Markers of History

Cannonball Trail
The First Battle of Ironclad Ships, 1862

Location: West end of Town Point Park at the Elizabeth River, steps east of the Armed Forces Memorial and its marker, Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: July 3, 2009, 2:30pm

Transcription of marker: On March 8, 1862 CSS Virginia steamed past this point (1) to a bat­tle which would for­ever change naval war­fare. This ship had pre­vi­ously been a Union steam frigate, USS Merrimack, which had been destroyed near the Gosport Navy Yard (2). Confederate forces found its hull to be sound and con­structed a super­struc­ture with iron plates to cre­ate a new kind of war­ship. The Virginia pro­ceeded out into Hampton Roads where she sank USS Cumberland and severely dam­aged USS Congress (3). The next day she returned to destroy the Union fleet and open the port. However, USS Monitor, another iron­clad, had slipped into Hampton Roads unde­tected by the Confederates (4). A major naval bat­tle ensued (5). Neither iron­clad did sig­nif­i­cant dam­age to the other. The Virginia tried to ram the Monitor but failed to sink her and opened a gash in her own hull. She returned to Gosport never to fight again. She was scut­tled and burned on May 11, 1862 to pre­vent her cap­ture by Union forces (6).

My impres­sions: I love the way this marker uses a map to help you under­stand the geog­ra­phy of the bat­tle, com­plete with a “YOU ARE HERE” indi­ca­tor. I’m not sure whether this is the best marker I’ve seen on the sub­ject of the Monitor and the Merrimack or whether I’m just get­ting famil­iar enough with this impor­tant event in local his­tory that my brain is able to fill in the details which would have con­fused me by their omis­sion (since a marker has lim­ited space, there are ALWAYS omissions!).

And I’m glad that, more than two and a half weeks after this trip to Norfolk, I have finally fin­ished blog­ging about the mark­ers I found that day (when I really hadn’t intended to make it a snar­fari). Tomorrow, we move on to July 4th (one day later) and an inten­tional snar­fari. We’ll start with a cou­ple of mark­ers from the drive to Yorktown and, some­time soon, I’ll have to fig­ure out how to post the mark­ers I found along the Colonial Parkway and at Historic Jamestowne. After all that, I have a few mark­ers and sites from around Virginia Beach, and after that, it will be snarfs from this week and the future. Thanks for read­ing, and feel free to leave a com­ment on any­thing you see here.

Cannonball Trail
Armed Forces Memorial

Location: West end of Town Point Park beside Elizabeth River, Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: July 3, 2009, 2:25pm

Transcription of marker:

The Armed Forces Memorial is located here on a river that has for more than 200 years car­ried ser­vice­men off to war and returned them home to loved ones. Within the Memorial are 20 inscrip­tions from let­ters writ­ten home by U.S. ser­vice mem­bers who lost their lives in war. The let­ters have been cast in thin sheets of bronze and are scat­tered across the Memorial as if blown there by the wind. From the Revolutionary War through the Gulf War each con­flict is represented.

Revolutionary War 1775 – 1783 • War of 1812 1812 – 1815 • Civil War 1861 – 1865 • World War I 1917 – 1918
World War II 1941 – 1945 • Korean War 1950 – 1953 • Vietnam 1962 – 1975 • Gulf War 1990 – 1991

Caution: The Memorial con­tains bronze let­ters pro­trud­ing from the walk. Please watch your step and show appro­pri­ate respect. Adults should accom­pany chil­dren, and no pets please.

Examples of bronze letters

My impres­sions: This is quite the unique mon­u­ment and it is very touch­ing. There is some­thing about let­ters between peo­ple who know each other. And I’m not sure it has trans­lated as well into the e-mail and instant mes­sag­ing age. Reading these let­ters feels quite inti­mate, and that we are get­ting to hear from these peo­ple as they really were.

I also have to admit to some sur­prise that the Memorial, with its curls of bronze “paper” on the ground was ever approved. It seems that so eas­ily some­body could trip and fall (though I believe there is ample space around them for wheelchair/walker access). I won­der if the fact that it’s sur­rounded by water on two sides (and there­fore is not a “con­ve­nient short-cut” to any­where, as well as only hav­ing two entrances in the brick wall that sur­rounds the memo­r­ial helped.

I am glad that it is there, because I think it ful­fills excel­lently its func­tion of help­ing us to remem­ber the sac­ri­fices made by those who have served and those who were left behind by fam­ily mem­bers who served their coun­try (and those who could not return).

Markeroni sta­tus: Direct-logged.

And now, the last of the USS Wisconsin mark­ers. After this post, the blog’s going to take a day or two off. Next week, I should fin­ish post­ing the Town Point Park pho­tos and move on to the mark­ers my wife and I found on the Fourth of July. I also hope to write another essay post which will likely appear Sunday or Monday on this blog. Have a great week­end, everybody!

Cannonball Trail
Battleship Wisconsin: Berthed in Norfolk, the Homeport of Naval History

Location: Foot of Plume St, Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: July 3, 2009, 2:20pm

Transcription of marker: Redefining the sky­line of down­town Norfolk, bat­tle­ship Wisconsin stands sto­ically with dom­i­nat­ing pres­ence. After months of dredg­ing and con­struc­tion, Wisconsin majes­ti­cally slipped into the seem­ingly tai­lored berth with­out a hitch on 7 December 2000 – fifty-seven years after the war­ship was orig­i­nally launched. Berthing the 45,000 ton, 887.3 foot long and 108 foot wide bat­tle­ship was a major feat of engi­neer­ing. The waters of the Elizabeth River around Nauticus are extremely shal­low for the 37 foot deep draft of Wisconsin. Varying tidal and weather con­di­tions fur­ther com­pli­cated the berthing facil­ity design. Working in con­junc­tion with City of Norfolk and U.S. Navy plan­ners, archi­tects from the Norfolk-based firm Glenn & Sadler designed the chan­nel and berthing facil­ity next to Nauticus. Chained securely for hur­ri­cane force winds, Wisconsin presently floats on the water at an aver­age of two to four feet above the bot­tom. This marker made pos­si­ble by a gift from Glenn & Sadler, a Division of Transystems Corporation.

My impres­sions: I’m a lit­tle under­whelmed by this marker. Rather than the his­tory of the ship, it focuses on how it came to be where it is, but doesn’t draw fur­ther back than a decade. It is also the last sen­tence that both­ers me. This is the only Cannonball Trail sign I’ve seen to date that includes a spon­sor­ship mes­sage. I might be OK with it, were the com­pany donat­ing it not also men­tioned in the marker text. It almost makes me won­der whether the first men­tion of Glenn & Sadler was war­ranted or a mat­ter of reward­ing a donor in some way. I mean, I’ve never heard of Glenn & Sadler other than from this marker, but there is a per­cep­tion prob­lem, I think, when one rec­og­nizes a con­tri­bu­tion made by some­body who spon­sors the marker (and, pre­sum­ably in this case, requires their name to be rec­og­nized as a spon­sor). It dimin­ishes the cred­i­bil­ity of the marker text and makes me less inclined to trust it with­out fur­ther research.

Setting that aside, the pres­ence of Wisconsin on the water­front is another of those things that indi­cate that I’m not a long-timer here. Even though it’s been there less than a decade, it is another of those things (like Town Point Park) which define down­town Norfolk in my mind.

Markeroni sta­tus: Direct-logged.

Cannonball Trail
Battleship Wisconsin: A Floating Fortress

Location: Foot of Plume St, Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: July 3, 2009, 2:20pm

Transcription of marker:

Battleship Wisconsin and the sister-ships of the Iowa Class arguably hold a sym­bolic sta­tus as mon­u­ments in naval sur­face war­ship design. Unlike tor­pedo boats, tin-can destroy­ers, flat-top air­craft car­ri­ers, and pig-boat sub­marines, the teak decks and tow­er­ing masts of Wisconsin have per­ceiv­able design con­nec­tions to a bygone era of romance, glory, and naval lore. In the great Nelsonian line-of-battle tra­di­tion, the Wisconsin sil­hou­ette fea­tures vis­i­ble ele­ments of armored big-gun fire­power and ele­gant lines.

Formally placed into U.S. Navy com­mis­sion on 16 April 1944, the blue­jack­ets and offi­cers of Wisconsin shared a com­mon and unique bond as bat­tle­ship sailors-serving aboard a ves­sel that was dis­tinc­tively impor­tant to the fleet. Following cen­turies of naval tra­di­tion and sur­face war­ship devel­op­ment, Wisconsin is for­mi­da­bly armed with a main bat­tery of three 16″/50 gun tur­rets and a sec­ondary bat­tery of five duo-purpose 5″/38 gun mounts. Accommodating var­i­ous types of air­craft, the decks of the Wisconsin once bris­tled with numer­ous anti­air­craft gun mounts in World War II, the Korean War, and through­out the Cold War. During the Persian Gulf War, the Wisconsin crew coor­di­nated the first Tomahawk mis­sile strikes against Iraq using con­tem­po­rary com­mu­ni­ca­tions and intel­li­gence gath­er­ing equipment.

My impres­sions: This marker does a good job of plac­ing the Wisconsin in con­text for peo­ple, like me, who don’t know all that much about war­ships and their his­tory or design. That said, I won­der if this is “too much of a good thing,” hav­ing three mark­ers of the same series beside the USS Wisconsin. I guess it helps keep one walk­ing along the Cannonball Trail, but three mark­ers so close to each other on one ship…some of this felt rep­e­ti­tious after the marker I posted last night…and we still haven’t got­ten to the third marker; that will come later tonight.

Markeroni sta­tus: Direct-logged.

This is the first of three mark­ers related to the Battleship Wisconsin all found along­side the ship beside Nauticus on the Norfolk water­front. The remain­ing two Wisconsin mark­ers will appear on the blog tomorrow.

Cannonball Trail
Battleship Wisconsin: BB-9 and BB-64 in the Homeport of Naval History

Location: Alongside the USS Wisconsin, at the foot of Plume St, next to Nauticus, Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: July 3, 2009, 2:15pm

Transcription of marker:

Battleships bear­ing the name Wisconsin have graced the waters off Norfolk and Hampton Roads since the begin­ning of the twen­ti­eth cen­tury. Ornately designed to show-off the “Stars and Stripes” of the United States, the first bat­tle­ship Wisconsin (BB-9) was com­mis­sioned in 1901. John Philip Souza and the United States Marine Corps Band once per­formed patri­otic marches from the wooden decks of the first Wisconsin. In 1906, President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt trav­eled to Norfolk with many other Americans to bid farewell to the first Wisconsin sail­ing on a two year voy­age around the world with the famed “Great White Fleet.” Serving pri­mar­ily as a Midshipman train­ing ship dur­ing World War I, the first Wisconsin was scrapped in 1922.

During World War II, the sec­ond bat­tle­ship Wisconsin (BB-64) was com­mis­sioned under the com­mand of U.S. Navy Captain Earl E. Stone. Born in the “Badger State” of Wisconsin, Stone ear­lier served as a Naval Academy Midshipman aboard the first bat­tle­ship Wisconsin (BB-9). Surviving the Imperial Japanese strikes at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, Stone had a key role in orga­niz­ing the war-winning com­mu­ni­ca­tions intel­li­gence efforts of the U.S. Navy. For a job well done, he received the highly cov­eted appoint­ment to com­mand the sec­ond bat­tle­ship Wisconsin (BB-64) in the spring 1944.

Sailing into the embat­tled waters of the Pacific, the crew of the sec­ond bat­tle­ship Wisconsin earned five bat­tle stars dur­ing World War II. Home-ported at Pier 7 on Norfolk Naval Base, the sec­ond Wisconsin earned another bat­tle star in the Korean War and, sim­i­lar to the first Wisconsin (BB-9), served pri­mar­ily as a Midshipman train­ing ship dur­ing the Cold War. During the Persian Gulf War, the crew of Wisconsin (BB-64) coor­di­nated the first Tomahawk mis­sile strikes against Iraq.

My impres­sions: One of my first trips around the area after I moved down here was to go to see USS Wisconsin. It is cer­tainly an impres­sive sight to walk down the street and all of a sud­den see it once you’ve walked through the gates in front of it. And it is inter­est­ing how they wove together the his­tory of the two Wisconsins on this marker (though the repeated spec­i­fi­ca­tions of BB-9 and BB-64 through the text grew tire­some, espe­cially since the descrip­tions of first or sec­ond Wisconsin were quite clear already).

Markeroni sta­tus: Direct-logged.

Cannonball Trail
Flood Protection for Downtown Norfolk

Location: City Hall Ave & Boush St, Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: July 3, 2009, 2:15pm

Transcription of marker: Tidal flood­ing from hur­ri­canes and north­east­ers has always been a part of Norfolk’s rela­tion­ship with the sea. In 1693, the Royal Society of London reported that “there hap­pened a most vio­lent storm in Virginia, which stopped the course of ancient chan­nels and made some where there were never any.” Hurricanes in 1749 and 1806 formed the Willoughby Spit sec­tion of Ocean View, and a hur­ri­cane in August 1933 killed 18 peo­ple. In March 1962, the City was struck by the “Ash Wednesday Storm,” a mas­sive, slow-moving north­easter which caused wide­spread destruc­tion along the entire east coast. By the early 1970’s, per­ma­nent flood pro­tec­tion for down­town was constructed.

This storm water pump sta­tion and the adja­cent flood­walls pro­tect the low-lying areas of down­town from tidal flood­ing. Large steel doors at var­i­ous points allow pas­sage through the wall, but are peri­od­i­cally closed when tidal flood­ing is antic­i­pated. Beneath City Hall Avenue, which was once a canal, is a large box cul­vert that col­lects storm water runoff from the down­town area. The box cul­vert car­ries storm water to a “sump” or pit beneath the pump sta­tion, where trash and debris are removed before pump­ing the water into the river.

My impres­sions: Having grown up in a town along a river, but with a great deal of ele­va­tion change beside the river, it is unusual for me to con­sider flood­ing, and given where I lived, hur­ri­canes are also phe­nom­ena only expe­ri­enced via the crazy news reporters who ride out the storms and broad­cast on the news chan­nels. I also remem­ber the flood­ing from one of my early vis­its to Norfolk, where a walk­ing path along the river was under a cou­ple of feet of water from “run-of-the-mill” flooding.

It’s also unusual to think of the weather “cre­at­ing land,” like Willoughby Spit. But these are things that the peo­ple here have lived with.

Markeroni sta­tus: Direct-logged.

Cannonball Trail
Monticello Hotel, 1898

Location: Corner of City Hall Ave & Granby St, Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: July 3, 2009, 2:10pm

Transcription of marker: The Monticello Hotel, which opened at the cor­ner of City Hall Avenue and Granby Street on September 27, 1898, was the largest and finest hotel in Norfolk for over 60 years. By 1885 Town Back Creek had been filled to Granby Street. Construction of the hotel spurred addi­tional devel­op­ment along the new City Hall Avenue. The hotel suf­fered a dev­as­tat­ing fire on January 1, 1918. In addi­tion to the flames, fire fight­ers had to deal with bit­ter cold and ice. When it reopened in 1919, two addi­tional floors had been added, includ­ing a large din­ing room and horseshoe-shaped ball­room known in later years as the Starlight Room. This became a favored loca­tion for balls, dances, and com­mu­nity events. The grandly appointed mahogany bar dou­bled as a bil­liards par­lor dur­ing Prohibition. During the 1933 hur­ri­cane, the hotel and a broad area of down­town suf­fered con­sid­er­able flood dam­age. The Monticello Hotel was the first build­ing in Norfolk to be imploded in January 1976 to make way for the Norfolk Federal Building now on this site.

My impres­sions: Well, we have quite the ele­men­tal story here: fire, ice, wind, flood­ing, and implo­sion! I love some ways of gloss­ing past some­thing. When they say the “bar dou­bled as a bil­liards par­lor dur­ing Prohibition,” that seems to me to be a sly way of say­ing tha the bar had a bil­liards par­lor cover, but you could still get your drinks. I could be wrong, but that’s how it reads to me. This is also one of those times I’m glad I’m young, because no event described on this marker took place after my birth (although I’m not sure when the con­struc­tion of the fed­eral build­ing was completed).

Markeroni sta­tus: Direct-logged.

Cannonball Trail
Margaret Douglass

Location: City Hall Ave, between Monticello Ave and Granby St, Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: July 3, 2009, 2:10pm

Transcription of marker: Margaret Douglass, a white woman from Charleston, South Carolina, moved to Norfolk with her daugh­ter Rosa in 1845 and lived near here on the for­mer Barraud Court. She was a vest maker by occu­pa­tion. In June 1852 she and her daugh­ter opened a school in the sec­ond story back room of her house to teach 25 free black chil­dren, both boys and girls, how to read and write. Tuition was three dol­lars a quar­ter. After she was seen walk­ing in the funeral pro­ces­sion of one of her deceased stu­dents, her school was raided, and she was arrested. She argued her own case in court, point­ing out that the wives and daugh­ters of sev­eral court offi­cials taught black chil­dren weekly in Sunday School classes at Christ Church from the same books she used. After being found guilty, she served a month in jail. Later she moved to Philadelphia with her daugh­ter and gained con­sid­er­able noto­ri­ety based on her book­let about her expe­ri­ence in Norfolk that was pub­lished in 1854.

My impres­sions: In order not to get com­pletely wound up about how wrong the world was at that point, I’m just going to thank the city of Norfolk for hav­ing the hon­esty to place a marker to recall a shame­ful part of its history.

Markeroni sta­tus: Direct-logged.

Three mark­ers today, all from the very short block of City Hall Avenue between Monticello Avenue and Granby Street.

Cannonball Trail
Town Back Creek and Stone Bridge

Location: City Hall Ave & Monticello Ave, Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: July 3, 2009, 2:05pm

Transcription of marker: Town Back Creek, extend­ing east­wardly from the Elizabeth River almost to St. Paul’s Church, was the north­ern end of the orig­i­nal town of Norfolk. By the early 1800’s new res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment had occurred north of the creek. Two early foot­bridges con­nected this newer area to the old town, one at Catherine (now Bank) Street in 1798 and one at Granby Street in 1801. In 1818 – 1819 the one at Granby Street was replaced by Stone Bridge. It was built by William H. Jennings  and was dis­tin­guished by an arched rise at its cen­ter. The bridge remained a local land­mark until 1884 when fill­ing of Town Back Creek to Granby Street was com­pleted. City Hall Avenue was devel­oped in 1885 as a grand boule­vard from the City Hall (now MacArthur Memorial) to Granby Street. Most of the remain­der of Town Back Creek was filled by 1905 and City Hall Avenue was extended west­ward. Major con­struc­tion at this cor­ner included the Monticello Hotel in 1898 and the Royster Building in 1912.

My impres­sions: Coming into a new place, it is quite hard to think of an urban down­town area as ever hav­ing been any­thing else. In most cases, very few traces of that ear­lier time remain, other than a river or rail­road that may run through or past the city. Today, I would not have known that bridges were once needed in what is now down­town Norfolk. Always inter­est­ing to see those mark­ers which are reminders of things we can’t see today.

Markeroni sta­tus: Direct-logged.

This marker is one of those mark­ers which is either a state or city his­tor­i­cal marker. It was listed in pre­vi­ous edi­tions of the Virginia state marker guide­book, but it has a city of Norfolk seal instead of the state seal and doesn’t indi­cate a state body at the bottom.

Municipal Historical Marker
Tripoli Street

Location: Monticello Ave & Tazewell St, Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: July 3, 2009, 2:00pm

Transcription of marker: Monticello Avenue, south of Market Street was for­merly Tripoli Street. It was named in hon­our of Commodore Stephen Decatur’s vic­tory over the Barbary pirates, after he had requested that his own name should not be used.

My impres­sions: This one’s short and sweet. I appre­ci­ate the cor­rect (ahem) spelling of hon­our on the marker. I also note that this is not the first time we’ve come across Commodore Decatur: the last time was across the river on the marker for Trinity Church, Portsmouth, where he is men­tioned as a par­tic­i­pant in a cel­e­brated duel with Commodore James Barron (who is buried there).

A quick trip to Wikipedia tells me that Barron chal­lenged Decatur to the duel over com­ments Decatur had made about Barron’s con­duct more than a decade ear­lier. (Decatur served on the court-martial that found Barron guilty of unpre­pared­ness and barred him from com­mand for five years.) And the rea­son I haven’t found any mark­ers that elab­o­rate on the duel is because it’s not really a part of local his­tory: the duel took place in Maryland. But this is get­ting afield from this marker, so I’ll leave off here.

One other inter­est­ing wrin­kle on this one…My cam­era was the big help on this snarf…Because of road con­struc­tion on Monticello Ave, I would not have been eas­ily able to cross the road to get to this marker. (Zoom lenses can be won­der­ful things.)

Markeroni sta­tus: Logged.

Update (7/16): After some dis­cus­sion, I’ve decided to con­sider these mark­ers as city mark­ers, so have changed the head­ing and cat­e­gory tag to match that. As there are not enough of these City of Norfolk mark­ers out­side the Cannonball Trail series to form a list, I have included them in the par­ent cat­e­gory “Municipal Historical Markers.”