Markers of History

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.