) is part of a county, sharing some jurisdic­ -- ^ i Arttviií«** Are Member* of Company A, V«. National tion while governing itself in other regards. The m « « !■ ¡ ! |( R eported Prom Many Cnart! Loin Live« In France On D Day; Of The World U O tben Are Reported Mi»Jog In Action Town of Bedford is a municipality within the County of Bedford, and the county seat.(7 0) In 1944, the town had some 4,000 residents (3,973 Ihm% In Action in the 1940 census), while the county claimed __ tNK «• i| w ti M»Bnr just under 30,000 total (29,687 in 1940). Hence, some confusion has resulted in Vkxtnt* Mm regards to the “highest per capita losses” claim. Does this mean that the town or the county suf­ fered these losses?(11) In point of fact, few of Annual Young P* Kali? To Bn Held Bedford. J«l> 28 the 20 men accounted as Bedford Boys actually lived in the town (a cmcial point in Salaita’s es­ say). Most were indeed residents of the county, although by necessity they had close connections toons insn to the town as well. For instance, Captain Fellers rolioOmi resided in the small unincorporated community W«ilernü»i¡ of Cifax. Gordon White’s address was Forest, a small and remote place in 1944. The Hoback brothers grew up on a family farm about 5 miles from the town. Weldon Rossaza, personifying the mobility of mid-20th century Americans, was bom in Bedford but seemed to be living in Washington, D.C., by the start of the war. However, it should be noted that many « . of the Bedford Boys worked in the town while living elsewhere; others graduated from Bedford High School in the town but lived on surround­ ing farms. The rural denizens shopped in town, The Bedford Democrat of July 20, 1944, announced ate in local restaurants, visited the post office many of the local deaths six weeks after they fell. and county offices in town. Company A, prior »F O K ÍÍ I )E M O C R A T m mum 68 �to shipping out to England, used the County Courthouse on Main Street as its armory. They may have slept elsewhere, but they considered the Town of Bedford home as well. In truth, few people in the 1940s paid as scrupulous attention to the exact border between town and county as some historians try to do. The situation might be expressed like this: all residents of the Town of Bedford were also residents of the county. Not all residents of the county resided in the town, but all would have had close economic, civic and social connec­ tions to the town. The Town of Bedford felt perfectly justified in claiming each local man of Company A as one of its own. Arguably a sense of shared community was stronger than geographic lines. Strengthening Bedford’s claim is the fact that the 29th Division was the only National Guard division to land on D-Day, and Company A’s 116th Regiment were the only National Guardsmen in the first wave, when the rate of fatalities was the highest. While the rosters of the 29th and the 116th had swelled far beyond the ranks of the pre-war guardsmen, it inevita­ bly followed that single communities would be disproportionately represented among the losses in the 116th. The other frontline assault divi­ “Homage”by sculptor Jim Brothers at the National D-Day sions —the 1st and 4th Infantry Divisions, the Memorial is a tribute to the local men in Company A. 82nd and 101st Airborne —had rosters that did not concentrate men from a single community. To be sure, other communities in Virginia ~ Roanoke, Lynchburg, Charlottesville, Martinsville, Harrisonburg and others - had Guard companies in the 116th to land on D-Day. But none suffered such disproportionate losses as Bedford. Therefore, even beginning with the larger population base of Bedford County, the loss of 20 men in a single day was a devastating blow and may well constitute the highest per capita loss of any American community on D-Day. Bushong, Kansas, and D-Day And yet other claimants to the “highest per capita” losses on D-Day could be found if one dug deep enough, de­ pending of course on how the locality in question is defined. For instance, tiny Bushong, Kansas, suffered the loss of four men on D-Day, all graduates of the local high school: Rex Gore, John Herrick, and brothers Jay and William Moreland. All were members of the 149th Engineering Combat Battalion. Their landing craft (LCI(L)-92) struck a mine and exploded, killing dozens, including these four Kansans. Bushong had a population of about 134 people in World War 11.(12) If one were to consider Bushong the “hometown” of these four men, the town’s losses would far outstrip Bedford’s in proportion to the community’s population. However, just as with some of the Bedford Boys, there is evidence that the “Bushong Boys” resided not in the town but in the surrounding rural areas of Lyon County, Kansas. The Moreland brothers lived on a farm in nearby Debaun, although William’s draft registration card indicates he was working in Wichita at the time of his enlistment. Herrick lived in Dunlap, according to his draft registration. Gore also seems to have lived in Dunlap, though for a while his father was school principal in Bushong. Here again, a less easily defined sense of community 69 �would have been more significant to these Kansans than determining exact addresses. Lyon County’s population in the 1940 census was 26,424, slightly smaller than Bedford County’s in Vir­ ginia. Therefore, comparing county to county, Bedford’s 20 fatalities represent a higher loss of men per capita. (73) Comparing town to town, a different picture emerges, but becomes murkier when strict residential addresses are factored in. Once again, semantics and interpretation can endlessly complicate the issue. Conclusion Undeniably, the price paid by Bedford on D-Day —whether considering the town or the county —has been misrep­ resented and mischaracterized from time to time, as inevitably will happen when complex issues are presented to the public by the media or even by academic historians. It is also undeniable that the 20 men with Bedford County roots who gave their lives on D-Day unequivocally established their place in history by their valor, fidelity and sacrifice, and the price paid by the small community should never be forgotten. Perhaps the community of Bedford indeed suffered the greatest per capita losses on D-Day. It certainly can make a strong claim to that distinction. But there are too many variables to assert it with absolute, irrefutable certainty. It is likely not possible that the claim of “highest per capita losses on D-Day” will ever be established with any mathematical precision, given the deficiencies of the military records, the imprecision of such terms as “com­ munity” and other limiting factors. But the men who gave their lives to secure victory on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944, men who wanted only to return to Bedford, or Bushong, or a thousand other hometowns, can certainly be honored by all who live in freedom today. F ootnotes 1. The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance o f the following in researching this topic: April Cheek-Messier o f the National D-Day Memorial Foundation; Jennifer Thomson o f the Bedford Museum and Genealogical Library; and researcher Carol Tuckwiller, who initiated the Necrology Project o f NDDMF. 2. It is unfortunate that many people are unaware o f Bedford County’s losses on days other than D-Day. More than 100 Bedford men were killed in World War II in places other than Omaha Beach. In addition to the 20 killed on the first day o f the invasion of France, 21 other Bed­ ford County residents died afterwards fighting to liberate France. Other Bedford men were killed in the Pacific, the Mediterranean, at sea, etc. Bedford’s D-Day story only begins to tell Bedford’s WWII story. 3. An example o f wartime usage can be found in a letter written by company commander Captain Taylor Fellers o f Bedford. Writing to his mother from England in March 1943, Fellers wrote “I am beginning to think that it is hard to beat a Bedford boy for a soldier.” Quoted in Elisha Ray Nance’s “Dawn on Omaha Beach: We Were There” (Lynchburg, VA: Warwick House Publishing, 2018), page 89. 4. Program from “Vinton Victory Rally,” Sept. 3,1945. Copy in the archives of the National D-Day Memorial. 5. Salaita, George: “Notes and Comments: Embellishing Omaha Beach,” Journal of Military History 72 (April 2008), 531-534. 6. In the opinion of this author, Salaita himself erred in some o f his citations, listing incorrect page numbers for some of his sources, and overstated the case o f some authors overstating the case. He criticizes Astor for stating that “more than half o f the dead from Bedford, Vir­ ginia were slain there [on Omaha Beach].” Indeed, 20 men from Bedford County died on Omaha Beach, o f 41 who perished in France —not precisely “more than h alf’ but a rounding error at best. Salaita also said that Kershaw’s “Bedford Boys” “leaves the reader with the impres­ sion that Company A was made up o f men from the town o f Bedford.” In fact, Kershaw neither says nor implies anything of the kind, on the cited page 1 or elsewhere in his book. 7. James Morrison, “Bedford Goes to War” (Lynchburg, VA: Warwick House Publishing, 2004), pp. 381-383. 8. Early in its existence, the National D-Day Memorial Foundation set the challenging goal to identify every Allied fatality on June 6,1944, and memorialize those names on plaques at the Memorial in Bedford. The research proved daunting, since death dates in military records were often guesswork. However, the Necrology Project eventually identified 4,415 D-Day fatalities, of which 2,502 were American. Each American in the database was identified by his state o f origin or residence, according to the best available evidence, but not by the locality within that state, information not readily obtainable in available records. 9. See, for instance, Morrison, page 352. 10. Bedford became an independent city in 1968, but reverted to town status in 2013. 11. For probably the most complete analysis o f this question, see Appendix B o f “Bedford Goes to War” by James Morrison. 12. Jason Beets, Salina (KS) Journal, June 7,2019. Accessed from https://www.salina.eom/news/20190607/four-bushong-soldiers-diedtogether-on-d-day. 13. See Emporia (KS) Gazette, “Six Gold Stars Now in Bushong Service Flag,” Dec. 20,1944; as well as records on each man in the Necrol­ ogy files o f the National D-Day Memorial Foundation. 70 �P “ a ru zite id fietcveett tA e em d rfrtte n tca tt ^ewrfuU<M4, by Jim Glanville his article describes three parallels between the Eng­ lish and American Revolutions and notes the impor­ tant role played in the American Revolution by the western Virginia fighting man William Christian, who was a brother-in-law o f Patrick Henry. The 1976 commemora­ tive Isle o f Man 13-pence stamp pictured in Figure 1 shows Patrick Henry as the colonel o f the Virginia Regiment and William Christian as lieutenant colonel o f the Virginia Regiment. (1) Henry was an inspiration for the American Revolution. (2) There is no biography o f William Christian; there are several biographies o f Patrick Henry, including a well-regarded one by Jon Kukla published in 2017.(3) William Christian carried the Fincastle Resolutions to Williamsburg and his brother-in-law probably saw them prior to their publication in the Virginia Gazette in January 111 5.(4) The three parallels described here are: 1. The essentially identical legislative language in the mo­ tions (one parliamentary and one in convention) that insti­ gated the two revolutions; 2. The creation o f a republic and the subsequent adoption of a written republican constitution 12 years after the be­ ginning o f each revolution; and 3. The strongly anti-Catholic impetus o f both revolutions. T q jb E'R AWidCA* W m iT * 0 *i w c e r o iN iA L iT T fr im I3 P # : ISLEOF MAN-if* : * tMAQtMOTOIt Figure 1. T he P arallel L anguage that Instigated the Two R evolutions The English Revolution (more frequently referred to by historians as the English Civil War) was from 1642 to 1660/5) It became unavoidable in the spring o f 1642. On May 5 o f that year, Parliament’s answer to King Charles I ’s refusal to pass Parliament’s Militia Bill was to reply saying it was in the position o f “knowing no other way to encounter the imminent and approaching danger, but by put­ ting the people into a fit posture o f defence.” So Parliament created its militia anyway. In other words, Parliament thereby committed itself to forming its own army to fight the king. The quote comes from the Jim Glanville was a regular contributor to the Journal. Please turn to page 78 to read a tribute to the late historian. (Images courtesy o f the author.) 71 �official parliamentary record. (6) A detailed account (written in 1758) o f the events that precipitated the English Revolution in the spring o f 1642 was written by Tobias Smollett in one o f his series o f volumes o f English history. (7) Seven volumes o f this work were in Patrick Henry’s library. (5) Here is the relevant quote from Smollett: “The two houses concurred in voting. That the kingdom being in manifest danger from foreign enemies, as well as from a popish malignant party at home, there was an indispensable necessity for putting it in a posture o f defence: That the two houses had addressed his majesty, that he might settle the militia o f the kingdom in such a manner as they had judged convenient but he had refused his assent: That, in case o f extreme danger, and the king’s refusal, the ordinance published by the two houses concerning the militia, was binding upon the people by the funda­ mental laws o f the realm. That those appointed lieutenants o f counties by the two houses should receive their orders for the exercise o f their employments. This was another instance o f the most flagrant usurpation in the two houses, which, neither by law, custom, nor constitution, had the least shadow o f right to assume such authority.” The early years o f the English Revolution saw repeated warfare between the cavaliers, who sup­ ported the king and lost, and the roundheads, who supported Parliament and won. After the beheading o f King Charles I in 1649, England became a republic and struggled without success to frame a republican form o f government. During the Revolution’s final years England became in effect a military dictator­ ship under its Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell. The long-term effects o f the Revolution were profound. The primacy o f Parliament in governing England was established, the divine right o f kings was revoked, and individual freedom was recognized via freedom o f the press and the rule o f law. These long-term effects slowly became entrenched in the English Constitution, which even until today remains unwritten, despite several versions being written during the Revolutionary period but never adopted. Following Cromwell’s death in 1658, there was no capable and qualified successor. General George Monck who then held effective power concluded that the restoration o f the English monarchy with limited powers was the best way forward. So in May 1660 the late king’s son returned by invitation to England from exile in France to be crowned Charles II in April 1661 as a constitutional monarch. (9) From a Virginia perspective, the American Revolution became unavoidable in the summer o f 1774. In March 1774, at a time o f growing unrest in the American colonies, the British Parliament passed an Act closing the port o f Boston. Other “Coercive Acts,” aimed principally at Massachusetts, soon followed. Virginians were closely following events in Massachusetts through a Committee of Intercolonial Correspondence. On May 24, 1774, the Virginia House o f Burgesses adopted a resolution in support o f the Massachusetts colony naming June 1, the day the port o f Boston was to be closed, as a Virginia day o f fasting, humiliation, and prayer. (10) Two days after that resolution had been adopted, Virginia Governor Dunmore prorogued the House o f Burgesses. The next day, in an illegal assembly, 89 members o f the just-dissolved House o f Burgesses met at the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg, and formed an “Association” to defend “the constitutional rights and liberty o f British America.” This newly constituted Association then issued a summons to all the members o f the former House o f Burgesses to attend the first Virginia convention to be held on Aug. 1, 1774, in Williamsburg. The First Virginia convention (also illegal) duly took place, called for the first Continental Con­ gress (which met in Philadelphia in October 1774), elected delegates to that Congress, banned payments • 72 • �o f debts to England, and selected St. John’s Episcopal Church in Richmond in March 1775 as the site of the Second Virginia Convention. The Second Virginia Convention is well known and famous for Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death” speech on March 23, 1775, that was an inspiration for the American Revolution. (11) Not at all well known is that Henry’s famous speech came in support o f the creation o f a Virginia militia that would obviate the need for the “mother country” to keep a standing mercenary army “among us” and “the pretext of taxing us for their support.” (12) Echoing the words o f the English parliament from 133 years earlier, and concurring with Patrick Henry’s motion, the Convention resolved that “this colony be immediately put into a posture o f de­ fence.” In other words, Virginia thereby committed itself to forming its own army. (7 3) The parallel between the language o f the motions adopted 133 years apart, in this writer’s opin­ ion, reveals a high probability that Henry recycled the earlier language that he knew from Smollett’s book in his library. To carry out the work of putting Virginia into a “posture o f defence” the Convention named a committee o f nine men: Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Robert Carter Nicholas, Benjamin Harrison, Lemuel Riddick, George Washington, Adam Stephen, Andrew Lewis, William Christian, Edmund Pend­ leton, Thomas Jefferson and Isaac Zane, Esquires. Their duty was “to prepare a plan for the embodying arming and disciplining such a number of men as may be sufficient for that purpose.” (14) Two o f the nine men were from western Virginia. Andrew Lewis was from Salem and William Christian from a home that is now under Claytor Lak e.(15) P arallels B etween the C reation of the E nglish and A merican C onstitutions Both the English and American Revolutions produced written constitutions conceived for a republican form o f government absent any king. Both were passed 12 years after the beginning o f the respective revolutions. The written English constitution was voided by the restoration o f the English monarchy by Charles II. The American constitution stands today as a model o f aspiration for the majority o f the world’s nation states. The first death o f the English Revolution came on July 15, 1742, at the magazine in Manchester (which had declared for Parliament) and Royalist forces trying to seize the arms and gunpowder there. A linen weaver was killed in the successful defense o f the magazine. (7 6) On Aug. 22, 1642, King Charles raised his standard in Nottingham and the Revolution formally began. The following day a skirmish occurred in Warwickshire at what is called locally the Battle o f Southam.(7 7) When the major Battle of Edgehill was fought on Oct. 23, 1642, with probably more than 15,000 men involved, seven years of off-and-on fighting began. With the beheading o f Charles I on Jan. 30, 1649, England had no king and entered the 22-year period known to English history as the interregnum (the period between two reigns). Lacking a king, England was during the interregnum a republic, and attempts were made to formalize or legalize this republic with various written documents. On Dec. 16, 1653, the Council o f Officers o f the roundhead army established the Protectorate making Oliver Cromwell de facto ruler o f England and promulgating a constitutional document which the Council had drafted earlier - the Instrument o f Government, which was dated Jan. 2, 1654. This Instrument (consisting o f 42 clauses and 4,500 words) was England’s first and only written constitution. It created the office o f “Lord Protector o f the Commonwealth o f England, Scotland, and Ireland” and declared Oliver Cromwell to be Lord Protector for life. It also provided for a unicameral Parliament, to be elected every three years, and to have 460 members. Under the Instrument of Government, all taxation required the consent o f Parliament. (18) The full text o f the Instrument of Government is available online. (19) Like the later American Constitution, the Instrument o f Government provided for rule without a king. • 73 • �From the beginning o f the War o f English Revolution to the adoption o f the Instrument o f Gov­ ernment from 1742 to 1754 was 12 years. Fighting and dying in the American Revolution began on April 19, 1775, with the “shot heard round the world” fired by Massachusetts militiamen against the English redcoats who were seeking colo­ nial military supplies stored at Lexington and Concord. (20) Following the defeat o f the English at Yorktown in 1781 after six long, hard years o f war, Ameri­ ca gained its independence and then turned to the matter o f writing its constitution. On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth o f the 13 original states to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Nine o f the states were necessary to ratify the Consti­ tution that had been unanimously j. adopted by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on Sept. 15, Hudson 1787. Bay - A. From the beginning o f the War o f American Revolution to the > adoption o f the United States Conllp lg y m stitution was also 12 years, from f —-----fftfllfc. 1754 to 1775. HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY; A ntiC atholicism in the E nglish and A merican R evolutions Although not a happy topic for the modem reader, the two revolutions share anti-Catholicism as a major theme. In Puritan-dominated, early 17th century England, prejudice against the Catholic church was strong and the Catholic Spanish armada fleet o f 1588 that attempted but failed to destroy the kingdom o f Protestant Queen Elizabeth I was well within living memory. Recall the quote from Tobias Smollett, cited at the beginning o f this article, that in 1642 started the English Revolution: “The two houses con­ curred in voting. That the kingdom being in manifest danger from Figure 2: Map of Quebec as designated by the 1774 Quebec Act. foreign enemies, as well as from a popish malignant party at home, there was an indispensable necessity for putting it in a posture o f defence.” Anti-Catholicism, along with inklings o f religious liberty later enshrined in the American Consti­ tution, was embodied in the 1653 English Constitution. Section 37 o f the Instrument o f Government that read: fBRITISH COLONIES ATLANTIC OCEAN 74 �“That such as profess faith in God by Jesus Christ (though differing in judgment from the doctrine, worship or discipline publicly held forth) shall not be restrained from, but shall be protected in, the profession o f the faith and exercise o f their religion; so as they abuse not this liberty to the civil injury o f others and to the actual disturbance of the public peace on their parts: provided this liberty be not extended to Popery or Prelacy, nor to such as, under the profession o f Christ, hold forth and practise licentiousness.” Anti-Catholicism in America has a long history as sketched in a recent newspaper feature article titled “America’s dark and not-very-distant history o f hating Catholics.” The article points out the “awk­ ward - and largely forgotten - fact that for centuries the U.S. discriminated against Catholics,” and that the “land of immigrants enshrined freedom o f religion in the Constitution yet spent much o f its history despising, harassing, and marginalizing Catholics.” (21) The heightening o f anti-Catholic sentiments among Virginians at the time o f the beginning of the American Revolution can be largely attributed to the parliamentary passage o f the Quebec Act. As shown in Figure 2, the Quebec Act extended the land area o f the province o f Quebec far to the south and encompassing present-day Ohio and parts o f present-day Kentucky. This enlarged Quebec took over lands explored and claimed by Virginians such as George Washington. (22) The Quebec Act received the Royal Assent o f George III on June 22, 1774, to take effect on May 1, 1775. It was titled “An Act for making more effectual Provision for the Government o f the Province of Quebec in North America” and revoked the Royal Proclamation o f 1763. Contrary to the 1763 proc­ lamation 9 which hoped to assimilate the French Canadian population - the Quebec Act was passed to gain the loyalty o f French-speaking Quebecers. In short, it guaranteed Catholics freedom o f worship and restored French property rights. In the British American colonies the Act was considered one o f the five “Intolerable Acts,” and was thereby “one o f the direct causes o f the American Revolution.” (23) Clause 5 o f the Quebec Act stated that “ ... his Majesty’s Subjects, professing the Religion o f the Church o f Rome o f and in the said Province o f Quebec, may have, hold, and enjoy, the free Exercise of the Religion o f the Church o f Rome, subject to the King’s Supremacy, declared and established by an Act, made in the first Year o f the Reign o f Queen Elizabeth.” (24) Summarizing the arguments that the Quebec Act provoked the Virginians to revolution, Stephen Randolph, the historian o f the U.S. State Department, wrote that: “The Quebec Act angered the Virginia elite, since most o f the western lands they claimed were now officially part o f Quebec or in the Indian reserve. The act, which was passed at the same time as legislation placing Massachusetts under crown control, also fueled resentment among Calvinist New Englanders, who saw in its autocratic, pro-Catholic provisions further evidence o f an imperial conspiracy against colonial liberties” (25) For Virginians, beyond just jeopardizing their western land claims by revoking land grants to Virginia soldiers promised in the 1763 Proclamation, the Quebec Act specifically extended rights to that land to Canadian Catholics. These religious and land loss provisions greatly provoked the Virginia elite. In 1936, a Jesuit author wrote an obscure book with the title “The Quebec Act: A Primary Cause o f the American Revolution.” (26) This writer’s readings o f the many reviews o f this book suggest that the title is somewhat o f an exaggeration. However, one highly positive review o f the book published in Virginia noted that that particular reviewer “ ... did not comprehend that the spirit o f religious prejudice had any connection with the war for American Independence. This publication tells the whole story o f the intol­ erance o f that time, vividly, completely and without bias.” (27) American anti-Catholicism did not utterly choke off attempts to persuade the French Canadianmajority Province o f Quebec to join the Revolution o f the lower 13 colonies. Thus in 1776 the Conti­ nental Congress asked the Baltimore Jesuit Father John Carroll, his cousin delegate Charles Carroll (the • 75 • �only Catholic to sign the Declaration o f Independence), Samuel Chase, and Benjamin Franklin to travel to Montreal to unsuccessfully enlist the aid o f French Canadians. (28) “Anti-Catholicism seems at times to be very deep-seated, and then when you need allies, both the British and the Americans hold their noses and lessen their anti-Catholicism.” (29) C oncluding R emarks In light o f the almost identical language about “posture o f defence” between the 1775 Patrick Henry mo­ tion and the wording o f the 133-year-prior parliamentary motion that provoked the English Revolution, there was an exceedingly strong presumption that when Patrick Henry was writing his March 1775 mo­ tion he was borrowing from the English history book in his library. The author will stand corrected, but believes this is a new and original historical conclusion that has never before this article been pointed out. In the fictionalized 1970 dramatic movie “Cromwell,” following a not historically accurate scene in which Charles I is rebuffed by Parliament, the Earl o f Essex, played by actor Charles Gray, says: “I move that this house demand control of the militia and that this country be immediately put into a state o f defence.” Amusingly, the use o f the word “immediately” seems to come anachronistically from Pat­ rick Henry and not from Parliament in 1642 .(30) Finally, the author notes that the English Revolution and the short-lived Republic it generated seem to be largely overlooked in American history. Thus the classic 50-year-old Bancroft and Pulitzer prize-winning book “The Ideological Origins o f the American Revolution” by Bernard Bailyn fails to mention the role the English Revolution played in influencing its American successor as demonstrated in the present article. (31) C itations 1. Figure 1 shows one o f four stamps issued by the Isle of Man Post Office Authority for the American Revolution Bicen­ tennial 1776-1976: Commemorating Col. William Christian 1976. Date of Issue: March 12, 1976. Printed by Waddingtons Secretary Print Ltd. William Christian’s antecedents came from the Isle of Man. The stamp carries the legends: “Col. Patrick Henry - First Virginia Regiment” and “Lt. Col. William Christian - First Virginia Regiment.” Used with permission. 2. Here is the paean for Henry online at http://patrickhenrystatue.org/bio.html. “Patrick Henry’s oratorical skills and daring legal mind laid the philosophical framework for the American Revolution. He visualized a nation that would become the United States o f America and articulated it, stirring the early fires of revolution, liberty and zest for freedom. He was the most gifted o f his contemporaries in telling the American story and rallying others to the cause o f independence.... He was elected to the House of Burgesses in 1765 and became a leader in Virginia’s opposition to the Stamp Act. On March 23, 1775, as sen­ timent for independence rose, Henry addressed the Second Revolutionary Convention of Virginia while its members debated putting the Colony into a state o f defense. His speech galvanized Virginians to appoint a militia, with Henry as its chairman. Forever after, Americans have remembered Henry for his courageous patriotism.” 3. Jon Kukla, “Patrick Henry: Champion of Liberty.” New York: Simon and Schuster, 2017. 4. Jim Glanville, “The Fincastle Resolutions.” The Smithfield Review, 14: 69-119,2010. 5. Many books describe the English Revolution. See for example Maurice Ashley, “England in the Seventeenth Century (1603-1714).” (The Pelican History o f England Vol. 6.) London: Penguin Books, 1952, and Lacey Baldwin Smith, “This Realm o f England 1399 to 1688,” 5th Ed. Lexington: D.C. Heath and Company, 1988. 6. William Cobbett, “Cobbett’s Parliamentary History of England: From the Norman conquest, in 1066, to the year, 1803,” vol. 2. London: R. Bagshaw, 1807. Online at https://archive.org/details/pp809777_0002, accessed September 2019. The cited quote comes from page 1206. 7. Tobias, Smollett (1721-1771), “A Complete History of England, from the Descent of Julius Caesar, to the Treaty o f Aix la Chapelle, 1748,” containing the transactions o f 1,803 years. The relevant volume of this multivolume work is “The History of England, Book Sixth from the Union of the Two Crowns to the Restoration of Charles II.” London: Printed for James Rivington and James Fletcher, and R. Baldwin, 1758. Online at https://archive.org/details/completehistoiyo07smol/page/n7, accessed September 2019. The quote come from page 227. 8. Seven volumes o f Smollett’s work were in Patrick Henry’s library. See https://www.patrickhenrylibrary.org/islandora/ob- 76 �ject/islandora%3A9079, accessed September 2019. See also Kevin J. Hayes, “The Mind o f a Patriot: Patrick Henry and the Worlds o f Ideas.” Charlottesville: The University o f Virginia Press, 2008. 9. Restoration. See Ashley pp. 119-134 and Smith pp. 265-285. 10. Jim Glanville, “Fort Gower: Forgotten Shrine of Virginia History,” Augusta Historical Bulletin, 46: 74-90,2010. Online at http://www.holstonia.net/files/FortGower2011.pdf, accessed September 2019. 11. William Wirt, “Sketches of the Life and Character o f Patrick Henry.” Philadelphia: James Webster, 1817. Online at http:// docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/wirt/wirt.html, accessed September 2019. 12. Resolutions o f the Provincial Congress of Virginia; March 23, 1775. Online at https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/ res_cong_va_1775.asp. Accessed September 2019. 13. Virginia Gazette (Pinkney) March 30,1775, page 2 and Virginia Gazette (Dixon and Hunter) April 1, 1775, page 2. 14. Resolutions of the Provincial Congress o f Virginia. See end note 12. 15. Jim Glanville, “Richmond Newspaper Makes Fun o f Christiansburg’s Name.” Christiansburg News-Messenger, March 4, 2017, p. 4. Online at www.holstonia.net/files/GlanvilleNamingChristiansburg2017.pdf. 16. Sarah Irving, “Exploring Greater Manchester’s Grassroots History: The Siege o f Manchester, 1642,” Oct. 5,2009. Online at https://radicalmanchester.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/the-siege-of-manchester-1642/. Accessed October 2019. 17. Linda Doyle, “The Battle of Southam,” self-published 2013. 18. Almon Leroy Way Jr., “The American Constitutional System: English Origins The English Revolution and the Constitu­ tional Settlement: 1603-1701.” Online at https://www.proconservative.net/CUNAPolSci201PartFourDshmtl. Accessed Octo­ ber 2019. See also Peter Gaunt, “Drafting the Instrument o f Government, 1653-54: A Reappraisal.” Parliamentary History, 8: 28-42, 1989. 19. “The Instrument of Government.” Text online at http://www.olivercromwell.org/protectorate/protectorate_6.htm. Ac­ cessed April 2017. 20. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Lexington_and_Concord. Accessed October 2019. 21. Rory Carroll, “America’s dark and not-very-distant history o f hating Catholics,” Guardian, Sept. 12.2015. Online at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/l 2/america-history-of-hating-catholics. Accessed September 2019. 22. Connie Chung, Hyun Ji Noh, and Jisoo Rim. Copy in author’s files. Formerly online at https:/hyunji47.wikispaces. comlfile/view/quebecactl774_map.gif. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 License. Originally accessed March 2017. 23. Maxime Dagenais, “The Quebec Act.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 2018. Online at https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/quebec-act. Accessed October 2019. 24. Online at https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/quebec_act_1774.asp. Accessed October 2019. 25. Stephen Randolph, Director, U.S. State Department Office of the Historian. “Proclamation Line of 1763, Quebec Act of 1774 and Westward Expansion.” Online at https://web.archive.org/web/20110302064541/https://history.state.gov/milestones/1750-1775/ProclamationLinel763. Not dated, circa 2010; accessed October 2019. 26. Charles H. Metzger SJ, “The Quebec Act: A Primary Cause o f the American Revolution” (Philadelphia: United States Catholic Historical Society, 1936). 27. Edward L. Ryan, “Review of ‘The Quebec Act. A Primary Cause o f the American Revolution’ by Charles H. Metzger.” The Virginia Magazine o f History and Biography, 45: 226,1937). 28. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carroll_(bishop). Accessed November 2019. 29. Harry Winter, OMI. Personal communication, November 2019. 30. Irving Allen, producer. “Cromwell.” Movie directed and written by Ken Hughes, 1970. See https://www.imdb.com/title/ «0065593/. 31. Bernard Bailyn, “The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution: Fiftieth Anniversary Edition” (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2017). 77 �tyùzaviMe, die by Journal s ta ff n November, Virginia lost two remarkable friends of history with the deaths of Civil War Historian James I. “Bud” Robertson Jr., and Jim Glanville, pre-history Southwest Virginia scholar. Both men did most of their work in Blacksburg and both were generous in assisting the Historical Society of Western Virginia. Robertson, 89, was beloved by thousands of Virginia Tech students for his many lectures, books and radio commentaries on the human side of the Civil War. He drew hundreds of stories from letters from soldiers on the battlefields. He spoke at the Society’s History is Served, lectures and other events and freely gave advice on historical matters. He died in Richmond on Nov. 2, 2019. A Danville native, Robertson graduated from Randolph-Macon College, served in the Air Force in the Korean War and earned master’s and doctoral degrees from Emory University. In 1961, Robertson achieved national recognition as executive director of the U.S. Civil War Centennial Commission. He said his interest in the war began when his grandmother told stories about her father who had fought for the Confederacy. Robertson taught at the University of Iowa, George Washington University and the University of Montana before he joined the Virginia Tech faculty. In his 44 years there, he captivated classes of as Bud Robertson (Photo courtesy of Virginia Tech.) many as 400 with his warm interpretation of the war. He started the Center for Civil War Studies, led battlefield tours and served as a historical adviser for the 2003 movie, “Gods and Generals.” His most acclaimed book was “Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Soldier, the Legend.” He also wrote about Gen. Robert E. Lee, Gen A.R Hill and teamed with artist Morton Kunstler to produce “For Us the Living: The Civil War in Paintings and Eyewitness Accounts.” He also found time to serve as a football referee in the Atlantic Coast Conference for 16 years. Robertson is survived by his wife, Betty Lee Robertson; two sons, Howard and James Robertson III, and a daughter, Beth Brown; a step-daughter, Elizabeth Anderson Lee; seven grandchildren and four great­ grandchildren. In retirement, he lived in Westmoreland County. His first wife, Elizabeth Green Robertson, died in 2008. I Glanville, 78, a frequent writer for this Journal, contributed an article only a few weeks before his death of an apparent heart attack on Nov. 22. Bom in London and a graduate of the Royal College of Sci­ ence, he came to the United States in 1962 and earned a degree in chemistry from the University o f Mary­ land. He had a long career in chemistry, teaching at Virginia Western Community College and working as • 78• �vice president of research and development at Wen-Don Chemical Products in Roanoke before moving to Blacksburg to teach chemistry at Virginia Tech. He wrote chemical publications and held five patents. After his retirement in 2004, Glanville turned to a second career in history and archeology, focusing on pre-history in Southwest Virginia. He presented proof that Spanish explorers traveled through Southwest Virginia before the English settled at Jamestown. He often presented papers at the annual Virginia Forum history conference and he was a prolific writer and lec­ turer on a variety of historical subjects. He was an adopted member of the Remnant Yuchi Tribe under Chief Lee Vest. His website, holstonia.net, is a composite of his work. Glanville is survived by his wife, Deena Flinchum, and two children by a previous marriage. A third student of regional history, Walter M. Dixon, a retired Roanoke investment manager, died Jan. 18. Dixon, 81, was bom in Lynchburg and grew up in Staunton. He spent a year at the now erstwhile Staunton Military Academy before attending the University of Vir­ ginia, where he majored in history. He later volunteered for the United States Army and was based in Stuttgart, Jim Glanville (left) and Chief Lee Vest Germany, before retuning to the States to begin his bank­ (Photo courtesy of Jim Glanville.) ing career. He eventually moved to Roanoke and joined First National Exchange Bank, rising to become chief trust officer. Dixon formed his own investment management firm in 1981, which would grow to become Dixon, Hubard, Feinour and Brown. He was also active with a number of nonprofit organizations in Roanoke, including Apple Ridge Farm and the Taubman Museum of Art. But a major interest was genealogy. As his obituary in The Roanoke Times relates: “Walter was especially pleased when, in Baton Rouge, La., a ceme­ tery administrator helped him locate the presumed gravesite of ancestor John Rhodes by using a divining rod to detect ‘turned earth’ and, therefore, the likely gravesite. A veteran of the Confederate Army, Rhodes was entitled to a grave marker, courtesy of the U.S. Army, which Walter successfully procured. Additionally, Walter was pleased when a carefully researched article he wrote was approved for publication in the Journal of the Virginia Genealogical Society.” Dixon was a former board member of this Historical Society and was a regular contrib­ utor to the Journal, bringing a first-person voice to topics such as exploring S.H. McVitty’s col­ lection of presidential signatures and researching the Jacob Persinger family. , , ^ „ , , ......... Dixon is survived by his former wife, Journal editor George Kegley and contributor Walter R _ : Mmmm H H i . , i ... . .. MM H I Anne Parrott, their two sons and their families, Dixon look at some history together. (Photo courtesy „ .. . , , . N ... t ... I . . I , I ...... as well as his sisters and their families. of Historical Society of Western Virginia.) 79 �����PUBLICATIONS ISBN# 978-0-9710531-2-0 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. 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Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia 2019 Volume 23, Number 2 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include:<br />How the Mother County Began<br />The Virginia Brewing Company: Roanoke's First Brewery<br />Trees Provide Clues to Construction of Greenfield Kitchen and Slave Quarters<br />Trouts, Father and Son, Were Early Mayors<br />From the Front Porch to the Front Lines: Rural Virginia in a Threshold of Change-The Making of Movies<br />40,000 People Hear President Roosevelt in Salem<br />Scouting Milestone: First Camp Powhatan Nearly Lost to Time<br />Bottom Creek Gorge: Its People<br />Century Club Takes a River Trip<br />Lee Chapel at a Crossroads<br />Highest Per Capita: Bedford and D-Day<br />Parallels Between the English and American Revolutions<br />Historians, Robertson, Glanville, Dixon, Die Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_23_02_2019 https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/files/original/67/6376/JHSWV_24_01_2020.pdf 26a17347d102fa5b59765d25eece74fd PDF Text Text In this issue: 13 Unusual Stones Rest on a Craig County M ountain 22 Fine Homes on O rchard Hill are Recalled 28 N&W was a Leading Railroad in World War II 42 American Slavery was a "Peculiar" Institution 70 Botetourt 250 + 1 will be a Major Exhibit And more... �Historical Society of Western Virginia Amor montium nos movet (For the love o f mountains inspires us) Officers Anderson Stone...................President Ed Holt................................. Vice President Sandra Brown Kelly............ Secretary William Irvin....................... Treasurer Board of Directors Susan Amos Col. Lewis “Bud” Ingles Jeffries David Lemon George “Al” McLean Natalie Norris Gary Phillips Stephanie Scordas Donald Wilson Directors Emeriti Sara Airheart George Kegley G eorge K egley Editor F rances E. S chneid Graphic designer, Illustrator Editorial Assistant Gordon Hamilton Edgar Wheeler The Journal, Vol. XXIX, No. 1, chronicles the history of the Commonwealth west of the Blue Ridge. It is published by the Historical Society of Western Virginia, RO. Box 1904, Roanoke, Va. 24008. The price for additional copies is $10 for members and $15 for others. The Society welcomes unsolicited material but submissions cannot be returned and the Society cannot be responsible for damage or loss. (On the cover: A reception for Vice President Thomas Marshall was held at the home o f Lucian Cocke on Orchard Hill, near downtown Roanoke.) �"Table o f 4 5 Contents Message from the President Historical Society Portrait, Cookbook are Conserved b y A s h le y W ebb 8 Roanoke and the Southwest In Virginia history b y F. B. K e g le y 13 The Enigmatic Stone Structures of Western Virginia b y D a n ie l P e zzo n i 22 Orchard Hill b y M a ry B la n d A rm is te a d 28 N & W, WW II b y C olon el L e w is Ing les “B u d ” Jeffries, USA (Ret) 39 N & W Shops b y K en M ille r 40 Lost Colony b y J e ff H am p ton 42 Slavery as America’s "Peculiar" Institution R e g in a ld S h a re e f 50 Roanoke-Norfolk Photographer, Richard Aufenger b y M ich a e l E. B lanke nship 55 Roanoke Appalachian Trail Club b y D iana C hristo pu lo s 59 New River b y M a ry B. K e g le y 70 Botetourt “250 Years of Delight” b y A s h le y W ebb 73 Botetourt 250 + 1 Marks 250th Anniversary A Railroad to Fincastle b y E d M cC o y 75 William Hackworth, Revolutionary Soldier b y W illiam M. H ackw orth 89 A Voice from the Past-Leroy Gresham A n O ra to rica l M e d le y 3 �M essage fro m th e P re sid e n t IC embers and friends of the Historical Society of Western Virginia I \ / 1 welcome to the annual edition of our Journal-celebrating and tell■1. ▼JL.ing the history of our region! Last year I wrote “We are in the midst of (hopefully coming out and ideally past by the time you read this) one of the most trying times that most of us and the world have ever faced! We have weathered two world wars and many smaller actions, but not since 1916-1918 when the Spanish Flu and W W I gripped the world has the US faced such a pandemic!” Unfortunately, it was an overly optimistic statement! However, with excellently news on vaccines to be available soon we anticipate 2021 being a much better year for all. Anderson Stone, President The HSWV Board and staff have continued to work to preserve the history of our region (particularly cataloging many gifts and items that pre­ viously had not been properly recorded). We are currently in the process of moving the 3 Link pylons to the wall outside the museum in the Visitors Center Lobby. They will high­ light Link’s work and complement the Lowery Gallery exhibit that was moved to the space behind Main counter to give the VBR Visitors center additional office space. Both are free to view and we hope they will entice VBR visitors to also visit the HSWV museum! The museum is currently open with social distancing while the changes are in progress. Plus, the Link Auditorium now has a new projector and sound system that are significant improvements! The Botetourt 250 + 1 exhibit is currently scheduled to open Friday April 9,2021 at the HSWV. It will tell Botetourt County and part of Craig County. Various features from this and our other exhibits will also be virtually displayed on the museums website-https:roanokehistory.org The HSWV is committed to preserving our beautiful area history for coming generations. We are dedicated to educating our visitors and residents, especially our children, about the contributions by the individuals, families and groups of the area over the last 250 + years! In fact, our next exhibit will docu­ ment and display the contributions of those with diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds who were our business leaders in the past. O ur exhibit will be a tribute to the growth of our area and those citizens that made the “Magic City” into the “Star City”! Please support the Historical Society of Western Virginia so that we may continue to preserve and tell our history, and also support for the many charities and organizations that work to make our com­ munity, state and country an example for the world. This Journal and the Kegley Lecture Series are two of the ways we work to tell and preserve the history of our region! We hope you will enjoy them and invite others to participate and join us. We have a tremendous staff and board, and we all thank you for your support! F. Anderson Stone President 4 �H is to ric a l Society P o rtra it, C o o k b o o k are C o n se rve d By Ashley Webb, curator o f collections and exhibitions A page from the cookbook. he Historical Society of Western Virginia received funding through two conservation grants in 2020, thanks to sponsorships from the Virginia Association of Museums and the Richmond Conservation Studio. Objects slated to be conserved included a recipe book of Eliza Breckinridge Watts, as well as an oil on canvas portrait of Emeline Trent Tinsley, both in the permanent collection at the Historical Society T In November of 2019, the Historical Society participated in the Virginia Association of Museums Top Ten Endangered Artifacts program, a statewide program which identifies significant and endangered artifacts in museum collections in order to create awareness of their importance as well as the expense of their stewardship. The Society’s nomination, the Receipt Book of Eliza Breckinridge Watts, not only received the distinction as an endangered artifact, but received $500 to put toward its long-term preservation. After an initial assessment by Greensboro, North Carolina, book conservator Marianne Kelsey, it was decided that the cookbook would need conservation as the iron gall ink used to write the recipes was actively eating through the cotton rag pages. Eventually, the ink would eat completely through, and the recipes would no longer be distinguishable. Additionally, several pages had come loose, and were in danger of becoming disassociated with the book. Eliza Breckinridge Watts, the daughter of General James Breckinridge and Anne Cary Selden Breckinridge of Botetourt County, compiled and used this cookbook. She began this recipe book a year 5 �after her marriage to Edward Watts of Campbell County in 1817, and identified her location as Richmond, where her husband was active in the Virginia Senate. In 1818, the couple relocated to Botetourt County and built a home they called Oaklands. This home was destroyed by fire and was replaced by the Watts home beside Int. 581. Here Eliza entertained, raised her family, and resided until her death in 1862. After representing Campbell County in the Virginia Senate, he practiced law in Botetourt, eventually becoming Roanoke County’s first commonwealth attorney from 1839-1845. This recipe book is important for several reasons: first, this cookbook is a valuable piece of material culture in documenting domestic practices and medical knowledge of the day. Second, it highlights the societal connections of the Botetourt area, as well as the social connections of both Emeline Tinsley portrait, 1837. frontier families and high society families of the early 19th century. Many of the recipes detailed in this book include the name of the individual who submitted the recipe to Eliza, along with notations on whether it was popular amongst her family and friends. Third, recipe books such as this were valuable assets in the running of a household and were passed down through the family. They were continually used and added to for generations. This cookbook was well loved, as evidenced by the staining of the pages and the binding. For the conservation, the binding of the cookbook was dismantled, as the seams holding the pages had begun to disintegrate. The pages were washed in a special chelating bath to deacidify the paper and deactivate the ferrous agents in the ink. The pages were then attached to acid free Japanese tissue and rebound to the original covers to allow the book to be opened and read. As always with conservation, the techniques carried out above are always reversible, if necessary. A special thanks go to the Virginia Association of Museums, George Kegley, and the General James Breckinridge Chapter of the DAR for the funds needed for this conservation. The cookbook will be on exhibit during the Historical Society’s Botetourt County: 250 +1 Years o f Delight exhibit, opening in April 2021, and will be digitized and available on line in the near future. In August of 2020, the Historical Society of Western Virginia applied and won a conservation grant with the Richmond Conservation Studio out of 15 institutions across the state of Virginia. The Society entered the museum’s oil on canvas portrait of Emeline Trent Tinsley, a gift to the museum in 1962 by Alfred Kindred. Mr. Kindred also donated an early 1830s portrait of Benjamin Tinsley, and an earlier 1837 portrait of Emeline to the museum as well. Although each of the portraits are assumed to be done by different artists, the portraits themselves give a little glimpse into the lives of the sitters-what they looked like, the styles of the day, as well as representations of what they felt was important in their lives at the time. Since we have two portraits of Emeline painted about 15 years apart, we are able to see a side of her only afforded to the wealthy prior to the widespread use of photography. In fact portraits of Em dines parents—M artha Holland Trent and Thomas Trent Jr.—are in the collection of Colonial Williamsburg and are attributed to itinerant Virginia artist Samuel T. Taylor. The 1837 portrait of Emeline is most certainly a Taylor portrait as well; however, the artist of the later portrait of Emeline is still unknown. It is the Society’s hope that conservation will reveal the artist’s signature or the attribution will be discovered so further research can be completed. 6 �Emeline Tinsley portrait, later portrait. Benjamin Tinsley portrait. Unfortunately, time has not been kind to the later portrait of Emeline. The oil used for the portrait has begun to crack and cup, creating concave and curled sections of paint, and at these cracks the paint has begun to detach from the canvas. In one instance, just above Emeline’s right eyebrow, the paint has begun to chip and was in danger of being lost. Currently, no details can be discerned in her dark dress, and hopefully with removal of the varnish, more details will emerge. Because of the portraits condition, the Historical Society is excited to be chosen to receive this grant and to have the portrait conserved at no cost to the museum. It’s not only one of the few visual representations the museum has of its early residents, but its important in terms of material culture, portraiture, fashion, and artistic quality of the period. Additionally, Benjamin and Emeline were not only early residents of Roanoke; they once owned the majority of downtown, including Mill Mountain, Crystal Spring, and the brick and stucco home that held the City’s Public Library from 1922-1952. This was all a small part of the original Tosh estate, as well as the 1830s home that Col. William Madison Peyton coined Elmwood Plantation. In 1859, Benjamin purchased 640 acres on the north side of the Roanoke River once owned by Col. Peyton. After the Civil War, the Tinsleys sold Elmwood and land to Roanoke’s first millionaire, Peyton Leftwich Terry in 1868, but remained in Roanoke until their deaths in 1880 (Benjamin) and 1892 (Emeline). The Terrys flourished off the Tinsleys’ land, selling the majority of the Elmwood estate to the Roanoke Land and Improvement Company to develop Roanoke after its charter in 1882. The remaining acreage and home were sold to the city in 1911, becoming Elmwood Park. The painting of Emeline was dropped off at the Richmond Conservation Studio in October of 2020, and conservation is expected to be complete in 2021. If you follow social media, the conservation of Emeline will be broadcast on the Richmond Conservation Studio’s Facebook page and Instagram page as progress is made! 7 �R o a n o ke and th e S o u th w e s t in V irginia H is to m By F. B. Kegley On July 4, 5, 6, 1934, a Historical Pageant o f Progress was presented at Maher Field, now Rivers Edge Sports Complex along Roanoke River, sponsored by Southwestern Virginia Inc., a regional chamber o f commerce based in Wytheville. Former Gov. E. Lee Trinkle was pageant general chairman. Hundreds o f Roanoke area participants in the pageant enacted major events from an Indian scene, early settlers arriving, Drapers Meadows massacre, Col. William Byrd's exploration, Fincastle Resolutions, “War Between the States” and “our home in the mountains.”A brief history o f Southwest Virginia by Wythe County historian F. B. Kegley was printed in the pageant program and the text follows. He is the author o f “Kegley’s Virginia Frontier.” n the early years of Virginia history, little was known of the land beyond the mountains. Wellinformed people of the lower regions of the colony knew not even the sources of the rivers on which they lived. W hat information and interest they had of the vast unknown region came from contacts and observations made in attempting explorations to further trade with the Indians of the South and West. The Indian trails followed which became the traders’ paths led out from the falls of the great rivers toward the Southwest along the southern slope of the Blue Ridge mountains to the sources of the Carolina rivers, and west to the ridge and over and along its crest to the sources of the western streams which flow into the Mississippi. In an expedition organized by Col. Abraham Wood in 1671 at Fort Henry at the Falls of the Appo­ mattox, Thomas Batts and Robert Fallam left the beaten path as they came to the foot of the mountains and made their way up a falling creek to the divide where the mountain is broken into ridges and from there eased out into the valley of the Roanoke near where the river enters the gap in the ridge. Here they found a village of the Totera Indians by whom they were civilly treated. In this town and its discovery we find the beginning of Roanoke and the Southwest. Proceeding up the winding courses of the Roanoke this group of explorers came to the head of the river at the foot of the Great Mountain which divides the eastern from the western waters. From the top of this m ountain soon reached, it was a pleasing though dreadful sight to see mountains and hills as if piled one upon another. Once over the run which empties itself northerly into the Great River, they proceeded due west over soil which was richer and full of bare meadows the farther they went. Thus was the Southwest discovered and entered—an experience reenacted in the thousands of lives of the pioneer 8 �age and yet in the immigration of investing adventurers, observing tourists and enterprising industrialists. Though found earlier, this country was not setded until after Governor Spotswood had led his knights across the Ridge into the Valley of the Shenandoah and German and Scotch-Irish families had come into that region from Maryland and Pennsylvania. As these families pushed through the Great Valley and others came in behind them and by them, the Southwest Mountains and the Carolina plains became an ever-widening Canaan for the host pressing on. There was a moving up from the lower grounds of Virginia as well as a moving through the back valleys. The first recorded settlements made in 1738 and 1748 under the leadership of John Smith and Colonel James Patton were soon expanded into settled communities which served as backgrounds for the advancing frontier. On the waters of the Roanoke lived George Robinson, David Cloyd, James Cole, William Sayers. Bryan McDonalds, Stephen Rentfroe, John Robinson, William Carvin, Erwin Oatteson, Simon Akers, Robert Ewing, William Terry, Peter Kinder, Thomas and Tasker Tosh, James and Malcolm Campbell, John Mason, James Burk, Joseph Love, Methusaleh Griffith, William Bryan, Ephriam Vause, Joseph Crockett, Alexander Ingram, Thomas and William Ingles, George Pearis and others who used the valley as a home base and plunged into the forests to find still richer hunting fields and heavier timbered tracts of land. Actual settlement of the western waters began in 1744 when John Harrison Jr., George Draper, Peter Rentfroe, Charles Sharp and Robert Elswick moved up from Looneys Mill Creek of James River to the head springs of Toms Creek and Strouble’s Creek of New River and two groups of German families farther west on the river. In 1745 Colonel Patton obtained permission to take up for settlement 120,000 acres of land in one or more surveys on Woods River and two rivers flowing west and in October of that year John Buchanan as agent for Colonel Patton and the historic Woods River Grant came on the ground to receive entries and make surveys. Even at that early date, there were others besides those mentioned who had been on the ground and had staked off claims for homestead, for beginning in February 1796, surveys were recorded for land on practically all the streams to the Carolina (Tennessee) line. Among those claimants were Colonel Patton himself; Colonel John Buchanan, Dr. Thomas Walker, Alexander Sayers, Samuel Eckerlin, for the Dunkards; John and Robert McFarland, James McCaul, James Burk, Jacob Castle, James Miller, William Patrick and Ezekiel Calhoun, Samuel and Joseph Crockett, Charles Sinckler, James Davis, Charles Campbell, Captain John Buchanan, George Robinson, James Wood, John Shelton, John Vance, James Skaggs and Frederick Starn-in all about 250 claims before 1755. In 1748 and again in 1750, Dr. Walker made trips into the territory, keeping journals of his daily experiences and progresses. In 1749, he organized the Loyal Company which had permission to take up 800,000 acres of land beginning on the Carolina line. This was the most pretentious of all the Promoting Companies but its business was so retarded that comparatively few of its entries were surveyed in its first limit of time; 250 tracts were reported sold before the Indian War came on and after that they were numbered by the thousand. The opening of this new land in the west for settlement was a great thing for Virginia. W hen the French government asserted its claims to the Ohio and its tributaries, the Virginia frontiers had already advanced well into territory claimed by the French. The upper reaches of the Ohio in the Southwest were 9 �considered already well settled, so that the contest for the continent centered around the pioneers fight for his wilderness home aided by the Colonial Government in such protection as ranging parties and organized military expeditions could give. The Southwestern frontier became the battle ground in the early Indian Wars, the base of operation for later campaigns of expansion and the cradle of the population for still later western settlement. The story of the hardships suffered in the border warfare incidental to this holding is too long to relate either in words or in pageantry, but some examples may be given to call to m ind a service and a sacrifice that needs from a present generation a better understanding and a greater appreciation. “O ur frontiers were held and pushed forward by the warlike skill and the adventurous personal prowess of the individual settlers. For one square mile added to our domain by regular armies, the settlers added ten or a hundred. The west would never have been settled save for the fierce courage and the eager desire to brave danger so characteristic of the stalwart frontiersman.” This region, our First Far West, has remained as it was in the beginning a new, rich and undeveloped land, furnishing new, social and business opportunities to men of vision and determination. No sooner had new homes been established in the forest than death blows began to be dealt to the inhabitants. The first stroke fell upon the key settlement at D rapers Meadows and caught in its force the chief builder of the community. The killing of Colonel Patton saved him from being burned at stake. The carrying off of Mrs. Draper and Mrs. Ingles would not have satisfied the savages thirst for blood. Others were killed and their homes made unsafe for habitation. People fled and cried for help. The first aid came in the organization of ranging companies to scour the woods and look for lurking Indians. This was followed by an expedition promulgated and authorized by the Governor to seek out the enemy at its home base. A thousand men with half as many Indian Allies were to be engaged. The journey was made but nothing was accomplished. The troops were disbanded and Vauses fort was caught undefended. The garrison fled from Fort William and the whole country was left exposed. A government fort was built in the country of the friendly Cherokees for a token o f friendship and a protection against other Indians. A line of forts was authorized and built and the whole situation observed by Washington, the Commander of the Virginia forces. A raid was made in the Forks of James, a new point of attack. Robert Renick was killed and a num ber of women and children carried away. For their own protection the frontier citizens organized themselves into an army called the Associates. Relief came only with the fall o f Fort Duquesne in the Northwest and then the Virginia Regiment was to be shifted to the Southwest to relieve Fort Loudon and discipline the once friendly Cherokees. In this new campaign all Virginia had an interest. Colonel Byrd was in command, Major Lewis was commanding officer at the place of rendezvous, recruiting officers were active in every county and the whole Roanoke Community was astir with military movements. For the protection of provisions assembled for the troops at Evans’ Mill, a granary was built with a small fort garrisoned by Capt. Prestons veteran company of rangers. After two years of recruiting and drilling, the Regiment moved out from Fort Lewis to Fort Frederick and on to Fort Chiswell. Headed by Col. Byrd, the march was continued to Stalnaker s on Holston and finally to Long Island on the Holston. At this time, the discovery of lead on the New River occasioned a new interest in this territory. And Col. Byrd, Col. Chiswell and the sometime Colonial Treasurer, John Robinson, fell heirs to the orebearing land of that vicinity. Robinsons tract became the property of the state. O f so great value to the settlers and to the Colony was this lead that the mining operations were fortified and conducted as a public benefit. From this time through the Revolution this place was the industrial and political capital of the Southwest. After spending the winter at Long Island the troops of the Byrd Expedition returned to 10 �Fort Lewis where they were mustered out in February 1762. The close of the war with the French called forth a proclamation from the King of Great Britain which provided for bounty land to soldiers for services rendered and a boundary line between the settlements and the Indian country. The first location suggested for this line was by ChiswelTs mines to the mouth of the Great Kanawha. After continued debating in Parliament and bartering with the Indians the line was finally established by John Donaldson so as to give to the Colony practically all the ground east of the Byrd Expedition. So fast was land taken up the settlers were already by the line before it was rim. All the territory on the western waters was now included in the new county of Fincastle, organized in 1772. This new advance even to Kentucky and the unwarranted aggressiveness by the whites on the upper Ohio led to a new and more elaborate campaign against the Ohio Indians, who had sought revenge by harassing the whole southwestern frontier. This expedition called forth an army of volunteers and a line of fortifications garrisoned by volunteer soldiers through the valley of Clinch River as far west as the Indian line at Moccasin Gap. Through the bravery and determination of the troops under Col. Lewis the engagement with the Indians at Point Pleasant resulted in a victory for the frontiersmen who returned home to answer the call of the Continental Congress in its stand against the encroachments of the English Government. The sentiment of the Freeholders of Fincastle County expressed in a set of resolutions declaring a willingness to fight for freedom and right, gave a second to the motions already made in New England as well as in Virginia. Col William Christian, chairman of the Fincastle meeting, was a member of the House of Burgesses and a brother-in-law of Patrick Henry, so there was an understanding between the low country and the high. W hen a few months later a call came for troops against Dunmore, Capt. William Campbell responded with a bunch of volunteers and while at Williamsburg made plans that gave the Southwest another brother-in-law of Patrick Henry. In the course of the Revolution a new set of backwoodsmen became necessary. The Cherokees in alliance with the British were giving trouble in Tennessee. A fight at Long Island between the local militia and the Indians followed by a well-planned campaign under Col. Christian once more set right affairs on the border. The New River, Holston and Clinch settlements of Fincastle County had expanded into Kentucky and absorbed the activities of Daniel Boone and Col. Henderson of North Carolina. Ready for a county government of its own, that territory was cut off as a separate county and the remainder of Fincastle divided into Montgomery and Washington. These two counties then with a part of Botetourt became the Southwest Virginia that we know today. The militia of each of these counties had “tours of duty” to aid the American cause whenever and wherever help was most needed, in Carolina, in Illinois, in Kentucky. A group of Roanoke men under Colonel John Bowman went to the aid of Kentucky. A company of volunteers from this territory was with George Rogers Clark in his most daring drives and the Illinois Regiment commanded by Col. Joseph Crockett of Montgomery County, was made up largely of Southwest Virginia men. The horses of Clarks campaign were purchased by William Madison on the upper branches of the Roanoke River. The Washington County militia won new laurels under William Campbell at Kings Mountain and Montgomery County did a triple service in sending troops to the various campaigns against Cornwallis in Carolina, in putting down Tory insurrections about the lead mines and joining the campaigns in Virginia leading to Yorktown. The British prisoners taken in Carolina were assigned to this territory to be guarded here and transferred to Winchester. Thomas Jefferson visited the lead mines and suggested extensive improvements in the operations going on there. At the close of the War, there was the usual readjustment to conditions. Fortunes and positions had 11 �been lost and new openings were in view. Commissioners were appointed for each county to adjust land titles, preemption warrants were issued to land holders so as to close out land entries, mountain lands began to be taken in large areas, mineral rights sought after and farming lands developed. There was an inrush of Pennsylvania Germans and a migration of Scotch-Irish pioneers. Household industries were enlarged and special developments came with establishment of charcoal furnaces in the iron belts and the skinning of salt wells in the meadows of North Holston. W ith an increased utilization of timber in better buildings for home comforts came a more extensive and remunerative use of pasture lands. There was improvement in all classes of livestock and a special pride in beef cattle and saddle horses. In this plantation life in the valleys of the Southwest there is suggested and preserved a Virginia tradition found nowhere else in the state. To accommodate travel and accelerate the transportation of freight, turnpike roads and railroads were built throughout the length and breadth of the land. Houses of brick and stone, monuments to slave labor, were erected and courthouses rebuilt. New counties were established, so that no man lived more than a days ride from a seat of justice. In a war that tried mens convictions and tested their loyalty, Southwest remained Virginian. W hen the call came for troops, old men and young men responded. W hen ammunition was needed, it was found in the quantities of lead at our mines, when salt was needed for home use and for armies in the field, the whole South came to our salt wells for it. W hen raids were made into the territory for the destruction of property, our home guards repulsed them. Every county furnished its quota of men and every family its share of provisions. Even the cloth for Lees uniform was woven in a county in the Southwest and when the suit was no longer needed it was sent back to that county to be preserved by the family that gave the cloth. The long list of men distinguished in service in times of peace and war needs to be given here. O f Colonial and Revolutionary days men like Andrew Lewis, William Preston, William Fleming, William Christian, William Campbell and William Russell belong to all history. In the early days of the republic, Daniel Sheffey, Alexander Smyth and Francis Preston held a high place in the nation. And the annals of our own Commonwealth are brightened by the names of Governors furnished: James P. Preston, John B. Floyd, J. Hoge Tyler, Robert C. Kent, Henry Carter Stuart, E. Lee Trinkle and George C. Peery. The lines of industrial progress followed have been the natural ones. And because of the great variety of resources present, the wealth developed has been one of the states great assets. Until after the reconstruction period, little capital was invested in our timber and mines but the day came when more railroads were to be built to move the products of the mines and factories. This meant the building of more towns and the founding of commercial cities. Roanoke came because it was needed; it grew fast because there was much for it to feed upon. Coal operations developed because there was coal and coal was needed. Here was the logical place for furniture factories, because here was the timber. Power and carbide plants were suggested because the streams are here on which to build them and the factories are here to use the power that is produced. From the stage road to the air line is a long way in transportation, but with the state and the nation we have gone the whole way. As people came into this region because of greater opportunities in the new and greater west, they are now coming back to it because its fertility has been preserved, its population sustained and its natural wealth undeveloped. Its growth has kept pace with the communities around it, but in making that progress its resources have not been exhausted. As Smith and Patton and Walker stimulated settlement in pioneer days, as W harton and Imboden and Carter and Lincoln stimulated industrial development when industry was in its pioneer age. Now progress is seen in the multiplicity of industries in evidence. 12 �hat is the oldest standing building in Virginia? A lot of research has gone into answering that question. The current front-runner, based on historical documentation, is Jamestown Church, built in 1639 (actually, only the church’s brick tower and foundations are original; the rest dates to 1906). W But Jamestown’s buildings were not the first Virginia architecture. W hen the colonists arrived in 1607 they encountered thriving Native American communities, all with rich architectural traditions. A few decades before, in the 1580s, Roanoke Island governor and artist-in-residence John White painted meticulous renderings of the coastal region’s architecture. The buildings depicted by White were wooden, which is not surprising given the lack of building stone on the coast, but even where stone was available inland the East’s precontact Native Americans did not build their houses of it.1At village site after village site archaeologists find post molds, the vestiges of perishable wooden architecture, not evidence of stone construction. The situation is dramatically different in the higher elevations of western Virginia, where mountains like Sinking Creek Mountain on the Craig/ Montgomery border preserve precontact Native American architecture virtually intact. At 3,000 feet above sea level, Sinking Creek Mountain is high and wild and would be little visited were it not for the fact that a section of the Appalachian Trail runs along it. The trail passes through a complex of stone piles and cairns at a high point known as Bruisers Knob where hikers have photographed some of the structures and posted images online. A branch trail descends to a cluster of springs and a shelter in Sarver Hollow a few hundred feet below the knob where more stone constructions dot the woods. Considered holistically, taking into account form, construction, context, and function, the 200-plus structures in the two complexes are unlike the lime kilns, grave memorials, field clearing piles, and other stone structures built in Virginia during historic times. Instead, the evidence points to construction of the Sinking Creek Mountain complexes and others located throughout Virginia and the East by precontact Native American peoples. The most sophisticated structures in the complexes rival, albeit at smaller scale, Dan Pezzoni is an architectural historian and preservation consultant based in Lexington, Virginia, who has worked in Western Virginia since the 1980s. From 1989 to 1991 he was the architectural historian at the West­ ern Region Preservation Office of the Virginia Department o f Historic Resources. Dan is the author or editor of a dozen architectural histones including “The Architecture o f Historic Rockbridge” (2015). 13 �Long House (ca. 1200 AD) at Colorado’s Mesa Verde, the product o f a well-documented Native American masonry architecture tradition. the ancient Ancestral Pueblo stone architecture of the American Southwest, sites like Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon. Researchers have known about the East s enigmatic stone structures since at least the eighteenth century. In 1762 future Yale president Ezra Stiles sketched a “monument of stones” near Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and noted “Every time [an] Indian came along [he] cast a stone upon it.” More recently, retired Princeton University art conservator and stone structure researcher Norman Muller teamed with James Feathers of the University of Washington Luminescence Dating Laboratory to date a stone construction in the Oley Hills complex in Berks County, Pennsylvania, using a technique known as optically stimulated luminescence (OSL). The date they obtained was approximately 500 BC. (As this article went to press, the New England Antiquities Research Association was launching its NEARA OSL Dating Project 2020 with the objective of dating stone complexes throughout New England.) Radiocarbon dating of cremations found under a low oval-shaped stone m ound at the Viney Branch Site in Boyd County, Kentucky, yielded a date of 520 AD (+/-125 years), a thousand years later than the Oley Hills cairn but well within the precontact period. Closer to home, a painted pictograph 1Precontact means before contact with Europeans, which in the Southeast generally occurred from the 1500s to the 1700s, depending on region. The article uses the term pile (from the same Latin root that gives us the word “pillar”) to describe stone constructions that do not have a markedly stacked appearance. The term is not meant to suggest these constructions are less important than others or were less meaningful to their builders. Pillar-like constructions with a more stacked appearance are typically referred to as cairns. 14 �Front view and niche detail o f the jagged niche structure on Sinking Creek Mountain. depicting a bird (possibly a thunderbird) was recently discovered at a western Virginia stone construction broadly similar to the Sinking Creek Mountain cairns. The pictograph recalls similar Native American rock art of precontact date on Paint Lick Mountain in Tazewell County, the best known of Virginias rock art sites. To an architectural historian such as myself, the more deliberately constructed Sinking Creek Mountain structures signal their non-historic character through aspects of their construction, form, and detail. At the east end of Bruisers Knob, where the ridge descends to a small gap, a bulbous stone structure stands next to the trail. The angular stones of which the structure is built, most tabular or brick­ like in shape with flat faces that facilitated stacking, were collected from the Rose Hill Formation. The formation is a Silurian sandstone of dull reddish-gray color that outcrops at Bruisers Knob and elsewhere on the mountain. The structure has frontality, with a front facade that differs markedly from the back. The facade has a slight backward lean (the architectural term is “battered”) and wraps around the structures sides like form-fitting sunglasses or a mask. The back, in contrast, consists of a sloping pile of loose stones that trails off to about fifteen feet behind the facade. Structurally, the piled stones serve to buttress the facade and constitute the structures core. At the foot of the facade is a low niche spanned by a slender lintel stone about four feet in length. The stone has an irregular or jagged lower edge with a tooth-like protuberance that points down into the niche. The lintel stones irregularity distinguishes it from the other stones of the structure, which were chosen for ease of stacking, and makes it clear it was selected for the purpose of making the opening of the niche appear jagged. The facade above the niche steps down to the left, but on the right it wraps around at a consistent height to form a parapet which rises over the sloping stones of the back. Like the rest of the facade the parapet leans, giving it a precarious teetering look. The end of the parapet consists of a stack of small tabular stones capped by a larger block. In other words, the parapet is top heavy, which adds to the appearance of precariousness. In actuality, the parapet is not precarious at all since it has been leaning since it was built. Its precariousness is a carefully contrived architectural effect. Another one of these rounded structures with a facade, also beside the Appalachian Trail, looks from behind like a cracked egg with the yolk spilling out. The more pronounced of this second structures parapets has the same precariously stacked and leaning form as the parapet in the first structure. Rounded structures constructed of reddish-gray Rose Hill stones are also numerous in the Sarver Hollow Complex, which includes later historic-period resources. 15 �Erratum “The Enigmatic Stone Structures of Western Virginia.” by J. Daniel Pezzoni Pages 14-15, “painted pictograph”: Additional study has determined the feature is not a painted pictograph. Its true nature remains uncertain. �It should already be evident that the Sinking Creek Mountain structures are not field clearing piles, but for the sake of putting that common misidentification to rest I’ll list some of the arguments. The structures are not field clearing piles because they do not serve the essential function of a field clearing pile: they do not clear a field. Instead, they occupy the acreage they would ostensibly clear. Field clearing piles do not have architectural features like frontality, stacked stonework, niches, or parapets. It’s hard to envision someone creating hundreds of separate field clearing piles when farmers in the nearby Sinking Creek and N orth Fork of the Roanoke valleys typically created just one or two piles next to their fields (I have documented field clearing piles in both valleys). How could the Sinking Creek Mountain structures and others be missed by m odern researchers for so long? The historiography of the lapse would be an article in itself, but I’ll offer a few preliminary observations. One is the misidentification discussed above, the unexamined assumption that any stone feature is the result of historic-period activities. The complexes, many of them located on mountaintops and other high places, are not in the valleys where artifactually rich (and hence more readily datable and contextualized) village sites are found. Elevated siting undoubtedly had a ritualistic aspect, though not all stone structure complexes were located on high ground. The Rye Cove Complex in Scott County occupies a boulder-strewn slope on a valley floor near one of Virginia’s most impressive landscape features, the Natural Tunnel (not to be confused with the Natural Bridge in Rockbridge County). A deeper reason for the lapse has to do with a disconnect between the world views of the two groups of researchers who would be most likely to study the complexes, archaeologists and architectural historians. Archaeologists, the researchers who most often encounter the complexes in the field and should be on the front line of their analysis, rarely study above-ground resources, leaving them to architectural historians, and architectural historians assume archaeologists have anything from the pre­ contact period covered. Fortunately, a few archaeologists active in the middle and southern Appalachians, people like Hannah Harvey, Harry Holstein and Charity Moore, have taken a special interest in the structures and their documentation. The Sinking Creek Mountain complexes also include wall-like constructions. In Sarver Hollow these cluster near a concentration of springs and runnels where water bubbles out of the ground and ducks back under before coalescing to form Sarver Hollow Branch. One wall-like cairn tops a small natural cave feature where water can be heard running underground. Stone walls are the dominant feature of another im portant western Virginia stone structure complex, the Dutton Gap Complex on Pine Mountain on the border between Virginia’s Dickenson County and Kentucky’s Pike County (Pine M ountain is one of Kentucky’s highest elevations with views said to reach as far as Ohio). One set of D utton Gap stone walls forms a roughly rectangular enclosure containing about 3,000 square feet. The enclosure is similar to a class of such constructions in the region where Virginia, Kentucky, and West Virginia join. Some of the enclosures were massively built, like the lost “fort” near Beckley, West Virginia, described in an 1842 article and commemorated as the Big Beaver Creek Ancient Fortification on a recently dedicated West Virginia Division of Highways historical marker, though whether the enclosure was a fortification or not is debatable (see image on page 21). The D utton Gap enclosure stands on a cliff with one of its four sides demarcated by the edge of the cliff instead of a wall. W ith the trees below the cliff removed, individuals standing in the enclosure would have had sweeping views of eastern Kentucky and the skies above. Possible functions include a celestial or landscape observatory or possibly apotropaic use (protection from evil influences). At the very least it seems the cliffside enclosure defined some sort of ritualistic/ceremonial space. 16 �The cliffside enclosure at Dutton Gap. The largest precontact stone complex yet identified in Virginia is the Cole Mountain Complex, a system of wall-like lines and other features extending for over two miles on the heights of Cole Mountain, a 4,022-foot peak in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Amherst County. The complex’s longest line climbs to the top of the mountain twice, roughly encircling it, in the process stair-stepping up a series of outcrops at over 30-percent grade and connecting springs on the north and south mountainsides. Sections of the line have more the appearance of connected rows of cairns, rather than the regular height of most historic-period walls, and in fact the line is so varied (and long) as to suggest piecemeal construction over decades or centuries. The fine sprouts offshoots at some of the outcrops and boulders that punctuate its length, and it often steers toward outcrops and goes up and over them. One of the most dramatic features is found at the top of a high outcrop on the lines western offshoot. The feature consists of a short wall segment wedged between upright slabs of rock and constructed of long pointed rocks with the points facing outward, creating a jagged or bristling appearance. A person has to rock-climb to reach the feature, which may be analogous to a vision quest structure or prayer seat, a type of stone structure built by the Klamath and Modoc peoples of southern Oregon in connection with vision quests. Also of interest are two bridge cairns consisting of lintel stones that span between rocks, in each case with small stones perched on the lintels. One of these bridge cairns is located deep inside a jumble of A lichen-covered wall on Cole Mountain ascends to outcrop boulders; like the possible vision quest the outcrop where the possible vision quest structure structure, a person has to look for it to find it. is located. 17 �A section o f Cole Mountain wall with a five-foot-hlgh peak, a possible snake effigy. Historically, the gaps on the two ends of Cole Mountain, Cowcamp Gap and Hog Camp Gap, were used by drovers who herded cattle and hogs from western farms to eastern markets, but the wall-like lines on the m ountain have nothing to do with these activities (for one, multiple breaks of a hundred feet or more would have rendered them useless as livestock enclosures). As at Sarver Hollow, springs—specifically springs that play hide-and-seek before forming fully above-ground branches—seem to have been im portant to the line builders of Cole Mountain, and intermittent watercourses (plus a river and waterfall) were also of interest to the builders of the Panther Falls Complex, located five miles southwest of Cole Mountain. At Panther Falls, the constructions are mixed, with individual cairns and piles, wall segments, and elongated hybrid constructions, perhaps as many as a hundred constructions in all. The wall segments exhibit a range of behaviors: linking boulders, running perpendicular and parallel to watercourses, rising above the ground surface or built into it in embankment fashion. The complex also has several constructions that superficially resemble hearth rings, in one case with part of the circumference built up to form a crescent-shaped wall. The abundance of piles and cairns at Panther Falls and their virtual absence at Cole Mountain, even though the complexes are located so close together, must be telling us something about the circumstances and objectives of the peoples who built the complexes. The jaggedness of the possible vision quest structure at Cole Mountain, which also appears at the end of a wall on top of a high outcrop on the mountain, is an architectural treatment, though the architectural meaning is obscure. The jaggedness of the niche in the cairn at Bruisers Knob is also architectural but here the meaning may be more comprehensible to a m odern observer, for the opening resembles and may have been built to represent an animal’s m outh or the m outh of a cave. The latter 18 �interpretation seems more likely, considering the niche is built into a stone facade, just as a cave may exist on a rocky mountainside, though it is certainly possible caves were equated with mouths and stalactites with teeth, in which case both interpretations would be accurate. Caves are known to have been sacred to Native Americans of the southern Appalachians, and they are not without precedent in Native American art, though one has to go far outside the region to Mesoamerica for the closest analogs, for example the circa 100 BC Mayan murals at San Bartolo in Guatemala, one of which depicts a cave with a fang-like stalactite at its mouth. If Bruisers Knob’s jagged niche represents a cave then the lintel stone protuberance can be interpreted as a stalactite. The ring structure with crescent wall at Panther Falls. The fea­ ture may be an example o f a vision quest structure, also known as a prayer seat, a structure used to facilitate the vision quests that were a common practice among Native American peoples. Niches are observed in precontact stone structures elsewhere in western Virginia and the East, though they are rarely as clearly expressed as at Bruisers Knob, where the naturally sharp-edged and stackable Rose Hill stone enabled the builders to create crisply defined architectural features. I noted above that the cultural affinities of the Virginia stone structures are unknown, but the lintel stones of the niche cairns at Bruisers Knob and the bridge cairns at Cole Mountain may hint at an affiliation. The lintels are architectural spanning elements, and as such they serve a function similar to the stone lids or “topstones” that span the stone-box graves of Tennessee and Kentucky, typically attributed to the Mississippian cultural period (800/1000-1600 AD). Mississippian influence extended into western Virginia. O r the idea of spanning an opening with a stone may have been suggested by the natural rock formations of Sinking Creek Mountain, Cole Mountain, and other mountains in the region. Mimicry of natural forms may explain the precarious-looking parapets; the region abounds with rock formations that look as though they were purposefully stacked or balanced. Emulation may be a better term for the process than mimicry. Native American builders with a pre-scientific but intimate understanding of unusual rock formations may have thought they were built by supernatural forces and may have wished to emulate the forms in their own constructions. Note that construction of the world by a deity is central to the Judeo-Christian tradition, and the southern Appalachians European settlers invoked supernatural forces (probably with varying levels of seriousness) to explain puzzling natural features like Virginias Devils Marbleyard and West Virginias Devils Tea Table. Links between natural rock formations and prehistoric architecture have been proposed by British archaeologist Richard Bradley to explain megalithic stone construction in southwest England. Native American groups in the East interacted with the landscape just as later settlers did, but it was a different kind of interaction, one that ascribed ritual significance to the mountains, or at least selected mountain locations, as the stone complexes demonstrate. 19 �The image on the left shows a presumed precontact cairn at Ludlow Creek State Forest in Chenango County, New York. Its rounded form, also seen in certain cairns on Sinking Creek Mountain, is reminiscent o f the form o f a beaver lodge. As liminal creatures that pass between the above-and below-water worlds, beavers may have been important to the builder. The image on the right shows a pillar-like cairn on the North Carolina/Tennessee border near the top o f Harmon Den Mountain in Haywood County, North Carolina. Similar pillar-like cairns in Virginia have been documented in Franklin, Scott, and Wise counties. (Ludlow Creek photo by Charity Moore. The Harmon Den Mountain cairn was brought to the author’s attention by archaeologist Scott Shumate.) W hen we think of precontact Native American architecture in the East we usually picture the earthen m ound complexes of the Ohio Valley and the Southeast, places like Grave Creek M ound in West Virginia, Moundville in Alabama, and the Great Serpent M ound in Ohio. These are impressive Native American constructions, but their original appearance has been impacted by erosion, treefalls, plowing, and other forms of natural and cultural disturbance. We see only a semblance of the intended architectural effect. Contrast this with the stone architecture of the western Virginia complexes where the precontact appearance often survives virtually intact. The state of preservation is comparable to the better-protected cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde, where the ancient inhabitants simply walked away and left their rooms and kivas to the blowing dust. Ancestral Pueblo architecture has generated insights into the lifeways and thought processes of the Southwestern peoples who built it. The Easts precontact stone architecture likewise has the potential to provide im portant and even transformative information about American prehistory. Researchers Hannah Harvey, Harry Holstein, and Charity Moore contributed to the review of this article. 20 �“Plan o f an Ancient Fortification on Big Beaver Creek, Fayette Co., Virginia. Surveyed by A. Beckley, Oct. 1837. ” The enclosure, which stood in what is now Raleigh County, West Virginia, was surveyed by Alfred Beckley and described in the September 1842 issue o f the “American Pioneer” magazine (vol. 1 no. 9, pp. 298-299), which was published in Pittsburgh by Beckley’s brother-in-law, Isaac Craig. Note that the image is a portion o f the original. 21 �O rc h a rd Hill By Mary Bland Armistead A calm passage from graceful life to a parking lot he secluded, placid way of life that graced Roanoke’s Orchard Hill disappeared even before the first of its houses was sent crashing in to the dust in recent years. The real Orchard Hill died when sci­ ons of its early inhabitants moved out and apartments gradually were fashioned among the gallant homes along its way. a To see Orchard Hill now is to see four acres of convenience; a houseless block of white-marked as­ phalt where automobiles nose in and park in a compactness unknown in the old and elegant days. Orchard Hill, formerly Nelson Street Southeast and now First Street Southeast, is a two-block expanse between Day and Highland avenues, one block east of Jefferson Street. Once it was part of Peyton L. Terry’s lands, which stretched for considerable distances on either side of his Elmwood Park homestead. A Terry apple tree at the south end of the hill is a remnant of the land’s very early and uninhabited days. The stone mounting blocks for horse riders of later days are gone; so are the stately shelters for their carriages and pha­ etons. And today, there’s no use looking for the front-porch footprints of the Breslins’ young son; the latticed play “jail” beneath Garrets’ back porch is an unmarked space now. The ground is bare where the G ood­ wins’ rathskeller was and the Blairs’ redo­ lent greenhouse where lemon trees grew and the shady old yard where a funny little black dog liked to walk around on its front legs. Indeed, of all the structure—both social and physical—which once were the pride of Orchard Hill, only the great gray mass of the Blair house is still standing. It is sprawling and shrub-sheltered on the hilltop where Highland Avenue Southeast joins the trail end of the street once known as Orchard Hill. The Blair home is a chiropractic office. Orchard Hill in 1924 from an aerial photo by Underwood & Underwood. Note the Peyton Terry home in Elmwood Park at The late Mary Bland Armistead was a longtime editor o f the women’s department o f the Roanoke WorldNews. This article, used with permission, was published in the Roanoke Times & World-News on Feb. 13, 1980. The former Blair home was razed. 22 �Orchard Hill today; pictured from the 10th floor o f Radford Community Hospital. The big change for Orchard Hill came in 1962 with the plans for a downtown hospital along the first block of Elm Avenue east of Jefferson. W ith the decision would come the death knell of Orchard Hill, for its land would be needed for expansion plans and parking. So, almost in rhythm like a bell tolled in sorrow have gone the stately hill homes of early Roanoke... and with them many of the city’s last memories of maids and chauffeurs and fine families flourishing. Change was kind because time aged between the first property acquisitions by the proposed Com­ munity Hospital of the Roanoke Valley and the demolition of all the properties needed to complete its facilities. And while this writing is not to be a lament for the past, it is nevertheless, a remembrance of it from those who once knew it and an appreciation of what has been removed and never will be seen again. Roanoke was plain and unpainted and muddy in 1883 when a doughty little train—No. 3 to rail­ roaders of the day—came chuffing in. It carried the top accounting staff of the Shenandoah Valley Rail­ road which had decided to connect with the Norfolk and Western at Roanoke. It was an auspicious day for the ambitious and well-born men of the Shenandoah line who came out of Hagerstown, Md. to join other enterprising officials who had arrived earlier from Philadelphia and Pottstown, Pa. Their destinies were to be in Roanoke and Roanoke was destined to take on at least part of their flavor and to grow and prosper thereby. The earliest of that backbone group lived in or near the Hotel Roanoke, which by 1883 had risen grandly on top of a barren hill. Later, nicer gas-lighted residences would be built along Church and Salem avenues and to the westward on Patterson. By the turn of the century, a pattern of life had become established in the young city, with blue-col­ lar families on one side of the railroad tracks and the white-collar gentry on the other. And for many reasons, Orchard Hill was soon dubbed “Officials Hill” as it became a private enclave 23 �for many of the city’s leading figures. It was within walking distance of midtown banks and rail offices; most of the too-few wooden walks went out Jefferson to just past Elm and Mountain avenues, so well-todo businessmen chose to cluster in that vicinity. And they all came home for lunch. There is a story that railroad cinders were spread along Jefferson when wooden sidewalks wore out and there was no m on­ ey to replace them. Cinders were hard on the long skirts of the day and “a fashionable woman who lived on Orchard Hill” is said to have chided a city official about the street conditions. 1 ..... _, _. „ a. ~ _ r , Cockespur, the Lucian Cocke home on Orchard Hill. Declaring that the cinders not only were offensive but also that they ruined her skirt and stockings, the Roanoker allegedly added, “I have to wash my feet every day” The city official responded, ‘‘Madam, you are supposed to wash your feet every day!” The hill’s heydays ran from the early 1900s to about the early 1940s. And quite possibly its most impressive event was the Cockes’ 1914 reception for the vice president of the United States. The Cocke home was a Queen Anne frame, as were most of the homes of the day. Also like them, it had a very large yard, a shadowed veranda and wealth and tradition to hold it in place. The owner, Lucian Howard Cocke, was a son of the founder of Hollins College. In his 69 years, he became an outstanding lawyer and civic leader, serving as the last mayor of the Town of Roanoke and the first mayor of the city after it was incorporated in 1884. Following the death of his wife, Lelia Smith, he married Sarah Cobb Hagan, a widow from Atlanta, Ga., in 1903. She was a person soon to be recognized as leader in the “smart set,” as social columns were later to note. Quite naturally, she staged a private luncheon and public reception at her home when Woodrow Wilson’s vice president Thomas R. Marshall, and wife came to the area, visiting at “Kern Cliff, the sum­ mer home of Sen. and Mrs. J. W. Kern of Indiana, near Hollins in 1914. The Kerns’ daughter later mar­ ried Dr. George B. Lawson of Roanoke. It was early May and wisteria time at the Cocke home when Roanoke policemen showed up in dress uniforms and white gloves and a large, open touring car swept grandly up the rise with the VIPs of the day. Bunting and banners fluttered every place that rambling roses and honeysuckle left bare. And the receiving line formed in the pergola, a latticed walkway where Virginia creeper cast a springtime shade. If other hostesses of the era were green with envy at the Cockes’ social coup, they were soothed with punch and small cakes and by a band “dispensing national and old familiar southern airs” behind the snowball bushes. Mrs. William Bagbey, the Cockes’ granddaughter, said a portion of the original land was chopped off and presented to her father, the late C. Francis Cocke, “for the sum of $1 and love and affection.” The colonial stucco he built where Elm and Orchard Hill connect weathered the years until 1962 when the hospital bought it for $85,000 at the height of the hospital’s acquisitions. 24 �Mrs. English Showalter of Roanoke has vivid memories of growing up on the hill where there was a long shady block for roller skating and street games. Her grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Allen Watts, acquired a home on Mountain Avenue, Southeast, behind the Lucian Cocke home in 1889. Tradition says the Watts home once was a carriage house on Pey­ ton Terry’s estate. At other times in its history, it served as a bachelors’ roost for many young men who were to become prominent in the city’s affairs. Mrs. Showalter said the residence was remodeled and enlarged by her grandfather, an attorney for the Norfolk and Western. After his death in 1904, his widow continued living there with her three children. A daughter, Jean, married Abram P. Staples, who became Virginia’s attorney general and then a judge in the Virginia Supreme Court. Mrs. Showalter is one of the four Staples children who grew up on Orchard Hill in the old Watts family home. Mrs. George Payne, mother of actor John Payne, ran a boarding house in the residence after the Sta­ ples left. Later it was occupied by the family of I. V. Jessee, father of Evans Jessee of Roanoke. The last oc­ cupants before hospital acquisition in 1962 were Dr. and Mrs. Earle Glendy. According to records, the home was sold for $28,000. On the Watts/Staples’ left was a house built by Mrs. Watts as an investment. It was a brown shingled structure with a wide porch and big rooms. One of the early oc­ cupants, W. J. Jenks, was to become presi­ dent of the N&W. D. D. Hull, president of Virginia Iron, Coal 8r Coke Co., later purchased the home and moved his wife and three young daughters there from a house on Clarke Avenue. The family remained a dozen years or so. Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Taylor estab­ lished a residence then; the house was sold in 1962 for $17,000. Cockespur decked out for a reception honoring Vice President Thomas R. Marshall. The Orchard Hill area has two dead-end streets—Mountain Avenue, which terminates at an eastern cliff where the hospital’s new 580-car parking garage is going up and the southern end of the old street that was called Orchard Hill. Perched near the cliff, across from the Jenks/Hull house, was the home of Mr. and Mrs. DeLos Thomas. He was NW general freight agent at the time of his death in 1918. His daughter, Ria, married Carter Glass of Lynchburg, who later became a US senator; his son, William, was the father of Mrs. G. Scott Shackelford of Roanoke. Dr. and Mrs. John Randolph Garrett lived next door to the Thomases. Their son, John R. Garrett of Roanoke, said the home was built in 1908 by Ronald Fairfax, an early Roanoker, who headed the city’s first “real” stock exchange. Fairfax lived at “Greenway Court,” a spectacular Victorian residence now gone from the triangular tract bounded by Jefferson, Maple and Walnut. 25 �Fairfax is believed to have built several of the angular Queen Anne-type homes on Orchard Hill prior to his helping develop the Villa Heights, Waverly and Morningside Heights additions. Mrs. Fairfax was said to have been presented to the Court of St. James in England. She owned a diamond tiara that she wore on elaborate occasions. The commodious home of Charles S. Churchill stood across Mountain Avenue from the Lucian Cocke house. The large fenced yard contained one of the areas most elaborate gardens. The house, as re­ membered by his grandson, Robert C. Churchill of Roanoke, had five bedrooms, two baths, a sun parlor and two kitchens, one with a coal stove. It was acquired by the hospital for $20,000. Churchill was from Pottsville and became NW vice president in charge of properties. His wife was mentioned prominently as “a social leader,” as were Mrs. Watts, Mrs. James Schick and Mrs. Joseh W. Coxe, whose homes faced each other on the hill. Mrs. Schick became Virginia DAR regent. Her husband, a civil engineer with the Pennsylvania Railroad before coming to Roanoke in its Big Lick days, achieved prominence for mapping out the layout of Roanoke and other settlements along the NW line. The couples adopted son was Randall Knisely, who later became an official of the Roanoke Coca-Cola Bottling Company. Across from the Schick home was the home of Joseph W. Coxe, one of the passengers on train No. 3 coming from Hagerstown. In addition to becoming comptroller of the Norfolk and Western, he was chairman of Roanoke’s first school board and president of the First Federal Savings & Loan Corp. His wife was the former Mollie Syester of Hagerstown, Md.; among his Roanoke grandchildren are Kathleen Koomen, Hugh Fisher, Mrs. O. Halsey Hill and Thomas G. Fisher. The latter remembers the 11-foot ceilings and leaded glass in the Orchard Hill home and estimated it was built in 1905. His grand­ parents, Fisher said, first lived on Jefferson Street, “behind the filling station that has just been torn down; and changed residence because Mrs. Coxe considered the site “too far out in the country.” It was a matter of some distinction that the areas first tiled bathroom was in the home of J. Tyler Meadows, 818 Orchard Hill. The house was very imposing in its corner lot; its owner was imposing too. In his later days, he was said to bear a strong resemblance to Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes. Certainly, he was a pioneer in Roanoke banking. A native of Staffordsville in Giles County, Mead­ ows came to Roanoke as a messenger boy for the First National Bank in 1889. Soon he was assistant cashier, then cashier, then vice president and a director and in 1918 was made president of the banking house. In 1926, when first National consolidated with National Exchange Bank, the stately and bearded Meadows was named chairman of the board of the merged institutions that became the First National Exchange Bank. He was elected president in 1935 and died in 1938. His home is believed to have been the first constructed on the breezy rise to the south of town. A family named Lafferty is said to have been associated with it, then Taylor Gleaves, who was vice president and manager of Adams, Payne and Gleaves, a building supply company. Immediately preceding the Meadows’ occupancy was the family of Col. Alfred Reynolds, accord­ ing to Mrs. Dirk Kuyk, who was raised at 1010 Orchard Hill. Her father, Thompson W. Goodwin, was a banker and president of Peoples Federal Savings and Loan at the time of his death in 1932. He built his 26-room home at the southern end of Orchard Hill where it ended at Highland. There was a formal rose garden there and a lilac hedge, Mrs. Kuyk remembers; “people would walk up on Sundays to see the lilacs,” she said. Some of the visitors were interested in the hundreds of beer steins her father displayed in the rathskel­ ler; all were intrigued by the family dog, which waltzed happily around on its two front feet. 26 �Mrs. Mary Terry Kuyk’s late husband was judge of the old Roanoke Hustings Court. She is a grand­ daughter of Peyton L. Terry of “Elmwood.” Her aunts, Miss Lucinda Terry and Miss Lila Terry, lived in a shingled frame home, 928 Orchard Hill, across Highland from the Goodwins. To the right of her aunts’ home was the Franklin residence, formerly owned by Versal Spaulding, superintendent of the eastern division of the Southern Express Company. A son, Branch Spaulding, died in late January this year. M. Clay Ferguson was a successful contractor. He drove a 12-cylinder Packard touring car, which grandly outshone the smaller Nash cars parked in other driveways near a fine-riding Chalmer sedan. The Franklin home was a handsome buff-colored frame featuring fine interior woodwork and leaded glass windows. Next in line on the block was the Coxe home and next to that was the rectory of St. Johns Episcopal Church. The original house was rather rambling and “the most ramshackle place you ever saw,” according to Mrs. W. W. Krebs, who lived on the rectory’s right. Charles Coe had the property before it had a church connection. It was demolished in 1933 and a Georgian brick Colonial was built for the family of Dr. Alfred R. Berkeley when he became St. John’s rector. After a brief tenure by Dr. Richard R. Beasley, who succeeded Berkeley, the home was sold to Viola Conner and became a boarding house. Finely constructed and of gracious appointments, the handsome home was the last to be leveled by the hospital. D. J. Breslin bought the northeast property at Orchard Hill and Mountain Avenue about 1900, his daughter said. He was a haberdasher and owned the old Blue Ridge Overall factory. He came to Roanoke from Clifton Forge and after moving to Orchard Hill had the home encased in brick and installed a concrete porch. That’s where his son, Daniel, put his three-year-old footprints. Mrs. Krebs recalls “the nice shady street and the wonderful neighborhood times.” In 1920, her father sold the home to Ernest G. Penn, a partner in the wholesale firm of Barrow-Penn, and moved to “Hunting­ don,” an historic property on Huntingdon Boulevard, N.E. Penn provided his family with “large cases of canned goods,” according to a daughter, Mrs. Warren Wellford of Roanoke. “No one thought the refrigerator should be in the kitchen,” she said, “so our refrigerator was in the butler’s pantry along with a big double sink and shelves for the dishes.” The spacious home had five bed­ rooms plus a sleeping porch and three bathrooms. The hospital bought it in 1968 for an undisclosed price. Facing the Penns across the street was the home of James B. Andrews, who was mayor in 1896 and the father of Mrs. Wallace Clement of Roanoke. The home was on a large corner lot where a big magnolia grew. A family named Woodson owned it later and converted it into apartments. The late Miss Mary Tice was living there when it was sold for demolition. The Andrews home was next door to the property of K. W. Greene, a prominent jeweler. His wife was Charles Churchill’s sister. Some years after Greene’s death, the home was occupied by L. C. Gardner, general claim agent for the NW. Mrs. Wellford tells the following story which seems to picture the life of old Orchard Hill. During a long-ago census, a volunteer recorder knocked at each door on the hill and was duly received by the women at home. She left with a puzzling impression. “The most peculiar neighborhood I ever saw,” she allegedly reported later. “None of the women has a job, yet none of the families seems hungry.” 27 �N & W, WW II By Colonel Lewis Ingles “Bud”Jeffries, USA (Ret) Roanoke’s Railroad in World War II Introduction “Roanoke’s Railroad and the War” describes the Norfolk and Western Railway s involvement and accomplishments in supporting this nations effort during World War II. N&W was not alone in this effort for this article brings out how the US railroads cooperated and supported the nation during this national crisis in a world conflict. Norfolk and Western, and all US railroads, achieved extraordinary transportation results for meeting all demands of the war effort here on the home front. This article covers what the railroads did in general, and N&W in particular, meeting transporta­ tion needs of wartime industry, movement of large amounts of military personnel and equipment, disruption of traffic flows, and how different facets of N&W operations adapted to changing demands. Aerial view o f Norfolk and Western Railway motive power building (left) and railroad shops (right). 28 �This railroad was probably the best prepared railroad going into World War II of any railroad in the country. Roanoke was the center of N&W’s rail operations as well as being its corporate headquarters. This is about what Roanoke’s railroad did during this very important period of American history. How did I collect this much information? The content to this subject is a result of some 60 years of reading US history, the study of US military operations with a particular interest in World War II as a career Army officer, a special interest in military unit histories of major combatant forces used in American wars, and the very special interest in the Norfolk and Western Railways development and use of steam motive power that set the standard for railroads in this country. From this broad background of gathering data for this article, the talk and this article brought together a lot of information that had been collected over many years. In the course of researching, documenting and publishing the story of Roanoke’s railroad and steam power, often information was collected about what N&W did during World War II. That was always saved so as to be available for future use when needed and because of the author’s strong interest in W W II and how this great railroad supported the war effort on the home front. During my military career, I published an article in a military journal about the use and capabilities of this country’s railroads as a US military asset. This last endeavor was written not only because of my Army background, but also from my interest in US railroading I developed over the years. W hat N&W specifically, and the nation’s rail industry in general, did in World War II is a very complex subject but a very fascinating one. At the heart of this is trains moving things from one point to another. In wartime the things being moved changed as well as routes and movement patterns because of special needs and demands. But railroading is more than running trains; all aspects of a railway’s operation and all facets of the corporate organization were affected by wartime requirements. A special thank you to my friend Ed King, a fellow published author, who worked for N&W and later retired from the railroad industry. His knowledge of N&W and railroading was invaluable with my talk and in this article. He and I are co-authoring a future book telling the complete story about N&W Railway’s development of steam motive power right here in Roanoke. Here is the story of Roanoke’s Norfolk and Western Railway and the US rail industry during World War II. It is a story of accomplishment. Col. Lewis “Bud” Ingles Jeffries, a Virginia Tech graduate, retired from 27 years o f Army service to his seventh generation Radford farm. He is the author o f Norfolk and Western, “Giant o f Steam, ” official historian o f the 611 steam locomotive project and is working as co-author o f a book on the N&W’s motive power policy. He’s a past chairman o f the N&W Historical Society board. This article is based on a talk by the author on May 2, 2019 for the Kegley Lecture Series. 29 �11111111 Roanoke’s Railroad and the War 11111111 O n 7 December 1941, Imperial Japanese Forces brutally attacked the US military installations at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, plunging this country into the conflict of World War II. A few days later, Nazi Germany declared war on the United States. Virtually overnight we went from a nation struggling to prepare for war to a global conflict requiring the United States to fight a two-ocean war of epic proportions. This being a total war with our national existence at stake, US railroads became a key factor to victory. This is how N&W and the US railroad industry contributed to victory in this conflict from 1939 to 1945. From the end of World War I to the beginning of World War II, there was prosperity in the first half of that period and a Great Depression in the second. There were significant technological advances in this time and even with the Depression, American railroads spent $10 billion on improvements and modernization programs between 1923 and 1941. Norfolk and Western was a highly profitable, well-led and managed, superbly engineered, coal hauling road, spending considerable on its physical plant, rolling stock and all facets of its transportation system. At the depth of the Depression, N&W hauled annually about half of the tonnage it did in 1929 when the Depression began, yet coal was consistently about 80 percent of the total tonnage each year. Even having to go through the Depression, N&W was perhaps the best prepared American railroad going into W W II. Despite the Depression, Roanoke’s railroad modernized and made improvements to its operation that would pay big dividends in the near future. The hallmark and most notable of this effort was the development of its own homegrown steam motive power, designed and built in the railways Roanoke Shops. There were three modern classes of steam produced before the war and these three types were so successful that they carried N&W to dieselization two decades later. First were the Class Y6 s used for heaviest freight work primarily in the mountainous territories of the system. Thirty-five were built in Roanoke Shops from 1936 to 1940, and 19 similar engines, Class Y5’s, were “modernized” in 1940-41, for a total of 54 on hand at the war s beginning. I Organized troop movements within the continental US resulted from the buildup and training o f millions o f military personnel before they were deployed overseas. Troops were loading passenger cars for a movement to another station in preparation for war. Ninety-seven percent of all organized movement was by rail. (Photo courtesy o f Landon Gregory collection.) The second type was the Class A articulated locomotive, a wholly N&W designed engine for heavy passenger and manifest freight work in the mountains and the heaviest freights on the flatter portions of the system. Ten of these locomotives, built at Roanoke during 1936-37, were a huge success. One of these Class As, number 1206, went to the New York Worlds Fair in 1939-40 as an example of the latest technological 30 �advances in steam motive power development in America after the First World War to the beginning of World War II. Lastly is the beautifully streamlined Class J’s that arrived just before the war began. Five were built from October 1941 to January 1942 and were the latest thing in steam passenger power. All three of these ' N&W classes proved during the war to be the ultimate in efficiency and dependability, and had a lot to do with the railway’s success during and after the war. There had already been a World War earlier in the Twentieth Century and one must look at what happened to the US rail industry then. The Federal government and railroads had not adequately prepared for that conflict. There was such a glut and chaos at ports that the railroads were unable to sort out the mess; consequently, the US government nationalized the rail industry to get the coordination needed for shipping men and material to our forces and allies overseas. The experience from W WI left a bad taste in everyone’s mouths, and so the preparation of the rail industry and the US government for the Second World War was in sharp contrast to that of the first war. In September 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland and this started the Second World War in Europe. It became inevitable that the USA was going to be drawn into war. There were alarmists forecasting that the American rail industry would be unable to cope with the demands of a future conflict since it was not able to do so in World War I. Since the rail industry had about 20 thousand fewer locomotives, half a million fewer freight cars and 16 thousand less passenger cars available than for the earlier war, these doubters said no way could Americas railroads meet the transportation requirements for a larger scale war. Yet, the memory of nationalization of railroads from 1917 to 1920 lingered in the minds of the industry and government. Despite the alarmists, the US government and the railroad industry began preparing for conflict should that occur. Congress passed the Transportation Act of 1940 to determine the demands of commerce and the needs for national defense in our transportation system, and to review the advantages and disadvantages of each mode in that system. In that same year, the Association of American Railroads (AAR), a trade organization for the rail industry, pledged that member railroads individually, and in cooperation with one another and with the Government, would continue to meet the full demands of commerce and the needs of national defense. Very significantly, the Federal government was setting the stage for the US railroad industry to remain in private ownership in the case of hostilities. The AAR was voicing the industry’s commitment to support this effort and to avoid nationalization. Norfolk and Western began its preparation for possible war service. The 1941 annual report stated it had expanded and authorized more than $60,000,000 since September 1939 in a comprehensive upgrade to expand its capacity for anticipated requirements, and that all military and civilian transportation demands during this period have been met and will continue to do so. A few days after Pearl Harbor, the president of the United States created the Office of Defense Transportation to coordinate all public and private transportation, to supervise all modes for meeting war traffic needs, and to encourage maximum use of each mode. With the creation of this office, the stage was now set for American railroads to remain under private control now that America was at war. W hat the rail industry accomplished was not imaginable as the war began. As each year passed, new records were set in the industry for freight and passenger movements, and there were the organized troop movements on top of that. As ton-miles and passenger-miles were figured up month after month and year after year from 1942 through 1945, the prewar alarmists and doubters just faded away. Even railroaders felt that the impossible had been accomplished. 31 �Norfolk and Western and US railroads had prepared for this war and they met the challenges in an exemplary manner. In 1941 (the last prewar year for the US), the total intercity freight volume was 1,051 billion ton-miles of which American rails hauled about 50 percent of the total. During 1944 (the last full war year), the total intercity freight volume increased only by about 13.5 percent. That year, railroads moved 795 billion ton-miles, this being two-thirds of the total intercity freight. The rail industry was moving more than 165 percent of the previous record set in 1929. W hat is not shown in these figures was the total Army freight moved by rail from Pearl Harbor to V-J Day amounted to 293 million tons, for a total of more than 206 billion ton-miles. This total Army freight is included in the intercity freight figures. W ith US railroads hauling this much of the total intercity freight traffic, what were the other modes carrying the rest? They were trucks, pipelines, inland waterways, and intercoastal and coastal shipping. The other modes experienced changes during the war that will be later noted. Beginning with the prewar buildup, Norfolk and Western had dramatic increases in tonnage. In 1939 it carried 47,841,955 actual tons of revenue freight of which about 80 percent (some 39 million tons) was coal. For 1944, it hauled 71,563,960 tons with coal being about 75 percent (about 53 million tons). From 1939 to 1944, N&W s tonnage increased by almost 50 percent. The years of 1942-44 were all about the same, so the big increase took place between 1939 and 1942. Huge demands were placed on US rail passenger service and the rail industry achieved extra­ ordinary success in meeting the challenge that this war generated. Civilians and military personnel traveling as revenue passengers increased exponentially due to gas and tire rationing that greatly limited the use of the automobile. By 1944, revenue passenger volume had increased to 96 billion passengermiles which doubled 1920—the highest volume before World War II. Ninety per cent of freight was moved by rail during the war years, as seen in these light tanks loaded on rail flat cars. War freight amounted to 293 mil­ lion tons, about 7 percent of freight moved within the continental United States. In 1944, American railroads hauled two-thirds of total freight traffic; the other third was carried by trucks, pipelines, in­ land waterways, coastal and intercoastal shipping. (Photo courtesy of Landon Gregory Collection.) American railroads carried this greatly expanded passenger volume without any new passenger equipment being available. In addition to the revenue passenger figures, the railroads hauled a total of 32 million military personnel (mostly Army) on organized troop movements. This accounted for 27.5 billion passenger-miles from Pearl Harbor to VJ Day. These were special moves for transporting military personnel from one installation to another for training in preparation for shipment overseas. American railroads carried 97 percent of all organized military passenger traffic during the war in the continental United States. 32 �Norfolk and Westerns revenue passenger traffic experienced a phenomenal increase during the war like that experienced throughout the industry. Coming out of the Depression in 1939, the railway carried about 1.1 million passengers, which was near the low end for the previous 10 years. By 1942 this had risen to 3.2 million, a passenger-mile increase of five. During 1944, N&W carried a whopping 5.2 million revenue passengers but when factoring in the average distance per passenger rode, the volume was almost 11 times that of 1939. One of N&W’s famous Class J’s is pulling a long, heavy passenger train during the war years. N&W, like all major US railroads, had a major increase in passenger traffic during the war, because of gas and tire shortages. N&W hauled five times as many passengers in 1944 as it did in 1939. (N&W photo, courtesy of author’s collection.) Each passenger being carried in 1944 averaged about 168 miles per trip; in 1939 was less than half that. On N&W, breakdown for revenue passengers was about 60-65 percent civilian and 35-40 percent military personnel traveling either individually or on leave (furlough). This was just revenue passenger service and did not include organized troop movements. There are no N&W total figures available for military moves, but they were considerable from what will be described later. The area served by Norfolk and Western became a vital link in wartime traffic for the US railroad system. The east end of N&W s system was anchored to Norfolk which was part of the port of Hampton Roads, the nations third largest for shipping troops and war material overseas. During the war, slightly more than 19 million tons of war freight and almost three-quarters of a million troops were shipped from there, N&W being one of the major rail carriers to this port. There were three major military bases that were served directly by N&W: Camp Lee at Petersburg and Camp Pickett at Blackstone, both in Virginia, and Lockbourne Army Air Base near Columbus, Ohio. Also, Norfolk Naval Base and the Army’s Camp Butner near Durham, North Carolina, were served by N&W along with other carriers. These camps and bases were heavily used to train troops and equip units for overseas service. Then there were four munitions (powder) plants located along the N&W: Buckeye Ordnance Works at Kenova, West Virginia, Radford Ordnance Works near Radford, Virginia, New River Ordnance Works near Dublin, Virginia, and National Fire Works Company at Bristol, Virginia. So, the N&W system was of strategic importance serving military installations by providing them with much needed rail transportation. Not including Norfolk and Hampton Roads, the railway delivered 165,859 carloads of freight to these above listed military installations and “powder” plants between Pearl Harbor and September 1, 1945. During the same time 43,573 carloads were received—this last figure equates to 3,490 sixty-car trains: Very importantly at the center of this railways network were the coalfields of southern West Virginia, southwestern Virginia and eastern Kentucky that fueled the economy and heated the homes 33 �of the American people. A total of 190 million tons of revenue coal was hauled by N&W during the war toward the east coast and through the Midwest gateway from these coalfields. Norfolk and Western met all these wartime demands and requirements. Wartime rail traffic resulted in shifts of what was being moved and the routes used. It was previously m entioned that rail traffic increased about 50 percent from 1941 levels while the total freight volume only increased about 13.5 percent by the end of the war. To understand this change we must look at what happened with the other modes of transportation. Trucking and highway movement was reduced by about 25 percent because of fuel and tire rationing. Inland waterways remained about the same. Pipelines doubled their capacity while coastal and intercoastal shipping was reduced by about 75 percent during the war. This great reduction of coastal shipping was caused by German U-boats interdicting this traffic along the east coast and all this traffic was diverted to the other modes, mostly the railroads. This is the major reason that the US railroad industry was carrying two-thirds of the intercity freight traffic at the end of W W II. This, too, greatly affected N&W. The best example of changing traffic flows on the N&W is the Shenandoah Valley line. Because of the interruption of coastal shipping by submarines, this single track, 238-mile line between Roanoke and Hagerstown had very significant increases in traffic (mainly bituminous coal and petroleum) to the northeast as a result. In 1939, the traffic on this line was about 100,000,000 gross ton-miles per month. By March 1943, this volume had increased by six times that amount and a real “bottleneck” resulted on the heavy grades approaching both sides to the summit on Lofton H ill-the highest point on this line. Coal accounted for about 90 percent o f all freight moved by N&W before the war. Coal was the lifeline to fuel America’s economy. The war caused a significant increase in total freight moved by Roanoke’s railroad and the proportion of coal to the total remained about the same. Here is one of the railroad’s home-built heavy freight locomotives with a coal train at Montvale, east of Roanoke, heading toward Norfolk in 1941. (N&W photo, courtesy author’s collection.) The railway double-tracked and installed heavier rail on more than 10 miles of Lofton Hill between Vesuvius and Greenville, with about half of the new double track being on each side of the summit. A wye was added at Lofton (the summit) to turn helper engines, and traffic control was extended on 118 miles of the line. These improvements boosted traffic volume to a monthly capacity of 840,000,000 gross ton-miles. The cost to the railway was $1,154,000 and this was later amortized over a five-year period as a direct expenditure for the war effort. During the 44 months from January 1,1942 to August 31,1945, the Shenandoah Valley line handled about 17 million tons of diverted coal which was far above that normally carried before the war. This di­ verted coal equated to about 287,000 carloads which is equivalent to 4,783 extra 60-car trains using this line. 34 �Another victim from interdicting coastal shipping was the movement of refined petroleum and its products. The east coast and the northeast received much of its oil products by the way of coastal and intercoastal shipping from the Gulf of Mexico around the Florida Keys and up the eastern seaboard. The U-Boat menace forced much of this interdicted oil traffic to the railroads and to a greatly expanded pipe­ line system after 1943. The US rail industry answered this call by pooling over 150 thousand rail tank cars to move refined petroleum and its products on 66 routes to fuel the economy and to meet military needs. Norfolk and Western was involved but only about 1.5 percent or less of its total freight traffic being oil. Nonetheless, solid tank car trains were moved between Bristol and Roanoke and then either on the Norfolk or Shenan­ doah Valley lines. N&W moved more than twice as much refined petroleum and its products in 1944-45 than in 1939. A major requirement was the need to move very large numbers of military units, including person­ nel and equipment, from one location to another in preparing for overseas deployment. The US Army had the greatest need for these moves since its strength went from less than 187 thousand troops in September 1939 to six million by August 1943. There were 90 Army divisions of which 88 were trained and deployed from the continental United States during the war. It was a herculean task to train this vast combat force which required the movements of these divisions from one installation to another for dif­ ferent levels of training. This was the reason the rail industry moved a total of 32 million troops in orga­ nized troop movements. After Pearl Harbor, railroads were not allowed to build or buy new passenger equipment. With the big increase in civilian passenger patronage due to gas and tire rationing, there just wasn’t enough pas­ senger equipment to meet demands for both civilian passenger and troop movements. The government came to the relief of the railroads by building from late 1943 to early 1946, 2,400 troop sleepers and 800 troop kitchen cars for use in organized troop movement. These cars were government owned and oper­ ated by the Pullman Company. They were used nationwide in pool service when and where needed. Each sleeper car had a Pullman porter assigned and the kitchen cars were manned by military cooks and mess personnel from the unit being moved. These sleeper and kitchen cars enabled the railroads to meet war­ time demands of organized troop movements. Norfolk and Western was caught up in these “special” movements—unscheduled trains based on a requirement generated for a specific move. Having major military installations along its right of way, this had to be a considerable number, but there is no record of the total special trains N&W handled during the war. It is known that 52 special trains of 24 to 42 cars each delivered the 3d Armored Division to Camp Pickett in November 1942. This was the only armored division sent to Pickett; it was moved to another post in January 1943. There were also six infantry divisions delivered to and moved from there between m id-1942 and the fall of 1944. To deliver a division to Camp Pickett, or any division to any installation for that matter, required a lot of coordination and this was a highly orchestrated affair. As an incoming full troop train was spot­ ted, it was unloaded and immediately was removed so the next full troop train could be brought in and unloaded. Trains carrying vehicles were similar, being unloaded and removed to receive the next load­ ed train. This was done thousands of times throughout the country during the war by all railroads. The coordination required was done between all railroads involved and the government. To load out a unit was just as demanding to orchestrate. There were about 2,500 “special” trains each m onth nationwide. To move an army division required an average of 1,350 cars and sometimes as many as 65 trains. Norfolk and Western lived up to its motto of “Precision Transportation” when handling these organized movements. After the last division was shipped in 1944, Camp Pickett was converted to a large hospital for 35 �wounded service members to convalesce and recover from severe combat injuries. N&W operated specially equipped hospital trains between the port of Norfolk and Camp Pickett as trains of mercy for this caring task. Another area of the railroad greatly affected by the war was the Dining Car Department to accommodate the tremendous increased numbers of revenue passengers traveling and riding longer distances on N&W trains. The Dining Car Department was not responsible to feed troops on organized troop movements. But to feed its revenue passengers, dining cars served 577,742 meals in 1942, in 1943 that was 777,710 and 812,870 meals were served in 1944. To alleviate the need to serve meals only in dining cars, N&W began in 1944 serving sandwiches and beverages to passengers at their seats in coaches; this being 452,980 meals served in coaches that first year. During the first eight months of 1945, the totals served were at about the same level. From January 1942 through August 1945, the Dining Car Department served about 2.6 million meals in its dining cars and almost 800 thousand in coaches. This equates to more than 2,550 meals being served every day of the war, or 107 for each hour of the war. This feat was accomplished despite food shortages and rationing, manpower losses and the railroad not allowed to acquire new dining cars. Hauling munitions and explosives increased by leaps and bounds during the war. In 1942, N&W car­ ried a total of 188,379 tons of explosives. By 1944, this had risen to 938,748 tons, a five-time increase in two years. N&W constructed a temporary yard at Windsor, Virginia (33 miles west of Norfolk), to store loaded cars of explosives. Because of the hazard of storing explosives in populated areas and ports, this yard al­ lowed better security; then cars were staged from this yard to dockside for immediate unloading into ships as they arrived in port. This yard had eight tracks totaling 5.9 miles; each track could hold 50 cars, and the yard handled 11,091 carloads of explosives from June 1944 through April 1945. The direct cost to the rail­ way was $180,000 and the yard was dismantled soon after the war ended when no longer needed. The cost of this was worth it since N&W had no devastating incident or mishap from explosives during the war. War traffic generated many more trains and motive power availability became critical. N&W addressed locomotive availability by designing its modern road power to minimize servicing and for making longer runs before servicing was needed. In 1940 it took almost four hours from the time a locomotive finished an assignment to being ready for its next assignment. In 1942 Roanoke’s railroad began using the assembly line method to service its engines, first at Roanoke’s Shaffers Crossing engine terminal and later at other terminals. At Shaffers under the old system, 80 locomotives could be dispatched daily while the new method was designed for 135 in a 24-hour period. Central to this new procedure was the new engine service and inspection buildings where locomotives were inspected, lubricated and given light repairs without passing through the roundhouse. The latest lubrication equipment included hoses suspended from the ceiling for dispensing various oils and greases to the many lubricating points on each engine. Light running repairs were made as the locomotive was being lubricated. Time was reduced to less than two hours for an engine to be ready for its next assignment Roanoke Terminal received and forwarded more trains than any other on N&W’s system. Shaffers Crossing was the railway s largest and busiest engine terminal with locomotives coming in and going out in five directions in addition to engines working in the large Roanoke yards. March 1945 was the busiest month during the war when Shaffers dispatched 3,836 locomotives for an average of 124 per day, the highest number ever dispatched in a month from a single terminal in the steam era. The busiest day ever was March 2,1945 when 141 locomotives were serviced and dispatched, an average of one being made ready every 10 minutes. This engine servicing method became standard on N&W and it was the only railroad to ever use this servicing system on steam power. 36 �Roanoke’s railroad had in its arsenal of weapons the Roanoke Shops that added mightily to its prosperity and well-being before the war. This institution, also known to the railway as “East End Shops”, contributed significantly to N&W s war service. Its 2,850 employees kept the extensively used passenger equipment repaired and in service, repaired and built freight cars, built 47 new steam locomotives, and performed classified repairs on N&W s own steam power as well as 284 engines from eight other railroads. The shops also filled 85 war orders for some 438,000 items of equipment and parts for other industries and the armed forces. One such war order for the Shops made components for Bailey bridges (prefabricated bridges which could quickly replace those damaged or destroyed by war). Very significantly, the Norfolk and Western sponsored the 755th Railway Shop Battalion, a unit of the Army’s Military Railway Service. It is only right that the N&W sponsored a shop battalion and then furnished personnel from its own Roanoke Shops for this unit. The 755th saw service in England and Western Europe, and this distinguished unit was cited for meritorious service by keeping locomotives and equipment serviceable in that war zone. It only seems natural that this unit should be cited since it was composed mostly of skilled personnel from the most efficient railway shop anywhere, performing duties they knew so very well. The Norfolk and Western Railway set a standard of excellence during World War II that was as good as any railroad in America. That is a credit to the leadership and management, but is also a credit to its loyal and faithful employees who went beyond what was asked to be done for their country in this national crisis. There were approximately 25 thousand employed during the war years. Yet no part of the railway’s contribution to Victory was greater than the approximately 4,600 members of the N&W Family who served their country in the armed forces, and the 95 who paid the supreme sacrifice in their nation’s defense. N&W’s President William J. Jenks said, the N & W men who gave their lives fo r our country we owe a debt o f gratitude, -L which can be repaid only by our sustained devotion to the task o f helping to preserve peace and freedom throughout the world These words by P resident Jenks are as true today as they w ere 74 years ago. Not only did the railway’s Family put its wholehearted effort into doing its railroad job, they fully supported the war by buying War Bonds. The N & W Magazine stated that “N&W employees were the first large group of rail workers to achieve the distinction of having 99.8 per cent of their number buy War Bonds.” From August 1941 to July 1945, 376,046 War Bonds were purchased through payroll deduction having a par value of $11,021,825. Furthermore, the railway’s Family sacrificed to support the war effort in other ways, such as collecting and disposing of scrap metal, rubber and paper. Like all Americans, they grew and shared their Victory Gardens with their friends and neighbors. This is how the Norfolk and Western and US railroads performed their service to the nation in World War II. This is in sharp contrast to the railroad industry during the First World War and the railway industry met the challenge par excellence. For N&W, this involved enlarging its equipment program and facilities to meet the greater volume of traffic. The railway met all military and civilian transportation demands during the war, and maintained and upgraded its physical plant while continuing development of its motive power and equipment. 37 �Remaining as private companies during W W II is a credit to labor and the all-out cooperation of managements between rail companies; railroads achieved wartime transportation records that are unprecedented in US history. The N&W Magazine gave this eye-catching statistic: “During World War I the railroads were operated by the government at a loss of $2,000,000 a day, which had to be made up by the taxpayers. During World War II, the railroads not only operated in the black but paid to the government taxes amounting to $3,000,000 daily.” W hat a compelling reason for the free enterprise system and justification for US railroads to remain private. So what did the Norfolk and Western Railway pay in taxes? Remaining a private company, it paid $175,835,504.43 in taxes from January 1942 through July 1945. That was enough to build 293 B-29 Superfortresses, Americas largest and most advanced bomber of W W II. War not only increased traffic, wartime conditions created major changes in traffic flows and routing. When German submarines interdicted coastal shipping along the eastern seaboard, almost all petroleum and its products from the Gulf of Mexico was diverted to pipelines and railroads for delivery to the northeast. N&W earned very little oil before the war. Here is a solid tank car train on the line from Roanoke to Hagerstown, Maryland enroute to the northeast. (N&Wphoto, courtesy author’s collection.) Between 1941 (the last prewar year) and 1944 (the last full war year), the total intercity freight volume increased only about 13.5 percent. Yet, the US railroads’ volume increased by 50 percent during the same time for two reasons: one was the increased need for land transportation generated by the war and secondly was that eastern seaboard coastal shipping was interdicted by German submarines and three-fourths of that traffic was absorbed mostly by the eastern railroads. The US railroads magnificently met the transportation requirements of World War II and did the job speedily and safely with little congestion and delays. US railroads moved annually twice the freight volume of any year in the First World War. Total revenue passenger volume in 1944 was more than double of the prewar high in 1920. The rail industry did all of this with one-third fewer locomotives and passenger cars and one-fourth fewer freight cars than during World War I. The rail industry’s modernization programs prior to the war made this possible. This excess capacity came from technological improvements and advancements in motive power, rolling stock, track, shops, yards, terminals, signals and traffic control. World War II ended with victory on the battlefields. As N&W’s President Jenks said, we do “owe a debt of gratitude” to those who sacrificed and suffered so much to win the war. Fighting forces won this war, yet victory was only possible having railroads providing the needed transportation on the home front. America was involved in this war for only 44 months, but it would have lasted much longer if the US rail industry hadn’t performed as well as it did. Norfolk and Western and all US railroads deserve the credit as private companies working together in this great human effort. It was a time of unparalleled accomplishment in the rail industry and for Roanoke’s railroad. The period of 1939 through 1945 was US railroading’s finest hour. The record speaks for itself! 38 �N & W Shops By Ken Miller Roanoke Shops/East End Shops, Recalling 137 Years o f History n 1881, in the small community of Big Lick would become a junction of the Atlantic Mississippi and Ohio (AM&O) and the coming Shenandoah Valley Railroad. In October 1881, the Roanoke Machine Works was founded to become a major repair and manufacturing facility for the two roads as well as others. The Norfolk and Western (descendant from the bankrupt AM&O) was the owner but it was operated as a separate organization until 1897. I Construction on the Roanoke Machine Works was generally completed by summer of 1883 and repair work commenced. The Roanoke Machine Works built or repaired equipment for many railroads in the eastern United States. In 1885, the Roanoke Machine Works completed its first nine locomotives. The Machine Works had been operating at limited capacity due to financial depression in the country. But in 1886, they were up to full operation. In the ensuing decade, the Roanoke Machine Works constructed a total of 152 new locomotives for the N&W. In 1897, the company was folded into the Norfolk and Western and became their Roanoke Shops or East End Shops. At that time, roughly 1,000 workers were employed there. The Shops would be a major employer in the Roanoke Valley for nearly a century. Over time, the Shop complex grew to roughly 90 acres. Locomotive production resumed in 1900 at the facility. Over the next 53 years the shops built 295 locomotives. From 1927 to 1953, the shops built every new steam locomotive acquired by the N&W, and repaired or rebuilt countless others. During the 1930 s, even with the Depression, N&W kept workers on, despite a reduced schedule to maintain the skills they knew they would need later when times improved. During World War II, the Shops were a vital wartime industry, employing some 2,850 people in 1943. The Shops continued building new locomotives for the N&W, repairing countless cars and locomotives. The Shops also did war contract work for the US Army and US Navy as well as a wide variety of other companies. During 1943 alone, they built 21 locomotives, repaired 259 others, repaired over 4,500 steel hopper cars as well as many other cars and rebuilt 43 steam locomotives for other railroads. Steam locomotive production continued until December 1953 when the last steam locomotive built for a Class One railroad in the United States left the shop. Alas, it was not to last, as the N&W rapidly dieselized and steam operation ended in May 1960. After the steam era, the Shops became a major repair facility for the systems diesel locomotives. New car construction continued and at one point the Shops were shipping out 16 cars per 24-hour day. In 2000, Norfolk Southern closed its freight car production line, moving work to Altoona, PA. In early 2020, NS announced the closure of the locomotive repair shops ending 137 years of work in Roanoke. Ken Miller is managing editor o f “The Arrow, ” magazine o f the Norfoilk and Western Railway Historical Society. 39 �L o s t C o lo n u By JeffHampton Roanoke Island Mystery Solved “The m ystery is over” Researchers say they know w hat happened to the aLost Colony” Virginian-Pilot, Aug. 17, 2020 UXTON, N,C, — The English colonists who settled the so-called Lost Colony before disappearing from history simply went to live with their native friends—the Croatoans of Hatteras, according to a new book. B “They were never lost,” said Scott Dawson, who has researched records and dug up artifacts where the colonists lived with the Indians in the 16th century. “It was made up. The mystery is over.” Dawson has written a book, published in June, that details his research. It is called “The Lost Colony and Hatteras Island.” And echoes many of the sentiments he has voiced for 11 years. Dawson and his wife, Maggie, formed the Croatoan Archaeological Society. W hen the digs began, Mark Horton, a professor and archaeologist from England’s University of Bristol, led the project. Henry Wright, professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan, is an expert on native history. Teams have found thousands of artifacts 4-6 feet below the surface that show a mix of English and Indian life. Parts of swords and guns are in the same layer of soil as Indian pottery and arrowheads. The excavated earth looks like layer cake as the centuries pass. “In a spot the size of two parking spaces, we could find 10,000 pieces,” he said. Pieces found during the project are on display at the Hatteras Library. The rest are in storage. Dawsons book draws from research into original writings of John White, Thomas Harriot and others. Most of their writings were compiled at that time by English historian Richard Hakluyt. Records from Jamestown also helped Dawson understand more about the tribes’ political structure. The evidence shows the colony left Roanoke Island with the friendly Croatoans to settle on Hatteras Island. They thrived, ate well, had mixed families and endured for generations. More than a century later, explorer John Lawson found natives with blue eyes who recounted they had ancestors who could “speak out of a book,” Lawson wrote. The two cultures adapted English earrings into fishhooks and gun barrels into sharp-ended tubes to tap from trees. The Lost Colony stemmed from a 1587 expedition. Just weeks after arriving, White had to leave the (Editor’s note: For centuries, historians have wondered about what happened to the Lost Colony at Roanoke Island in 1587. After landing on the North Carolina coast, the leaders left a group and returned to England for supplies. When they returned the colony had disappeared. Their island name followed the river upstream to what became Roanoke, Va. This article is used with permission.) 40 �group of settlers—including his daughter, Eleanor Dare, and newborn granddaughter, Virginia—to get more supplies from England. White was not able to return for three years. W hen he arrived at Roanoke Island in 1589 he found “CROATOAN” carved on a post and “cro” on a tree. He found no distress marks. They literally made a sign. It was expected that the colonists would go with their friends, the Croatoans and tribe member, Manteo, Dawson said. Manteo had traveled to England with earlier expeditions and was baptized a Christian on Roanoke Island. White later wrote of finding the writing on the post. “I greatly enjoyed that I had found a certain token o f their being at Croatoan where Manteo was born.” A bad storm and a near mutiny kept White from reaching Hatteras. He returned to England without ever seeing his colony again.’ Archaeologists found a flower-shaped clothing clasp belonging to a woman with the other items. Sir Walter Raleigh sent three expeditions to the New World in 1584,1585 and 1587. The first two had more military purposes and did not include women. The 1587 group brought 15 women with it, Dawson said. They also found round post holes where Indians built their long houses, 25 feet to 60 feet long and they uncovered square post holes made by the English during the same period. “They were in the Indian village surrounded by long houses,”Dawson said. Bones of turtle, wild fowl and deer bones indicate good eating. Pigs’ teeth turn up for generations. They never had to eat the last pig, Dawson said. Any skeletons uncovered in the digs were left untouched out of respect, Dawson said. One artifact could depict a recorded event. A lead tablet and lead pencil found at the dig could have belonged to White himself, Dawson said. White was also part of the 1585 group, working as an artist who drew natives and wildlife. The British Museum has the originals. He likely used the newly discovered tablet or a similar one to draw the miniature pictures. The uncovered tablet has an impression of an Englishman shooting a native in the back. The paper drawing has never been found. Wingina, the chief of the Secotans, was shot twice in the back by an Englishman in 1586 at a village near what is now Manna Harbor, Dawson said. The Croatoans assisted the English in the ambush, Dawson said. The Secotans and the Croatoans hated each other, Dawson said. Secotans enslaved Croatoans just a few years before the English arrived. The English had burned a Secotan village in 1585. The Croatoans befriended the English as powerful friends with guns and armor. White’s colony welcomed their friendship, especially after one of their members, George Howe, was killed by the Secotans. White was concerned about the danger posed by the Secotans when he left for England. The Croatoans saved the colonists by taking them away from Roanoke Island to their Hatteras Island village, Dawson said. “You’re robbing an entire nation o f people o f their history by pretending Croatoan is a mystery on a tree,” he said. “These were a people that mattered a lot.” 41 �si a v e ra a s A m e ric a ’s “P e c u lia r” In stitu tio n : a n E c o n o m ic , S o c ia l P su c n o lo sx j a n d V alu e R e la tiv e A n a ly s is By Reginald Shareef lavery remains one of the oldest and most widespread institutions on earth. It was not unique to America. The English word “slave” is derived from “Slavs” who were enslaved on a massive scale and sold into bondage all over Europe and in the Ottoman Empire. Enslaved people—whether the enslavement was based on religion or ethnicity—might be despised or treated with contempt both during and after enslavement but that is not what caused them to be enslaved in the first place. Racial hate fol­ lowed, rather than preceded, American slavery. Africans were enslaved in the United States for economic reasons, and a racist rationale was used to justify American slavery because religious justifications for slavery were no longer tenable. S W hat Made American Slavery a “Peculiar” Institution? Conservatives make the argument that it was only “peculiar” because it was at odds with the found­ ing principles of the founding fathers. American economist Thomas Sowell wrote: “Slavery was peculiar only because hum an bondage was inconsistent with the principles of American democracy especially liberty and property.” Newt Gingrich, writing a rebuttal about the New York Times 1619 Project, had a similar opinion: “Certainly if you are African Amer­ ican, slavery is what you see at the center o f the American experi­ ence. But fo r most Americans, most o f the time, there were a lot o f other things going on. There were several hundred thousand white Americans who died in the Civil War to free the slaves.” This worldview views American slavery as essentially an issue of liberty, and that issue of societal freedom for blacks was fundamentally settled in 1865. And if not in 1865, certainly in 1868 with the civil war amendments, especially the 14th amend­ ment, that you could not deny a citizen of life, liberty, or property without due process. No longer were African Americans property. So for Conservatives the issue really stopped in 1868; if you were free and had due process. Reginald Shareef However, Liberals like the late Harvard Sociology Professor and US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan have a more expansive Dr. Reginald Shareef o f Roanoke is a political science/public administration professor at Radford University where he has taught for 30 years. He gave this talk to the Society in September 2019. Shareef holds degrees from Virginia State University, Lynchburg College and a doctorate from Virginia Tech. He has been adjunct professor at Virginia Tech and Roanoke College. As a public intellectual, he has written many articles. 42 �view of the peculiarity of American slavery. Moynihan wrote: “American slavery was profoundly differentfro m —and in its lasting effects on individuals and their chil­ dren— indescribably worse than any recorded servitude, ancient or modern.”W hat Moynihan did was compare slavery in Brazil, which also imported a lot of African slaves, to slavery in America. This is what he said: i f fT h e feudal Catholic society o f Brazil had a legal and religious tradition that offered a slave 1 a place—a miserable place to be sure—as a human being in society. A slave could legally marry; a slave could be baptized and become a member o f the Catholic Church. A slave fam ily could not be broken up fo r sale. A slave had days to rest or earn money to buy his freedom.” He said nothing in English law or Protestant theology accommodated the fact of human bondage. Slaves were reduced to the status of chattel property and totally removed from the protection of orga­ nized society. Existence of African slaves as human beings had no recognition by any religious or secular law (see e.g., the 1857 Dred Scott ruling). Slave children could be sold, marriages were not recognized, and a mans “wife” could be violated or sold. Slaves could be subjected—without redress—to barbaric punishment. Even if a master wanted to free his slaves, every legal obstacle was used to prevent that ac­ tion. In concluding, Moynihan said: “This is not what slavery meant in the ancient world, in medieval and early Europe, or in Brazil or the West Indies” (Moynihan, 1965). While I agree with both Sowell’s and Moynihan’s analysis concerning the peculiarities of American slavery, they both ignore the most salient independent variable. Since the legitimacy for the Christians of Western Europe to enslave “pagans” from the Balkans and Eastern Europe was no longer tenable, a new justification for slavery was needed. W hat made American slavery unique was the religious/legal justification of genetic black intellec­ tual and moral inferiority. As one writer from the New York Times’ 1619 Project noted, white Americans, whether invested in slavery or not, “had a considerable psychological as well as economic investment in the doctrine o f black inferiority. While liberty was the inalienable right o f the people who would be considered white, enslavement and subjugation became the natural station o f people who had any discernible drop of ‘black’ blood.” So that’s where the doctrine of innate black inferiority—the institutional reducing of human beings to subhuman status—was developed to justify American enslavement. The framers of the Constitution were not the first to believe, based on Natural Law, that people came in two types—slaves and non-slaves. They inherited these philosophical justifications for slavery from the Greeks. Aristotle was the first to articulate that slaves were born (a) incomplete (without souls and (b) the ability to think so they needed masters to tell them what to do. Furthermore, Aristotle thought that slaves were “living tools” fit only for physical labor. These ideas became an integral part of a “slave race” ideology. Plato, likewise, thought it was for the “better” to rule over the “inferior” based on slave and non-slave status. The U.S. Supreme Court enshrined this thinking in the law in its 1857 Dred Scott ruling, which said: Black people, whether enslaved or free, came from a slave race. This made them inherently infe­ rior to white people and, therefore, incompatible with American democracy. Democracy was for white citizens and the “Negro race” was a separate class of persons which the Founders had not regarded as a portion of the people or citizens of the government and had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” 43 �This belief that black people were a slave race became the root of the endemic racism that the coun­ try still suffers. If black people could never be citizens, if they were a caste apart from other humans, then they did not require the rights bestowed by the Constitution. Thus, America—while an economic class system of upward social mobility—is also a sociological racial caste system based on the ideology of genetic black inferiority. These socially constructed ideas are deeply embedded in both the national and global culture. This social construction shapes how both blacks and other groups “make sense” of African Americans. Both Conservatives like Sowell and Liberals like Moynihan have a psychological “blind spot” in ac­ knowledging that while America is a class system, it is simultaneously a racial caste. However, black thinkers beginning with sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois have viewed America as a racial caste and this worldview led to the development of Critical Race Theory as a legal and public policy discipline that analyzes America as a racial caste. This social construction of reality concerning genetic black inferiority—and thus that the group deserves to be at the very bottom of the social caste—is not conditional. It is heritable and immutable. We are talking talk about institutional racism, not about overt racism. Were talking about a process of social learning of deeply-embedded cultural beliefs that are often unconscious. As such, whenever a black gets “out of his/her place” in Americas racial caste (e.g., thinks for himself or herself or has ideas that differ from the status quo), there is an unconscious visceral reaction to put him /her back in his place. Hence—from this worldview—since President Obama Sweet Potato Planting, Hopkinson’s Plantation, Courtesy o f the really was most often “the smartest guy Library o f Congress, Gladstone Collection o f African American Photographs (329), LC-DIG-ppmsca-11398, Library o f Congress in the room,” the vicious libel from Pres­ Control No. 2010651644. ident Trump against Obama that he was not born in the US should not have been unexpected. Moreover, that people believed it, should not have been unexpected. The E conom ics o f A m erican S lavery Before the abolishment of the international slave trade was ended in the British Parliament in 1807, 400,000 enslaved Africans would be sold into America. We are all familiar with African slaves picking cotton in the South before the Civil War and generating tremendous wealth. Yet, the North, especially New York City, also benefited economically from this free labor. The relentless buying, financing insur­ ing and insuring of black bodies—and the products of their labor—made Wall Street a thriving banking, insurance and trading sector and New York City the financial capital of the world. There were all types of slaves. The Buttonwood Agreement o f 1792 became the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and covered transactions and companies involved in the slave trade including the purchasing o f slaves on credit, shipping, 44 �insurance and cotton. Many prominent Americans in the North made their economic fortunes directly from the slave trade. For example, John Jacob Astor, Americas first multimillionaire, made his fortune in furs, China trade, and the slave trade. Astor, who died is 1848, is the namesake for the WaldorfAstoria Hotel and popular neighborhoods in NYC. Moses Taylors banking operations helped finance the illegal slave trade and evolved into the giant bank, Citibank. Phillip Livingston, a signer o f the Declaration o f Independence, used his slave-based wealth to endow Yale University’s first professorship. He was also a founder o f Kings College, which later became Columbia University. Charles Tiffany got financing from his father—who owned a cotton mill in Connecticut that processed cotton picked by slave labor—to open a fancy goods store in 1837 in New York. Thus, slaves’profits were in­ strumental in launching Tiffany & Company, the world renowned jewelry company. In sum, the slave trade was economically profitable fo r both the North and South. F ram ers’ R eaction to C alls fo r Ending the Slave Trade By 1776, Britain had grown deeply conflicted over its role in this peculiar and barbaric institution known as the slave trade and called for an end to it. These calls would have upended the economies of the colonies in both the North and South. Conveniently left out of Americas Founding mythology is the fact that one of the primary reasons the colonists sought independence from Great Britain was over the slave trade issue. We think of the Bos­ ton Tea Party, but another reason for breaking with British Empire was the slave trade. The wealth and prominence that allowed Jefferson, at 33, and the other founding fathers to believe they could break off from the mighty British Empire came from the astronomical profits generated by chattel property. Ten of America’s first 12 Presidents were enslavers. Ironically, in making the argument against British tyranny, one of the colonists’ favorite rhetorical devices was to claim that they were the slaves—to Great Britain. For this duplicity, they faced intense criticism—both at home and abroad—as evidenced by Samu­ el Johnson, a British Tory opposed to independence, who wrote: “How is it that we hear yelps fo r liberty among the drivers o f Negroes?” W hen I was starting my masters degree in public administration, we had to read a 1913 book by Charles Beard, “An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution.” It provides further evidence that the Framers’ economic interests—rather than notions of democracy—shaped the Founding Period. Beard argued that the structure of the Constitution of the US was primarily shaped by the econom­ ic interests of the Framers. He also contended the Constitution was a counter-revolution between N orth­ ern bankers and merchants—those who financed the slave trade—and Southern farmers and plantation owners. The Constitution protected the economic interests of both the banker-merchant class and planta­ tion owners by: a. Protecting the “property” o f those who enslaved black people b. Prohibiting the federal governmentfrom intervening to end the importation o f enslaved Africans for 20 years; and c. Allowing Congress to mobilize the militia to p u t down insurrections by the enslaved and forced states that had outlawed slavery to turn over enslaved people who had escaped. 45 �In 1800, plantation slave owners overthrew the capitalists by electing Thomas Jefferson as President, establishing Jeffersonian Democracy. However, both the Northern bankers and merchants and Southern plantation owners continued to get rich off of free black labor. Adam Smith, the founder of modern capitalism, talks about the natural law justifications for slav­ ery in his books, “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” and “The Wealth of Nations.” He sought to refute the linkage of natural law and slavery and believed that tyranny, not economic utility, was the basis for slavery. In “The Wealth of Nations,” Smith said slave labor was less productive than free labor since freemen work for themselves and work harder. He also said slavery reduces productivity since slaves have no in­ centive to innovate and argues that slavery has held back societies’ economic growth throughout history. In “The Theory of Moral Sentiments,” Smith noted found that only two groups like slavery, aristo­ crats and wealthy merchants, because they fear the humbling competition domain of market competition. Adam Smith was adamantly opposed to slavery and condemned those engaged in the institution for both economic and moral reasons. In sum, despite Natural Law justifications from the Greeks and the forthcoming establishment of Jeffersonian Democracy, the third President of the United States feared God’s punishment for the “pecu­ liar” institution that he benefited from as he wrote in “Notes on the State o f Virginia” in 1784. Here’s what Jefferson said: ^ \ nd can the liberties o f a nation be secure when we have removed their only firm basis, i l f l conviction in the minds o f the people that these liberties are the gift o f God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed, I tremble fo r my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever: that considering numbers and nature means only, a revolution o f the wheel o f fortune, an exchange o f situations, is among possible events: that it may become probable through supernatural interference. The Almighty has no attribute that can take side with us in such a contest.” Like the Jewish tribes with Moses, Jefferson made the conscious choice to worship the profits derived from the golden calf of the “peculiar” institution rather than heed God’s warnings against the in­ human, m an-made system of chattel slavery. He feared God’s punishment individually and on American society for participation in the “peculiar” institution. S ocial P sycho logy o f th e “ P ecu liar” Institution: C o n tem p o rary Im plications Claude Steele, a social psychologist and professor at Stanford University, pioneered research into the relationship between what he called Stereotype Threat and Educational Achievement. He sought to demonstrate the cause and effect relationship between the fear of confirming a negative stereotype, like innate intellectual inferiority negatively affecting black student test-taking abilities. The results research demonstrates a self-fulfilling prophecy. In a set of experiments, Steele and his colleagues gave black and white college students half-hour tests using difficult terms from the verbal GRE. In one group, the students were told the test diagnosed intellectual ability thus eliciting the stereotype-threat that blacks are less intelligent than whites. In the other group, researchers told the other group the test was a problem-solving task that was not the catalyst for triggering stereotypical behaviors, thus rendering stereotypes irrelevant. W hat the research found was the intelligence test triggered the stereotype-threat and blacks did less 46 �well than whites. In the non-stereotype-threat group, black performance matched that of equally skilled whites. Further Steele and his colleagues’ research revealed that by merely asking students to record their race—thus making the stereotype salient—black students performed worse than white students. Consequently, the socially constructed belief in black intellectual inferiority—that began with the racist justification for the “peculiar” institution—is so deeply embedded in American culture that an emotional fear of confirming the stereotype has been validated as an independent variable in lower test-taking achievement scores. Researchers in my field of Leadership Studies have conducted studies to determine how workers view black leaders. A 2013 study, reported in the Academy o f Management Journal, is instructive: White leaders are viewed as the norm or standard so there is nothing to compare them against. Black leaders are viewed as incompetent; that is, having a lack of intelligence. Even when black leaders are successful, these outcomes are not attributable to “intelligence” but to friendliness, approachability and compassion. Both black and white workers were represented in this particular study. Consequently, the socially constructed belief in black intellectual inferiority—that began with the racist justification for the “peculiar” institution—is so deeply embedded in world culture that despite black leadership organizational success and performance, respondents will attribute that success to other characteristics than intelligence. The “P ecu liar” Institution and V alue-R elativity Value Relativity is “The sociological proposition that moral values change over time.” Conversely, universal, religious values are “Transcendent moral values that do not change over time.” Thus, slavery was always wrong whether practiced by the Romans against the Jewish people, the Ottoman Turkish Muslims or Western European Christians on the peoples of Eastern Europe, the Arab slave trade, or the American slave trade. Contemporary sex trafficking of young women is a form of slav­ ery, and it is as morally wrong today and was wrong 2,000 years ago. Slavery was always wrong. Thomas Sowell makes the value-relative argument for why the "peculiar" institution existed—and was condoned—in America by the Framers: “Those who criticized the writers of the Constitution for con-doning slavery by their silence on the subject have a valid point only if its abolition was in fact an option open to them at the time, in a new country struggling for survival. A much larger and more powerful U nited States was shaken to its foundations by the Civil War generations later. Had the US split over the issue of slavery when the constitution was written in 1787, it is no means clear that the North would have prevailed militarily or that either region would have survived.” Sowell makes a classic political, Machiavellian argument for the Framers condoning slavery. That’s a great example of value-relativity. Yet, Thomas Jefferson makes no such Machiavellian political argument against slavery. He under­ stands the immoral social psychology of slavery and rails against the “peculiar” institution while simulta­ neously loving the economic benefits of free labor. This is what Jefferson wrote: CCf * here must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners o f our people produced by J . the existence o f slavery among us. The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise o f the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments o f wrath, puts on the same airs in the 47 �circle o f smaller slaves, gives loose to his worst o f passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances.” Jefferson was not a social psychologist, but he understood how social learning inculcates the belief of innate inferiority between master and slave. Yet, for over 50 years, Jefferson was locked—along with the other Framers—into the slave system for purely economic reasons. He simply could not afford to free his slaves because he needed them to work his 10,000 acres of land which, without their labor, would have lost its value. Thus, Jefferson not only devoted himself to an economy based on slave labor but also to a defense of the idea that (a) slaves themselves constituted a legitimate form o f property and (b) slavery was an indispensable social practice. In sum, Jefferson simply put economic profit maximization over moral economics but was not hyp­ ocritical about his decision. There was no value-relativity in his decision to profit from the slave economy. C onclusion The foregoing discussion does not seek to make slavery of Africans by Europeans unique due to some type of inherent moral deficiencies in the West. There’s no moral deficiency. We are all human be­ ings. African tribes enslaved other African tribes as a result of war. The earlier discussion of the Ottoman Turks (Muslims) and their enslavement of the Slavic people of Eastern Europe in the 1500s led to centu­ ries of deeply-embedded hatreds that exploded—five hundred years later—in the deadly Bosnian War of the early 1990s that killed thousands of Muslims. The story of Arab Muslims enslaving thousands of Africans in the 14th Century—like that of the Ottoman Turks—severely tarnishes the fundamental Islamic principle of egalitarianism. Slavery, for whatever reason, is not unique. However, what this discussion does do is to empirically demonstrate the “uniqueness” of Americas “peculiar” institution. It also demonstrates how, for the first time in history, that religious/legal/educational institutions were used to justify the genetic inferiority of a race in order to condone slavery. Most im portant in my mind, however, is that the how and why of slavery—in any form—is always a moral wrong. 48 �Annotated bibliography I. Creating A Shared Reality: The best discussion of organization sensemaking—where people find meaning to their collective experiences—is provided by Karl Wick in his classic 1995 Sensemaking in Organizations. For a review of how the English word ‘slave’ is derived from the enslavement of Slavic people and how racial hate has followed, not preceded, enslavement, see Thomas Sowell’s Race and Culture: A Worldview (1994), Chapter 7-Race and Slavery. II. What Made American Slavery a "Peculiar" Institution: See Sowell, Chapter 7; “Newt Ging­ rich calls 1619 Project a ‘lie’, USA Today, August 19, 2019; and Daniel Geary’s “The Moynihan Report: An Annotated Edition,” “The Atlantic,” September 15, 2015. Sowell also discusses the shift from a religious to racist rationale for slavery in Chapter 7 of his book. An examination about the psychologi­ cal, as well as economic, investments in using a genetic inferiority to justify American slavery in Nikole Hannah-Jones lengthy August 14, 2019 New York Times article “Our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true.” In 1903, W.E.B. Du Bois wrote an influential essay encouraging a “Talented Tenth”—educated black men who were expect­ ed to dispel the libel of genetic intellectual inferiority—in The Negro Problem. An assessment of Aristot­ le’s and Plato’s attitudes toward Natural Law and slavery can be found in the BBC Series “Philosophers Justifying Slavery,” @ bbc.co.uk/ethics/slavery/philosophers III. The Economics of Slavery: For a insightful look at how slavery made New York City the financial capital of the world in the 1850s, see Peter Alan Harper’s “How Slave Labor Made New York,” The Root, February 5, 2013. The idea that the American Revolution was actually fought to maintain the slave trade can be found in Hannah-Jones’ New York Times article. When I was working on my PhD at Virginia Tech in Public Administration & Policy in the 1980s, Charles Beard’s An Economic Interpreta­ tion of the Constitution was standard reading in normative economic and public policy classes. Modern capitalism’s founder Adam Smith’s criticism of slavery can be found in both of his seminal works: The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments. An excellent journal article reviewing Smith’s anti-slavery views can be found in a 2010 article in Real-World Economic Review: “Adam Smith’s real views on slavery:” A Reply to Marvin Brown @ www.paecon.net/PAE Review/issue 53/Wells. Thom­ as Jefferson’s concerns about Divine Punishment for slavery can be found in “Notes on the State of Virginia, 1784.” @encyclopediavirginia.org/Query-XVIII/an excerpt from Notes on the State of Virginia by Thomas Jefferson, 1784. IV. The Social Psychology of the “Peculiar” Institution: Contemporary Implications: Claude Steele’s and Joshua Aronson’s 1995 journal article Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test Per­ formance of African Americans has been cited more than 9,000 times in the academic research. The article was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Carlton’s and Rosette’s 2011 research concerning how workers perceive black leaders’ success on attributes other than intelli­ gence—“Explaining Bias Against Black Leaders: Integrating Theory in Information Processing and Goal-Based Stereotypes”—can be found in the Academy of Management Journal. V. The “Peculiar” Institution and Value-Relativity: See Sowell, Chapter 7, for a discussion of the supposed political reasons the Framers could not condemn chattel slavery. For an economic analy­ sis why Jefferson—although clearly understanding the intolerable high social costs—fought to maintain chattel slavery, please see Mark Malvasi’s 2018 article “Thomas Jefferson and the Paradox of Slavery” In The Imaginative Conservative @theimaginativeconservative.org/2018/04/Thomas-jefferson-paradox-slavery. �By Michael E. Blankenship Richard Aufenger, Photographic Artist n 2008 I discovered a treasure where so many objects d art would surface over the years.. .the flea market. My lifelong fascination with the Roaring Twenties drew me to her immediately, a true flapper in every sense of the word. With marcelled hair, beaded straps on her gown, pearls on her neck and a very conspicuous spit curl in the middle of her forehead, she was my ideal. Her image held the added delight of the slightest hint of dimples. Her dark eyes contained a tiny speck of light making them very mysterious. All of this beauty was held in an art deco frame. I turned it over and found her name: Ruby Lee Garst. She looked like a Ruby Lee. I had to have her and for a dollar she was mine. I After I got home, on closer inspection, I felt that no local photographer could have produced this wonderful piece of portraiture. It was signed in red ink and the strange name looked like Avfenger to me. I called my friend, Dan Jones, a former Roanoke City librarian, to see if he knew anything about the artist. He corrected me immediately, the name was Aufenger (pronounced Offen-ger.. .ger as in German), Richard Aufenger to be precise, and he was a local photographer. I had to know more and thus began my quest into the life of Richard Aufenger. I was fortunate enough to get in contact with both of his children. The first I contacted via email was Richard Fox Aufenger Jr. and he told me many memories of his father, unfortunately, they were not his own because he was only three m onths old when his talented father passed away. Aufenger s daughter Patricia was a little older, so the remembrances of her father were lasting and more substantial. Patricia was also kind enough to share incredible copies of photographs from her family’s collection. Through both children, then in their 80s, I gained knowledge about their father, his business and family life. Richard Bernard Aufenger was born June 24,1898 in Brooklyn New York to George and Wilhelmina Aufenger. George worked in a shoe factory. Richards sibling, George Jr., by 1910 was already working as a photo-engraver, so it was perhaps this connection that spurred Richards initial interest in photography. Family tradition has it that, as a child, Richard actually knew Betty Smith (original name: Wehner) and he is included in the book, “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.” He appears as a Jewish boy on his way to Michael Blankenship wrote a biography o f Dr. John Henry Pinkard and has completed research on the Rev. William James Simmons o f Fifth Avenue Presbytehan Church and Luther Frierson, Roanoke’s first black disk jockey and a history o f that church. 50 �temple. The brother of the protagonist and his friends stop to harass the boy as they’re headed to play baseball. W hen told to stay away from Christian girls, the badgered boy is truly amazed that the Gentile boys thought him mature enough to be interested in girls and he goes on his way mumbling “Golly” over and over. The brother says he knows the kid and that he is a “white Jew,” although his friends don’t believe such a thing exists. Due to the fact that Richard had blond hair and blue eyes, it is easy to see why others might think he was a “white Jew.” In actuality, the families of Richard Aufenger and Elizabeth Wehner (both with German ancestry) lived about two and a half miles apart, however, Bushwick Avenue connects their two addresses, and chapter 25 in the book is about Bushwick Avenue. So it is entirely possible they knew each other. Richard attended Manual Training High School in Brooklyn where he was a member of the Camera Club. He was already winning prizes for his photography in high school. In June 1916 he was awarded second place in the landscapes division with a photo entitled “Five Brothers.” The following year he won second and third place prizes in the miscellaneous division. By the time of his graduation, June 28,1917, it was announced in the newspapers that he was “a Manual [High School] boy of great promise. [He] is to become a farm photographer.. .slated for an $18 weekly position.” A part of his resume probably included the two courses in forestry he took at Cornell University during the summer session of 1915. He did not continue at Cornell following graduation from high school but he was proud of his brief connection with the university and always called himself a “Cornell man.” W hen Aufenger registered for the draft in June, 1918 he had set his sights a little higher and was working as a New York photographer for Underwood and Underwood, the largest publisher of stereoviews in the world and a major manufacturer of stereo optical equipment. By 1920, Underwood and Underwood sold their business to the other giant in the stereoscope industry, Keystone View Company. In 1921, Aufenger, along with fellow Brooklynite, William H. Dunn, landed in Roanoke. D unn had worked as an aerial photographer during World War I and since then had held various other jobs in the photography field. The company was set up as Aufenger and D unn, and their original office was at 506 Jefferson Street, next to Hammond Printing and Lithograph, across the street from the Park Theater. By the following year, Aufenger and D unn had relocated to 119 Campbell Avenue, SW, near the Roanoke City Market and directly across the street from their worthy competitor, George Davis. It appears that the Davis and Aufenger studios were some of the few respectable Richard Aufenger, profile. 51 �businesses that were not segregated in Roanoke; both without distinction served the black and the white communities. On August 9,1922 Aufenger was m arried in Harrisonburg to Elise Augusta Loewner, daughter of Charles Emmanuel Loewner, the oldest monument dealer in Virginia and a member of one of the pioneer Jewish families in Harrisonburg. Following the marriage, Aufenger and his bride moved into an apartment in the 500 block of King George Avenue in Roanoke. It appears that the marriage brought some financial stability to the family and shortly afterward Aufenger bought out D unns share of the business. The company was thereafter known as Aufenger Photographic Portraiture. By the mid-1920s another Aufenger studio was opened on the mezzanine floor of the West Virginian Hotel, in Bluefield, West Virginia. Because of his style and professionalism Aufenger quickly established himself as a first-rate art photographer. Everyone from socialites to new parents wanted portraits taken by Aufenger. Businesses also sought out Aufenger because he owned a panoramic camera and his photographs (typically called “yard long photographs” even though they were not a yard long), were excell­ ent for documenting large gatherings spread out over a wide area. The Norfolk and Western Railway used his services for many annual company picnics during the 1920s. One of his N&W “yard long” photographs is on display in Hotel Roanoke. Richard Aufenger About 1925 Richard and Elise had a home built at 915 Lafayette Avenue in South Roanoke. The street name was later changed to Maywood Road. They needed more room because a baby was on the way. Patricia Sharlie Aufenger was born September 15,1925. The home on Maywood was a log cabin in the woods, like something from a fairy tale. Things were changing rapidly for the Aufengers. Early in 1928, advertising featuring toddler Patricia Aufenger, announced that the studio was moving. W hen the American Theater opened on March 26,1928, Aufenger had already moved his studio into a second floor location. Early photographs of the theater show attention-grabbing Aufenger portraits in all the windows above the marquee. Coinciding with the studio relocation, in March 1928, Aufenger moved his family to Norfolk and on Elise A ufe n ge r August 1,1928, they sold their Roanoke property on Maywood. The studio in Bluefield was closed and all of its equipment was shipped to Norfolk to establish a new studio there. And, there was a new addition to the family, on November 27,1928, Richard Fox Aufenger Jr. was born in Norfolk. (The senior Richard had obviously changed his middle name to Fox.) Life was going well for the Aufengers. Richard and Elise were in the process of building a beautiful 52 �home on the Elizabeth River in the Edgewater section of Norfolk. They were living a marvelous, luxurious life with two automobiles, a Packard and a Chrysler, complete with a full-time chauffeur and housemaid and cook, along with a greyhound dog, named Eagle. Then tragedy struck. Richard was doing yard work at the new home one afternoon, got pneumonia and died on February 10,1929. During Richards illness Eagle, the greyhound, stayed outside of his bedroom door and when he died, Eagle would not eat and also died. Elise was truly heartbroken and thereafter only spoke of Richard in the most endearing words and as a marvelous m an/husband who could do no wrong. Elise, who had never worked, took over the reins of the studios during a time when women rarely owned and operated businesses. Eventually she had to close all but the newest studio in Norfolk because people took advantage of her. She had no experience in photography but hired professional photographers to do the actual work. She operated the studio through the Depression and the World War II Years. It survived until Richard Aufenger Jr. took over the operation of the office following his graduation from UVA in 1950 with a degree in business administration. Patricia Aufenger Although initially, Richard Jr. was disinterested in photography, he eventually got some training in the field, took tips from various photographers who worked for the studio and became a first-rate photographer himself. W hen he had completed his first bridal proofs, he took them to show Elise, who was in the hospital with cancer. They both were very proud of his work. Attorney Richard Aufenger III, of Norfolk, pointed out that although his father entered the field reluctantly, he was a very accomplished, nationally award-winning photographer, proudly expanding upon his fathers legacy. He photographed the daughters of three United States presidents. In 1952 he formed the Tidewater Photographers Association which was later integrated into the Virginia Photographers Association and the Professional Photographers of America. After a life well lived, Richard Fox Aufenger Jr. passed away on January 6, 2020 at the age of 91. Perhaps fate has been merciful. Richard Aufenger Sr. was spared the ordeal of living through the hardship of a worldwide depression. And, Richard Aufenger Jr. passed away before he could witness the Earth in the grip of a deadly virus. For eight years Roanoke was fortunate to have had Richard Aufenger Sr. as one of its own. He brought beauty to the Valley through his art and, without a doubt, had his life not been cut short, in his new American Theater studio he would have continued to add his flair, elegance and creative ability to the local photographic profession. So, I was left with one final question: W hat became of Ruby Lee Garst? Born July 4,1905, this little Lutheran flapper was probably still a student at Roanoke College when she sneaked away to Roanoke to have her picture snapped by Aufenger. Upon graduation she led the mundane life of a school teacher 53 �N&W Railway picnic at Egleston Springs, Giles County. and dutiful stay-at-home daughter until 1934 when she broke the mold and took a two-week Caribbean cruise aboard the RMS Mauretania. Following this brief adventure her life seems to have settled back into the routine of work and domestic activities. Those who knew her, even in middle age, say she was a beauty but it appears she was not lucky in love. However, when her chance for happiness came along, at the age of 42, she was ready to grab it. On August 21,1947, Ruby Lee and her beloved fellow-Salemite, Seibert Welford Lavinder (mercifully nicknamed “Pete”) married. Pete was a jack of all trades and, to many, it seemed a mismatch but those who knew them say they adored each other until Ruby Lee passed away on January 14,1994. She was born in Salem and she died in Salem and her 88 years there were spent in service to others, she certainly deserves this final footnote in history. Sources Correspondence with Richard FoxAufenger Jr., Patricia Aufenger Wilson and Richard Fox Aufenger III Ancestry.com Newspapers.com Roanoke city directories Roanoke Times, Feb. 11, 1929 Correspondence with Elaine Engst, Cornell University Archives 54 �H ow T h re e H iking C lu b s b e c a m e t h e R o a n o k e A p p a la c h ia n Trail C lu b By Diana Christopulos The Founding ow do you make a trail building club out of three hiking clubs? Let them build trail where they like to hike. In 1932, Roanoke College had an outings club. So did Hollins College. And hikers from Roanoke and Salem, mostly women, had their own hiking club called The Nomads. On November 13,1932, members of all three groups went for a walk in Carvins Cove, followed by supper at the home of Donald Gates, an economics professor at Roanoke College. Then they founded the Roanoke Appalachian Trail Club. Their own favorite hiking spots like Tinker Cliffs, McAfee Knob, Carvins Cove, Poor Mountain and Bent Mountain Falls would shape an immediate relocation of the originally planned H AT route. Like other clubs south of Washington, DC, RATC was the brainchild of Myron Avery, the driven and meticulous implementer of Benton McKayes visionary Appalachian Trail. Avery became chairman of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy in 1931, when about 1,000 miles of the AT had already been completed. He was also president of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club and, like Johnny Appleseed, was busy planting new clubs between Georgia and Maine. The founders of the RATC were hikers. Under Avery’s guidance, some of them would also become expert trail builders. After encountering Hikers’ Landmark Avery at an ATC event in the Smoky Mountains, Prof. Gates began corresponding with Avery, and he called a meeting of interested parties at the Roanoke YMCA on October 24,1932. Next came a two-day meeting with Avery and other RATC members at the Hotel Mons near the Peaks of Otter on October 29-30. It must have been an impressive show. After day hikes to Sharp Top and Flat Top, RATC members showed movies and slides on how to mark and build trail along with scenic views on the completed northern sections. The next day they demonstrated exactly how to construct a trail. No doubt energized by the training, Gates hosted a meeting and supper on November 13, prefaced by the Carvins Cove hike. Over 20 people showed up, and almost all became founding members of RATC has been around since 1932, and we are finally pulling together all the records. Acting as the RATC Archivist, I am working to digitize it and write about it. This is the first story. There will be more, both in the Blazer and on the RATC website, www.ratc.org. If you have minutes, important documents or outstanding photos-especially from pre-2000-iet me know, dianak16@earthlink.net. Diana Christopulos is president of Roanoke Valley Cool Cities Coalition and past president o f Blue Ridge Land Conservancy and Roanoke Appalachian Trail Club. 55 �RATC. There were nine men and eight women, not counting Gates’ wife and son. RATC was a very social organization from the beginning, with hiking as the hook for everyone and trail building as the passion of a few. The founding members were: F.S. Baird, Virginia Caldwell, Mary Lane Charles, Grace Cheveraux, Membership Coordinator; E. B. Coxwell, Secretary; David Dick, Trail Supervisor; Donald S. Gates, President; Evelyn Gillenwater, John McGinnis, Trail Committee member; Velma Moeschler, Membership Committee member; Selma Mosher, Harold Pearn, Trail Committee member; Elmer Phelps, Trail Committee member; Mae Pond, Grace PownaW, Vice President; Lawrence Pownall, Treasurer; Philip Trout. Some are pictured here, at the founding meeting. Donald Gates is in front, second from the left Grace Cheveraux, in charge of Membership, is fourth from the left. Even though eight of the founding members were women, none were originally named officers. This must have caused further discussion. As reported in a club history written in 1951, at the November 26, 1932 meeting “it was decided that a fifth officer was needed and Grace Pownall was elected vice-president. ” ,, Th<T c/^6/ e// into a m°nthly pattern of hikes followed by supper, with destinations including Tinker Ridge and McAfee Knob (January 23, 1933), Fort Lewis Mountain, Mason’s Knob, and Apple Orchard. B uilding T in ke r C liffs and M cA fee K nob into th e Trail From Avery’s standpoint, the real purpose of the RATC was to build trail. The route laid out by Shirley Cole, extension agent for Floyd County, M o w ed the Blue Ridge for 200 miles. RATC was assigned 55 miles between Black Horse (Tavern) Gap (currently the northern boundary of our territory) and Sweet Annie Hollow, later extended about 15 miles south to include Tuggles Gap, near Rocky Knob. The long section between Tuggles Gap and Pinnacles of Dan, near the North Carolina border, was handled by the M ountain Club of Virginia, which included members from RATC, the Natural Bridge Appalachian Trail Club, Myron Avery and a resident of Pinnacles of Dan. RATC members did not want to follow the Blue Ridge between Black Horse (Tavern) Gap and Adney, preferring their favorite haunts like McAfee Knob and Tinker Cliffs. A 1945 history of the RATC noted that, The main problem facing the club in 1933 was the re-routing of the trail from East 56 �of Roanoke to Bent Mountain to what club members felt was the more desirable route North and West of the city.” Avery allowed the change, and he personally supervised it. He would “come to the Roanoke area [from Washington, DC] by train on Friday night, often staying at the Meadow View Inn in Daleville where by bus, train, or car club members would meet with him and spend the weekend marking, measuring and mapping the new trail.” The new route descended the Blue Ridge to Cloverdale and climbed Tinker Mountain, running below McAfee Knob on the Carvins Cove side, dropping in Masons Cove before climbing Ft. Lewis Mountain and crossing US 11 near Dixie Caverns. It then climbed Poor Mountain, passed near Bent Mountain Falls and arrived at Adney Gap. The details of this relocation will be the topic of another blog. Myron Avery (second from right) leads a crew measuring the route for the Appalachian Trail near Devil’s Backbone on Bent Mountain in 1940. The club took a hike to Potts Mountain in Craig County in 1939. 57 �It is clear that hiking and socializing were at the center of the original RATC, with trail building spurred on by Avery. Long and short hikes were scheduled each m onth and first shared by post cards, later by the Bulletin, a monthly mimeographed production that included information about ATC happenings. Short hikes were the most popular, with many originating at Roanoke’s downtown YMCA, with hikers reaching the trailhead by train or bus. Very few people owned cars at this time. Members went on excursions to Cave Mountain Lake, a YMCA camp, Arcadia and Virginia Beach. They rented Wild Air, the specious old building near McAfee Knob that now exists only as a fire place with the name engraved. They had an annual photo contest, though the results have not survived. Myron Avery managed to harness the energy of a hiking social club to get 70 miles of the new AT blazed, and RATC members played key roles in completing the entire section in southern Virginia. By 1933, Trail Supervisor David Dick created a trail map for the southern half of Virginia that was sold by Avery’s RATC. O ur archives include several hard copies! But that is a story for another day. Edited excerpt from 1945 histo ry o f R oanoke A p p alach ian Trail Club In 1933, the hike schedule was first posted weekly by post cards, later the Bulletin, a monthly publication of long mimeographed sheets, listed the hikes and kept members abreast on happenings with the Trail Conference. Today, of course, the Blazer does it all, quarterly. During the early period, hikes were either short or long. The short hikes were the most popular while the longer reserved for the more serious walkers such as Harold Pearn and Elmer Phelps who did travel 30-plus miles on an overnighter. The mode of transportation, for the most part, was by train or bus. The datum point was the YMCA. W hat has not endured over the years are the moonlight hikes and the Friday Night Special, an evening walking cruise covering the miles between Salem and Williamson Road. The early members liked having a good time and held excursions regularly. There was also an annual photo contest. Work hikes were important, but reserved for cooler weather, however, the pioneers of the RATC got the job done. They blazed a 70-mile section of our national pathway and in the process evolved a stewardship that has been copied and improved upon by the membership of the post-war years. Referen ces 1933 report of Roanoke Appalachian Trail Club. Transcribed by D. Christopulos, March 20, 2020. Unsigned. RATC archives, 1930s. Powell, L. H. (1951, January 24). Roanoke Appalachian Trail Club. Transcribed and annotated by D Christooulos March 20, 2020. - K RATC History, 1932-1945. Unsigned. RATC archives, 1940s. 58 �New River By Mary B. Kegley Travel on the New River n the 1740s little was known about the Mississippi and the land that lay between Virginia and that great river. W hat is now West Virginia was wilder than today, but probably just as beautiful and just as wonderful. The New River begins near Blowing Rock, North Carolina, and flows northwesterly through Virginia and becomes the Kanawha River at the confluence of the Gauley River near Charles­ ton, West Virginia. The m outh of that river joins the Ohio at Point Pleasant. In the past, dams were built providing electricity and encouraging recreation. In other places the lack of such changes in the river has saved destruction of hundreds of homes and businesses where the canoe, fishing, and resting on the banks are very much treasured and enjoyed. Some delight in jumping off the New River Gorge bridge or running the rapids with a raff full of friends. A variety of boats have been used on the New River over the years within the three states, and the question of exploration and navigation of the river has often been discussed. I The O ld est R iver Although authors in all forms of media have proclaimed that the New River is the oldest in Ameri­ ca, this statement appears to have begun about 1970. And in 2000 there was a strong denial by Llyn Sharp of the Virginia Tech Museum of Natural History, who found it to be a myth. No one has measured all of the rivers in America, and in addition, the age of the rocks in the river bed does not tell us how old the river is. How do we measure the age of river water? [1] Mary B. Kegley, Wythe County lawyer, genealogist and historian, has written more than 60 books. 59 �A braham W ood One of Virginias earliest expeditions to the west was under the auspices of Abraham Wood, al­ though he is credited with actually making a trip himself in 1654. A few years later, in 1671, under W oods sponsorship, he sent Batts and Fallom to explore what was on the other side of the mountains, where they are credited with realizing there was a river that flowed north. The river got its colonial name of Woods River from Abraham Wood, and the names New and Woods were in the records together until about 1750. [2] B oats o f B uffalo Hides One of the earliest white men to travel on this river was John Howard, who received a commission from the Virginia Governor to travel westward “as far as the Mississippi.” His reward was 10,000 acres of land. Howard agreed to share his land with the adventurers who would travel with him: John Poteat, Charles Sinclair, Josiah Harwood, his son, and John Peter Salley (sometimes Sailing).[3] On 16 March 1742, the men left Natural Bridge, Virginia, and traveled to the Mondongachate River (otherwise known as the Woods or New River). Here, near present Radford, at a place not far from the Peppers Ferry crossing of later times, the men killed five buffaloes and covered the frame of a boat with their hides. The boat was large enough to carry the five men, their utensils and provisions. The location is known as the Buffalo Pound Bottom. The word “pound” in this sense indicates an enclosure with prob­ ably a driving lane leading into it used to trap wild animals. Once they were in the enclosure, they could not escape, and being confined in a small space, it was much easier for the hunters to kill them. It is not known if the explorers built it or that the native residents had used it before them. [4] These boaters found the New River to be very rocky and “having a great many Falls therein,” one of which was computed to be thirty feet perpendicular surrounded by “inaccessible mountains and high precipices.” Because of these circumstances, they took the boat out of the river. After traveling an estimat­ ed eighty-five miles, they came to a smaller river (the northeast fork of Coal River), made another boat for two of the men and their provisions. The others went overland until they were reunited with their friends. They discovered “great plenty of Coals” and named the river Coal River. From there they trav­ eled to the m outh of the river near present day Point Pleasant, arriving there on May 6. On the Allegany or Ohio River their next stop was present Louisville. On July 2, after boating on the Mississippi River for several weeks, they were surprised by ninety French, Negroes and Indians, who took them prisoners. They were taken to New Orleans, spent more than two years in pris­ on, escaped, and eventually returned to Virginia by way of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. They were gone for three years, two months and one day. Salley calculated that he had traveled by land and water four thousand six hundred and six miles. [5] Samuel Pepper owned the 100 acres o f the Buffalo Pound in 1770 (Botetourt County Deed Book 1, pp. 151-152). The area extends above and below State Route 114 that crosses the New River, dividing the Pound into two parts. It is bounded by the river for a distance o f 310 poles or 2,015 feet. 60 �C an oes on th e R iver More than thirty years later, in 1774, the surveyors of Fincastle County traveled over Gauley M oun­ tain on foot to Kelly’s Creek in Kanawha County, where they hoped to find a canoe. W hen they found none, they proceeded to Elk River near the site of present-day Charleston and there they found one that needed repair. W hen it was restored, they named it Good-Hope. [6] Canoes were also used by the army who marched from Virginia to Point Pleasant in 1774. William Christian had sent several of his men to work on canoes. At least twenty men of the Fincastle County troops were paid for such work, some working seven days, others more than forty-six.[7] The sutler who followed the army and supplied provisions was reprimanded because of his selling liquor “in such quantities & so frequently as to make many of the troops drunk.” The sutler was warned about selling to the soldiers, and guards were placed over the canoes and the ammunition. Only the Commissary and Quartermaster were to enter the canoes. The trip to the Point from Elk River was not without incident. A sutlers canoe was overturned, and two canoes fastened together were “overset” and twenty-seven bags of flour “were floated.” All were “much wett” but all but two or three were rescued. On October 3, the following day, another canoe overturned, and another double canoe split, although the “flour was mostly saved.” [8] T h e Flat Boats More than twenty years later travel had improved and flat boats were becoming available. Moses Austin, owner of the Wythe County lead mines on New River, traveled to Missouri to follow up on a report of lead mines south of St. Louis. His first trip was overland. He traveled through Cumberland Gap on the Wilderness Road into Kentucky, but became lost in a snowstorm in the winter of 1796-1797, and almost died of starvation. W hen it came time to move his family to Missouri a short time later, he did not risk the difficulties of the wilderness. Instead, he loaded up nine wagons at Austinville, Virginia, took a coach and four, and with the help of Negroes and waggoners traveled with his family, including his young son, Stephen F. Austin, through what is now West Virginia to Morriss’s boatyard where he purchased a flat boat, loaded his family aboard, traveled to the Ohio at Point Pleasant, and on to the Mississippi. When they reached Kaskaskia three months later, only two of the seventeen travelers could walk ashore. [9] C h ie f J u stice John M arshall (1755-1835) Marshall was not only Chief Justice, but was also known as an early explorer on the waters of the rivers in Virginia and West Virginia. In 1812 he, with surveyor Andrew Alexander and a crew of twenty, left Lynchburg on September 1. They traveled by bateau, up the James and Jackson rivers to present Cov­ ington. From there they hauled the 60-foot wooden boat over the mountains and entered the Greenbrier River, near Lewisburg. They reached the New River at present Hinton. They kept records of velocity of the current, long rapids and waterfalls along the river. They reached Kanawha Falls at present Glen Ferris, on October 9,1812. Their trip took them through the New River Gorge. The cliffs at Hawks Nest were known for many years as Marshall’s Pillars. His pathway essentially became the route of the James River and Kanawha Turnpike, the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, and Interstate 64. [10] T h e B ateau Era In 1988, J. Lawrence Smith presented a valuable paper called “New River Bateaus” which showed that these boats were on the river in 1869, when Collis P. Huntington, of railroad fame, traveled with a party of railroad executives from near Hinton to Hawks Nest. They were inspecting a proposed route through the gorge for a railroad line. His prim ary interest was the development of a rail line across Amer­ ica, which was what he was best known for. [11] 61 �Marshall’s survey. A bateau had a rounded front and back, was usually ten feet wide and up to seventy feet long. They usually had a rudder at both ends, and were moved along the river by poles twelve feet long. In the 1870s, Tom Quinn had a “fleet” of four boats which operated from Hinton to Shanklins Ferry. The boats were used to transport timber, farm products, and especially tobacco. A few were used as excursion boats. By 1920 the bateau period had ended. [12] In the detailed lawsuit, in the District Court of the United States for the Western District, United States o f America vs. Appalachian Electric Power Company, there is a discussion of the “Miscellaneous use of river by batteaux or ‘keelboats.’” In this report for 1883, there were about “17 keel boats,” with “ten or twelve such boats now on the river...the commerce is altogether local.”[13] The S team b oat Era The first steamboat on the New River was said to have been built at Hinton in 1878 by the New River Steamboat Company. The boat named Cecilia Miller made a few trips and was soon withdrawn because she was too large for that particular navigation. Others followed with brief voyages or wrecks in their history. The most extensive trip was made by Robert C. MeWane and his boat the Altha. He began at the New River bridge and soon realized that was a mistake. He later took the boat to Hinton and de­ scribed his trip as fu s t one series o f chute the chutes all the way down, over one falls after another [\A] 62 �Fighting the Rapids on the New River. Harper’s Weekly, February 21, 1874. 1872 R eport o f th e C orps o f Engineers The War Department of the Federal govern­ ment sent out the Corps of Engineers to make a survey of the New River from the lead mines in Wythe County to the m outh of the Greenbrier River. Work began on 26 July 1872. Colonel H ut­ ton of Baltimore was in charge and was assisted by Charles R. Boyd, noted geologist and engineer of Wytheville, Virginia. Others from Wytheville also assisted. These included J.L. Gleaves, E.M. Phelps and Charles Crawford. General William Terry and C. J. Noel, also of Wytheville, accompanied the party as far as the mines. [15] r 1 L J . 1 I 1 | An early steamboat. In January 1873, a further report stated that the engineers had surveyed the route and reported favorably in regard to the introduction of the steam boat navigation between the Greenbrier and the lead mines in Wythe County. The cost was estimated to be $750,000.[16] The next m onth a report was published in the paper, summarizing their findings. The survey extended from the lead mines in Wythe County to the m outh of the Greenbrier River, 128 miles. They reported that no previous known examination had been undertaken, except a lower 54 miles from the Greenbrier to Sinking Creek, which was surveyed by Moore and Briggs in 1819. The party organized at Wytheville, but operations actually began on July 25 at the dam of the Wythe Union Lead Mines near Austinville in Wythe County. The width of the river at the mines was 350 feet with an average depth of five feet, gradually expanding to a width of 900 feet and a depth of six feet just above the Greenbrier. 63 �Total fall of the river from the lead mines to the Greenbrier was 531 feet or about 4Vi feet per mile. In order to navigate around Foster Falls in Wythe County, the engineers suggested a sluice way with a slope of one to 10 and a lateral canal at least over the first falls of eighteen feet. The canal with two locks, nine feet lift would cost $200,000 of the total of $750,000.[17] For a distance of eighty-three miles, level and compass lines were run, sketches of the valley, and a notation of the obstructions and the meanderings of the river were mentioned. At mile eighty-three, there was a sudden rise in the river (between four and six feet) and the party disbanded and individual examinations of the river were made of the rapids and shoals. The conclusion was that there would be plenty of water at all seasons “for any navigation improvement that may be adopted.” They also reported that the “present system of transportation is by keel boats which carry from two to three tons and are rowed or floated down the river and poled up.” [18] Four years later, a report indicated that a party of engineers were making the survey from Central Depot (now Radford) to Hinton, West Virginia, “for the purpose of ascertaining the amount of work necessary to make the river navigable for boats.” [19] In 1881, it was reported that parties were at work on the New River under the old Congressional appropriation, building derrick boats for improvement of the stream, “with a view of making it navigable to the lead mines.” [20] B yllesby and B uck Dam s About 1913, the construction of the two hydro-electric dams on the New River in Carroll County, Virginia, helped establish APCO as a leader in the so-called “Electric Age.” Henry Marison Byllesby and Harold W inthrop Buck were the leaders in “design and construction of hydroelectric and steam power plants and transmission systems in the United States and Canada.” The two dams were about four miles apart with Byllesby about three miles long and Buck with a reservoir about one mile long. Their first year provided electricity to more than 1,500 customers. [21] N avigab ility Navigability was the key issue many years later before Claytor Lake and the dam were constructed by Appalachian Power Company in Pulaski County, Virginia. If the 341 miles of the New River was navigable the law indicated that no construc­ tion was allowed. Both parties in the lawsuit brought extensive evi­ dence and many notable witnesses. F.B. Kegley, prominent historian of Wythe County, was among those who testified in the original case. Kegley answered a variety of ques­ tions and like others on the side of the Power Company, the conclusions were that the river was not navigable. Buck Dam spillway. 64 �The lead from Austinville from earliest times was transported the entire distance by wagon to Lynchburg. In later years, boating was attempted to transport pig-iron but it was discovered that the “boats stuck on the river bed frequently and boatmen had to throw the iron out into the river in order to lighten the load.” This excluded the New Riv­ er as navigable, even on a local level. Byllesby Dam on the New River, aerial view navigability. g f c , l "V 'r •"/ ; W w m im mI I -É iÉ P m i ÜË m i IP m i 1 1 New River near Foster Falls in Wythe County, Virginia. Aerial photo by Mary B. Kegley, 1990s. References were made to earlier accounts such as the trip made by the commission headed by Chief Justice Marshall in 1812 and the surveying expedition of Moore and Briggs. These trips were undertaken to locate a possible water route connecting the Ohio and the James Rivers, as mentioned above. In the lawsuit, the government attempted to show that the river was navigable, and if not, then building a dam across the river in Pulaski County would affect the waters of the New River in other areas, especially West Virginia. They lost on both counts. [22] 65 �Historically the land chosen for the site was first known as the Dunkard Bottom settlement a reference often used today to identify the site. The Eckerlings from Pennsylvania were early residents followed by military leader, William Christian. A chimney, said to be from his house, has been recon­ structed at the Claytor Lake State Park. The Cloyd family was next and was always noted for owning the best land in the area. W hen local promoter, O.L. Stearns, began to purchase rights to property along the New River in Grayson, Carroll, Wythe and Pulaski counties, the interest was the explor- New River before Claytor Dam and Lake. Courtesy Wythe County Genealogy and Historical Association. ation of potential water power sites on the river. Fol­ lowing the formation of the New River Power Com­ pany, six sites were designated as suitable for dams, including Byllesby and Buck already mentioned. Number six was Claytor dam. [23] The construction of the dam at Claytor Lake was started in 1937 and completed in 1939; the lake was ready for visitors in 1940. Since that time the riv­ er there has been used for fishing, boating and recre­ ation, and is one of Virginias beautiful State Parks. Chimney from the house of William Christian. (Photo by Ray Mitchell.) Claytor Lake Dam interior. Claytor Lake Dam under construction. 66 �The New River in North Carolina and Virginia from the map o f Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson o f the 1750s. Notice that Wilson Creek is mentioned. B lue R idge Project Twenty years after the Supreme Court decision regarding the Claytor Lake dam was made, the Appalachian Power Company, a subsidiary of American Electric Power Company, requested permission to build a two-dam hydroelectric and pump storage facility in Grayson County on the New River which it named the Blue Ridge Project. The construction would involve counties Ashe and Allegheny in North Carolina and Grayson County, in Virginia. More than eleven years of arguments in several courts (local, district and the Su­ preme Court, as before) and decisions in Congress, and support from the White House, led ultimately to September 11,1976, when Congress declared that the New River was a National Wild and Scenic River and therefore construction was banned. This time the issues of exploration and navigability on the river were not the issue. Recreation, to a lesser extent than if the government was involved, came to the surface together with a major concern for the environment. [24] During the struggle to keep Grayson County, and parts of North Carolina free from this kind of development many individuals and government entities were involved, each with their specific strategies: the Department of Interior, Congress, the Secretary of the Army, Secretary of Agriculture, Federal Power Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, professional archeologists, governors of the states, media blitzes by both sides, National Register of Historic Places, National Public Radio, and Unions. Even environmentalists, Earl Hamner, Jr., creator of the popular series, “The Waltons,” and Elizabeth McCommon, folk-singer, and her ballads about the New were involved. Lobbyists, festivals, and various citizens’ committees and many lawyers were lined up on both sides. The issue became one of national importance and at the end of the eleven years the threat of any dam construction was eliminated. [25] Canoe trips on the New River in North Carolina and Virginia are still popular and in West Virginia, kayaks and rafts and canoes are all used in key recreation centers. At the New River Gorge, the rapids, the bridge and the State Park have become a major recreational area for boaters of all kinds who want to 67 �Rafting on the New River. New River Bridge. challenge the rapids, and if brave enough, many may even jump off of the bridge. Thomas Schoembaum describes the present-day experience. “A trip down the New River in a canoe is a magnificent experience. Stretches of flatwater alternate with white-water rapids as the river winds past low hills with cultivated bottomlands or steep cliffs.” [26] W hether the river is old or new, the New River has proven to be a great waterway for exploration from the earliest times to the present. Although not a navigable river, even on the local level, it has served the community with electrical power for thousands of residents. Because of the designation of the “Wild and Scenic River” the various places in N orth Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia are protected from future development. Many parts of the river are specially known for recreation and tourist interests and that special canoe or raft trip is no doubt a “magnificent” experience. 68 �Sources 1] Issak Howell and Mike Gangloff, “An age-old debate about the New River’s old age,” Roanoke Times, July 23, 2000; Michael Mayfield, and John Morgan, “The New River as the Old River,” Proceedings o f the New River Symposium, April 15-17, 1993), Wytheville, VA, 1-9. [2] F.B. Kegley and Mary B. Kegley, Early Adventurers on the Western Waters, Vol. 1 (Orange, VA: Green Publishers, Inc., 1980), pp. 1-3. [3] Fairfax Harrison, “The Virginians on the Ohio and Mississippi in 1742,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, XX X No 2 (April 1922), 212. [4] Ibid., 213; Survey and plat for Giles Henderson, 550 acres including the Buffalo Pound Bottom, private collection; George C. Frison, “The Buffalo Pound in Northwestern Plains Prehistory: Site 48 Ca 302, Wyoming,” American Antiquity, Vol. 36, No. 1 (1971), 77, 80. [5] Harrison, “Virginians on the O hio...,” 213. [6] Gold Thwaltes and Louise Phelps Kellogg, eds., Documentary History o f Dunmore’s War (Madison, Wisconsin Historical Society, 1905). 112-113, quoting the journal of Thomas Hanson. [7] Mary B. Kegley, Soldiers o f Fincastie County, 1774 (Roanoke: Copy Cat, 1974), 56-70 lists the accounts and what each person was paid. These records show that canoes were built by William Champ, William Fowler, William Hayes, Samuel Hensley, Thomas Tees, Adam Hance, David Newland, Patrick St. Lawrence, Joseph Whitaker, Jeremiah Jenkins, Thomas Bell, Benjamin Turman, John Colbert, William Scott, Ed­ ward Nash, Thomas Walsh, William Doyle, alias Scampey, George Flynn, John Douglas, and George Oxer. [8] Thwaites and Kellogg, Dunmore’s War, 332, 334, 335. [9] Eugene C. Barker, ed,, The Austin Papers, Annual Report of the American Historical Association. (Washington, D.C., 1924), “Genealogical Notes, Record of Moses Austin and Family,” 2, 40, 41. [10] “The Marshall Expedition of 1812,” The West Virginia Encyclopedia, article 1524. https://www/wvencyclopedia.org/articles/1524, accessed June 1, 2019. Please note that the National Geographic recorded the Marshall Expedition Recap undertaken in 2012. The group, led by Andrew Shaw, a young explorer, traveled in a James River bateau measuring 43 feet by 7 feet, named the Mary Marshall. When they reached the New River Gorge they described it as a “five-mile series of huge III-IV rapids.” The group “traveled 225 miles upstream and 130 miles downstream.” https//blognationalgeographic.org/2012/10/09/marshall-expedition-recap/ accessed June 1,2 01 9 . [11] J. Lawrence Smith, “New River Bateaus,” Proceedings o f the N ew River Symposium, (April 7-9, 1988), Oak Hill, WV, 1-4. [12] Ibid. [13] United States of America vs. Appalachian Electric Power Company, 311 U.S. 377 (1940), pp. 60, 61. [14] Ibid, 66-67. [15] “Examination and Survey of New River Ordered by Federal Government, Report of Major Hutton”, Southwest Virginia Enterprise (Wytheville), July 27, 1872. [16] Ibid. January 11, 1873. [17] Ibid, February 5, 1873. [18] Ibid. [19] Ibid, January 23m 1878 [20] Ibid. March 2, 1881. [21] https://www.galaxgazette.com/content/buck-byllesby-100-years-hydroelectricpower.Accessed June 1 ,2019. [22] Ibid., p. 65; Proposed Outline for Mr. Kegley’s testimony in the author’s library, pp. 7, 12. [23] Heather C. Jones and Bruce Harvey, “Bunkard Bottom: Memories on the Virginia Landscape, 1745 to 1940,” prepared for Appalachian Power Company and others, Final Report July 2012, p. 27. This publication has extensive information about the Dunkers, William Christian, the Cloyd family, and the Claytor Dam. [24] Thomas J. Schoenbaum, The New River Controversy (Winston-Salem, North Carolina. John F. Blair), 1979. This 195-page book covers all aspects of the controversy and gives details from the lawyer’s point of view with a look at the behind the scene struggles to meet deadlines and to come up with new and different legal strategies. A new edition was published in 2007. [25] Ibid., pp. 113-114, 117, 170. [26] lbid., 53-54. 69 �B y A sh e ly Webb, cu ra to r o f collections and exhibits, H istorical S ociety o f Western Virginia ^ marks the 250th anniversary of the founding of Botetourt County, and while U Z-t the current global pandemic has altered so many plans and celebrations surrounding the anniversary, its hard to let such a momentous occasion pass us by. Opening in April 2021, the Historical Society of Western Virginia, partnering with the Bank of Botetourt, is proud to present Botetourt County: 250 +1 Years o f Delight, an exploration of the Decorative Arts throughout Botetourt’s rich history. Founded in 1770, Botetourt was formed from Augusta County and is named after the popular Virginia Governor Norborne Berkeley (ca 1717-1770), also known as Lord Botetourt. At the time of its creation, Botetourt County continued west to the Mississippi River, and stretched northward into the Ohio River Valley Territory, covering the present state of Kentucky, and much of what is now West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. Incentives from colonial governors pushed Scots-Irish and German settlers into Botetourt and the Virginia frontier along the Great Wagon Road from Philadelphia. Although its sprawling territory was short-lived, Botetourt’s county seat of Fincastle quickly became a bustling commercial outpost. It was not only the last town to obtain the necessary supplies before migrating westward, but also became the closest place for outlying residents to transact legal business and conduct trade. Its proximity to turnpike roads and the James River and Kanawha Canal allowed manufactured goods to be transported east to Richmond, north to Staunton, and finally to the port city of Baltimore. In the early 19* century, Fincastle attracted a number of skilled craftsmen, targeting settlers who needed specialized goods. Gunsmiths, potters, clockmakers, cabinet makers, silversmiths, and many others lived, worked and apprenticed in Botetourt. The county was also rich in natural resources: there were over 14 iron furnaces in use at various points in Botetourt throughout 1 9 th century, with emphasis on mining, smelting and transporting iron ore. This ore became essential to Richmond and the Confederate States during the Civil War. Several natural springs advertised healing powers, and the mountain air offered a relaxing change from the hustle and bustle of Virginia’s metropolises. Botetourt’s colonial importance in the expansion of the United States is often overlooked today, as are m any of the key makers that started in, moved to, or migrated west out of Botetourt. W ith key collections coming from over 50 lenders across the country, both from museums and private collectors alike, the Society s exhibit will capture Botetourt’s vibrant artistic community throughout the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. �The exhibit will not only highlight the decorative arts, but will delve deeper into historical topics in a series of lectures funded by the Virginia Endowment for the Humanities and Norris, Inc. These lectures and activities will take place throughout the summer and fall of 2021 either on-site at the museum, or will be presented digitally as a series of “Conversations with the Curator.” A full listing of topics, activities and speakers will be released in April 2021. In addition to lectures, the Society is excited to again partner with Mill Mountain Theatre, thanks to the Virginia Commission for the Arts. The museum hopes to facilitate several story circles or group oral histories that will influence the creation of a final production with Mill Mountains conservatory students in the fall of 2021. This collaboration not only fosters creativity for burgeoning actors, directors and costumers, but presents topics derived from recent mem ory and history in a fun and unique way. We are delighted to be able to present Botetourt’s history for the 250th anniversary, and hope you’ll set some time aside to join us in the celebrations! Bank o f Botetourt Blue Ridge Institute George Kegley Harry and Natalie Norris Howell’s Motor Freight General James Breckinridge Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution Norris, INC Peter Ring Roanoke Chapter of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America Virginia Association of Museums Virginia Commission for the Arts Virginia Foundation for the Humanities T L 71 �Boot pistol made by Botetourt gunsmith John Painter. Botetourt exhibit Spoons made by Fincastle silversmith John Welch. 72 �| Botetourt 2 5 0 + 1 Botetourt Marks its 250thAnniversary otetourt County has many plans for a delayed 250th anniversary celebration, postponed until next year because of restrictions of the pandemic. A 250th birthday party, featured a talk by retired Judge Bo Trumbo, was held in February; a new county history by Ed McCoy, an illustrated magazine edited by Anita Firebaugh, a film about historic Looneys Ferry at Buchanan, an anniversary seal on the county’s website and a video on “Picturesque Botetourt County” were featured in 2020. B Girl Scouts Ashley Crowder and Sarah Montgomery prepared a film on scenic views of Fincastle’s old buildings and scenes from Eagle Rock, Troutville, Buchanan and other points from the county’s long history. Planned for next year, if and when the pandemic subsides, will be a dedication of an anniversary plaque at the courthouse, a tour of Fincastle, an event at Blue Ridge Vineyard at Eagle Rock, a quilt show, a genealogy and history fair and a musical event. Botetourt County Historical Society, Historic Fincastle Inc. and many churches and civic clubs are planning an observance of the 250th anniversary in a variety of county-wide events A major exhibit by the Historical Society of Western Virginia is planned to span Botetourt’s decorative history from 1770 to today. With the Bank of Botetourt, the society will present Botetourt County: 251 Years o f Delight, exploring Botetourt’s material culture from the extravagant to everyday with leading artisans and craftsmen. It will be shown at the Link Museum, March to November 2021. rco 73 �By Ed McCoy n the late1880s and early 1890s, Fincastle businessmen thought they were finally going to have access to a railroad. Fincastle, Roanoke and Clifton Forge Railroad Co. (FR&CFR) was authorized by the General Assembly on March 3,1890. I The directors included some of the community’s most recognized businessmen. The railroad acquired land from the Fincastle and Southern Botetourt Development Company (F&SBDC) which had already started grading for a “shortline” railroad from Cloverdale to Fincastle. The FR&CFR was authorized to build a rail line from the City of Roanoke to Clifton Forge “through Fincastle.” The idea was to connect what became the N&W Railway in Roanoke with the C&O Railway in Clifton Forge. The proposed new rail line was also authorized to build spur lines to any springs, ore banks, quarries or other operations in Roanoke, Botetourt, Allegheny or adjacent counties. The F&SBDC was chartered by the General Assembly to build a rail fine from the Shenandoah Valley Railroad at or near Cloverdale depot to Fincastle just a week before the F&CFR was authorized. Both were given two years to start construction and five years to complete the ventures. Both were reauthorized two years later with the same provisions. The Fincastle Herald noted in 1893 the two railroads were in negotiations to make the Cloverdale to Fincastle line part of the extended railroad to Clifton Forge. The Herald reported that the F&SBDC had completed 11 miles of grading and ties and rails were about ready to go down. Alas, for Fincastle, the line was never finished and the county seat was again denied what was an im portant economic driver in those days—a railroad. In 1892, the idea that the railroad would come through Fincastle became an argument for keeping the courthouse in Fincastle rather than moving it to Buchanan, as was proposed—an idea that finally failed during a county-wide referendum. R ails in th e M ountains There were other rail lines in Botetourt, “dinkies” that were used to pull ore and timber out of the mountains. Old small rail beds, while tree and brush-grown, are still visible in many places in the Blue Ridge Mountains along the county’s eastern border and in the Allegheny Mountains where mining and timbering companies operated. One branch of the Norfolk Southern Railway that came along later and is still operated, runs from Cloverdale to the Roanoke Cement Co. plant west of Fincastle. It was under construction in 1950 when the cement plant was built. R ailroad jo b s For more than tw o-thirds of the county’s history, the railroads provided hundreds of jobs to Botetourt citizens, both in the county and at the railroad shops and offices in Clifton Forge and Roanoke. As the C&O consolidated into the Chessie, the CSX Railroad, the jobs in Clifton Forge evaporated. Much the same happened in Roanoke when the N&W became part of Norfolk Southern, for many office and This vignette appeared in “Chronicles of Botetourt County,” a 360-page history written by Ed McCoy, retired editor o f The Fincastle Herald. The history was sponsored by the Botetout County Historical Society as part o f the 250th Anniversary celebration o f the county. 74 �shop jo b s were m oved to N o rfo lk and A tla n ta . Technology and the end o f passenger and fre ig h t depots on the ra il lin e also ended jobs in several lo c a litie s on the three lines th a t ru n th ro u g h B o te to u rt. oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo By William M. Hackworth <L WiCCiam hackworth (RevoCutionary SoCdier, 1st Virginia 'Regiment, he tim es in w h ich W illia m H a ckw o rth (cl7 4 9-18 3 1) liv e d were m om entous ones fo r V irg in ia and the n a tio n . H a ckw o rth fo u g h t Ind ia n s on the fro n tie r in 1774, helped ru n the C o lo n ia l governor T o u t o f V irg in ia and defend the V irg in ia capital at W illia m s b u rg in 1776, p a rticip a te d in some o f the notable battles o f the R evo lutio n , in c lu d in g Trenton, B randyw ine, G erm antow n, M o n m o u th , and Stony Point, and endured the w in te r encam pm ents at M o rris to w n , V alley Forge, and M id d le b ro o k. D u rin g the R evo lutio n , three types o f soldiers served V irg in ia : m ilitia , state troops, and C ontinentals, and H a ckw o rth served in each. He su rvive d the w a r to re tu rn to fa rm in B edford C ounty, w here the “o ld soldier” raised his fa m ily and d ie d in 1831 at the age o f 82. O th e r than the declaration he m ade in 1828 in B edford C o u n ty in su p p o rt o f h is a p p lica tio n fo r a R e vo lu tio n a ry W ar pension, he apparently le ft no w rit­ ten statem ents, diaries, o r the like . M o st w ritin g s about the R e vo lu tio n a ry W ar are about battles, generals, and o th e r notable figures and heroes. Few are about the com m on soldier. A notable exception is the autobiography o f a C o n ne cticu t soldier, Joseph P lum b M a rtin (1760-1850), o rig in a lly published in 1830 as “A N a rra tive o f Some o f the Adventures, Dangers and S ufferings o f a R e vo lu tio n a ry Soldier, Interspersed w ith Anecdotes o f Incidents That O ccurred W ith in H is O w n O bservation.” M a rtin jo in e d the w ar e ffo rt at age 15 in 1777 and served u n til 1783. He p a rticip a te d in m any o f the same cam paigns d u rin g the R evolution th a t H a ckw o rth d id , so I have quoted in th is a rtic le some excerpts fro m M a rtin s b o o k to give a sense o f w hat life was lik e fo r the o rd in a ry so ld ie r d u rin g these tim es, fro m a so ld ie rs p o in t o f view. William (“Bill”) M. Hackworth is a retired city attorney for the City o f Roanoke and the g-g-g-g-grandson of the subject o f this article. This article is a condensed version o f a much longer paper (first privately printed in 1995 and now in its second edition) that is more heavily annotated. Bill has been researching his family history since he was in high school. He has visited almost all the battlefields and encampments in which his ancestor participated. 75 �William Hackworth is probably the son of George Hackworth, Sr. (I have found no definitive documentary evidence of this, but the circumstantial evidence is strong.) George moved from Caroline County, Virginia, to what became Bedford County sometime after 1749. George is listed in Henings Statutes of 1758 as receiving compensation for service in the militia of the County of Bedford, possibly during a period of attacks by Cherokee Indians in Bedford and Halifax Counties in early 1758. Five other Hackworths from Bedford County saw some form of service during the Revolutionary period; all of them are most probably Williams brothers (but again, I have found no definitive documentary evidence of their relationship): John Hackworth (1743?-1826) served two tours of three months each in the Bedford County militia and was present, as was Thomas Hackworth, at the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781. (One of Johns descendants, Col. David H. Hackworth (1930-2005), was one of the country’s most decorated soldiers. He was the author of “About Face” and other military-oriented books, a military affairs correspondent and a syndicated newspaper columnist, and a campaigner for military reform.) Augustine Hackworth (1746-1847) served with William in Lord Dunmore’s War at the Battle of Point Pleasant. After he moved to Tennessee, he served three months in 1789 in an expedition against the Cherokees and fought them in a battle at Lookout Mountain. Joseph Hackworth (before 1750-cl823) was compensated by Virginia for his services, apparently as a civilian, in 1781 at the New London (in what was then Bedford County) “laboratory,” an arsenal, munitions factory, and gun repair shop for both the Continental and Virginia governments. George Hackworth, Jr., (1752-cl815) served 69 days during Lord Dunmore’s War in Captain William Leftwich’s Company. He then served a two-year enlistment from February 5,1776, to March 1, 1778, in the 5th Virginia Regiment, Continental Army. During his service, the 5th Regiment engaged in the same campaigns as did William Hackworth; they were often under the same over-all command. Thomas Hackworth (April 1 1 ,1763-November 29,1857) guarded the magazine located at New London for three months, served another three months in the campaign that ended at Yorktown, then served another month guarding the prisoners taken at Yorktown and marching them to the prison camp in Winchester, beginning the day after the surrender. Lord D u n m o re ’s W ar and th e B attle o f P oint P le a s a n t-O c to b e r 1 0 ,1 7 7 4 In 1774, Indian raids and retaliation by Virginia frontiersmen led to what is sometimes called “Cresap’s War” or “Logans War,” after Michael Cresap, an Indian fighter, and Chief Logan, a sachem of the Cayuga Indians and war chief of the Mingo Federation, whose family was massacred by a party of frontiersmen. The “war” prompted the royal governor, John Murray, fourth Earl of Dunmore, to leave Williamsburg in July 1774 with 1,000 Virginia militia to wage war against the Indians. Lord Dunmore charged Colonel Andrew Lewis of Botetourt County with recruiting nearby militia and marching them across the Alleghenies to the Kanawha River to meet up with the governor. Lewis was expected to raise about 1,000 men from the counties of Augusta, Botetourt, and Fincastle in units of 50 men per company. W hen it appeared that it would be difficult to raise enough men from these counties, Bedford and Pittsylvania counties were asked to raise companies. Lewis commanded the militia from Botetourt County, which command he turned over to Colonel William Fleming to lead during the expedition. Among the militia companies raised was that of Captain Thomas Buford, who recruited an independent company from Bedford County that included Augustine Hackworth and William Hackworth as privates. Augustine served for 108 days; William for 98 (for which he was paid 7 pounds, 7 76 �shillings). Augustine was also paid 7 shillings, 6 pence for “5 days’ work in canoes,” and William was paid 4 shillings, 6 pence for “3 days’ work in a fort.” Augusta. Bedford. Botetourt. Culpeper and Fincastle Payrolls and Public Service Claims, 1775. A return of the troops in Captain Buford’s company assembled in Botetourt on September 7,1774, shows that it consisted of one lieutenant (Thomas Dooley), one ensign (Jonathan Cundiff), 4 sergeants, and 44 rank and file, who were recruited to serve three-month enlistments. Thwaites, pp. 315, 409. Andrew Lewis left Camp Union (now Lewisburg, West Virginia) on September 12,1774, with his Botetourt troops and Captains Shelby, Russell, and Buford’s companies. They traveled the 165 miles to Point Pleasant (now in West Virginia), where the Kanawha and Ohio rivers meet, and arrived on October 6. (Ironically, Lewis owned “the Point,” 9,000 acres there having been conveyed to him in 1772 as partial payment for his services during the French and Indian War.) While resting and waiting on their rear guard, and before meeting up with Lord Dunmore, they were surprised and attacked on October 10 by Shawnee Chief Cornstalk and at least 1,000 Indians. In a letter to his uncle dated October 16,1774, Isaac Shelby gave an eyewitness account of the battle, from which these extracts are taken: “Col. [William] Fleming w as... ordered to take command o f one hundred & fifty more consist­ ing o f Botetourt, Fincastle & Bedford Troops, viz. Capt. Buford o f Bedford, Capt. Love o f Botetourt, Capt. Shelby & Capt. Russell o f Fincastle. Col. Flemingwith his division went up the bank o f the Ohio to the left... In about a second o f a minute after the Attack on Col. Lewis’s Division the Enemy engaged the Front o f Col. Flemings Division on the Ohio; and in a short time Col. Fleming rec’d two balls through his left arm and one thro his breast... and returned to camp... [W]e had a very hard day its really Impossible fo r me to Express or you to Conceive Accla­ mations that we were under sometimes, the Hideous Cries o f the Enemy and the groans o f our wound[ed] men lying around was Enough to shudder the stoutest hart...” Thwaites, pp. 273-275. A fierce day-long battle resulted in the Indians slipping away after nightfall after suffering many casualties. The m ost reliable count of casualties among the militia is nine commissioned officers dead (including Lewis’ brother Charles, Captain Buford, and Ensign Jonathan Cundiff of his company), 46 enlisted men killed, and 92 wounded, of whom 15 died. William Fleming, a physician, was wounded with a lung protruding from his body. He was in great pain but eventually managed to push the lung back in himself. (Fleming survived, but lost the use of a hand and arm for the rest of his life.) Johnson, p. 179. In an application for a pension for his service filed November 21,1832, in Marion County, Tennessee (where he had moved after leaving Botetourt County, Virginia), Augustine (Austin) Hackworth recounted his service during this period: ** A ustin (X) Hackworth, Senr., o f said county, aged about 86, declares in June 1774 in Bedford / X Co., Va., he was drafted as a private to serve three months under Capt. Thomas Bluford Buford]... against the Shawnee Indians. He was marched from Bedford County to Roanoke in Botetourt Co., Va., where he joined the main army commanded by Gen. Lewis, Colonels Fields and [Charles] Lewis. He marched with the army from there to the levels o f the Greenbriar, Va., where they were reinforced by Col. Christians regiment and there remained about six weeks. He then marched to the mouth o f the Kanawha river at which place they had been encamped about two weeks when on 10 Oct. 1774 they were attacked by and had a severe engagement with the Shawnee Indians, in which battle he fought. The army remained there about two weeks after the battle had been fought, he having served in the troops as a volunteer in the company in which he started about one month after the term fo r which he was drafted had expired, and then returned and was 77 �discharged by Lt. Doolin, his captain having been killed in battle.” Abstracted in John Frederick Dorman, Virginia Revolutionary Pension Applications, Vol. 49. Before marching off to war, Capt. Buford made a will, dated August 20,1774, which was witnessed by Augustine Hackworth and others. On November 28,1774, Augustine “proved” (attested to the authenticity of) this will after Bufords death. Bedford County Will Book I, pp. 213-215. Nine days after the battle, Dunmore signed a treaty with Chief Cornstalk, who yielded all the territory south of the Ohio to Virginia. Referred to on historical markers at Point Pleasant as the “First Battle of the Revolution,” the fight was really between colonists and Indians, although historians have concluded, for a variety of reasons, that it probably marks the end of the Colonial era and the beginning of the Revolutionary period. It did serve to stabilize the frontier for some three years, enabling the Americans to concentrate against the British instead of the Indians. Dabney, p. 125. A ction in T id e w a te r-D e fe n s e o f th e C apital and th e P eninsula The February 10,1775, “Virginia Gazette,” p.3, col.2 (Purdie, ed.), published in the then Virginia capital, Williamsburg, reported that a Committee of Safety had been elected in Fincastle on January 20,1775, and issued a set of resolutions (the “Fincastle Resolves”) to the Continental Congress against the misrule and oppression of the British government, and that among the members of the committee were Colonel William Christian, Captain William Campbell, and Captain Stephen Trig. The resolves concluded with the assurance that “If no pacific measures be proposed or adopted by Great Britain and our enemies attempt to dragoon us out of those inestimable privileges to which as subjects we are entitled and reduce us to slavery we declare that we are resolutely determined never to surrender them to any power but at the expense of our lives.” “In May, 1775, the royal governor of Virginia, John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, suddenly realized that he had lost control of the province, a situation hastened by his seizure [as a reprisal against the Second Virginia convention passing an act to assemble and train militia] of the public stock of gunpowder the previous m onth [the night of April 20], and thinking himself in danger, fled from the Governors Palace at Williamsburg to H. M. S. Fowey, anchored off Yorktown. From his floating sanctuary, Governor Dunmore issued a call for all loyal followers of the King to come to his aid, leaving no doubt that he planned to regain control of Virginia by force.” Sellers II, p.3. In response to Dunmores actions, by passage on August 21,1775, of “An Ordinance for Raising and Embodying a Sufficient Force for the Defence & Protection of this Colonyf the Third Virginia Convention created a two-regiment army and divided the colony into 16 military districts, including the district of Pittsylvania (Bedford, Botetourt, Fincastle and Pittsylvania Counties) and provided that each of the districts was to contribute one company of 68 men. On August 5,1775, the Convention named Patrick Henry as colonel of the 1st Regiment and commander in chief of all Virginia forces then in actual service, despite his complete lack of military experience. Van Schreeven, 4:125 n. 4. William Campbell was appointed a captain in the 1st Virginia Regiment, serving under Colonel Patrick Henry, with whom he became a friend (and brother-in-law). (In the fall of 1780, Campbell led a group of 400 Virginia riflemen who engaged on October 7,1780, in the battle of Kings Mountain. W hen a new county was carved out of Bedford County in 1781, it was named, at the suggestion of Patrick Henry, after his late brother-in-law William Campbell, the “Hero of Kings Mountain.” George, Jr., John, and Joseph Hackworth had all signed a petition to the Virginia General Assembly dated May 24,1779, against this division of Bedford County.) In his application for a Revolutionary War pension made on December 22, 1832, in Bedford 78 �County, Hackworth declared that he enlisted for one year in the latter end of 1775 at Liberty in Bedford County in the company of Capt. William Campbell of the 1st Virginia Regiment. At the end of that year he reenlisted in Williamsburg in the company of Capt. Alexander Cummings in the same regiment. On September 14,1775, the “Virginia Gazette” reported that, “Thursday last, arrived here, Patrick Henry, Esq., Commander-in-Chief of the Virginia forces. He was met and escorted to town by the whole body of Volunteers, who paid him every mark of respect and distinction in their power.” Henry “had issued directions for picking a camp site; by the 29th it had been marked out behind William and Mary College, and tents and other equipage were being prepared “with the utmost expedition.” Lord Dunmore declared martial law on November 7, promising freedom to slaves and indentured servants who would fight for the Crown. On November 8,1775, the Virginia Committee of Public Safety ordered that the Capitol and “other houses” be prepared for winter quarters of the 1st Regiment. Van Schreeven, 4:344. On December 13,1775, the Committee ordered that the “Company of Regulars” under the command of Capt. Campbell, which company had just arrived in Williamsburg, “[m]arch forthwith from hence to Hampton.” On February 10,1776, the Committee assigned the 1st Virginia Regiment to a station between the York and James Rivers. Van Schreeven, 6:85, 5:131. On February 13,1776, the Continental Congress elected Patrick Henry as colonel of the 1st Virginia. The Committee of Public Safety in Williamsburg faced a problem when the Continental commissions for Virginia officers arrived from Philadelphia. As recounted by Selby, p.88: A Then Patrick Henry received his..., he read it silently and handed it back to the committee V \ chairman without comment. Henry had been offered only a colonelcy, and, moreover, the Continental commission omitted the key phrase in the Convention’s form er appointment, ‘Commander in chief o f the forces in Virginia.’Instead o f the popular hero, Congress appointed the veteran Indian fighter from Augusta County, Andrew Lewis, as Virginia’s new brigadier general...” Henry promptly resigned his commission, which brought near mutiny. The next day, according to the “Virginia Gazette,” troops of the 1st Regiment “went into deep mourning” and marched under arms to his quarters, where emotional addresses were exchanged. Later in the day, the regiments officers honored Henry with a testimonial dinner at the Raleigh Tavern. While they were dining, the men assembled in a “tumultuous m anner” at the camp and, resolving never to serve under another commander, demanded their discharges. Henry spent the entire night going from barracks to barracks to pacify the soldiers. His eloquence finally persuaded the men at least to complete their terms of service, although most still vowed not to reenlist. On May 15,1776, the Virginia Convention, without a dissenting vote, directed the delegates from Virginia at Philadelphia to “declare the United Colonies free and independent states, absolved from all allegiance to, or dependence upon, the Crown or Parliament of Great Britain.” There was great jubilation in Williamsburg, with firing of cannon, and the British flag was pulled down from the Capitol. Dabney, p.135. Life during this time in General Lewis’ camp, then at Spring Field, near Williamsburg, must have been interesting, as attested by these orders that he gave: July 7 “The officer o f the Quarter guard is to take care that there is no rioting or noise made in Camp after tat-too beating; should any be guilty o f this offense the officer is to send a file o f men and take them prisoner.”July 8 “Officers o f the companies are to return a list o f the names and number o f women they have, and whether single or married, in order to have them examined.”The Virginia Convention backed General Lewis by unanimously recommending that he place restrictions on the diversion of gaming; it also outlawed the sale of spiritous liquors of any kind within a mile of the main headquarters at Williamsburg. Sellers II, p.l 17. 79 �G w y n n ’s Is la n d -J u ly 9 ,1 7 7 6 Dunmore had retreated from Hampton Roads to Gwynns Island (in present day Mathews County), accompanied by his ship Dunmore, the flagship Roebuck of forty-four guns, the Fowey of twenty guns, the Otter of ten guns, and about eighty other ships of various sizes. Dunmore picked the island believing it to have ample water; it also was home to sympathetic Tories. “Though he had many sick, Dunmore was not idle. Throughout June he erected a stockade fort, a battery o f four embrasures, breastworks o f great length and became entrenched on the island.” Johnson, p. 203. “[H]aving assembled enough men to guard the capital in his absence, the general [Lewis], accompanied by a bevy of colonels, rode out of Williamsburg on July 8 at the head of ten companies of the veteran 1st [including Campbell’s company] and 2nd regiments for the assault on Dunmore.” Selby, p. 125. Arriving at Gwynns Island at dusk on the 8th, Lewis erected two batteries of guns and ordered preparations for an attack on the island. “One battery was erected on Cricket Hill named (so claimed) when Dunmore seeing Lewis’ men said, ‘I will drive those crickets from that hill.” Johnson, p. 205. O n July 9th “Lewis p u t the first match to the first gun, an eighteen pounder. The gun was pointed directly at the Dunmore and the shot passed through her. Splinters from a large timber wounded Dunmore in the legs and his china was ‘smashed about his ears.’ He roared, ‘Good God, that ever I should come to this!”’ Johnson, p. 206. The island was bombarded much of the day. The next day, Lewis landed troops on the island. The Williamsburg Gazette of July 19,1776, (Purdie) describes the scene: T K T e were struck with horror at the number o f dead bodies in a state o f putrefaction, strewed \ V all the way from their battery to Cherry Point about two miles in length, without a shovelful o f earth upon them; others gasping fo r life; and some had crawled to the water’s edge, who could only make known their distress by beckoning to us. By the smallpox and other malignant disorders they have since their arrival at Gwynn’s Island lost near 500 souls. Many were burnt alive in brush huts which in their confusion got on fire. In short such a scene o f misery, distress and cruelty my eyes never beheld.” The only m an lost by the Virginians was Captain Arundel of the artillery, killed by a m ortar of his own making, which General Lewis and the officers told him not to fire. Johnson, p, 208. Dunmore and his fleet managed to sail away during the night. (In mid-August, Dunmore sailed out of the Chesapeake for good and did not return to Virginia.) On July 4,1776, the Continental Congress in Philadelphia adopted the Declaration of Indepen­ dence (one of the signers was Capt. Thomas Nelson, Jr., of the 1st Virginia Regiment, who signed it on August 2). “[When] the official copy of the declaration that John Hancock mailed to Virginia arrived... The Council ordered the document read publicly at the Capitol, the Palace, and the courthouse in Williamsburg on Thursday, July 25. At four o’clock that afternoon General Lewis mustered all off-duty Continental troops for a grand parade. Cannon and small arms were fired amid the cheers of the crowd, and the newspapers recorded that there were ‘illuminations in the evening See, Sec”.’ Selby, p. 99. T h e 1st V irg inia R eg im ent Prepares to Join the C ontinental A rm y From March 18 to August 28,1776, Andrew Lewis was in charge of the camp at Williamsburg, where the 1st Regiment trained. On July 2,1776, General William Howe had landed on Staten Island, New York, with the vanguard of a British army that eventually totaled 34,000 men. Soon calls for reinforcements for the Continental Army under Washington in New York reached Williamsburg. Selby, p. 127. On August 5, General Lewis issued this general order at Deep Spring: 80 �O n A ugust 4,1776, H a ckw o rth reenlisted fo r three years’ service in the 1st V irg in ia Regim ent, fo r w h ich he received a b o u n ty o f ten dollars. H is w id o w D o ro th y ’s pension app lica tio n states th a t he d id n o t re tu rn hom e between enlistm ents. The Virginia Gazette ran the fo llo w in g announcem ent in its A ugust 9,1776, issue, p. 3, col.2: ^ ~ \ \ T e have the pleasure to inform the public that the first regiment have nobly reenlisted for V \ three years longer, and are on marching orders fo r New York. The 3d regiment is already gone forward.” (A m ong the officers o f the 3rd Regim ent were Lt. James M onroe, later the fifth president, Lt. John M arshall, later C h ie f Justice o f the U nited States, and M arshall’s father, M ajor Thomas M arshall.) A cco rd in g to Selby, th is noble a ction o f re e n listin g m ay n o t have been easily attained: “In Virginia, discipline continued to be a problem through the summer o f1776... courtsmartial, frequently o f officers, occurred almost daily. A captain and a lieutenant were cashiered and the latter was drummed through Williamsburgfor ‘behaving in a scandalous and infamous manner!... On another occasion, when red tape delayed their pay, General Lee [Charles Lee, commander in chief in the South] was informed that units teetered ‘on the brink o f mutiny and general desertion.’” Soldiers stolefrom neighboringfarms, gambled and rioted, and discharged weapons indiscriminately to the consternation o f the townspeople. A stray musket ball killed one sergeant in the middle o f the camp near the College o f William and Mary. Most serious was the dissension in the 1st and 2nd regiments, among which the Henry affair still rankled. The men o f both units announced that they would not reenlist under their current officers when their year expired in September... In answer to Congress’s call for two regiments to join the main army in early August, General Lewis made a concerted effort to win over the two that should have been his best. He offered additional bounties and personally appealed to the men to ‘seize the post o f Honour’ with Washington. In the words o f one cynic, the 1st almost to a man swallowed the bait,’ but when [General] Woodford calledfo r those o f the 2nd who would follow him fo r another term to step forward, not a man stirred. In the end the 3rd Virginia under Colonel George Weedon marched north with the 1st instead.” Selby, p. 127. The A ugust 17,1776, “ W illia m s b u rg Gazette” reported, p. 2, col. 2, tha t, “ Tuesday, the 1st. V irg in ia Regim ent, in the C o n tin e n ta l service, m arched fro m th is c ity to N ew York.” The 3rd R egim ent le ft firs t; one a u th o r describes the event as follo w s. “ The m arch... began in the heat o f A u g u s t... few m en dropped o u t despite the steady stra in o f ra p id, day lo n g m arches over n e a rly five hun d re d m iles o f d iffic u lt te rra in ... The m arch ro u te w ent th ro u g h the to w n o f Fredericksburg... crossed the Potom ac and slanted east and n o rth th ro u g h M a ryla n d. The o rd in a ry m a rch in g pace o f the arm y was 120 steps to the m in u te, and each com pany had one d ru m m e r and one life r to set the rh y th m o f the m arch...” Hanser, pp.56-57. In G eneral O rders issued fro m H arlem H eights, N ew Y ork, on O ctober 5,1776, W ashington directed th a t the “tw o V irg in ia Regim ents be form e d in to a Brigade, and fo r the present be u nd e r the C om m and o f the eldest C olonel th e re o f [G eorge W eedon]...” W ashington, 6:171. “As the B ritis h th re a t 81 �became more menacing, Washington ordered the Virginia regiments to join Lord Stirlings brigade and sent the entire unit northward to seize the best ground at White Plains. The main army followed on October 18,1776. Sellers II, p. 165. During the battle that ensued at White Plains on October 28, the Virginia troops were largely spectators. T ren to n -D ec em b er 2 6 ,1 7 7 6 and P rin c e to n -J a n u a ry 3 ,1 7 7 7 In a letter to the president of Congress from his headquarters at Trenton, New Jersey, Washington wrote on December 3,1776, that, “I arrived here myselfyesterday morning with the Main Body o f the Army, having left Lord Stirling with two Brigades at Princeton and that neighborhood to watch the Motions o f the Enemy and give notice o f their approach...” Washington, 6: 324. “[General] Howe returned his main British forces to New York for the winter, departing on 14 December. The chase across New Jersey had convinced him that the war was all but over but the end could wait for spring. He left some 3,000 Hessians along the Delaware with detachments at Amboy, Brunswick, and Princeton to guard the lines of supply from New Jersey to New York.” Minnis, p. 26. Í Í T 4 Tashington decided to stage a surprise attack before the end o f the year when enlistments o f many his troops were due to expire. On the afternoon o f Christmas Day, he moved his main army o f2,500 men to the Delaware River for a night crossing and attack on the Hessian garrison at Trenton the next morning. Weather conditions could not have been worse; the river was fu ll o f clumps o f ice, and snow and sleet fell steadily.”Neagle, p. 17. As it approached Trenton, “[t]he third and main division, which was made up o f about 2,400 men [including the 1st Virginia Regiment]... was to embark at McKonkey’s Ferry and descend on Trenton from above... The patriots suffered extreme adversities as they continued toward Trenton [it was a nine-mile march]. M any o f the men were barefooted, some had rags tied around their feet, and nearly all wore clothing that was practically threadbare... Stirling... had drawn up his battalions o f Virginia [1st and 3rd Regiments] and Delaware regulars and a Pennsylvania rifle regiment at the head o f King and Queen streets to give a coveringfire for captains Thomas Forrest and Alexander Hamilton [later our first Secretary o f the Treasury] while the artillery was being wheeled into place. Soon the Americans were enfilading both o f Trenton’s main streets with grape and canister shot.” Sellers I, pp. 190,193, 194,196. “The Hessians were completely surprised, and after a short fight o f about an hour, they surrendered. The Hessians had 105 casualties and 950 were taken prisoner. Two Americans were wounded in the battle and five froze to death on the march to and from Trenton.”Neagles, p. 17. Only 291 Hessians of the garrison escaped, and all their staff officers and their commander, Colonel Johann Rail, were mortally wounded. Minnis, p. 28. XX At Trenton, the 1st Virginia Regiment was commanded by twenty-one-year-old Captain John Fleming, the senior officer in command - all the officers senior to him being wounded, sick or absent. The “Virginia Gazette” reported on January 17,1777, p.l, col.2 (Dixon-Hunter, eds.) that, “the 1st Virginia regiment had distinguished themselves greatly for their valour, and suffered most...” Hackworth does not mention in his pension application having participated in the ensuing battle at Princeton, New Jersey, which occurred on January 3,1777, but elements of the 1st Virginia were involved. Among the Virginia officers killed at Princeton were Captain John Fleming and eighteen-year-old Second Lieutenant Bartholomew Yates, both of the 1st Virginia Regiment. Sellers I, p. 208. The British were routed at Princeton and fled to Trenton. Washington in his haste to avoid another encounter with the British left his dead and wounded at Princeton and pushed on to the New Jersey hills [to Morristown], and made camp, where he would remain until the following May. 82 �W in te r at M o rris to w n -J a n u a ry 6 , 1777-M ay 1777 A fte r going to w in te r quarters at “M o rris Town,” N ew Jersey, tw e n ty-five m iles west o f N ew York, w h ich W ashington reached on January 6,1777, co n d itio n s fo r the 1st Virginia Regim ent m ust have been te rrib le . F or W ashington in fo rm e d the president o f Congress on January 19,1777, th a t the five V irg in ia regim ents had been “reduced to a h a n d fu l o f men.” B y m id -M a rc h o n ly 2,500 C o n tin e n ta l troops rem ained w ith W ashington. O n M ay 20,1777, W ashington began breaking up his w in te r camp at M o rris to w n and advanced m ost o f his com m and to the W atchung M o u nta in s near B oundbrook. M a rtin 2 , p. 22. A re tu rn o f Greenes d iv is io n dated M a y 20,1777, showed th a t the 1st Virginia R egim ent o n ly had s ix ty -fo u r privates f it fo r duty. Sellers I, p. 232. In re co u n tin g his service in the war, Joseph Plum b M a rtin recalled th a t soldiers were prom ised the fo llo w in g articles o f c lo th in g p er year: { £ / ^ \ n e uniform coat, a woolen and linen waistcoat, four shirts, four pair o f shoes, four pair o f V - / stockings, a pair o f woolen, and a pair o f linen overalls, a hat or a leather cap, a stock for the neck, a hunting shirt, a pair o f shoe buckles, and a blanket. Ample clothing says the reader; and ample clothing say I. But what did we ever realize o f all this ample store - why perhaps a coat (we generally did get that) and one or two shirts, the same o f shoes and stockings, and, indeed, the same may be said o f every other article o f clothing - a few dribbled out in a regiment, two or three times a year, never getting a whole suit at a time, and all o f the poorest quality, and blankets o f thin baize, thin enough fo r straws shot through without discommoding the threads. How often have I had to lie whole stormy, cold nights in a wood, on afield, or a bleak hill with such blankets and other clothing like them, with nothing but the canopy o f the heavens to cover me. All this too in the heart o f winter, when a New England farmer, if his cattle had been in my situation, would not have slept a wink from sheer anxiety fo r them.” M a rtin , p. 284. O n M a y 22,1777, at M o rris to w n , W ashington ordered th a t the 1st, 5th, 9th, and 13th regim ents fro m V irg in ia , w ith Hazens R egim ent, were to compose the 1st V irg in ia Brigade under the com m and o f B rig a die r G eneral Peter M uhlenberg. This brigade, together w ith G eneral W eedons, were a p a rt o f G eneral N athanael Greenes D iv is io n . O n A ugust 24,1777, the e ntire A rm y m arched th ro u g h P hiladelphia in a show o f force, and p ro ba b ly to show the residents h ow p o o rly equipped the soldiers were. G eneral M u h len b erg and his V irg in ia Brigade led the lin e o f in fa n try . H ocker, pp. 76, 78. B randyw ine, P e n n s y lv a n ia -S e p te m b e r 1 1 ,1 7 7 7 O n A ugust 25, B ritis h G eneral Howe, w ith about 13,000 B ritis h in fa n try , sailed up the Chesapeake tow ard P hiladelphia, and landed at Head o f E lk. A fte r re stin g fo r a week, the B ritis h began m arching on P hiladelphia. “Washington concentrated his army along Brandy wine Creek at the fords to intercept the British move toward Philadelphia... [he] placed Major General Nathanael Greene’s division [which included the 1st Virginia in Muhlenberg’s brigade] and Brigadier General Anthony Wayne’s brigade on the east side o f Chadd’s Ford, his main defensive position.” Neagles, p. 20. “While Hessian troops diverted the Americans at Chadd’s Ford, the main British army moved north to come behind them... Washington shifted Alexander’s, Stephen’s, and Sullivan’s divisions toward the Birmingham Meeting House where they engaged in battle late in the afternoon. Washington, with General Greene and his division, arrived ju st as the American lines were beginning to crumble. Night was falling, however, and the fighting was halted fo r the day... That night Washington withdrew his army to Chester. American casualties were high; at least 1,000 killed or wounded.”Neagles, p. 20. T h irty o f the A m ericans k ille d were fro m the V irg in ia regim ents along w ith 171 w ounded. H ackw orths then com pany com m ander, C aptain Joseph Scott, was seriously w ounded and taken prisoner. 83 �i i Tl if"uhlenberg’s brigade, together with the other Virginia brigade o f Weedon, rendered service o f incalculable value by holding back the British advance long enough to permit the badly battered American regiments to retire from the meeting house towards Dilworth. A t one time Muhlenberg’s men alone, after having marched four miles in forty minutes, faced all o f Cornwallis’ army, and their commander led them in desperate hand-to-hand bayonet fighting. This fortitude o f the Virginians prevented the defeat from becoming a rout, for by stemming the on rush o f the British it became possible fo r the American commanders to check their men and bring about an orderly retreat to the neighborhood o f Chester. Muhlenberg’s brigade was the last to leave the field o f battle.” J. V I H ocker, p.79. G erm antow n , P e n n s y lv a n ia -O c to b e r 4 ,1 7 7 7 fter the British took Philadelphia on September 26,1777, the main body o f their army i l w a s camped at Germantown. There were 9,000 British troops in the camp. . . Washington planned a surprise attack by marching his army o f 11,000 Continentals and militia by night to engage the enemy early in the morning.” Neagles, pp. 20-21. “W hat could have been a smashing American victory, turned into a disastrous defeat. Movement o f the army was slow, and they met severe resistance from the British outposts. The Americans gradually forced their way towards Germantown; however, a dense fog had arisen which caused a great deal o f confusion. A t one point Brigadier General Anthony Wayne’s men and Major General Adam Stephen’s troops mistook each other fo r the enemy in the fog and began firing upon one another. After their ammunition was expended they retreated, followed by the rest o f the army. The British, reinforced by troops from Philadelphia, counterattacked. . . The American army lost over 1,000 men in this battle, either killed, wounded, or captured. British casualties were about 500 killed or wounded.”Neagles, pp. 20-21. Joseph P lum b M a rtin , w ho was p a rt o f the retreat, recounted that: fter the army had collected again and recovered from their panic, we were kept marching “ A ) ¿ J L Iand counter marching, starving and freezing, nothing else happening, although that was enough, until we encamped at a place called White Marsh, about twelve miles to the northward o f Philadelphia ... The ground, which was soft and loamy, was converted into mortar, and so dirty was it, that any hogsty was preferable to our tents to sleep in; and to cap the climax o f our misery, we had nothing to eat; nor scarcely anything to wear.” M a rtin , pp. 74-75. Fort M ifflin The P hilad e lp hia cam paign had another aspect than the c o n fro n ta tio n between Howe’s and W ashingtons arm ies. I t was essential fo r Howe th a t his tro op s in P hilad e lp hia be supplied; he inten d ed to do th is w ith the B ritis h fle e t com ing up the Delaware R iver. C onsequently, he sought to take c o n tro l o f the riv e r, w h ic h was defended b y a sm all A m e rica n flo tilla , and tw o fo rts , F o rt M ercer south o f P hilad e lp hia, and F o rt M ifflin on M u d Island in the m id d le o f the rive r. O n O ctob e r 18,1777, W ashington ordered the 1st V irg in ia R egim ent to F o rt M ifflin to defend the garriso n. For the soldiers w ho were “manning the fort,” co n d itio n s were m iserable. The fo rt was und e r constant bom ba rd m e nt fro m a fle et o f B ritis h ships and land-based m o rta rs and guns. Joseph P lum b M a rtin was on d u ty there and recalled th a t “[hjere I endured hardships sufficient to kill half a dozen horses. Let the reader only consider fo r a moment and he will be satisfied if not sickened. In the cold month o f November, without provisions, without clothing not a scrap o f either shoes or stockings to my feet or legs, and in this condition to endure a siege in a such a place as that was appalling in the highest degree... It was 84 �impossible to lie to get any rest or sleep on account o f the m ud... I was in that place a fortnight and can say in sincerity that I never lay down to sleep a minute in all that time.” Martin, pp. 85, 89. Hackworth’s company remained at the fort for almost five weeks. After the 1st Regiment was relieved, British ships were able to maneuver such that their fire necessitated evacuation of the fort after the Patriots set fire to it. Minnis, pp. 47,48, 287. By the fall of 1777, as Joseph Plumb M artin describes it, Washingtons army was “not only starved but naked,” the greatest part “were not only shirtless and barefoot, but destitute o f all other clothing, especially blankets.” Martin, p. 101. Sellers I, p. 282. M artin relates that Congress declared a Continental day of Thanksgiving, on which day each soldier received half a gill of rice (equal to a quarter of a pint) and a tablespoonful of vinegar. Martin, p. 100. (The vinegar was to ward off scurvy.) V alley Forge, P e n n s y lv a n ia -D e c e m b e r 1 9 , 1777-Spring 1778 Only by remaining close to Philadelphia could Washington hope to inhibit the movements of the enemy. He chose as the site of his camp Valley Forge, a few miles northwest of Philadelphia; the Army arrived there on December 19,1777. This location offered excellent natural fortifications, easily strengthened by redoubts and entrenchments. The men constructed log huts, stopping the cracks with mud. It is said Muhlenberg’s brigade completed the work of felling trees and constructing their huts in four days. The camp apparently smelled quite bad because of the dirtiness of the men, the number of dead horses, and the overflowing “necessaries” (latrines). Washington ordered patrols of the camp, which were authorized to shoot anyone relieving himself anywhere but where authorized. Shortage of food was probably a more severe problem than the lack of shelter when the troops first reached Valley Forge. There was no meat available, and only 25 barrels of flour. “Such was needed as the Arm y could consume over 30,000 pounds o f meat and 150 barrels o f flour per day.”Minnis, p. 55. The troops were supposed to receive a daily allowance of a pound of meat or fish, but were sometimes lucky to get that much in a week. Martin2, p. 175. For much of January there was no food in camp at all. February 5 some 3,989 were unfit fo r duty because o f a lack o f clothes or shoes.” Martin V -/2 ,p p . 176-177. “0ver4,000 men were on the sick rolls in May, and 18 percent o f the army’s strength (2,300 men) were reported to be sick in camp as late as June 17.” Martin2, p. 178. It is not surprising that Hackworth was listed as “sick in camp” on the June muster roll, that he was “sick at Brunswick” in July, and at the “Flying Hospital” in August. M onm outh, N ew J e rs e y -J u n e 2 8 ,1 7 7 8 After evacuating Philadelphia on June 18,1778, the British army of 15,000 marched across New Jersey during an oppressive heat wave. While resting at M onmouth Courthouse they were overtaken by the pursuing American army. ^ 71 /f"a)or General Charles Lee in command o f6,000 men, which included over 1,100 militia, J- V I was ordered by Washington to attack the British column as it moved out from Monmouth Courthouse on the morning o f the 28th. Lee, who disagreed with Washingtons orders, issued no orders to attack (for which he was relieved o f command fo r a year], and several o f his brigade commanders initiated action themselves. The British then turned to attack the Americans who, with no clear directions from General Lee, began to retreat in confusion. Washington, with the main army o f8,000 men, en route to join Lee, stopped and rallied the retreaters near the Freehold Meeting House. Washington deployed his army along a shallow ravine where they withstood four British attacks and counterattacked the exhausted British troops.”Neagles, p. 23. 85 �C t/^ lin to n made several attacks... but never with coordination resulting in withdrawal each time. V^/As the British Black Watch pulled back from an advance on Stirling on the American left, the First Virginia and the 1st and 3rdNew Hampshire o f Scott’s Light Infantry flanked the Highlanders through the woods. The Highlanders turned and stood in line as did the Americans both firing from short range. Such determination forced the enemy to retreat back to their main body.”Minnis, p. 61. About 360 were killed in the battle (including Maj. Edmund B. Dickinson of the 1st Virginia) and wounded on each side, and about 40 of the deaths on each side were due to sunstroke. Neagles, p. 23. The 1st Virginia spent most of July and August at White Plains performing routine duty and serving on reconnaissance parties, and September at Camp Robinsons Farm, opposite West Point. Minnis, pp. 64-65. At the end of November, the 1st joined the main army at Middlebrook, New Jersey. Hocker, pp.105-106. From January to July 1779, the 1st Virginia was quartered at Smiths Clove. S to n y Point, N ew Y o rk -J u ly 1 5 ,1 7 7 9 1 1 fie British had come up and seized a little American unfinished fo rt at Stony Point, New 1 York, ju st 10 miles below West Point. This fo rt and one across the river at Verplanck’s Point could control the Hudson. King’s Ferry ran between the two sites and was fo r most o f the war the southernmost crossing o f the Hudson that could be safely used by the Americans.” Minnis, p. 71. Washington determined to retake the fort. “The British had highly fortified the rocky heights o f Stony Point... and believed it to be impregnable. A t midnight on the 15th [of July], Brigadier General Anthony Wayne with his elite infantry o f 1,400picked men...staged a surprise bayonet attack and took the fo rt in less than a half-hour. The British casualties were heavy; 100 had been killed and wounded and 500 taken prisoner. Fifteen Americans were killed and eighty wounded.”Neagles, p. 23. “General Muhlenberg, with 300 men from his brigade, was stationed so they could either come to the aid o f Wayne in the attack upon the British or else cover the retreat o f the assailing force if it met with misfortune. Wayne executed the duty assigned him so effectively (it earned him the sobriquet “M ad Anthony”fo r his audacity) that the help o f Muhlenberg’s detachment was not needed.” Hocker, p. 106. On August 4,1779, Hackworths three-year enlistment in the 1st Virginia Regiment ended and he was discharged August 3 “at a place about a days march from Stony Point fort.” How he returned to Virginia is unknown, but presumably it was by the same means that he had left Virginia - by foot. On September 21,1784, the General Assembly authorized the payment of the balance of pay owed Hackworth in the amount of 4 pounds, 18 shillings, and 8 pence. On August 5,1786 Hackworth was issued Warrant #4192 for 200 acres for his service of “three years corporal Virginia line.” He may have sold the warrant, a common practice, which was for land in the Virginia Military District. (The land shows up as part of a larger tract surveyed in 1800 for someone else.) The Virginia M ilitary District was an approximately 4.2 million-acre area of land in what is now the state of Ohio that was reserved by Virginia to use as payment in lieu of cash for its veterans of the Revolutionary War. For years after Hackworths death, petitions were filed with Congress on behalf of his heirs seeking to have another grant of 200 acres made to them, apparently claiming that the original warrant had been “lost.” In 1854, they were successful and an additional grant of 200 acres was made. Hackworth received a Federal pension of $8 a month from 1828 until his death in Bedford County on May 31,1831. His widow, Dorothy Newman, daughter of Conrad Newman and Anna Margaretta Brubeck Newman, whom he m arried in Bedford County on May 22,1790, received a pension of $80 a year from 1838 until her death in 1849. 86 �m m ? am sm > "~s';;- ■Y,y * : ' V. (»*..■ ^ F * ‘ a M (¿lamware " :‘ ■ 1 KPSSS p B E p ? a * % T if £ S i i E S S .\$L? 1 | 0 I e5 M 2 W ■ Ii m B O gm «B SB b h i B h s J F 5 ^ i l f t i i vkaryiv.-w yftartiiaanfi ^ a g B g tf - tm B r - p M m B M ® i>@Sii p ^ p n ■ m jjyW-•:► *-m T w W ffi^ p x f - g I w K M & lm a y $ ,m m . ■B e T v &a&8 V^CU/ ■“:;: .■■V' .;-M_ ■&&$*& sx v& iAmxii w m sM u ^ y t ^ >Amarker stands in memory o f Bedford’s volunteer company which fought at Point Pleasant on Oct. 10, 1774. A p p e n d i x I R e c o r d o f W i l l i a m H a c k w o r t h ’s s e r v i c e i n t h e 1 s t V i r g i n i a R e g i m e n t The following record of Hackworth’s service has been abstracted from the records of the 1st Virginia Regiment found in the National Archives Microfilm Publications, Revolutionary War Rolls 1775-1783, Microfilm Series No. 246, Rolls 92 and 93, and Series M-881. These records are not complete, especially for the early period of the war. May, June, and July 1777 Pay Rolls-Capt. William Lynn’s company, Col. Isaac Read. June and July 1777 Muster Rolls-Capt. Lynn’s company (June roll notes that Lynn was in Virginia recruiting); “on guard.” July and August 1777 Muster Roll-Capt. Joseph Scott’s company. August, September, October, November, December 1777 Pay Rolls - Capt. Joseph Scott's company. September, November, and December 1777 Muster Rolls-Capt. Scott’s company. January, February, March, April, and May 1778 Muster Rolls (at Valley Forge)-Capt. Joseph Scott’s company; only 10 privates are on the roll that month; “on guard” in February. February, March, April, May, and June 1778 Pay Rolls-Capt. Joseph Scott’s company; $6 2/3 per month pay (this was the standard pay for pri­ vates beginning in 1775; it was paid in Continental dollars, which actually came In denominations of 2/3 dollars; the Continental dollar became 87 �greatly devalued by 1779, thus giving rise to the expression “not worth a Continental." Joseph Plumb Martin wrote, “And what was six dollars and sixty-seven cents of this ‘Continental currency,’ as it was called, worth? It was scarcely enough to procure a man a dinner.” Martin, p. 287). June, July, August, September, and October 1778 Muster Roils - Captains Charles Pelham, William Lewis, and Joseph Scott’s companies In June 1778 Hackworth is listed as a private, and as “Sick in camp” In July 1778 the roll indicates that Hackworth was “sick at Brunswick” (in New Jersey) The August 1778 roll, taken August 1 at White Plains. Hackworth was at the “Flying Hospital” In September the roll indicates that Hackworth was “on fatigue” at Camp Robinson’s Farm September 8 ,1 7 7 8 , roll of Capt. Pelham’s Company of Col. Parker’s Regiment; “sick hospital’ June and July 1778 Pay Roll - pay $6 2/3 a month; “sick absenf September 1778 Pay Roll - paid $20 for three months; “deducted July & omitted August pay roll” October 1778 Pay Roll - Major Anderson’s company, Col. Richard Parker, commanding. Hackworth is listed as a corporal; pay was $7 1/3 per month November 1778 Pay Roll through and including April 1779 Pay Roll - Major Anderson’s company (in December 1778, only 13 were on the pay roll for this company); January roll at Smith’s Clove January 1779 Muster Roll Smith’s Clove January, February, March, April 1779 Pay Roll Maj. Anderson’s company May, June, July 1779 Pay Rolls Capt. Pelham’s Company $7 1/3 per month (in May 1779, the 1st and 10th Regiments were combined into the 1st) May, June, July 1779 Muster Rolls Capt. Pelham’s Company; Hackworth discharged August 3, 1779. The June and July rolls were taken at Smith’s Clove; the July roll was taken August 3 at Camp Ramapough a p pe n d ix 2 -1 s t V ir g in ia r e g im e n t In 1998 M. Lee Minnls published “The First Virginia Regiment of Foot 1775-1783” (Willow Bend Books), the first comprehensive history of the regiment, and it is very helpful for anyone researching an ancestor who served in that unit. Writing of General Pickett’s charge against Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg during the Civil War, historian Virginius Dabney wrote that “[t] here were 4,500 Virginians in that charge out of a total of 15,000 Confederates, including the historic First Virginia regiment, most famous of all Virginia regiments, which traces its origins back to early Colonial times. It had fought under George Washington in the French and Indian War, under Andrew Lewis at Point Pleasant, and under Washington’s overall command at Trenton, Princeton, and Yorktown. W hat was left after Pickett’s charge - it sustained 80 percent casualties - would fight on through to Appomattox.” Dabney, p. 337. Two of William Hackworth’s grandsons, Sgt. Uriah Hackworth and Pvt. Lewis Hackworth, were in units that charged with General Pickett at Gettysburg - respectively, the 14th Regiment of Virginia Infantry (Company B, originally formed as the Bedford Rifle Greys, and the first company that left Bedford for war on April 24, 1861), and the Virginia 38th Light Artillery Battalion (Company D). William’s great-nephews, Privates Elijah Hackworth, George D. Hackworth! and Tazewell Ward Hackworth were also in Company B of the 14th Regiment; at Gettysburg, Elijah was wounded in the leg and captured; Tazewell was wounded in the forehead by a shell; George D. was also captured and later died in the Union prison camp at Point Lookout, Maryland. Uriah, too, was later captured, and imprisoned at Fort Monroe, Virginia. Footnote r eferen ces Dabney: Virginius Dabney, ‘Virginia: The New Dominion,” (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, Inc., 1971). Force: Peter Force, ed., American Archives: A Collection of Authentic Records, State Papers, Debates, and Letters and Other Notices of Public Affairs, (Washington: M. St. Clair Clarke & Peter Force, 1839-53) 9 vols. Hanser: Richard Hanser, “The Glorious Hour of Lt. Monroe," (New York: Atheneum, 1976). Hocker: Edward W. Hooker, “The Fighting Parson of the American Revolution,” (Philadelphia: 1936). Johnson: Patricia Givens Johnson, “General Andrew Lewis of Roanoke and Greenbrier,” (Blacksburg, Va.: Southern Printing Company, Inc., 1980). Lewis: “The Orderly Book of that Portion of the American Army Stationed at or Near Williamsburg, Virginia, under the Command of General Andrew Lewis, from March 18, 1776, to August 28th, 1776.” Charles Campbell, ed. (Richmond, privately printed, 1860). Martin: Joseph Plumb Martin, Private Yankee Doodle Being a Narrative o f Some o f the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings o f a Revolutionary Soldier, George F. Scheer, ed. (Eastern National 2009). Martin 2: David G. Martin, “The Philadelphia Campaign, June 1777-July 1777,” (Conshohocken, Pa.: Combined Books, Inc., 1993). Mlnnis: M. Lee Minnis, “The First Virginia Regiment of Foot 1775-1783,” (Willow Bend Books, 1998). Neagles: James C. Neagles and Lila L. Neagles, “Locating Your Revolutionary War Ancestor,” (Logan, Utah: The Everton Publishers, Inc., 1983). Selby: John E. Selby, “The Revolution in Virginia 1775-1783,” (Williamsburg: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1988). Sellers k John R. Sellers, The Virginia Continental Line, 1775-1780, dissertation, 1968 (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, 1982). Sellers II: John R. Sellers, The Virginia Continental Line, (Williamsburg: Virginia Independence Bicentennial Commission, 1978). Thwaites: Reuben Gold Thwaites and Louise Phelps Kellogg, editors, Documentary History of Dunmore’s War, 1774, (Madison, Wisconsin: 1905). Van Schreeven: William J. Van Schreeven, et al., “Revolutionary Virginia: The Road to Independence," (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1973-1979), 7 volumes. 88 �LeRoy Gresham LeRoy Gresham was the pastor of Salem Presbyterian Church from 1909 until 1947, faithfully serving the Lord and the congregation. A detailed personal record of his pastoral activities during this period is included in the Church’s archives: names and dates of baptisms, confirmations, marriages, pastoral visits, member transfers and funerals. Also included are copies of his sermons for children and an inventory of his extensive library, then located in his home on Market Street. The Congregation is fortunate that these records have been preserved for they constitute a sig­ nificant chapter in the history of Salem Church. But there is one of his documents which cannot be cataloged. Titled An Oratorical Medley, Arranged by LeRoy Gresham, the medley consists of thirty-four passages taken from classical English and American poetry, plays and prose arranged to form a unique poem. The medley is typewritten on four legal size pages. It is undated and, at a later time an unknown person made handwritten notes in the left margin indicating the title of several of the works from which Gresham selected passages for his Medley. Beside the title the word “copyrighted” had been written but crossed out by hand notation. The Medley reads as follows: 89 �AnOratoricai ‘MecfCey A rra n g e d b y L e R o y G resham “Far up the lonely mountainside My wandering footsteps led; The moss lay thick beneath my feet, The pine sighed overhead. The traces of a dismantled fort lay in the forest nave, And in the shadow near my path I saw a soldier’s grave, ” 1 “But Linden saw another sight When the drum beat, at dead of night, Commanding fires of death to light The darkness of her scenery, ”2 “Half a league half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred, ” 3 “Like a tempest down the ridges Swept the hurricane of steel, Rose the slogan of McDonald — Flashed the broadsword of Locheill!”4 “Had I been there with sword in hand, And fifty Camerons by, That day through high Dunedin’s streets Had pealed the slogan cry, Not all their troops of trampling horse, Nor might of mailed men, Not all the rebels in the south Had borne us backward then! Once more his foot on Highland heath Had trod as free as air, Or I, and all that bore my name, Been laid around him there!”5 “There came a burst of thunder sound — The boy-oh where was he? ”6 “Ask Cossinius; ask Claudius; ask Varinius; ask the bones of your legions that fertilize the Lucanian plains. ”7 �“Then, for a little moment, all people held their breath; And through the crowded Forum was stillness as of death;8 There’s only the sound of the lone sentry’s tread As he tramps from the rock to the fountain, And thinks of the two in the low-trundle bed, Far away in the cot on the mountain. His musket falls slack; his face, dark and grim, Grows gentle with memories tender, As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep, For their Mother—may Heaven defend her!9 But hark hear ye yon lion roaring in his den? It is three days since he tasted flesh, but tomorrow he will break his fast upon yours; and a dainty meal for him ye will be!10 Are ye all there my vassals true, mine eyes are growing dim; Draw forth each trusty sword And let me hear your faithful steel clash once around my board. I hear it faintly, louder yet! What clogs my heavy breath? Up all and shout for Ruddier, defiance unto death! Down rang the massy cup, And from its sheath the heavy blade came flashing—halfway up, And with the dark and heavy plumes scarce moving on his head, There in his dark carved oaken chair of state old Rudiger sat dead11 But he was not the only one, oh dear no12 With that, straight up the hill there rode, Two horsemen drenched with gore, And, in their arms, a helpless load, A wounded knight they bore13 And the foremost said: “Behold me! I am Famine, Bukadawin!” And the other said: “Behold me!14 I am thy father’s spirit, Doomed for a certain term to walk the night And for the day confined to fast in fires, Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature Are burned and purged away15 An hour passed on, the Turk awoke, 16 Oh, I have passed a miserable night, 1 91 �J L So full of ugly dreams, of ugly sights, That, as I am a Christian faithful man, I would not spend another such night Though ’twere to buy a world of happy days, So full of dismal terror was the time. 17 Last night, as I lay fettered in my dungeon, I heard a strange ominous sound; it seemed like the distant march of some vast army, their harness clanging as they marched, when suddenly there stood by me Xanthippus, the Spartan general, by whose aid you conquered me, and, with a voice low as when the solemn wind mourns through the leafless forest, he thus addressed me;” 18 How doth the little busy bee Delight to bark and bite To gather honey all the day, And eat it all the night, 19 He woke, to die ‘mid flame and smoke, And shout, and groan, and saber stroke, And death-shots falling thick and fast As lightnings from the mountain cloud; And heard, with voice as trumpet loud Bozzarris cheer his band20 Once more into the breach, Dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead.21 So we shuddered there in silence, Each one busy with his prayers “We are lost!” the Captain shouted, As he staggered down the stairs. But his little daughter whispered, As she took his icy hand22 0 father, I hear the sound of guns; Oh, say, what may it be? 23 The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar Telling the battle was on once more, And Sheridan twenty miles away.24 1 sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; I gallop’d, Dirck gallop’d, we gallop’d all three:25 There was mounting ‘mong Graemes of the Netherby clan; Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran; 92 �J L There was racing and chasing on Cannobie Lee, But the lost bride of Netherby ne’er did they see.26 Then Reuben Paine cried out again before his spirit passed27 “Stand up, stand up now, Tomlinson, and answer loud and high The good that ye did for the sake of men or ever ye came to die— The good that ye did for the sake of men in little earth so lone!” And the naked soul of Tomlinson grew white as a rain-washed bone.28 Then out spake brave Horatius, The Captain of the Gate: “To every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or late. ”29 Go, tell the telegraph. The railroad killed a calf. He ran on the rail, And curled up his tale; The engine came by, And sent him sky-high. 30 There we found him gashed and gory, Stretch’d upon the cumbered plain As he told us where to seek him, In the thickest of the slain. And a smile was on his visage, For within his dying ear Pealed the joyful note of triumph, And the clansmen’s clamorous cheer31 And you’ll not weight him down by the heels and dump him overside, But carry him up to the sandhollows to die as Behring died’ And make a place for Reuben Paine that knows the fight was fair, And leave the two that did the wrong to talk it over there!32 Slowly and sadly we laid him down, From the field of his fame fresh and gory; We carved not a line and we raised not a stone, But we left him alone with his glory33 Duncan is in his grave. After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well. Treason has done his worst; nor steel nor poison, Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing can touch him further.34 n 93 �The Medley is an unusual form of composition, its passages selected by Gresham from classic American and English tragedies. Many involve the death of heroes of ancient military conflict. Taken together, the passages form a tragic poem whose message is difficult to discern. The mystery of his purpose and the message he hoped to convey could possibly be answered if the date of arrangement were known. To this end, two possible time periods in his life will be considered; first as a student and then later as a Presbyterian minister. Gresham attended Lawrenceville Academy in New Jersey, and received BA and MA degrees from Princeton University. A Phi Beta Kappa, his liberal arts education included classical American and English literature and Roman and Greek history. Oratory, the art of public speaking, would have been an important and required part of his undergraduate studies. Familiar passages from the works of Shakespeare, Longfellow, Scott, Browning, Kipling, Tennyson and others would have been memorized and quoted by a student to practice and develop the ability to speak in a formal and eloquent manner. A young student of Greshams intellect could easily have crafted the Medley from memory without thought of a larger purpose or simply to respond to a classroom assignment. There are two reasons to believe that this was not the case. First, and most important, Gresham had a greater purpose in life. Following graduation from Princeton he pursued graduate studies for a year before receiving a LLB law degree from the University of Maryland in 1896. He practiced law in Baltimore for the next six years before being called to the ministry, receiving his Bachelor of Divinity in 1906 from the Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia. His first pastorate was the Presbyterian Church in Chapel Hill, N orth Carolina and in 1909 he and his family answered the call of the Salem Church. Second, the Medley’s passage selected from Rhyme of the Three Sealers was written by Kipling in 1893 when Gresham was twenty-two years old and had completed his undergraduate studies at Princeton. It is in the history of Gresham’s thirty-eight year pastorate of the Salem Church that the answer to his purpose and intended message in arranging his Medley may be found. On All Saints Day, October 31, 1999, Reverend Dean Lindsey preached a sermon titled The Rev. LeRoy Gresham a Towering Figure. Selected passages from that sermon are quoted below in bold type, describing Dr. Gresham’s personality, theology and relationship with the young people of the Congregation. An Old School Presbyterian through and through, he added to this tradition by his own erudition and broad learning. In his sermons, he quoted literature, opera, and poetry—Robert Browning was one of his favorites. He included illustrations from history, the law, and science. He sincerely believed that there was no branch o f human learning which could not illum inate the m eaning o f the gospel. W hen Dr. Gresham reached an age when he reasonably could have been expected to retire, the clouds o f war had m oved over the face o f the globe. W ith so many o f the young men and women of the church entering into m ilitary service and the support o f the War effort, he did not feel that he could abandon his pastoral work. Indeed, I am certain that there was no more anguished period o f his long m inistry than during World War II, when those whom he called his “adopted children” went into danger, into battle, and a number o f them never returned. He prayed with the fam ilies as they anxiously awaited news from their sons. He stood by their side when a flier was m issing in action. He wept with them when a loved one was lost.” I came across a letter he wrote to those serving in the Armed Forces, dated December 1944, which both expresses the anguish o f those tim es, but also the great Christian hope which LeRoy Gresham sought to share with those he deeply loved. The letter concludes, finally, with a benediction upon them and upon us. 94 �It reads: Dear Boys and Girls: We are not saying “Merry Christmas” this year. We realize only too well that amid the circumstances in which so many o f you fin d yourselves at this time all merely conventional greetings are quite out o f place. They are also out o f place for us, who in heart-heaviness and anxiety wait here at home. A nd so we do not use the old words. What we do want to say to you is that on Christmas Day you will be as near to us in thought as you ever were in bodily presence, and that we shall be looking forward in eagerness and expectation to the time when you may be with us again to join with us in a happy and unclouded Christmas here at home. We still believe in Him Whose coming to the world is celebrated at this season. We still believe that he will verify to us His blessed name o f “Prince o f Peace,” and that he will fulfill fo r us the promise o f “Peace on Earth” that was made in His name. In the meantime, our prayer for you is the same that the Apostle Paul made for his Philippian friends long ago— that “the peace o f God which passeth all understanding may garrison (garrison-that is what the word means in Greek)— may garrison your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Your old friend, LeRoy Gresham One has to believe that Dr. Greshams anguish for his boys and girls also led him to arrange his An Oratorical Medley during the final days of World War II. It was his way of personally honoring Alexander Brown, David Oakey, Gordon Maxwell and Elmore Hood, those young men of his flock, who, like the heroes of the ancient battles cited in his tragic poem, gave their lives for a greater cause. John R. Hildebrand, Presbyterian Elder August 5, 2015 95 �Endnotes A listing of the original sources for LeRoy Gresham’s An Oratorical Medley 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 from the poem, A Georgia Volunteer, Mary Ashley Townsend from the poem, Hohenlinden, Thomas Campbell (1777-1844) from the poem, Charge of the Light Brigade, Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) from the poem, The Burial-March of Dundee, William E. Aytoun (1813-1865) from the poem, The Execution of Montrose, William E. Aytoun from the poem, Casabianca, by Felicia Hemans (1793-1835) from Spartacus to the Roman Envoys in Etruria, by Epes Sargent (1813-1880) from The Death of Virginia, Helene A. Guerber, (1859-1929), from The Story of the Romans from All Quiet along the Potomac, Ethel Lynn Eliot Beers (1827-1879) from Spartacus to the Gladiators, Elijah Kellogg (1813-1901) from the poem The Baron’s Last Banquet, Albert Gordon Greene (1802-1868) from the song, Not the Only One, copyright 1892, words by William Jerome and Matt Woodward, music by John Mayhew from the poem, Marmion, Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) from the poem, The Song of Hiawatha, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) from the play Hamlet, Act I, Scene 5, William Shakespeare (1564-1616) from the poem Marco Bozzarus, Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790-1867) from the play Richard III, Act I, Scene 4, Shakespeare from the poem Regulus to the Carthaginians, Elijah Kellogg from Julian Home, A Tale of College Life, by Fredric William Farrar from the poem Marco Bozzarus, Fitz-Greene Halleck from the play, Henry V, Act 3, Scene I, Shakespeare from the poem, Ballad of the Tempest, James T. Fields from the poem, Wreck of the Hesperus, Longfellow from the poem, Sheridan’s Ride, Thomas Buchanan Read (1822-1872) from the poem How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix, Robert Browning (1812-1889) from the poem Lochinvar, Sir Walter Scott from the poem Rhyme of the Three Sealers, Rudyard Kipling from the poem Tomlinson, Kipling from the poem Horatius, from Lays of Ancient Rome, Thomas Babington Macaulay from the poem A Boy’s News Item, from Cats Cradle, Rhymes & Pictures For Children, Edward Willett from the poem The Burial March of Dundee, from Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers, William E. Aytoun from the poem Rhyme of the Three Sealers, Rudyard Kipling from the poem Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna, Charles Wolfe from the play Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 2, Shakespeare <XXXXXXXX><XXX>0<XXX><XXX><X><XXXXXXXXXX>00<>0<>&<XX>0<><X><>!><XX>0«<><>0<><><X><>00<><><X><>0 Correction in 2019 Journal article Three incorrect dates were printed in an article, “How the Mother County Began,” by R. D. Stoner, in the 2019 edition of the Journal, as a result of typing errors. The original article correctly stated that Augusta County residents petitioned the House of Burgesses for a division of the county in 1767 and again in 1769. Also, Lord Botetourt was succeeded as governor by John Murray, Lord Dunmore, in 1771. 96 ����PUBLICATIONS ISBN# 978-0-9710531-2-0 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia Subject The topic of the resource History and Genealogy Description An account of the resource The Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia is a periodical published by the History Museum of Western Virginia. The journal was first published in 1964. Journal articles promote a broad spectrum of history with an emphasis on the historical events, people, and places in the Roanoke Valley, neighboring counties, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This collection consists of digitized copies of all available published journals from 1964-2020. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource History Museum of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Journal Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Replaces A related resource that is supplanted, displaced, or superseded by the described resource. Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society, Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Journal of the Historical Society of Western Virginia 2020 Volume 24, Number 1 Description An account of the resource Articles in this issue include:<br />Roanoke and the Southwest in Virginia History<br />The Enigmatic Stone Structures of Western Virginia<br />Orchard Hill<br />N&amp;W, WWII<br />N&amp;W Shops<br />Lost Colony<br />Slavery as America's "Peculiar" Institution<br />Roanoke-Norfolk Photographer, Richard Aufenger<br />Roanoke Appalachian Trail Club<br />New River<br />Botetourt "250 Years of Delight"<br />Botetourt 250+1 Marks 250th Anniversary<br />A Railroad to Fincastle<br />William Hackworth: Revolutionary Soldier<br />A Voice from the Past: Leroy Gresham Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Historical Society of Western Virginia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegley Publications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Periodical Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JHSWV_24_01_2020