LoCoHistory

On some downtown structures history is writ large on the sides of old, brick buildings. The images below represent a small sample of the 19th and early 20th century advertising technique of painting buildings. See how many old store names you can locate on and around the mall this summer. A hint: the photos illustrated here were taken near East Water Street and 4th Street SE. Ironically, the brand-new building in the back of the “Chas King Grocers” building is “the Holsinger,” named after a famous, historic photographer.


For more photos of local graffiti visit the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society website which contains a photo essay by Glenn Rebholz. He photographed dozens of examples from downtown Charlottesville. His on-line exhibit is titled: Ghost Signs and Vestige Billboards. The accompanying report is on file at the historical society.

What year would a young man have been able to sign up for the above, fictional job posting ? The answer: 1933, working with the Civilian Conservation Corps (originally nicknamed “Roosevelt’s Tree Army”). President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created the C.C.C. in March of 1933, during the Great Depression, as a partial solution to high unemployment. By 1935 over 2,600 C.C.C. camps had been opened across the country. Over half-a-million individuals lived in these camps while they worked on public works’ projects. While widely successful, the camps were closed in 1942 a year after the US entered World War II.

Virginia had dozens of CCC camps. The very first CCC camp was located in the George Washington National Park (in Ft Valley, VA). Several camps were located in Albemarle. You can still see the product of their labor if you know where to look. One example is an old CCC-road that once connected Covesville to North Garden. This beautiful, old road winds along the mountains that parallel route 29. The CCC laborers built culverts and shored up the edges of the road to ensure proper drainage.

If you want to learn more about the contributions of the CCC and its history, stop in at the White Hall Community Center on June 8th, between 2 and 4, for the 75th Anniversay Celebration of the Civilian Conservation Corps. At 2:30 Albemarle County historian and writer, Phil James, will give a lecture on the CCC Camp Albemarle (located in White Hall). The event is hosted by the White Hall Ruritan Club and is free of charge. For more information email philjames[insert the at symbol]firstva.com.

Much of local history lies in front of our eyes, but goes unnoticed. This is not the case with the Taylor Family. The Martha Jefferson Neighborhood Association and Hospital combined to sponsor a marker that commemorates an African American family that has lived in the neighborhood for over 150 years. Quoting from the marker, “The land was originally part of a 25 acre parcel purchased in 1869 by Fairfax Taylor (1816-895). A former slave who bought his freedom and was the first black land owner in this area. Another member of the family, James T.S. Taylor (1840-1918) was active in politics and a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1867. Both were prominent members of the First Baptist Church and the community. As of this date [1993], their descendants live on family land in one of the three original Taylor houses.” The photo below illustrates one of the original Taylor homes. Unfortunately, the street is no longer called “Taylor.” Instead, the marker lies along Lexington avenue, just north of the Maplewood Cemetery.
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Recently cemetery vandalism has been on the increase in our local cemeteries. The worst hit cemetery is the historic African American graveyard adjacent to Oakwood and known as the “Daughters of Zion” or “Society Cemetery.” More recently, vandalism has been increasing in Maplewood Cemetery (near Martha Jefferson Hospital). The perpetrators vary in age from teenagers to adults and from the homeless to school children. Gang-related graffiti has been found, etched on an obelisk.

The recent spike in vandalism has decimated parts of Maplewood Cemetery. In the photo (taken 14 April 08), the red dots indicate stones that have been broken, moved, or destroyed. In some cases the inscriptions are no longer legible and it will be very difficult (and expensive) to repair them. To read more about these recent incidents, please visit the NBC 29 website.

Part of the decline in cemetery landscapes is enabled because the average person never visits a cemetery. This disuse has led to abandoned acres of graves that are rarely visited by family members or the public. It’s unfortunate that our modern sensibilities discourage us from visiting and learning from these open-air museums. To the contrary, in the 19th Century families were encouraged to walk through the recently designed “rural cemeteries” (paradoxically located adjacent to cities). These burial grounds contained walking trails, sculpted shrubbery, and a Victorian style of funerary memorial that emphasized flowery inscriptions and moralistic epitaphs.

Today these monuments are part of a 200-year old landscape at Maplewood Cemetery. A stroll through this historic deathscape illustrates past ideas about death, the family, religion, and gender. Moreover, the epitaphs convey the history of Charlottesville, one individual at a time.

Charlottesville has several historic cemeteries, all of which teach us about the city’s multi-cultural past. The current behavior of a small number of people can by stopped if more people strolled through these graveyards and called the Police if they see something amiss.

A Charlottesville Police Officer has dedicated a portion of her time to working on this issue. If you see vandalism in progress in one of our city cemeteries, please call 911. To report a past incident, please call the non-emergency number, 977-9041 or Crime Stoppers at 977-4000. Other questions can be directed to me (via the contact form on the blog) or to Officer Weber at the Police Department (970-3280).

Please help monitor and protect these valuable resources.

In the 19th century, urban traffic in Charlottesville required something other than a gas station for fuel. Instead, the equine motors needed water. To satisfy this daily requirement, the city installed four water fountains. The upper portion of the fountain was for two-legged animals, while other domesticates used the overflow from the “fishes” that was collected below in a basin. Unfortunately, none of the fountains survived in situ in the 20th century. But recently the Charlottesville Volunteer Fire Company and the City of Charlottesville restored one of them and erected it near Court Square (seen at the left in the photograph). The fountain dates to 1892, while the design was patented in 1880. The next time you are strolling down the mall, take a short side-trip to view the intricately carved motifs on this historic feature.

A couple years ago I visited an unmarked graveyard off Route 22. Today located on private property, adjacent to a 20th Century house, the fieldstones in the graveyard dated to an earlier period. The un-inscribed stones suggested an informal, family graveyard, most likely used by individuals who could not afford mass-produced markers. With no names or dates, I filed the cemetery away for later research (such as deed and census analysis to try to figure out who owned the land 100+ years ago).

More recently, I saw an intriguing advertisement for a house (MLS 437142) located only half-a-mile from the old graveyard. The description caught my attention: “Albert Johnson was a freed slave who obtained this property from the Meriwether and Randolph families. Construction started in 1882 with the western-most portion (one over one over one with access via rope ladders). The eastern portion was build in 1889.” I turned to UVA architectural historian emeritus, K. Edward Lay, to learn more. He had studied the house as part of his research into historic homes in Albemarle County (see his book for more information: The Architecture of Jefferson County). According to Professor Lay, Albert Johnson was a black carpenter living on land given to Blacks after Civil War. In the 1880 Census, Albert Johnson is listed as age 35 (born in slavery, around 1845), married to Amity Johnson (also 35) and living with their six children and one other boy (possibly a relative, Jesse Spencer, age 17).

Further inquiries with neighbors, Mrs. G. and Sara Lee Barnes, revealed that at some point between the first and second quarter of the 20th century the house was purchased by a white family named Dowell. For much of the 20th Century, Mrs. Dowell and her children lived very simply in the house. Mrs Dowell lived to be over one hundred years old. After her death, her daughter Lyndell stayed in the house for some years. After she was no longer able to take care of herself, the house was sold out of the family.

The kitchen contains logs said to have come from Monticello or possibly Shadwell (Mr Johnson once lived and worked at the former). A modern bathroom was tacked on at the rear of the house sometime in the 20th century (seen in the photo below). The beautiful oaks in the yard were planted by Mr. Johnson. So while the house lacks central heat or air, it retains the beauty of past craftsmanship (only slightly obscured by cheap paneling and carpeting). Ms Barnes commented that this was one of three homes in the immediate vicinity that were originally built by freed slaves for their families. One (or all) of these homes may have used the graveyard located nearby. Located off busy Route 22 in Keswick, this is the house that time forgot. Hopefully it will be bought and restored, rather than torn down.

There has already been a lot of press and events surrounding the current exhibit at the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society, but if you haven’t yet had a chance to visit, do so soon. The title of the exhibit is: Marking Time: Voyage to Vietnam. Guest curator Art Beltrone (a military artifact historian and former marine) began collecting graffiti from the Vietnam War in the late 1990s after assisting with the production of Terrence Malick’s film update of The Thin Red Line. During this project he visited the wreck of the General Nelson M Walker and noticed the graffiti that covered parts of the ship. Art, and his wife Lee, began a quest to recover and preserve this informal wartime art (created by veterans) and to collect the stories behind the art. A sample of their 150 canvases is on display at the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society through February. Only one of the canvases mentions Charlottesville, but each canvas provides insight into the concerns of soldiers and aspects of their daily life while serving abroad. The exhibit features a cell phone tour that allows you to listen to interviews with veterans. A book and movie also accompany the exhibit. For more information and directions to the Historical Society please visit their website. Or read more about the exhibit from local news media coverage, C-ville or the Daily Progress. The exhibit is sponsored, in part, by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.

The Virginia Discovery Museum is hosting the exhibit “Beyond Jamestown” (curated by Karenne Wood, director of the Virginia Indian Heritage Program at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities). The exhibit runs through May 11th and is well worth a visit for children of all ages. While kids and their adult guests read about the vibrant heritage of Indians in Virginia, children can learn how to plant the “three sisters” (corns, beans, and squash, a nutritional assemblage that provided essential amino acids) and fish from a traditional dugout canoe. It may be hard to see in the photos, but the fish and wooden crops have an ingenious velcro system so that kids can “catch” the fish in the net and “plant” the crops by attaching them to painted stalks. Don’t forget to cook the food before consuming it! A lifesized longhouse or wigwam (from the Woodland period) was constructed so that kids could bring their hunted and gathered (from agricultural fields) meal and sit in front of an educational film about native peoples in Virginia. The large exhibit room also contains a reconstruction of a segregated school house (based on historic photos of the Monacan School in Amherst), activities designed to teach kids (and adults) about the past and present of Virginia Indians, and a series of installations about traditional crafts and technologies. The exhibit contains lots of valuable information about everyday life and traditions. The children I observed had to be pulled away from their fields and canoe when it was time to go. A teacher’s guide accompanies the exhibition and highlights correlations between the exhibit themes and the SOLs. With generous sponsorship from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and Rose and Robert Capon, the admission fee is only $4. And don’t miss the historic carousel outside the museum. The exhibition was developed by the Virginia Museum of Natural History in Martinsville. P.S. If you’re over 4 feet high, but the only thing you were taught about Indians involves “massacres,” “princesses and dramatic rescues,” or mascots for sports teams, this exhibit is well worth a visit.

To learn more about Virginia Indian families at the turn of the last century, visit the 3rd floor of Newcomb Hall (just east of UVa’s Emmett Street parking garage, on UVA grounds) to view a photographic exihibit (or click here for the website).

This post is a plea for information - to see if anyone knows historic details about the Albemarle Roller Mill (used by the Hartman Mill), located on a tributary of Moore’s Creek. The mill was used to process either lumber or flour. Today the site is located somewhere near Hartman’s Mill Road (between Ridge and Avon St). The drawing at the right comes from the 1907 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map and the complete image includes about half-a-dozen associated outbuilding. The Scottsville Road indicated on the map is probably located near today’s Avon Street which once connected to it.

The 1875 Peyton map illustrates Hartman’s Mill at a horseshoe bend in Moore’s Creek, one mile southwest of the courthouse. Old mills needed a source of power - the mill race, powered by gravity. Hartman’s Mill ran at 100 revolutions per minute, using water from a tributary of Moore’s Creek. The “head race” (labelled here “Mill Race”) carried water from the dam to the mill site. The water wheel (at the mill) produced electricity. The “tail race” returned the water to the stream. The site would have also included millstones (circular features that were used to grind flours). Most mills also included the home of the miller.

If anyone knows the location of the mill or has any additional historic documentation about it, please post a comment.

In the 19th Century, American families strolled through public cemeteries in an effort to impart morals and religious ideals to their children. In the 20th century this practice became taboo, as the arena of death became professionalized (through the rise of Funeral Homes and morticians who took over tasks that had previously been performed by family members). But cemeteries still have a lot to teach us. Gravestone inscriptions reveal family values, kinship relations, religious beliefs, expected gender roles, and attitudes towards death. Mortuary motifs transform cultural ideologies into art and illustrate beliefs about life and death. And, taken as a whole, cemeteries preserve the memory of past communities. There are two public cemeteries in Charlottesville: Oakwood and Maplewood and many of the privately owned, large memorial parks allow pedestrian traffic. In all cases, respect is due to these sacred sites. For a weekly update on Albemarle County gravestone motifs, click on the “gravestone archive” at the left-corner of this page.