Markers of History

We’re in a bit of a con­fus­ing land right now, because there are appar­ently three state his­tor­i­cal mark­ers, each titled Arnold’s British Defenses, 1781. So far, I’ve seen two of them. So this one is from the bend in Crawford Pkwy, right near the Civil War Trails marker I wrote about yes­ter­day, next to the Elizabeth River and its marker (which I’ll write about next).

State Historical Marker
Virginia Q-8P
Arnold’s British Defenses, 1781

Location: Crawford Pkwy, Portsmouth, VA, 23704

Visited: June 23, 2009, 1:30pm

Transcription of marker: This marks the north­ern limit of a line of British redoubts erected in March 1781 by order of Brigadier General Benedict Arnold who, under Major General William Phillips, com­manded British troops occu­py­ing Portsmouth. This line of for­ti­fi­ca­tions extended in an arc south along Dinwiddie and Washington Streets to Gosport Creek and defended Portsmouth from American attack from the west.

Virginia State Library, 1962

My impres­sions: I had to look up what a redoubt actu­ally was. And when I did, one of the Flickr results that came up for me was of one in Kingston, Ontario, just a few blocks from where I lived my sec­ond year of uni­ver­sity there. I guess I’ll have to make sure to get back there, next time I’m in town. (Whenever that is!) I never man­aged to make it to that museum while I lived there. Always meant to…

Markeroni sta­tus: Logged.

You can cer­tainly tell that I was excited to get out and around after my cold! I missed the bus to start my trip. Rather than wait an hour for the next bus in that direc­tion, I decided to cross the road, catch the bus in the other direc­tion a few min­utes later, and then see if I could fig­ure my way there on my own.

Four bus trips and a ferry trip later, I was in Portsmouth (though I ended up arriv­ing there about the time I had planned to start head­ing home!)

The first mark­ers I saw (not count­ing the three I saw from the bus…and yes, I kept track of their loca­tions so I can go back for them) were three mark­ers between Crawford Pkwy and the Elizabeth River: two state his­tor­i­cal mark­ers and this Civil War Trails marker about Portsmouth Naval Hospital

Civil War Trails
Portsmouth Naval Hospital

Location: Crawford Pkwy (between Harbor Ct and Court St), Portsmouth, VA 23704

Visited: June 23, 2009, 1:30pm

Transcription of marker:

Portsmouth Naval Hospital
* * *
Administering to Both the  Union and Confederacy

This is the site of the Portsmouth Naval Hospital which served both the Union and the Confederacy dur­ing the Civil War. The Portsmouth Naval Hospital, the U.S. Navy’s first hos­pi­tal, was founded in 1827 by Secretary of the Navy Samuel L. Southard. Architect John Haviland cre­ated Building No. One’s impres­sive Greek Revival design which fea­tures and embell­ished Doric por­tico of 10 columns. The facil­ity opened in 1830. The hos­pi­tal was built on the site of the Fort Nelson of the Revolutionary War and War of 1812 era, which was a for­ti­fi­ca­tion made obso­lete by the con­struc­tion of Fortress Monroe across Hampton Roads on Old Point Comfort. Materials sal­vaged from the fort’s demo­li­tion were used in the con­struc­tion of the hos­pi­tal building.

When Virginia left the Union the hos­pi­tal was used by the Confederacy until Portsmouth was aban­doned by Southern forces on May 10, 1862. The Union main­tained the hos­pi­tal through­out the remain­der of the War sup­port­ing the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron.

In the hos­pi­tal grave­yard is a memo­r­ial to the 337 dead of USS Cumberland and USS Congress killed when these ves­sels were sunk on March 8, 1862, by the CSS Virginia. Fifty-eight Confederates are also buried there.

My impres­sions: This is an inter­est­ing place­ment for this marker, with the hos­pi­tal vis­i­ble across the water. I won­der if this is an attempt to “future-proof” the loca­tion, so that, if the naval hos­pi­tal were to expand at some point in the future, it wouldn’t be caught inside the new gates. it was also fun to have such a scenic loca­tion for a clus­ter of three mark­ers. Was a nice way to get the excite­ment up after the crazi­ness of the morn­ing!  I also have to say that this marker does a remark­able job of con­dens­ing a whole lot of his­tory into a small area.

Markeroni sta­tus: I direct-logged my visit ear­lier today.

National Register of Historic Places
Francis Land House

Location: 3133 Virginia Beach Blvd, Virginia Beach, VA 23452

Visited: June 22, 2009, 5:20pm

Transcription of markers:

Marker #1:

The Francis Land
House
has been reg­is­tered as a
Virginia
Historic
Landmark
pur­suant to the author­ity vested in the
Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission
Act of 1966.

Marker #2:

Francis Land House
circa 1732
Placed on the
National Register
of
Historic Landmarks
1975

Marker #3:

The Francis Land House
circa 1732
Marked by
Princess Anne County Chapter
NSDAR

Bicentennial project
Nov. 13, 1976

My impres­sions: This is a very quiet, peace­ful place next to the loud and busy Virginia Beach Blvd. One of the things that stuck in my head, as some­body who has only quite recently come to this area and knows the Boulevard as quite a built-up place, is how quiet the area around the Francis Land House was when it was built. While I think very lit­tle of step­ping onto a bus and arriv­ing in down­town Norfolk a few min­utes  later, that trip would have taken days in the 18th cen­tury! A very good job has been done of devel­op­ing the area in such a way that the peace­ful­ness of these his­toric grounds are main­tained and there is lit­tle vis­i­ble sign of more recent devel­op­ment, which is actu­ally close to the grounds.

On a per­sonal note, this place is also spe­cial to me, because the only other time I had been here, I was with my par­ents and my then-fiancée the day before our wed­ding. (So it was nice to go there un-chaperoned! wink)

It was also nice to log a quick snarf on the way home from sup­per, on the spur of the moment, espe­cially since my wife and I have both been feel­ing under the weather for the past sev­eral days.

Markeroni sta­tus: This was the first time I man­aged to log a snarf while Markeroni con­sid­ered it the same day (since Markeroni lives in UTC, so its day ends in early evening).

I feel the urge to get more Portsmouth pho­tos some­time soon. I’ve been want­ing to for a few days (and at one point had plans to go yes­ter­day), but I was been deal­ing with a hor­ri­ble cold and throat stuff for a few days, as well as being quite tired. Most of that has passed, but I’m still a lit­tle wary of strand­ing myself far from home (in city bus terms) and get­ting over-tired. So I decided to try to plan for that trip that will hope­fully hap­pen tomor­row or Wednesday (since I think it’s sup­posed to get hot again at the end of the week).

So, ten­ta­tive plans for my next trip to Portsmouth (and future con­tent for this blog and snarfs at Markeroni):

1. Take ferry to North landing.
2. Visit Visitor’s Center, look­ing for brochure on Path of History.
3. Visit some sites from the National Register of Historic Places that I didn’t see on my last trip:
   1. Cedar Grove Cemetery
   2. Old Norfolk County Courthouse, cor­ner of Court & High Sts
   3. Pythian Castle, cor­ner of Court & County Sts
   4. Seaboard Coastline Bldg, next to High St ferry landing
   5. St Paul’s Catholic Church, High St
4. Find other state his­tor­i­cal mark­ers, espe­cially along Crawford Pkwy/Elizabeth River.
5. Buffalo Bill Cody marker, Water St, S of High St

Of course, not all of these may come to pass. That’s a lot of walk­ing and while I might be up to that on an ordi­nary day, I’m likely to play it safe and cut things short so I don’t get overtired.

I may also aim to find a few Cannonball Trail mark­ers over in Norfolk if I have energy, but I don’t really have a plan for those.

So hope­fully this blog won’t stay dor­mant for too much longer and we’ll return to more explo­rations of his­tory in a cou­ple of days.