The Muse: June 2008

It's been a gorgeous spring, it's lovely in Amherst County, and on behalf of the membership and board of the Amherst County Museum and Historical Society, many many thanks to our volunteers who helped make our Annual House Tour such a success

Volunteers are vital to the Museum’s success year-round. We’d like all of our volunteers to know how much their help is appreciated, whether at special events such as the House Tour, taking on data entry projects or helping out when the Director goes to a conference.

Holly Mills, Director

A visit from a renowned, former Governor of Virginia will highlight the Amherst County Museum and Historical Society’s Annual Meeting at Winton, beginning at 11:00 a.m. on September 13, 2008. Patrick Henry has accepted our invitation! He’ll present a major address after the business meeting and luncheon, his identity assumed by Richard Schumann, a talented historical interpreter at Colonial Williamsburg.

Patrick Henry is an exciting and appropriate choice for speaker at the Annual Meeting, not only because his timeless message and fiery oratory keep listeners spellbound, but because he has a family connection to Winton. His mother spent her final years there. when the old mansion house was the home of her daughter and son-in-law. She is buried near them in the family cemetery at Winton.

Reservations for the Annual Meeting should be made early since seating is limited. Please call the Museum at (434) 946-9068 for more information.

Our annual Yard and Bake Sale will be on Saturday, June 7, from 7:00 a.m. until noon - at the Museum.

This sale helps raise funds for the operation of the Museum, and your generous donations are what make it successful.

We accept household items, decorative items, glassware, sports gear, furniture, toys - almost anything except clothing.

So help us! Clean your basement and garage - maybe even your attic! - and bring your "gently-used" items to us during the week June 3 through June 6. Baked items need to be fresh.

Thanks for your support!

Local officials meet with the board of the Amherst County Museum to break ground for a new storage facility for oversize artifacts. From left, Jack Hobbs, Manager, Town of Amherst; Jack Bailey, Mayor, Town of Amherst; Virgil Coleman, of Coleman-Mays Contracting; Kathryn Pixley, museum board; Ben Cline, state delegate; Betty Glass, board secretary; Leona Wilkins, board vice-president; Charles Hamble, board president; Steve Martin, museum board; Holcomb Nixon, museum board; Mary Frances Olinger, board treasurer; Cynthia Hicks, board member; Martha Cox, board member.

• Early Virginia Families Along the James River: Their Deep Roots and Tangled Branches (Volume 1, Henrico County-Goochland County), compiled by Louise Pledge Heath Foley. First published in Richmond, 1974; reprinted for Clearfield Publishing, Maryland, 2007.
• Research notes primarily concerning the Thornhill family of Roanoke (city) and Bedford, Giles and Botetourt counties. Donated by Betty Elliott.
• Lynchburg, Virginia: The First Two Hundred Years, 1786-1986, by James M. Elson. Warwick House Publishers, Lynchburg, 2004 Includes notes, photographs, bibliography, appendices and index.
• An African Republic: Black & White Virginians in the Making of Liberia, by Marie Tyler McGraw; published by the University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2007. Includes notes, photographs, bibliographical essay and index.
• Archaeological Evaluation of Site 44AH0697, Proposed Route 151 Project, Amherst County, Virginia, by William H. Moore and David W. Lewes, January 2008; prepared by the William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research for the Virginia Department of Transportation. This is the report of the archaeological work recently done in front of The Brick House in Clifford.
• Watsons, Willses, and Dedakers: The Evolution of a Nineteenth-Century Farm in Piedmont Virginia: [Route 29 Lynchburg Bypass Project], Amherst County, Virginia, by Stevan C. Pullins and Charles M. Downing, December, 1996; prepared by the William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research for the Virginia Department of Transportation.
• Microfilm from the National Archives--we have just received our first rolls of Non-Population Census Schedules. These are the Agricultural Census for 1870 and 1880. We hope the Museum will be able to invest in more of these census schedules as funds are available.

On a related note, a concern is that while the microfilm at the Museum is a valuable resource, it is not easily managed for research. Currently it can only be accessed on an old manual microfilm machine that cannot print. Our microfilm collection is growing and we will soon be needing a microfilm machine that can handle more use than the old manual. For those of you who are avid supporters of our research collection, do keep in mind that donations may be designated for purchase of a microfilm machine.

In June, 1863, just before General Robert E. Lee took his Army of Northern Virginia to Pennsylvania to fight the battle of Gettysburg, a little known cavalry trooper from Job Stuart’s command was hard at work forming a Battalion of Partisan Rangers behind enemy lines in Northern Virginia.

A year later, the 43rd Battalion Virginia Cavalry, operating in Fairfax, Fauquier, Loudoun, Prince William counties and the Shenandoah Valley, was being called Mosby’s Rangers and its commander, the Gray Ghost. This of course, was John Singleton Mosby.

Twice he was seriously wounded and brought to Amherst County to recuperate.

Familiar with Mosby’s exploits as the commander of a daring band of rangers in Northern Virginia, I had never heard of a local connection until I read an Amherst library book titled Mosby’s Confederacy. Reading the book brought to light the fact that his mother and father moved to McIvor’s Station on the Orange and Alexandria Rail Road in Amherst during the war. Needing to be taken into friendly territory to recover from his wound, Mosby was brought to his parents’ house "Idle Wilde," just across the tracks from the McIvor Station. McIvor’s Station was located near the area that would later become Monroe, Virginia.

Mosby’s exploits on the battlefield made him a top priority target for the Federal soldiers trying to kill or capture the pesky rangers. While Mosby’s Rangers were on the loose, no rail train nor wagon train was safe; no sentry could let his guard down. A multitude of captured horses, mules and wagons full of supplies were sent south to General Lee’s army, along with some high ranking Yankee prisoners--a General, some colonels and other officers; and several hundred rank and file troops--these were successfully smuggled south through the Yankee lines as a result of his lightning-fast raids.

Colonel Mosby recuperated and returned to Northern Virginia after his September 14, 1864, wounding and was again wounded on December 21, 1864. He was again evacuated to Amherst County--this time in a more serious condition. Thereafter, he had to sit out the war in Amherst and Nelson counties.

After General Early’s defeat in the battle of Waynesboro on March 4, 1865, the victorious Yankee cavalry moved from the Shenandoah into Central Virginia and started burning and raiding near Charlottesville and along the James River as far down through Nelson County as Bent’s Creek.* Recovering from his wound, Mosby moved between McIvor’s Station, a relatives’ house at Mt. San Angelo (near today’s Sweet Briar College) and his uncle’s "Valley Farm" located near Wingina in Nelson County. He had to keep out of the hands of those in General Custer’s Cavalry who would like nothing better than to hang him from the nearest tree.

Colonel Mosby was a hunted man and had to lay low while the Yankee cavalry scoured the area for him. General Lee’s Army surrendered at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. Mosby disbanded the 43rd Battalion, Virginia Cavalry near Marshall, Virginia, on April 21, 1865.

Following the war, he lived a long and productive life, leaving behind the legend of the Gray Ghost and the little known fact that, for a while, Amherst County was his wartime refuge.

*For more about these raids, see A Note About Burning Bridges: Maidens Adventure Dam, March 18, 1863; A Letter to the President and Director of the James River and Kanawha Company, article in The Muse, volume 32, number 5 (October 2007), pages 3-4.

Amherst Through the Years is the tentative title for the museum’s projected new book. We are working hard to have the book ready in time for the town’s centennial in May of 2010. What we have learned and the pictures that have been found with the help of many Amherst friends, is amazing. Do you remember the White Oaks Motel or have you eaten at the Payton Place Restaurant? But we have even more questions to be answered and more pictures to be found. Can you help us?

We are looking for pictures of:

• Otto Evan’s house when he lived near the traffic circle
• Percy Page’s house before it became the Rutledge Inn and then faced Union Hill Road
• BB&T Bank when it looked like a Bavarian chalet
• The house called Mountain View where the shopping center is now Jones’ store
• The old ABC store on Main Street
• Dr. Sandidge & Dr. Arnold’s joint office on Main Street
• Any livery stable in the town of Amherst--there were several
• The Peyton home on Main Street before it became a restaurant
• The YMCA on Main Street where the Elkwood Salon is now
• The clothing factory behind Hanger Road
• The fair at the fairgound on Hanger Road
• The second jail where Van Miller was jailer
• The St. Thomas Catholic Church as a one-story building beside the Char-Del
• Mr. Younis’ car dealership (Ford?)
• Picture of the first rescue squad building & ambulance
• The Ambler home-Jacqueline Lodge
• The Dameron house as a log cabin
• The original Briar Patch
• The convict camp where Ed Carter worked

If you have any of the above or know where we can find any, please contact Mary Frances Olinger (946-7233), Betty Glass (946-7027) or myself, Lee Wilkins, through the Museum or at home. --Leona Wilkins

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