Markers of History

Statue
William Craford

Location: Corner of High Street and Crawford St, Portsmouth, VA 23704

Visited: June 1, 2009, 1:25pm

Transcription of plaque:

Col. William Craford
founder of
Portsmouth, Virginia
February 27, 1752

Today, known as
Col. William Crawford

My impres­sions: As I’m writ­ing about these and orga­niz­ing them to write about them, I noticed that this is part of a mini-sequence of Cra[w]ford posts. I remem­ber com­ing across this statue on my first visit to Portsmouth last sum­mer and being instantly pulled in. I’m not sure whether it’s the statue itself or the space around it. I just remem­ber being impressed by it. It isn’t a tow­er­ing mon­u­ment, but I think he feels quite human-sized, and that may be part of why I relate to it.

This is one of those stat­ues that almost looks bet­ter when you get behind it. I had walked down the street to a state his­tor­i­cal marker (that I’ll write about in my next post) and when I came back I was cap­ti­vated by the detail of the bag Craford car­ries. I’m not aware of any mean­ing to the bag, but artis­ti­cally, it impresses me.

Notes for future snar­fers: This one’s pretty much in plain site at its loca­tion. Make sure to step behind it and look at the detail back there, too!

Markeroni sta­tus: I will sub­mit this statue to Markeroni once the whelm level drops.