Markers of History

Path of History
The Elizabeth River

Location: Elizabeth River, at the High St ferry land­ing, Portsmouth, VA 23704

Visited: June 23, 2009, 3:20pm

Transcription of marker: The Elizabeth River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay, runs between the cities of Portsmouth and Norfolk. The river was named “Elizabeth” in honor of Princess Elizabeth Stuart, the eldest daugh­ter of King James I of England.

The river was first called “Chesapeake,” after the tribe of Native Americans who lived on its banks. They were an Algonquin-speaking peo­ple who depended on the land and water for exis­tence. When John Smith explored the east­ern area in 1608, he saw their “golden plots” and other indi­ca­tions of Native American habitation.

My impres­sions: I can get all caught up in the dif­fer­ences between Canadian and American his­tory that I can some­times for­get about the sim­i­lar­i­ties. And as I come to the end of the pho­tos from this trip to Portsmouth (a city with a name that would be at home in England), along a river named for Elizabeth (ditto), and pre­pare to cross back to a city named Norfolk (ditto), this (espe­cially cou­pled with the pho­tos you’ll see in today’s bonus third post) reminded me that we share a lot of his­tory from before our paths diverged.

Markeroni sta­tus: When Path of History data entry is com­plete, I’ll be log­ging this visit on Markeroni.

Path of History
First Order Fresnel Lens from the Hog Island Light

Location: River Front Park, Portsmouth, VA 23704

Visited: June 23, 2009, 3:20pm

Transcription of marker:

This pavil­ion dis­plays a first order Fresnel lens from the sec­ond Hog Island Light. The lens began ser­vice in 1896. Originally built in 1852, the first build­ing was destroyed by ero­sion and rebuilt in 1896, only to be deac­ti­vated in 1948. The loca­tions of both these lights are now under water off the Eastern Shore.

The Fresnel Lens was named after Augustin Fresnel — the French physi­cist who devised the opti­cal sys­tem around 1822. At about 10 feet high and 2,500 pounds, this lens is among the largest and bright­est of its kind, with more than 250 prisms of opti­cal glass. Only the lens at Makapu’u Point Light, Hawaii is larger.

Established in 1852, the Hog Island Light was located on the north side of the Great Machipongo Inlet on the Eastern Shore of Virginia until its demo­li­tion in 1948.

The restora­tion of the lens and the con­struc­tion of the pavil­ion were funded by the Portsmouth Museums Foundation, Inc. in coop­er­a­tion with the City of Portsmouth and the Fifth Coast Guard District. The ded­i­ca­tion cer­e­mony of the Fresnel Lens Pavilion took place on November 5, 2003.

My impres­sions: Well, I cer­tainly had no idea what a Fresnel lens was (even though I’d read sev­eral times that there was one on the water­front in Portsmouth). But, hav­ing lived in Central Canada all my life (with the largest nearby body of water being the Ottawa River), it is inter­est­ing to see all the his­tory around here that relates to liv­ing on the water.

Markeroni sta­tus: Once the data entry of the Path of History is com­plete, I’ll be log­ging my visit.

Markers of History is going to take a hol­i­day week­end off from post­ing, but I didn’t want to leave you high and dry, so we’ll close today with a bumper load of his­tor­i­cal markers.

Path of History
Fort Nelson Park

Location: Fort Nelson Park, cor­ner of Crawford Pkwy & Effingham St, Portsmouth, VA 23704.

Visited: June 23, 2009, 1:55pm

On my last trip to Portsmouth, I came across Fort Nelson Park which con­tained roughly a dozen Path of History mark­ers about Portsmouth Naval Hospital. I’m cross­ing my fin­gers, hop­ing that I man­aged to get all of them. (I’ll have to double-check next time I’m in Portsmouth.)

Given the large num­ber of images and mark­ers included in this post, I will spare the front page of this site and ask you to click the link to see the mark­ers and their texts, but I’ll break with my tra­di­tional order and open this post with:

My impres­sions: I was impressed with the pleas­ant set­ting for these mark­ers. That said, I was dis­ap­pointed (on a hot June day) not to find more shade. Thinking back, I’m won­der­ing what may have stood on that site before the park, which only opened three years ago.

Related to this: See Monday’s post for a state his­tor­i­cal marker about Fort Nelson.

Read the rest of this entry »

Path of History
Craney Island

Location: Crawford Pkwy, just west of Court St, Portsmouth, VA 23704

Visited: June 23, 2009, 1:40pm

Transcription of marker:

Craney Island played a sig­nif­i­cant role in the War of 1812, fly­ing the Flag of 1795, with fif­teen stars and stripes. American defend­ers held off over­whelm­ing British forces there on June 22, 1813.

Two hun­dred British sol­diers were killed, thir­teen taken pris­oner and forty deserted. There were no American casu­al­ties. This suc­cess­ful bat­tle saved Norfolk, Portsmouth and the Gosport Shipyard from British occu­pa­tion and destruction.

The USS Merrimack (1856 – 1861) was at Norfolk Navy Yard in 1861, when Virginia seceded from the Union. The Federal forces burned and sank the Merrimack as they with­drew from the Navy Yard.

The Confederates sal­vaged the ship and con­verted her to an iron­clad. She was com­mis­sioned the CSS Virginia in February 1862.

In May of 1862, as the Confederates aban­doned the Norfolk area, efforts were made to lighten the Virginia enough to allow her to move up the James River. Unable to do so, she was destroyed by her crew off Craney Island on May 11.

My impres­sions: More War of 1812. And I’ll con­fess that about all I remem­ber from what I learned of that war in his­tory class was “We won.” Oh yes, “and the Americans think they did.” I know the def­i­n­i­tion of “win” is what is impor­tant in fig­ur­ing out what one believes about the war, but as usual, I lack the knowl­edge of what hap­pened to even begin to under­stand it. Maybe a library trip is in my future, so I can pick up the his­tory that isn’t con­densed into only a few para­graphs on a marker here and there.

Given my under­stand­ing of the geog­ra­phy, this seems like a strange loca­tion for a marker about Craney Island, pre­sum­ably there because of the desire for the Path of History to be a walk­a­ble path.

I also received word, via a Flickr com­ment, that next month a his­tor­i­cal marker will be unveiled com­mem­o­rat­ing the Battle of Craney Island. (From fur­ther research, I believe that this will be a state his­tor­i­cal marker, but can’t con­firm that detail yet.) Unfortunately, it appears that my sched­ule won’t per­mit me to attend the unveil­ing, but I def­i­nitely hope to get there in the days after it’s unveiled.

Markeroni sta­tus: Awaiting response on inclu­sion of Path of History.

Path of History
Crawford Bay

Location: Crawford Pkwy, just east of the inter­sec­tion of Court St, Portsmouth, VA 23704

Visited: June 23, 2009, 1:35pm

Transcription of marker:

The peace­ful waters of Crawford Bay play host each year to a num­ber of boat­ing events includ­ing the Cock Island Race and the Crawford Bay Crew Classic. The homes vis­i­ble across the inlet are in a neigh­bor­hood called Swimming Point.

One of the few eighteenth-century manor houses remain­ing in Hampton Roads, the Dale-Reed House, is located in Swimming Point. The fam­ily of Revolutionary War hero Richard Dale once lived in this home. Although mod­ern­ized, the home still has sec­tions of what is prob­a­bly the old­est house in Portsmouth.

My impres­sions: This is a busy area for mark­ers: There is another Path of History marker just west of Court Street. Across from that, there is a block that includes three state his­tor­i­cal mark­ers and a Civil War Trails marker.

Markeroni sta­tus: Awaiting response about inclu­sion of the Path of History list to Markeroni.

Path of History
Court Street Baptist Church

Location: Court St, between Queen St and London St, Portsmouth, VA 23704

Visited: June 1, 2009, 2:00pm

Transcription of marker:

Established in 1789, the Portsmouth and Norfolk Baptist Church served as the first Baptist con­gre­ga­tion in South Hampton Roads. The name was changed in 1791 to Portsmouth Baptist Church and again in 1855 to its cur­rent name, Court Street Baptist Church. This Romanesque Revival-style church is the third build­ing to occupy the site and con­tains the cor­ner­stone of the pre­vi­ous building.

Black mem­bers of Court Street Baptist Church wor­shiped in the base­ment until May 1865 when 318 of the con­gre­ga­tion founded their own church, Zion Baptist. This church became the sec­ond African-American Baptist Church estab­lished in Portsmouth. Located on Green Street, it is still in use today.

My impres­sions: The build­ing is quite unique-looking and I was inspired to look at it even before I saw the Path of History marker. One thing that seems strange to me, given the times and places I’ve grown up, is to think about the for­mal­ized racial seg­re­ga­tion that existed for so long in so many places, and in churches, of all places. I don’t really have much to say, but as I re-copied that marker today, it did come to mind.

Markeroni sta­tus: Will be sub­mit­ted once I have gath­ered infor­ma­tion about the Path of History.

Path of History
Towne Square

Location: On High St, near the cor­ner of Court St, Portsmouth, VA 23704

Visited: June 1, 2009, 1:35pm

Transcription of marker:

The inter­sec­tion of High and Court Street was known as Towne Square, the cor­ner­stone of the com­mu­nity. The square that you are stand­ing on was known as Courthouse Square, the site of the orig­i­nal cour­t­house from 1803 – 1846. In 1855 the Ocean Hotel opened at this location.

Portsmouth Parish, now Trinity Episcopal Church, was built on Church Square in 1762. This church still serves the cit­i­zens of Portsmouth.

The final square, Market Square, is where cit­i­zens bought and sold their goods.

The fire that burned the Hotel Monroe, also destroyed 13 busi­nesses on the north side of High Street, east from Court Street. The loss was esti­mated at $1.5 mil­lion. The Famous, a women’s fash­ion store occu­pied the site from 1940 to 1991. Today the build­ing is the home to the Tidewater Community College Visual Arts Center.

Prison Square was the site of the city jail and the loca­tion of pub­lic exe­cu­tion until 1860. In 1846, a new cour­t­house was built on this prop­erty and today the build­ing serves as an art museum.

The Ocean Hotel was con­structed on this cor­ner between 1853 – 1855 by Col. Winchester Watts and Col. Arthur Emmerson. It was later renamed the Hotel Monroe and was destroyed by a fire on August 9, 1957.

My impres­sions: This is the only time dur­ing the day that I felt a lit­tle uncom­fort­able, when a man asked me if I had some change. He was polite (wait­ing until I’d fin­ished with my photo), but in the cir­cum­stances, I wasn’t going to daw­dle. In fact, I don’t think I actu­ally read this marker until I was prepar­ing this post.

Notes for future snar­fers: This inter­sec­tion is quite reward­ing for snar­fers. Across Court Street from this Path of History marker is a state marker about an old court house. In the mid­dle of Court Street is a memo­r­ial to Confederate war dead. And across High Street is Trinity Episcopal Church, which is on national and state lists as well as hav­ing a state marker placed there.

Markeroni sta­tus: Like other Path of History mark­ers, I will wait until I can gather some more infor­ma­tion before sub­mit­ting this for inclu­sion in the Markeroni database.

We’re almost ready to leave the site of the Lightship Portsmouth, but there’s one last marker at this site, before we move on.

Path of History
The Coast Guard

Location: Water St & London St, Portsmouth, VA 23704, just in front of the Lightship Portsmouth.

Visited: June 1, 2009, 1:15pm

Transcription of marker:

The City of Portsmouth has had a long his­tory of sup­port­ing U.S. Coast Guard oper­a­tions. Today it serves as a cen­ter for Coast Guard regional admin­is­tra­tion and oper­a­tional over­sight through the Atlantic Area Command head­quar­ters, Fifth District head­quar­ters and the local Integrated Support Center. Portsmouth hosts the Atlantic Area Command head­quar­ters, which admin­is­ters all Coast Guard dis­tricts east of the Rocky Mountains. The Fifth District is one of those dis­tricts and it over­sees Coast Guard activ­i­ties in the states of North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and south­ern New Jersey. Located at nearby Craney Island, the Integrated Support Center serves as a home­port for Coast Guard per­son­nel and water­craft, such as cut­ters, buoy ten­ders and patrol boats.

My impres­sions: The pho­tos on the marker help bring some life. Unfortunately, the text sounds like an org-chart walk­through. What will I take away from this marker? “There’s Coast Guard stuff in Portsmouth.” That’s it.

Notes for future snar­fers: This one’s on the side­walk of Water St, beside the path to the Lightship Portsmouth. The light­ship is a snarf fac­tory, as a National Historic Landmark, with two asso­ci­ated Path of History mark­ers, as well as being a museum.

Markeroni sta­tus: Awaiting fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the Path of History before sub­mit­ting to Markeroni.

Note: Lightship Portsmouth has two mark­ers for the Path of History and a des­ig­na­tion as a National Historic Landmark. This is the sec­ond of three posts that will appear here, one for each snarf.

It is not clear to me whether or not there’s an intended order to the two Path of History mark­ers for the Lightship Portsmouth, so I’m blog­ging about them in the order that I came upon them.

Path of History
Lightship Portsmouth

Location: Alongside the Lightship Portsmouth, at the Water St end of London St, Portsmouth, VA 23704.

Visited: June 1, 2009, 1:10pm

Transcription of marker:

Lightship Portsmouth
101-WAL524

Lightships and the City of Portsmouth go back to the begin­ning of light­ship duty in this coun­try in 1820. The first light­ship was estab­lished off Craney Island at the mouth of the Elizabeth River. Working light­ships were con­stant vis­i­tors on the Portsmouth water­front at the buoy yard until 1966, when the last light­ships were dis­con­tin­ued in the dis­trict. At this time Lightship #101 was brought back to Portsmouth to become a per­ma­nent fix­ture on the water­front. It was to be a trib­ute to the light­ship ser­vice and to her own first home port. The cus­tom was for the light­ship ves­sels to take the name of the sta­tion where they were stand­ing duty. Thus, she was renamed Portsmouth.

In 1967 the City of Portsmouth placed this ves­sel on the water­front and opened it as a museum. In 1989 LIGHTSHIP PORTSMOUTH was des­ig­nated a National Historic Landmark.

My impres­sions: This one makes a bet­ter marker, in my view, for all but the most ded­i­cated his­tory lover. It gives the gen­eral overview of this light­ship and explains inter­est­ing things about why it’s here and how it came to be here.

Notes for future snar­fers: This marker is on the walk­way that con­nects London St to the sea wall along the Elizabeth River. The other Path of History marker is along the sea wall.

Markeroni sta­tus: Awaiting fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the Path of History before sub­mit­ting to Markeroni.

Note: Lightship Portsmouth has two mark­ers for the Path of History and a des­ig­na­tion as a National Historic Landmark. This is the first of three posts that will appear here, one for each snarf.

It is not clear to me whether or not there’s an intended order to the two Path of History mark­ers for the Lightship Portsmouth, so I’ll blog about them in the order that I came upon them.

This first marker, I first spot­ted from the ferry to Portsmouth. Of course, I couldn’t read it (or even be absolutely cer­tain it WAS a marker) from that distance.

Path of History
Lightship Portsmouth

Location: Along the Elizabeth River, at the Water St end of London St, Portsmouth, VA 23704.

Visited: June 1, 2009, 1:05pm

Transcription of marker:

Lightship Portsmouth
101-WAL524

Lightships were “float­ing light­houses.” They were anchored at the entrances to ports, bays and outer lim­its to off-lying dan­ger areas such as shoals and reefs. These ves­sels served as aids to navigation.

Lightships were orig­i­nally placed where light­houses could not go or were too expen­sive to build. They had the advan­tage of being able to be in deeper waters than a light­house, could shift posi­tions and had many types of sig­nals. Disadvantages included that they were expen­sive to main­tain, dan­ger­ous in fog and required a crew of 8 – 15 men who were iso­lated and exposed to ter­ri­ble weather.

History of Lightship 101:

1912: Contract for #101 awarded to Pusey and Jones, ship­builders in Delaware.
1916: #101 was launched and sta­tioned at Smith Island Shoals, Virginia for eight years.
1924: Broke down, was refit­ted and repaired. Assigned to Overfalls, Delaware.
1939: #101 was changed by the Coast Guard to WAL524.
1951: Withdrawn from duty and over­hauled. Assigned to Nantucket Station.
1952: Stationed at Stonehouse Shoals, off the New England coast.
1963: Relief and last duty at Cross Rip Shoals in Nantucket Sound.
1964: Broke down en route to Boston and was retired.
1967: City of Portsmouth placed the ves­sel on the water­front as a museum.
1989: LIGHTSHIP PORTSMOUTH was des­ig­nated a National Historic Landmark.

My impres­sions: A good gen­eral overview of the pur­pose of light­ships and a very suc­cinct his­tory of this par­tic­u­lar one, though I find the date/fact pair­ings to be too rem­i­nis­cent of the worst of his­tory class in my school days, and bereft of the con­nec­tions and color that would bring it to life. Of course, it’s eas­ier to bring to life a bit when you look up and see the light­ship itself.

Notes for future snar­fers: This marker is along the sea wall at the river. The other Path of History marker is on the walk­way that con­nects it to the London St and the entrance to the light­ship museum.

Markeroni sta­tus: Awaiting fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the Path of History before sub­mit­ting to Markeroni.