freestateofpatrick.com blog

The address 3514 Riverside Drive is the last address in North Carolina before you cross into Patrick County traveling from Mount Airy, North Carolina, to Ararat, Virginia. It is owned by Edith Brown. Today it is just a grass pasture that was recently a tobacco field. This small acreage is one of the more historic pieces of property in our area if you see history as the people and things that traveled across it. The first thing you can notice about the pasture is the dividing line between North Carolina runs across it. This line first surveyed in 1749 brought two men from Virginia of note through Edith Brown’s pasture. The first Joshua Fry (1700-1754) was born in England. When he died by falling from his horse on a later military campaign, a young Virginia took his command and rode it to greatness. His name was George Washington. The other Virginian to walk across the pasture in 1749 was Peter Jefferson (1708-1757), the father of our third President, Thomas Jefferson. The son was the author of the Declaration of Independence, Governor of Virginia, Founder of the University of Virginia, amateur architect and surveyor. These two men traveled with commissioners from North Carolina William Churton and Daniel Weldon along with surveyors and slaves to extend the boundary line between the State of North Carolina and the Commonwealth of Virginia. The previous survey ended in 1728 along Peter’s Creek in Patrick and Stokes counties respectively. This survey included William Byrd II, who left a journal and a “secret” journal of his experiences. Peter Jefferson may have, but his home Shadwell burned in 1770 and most of his papers were lost. This group extended the boundary line to Steep Rock Creek near Damascus, Virginia. Less than a hundred years after the survey a young redheaded boy on a horse rode through the pasture on his way back and forth to Mount Airy to pick up the family mail,  accompanying his mother to church or shopping excursions in the “Granite City” long before it was a city. Tradition holds that the mother stopped at Linger Longer, the home of the Fultons just a few miles closer to town, and changed into her best bonnet from the everyday bonnet she wore at home. From 1825 until 1859 this family owned the land in Virginia that is part of the pasture. The red head’s name was James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart. Another bit of history came chugging along powered by a steam locomotive fifty years after Stuart rode his horse. The Mount Airy and Eastern or “Dinky” Railroad came through this pasture from Mount Airy on its way to Kibler Valley to haul lumber to furniture factories. It carried people to the White Sulphur Springs just south on the Ararat River and sometimes just north in Virginia to Pedigo’s pond, which froze in the winter to allow ice skating. The railroad ran for about twenty years 1900-1920 with various owners running about nineteen miles along the Ararat River, to Clark’s Creek, to Fall Creek to the Dan River and into the Kibler Valley. In 1990 you could have seen this author in the driveway of 3514 Riverside Drive with Joe Bill Brown, Edith’s late husband. Here we came to an agreement that preserved Stuart’s Birthplace. Edith Brown’s pasture has seen history made and history preserved. It might seem a stretch to imagine all this happening on one small piece of ground, but that is why we should preserve history so that these stories are not lost

Sammy Shelor recently received the Distinguished Patrick Countian Award.  It is good to see someone who goes out all over the WORLD (Bluegrass is big in Japan) as a representative of “The Free State of Patrick” get recognition for it. Sammy and his wife Sue have treated me very well and I support their efforts when I get the opportunity.

Read the article about Sammy and Sue in the October 2007 Showcase Magazine http://view.vcab.com/showvcab.aspx?vcabid=tUvejS4xyc

Sammy and Sue operate the Mountain Meadow Farm and Craft

P. O. Box 894

12134 Squirrel Spur Road

Meadows of Dan, VA 24120

Home Office: 540-593-3279

Shop Number: 276-952-6575

Email: sueshe@swva.net

http://www.mountainmeadowcrafts.com/

Events in 2008 at the Mountain Meadow

http://www.mountainmeadowcrafts.com/festival.htm

The Lonesome River Band

http://www.lonesomeriverband.com/

Sammy Shelor at CMT

http://www.cmt.com/artists/az/shelor_sammy/artist.jhtml

Here is the PR from the High School: “Patrick County High School honored two native Patrick Countians last week at the annual awards presentation program. Bluegrass musician Sammy Shelor received the Distinguished Patrick Countian Award for 2008, and retired educator Larry Belcher received the Community Service Award. Plaques were presented to both men by members of the Distinguished Patrick Countian student committee, who also made the introductions. William Samuel Shelor was born Oct. 10, 1962. He grew up in Meadows of Dan and by age 10 was performing in local bands and at regional festivals. He graduated from Patrick County High School in 1981 and moved to Richmond. He worked with Heights of Grass and other bands, and toured the Caribbean with Heights of Grass for the U.S. Department of Defense. He also toured the Caribbean and Alaska with the Virginia Squires in 1984 and 1986. In 1990, Shelor returned to Meadows of Dan and joined the Lonesome River Band. He later left the band for six months and toured with Matthews, Wright and King, who opened for Reba McIntyre. In the spring of 1993, Shelor rejoined the Lonesome River Band and became a partner. In 2001, he gained full ownership of the band. The Lonesome River Band has toured throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan, becoming one of the most popular bands in bluegrass–performing in venues as varied as festivals, benefits, weddings, private parties, theatre halls, the Grand Old Opry, and the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. The band has also performed at the Cambridge Folk Festival in England and at Country Night in Switzerland. The band received the Bluegrass Album of the Year in 1997 from the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America, and has won three International Bluegrass Music Association’s Bluegrass Album of the Year in 1992, 1995, and 2006, as well as Instrumental of the Year in 2001. The Lonesome River Band has recorded 10 albums and is currently working in the studio to produce the 11th album. Shelor has performed as a guest with many well-known artists on CDs and in person throughout his career. He has been nominated for the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Banjo Player of the Year 14 times and won the title four consecutive years between 1995 and 1998. He was also awarded the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America’s Banjo Player of the Year title in 1999, 2002, and 2004. Shelor is active in the Crooked Road Heritage Music Trail project to promote tourism in Southwest Virginia. He recently completed a CD with Linda Lay and just returned from a three-week tour throughout the western United States. Shelor also performed at the Virginia Festival of the Arts in Williamsburg.”

Sammy Shelor on the left with Larry Belcher, who received the Community Service Award.

Sammy’ Sister Leslie operates The Greenberry House

http://www.greenberryhouse.com/

Deb Goodrich noticed Sammy Shelor’s award too. 

http://masondixonwildwest.blogspot.com/2008/03/sammy-shelor-titanic.html

“In Memory of William C. “Bill” Staples, 1922 - 2007 and W. Curtis Carter
1919 – 2007. Dedication: This newsletter is dedicated to two of our longtime board members and friends who passed away in the fall of 2007, William C. “Bill” Staples, Jr. and W. Curtis Carter. Our friend Bill Staples had served as treasurer of the society for more than two decades until illness forced him to turn over those duties in early autumn of 2007. Bill, ever the picture of health and vitality despite his octogenarian status, had dealt with cancer over the past two years gracefully
and with a sense of humor.  He was one of the most active members of the
community and involved in numerous civic organizations in addition to the
Historical Society including Stuart Rotary and the Boy Scouts. He was a great
fan of Virginia Tech sports also. Although born in Lynchburg and residing in Roanoke during his early years, he was a graduate of Stuart High School and Virginia Tech. Bill was from a family whose roots go back to the earliest days of Patrick County. Bill served honorably in the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II and returned to Patrick County to serve his community just as honorably. Many young people got to know Bill when he drove the county bookmobile in the 1950s and later. W. Curtis Carter was a native of Patrick County whose first work involved helping his father run the depot for the D & W Railroad in downtown Stuart. Curtis served in the Army Air Force in WWII also and finished his career as a supervisor at V. R. Williams’ wood flooring plant in Stuart. Curtis was
active in his church and with the Boy Scouts. He served on the Patrick County
School Board and the regional library board.  As a stalwart with Stuart Rotary
Club, he achieved perfect attendance for more than fifty years. Curtis had a
difficult time with cancer over the past few years, but he kept a remarkably
positive attitude despite his illness. Anyone who got to know either Bill or Curtis would soon realize they had a genuine interest in and were very knowledgeable about history, especially that of Patrick County. They were both exceptional people who served as active members of the Historical Society.  It was a privilege to know them and serve with them on the society’s board of directors over the years. We send our heartfelt condolences out to their families and to their many friends. They will be sadly missed by all who knew them.”

– Newsletter of the Patrick County Historical Society.

This passing of these two fine men indicates to me a big problem with history in Patrick County. The biggest problem with Patrick County history are the groups involved with it and their unwillingness to work together or encourage the next generation of those like myself who are interested in the history of “The Free State Of Patrick.” In 2007, the Patrick County Historical Society, the county’s oldest and wealthiest organization with over $100,000 in the bank, buried a time capsule in the front of the building shared between the museum and the library. This event was covered three weeks in a row by The Enterprise “The Voice of the People.” Nothing spoke louder to me to the problems with history in the county and the bias of the Stuart newspaper. Burying history should not be the goal, but promoting the ENTIRE county with history and educating younger generations with history. When the time capsule is unearthed it will NOT contain one of my books because I think we need to be educating the living especially making history interesting for the younger people. We need to attract visitors to the county with history. However, the displays, they are not exhibits, in the museum have not been updated since the museum opened in the early 1990s. Going back to those days, I got J.E.B. Stuart IV to loan his great-grandfather’s personal items to the museum. That weekend when the Stuart Family came to open the exhibit, Henry Ayers, President of the Patrick County Historical Society was not present. He angered many including myself and several of the members of his own board that day when he was seen washing his car. While insulting the Stuart Family and alienating me might not be something he is concerned about, but it speaks to the problem. When a younger person goes to that much effort and you behave that way, it sends a signal and it does not bode well for the future of the organization. The next weekend he had no problem getting his photo made and put on the front page of The Enterprise with then Governor Gerald Baliles. When you look at the make up of the Board of Directors for the Patrick County Historical Society the future is bleak. I think only two are under sixty-five years of age and with each year more members pass away. Every year the Patrick County Historical Society Board of Directors holds its only meeting a year and votes itself back into office. They wonder why they cannot get any new and younger people on the Board. Well, the answer is easy. When I, a LIFE MEMBER, served several years on the Board and worked many days in the museum especially on Fridays when Virginia Collins health prevented her from working every weekday, it became obvious that if you worked for them and kept your mouth shut everything was fine. If you had new ideas they were not welcome. If you were from Ararat they especially were not welcomed. I opened this article with the newsletter of the Patrick County Historical Society. It only took them four years to do an online newsletter after I started one. Several years ago I offered to give them a free webpage and work together with them, but was told that I might control the content and they could not allow that. The straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back for me was the Civil War book I did on Patrick County. The society and I agreed in principle to do a book on the county in the War Between The States that they would publish and we would split the profits. For several years I worked on the project and two weeks before we were to go to the press the society told me that they would only publish the book if they were given the copyright. The first thing listed in our agreement was that I would retain the copyright. The society expressed concern that the book would not sell enough to recover their cost although they had over $100,000 in the bank. The book sold over 1,000 copies, twice what was needed to recoup the cost. I no longer work in the museum or support the Patrick County Historical Society because they are not preserving our county’s history in my opinion, they are indeed burying it. It is my opinion that the collection of the Patrick County Historical Society would be better off at the Bassett Historical Center, which is our REGIONAL HISTORY LIBRARY. It is the future of Patrick County History and we need to bury the past and the historical society in the town formerly known as Taylorsville.  

The Rolling Thunder Raceway is getting ready to begin a second season in Ararat, Virginia. After a successful partial season last year, Gary and Alesia Nester, are preparing for a full season of racing in six different classes. The first race is scheduled for April 4. Admission is $10 per person, $20 for the pit area, children 6-12 are $5 and children under 6 are free. Gates open at 5 p.m. with racing starting at 7 p.m. There are a few bleachers, but most people bring their lawn chair and enjoy racing under the stars. All racing usually ends by 11 p.m. on Friday nights. No alcohol is allowed inside the gates and law enforcement is present to make sure that no one is drinking or causing a disturbances. The Nesters want the racetrack to be a family place. The host non-profit groups such as the Dan River Park and church groups are given free passes and allowed to sell items to help raise money. Gary stresses that he wants to be a good neighbor and help the community by allowing groups to raise money along with the rescue squad and fire department. Finally, in the dire economic times Patrick County is experiencing, the Rolling Thunder Raceway employees twenty-four people at present almost all from Ararat with a yearly payroll of $60,000.

The dirt track located at 3532 Friends Mission Road along the Ararat River is about one mile from Blue Ridge Elementary School. You can reach them at

http://www.rolling-thunder-raceway.com

or 276-251-1949.

Americans will often travel for hours to visit a place that is not as interesting as a place right in their own neighborhood. Growing up in Ararat, Virginia, Hunter’s Chapel Church about one mile north of Laurel Hill, the birthplace of J. E. B. Stuart in Patrick County community is such a source of history right before our eyes. The cemetery at Hunter’s Chapel contains the mortal remains of James T. W. Clement, Company E, Sixth Virginia Cavalry. Recently, I looked into his service record after having him part of my life for years, but never paying much attention to this Civil War veteran. Serving in the Pittsylvania Dragoons, Clement enlisted in April 1862. He witnessed many memorable events during the Civil War. He like many of the members of Company E was at two sad places for the Confederate cavalry during the war. On June 6, 1862, Company E stationed on the Port Republic Road witnessed the death of the Virginia cavalryman Turner Ashby. In fact, members of the company carried the fallen “Knight of the Valley” off the battlefield that day. Union forces captured Clement that summer and exchanged him in December 1862. His record reports him absent wounded in December 1863. The battle of Yellow Tavern on May 11, 1864, called “the darkest day I have seen” by one member of the Sixth Virginia resulted in the capture of thirty men from the regiment about the time Colonel Henry Pate lost his life just after shaking hands with his commanding officer. The two men had been at odds and reconciled just before both suffered mortal wounds. The former antagonists met eight years earlier when the commander rescued Pate from the clutches of anti-slavery fanatic John Brown in Kansas. After Pate’s death Clement fell into Union hands when captured at Yellow Tavern. Clement may have been among sixty men who made a last stand during the battle so the Southern forces could flee the field was later exchanged near the end of October 1864. Major General James Ewell Brown Stuart of Patrick County, Pate and Clement’s commanding officer that day at Yellow Tavern, suffered a mortal wound moments after shaking Pate’s hand and giving Company E of the 6th Virginia Cavalry and James Clement the dubious distinction of being present when Stuart and Ashby both met their ends. Recent scholarship by Robert E. L. Krick concluded that John Huff, the man given claim by his commanding General George A. Custer, did not shoot Stuart. I have often thought what it would be like to spend a few moments with Clement or other veterans of war and persuade them to speak of what they saw right before their eyes. Did he relive the war imagining the horror and the glory he witnessed and the sadness he must have felt being present when both of these Southern cavalrymen met their ends leading troops into battle.   

My friend Porter Bondurant passed away while I was in Augusta, Georgia, with my mother over Easter visiting her 82 year old sister Kathryn. I say Porter was my friend because I knew him my entire life. When I was a kid he gave me candy when I went into his store, now the J. E. B. Stuart Grocery, on the hill above the home he shared with Pearl. He was born before World War One and served in World War Two. He is the only man I know who rode the Mount Airy and Eastern Railroad “The Dinky” and we videotaped he and his older sister Caroline Susan Bondurant Culler “Carrie Sue” several years ago talking about it.  Porter took Kenney Kirkman with me and Gordon Axelrod on his John Deere Gator along with the path the railroad took across his land. Many times I would stop and talk to Porter by myself because along with his sister Carrie Sue he was history in Ararat. He could tell some whoppers, but he could tell some serious and moving stories about his life from playing practical jokes on a stingy man carrying apples on a wagon to his disgust with a man that abused a mule pulling a wagon up the hill by his house. He could take us back to the days when Clark’s Creek was damned up to form an ice skating pond just below his home or his experiences in Belgium and France with the locals, but more about that later. Porter lived on the land that his great-grandfather Pedigo lived on. In fact, his family’s neighbors were J. E. B. Stuart’s family and I believe that Porter’s grandmother knew the young Civil War General born in Ararat in 1833. Apparently, they live a long time in his family as his 94 years indicate.
 Porter joined the U. S. Army on July 7, 1943 at age 29. He served in the Motor Transport Division, Headquarters Command in Europe for two years and one month. He received the Good Conduct Medal, European African Middle Eastern Theater Ribbon and the World War Two Victory Medal. He served in the campaign that freed Europe from the Nazis. Before being honorably discharged on June 12, 1946, he drove trucks supply the armies of Patton and Bradley over 200 missions across France, Belgium and Germany.  One story is that he searched the records of HQ in Richfield, England, and found his brother Peter Floyd Bondurant was in London. Porter got a pass and reunited with his brother in London, where the latter was with the 8^th Air Force Fighter Squadron.
 Porter was one of the charter members of the Ararat Ruritan Club in 1953. In 1961 he opened Blue Ridge View Grocery, now J. E. B. Stuart Grocery, and operated the store for fifteen years. What a view of the Blue Ridge it has. Porter now rests in the Pedigo Cemetery with that same view of the Blue Ridge and all of us in Ararat will miss him.
 

http://www.hillbillyghosthunters.com/

With the series this week on history at the Dellenback-Mitchell House I thought you might find this of interest. There has been much death around the house including William Letcher in 1780.

There are many shows on SCI-FI such as Ghost Hunters or Paranormal State, where Penn State students go out ghost hunting, but there is even a local group. Here is their visit to the Mitchell House

http://www.hillbillyghosthunters.com/subpage3.html