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Upcoming Events: Forward to a Friend Become a Member Learn more about Newsletter Archive: January 2008
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The Mosby Heritage Area Association Newsletter Statement From The President We have more exciting and informative events on tap for November. Scroll down the page to check out the details of our next Cavaliers, Courage, and Coffee presentation, which will be held on Saturday evening, November 1, beginning at 7:30 at MHAA headquarters on Atoka Road outside of Middleburg. Education Director Rich Gillespie is calling this a family-friendly program “A Mosby Harvest,” and he will have his usual excellent cast of volunteers on hand to make the history of our area come alive. Then, on the weekend of November 7-8, Rich is presenting an outstanding program, with hands-on participation, on John Brown’s Raid. This living history program will take you back to the days of Brown’s Raid and the chaos that ensued in this part of the world. This is the first of the many programs for the Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War that begins officially next June. For those of you who are yet not members of MHAA, please join us in our ongoing mission to help preserve the history and the landscape of our special section of the Northern Virginia Piedmont.Marc Leepson,
The Mosby Heritage Area Association Sponsors First Local Event of the Sesquicentennail of the American Civil War: BROWN! Participants in BROWN! will hear stories from slaves who sneak out of their cabins to speak with us. We will visit a Baptist congregation wrestling with what Christians should do about slavery, and the grave of a slave who was part of that congregation, sitting in the segregated balcony. We will clandestinely make our way on the Underground Railroad in the cloak of darkness, and feel the fear of both fugitives and owners. We will debate just what the United States should do about slavery. And we will run into Northern Virginians who are more concerned about a growing, changing America than about slavery. Participants will sit in the attic of the old Maryland farmhouse where Captain John Brown (alias Isaac Smith, prospector) and his raiders will plan the details of their dramatic strike on slavery, and sense the tension still there. We briefly will become those raiders, to understand their thinking. Participants also will be given an 1860 tour by proud Virginians telling after-the-fact “what went down” at Harpers Ferry the previous October and how a national disaster was thwarted by brave, quick-thinking Virginians. Participants will get a dose of the fear felt by white Virginians in the wake of the raid, given that it was financed from the North, and decide what should be done. And they will vicariously witness both the trial and execution of John Brown conducted by a careful, legally mindful Commonwealth of Virginia. BROWN! is intellectual, emotional, and experiential, and bonds the participants in their adventure. Above all, as we split our time between Loudoun and Jefferson counties, it gives participants an appreciation for Northern Virginia’s past and the amazing legacy of historic sites and landscapes we have been bequeathed. The program begins Friday at 6:45 p.m. at Historic Morven Park estate in Leesburg, and ends at 11:00 p.m. the next evening. FOR MORE INFORMATION OR RESERVATIONS, visit our web site at www.mosbyheritagearea.org/events.htm or call the Mosby Heritage Area Association at (540) 687-6681 or 5578.
A Mosby Harvest Admission is $5 for adults and $2 for students. Programs begin at the Caleb Rector House, 1461 Atoka Road in Atoka, just off Route 50 west of Middleburg (for those using a GPS or navigation unit, Atoka is actually listed as Marshall, Virginia 20115). We hope you can join us for this entertaining and informative program.
Mosby Heritage Area Association Membership There are many worthwhile organizations today, and the competition for members, donors and volunteers is great even in our small corner of the world. That is why we at the MHAA appreciate the fact that your decision to join the Mosby Heritage Area Association is a personal journey. It begins with curiosity about who we are, leads to a deeper understanding and appreciation of what we do, and ends with your decision to join the organization. We believe that your membership is an outward expression of your commitment to our long-term mission. Whether you are a new member, a recent member, or have been a member for years, we sincerely appreciate every one of you as our preservation partners. In addition to a long list of program achievements, we have worked hard over the last few years to keep our members informed about our activities with up-to-date information via our website and E-Newsletter. We offer member discounts to events, programs and merchandise. We partner with like-minded organizations to stretch the value of your membership dollars. We offer volunteer opportunities for members who wish to become more involved in our work. Above all, our mission is fueled by your collective will, and continues to drive all of our programming. We hope that, every one of you will become a member or renew your membership with the Mosby Heritage Area Association. This is a partnership that works. Thank you to those of you who are MHAA members. Those of you who have yet to join, please consider this an invitation to do so and to become a preservation partner. Take a minute to click on the following link, which will take you to the MHAA Membership page on our website: The Mosby Heritage Area Association Membership Page
Another Successful Conference The weekend examined the Battle of Antietam. It began with the Friday evening reception and outstanding presentations by Dr. Stephen Potter and Dennis Frye. This was followed on Saturday with lively and informative presentations from Gary Ecelbarger, Jeffrey Wert, Robert K. Krick, Leslie Gordon, Kim Holien and Dennis Frye. Peter Carmichael’s presentation on Saturday evening offered new research that he and his graduate students at West Virginia University have conducted in the area of Boteler’s Ford near Shepherdstown, West Virginia about the September 19, 1862 troop movements in that area. Their research will be collected and made into podcasts for people to download from the internet. Sunday was a beautiful day for the bus tour of the Battle of Antietam. Dennis Frye and Tom Clemons led participants over the battlefield exploring the terrain and it’s relationship to the actions taken in the battle. This won high praises from those who took the bus trip. Mark your calendars for next year’s Conference which will be held on the weekend of October 2-4, 2009. The conference will focus on the 1862 Valley Campaign.
Site of the Month: The congregation was established with a simple church in 1751, and sent several ardent Baptists into the fray of the Revolution, including the preacher’s son, Captain Isaac Marks, who is buried in the churchyard. Later, the congregation wrestled with the issue of slavery—early Baptists opposed slavery—and the Heaton family became leaders in the Colonization movement, to free and send some of their most able servants back to Africa. The Heatons, too, are prominent in the churchyard. At the rear of the churchyard is the stone of Gemima Pearson, “former servant of Eliza A. Potts”, who was a slave until she was freed at the end of the Civil War. She sat in the balcony with other servants looking down at their owners. In 1854, the current Greek Revival building was constructed. Its location with the Blue Ridge rising behind and its clean, classic lines still speak of beauty to the passer-by. Yet when the Civil War came, many of its congregation would fight and die, including Clinton Hatcher, a sergeant in the 8th Virginia Infantry killed at the Battle of Ball’s Bluff in October 1861. His burial stone was rededicated in a memorial service led by the Clinton Hatcher Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans two years ago. The War would come to engulf the building and the congregation. In the Minute Book of Ketoctin Church is this entry from December 3, 1864: No congregation or preaching [be]cause some of the Federal cavalry were in the settlement or rather county Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Burnt nearly all our barns with their contents, much corn, all the wheat, oats, hay and straw they could find, many out buildings and fencing besides several valuable dwelling houses with their contents and robbing many others. They also drove off all the horses, cattle, and sheep they loss to that part of the county where they made their depredations of from two to three millions of dollars. Therefore each nd every person had as much as they could do on Friday and Saturday to get things in some kind of order . . . The congregation was laid down in the early 1930s, and a trust to maintain the historic church was created in 1964. Today, the church is leased to a congregation which enjoys services in the historic ambiance of the building with a memorable past. The church will be one of the sites visited during the Mosby Heritage Area Association’s BROWN! program on November 8th.
Did You Know? The following incident reported from just across the Potomac in what is today West Virginia may symbolize our region’s mode of operation— optimistic, hard-working, helpful, well-bred, and above all, civilized. At the time, Jefferson County was intimately connected to the Mosby Heritage Area’s five counties and this incident occurs within view of Shepherdstown, Jefferson County. It was recorded by Henry Kyd Douglas in his memoir of service to General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s staff, as a sort of “precursor.” It happened mere days before our peace would be shattered by John Brown’s Raid. John Brown lived for a little while, before his attempted insurrection, at the Kennedy Farm among the hills, about three miles down the river from my father’s place, five miles from Harper’s Ferry . . . He seemed a hermit and only attracted attention because of his apparent eccentricity of manner and life, and went by the name of Isaac Smith . . . He professed to be prospecting for minerals, which he said were hidden in these wooded hills. . . One wet day, not long before his attack, I was crossing from Shepherdstown, when I found him at the foot of the hill which rises from the river, with an overloaded two-horse wagon. He told me he was hauling miner’s tools for prospecting and needed help. I went up home, got my father’s carriage horses and their driver, Enoch [a slave], and with their aid Mr. Smith’s wagon was taken a mile over the hills toward Sharpsburg, his best route home. Being very young, I was much impressed with the grateful simplicity of the venerable actor as we parted in the rain and mud, with many dignified expressions of thanks on his part. I had not a suspicion that he was other than he seemed. But it was not very long until I found out that the rickety wagon contained boxes of “John Brown pikes” and that I was an innocent particeps criminis in their introduction into Maryland. He had brought them from a station in Virginia, to which they had been shipped . . . Certainly, any gentleman of Clarke, Fauquier, Loudoun, Prince William, or Warren of that time would have deigned to be equally helpful. What less could a “gentleman” do?
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Audio Tours Then you need to get a copy of our Civil War audio driving tours! “Prelude to Gettysburg” Descriptions of Audio Tours: Historical Events of the Mosby 43rd Virginia Battalion, Part I: 1863-1865 from Truro Church, Fairfax to Atoka Historical Events of the Mosby 43rd Virginia Battalion: Part II In the Wake of Antietam TO ORDER: Because this is a special order, you need to use the ORDER FORM on our website (found on the Store Page) to pay by check or credit card. Items cannot be ordered through PayPal. Mark out the original price listed on our order form and write in the special sale price.
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