Various Duties

The week of April 28th to May 2nd was very disjointed. On monday,Wes Watkins delivered 1000 oak shingles to Jamestown. After unloading, Karl laid out the pattern and purchased brick for a plaque at Scotchtown, while Mike and Jon made shelves for the HJ gift shop, then pickets and gates for the Marshall house 9th street entrance. Tuesday, the crew spent an hour cleaning storm damage at Jamestown, then installed the gift shop shelves, then took the trailer with the Hollow shingles to Bradco, where they picked up additional cedar shingles for the BC pumphouse and offloaded the works at the peanut barn. Wednesday, Jon cleaned and primed the steel frame for the Fort model. Mike and Karl went to BC where Karl worked shingles on the saw while Mike installed the starter courses for the North side roof of the pumphouse. Are you bored to tears from reading this already?

Other duties as required

Last Friday, the restoration crew joined Benjamin out at Scotchtown to install the security camera. This new feature was funded through a duPont grant and adds greatly to our ability to monitor the grounds on a round-the-clock basis. Here you see Karl heading up the ladder with chain saw in hand to clear the line of sight for the camera to the rear portion of Scotchtown. Although it may not show here, full safety procedures were taken into account in planning this operation!

A visit to Greenway Court

I had the opportunity yesterday to join in a continuing discussion on the preservation of outbuildings from Greenway Court. These are all that remains of the complex built by Lord Fairfax in the mid-18th century as the 'headquarters' of his vast landholdings in Virginia. Among his surveyors were both George Washignton and Thomas Marshall (father of John). The stone building pictured here is the original land office, where transactions took place and records were stored in managing the vast holdings. Clarke County has courageously stepped forward and purchased easements of the land office, a powder house with a wonderful conical roof that was most likely used for long periods of time as a meat house, and a carriage house. The main house is lost and an 1830s house dominates the site now. It is all privately owned, but the county has easements on the buildings. They also have a General Assembly grant for their care but have yet to raise the money to match the grant. The meeting yesterday was to continue to explore ways to raise the money and then the best preservation strategy for the buildings and finally the best programming for their use as educational tools. The Lord Fairfax story is not widely told and hence not wildly known, but he was the only British peer to make his permanent residence here in Virginia (according to one historical account I read). His erudition and especially his library are said to have greatly influenced a young John Marshall, whose boyhood home (The Hollow) is relatively nearby. As you can tell form the photo, there is much to be done to stabilize and preserve the buildings and this is a conversation we will continue to participate in with members of the Easement Authority, the County and DHR. As always, stay tuned!

A Sunny Day at Wilton

Friday, 25 April was Wilton Day for Gardent Week. Sarah, Mindy, Betty and I greeted more than 1000 people that came to see the remarkable house. Somethimes the line numbered 45-50 waiting to come in the front door. Many people commented that they had passed the house for eyars and always wanted to see inside.

Mr. Ballentyne held court in varios places on the grounds--sharing his views, his family stories and his reading of the history of Wilton.

The Garden Club gussied up the place with flowers on the mantel and in the corners. There was even a little lamb that sat on the well.

And with any luck--the future owner of Wilton was in the crowd, is dialing the phone and calling Sarah to write a contract and begin the restoration. Maybe five years from now a newly restored Wilton will be open for Garden Week 2013!

April 24, Progress

On Wednesday, Mike and Karl went to Wilton while Jon took the day off. They took down and removed three good size trees and boarded up three windows in the slave quarters. Back at full strength on Thursday, the crew headed to Bacon's castle to resume work on the pumphouse. Karl spent the day rounding shingles while mike shingled and Jon went to Saunders supply to acquire material for the 9th street gate for the Marshall house. Upon his return, Jon joined in the roofing party, and the result is the completion of the South side roof, up to the ridge.

Touch 'em all!!

Yesterday, April 23, 2008 after nearly 26 years with APVA Preservation Virginia, I finally visited the one property I had never been to in all my years. The Sarah Winston Henry grave site in Amherst County had never needed any of our direct assistance or care and I had never taken the opportunity to drive to the site. After a day-long meeting at Sweet Briar College, I drove the extra 6 miles up Route 29, to Route 151 to Winton Golf Club and its Historic Cemetery. I admit the cemetery enclosure was much larger, and contains many more burials, than I had expected. The cemetery is under the care of the Sarah Winston Henry Branch, which has generally been based in Lynchburg, where most of its directors have lived. The site is obviously well cared for by the golf course, although I expect our branch uses the modest trust fund for the care of the cemetery to cover the cost of the maintenance inside the enclosure. It, as you can see, has not been trimmed as nicely as the golf course, but it still in relatively good shape. I will try to confirm the status of the inside care and report on that in a future post. But for now, I can revel in literally having touched them all!

Corotoman Easements

One of our lesser known, and actually newest, property is Corotoman in Lancaster County. Now down to 6.3 acres, it was once the home seat of Robert 'King' Carter and the site of the mansion he built in the 1720s. Carter at his height owned more than 300,000 acres in the colony. The mansion burned in 1729, barely four years after its completion. The archaeological remains of the house and many outbuildings are still on the site. We purchased the property in 2000 to keep it from being further developed. The previous owners had given easements to the Commonwealth, but reserved the right for two subdivisions and residences to allow for their children to build there in the future. They choose not to, but the right remained and when the property was offered for sale, it was feared that another owner could build there if he so chose. We stepped in to by the site and have held it pretty much as it was for the last eight years. Ther is a1940's rental rsidence on the property that is leased.

We are now working with DHR to strenghten the existing easements by removing all right to subdivide. This process is similar to placing new easements and will take a bit of paperwork, but once done should provide complete protection for the site so that future researchers, when the time and circumstances are right, can continue the archaeological investigation of the site.

We are currently working with appraisers to determine the value implications of this measure and to see if there is the possibility of receiving and then syndicating tax credits that might result from our actions. As with many other intiiatives you have read about below, stay tuned - there's more to come!