| "Why do people go to a place just like the last place they were?"1 |
Most Virginia communities highlight the historical associations that make nearby places "special." Some historical sites are clearly significant, a "must-visit" place for tourists in the area and even a destination attracting tourists from overseas. Most homes of the Virginia-born Presidents have been converted into house museums, and the preservation of Mount Vernon triggered much of the American movement to save historic sites.
The local history of many Virginia communities is also nationally significant. When the Bicentennial was celebrated in 1976, John Warner (later elected as a Senator from Virginia) convinced communities across America to celebrate their heritage even if the area was unsettled by Europeans until long after the Revolution. With some creative thinking, places like Van Buren, Missouri discovered that they could recreate the initial journeys of William Henry Schoolcraft, early explorer of the Ozarks, even though European exploration occurred 40 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed..
Few Virginia localities had a problem identifying that they had significant moments in colonial history. A substantial number of Virginia sites, not just Williamsburg, had some Revolutionary War tie to commemorate:
At South Boston in Halifax County, there is a historical marker on the south end of town overlooking the Dan River. The Bicentennial gave local residents a chance to remember that their town was named to honor the patriots who started the ruckus in Boston. In 1781, the war came to them. General Nathaniel Green and the American crossed the Dan there, ending their retreat from Cornwallis across North Carolina. The Americans outran the British, and seized all the boats after crossing the Dan. That blocked Cornwallis from destroying the small remnant of the Continental army in the South. Most of the army, including the Virginia Line, had been captured in the fall of Charlestown in 1780 - but what remained was able to recross the Dan and fight Cornwallis at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse.
Of course, not all Virginia locations could celebrate where Lafayette rode (there's still a "Marquis Road" in Louisa), or where the British cavalry captured supplies during the Revolutionary War (such as at Five Forks on the James - and numerous other locations downstream to Norfolk). Roanoke, for example, was just a salt lick at the time of the Revolution. That city was not established until the 1880's.
Virginia's heritage was not purely patriotic in the Revolution, either. Montgomery County sided more with the Loyalists, and the Wilderness Road across Cumberland Gap was busy with those fleeing to the Kentucky frontier to avoid the draft and the economic disruption. Norfolk residents had their own conflicts to resolve in 1976 - honor the Virginia patriots that established independence, or blame them for burning the town almost to the ground at the start of 1776 to keep the British from using Norfolk as a base of operations.
In Northern Virginia, President Madison and his wife Dolly retreated from Washington to Northern Virginia in 1814 when the British burned the capital. McLean residents know the story of how Dolly Madison rescued the Gilbert Stuart portrait of Washington - and it's local history that she delivered it to a still-existing McLean home for safekeeping.
Many old-line Virginia families know their American history and Virginia geography in part through their family genealogy. The Lees and Carters and Byrds and others who kept sending generation after generation to the House of Burgesses, and who developed the intellectual rational for the American Revolution, bought great tracts of lands and built huge mansions on their Tidewater plantations in the 1700's. The main houses were intended to be showplaces.
They still are, and are open for tours as modern tourist attractions. An amazing number of buildings that were central to the Virginia gentry have been preserved. Route 5 between Richmond and Jamestown is the site of numerous historic residences that are open to the public. Historic homes are concentrated in Tidewater - but they are not limited to that area. In Loudoun County, you can tour Oatlands, the home of George Carter. In Montgomery County, the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (APVA) keeps Smithfield Plantation, Col. William Preston's home, open as a house museum.
The mansions are well worth visiting, but of course the preserved homes are only part of the story. Virginia is littered with sites that are mentioned in American history textbooks, such as Jamestown and Appomattox, plus a few that are discretely omitted.
What's missing? The slave quarters, housing the laborers who made the gentry so wealthy, were intended to be out of sight, back of the "big house." Only now are the visitors to the historic homes being offered a chance to learn about the other residents on the plantations, and to see archeological excavations of the foundations of the other structures so the people whose houses are now "out of sight" won't be "out of mind."
 Sudley Plantation (main house) |
 Sudley (Fairfax County) |
 reconstructed slave quarters (Sudley) |
 think slaves got quality construction? |
Historic sites associated with women and minorities and the laboring classes are rarely listed on the brown signs posted along the interstate highways. Two relatively well-known "black history" sites in Virginia are the Booker T. Washington home in Franklin County and the Maggie Walker house in Richmond. Former Governor Wilder is leading the effort to establish a museum of slavery near Jamestown, and a museum in the former Prince Edward County high school tells the story of the county that closed its public schools for four long years to block desegregation. A number of local historic sites, such as the Manassas Industrial Institute school foundations in Manassas and a similar "institute" in Christiansburg, are being preserved as Virginia communities recognize the whole breadth of their cultural heritage.
Only in the last 50 years have social historians explored, in depth, the lifestyles of all classes in the past. Archeologists who recover animal bones, small beads and other "material culture" from slave quarters excavations can help interpret the eating habits and religious practices, but the documentation of Virginia history is heavily slanted towards the lifestyles of the rich and famous. As a result, it's likely that future tourists will learn about Virginia slaves, poor farmers, and women through expanded interpretation at the mansion houses more than at sites focused exclusively on women and minorities.
Virginia communities highlight sites associated with the Civil War, of course. There was a dramatic revival of interest in "the late unpleasantness" after the broadcast of The Civil War by Ken Burns on public television. Extraordinary amounts of privat and public money have been spent to preserve battlefields, and it's easy to find a "sacred" site in virtually any Virginia county that some group now wants to preserve.
Some places played, at best, a minor role in history. Prince William County purchased Rippon Lodge, the oldest (or second-oldest) home in the county, for $1.2 million in 2000. Georg Washington did sleep there - but not much else happened to make the house special, except in that one county nearly all the other houses from that time have been destroyed over the years. The county will be hard-pressed to attract enough visitors, or earn enough revenue from other activities at Rippon Lodge, to repay the debt.
In a more quirky circumstance, Stonewall Jackson's arm was amputated in 1863 at Chancellorsville and buried in the cemetery at Elmwood in Spottsylvania County. The site is now visited regularly by Civil War "buffs," in addition to his grave in Lexington. The new Denver International Airport has a map of all the states, with one item highlighting what makes each state special. Guess what is highlighted for Virginia...
There are plenty of other sites where soldiers killed time rather than each other, such as the campsites around Centreville in Fairfax County. Nearly all signs of the time that Confederate and Union soldiers were stationed in Centreville have been destroyed by suburban sprawl, so there's a push for preservation of the remaining few trenches.
Funding for historic preservation may be based on tourism, but this can generate conflicts in a community. The tourists may outnumber the faithful at colonial churches still used for worship, such as Christ Church in Lancaster County (built by "King" Carter) and St. John's Church in Richmond (site of Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death" speech). The Warrenton town council debated plans to make Col. Mosby's home there into a public museum, because it would create new traffic that would disturb the residential neighborhood.
Not every Virginian thinks every historic site needs to be protected from change. Fairfax County has approved the development that would destroy the historical integrity of earthworks at Centreville. Adjacent Prince William County rejected the original requests to protect the Bristoe battlefield, where thousands of Confederates died and may still be buried in unmarked graves. In the process, one county supervisor leaned across the dais to ask the applicant for rezoning how many homesites were requested, basing his vote completely upon the wishes of the landowner. He was completely deaf to concerns that the battlefield might be a uniquely suitable place for preservation, rather than development into a standard subdivision.
The significance of some Virginia sites extends to different eras. Visitors to the place where Cornwallis' surrendered at Yorktown have to recognize which trenches date from 1781, and which trenches were constructed in 1862 during the Peninsula Campaign. Along the Potomac River, the home built by Martha Washington's grandson, George Washington Parke Custis, is now part of Arlington Cemetery. The mansion is surrounded by graves, placed there by a Union general who wanted to ensure it would never be used as a family residence again. However, some colonial mansions are still the home of descendants of the "first families" of colonial Virginia.
Sometimes, historical preservation comes second - Charles Carter at Berkeley raised historical preservation concerns with his decision to allow the James River wharf to be used for transporting garbage (yes, garbage) from barges to a mega-landfill in Charles City County. The amount of land affected is minor - and to the Carter descendant, it does nothing to detract from the colonial or Civil War history associated with Berkeley Plantation. (The bugle tune for "Taps" was developed there in 1862, as the Yankees were preparing to retreat from their failed assault on Richmond.)
Even the Pamumkey and other tribes once isolated on reservations have discovered that tourists are good business, though not necessarily good historians. Virginia's Native American celebrations now include many characteristics of the Plains Indians tribes, because the tourists expect high-feathered headresses and teepees as seen on the old Westerns. If the Powhatan descendants dressed like the natives that John Smith saw, nearly 400 years ago, their rituals might be viewed as obscene by today's standards.
Maryland supports tourism by designating special Maryland Heritage Areas - what areas in Virginia would be equivalent?
 church tower for 300th anniversary in 1907 |
 monument for 350th anniversary in 1957 |
 interpretation engraved on monument |
 easier-to-modify signs with interpretation |
 Jamestown Settlement - next to Glass House |
 Glass House (modern reconstruction) |
 "Great Road" at Jamestown |
 Memorial Church at Jamestown |