Lowndes Stoneware

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"

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

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...

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

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

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

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)