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

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

The Free State Of Patrick Supports The Patrick County High School Alumni Association

Jeremiah Raleigh Puckett, the son of Buddy and Jeanie Puckett of Ararat, Virginia, a student at Blue Ridge Elementary School, recently won the Virginia competition and placed second in the national competition for Jamestown 2007 Photo Essay Contest. His photo-essay about the founding of Jamestown was sponsored by the Daughters of the American Revolution. Jeremiah was honored on July 4 by the Patrick County Jamestown 2007 Commission shown above with Ararat native Patrick County Supervisor David Young and on March 17 by the Virginia Chapter of the DAR at it's annual 111th conference in Richmond at the Omni Hotel shown above right.

The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution sponsored b Junior American Citizens Contest. The theme of the contest was "Jamestown Settlement: An American Beginning." There were five subjects to choose from: Poem, Stamp Design, Photo Essay, Poster and Short Story. All schools in Patrick County were encouraged to participate. The JAC/DAR Chairman of Patrick County is Mary Martin.

Jeremiah's photo essay consisted of pictures of what he thought Jamestown would have looked like in 1607. The pictures he took were at his family's farm in Ararat. After winning first place in the Patrick County Junior Citizens contest, he became first place winner for the entire Commonwealth of Virginia. At the conference, an announcement was made that he had also won first place in the Eastern Division nationally. Patricia Hatfield Mayer, State Regent shown above right with Jeremiah is shown above.

Blue Ridge Elementary School in Ararat, Virginia, had three first place winners in the state competition and eastern division along with Jeremiah. Cortney Busick for Stamp Design and Benjamin Pack for Poem. Cortney also won second place at the national level. Benjamin won third place nationally.

History Book Club and Free State Of Patrick Join To Put History Books in Patrick County High School

Each year on J. E. B. Stuart's birthday, February 6, I give Patrick County High School's library history books. I have been a member of the History Book Club for over two decades. They have a program that allows members to get new members to join. If you would be interested in joining please send me an email to freestateofpatrick@yahoo.com and I will mail you the form. If you join on my membership I will receive a free book, which I will donate to the library a book on history.

Granite Arch Bridge Along Ararat River On Hamburg Street Dedicated May 31, 2007

It is not Leonardo on Titanic. It is Robert Merritt on top of the granite arch along Hamburg Street.

“This stone arch once carried horses, wagons and pedestrians over the millstream that powered the mills of Jacob Brower and his sons. Built before 1870, the bridge is the oldest known structure still standing made of Mount Airy granite. The Browers eventually had four mills here grinding grains, spinning cotton and wool, and making shoes and boxes. An old photograph shows the mill structures, and an 1896 insurance map locates them beside the Ararat River.

In 1841 Jacob Brower moved to Surry County from Guilford County and built his first mill on the Ararat River just south of the bridge. To power the mill he dammed up the river a half mill to the north and dug a ditch that carried a stream of water to the mill. Coming from a higher elevation, the water passed through turbines that harnessed the energy and drove the mill machinery.

Hamburg Mills included a general store, where sugar, coffee, and household items were sold and where community news and views were exchanged. Here in 1867, Jacob Brower (1812-1868) and his son, John Morehead Brower (1845-1913), organized the Hamburg Lodge Chapter of the Union League for the purpose of encouraging freed slaves to register and vote. Freedmen gained the right to vote under the Military Reconstruction Act passed by Congress after the Civil War. The U. S. Constitution now guarantees this right. John Brower was elected Representative in the United States Congress for two terms (1887-1891) and served two terms in the North Carolina General Assembly.

The Surry County Historical Society acquired the granite arch as a gift from the estate of W. E. Merritt. The Mount Airy Board of Education donated additional land around the bridge. The Society’s Brower Bridge Committee is responsible for the landscaping and the information sign, with help from Martha Rowe Vaughn, Eagle Scout Anderson Rowe and his parents, David and Inglis Rower, the North Carolina Granite Company, and the City of Mount Airy.

The Brower Bridge Committee includes Cama Merritt, Chairman, Carol Burke, Jo Ann Eddy, Marie Judson, Barbara Oliver, Eleanor Powell and Erika Rowe-Forbes.”

The Surry County Historical Society dedicated the above interpretive sign at the granite arch along Hamburg Street in Mount Airy, North Carolina.

Visit Tom Perry's Exhibit On The Dinky Railroad At The Kibler Valley River Run On July 28 On The Ground Of

Danube Presbyterian Church Presentation About The Dinky Railroad On May 20, 2007

Let me begin by thanking the congregation of Danube Presbyterian Church and especially Reverend Fred Gilley for inviting Kenny and myself to come speak about our region’s history. Looking about this room I think I know almost everyone here from Ethel Cox and her three beautiful daughters, who use to baby-sit me. Some baby uh Ethel? It is good to see Mildred and Charles Hill, whose father we will talk about and Verna Anderson, who I have shared some fun historical things over the years. I see Diana Goad, who I use to work with and young Wes Burkhart, just in from college, whose parent’s I went to high school with.

Today as we sit on the banks of one of Patrick County’s great rivers, I will speak to you today about the geography specifically the route of the Mount Airy and Eastern Railway, “The Dinky” and some human interest stories about the train. Kenney will speak about the chronological history of the railroad and what it did in Kibler Valley.

We are in to biblical names for our rivers in Patrick County. The railroad traveled the distance between the Dan named for a tribe of Israel to the Ararat where Noah’s Ark landed on the mountains of. The Ararat River travels from Bell Spur Church in Patrick County to Siloam, North Carolina.

The railroad began on Riverside Drive near present day Cross Creek Apparel. I use to work there in the dye house when I got out of college on third shift. Like the railroad the textile mills will soon be gone as well. I have twelve web pages built about the railroad and at the beginning I found out the local genealogists Esther Johnson grew up there at the beginning of the railroad and she wrote about it.

The Mount Airy and Eastern traversed 19.50 miles to Kibler Valley. The present day railroad tracks use to go to the North Carolina Granite Corporation. The narrow gauge Dinky pulled beside this railroad so that lumber and other material could be transferred.

The railroad followed the present day Riverside Drive, North Carolina Highway 104, past Renfro Corporation and along the Ararat River. The train followed past Johnson’s Creek, where a water tower, one of over a dozen, supplied water for the steam locomotives.

Next the train carried passengers often to the White Sulphur Springs on excursions. The resort hotel known for the fowl smelling Sulphur water that smelled of rotten eggs. People had been coming to this place since the time Jeb Stuart’s mother lived here in the 1850s.

The railway passed near the Sparger House, which was once a tobacco farm and site of a tobacco factory before the days of Reynolds Tobacco and multi-national conglomerates. Near here Totsey Hill and his large family lived on a farm I use to romp on with the Guynn kids, Teddy and Ann, as their mother Bertie was one of Totsy and India’s children.

One story about Totsey involves his brother Rob, who is Charles Hill’s father. Once a hot air balloon appeared over the Blue Ridge Mountains coming from Maryland until Rob Hill decided it must come down and with his trusty rifle he brought down. I have this photo of many people “long necking” around the basket of a brought down by Rob Hill.

The Dinky Railroad continued on up crossing the Ararat River and heading towards the Virginia/North Carolina border where it changes from state to commonwealth in Edith Brown’s pasture dissecting the line surveyed by Thomas Jefferson’s father Peter, Joshua Fry and an entourage of North Carolinians and Virginias in 1749.

The rails or working on the rails brought many people to our area. Among them was John Edward Dellenback, who came to work on the railroad and then worked at Pedigo’s Mill. John married Serelda Mary Wilson and was the father of Charlie, who is the father of George, Walter, Eddie and Mary.

The railroad passed by Laurel Hill, the birthplace of James Ewell Brown “Jeb”. Just across the road from Patrick County’s most historic site is a washed out trestle on the land of Eric and Amy Brown Sawyers. The railroad makes a curve and turns from the Ararat River to Clark’s Creek across the land of Porter Bondurant.

I have known Porter most of my life, but Kenney Kirkman and Desmond Kendrick did not. So when Porter loaded us up on his John Deere Gator I could see fear in the city slicker’s eyes to have a man alive during World War One who actually rode the Dinky driving them around scared them to death. I also came to find that they were truly from town when Porter offered them free watermelons from his patch along Clark’s Creek. Porter grew watermelon on steroids and I was left standing in the patch digging for the biggest one I could find when my city friends declined Porter’s generous offer.

Gordon Axelson, who is here today with his wife my former high school science teacher, who by the way does not look like she is old enough to have been my science teacher, videoed Porter and his old sister Carrie Sue Bondurant Culler. Both of them rode the railroad and it was one of the most memorable scenes of the research we did was to see a 92 year old man being corrected by his older sister about their lives as kids.

The railroad continued along Clark’s Creek across the land of Dan Smith, Dwight Jessup and a large trestle crossed the creek as the railroad made its way to the Holly Tree Road. The railroad continued up the creek across the bottomland of Diane King and then Howard King to the Homeplace Road. We were lucky to have Nick Epperson, whose family built the house here in Kibler Valley, who like many people sat down and talked to us about what he knew relating to the railroad and let us see his photos. In the 19 plus miles that Kenney and I walked most of the path of the railway we never once ran into a land owner who was unfriendly or did allow us on their property. In fact, most we very enthusiastic and shared what they knew about the train.

We never encountered a mean dog. We met some very friendly dogs while walking the Isaac property. There are places that the railroad is not noticeable as cleared fields and the flood control dam on Clark’s Creek erased traces of it.

Next we walked across the property of Anthony Terry and James Clement. Later Anthony discovered more than ¼ mile of track while clearing a fence line for James and Charles Clement across the spot we had walked. We assume that the railroad was taken up and sold for scrap metal or as Porter told us, “We sold it to the Japanese and they shot back at us during World War Two.”

The railroad followed up the headwaters of Clark’s Creek just across from Church and towards the “Crossroads” the intersection of Squirrel Spur’s Road/Unity Church Road with the Ararat Highway. There was a siding in this area and there are several stories about it.

One story about the railroad involved several of the Clement boys, who discovered several cars on the siding loaded with lumber. The boys investigated the cars one and discovered how to release the brake and down the tracks towards Mount Airy they went with their load of lumber until they realized that starting a railroad car was much easier than stopping one. The Clement boys abandoned train while the cars continued on derailing somewhere around Anthony Terry’s place leaving lumber spread out across the bottom.

The train made its way up to the crossroads, where Bob Childress once worked in a blacksmith shop in site of the Clark’s Creek Progressive Primitive Baptist Church. One famous story about “The Man Who Moved A Mountain” was that he brought the youth choir from this African-American church to his rock churches in a time of segregation. I often wonder if Childress heard those young Black voices before he found a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and began to spread the word about Christianity and made the courageous move of inviting them. When the railroad came by the church there was a school for the African-American children that is today falling down behind the modern brick church. There are some things that show that we have made progress in this country and the railroad witnessed it.

Another man of African descent, John P. Hairston, was a saw miller that heard that “Old Man Carter” was looking for experienced lumber men. He came on the Dinky to make a living near the Dan River.

The railroad’s path continued across the land or Romey and Barbara Bowman Clement. Bobby, who is here today, shared her photos and knowledge of the railroad and our local history. She is what everyone involved in history should be a sharer not a hoarder of it. She is a treasure for the people of Patrick County.

The railroad made its way parallel down the hill towards Fall Creek making a wide turn before crossing the Ararat Highway below Greg Radford’s house. The largest washed out trestle we found is on Darryl and Sandra Clement’s property.

Down Fall Creek the railroad went in a road bed still visible in the winter past a sawmill once operated by Andy Griffith’s grandfather Nunn. Near Jerry Love’s cabin the railroad turned away from the creek just above the flood plane. The railroad crossed the Dan River in this area into what we call Meadowfield.

The Love brothers, Jim and Jerry grew up in the white house at the foot of what we call Bateman’s straight on the Ararat Highway. They shared their stories and access to their property about the railroad. We came to believe there was a Wye (Y) shaped rail system at Meadowfield. One spur went up the Dan River to Kibler Valley and another followed the path of the present day road to a point that it cut behind Jerry Love’s house and across the Kibler Valley Road and into what is today the Primland property.

William Leftridge Bateman, the son of William and Sally Bateman, came to work in the general store at Meadowfield owned by Thomas Lee Clark. He married Judy Ann Joyce in 1906. Bateman purchased the Meadowfield store and by 1910 there was a grist mill, fertilizer house, lumber yard, post office, water tank and the boarding house, of which the latter is the only thing left standing. In 1916, a flood caused by a tropical storm destroyed the railroad and other structures at Meadowfield ending Bateman’s dream of an industrial. One of the Bateman’s daughters Lena Mae married James Beasley and they ran the store at the “crossroads.” She spoke of her father’s store at Meadowfield selling overalls, shirts, shoes, turkeys, chicken and even crossties and tan bark.

The Dinky railroad followed the eastern bank of the Dan River past the Zeb Stuart Scales Bridge and towards the Sawmill Road. This part of the railroad bed is still in pristine condition and easy to walk in the winter. The path followed by Anthony Terry’s boyhood home and probably in the roadbed of the present Sawmill Road and back across the Primland property.

Kenney walked across the property of Leroy Pack into Kibler Valley still following the Dan River. The railroad made its way past Danube Presbyterian Church. When you think of Danube Vienna, the Sound of Music and Austria might come to mind and not narrow gauge railroads and Presbyterians, but the railroad has come from a river named for a mountain Noah’s Ark landed on to a river with the same name as a great river of Europe or a tribe of Israel.

One of those who came to this valley was John Bishop Wilson, who was educated by Dr. Floyd Pedigo, who grew up near Stuart’s Birthplace. Wilson married Mahala Pack and went to work for the Epperson’s here in the valley. When the railroad stopped, Wilson bought some property, ran a one room store, built a house, worked on clocks, watches and guns. He became the Superintendent of Sunday School at Danube Presbyterian Church.

Kenney will talk about the chronological history of the railroad and about Kibler Valley, but I have tried to tell you about the path the train took getting her to the valley. I followed him around through nearly twenty miles of woods and fields with a clip board and marking on a map. We ran into no hostility or even a mean dog, but we did meet and talk to a lot of great people like the congregation of Danube.

Reverend Gilley, you may not realize that it is hard to find verses about railroads in the Bible, but I had one recommended to me. Matthew Chapter 7 Verses 13-14 goes like this: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter through it. But small is the age and narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find it.”

Henry County in the Civil War, 1861-1865 is on sale by the Bassett Historical Center Building Committee as a fund-raiser. Half the profits from this book go to the fund, to build an addition to their great library. This book contains the military records of Henry County Soldiers as well as some letters and other articles of interest. If you would like tosend a donation to them, or buy a book to help them, you can contact Pat Ross at baslib@hotmail.com for more information.

Membership is up to 451 people interested in Patrick County History and receiving the monthly email newsletter.

The Free State Of Patrick website www.freestateofpatrick.com reached 56,000 hits in August.

Above Bristol Sunday Newspaper of March 7, 2007 and Blue Country Magazine October 2006.

If he is remembered at all outside historians’ circles, Judge James Ewell Brown of Wytheville may be known mainly as the former resident of a still-standing stately home on Pepper’s Ferry Road east of the town. The home, Cobbler Springs, only recently has been dwarfed by the nearby sprawling Gatorade plant.

In at least the generation that followed him, Judge Brown loomed large as a model of character. He could not know that late in their lives his influence would still be felt by his nephews who still spoke of him with reverence.

And the judge did not live long enough to know his would become one of the best-known names in the Confederacy if not the entire Civil War era. James Ewell Brown Stuart, better known as J. E. B. ., carried his uncle’s name into history as be became a cavalryman, a general, and one of the revered figures of the Confederacy,

That’s just one of the tidbits of history Tom Perry is preserving and making known again in the region.

Perry has written and self-published three books on the Late Unpleasantness, Ascent To Glory: The Genealogy of J. E. B. Stuart, The Free State of Patrick: Patrick County Virginia in the Civil War, and the latest, Stuart’s Birthplace: The History of the Laurel Hill Farm.

Stuart’s Birthplace is Perry’s latest effort to ensure more than 140 years later that Southwest Virginia people know the local chapters in the story of J. E. B. Stuart’s life.

Perry grew up in Stuart’s footsteps in Ararat in Patrick County where at age nine or 10, he became interested in a road marker identifying Stuart’s birthplace. His parents took him to visit the Brown family, who owned the home.

“They had a picture of Jeb Stuart on an end table like he was a member of the family,” Perry recalls.

The rest for Perry really is history. He was hooked, and his studies of the past, he said, became an escape. He earned a bachelor of arts degree at Virginia Tech, studying under famed Civil War historian Dr. James Robertson. Earning a living in contract computer work, Perry has time to pursue his lifelong passion, even taking time on a recent Wednesday morning to visit Wytheville to talk about his new book.

“I do the history because I love it,” said Perry, tall, youthful, and eloquent in sharing his encyclopedic knowledge of the War Between the States. He could be a professor in his own right, and does accept 50-75 speaking engagements each year.

In 1986 Emory Thomas published the last major Stuart biography, Bold Dragoon, which followed by almost three decades Burke Davis’s The Last Cavalier. The Thomas book reminded Perry that Stuart “was a big deal,” and that “maybe we should do something” about the man and his place in history.

Perry began his own research on Stuart, though not with a plan to write a book. He founded the non-profit J. E. B. Stuart Birthplace Preservation Trust Inc. in 1990, preserving 75 acres of the Stuart property including the house site, Laurel Hill, where Stuart was born on Feb. 6, 1833.

Perry wrote the text of eight interpretive signs about Laurel Hill's history along with the Virginia Civil War Trails sign and a Virginia Department of Historic Resources highway marker in 2002. He continues his work there as the Emeritus Board Member, producing the Laurel Hill Teacher's Guide for educators and the Laurel Hill Reference Guide. He traveled the country looking for Stuart materials, visiting nearly every place Stuart served in the United States Army (1854-1861).

It was much later, on realizing the volume of material he had collected, that his thoughts turned to compiling a book about Stuart. Of particular interest in Smyth , Washington and Wythe counties are chapters that discuss Stuart’s years in Southwest Virginia .

Young J. E. B. . Stuart spent about three years, 1845-48, in Wytheville, a place to which he maintained connections. He took singing lessons in Wytheville, and had a band, according to Perry.

“He had a bluegrass band before bluegrass was cool,” Perry said. That would be way before – bluegrass would come a century after, but as a direct offspring from, the traditional music of Stuart’s day.

Later, Perry said, Stuart talked about raising men for the war effort from the town. During his Wytheville years he spent some time in Draper’s Valley, and attended Emory & Henry College. “He was a son of Southwest Virginia . He spent a little time everywhere,” Perry said.

As with many who gain celebrity, Stuart had hangers-on, those who would later claim to have known the boy, Perry said. One of the more verifiable of these claims was made by David French Boyd of Wytheville who later wrote a manuscript recounting Stuart’s boyhood escapades.

After Ellen Spiller – that’s certainly a prominent Wytheville surname – broke Boyd’s heart, he went to Louisiana and worked at a boys’ school whose headmaster was none other than William T. Sherman. Yes, "that William T. Sherman,” Perry said, who gained notoriety late in the war for destroying civilian targets as well as military as a means to defeating the Confederacy.

Perry said the boys’ school became Louisiana State University where Boyd Hall exists today.

LSU holds Boyd’s manuscript, Perry said, and in its margins one find the editorial comments of Flora Cook Stuart, J. E. B.’s widow, made because Boyd asked her to comment on his writing.

Flora, Saltville residents know, taught there in a cabin that still stands on Smokey Row.

J. E. B.’s brother William figures prominently in Perry’s book, having earned the author’s respect for making and upholding a promise to J. E. B. to look after J. E. B’s. family should he die.

“He promised J. E. B. that as long as he lived his family would be taken care of,” Perry said. “William is the hero of the story. The martyr gets the history written about him but William kept the family together,” taking in mother Elizabeth, sister Mary and sister-in-law Flora while running the Saltworks in Saltville.

J. E. B. and William’s brother John Dabney Stuart lived in Wytheville after the war, and was a surgeon in the 54^th Virginia Infantry. With J. E. B. a major general, William a salt maker and John a surgeon, the brother constituted “a three-man Confederate effort,” Perry said.

William built Oak Level, now called Loretto, in Wytheville. William executed J. E. B.’s will which is filed in the Wythe County courthouse. Perry noted that fact is a point of pride for Wytheville’s historians, but “people from Stuart probably don’t like that J. E. B.’s will is in the courthouse here,” Perry said, instead of in the seat of Patrick County , where Stuart was born.

The general died in May 1864 a day after being wounded at Yellow Tavern, having set up a block to Union General Phillip Sheridan’s march on Richmond .

John Stuart’s grave lies within sight of his brother’s Oak Level in a Wytheville cemetery from which the historic town can be surveyed. North lies Queen’s Knob at whose feet the Battle of the Cove clattered and boomed. West lies Tazewell Street, down which Union General John Toland, until he was reportedly shot dead from a home’s upstairs window, led forces on route to ruin the railroad south of town.

On this Wednesday morning the countryside was shrouded in mist and fog, the present appearing hazy and vague as does history for many. For Perry though, it’s as vivid as a photo on an end table.

“There’s just so must history here,” he said, his gaze wandering the town and then shifting to the horizon, seeing not only what is there but what has gone before, knowing intimately if not personally figures of history who left legacies on the landscape.

J. E. B. Stuart's Friend Oliver Otis Howard, United States General

Civil War Hero, Founder of Howard University

By Frederick N. Rasmussen

06/30/2007

Baltimore Sun (MD)

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.backstory30jun30,0,1478753.column?coll=bal-home-columnists

"When death came quietly for Gen. Oliver Otis Howard in 1909, a veteran warrior, he was sitting in a chair in his Burlington , Vt. , home. His passing at age 79 also marked the death of the last surviving Union commander who had fought in the Civil War. At his death, he was more than four decades removed from the bloody battlefields of the Civil War, which in part conspired to shape his destiny. An obituary in The Sun said, "Including General Howard's services in the Indian wars, he was probably in more engagements than any other officer in the United States Army." "The passing of Gen. Oliver Otis Howard marks the extermination of all the ranking Army officers who commanded the Union armies during the Civil War," reported The New York Times at his death. George Heselton, a retired Gardiner , Maine , lawyer and historian, brought Howard to my attention recently, when he sent a column about the general written by Jim Brunelle, a Maine newspaperman and columnist.

In his "A Maine Notebook," Brunelle wrote that a March fire had destroyed a farmhouse in Leeds , Maine , that had been Howard's boyhood home. He also lamented that Howard has been somewhat overshadowed by the achievements of Joshua L. Chamberlain, also a Maine native and Civil War general, who commanded the 20th Maine and waged a brilliant defense of Little Round Top during the Battle of Gettysburg. Chamberlain also had been selected by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant to preside over the surrender of the Confederate forces at Appomattox Court House in 1865. After the war, he returned to Bowdoin College , his alma mater, to serve as its president. "His reputation is such that he has almost totally eclipsed other outstanding Civil War figures from Maine ," Brunelle wrote. "Chamberlain and that war are synonymous in our minds; no other military heroes need apply." Born in Leeds in 1830, Howard entered West Point in 1850 after graduating from Bowdoin. He was fourth in his class at West Point at graduation in 1854, and after being commissioned a second lieutenant, he remained at the military academy and taught mathematics. "My country needs me," Howard said when he resigned as chairman of the math department at the outbreak of the Civil War. He returned home in June 1861 and joined the 3rd Maine Volunteers as colonel. At the first Battle of Bull Run, he commanded a brigade. In September 1861, he was promoted to brigadier general, and the next year he participated in the furious fighting at the Battle of Fair Oaks as part of the Peninsula Campaign in Virginia .

While leading his men in battle, Howard had two horses shot out from under him and was twice wounded, which eventually resulted in the amputation of his right arm. A month later, he returned to his command in time to fight at Antietam , after which he was promoted to major general. At Gettysburg , he commanded the 11th Corps and won the Medal of Honor.

While serving with Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman on his famous march from Atlanta to Savannah in 1864, Sherman wrote to Grant: "I find him a polished and Christian gentleman, exhibiting the highest and most chivalrous traits of character."

Howard, who had considered a life in the ministry before he entered West Point , was a devout Congregationalist who had been called "the Christian soldier" because he insisted that his troops attend prayer and temperance meetings. "The two Maine men differed in one important respect. Unlike Chamberlain, Howard was a committed abolitionist from the very outset and was regarded as much a moral crusader as a military warrior," Brunelle wrote. "It was because of this that he emerged as an important figure nationally at the conclusion of the war." On May 12, 1865, President Andrew Johnson appointed Howard commissioner of the newly created Board of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands , which was a department of the Army. Because of his support for 4 million former slaves in their quests to find homes and jobs, and because he was a champion of black suffrage, it wasn't long before Howard's efforts were denounced by white Southerners and some Northerners. "I never could conceive how a man could become a better laborer by being made to carry an over heavy and wearisome burden which in no way facilitates his work. I never could detect the shadow of a reason why the color of the skin should impair the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," he wrote in 1865. A believer in education for ex-slaves, Howard was joined in his efforts by 10 white Congregational churchmen in establishing with Freedmen's Bureau funds a theological seminary in 1867 that would eventually become Howard University in Washington. The seminary was named for its founder, and Howard served as its president from 1869 to 1873, when he resumed his Army career relocating Indian tribes onto reservations in the West. He also later served as superintendent of West Point. He retired as a major general in 1894, wrote 10 books and is buried in Lakeview Cemetery in Burlington ."

Oliver Otis Howard graduated with J. E. B. Stuart from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. Howard was second in the class of 46 young men. One dozen of them would lose their lives in the War Between The States or the Civil War 1861-65 including Stuart. Howard was horribly wounded. Stuart and Howard stayed in touch after graduation writing letters though geographically separated. In his Autobiography Howard wrote of J. E. B. Stuart, "I can never can forget the manliness of JEB Stuart, of Virginia, who became, in the Civil War, the leader of the Southern cavalry. He spoke to me, he visited me, and we became warm friends."

FALL PROGRAMS GIVEN BY TOM PERRY

"If Thee Must Fight, Then Fight Well" The Life of Brevet Brigadier General William Jackson Palmer

This talk will focus on Medal of Honor recipient and Delaware native William J. Palmer, who rode with

George Stoneman on his 1865 raid through our area. Palmer, a railroad engineer before the Civil War

went on to found the city of Colorado Springs, Colorado, and built railroads amassing a fortune after the war.

He retired and left his estate to educational and service organizations.

November 7, Civil War Round Table of Wilmington, Delaware.

J. E. B. Stuart’s Long Ride To Yellow Tavern

A slide program begun in 2004 commemorating the 140th Anniversary of the battle that took Stuart’s life.

Presented by Tom Perry, Founder of the J. E. B. Stuart Birthplace Preservation Trust, Inc.

This program given over a hundred times all over the country is used as a vehicle to promote

Patrick County history and tourism. It covers James Ewell Brown's entire life from birth in Patrick County

on February 6, 1833, until his death in Richmond on May 12, 1864.

August 9, Danville Public Library, 6 p.m.

September 25, Kansas City, Missouri, Civil War Round Table.

September 26, St Louis, Missouri, Civil War Round Table.

September 27, Topeka, Kansas, Civil War Round Table.

October 6, Museum of Middle Appalachia, Saltville, Virginia.

November 5, Montgomery County Pennsylvania Civil War Round Table.

March 1, 2008, Bassett Historical Center Symposium

The Darn Bunch In Stuart

Above the new signs recently installed along Highway 58 has an image of Patrick County's most famous son, James Ewell Brown "Jeb" Stuart. I always find it amusing considering that there is no evidence that J. E. B. Stuart ever set foot in the town that bears his name today. G. E. "Shug" Brown, the last owner of Stuart's Birthplace, always said, "If you don't have any history of your own steal someone else's." Interestingly the town that is today Stuart, Virginia, was officially called Taylorsville named for American Revolutionary figure George Taylor. I have never found once instance of the Stuart Family ever mentioning Taylorsville. The few times it was discussed the town they called it Patrick Court House. One instance was in 1858 when one of the Stuart daughters mentions that her mother Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart was going to sell the Laurel Hill property to a man from "Patrick Court House." The sale did not take place and Mrs. Stuart sold the inheritance from her family to Dr. Joseph Hollingsworth and Mr. Robert Galloway of Mount Airy, North Carolina. In 1884 Taylorsville became Stuart in the glory days of the "Lost Cause" after the War Between The States trying no doubt to capitalize on "Jeb" in the pantheon of Confederate heroes. In another interesting sidelight J. E. B. Stuart spent the next to the last night of his life in Taylorsville, Virginia, but this one was north of Richmond along the Telegraph Road. The next day May 11, 1864, "Jeb" Stuart was mortally wounded by one of George Custer's men at the Battle of Yellow Tavern. Carried to his brother in law's home on Grace Street, Stuart the man died on May 12, 1864, around 7:30 p.m. after breathing his last words, "God's Will Be Done." Over the years I have received many negative comments such as "I would support the birthplace if it was in Stuart" or "I think they ought to move the Birthplace to the town of Stuart." People wonder why I use "darnbunchinStuart" as one word. I think the image of J. E. B. Stuart on the new signs looks pretty good. Don't tell anyone in Ararat, but in spite of all the negative I gave it to them. :-)

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