The Muse: February 2004

FROM THE PRESIDENT

Dear Members,

We continue to try to improve the Museum. Soon we’ll be cleaning, painting, and moving the director’s office and genealogy research room to the main floor--a big task! We have also added new books to our research library and to the gift shop, and will soon open a new exhibit. Things are happening!

November 15 was a rainy day, but it didn’t dampen any spirits on the Van Tour. We saw pretty countryside and lots of historic sites along the way from Amherst to the James River.

On December 9, we had Christmas Open House at the Museum. The Village Garden Club decorated outside, and several members decorated inside, and it was really festive. Good refreshments, a little music and lots of socializing made it a good time. Wait till next year!

Our lecture series this year will focus on World War II. We have scheduled two lectures which will be on Saturdays at 10:00 a.m. in the lower level of the Amherst Library. Don’t miss the opportunity to hear and participate.

• February 21 - Bob Sales, a D-Day survivor, will tell of his experiences. He is fascinating!
• March 6 - Open discussion of the homefront during the War. Remember blackouts, ration books, war bonds, etc. Come and share.

Other events:

• March 7 - 2:30 p.m. Genealogical Society will discuss the McDaniel and allied families.
• May 1 - 10:00 to 4:00 -- BIG EVENT!!! House Tour in the Elon area. (See article.)
• June Yard Sale - Start saving items for us! We can’t do it without you!

We are moving along with our barn project, and we still need ideas, helpers, and a GREAT FUNDRAISER! Will you help? Call the Museum at 946-9068.

Thanks for all you do!

by Kathryn Pixley

WINTER LECTURE SERIES 2004

Mark you calendars to brush up on your World War II history! On Saturday, February 21 Mr. Robert Sales will speak about his experiences as a soldier on the European front in WWII. The lecture will be held at the Amherst County Public Library in Amherst, at 10 a.m. The snow date is February 28.

Mrs. Helen Feagans will lead a discussion about life on the home front during the war. This discussion will be held at 10 a.m. on Saturday, March 6, also at the Amherst Library. The snow date for this program March 13.

by Holcomb Nixon

THE AMHERST GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY

The Amherst Genealogical Society will next meet on Sunday, March 7 at the Museum. The topic for the meeting of the Geneaolgy Research Group will be the McDaniels and associated families.

The genealogy group meets regularly the first Sunday of every other month at 2:30. All Museum members are invited to take part in these discussions.

WHAT’S NEW ...

...in the Library. Several new titles have been added to the library’s research collection:

• Genealogies of Virginia Families, from Tyler’s Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine, four volumes, published by Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, 1981.
• Saint Mary’s Baptist Church History: 1866-1981, compiled by Mrs. Essie H. Cash.
• Bedford Villages: Lost and Found, Volume Two, compiled by the Peaks of Otter Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, Bedford, Virginia, 1998 (second printing 2001).
• Early Church Records of Loudoun County, Virginia, 1745-1800, by Marty Hiatt, Family Line Publications, Westminster, Maryland, 1995.
• Catalogue of: Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land-Warrant Application Files; American Revolutionary War Service Records and General Index; available through the National Archives Microfilm Rental Program

by Holly Wilhelm

THANK YOU TO OUR DONORS AND CONTRIBUTORS 2003

• Mr. and Mrs. Jack Albert
• Mr. and Mrs. C.L. Bowman
• Mrs. Lynn K. Brugh
• Mr. and Mrs. Mahlon Bryant
• Mrs. Frank T. Burk
• Mrs. Jean Carter
• Mrs. Louise Cash
• Mr. and Mrs. Harold Dupuy
• Mr. and Mrs. Jack Faris
• Mrs. Charles O. Faulconer
• Mr. Thomas M. Fulcher
• Mr. Forest Gager
• Mr. and Mrs. Michael Giles
• Mr. and Mrs. Robert Gordon
• Mr. Thomas Hall
• Mrs. Evelyn Harvey
• Mrs. Dorothy Harvey
• Mr. and Mrs. Wm.Hathaway
• Mrs. Juanita Henderson
• Mrs. Betty Jennings
• Mr. Donald Jennings
• Miss Charlotte Kent
• Mr. William Kramer
• Mrs. James Mann
• Mrs. Helen Massie
• Mr. and Mrs. Carlton Mays
• Miss Jean Mays
• Mr. Frank Mays
• Mr. and Mrs. William Mays
• Mrs. Ruth McBride
• Mr. Phil Miller
• Mr. and Mrs. Charles Midkiff
• Mrs. Joseph. Moore
• Mr. and Mrs. John Morton
• Mrs. Eugenia Myers
• Mr. H. S. Myers
• Mr. R. Wayne Ogden
• Mr. and Mrs. William Olinger
• Mrs. L.F. Payne
• Mr. and Mrs. Rex Pixley
• Mr. and Mrs. Dick Powell
• Mr. Arthur Seder
• Mr. and Mrs. Luther Shimp
• Mr. and Mrs. Reiman Shober
• Mrs. Phyllis Stevens
• Mrs. Jean Thacker
• Ms Louise Tobler
• Mr. Gene Tomlin
• Mrs. Leona Wilkins
• Mr. Dick Wills
• Mrs. Mazie C. Wilson

Corporate Donors

• Altria Employee Involvement Programs
• Amherst Retired Teachers Association
• Amherst Women’s Club
• Athlone Investment Corp
• Clifford FCE Club
• The Easley Foundation
• The Greater Lynchburg Community Trust
• Greif Brothers Corporation
• Jay and Jennifer Mills Fund of Community Trust of Greater Chattanooga
• Kenmore Farms
• Pedlar Valley Garden Club
• Pleasant Vistas Garden Club

WELCOME TO OUR NEW MEMBERS!

• Mr. and Mrs. William Bays, Richmond, VA
• Leslie Bryant, Amherst, VA
• Mildred Franklin, Amherst, VA
• Lucie Garland, Amherst, VA
• Elizabeth Paull, Amherst, VA
• Mr. and Mrs. Greg Tyree, Madison Heights, VA

NEW EXHIBITS

About our Current Exhibits - Civil War

The current exhibit on Amherst’s Civil War heritage highlights Amherst County’s continuing interest in the American Civil War as illuminated through art. The portrait of Major Whitehead, CSA, hangs over the mantel in his memorial gallery. To learn more about Major Whitehead’s Civil War experiences one may read his 1897 letter to his niece Anna in response to her request for him to write about his Civil War experience. The letter itself is ten pages and a transcript is displayed with it for ease of reading.

Also on display are an 1861 muster roll from Amherst and the "cannonball" that was finally detonated in Amherst in 1996, accompanied by the article from the Amherst New Era-Progress newspaper relating the story of its discovery and ensuing detonation.

Upcoming Exhibit - Historic Places in Amherst

Later in February a new exhibit will feature historic places in Amherst County as painted by local artists. If you’d like to see what Fancy Hill looked like or how the Amherst Courthouse looked before it was painted white, here is your opportunity to see them as painted by those who knew them. This will be a limited time exhibit as many of these pieces of art will be on loan.

by Holly Wilhelm

WATCH FOR OUR UNIDENTIFIED PHOTOS IN THE AMHERST NEW ERA-PROGRESS!

The Amherst newspaper will be printing some of the remaining photographs from our photo collection that still need to be identified. Be sure to watch for them! You can help out the Museum from your armchair!

AMHERST COUNTY HOME TOUR

The Amherst Museum will sponsor its second Historic Home Tour on May 1, 2004 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. This year the tour will feature homes in the larger Elon area. Homes included on the tour are: Speed-the-Plough, home of Rowland and Lori Girling; The Rock House, home of Steve Freeman; Flint Hill, home of Wade and Martha Camden; Oak Lawn, home of Richard and Janet Wills; and Windy Hill, home of Carolyn Folkers. Elon Library, believed to be the first free lending library in the State of Virginia, is also included on the tour. Elon Baptist Church will provide lunch and will be open to tour. Block tickets for the tour are $12.00; individual house admission is $3.00; lunch tickets are $5.00. Those interested in purchasing lunch tickets must contact the museum by April 24, 2004.

by Judy Faris

MAJOR FUNDRAISAING FOR MUSEUM STORAGE BUILDING HAS BEGUN

The Amherst Museum board of directors has begun the New Year with the decision to begin the first stage of building a storage barn to house large artifacts and items donated to the museum. The proposed 48’ and 24’ barn style building will provide expanded exhibit space for these items and will be located behind the Tyler log schoolhouse.

Zoning has already been approved; preliminary drawings have been donated by Mike Ondrick and bids are presently being solicited. The Museum welcomes from its membership any and all ideas regarding the major fund raising drive that will be necessary to see this building become a reality. This is a project that the board cannot do alone. We will need your input, volunteer hours for special events, and contributions.

Upon completion of the major construction, we hope that some of you retired contractors will come forward to organize and assemble a crew, in the spirit of "barn raising," to help with the finishing touches to the building. Finally, an old fashioned barn dance with plenty of traditional music, good food and fellowship, should be just the sort of occasion to celebrate having this much needed building.

by Doug MacLeod

The Museum is seeking volunteers! We are looking for:

• Volunteers for our genealogical research service
• Brainstormers with fundraising ideas
• Extra hands to help with special events
• Painters and strong backs to help with our spruce up project
• "Amherst smart" people to help with photograph identification
• Computer people to do some slide scanning

We are starting our "Spring Cleaning" a little early and will soon have all of our public services on the first floor for greater accessibility, and yes, this includes the research room!

Inquiries

A genealogical researcher is seeking someone with whom to exchange information about the Wortham family. If interested, please contact Mrs. Diantha F. Wagner, 32 Cramden Drive, Monterey, CA 93940, or email bdwaner@redshift.com

An art historian is looking for information on an Amherst artist named Elizabeth Hunt Barrett (her married name). She was born in 1863 in New York City and lived in that area until around 1913 or 1914 when she moved to Amherst, VA. She was living in Amherst until at least 1920 and was married to an Edward N. Barrett. He is researching a lovely oil painting done by her which appears to show the Virginia countryside. She was trained in art at the National Academy of Design. The researcher is particularly interested in her date of death. If you can help, please contact Paul Stein at pgstein1@att.net

A member of the Garland family would like to identify other direct lineages from David Shepard Garland, Patrick Henry Garland and William Meredith Garland for exchange of genealogical information. He would appreciate receiving e-mail addresses of apparent direct descendants of any of the above. Contact Tom Black at teblack@earthlink.net

An Outline History of the Town of Salt Creek (Bethel) Part Five

by Doug MacLeod

When the War Between the States was underway, it affected the small Salt Creek village in Amherst County like any other community in the South, having most of its young men called away. Among some of these were Robert W. Dawson, the son of George and Camillia Dawson; Hiram Cheatwood’s son D.B. who served in Kirkpatrick’s Battery, later with the 11th Virginia Infantry. Dr. William Brown Davies’s son, John Whiting, served with the 19th Va. Infantry while his brothers Roderick H. and William Boyle both rode with the 2nd Cavalry. (Hardesty’s and Davies Family in Virginia)

Robert Garland Scott (1831-1909) is also said to have ridden with Gen. Jeb Stuart’s 2nd Cavalry, which he may have done after serving as a first Lieutenant with Kirkpatrick’s Amherst Light Artillery. Robert’s brother-in-law, George H. Dameron, was the constable of Salt Creek until 1862, then served in the Amherst County Reserves and afterwards continued on as a deputy sheriff for ten years. Dameron, who married Frances Ann Scott in 1852, was another prominent name on the Bethel level of the river.

Also in 1862, Edward Lorraine, the chief engineer of the entire James River & Kanawha Canal came to live in the area, on Trent’s Ferry road in Bedford County. He acquired property adjoining Judith Creek, Mayo Davies and Hugh Roy Scott land, one of Robert Scott’s brothers. Lorraine came from his home in Richmond to be more accessible for the construction of, but ultimately unfinished, Third Division of the canal above Buchanan. Below this valley town, the canal served as a vital artery of transportation during the Civil War. Above it lay vast iron ore deposits that were inaccessible, except by bateau, until the canal could be furthered west through the Superintendent of Repairs of the Second Division, or the section between Lynchburg and Buchanan.

Other signs of the War along the canal on the Bethel level were packet boats laden with Confederate soldiers and freight boats impressed by the government for transporting pig iron to reach Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond. Though there was never a steady supply of iron available, Tredegar became the Mother Arsenal of the South, furnishing most of its manufacture in Ordnance. The F.B. Dean & Son Foundry on Lynchburg’s lower basic also filled military contracts and received a portion of its pig iron from the Amherst Furnace, built in 1863. This charcoal blast furnace, operated by William H. Jordan, lay fourteen miles upriver from Bethel and employed local men from both counties.

News of Gen. Stonewall Jackson’s death reached Salt Creek in May of 1863. Though the packet boat Marshall transported the casket to Lexington from Lynchburg at night, area residents likely crossed to the canal side of the river in Bedford to witness the boat’s passing by lantern and torch light.

The war itself never came too close to Salt Creek but once. This one occasion was in mid June 1864, when Gen. David Hunter’s Federal troops ransacked Lexington, burning the VMI cadet corps withdrew down the James River anticipating using delaying tactics against a Federal advance intent on reaching Lynchburg. Lynchburg served as the supply depot of the Army of Northern Virginia with its rail and canal lines and foundries.

When it was learned that Hunter had taken another route to reach Lynchburg, Confederate officers took quick action. Gen. F. H. Smith, the commandant of the VMI Cadet Corps formed a line of defense at the Rope Ferry in Amherst. Brigadier General John Imboden ordered Gen. McCausland to Waugh’s Ferry. On June 14, McCausland informed Gen. Smith the enemy was advancing from Buchanan on the town of Liberty (or Bedford), Gen. Smith next received word from Gen. John D. Imboden at Pedlar Mills that he would cross at Bethel the next day and make for Forest Depot as rapidly as possible. (Couper, William, 100 Years at VMI). It appears these cavalry units used all available ferries to cross the river and swam their horses at the old fords. Their efforts kept Lynchburg from destruction and with Gen. Jubal Early sent Union forces fleeing. During the latter days of the war, there was desperation on the upper James River--more than just families being without food and clothing. Deserters had taken to hiding out in the nearby mountains. Desperate men, who in desperate times, robbed passengers on boats or slipped into settlements at night to steal animals and food. In the meantime the canal had fallen in great disrepair at the end of the war until Federal occupations forces authorized funds and materials to repair it. Slowly some order returned during the painful loss, adjustments and transition of Reconstruction.

There is record that Robert G. Scott was occupied as a contractor on the Bethel lock and towpath in August of 1862, three months after declining to re-enlist with the Amherst Light Artillery. In a report made by Edward Lorraine in 1865, recommending manufacturing sites along the entire canal, he tells of water power being furnished at Bethel (on the south shore) for six pair of burrs (grist mill stones). This would have been Scott’s Mill, identified on the 1864 Gilmer map of Bedford Co., which paid the canal company for water power to turn its wheels. With the war over, Robert Scott slowly began speculating on the future by obtaining more land. He began by purchasing Samuel Wortham’s house and tanyard lot in Bethel on the public road from the ferry to Pedlar Mills.

Samuel Wortham is found to be the Salt Creek’s postmaster (after John S. Kyle) from 1856-1866. He was married to Mary Hane Cox in 1855 and after his term as postmaster, went into the grocery business. George H. Dameron bought from Wortham in 1869 the remaining portions of Edward Tinsley’s estate including Samuel’s dwelling house, lumberhouse, warehouse, blacksmith and wheelwright shop and other necessary outbuildings.

On September 28, 1870, the James River flooded twenty six feet above normal water level. Ten people drowned and the toll bridge at Lynchburg was completely washed away. The canal and any riverside settlements were ruined. The extent of destruction at Salt Creek can only be speculated but it must have been devastating. From that time period to present, only the old tavern chimneys remain standing that must have withstood the high water. The canal did not resume operation until a year later when it froze during that winter.

Among residents of the Bethel Creek area in 1870: