Markers of History

State Historical Markers
Virginia Q-8-Q
Arnold’s British Defenses, 1781

Location: Crawford Pkwy, west of Court Street, Portsmouth, VA 23704

Visited: June 23, 2009, 1:45pm

Transcription of marker: A brick wind­mill near here was close to the south­ern limit of a line of British redoubts erected in March 1781 by order of Brigadier General Benedict Arnold, who under Major General William Phillips, com­manded British troops occu­py­ing Portsmouth. This line of for­ti­fi­ca­tions extended north in an arc along Washington Street to the water­front near Court Street.

Virginia State Library, 1962

My impres­sions: I’m a lit­tle con­fused when I take this marker together with marker num­ber Q-8-P, also titled Arnold’s British Defenses, 1781, which I blogged about on Thursday. I am fairly cer­tain that at least one of these mark­ers is no longer in the loca­tion the marker text assumed, because there is very lit­tle north-south dif­fer­ence between their loca­tions, only the width of Crawford Parkway.

They may both be moved from their orig­i­nal loca­tions, because Q-8-P seems fur­ther east than the arc described in this marker, and the cur­rent marker [Q-8-Q] seems to be too far north, given Q-8-P’s ref­er­ence to Dinwiddie Street.

The other thing that strikes me about this marker is that the low­er­case q in the marker num­ber seems “off” to me. It doesn’t look like a q should look in that type. It looks like some­body was impro­vised with a back­wards p. But that could just be my eyes.

Markeroni sta­tus: Logged.

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.

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.