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.

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.