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The Mosby Heritage Area Association Newsletter - February 2008 Statement From The President Three of our four lectures in the Winter Lecture Series have been held. We have had a variety of speakers and locations. I hope to see you at our final lecture on March 2nd at Goose Creek Meetinghouse in Lincoln, Virginia at 4 p.m. There are several events in the planning stage. We will keep you informed in our e-newsletter and our website. Gayle DeLashmutt MHAA Offers Loudoun History Field Trip Series Part history lesson and part field trip, the series is aimed at those who don’t know much about Loudoun, including newcomers, but also is open to longer residents who’ve never had the time or chance to explore the county’s past. MHAA hopes that participants will include families, teachers new to the area, groups of neighbors with an urge to explore, senior citizens who moved here to be with their children, and those from the new residential communities. Richard Gillespie, the Director of Education for MHAA, leads the series. “Loudoun means so much more as you drive its roads and walk its streets when you know the history of the area,” Gillespie says. “It’s hard to feel like a Loudouner if you don’t know its history.” Schedule: Trips begin and end in Leesburg at Loudoun County High School at Dry Mill Road and Catoctin Circle. Participants should meet the bus at 1:45 for these 4½ hour tours. Reservations are required. Trips are $25 per person. To reserve a seat or ask questions, call the Mosby Heritage Area Association at 540-687-6681.
Click here to download the Western Prince William County Scavenger Hunt (.doc) Click here to download the Prince William County Scavenger Hunt Map.
Winter Lecture Series - The African American Experience The African-American Experience in the Mosby Heritage Area, is scheduled to be held Sunday, March 2, at the Goose Creek Meeting House, Lincoln, VA. The lecture will begin at 4 p.m. The topic of the evening is: Unsung Heroes of the Civil War Era; African-Americans of the Mosby Heritage Area,with Dr. Deborah Lee. Dr. Deborah Lee is an independent historian and public history consultant. Current projects include a tour book of African-American history for the Journey Through Hallowed Ground and the creation of a database and website on Virginian Emigrants to Liberia with the Virginia Center for Digital History. She is the author of Leesburg’s African-American Heritage Trail and Loudoun County’s African-American Communities: A Tour Map and Guide. She has also written numerous published essays. Other programs in the 2008 Lecture Series were: History, Black & White; Where 28 Years of Looking Might Lead with David Larson, Training Manager for Interpretation and Education, at the National Park Service’s Mather Training Center, Harpers Ferry, WV, Recovering African-American History; Building the African-American Museum of Fauquier County with Karen Hughes White, founder and director, African-American Museum of Fauquier County, The Plains, VA and Building an African-American Community in Warren County in the Twentieth Century, with Charles Barbour, Front Royal, VA.
Fireside Mosby Beginning in April the Gray Ghost Interpretive Group will begin its “Cavaliers, Courage and Coffee” programs continuing to tell stories from the Civil War in the Mosby Heritage Area. The programs shift to the third Saturday of the month, move outdoors, and in some instances, move locations. The April 19th program will move from Atoka to Front Royal. The program returns to Atoka on May 17th and July 19th. On June 21st the program will move to the Burwell-Morgan Mill in Millwood, VA and to the Aldie Mill in Aldie, VA on August 16th. The last program of the season will be held on November 1st at Atoka.
MHAA and Comcast partner for Battle of Unison Documentary On that day, churchgoers found themselves inundated by the Civil War, as General J.E.B. Stuart’s Confederate cavalry fought a delaying action through Unison against Union General George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac. The federal forces had finally crossed the Potomac in October after resting from the Battle of Antietam. Across the street from the 1832 Unison United Methodist Church, some of “the gallant Pelham’s” horse artillery had set up their cannon in a field. Shells flew through the town as parishioners tried to reach safety. By the end of the day, their church had been commandeered as a military hospital. One recovering Union soldier from Pennsylvania would poignantly scratch on the wall in pencil, “In some lone hour of bliss, when sorrows are forgot, then cast a happy glance at this, and read ‘forget me not.’” In recent years, facing a large development proposal, the Unison Preservation Society was formed, and rediscovered their significant Civil War past. Through their efforts, the village has attained National Register status, and currently, the National Park Service is mapping the battlefield through Unison. As often happens, when citizens realize what they may lose, they learn the historical value of it and take steps to publicize and preserve their historic landscape. The Unison fight was particularly difficult for citizens as well as for the local developer, but in the end, an uneasy agreement benefiting preservation was attained, in part due to the declining real estate market. The Mosby Heritage Area Association has had an extraordinary opportunity in working with Comcast Cablevision in Loudoun County. As co-producers with Comcast of “On This Ground,” MHAA Director of Education Rich Gillespie helps design each program along with Comcast’s Ahren Fehr. Gillespie also hosts the program and conducts the filmed interviews the documentary uses. MHAA Board member Lennart Lundh has been instrumental in filming “b-roll” for the episodes--background film footage. Childs Burden often acts as an on-air historical consultant. Comcast has encouraged MHAA to come up with topics of local historical interest, and has approved our idea of devoting a portion of each episode to some aspect of heritage preservation in the Mosby Heritage Area. Airing on Cable Channel 2, “On This Ground” has surprisingly many viewers, as MHAA staff finds out regularly. “I saw you on T.V.” becomes a regular comment at the supermarket. Comcast also provides copies to the Thomas Balch Library of History and Genealogy in Leesburg. The generous contributions by Mosby Heritage Area Association members help to financially support our participation in this documentary effort. According to Comcast’s hard-working Ahren Fehr, a Clarke County native, the Unison documentary will air multiple times beginning in late March. Watch for local listings. We will provide dates in our March e-newsletter also.
Here are the businesses and individuals providing Silent Auction items: Thomas Hayes and Son Jewelers,
Marc Leepson Keynote Speaker Did You Know? The road was built under the sponsorship of Thomas Chester, who ran a ferry across the Shenandoah River at Front Royal, shown as Chester on early maps. Although the site of the ferry is not exactly known, documents indicate that it was downstream from the confluence of the North and South Forks of the Shenandoah River. (Downstream on the Shenandoah River is north.) This would be logical since it would require only one crossing, not two as it is today. The road that Chester helped build roughly follows today’s Route 522, with a few exceptions in the town of Front Royal. The oldest street in Front Royal, Chester Street, was part of the old road, as well as parts of Royal Avenue. The road crosses the Blue Ridge Mountains at Chester’s Gap into Rappahannock County. The ferry operated until the 1850’s when a wooden covered bridge was built across the Shenandoah from Riverton (east of the current bridges). This bridge was destroyed during the Civil War and was not rebuilt until the 1890’s. The second bridge was a metal one, and was washed away by flooding. The current bridges were opened in 1941, but they didn’t follow the same route as the previous ones. When you enter Front Royal from the north crossing the South Fork and North Fork bridges, Route 522 takes two 90-degree turns. At the second turn, the road turns south and becomes Royal Avenue. At this corner, the old road went straight to the river, now called North Royal Avenue. North Royal Avenue dead ends at the river at the point were the previous bridges stood. Across the river you can see Riverside and the road as it went into Riverton. During the Civil War, Letitia Richards lived at Riverside with her daughter. Her diary entries note the coming and going of armies. She describes how troops would camp in the floodplain between Riverside and the river, and how they would steal forage for their horses and food. In her diary only Union soldiers stole. Another diarist of that era was Susan Richardson, who lived at Rose Hill. The road went past her home to the east, as does Route 522 today. She describes seeing Union troops taking Mosby’s Rangers up the hill toward the river to execute them in September 1864. The U.S. Government purchased 5,000 acres south of Front Royal in the early 1900s for a remount station. Horses were brought into town to the train station and driven to the remount station along Route 522. The horses were vaccinated, trained, and quarantined before being sent to U.S. Cavalry Units. General “Black Jack” Pershing’s horses are buried on the property. During World War II, the Front Royal Remount Depot was the site for training mules used to carry cargo of military supplies over terrain not suited for motorized vehicles in the China, India, and Burma theatres. The remount became the home for the all the Lipizzaner studs that were removed from Europe under the direction of General George Patton. Today the Smithsonian Institute operates a Conservation Center on part of the property for study of endangered species. There is also a training facility for drug-sniffing dogs, as well as the Northern Virginia 4-H Center. Learning about the roadways and how they have changed helps us get a better understanding of history. Take a trip to Front Royal, visit the train station on Main Street to pick up information on walking and driving tours of the town. Visit the Warren Heritage Society’s headquarters at 101 Chester Street and learn more about the rich heritage of Warren County. Beginning on March 28th the Warren Heritage Society will be opening an exhibit on the Front Royal Remount.
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