Patrick Henry Trail Leaves Out Patrick and Henry Counties

Anyone reading a map of Virginia cannot help but notice the name Patrick Henry along the southern border of the Commonwealth of Virginia as two counties have the name of Virginia's first governor. Yet the people in Richmond, who apparently think Virginia ends somewhere just west of Charlottesville and south of Richmond do not seem to know that Patrick Henry lived in Henry County, which included Patrick County at that time during the latter stages of the American Revolution. All they have to do is read the Virginia Historical Highway Marker book to see there is indeed a marker along Highway 58 about Patrick Henry and there is a large stone marker on the land he once owned along Leatherwood Creek. I would like to know why counties that share his name are not included along the new trail about his life. I am sure those in Richmond will say this trail is for “Interpreted Sites,” but there are many Civil War Trail sites that have trail signs that are not interpreted. Here is a great opportunity for Patrick and Henry Counties to promote themselves using “Heritage Tourism” to bring people to the area. Having worked on the Virginia Civil War Trails sign at J. E. B. Stuart including writing the text and supplying the photos, I know something about this. I know there are efforts underway to bring one of these signs to Henry County and here is another opportunity to bring history tourism to the area through the man whose name is on both our local counties.

Stone marker near the site of Patrick Henry's Leatherwood home. My friend Elva Adams also commented about this on her blog www.myhenrycounty.com

Here is the Richmond Times Dispatch Article announcing the new Patrick Henry Trail
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/article/SIGN26_20100425-212403/339998/

Information about Patrick Henry
http://www.virginiaplaces.org/places/henry.html

After turning over the responsibilities as governor to Thomas Jefferson in 1779, Henry moved west to "Leatherwood" in Henry County, which had been created out of Pittsylvania County in 1776. By selling Scotchtown and some western lands (in Botetourt County and Kentucky), he had bought himself a fresh start on the frontier again... though this time he was no longer a failed storekeeper or a newly-famous young lawyer. Henry held on to his Bedford County land, hoping to find gold.
Cornwallis came near Leatherwood during his chase of the Continentals under Nathaniel Greene through the Carolinas. Greene retreated across the Dan River, then moved south again and defeated Cornwallis at Guilford Court House - 40 miles from Partrick Henry's new home. Henry came closer to the war when he attended the General Asembly in May, 1781. He went to Charlottesville rather than Richmond to attend the session, since it had been moved inland to avoid the marauding English. Banastre Tarleton's raid on Charlottesville chased the legislature further west to Staunton. [Reportedly on the flight four famous Virginia leaders had requested supper at a rural cabin. The woman of the cabin had rejected three requests for assistance, until she heard Patrick Henry was in the party - at which she decided it was appropriate to assist the travellers, rather than reject them as cowards...]
Henry was at Leatherwood when Cornwallis was cornered at Yorktown and surrendered on October 19, 1783.

Road To Revolution Heritage Trail http://www.roadtorevolution.com/
Red Hill Patrick Henry’s Home and Final Resting Place http://www.redhill.org/
Patrick Henry’s Virginia http://www.redhill.org/virginia.html

Virginia Historical Highway Marker along Highway 58 in Henry County. Below are the members of the Virginia House of Delegates and Senate to contact about putting Patrick and Henry Counties on the Patrick Henry Trail.



Ward Armstrong DelWArmstrong@house.virginia.gov
Roscoe Reynolds district20@senate.virginia.gov
Danny Marshall DelDMarshall@house.virginia.gov
Christopher Peace DelCPeace@house.virginia.gov (Delegate From Hanover County)

Ararat Virginia Festival May 22

The Ararat Virginia Heritage and Music Jamboree will be May 22, 2010, from 9 a.m. until 8 p.m. at the Dan River Park (www.danriverpark.com). The event begins at 9 a.m. with a parade through the community beginning at the Ararat Ruritan Club and ending at the site of the event at the Dan River Park. The park is located at 419 Raven Rock Road, Ararat, Virginia 24053

Events will include multiple bluegrass bands, antique tractors and cars cruising, T-ball, and Cow Patty Bingo. Vendors will have food, produce, and crafts on hand. The event will end with fireworks around 8 p.m. Vendor spaces are available by contacting Janet Epperson at redapplelane@yahoo.com or 276-251-1182. www.freestateofpatrick.com/araratfestival has downloadable forms and other information about the festival.

The Ararat Virginia Heritage and Music Jamboree has merged with Tom Perry’s Free State Of Patrick Festival held last year at the Ararat Ruritan Club to promote Ararat, Virginia, and western Patrick County in the Dan River District. This event raised money for the Dan River Park and the Ararat Ruritan Club Scholarship.

This year Perry will again raise money for the scholarship named in honor of his parent’s Erie and Betty H. Perry by giving proceeds from his book sales. The Erie Meredith and Betty Jane Hobbs Perry Scholarship will help deserving students in the Dan River District of Patrick County, Virginia. They are the parents of Historian and author Thomas D. “Tom” Perry.

Erie M. Perry, born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, spent his formative years in High Point and Mount Airy, North Carolina. He attended Lees McCrae and Appalachian State University and received a Master’s Degree from Radford University. He taught in the Patrick County Virginia School System for nearly thirty years at Blue Ridge High School, Red Bank Elementary School, and Blue Ridge Elementary School.

Betty Jane Hobbs Perry, born outside Augusta, Georgia, met her husband while he was stationed in U. S. Army at Fort Gordon. Like several ladies from Georgia she came to Ararat, Virginia, in the late 1950s. She worked for nearly forty years at Quality Mills/Cross Creek Apparel in Mount Airy, North Carolina.

Vendor Forms Available at www.freestateofpatrick.com/araratfestival

Follow the event on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/event.php?eid=374708220387

J. E. B. Stuart (Wayne Jones of Aiken, South Carolina), the best Stuart interpreter in the nation will be on hand in character as a personal guest of Tom Perry. http://thegeneralandhislady.com

http://martinsvillemedia.com/2010/04/15/perry-releases-revised-book-on-j-e-b-stuarts-birthplace-and-stuart-interpreter-coming-to-ararat-festival/

Tom Perry will have photographic displays on the Mount Airy and Eastern Railroad “The Dinky,” J. E. B. Stuart and Patrick County in the Vietnam Conflict. Read more about these topics at the following websites.
www.freestateofpatrick.com/dinkyrr
www.freestateofpatrick.com/pcvietnam
www.freestateofpatrick.com/Laurelhill

Tom Perry will have his new book Ararat Virginia: A Guide From Willis Gap To Kibler Valley to promote the western end of Patrick County with businesses, history, and reasons to come visit Ararat, Virginia.

Remembering April 16 At Virginia Tech

Notes From The Free State Of Patrick Newsletter

This month's newsletter has an article on the Shootout on Fayette Street in Martinsville, an article about going back to high school and new book released J. E. B. Stuart's Birthplace: History, Genealogy and Guide available everywhere along with events I will be attending in May 2010.

Read it here

Longaberger Bingo For Janet Pack Sumner

I received the following email recently from Shelby Farris Willis about our mutual friend Janet Pack Sumner. I gave Shelby one copy of all my books specially signed to commemorate the effort to help Janet. Please come by and play some Bingo if you get a chance.

Hello all,

We are having a Longaberger Bingo fundraiser for Janet on Friday, April 30 at the Central United Methodist Church on North Main Street . See attached flyer and raffle tickets. Please forward this to everybody you can think of and post this for me.

Also, we are in the process of collecting door prizes for this fundraiser. We need at least 25. If anyone can help with door prizes or the food for this, it would be greatly appreciated. Some people have asked about sponsoring baskets. The baskets are between $25.00 and $50.00, if you know someone who wants to sponsor a basket.

We all know what a hard time Janet has had battling malignant melanoma since 2002. She’s taking 3 shots a week (interferon) now for a year for her cancer. She has been very sick and so weak from this. She’s always had tough times in her life since she was a little girl. I have made a DVD of Janet talking about her life and sent it to ABC Extreme Makeover Home Edition, hoping they would come in and help finish her house. They can’t seem to finish it because of all the medical bills. I have more copies that I would like others to see. It’s really touching and I don’t think people realize what Janet has been through…Please let me know if you are interested in seeing it.

Thank you all so much!
Shelby

BASKET BINGO

HOSTED BY FAMILY & FRIENDS OF JANET SUMNER WHO HAS RECURRENT MALIGNANT MELANOMA.

Proceeds to help support Janet Sumner’s Medical Bills

WHEN: Friday April 30, 2010

WHERE: Central United Methodist Church,
1909 North Main Street
Mount Airy, NC 27030

TIME: Doors will open @ 6:00pm
Bingo will begin around 7:00pm

COST: $20.00 for 60 cards
Play 3 cards per game

Hot dogs, chips, drinks, & desserts will be available for purchase.

20 games will be played for beautiful Longaberger products!

Cover All Prize-RETIRED FILE BASKET W/PROTECTOR-LINER
Valued at $300.00
Cover All Cards are $3.00 each or 2 for $5.00

Raffle tickets may be purchased for $1.00 each for a chance to win a Coastal Tote Set. The drawing will be held April 30, 2010.
You do not have to be present to win.

Contact Gina Gough @ 336-710-3141 or Shelby Willis @ 276-251-5775 if you have any questions!

This event is in no way connected with or sponsored by the Longaberger Company.

Back To High School

This week I returned to Patrick County High School to speak to the students of the eleventh grade U. S. history classes of Glenn Burnette and Shannon Brown. After several years of not talking, I returned when I found out that no one was talking to the classes. I brought my memory stick with a PowerPoint presentation on Patrick County in the Civil War back to the place I graduated thirty-one years ago. I always hear people complaining about how the kids are not taught this or that in school anymore, but none of these complainers ever volunteer to go to school and talk to the kids. So off I went back to school.

This program is about two individual soldiers William Dennis Via and Rufus James Woolwine, who served in the 51st Virginia Infantry, were messmates, and who rest today in adjoining plots in the old Stuart Cemetery. The talk contained information about the county before war and the election of 1860. Discussion included the homefront during the war, Stoneman’s Raid at the end of the war and a year by year account of the war on the battle lines and at home. There was information on life for African-American slaves and free people in Patrick County. Two brothers discussed were R. J. and Abram D. Reynolds and their exploits during the war.

Of course, there was biographical information on J. E. B. Stuart from birth to death and his importance in the history of the company. Many of the students asked very good questions and the dialogue was impressive. While none of the ladies thought J. E. B. Stuart was attractive enough to carry to the prom, as I showed them a photo him beardless at age 17, I did feel like they got something out of the presentation.

This was an exhausting and enormously fulfilling experience that I hope to repeat again the future. For this I received lunch, where I got to break bread with Principal Bradshaw and Resource Officer Roger Wilson, who I graduated with in 1979. I found too that a t-shirt from the Lady Cougar basketball coach and a PC hat came my way from Coach Burnette. I sponsored the webcast of the playoff games for the Lady Cougars as they made the regional finals last year and beyond this year traveling to Richmond to compete in the final four of their level.

Teaching and coaching are thankless jobs in this day and time, but being the child of a teacher and principal in Patrick County I know what it is like. It is easy to criticize teachers and school administrators, but those people should ask themselves what they have done to improve education in Patrick County.

A Big Man

Daniel Boone was a man. Yes a big man. With an eye like an eagle and as tall as a mountain was he. Daniel Boone was a man. Yes a big man. He was brave, he was fearless and as tough as a mighty oak tree. From the coonskin cap on the top of ol Dan to the heel of his rawhide shoe The rippin'est roarin'est fightin'est man the frontier ever knew. Daniel Boone was a man. Yes a big man.
And he fought for America to make all Americans free. What a Boone. What a wonder. What a dream comer truer was he.

Recently, due to the wondrous thing that is Netflix, I have been editing the Henry County Heritage Book while a song from my youth comes from the television. I finished watching season one, just as news came recently of the death of the man, who for me and many of the “Baby Boomers” knew as Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. Fess Parker passed away at his winery in California. I admit it. I had a coonskin cap and I loved watching Fess Parker as Boone and Crockett. No doubt that I loved history and I remember often watching The Wonderful World of Disney on Sundays at 7 p.m. I believe, although my romantic image of my childhood maybe obscured with time.

Fess Parker, who passed away on March 18, was 85 years old and he too was a big man, standing six foot six inches. He was the voice of the driver in Harvey, along with being in movies such as Them, The Great Locomotive Chase, and Old Yeller. He was Boone from 1964-70 on TV and Crockett a decade earlier in made for TV movies. It was not accurate history as I am listening to Boone by Richard Morgan, but when you are ten years old history is playing dress up. Luckily, I grew up unlike others I know, but man I remember watching Parker on Disney. For some reason, I remember the color versions better and watching it on the Guynn’s TV, as I think trucking mogul Teddy Guynn had a coonskin cap too. There has got to be a photo of that somewhere.

Anyway, thanks to Netflix for letting me relive some good memories of my childhood and the man who brought history to life every Sunday evening on Disney. Parker like Boone was a big man in life and in my memory. God’s Speed, Daniel, Davy, and Fess.