Thursday Thirteen

Here in my locality, we are having a big issue with historic preservation. Greenfield is a former plantation owned by William Preston, a Revolutionary War hero and Virginia statesman. His first land ownership was here, and then he moved a few miles away, leaving this property to his son. He was also a slave owner.

The county purchased this land in the mid 1990s to create an industrial park. The industrial park more or less fizzled, and the plan of 20 years ago, which included moving historic structures to a historic area to create a park, lay gathering dust. In 2012, the county fathers made no vote but indicated that the historic structures, which are slave cabins and an old kitchen building, would remain where they were. The new batch of supervisors, however, revealed in October that they were moving these structures as the plan called for 20 years ago and building a shell building (a big metal building with no tenant) in hopes of attracting industry.

The outcry from the historic community was fast and furious once they learned of the plans. The county moved swiftly to out-maneuver opposition, and efforts to move the historic structures are underway and close to completion. This has taken up a great deal of my time and thought processes in recent weeks, so I thought I'd list 13 reasons why historic structures should be saved and not destroyed.

Slave cabins at Greenfield

1. People in communities that have historic resources are becoming more aware of the value of the structures. Restoring older structures attaches people to their community, provides a sense of place, connects them to their neighbors, and encourages public participation

2. People who have long lived in an area derive comfort from being among familiar surroundings and from continued association with their "roots."

3. Preservation helps foster an appreciation of varied architectural diversity and recognition of ethnically significant building styles and décor.

4.  Preservation has economic value. That value may be as practical as the tax assessment on the structure because the building has been preserved, or it could be something as romantic as attracting a Hollywood movie production to an authentic setting.

5. Interest in area history, its historic, archeological and architectural properties and preservation of those properties have created support for recognition of heritage tourism as an economic tools.

Removal of items at Greenfield.

6. Preservation of historic structures is good for the neighborhood. Preserving a structure promotes respect for those that came before us, and those that will come after. Preservation encourages citizen activity to become active in their own government and fulfill their right and responsibility to create their community’s future.

7. Restoration of old structures is good for the environment. Preserving a building is the ultimate in recycling. It keeps construction materials out of the landfill. 20% of the solid waste stream is construction waste.

8. Preservation saves the embodied energy of the materials used to construct the building. Much energy was required to excavate, manufacture, transport, and assemble the bricks, glass, steel, wood, and so on used in that building. Additionally, many traditional building practices in historic buildings are “green," such as covered porches that reduce heat gain during the summer, thick walls, attics, and cellars to help keep interior temperatures.

Work on the slave cabins.

9. Restoration brings more jobs and dollars to the local economy. Restoration of a building is more labor intensive than is new construction, and also demands more skilled labor, thus resulting in higher wages. More materials and services are purchased locally, further increasing the economic impact.

10. Property values remain stable or rise in historic districts.

11. Old buildings have intrinsic value. Buildings of a certain era, namely pre-World War II, tend to be built with higher-quality materials such as rare hardwoods (especially heart pine) and wood from old-growth forests that no longer exist. Prewar buildings were also built by different standards. A century-old building might be a better long-term bet than its brand-new counterparts.

12. When you tear down an old building, you never know what’s being destroyed.

13. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 431st time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

One Pill Makes You Small

Last night I watched the PBS show Finding Your Roots. This first episode of the season involved "the unsolved mysteries behind the family stories of political organizer Donna Brazile, actor Ty Burrell and artist Kara Walker as they learn how the legacy of slavery has shaped their identities."

While I was not familiar with any of these people, their search for their heritage led them back to pre-Civil War era slavery. Donna Brazile and Kara Walker are both black; Ty Burrell (Modern Family) is a white actor whose 4th great-grandfather raped his girl-child slave at 13 - producing a child whose children ultimately produced the actor.

Documents produced during this documentary included sales slips, wills showing the value of slaves, photos, and other paperwork that showed not only the intermingling of race but also the indignity of slavery and the horror of people being considered property.

I felt very small as I watched this, knowing that locally we are having similar discussions about old slave quarters over at the Greenfield site. That's an industrial park purchased 20 years ago that has never paid off and has evolved into more of a recreational area than I think the county administration ever intended.

Botetourt has a lot of history. We do not have a large black population here, but some are descendants of the slaves owned by the Preston family. The Prestons were big-deal folk back in their day and they had a number of slaves.

The slave quarters at Greenfield, being prepped for moving. Photo taken December 30, 2015.

The slave quarters at Greenfield. Photo taken December 30, 2015.

My husband's family, going back to pre-Civil War days, also owned slaves on property next door to the Preston land. My husband's family did not know the ancestor patriarch was a slave holder, apparently, until I ran across a will where the landowner gave his slave property to his wife and children. I imagine some people still living in this county are descendants from those slaves as well - they may not even know it. Unfortunately, much of that history was destroyed in the late 1960s-early 1970s when the farm became a subdivision. By that time the property was out of family hands, and I wasn't part of the family anyway. But I still feel small when I think about it, and what was probably lost. No doubt developers simply bulldozed away valuable historic artifacts.

The impact upon the individuals in the PBS show was significant. The actor was ashamed of his slave-owning grandfather who raped a child. The other women were upset to learn for certain that they had slaves in their background, some of which were sold at young ages. It was heart breaking to watch as they discovered their heritage. They were saddened and angry, as they should have been, at this intolerable treatment of human beings.

This whole affair here locally, wherein slave quarters are being moved to a new location in order to construct a shell building with no tenant in sight, has not been handled well. The county administration, including the supervisors who as the ultimate authority unfortunately end up with all the blame, neglected to inform the public of their plans until the final hour. They have been defensive and disingenuous in their arguments, saying that the public has known for 20 years that the structures would be moved. They need to own their missteps.

Items from the slave quarters. Photo taken December 30, 2015.

Shirley Johnson-Lewis, who said her ancestors were slaves at Greenfield,
 discussed the issue with concerned citizens.
The slave quarters are in the background. Photo taken December 30, 2016.

That 20-year-old plan lay in a dusty folder somewhere and had long been forgotten. Many people who live here now and enjoy the recreational opportunities at Greenfield didn't know such a document existed. The lack of transparency by the administration over this shell building project and the secrecy with which it has been executed has caused the problem. People feel betrayed. The supervisors feel like they are receiving undeserved criticism. There is right and wrong on both sides, as there always is. I understand what is going on but it is a complicated mess. I am not sure the general public actually realizes all that is involved.

Today there is a meeting at the Fincastle library at 1:00 p.m. It is a citizens' group, trying to organize to combat what they see as injustice. While I applaud their efforts, I feel this cause has been lost. The structures are already in the process of being prepped for moving. At least they are not simply tearing them down; they are relocating the structures, hopefully in their entirety if they don't fall apart. So there is some effort to preserve this history, just not in situ, which historians prefer.

View from the slave quarters.
This knoll will be leveled for the shell building. Photo taken December 30, 2015.

View from the slave quarters. Photo taken December 30, 2015.

I don't know what the answer is. I don't believe in tearing down monuments to the Civil War. I don't think the Confederate flag should be waved about - it belongs in a museum as the history it is. I don't think ignoring the past and hoping it will go away is the answer. Many people deny that the problems we have today go back 150 years to slavery, but of course they do. They go back even further than that, to the time of the feudal systems and other forms of control that have always existed. There has always been people at the top and people at the bottom. The fact that I know (knew?) a "middle class" was just the luck of the time I was born in. In the annals of history, the middle class is just a blip.

The world is a very big place. The implications of small actions can have big impacts. Good intentions can turn bad with the twist of a knife. It is a small world we live in, but with very large costs.

Destroying History

The county Board of Supervisors have wasted no time in beginning the destruction of two historic buildings to make way for the "progress" of a shell building which, as far as the public knows, has no company interested in occupying it.

Well, supposedly they are moving them intact to another place, a historic preservation area, on Greenfield. I and many others expect the structures to fall apart when the real effort to remove them is underway. Hopefully we will be wrong and the supervisors will be right.



The structures as viewed from the industrial drive into Greenfield.



These old buildings have been on this high knoll for at least 150 years. The buildings have never been open for public view. The idea is to move them to a historic zone within the industrial park, where a display of some sort might eventually come to fruition.

This has been the plan for 20 years, so I am not holding my breath on the construction of this historic preservation area. During this time, the county did little to protect and preserve these structures, instead leaving most of the buildings exposed to the weather.

 

I am unable to climb the hill to reach the buildings due to a health issues, so I used a zoom to take these shots.

Greenfield was once the home of Colonel William Preston, a Botetourt County statesman and a Revolutionary War hero. These structures that the supervisors are tearing down are pre-Civil War and include a slave dwelling and kitchen.
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.  The county completed a couple of ball fields and built a $3 million sports complex at the Recreation Center at Greenfield.  Two industries located in the industrial area; one left, so there is one building there for sale. There is also a "pad-ready" site that a business could build a structure upon. It's been available for several years with no takers.



A view from the road. Note the construction vehicles already in place to remove the structures.



When the property was purchased, county officials heard citizens’ concerns about the historic nature of the property and said the historic areas would be protected. A document provided by the county shows that there were several 20th century structures, including a couple of barns, which no longer exist.

The farm was called Greenfield Plantation, named so in 1761. William Preston moved from Greenfield to Drapers Meadows in 1774. He represented Botetourt County in Virginia’s House of Burgess in the 1760s, before there was a United States.  He was a pioneer and a soldier who defended the Virginia frontier during the Revolutionary War.
Preston's son, John, also a Revolutionary War soldier and a Botetourt County statesman, became owner of the Greenfield farm after William Preston and his wife died. The Preston family owned Greenfield through seven generations and sold the land in the late 20th century.

The Greenfield mansion burned in 1959, and it is thought that part of the original log structure existed until that time.

The kitchen that is being torn down measures 16’ by 18’ and faces the southwest wall of the original mansion, which no longer stands.  The slave dwelling is log saddlebag double slave house located west of the house site. It has two log pens which are joined by a stone chimney.  The log walls are exposed on the exterior and chinked with whitewashed red clay.

Part of the structure is protected by an early 20th century porch.

 

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 of the two known cemeteries on the property contains a number of Preston deceased.   Another cemetery has been portioned off with white fence and is said to be the burial grounds for the black servants to the Prestons.

Even though the county has not yet created the Greenfield historic area, the structures being demolished were often visited by folks who venture to Greenfield to walk the fields or the Cherry Blossom Trail.

The Church Cantata

Last Sunday, my husband and I went to the cantata at Pleasant Hill Baptist Church. I was in the mood for some choir singing.
 
I also figured my father and my step-mother would be singing in the choir, though other than that I had no idea what role they would play.
 
My father turned out to be the narrator for a little story about a mother with a deaf child who showed up in the town square on Christmas Eve, looking for the doctor who could help. The jaded newspaper reporter (my father) saw the woman meet the doctor (the newspaper reporter's wife) and all ended well.
 
Mostly the choir sung and I was happy with that.
 
I sat in the back row, which is never a good spot to sit if you are going to take pictures. I'd have sat closer had I known my father and step-mother were so involved. Oh well.

The church at dusk.



Our former neighbors and companions on the back row. I wasn't actually
trying to take their photo; I was trying to turn the flash off on the camera.



My father in his outfit.

My step-mother is the one with the angel wreath.

I was really too far back to get decent shots.

The mother with her young son in the skit.



Lots of eating afterwards.

More eating.

This handsome young man is my husband's cousin, Lincoln. I am not sure of the kinship. Some kind of
2nd cousin once removed or something, maybe. He's James' grandmother's brother's son's daughter's son, whatever
that is. He just graduated from college and is looking for work in the sports management field.

Santa came to visit, too.

Another Letter to the Editor

This ran in the 12/09/2015 edition of The Fincastle Herald. For the non-local readers, the man mentioned in the letter is one of our county supervisors. He wrote a letter the week before saying he felt like he had to honor a 20-year-old agreement with county citizens, when they voted on a referendum for the industrial park and its historic assets over which we are currently having a major discussion. He also said that he was losing friends over this issue.

Editor,

I appreciated John Williamson's explanation of his reasoning behind his persistence in bringing in a shell building at Greenfield, but I remain unconvinced that moving historic structures to do that is the only way to go about it.

As someone who opposed the Greenfield project from its beginning, I personally do not care if 20-year-old ideas are implemented now. Projects such as this should be living and free-flowing. In fact, the supervisors completely revised the document within the last year by voting to rezone most of Greenfield from a Manufacturing District to a Research and Advanced Manufacturing District (RAM). That's a new zoning designation they created and implemented solely to promote development of some sort at Greenfield.

This action tells me that this 20-year-old plan the supervisors are leaning on as an excuse is malleable. Saying that the historic part must stick to the document while the rest is manipulated by county officials' whims is disingenuous, at best. Obviously the plan can be changed.

The monument to Colonel Preston that is now beside Greenfield Education and Training Center was to be part of the historic area. The supervisors say they are moving historic buildings because they don't think people will drive or walk a short distance into an industrial park. Apparently, they think people will walk across four lanes and up a hill to a school to see this monument when they visit the proposed historic site. Isn't this a double standard? People who love history will go anywhere to see what they want to see, and true historians want to see things intact and in situ.

Shell buildings belong in the 1990s, when Botetourt County had a booming building industry and a better economy. Shell buildings are old-school, old-fashioned, and out-of-date. Not one single person I have spoken with believes this building will be anything other than a rusting eyesore 10 years from now. Some company might move in (or it will sit empty). The company will take the county's incentives for however long they last, and then leave. That's what the citizenry thinks of shell buildings. If anything else happens, it is pure luck.

The supervisors should take the time to come up with new, creative, and inventive ways to enhance and increase our economy - maybe by bringing in multiple smaller businesses, and supporting the ones already here. Pulling ideas from 20 years ago is not forward thinking. Keep your promises if you feel you must, Mr. Williamson, but how about doing it with some innovation?

The supervisors could take the money they must spend to move these historic structures and give it back to the state so they don't feel hampered by that 10-year-old road construction agreement. Or perhaps someone should talk to our state delegate, who, I feel sure, could make that monkey do a somersault and at least give the county additional time.

Finally, in my circle, people can disagree and be adults about it. We don't have to agree to be kind to one another. I have greeted Mr. Williamson with a friendly smile and a warm hello for 25 years, and have no intention of changing that, even though we definitely disagree on Greenfield.

We're The Seedbed of the Republic

This is a letter to the editor I wrote that ran in last week's Fincastle Herald. My husband signed this one with me.

Editor:
""The county government is not in the historical preservation business. We've got other things that we do but we support it," said Todd Dodson with the Botetourt County Board of Supervisors."

This direct quote from a supervisor from a TV news story is one reason why so many citizens are upset about the county's stubborn refusal to review its plans to build this shell building atop the knoll where historic structures stand at Greenfield.

If county officials are not interested in preserving the very things that make Botetourt the special and wonderful place that it is, what are they there for? Just as Mr. Dodson thinks the county should not be in the historic preservation business, there are those of us who believe the county should not be in the corporate welfare business (what they call economic development), either.

We are tired of paying taxes only to have the supervisors turn around and give the money away to corporations that have no roots here, and no reason to stay once their "incentives" are gone.

If the county wants to bring in business, they should look at those with good corporate morals. In January 2007, Gander Mountain turned down $1 million in incentives from Roanoke County.  According to a story in The Roanoke Times, Gander Mountain Vice President Tim Martin said, "We don't think subsidies or tax breaks ought to be a prerequisite for opening a store."

That is a company we can do business with.
There are corporations that believe in standing on their own two feet and not in coming in, raping a county of its assets, and leaving.

We suggest the supervisors look for those companies and leave the shell buildings alone. Any company that would locate in this shell building after learning the history of its construction and the "relocation" of two of the county's most historic buildings is not a company with the kind of morality that we and many others want to see in here anyway.

The supervisors' stubbornness in this action is bewildering. If building this shell building is such a good deal now, it will be a good deal six months from now. If it's not a good deal six months from now, then somebody should say why this must be done in such a hurry. The county has waited this long to do something with Greenfield - what is the rush? What would six more months hurt?

One cannot understand the complexities of these beautiful old structures and all of the historic and architectural aspects of Greenfield in a few months. Indeed, it has taken more than 20 years for people to begin to understand that we have historic resources here that rival those of any area in the nation.

We are The Seedbed of the Republic, to borrow from the county's most popular history book, and the supervisors would do well to remember that. All we can determine is that either the supervisors are not telling us all they know, or they merely want to destroy what we have for the sake of another pitiful economic dream. That is nothing but foolishness.

That's the Best We Can Do?

My letter to the editor that appeared in The Fincastle Herald this week (11/11/2015 edition)

Dear Editor,

A 7-11 store? Really? That's the best Botetourt can do for one of the most visible corners at its "gateway" area? A convenience store that has a high pay scale of $11.11 listed for its assistant managers and $9.06 for its sales associates?

This is why we're paying millions to improve this interchange? So the tourism director can stand out in front of an ugly parking lot with a placard that says Welcome to Botetourt - Buy a Slurpee?

Granted, any new structure would look better than what is there, but I thought the whole idea was to make this an attractive area. I looked up photos of 7-11 stores. There wasn't an attractive one in the bunch - they all look like, well, 7-11 stores.

Will the supervisors put proffers on this structure? Will they make the corporation brick it, put in a nice historical-looking building that reflects the Botetourt of old, not the Botetourt of the last 60 years, where mostly junk was built along our major travel arteries?

Hmm. Who will win in that discussion? My guess is the company with the money. Will we offer them some nice corporate welfare to ensure that they bring their ugly building and minimum wage jobs to our community? Maybe they won't have to pay their taxes for five years. We surely can't forgive their water and sewer hookup since we gave that power away.

After a recent vacation in Mount Pleasant, SC, I saw what good planning and zoning can do. It can create livable beautiful areas that people actually want to visit. I saw a gas station and convenience store in SC that was brick and so well-designed that you hardly knew what it was, save for the small signage. But we're Botetourt, and we don't do planned designs.

Even when we approve planned designs, we allow the builders to make so many changes that the end result is nothing like the original (hint: DTC's original plan called for 80 single-family dwelling units, 120 multi-family dwellings, 100 town homes, 40 civic units, and 280 commercial units. It was supposed to be a planned town. Do you see that there? I don't.).

So what's next? A Sheetz at the corner of Alt. US 220 and the proposed Gateway Road? They sell good hot dogs and offer more minimum wage jobs. How about a Walmart and a Lowes along that new lane? Those will surely bring in the tourists. It's not like you can't find one in every community.

Shouldn't we wait until our new county administrator is in place, until studies are done, and real plans are formed, before we approve anything at that entire interchange? If we don't, I foresee another hodgepodge of unplanned and ugly structures - gas stations with bright signs that light the night sky, chain restaurants with their chickens, cowboy hats, and bovine images. I imagine in a few years I will look toward Daleville to see a glaring white neon night sky that says, look, Botetourt failed again.

If 7-11 must to come to Botetourt, couldn't the supervisors direct them toward one of those ugly old worn down former gas station lots on US 220 north that are for sale? That part of the county's gateway needs fixing up, too. A 7-11 store of any design there would look better and at least fit in with the BP and Pizza Hut.

Must we give over our best locations to the first to raise their hands? Can't we think about it, and not give in to knee-jerk reactions?

Thursday Thirteen #420

My county, Botetourt, VA, is loaded with history. At one time the county stretched to the Mississippi River and up into Wisconsin. It's not so large today but we have many historical structures on the National Register of Historic Places.

Here are 13 of them.

The Phoenix Bridge

1. The Phoenix Bridge. This is a truss bridge near Eagle Rock.

2. Greenfield. Currently a major source of controversy in the county as the property was purchase by government officials 20 years ago. They want to move the historic structures to build a shell building in hopes that some big company will come in.



Botetourt Courthouse Steeple

3. Fincastle Historic District. The entire town of Fincastle is mostly a historic district. The town was established as the county seat in 1770. Fires took out a few blocks but many old buildings still exist in the town, including a number of historic churches.





4. Breckinridge Mill. An historic grist mill that no longer works. It has been turned into apartment complexes but the structure is still intact.

5. Bessemer. This is an archeological site of prehistoric Native Americans. The site was first discovered during road construction.

6. Buchanan Historic District. While not quite as old of an incorporated town as Fincastle, Buchanan has been around a long time. It was originally known as Pattonsburg and because of its location along the James River was an active port town. It was also a site of Civil War activity.

7. Lauderdale is a huge home located outside of Buchanan. It has been undergoing restoration for a number of years.

8. Santillane is a historic home located just outside of Fincastle. It was constructed around 1835. The family who originally owned it was the Hancocks, and daughter Julia married William Clark (of Lewis & Clark fame).


Santillane


9. Wheatland Manor. This historic home is located between Fincastle and Buchanan.

10. Wiloma. Another historic home located near Fincastle, constructed in 1848.

11. Nininger's Mill. This is also known as Tinker Mill. The grist mill was originally constructed about 1847.

12. Greyledge. Located near Buchanan, the original structure was built around 1842.

13. Bryan McDonald House. This is one of the older homes in the Troutville area. It was built in 1766.

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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 420th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

The 9th Annual Founders' Day Dinner

Friday night, the Botetourt County Historical Society held its 9th Annual Founders' Day Dinner in Fincastle at the Methodist Church Family Life Center.

The Fincastle Herald, the newspaper for which I freelanced over the last 30 years, invited me to be there. The editor, Edwin McCoy, was the recipient of the Emily G. Honts Heritage Award because of his contributions for keeping history in front of Botetourt citizens through the newspaper.

Ed graciously asked that I come along because I have written a number of those historical pieces. He was kind enough to mention me in his acceptance speech when he received his award.

Many of the county's elite turned out for the event.

Fincastle District Supervisor Jack Leffel speaks with one of the citizens he represents.

Alice Crowder and Priscilla Richardson, two of the county's fine ladies, speak with an unknown person.

Dinner was prepared by members of the Methodist Church.

Ed's wife, Teri, and me.

Me and my friend, who was also my "date" for the evening, since my husband was working.

Ed doing what Ed does best.

This is an historic sampler that the Historical Society is trying to preserve.

Owner of The Fincastle Herald, Connie, in the middle of the table (brown jacket).

Food porn. This is what I had to eat.

Jack Rader, Historical Society President, offers words of welcome.

Angela Coon (Loretta Caldwell behind her in the red) presented Ed with his award.

Ed listening intently as Angela talks about all the things Ed has written about in the last 30 years.

Ed receiving his award.

Standing ovation.

My neighbor, Pat Honts, also received an award for her volunteer service.

Ray Baird gave an interesting talk on Patrick Henry and Botetourt County. He was dressed
in period clothing.

More Autumn Color

Tinker Mountain

Leaves at my physical therapist's office.

View from my cousin's house

Additional view from my cousin's house. That green field in the middle there at the foot of the mountain has a house backed
up against the woods; that is my father's home.

Again, from my cousin's driveway.

Lovely mountains.

More yellows this year, I think.

Recent rains really greened up the fields.