Virginia 250: Blacksmiths, Builders of the Nation

With Virginia and the nation celebrating 250 years of freedom from England in 2026, I thought it might be fun to occasionally bring up some local history. At one time, Botetourt County stretched all the way to the Mississippi and into Wisconsin, which means my county's history is also the history of much of the nation.

A version of the following article appeared in 2004 in The Fincastle Herald under my byline.

Blacksmiths were very important and necessary folk during the colonization of America. They were needed to make iron tools, like plowshares, so the hard work of planting and building structures could be completed. 

Farriers were smiths who specialized in shoeing horses. But smiths not only shod horses, they created springs and wheel parts for carriages, made nails, pots, pans, and other utensils. 

The work was done with a hammer and anvil, using iron heated in a fire kept hot by hand-operated bellows. Without blacksmiths to work iron, the settlers could not have moved west as quickly as they did.

Today, mass production methods have all but eliminated most work done by blacksmiths.

In Fincastle, the county seat of Botetourt County, VA, one blacksmith shop still stands. The smell of molten metal and the hiss of fire in water do not echo on the town’s Main Street anymore, but visitors can see the efforts of blacksmiths of old in the Ludwig Wysong Blacksmith Shop museum at Wysong Park.

Imprints from horse hooves are visible in the sidewalk outside of the restored building. Inside, tools of the trade line the walls and two portable forges show how the smithy could haul his trade from place to place if need be.

The museum was dedicated in 1978, a gift to Historic Fincastle, Inc. (HFI) from two brothers: Rufus and Dr. H. D. Wysong. During the 1970s, while researching family history, they became interested in the old shop. It was the last remaining smithy in town, and they purchased it and restored it as a tribute to Fiedt Wysong, their ancestor.

The Wysong brothers partnered with HFI to reconstruct the sagging building. Wysongs from all over the United States donated money, and HFI provided additional funding to help acquire the lot, which is now called the Ludwig Wysong Memorial Park, in honor of Fiedt Wysong’s father. 

The family originally hailed from France and Wales. The Wysongs have traced their roots to 1558, where an early family member named Vincent fled from France to the Rhineland area of Germany to escape religious persecution. There, it is reported, the German pronunciation of the name “Vincent” corrupted it to “Weissanz,” which eventually became Wysong.

Fiedt Wysong (1755-1837) was an early Fincastle settler who owned many properties in town. The museum may not have been his shop – there were several in the area and no one knows which was his.  

But the current building was a working smithy until 1932.

Fincastle Historian Dottie Kessler says Fiedt Wysong operated a blacksmith shop in 1791.

His father, Ludwig Wysong moved to Wales from the Rhineland. He entered the English king’s service and landed in America in 1715. He located to York County, PA and married at age 60. He had 11 children, 7 boys, and 5 of those sons fought on the side of the patriots in the American Revolution, including Fiedt and his brother Valentine, who also lived in Fincastle. In April 1824, the Wysongs lived on the corner of Main Street and Water Street.

HFI members helped the Wysong family clear the lot on the corner of Main Street and US 220, and local attorney Ralph C. Wiegandt and other citizens donated authentic blacksmith tools for exhibit. 

Today, one room of the museum contains benches and furniture, and is called the Wysong Meeting Room. The Wysong family holds reunions in Fincastle occasionally, bringing many hundred visitors to town. The building stands as a museum to the public and a memorial to the Wysong family. The building is open to the public during the Fincastle Festival and by appointment.

Almost 300 people attended the 1978 dedication and reunion, with Wysong representatives from 24 states present. The Wysongs turned the property over to HFI at that time. Mayor Harry Kessler, who was also an HFI member, accepted the deed to the property.

HFI later constructed a new Wysong Blacksmith Shop directly behind the older building. The blacksmith shop, complete with a working forge, cost HFI $30,000 and took two years to construct.

Members hoped to lure a blacksmith to town. However, that did not work out and the building became a source of rental revenue for the non-profit organization until this year, when HFI turned it into its offices.

Information courtesy of Fincastle Historian Dottie Kessler (now deceased) and Historic Fincastle, Inc.

Virginia 250: Amsterdam in Botetourt

With Virginia and the nation celebrating 250 years of freedom from England in 2026, I thought it might be fun to occasionally bring up some local history. At one time, Botetourt County stretched all the way to the Mississippi and into Wisconsin, which means my county's history is also the history of much of the nation.

A version of the following article appeared in 2004 in The Fincastle Herald under my byline. I thought it fit with the history theme as well as the lost communities I've noted in recent months in this series.

When it comes to local history, there is no stopping Daleville’s Gene Crotty when he starts talking about Botetourt.  He is currently researching his fifth book, a history of the Amsterdam area.

The 75-year-old writer doesn’t just sit and read books to do his research.  His current project is on the area he calls home.  He has walked miles and miles over the terrain between Daleville and Amsterdam.  During his journeys he has picked up over 10,000 artifacts that go as far back as 10,000 B.C. 

“I have something from about every century that man has come here in the Amsterdam area,” Crotty said.

Because he paid attention to his surroundings, Crotty is credited with two major archeological finds in the Daleville area. Arrowheads and rock tools from the sites fill his basement and other parts of the house.  He roams the area looking for foundations and historic clues.  He has found the lost ruins of churches and other long-forgotten buildings simply by exploring the Amsterdam and Daleville areas on foot.

All of this information has built up inside Crotty, and now he is ready to take it out and put it into a book.

“He wants to know and learn as much as he can about everything,” his wife Judy explained.  After 40 years of marriage, she has learned to let him “do his own thing” and in his retirement that thing is research, writing, and collecting rocks to fill up her laundry room.

The 75-year-old writer still gets out and roams around the grounds of Daleville. Sometimes that takes the form of the local welcoming committee when he goes to greet new Daleville residents.

"We call him the "mayor" of North Daleville,” Judy said. “He loves people.”

His books reflect his love of people, too. They are not epistles about buildings, but instead are stories about the folks who lived in an area. His forthcoming book on Amsterdam will be the same way, and he believes he has pinpointed the first two white men in the area.  Those men traveled as far as the New River. 

“It’s difficult to get real facts about who was the first English settler,” Crotty said.  At one time this area was part of Orange County, so deed references in the 1730’s and earlier are hard to get to. They are also incomplete, he said.

He has a knack for reading aerial maps and figuring out travel routes and migrations, things important to the settlers of Botetourt County in the years before the nation became sovereign.

He claims the Amsterdam area, now “dried up and blown away,” was a major landmark of prehistoric man as well as for the later settlers who moved up the valley of Virginia heading west. In Amsterdam, Crotty said, they had to make a decision about their direction.

“There are only three routes through the Blue Ridge Mountains, and one of them tends to send people right through the Amsterdam area,” he said. “Amsterdam is the area where folks took divergent trails west or south around Tinker Mountain. It was an important interchange in the westward movement.”

He also has found indications of prehistoric man’s trampling in the area and evidence of buffalo, even though some archeologists claim the animal did not roam here. 

"Tinker Creek was called Buffalo Creek originally,” Crotty said.  He has read diaries dating back to 1651 that mention buffaloes in the Amsterdam area and around Big Lick.

The area also was not entirely wooded in Amsterdam.  There were big meadows “with grass up to your chest,” according to diary entries, Crotty said. “Amsterdam has disappeared but at one time it was a real hub of life.”

The retired tax professor has no time to talk about the IRS or anything else when there is history to be uncovered and converted into books.

He wrote his most recent book, The Visits of Lewis & Clark to Fincastle, Virginia at the request of George Kegley, a member of the board of The History Museum and Historical Society of Western Virginia.  The book appeared in time to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of the adventures of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and their exploration of the American west.

“William Clark could have met Judith in 1801,” he said.  Judith Hancock was the lady from Fincastle whom Clark eventually married.  “She must’ve made quite an impression,” Crotty said, because she was still a child then.

Crotty’s intense research sometimes refutes the local lore of the area, and that’s okay with everyone who knows him. “Gene’s a stickler for getting it right,” Kegley said. “He’s a good researcher.  He knows where to look.”

Crotty’s Lewis and Clark book doesn’t add a lot of new information, Kegley said, but it does put the information “together so that it has meaning and context.  Gene sets the stage in history and relates it to everything else that is going on at that time.”

His legendary research skills have made Crotty renowned for hunting down the obscure facts that elude others. His home library would make a history librarian drool over the many old books, maps, diaries, and other papers that he searches.

Crotty’s other books are all on Thomas Jefferson and printed by the University of Virginia. Those books are offered as premiums to donors, according to Kegley.

“He's fairly highly regarded at the university for his work,” Kegley said.

Source: 2004 interview with Gene Crotty by this writer.

Additional information: Gene Crotty passed away in 2017.

Carvins Cove: A Lost Community Beneath the Water

With Virginia and the nation celebrating 250 years of freedom from England in 2026, I thought it might be fun to occasionally bring up some local history. At one time, Botetourt County stretched all the way to the Mississippi and into Wisconsin, which means my county's history is also the history of much of the nation.

Carvins Cove is being talked about a lot these days because a Google data center is locating at The Botetourt Center at Greenfield. This is an industrial park the county created in the 1990s and its purpose has changed several times over the last 30 years.

The data center is supposed to use up to 8 million gallons of water a day when the entire thing is built out.

We recently visited the Cove. As you can see in the photos below, the lake is down considerably, as indicated by the dirt at what should be the water line at full pond. We've been in a drought situation for over a year now.

However, there is more to the story of Carvins Cove than water usage. Right now, it's a water reservoir with a conservation forest area that locals treat as both landmark and backdrop. 

But beneath that calm surface lies the memory of an entire community: farms, a school, a church, a resort hotel, even an amusement park. All of it now rests under the water that supplies much of the Roanoke Valley.

This is the story of how that happened.

Before the Water: A Frontier Settlement

Carvins Cove began as a small early‑19th‑century settlement built around a grist mill on Carvins Creek. Its namesake, William Carvin, was one of the first settlers in the Hollins area and held a 150‑acre land grant along the creek.

By the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Cove had grown into a modest but lively rural community. Before its destruction, it included:

• Rocky Branch School

• Cove Alum Baptist Church

• Cove Alum Springs resort hotel

• Tuck‑Away Park, a small amusement park

• At least 60 homes

It was a place where Botetourt and Roanoke families lived, farmed, worshipped, and gathered. It was a quiet valley.

The First Rumblings of Change (1920s)

The community’s fate shifted in the early 1920s when the Virginia Water Company announced plans to build a dam to impound water in the area. By 1926, the company publicly confirmed the dam would be constructed at the falls of Carvins Creek.

An 80‑foot abutment was completed by 1928, but the reservoir itself remained unrealized for nearly two decades. The valley continued its daily life, even as the shadow of the future lake grew longer.

The Final Years of the Community (1940–1946)

Everything changed when the City of Roanoke acquired the Roanoke Water Company in 1942. With municipal backing, the reservoir project accelerated:

• The city began purchasing and condemning land throughout the Cove.

• On February 14, 1944, the last structures were auctioned off.

• In total, Roanoke acquired over 12,000 acres for about $1 million.

• In 1945, German POWs were brought in to help clear timber.

By May 1946, the reservoir filled and overtopped the dam, sealing the valley’s fate. The official dedication followed in March 1947.

What Lies Beneath

During drought years, the waterline drops enough that stone foundations and remnants of the old community reappear, ghostlike, along the shoreline.

Even when the water is high, hikers and riders sometimes notice old chimneys, walls, or roadbeds tucked into the woods. They are quiet reminders of what used to be there.

Carvins Cove Today: Water, Wilderness, and Memory

Today, Carvins Cove is:

• The primary water source for roughly 130,000 customers in the Roanoke Valley.

• One of the largest municipal parks in the United States (ranked between 2nd and 9th depending on the source).

• A major recreation area offering hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding, paddling, and fishing.

It’s also fed in part by the Tinker Creek tunnel, opened in 1966, which diverts Botetourt water under Tinker Mountain into the reservoir.

Carvins Cove is no longer a village, but it is very much alive.

Why Carvins Cove Still Matters

Carvins Cove is a rare place where natural beauty, local history, and regional infrastructure intersect. For Botetourt County, it’s a reminder of:

• The early frontier families who shaped the region

• The sacrifices made for public water access

• The way landscapes hold memory, even when transformed

Standing on the shoreline today, it’s easy to forget that a community once lived beneath your feet. But the past is still there in the foundations that surface during drought, in the old photographs preserved by local families, and in the name “Carvin,” which still echoes across the valley.

Sources include the Western Virginia Water Authority; the City of Roanoke archives; the Roanoke Times historical coverage of the Carvins Cove project; the Botetourt County and Roanoke County historical societies; the Virginia Department of Historic Resources; and regional histories documenting the Cove Alum Springs resort, the early Carvin land grants, and the 1940s reservoir construction.

When the Reporters Are Gone: What We Missed About the Data Center

I’ve been watching the conversation about the proposed Google Data Center at the Botetourt Center at Greenfield, and I want to offer a perspective that comes from 40 years of covering local government in Botetourt County.

A lot of people are angry at the Board of Supervisors right now. I understand why. Nobody likes feeling blindsided. But the truth is more complicated, and it points to a deeper problem we don’t talk about enough.

1. The Board didn’t hide anything. The zoning change happened in November 2024. The county advertised a public hearing to amend the RAM zoning district to include data centers as a permitted use. That was the moment when this project became possible. It was public. It was legal. It was properly noticed.

I remember seeing the ad and thinking, “They’re preparing for a data center.” Anyone who understands zoning would have recognized it.

But most people don’t read legal ads, and most people don’t follow zoning language closely. Most people don't even read a newspaper anymore. That’s not a criticism. It’s just reality.

2. The public didn’t react because the public didn’t know what the change meant. And this is where the real issue comes in.

When I was still writing, I would have explained what a RAM district is, broken down what “permitted use” means, connected the dots between the amendment and the likely project, interviewed county staff about the RAM use change, and written the kind of article that helps people understand what’s coming before it arrives.

That’s what local journalism is supposed to do. That's what I used to do.

3. But we don’t have that kind of local journalism anymore. The paper today prints very little that could be called “news.” They avoid controversy. They don’t have the staff, the time, or the institutional memory to cover land use, budgets, or long‑range planning.

It’s not the media's fault entirely.  People stopped buying papers, stopped advertising, and the economics collapsed. I stopped working because I was ill, and the paper never replaced my position.

But the result is the same: the county lost its watchdog, its explainer, its translator, because no one stepped up to take on that role.

4. So now people feel blindsided. The Board did not hide anything, (though they could have been a bit more forthcoming). But the information ecosystem failed. Not just the local paper, but also the TV media, and the daily paper. The Botetourt Bee ceased publication in the summer of 2024, before this public hearing happened. And it ceased publication because some members of this county acted inappropriately.

But this data center is what happens when a community loses its reporters. Important decisions go unnoticed, legal ads become the only form of outreach, people don’t understand the process, outrage arrives months or years too late.

The data center isn’t just a land‑use story. It’s a story about what happens when local news disappears.

5. I live half a mile from the site. I raise cattle. I have my own concerns. I’m sensitive to low‑frequency noise, and I’m paying close attention to what this means for me, my land, and my herd. I’m not dismissing anyone’s worries.

But I also know how the process works, and I know this didn’t come out of nowhere.

6. If we want better outcomes in the future, we need better information, not more anger. Communities can’t make informed decisions if they don’t have access to informed reporting. That’s the real loss here, and it’s one we’re all feeling now.

Watch the news. Buy the local paper, the weekly and the daily. Support local journalism if you want to be informed.

Communities need their watchdogs.

Botetourt and the Civil War

With Virginia and the nation celebrating 250 years of freedom from England in 2026, I thought it might be fun to occasionally bring up some local history. At one time, Botetourt County stretched all the way to the Mississippi and into Wisconsin, which means my county's history is also the history of much of the nation.

Botetourt County of course has multiple connections to the American Civil War, or the War Between the States, as it is sometimes called. The war took place from 1861 to 1865.

Buchanan, one of our towns, was raided by Union General David Hunter, during what is known as "Hunter's Raid."

Photo courtesy of buchanan-va.gov

Hunter's Raid began on June 5, 1864, with the Battle of Piedmont. He proceeded to Staunton, a city about an hour and a half away today by Interstate 81, burning government buildings and supplies as he went. 

In Harry Fulwiler, Jr.’s book, Buchanan, Virginia: Gateway to the South, the author records the events.  Hunter’s report:

“June 13:  While awaiting news from Duffie, on the 13^th I sent Averell forward to Buchanan with orders to drive McCausland out of the way and, if possible, secure the bridge over the James River at that place.”

In an August 8 report on the June events: “On the morning of the 14^th I moved with my whole command toward Buchanan, and on arriving there found it occupied by Averell. He had driven McCausland sharply from the place, capturing some prisoners and a number of canal barges laden with stores, but had not succeeded in saving the bridge.  As there was a convenient and accessible ford at hand the advance of the army was not retarded by its loss. In view of this fact and of the damage incurred to private property the inhabitants of the village protested against the burning of the bridge, but McCausland, with his characteristic recklessness, persisted in the needless destruction, involving eleven private dwellings in the conflagration. The further progress of this needless devastation was stopped by the friendly efforts of our troops, who extinguished the flames.

On the 15^th I moved from Buchanan.”

Fulwiler also records the memories of Jane Boyd, who witnessed the Confederate burning of the bridge and the subsequent occupation by the Yankees: “General McCausland sent his men across the bridge, and then had the bridge filled with baled hay … and fired. The bridge was an old fashioned covered wooden bridge, and the flames spread rapidly. … The burning of the bridge set fire to the town, and as many, perhaps, as thirty buildings were destroyed. The scene was terrific, and many people were made homeless. General McCausland formed his line of battle just at the foot of Oak Hill, my old home, and the enemy’s line was on the opposite side of James River, near the foot of Purgatory Mountain.” The report goes on to talk about how General Averil’s men put out the fire, but looted as they did so, downing many decanters of fine old wines. Boyd says there were 30,000 men camped around Buchanan and surrounding areas. Mount Joy burned, the Jones’ foundry, a storehouse, and many other buildings.

Hunter took his men away from Buchanan via the Peaks of Otter, to Bedford. The raid ended at the Battle of Lynchburg on June 17-18, 1864, where Confederate General Jubal Early defeated the Union forces.

Following the Union defeat, Confederates forces pursued Union forces back through Bedford, then to Salem where they fought again at the Battle of Hanging Rock.

While that raid wasn't quite all of Botetourt's contributions to the Confederate side of that terrible war, it was certainly devastating to that part of the county.

Nearly forty years after the war ended, Botetourt residents memorialized their Confederate soldiers with a monument at the county courthouse in Fincastle.

The Confederate Monument is on the right-hand side of the photo. This courthouse has been
torn down and the monument has been relocated.

The Botetourt Monument Association put up the monument, which is in the shape of an obelisk. The family of Buchanan’s most famous author, Mary Johnston, was instrumental in placing the monument in Fincastle. Johnston also had a hand in the dedication of a monument in Vicksburg National Park in 1907 celebrating the Botetourt Artillery’s efforts in that famous Civil War battle.

According to news reports of the October 27, 1904 dedication in Fincastle, Major John Johnston and Eloise Johnson, Mary Johnston’s father and sister, attended the unveiling.  Eloise Johnston apparently was the chief sponsor of the monument; Judge William B. Simmons and John Johnston were “untiring” fundraisers for the project.

The newspaper called this “the greatest day in the history of the peaceful little city. Thousands of people gathered there to witness the unveiling of the beautiful monument erected in honor of the Confederate dead of Botetourt County.”

The writer reported that John Johnston and Attorney General William A. Anderson, both Botetourt County natives, made eloquent addresses.

Eloise Johnston and “a staff of twelve young ladies, representing the twelve volunteer companies that went into the Confederate army from Botetourt county,” unveiled the monument, “a model of beauty and excellence.”

While the monument at the county courthouse is not unique, the inscriptions are a little different in that they recognize the services of women in helping the soldiers during the war.

One side of the monument reads, “To the women of Botetourt in remembrance of their constant encouragement, steadfast devotion, tender in ministrations and unfailing providence and care, during the war and in the dark reconstruction years.”

The statue commemorates, “the deeds and services of the twelve volunteer companies … that went to the war from Botetourt County.” It is “in memory of our brave and loyal officers and enlisted men who were killed in battle and who died from wounds and disease, during the war, and of our faithful comrades who have died since the war.”

The twelve volunteer companies from Botetourt County participating in the Civil War and listed on the monument are:

The Fincastle Rifles, Co. D. 11 Rec't. VA. Infantry.

The Botetourt Dracoons, Co. C. 2 Rec't. VA Cavalry.

The Mountain Rifles, Co. H. 28 Rec't. VA Infantry.

Anderson's Battery - The Botetourt Artillery.

The Roaring-Run Company, Co. K. II, Rec't. VA. Infantry.

The Botetourt Guards, Co. I. 57 Rec't. VA Infantry.

The Osceola Guards, Co. K 60 Rec't. VA. Infantry.

The Blue Ridge Rifles, Co. A. 28 Rec't. VA Infantry.

The Botetourt Springs Company, Co. E 28 Rec't. VA Infantry.

The Breckenridge Infantry, Co. K. 28 Rec't. VA. Infantry.

The Botetourt Heavy Artillery, Co. C. 20, Bat'N. VA. H'vy. Art'y.

The Botetourt Senior Reserves, Co. -- 4, Rec't. VA. Reserves.

The Botetourt Junior Reserves, Co. E.2, Bat'N. VA Reserves.

The monument has been moved from its original location at the front of the Botetourt County Courthouse in Fincastle and is now in a monument park the county is constructing as part of the new courthouse building project.

There is a similar obelisk monument in the Town of Buchanan.

 

Colonel William Preston and the Greenfield Legacy

With Virginia and the nation celebrating 250 years of freedom from England in 2026, I thought it might be fun to occasionally bring up some local history. At one time, Botetourt County stretched all the way to the Mississippi and into Wisconsin, which means my county's history is also the history of much of the nation.

The Botetourt Center at Greenfield, now an industrial park in Botetourt County, VA, was once part of a 20,000-acre spread owned by Revolutionary War hero Colonel William Preston.

Preston came to Virginia from Ireland in 1729, when he was nine years old. As a young man, he was active in the formation of Botetourt County. He was named First Surveyor, coroner, Escheator, and Member of the House of Burgesses. He also served as Colonel of the Militia when Botetourt County was formed from Augusta County in 1769.

He purchased Greenfield in 1759 and lived there until 1774, when he moved to Smithfield in present-day Montgomery County. In 1775, he was one of the signers of the Fincastle Resolutions, one of the earliest local documents to express support for American independence.

When Preston died in 1783, he was thought to be the wealthiest man in the state.

Six of Preston’s 12 children were born at Greenfield, and his legacy has left a large footprint on the nation. Preston descendants founded six universities and influenced two others — including Columbia College in South Carolina, now the University of South Carolina, and the University of Chicago.

Additionally, Preston’s descendants served in the Virginia House of Delegates and in the U.S. Congress. His son, James Patton Preston, served as governor of Virginia from 1816 to 1819.

When the county purchased Greenfield, the supervisors authorized an extensive review of the historic assets on the property. The remaining structures are pre-Civil War and include a slave dwelling and kitchen.

The kitchen measures 16 by 18 feet and faces the southwest wall of the original mansion, which no longer stands. The slave dwelling is a log saddlebag double slave house located west of the house site.

The house foundation is the remains of a structure built in the antebellum era. Historic photographs indicate the structure was a two-story brick dwelling before it burned. There is also an outbuilding dating back to approximately 1834.

One cemetery contains a number of Preston family graves. Another has been partitioned off with white fencing and is thought to be the burial ground for the Black servants of the Prestons.

Up until about 2007, the historic structures were untouched and unprotected, with old logs exposed to weather, until the county stepped in to secure the buildings.

The Botetourt Center at Greenfield is a 922-acre site the county purchased for $4.5 million in 1995. The land was divided into an industrial area, a parks and recreation area, and a school area. The county built Greenfield Elementary School and the Greenfield Education and Training Center in 2000, then completed a couple of ball fields and a $3 million sports complex at the Recreation Center at Greenfield.

Even though the county has not yet created the Greenfield historic area, the remaining structures are often visited by people who come to walk the fields or the Cherry Blossom Trail.

A memorial to Colonel Preston can be found on the grounds of the Botetourt County Administration Building. It features benches and a history of the man and the property.

Courtesy of The Fincastle Herald

From Wikipedia:

William Preston
Member of the Virginia House of Burgesses from Botetourt County
In office 1769–1771 Serving with John Bowyer
Preceded by	position created
Succeeded by	Andrew Lewis
Member of the Virginia House of Burgesses from Augusta County
In office 1766–1769 Serving with John Wilson
Preceded by	Israel Christian
Succeeded by	Gabriel Jones
Personal details
Born	December 25, 1729 Limavady, Ireland
Died	June 28, 1783 (aged 53) Price's Fork, Montgomery County, Virginia
Resting place	Smithfield Plantation
Nationality	American
Spouse	Susanna Smith
Occupation	surveyor, officer, planter, politician
Signature
Military service
Allegiance	United Colonies
Branch/service	Virginia militia
Years of service	1765–1781
Rank	Colonel
Battles/wars	Draper's Meadow massacre Sandy Creek Expedition Lord Dunmore's War American Revolutionary War Battle of Guilford Courthouse

Virginia's 250th Anniversary - Santillane

Santillane is the grand ol’ dame of Fincastle.

The pre-civil war estate was once home to Judith Hancock Clark, wife of William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

It was restored in 2008. Much of the decorative trim turned out to be plaster instead of painted wood as originally thought. There was wallpaper to remove – even on the ceilings - and cobwebs to sweep. Original chandeliers lay stored in boxes and vintage clothes hung in wardrobes far too large to ever be removed from the home.

The house has 14 rooms, counting foyers and bathrooms. All have been restored.

The house boasts extremely high ceilings, a staircase that looks like something out of Gone with the Wind, a pewter chandelier with a date of 1726 etched into it, hardwood floors, original wallpaper in the living room, original glass in the windows, and elegant touches around the ceilings.

Legend holds the original Santillane burned and was rebuilt. However, signatures on the plaster, which has held up remarkably well, date back to the very early 1800s.

Santillane is on the National Register of Historic Places. A marker on US 220 calls it “one of Botetourt County’s most distinguished properties. The Greek Revival house sits on a tract of land originally owned by Colonel George Hancock, a member of the United States Congress from 1793-1797. 

In 1808 Hancock's daughter, Judith, married General William Clark. Clark served from 1803 to 1806 as a leader of Thomas Jefferson's famous Lewis and Clark expedition which was instrumental in opening the West for American settlement.”

Colonel George Hancock

George Hancock’s first appearance in Botetourt is in 1781 when he married Margaret Strother of Fincastle. He appeared again in 1782 when he obtained a license to practice law in the county. In 1785,

Hancock was appointed a colonel in the county militia; he also served as Botetourt County’s Commonwealth Attorney. He was the first citizen of Botetourt County to serve in the Congress of the United States. He later moved from Fincastle to Fotheringay in Montgomery County, where he died in 1820.

Hancock’s daughter Julia, known also as Judith, was born to Hancock and his wife Margaret on November 21, 1791, in Fincastle. She wed William Clark, the famous explorer, in January 1808. Clark reportedly named the Judith River in Montana after the young girl he left in Fincastle while he sought a route to the Pacific.

Botetourt County's Hidden Literary Legacy

With Virginia and the nation celebrating 250 years of freedom from England in 2026, I thought it might be fun to occasionally bring up some local history. At one time, Botetourt County stretched all the way to the Mississippi and into Wisconsin, which means my county's history is also the history of much of the nation.

Botetourt County has few claims to well‑known authors and writers, and for nearly 100 years not many people have realized the county has a connection to poet Joyce Kilmer (1886–1918) and to Harper’s publisher Henry Mills Alden (1836–1919).

The county’s link to these two noteworthy figures rests with Ada Foster Murray Alden (1857–1936).

In 1868, Ada’s family moved to Botetourt from Craig County, the last of some 43 different moves that her father, Joseph Foster (1816–1880), made with a family of 10 children. He eventually purchased the 64‑acre farm located on the North Fork of Catawba Creek, about four miles outside Fincastle at the foot of Caldwell Mountain. They called the farm Edgebrook.

In an unpublished autobiography written in 1930, Ada, the youngest child, recalled that she was eleven years old when they arrived in the county. Her father died on the farm; her mother passed away in 1895 in Norfolk. Both are buried in Mt. Pleasants Cemetery in the White Church area of Botetourt. Joseph Foster, a teacher, was formerly the president of Marshall College in Huntington, West Virginia (now Marshall University).

For years the exact location of the Foster home was uncertain. An inquiry from John Foster to this writer led to a detailed examination of records in the Botetourt County Clerk’s Office and a discussion with an older landowner on the North Fork of Catawba. Based on this information, the property was found.

The children of the family sold the land in 1916, ending the Foster family’s direct connection with this particular parcel near Fincastle.

Ada painted a vivid picture of life at Edgebrook: “The rude, tiny house shaded by beech, sycamore, walnut and locust trees had a magnificent mountain for its background, with the Peaks of Otter in the blue distance. From our living room window the sunrise behind these three azure peaks and Caldwell’s Mountain was a real throne for the setting sun.”

She remembered stagecoaches passing by on their way from Bonsack to White Sulphur Springs via New Castle. “The large, rolling, gaudily painted coaches had such fanciful names as Ladybird and Fairy Bell. They also carried the mail, which made them the greatest element of romance in our almost hidden life,” she wrote. The family often welcomed travelers with cool water or homemade lemonade.

One memorable summer visit came from cousins Clarence Fonerden and “millionaire” Fred Van Bueren. To Ada, sophisticated city guests were a mark of distinction in their rural world. That summer the family also acquired its first carriage — “the dream of my worldly ambition.”

Ada also recalled visiting the Breckinridge family’s private library at Grove Hill, a plantation home just outside of Fincastle that burned in 1909.

According to her obituary, one of her earliest memories occurred before the family moved to Botetourt. In April 1861, her eldest brother brought home a newspaper bearing the black‑letter headline “War Declared.” Though opposed to slavery, her father decided at the outbreak of war that Virginia “had the first claim upon his loyalty.” Her eldest brother, Hopkins Barry Foster, was disabled in Confederate service, and another brother, 12‑year‑old Joseph Barrymore Foster, served as a drummer boy.

Ada married in 1874. Her husband was Kenton Murray, a “charming young gentleman” originally from the Coyner’s Springs area of Botetourt. They became acquainted when she submitted a poem to the Mobile Register, which Murray edited. He later became publisher of The Norfolk Landmark, a newspaper that ceased publication in 1911. Considered one of the best‑known newspaper men of the South, Murray was widely respected at the time of Ada’s death. The Murrays had five children, and when Kenton died in 1895 their son Kenton Foster Murray succeeded him as editor of the Landmark at just 19 years old.

In 1901, Ada married Henry Mills Alden, the longtime editor of Harper’s magazine. She described their meeting with playful charm: after deciding to submit her poems to northern magazines, she visited the Century Magazine office. Richard Watson Gilder, then editor of Century, called Henry Alden and reportedly said, “Were you able to do anything for that charming little widow I sent you with a lot of good poetry?” Alden’s reply: “Well yes, I married her.”

Alden shaped American letters for decades. With Harper’s from 1869 until his death in 1919, he edited countless stories and essays and maintained friendships with many of the era’s leading writers.

Ada was a literary figure in her own right. She published her first poem in the New York Evening Post at age 15 and continued writing throughout her life, contributing articles and editorials to newspapers including The Norfolk Landmark and The New York Times. One early editorial she wrote in 1876 advocating cremation sparked controversy and the withdrawal of advertisements, she later recalled.

She wrote and published poetry into her later years, and in her seventies received a National Poetry Society prize for her poem Unhearing. She was a member of the Poetry Society of America and the Women Poets of New York. Ada died of a heart attack at a son’s home in New York.

Her daughter, Aline Murray Kilmer, married poet Joyce Kilmer, best known for the beloved poem “Trees,” which he dedicated to his mother‑in‑law when it was first published.

With her personal accomplishments and her connections to literary figures like William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, and Woodrow Wilson, Ada Foster Murray Alden deserves a place on Botetourt County’s short list of notable historic figures. She joins such names as Mary Johnston (1870–1936), the best‑selling author of To Have and To Hold, who was writing during the same period.

References

Alden, Ada Foster Murray. Unpublished Autobiography, 1930. Botetourt County, Virginia. [Unpublished manuscript; exact source unknown].

Joyce Kilmer. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Accessed February 16, 2026. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joyce-Kilmer.

Joyce Kilmer. Poetry Foundation. Accessed February 16, 2026. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/joyce-kilmer.

“Trees (poem).” Wikipedia. Last modified February 10, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trees_(poem).

Alden, Henry Mills. Wikipedia. Accessed February 16, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Mills_Alden.

Obituary of Ada Foster Murray Alden. The New York Times, 1936.

Howerytown - A Forgotten Community

With Virginia and the nation celebrating 250 years of freedom from England in 2026, I thought it might be fun to occasionally bring up some local history. At one time, Botetourt County stretched all the way to the Mississippi and into Wisconsin, which means my county's history is also the history of much of the nation.

Up until the early 1900s, an area between Amsterdam and Trinity in Botetourt County was known as Howerytown. The small community vanished after the Great Depression as the roads changed course.

Whatever was left was taken away when US 11 came through Troutville.

Perhaps the area’s great claim to fame occurred in 1872. At that time, the entire town was placed under a bond to keep the peace.

According to a New York Times article, the citizens were up in arms and for two days threw things at one another. “It was a war of the roses, in which the whole town was drawn, the forces on each side being about even,” the paper states. “The Magistrate, surrounded by all the majesty of the law, took up his position at Amsterdam, and dispatched his right bower, the constable, for the belligerent parties; but they, by virtue of more muscle and more numerous forces, closed the citadel and defied his authority.”

The standoff eventually ended and the parties involved “were put on their good behavior for one year, under the penalty of $100 each.”

Howerytown Road led, appropriately enough, to Howerytown. The road no longer exists. In the recent past, it has been mentioned by land surveyors as well as landowners along Sunset Avenue in Troutville who have expressed concerns about the possibility of that old route turning into a thoroughfare between US 220 and US 11.

Old folks recall a road that once led to the county seat.

It’s kind of remarkable how these old towns disappear. Botetourt County has many communities that are almost gone, including Trinity, Amsterdam, Nace, and others. They seem to vanish when no one is paying attention.

Additional information about Howerytown, which is thought to have existed at what is now the intersection of Trinity and Greenfield Roads, is sketchy. The area is also referenced as the Town of Greenville on some plats and in a few history books.

Jacob Howery (also Howry) purchased property from the Prestons (a famous Revolutionary War family) in the area in 1786 and 1794. He had a stagecoach inn and tavern on the southeastern corner of his land.

According to some reports, in 1795 he founded the town, requiring a perpetual quit rent of 1 shilling per annum for each lot.

In 1796 a Lutheran congregation organized at Howerytown in a home owned by the Rev. J. G. Butler, who also served in the Revolutionary War. Eventually this congregation became known as Brick Union.

By 1797 there were 24 landowners in the area. Among them were Christian Bower, Frederick Wegoner, Michael Minick, Frederick Shver, David Keslor, Abraham Custer, Benjamin Keslor, Benjamin Minick, Christopher Smith, John Poppy, John Highnor, Jr., Jacob Bishop, Christopher Cartish, Coonrad Moyer, Jospeh Heckman, John Ronecke, George Hepler, John Keslor, John Simmons, John Russel, Abraham Keslor, and David Linch.

Apparently Howery, Howry and Howrey are all the names of immigrants from Switzerland and Germany. They anglicized their surname from Hauri or Haury. 

Jacob Howery migrated to Virginia from Pennsylvania.

It is thought that the town’s founder is buried somewhere on the town property, but his grave has long vanished.

In its heyday, the town likely had houses, a tavern, a grocery store and a restaurant.

Now, it's just a memory.

The Botetourt County Courthouse

With Virginia and the nation celebrating 250 years of freedom from England in 2026, I thought it might be fun to occasionally bring up some local history. At one time, Botetourt County stretched all the way to the Mississippi and into Wisconsin, which means my county's history is also the history of much of the nation.

Botetourt County Courthouse 2024

Our county courthouse renovation has caused quite a stir among the local citizens. Many opposed the construction of a new facility because the old courthouse building was an iconic feature of Fincastle, the county seat.

However, the story of Botetourt County’s courthouse is not a simple tale of an old building finally giving way to time. It is a long cycle of loss, rebuilding, and adaptation, stretching back more than 250 years.

Botetourt’s first courthouse dates to the 1770s, when county business was conducted in a log structure that reflected the realities of a frontier region. When Botetourt was formed, this area was basically the wild west.

By 1820, the county had grown enough to warrant a permanent structure. That year former president Thomas Jefferson designed a new courthouse for Botetourt and sent the plans from Monticello. His influence would linger far longer than that single building.

In the 1840s, a more substantial Greek Revival courthouse rose in Fincastle. Built between 1841 and 1848, it became the architectural centerpiece of the town. This courthouse carried forward some of Jefferson’s original design and stood for more than a century. 

That ended in 1970, when the courthouse was destroyed by fire. In the immediate aftermath, historians feared that Botetourt’s records, some dating back to colonial times, had been lost. According to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, those documents survived because they were stored in a secure vault. The fear of the loss of records to fire forced the Virginia General Assembly to pass legislation requiring deeds, wills, and other vital records to be copied and microfilmed, with the duplicates sent to the Library of Virginia in Richmond for safekeeping.

The courthouse itself, though, had to be replaced. In 1975, a new building went up on the same site. Although it looked old, it was not. Designed as a modern structure wrapped in historical clothing, it incorporated the four surviving columns from the 19th-century courthouse and echoed Jefferson’s proportions and layout. 

For 50 years, that building served the county. Over time, however, its limitations became impossible to ignore. It did not meet the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act, for one thing. Nor could it be adapted to modern security standards. Mold infestation became a persistent problem, and water leaks plagued both the roof and the walls. The courthouse may have looked solid, but it was no longer safe or functional for the people who worked there daily, including judges, clerks, and staff, or for members of the public who regularly conducted business inside.

Under Virginia law, specifically §15.2-1643, counties are required to provide adequate courthouse facilities. Botetourt had little choice. Repairing the building was not feasible given the extent of the damage and the lack of space. If the county had not acted, the judiciary could have ordered the construction of a new courthouse anyway.

A rendering of the new courthouse alongside the old structure.

By this point, the county’s historic records were no longer stored on paper alone. They are now preserved digitally, a direct descendant of the reforms prompted by the 1970 fire. Still, the building that housed them had reached the end of its useful life.

In May 2025, the 1975 courthouse was dismantled. Construction is now underway on a new facility, part of a $35.7 million project. When completed, the new courthouse is expected to look much like the ones that came before it, continuing the architectural thread that began with Jefferson more than two centuries ago. Completion is projected for July 2027.

Throughout all these changes, one thing has remained constant. The Botetourt County Courthouse has long drawn genealogists and historians. They know that the county's early records apply not only to Virginia, but to places that are now entire states away. The building itself may keep changing, but the county courthouse remains a keeper of history. Our legacy will survive.