Markers of History

Taking it easy for the week­end, so only one post today…tomorrow, I’ll start post­ing some of the mark­ers I found in Norfolk when I was there for the re-opening of Town Point Park and the first day of Harborfest ear­lier this month.

Wildcard Markers
History of Thalia

Location: Thalia Station Dr, just S of Virginia Beach Blvd, Virginia Beach, VA 23452

Visited: June 27, 2009, 7:25pm

Transcription of marker:

HISTORY OF THALIA

The word “Thalia” is derived from the Greek “thallein”, mean­ing to flour­ish and bloom. The com­mu­nity of Thalia is gen­er­ally bounded on the west by Thalia Creek, on the east by Lynn Shores Road, on the north by the Eastern Branch of the Lynnhaven River and on the south by the Virginia Beach-Norfolk Expressway. Thalia is a part of the Edward H. Mosley estate known as “Summerville Plantation”, and appears in the offi­cial deed of record book at the Princess Anne County (now Virginia Beach) Courthouse dated 1807. Thalia was a sched­uled stop for the Norfolk, Albemarle and Atlantic Railroad. During World War II, Camp Ashby, (aka Camp Thalia) the German Prisoner of War Camp, was located on what is now the site of The City of Virginia Beach Central Library and the prop­erty adjoin­ing it.

AUNT PENNY’S PARK

This pri­vate park is to honor John J. and Paula L. “Aunt Penny” Collins for their unique con­tri­bu­tions to the com­mu­nity of Thalia. They estab­lished one of the very first com­mer­cial busi­nesses in Thalia, pre-1950. Their “Cabins-in-the-Pines”, at 4145 Virginia Beach Blvd., encom­passed a restau­rant, tourist court, hard­ware store and an Amoco gas sta­tion They were devoted to the com­mu­nity of Thalia and gave unselfishly of their time in pub­lic ser­vice. Among other con­tri­bu­tions, they played a lead­ing role in estab­lish­ing the first all-volunteer fire depart­ment in the City of Virginia Beach (for­merly Princess Anne County) at Thalia in 1952. In 1990, Aunt Penny real­ized her life­time dream with the devel­op­ment of Collins Square Shopping Center.

My impres­sions: I’m not sure I recall ever see­ing a marker like this one before. Superficially, the col­or­ing reminds me of the plaques for Canadian national his­toric sites, but I’m intrigued by what would lead this marker to be placed. I’m guess­ing (and I could quite eas­ily be wrong) that it was either “Aunt Penny” or her fam­ily who placed this marker. And so it’s one that I would take with a grain of salt.  Not only because there wasn’t likely, say, the sort of review pro­cees a state marker or one placed by a city would have, but also because there are some def­i­nite leaps to hyper­bole or mar­ket­ing. The last sen­tence, espe­cially with­out any expla­na­tion of what her “life­time dream” actu­ally was and how the shop­ping cen­ter devel­op­ment real­ized it…over the top.

But putting all that aside, I did learn some things about Thalia…I didn’t know there had been a rail­way sta­tion or a POW camp there and the vol­un­teer fire depart­ment infor­ma­tion was neat to see. Most of all, it was nice to see some pri­vate recog­ni­tion of his­tory in a place that appears turned over to strip malls, traf­fic, and devel­op­ment. The char­ac­ter of the area may have changed, but the marker is a reminder of ear­lier days. I just hope that, if the com­plex ever gets taken over by new own­ers that the pub­lic and vis­i­ble reminder of the area’s his­tory will remain.

Markeroni sta­tus: Logged.

National Register of Historic Places
Francis Land House

Location: 3133 Virginia Beach Blvd, Virginia Beach, VA 23452

Visited: June 22, 2009, 5:20pm

Transcription of markers:

Marker #1:

The Francis Land
House
has been reg­is­tered as a
Virginia
Historic
Landmark
pur­suant to the author­ity vested in the
Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission
Act of 1966.

Marker #2:

Francis Land House
circa 1732
Placed on the
National Register
of
Historic Landmarks
1975

Marker #3:

The Francis Land House
circa 1732
Marked by
Princess Anne County Chapter
NSDAR

Bicentennial project
Nov. 13, 1976

My impres­sions: This is a very quiet, peace­ful place next to the loud and busy Virginia Beach Blvd. One of the things that stuck in my head, as some­body who has only quite recently come to this area and knows the Boulevard as quite a built-up place, is how quiet the area around the Francis Land House was when it was built. While I think very lit­tle of step­ping onto a bus and arriv­ing in down­town Norfolk a few min­utes  later, that trip would have taken days in the 18th cen­tury! A very good job has been done of devel­op­ing the area in such a way that the peace­ful­ness of these his­toric grounds are main­tained and there is lit­tle vis­i­ble sign of more recent devel­op­ment, which is actu­ally close to the grounds.

On a per­sonal note, this place is also spe­cial to me, because the only other time I had been here, I was with my par­ents and my then-fiancée the day before our wed­ding. (So it was nice to go there un-chaperoned! wink)

It was also nice to log a quick snarf on the way home from sup­per, on the spur of the moment, espe­cially since my wife and I have both been feel­ing under the weather for the past sev­eral days.

Markeroni sta­tus: This was the first time I man­aged to log a snarf while Markeroni con­sid­ered it the same day (since Markeroni lives in UTC, so its day ends in early evening).

While stopped to snarf the state his­tor­i­cal marker for Grace Sherwood, we also stopped to look at this statue, acces­si­ble from the same park­ing lot.

Location: Alongside Witchduck Rd, in front of Sentara Bayside Hospital at the inter­sec­tion of Independence Blvd, Virginia Beach, VA 23455.

Visited: May 19, 2009, 7:10pm

Description: A statue of Grace Sherwood with a small ani­mal. I’d like to do some fur­ther research into the ani­mal and its inclu­sion and how that relates to Sherwood’s story.

The statue sits on a base and there are four plaques, one on each side of the base: I’ll go through each, begin­ning with the side clos­est to Witchduck Rd and pro­ceed­ing counter-clockwise around the statue.

Plaque #1
Letter from Governor Kaine

[Virginia state seal]

Timothy M. Kaine
Governor

Ms. Belinda Nash

Dear Ms. Nash:

I am pleased to join the mayor of Virginia Beach in extend­ing best wishes as you work to pro­mote jus­tice in the 1706 “witch duck­ing” case of Grace Sherwood.

With 300 years of hind­sight, we all cer­tainly can agree that trial by water is an injus­tice. We also can cel­e­brate the fact women’s equal­ity is that a con­sti­tu­tion­ally pro­tected today, and women have the free­dom to pur­sue their hopes and dreams.

The his­tor­i­cal records that sur­vive indi­cate that Ms. Sherwood, a mid­wife and wid­owed mother of three, sur­vived her “trial by water” in 1706. Those records also indi­cate that one of my pre­de­ces­sors, Governor Alexander Spotswood, even­tu­ally helped her reclaim her prop­erty. The record also indi­cates Ms. Sherwood led an oth­er­wise quiet and law-abiding life until she died at age 80.

Today, July 10, 2006, as 70th Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, I am pleased to offi­cially restore the good name of Grace Sherwood.

Sincerely,

[signed]
Timothy M. Kaine

Patrick Henry Building, 1111 East Broad Street, Richmond, Virginia 23219
(804) 786‑2211, TTY (800) 828‑1120
www.governor.virginia.gov

Plaque #2

Grace White Sherwood
Born 1660 Died 1740
Married April 1680 to James Sherwood
James died 1701
Survived by sons,
John, James, and Richard

Sentara Healthcare

has gra­ciously pro­vided this site in
recog­ni­tion of their com­mu­nity, and
the his­tory that sur­rounds us.

This 21st day of April 2007

Sculptor
Robert Cunningham

Plaque #3
The Trial of 1706

At Witchduck Point, 10am July 10th 1706 Grace Sherwood, the daugh­ter of a car­pen­ter and the wife of a planter in the County of Princess Anne, was accused by neigh­bors of witch­craft. Grace was tried in the sec­ond Princess Anne County cour­t­house, found guilty, and con­sented to the tra­di­tional trial by water, Grace was tried cross­bound and dropped into water above man’s depth. If she were to sink and drown she was inno­cent and could be buried on holy ground, Grace did float, thus was guilty as the pure water was cast­ing out her evil spirit. She was incar­cer­ated in the local jail just beyond this statue. After her release, Grace paid the back taxes on her prop­erty in 1714, returned to her farm and worked the land until her death at age 80 in the autumn of 1740. Grace Sherwood, Virginia’s only con­victed witch tried by water, she lays claim to Witchduck Road. Her leg­end lives on as “The Infamous Witch of Pungo”

Plaque #4
Major Donors

[not tran­scribed here, but pic­tured below]

My impres­sions: I really like this statue and the plaques around it. I like the way it tack­les an injus­tice, fac­ing up to what hap­pened, while admit­ting that an injus­tice was done. I also found that the texts here human­ized Grace Sherwood far more than the dry state marker a cou­ple of hun­dred feet away. It’s mark­ers like this that make me want to dig around and find more of the real story behind them.

Notes for future snar­fers: This and state marker K 276 are both acces­si­ble from the Bayside hos­pi­tal park­ing lot.

Where do I go from here: I’m off to fig­ure out how to log this. I’m pretty sure it’s a wild­card (a site not on Markeroni’s exist­ing lists), but I’m not sure whether I should be log­ging the whole thing as one, or whether I’d log plaques #1 and #3 sep­a­rately (#2 doesn’t appear to me to qual­ify and #4 def­i­nitely doesn’t).

So I’ll have some ques­tions for Markeroons more expe­ri­enced in the ways of Markeroni than I, and I’ll report back here when all is prop­erly decided and logged.

Update (6/2): Yesterday, The Virginian-Pilot pub­lished a brief arti­cle by Kathy Adams about the name Witchduck Road which men­tions Grace Sherwood’s story, as well as the statue described above.

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.