Markers of History

State Historical Marker
Virginia Q-8-r
Home Site of William Crawford (d. 1762) Founder of Portsmouth

Location: In the median of High St (between Water St & Crawford St), Portsmouth VA 23704.

Visited: June 1, 2009, 1:20pm

Transcription of marker: Here stood the res­i­dence of William Crawford who in 1752 founded the town of Portsmouth on sixty-five acres of his exten­sive plan­ta­tion lands. The house site extended south on Crawford Street 113 feet, and east on High Street to the Elizabeth River. Crawford was pre­sid­ing jus­tice of the Norfolk Cy. court, Lt.-Colonel of the county mili­tia, a wealthy mer­chant and planter.

Virginia Historic Landmark Commission 1975

My impres­sions: This one leaves me with some questions…Why did he found the town? What about that first sen­tence: did he found the town on 65 acres of land or did his res­i­dence stand on 65 acres? And I also note that this is the first state marker I’ve snarfed that’s old enough to say some­thing other than “Department of Historic Resources” at the bot­tom. I found a num­ber of dif­fer­ent labels on the mark­ers I snarfed today, and I’ll try to men­tion each new one as it appears on the blog.

Notes for future snar­fers: Don’t for­get the marker for John Luke Porter, on the same median.

Markeroni sta­tus: This one is not yet sub­mit­ted. It doesn’t appear on the list on the Markeroni site and “Norfolk Naval Shipyard” is listed as Q-8-r. I’ll sub­mit a help request when the whelm level is lower.

Note: Lightship Portsmouth has two mark­ers for the Path of History and a des­ig­na­tion as a National Historic Landmark. This is the sec­ond of three posts that will appear here, one for each snarf.

It is not clear to me whether or not there’s an intended order to the two Path of History mark­ers for the Lightship Portsmouth, so I’m blog­ging about them in the order that I came upon them.

Path of History
Lightship Portsmouth

Location: Alongside the Lightship Portsmouth, at the Water St end of London St, Portsmouth, VA 23704.

Visited: June 1, 2009, 1:10pm

Transcription of marker:

Lightship Portsmouth
101-WAL524

Lightships and the City of Portsmouth go back to the begin­ning of light­ship duty in this coun­try in 1820. The first light­ship was estab­lished off Craney Island at the mouth of the Elizabeth River. Working light­ships were con­stant vis­i­tors on the Portsmouth water­front at the buoy yard until 1966, when the last light­ships were dis­con­tin­ued in the dis­trict. At this time Lightship #101 was brought back to Portsmouth to become a per­ma­nent fix­ture on the water­front. It was to be a trib­ute to the light­ship ser­vice and to her own first home port. The cus­tom was for the light­ship ves­sels to take the name of the sta­tion where they were stand­ing duty. Thus, she was renamed Portsmouth.

In 1967 the City of Portsmouth placed this ves­sel on the water­front and opened it as a museum. In 1989 LIGHTSHIP PORTSMOUTH was des­ig­nated a National Historic Landmark.

My impres­sions: This one makes a bet­ter marker, in my view, for all but the most ded­i­cated his­tory lover. It gives the gen­eral overview of this light­ship and explains inter­est­ing things about why it’s here and how it came to be here.

Notes for future snar­fers: This marker is on the walk­way that con­nects London St to the sea wall along the Elizabeth River. The other Path of History marker is along the sea wall.

Markeroni sta­tus: Awaiting fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the Path of History before sub­mit­ting to Markeroni.

My inner proof­reader is scream­ing at this one. Because I’m 99% sure that they messed up on word choice in the sub­head­ing of this marker from the Path of History and I cringe to see so promi­nent an error on a marker about history.

Path of History
Naval Shipyard Museum

Location: High St & Water St, Portsmouth, VA, 23704 in front of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Museum.

Visited: June 1, 2009, 1:00pm

Transcription of marker:

Naval Shipyard Museum
Formally Norfolk County Ferries Maintenance Building

Constructed in 1919, this build­ing was used as a main­te­nance build­ing for the Norfolk County fer­ries. From 1636 to 1955 the fer­ries pro­vided ser­vice for pas­sen­gers and their var­i­ous modes of trans­porta­tion across the Elizabeth River between Norfolk and Portsmouth. The fer­ries were dis­con­tin­ued in 1955, but were re-established in 1983 for pas­sen­ger trans­porta­tion only. The build­ing has been home to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Museum since 1963, when the orig­i­nal museum was moved from inside the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. The museum researches, pre­serves and pro­motes the his­tory of the City of Portsmouth, Norfolk Naval Shipyard and the armed forces in Hampton Roads.

My impres­sions: HIRE A PROOFREADER!!! (Sorry, was I yelling?) I mean, there’s a minis­cule chance that the build­ing is “offi­cially named” based on its prior func­tion, but I do want to assume that 99% chance that it’s the wrong word, take some white-out and change the word to Formerly. But since I’d pre­fer not to be arrested, I’ll restrain myself.

There’s a lot of over­lap with the ferry marker I vis­ited in Norfolk ear­lier in the day, of course, because the for­mer func­tion of the build­ing relates to the same ferries.

Notes for future snar­fers: This is very close to the High Street ferry land­ing. Note that there are two other mark­ers in front of the museum: one for the Blue Star Memorial By-Way (right next to this one, in front of the museum) and another for the Revolutionary War at Portsmouth (fac­ing Water St, par­al­lel to the side of the museum).

Markeroni sta­tus: Awaiting fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the Path of History before sub­mit­ting to Markeroni.

One meta note: Having filled up the front page with plenty more left to come, I’m going to slow down the pace of post­ing, so you’ll hope­fully see two or three posts per day, until I catch up with all the sights I saw yes­ter­day, so come back tomor­row for more marker fun!

Welcome to those of you who vis­ited Markers of History yes­ter­day and found our looks at the marker and statue of Grace Sherwood, after read­ing a Virginian-Pilot col­umn yes­ter­day which men­tioned the statue.

This marker was a “bonus” one for me. I had planned a trip yes­ter­day to snarf three his­tor­i­cal mark­ers I’d seen in Portsmouth (when we were car-pooling with oth­ers for din­ner and I didn’t have the cam­era with me), plus what­ever else I found. I hadn’t expected to find a marker before I reached Portsmouth, though!

Cannonball Trail
Ferries to Portsmouth and Berkley

Location: Between Waterside Dr and the Elizabeth River near the ferry dock, Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: June 1, 2009, 12:35pm

Transcription of marker: According to tra­di­tion, ferry ser­vice across the Elizabeth River was first estab­lished near this loca­tion in 1636 by Captain Adam Thoroughgood and oper­ated by Lower Norfolk County. The ear­li­est fer­ries were sim­ply skiffs rowed by men. Later larger pad­dle wheel ves­sels were pro­pelled by horses or mules on tread­mills. In 1715, Major Samuel Boush was run­ning two fer­ries for an annual fee of three thou­sand pounds of tobacco. The first steam ferry to serve Norfolk and Portsmouth was the “Gosport,” built in Portsmouth and out­fit­ted in Philadelphia. Her first run was in 1832. The cross­ing time was reduced to five min­utes. In 1840, the pas­sen­ger fare was three cents. With the advent of the auto­mo­bile, fer­ries were redesigned to han­dle cars and trucks. Even though the Downtown Tunnel opened in May 1952, vehic­u­lar fer­ries con­tin­ued to cross the Elizabeth River between Norfolk and Portsmouth until the end of August 1955. The present Norfolk-Portsmouth pas­sen­ger fer­ries, rein­stated in 1983, con­tinue a tra­di­tion of more than three centuries.

My impres­sions: Ever since my first visit to this area, I’ve loved the area behind The Waterside, as well as Town Point Park (which I hope will soon be reopened after the con­struc­tion project which has had it fenced off for the last ser­val months). Yesterday was a per­fect day for a trip on the ferry, with tem­per­a­tures in the low-to-mid 70s, with a nice breeze off the river. The ferry trip is one of my favorite ways to get out and relax in the area.

Markeroni sta­tus: This marker is await­ing inclu­sion in the Markeroni database.

Update (6/7): This marker was included in the Markeroni data­base yes­ter­day and I logged my visit this morning.