Markers of History

National Register of Historic Places
and State Historical Marker
Virginia Q-8-B
Monumental Methodist Church

Visited: June 1, 2009, 1:55pm

Location: Corner of Dinwiddie St & Queen St, Portsmouth, VA 23704

Transcription of State Historical Marker:

This church, founded 1772, is one of the old­est Methodist churches in Virginia. The first build­ing was erected, 1775, at South and Effingham Streets. The church was moved to Glasgow Street near Court in 1792. It estab­lished the first Sunday school in Portsmouth in 1818. Monumental was moved to this site, Dinwiddie Street, in 1831.

Virginia Conservation Commission 1948

Transcriptions of other markers:

Marker #1:

Monumental UMC
has been placed on the
National Register
of Historic Places
by the United States
Department of the Interior
Nov. 14, 1772

Marker #2:

A. D. 1772
Methodist Society formed by Rev. Robert Williams of England and Isaac Luke of Portsmouth, Virginia

1775
Built at South and Effingham Streets

1792
Moved to Glasgow Street near Court

1818
Formed first Sunday School in Portsmouth

1831
Moved to this site and erected Dinwiddie Street M. E. Church

1856
Built Emanuel M. E. Church North Street for col­ored members

1866
Erected Sunday School chapel

A. D. 1872
Built Monumental Church in mem­ory of the founders 

My impres­sions: It’s there. The exte­rior of this church isn’t a type that moves me. (Yet.) I say that because I would have had a sim­i­lar reac­tion to the inte­rior of my cur­rent church before it became my church. And that non-reaction is prob­a­bly inten­si­fied by the fact that I was get­ting tired. I’d taken a lot of pho­tos and seen a lot of his­tory in the short time since I’d arrived in Portsmouth and it was at this point in the day that I started head­ing back towards the ferry home. And, for me, the inside of most churches is more impres­sive than the outside.

Notes for future snar­fers: It’s Portsmouth, there are LOTS of his­toric sites. If you’re local, just come on over and go wild. If you want to get as much as you can, do the research before you arrive

Markeroni sta­tus: My visit was logged today.

Because I’m being metic­u­lous and want­ing to have every­thing just so, I hadn’t pre­vi­ously included this church, though I had vis­ited it last sum­mer when my wife (who was then my fiancee) and I met with some friends of ours for a meal, one of whom attends Trinity. Also fit­ting that this is posted this week, as yes­ter­day was Trinity Sunday in the church year!

State Historical Marker
Virginia Q-8-A
Trinity Church
and
National Register of Historic Places
Trinity Episcopal Church

Location: The church is at the cor­ner of Court St & High St, Portsmouth, VA 23704. The marker is down the block, closer to the cor­ner of Court St & Queen St.

Visited: June 1, 2009, 1:45pm

Transcription of marker:

Built in 1762 as the parish church of Portsmouth parish, estab­lished in 1761. Later named Trinity; enlarged in 1829; remod­eled in 1898. Colonel William Crawford, founder of Portsmouth in 1752, was a mem­ber of the first vestry. Buried here is Commodore James Barron, com­man­der of the U. S. frigate Chesapeake when attacked by H. M. S. Leopard in 1807; the result was his cel­e­brated duel with Stephen Decatur in 1820. The graves of many Revolutionary patri­ots are here.

Virginia Conservation Commission 1948

My impres­sions: I love the area of Trinity Church, with its church­yard enclosed by a short brick wall. But this seems to be a “throw every­thing in but the kitchen sink” marker with a whole list of dates and peo­ple and no story to tell. It describes the impor­tance, but in spread­ing itself so thin, can’t devote enough detail to any of the peo­ple or facts men­tioned to really bring color to them. (I guess I’m turn­ing into a “his­tor­i­cal marker reviewer.” I don’t think that will work as a career choice, though!) But apart from the his­tory, there’s a sim­ple beauty to the exte­rior of Trinity and the trees in the churchyard.

Notes for future snar­fers: Don’t miss the plethora of other mark­ers in the area.

Markeroni sta­tus: My visit to the his­tor­i­cal marker was logged yes­ter­day. When I have time to orga­nize my “miss­ing snarfs,” I’ll sub­mit the NRHP snarf to be included in the database.

State Historical Marker
Virginia Q-8-N
Norfolk County Court House 1845 – 1862

Visited: June 1, 2009, 1:35pm

Location: Corner of High St & Court St, Portsmouth, VA 23704

Transcription of marker:

Begun 1845, occu­pied 20 July 1846. The archi­tect, Wm. R. Singleton, a Portsmouth native, also designed the old Norfolk city court house. This build­ing stands on one of the four cor­ners des­ig­nated for pub­lic use in 1752 by Lt. Col. William Crawford, founder of Portsmouth. The site was for­merly occu­pied by the clerk’s office when an ear­lier court house, occu­pied in 1803, stood on the north­east cor­ner, opposite.

Virginia State Library 1961

My impres­sions: The set­ting is nice for this marker, but I find it under­whelm­ing, both because it’s about some­thing that used to be there and isn’t now, and because it isn’t all that clear why the site of the for­mer cour­t­house should be impor­tant. I think that there were far more com­pelling facts on the Path of History marker for Towne Square, across Court Street from this state marker.

Notes for future snar­fers: Besides this and the Towne Square marker, there’s also the Confederate mon­u­ment in the mid­dle of Court Street and Trinity Episcopal Church across High Street. There are many other mark­ers in the area.

Markeroni sta­tus: Logged visit yesterday.

State Historical Marker
Virginia Q-8-M
Crawford House

Location: Corner of Crawford St & Queen St, Portsmouth, VA 23704

Visited: June 1, 2009, 1:30pm

Transcription of marker:

Erected 1835 by J. W. Collins, Portsmouth’s first five-storey build­ing and for many years a lead­ing hotel. Presidents Van Buren, Tyler, and Fillmore were enter­tained here.

Virginia State Library , 1961

My impres­sions: There were two things about this marker that sur­prised me: first, that the text was so short. Second that in that short text, they high­light all the pres­i­dents who were enter­tained there…and they’re all pres­i­dents that I think most peo­ple for­get about and don’t have much of a clue who they were. Oh, well. I also won­der about the nam­ing: was it called Crawford House after the founder of Portsmouth? Or was Crawford Street named after him and the hotel named after the street?

Notes for future snar­fers: This is on the same block as the statue of William Craford that I wrote about ear­lier today.

State Historical Marker
Virginia Q-8-r
Home Site of William Crawford (d. 1762) Founder of Portsmouth

Location: In the median of High St (between Water St & Crawford St), Portsmouth VA 23704.

Visited: June 1, 2009, 1:20pm

Transcription of marker: Here stood the res­i­dence of William Crawford who in 1752 founded the town of Portsmouth on sixty-five acres of his exten­sive plan­ta­tion lands. The house site extended south on Crawford Street 113 feet, and east on High Street to the Elizabeth River. Crawford was pre­sid­ing jus­tice of the Norfolk Cy. court, Lt.-Colonel of the county mili­tia, a wealthy mer­chant and planter.

Virginia Historic Landmark Commission 1975

My impres­sions: This one leaves me with some questions…Why did he found the town? What about that first sen­tence: did he found the town on 65 acres of land or did his res­i­dence stand on 65 acres? And I also note that this is the first state marker I’ve snarfed that’s old enough to say some­thing other than “Department of Historic Resources” at the bot­tom. I found a num­ber of dif­fer­ent labels on the mark­ers I snarfed today, and I’ll try to men­tion each new one as it appears on the blog.

Notes for future snar­fers: Don’t for­get the marker for John Luke Porter, on the same median.

Markeroni sta­tus: This one is not yet sub­mit­ted. It doesn’t appear on the list on the Markeroni site and “Norfolk Naval Shipyard” is listed as Q-8-r. I’ll sub­mit a help request when the whelm level is lower.

All these mark­ers from Portsmouth, and we didn’t need to cross the street to see them. Then when we do…

State Historical Marker
Virginia Q-8-s
John Luke Porter (19 Sept. 1813 — 14 Dec. 1893)

Location: In the median of High St (between Water St & Crawford St), Portsmouth VA 23704.

Visited: June 1, 2009, 1:20pm

Transcription of marker:

John Luke Porter, first pres­i­dent of the Portsmouth com­mon coun­cil, was born just two blocks south of here. An accom­plished naval con­struc­tor, com­mis­sioned first by the United States and later by the Confederacy, Porter super­vised, at the Norfolk Navy Yard, the con­ver­sion of the frigate Merrimac to the iron­clad CSS Virginia. On 8 March 1862, the Virginia rammed and sank USS Cumberland and destroyed USS Congress at Newport News. The next day Virginia fought a his­toric but incon­clu­sive bat­tle with USS Monitor in nearby Hampton Roads, in the world’s first naval com­bat between iron­clads. Porter later became chief naval con­struc­tor for the Confederacy, design­ing 21 iron­clads. He died in Portsmouth.

Department of Historic Resources, 1997

My impres­sions: An absolutely beau­ti­ful set­ting in the median of High Street, though prob­a­bly less acces­si­ble than it could be, in the mid­dle of the street, but it is cer­tainly quite vis­i­ble between the trees in the mid­dle of the street. A lot of these names are becom­ing famil­iar from ear­lier trips to Nauticus, etc. and from names that have been passed on in the area, but I plead igno­rance on the Civil War, too. I do like the way this marker explains both Porter’s ties to his­tory as well as his ties to Portsmouth, not only answer­ing the “Why is he impor­tant?” ques­tion but also “Why is this marker placed in this location?”

Notes for future snar­fers: If you get off the ferry from Norfolk at the High Street land­ing, walk towards the street and you won’t be able to miss the two state mark­ers in the mid­dle of High Street.

Markeroni sta­tus: Visit logged June 3, 2009. Waiting for whelm level to drop before ask­ing for cor­rec­tion of blank city name to Portsmouth.

State Historical Marker
Virginia K 276
The Testing of Grace Sherwood

The Testing of Grace Sherwood

Location: In front of Sentara Bayside Hospital at the inter­sec­tion of Independence Blvd & Witchduck Rd, Virginia Beach, VA 23455

Visited: May 19, 2009, 7:05pm

Transcription of plaque:

The witch­craft case of Grace Sherwood is one of the best known in Virginia. She was accused of bewitch­ing a neighbor’s crop in 1698. Allegations grew over time until the Princess Anne County gov­ern­ment and her accusers decided she would be tested by duck­ing, since water was con­sid­ered pure and would not per­mit a witch to sink into its depths. Sherwood’s accusers on 10 July 1706 tied her hands to her feet and dropped her into the Western Branch of the Lynnhaven River near what is now known as Witch Duck Point. Sherwood floated, a sign of guilt. She was impris­oned, but was even­tu­ally released. Sherwood lived the rest of her life qui­etly and died by 1740.

My impres­sions: I must con­fess that there is a cer­tain detach­ment in the text of this marker that strikes me. It seems to stick to such a bare bones recita­tion of facts that it leaves out a whole lot of the impact of the story. I do won­der if part of that is because of the (newer) statue which stands nearby (and which I’ll dis­cuss in my next post here), which appears focused on the no-win sit­u­a­tion of a choice between death or guilt and how unjust that was to Sherwood.

Notes for future snar­fers: The Bayside hos­pi­tal park­ing lot is con­ve­nient for view­ing this marker (and it is at the far end of the lot from the build­ing, right near the inter­sec­tion itself, along­side Independence Blvd).  Also acces­si­ble from this park­ing lot is the statue of Sherwood, which I’ll dis­cuss in my next post.

So, as you may have read on the About page, I first signed up for a Markeroni account way back in 2004, but hadn’t done any­thing with it until last night. So I’ve had plenty of time to think of what my first snarf would be.

Since mov­ing to Virginia Beach, I’ve been attend­ing Old Donation Episcopal Church, and given that it qual­i­fies on mul­ti­ple cri­te­ria, I wanted to make it my first snarf. But as it hap­pens, I didn’t actu­ally get my cam­era out when I was at the church last night, but after­wards, we went a short piece down the road to a state his­tor­i­cal marker about the church’s history.

Old Donation Church

State Historical Marker
Virginia K 280
Old Donation Church

Location: In front of the Bayside branch of the Virginia Beach Public Library, 936 Independence Blvd, Virginia Beach, VA 23455

An inter­est­ing note about the loca­tion of this marker is that it is approx­i­mately a half-mile or so from the church itself and the church can not be seen from the marker and vice versa. This is espe­cially inter­est­ing, because the church is vis­i­ble from the loca­tion of the sec­ond marker I snarfed last night (which will fol­low in another post later today).

Visited: May 19, 2009, 7:00pm

Transcription of plaque:

Just east stands Old Donation Episcopal Church, built in 1736. It is the third build­ing to serve the colo­nial era Lynnhaven Parish, estab­lished by 1642. The sec­ond church, once adja­cent to the cur­rent build­ing, was con­verted into a school in 1737. The church received its present name in the early 19th cen­tury likely in com­mem­o­ra­tion of a gift of land. An 1882 fire left only por­tions of its brick walls stand­ing. The build­ing was restored in 1916 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

My impres­sions: Maybe it was the advan­tage of the light­ing only an hour before sun­set, but I found the plaque’s loca­tion sur­pris­ingly beau­ti­ful, espe­cially con­sid­er­ing it was between a busy high­way and a fairly new look­ing brick library. But there were some nice, big trees between the side­walk of Independence Blvd and the library park­ing lot. The other nice thing about the loca­tion is its promi­nence. We’ve dri­ven by this marker sev­eral times. Even though we hadn’t stopped until last night (partly, I expect, because it isn’t imme­di­ately clear from Independence Blvd where one can park), I think vis­i­bil­ity is a good thing to keep us remem­ber­ing history.

I also can’t wait to share with you some pho­tos of the church and its grounds at some point. It’s a very pretty place and one I enjoy very much.

Notes for future snar­fers: The library park­ing lot is very handy for this marker (includ­ing acces­si­ble spots for those who require them). From Independence Blvd, fol­low the library signs to the park­ing lot. (Enter the park­ing lot from E Honeygrove Rd.) The marker is between the library and Independence Blvd.