Markers of History

Colonial Parkway mark­ers
Cheatham Annex

Location: Colo­­nial National His­­toric Pkwy, York­­town, VA 23691

Vis­ited: July 4, 2009, 12:05pm

Tran­scrip­­tion of marker: The piers and struc­tures across the water are an exten­sion of the Naval Base at Norfolk. This takes advan­tage of the excel­lent York River deep water chan­nel as did Cornwallis when, in 1781, he chose Yorktown as his base.

My impres­sions: It is about this point where I decided (espe­cially with the dis­tance involved) not to worry too much about mil­i­tary stuff. I mean, the US wouldn’t be stu­pid enough to put some­thing sen­si­tive within site of a tourist attrac­tion that includes sig­nage point­ing out that the mil­i­tary is oper­at­ing there. Besides, how much can you tell from this far away anyway?

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.

This is the first of three mark­ers related to the Battleship Wisconsin all found along­side the ship beside Nauticus on the Norfolk water­front. The remain­ing two Wisconsin mark­ers will appear on the blog tomorrow.

Cannonball Trail
Battleship Wisconsin: BB-9 and BB-64 in the Homeport of Naval History

Location: Alongside the USS Wisconsin, at the foot of Plume St, next to Nauticus, Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: July 3, 2009, 2:15pm

Transcription of marker:

Battleships bear­ing the name Wisconsin have graced the waters off Norfolk and Hampton Roads since the begin­ning of the twen­ti­eth cen­tury. Ornately designed to show-off the “Stars and Stripes” of the United States, the first bat­tle­ship Wisconsin (BB-9) was com­mis­sioned in 1901. John Philip Souza and the United States Marine Corps Band once per­formed patri­otic marches from the wooden decks of the first Wisconsin. In 1906, President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt trav­eled to Norfolk with many other Americans to bid farewell to the first Wisconsin sail­ing on a two year voy­age around the world with the famed “Great White Fleet.” Serving pri­mar­ily as a Midshipman train­ing ship dur­ing World War I, the first Wisconsin was scrapped in 1922.

During World War II, the sec­ond bat­tle­ship Wisconsin (BB-64) was com­mis­sioned under the com­mand of U.S. Navy Captain Earl E. Stone. Born in the “Badger State” of Wisconsin, Stone ear­lier served as a Naval Academy Midshipman aboard the first bat­tle­ship Wisconsin (BB-9). Surviving the Imperial Japanese strikes at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, Stone had a key role in orga­niz­ing the war-winning com­mu­ni­ca­tions intel­li­gence efforts of the U.S. Navy. For a job well done, he received the highly cov­eted appoint­ment to com­mand the sec­ond bat­tle­ship Wisconsin (BB-64) in the spring 1944.

Sailing into the embat­tled waters of the Pacific, the crew of the sec­ond bat­tle­ship Wisconsin earned five bat­tle stars dur­ing World War II. Home-ported at Pier 7 on Norfolk Naval Base, the sec­ond Wisconsin earned another bat­tle star in the Korean War and, sim­i­lar to the first Wisconsin (BB-9), served pri­mar­ily as a Midshipman train­ing ship dur­ing the Cold War. During the Persian Gulf War, the crew of Wisconsin (BB-64) coor­di­nated the first Tomahawk mis­sile strikes against Iraq.

My impres­sions: One of my first trips around the area after I moved down here was to go to see USS Wisconsin. It is cer­tainly an impres­sive sight to walk down the street and all of a sud­den see it once you’ve walked through the gates in front of it. And it is inter­est­ing how they wove together the his­tory of the two Wisconsins on this marker (though the repeated spec­i­fi­ca­tions of BB-9 and BB-64 through the text grew tire­some, espe­cially since the descrip­tions of first or sec­ond Wisconsin were quite clear already).

Markeroni sta­tus: Direct-logged.

Cannonball Trail
Flood Protection for Downtown Norfolk

Location: City Hall Ave & Boush St, Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: July 3, 2009, 2:15pm

Transcription of marker: Tidal flood­ing from hur­ri­canes and north­east­ers has always been a part of Norfolk’s rela­tion­ship with the sea. In 1693, the Royal Society of London reported that “there hap­pened a most vio­lent storm in Virginia, which stopped the course of ancient chan­nels and made some where there were never any.” Hurricanes in 1749 and 1806 formed the Willoughby Spit sec­tion of Ocean View, and a hur­ri­cane in August 1933 killed 18 peo­ple. In March 1962, the City was struck by the “Ash Wednesday Storm,” a mas­sive, slow-moving north­easter which caused wide­spread destruc­tion along the entire east coast. By the early 1970’s, per­ma­nent flood pro­tec­tion for down­town was constructed.

This storm water pump sta­tion and the adja­cent flood­walls pro­tect the low-lying areas of down­town from tidal flood­ing. Large steel doors at var­i­ous points allow pas­sage through the wall, but are peri­od­i­cally closed when tidal flood­ing is antic­i­pated. Beneath City Hall Avenue, which was once a canal, is a large box cul­vert that col­lects storm water runoff from the down­town area. The box cul­vert car­ries storm water to a “sump” or pit beneath the pump sta­tion, where trash and debris are removed before pump­ing the water into the river.

My impres­sions: Having grown up in a town along a river, but with a great deal of ele­va­tion change beside the river, it is unusual for me to con­sider flood­ing, and given where I lived, hur­ri­canes are also phe­nom­ena only expe­ri­enced via the crazy news reporters who ride out the storms and broad­cast on the news chan­nels. I also remem­ber the flood­ing from one of my early vis­its to Norfolk, where a walk­ing path along the river was under a cou­ple of feet of water from “run-of-the-mill” flooding.

It’s also unusual to think of the weather “cre­at­ing land,” like Willoughby Spit. But these are things that the peo­ple here have lived with.

Markeroni sta­tus: Direct-logged.

Cannonball Trail
Monticello Hotel, 1898

Location: Corner of City Hall Ave & Granby St, Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: July 3, 2009, 2:10pm

Transcription of marker: The Monticello Hotel, which opened at the cor­ner of City Hall Avenue and Granby Street on September 27, 1898, was the largest and finest hotel in Norfolk for over 60 years. By 1885 Town Back Creek had been filled to Granby Street. Construction of the hotel spurred addi­tional devel­op­ment along the new City Hall Avenue. The hotel suf­fered a dev­as­tat­ing fire on January 1, 1918. In addi­tion to the flames, fire fight­ers had to deal with bit­ter cold and ice. When it reopened in 1919, two addi­tional floors had been added, includ­ing a large din­ing room and horseshoe-shaped ball­room known in later years as the Starlight Room. This became a favored loca­tion for balls, dances, and com­mu­nity events. The grandly appointed mahogany bar dou­bled as a bil­liards par­lor dur­ing Prohibition. During the 1933 hur­ri­cane, the hotel and a broad area of down­town suf­fered con­sid­er­able flood dam­age. The Monticello Hotel was the first build­ing in Norfolk to be imploded in January 1976 to make way for the Norfolk Federal Building now on this site.

My impres­sions: Well, we have quite the ele­men­tal story here: fire, ice, wind, flood­ing, and implo­sion! I love some ways of gloss­ing past some­thing. When they say the “bar dou­bled as a bil­liards par­lor dur­ing Prohibition,” that seems to me to be a sly way of say­ing tha the bar had a bil­liards par­lor cover, but you could still get your drinks. I could be wrong, but that’s how it reads to me. This is also one of those times I’m glad I’m young, because no event described on this marker took place after my birth (although I’m not sure when the con­struc­tion of the fed­eral build­ing was completed).

Markeroni sta­tus: Direct-logged.

Cannonball Trail
Margaret Douglass

Location: City Hall Ave, between Monticello Ave and Granby St, Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: July 3, 2009, 2:10pm

Transcription of marker: Margaret Douglass, a white woman from Charleston, South Carolina, moved to Norfolk with her daugh­ter Rosa in 1845 and lived near here on the for­mer Barraud Court. She was a vest maker by occu­pa­tion. In June 1852 she and her daugh­ter opened a school in the sec­ond story back room of her house to teach 25 free black chil­dren, both boys and girls, how to read and write. Tuition was three dol­lars a quar­ter. After she was seen walk­ing in the funeral pro­ces­sion of one of her deceased stu­dents, her school was raided, and she was arrested. She argued her own case in court, point­ing out that the wives and daugh­ters of sev­eral court offi­cials taught black chil­dren weekly in Sunday School classes at Christ Church from the same books she used. After being found guilty, she served a month in jail. Later she moved to Philadelphia with her daugh­ter and gained con­sid­er­able noto­ri­ety based on her book­let about her expe­ri­ence in Norfolk that was pub­lished in 1854.

My impres­sions: In order not to get com­pletely wound up about how wrong the world was at that point, I’m just going to thank the city of Norfolk for hav­ing the hon­esty to place a marker to recall a shame­ful part of its history.

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.

Today, I’ll start post­ing mark­ers I found while in and near Town Point Park in Norfolk for the park’s re-opening after con­struc­tion and for the first day of Harborfest. Today’s mark­ers come from the east­ern end of the park, closer to The Waterside build­ing. Tomorrow, I’ll start post­ing other mark­ers I found in down­town Norfolk on my way back from lunch that day, and later in the week the blog will return to Town Point Park.

Cannonball Trail
The Underground Railroad

Location: East end of Town Point Park, near Elizabeth River beside The Waterside build­ing, Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: July 3, 2009, 11:20am

Transcription of marker: After north­ern states began abol­ish­ing slav­ery dur­ing the Revolutionary era, fugi­tives from through­out south­east­ern Virginia and north­east­ern North Carolina started to escape by ship from the Norfolk water­front. With luck and deter­mi­na­tion, many suc­ceeded in enlist­ing the aid of black crew­men work­ing aboard northward-bound ves­sels. Two of the South’s most famous Underground Railroad fugi­tives, George Latimer and Shadrach Minkins, escaped from Norfolk, most likely by sea. A few ship cap­tains were known by local Railroad agents as being sym­pa­thetic to fugi­tives or at least agree­able to trans­port­ing them secretly for a price. Captain William D. Bayliss of the Keziah and Captain Alfred Fountain of the City of Richmond bravely trans­ported run­aways from Norfolk dur­ing the 1850s when local sen­ti­ment against the Underground Railroad was at its high­est. The City of Richmond docked at John Higgins’ wharf, east of the Berkley Bridge. Higgins was a for­mer owner of Shadrach Minkins.

The City of Norfolk was placed on the National Park Service’s Underground Railroad Network to Freedom in 2004.

My impres­sions: The Underground Railroad is quite the story, and I know that I come nowhere near to under­stand­ing it, with what lit­tle knowl­edge I have gained as a kid in small-town Canada. I find it hard to set aside my absolute con­tempt for those who would enslave and exploit and even begin to under­stand how local sen­ti­ment could turn against work­ing for free­dom and how oth­er­wise upstand­ing peo­ple could accept injus­tice that appals me. Intellectually, I know there is more com­plex­ity to the issue of slav­ery but I find it hard to try to really under­stand what hap­pened, because my dis­gust and dis­ap­point­ment make it hard to see any other point of view than the one I hold from my com­fort­able posi­tion in the 21st century.

I do find it sad that the names of “two of the South’s most famous Underground Railroad fugi­tives” are unknown to me. I don’t know whether this is a bit of hyper­bole on the part of those who wrote the text of this marker or a blind spot in the pop­u­lar teach­ing of his­tory. I have my sus­pi­cions, though.

One small tech­ni­cal note, from what I’ve seen, I believe the last sen­tence is slightly mis­taken. I don’t believe that any cities (includ­ing Norfolk) are listed on the Underground Railroad Network to Freedom by the National Park Service. What I did find listed is the down­town Norfolk water­front, which would include the area of this marker. OK, I know…time to set down the red pen and move on…

Markeroni sta­tus: Direct-logged.