Feasting around the county this weekend; Huntly's historic post office; Dixieland returns to the Theatre.
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History
The Rapp for Feb. 16
150 Years Ago This Week: Roanoke Island falls to Gen. Burnside
With the fall of Fort Henry in Tennessee on Thursday, Feb. 6, Gen. Albert S. Johnston, in command of Confederate troops in the western theatre of war, hurried available troops in Kentucky to Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River.
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150 Years Ago This Week: Lincoln rejects elephants
Two letters dated Feb. 14, 1861, and addressed to President James Buchanan were delayed in transit, and delivered to President Lincoln almost a year later. The letters were from the King of Siam (today’s Thailand); one letter accompanied royal gifts of a costly sword, a photograph of the king and his daughter, and two...
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Down Memory Lane for Feb. 9
50 years agoMay 3, 1962 Graduation fever is mounting each day in the Senior Class at RCHS. Now that the class play which was presented Friday evening is over and was such a smash hit, they can relax and enjoy the other activities planned for them. The Senior girls, 18 strong, were accompanied by...
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Down Memory Lane for Feb. 2
50 years agoApril 26, 1962 Hillsdale Drive-In Theatre located on Route 211 west of Washington will open for the season on Friday, May 11. According to B.R. Armel, owner, the opening feature will be “Gone With the Wind,” which will play Friday, Saturday and Sunday, May 11-12-13. The snack bar will be open for...
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150 Years Ago This Week: General War Order No. 1
The Confederate government on Sunday, Jan. 26, ordered Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard from the Potomac District in northern Virginia to the west, where he became second-in-command to Gen. Albert S. Johnston in that threatened area. This left Gen. Joseph E. Johnston (no relation to Gen. Albert Johnston) in full command in Virginia. Frustrated by months...
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Down Memory Lane for Jan. 26
50 years agoApril 12, 1962 The town of Washington has equipped a playground in the lot behind the post office for the children of the area. Swings, seesaws and sliding-board have been erected for their use. This equipment has been carefully installed and situated as safely as possible, however, the town assumes no responsibility...
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Local bluegrass banjo legend dies doing what he loved best
Bluegrass legend Ronnie Poe of Amissville died last week playing banjo. Poe, 79, collapsed Thursday night after a few songs into a jam session at his backyard garage, surrounded by musicians like Richard Ashby and Richard Brady, who had known him and played beside him for decades.
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Clark Hollow Ramblings: We will miss you, old friend
On Thursday night, January 12, 2012, Ronnie Poe, 79, of Amissville, went to be with his Lord and Savior. He was holding court, as he had for well over 40 years, at his weekly bluegrass jam in his garage and workshop behind his house, surrounded by those who loved and admired him.
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150 Years Ago This Week: Cameron out; Stanton in
Saturday, Jan. 11: a fleet of some 100 vessels carrying Federal troops under Brig. Gen. Ambrose Burnside sailed from Hampton Roads, Va., for the coast of North Carolina. The naval squadron of about 15,000 commanded by Commodore Louis Goldsborough posed a new threat to the already severely intruded Southern coast. In Washington, President Lincoln accepted the public...
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Down Memory Lane for Jan. 19
50 years ago: April 5, 1962 Five Rappahannock Future Homemakers, Gloria Durden, Jo Ann Fox, Linda Beahm, Bonnie Brown and Ruth Ann Clark, and their instructor, Miss Betty Blanton, recently visited Sunset Haven Nursing Home near Culpeper and carried favors for the patients’ trays. These favors and the visit are part of the FHA project...
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150 Years Ago This Week: Winter military maneuvers, campaigns
Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s Confederate troops, moving from Bath in western Virginia, on Sunday, Jan. 5, in pursuit of Federal troops halted on the Potomac River across from Hancock, Md. For two days they bombarded Federal troops garrisoned in Hancock. Brig. Gen. Frederick Lander refused Jackson’s demands for surrender, and the Confederates searched unsuccessfully...
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Down Memory Lane for Jan. 12
50 years ago: March 29, 1962 Ned Johnson’s 13-month-old bull, Royal Bird, topped all Angus in price at last week’s R.O.P. Bull sale held at Culpeper Enterprises. He brought $1,535.00 and went to Allendale, S.C. According to James F. Massie, Rappahannock member of the Northern Virginia Feeder Pig Sale, last Monday’s sale was the best...
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Slideshow: Last Night Rappahannock
Photographer Gary Anthes took some pictures at the Rappahannock Historical Society’s second annual “Last Night Rappahannock” New Year’s Eve celebration along Gay Street in Little Washington, and we’re just the guys to put them into a slideshow and post them online.
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The solace of Christmas past
I was a middle child, growing up, with sufficient space between my older sisters and younger brother that I enjoyed my own experience of the world. I was neither the object of vigilance by inexperienced parents nor the focus of longing my brother would be, as the last child and only boy. “Birth to graduation on...
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150 Years Ago This Week: Pride swallowed, hearts torn
December 1861 Tensions between the United States and Great Britain over the Trent affair were high as Christmas week in 1861 dawned. In Washington on Dec. 23, Lord Lyons, the British ambassador, conferred again with Secretary of State Seward. Lyons formally and officially presented the British note demanding the surrender of Confederate commissioners Mason...
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Down Memory Lane for Dec. 29
50 years agoMarch 15, 1962 Only one traffic accident resulting from last week’s snowstorm was reported on Friday afternoon, March 9. According to W.A. Buntin, State Police, a utility truck owned by Virginia Telephone and Telegraph Company was struck by a farm tractor on Route 211 two miles east of Washington. The tractor, a ’59...
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150 Years Ago This Week: Another British ship seized
The first winter of the War was upon the people North and South, as the last month of 1861 opened. The conflict, which everyone expected to be over before the end of the Summer, now seemed to be dragging on. On Sunday, Dec. 1, President Lincoln asked some pointed questions about a possible forward movement of...
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150 Years Ago This Week: ‘Outrage on the British Flag!’
Forces of the United States landed on Tybee Island, Georgia, on the Savannah River, on Sunday, Nov. 24. Federals now controlled the entrance to the harbor and gained a foothold for an attack on Ft. Pulaski, the brick fortification designed to protect the city of Savannah. There was skirmishing this day at Lancaster and...
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Gen. McClellan snubs his President
On Sunday, Nov. 10, President Jefferson Davis wrote to Gen. Joseph E. Johnston at Manassas that he was surprised the Army had shown so little increase since July, but that “we are restricted in our capacity to reinforce by want of arms.”
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The Trent affair begins
In the Shenandoah Valley Nov. 4, Maj. Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson assumed command of the new Shenandoah Valley District with headquarters at Winchester, soon to be the scene of his greatest triumphs.
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Battle on the Potomac River
Confederates commanded by Brig. Gen. Nathan Evans on Monday, Oct. 21, stopped a badly coordinated attempt by Union forces under Brig. Gen. Charles Stone to cross the Potomac River at Harrison’s Island and capture Leesburg. Forces numbered about 1,700 on each side. A timely Confederate counterattack, in which Col. William Barksdale of the 13th Mississippi established...
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The focus turns to Virginia again
Sharp fighting on Sunday, Oct. 13, near Henrytown, Missouri, resulted in the dispersal of a Confederate scouting party intent on raiding Federal communications between St. Louis and Springfield. Another skirmish occurred at Cotton Hill in western Virginia. Brig. Gen. Thomas Williams superceded Brig. Gen. Joseph K.F. Mansfield in Federal command in North Carolina. The...
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The old home, the new inn
The Inn at Mount Vernon Farm is the third house on Trinity Church’s 55th annual Dried Flower Sale and House Tour – and, though a recently opened B&B, is the oldest house on this year’s tour.
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The Rapp for July 21
• Kudos to the Castleton Festival, which ends its one-month program this weekend. • Heat-related warnings, and good wishes, to this weekend's First Battle of Manassas reenactors, including a couple from Rappahannock.
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More ‘Gods,” plus some generals, in Manassas Friday
When Ron Maxwell was a boy growing up in New Jersey in the 1950s, his father, John F. Maxwell, often read books to him and his younger brother dealing with American history.
To make the stories come alive, the father would also take his sons to various Colonial sites and Revolutionary War sites in the...
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Editorial: Civil War remembrance
The July 21-24 Sesquicentennial of the First Battle of Manassas makes me feel old enough to be a Civil War veteran. In a way, I am.
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The Rapp for May 5
A stamp display in Flint Hill, new judges in Rappahannock, a memorial service for Dugald Day, Civil War poetry's relevance and the Masons honor Sheriff Connie C. Smith.
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The Rapp for April 28
Upcoming events: Poetry to make the Civil War personal; all the "Proof" you need at RAAC Theatre; another Sperryville "Renaissance"; and a two-course Food Pantry benefit in Washington.
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Down Memory Lane/Out of the Attic
Headlines from the Rappahannock News of 50, 25 and 10 years ago — plus a photo from the attic files.
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150 Years Ago This Week for April 21
On Saturday, April 13, Major Anderson surrendered Fort Sumter to General Beauregard’s forces. A white flag replaced the Stars and Stripes on the fort’s flagpole at 2.30 p.m. It was agreed that the formal surrender would take place the following day. Some 4,000 shells had been fired from both sides but no casualties sustained,...
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Up in the Hollow: Ain’t gonna study war no more
As the nation commemorates the Civil War Sesquicentennial, Ben Jones suggests that national mythologies "have completely washed out certain realities of the decades leading up to that terrible conflict," and presents some discussion points.
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Down Memory Lane/Out of the Attic
The headlines from the Rappahannock News of 50, 25 and 10 years ago, plus a photo from out of the attic.
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Church reborn as a house with history
Constructed in 1892, Piedmont Baptist Church was the place of worship for most people who lived in Jenkins Hollow. But by the late 1980s it was dormant and forgotten, its foundation wavering, ceiling sagging and paint peeling. Now, Piedmont Baptist Church looks vibrant again. Completely renovated, the church is ready for people, but this...
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Down Memory Lane/Out of the Attic
The headlines from the Rappahannock News of 50, 25 and 10 years ago, plus a photo from the attic files.
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The Rapp for April 7
A Civil War poetry reading features actor Brian Mallon, director Ron Maxwell and Ben Jones; art abounds on April 16 (Fodderstack 10K day) and beyond in Washington.
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Editorial: Spring is sprung, part two
Oh, how he longed to be outside landscaping and plotting his garden, and thus to be “relieved from the drudgery of the pen.” Substitute “laptop” or “word processor” for “the pen” -- and the springtime sentiments of our first President, George Washington, ring as poignantly true today as two centuries ago.
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Down Memory Lane for April 7
Headlines from the pages of the Rappahannock News of 50, 25 and 10 years ago.
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150 Years Ago This Week for April 7
The line is drawn in the sand President Lincoln was still much involved in making Federal appointments, compiling lists and writing memoranda as the month of April opened. He signed an order to fit out the U.S.S. Powhatan on the advice of Secretary of State Seward to go to sea at the earliest possible...
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A Rapp author/pig farmer’s ‘movie deal’
Rappahannock author, historian and pig farmer John Kiser's “The Monks of Tibhirine" became "the Bible" for the makers of an internationally acclaimed French film, "Of Gods and Men."
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