Newsletter of the Free State of Patrick Internet History Group

                                                 Notes From The Free State Of Patrick July 2008

                                        "There is nothing new in the world except the history you don't know"  -- Harry Truman

Images of America: Henry County Virginia Cover Chosen

Click here to see the cover. www.freestateofpatrick.com/henrycocover.pdf Sitting behind the Bassett Bengal is Pam Akers Armstrong, wife of Virginia Delegate Ward Armstrong, who supplied the information for the photo. In the photo Pam was a Senior and that year they cheered the Bassett Bengals on to win the Piedmont District Football Championship and were regional runner-ups under Coach Wayne Turner at John D. Bassett High School. This is a photo of the John D. Bassett High School Varsity Cheerleaders for the school year 1970/71. This photo was taken during the 1970 Bassett Christmas Parade. The names of the girls in the photo (all maiden names and classes) are: Front seat row L to R- Lynne Joyce ’71; Pam Akers ’71; and Carol Anthony ’72 Sitting directly behind Lynne Joyce but face is blocked is Myra Terry ’71 (Captain) Back row sitting across rear seat L to R – Clarke Stanley ’72 who is waving and Co-Captain; Vickie Price 72’; Betsy White ’72;  Genette Hite ’72 Sitting directly behind Clarke Stanley but also blocked is Cindy Fulcher ’71.   I hope the book of 200+ Henry County Virginia photos will be out in March 2009. At present it looks like chapters will be on Bassett, Fieldale, Martinsville and Henry County. This photos are from people who brought pictures to the Bassett Historical Center and from the collection of the library. Proceeds from the sale of the book will go to the Building Fund for the $800,000 expansion of the library.  With the outpouring of support, I hope to produce books on individual communities in Henry County such as Bassett, Fieldale and Martinsville in the future.

 FEEDBACK FROM THE GROUP

From Mike Straw of Tampa, Florida, at the recent Gettysburg reenactment are an unknown reenactor portraying J. E. B. Stuart and Claudia Straw, Mike's wife. Claudia is the great-granddaughter of the real J. E. B. Stuart and a grandmother herself. She and Mike have visited Laurel Hill several times as my guest over the year. Claudia is descended from the daughter of "Jeb" Stuart Virginia Pelham Stuart. Below, Claudia's granddaughter Emarie, Jeb Stuart's great-great-great- well you get the idea.

Visit Tom Perry's booth #110 in the Just Plain Country Store in Stuart Virginia

Books include hardcover fiction, history: local, civil war and presidential, paperbacks and audiobooks.

Veterans History Project

Our regional history research library, The Bassett Historical Center, is working to preserve the memories of the men who served in World War Two. Volunteer Bradley Harris is conducting interviews with the veterans of what Ken Burns calls in his recent epic documentary The War. “We want to interview these men to have them tell in their own words what happened to them during the war years, what the war was like for them, how long they were overseas and anything that they want to share with us.” Bradley has completed several interviews with more scheduled. The interviews will be on DVD at the Bassett Historical Center and a copy sent to the Veterans History Project at the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress along with each veteran receiving a copy. If you know anyone Bradley could interview please contact the Bassett Historical Center.
 

Bassett Historical Center http://www.bassetthistoricalcenter.com/
 

Veterans History Project http://www.loc.gov/vets/

"I Want My Book TV"

You know you are boring when you get excited about the weekly schedule of CSPAN2’s Book TV (www.booktv.org). For years on weekends I scan the schedule to see if there are any new books (mostly history) where the author will be interviewed or discussing their latest work. I have found Book TV to be a great place to keep on politics as both sides are given equal time and you can hear and see some incredible comments and books discussed. So, if you find yourself bored on a weekend check out the webpage and tune in to find a book you like. There is an extensive archive of past programs available online if you missed the television version. I kid my friend Deb Goodrich in Kansas that she has been on Book TV and I have a secret desire one day to make it to the big time. So to paraphrase Sting singing on the beginning of Dire Straits’ Money For Nothing “I want my, I want my Book TV”

History Detectives

Every summer PBS shows a series of programs called History Detectives, where a team of four “diverse” professionals investigate the origins of some artifact whether it paper, metal, fabric, painting or almost anything you can imagine. UNC-TV airs the shows on Monday nights at 9 p. m. just after Antique Roadshow. This year’s series began a couple of weeks ago. The team includes appraiser and auctioneer Wes Cowan, appraiser and Art Historian Elyse Luray, Architect Professor Gwen Wright, Sociology Professor Tukufu Zuberi. The first show included the diary of a World War Two B-24 Bomber Pilot named Bill Moran, who lost his life in October 1944 flying a mission over Europe. Jim Chapman of Lexington, North Carolina, had the diary that came home from the war with his father. Chapman wanted to find out what happened to Moran and to return the diary to his family. Wes Cowan investigated the story and found the family. A very emotional Chapman returned the diary to Moran’s daughter. Elyse Luray investigated a coin with a hole shot by markswoman Annie Oakley. The bronze coin with Napoleon III on it came from a member of the Cowboy Band in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Tukufu Zuberi investigated a book titled Female Life Among the Mormons, a not very flattering portrayal of life among the Latter Day Saints. Each week the team members go all over the country investigating artifacts that take them in all different directions. The ways they research the items and the people involved makes the show like Antiques Roadshow on steroids.

Read more about the History Detectives at http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/

Individual Team Member Websites

http://www.cowanauctions.com/

http://www.elyseluray.com/

http://www.gwendolynwrighthistory.com/index.php

http://tukufuzuberi.com/

Patrick County Perry In Raiders Of Noah's Ark

Now this is part joke, part interesting history and part ironic geography. So, in honor of the latest Indiana Jones movie I thought of Patrick County Perry in Raiders of Noah’s Ark.  http://www.freestateofpatrick.com/araratriver3  This is actually part of a series of web pages that I am building about history along the Ararat River. The Ararat River begins behind Bell Spur Church along the Squirrel Spur Road on top of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It flows down the mountain past Ararat, Virginia, into North Carolina and the City of Mount Airy before traversing the entire north to south length of Surry County including a brush with the base of Pilot Mountain before emptying into the Yadkin River at Siloam, North Carolina. Many people including J. E. B. Stuart, the Siamese Twins and Andy Griffith have lived within the watershed. The watershed that begins in Virginia eventually makes it way to the Atlantic Ocean at Georgetown, South Carolina, as part of the Pee Dee River. In Patrick County, the Dan River District is partly the Ararat River watershed. Geographically isolated, the river gets no respect in the county of its birth. In past years the Patrick County Chamber and its maps did not even list the river. This should surprise no one in Ararat, Virginia. I believe the name Ararat comes from the Jefferson-Fry map that names Sauratown and Pilot Mountains “The Mountains of Ararat” taking the biblical name associated with Noah and the Ark. The mountains reverted to their names associated with the Native Peoples or Indians. The community of Ararat, North Carolina is a twentieth century invention. Ararat, Virginia, is the original Ararat. I will pattern this series of WebPages along the lines of the Mount Airy and Eastern Railroad “The Dinky” that I built several years ago showing the path of the railway and the history along its tracks.  www.freestateofpatrick.com/araratriver.htm
 

                            "We are the Hokies. We will prevail, we will prevail. We are Virginia Tech. "  -- Nikki Giovanni

                                             Virginia Tech We Remember Webpage http://www.vt.edu/remember

 Click Here To Visit The NEW J. E. B. Stuart Blog

Click Here To Visit The Free State Of Patrick Blog

Visit The Free State Of Patrick History Page

Visit The Free State Of Patrick Book Page To Purchase Tom Perry's Books

REGIONAL HISTORY

The Yadkin Valley Historical Association will sponsor the 3^rd Yadkin Valley History Fair & Conference, Saturday, August 9, 2008, 9:00 am – 3:00 pm, at the new, air-conditioned Iredell County Agricultural Resources Center, 444 Bristol Drive, Statesville, NC.  This event supports our purpose, which is to preserve more history in the Yadkin Valley through regional cooperation.

It will include exhibits from genealogists, genealogical societies, historians and other history-related groups.  It will a review of genealogical research today and five mini-sessions on basic genealogy, schools of color in Iredell County, genealogical research in Iredell County, DNA genealogy, and the importance of Fort Dobbs and the French & Indian War in your ancestry.  Afterwards, there is an optional bus tour of the genealogy room at the Iredell County Public Library, Old Statesville, and Fort Dobbs.

It is for every historian and history-related organization in the 15 counties of the Yadkin River Valley: Alexander, Alleghany, Ashe, Caldwell, Davidson, Davie, Forsyth, Iredell, Rockingham, Rowan, Stokes, Surry, Watauga, Wilkes, and Yadkin.  Other historians and history-related organizations are invited to participate.

The Genealogical Society of Iredell County is the host for this year’s fair & conference.  They chose “Genealogies of the Yadkin Valley” as the theme.  They want every genealogist and genealogical society in the Yadkin Valley to have the opportunity to participate.  They have planned the following program:

8:00   Set up exhibits, with no fee for members, $20 for non-members

9:00   Conference begins; exhibits open all day

10:00  First Business Meeting: Welcome & Preview of the Day’s Events

10:15   Keynote Address: Genealogical Research Today

10:45   First Mini-Session: Basic Genealogical Research

11:15   Second Mini-Session: Genealogy & Schools of Color in Iredell County

11:45  Third Mini-Session: Genealogical Resources in the Iredell County Public Library

12:30   Barbeque Lunch with Vegetarian Choices

1:15  Second Business Meeting: Elect Board Members and Approve Bid for 2009

Yadkin Valley History Fair & Conference

1:30   Fourth Mini-Session: Genealogy and Your DNA

2:15   Fifth Mini-Session: Fort Dobbs & Your Ancestors in The French and Indian War

3:00   Conference ends, take exhibits down

3:00   Optional bus tour of Iredell County Public Library Genealogy Room, Old Statesville, and Fort Dobbs State Historic Site

5:00   Tour ends; have a safe trip home

Pre-registration before July 18 is $15.  After July 18, it is $20.  There is no charge for active members to set up an exhibit.  Active membership for 2007-2008 is $20.

To participate, please complete the Registration Form on the other side and return it to this address before July 18, 2008:

Cathy Boyer, YVHA, 2008 Leight Street, Winston-Salem, NC 27107

The Yadkin Valley Historical Association, Inc.

PO Box 1337 – Yadkinville, NC 27055-1337

Andrew L. Mackie, President

Cathy Boyer, Treasurer, 2008 Leight Street – Winston-Salem, NC 27107

(336) 650-1522; cathyboyer@bellsouth.net

Registration Form for the 3^rd Yadkin Valley History Fair & Conference, August 9, 2008, Statesville, NC

Name _________________________________

(Maiden Name) ___________________

Mailing Address __________________________________________________________

Telephone _________________________

E-mail _______________________________

1) Are you a member of Yadkin Valley Historical Association for 2007-2008?  ____

If you are, then you may set up one exhibit table for free, have one vote at the Annual Meeting, and receive other benefits.  If not, you must join the Association as an individual member, since membership in your history-related organization cannot be used to set up a table, vote, or receive other benefits.  However, someone in your organization can represent your organization, set up a table for free, vote, and receive other benefits.

2) Which county will you represent (at the Annual Meeting)?  ____________________

3) Which history-related organization will you represent (information for the directory)?

Name ____________________________________________________________

Mailing Address ____________________________________________________

Post Office, State, ZIP Code __________________________________________

Telephone ____________________

Email _______________________________
          Webpage ________________________

4) Will you need a table to set up your exhibit? _________

5) What kinds of things will you exhibit?  If your organization is a non-profit, you may sell things like memberships and publications, or accept donations, but no commercial vendors are allowed. ______________________________________________________

6)  The theme for this fair & conference is “Genealogies of the Yadkin Valley”.  See the other side of this form for scheduled mini-sessions and their topics.  Are there any specific questions about these topics that you want us to answer?  ____  If yes, please use another piece of paper and submit them to the address below.

7)  Are you interested in serving as one of your county’s two representatives on the Board of Directors?  ____.  If not, who in your county can we contact? ____________________

8)  Please remember that Pre-Registration before July 18, 2008, is $15; after July 18 and at the door, it is $20.  Please make check payable to “YVHA” and mail to Cathy Boyer, YVHA, 2008 Leight Street, Winston-Salem, NC 27107.

2007-2008 Membership in the YVHA @ $20.00                         $ _______

Pre-Registration before July 18 @ $15.00                                        _______

Fee for Exhibit Table, if not a member of the YVHA @ $20.00       _______

Business Card Ad in the Program @ $5.00 (enclose card)                _______

Total Amount of Check                                                                       ________

HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION OF RICHMOND HILL
 

            The history of the 25-year restoration of Richmond Hill, the antebellum home of North Carolina Chief Justice Richmond Mumford Pearson (1805-1878) and his family will be given at Richmond Hill on Sunday, July 20, 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm. The program is free and open to the public. The program is sponsored by The Yadkin County Historical Society and The Historic Richmond Hill Law School Commission.  The afternoon begins at 1:00 pm, with a covered-dished picnic in the shelter on the left, followed at 2:00 pm with a tour of the house and grounds.  The free program begins inside the air-conditioned house at 3:00 pm. A panel of local historians will tell the story of the $250,000 restoration, which lasted from 1965-1990, under the leadership of the late Jimmie R. Hutchens, the Yadkin County Historical Society and the Historic Richmond Hill Law School Commission.  The public dedication was attended by many people, including NC Chief Justice Rhoda Billings, NC Governor James Martin, members of the NC General Assembly, and other public officials.  The brick building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. From 1848-1878, on the grounds of Richmond Hill, Judge Pearson conducted a famous law school, where as many as 1,000 young men may have studied to become lawyers. Richmond Hill is also the place where Judge Pearson invoked the right of habeas corpus to prevent men from being conscripted into service in the Confederate Army in the Civil War (1861-1865).  This year, local historians erected a marker commemorating this event as part of the NC Civil War Trail. Richmond Hill is located at 4641 Law School Road, East Bend, NC.  To travel there from NC 67 Highway at Wiseman’s Crossroads in Yadkin County, take Smithtown Road north to Richmond Hill Road, travel west to Limerock Road, and north on Law School Road to the end. For more information, contact Judy Vaughn, (336) 325-3511, or kerman@yadtel.net.

The Yadkin County Historical Society, Inc.

PO Box 1250, Yadkinville, NC 27055-1250

Andrew L. Mackie, President,

Cell (336) 428-8471 or E-Mail andrewmackie@yadtel.net

Judy Vaughn, Chair of the Program Committee

Home (336) 325-3511 or E-Mail kerman@surry.net

PATRICK COUNTY HISTORICAL TOURS

Patrick County Historian Tom Perry is working to bring tourists to The Free State Of Patrick with history. Tom, a graduate of Virginia Tech,, is the author of The Free State of Patrick:  Patrick County Virginia in the Civil War, Ascent to Glory:  The Genealogy of J. E. B Stuart, J. E. B. Stuart’s Birthplace:  The History of the Laurel Hill Farm, Images of America: Patrick County, Virginia, God’s Will Be Done:  The Christian Life of J. E. B. Stuart and the upcoming Notes From the Free State of Patrick:  Patrick County and Regional History - Volume One. Enjoy a tour of sites in Ararat associated with Civil War General J. E. B Stuart, Reverend Bob Childress, made famous in The Man Who Moved A Mountain and mid-wife Aunt Orlean Hawks Puckett, made famous by her cabin along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Other topics will include the Mount Airy and Eastern Railroad along with stories, legends and infamous crimes in the area known as The Hollow, Friends Mission and Ararat, Virginia, which are the same place.  Tours are flexible and our guests’ interests in any particular subject can be expanded with tours to the “Rock Churches” ministered by Bob Childress or a stop by Aunt Orlean’s humble, rustic mountain cabin along the Blue Ridge Parkway.   Experience history at its best as Tom brings J. E. B Stuart alive along with other famous Patrick County residents of the past. Availability is dependent on the author’s schedule and only Advance Reservations can take advantage of the tours. Many people come into Patrick County and improve the place we live. My family were once “outsiders” when they came to “The Free State Of Patrick” the year before I was born in 1959. I think new blood and new ideas are good especially if they bring better economic times to the area.

Anyone interested in taking a tour contact Tom Perry at freestateofpatrick@yahoo.com

Chestnuts in Patrick County and the Exodus to Amelia County

“Like Manna From God: the American Chestnut Trade in Southwestern Virginia”   

Dr. Ralph H. Lutts of Meadows of Dan recently published an article in Environmental History. The article is interesting not only for its discussion of the importance of chestnuts in the Patrick County economy, but also because it explains how the chestnut blight of the 1920s contributed to so many Patrick Countians having to find work in coal fields, knitting mills, and furniture factories. One exodus was to Amelia County. Dr. Lutts writes that, “Enough Patrick Countians moved to Amelia County, located southwest of Richmond, to establish the ‘Little Patrick’ community.” 

http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/eh/9.3/lutts.html 

Journey Through Hallowed Ground

Watching CPSPAN2’s Book TV last weekend I came across David McCullough talking about a new historical project Journey Through Hallowed Ground that is basically a driving trail connecting Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to Charlottesville, Virginia. The trail beginning at the national battlefield follows Route 15 south to Orange, Virginia, and then takes Virginia Route 20 to Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson.  For years I have thought we could do a similar type historical trail in Patrick County. I called it the Free State Of Patrick Trail and have tried to get the various historical groups to work together on it with no cooperation.

I recently joined the Round The Mountain, Southwest Virginia’s Artisan Network. While I did not think I fit the scope very well, I thought for $20 I would give it a shot.  As a rule I don’t join just to join I expect to get promoted, something the Patrick County Chamber of Commerce does not get. When I give an organization $94 a year I expect my events posted and my work promoted as I want it, not at the there choosing. I am no longer a member of that group and I ask those who are what they get from membership except a bill every year. What I don’t see is once the money is the chamber bank account that members get anything. The focus appears to me to be getting new members and not taking care of those already part of the group. Every time I tried to get anything promote it was like pulling eye teeth and when my mother was not allowed to eat at a chamber after hours and I was ignored waiting two hours on top of Laurel Hill to talk about the history and promote my new book at an event that was my idea I came to have serious doubts. Also, when the PR came out about that event I was not even listed in the chamber email. The straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back for me was the refusal of the chamber to promote the Bassett Historical Center symposium that included myself and other chamber members including the Blue Ridge Regional Library. It is no secret that I think the Patrick County Historical Society does nothing to promote the county or preserve history, while Bassett is our regional history library and is expanding. I always so “Go To The Light” and when people are moving forward and not sitting still in the town formerly known as Taylorsville I go with those doing something. Patrick County is trying to bring visitors by various means such as the Crooked Road Musical Heritage Trail and I think that is great. What disgusted me was when the new brochure about the county came out I was completely excluded from it. Now, for years I went around promoting the history of the county and it certainly was no secret that I had a webpage. When I complained it was made clear to me that I would be blamed for the cost of reprinting the new brochure and my physically conservative soul would not allow that.  While covered bridges are part of Patrick County’s history I think the entire history of the county if marketed correctly and everyone worked together would bring more people than the Round The Crooked Mountain Agri-Tourism Road Trail combined in my opinion and it is being ignored. The largest business in Virginia is tourism. The largest part of tourism in Virginia is history. Why not in Patrick County too.  

Read more about these ideas here

http://www.roundthemountain.org/  

www.freestateofpatrick.com/consort.htm

Patrick County In The Civil War

Images of America: Patrick County Virginia On Sale

Just Plain Country Store and Antique Mall Booth #110 in Stuart, Virginia.

Wanda's Estate Jewelry in Stuart, Virginia.

Page's Bookstore in Mount Airy, North Carolina.

Mount Airy Museum of History

News From the Website

"We Conquer by continuing"

Copyright 2007 Tom Perry. No material to be used without permission. 

                                                                 "Illegitimus non carborundum"

                                 "Never attribute to malice what you can explain with stupidity" -- Hanlon's Razor

Oldies but Goodies...

From The Pilot To The Buffalo

The Indians called it Jomeokee meaning pilot or guide. In August 1854 Lt. James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart used it as just that, a guide, piloting his trip around piedmont North Carolina and Virginia visiting friends and relatives. One night he found himself camping on Pilot Mountain. Just out of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, Stuart was soon to head west to Texas to join the cavalry of the United States and seven years of service mainly in the 1st U. S. Cavalry stationed in Kansas. Later that night a storm filled with thunder and lightning woke the young officer, who would become our region’s most important historical figure as commander of Robert E. Lee’s cavalry in the War Between the States. Stuart thought of himself as a romantic wrote down a poem dedicated to one of his six sisters entitled “The Dream of Youth.”  While the dreams of a young man are nice to read about what can they do for us today? History can be a force for economic growth in our region. Today from the overlook at the “Little Pinnacle” you can see our entire region including the Buffalo Mountain resting on top of the Blue Ridge plateau. The Buffalo is famous due to another young man from Ararat, Virginia, just like “Jeb” Stuart. The Reverend Bob Childress spent half his life at the foot of the Blue Ridge before he moved on top to preach and build the six rock churches made famous in The Man Who Moved a Mountain by Richard Davids. From the Buffalo to the Pilot is the region whose history I write about. I was born in Mount Airy and grew up in Ararat, Virginia. Many people have come from Patrick County to North Carolina. Richard Joshua Reynolds left Virginia to go to Winston to start a tobacco business and he came to Mount Airy to get a wife, Katharine Smith. The Ararat River itself flows from Bell Spur Church in Patrick County down a mountain named after a groundhog to meet the Yadkin River at Siloam. A railroad, The Mount Airy and Eastern, “The Dinky” ran from the banks of the Ararat to the banks of the Dan River in Patrick County’s Kibler Valley. The Native-Americans who named Pilot Mountain or the raptors that migrate to it each year did not see the state line as a barrier and we should not either. We have much common history and we should think regionally in promoting each other. There is plenty of room for Jeb Stuart to walk the same streets as the Siamese Twins and the fictional Barnie Fife. While the focus is often on the Andy Griffith show as a way to bring tourists to the area if you look just across the street from the statue of Andy and Opie is one for George Stoneman’s Raid at the end of the Civil War that came through Mount Airy on April 2, 1865, a week before Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox. These were the first Yankees to visit the “Granite City,” but judging from the tour buses on Main Street not the last. So, with this article on our region’s history along the model of Ruth Minick started years ago I am reminded of another connection between Surry County and Patrick County. In the 1920s Carl Griffith crossed the state line into Patrick County to marry Geneva Nunn. Their marriage license is in the Patrick County Courthouse. You probably heard of their son. Andy Griffith.

Erie-sistible on Father's Day

Erie Perry with Ronald Johnson. They broadcast Mount Airy High School Football games for over thirty years. Both are inducted into the Mount Airy Sports Hall of Fame marker shown behind them.

On Father’s Day I thought I would return to a little history about my father. My father Erie Meredith Perry turned 76 on December 19, 2007, and celebrated his 50^th wedding anniversary to my mother Betty Jane Hobbs Perry of Augusta, Georgia, on Friday December 21, 2007. Erie was born in 1931 in Chattanooga, Tennessee to Erie and Idell Bates Perry. Grandma or

“I-ma” as I called her was from Jefferson County, Alabama and she was the second wife of my grandfather also named Erie, who was originally from Sherwood, Franklin County, Tennessee. When my father was in high school the family including sister Shirley Caudle and Joseph Antonio “Buddy” Perry moved with their parents to High Point and then Mount Airy, North Carolina. My father played multiple sports in high school. After taking a year off, he went to Lees McRae College and then Appalachian State University then Teacher’s College where he played baseball, football and basketball. He was a student athlete. He would not have been able to pay for college without a scholarship to play sports. My father retired in 1988 after 28 years as a teacher at Blue Ridge High School and then principal at Red Bank and Blue Ridge Elementary Schools. He left because he was given the choice of returning to the classroom or retiring by a spineless school board member and a witless superintendent of schools, who wanted to move another school board member’s daughter into the principal’s job at Woolwine and needed to move that principal to another location. Many tried to get my father to take legal action against the school system, but he refused to do that believing the only people that legal action would hurt would be the students and teachers of the school system he gave his entire career. Instead, we got even when a great man, Fred Brim, decided he wanted to be principal at Blue Ridge, Fred could not attend the school due to segregation. So, he realized his dream and ended the plan of the school board and superintendent. My father retired. The Martinsville Bulletin and the Mount Airy News wrote glowing articles about him, but not The Enterprise. He went to play golf and run White Pines Country Club in Mount Airy. Today, you can see his name on the Mount Airy Sports Hall of Fame marker, the Blue Ridge Elementary School marker honoring retired teachers and at the J. E. B. Stuart where he and my mother were the first to be honored for their service in preserving the site. My father and mother were married in Augusta, Georgia, on December 21, 1957, after my father won a football contest in the U. S. Army’s Stars and Stripes newspaper which included a round trip air passage home. Two other Ararat men, Bill Smith and George Beasley, brought “Georgia Peaches” back to Ararat. Bill and Claudette Smith actually share the same wedding anniversary with my parents. While stationed at Fort Gordon outside Augusta, my father met my mother. After my father replaced Elvis in Germany in the army, he came to Patrick County in 1959 to teach at Blue Ridge. I was born the following November. My father has made another mark on his home at the foot of the Blue Ridge in Ararat. Almost everyday I have someone who had him in school come up and wish him well or ask about him or tell me some story related to him. Christa McAuliffe the teacher who died in the space shuttle accident in 1986 once said “I touch the future. I teach.” I know that my father has done that too. So, the man who tells the pretty girls his name is Erie-sistible deserves a few comments on his son’s blog and no better time than his 76^th birthday and 50^th wedding anniversary.

Walking With The Spring: The Appalachian Trail In Patrick County, Virginia

Some members of the The Rocky Knob Chapter of the Friends of the Blue Ridge Parkway are looking to trace the Appalachian Trail when it came along the northern border of Patrick County along the Blue Ridge Parkway. It reminded me of one of my favorite stories. In the spring of 1948, a young man walked along the Blue Ridge Parkway entering Patrick County near the Puckett Cabin. He proceeded up the hill towards present day Doe Run with flaming azaleas and dogwoods in bloom. He noticed Pilot Mountain in the distance and the small community of Ararat, Virginia at the foot of Groundhog Mountain. He veered off the road and crossed over the Pinnacles of Dan noticing the beauty of the Dan River and later wrote that this area was “the most rugged and most spectacular” place he walked that summer. That night it rained on him and he built a fire and the next day continued through Patrick County observing a gray fox with the sunlight glistening on its fur. That day he encountered a talkative farmer named Handy, who stopped his plowing to tell of his 200 acres and his family. He shared a dinner of “fried ham, spoon gravy…stewed apples, goat’s milk and real southern cornbread, the kind that is broken, not sliced” with the family. The young man declined an invitation to spend the night and proceeded on to Meadows of Dan. A storeowner told him of a shelter near Rocky Knob for hikers. He continued past Mabry Mill and like millions of others stopped to take a photograph. He made it to Rocky Knob and wrote, “I finally stumbled into Rocky Knob by starlight and found the shelter was of stone, open on three sides and with a cold wind howling through. I gathered some snags for fireplace wood and a sack full of leaves to cushion the stone floor. The temperature must have been around freezing.” The next morning Earl Shaffer, the first man to walk the entire length of the Appalachian Trail, found himself staring out over Rock Castle Gorge and the Woolwine area of Patrick County with Bull Mountain in the distance. The trail through Patrick County went south from Rocky Knob via the Mountain Mission School over to Lover’s Leap on Highway 58. From there it followed Ivy Creek and the Big Bend of the Dan River crossing the Pinnacles of Dan and over to Bell’s Spur before returning near the Blue Ridge Parkway and along that road to Carroll County.  The Appalachian Trail began with the dream of one man, Benton MacKaye, who wrote an article in 1921 about a trail stretching the entire length of the Appalachian Mountains with actual building starting two years later. The Appalachian Trail Conference began in 1925 to coordinate the work of the individual local clubs that took care of different sections of the trail. The headquarters today is located in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. In 1968, Congress passed the National Trails System Act designating the Appalachian Trail as a National Scenic Trail. “County Agent for Floyd County” Mr. Shirley L. Cole apparently thought of the section through Patrick County in 1930. Myron H. Avery, Charlie Thomas and E. M. Wood marked the trail in February 1933, one hundred years after Jeb Stuart was born here. The AT was completed as a continuous footpath in 1937.  Earl V. Shaffer of York, Pennsylvania, then 29, walked over 2,000 miles that year from Mount Oglethorpe, Georgia on April 4, to Mount Katahdin, Maine on August 5, 1948. He estimated it was over five million steps. He wrote about this journey in a book Walking With Spring. In 1965, he again walked the entire length of the trail going from north to south becoming the first man to walk the AT in both directions. By this time, the AT relocated much of the trail through Southwest Virginia farther north of Patrick County to avoid walking along roads and into the Jefferson National Forrest.  In 1948, National Geographic writer Andrew Brown wrote an article about the AT. He mentions John Barnard of Patrick County, who took care of twelve miles of trail himself. The Barnard home is located near the intersection of Route 724 (Pinnacle Lane) and Route 614 (Squirrel’s Spur Road). Upon finding Barnard’s home, Brown was invited to spend the night. Brown wrote of sitting in a chair on the Barnard porch, “I tipped gently back and forth in a rocker. Black clouds banked up. It was quiet as a desert night. The shower broke and drenched the well trimmed lawn, the round bed of geraniums ringed with pansies, and the rose bushes along the fence. A spate of water gurgled down the drainpipes…Bowls of vegetables and stewed fruit, platters of meat, plates piled high with hot biscuits and corn bread, pitchers of milk and cream, jars of honey and homemade jam crowded the big table. There were squash, string beans, and mashed potatoes; hot veal and cold ham; applesauce and pears; and quantities of sweet farm fresh butter to slather on the hot breads. What a feast!” Next time you are driving along the Blue Ridge Parkway near Rocky Knob, go up to the Saddle parking lot with a view of Buffalo Mountain on one side and Bull Mountain on the other and walk back towards Rocky Knob along the green trail near the ridge. In just a few minutes you can climb up hill to the shelter that Earl Shaffer spent the night in during 1948 and you can see the vista he encountered when the Appalachian Trail came through Patrick County, Virginia. For a whimsical view of the AT today read Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods. Thanks to Douglas Belcher for giving me this idea for an article and reminding me of Harry Truman’s maxim that “There is nothing new in the world. There is only the history you don’t know.”

And In The End...

If you have read this far I congratulate you. Last this month I want to let you know that I am not very happy with the organization I started nearly twenty years ago. The J. E. B. Stuart Birthplace Preservation Trust Inc. If you are interested please read on. Read about the "Poor Stewardship" At Stuart's Birthplace

http://www.freestateofpatrick.com/jebstuartbirthplacestewardship.htm

http://freestateofpatrick.com/blog/category/jeb-stuart-birthplace/