LoCoHistory

Push the play button to hear a recent radio interview with Coy Barefoot, featuring Dr Lynn Rainville. In this 13 minute podcast they discuss Rainville’s work at an ancient Assyrian city in Turkey, historic African-American cemeteries in central Virginia, and this blog.Tune into Barefoot’s regular program, Charlottesville Right Now, on WINA 1070 from 4 to 6pm, Monday through Friday.

Thanks to Sean Tubbs and the Charlottesville Podcasting Network for providing the audio.

The first post on this blog was about Monasukapanough, a Native American village located along the Rivanna River. This Sunday the Quarterly Meeting of the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society will be held in the neighborhood of the archaeological site. Please join us at 2pm on September 23rd at 1701 Bentivar Drive for a talk given by Dr. Hantman (University of Virginia) and honored guests, members of the Monacan Indian Nation. Visit the ACHS website for directions and more details. The site was excavated by Dr Jeff Hantman and Jen Aultman for several years, but is no longer visible (the remains are preserved underground). In addition to archaeological data, several researchers have devised a computer simulation to recreate the appearance of a Pomeiooc Indian settlement (in North Carolina). The Monacan village may have contained similar features and efforts are on-going to try to reconstruct a Monacan site.

For a very informative and detailed website that discusses archaeological, historical, topographical, and ethnographic evidence for Monacan Heritage in the Piedmont, please visit the Virginia Center for Digital History’s project site called “Disappearing Indians ? A Case for the Continued Inhabitance of the Virginia Piedmont by the Monacan Indians.”

Visit the Albemarle County Historical Society for their newest exhibit titled: The Story of Albemarle’s Trees and her Forest Industries. Quoting from the historical society website: “Trees were an integral part of early settlers’ lives and work, and they fueled one of Albemarle’s most important industries–lumber. The story of the trees–use, overuse, and conservation–is the story of the growth of the County, both socially and economically.” This exhibit contains an array of material culture that pertains to forest products: from split-oak baskets to locally-made oak chairs, from wooden slats to forestry tools, from photographs to advertisements from area timber industries.

The exhibition was curated by Catherine Anne Daley, a University of Virginia summer intern through the Institute for Public History, with assistance from ACHS staff and volunteers. Click here to get more information about visiting the exhibition (on display through Fall 2007).

Before desegregation, the only Charlottesville high school open to African Americans was the Jefferson School. Built in 1926, the building is located on Fourth Street at the edge of the old Vinegar Hill neighborhood. The school opened several decades earlier, in 1894, as the nine-room, K-8 “Jefferson Colored Graded/Elementary School” (that building was demolished in 1959). An informal precursor to the school dates to the 1860s.

The first principal of the “Graded School” was Benjamin E. Tonsler (1854-1917). He received his degree at Hampton University and went on to serve as the principal of the Jefferson School for thirty years. In this post we highlight material culture that remains today to commemorate this man’s life and works. First, his gravestone was “Erected by the Alumni of the Jefferson Graded School and Friends” in his memory. His inscription reads “Gone But Not Forgotten.” This stone can be found within the Tonsler Family Plot in the Daughters of Zion Cemetery, located adjacent to the Oakwood Cemetery. Second, his house still stands on Sixth Street (behind the First Baptist Church on Main Street).

If we check the University of Virginia historic Holsinger Collection we locate a third memorial, a photograph of the funeral flowers brought to his house. And fourth, we remember his life in the name of the park located at the corner of Ridge and Cherry: Tonsler Park (the name was choosen in 1958). One man’s biography writ large around us, if we only take the time to notice.

To read more about the history of the Jefferson School, please visit a website that contains a link to a 46-page downloadable history that was compiled as part of efforts to nominate the school as a historic landmark. Preservation Piedmont conducted dozens of oral interviews with former teachers and students. Information on that project is available on their website.