Markers of History

We didn’t quite get fin­ished with the Colonial Parkway this week, but with a busy week­end of choir singing ahead, it’s time for me to step away from the key­board now. On Monday, the last three Parkway mark­ers should appear on these pages and then the blog will spend the rest of the week on mark­ers from Historic Jamestowne.

Colonial Parkway mark­ers
Mill Dam

Location: Colonial National Historic Pkwy, Williamsburg, VA 23185

Visited: July 4, 2009, 1:15pm

Transcription of marker: The mound of earth in front of you was prob­a­bly part of the dam for William Parks’ paper mill. His mill was the first in Virginia for mak­ing paper and oper­ated six years or more begin­ning 1744. Parks estab­lished the first per­ma­nent press in Virginia at Williamsburg. His paper mill sup­plied other print­ers, too, includ­ing Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia.

My impres­sions: This is kind of inter­est­ing. I mean, we’re not just talk­ing about a mound of earth, we’re talk­ing about links to his­tory and peo­ple and places we prob­a­bly already know. And has that “the first” thing, too. It cer­tainly makes me think about what sort of things would have been printed using the area’s trees.

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.