Massanutten Musings

Deyerle 2015, Part One: Port Republic and Timberville

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 28 Sep 2015 19:11:00 +0000

Deyerle 2015, Part One: Port Republic and Timberville

Every fall, the Massanutten Regional Library is pleased to present the Deyerle Lecture Series at the Central Library at 7pm on Thursday nights. The programs are made possible by a grant from the Dr. Henry Deyerle family.

On Thursday, October 1^st, we are going to take a virtual tour of Port Republic and the Port Republic Museum. Before the bridges were burned or flooded, Port Republic was once a bustling town of industry, gundalows, ferries, iron works, canneries, mills, and tanneries. It is also the original home of Wetsel Seeds.

John Madison, the cousin of James Madison, built Madison Hall in 1751 upon a hill overlooking the fields and rivers. He created Mount Vernon Furnace, which was the beginning of the iron industry in Port Republic. The Port Republic Foundry made everything from kettles and fences to the sickle of the famous McCormick Reaper. Unfortunately, it took an entire acre of forest to create one By 1870, twenty-nine thousand acres were deforested.

ton of pig iron.

Port Republic was registered as a Virginia Historic Landmark in 1966 and was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. Come by the Central Library around 7pm Thursday to find out more.

The following Thursday, on October 8^th at 7pm, local historian Bev Garber, author of Timberville: The Early Years, and creator and guide of the Timberville Walking Tour will guide us through the streets and past of Fort Run, Williamsport, Riddle’s Tavern or now what is commonly known as Timberville.

Did you know that Timberville once had a pillow factory, or that it is the home of the first egg distribution center? Thanks to the Church of the Brethren, it was also home to an Orphanage and an “Old Folks Home.” Why did Lindberg choose to land here? Why was there a German Prisoner of War camp here? You’ll have to attend the program to find out the answers and much more.

contact Cheryl Metz at

cmetz@mrlib.org

Baseball in the Valley

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 17 Sep 2015 14:42:00 +0000

With fall approaching many of us are reminded of the changing seasons with cooler days and the hustle of children returning to school. Lives move forward and families quickly settle into daily routines. As October nears, the rest of us turn our attention to baseball. The baseball season is finally coming to a slow and grueling stop after 162 regular season games—games that stretch over the full course of spring, summer, and fall and a national champion will be crowned. Watching the World Series is a special event.

Baseball has captured the imagination of generations and will continue to captivate more. There is something rather simple about a baseball game with its nine innings, twenty-seven outs, and four bases. Players attempt to move from base to base with the hope of scoring a run. Baseball isn’t as complicated as other sports; thereby, making it easy for younger people and newcomers to quickly catch on and enjoy the game. Professional baseball players are less idolized than football stars creating a more individual appeal, making baseball seem more “realistic” and players more approachable.

Baseball’s roots in the Shenandoah Valley can be traced back to when the sport was first invented.

Chaz Weaver’s history of local baseball The Valley Baseball League details the sports beginnings and current standings. The first recorded league was in the spring of 1866. The Staunton Baseball Club was one of the first teams and Harrisonburg quickly followed in July with The Lone Star Base Ball Club. Other leagues cropped up soon after and competition between the towns quickly developed (Weaver 2). Before long there were teams in New Market, Edinburg, Luray, and Woodstock. The development of these teams led to the Valley Baseball League that many still enjoy today.

In 1922 Harrisonburg joined the Valley League as a charter member (Weaver 27). Bleachers were quickly added to the field behind Harrisonburg High School and the field quickly gained the reputation as the best baseball facility in the valley (Weaver 27). Harrisonburg won the title in their first year which more than verified their presence in the league. The league shifted teams and jurisdictions throughout the early years causing Harrisonburg to lose the Turks from 1942-1948. This was a major blow to the city where many had quickly become fond of watching baseball during the warmer months.

1950 marks a monumental year with Harrisonburg joining the Valley League again and with the completion of Veterans Memorial Stadium. The stadium was named in honor of local men who lost their lives in World War II (Weaver 29). Throughout the 60s and 70s the Turks would continue a pattern of success and win six championships. The Turks would go on to win the championship again in 1991, 2002 and 2012. 2008 marked dramatic change for the team. James Madison University purchased the old Harrisonburg High School building and grounds and Veterans Memorial Stadium was demolished. The new field, Eagle Field at Veterans Memorial Stadium seats 1,200 and is a state of the art facility. The Turks have seen tremendous success since moving to the new field and even won the championship in 2012 giving the Harrisonburg Turks a total of eighteen championships (Weaver 32).

This October we invite you stop by the library and check out our baseball display. Mr. Weaver’s book, The Valley Baseball League, will be available for you to borrow along with a generous selection of other baseball titles. We hope you enjoy the World Series by reading something new and enjoying the magic of October.

Weaver, Chaz. The Valley Baseball League, A History of Baseball in the Shenandoah Valley. Lulu Publishing Services, 2014.

German PWs in Rockingham County, 1944-1945

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 05 Sep 2015 18:37:00 +0000

POWs waiting for ocean transport, from Arnold Krammer's
book Nazi Prisoners of War in America.

Fall is quickly approaching, and in the Valley, that means apples! The Shenandoah Valley has long been an agricultural center, and 70 years ago, our farms and factories were vital to the war effort—part of the “breadbasket of democracy,” as wartime propaganda films called the United States. (Don’t underestimate Rockingham’s importance—in August 1944, Fox Movietone, Pathé News, and MGM came to the Plains district to shoot newsreel footage of Rockingham’s food production and processing. Our turkey flocks, orchards, and processing facilities were broadcast to moviegoers nationwide!) However, the workforce available to harvest and process food was quickly dwindling. The Virginia labor force lost 300,000 able-bodied men to the armed forces, and still more left for higher paying jobs in government and other wartime workplaces. In 1943, state farmers found labor where they could—convicts from state prisons, the Women’s Land Army (a civilian organization), conscientious objectors released from Soil Conservation work, and vacationers from Washington, D.C. all helped bring in the harvest. The 1944 harvest was expected to be a bumper crop, and Rockingham County farmers hoped to use the same sources of labor that they used in 1943, as well as Boy Scouts and school students, for the growing and harvest seasons. County Agricultural Extension Agent Frederick Holsinger also applied to the Army’s Third Service Command at Baltimore for another source to supplement the labor force—German prisoners of war.

According to the 1929 Geneva Convention, prisoners of war (POWs or PWs) could work for the good of their captors, as long as certain criteria were met. First, they had to be either enlisted men or non-commissioned officers. PW labor could not be used for work directly related to the war effort, and all assignments had to meet certain safety guidelines. Lastly, the PWs had to be paid for their work.[1] Prisoners were a guaranteed product of combat in WWII, and keeping them in camps in the European war zone was problematic. The United States had never had so many war captives, and with no practical experience and only theoretical guidelines to work from, it seems they worked things out as they went. Shipping the prisoners back to the U.S. was a logical move. Rather than having to ship more food to Europe or sacrifice provisions meant for American troops, they could use the mostly empty supply ships returning across the Atlantic to ferry prisoners instead.

Branch Camp No. 7, Timberville, Virginia. From
Gregory L. Owen's book Wehrmacht Autumns.

In fact, from 1942 to 1946, close to half a million Italian and German PWs were transported back to American shores. (In May 1945, there were 425,871 PWs in the U.S.—371,683 Germans, 50,273 Italians, and 3,915 Japanese.[2])The first prisoners went to former Civilian Conservation Corps camps, unused parts of military bases, fairgrounds, auditoriums, and tent cities. By the end of the war, 155 more permanent base camps had been established, as well as 511 branch camps when the bases were too few to meet demand. The Italians and Germans were already using American PWs to fill their own labor drains as men went to the war, and the U.S. did the same to free up troops for overseas shipment. The first priority for labor was to military installations for essential war work. In base camps, skilled PWs also did everything from working as medical and dental aids to carpentry and plumbing to road and yard work to tending the camp PX or post office. More than 40 states appealed for help from the government due to workforce shortages, and by November 1944, there were more PWs employed in agricultural work than essential war work—over 115,000 by November 1945. Businesses and chambers of commerce could petition the War Department for labor, and that is what happened in Rockingham County. There is a lot of additional interesting information available about the bureaucratic workings of the PW program, the distribution of prisoners, Nazism in the camps, reeducation, repatriation, and the rest, but I want to focus on the local, small scale of Fort Pickett’s Branch Camp No. 7 in Timberville.

After an initial meeting on June 5, 1944 to ascertain the interest in war prisoner labor, county agent Holsinger set the bureaucratic wheels in motion by submitting a certification of need in order to have prisoners allocated to the area. Branch Camp No. 7 was established on the farm of Herman L. Hollar, three miles west of Timberville, on a field full of jagged limestone that made it good only for grazing, not planting. The facility was planned to accommodate 250 prisoners, 50 soldier guards, and 8 officers. Americans and Germans alike would live in tents at the camp and have separate dining facilities. Local workers installed sewage, water, and electricity to the camp, and the first prisoners to arrive in August 1944 assembled the canvas tents, as well as 8’ barbed wire fences around the perimeter. The fence had gates in the center of the east and west sides, with a road bisecting, plus 8’ guard towers on each corner; the fences and guard towers were the only things in the camp built of wood. Soon the Timberville camp was full of German prisoners, who arrived by open truck with the town’s population lining the streets to watch. Those interested in obtaining PW labor applied to the county agent’s office. If they were assigned men, they would receive instructions about their responsibilities. Employers had to pick up PWs at the camp, though prisoners working at farms as far south as Harrisonburg and Bridgewater were trucked to the Greyhound bus station on North Main Street in Harrisonburg and picked up there. Demand for labor surpassed supply, so labor was allocated based on priorities—harvesting was priority number one. PWs also made hay, hauled in small grain, performed orchard work, cut corn, filled siloes, and worked in industry. (Zigler Canning Cooperative Inc. and Rockingham Poultry Marketing Cooperative Inc. were the two main industrial contractors for the Timberville camp, though PWs also worked at City Produce Exchange, the Harrisonburg Junk and Hide Company, and Mason’s saw mill, as well as food processing plants in the Timberville/Broadway area.) The government set three months as the maximum contract period, so a truck convoy returned the 170 prisoners to Camp Pickett on November 1, 1944. As anticipated, the year was a bumper crop for both apples and peaches, and the harvest might not have been brought in without PW labor. Because of this success, the camp opened again in 1945 from July 16 to November 16, when it served as a branch of the Front Royal base camp under the direction of Lieut. Nathan Mandel.

PWs enjoying a drink. From Arnold Krammer's
book Nazi Prisoners of War in America.

Conditions in the camps were good, partially due to the Geneva Convention and partially due to the prevailing idea that word would get back to Germany and make them more willing to surrender, knowing that conditions would not be bad. Farmers paid the army the prevailing local wage for each worker, and in turn the army paid workers $0.80 per day in canteen checks, which could be used to purchase things like toiletries, candy, soda, the occasional beer, and other items that weren’t scarce to point of shortage. (Any money they did not spend during the war went back to Germany with them.) Prisoners had responsibilities in camp, just as they would in their own barracks. German camp management solved discipline issues internally, and prisoners were accountable for keeping the camp clean. Their food was also prepared by German cooks, who received the same rations that their American counterparts did— coffee, tea, milk, corn flakes, jam, potatoes, rice, meat, fish, vegetables, eggs, and the like. In fact, some prisoners thought they had more food than they needed! Timberville PWs also had regular church services held by alternating local pastors with the aid of a German-speaking Lutheran pastor from Edinburg. (The Rev. Samuel Berry was one of those pastors, and his former church, St. John’s Lutheran Chapel, is now home to the altar made and used by prisoners in their services. It reads “Ehre sei Gott in der hoehe” – “Glory to God in the highest.” The PWs left the altar behind at the end of the war because they wanted a church to be able to use it.) The prisoners were housed, clothed, fed, and offered religious comfort in the beauty of the Valley. Former prisoner Herbert Vogt observed, “The countryside around Timberville is nice and is similar to the countryside around my hometown.”[3]

PW Herman Vogt, who had fond
memories of the Shenandoah
Valley. From Gregory Owen's
book Wehrmacht Autumns.

Vogt was typical of the average PW at the Timberville camp—or at any of the hundreds of camps across the country. He was barely 19 years old when he was captured in France in June 1944. Local resident Benjamin May, who was six years old when the PWs first arrived, remembered the children expecting the Germans to be “ten feet tall and supermen and mean.”[4] Instead, they discovered a group of unthreatening teenagers, not that much older than themselves. The only “escapee” from the Timberville camp was 18-year-old Kurt Krott, who disappeared and then returned 12 hours later, saying he had been sleeping in the woods nearby. Krott was only 5’2” and 107 pounds, and often spoke of being homesick. While there were many critics of the PW program, especially those living near camps who were afraid of escapes or who had family in the military and saw PWs as symbols of the enemy, eventually the Germans were largely accepted because of their strong work ethic, cleanliness, and good manners. One woman who lived on Main Street in Timberville remembered the PWs coming through town in a truck singing melodies in German with good voices on the way to pick tomatoes. Others recalled them singing often while working the farms, seemingly content. “I guess they were happy to be out of the war,” Benjamin May said on the subject years later.[5] John Yeich of Broadway agreed. “They were out of the war…They were pretty happy to be there, I suspect.”[6] The PWs weren’t asked to work any harder or differently than a local man would be; they were often mixed among local workers. They had hourly breaks and square meals—though they were supposed to bring their own lunch from camp, farm wives often prepared home cooked meals for the laborers. Guards for the prisoners at work were often armed with only a sidearm or not at all, and by September 1945, American MP shortages meant none of the industrial work details had a guard at all. Of course, that doesn’t mean the Germans stuck to the rules. PWs at Hollar’s Orchard convinced 13-year-old Jacob Saylor, who delivered water to them, to break the rules and buy them some snuff. He liked to think of German water boys doing the same and getting tobacco for American PWs, because to him the Germans were “just like Americans.”[7]

Prisoners working at Fort Story, Virginia. From Arnold
|Krammer's book Nazi Prisoners of War in America.

The camp, composed largely of impermanent structures, was dismantled after November 1945. The Daily News Record didn’t report the last prisoners leaving when the camp closed, though whether that was due to lack of interest or more pressing news items is impossible to say. In general, branch camps shut down after war and the land and materials were sold at auction. Today, nothing remains of the Timberville PW camp except a few concrete slabs and guard tower foundations on private property along Orchard Drive. The PW program was ultimately successful in feeding, clothing, housing, entertaining, and even reeducating German servicemen. The U.S. government made $100 million profit on prisoner labor in 1944, which made the camps basically self-supporting. PWs contributed immensely to feeding the nation and its men overseas. In seven months over two harvests in Timberville, German PWs provided 26,081 man days of labor, including 5,573 man days in agricultural work and 5,873 man days in food processing in 1944 and 8,202 man days in agricultural work and 6,433 man days in processing in 1945.[8] The experience seems to have been largely positive for the German prisoners as well. A survey of more than 20,000 PWs leaving Camp Shanks, New York showed that “74 percent of the German prisoners of war who were interred in this country left with an appreciation and friendly attitude toward their captors.”[9] Germans who returned home to the Russian Zone often depended on food packages from concerned friends they had made while imprisoned in the U.S., while American and British Zone repatriates often found work with the U.S. Army or American Military government because they had learned English in captivity. Many former PWs returned to visit and relive their days in the camps across the country, including in the Shenandoah Valley. In the late 1970s, Timberville resident Dow Souder ran into a German man at the bank who had brought his wife, friend, and friend’s wife to see the area where he’d been held during the war. At a camp reunion in Texas in the 1950s, former PW Wilhelm Sauerbrei told a reporter, “I’ll tell you, pal, if there is ever another war, get on the side that America isn’t, then get captured by the Americans—you’ll have it made!”[10]

Compared to fighting on the front lines, harvesting apples in the beautiful Valley must have been a positive experience for German PWs. As for Rockingham County residents, meeting “the enemy” in person and seeing that the Germans weren’t much different from the locals may have been equally positive. This is a fascinating part of our county’s history, and I’m grateful to Gregory L. Owen for all the work he has done in researching and recording it. I highly recommend reading his works for more information, particularly Wehrmacht Autumns: German Prisoners of War in the Plains District of Rockingham County, Virginia During World War II, which is available at Massanutten Regional Library in the Genealogy room (GEN 940.412 O).

by Kristin Noell

[1] See 1929 Geneva Convention, part III, third section, articles 27-34 for more information on PW labor
[2] Owen, HRHS Newsletter, 1.
[3] Owen, Wehrmacht Autumns, 94.
[4] Ibid., 47.
[5] Ibid., 40.
[6] Mellott.
[7] Owen, Wehrmacht Autumns, 59.
[8] Ibid., 24.
[9] Krammer, 263.
[10] Ibid., 267.

Bibliography

“10 German PW’s at Work Here.” Daily News-Record, Jul. 24, 1945.
“200 Prisoners of War Available in Rockingham after July 16th.” Daily News-Record, Jul. 6, 1945.
Austin, Luanne. “On the Homefront.” Daily News-Record, Mar. 15, 2007.
“Every Source is Being Tapped to Get Farm Labor.” Daily News-Record, May 11, 1944.
Gansberg, Judith M. Stalag, U.S.A.: The Remarkable Story of German POWs in America. New York: Crowell, 1977.
ICRC. Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Geneva, Jul. 27, 1929. https://www.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/Treaty.xsp?documentId=0BDEDDD046FDEBA9C12563CD002D69B1&action=openDocument
Jost, Scott. Shenandoah Valley Apples. Chicago: Columbia College Chicago Press, 2013.
Krammer, Arnold. Nazi Prisoners of War in America. New York: Stein and Day, 1979.
Mellott, Jeff. “'Migrant' Workers – Exhibit Recalls When POWs Rescued Farmers.” Daily News-Record, Sep. 22, 2010.
Moore, John Hammond. “Hitler’s Wehrmacht in Virginia, 1943-1946.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 85(3), Jul. 1977.
“Nazi Prisoners Come to County.” Daily News-Record, Jun. 16, 1945.
Owen, Gregory L. “Prisoners of War in Rockingham County During WWII.” The Harrisonburg-Rockingham Historical Society Newsletter 29(2). Spring 2007.
Owen, Gregory L. Wehrmacht Autumns: German Prisoners of War in the Plains District of Rockingham County, Virginia During World War II. Timberville, Va.: Gregory L. Owen, 2003
Patterson, Dana L. “Church Altar a Reminder of German POWs in Area.” North Fork Journal. Sep. 16-22, 1992.
“Timberville’s Peach Harvest in Full Swing.” Daily News-Record, Aug. 23, 1944.
“War Prisoner Camp Meeting.” Daily News-Record, Jun. 1, 1944.
“War Prisoners Arrive Today.” Daily News-Record, Aug. 1, 1944.
“War Prisoners to Leave Today.” Daily News-Record, Nov. 1, 1944.
“War Prisoners to Work Here.” Daily News-Record, Jul. 20, 1945.

Monroeville, Alabama - Yesterday and Today

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 19 Aug 2015 16:49:00 +0000

Courtesy Library of Congress.

There has been a lot of talk in the media about Harper Lee’s new/old book, Go Set a Watchman, since long before its publication on July 14. Is it unpolished? Is Atticus a racist? Was Lee in a fit state to authorize publication? Does it diminish To Kill a Mockingbird? (To see the MRL community’s thoughts on the novel, see our Goodreads review.) Instead of revisiting all of these ideas, I want to visit the town halfway between Mobile and Montgomery that served as the inspiration for Maycomb, the setting of both novels—little Monroeville, which was named the literary capital of Alabama in 1996. For another “visit” to Maycomb, please join us at the Main branch on Saturday, September 5 at 1:00 for a showing of the 1962 film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird.

The 1930s

While Maycomb could be any small rural town in the South (which is probably why it resonates with so many readers 55 years later), you can find its landmarks in Monroeville if you know where to look. Mark Childress, the author of Crazy in Alabama and a Monroeville native, says that Mockingbird was the first “grown-up book” he ever read. “Books had always been magical objects to me, but distant from my own experience. Authors were invisible wizards who swept me off to far places to work their spell on me. To Kill a Mockingbird was fiction, but it was real. It came from this place where I sat. It was a written by a lady my parents actually knew, a lady who had signed her name in this book I held in my hands. It told a story about a childhood lived on this very street, in these houses, in that schoolyard back yonder.”[1] Monroeville residents have always believed that Mockingbird is based on Lee’s experience. An older friend of the Childress family often pointed out Boo Radley’s home and the tree where he left trinkets for Scout and Jem as if he were a real man. In fact, when Lee was a child, a young man named Son Bowler broke some windows in the school, and his father made a deal with the authorities that he would keep his son out of trouble if they wouldn’t press charges. Son Bowler became a prisoner in his father’s house, eventually dying in his 30s of tuberculosis.

The old Monroe Country Courthouse.
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Like Scout, Jem, and Dill, the children of Monroeville played on the red clay streets in the 1930s. One old-timer once recounted a story of Truman Capote (Lee’s inspiration for Dill) gathering up the boys playing ball on an abandoned lot and taking them to the drug store for milk shakes and sodas. He had the outing charged to his mother, who had left him with relatives while she was living in New Orleans. Capote apparently had quite a reputation for sass, though one would hope that young Lee, daughter of respected lawyer Amasa Coleman Lee (inspiration for Atticus Finch), was better behaved. When they weren’t playing in the streets or hanging out at the soda fountain, the children of Lee’s generation had one other great pastime: reading. I couldn’t write this better than Lee, who wrote a rare letter on the subject to Oprah in 2006:

“My sisters and brother, much older, read aloud to keep me from pestering them; my mother read me a story every day, usually a children’s classic; and my father read from the four newspapers he got through every evening. Then, of course, it was Uncle Wiggily at bedtime…Reading was an accomplishment I shared with several local contemporaries. Why this endemic precocity? Because in my hometown, a remote village in the early 1930s, youngsters had little to do but read. A movie? Not often – movies weren’t for small children. A park for games? Not a hope. We’re talking unpaved streets here, and the Depression. Books were scarce. There was nothing you could call a public library, we were a hundred miles away from a department store’s books section, so we children began to circulate reading material among ourselves until each child had read another’s entire stock.”[2]

Personally, I love this image.

Community Gatherings

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 15:55:00 +0000

Community Gatherings

gather (v.)

Old English gadrian, gædrian "unite, agree, assemble; gather, collect, store up" (transitive and intransitive), used of flowers, thoughts, persons; from Proto-Germanic *gaduron "come or bring together, unite" (cognates: Old English gæd "fellowship, companionship," gædeling "companion;" Middle Low German gadderen; Old Frisian gaderia; Dutch gaderen "to gather," gade "spouse;" German Gatte "husband;" Gothic gadiliggs), from PIE *ghedh- "to unite, join" (see good (adj.)). Change of spelling from -d- to -th- is 1500s, reflecting earlier change in pronunciation (as in mother, weather, father). Related: Gathered; gathering.[1]

Indigenous people gather in circles to share stories and spirituality. Several tribes come together to share resources and socialize and to hold competitive games. Such simple gatherings evolved to organized activities for economic, political, and social purposes. Who knew that when two unrelated individuals first decided to formalize a relationship for economic and/or social purposes the meeting would eventually expand into gatherings - like the Olympics or a fair - in which the world could participate? History tells us the ancient Roman calendar was loaded with at least weekly public sponsored feriae (holidays) to honor different gods. Meetings at east-west trading junctures in the eastern Mediterranean lead to the creation of permanent agoras and souks for the trading of goods and for exchanging ideas and events.

Art by Dan Escott

The adoption of Christianity throughout Europe, after the fall of the Roman Empire, resulted in the adaptation of Roman collective activities to the purposes of the Christian church. Religious institutions were well aware of the value of honoring saints and ritualizing practices suitable to their constituents in rural communities. Sundays became the day people came to pray and trade Gatherings that were located at crossroads often helped to establish and grow towns that attracted traveling peddlers and entertainers. As both the exchange and the town grew, the markets became more organized and regulated, of course, by guilds and by governments.

agriculture and domestic goods.

In the medieval period, fairs were popular. These were held less often than markets, were larger, and lasted several days. In large communities, local governments or religious organizations organized these events. The merchandise at the fair was more varied and often more valuable than in simple market places. Visitors and entertainers came from greater distances. Contests, both scientific and physical, were featured and later, as representative governance became a reality, political stump speeches became a feature at markets.

These gatherings, small and large, were incorporated into the culture of the new world. The first North American fair was held in Windsor, Nova Scotia in 1765. It is still operating 250 years later. Reflecting the rural nature of early America, the first U.S. agricultural fairs were in New England but they spread rapidly throughout the States. Elkanah Watson, a New England farmer, earned the title, "Father of US agricultural fairs" by organizing the Berkshire Agricultural Society and “creating an event (known then as a Cattle Show) in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in September 1811. It was more than just an exhibit of animals – it was a competition, with prize money ($70) paid for the best exhibits of oxen, cattle, swine and sheep.”[2]

Though these fairs evolved into large county and State sponsored events, local small town community group gatherings flourished in America under the sponsorship of church, civic, and school organizations. These groups gathered the community through the sponsorship of ice cream socials, holiday bazaars, rummage sales, health screenings, and so forth. One civic organization especially focuses on the small communities. The first Ruritan club was chartered in 1928 in The Ruritans (meaning rural and small town life) is a volunteer organization that often works with youth - FFA, 4-H, and Boy and Girl Scouts – and is active in Rockingham County.[3]

Holland, Virginia.

Our local area has always had competitive, innovative, and proud agriculture and animal husbandry traditions. The many small villages in Rockingham County that once held events to bring the community together have now turned these gatherings into once a year community celebrations and encourage outsiders to come into their midst. Also, now once a year, we celebrate “Court Days” a relic from the early 1800s that provided a once-a-month place around the Courthouse for people to sell horses and agricultural products, settle legal affairs, and indulge in hard drink with companions. Today, Court Square is a place to gather the community for the 4^th of July and New Year’s Eve celebrations. The agricultural aspect of Court Days evolved in 1892 into the first agricultural fair at Assembly Park north of Harrisonburg. After several incorporations and relocations, it moved in 1980 to its present location on Route 11 south of Harrisonburg.[4] The Rockingham County Fair is one of approximately 3,200 agricultural fairs in the U.S and is the largest Virginia agriculture county fair. In 2015, the Fair is August 17 to 22.

by Diane Rafuse and C. Metz

[1] Barnhart, Robert K., ed., Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology, H.W. Wilson Co., 1988.

[2] The International Association of Fairs and Expositions. www.fairsandexpos.com

[3] www.ruritan.org

[4] http://www.rockinghamcountyfair.com

Moses Ezekiel: Forgotten Master Artist

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 14:20:00 +0000

Moses Jacob Ezekiel (October 28, 1844 – March 27, 1917)

Virginians should know his name. His works grace the lawns and corners of universities, Arlington National Cemetery, and numerous museums. Between 1879 and 1884, he created eleven statues of artists, such as Raphael, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Van Dyke, and others that first filled the niches of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in the District of Columbia, but now stand in the Statuary Vista of the Norfolk, Virginia Botanical Garden. His Bust of Thomas Jefferson (1888) graces our United States Capitol building and his Jefferson Monument (1901) is at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

Ezekiel should be better known for his amazing sculpture entitled Virginia Mourning Her Dead (1903) which dominates the small cemetery at Virginia Military Institute. Every year, at the foot of this statue, roll call is conducted for the brave cadets who fought—and those who died—at the Battle of New Market. Moses Ezekiel was one of those cadets.
Read more »

A Corner in Montparnasses

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 16 Jun 2015 16:20:00 +0000

For the reader, the delight of a walk in any direction in central Paris is coming upon a street, a building plaque, or a café that notes its association with a writer. A walk in Montparnasses is a reminder of American writers in the 1920s who often met in the cafés there. Since the 1400s when Francois Villon, considered the first author in Paris, wrote “The Ballad of the Hanged Men” while in his jail cell—he was convicted of murder—Paris attracted disaffected and unconventional artists from around the world who wanted space to exercise intellectual freedom. Before 1900 writers came from America, many of which are chronicled in David McCullough’s The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris. Woody Allen’s movie, Midnight in Paris, imagines a contemporary aspiring American novelist, Gil Pender, time-traveling to the 1920s. In the 1920s, American writers who came to Pairs often met at cafés in Montparnasses.

At the beginning of the 20th century to escape the tourists and the mafia, artists from Montmartre on the right bank began to migrate to Montparnasses on the left bank. The opening of a metro line in 1910 between Montmartre and Montparnasses hastened the departure of many artists from the right bank, but also kept the connection between the two artists’ enclaves.

In the 17th century, Montparnasses, named for the home of the god of poetry, Apollo, was a ruble heap that attracted university poets. The following two centuries the area was ignored by most artists. Chateaubriand and Balzac, who because of their financial woes, did choose to live in this cheap neighborhood. Today, Rodin’s Balzac overlooks the intersection of Blvd. du Montparnasses, Blvd. Raspail, and Rue Delambre in Montparnasses. The intersection is known as Place Pablo Picasso and can be accessed from the No. 4 metro line at the Vavin station (named for Alexi Vavin, 1792-1865, a statesman who opposed the coup of Napoleon III). Here in the heart of artistic Montparnasses several eateries dominate the corners. At these cafés, writers met, wrote, and explored ideas and tourists swarmed to get a glimpse of them in the 1920s.

Le Dôme

The oldest café and restaurant at this location opened in 1898. Le Dôme, when facing northeast toward the Montparnasses Tower, is on the left. From the beginning, this café attracted bohemian artists and models and until WWI, German and northern Europeans. After WWI, Americans came attracted to Paris because it was cheap, liquor was available, and its lack of priggishness. Le Dôme’s huge terrassa, now mostly glassed-in, became the “home” for American writers, artists, and journalists. The regulars, writers many of whom already had achieved some success, were terrible snobs. An often repeated encounter at Le Dôme happened one night where Sinclair Lewis, then "a hugely successful author of Main Street and Babbitt, was overheard boasting about one of his books on the terrace, [when] someone at a table shouted, 'Sit down, you’re just a best seller.'" One of the habitués was American writer and publisher Robert McAlmon, best known as publisher of Hemingways’s first book in 1923, Ten Stories and Ten Poems.

Read more »

Escape the Ordinary: OCP

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 01 Jun 2015 17:00:00 +0000

Local Hero Ron Copeland and a Brief History of Our Community Place

This year’s adult summer reading program theme is Escape the Ordinary. Massanutten Regional Library will host one extraordinary local resident on Monday, June 8 at 1:00 p.m. at the Main library in downtown Harrisonburg.

The early days

Ron Copeland bought The Little Grill in 1992 at the age of 24. As the story goes, he underestimated the appetites of the JMU homecoming weekend crowd, and with nothing to cook on Monday, he stayed closed. It was so nice, he stopped opening Mondays. A few weeks later, when a man turned up at the locked door looking for food, Ron let him in. The Grill’s weekly Soup Kitchen was born. "It bothered me to live in a poor neighborhood, where there was a certain segment of the population that couldn't eat in my restaurant," Copeland said. But "a soup kitchen can only do so much. ... The loneliness [among the poor] is incredible."[1]

Recognizing the need for building community as well as filling stomachs, grassroots organization Our Community Place (OCP) was formed by Soup Kitchen volunteers in 1999. As early as April 2000, the Daily News-Record was reporting on OCP’s plan to purchase a city building to create a community center, which would expand upon the civic-minded mission of the Soup Kitchen. In addition to the weekly meal, they planned for free classes, study groups, 12-step programs, a community garden, and more. "I want to become reliant on the people in my geographic community for my happiness and well-being," Copeland said. "I want to be involved in the lives of my neighbors no matter who they are."[2] The group hoped to break down social barriers through cooperative community meals, shared activities, and work.

OCP bought the former Salvation Army chapel on the corner of Johnson and Main in January 2001. Though they had considered purchasing the building for several years, they were spurred into action when the City announced plans to turn the adjacent stretch of Blacks Run into a concrete culvert. Since then, taking care of the creek has become just another facet of OCP’s neighborly work. Throughout 2001, the group raised money through “monthly dinner shows, yard sales, a spring festival and the oft reliable jug-on-the-counter at the Little Grill.”[3] To make up the rest of the funds, OCP solicited small loans from many local residents, rather than one large bank loan. On January 2, 2002, they were able to cut a check for the full amount of the mortgage and start renovations with zero debt.

Escape the Ordinary: Superheroes in Comics

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 25 May 2015 12:30:00 +0000

This year’s adult summer reading program theme is Escape the Ordinary, and superheroes are coming to Massanutten Regional Library! (Find out more about signing up to read and win prizes here.) The Main branch in downtown Harrisonburg will be featuring Super Screenings of popular, modern superhero movies all summer long. (Click here for times and titles.)

Personally, I’ve always been a big Batman fan. I’m dating myself here, but I grew up watching Batman: The Animated Series (1992-1995). My brother and I must have watched its accompanying full-length movie, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993), a dozen times. However, I’ve never been a big comic reader, largely because I’m the kind of person who would want to read every panel from beginning to end, and I find the sheer volume of issues and story arcs of Batman’s last seven decades a bit daunting, to say the least—and that’s just the caped crusader.

The history of the comic industry is as complex as the stories it generates and the characters almost as numerous. From executives to artists and writers, dozens of people may influence every issue published. Entire books about industry giants such as publisher Martin Goodman and artists Stan Lee and Bob Kane, among others, are available in the library’s collection. This brief and general history of superhero comics probably won’t offer anything new for the established fan, but it should provide a sufficient overview for the uninitiated.

The Golden Age (1938-1954)

All DC Comics characters and the
distinctive likeness(es) thereof
are Trademarks & Copyright
© 1939 DC Comics, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

The comic book as we know it today was born in the late 1930s from two popular forms of the 1920s and ’30s—the funny pages and the pulps. (Pulps were short stories—from westerns and adventures to romances and melodramas—accompanied by illustrations and mass-produced on cheap pulp paper.) The first comic series with exclusively new material, New Fun #1, was published in 1935; Detective Comics #1 (the eponymous “DC” of today’s DC Comics) was published in March 1937. “Comic books were the perfect entertainment form for the Great Depression audiences: their heroic, larger-than-life characters stirred the demoralized masses, and the very format of the magazines themselves—usually sixty-four pages of original material for a mere dime—was a bargain during those times of economic hardship” (Misiroglu 3).

The dawn of today’s superhero coincided closely with the genesis of the comic book. The widely accepted definition of a superhero is “a heroic character with an altruistic mission, who possesses superpowers, wears a defining costume, and functions in the ‘real world’ in his or her alter ego” (Misiroglu 2). Arguably the first superhero according to this definition, Superman debuted in June 1938 in Action Comics #1. He was a natural successor to 1930s heroes of pulp, radio, and other mediums, including Doc Savage, the Shadow, the Green Hornet, the Phantom, the Spider, and Zorro. With the Nazi threat looming in Europe, Americans were in need of a hero, and the appearance of the red and blue-clad Superman was well-timed. By 1941, “he was on the radio, syndicated across the funny pages of every major US newspaper, and selling stamps, greeting cards, coloring books, bubble gum, board games, and war bonds” (Morrison 11).

All DC Comics characters and
the distinctive likeness(es) thereof
are Trademarks & Copyright
© 1939 DC Comics, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Batman followed closely on Superman’s heels in Detective Comics #27 of May 1939. He was created as a hero of the night in direct contrast to Superman, with visual inspiration coming from many film and literary sources, including da Vinci’s ornithopter sketches. Both Superman and Batman, then published under the imprint of National Comics, were cornerstones for the future DC Comics. One of many shell companies started specifically to latch onto the hero fad, Timely Comics publishing Marvel Comics in October 1939. The Human Torch and Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner were the first residents of the future Marvel Universe. Hero after hero emerged in this Golden Age of comics. In the 1940s, there “was a superhero or villain for every profession, every class, every walk of life,” from lawyers to military men to scientists to taxi drivers to doctors to flower shop proprietors (Morrison 48). (I must interject that, as far as I know, there were no librarian heroes until Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl, came out of the cave in 1967!)

Battle of New Market and its Re-enactment

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 29 Apr 2015 18:04:00 +0000

Although the flag they died to save

Floats not o'er any land or sea,

Throughout eternal years shall wave

The banner of their chivalry.

(John Wayland, 1926)

May brings the smell of musket fire and the volley of cannons across the Valley. Civil War

Book available at Library!

re-enactment camps spring up in the fields from Lexington to Winchester. The most memorable and the oldest annual re-enactment held on its original 1864 ground is the Battle of New Market, or, the "Field of Lost Shoes" as it is commonly known because of the participation of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) cadets.
     The first ceremonial remembrance of the battle was held at VMI in 1866 and continues every year on May 15th. All of VMI turns out at the graves of six fallen cadets to hear the roll call of all ten cadets who lost their lives on that fateful day. Their graves are marked by the statue of Virginia Mourning Her Dead, sculpted by Moses Ezekiel, who also was a cadet who fought on that same battlefield and who read the bible through the night to his fatally wounded friend and fellow cadet, Thomas G. Jefferson.[1] Eighty miles away, on June 15th, New Market held its first memorial service and the following year, the Women's Memorial Society was formed.
            On May 21^st, 1914, the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of New Market, the wheat field saw its first re-enactment of VMI cadets. Under the leadership of Commandant Col. Wise, son of former New Market cadet John Wise, 327 cadets re-enacted their charge across the orchard and up the hill. [2]
            On Sept. 20^th, 1923 Brigadier General Smedley Butler brought about 3,500 real U.S. Marines to New Market to represent Gen. Seigel’s Union troops. This is considered the first “modern” re-enactment and “the VMI cadets were there.”[3]
Read more »

Climate Change

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 15 Apr 2015 19:42:00 +0000

Meteorologists and emergency managers from the high Plains to the Appalachians are on alert as the U.S. has the year’s first widespread bout of severe weather. The key message: Have a Plan. (Christian Science Monitor, April 9, 2015)

The Climate Change Discussion

After the winter’s snows, residents of the Northeast might disagree with the “first” bout of severe weather in 2015! And, with regard to the bulletin above, climate scientists warn us to not confuse weather (a single episode) with climate change (observed facts over the long-term). Perhaps Noah or those who were in the path of Hurricane Sandy might be reluctant to accept this distinction as both weather events re-arranged the environment. The increasing frequency of severe weather occurrences, observers say, are the result of trapped warm air above us caused by human activities. The change in weather patterns is part of the climate change that is modifying our landscape.

Change should not be a surprise; the climate and environment are ever changing. Five hundred million years ago receding oceans left the serrated ridges we see on the massive rock formations along our roads. Fifty million years ago Mole Hill stopped erupting and polluting the air with gases and dust. Five thousand years ago man began devising written languages that allowed him to describe his environment and to observe and report on changes. The newest force affecting environment is man with the capability and intelligence to do well or to do harm. People who distrust scientific discourse and people who deny existing change are often described as mentally lazy, politically angry, or economically beholden to a special interest. Those on the opposite side are deemed doomsday, hand-wringers and may also be guilty of the same traits as the deniers. Most people are somewhere in the middle between the deniers and the doomsayers. Opinions on what action to take on climate change is far from unanimous.

Efforts to solve our environmental problems need to include personal, local, state, national and even international action. Given recent political debates, it may come as a surprise to Virginians that its State Constitution (Article XI, Section 1) promises “the commonwealth’s policy to protect its atmosphere, land and waters from pollution, impairment, or destruction, for the benefit, enjoyment and general welfare of the people of the commonwealth.” The documentation of climate history (often reduced to a plethora of graphs) and a discussion of climate change in Virginia illustrate some of the issues. From the existing records Virginia once had a generally stable, predictable climate but the long-term historical data show recent trends to be otherwise. The trend lines provide insight into what may be happening in the future. These transitional changes in climate affect our ecosystems Flora and fauna changes are climbing mountains, like at Mt. Rogers, so where a flower that once bloomed only at the base of the mountain is now found 1,000 feet higher. A flower that a few years ago bloomed in Danville in April and in Leesburg in May is now seen in bloom in Danville in March and in Leesburg in April. These changes are being followed by the invasive stinkbugs and kudzu entering our neighborhoods. Virginia’s occurring environmental changes are not bound by jurisdictional borders. The State border is not a barrier to coal dust and acid rain carried on winds from the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys. The “outside” factors as well as local factors are causing deforestation affecting the canopy of our trees that moderate temperatures and cleanse our air. Regional and national programs are needed to address the problems.

vertically and horizontally.

Women in Blue and Gray

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 03 Apr 2015 21:05:00 +0000

Women in Blue and Gray: Female Soldiers of the Civil War

Loreta Janeta Velázquez aka Henry T. Buford, CSA

A couple of weeks ago, I heard a story on NPR about the Marine training program to test women’s ability for combat duty. Next week, April 9 will mark the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War. Naturally, from these two tidbits I got to thinking about the history of female combatants. From Boudica to Tomoe Gozen to Sgt. Kelly Brown (one of the Marines in combat training), there have been many visible woman warriors through time. However, others had to disguise themselves as men to enlist, such as Continental soldier Deborah Sampson and other Revolutionary War female fighters who contributed to the folkloric figure of Molly Pitcher. For today, I want to focus on the women who disguised themselves in the Blue and the Gray across five Aprils 150 years ago.


Frances Clayton aka Jack Williams, U.S.A.

Women served both the Union and the Confederacy during the Civil War. How did they hide in plain sight? By cutting their hair, binding their breasts, and putting on loose uniforms, they disappeared into the ranks. If they didn’t shave, they were likely taken as young teenage boys lying about their age, a problem that was often overlooked due to desperation for soldiers to fill the lines. They were able to hide their bodies more easily than they could in the modern military—the army’s medical examinations didn’t require clothing removal, soldiers rarely changed clothes or bathed, and filthy latrines were avoided in favor of private visits to the woods. As for their menses, which could give the soldier away easily, the physical stress of army life was likely to lead to amenorrhea. While enduring the stress of hiding their true identities, women also fought the same battles, suffered the same injuries and illnesses, performed the same duties, and struggled through the same hardships as their male counterparts.

It seems that most women were discovered eventually, often due to wounds or illness and hospital stays. Other women were discovered through their actions, dressing in a feminine manner or possessing an “unmanly” laugh. Practicing manly behavior and habits was vital to the success of their subterfuges. When Minnesota private Frances Clayton was discovered and discharged, the newspaper reported, “While in the army, the better to conceal her sex, she learned to drink, smoke, chew and swear with the best, or worst, of the soldiers” (Hall 28). As one would expect, physical attributes, such as small hands or fair skin, also exposed the deception. In some cases, simply being recognized by an acquaintance could end the ruse. One of my favorite exposé tales involves Sarah Bradbury and Ella Reno, who got drunk on applejack brandy, fell into a river, and were exposed by their rescuers!

Read more »

Shape-note Singing

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 19:57:00 +0000

Valley Tradition: Shape-Note Singing

In a recent Monday Lyceum lecture on music tradition in the Valley, the subject of shape note singing was mentioned. The audience, many of whom are transplants to our area, was unfamiliar with this type of singing which is an important part of Valley traditions. The following briefly describes shape-note singing and its association with the area.

The illustration below shows the shapes and syllables with which the notes of a C major scale are sung.

A system similar to scheme dates back to the 11^th century Italian monk, Guido d’Arezzo. Over time, many reiterations of the notations, particularly the seven-syllable system, were developed but the image shown above is still the basic and most familiar one. The system facilitated sight reading of music, which given the illiteracy of then and many centuries to follow, allowed for a robust participatory religious musical experience. English and German colonist in the 17^th century carried a singing tradition to America, particularly in New England and Pennsylvania.

The Shenandoah area was settled by Brethren, Mennonites, Methodists, and Lutherans each of whom have music central to their worship experience. Dr. John Wayland reported in 1912: “Most of the people of the county are church-goers, and nearly every member of the congregation sings. Singing is a common pastime in many homes, and singing classes are frequently conducted in churches as a well as in the schools. All-day singings at churches are not uncommon.” [HofRC p.339] The person most people associate with this tradition in the Valley is Joseph Funk who was originally from Pennsylvania. In 1832, he published A Compilation of Genuine Church Music (later changed in 1851 to Harmonia Sacra), which is a shape-note Mennonite hymn book and tune book and was used in singing schools including Funk’s own at Singer’s Glen. Over the years, many editions incorporated different shape-note systems. The book in the current 26^th edition provides tunes in both four and seven shape-notes.

Other people contributed to the local musical heritage – many of whom were related to Joseph Funk. His son, Timothy, taught music classes throughout the Valley. A.S. Keiffer, a grandson, and J.H. Kieffer, a great grandson, established a well known publishing house, Ruebush-Kieffer Company in Dayton that published many music books. Brothers A.J. and J.H. Showalter, the former head of a music publishing company and the later writer of songs and compiler of music books, were the grandsons of Joseph Funk’s sister Elizabeth.

From Jean Schaeffer's Raised on Songs and Stories.

After the Civil War shape-note singing was mostly found in the south. Today, local “Hamonia Sacra Singers” activities can be found on Facebook. Sam Showalter organizes ten annual singings (held on the first Sunday of the month) in the Valley – some of them all day events. Since 1902 the Weavers Mennonite Church has held singing on January 1.

By Diane Rafuse

Geology of Rockingham

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 15:11:00 +0000

Rocks of Rockingham

Without being too technical, this article focuses on the geology and geography of Rockingham County with specific detail on natural features found in the western portion of the County. We hope you will be encouraged to take a new look at your neighborhood. History, economy, recreational activities, and even governmental decisions are profoundly affected by our landscape.

We know that Rockingham County was named to honor the Marquis of Rockingham, Charles Watson-Wentworth, who opposed the suppression of the American colonies. However, anyone who has put a spade in the soil around here knows the “rock” in Rockingham for another reason. We pity the early settlers who had to move boulders and rocks to build the County and its roads. In the early history of byways in the County, the policy on infrastructure upkeep was that residents along a road were responsible for getting out their sledge hammers to break-up the stones to keep the roads repaired![i]

Geology

Rocks present obstacles and define activities, but one should take a moment to look closely at the rocks. In this place, in one hand you can hold a small rock that is more than 300 million years old. In the other hand you can hold a pen that has been recording the history of the area for only about 300 years. Three hundred million years ago, in the Paleozoic Era fishes were evolving as were land plants, and more important for the stratigraphy and structural features of our landscape, it was the era of sandstone and coal deposits and the folding of the Appalachian Mountains. (The evolution of dinosaurs and their extinction was a couple of millions years in the future.) Three hundred years ago Governor Alexander Spotswood and his party of explorers crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains and viewed the Shenandoah Valley. In an account of this first crossing a member of this exploration remarked that Spotswood “could not grave anything” to mark their arrival because the “stones were so hard.” Another member of the expedition noted that the party was provided with “horseshoes (things seldom used in the lower parts of the country, where there are few stones).” [ii]

In this time span of more than three million years, and even before, geological events shaped the landscape. The results of these events provided much of the economic basis for activity in the area, which included mining, water and distillery bottling, pottery, and hospitality. Rock outcroppings, mountain clines, and water courses defined boundaries and provide recreational activity. The geological formations provided the source for legends and for artistic imagination and endeavors, as well as scientific curiosity. Fortunately human intrusion has been mostly respectful of the natural environment. Humans have been content, if at times inconvenienced, to leave changes to natural forces.

Stratigraphy

Some 400 to 300 million years ago during the Devonian, Mississippian, and Pennsylvanian periods in the Paleozoic Era, sandstone was deposited by meandering rivers in the Shenandoah region. Sandstone is cemented sand containing predominantly quartz and is the most abundant, durable mineral on the earth’s surface. Sandstone color variations can be attributed to the mineral content, degrees of oxidation, ferrous content, and shale. The following illustration is the stratigraphic scheme of the ground beneath our feet from Little North Mountain to the top of Shenandoah Mountain.

The next time you pick-up a sandstone rock, note the colors and then imagine the land upheavals that brought this particular rock to the surface for you to hold in your hand. Also contemplate how far below your feet is a lot more of this sandstone. Without having to dig, you can drive west on Route 33 toward the West Virginia border and see in the road cuts the two top formations: Pocono and Hampshire.

The accompanying table explains the map symbols and the character of the layers. Mostly the focus is on Devonian division in Paleozoic Era.

Notes on Western Rockingham County Geology
From the Paleozoic Era

Million	Age	Name	Symbol	Character	Thickness
Years					in feet

299-251	Permian			Appalachian Mtn Fold
Carboniferous
323-299	Pennsylvania			Coal and Sandstone
359-323	Mississippian	Pocono formation	Mp	Massive white-grey sandstone with	300+
				some dark shale
Upper Devonian Period - Sandstone and Shale
383-358	Devonian	Hampshire Formation	Dhs	Chiefly red sandstone, some flag-	2000
				stone, shales, and mudrock
		Chemung formation	Dch	Grey to greensih silty sandstone and	2000
				brown to grey shale, fossiliferous
		Brallier Shale	Db	Greenish brown stiff micaceous	1200
				shale and fine grained thin bedded
				greenish sandstone

Source: William B. Brent. Geology and Mineral Resources of Rockingham County. 1960. p.10
Keith Frye. Roadside Geology of Virginia.1986. p.8

Structural Features

Geologists assume that the structural faults and folds took place during the building of the Appalachian Mountains near the end of the Paleozoic Era. In western Rockingham County are two of the County’s four northeast-trending fault areas. The first fault, noted on the stratigraphic map, is the Little North Mountain Fault. The Little North Mountain Fault zone extends 27 miles in a northeast and southwest direction across the County. The Fault crosses US Route 33 about 2.5 miles west of Hinton. The second fault structure area is between Little North Mountain and the Shenandoah Mountain crest at the western boundary of Rockingham County.

In the area of Rawley Springs and in the area west of it are two structural folds. These major folds also cross Rockingham County southwest to northeast. The first fold is the overturned and southeast dipping West Mountain syncline which forms the prominent ridge of Narrow Back Mountain and which forms the southeastern boundary of the former Rawley Springs resort area. The overturning was a result of the drag from movements along the Little North Mountain Fault where there Little North Mountain is absent. [iii]

The second northeast-trending folding structure, farther to the west and barely crossing the Riven Rock Mountain, is the Bergton-Crab Run anticline. Here the rocks are sloping downward in opposite directions on both sides of the mountain. The fold axis roughly parallels the axis of the West Mountain syncline. Relating these structures to the strata, the age of the rocks in the faults is of Devonian and the age of rocks involved in the folding is Mississippian. [iv]

Seeing the Geological Features

Since the 1800’s, the rock formations named Juliet’s Tower and Lovers’ Leap along the Rawley Aretes have made the Rawley Springs a favorite for rock scramblers. Other intimate and challenging encounters with rocks can be made nearby on the north side of Route 33 on Second Mountain and Dictum Ridge. In 1992, modern climbers re-discovered a formation that resembles the profile of George Washington on Lovers’ Leap, which was a favorite of the old resort visitors. It was thought to have been dynamited by vandals many years ago.[v] In winter it can be seen from Route 33. One notable feature of the rocks is their tortured, massiveness that without climbing can be seen on casual strolls and drives or while taking in a dip in the Dry River.

Water Resources

Dry River

One of the most prominent physical features and one that served as a frequent point of reference for western Rockingham County is the Dry River. The River begins as a network of small streams (Runs) on the east slope of Shenandoah Mountain and flows through a gap at Rawley Springs and then across the Little North Mountain fault to the North River at Bridgewater. The Dry River often appears to live up to its name, but the large boulders resting in the river’s path attest to power of the stream during periods of high water and long ago upheavals.

As early as 1807, Dr. Peachy Harrison noted in a scientific paper for the Philadelphia Medical Museum that “this district (Rockingham County)...abounds with perennial springs. The water they yield holds so much lime…or to use a common phrase, is so hard to require breaking before it is fit to be used in washing clothes...”[vi] In 1891, much to the delight of the residents of Harrisonburg whose well water was very hard, the Dry River became the City’s primary source of water. The water of the Dry River is soft. From this River at Rawley Springs, Harrisonburg received its water by gravity flow by way of a 10 inch cast iron pipeline laid by using a pick and shovel. By the 1930’s, Harrisonburg’s growing population and the reduced water flow from the River during the summer months caused water shortages. Allen B. McDaniel, a consulting engineer from Washington, DC, discovered a unique solution to Harrisonburg’s water problem. He discovered about 15 feet below the River bed a subterranean constant flowing stream running over limestone bedrock. The underground water source, trapped by an underground dam where the two mountains meet at Rawley Springs, again provided a reliable water source for Harrisonburg.

Springs

There are many well-known springs in Rockingham County. The springs are the result of a natural flow of ground water to the surface. They are characterized by a variety of conditions, such as rock type, rock structure, and source of water supply. At Rawley Springs, three small springs, which issue from a syncline in the Pocono sandstone, are chalybeate, so named because of the peculiar taste due to presence of iron in the water. [vii] The significance of springs in the history of Rockingham County is another topic for exploration.

Mineral Resources

Cement, of which limestone is the chief ingredient, is common to the area. An old lime kiln about two and a half miles southeast of Rawley Springs on the Dry River and many other similar structures around the County are evidence of limestone’s significance in the economy of the area.

Also, known since at least 1834, a coal-field crop lies on the northwest slope of Narrow Back Mountain that runs from Stokesville in Augusta County to Rawley.[viii] One of the three County coal locations was near Rawley Springs and was noted on several of its metes and bounds descriptions. The coal pit was near Union Springs Road.

Technical matters aside, collecting rocks is an enjoyable and educational hobby. On February 23^rd at 1:00 at the Main Library, geologist and lapidarist Stuart Mercer of Elk Run Mining will show patrons the gems that await in our county.
by Diane Rafuse

[i] In the Courthouse are the Road Books, an invaluable resource that records by mile marker from the Courthouse the person or persons responsible for a portion of the road.

[ii] John W. Wayland. History of Rockingham County. C.J. Carrier Company, Harrisonburg VA. 1996. Originally published 1912. 426-7.

[iii] William B. Brent. Geology and Mineral Resources of Rockingham County. Virginia Division of Mineral Resources. 102.

[iv] Brent. 102.

[v] Zook. 17.

[vi] John W. Wayland. A History of Rockingham County Virginia. 430.

[vii] Brent. 157.

[viii] Brent. 142.

Reading Challenges

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 18:54:00 +0000

Reading Challenges: what are they and why should I do one?

A reading challenge is pretty much what it sounds like: set yourself a goal in terms of books you want to read and challenge yourself to complete it in a defined period of time. This can be a great way to motivate yourself to expand your reading horizons, or to deepen your knowledge of a particular genre or author. Book Riot, a popular blog on books and readings, started touting the benefits of an annual reader challenge in early 2014 and suggested a number of options for readers to choose from. For 2015, they decided to develop their own challenge. This challenge includes 24 categories (so 2 books a month, on average). Readers can select books that meet multiple criteria, but can only count each book in one category. This challenge is called ‘Read Harder’, as it is designed to get readers to get out of their normal patterns. Check it out at Book Riot or Goodreads.

Reading Challenges for 2014. (Jan 10, 2014). Retrieved from http://bookriot.com/2014/01/10/reading-challenges-2014/

The Book Riot 2015 Read Harder Challenge. (Dec 15, 2014). Retrieved from http://bookriot.com/2014/12/15/book-riot-2015-read-harder-challenge/

Women in the Time of the Tudors: A Renaissance Refresher

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 12 Jan 2015 23:08:00 +0000

Women in the Time of the Tudors

This essay complements the first MRL Adult Lecture of 2015. On January 26, Sarah Kennedy, who visited last year to discuss Altarpiece, the first novel in her The Cross and The Crown series, returns to discuss City of Ladies, the recently published second book. The series details the life of women in Tudor England. To prepare for this discussion, the following is intended to refresh our knowledge of sixteenth century British history.

By the early 1500s, a convergence of intellectual developments on the continent of Europe brought a rebirth of ancient learning and new humanist thinking to Tudor England. In southern Europe the Renaissance renewed interest in Greek and Roman culture and learning; in northern Europe new religious thought emphasized individual will and human involvement in events.

Translations in English of the New Testament made the “word of God” accessible to lay people without reliance on interpretation by the Church. Economic and social conditions unique to England also added to an unsettling of order. An expanded English urban middle-class centered around the cloth trade. King Henry VIII depleted the national treasury with costly foreign alliances and military misadventures. Excesses in personal conduct, displays of wealth, ecclesiastical privilege, and ostentatious pomp at all levels of the Church fueled resentment against that institution by the general population. This popular disaffection, personified in the chief royal councilor Cardinal Wolsey, provided cover for the King to eliminate him, to act against the clergy, and to convert the wealth of the Church to himself. Precipitously, the desire of the King to have his marriage to Katherine of Aragon annulled by the Pope in order to marry Anne Boleyn created tension between the King and the Church. While all these factors played a role, the King’s personal life propelled the passage of the 1536 Act for the Dissolution of the Monasteries causing religious chaos that lasted for years. Though two women were at the center of the turmoil, the consensus among many historians is that women did not benefit from it. The belief in the inferior position of women remained unchanged from previous centuries; however, from this lesser standing, women found ways of being influential and active in the secular society. Unfortunately their sisters in the convent found their societal relevance denied.

Between 1536 and 1540 the monastic religious orders in England were dissolved. Though the exact number is unknown, about 140 nunneries were closed, affecting about 1,600 nuns. Most of the dissolved nunneries were very small; in addition to their religious role, they were an important local institution. Their abbeys and nunneries served as a refuge for traveling gentry who wished to avoid the bread and board at the local taverns. The sisters educated local daughters in reading and numbers and the gentry’s daughters, in addition, were taught needlework and drawing skills. The nuns served as the pharmacists and doctors in the neighborhood.

The historical record is absent on what happened to these often penniless “former” sisters. Some made their way to religious orders on the Continent. Those who stayed faced the same environment as other women in society of the 1600s, plus being additionally burdened by being an age unsuitable for marriage and by their own vows of chastity. Returning to their families was not always a viable choice. Many of the nuns arrived at the monastery as the "spare" daughters to be “dedicated to God” or as orphans abandoned on the door step. These women came into a secular society that espoused the Biblical interpretation that women were to serve and obey a man, which not even the Reformation theology challenged. The sole function of the woman was to marry, produce sons, and look after her home and family. Women from wealthy families were more constrained in their opportunities than their less well-off sisters. Usually the women of the upper ranks of society had no control over a choice of a husband. Their health was put at risk because they did not nurse their children, resulting in frequent pregnancies and therefore at greater risk of dying in childbirth. In contrast, common country and city women, though still enjoined by their Biblical role, found economic necessity brought broader opportunities.

"Shooting in" the New Year

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 15 Dec 2014 17:24:00 +0000

A few years ago, we mused about the Valley tradition of belsnickling at Christmas. (See Valley Christmas Folk Traditions, December 16, 2011.) This year, we bring to light a local New Year’s tradition that faded into memory a century ago: shooting in the New Year.

On New Year’s Eve, a group would gather at their leader’s house. According to local historian and author John Stewart, “To be elected captain of the community’s shooters was a great honor.”[1] Unlike belsnickelers, the New Year Shooters were an all-male group. The men would visit farms and houses in the area during the early hours of the New Year. They called to the head of the house by name, and after receiving a response, they would sing a greeting with wishes for the coming year. This was followed by discharging their guns, and in some cases fireworks or dynamite, and other loud noises.

Like many Valley traditions, shooting in the New Year migrated south with the Pennsylvania Germans. The New Year was generally thought of as a secular, rather than religious, holiday in Germany. According to one Pennsylvania German, “This custom of New Year wishing, like many other of our holiday customs, can be traced not only to the fatherland, but to some rite or custom of the time when our forefathers were heathen.” Apparently, many areas of Germany have New Year’s traditions that feature crowds and noises.[2] Still, some of the New Year’s Shooters did sing hymns and recite scripture under their neighbors’ windows in addition to the more “heathen” noisemaking. Though the practice of shooting in the New Year was nearly extinct in Pennsylvania by the 1860s, it continued in the Valley in isolated areas until World War I.

The tradition was a way to show concern for one’s neighbor in the days before greeting cards. An article in the Pennsylvania-German notes: “In that elder day, when brass-bands and other instrumentalities for serenading were not so common as now, the new-year shooting salutation also had its significance and possibly its benefits. It was a means of manifesting good will and expressing greetings which now is supplanted by less offensive methods.”[3] After receiving New Year’s wishes, folks usually invited the group in for refreshments, like cake or mince pies and hot beverages—often alcoholic. Shooting in the New Year was a neighborly, community-minded event.

(from google images)

Of course, while some shooters focused on being neighborly, others used the tradition as an excuse to let off steam in the dead of winter. In some cases, men were known to skip the traveling greetings, instead meeting at the blacksmith’s, loading the anvil and firing off massive charges. Some shooters would pour in extra powder and stuff the guns with paper, which could be dangerous. One Valley man remembered his brother’s gun exploding and a piece injuring his head. And while most of the traditional greetings were tasteful wishes, there was also the occasional shorter rude doggerel invented by those looking for fun. Another reason for the eventual unpopularity of the New Year’s Shooters might have been due to incidents of young men overindulging in refreshments, particularly the Dram un Seidereil (hard cider). According to an early 20th century Pennsylvania journal article, “Probably both customs, [belsnickeling and shooting in the new year], were born of kind, friendly, pious motives, but later degenerated, as all good customs are apt to do, into practices ‘more honored in the breach than in the observance.’”[4]

In the Valley, the custom varied from region to region and between religious affiliations. For instance, it was popular among Lutherans but frowned upon by Mennonites, though some Brethren did accept greetings and show hospitality to their non-Brethren neighbors. “They use to come around to make a wish at our house…We had them come in and we’d give them something to eat, but we wouldn’t give them anything [alcoholic] to drink,” remembered one Church of the Brethren member.[5] Valley Shooters also adapted the tradition to make it their own. In Shenandoah County, guns were accompanied by big saws, cow bells, and sometimes a bull fiddle, an instrument with a strange sound that carried great distances. While organized parties of Shooters weren’t common in some parts of the Valley, New Year’s noise certainly was. In Broadway and Timberville, shooting off firecrackers was a popular New Year’s activity. In Bergton and Criders, men fired their guns at midnight, even if they didn’t visit their neighbors’ homes. And in southwestern Rockingham County, some blasted dynamite to welcome the New Year.

SnowFlake Bentley

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 24 Nov 2014 19:04:00 +0000

Snowflake Bentley

One of the greatest joys of childhood is the coveted snow day—no school, playing outside, a warm hot chocolate at the end of the day. As we reach adulthood, snow days mean hyperactive kids, frozen pipes, and treacherous road conditions. The excitement fades. Many years ago, there was a man who maintained a childlike wonder of snow from boyhood throughout his twilight years. Rather than catching snowflakes on his tongue as children do, he caught them on film. His name was Snowflake Bentley.

Early Life

Wilson Alwyn Bentley was born on February 9, 1865 on the family dairy farm outside of Jericho, Vermont. He was interested in nature from an early age. Nothing captured his attention more than snow, a fortuitous passion in the Snow Belt, where snowfall averages 120” annually.[1] Bentley’s mother, a former schoolteacher who taught him at home until he was 14, encouraged his interest, despite the skepticism of his father and brother. For his 15^th birthday, Bentley received an old microscope from his mother’s teaching days, and he began to study the natural world in closer detail. Snowflakes were the most enthralling specimens of all:

“Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others. Every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no one design was ever repeated. When a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost. Just that much beauty was gone, without leaving any record behind. I became possessed with a great desire to show people something of this wonderful loveliness.”[2]

He began by sketching the flakes, but they often melted before he was done. After three winters, hundreds of sketches, countless lost snowflakes, and with his mother’s persuasion, Bentley’s father bought him a camera and microscope that were worth nearly as much as the family farm. The self-taught Bentley invented an apparatus of microscope, camera, and bellows that he would use for the rest of his photomicrography career. After a season of failure, experimenting with stops, exposure, and focus, Bentley had his first success in 1884 at the age of 19.[3] Following this achievement he said, “I felt almost like falling to my knees beside the apparatus. I knew then that what I had dreamed of doing was possible. It was the greatest moment of my life.” [4]

Scientist

Bentley was following in the footsteps of great scientists. Johannes Kepler first introduced the snowflake’s shape in his 1611 work, On the Six-Cornered Snowflake. Robert Hooke first illustrated the varied structures of snow crystals in his 1665 work Micrographia. It was Wilson Bentley, a teenage farmer with no formal scientific training, who pioneered photomicrography and took the first picture of an individual snow crystal. Bentley showed a single-minded dedication to scientific pursuit, working in the cold and snow every winter for decades. As a result, in 1924 he was awarded the first ever research grant given by the American Meteorological Society for “40 years of extremely patient work.”[5] His goal of sharing the beauty of the natural world with others remained a priority. Over the years, he published dozens of general interest and technical articles in various publications, including the New York Times and National Geographic. Clearly, he did not publish for his own acclaim; in a list of his publications recorded in his notebook, notes like: “Knowledge, London, 1912, I think” were common.[6]

In addition to his work with snowflakes, Bentley also researched frost, dew, and raindrop size. He regularly recorded weather records three times a day, as well as descriptions of 600 auroras over 40 years. He was “first to deduce that rain in thunderstorms has a dual origin, suggested that many snow crystals start growing as frozen cloud droplets, came close to explaining the Bergeron mechanism of rain formation…and proposed what was probably the first hydrometeor-related explanation for cloud electrification.”[7] Modern atmospheric scientists have said that Bentley’s work on cloud physics was decades ahead of his time.

Sizzling History

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 18:00:00 +0000

Herstory: Women Authors From the 17^th Century to Today

Karen Abbott will be discussing her new novel, Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy, on November 13^th at the Massanutten Regional Library at 7pm.. Abbott’s book is part of a new trend in history writing—authors revealing historical characters and their stories in compelling detail by using their diaries, letters and historical documents to flesh out the details. Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy tells the story of four women who were spies during the Civil War. Did Belle Boyd have admiration or jealousy for Rose Greenhow--or both? Did Rose sleep with Henry D. Wilson, Lincoln's chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs? Whose message resulted in Confederate victory at Manassas?

American women writers have been pushing boundaries since the Colonial Era. Anne Bradstreet was the first female author from the American Colonies to be published. Her poetry book, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, was about colonial life, but was published in England in 1650. Her work was lauded by contemporaries and she continued to be an inspiration for female poets for at least a hundred years.

One of the first American novelists to gain acclaim was Kate Chopin, a Missouri native whose writings often focused on Louisiana and New Orleans. Published in 1899, The Awakening was one of the first novels to feature a strong female protagonist who rebels against society’s expectations for her. Critics immediately called it, "morbid, vulgar, and disagreeable." Even Willa Cather said it was "trite and sordid" (KateChopin.org). Today it is lauded as one of the best novels of its time. Chopin papered the way for future female writers to give their women characters a real voice.

In the twentieth century, many women authors gained popular and literary acclaim. One particularly outspoken figure was Dorothy Parker, a writer, critic and satirist who won two Academy Awards before being blacklisted for purported associations with the Communist Party in 1950. In a Vanity Fair article titled, Rebel in Evening Clothes, (Oct. 1999), Parker is described as "cocktail swilling" and who "used her wit to skewer prejudice in pre-civil-rights America." Her gin drinking, cigarette smoking, and sexy clothes were reflected in her honest and biting works.

Today, Karen Abbott’s focus on historical research and the role of women in historical events have already made her a New York Times Bestselling author. Erik Larson says it best:
"With this book, Karen Abbott declares herself the John le Carré of Civil War espionage, with the added benefit that the saga she tells is all true and beautifully researched. Her four protagonists, exuding charm, adept at skullduggery, take us on a sweeping and bloody jaunt across the Civil War landscape, into an intimate realm of warfare that will yield for even the most hard-core Civil War buff a wholly fresh perspective on those deadly days."

— Erik Larson, New York Times bestselling author of The Devil in the White City and In the Garden of Beasts
Abbott's works ascends women from traitors, prostitutes, and strippers to independent women who fought for their rights to live and work as they chose. Some call it sizzling history.

Hope to see you November 13th at 7pm at the Main library in downtown Harrisonburg.

Cheryl Metz and Kate Martin

A Short Trip by Rail

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 30 Oct 2014 15:41:00 +0000

A Short Trip by Rail

In the 19th century, traveling by road in the western part of Virginia meant walking, taking the stagecoach, or riding a horse. Harrisonburg and Rockingham County was primarily rural and agricultural, and the roads were, as described by C. G. Price, “bottomless mud when it rained, impassable when it snowed and in dry weather [were] obscured by billowing clouds of dust.” [1] Local merchants went to major cities as infrequently as possible—often only twice a year.

Politics and economics controlled the railroads prior to the Civil War. Winchester was connected to the B&O by the mid-1830s and Staunton was added as a stop on the Virginia Central (later Chesapeake & Ohio) in 1854. Port Republic and Shenandoah had major iron mines, furnaces and foundries, as well as mills. The railroad followed what is now Rt. 340 from Front Royal to Staunton as early as 1834. Crossing the Blue Ridge was also a major factor. As Ed King pointed out: “A modern locomotive that can pull 1,000 tons on a flat grade can pull only 200 tons on a 0.5% grade.” [2] Competition for a railroad between Charlottesville and Harrisonburg ended with the Blue Ridge, although by the late 1800s, the train followed Rt. 33 and stopped in Elkton.

While the Civil War caused massive damage to existing rails and caused a break in construction, Harrisonburg residents began clamoring for railroad connections as early as 1866. As the northern “carpetbaggers” had no side in the pre-war politics, they began the construction of a railroad from Baltimore to Harrisonburg. The first railroad to come to Harrisonburg opened in 1868 as part of the Manassas Gap Railroad and the inaugural train was pulled by an engine named Shenandoah.
Residents, however, were still unsatisfied—this line provided transportation to Manassas, Orange and Alexandria but did not traverse along the Valley. Robert E. Lee lent his voice to an effort to build such a railroad, the Valley Rail Road Company. While this line was never fully constructed, it paved the way for the Chesapeake & Western Railroad, incorporated in 1895. [3] To this day, there is still no direct link between Harrisonburg and Staunton.

For more information on trains in the valley, please attend our program on November 6th at 7pm at the Main Branch of the library in downtown Harrisonburg. Bob Cohen will present his new book, A Trip by Rail in the Shenandoah Valley on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and the Southern Railway (2013). Mr. Cohen will have copies of his book available purchase and signing. He invites the public to bring train memorabilia to share.

For more information, contact Cheryl Metz @ cmetz@mrlib.org.

By Cheryl Metz and Katie Martin

[1] Price, Charles G. The Crooked & Weedy. Waynesville: Don Mills, 1992.

[2] King, Ed. “Getting Them Up the Grade the Norfolk and Western Way.” Trains Magazine, April 2004, p. 67.

[3] Price , Chapter 2.

Maplewood: History and Mystery

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 18 Oct 2014 13:29:00 +0000

Maplewood: History and Mysteries

Depending on whom or what you read, the date of the building of the original Maplewood varies from 1755 to 1759. On Jan. 12, 1746 James Wood purchased the original 350 acres from King George II for thirty-five shillings. King George was busy fighting Charles James Stuart at the time. What happened between 1746 and 1755 is a mystery.

According to deeds, Robert Rollstone purchased “the house, building and orchard” in 1755; thus, the 1755 date seems accurate. Rollstone did a quick turn-over to William Castleberry who then sold it to Archibald Hopkins for five shillings in 1757. Why was everyone willing to take a loss on this property? The farm would remain in this Irish family for 122 years. Although one account states that Archibald passed it to his son William in 1799, then William passed it to his son John Hinton Hopkins in 1841, a different account says that Archibald’s brother, John, Sr., who lived two miles away, married Jean Gordon and built Maplewood in 1760. Either way, John Hinton Hopkins ended up with the property in 1841.

According to “A Chapter of Hopkins Genealogy” by George W. Fetzer dated July 17, 1936, the Hopkins (John and his daughters, and his brothers) were very wealthy and owned over 3,000 acres among them as late as August 1787. In contrast, a Daily News Record article printed in 1992 states that the Civil War “nearly bankrupted John; thus, his wife was forced to sell off their land. “ The better story is that John had a son William,(presumably named after his grandfather), who was a VMI cadet and ended up fighting in the Civil War. He was wounded in battle outside of Richmond, yet was transported back to Maplewood where, within a few days, he died. Is it his bloody footprint that stains the hardwood floors to this day? With no male heir, did John decide to sell?

Either way, in 1879, the estate was broken up, and William Chrisman bought the house. The Chrismans remained at Maplewood until 1951 when John Myers, Mrs. Shelvie Carr’s grandfather, purchased it. Mrs. Carr and her husband purchased the home and a few acres at auction in 1981.

Maplewood stands majestically on a rise before entering Singer’s Glen, which was known as Mountain Valley until 1860. The original driveway is gone, but the old mounting block remains at the front portico. Double chimneys grace the ends of the front and Flemish bond bedecks the side nearest the road--American bond covers the other side! The entire house has thirteen fireplaces, each with a different mantle. For more information, and the answers to some of the mysteries, attend the Massanutten Regional Library’s virtual tour of Maplewood on Thursday, Nov. 23^rd at 7pm, presented by Mrs. Shelvie Carr and her granddaughter Emily Carr.

Cheryl L. Metz

George W. Rosenberger: Model farmer of Rosendale

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 10 Oct 2014 14:29:00 +0000

George W. Rosenberger

Model Farmer of Rosendale

Family

George Rosenberger, an immigrant from Zurich, Switzerland, came to colonial Virginia, , established himself in what is now Page County, and served in the Revolutionary War.[i] His son, George Washington Rosenberger was born in 1778 and died in 1858 in his eightieth year. In about 1790, this George acquired the land at the present Rosendale location on which he built a two-over-two log house. Evidence of the senior George Washington Rosenberger’s success can be deduced from the 1850 Census records in which his real property was valued at $24,000. He also owned two working-age slaves.

In 1802 George W. Rosenberger married Margaret Zirkle (1780-1836) of New Market. Their fifth child, also named George Washington, was born on February 23, 1823 at Rosendale and is the subject of the following article. Fifty-five years later he was described as the “model Valley farmer.” He added what is now the front face of Rosendale in 1870; the original house became the ell. In the 1870 Census Rosenberger’s real estate was valued at $12,500, about half the value of his father’s real property twenty years before. The difference could reflect local conditions after the Civil War.

George Washington Rosenberger married Barbara Ann Kagey in 1845. They had eight children, five of whom died before 1887 when their mother died. In 1892, George W. Rosenberger married Barbara’s sister, Amelia (Millie) Kagey, who had been living with the family at Rosendale for several decades. He was sixty-nine years old and she was fifty-two years old when they married. Of the three surviving children from the first marriage, one was Arthur Russell Rosenberger, a successful local banker and entrepreneur. Another son, Charles W., oversaw the Rosendale operation after the death of the father and probably for some years before the father’s death.[ii]

Rosendale during the Civil War

Documents found in the George W. Rosenberger Collection at the VMI Archives provide a glimpse of Rosendale and, by extension, the local the farming experience during the later part of the Civil War. When the War began Rosenberger was thirty-seven years old. Instead of serving in the military Rosenberger purchased a substitute. From March 1862 to April 1863 Abner Canada was the substitute. An archival document recounted Canada’s capture in Shenandoah County and his escape that returned him to his comrades. In the Civil War Rolls found in A History of Rockingham County,[iii] Abner Canada does not appear. The only Abner Canada listed in the 1860 Census was a sixty-one year old farm laborer in Rockingham County. G.W. Rosenberger was listed as member of the Company H, 10^th Va. Cavalry. There is no record that he actually served in combat.

Gabriel Jones and Bogota

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 01 Oct 2014 13:14:00 +0000

Gabriel Jones of Bogota

On October 9, the second program of the Deyerle Series features Rachel Lilly, the current owner of Bogota, discussing the architecture of the Bogota house built by Jacob Strayer in the1850s. Few local residents realize an earlier Bogota existed on the current property. It was built by Gabriel Jones about 1756. Gabriel Jones, nicknamed the “Valley Lawyer” was energetic, rascally, well-connected, and well-known in early Virginia.

Bogota in the 18^th Century

On August 8, 1751 Gabriel Jones purchased from Christopher Francisco of Pennsylvania [i] This parcel was originally part of the 5,000 acres patented to Jacob Stover. On the same day in 1751, Thomas Lewis, son of John Lewis, purchased 530 acres from Francisco that was across the River opposite Jones.[ii] The Lewis property, once known as Lewiston, is now known as Lynnwood.[iii] Jones had married on October 8, 1749 Margaret Strother of King George County.[iv] Thomas Lewis married Margaret’s sister. Also near to Bogota and Lynnwood was Madison Hall in the “v” between the North River and the South River at Port Republic. Madison Hall was the home of John Madison who married another sister of Margaret Strother.[v] John Madison was a cousin of President Madison. Madison Hall was the birthplace of another James Madison, the first Episcopal Bishop of Virginia, and served as Stonewall Jackson’s headquarters during the Civil War battle at Port Republic.

244 acres on the north side of the Shenandoah River opposite the lower end of “Great Island” in the River.

The name “Bogota” is at least as old as the Jones’ ownership of the property. Bogota derives from the South American Indian word “Bacata,” which means planted fields. Jones lived here from about 1756 until his death in October1806. His widow, Margaret, outlived her husband and her children, and remained at Bogota until her death at age 97 in 1822. The house stayed in the family until it was sold to Jacob Strayer. [vi]

The first Bogota house was a wooden, one and a half story structure with dormer windows. A not very sharp image of this house is in Isaac Terrell’s Old Houses of Rockingham County. The survey of the property for the National Register of Historic Places suggests that archaeological artifacts found near the intersection of Lawyer Road and Lynnwood Road are consistent with a house and habitation of this period being located at the site. It is also believed that Gabriel Jones (and perhaps other members of his family) are buried nearby. [vii] When the Strayers bought the property in 1830 from the Jones family they lived in the Jones house until the present Bogota was completed. Wainscoting from the Jones house was used in what is now the sitting room on the left side of the front entrance. The current owners of the property do not know when the original house was destroyed.

Gabriel Jones – Early Life

Gabriel Jones was born on 14 May 1724 in York County near Williamsburg. His parents, John (b. 1668) and Elizabeth Bates Jones (b. 1688), were from Montgomeryshire in northern Wales.[viii] When the parents came to Virginia is not known. Gabriel Jones claimed he was his parent’s fourth son and fifth child, but only mentioned two living siblings: an older sister, Elizabeth (b. 1721) and a younger brother, John (b.1725). The father, a weaver of noble descent, did not do well in the colony. He died before 1727. A baptismal record from early 1727 showed the mother and children were in England. In April 1732, at the age of seven, Jones was sent to the “Blue Coat School, Christ Church Hospital London, where he studied for seven years. He was removed from the school in 1739 to start a six year apprenticeship under John Houghton, Solicitor, in the High Court of Chancery. About the time Jones was admitted to the bar in 1745, his mother died. The family was “of gentle blood,” but in “reduced circumstances.”[ix] A descendent of Gabriel Jones preserved an old coin in wrapping paper on which Jones had written: “This is the patrimony I received from my mother. From my father I received nothing.”[x] As early as 1750 Jones used the same crest and coat of arms as the recently deceased mathematician William Jones indicating a relationship with that man.[xi]

Free of his indenture, admitted to the bar, and reaching his majority, Jones returned to

America

about a year after his mother’s death. Probably Thomas, Lord Fairfax, owner of the Northern Neck Proprietary, or, a friend, Hugh Mercer, influenced his decision to return.[xii] The close relationship between Fairfax and Jones is evidenced by Fairfax’s appointment of Jones to legislative and judicial positions relating to the proprietorship and Fairfax’s appointment of Jones as an executor of his will. Fairfax died in 1781.

Public Servant

Gabriel Jones truly served the Valley. To help to fully understand the geographical extent of his service, the reader should recall the territorial vastness of the early Virginia counties. In 1743 Frederick County was carved from Orange County, the mother of western Virginia Counties. Frederick included Shenandoah, Clarke, and Warren Counties in Virginia, and, in present day West Virginia, Hardy, Berkeley, Jefferson, Morgan and Hampshire Counties. Hampshire County was created from Frederick County in 1754. Also, from Orange County, Augusta County was created in 1738, which had infinite western territory. In October 1777, Rockingham County was carved from the northeast portion of Augusta County.

On his return from England to the Virginia colony, Jones first stopped in Fredericksburg, but soon relocated to Frederick County. In March 1747 he purchased 172 acres along the Opequon Creek near the present day Kernstown and not far from the Joist Hite properties. Here Jones served as a private secretary to Lord Fairfax. In April 1746, at the age of 22 years, Jones was appointed the King’s Attorney for Augusta County, but he continued to reside in Frederick County from where he represented the County in the House of Burgesses.

Colonial Period: Legislative Representative in the House of Burgesses and Continental Congress

As a representative from Frederick County he was elected to the Burgesses in 1748, 1749, and 1752. He resigned from the House in 1753 to serve as the Frederick County Coroner. When Hampshire County was created in 1754, Jones was its representative to the House of Burgesses in 1754 and 1755. About 1756, Jones moved to Bogota, from where he served as an Augusta County Burgess in 1757, 1758, and 1771. In 1774, at the age of fifty, Jones was elected to the Continental Congress but did not attend. Jones carried out assignments for the Congress to ascertain conditions and defenses in the western areas around Fort Pitt.

Early Architecture and History in the Valley

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 18:10:00 +0000

2014 Deyerle Lecture Series

Early Architecture and History in the Valley

On Thursday, October 2, at 7:00 pm, the Massanutten Regional Library will host the first of our lectures of the 14th annual Deyerle series, sponsored by the family of the late Dr. Henry P. Deyerle. The focus of the series is the Heritage of the Shenandoah Valley. The topic for 2014 is Architecture and History of houses in Rockingham County prior to the Civil War.

The first lecture is an overview of architectural and construction characteristics common to Valley houses built between 1750 and 1850. Ann Terrell Baker will be the speaker. Ms. Baker is the author of Old Houses in Rockingham County Revisited, 1750-1850 (2000). She will present a pictorial history on some of the houses discussed in the book. Terrell’s book is an updated and expanded version of the volume published in 1970 by her father, Isaac Long “Jimmy” Terrell, titled Old Houses in Rockingham County, 1750-1850. Both books are available at the Library.

While architectural style is subjected to “fads,” architectural interpretation is largely dependent on means, materials, and manpower at the location of construction. One unique style does define early architecture in Rockingham County. The styles found in the County were those brought by German settlers from Pennsylvania, English settlers from the Tidewater, and Scotch-Irish who traveled up the Valley. Architectural styles of the early pioneers were remarkably similar wherever one went along the seaboard. In this research no architect has been associated with or identified in Rockingham County during the period 1750-1850; however, a study of the houses reveals common architectural patterns. (Note: Scans of floor plans and some information are from Isaac Terrell’s book.)

Pioneer House

The basic and often first house of a settler was patterned in the pioneer style, which consisted, at a minimum, of one room with one fireplace. Some structures had a pitched roof

making space under the eaves for storage or sleeping areas, which was reached by a ladder or by a circular staircase in a corner of the room. An ell might be added at the rear of this room for storage. If a fireplace was built in this addition, it was also used for cooking. A house located on a slope could be dug-out for an additional room, and if a spring was there, it could be used as a fort against the Indians. Construction materials were those at hand – stones and logs. Though logs were used prior to 1750, what we think of as traditional chinked-log construction was introduced into the Valley by the Scotch-Irish in the mid-1700s. As a pioneer prospered the original small houses were often added-on to with larger, grander extensions.

Film Nights at the Library

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 02 Sep 2014 20:50:00 +0000

In September, the Main Branch of Massanutten Regional Library in downtown Harrisonburg will be holding a special film night. The first event will be Tuesday, September 30 at 6:30 and the program will continue through November with a different film each month. All films are award winning independent films. The program will be led by Dr. Robert Hoskins, Professor Emeritus, from James Madison University whose interests are in Graham Greene, 20th Century British Novels, and Film Studies.

We encourage everyone to stop by our lobby display and discover a new movie or relive their favorite moments from a classic. Movies are magical experiences; they have the ability to convey emotions through images and sound. Viewers are temporarily transported from normal life to an intimate world and are able to get lost in the drama and action, but then are able to return, safe and sound, at the conclusion of the film.

This September we invite you to join us for Jens Lien’s The Bothersome Man. This Norwegian film follows forty something Andreas as he arrives in a new city with no memory of how he got there. As Andreas settles into the routine of life, he begins to realize that the town, the inhabitants, and their experiences are devoid of any type of emotion. Andreas attempts to flee the city but cannot. Soon Andreas finds a friend and a mysterious crack in a wall where music and light pour through, and Andreas becomes obsessed with finding the source and escaping the city. The Bothersome Man looks at the nightmare of a life without emotion—a contemporary horror-film but without the violence, scare tactics, and gore.

Massanutten Regional Library will be offering a free viewing of The Bothersome Man on Tuesday, September 30 at 6:30. We invite you to join us and hope you look forward to the upcoming films that will be shown on October 28 and November 18. Upcoming times and films will be announced shortly!
For more information contact Jon Hilbert @ 434-4475 x125