Markers of History

Our trip away from Town Point Park will wait one more day, as I dis­cov­ered pho­tos of a cou­ple more mark­ers I found before leav­ing the park for lunch.

Cannonball Trail
The Cedar

Location: West end of Town Point Park, near Nauticus museum.

Visited: July 3, 2009, 12:40pm

Transcription of marker: A cedar tree near this loca­tion, then known as Foure Farthing Pointe, was described in the orig­i­nal patent describ­ing the west­ern bound­ary of the 50 acres that com­prised Norfolk Town. In August 1680 John Ferebee, sur­veyor for Lower Norfolk County, was instructed to sur­vey a town site on the Elizabeth River. This was com­pleted in October 1680, but it was not until August 1682 that the county, through its agents Anthony Lawson and William Robinson, bought the town site from Nicholas Wise, a ship­wright. The price was ten thou­sand pounds of tobacco. The sur­veyed town site extended east­ward from this point along Main Street, for­merly Front Street, on a ridge of high land to Dun-in-the-Mire, gen­er­ally where Harbor Park is now located. The other prin­ci­pal road, “the road that lead­eth out of town,” went north from the cur­rent inter­sec­tion of Main Street and St. Paul’s Boulevard. The orig­i­nal town site was laid out with half acre lots for houses and busi­ness. The lots were priced at 100 pounds of tobacco.

My impres­sions: This is a newer look at much of the same his­tory as was found in the Four Farthing or Town Point marker I posted about on Thursday. As some­body attempt­ing to tran­scribe mark­ers, one of the things it high­lights for me is how much eas­ier it is to fully under­stand a marker when it is writ­ten in mixed case. A case in point: it wasn’t until I read this marker that I was sure that I had cor­rectly tran­scribed “Lower Norfolk County” in the pre­vi­ous marker. In the ear­lier marker (writ­ten entirely in cap­i­tal let­ters) there was no way to know if this was just the lower part of Norfolk County or a sep­a­rate juris­dic­tion. It’s also nice to have the map illus­tra­tion on this marker, even though these mark­ers seem less per­ma­nent than those with raised letters.

Markeroni sta­tus: Direct-logged.

Cannonball Trail
Downtown Waterfront Revitalization

Location: East end of Town Point Park, near the inter­sec­tion of Waterside Dr & Martins Ln, Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: July 3, 2009, 11:30am

Transcription of marker: In the 1950s the water­front con­tained an assort­ment of aging facil­i­ties — wharves, ware­houses, rail lines, ship chan­dlers, tug­boat oper­a­tions, and ferry docks. The City of Norfolk made a sig­nif­i­cant deci­sion. An area of down­town along the Elizabeth River should be trans­formed from a work­ing water­front into a pub­lic water­front. As the old was cleared, the new appeared, begin­ning with the pub­lic esplanade and hotel in 1974. The first Harborfest cel­e­bra­tion in 1977 demon­strated that pub­lic attrac­tions could help revi­tal­ize down­town. Town Point Park and the Waterside Festival Marketplace opened in 1983. Nauticus, the National Maritime Center, anchored the west end of the water­front in 1994.

The three can­nons at the head of Otter Berth were found dur­ing the dredg­ing of this part of the water­front in 1982. They are of unknown for­eign ori­gin, but their vin­tage is com­pat­i­ble with the bom­bard­ment of Norfolk on January 1, 1776. Otter Berth is named for HMS Otter, one of Lord Dunmore’s ships that bom­barded Norfolk on January 1, 1776.

My impres­sions: It seems quite fit­ting for me to have seen this marker on the first day of this year’s Harborfest. Nice when coin­ci­dences like that hap­pen. It’s funny that, even though there are stretches of “work­ing water­front” not too far away, I find it impos­si­ble to think about Norfolk with­out its park beside the river. It is my favorite part of Norfolk’s downtown.

Another thing I like is in the last para­graph of the marker, where there is an acknowl­edg­ment that we don’t know every­thing about his­tory, such as the exact ori­gin of the can­nons in the park (which, I have to admit, I don’t recall see­ing). It would have been all to easy to make leaps to a pre­sumed ori­gin for them, and while the marker comes close to that, it acknowl­edges the lack of knowl­edge and allows the reader to make a guess as to the answer.

But most of all, I’m just glad the water­front is there to be enjoyed.

Markeroni sta­tus: Direct-logged.

Today, I’ll start post­ing mark­ers I found while in and near Town Point Park in Norfolk for the park’s re-opening after con­struc­tion and for the first day of Harborfest. Today’s mark­ers come from the east­ern end of the park, closer to The Waterside build­ing. Tomorrow, I’ll start post­ing other mark­ers I found in down­town Norfolk on my way back from lunch that day, and later in the week the blog will return to Town Point Park.

Cannonball Trail
The Underground Railroad

Location: East end of Town Point Park, near Elizabeth River beside The Waterside build­ing, Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: July 3, 2009, 11:20am

Transcription of marker: After north­ern states began abol­ish­ing slav­ery dur­ing the Revolutionary era, fugi­tives from through­out south­east­ern Virginia and north­east­ern North Carolina started to escape by ship from the Norfolk water­front. With luck and deter­mi­na­tion, many suc­ceeded in enlist­ing the aid of black crew­men work­ing aboard northward-bound ves­sels. Two of the South’s most famous Underground Railroad fugi­tives, George Latimer and Shadrach Minkins, escaped from Norfolk, most likely by sea. A few ship cap­tains were known by local Railroad agents as being sym­pa­thetic to fugi­tives or at least agree­able to trans­port­ing them secretly for a price. Captain William D. Bayliss of the Keziah and Captain Alfred Fountain of the City of Richmond bravely trans­ported run­aways from Norfolk dur­ing the 1850s when local sen­ti­ment against the Underground Railroad was at its high­est. The City of Richmond docked at John Higgins’ wharf, east of the Berkley Bridge. Higgins was a for­mer owner of Shadrach Minkins.

The City of Norfolk was placed on the National Park Service’s Underground Railroad Network to Freedom in 2004.

My impres­sions: The Underground Railroad is quite the story, and I know that I come nowhere near to under­stand­ing it, with what lit­tle knowl­edge I have gained as a kid in small-town Canada. I find it hard to set aside my absolute con­tempt for those who would enslave and exploit and even begin to under­stand how local sen­ti­ment could turn against work­ing for free­dom and how oth­er­wise upstand­ing peo­ple could accept injus­tice that appals me. Intellectually, I know there is more com­plex­ity to the issue of slav­ery but I find it hard to try to really under­stand what hap­pened, because my dis­gust and dis­ap­point­ment make it hard to see any other point of view than the one I hold from my com­fort­able posi­tion in the 21st century.

I do find it sad that the names of “two of the South’s most famous Underground Railroad fugi­tives” are unknown to me. I don’t know whether this is a bit of hyper­bole on the part of those who wrote the text of this marker or a blind spot in the pop­u­lar teach­ing of his­tory. I have my sus­pi­cions, though.

One small tech­ni­cal note, from what I’ve seen, I believe the last sen­tence is slightly mis­taken. I don’t believe that any cities (includ­ing Norfolk) are listed on the Underground Railroad Network to Freedom by the National Park Service. What I did find listed is the down­town Norfolk water­front, which would include the area of this marker. OK, I know…time to set down the red pen and move on…

Markeroni sta­tus: Direct-logged.

Cannonball Trail
Granby Street

Location: Granby St (as you might have guessed), on the west side of the street between Main St and Plume St, Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: June 23, 2009, 4:00pm

Transcription of marker:

Granby Street was named in 1769 to honor Englishman John Manners (1721 – 1770), Marquess of Granby. The orig­i­nal street ran three blocks from Bute Street south to Town Back Creek, a semi-navigable stretch of marsh­land run­ning the length of today’s City Hall Avenue. Town Back Creek was a bar­rier to devel­op­ment in the north­ern por­tion of the Borough until a bridge was built in 1818 to span the creek at Granby. As it became more acces­si­ble, Granby Street was trans­formed into a res­i­den­tial area of stately homes.

The elec­tric street­car debuted in Norfolk in 1894, and neigh­bor­hoods were estab­lished along the route. Many Granby Street res­i­dents moved to the new sub­urb of Ghent, and busi­nesses of every kind replaced their for­mer homes. By 1910, Granby Street sur­passed Main Street as Norfolk’s busiest shop­ping dis­trict. From 1976 to 1986 part of Granby was closed to vehic­u­lar traf­fic and renamed Granby Mall. Granby Street declined through the 1990s, but with the open­ing of Tidewater Community College and MacArthur Center it has been revi­tal­ized with res­i­dences, the­aters, and restaurants.

My impres­sions: I think the big sur­prise to me in this marker is how hon­est a por­trayal it appears to be of some very recent events. I mean, to only one decade later, refer to an area as declin­ing, as this describes Granby Street through the 1990s, shows a will­ing­ness to face harsh realities.

Going off the topic of his­tor­i­cal mark­ers, I find it inter­est­ing that at one point part of the street was closed to vehi­cles, but that it didn’t work to attract peo­ple. It reminds me of the Sparks Street Mall in Ottawa, which never seems to live up to its poten­tial (although part of the prob­lem there may be the num­ber of gov­ern­ment build­ings in that area).

It’s also inter­est­ing for me to see how recent some things I take for granted are. I mean, I just moved to the area six months ago, so it stretches my mind to think of the area with­out the MacArthur Center, despite how recently it’s been built.

Markeroni sta­tus: Awaiting inclusion.

Cannonball Trail
The Customhouse, 1859

Location: W Main St (oppo­site the foot of Granby St), Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: June 23, 2009, 3:55pm

Transcription of marker: Construction of this cus­tom­house began in 1852 and was com­pleted in 1859, replac­ing an 1819 cus­tom­house located at Water and Church Streets (now Waterside Drive and St. Paul’s Boulevard). This build­ing was designed by Ammi B. Young (1798 – 1874), the first super­vis­ing archi­tect for the United States Treasury Department, who estab­lished high archi­tec­tural stan­dards for fed­eral build­ings. During his career Young designed some 70 gov­ern­ment build­ings around the coun­try, includ­ing the cus­tom­houses in Richmond and Petersburg. Departing from his more cus­tom­ary Tuscan designs, Young devel­oped a rich Classical Revival design for this gran­ite struc­ture. Adapting a new mate­r­ial to tra­di­tional forms, both the inte­rior columns and the cap­i­tals of the exte­rior columns are made of cast iron. All of the Federal agen­cies in Norfolk, includ­ing courts on the upper floor and the post office in the base­ment, were housed in this build­ing until space needs prompted the con­struc­tion of a new Federal cour­t­house and post office in 1900. The exte­rior of the build­ing has not been sig­nif­i­cantly altered since its construction.

My impres­sions: This is one of those moments when I con­fess to a bit of fear. Unfortunately the draw­ing on the marker is the clos­est I came to tak­ing a photo of the build­ing, largely because I believe it is still (in part) a fed­eral build­ing, and while I’m still await­ing my per­ma­nent res­i­dency sta­tus, I still feel funny about doing things that might invite scrutiny. So I exer­cised cau­tion, per­haps more than war­ranted. So, this 2005 photo, posted to Flickr by Tom Hammond under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License, is your chance to see the glowingly-described building.

“U.S. Customhouse,” © 2005 Tom Hammond. Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license. The marker is vis­i­ble in the lower right of the photo.

All that out of the way, I love the way this build­ing looks. It seems to me to be a typ­i­cally American style; by that I mean that it isn’t a style that I saw nearly enough of back in Canada. I’m not quite sure what that says, but it’s a dif­fer­ence I think I’ve noticed.

Markeroni sta­tus: I have a request in about the Cannonball Trail mark­ers, because most of them that I’ve found have not been in their data­base yet. This one might be in the data­base already under a slightly dif­fer­ent name and I’ve sought clar­i­fi­ca­tion on that.

Cannonball Trail
Commercial Place

Location: NW of where Commercial Pl & E Main St meet, Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: June 1, 2009, 2:55pm

Transcription of marker: When a sur­vey was done in 1680 to lay out the town of Norfolk, one of the few streets shown was “the street that lead­eth to the water­side.” The orig­i­nal loca­tion was just to the west of this site. It fanned out from Front (now Main) Street south to the Elizabeth River. As the new town devel­oped, this area became its com­mer­cial hub. When a mar­ket was built here near Front Street in the early 1700’s the area became known as Market Square. At the river’s edge a ferry dock and com­mer­cial wharves devel­oped. About 1900 the name changed again, to Commercial Place. This illus­tra­tion “Old Norfolk Evening” by artist John Morton Barber, recre­ates the south­ern end of Market Square/Commercial Place in 1887. Double-edged steam fer­ries shut­tle back and forth across the Elizabeth River to Berkley and Portsmouth. The English ship Carnarvonshire is being towed into the har­bor to load goods for her voy­age across the Atlantic, and the side-wheel steamer Luray is car­ry­ing pas­sen­gers down­stream toward Town Point.

My impres­sions: I’ve been near this spot before but hadn’t really paid atten­tion to the marker, nor the small strip of green around it in down­town Norfolk. This cir­cle is dom­i­nated by a Confederate mon­u­ment (which I’ll have to snarf at a later date, since my bus came before I could take a photo of it).

Markeroni sta­tus: My visit was logged on Sunday, after the marker was added to the database.

Welcome to those of you who vis­ited Markers of History yes­ter­day and found our looks at the marker and statue of Grace Sherwood, after read­ing a Virginian-Pilot col­umn yes­ter­day which men­tioned the statue.

This marker was a “bonus” one for me. I had planned a trip yes­ter­day to snarf three his­tor­i­cal mark­ers I’d seen in Portsmouth (when we were car-pooling with oth­ers for din­ner and I didn’t have the cam­era with me), plus what­ever else I found. I hadn’t expected to find a marker before I reached Portsmouth, though!

Cannonball Trail
Ferries to Portsmouth and Berkley

Location: Between Waterside Dr and the Elizabeth River near the ferry dock, Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: June 1, 2009, 12:35pm

Transcription of marker: According to tra­di­tion, ferry ser­vice across the Elizabeth River was first estab­lished near this loca­tion in 1636 by Captain Adam Thoroughgood and oper­ated by Lower Norfolk County. The ear­li­est fer­ries were sim­ply skiffs rowed by men. Later larger pad­dle wheel ves­sels were pro­pelled by horses or mules on tread­mills. In 1715, Major Samuel Boush was run­ning two fer­ries for an annual fee of three thou­sand pounds of tobacco. The first steam ferry to serve Norfolk and Portsmouth was the “Gosport,” built in Portsmouth and out­fit­ted in Philadelphia. Her first run was in 1832. The cross­ing time was reduced to five min­utes. In 1840, the pas­sen­ger fare was three cents. With the advent of the auto­mo­bile, fer­ries were redesigned to han­dle cars and trucks. Even though the Downtown Tunnel opened in May 1952, vehic­u­lar fer­ries con­tin­ued to cross the Elizabeth River between Norfolk and Portsmouth until the end of August 1955. The present Norfolk-Portsmouth pas­sen­ger fer­ries, rein­stated in 1983, con­tinue a tra­di­tion of more than three centuries.

My impres­sions: Ever since my first visit to this area, I’ve loved the area behind The Waterside, as well as Town Point Park (which I hope will soon be reopened after the con­struc­tion project which has had it fenced off for the last ser­val months). Yesterday was a per­fect day for a trip on the ferry, with tem­per­a­tures in the low-to-mid 70s, with a nice breeze off the river. The ferry trip is one of my favorite ways to get out and relax in the area.

Markeroni sta­tus: This marker is await­ing inclu­sion in the Markeroni database.

Update (6/7): This marker was included in the Markeroni data­base yes­ter­day and I logged my visit this morning.