Dinwiddie County History

James Geddy, silversmith

2011-11-06T18:08:00.000-08:00

Looking for any data on James Geddy I and his children David, James Geddy II , William, John, Elizabeth, Anne, Sarah & Mary Geddy. As well as, James Geddy II and his children... Also examples of any of their work, including that of William Waddill.

Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS)

2011-09-18T20:37:00.000-07:00

Time	Saturday, September 24 · 10:30am - 12:00pm

Location	Richmond Public Library

Created By	Ronald Seagrave

More Info	Greater Richmond Virginia chapter of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS). Has asked me to speak on by latest book, Jefferson’s Isaac From Monticello to Petersburg at their next meeting, Saturday, September 24, at 10:30 a.m. at the main branch of the Richmond Public Library.

Time
Saturday, September 24 · 10:30am - 12:00pm
Location
Richmond Public Library
Created By
Ronald Seagrave
More Info
Greater Richmond Virginia chapter of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS). Has asked me to speak on by latest book, Jefferson’s Isaac From Monticello to Petersburg at their next meeting, Saturday, September 24, at 10:30 a.m. at the main branch of the Richmond Public Library.

Jefferson's isaac: From Monticello to Petersburg

2011-06-10T19:40:00.000-07:00

Available on Amazon's Kindle for only $9.99

Jefferson's Isaac: From Monticello to Petersburg

www.amazon.com

“To deny a people their history is to deny them the most essential element of their group’s existence.” Ronald Seagrave In an 1840’s daguerreotype, former slave Isaac stares blankly at the camera. He is a large man and his big hands hang ....

Dinwiddie County - March 23, 1861

2011-05-16T11:44:00.000-07:00

Richmond Enquirer

Saturday Morning, March 23, 1861

The True Issue

The issue to be decided by the people of Virginia is clearly stated in the following resolution, adopted by public meeting in the county of Dinwiddie: (The full proceedings will be found in another column.) “Resolved, 1st. The old Union being irreparably dissolved, there is no option left us, (the people of Virginia,) save to unite our destinies with our sister Southern States—or, to remain a useless appendage to the Northern Confederacy—the latter alternative being utterly repugnant to ALL TRUE SOUTHERN MEN.” Here is a noble platform for the Resistance Party of Virginia. The question of secession is not before the people of Virginia—it has been decided, and they have now to choose between the Confederate States of the South and the Northern Union. The old Union, the glorious Union our fathers made, has been dissolved—ruthlessly torn asunder by Northern fanaticism—against the earnest protestation of the people of Virginia. From that Union, the allies of Virginia, her truth and mien have been derived, and her people have now to decide whether they will remain with the North or go with the South. The agitation of secession is the agitation of a question decided, and which can be remedied by no determination of Virginia. She did not dissolve the Union, and she cannot restore it. The North has disrupted the Union, and only the Northern States can re-construct it. The Northern States have driven the Southern States out, the Northern States must bring back the Southern States. Virginia’s ultimatum with a Border State Conference is a loss of time, a waste of paper, useless for all purposes, save those of Mr. Seward, “delay” and “wait.”—We are not without an ultimatum which will re-construct the Union; the States sought to be brought back are the only parties whose ultimatum can restore the Union. Virginia’s ultimatum may determine the conditions upon which she will remain with the North, but further than this it cannot go; if the re-construction of the old Union is the real object of the Convention, the adoption of the ultimatum of the seceded States will attest its sincerity and convince the people of the country that they are not scheming for party purpose, and that they have not given up to party the time and labor they were directed to bestow upon the country. The ultimatum of the seceded States is left in no uncertainty; it is to be found in the solemn action of the Montgomery Constitution and may be analyzed as follows:

That African slavery in the Territories shall be recognized and protected by Congress and the Territorial Legislatures.
That the right to slaveholders of transit and sojourn in any State of the Confederacy, with their slaves and other property, shall be recognized and respected.
That the provision in regard to fugitive slaves shall extend to any slave lawfully carried from one State into another, and there escaping or taken away from his master.
That no bill or ex post facto law (by Congress or any State,) and no law impairing or denying the right of property in negro slaves, shall be passed.
That the African slave trade shall be prohibited by such laws of Congress as shall effectually prevent the same.

The report made by Gov. Wise embraces all these. The Convention, in voting upon the report of Gov. Wise, will decide for or against the Northern Confederacy. Gov. Wise presents no question of secession, he accepts that as already decided, and calls upon the Convention of Virginia to declare either for the old Union upon the ultimatum laid down by the seceded States; or for Union with the seceded, or for remaining with the North. In voting down the report of Gov. Wise and adopting that of the majority, the Convention will have deliberately voted down the only plan of re-construction; they will also have voted down the Union with the South; and they will have decided, without consulting the people of Virginia, to remain “a useless appendage to the Northern Confederacy,” an “alternative utterly repugnant to all true Southern men.”“Our connection with the Federal Union” has been dissolved by the disruption of the Union, but Virginia is under the dominion and government of the Northern States, according to the forms of the Constitution of the once Federal Union. Shall she so remain? The Convention, by adopting the majority report, will determine this question in favor of the North. Will the people ratify such action by the Convention?The question does not involve secession or disunion, but merely whether, the Union being dissolved, Virginia will remain with the North or go with the South. Such is the issue between the resistance and submission parties in Virginia.

Amazon's Kindle Edition of Jefferson's Isaac: From Monticello to Petersburg

2011-03-04T13:26:00.000-08:00

Amazon's Kindle Edition is now available worldwide for only $9.99

>>> just click on their link.

Jefferson's Isaac: From Monticello to Petersburg

www.amazon.com

‎"To deny a people their history is to deny them the most essential element of their group's existence." Ronald Seagrave In an 1840's daguerreotype, former slave Isaac stares blankly at the camera. He is a large man and his big hands hang in the foreground of the image. There is no smile.

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Jefferson's Isaac: From Monticello to Petersburg tells the comprehensive story of Isaac (Granger) Jefferson.

It significantly expands upon where the Memoirs of a Monticello Slave as verbalized by Isaac to Charles Campbell, in the 1840's incomplete effort left off. The reader gains a new insight of the character of this gentleman some called Jefferson's Isaac all his life. Others just called him Isaac, a few called him, "my husband," "dad," or "friend."

Isaac was born a slave in 1775 at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. Jefferson's Isaac permits the reader to trace his life from Monticello, to Philadelphia, and back to Monticello and Shadwell, to his marriage to Iris, their children, and their subsequent gift to Jefferson's daughter, Maria and her husband John Wayles Eppes, and their time at Eppington, in Chesterfield County, Virginia. Eppes was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the Eighth United States Congress from Virginia and the next three succeeding Congresses.

Isaac Jefferson (Granger) died in Petersburg in the spring of 1846 a "Free Person of Color." Isaac's story helps us unsheathe how an enslaved African-American lived in the midst of some of the greatest figures in American history. It's also a story of basic survival.

Discover how Isaac came to Petersburg and who gave Isaac his manumission and freedom...

-You'll learn some new insights into the character of this man.
-As well as, why he brought a white Petersburg stonemason into court and how his case was finally resolved.
-How he sustained a family, a business, in a very different world from that which he was born into; once upon a time, on that cold hilltop, called Monticello.

Isaac leaves behind no marker or monument in the city where he worked, paid taxes, and perished.

Foreword written by William C. McDonald, PhD, of Charlottesville, Virginia

Michael D'Antonio, author of the Wall Street's acclaimed A Full Cup: Sir Thomas Lipton's Extraordinary Life and His Quest for the America's Cup, A Ball a Dog and Monkey and Forever Blue, says "Seagrave is truly a historian's historian."

Jefferson's Isaac: From Monticello to Petersburg

2011-03-03T14:09:00.000-08:00

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

-As well as, why he brought a white Petersburg stonemason into court and how his case was finally resolved.

-How he sustained a family, a business, in a very different world from that which he was born into; once upon a time, on that cold hilltop, called Monticello.

Isaac leaves behind no marker or monument in the city where he worked, paid taxes, and perished.

Foreword written by William C. McDonald, PhD, of Charlottesville, Virginia

Michael D'Antonio, author of the Wall Street's acclaimed A Full Cup: Sir Thomas Lipton's Extraordinary Life and His Quest for the America's Cup, A Ball a Dog and Monkey and Forever Blue, says "Seagrave is truly a historian's historian."

Early Artisans and Mechanics of Petersburg, Virginia 1752-1860

2011-01-06T16:16:00.000-08:00

Chesterfield County Historical Society has announced that on Friday, February 25 at 7:00 pm at the Lucy Corr Village, Community Hall, Chesterfield, VA, that Mr. Ronald Seagrave will give a presentation on his book entitled, Early Artisans and Mechanics of Petersburg, Virginia 1752-1860. Seagrave will share stories and backgrounds of carpenters, bricklayers, silversmiths and others as they shaped this uniquely American city.Winter Lectures: Free for CHSV members, $5 Non-members.

A Close Look at Poe's Petersburg Honeymoon

2010-05-19T04:17:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

7:00pm - 9:00pm
Union Station, Petersburg, VA

Jeff Abugel will present a talk about the honeymoon of Edgar Allan Poe and Virginia Clemm, which took place at Hiram Haines Coffee house on Bank St., Petersburg. We can say with some certainty that will be the first educational program about Poe's honeymoon ever presented. Guaranteed to be brimming with facts and documents that have been buried for more than a century, as well as photos of the honeymoon suite as it stands today, just a few blocks from the train station.

Historic Petersburg Foundation

2010-01-19T19:00:00.000-08:00

Thursday, January 21, 2010

7:00 PM

Union Train Station

103 River Street

Petersburg, VA 23803

Thursday, January 21, 2010 – Ronald Seagrave will give a presentation on his book entitled Early Artisans and Mechanics of Petersburg, Virginia 1607-1860: The Building of a Multi-Cultural Maritime Community. Union Train Station at 7:00 p.m. No charge. Public invited, E-mail: historicpetersburgfoundation@verizon.net

Early Artisans & Mechanics of Petersburg Virginia

2009-11-21T17:11:00.000-08:00

Just published and now available from

Barne & Noble and Amazon.com

The Early Artisans & Mechanics of Petersburg Virginia, 1607-1860

The Building of a Multi-cultural Maritime Community

by Ronald Roy Seagrave

The Early Artisans Mechanics of Petersburg Virginia is a lavishly illustrated exploration of one of the South’s most historically significant cities. This scholarly yet accessible work examines the story of Petersburg through the records of those who built it—the individual artisans and mechanics that literally made Petersburg what it is today. Here are the enlightening stories and backgrounds of the carpenters, brick-layers, coopers, shoemakers, silversmiths, cabinetmakers, gunsmiths, publishers, bookbinders and so many more, gleaned from newspapers, periodicals, private letters and public records. From the town’s founding in seventeenth century through the American Revolution, Great Fire and Civil War, Petersburg emerges as a uniquely American city—where a stunning range of religions, ethnic backgrounds and economic levels came together to create a vibrant and important community.

The Early Artisans Mechanics is the ultimate historical reference for those interested in Petersburg’s roots, early-American society, or their own ancestry. And it’s a perfect companion for collectors, dealers and auctioneers.

PRAISE FOR RONALD R. SEAGRAVE
Seagrave is truly a historian’s historian. Michael D’Antonio, author of A Ball, a Dog, and a Monkey and Forever Blue.

Seagrave is a wonderful researcher, an imaginative scholar, and a person who cares about the neglected field of local history. William C. McDonald, Ph.D., Professor of German, NEH Distinguished Teaching Professor, University of Virginia

Coverage Image Courtesy, Sumpter Priddy III, Inc.

Antiques & Collectibles, History - Reference & Study, Military History, Reference, United States History

Battersea Foundation

2009-11-09T10:46:00.000-08:00

The Progress Index reported...

PETERSBURG - The Battersea Foundation has won a prestigious grant for $150,000 that will be used for the upcoming second phase of restoration at the historic home. The $150,000 grant must be matched by the foundation and will help rebuild the 1768 estate's chimneys, among other things. "The Battersea Foundation was selected as one of two projects in Virginia for the Save America's Treasure's Grant," said Ronald White, a representative from Congressman J. Randy Forbes office. "The preservation of history is one of the most important things in this country." White praised the organization for continuing to grow - now with more than 130 members - and for its new Web site and the array of educational programs the foundation is offering. "We must protect and preserve our future, we are the guardians of history," White said.

The grant announcement was made on Oct. 20 during the Battersea Foundation's annual meeting on the lawn of the historic home. Barbara Moseley, president of the foundation's board of directors, said that Richard Wolbers, an associate professor and art conservator with the University of Delaware, had recently completed some paint reveals inside the house. The reveals will allow the restoration of the original color of paint inside the house and the careful removal of later paints that were added. Kathleen Kilpatrick, director of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, said that Battersea represents a supreme resource that must be cared for. "Architecture is the only form of art where we expect the art object to serve a utilitarian purpose," Kilpatrick said. She added that the foundation must find a way to put the building to good use, but that proper planning must be a part of that. She commended the foundation for starting the process of a strategic plan. "Planning is not just a done and done proposition." The meeting concluded with the presentation of the first annual Vanguard award to the Elmwood Fund, which has made numerous contributions to the Battersea Foundation. Battersea is an important Colonial plantation house that was constructed near the banks of the Appomattox River in 1768 for John Banister, first mayor of Petersburg, a Revolutionary delegate, congressman and framer of the Articles of Confederation. The sectional massing of Battersea displays the neo-Palladian style as popularized in England in the 18th century and embraced in Colonial Virginia.

During the Revolutionary War, British troops occupied the house on more than one occasion.

F.M. Wiggins may be reached at 732-3456, ext. 3254 or fwiggins@progress-index.com.

Candlelight ceremony honors veterans

2009-11-08T19:38:00.001-08:00

DINWIDDIE - Among the more than 6,100 graves in Poplar Grove National Cemetery is that of William Montgomery, a member of the 155th Pennsylvania who holds the regrettable distinction of being the last enlisted man killed in Virginia in the Civil War. Much more regrettably, he was far from being the last American to fall in the service of his country.

On Saturday night, National Park Service rangers, volunteers and area residents lit candles on Montgomery's final resting place and all the others at Poplar Grove in tribute to those soldiers and all the other men and women who have served in the nation's Armed Forces.

The fourth annual lighting of luminaries at Poplar Grove in commemoration of Veterans Day drew dozens of volunteers, including Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops, to place a white paper bag containing a candle on each grave marker at the 143-year-old cemetery off Vaughan Road.

As twilight fell, the soft glow of the candles emerged in long, neat, curving lines stretching across the grounds, in a solemn act of rekindling of memory and reawakening of gratitude for the nation's defenders.

The names of more than 4,000 of the soldiers interred at Poplar Grove are unknown, but visitors to the Petersburg National Battlefield visitor center recently were offered the opportunity to write names on the bags used for the ceremony, personal tributes to their ancestors or loved ones who served, or are serving, in the military.

As a result, there were reminders of every war America has fought, from "John Lumsden, Virginia Militia, Revolutionary War" to "Cpl. Ben Kopp, Army Ranger, died from wounds in Afghanistan, donated his organs so others could live, True American Hero."

And this testimony to new tragedy closer to home: "Pvt. Francheska Velez, Ft. Hood, TX, 5 Nov. 09. Love, Papo."

At William Montgomery's grave, Park Ranger Tyler Wilson stood in torchlight wearing the flamboyant Zouave uniform of the 155th Pennsylvania as he told visitors the details of Montgomery's death: Near Appomattox Court House, he "received a mortal wound from shrapnel from a Confederate battery that was retreating" on the very day Lee surrendered to Grant.

Other rangers explained how fallen soldiers' bodies were collected for interment during the Civil War, and why so many of those buried at Poplar Grave are unknown, and that among the graves there are more than 300 soldiers of the U.S. Colored Troops, the first African-Americans to serve officially in the nation's military.

Sutherland resident and admitted Civil War buff Robert Whiting and his wife, Nita, were among those who walked between the rows of softly burning lights and listened to the rangers' presentations. He said he had been to Poplar Grove before, in 2003 when three soldiers' bodies that had been discovered by relic hunters were reburied there with full military honors.

Poplar Grove was established as a resting place for the Union dead, and Whiting noted that he had ancestors or relatives who fought on both sides during the Civil War. "This is a very sacred place," he said.

- Michael Buettner may be reached at 722-5155 or mbuettner@progress-index.com.

In First Lady's roots, a Complex Path from Slavery

2009-10-08T05:53:00.000-07:00

In First Lady's roots, a Complex Path from SlaveryBy Rachel L. Swarns and Jodi Cantor, NY Times, Oct. 7, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/us/politics/08genealogy.html?_r=2&hp=&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1255000392-NQao9IYjM4XzVHHKiCe0aQ

In 1850, the master of a South Carolina estate sold a 6-year-old slave girl named Melvinia for $475 and shipped her to a three-slave estate in Georgia. When she was a teenager, she had a child with a white man-an unremarkable event in the sad history of slavery, except that Melvinia and her child's father are the great-great-great-grandparents of Michelle Obama. The New York Times has uncovered this unknown portion of Michelle's family history. Melvinia's son, Dolphus, migrated to Birmingham, Alabama, in 1888 and co-founded the Trinity Baptist Church, which helped lead the civil-rights movement and still exists today. He died at the age of 91 in 1950, and his obituary appeared in the same issue of The Birmingham World as an article with the historic headline, "U.S. Court Bans Segregation in Diners and Higher Education."

Blog on Richmond History

2009-10-07T13:54:00.000-07:00

Check out a "new" blog on Richmond history:

The Shockoe Examiner: Blogging the History of Richmond-in-Virginia:

http://theshockoeexaminer.blogspot.com/

Includes interesting essays and lots of images on all aspects of Richmond history. Visit the site and let me know what you think.

Hatton Ferry

2009-09-29T06:48:00.000-07:00

Hatton Ferry apparently made the Today Show this morning! I didn't see it, but there's now a charming video clip up on MSNBC:

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/33055797#33055797

We cannot let the icons of our past disappear like this, else we will have no past to bequeath to future generations.
For more information on the fate of the Hatton Ferry, contact:
Steven Meeks, President
Albemarle/Charlottesville Historical Society
(434) 296-1492
president@albemarlehistory.org

If you’d like to make a donation to save the Hatton Ferry, mail it to:
The Hatton Ferry Fund
c/o Old Dominion National Bank
P.O. Box 321
Scottsville, VA 24590

The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family

2009-09-29T06:38:00.000-07:00

New York Law School Professor Wins $25,000 Frederick Douglass Book Prize
New Haven, Conn — Annette Gordon-Reed, Professor of Law at New York Law School, Professor of History at Rutgers University-Newark, and Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard University, has been selected as the winner of the 2009 Frederick Douglass Book Prize, awarded for the best book written in English on slavery or abolition. Gordon-Reed won for her book, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (W.W. Norton and Company). The prize is awarded by Yale University's Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. In addition to Gordon-Reed, the other finalists for the prize were Thavolia Glymph for Out of the House of Bondage: The Transformation of the Plantation Household (Cambridge University Press) and Jacqueline Jones for Saving Savannah: The City and the Civil War (Alfred A. Knopf Publishers). The $25,000 annual award is the most generous history prize in the field. The prize will be presented to Gordon-Reed at a dinner in New York City in February 2010. This year's finalists were selected from a field of over fifty entries by a jury of scholars that included Robert Bonner (Dartmouth College), Rita Roberts (Scripps College), and Pier Larson (Johns Hopkins University). The winner was selected by a review committee of representatives from the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and Yale University. "In Annette Gordon Reed's The Hemingses of Monticello, an enslaved Virginia family is delivered — but not disassociated — from Thomas Jefferson's well-known sexual liaison with Sally Hemings," says Bonner, the 2009 Douglass Prize Jury Chair and Associate Professor of History at Dartmouth College. "The book judiciously blends the best of recent slavery scholarship with shrewd commentary on the legal structure of Chesapeake society before and after the American Revolution. Its meticulous account of the mid-eighteenth century intertwining of the black Hemingses and white Wayles families sheds new light on Jefferson's subsequent conjoining with a young female slave who was already his kin by marriage. By exploring those dynamic commitments and evasions that shaped Monticello routines, the path-breaking book provides a testament to the complexity of human relationships within slave societies and to the haphazard possibilities for both intimacy and betrayal." The Frederick Douglass Book Prize was established in 1999 to stimulate scholarship in the field of slavery and abolition by honoring outstanding books. Previous winners were Ira Berlin and Philip D. Morgan in 1999; David Eltis, 2000; David Blight, 2001; Robert Harms and John Stauffer, 2002; James F. Brooks and Seymour Drescher, 2003; Jean Fagan Yellin, 2004; Laurent Dubois, 2005; Rebecca J. Scott, 2006; Christopher Leslie Brown, 2007; and Stephanie E. Smallwood, 2008. The award is named for Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), the slave who escaped bondage to emerge as one of the great American abolitionists, reformers, writers, and orators of the 19th century. The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition, a part of The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University, was established in November 1998 through a generous donation by Richard Gilder and Lewis Lehrman and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Its mission is to promote the study of all aspects of slavery, especially the chattel slave system and its destruction. The Center seeks to foster an improved understanding of the role of slavery, slave resistance, and abolition in the founding of the modern world by promoting interaction and exchange between scholars, teachers, and public historians through publications, educational outreach, and other programs and events. Founded in 1994, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History promotes the study and love of American history. The Institute serves teachers, students, scholars, and the general public. It helps create history-centered schools, organizes seminars and programs for educators, produces print and electronic publications and traveling exhibitions, sponsors lectures by eminent historians, and administers a History Teacher of the Year Award in every state through its partnership with Preserve America. The Institute also conducts awards including the Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and George Washington Book Prizes, and offers fellowships for scholars to work in the Gilder Lehrman Collection. The Institute maintains two websites, www.gilderlehrman.org and the quarterly online journal www.historynow.org. For further information on Gilder Lehrman Center events and programming, contact the center by phone (203) 432-3339, fax (203) 432-6943, or e-mail gilder.lehrman.center@yale.edu.

Argall Towne

2009-09-21T06:40:00.000-07:00

http://www.vagazette.com/articles/2009/09/16/news/doc4ab0384a03385778594361.txt

JAMES CITY — Local archaeologists have discovered Argall Towne, a short-lived village that was the first suburb of nearby Jamestown. The village was started in 1617 by Capt. Samuel Argall, then a colorful lieutenant governor of the colony. It thrived for three years, but his impetuous behavior led many of the settlers to move away to Martin’s Hundred near Carter’s Grove Plantation. Alain Outlaw of Williamsburg-based Archaeological & Cultural Solutions has been searching for the site since 1975. “It’s been a slow process,” said Outlaw, who is also an adjunct professor at Christopher Newport University. For two years, since he got access to the land, his students and volunteers have researched the site. Outlaw won’t pinpoint the locale for fear of relic hunters. The find is important because it represents the first major settlement in James City outside Jamestown, and it provides a key link to how settlers expanded outward from Jamestown. Argall Towne was built on strategically high land that was easily defended, and from that point small farmsteads spread inland. Posted on Friday, September 18, 2009

http://www.fmfada.com/pdf/FtAlger_Conf.pdf

From October 16 to 18, a celebration and conference commemorating the 400th anniversary of Anglo-America's first coastal fortification -- "Fort Algernoune, 1609: Colonial Virginia's Maritime Rim" -- will take place at Old Point Comfort, the national historic landmark site of present-day Fort Monroe. "Algernoune Fort" was constructed at what's now called Old Point Comfort to guard approaches to Jamestown colony and the Chesapeake Bay. The October event is said to be planned "to consider how the maritime rim of colonial Virginia developed an egalitarian and culturally diverse society different from its Jamestown neighbor." Participants include James Whittenburg, William R. Pullen Chair, Department of History, College of William & Mary; William M. Kelso, Director of Archaeology, Historic Jamestowne Rediscovery Archaeological Project, Preservation Virginia; Ivor Noël Hume, OBE , Research Associate (hon.) Smithsonian Institution; Camilla Townsend, Professor of History, Rutgers University; David Harris Sacks, Richard F. Scholz Professor of History, Reed College; James Horn, Vice President of Research and Historical Interpretation, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation; and Karen Ordahl Kupperman, Silver Professor of History, New York University. For more information, please see the links on the left side of the home page at the Web site of the Fort Monroe Authority (officially, that's the "Fort Monroe Federal Area Development Authority"), http://www.fmfada.com/.

Registration Form: http://www.fmfada.com/pdf/RegistrationForm.pdf

2009-09-17T05:20:00.000-07:00

Below is information about the American Revolution Round Table of Richmond's tour of the 1781 Battle of Petersburg on October 17. Their web site is at http://arrt-richmond.org/, with meeting details at http://arrt-richmond.org/3.html. Please contact Bill Welsch with any questions. wmwelsch@comcast.net
-----------------------------------------
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION ROUND TABLE OF RICHMOND invites you on a bus tour of The 1781 Battle of Petersburg led and narrated by Dr. James H. Ryan, LTC, USA - Ret. Saturday, October 17, 2009 from 8:30 AM - 4 PM
As the American Revolution drew to a close, Petersburg's strategic location made it the focus of one of the last major battles leading up to the British surrender at Yorktown. We will travel to the British landing site at Hopewell and then follow their advance into Petersburg. We will trace their movements, as well as American counter maneuvers, visiting the locations of the various battlefield actions. After lunch at Eley's BBQ, we will visit Old Blandford Church, where British General William Phillips is buried, and the historic 1768 Battersea House. To reserve a seat, please send the completed attached sheet and a check for $45 per person, payable to ARRT-R to: Woody Childs, 13730 Bradley Bridge Rd, Chesterfield, VA 23838. Direct questions to president@arrt-richmond.org or 804-755-1809. Seating is limited. You may board the bus in either Richmond or Petersburg. A BBQ lunch at Eley's is included, as well as a copy of Robert P. Davis' booklet "The Battle of Petersburg." The trip goes regardless of weather. Please join us for this unique day.
The 1781 Battle of Petersburg Tour Reservation Form

NAME: ____________________________

ADDRESS: __________________________

PHONE: ___________________________

EMAIL: ____________________________

I WILL BOARD THE BUS AT: RICHMOND: ___ PETERSBURG: ___ Upon receipt, confirmation, boarding locations, and specific details will be emailed to you.

Alexander Campbell

2009-09-15T20:21:00.000-07:00

Thomas Campbell (July 27, 1777 - June 15, 1844) was a Scottish poet chiefly remembered for his sentimental poetry dealing specially with human affairs. He was also one of the initiators of a plan to found what became the University of London. In 1799, he wrote 'The Pleasures of Hope' a traditional 18th century survey in heroic couplets. He also produced several stirring patriotic war songs- Ye Mariners of England, The Soldier's Dream, Hohenlinden and in 1801, The Battle of Baltic.

A rare 1837 full leather copy of The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell, including Theodric, and many other poems not contained in any former edition. Published in Philadelphia by J. Crissy, 1837. Bound in full leather with gilt titles, a marbled page block, 182 pages, plus 38 pages of notes. 7 and a half by 4 and a half inches, with marbled endpapers.

Born in Glasgow, Thomas Campbell was the youngest son of Alexander Campbell, of the Campbells of Kirnan, Argyll. His father belonged to a Glasgow firm trading in Petersburg, Virginia, and lost his money in consequence of the American Revolutionary War. Campbell, who was educated at the Glasgow High School and University of Glasgow, won prizes for classics and for verse-writing. He spent the holidays as a tutor in the western Highlands. His poem Glenara and the ballad of Lord Ullin's Daughter owe their origin to a visit to Mull. In May 1797 he went to Edinburgh to attend lectures on law. He supported himself by private teaching and by writing, towards which he was helped by Dr. Robert Anderson, the editor of the British Poets. Among his contemporaries in Edinburgh were Sir Walter Scott, Henry Brougham, Francis Jeffrey, Dr. Thomas Brown, John Leyden and James Grahame. These early days in Edinburgh influenced such works as The Wounded Hussar, The Dirge of Wallace and the Epistle to Three Ladies.

In 1799, six months after the publication of the Lyrical Ballads of Wordsworth and Coleridge, The Pleasures of Hope was published. It is a rhetorical and didactic poem in the taste of his time, and owed much to the fact that it dealt with topics near to men's hearts, with the French Revolution, the partition of Poland and with negro slavery. Its success was instantaneous, but Campbell was deficient in energy and perseverance and did not follow it up. He went abroad in June 1800 without any very definite aim, visited Gottlieb Friedrich Klopstock at Hamburg, and made his way to Regensburg, which was taken by the French three days after his arrival. He found refuge in a Scottish monastery. Some of his best lyrics, Hohenlinden, Ye Mariners of England and The Soldier's Dream, belong to his German tour. He spent the winter in Altona, where he met an Irish exile, Anthony McCann, whose history suggested The Exile of Erin.

He had at that time the intention of writing an epic on Edinburgh to be entitled The Queen of the North. On the outbreak of war between Denmark and England he hurried home, the Battle of the Baltic being drafted soon after. At Edinburgh he was introduced to the first Lord Minto, who took him in the next year to London as occasional secretary. In June 1803 appeared a new edition of the Pleasures of Hope, to which some lyrics were added.

In 1803 Campbell married his second cousin, Matilda Sinclair, and settled in London. He was well received in Whig society, especially at Holland House. His prospects, however, were slight when in 1805 he received a government pension of £200. In that year the Campbells removed to Sydenham. Campbell was at this time regularly employed on the Star newspaper, for which he translated the foreign news. In 1809 he published a narrative poem in the Spenserian stanza, Gertrude of Wyoming -- referring to the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania and the Wyoming Valley Massacre -- with which were printed some of his best lyrics. He was slow and fastidious in composition, and the poem suffered from overelaboration. Francis Jeffrey wrote to the author:
"Your timidity or fastidiousness, or some other knavish quality, will not let you give your conceptions glowing, and bold, and powerful, as they present themselves; but you must chasten, and refine, and soften them, forsooth, till half their nature and grandeur is chiselled away from them. Believe me, the world will never know how truly you are a great and original poet till you venture to cast before it some of the rough pearls of your fancy."
In 1812 he delivered a series of lectures on poetry in London at the Royal Institution; and he was urged by Sir Walter Scott to become a candidate for the chair of literature at Edinburgh University. In 1814 he went to Paris, making there the acquaintance of the elder Schlegel, of Baron Cuvier and others. His pecuniary anxieties were relieved in 1815 by a legacy of £4000. He continued to occupy himself with his Specimens of the British Poets, the design of which had been projected years before. The work was published in 1819. It contains on the whole an admirable selection with short lives of the poets, and prefixed to it an essay on poetry containing much valuable criticism. In 1820 he accepted the editorship of the New Monthly Magazine, and in the same year made another tour in Germany.

Four years later appeared his Theodric, a not very successful poem of domestic life. He took an active share in the foundation of the University of London, visiting Berlin to inquire into the German system of education, and making recommendations which were adopted by Lord Brougham. He was elected Lord Rector of Glasgow University (1826-1829) in competition against Sir Walter Scott. Campbell retired from the editorship of the New Monthly Magazine in 1830, and a year later made an unsuccessful venture with The Metropolitan Magazine. He had championed the cause of the Poles in The Pleasures of Hope, and the news of the capture of Warsaw by the Russians in 1831 affected him as if it had been the deepest of personal calamities. "Poland preys on my heart night and day," he wrote in one of his letters, and his sympathy found a practical expression in the foundation in London of the Literary Association of the Friends of Poland. In 1834 he travelled to Paris and Algiers, where he wrote his Letters from the South (printed 1837). The small production of Campbell may be partly explained by his domestic calamities. His wife died in 1828. Of his two sons, one died in infancy and the other became insane. His own health suffered, and he gradually withdrew from public life. He died at Boulogne in 1844 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Campbell's other works include a Life of Mrs Siddons (1842), and a narrative poem, The Pilgrim of Glencoe (1842). See The Life and Letters of Thomas Campbell (3 vols., 1849), edited by William Beattie, M.D.; Literary Reminiscences and Memoirs of Thomas Campbell (1860), by Cyrus Redding; The Complete Poetical Works Of Thomas Campbell (1869); The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell (1875), in the Aldine Edition of the British Poets, edited by the Rev. V. Alfred Hill, with a sketch of the poet's life by William Allingham; and the Oxford Edition of the Complete Works of Thomas Campbell (1908), edited by J. Logie Robertson. See also Thomas Campbell in the Unfamous Scots Series, by J.C. Madden, and a selection by Lewis Campbell (1904) for the Golden Treasury Series.

Jordan's Point

2009-09-15T14:25:00.000-07:00

Breast plate recovered from this site.

The sites associated with the early 17th-century settlement known as Jordan’s Journey were located at Jordan’s Point near the confluence of the James and Appomatox rivers in Prince George’s County, Virginia. The property was initially occupied by Weyanoke Indians, one of the groups that formed the Powhatan chiefdom. About 1620, Samuel Jordan, his wife, Cecily, her two daughters, and their adult male servants took up residence at Jordan’s Point; this occupation is probably archaeological site 44PG302. Samuel Jordan died in 1623, and his widow married William Farrar, who moved to Jordan’s Journey. 44PG302 appears to have been abandoned by 1635.

Antiquarians and archaeologists have long maintained an interest in the sites located at Jordan’s Point, especially the Native American occupations. The sites described here concern the early 17th-century European component at Jordan’s Point.

Prince George County Regional Heritage Center

2009-08-18T10:25:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

A Prince George County Regional Heritage Center Fundraiser

the First Annual Great Beefsteak Raid Commemorative Steak Dinner

Scott Park

5:00p.m -7:00p.m.

Food prepared by the Disputanta Ruritans.

All proceeds benefit the Prince George County Regional Heritage Center Center.

Tickets on sale, $20.

(804) 863-0212

Tyrone Power -- An Irish Comedian who preformed in Petersburg in 1834

2009-08-12T18:28:00.000-07:00

Tyrone Power. Impressions of America during the years 1833, 1834, and 1835. Philadelphia, 1836.

http://books.google.com/books?id=rI0VAAAAYAAJ&dq=Impressions+of+America:+During+the+Years+1833,+1834,+and+1835&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=uqn7NhGyXo&sig=NDd7E5V_km7NMWclPzJST8GG5wI&hl=en&ei=ZT2DSu2fAoGxmAfUx5SiDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=petersburg&f=false

William Grattan Tyrone Power (1795 – 17 March 1841), known professionally as Tyrone Power, was an Irish stage actor, comedian, author and theatrical manager.
Born in Kilmacthomas, County Waterford, Ireland to a landed family, he took to the stage achieving prominence throughout the world as an actor and manager. He is said to have purchased the land that would later be occupied by Madison Square Garden, New York shortly before his death at sea when his ship, SS President, sank shortly after departing for England. The lawyer who held the papers could not be found so the Power family were unable to claim right to the property.
He was well known for acting in such Irish-themed plays as Catherine Gore's King O'Neil (1835), his own St. Patrick's Eve (1837), Samuel Lover's Rory O'More (1837) and The White Horse of the Peppers (1838), Anna Marie Hall's The Groves of Blarney (1838), Eugene Macarthy's Charles O'Malley (1838), and Bayle Bernard's His Last Legs (1839) and The Irish Attorney (1840). In his discussion of these works, Richard Allen Cave has argued that Power, both in his acting as well as his choice of plays, sought to rehabilitate the Irishman from the derogatory associations with "stage Irishmen" ("Staging the Irishman" in Acts of Supremacy [1991]).
He had a number of notable descendants by his wife Anne, daughter of John Gilbert Esq. of the Isle of Wight:
Sir William James Murray Tyrone Power[1]1819–1911 Commissary General in Chief of the British Army and Agent-General for New Zealand.
Norah Power m. Dr. Thomas Guthrie
Sir Tyrone Guthrie British theatrical director.
Maurice Henry Anthony O'Reilly Power[1] 1821–1849 initially trained as a barrister but later took up acting.
Frederick Augustus Dobbyn Nugent Power[1] 1823–1896 civil engineer who left a large estate of £197,000 (a minimum of 15.6 million pounds sterling or 28 million US dollars in 2006 terms).
Clara Elizabeth Murray Power[1] (1825-)
Mary Jane Power[1] (1827-)
Harold Littledale Power 1833-1901 actor, wine merchant, mine agent & engineer.
Tyrone Power, Sr. (1869-1931) English-American theatre and silent movie star.
Tyrone Power (1914-1958) American Hollywood star of the 1930s–1950s.
Romina Power b.1951 American-Italian singer and film actress.
Taryn Power b.1953 film actress.
Tyrone Power, Jr. b.1959 American film actor.

IKnowPoe.com

2009-08-07T17:22:00.000-07:00

Historic Linden Row Inn in Richmond recently completed a full renovation of its largest parlor suite that is named after Richmond preservationist Mary Wingfield Scott. The renovation was managed by Richmond based historic restoration specialist Gable Painter and included a complete restoration of the original wooden floors and crown molding in the suite, along with the installation of new furnishings. It is documented on next week's 30 minute episode of "Restorer Guy" on the TLC channel at 7 pm.

Architectural history buffs will remember that Linden Row, built in the mid nineteenth century, is located in the heart of downtown Richmond. Linden Row represents just one of the many properties in Richmond that Miss Scott saved from the wrecking ball or, in her words, the "bulldozing brotherhood." Local lore has it that Edgar Allan Poe spent time in a garden on the site as a child, and that this inspired his "enchanted garden."

More on Poe can be seen and experienced at the Library of Virginia's outstanding new exhibition, Poe: Man, Myth, or Monster? that runs through December 5, 2009; check out the special site IKnowPoe.com.

The land on which Linden Row Inn sits was originally part of a 100 acre tract owned by Thomas Rutherfoord, who amassed a fortune in tobacco, milling and real estate. In 1816, Charles Ellis acquired the eastern end, across from his home on Franklin Street. Ellis used the land as a garden which was known for its beautiful roses, jasmine, and lindens.
In 1811, Elizabeth Poe, an actress performing in a traveling company at the Richmond Theater, became ill and died, leaving two young children orphaned. Mr. and Mrs. John Allan, who raised Edgar Poe, gave him Allan for his middle name. On their return from a five year trip to England, they lived with Mr. Allan's business partner, Charles Ellis. It was in the gardens that Edgar Poe played with the Ellis children. Local legend has it that this was the "enchanted garden" that Poe mentions in his famous poem, "To Helen."
Between 1847 and 1853, the land was purchased by Fleming James, and Samuel and Alexander Rutherfoord, and a row of 10 houses were built. It was named Linden Square after the lindens that adorned the Ellis garden.
Just before and during the Civil War (1853 - 1865), the two most western houses were occupied by D. Lee Powell's school, the Southern Female Institute. From this location, Mrs. Dickinson, one of the pupils, remembered seeing President Davis riding horseback in the morning. A second famous girls school, Mrs. Pegram's school, was operated here from 1856 - 1866 by Virginia Pegram, a widow of General James Pegram, the famous Mexican war hero. From 1895 - 1906, the highly respected school of Miss Virginia Randolph Ellet, now known as St. Catherine's School, was located here. Among the early pupils were Irene Gibson, the Gibson Girl, Irene Langhorn, and Lady Astor, the first female member of British Parliament.
In 1922, two of the original buildings were razed in order to make way for the Medical Arts Building. Mary Wingfield Scott, noted local architectural historian, saved the eight remaining houses from being raised in 1950. In 1980, she later gave them to the Historic Richmond Foundation. At this time, the houses contained a number of offices and apartments.
After acquiring the property, the trustees of Historic Richmond came to the conclusion that both financial and preservation interests would be best served if Linden Row were redeveloped by the private sector with Historic Richmond Foundation guidelines. The proposal for the present Linden Row Inn was accepted since it ensured the retention of original interior features. Some modifications (such as bathrooms) were made to accommodate the 20th century traveler only enhancing its original charm.

Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.

2009-07-21T08:18:00.000-07:00

African-American scholar and Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested last week on a charge of disorderly conduct after a confrontation with an officer at his home, according to a Cambridge, Massachusetts, police report.
Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested last week on a charge of disorderly conduct.
According to the report, officers responded to a call Thursday from a woman who said she saw "a man wedging his shoulder into the front door" at Gates' house near the university. The report, obtained by CNN affiliate WCVB-TV, indicates Gates refused to identify himself to a police officer, claiming the officer was a racist.
Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge Police Department stated in the report that he told Gates he was investigating a report of a break-in at the residence. According to the report, Gates "opened the front door and exclaimed, 'Why, because I'm a black man in America?' "
Crowley wrote in the report that he warned Gates two times he was becoming disorderly. After Gates continued to yell and accuse him of racial bias, Crowley wrote he arrested Gates for "loud and tumultuous behavior in a public space."
A statement by Gates' lawyer and fellow Harvard professor Charles Ogletree said that the incident occurred when Gates returned to his home after a trip to China.
Gates, accompanied by a driver, found the front door damaged.
He entered the house with his key through the rear door. Then, he and and driver were able to force the front door open, Ogletree said in his statement.
The statement was published on the Web site The Root, of which Gates is editor-in-chief.
An officer arrived and told Gates he was investigating a call about a breaking-and-entering at the residence, Ogletree wrote.
Gates identified himself at the officer's request, according to Ogletree.
"He [Gates] turned to walk into the kitchen where he had left his wallet. The officer followed him. Professor Gates handed both his Harvard University identification and his valid Massachusetts driver's license to the officer," Ogletree wrote on The Root.
Ogletree's statement also said that Gates asked Crowley for his name and badge number several times without success.
Then, when Gates followed Crowley to the front door, Crowley said, "Thank you for accommodating my earlier request, and then placed him [Gates] under arrest," Ogletree said.
The Cambridge Police Department would not release any information regarding the incident.
Gates has one of 20 prestigious "university professors" positions at Harvard University, according to WCVB, and joined the faculty in 1991. He is considered one of the nation's pre-eminent scholars of African-American studies. In 1997, Time magazine placed him on its list of the 25 most influential Americans.

CNN

Golden Ball Taverns

2009-07-21T07:31:00.000-07:00

Golden Ball Tavern Dig Wraps Up With Many Important New DiscoveriesThe month-long excavation at the former Golden Ball Tavern at Old and Market streets in Old Towne Petersburg is about to wrap up, but a number of important new clues about the city’s early days has recently been revealed.
“The last few days we’ve been focusing on digging outside the walls of the first and second Golden Ball Taverns in an effort to determine the economies and life ways of the people of Petersburg during the 1760 – 1820 period (the years of the first tavern) and the 1820 -1944 (the time period of the second tavern),” said Dr. Chris Stevenson, a Virginia Department of Historic Resources archaeologist who is leading the three-year study.
The have recently unearthed a base to a bowl with the inscription “Success to the King of Prussia,” which was removed from a deeply buried layer in the back yard of the 1764 tavern. This Delftware ceramic was manufactured in the early 16th century to the late 18th century in the Netherlands and England. There are several known plates with this inscription, which were issued by the British to commemorate the 7 Years War (1756-1763), and, therefore, the plate would post-date the end of the war by several years. Stevenson believes this plate may have originated from the British visit to Petersburg in 1781, although he states there is no proof as to how it got here.
Additional findings unearthed earlier this summer include two ceramic pieces that may have once formed an early 1900s soap dish and pieces of English and other European pottery.
The excavators have also been able to extend their digging down into the periods before the first Golden Ball tavern, finding evidence of the earlier habitation by both early Europeans traders and Native Americans. Artifacts from this earlier historic period include pipe stems, which provide an excellent means of dating the site. Native American artifacts, dating back before 1600, include pottery fragments and flakes from stone tools.
“The artifacts found will help us to understand the material culture of early residents of Petersburg,” added Stevenson. “This includes eating habits and where items being used were from, either made here in America or imported from Europe. These artifacts include bones and shells, some of which are burned. They also include ceramics, glass, bone handles, iron, pipe stems, and bricks.”
The professional and volunteer archaeologists are spending the last few days of this summer’s dig also looking for the remains of outbuildings and dependencies to understand more fully how urban dwellers from the Revolutionary period and the 19th and early 20th century were living. Several postholes, a builder’s trench and other possible architectural features have been identified so far.
The three-year project began last summer. This summer more than 25 volunteers from all walks of life are volunteering with the dig from June 17 through July 19. Another month-long excavation at the site next summer will conclude the three-year project.
This summer’s volunteers have come from as far away as New York and Florida to assist on this dig. One young person is working on his Boy Scout Archaeology badge; another young person, an International Baccalaureate student at Prince George High School, is focusing on the Golden Ball Tavern for her yearlong project. Another volunteer is working toward her Master’s degree in anthropology with a focus on historic archaeology. And other volunteers include numerous central Virginia residents and college students.
At the conclusion of this summer’s dig, experts will conduct lab work and research the artifacts. The findings will be put into a presentation that will be used at local academic institutions.
Additionally, Stevenson will give a presentation on the results of the 2009 archaeological dig on November 12, 2009 at 7:00 p.m. at Richard Bland College. Also, on November 14 and 15, 2009 an exhibit on Taverns and Ordinaries, featuring the Golden Ball Tavern, will open at the Prince George County Regional Heritage Center.
The property where an 18th-century Golden Ball Tavern once stood and then a later 19th-century one after the first was burned or torn down, has been a parking lot since the mid 20th century. It now belongs to the Historic Petersburg Foundation Inc., a partner in the archaeological project.
This collaborative project is sponsored by the Prince George County Historical Society, Historic Petersburg Foundation, Inc, Richard Bland College, Virginia Department of Historic Resources and the City of Petersburg, with generous funding from The Cameron Foundation.
For more information on the dig, call HPF at (804) 732-2096.

Ronald Moring 1947-2009

2009-07-16T12:59:00.000-07:00

Moring, Ronald

Quietly, during the afternoon hours of Monday, July 13th, 2009, God reached out and took the hand of his faithful servant Ron and carried him to his heavenly home where he is now fully healed of Metastic Melanoma Cancer. Ronald was the second son of Ruth Shelley and Vernon Moring, born on April 11, 1947 in Petersburg. He was a resident of Petersburg all his life and graduated from the Petersburg School System. An Air Force veteran, he served on active duty (6994 Security Forces) in Turkey and Viet Nam. He retired after 32 years of employment at Honeywell Inc. and then worked for the Bureau of Tourism in Petersburg. Ron was a man of great passions and love of all life. He loved his church, Washington St. United Methodist Church, its history and it’s spiritual and civic commitment. Nothing gave him greater pleasure than to walk you through it’s beautiful sanctuary and tell its history. He served his church well. He loved his city. His time at the Tourist Bureau gave him the outlet to let everyone he met know of its history, its revitalization and its promise for greatness. A people person, he never met a stranger. His warmth and ability to communicate made people who had only known him for five minutes tell him their life’s story. Often these people continued to communicate with Ron, and felt as if they had known him, all of their lives as well. He had a great passion for photography, taking hundreds of pictures through out his lifetime. From the beauty of nature to the intrigue of people, he captured on film those things and everything in between. His life was also one of service to all things and people. His kitties he saved bear testament to this. Ron is survived by his wife and companion of 31 years Cheryl Anne Sculthorpe-Moring, his brother, Donald H. Moring and wife Kathy of Prince George. Nephew, Troy Moring and wife Donna, great-niece, Kaley and great-nephew, Brady of Ford, VA. His wife’s parents, Betty and Duke Sculthorpe and family. Also, many cousins and their families, beloved friends and neighbors.

Visitation will be held at J.T. Morriss & Son Funeral home, Petersburg on Thursday July 16th from 6:30 to 9:00pm.

A service of memories and music will take place at Washington St. United Methodist Church at 2:00pm on Friday, July 17th, 2009. Interment will be at Blanford Cemetery at the Moring grave site. Following the burial, all family and friends are invited to return to the church for a time of food and fellowship.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to:
Washington St. United Methodist Church Restoration Fund
22 E. Washington St. Petersburg VA 23804
or
the Petersburg Animal Shelter,
1600 Johnson Rd, Petersburg, VA.

Ron Morning was indeed my friend.

Minerva Books Closing in August

2009-07-01T19:12:00.001-07:00

Kristy Bell, owner of Minerva Books, the only book store in Petersburg has announced the closing of her bookstore. Stating, "business is all about numbers and demographics. A town with an essentially stagnant population of approximately 32,000 is borderline for a business such as mine to begin with. Factor in the 42% illiteracy rate, disability rates that some sources estimate as high as 40%, and the highest real estate tax rate in the state, and you have a recipe for some frustrating days."

James Dinsmore (1771, Ireland - 1830, VA) FL 1816/1817 Petersburg, VA

2009-06-13T16:48:00.000-07:00

James Dinsmore and John Neilson, master carpenters were renting a cabinet-makers shop from Robert Bolling in Petersburg, Virginia during 1816 until Sept. 1817.

Does anyone have any details on what buildings they may have work on?

Or any details on them during this period. Where did they resided while working there?

Prestwould

2009-05-18T15:09:00.000-07:00

Prestwould: Gracious Living on the American Frontier, 1790-1830

Thursday, October 9, 2009 (noon)

By Julian Hudson Banner Lecture Series

Virginia Historical Society

Prestwould Plantation, built at the end of the eighteenth century in a post-revolutionary Georgian style, is located on the bluffs above the Roanoke River near Clarksville, Virginia. Dr. Julian Hudson, the executive director of the Prestwould Foundation, has overseen the restoration of this historic property by leading preservation specialists. His lecture will illustrate the material culture represented by Prestwould, beginning with Sir Peyton and Lady Jean Skipwith and extending down four subsequent generations.

http://www.vahistorical.org/news/lectures_banner.htm

Located at Prestwood Dr, Hwy 15th North Clarksville, Virginia, 23927 (434)-374-8672 Open April 15 through October 31, seven days from 12:30 to 3:30 PM or by appointment, 434-374-8672. Cost: Adult $8, Senior over 65 $6, Child 6-12 $3

Constructed in 1700s, this massive combination Georgian-Federal style house amazingly stayed in the family of Sir Peyton Skipwith and Lady Jean (a cousin of Thomas Jefferson) until 1914 after being inherited by their second son. The interior of the home is best known for its original 18th and 19th century wallpapers, which have been copied in a special collection offered by Scalamandre. Tradition has it that the property, once home to Blue Stone Castle, was won by Sir Skipwith in a three day card game with William Byrd,II, of Westover on the James River.

A substantial African American interpretation exists on the property as well. An intact rare original slave quarters.

Given the strong period relationship with the early artisans and merchants of Petersburg had with supporting this plantation with goods this is an important site to visit. They maintain the largest collection of early period Petersburg crafted furniture. Skipworth sold his crops through Petersburg to England. Lady Jean purchase many of her books and household needs in Petersburg.

Early American Industries Association

2009-05-07T17:02:00.000-07:00

The Early American Industries Association

will host a Gathering in the Shenandoah Valley

for all History and Tool EnthusiastsUlster Forge

The Frontier Culture Museum

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Everyone is Invited!

at the

Frontier Culture Museum,

Staunton, VA

www.frontiermuseum.org

Matoaca Cotton Factory -- Report

2009-05-05T05:29:00.000-07:00

Petersburg's Matoaca Cotton Factory

http://www.chesterfieldhistory.com/Art/Matoaca%20Cotton%20Factory%20Presentation%20June%202004.pdf

African American Stereotypes and Self-Expression Studied in New Exhibit

2009-05-05T05:16:00.001-07:00

African American Stereotypes and Self-Expression Studied in New Exhibit

Virginia Historical Society Explores Images of Blacks Throughout Commonwealth’s History
Richmond, VA—When you think about pictures, portraits, drawings, or paintings of African Americans, have you ever thought about what those depictions convey about the subjects, or about the race as a whole? Can you tell the difference between an image of an African American created by a white person or a black person? Does the artist seem sympathetic, neutral, or demeaning toward the African American(s) depicted?
In The African American Image in Virginia, an exhibition opening at the Virginia Historical Society (VHS) on February 1, various media are explored to show how images of blacks have changed throughout Virginia’s history. The nearly fifty images on display–from books, sheet music, newspapers, broadsides, photographs, and works of art—show visitors the way whites and blacks have depicted African Americans.
"This exhibition is about identity," said Dr. Lauranett Lee, VHS curator of African American history. "The images show a changing state and nation. As America has grown over four centuries, the idea of how African Americans present themselves and how they are presented by others has changed and evolved."
Most of the images displayed in the exhibition are by white artists and, with a single exception, men. During the 1700 and 1800s, drawings of individual African Americans tended to be realistic, but when blacks were not depicted as individuals but as generalized representatives, white artists often descended into caricature with demeaning stereotype features ascribed by popular white prejudices.
The African American Image in Virginia also explores the middle ground between portraiture and caricature. Sometimes called "Negro studies," these images by whites had a specific person as the subject, but the individual was unnamed. They were meant to represent a "type" of character. Often these works were sold as souvenirs to northerners, to whom blacks were an exotic feature of southern society, like magnolias or palmettos.
African Americans in Virginia were better able to express themselves artistically after slavery ended. Black churches gained autonomy; black artists received funding and had exhibitions; and black colleges created art departments. Because it was inexpensive photography became a particularly important means of self-representation and community documentation. A photograph of Leonie Holmes in the exhibition illustrates the sense of personal pride and social responsibility blacks felt to "uplift the race" and show upward mobility through education.
"This exhibition is intended to be thought-provoking," said Lee. "We want to help visitors understand what it is that they are seeing and what it means. We want visitors to understand the world in which the image was created, the era and attitudes of that time. Some of the images are degrading, but it is not cruel to show these ugly episodes of our past; if we hide them, we don’t learn. And then how can we grow?"
The African American Image in Virginia will be on display at the Society through December 30, 2009. An online version of the exhibition will showcase over twenty images featured in the physical one and will remain on the VHS website indefinitely. Curator Lauranett Lee will give a gallery walk on Wednesday, February 11 at noon.
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA), located within walking distance of the VHS, is also presenting an African American exhibition during Black History Month. The art exhibition, on display from February 5 to May 3 at VMFA, focuses on African American work from the time of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and 1930s to the Postmodern experimentation of the late 1990s.
Labor and Leisure: Works by African-American Artists from the Permanent Collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts will explore the polarities of daily life for American blacks in a variety of media. Included will be art by James VanDerZee (1886–1983), Leslie Garland Bolling (1898–1955), Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000), Romare Bearden (1911–1988), Charles White (1918–1979), Lorna Simpson (born 1960) and Willie Cole (born 1955). For more information about Labor and Leisure, visit www.vmfa.museum.
"Visitors are fortunate that the VHS and VMFA exhibitions are on display at the same time and are so close," Lee said. "It is important to get different perspectives, and the more opportunities we have to explore these powerful African American images, the more we will understand about our past."

Free Educational Programs for Homeschoolers at the Virginia Historical Society

2009-05-05T05:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.vahistorical.org/education/homeschool.htm

The Virginia Historical Society is offering special educator-led history presentations for homeschool students. Come early or stay after your program and enjoy the additional exhibitions.

Three one-hour interactive presentations are available Tuesdays and Thursdays in June and July 2009.Programs begin at 2 pm and are appropriate for children of all ages.

Call the Education Department to book your hands-on history program today!Telephone: 804.342.9652Email: vhstours@vahistorical.org

Preservation Pays.

2009-04-15T18:36:00.001-07:00

That is the conclusion of an economic study, “Prosperity through Preservation,” released in January 2008 by the Department of Historic Resources. Conducted by Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center for Public Policy, in partnership with DHR, the study finds that Virginia’s state rehabilitation tax credit program created nearly $1.6 billion in economic impact in the Commonwealth and supported just under 11,000 jobs since 1997. The study determined that from 1997 through June 2007 rehabilitation state tax credit incentives spurred private investment of nearly $1.5 billion spent restoring more than 1,200 landmark buildings throughout Virginia. Significantly, VCU’s analysis, based on a survey of sponsors of rehabilitation projects, determined that of the nearly $1.5 billion investment, a full $952 million was tied directly to projects for which the state tax credits were identified as an essential driving force. In other words, without the rehabilitation state tax credit program, the projects would never have been undertaken. Read the summary, Prosperity through Preservation.

DHR’s report on Richmond’s historic “Burial Ground for Negroes” (ca. 1750-1816).

2009-04-15T18:31:00.000-07:00

DHR’s report on Richmond’s historic “Burial Ground for Negroes” (ca. 1750-1816). DHR has gathered and assessed evidence about the location and probable condition of the former Richmond free black and slave burial ground known as the "Burial Ground for Negroes." The agency has concluded that the preponderance of evidence from available sources indicates that the Burial Ground and gallows are located under the north and south bound lanes of Interstate 95. However, a very small portion of the Burial Ground also may intrude upon a parking lot in Shockoe Bottom now owned by Virginia Commonwealth University. DHR also has concluded that the area likely to contain the Burial Ground has not been damaged by the recent construction of I-95, which deposited between 7-10 feet of fill on an area already covered with 8-10 feet of fill deposited since the middle 19th century. However, unknown 19th-century disturbance could have occurred.

See the slave burial ground report (PDF). (Updated 8-7-08)

Financial Incentives and Opportunities for Historic Preservation and Archaeology in Virginia

2009-04-15T18:26:00.000-07:00

Now available: Financial Incentives and Opportunities for Historic Preservation and Archaeology in Virginia: This guide was compiled by DHR's Pam Schenian, an architectural historian and CLG program coordinator in DHR's Tidewater Regional Preservation Office. The 54-page document provides information on preservation funding opportunities that exist from local, state, and national sources. It provides funding options for museums, historic sites, homeowners, neighborhoods, localities, investors, and businesses. For information on DHR-sponsored or managed funds, visit Incentives & Grants.

Virginia Canals and Navigations Society

2009-04-15T14:41:00.000-07:00

VCNS 2009 Annual Meeting

The 2009 Annual Meeting of the Virginia Canals and Navigations Society will be held in Richmond from May 22-24, 2009. Please check the VCNS website for developing details. The meeting will highlight the rich canal history in and around Richmond at a time when the West was the Appalachians and the canals were built to open the West.

http://www.vacanals.org/

Reenactment

2009-03-20T07:28:00.000-07:00

The City of Petersburg proudly invites you to attend the 228th anniversary of the Reenactment of the 1781 Battle of Petersburg this April 18-19. This is an open event for all Revolutionary War re-enactors and sutlers. Our weekend encampment and re-created battles are held at Battersea, the home of Colonel John Banister, the first mayor of Petersburg and a signer of the Articles of Confederation. While Battersea is not the actual site of the 1781 battlefield, it was utilized by the British troops when they occupied the town in May of 1781.

Any phone inquiries may be placed to the Petersburg Visitor Center,

attention Frances Lilly-800-368-3595.

MORE INFORMATION »

Crispus Attucks was killed today in 1770 at Boston

2009-03-05T17:42:00.000-08:00

Crispus Attucks (c. 1723 – March 5, 1770) was one of five people killed in the Boston Massacre in Boston, Massachusetts.

He has been frequently named as the first martyr of the American Revolution and is the only Boston Massacre victim whose name is commonly remembered. He is regarded as an important and inspirational figure in American history.

Little is known for certain about Attucks beyond his involvement in the massacre. Fragmentary evidence suggests that he may have been of African American and Native American ancestry. In the early 19th century, as the Abolitionist movement gained momentum in Boston, Attucks was lauded as an example of a black American who played a heroic role in the history of the United States.

Because Crispus Attucks may also have had Wampanoag Indian ancestors, his story also holds special significance for many Native Americans.

Civil War Librarian

2009-02-20T14:23:00.002-08:00

Please check out this blog

http://civilwarlibrarian.blogspot.com/

Richmond's Burial Ground

2009-02-20T14:23:00.001-08:00

Richmond's 1810 'A Burial Ground For Negroes' Value Set At $3 Million

Slaves' History Buried in Asphalt, Maria Glod, Washington Post, October 27, 2008.Barely audible over the whirr of traffic, Duron Chavis offered a prayer as he poured water into the earth at the edge of a parking lot between a train trestle and Interstate 95. "We are here to honor our ancestors," Chavis told a group that encircled him one moonlit night this month. "Unfortunately, African Americans have been separated from our blood. We're disconnected from our languages, disconnected from our culture."For the almost two dozen people gathered here, this nondescript slice of pavement represents a long-hidden heritage. Beneath the blacktop are the graves of slaves and free blacks from the 18th and 19th centuries. The city gallows once stood nearby, where a slave named Gabriel was hanged for planning a revolt. Everyone agrees that the cemetery will be commemorated. But exactly how to do that has led to debate in a city that was once the capital of the Confederacy and still struggles with those ghosts.The state's largest school, Virginia Commonwealth University, bought the parking lot this year and has agreed to carve out a piece of it for a public memorial. But a prominent anthropologist at the College of William & Mary, along with many residents, contends that the graves probably extend beyond the strip that the university is donating. They are leading a movement to identify and reclaim the entire site. "We want all of it," said Dieyah Rasheed, who lives in nearby Henrico County. "It is sacred to me as a black woman. My ancestors were buried there. They were the ones who built Richmond. They were the nurses. They were the maids. They were the field croppers. They deserve some honor and respect." The 250-year-old cemetery, used until about 1816, faded from public memory as the city grew up around it. But several years ago, a local historian stumbled on records of its existence. Gabriel was executed there after a failed 1800 rebellion, and some historians believe he could be buried there. Last year, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) symbolically pardoned Gabriel and said his "quest for freedom was part of a great American legacy." In recent years, the city has made efforts to commemorate the trials and contributions of slaves. The Richmond Slave Trail Commission has created a walking tour from the James River port where slaves arrived, to a slave jail that is being excavated. The trail also includes a slavery reconciliation statue that was unveiled last year.Still, some African Americans note the proliferation of memorials here to the Confederate past. Monument Avenue honors Confederate leaders such as Robert E. Lee, Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart. One exception is a statue of black tennis great Arthur Ashe. The drive to preserve the cemetery gained momentum after VCU bought the three-acre downtown lot for $3 million in February. A few months later, as the university took steps to repave the lot and improve its lighting, a small grass-roots protest raised questions about the project's impact on a place of historical interest. Work was halted to allow the state to delve into the land's history.In June, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources concluded that much of the old cemetery and the site of the gallows lay under the interstate and that old records don't define the burial ground's limits. It's unclear how large the cemetery was. But some graves are believed to extend past the highway and into the parking lot, under 10 to 15 feet of fill. The department, drawing on the work of a local historian, also considered the possibility that the graveyard's edges could be defined by a label on an 1810 map that notes "Burial Ground for Negroes." VCU, citing that interpretation, has agreed to turn over a 50- by 200-foot piece of the lot, worth about $350,000, to the city for a memorial.But last month, Michael L. Blakey, director of William and Mary's Institute for Historical Biology, said there was no reason to assume the mapmaker's label encompassed the entire cemetery. Blakey called the estimation of the boundary "implausibly small." He estimated that there could be graves under most, even all, of the parking lot, and recommended digging archaeological trenches, which would not disturb the remains, to determine the cemetery's scope. "If it is important to the community," Blakey said, "there is a way to know the truth about the extent of the burials."VCU officials said they recognize the site's historical and spiritual importance, and that is why they are ceding land for a memorial. But the only practical option is to use the remainder of the lot for student and staff parking because the university is relying on parking fees to pay for the purchase, said Don Gehring, VCU's vice president for government relations and health policy. "We have reached a consensus that this is the most reasonable way to memorialize the site and recognize its significance and at the same time go forward with our purpose for parking," Gehring said. He said VCU would sell the property -- for the $3 million it is paying -- to anyone who wants to preserve the entire site.

Kathleen Kilpatrick, director of the historic resources department, said her staff reviewed available records and research to study the cemetery. "Nothing short of archaeology will determine the actual boundaries," she said. "But I don't want to lose sight of the larger goal, which is how best to memorialize the site. The issue is where we go from here to get it right, to honor the people there and to educate the public." She said the department has agreed to work with the Slave Trail Commission to raise money to buy the land. To some in the community, ownership of the land is a much deeper question than who holds the deed. "That land does not belong to Virginia Commonwealth University. It belongs to the black community of this city and this country," Phil Wilayto, a member of the Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality, a community group pushing for preservation, said this month at a community meeting. "If this was George Washington's mother buried here, it wouldn't be a parking lot. It would be a nice grassy area," said Chavis, of Richmond. "Though we have moved forward, with Obama running for president, there are still these issues that are with us."Richmond's is not the first such cemetery to be rediscovered. Freedmen's Cemetery in Alexandria, which opened in 1864 to bury former slaves, was forgotten for years but is now commemorated with a park. At the African Burial Ground in Lower Manhattan, uncovered in the early 1990s in a construction project, more than 400 skeletons were examined and then reburied at a site that has become a memorial.Blakey, who was scientific director of the excavation and preservation for the New York burial ground, said the decision to excavate and study the Richmond remains should be the community's. Much of the recorded history of slaves was written by owners who considered them property, not people. But the New York graves, Blakey said, offered a glimpse of humanity. "A story is written in things that were placed in the ground," Blakey said. "There is real reverence. Small things matter: the choice that was made to leave a silver earbob in a child's coffin rather than to keep it and use it for the living. That small act has great meaning."Doug Egerton, a Le Moyne College history professor and author of a book about Gabriel, said the slave was 24 when he plotted to win freedom for slaves by seizing the capital and taking Governor James Monroe hostage. A furious storm disrupted his plan and the plot was uncovered. Gabriel stood more than six feet, unusually tall for the time, Egerton said, and his remains could be under the lot."I think in many ways finding the bodies, learning what we can and placing them back with some kind of dignity and honor would be a real signal that Richmond can come together," Egerton said. He noted that there is a statue of George Washington not far from the graveyard. "There's no reason we can't honor Washington on his pedestal, and a mile away honor these people who also fought for freedom."

Text Source: Slaves History Buried In Asphalt, Washington Post, October 27, 2008

Michael L. Blakey, a College of William & Mary professor, discusses the site of the burial ground at a community meeting this month in Richmond.

CWL asks, "Who owned the cemetery in 1810?" and can the chain of ownership be documented to 2008? Also, can't a parking lot at a downtown institution of higher education, where parking with limited/controlled access is nearly non-existent, be viewed as equal access to education for descendants of slaves who are enrolled students?

CWL recommends: African American Cemeteries online

Lumpkin's Slave Jail

2009-02-18T12:41:00.000-08:00

Upcoming Event at the Virginia Historical Society

Recent discoveries from the archaeological dig at Lumpkin's Slave Jail will be discussed at Virginia Historical Society (VHS).

The 2008 excavation found the site of the notorious jail complex, collected many artifacts, and revealed a number of well preserved features.

On Saturday, February 28, 2009, from 9:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m., the community is invited to attend a conference about Richmond's African Americanhistory. Hidden Things Brought to Light: Finding Lumpkin's Jail andLocating the Burial Ground for Negroes takes place at the VHS and is free and open to the public.Speakers at the half-day conference will present recent scholarship ontwo downtown Richmond historical sites, the Burial Ground for Negroes and Lumpkin's Slave Jail, both of which have special importance for the history of African Americans in Virginia.

Speakers include:

Jeffrey Ruggles, curator of prints and photographs at the VHS, will speak about the historical background of the Shockoe slavery sites.
Matthew R. Laird, Ph.D., historian at The James River Institute for Archaeology, Inc., and principal investigator for the Lumpkin's Slave Jail dig, will discuss recent discoveries from the archaeological site.
Dr. Christopher Stevenson, an archaeologist with the Virginia Departmentof Historic Resources, will speak about locating the Burial Ground for Negroes in the present-day landscape.
Dr. Lauranett Lee, curator of African American history at the VHS, will moderate the event.

Graham T. Dozier Managing Editor of Publications Virginia Historical Society Post Office address: Box 7311 Richmond, VA 23221 Street address: 428 N. Boulevard Richmond, VA 23220phone: 804.342.9640 fax: 804.342.9697 http://www.vahistorical.org

Sir Thomas Lipton's Autobiography

2008-12-05T06:36:00.000-08:00

Sir Thomas Lipton once worked the tobacco fields of Samuel Clay near Wilson Depot in Dinwiddie County, after the Civil War in 1866 & 1867. Thomas Lipton was then a young man, age 16, working his first job on Clay's plantation and were he was injuried that Fall...

See page 60-68.

Any one with additional information on Samual Clay or Thomas Lipton in Dinwiddie and Nottoway Counties... ?

From his New York office author Michael D’Antonio, who wrote the best seller Hershey and A Ball, A Dog, and a Monkey: 1957 – The Space Race Begins, which was NPR’s Science Friday, “A Best Science Book of 2007” contacted historian Ronald Seagrave here in Dinwiddie in late November for assistance in developing material for his upcoming biography on Sir Thomas Lipton (1850-1931), the later founder of Lipton Tea. Between these two men they were able to prove that young Scotsmen Thomas Lipton who had been born on May 10, 1850, of Irish parents in Glasgow, Scotland had in fact come to Dinwiddie County in the summer of 1866 to obtain his first American job when he was a merely sixteen. Lipton had arrived in New York where he was offered a job on a tobacco plantation in Dinwiddie County, Virginia by a New York employment firm. Lipton had selected Virginia for his future employment based on its imagery appeal of the name alone. Seagrave was able to paint a visual image for D’Antonio of Lipton’s arrival at City Point and his travel to war torn Petersburg, then passing the battle scared grounds of Five Forks and on to Wilson Depot where he met his future employer Sam Clay. This was Lipton’s first job working as a replacement field hand, a position once held by a slave working Clay’s Nottoway and Dinwiddie fields from dawn to dark, six days a week, as a young Scot-Irish immigrate living in a former slave’s cabin and a straw bed. Several months into his employment he was cutting wood that autumn when the hatchet slipped and severely injured his right foot. When Samuel Clay learned of the accident he removed Lipton to his house. For weeks he suffered in agony, only relieved by the knowledge imparted by his doctor that he was not going to lose his leg. Seagrave was able to determine his physician was Dr. Henry E. Shore who owned a nearby Plantation. Dr. Shore was a well respected physician and son of Dr. John Shore, II, of Petersburg. As soon as Lipton could hobble about, again they insisted on Lipton taking things easy and even drove him to church with them on Sundays. Lipton forever held in the highest regard the kindness shown him by Samuel Clay and his wife. After a few weeks he toured Virginia, but then returned to New York City.
Later on in Sir Thomas Lipton's life he entertained at his Osidge home near London, a grand-daughter of his first American employer. Seagrave has yet to determine the name of this grand-daughter, nor the church they attended and would appreciate any additional information on this early Nottoway/Dinwiddie family.
Sir Lipton left much of his fortune to the city of Glasgow, to aid the poor, and to build hospitals. He was the oldest member on the rolls of Lodge Scotia No. 178 when he died in 1931. Seagrave stated he’ll never again drive on Rt. 460 pass Wilson while going to ‘Black and White’/Blackstone and not think of this young man working the tobacco field’s in that area and Lipton’s Tea. It goes to show you anything’s possible, no matter where you live, if you have drive and imagination. Seagrave believes that this area helped seed Lipton’s imagination for his future business. It was here he saw the value of international trade first hand and he was surrounded by former countrymen who had kept strong trading relationship with Great Britain. For nearly a century Petersburg has kept trading relationships alive with Great Britain and the Mason’s.
Thomas Lipton developed a unique style of shop-keeping and imaginative advertising. He also introduces the teabag and developed a small grocery store into an international business, making him a millionaire at the age of thirty.
First challenging the America’s Cup yachting trophy in 1899, he made five unsuccessful attempts, endearing himself to the American public, which gave him a gold cup after his last defeat in 1930.
Queen Victoria knighted Lipton in 1898 for his commercial success and philanthropy. He was created a baronet in 1902. During the Spanish-American war, and later during WWI, Lipton gave money and services to aid the wounded. Lipton’s motto was "Work hard, deal honestly, be enterprising, exercise careful judgment, and advertise freely but judiciously."

Update... March 29, 2009, Progress Index

DINWIDDIE — Dinwiddie’s Lipton saga continues.In previously unknown letters of Sir Thomas Lipton, the Scottish Tea Baron wrote about his life working on a plantation in Dinwiddie County in the years after the Civil War.After a story in The Progress-Index about the efforts of local historian Ronald Seagrave to learn more about Lipton’s time in the tobacco fields of central Virginia, Emporia resident Terry Botts contacted him to show him what Seagrave called “a historical sensation.”Behind a glass frame, Botts keeps a three-page letter dated Feb. 24, 1926, that Lipton sent Ambler Brook Moncure, who resided on Old Stage Road in Dinwiddie County at the time. Lipton sent the letter from his home at Southgate, Middlesex, England.
To historians like Seagrave, the letter is of high interest because Lipton gave few details about his time in the county in his personal diary.In November of last year, bestselling author Michael D’Antonio contacted Seagrave, hoping he would be able to help his monumental biography about the famous merchant and yachtsman.During his research, Seagrave learned that Lipton was 17 when he arrived in New York and took a job as slave replacement on the Samuel Clay plantation in Wilsons, which today is a small town off Route 460 in Dinwiddie County.Until now, it was always believed that Lipton left no written records about the nine months he worked on the farm from the summer of 1866 until early 1867, when a leg injury forced him to leave the job.In his letter to Moncure, Lipton seemed happy about being able to discuss his life in Virginia. “My Dear Mr. Moncure,” Lipton wrote. “I was very pleased indeed to receive your kind letter, it being the first communication I have had from Dinwiddie since I worked there.”Lipton went on to describe his experience. “I was engaged in New York to go to work for Sam Clay near Wilson’s Depot in Dinwiddie County, and on first arriving at the estate, I slept in a little hut, but my boss, Mr. Sam Clay, apparently thought so well of me that he afterwards took me into his big house.”Seagrave said that he found it interesting that Lipton would use a slave’s term — “big house” — in describing Clay’s residence.The letter also gave Seagrave more insight to the Clay’s family situation. “He wrote that both of Clay’s sons were killed in the Civil War,” Seagrave said. According to census records, the three sons were Patrick, Robert and Travis. Because the latter died prior to the 1860 census, Seagrave concluded that Lipton was referring to the other two sons.But he also found out that Patrick, the oldest son, established himself as a farmer after the war. There are no records of Robert’s whereabouts.Lipton also talked about Clay’s daughters. “But he had two young daughters, who treated me most kindly and made me feel quite at home.” He then wrote about his travels to Charleston and New Orleans. Then Lipton states, “The goal of my life, however, was to make money for the old folks at home, and when I had saved what I thought was sufficient I came home and open my first little shop, bring with me a barrel of flour and rocking chair for my mother.”Seagrave said Lipton gained much more than money during his early travels in America, because he witnessed international trade and commerce first-hand and later applied those concepts to the foundation of his own tea empire, which would become one of the most successful businesses of its kind in the world. Today, Lipton Tea owns about 10 percent of the world’s tea market, and the famous Lipton Iced Tea is available in more than 60 countries.Moncure, the letter’s recipient, responded on March 17, 1926, and invited Lipton to stay at his house in Wilsons, should he ever come back to visit Dinwiddie County. “Oh what pleasure it gave me to know that the Clay’s upheld the tradition of this old state by showing courtesy and kindness to a stranger among them,” he wrote.At last, the collection includes a typewritten letter, dated June 30, 1927, from Lipton’s private secretary, John Westwood, to Moncure, stating, “I am desired by Sir Thomas Lipton to acknowledge receipt of your letter on the 28th inst., and to thank you for same and should Sir Thomas be in your neighborhood at any time, he will be very pleased to give himself the pleasure of calling upon you.”Botts found the letters and a photograph signed by Lipton when a small museum closed down in 1995. “I knew that these were some rarities, so I bought them,” he said.

The ship Cyrus, 1824

2008-10-08T13:08:00.000-07:00

The captain of the ship Cyrus was George Green Gary, who may have earlier owned George Gary's tavern.[1] Captain Gary married Pamela A. Gray on December 17, 1823 and then sailed on the Cyrus together to Liberia.[2] Pamela Gray was born on December 16, 1800, the daughter of Sterling and Nancy Gary, of Prince George County.[3] “Pamelia Gary” was listed as head of household living in center ward, in the 1840 Petersburg's census, amongst two males (10-15), two females (10-15), one female (15-20), and two females (30-40). She was buried in the southeastern section of Blandford Cemetery, behind the church. Her badly broken, damaged and eroded marble table stone which rests on a granite base was made by the Petersburg’s stonecutter James Davidson once read:

In remembrance of
Mrs. Pamela A. Gary
Widow of Capt. Geo. G. Gary
Who accompanied by the deceased
Transported in Ship Cyrus
With the first colonists from
Petersburg, Va. to Liberia in 1824
Her eventful life was closed
The 24th June 1848
In the 47th year of her age

In 2008, American Colonization scholar, Dr. Marie Tyler-McGraw stated, “It is interesting that the Cyrus was captained not by just any ship's captain, but by one who was from Petersburg and whose family thought that was significant enough to put on a tombstone.” The ship Cyrus may have been the ship Cyrus launched in 1800, built by Israel Thorndike and William Leach, in Salem, Massachusetts, a 305 ton vessel.[4] The Essex Institute, Peabody & Essex Museum recorded the, “Cyrus, Beverly, ship, 305 tons, Salem, 1800. Reg.. July 7, 1800. William Leach, Beverly, Isaac Thorndike, Beverly, Thomas Dickerson, Boston, owners; William Leach, master. [Commissioned as a privateer.]”[5] In the 1850s a merchant’s sloop named the George Gary sailed from Petersburg’s harbor.[6] Also shipped on the Cyrus from Petersburg were two hogsheads and a bundle of tobacco and one bundle of books and clothes.

Shortly after arriving the ACS agent in Liberia said the emigrants on the Cyrus “had formed in America a worthy and well-compacted neighborhood” and that they “moved together in everything,” especially in aiding one another.”[7]

Rev. Colston M. Waring, a black minister associated with the Petersburg’s Gillfield Baptist Church,[8] help organize the passenger that went on the ship Cyrus for Liberia, he was to determine its suitability for thwarted ambitions as well as a missionary field.[9] "The passengers on the ship Cyrus represented a cross-section of Virginia free blacks going to Liberia. Among them was John N. Lewis, age 13, traveling with his mother, Hannah Lewis, who was 5 feet 2 inches high, supposed to be about 35 years old, and with a brown complexion... She was emancipated with her seven children in Petersburg by Adam S. Nanstedler, on December 30, 1823.[10] All of these children were children of Adam S. Naustedler, a white man.[11] Mr. Naustedler appears to have been a most interesting individual, on December 7, 1814, he placed an ad along with his business partner Benjamin Moss in the Petersburg Daily Courier announcing their formation of Moss & Naustedler, commission Merchants and tobacco brokers.. The 1820 Petersburg’s census listed him as 45+ living with another male between (16-26), one of which was at this time, an un-naturalized foreigner; along with four male slaves under sixteen and one (14-26).

Naustedler led at times a small local Petersburg Jewish Congregation, and was originally from Augsburg, Germany. In remembrance, he was described as a man “profoundly versed in the Talmud and in the transitions, whose mind was stored with rabbinical lore and who was generally called 'Rabbi' by his friends and acquaintances."[12] In 1840, "A. S. Naustedler," was living alone in Center Ward, Petersburg, age 60-70."[13] His son, John N. Lewis would later become the colonial secretary, Lewis would write his father back in Petersburg from Liberia, without any know reply.

The Columbian Centinel, published as: Columbian Centinel American Federalist reported on August 8, 1824, that on August 3rd, 1824 the ship Cyrus was at Boston harbor and…
Reporting its former captain’s death as June 20, 1824. On August 7, 1824 the Columbian Centinel American Federalist, reported that Capt. George G. Gary of Petersburg, Va., died at sea, aboard the ship Cyrus, of Boston.

The Cyrus would be found stranded on Rainsford Island, which served as a quarantine station for the port of Boston, Massachusetts. She was sold for salvage in September 1824. The Boston Commercial Gazette reported the new captain as “Crafts.”

The Baltimore Patriot gave a more detail accounting on August 7, 1824 of those who died on board the Cyrus on its 68 day voyage from Rio Janeiro since she left the United States: George C(S)igourney, of Boston,[14] Captain Clark, on March 16, 1824; Parker Sperey, passenger, March 17, 1824; John Green, steward, March 18, 1824; William Austin, alis Haskins, March 24, 1824; Capt. Geary died on the passage home, on the June 20, 1824.

______________________
[1] R. Bolling Papers, biographical card files, card 14, Library of Virginia, “George Green Gary, b., d., master of the ship Cyrus, m. Dec. 1823, Prince George County, Pamela A. Gary.”
[2] R. Bolling Papers, biographical card files, card 14, Library of Virginia, “Pamela A Gary, b. December 16, 1800, Petersburg; daughter of Sterling Gray (1757-1824) and Nancy, of Prince George County; m. George Green Gary, December 17, 1823, Prince George County; d. June 24, 1848, Petersburg, cancer; burial June 25, 1848, Blandford Cemetery, on W. side of her square, south by E.A. Branch, Blandford Interment Records (1843-1871) page 23.”
[3] Sterling Gary was taxed for the first time in 1797 for 119 acres, in Prince George County. He was commissioned May 7, 1793 Ensign, in Capt. Robert Harrison's Co., Prince George Co. Militia. He died on September 25, 1824, just prior to his daughter’s marriage to Capt. Gray.
[4] Cutter, William Richard. Genealogical and Personal Memoirs Relating to the Families of Boston and Eastern Massachusetts, p. 1607.
[5] Essex Institute Historical Collections By Essex Institute, Peabody & Essex Museum, p. 62.
[6] Daily Democrat (Petersburg, Va.), November 21, 1855, page 2, column 6; Daily Democrat, November 30, 1855, page 3, column 1.
[7] Debra L. Newman, The Emergence of Liberian Women in the Nineteenth Century,” Ph.D. diss., Howard University, 1984, p. 137.
[8] Second oldest Black church in US. Established 1786. Re-built in the Romanesque Revival style between 1874-1879. Gillfield Baptist Church is the second oldest black congregation in Petersburg and one of the oldest in the country. Gillfield originated in the Davenport Church in Prince George County in 1786. In 1797, it was recognized as an autonomous institution with an integrated congregation. In 1800, the Davenport Church moved to Pocahontas and was renamed the Sandy Beach Church. In 1818, the church members purchased the lot on Perry Street in Gillfield where they built the first of four successive churches.
[9] Marie Tyler-McGraw. An African Republic: Black & White Virginians in the Making of Liberia, University of NC Press, 2007, P. 69.
[10] No. 1342, Registry of Free Negroes & Mulattoes, made & entered in the Clerk’s office of the Hustings Court of the Town of Petersburg Posterior to 1st January 1819, Library of Virginia microfilm no. 73
[11] John N. Lewis to Samuel Wilkinson, Monrovia, April 12, 1849, letter enclosed to “Mr. Adam S. Naustedler, my father who lives in Petersburg, Va.,” reel #154, RACS.
[12] Lee Shai Neissbach. Jewish Life in Small Town America, p. 216.
[13] Petersburg’s 1840 Census.
[14] Born September 25, 1805 son of Charles Sigourney & Mary Sarah Greenleaf., died March 18, 1824.

THE HEMINGSES OF MONTICELLO

2008-09-23T07:33:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Fergus M. BordewichSunday, September 14, 2008, Washington Post
THE HEMINGSES OF MONTICELLO
An American Family
By Annette Gordon-Reed
Norton. 798 pp. $35

Thomas Jefferson's contradictions have long baffled historians. His clarion assertion of human equality in the Declaration of Independence became the battle cry of the abolitionist movement. Yet he lived on the fruits of slave labor and never risked political capital (or his own comfort) to oppose the institution of slavery. He regarded blacks as odorous, intellectually inferior and incapable of creating art. Yet, as Annette Gordon-Reed convincingly argues in this monumental and original book, he cohabited for more than 30 years with an African American woman with whom he conceived seven children.
Liberating the woman known to Jefferson's smirking enemies as "dusky Sally" from the lumber room of scandal and legend, Gordon-Reed leads her into the daylight of a country where slaves and masters met on intimate terms. In so doing, Gordon-Reed also shines an uncompromisingly fresh but not unsympathetic light on the most elusive of the Founding Fathers.
In Sally Hemings's day, Gordon-Reed writes, she was "the most well-known enslaved person in America." Her connection to Jefferson was brutally exposed and mocked by his political opponents during his first presidency, while black churchmen in the early republic preached sermons on her "family situation." The publicity was sufficiently embarrassing that Jefferson's partisans and descendants crafted a sanitized and sexless version of life at Monticello that continued until our own day. Although controversy persists, recent DNA research has caused most historians to accept Jefferson's paternity of Hemings's children.
Gordon-Reed first probed the Jefferson-Hemings relationship in her 1997 book "Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy." Now she deepens and widens her view to encompass the entire sprawling Hemings clan as actors on the stage of history. Members of the Hemings family came to Monticello as part of the inheritance of Jefferson's wife, Martha Wayles. They were the offspring of Martha's father and his enslaved concubine Elizabeth Hemings, and thus Martha's own siblings. (In a different society, they would never have been Jefferson's slaves at all and would instead have shared in the inheritance that Martha acquired from her father's estate; the same could later be said of Jefferson's own mixed-race children.) Gordon-Reed's exploration of the lives of other members of the Hemings family -- most notably Sally's mother, Elizabeth, and her brothers, Robert and James, who served as valets to Jefferson -- is also exhaustive and fascinating in its own right. But Sally is the most compelling if Martha Wayles Jefferson died in 1782. Thomas Jefferson would remain a nominal bachelor for the remainder of his long life. During his service as U.S. ambassador to France, which began in 1784, he summoned Hemings to Paris as an attendant for his youngest daughter, Polly. According to Gordon-Reed, the relationship became sexual in Paris, on the cusp of the French Revolution, when Hemings was 16 and Jefferson was 46. They remained together until Jefferson's death in 1826. Hemings left no written testimony, and Jefferson was careful to leave few traces of the true nature of their liaison.
"When it came to the care and deployment of his image, which if managed properly would leave him with the positive legacy of 'great man,' Jefferson was supremely disciplined and controlled," Gordon-Reed observes. Her deconstruction of this occluded relationship is a masterpiece of detective work. Although she employs a considerable amount of deductive reasoning, she resists facile speculation and relies on a very close reading of the surviving documentary record wedded to copious knowledge of slavery as it was practiced by members of Jefferson's social class at the time.
For instance, Gordon-Reed delves into the startlingly open relationship between Sally's oldest sister, Mary, and a prosperous Charlottesville merchant, Thomas Bell, to whom Jefferson had hired her out. A mutual attachment developed, and Mary eventually asked Jefferson to sell her to Bell; Jefferson agreed. "Within the extremely narrow constraints of what life offered her -- ownership by Thomas Jefferson or ownership by Thomas Bell -- Mary Hemings took an action that had enormous, lasting, and, in the end, quite favorable consequences for her, her two youngest children, and the Hemings family as a whole," writes Gordon-Reed. "She found in Bell a man willing to live openly with her, and to treat her and her children as if they were bound together as a legal family."
Gordon-Reed bravely attempts to untangle a particularly fraught question: Could genuine love exist between master and slave? With its acknowledgment that slavery's unequal balance of power "grossly distorted" the play of human emotions, her conclusion is necessarily subtle and may not satisfy those who require monochromatic answers. Had Hemings been merely a plaything, Gordon-Reed points out, Jefferson could have simply let her stay in France, where slavery had been abolished and a well-trained servant like her would have had little difficulty finding work. Instead, he wanted Hemings to return with him to Virginia so intensely that he was willing to bargain with her, by promising her personal privileges as well as eventual freedom for their offspring. Hemings, for her part, was "a smart, if overconfident, attractive teenage girl who understood very well how men saw her and was greatly impressed with her newly discovered power to move an infatuated middle-aged man."
Had sex been all that Jefferson wanted, he could have hidden her away at one of his several farms in Virginia. But he arranged his life at Monticello so that Hemings would be in it every day that he was there. She led a life as close to that of a wife as any enslaved woman could in antebellum Virginia. To Jefferson, Gordon-Reed plausibly argues, Hemings offered a "familiar presence, telling him what he needed to hear about what was happening on the farm, having sex, attending to his needs, being the person of his private world who listened to him complain or voice fears about matters that he might not want to reveal to others." She says of Hemings, "At the end of her life she would be able to say that she got the important things that she most wanted."
Defenders of slavery tirelessly promoted the canard that emancipation would lead to an epidemic of miscegenation that would ruin America's blood stock. The truth -- the great open secret of the antebellum South -- was that race-mixing was embedded, quite literally, in the culture of slaveholding, where masters' sexual exploitation of their female "property" was not a crime. Gordon-Reed writes, "The pervasive doctrine of white supremacy supposedly inoculated whites against the will to interracial mixing, but that doctrine proved to be unreliable when matched against the force of human sexuality." American slaves and their descendants, she says, "are the only victims of a historically recognized system of oppression who are made to carry the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that things endemic to their oppression actually happened to them." In this magisterial book, she has succeeded not only in recovering the lives of an entire enslaved family, but also in showing them as creative agents intelligently maneuvering to achieve maximum advantage for themselves within the orbit of institutionalized slavery.
Jefferson kept his promise to Sally Hemings. All their children eventually went free. Of the four children who reached adulthood, three lived as whites. The fourth, Madison Hemings, married a woman so fair-skinned that some of their children were also able to pass for white. The Hemingses were, of course, in a class by themselves, as Gordon-Reed frequently underscores. The rest of Jefferson's many slaves were sold off to pay his debts. "The only route to freedom . . . was the possession of Wayles, Jefferson, or Hemings blood," writes Gordon-Reed. "No one else had a chance."
Fergus M. Bordewich's most recent book is "Washington: The Making of the American Capital."

President Tom’s Cabin

2008-09-23T07:18:00.000-07:00

Jefferson, Hemings, and a disclaimed lineage.
by Jill Lepore September 22, 2008 in the New Yorker

For Annette Gordon-Reed, the real scandal wasn’t what Jefferson did; it was what historians did, in scanting the evidence for it.

In 1852, when Harriet Beecher Stowe finished “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” she wrote to a congressman, Horace Mann, who happened to be Nathaniel Hawthorne’s brother-in-law, to beg a favor. Might he know how to get a copy of her book to Charles Dickens? “Were the subject any other I should think this impertinent & Egotistical,” Stowe wrote, making of demurral a poor cloak for presumption. But she had reason to expect Dickens’s sympathy. A decade earlier, upon completing an unhappy tour of the United States, Dickens judged the country “the heaviest blow ever dealt at liberty.” Seeing slavery at first hand left him sick. “I really don’t think I could have borne it any longer,” he confessed, after riding a train whose passengers included a mother and her weeping children, sold away from their father by a fiend whom Dickens satirized as yet another American “champion of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
It would be going too far to say that Charles Dickens had it in for the original champion of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Still, he rarely missed an opportunity to throw a dagger in Thomas Jefferson’s general direction, slurring, in his American novel, “Martin Chuzzlewit” (1844), that “noble patriot . . . who dreamed of Freedom in a slave’s embrace.”
Discerning readers knew which patriot he meant. Dickens was quoting the Irish poet Thomas Moore, who visited the United States soon after a scurrilous Scots journalist named James Callender published, in the September, 1802, Richmond Recorder, long-standing rumors that Jefferson, who was President at the time, had fathered children by one of his slaves: “Her name is SALLY.” Moore, inspired, wrote a poem—The weary statesman for repose hath fled From halls of council to his negro’s shed, Where blest he woos some black Aspasia’s grace, And dreams of freedom in his slave’s embrace!
—onto which Dickens, appalled, tacked an epilogue: “and waking sold her offspring and his own in public markets.”
James Callender drowned himself in the James River in 1803, but even unstable scandalmongers sometimes get a story straight. Thomas Jefferson did own a woman named Sally, Sally Hemings, and her children looked just like him. Writing four decades after Callender, Dickens did no more than add a seedy detail—the sexually sated author of the Declaration of Independence pocketing a tidy sum by peddling his own progeny lends the story an Oliverian twist—but even this wasn’t entirely Dickens’s invention. In 1838 or 1839, the London Morning Chronicle, where Dickens worked as a reporter, picked up a story that had been reprinted in the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator. An eyewitness claimed to have seen one of Jefferson’s children on the auction block at the most infamous slave market in America: “the DAUGHTER of THOMAS JEFFERSON SOLD in New Orleans, for ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS.”
Dickens probably believed this to be true. It was not. After Jefferson’s death, on July 4, 1826, his slaves were sold at auction. But that auction did not include Sally Hemings’s children, as Annette Gordon-Reed records in her commanding and important book, “The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family” (Norton; $35). Jefferson freed two of Hemings’s three surviving sons, Madison and Eston, in his will; the other son, Beverly, had already left Monticello. Hemings had a daughter, too, Harriet, who left Monticello in 1822, when she was twenty-one. “Harriet. Sally’s run,” Jefferson wrote in his “Farm Book,” where he kept track of his human property, a population that needed minding, since Jefferson was one of the largest slaveholders in Virginia. Harriet didn’t exactly run. “She was nearly as white as anybody, and very beautiful,” recalled one of Jefferson’s overseers, who also said that Jefferson ordered him to give fifty dollars to the girl, and paid for her ride, by stage, to Philadelphia. A widely circulated rumor, reported by another literary English rambler, Frances Trollope (Anthony Trollope’s mother), in her 1832 “Domestic Manners of the Americans,” turns out to be well-founded: “When, as it sometimes happened, his children by Quadroon slaves were white enough to escape suspicion of their origin, he did not pursue them if they attempted to escape.”
But if the report that Jefferson’s daughter had been pawned off to the highest bidder wasn’t true, it still made a good story. At least, that’s what William Wells Brown thought when he wrote “Clotel; or, The President’s Daughter,” the first African-American novel, published in 1853, a year after “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” That year, Stowe toured England, where she met Dickens, and where Brown, who was living in London, rallying British sympathy for the American abolitionist movement, managed to get a glimpse of her. Brown knew a thing or two about what Stowe, in her Dickensian subtitle, called “Life Among the Lowly.” Stowe’s novel opens in Kentucky; Brown was born there. He worked for a Mississippi River slave trader, dyeing the hair of gray-haired slaves black, so that they might fetch a better price. His sister was sold away. In 1833, he and his mother tried to run; they were caught. His mother was sold down the river. The following year, Brown finally escaped, alone. In 1847, two years after the celebrated abolitionist Frederick Douglass published the story of his life, Brown told his own not entirely unvarnished tale, “Narrative of William W. Brown, A Fugitive Slave, Written by Himself.” After Stowe’s novel made publishing history (it sold ten thousand copies in its first week), Brown decided to try his hand at fiction. What better plot than the shocking story that had animated the pen of Dickens himself?
Brown’s characters are different from Uncle Tom, Eliza, and Topsy, but they’re no less didactic, and his novel, like Stowe’s, follows their desperate fates, trial heaped upon tribulation, like so many ice floes crashing into the banks of the Mississippi. Clotel makes her escape by disguising herself as a swarthy gentleman. Captured, she is imprisoned in a “negro pen” in Washington, D.C. She flees, but, crossing a bridge from Washington to Virginia—“within plain sight of the President’s house”—she is once again trapped. With a last look toward Heaven, she leaps into the Potomac. “Thus died Clotel, the daughter of Thomas Jefferson,” writes Brown, toward the end of a novel in which he included a chapter titled “Truth Stranger Than Fiction.”
It has taken a very long time for historians to regard this story seriously, or even to begin to bother to sort out fact from fiction. Just why was the subject of Gordon-Reed’s 1997 tour de force, “Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy,” a book that was as much a painstaking investigation of the documentary record as a devastating brief on standards of evidence in historical research. For Gordon-Reed, a legal scholar, the real scandal wasn’t what happened between Jefferson and Hemings but how willing earlier generations of Jefferson biographers had been to ignore the implications of evidence right in front of them, even documents like Jefferson’s “Farm Book,” but, especially, testimony about things said and done by the Hemingses themselves. Behind the Jefferson-Hemings affair, Gordon-Reed wrote, lay yet another buried family tie: Sally Hemings was the half sister of Jefferson’s wife, Martha Wayles. Taking a lawyer’s view of the case, Gordon-Reed pieced together the evidence and weighed it. She presented a strong case in support of the claim that Jefferson fathered Hemings’s children, and freed them, or let them go when they reached the age of twenty one, because Hemings had extracted from him, in 1789, at the beginning of their decades-long affair, a promise that he would do exactly that.
Gordon-Reed’s “Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings” was published the same year as Joseph Ellis’s stirring and elegiac biography “American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson,” in which Ellis asserted—intuited, actually, since there is no evidence for this—that Jefferson, who had got his wife pregnant six times in ten years, had never slept with the very beautiful Sally Hemings (who reportedly resembled his wife, a woman Jefferson adored), because “for most of his adult life,” and, presumably, especially after his wife died (when Jefferson was thirty-nine), “he lacked the capacity for the direct and physical expression of his sexual energies.” The man was a statue. “American Sphinx” won the National Book Award.
A year later, Eugene Foster, a retired University of Virginia pathologist, published in Nature the results of DNA tests he had undertaken, working with scientists in Oxford, Leicester, and Leiden. Foster tested the blood of the descendants of Field Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson’s uncle; Eston Hemings, Sally’s youngest son; and Thomas Woodson, who some believe was Sally’s eldest child. (The Y chromosome passes down through males virtually unaltered, but Jefferson’s only son by his wife died in infancy, which is why Foster had to find his Jeffersonian Y elsewhere.) The tests cast doubt on one relationship and proved another. Thomas Woodson’s descendants don’t have the Jefferson Y. Eston Hemings’s do. This doesn’t prove that Eston, let alone Sally Hemings’s other children, were fathered by Thomas Jefferson. It proves only that Eston’s father was a Jefferson. Alas, there just wasn’t another Jefferson handy, there at Monticello, and with a Y in his pocket, each time Hemings conceived. Ellis, in later editions of his biography, graciously conceded the argument. “Prior to the DNA evidence,” he wrote, “one might have reasonably concluded that Jefferson was living a paradox. Now it was difficult to avoid the conclusion that he was living a lie.” Dissenters persist, citing the circumstantial nature of the evidence. But today most historians agree with the conclusion of a research committee convened by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, at Monticello: Jefferson “most likely was the father of all six of Sally Hemings’s children.”
Lost in the DNA-driven consensus, however, was Gordon-Reed’s point. It ought never to have taken a lab test to bolster a claim deducible from the documentary record. For a conference at Monticello and the University of Virginia in 1999, Gordon-Reed revisited the case:It is true that we do not and will never have the details of what went on between Jefferson and Hemings and their children. This does not mean that we have nothing to go on. Perhaps the most persistent, and ultimately damaging, feature of the original debate over whether the relationship existed at all was the tight rein placed upon the historical imagination. One was simply not to let one’s mind wander too freely over the matter. Brainstorming, drawing reasonable inferences from actions, attempting to piece together a plausible view of the matter were shunted into the category of illegitimate speculation, as grave an offense as outright lying.
Deductions and inferences can be wrong. But they’re not illicit; they’re how history, at its best, makes sense of a senseless world.
In Gordon-Reed’s new book, “The Hemingses of Monticello,” her single most revealing source is the memoir of Madison Hemings, printed by a newspaperman named S. F. Wetmore in an obscure Ohio paper called the Pike County Republican in 1873. (Wetmore likely first heard about Hemings from a census-taker in a neighboring county who, in the 1870 census, noted next to Madison Hemings’s name, “This man is the son of Thomas Jefferson.” Four months after Wetmore published Hemings’s story, a Jefferson biographer named James Parton, writing in The Atlantic Monthly, summarily dismissed it: “Mr. Hemings has been misinformed.”
Parton believed that Hemings was either a fraud or a fool. He did not seek him out; he did not consider what he said. He disregarded him. Gordon-Reed attributes such dismissals to a number of stereotypes: historians saw Hemings as an angry ex-slave with delusions of grandeur, a feebleminded, childlike pawn. Parton probably did see Hemings this way. But it is also true that Madison Hemings’s credibility had already been damaged, long before James Parton came along, by every nineteenth-century writer, black and white, who made use of the Jefferson-Hemings legend. Callender poked a hole. Dickens left a dent. William Wells Brown dealt a blow. Abolitionists wanted, urgently, desperately, to end slavery. Their aim was to arouse sympathy. They told very many stories. Picturing white men preying on black women was their stock-in-trade. Stowe went further: she turned black men into feckless, sexless children. (That’s one reason, but just one, that James Baldwin eviscerated “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in “Notes of a Native Son”; another was Stowe’s failure to address “the only important question” about slavery: “What it was, after all, that moved her people to such deeds.”) Purveying hackneyed stories at the expense of black men’s humanity came at another cost: who would believe Madison Hemings? (It didn’t help that Wetmore, in a shout-out to Stowe, titled the column in which he printed Hemings’s memoir “Life Among the Lowly.”) Answering slavery with sentimentality carried a price, too: who could imagine Jefferson’s daughter doing anything but dying?
For decades, on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line, the gavelling off of Thomas Jefferson’s children was a story that was either too awful to be true or too useful to be proved false. Sally Hemings lived in Charlottesville until her death, in about 1835. Eston Hemings, a violinist who later in life went by the name “Eston Hemings Jefferson,” died in Wisconsin in 1856. Madison Hemings, a carpenter, farmer, and father of nine, lived until 1877. An enterprising investigator might have looked any of them up, long before 1873, except . . . what if their stories weren’t as poignant as what he wanted to print?
Charles Dickens didn’t have much use for the supplicating author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” It galled him when her work was compared to his. But what he really found infuriating was when she pried into the private lives of public men. “Wish Mrs. Stowe was in the pillory,” he cursed, when Stowe reported, in The Atlantic, on Byron’s romance with his half sister. (Dickens, who conducted an adulterous affair for thirteen years, tried mightily to keep it secret.) For all his contempt for that “noble patriot . . . who dreamed of Freedom in a slave’s embrace,” he seems never to have smeared Jefferson by name. Parton apparently shared his gentlemanly reticence. To dismiss Madison Hemings, Parton marshaled no more than a mysterious allusion to a letter that he had in his possession, written by yet another biographer, Henry Randall, in 1868. In an interview, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Jefferson’s grandson, told Randall that Sally Hemings “had children which resembled Mr. Jefferson so closely that it was plain that they had his blood in their veins,” but this, Randolph implied, was because they were the children of Peter Carr, Jefferson’s nephew. (Randolph’s sister, Ellen Coolidge, alleged that Jefferson’s other nephew, Samuel Carr, was the father.) “The father of those children was a near relation of the Jeffersons,” Parton wrote, “who need not be named.”
Privacy is very much worth respecting, but not when one man’s desire for it destroys another man’s credibility. This isn’t just about Jefferson and Hemings. It’s about Parton’s assumption that Randolph, a white man, must have been telling the truth while Hemings—listed on that census as “mulatto”—was, at best, “misinformed.” Gordon-Reed, in her first book, began by establishing the authenticity of Madison Hemings’s memoir. Then, instead of taking Parton’s witnesses at their word, she cross-examined them. If Randolph didn’t have something more scandalous still to hide, why admit that he was related to the Hemingses? Jefferson was away from Monticello about two-thirds of the time; the Carr brothers were nearly always close at hand. The births of Hemings’s children always followed Jefferson’s visits by nine months. “Why could not Peter Carr or Samuel Carr get Sally Hemings pregnant when Thomas Jefferson was not at Monticello, not once in fifteen years?” Gordon-Reed asked. (The DNA results vindicated her. Foster tested the Carr Y, too. It didn’t match the Hemings blood.)
Gordon-Reed rested her case. Then she set about writing history. In “The Hemingses of Monticello,” she uses Madison Hemings’s memoir as the foundation for an elaborate reconstruction of an American epic, a century-long saga of the Hemings family, in slavery and freedom. She reasons from analogy. She speculates. She asks her reader to trust her knowledge of human nature. There’s no denying that a brick, here and there, could do with more mortar. Arguments from human nature can be persuasive, but when the wind blows they tend to totter. For one thing, “human nature” has a history; Enlightenment meditations on the subject, like David Hume’s 1739-40 “A Treatise of Human Nature,” surely influenced Jefferson’s views on race. (Hume wondered if blacks were less than fully human—“There scarcely ever was a civilized nation of that complexion, nor even any individual, eminent either in action or speculation”—because they could not make deductions.) For another, arguments from human nature are only as subtle and perceptive as the people who make them. Most of us are easily duped. “Error, Sir,” Laurence Sterne wrote in “Tristram Shandy” (one of Jefferson’s favorite books), “creeps in thro’ the minute holes, and small crevices, which human nature leaves unguarded.”
One measure of the boldness of Gordon-Reed’s reading of the evidence is Kevin J. Hayes’s “The Road to Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson” (Oxford; $34.95), a wide ranging and thoughtful biography of the sage of Monticello, by way of the books he bought and read. Hayes’s study, like Gordon-Reed’s, is the product of exhausting and illuminating research. But Hayes appears to have decided, early on, that Sally Hemings and her children had no role in, or influence on, the life and mind of Thomas Jefferson. In almost seven hundred pages, during which Hayes frequently comments on Jefferson’s private life—his Paris flirtation with Maria Cosway, for instance—the essence of what he has to say about Sally Hemings has to do with Callender’s 1802 report in the Richmond Recorder: “The story he published remains a part of the historical discourse and continues to fascinate the popular imagination.”
This kind of thing is discouraging. I guess I always figured that a man who carries on a secret, decades-long affair is not unaffected by the experience, whether or not there’s a memorial to him on the Washington Mall. It doesn’t define him. It doesn’t mean we should disinherit him. But it might have kept him up nights. If Gordon-Reed’s challenge is met, Thomas Jefferson is a man in need of a new biography. But first it’s the Hemingses’ turn.
“The Hemingses of Monticello” tells a family story, across the generations. Harriet Hemings had seven white great-grandparents; she was, in the idiom of the time, an “octoroon.” She was also, because of a precedent-defying seventeenth-century Virginia statute, Thomas Jefferson’s property. In 1655, a woman with an African mother and an English father successfully sued for her freedom by relying on English precedent, in which children inherit status from their father. Not long after, the House of Burgesses, eager to avoid another legal challenge, turned English law upside down, answering doubts about “whether children got by an Englishman upon a Negro woman should be slave or free” by reaching back to an archaic Roman rule, partus sequitur ventrem (you are what your mother was).
Generations passed. There was much begetting. In about 1735, Gordon-Reed recounts, an Englishman named Captain Hemings had sex with an enslaved “full-blooded African” whose name has not survived. She gave birth to a daughter. Hemings tried to buy the child, but her owner refused to sell, curious to see how the girl would turn out. Hemings hoped to steal her; he failed. In 1746, the girl, Elizabeth Hemings, was transferred to the plantation of an Englishman named John Wayles, when he married Martha Epps. (Hemings, who was about eleven years old, was part of the marriage settlement.) Wayles married three times; his first wife bore him a daughter, Martha, in 1748. After the death of his third wife, Wayles did not marry again. But, as Gordon-Reed relates, he did start having sex with Elizabeth Hemings, by whom he had six children, including a daughter, Sally, born in 1773. In 1772, Martha Wayles married Thomas Jefferson. After John Wayles’s death, the following year, Elizabeth Hemings and all of her children went to live at Monticello. In 1782, when Sally Hemings was still a child, Martha Jefferson died. Mrs. Jefferson, on her deathbed, extracted from her altogether bereft and nearly unmoored husband a promise that he would never remarry. In 1789, when sixteen-year-old Sally Hemings was living with forty-six-year-old Jefferson in Paris, she became pregnant. Madison Hemings said that the child “lived but a short time.” Woodson’s descendants claim that the boy grew up to be Thomas.
Gordon-Reed argues that Hemings made a deal with Jefferson. She knew that she could stay in Paris, where she would be free; slavery was illegal in France. She decided to return to Virginia because she missed her family. And Jefferson promised her that he would free all of her children when they reached the age of twenty-one. Maybe Hemings loved Jefferson; maybe he loved her, too. (In 1974, Fawn Brodie wrote a history supposing this to be the case, and more than one romance novel assumes the same.) Gordon-Reed knows that this question is important, since Jefferson and Hemings are more than people—they’re symbols, too. But symbols get you only so far. “The romance is not saying that they may have loved one another,” Gordon-Reed writes. “The romance is in thinking that it makes any difference if they did.”
Jefferson, the architect of our freedom, could not reckon slavery’s toll. “The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other,” he wrote in the early seventeen-eighties. “The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances.” Neither could Jefferson imagine his life, or the Union, freed of slavery, without bloodshed. “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.”
Moral impotence is a muffled, crippled agony. American sphinx? American Achilles.
Sally Hemings bore her last child in 1808, when she was about thirty-five. In 1815, the aging former President (who never admitted, publicly, anyway, that he was the father of Hemings’s children) wrote a letter in which he wrestled with a matter—a “mathematical problem”—that had long vexed him. Just how many “crossings” had to happen before a child with a full-blooded African ancestor could be called “white”?Let us express the pure blood of the white in the capital letters of the printed alphabet . . . and any given mixture of either, by way of abridgment in MS. letters. Let the first crossing be of a, a pure negro, with A, a pure white. The unit of blood of the issue being composed of the half of that of each parent, will be a/2 + A/2. Call it, for abbreviation, h (half blood).
The letter goes on for a while. Suffice it to say: b is the second crossing, q is a “quarteroon,” c is the third crossing. Let the third crossing be of q and C, their offspring will be q/2 + C/2 = a/8 + A/8 + B/4 + C/2, call this e (eighth), who having less than ¼ of a, or of pure negro blood, to wit 1/8 only, is no longer a mulatto, so that a third cross clears the blood.
To Thomas Jefferson, Harriet Hemings and her brothers were e. What more they meant to him probably does depend as much on your view of human nature as on the documentary record. After Harriet Hemings took a stagecoach to Philadelphia in 1822, she travelled on to the nation’s capital, where her brother Beverly lived as a white man. “She thought it to her interest, on going to Washington, to assume the role of a white woman,” said Madison Hemings, the only one of Sally Hemings’s children to remain part of the African-American community. She thought it to her interest. He seems never to have forgiven her. “I am not aware that her identity as Harriet Hemings of Monticello has ever been discovered,” Madison said. Finding her now would be difficult. “Harriet married a white man in good standing in Washington City, whose name I could give but will not.”
Truth isn’t always stranger than nineteenth-century fiction, but usually it’s less melodramatic. Thomas Jefferson’s daughter, if she was his daughter, didn’t leap to a watery grave. As late as the eighteen-sixties, years after “Clotel” was published, she was still alive, pursuing whatever liberty, and happiness, she could find, within plain sight of the White House, after all.

Book Review

2008-09-23T06:24:00.000-07:00

The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
by Annette Gordon-Reed
Norton, 798 pp., $35.00

Monticello in its present incarnation is an American showplace, the visible projection of its creator, Thomas Jefferson, architect, naturalist, diplomat, and president of the United States. Apart from Abraham Lincoln, who himself quoted Jefferson in the Gettysburg Address, no American ever wrote or said anything as eloquent as the preamble to the Declaration of Independence. Like Monticello, which was erected, redesigned on an ever grander scale, and rebuilt by fits and starts, the Jeffersonian ideal had no easy birth. It came into a world that midwived it with difficulty and was ill disposed to bless its growth or trust in its possibilities.
The Hemingses of Monticello is a brilliant book. It marks the author as one of the most astute, insightful, and forthright historians of this generation. Not least of Annette Gordon-Reed’s achievements is her ability to bring fresh perspectives to the life of a man whose personality and character have been scrutinized, explained, and justified by a host of historians and biographers. They have struggled to illuminate, and sometimes to gloss over, the dark places in his life. Like many upright public figures who know they are pure and their enemies vile, he was capable of deviousness and treachery. He instigated the savage attacks by the anti-Federalist National Gazette editor Philip Freneau on John Adams, once his fast friend, and was flummoxed rather than ashamed at being caught out paying Freneau to be his mouthpiece. Such actions gave rise in Jefferson biographies to characterizations like “enigma” and “sphinx.”

Jefferson’s private life, particularly the life he built at Monticello with the enslaved children and grandchildren of Elizabeth Hemings (1735–1807), was the focus of obsessive, often scurrilous, speculation. Jefferson observed a strict silence on this subject, an embargo that extended to his private papers, which were, moreover, culled by his white descendants to protect his secrets and to preserve his honor.
The target of these rumors and innuendos was Sally Hemings, lampooned by Jefferson’s enemies as “Black Sal.” The beautiful daughter of Elizabeth Hemings, she was sixteen when she became pregnant with Jefferson’s child while a member of his Paris household. She came back to Monticello in 1789 and lived with him until his death in 1826 in a monogamous spousal relationship. While the relationship was private, it can hardly be called furtive or clandestine. It could be called a closely held secret only in the special sense of the word prevailing within Virginia planter society. This was a realm of easy grace, punctilious courtesy, and grand display, where a couple of dozen “first” families, conscious of their mutual dependency and explicit about their dynastic ambitions, built a way of life whose business practices, legal developments, and political culture combined to maintain chattel slavery.
Being enslaved meant, with few exceptions, not only the lifetime of a particular slave but also the life spans of every child born into that bondage. The tortuous pathways by which American slavery arrived at that point by 1776 are in themselves a large branch of American history. Gordon-Reed sums up that history by observing that the first white Virginians harbored no “aspiration loftier than that of making a killing” in the advance of their fortunes. In the desperate conditions of seventeenth-century Virginia, making a pile depended on controlling a biddable labor force. And the further workings of that economic structure produced a caste system among Virginians based exclusively on race, “a form of chattel slavery unknown in their home country.”
What is important to the Hemings family’s story is the harsh and nearly inescapable nature of the “peculiar institution” in the time of Thomas Jefferson. Racial identification was its sine qua non, and specifically race as legislated by slave masters, whose primary goal was “the maximum protection of property rights—with little or no intervention by the state or other third parties.” The law of slavery meant that every facet of the Hemingses’ lives that might come to public notice was controlled by a legal system that was “a racket designed for the protection of whites.” “How,” Gordon-Reed asks, “does one begin to get at what was ‘real’ or ‘true’ in such a context?”
It was not slaves only who were caught in the web of this law. Every Virginian who lived in slavery or lived off of slavery had to soft-foot his or her way through a thicket of social fictions. The fictions were many, but the most romantic and far-fetched were the purity of white Southern womanhood and the inviolable sanctity of marriage and the family.
Consider how Sally Hemings came to be at Monticello in the first place. Her mother Elizabeth, the matriarch of a numerous and talented slave family, was the daughter of an English sea captain named Hemings, who had a liaison with an African slave belonging to Francis Eppes, a planter of good family. Elizabeth, born probably in 1735, was kept as a slave despite her father’s efforts to buy her, and eventually became the property of Eppes’s daughter Martha. John Wayles, who made his pile by brokering slave trades, was not as respectable as Eppes but good enough to marry Martha, in 1746. As often happened, Wayles managed to outlive her and two more wives. He then took Elizabeth Hemings to his bed, fathering six children with her, of whom the youngest was Sally. As also often happened, on Wayles’s death in 1773 a substantial part of his estate was his wealth in slaves, his children included, who duly passed to his widowed daughter, Martha Wayles Skelton. In 1772 she married a rising young member of the Virginia elite, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was already comfortably provided with money and lands, but marrying Martha, whose property became his to manage, significantly increased his wealth.
No one believes that dynastic succession was of huge importance to Jefferson. He married for love. But that marriage enmeshed him in a tangle of family relations that were difficult in his lifetime and have been controversial since. Of Martha Jefferson we can say little, for she “remains something of a cipher,” known chiefly by the encomia lavished on her by her husband and their descendants. Something we do know is that Martha Jefferson treated as family “her father’s slave mistress and the children they had together.” She seems to have acted out of love and loyalty, for there was ample pretext for female heads of planter households, as she became on her father’s death, to send away slaves whose presence was distressing. At least six of Elizabeth Hemings’s children were Martha’s half-siblings.
To modern eyes this was a strange household, one that exhibited a mosaic of bizarre relationships. The word is Gordon-Reed’s. After combing through more than a thousand sources to uncover the patterns of that mosaic, she concludes:
Slavery simply provided families in the South with many more ways to be bizarre than in regions where it never took hold or was abandoned early on. Fathers owning sons, brothers giving away brothers as wedding gifts, sisters selling their aunts, husbands having children with their wives and then their wives, enslaved half sisters, enslaved black children and their free little white cousins, living and playing together on the same plantation—things that by every measure violate basic notions of what modern-day people think family is supposed to be about.
All these things, including the cold business transactions, happened to the Hemingses. Even to call them a family requires an adjustment of our fundamental social assumptions. That they were, and remained, a cohesive family unit is one of Gordon-Reed’s major arguments. That cohesion, unrecognized in Virginia law, might be seen as the result of the fidelity and benevolence of Martha and Thomas Jefferson.
On the other hand, slavery was not only a social institution but an economic one. When one’s disposable wealth consisted largely of human chattels, it was these chattels who became commodities to be transferred to distant properties or sent to auction when economic necessity or “incorrigible” behavior threatened to upset the rich planter’s way of life. Jefferson was never comfortable selling slaves away from his plantations, but he did when he felt that he must, for example, to provide for his daughters, Polly and Patsy. “Between 1784 and 1794, he had either sold or given away as part of marriage settlements to his daughters and sister over one hundred people.”
In Richard Hildreth’s antislavery novel Archie Moore, the White Slave (1836), one of the yokels crowding around an auction block dismisses the aristocratic pretensions of “those first Virginia families,” because “they only live by eating their niggers.” Thomas Jefferson would have been horrified by such a coarse criticism. He was, seemingly, the opposite of the heartless and indolent slave owner held up to scorn by slavery’s opponents. Jefferson inveighed against the unfeeling, tyrannical attitudes of slaveholders in Notes on the State of Virginia (1785), his earliest and perhaps most baffling statement on perpetual servitude and race. He was known to detest brutality and harsh treatment of “the people,” as the workforce was called. Whatever went on under the overseers and drivers of the outlying “quarter farms,” at Monticello the rule was beneficence, especially toward the Hemingses.
Much has been made of the master’s distaste for scenes, of his shrinking from conflict. But Gordon-Reed, like biographers before her, points out how possessive and controlling Jefferson was. As in his white family, “Jefferson’s pattern of dealing with the enslaved people closest to him” was to work on “their emotions as a way of extracting the behavior he wanted, doing things to make them feel bound and grateful to him, rather than being directly coercive.” It was as natural as breathing for Jefferson to prefer wheedling to whipping. Sentimentality about their condition shored up his craving for personal loyalty, and he was apt to muffle indications of resentment.
Nonetheless, coercion, however wrapped up it was, underlay the slave system. In private relations, such patriarchal power is not easy to distinguish from despotism. Ivy Compton-Burnett made a literary career of dissecting those relations, particularly the domestic life of those with inherited wealth occupying country houses staffed with servants whose cohabitation with their masters produced perverse alliances. Her icy colloquies laid bare the underpinnings of authority: “You are in a beautiful place.... It must be wonderful to have power, and use it with moderation and cruelty. We can so seldom be admired and self-indulgent at the same time.”
Jefferson kept the cruelty of slavery out of sight, down the hill, but he was nothing if not self-indulgent. His self-indulgence contributed greatly to a way of life that was much admired and talked about. Even when he was castigating himself for profligate spending, he was compiling long shopping lists of articles de luxe. If he was uncomfortable selling slaves at all, he did not like to part with Hemingses in particular, for they were themselves an indulgence, people he exempted from cruder tasks in order to keep him company and to make Monticello a showcase of his version of slavery and its benevolence. He disposed of their time and labor according to the needs of himself or his white children and their husbands. The chronic debtor has many needs.
Benevolence required him to identify the Hemingses’ special talents, give those talents full scope, and set them up in appropriate trades. Goodwill aside, in Gordon-Reed’s interpretation it was Jefferson’s needs and preconceptions that governed. “Once he took ownership of them, the process of shaping all the Hemingses to suit his aims only intensified.” John Hemings was selected to be a maker of furniture in the joinery that was such a point of pride to his master.[*] Robert Hemings was trained as a barber. James Hemings, and then his brother Peter, became chefs of a high order. The famously irascible Martin Hemings—he saw Colonel Banastre Tarleton’s troopers off the premises when they came to plunder Monticello during the Revolution—and headstrong Robert served, variously, as valets, coach drivers, and butlers.
As to their sisters, Jefferson “constructed the Hemings women along more traditional European feminine lines” by refusing to let them do fieldwork, by dressing them in finer stuffs than the field hands, and by “marrying” them to slaves of equal stature or condoning their relationships to “high-status white males or white workers at the plantation.” It was his nature to be openhanded, and he needed to be surrounded by affable folk happy in their work and conscious of their good fortune. Surrounded is the key word here, for Jefferson was accustomed from infancy to being cosseted by black people who stood in for his closest white relatives. Inhabiting “a cocoon...spun out of family relations,” Jefferson was exceptionally good at constructing social relations that fulfilled his ideals of fidelity and felicity.
Fidelity and felicity were the themes of the married life of Thomas and Martha Jefferson. When she died, he was utterly undone. It is said, and there is no reason to doubt it, that the happy intimacy of this marriage was so nearly complete that he promised Martha to take no wife in her place. And to that he held.
Keeping this promise by no means condemned Jefferson to a solitary or sexless existence. The relationship he had with Sally Hemings was not, as might be imagined, a common-law marriage. It was no marriage at all. It was, as Gordon-Reed explains, concubinage, a widely practiced surrogate for marriage that provided the comforts and conveniences of wedded life while withholding some of its most important protections. Like so many other features of slavery, concubinage was a way of having something that white men desired, without undermining the controls that made society work. The development of legal doctrines that ran counter to those of Western Europe and England afforded slaveholders in America protections unavailable to their counterparts elsewhere.
The children of such liaisons had no legal means of escape unless they were set free. In the time of Sally Hemings, formal emancipation had become more difficult. That it was not impossible is shown by the example of Robert Carter, a Virginian who set all his slaves free, nearly five hundred of them, beginning in 1791. Some slaves managed to slip the bonds of slavery by surreptitiously entering the white world, with or without the connivance of their relatives and neighbors. Their success depended largely on the lightness of their skin and on their skill in avoiding questions about their status. Elizabeth Hemings’s children and grandchildren looked more white than not, and some of them left their black identities behind. The “white slave” (often described as a descendant of Jefferson) was a staple of antislavery literature and iconography.
As Jefferson’s lover, Sally Hemings was not without power when the liaison began during Jefferson’s residence in Paris. Living in a part of the city where black servants were numerous, Sally and her brother James learned French. It was common knowledge that slaves could sue for their freedom in the French admiralty courts. The only record that gives us direct insight into Sally’s relationship with her master comes from her son, Madison Hemings. It deserves careful study:
But during that time my mother became Mr. Jefferson’s concubine, and when he was called back home she was enceinte by him. He desired to bring my mother back to Virginia with him, but she demurred. She was just beginning to understand the French language well, and in France she was free, while if she returned to Virginia she would be re-enslaved. So she refused to return with him. To induce her to do so he promised her extraordinary privileges, and made a solemn pledge that her children should be freed at the age of twenty-one years. In consequence of his promise, on which she implicitly relied, she returned with him to Virginia.
Sally Hemings bore Jefferson six children. That is established as fact, though it has been the subject of hot dispute. She was seventeen when she gave birth to the first, at Monticello, to which she had returned trusting that her lover would keep his word concerning the baby and any other children who followed it into the world. It is easily seen that what Jefferson gave Sally was a bare promise, not enforceable at law. As for the “extraordinary privileges,” what did they amount to? We know, based on recent scholarship, that American slavery was not a frozen, totalitarian institution. Life within slavery was bounded and regulated, often with severity, but within those bounds slaves could negotiate certain conditions of work, travel, shelter, diet, and association with other slaves. It is entirely plausible that the Hemings most cherished by Jefferson, knowing she could refuse his proposition, exacted inducements. Not among them, apparently, was her own freedom. If freedom was ever within her grasp, did she bargain it away? If so, she didn’t explain why to her son Madison.
Many things about Sally Hemings’s life must remain unknown. One of the stranger things about her children is their naming. All bore the surname Hemings, but their other names (what used to be called the Christian and family names) reflected their father’s choices. For a man who did curious things, naming his illegitimate sons after Virginia notables is one of the oddest, especially when none were given the Christian-and-family combination of “Thomas Jefferson.” Perhaps the answer lies in the terms of the “solemn pledge.” Anticipating their emancipation, they were to be brought up to embody the best that men could be. And should be named accordingly? When we consider their father’s settled beliefs about mixed-race offspring born in slavery, would being styled after gentlemen actually matter?
Among the unknowns is the related question of why, even if Jefferson could not remarry and must settle for a concubine, it was so important to him to structure his arrangement with Sally as he did. It was not unheard of for slave owners in public life to acknowledge their mixed-race children. Richard M. Johnson, a war hero who became vice-president under Martin Van Buren, lived openly with Julia Chinn, a slave he inherited, and went on to present their daughters to white society in Kentucky. Any ambitions he harbored for higher office were wrecked by these breaches of convention. In this Johnson can be seen as more courageous than Jefferson, or more recklessly self-deluding. Like so many questions concerning the sage of Monticello, credible conjectures come up against contradictions of opinion and character.
If Jefferson’s wife was “a cipher,” known mainly through anecdotes and the domestic lore of those who loved her, is this equally true of Jefferson’s concubine? This is not a book whose primary aim is to recreate Sally Hemings through direct or indirect testimony. Gordon-Reed’s book is about both the family to which she belonged and the fabled place that they helped to build. Making that home was intensely satisfying to its owner, who wasn’t afraid of hard work. For the rest of its builders, it was labor on a scale that can only be called monumental.
No one who has seen the mansion of today, which combines the attributes of a historical shrine and a trophy house, can imagine what it was like for its architect and its builders (principally slaves) to live in a perpetual construction site on the brow of a mountain whose peak they had shoveled and hauled away in buckets and wheelbarrows. Far from being abashed at Monticello’s lack of amenities and exposure to the elements, its creator enjoyed tossing off lines like “Architecture is my delight, and putting up, and pulling down, one of my favorite amusements.” When Jefferson was not showing off the place to visitors, he liked to demonstrate the clever and thrifty operations of the estate’s agricultural and manufacturing operations. Notwithstanding Jefferson’s reverence for the doughty yeoman farmer, manufacturing offered him a way to fabricate things for present use and, moreover, things that would sell.
One of his most hopeful schemes was the Monticello nail factory. Before the invention of the metal screw few things were as necessary to building, especially building in wood, the universal material of a richly forested America, as the common nail. Nails had to be made by hand from rods of iron and as such were expensive commodities. This being Monticello, the nail factory had to be both industrial operation and character-building experiment. Any serious woodworker can tell you that the grinding, repetitious milling, and sizing of lumber is endured for the sake of creating something. Making nails six days a week was all grind and repetition, without any creative payoff.
One cannot doubt that Jefferson made himself master of the process and could turn out a goodly keg of nails as fast as anyone. But his part in the factory consisted of seeing that it was set up to run with efficiency and choosing the “dozen little negro boys 10. to 16. years of age” who would meet his production quotas while absorbing an ethic of industry and emulation guaranteed to shape their grownup lives. It was not race alone that consigned these boys to the nailery. White boys of the same age could expect to work twelve-hour days setting type, driving horses, making bricks, or splitting logs. In time of war they might serve as teamsters, officers’ servants, or drummers. The playful youngster looking on while his or her mother stirred the lye vat was not allowed to remain a spectator for long.
That many of the nail-makers were also blood relatives of Jefferson’s daughters is but one of the facts that underscores Gordon-Reed’s characterization of life under slavery as bizarre. Since they lived in what was a mainly hand-made world, their knowing how to make nails was a way of ensuring that they would always be in work. Visiting the factory and thinking up ways to make the work go quicker and better, with less waste, enabled Jefferson the manufacturer to keep an eye to profit, while doing good. If the nailery made little profit in the long run, it was not for want of trying.
Life at Monticello, then, went its way according to the dictates of a master who regarded himself as enlightened. While the majority of the mountain’s inhabitants were enslaved black people, the whites were expected to behave with the decency of the man at their head. The government and economy of Monticello was slavery, but it was conceived as an ameliorated form of slavery. It was a system intended to allow a degree of autonomy and self-respect, a freedom of movement and occupation, and other aspects of a nonenslaved existence. Was this liberty, or a sort of halfway house for the few slaves who could aspire eventually to live as free men? Thomas Huxley once observed that one does not liberate a slave by scraping the rust from his shackles. Jefferson would probably have dismissed the remark as an ignorant jest mouthed by a cynic. Not for all black slaves, but at least for a number of males with claims of kinship, he aimed to dignify their existence by removing the more obnoxious marks of servility.
Precisely because he was so civilized, Jefferson never exhibited feelings of personal guilt about owning human beings. He worried aloud about the despotic temperament slavery imparted to the children of slave owners but left no record of what he imagined it did to slave children. When he thought about ridding Virginia of slavery, he was more concerned about making Virginia white than about making it free. As a young lawyer he had undertaken to represent a slave suing for his freedom. As a young statesman he enunciated the core principles of the freedom that he held to be the birthright of all men. However, a bill he proposed to the Virginia legislature in the 1770s would have required emancipated slaves and mulatto children of a white woman to leave the state. The legislature rejected this measure, but in later years Jefferson expanded his vision of a white Virginia to a white United States. When the American Colonization Society was founded in 1817 with that objective, Jefferson was skeptical. Buying slaves off cooperative masters and talking those slaves into making a new life in Liberia was for him a nonstarter.
Still, two years before his death in 1826 he spelled out a proposal that he must have known to be fanciful. He wanted the national government to buy all slaves, in effect confiscating them, when they would be shipped out to form a free nation of their own in Africa. At a cost he calculated at $900 million, the United States would gain security by ridding itself of the black menace that flourished within it. In insisting that slaves and the freedmen who lived near the margins of slavery posed a grave threat of violent insurrection, Jefferson voiced the worst fears of slaveholders while declaring himself unable to see any way out, short of deporting more than a million people.
That Jefferson proposed this as the solution to a problem he believed to be insoluble is a measure of his profound uneasiness with the racial divide. The existence of that divide had driven the growth and form of slavery in America, an institution from which Jefferson derived most of the benefits that made his life worth living but which he persisted in describing as a monstrous growth engrafted onto free institutions.
We have seen Jefferson as a hardworking man who, moreover, valued labor in and of itself. In this he is best compared to Benjamin Franklin, for whom “jack of all trades” meant master of most. Both men were fascinated by how things work. With Jefferson, though, his drive to understand complex machines and to master difficult processes amounted to an obsession. Measuring, tinkering, contriving, imagining, and reimagining: these were the hallmarks of an engineering mind. But the engineering did not stop at labor-saving devices, revolving chairs, or triple-glazed windows. In a fashion that is both admirable and perplexing, Jefferson was a man who contrived an entire way of life, and to the extent possible, everything within it. Monticello was a separate sphere, the projection of an exceptional heart and mind. Only a man as driven and ingenious as Jefferson could have reworked slavery into the form it took at Monticello. But human beings are not drive gears, and human institutions are not steam engines. Slavery within Jefferson’s domains could be modified and freed of some of its constraints. It remained slavery. More, it remained racial slavery, and race was the tragic complexity that the mind and the will of a Jefferson could not construct to be something else.
This, in brief, is the story that Annette Gordon-Reed has drawn from thousands of documents and the vast scholarship of the historians who preceded her. While praising her grasp of the sources, her legal acuity, her erudition, and the stylishness of her nar- rative, it remains to be said that her great achievement lies in telling this story. Because it is one of the stories that really matter.

Early Artisans & Mechanics of Petersburg Virginia

2008-07-12T20:35:00.000-07:00

Writing a book entitled, "The Early Artisans & Mechanics of Petersburg Virginia, 1752-1860," would be happy to exchange data collected thus far, with anyone researching an ancestor who was either an artisan or mechanic in early Petersburg, such as a blacksmith, stonecutter, tanner, cabinetmaker, wheelwright, potter, physician, druggist, watermen, weaver, silversmith, watchmaker, gunsmith, saddler, soap & candle maker, wig maker, publisher, artist, book-binder, printer, lawyer, playwright, poet, rope maker, etc.... would welcome all additional data; seagraver@hughes.net Due out early 2009.

Hiram Haines' Mountain Buds and Blossoms

2008-07-08T20:18:00.000-07:00

Wanted

Hiram Haines' book entitled,

Mountain Buds and Blossoms, Wove in a Rustic Garland.

Please Email me if you have a copy you would like to sell.

seagraver@hughes.net

Colonial Craftsman's Faire

2008-04-24T14:56:00.000-07:00

Colonial Craftsman's Faire
at
Endview Plantation
May 17 - 18, 2008

Williamsburg area - Newport News, VA
Region: Tidewater and Hampton Roads Locality: Williamsburg City
Endview Plantation - 362 Yorktown Road - Newport News, VA 23603

COLONIAL CRAFTSMAN’S FAIRE at ENDVIEW PLANTATION - A May Fair

On May 17 & 18, 2008, the Endview Plantation lawn will be transformed into a Colonial Craftsman’s Faire. Living history reenactors of the Revolutionary War period will join with Master Craftsmen who will demonstrate in colonial costume, creating & selling their Collector & Gift Quality reproductions of colonial American wares. Many of this elite group of craftsmen rank in the “Top 200 Traditional Craftsman in America”, as juried yearly by Early American Life Magazine in conjunction with jurors from the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum, The Museum of American Folk Art, Old Sturbridge Village & Mystic Village. You have read about these tradesmen in other magazines such as Southern Living, Colonial Homes, Country Living,, Old House Journal, etc. and they regularly exhibit in prestigious shows. Now come and meet them in person! The publisher of Early American Life Magazine, Tess Rosch and the editor, Jeanmarie Andrews will be on hand to meet you at the Faire.

Some of the craftsmen are traveling from many states away. You will find furnituremakers Gary & Carol Carter & Joseph McPhail, Queen Ann dollmaker Susan Paris, painted canvas floorcloths by Sharan J. Mason, pewtermakers Tom & Pat Hooper of ASL Pewter, windsor chairmakers Ralph Quick & Brian Cunfer, blacksmith Kelly Smyth, Weaver Jain Faires, "Folk Art" paintings by Marc Daniels, coppersmith Tom Linebaugh brings lighting, traditional redware by Sue Skinner, Joe Jostas & Richard Nippert, theorems by Nancy Rosier, furniture accessories by Roger Mason, silversmith Jeffrey Jobe, Celtic goldsmith R.E. Piland, 17th-19th Century clothing by Janet Platz, Dolls by Shari Lutz, paper baskets by Kathleen Cunfer, Early Birdhouses by Mike & Karen Ratcliffe, dried florals by Sherry & John Jaunsem, & more!

18th Century Ladies Fashion presentations on Sat. & Sun ~ 18th Century period music & by Williamsburg "balladeer" Cliff Williams ~ Dr. Bloodsworth, 18th Century doctor will be available to see patients

Family fun~food~door prizes.

John Quarstein, Hampton Roads author/historian will sign his books. Revolutionary War reenactors bring this 1769 rural Virginia plantation to life by exhibiting family camplife & military drills.

We will be holding a “food drive” to benefit the Food Bank of the
Peninsula. More information about how to participate in the Food Bank
drive, receive admission discounts and a schedule of events is available
on our website: www.ColonialFaire.com
Email: info@colonialfaire.com

Admission Fee: Fair $6 ~House $3 12/under "free”
Saturday, May 17, 2008 (10:00 AM-5:00 PM) Sunday, May 18, 2008 (10:00
AM-4:00 PM)
Endview Plantation: (757) 887-1862 - Colonial Craftsman's Faire: (757) 484-0872

17th annual Revolutionary War Reenactment of the 1781 Battle of Petersburg

2008-04-06T11:56:00.000-07:00

Battersea
Battersea Lane and Upper Appomattox St.
Petersburg, VA 23803

The 17th annual Revolutionary War Reenactment of the 1781 Battle of Petersburg will take place at Battersea to commemorate that battle which was part of America's fight for it's independence. There will be colonial dance demonstrations, vendors, sutlers, childrens activities, tours of Battersea, a military hospital display, morning and afternoon skirmishes and much more. The 1781 Battle of Petersburg Reenactment will take place each afternoon at an announced time. A memorial wreath-laying ceremony will be held commemorating the British and American forces that took part in the Battle of Petersburg. This event is sponsored by the City of Petersburg and the Department of Museums.

Date/Hours:
Saturday, April 19, 2008 - Sunday, April 20, 2008 (9:00 AM-5:00 PM)

Admission Fee: FREE

Children Welcome

Telephone:
Petersburg Visitors Center: (800) 368-3595
Petersburg Visitors Center: (804) 733-2400

Violet Bank sits atop Archer's Hill looking towards Blandford & Petersburg

2008-03-18T12:14:00.000-07:00

Violet Bank is an architecturally sophisticated Federal-style plantation dependency, built on the banks of the Appomattox River in 1815. Noteworthy architectural features of this unusual one-story house include three-part bays, intricate woodwork and elaborate plaster ceilings. The plasterwork, some of the finest Federal plaster ornamentation in Virginia, is based on the designs of Asher Benjamin's American Builder's Companion (1806), an architectural pattern book widely used by Virginia builders. Asher Benjamin's designs also provided inspiration for detailing found nearby at Magnolia Grange and Battersea. Violet Bank was never a bank, but was proably so name for poetic reasons..
The first house at this site was built by Thomas Shore, burned shortly after construction, and was rebuilt by Shore's widow, Jane Grey, and her second husband Henry Haxall. The unusual three-part bays indicate that Shore may have been inspired by noted architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe, who visited Shore in 1796 during construction of the first house. Latrobe inspired the designs of several Richmond townhouses, that also feature three-part bays.
General Robert E. Lee used the house for his headquarters from June through November of 1864 and was in residence when he learned of the explosion created by Union forces that resulted in a 135-foot wide crater and killed around 300 Confederate soldiers, part of the long siege of Petersburg. Following the Civil War, Violet Bank was repeatedly subdivided until it was reduced to a single lot in 1919. The house served as the home of the Colonial Heights Post No. 284 of the American Legion from 1947 until 1959. Now operated as a house museum, it features a collection of Civil War artifacts, as well as a collection of furniture dating from 1815 to 1873, textiles and ceramics.

Violet Bank is located at 303 Virginia Ave. east of U.S. Rte. 1 in Colonial Heights. It is open Tuesday-Saturday from 10:00am to 5:00pm, and Sunday from 1:00pm to 6:00pm. Please call 804-520-9395 or visit www.colonial-heights.com/RecVioletBank.htm for further information. Violet Bank has also been documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey .

Legislative Petitions Database

2008-03-06T17:01:00.000-08:00

The Library of Virginia is pleased to announce the completion of theLegislative Petitions Database. Over 25,000 petitions were entered into the database between 2001 and 2007 and are available to search through the Library of Virginia's website at http://www.lva.lib.va.us/whatwehave/gov/petitions/

Petitions to the General Assembly were the primary catalyst for legislation in the Commonwealth from 1776 until 1865. Public improvements, military claims, divorce, manumission of slaves, division of counties, incorporation oftowns, religious freedom, and taxation were just some of the concernsexpressed in these petitions. The petitions often contain hundreds of signatures and are a useful tool in genealogical research. Frequently,the petitions contain supplementary support documents useful inresearch, including maps, wills, naturalizations, deeds, resolutions,affidavits, judgments, and other items.The database lists the name of the primary petitioner(s), locality, dateof presentation, description, reel number, box number, and folder number. In addition, each petition has been assigned one or more topics for indexing purposes. The petitions have been assigned with the following topics: Agriculture / Livestock / Farming; Appropriations/ Salary Increases; Banks & Banking; Bridges; Canals; Charters / Incorporations; Churches / Religious Issues; Citizenship / Naturalizations; Commerce;Constitutional Conventions; Courts/Judicial System; Division of County / New County; Divorce; Elections; Ferries / Packets; Fishing/Oyster Industry; Free Negroes; Indians; Land/Real Estate; Manufacturers / Manufacturing Companies; Militia / Public Guard; Mining / Mining Companies; Miscellaneous; Name Changes; Navigation / Navigation Companies; Organizations; Paper Money;Pardons/Release from Fines, Judgments, etc; Private Relief / Compensation; Prohibition / Temperance; Railroads / Railroad Companies; Revenue / Taxation; Roads/Turnpike Companies; Schools/Universities; Slaves / Slavery; Tobacco Inspection / Industry; Towns; War Claims/Pensions; and Wills / Administrations.

2009 Sesquicentennial Anniversary of Abolitionist John Brown’s Raid

2008-03-05T17:47:00.003-08:00

HARPERS FERRY — Four states and four counties have begun preparations to commemorate the 2009 sesquicentennial anniversary of abolitionist John Brown’s raid on the arsenal at Harpers Ferry. On the evening of Oct. 16, 1859, Brown led a group of abolitionists on a six-mile march from the Kennedy Farm in Washington County, Md., across the railroad bridge into Harpers Ferry and seized control of the town in order to steal weapons from the old federal armory so they could be used in the cause against slavery. But because a passing train reached Frederick, Md., a telegram notifying the army of the attack enabled soldiers to respond before Brown could accomplish his goal. He was later hanged in Charles Town for his attack. “The most important historical event that has ever occurred in Jefferson County and in Harpers Ferry was the John Brown raid,” said Bob DuBose, a former member of the Harpers Ferry Town Council and current board member of the Historic Town Foundation. Most historians believe the raid and reactions to it galvanized the nation and helped spark the Civil War. What was going on in Dinwiddie County & Petersburg during Sept. & Oct. 1859?

Historic Prince William County

2008-02-28T06:21:00.000-08:00

Historic Prince William, in partnership with the Prince William County Public Schools, will host a local history forum highlighting recent primary research and offering field trips.

Forum will be held on Saturday, March 8, 2008 at Forest Park High School near Dumfries (15721 Forest Park Dr. Woodbridge, VA 22193). There is no cost to attend. The now-annual Virginia Forum was the inspiration for this county-specific event. Both forums offer an opportunity for exchanges of ideas among scholars, teachers, archivists, librarians, museum curators, and all those interested in Virginia history, environment, and culture.

Keynote speaker will be Virginia historian Brent Tartar from the Library of Virginia, talking about "Billys, Botts, and Brents: Prince William as the Center of the World." He is author of numerous publications, one of the editors of the ever-expanding Dictionary of Virginia Biography, and "wise sage" on this VA-HIST listserver.

Free registration at Forest Park High School starts at 8:15am on March 8. Morning talks and panel presentations will run from 9:00am-11:30am. Local museums and organizations will offer displays in the lobby throughout the program.Morning topics include:

Slavery and Slave Holding in Prince William County: A comparison between 1810 and 1860
The History of Ownership at LaGrange
From the Courthouse to the Web: Digitizing the Prince William County Chancery Records
Elk Run Anglican Church Site Project: Uncovering a 250-year old Church Site
Buckland: Prince William County's First Inland Port
"It Ain't Necessarily So:" "The Shelter" and the discrepancies between family lore and public record
Moor Green: Discovering the Past & Preserving for the Future
Teaching about Prince William County HistoryAfter lunch (provided at no cost), the afternoon will be dedicated to historical tours of Liberia and the Manassas Museum.

Buses will return everyone to Forest Park High School by 3:30pm.

For more information, please see www.historicprincewilliam.org- Charlie Grymescgrymes@gmu.edu703.577.1740

Bush Family' Slave-holding Past

2008-02-19T12:09:00.000-08:00

Was their dynasty built on slavery?
By Edward Ball

The image most people have of slavery involves a cotton plantation with a big white house, a black village where 300 people live in cabins and a cruel overseer in the wings. This was not the model followed by the ancestors of President George W. Bush when, 175 years ago, they enslaved about 30 people on the shores of the upper Chesapeake.
It is an apt time to contemplate the link between slavery and the White House. This week President Bush is in the midst of a six-day trip to Africa, his second tour of the continent. He will visit several countries - including Benin, Ghana, and Liberia - from which the United States once drew slaves. That the trip falls on either side of President's Day, which honors statesmanship in the White House, makes the occasion all the more fitting. The moment is mature for the president to speak about slavery, especially given his personal connection to slavery's legacy.
A new book by Jacob Weisberg, The Bush Tragedy, mentions in passing that at one time some of the president's family owned slaves. Weisberg doesn't dwell on the links between the White House and the antebellum past except to say the Bush clan's story is a long-held "family secret." The Bush Tragedy, a revealing book about family dynamics in the Bush political dynasty, treats the slavery matter only briefly, focusing instead on the "spectacular, avoidable flame-out" of the receding administration. But the story that joins the 43rd president to predecessors who held title to dozens of people bears retelling in detail.
The skeletal facts surfaced in April 2007, when an amateur historian named Robert Hughes published his research in the IllinoisTimes, a small paper out of Springfield. Hughes found census records showing that during the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, in Cecil County, Maryland, five households of the Walker family, the president's ancestors via his father's mother, Dorothy Walker Bush, had been slaveholding farmers. The evidence is simple but persuasive: genealogies of the Bush family match up with census data that counted farmers who used enslaved workers. With this, the president joins perhaps fifteen million living white Americans who trace their roots to the long-gone master class.
It's not as though the president is the only politician whose family owned slaves. Of the first eighteen presidents, from George Washington to Ulysses Grant, twelve owned people, eight of them while in office. At one time, Andrew Jackson was even a slave trader. Since Emancipation in 1865, a number of presidents have come from families that once contained slave masters. Even the current presidential hopefuls are likely to have slave owners among their ancestors. The descendants of slaveholders do not wear special tattoos or announce themselves in secret handshakes, but most know who they are.
The tragic story of America's slave days inspires disabling levels of fear among whites and anger among blacks. Probably neither the 43rd president nor his father, the 41st, possesses the introspection needed to grasp the relationship between the Bush family's slaveholding past and its present circumstances without escaping into defensiveness. Still, President Bush has talked about slavery from several microphones, most memorably in a 2003 speech on Gorée Island, one of the "slave castles" in West Africa from which captive youth and children were dispatched to the Americas. Speechwriters likely supplied the words on that occasion when the president said, "slavery was one of the greatest crimes of history." But the words fell short of an accounting by the White House for America's role in the Middle Passage, and they came before the revelation of the Bush family's own link to the slave past.
As for the African Americans in this tale, the Walker family slaves, neither names nor biographical details about them have survived. According to the genealogist who uncovered the records, Robert Hughes, the census accounts show that they lived at four different farms in Cecil County, Maryland, on a string of land called Sassafras Neck, which separates two slender rivers that empty into upper Chesapeake Bay. There, in 1790, William and Sarah Davis, direct ancestors of the president, owned seven people, while another branch of the family owned five. Twenty years later, in 1810, a third couple in the president's ancestral clan were counted as masters to eighteen people. The last appearance of the family as slaveholders of record comes in 1830, when George E. and Harriet Walker, great-great-great grandparents of President George W. Bush, owned 321 acres and two slaves, a female between 10 and 24 and a male between 24 and 36. The namelessness of the slaves is the fault of the so-called slave schedules used in the census, which called for nothing more than approximate ages.
With their small farms, the Walkers and their cousins did not belong to the class of oligarchs, whose vast plantations held scores or hundreds of workers. I've looked, and there were dynasties in Cecil County, places like Cherry Grove, former residence of a Maryland governor, and Mt. Harmon, a vast tobacco estate with a Georgian mansion. The president's forebears probably saw themselves as little people in competition with these fat-cat neighbors.
Still, all slaveholders were also slave traders. The president's family had to avail themselves of a slave auction on at least two occasions: initially, to buy people, and later, when a Walker farm failed, to sell some of the same people, much the way a stockholder liquidates an investment. No story has surfaced about how it happened, but in the mid-1830s, it appears that George E. Walker, the president's third great-grandfather, lost his land. After that, in 1838, he packed his family into a wagon and went west, settling in southern Illinois on a homestead near the town of Bloomington. It is from this branch of migrants that the current Bush clan descends.
Since the Walkers, in effect, declared bankruptcy, and there is no evidence they kept slaves after 1838, it is difficult to follow a money trail from the family's commercial stake in slavery to the White House. However, before he took his family west, it's likely that George Walker sold the people he owned, handing them off to a speculating slave dealer; thereby financing the family's fresh start in Illinois. Things get worse when you contemplate the probable circumstances. In the 1830s, the old tobacco economy of Maryland and Virginia was waning, while the new king, cotton, had caused Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia to boom. The tobacco states were selling tens of thousands of slaves to the cotton states, and sending these people south. It is quite possible the Walker slaves were marched 500 miles from Maryland to Alabama to end up on a giant cotton plantation, where the work regime - large crews on vast, unshaded fields - was crueler than the one they'd left behind.
The Walkers eventually quit farming and made a fortune as dry goods wholesalers in Missouri; later, they made another as investment bankers in New York. Nearly all the Bush/Walker family money dates from this more recent period, after the Civil War.
The family, nevertheless, seems to have looked back with nostalgia on their old slave hold. There are two pieces of evidence for this. In The Bush Tragedy, Jacob Weisberg refers to one of the later patriarchs, David Walker, as "a believer in eugenics and the 'unwritten law' of lynching," and cites as proof a letter Walker published in the St. Louis Republic in 1914. Black people, he wrote at the time, were more insidious than prostitution and "all the other evils combined."
The second piece of evidence is within living memory. In 1930, when they could afford it, the family again embraced the antebellum lifestyle. That year President Bush's great-grandfather, George Herbert Walker, bought Duncannon plantation, an old cotton estate in South Carolina, to use as a hunting retreat and vacation home. His namesake, George Herbert Walker Bush, the current president's father, spent many youthful vacations on Duncannon, where teams of black cooks, valets, and drivers served him and opened doors when he approached. The Bush heirs no longer own Duncannon plantation; but for a time, the estate provided a version of the baronial life, to which the antebellum Walkers aspired, but never achieved.
The heirs of slaveholders are not responsible for the past; but in a better world, they would be accountable for that past. They would make an effort to deal with the slave story, talk about it, and try to come to terms with it.
At present the Bush political dynasty seems to be dying in misrule, finished off by a president who, as Weisberg writes, is "driven by family demons, overflowing with confidence, and lacking any capacity for self-knowledge." The Bush clan may not be capable of reckoning personally with the tragic inheritance of the slave days. But this week, on a state visit, the president sets foot in three countries that sent hundreds of thousands of captives to America. Today, some of the tens of millions of descendants of those captives want a White House that is accountable. In West Africa President Bush has a superb opportunity, like one presented to a physician attending a wound. A sound physician would chose instinctively to apply medicine, not simply turn away in denial and neglect.

Edward Ball is the author of Slaves in the Family and, most recently, The Genetic Strand.

URL: http://www.theroot.com/id/44844

An African Republic by Marie Tyler-McGraw

2008-02-04T10:01:00.000-08:00

Marie Tyler-McGraw will discuss and sign copies of her new book, An African Republic, on Thursday, February 7, 2008, at noon at the Library of Virginia.

An African Republic traces the parallel but divergent tracks of black and white Virginians’ interest in African colonization. She follows the experiences of the emigrants from Virginia to Liberia, where some became the leadership class, consciously seeking to demonstrate black abilities, while others found greater hardship and early death. The 19th century American Colonization Society (ACS) project of persuading all American free blacks to emigrate to the ACS colony of Liberia could never be accomplished. Few free blacks volunteered, and greater numbers would have overwhelmed the meager resources of the ACS. No state was more involved with the project than Virginia, where white Virginians provided much of the political and organizational leadership and black Virginians provided a majority of the emigrants.

Valentine Richmond History Center

2008-01-29T06:21:00.000-08:00

Tell Me Where You're Marching, Tell Me Where You're Bound
Photography of former slave trade sites by Guest Curator and Photographer Shanna Merola

OPENING RECEPTION: February 1st ♦ 6:00-9:00 p.m. ♦ Free and open to the public.

EXHIBIT TALK: February 10th ♦ 2:00-3:00 p.m. ♦ Free w/ History Center admission $10

In its continuing commitment to presenting history through art, the Valentine Richmond History Center presents "Tell Me Where You're Marching, Tell Me Where You're Bound," original photography by Shanna Merola. While photographing pre-Civil War sites around Richmond, Merola discovered that many of the structures used during the city’s slave trade have been erased from the landscape, with few markers to indicate their historical significance. With a pinhole camera, she captured images of the Manchester Docks, Lumpkin’s Jail, and the Negro Burial Ground or, rather, the asphalt parking lots and empty fields that now cover these landmarks. Merola will exhibit her work alongside related objects from the Valentine Richmond History Center collection.

ADMISSION: $10 ($5 for members). EXHIBITION DATES: January 31-August 31, 2008.

GALLERY HOURS: Tues.-Sat. 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.; Sun. 12:00-5:00 p.m. Closed Mon.

Robert Clark, Slave to Livery Stable Owner

2008-01-25T18:35:00.001-08:00

Robert Clark began with little capital and even less experience. After working in a hotel and saving enough to purchase his freedom, he opened a livery stable, which eventually became the most popular establishment of its kind in the town of Petersburg. By 1860, he possessed a total
estate of $9,000, including $5,000 worth of real estate.

Source: Jackson, Fm Ntpu Labw and Property Hokliw, 9711, 156; USMSPC, Dinwiddie Co.,
Va., Petersburg, East Ward, 1860, p. 199.

"Pick and Shovels" - Fortifications in the Siege of Petersburg

2008-01-23T05:43:00.000-08:00

"Picks and Shovels" - Fortifications in the Siege of Petersburg

Saturday, February 2nd

The Petersburg National Battlefield will sponsor a caravan tour, led by Ranger Randy Watkins, which will explore military engineering and firtifications as they were employed during the Siege of Petersburg. Areas covered include Forts Darling and Stevens, Battery Dantzler and the Howlett Line on Bermuda Hundred, and the Dimmock Line and later siege and defense lines around Petersburg out to Hatcher's Run on the far Confederate right flank.

Download Event Flyer (804) 732-3531, ext. 205

to pre-register by Friday, January 25th www.nps.gov/pogr

Ghost Watch At Centre Hill Mansion

2008-01-23T05:40:00.000-08:00

Ghost Watch At Centre Hill Mansion
January 24th
Make Reservations Now!

Petersburg's historic Centre Hill Mansion will host its annual Ghost Watch on January 24th from 6:00 to 9:00p.m. It was in the late 19th century when the ghosts of Civil War soldiers were first heard in the mansion. Tours of the house will focus on Centre Hill's numerous ghost stories. Tours begin at 6:00p.m. and start every 15 minutes with the last tour commencing at 8:45p.m.

Reservations and tickets are required and can be made at the Petersburg Visitor Center in Old Towne. Cost: $5 - Adults / $3 - Children 7 to 12 years old Centre Hill Mansion 1 Centre Hill Court Petersburg, Virginia 23803 (804) 733-2400 or (800) 368-3595

Early Craftsmen - CELEBRATION OF THE CENTURIES

2008-01-19T19:00:00.000-08:00

All Manner of Useful Goods: Household Necessities and Craftsmanship in Early America: A Symposium on American Social History and Material Culture

Hosted by the Fairfax County Park Authority and George Mason University - History Depart.
Friday, March 28, 2008, 9:00 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.,

at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia.

Craftsmanship and hand-crafted objects necessary to the daily running of a household produced in early America, 1750-1850, is the focus of an upcoming symposium. Presentations, costumed interpretations and tabletop exhibits examine types of trades, how they operated and economic factors impacting American craft; the processes of ceramic and metal production; and utilitarian household goods of redware and stoneware, iron, copper and base metals, cooperage, basketry and other items.

Presenters & Exhibitors:
Katie Boardman, The Cherry Valley Group
* Donald Fennimore, Winterthur Museum
* Jay Gaynor, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Carson Hudson, Historical Diversions
James Koterski, Independent Historian
Michel Burton, The Swift Shuttles & Pat Lasus, Rabbit Ridge Spinning
* Kevin P. & Kathleen Clancy, Blacksmithing
* Walt & Mary Henderson, Henderson & Vinci Cabinetmaking
* Kathryn Polletto, High Country Basketry Guild
* Marshall Scheetz, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Cooperage

Cost: $65.00. Advance registration is required and must be received by March 21, 2008.

For information and registration forms, email susan.clark@fairfaxcounty.gov or phone Museum Collections at (703) 631-1429 or FAX (703) 631-8319.

Carter's Grove Plantation - Sold $15.3 million

2008-01-16T07:48:00.000-08:00

The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has sold Carter's Grove Plantation - an 18th century mansion built by one of Virginia's founding families - for $15.3 million.

Mr. Halsey Minor purchased the property, which includes a Georgian style mansion and 400 acres that are subject to a conservation easement, as well as 76 acres adjoining the property.

Minor says he'll use the site as a residence and center for a thoroughbred horse breeding program.

The property was purchased in 1709 by Virginia planter Robert "King" Carter. The foundation has owned the 35-room, two-story home and land since 1969.

Citing financial pressure, the foundation announced plans to close Carter's Grove to the public in 2002. The home was shuttered in 2003.

Robert Carter can be linked to many Petersburg and Dinwiddie County's early residents.

Halsey Minor (born 1964 in Charlottesville, Virginia) is a technology entrepreneur who founded CNET in 1993 (initial plans for the company began in 1992). Minor ran CNET for 8 years during which time it became one of the Internet's first companies to achieve profitability. The company's many achievements were recognized in 1999 when CNET was selected as one of only 2 Internet companies to join the elite NASDAQ 100 which included companies such as Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, Home Depot, and Dell. Minor also developed 2 other spin-off companies which independent of CNET became public entities: Vignette Software and Snap/NBCi. Minor is currently investing in new companies in a broad range of fields via Minor Ventures.
Minor attended Woodberry Forest School and the University of Virginia, where he was a member of St. Elmo Hall and received a degree in anthropology. After graduation, he worked at Merrill Lynch, before moving on to start his own company. In the late 1980s, he collaborated briefly with Jeff Bezos, the future founder of Amazon.com on a personalized news business plan. Minor was also the founding and largest investor as well as silent partner in the development of salesforce.com.
On September 4, 2007, Minor announced the development of a new 5 star hotel located in downtown Charlottesville. The hotel is intended to be 10 stories and continue the ongoing revitalization of historic downtown Charlottesville.

One man’s reaction to Petersburg, in pastel

2008-01-08T08:24:00.000-08:00

Brought to my attention the following work by Scott on the blog entitled Pictures, Analysis, Art. These images capture his reaction to his visits to Petersburg.

Here are the links: first set, second set, set three, and set four.

Note that many of the images appear to be closeups taken from a really large panaromic-type of work, and you can click on them to make them larger.

Moses Ezekiel

2008-01-06T19:47:00.000-08:00

Moses Ezekiel: Civil War Soldier, Renowned Sculptor
Thursday, June 12, 2008 (noon)
By Keith Gibson Banner Lecture Series

Few sculptors of the nineteenth century were as well known during their lifetimes as Moses Ezekiel, though he is little-known today. The first Jewish cadet at VMI, he fought in the battle of New Market in 1864. Encouraged by Robert E. Lee to pursue his artistic calling, Ezekiel studied in Europe and became the first American to win the coveted Prix de Rome. Keith Gibson will draw on his biography of Ezekiel to bring to life this luminary of nineteenth-century art. Colonel Gibson is executive director of museum programs and architectural historian at the Virginia Military Institute. The Banner Lecture Serieves is sponsored by the Virginia Historical Society.

Caribbean Slave Revolts and the British Abolitionist Movement

2008-01-06T19:32:00.000-08:00

Gelien Matthews. Caribbean Slave Revolts and the British Abolitionist Movement. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006. ix + 240pp. Bibliography. $42.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8071-3131-2.

Gelien Matthews seeks to "rescue slave rebellion from its obscurity" in the accounts of the British antislavery struggle (p. ix). Despite an increasing quantity of literature on Caribbean slave revolts, Matthews's approach to the topic provides us with an innovative, fresh, and succinct study that begs the reader to reconsider past scholarly interpretations of the British movement to abolish slavery in the early nineteenth century. By examining public and private documents created by British abolitionists, and spending ample space to dissect other scholars' views, Matthews manages to demonstrate that slave revolts on the islands of Barbados (1816), Demerara (1832), and Jamaica (1831-32)were important in shaping the discourse of British abolitionists in London. Surprisingly, historians have typically considered the slave revolts to have had a negative effect on the abolition movement, but Matthews finds that abolitionists adopted the slaves as agents of change, rather than as examples of chaos or architects of carnage, as pro-slavery activists described Caribbean slave rebels. In revealing the semi-symbiotic relationship between slaves and abolitionists, Matthews answers a decades old call to inject slaves into the center of the abolitionist story.
Matthews, a professor of history at Caribbean Nazarene College in Trinidad and Tobago, asserts that the "focus of scholarship has been oriented too narrowly toward assessing the value of slave revolts in the achievement of emancipation" (p. 8). In short, Matthews disagrees with common perceptions of a one-to-one relationship between revolts and emancipation, instead exploring how revolts pushed metropolitan abolitionists to expand and modify their advocacy efforts. These "saints," as many were called, included recent Hollywood stars William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson, who initially approached abolition from a conservative vantage point. The slave revolts, Matthews contends,"succeeded in shifting the abolitionists' conservative policy progressively to the left" (p. 10). Indeed, the very content of abolitionist discourse was shaped by the Caribbean rebellions by reinforcing their humanitarian arguments aimed at freeing the slaves. As such, Matthews successfully finds a niche in the growing literature on Caribbean slave revolts by employing a social historical approach that highlights the agency of marginalized peoples.
The framework of Matthews's argument progresses chronologically in three phases, which begin in chapter 2. "Agitating the Question" commences with an examination of the negative impact of slave revolts (seemingly beginning with Barbados in 1816, but sometimes skipping back in time to the Haitian Revolution) on the abolitionist cause. At first, according to Matthews, the abolitionists appeared defensive about slave revolts,with men like Wilberforce identifying such events as counterproductive to the task at hand. Pro-slavery constituents were alarmed by the revolts, fearing that abolitionist rhetoric had sparked them. The general conversations between abolitionists and their pro-slavery counterparts seemed to fluctuate between outright disassociation with the slaves, as was the case with Wilberforce, and accepting some responsibility for inciting the revolts. Abolitionists, Matthews argues,were on the defensive regarding slave revolts almost continually until wide-scale emancipation in the region in the 1830s.
Nevertheless, this did not mean that abolitionists always viewed slave revolts in a negative light. Chapter 3, "The Other Side of the Slave Revolts," examines the favorable impressions of the revolts that were recorded by numerous, less defensive, abolitionists in the early nineteenth century. Matthews demonstrates how abolitionists attempted to diffuse the inaccurate pro-slavery accounts of savage and barbaric slave rebellions. For example, she explores how one anonymous author countered pro-slavery supporters' descriptions of the violence in the Caribbean by suggesting that even if the revolting slaves of Barbados wanted to"inflict grievous bodily harm upon their masters they were incapable of doing so" because they lacked sufficient weaponry (p. 65). Abolitionists often acknowledged the validity of certain aspects of the pro-slavery argument, for example, the concerns over widespread violence, and Matthews skillfully identifies these complexities in the abolitionists. pro-slavery debate. Matthews repeatedly presents a nuanced interpretation of changing abolitionist discourse, as its authors sought to defend and positively spin the news of increasing violence in the Caribbean.
The next two chapters serve as the core of _Caribbean Slave Revolts_.The crux of Matthews's argument--that the slave rebellions _positively_influenced abolitionists' discourse--comes into full view in chapters 4 and 5 by illustrating the transformation of conservative abolitionist thought to what Matthews characterizes as the progressive left (conceptualization of early nineteenth-century British politics that maybe troubling for some readers). Matthews details the emergence of a split between more conservative anti-slavery advocates, such as Wilberforce, and more radical men like Clarkson during the 1810s and1820s. One seemed to parade his humanitarian acts in front of high society, while the other sought to engage the common man in the fight, bringing before the public the instruments of torture used to control slaves. Clarkson made known the horrible conditions of slaves, causing abolitionists all over Great Britain to begin a call to alleviate their suffering. By rebelling, according to Matthews, slaves "led the abolitionists to focus their attacks on the most significant dimension of plantation society--the draconian penal codes of the various island legislations" (p. 134).
Interestingly, Matthews contends that the continuation of revolts in the Caribbean forced a more radical abolitionist discourse to develop,because the slave rebellions provided some of the most useful evidence to support immediate emancipation. Wilberforce himself exemplified the move from a conservative gradualist approach employed in previous decades to a more radical or "progressive" immediatist platform (to borrow a term from the American anti-slavery movement). Led by Wilberforce, the abolitionists began to emphasize the _threat_ of slave revolts and the potential for carnage on the islands--mostly in the form of dead white men--to counter pro-slavery arguments. According to Matthews, the rebellious slaves, who would increase their activities at key moments in the anti-slavery era (such as after the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade), provided the more progressive abolitionists with a key argument: full emancipation would avoid further bloodshed,whereas gradual emancipation might actually increase it.
Overall, Gelien Matthews presents an interesting account of the influence of slaves on British abolitionist discourse in the early nineteenth century. At the same time, the work is dry and social-scientific in its writing style, although the subtle and sophisticated analysis provides a fresh perspective on well-worn material. Matthews's sharp analytical eye is evident in many passages,particularly in her analysis of the legitimacy of Wilberforce's "humanitarian conscience." It is in such discussions that Matthews avoids the temptation to simplify the abolitionist cause as a case of good vs. evil, or vilify those who were not fully supportive of immediate emancipation of Caribbean slaves. The essence of _Caribbean Slave Revolts_ is its humanizing of the abolition movement, placing its chief actors--the "saints" and slaves--in the context of their time. Matthews, as the recent movie _Amazing Grace_ does in a less than scholarly manner, reminds us that politics can significantly hinder the efforts of humanitarians, in both the nineteenth century and the present, and that sometimes compromises must be made. _Caribbean Slave Revolts_ may not be suitable for undergraduate classes, but instead would work better as part of a seminar or reading-intensive graduate level course on slavery, emancipation, and/or the Atlantic World.Matthews succeeds in making the connection between the actions from below--those marginalized peoples at ground level--and policy-makers several thousand miles across the Atlantic in London. A classic example of social history, Matthews's extensive use of textual analysis of abolitionist tracts gives a voice to the slaves who left little in the form of written records. It could be used as a fine example of historical detective work, because she manages to find the voices of the oppressed in the documents of the oppressors.

2008-01-06T19:08:00.000-08:00

Sites and Stories: African American History in Virginia
Thursday, February 14, 2008 (noon)
By Lauranett L. Lee
Banner Lecture Series

Historic highway markers are beloved features of the Old Dominion's landscape. Through these signs, away from the high speed of interstates, the careful motorist can piece together major themes running through Virginia's past. One of the most important but sometimes neglected such strands is the story of African Americans. In Sites and Stories, Lauranett L. Lee has mounted an exhibition to present the narratives told by these markers. Her lecture will highlight the struggles and triumphs of African Americans in Virginia from 1619 to the recent past. Dr. Lee is curator of African American history at the Virginia Historical Society.

Petersburg Benevolent Mechanic Association - PBMA

2007-12-20T06:32:00.000-08:00

Looking of the current location of the Petersburg Benevolent Mechanic Association (PBMA) 1825-1921, original ledgers, the microfilm versions refer to the Petersburg Library as holding the originals., however they seem unable to locate them.

Robert Bolling Tobacco Warehouse Burns, 1799

2007-12-06T06:39:00.000-08:00

Journal of the House of Delegates of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Begun and held at the capitol in the city of Richmond, on Monday the second day of December, one thousand seven hundred and ninety nine.

Reported the Virginia's House passage of an act making compensation for the tobacco destroyed by the burning of Robert Bolling's warehouse. December 23, 1799.

Publication Information: Richmond: Printed by Meriwether Jones, printer to the Commonwealth,, M,DCC,XCIX. [i.e., 1800].Reference, Evans 38954

Dinwiddie County Historical Society

2007-11-20T12:25:00.000-08:00

VISIT THE OLD HISTORIC DINWIDDIE COURTHOUSE "OPEN HOUSE," SUNDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2007

FROM 2:00 TO 4:00 P.M.

REFRESHMENTS WILL BE SERVED!

A New Book Worth Reading

2007-11-18T17:37:00.000-08:00

A SLAVE NO MORE

Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation

By David W. Blight Harcourt.

307 pp. $25

In American mythology, the freeing of the slaves is a top-to-bottom affair: Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, and after that it was up to government to ensure their rights, though for about a century government didn't exactly do a good job of it. David W. Blight makes plain that it never was as simple as that. After careful study of two recently discovered memoirs by former slaves, John M. Washington and Wallace Turnage, Blight writes: "American emancipation was always a complex interplay between at least four factors: the geographical course of the war; the size of the slave population in any given region; the policies enforced at any given time by the Union and Confederate governments through their military forces; and the volition of slaves themselves in seizing their moments to embrace a reasonable chance for freedom. Turnage's and Washington's narratives throw into bold relief and confirm the significance of each of these factors. To the perennial question -- who freed the slaves, Lincoln or blacks themselves? -- the Turnage and Washington stories answer conclusively that it was both. Without the Union armies and navies, neither man would have achieved freedom when he did. But they never would have gained their freedom without their own courageous initiative, either." This is somewhat slippery ground, for inherent in it is the danger of generalizing from the particular -- and in this case, an exceedingly small and selective particular. At the time of emancipation, only about 10 percent of freed slaves could read and write; Washington and Turnage were in that 10 percent. Though reliable documentation of the slaves' response to the Emancipation Proclamation is sparse, we know that if their general reaction was jubilation, some also expressed caution and uncertainty. And, of course, in the places where the proclamation was intended to take effect -- the states of the Confederacy -- emancipation was nothing more than Union rhetoric unless and until federal forces arrived. By no means was it guaranteed even then, as the racial views of many Union soldiers were not discernibly different from those of Rebel soldiers, and their enthusiasm for enforcing emancipation was decidedly limited.

American Colonization Society - Petersburg

2007-11-16T12:25:00.000-08:00

I'm wondering if anyone can help by identifying any other individuals on these manifest as having once resided in either Dinwiddie County or Petersburg?

Ship Harriet's company, arrived at Monrovia March 24, 1829
http://ccharity.com/liberia/shipharriet1829.htm
Lists Joseph Jenkins Roberts as "J.J Roberts" and his family

Ship Carolinian's company, arrived at Monrovia December 4, 1830
http://ccharity.com/liberia/shipcarolinian1830.htm
Lists Thomas Day's brother John Day, "cabinetmaker" and his family. Thomas Day had been rised and born in Dinwiddie, before moving on to N.C.. where became N.C.'s most noted cabinetmaker prior to the Civil War. John spent his life in Liberia, doing God's work.

Roberts emigrated to Liberia with his widowed mother, two younger brothers, and two younger sisters in 1829. He established one of the most prosperous trading firms in Liberia. He was Liberia's first African American governor in 1841 and its first president in 1847 [Huberich, Political and Legislative History of Liberia, 1:770-71, by Wiley, Slaves No More].

Flowerdew Hundred

2007-11-13T07:10:00.000-08:00

Flowerdew Hundred closed its doors to the public last month.

For 388 years, the Prince George County plantation was a home or museum. In 1978, a commemorative representation of Flowerdew Hundred’s 17th-century windmill was built. It was recently restored. Flowerdew Hundred, which was once the home of the Prince George County Heritage Fair, announced its closure over the summer. “It’s a tragic loss of a terribly important part of our history,” said Joe Leming, chairman of the Prince George County Board of Supervisors.We agree with that assessment. The past of the plantation is long and illustrious, but the future is unclear.The land that would become Flowerdew Hundred was claimed by the Virginia Company of London. In 1619, the Virginia Company ceded the initial 1,000 acres to Gov. George Yeardly. He named the land Flowerdew Hundred in honor of his wife Temperance Flowerdew. Flowerdew Hundred changed hands several times and the property shrank due to subdividing the land. By the 1850s, the original 1,000 acres of Flowerdew Hundred, plus an additional 400 acres, were reincorporated into Flowerdew Hundred. Around 1970, David Harrison III and his wife, Mary, purchased the property and, under their ownership, Flowerdew Hundred became the site of archeological digs and a history museum. Along with the windmill, several replicated structures are on the site, including a detached kitchen, and visitors could have viewed the spot where General Ulysses S. Grant’s pontoon crossing of the James River ended in 1864. In 2001, the Flowerdew Hundred Museum underwent upgrades and remodeling. The museum itself was located in a 19th-century school house that was built for the Wilcox family.During its time as a museum. Flowerdew Hundred amassed more than 200,000 artifacts, which include items from prehistoric eras. What will happen to the grounds and the museum is still unclear. Officials at Flowerdew have not disclosed any details as to why the museum has closed and what may happen in the future. As Flowerdew is privately owned, it is not accountable or answerable to public oversight. We understand that. And we sympathize with the Harrison family. The family poured untold hours and dollars into renovating the plantation, its museum and the property. And for that we all owe the family our thanks. But we have now lost a treasured piece of the region’s past and a piece of the area’s historic tourism effort. It would be nice if the public could at least get some kind of answer about what is to become of Flowerdew Hundred.

Establishing Black Institutions and Leadership–1776 to the Early 20th Century

2007-11-07T18:33:00.000-08:00

Public workshop: “Establishing Black Institutions and Leadership–1776 to the Early 20th Century”

The above-named workshop on Petersburg’s rich African-American history will be held this Saturday, November 10, from 2:00 to 4:00 pm

at First Baptist Church [map] in Petersburg.

The featured speaker will be Professor Melvin Ely of the College of William & Mary, the Bancroft Award-winning author of Israel on the Appomattox and Adventures of Amos ‘n Andy. The workshop is free and open to the public.

This workshop is the second of four public workshops that constitute the National Endowment for the Humanities-funded project entitled “African-American History in the Context of the Atlantic World–Case Study Petersburg.” The project is sponsored by the Department of History and the Institute for the Study of Race Relations at Virginia State University, in association with Petersburg 2007. It is also sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, with special designation as an NEH “We the People Project.”

In addition to Professor Ely, presentations will be made by professors Christina Proenza-Cole, Arthur Abraham, and Paul Alkebulan of the History Department at Virginia State University.
A tour of the church, which houses the oldest black Baptist congregation in the nation, will be available after the workshop.

Petersburg's Celebration of the Centuries

2007-11-07T13:51:00.001-08:00

CELEBRATION OF THE CENTURIES
Come celebrate four hundred years of Virginia history

April 25, 26 and 27, 2008 (times TBD)

Throughout the last four centuries, Petersburg has been at the crossroads of this country’s most pivotal events, from the time of the early native Virginians who lived here before Jamestown, through the City's participation in the War of 1812, to the epic battles of the Revolutionary War, Civil War, all the way up to World War I and the Civil Rights Movement. This festival will focus on Virginia’s earlier years, and reflect many of the areas of our history that people the world over have come to love about our state. Petersburg’s Old Towne and adjoining historic districts are some of the most visually striking examples of historic urban architecture in the nation. The area has been part of many historic events, and will provide an unparalleled backdrop for festival activities.

Visitors will be invited to:
Walk down streets where Revolutionary War battles were fought
Drink and eat food from various historical eras, dance to period music & play traditional children's games
Talk with reenactors and experience history come to life
Watch weapons demonstrations and old-time crafts being made
View buildings struck by artillery fire during the Civil War
Visit the village of Pocahontas - one of the most important centers of early African American life in the country
Stand next to the ruins of Peter Jones' Trading Post - a once bustling frontier trading center
Stroll along the Appomattox in American Indians' footsteps

The program will be put together in a manner that is tasteful, culturally inclusive, family-friendly, historically accurate, full of activity, and visually exciting. Over the coming months, the Old Towne Merchants will be looking for Traditional Artists and Craftsmen, Living Historians, Private Collectors and Exhibitors, Early American Demonstrators, Performing Artists and Educators who want to bring this important history into public view.

In an effort to create an event with the highest integrity, a committee will be formed to establish participant standards and guidelines.

The types of individuals and groups needed to make the festival a success include:

Craftsmen who recreate period trades in costume using authentic tools and techniques
Craftsmen who create works using traditional and natural materials in ways reflective of cultural traditions
Artists who focus on subjects of Regional, Natural, or Historic interest
Private Collectors and Exhibitors who display their collections in a manner consistent with modern museum values
Living Historians and Re-enactors, Military and Civilian, who are historically accurate and can communicate effectively with modern audiences
Performing Artists who specialize in historic and traditional presentation
Vendors who sell period appropriate wares and foods
Credentialed individuals or groups who can act as guides and docents
Horse-drawn carriage operators and other appropriate horse-culture related contributors
Early American Agriculture, Farming, and Early Industry hobbyists
Early American boating and maritime history hobbyists

If you have an interest in participating, sponsoring, or helping with this proposed event, please get more information by clicking the links below, or contact Old Towne Merchant’s Group.

info@oldtownepetersburg.com

Edgar Allan Poe to Hiram Haines - April 24, 1840

2007-10-17T15:05:00.000-07:00

My Dear Sir,
Having been absent from the city for a fortnight I have only just received your kind letter of March 24th and hasten to thank you for the "Star", as well as for your offer of the fawn for Mr' P. She desires me to thank you with all her heart--but, unhappily, I cannot point out a mode of conveyance. What can be done? Perhaps some opportunity may offer itself hereafter -- some friend from Petersburg may be about to pay us a visit. In the meantime accept our best acknowledgments, precisely as if the little fellow were already nibbling the grass before our windows in Philadelphia.
I will immediately attend to what you say respecting exchanges. The "Star" has my very best wishes, and if you really intend to push it with energy, there cannot be a doubt of its full success. If you can mention anything in the world that I can do here to promote its interests and your own, it will give me a true pleasure.
It is not impossible that I may pay you a visit in Petersburg, a month or two hence.
Till then, believe me, most sincerely Your friend
Edgar A Poe
H. Haines Esqr
Office Gentleman's Magazine

___________________________

Please add all data on Poe's friend Hiram Haines of Petersburg and the Office Gentleman's Magazine.

Virginia Historical Society's Banner Lecture Series

2007-10-16T11:41:00.000-07:00

Decoding the Meanings of Thoroughbred Horse Racing in Early America, 1790–1840
Thursday, October 18, 2007 (noon)
By Ken Cohen
Banner Lecture Series

Although horse racing was a popular pastime in early America, historians have often missed the social and economic meanings of attending the races and owning racehorses. This lecture will explore sporting art, period race courses, and betting to reveal that horse racing in early America was different from how we have nostalgically represented it and in fact was much like racing today. Mr. Cohen is a fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's McNeil Center for Early American Studies and a doctoral candidate at the University of Delaware. This lecture is cosponsored by the VHS and The Friends of Sporting Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

Given the rich history of Dinwiddie County's and Petersburg horse racing this lecture is a must attend.

________________________________________________

Lee and Grant
Thursday, November 1, 2007 (noon)
By William M. S. Rasmussen
Banner Lecture Series

The two great opposing military commanders of the Civil War, Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant, towered over their contemporaries. In a major exhibition and book created in the 200th anniversary year of Lee's birth, the VHS explores the parallel lives of these two American heroes. In an illustrated lecture, co-curator and co-author William M. S. Rasmussen will examine Lee and Grant and their influence on our history. Dr. Rasmussen is the Lora M. Robins Curator of Art at the VHS.

428 North Boulevard, Richmond, Virginia 23220

Mail: P.O. Box 7311, 23221-0311 Phone: 804.358.4901

John Hubbard, later Gov. of Maine teachs at Dinwiddie Academy

2007-10-12T15:02:00.000-07:00

A letter was recently sold on Ebay...
Poplar Grove Va, 28 Octr, a 25 cent rate, and is addressed to Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett, Dresden, Lincoln co., Maine, and is a lengthy three page letter written by Sarah Hubbard to her mother. The headline is Dinwiddie, Va, Oct. 26th, 1828.

Some abstracts:
"I did not inform you of Capt Wade's visiting us last June, yet I mentioned in letters so that you probably are not ignorant of his being here, which you well know could afford us no little gratification. I had for some time been waiting his arrival in Richmond or Petersburg, which was his calculation when he left us. I said if he then should return to Maine he would carry me home if I could leave, which would be a very favorable opportunity for me to embrace."
"The Dr took the trouble to send our servant boy to that place [City Point] to learn the certainty of it, but found him not there, but learned he was at Warwick, 6 miles from Richmond ..."
"Eliza & myself together with my little daughter started, rode on about 18 miles before the Dr overtook us, he rode with us to Petersburg where he was compelled to stop on business to select & purchase books."
"... one Physician was sent for, from Petersburg 12 miles only, his fee was 40 dollars, this with the other charges, board the loss of time expensive for him ..."
"Dr. Hubbard spent only a few hours with him in consequence of Mrs. Branch who lay & still lies very sick."
".... the Dr. haveing but 2 horses his buisness pushing him & the care of a sick negro patient at home & my child with me as mischieveous & noisey as possible the Capt unable to converse but very little & that in the greatest misery oweing to the deep salivation, & my blacks at home relardless of interest of any kind save their own, you will say I had sufficient to hurry me back, but on our way we had the good fortune not to break our necks or bones ... [writes about the Gigg upsetting] ..."
"It was oweing partly to carelessness & viewing a fine quantity of corn which the blacks were gathering, rode so near the fence that a rail or sta[??] run between the spokes and sent us out without any ceremony ..."
[on margin] "Mrs Branch she has the typhus fever. It is generaly healing."

The writer of this letter was the wife of John Hubbard. From an online biography:
"John Hubbard (March 22, 1794 – February 6, 1869) was the 18th Governor of Maine in the United States.
After his graduation he became Principal of the Academy at Hallowell, where he taught two years to earn money to pay the debts incurred in college. He then accepted a flattering offer to go to Dinwiddie County, Virginia, to teach an academy. Here he remained two years, and having decided to take medicine as a profession he entered the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, in 1820, receiving his diploma as Doctor of Medicine in 1822."

Prestwould Plantation, Mecklenburg County, VA

2007-09-30T19:21:00.000-07:00

PRESTWOULD PLANTATION

Sir Peyton and Lady Jean Skipwith and their plantation offer a glimpse into the life of grace and elegance of the few in Virginia who owned most of the land. An appreciation of the plantation comes from the diligence of Lady Skipwith in writing about life in that time and her sense of the land and the people working there. Sir Peyton Skipwith, Baronet, was born in the United States where he acquired large tracts of land on the Roanoke River.His acquisitions were attributed to gambling, specifically, a three—day poker game with William Byrd III. The story is a reasonable legend, the gentlemen having not only card house son their properties, but card tables with special storage space for casks. Sir Peyton was married with children, but lost his wife in childbirth. He attended her family, the Millers, in England,and eventually married his sister-in-law, Jean, with whom here turned to Virginia. The remarkable Lady Jean, who had four children after the age of 40, managed the grounds of the plantation, established a 300-volume library in her home, and kept impeccable records of all of the activities and gardening. Her notes on the gardens of Williamsburg helped restorers plan the grounds. When Sir Peyton died, Lady Jean managed the over 10,000 acre plantation, including its ferry service across the Dan River on the banks of the property. Prestwould is unique in its use of native stone, since many homes at the time were constructed of materials shipped from Britain. Research indicates that Sir Peyton planned his home for thirty years, and may have completed the construction begun in 1794 by master builder Jacob Shelor. The house stands on a hill over looking the confluence of the Dan and Roanoke Rivers, now the reservoir, Buggs Island Lake. The copper-roofed house has a central hall and large rooms complete with the original wall-papers ordered by Lady Jean. Scalamandre provided wallpapers for the restoration, and the web site illustrates the incredible result. The wooden outbuildings include a school house, playroom, weaving room, office, ice house, dairy and smoke house, card house, and slave quarters. The plantation was like a medieval village surrounded by stone fences. Sir Peyton and Lady Jean’s graves in the plantation cemetery are engraved only with dates and the Skipwith family crest. The gardens of Prestwould include a giant oak believed to have been witness to meetings of the Occoneechee tribe. The tree, over 300 years old, along with Magnolia grandif lora, Buxus, pecan, and pear trees over 200 years old, frame garden plots set out by Lady Jean. As noted by E.F. Farrar and E. Hines in their book, Old Virginia Houses, Lady Jean “meticulously recorded everything that was planted, what seasons it flowered or produced, its description, and where she had obtained the plants or seeds.”Her journals are invaluable in restoration of Prestwould. Of interest is the early purchases of furniture from various Petersburg craftsmen, Samuel White and Joel Brown. The distance to this plantation in Mecklenburg County, VA off route I-85 from Petersburg, is about 85 miles, shows how much reach the early 18th century urban center of Petersburg had on its outlaying regions. Prestwould is open for afternoon tours until October 31.

Calendar of Virginia State Papers and Other Manuscripts: ... Preserved in ... By Virginia, William Pitt Palmer, Sherwin McRae, Raleigh Edward Colston, Henry W. Flournoy

2007-09-17T10:05:00.000-07:00

Calendar of Virginia State Papers and Other Manuscripts: ... Preserved in ... By Virginia, William Pitt Palmer, Sherwin McRae, Raleigh Edward Colston, Henry W. Flournoy: ""

Forged Slave Passes & Certificates of Freedom

2007-08-30T17:27:00.000-07:00

Extract of a letter from Petersburg, Virginia, dated August 19, 1785.

Some days ago it was discovered that a person unknown in this town was selling out Certificates of Freedom and Passes to the Slaves, and forging such people's names as were most likely to answer the purpose. By the activity and vigilance of some gentlemen in town, this dangerous villain was apprehended last night, about ten o'clock, in company with some slaves, and just as he had finished a pass for one of them. He was carried before a Magistrate, who committed him to prison for further trial. He at first called himself Joe Thompson, but says his name is Thompson Davis. When he was first apprehended, he entreated one of the gentlemen to shot him with the pistol he had in his hand, and discovered such a behaviour as thoroughly indicated that he suspected some other charge against him, besides the forgeries he had committed and upon tracing his conduct during the time he has been in this place, he is render still more suspicious, wherefore the following description is given of him. He is a native of Ireland, about 5 feet 4 inches high, stout made, sloops a little, short dark brown hair, a deep scar on the right side of his forehead, just below his hair, the right eye is a little remarkable, having the appearance of a film on it, appears to be about 38 years of age, says he is a baker by trade, and that he came last from Richmond, where he had been some time soliciting his pay as a dragoon in Col. Baylor's regiment.

Source: The Pennsylvania Packet, and Daily Advertiser, Wednesday, September 7, 1785.

Dinwiddie's Thomas Day noted in the 2007 NAACP Resolutions

2007-08-30T11:25:00.000-07:00

The NAACP made a 2007 Resolution that noted the

Inaccuracies in the Depiction of Africans and African Americans in Social Studies Textbooks

and called for…

WHEREAS Strategic Initiative Nine- Enhancing Educational Excellence, Goal 2, states:

Examine a broad range of educational structures and practices with the objectives of advocating for educational equity and student achievement" and WHEREAS the practice of presenting and perpetuating the general perception of the Africans in school history texts as innately inferior as justification for slavery and the treatment of the freedmen following emancipation, does not advocate educational equity and student achievement of African-American students, and WHEREAS the omission of specific data in documents in today's school history textbooks disproving the statement of inferiority continues, and is a criminal assault upon the hearts, souls and minds of African-American students, and WHEREAS the omission of such data denies African-American students a knowledge of historical facts that would engender pride in their inheritance, and WHEREAS the skills of Africans brought to America with their forced entry upon America's shores are not given full credit in school history texts, and WHEREAS photographs, graphs, drawings, and other illustrations denoting the skills and abilities of slaves are omitted from school history texts, students are denied knowledge about the inventive and creative abilities of the Africans and their descendants in America during the Ante-bellum period in America, and WHEREAS school history texts glorify with many illustrations the product of slave labor, but not the unpaid laborers, describing it as "King Cotton" which made this country and countries abroad economically wealthy, and WHEREAS the many skills, arts, crafts, and creative abilities in music, (examples, Negro Spirituals and names of singers, like Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, born a slave, a talented singer who performed for Queen Victoria) who were slaves and 'free people of color" are not written about nor illustrated with photographs, therefore, blatantly omitted from school history texts, and WHEREAS the service of Africans and African-Americans in each of America's wars is presented only in statistical numbers without quotes from documents attesting to the extent of their leadership and battlefield courage and a description of the dire and unsatisfactory conditions under which their service was rendered are omitted, and WHEREAS the service of fugitive slaves in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War is not described with sufficient credit in school history texts, even though their service earned for thousands, freedom, and WHEREAS the service of fugitive slaves, called contrabands in the Civil War, fled to Union lines and by their presence in thousands forced attention to their plight and fight for freedom, served as scouts, guides and spies, and at times saved entire Union regiments from Rebel forces, and WHEREAS, the contrabands enlisted when restrictions were lifted, also became like encyclopedias to Confederate territory with their knowledge of the topography of the land, its roads and bridges and with their eyes and ears gave reliable information to the Union unavailable from any other source, and with their strength and abilities gave service in non-combat tasks which freed soldiers to fight led the Union to victory, earned their freedom, and WHEREAS, blacks served in the United States Navy in great numbers, little space is given to this service in the Civil War. WHEREAS, persons in the racial likeness of Benjamin Bradley, a slave inventor, are included. Bradley, "at the age of sixteen, showed great mechanical skill and with pieces of steel and other materials constructed a working model of a steam engine and after the sale of his first steam engine, built an engine large enough to drive the first cutter of a sloop-of-war at the rate of sixteen knots an hour." (Katz, Eyewitness, The Negro in American History, 1967, pp.115-116), and THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that an active protest movement begin with the examination and evaluation of the school history textbooks of Scott Foresman, Houghton-Mifflin, Harcourt and other publishers for omissions, distortions, bias, and insufficient coverage of the contributions of Africans and African-Americans to America with emphasis upon the ante-bellum period, and that efforts are made to effect changes in the books, and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this committee demand that publishers' textbooks include the skills brought to America by Africans, and that the craftsmanship of persons the likes of Horace King, a slave bridge builder; Thomas Day, a free man of color and furniture maker,[1] and Gilbert Hunt, a slave carriage maker and blacksmith, and numerous others are included in their books, and if available, their photographs are included, and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the committee demand that the inventive ingenuity, and creative abilities of slaves and "free persons of color" be included in their books to the extent that the "inferiority perception" is entirely disproved with documentary evidence, and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that, Norbert Rillieux whose invention revolutionized the production of sugar; slave Henry Blair, inventor of a seed planting machine; and Benjamin Banneker, an astronomer, mathematician and planner for the location of the Capitol and other federal buildings in the nation's capitol-- along with other inventors' biographical summaries are included in school history texts to further substantiate the fact that the black race is not an inferior race, and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the committee demand that textbooks admit the wrongs of slavery even though the proponents of freedom declared in documents that "all men were created equal..." and furthermore that both George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and each president prior to Abraham Lincoln owned slaves.

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that all students and especially, African-American students, will be able to read in their school history texts an accurate account of the contributions of African-Americans (in all fields of endeavor) to the settlement, growth and development of this country.

My footnote...
[1] In 1801 Thomas Day was born, in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, a free black, the son of John and Morning Day, also free blacks. His father John Day was a carpenter and cabinet-maker in Southside Virginia. Their relationship with the area Quakers, and others, within Dinwiddie County and Petersburg has as yet not been well researched. Thomas’ brother John would go on to Liberia, where he would lose his family due to sickness, and retain high governmental office there. Thomas Day would later become North Carolina’s largest furniture maker at Milton, NC., which afforded him to send his children to private school in the north. He died abt. 1860/61 and was buried at his home site in Milton, NC.

Pocahontas Museum a work of African-American Folk Art

2007-08-20T15:11:00.000-07:00

Richard Stewart stands in front of his museum and looks at the small houses scattered around the area known as Pocahontas Island. Then he points toward Interstate 95, visible in the distance, and he shakes his head. "They drive by, 80 miles an hour, day after day," he says. "And they never know that all this history is right here, so close by."
Stewart does his part to let people know. In a region that's filled with African-American history, this small area - whose residents claim it is the oldest black community in the country - has a particularly interesting background, dating back 200 years as a neighborhood largely populated by freed slaves.
Stewart, at age 63, is a lifelong resident of Pocahontas Island, which is not really an island at all - more like a small peninsula almost entirely encircled by a bend in the Appomattox River.
About four years ago, Stewart - a retired civil servant - bought this small house for a little over $20,000 and decided to turn it into a museum dedicated to black history, with an emphasis on the local region but also covering a wide variety of related subjects. "But it's not just black history," he says. "This is a historic house without prejudice. It's about blacks and whites and Jews - it's our history."
The Richard Stewart-Pocahontas Museum does not fit the common preconception of a museum. Not from the outside (it's a small clapboard house on a rundown street), and not on the inside (which resembles a cluttered curio shop). Its truely a piece of African-American Folk Art in its being.
If you sit down with Stewart and listen to him tell the story of the area, of his family, of this museum, you'll be fascinated by what you learn. And if you let him take you from room to room, explaining the significance of the various photos, documents and artifacts, he will make American and African history come to life for you.
Some of it is sad, such as the material focusing on the legacy of slavery or the matter-of-fact newspaper coverage of lynchings. But other material in the museum focuses on black heroes, the Civil Rights movement, and the culture of several African nations. The museum's scope is broad, and its lack of strictly themed exhibits allows guests to wander and explore.
The museum sits across the street from a house that was used as a stopping point for the Underground Railroad. Slaves attempting to escape the South would stay there until they could be safely moved farther north - because Pocahontas Island was predominantly composed of free blacks, the escaping slaves were able to blend into the neighborhood during their stay.
The Underground Railroad house isn't open to the public, but Stewart can explain to you its significance and is one of the few in Petersburg who can tell you about the Keziah Affair, in which a schooner attempted to smuggle five slaves out of Petersburg in 1858.
Looking around the neighborhood, Stewart explains that there are fewer than 100 people still living on Pocahontas Island - mostly older people who have lived here their whole lives, many of them related to one another.
The neighborhood is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but Stewart wonders how much longer it will be around. Eventually, he admits with a sigh of resignation, it most likely will be bought by developers and used to build new homes or businesses. But for now, Stewart works every day to keep the area's history alive.

Info: 804-861-8889. The Richard Stewart-Pocahontas Museum is open on weekdays, but its hours are irregular. If you're planning a visit, it's best to call ahead and arrange a tour.

Josiah Flagg's 1786 letter about Petersburg

2007-08-16T10:28:00.000-07:00

Josiah Flagg wrote from Petersburg in 1786 to his “Dear Coz” as follows:

“This is the most dirty place I ever saw. Nine months of the year the mud is half leg deep, it is a very sickly place owning in great measure to its situation, the Streets are very Irregular, and not a Respectable Building in the Borough, it stands upon the River Appomattox, the water thereof is almost Stagnant as it is navigable for ships of 500 tons one hundred and twenty miles, the Vapors arising from it contaminate the air, with the most pestilential disorders. Agues and fevers of every kind prevail.
“What is the reason that so many merchants are induced to Established Houses there and sacrifice their health? Why their own private emolument. As it is in the heart of a rich County, where remittances may be easily made to their correspondents. The soil is peculiar to the culture of Tobacco, Rice, Corn &c. which are staple commodities. The Virginians as a people are given to luxury and dissipation of every kind, ad are supported in their extravagance by Africa’s sable sons, who they consign to the most Abject Slavery.
A young lady is not valued here for her accomplishments or personal charms, but for the number of Negroes and plantations she possesses, so that merit is out of question. I have not seen a handsome figure since I have been in the place, nor indeed one whose rusticity is wholly obliterated. As to the language, they have as many barbarisms as our most countrified market girls…”[1]

______________________

Josiah Flagg was born: 24 Jul 1763, Boston MA, the son of Josiah Flagg (1738-1795) and Elizabeth Hawke (1741-1816); died September 16, 1816; buried Cemetery of the Circular Church Charleston, Charleston County, South Carolina. Working as a miniaturist in Boston, 1783 and Baltimore, 1784, He was also a musician and practiced dentistry in Boston. He is credited with making in 1790 the first true dental chair, adding a headrest and an extended armrest to a Windsor chair. He apparently had some training in silversmithing with Paul Revere, especially its use in dentistry. A piece of silver with mark attributed to Josiah Flagg has been located in Cutten Collection indicating he may have worked as a silversmith at one time. Whether this is his mark or that of his son, is not known. Listed by other silver authorities. 3 What he did for work while in Petersburg in 1786 is unknown. He married Hannah Collins, about 1788.

[1] New Engaland Hist. & Gen. Register, Vol. 27, 1873, p. 251-2.

Lowndes Stoneware

2007-08-07T20:28:00.000-07:00

Visit the Siege Museum in Old Towne Petersburg - Learn about one of Petersburg's oldest documented businesses in operation from 1806 to 1855, and discover how artifacts found on the pottery site reveals clues to how people lived and worked two centuries ago.

Download Event Flyer

10:00a.m. - 5:00p.m. Daily
(804) 733-2401

http://www.petersburg-va.org/tourism

"Homely Women of Dinwiddie County"

2007-08-07T16:06:00.000-07:00

From a letter signed by Captain Joseph H. Prime of the 7th U.S. Colored Troops.

Dated ''Friday April 7th 1865,'' entry reads in part: ''went down the road today to find some wounded Rebel Prisoners left here by Sheridan [at] Fords Station we found a Rebel Lt. Colonel and seven (7) enlisted men in the houses at the Station one fellow said that they were in about the same condition the American army was in the war of the Revolution at Valley Forge that Rebel Colonel (Hudson) was a very gentlemanly appearing man and I liked him very much or as much as I possibly could like a Rebel We have heard heavy firing nearly all day at the front.

Dated ''Half past four oclock P.M.,'' entry reads in part: ''our army took six (6) Rebel Generals yesterday and among the rest was General Ewell and they also took thirteen thousand men prisoners at Amelia Court House and General Lee retreated fifteen (15) miles last night towards Farmville where they are fighting hard today. General Lees army must be getting rather small.

Dated "Saturday April 8th,'' entry reads in part: ''McGrady told us that Mr. Echols daughter was the handsomest girl in this (Dinwiddie) County all I have to say is God save me from being obliged to look upon the homely women of Dinwiddie County''

The 7th U.S. Colored Troops served in and around Richmond in the final months of the war. Joseph H. Prime began his service with the 13th New Hampshire Infantry, mustering in 19 September 1862. He was discharged for promotion 29 October 1863 and joined the 7th USCT as a Lieutenant. He was promoted to Captain 15 November 1864 and resigned 24 May 1865.

Workshop concerning Petersburg's Area African Americans

2007-06-13T15:58:00.000-07:00

Establishing Black Institutions and Leadership

1776 to early 20th century
Saturday, August 18, 2-4 PM

Tabernacle Baptist Church

444 Halifax St., Petersburg

OUTSIDE SCHOLAR: Dr. Suzanne Lebsock, Rutgers University
LOCAL PRESENTERS: Dr. Edward Mills, M.A. VSU, ABD University of Illinois/Champagne, Dr. Arthur Abraham, Dr. Christina Proenza-Coles, Lucious Edwards

Numerous free black residents of Petersburg received pensions for Revolutionary War service, owned property, and purchased slaves in order to manumit them. In the first half of the nineteenth century, Petersburg residents proved instrumental in founding the West African nation of Liberia. Joseph Jenkins Roberts, a successful African-American merchant, emigrated to Liberia in 1829. Roberts served as Liberia’s first black governor and the first president of independent Liberia as well as the first president of Liberia College. His brother, another Petersburg native, served as Liberia’s first black bishop. Thousands of African Americans migrated from Petersburg to Liberia and hundreds more pursued missionary work in neighboring West African nations.
African Americans who stayed in Petersburg developed the region’s strongest center of black
educational institutions. They chartered Peabody High School, which became the first publicly supported black high school in the state in 1880. Two years later, the city’s black leaders pushed the state government to charter the Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute (later Virginia State University), the first fully state supported, four-year institution of higher learning for
blacks in America. Unlike most black colleges at that time, VSU’s faculty and Board of Visitors were of African descent. These faculty and administrators repeatedly and successfully fought to keep VSU a baccalaureate-granting institution, rather than follow the Tuskeegee model of vocational education. VSU’s first president, John Mercer Langston, became the first African American elected to Congress from Virginia.
Focus Questions:
1. What are some of the factors and forces that underpinned the success of Petersburg’s black
institutions in the past?
2. Local Episcopal churches, AME churches, and Baptist churches sponsored trips,
emigrations, and even the first Liberian college. How does this case study illuminate the relationships between religion and education?
3. We know relatively little about Liberian emigration. To what degree did this outward migration impact the black church and black educational institutions in Petersburg?
How, if at all, did the city’s churches and educational institutions work together towards “earthly freedoms”?

Looking for early Dinwiddie County Records check out...

2007-06-01T13:01:00.000-07:00

Dinwiddie County records held on microfilm at the Library of Virginia, Richmond...

http://www.lva.lib.va.us/whatwehave/local/local_rec/county_city/dinwiddie.htm

Robert Leslie, Esq., a Petersburg Merchant

2007-06-01T12:44:00.000-07:00

Robert Leslie was a Petersburg Merchant, who had retired by the 1860 US Census, wherein he's noted as being of considerable wealth. He was known to have held a female slave for a number of years, but apparently never married. If anyone has any information on him it would be greatly appricated.

Meeting of the Dinwiddie County Historical Society

2007-06-01T12:19:00.000-07:00

A membership meeting of the Dinwiddie County Historical Society will be held Sunday, June 10, 2007 at the Old Dinwiddie County Courthouse on US Rt 1, Dinwiddie, VA, at 3:00 P.M., with a board meeting occuring at 2:00 P.M., the next quarterly meeting of the Dinwiddie County Historical Society will be held on September 9, 2007.

For further information call (804) 732-2778.

William Phillips died from typhoid fever in 1781 while at Petersburg

2007-05-28T20:37:00.000-07:00

William Phillips (1731-1781) decided on a military career early in life. He became a Cadet at Woolwich in 1746 and eventually joined the Royal Artillery, where he had a distinguished career. He quickly rose through the ranks, becoming Quartermaster of the Royal Regiment of Artillery. Phillips later became well known throughout the British army for his exemplary service at the Battle of Minden. By the time of the American Revolution, he had risen to the rank Colonel in the British army, though within the Royal Artillery he was officially still a captain. Phillips was sent to Canada in 1776 where he was finally promoted to major in the Royal Artillery and then, within the next several months, he became a major general in the British army. He served with General Burgoyne during the Saratoga Campaign of 1777. Captured with the rest of Burgoyne's army, he was held prisoner until he was paroled to New York in 1779. Phillips was officially exchanged in 1780 for American Major General Benjamin Lincoln, who had been captured at Charleston. In 1781, he was sent with 2000 men to link up with Benedict Arnold and his forces in Virginia. Phillips then assumed overall command of the combined forces. He contracted typhoid fever and died in Petersburg on May 13, 1781, one week before Cornwallis and his army entered the town to begin the campaign that would end at Yorktown. He is buried in an unmarked grave near Blandford Church in Petersburg.

(http://www.nps.gov/archive/colo/Ythanout/Phillipsbio.htm)

c1793 Jewish Letter Sent From Petersburg

2007-05-11T06:55:00.000-07:00

"All the people who hear that we are leaving give us their blessing. They say that it is sinful that such blessed children should be brought up here in Petersburg. My children cannot learn anything here, nothing Jewish, nothing of general culture. My Schoene (my daughter), God bless her, is already three years old; I think it is time that she should leansomething, and she has a good head to lean. I taught her the bedtime prayers and grace after meals in just two lessons. I believe that no one among the Jews here can do as well as she. And my Sammy (born in 1790), God bless him, is already beginnig to talk." Rebecca Samuel
See http://www.jwa.org/teach/golearn/nov05/RebeccaSamuelLetter.pdf

Her husband was Hyman Samuel, a Silversmith, from London, who was operating in Petersburg from 1791 thru 1795. He advertised, April 27, 1791, that he made and repaired watches in Petersburg, and also "all kinds of silver and goldsmith's work, jewellery, engraving on silver, gold, and other metals." See VA Gazette and Agricultural Repository, June 16, 1791.

Dinwiddie County & Petersburg's Silversmiths

2007-05-10T06:29:00.000-07:00

James Geddy & Sons (Abt.1780-1810)
James Geddy, Jr., m. Eupha Armistead, April 30, 1789 in Dinwiddie/Petersbrug, they had Elizabeth on Feb. 14th and had her baptized July 7, 1773. He also is listed on Dinwiddie County Rent Role of 1779.
In December 1790 an advertisement mentioned the firm as goldsmiths and jewelers of Petersburg, continuing to carry on its business in all its branches. Six shillings per once cash and six shillings and eight pence in exchange for work were offered for old silver.
William Waddill GeddyWas born about 1768, in Williamsburg, Virginia, to James Geddy, Sr., born 1731, Scotland, d. 1807 Dinwiddie County, Virginia and in 1755 married Elizabeth _______, born January 22, 1773; d. 1779, Dinwiddie County, Virginia.
On August 16, 1793, he was one of sixty men of Bollingbrook Street, Petersburg who signed a petition to the governor asking that if a certain negro were liberated from jail he be required to leave the State.
On November 17, 1796, Rev. Andrew Syme married him and Elizabeth Prentice.
On May 22, 1799, he wrote the governor requesting the remission of a fine for not attending the muster of the 39th Regt., which he considered unlawfully assessed on him.
On the 1810 Petersbrug/Dinwiddie Census, with five children and his wife.
On September 20, 1811 he was unable to attend to his business, he would rent for a term of years the tenement he then occupied on Old Street, Petesburg. He added, “If a person of my profession should apply, he can have at his discretion my silversmith and watchmaker’s tools.”

Please add any additional information below...

The Dinwiddie Collection

2007-04-21T19:36:00.000-07:00

Saving America's Treasures
During the middle nineteenth century the famous English autograph collector Henry Stevens assembled an extraordinary collection of manuscript items relating to the service of Robert Dinwiddie as lieutenant-governor of Virginia. When it was offered for sale at auction in the early 1880s, W. W. Corcoran, a prominent American banker and collector in his own right, secured the papers and donated them to the Virginia Historical Society, an organization of which he was then vice president. The Society, recognizing the collection's immense value as a historical resource, commissioned its corresponding secretary, Robert A. Brock, to produce an edited version of the documents, with copious annotations and transcriptions of some additional, related documents from other sources. That two-volume work, The Official Records of Robert Dinwiddie, Lieutenant-Governor of the Colony of Virginia, 1751–1758 (1883), has provided the primary access to this collection for more than a century.

Contents of the collection
The Robert Dinwiddie papers consist of twenty-two separate items. These include four letter books, which contain contemporaneous copies of letters written by Dinwiddie as lieutenant-governor of Virginia (the absentee governor's personal appointee directly responsible to the British crown and ministry) from the date of his arrival in Virginia in 1751 through his retirement from office in 1758. These copies were made by clerks in the governor's office, but also include emendations in the hand of Dinwiddie himself. More than 900 in number, the letters provide a remarkable window on the administration of Great Britain's largest, wealthiest, and most influential North American colony. They focus squarely on the coming and early years of the war against France and its Native American allies on the colonial frontier. In addition, the collection includes seventeen letters written by George Washington, then a young militia officer, between March 1754 and April 1756, primarily to Governor Dinwiddie, as well as a contemporary record of a court martial of a Virginia militia officer in 1756 related to wartime events on Virginia's western frontier.

About Robert Dinwiddie
Robert Dinwiddie's name is little known today, but this Scottish merchant turned government official played a key role in the coming of the French and Indian War (known as the Seven Years' War in England and Europe) and in early successes in it by the British in North America. Frank Grizzard, former senior associate editor of the Papers of George Washington, in turn describes this collection of Dinwiddie’s papers as "the foundation of our understanding of the American colonial experience during the early years of the French and Indian War."

Restoration of the collection
Given the significance of this collection, its restoration has long been a goal of the VHS, one that has now also garnered the support of the Save America's Treasures program jointly administered by the National Park Service, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.

The Battle of Five Forks - Dinwiddie County

2007-04-21T18:34:00.000-07:00

In 2006 the Virginia Historical Society acquired an oil painting, measuring 40 x 65 inches, capturing a scene from the April 1, 1865, battle of Five Forks. Charging Union cavalry, led by a flag-waving Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, are shown slamming into a wall of Confederate defenders near the important crossroads west of Petersburg. The scene represents a dramatic moment in the pivotal battle of the last major campaign of the war in Virginia.
The battle of Five Forks ushered in the final moments of the nearly ten-month-long siege of Petersburg. Since June 1864 the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia had extended its entrenched positions to the south and west of that rail center to protect the army's supply routes. By April 1865 the only major one open to Robert E. Lee's army was the Southside Railroad, which entered the city from the west. Ulysses S. Grant saw an opportunity to cut that rail line and compel Lee to abandon his Petersburg defenses. To accomplish this, Grant ordered his aggressive subordinate, Philip Sheridan, to take a combined force of infantry and cavalry and attack the thinly held right end of the Confederate line, located on the White Oak Road. Beginning at 4 p.m. and lasting for three hours, roughly 17,000 Federal troops under generals Sheridan and Gouverneur Warren collided with 10,000 Confederates commanded by generals George E. Pickett and W. H. F. "Rooney" Lee. The fighting ended after the Union troops successfully overwhelmed both flanks of the southern line, which was centered on the crossroads that gave the battle its name. Sheridan's losses numbered around 800 men, while Pickett lost 3,000, most of whom were captured in the fight. Lee's last major supply route had been broken. The next day, after suffering an all-out assault against the remaining Confederate positions around Petersburg, his army began a march that would end at the small village of Appomattox Court House.
In 1879 the French artist Paul Dominique Philippoteaux (1846–1923) came to the United States to paint a memorial cyclorama of the battle of Gettysburg. That 360-degree circular oil painting depicting Pickett's Charge went on display in Chicago in 1883. Another version of the cyclorama ended up at Gettysburg, where it remains today. Other Philippoteaux Civil War paintings are on display at the Pollard Memorial Library in Lowell, Mass. Around 1885, he turned his talent for capturing military combat on canvas to the battle of Five Forks. It is that painting that the VHS acquired. The Battle of Five Forks, given in memory of Peter Charles Bance, Jr., by his mother and father, is now on display in the long-term exhibition, The Story of Virginia

Tell Congress to save the NHPRC

2007-04-20T16:44:00.000-07:00

The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC)--the grant-making arm of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)--is targeted in the President's proposed FY 2008 budget for zero funding for grants and zero funding for staff to administer the agency and its programs. For FY 2008, the National Coalition for History supports full funding for national grants at $10 million plus an additional $2 million for staffing and other administrative costs. Now is the critical time to contact Congress and make your voice heard on saving the NHPRC!The newly created House and Senate Financial Services and General Government appropriations subcommittees have jurisdiction over the NARA appropriation, including the NHPRC. These subcommittees currently are drafting appropriations bills for the programs under their jurisdiction.If you support funding for the NHPRC grants program, please contact your Congressional representatives now, especially if they are members of the House and Senate subcommittees on Financial Services and General Government. The two subcommittees can be accessed at:

http://appropriations.house.gov/Subcommittees/sub_fsdc.shtml

and

http://appropriations.senate.gov/financialservices.cfm

To contact your Members of Congress about funding for the NHPRC grants program, go to the Humanities Advocacy Network at http://www.humanitiesadvocacy.org/action_ctr.html
The website allows you to send a pre-written electronic letter to your Member of Congress or to edit the letter to include your own story and express your own views.You can also fax letters or call your Congressional representatives and senators asking them to support $10 million for the grant-making arm of the NHPRC, and an additional $2 million for staffing. All Members of Congress can be reached through the U.S. Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121. In addition, most Members of Congress list their fax number on their website. Find your representative at http://www.house.gov/

and your senator at:

http://www.senate.gov/

If you can, give specific examples of NHPRC funded projects in your congressional district or State. For more information about lists of grants made in your state, visit the National Historical Publications and Records Commission grants program website at:

http://www.archives.gov/nhprc/projects/states-territories/

The NHPRC is the only grant making organization, public or private, whose mission is to provide national leadership in the effort to promote the preservation and accessibility of historical records and to publish the papers of significant figures and themes in American history. If Congress allows the NHPRC to be zeroed out of the federal budget, this important program, which has played an essential federal leadership role and has an outstanding success record of using a small amount of federal funds to leverage other contributions, would come to an end. This would be devastating to projects such as editing and publishing the papers of nationally significant individuals and institutions; the development of new archival programs; the promotion of the preservation and use of historical records; regional and national coordination in addressing major archival issues; and a wide range of other activities relating to America's documentary heritage.Please take a minute to contact the members of these key subcommittees or your Members of Congress and let them know how vital the NHPRC is to the historical and archival communities. Without your help today, the NHPRC may be eliminated!

SUPPORT INCREASED FUNDING FOR THE NEH
The Co-Chairs of the Congressional Humanities Caucus, Rep. David Price (D-NC) and Rep. Phil English (R-PA), have prepared a "Dear Colleague" letter, which is currently circulating in the House of Representatives, in support of a $36 million increase for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in FY 2008. The deadline for signing on to this letter is Tuesday, April 24. You can view the text of the letter at http://www.nhalliance.org/alerts/2007.house.dcl.pdf. This increase would return funding for the agency to its 1994 nominal level and signal that the Congress is ready to make a significant new investment in the nation's education and research infrastructure through the National Endowment for the Humanities. Please call, email, or fax your Representative and ask him/her to sign on to this letter today.
The easiest way to show your support is through the Humanities Advocacy Network. http://www.humanitiesadvocacy.org/action_ctr.html The website allows you to send a pre-written electronic letter to your Member of Congress or to edit the letter to include your own story and express your own views.A large number of signatures on the "Dear Colleague letter," particularly if they represent both sides of the aisle, will send a very important message to the leadership of the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee

http://appropriations.house.gov/Subcommittees/sub_ienv.shtml as they begin to work on the mark-up of the FY 2008 spending bill for NEH. All members of Congress can be reached by phone through the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121.

Dinwiddie County's Politcal Grave Yard

2007-04-06T10:20:00.000-07:00

Please post additions.....

Time's Recent Articile on "Slave Quilts"

2007-04-06T09:48:00.000-07:00

Shame on Time Magazine for yet again giving essentially positive exposure to the Tobin and Dobard book and all its followers. Pseudo-history does not need main-stream support; it gets all the exposure it needs and far more than it merits. Poor Ms. Tobin is"frustrated" that her nonsense is under attack and she laments that she is not "allowed to celebrate this amazing oral story..." Not allowed? With exposure on Oprah, in the New York Times, on NPR (favorably!), and now in Time, it is hard to understand who is not "allowing" this story to be celebrated. And as for Ms. Lopez in Plymouth, Michigan, all we can do is to keep trying to make meaningful distinctions between knowledge and lore, history and fantasy to counter her slurs and her tribute to the uses of ignorance. The worst slur is perhaps against fugitive slaves themselves. To suggest that they needed to see symbols on quilts hanging on clotheslines or in windows to know what to do and where to go insults their intelligence.

Carl Sandburg was right when he wrote: "And when has creative man not toiled deep in myth?" But he was right for reasons that our modern day Underground Railroad myth makers do not really understand. Oh what a lovely deflection from reality of past and present the "quilt codes" provide.

Time now owe sits readers a story on how slaves actually escaped - and did not escape.