Markers of History

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.

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.

Our trip away from Town Point Park will wait one more day, as I dis­cov­ered pho­tos of a cou­ple more mark­ers I found before leav­ing the park for lunch.

Cannonball Trail
The Cedar

Location: West end of Town Point Park, near Nauticus museum.

Visited: July 3, 2009, 12:40pm

Transcription of marker: A cedar tree near this loca­tion, then known as Foure Farthing Pointe, was described in the orig­i­nal patent describ­ing the west­ern bound­ary of the 50 acres that com­prised Norfolk Town. In August 1680 John Ferebee, sur­veyor for Lower Norfolk County, was instructed to sur­vey a town site on the Elizabeth River. This was com­pleted in October 1680, but it was not until August 1682 that the county, through its agents Anthony Lawson and William Robinson, bought the town site from Nicholas Wise, a ship­wright. The price was ten thou­sand pounds of tobacco. The sur­veyed town site extended east­ward from this point along Main Street, for­merly Front Street, on a ridge of high land to Dun-in-the-Mire, gen­er­ally where Harbor Park is now located. The other prin­ci­pal road, “the road that lead­eth out of town,” went north from the cur­rent inter­sec­tion of Main Street and St. Paul’s Boulevard. The orig­i­nal town site was laid out with half acre lots for houses and busi­ness. The lots were priced at 100 pounds of tobacco.

My impres­sions: This is a newer look at much of the same his­tory as was found in the Four Farthing or Town Point marker I posted about on Thursday. As some­body attempt­ing to tran­scribe mark­ers, one of the things it high­lights for me is how much eas­ier it is to fully under­stand a marker when it is writ­ten in mixed case. A case in point: it wasn’t until I read this marker that I was sure that I had cor­rectly tran­scribed “Lower Norfolk County” in the pre­vi­ous marker. In the ear­lier marker (writ­ten entirely in cap­i­tal let­ters) there was no way to know if this was just the lower part of Norfolk County or a sep­a­rate juris­dic­tion. It’s also nice to have the map illus­tra­tion on this marker, even though these mark­ers seem less per­ma­nent than those with raised letters.

Markeroni sta­tus: Direct-logged.

Cannonball Trail
Downtown Waterfront Revitalization

Location: East end of Town Point Park, near the inter­sec­tion of Waterside Dr & Martins Ln, Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: July 3, 2009, 11:30am

Transcription of marker: In the 1950s the water­front con­tained an assort­ment of aging facil­i­ties — wharves, ware­houses, rail lines, ship chan­dlers, tug­boat oper­a­tions, and ferry docks. The City of Norfolk made a sig­nif­i­cant deci­sion. An area of down­town along the Elizabeth River should be trans­formed from a work­ing water­front into a pub­lic water­front. As the old was cleared, the new appeared, begin­ning with the pub­lic esplanade and hotel in 1974. The first Harborfest cel­e­bra­tion in 1977 demon­strated that pub­lic attrac­tions could help revi­tal­ize down­town. Town Point Park and the Waterside Festival Marketplace opened in 1983. Nauticus, the National Maritime Center, anchored the west end of the water­front in 1994.

The three can­nons at the head of Otter Berth were found dur­ing the dredg­ing of this part of the water­front in 1982. They are of unknown for­eign ori­gin, but their vin­tage is com­pat­i­ble with the bom­bard­ment of Norfolk on January 1, 1776. Otter Berth is named for HMS Otter, one of Lord Dunmore’s ships that bom­barded Norfolk on January 1, 1776.

My impres­sions: It seems quite fit­ting for me to have seen this marker on the first day of this year’s Harborfest. Nice when coin­ci­dences like that hap­pen. It’s funny that, even though there are stretches of “work­ing water­front” not too far away, I find it impos­si­ble to think about Norfolk with­out its park beside the river. It is my favorite part of Norfolk’s downtown.

Another thing I like is in the last para­graph of the marker, where there is an acknowl­edg­ment that we don’t know every­thing about his­tory, such as the exact ori­gin of the can­nons in the park (which, I have to admit, I don’t recall see­ing). It would have been all to easy to make leaps to a pre­sumed ori­gin for them, and while the marker comes close to that, it acknowl­edges the lack of knowl­edge and allows the reader to make a guess as to the answer.

But most of all, I’m just glad the water­front is there to be enjoyed.

Markeroni sta­tus: Direct-logged.

Path of History
The Elizabeth River

Location: Elizabeth River, at the High St ferry land­ing, Portsmouth, VA 23704

Visited: June 23, 2009, 3:20pm

Transcription of marker: The Elizabeth River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay, runs between the cities of Portsmouth and Norfolk. The river was named “Elizabeth” in honor of Princess Elizabeth Stuart, the eldest daugh­ter of King James I of England.

The river was first called “Chesapeake,” after the tribe of Native Americans who lived on its banks. They were an Algonquin-speaking peo­ple who depended on the land and water for exis­tence. When John Smith explored the east­ern area in 1608, he saw their “golden plots” and other indi­ca­tions of Native American habitation.

My impres­sions: I can get all caught up in the dif­fer­ences between Canadian and American his­tory that I can some­times for­get about the sim­i­lar­i­ties. And as I come to the end of the pho­tos from this trip to Portsmouth (a city with a name that would be at home in England), along a river named for Elizabeth (ditto), and pre­pare to cross back to a city named Norfolk (ditto), this (espe­cially cou­pled with the pho­tos you’ll see in today’s bonus third post) reminded me that we share a lot of his­tory from before our paths diverged.

Markeroni sta­tus: When Path of History data entry is com­plete, I’ll be log­ging this visit on Markeroni.

Markers of History is going to take a hol­i­day week­end off from post­ing, but I didn’t want to leave you high and dry, so we’ll close today with a bumper load of his­tor­i­cal markers.

Path of History
Fort Nelson Park

Location: Fort Nelson Park, cor­ner of Crawford Pkwy & Effingham St, Portsmouth, VA 23704.

Visited: June 23, 2009, 1:55pm

On my last trip to Portsmouth, I came across Fort Nelson Park which con­tained roughly a dozen Path of History mark­ers about Portsmouth Naval Hospital. I’m cross­ing my fin­gers, hop­ing that I man­aged to get all of them. (I’ll have to double-check next time I’m in Portsmouth.)

Given the large num­ber of images and mark­ers included in this post, I will spare the front page of this site and ask you to click the link to see the mark­ers and their texts, but I’ll break with my tra­di­tional order and open this post with:

My impres­sions: I was impressed with the pleas­ant set­ting for these mark­ers. That said, I was dis­ap­pointed (on a hot June day) not to find more shade. Thinking back, I’m won­der­ing what may have stood on that site before the park, which only opened three years ago.

Related to this: See Monday’s post for a state his­tor­i­cal marker about Fort Nelson.

Read the rest of this entry »

A word of expla­na­tion about the blog over the next cou­ple of days.

This post will be the only one today, and it will be fol­lowed tomor­row with a spe­cial history-related (but not historical-marker-related) post. On Thursday, I’ll resume look­ing at mark­ers I found on a recent trip to Portsmouth, VA in a mega-post about Fort Nelson Park, which con­tains roughly a dozen mark­ers from Portsmouth’s Path of History, which I’ll com­bine in one post so we don’t have an entire week or two on the his­tory of the Portsmouth Naval Hospital.

Now on to the marker about Collier’s Raid:

State Historical Marker
Virginia Q-8-G
Collier’s Raid

Location: Crawford Pkwy & Washington St, Portsmouth, VA 23704

Visited: June 23, 2009, 1:55pm

Transcription of marker: A British fleet under Commodore Sir George Collier sailed up the Elizabeth River and shelled Fort Nelson in May 1779, dur­ing the Revolutionary War. A land­ing force of 1,800 infantry­men led by Brig. Gen. Edward Mathew cap­tured the fort on 10 May after a brief resis­tance. The British occu­pied Portsmouth, Gosport, and Norfolk, and burned Suffolk and the Gosport ship­yard. Collier also cap­tured or burned 137 ves­sels in Hampton Roads and dis­man­tled Fort Nelson. The British force then embarked and sailed to New York.

Department of Historic Resources, 1998

My impres­sions: As some­body from out­side the US, from a coun­try that peace­fully moved from colony to coun­try, it takes me aback to think that this was hap­pen­ing in 1779, three years after that “magic” date of 1776. Reading the marker it seems almost ran­dom: the British forces did a lot in this area and then the one cryp­tic sen­tence: The British force then embarked and sailed to New York.

It almost sounds like “Nothing left to destroy here, we might as well move along…want to catch a Broadway show?” This is actu­ally a tan­ta­liz­ing taste to me. That one sen­tence on its own seems so incon­gru­ous that it leaves me want­ing to research what actu­ally hap­pened. WHY did they leave here and sail to New York?

Markeroni sta­tus: Logged.

State Historical Marker
Virginia Q-8K
Elizabeth River

Location: Crawford Pkwy, where the road curves beside the river, Portsmouth, VA 23704.

Visited: June 23, 2009, 1:30pm

Transcription of marker: The Elizabeth River, explored by Captain John Smith in 1608, was named for Princess Elizabeth. Shipbuilding activ­ity began in 1620 when John Wood, a ship­builder, requested a land grant. Many his­toric ships were built at the naval ship­yard here, includ­ing the USS Delaware, first ship dry-docked in America, and CSS Virginia (ex-Merrimac) first iron­clad to engage in battle.

Virginia State Library, 1959

My impres­sions: This feels like a “name-dropper” marker. I guess a river can’t really do any­thing itself, so a marker would have to com­mem­o­rate those who have used it for his­tor­i­cal pur­poses. But it does seem rather empty and lifeless.

Markeroni sta­tus: Logged.

Cannonball Trail
Commercial Place

Location: NW of where Commercial Pl & E Main St meet, Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: June 1, 2009, 2:55pm

Transcription of marker: When a sur­vey was done in 1680 to lay out the town of Norfolk, one of the few streets shown was “the street that lead­eth to the water­side.” The orig­i­nal loca­tion was just to the west of this site. It fanned out from Front (now Main) Street south to the Elizabeth River. As the new town devel­oped, this area became its com­mer­cial hub. When a mar­ket was built here near Front Street in the early 1700’s the area became known as Market Square. At the river’s edge a ferry dock and com­mer­cial wharves devel­oped. About 1900 the name changed again, to Commercial Place. This illus­tra­tion “Old Norfolk Evening” by artist John Morton Barber, recre­ates the south­ern end of Market Square/Commercial Place in 1887. Double-edged steam fer­ries shut­tle back and forth across the Elizabeth River to Berkley and Portsmouth. The English ship Carnarvonshire is being towed into the har­bor to load goods for her voy­age across the Atlantic, and the side-wheel steamer Luray is car­ry­ing pas­sen­gers down­stream toward Town Point.

My impres­sions: I’ve been near this spot before but hadn’t really paid atten­tion to the marker, nor the small strip of green around it in down­town Norfolk. This cir­cle is dom­i­nated by a Confederate mon­u­ment (which I’ll have to snarf at a later date, since my bus came before I could take a photo of it).

Markeroni sta­tus: My visit was logged on Sunday, after the marker was added to the database.